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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3378.txt b/3378.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0627efd --- /dev/null +++ b/3378.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5339 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Literary Passions, by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Literary Passions + From "Literature and Life" + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #3378] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LITERARY PASSIONS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +MY LITERARY PASSIONS + +By William Dean Howells + + +1895 + + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. + + I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME + II. GOLDSMITH + III. CERVANTES + IV. IRVING + V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA + VI. LONGFELLOW'S "SPANISH STUDENT" + VII. SCOTT + VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES + IX. POPE + X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES + XI. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN + XII. OSSIAN + XIII. SHAKESPEARE + XIV. IK MARVEL + XV. DICKENS + XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER + XVII. MACAULAY. + XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS. + XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE + XX. THACKERAY + XXI. "LAZARILLO DE TORMES" + XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL + XXIII. TENNYSON + XXIV. HEINE + XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW. + XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE + XXVII. CHARLES READE + XXVIII. DANTE. + XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D'AZEGLIO + XXX. "PASTOR FIDO," "AMINTA," "ROMOLA," "YEAST," "PAUL FERROLL" + XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON + XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH + XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES + XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY + XXXV. TOLSTOY + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + +The papers collected here under the name of 'My Literary Passions' were +printed serially in a periodical of such vast circulation that they might +well have been supposed to have found there all the acceptance that could +be reasonably hoped for them. Nevertheless, they were reissued in a +volume the year after they first appeared, in 1895, and they had a +pleasing share of such favor as their author's books have enjoyed. But +it is to be doubted whether any one liked reading them so much as he +liked writing them--say, some time in the years 1893 and 1894, in a New +York flat, where he could look from his lofty windows over two miles and +a half of woodland in Central Park, and halloo his fancy wherever he +chose in that faery realm of books which he re-entered in reminiscences +perhaps too fond at times, and perhaps always too eager for the reader's +following. The name was thought by the friendly editor of the popular +publication where they were serialized a main part of such inspiration as +they might be conjectured to have, and was, as seldom happens with editor +and author, cordially agreed upon before they were begun. + +The name says, indeed, so exactly and so fully what they are that little +remains for their bibliographer to add beyond the meagre historical +detail here given. Their short and simple annals could be eked out by +confidences which would not appreciably enrich the materials of the +literary history of their time, and it seems better to leave them to the +imagination of such posterity as they may reach. They are rather +helplessly frank, but not, I hope, with all their rather helpless +frankness, offensively frank. They are at least not part of the polemic +which their author sustained in the essays following them in this volume, +and which might have been called, in conformity with 'My Literary +Passions', by the title of 'My Literary Opinions' better than by the +vague name which they actually wear. + +They deal, to be sure, with the office of Criticism and the art of +Fiction, and so far their present name is not a misnomer. It follows +them from an earlier date and could not easily be changed, and it may +serve to recall to an elder generation than this the time when their +author was breaking so many lances in the great, forgotten war between +Realism and Romanticism that the floor of the "Editor's Study" in +Harper's Magazine was strewn with the embattled splinters. The "Editor's +Study" is now quite another place, but he who originally imagined it in +1886, and abode in it until 1892, made it at once the scene of such +constant offence that he had no time, if he had the temper, for defence. +The great Zola, or call him the immense Zola, was the prime mover in the +attack upon the masters of the Romanticistic school; but he lived to own +that he had fought a losing fight, and there are some proofs that he was +right. The Realists, who were undoubtedly the masters of fiction in +their passing generation, and who prevailed not only in France, but in +Russia, in Scandinavia, in Spain, in Portugal, were overborne in all +Anglo-Saxon countries by the innumerable hosts of Romanticism, who to +this day possess the land; though still, whenever a young novelist does +work instantly recognizable for its truth and beauty among us, he is seen +and felt to have wrought in the spirit of Realism. Not even yet, +however, does the average critic recognize this, and such lesson as the +"Editor's Study" assumed to teach remains here in all its essentials for +his improvement. + +Month after month for the six years in which the "Editor's Study" +continued in the keeping of its first occupant, its lesson was more or +less stormily delivered, to the exclusion, for the greater part, of other +prophecy, but it has not been found well to keep the tempestuous manner +along with the fulminant matter in this volume. When the author came to +revise the material, he found sins against taste which his zeal for +righteousness could not suffice to atone for. He did not hesitate to +omit the proofs of these, and so far to make himself not only a precept, +but an example in criticism. He hopes that in other and slighter things +he has bettered his own instruction, and that in form and in fact the +book is altogether less crude and less rude than the papers from which it +has here been a second time evolved. + +The papers, as they appeared from month to month, were not the product of +those unities of time and place which were the happy conditioning of +'My Literary Passions.' They could not have been written in quite so +many places as times, but they enjoyed a comparable variety of origin. +Beginning in Boston, they were continued in a Boston suburb, on the +shores of Lake George, in a Western New York health resort, in Buffalo, +in Nahant; once, twice, and thrice in New York, with reversions to +Boston, and summer excursions to the hills and waters of New England, +until it seemed that their author had at last said his say, and he +voluntarily lapsed into silence with the applause of friends and enemies +alike. + +The papers had made him more of the last than of the first, but not as +still appears to him with greater reason. At moments his deliverances +seemed to stir people of different minds to fury in two continents, so +far as they were English-speaking, and on the coasts of the seven seas; +and some of these came back at him with such violent personalities as it +is his satisfaction to remember that he never indulged in his attacks +upon their theories of criticism and fiction. His opinions were always +impersonal; and now as their manner rather than their make has been +slightly tempered, it may surprise the belated reader to learn that it +was the belief of one English critic that their author had "placed +himself beyond the pale of decency" by them. It ought to be less +surprising that, since these dreadful words were written of him, more +than one magnanimous Englishman has penitently expressed to the author +the feeling that he was not so far wrong in his overboldly hazarded +convictions. The penitence of his countrymen is still waiting +expression, but it may come to that when they have recurred to the +evidences of his offence in their present shape. + +KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909. + + + + + + + MY LITERARY PASSIONS + + + +I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME + +To give an account of one's reading is in some sort to give an account of +one's life; and I hope that I shall not offend those who follow me in +these papers, if I cannot help speaking of myself in speaking of the +authors I must call my masters: my masters not because they taught me +this or that directly, but because I had such delight in them that I +could not fail to teach myself from them whatever I was capable of +learning. I do not know whether I have been what people call a great +reader; I cannot claim even to have been a very wise reader; but I have +always been conscious of a high purpose to read much more, and more +discreetly, than I have ever really done, and probably it is from the +vantage-ground of this good intention that I shall sometimes be found +writing here rather than from the facts of the case. + +But I am pretty sure that I began right, and that if I had always kept +the lofty level which I struck at the outset I should have the right to +use authority in these reminiscences without a bad conscience. I shall +try not to use authority, however, and I do not expect to speak here of +all my reading, whether it has been much or little, but only of those +books, or of those authors that I have felt a genuine passion for. I +have known such passions at every period of my life, but it is mainly of +the loves of my youth that I shall write, and I shall write all the more +frankly because my own youth now seems to me rather more alien than that +of any other person. + +I think that I came of a reading race, which has always loved literature +in a way, and in spite of varying fortunes and many changes. From a +letter of my great-grandmother's written to a stubborn daughter upon some +unfilial behavior, like running away to be married, I suspect that she +was fond of the high-colored fiction of her day, for she tells the wilful +child that she has "planted a dagger in her mother's heart," and I should +not be surprised if it were from this fine-languaged lady that my +grandfather derived his taste for poetry rather than from his father, who +was of a worldly wiser mind. To be sure, he became a Friend by +Convincement as the Quakers say, and so I cannot imagine that he was +altogether worldly; but he had an eye to the main chance: he founded the +industry of making flannels in the little Welsh town where he lived, and +he seems to have grown richer, for his day and place, than any of us have +since grown for ours. My grandfather, indeed, was concerned chiefly in +getting away from the world and its wickedness. He came to this country +early in the nineteenth century and settled his family in a log-cabin in +the Ohio woods, that they might be safe from the sinister influences of +the village where he was managing some woollen-mills. But he kept his +affection for certain poets of the graver, not to say gloomier sort, and +he must have suffered his children to read them, pending that great +question of their souls' salvation which was a lifelong trouble to him. + +My father, at any rate, had such a decided bent in the direction of +literature, that he was not content in any of his several economical +experiments till he became the editor of a newspaper, which was then the +sole means of satisfying a literary passion. His paper, at the date when +I began to know him, was a living, comfortable and decent, but without +the least promise of wealth in it, or the hope even of a much better +condition. I think now that he was wise not to care for the advancement +which most of us have our hearts set upon, and that it was one of his +finest qualities that he was content with a lot in life where he was not +exempt from work with his hands, and yet where he was not so pressed by +need but he could give himself at will not only to the things of the +spirit, but the things of the mind too. After a season of scepticism he +had become a religious man, like the rest of his race, but in his own +fashion, which was not at all the fashion of my grandfather: a Friend who +had married out of Meeting, and had ended a perfervid Methodist. My +father, who could never get himself converted at any of the camp-meetings +where my grandfather often led the forces of prayer to his support, and +had at last to be given up in despair, fell in with the writings of +Emanuel Swedenborg, and embraced the doctrine of that philosopher with a +content that has lasted him all the days of his many years. Ever since I +can remember, the works of Swedenborg formed a large part of his library; +he read them much himself, and much to my mother, and occasionally a +"Memorable Relation" from them to us children. But he did not force them +upon our notice, nor urge us to read them, and I think this was very +well. I suppose his conscience and his reason kept him from doing so. +But in regard to other books, his fondness was too much for him, and when +I began to show a liking for literature he was eager to guide my choice. + +His own choice was for poetry, and the most of our library, which was not +given to theology, was given to poetry. I call it the library now, but +then we called it the bookcase, and that was what literally it was, +because I believe that whatever we had called our modest collection of +books, it was a larger private collection than any other in the town +where we lived. Still it was all held, and shut with glass doors, in a +case of very few shelves. It was not considerably enlarged during my +childhood, for few books came to my father as editor, and he indulged +himself in buying them even more rarely. My grandfather's book store +(it was also the village drug-store) had then the only stock of +literature for sale in the place; and once, when Harper & Brothers' agent +came to replenish it, he gave my father several volumes for review. One +of these was a copy of Thomson's Seasons, a finely illustrated edition, +whose pictures I knew long before I knew the poetry, and thought them the +most beautiful things that ever were. My father read passages of the +book aloud, and he wanted me to read it all myself. For the matter of +that he wanted me to read Cowper, from whom no one could get anything but +good, and he wanted me to read Byron, from whom I could then have got no +harm; we get harm from the evil we understand. He loved Burns, too, and +he used to read aloud from him, I must own, to my inexpressible +weariness. I could not away with that dialect, and I could not then feel +the charm of the poet's wit, nor the tender beauty of his pathos. Moore, +I could manage better; and when my father read "Lalla Rookh" to my mother +I sat up to listen, and entered into all the woes of Iran in the story of +the "Fire Worshippers." I drew the line at the "Veiled Prophet of +Khorassan," though I had some sense of the humor of the poet's conception +of the critic in "Fadladeen." But I liked Scott's poems far better, and +got from Ispahan to Edinburgh with a glad alacrity of fancy. I followed +the "Lady of the Lake" throughout, and when I first began to contrive +verses of my own I found that poem a fit model in mood and metre. + +Among other volumes of verse on the top shelf of the bookcase, of which I +used to look at the outside without penetrating deeply within, were +Pope's translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Dryden's Virgil, +pretty little tomes in tree-calf, published by James Crissy in +Philadelphia, and illustrated with small copper-plates, which somehow +seemed to put the matter hopelessly beyond me. It was as if they said to +me in so many words that literature which furnished the subjects of such +pictures I could not hope to understand, and need not try. At any rate, +I let them alone for the time, and I did not meddle with a volume of +Shakespeare, in green cloth and cruelly fine print, which overawed me in +like manner with its wood-cuts. I cannot say just why I conceived that +there was something unhallowed in the matter of the book; perhaps this +was a tint from the reputation of the rather profligate young man from +whom my father had it. If he were not profligate I ask his pardon. I +have not the least notion who he was, but that was the notion I had of +him, whoever he was, or wherever he now is. There may never have been +such a young man at all; the impression I had may have been pure +invention of my own, like many things with children, who do not very +distinctly know their dreams from their experiences, and live in the +world where both project the same quality of shadow. + +There were, of course, other books in the bookcase, which my +consciousness made no account of, and I speak only of those I remember. +Fiction there was none at all that I can recall, except Poe's 'Tales of +the Grotesque and the Arabesque' (I long afflicted myself as to what +those words meant, when I might easily have asked and found out) and +Bulwer's Last Days of Pompeii, all in the same kind of binding. History +is known, to my young remembrance of that library, by a History of the +United States, whose dust and ashes I hardly made my way through; and by +a 'Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada', by the ever dear and precious +Fray Antonio Agapida, whom I was long in making out to be one and the +same as Washington Irving. + +In school there was as little literature then as there is now, and I +cannot say anything worse of our school reading; but I was not really +very much in school, and so I got small harm from it. The printing- +office was my school from a very early date. My father thoroughly +believed in it, and he had his beliefs as to work, which he illustrated +as soon as we were old enough to learn the trade he followed. We could +go to school and study, or we could go into the printing-office and work, +with an equal chance of learning, but we could not be idle; we must do +something, for our souls' sake, though he was willing enough we should +play, and he liked himself to go into the woods with us, and to enjoy the +pleasures that manhood can share with childhood. I suppose that as the +world goes now we were poor. His income was never above twelve hundred a +year, and his family was large; but nobody was rich there or then; we +lived in the simple abundance of that time and place, and we did not know +that we were poor. As yet the unequal modern conditions were undreamed +of (who indeed could have dreamed of them forty or fifty years ago?) in +the little Southern Ohio town where nearly the whole of my most happy +boyhood was passed. + + + + +II. GOLDSMITH + +When I began to have literary likings of my own, and to love certain +books above others, the first authors of my heart were Goldsmith, +Cervantes, and Irving. In the sharply foreshortened perspective of the +past I seem to have read them all at once, but I am aware of an order of +time in the pleasure they gave me, and I know that Goldsmith came first. +He came so early that I cannot tell when or how I began to read him, but +it must have been before I was ten years old. I read other books about +that time, notably a small book on Grecian and Roman mythology, which I +perused with such a passion for those pagan gods and goddesses that, if +it had ever been a question of sacrificing to Diana, I do not really know +whether I should have been able to refuse. I adored indiscriminately all +the tribes of nymphs and naiads, demigods and heroes, as well as the high +ones of Olympus; and I am afraid that by day I dwelt in a world peopled +and ruled by them, though I faithfully said my prayers at night, and fell +asleep in sorrow for my sins. I do not know in the least how Goldsmith's +Greece came into my hands, though I fancy it must have been procured for +me because of a taste which I showed for that kind of reading, and I can +imagine no greater luck for a small boy in a small town of Southwestern +Ohio well-nigh fifty years ago. I have the books yet; two little, stout +volumes in fine print, with the marks of wear on them, but without those +dishonorable blots, or those other injuries which boys inflict upon books +in resentment of their dulness, or out of mere wantonness. I was always +sensitive to the maltreatment of books; I could not bear to see a book +faced down or dogs-eared or broken-backed. It was like a hurt or an +insult to a thing that could feel. + +Goldsmith's History of Rome came to me much later, but quite as +immemorably, and after I had formed a preference for the Greek Republics, +which I dare say was not mistaken. Of course I liked Athens best, and +yet there was something in the fine behavior of the Spartans in battle, +which won a heart formed for hero-worship. I mastered the notion of +their communism, and approved of their iron money, with the poverty it +obliged them to, yet somehow their cruel treatment of the Helots failed +to shock me; perhaps I forgave it to their patriotism, as I had to +forgive many ugly facts in the history of the Romans to theirs. There +was hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon in those days +to the slayers of tyrants; and the swagger form of such as despatched a +despot with a fine speech was so much to my liking that I could only +grieve that I was born too late to do and to say those things. + +I do not think I yet felt the beauty of the literature which made them +all live in my fancy, that I conceived of Goldsmith as an artist using +for my rapture the finest of the arts; and yet I had been taught to see +the loveliness of poetry, and was already trying to make it on my own +poor account. I tried to make verses like those I listened to when my +father read Moore and Scott to my mother, but I heard them with no such +happiness as I read my beloved histories, though I never thought then of +attempting to write like Goldsmith. I accepted his beautiful work as +ignorantly as I did my other blessings. I was concerned in getting at +the Greeks and Romans, and I did not know through what nimble air and by +what lovely ways I was led to them. Some retrospective perception of +this came long afterward when I read his essays, and after I knew all of +his poetry, and later yet when I read the 'Vicar of Wakefield'; but for +the present my eyes were holden, as the eyes of a boy mostly are in the +world of art. What I wanted with my Greeks and Romans after I got at +them was to be like them, or at least to turn them to account in verse, +and in dramatic verse at that. The Romans were less civilized than the +Greeks, and so were more like boys, and more to a boy's purpose. I did +not make literature of the Greeks, but I got a whole tragedy out of the +Romans; it was a rhymed tragedy, and in octosyllabic verse, like the +"Lady of the Lake." I meant it to be acted by my schoolmates, but I am +not sure that I ever made it known to them. Still, they were not +ignorant of my reading, and I remember how proud I was when a certain +boy, who had always whipped me when we fought together, and so outranked +me in that little boys' world, once sent to ask me the name of the Roman +emperor who lamented at nightfall, when he had done nothing worthy, that +he had lost a day. The boy was going to use the story, in a composition, +as we called the school themes then, and I told him the emperor's name; I +could not tell him now without turning to the book. + +My reading gave me no standing among the boys, and I did not expect it to +rank me with boys who were more valiant in fight or in play; and I have +since found that literature gives one no more certain station in the +world of men's activities, either idle or useful. We literary folk try +to believe that it does, but that is all nonsense. At every period of +life, among boys or men, we are accepted when they are at leisure, and +want to be amused, and at best we are tolerated rather than accepted. +I must have told the boys stories out of my Goldsmith's Greece and Rome, +or it would not have been known that I had read them, but I have no +recollection now of doing so, while I distinctly remember rehearsing the +allegories and fables of the 'Gesta Romanorum', a book which seems to +have been in my hands about the same time or a little later. I had a +delight in that stupid collection of monkish legends which I cannot +account for now, and which persisted in spite of the nightmare confusion +it made of my ancient Greeks and Romans. They were not at all the +ancient Greeks and Romans of Goldsmith's histories. + +I cannot say at what times I read these books, but they must have been +odd times, for life was very full of play then, and was already beginning +to be troubled with work. As I have said, I was to and fro between the +schoolhouse and the printing-office so much that when I tired of the one +I must have been very promptly given my choice of the other. The +reading, however, somehow went on pretty constantly, and no doubt my love +for it won me a chance for it. There were some famous cherry-trees in +our yard, which, as I look back at them, seem to have been in flower or +fruit the year round; and in one of them there was a level branch where a +boy could sit with a book till his dangling legs went to sleep, or till +some idler or busier boy came to the gate and called him down to play +marbles or go swimming. When this happened the ancient world was rolled +up like a scroll, and put away until the next day, with all its orators +and conspirators, its nymphs and satyrs, gods and demigods; though +sometimes they escaped at night and got into the boy's dreams. + +I do not think I cared as much as some of the other boys for the 'Arabian +Nights' or 'Robinson Crusoe,' but when it came to the 'Ingenious +Gentleman of La Mancha,' I was not only first, I was sole. + +Before I speak, however, of the beneficent humorist who next had my +boyish heart after Goldsmith, let me acquit myself in full of my debt to +that not unequal or unkindred spirit. I have said it was long after I +had read those histories, full of his inalienable charm, mere pot-boilers +as they were, and far beneath his more willing efforts, that I came to +know his poetry. My father must have read the "Deserted Village" to us, +and told us something of the author's pathetic life, for I cannot +remember when I first knew of "sweet Auburn," or had the light of the +poet's own troubled day upon the "loveliest village of the plain." +The 'Vicar of Wakefield' must have come into my life after that poem and +before 'The Traveler'. It was when I would have said that I knew all +Goldsmith; we often give ourselves credit for knowledge in this way +without having any tangible assets; and my reading has always been very +desultory. I should like to say here that the reading of any one who +reads to much purpose is always very desultory, though perhaps I had +better not say so, but merely state the fact in my case, and own that I +never read any one author quite through without wandering from him to +others. When I first read the 'Vicar of Wakefield' (for I have since +read it several times, and hope yet to read it many times), I found its +persons and incidents familiar, and so I suppose I must have heard it +read. It is still for me one of the most modern novels: that is to say, +one of the best. It is unmistakably good up to a certain point, and then +unmistakably bad, but with always good enough in it to be forever +imperishable. Kindness and gentleness are never out of fashion; it is +these in Goldsmith which make him our contemporary, and it is worth the +while of any young person presently intending deathless renown to take a +little thought of them. They are the source of all refinement, and I do +not believe that the best art in any kind exists without them. The style +is the man, and he cannot hide himself in any garb of words so that we +shall not know somehow what manner of man he is within it; his speech +betrayeth him, not only as to his country and his race, but more subtly +yet as to his heart, and the loves and hates of his heart. As to +Goldsmith, I do not think that a man of harsh and arrogant nature, of +worldly and selfish soul, could ever have written his style, and I do not +think that, in far greater measure than criticism has recognized, his +spiritual quality, his essential friendliness, expressed itself in the +literary beauty that wins the heart as well as takes the fancy in his +work. + +I should have my reservations and my animadversions if it came to close +criticism of his work, but I am glad that he was the first author I +loved, and that even before I knew I loved him I was his devoted reader. +I was not consciously his admirer till I began to read, when I was +fourteen, a little volume of his essays, made up, I dare say, from the +'Citizen of the World' and other unsuccessful ventures of his. It +contained the papers on Beau Tibbs, among others, and I tried to write +sketches and studies of life in their manner. But this attempt at +Goldsmith's manner followed a long time after I tried to write in the +style of Edgar A. Poe, as I knew it from his 'Tales of the Grotesque +erred Arabesque.' I suppose the very poorest of these was the "Devil in +the Belfry," but such as it was I followed it as closely as I could in +the "Devil in the Smoke-Pipes"; I meant tobacco-pipes. The resemblance +was noted by those to whom I read my story; I alone could not see it or +would not own it, and I really felt it a hardship that I should be found +to have produced an imitation. + +It was the first time I had imitated a prose writer, though I had +imitated several poets like Moore, Campbell, and Goldsmith himself. +I have never greatly loved an author without wishing to write like him. +I have now no reluctance to confess that, and I do not see why I should +not say that it was a long time before I found it best to be as like +myself as I could, even when I did not think so well of myself as of some +others. I hope I shall always be able and willing to learn something +from the masters of literature and still be myself, but for the young +writer this seems impossible. He must form himself from time to time +upon the different authors he is in love with, but when he has done this +he must wish it not to be known, for that is natural too. The lover +always desires to ignore the object of his passion, and the adoration +which a young writer has for a great one is truly a passion passing the +love of women. I think it hardly less fortunate that Cervantes was one +of my early passions, though I sat at his feet with no more sense of his +mastery than I had of Goldsmith's. + + + + +III. CERVANTES + +I recall very fully the moment and the place when I first heard of 'Don +Quixote,' while as yet I could not connect it very distinctly with +anybody's authorship. I was still too young to conceive of authorship, +even in my own case, and wrote my miserable verses without any notion of +literature, or of anything but the pleasure of seeing them actually come +out rightly rhymed and measured. The moment was at the close of a +summer's day just before supper, which, in our house, we had lawlessly +late, and the place was the kitchen where my mother was going about her +work, and listening as she could to what my father was telling my brother +and me and an apprentice of ours, who was like a brother to us both, of a +book that he had once read. We boys were all shelling peas, but the +story, as it went on, rapt us from the poor employ, and whatever our +fingers were doing, our spirits were away in that strange land of +adventures and mishaps, where the fevered life of the knight truly +without fear and without reproach burned itself out. I dare say that my +father tried to make us understand the satirical purpose of the book. +I vaguely remember his speaking of the books of chivalry it was meant to +ridicule; but a boy could not care for this, and what I longed to do at +once was to get that book and plunge into its story. He told us at +random of the attack on the windmills and the flocks of sheep, of the +night in the valley of the fulling-mills with their trip-hammers, of the +inn and the muleteers, of the tossing of Sancho in the blanket, of the +island that was given him to govern, and of all the merry pranks at the +duke's and duchess's, of the liberation of the galley-slaves, of the +capture of Mambrino's helmet, and of Sancho's invention of the enchanted +Dulcinea, and whatever else there was wonderful and delightful in the +most wonderful and delightful book in the world. I do not know when or +where my father got it for me, and I am aware of an appreciable time that +passed between my hearing of it and my having it. The event must have +been most important to me, and it is strange I cannot fix the moment when +the precious story came into my hands; though for the matter of that +there is nothing more capricious than a child's memory, what it will hold +and what it will lose. + +It is certain my Don Quixote was in two small, stout volumes not much +bigger each than my Goldsmith's 'Greece', bound in a sort of law-calf, +well fitted to withstand the wear they were destined to undergo. The +translation was, of course, the old-fashioned version of Jervas, which, +whether it was a closely faithful version or not, was honest eighteenth- +century English, and reported faithfully enough the spirit of the +original. If it had any literary influence with me the influence must +have been good. But I cannot make out that I was sensible of the +literature; it was the forever enchanting story that I enjoyed. +I exulted in the boundless freedom of the design; the open air of that +immense scene, where adventure followed adventure with the natural +sequence of life, and the days and the nights were not long enough for +the events that thronged them, amidst the fields and woods, the streams +and hills, the highways and byways, hostelries and hovels, prisons and +palaces, which were the setting of that matchless history. I took it as +simply as I took everything else in the world about me. It was full of +meaning that I could not grasp, and there were significances of the kind +that literature unhappily abounds in, but they were lost upon my +innocence. I did not know whether it was well written or not; I never +thought about that; it was simply there in its vast entirety, its +inexhaustible opulence, and I was rich in it beyond the dreams of +avarice. + +My father must have told us that night about Cervantes as well as about +his 'Don Quixote', for I seem to have known from the beginning that he +was once a slave in Algiers, and that he had lost a hand in battle, and I +loved him with a sort of personal affection, as if he were still living +and he could somehow return my love. His name and nature endeared the +Spanish name and nature to me, so that they were always my romance, and +to this day I cannot meet a Spanish man without clothing him in something +of the honor and worship I lavished upon Cervantes when I was a child. +While I was in the full flush of this ardor there came to see our school, +one day, a Mexican gentleman who was studying the American system of +education; a mild, fat, saffron man, whom I could almost have died to +please for Cervantes' and Don Quixote's sake, because I knew he spoke +their tongue. But he smiled upon us all, and I had no chance to +distinguish myself from the rest by any act of devotion before the +blessed vision faded, though for long afterwards, in impassioned +reveries, I accosted him and claimed him kindred because of my fealty, +and because I would have been Spanish if I could. + +I would not have had the boy-world about me know anything of these fond +dreams; but it was my tastes alone, my passions, which were alien there; +in everything else I was as much a citizen as any boy who had never heard +of Don Quixote. But I believe that I carried the book about with me most +of the time, so as not to lose any chance moment of reading it. Even in +the blank of certain years, when I added little other reading to my +store, I must still have been reading it. This was after we had removed +from the town where the earlier years of my boyhood were passed, and I +had barely adjusted myself to the strange environment when one of my +uncles asked me to come with him and learn the drug business, in the +place, forty miles away, where he practised medicine. We made the long +journey, longer than any I have made since, in the stage-coach of those +days, and we arrived at his house about twilight, he glad to get home, +and I sick to death with yearning for the home I had left. I do not know +how it was that in this state, when all the world was one hopeless +blackness around me, I should have got my 'Don Quixote' out of my bag; +I seem to have had it with me as an essential part of my equipment for my +new career. Perhaps I had been asked to show it, with the notion of +beguiling me from my misery; perhaps I was myself trying to drown my +sorrows in it. But anyhow I have before me now the vision of my sweet +young aunt and her young sister looking over her shoulder, as they stood +together on the lawn in the summer evening light. My aunt held my Don +Quixote open in one hand, while she clasped with the other the child she +carried on her arm. She looked at the book, and then from time to time +she looked at me, very kindly but very curiously, with a faint smile, so +that as I stood there, inwardly writhing in my bashfulness, I had the +sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy. She returned the book without +comment, after some questions, and I took it off to my