The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-06-13
CONDENSED LITERATURE

Purveyors and perpetrators of literature have come to the
conclusion that too much white paper is being used in printing
and too much time is spent in reading the standard literature OF
the world, and they are going to condense it and give 1t to US IN
short meter, or tabloid form. Much good can be done along TINS
line il the activities are properly directed.
The three-volume novel of some years ago can be abridged
without injury. When a chapter begins "Ten Years Later" it
could be made to read Twenty Years Later and thus save ten
years OF inane recital every now and then, There never was a rea-
SON why Sir Walter SCOTS "Peveril OF the Peak for instance
should have been dragged out and attenuated as he wrote 1t.
Besides couriers, courticrs and petty officers, it contains los char
acters, many OF them of no Importance. If they had never lived
the world would have been none the poorer and their place in lit
eraturc were better filled by a vignette or a comic cartoon.
Many people believe that much Of Browning ought to be
strapped. Nineteen out OF twenty who read mi. Sludge, the
Medium" will lay down the book, wondering what it is all about
and why it was written or printed. 1t has a meaning and it is a
clever piece OF work. 1t is as keenedged and as mordant a
satire as may easily be found in any book,
A very clever Scotchman named Home posed as a spiritualist.
He was a great humbug, but a man OF impressive personality; so
much so that the gentleman who exposed his charlatanism and
rascalty was induced to lend him a large sum OF money after
talking to him for a while. The theme was worthy the keen wit
Of Browning and he made the most of it, Without knowing its
purpose, a very pious person might read it over the second time
as a penance for some great sin, but not otherwise.
The Ring and the Book" is a dreary puzzle to those who read
the pitiful tragedy, but it is a profound psychological study to
those who know the story, and it contains masterpieces unsur-
passed in any language. The beautiful character of Pompila and
OF Caponsacch, the young priest, who rescues her, are the work of
a literary Phidias, and the speech Of the pope rises in solitary
rmagnhicence above everything else that the mind can recall as
"Satan's Address to the Sun rises like a Chimborazo above all
other peaks in Paradise L.ost"-and there are MANY. and of great
altitude.
Homer is SO implacably literal that it were difficult to con-
dense him, yet Pliny tells us that at one time the entire "a books
were copied in so small a handwriting that they could be shut up
IN a nut shell, from which it may be inferred that there were
coconut shells in Phys day, and probably liars, also. II the first
half OF the second book could have been shut up in a nut shell in
Plinys day and left there, the recording angel would have many
pages OF cuss words less charged up against students, and there
would be fewer men prematurely gray.
Milton is so loftly literary that to eondense him would be
like reducing the size of the Colosseum at Rome.
A good many books could be skipped and not read. but who
is going to keep young men from reading Fieldings tom Jones'
Byron's Don Juan Boccaccio's "Decameron,' Rabelais' Gar.
gantua and Pantagruel and modern books by the females of The
species that are engagingly "smutty"2
Who is going to condense Carlysle's ierky, nervous, epieram
matte History Of the French Revolutions The Scandinavian
Sagas and Eddas are too alluring to miss, and who dare Glide one
line IRON Lives of the Saints" Of the halcyon days when storie,
IN print, however preposterous, were implicitly believed? Man,
people have lived to a ripe old age who never read Bacon;
"Abridgment of the Laws OF England" but until recent years M
lawyer was supposed to rpen and become richly mellow unless
he had wrestled with the hog Latin Of these countless pages.
Fitzgerald compressed the tetrastichs Of Omar Khavvam, bu
there was only one Omar-and one Fitzgerald.
Anyone who masters the Harvard classics will obtain as mucl
from books as one mind can contain, and some OF it will STAY wifi
him perhaps into the second year.
On the whole it might be better to let the books alone. NJ
human being can have a cubit added to or taken from his stature
neither should a book.
The writings Of Strabo, Thucydides and Herodotus show ii
a world that no longer exists. Condensed literature, forsooth
Each reader can do his own condensing. When a work no lonpe
pleasures or interests it can be laid aside. No one reads too muc
and he can waste time on short stories as we'll as on long one,
The only difference is that it requires a greater number of then
No one obtains too much, The mind will overflow, but neve
explode. No matter how busy the gettery may be, the forgotten
is keeping pace with it and often outstrips it. No one can kno.
all literature. Such an ambition is
"The desire OF the moth for the star"
- Meantime the weeds are growing IN .be cotton, .na .a..E.ta