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“To My Father”
Source Heretics was copyrighted in 1905 by the John Lane Company. This electronic text is derived from the twelfth (1919) edition published…
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I. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy
Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the wor…
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II. On the negative spirit
Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the hysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But…
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III. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small
There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenl…
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IV. Mr. Bernard Shaw
In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities, when genial old Ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy, and the kindly tale…
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V. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants - (1)
We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity. We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a ma…
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V. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants - (2)
But I think the main mistake of Mr. Wells’s philosophy is a somewhat deeper one, one that he expresses in a very entertaining manner in the…
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VI. Christmas and the Aesthetes
The world is round, so round that the schools of optimism and pessimism have been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up…
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VII. Omar and the Sacred Vine
A new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection with the problem of strong drink; and enthusiasts in the matter range fro…
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VIII. The Mildness of the Yellow Press
There is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another nowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is associated…
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IX. The Moods of Mr. George Moore
Mr. George Moore began his literary career by writing his personal confessions; nor is there any harm in this if he had not continued them…
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X. On Sandals and Simplicity
The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are more boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are…
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XI. Science and the Savages
A permanent disadvantage of the study of folk-lore and kindred subjects is that the man of science can hardly be in the nature of things ve…
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XII. Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson
Of the New Paganism (or neo-Paganism), as it was preached flamboyantly by Mr. Swinburne or delicately by Walter Pater, there is no necessit…
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XIII. Celts and Celtophiles
Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. The word “klep…
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XIV. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family
The family may fairly be considered, one would think, an ultimate human institution. Every one would admit that it has been the main cell a…
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XV. On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set
In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man…
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XVI. On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity
A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignant reasonableness, “If you must make jokes, at least you need not make the…
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XVII. On the Wit of Whistler
That capable and ingenious writer, Mr. Arthur Symons, has included in a book of essays recently published, I believe, an apologia for “Lond…
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XVIII. The Fallacy of the Young Nation - (1)
To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man; but, nevertheless, it might be possible to effect some valid distinctio…
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XVIII. The Fallacy of the Young Nation - (2)
Of course we may use the metaphor of youth about America or the colonies, if we use it strictly as implying only a recent origin. But if we…
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XIX. Slum Novelists and the Slums
Odd ideas are entertained in our time about the real nature of the doctrine of human fraternity. The real doctrine is something which we do…
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XX. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy - (1)
Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social p…
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XX. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy - (2)
There are people, however, who dig somewhat deeper than this into the possible evils of dogma. It is felt by many that strong philosophical…