The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-06-08
Some North Cardinals Great Men-IS Genuine
Literature in Danger Work For Americans
BY DIR. ]. B. KINGsBURY.
BY DIR. L. b.

word of any other North Carolinian
at any time after the revolution"
He was indeed a very great gov
eInOr, as any one must think who is
familiar With his very unique and i'm
preSslNe record. He was certainly a
in 1880. in Wilmington, could posi-
bly, doubt that. The very gifted
North Carolinian, the tall Col. D.. K.
McRae, who was by no means SDe-
cially partial to Vance, as [ happen
to know, as we were walking togeth-
er after the delivery of Nance's two
hour speech, said to me-: That was
the greatest political speech / eve
heard My reply was one of prompt
assent, for | so thought, wrote then
and repeated more than once in print
later on. / say it was the greatest
political speech / ever beard in my
long life of nearly eighty-one years,
! and l have had the good fortune to
have heard, some several times Bad
ger, Henry w. Miller. D.. K. McRae,
4. w. N%enablc, Romulus NJ. Saunders,
roy John W. Morehead, John Kerr,
Henry Clay, Kenneth Roger, Gov.
FoWle, and some other men of fame
and marked ability. There will be
always a difference OF view in the es-
innate of men, and not confined to
speakers or writer's Of any kind. There
are ever a few who canno see that
Shakespeare was the greatest genius
in all the l~teratures Of the world.
People not only differ as to the great
ness of men. bat as to what really
constitutes true greatness. Some peo-
pie have been infatuated and blind
enough to hold that Lord Bacon Wrot
Shakespeare plays. Those who Yer
read Lord Campbel's Lives of the
Lord Chancellors.'' know how very
little of a poet Lord Bacon. The speci-
mems given show him to be a poet
aster of no high gifts. We are liable
to err III u judgments.
The culture and taste bound by the
great popularity of special publica-
tons, English writer's Of ability as
Well as American writer's for periOdi-
Gals nave discussed danger for gen
uin literature in the power and in
fluence of journalism as expressed in
newspapers and cheap magazines. The
large newspapers have invaded the
province of letters. and have eXerted
UPON it q rather deadening influence.
readers of the great newspapers
find SO much that is entertaining and
Instructive in the way Of news. spec
ulatlOn. gossip and opinions that they
have but little to turn to
the Q~uarterlies. the foremost month
lies and other leading publications,
"fletneT the are response
bic or not for the palpable decay in
the average reading of the millions. l
may not undertake to determine. 1t
is certain. | suppose, that there is a
more painful lowering of taste and
culture, and the intense hunger for
the meretriciOus, the sensational, the
IS so conspicuous as to be
known and read of all men. It is in
structiNe as We'll as suggestive to
take a copy each of the OremO il
Illustrated mOnthlieS as well as other
publications that aim at materiatistic
and them with their
twenty and thirty years ago.
/ did that one some time since and
the superiority of the matter of the
Old one the new was most manifest.
Mr.. Julian Hawthorne, the only son
of the greatest Of all American novel
Nathaniel Hawthorne, has writ
a suggestive paper for the New
YOrk "Critic.' in which he takes the
position that literature Of the genu-
inc Kind is injured very much if not
destroyed by what is termed Journal
The invasion Of the domain of
punliterature is minus abable Mr..
Hawthorne. a distinguished writer Of
some fifty-five years or so has express