"What books does he riccomind? Iv course there's such folklore as
Epicbaulus in Marsupia an' th' wurruks iv Hyperphrastus. But it shows
how broad an' indulgent th' doctor's taste is that he has included
Milton's Arryopatigica, if I have th' name right. This is what ye might
call summer readin'. I don't know how I cud describe it to ye, Hinnissy.
Ye wudden't hardly call it a detective story an' yet it ain't a problem
play. Areopapigica is a Greek gur-rul who becomes th' iditor iv a daily
newspaper. That is th' beginnin' iv th' plot. I won't tell ye how it
comes out. I don't want to spile ye'er injymint iv it. But ye'll niver
guess who committed th' crime. It is absolutely unexpicted. A most
injanyous book an' wan iv th' best sellers iv its day. There were four
editions iv thirty copies each an' I don't know how manny paper-covered
copies at fifty cents were printed f'r circulation on th' mail coaches.
I'm not sure if it iver was dhramatized; if it wasn't, there's a chanst
f'r some manager.
"The darin' rescue iv Areopatigica be Oliver Cromwell--but I won't tell
ye. Ye must read it. There ar-re some awful comical things in it. I
don't agree with Uncle Joe Cannon, who says it is trashy. It is light,
perhaps even frivolous. But it has gr-reat merit. I can't think iv
annything that wud be more agreeable thin lyin' in a hammock, with a
glass iv somethin' in ye'er hand on a hot day an' readin' this little
jim iv pure English an' havin' a profissor fr'm colledge within aisy
call to tell ye what it all meant. I niver go f'r a long journey. I mane
I niver go f'r a long journey without a copy iv Milton's Agropapitica in
me pocket. I have lent it to brakemen an' they have invaryably returned
it. I have read it to men that wanted to fight me an' quited thim. Yet
how few people iv our day have read it! I'll bet ye eight dollars that
if ye wait till th' stores let out ye can go on th' sthreet an' out iv
ivry ten men ye meet at laste two, an' I'll take odds on three, have
niver aven heerd iv this pow'ful thragedy. Yet while it was runnin' ye
cudden't buy a copy iv th' Fireside Companyon an' f'r two cinchries it
has proticted th' shelves iv more libries thin anny iv Milton's pomes,
f'r Hogan tells me this author, who ye hardly iver hear mentioned in th'
sthreet cars at th' prisint moment, was a pote as well as an author an'
blind at that, an', what is more, held a prom'nent pollytickal job. I
wondher if two hundred years fr'm now people will cease to talk iv
William Jennings Bryan. He won't, but will they?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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