The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1912-02-06

that went to make hin what ne WAS.
Fdward Eggicston gives the creed
Of the entire school IN these WORDS.
('"rhe Forum November, leso'
If We're q Gispassionate critic ana
were set to Judge my own novels IS
the writings Of another. | should say
hat what distinguished them from
other works of fiction is the prornl-
hence hich they give to social con-
ditions, that the individual characters
are here treated to Il greater degree
than elsewhere as parts Of a study OF
q societv-as in some sense the loG-
zeal results OF the
Whatever may be the rank assigned
to these stories as works OF literary
art, they viii always have q certain
value as materials for the student
of social history. Not that in writing
them any such purpose was con
~sciously present; it is what we q"
without exactly intending it that is
most characteristics" Bret Harte
voices the same general opinion.
Though Poe and Hawthorne, he
SAYS (The Cornhill Magazine. July,
1890. wrote excellent short stories.
their work did not Indicate sufficient
knowledge of American geography.
BY American geography Harte means
more than mere place; he means the
distinctive institutions OF American
society as conditioned by locality. lie
mas IN nina the lIStltltt VI hlIi14oSS,
as HOWellS uses the phrase in TINS
: sentence: CThe North American Re
/ view, March, 1910. He IS discussing
5 Mr.. Harben's Georgia fiction, If the
reader will try to hin what the sta G
r Of polite learning would no"
: be among US, II each OF ouf
authors had studied TO ignore, us they
: have each studied to recognizes. the
value Of the character and tradition
r nearest about them. | believe he will
n agree with me hat W. owe every
a thing that we now are in literature to
Q their instinct Of vicinage. Now the
a instinct of vicinago" lies at the basis
of representative institutionalism in
literature. and this instinct. though
not wholly absent from our short
n stories written before 1870, did not
become dominant and characteristic
until The decades following.
In American humor the question is,
DO we laugh with the individual and
II at the group. or at the indiYldual and
IL with the group? The answer is not
n far to seek: the American people
} laugh with the individual, with the
8 man who maintains an inGefeaslblt
/ possession Of himself; they laugh a
II, the man whom the conventional trap
y pings OF instituticnalisn seem tc
have dc-indiEidua!ized and thus t
II have converted into The ComplaCcti
~ representative Of a group. The but
- is usually an OtIice-holder, because IL
- the popular mind the toga Of office
70 whether in church or state, tends Il
~ institutionaliZc, The officer become
the man on horseback. and in wits
,. CoInbats popular sympathy is over
mt Whellningly with the pedestrian. On
re illustration will suffice. You remem
Der the story that sent John Allen
10 OF Mississippi, to Congress. He ha'
been a private in the war, his com
10 petitor a high officer. The most fetch
o ing appeal that Aliens competito
q used to make was his vivid descrip
II ton OF the night before Gettysburg
us Allen found it hard to offset this ap
u peal, which ran about as follows
r Fellow citizens. so Wit me in imag
nj %ination to the night preceding tn
awfu! arnag CT Gettysburg. Can
'd, ever forget it, Never. l lay in m
m, tent thinking Of the morrow. Naugl
no was heard but the drip, drip. drip {
OK the pitiless RAIN and the tram
70 tramp. tramp Of the lone sentinel WI
70 guarded my tent Il was thai loI
sentinel" called out MI. Allen, al
-, the tables were Immediately and G
~fectually turned. That seems to n
iSe eminently characteristic Of America
'th hurnor and equally characteristic
rs the American people. 1t is not tn;
'he We s~y1npathize with the underdog-
though We dot IS rather our il
81, Seiutlise Del!eI lidt the uIoIuccft
Individual is more genuine. mo
real, more deserving than the ms
~ whom fortune has clothed with son
" form of institutionalis,n.
Mark Twain seems to me our mo
representative humOrist, because
is invariably for the individual al
ms against the institution. Read hi
or again and note how consistently I
,on laugh is at the expense Of the m.
no who holds In Office and who m
car therefore DC consioeTeu as not
In nucl an lnuisluuai as thH represent
'me ave OF y SFoup, the exponent OF l
ro- StitutiOnalism. American hum
ave stands ~squarely by Burns's ringi
words:
no =. 80,
tri- ' niah hhiS
as
IN. But an hOncSt mans atOon