The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-07-11
seanaal. h Literature.

Philadelphia Ledger.
 The world has been strangely slow to learn from experience the wisdom of allowing the dead to rest. The in- Junction inscribed on Shakespeare tomb is of universal application. The only aspect of an artists personality with which the world has any concern ia that which is manifested in his work. What is not so manifest It Is unnecessary to know, and frequently is better unknown.
 Shakespears was fortunate in that he had no contemporary blographer There are few petty details of his life record to interfere with our enjoy ment of the great, broad record of his character that is written in his plays. We feel in them the impress of big, wholesome. natural personality, and that suffices us. Antiquarian contro- versy over dates and documents is but digging the dust"
 We should probably be happier if we knew as little of any great poet, as we know of Chaucer and of Shakes peare Literary biography Is worse than useless If 1t be not absolutely true, and if 1t likely to be disappointing. it may interest the psychologists, It's service to literary appreciation ts questionable.
 Should anything bemofe npprofitable than controversy over the remains of Lafcadio Hearn7 The comparatively few who know Hearn's work and have recognized It's qualities care little about the personality of the man. It was obvious that his was not normal vision. a well il--ordered attitude toward life. They felt no desire to know the artist: 1t was in the pictures he painted that they took delight. No doubt the record of his curious career had q eer- tain pathological interest," but when you begin to relate A story. like this, at what arbitary point are you to stop7 It would have been better to forbear. For now a vast number of people who neyer read a line Of Hearn's will be reading so much about him and his faiiings that they will never come to any right understanding of his achievement. pr of what kind of an artist he really was.
 The incident recalls the foolish dis cussion that ia still going on as to the precise decree of drunkenness to be charged against Poe. What differ enee does 1t maker Any one might imagine from Poes writings that he was not a man of extreme sobriety; but whatever conclusion we reach as to his personal habits, the poems and the tales remain precisely the same. Why not be content with them2
 
 important literary man has led to con- troversv. Forster tried to tell the truth about Dickens, and Froude about Carlyle. and we all remember the res suit After the battle suhsided. peo- pie resumed reading Dickens and Car lyle. but they had ,to learn to forget Forster and Froude before they could renew their old enjoyment There have been biographical outrages, like the publication of the love letters of Keats that have left an impression al- most impossible to eHace.
 Thackeray judged soundiy in for- bidding a biography. though his was a wholly endearing personality. He felt that the world was concerned only with his work and not his private life. But we have all become so curious about personal details that we give more attention to scandal concerning an artist than to the art work that. if we but studied 1t. has power to make us glad.