Howells on Dante

1895

Again I say it is a great pity that criticism is not honest about the masterpieces of literature and does not confess that they are not every moment masterly; that they are often dull and tough and dry, as is certainly the case with Dante's, writes William Dean Howells in The Ladies' Home Journal.

Some day perhaps we shall have this way of stating literature, and the lover of it will not feel obliged to cheat himself into the belief that if he is not always enjoying himself it is his own fault. At any rate, I will permit myself the luxury of frankly saying that while I had a deep sense of the majesty and grandeur of Dante's design many points of its execution bored me, and that the intermixture of small local facts and neighborhood history in the fabric of his lofty creation is no part of its noblest effect.

What is marvelous in it is its expression of Dante's personality, and I can never think that his personalities enhance its greatness as a work of art. I enjoyed them, however, and I enjoyed them the more as the innumerable perspectives of Italian history began to open all about me. Then indeed I understood the origins if I did not understand the aims of Dante.

Long Bow Stories — Old Legends, Maybe Some Fact

1907

Legends of the Famous Archers of the Remote Past

Many "long bow" stories may be cited in the literature of the world, and by far the greater part of them had their origin in the remote past.

Vergil, in the "Aeneid," tells of four archers who were shooting for a prize, the mark being a pigeon tied by a cord to the mast of a ship. The first man hit the mast, the second cut the cord, and the third shot the pigeon as it flew away. The fourth archer, having nothing left at which to shoot, drew his bow and sent his arrow flying toward the sky with such speed that the friction of the air set the feathers on fire, and it swept on like a meteor to disappear in the clouds. That is a bow and arrow story that tests the strongest powers of credulity.

The stories of Robin Hood's archery, illustrated by his wonderful performance as Locksley in Scott's "Ivanhoe," are also a decided strain on one's power of belief.

The famous legend of William Tell is believed by some to have a foundation in fact. There was a Dane named Foke of whom the same story was told, and William of Cloudesley, an Englishman, is said to have shot an apple from his son's head merely to show his skill.

The majority of bow and arrow stories relate to the accurate aim of the archers, but a Frenchman, Blaise de Vigenere, tells one in which the main point is the tremendous force with which an arrow may be propelled if the bow is strong and long enough. According to his own account of the matter, he saw Barbarossa, a Turk, admiral of a ship called the Grand Solyman, send an arrow from his bow clean through a cannon ball. Whether the cannon ball had a hole in it or not he neglects to inform us.

Perhaps the most astounding of all stories about arrow shooting is that of the Indians who used to inhabit Florida. It is said that a group of them would form a circle; one would throw an ear of corn into the air; the rest would shoot at it and shell it of every grain before it fell to the ground. Sometimes the arrows would strike the ear of corn so hard and fast that it would remain suspended in the air several minutes, and the cob never fell until the last grain had been shot away. — Chicago Record-Herald.

Women's Oaths

1895

The Fair Sex Swore More in Old Times Than Nowadays

Dr. Barker Newhall, of Brown University, in his paper on "Women's Speech in Classic Literature," said: "Disconnected thought and inconsequent expression are characteristic of the female mind, and are exhibited, e.g., in oration 32 of Lysias, by the lack of connection between the sentences in one place and by the excess of it in another; while in Terence the insertion of a parenthesis often breaks the continuity. Again, we notice the prolixity of style, as shown by useless repetitions or such diffuseness and garrulity as are familiar in Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath.' Plato and Cicero tell us that women are conservative and keep many antiquated phrases. Such are found in Corndia's letter and elsewhere, while proverbs abound in Theocritus's fifteenth idyll. Women also show their emotion by pathetic repetitions and exaggeration, as in the speeches ascribed by historians to certain Roman matrons and in Alciphron's love letters. Swearing was once quite common among English women, so Juliet's nurse and Dame Quickly swear very freely, while Hotspur reproaches Kate for using the weak oaths of women. In classic antiquity the weaker sex swore the more frequently and matrons most of all. In Greece, as men swore by no goddess save Demeter, so the women by no god but Zeus, while oaths by Aphrodite were especially characteristic. In the best period Roman men never called Castor to witness, nor the women Hercules. Similarly certain interjections were the exclusive property of the women, as among some savage tribes they have peculiar names for many objects."

Stevenson as Natural Vagabond Dug Power from Life

1919

Robert Louis Stevenson called himself an idler. He was a natural vagabond who loved to go in old clothes upon his own way through the strange city haunts of the disinherited or out upon the open road. He despised smug society, but talked eagerly with all sorts of men and women. Yet even as a boy he always carried a notebook and a pencil and constantly put into words what he saw and thought and felt. He wrote until his health gave way, again and again, and then he wrote of that.

Between 1873 and 1879 he produced many of the most inspiring essays of the "Virginibus Puerisque" series. The magazines published "A Lodging for the Night," "Will o' the Mill," the fantastic "New Arabian Nights," and other stories.

In 1879 he made the journey to California in steerage and emigrant-train, determined to "learn for himself the pinch of life as it is felt by the unprivileged and poor." The hardships injured his health, but did not deter him from making the first draft of "The Amateur Emigrant." He recuperated on a goat ranch near Monterey and managed to touch some neglected children. In Monterey afterward he planned his romantic comedy, "Prince Otto."

He completed the breakdown of his health by living on starvation rations in a workman's lodging in San Francisco and working feverishly. After a dangerous illness, he married and lived in the mining camp of "The Silverado Squatters."

Thus did Stevenson the idler dig his material and his power out of life itself.