Mexico weekly ledger., 1885-01-01

Bill NJe Compares Noah Webster'e
..---8oSks Sfttir1i1 Owl.
Mr.. Webster, no doubt, had the
best command Of languages Of any
American author prier to our day.
Those who have Rad his ponderous
but rather disconnected romance
known ss "Wabstsr's Unabridged
Dictionary; or, How One Word Led
On to ANOTHER" viii agree with me
that he was smart. Noah never lack
ed for a word by which to express
himself. He was a brainy man and
q good speller.
It would i'll become me at this late
day to criticise Mr.. Webster's great
work. work that is now in almost
every library, school room,and count
ing room in the land. It is q great
book. I only hope that had MI.
Webster lived he would have been
equally fair in his criticism of my
be" K
hate to compare my own books
with those of Mr.. Webster, because
it may seem ~egotistical in me to point
out the good points in my literary
labors; hut 7 have often heard it
said, and so do not state it solely
upon my own responsibility, that Mr..
Webster's books do not retain the in
terests of the reader all the way
through.
He has tried to introduce too many
characters, and so we cannot follow
them all the way through. It is a
good book to pick up and while away
ansidle hour with, perhaps; but no
one would cling to it at night till the
fire went out, chained to the thrill
ling plot and the glowing career of
it's hero.
Therein consists the great differ
ence between Mr.. Webster and my
self. A friend of mine at Sing Sing
once wrote me that from the moment
he got hold Of my book he never left
his room until he finished it. He
seemed chained to the spot, he said;
and if you can't believe a convict, who
is entirely out of politics, who in the
name of George Washington can you
believed
Mr.. Webster was most assuredly q
brilliant writer, and I have discover
ed in his later editions $4,000
words, no two of which are alike.
This shows great fuency and versa
tihty, it is true, but we need some
thing else. The reader waits in vain
to be thrilled by the authors won
derful word-painting. There is not
a thrill in the whole tome. I had
heard so much of Mr.. Webster that
when I read his book I confess I was
disappointed. It is cold, methodical
and dispassionate in the extreme.
As I said. however, it is a good
book to pick up for the purpose of
Willing away an idle moment, and
no one should start out on a long
journey without Mr.. Webster's tale
in his pocket. It has broken the
monotony of many a tedious trip for
me.
MI: Webster's "speller" was a work
of less pretensions, perhaps, and yet
it had an immense sale. Eight years
ago this book had reached q sale of
10000. 900, and yet it had the same
grave defect. It was disconnected,
cold, prosy~ahd dull: I read it for
years, and at last became a close stu
dent of Mr.. Webster's style; yet I
never found but one thing in this
book, for which there seems to have
been such a perfect stampede, that
was even ordinarily interesting; and
that was a little gem. It was so
thrilling in its details, and SO diam
etrically different from Mr.. Webster's
style that 7 have often wondered
who he got to write it for him. It
related to the discovery of a boy by.
an elderly gentleman in the crotch of
an ancestral apple-tree, and the feel
ing of bitterness and animosity that
-spraLg up at that time between tho
boy and the elderly gentleman.
Though I have been a close stu
dent OF MIR. Webster for years, I am
free to say, and I 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. Pos
sibly his book has a larger sale than
mine, but that makes no difference.
When 1 write a book it must engage
the interest of the readers and show
some plot to it. It must not be ier-
ky in its style and scattering in its
statements.
L know it is a great temptation to
write a boook that will sell, but we
should have a higher object than
that.
I do not wish to do an injustice to
a man who has done so much for the
world, and one who could spell the
longest word without hesitat ION; but
I sgeak of these things just as 1
would expect people to criticise my
work. If we aspire to monkey with
the iterati of our day we must ex-
Pect lobe criticised. That's the wavI