Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-15
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

The making of what might be termed
permanent authors is an interesting
process. During the past 20 to 80
years hundreds of men and women
have produced good books, which have
sold into the thousands of copies.
How many of these authors and how
many of their books will remain in per-
manent possession of good readers?
For a good reader is as essential to
an author as an author is to a reader.
BY good" is meant one who picks up
a book, not in a super-critical, or even
captious. humor. intent on being dis
appointed. but one with the open mind
DESTROYS of being pleased.
In considering the long list of
American books which most of us have
read. it is difficult to say surely that
any but few will remain the perma-
nent heritage of the people of the
United States.
Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer" "Huckle-
berry Finn" and 1.-THE Prince and the
Pauper'; Joel Chandler Harris Uncle
RemuS" stories, James Whitcomb Riley s
Poems" especially those in dialect and
relating to childhood; Booth Tarking-
tons "Penrod" and "Penrod and Sam:
Eugene Fields Little Boy Blue" and
other poems - here we have list
meager, yet rich.
The strange thing is that all of this
list is devoted to the child. But per-
haps this is not strange, after all. The
worship of the child has risen in this
country to unprecedented heights.
Never before in the history of the
world has the child occupied the sure
place the American boy and girl occu-
pies. Whatever it wants, it gets. 1t is
the center of attraction at all meetings
held. either in its parents home or in
the homes of friends. (The parents see
to that. in the former, and the children
in the latter)
1t is not queer, therefore, but emf
nently Just, that our small list of au-
thors sure to become the permanent
heritage of the American reading pub
lie should place such stress upon the
little ones their deeds and sayings.
They are but rejecting the spirit of the
times. They looked into their hearts,
and wrote, and their writings please all
now. and will surely please in the
future.
The child. as it is the father of the
man, must be a mighty theme, out of
all proportion to its physical size, for
the aspiring author, but only so when
he comes to his subject naturally, from
his daily life.
An auJnOf VINO SnOulQ agree Will
these sentiments. and sit himself down
before paper, declaring, Now 1 will do
something on childhood" would surely
fail. because he would not enter into the
spirit of the thing. except in aNlechan-
ical, clumsy fashion.
The child theme is universal in ~
appeal, not only because every one has
been child, but largely because OF
their rather comical reflection of the
good and bad points of their elders.
In the child, futurity looms large. 1t
is not so much what he is as what he
may be which appeals. Perhaps that is
why Tom Sawyer is perpetually inter-
esting. After he grew up, and became
Mr. Thomas Sawyer, he was just-well,
MIR. Thomas Sawyer, that is all.
But as Tom, the buddy of Huck Finn,
a rascal if there ever was one, he in
stantly becomes one with the genius of
the race, and enters into the life of
every reader.
No doubt these bad boys" of fiction
are very easy reading. The late Gov.
Peck had a bad boy who had no name
at all. as far as we know, but was known
through several volumes merely as
"Peck's Bad Boy"
AS fictional bad boys" go, that of
PeckS was a good one, but somehow he
seemed to lack the vitality of Tom and