How charming!—it affects the sensibilities like the ripple of a rill of buttermilk falling into a pig-trough. “Ist,” by the way, means (to an idiot) “just”—it is not easy to say why. Here followeth the other inspiring passage: One time Elsie start to say the rhyme “Thing a thong o’ thixpenth”—whee! I ist yell; an’ ma say I’m Unpolite as I can be. If this is not poetry, what kind of an abysmal imbecility has it the characteristic distinction to be? Mr. Riley turns off this stuff by the linear mile, it is received with enthusiasm and reviewed with acclamation by nearly every “literary critic” in America, and the peasants whose taste they share and ignorance reflect are generous enough to give him a living. Think not, observer from another land, whose eye may chance to note these lines, that all these “dialect poets” wear smocks and toil in the fields; it is the peculiar glory of this great country that its peasants wear as good clothing, pursue as high vocations and talk as glibly about art and literature as anybody. Say not in your lack of light that the American gentleman has boorish taste; say, rather, that the American boor has visible signs of the prosperity of a gentleman, and to an alien eye is not readily distinguishable from his betters. III To put a good thought, a tender sentiment, a passionate emotion into faulty words is to defile it. Does a precious stone acquire an added value from a setting of brass? Is a rare and excellent wine better when drunk out of a gourd? In Herman Scheffauer’s first book, _Of Both Worlds_, are two little poems of such naturalness, simplicity and beauty that I hardly know of anything better in their kind. My purpose in quoting them here is, partly, to bring them to the attention of those who may be unfamiliar with Mr. Scheffauer’s work, but chiefly to suggest to the “dialect poets” that they undertake to give them an added charm by rewriting them in their own manner. THE SLEEPERS The winds lie hushed in the hill And the waves upon the seas; The birds are mute and still, Deep in their dreaming trees; The earth lies dumb in night, And the stars in their degrees Sleep with the suns in space, With angels, with seraphs bright, In the light of God His face. Softly lie the heads Of the sleepers in their beds; But the sleepers in the ground— They alone sleep sweet and sound, They alone know rest profound. Fear not—soon a rest as deep Comes to thee—thou, too, shalt sleep. MISERERE The last few prayers are done, The pall and shroud are spread; Seven tapers at thy feet And seven at thy head. Thy hands are crossed upon Thy bosom white where now Thy heart is stilled. O Death, How beautiful art thou! CRIME AND ITS CORRECTIVES