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THE NEBRASKAN
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literary,
We Americans, Englishmen say, like our
meat overdone. Wc overdo a great many
other things as much as our meat. If a cer
tain style of shoes is introduced and strikes
the popular eye everybody is wearing them
in a few weeks. A new flavor is discovered
for that national curse soda-water. In two
days every fountain in the state advertises it
in large letters. Our democratic zeal makes
every man want to have just what every
other man has. In most things this compet
itive spirit is probably beneficial. In liter
ary styles it is of doubtful utility. Some
time or other in the past five years some
magazine or newspaper published two or
three good dialect stories. Its immediate
rival at once decided that in order to keep
even it must publish dialect stories also.
Then the rush begun. The type founders
who had an ovcrsupply of dashes and apos
trophes became suddenly rich. The deluge
shows as yet no signs of letting up. The
dialect story has taken its place with the
mother-in-law and the plumber's bill as a
standard recourse for the comic papers. All
this is unfortunate. A dialect story in which
the dialect is only an adjunct to the main
idea is, as an occasional article, excellent.
The original intention was, I think, that dia
lect should be used to give the required local
flavor and to intensify the vividness of the
general description. It was a means to an
end, now the story itself is likely to be an ad
junct to the dialect. If the latter can be
given in sufficient quantity without the ap
pearance of any plot or the intrusion of any
character the writer is well pleased. What
so often happens in religious worship has
happened in this case. The means has be
come the end. If the article had kept up to
its original standard the steady diet of man
gled words which has been forced upon us
would have been disagreeable enough, but
such has not been the case. Just as it would
have happened with calico or crackers over
competition and consequent overproduction
have caused the quality of the product to de
teriorate. An apparent love for venture in
unknown fields has assisted this process.
The New Englander is not content to repro
duce the musical nasal drawl of the Yankee,
but must try to represent the Creole fatoic
to the eye of readers who never heard it
spoken. The ambitious young Georgian
author will not content himself with the "poor
white" talk which he has heard all his life,
but persists in trying to put a suitable "lingo"
into the mouths of Nebraska cowboys and
Colorado miners. The result is that the
average dialect story is as incomprehensible
to the average reader as Prof. Sherman's
Analytic of Literature seems to be to the
editorial board of the Hesperian. I low long
will the muse of fiction (she is not one of the
original nine) permit her devotees to be thus
tortured?
The Hebrews did not believe that any
thing good would come out of Nazareth. A
great many people are of somewhat the same
opinion in regard to French literature. To
say that a novel is French is enough to con
demn it in the eyes of many over-moral peo
ple. That this is just in the large majority of
cases cannot be denied. The average French
writer seems to degrade whatever he touches
and to see only the low and disagreeable
side of life. There arc, however, exceptions
to every rule. It is unlair to condemn all
novels that have been written by French
men and all French novelists because most
French novels and novelists are worthy of
condemnation. Yet this is what a great
many people unwittingly do. How often
have we seen people's eyebrows go up depre
catingly at the mention of Balzar. It is
largely to this prejudice of French novels in
general, that his unpopularity or lack of pop
ularity is due. He can hardly be called un
popular, for the average novel reader does
not know enough about him to like or dis
like him. Those who read him arc of one
opinion and give him the place he deserves
among the foremost novelists of his own
country and of the world. He is never
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