The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-03-12
Americanisms i'm English Novels.

We believe il was Mr.. Robert Buchan-
an who, feeling that the language OF
Shakespeare and Milton would no longer
serve as u means of International rap
prOchment. was the first Briton to write
in the New England dialect; at any rate
he produced poem in it which he was
not able To tell from one of Mr. Lowell 8
and now Mr.. Black. in his White
perceptible American: only, he is a
man. and he speaks young-lady Ameri.
can Us often us masculine American.
To us the two sorts are distinct enough,
but Mr.. Black. who has no doubt heard
most of the former in praise of his agree
able books, is not so much to blame for
getting them mixed. He makes Mr..
Hodson say London fog is "just too
dismal for anything" but we feel that
it was his daughter who supplied MIR.
Black with that phrase; and when the
young lady says, "You bet your pile on
that" we suspect that Mr.. Black really
had the expression from her younger
| brother.
As for Mr.. Grant Allen. who has
made country boy from northern New
York the hero of his novel Babylon, we
should not know exactly where OF how
| he got his Americanisms. There are
some tokens of visit or sojourn here in
| his decorative use of our birds and
flowers: bmi onr phrases seem rather to
have been studied from such widely
representative authorities as Mark
Twain. DIR. Eggleston, Bret Harte. Sam
Slick. and Charles Dickens. A farmer
in .'Geauga County, New York, asks
Wars Hiram?" as if he were in the
heart of the bluegrass region; and thi:
deacon of the church adds that he has
an itching ''to give that thar boy 9
burned good cowhidin'," as if he were
Pike accustomed to "eXhOrt the i'm
penitent mule" Hiram is in the black
berry patch. but Mr.. Allen calls it thu
blackberry lot, because, as he under
stands, lot is the American for "field
meadow, croft. copse. paddock, and al
the other beautiful and expressive Old
World names for orr own time-honOret
English Enclosures. though we believe
Americans. when foreigners are not by
speak among themselves of meadows
fields, pastures, wood pastures, grid
lings, loppings, clearings. intervales
| anu DINER features anu SUBDIVISIONS D
the landscape as they have occasion t.
specify them. Mr.. Allen, however. ha
heard of bottom-lands, and he tells u
that in Rome his herO's thoughts turned
fondly to the ''old blackberry bottom;
and he has bankruptcies CROWN.
in his cranberry marsh. His deacon
addresses group of trappers as 'Gents
ALL and his talk is delicious with sucl
native ilavors as wall. this do beat all
really" Hes progrcssin' towards citi
zenship now, and I've invested quite
lot of capital in his risin';" 'Wall,
should appreciate that considable;" %
dessay that thar boy" and lit allu
licks my poor finite understanding al
together why the Lord should have rul
this continent so long with nothin' BET
tern Iujuns. -. Why lad that
been brought up Chrischun and
Hopinsite. should want to 90 grubbin
up their knives and things in thi
Gentry is q caution TO me, that's wha
it is-a regular canton" 1t all sound
amazingly American. and probably Nh
Allen could not be- persuaded that it
not SD. His people are Americans Of tn
sort that the accurate English eye ha
seen and the delicate English hand ha
drawn ever since we We're first portraye
in Martin ChmzzieUH. " ID. Honeli.
in Harper's Magazine for February.