Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1907-11-21
BILL NYE
By Bill Barlow.

found self-consciousness of the re-
sponsibilities, have attempted to de
fine but which, when Invested of
ornate pajamas means manner of
expression. This is not the classic
analysis, nor yet is it the defini-
ton of the pcmpous literary West
Pointer-it is far and away outside
the accepted pale Of signboards set
up by critic, academicians and
other worshipers of goo6 form in
letters. Boolmen and university
professors and all the elegant di--
lettanti whose long suit is verbal
beauty sauced with canned culture
pretend to a knowledge of estab-
lished and orthodox schedule of
emotional and creative conception
which they hold in holy awe and
whereby the literature of the world
is solemnly and irrevocably weigh
ed. According to these gifted CEN
sors and their book of rules none Of
the earlier writer's knew what the
word "style" meant, and many of
the br'1ltrs- stars in the literary
firmamrnt Of the last few centur-
les whose york will live so long
as libraries last-were and are
1rcss barbarians. Well did Walt
Whitman exclaim that he "hated
literature. 4" Style is many-sided-
always elusive and evanescent in
any application despite the fran
tic efforts of photographers to de-
fine it, boil it down, and it means
manner Of expression.
Ont at Los Angeles the other
day occurred the annual meeting
of the american Press Humorists'
Association, comprising as its name
Indicates the boys who compel your
mentality to bump the bumps
who through stress of apostolic
appeal make the laity to laugh
Broad and bright minds, whole
souls, nimble wits who preach al
ways the gospel Of the Red Cor
puscle in that to live laugh and
love is life-these are the essentials
to membership in this holy order
the universe God made its al
tar, its vestments a smile, its pass
the Good Word and its grip the
honest glad hand. All of these
men and women have genius-all
have plucked a leaf or two of the
laurel-and yet according to
their Interpretation of classic
ethics none of them are nor can
they ever be known to real litera-
ture--they've no style, doncher
know. Methinks the millions who
comprise the mob and into whose
lives these people bring the sun
shine of laughter, and the unfor-
tunates to whom they fling a many
flower in the face of fearsome
fate, will hardly accept the die
tum of these formal pedants as
final. Nor have they-witness
their announced determination to
erect at his old Wyoming home
monument to one of their number
has gone over the range-Bill Nye,
a humorist who probably never
looked up the word "style" with
reference to its shop possibilities
and vet one man of world who
originated one of his own.
1t was my good fortune to know
Nye the man, and Nye the mimi
table-one and the same, of course;
but before and after. He came to
Laramie as a lawyer-which was
no crime at that time because most
of us in the then territory were
travelling under assumed names
and lika impedimenta, and to ques
ton a passport was neither polite
nor politic-although, somehow, it
got out on him after a while that
it wasn't really so. I recall now
that my acquaintance with him be-
gan with the discovery that he
combined rare leisure with natural
inclination to absorb and shed
news. 1 was doing what 1 then
thought was tcity" on the old
Laramie Times, and after allowing
few hours for early sidewalk
assimilation, could always count on
him for a column. Eventually he
got job as associate editor on the