The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-10-16

,:..,<,. .ro made with regard to what
will take the place of nnturaiism' WINCH 20
a,raaJv disoossessed of its passing IN
a,,ancc IA general rule, each young
writer takes upon himself as his nrst
dntv TO rally to weli-kDown formula, or
to eudeayor TO create formula tnae DC
believes TO he new; and then ne goes
aboc. repeating that tins Is 10 oe sne
number of these haze done me the honor
IN send me their little revIews--some OF
which are very curious and some fuii Oh
fine promises, and of good pages, 100
In which they philosophize in this way,
have been successfully Informed that the
literature of the future is to be connneu
10 psychology, to symbolism, to mysu-
cism. TO the new naturalism, as well as
10 scientificism, to magnetism, and even
TO Instrumentation. If a man Deleves
that he has some talent Tor writing, IL -
indeed strange that he can allow nimseiI
to be directed by master or by the RUE
Of any school, no matter how great the
master may be or how skillfuily devised
the rule may seem. 1t is all very well
not 10 call ones self naturalist; but
why call ones self anything else! In
the first place, is it possible for writer,
no matter how much he may wish 10
believe il, TO belong to any particular
school? No, and very fortunately, 1t
seems to me.-Pierre Lat in The Forum.
Eminent Men and the Dictionary.
Mr.. Andrew Lang remarks somewhere
that be believes he has not single dc
tionary in bis house. There must be
many precedents for this strange omis-
sion from a literary mans liDrary; or,
if many of our standard authors had
hnu Il
il to poor purpose. Pope, and, indeed,
nearly all the poets, could not SPELL, nor
could Sheridan, Dickens, Douglas Jer-
rold and Charles Lamb; and even
Thackeray sometimes forgot the rule:
Put before
Except after C.
An eminent Shakespearean scholar,
too. once showed that he had never made
the acquaintance of Johnson's Dictlon-
airy. Browning, on the other hand, when
it was definitely decided that he was
TO adopt literature as his profession,
qualified himself for it, as Mrs. Suther-
lard Orr tells us, 'by reading and digest
ing the whole of Johnson's Dictionary.
This fact explains his mastery OF all the
irtricacies of the English language. by
the way, legal luminary has so high an
opinion of that superseded work that he
refuses 10 accept definitions from olher
sources. TenDysOn was SAID fequently 10
consult that odd aid to poesy, rhymlng
dictionary, and Wordsworth, like Byron,
constantly made use of vocabularies.
II never compose" he once said to a
visitor, without having dictionary at
hand, ready to turn 10 when i want a
word" In that case dictionary must
have been his inseparable companion, and
it is not a bad one. either, even tpr the
hypothetical " desert island.
Lord Chatham told one of his friends
that he had twice read. from beginning
to end. Buffers Dictionary: He was
rewarded for his trouble. Fox said of
his great antagonist that he always used
the word and that each word had its
own place and was regulated, not by
chance, but by law. In later life Chat,
ham used to have the dictionary read
aloud to him once year. He said so
many noble and useful words fell out of
USE; which is very true. Emerson also
the ight the dictionary mot a dried up
fountsin."