The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-09-28

considerable pains to explain why they
cannot do both.
1.-THE reason why popular magazines
are not more interesting to the intel
lectual class" says Mr.. Walter H.
Page, who has been editor of three
of the leading magazines, us that the
intellectual class does not write in a
more interesting way"
The editors seem to agree that the
writers who are gifted with the pop
ular style are not endowed with ideas,
and ideas are, after all, necessary Mr..
Page believes that the day of the leis-
urely style has passed and that in
the vigorous go-ahead world of to-day
we need a style which shall be direct,
clear and energetic. The lack of this
latter he deplores, believing that the
teaching of composition and the prac-
tice of style has not kept pace with
the development of intellectual life in
recent years.
1.-THE implication" says another,
that, If the liesurely writer's like
Hazlitt. De Quincy, Macauley, Carlyle
and Mathew Arnold were written to-
day, their too leisurely style would be
found tagging behind out recent in
tellectual ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS no
very serious discussion. The writer
who wishes to reach our public would
the leisurely style than to strive for
that nervous quality which the mod
ern magazine reader is supposed to
require.
GAS a matter Of fact. the desiderat-
ed style for the times has had a pretty
thorough trial. The late G.. w. Stew
ems certainly wrote it; Mr.. Kipling
writes it and produces six distinct
electrical discharges in the space IN
TryIna nl. 1t. L.
grudge himself one; Mr.. Maurice Hew-
lett, although he is still caviare to
the general, has all the nervousness
and picturesqueness that any editor
could desire. But these examples of
the modern style hardly encourage us
to believe that progress lies that way.
1t seems to us. in short. that Mr..
Pages conception of a deliberate at
tack upon the larger reading public,
of general attempt to measure up
or down, to the standards OF those
who, have learned to read only be-
tween pictures, is fundamentally err
roneous. We do not believe that the
style which the great unframed public
wants is good style. The fact is that
while the intellectual contributor is
often a dull person, the writer's of to-
day are less at fault than the public.
1t is the public that needs to be con-
Verteu TO intellectual IeiSurelineSS, not
the writer who needs to catch the
fever of modern life"
collection Of unpublished letters of
Sir Walter Scott's has been discov-
cred by an enterprising publisher, and
they will be brought out shortly in
book form. The letters are all written
to Mrs. Hughes. the grandmother of
Thomas Hughes the author of tom
Brownies Schooldays." Mrs Hughes,
the recipient. was a well-known wo-
man in her day. and If her letters to
Sir Walter could be discovered, COM
panion volume might well be Issued.
Mention was recently made OF a new
ly discovered manuscript of Robert
Southey's. A limited edition of this
work is to be brought out in this coun-
try under the title, journal of a Tour
In The Netherlands" The journey
was one Southey made two or three
months after the battle of Waterloo,
and the account WAS carefully kept
by the southey family until 1864, when
IL passed into the hands OF the Pease
family It's existence was forgotten
until. not long ago ore OF the latter
family discovered Il while going over
a lot u musty papers and allowed IL
20 be reproduced IN England and
America.
AL. 49, = Fattf s.sbega a.sf