The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1906-05-29

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medal M III II AcNHl4H IT'S ~.ot-
4aa county. freshman 8mIr'Ee.f
medal. Mr. T. T.. T1Ilrt vt I4aFHata
couua Thomas Dixon essay mefa#
Rafus Pearson. ~ Rockingham s"t1H-
~ fetI,n medal II Wax Forest
student Mr.. oscar II Maneuu -
rrssIlen, ii T.. ptte.4, ,ha ga.rr
nIce3 th, speaker - tN.
Nr bliss Perry. editor 0f thn At'au-
ne 1ioathls Boston. Mass Mr. I'rr2 :
addres, WAS q MASTERPIECE II
Gated his subject "Lit"rtr faSh-
IONS. ~ an admirable a1i pleasing
ay. III audience Wts perfectly dc
lighted with the address.
The Iitcrar, sddrc~-.
Nr. Perry spak, fu part as follows
To those who really love literature.
.rEcn IL most transient modes haN.
certain meaning and interest y"
.aae Who does not loNc literature l9i
IT'S own sake. I fear Comment
anon lis passing, e~Eer-NaE&lHG forms
max seem merely trivia. grave
treatment pf things not grave ia them
81 Iycs. The reading public u made
.up. indeed Of many who are not bofh
readers. Literature rests back upon
Of a book. The book max he
enjoyed in solitude, as one may Ike
TO ride alone along a Woodland pain.
and yet the reading of a good book
may give delight u thousands ~ adj
.mirers at once without lcSScuing any
one man's pleasure.
The new school 90 criticism hes
made rs conscious Of the origin and
development. the disappearance ~
persistencc. Of his and that element
i'm the national mind. 1t has traced
the Influence Of climate and soil. i'll
stitutions and politics. religion and
social theory. upon the subject matter
of prose and verse. This may Sounu
formidable to the layman, but from
Tame TO his latest dissenting disciple
how attractiycIy it has been served
up to us!
These trained students OF historical
periods have mapped not only tn
evolution Of ideas. but the parallel
development Of literary forms. Take.
for illustration, the period Of Puri-
tanism. There is plenty here, surely.
to reward the student of ideas, who
wishes to observe the English mind
elevated to noble heights of impas-
stoned feeling.
Fashion likcWis" plays a curious
role in tho formation of literary.
types. Let us take the displacement
Of one literary type by another, rs
for instance. the triumph OF tn"
psychological novel i'll this country
and England in the seventies. 1t Was
.asy to assert. and many critics did a.
sert. that the time for the romance
of adventure had forever gone by, that
external events had proved less sig
niGcant ana interesting. artiSticallE.
than internal states Of thought n
emotion. 1t seemed % prove the
truth of Professor Brander M~attheNs'S
pleasing theory that Fiction dealt
first with the Impossible. then with
the Imnrohable. third with the Pro
habje. and now at last with the In
cNitablc.
The sale of any book is often in
inverse ratio to its literary excel
lence. 1t is still harder to see that
the type as q type has had anything
to do with their e~Xtraordinary vogue.
When YOU simply say that the Ameri-
can historical romance has been til"
fashion, YOU come nearer the scientific
truth Of the matter.
Neither is tho craze for the book
of the hour anything new. Eyron
woke to find himself fam0uS-as he
said-in as literal a sense as amy of
the men OF women whose faces stare
US out Of c~ountenanco in tho public
prints today. The difference lies in
the universal diffusion Of the con
temporary newspaper ana magazine,
in the ready communication between
literary capitals and country readers. in
the development of the art of adver-
h'tiiS 'hoNoi'o'S - 'ty'@ -
gain than it even was before.
II short, the evolution of literary
types under contemporary conditions
does not seem 10 follow any known
law Of progress. There is action AMI
a recoil from sentiment to
brute fact and from brute fact back
to sentiments; we grow romantic OF
realistic by cycles; we shift our an
chorage from prose to poetry. aud
back again to prose. From century to
century a certain progression can in
deed be traced, but by no mean an in
variable progress from lower forms
to higher. Everywhere there is the
.invincible quest for novelty that turks
III the human spirit: the good things
come and the good things go, but
time and chance and change ana
fashion bring the best things round
again, if II will only wait.
How does fashion affect the influ-
of the great writer? | have al
ready remarked that che scientific
critic Of literature makes scaatN
allowance for his power or caprice.
1t is the nature of personality to es-
cape analysis, to defy demonstration
And precisely because a literary per-
sonality attracts Us 50 illogically, holds
US by ucn Intangible though I'M
breakable bonds, appeals to Il sub
tlest social instincts-it illustrates
even better than a literary type, the
sphere of fashions in literature.
The brutality or the spirituality al
any one author is contagious It b"
comes possible to trace the fashions
set by a single writer as they pass
over into the more general fashion,
established by a school or group Of
Let me try to sun no def
nitely the value of this study Of liter
airy fashions. 1t aids. first. our sense
of proportion as We ACE the c~OnfuSee
and OVcr-multiplying mass Of readabi'
books. 1t gives us prospective. shake
spcare was neither the savage tina
thought him, nor the anga
Mary COwden Clarke would fair
him. There viii always b.
alterations in the public
but if there were no alterations
should not appreciate so well it
normal state of sanity. More copies .
Peck's Bad boy, il is said. were sole
in q single year than Of Emerson 5
Essays in sixty wears. but that fact
has nothing to do with the relative
literary rank Of Emerson and peck
And secondly. and l suppose becauzt
II minister's To ny.n'z@ cp1CG. nf nTGDnT Il