From the Introduction. Garland is no mincing romancist whose toes keep tune to a traditional two-step. Do not read his book if your tooth for dainties is inveterate. This Harold Excell will take you into rough places. Garland is not concerned to construct a hero. He has a chief character about whose career contradictory influences gather and play. He has enough art to know a situation and enough soul to keep it human. You at once recognize the psychic significance of this study. For instance, there is the case of heredity ...
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From the Introduction. Garland is no mincing romancist whose toes keep tune to a traditional two-step. Do not read his book if your tooth for dainties is inveterate. This Harold Excell will take you into rough places. Garland is not concerned to construct a hero. He has a chief character about whose career contradictory influences gather and play. He has enough art to know a situation and enough soul to keep it human. You at once recognize the psychic significance of this study. For instance, there is the case of heredity, which is masterfully employed as an element in the drama. Read the narrative whose graphic and cruel phrase depicts this father as he stands before the court of his native town confessing his own struggles and declaring the crime of his son an inheritance. You go west exploring, herding, hunting, living the adventurous life of the plains, interested in your story, yet always conscious of the fact that you are brought before an outstretched panorama of a great historic movement. Garland is like a bath in a pleasant stream. He is much more easily emotional today than was once the case. His personal sketches are steadily sure. This book gives a dozen of almost equal verity. Sometimes his hand is terribly direct. Garland's appeal is to America-our America, the America of the States. He takes you nowhere alien and yet never keeps you here to make you local or small. The forces which in our democracy are twisting and compacting certain elements into autochthonous results find Garland a votary who has no blind eye and is not afraid to face the best and the worst possibilities of his problem. You democrats, do not miss this book. It belongs to your data. Without it your preparation would be distinctly weakened. The dramatic effect of Garland's stories is much like that of Herne's plays. His manner, like his phrase, is invariably simple - as, for instance, when Garland says of the border woman: "She covered her face with her shawl in a world old gesture of grief.'' This art is severe. It sums up and confesses. It has no drawl and no apology. - The Conservator , Vol. 11 [1900]
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