It is not really a question of Literature's position toward dialect that we are called upon to consider, but rather how much of Literature's valuable time shall be taken up by this dialectic country cousin. This question Literature her gracious self most amiably answers by hugging to her breast voluminous tomes, from Chaucer on to Dickens, from Dickens on to Joel Chandler Harris. And this affectionate spirit on the part of Literature, in the main, we all most feelingly indorse. Briefly summed, it would appear that dialect means something more than mere rude form of speech and action--that it must, in some righteous and substantial way, convey to us a positive force of soul, truth, dignity, beauty, grace, purity and sweetness that may even touch us to the tenderness of tears. Yes, dialect as certainly does all this as that speech and act refined may do it, and for the same reason: it is simply, purely natural and human. Yet the Lettered and the Unlettered powers are at swords' points; and very old and bitter foemen, too, they are. As fairly as we can, then, let us look over the field of these contending forces and note their diverse positions: First, _the Lettered_--they who have the full advantages of refined education, training, and association--are undoubtedly as wholly out of order among _the Unlettered_ as the Unlettered are out of order in the exalted presence of the Lettered. Each faction may in like aversion ignore or snub the other; but a long-suffering Providence must bear with the society of both. There may be one vague virtue demonstrated by this feud: each division will be found unwaveringly loyal to its kind, and mutually they desire no interchange of sympathy whatever.--Neither element will accept from the other any _patronizing_ treatment; and, perhaps, the more especially does the _Unlettered_ faction reject anything in vaguest likeness of this spirit. Of the two divisions, in graphic summary,--_one_ knows the very core and centre of refined civilization, and this only; the _other_ knows the outlying wilds and suburbs of civilization, and this only. Whose, therefore, is the greater knowledge, and whose the just right of any whit of self-glorification?