The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-01-31

poohS pSdIlllS even IemoIe!y upOu INC
eminent North Carolinian. Prof. Dodd,
l have noticed, is a regular contributor
to the New York Saturday Review" a
very reputable literary weekly publica-
ton His interesting historical contrl
buttons, particularly upon Southern his
tory, have extended his reputation, ana
| am gratified to know that he is en-
gagged as a regular critic of American
History by the New York Times, and
has been invited to write for the large
Philadelphia publishing house of George
W. Jacobs & Co., a life of Jefferson
Davis. He IS doing a really important
work at the superior Methodist College,
Randolph Macon, named in part after our
able North Carolina statesman, and Is
now located at Ashland, north of and not
far from Richmond, Va. DR.. Dodd's de.
partment is History and Economics, and
he has made it a decided success He
has now the largest History Department
OF any college or university in Virginia.
l congratulate him warmly on this fine
success. North Carolinians of the right
kind, like Alderman, Moore, Barringer,
Dodd and others, can always succeed
when abroad, and they richly merit it all.
We wish these four were at work in their
native North Carolina, as well as some
other men of marked success who are
abroad-Dr. Dixon, DR.. Poteat and many
others. What a great help and move
2ent they could give to the car of pro-
gress in our dear old State. Their hearts
are with the grand old mother, and they
preserve intact their devotion to the
time-honored traditions, principles,
glories, faiths of the blessed old State.
They are the ind of men to aid in build
ing up a great, progressive and yet con
sentative, noble old Commonwealth.
May their tribe increase!'i 1t is hap
ply result to get rid of the class who de.
spise their old mother, would derde and
detract from her merits and virtues, and
would heap Goals of fire upon her fame
and character. While our faithful, UNI
faltering, able, conscientious, manly
young men who may so out from us may
not see historical, educational and othel
questions that appeal to reason, CON
science, intelligence and patriotism pre-
cisely as we ante-diluvianS, and ante-War
people see them who remain at home,
still they never forget the past, nor theit
motherhood, and never cease to honor,
revere and glorify the great, manly lead
ers, and the splendid deeds of the stall
wart, brave sons of North Carolina. They
would spurn as they would the devil
himself, any attempt to allure them from
the old, well-tried path of honor ana
fidelity and conscientious devotion to
: Southern manners, speech, traditions,
policies and principles. Others may tall
away and betray the cause of the great
white race in the South, but the true,
ILL
rock, amid the war of elements and the
temptations of Satan and the witcheries
of commercialism and the eternal greed
for the Almighty Dollar God bless,
honor and protect the heightened, honest
and honorable, conscientious young men
ait home and abroad,
I have been reading latterly Chaucer's
immortal Canterbury Tales, one of the
poetic glories of the English race He
was the first great poet who used Eng
lish After him there were but three
great original poets until Wordsworth,
and they were Spenser, Shakespeare and
Milton. Wordsworth was of this kind,
and since him there have been several
and most original poets. 1 name Cole
ridge. Byron, Shelley, Keats and Tenny
waited people who greatly love and adj
mire genuine poetry of a high kind who
claim for Robert Browning that he, too,
is great" in a high sense, and above
Tennyson / confess my inability after
repeated readings of what is regarded by
a capable critic as his best work, to find
that greatness or very special charm in
them they claim for him. I deny in
win orHj or in
want of taste or insight, as it may be,
that l bring myself under the ban OF
Wordsworth's saying that it proves me-
20 be without love of human nature and
reverence for Cod 1t is a pity that
Chaucer is not more read, and made
more accessible to lovers of true poetry
by being given in modernized English, or
at least in the English Of Spenser or
Shakespeare. Chaucer's English is so
early, so obscure and strange, is so ''dif-
ficult to be understanded Of tbs people,
that it is not remarkable at all that he is
-hunned, and that he practically remains
4 sealed book to the great mass OF verse
readers. He is ''caviarre to the general"
The text in the Clarendon Series" is
better than that of Tyrwhitt, and yet it
s full of trial and defeat to the great
mass of readers Patient old English
scholars learn to read it, but it is Il
task fer the uninitiated. Take a few eX-
ampIes to illustrate:
To perne halves, kouthe in scndry
londes.
This means:
To ancient saints renowned IN sundry
lands.
Here IS another:
With lokkcs crulle as they wer layd in
presse.
Which means simply:
With locks curled as they were laid
smoothly.
Another:
And cart byforn his fader at the table.
Read
And carved before his father at the
table
That stanedc as forneys of leede.
Which means:
That steamed as furnace of caldron.
Once more:
That we ne rette it nat my Vlleinye,
Which probably means:
That we ascribe it not to my lll-breed-
ing