room, where the +confidential friend of Cervantes cried himself to sleep. + +In the morning I rose up and told them I could not stand it, and I was +going home. Nothing they could say availed, and my uncle went down to +the stage-office with me and took my passage back. + +The horror of cholera was then in the land; and we heard in the stage- +office that a man lay dead of it in the hotel overhead. But my uncle led +me to his drugstore, where the stage was to call for me, and made me +taste a little camphor; with this prophylactic, Cervantes and I somehow +got home together alive. + +The reading of 'Don Quixote' went on throughout my boyhood, so that I +cannot recall any distinctive period of it when I was not, more or less, +reading that book. In a boy's way I knew it well when I was ten, and a +few years ago, when I was fifty, I took it up in the admirable new +version of Ormsby, and found it so full of myself and of my own +irrevocable past that I did not find it very gay. But I made a great +many discoveries in it; things I had not dreamt of were there, and must +always have been there, and other things wore a new face, and made a new +effect upon me. I had my doubts, my reserves, where once I had given it +my whole heart without question, and yet in what formed the greatness of +the book it seemed to me greater than ever. I believe that its free and +simple design, where event follows event without the fettering control of +intrigue, but where all grows naturally out of character and conditions, +is the supreme form of fiction; and I cannot help thinking that if we +ever have a great American novel it must be built upon some such large +and noble lines. As for the central figure, Don Quixote himself, in his +dignity and generosity, his unselfish ideals, and his fearless devotion +to them, he is always heroic and beautiful; and I was glad to find in my +latest look at his history that I had truly conceived of him at first, +and had felt the sublimity of his nature. I did not want to laugh at him +so much, and I could not laugh at all any more at some of the things done +to him. Once they seemed funny, but now only cruel, and even stupid, so +that it was strange to realize his qualities and indignities as both +flowing from the same mind. But in my mature experience, which threw a +broader light on the fable, I was happy to keep my old love of an author +who had been almost personally, dear to me. + + + + +IV + +IRVING + +I have told how Cervantes made his race precious to me, and I am sure +that it must have been he who fitted me to understand and enjoy the +American author who now stayed me on Spanish ground and kept me happy in +Spanish air, though I cannot trace the tie in time and circumstance +between Irving and Cervantes. The most I can make sure of is that I read +the 'Conquest of Granada' after I read Don Quixote, and that I loved the +historian so much because I had loved the novelist much more. Of course +I did not perceive then that Irving's charm came largely from Cervantes +and the other Spanish humorists yet unknown to me, and that he had formed +himself upon them almost as much as upon Goldsmith, but I dare say that +this fact had insensibly a great deal to do with my liking. Afterwards I +came to see it, and at the same time to see what was Irving's own in +Irving; to feel his native, if somewhat attenuated humor, and his +original, if somewhat too studied grace. But as yet there was no +critical question with me. I gave my heart simply and passionately to +the author who made the scenes of that most pathetic history live in my +sympathy, and companioned me with the stately and gracious actors in +them. + +I really cannot say now whether I loved the Moors or the Spaniards more. +I fought on both sides; I would not have had the Spaniards beaten, and +yet when the Moors lost I was vanquished with them; and when the poor +young King Boabdil (I was his devoted partisan and at the same time a +follower of his fiery old uncle and rival, Hamet el Zegri) heaved the +Last Sigh of the Moor, as his eyes left the roofs of Granada forever, it +was as much my grief as if it had burst from my own breast. I put both +these princes into the first and last historical romance I ever wrote. +I have now no idea what they did in it, but as the story never came to a +conclusion it does not greatly matter. I had never yet read an +historical romance that I can make sure of, and probably my attempt must +have been based almost solely upon the facts of Irving's history. I am +certain I could not have thought of adding anything to them, or at all +varying them. + +In reading his 'Chronicle' I suffered for a time from its attribution to +Fray Antonio Agapida, the pious monk whom he feigns to have written it, +just as in reading 'Don Quixote' I suffered from Cervantes masquerading +as the Moorish scribe, Cid Hamet Ben Engeli. My father explained the +literary caprice, but it remained a confusion and a trouble for me, and I +made a practice of skipping those passages where either author insisted +upon his invention. I will own that I am rather glad that sort of thing +seems to be out of fashion now, and I think the directer and franker +methods of modern fiction will forbid its revival. Thackeray was fond of +such open disguises, and liked to greet his reader from the mask of +Yellowplush and Michael Angelo Titmarsh, but it seems to me this was in +his least modern moments. + +My 'Conquest of Granada' was in two octavo volumes, bound in drab boards, +and printed on paper very much yellowed with time at its irregular edges. +I do not know when the books happened in my hands. I have no remembrance +that they were in any wise offered or commended to me, and in a sort of +way they were as authentically mine as if I had made them. I saw them at +home, not many months ago, in my father's library (it has long outgrown +the old bookcase, which has gone I know not where), and upon the whole I +rather shrank from taking them down, much more from opening them, though +I could not say why, unless it was from the fear of perhaps finding the +ghost of my boyish self within, pressed flat like a withered leaf, +somewhere between the familiar pages. + +When I learned Spanish it was with the purpose, never yet fulfilled, of +writing the life of Cervantes, although I have since had some forty-odd +years to do it in. I taught myself the language, or began to do so, when +I knew nothing of the English grammar but the prosody at the end of the +book. My father had the contempt of familiarity with it, having himself +written a very brief sketch of our accidence, and he seems to have let me +plunge into the sea of Spanish verbs and adverbs, nouns and pronouns, and +all the rest, when as yet I could not confidently call them by name, with +the serene belief that if I did not swim I would still somehow get ashore +without sinking. The end, perhaps, justified him, and I suppose I did +not do all that work without getting some strength from it; but I wish I +had back the time that it cost me; I should like to waste it in some +other way. However, time seemed interminable then, and I thought there +would be enough of it for me in which to read all Spanish literature; or, +at least, I did not propose to do anything less. + +I followed Irving, too, in my later reading, but at haphazard, and with +other authors at the same time. I did my poor best to be amused by his +'Knickerbocker History of New York', because my father liked it so much, +but secretly I found it heavy; and a few years ago when I went carefully +through it again. I could not laugh. Even as a boy I found some other +things of his uphill work. There was the beautiful manner, but the +thought seemed thin; and I do not remember having been much amused by +'Bracebridge Hall', though I read it devoutly, and with a full sense that +it would be very 'comme il faut' to like it. But I did like the 'Life of +Goldsmith'; I liked it a great deal better than the more authoritative +'Life by Forster', and I think there is a deeper and sweeter sense of +Goldsmith in it. Better than all, except the 'Conquest of Granada', +I liked the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and the story of Rip Van Winkle, +with their humorous and affectionate caricatures of life that was once of +our own soil and air; and the 'Tales of the Alhambra', which transported +me again, to the scenes of my youth beside the Xenil. It was long after +my acquaintance with his work that I came to a due sense of Irving as an +artist, and perhaps I have come to feel a full sense of it only now, when +I perceive that he worked willingly only when he worked inventively. +At last I can do justice to the exquisite conception of his 'Conquest of +Granada', a study of history which, in unique measure, conveys not only +the pathos, but the humor of one of the most splendid and impressive +situations in the experience of the race. Very possibly something of the +severer truth might have been sacrificed to the effect of the pleasing +and touching tale, but I do not under stand that this was really done. +Upon the whole I am very well content with my first three loves in +literature, and if I were to choose for any other boy I do not see how I +could choose better than Goldsmith and Cervantes and Irving, kindred +spirits, and each not a master only, but a sweet and gentle friend, whose +kindness could not fail to profit him. + + + + +V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA + +In my own case there followed my acquaintance with these authors certain +Boeotian years, when if I did not go backward I scarcely went forward in +the paths I had set out upon. They were years of the work, of the +over-work, indeed, which falls to the lot of so many that I should be +ashamed to speak of it except in accounting for the fact. My father had +sold his paper in Hamilton and had bought an interest in another at +Dayton, and we were all straining our utmost to help pay for it. My daily +tasks began so early and ended so late that I had little time, even if I +had the spirit, for reading; and it was not till what we thought ruin, +but what was really release, came to us that I got back again to my +books. Then we went to live in the country for a year, and that stress of +toil, with the shadow of failure darkening all, fell from me like the +horror of an evil dream. The only new book which I remember to have read +in those two or three years at Dayton, when I hardly remember to have +read any old ones, was the novel of 'Jane Eyre,' which I took in very +imperfectly, and which I associate with the first rumor of the Rochester +Knockings, then just beginning to reverberate through a world that they +have not since left wholly at peace. It was a gloomy Sunday afternoon +when the book came under my hand; and mixed with my interest in the story +was an anxiety lest the pictures on the walls should leave their nails +and come and lay themselves at my feet; that was what the pictures had +been doing in Rochester and other places where the disembodied spirits +were beginning to make themselves felt. The thing did not really happen +in my case, but I was alone in the house, and it might very easily have +happened. + +If very little came to me in those days from books, on the other hand my +acquaintance with the drama vastly enlarged itself. There was a hapless +company of players in the town from time to time, and they came to us for +their printing. I believe they never paid for it, or at least never +wholly, but they lavished free passes upon us, and as nearly as I can +make out, at this distance of time, I profited by their generosity, every +night. They gave two or three plays at every performance to houses +ungratefully small, but of a lively spirit and impatient temper that +would not brook delay in the representation; and they changed the bill +each day. In this way I became familiar with Shakespeare before I read +him, or at least such plays of his as were most given in those days, and +I saw "Macbeth" and "Hamlet," and above all "Richard III.," again and +again. I do not know why my delight in those tragedies did not send me +to the volume of his plays, which was all the time in the bookcase at +home, but I seem not to have thought of it, and rapt as I was in them I +am not sure that they gave me greater pleasure, or seemed at all finer, +than "Rollo," "The Wife," "The Stranger," "Barbarossa," "The Miser of +Marseilles," and the rest of the melodramas, comedies, and farces which I +saw at that time. I have a notion that there were some clever people in +one of these companies, and that the lighter pieces at least were well +played, but I may be altogether wrong. The gentleman who took the part +of villain, with an unfailing love of evil, in the different dramas, used +to come about the printing-office a good deal, and I was puzzled to find +him a very mild and gentle person. To be sure he had a mustache, which +in those days devoted a man to wickedness, but by day it was a blond +mustache, quite flaxen, in fact, and not at all the dark and deadly thing +it was behind the footlights at night. I could scarcely gasp in his +presence, my heart bounded so in awe and honor of him when he paid a +visit to us; perhaps he used to bring the copy of the show-bills. The +company he belonged to left town in the adversity habitual with them. + +Our own adversity had been growing, and now it became overwhelming. We +had to give up the paper we had struggled so hard to keep, but when the +worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before. There was no +more waiting till midnight for the telegraphic news, no more waking at +dawn to deliver the papers, no more weary days at the case, heavier for +the doom hanging over us. My father and his brothers had long dreamed of +a sort of family colony somewhere in the country, and now the uncle who +was most prosperous bought a milling property on a river not far from +Dayton, and my father went out to take charge of it until the others +could shape their business to follow him. The scheme came to nothing +finally, but in the mean time we escaped from the little city and its +sorrowful associations of fruitless labor, and had a year in the country, +which was blest, at least to us children, by sojourn in a log-cabin, +while a house was building for us. + + + + +VI. LONGFELLOW'S "SPANISH STUDENT" + +This log-cabin had a loft, where we boys slept, and in the loft were +stored in barrels the books that had now begun to overflow the bookcase. +I do not know why I chose the loft to renew my long-neglected friendship +with them. The light could not have been good, though if I brought my +books to the little gable window that overlooked the groaning and +whistling gristmill I could see well enough. But perhaps I liked the +loft best because the books were handiest there, and because I could be +alone. At any rate, it was there that I read Longfellow's "Spanish +Student," which I found in an old paper copy of his poems in one of the +barrels, and I instantly conceived for it the passion which all things +Spanish inspired in me. As I read I not only renewed my acquaintance +with literature, but renewed my delight in people and places where I had +been happy before those heavy years in Dayton. At the same time I felt a +little jealousy, a little grudge, that any one else should love them as +well as I, and if the poem had not been so beautiful I should have hated +the poet for trespassing on my ground. But I could not hold out long +against the witchery of his verse. The "Spanish Student" became one of +my passions; a minor passion, not a grand one, like 'Don Quixote' and the +'Conquest of Granada', but still a passion, and I should dread a little +to read the piece now, lest I should disturb my old ideal of its beauty. +The hero's rogue servant, Chispa, seemed to me, then and long afterwards, +so fine a bit of Spanish character that I chose his name for my first +pseudonym when I began to write for the newspapers, and signed my +legislative correspondence for a Cincinnati paper with it. I was in love +with the heroine, the lovely dancer whose 'cachucha' turned my head, +along with that of the cardinal, but whose name even I have forgotten, +and I went about with the thought of her burning in my heart, as if she +had been a real person. + + + + +VII. SCOTT + +All the while I was bringing up the long arrears of play which I had not +enjoyed in the toil-years at Dayton, and was trying to make my Spanish +reading serve in the sports that we had in the woods and by the river. +We were Moors and Spaniards almost as often as we were British and +Americans, or settlers and Indians. I suspect that the large, mild boy, +the son of a neighboring farmer, who mainly shared our games, had but a +dim notion of what I meant by my strange people, but I did my best to +enlighten him, and he helped me make a dream out of my life, and did his +best to dwell in the region of unrealities where I preferably had my +being; he was from time to time a Moor when I think he would rather have +been a Mingo. + +I got hold of Scott's poems, too, in that cabin loft, and read most of +the tales which were yet unknown to me after those earlier readings of my +father's. I could not say why "Harold the Dauntless" most took my fancy; +the fine, strongly flowing rhythm of the verse had a good deal to do with +it, I believe. I liked these things, all of them, and in after years I +liked the "Lady of the Lake" more and more, and from mere love of it got +great lengths of it by heart; but I cannot say that Scott was then or +ever a great passion with me. It was a sobered affection at best, which +came from my sympathy with his love of nature, and the whole kindly and +humane keeping of his genius. Many years later, during the month when I +was waiting for my passport as Consul for Venice, and had the time on my +hands, I passed it chiefly in reading all his novels, one after another, +without the interruption of other reading. 'Ivanhoe' I had known before, +and the 'Bride of Lammermoor' and 'Woodstock', but the rest had remained +in that sort of abeyance which is often the fate of books people expect +to read as a matter of course, and come very near not reading at all, or +read only very late. Taking them in this swift sequence, little or +nothing of them remained with me, and my experience with them is against +that sort of ordered and regular reading, which I have so often heard +advised for young people by their elders. I always suspect their elders +of not having done that kind of reading themselves. + +For my own part I believe I have never got any good from a book that I +did not read lawlessly and wilfully, out of all leading and following, +and merely because I wanted to read it; and I here make bold to praise +that way of doing. The book which you read from a sense of duty, or +because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you. +It may happen that it will yield you an unexpected delight, but this will +be in its own unentreated way and in spite of your good intentions. +Little of the book read for a purpose stays with the reader, and this is +one reason why reading for review is so vain and unprofitable. I have +done a vast deal of this, but I have usually been aware that the book was +subtly withholding from me the best a book can give, since I was not +reading it for its own sake and because I loved it, but for selfish ends +of my own, and because I wished to possess myself of it for business +purposes, as it were. The reading that does one good, and lasting good, +is the reading that one does for pleasure, and simply and unselfishly, +as children do. Art will still withhold herself from thrift, and she +does well, for nothing but love has any right to her. + +Little remains of the events of any period, however vivid they were in +passing. The memory may hold record of everything, as it is believed, +but it will not be easily entreated to give up its facts, and I find +myself striving in vein to recall the things that I must have read that +year in the country. Probably I read the old things over; certainly I +kept on with Cervantes, and very likely with Goldsmith. There was a +delightful history of Ohio, stuffed with tales of the pioneer times, +which was a good deal in the hands of us boys; and there was a book of +Western Adventure, full of Indian fights and captivities, which we wore +to pieces. Still, I think that it was now that I began to have a +literary sense of what I was reading. I wrote a diary, and I tried to +give its record form and style, but mostly failed. The versifying which +I was always at was easier, and yielded itself more to my hand. I should +be very glad to, know at present what it dealt with. + + + + +VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES + +When my uncles changed their minds in regard to colonizing their families +at the mills, as they did in about a year, it became necessary for my +father to look about for some new employment, and he naturally looked in +the old direction. There were several schemes for getting hold of this +paper and that, and there were offers that came to nothing. In that day +there were few salaried editors in the country outside of New York, and +the only hope we could have was of some place as printers in an office +which we might finally buy. The affair ended in our going to the State +capital, where my father found work as a reporter of legislative +proceedings for one of the daily journals, and I was taken into the +office as a compositor. In this way I came into living contact with +literature again, and the daydreams began once more over the familiar +cases of type. A definite literary ambition grew up in me, and in the +long reveries of the afternoon, when I was distributing my case, +I fashioned a future of overpowering magnificence and undying celebrity. +I should be ashamed to say what literary triumphs I achieved in those +preposterous deliriums. What I actually did was to write a good many +copies of verse, in imitation, never owned, of Moore and Goldsmith, and +some minor poets, whose work caught my fancy, as I read it in the +newspapers or put it into type. + +One of my pieces, which fell so far short of my visionary performances as +to treat of the lowly and familiar theme of Spring, was the first thing I +ever had in print. My father offered it to the editor of the paper I +worked on, and I first knew, with mingled shame and pride, of what he had +done when I saw it in the journal. In the tumult of my emotions I +promised myself that if I got through this experience safely I would +never suffer anything else of mine to be published; but it was not long +before I offered the editor a poem myself. I am now glad to think it +dealt with so humble a fact as a farmer's family leaving their old home +for the West. The only fame of my poem which reached me was when another +boy in the office quoted some lines of it in derision. This covered me +with such confusion that I wonder that I did not vanish from the earth. +At the same time I had my secret joy in it, and even yet I think it was +attempted in a way which was not false or wrong. I had tried to sketch +an aspect of life that I had seen and known, and that was very well +indeed, and I had wrought patiently and carefully in the art of the poor +little affair. + +My elder brother, for whom there was no place in the office where I +worked, had found one in a store, and he beguiled the leisure that light +trade left on his hands by reading the novels of Captain Marryat. I read +them after him with a great deal of amusement, but without the passion +that I bestowed upon my favorite authors. I believe I had no critical +reserves in regard to them, but simply they did not take my fancy. +Still, we had great fun with Japhet in 'Search of a Father', and with +'Midshipman Easy', and we felt a fine physical shiver in the darkling +moods of 'Snarle-yow the Dog-Fiend.' I do not remember even the names of +the other novels, except 'Jacob Faithful,' which I chanced upon a few +years ago and found very, hard reading. + +We children who were used to the free range of woods and fields were +homesick for the country in our narrow city yard, and I associate with +this longing the 'Farmer's Boy of Bloomfield,' which my father got for +me. It was a little book in blue cloth, and there were some mild +woodcuts in it. I read it with a tempered pleasure, and with a vague +resentment of its trespass upon Thomson's ground in the division of its +parts under the names of the seasons. I do not know why I need have felt +this. I was not yet very fond of Thomson. I really liked Bloomfield +better; for one thing, his poem was written in the heroic decasyllabics +which I preferred to any other verse. + + + + +IX. POPE + +I infer, from the fact of this preference that I had already begun to +read Pope, and that I must have read the "Deserted Village" of Goldsmith. +I fancy, also, that I must by this time have read the Odyssey, for the +"Battle of the Frogs and Mice" was in the second volume, and it took me +so much that I paid it the tribute of a bald imitation in a mock-heroic +epic of a cat fight, studied from the cat fights in our back yard, with +the wonted invocation to the Muse, and the machinery of partisan gods and +goddesses. It was in some hundreds of verses, which I did my best to +balance as Pope did, with a caesura falling in the middle of the line, +and a neat antithesis at the end. + +The story of the Odyssey charmed me, of course, and I had moments of +being intimate friends with Ulysses, but I was passing out of that phase, +and was coming to read more with a sense of the author, and less with a +sense of his characters as real persons; that is, I was growing more +literary, and less human. I fell in love with Pope, whose life I read +with an ardor of sympathy which I am afraid he hardly merited. I was of +his side in all his quarrels, as far as I understood them, and if I did +not understand them I was of his side anyway. When I found that he was a +Catholic I was almost ready to abjure the Protestant religion for his +sake; but I perceived that this was not necessary when I came to know +that most of his friends were Protestants. If the truth must be told, +I did not like his best things at first, but long remained chiefly +attached to his rubbishing pastorals, which I was perpetually imitating, +with a whole apparatus of swains and shepherdesses, purling brooks, +enamelled meads, rolling years, and the like. + +After my day's work at the case I wore the evening away in my boyish +literary attempts, forcing my poor invention in that unnatural kind, and +rubbing and polishing at my wretched verses till they did sometimes take +on an effect, which, if it was not like Pope's, was like none of mine. +With all my pains I do not think I ever managed to bring any of my +pastorals to a satisfactory close. They all stopped somewhere about +halfway. My swains could not think of anything more to say, and the +merits of my shepherdesses remained undecided. To this day I do not know +whether in any given instance it was the champion of Chloe or of Sylvia +that carried off the prize for his fair, but I dare say it does not much +matter. I am sure that I produced a rhetoric as artificial and treated +of things as unreal as my master in the art, and I am rather glad that I +acquainted myself so thoroughly with a mood of literature which, whatever +we may say against it, seems to have expressed very perfectly a mood of +civilization. + +The severe schooling I gave myself was not without its immediate use. +I learned how to choose between words after a study of their fitness, +and though I often employed them decoratively and with no vital sense of +their qualities, still in mere decoration they had to be chosen +intelligently, and after some thought about their structure and meaning. +I could not imitate Pope without imitating his methods, and his method +was to the last degree intelligent. He certainly knew what he was doing, +and although I did not always know what I was doing, he made me wish to +know, and ashamed of not knowing. There are several truer poets who +might not have done this; and after all the modern contempt of Pope, he +seems to me to have been at least one of the great masters, if not one of +the great poets. The poor man's life was as weak and crooked as his +frail, tormented body, but he had a dauntless spirit, and he fought his +way against odds that might well have appalled a stronger nature. +I suppose I must own that he was from time to time a snob, and from time +to time a liar, but I believe that he loved the truth, and would have +liked always to respect himself if he could. He violently revolted, +now and again, from the abasement to which he forced himself, and he +always bit the heel that trod on him, especially if it was a very high, +narrow heel, with a clocked stocking and a hooped skirt above it. +I loved him fondly at one time, and afterwards despised him, but now I am +not sorry for the love, and I am very sorry for the despite. I humbly, +own a vast debt to him, not the least part of which is the perception +that he is a model of ever so much more to be shunned than to be followed +in literature. + +He was the first of the writers of great Anna's time whom I knew, and he +made me ready to understand, if he did not make me understand at once, +the order of mind and life which he belonged to. Thanks to his +pastorals, I could long afterwards enjoy with the double sense requisite +for full pleasure in them, such divinely excellent artificialities at +Tasso's "Aminta" and Guarini's "Pastor Fido"; things which you will +thoroughly like only after you are in the joke of thinking how people +once seriously liked them as high examples of poetry. + +Of course I read other things of Pope's besides his pastorals, even at +the time I read these so much. I read, or not very easily or willingly +read at, his 'Essay on Man,' which my father admired, and which he +probably put Pope's works into my hands to have me read; and I read the +'Dunciad,' with quite a furious ardor in the tiresome quarrels it +celebrates, and an interest in its machinery, which it fatigues me to +think of. But it was only a few years ago that I read the 'Rape of the +Lock,' a thing perfect of its kind, whatever we may choose to think of +the kind. Upon the whole I think much better of the kind than I once +did, though still not so much as I should have thought if I had read the +poem when the fever of my love for Pope was at the highest. + +It is a nice question how far one is helped or hurt by one's +idealizations of historical or imaginary characters, and I shall not try +to answer it fully. I suppose that if I once cherished such a passion +for Pope personally that I would willingly have done the things that he +did, and told the lies, and vented the malice, and inflicted the +cruelties that the poor soul was full of, it was for the reason, partly, +that I did not see these things as they were, and that in the glamour of +his talent I was blind to all but the virtues of his defects, which he +certainly had, and partly that in my love of him I could not take sides +against him, even when I knew him to be wrong. After all, I fancy not +much harm comes to the devoted boy from his enthusiasms for this +imperfect hero or that. In my own case I am sure that I distinguished as +to certain sins in my idols. I could not cast them down or cease to +worship them, but some of their frailties grieved me and put me to secret +shame for them. I did not excuse these things in them, or try to believe +that they were less evil for them than they would have been for less +people. This was after I came more or less to the knowledge of good and +evil. While I remained in the innocence of childhood I did not even +understand the wrong. When I realized what lives some of my poets had +led, how they were drunkards, and swindlers, and unchaste, and untrue, +I lamented over them with a sense of personal disgrace in them, and to +this day I have no patience with that code of the world which relaxes +itself in behalf of the brilliant and gifted offender; rather he should +suffer more blame. The worst of the literature of past times, before an +ethical conscience began to inform it, or the advance of the race +compelled it to decency, is that it leaves the mind foul with filthy +images and base thoughts; but what I have been trying to say is that the +boy, unless he is exceptionally depraved beforehand, is saved from these +through his ignorance. Still I wish they were not there, and I hope the +time will come when the beast-man will be so far subdued and tamed in us +that the memory of him in literature shall be left to perish; that what +is lewd and ribald in the great poets shall be kept out of such editions +as are meant for general reading, and that the pedant-pride which now +perpetuates it as an essential part of those poets shall no longer have +its way. At the end of the ends such things do defile, they do corrupt. +We may palliate them or excuse them for this reason or that, but that is +the truth, and I do not see why they should not be dropped from +literature, as they were long ago dropped from the talk of decent people. +The literary histories might keep record of them, but it is loath some to +think of those heaps of ordure, accumulated from generation to +generation, and carefully passed down from age to age as something +precious and vital, and not justly regarded as the moral offal which they +are. + +During the winter we passed at Columbus I suppose that my father read +things aloud to us after his old habit, and that I listened with the +rest. I have a dim notion of first knowing Thomson's 'Castle of +Indolence' in this way, but I was getting more and more impatient of +having things read to me. The trouble was that I caught some thought or +image from the text, and that my fancy remained playing with that while +the reading went on, and I lost the rest. But I think the reading was +less in every way than it had been, because his work was exhausting and +his leisure less. My own hours in the printing-office began at seven and +ended at six, with an hour at noon for dinner, which I often used for +putting down such verses as had come to me during the morning. As soon +as supper was over at night I got out my manuscripts, which I kept in +great disorder, and written in several different hands on several +different kinds of paper, and sawed, and filed, and hammered away at my +blessed Popean heroics till nine, when I went regularly to bed, to rise +again at five. Sometimes the foreman gave me an afternoon off on +Saturdays, and though the days were long the work was not always +constant, and was never very severe. I suspect now the office was not so +prosperous as might have been wished. I was shifted from place to place +in it, and there was plenty of time for my day-dreams over the +distribution of my case. I was very fond of my work, though, and proud +of my swiftness and skill in it. Once when the perplexed foreman could +not think of any task to set me he offered me a holiday, but I would not +take it, so I fancy that at this time I was not more interested in my art +of poetry than in my trade of printing. What went on in the office +interested me as much as the quarrels of the Augustan age of English +letters, and I made much more record of it in the crude and shapeless +diary which I kept, partly in verse and partly in prose, but always of a +distinctly lower literary kind than that I was trying otherwise to write. +There must have been some mention in it of the tremendous combat with wet +sponges I saw there one day between two of the boys who hurled them back +and forth at each other. This amiable fray, carried on during the +foreman's absence, forced upon my notice for the first time the boy who +has come to be a name well-known in literature. I admired his vigor as a +combatant, but I never spoke to him at that time, and I never dreamed +that he, too, was effervescing with verse, probably as fiercely as +myself. Six or seven years later we met again, when we had both become +journalists, and had both had poems accepted by Mr. Lowell for the +Atlantic Monthly, and then we formed a literary friendship which +eventuated in the joint publication of a volume of verse. 