The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-09-11
PUTTING A TAG ON AUTHORS
John Kendrick Bangs in the September
Smart Set

John Kendrick Bangs in the September
Smart Set.
"OR a long time we have held the
view like some motorists. we are
i too coy with the horn. We are
plunging along the highway of national
greatness without sufficiently notifying
the rest of the world of our presence
thereon, and merely because we have
made modesty habit out of respect no
doubt to the teachings of our fathers.
It has always vexed us exceedingly In
| the past to hear the late Thomas Bailey
Aldrich described by literary big wigs
| in and out of this country as 1.-The Her
rick of America" Herrick, forsooth! A
goodly poet, no doubt, and we have Moth
his friends stay where they belong and
do not try to inch up to where they do
not belong.
Indeed. we admire Herrick and would
consider ourselves bereft of much that
is lovely and appealing II he were to be
taken away from us. But. much as we
have delighted in him, and fond of him
as we have ever been and shall ever con-
tinue to be, whether in his 'Hesperides,
his mobile Numbers or his 'Ignoble
Epigrams," we protest. against this I'M
due elevation OF such a poet as he is by
| using him as an eclairclssent of Al
drich.
1t is impossible to submit tamely to
the imposition of such a tag, so limited,
after all, in its significance upon a ma
tive poet whose only limitation, in so
far as his work shows that he had any
at ALL was that imposed by his own
scrupulous regard for the literary ar
tistry of his work and his own integrity
as a loyal follower of lofty literary
IDEALS Compare this of Herrick's:
~
Give me cell
To dwell
Where no foot hath
A path:
! There will I spend
And end
| My wearied years
| In tears.
Compare, we say, this bit of lyrical
gloom from the pen of the tag with the
Miltonic splendor of Aldrlch's sonnet
beginning. ~ vex me not with brooding
on the years! and you will have fair
example of the propriety Of this tagging
system so long In vogue, as it has
worked in the past and has been worked
even by certain acknowledged leaders in
American literary criticism.
And then when you have settled 1t in
your own mind, as you most assuredly
will have II you have any literary dis
cernment at all, how unjust 1t is to put
the Herricl label on such a poet as Aid
rich was, you may consider further
whether In the whole range of the work
of this seventeenth century lyrist there
was any sign of even SO little as the
germ of Tom Bailey or so much as a
glimpse into the doings of the Bad Boy
of Rivsrmouth, the narration Of which
has in other lines than poetry done SO
much to place the imperishable laurels
upon the brow of the American Herrick!
When someone mentions to us the
name of Dickens we must assert our
selves and assuming a patronizing air
reply: Dickens? All, yes. The Richard
Harding Davis of Seven Dials. Yes, he
was very good, very good, indeed-ex-
cellent In fact. We have read nothing OF
his except Daisy Miller and we liked
lit-liked 1t very much, but do you think
it at all comparable as bit of literary
genre to Van Bibber?"
Or II Thackeray is spoken of let uf
scratch our heads meditatively and muir.
muir: 'Thackeray, Thackeray; yes. we've
heard that name somewhere. Let ms
see, he was a sort of pre-Raphaelfte
Robert w. Chambers, was he not? Oh
was he that sort of British Churchill
who wrote Vanity Square or some such
book in the early Cos of the last cen
tury?"
or course we must do these things In
such way that the person to whom oul
remarks are addressed will fully under
stand that we know we'll enough that
Dickens did not write DAISY Miller