The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-15

uuSeu IL, anu they won iIStStl to diyr thing new. The critics speak for the masses. They are the uneducated masses vocalized, articulate. sup pose that is all right. They have their mission, but many of them haven't opened their eyes to the real nature of the new movement.
 "I confess, though, I don't see what lies beyond naturalism. Progress doesn't work backward, and it seems as if naturalism were the last word. suppose the future development will be psychological. This naturalism has gone through some queer phases, and given us some ghastly truths. The men who think discovered that all things are vital if they are true. So they went to work hunting for truths. and they found good deal that is | fearfully gross. But that is to be ex- | pected. It will work out all right. It is only one feature of a great move ment, and it is conspicuous only be- cause it is gross. Look at the other phases of the movement. There is | Bjornson. He is splendid example of naturalism, and was anything ever purer and sweeter than his stories? There are good many of his kind among the modern Spanish, Italian and Russian writers. Then look at Tolstoi and Hardy and Mrs. Ward. They may be fearless, but they are not uselessly gross.
 | "For some reason people always l think of the French school when one talks of realism. That's mistake. The movement hasn't been so much alive or so fully expressed in France as in the other countries of Europe Probably the impression comes from what every one knows about Zola. He has dug up some terrible things, but I believe that he is always honest, and any man who has produced work as powerful in form as his has been of great use to literature. He's an epic poet, and he shows French life in all its lights and shades as no one else.''
 Mot even Balzac?"
 "Oh, but Balzac was semi-roman- tist. We were talking of naturalists. Zola's work is disagreeable, but it is true. Then, to go back to the old sub- 1 ject he is only one worker among hundreds. They are all collecting ma terial. Afterward the great essential truths must be gathered from the mass. Ibsen knows how to set free the spiritual, psychical essences. He handles pure distractions His dra- mas deal with soul, not matter. There's the future-to get away from the material. The man who seems to me the greatest of them all is Tostoi He is the broadest the truest. He's a sort of abstraction himself. I don't think of him as masculine or feminine He's universal, human
 'But, MT. Howells, where are the young men who are going to take al
 this material that's being dug out an6 free the essence of it? They don't seem to be showing up on the horizon
 "Oh, now, don't know. I think
 we've a good many promising young
 fellows here in America. Owen Wistel
 and Garland, and Cahan, who wrote
 those Jewish stories of the east side
 and Stephen Crane. who has done some
 mighty good work along with some getting hold of something. I'm no OIlG Ol IuG IllGII WHO lutilh llleIdluIG ls
 going to die with our generation
 There are plenty of good workers com
 ing on. Most of our young writers art
 dealing with local color and not at
 tempting the broad aspects of life; but
 then, that's the trouble with our lite
 rature.
 America is so big and the life her
 has so many sides that a writer can
 synthetize it. He looks the thing owe
 and decides there is too much of 1t, s,
 he contents himself with analyzint
 some of it's aspects. That's one reason
 why most of the best American talen
 nowadays goes into short stories. It.
 easier to handle our complex civiliza
 tions in that way, to consider eacl
 phase of our life separately. We hav
 harder time than the writers of an, other country. You can't say thinl , is American. It is Eastern or Westerl or Southern. I believe the field for great American novelist is in the mid dle west. If I could have my way r,
 be born over again and born in tn middle west-Indiana, Ohio, Illinois Iowa. They haven't been European ized out there as we customers have and they aren't crude pioneers They've the national characteristics fl a normal condition. If novelis could take that life out there and syn thetize 1t, crystalline 1t; it would great. Still it seems hopeless.
 After all, you would have only on phase of our life. Now, the thing to q : would be to take man born out ther say in Ohio. That's where our grea , men all seem to be born nowadays 2 give him a business career in tha country, struggle and success in tha : environment. Then bring him dow east to live and assimilate easter , ideas and manners. Have his inter ests out in the far west-railroads o something of that kind, That woul give one a chance at western x,ondi
 tions. One could cover the groun that way, but wouldn't it be an under taking?
 T believe Owen Mister will get ot of that purely local vein of his. II . ought to- He was born here in the Eas II-- ! l.