'The Poems of +Two Friends' became instantly and lastingly unknown to fame; the West +waited, as it always does, to hear what the East should say; the East +said nothing, and two-thirds of the small edition of five hundred came +back upon the publisher's hands. I imagine these copies were "ground up" +in the manner of worthless stock, for I saw a single example of the book +quoted the other day in a book-seller's catalogue at ten dollars, and I +infer that it is so rare as to be prized at least for its rarity. It was +a very pretty little book, printed on tinted paper then called "blush," +in the trade, and it was manufactured in the same office where we had +once been boys together, unknown to each other. Another boy of that time +had by this time become foreman in the office, and he was very severe +with us about the proofs, and sent us hurting messages on the margin. +Perhaps he thought we might be going to take on airs, and perhaps we +might have taken on airs if the fate of our book had been different. +As it was I really think we behaved with sufficient meekness, and after +thirty four or five years for reflection I am still of a very modest mind +about my share of the book, in spite of the price it bears in the book- +seller's catalogue. But I have steadily grown in liking for my friend's +share in it, and I think that there is at present no American of twenty- +three writing verse of so good a quality, with an ideal so pure and high, +and from an impulse so authentic as John J. Piatt's were then. He +already knew how to breathe into his glowing rhyme the very spirit of the +region where we were both native, and in him the Middle West has its true +poet, who was much more than its poet, who had a rich and tender +imagination, a lovely sense of color, and a touch even then securely and +fully his own. I was reading over his poems in that poor little book a +few days ago, and wondering with shame and contrition that I had not at +once known their incomparable superiority to mine. But I used then and +for long afterwards to tax him with obscurity, not knowing that my own +want of simplicity and directness was to blame for that effect. +My reading from the first was such as to enamour me of clearness, of +definiteness; anything left in the vague was intolerable to me; but my +long subjection to Pope, while it was useful in other ways, made me so +strictly literary in my point of view that sometimes I could not see what +was, if more naturally approached and without any technical +preoccupation, perfectly transparent. It remained for another great +passion, perhaps the greatest of my life, to fuse these gyves in which I +was trying so hard to dance, and free me forever from the bonds which I +had spent so much time and trouble to involve myself in. But I was not +to know that passion for five or six years yet, and in the mean time I +kept on as I had been going, and worked out my deliverance in the +predestined way. What I liked then was regularity, uniformity, +exactness. I did not conceive of literature as the expression of life, +and I could not imagine that it ought to be desultory, mutable, and +unfixed, even if at the risk of some vagueness. + + + + +X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES + +My father was very fond of Byron, and I must before this have known that +his poems were in our bookcase. While we were still in Columbus I began +to read them, but I did not read so much of them as could have helped me +to a truer and freer ideal. I read "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," +and I liked its vulgar music and its heavy-handed sarcasm. These would, +perhaps, have fascinated any boy, but I had such a fanaticism for +methodical verse that any variation from the octosyllabic and +decasyllabic couplets was painful to me. The Spencerian stanza, with its +rich variety of movement and its harmonious closes, long shut "Childe +Harold" from me, and whenever I found a poem in any book which did not +rhyme its second line with its first I read it unwillingly or not at all. + +This craze could not last, of course, but it lasted beyond our stay in +Columbus, which ended with the winter, when the Legislature adjourned, +and my father's employment ceased. He tried to find some editorial work +on the paper which had printed his reports, but every place was full, and +it was hopeless to dream of getting a proprietary interest in it. We had +nothing, and we must seek a chance where something besides money would +avail us. This offered itself in the village of Ashtabula, in the +northeastern part of the State, and there we all found ourselves one +moonlight night of early summer. The Lake Shore Railroad then ended at +Ashtabula, in a bank of sand, and my elder brother and I walked up from +the station, while the rest of the family, which pretty well filled the +omnibus, rode. We had been very happy at Columbus, as we were apt to be +anywhere, but none of us liked the narrowness of city streets, even so +near to the woods as those were, and we were eager for the country again. +We had always lived hitherto in large towns, except for that year at the +Mills, and we were eager to see what a village was like, especially a +village peopled wholly by Yankees, as our father had reported it. I must +own that we found it far prettier than anything we had known in Southern +Ohio, which we were so fond of and so loath to leave, and as I look back +it still seems to me one of the prettiest little places I have ever +known, with its white wooden houses, glimmering in the dark of its elms +and maples, and their silent gardens beside each, and the silent, grass- +bordered, sandy streets between them. The hotel, where we rejoined our +family, lurked behind a group of lofty elms, and we drank at the town +pump before it just for the pleasure of pumping it. + +The village was all that we could have imagined of simply and sweetly +romantic in the moonlight, and when the day came it did not rob it of its +charm. It was as lovely in my eyes as the loveliest village of the +plain, and it had the advantage of realizing the Deserted Village without +being deserted. + + + + +XI. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN + +The book that moved me most, in our stay of six months at Ashtabula, was +then beginning to move the whole world more than any other book has moved +it. I read it as it came out week after week in the old National Era, +and I broke my heart over Uncle Tom's Cabin, as every one else did. Yet +I cannot say that it was a passion of mine like Don Quixote, or the other +books that I had loved intensely. I felt its greatness when I read it +first, and as often as I have read it since, I have seen more and more +clearly that it was a very great novel. With certain obvious lapses in +its art, and with an art that is at its best very simple, and perhaps +primitive, the book is still a work of art. I knew this, in a measure +then, as I know it now, and yet neither the literary pride I was +beginning to have in the perception of such things, nor the powerful +appeal it made to my sympathies, sufficed to impassion me of it. I could +not say why this was so. Why does the young man's fancy, when it lightly +turns to thoughts of love, turn this way and not that? There seems no +more reason for one than for the other. + +Instead of remaining steeped to the lips in the strong interest of what +is still perhaps our chief fiction, I shed my tribute of tears, and went +on my way. I did not try to write a story of slaver, as I might very +well have done; I did not imitate either the make or the manner of Mrs. +Stowe's romance; I kept on at my imitation of Pope's pastorals, which I +dare say I thought much finer, and worthier the powers of such a poet as +I meant to be. I did this, as I must have felt then, at some personal +risk of a supernatural kind, for my studies were apt to be prolonged into +the night after the rest of the family had gone to bed, and a certain +ghost, which I had every reason to fear, might very well have visited the +small room given me to write in. There was a story, which I shrank from +verifying, that a former inmate of our house had hung himself in it, but +I do not know to this day whether it was true or not. The doubt did not +prevent him from dangling at the door-post, in my consciousness, and many +a time I shunned the sight of this problematical suicide by keeping my +eyes fastened on the book before me. It was a very simple device, but +perfectly effective, as I think any one will find who employs it in like +circumstances; and I would really like to commend it to growing boys +troubled as I was then. + +I never heard who the poor soul was, or why he took himself out of the +world, if he really did so, or if he ever was in it; but I am sure that +my passion for Pope, and my purpose of writing pastorals, must have been +powerful indeed to carry me through dangers of that kind. I suspect that +the strongest proof of their existence was the gloomy and ruinous look of +the house, which was one of the oldest in the village, and the only one +that was for rent there. We went into it because we must, and we were to +leave it as soon as we could find a better. But before this happened we +left Ashtabula, and I parted with one of the few possibilities I have +enjoyed of seeing a ghost on his own ground, as it were. + +I was not sorry, for I believe I never went in or came out of the place, +by day or by night, without a shudder, more or less secret; and at least, +now, we should be able to get another house. + + + + +XII. OSSIAN + +Very likely the reading of Ossian had something to do with my morbid +anxieties. I had read Byron's imitation of him before that, and admired +it prodigiously, and when my father got me the book--as usual I did not +know where or how he got it--not all the tall forms that moved before the +eyes of haunted bards in the dusky vale of autumn could have kept me from +it. There were certain outline illustrations in it, which were very good +in the cold Flaxman manner, and helped largely to heighten the +fascination of the poems for me. They did not supplant the pastorals of +Pope in my affections, and they were never the grand passion with me that +Pope's poems had been. + +I began at once to make my imitations of Ossian, and I dare say they were +not windier and mistier than the original. At the same time I read the +literature of the subject, and gave the pretensions of Macpherson an +unquestioning faith. I should have made very short work of any one who +had impugned the authenticity of the poems, but happily there was no one +who held the contrary opinion in that village, so far as I knew, or who +cared for Ossian, or had even heard of him. This saved me a great deal +of heated controversy with my contemporaries, but I had it out in many +angry reveries with Dr. Johnson and others, who had dared to say in their +time that the poems of Ossian were not genuine lays of the Gaelic bard, +handed down from father to son, and taken from the lips of old women in +Highland huts, as Macpherson claimed. + +In fact I lived over in my small way the epoch of the eighteenth century +in which these curious frauds found polite acceptance all over Europe, +and I think yet that they were really worthier of acceptance than most of +the artificialities that then passed for poetry. There was a light of +nature in them, and this must have been what pleased me, so long-shut up +to the studio-work of Pope. But strangely enough I did not falter in my +allegiance to him, or realize that here in this free form was a +deliverance, if I liked, from the fetters and manacles which I had been +at so much pains to fit myself with. Probably nothing would then have +persuaded me to put them off permanently, or to do more than lay them +aside for the moment while I tried that new stop and that new step. + +I think that even then I had an instinctive doubt whether formlessness +was really better than formality. Something, it seems to me, may be +contained and kept alive in formality, but in formlessness everything +spills and wastes away. This is what I find the fatal defect of our +American Ossian, Walt Whitman, whose way is where artistic madness lies. +He had great moments, beautiful and noble thoughts, generous aspirations, +and a heart wide and warm enough for the whole race, but he had no +bounds, no shape; he was as liberal as the casing air, but he was often +as vague and intangible. I cannot say how long my passion for Ossian +lasted, but not long, I fancy, for I cannot find any trace of it in the +time following our removal from Ashtabula to the county seat at +Jefferson. I kept on with Pope, I kept on with Cervantes, I kept on with +Irving, but I suppose there was really not substance enough in Ossian to +feed my passion, and it died of inanition. + + + + +XIII. SHAKESPEARE + +The establishment of our paper in the village where there had been none +before, and its enlargement from four to eight pages, were events so +filling that they left little room for any other excitement but that of +getting acquainted with the young people of the village, and going to +parties, and sleigh rides, and walks, and drives, and picnics, and +dances, and all the other pleasures in which that community seemed to +indulge beyond any other we had known. The village was smaller than the +one we had just left, but it was by no means less lively, and I think +that for its size and time and place it had an uncommon share of what has +since been called culture. The intellectual experience of the people was +mainly theological and political, as it was everywhere in that day, but +there were several among them who had a real love for books, and when +they met at the druggist's, as they did every night, to dispute of the +inspiration of the Scriptures and the principles of the Free Soil party, +the talk sometimes turned upon the respective merits of Dickens and +Thackeray, Gibbon and Macaulay, Wordsworth and Byron. There were law +students who read "Noctes Ambrosianae," the 'Age of Reason', and Bailey's +"Festus," as well as Blackstone's 'Commentaries;' and there was a public +library in that village of six hundred people, small but very well +selected, which was kept in one of the lawyers' offices, and was free to +all. It seems to me now that the people met there oftener than they do +in most country places, and rubbed their wits together more, but this may +be one of those pleasing illusions of memory which men in later life are +subject to. + +I insist upon nothing, but certainly the air was friendlier to the tastes +I had formed than any I had yet known, and I found a wider if not deeper +sympathy with them. There was one of our printers who liked books, and +we went through 'Don Quixote' together again, and through the 'Conquest +of Granada', and we began to read other things of Irving's. There was a +very good little stock of books at the village drugstore, and among those +that began to come into my hands were the poems of Dr. Holmes, stray +volumes of De Quincey, and here and there minor works of Thackeray. +I believe I had no money to buy them, but there was an open account, +or a comity, between the printer and the bookseller, and I must have been +allowed a certain discretion in regard to getting books. + +Still I do not think I went far in the more modern authors, or gave my +heart to any of them. Suddenly, it was now given to Shakespeare, without +notice or reason, that I can recall, except that my friend liked him too, +and that we found it a double pleasure to read him together. Printers in +the old-time offices were always spouting Shakespeare more or less, and I +suppose I could not have kept away from him much longer in the nature of +things. I cannot fix the time or place when my friend and I began to +read him, but it was in the fine print of that unhallowed edition of +ours, and presently we had great lengths of him by heart, out of +"Hamlet," out of "The Tempest," out of "Macbeth," out of "Richard III.," +out of "Midsummer-Night's Dream," out of the "Comedy of Errors," out of +"Julius Caesar," out of "Measure for Measure," out of "Romeo and Juliet," +out of "Two Gentlemen of Verona." + +These were the plays that we loved, and must have read in common, or at +least at the same time: but others that I more especially liked were the +Histories, and among them particularly were the Henrys, where Falstaff +appeared. This gross and palpable reprobate greatly took my fancy. +I delighted in him immensely, and in his comrades, Pistol, and Bardolph, +and Nym. I could not read of his death without emotion, and it was a +personal pang to me when the prince, crowned king, denied him: blackguard +for blackguard, I still think the prince the worse blackguard. Perhaps I +flatter myself, but I believe that even then, as a boy of sixteen, +I fully conceived of Falstaff's character, and entered into the author's +wonderfully humorous conception of him. There is no such perfect +conception of the selfish sensualist in literature, and the conception is +all the more perfect because of the wit that lights up the vice of +Falstaff, a cold light without tenderness, for he was not a good fellow, +though a merry companion. I am not sure but I should put him beside +Hamlet, and on the name level, for the merit of his artistic +completeness, and at one time I much preferred him, or at least his +humor. + +As to Falstaff personally, or his like, I was rather fastidious, and +would not have made friends with him in the flesh, much or little. +I revelled in all his appearances in the Histories, and I tried to be as +happy where a factitious and perfunctory Falstaff comes to life again in +the "Merry Wives of Windsor," though at the bottom of my heart I felt the +difference. I began to make my imitations of Shakespeare, and I wrote 57 +out passages where Falstaff and Pistol and Bardolph talked together, in +that Ercles vein which is so easily caught. This was after a year or two +of the irregular and interrupted acquaintance with the author which has +been my mode of friendship with all the authors I have loved. My worship +of Shakespeare went to heights and lengths that it had reached with no +earlier idol, and there was a supreme moment, once, when I found myself +saying that the creation of Shakespeare was as great as the creation of a +planet. + +There ought certainly to be some bound beyond which the cult of favorite +authors should not be suffered to go. I should keep well within the +limit of that early excess now, and should not liken the creation of +Shakespeare to the creation of any heavenly body bigger, say, than one of +the nameless asteroids that revolve between Mars and Jupiter. Even this +I do not feel to be a true means of comparison, and I think that in the +case of all great men we like to let our wonder mount and mount, till it +leaves the truth behind, and honesty is pretty much cast out as ballast. +A wise criticism will no more magnify Shakespeare because he is already +great than it will magnify any less man. But we are loaded down with the +responsibility of finding him all we have been told he is, and we must do +this or suspect ourselves of a want of taste, a want of sensibility. At +the same time, we may really be honester than those who have led us to +expect this or that of him, and more truly his friends. I wish the time +might come when we could read Shakespeare, and Dante, and Homer, as +sincerely and as fairly as we read any new book by the least known of our +contemporaries. The course of criticism is towards this, but when I +began to read Shakespeare I should not have ventured to think that he was +not at every moment great. I should no more have thought of questioning +the poetry of any passage in him than of questioning the proofs of holy +writ. All the same, I knew very well that much which I read was really +poor stuff, and the persons and positions were often preposterous. It is +a great pity that the ardent youth should not be permitted and even +encouraged to say this to himself, instead of falling slavishly before a +great author and accepting him at all points as infallible. Shakespeare +is fine enough and great enough when all the possible detractions are +made, and I have no fear of saying now that he would be finer and greater +for the loss of half his work, though if I had heard any one say such a +thing then I should have held him as little better than one of the +wicked. + +Upon the whole it was well that I had not found my way to Shakespeare +earlier, though it is rather strange that I had not. I knew him on the +stage in most of the plays that used to be given. I had shared the +conscience of Macbeth, the passion of Othello, the doubt of Hamlet; many +times, in my natural affinity for villains, I had mocked and suffered +with Richard III. + +Probably no dramatist ever needed the stage less, and none ever brought +more to it. There have been few joys for me in life comparable to that +of seeing the curtain rise on "Hamlet," and hearing the guards begin to +talk about the ghost; and yet how fully this joy imparts itself without +any material embodiment! It is the same in the whole range of his plays: +they fill the scene, but if there is no scene they fill the soul. They +are neither worse nor better because of the theatre. They are so great +that it cannot hamper them; they are so vital that they enlarge it to +their own proportions and endue it with something of their own living +force. They make it the size of life, and yet they retire it so wholly +that you think no more of it than you think of the physiognomy of one who +talks importantly to you. I have heard people say that they would rather +not see Shakespeare played than to see him played ill, but I cannot agree +with them. He can better afford to be played ill than any other man that +ever wrote. Whoever is on the stage, it is always Shakespeare who is +speaking to me, and perhaps this is the reason why in the past I can +trace no discrepancy between reading his plays and seeing them. + +The effect is so equal from either experience that I am not sure as to +some plays whether I read them or saw them first, though as to most of +them I am aware that I never saw them at all; and if the whole truth must +be told there is still one of his plays that I have not read, and I +believe it is esteemed one of his greatest. There are several, with all +my reading of others, that I had not read till within a few years; and I +do not think I should have lost much if I, had never read "Pericles" and +"Winter's Tale." + +In those early days I had no philosophized preference for reality in +literature, and I dare say if I had been asked, I should have said that +the plays of Shakespeare where reality is least felt were the most +imaginative; that is the belief of the puerile critics still; but I +suppose it was my instinctive liking for reality that made the great +Histories so delightful to me, and that rendered "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" +vital in their very ghosts and witches. There I found a world +appreciable to experience, a world inexpressibly vaster and grander than +the poor little affair that I had only known a small obscure corner of, +and yet of one quality with it, so that I could be as much at home and +citizen in it as where I actually lived. There I found joy and sorrow +mixed, and nothing abstract or typical, but everything standing for +itself, and not for some other thing. Then, I suppose it was the +interfusion of humor through so much of it, that made it all precious and +friendly. I think I had a native love of laughing, which was fostered in +me by my father's way of looking at life, and had certainly been +flattered by my intimacy with Cervantes; but whether this was so or not, +I know that I liked best and felt deepest those plays and passages in +Shakespeare where the alliance of the tragic and the comic was closest. +Perhaps in a time when self-consciousness is so widespread, it is the +only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am sure that without it I +should not have been naturalized to that world of Shakespeare's +Histories, where I used to spend so much of my leisure, with such a sense +of his own intimate companionship there as I had nowhere else. I felt +that he must somehow like my being in the joke of it all, and that in his +great heart he had room for a boy willing absolutely to lose himself in +him, and be as one of his creations. + +It was the time of life with me when a boy begins to be in love with the +pretty faces that then peopled this world so thickly, and I did not fail +to fall in love with the ladies of that Shakespeare-world where I lived +equally. I cannot tell whether it was because I found them like my +ideals here, or whether my ideals acquired merit because of their +likeness to the realities there; they appeared to be all of one degree of +enchanting loveliness; but upon the whole I must have preferred them in +the plays, because it was so much easier to get on with them there; I was +always much better dressed there; I was vastly handsomer; I was not +bashful or afraid, and I had some defects of these advantages to contend +with here. + +That friend of mine, the printer whom I have mentioned, was one with me +in a sense of the Shakespearean humor, and he dwelt with me in the sort +of double being I had in those two worlds. We took the book into the +woods at the ends of the long summer afternoons that remained to us when +we had finished our work, and on the shining Sundays of the warm, late +spring, the early, warm autumn, and we read it there on grassy slopes or +heaps of fallen leaves; so that much of the poetry is mixed for me with a +rapturous sense of the out-door beauty of this lovely natural world. +We read turn about, one taking the story up as the other tired, and as we +read the drama played itself under the open sky and in the free air with +such orchestral effects as the soughing woods or some rippling stream +afforded. It was not interrupted when a squirrel dropped a nut on us +from the top of a tall hickory; and the plaint of a meadow-lark prolonged +itself with unbroken sweetness from one world to the other. + +But I think it takes two to read in the open air. The pressure of walls +is wanted to keep the mind within itself when one reads alone; otherwise +it wanders and disperses itself through nature. When my friend left us +for want of work in the office, or from the vagarious impulse which is so +strong in our craft, I took my Shakespeare no longer to the woods and +fields, but pored upon him mostly by night, in the narrow little space +which I had for my study, under the stairs at home. There was a desk +pushed back against the wall, which the irregular ceiling eloped down to +meet behind it, and at my left was a window, which gave a good light on +the writing-leaf of my desk. This was my workshop for six or seven +years, and it was not at all a bad one; I have had many since that were +not so much to the purpose; and though I would not live my life over, I +would willingly enough have that little study mine again. But it is gone +an utterly as the faces and voices that made home around it, and that I +was fierce to shut out of it, so that no sound or sight should molest me +in the pursuit of the end which I sought gropingly, blindly, with very +little hope, but with an intense ambition, and a courage that gave way +under no burden, before no obstacle. Long ago changes were made in the +low, rambling house which threw my little closet into a larger room; but +this was not until after I had left it many years; and as long as I +remained a part of that dear and simple home it was my place to read, to +write, to muse, to dream. + +I sometimes wish in these later years that I had spent less time in it, +or that world of books which it opened into; that I had seen more of the +actual world, and had learned to know my brethren in it better. I might +so have amassed more material for after use in literature, but I had to +fit myself to use it, and I suppose that this was what I was doing, in my +own way, and by such light as I had. I often toiled wrongly and +foolishly; but certainly I toiled, and I suppose no work is wasted. Some +strength, I hope, was coming to me, even from my mistakes, and though I +went over ground that I need not have traversed, if I had not been left +so much to find the way alone, yet I was not standing still, and some of +the things that I then wished to do I have done. I do not mind owning +that in others I have failed. For instance, I have never surpassed +Shakespeare as a poet, though I once firmly meant to do so; but then, it +is to be remembered that very few other people have surpassed him, and +that it would not have been easy. + + + + +XIV. IK MARVEL + +My ardor for Shakespeare must have been at its height when I was between +sixteen and seventeen years old, for I fancy when I began to formulate my +admiration, and to try to measure his greatness in phrases, I was less +simply impassioned than at some earlier time. At any rate, I am sure +that I did not proclaim his planetary importance in creation until I was +at least nineteen. But even at an earlier age I no longer worshipped at +a single shrine; there were many gods in the temple of my idolatry, and I +bowed the knee to them all in a devotion which, if it was not of one +quality, was certainly impartial. While I was reading, and thinking, and +living Shakespeare with such an intensity that I do not see how there +could have been room in my consciousness for anything else, there seem to +have been half a dozen other divinities there, great and small, whom I +have some present difficulty in distinguishing. I kept Irving, and +Goldsmith, and Cervantes on their old altars, but I added new ones, and +these I translated from the contemporary: literary world quite as often +as from the past. I am rather glad that among them was the gentle and +kindly Ik Marvel, whose 'Reveries of a Bachelor' and whose 'Dream Life' +the young people of that day were reading with a tender rapture which +would not be altogether surprising, I dare say, to the young people of +this. The books have survived the span of immortality fixed by our +amusing copyright laws, and seem now, when any pirate publisher may +plunder their author, to have a new life before them. Perhaps this is +ordered by Providence, that those who have no right to them may profit by +them, in that divine contempt of such profit which Providence so often +shows. + +I cannot understand just how I came to know of the books, but I suppose +it was through the contemporary criticism which I was then beginning to +read, wherever I could find it, in the magazines and newspapers; and I +could not say why I thought it would be very 'comme il faut' to like +them. Probably the literary fine world, which is always rubbing +shoulders with the other fine world, and bringing off a little of its +powder and perfume, was then dawning upon me, and I was wishing to be of +it, and to like the things that it liked; I am not so anxious to do it +now. But if this is true, I found the books better than their friends, +and had many a heartache from their pathos, many a genuine glow of +purpose from their high import, many a tender suffusion from their +sentiment. I dare say I should find their pose now a little +old-fashioned. I believe it was rather full of sighs, and shrugs and +starts, expressed in dashes, and asterisks, and exclamations, but I am +sure that the feeling was the genuine and manly sort which is of all +times and always the latest wear. Whatever it was, it sufficed to win my +heart, and to identify me with whatever was most romantic and most +pathetic in it. I read 'Dream Life' first--though the 'Reveries of a +Bachelor' was written first, and I believe is esteemed the better book +--and 'Dream Life' remains first in my affections. I have now little +notion what it was about, but I love its memory. The book is associated +especially in my mind with one golden day of Indian summer, when I +carried it into the woods with me, and abandoned myself to a welter of +emotion over its page. I lay, under a crimson maple, and I remember how +the light struck through it and flushed the print with the gules of the +foliage. My friend was away by this time on one of his several absences +in the Northwest, and I was quite alone in the absurd and irrelevant +melancholy with which I read myself and my circumstances into the book. I +began to read them out again in due time, clothed with the literary airs +and graces that I admired in it, and for a long time I imitated Ik Marvel +in the voluminous letters I wrote my friend in compliance with his +Shakespearean prayer: + + "To Milan let me hear from thee by letters, + Of thy success in love, and what news else + Betideth here in absence of thy friend; + And I likewise will visit thee with mine." + +Milan was then presently Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Verona was our little +village; but they both served the soul of youth as well as the real +places would have done, and were as really Italian as anything else in +the situation was really this or that. Heaven knows what gaudy +sentimental parade we made in our borrowed plumes, but if the travesty +had kept itself to the written word it would have been all well enough. +My misfortune was to carry it into print when I began to write a story, +in the Ik Marvel manner, or rather to compose it in type at the case, for +that was what I did; and it was not altogether imitated from Ik Marvel +either, for I drew upon the easier art of Dickens at times, and helped +myself out with bald parodies of Bleak House in many places. It was all +very well at the beginning, but I had not reckoned with the future +sufficiently to have started with any clear ending in my mind, and as I +went on I began to find myself more and more in doubt about it. My +material gave out; incidents failed me; the characters wavered and +threatened to perish on my hands. To crown my misery there grew up an +impatience with the story among its readers, and this found its way to me +one day when I overheard an old farmer who came in for his paper say that +he did not think that story amounted to much. I did not think so either, +but it was deadly to have it put into words, and how I escaped the mortal +effect of the stroke I do not know. Somehow I managed to bring the +wretched thing to a close, and to live it slowly into the past. Slowly +it seemed then, but I dare say it was fast enough; and there is always +this consolation to be whispered in the ear of wounded vanity, that the +world's memory is equally bad for failure and success; that if it will +not keep your triumphs in mind as you think it ought, neither will it +long dwell upon your defeats. But that experience was really terrible. +It was like some dreadful dream one has of finding one's self in battle +without the courage needed to carry one creditably through the action, +or on the stage unprepared by study of the part which one is to appear +in. I have hover looked at that story since, so great was the shame and +anguish that I suffered from it, and yet I do not think it was badly +conceived, or attempted upon lines that were mistaken. If it were not +for what happened in the past I might like some time to write a story on +the same lines in the future. + + + + +XV. DICKENS + +What I have said of Dickens reminds me that I had been reading him at the +same time that I had been reading Ik Marvel; but a curious thing about +the reading of my later boyhood is that the dates do not sharply detach +themselves one from another. This may be so because my reading was much +more multifarious than it had been earlier, or because I was reading +always two or three authors at a time. I think Macaulay a little +antedated Dickens in my affections, but when I came to the novels of that +masterful artist (as I must call him, with a thousand reservations as to +the times when he is not a master and not an artist), I did not fail to +fall under his spell. + +This was in a season of great depression, when I began to feel in broken +health the effect of trying to burn my candle at both ends. It seemed +for a while very simple and easy to come home in the middle of the +afternoon, when my task at the printing-office was done, and sit down to +my books in my little study, which I did not finally leave until the +family were in bed; but it was not well, and it was not enough that I +should like to do it. The most that can be said in defence of such a +thing is that with the strong native impulse and the conditions it was +inevitable. If I was to do the thing I wanted to do I was to do it in +that way, and I wanted to do that thing, whatever it was, more than I +wanted to do anything else, and even more than I wanted to do nothing. +I cannot make out that I was fond of study, or cared for the things I was +trying to do, except as a means to other things. As far as my pleasure +went, or my natural bent was concerned, I would rather have been +wandering through the woods with a gun on my shoulder, or lying under a +tree, or reading some book that cost me no sort of effort. But there was +much more than my pleasure involved; there was a hope to fulfil, an aim +to achieve, and I could no more have left off trying for what I hoped and +aimed at than I could have left off living, though I did not know very +distinctly what either was. As I look back at the endeavor of those days +much of it seems mere purblind groping, wilful and wandering. I can see +that doing all by myself I was not truly a law to myself, but only a sort +of helpless force. + +I studied Latin because I believed that I should read the Latin authors, +and I suppose I got as much of the language as most school-boys of my +age, but I never read any Latin author but Cornelius Nepos. I studied +Greek, and I learned so much of it as to read a chapter of the Testament, +and an ode of Anacreon. Then I left it, not because I did not mean to go +farther, or indeed stop short of reading all Greek literature, but +because that friend of mine and I talked it over and decided that I could +go on with Greek any time, but I had better for the present study German, +with the help of a German who had come to the village. Apparently I was +carrying forward an attack on French at the same time, for I distinctly +recall my failure to enlist with me an old gentleman who had once lived a +long time in France, and whom I hoped to get at least an accent from. +Perhaps because he knew he had no accent worth speaking of, or perhaps +because he did not want the bother of imparting it, he never would keep +any of the engagements he made with me, and when we did meet he so +abounded in excuses and subterfuges that he finally escaped me, and I was +left to acquire an Italian accent of French in Venice seven or eight +years later. At the same time I was reading Spanish, more or less, +but neither wisely nor too well. Having had so little help in my +studies, I had a stupid pride in refusing all, even such as I might have +availed myself of, without shame, in books, and I would not read any +Spanish author with English notes. I would have him in an edition wholly +Spanish from beginning to end, and I would fight my way through him +single-handed, with only such aid as I must borrow from a lexicon. + +I now call this stupid, but I have really no more right to blame the boy +who was once I than I have to praise him, and I am certainly not going to +do that. In his day and