The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-12-08

a quarter Of a Century bac ~ ::
the fronk rank Of the wor,a,a
hoVeiists' VINO wrote The Rise Of
Siias Lapham' and "A Modern In
stance and nearly a hundred o,beri
sympathetic interpretations of Amar
lear life, an article in the New York
Times says
Mr., William Dean HowelIs % ~.
third writer to whom the renortar
hao put the question, What efact
Will De present war have on litera-
ture!" And he was the first tn give !.
direct answer.
a famous French dramatist had
Tepled: l am MOI a prophet. 1 have
enough TO do to understand the nre..
ent and the past; / cannot concerp
myself with the future A famous
English short story writer had said:
The war has already inspired some
splendid poetry; it may also inspire
great plays n novels, but, Of course.
we cannot tell as yet"
But Mr.. Howells said, quite SIM
ply: War stops literature" He
sand 1t as internationally as if he
were stating a familiar axiom.
lie does not consider it an axiom.
however. For he supplied proof.
have never believed" he said
that great events produced great lit
erature they seldom call forth the
great creative powers Of man. In
poetry. 1T is not the poems of occa-
sion ~thatendure, but the poems that
have come into being independently.
not as the result of momentOuS han
penings.
This war does not furnish the
poet, the novelist. and the dramatist
with the material Of literature. For
instance tho CaryoonS &C axyarxr o,o
will admit, have shown extraordinary
valor. But we do not think of cele-
brating that valor in poetry; it does
not thrill the modern writer's as such
valor thrilled the writer's Of bygone
tur When we think Of the
valor Of the Germans, our emotio
is not admiration but pity.
And the reason for this is thai
fighting is no longer our ideal. Fight
ing was not a great ideal. and there
fore ii is no longer our ideal. All that
old material Of literature-the clash
ing Of swords, the hunde Of shot
and shell, the great clouds of smoke,
the blood and fury-all this has gone
out from literature. 1t is an mar
Chronism."
No Literature From Civil War.
But the American civil war pro-
duced literature, did it not?" asked
the reporter.
What great literature did it pro-
duce?" asked Mr.. Howells in turn.
LAS / look back over my life and
recall to mind the great OF
books that the civil war inspired ]
find that / am thinking Of things
thai the American people nave for
gotten. They did not become litera-
ture. these poems and stories that
came in such quantities and seemed
so important in the sixties.
There were the novels of j. w.
De Forest. for instance. They Were
we'll written. they were interesting,
they described some phases OF the
civil wal truthfully and wildly. We
read them when they were written
but you probably have never heard
of them. No one reads them now
They were literature, but that about
which they were written has ceased
TO be Of literary interest.
"Of course, the civil war, because
of its peculiar nature, was followed
by an expansion. intellectual as wei
as social economic. And this eA'
pansion undoubtedly had its bene
fetal effect on literature But tn
civil war itself did not have, couit
not have literary expression.
o all the writings which tn
civil war directly inspired. l cal
think of only one that has endure
TO be called literature. ina is Lo"
ellis Commemoration Ode.
War stops literature. 1t is an up
heaval OF civilization, a return u
barbarism; it means death to all IN
arts. Even the preparation Tor wa
stops literature. 1t stopped IT IN Ger
MANY wears ago. A little ~anecdote l
significant.
II was in Florence about 1888
long after the Franco-PruSSian war
and there j met the editor OF a grea
German literary weekly Will no
tell you it's name or his. he was
man of refinement and education. an
Thave not forgotten his great hlno
ness to my own notion. one ody
asked him about the German mover
lists of the day.
s.MiHtarism Killed German Novel
HE said: There are no longer an
German novelists worthy OF IL
name. Our new ideal has stopped q
that Milifarism is our new l0eal-