New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-12-27
THE WESTERN SCHOOL,.

vigorous and full-havorcd Literature i,
growing up in the West. The period of eclIoes
and limitations, of feeble reproductions Of bad
models, during which the Poets Corner OF
The Louisville Journal was the delight of the
reading youth of the South West has gone by
and school of writers ia now coming up on
the further side of the Alleghanies who have
message of their own to deliver, and who
are uttering it in a way distinctly their own
It was naturally to be expected that the new
and vivid life of California, filled with the
bOldest and most adventurous elements Of
East and West, should be the first to inspire
characteristic literature. The spirit of the
grotesque has so far greatly tinged the Pacific
school, It's leader and founder was Lieut..
Derby, whose PhGnixiana are even yet IN
rivaled in broad and genial absurdity. DIR. j.
w. Palmer and the anonymous writer's OF the
pioneer" made ahOpeful beginning in that field
of eccentric fiction which has since been 40
successfully worked by Mr. Francis Bret Harte
and Mark Twain.
The well-earned and legitimate success Of
these two gentlemen has given occasion 10
those indolent and ill-informed reviewers who
have read nothing of the earlier efforts Of the
Western school, and only the most recent
sketches of the two clever CaliforniaDs who
have taken the public by storm, to imagine
that these two writers have a monopoly Of
Western subjects, and that any hunting in the
same preserves is arrant poaching. A writer
in a daily paper of this city recently devoted
an elaborate column to showing that poem
of DR.. Palmer's was gross and clumsy imi-
tation of Mr.. Harte. We do not care to m
vestigate the causes of DR.. Palmer's long
silence, but it is certain that he was many
years in advance of his brilliant competitor, "a
delineatOr of the Western character. IL IL
not less than fifteen years ago that he pub
lished poem in Putnam's Monthly called
"Used Up" which if reprinted to-day would
be called, by all the languid reviewers who
saw it was not taken from the Overland
Monthly, bold plagiarism from Truthful
James.
There is nothing so easy or so clumsy az to
say that when two works bear the natural re-
semblance arising from coincidence of time
place, and local color, the one is stolen from
the other. Of course, all writers who work in
the same age more or less influence each other
IL Dickens had never lived we should never
have had the "Luck of Roaring Camp IL
Thackeray had not created Policeman X, it il
doubtful if Mr.. Harte would ever have
imagined the immortal bard of Table Noun
tain. This detracts nothing from the nghtful
credit and fame of these exquisite creations.
A true genius takes his property where he
finds it. Milton used everybody from job to
Tibullus and Shakespeare robbed all htera-
ture with the sublime consciousness that he
poured in more than he took out. 1t is only
maniacs and idiots who have style of their
own, uninhuenced by the current literature
and the spiritual atmosphere of the time.
There are too many people in the valley of
the Mississippi and beyond to give TO any
men or set of men the monopoly of the ex-
preston of their lives. There will not be
many writers who will equal the contagious
drOllery of Mark Twain. 1t may be long be-
fore we find another that can touch so deity
the hidden sources of smiles and tears--that
can give us so graphic picture of Western
living in style 80 vivid and so pure that we
may call it in praise and not in criticism
almost the true Dickens"-as Mr. Harte has
done. But there are many good and honest
literary wOrkmen who have grown up ID the
great West, not unmindful of its strange and
striking lessons Some of them. HOwells
among the best, have already given some
earnest of the promising future. Others are
Just rising into notice. Let them be received
with candor and judged by what they say
not by what Others have said
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The attention of the Society for the Prevention OF