place he did what he could in his own way; he +had no true perspective of life, but I do not know that youth ever has +that. Some strength came to him finally from the mere struggle, +undirected and misdirected as it often was, and such mental fibre as he +had was toughened by the prolonged stress. It could be said, of course, +that the time apparently wasted in these effectless studies could have +been well spent in deepening and widening a knowledge of English +literature never yet too great, and I have often said this myself; but +then, again, I am not sure that the studies were altogether effectless. +I have sometimes thought that greater skill had come to my hand from them +than it would have had without, and I have trusted that in making known +to me the sources of so much English, my little Latin and less Greek have +enabled me to use my own speech with a subtler sense of it than I should +have had otherwise. + +But I will by no means insist upon my conjecture. What is certain is +that for the present my studies, without method and without stint, began +to tell upon my health, and that my nerves gave way in all manner of +hypochondriacal fears. These finally resolved themselves into one, +incessant, inexorable, which I could escape only through bodily fatigue, +or through some absorbing interest that took me out of myself altogether +and filled my morbid mind with the images of another's creation. + +In this mood I first read Dickens, whom I had known before in the reading +I had listened to. But now I devoured his books one after another as +fast as I could read them. I plunged from the heart of one to another, +so as to leave myself no chance for the horrors that beset me. Some of +them remain associated with the gloom and misery of that time, so that +when I take them up they bring back its dreadful shadow. But I have +since read them all more than once, and I have had my time of thinking +Dickens, talking Dickens, and writing Dickens, as we all had who lived in +the days of the mighty magician. I fancy the readers who have come to +him since he ceased to fill the world with his influence can have little +notion how great it was. In that time he colored the parlance of the +English-speaking race, and formed upon himself every minor talent +attempting fiction. While his glamour lasted it was no more possible for +a young novelist to escape writing Dickens than it was for a young poet +to escape writing Tennyson. I admired other authors more; I loved them +more, but when it came to a question of trying to do something in fiction +I was compelled, as by a law of nature, to do it at least partially in +his way. + +All the while that he held me so fast by his potent charm I was aware +that it was a very rough magic now and again, but I could not assert my +sense of this against him in matters of character and structure. To +these I gave in helplessly; their very grotesqueness was proof of their +divine origin, and I bowed to the crudest manifestations of his genius in +these kinds as if they were revelations not to be doubted without +sacrilege. But in certain small matters, as it were of ritual, I +suffered myself to think, and I remember boldly speaking my mind about +his style, which I thought bad. + +I spoke it even to the quaint character whom I borrowed his books from, +and who might almost have come out of his books. He lived in Dickens in +a measure that I have never known another to do, and my contumely must +have brought him a pang that was truly a personal grief. He forgave it, +no doubt because I bowed in the Dickens worship without question on all +other points. He was then a man well on towards fifty, and he had come +to America early in life, and had lived in our village many years, +without casting one of his English prejudices, or ceasing to be of a +contrary opinion on every question, political, religious and social. +He had no fixed belief, but he went to the service of his church whenever +it was held among us, and he revered the Book of Common Prayer while he +disputed the authority of the Bible with all comers. He had become a +citizen, but he despised democracy, and achieved a hardy consistency only +by voting with the pro-slavery party upon all measures friendly to the +institution which he considered the scandal and reproach of the American +name. From a heart tender to all, he liked to say wanton, savage and +cynical things, but he bore no malice if you gainsaid him. I know +nothing of his origin, except the fact of his being an Englishman, or +what his first calling had been; but he had evolved among us from a +house-painter to an organ-builder, and he had a passionate love of music. +He built his organs from the ground up, and made every part of them with +his own hands; I believe they were very good, and at any rate the +churches in the country about took them from him as fast as he could make +them. He had one in his own house, and it was fine to see him as he sat +before it, with his long, tremulous hands outstretched to the keys, his +noble head thrown back and his sensitive face lifted in the rapture of +his music. He was a rarely intelligent creature, and an artist in every +fibre; and if you did not quarrel with his manifold perversities, he was +a delightful companion. + +After my friend went away I fell much to him for society, and we took +long, rambling walks together, or sat on the stoop before his door, +or lounged over the books in the drug-store, and talked evermore of +literature. He must have been nearly three times my age, but that did +not matter; we met in the equality of the ideal world where there is +neither old nor young, any more than there is rich or poor. He had read +a great deal, but of all he had read he liked Dickens best, and was +always coming back to him with affection, whenever the talk strayed. +He could not make me out when I criticised the style of Dickens; and when +I praised Thackeray's style to the disadvantage of Dickens's he could +only accuse me of a sort of aesthetic snobbishness in my preference. +Dickens, he said, was for the million, and Thackeray was for the upper +ten thousand. His view amused me at the time, and yet I am not sure that +it was altogether mistaken. + +There is certainly a property in Thackeray that somehow flatters the +reader into the belief that he is better than other people. I do not +mean to say that this was why I thought him a finer writer than Dickens, +but I will own that it was probably one of the reasons why I liked him +better; if I appreciated him so fully as I felt, I must be of a finer +porcelain than the earthen pots which were not aware of any particular +difference in the various liquors poured into them. In Dickens the +virtue of his social defect is that he never appeals to the principle +which sniffs, in his reader. The base of his work is the whole breadth +and depth of humanity itself. It is helplessly elemental, but it is not +the less grandly so, and if it deals with the simpler manifestations of +character, character affected by the interests and passions rather than +the tastes and preferences, it certainly deals with the larger moods +through them. I do not know that in the whole range of his work he once +suffers us to feel our superiority to a fellow-creature through any +social accident, or except for some moral cause. This makes him very fit +reading for a boy, and I should say that a boy could get only good from +him. His view of the world and of society, though it was very little +philosophized, was instinctively sane and reasonable, even when it was +most impossible. + +We are just beginning to discern that certain conceptions of our +relations to our fellow-men, once formulated in generalities which met +with a dramatic acceptation from the world, and were then rejected by it +as mere rhetoric, have really a vital truth in them, and that if they +have ever seemed false it was because of the false conditions in which we +still live. Equality and fraternity, these are the ideals which once +moved the world, and then fell into despite and mockery, as unrealities; +but now they assert themselves in our hearts once more. + +Blindly, unwittingly, erringly as Dickens often urged them, these ideals +mark the whole tendency of his fiction, and they are what endear him to +the heart, and will keep him dear to it long after many a cunninger +artificer in letters has passed into forgetfulness. I do not pretend +that I perceived the full scope of his books, but I was aware of it in +the finer sense which is not consciousness. While I read him, I was in a +world where the right came out best, as I believe it will yet do in this +world, and where merit was crowned with the success which I believe will +yet attend it in our daily life, untrammelled by social convention or +economic circumstance. In that world of his, in the ideal world, to +which the real world must finally conform itself, I dwelt among the shows +of things, but under a Providence that governed all things to a good end, +and where neither wealth nor birth could avail against virtue or right. +Of course it was in a way all crude enough, and was already contradicted +by experience in the small sphere of my own being; but nevertheless it +was true with that truth which is at the bottom of things, and I was +happy in it. I could not fail to love the mind which conceived it, and +my worship of Dickens was more grateful than that I had yet given any +writer. I did not establish with him that one-sided understanding which +I had with Cervantes and Shakespeare; with a contemporary that was not +possible, and as an American I was deeply hurt at the things he had said +against us, and the more hurt because I felt that they were often so +just. But I was for the time entirely his, and I could not have wished +to write like any one else. + +I do not pretend that the spell I was under was wholly of a moral or +social texture. For the most part I was charmed with him because he was +a delightful story-teller; because he could thrill me, and make me hot +and cold; because he could make me laugh and cry, and stop my pulse and +breath at will. There seemed an inexhaustible source of humor and pathos +in his work, which I now find choked and dry; I cannot laugh any more at +Pickwick or Sam Weller, or weep for little Nell or Paul Dombey; their +jokes, their griefs, seemed to me to be turned on, and to have a +mechanical action. But beneath all is still the strong drift of a +genuine emotion, a sympathy, deep and sincere, with the poor, the lowly, +the unfortunate. In all that vast range of fiction, there is nothing +that tells for the strong, because they are strong, against the weak, +nothing that tells for the haughty against the humble, nothing that tells +for wealth against poverty. The effect of Dickens is purely democratic, +and however contemptible he found our pseudo-equality, he was more truly +democratic than any American who had yet written fiction. I suppose it +was our instinctive perception in the region of his instinctive +expression, that made him so dear to us, and wounded our silly vanity so +keenly through our love when he told us the truth about our horrible sham +of a slave-based freedom. But at any rate the democracy is there in his +work more than he knew perhaps, or would ever have known, or ever +recognized by his own life. In fact, when one comes to read the story of +his life, and to know that he was really and lastingly ashamed of having +once put up shoe-blacking as a boy, and was unable to forgive his mother +for suffering him to be so degraded, one perceives that he too was the +slave of conventions and the victim of conditions which it is the highest +function of his fiction to help destroy. + +I imagine that my early likes and dislikes in Dickens were not very +discriminating. I liked 'David Copperfield,' and 'Barnaby Rudge,' and +'Bleak House,' and I still like them; but I do not think I liked them +more than 'Dombey & Son,' and 'Nicholas Nickleby,' and the 'Pickwick +Papers,' which I cannot read now with any sort of patience, not to speak +of pleasure. I liked 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' too, and the other day I read +a great part of it again, and found it roughly true in the passages that +referred to America, though it was surcharged in the serious moods, and +caricatured in the comic. The English are always inadequate observers; +they seem too full of themselves to have eyes and ears for any alien +people; but as far as an Englishman could, Dickens had caught the look of +our life in certain aspects. His report of it was clumsy and farcical; +but in a large, loose way it was like enough; at least he had caught the +note of our self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality, +and this was not altogether lost in his mocking horse-play. + +I cannot make out that I was any the less fond of Dickens because of it. +I believe I was rather more willing to accept it as a faithful +portraiture then than I should be now; and I certainly never made any +question of it with my friend the organ-builder. 'Martin Chuzzlewit' was +a favorite book with him, and so was the 'Old Curiosity Shop.' No doubt +a fancied affinity with Tom Pinch through their common love of music made +him like that most sentimental and improbable personage, whom he would +have disowned and laughed to scorn if he had met him in life; but it was +a purely altruistic sympathy that he felt with Little Nell and her +grandfather. He was fond of reading the pathetic passages from both +books, and I can still hear his rich, vibrant voice as it lingered in +tremulous emotion on the periods he loved. He would catch the volume up +anywhere, any time, and begin to read, at the book-store, or the harness- +shop, or the law-office, it did not matter in the wide leisure of a +country village, in those days before the war, when people had all the +time there was; and he was sure of his audience as long as he chose to +read. One Christmas eve, in answer to a general wish, he read the +'Christmas Carol' in the Court-house, and people came from all about to +hear him. + +He was an invalid and he died long since, ending a life of suffering in +the saddest way. Several years before his death money fell to his +family, and he went with them to an Eastern city, where he tried in vain +to make himself at home. He never ceased to pine for the village he had +left, with its old companionships, its easy usages, its familiar faces; +and he escaped to it again and again, till at last every tie was severed, +and he could come back no more. He was never reconciled to the change, +and in a manner he did really die of the homesickness which deepened an +hereditary taint, and enfeebled him to the disorder that carried him. +off. My memories of Dickens remain mingled with my memories of this +quaint and most original genius, and though I knew Dickens long before I +knew his lover, I can scarcely think of one without thinking of the +other. + + + + +XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER + +Certain other books I associate with another pathetic nature, of whom the +organ-builder and I were both fond. This was the young poet who looked +after the book half of the village drug and book store, and who wrote +poetry in such leisure as he found from his duties, and with such +strength as he found in the disease preying upon him. He must have been +far gone in consumption when I first knew him, for I have no recollection +of a time when his voice was not faint and husky, his sweet smile wan, +and his blue eyes dull with the disease that wasted him away, + + "Like wax in the fire, + Like snow in the sun." + +People spoke of him as once strong and vigorous, but I recall him fragile +and pale, gentle, patient, knowing his inexorable doom, and not hoping or +seeking to escape it. As the end drew near he left his employment and +went home to the farm, some twenty miles away, where I drove out to see +him once through the deep snow of a winter which was to be his last. +My heart was heavy all the time, but he tried to make the visit pass +cheerfully with our wonted talk about books. Only at parting, when he +took my hand in his thin, cold clasp, he said, "I suppose my disease is +progressing," with the patience he always showed. + +I did not see him again, and I am not sure now that his gift was very +distinct or very great. It was slight and graceful rather, I fancy, +and if he had lived it might not have sufficed to make him widely known, +but he had a real and a very delicate sense of beauty in literature, +and I believe it was through sympathy with his preferences that I came +into appreciation of several authors whom I had not known, or had not +cared for before. There could not have been many shelves of books in +that store, and I came to be pretty well acquainted with them all before +I began to buy them. For the most part, I do not think it occurred to me +that they were there to be sold; for this pale poet seemed indifferent to +the commercial property in them, and only to wish me to like them. + +I am not sure, but I think it was through some volume which I found in +his charge that I first came to know of De Quincey; he was fond of +Dr. Holmes's poetry; he loved Whittier and Longfellow, each represented +in his slender stock by some distinctive work. There were several stray +volumes of Thackeray's minor writings, and I still have the 'Yellowplush +Papers' in the smooth red cloth (now pretty well tattered) of Appleton's +Popular Library, which I bought there. But most of the books were in the +famous old brown cloth of Ticknor & Fields, which was a warrant of +excellence in the literature it covered. Besides these there were +standard volumes of poetry, published by Phillips & Sampson, from +wornout plates; for a birthday present my mother got me Wordsworth in +this shape, and I am glad to think that I once read the "Excursion" in +it, for I do not think I could do so now, and I have a feeling that it is +very right and fit to have read the "Excursion." To be honest, it was +very hard reading even then, and I cannot truthfully pretend that I have +ever liked Wordsworth except in parts, though for the matter of that, I +do not suppose that any one ever did. I tried hard enough to like +everything in him, for I had already learned enough to know that I ought +to like him, and that if I did not, it was a proof of intellectual and +moral inferiority in me. My early idol, Pope, had already been tumbled +into the dust by Lowell, whose lectures on English Poetry had lately been +given in Boston, and had met with my rapturous acceptance in such +newspaper report as I had of them. So, my preoccupations were all in +favor of the Lake School, and it was both in my will and my conscience to +like Wordsworth. If I did not do so it was not my fault, and the fault +remains very much what it first was. + +I feel and understand him more deeply than I did then, but I do not think +that I then failed of the meaning of much that I read in him, and I am +sure that my senses were quick to all the beauty in him. After suffering +once through the "Excursion" I did not afflict myself with it again, +but there were other poems of his which I read over and over, as I fancy +it is the habit of every lover of poetry to do with the pieces he is fond +of. Still, I do not make out that Wordsworth was ever a passion of mine; +on the other hand, neither was Byron. Him, too, I liked in passages and +in certain poems which I knew before I read Wordsworth at all; I read him +throughout, but I did not try to imitate him, and I did not try to +imitate Wordsworth. + +Those lectures of Lowell's had a great influence with me, and I tried to +like whatever they bade me like, after a fashion common to young people +when they begin to read criticisms; their aesthetic pride is touched; +they wish to realize that they too can feel the fine things the critic +admires. From this motive they do a great deal of factitious liking; +but after all the affections will not be bidden, and the critic can only +avail to give a point of view, to enlighten a perspective. When I read +Lowell's praises of him, I had all the will in the world to read Spencer, +and I really meant to do so, but I have not done so to this day, and as +often as I have tried I have found it impossible. It was not so with +Chaucer, whom I loved from the first word of his which I found quoted in +those lectures, and in Chambers's 'Encyclopaedia of English Literature,' +which I had borrowed of my friend the organ-builder. + +In fact, I may fairly class Chaucer among my passions, for I read him +with that sort of personal attachment I had for Cervantes, who resembled +him in a certain sweet and cheery humanity. But I do not allege this as +the reason, for I had the same feeling for Pope, who was not like either +of them. Kissing goes by favor, in literature as in life, and one cannot +quite account for one's passions in either; what is certain is, I liked +Chaucer and I did not like Spencer; possibly there was an affinity +between reader and poet, but if there was I should be at a loss to name +it, unless it was the liking for reality; and the sense of mother earth +in human life. By the time I had read all of Chaucer that I could find +in the various collections and criticisms, my father had been made a +clerk in the legislature, and on one of his visits home he brought me the +poet's works from the State Library, and I set about reading them with a +glossary. It was not easy, but it brought strength with it, and lifted +my heart with a sense of noble companionship. + +I will not pretend that I was insensible to the grossness of the poet's +time, which I found often enough in the poet's verse, as well as the +goodness of his nature, and my father seems to have felt a certain +misgiving about it. He repeated to me the librarian's question as to +whether he thought he ought to put an unexpurgated edition in the hands +of a boy, and his own answer that he did not believe it would hurt me. +It was a kind of appeal to me to make the event justify him, and I +suppose he had not given me the book without due reflection. Probably he +reasoned that with my greed for all manner of literature the bad would +become known to me along with the good at any rate, and I had better know +that he knew it. + +The streams of filth flow down through the ages in literature, which +sometimes seems little better than an open sewer, and, as I have said, +I do not see why the time should not come when the noxious and noisome +channels should be stopped; but the base of the mind is bestial, and so +far the beast in us has insisted upon having his full say. The worst of +lewd literature is that it seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the +life, and that inexperience takes this effect for reality: that is the +danger and the harm, and I think the fact ought not to be blinked. +Compared with the meaner poets the greater are the cleaner, and Chaucer +was probably safer than any other English poet of his time, but I am not +going to pretend that there are not things in Chaucer which a boy would +be the better for not reading; and so far as these words of mine shall be +taken for counsel, I am not willing that they should unqualifiedly praise +him. The matter is by no means simple; it is not easy to conceive of a +means of purifying the literature of the past without weakening it, and +even falsifying it, but it is best to own that it is in all respects just +what it is, and not to feign it otherwise. I am not ready to say that +the harm from it is positive, but you do get smeared with it, and the +filthy thought lives with the filthy rhyme in the ear, even when it does +not corrupt the heart or make it seem a light thing for the reader's +tongue and pen to sin in kind. + +I loved my Chaucer too well, I hope, not to get some good from the best +in him; and my reading of criticism had taught me how and where to look +for the best, and to know it when I had found it. Of course I began to +copy him. That is, I did not attempt anything like his tales in kind; +they must have seemed too hopelessly far away in taste and time, but I +studied his verse, and imitated a stanza which I found in some of his +things and had not found elsewhere; I rejoiced in the freshness and +sweetness of his diction, and though I felt that his structure was +obsolete, there was in his wording something homelier and heartier than +the imported analogues that had taken the place of the phrases he used. + +I began to employ in my own work the archaic words that I fancied most, +which was futile and foolish enough, and I formed a preference for the +simpler Anglo-Saxon woof of our speech, which was not so bad. Of course, +being left so much as I was to my own whim in such things, I could not +keep a just mean; I had an aversion for the Latin derivatives which was +nothing short of a craze. Some half-bred critic whom I had read made me +believe that English could be written without them, and had better be +written so, and I did not escape from this lamentable error until I had +produced with weariness and vexation of spirit several pieces of prose +wholly composed of monosyllables. I suspect now that I did not always +stop to consider whether my short words were not as Latin by race as any +of the long words I rejected, and that I only made sure they were short. + +The frivolous ingenuity which wasted itself in this exercise happily +could not hold out long, and in verse it was pretty well helpless from +the beginning. Yet I will not altogether blame it, for it made me know, +as nothing else could, the resources of our tongue in that sort; and in +the revolt from the slavish bondage I took upon myself I did not go so +far as to plunge into any very wild polysyllabic excesses. I still like +the little word if it says the thing I want to say as well as the big +one, but I honor above all the word that says the thing. At the same +time I confess that I have a prejudice against certain words that I +cannot overcome; the sight of some offends me, the sound of others, and +rather than use one of those detested vocables, even when I perceive that +it would convey my exact meaning, I would cast about long for some other. +I think this is a foible, and a disadvantage, but I do not deny it. + +An author who had much to do with preparing me for the quixotic folly in +point was that Thomas Babington Macaulay, who taught simplicity of +diction in phrases of as "learned length and thundering sound," as any he +would have had me shun, and who deplored the Latinistic English of +Johnson in terms emulous of the great doctor's orotundity and +ronderosity. I wonder now that I did not see how my physician avoided +his medicine, but I did not, and I went on to spend myself in an endeavor +as vain and senseless as any that pedantry has conceived. It was none +the less absurd because I believed in it so devoutly, and sacrificed +myself to it with such infinite pains and labor. But this was long after +I read Macaulay, who was one of my grand passions before Dickens or +Chaucer. + + + + +XVII. MACAULAY + +One of the many characters of the village was the machinist who had his +shop under our printing-office when we first brought our newspaper to the +place, and who was just then a machinist because he was tired of being +many other things, and had not yet made up his mind what he should be +next. He could have been whatever he turned his agile intellect and his +cunning hand to; he had been a schoolmaster and a watch-maker, and I +believe an amateur doctor and irregular lawyer; he talked and wrote +brilliantly, and he was one of the group that nightly disposed of every +manner of theoretical and practical question at the drug-store; it was +quite indifferent to him which side he took; what he enjoyed was the +mental exercise. He was in consumption, as so many were in that region, +and he carbonized against it, as he said; he took his carbon in the +liquid form, and the last time I saw him the carbon had finally prevailed +over the consumption, but it had itself become a seated vice; that was +many years since, and it is many years since he died. + +He must have been known to me earlier, but I remember him first as he +swam vividly into my ken, with a volume of Macaulay's essays in his hand, +one day. Less figuratively speaking, he came up into the printing-office +to expose from the book the nefarious plagiarism of an editor in a +neighboring city, who had adapted with the change of names and a word or +two here and there, whole passages from the essay on Barere, to the +denunciation of a brother editor. It was a very simple-hearted fraud, +and it was all done with an innocent trust in the popular ignorance which +now seems to me a little pathetic; but it was certainly very barefaced, +and merited the public punishment which the discoverer inflicted by means +of what journalists call the deadly parallel column. The effect ought +logically to have been ruinous for the plagiarist, but it was really +nothing of the kind. He simply ignored the exposure, and the comments of +the other city papers, and in the process of time he easily lived down +the memory of it and went on to greater usefulness in his profession. + +But for the moment it appeared to me a tremendous crisis, and I listened +as the minister of justice read his communication, with a thrill which +lost itself in the interest I suddenly felt in the plundered author. +Those facile and brilliant phrases and ideas struck me as the finest +things I had yet known in literature, and I borrowed the book and read it +through. Then I borrowed another volume of Macaulay's essays, and +another and another, till I had read them every one. It was like a long +debauch, from which I emerged with regret that it should ever end. + +I tried other essayists, other critics, whom the machinist had in his +library, but it was useless; neither Sidney Smith nor Thomas Carlyle +could console me; I sighed for more Macaulay and evermore Macaulay. I +read his History of England, and I could measurably console myself with +that, but only measurably; and I could not go back to the essays and read +them again, for it seemed to me I had absorbed them so thoroughly that I +had left nothing unenjoyed in them. I used to talk with the machinist +about them, and with the organ-builder, and with my friend the printer, +but no one seemed to feel the intense fascination in them that I did, and +that I should now be quite unable to account for. + +Once more I had an author for whom I could feel a personal devotion, whom +I could dream of and dote upon, and whom I could offer my intimacy in +many an impassioned revery. I do not think T. B. Macaulay would really +have liked it; I dare say he would not have valued the friendship of the +sort of a youth I was, but in the conditions he was helpless, and I +poured out my love upon him without a rebuff. Of course I reformed my +prose style, which had been carefully modelled upon that of Goldsmith and +Irving, and began to write in the manner of Macaulay, in short, quick +sentences, and with the prevalent use of brief Anglo-Saxon words, which +he prescribed, but did not practise. As for his notions of literature, I +simply accepted them with the feeling that any question of them would +have been little better than blasphemy. + +For a long time he spoiled my taste for any other criticism; he made it +seem pale, and poor, and weak; and he blunted my sense to subtler +excellences than I found in him. I think this was a pity, but it was a +thing not to be helped, like a great many things that happen to our hurt +in life; it was simply inevitable. How or when my frenzy for him began +to abate I cannot say, but it certainly waned, and it must have waned +rapidly, for after no great while I found myself feeling the charm of +quite different minds, as fully as if his had never enslaved me. I +cannot regret that I enjoyed him so keenly as I did; it was in a way a +generous delight, and though he swayed me helplessly whatever way he +thought, I do not think yet that he swayed me in any very wrong way. He +was a bright and clear intelligence, and if his light did not go far, it +is to be said of him that his worst fault was only to have stopped short +of the finest truth in art, in morals, in politics. + + + + +XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS + +What remained to me from my love of Macaulay was a love of criticism, +and I read almost as much in criticism as I read in poetry and history +and fiction. It was of an eccentric doctor, another of the village +characters, that I got the works of Edgar A. Poe; I do not know just how, +but it must have been in some exchange of books; he preferred +metaphysics. At any rate I fell greedily upon them, and I read with no +less zest than his poems the bitter, and cruel, and narrow-minded +criticisms which mainly filled one of the volumes. As usual, I accepted +them implicitly, and it was not till long afterwards that I understood +how worthless they were. + +I think that hardly less immoral than the lubricity of literature, and +its celebration of the monkey and the goat in us, is the spectacle such +criticism affords of the tigerish play of satire. It is monstrous that +for no offence but the wish to produce something beautiful, and the +mistake of his powers in that direction, a writer should become the prey +of some ferocious wit, and that his tormentor should achieve credit by +his lightness and ease in rending his prey; it is shocking to think how +alluring and depraving the fact is to the young reader emulous of such +credit, and eager to achieve it. Because I admired these barbarities of +Poe's, I wished to irritate them, to spit some hapless victim on my own +spear, to make him suffer and to make the reader laugh. This is as far +as possible from the criticism that enlightens and ennobles, but it is +still the ideal of most critics, deny it as they will; and because it is +the ideal of most critics criticism still remains behind all the other +literary arts. + +I am glad to remember that at the same time I exulted in these ferocities +I had mind enough and heart enough to find pleasure in the truer and +finer work, the humaner work of other writers, like Hazlitt, and Leigh +Hunt, and Lamb, which became known to me at a date I cannot exactly fix. +I believe it was Hazlitt whom I read first, and he helped me to clarify +and formulate my admiration of Shakespeare as no one else had yet done; +Lamb helped me too, and with all the dramatists, and on every hand I was +reaching out for light that should enable me to place in literary history +the authors I knew and loved. + +I fancy it was well for me at this period to have got at the four great +English reviews, the Edinburgh, the Westminster, the London Quarterly, +and the North British, which I read regularly, as well as Blackwood's +Magazine. We got them in the American editions in payment for printing +the publisher's prospectus, and their arrival was an excitement, a joy, +and a satisfaction with me, which I could not now describe without having +to accuse myself of exaggeration. The love of literature, and the hope +of doing something in it, had become my life to the exclusion of all +other interests, or it was at least the great reality, and all other +things were as shadows. I was living in a time of high political tumult, +and I certainly cared very much for the question of slavery which was +then filling the minds of men; I felt deeply the shame and wrong of our +Fugitive Slave Law; I was stirred by the news from Kansas, where the +great struggle between the two great principles in our nationality was +beginning in bloodshed; but I cannot pretend that any of these things +were more than ripples on the surface of my intense and profound interest +in literature. If I was not to live by it, I was somehow to live for it. + +If I thought of taking up some other calling it was as a means only; +literature was always the end I had in view, immediately or finally. +I did not see how it was to yield me a living, for I knew that almost all +the literary men in the country had other professions; they were editors, +lawyers, or had public or private employments; or they were men of +wealth; there was then not one who earned his bread solely by his pen in +fiction, or drama, or history, or poetry, or criticism, in a day when +people wanted very much less butter on their bread than they do now. +But I kept blindly at my studies, and yet not altogether blindly, for, +as I have said, the reading I did had more tendency than before, and I +was beginning to see authors in their proportion to one another, and to +the body of literature. + +The English reviews were of great use to me in this; I made a rule of +reading each one of them quite through. To be sure I often broke this +rule, as people are apt to do with rules of the kind; it was not possible +for a boy to wade through heavy articles relating to English politics and +economics, but I do not think I left any paper upon a literary topic +unread, and I did read enough politics, especially in Blackwood's, to be +of Tory opinions; they were very fit opinions for a boy, and they did not +exact of me any change in regard to the slavery question. + + + + +XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE + +I suppose I might almost class my devotion to English reviews among my +literary passions, but it was of very short lease, not beyond a year or +two at the most. In the midst of it I made my first and only essay aside +from the lines of literature, or rather wholly apart from it. After some +talk with my father it was decided, mainly by myself, I suspect, that I +should leave the printing-office and study law; and it was arranged with +the United States Senator who lived in our village, and who was at home +from Washington for the summer, that I was to come into his office. The +Senator was by no means