The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-10-10
They forget that if the conditions OF
plutocracy call for prophet for its
overthrow. that prophet always appears.
Dialect in Fiction.

A recent writer on THE Short Story
Mr.. Charles Raymond Barrett. takes oc-
cason to inveigh somewhat violently
against that form of fiction known as the
dialect~story. He quotes with approval
the words of another writer on this sui
ject. T. C. DeLeon. who says:
THAT there is good in dialect none may deny;
hut that good is onl, when it chances, as rarely,
TO he good dialect
This is palpably true. Then Mr.. Barrett
goes on to say:
dialect stories were very artistic. for
they are naraduNical attempt to make good
literature of poor rhetoric and worse grammar
They have never been recognized or written by
any great master OF fiction. They are sign
of degenerate taste. and their production or
pcrus:l is 10 the formation and pres
crvation of good literary style. They are
merely fad, which is already of the past, and
today public and publisher turn in nausea from
4 mess of dialect which yesterday they would
have greedily devoured: that now there is
pr c,iniary excuse for dialect stories.
They doomed to an cphcmeral existence. for
what little charm they ever possessed was based
upon the human craving for something odd and
new: the best stories OF Barrie and Maclarcn
live because of their intense human feeling. and
they would have succeeded a, well and endured
longer il they had been clothed in literary Eng
lish.''
This mass of Genunciatiol is worthy OF
attention only as il expresses the views Of
| many other earnest. but not very logical
people. In the very beginning. exception
may be taken to the statement that dia-
lect has never been recognized by any
great master of fiction. What are the
Scotch novels of Scott or the cockney
largely in dialect? What Is .'Huckleberry
| Finn but a narrative entirely in the pic
| turesque dialect of the Arkansas region of
| the Mississippi? Burns was. it is true. not
writer of fiction. but who has used dia-
| lect so cunningly as he. and how do his
songs in pure English compare with those
| in a Scotch patois which is not almost
| obsolete. but still holds its charm because
Of its entire fitness for its use? Nay, did
| not Shakespeare himself use dialect when
he thought he needed it? What is the
| conversation of the renowned Dogberry
pray, but poor rhetoric and worse gram
| MARI
| The fact is that any recognized dialect
| is just as good material for fiction as pure
English, when rightly used. and what is
more 1t is the only material that should
! be used in expressing the thoughts of peo-
| pie who would be likely to use it. If it
were to be excluded from American liter
ature-thcngh there is no chance that il.
| Will be-a good part of the life of the peo-
| pie would go unrecorded. The charm of
| the dialec; story is not based upon the
craving for something odd and new" but
| Oh the new love Of realism which has
| taken possession of the reading public.
| The sturdy common sense OF the middle
| class reader, as we'll as the delicate in
tuition of the thoroughly educated book
man. demands that characters in a story
! shall talk as they would in real life, and
| not in refined and correct fashion wholly
| inconsistent with their supposed ante
cedents. The suggestion that the tales Of
| barrie and Maclaren might have been
clothed in literary English is pure nom
sense.