The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-03-16
A GREAT FAVORITF, But NOT
IMMORTAL.

ftnSl1Sn. DlCheUS IUuSI pass OuI ~ lit
list of permanent fameS-he is already
gone, he was so ignorant and sloven-
1y-while DeQuincey Will stay. Sup
pose tina "a Tale of Two Cities were
translated into the Opium-eater's style,
what a superb romance, Dickens had
not the vast reserve Of culture, the Sc
rene dignity of one who is a perfect
master Of his craft. Nor had he
Shakespeare's divine accuracy of ar
tistic apprehension touching even the
simplest human moods. Where Shake
speare sighed inwardly, silently, Dick
ems blubbered and walled. and, alas!
IN the most slovenIy literature ever
penned. No story, however popular, as
in the case Of Uncle Toms Cabin"
or in that of "Old Curiosity Shop" can
possibly bear up through the CEN
turtles the burden Of enormously made
quate art. That is why the Little Nells
and the Paul Dombeys ring shallow and
cheap when we return to them in the
maturity Of our taste-they are shall
low and cheap merely for the want of
adequate judgment, reserve, pruning,
style, in their presentation. 1t is to
the highest level of taste that a work
of art must appeal, a level as univer-
sal as it is lofty, before we can give it
place among the supreme immortal
few.-Mau1ice Thompson in The indie
PENDENT.
Mr.. Thompson is a clever man of
letters, a writer of attractive English,
something, too. Of a poet or verse
writer, and has written many books
Of more or less popularity n excel
ience. He has culture, critical opinion,
and knows a good thing when he sees
it. If all authors who write "~slovenly"
are to be repudiated in the republic Of
letters, and to be denied to sit with
Che immortals among the gods of the
worlds mighty Valhalla, then the
greatest Of all authors, the most mas
terful, the highest inspired Of all poets
must be turned out Of the Pantheon,
and made to sit on the outside with the
uninspired, the commonplace, the great
multitude of writer's who ave had
their little day and are soon forgotten.
OF all writer's. the most careless. the
most "slOvenly," the most ungrammati-
cal, is the immortal Shakespeare, the
foremos of men of genius. A critical
examination of his splendid works
would show innumerable errors, great
carelessness, ungrammaticisms in end
less array. No man wrote so penetrat-
ingly, SO profoundly, SO magnifcently,
81 ma lIIdllNc 81 IhopIi h0iy. LUZ
alas! how he %blundered and nodded and
wrote 50 obscurely, incorrectly, even
-'slovenly" at times. But he vas great.
OF all great authors, he was supreme.
Dickens was careless, Ignorant and
slovenly,' for he had o advantages
to begin with. He could not possibly
have written the "Suspiria" Of DeQuin-
cey, one Of our chief favorite authors
in literature. He could not write as cor
rectly as the great Thackeray wrote,
VIII sometimes tripped in his grammar,
and yet, of all English novelists he had
the best style. But Dickens possessed in
great development certain gifts that
DeQuincey nor Thackeray nor George
Eliot nor the master, Sir Walter Scott,
possessed. He was superb in his
highest role. He had certain qualities
as a writer hat were immense. and
made him surprisingly popular and en-
PERTAINING. We read Dickens when in
our teens in the ~forties. and we have
been still delighted with him in the
nineties. We rejoice that we have not
outgrown a real relish and o for
Dickens. May our appetite never pail
for "Pickwick," and BLEAK House,"
and Martin Chuzzlewit," and David
Copperfield' and "a Tale of Two
Cities" and Hard Cash" n the mar
vellous "Christmas Stories" and one or
two others.
There is taste and taste. Every man
has preferences, books he loves as best
of companions n surest Of friends.
are books considered great by
the united scholarship and genius Of
the world, and yet we could never read
them. We have tried Don Quixote'
three times, and broke down n gave
UP the job. We lacked certain qualities
and sympathies that were responsive to
she greatest work of Spain, one Of h
worlds treasures in letters. We may
be sympathized with on this score.
And so Mr.. Thompson deserves pity
for not being longer able to read with
delight and satisfaction some Of the
most charming of English novels
works of very genuine genius that may
eterniz the name OF Charles Dickens.
Andrew Lang, a gifted Scotch au-
thor and critic, thinks that Dickens has
the touch of Immortality. Twenty,
thirty. forty years ago cultured and
richly endowed men and women re-
garded Dickens as next to Scott. and
ahead Of Thackeray. He was read by
them with unrepressed pleasure. Read
ers OF the best literature know who
Edward Fitzgerald was-scholar, re-
cluse, poet, author, man of genius-the
friend Of Tennyson, Carlyle, Thackeray
and other leaders in Great Britain. He
held Dickens in high favor, placed him
the great. In a very enjoyable
paper in The Century, for March, on
Some Writers of Good Letters this
as written of Fitzgerald, the scholar
and critic: His royal appreciation of
Dickens is in fine contrast to the pa
fronage which that writer has received
at the hands of more recent critics"