Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1894-02-18
ACHAT WITH GARLAND.
A NEW AND EIRILE FORCE IN AMERICAN
LITERATURE
q Stand for the Freedom Of the Individual in
Art as in Life" says Garland-Ths Beauty
Dissass, Hs Believes, Has Been the Ruin Of
Much Good Litsraturs-A Strong and Attract
i've Personality.
corutaM BY tAs KII.oa Pres, synaIeale

There is q new movement In Anne RI
can fctioR which. while affiliated in its
largest aspect 10 the new social faith
beginning TO permeste European liter
atures, is distinctly American move
ment, and with the increasing material
prosperity and settlement OF the coun-
try, this broadening Of tie aims OF tic-
tion promises TO receive its FULLEST en-
courSgement and development, aud
most decided flavor and bias, in the
West.
One of the most characteristic figures
in this encouraging phase OF contem-
porary fiction, is Hamlin Garland. As
see our contemporary literary stage
through my spectacles, Hamlin Garland
could much more truly than Rudyard
Kipling, call himself THE Man From
Nowhere is, of course, in liter
airy sense. India, the land OF romance,
OF tradition, of strange, castles and
wlered horrors, OF intense absorption in
abstract ideas, of poetry and philoso-
ply, cannot be called literary terra
incognita, aud any man touching the
life so colored and influenced, even
though he may not have thoroughly
studied it's history and religion and lit
erature, cannot rightly be called q man
from nowhere, for he has been surely
Influenced by them in some degree.
But Hamlin Garland is the first to
give anything like an adequate express
ion of the typical farm and village life
of the West, and reveal something OF
its spiritual influence and disasters.
He occupies quite unique place in
American literature, not only because
his work has struck an essentially new
note in literature, but because he is the
forerunner Of a great movement that,
whatever the excellence or defect OF
his Individual literary work, lends to
all he ndoes an added dignity and i'm
portance-even for those who are en-
tirely opposed to his point OF view, Ghd
TO the methods of the hunaaistic school
generally.
l had o conversation with Hamlin
Gariand's in his new quarters In New
York, the other day. He lives In one of tho
quieter streets Of the noisy metropolis,
and his study is plainly furnished room,
with few portraits OF some faVorite
contemporaries on the wall-among
Others Ibsen, Tolstoi, Walt Whitman,
w. D. Howells and Enneking, the Bos-
ton painter.
"And so You are going to spend your
winters in New York, instead Of in Bos-
ton, as in previous years?"
"Well l am going to spend this win
ter here, but in the spring / am going
out West again. New York is the lit
erary centre Of the country to-day, but
in literature, as in material concerns
with new criteria, there will be more
equilibrium and less dominance In
America literature, and that will be
more healthy for all creative artists"
81 do not believe very much In liter
airy centres myself" / returned, 'for
they are apt to try toimpress the ideas OF
paltry formal cliuQes upon all magma
tive literature. If Chicago will break
the power of the pretty conventional
ism which so largely obtains in our east
ern centres to-day. / hope her literary
advent may be soon"
"It is only a question Of time when
Chicago will be a great literary centre,
affording channels OF utterance for
multitude OF writers who are rising In
the West and South.
It was your eandOr about this conflict
Of East and West which brought down
such an avalanche Of criticism upon
your head"