The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-10-12
MARGINALIA

X. H. Davis's SOLDIERS of Fortune"
has had a great sale and has passed
beyond it's fiftieth thousand. 1t has
surpassed in sales all other novels OF
the last two months, and the second
best is Aliens "Choir Invisible" a
novel as unlike the other as 1t Is pos
sible to be, so we nave seen stated.
Edmund Burke was a very great
man. He was the greatest statesman
Of his day, when great men abounded
in the political life Of Great Britain.
He was an Irishman, a builder of very
great speeches., the orator and states
man most frequently sought by the
foremost-m men in craftsmanship in our
own land. Webster, for instance, was
q close student Of Burke. The orations
of this most eloquent of men are not
like the English speeches Of the last
quarter Of a century. Oratory is not
really q very great factor in parlia-
mentary life. The speakers are quiet,
passive, moderate. unrhetOrical for the
most part, without the real fire OF
genius and kindling sentences n
u olopioJos - ID SA~ A~N CIV
present to avoid the Oratory that gave
so mucil glory to England and so much
fame to burke, Sheridan, Erskine,
Crattan and the other great men who
spoke for posterity as well as for the
passing hour. Burke a rare culture,
a grand style, great but was
not of universal gifts. He said once,
v0flyTirr I - a ira Oa6V which hp 2d-
united to have written: Eyes, I was
fool enough u write it, but, I at least
had wit enough to keep it to myself"
r. K. Foley has published a "Bibli-
ography Of american Authors, from
1876 to 1874 hundred years. Like
all cyclopeGias, antholOgies, diction-
aries Of authors and so on, it is defect
i've, anG its EMISSIONS are strange and
many. We see it mentioned in a
northern monthly that such names as
Henry ward Beecher, E. E. Hale, Hor-
ace Greeley, G. G. EgglestOn, Habber-
ton, TourGee, H. C.. Lodge, n others,
do not appear.
Mrs. Turton Harrison has published
another Virginian story, "a Son Of the
OiO DCiiillllOH. IL ID q loFC L y, dllu
full of stirring Incidents. One able
critic rather damned it with faint
praise"
Mr.. Henley and Mr.. Henderson in their
edition Of Robert Burns put themselves
to the trouble Of trying to trace the
poets indebtedness to other authors.
This is an old way of trying to depre-
ciate genius. The great writer's of an
-tiquity were often indebted to Others.
Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Tennyson
and other eminent poets have been
written about in the same way. But
genius is peculiar: it glorifies all it
a." touches. 1t takes a common thought
and idealizes it, or it takes a crudely
dressed thought and clothes it in i'm
mortal drapery. A writer in New York
Bookman, considering this attack upon
Burns's borrowing much. says this:
Burns has brought a new thing into
the Scottish school, namely, heart,
sympathy, humanity-the contribution
OF an artist and a great man. Burns
saw the universal in the particular.
That faculty ranks him with the great
est writer's Of the world; it differen-
tiates him from his forbears of the
scottish SchOOl.
We have aforetime read the discus
-sions as to the borrowing of Shakes
pear He appropriated largely-took
nearly all of his plots and characters
from other books. but when he was
done with his work how supreme it's
= excellence, how splendid the genius, how
reckless of grammar and quotation. He
laid his hands upon the dull heaps Of
other writer's and transmitted them
into gold and gems of purest ray Sc
rene" And Milton and Tennyson en-
riched all they used, and gave new
force and splendor to what they ap-
propriated. Referring again to Burns,
we copy again from the writer just
quoted from:
"Was it worth while. in face of the
convincing genius of Burns, of his ad-
mitted influence in the poetic revival
OF the nineteenth century, of the strong
bias he gave to Wordsworth and By
= by his force, fire and truly classic
form, n by the example of his sue
cess in dealing with the materials he
found in himself and the actual life
around him-was it worth while to at
tempt to ventilate Burns's derivation
from his ~'forbears?'"
Said Tennyson, Robert Burns is the
greatest poet of Scotland. Beyond
question this it true, and Walter Scott
IS next to him.
FUGITIVE LINES"