The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-07-12

writer's, SO that now, as a matter OF
fact, if William wants real good book
to read and enjoy, he has to go to work
and write it himself.
OF course Mr.. Howells and Mr.. Dick.
ems belong to two different schools of
literature. Mr.. Dickens belonged to
what might have been termed the active
and earnest school, while Mr.. Howells
rather leans toward the dry goods and
notion schools.
It is fair that should say this, for I
am not literary, and therefore am i'm
partial. belong to the Authors club,
which proves that am not literary,
and therefore I know Mr.. Howells will
forgive me if speak briefly on this
subject.
Mr.. Howells ''cannot laugh any more
over 'Pickwick' or Sam Weller, or weep
over Little Nell or Paul Dombey. -
His early life was not very discriminate
ing, and SO he liked some of Dickens
. which now he cannot endure. That may
be true. Our tastes do not always i'm
prove with years, and surely it is not
good taste to get $25 per column for
running down Charles Dickens or any
other standard author just because our
tastes have changed. .
Dickens gave us very often descrip-
ton of the remains and allowed us to
take his word for it or go and analyze
it ourselves, while Mr.. Howells dissects
and analyses as he goes along and
doesn't leave any intermission during
which the audience may get up and go
out if it prefers to do so.
Mr.. Howells says that the English
man is always an inadequate observer,
and that is true. So is the American.
Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit, how
ever, Mr.. HoweIls says, is roughly true.
And we are pretty rough on ourselves
lately too. It shows growth. It is the
jimson weed town alone that is sensi-
tive when we say its stockyards ought
to be farther away from its high school.
Mr.. Howells and Mr.. Lowell were
very great admirers of each other, and
when either of them got literary swat
in the eye he would go and get the 9TH
er one to tie it up with chicken cro-
quette over it. This was lovely, yet who
can with genuine joy read Mr.. Lowell 8
''Biglow Papers now, and has not
even Mr.. Howells something in his old
scrapbook that he wishes to goodness
sake he hadn't ever written?
No? ~. ~
Well, most everybody else has. Even
Charles Dickens had. And so have L
But in 80 years from now let us ask
the timid little touchmenot who sells
books on the trains how William and
Charles are standing as to sales of
books .G>e-> - t1@@.s ~ +
In 50 years proud will that man be
who, as an American author, can even
depend upon regular semiannual criti-
cism from such gentleman and scholar
as Mr.. Howells, and therefore I say
again that Dickens must have been a
great genius, or long ere this MI. Howells
would have dropped him and made an
attack on me.
We should all Of us avoid too close a
criticism of what we have grown weary
of. used to be very fond of the Lit
tie Neck clam, Mr.. Howells, but once, a
few years ago, I was almost snatched by
the rude hand of Death from the great
field of letters by the brisket of small
clam no larger than West Shore divi-
dend. Yet do not say that the clam is
to all men utterly unwholesome, poison
Gus and fatal
To me he is. paris green, powdered
glass and rough on rats, while with the
majority of humanity he goes we'll in
most any form. OF course there is no
law that will stop Mr.. Howells from
raking over the works of Charles Dick
ems, if he wishes to. Perhaps the long
experience Mr.. Howells has had in
monkeying with literature, if I may be
permitted TO- use strong but rather
crude word. has shown him how itera-
ture is made, and because he can now
see the stitches where Sam Weller is
sewed together he wants to kick down
the whole structure and bust the tear
tank which goes with Paul Dombey and