to undertake my instruction himself; his nephew, +who had just begun to read law, was to be my fellow-student, and we were +to keep each other up to the work, and to recite to each other, until we +thought we had enough law to go before a board of attorneys and test our +fitness for admission to the bar. + +This was the custom in that day and place, as I suppose it is still in +most parts of the country. We were to be fitted for practice in the +courts, not only by our reading, but by a season of pettifogging before +justices of the peace, which I looked forward to with no small shrinking +of my shy spirit; but what really troubled me most, and was always the +grain of sand between my teeth, was Blackstone's confession of his own +original preference for literature, and his perception that the law was +"a jealous mistress," who would suffer no rival in his affections. +I agreed with him that I could not go through life with a divided +interest; I must give up literature or I must give up law. I not only +consented to this logically, but I realized it in my attempt to carry on +the reading I had loved, and to keep at the efforts I was always making +to write something in verse or prose, at night, after studying law all +day. The strain was great enough when I had merely the work in the +printing-office; but now I came home from my Blackstone mentally fagged, +and I could not take up the authors whom at the bottom of my heart I +loved so much better. I tried it a month, but almost from the fatal day +when I found that confession of Blackstone's, my whole being turned from +the "jealous mistress" to the high minded muses: I had not only to go +back to literature, but I had also to go back to the printing-office. +I did not regret it, but I had made my change of front in the public eye, +and I felt that it put me at a certain disadvantage with my fellow- +citizens; as for the Senator, whose office I had forsaken, I met him now +and then in the street, without trying to detain him, and once when he +came to the printing-office for his paper we encountered at a point where +we could not help speaking. He looked me over in my general effect of +base mechanical, and asked me if I had given up the law; I had only to +answer him I had, and our conference ended. It was a terrible moment for +me, because I knew that in his opinion I had chosen a path in life, which +if it did not lead to the Poor House was at least no way to the White +House. I suppose now that he thought I had merely gone back to my trade, +and so for the time I had; but I have no reason to suppose that he judged +my case narrow-mindedly, and I ought to have had the courage to have the +affair out with him, and tell him just why I had left the law; we had +sometimes talked the English reviews over, for he read them as well as I, +and it ought not to have been impossible for me to be frank with him; +but as yet I could not trust any one with my secret hope of some day +living for literature, although I had already lived for nothing else. +I preferred the disadvantage which I must be at in his eyes, and in the +eyes of most of my fellow-citizens; I believe I had the applause of the +organ-builder, who thought the law no calling for me. + +In that village there was a social equality which, if not absolute, was +as nearly so as can ever be in a competitive civilization; and I could +have suffered no slight in the general esteem for giving up a profession +and going back to a trade; if I was despised at all it was because I had +thrown away the chance of material advancement; I dare say some people +thought I was a fool to do that. No one, indeed, could have imagined the +rapture it was to do it, or what a load rolled from my shoulders when I +dropped the law from them. Perhaps Sinbad or Christian could have +conceived of my ecstatic relief; yet so far as the popular vision reached +I was not returning to literature, but to the printing business, and I +myself felt the difference. My reading had given me criterions different +from those of the simple life of our village, and I did not flatter +myself that my calling would have been thought one of great social +dignity in the world where I hoped some day to make my living. +My convictions were all democratic, but at heart I am afraid I was a +snob, and was unworthy of the honest work which I ought to have felt it +an honor to do; this, whatever we falsely pretend to the contrary, is the +frame of every one who aspires beyond the work of his hands. I do not +know how it had become mine, except through my reading, and I think it +was through the devotion I then had for a certain author that I came to a +knowledge not of good and evil so much as of common and superfine. + + + + +XX. THACKERAY + +It was of the organ-builder that I had Thackeray's books first. He knew +their literary quality, and their rank in the literary, world; but I +believe he was surprised at the passion I instantly conceived for them. +He could not understand it; he deplored it almost as a moral defect in +me; though he honored it as a proof of my critical taste. In a certain +measure he was right. + +What flatters the worldly pride in a young man is what fascinates him +with Thackeray. With his air of looking down on the highest, and +confidentially inviting you to be of his company in the seat of the +scorner he is irresistible; his very confession that he is a snob, too, +is balm and solace to the reader who secretly admires the splendors he +affects to despise. His sentimentality is also dear to the heart of +youth, and the boy who is dazzled by his satire is melted by his easy +pathos. Then, if the boy has read a good many other books, he is taken +with that abundance of literary turn and allusion in Thackeray; there is +hardly a sentence but reminds him that he is in the society of a great +literary swell, who has read everything, and can mock or burlesque life +right and left from the literature always at his command. At the same +time he feels his mastery, and is abjectly grateful to him in his own +simple love of the good for his patronage of the unassuming virtues. +It is so pleasing to one's 'vanity, and so safe, to be of the master's +side when he assails those vices and foibles which are inherent in the +system of things, and which one can contemn with vast applause so long as +one does not attempt to undo the conditions they spring from. + +I exulted to have Thackeray attack the aristocrats, and expose their +wicked pride and meanness, and I never noticed that he did not propose to +do away with aristocracy, which is and must always be just what it has +been, and which cannot be changed while it exists at all. He appeared to +me one of the noblest creatures that ever was when he derided the shams +of society; and I was far from seeing that society, as we have it, was +necessarily a sham; when he made a mock of snobbishness I did not know +but snobbishness was something that might be reached and cured by +ridicule. Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall +have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub +and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for +trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from +the selfish motives which underlie our economic life. But I did not know +these things then, nor for long afterwards, and so I gave my heart to +Thackeray, who seemed to promise me in his contempt of the world a refuge +from the shame I felt for my own want of figure in it. He had the effect +of taking me into the great world, and making me a party to his splendid +indifference to titles, and even to royalties; and I could not see that +sham for sham he was unwittingly the greatest sham of all. + +I think it was 'Pendennis' I began with, and I lived in the book to the +very last line of it, and made its alien circumstance mine to the +smallest detail. I am still not sure but it is the author's greatest +book, and I speak from a thorough acquaintance with every line he has +written, except the Virginians, which I have never been able to read +quite through; most of his work I have read twice, and some of it twenty +times. + +After reading 'Pendennis' I went to 'Vanity Fair,' which I now think the +poorest of Thackeray's novels--crude, heavy-handed, caricatured. About +the same time I revelled in the romanticism of 'Henry Esmond,' with its +pseudo-eighteenth-century sentiment, and its appeals to an overwrought +ideal of gentlemanhood and honor. It was long before I was duly revolted +by Esmond's transfer of his passion from the daughter to the mother whom +he is successively enamoured of. I believe this unpleasant and +preposterous affair is thought one of the fine things in the story; I do +not mind owning that I thought it so myself when I was seventeen; and if +I could have found a Beatrix to be in love with, and a Lady Castlewood to +be in love with me, I should have asked nothing finer of fortune. +The glamour of Henry Esmond was all the deeper because I was reading the +'Spectator' then, and was constantly in the company of Addison, and +Steele, and Swift, and Pope, and all the wits at Will's, who are +presented evanescently in the romance. The intensely literary keeping, +as well as quality, of the story I suppose is what formed its highest +fascination for me; but that effect of great world which it imparts to +the reader, making him citizen, and, if he will, leading citizen of it, +was what helped turn my head. + +This is the toxic property of all Thackeray's writing. He is himself +forever dominated in imagination by the world, and even while he tells +you it is not worth while he makes you feel that it is worth while. It +is not the honest man, but the man of honor, who shines in his page; his +meek folk are proudly meek, and there is a touch of superiority, a glint +of mundane splendor, in his lowliest. He rails at the order of things, +but he imagines nothing different, even when he shows that its baseness, +and cruelty, and hypocrisy are well-nigh inevitable, and, for most of +those who wish to get on in it, quite inevitable. He has a good word for +the virtues, he patronizes the Christian graces, he pats humble merit on +the head; he has even explosions of indignation against the insolence and +pride of birth, and purse-pride. But, after all, he is of the world, +worldly, and the highest hope he holds out is that you may be in the +world and despise its ambitions while you compass its ends. + +I should be far from blaming him for all this. He was of his time; but +since his time men have thought beyond him, and seen life with a vision +which makes his seem rather purblind. He must have been immensely in +advance of most of the thinking and feeling of his day, for people then +used to accuse his sentimental pessimism of cynical qualities which we +could hardly find in it now. It was the age of intense individualism, +when you were to do right because it was becoming to you, say, as a +gentleman, and you were to have an eye single to the effect upon your +character, if not your reputation; you were not to do a mean thing +because it was wrong, but because it was mean. It was romanticism +carried into the region of morals. But I had very little concern then as +to that sort of error. + +I was on a very high esthetic horse, which I could not have conveniently +stooped from if I had wished; it was quite enough for me that Thackeray's +novels were prodigious works of art, and I acquired merit, at least with +myself, for appreciating them so keenly, for liking them so much. It +must be, I felt with far less consciousness than my formulation of the +feeling expresses, that I was of some finer sort myself to be able to +enjoy such a fine sort. No doubt I should have been a coxcomb of some +kind, if not that kind, and I shall not be very strenuous in censuring +Thackeray for his effect upon me in this way. No doubt the effect was +already in me, and he did not so much produce it as find it. + +In the mean time he was a vast delight to me, as much in the variety of +his minor works--his 'Yellowplush,' and 'Letters of Mr. Brown,' and +'Adventures of Major Gahagan,' and the 'Paris Sketch Book,' and the +'Irish Sketch Book,' and the 'Great Hoggarty Diamond,' and the 'Book of +Snobs,' and the 'English Humorists,' and the 'Four Georges,' and all the +multitude of his essays, and verses, and caricatures--as in the spacious +designs of his huge novels, the 'Newcomes,' and 'Pendennis,' and 'Vanity +Fair,' and 'Henry Esmond,' and 'Barry Lyndon.' + +There was something in the art of the last which seemed to me then, and +still seems, the farthest reach of the author's great talent. It is +couched, like so much of his work, in the autobiographic form, which next +to the dramatic form is the most natural, and which lends itself with +such flexibility to the purpose of the author. In 'Barry Lyndon' there +is imagined to the life a scoundrel of such rare quality that he never +supposes for a moment but he is the finest sort of a gentleman; and so, +in fact, he was, as most gentlemen went in his day. Of course, the +picture is over-colored; it was the vice of Thackeray, or of Thackeray's +time, to surcharge all imitations of life and character, so that a +generation apparently much slower, if not duller than ours, should not +possibly miss the artist's meaning. But I do not think it is so much +surcharged as 'Esmond;' 'Barry Lyndon' is by no manner of means so +conscious as that mirror of gentlemanhood, with its manifold +self-reverberations; and for these reasons I am inclined to think +he is the most perfect creation of Thackeray's mind. + +I did not make the acquaintance of Thackeray's books all at once, or even +in rapid succession, and he at no time possessed the whole empire of my +catholic, not to say, fickle, affections, during the years I was +compassing a full knowledge and sense of his greatness, and burning +incense at his shrine. But there was a moment when he so outshone and +overtopped all other divinities in my worship that I was effectively his +alone, as I have been the helpless and, as it were, hypnotized devotee of +three or four others of the very great. From his art there flowed into +me a literary quality which tinged my whole mental substance, and made it +impossible for me to say, or wish to say, anything without giving it the +literary color. That is, while he dominated my love and fancy, if I had +been so fortunate as to have a simple concept of anything in life, I must +have tried to give the expression of it some turn or tint that would +remind the reader of books even before it reminded him of men. + +It is hard to make out what I mean, but this is a try at it, and I do not +know that I shall be able to do better unless I add that Thackeray, of +all the writers that I have known, is the most thoroughly and profoundly +imbued with literature, so that when he speaks it is not with words and +blood, but with words and ink. You may read the greatest part of +Dickens, as you may read the greatest part of Hawthorne or Tolstoy, and +not once be reminded of literature as a business or a cult, but you can +hardly read a paragraph, hardly a sentence, of Thackeray's without being +reminded of it either by suggestion or downright allusion. + +I do not blame him for this; he was himself, and he could not have been +any other manner of man without loss; but I say that the greatest talent +is not that which breathes of the library, but that which breathes of the +street, the field, the open sky, the simple earth. I began to imitate +this master of mine almost as soon as I began to read him; this must be, +and I had a greater pride and joy in my success than I should probably +have known in anything really creative; I should have suspected that, I +should have distrusted that, because I had nothing to test it by, no +model; but here before me was the very finest and noblest model, and I +had but to form my lines upon it, and I had produced a work of art +altogether more estimable in my eyes than anything else could have been. +I saw the little world about me through the lenses of my master's +spectacles, and I reported its facts, in his tone and his attitude, with +his self-flattered scorn, his showy sighs, his facile satire. I need not +say I was perfectly satisfied with the result, or that to be able to +imitate Thackeray was a much greater thing for me than to have been able +to imitate nature. In fact, I could have valued any picture of the life +and character I knew only as it put me in mind of life and character as +these had shown themselves to me in his books. + + + + +XXI. "LAZARILLO DE TORMES" + +At the same time, I was not only reading many books besides Thackeray's, +but I was studying to get a smattering of several languages as well as I +could, with or without help. I could now manage Spanish fairly well, and +I was sending on to New York for authors in that tongue. I do not +remember how I got the money to buy them; to be sure it was no great sum; +but it must have been given me out of the sums we were all working so +hard to make up for the debt, and the interest on the debt (that is +always the wicked pinch for the debtor!), we had incurred in the purchase +of the newspaper which we lived by, and the house which we lived in. +I spent no money on any other sort of pleasure, and so, I suppose, it was +afforded me the more readily; but I cannot really recall the history of +those acquisitions on its financial side. In any case, if the sums I +laid out in literature could not have been comparatively great, the +excitement attending the outlay was prodigious. + +I know that I used to write on to Messrs. Roe Lockwood & Son, New York, +for my Spanish books, and I dare say that my letters were sufficiently +pedantic, and filled with a simulated acquaintance with all Spanish +literature. Heaven knows what they must have thought, if they thought +anything, of their queer customer in that obscure little Ohio village; +but he could not have been queerer to them than to his fellow-villagers, +I am sure. I haunted the post-office about the time the books were due, +and when I found one of them in our deep box among a heap of exchange +newspapers and business letters, my emotion was so great that it almost +took my breath. I hurried home with the precious volume, and shut myself +into my little den, where I gave myself up to a sort of transport in it. +These books were always from the collection of Spanish authors published +by Baudry in Paris, and they were in saffron-colored paper cover, printed +full of a perfectly intoxicating catalogue of other Spanish books which I +meant to read, every one, some time. The paper and the ink had a certain +odor which was sweeter to me than the perfumes of Araby. The look of the +type took me more than the glance of a girl, and I had a fever of longing +to know the heart of the book, which was like a lover's passion. Some +times I did not reach its heart, but commonly I did. Moratin's 'Origins +of the Spanish Theatre,' and a large volume of Spanish dramatic authors, +were the first Spanish books I sent for, but I could not say why I sent +for them, unless it was because I saw that there were some plays of +Cervantes among the rest. I read these and I read several comedies of +Lope de Vega, and numbers of archaic dramas in Moratin's history, and I +really got a fairish perspective of the Spanish drama, which has now +almost wholly faded from my mind. It is more intelligible to me why I +should have read Conde's 'Dominion of the Arabs in Spain;' for that was +in the line of my reading in Irving, which would account for my pleasure +in the 'History of the Civil Wars of Granada;' it was some time before I +realized that the chronicles in this were a bundle of romances and not +veritable records; and my whole study in these things was wholly +undirected and unenlightened. But I meant to be thorough in it, and I +could not rest satisfied with the Spanish-English grammars I had; I was +not willing to stop short of the official grammar of the Spanish Academy. +I sent to New York for it, and my booksellers there reported that they +would have to send to Spain for it. I lived till it came to hand through +them from Madrid; and I do not understand why I did not perish then from +the pride and joy I had in it. + +But, after all, I am not a Spanish scholar, and can neither speak nor +write the language. I never got more than a good reading use of it, +perhaps because I never really tried for more. But I am very glad of +that, because it has been a great pleasure to me, and even some profit, +and it has lighted up many meanings in literature, which must always have +remained dark to me. Not to speak now of the modern Spanish writers whom +it has enabled me to know in their own houses as it were, I had even in +that remote day a rapturous delight in a certain Spanish book, which was +well worth all the pains I had undergone to get at it. This was the +famous picaresque novel, 'Lazarillo de Tormes,' by Hurtado de Mendoza, +whose name then so familiarized itself to my fondness that now as I write +it I feel as if it were that of an old personal friend whom I had known +in the flesh. I believe it would not have been always comfortable to +know Mendoza outside of his books; he was rather a terrible person; he +was one of the Spanish invaders of Italy, and is known in Italian history +as the Tyrant of Sierra. But at my distance of time and place I could +safely revel in his friendship, and as an author I certainly found him a +most charming companion. The adventures of his rogue of a hero, who +began life as the servant and accomplice of a blind beggar, and then +adventured on through a most diverting career of knavery, brought back +the atmosphere of Don Quixote, and all the landscape of that dear wonder- +world of Spain, where I had lived so much, and I followed him with all +the old delight. + +I do not know that I should counsel others to do so, or that the general +reader would find his account in it, but I am sure that the intending +author of American fiction would do well to study the Spanish picaresque +novels; for in their simplicity of design he will find one of the best +forms for an American story. The intrigue of close texture will never +suit our conditions, which are so loose and open and variable; each man's +life among us is a romance of the Spanish model, if it is the life of a +man who has risen, as we nearly all have, with many ups and downs. The +story of 'Latzarillo' is gross in its facts, and is mostly "unmeet for +ladies," like most of the fiction in all languages before our times; but +there is an honest simplicity in the narration, a pervading humor, and a +rich feeling for character that gives it value. + +I think that a good deal of its foulness was lost upon me, but I +certainly understood that it would not do to present it to an American +public just as it was, in the translation which I presently planned to +make. I went about telling the story to people, and trying to make them +find it as amusing as I did, but whether I ever succeeded I cannot say, +though the notion of a version with modifications constantly grew with +me, till one day I went to the city of Cleveland with my father. There +was a branch house of an Eastern firm of publishers in that place, and I +must have had the hope that I might have the courage to propose a +translation of Lazarillo to them. My father urged me to try my fortune, +but my heart failed me. I was half blind with one of the headaches that +tormented me in those days, and I turned my sick eyes from the sign, +"J. P. Jewett & Co., Publishers," which held me fascinated, and went home +without at least having my much-dreamed-of version of Lazarillo refused. + + + + +XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL + +I am quite at a loss to know why my reading had this direction or that in +those days. It had necessarily passed beyond my father's suggestion, and +I think it must have been largely by accident or experiment that I read +one book rather than another. He made some sort of newspaper arrangement +with a book-store in Cleveland, which was the means of enriching our home +library with a goodly number of books, shop-worn, but none the worse for +that, and new in the only way that books need be new to the lover of +them. Among these I found a treasure in Curtis's two books, the 'Nile +Notes of a Howadji,' and the 'Howadji in Syria.' I already knew him by +his 'Potiphar Papers,' and the ever-delightful reveries which have since +gone under the name of 'Prue and I;' but those books of Eastern travel +opened a new world of thinking and feeling. They had at once a great +influence upon me. The smooth richness of their diction; the amiable +sweetness of their mood, their gracious caprice, the delicacy of their +satire (which was so kind that it should have some other name), their +abundance of light and color, and the deep heart of humanity underlying +their airiest fantasticality, all united in an effect which was different +from any I had yet known. + +As usual, I steeped myself in them, and the first runnings of my fancy +when I began to pour it out afterwards were of their flavor. I tried to +write like this new master; but whether I had tried or not, I should +probably have done so from the love I bore him. He was a favorite not +only of mine, but of all the young people in the village who were reading +current literature, so that on this ground at least I had abundant +sympathy. The present generation can have little notion of the deep +impression made upon the intelligence and conscience of the whole nation +by the 'Potiphar Papers,' or how its fancy was rapt with the 'Prue and I' +sketches, These are among the most veritable literary successes we have +had, and probably we who were so glad when the author of these beautiful +things turned aside from the flowery paths where he led us, to battle for +freedom in the field of politics, would have felt the sacrifice too great +if we could have dreamed it would be life-long. But, as it was, we could +only honor him the more, and give him a place in our hearts which he +shared with Longfellow. + +This divine poet I have never ceased to read. His Hiawatha was a new +book during one of those terrible Lake Shore winters, but all the other +poems were old friends with me by that time. With a sister who is no +longer living I had a peculiar affection for his pretty and touching and +lightly humorous tale of 'Kavanagh,' which was of a village life enough +like our own, in some things, to make us know the truth of its delicate +realism. We used to read it and talk it fondly over together, and I +believe some stories of like make and manner grew out of our pleasure in +it. They were never finished, but it was enough to begin them, and there +were few writers, if any, among those I delighted in who escaped the +tribute of an imitation. One has to begin that way, or at least one had +in my day; perhaps it is now possible for a young writer to begin by +being himself; but for my part, that was not half so important as to be +like some one else. Literature, not life, was my aim, and to reproduce +it was my joy and my pride. + +I was widening my knowledge of it helplessly and involuntarily, and I was +always chancing upon some book that served this end among the great +number of books that I read merely for my pleasure without any real +result of the sort. Schlegel's 'Lectures on Dramatic Literature' came +into my hands not long after I had finished my studies in the history of +the Spanish theatre, and it made the whole subject at once luminous. +I cannot give a due notion of the comfort this book afforded me by the +light it cast upon paths where I had dimly made my way before, but which +I now followed in the full day. + +Of course, I pinned my faith to everything that Schlegel said. +I obediently despised the classic unities and the French and Italian +theatre which had perpetuated them, and I revered the romantic drama +which had its glorious course among the Spanish and English poets, and +which was crowned with the fame of the Cervantes and the Shakespeare whom +I seemed to own, they owned me so completely. It vexes me now to find +that I cannot remember how the book came into my hands, or who could have +suggested it to me. It is possible that it may have been that artist who +came and stayed a month with us while she painted my mother's portrait. +She was fresh from her studies in New York, where she had met authors and +artists at the house of the Carey sisters, and had even once seen my +adored Curtis somewhere, though she had not spoken with him. Her talk +about these things simply emparadised me; it lifted me into a heaven of +hope that I, too, might some day meet such elect spirits and converse +with them face to face. My mood was sufficiently foolish, but it was not +such a frame of mind as I can be ashamed of; and I could wish a boy no +happier fortune than to possess it for a time, at least. + + + + +XXIII. TENNYSON + +I cannot quite see now how I found time for even trying to do the things +I had in hand more or less. It is perfectly clear to me that I did none +of them well, though I meant at the time to do none of them other than +excellently. I was attempting the study of no less than four languages, +and I presently added a fifth to these. I was reading right and left in +every direction, but chiefly in that of poetry, criticism, and fiction. +From time to time I boldly attacked a history, and carried it by a 'coup +de main,' or sat down before it for a prolonged siege. There was +occasionally an author who worsted me, whom I tried to read and quietly +gave up after a vain struggle, but I must say that these authors were +few. I had got a very fair notion of the range of all literature, and +the relations of the different literatures to one another, and I knew +pretty well what manner of book it was that I took up before I committed +myself to the task of reading it. Always I read for pleasure, for the +delight of knowing something more; and this pleasure is a very different +thing from amusement, though I read a great deal for mere amusement, as I +do still, and to take my mind away from unhappy or harassing thoughts. +There are very few things that I think it a waste of time to have read; +I should probably have wasted the time if I had not read them, and at the +period I speak of I do not think I wasted much time. + +My day began about seven o'clock, in the printing-office, where it took +me till noon to do my task of so many thousand ems, say four or five. +Then we had dinner, after the simple fashion of people who work with +their hands for their dinners. In the afternoon I went back and +corrected the proof of the type I had set, and distributed my case for +the next day. At two or three o'clock I was free, and then I went home +and began my studies; or tried to write something; or read a book. +We had supper at six, and after that I rejoiced in literature, till I +went to bed at ten or eleven. I cannot think of any time when I did not +go gladly to my books or manuscripts, when it was not a noble joy as well +as a high privilege. + +But it all ended as such a strain must, in the sort of break which was +not yet known as nervous prostration. When I could not sleep after my +studies, and the sick headaches came oftener, and then days and weeks of +hypochondriacal misery, it was apparent I was not well; but that was not +the day of anxiety for such things, and if it was thought best that I +should leave work and study for a while, it was not with the notion that +the case was at all serious, or needed an uninterrupted cure. I passed +days in the woods and fields, gunning or picking berries; I spent myself +in heavy work; I made little journeys; and all this was very wholesome +and very well; but I did not give up my reading or my attempts to write. +No doubt I was secretly proud to have been invalided in so great a cause, +and to be sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, rather than by +some ignoble ague or the devastating consumption of that region. If I +lay awake, noting the wild pulsations of my heart, and listening to the +death-watch in the wall, I was certainly very much scared, but I was not +without the consolation that I was at least a sufferer for literature. +At the same time that I was so horribly afraid of dying, I could have +composed an epitaph which would have moved others to tears for my +untimely fate. But there was really not impairment of my constitution, +and after a while I began to be better, and little by little the health +which has never since failed me under any reasonable stress of work +established itself. + +I was in the midst of this unequal struggle when I first became +acquainted with the poet who at once possessed himself of what was best +worth having in me. Probably I knew of Tennyson by extracts, and from +the English reviews, but I believe it was from reading one of Curtis's +"Easy Chair" papers that I was prompted to get the new poem of "Maud," +which I understood from the "Easy Chair" was then moving polite youth in +the East. It did not seem to me that I could very well live without that +poem, and when I went to Cleveland with the hope that I might have +courage to propose a translation of Lazarillo to a publisher it was with +the fixed purpose of getting "Maud" if it was to be found in any +bookstore there. + +I do not know why I was so long in reaching Tennyson, and I can only +account for it by the fact that I was always reading rather the earlier +than the later English poetry. To be sure I had passed through what I +may call a paroxysm of Alexander Smith, a poet deeply unknown to the +present generation, but then acclaimed immortal by all the critics, and +put with Shakespeare, who must be a good deal astonished from time to +time in his Elysian quiet by the companionship thrust upon him. I read +this now dead-and-gone immortal with an ecstasy unspeakable; I raved of +him by day, and dreamed of him by night; I got great lengths of his +"Life-Drama" by heart; and I can still repeat several gorgeous passages +from it; I would almost have been willing to take the life of the sole +critic who had the sense to laugh at him, and who made his wicked fun in +Graham's Magazine, an extinct periodical of the old extinct Philadelphian +species. I cannot tell how I came out of this craze, but neither could +any of the critics who led me into it, I dare say. The reading world is +very susceptible of such-lunacies, and all that can be said is that at a +given time it was time for criticism to go mad over a poet who was +neither better nor worse than many another third-rate poet apotheosized +before and since. What was good in Smith was the reflected fire of the +poets who had a vital heat in them; and it was by mere chance that I +bathed myself in his second-hand effulgence. I already knew pretty well +the origin of the Tennysonian line in English poetry; Wordsworth, and +Keats, and Shelley; and I did not come to Tennyson's worship a sudden +convert, but my devotion to him was none the less complete and exclusive. +Like every other great poet he somehow expressed the feelings of his day, +and I suppose that at the time he wrote "Maud" he said more fully what +the whole English-speaking race were then dimly longing to utter than any +English poet who has lived. + +One need not question the greatness of Browning in owning the fact that +the two poets of his day who preeminently voiced their generation were +Tennyson and Longfellow; though Browning, like Emerson, is possibly now +more modern than either. However, I had then nothing to do with +Tennyson's comparative claim on my adoration; there was for the time no +parallel for him in the whole range of literary divinities that I had +bowed the knee to. For that while, the temple was not only emptied of +all the other idols, but I had a richly flattering illusion of being his +only worshipper. When I came to the sense of this error, it was with the +belief that at least no one else had ever appreciated him so fully, stood +so close to him in that holy of holies where he wrought his miracles. + +I say tawdily and ineffectively and falsely what was a very precious and +sacred experience with me. This great poet opened to me a whole world of +thinking and feeling, where I had my being with him in that mystic +intimacy, which cannot be put into words. I at once identified myself +not only with the hero of the poem, but in some so with the poet himself, +when I read "Maud"; but that was only the first step towards the lasting +state in which his poetry has upon the whole been more to me than that of +any other poet. I have never read any other so closely and continuously, +or read myself so much into and out of his verse. There have been times +and moods when I have had my questions, and made my cavils, and when it +seemed to me that the poet was less than I had thought him; and certainly +I do not revere equally and unreservedly all that he has written; that +would be impossible. But when I think over all the other poets I have +read, he is supreme above them in his response to some need in me that he +has satisfied so perfectly. + +Of course, "Maud" seemed to me the finest poem I had read, up to that +time, but I am not sure that this conclusion was wholly my own; I think +it was partially formed for me by the admiration of the poem which I felt +to be everywhere in the critical atmosphere, and which had already +penetrated to me. I did not like all parts of it equally well, and some +parts of it seemed thin and poor (though I would not suffer myself to say +so then), and they still seem so. But there were whole passages and +spaces of it whose divine and perfect beauty lifted me above life. I did +not fully understand the poem then; I do not fully understand it now, but +that did not and does not matter; for there something in poetry that +reaches the soul by other