The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-13
l3

of a beastly negro who first outraged
her has had many dreadful corresponding
examples in this State, and in other
States Only few days ago, a grand
draughter of an old friend of my own, the
late Capt. James M Grizzard, of Halifax,
most worthy Virginian long resident in
that old historic village, a lawyer of char
acter, a steward in the Methodist church
for more than forty years, suppose, was
murdered very near her home after being
assaulted by a black brute in the stable,
choked and stabbed to death, her body
put in a bag and hung up, the door lock-
ed, and key put in the pocket OF the vii
lain where it was found to his own con-
demnation. He was hanged quickly by
an incensed community. Mr.. Dixon did
not overdraw his picture at all. Just such
Internal deviltries as he describes in his
lively book have occurred all around the
State and in other States.
The author cannot be charged with be-
ing broad caricaturist. He may be IN
places extravagant, and unequal, but he
is certainly coherent and very sincere. He
meant all he wrote, and he meant tin
his inmost nature-deep down in his soul
1t is a fresh book, whatever it's faults, it's
mistakes, if not an humorous book; it is
true book, open and manly, if an ambi-
tous one. He may be charged by UNI
friendly readers in the North and South,
with having many faults and some grave
ones, but no one can challenge his sim
cerity and earnestness and fidelity to his
convictions. All the great novelists with
out exception have been sometimes sharp
ly handled. Even so great genius and
writer as Scott has been set upon by GER
tain critics-like Hazlitt, Saintsburg, id
omne genus,-and his real or supposed
deficiencies vigorously, if carpingly-ex-
posed No doubt Richardson and Field
ing, Scott and Thackeray, Dickens and
George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte and
George Meredith, Charles Reade and
Bulwer Hugo and Dumas, the elder,
have grave and invincible faults, with
their real creative genius and admirable
gifts, with their many-sided and incom-
parable merits, as had Shakespeare, the
peerless and inimitable, with all of his
vast gifts and oceanic mind"
hold that our young North Carolina au
thor has, as the late w. E. Henley held
of Dickens, "beneficent earnestness, intel
lectual vigor and emotional vivacity."
There is true portraiture in the book, but
l see really nothing of caricature or but
little. You will find caricature alongside
of sincerity and truth in all the great
authors-in Thackeray, Dickens and 9th
ers, English, French and German. There
is probability in the incidents of "The
Leopard's Spots,' as there is probability
in the characters drawn. They fit the
times, the Unsuitable exactions of the
period, and the sharp emergencies that
arise I credit Mr. Dixon with invention,
not of the highest by any means, but sui
ficient and satisfying, as is manifest in
the story, the characters, events, man
ners, episodes. l do not attempt any
analysis whatever of the story for that
simply spoils the reading, takes away the
freshness of interest. 1 never touch
criticism in others that anticipates the
interest of reading by any exposure in
advance of what is to happen
Mr.. Dixon has the happy knack of ar
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