virtues of those other eight delightful strings in the Great National Instrument. No one enjoyed more than he the liquid and incomprehensible softness of the Creole, the penetrating, nasonic strength of the Yankee, the delicious independence of the Hoosier, the pine-sweet, redwood-calm transcriptions of the prose-laureate of the West. He loved them all, and he gloried in the literary monument of which they were the separate stones. To do Mr. Cryder’s oration justice would be a feat which no modest novelist would attempt. Those who would read that memorable speech in its entirety and its purity will find it in the archives of the club, in the sixth volume of the Sessional Records. After reading brief and pithy extracts from the nine most famous dialect stories of the day, he sat down with the applause of approval in his ears. Hermia turned to Mr. Overton: “He was guying, I suppose,” she said. Mr. Overton stared. “Certainly not,” he said, severely. “The value of precisely rendered dialect is incalculable.” Hermia, quite snubbed, said no more; and in a few moments, Mr. Duncan, a shrewd, humorous-looking little Scotchman, rose to reply. “I have nothing whatever to say in contradiction to Mr. Cryder’s remarks regarding the value of dialect,” he said, looking about with a bland, deprecating smile. “On the contrary, I have yet another word to add in its favor. I hold that the value of dialect to the American author has never yet been estimated. When a story has a lot of dialect, you never discover that it hasn’t anything else. (Laughter, and a surprised frown from Cryder.) Furthermore, as America is too young to have an imagination, the dialect is an admirable and original substitute for plot and situations.” (Laughter and mutterings; also a scowl from Cryder.) “Again, there is nothing so difficult as the handling of modern English: it is a far speedier and easier road to fame to manipulate a dialect familiar to only an insignificant section of our glorious sixty millions.” (“Hear, hear!” from a pair of feminine lips, and many sympathetic glances at Cryder’s flashing eyes.) “Yet again, the common fault found with our (I wish it understood that I speak always from the standpoint of the country which I have adopted)—with our writers is lack of passion. Now, nobody can be expected to be passionate when groaning in the iron stays of dialect. Dialect is bit and curb to the emotions, and it is only an American who is sharp enough to perceive the fact and make the most of it. What is more, pathos sounds much better in dialect than in cold, bald English, just as impropriety sounds better in French, and love-making in Spanish. Contrast, for instance, the relative pathos of such sentences as these—the throbbing sadness of the one, the harsh bathos of the other: ‘I done lubbed you, Sally!’ ‘I loved you, Maria.’” (Laughter from one side of the house; ominous silence from the other.) “Truly, ’tis in the setting the jewel shines. I would like to