The San Francisco call., 1899-07-09

critics of all sizes have begun to use
him as a convenient standard by which
to measure every new aspirant or anna
teuI in the field of letters. Some critics
use Rudyard as a model of excellence,
and when they desire to praise an au
thor they say his style is suggestive of
kipling's. Others take him as a warn
ing of the depravity to which litera-
ture can sink, and when in their turn
| they seek to praise writer they hold
him up as a contrast to that creature
of abOmination.
AS a result Of this condition of the
casual criticism of our day, the reader
must know what critic thinks of Kip
| ling before he can derive any satisfac-
ton from his criticisms. For example,
! an Eastern critic in reviewing that
most delightful little Californian book.
Sugar Pine Murmurings," compared
the style to that of Kipling, and proba-
bly, intended it as a recommendation to
the public; but it is by no means cer-
tain it will be so regarded.
George Moore. a critic Of repute in
London town, is one who would not
read Sugar Pine Murmurings," if he
believed the critic who said it suggests
Kipling. for Moore looks upon the
rough and ready Rudyard as the liter
ary offspring of all the coarseness of
British insolence flushed by the lust of
empire. He is quoted by the London
Chronicle as having said recently:
"Mr. Kipling, the poet that England
was now celebrating. would not have
written the most hideous verses ever
written in a beautiful language if he
ha6 OF IN oil hi
ment, the moment of the African mil
lionaire, when England, gorged with
wealth, Iusted for more when thou
sands of Arabs were shot in the desert
with machine guns-and the general
who commanded in these shambles was
greeted as a hero. In no other circum-
stances but the present would Mr.. Kip
ling have been a disgraceful blot on
the most beautiful poetic record in the
world
Sugar Pine Murmurings," being
product of the native wit of Califor-
MIA, should be studied in the atmos-
phere of the sunny land in which it was
evolved, and not be mixed up with tho
disputations of British fog land. I
have lugged it in only to show
just how far and how foolishly
these Kipling comparisons are car
ried. The speech of Mr.. Moore is
the point L am leading up to lazily, as
BELTS a day of rest, for that doughty
pen fighter did not denounce KipIing
for the mere fun of denOuncing him,
but for the purpose of lauding another
mana genius of whom we know little.
but of whom, according to Mr.. Moore.
we ought to know much; of whom we
will know much when a literary sanity
returns to us. and 'the Rudyards cease
from KipIing and the Haggards ride
no more"
In Dublin, "the finest city upon the
say" a number of patriots of light and
leading have established a literary
theater" for the encOura cement of Irish
genius, and the genius has come. The
dramatic work of a certain Mr.. Yeats,
produced at the theater, has causee
something of a sensation in the United
Kingdom, pride in Ireland and enthu-
siasm in the mind of Mr.. Moore. At
banquet given a short time ago to cele-
brate the success of the theater, Moore
and Max Beerbohm We're distinguished
guests, and Moore made an address, in
the course of which he said the works
of Mr. Yeats were not as yet, and prob
ably never would be, as vOluminous as
those of either Shakespeare or Victor
Hugo, but he could not admit that they
were less perfect. In the art of writing
a blank verse play none except Shake
speare and Mr.. Yeats had succeeded.
We must not be afraid of praising Mr..
Yeats poetry too much; we must not
hesitate to say that there were lyrics
in the collected poems as beautiful as
any in the world.
Here, then, on the authority of a
critic of high repute, we have the state
nent that a dramatic writer of trans
cendent genius has arisen in Ireland.
Which of our manage of theaters will
be first to reproduce one of his plays in
San Francisco and give us an oppor-
tunity to learn what Dublin is doing
for the elevation of the stage and the
redemption of literature?
What we need in this country is not
so much a redemption of literature as
a wholesale damnation of all critics
outside of California. There be not so
many as ten worthy fellows in the
whole Eastern lot, and they that be
worthy have not virtue enough to
leaven the lump. The quality of the
stuff which under the title and in the
form Of criticism is poured forth from
the pets of publishers into the long
ears of the Eastern public may be
judged from the statement of Charles
Johnson, a critic plenipotentiary of
New England, that Mark Twain is ''the
greatest writer the New World has yet
seem
Such a statement expressed as seri-
Gus criticism is offensive to patriotism
and moreover is a wholly unnecessary
offense. 1t implies that while the New
World has seen no greater writer than
the author of tom Sawyer" the Old
World has seen greater, and carries
with it the inference that the Old World
has seen more fine sights than ours
has seen. Now, as a matter of fact, if
Mark Twain be greater than Haw-
thorne and Poe and Emerson, then also
is he by an equal ease of assertion
greater than Shakespeare, Goethe,
Dante, the man who wrote the book of
Job and the woman who compiled the