Morning journal and courier., 1885-01-24
 WEBSTER AND NYEE.
The Works of the Immortal DanieHs Namesaike Compared With the Works of the Immortal Bill.

Naniesake Compared With the Works
 of the Immortal Bil.
 By Bill Nye.1
 Mir Webster, no doubt, had the best com mand of language of any American author prior to our day Those who have read his ponderous but rather disconnected romance known as ''Webster's Unabridged Dictiona. ": or. How One Word Led On to Another, ' will agree with me that he was smart. Nonh never lacked for q word to express himself. He was brainy man and good speller.
 It would i'll become me at this late day to criticse Mr. Webster's great work-a work that is now in alG,nst every library, school room and counting room in the land. lt ia q great book. 1 only hope that had Mr Webster lived he would have been equally fair in his criticisms of my books.
 | hate to compare my own books with thosa et Mir Webster, beeatse it may seem aeutisteai In inc to peiht out the good point , iii my literary iabofsi but have often heafl t said. and se do not state It solely upon my own responsibility, that Mi. Webstef,h books da not retain the Interest oE tAs tteaefs aii the way through,
 He has tried to introduce too many ehafae= tefs, and so We cannot follow them all the way through, 1t Is good book to pick mp and while away an idle hour with, perhapsi but no one would cling tn 1t at night till the fire went ont chained to the thrilling plot and the glowing career of its hero,
 Therein consists the great difference be tween Mr Webster and myself i friend of mine at Sing Sing once wrote me that from the moment he got hold of my book he ney- CT left his room until he finished it. He seemed chained to the spot, he said and if you can't believe convict, who is entirely out of politics, who in the name ot George Washington can you believe.
 Mr. Webster was most assuredly bril- liant writer, and I have discovered i'll his later editions 1lS, 600 words. no two of which were alike. This shows great tltency and versatility it is true, but We need something else. The reader waits in vain to Do thrilled by tho authors wonderful word-painting. There is not a thrill in the whole tone. l had heard so much of Mir. Webster that when I read his book l confess I was disap- pointed. It is cold, lnethodical and dlspas- sionate in the extreme.
 Mr Webster's "Speller" was q work of less pretensions, perhaps, and yet it had an i'm mense sale Eight years ago this book had reached a sale of forty millions, and yet 1t had the same grave defect. It was discon- necteG, cold, prosy and dull. l read 1t for years and at last became close student Of MT. Webster's style; yet l never found but one thing in this book for which there seems to have been such perfect stampede, that was even ordinarily interesting; and that was 8 littlo gem It was thrilling in its details, and so diametrically different from Mr Webster's style, that 1 have often won dered whom he got to write it for him. It re- lated to the discovery of g boy by an elderly gentleman in the crotch of an ancestral aP- pie tree, and the feeling of bitterness and animosity that sprang up at that time be- tween the boy and the elderly gentleman.
 Though I have been close student of MT. Webster for years, l am free to say, and 1 do not wish to do an injustice to a great man in doing so that his ideas of literature and my own are entirely dissimilar. Possibly his book has little larger sale than mine, but that makes no difference. When I write a book it must engage the interest of the read CT and show some plot to it. II must not be jerky in it's style and scattering in it's state mentS
 know it is a great temptation to write book that will sell, but we should have a higher object than that.
 l do l1ot wish to do injustice to a man who has done so much for the world, and one who could spell the longest word with out hesitation; but l speak of these things just as I would expect people to criticise my work. If We aspire to monkey with the lite rati of our day we must expect to be criti- cised. That's the way l look at it.