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THE SUNNY SOUTH.
SUNNY SOUTH.
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ATLANTA, QA.. Saturday, September 12, 1896.
Ruining Young Authors.
Charles Dudley Warner pleads for more
severity of literary criticism in America. He
not only thinks, with Gladstone, that verse-
writers should be discouraged, but he would
extend the discouragement to the writers of
all other kinds of literature. American
writers can no longer be judged by a provin
cial standard and praised as good—for Ameri
cans. They must be measured by cosmopoli
tan standards and relentlessly slaughtered if
they do not stand the test. He writes as fol
lows in “The Editor’s Study” of Harper’s
(August):
“We hear a great deal of neglected and
cruelly discouraged genius. It is not alto
gether an ideal world for justice or for the
appreciation of new departures. We can all
recall the names of important makers of lit
erature who never came to their own until it
was too late to bring them neither fortune or
enjoyment. But I believe that, for one writer,
who has been denied a career by want of pub
lic appreciation, ten have been ruined by
foolish encouragement and indiscriminate
praise. The literary history of the last twenty-
five years, illustrate this. Scores have been
ruined by too quick success. They have liter
ally gone up like rockets and come down like
sticks. Overpraise has made them vain,
self-conscious, and unfitted them for the labor
that is needed to make them accomplished
workmen. They lack knowledge, discipline,
high purpose. They take themselves serious
ly, but not their art. A brilliant knack
counts for only a moment’s success with a
writer who has a slim cultivation and little
experience of life. And the public is often at
fault for the failure. The man who sits in
the seat of the critic, and has a kind heart,
or a false idea of the way to train writers, is
equally responsible. No sooner does an arti
cle or a book appear that strikes the faintest
new note, has new flavor or situation, espe
cially if it is daring, and what is called
'strong’ (meaning, generally, imprudent),
than there bursts forth an epidemic of lauda
tion. A new geinus has arisen. All notion of
the value of the work, relative to the accepted
good literature of the world is ignored. The
writer is acclaimed in the newspapers, taken
up by the coteries, run after, flattered, dined
by publishers and clubs, interviewed, his
movements chronicled. There is something
to be grateful for even in the weakness of men
like Burns. Mankind is helped in its progress
almost as much by the study of imperfection
as by the contemplation of perfection. Had
we nothing before us in our future and halt
ing lives but saints and the ideal, we might
well fail altogether. We grope blindly along
the catacombs of the world, we climb the
dark ladder of life, we feel our way to futuri
ty, but we can scarcely see an inch around or
before us- We stumble and falter and fall;
our hands and knees are bruised and sore,
and we look up for light and guidance.
Could we see nothing but distant, unap
proachable impeccability, we might well sink
prostrate in the hopelessness of emulation
and the weariness of despair. Is it not then,
when all seems blank and lightless and life
less, when strength and courage flag, and
when perfection seems remote as a star, is it
not then that imperfection helps us? When
we see that the greatest and choicest images
of God have had their weaknesses, like ours,
their temptations, their hour of darkness,
their bloody sweat, are we not encouraged by
their lapses and catastrophes to find energy
for one * more effort, one more struggle ?
Where they failed, we feel it a less dishonor
to fail; their errors and sorrows make, as it
were, an easier ascent from infinite imperfec
tion to infinite perfection.”
“News, News I”
Our always interesting contemporary and
neighbor, the Outlook, has the following
sensible remarks to make on the subject of
“News”: “A good many editors seem to
interpret the word 'news’ as meaning only
the abnormal, the immoral, and the sensa
tional. Information about the normal, healthy
life of the world is reduced to the smallest
possible compass; its crimes, diseases, in
sanities, lusts, and perversities are magnified
out of all proportion to their real importance.
Not many weeks ago the first, and, there
fore, the most important page of one of the
leading journals in the country, was filled,
on Sunday morning with monotonous re
ports of local crimes and scandals. There
was not a word about what was going on in
the great world ; no recognition of national,
governmental, religious, educational, or phil
anthropic movements; no comment on the
industrial life of men; but an entire page
surrendered to local thefts, arsons, and
crimes! The absence of the sense of the rela
tive value of news is strikingly shown in the
way in which most newspapers treat the col
leges. There are a few journals of high
standing, which regularly report college
news, but the vast majority of the newspapers,
except at Commencement season, surrender
space to the colleges only when there is some
disturbance to report; and every college
officer knows, from sad experience, that the
slightest infraction of the law, the least out
break of youthful exuberance, is elaborated
and padded until it fills a column or col
umns, and is treated as if it were a matter of
international importance.”
The Poet According to Zangwill.
“It is one of the pleasures of my life that I
never saw Tennyson,” says Zangwill, in the
Critic. “Hence, I am still able to think of
him as a poet, for even his photograph is not
disillusionizing, and he dressed for the part
almost as well as Beerbohm Tree would have
done. Why one’s idea of a poet is a fine
frenzied being, I do not quite know. One
seems to pick it up in the very nursery, and
even the London gamin knows a poet when
he doesn’t see one. Probably, it rests uipon
the ancient tradition of oracles and sibyls,
foaming at the mouth like champagne bottles.
