Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1884 — Literary Sharpshooting. [ARTICLE]

Literary Sharpshooting.

Drawing social types is a species of literary diversion that has its attendant quicksands. If there is any vitality in, the sketch at all a personality is sure to be suggested, and thereby follows friction, silent or suppressed, as may be. If the supposed victim is a person of tact he will never express his suspicions, however active they may be; if, on the other hand, he is impelled by temperament toward sharp corners he will find them in abundance. But it is more than an even question, after all, whether this style of writing is really very high art; whether it is not to literature a little what the tricks of a clown are to amusements—something at which the crowd will laugh, but which never yet edified or improved anybody. And the writer who has any realization of the higher privilege of his calling would-nather sacrifice this transient flash of flame, however brilliant, than deliberately to wound • the sensibilities of any indiyidaal. Personal peculiarities, except when generalized, are hardly fair targets for literary shartshooters.— Lilian Whiting's Letter.