Daily globe., 1883-08-25
NEWSPAPER .yRITERs.

Il Complete 7"ide TO All the Words and
FiRe PhF0Scs Generally Sprung on the
innocent PsfJyic.
He had an austere face, steel-gray hair,
and a diotatorial voice. His body rested
comfortably in an arm chair upon the up
per deck OF the steamer. The time was
morning, and the boat was discovering to
the excurtionists the beauties OF the Hu6-
son.
''Yes, sir, I assert it," he exclaimed:
emphatically assert it. The descriptive
letter writer is either a crank or a simple
tom"
"Are you not little hard on these inno-
cent oeople?"
"No, sir; not bit too hard. I never
yet saw one of these verbose luuatics in
print buE that 1 prayed fifty ton pile
driver might strike his vocabulary and
knock every adjective in it into the unre.
coverable beyond. And still, with all this,
1 wouldn't be surprised to lesrn that
you are going to infict little article on
some newspaper and deliver the patient
editor Of what Christianity he has left.
Some of it already written, did you say?
L thought so. Just short account of the
trip? Oh, yes, understand. Well, sup
pose that you Will begin by saying that
half-past o'clock you boarded the swift
and commodious steamer"
''That was my intention; why not?"
Certainly, certainly; swift and COM
modious, of course. Never saw a steam
BOAT yet that was not swift and commodi-
Gus. If you had boarded Noah's ark you
you would undoubtedly have telegraphed
that she was swift and commodious Af-
ter that you are going on to say that the
boat was soon afoat upon the placid bos-
om-always bring in the placid, even if
a cyclene is about-placid bosom of the
Hudson, and swiftly ploughing its way
through the gentle waves, while the re-
volving paddle-wheels churned the watery
waves into foaming spray as white as the
sugary crest of d Wedding cake"
Great heavens, man! those are my
very wordsr'
Indeed? L thought so. Of course you
said something about your gIadness to
get away from the sitting atmosphere
of brick walls and to once more breathe
the pure and undulterated air of the river
and the mountain.
'Of course did,
"Certainly; knew it, You remarked.
too, that the day was clear and bright.
it had been as dark as the record of one of
your eighth ward politicians. Then,
again, your letter had not proceeded very
far before the inGescribable beauties of
the Hudson began to unfold themselves.
You said the excnrsionists stood spell
bound at the enhancing grandeur of the
view, when, in fact, half the people ycu
see are either reading the morning papers,
fast asleep, or utterly unconcerned whether
the enhancing etcetera is on exhibition or
not. [ need not dwell upon the details of
your letter, but you worked up your ad-
jective vocabulary through the grand to
the sublime, and then you saw the Palisa-
des. All! the Palisades, you exclaimed,
what majestic creations they are! High
aud solid they arise from the river side
fortresses of impenetrable power! GibraI-
tars of unconquerable strength! rock
bound sentinels that seem to perpetually
guard the beautiful river that glistens be-
low like placid slab OF deep-tinted tur-
quoise. Tremendous in their -"
'Stop! Stop! I say! 1 demand to
know, sir, how you got hold of my manu-
script? Anybody who would"
''Be calm, my young friend, be calm
l never saw your notebook, but twenty
five years of editorial experience has ena-
bled ms to catch on most abundantly to
| this description business. Young man,
take my advice; destroy that letter; kill
that nonsense; in the silent waters of the
Hudson drown these adjectives. What the
people want to read is news, gossip, facts,
incidents, anecdotes-not gush. Let de-
scription alone. Don't make yourself ri
diculous by failing to do what Washington
Irving has already done so well. The de-
scriptive writer must go. Public morali-
ty demands his determination; the edito-
rial hereafter demands it; American liter
ature--. But, my wife's beckoning this
way. Ponder over these things while 1
take second excursion through that Sara
toga trunk for bottle of smelling salts,
or paper of pins, or whatever else she
may order me to find"
The oracle was gone. I sat mourning
the wreck of so much grandiIoquence-the
overthrow of such a gorgeously decorated
world-castle built out of high-souuding
| phrases collected from quotation books,
summer-resort pufs, and religious week
lies, all i'll vain-destroyed by a sharp
witted cynic. Loves labor was certainly
| lost.