The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-19


ideas, if gracefully phrased, may be
relied upon to find acceptance always
with some considerable part of the
great American people.
This Is a short statement of a gen
eral truth and 1t was Emerson who
said, in substance, for the cyclopedia of
quotations is not at hand, that mo
universally true-not even this one"
Novelties make their appearance oc-
casionally, with the truth of which no
one is particularly inclined to agree
and which affect the general public
only with a sensation of infinite weari-
ness of spirit.
There is a recent case in point. Prof.
oscar L. Triggs, of the University OF
Chicago, has told the members of one
of his classes that the poetical work
of Lengfellow is trivial and unworthy
of consideration and that in the poems
of oliver Wendell Holmes there is ap-
parent a considerable amount of ir-
reverence and lack of conviction-quite
sufficient to bar the applicant from a
seat on Parnassus.
This is not Prof. Oscar l.. Triggs'
first appearance in such a role-our re-
spect for the conventions forbids our
saying just what, in our opinion, that
role is. Sometime ago he was report
ed to have said that John D. Rockefel-
Ter, the Standard Oil magnate, was a
greater man than Shakespeare and at
least had done more good to human
ity. A little later he rid himself of
long cherished conviction to the eff
feet that most sacred hymns were
"doggerel." His latest exhibition will
probably be regarded as the product of
a necessary evolution.
However 1t furnishes a text fer a
few remarks anent one form of literary
criticism and one brand of literary
ness who seem to think II necessary to
justify their professions to the title
by attacking the literary idols and
ideals of the people, even of Gull
tured and cultivated people, of the
country, and by denouncing as cheap"
trivial and commonplace that
which educated thought has accepted
as worthy of a permanent place in the
literature of the language. Prof. Os-
car L. Triggs bears all the outward and
visible signs of being possessed of this
inward and spiritual lack of grace.
There is a lot of difference always be-
tween a poets best and his worst. With
equal truth the same thing may be said
of the efforts and the attachments Of
any other class of men. Human en-
deavor cannot reach always the same
high plane and even those of us who
are very conscious of our own limita-
tons are aware that sometimes the
work we do is not on a par with the av-
erage of our accomplishments and falls
sometimes far below the best that is
in us. 1t may be, and doubtless is true,
that some of the poems of Longfellow
are trivial and that some of those of
Holmes are irreverent and show a lack
of conviction, though so far as Holmes
is concerned these criticisms would not
indicate he had no right to be classed
a poet.
The high thinking, the sweetness OF
expression, the chaste diction and rhe-
toric that mark "Hiawatha" and
"Evangeline" and a hundred of Long
fellows shorter poems are sufficient to
save his fame from any danger of as
sault at the hands of Prof. Triggs. and
the author of 1.-The Chambered Nauti-
lus" and THE one Hoss Shay" will
doubtless be not greatly disturbed in
his resting place by the animadversions
of the professor of the University OF
Chicago.
Literary criticism, rightly directly
and restricted by some sense of the
fitness of things, is all right; when 1t
runs Wild it becomes all wrong. The
common mind needs to have pointed
out to It the nicer beauties of an au-
thor's style and the finer sublimity of
his thought. There is a common fond
ness for trash that needs to be correct
ed and there is place in the world for
the critic who dips his pen in vitriol
and seeks to destroy the public craving
for what is actually cheap, trivial and
commonplace" for that which lacks
not only the attributes OF the sublime