The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-06

uuctlOnS, superior Vi IlIeTloI, couiu w
measured, as these masterpieces be-
came the permanent possessions of my
mind. I have read mountains of books
which were not literature, but I have
read them with the full knowledge that
they were not, and although often per-
haps "the fair mountain / have left TO
feed, and battened on the moor" have
been conscious of influences which made
me when prodigal of what little intel
1ectual wealth had been fortunate
enough to acquire, hunger for re-
turn to the banqueting house of high
er and nobler life.
And amid this great mass of matter
which was not literature, I soon began
to detect the charm of the scholarly es-
say, that was frequently discovered
within it, so that before having scarcely
established the substratum of knowl-
edge on which thought could be built,
l found myself initiating the essay IN
it's form and manner, and in my boyish
enthusiasm proudly persuading myself
that / was somehow allied to the great
and noble of the intellectual world.
While then 1 have not always hus-
banded time, and have been too prone
to read many a publication of popu-
lar description from cover to cover. it
was the essay that such publications
frequently contained that challenged
my admiration and respect, and E.
Whipple in such writings as have since
been classed under such general titles
as Success and It's Conditions o.:
Character and Characteristic Men"
were as much appreciated perhaps
when years ago Mr. Whipple's produc-
tons were found in the perishing pages
of magazine literature as now when n
more permanent form these writings
are treasured possessions on my library
shelves.
say 1 want to be discriminatory
enthusiasms of youth to confuse a
judgment which retrospectively pic
lures a glory attending the pro-
auctions of the essay literature of some
decades ago, as having persisted from
the earth. But the essay certainly has
not the place to-day in popular appre-
citation it formerly occupied, no mat
ter what illustrious examples of
scholarly grace and beauty much of
our modern literature may display. The
essay was a cult by itself, and although
other cults which have superseded it
may evidence a singular devotion to
high literary ideals, they are different
in essential characteristics from the
earlier affection, and exert another but
l fear hardly as useful an influence.
Much, perhaps, Of the intellectual abil-
ity which formerly would have selected
the essay as the vehicle for carrying its
message, now adopts the novel for its
purposes. and I am frequently startled
by the discovery of a rare grace of
expression. and beauty, and loftiness of
thought, in some fugitive story, whose
brief career of popularity Will be meas
ured by single month.
But however interesting such knowl-
edge of the changed vehicle for intel
lectual purveyance may be, the increas-
ing rareness of the old typica! essay is
to be regretted, for the reason that
there were influences emanating from
the essay that do not flow SO markedly
from any other description of prose
composition. The novel, no matter how
great as an intellectual achievement it
may be, is hardly possessed of that ele-
gance and loftiness of intellectual quail
ity and consequent suggestiveness that
the scholarly essay ever made manifest
to the appreciative mind. And although
the gentleman 1 have already quoted
may very properly insist that literature
is not to be COMPOUNDED with other de-
partments of intellectual activity which
secondarily may frequently claim
literary expression, the modern aban.
donment of the essay as primarily a
means of that expression is hurtful in
influence upon many other departments
of literary or quasi literary work. Thus
when the essay was the vogue, and it's
standards accepted with all their ele-
waiting and ennobling intellectual and
moral influences. oratory was pro-
nouncedly cast in a literary mold.
1t was my fortune in my boyhood to
hear Edward Everett deliver his ora
lions upon Washington, upon Benjamin
Franklin, and later. upon the Union.
Magnificent in their delivery, when
printed they presented themselves as
literature, and became the molds in
which the youth of that day ran their
boyish compositions, turgid, no doubt,
and marked with all the grandiloquence
of adolescence, but all the better, per-
haps, because of having been copied
from such noble patterns. Sometimes
there We're touches of a rare poetic
beauty in these orations, as when Ev-
erett said of Webster: He sleeps by
the multitudinous ocean. which he so
much resembled in his mighty move
ment and in his mighty repose," and
sometimes when the intellectual clement
was not SO prominent the rare grace
and rhythm of the diction was en-
trancing to the esthetic nature, as
when in the same Grafton, from which
have quoted, one delivered in dedica-
ton of Webster's monument, the speak.
er INDUCED, in this almost daring flight:
Here, then. upon this lofty emnence:
here, within sight of these fair New
England villages; here, within sound of
sacred bells, we raise this monument
with loving hands to the statesman,
the patriot, the fellow citizen, he
neighbor. the friend. Long may it
guard the approach to these halls of
council, long may it look down upon
a prosperous country, but if days of
danger and disaster shall again come,
as come they may, doubt not that the
bronze form will descend from it's ped
estal, to stand in the front rank of the