Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-05-12
THE PASSING OF HoWELLS,
DEAN OF AMERICAN LETTERS
His Death Does Not Deprive the
Country Of Able Writers-Who
VIII Succeed Him?

MI bcN DOy sturtS MS career IN
w country newspaper office and ends
1t as the most distinguished American
man of letters he has accomplished
something.
Such was the beginning and the end
of the career of William Dean Howells,
who died yesterday at the age of eighty
three years. When the National Insti-
tute of Arts and Letters was founded
a few years ago he was one Of the few
men who every one admitted should
be one Of the 250 members, and when
these 250 men elected fifty Of their num-
Der to the American Academy Of Arts
and Letters he was by unanimous con-
sent made its president. This tribute
paid by the men of his own profession
was indorsed by the public.
Whatever else Mr.. Howells was, he
was typically American. His first book,
after a little volume Of youthful verse,
was a campaign life of Abraham Lin
coin. He was rewarded for this work
by, appointment as consul to Venice,
and while in Italy he produced two vol
umes about Italian life. When he re-
W nhtEltd ht WEOtt Nultoiihio
for a year for the New York Nation
and then Joined the staff Of the At
lantic Monthly in Boston. After he left
Boston in 1881 he became an editorial
contributor to Harper's Magazine and
remained on it's staff, save for a short
interval, until the time Of his death.
Between 1860 and 1920 he wrote
more than seventy books on a wide
variety of topics. There were novels,
farces, books Of travel, "reminiscences,
essays and poems. And everything that
he wrote was American, in the sense
that it was clean and decent and writ
ten with sense of his responsibility as
an entertainer or instructor of the pub
lie. There is hardly a phase of life
which he did not touch upon in the
sixty years of his active writing career
There is no better American story
than 1.-THE Rise of Silas Lapham," a
book which is still read although it was
written generation ago. 1t is so
true a picture Of the career of q sue
cessful business man that the man who
writes the history of the social develop
ment of America will have to consult
it as one of the original documents.
One of the trite remarks about him
twenty five years ago was that he un-
derstood women better than they under
stood themselves. Evidence of its truth
is found in almost every one Of his
novels. His lightness Of touch is demon
strated in the delightful farces which
have been acted by amateurs in all
parts of the country. His books of
travel are informing without being prig
gish, and his essays reveal a full and
tolerant mind at play with ideas.
He has been called a realist and it
used to be the fashion to say that his
stories began nowhere and ended no.
where; that they were mere sections of
life without plot. Yet such criticism
was superficial. He was trying to de-
pict life as it is lived. Therefore he
Stunned the sensational and the bizarre
He told his story in a straightforward
manner, but with definite knowledge
of what he was doing. The popularity
of his novels with the discriminating
proves that he succeeded.
His style was a constant delight, for
il was simple and unaffected. He never
tried to be smart, and one looks in vain
in his books for phrases that are merely
clever. Yet they are full of apt char
acterization and are distinguished by
as discriminating and careful use OF
English as any other novels in the Ian :
guage.
Hawthorne was still alive when
Howells began his literary career. He
was a contemporary of long line OF
able writer's from Mark Twain, who
was a devoted friend, to the youngest
novelist who is just beginning to bid
for fame. Bret Harte, s. Weir
Mitchell, Charles Dudley Warner,
Sarah Orne Jewett, Frank Stockton,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Henry James,
Jack London, Richard Harding Davis
Frank Norris and a score of others pre-
ceded him to what he called 1.-THE un-
discovered country"
One is tempted to speculation about
which of the young men now writing
will in sixty years hold the place which
he now vacates, a task as protitless
however, as it would have been for one
! to indulge in the same kind of specula
ton after the death of Hawthorne il
1864.
We have out in West Chester in the
person of Joseph Hergesheimer a sue
cessful novelist with as definite theory
of fiction as that which Howells in
dorsed. But Hergesheimer lacks thu
broad human sympathy of Howells
Ernest Poole, of New York, has writ
ten three notable novels filled with tn
kind of appreciation of social problem
which eliminates the novels of the maj
who has just died. Irwin s. Cobb ha
written short stories the equal of an,
in the language, but as a novelist h
is not yet in the Howells class. Max
we'll Struthers Burt has demonstrates
skill in the psychological tale whic
leads one to expect much from him, an
A. Lawrence Dudley, of this city, who's
first novel, "Spriggles, discloses con
siderable skill as a spinner of tales
may develop into the skilled interprete
of life. And no one can tell what tn
future holds for +. Scott Fitzgerald
a Princeton graduate only twenty thre
years old, who has already written
! novel and several short stories depictin
contemporary youth in action with tn
, skill which comes only from first han
! knowledge. II as he grows older
can interpret life of more mature per
, sons as well he will deserve the kind {
, fame that has come to Howells. So tn
list might be extended.