Bisbee daily review., 1909-05-16

sundry twists and diversions of fam liar forms of construction. To illus trate with a single sentence:
 (Which I performs said equestrian fsms to amoose that she shorthorn rho is cussin' us out" says Steve. Il ain't permittin' for her to go back
 Q the states. malignin' of us cow men,"
 The inversion of which is first to be noted; then the use of the present tense in describing a past tct in performs" then of said" a
 egal form; then of the long and somewhat technical word equestrian isms," twisted to indicate illiteracy: the equally technical and illiterate 'shekhor1horn and at last the phrase "maligin' us cow-men.' Each one of these words or constructions convey color--"which" Is quaint and provincial: the present tense is viy- i'd: "said' is formal and impressive: equestrianisms is erudite to degree and "she-shorthorn" conveys the ex. pected western swagger-but if we go farther and coldly enquire: ''E hat color true?" the answer must he No" Much as regret to cast as pensions upon such a merry story teller, ! am convinced that Mir. Lewis gho has a color mind" has invented this picturesque dialect to amuss us And now we get back to Bret Harte. Whence comes that peculiar form, the beginning of a sentence with "which?" Apparently from a little poem entitled Plain Language from Truthful James," Which l 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 reputation on two continents by writing it, so perhaps Mir Lewis was justified in grating it 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 ter ritory and endeavor to find some Roaring Camp where the rough red shirted miners are working day and night shifts caring for the little chlid of an Indian prostitute, there would be a wave of relief in Arizona read ing circles. For whatever you/ say against the reality Of Alfred Henry Lewis writings, he is never maudlin. and cannot concede that to Bret Harte Having visited Jamestown and Sonora and Table Mountain not as a devotee to a shrine, but up on other affairs-and having talked with men who knew Bret Harte and the mines. 1 feel justified in saving that he never tried to tell the truth. but like a true artist, aimed only al the effect It is the misfortune or the west. however. that it must al ways be interpreted from the east {; and as the editor of The Atlantic Monthly had to be called in before the pnlsing heart of the child could be understood. so the western story of today has to be compared to The Luck of Roaring Camp" or Miss before it can be pronounced authen- tic. Bret Harte Is the touchstone and though men should rail against him for a hundred 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 segregation of saTages. Run 1t down now and you will see how Arizona 1 feels when the eastern writers and editors play the territory up for d | land of violence and lawlessness. Sev' eral years ago the territorial legisla. ture sent a formal protest to the pub i fishers of the Arizona Kicker-back ' in New York They objected to the misrepresentation which came from i quotations from an imaginary paper supposed to be published in land where the editor took shot al irate , subscribers and indignant citizens and then quietly 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
 William Vaughn Moody has prob ably never been within a thousand miles of Arizona-which is his only Legitimate excuse for picturing it ir j"The Great Divide" as land where three men could capture and cast lots
 for 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 cur tains, but the man who knows tho real thing often lacks a true perspec
 tive in art. IL makes him laugh tC
 see Stephen Ghent working a mine IT
 in the cliffs of the Grand Canyon; ht weeps to see the poor heroine try
 ing to buy back a string of nuggets by making Navajo blankets-bu they do it both of them, quick anC easy
 T The native of a country is thu
 same the world over. He comes t' you with a lot of facts and says
 Now here. that's the real thing-gt
 ahead and maze a story out of it.
 The poor devil doesn't know .thal fac never did make q story-what thu
 reader wants is a jar. a shock. al
 electric thrill: something to mak'
 him forpet hiS frpiYbIes or be olat