Down at Caxton's

DOWN AT CAXTON’S.
———————————— By WALTER LECKY, Author of “Green Graves in Ireland,” “Adirondack Sketches,” etc. ———————————— BALTIMORE: JOHN MURPHY & CO. 1895.

Copyright, 1895, by Wm. A. McDermott. PRESS OF JOHN MURPHY & CO.

I DEDICATE THIS SERIES OF SKETCHES DONE AT ODD MOMENTS STOLEN FROM THE BUSY LIFE OF A COUNTRY DOCTOR, IN THE WILDEST PART OF THE ADIRONDACKS, TO THAT DEAR FRIEND, WHO WROTE FOR ME AND OTHER WANDERERS—IDYLS OF A SUMMER SEA— TO CHARLES WARREN STODDARD OF THE Catholic University, Washington, D. C.
Transcriber's Note: This table of contents was created by the transcriber.


In that charming and dainty series of books published under the captivating title of “Fiction, Fact and Fancy,” and edited by the gifted son of the prince of American literary critics, there is a volume with the companionable name of Billy Downs. It is as follows that Mr. Stedman introduces the creator of Billy Downs and a host of other characters, mostly types of Middle Georgia life, that shall live with the language. “So we reach the tenth milestone of our ramble, and while we are resting by the wayside let us hail the gentleman who is approaching and ask him for ‘another story.’ We who have heard him before know that he seldom fails to respond to such a request, and always, too, in a manner quite inimitable. As he comes nearer you may observe the dignified, yet courteous and kindly bearing of a gentleman of the old school. The white hair and moustache, the sober dress, betoken the veteran, although they are almost contradicted by eyes and an innate youthfulness in word and thought. It is not difficult to recognize in Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston the founder of a school of fiction and the dean of Southern men of letters.” The Colonel is the founder of a school of fiction, if by that school, we understand those, who are depicting for us the Georgia life of the ante-bellum days. In no otherwise can we assent to Mr. Stedman’s phrase. For American critics to claim the dialect school of fiction as their own in origin, is on a par with their other critical achievements. Dialect was born a long time before Columbus took his way westward. The first wave of mankind leaving the parent stock, in their efforts to survive, carried with them the germ of dialect. Fiction in its portrayal of men and manners of a given period, was bound to reproduce it faithfully—the very least to give us a semblance of that life. This could not be done in many instances without the use of dialect. To do so were to deprive the portraiture of individuality.