Inspiration meant originally demoniac pos
session, and to ‘modern thought,’ prophecy
and poetry are both epileptic. 'Genius is a
degenerative psychosis of the epileptoid
order.’ A large experience of poets has con
vinced me as little of this as of the old view
summed up in 'genus irritabile vatirn.’ Poets
seem to me the homeliest and most hard
working of mankind—’tis a man in posses
sion, not a daimon nor a disease. Of course,
they have their mad moods, but they don’t,
write in them. Writing demands serenity,
steadiness, patience; and of all kinds of writ
ing poetry, demands the steadiest pen. Com
plex meters and curious rhyme-schemes are
not to be achieved without pain and patience.
Prose is a path, but poetry is a tight-rope,
and to walk on it demands the nicest dexteri
ty. You may scribble off prose in the fieriest
frenzy—who so fiery and frenzied as your
journalist with the printer’s devil at his
elbow ? —but if you would aspire to Parnas
sus, you must go slow and steady.”
Read a Petition When Asked to Sign it.
There is a great deal of carelessness on the
part of many people in signing petitions
without reading them. So proverbial has this
become that the practical joker often gets in
his work in this way. It was told a few years
ago of a man who, when this careless habit
was being discussed, boasted that he could
get a neighbor to sign a petition asking for
the dismissal of himself from an office he
held, and sure enough he did.
The latest instance of the work of the
-practical joker is told by the “Boston Watch
man. A minister signed a petition which
purported to be for a charitable purpose, and
on the strength of his name nearly every
reputable citizen in the town signed it. The
first intimation that the minister had that he
wa3 the victim of a joke, came with the formal
notice that his application for a license to
keep a saloon was granted and that the
license would be issued as soon as payment
therefor was made.
These instances ought to suffice to make
people examine what they are asked to sign
when a petition is presented to them for their
signature.
Women in Colleges.
“The world do move,” to paraphrase John
Jasper’s adage about the sun. The coming
woman is making her presence felt in many
of the institutions of learning in this country,
even some of the highest, hitherto devoted to
the education of men; and she is proving
herself a competitor of the young men for the
highest honors. These women are also tak
ing their places as students in the colleges
and universities in many foreign countries.
They have gained admission to the higher
institutions of learning among the phleg
matic Germans. It was stated a few months
ago that there was only one professor in the
University of Heidelberg who refused to ad
mit women students to his lecutres. At
Gottingen a woman may take any course of
instruction she desires, though it is necessary
for her to cut through a good deal of red tape
to do so. At Berlin women are admitted to
all the lecture-rooms, but not until they have
gone through the preliminaries of securing
the consent of the professor in charge of the
particular course of instruction they wish to
take and of the prorector and lastly the
Prussian minister of Education. It was also
stated some months ago that sixty-seven
American women had been granted permis
sion to attend the winter lectures of the Ber
lin University, while a number of German
women had been refused permission to attend
the same course; whereat, they complained
that favoritism had been shown their Ameri
can sisters, but with what result was not
stated.
The British Royal College of Physicians
had a lively debate, previous to the opening
of the late session, over the proposition to ad
mit women to the examinations and diplomas
of the college, and then rejected it by a vote
of fifty-nine to fifty. Some of the arguments
for the “opening wedge” were ingenious.
Sijr Benjamin Richardson, for instance, con
tending that when the college was founded no
woman had ruled over England, but since
then the nation had had four queens; and
if a woman could be a queen, why could she
not be a physician ? Dr. Payne said that the
women examined for degrees at the Universi
ty of London ranked as high as the men ; and
Sir William Broadbent reminded the commit
tee that since women were bound to become
doctors regardless of opposition it would be
better for the public that they should come
under the jurisdiction of the College of Phy
sicians. These arguments did not convince
the old fogies, but they will have to “fall
into the procession” if they do not want to
be left behind.
The two American women who have re
ceived the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
from German universities this year are Miss
Georgiana Lee Morrell and Miss Alice Luce.
Miss Morrell is a graduate of Vassar, and
she was the first woman at Heidelberg ad
mitted to the English lectures, and she won
her degree by translating a poem from the
Auchinleck manuscript in Edinburg from
Middle English into German and editing it.
Miss Luce is the fourth woman upon whom
Gottingen has bestowed a doctor’s degree.
Wellesley was her alma mater, and between
her graduation and her term at Gottingen
she spent two years in the study of philology
at Leipzig.
The Original Trilby—Perhaps.
If there ever was an original Trilby O’Fer-
rall, Mme. Anna Bishop, it is thought, must
have been she. This famous singer, born in
London, of French parents, made her debut
in 1839, and conquered the whole musical
world in the ensuing years. She married
Sir Henry Bishop, the celebrated composer,
and in 1844 came to America, under the
direction of Bochsa, the harpist, whose in
fluence over her was regarded as irresistible.
