The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-01-14

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present literary life in North Carolina q
Mr.. Morris wrote the following answer
and it contains so much wisdom that we
give it below i'll full:
''We are doing nothing. The Difficult
ty throughout the State is just what
you behold locally. l have not always
agreed with Walter Page, but he is
right about the mastery of literature.
When he lectured on this subject before
the Normal School at Greensboro Presi-
dent McIyer was so anxious that | hear
nm that he annulled an engagement for
me and sent a carriage to the MaAdoo
House and forced me before my old
friend Walter. l think Walter is some
times very careless III his syntaX, but he
IS right when he says that literature is
right around us. 1t is i'll fact. discOn-
nected with letters, except as the Latin
derivative of the word suggests. lit
would live if there were no written char
acters. 1t is elementary in thought, in
cidentally in letters.
"A short while ago, in writing TO a
young lady who is taking a post grad
uate course at this time in English Lit
erature, | told her not to forget that lit
erature is in the palms of her hands
and under the soles of her feet. 1t Is
i'll the things around, those things that
we see with our eyes and touch with our
hands This is the literature that we
should enshrine into letters
Yin sending an article some time ago
TO one of the most distinguished jour
nalists III the South in which had dealt
with a little subject before my eyes in
North Carolina, | took occasion to say
what | substantially repeat, that it is
impossible to produce authors until the
schools free us, not from the knowledge,
but from the thralldom of the classics.
Everything has been thought out and
written about Greek gods. and temples.
and Roman triumphs that it is possible
to write along rational, poetic or inferen-
tIal lines, yet the ordained means for
the development of the mind in North
Carolina are rehashing in the higher
courses of literature and to a wide de-
gree in the study of English authorities.
We must be able TO grab the dirt from
under our soles and convert it into grains
OF intellectual life.
Why is there such a disparity today
between the New England authors and
those of the South? Why. simply be-
cause New England has had a Haw-
thorne and Others of his mental bent.
who took the things right around them
and made them big as the world itself
The Scarlet Letter. ON which Haw~
thorne based his great work by that
name. was actually found by him us q
simple red letter ON cloth in the garnet
of the old custom house, at Salem. Mass,
where he was collector of that port I'M
der the administration of Franklin
Pierce. His tales of the Old Manse were
OnyI fO llN~ l.
while living in the old parsonage house
itself. His Twice Told Tales come
from local surroundings as definite as
the shop of the blacksmith at Cambridge,
which suggested to Longfellow The Vii
lage Blacksmith, !" that has run into child
life wherever an English-speaking child
prattles. Whenever these authors have
left American sold for their subjects they
have left no impress. Longfelow'S
Michael Angelo is a piece of enameled
work, wholly artificial, and nobody reads
it.
1--WE have around us more than is in
New England but we are not Taught
that it is literature. We deride it. If
it appears led by some venturesOme
hand. the hand that brings it is accused
of personality, of misanthropy toward
mankind in trying to make somebody
OF whom the author never thought, a
character whom he seeks to insult. If
a local surrounding, or local incident
is described, somebody lodges as if the
author, instead of being oblivious of their
presence on the earth, We're aiming Il
gun to kill. 1t grows out of the con-
ventionalism that cannot diassociate in
tellectual life from something ponderous,
witt, some kind of organization, some
thing distinctly exclusive. and all of
which is the death of true intellectualism
among amy people.
1T is the woman with the distaff: it
is the man with the pillow; it is the child
with the sOOty face; the COW that comes
to our own gate, with udder in pain for
the soft fingers of the milkmaid: and it
is the creeks, whose waters go through
our own farms; these are of the things
that make literature; and we should
study these subjects with our own hearts
and eyes. We must see the divinity that
is in them, and this can not be done be-
Meath parlOr lamps. The preparation of
this study is awful at times, but its
recompense is glorious. 1t is wrought
out in ceaseless thought, on the street, i'll
the ears; wherever we may trend. One
laugh of child is enough when imping-
AOON
a year, and may lead to such an appre-
henSion of child-life as to make us mas
ters of that subject. And then the tolls
of the night, when Others sleep-tOils al
most with the sweat of blood, that we
may master those things that may equip
us to embody the literature around us,
at last make that intellectual life which,
finally, falls tenderly as the feecy SNOW,
but as genial as the sunshine over
community and then the fellowship of
intellectual life binds as with bands of
steel
us Cheap Literature Making Litera-
ture Cheap" is the subject of a debate
in New York between Prof. Harry
Thurston Peck and $. S. Mcclure In
his argument in the affirmative, Prof.
Peck said
The man of few books is becoming
rare; the man of multitudinous books is
becoming nuisance. Readers cheaper
literature by reading Hall Caine instead
of Trollope or Thackery. Too much is
read and too much is written. The
popular superstition of the day is that
T.. t.