enues than the intelligence. Both in this poem +and others of Tennyson, and in every poet that I have loved, there are +melodies and harmonies enfolding significance that appeared long after I +had first read them, and had even learned them by heart; that lay weedy +in my outer ear and were enough in their Mere beauty of phrasing, till +the time came for them to reveal their whole meaning. In fact they could +do this only to later and greater knowledge of myself and others, as +every one must recognize who recurs in after-life to a book that he read +when young; then he finds it twice as full of meaning as it was at first. + +I could not rest satisfied with "Maud"; I sent the same summer to +Cleveland for the little volume which then held all the poet's work, and +abandoned myself so wholly to it, that for a year I read no other verse +that I can remember. The volume was the first of that pretty blue-and- +gold series which Ticknor & Fields began to publish in 1856, and which +their imprint, so rarely affixed to an unworthy book, at once carried far +and wide. Their modest old brown cloth binding had long been a quiet +warrant of quality in the literature it covered, and now this splendid +blossom of the bookmaking art, as it seemed, was fitly employed to convey +the sweetness and richness of the loveliest poetry that I thought the +world had yet known. After an old fashion of mine, I read it +continuously, with frequent recurrences from each new poem to some that +had already pleased me, and with a most capricious range among the +pieces. "In Memoriam" was in that book, and the "Princess"; I read the +"Princess" through and through, and over and over, but I did not then +read "In Memoriam" through, and I have never read it in course; I am not +sure that I have even yet read every part of it. I did not come to the +"Princess," either, until I had saturated my fancy and my memory with +some of the shorter poems, with the "Dream of Fair Women," with the +"Lotus-Eaters," with the "Miller's Daughter," with the "Morte d'Arthur," +with "Edwin Morris, or The Lake," with "Love and Duty," and a score of +other minor and briefer poems. I read the book night and day, in-doors +and out, to myself and to whomever I could make listen. I have no words +to tell the rapture it was to me; but I hope that in some more articulate +being, if it should ever be my unmerited fortune to meet that 'sommo +poeta' face to face, it shall somehow be uttered from me to him, and he +will understand how completely he became the life of the boy I was then. +I think it might please, or at least amuse, that lofty ghost, and that he +would not resent it, as he would probably have done on earth. I can well +understand why the homage of his worshippers should have afflicted him +here, and I could never have been one to burn incense in his earthly +presence; but perhaps it might be done hereafter without offence. +I eagerly caught up and treasured every personal word I could find about +him, and I dwelt in that sort of charmed intimacy with him through his +verse, in which I could not presume nor he repel, and which I had enjoyed +in turn with Cervantes and Shakespeare, without a snub from them. + +I have never ceased to adore Tennyson, though the rapture of the new +convert could not last. That must pass like the flush of any other +passion. I think I have now a better sense of his comparative greatness, +but a better sense of his positive greatness I could not have than I had +at the beginning; and I believe this is the essential knowledge of a +poet. It is very well to say one is greater than Keats, or not so great +as Wordsworth; that one is or is not of the highest order of poets like +Shakespeare and Dante and Goethe; but that does not mean anything of +value, and I never find my account in it. I know it is not possible for +any less than the greatest writer to abide lastingly in one's life. Some +dazzling comer may enter and possess it for a day, but he soon wears his +welcome out, and presently finds the door, to be answered with a not-at- +home if he knocks again. But it was only this morning that I read one of +the new last poems of Tennyson with a return of the emotion which he +first woke in me well-nigh forty years ago. There has been no year of +those many when I have not read him and loved him with something of the +early fire if not all the early conflagration; and each successive poem +of his has been for me a fresh joy. + +He went with me into the world from my village when I left it to make my +first venture away from home. My father had got one of those legislative +clerkships which used to fall sometimes to deserving country editors when +their party was in power, and we together imagined and carried out a +scheme for corresponding with some city newspapers. We were to furnish a +daily, letter giving an account of the legislative proceedings which I +was mainly to write up from material he helped me to get together. The +letters at once found favor with the editors who agreed to take them, and +my father then withdrew from the work altogether, after telling them who +was doing it. We were afraid they might not care for the reports of a +boy of nineteen, but they did not seem to take my age into account, and I +did not boast of my youth among the lawmakers. I looked three or four +years older than I was; but I experienced a terrible moment once when a +fatherly Senator asked me my age. I got away somehow without saying, but +it was a great relief to me when my twentieth birthday came that winter, +and I could honestly proclaim that I was in my twenty-first year. + +I had now the free range of the State Library, and I drew many sorts of +books from it. Largely, however, they were fiction, and I read all the +novels of Bulwer, for whom I had already a great liking from 'The +Caxtons' and 'My Novel.' I was dazzled by them, and I thought him a +great writer, if not so great a one as he thought himself. Little or +nothing of those romances, with their swelling prefaces about the poet +and his function, their glittering criminals, and showy rakes and rogues +of all kinds, and their patrician perfume and social splendor, remained +with me; they may have been better or worse; I will not attempt to say. +If I may call my fascination with them a passion at all, I must say that +it was but a fitful fever. I also read many volumes of Zschokke's +admirable tales, which I found in a translation in the Library, and I +think I began at the same time to find out De Quincey. These authors I +recall out of the many that passed through my mind almost as tracelessly +as they passed through my hands. I got at some versions of Icelandic +poems, in the metre of "Hiawatha"; I had for a while a notion of studying +Icelandic, and I did take out an Icelandic grammar and lexicon, and +decided that I would learn the language later. By this time I must have +begun German, which I afterwards carried so far, with one author at +least, as to find in him a delight only second to that I had in Tennyson; +but as yet Tennyson was all in all to me in poetry. I suspect that I +carried his poems about with me a great part of the time; I am afraid +that I always had that blue-and-gold Tennyson in my pocket; and I was +ready to draw it upon anybody, at the slightest provocation. This is the +worst of the ardent lover of literature: he wishes to make every one else +share his rapture, will he, nill he. Many good fellows suffered from my +admiration of this author or that, and many more pretty, patient maids. +I wanted to read my favorite passages, my favorite poems to them; I am +afraid I often did read, when they would rather have been talking; in the +case of the poems I did worse, I repeated them. This seems rather +incredible now, but it is true enough, and absurd as it is, it at least +attests my sincerity. It was long before I cured myself of so pestilent +a habit; and I am not yet so perfectly well of it that I could be safely +trusted with a fascinating book and a submissive listener. I dare say I +could not have been made to understand at this time that Tennyson was not +so nearly the first interest of life with other people as he was with me; +I must often have suspected it, but I was helpless against the wish to +make them feel him as important to their prosperity and well-being as he +was to mine. My head was full of him; his words were always behind my +lips; and when I was not repeating his phrase to myself or to some one +else, I was trying to frame something of my own as like him as I could. +It was a time of melancholy from ill-health, and of anxiety for the +future in which I must make my own place in the world. Work, and hard +work, I had always been used to and never afraid of; but work is by no +means the whole story. You may get on without much of it, or you may do +a great deal, and not get on. I was willing to do as much of it as I +could get to do, but I distrusted my health, somewhat, and I had many +forebodings, which my adored poet helped me to transfigure to the +substance of literature, or enabled me for the time to forget. I was +already imitating him in the verse I wrote; he now seemed the only worthy +model for one who meant to be as great a poet as I did. None of the +authors whom I read at all displaced him in my devotion, and I could not +have believed that any other poet would ever be so much to me. In fact, +as I have expressed, none ever has been. + + + + +XXIV. HEINE + +That winter passed very quickly and happily for me, and at the end of the +legislative session I had acquitted myself so much to the satisfaction of +one of the newspapers which I wrote for that I was offered a place on it. +I was asked to be city editor, as it was called in that day, and I was to +have charge of the local reporting. It was a great temptation, and for a +while I thought it the greatest piece of good fortune. I went down to +Cincinnati to acquaint myself with the details of the work, and to fit +myself for it by beginning as reporter myself. One night's round of the +police stations with the other reporters satisfied me that I was not +meant for that work, and I attempted it no farther. I have often been +sorry since, for it would have made known to me many phases of life that +I have always remained ignorant of, but I did not know then that life was +supremely interesting and important. I fancied that literature, that +poetry was so; and it was humiliation and anguish indescribable to think +of myself torn from my high ideals by labors like those of the reporter. +I would not consent even to do the office work of the department, and the +proprietor and editor who was more especially my friend tried to make +some other place for me. All the departments were full but the one I +would have nothing to do with, and after a few weeks of sufferance and +suffering I turned my back on a thousand dollars a year, and for the +second time returned to the printing-office. + +I was glad to get home, for I had been all the time tormented by my old +malady of homesickness. But otherwise the situation was not cheerful for +me, and I now began trying to write something for publication that I +could sell. I sent off poems and they came back; I offered little +translations from the Spanish that nobody wanted. At the same time I +took up the study of German, which I must have already played with, at +such odd times as I could find. My father knew something of it, and that +friend of mine among the printers was already reading it and trying to +speak it. I had their help with the first steps so far as the +recitations from Ollendorff were concerned, but I was impatient to read +German, or rather to read one German poet who had seized my fancy from +the first line of his I had seen. + +This poet was Heinrich Heine, who dominated me longer than any one author +that I have known. Where or when I first acquainted myself with his most +fascinating genius, I cannot be sure, but I think it was in some article +of the Westminster Review, where several poems of his were given in +English and German; and their singular beauty and grace at once possessed +my soul. I was in a fever to know more of him, and it was my great good +luck to fall in with a German in the village who had his books. He was a +bookbinder, one of those educated artisans whom the revolutions of 1848 +sent to us in great numbers. He was a Hanoverian, and his accent was +then, I believe, the standard, though the Berlinese is now the accepted +pronunciation. But I cared very little for accent; my wish was to get at +Heine with as little delay as possible; and I began to cultivate the +friendship of that bookbinder in every way. I dare say he was glad of +mine, for he was otherwise quite alone in the village, or had no +companionship outside of his own family. I clothed him in all the +romantic interest I began to feel for his race and language, which new +took the place of the Spaniards and Spanish in my affections. He was a +very quick and gay intelligence, with more sympathy for my love of our +author's humor than for my love of his sentiment, and I can remember very +well the twinkle of his little sharp black eyes, with their Tartar slant, +and the twitching of his keenly pointed, sensitive nose, when we came to +some passage of biting satire, or some phrase in which the bitter Jew had +unpacked all the insult of his soul. + +We began to read Heine together when my vocabulary had to be dug almost +word by word out of the dictionary, for the bookbinder's English was +rather scanty at the best, and was not literary. As for the grammar, I +was getting that up as fast as I could from Ollendorff, and from other +sources, but I was enjoying Heine before I well knew a declension or a +conjugation. As soon as my task was done at the office, I went home to +the books, and worked away at them until supper. Then my bookbinder and +I met in my father's editorial room, and with a couple of candles on the +table between us, and our Heine and the dictionary before us, we read +till we were both tired out. + +The candles were tallow, and they lopped at different angles in the flat +candlesticks heavily loaded with lead, which compositors once used. +It seems to have been summer when our readings began, and they are +associated in my memory with the smell of the neighboring gardens, which +came in at the open doors and windows, and with the fluttering of moths, +and the bumbling of the dorbugs, that stole in along with the odors. +I can see the perspiration on the shining forehead of the bookbinder as +he looks up from some brilliant passage, to exchange a smile of triumph +with me at having made out the meaning with the meagre facilities we had +for the purpose; he had beautiful red pouting lips, and a stiff little +branching mustache above them, that went to the making of his smile. +Sometimes, in the truce we made with the text, he told a little story of +his life at home, or some anecdote relevant to our reading, or quoted a +passage from some other author. It seemed to me the make of a high +intellectual banquet, and I should be glad if I could enjoy anything as +much now. + +We walked home as far as his house, or rather his apartment over one of +the village stores; and as he mounted to it by an outside staircase, we +exchanged a joyous "Gute Nacht," and I kept on homeward through the dark +and silent village street, which was really not that street, but some +other, where Heine had been, some street out of the Reisebilder, of his +knowledge, or of his dream. When I reached home it was useless to go to +bed. I shut myself into my little study, and went over what we had read, +till my brain was so full of it that when I crept up to my room at last, +it was to lie down to slumbers which were often a mere phantasmagory of +those witching Pictures of Travel. + +I was awake at my father's call in the morning, and before my mother had +breakfast ready I had recited my lesson in Ollendorff to him. To tell +the truth, I hated those grammatical studies, and nothing but the love of +literature, and the hope of getting at it, could ever have made me go +through them. Naturally, I never got any scholarly use of the languages +I was worrying at, and though I could once write a passable literary +German, it has all gone from me now, except for the purposes of reading. +It cost me so much trouble, however, to dig the sense out of the grammar +and lexicon, as I went on with the authors I was impatient to read, that +I remember the words very well in all their forms and inflections, and I +have still what I think I may call a fair German vocabulary. + +The German of Heine, when once you are in the joke of his capricious +genius, is very simple, and in his poetry it is simple from the first, +so that he was, perhaps, the best author I could have fallen in with if I +wanted to go fast rather than far. I found this out later, when I +attempted other German authors without the glitter of his wit or the +lambent glow of his fancy to light me on my hard way. I should find it +hard to say just why his peculiar genius had such an absolute fascination +for me from the very first, and perhaps I had better content myself with +saying simply that my literary liberation began with almost the earliest +word from him; for if he chained me to himself he freed me from all other +bondage. I had been at infinite pains from time to time, now upon one +model and now upon another, to literarify myself, if I may make a word +which does not quite say the thing for me. What I mean is that I had +supposed, with the sense at times that I was all wrong, that the +expression of literature must be different from the expression of life; +that it must be an attitude, a pose, with something of state or at least +of formality in it; that it must be this style, and not that; that it +must be like that sort of acting which you know is acting when you see it +and never mistake for reality. There are a great many children, +apparently grown-up, and largely accepted as critical authorities, who +are still of this youthful opinion of mine. But Heine at once showed me +that this ideal of literature was false; that the life of literature was +from the springs of the best common speech and that the nearer it could +be made to conform, in voice, look and gait, to graceful, easy, +picturesque and humorous or impassioned talk, the better it was. + +He did not impart these truths without imparting certain tricks with +them, which I was careful to imitate as soon as I began to write in his +manner, that is to say instantly. His tricks he had mostly at +second-hand, and mainly from Sterne, whom I did not know well enough then +to know their origin. But in all essentials he was himself, and my final +lesson from him, or the final effect of all my lessons from him, was to +find myself, and to be for good or evil whatsoever I really was. + +I kept on writing as much like Heine as I could for several years, +though, and for a much longer time than I should have done if I had +ever become equally impassioned of any other author. + +Some traces of his method lingered so long in my work that nearly ten +years afterwards Mr. Lowell wrote me about something of mine that +he had been reading: "You must sweat the Heine out of your bones as +men do mercury," and his kindness for me would not be content with less +than the entire expulsion of the poison that had in its good time saved +my life. I dare say it was all well enough not to have it in my bones +after it had done its office, but it did do its office. + +It was in some prose sketch of mine that his keen analysis had found the +Heine, but the foreign property had been so prevalent in my earlier work +in verse that he kept the first contribution he accepted from me for the +Atlantic Monthly a long time, or long enough to make sure that it was not +a translation of Heine. Then he printed it, and I am bound to say that +the poem now justifies his doubt to me, in so much that I do not see why +Heine should not have had the name of writing it if he had wanted. His +potent spirit became immediately so wholly my "control," as the mediums +say, that my poems might as well have been communications from him so far +as any authority of my own was concerned; and they were quite like other +inspirations from the other world in being so inferior to the work of the +spirit before it had the misfortune to be disembodied and obliged to use +a medium. But I do not think that either Heine or I had much lasting +harm from it, and I am sure that the good, in my case at least, was one +that can only end with me. He undid my hands, which had taken so much +pains to tie behind my back, and he forever persuaded me that though it +may be ingenious and surprising to dance in chains, it is neither pretty +nor useful. + + + + +XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW + +Another author who was a prime favorite with me about this time was De +Quincey, whose books I took out of the State Library, one after another, +until I had read them all. We who were young people of that day thought +his style something wonderful, and so indeed it was, especially in those +passages, abundant everywhere in his work, relating to his own life with +an intimacy which was always-more rather than less. His rhetoric there, +and in certain of his historical studies, had a sort of luminous +richness, without losing its colloquial ease. I keenly enjoyed this +subtle spirit, and the play of that brilliant intelligence which lighted +up so many ways of literature with its lambent glow or its tricksy +glimmer, and I had a deep sympathy with certain morbid moods and +experiences so like my own, as I was pleased to fancy. I have not looked +at his Twelve Caesars for twice as many years, but I should be greatly +surprised to find it other than one of the greatest historical monographs +ever written. His literary criticisms seemed to me not only exquisitely +humorous, but perfectly sane and just; and it delighted me to have him +personally present, with the warmth of his own temperament in regions of +cold abstraction; I am not sure that I should like that so much now. De +Quincey was hardly less autobiographical when he wrote of Kant, or the +Flight of the Crim-Tartars, than when he wrote of his own boyhood or the +miseries of the opium habit. He had the hospitable gift of making you at +home with him, and appealing to your sense of comradery with something of +the flattering confidentiality of Thackeray, but with a wholly different +effect. + +In fact, although De Quincey was from time to time perfunctorily Tory, +and always a good and faithful British subject, he was so eliminated from +his time and place by his single love for books, that one could be in his +company through the whole vast range of his writings, and come away +without a touch of snobbishness; and that is saying a great deal for an +English writer. He was a great little creature, and through his intense +personality he achieved a sort of impersonality, so that you loved the +man, who was forever talking-of himself, for his modesty and reticence. +He left you feeling intimate with him but by no means familiar; with all +his frailties, and with all those freedoms he permitted himself with the +lives of his contemporaries, he is to me a figure of delicate dignity, +and winning kindness. I think it a misfortune for the present generation +that his books have fallen into a kind of neglect, and I believe that +they will emerge from it again to the advantage of literature. + +In spite of Heine and Tennyson, De Quincey had a large place in my +affections, though this was perhaps because he was not a poet; for more +than those two great poets there was then not much room. I read him the +first winter I was at Columbus, and when I went down from the village the +next winter, to take up my legislative correspondence again, I read him +more than ever. But that was destined to be for me a very disheartening +time. I had just passed through a rheumatic fever, which left my health +more broken than before, and one morning shortly after I was settled in +the capital, I woke to find the room going round me like a wheel. It was +the beginning of a vertigo which lasted for six months, and which I began +to fight with various devices and must yield to at last. I tried +medicine and exercise, but it was useless, and my father came to take my +letters off my hands while I gave myself some ineffectual respites. +I made a little journey to my old home in southern Ohio, but there and +everywhere, the sure and firm-set earth waved and billowed under my feet, +and I came back to Columbus and tried to forget in my work the fact that +I was no better. I did not give up trying to read, as usual, and part of +my endeavor that winter was with Schiller, and Uhland, and even Goethe, +whose 'Wahlverwandschaften,' hardly yielded up its mystery to me. To +tell the truth, I do not think that I found my account in that novel. +It must needs be a disappointment after Wilhelm Meister, which I had read +in English; but I dare say my disappointment was largely my own fault; +I had certainly no right to expect such constant proofs and instances of +wisdom in Goethe as the unwisdom of his critics had led me to hope for. +I remember little or nothing of the story, which I tried to find very +memorable, as I held my sick way through it. Longfellow's "Miles +Standish" came out that winter, and I suspect that I got vastly more real +pleasure from that one poem of his than I found in all my German authors +put together, the adored Heine always excepted; though certainly I felt +the romantic beauty of 'Uhland,' and was aware of something of Schiller's +generous grandeur. + +Of the American writers Longfellow has been most a passion with me, as +the English, and German, and Spanish, and Russian writers have been. I +am sure that this was largely by mere chance. It was because I happened, +in such a frame and at such a time, to come upon his books that I loved +them above those of other men as great. I am perfectly sensible that +Lowell and Emerson outvalue many of the poets and prophets I have given +my heart to; I have read them with delight and with a deep sense of their +greatness, and yet they have not been my life like those other, those +lesser, men. But none of the passions are reasoned, and I do not try to +account for my literary preferences or to justify them. + +I dragged along through several months of that winter, and did my best to +carry out that notable scheme of not minding my vertigo. I tried doing +half-work, and helping my father with the correspondence, but when it +appeared that nothing would avail, he remained in charge of it, till the +close of the session, and I went home to try what a complete and +prolonged rest would do for me. I was not fit for work in the printing- +office, but that was a simpler matter than the literary work that was +always tempting me. I could get away from it only by taking my gun and +tramping day after day through the deep, primeval woods. The fatigue was +wholesome, and I was so bad a shot that no other creature suffered loss +from my gain except one hapless wild pigeon. The thawing snow left the +fallen beechnuts of the autumn before uncovered among the dead leaves, +and the forest was full of the beautiful birds. In most parts of the +middle West they are no longer seen, except in twos or threes, but once +they were like the sands of the sea for multitude. It was not now the +season when they hid half the heavens with their flight day after day; +but they were in myriads all through the woods, where their iridescent +breasts shone like a sudden untimely growth of flowers when you came upon +them from the front. When they rose in fright, it was like the upward +leap of fire, and with the roar of flame. I use images which, after all, +are false to the thing I wish to express; but they must serve. I tried +honestly enough to kill the pigeons, but I had no luck, or too much, till +I happened to bring down one of a pair that I found apart from the rest +in a softy tree-top. The poor creature I had widowed followed me to the +verge of the woods, as I started home with my prey, and I do not care to +know more personally the feelings of a murderer than I did then. I tried +to shoot the bird, but my aim was so bad that I could not do her this +mercy, and at last she flew away, and I saw her no more. + +The spring was now opening, and I was able to keep more and more with +Nature, who was kinder to me than I was to her other children, or wished +to be, and I got the better of my malady, which gradually left me for no +more reason apparently than it came upon me. But I was still far from +well, and I was in despair of my future. I began to read again +--I suppose I had really never altogether stopped. I borrowed from my +friend the bookbinder a German novel, which had for me a message of +lasting cheer. It was the 'Afraja' of Theodore Mugge, a story of life in +Norway during the last century, and I remember it as a very lovely story +indeed, with honest studies of character among the Norwegians, and a +tender pathos in the fate of the little Lap heroine Gula, who was perhaps +sufficiently romanced. The hero was a young Dane, who was going up among +the fiords to seek his fortune in the northern fisheries; and by a +process inevitable in youth I became identified with him, so that I +adventured, and enjoyed, and suffered in his person throughout. There +was a supreme moment when he was sailing through the fiords, and finding +himself apparently locked in by their mountain walls without sign or hope +of escape, but somehow always escaping by some unimagined channel, and +keeping on. The lesson for him was one of trust and courage; and I, who +seemed to be then shut in upon a mountain-walled fiord without inlet or +outlet, took the lesson home and promised myself not to lose heart again. +It seems a little odd that this passage of a book, by no means of the +greatest, should have had such an effect with me at a time when I was no +longer so young as to be unduly impressed by what I read; but it is true +that I have never since found myself in circumstances where there seemed +to be no getting forward or going back, without a vision of that fiord +scenery, and then a rise of faith, that if I kept on I should, somehow, +come out of my prisoning environment. + + + + +XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE + +I got back health enough to be of use in the printing office that autumn, +and I was quietly at work there with no visible break in my surroundings +when suddenly the whole world opened to me through what had seemed an +impenetrable wall. The Republican newspaper at the capital had been +bought by a new management, and the editorial force reorganized upon a +footing of what we then thought metropolitan enterprise; and to my great +joy and astonishment I was asked to come and take a place in it. The +place offered me was not one of lordly distinction; in fact, it was +partly of the character of that I had already rejected in Cincinnati, +but I hoped that in the smaller city its duties would not be so odious; +and by the time I came to fill it, a change had taken place in the +arrangements so that I was given charge of the news department. This +included the literary notices and the book reviews, and I am afraid that +I at once gave my prime attention to these. + +It was an evening paper, and I had nearly as much time for reading and +study as I had at home. But now society began to claim a share of this +leisure, which I by no means begrudged it. Society was very charming in +Columbus then, with a pretty constant round of dances and suppers, and an +easy cordiality, which I dare say young people still find in it +everywhere. I met a great many cultivated people, chiefly young ladies, +and there were several houses where we young fellows went and came almost +as freely as if they were our own. There we had music and cards, and +talk about books, and life appeared to me richly worth living; if any one +had said this was not the best planet in the universe I should have +called him a pessimist, or at least thought him so, for we had not the +word in those days. A world in which all those pretty and gracious women +dwelt, among the figures of the waltz and the lancers, with chat between +about the last instalment of 'The Newcomes,' was good enough world for +me; I was only afraid it was too good. There were, of course, some girls +who did not read, but few openly professed indifference to literature, +and there was much lending of books back and forth, and much debate of +them. That was the day when 'Adam Bede' was a new book, and in this I +had my first knowledge of that great intellect for which I had no +passion, indeed, but always the deepest respect, the highest honor; and +which has from time to time profoundly influenced me by its ethics. + +I state these things simply and somewhat baldly; I might easily refine +upon them, and study that subtle effect for good and for evil which young +people are always receiving from the fiction they read; but this its not +the time or place for the inquiry, and I only wish to own that so far as +I understand it, the chief part of my ethical experience has been from +novels. The life and character I have found portrayed there have +appealed always to the consciousness of right and wrong implanted in me; +and from no one has this appeal been stronger than from George Eliot. +Her influence continued through many years, and I can question it now +only in the undue burden she seems to throw upon the individual, and her +failure to account largely enough for motive from the social environment. +There her work seems to me unphilosophical. + +It shares whatever error there is in its perspective with that of +Hawthorne, whose 'Marble Faun' was a new book at the same time that 'Adam +Bede' was new, and whose books now came into my life and gave it their +tinge. He was always dealing with the problem of evil, too, and I found +a more potent charm in his more artistic handling of it than I found in +George Eliot. Of course, I then preferred the region of pure romance +where he liked to place his action; but I did not find his instances the +less veritable because they shone out in + + "The light that never was on sea or land." + +I read the 'Marble Faun' first, and then the 'Scarlet Letter,' and then +the 'House of Seven Gables,' and then the 'Blithedale Romance;' but I +always liked best the last, which is more nearly a novel, and more +realistic than the others. They all moved me with a sort of effect such +as I had not felt before. They veers so far from time and place that, +although most of them related to our country and epoch, I could not +imagine anything approximate from them; and Hawthorne himself seemed a +remote and impalpable agency, rather than a person whom one might +actually meet, as not long afterward happened with me. I did not hold +the sort of fancied converse with him that I held with ether authors, +and I cannot pretend that I had the affection for him that attracted me +to them. But he held me by his potent spell, and for a time he dominated +me as completely as any author I have read. More truly than any other +American author he has been a passion with me, and lately I heard with a +kind of pang a young man saying that he did not believe I should find the +'Scarlet Letter' bear reading now. I did not assent to the possibility, +but the notion gave me a shiver of dismay. I thought how much that book +had been to me, how much all of Hawthorne's books had been, and to have +parted with my faith in their perfection would have been something I +would not willingly have risked doing. + +Of course there is always something fatally weak in the scheme of the +pure romance, which, after the color of the contemporary mood dies out of +it, leaves it in danger of tumbling into the dust of allegory; and +perhaps this inherent weakness was what that bold critic felt in the +'Scarlet Letter.' But none of Hawthorne's fables are without a profound +and distant reach into the recesses of nature and of being. He came back +from his researches with no solution of the question, with no message, +indeed, but the awful warning, "Be true, be true," which is the burden of +the Scarlet Letter; yet in all his books there is the hue of thoughts +that we think only in the presence of the mysteries of life and death. +It is not his fault that this is not intelligence, that it knots the brow +in sorer doubt rather than shapes the lips to utterance of the things +that can never be said. Some of his shorter stories I have found thin +and cold to my later reading, and I have never cared much for the 'House +of Seven Gables,' but the other day I was reading the 'Blithedale +Romance' again, and I found it as potent, as significant, as sadly and +strangely true as when it first enthralled my soul. + +In those days when I tried to kindle my heart at the cold altar of +Goethe, I did read a great deal of his prose and somewhat of his poetry, +but it was to be ten years yet before I should go faithfully through with +his Faust and come to know its power. For the present, I read 'Wilhelm +Meister' and the 'Wahlverwandschaften,' and worshipped him much at +second-hand through Heine. In the mean time I invested such Germans as +I met with the halo of their national poetry, and there was one lady of +whom I heard with awe that she had once known my Heine. When I came to +meet her, over a glass of the mild egg-nog which she served at her house +on Sunday nights, and she told me about Heine, and how he looked, and +some few things he said, I suffered an indescribable disappointment; and +if I could have been frank with myself I should have owned to a fear that +it might have been something like that, if I had myself met the poet in +the flesh, and tried to hold the intimate converse with him that I held +in the spirit. But I shut my