The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-04-20
BOOKS GOOD AND bAO--P0OR CRITICS :
IMPORTANCE Of CORRECT PRONUNCIATION
By DIR. T. B. KINGSBrRY. Z
By DIR. T.. b. ~kINGSBIRy

omission of the graces Of style and
invention, while remaining destitute Of
those liner qualities so essential in ex-
celent fiction, genius and variety and
humor. Ii YOU read the current
magazines you will find that almost
every day the very best novel of the
year appears almost every day. What
a great waste Of time and abuse Of
taste it is to be reading the absurdl5
lauded publications Of interested pub
fishers and the wild praise of stories
that should have died a-bornin'. >
You Will read all sorts Of laudatiOn.
baseless n bsu and brainless,
without merit of any kind and abSO-
lutely brainless and destitute of all
claims upon intelligence. Sound and
truthful, safe books are avoided and
the thin, VagrantebOOkS are read with
relish and praise. l learn from a
British ewspap that the American
books of immense popularity meet
with but little favor in the old coun-
try. Artful advertising has had much
to do with the large sales beyond seas
of American latter-day novel Artful
advertising sometimes accomplishes a
vast deal. AS a general thing the Wo-
men are the main readers Of the new
novels, and with few executions they
end their cultivation in literature with
them. The masters of fiction have a
few WOrshipperS among them, But un-
fortunately they do not extend the
work into the higher realms of the
story. Cultured men. who really love
letters, read the great writer's in fic-
ton, and the great authors generally.
but they are "cavianne to the general
to use the great Thackeray's own coin
age. Of the ways Of the publishers
the great London Daily News says that
"a book cashes in hopefully for all it
is worth, the publisher Blooms it for
all it is WORTH His newspaper ad-
vertisements, his posters, his catch
lines YOU'D be regarded by staid Eng
lish houses as Nerglng on the tricks
of the m~ountebank; but they do their
work Books. too. are dealt, IN as an
ordinary article of commerce, You
buy as some book dealers do in great
quantities.. like Wanamaker and
others, and the prices are reduced and
sales enlarged. 1t is c~ontended.
and probably with truth, that
the English novels of later
days as a general thing are better
written than the American novels. A
writer in the New York Saturday
Review" of some time 6 expressed
great contempt for recent American
writer's and dialect writer's. Another
writer agreed with him, but a thlrd
one insisted that al is not trash. He
is, however, green enough to urge that
the later fictions are superior to those
Of the past and this simply means
that the David Harum' school is
greater than that Of Victor Hugo. Du-
mas, Sue, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens,
George Eliot, George Meredith,
Charles Reade, Bulwer, Kingsley.
Charlotte Bronte and some others of
the genuinely gifted.
Truly this is one age of novel writ
ing and novel reading. In the last ten
years more than twenty thousand nov
els have been published. Their name
is indeed 'legion." And there is no
diminution in the numbers produced
annually. The cry is. still they come.
And the worst feature is they are
read, are deVoured. There is a posi-
tive craze TO read anybody's novels
about anything. Where one reader
essays to accuaint herself or himself
with the greatest, the BEST novels, ten
readers deyou- with a famished appc-
tite the latest novels by writer's OF no
fame or real ability. ] do not know
that it is done now. but some ten OF
fifteen years ago the magazines and
literary papers sent out circulars TO
certain people asking for a list OF the
ten first novels. The replies received
We're from people Of poor tastes as d
general thing, or from ignorant reau-
ers as well as from people of attain
ments and qualifications. Some or the
lists published were r~idIculously
laundering and stupid. ] saw BOOKS
selected that had but little II any
merit-not even third or fOurth rate.
With the tremendous production OF
novels bow very important then 70
select with care. to discriminate-to
know just what to read-and partlcu-
larly to know what not TO reao. re
member this always, that 1t taxes
quite as much time to reau q pooi
book as it takes to read a Sooo DON.
1t is a waste OF time ana oDpott"hi's
TO employ it on a poor book IT You
can get a better one. Read the pest
of everything. Do not consume pre-
ious time-tnat comes not PACK asan
in pouring over third-rate theoloss
and history and biography ana poe'ls
and so on, when you have access -
the masters in all the great Aelo7