The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-01-30
LITERATURE AND ITS AUTHORS.
[Li.erary Lifel


 slow and ripeness of character In Its authors quite as slow. TAe more mate rial productions ot mind have come before the more spiritual; and the value of moral worth in the authors oi the former has received reader acceptance than in those of the latter. The producers of great fortunes, the winners of great vic tories, the rulers of great nations, have been held in higher esteem than the wEi- ters of great histories or poems, aud the admiration for the talents and character of the former have been greater than for those of the latter. The world Is caught by the glitter and magnitude of external things. The pomp aud rcumstance ot outward action is chiefly captivating to the common mind hence the warrior, the administrator. the navigator, the ex- plorer, the builder-the man of action has outanked the man of ofthought. The man ot things has eclipsed the man ot visions. To do has been greater than to think. The man of estates, of ships, of servants, ot ohedient subjects, has been the man of power and greatness, The appeal to be and do their best has come to men chiefly from the dignity and per suastveness of outward things Hence meditation, study. midnight vieils. the pen, the book, the hidden life of the author have had few attractions in the worlds estimate of desirable things Things have been held at what they seem rather than at whatthey are. The showy has gained favor ;the plain and unshowy have been neglected. Hence the pursui, of literature has not in the earlier times oi any nation won many of the best bal anced and ripest minds. It has rather had attractions for the eccentric and pc culiar, the morbid and one sided They have been led to do it to utter their vasaries and aiv their idiosyncrasies through its instrumentalities. Men of speculative. dreamy, unusual views !; those of brilliAns utterance but unsoauo judgment those of uncertain pass;Sas, iawiess imagieations, hsve often wrecked their angularIties on literature to n axe It more a collection of curiositics than an expression of wisdom. This has mat . |, forbidding t0 the souad minded.
 The susceptibility of literature in Its msny forms to the vivid porwayal oi quaint and peculiar 'opiniops and charac. tess has oPened it % unmeasurcd abuse. And this abuse has given character to literature in it's early stages. k has had to grow ap and outlive the evils its au- sa0Ts have inflicted upon 1t. The cEudi Ies, perversities and ill.judgments forced apon it oy those who have written, have discredited 1t wtfh the best-Rinded, Au6 kept ithom attaining its true place among human pursuits as the bess 6eld toE us< activities of the nobless minds. It's rca aim and use ase not readily seen ia vh< early times of any civileAson. lt Is uo many decades since UAnkiness and i'm morality were so common among sCsib blers as to be looked tor as 10 koepinl with their literary procltvsties. They wers amusers rather than teachers of men They played upon usen's faacics and imsginstioss rather than instructed ,het. minds or elevated their cousCscuces } They were not looked 10 as patterns o manhood w copd9ct. Sometimes tn theii poverty they were ieeches on the inds 5 try and hug ality of better men Some. times in eheir quaip dimes they addressed the lovers of the ladicrous and wosder seeking. Sometimes they taxed their lm agl Hations to tell she moa ismprohG bis sssries anh portray the most ascxpcctet characters, to set Agape the @ouths O gullible readers in the lases states o childhood. "Huatbras" asd the " Ara blap kights repscsept a persod 'ia th' growth os literature, Literary mca, like the stories they told and the character, they dreu, were expected to be a little singular and az hssie reliable in mora character as in judgment. Staging some times their own songs and reading thei own stories from door to doex, the bette, <nd soberer people AS little iookrd fol domestr worth snd manly character ir them aA we do ia the tramps thk make their living out of our pity Asd oveduIity Not to 6nd some irregulAxty h the early literary men was wonder. Poor Payne homeless, pensiless wanderes. writing plays to amuse the people and singing the song of home to touch their Ac ,rts tt tears, vas a character ot the literary tramp brought down to near sur owr dine. Burns, is his rude and re stiles, fife, singing out oa h,s appe.ites and pas sioas and sometimes rising to tin,,ulaI heigh of philosophy and fellow sym patAy, hover a law unto himself or an, body els<- brilliant, tender. touch,ng, ye' loose and unsaintty, Is a type of .any who have made their words stag theii way to thousands who pity wh,le ihey praise Scotland and the world call al- ways admHe and oensure him as zen iui who aeSer attained fair manhood nd only hoDosed litossture with broken Ii le Byvea, passionate, powerful, misa Q. thropic, great in thought but weak In seif-rule, q giant h Alter Ature bot p,gm ' in manhood. brilliant reproach ts let ters and life, e another style Of the pas,, who, while heshowe1 the power Of iessers. Showed the weakness and wyetcheAaess lOf an unbalanced miod.
 Perhaps ae mese brilliant mind has honored aad dssgrsos< letters in Amesics tkan Edgar A. Poe, ~hso affords another example Of the hsh-mon who have bccn both the friends and enen es of literal Greatness wish its bsnners trsiled in the dua odess bat p0isonsA frieedship te