But Howard was part of American life--born of the
middle West, and shouldering a gun during the Civil War to guard the
Canadian border near Detroit against a possible sympathetic uprising
for the Confederacy. Besides which--a fact which makes the title of
"Dean of the American Drama" a legitimate insignia,--when, in 1870, he
stood firm against the prejudices of A.M. Palmer and Lester Wallack,
shown toward "home industry," he was maintaining the right of the
American dramatist. He was always preaching the American spirit,
always analyzing American character, always watching and encouraging
American thought.
Howard was a scholar, with a sense of the fitness of things, as
a dramatist should have. Evidently, during the collaboration with
Professor Matthews on "Stuyvesant," discussion must have arisen as
to the form of English "New Amsterdamers," under Knickerbocker rule,
would use. For it called forth one of Howard's breezy but exact
comments, as follows:
A few more words about the "English" question: As I said,
it seems to me, academical correctness, among the higher
characters, will give a prim, old-fashioned tone: and _you_
can look after this, as all my own work has been in the
opposite direction in art.
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