Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-28

| an essential of public speaking, pecul-
iarly exemplifled now over the radio
writing.
It is part of consideration for the
reader. Why shock the man who be-
lieves in you enough to loosen up with
$3.50 to So every half year or so?
on course; you can give him the raw
details OF life, saturate him with blood,
sex, misery and then look as trium-
phantly as Jack Horner did when he
stuck In his thumb and pulled out his
plum.
You can do it, but why? For too
long the why" has been answered
simply, "Oh, just in order to shock
'em!"
Well. Dickens knew about sex, too.
Probably men were men and women
were women then. But he chose rather
TO let 1t alone, and to devote his writing
time to other aspects of life.
Yes, there are other aspects, although
one might not know it after reading
some OF these "beSt sellers
Dickens knew that his readers, sitting
In soft chairs, beside shaded lights,
amid decency, if you please, demanded
the standards of decency in what they
read.
He began easily, quietly, with the
saving grace of humor, and he con-
t1nued so. He did not attempt to cram
large portion of obscenity down the
tnroats OF his readers in the name of
pep, punch and progress.
y \ X
Dickens had, If it may be nut this
way, the French quality.
Right here let us say that If any
reader thinks that the French quality
IN novel refers to nudity in art he is
very much mistaken. The French
quality, the real glory of their fictional
art, is a certain honesty of statement
which yet is as far from the too vulgar
honesty of some modern American
writer's as anything can be.
A French novel of the real type gives
you life, but it gives 1t to you with a
saving grace, as BELTS civilized writing
for civilized readers. It recognizes the
facts. but the hospital case attitude
Is left out. Even the crudeSt of Zola's
novels presents life with a smile. Yes,
lola, too, had the saving grace of
humor. We challenge any one to read
the scene about the feast of the goose,
in "L'ASSommoir, and not realize that
it Is the Dickens quality all over again.
1t may strike some as strange that
we attribute a French quality to the
eminently British Charles Dickens. The
clue, however, has been given. The
sterling honesty Of purpose of French
fiction incorporates humor, and at the
same time makes no demand that every
writer be like it. In other words, the
typically French quality of Dickens was
not much like chat of Daudet, it must
be admitted, but it still was the same
too, in that it was grammatical, honest,
restrained, conservative, humorous, con-
Siderate.
The so-called general reader well may
watch the movement we have indicated
with interest. Perhaps we have credit
ed Charles Dickens with too much by
saying that some of the younger
noveliSts are going back to him, when
they seem inclined to throw over the
chains forged upon them by the
literary movement of modern times
These youngsters are pioneers. It was
to them, as much as to any, that Walt
Whitman addressed those proud words
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lessons,
wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the
burden, and the lesson.
PioneerSl o PioneerSL"