Watana's book from going out and marrying Japanese
girls. They are safe from this, however, for the reason
suggested, and therefore it can be safely commended at least to
young men intending fiction, as such a lesson in the art of
imitating nature as has not come under my hand for a long while.
It has its little defects, but its directness, and sincerity, and
its felicity through the sparing touch make me unwilling to note
them. In fact, I have forgotten them.
VI.
I wish that I could at all times praise as much the literature of
an author who speaks for another colored race, not so far from us
as the Japanese, but of as much claim upon our conscience, if not
our interest. Mr. Chesnutt, it seems to me, has lost literary
quality in acquiring literary quantity, and though his book, "The
Marrow of Tradition," is of the same strong material as his
earlier books, it is less simple throughout, and therefore less
excellent in manner. At his worst, he is no worse than the
higher average of the ordinary novelist, but he ought always to
be very much better, for he began better, and he is of that race
which has, first of all, to get rid of the cakewalk, if it will
not suffer from a smile far more blighting than any frown.
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