The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-01-04

| criticism itself are far greater than has
usually been allowed Owing very mainly
10 the not unintelligible or inexcusable
Dut unfortunate, initiative of Matthew
arnold, 1t has become fashion to speak
OF tnls branch OF the national gems which
! It expresses, with bated breath, and with
humble acknowledgment of the superior
! lty Oh German and still more, OF French
| erltlcs. This superiority, l say without
the slightest fear, is a fond thing vainly
invented. English criticism was rather
| late and for long time rather intermit-
! tent; nor did it fail, after the manner of
the nation. 20 derive fresh impulses al d
| new departures in the sixteenth century
! from Italian, in the seventeenth and
/ again the nineteenth from French, and
at the end of the eighteenth from German.
/ But it is not true that in so much as one
| of these cases it was contented slavishly
| to initiate and it is not true that, with
the possible exception of Eainte- Beuve
| foreign countries have had any critics
/ greater than our own, while they have,
even put together, hardly so many great
ones. In everything but mere superficial
consistency Dryden is head and should
ers above Boileau as a critic; Coleridge
a head, shoulders and body above the
Schlegels, whom he followed. Long be-
fore Saint-Beuve. HaZlitt had shown a
genius for real criticism, as distinguished
from barren formula making. which no
critic had surpassed. And Mr. Arnold
himself, with less range, equity, and sure
ness than Sainte- Beuve. has q finer liter
airy taste and touch. AS for that general
superiority of French criticism of which
we have heard SO much, the unerring
voice Of history will tell us that it never
existed at all. except, perhaps, for a
generation before 1860, the latter being
the period which called rorth-but mis-
led, Mr.. Arnolds admiration. With this
last; nor with the Romantic revolt in
dealing with which it will be pertinent
to appraise the relative excellence Of
Leasing and Goethe as compared with
Coleridge and HaZlitt. But we have within
our present range an almost better field
of comparison in that neo-classc period
from Boileau to la Harpe and from Dry
den to Johnson. in which on the whole,
and taking recognized orthodoxy only, the
critics of France and of England wor-
shipped the same idols, subscribed the
same confessions of faith. and to no
small extent even applied their principles
to the same texts and subjects I am,
after careful examination, certain my
self, and l hope that the results of that
examination may make it clear to others
that they did not order these things bet
ter in France that they did not order
them nearly so we'll.
Miss Josephine Dodge Daskam is an
astonishing young woman. Her stories
of children have made her famous and
like every other person who makes
success in one line. she wants to turn her
efforts into other directions. Her verse,
frankly in imitation of Stevenson
"Child's Garden of Verse, is along one
of these lines, and, strangely enough,
writing advertising matter is another.
Toward the latter kind of work, Miss
Daskam has a decided leaning and, not
al all because this kind of writing is more
profitable than most kinds of authorship
she says she likes to write advertise
ments. Evidently she does, for already
her name appears over a long announce
ment of one of the magazines which she
has written. Naturally enough a good |
many of her admirers are holding up their |
hands in horror over the situation but |
Miss Daskam does not worry about that |
That she likes to throw bombshells about |
is evident to those who have read the |
account of her speech to the Puritan |
Mothers at their last meeting.
Hang on to your privileges and let |
your rights CO." said Miss Daskam to |
the mothers, which was not exactly what |
the mothers were expecting, since it is |
we'll known that they are supporting |
Womens Rights. 1.-THE women who are |
most valiantly anxious to get their rights |
seem to forget one thing, she said. |
They forget that the party OF the first |
partly that / mean our brothers. to- |
day right where he was in the beginning.
He has the same number of advantages |
he always had The woman Of today has |
al these and about 1853 more, and yet her
shoulders are no broader and her back
no stronger than it ever was.
There are two things which women must |
always have had since the creation to be
successful, and those two things are the |
same in the far off islands of the Pacific
and in the high school in Massachusetts. !
A woman to be successful must be good |
and she must be charming. You may |
think of her charm as her parliamentary |
ability, her oratorical power or her ex-
cellent canning of peaches, but she has
got to have it. And if she is not good the
world can't progress. There may be
something interesting in the bad wo-
man, but she can't perpetuate nations,
and after all that was the main purpose
of our creation, l think. If a woman
is good and nothing else, she will be as
dull as anything the world ever made, but
if she can be good and charming her heri-
tage and posterity can ask. absolutely
nothing better"
Miss Daskam got some applause through
her speech. but it was very evident that
her remarks did not exactly coincide with
the views of some of the mothers. When
she finished Mrs. Blake, the president, be-
lore introducing the next speaker, said:
think Ne all enjoyed hearing Miss
Daskam's remarks, but possibly if she
was woman in the civil service and had
not written books and had not got paid
like q man her views point would be
somewhat different"
New York has been entertaining during
the past few days an unusual number of