The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-19
By
A
CLUB
WOMAN

! but / thought perhaps you might have
/ found somebody who said something diff
| ferent. Sometimes 1 wonder" she burst out,
| eff l am the only person in the world who
| has really read Sordello Because that is
not the story" she went on, with that GER
| tainty of the correctness of her own views
| which so endears her TO her friends. q do
not mean that she is dctatorial or intol-
erant-she is quite willing we should all
have our views. too; she is only so deadly
sure that she is right The aggrayating
| part of IL is that she generally is rigfr-the
| dictionary and encyclopedia and such books
seem TO be in a sort OF conspiracy to sup
| port her. Not that I'm at all sure she is
| right about Sordello. 1t doesn't Deem likely.
| with so many authorities against herr
| THAT is not what Browning tells us At
the crisis of fate, when he had climbed, by
| HIS own gifts, TO a position OF influence and
had shown his power to sway people as he
would, he abandoned and betrayed the peo-
pies cause and took sides with the aristoc-
racy. 1t was this act of treason that took
the life and soul out of him, made him in
capable forevermore OF speaking the great,
| true word to which the heart Of humanity
| thrills, and left him only TO seem to be the
great man he once really was. He was
outwardly successful. the aristocracy petted
| him, but he was only poor shell of a
man. as Hosea Biglow puts it; "A sorry
farce such life is. after ALL Browning
! says"
The question of whether 1t is permissible
to use slang seems to be pretty we'll set
| tied In the affirmative. Custom has changed
| greatly in that respect in the last twenty
five years. But OH my dear young friends,
| there is nothing that requires more taste
| and discrimination than the use of slang.
| Some slang is merely condensed wit or
| wisdom. Witness J. Hawley Smiths story
| of the workman who asked him for a
| definition of an educated man. When the
| lecturer responded with careful and elab-
| crate definition to the effect that a truly
| educated man is one thoroughly trained and
| fitted. in mind and heart and body, to
| undertake the duties OF his vocation, the
| workman answered "Phaw, 1 can say
| it shorter than that. An educated man is
| man that is on to his job" That illustrates
| the true vocation OF slang and the one that
has admitted 1t 10 the conversation of the
| learned, and the pages of grave reviews.
| But there is reprehensible form of slang
| which consists of using one meaningless
| adjective phrase for all the purposes of
| language A few years ago l knew a young
| gentleman of education and ability who
| described everything as warm" Some
| times the word was a compliment, some
times sarcasm, but he was unable to men
ton any thing that was not warm" or
that possessed any other quality. And we
| have all seen cases where young people
| have temporarily lost the power to speak
their mother tongue through their inabil-
| ity to say anything whatever but the slang
phrase OF the moment. Then there is the
wholly reprehensible slang which is essen
| TALLY coarse, which tries to see how
| near it can come to the edge of profanity
| without stepping over. l heard a pretty
| young lady on the street car, with a
fined face and cultivated voice. say. And
so he made durn fool of the girl" 1t
does not sound well for young ladies to
say ''durn." In moments of great provoca-
ton, when ones manuscript is returned by
the very magazine 1t was exactly adapted
| to, one may perhaps be excused for quot
ing something from Sam Foss about "a
burned printed slip but otherwise the
adjective should be relegated to stable boys
and gamins.
Another man has written a book about
the decline of the native-born American,
founded on the vital statistics of Massa-
chusetts. Will they never reflect that moth
ing can be more misleading than the vital
statistics OF Massachusetts? Aside from the
scons of few families with inherited
wealth professional distinction. New
| England has been steadily drained ever
since the Revolution, of all her more vigor-
Gus and enterprising young men and a large
part of her young women. They have been
cultivating. organizing, educating, govern
ing the great West. while the West itself
has moved on progressively from central
New York to the Pacific and the Rockies
for the Rockies remain the frontier after
the more accessible coast regions beyond
have reached high degree OF civilization.
The men of the old stock left in New Eng
land are the weakings, and the women are
unmarried. If they want the true statistics
of the old American stock let them ask the
people of the West who their grandparents
and great-grandparents were. And they
will not find any alarming indications of
race suicide, either.
| / suppose it Is this draining away of
| youthful vigor and courage that has left
New England In so pessimstic frame of
mind-the mood of ."Locksley Hail Sixty
Years Later"-with the general impression
that the world is going all wrong in these
degenerate days, the idea that the only
hope for the country is Ito suppress most
of the newspapers and all the public
schools" that has made II. in short, the
; home of the mugwump and the anti-im-
| perialist. This mood of the revered ances-
tor Of many of US Though probably not so
large a proportion here as farther north
. Emigration follows parallels of latitude -
!, as Eggleston says has moved the club
woman to this respectful remonstrance,
which, for his better understan ding, she has
|; expressed in his own speech:
, When gret-gran' Their come OF old acrost tM
| a-sailin'.
tell yeou, lack OF enterprise II want noway
his failin'.
| He fit the Injuns with hand and hoed his
row with 'tother,
An the want nary chap aroun' could stand
agin him. nuther
. His farm mostly cobbestones, filled in with
sand ana gravel
A likely place to start from IL you should want
to travel
Yet workin' hard and fgsern' close, inventln'