New-York tribune., 1912-03-03
". D. HOWELLS HONORED
Continued from first page.

man of letters, and he began at the very
bottom runG Of the lad ser by learning 10
set type. BY his Campaign Life OF LIN
coin" he earned enough 10 enable him 10
take that charming wedding journey III
which those of MS that love Old Quebec
and the Lower ST. Lawrence and SaGuenay'
have often followed him, and then WIN
the additional compensation for his political
work be became Consul at Venice curing
the four years of Mr.. Lincoln's term. Nhat
business there was OF consular ChdI
acter between the United States ana the
old mistress Of the Adriatc he doubtless
properly performed, but the Venetian life
which grew in that soil of patronage Was d
beautiful flower which makes us patent
with the system that contributed much 10
the literary preparation Of men like law
thorne and Howells.
MIR. HoWells is not writer whose peTlou9
Of inspiration are ftful and occasional, out
he has educated and prepared himsplt 10
do literary work. as men work in other
professions. making his mind and magma
ton respond to the regular demand OF duty
on the other hand. unlike IroHope' %nU
worked like a machine, iinishinG so many
pages a day. and showing in his work tHe
evidences of haste and meChanical strlNlhS'
all that has come from Mr.. HoWellss pen
Is beautifully wrought out, with no suS-
geston of hurry or the oil OF the machine.
Mr.. HowellS, in his long and useful NE,
has been content to live in literature. ne
has attempted 10 play part in no othei
sphere. BY taste, by ability. by imagln&-
finds himself now five years beyond the
age of the Psalmist representing inc DeS
and highest of American literature Every
thing that he has. written sustalns, inc
highest standard of social purity and as;
piration Of refinement and morality. and
Of wholesome ideals. and he has added tt
American literature a treasure Of Iterdrr
excellence, the enjoyment or Wmch VIII
make coming generations grateful
Mr.. Howelis's Address.
NJ. Howells asked for tolerance II he
praised the things OF the past, as II they
were his own, yet he would not wish 10
praise the past at the cost of the future or
the present for he could not sincerely do
that. There had been no hour of our liter
ary past, as he had lived it. he said, when
he had the least fear for or literary future.
Mr.. Howells then said:
To the backward glance the light of the
past seems one great glow. but 1t is in fact
q group of stellar hres; fixed stars not uh-
accompanied by wandering comets, not
| without the gayety OF aimless meteors.
Perhaps ii is as some incandescent mass
that the future will behold this present
when il has become the past, and we who
sit here tonight shall appear one great
glow without distinction of age or sex OF
any qualitative difference in our several
glory. But we who sit here tonight are
keenly aware of distinctions and of diff
know very well which are the wandering
comets and which are a.mless meteOrs
kindling only in their passage through our
atmosphere. 1t has been so In every Pc
riod; and if | say that | knew at first hand
the luminaries Of a byGCne period II -
not merely TO attribute their greatness 10
my acquaintance with them, but 1t is also
TO affirm their essential consciousness OF
difference from one another, They differ
AS tie stars differ in glory and always VIII.
though the stars may not know II as these
great men did. The list OF them is very
long, and | may say that II | missed the
personal acquaintance Of Cooper and irving
and Poe and Prescott ] was personally ac-
quainted with all the others in whom the
story OF American literature sums itself |
knew Hawthorne and Emerson and Walt
Whitman: I knew LOngfellOw and Holmes
and Whittier and Lowell: ! knew Bryant
and Bancroft and Motley; | knew Harriet
knew Artemus Ward and Stockton and
Mark Twain I knew Parkman and Fiske.
Names refulGent still, however the hre'
never 10 be returned, seems beginning to
die out Of some OF them; names such as
we have hardly the like o.
Hardly the like Of? ] say this. hut ! say
II askingly and at the worst vistfuny in
fear of your response TO "A question which
er than categorically. ! should not want
to be damped by your doubt or 90 have
my ever youthful faith dashed by Your
experience. and so before YOU can get in
word | make haste to declare. Yes. we
have many like them. but Of no more iden-
tty with them than they felt with one an
other. As far. as they were truly great
they must have perceived that they were
not so great as they had grown TO seem
and each must have perceived even moro
clearly that the others were not so great
"Lhe Turning to Democracy"
But it is not this point that care TO
insist upon it is another II is that diff
ference i'm the present from the past which
think is inevitable from what seems the
new conditioning Of our lives. All of human
life has turned more and more TO the light
Of democracy, the light Of equality. II you
please Literature. which was once of the
cloister. the school, has become more and
more of the forum and incidentally Of the
market place. But IL is dctuated now by
as high and noble motives as ever II was
IN the history of the world. and ! think
that in turning from the vain endeavor OF
creating beauty and dcvoting itself TO the
effort Of asCcrtaining life II Is actuated
by clearer motive than before. II We
have no single name so sovereign as these
names I have cited, We have many talents
which do things impossible TO the Geniuses
who were these names on earth. Let us
love them. let us honor them: We cannot
Worship them too much, but let MS remem-
her their limitations and consider the po-
tentiahty Of the artists who now are and
are to be. let us recognize the fact that
in the present vast output OF literature the
pure gold is not less I'm quantity because
the mass of dirt and droSs ~ 50 immeas-
urahIy greater than in the DAYS Of an
other sort Of mining. ! myself believe
there is gold greater in quantity and that
possibly in a critical analysis the report
of the assayer will declare as high 4 per-
centage Of the genuine metal ! am not
dismayed by the numbers who have taken
TO literature in these days and found a liv-
ing in il. At first ii seems little odd. a
little drolI TO have a publisher announce a
novel as by a new writer; but when
there are so many new readers why should
not tho new writer's have their innings
The old ones have had theirs and even
the old readers do not want them always.
Ought not we old writer's. who are con-
fronting "A new life elsewhere at such close
range try to he in love with the new lit
erature here? / myself am going TO culti-
yate an affection for IT from this on.
The great men / have named could not
do lust the fine things, the brave things.
the true things that are done now by the
men I will not name lest | miss some In
The long count. In my time | have seen
whole literature grow up and flourish into
national proportions. Nearly all the writ
ers / have been naming were New Eng
landers. but now our writers are Of every
sectional origin and constitute an AmeI-
can authorship. They are OF the West and
the South. as well as OF the North and
East, and more and more their work tastes
had q New England literature. now we
have an American literature. and Indianap-
oils is. as Boston was. city in which
books are held dear and the art Of them Is
priced above any other The poets. the
best Of them are Of or from the West; our
best historian is Western man; our
students of the human mind in the past
and the human soil in the present-a very
stellar group-are OF the East: but our
novelists and our novelettists are from ev-
cry part of the country, and each Is de-
voted Willingly or unwittinglv TO the rep
resentation Of the America that he knows
best because he has lived II most
Growth Of American Literature.
A liIornA,,rn ns anihnntic and dieiinrIi iNn