The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1888-04-28
A Boston Criticism Of Cable.
IN. Q. Pioayune.l

u IN. Q. Pioayune.l
Mr.. Cable has be come N part Of the
literary life. OF the American public
His peculiar, not to say unftiendty at.
itude to the people and the land Of hie
attvtty has been various;y criticised
IN ell parts Of the country. TheSouth,
ern press has no longer anything tc
say OF him from II sectional s,andpoAnt,
and his stories are now taken for what
they are worth as literary products,
without considering his personal char
acteristics. The expr, ssiohs he has
evoked from the Northern press IRE,
however, of interest, and We find some
observations on him in late issue ol
the Boston Globe which are worth st-
tention aud from which We make
snme extracts. The article Is In the
Globes literary column and il sisued
"Claiborne Addison Young" II
says:
Whom George w. Cable pitched on the
| picturesque Louisiana Creole, to use min
Ing phiase, he struck lead that has Yield
~ good as made. He had only to 80 on
digging and grinding and out came tho
Eoias E9isa coin,age; o,g This same gold coinage is a
| AlIoAo 0AtoyCNs tuOukus Lu0 lnCSn60 lire.
the white heat that belongs to tho true ar.
tist burns out all alloy. hut Cable has
allowed soggy hate to sob and sog and
smoider in his heart all Of these years OF
his literary activity. Aud when we fling
down this coinage of wit and genius it Is
lacking little in tho clear clink of the
true gold. The very fact, too, that in the
fair edifice of his literary reputation every
stone has boon quarried from this un-
American marble, the Creole element ought
to melt the savage mood OF the man. In
the loathed New Orleans streets for tho
prairies OF Louisiana Acadia.
There runs saying in u very wise old
Hebrew book: "If thine eye be single,
Cables eyeis not single aud in the body OF
his work there are streaks of dark. The
Tho reader OF "Bonaventure" is led to be-
n;; tievo that there he has been and Is deep an
dians. The Acadian himself Is Il Creole.
If tho reader could haye the privilege of
stroll down through tho French quarter
Of Now Orleans, with its quaint and quiet
streets, its antique houses, with now and
then u tiled roof. and that stroll to end in
visit to the homo Of the scholarly Charles
| the cultured Cfaibornes. and then ask who
are the Creoles, who is u Creole, he would
get the response. Louisianian of French
or Spanish stock. The Acadians arc Of
who perhaps could trace his lineage back
| to kings, as Charles Gaynrro could, is not
apt to consider him his equal. Tho word
than tho word "Hoosier'' applied to the
natives of Indiana. 1t is associated with
the idea of some rusticity and simplicity of
manner and that is aft: Tho writer has
heard it playfully applied to n lovely Creole
belle.
The two-t thirds Of tho story, Carancro and
Grande Pointe, are simple, pleasing, pnsto-
froth about the superiority of these people
over tho New Orleans. Creoles? Wien. in
"Au Large" the scene changes to New Or
leans, Gable makes this venomed thrust:
almost all sociality in New Orleans Is
revei:" Shame on you, most graphic and
weird Sunday school teacher, with your
lessons about forgetting self. You have
neither in morals nor art learned your own
lesson. You have scrawIed every noble
book of yours with "Self, spelt with a big
s." If Creole society in Now Orleans did
snnb sn.1 you because You painted picture
tured, can't you forgive them and forget
seliY By tho way, that episode in tho story
of the priests teaching Bonaventure not TO
have been one of Cables Saturday after-
noon Sunday school lessons in fremont
Temple,
In each ono of his former books Gable
had used wit, eloquence and genius to
prove tho superiority oftho negro over tho
Creole: in this book he uses tho same
transcendent powers to provo tho superio-
rtty OF tho Acadians ovor the Creole. These
things mar but they do not destroy the
beauty OF Carancro and Grande Pointe.
Bonaventure is fine creation, his inten-
sty and passion single him out in Carancro
and his hopeless search for Thanase, his
RIVAL whom he thinks he has been tho cause
of sending to tho war, Is handled with pow
er and Discrimination. But we herdiy re-
eognize the school teacher at Grand Pointe
as the Bonaventure OF Carancro. Cable
takes up dialect again, and Bobaventure,
in his picturesque dialect garb seems like
new character. But in the scene between
him and Claude he seems his former self
again.
The genesis of Cables dislike to tho Gre
ole is explanable. Cable in his carly man
hood was fred with the abstract idea of
progress. The conservative Creole was
aveise to all change; his obdurato French
nature. French after the old regime, SEEM
ed to Cable to block the wheels of tho car
| of progress. This enthusiastic young man
ola literary turn OF mind, satirized tho
Creole. The Creole shrugged his shoulders
when this sensitive son of genius presented
his credentials for admission to the New
Orleans society. Thereafter tho satire was
more venomous, and in Bonayenturc there
| is still evidence that tho Creole's sltrag at
Cables pretcnsions touched the spleen ot
the man.
This was said in Boston. Wber
Mr.. Cable is thus able to make tht
! people Of the boasted sea, OF American
culture, philapthrophy and civilization
understand him so we'll we of Louis
lana should be content to cease Critics
ing him. The Creoles of Louisiana ca
safely leave their case TO the hig
r court of Boston enlightenment.
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