The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-06
PLEA FOR GOOD LITERATURE.
AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE
CRITIC CLUB.
The Office of the Essay and Its In
fuence on Oratory and
the Pulpit.


The following address was delivered
by C. P Massey on the evening VI
February 22d last at the annual pan
scust Of the Critic Club, and is printed
dust as it was presented on that oc-
casion: -.
THE subject assigned to me Tor TINS
fe,,erine is congenial one, but while
7 can sneak con amore the few
words in which l shall somewhat prleny
discuss it. / am conscious that there
will be an entire inadequacy IN Wna'
j may be able to say, to meet the re-
r.uuirements of a theme that makes Sc
strong an appeal to the finer sentl-
sments of ones nature.
For I consider the essay, or what the
essay may be made to be, ana what 10
reality it has frequently become, con-
servative in a peculiar degree OF SONS
of the nobler uses of the language, az
those uses are regarded as contributNe
to human development.
In its best expression, the essay
stands for elegance and purity OF olc-
tion. for scholarship, for refinement, 10Y
taste and the finer faculties within US
intellectual, moral, or esthetlc are
pleasantly and profitably swayed unoei
its potent charm.
The essay then in this high estimate
of it's value and function becomes q
portion of the bellies lettres of the Ian
.guage, and the assignment constitutes
a category for it, and establishes its
place.
The thought then around which, what
somewhat discursively I shall have to
SAY, will cling with more or less con-
sistency, can be simply stated in the
sprcposition that the essay may be es-
tinaated as standing for good literature
the cultivation or neglect of which mas
an elevating or deteriorating effect upon
the mind and character OF those OF
sufficient intellectual accomplishment
to detect the essays charm, or to ex-
perience the absence of that charm.
When 1 make these somewhat ex-
fravagant claims for the essay, how
ever, I am not unmindful that even on
literary lines it furnishes but single
avenue for that appeal, intellectual,
moral, or esthetic of which l nave
spoken, l am only contending that
as literature it constitutes equally with
poetry and the choicer productions OF
the novelist, one department in that
treasure house of intellectual wealth
which we lovingly denominate beauti-
full letters.
Brander Matthews, in an acute ana
remarkably discriminating article en-
titled 1.-The Drama and Literature =
strenuously contends that the stan
dards of elegant literature shall not be
indiscriminatingly applied to all depart
ments of literary work, that the drama,
while it is undoubtedly in part literary
and has its productions very justly
me asured at times by some literary re-
quiremeats, is exempted on account OF
Its special appeal, from too close ad-
herance TO any conventional literary
requirements. The same may be said
OF oratory. which depends for its effect
upon the spoken and not upon the writ
ten word And while / may be critical
and condemnatory of some modern
methods by which elegance is sacri-
ficed to ad captandum effect, l would
also exclude from any unfair criticism
a great mass of writing which, although
scholarly in a measure, is produced
under an exacting pressure to meet
present and popular demand.
But after all these generous qualifica-
tens have been made and carefully
discriminating the essay from any
other description of literary work which
may make somewhat similar but not
absolutely Identical appeal, l come back
to my original proposition as to the
high place of the essay as the exponent
Of elegance and art in literature, with
all their elevating and ennobling infiu-
erce., and such argument as I shall
make is intended to urge the retention
for il of a place which is being largely
abandoned with deleterious effects upon
other departments of intellectual ac-
tivity.
In the pleasantly informal and ia
sniliar intercourse of this occasion per-
haps a personal note may not jar dis
aereeably the sensibilities of any one
present. and I will make this my con-
fessional as to some early influence;
and tastes. / would not here disparage
any modern methods of imparting in
struction to the young, and / know
what painstaking means are adopted
by intelligent educators to include in
the curriculum of even partially ad
vanced scholars some knowledge of the
masterpieces OF the English tongue. But
fortunately for myself as l have often
thought these masterpieces, or some
what generous selections from them at
least. were put into my hands at a time
when other boys We're spelling out the
contents of some elementary reader,
and at II or y years of age CHANGER
and Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton.
Dryden and Goldsmith, Coleridge and
Gray, with many another historic name,
were known to me through some prom
3nent Illustration of their literary ac-
complishnlant.
There was nothing comprehensive in
this knowledge. for it was only an I'M
pretentious classbook in which it was
contained. but enough was obtained
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