420 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, aa
it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for
the war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that -w*
never should have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet some-
thing of a plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of
that wild proposition. The Southerner of the American Hevolutioa
owned slaves; so did the Southerner of the Civil War: but the
former resembles the latter as an Englishman resembles a Frenchman.
The change of character can be traced rather more easily to Sir
Walter's influence than to that of any other thing or person.
One may observe, by one or two signs, how deeply that influence
penetrated, and how strongly it holds. If one take up a Northern
or Southern literary periodical of forty or fifty years ago, he will find
it filled with wordy, windy, flowery * eloquence,' romanticism, senti-
mentality—all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently badly done,
too—innocent travesties of his style and methods, in fact. This sort
of literature being the fashion in both sections of the countiy, there
was opportunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence,
the South was able to show as many well-known literary names, pro-
portioned to population, as the North could.
But a change has come, and there is no opportunity now Fora
Mr competition between North and South. For,, the North has
thrown out that old inflated style, whereas the Southern writer still
clings to it— clings to it and has a restricted market for his wares* as
a consequence. There is as much literary talent in the South, no^,
as ever there was, of course; but its work can gain but slight cur-
rency under present conditions; the authors write for the past, noi
the present; they use obsolete forms, and a dead language. But
when a Southerner of genius writes modern English, his book goes
upon crutches no longer, but upon wings; and they carry it swiftly
aH about America and England, and through the great English
reprint publishing houses of Germany—as witness the experience of
Mr. Cable and Uncle Remus, two of the very few Southern authors
who do not write in the Southern style. Instead of three or fora
widely-known literary names, the South ought to have a dozen sir
two—and will have them when Sir Walter's time is out.
A curiotis exemplification of the power of a single book for