The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley — Volume 10Riley, James Whitcomb
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The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley — Volume 10
Riley, James Whitcomb
American essays; American poetry; Short stories, American
A curious thing, indeed, is this factional pride, as
made equally manifest in both forces; in one, for
instance, of the Unlettered forces: The average
farmer, or countryman, knows, in reality, a far better
and wider range of diction than he permits himself
to use. He restricts and abridges the vocabulary
of his speech, fundamentally, for the reason
that he fears offending his rural NEIGHBORS, to whom
a choicer speech might suggest, on his part, an
assumption--a spirit of conscious superiority, and
therewith an implied reflection on THEIR lack of
intelligence and general worthiness. If there is any
one text universally known and nurtured of the
Unlettered masses of our common country, it is that
which reads, "All men are created equal." Therefore
it is a becoming thing when true gentility prefers
to overlook some variations of the class who,
more from lack of cultivation than out of rude
intent, sometimes almost compel a positive doubt of
the nice veracity of the declaration, or at least a
grief at the munificent liberality of the so-bequoted
statement. The somewhat bewildering position of
these conflicting forces leaves us nothing further to
consider, but how to make the most and best of the
situation so far as Literature may be hurt or helped
thereby.
Equally with the perfect English, then, dialect
should have full justice done it. Then always it is
worthy, and in Literature is thus welcome. The
writer of dialect should as reverently venture in its
use as in his chastest English. His effort in the
SCHOLARLY and ELEGANT direction suffers no neglect--
he is SCHOOLED in that, perhaps, he may explain.
Then let him be SCHOOLED in DIALECT before he sets
up as an expounder of it--a teacher, forsooth a
master! The real master must not only know each
varying light and shade of dialect expression, but
he must as minutely know the inner character of the
people whose native tongue it is, else his product is
simply a pretense--a wilful forgery, a rank
abomination. Dialect has been and is thus insulted,
vilified, and degraded, now and continually; and
through this outrage solely, thousands of generous-
minded readers have been turned against dialect
who otherwise would have loved and blessed it in
its real form of crude purity and unstrained sweetness--
Honey dripping from the comb.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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