The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1890-11-19
PAGE AND CABLE
The True southerner and the Renegade
Author Compared.

Author Compared.
The New York ChurcEman, in reviewing
"Old Creole Days" by George W. Cable
and 'In Old Virginia" by Thomas Nelson
Page, says:
These two exquisite volumes, each by
well-knOwn Southern author, each contain
ine stories illustrative of an epoch Whlch
has PASSED away forever, each dwelling IN
"A past which is tenderly remembered by
those who knew it. and is now regarded
with a gently respectful curiosity by those
who knew il nOt-these two volumes are Is
sued together like twins in graceful
"camco edition" which stamps their eNter-
nal likeness i'm one daintily appropriate
form. Yet there is strange constrast De-
tween the two works. when one examines
them. MIR. Cables rarely delicate touch
is used to lay bare and disclose the
secret placue of social and domestic
life in the sold creole days" Without APP
harent malice he has drawn pictures
which are doubtless true, and yet are true
i'm the sense in which "the greater the truth,
the greater the libel" II is not 10y such
pictures that the truth of history Is told. 1t
was not by such pictures that the wizard
of the North made the dead ages 1--we again;
nor was it by such pictures that Charles
Dickens made the common life of modern
TN
When a writer depicts the history OF his
own people i'm such way rs TO bring upon
himself their deadly and unpardoning re-
sentiment. II may be assumed that whatever
be his charms Of STYLE and whatever be the
literal truth of his descriptions, he has miss
ed the Veritable spirit OF his subject and has
poisoned what ne ought to have preserved.
such has been Mr.. Cables fate; and to us
IL seems TO be deserved.
Mr.. PAGE has not achieved as much lame
as MIR. Gable; and the reason may in part
be that he has better earned II. That his
pictures are AZ true 10 fact and history as
those of Mr. Gable is beyond ali question;
that they are far truer TO life We consider TO
be proved by the mere fact that they are more
pleasing TO the only people who are cOmpe-
tent TO Judge. They reproduce the genuine
life of whites and blacks as it still lives IN
the memories OF those who have survived the
changes and chances of the thirty years last
past. They are true TO the truth OF those
lines and to what was best and iruest IN
them. They labor under the great disad-
vantage Of being somewhat too largely in
terlarded with negro dialect, though no
other author seems TO US 10 have caught that
dialect so perfectly as Mr.. Page. All "dla-
lect" is disadvantage at the best. We
confess that the exquisite story OF Marse
Chan, for example, could hardly have been
written in any thing else than dialect ana
vet. If il had been written in the perfect
English OF which its author is master, 1t
would have been classic of the highest or
der.
These two books ought by no means to be
issued together. The one is history clothed
in the garment OF fiction; the other wear
ing the same garb, is the demurrer of
DEVILS advocate.
The only thing the Churchman neglected
10 say was that while George ". Cable is
despised 10y the intelligent people with
whom he had his home, and TO whom he IS
recreant because OF his pandering to de
PRAYED demand Thomas Nelson Page is
held in the highest esteem by the people
whose characteristics he has SO faithfully
depicted without offending the sensibilities
Of the most sensitive.