The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-05-04
NEWS or TIE BOOK WORLD

4 NAVH VI ALI OUV0 WVnGO
Gertrude Anterior Rebels Against the
canons Of American Literature-Sa
It's Up to the Makers Thereof to Or.
ganIze Literary RevolutIon-Her Tone
indicates That They Should "Do 1t
Now Women's Ways of Earning
Money.
Gertrude Atherton in The North Ameri-
can Review for May takes up battle AK
and mace and deals Amazonian blows at
Americas bourgeois literature. The
Uneasy Chair does not agree with all she
says, but it knows that if it We're among
the producers of American literature, hav-
Ing read her article, it would be vast
deal uneasier than it is now Mrs Ath-
erton begins rather mildly with Mark
Twain and Bret Harte as examples of
originality, and says that Originality is
the final and supreme touch which Sc
cures an artist permanent position on
the heights, which commands forever the
attention of the intelligent masses be-
low. Then, warming to her work, she
attacks poor American literature in way
that, perhaps, she thinks will put an end
to the miserable creature and give a har-
der child a chance to grow up and be all
she thinks literature ought to be. See
this:
American literature to-day taking it as
whole, taking no account Of it's strangely
few exceptions, is the most timid the
most anaemic, the most lacking in indi-
yidualities, the most bourgeois. that any
country has ever known. There is not a
breath Of American independence, i'm
patience, energy, contempt Of ancient, con-
yention in it. It might, indeed, be the
product of great village censored by the
village gossip"
Why do we read such stuff, anyway?
But Mrs. Atherton examines the canons
which govern the "aristocracy of Ameri-
can letters" Canon No. /. which should be
numbered as freight cars or ice wagons
are numbered-in plain figures, because
dealing with common things-reads thus:
| What never has been done never can be
done" That accounts for the harmless
| unoriginality Of American letters. Canon
No. 2 is "a firm adherence to the most
curious convention that has ever been
insisted upon in any country; that the
| world is not as it is, but as it ought to be-.
The sole taboo is not sex, by any means;
| many another tendency Of the human
| mind, many another exposition of life,
| must be forever ignored and denounced
No. 3 Fiction to be Observation-Disclosures
can erature-must be anaenic. Vigor.
vitality, richness, vividness, audacity Of
thought or phrase, any quality in shor.
which is distinctively American, must be
weeded out, bleached out, of the am
bilious author, would he receive recog-
milton as an American of letters =
No. 4: What might be called the fetish
| Of the body. Magazine editors, their con-
federate publishers, their writer's and
readers defy the body, grovel in the
dust before it, It never has done and
can do no wrong; at all events it must be
protected at every hazard and cost. Let
the brain rot The brain is Invisible and
| insignificant
No. 5: "Sleep must not be disturbed nor
even the nerves Initiated
! The nerves must not be "distressingiy
| affected" according to this last rule.
| Sensitive ladies'" must be considered in
| the making Of literature. Literature must
contain no Earring notes, else 1t must be
enjoined like baseball park or a boiler
! factory.
| It is a fair inference from the way IN
| which Mrs. Atherton presents these can
ons, that the more the literary aspirant
j smashes them the better his chances OF
producing something above the bourgeois
| in literature. If the other cancns which
Mrs. Anterior has not mentioned may be
assumed to be sound and can be safely
| followed, and these she has named can
yea. must be broken. then the production
| of that long-delayed great American novel
ought to be comparatively simple. Why
| doesn't Mrs Atherton give it to us? The
/
an advance copy in order to bring out a
column review on the day of publication
and will print the authors picture with it
/ The latest book to be drama tized is
1.-THE Gordon Elopement. by Carolyn
Wells and Harry p. Taber Doubleday.
| Page & Coz. Miss Eleanor Robson is
being mentioned for the role of Miss Ethel
Martin, the dashing young woman from
/ Columbus Ohio, who is the heroine Of
! this merry farce in fiction.
'TWIxT THE UPPER AND THE
1 NEITHER.
"That little urchin playing in the ditch,
/ What think you he designs ?-he's
1 throwing mud
lis In his lusty proletarian blood
To hate US, for, to him, we are The
4 Rich!''
"Ah, well, there's more than that we must
i endure:
Look out! Young Auto and his motor
Too late, with mud we both despatched
i are;
/ Ills in his blood; to him, we are The
Poor!'
|-Timon Of Gotham, in The Critic for May
/ A book full of valuable suggestions tt
women young and old is Cynthia Westovel
i Alden's Women's Ways Of Earning
Money, one of ..tfe Woman's Home Ii
brary.'' edited by Margaret e. Sangster
4 The author is the president general Of
the International Sunshine society She
Isays in her preface
! 1t is my Arm belief that every woman not al
4 invalid can earn her own living If she reall!
4 wants to do so. Perhaps, to make it clea
1 that am not dreaming dreams. the personal not
q ought to be admitted here. Without vanity ant
a without shame this writer say that sh,
has probably earned money at more various occu
lpetions than almost any other woman In Ameri
ca. She has made a living cooking for sixtee,
farm hands on a western ranch, teaching Dor
derland school, singing in church and concert a
q matron In great tent factory, superintendent
in d metropolitan candy factory, as inspectres
In the New York custom house, as secretary ii
the street cleaning department, as busy repor
!, ter with notebook and camera, as editor on
daily newspaper.
One Of such varied experience would
be expected to have something worth tell
j ing on the subject in hand, and the ex
i pectation Is realized by those who reas
j the book. It contains not only valuabI,
i