heart to all such misgivings and went on +reading him much more than I read any other German author. I went on +writing him too, just as I went on reading and writing Tennyson. Heine +was always a personal interest with me, and every word of his made me +long to have had him say it to me, and tell me why he said it. In a poet +of alien race and language and religion I found a greater sympathy than I +have experienced with any other. Perhaps the Jews are still the chosen +people, but now they bear the message of humanity, while once they bore +the message of divinity. I knew the ugliness of Heine's nature: his +revengefulness, and malice, and cruelty, and treachery, and uncleanness; +and yet he was supremely charming among the poets I have read. The +tenderness I still feel for him is not a reasoned love, I must own; but, +as I am always asking, when was love ever reasoned? + +I had a room-mate that winter in Columbus who was already a contributor +to the Atlantic Monthly, and who read Browning as devotedly as I read +Heine. I will not say that he wrote him as constantly, but if that had +been so, I should not have cared. What I could not endure without pangs +of secret jealousy was that he should like Heine, too, and should read +him, though it was but an arm's-length in an English version. He had +found the origins of those tricks and turns of Heine's in 'Tristram +Shandy' and the 'Sentimental Journey;' and this galled me, as if he had +shown that some mistress of my soul had studied her graces from another +girl, and that it was not all her own hair that she wore. I hid my +rancor as well as I could, and took what revenge lay in my power by +insinuating that he might have a very different view if he read Heine in +the original. I also made haste to try my own fate with the Atlantic, +and I sent off to Mr. Lowell that poem which he kept so long in order to +make sure that Heine had not written it, as well as authorized it. + + + + +XXVII. CHARLES READE + +This was the winter when my friend Piatt and I made our first literary +venture together in those 'Poems of Two Friends;' which hardly passed the +circle of our amity; and it was altogether a time of high literary +exaltation with me. I walked the streets of the friendly little city by +day and by night with my head so full of rhymes and poetic phrases that +it seemed as if their buzzing might have been heard several yards away; +and I do not yet see quite how I contrived to keep their music out of my +newspaper paragraphs. Out of the newspaper I could not keep it, and from +time to time I broke into verse in its columns, to the great amusement of +the leading editor, who knew me for a young man with a very sharp tooth +for such self-betrayals in others. He wanted to print a burlesque review +he wrote of the 'Poems of Two Friends' in our paper, but I would not +suffer it. I must allow that it was very, funny, and that he was always +a generous friend, whose wounds would have been as faithful as any that +could have been dealt me then. He did not indeed care much for any +poetry but that of Shakespeare and the 'Ingoldsby Legends;' and when one +morning a State Senator came into the office with a volume of Tennyson, +and began to read, + + "The poet in a golden clime was born, + With golden stars above; + Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn + The love of love," + +he hitched his chair about, and started in on his leader for the day. + +He might have been more patient if he had known that this State Senator +was to be President Garfield. But who could know anything of the +tragical history that was so soon to follow that winter of 1859-60? +Not I; at least I listened rapt by the poet and the reader, and it seemed +to me as if the making and the reading of poetry were to go on forever, +and that was to be all there was of it. To be sure I had my hard little +journalistic misgivings that it was not quite the thing for a State +Senator to come round reading Tennyson at ten o'clock in the morning, and +I dare say I felt myself superior in my point of view, though I could not +resist the charm of the verse. I myself did not bring Tennyson to the +office at that time. I brought Thackeray, and I remember that one day +when I had read half an hour or so in the 'Book of Snobs,' the leading +editor said frankly, Well, now, he guessed we had had enough of that. +He apologized afterwards as if he were to blame, and not I, but I dare +say I was a nuisance with my different literary passions, and must have +made many of my acquaintances very tired of my favorite authors. I had +some consciousness of the fact, but I could not help it. + +I ought not to omit from the list of these favorites an author who was +then beginning to have his greatest vogue, and who somehow just missed of +being a very great one. We were all reading his jaunty, nervy, knowing +books, and some of us were questioning whether we ought not to set him +above Thackeray and Dickens and George Eliot, 'tulli quanti', so great +was the effect that Charles Reade had with our generation. He was a man +who stood at the parting of the ways between realism and romanticism, and +if he had been somewhat more of a man he might have been the master of a +great school of English realism; but, as it was, he remained content to +use the materials of realism and produce the effect of romanticism. He +saw that life itself infinitely outvalued anything that could be feigned +about it, but its richness seemed to corrupt him, and he had not the +clear, ethical conscience which forced George Eliot to be realistic when +probably her artistic prepossessions were romantic. + +As yet, however, there was no reasoning of the matter, and Charles Reade +was writing books of tremendous adventure and exaggerated character, +which he prided himself on deriving from the facts of the world around +him. He was intoxicated with the discovery he had made that the truth +was beyond invention, but he did not know what to do with the truth in +art after he had found it in life, and to this day the English mostly do +not. We young people were easily taken with his glittering error, and we +read him with much the same fury, that he wrote. 'Never Too Late to +Mend;' 'Love Me Little, Love Me Long;' 'Christie Johnstone;' 'Peg +Woffington;' and then, later, 'Hard Cash,' 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' +'Foul Play,' 'Put Yourself in His Place'--how much they all meant once, +or seemed to mean! + +The first of them, and the other poems and fictions I was reading, meant +more to me than the rumors of war that were then filling the air, and +that so soon became its awful actualities. To us who have our lives so +largely in books the material world is always the fable, and the ideal +the fact. I walked with my feet on the ground, but my head was in the +clouds, as light as any of them. I neither praise nor blame this fact; +but I feel bound to own it, for that time, and for every time in my life, +since the witchery of literature began with me. + +Those two happy winters in Columbus, when I was finding opportunity and +recognition, were the heydey of life for me. There has been no time like +them since, though there have been smiling and prosperous times a plenty; +for then I was in the blossom of my youth, and what I had not I could +hope for without unreason, for I had so much of that which I had most +desired. Those times passed, and there came other times, long years of +abeyance, and waiting, and defeat, which I thought would never end, but +they passed, too. + +I got my appointment of Consul to Venice, and I went home to wait for my +passport and to spend the last days, so full of civic trouble, before I +should set out for my post. If I hoped to serve my country there and +sweep the Confederate cruisers from the Adriatic, I am afraid my prime +intent was to add to her literature and to my own credit. I intended, +while keeping a sleepless eye out for privateers, to write poems. +concerning American life which should eclipse anything yet done in that +kind, and in the mean time I read voraciously and perpetually, to make +the days go swiftly which I should have been so glad to have linger. In +this month I devoured all the 'Waverley novels,' but I must have been +devouring a great many others, for Charles Reade's 'Christie Johnstone' +is associated with the last moment of the last days. + +A few months ago I was at the old home, and I read that book again, +after not looking at it for more than thirty years; and I read it with +amazement at its prevailing artistic vulgarity, its prevailing aesthetic +error shot here and there with gleams of light, and of the truth that +Reade himself was always dimly groping for. The book is written +throughout on the verge of realism, with divinations and conjectures +across its border, and with lapses into the fool's paradise of +romanticism, and an apparent content with its inanity and impossibility. +But then it was brilliantly new and surprising; it seemed to be the last +word that could be said for the truth in fiction; and it had a spell that +held us like an anesthetic above the ache of parting, and the anxiety for +the years that must pass, with all their redoubled chances, before our +home circle could be made whole again. I read on, and the rest listened, +till the wheels of the old stage made themselves heard in their approach +through the absolute silence of the village street. Then we shut the +book and all went down to the gate together, and parted under the pale +sky of the October night. There was one of the home group whom I was not +to see again: the young brother who died in the blossom of his years +before I returned from my far and strange sojourn. He was too young then +to share our reading of the novel, but when I ran up to his room to bid +him good-by I found him awake, and, with aching hearts, we bade each +other good-by forever! + + + + +XXVIII. DANTE + +I ran through an Italian grammar on my way across the Atlantic, and from +my knowledge of Latin, Spanish, and French, I soon had a reading +acquaintance with the language. I had really wanted to go to Germany, +that I might carry forward my studies in German literature, and I first +applied for the consulate at Munich. The powers at Washington thought it +quite the same thing to offer me Rome; but I found that the income of the +Roman consulate would not give me a living, and I was forced to decline +it. Then the President's private secretaries, Mr. John Nicolay and Mr. +John Hay, who did not know me except as a young Westerner who had written +poems in the Atlantic Monthly, asked me how I would like Venice, and +promised that they would have the salary put up to a thousand a year, +under the new law to embarrass privateers. It was really put up to +fifteen hundred, and with this income assured me I went out to the city +whose influence changed the whole course of my literary life. + +No privateers ever came, though I once had notice from Turin that the +Florida had been sighted off Ancona; and I had nearly four years of +nearly uninterrupted leisure at Venice, which I meant to employ in +reading all Italian literature, and writing a history of the republic. +The history, of course, I expected would be a long affair, and I did not +quite suppose that I could despatch the literature in any short time; +besides, I had several considerable poems on hand that occupied me a good +deal, and worked at these as well as advanced myself in Italian, +preparatory to the efforts before me. + +I had already a slight general notion of Italian letters from Leigh Hunt, +and from other agreeable English Italianates; and I knew that I wanted to +read not only the four great poets, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, +but that whole group of burlesque poets, Pulci, Berni, and the rest, who, +from what I knew of them, I thought would be even more to my mind. As a +matter of fact, and in the process of time, I did read somewhat of all +these, but rather in the minor than the major way; and I soon went off +from them to the study of the modern poets, novelists, and playwrights +who interested me so much more. After my wonted fashion I read half a +dozen of these authors together, so that it would be hard to say which I +began with, but I had really a devotion to Dante, though not at that +time, or ever for the whole of Dante. During my first year in Venice I +met an ingenious priest, who had been a tutor in a patrician family, and +who was willing to lead my faltering steps through the "Inferno." This +part of the "Divine Comedy" I read with a beginner's carefulness, and +with a rapture in its beauties, which I will whisper the reader do not +appear in every line. + +Again I say it is a great pity that criticism is not honest about the +masterpieces of literature, and does not confess that they are not every +moment masterly, that they are often dull and tough and dry, as is +certainly the case with Dante's. Some day, perhaps, we shall have this +way of treating literature, and then the lover of it will not feel +obliged to browbeat himself into the belief that if he is not always +enjoying himself it is his own fault. At any rate I will permit myself +the luxury of frankly saying that while I had a deep sense of the majesty +and grandeur of Dante's design, many points of its execution bored me, +and that I found the intermixture of small local fact and neighborhood +history in the fabric of his lofty creation no part of its noblest +effect. What is marvellous in it is its expression of Dante's +personality, and I can never think that his personalities enhance its +greatness as a work of art. I enjoyed them, however, and I enjoyed them +the more, as the innumerable perspectives of Italian history began to +open all about me. Then, indeed, I understood the origins if I did not +understand the aims of Dante, which there is still much dispute about +among those who profess to know them clearly. What I finally perceived +was that his poem came through him from the heart of Italian life, such +as it was in his time, and that whatever it teaches, his poem expresses +that life, in all its splendor and squalor, its beauty and deformity, its +love and its hate. + +Criticism may torment this sense or that sense out of it, but at the end +of the ends the "Divine Comedy" will stand for the patriotism of +medieval Italy, as far as its ethics is concerned, and for a profound and +lofty ideal of beauty, as far as its aesthetics is concerned. This is +vague enough and slight enough, I must confess, but I must confess also +that I had not even a conception of so much when I first read the +"Inferno." I went at it very simply, and my enjoyment of it was that +sort which finds its account in the fine passages, the brilliant +episodes, the striking pictures. This was the effect with me of all the +criticism which I had hitherto read, and I am not sure yet that the +criticism which tries to be of a larger scope, and to see things "whole," +is of any definite effect. As a matter of fact we see nothing whole, +neither life nor art. We are so made, in soul and in sense, that we can +deal only with parts, with points, with degrees; and the endeavor to +compass any entirety must involve a discomfort and a danger very +threatening to our intellectual integrity. + +Or if this postulate is as untenable as all the others, still I am very +glad that I did not then lose any fact of the majesty, and beauty, and +pathos of the great certain measures for the sake of that fourth +dimension of the poem which is not yet made palpable or visible. I took +my sad heart's fill of the sad story of "Paolo and Francesca," which I +already knew in Leigh Hunt's adorable dilution, and most of the lines +read themselves into my memory, where they linger yet. I supped on the +horrors of Ugolino's fate with the strong gust of youth, which finds +every exercise of sympathy a pleasure. My good priest sat beside me in +these rich moments, knotting in his lap the calico handkerchief of the +snuff-taker, and entering with tremulous eagerness into my joy in things +that he had often before enjoyed. No doubt he had an inexhaustible +pleasure in them apart from mine, for I have found my pleasure in them +perennial, and have not failed to taste it as often as I have read or +repeated any of the great passages of the poem to myself. This pleasure +came often from some vital phrase, or merely the inspired music of a +phrase quite apart from its meaning. I did not get then, and I have not +got since, a distinct conception of the journey through Hell, and as +often as I have tried to understand the topography of the poem I have +fatigued myself to no purpose, but I do not think the essential meaning +was lost upon me. + +I dare say my priest had his notion of the general shape and purport, +the gross material body of the thing, but he did not trouble me with it, +while we sat tranced together in the presence of its soul. He seemed, +at times, so lost in the beatific vision, that he forgot my stumblings in +the philological darkness, till I appealed to him for help. Then he +would read aloud with that magnificent rhythm the Italians have in +reading their verse, and the obscured meaning would seem to shine out of +the mere music of the poem, like the color the blind feel in sound. + +I do not know what has become of him, but if he is like the rest of the +strange group of my guides, philosophers, and friends in literature--the +printer, the organ-builder, the machinist, the drug-clerk, and the +bookbinder--I am afraid he is dead. In fact, I who was then I, might be +said to be dead too, so little is my past self like my present self in +anything but the "increasing purpose" which has kept me one in my love of +literature. He was a gentle and kindly man, with a life and a longing, +quite apart from his vocation, which were never lived or fulfilled. +I did not see him after he ceased to read Dante with me, and in fact I +was instructed by the suspicions of my Italian friends to be careful how +I consorted with a priest, who might very well be an Austrian spy. +I parted with him for no such picturesque reason, for I never believed +him other than the truest and faithfulest of friends, but because I was +then giving myself more entirely to work in which he could not help me. + +Naturally enough this was a long poem in the terza rima of the "Divina +Commedia," and dealing with a story of our civil war in a fashion so +remote that no editor would print it. This was the first fruits and the +last of my reading of Dante, in verse, and it was not so like Dante as I +would have liked to make it; but Dante is not easy to imitate; he is too +unconscious, and too single, too bent upon saying the thing that is in +him, with whatever beauty inheres in it, to put on the graces that others +may catch. + + + + +XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D'AZEGLIO + +However, this poem only shared the fate of nearly, all the others that I +wrote at this time; they came back to me with unfailing regularity from +all the magazine editors of the English-speaking world; I had no success +with any of them till I sent Mr. Lowell a paper on recent Italian comedy +for the North American Review, which he and Professor Norton had then +begun to edit. I was in the mean time printing the material of Venetian +Life and the Italian Journeys in a Boston newspaper after its rejection +by the magazines; and my literary life, almost without my willing it, had +taken the course of critical observance of books and men in their +actuality. + +That is to say, I was studying manners, in the elder sense of the word, +wherever I could get at them in the frank life of the people about me, +and in such literature of Italy as was then modern. In this pursuit I +made a discovery that greatly interested me, and that specialized my +inquiries. I found that the Italians had no novels which treated of +their contemporary life; that they had no modern fiction but the +historical romance. I found that if I wished to know their life from +their literature I must go to their drama, which was even then +endeavoring to give their stage a faithful picture of their +civilization. There was even then in the new circumstance of a people +just liberated from every variety of intellectual repression and +political oppression, a group of dramatic authors, whose plays were not +only delightful to see but delightful to read, working in the good +tradition of one of the greatest realists who has ever lived, and +producing a drama of vital strength and charm. One of them, whom I by no +means thought the best, has given us a play, known to all the world, +which I am almost ready to think with Zola is the greatest play of modern +times; or if it is not so, I should be puzzled to name the modern drama +that surpasses "La Morte Civile" of Paolo Giacometti. I learned to know +all the dramatists pretty well, in the whole range of their work, on the +stage and in the closet, and I learned to know still better, and to love +supremely, the fine, amiable genius whom, as one of them said, they did +not so much imitate as learn from to imitate nature. + +This was Carlo Goldoni, one of the first of the realists, but antedating +conscious realism so long as to have been born at Venice early in the +eighteenth century, and to have come to his hand-to-hand fight with the +romanticism of his day almost before that century had reached its noon. +In the early sixties of our own century I was no more conscious of his +realism than he was himself a hundred years before; but I had eyes in my +head, and I saw that what he had seen in Venice so long before was so +true that it was the very life of Venice in my own day; and because I +have loved the truth in art above all other things, I fell instantly and +lastingly in love with Carlo Goldoni. I was reading his memoirs, and +learning to know his sweet, honest, simple nature while I was learning to +know his work, and I wish that every one who reads his plays would read +his life as well; one must know him before one can fully know them. I +believe, in fact, that his autobiography came into my hands first. But, +at any rate, both are associated with the fervors and languors of that +first summer in Venice, so that I cannot now take up a book of Goldoni's +without a renewed sense of that sunlight and moonlight, and of the sounds +and silences of a city that is at once the stillest and shrillest in the +world. + +Perhaps because I never found his work of great ethical or aesthetical +proportions, but recognized that it pretended to be good only within its +strict limitations, I recur to it now without that painful feeling of a +diminished grandeur in it, which attends us so often when we go back to +something that once greatly pleased us. It seemed to me at the time that +I must have read all his comedies in Venice, but I kept reading new ones +after I came home, and still I can take a volume of his from the shelf, +and when thirty years are past, find a play or two that I missed before. +Their number is very great, but perhaps those that I fancy I have not +read, I have really read once or more and forgotten. That might very +easily be, for there is seldom anything more poignant in any one of them +than there is in the average course of things. The plays are light and +amusing transcripts from life, for the most part, and where at times they +deepen into powerful situations, or express strong emotions, they do so +with persons so little different from the average of our acquaintance +that we do not remember just who the persons are. + +There is no doubt but the kindly playwright had his conscience, and meant +to make people think as well as laugh. I know of none of his plays that +is of wrong effect, or that violates the instincts of purity, or insults +common sense with the romantic pretence that wrong will be right if you +will only paint it rose-color. He is at some obvious pains to "punish +vice and reward virtue," but I do not mean that easy morality when I +praise his; I mean the more difficult sort that recognizes in each man's +soul the arbiter not of his fate surely, but surely of his peace. He +never makes a fool of the spectator by feigning that passion is a reason +or justification, or that suffering of one kind can atone for wrong of +another. That was left for the romanticists of our own century to +discover; even the romanticists whom Goldoni drove from the stage, were +of that simpler eighteenth-century sort who had not yet liberated the +individual from society, but held him accountable in the old way. As for +Goldoni himself, he apparently never dreams of transgression; he is of +rather an explicit conventionality in most things, and he deals with +society as something finally settled. How artfully he deals with it, +how decently, how wholesomely, those who know Venetian society of the +eighteenth century historically, will perceive when they recall the +adequate impression he gives of it without offence in character or +language or situation. This is the perpetual miracle of his comedy, +that it says so much to experience and worldly wisdom, and so little to +inexperience and worldly innocence. No doubt the Serenest Republic was +very strict with the theatre, and suffered it to hold the mirror up to +nature only when nature was behaving well, or at least behaving as if +young people were present. Yet the Italians are rather plain-spoken, and +they recognize facts which our company manners at least do not admit the +existence of. I should say that Goldoni was almost English, almost +American, indeed, in his observance of the proprieties, and I like this +in him; though the proprieties are not virtues, they are very good +things, and at least are better than the improprieties. + +This, however, I must own, had not a great deal to do with my liking him +so much, and I should be puzzled to account for my passion, as much in +his case as in most others. If there was any reason for it, perhaps it +was that he had the power of taking me out of my life, and putting me +into the lives of others, whom I felt to be human beings as much as +myself. To make one live in others, this is the highest effect of +religion as well as of art, and possibly it will be the highest bliss we +shall ever know. I do not pretend that my translation was through my +unselfishness; it was distinctly through that selfishness which perceives +that self is misery; and I may as well confess here that I do not regard +the artistic ecstasy as in any sort noble. It is not noble to love the +beautiful, or to live for it, or by it; and it may even not be refining. +I would not have any reader of mine, looking forward to some aesthetic +career, suppose that this love is any merit in itself; it may be the +grossest egotism. If you cannot look beyond the end you aim at, and seek +the good which is not your own, all your sacrifice is to yourself and not +of yourself, and you might as well be going into business. In itself and +for itself it is no more honorable to win fame than to make money, and +the wish to do the one is no more elevating than the wish to do the +other. + +But in the days I write of I had no conception of this, and I am sure +that my blindness to so plain a fact kept me even from seeking and +knowing the highest beauty in the things I worshipped. I believe that if +I had been sensible of it I should hays read much more of such humane +Italian poets and novelists as Manzoni and D'Azeglio, whom I perceived to +be delightful, without dreaming of them in the length and breadth of +their goodness. Now and then its extent flashed upon me, but the glimpse +was lost to my retroverted vision almost as soon as won. It is only in +thinking back to there that I can realize how much they might always have +meant to me. They were both living in my time in Italy, and they were +two men whom I should now like very much to have seen, if I could have +done so without that futility which seems to attend every effort to pay +one's duty to such men. + +The love of country in all the Italian poets and romancers of the long +period of the national resurrection ennobled their art in a measure which +criticism has not yet taken account of. I conceived of its effect then, +but I conceived of it as a misfortune, a fatality; now I am by no means +sure that it was so; hereafter the creation of beauty, as we call it, for +beauty's sake, may be considered something monstrous. There is forever a +poignant meaning in life beyond what mere living involves, and why should +not there be this reference in art to the ends beyond art? +The situation, the long patience, the hope against hope, dignified and +beautified the nature of the Italian writers of that day, and evoked from +them a quality which I was too little trained in their school to +appreciate. But in a sort I did feel it, I did know it in them all, so +far as I knew any of them, and in the tragedies of Manzoni, and in the +romances of D'Azeglio, and yet more in the simple and modest records of +D'Azeglio's life published after his death, I profited by it, and +unconsciously prepared myself for that point of view whence all the arts +appear one with all the uses, and there is nothing beautiful that is +false. + +I am very glad of that experience of Italian literature, which I look +back upon as altogether wholesome and sanative, after my excesses of +Heine. No doubt it was all a minor affair as compared with equal +knowledge of French literature, and so far it was a loss of time. It is +idle to dispute the general positions of criticism, and there is no +useful gainsaying its judgment that French literature is a major +literature and Italian a minor literature in this century; but whether +this verdict will stand for all time, there may be a reasonable doubt. +Criterions may change, and hereafter people may look at the whole affair +so differently that a literature which went to the making of a people +will not be accounted a minor literature, but will take its place with +the great literary movements. + +I do not insist upon this possibility, and I am far from defending myself +for liking the comedies of Goldoni better than the comedies of Moliere, +upon purely aesthetic grounds, where there is no question as to the +artistic quality. Perhaps it is because I came to Moliere's comedies +later, and with my taste formed for those of Goldoni; but again, it is +here a matter of affection; I find Goldoni for me more sympathetic, and +because he is more sympathetic I cannot do otherwise than find him more +natural, more true. I will allow that this is vulnerable, and as I say, +I do not defend it. Moliere has a place in literature infinitely loftier +than Goldoni's; and he has supplied types, characters, phrases, to the +currency of thought, and Goldoni has supplied none. It is, therefore, +without reason which I can allege that I enjoy Goldoni more. I am +perfectly willing to be rated low for my preference, and yet I think that +if it had been Goldoni's luck to have had the great age of a mighty +monarchy for his scene, instead of the decline of an outworn republic, +his place in literature might have been different. + + + + +XXX. "PASTOR FIDO," "AMINTA," "ROMOLA," "YEAST," "PAUL FERROLL" + +I have always had a great love for the absolutely unreal, the purely +fanciful in all the arts, as well as of the absolutely real; I like the +one on a far lower plane than the other, but it delights me, as a +pantomime at a theatre does, or a comic opera, which has its being wholly +outside the realm of the probabilities. When I once transport myself to +this sphere I have no longer any care for them, and if I could I would +not exact of them an allegiance which has no concern with them. For this +reason I have always vastly enjoyed the artificialities of pastoral +poetry; and in Venice I read with a pleasure few serious poems have given +me the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini. I came later but not with fainter zest +to the "Aminta" of Tasso, without which, perhaps, the "Pastor Fido" would +not have been, and I revelled in the pretty impossibilities of both these +charming effects of the liberated imagination. + +I do not the least condemn that sort of thing; one does not live by +sweets, unless one is willing to spoil one's digestion; but one may now +and then indulge one's self without harm, and a sugar-plum or two after +dinner may even be of advantage. What I object to is the romantic thing +which asks to be accepted with all its fantasticality on the ground of +reality; that seems to me hopelessly bad. But I have been able to dwell +in their charming out-land or no-land with the shepherds and +shepherdesses and nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, of Tasso and Guarini, and I +take the finest pleasure in their company, their Dresden china loves and +sorrows, their airy raptures, their painless throes, their polite +anguish, their tears not the least salt, but flowing as sweet as the +purling streams of their enamelled meadows. I wish there were more of +that sort of writing; I should like very much to read it. + +The greater part of my reading in Venice, when I began to find that I +could not help writing about the place, was in books relating to its life +and history, which I made use of rather than found pleasure in. My +studies in Italian literature were full of the most charming interest, +and if I had to read a good many books for conscience' sake, there were a +good many others I read for their own sake. They were chiefly poetry; +and after the first essays in which I tasted the classic poets, they were +chiefly the books of the modern poets. + +For the present I went no farther in German literature, and I recurred to +it in later years only for deeper and fuller knowledge of Heine; my +Spanish was ignored, as all first loves are when one has reached the age +of twenty-six. My English reading was almost wholly in the Tauchnitz +editions, for otherwise English books were not easily come at then and +there. George Eliot's 'Romola' was then new, and I read it again and +again with the sense of moral enlargement which the first fiction to +conceive of the true nature of evil gave all of us who were young in that +day. Tito Malema was not only a lesson, he was a revelation, and I +trembled before him as in the presence of a warning and a message from +the only veritable perdition. His life, in which so much that was good +was mixed, with so much that was bad, lighted up the whole domain of +egotism with its glare, and made one feel how near the best and the worst +were to each other, and how they sometimes touched without absolute +division in texture and color. The book was undoubtedly a favorite of +mine, and I did not see then the artistic falterings in it which were +afterwards evident to me. + +There were not Romolas to read all the time, though, and I had to devolve +upon inferior authors for my fiction the greater part of the time. Of +course, I kept up with 'Our Mutual Friend,' which Dickens was then +writing, and with 'Philip,' which was to be the last of Thackeray. I was +not yet sufficiently instructed to appreciate Trollope, and I did not +read him at all. + +I got hold of Kingsley, and read 'Yeast,' and I think some other novels +of his, with great relish, and without sensibility to his Charles +Readeish lapses from his art into the material of his art. But of all +the minor fiction that I read at this time none impressed me so much as +three books which had then already had their vogue, and which I knew +somewhat from reviews. They were Paul Ferroll, 'Why Paul Ferroll Killed +His Wife,' and 'Day after Day.' The first two were, of course, related +to each other, and they were all three full of unwholesome force. As to +their aesthetic merit I will not say anything, for I have not looked at +either of the books for thirty years. I fancy, however, that their +strength was rather of the tetanic than the titanic sort. They made your +sympathies go with the hero, who deliberately puts his wife to death for +the lie she told to break off his marriage with the woman he had loved, +and who then marries this tender and gentle girl, and lives in great +happiness with her till her death. Murder in the first degree is +flattered by his fate up to the point of letting him die peacefully in +Boston after these dealings of his in England; and altogether his story +could not be commended to people with a morbid taste for bloodshed. +Naturally enough the books were written by a perfectly good woman, the +wife of an English clergyman, whose friends were greatly scandalized by +them. As a sort of atonement she wrote 'Day after Day,' the story of a +dismal and joyless orphan, who dies to the sound of angelic music, faint +and farheard, filling the whole chamber. A carefuller study of the +phenomenon reveals the fact that the seraphic strains are produced by the +steam escaping from the hot-water bottles at the feet of the invalid. + +As usual, I am not able fully to account for my liking of these books, +and I am so far from wishing to justify it that I think I ought rather to +excuse it. But since I was really greatly fascinated with them, and read +them with an evergrowing fascination, the only honest thing to do is to +own my subjection to them. It would be an interesting and important +question for criticism to study, that question why certain books at a. +certain time greatly dominate our fancy, and others manifestly better +have no influence with us. A curious proof of the subtlety of these Paul +Ferroll books in the appeal they made to the imagination is the fact that +I came to them fresh from 'Romolo,' and full of horror for myself in +Tito; yet I sympathized throughout with Paul Ferroll, and was glad when +he got away. + + + + +XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON + +On my return to America, my literary life immediately took such form that +most of my reading was