The Arkansaw traveler., 1889-04-27

Criticism is absolutely worthless, when truth ii sacrificed to vanity defeated by personal malice Whipple sees and estimates every author, of whom he writes, in that authors published work. He a, quickly discovers beauty he detects sophistry prejudice or error. He has concealed animus project of sly advertisement intent of friendly sduation. We read him with glow of satisfac- tion, for he writes the pure imagery of mind, free and unsubugated.
 | The literary bequests of Edwin Percy Whipple to his brother and sister Americans Gin fact to the English speaking race, everywhere) priceless Where else, in modern analytical essays, such rich ness such candor, such a pleasurable variety2 Epigram is, with him, the faceted gem that adorns sincere conviction. When he tells us that Mary Abigail Dodge Gail IIsmiton) is .'tart, tender, shrewish, pathetic, montory, oburgatory, tolerant prejudiced, didactic and dramatic by turns" we believe what he says for we have all known the lady to have those turns. Again, when he styles Margaret Fuller Ossoli "a pythoness in transcen- dental coterie," we only agree with him that she, "a nurse in soldiers hospital, martyr heroine board a wrecked ship" WAS only a woman!
 He shows Us by two three strokes of his tren- chant pen how William Gilmore Smms, "thc most prolific of American historical novelists and, in irel6ss intellectual energy worthy of all respect failed to keep his hold the people by the absence in his vividy described scenes of adventure of that peculiar something which gives to such scenes a permanent charm"
 Whpple thinks and says that "it is great mis- fortune when temptation besets clever folks to write mediocre verses" like temptation to afterward collect these saddenng shreds of senti- ment into blue-and gilt volume, he finds to be irresistible We, esteemed contemporaries, pro- claim him a righteous judge, on this charge; and many of us, alas deliberately pedestal ourselves as terrible examples of the mediocre and rhyme swamped.
 This peer of James Russell Lowell and Matthew Arnold is critic who charms by his surprises He scorns hypocrisy and avoids vapOr or shadows. An eccentric deviation" from accredited literary models is in his vsion best indicated in American humorsts, and his own sense of humor is remark ably keen. "Nothing he says, "is more acceptable to minds jaded with reading works of culture than the sudden appearance of a strong rough book, expressing the habits, ideas and ideals, of the uncultivated."
 Whipple likens William Tecumseh Sherman, as exhibited in his Memoirs" to George Eliots inn keeper who divided human thought into two parts, namely "my idea" and "humbug." No man, he contends, "could have written what Sherman has written (without being laughed aD unless he had done what he has done"
 My glimpses at Whipple's broad glare and side lights, may, and hope will awaken fresh interest in his MRecOllections of Eminent Men" His word portraits masterpieces of truth undimmed by the glamor of fattery. They are conspicuously prominent in the alcoves, corridors and galleries of advanced thought. Many persons already extol their artistic perfection. smaller and more sensitively critical audience fingers to praise their intrinsic merts.-H c. L.