The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-09-20
GOOD LITERATURE.
Boston Globe.I

Some absurd person, short time since, wrote to the Boston Tyaaseribf objecting 10 the use of < Henry Esmond" in the schools in Boston as an example of Eng ish literature. The ground taken. if we remember rightly, was that the book was an immoral one, and was not an example of good English style. To undertake to defend Henry Esmond" on the latter point is to render it's champion about as ridiculous as its assailant. There are some things that may as well be taken for granted. One of them is that Thack- cray knew how to write his mother tongue: and that he never wrote 1t with more felicitous purity than in this novel is well understood by every one who has the most ordinary acquaintance with the authorship of our day. In point of style Thackeray is in advance of all English noveli,ts. He emay safely defy the purists who pick flaws in Dickens. and who ind errors innumerAble in Scott. Such eriti- oism as this of great authors land we re- fer Tn this connection to the exceptions taken ,o morality as well as manner) is instructive as showing the possibility on the part of some people possessed of in- ielligence in certain directions, to read literature not certainly above the standard of ordinary comprehension, and yet not be able 10 understand it. They weigh i, in the scales of a narrow prejudice, or they apply to i, the rigidity of rule of the driest gramtnarlan, withou: having par ticle of comprehension of its real spirit ard purpose.
 T. may be expedient 10 furnish an ed- i,ed Shakespeare for our younger people 1; to keep Fielding and Smollet out oi their hands; to bid them be weary of Dryden and Pope, and to confine their reading of Defoe to |" Robinson Crusoe." These authors wrote for other eras, and their works were patterned after the standard Of their period. Bat English literature of our own day-oertainly in its more eminent examples-is something the purity of which IS source of satisfaction. We have -eldonr initiated the French. either in the questionable character of the subjects that fcrns the theme Of ;hc:- writings or the prurient manner in which, these themes are treated. Scott was almost immaculate here, though we are no. certain tha, his a Heart of Mid Lothian would be free from the censure of the 7yansfyipf writer. Still less would we expect approval from this source of George Eliot's Adam Bede" and ' Romola,n and of Mrs. Gaskells" Ruth" But those of us who have supposed we penetrated to the spirit of these volumes and it really seemed to be difficult thing for intelligent readers not to do ;his-have thought wc found in them an impressive moral lesson. Dickens is very irreverent at times toward a class of the religious teachers of society: Thackeray mocks constantly a, some of the rigid censors of morality who sit in judgment of the worlds people. Yet shall our chil- dren not read Dickens and Thackeray? ard shall a censor be called in to pu, out nf their reach the objectionable novels of George Elio, and Mrs. Gaskell.
 As regards style. one is inclined to be Esmond 7 would recommend as having the correct qualities which this book lacks We are no, at all disposed to make light of the advantages of good literary style in an author, though we ob- serve tha, Mir. Howells. who is himself conspicuous example of the grace which may be attained in this art, expresses the opinion that 1t is becoming less and less important in works of fiction. This very grace may weary: it is open to this ob- jection, perhaps, in the case of some of our late, authors, though we do not ac- count Mir. Howells as one of them. But its distinguishing characteristic is that in the greatest it never does weary. ltnever wearies in Hawthorne: 1t never wearies in Irving; most eonspicuously of all, it never wearies in Thackeray. There may be very great writers without strikinaly distinctive beauty here. Scott is splen- didly picturesque and surpassingly elo- quent, but not always careful in his use of English ; Dickens humor is the most deliciously original of the century, but Dickens' prose is uneven and at time labored George Eliot is wonderful in her analysis of human nature, but she is often. especially in her later works, turgid and heavy. The most dramatic, the most popular, and, by all odds, the most effective American novel with the gen. eral reader" Uncle Toms Cabin "-is so careless in point of style at times as to have almost no style at all.
 Good literature in the best sense can- no, exist without good moral purpose but it has unquessionAbly been produced without the most careful regard to the highes, excellence in the matter of its literary execution. The writer of this century who best combines these two points is Thackeray. We can conceive no greater fA,uity than the attempt to att tack him on both of them and this is heightened, if possible, by selecting as an example the book of all others he has lek us in which they have their finest ex- hibition.
 A Lively Incident.
 Exchange.
 Chief Jus,ice Waite, of the supreme court, had funny experience the other day, and as he related it to any number ot friends, the story has had a vide cir culation in society. Several weeks ago he had an imperative engagement in Baltimore. Like all great men he is nyohahlv ah<ent-mineled He vent m