The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1884-02-21
A TOO PREVALENT ERROR.

The author OF that strongly written WOrE
thu Bread Winners" has not yet had hi.
name to come to light. He says he must
keep It secret because he is engaged 10
business and this would suffer II it were
znown that he was novelist" There is
an idea abroad that the literary is ipcom-
pstble with the practical, that strength OF
material does not 70 with elegance of en-
broidcry. That there is some ground for
| this is perhaps true, and it is due to the
| unhappy fact that the college bred young
nan so often has the bent OF bis being
formed in the plastic period of his life IN q
manner not il the current of affairs
with which he will have to
deal when he comes into contact
and contest with the actuslities outside the
uni versity walls and the campus fences.
He finds too late that his years OF study of
Greek nowns and Latin verbs and mass OF
some old history, are valueless to him. All
this is true, but there is another side to the
picture, and conspicuous facts attest it.
Never was there greater general and com.
mander of men than julius CESAR; never
was there a more adrolt leader than
XeNoPHoN. And yet the Roman hero was
inv sstng all his spare time in writing the
commentaries of the wars IN which he was
engaged: while the great Greoian general,
who led the famous "retreat of the ten
thousand" pennei with his own hand the
exqui site story of their route and its inci-
dents. Not only did they record
the facts but % admirably did
they do SO from literary standpoint
that their worhd have been preserved for Us
down to this day and recognized as models
Of style. Two of the most brilliant orators
of any age almost the antipodes of each
other in their characteristics, DEMosTHEsEs
anG CICERO, were entrusted again and again
with the highest civic and military posi-
lions, and always to their own and their
couutry's credit. So literary ives DEMosTHE-
MES, that it was generally charged that all
of his productions "smelt of the lamp
CICERO has left us volumes and volumes of
his works. In the very midst of his war
fare, in the daytime and at night, NAPOLEON
BoNApARTE was addicted to his reading, and
often had to be aroused from the intensity
of his interest in books he always carried Is
carriage mpanions. LOUIS NAPOLEON was
q diIigent student, and his life of
JULIUS CAEsER is one of the
finest biographical efforts extant.
GENERAL ROBERT e. LEE, who owned
handsome farm in Henrico county, Vir-
gnia, was regarded by all his neighbors as
authority on all literary matters, classic
and modern. Certainly no more exquisite
versifier in this country to.das lives than
GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD, at once gen.
eral, poet, and business man. By all
who knew him the poet LonoTELLow was
regarded as one OF the shrewdest business
men Of his time, and made. outside of his
poeticsl pieces, over $3.50 900 by judicous
investments in real estate and stocks. This
business faculty was pre-eminently promi-
nent with the poet WHITTIER, who made
and held fortune through his business
shrewdness. And thus we might
90 on indefinitely with instances
that would disabuse the mind from that
too current Impression that the literary and
the practical are not in harmony. As fer
elegance and gentleness being adverse to
strength, the cases all through material as
weil>as intellectual and social life are too
numbbrless for mention. even from WASH
rNoyoE, the great and good, to the immor-
tai LEE, who was so fond OF quoting that
saying OF MIcHELEr: "Great hearts alone
an derstand how much glory there is in
bel ma oodn