Garland in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

[The Battle of the Realists and Romanticists in 1893]

[44] X [The Battle of the Realists and Romanticists in 1893] Eugene Field By 1893 Garland had emerged as one of the most vociferous critics extolling the virtues of realism, and his aggressive articles in the nation’s magazines had begun to attract derisive commentary and ad hominem attacks, as well as satire. In July, Garland was in Chicago to attend the World’s Columbian Exposition, in particular its Literary Congress, at which a number of speakers spoke on a variety of topics. At the last minute, he was asked to substitute for the novelist Thomas Nelson Page, who could not attend. In his address “Local Color in Fiction,” he prophesied that local color is the only form of fiction that is destined to prevail, which was the argument he had been making in his articles. When the novelist Joseph Kirkland began to speak on the realistic movement, according to the reporter for the Chicago Tribune, he was interrupted by Mary Hartwell Catherwood (1847–1902), a romantic historical novelist who had spoken earlier, “to say a few words in defense of the old heroes she admired so much and whom she seemed to think had not been accorded due reverence by some of the speakers.” Thereafter followed “a joust, in which Mrs. Catherwood and Hamlin Garland figured as principals. Mrs. Catherwood bravely championed the cause of the dead past, Mr. Garland nobly threw himself into the breach in defense of the living present ” (“Octave Thanet on the Short Story,” Chicago Tribune, 15 July 1893, 8). The humorous columnist Eugene Field (1850–1895), who was not present, subsequently mined the incident for material for his “Sharps and Flats” column in the Chicago Record, and for the next several weeks he featured letters from the principals and from readers debating the merits of realism versus romanticism. Garland immediately responded to Field’s tomfoolery in a letter to Field, but his evangelism soon mastered his humor. [45] the chances are that to the end of our earthly career we shall keep on regretting that we were not present at that session of the Congress of Authors when Mr. Hamlin Garland and Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood had their famous intellectual wrestling match. Garland is one of the apostles of realism . Mrs. Catherwood has chosen the better part: she loves the fanciful in fiction—she believes with us in fairy godmothers and valorous knights and beautiful princesses who have fallen victims to wicked old witches. Mr. Garland’s heroes sweat and do not wear socks; his heroines eat cold huckleberry pie and are so unfeminine as not to call a cow “he.” Mrs. Catherwood’s heroes—and they are the heroes we like—are aggressive , courtly, dashing, picturesque fellows, and her heroines are timid, stanch, beautiful women, and they, too, are our kind of people. Mr. Garland’s “in hoc signo” is a dung-fork or a butter paddle; Mrs. Catherwood ’s is a lance or an embroidery needle. Give us the lance and its companion every time. Having said this much, it is proper that we should add that we have for Mr. Garland personally the warmest affection, and we admire his work, too, very, very much; it is wonderful photography. Garland is young and impressionable; in an evil hour he fell under the baleful influences of William D. Howells, and—there you are! If we could contrive to keep Garland away from Howells long enough we’d make a big man of him, for there is a heap of good stuff in him. Several times we have had him here in Chicago for eight or ten days at a stretch, and when he has associated with us that length of time he really becomes quite civilized and gets imbued with orthodoxy: and then he, too, begins to see fairies and flubdubs and believes in the maidens who have long, golden hair and cannot pail the cow: and his heroes are content to perspire instead of sweat, and they exchange their cowhide peg boots for silk hose and medieval shoon. But no sooner does Garland reach this point in the way of reform than he gallivants off again down east, and falls into Howells’ clutches, and gets pumped full of heresies, and the last condition of that man is worse than the first. We can well understand how so young and so impressionable a person as Garland is should fall an easy prey to Howells, for we have met Howells, and he is indeed...