The Washington herald., 1908-01-12

zon. His own work has dealt with tn,
realities of life as he has seen them: an,
to-day, IN his chosen field Of fiction. h,
ieeis that there Is abundant room for tn,
expression of individual ideas. for what
ever truth or form OF real art that ma,
inspire the thought Of the novelist.
Seated in his study IN the National Art,
building overlooking the mighty vista
Of tall buildings and crowded street tnar
stretches southwark 70 the Battery. hC
talked earnestly and enthusiastically OF
the art that goes to the making of books
nor did it appear to him that that art
stood in any danger from the eorrupting
evils that dimmed the vision of less san
guine critics.
OF course" he admitted. what Mrs
Atherton says Of the present literary out
look In this country is in a measure,
true There does exist a certain reaction
aTy school whose work is largely imita-
tive OF ideals and methods that are mar
row and that are totally inadequate as a
description of life as il is in America to-
day. Until the period Of our civil war the
writer Of fiction had to deal with print
tive conditions. America was undevel-
oped. 1t was an aggregation of families
living in country towns. It was the period
when pages of Irving and Cooper cor
rectiy mirrowed the daily doings. the as
piratons, the virtues, the sus-if they
had sins I'm those days-of their contem-
poraries. 1t was not cosmopolitan; it was
not American, as shat term applies in the
twentieth century.
But with the passing Of this period
the old literary school that voiced il still
survived survives to-day. The writer's in
this Dygone schOOl-for it really does not
belong 10 the present age-still paint
things in terms Of the little red school
house. They still insist on being primitive,
forgetting that even the farmer has his
telephone nowadays. his phonograph, his
automobile while in the cities there is
the great grimy proletariat clamoring for
a hearing.
society Novel Joke.
"The literary people give US the so
called society novel-aud a greater Htera-
~ joke than the society novel it is diff
cult to conceive. Il is a joke. hoax, be-
cause il IS nothing more than a revamp-
ing Of the English society We are given
trivial pictures of a -Four Hundred that
does not exist Mrs Humphrey Ward
writes grandiloquentlv of dukes and
duchesses-not of dukes and duchessas
as they really exist-and her characters
are transplauted TO America and called
merchant princes, kings Of finance
They are anything but truthful portrait
Ures In real life one does not ind the
Morganse the BelmOnts the Hauimans
spending their time in the wearsome
round OF inanities described In the typical
society novel And the actual dukes and
duchesses-how amusing Il would be If
novelist should picture them as they
are,
Il remember once seeing a veritable
duke at breakfast in England. What q
sight he was, the whole front OF his
waistcoat stained and dribbled over with
mement0es from former meals and taking
on another layer from his graces vora-
cious humOr at the breakfast table And
again, at Carlsbad, 7 watched a comicaI
old gentleman at dinner, chewing furious !
ly, his mouth wide open and gOOdly /
quantity of his food falling from il 20 /
the floor. Not a pleasant picture-some- /
what lacking in the refinement tradition /
ally belonging 10 the aristocracy, one /
might say. And yet this hungry old per-
son was prince of something or other I
although his portrait is Unmistakably /
missing from any society novel that /
have ever read.
Did you ever notice that the snobbish- /
ness that turks at the root Of the society
novel is altogether lacking in the work /
Of the great masters Of literature? Take. (
for instance, Richardson, Fielding, Bronte, /
Dickens, George Eiiot-there are no in
vid0us class distinctions IN their novels
4-ffu ma al 4F-a 4 0Ff
their day impersonally; TO them their
clothes. their titles were accidental and of
small significance IN the analysis of char
aCteT. George Eliot especially-the mar
velOus woman. whom Spencer described
as a large intelligence moving freely
was essentially immoral in her art. She
looked at things as they were from the
standpoint of a philosopher and became
one Of the mountain peaks of the whole
world of literature.
America LacIs Originality.
But in America this originality. this
freedom Of treatment, is it not lacking?'
was suggested.
"Oh, not az all. An interesting fact in
our literary history disproves that. Seven
years before Flaubert was prosecuted in
France. for having written Madame Bo-
vary. and a time when Thackeray did not
dare TO write on such subjects in Eng
land. Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Let
ter 4 romance that for boldness of theme !
quite equals any that has been attempt
ed"
Then we are not imitative?"
'Oh, yes. we are. There is that anti Z
luated schOol-not so generally read as a
still harps on the primi- p
tive things Of the America that is dead. I
and there are those writer's who devote ,
heir energies 10 forming a style. as they :
all il. One of the most mischievOus lit :
.rary essays that was ever written, judg- =
ng by the effect that it has had on this y
Unfortunate Initiative tendency came -
rom the pen of no less a novelist than .
Robert Louis Stevenson. In IL he tells
low he labOred for months copying the -
tyles of various masters of literature
ike a man standing before a looking
.lass trying on various facial contortious :
n order to choose those that suited his ;,
'anity best
This intense striving for what IS mere =
3 literary is the main curse Of literature >
is sacrificed for gramma tical =,
Orrectness. The colleges are largely to =
lame for it, of course, the whole collegi- =
te system being repressive Of the orig =.
nal note in literature =
Criticises Henry James. D.
Look at Henry James. for instance: Y
here is not a better manufacturer of tC
lots in the whole world Of fiction to-day h
han he. But who would ever know IL?
Ie possesses, perhaps. the greatest mind
all our literary men. Whenever he has r,
n idea. however, he strangles it so ef-
actually in the absurd intTicacies of the
-yle he has Sc painfully cultivated that y,
never breathes the pure air of genius.
lmes has written the most daring sto-
es. bat they are so ruined in the telling It
ley have fallen upon needless ears. and Ye