These data we glean from an article by
Albert L. Parks (Godey’s, August), and also
the following statement quoted from Frederic
Lyster, an experienced manager, who was
business head of Mme. Bishop’s company in
an Australian tour. Mr. Lyster says :
“The book of ‘Trilby,’ and the play as
produced by Manager A. M. Palmer, in this
city, seem to be founded on the career of An
na Bishop, for Svengali, is simply an exagger
ated presentation of Bochsa, her musical di
rector, while the Madame of the story is a re
plica of Lizzie Phelan, “dame de compagnie, ”
the very shadow of the great artist for nearly
forty years. The relations between the singer
and the harpist were purely professional, yet
his will dominated her every action. He re
hearsed her songs in the strictest privacy, and
when illness prevented Bochsa’s presence at
general rehearsals, Mme. Bishop would also
remain away, leaving me to rehearse the band
without her. On these occasions some of
the clever instrumentalists would remark,
‘Bishop’s brains are sick abed.’ Although
Bochsa’s influence over the prima-donna was
evidently paramount, I never saw him de
scend to the slightest familiarities. He was her
maestro, her friend, her guide, and nothing
more, while she was almost childlike in her
meek submission and dependence upon him.
Personally, she was a sweet, amiable woman,
apparently without individual will power,
and without even the faintest sense of ambi
tion. She sang and acted because she was told
to do so, seemingly, as if in a prolonged
dream. Even when pitted by Bochsa against
Jenny Lind, she appeared to take no interest
in the rivalry, but obeyed and trusted to Bo
chsa and the management for the rest.”
Physic for Bad Temper.
Bulwer, in one of his novels, makes fun of
an old physician who insists on administering
a specific drug for every emotion or mental
state, using one for grief, one for anger, one
for melancholy, etc. Nowadays, this seems
not quite so ridiculous as it did when it was
written ; for the purely physical side of the
emotions is coming to be more widely recog
nized, sc much so that a certain school of
psychologist, as noted recently in these col
umns, contend that the physical symptoms
constitute the entire emotion. However, this
may be, it is certain that a high English
authority now advocates the treatment of bad
temper with medicine. Says the Hospital
(July 18) in describing this new departure:
“When boys become stupid, sulky, and ill-
tempered, some schoolmasters cane them ;
others, with a wider knowledge of the rela
tions between mind and matter, give a dose
of castor-oil—and not uncommonly with
effects most salutary. Dr. Lauder Brunton
applies the same principle to patients of
greater age, and seeks by medicine to cure
the irritability of temper which is so com
monly associated with gout and heart-disease.
Writing in the Practitioner, he points out,
what is well known to all who have seen
much of short-tempered people, that explo
sions of temper which occur on very slight
provocation are really due to a condition pro
duced by an accumulation of small irritations
which have gradually worked up the patient
into a state of excitement, which vents itself
in an explosion quite out of proportion to its
apparent cause. Continuous physical dis
comfort also has the same effect. But, even
without obvious discomfort, the accumula
tion of abnormal substances, such as uric
acid, may, also, produce irritability of temper.
At any rate, in cases of gout, twenty grains
of bicarbonate of potash with ten or twenty
of bromide of potassium, taken when the
feeling of irritability comes on, frequentyl
soothes it; and if taken when some irritating
occurrence has taken place, or some depress
ing news is heard, it appears to take-away jtfae
sting of either. In some cases of cardiac
disease, also, the bromide may be given with
salicylate of soda with good success. All this
is very true, although, to practitioners who
have struggled long with the vagaries of
restless patients, it may not appear very new.
Dr. Brunton does, however, make a sugges
tion worth bearing in mind. Patients are
sometimes seen whose appetites are spoiled,
their digestion impaired, and their pleasure
in life destroyed, not by any illness of their
own, but by the constant fretfulness and irrita
bility of some other member of their family.
Here, if one can but get the other party to
take these ‘temper powders,’ one may do bet
ter than by giving tonics to the patient.”
In 1887, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote:
“I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage
that is within sight of the River of Death,
and I feel that now I must have all in readi
ness, day and night, for the messenger of the
King. I have sometimes had, in my sleep,
strange perceptions of vivid spiritual life
near to and with Christ and multitudes of
holy ones, and the joy of it is like no other
joy—it can not be told in the language of the
world. What I have then I know with ab
solute certainty, yet it is so unlike and above
anything we conceive of in this world that it
is difficult to put in words. The inconceiva
ble loveliness of Christ! It seems that about
him there is a sphere where enthusiasm of
love is the calm habit of the soul, that with
out words, without the necessity of demon
strations of affection, heart beats to heart,
soul answers soul, we respond to the infinite
love, and we feel his anger in us, and there
is no need of words.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox says that she used to
write poetry to pay household bills—“to buy
carpets for mother’s room,” for example—and
one night after a party she “wrote four bad
poems” to buy herself some new slippers
and a pair of gloves. Her circumstanceS|
nowadays, do not warrant her writing except
when the spirit moves her; for a publisher
of her verses said, some time ago, that her
income from her published works was greater
than that of any other living American poet.