not unworthy of the praises which his peers at the Lotus
dinner were glad to lavish. Said St. Clair McKelway:

"He has enough excess and versatility to be a genius. He has enough
quality and quantity of virtues to be a saint. But he has honorably
transmuted his genius into work, whereby it has been brought into
relations with literature and with life. And he has preferred warm
fellowship to cool perfection, so that sinners love him and saints are
content to wait for him."

LXIX

HAMLIN GARLAND'S LITERARY BEGINNING

Hamlin Garland is one of the writers whose name suggests the great
Northwest. He was born in Wisconsin in 1860, went to Iowa and later to
Dakota, striving at an early age to wrest a living from the soil. At
ten years of age he plowed seventy acres of land. His vivid
descriptions of Western farm-life are not the results of reading and
casual observation, supplemented by a vivid imagination; they are the
products of actual experiences.

In a personal interview with Mr. Garland, Frank G. Carpenter gives us
the following interesting particulars:

"The conversation here turned to Mr. Garland's literary work, and he
told me how he was first led to write by reading Hawthorne's _Mosses
from an Old Manse_. This book so delighted him that he wanted to write
essays like it for a living, and he practised at this during the
intervals of his school-teaching and studying for years. It was not
until he was older that he attempted fiction or poetry. The story of
his first published article is a curious one. Said he:

"'My first literary success was a poem which I wrote for _Harper's
Weekly_, entitled 'Lost in the Norther.' It was a poem describing a
blizzard and the feelings of a man lost in it. I received twenty-five
dollars for it.'

"'That must have been a good deal of money to you then, Mr. Garland?'

"'It was,' was the reply. 'It was my first money in literature, and I
spent it upon my father and mother. I paid five dollars for a copy of
Grant's _Memoirs_, which I sent father, and with the remaining twenty
dollars I bought a silk dress for my mother. It was the first silk
dress she had ever had.'

"'When did you write your first fiction?'

"'My mother got half of the money I received for that,' replied Mr.
Garland, 'as it was due to her that I wrote it. I had been studying in
Boston for several years, when I went out to Dakota to visit my
parents. The night after I arrived I was talking with mother