That, as I recall, was a powerfully long bit of description for a
nickul librury, and having got it out of his system Mr. Wheeler
wasted no more valuable space on the scenery. From this point
on he gave you action--action with reason behind it and logic to
it and the guaranty of a proper climax and a satisfactory conclusion
to follow. Deadwood Dick marched many a flower-strewn mile through
my young life, but to the best of my recollection he never shut
off anybody's sublunary prospects. If a party deserved killing
Deadwood just naturally up and killed him, and the historian told
about it in graphic yet straightforward terms of speech; and that
was all there was to it, and that was all there should have been
to it.
At the risk of being termed an iconoclast and a smasher of the
pure high ideals of the olden days, I propose to undertake to show
that practically all of the preposterous asses and the impossible
idiots of literature found their way into the school readers of
my generation. With the passage of years there may have been some
reform in this direction, but I dare affirm, without having positive
knowledge of the facts, that a majority of these half-wits still
are being featured in the grammar-grade literature of the present
time.
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