Arizona republican., 1909-05-12

trate with a single sentence
 Which l performs said equestrian isms to amoose that she shorthorn
 who is cussin' us out" says Steve. T ain't permittin' for her to go back to
 the states, malignin' of us cow-men." l The Inversion of which" is first to
 be noted; then the use of the present tense in describing a past act in per
 forms" then of said" a legal form;
 then of the long and somewhat tech
 nical word 'equestrianisms.' twisted
 to indicate illiteracy; the equally
 technical and illiterate "she-shorthorn"
 and at last the phrase 'malignin' us : cow men" Each one of these words
 or constructions convey color-"which"
 is quaint and provincial; the present | tense is vivid; said is formal and impressive; equestrianisms is erudite
 to a degree, and she-shorthorn" con
 veys the expected Western swagger-
 but if we go farther and coldly en- | quire ':1s that color true?" the
 answer must be No" Much as I re-
 gret to cast aspersions upon such a
 merry story-teller I am convinced that
 Mir. Lewis, who has a color mind" ! has invented this picturesque dialect to amuse us. And now we get back to Bret Harte. Whence comes that pe- l culiar form, the beginning of a sen
 tence with which? Apparently from
 a little poem entitled, Plain Language ! from Truthful James,
 Which wish to remark,
 And my language is plain,
 | That for ways that are dark
 And for tricks that are vain,
 The heather Chinee is peculiar Which the same I would rise to eX- plain.
 And of course Bret Harte is it's author. He made a reputation on two
 continents by writing it, so perhaps
 Mir. Lewis was justified in grating it 1 onto prose. And it is so western! But if all writers would keep as close to the ground as Alfred Henry Lewis if they would all visit the territory ! and endeavor to find some Roaring Camp where the rough red-shirted miners are working day and night shifts caring for the little child of an Indian prostitute, there would be wave of relief in Arizona reading cir cles. For whatever you say against the reality of Alfred Henry Lewis writings. he is never maudlin. and I cannot concede that to Bret Harte Having visited Jamestown and Sonora and Table Mountain--nOt as a devotee to shrine. but upon other affairs and having talked with men who knew Bret Harte and the mines, feel justified in saying that he never tried to tell the truth, but like a true artist, aimed only at the effect. It is the misfortune of the west, however, that it must always be interpreted from the east: and as the editor of The Atlantic Monthly had to be called in before the pulsing heart of the child could be un- derstood, so the western story of to- day has to be compared to The Luck of Roaring Camp" or Miss" before it can be pronounced authentic. Bret Harte is the touchstone and though men should rail against him for hun- dred years he would still hold his place in literature
 The English, so they say, recognize but three great American authors Bret Harte, Walt Whitman and Joaquin Miller: the east comedies the distinction of all but Walt-he is one Of them, and somehow they resent his uncouth statements; the west never did have much to say for Harte and Joaquin because they make us out an aggregation of savages. Run it down now, and you will see how Arizona feels when the eastern writers and edi- tors play the territory up for a land of violence and lawlessness. Several years ago the territorial legislature sent formal protest to the publishers of the Arizona Kicker-back in New York They objected to the misrepresentation which came from quotations from an imaginary paper, supposed to be pub lished in land where the editor took a shot at ir7te subscribers and indig- nant citizens and then sneaked into his iron safe for cover. owen Mister is not welcome in all parts of Arizona he played them up too strong and the simple minded natives were look ing for him when he came back. Will jam Vaughn Moody has probably never been within a thousand miles of Ari- zona-which is his only legitimate ex- cuse for picturing it in The Great Di- vide" as a land where three men could Nophui' tlilN cast lplS TUT Il woman, ana the community stand for it. It is funny how the booking agents of all these great western plays buy through tickets when they hit the real scenery. the kind that is painted on the back curtains, but the man who knows the real thing often lacks a true perspec- tive in art. It makes him laugh to see stephen Ghent working a mine up in the cliffs of the Grand Canyon: he weeps to see the poor heroine trying to buy back a string of nuggets by 1 making Navajo blankets-but they do it, both of them, quick and easy.
 The native of a country is the same the world over. He comes to you with a lot of facts and says: Now here. | that's the real thing-go ahead and make story out of it." The poor devil doesn't know that fact never did |