of being tedious as to indicate more clearly why it
was that many of the truly heroic ancestors of "our
best people" grew unquestionably dialect of caste
--not alone in speech, but in every mental trait and
personal address. It is a grievous fact for us to
confront, but many of them wore apparel of the
commonest, talked loudly, and doubtless said "thisaway"
and "thataway," and "Watch y' doin' of?"
and "Whur yi goin' at?"--using dialect even in
their prayers to Him who, in His gentle mercy,
listened and was pleased; and who listens verily
unto this hour to all like prayers, yet pleased; yea,
haply listens to the refined rhetorical petitions of
those who are NOT pleased.

There is something more at fault than the language
when we turn from or flinch at it; and, as
has been intimated, the wretched fault may be
skulkingly hidden away in the ambush of OSTENSIBLE
dialect--that type of dialect so copiously produced
by its sole manufacturers, who, utterly stark and
bare of the vaguest idea of country life or country
people, at once assume that all their "gifted pens"
have to do is stupidly to misspell every word;
vulgarly mistreat and besloven every theme, however
sacred; maim, cripple, and disfigure language never
in the vocabulary of the countryman--then smuggle
these monstrosities of either rhyme or prose somehow
into the public print that is innocently to smear
them broadcast all over the face of the country they