Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/505

Rh was still more true of the middle and lower classes and their peculiari ties. It was the humor of dialect. In that day bad spelling in rough imitation of dialect was considered as a necessary adjunct to humor. It was, moreover, humor of situation. It delighted in boisterous and rather crude situations of discomfiture. Even people of refinement would find diversion in the roughest pranks and would laugh unrestrainedly over a predicament that was both painful and unfortunate. It had two other characteristics which relate not to its materials but to its sources. In the first place, it originated through the newspaper sketch and has all the freshness of that type of literature; and, in the second place, it is, like all other Southern literature of this period, the work of the amateur.

AUGUSTUS BALDWIN LOXGSTREET

From the first Georgia was a much more democratic state than Virginia or South Carolina. Its population was a sturdy race which separation from the more aristocratic sections had rendered peculiarly individual. The country dances, the gander pullings, the militia drills, the debating societies, the fox hunts, the shooting matches, the horse races, and the like which formed so large a part of the everyday life of the rural sections of Georgia are vividly portrayed by Longstreet in

"Georgia Scenes," from which are taken the two following selections.

THE HORSE SWAP (PAGE 151)

In this sketch Longstreet has given a very lively picture of a char acteristic feature of country life in the South. cracklins: a well-cooked, crisp rind of pork. tout ensemble: whole appearance. tacky: ugly horse. make a pass at me: make me an offer. banter: proposal. boot: money given to make an exchange equal. brought him to a hack: caused him to hesitate. rues and after claps: bitternesses and regrets.

QUESTIONS, i. Describe the methods of the horse swap. 2. What

impressions of the character of the rural population of Georgia does the sketch give?

THE TURN OUT (PAGE 161)

fescues, abisselfas, and anpersants: the author explains these terms as follows: " The fescue was a sharpened wire or other instrument used by the preceptor to point out the letters to the children. Abisselfa is a