done for review. I wrote at first a good many of +the lighter criticisms in 'The Nation', at New York, and after I went to +Boston to become the assistant editor of the 'Atlantic Monthly' I wrote +the literary notices in that periodical for four or five years. + +It was only when I came into full charge of the magazine that I began to +share these labors with others, and I continued them in some measure as +long as I had any relation to it. My reading for reading's sake, as I +had hitherto done it, was at an end, and I read primarily for the sake of +writing about the book in hand, and secondarily for the pleasure it might +give me. This was always considerable, and sometimes so great that I +forgot the critic in it, and read on and on for pleasure. I was master +to review this book or that as I chose, and generally I reviewed only +books I liked to read, though sometimes I felt that I ought to do a book, +and did it from a sense of duty; these perfunctory criticisms I do not +think were very useful, but I tried to make them honest. + +In a long sickness, which I had shortly after I went to live in +Cambridge, a friend brought me several of the stories of Erckmann- +Chatrian, whom people were then reading much more than they are now, I +believe; and I had a great joy in them, which I have renewed since as +often as I have read one of their books. They have much the same quality +of simple and sincerely moralized realism that I found afterwards in the +work of the early Swiss realist, Jeremias Gotthelf, and very likely it +was this that captivated my judgment. As for my affections, battered and +exhausted as they ought to have been in many literary passions, they +never went out with fresher enjoyment than they did to the charming story +of 'L'Ami Fritz,' which, when I merely name it, breathes the spring sun +and air about me, and fills my senses with the beauty and sweetness of +cherry blossoms. It is one of the loveliest and kindest books that ever +was written, and my heart belongs to it still; to be sure it belongs to +several hundreds of other books in equal entirety. + +It belongs to all the books of the great Norwegian Bjorstjerne Bjornson, +whose 'Arne,' and whose 'Happy Boy,' and whose 'Fisher Maiden' I read in +this same fortunate sickness. I have since read every other book of his +that I could lay hands on: 'Sinnove Solbakken,' and 'Magnhild,' and +'Captain Manzanca,' and 'Dust,' and 'In God's Ways,' and 'Sigurd,' and +plays like "The Glove" and "The Bankrupt." He has never, as some authors +have, dwindled in my sense; when I open his page, there I find him as +large, and free, and bold as ever. He is a great talent, a clear +conscience, a beautiful art. He has my love not only because he is a +poet of the most exquisite verity, but because he is a lover of men, +with a faith in them such as can move mountains of ignorance, +and dulness, and greed. He is next to Tolstoy in his willingness to give +himself for his kind; if he would rather give himself in fighting than in +suffering wrong, I do not know that his self-sacrifice is less in degree. + +I confess, however, that I do not think of him as a patriot and a +socialist when I read him; he is then purely a poet, whose gift holds me +rapt above the world where I have left my troublesome and wearisome self +for the time. I do not know of any novels that a young endeavorer in +fiction could more profitably read than his for their large and simple +method, their trust of the reader's intelligence, their sympathy with +life. With him the problems are all soluble by the enlightened and +regenerate will; there is no baffling Fate, but a helping God. In +Bjornson there is nothing of Ibsen's scornful despair, nothing of his +anarchistic contempt, but his art is full of the warmth and color of a +poetic soul, with no touch of the icy cynicism which freezes you in the +other. I have felt the cold fascination of Ibsen, too, and I should be +far from denying his mighty mastery, but he has never possessed me with +the delight that Bjornson has. + +In those days I read not only all the new books, but I made many forays +into the past, and came back now and then with rich spoil, though I +confess that for the most part I had my trouble for my pains; and I wish +now that I had given the time I spent on the English classics to +contemporary literature, which I have not the least hesitation in saying +I like vastly better. In fact, I believe that the preference for the +literature of the past, except in the case of the greatest masters, is +mainly the affectation of people who cannot otherwise distinguish +themselves from the herd, and who wish very much to do so. + +There is much to be learned from the minor novelists and poets of the +past about people's ways of thinking and feeling, but not much that the +masters do not give you in better quality and fuller measure; and I +should say, Read the old masters and let their schools go, rather than +neglect any possible master of your own time. Above all, I would not +have any one read an old author merely that he might not be ignorant of +him; that is most beggarly, and no good can come of it. When literature +becomes a duty it ceases to be a passion, and all the schoolmastering in +the world, solemnly addressed to the conscience, cannot make the fact +otherwise. It is well to read for the sake of knowing a certain ground +if you are to make use of your knowledge in a certain way, but it would +be a mistake to suppose that this is a love of literature. + + + + +XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH + +In those years at Cambridge my most notable literary experience without +doubt was the knowledge of Tourguenief's novels, which began to be +recognized in all their greatness about the middle seventies. I think +they made their way with such of our public as were able to appreciate +them before they were accepted in England; but that does not matter. It +is enough for the present purpose that 'Smoke,' and 'Lisa,' and 'On the +Eve,' and 'Dimitri Roudine,' and 'Spring Floods,' passed one after +another through my hands, and that I formed for their author one of the +profoundest literary passions of my life. + +I now think that there is a finer and truer method than his, but in its +way, Tourguenief's method is as far as art can go. That is to say, his +fiction is to the last degree dramatic. The persons are sparely +described, and briefly accounted for, and then they are left to transact +their affair, whatever it is, with the least possible comment or +explanation from the author. The effect flows naturally from their +characters, and when they have done or said a thing you conjecture why as +unerringly as you would if they were people whom you knew outside of a +book. I had already conceived of the possibility of this from Bjornson, +who practises the same method, but I was still too sunken in the gross +darkness of English fiction to rise to a full consciousness of its +excellence. When I remembered the deliberate and impertinent moralizing +of Thackeray, the clumsy exegesis of George Eliot, the knowing nods and +winks of Charles Reade, the stage-carpentering and limelighting of +Dickens, even the fine and important analysis of Hawthorne, it was with a +joyful astonishment that I realized the great art of Tourguenief. + +Here was a master who was apparently not trying to work out a plot, who +was not even trying to work out a character, but was standing aside from +the whole affair, and letting the characters work the plot out. The +method was revealed perfectly in 'Smoke,' but each successive book of his +that I read was a fresh proof of its truth, a revelation of its +transcendent superiority. I think now that I exaggerated its value +somewhat; but this was inevitable in the first surprise. The sane +aesthetics of the first Russian author I read, however, have seemed more +and more an essential part of the sane ethics of all the Russians I have +read. It was not only that Tourguenief had painted life truly, but that +he had painted it conscientiously. + +Tourguenief was of that great race which has more than any other fully +and freely uttered human nature, without either false pride or false +shame in its nakedness. His themes were oftenest those of the French +novelist, but how far he was from handling them in the French manner and +with the French spirit! In his hands sin suffered no dramatic +punishment; it did not always show itself as unhappiness, in the personal +sense, but it was always unrest, and without the hope of peace. If the +end did not appear, the fact that it must be miserable always appeared. +Life showed itself to me in different colors after I had once read +Tourguenief; it became more serious, more awful, and with mystical +responsibilities I had not known before. My gay American horizons were +bathed in the vast melancholy of the Slav, patient, agnostic, trustful. +At the same time nature revealed herself to me through him with an +intimacy she had not hitherto shown me. There are passages in this +wonderful writer alive with a truth that seems drawn from the reader's +own knowledge; who else but Tourguenief and one's own most secret self +ever felt all the rich, sad meaning of the night air drawing in at the +open window, of the fires burning in the darkness on the distant fields? +I try in vain to give some notion of the subtle sympathy with nature +which scarcely put itself into words with him. As for the people of his +fiction, though they were of orders and civilizations so remote from my +experience, they were of the eternal human types whose origin and +potentialities every one may find in his own heart, and I felt their +verity in every touch. + +I cannot describe the satisfaction his work gave me; I can only impart +some sense of it, perhaps, by saying that it was like a happiness I had +been waiting for all my life, and now that it had come, I was richly +content forever. I do not mean to say that the art of Tourguenief +surpasses the art of Bjornson; I think Bjornson is quite as fine and +true. But the Norwegian deals with simple and primitive circumstances +for the most part, and always with a small world; and the Russian has to +do with human nature inside of its conventional shells, and his scene is +often as large as Europe. Even when it is as remote as Norway, it is +still related to the great capitals by the history if not the actuality +of the characters. Most of Tourguenief's books I have read many times +over, all of them I have read more than twice. For a number of years I +read them again and again without much caring for other fiction. It was +only the other day that I read Smoke through once more, with no +diminished sense of its truth, but with somewhat less than my first +satisfaction in its art. Perhaps this was because I had reached the +point through my acquaintance with Tolstoy where I was impatient even of +the artifice that hid itself. In 'Smoke' I was now aware of an artifice +that kept out of sight, but was still always present somewhere, invisibly +operating the story. + +I must not fail to own the great pleasure that I have had in some of the +stories of Auerbach. It is true that I have never cared greatly for 'On +the Heights,' which in its dealing with royalties seems too far aloof +from the ordinary human life, and which on the moral side finally fades +out into a German mistiness. But I speak of it with the imperfect +knowledge of one who was never able to read it quite through, and I have +really no right to speak of it. The book of his that pleased me most was +'Edelweiss,' which, though the story was somewhat too catastrophical, +seemed to me admirably good and true. I still think it very delicately +done, and with a deep insight; but there is something in all Auerbach's +work which in the retrospect affects me as if it dealt with pigmies. + + + + + +XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES + +I have always loved history, whether in the annals of peoples or in the +lives of persons, and I have at all times read it. I am not sure but I +rather prefer it to fiction, though I am aware that in looking back over +this record of my literary passions I must seem to have cared for very +little besides fiction. I read at the time I have just been speaking of, +nearly all the new poetry as it came out, and I constantly recurred to it +in its mossier sources, where it sprang from the green English ground, or +trickled from the antique urns of Italy. + +I do not think that I have ever cared much for metaphysics, or to read +much in that way, but from time to time I have done something of it. + +Travels, of course, I have read as part of the great human story, and +autobiography has at times appeared to me the most delightful reading in +the world; I have a taste in it that rejects nothing, though I have never +enjoyed any autobiographies so much as those of such Italians as have +reasoned of themselves. + +I suppose I have not been a great reader of the drama, and I do not know +that I have ever greatly relished any plays but those of Shakespeare and +Goldoni, and two or three of Beaumont and Fletcher, and one or so of +Marlow's, and all of Ibsen's and Maeterlinck's. The taste for the old +English dramatists I believe I have never formed. + +Criticism, ever since I filled myself so full of it in my boyhood, I have +not cared for, and often I have found it repulsive. + +I have a fondness for books of popular science, perhaps because they too +are part of the human story. + +I have read somewhat of the theology of the Swedenborgian faith I was +brought up in, but I have not read other theological works; and I do not +apologize for not liking any. The Bible itself was not much known to me +at an age when most children have been obliged to read it several times +over; the gospels were indeed familiar, and they have always been to me +the supreme human story; but the rest of the New Testament I had not read +when a man grown, and only passages of the Old Testament, like the story +of the Creation, and the story of Joseph, and the poems of Job and +Ecclesiastes, with occasional Psalms. I therefore came to the Scriptures +with a sense at once fresh and mature, and I can never be too glad that I +learned to see them under the vaster horizon and in the truer +perspectives of experience. + +Again as lights on the human story I have liked to read such books of +medicine as have fallen in my way, and I seldom take up a medical +periodical without reading of all the cases it describes, and in fact +every article in it. + +But I did not mean to make even this slight departure from the main +business of these papers, which is to confide my literary passions to the +reader; he probably has had a great many of his own. I think I may class +the "Ring and the Book" among them, though I have never been otherwise a +devotee of Browning. But I was still newly home from Italy, or away from +home, when that poem appeared, and whether or not it was because it took +me so with the old enchantment of that land, I gave my heart promptly to +it. Of course, there are terrible longueurs in it, and you do get tired +of the same story told over and over from the different points of view, +and yet it is such a great story, and unfolded with such a magnificent +breadth and noble fulness, that one who blames it lightly blames himself +heavily. There are certain books of it--"Caponsacchi's story," +"Pompilia's story," and "Count Guido's story"--that I think ought to rank +with the greatest poetry ever written, and that have a direct, dramatic +expression of the fact and character, which is without rival. There is a +noble and lofty pathos in the close of Caponsacchi's statement, an +artless and manly break from his self-control throughout, that seems to +me the last possible effect in its kind; and Pompilia's story holds all +of womanhood in it, the purity, the passion, the tenderness, the +helplessness. But if I begin to praise this or any of the things I have +liked, I do not know when I should stop. Yes, as I think it over, the +"Ring and the Book" appears to me one of the great few poems whose +splendor can never suffer lasting eclipse, however it may have presently +fallen into abeyance. If it had impossibly come down to us from some +elder time, or had not been so perfectly modern in its recognition of +feeling and motives ignored by the less conscious poetry of the past, it +might be ranked with the great epics. + +Of other modern poets I have read some things of William Morris, like the +"Life and Death of Jason," the "Story of Gudrun," and the "Trial of +Guinevere," with a pleasure little less than passionate, and I have +equally liked certain pieces of Dante Rossetti. I have had a high joy in +some of the great minor poems of Emerson, where the goddess moves over +Concord meadows with a gait that is Greek, and her sandalled tread +expresses a high scorn of the india-rubber boots that the American muse +so often gets about in. + +The "Commemoration Ode" of Lowell has also been a source from which I +drank something of the divine ecstasy of the poet's own exalted mood, and +I would set this level with the 'Biglow Papers,' high above all his other +work, and chief of the things this age of our country shall be remembered +by. Holmes I always loved, and not for his wit alone, which is so +obvious to liking, but for those rarer and richer strains of his in which +he shows himself the lover of nature and the brother of men. The deep +spiritual insight, the celestial music, and the brooding tenderness of +Whittier have always taken me more than his fierier appeals and his civic +virtues, though I do not underrate the value of these in his verse. + +My acquaintance with these modern poets, and many I do not name because +they are so many, has been continuous with their work, and my pleasure in +it not inconstant if not equal. I have spoken before of Longfellow as +one of my first passions, and I have never ceased to delight in him; but +some of the very newest and youngest of our poets have given me thrills +of happiness, for which life has become lastingly sweeter. + + +Long after I had thought never to read it--in fact when I was 'nel mezzo +del cammin di nostra vita'--I read Milton's "Paradise Lost," and found in +it a majestic beauty that justified to me the fame it wears, and eclipsed +the worth of those lesser poems which I had ignorantly accounted his +worthiest. In fact, it was one of the literary passions of the time I +speak of, and it shared my devotion for the novels of Tourguenief and +(shall I own it?) the romances of Cherbuliez. After all, it is best to +be honest, and if it is not best, it is at least easiest; it involves the +fewest embarrassing consequences; and if I confess the spell that the +Revenge of Joseph Noirel cast upon me for a time, perhaps I shall be able +to whisper the reader behind my hand that I have never yet read the +"AEneid" of Virgil; the "Georgics," yes; but the "AEneid," no. Some +time, however, I expect to read it and to like it immensely. That is +often the case with things that I have held aloof from indefinitely. + +One fact of my experience which the reader may, find interesting is that +when I am writing steadily I have little relish for reading. I fancy, +that reading is not merely a pastime when it is apparently the merest +pastime, but that a certain measure of mind-stuff is used up in it, and +that if you are using up all the mind stuff you have, much or little, in +some other way, you do not read because you have not the mind-stuff for +it. At any rate it is in this sort only that I can account for my +failure to read a great deal during four years of the amplest quiet that +I spent in the country at Belmont, whither we removed from Cambridge. +I had promised myself that in this quiet, now that I had given up +reviewing, and wrote little or nothing in the magazine but my stories, +I should again read purely for the pleasure of it, as I had in the early +days before the critical purpose had qualified it with a bitter alloy. +But I found that not being forced to read a number of books each month, +so that I might write about them, I did not read at all, comparatively +speaking. To be sure I dawdled over a great many books that I had read +before, and a number of memoirs and biographies, but I had no intense +pleasure from reading in that time, and have no passions to record of it. +It may have been a period when no new thing happened in literature deeply +to stir one's interest; I only state the fact concerning myself, and +suggest the most plausible theory I can think of. + +I wish also to note another incident, which may or may not have its +psychological value. An important event of these years was a long +sickness which kept me helpless some seven or eight weeks, when I was +forced to read in order to pass the intolerable time. But in this misery +I found that I could not read anything of a dramatic cast, whether in the +form of plays or of novels. The mere sight of the printed page, broken +up in dialogue, was anguish. Yet it was not the excitement of the +fiction that I dreaded, for I consumed great numbers of narratives of +travel, and was not in the least troubled by hairbreadth escapes, or +shipwrecks, or perils from wild beasts or deadly serpents; it was the +dramatic effect contrived by the playwright or novelist, and worked up to +in the speech of his characters that I could not bear. I found a like +impossible stress from the Sunday newspaper which a mistaken friend sent +in to me, and which with its scare-headings, and artfully wrought +sensations, had the effect of fiction, as in fact it largely was. + +At the end of four years we went abroad again, and travel took away the +appetite for reading as completely as writing did. I recall nothing read +in that year in Europe which moved me, and I think I read very little, +except the local histories of the Tuscan cities which I afterwards wrote +of. + + + + +XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY + +In fact, it was not till I returned, and took up my life again in Boston, +in the old atmosphere of work, that I turned once more to books. Even +then I had to wait for the time when I undertook a critical department in +one of the magazines, before I felt the rise of the old enthusiasm for an +author. That is to say, I had to begin reading for business again before +I began reading for pleasure. One of the first great pleasures which I +had upon these terms was in the book of a contemporary Spanish author. +This was the 'Marta y Maria' of Armando Palacio Valdes, a novelist who +delights me beyond words by his friendly and abundant humor, his feeling +for character, and his subtle insight. I like every one of his books +that I have read, and I believe that I have read nearly every one that he +has written. As I mention 'Riverito, Maximina, Un Idilio de un Inferno, +La Hermana de San Sulpizio, El Cuarto Poder, Espuma,' the mere names +conjure up the scenes and events that have moved me to tears and +laughter, and filled me with a vivid sense of the life portrayed in them. +I think the 'Marta y Maria' one of the most truthful and profound +fictions I have read, and 'Maximina' one of the most pathetic, and +'La Hermana de San Sulpizio' one of the most amusing. Fortunately, these +books of Valdes's have nearly all been translated, and the reader may +test the matter in English; though it necessarily halts somewhat behind +the Spanish. + +I do not know whether the Spaniards themselves rank Valdes with Galdos or +not, and I have no wish to decide upon their relative merits. They are +both present passions of mine, and I may say of the 'Dona Perfecta' of +Galdos that no book, if I except those of the greatest Russians, has +given me a keener and deeper impression; it is infinitely pathetic, and +is full of humor, which, if more caustic than that of Valdes, is not less +delicious. But I like all the books of Galdos that I have read, and +though he seems to have worked more tardily out of his romanticism than +Valdes, since he has worked finally into such realism as that of Leon +Roch, his greatness leaves nothing to be desired. + +I have read one of the books of Emilia Pardo-Bazan, called 'Morrina,' +which must rank her with the great realists of her country and age; she, +too, has that humor of her race, which brings us nearer the Spanish than +any other non-Anglo-Saxon people. + +A contemporary Italian, whom I like hardly less than these noble +Spaniards, is Giovanni Verga, who wrote 'I Malavoglia,' or, as we call it +in English, 'The House by the Medlar Tree': a story of infinite beauty, +tenderness and truth. As I have said before, I think with Zola that +Giacometti, the Italian author of "La Morte Civile," has written almost +the greatest play, all round, of modern times. + +But what shall I say of Zola himself, and my admiration of his epic +greatness? About his material there is no disputing among people of our +Puritanic tradition. It is simply abhorrent, but when you have once +granted him his material for his own use, it is idle and foolish to deny +his power. Every literary theory of mine was contrary to him when I took +up 'L'Assommoir,' though unconsciously I had always been as much of a +realist as I could, but the book possessed me with the same fascination +that I felt the other day in reading his 'L'Argent.' The critics know +now that Zola is not the realist he used to fancy himself, and he is full +of the best qualities of the romanticism he has hated so much; but for +what he is, there is but one novelist of our time, or of any, that +outmasters him, and that is Tolstoy. For my own part, I think that the +books of Zola are not immoral, but they are indecent through the facts +that they nakedly represent; they are infinitely more moral than the +books of any other French novelist. This may not be saying a great deal, +but it is saying the truth, and I do not mind owning that he has been one +of my great literary passions, almost as great as Flaubert, and greater +than Daudet or Maupassant, though I have profoundly appreciated the +exquisite artistry of both these. No French writer, however, has moved +me so much as the Spanish, for the French are wanting in the humor which +endears these, and is the quintessence of their charm. + +You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke, and I +suppose this is what deprived me of a final satisfaction in the company +of Anthony Trollope, who jokes heavily or not at all, and whom I should +otherwise make bold to declare the greatest of English novelists; as it +is, I must put before him Jane Austen, whose books, late in life, have +been a youthful rapture with me. Even without, much humor Trollope's +books have been a vast pleasure to me through their simple truthfulness. +Perhaps if they were more humorous they would not be so true to the +British life and character present in them in the whole length and +breadth of its expansive commonplaceness. It is their serious fidelity +which gives them a value unique in literature, and which if it were +carefully analyzed would afford a principle of the same quality in an +author who was undoubtedly one of the finest of artists as well as the +most Philistine of men. + +I came rather late, but I came with all the ardor of what seems my +perennial literary youth, to the love of Thomas Hardy, whom I first knew +in his story 'A Pair of Blue Eyes.' As usual, after I had read this book +and felt the new charm in it, I wished to read the books of no other +author, and to read his books over and over. I love even the faults of +Hardy; I will let him play me any trick he chooses (and he is not above +playing tricks, when he seems to get tired of his story or perplexed with +it), if only he will go on making his peasants talk, and his rather +uncertain ladies get in and out of love, and serve themselves of every +chance that fortune offers them of having their own way. We shrink from +the unmorality of the Latin races, but Hardy has divined in the heart of +our own race a lingering heathenism, which, if not Greek, has certainly +been no more baptized than the neo-hellenism of the Parisians. His +heroines especially exemplify it, and I should be safe in saying that his +Ethelbertas, his Eustacias, his Elfridas, his Bathshebas, his Fancies, +are wholly pagan. I should not dare to ask how much of their charm came +from that fact; and the author does not fail to show you how much harm, +so that it is not on my conscience. His people live very close to the +heart of nature, and no one, unless it is Tourguenief, gives you a richer +and sweeter sense of her unity with human nature. Hardy is a great poet +as well as a great humorist, and if he were not a great artist also his +humor would be enough to endear him to me. + + + + +XXXV. TOLSTOY + +I come now, though not quite in the order of time, to the noblest of all +these enthusiasms--namely, my devotion for the writings of Lyof Tolstoy. +I should wish to speak of him with his own incomparable truth, yet I do +not know how to give a notion of his influence without the effect of +exaggeration. As much as one merely human being can help another I +believe that he has helped me; he has not influenced me in aesthetics +only, but in ethics, too, so that I can never again see life in the way I +saw it before I knew him. Tolstoy awakens in his reader the will to be a +man; not effectively, not spectacularly, but simply, really. He leads +you back to the only true ideal, away from that false standard of the +gentleman, to the Man who sought not to be distinguished from other men, +but identified with them, to that Presence in which the finest gentleman +shows his alloy of vanity, and the greatest genius shrinks to the measure +of his miserable egotism. I learned from Tolstoy to try character and +motive by no other test, and though I am perpetually false to that +sublime ideal myself, still the ideal remains with me, to make me ashamed +that I am not true to it. Tolstoy gave me heart to hope that the world +may yet be made over in the image of Him who died for it, when all +Caesars things shall be finally rendered unto Caesar, and men shall come +into their own, into the right to labor and the right to enjoy the fruits +of their labor, each one master of himself and servant to every other. +He taught me to see life not as a chase of a forever impossible personal +happiness, but as a field for endeavor towards the happiness of the whole +human family; and I can never lose this vision, however I close my eyes, +and strive to see my own interest as the highest good. He gave me new +criterions, new principles, which, after all, were those that are taught +us in our earliest childhood, before we have come to the evil wisdom of +the world. As I read his different ethical books, 'What to Do,' +'My Confession,' and 'My Religion,' I recognized their truth with a +rapture such as I have known in no other reading, and I rendered them my +allegiance, heart and soul, with whatever sickness of the one and despair +of the other. They have it yet, and I believe they will have it while I +live. It is with inexpressible astonishment that I bear them attainted +of pessimism, as if the teaching of a man whose ideal was simple goodness +must mean the prevalence of evil. The way he showed me seemed indeed +impossible to my will, but to my conscience it was and is the only +possible way. If there, is any point on which he has not convinced my +reason it is that of our ability to walk this narrow way alone. Even +there he is logical, but as Zola subtly distinguishes in speaking of +Tolstoy's essay on "Money," he is not reasonable. Solitude enfeebles and +palsies, and it is as comrades and brothers that men must save the world +from itself, rather than themselves from the world. It was so the +earliest Christians, who had all things common, understood the life of +Christ, and I believe that the latest will understand it so. + +I have spoken first of the ethical works of Tolstoy, because they are of +the first importance to me, but I think that his aesthetical works are as +perfect. To my thinking they transcend in truth, which is the highest +beauty, all other works of fiction that have been written, and I believe +that they do this because they obey the law of the author's own life. +His conscience is one ethically and one aesthetically; with his will to +be true to himself he cannot be false to his knowledge of others. I +thought the last word in literary art had been said to me by the novels +of Tourguenief, but it seemed like the first, merely, when I began to +acquaint myself with the simpler method of Tolstoy. I came to it by +accident, and without any manner, of preoccupation in The Cossacks, one +of his early books, which had been on my shelves unread for five or six +years. I did not know even Tolstoy's name when I opened it, and it was +with a kind of amaze that I read it, and felt word by word, and line by +line, the truth of a new art in it. + +I do not know how it is that the great Russians have the secret of +simplicity. Some say it is because they have not a long literary past +and are not conventionalized by the usage of many generations of other +writers, but this will hardly account for the brotherly directness of +their dealing with human nature; the absence of experience elsewhere +characterizes the artist with crudeness, and simplicity is the last +effect of knowledge. Tolstoy is, of course, the first of them in this +supreme grace. He has not only Tourguenief's transparency of style, +unclouded by any mist of the personality which we mistakenly value in +style, and which ought no more to be there than the artist's personality +should be in a portrait; but he has a method which not only seems without +artifice, but is so. I can get at the manner of most writers, and tell +what it is, but I should be baffled to tell what Tolstoy's manner is; +perhaps he has no manner. This appears to me true of his novels, which, +with their vast variety of character and incident, are alike in their +single endeavor to get the persons living before you, both in their +action and in the peculiarly dramatic interpretation of their emotion and +cogitation. There are plenty of novelists to tell you that their +characters felt and thought so and so, but you have to take it on trust; +Tolstoy alone makes you know how and why it was so with them and not +otherwise. If there is anything in him which can be copied or burlesqued +it is this ability of his to show men inwardly as well as outwardly; it +is the only trait of his which I can put my hand on. + +After 'The Cossacks' I read 'Anna Karenina' with a deepening sense of the +author's unrivalled greatness. I thought that I saw through his eyes a +human affair of that most sorrowful sort as it must appear to the +Infinite Compassion; the book is a sort of revelation of human nature in +circumstances that have been so perpetually lied about that we have +almost lost the faculty of perceiving the truth concerning an illicit +love. When you have once read 'Anna Karenina' you know how fatally +miserable and essentially unhappy such a love must be. But the character +of Karenin himself is quite as important as the intrigue of Anna and +Vronsky. It is wonderful how such a man, cold, Philistine and even mean +in certain ways, towers into a sublimity unknown (to me, at least), in +fiction when he forgives, and yet knows that he cannot forgive with +dignity. There is something crucial, and something triumphant, not +beyond the power, but hitherto beyond the imagination of men in this +effect, which is not solicited, not forced, not in the least romantic, +but comes naturally, almost inevitably, from the make of man. + +The vast prospects, the far-reaching perspectives of 'War and Peace' made +it as great a surprise for me in the historical novel as 'Anna Karenina' +had been in the study of contemporary life; and its people and interests +did not seem more remote, since they are of a civilization always as +strange and of a humanity always as known. + +I read some shorter stories of Tolstoy's before I came to this greatest +work of his: I read 'Scenes of the Siege of Sebastopol,' which is so much +of the same quality as 'War and Peace;' and I read 'Policoushka' and most +of his short stories with a sense of my unity with their people such as I +had never felt with the people of other fiction. + +His didactic stories, like all stories of the sort, dwindle into +allegories; perhaps they do their work the better for this, with the +simple intelligences they address; but I think that where Tolstoy becomes +impatient of his office of artist, and prefers to be directly a teacher, +he robs himself of more than half his strength with those he can move +only through the realization of themselves in others. The simple pathos, +and the apparent indirectness of such a tale as that of 'Poticoushka,' +the peasant conscript, is of vastly more value to the world at large than +all his parables; and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,' the Philistine +worldling, will turn the hearts of many more from the love of the world +than such pale fables of the early Christian life as "Work while ye have +the Light." A man's gifts are not given him for nothing, and the man who +has the great gift of dramatic fiction has no right to cast it away or to +let it rust out in disuse. + +Terrible as the 'Kreutzer Sonata' was, it had a moral effect dramatically +which it lost altogether when the author descended to exegesis, and +applied to marriage the lesson of one evil marriage. In fine, Tolstoy is +certainly not to be held up as infallible. He is very, distinctly +fallible, but I think his life is not less instructive because in certain +things it seems a failure. There was but one life ever lived upon the +earth which was without failure, and that was Christ's, whose erring and +stumbling follower Tolstoy is. There is no other example, no other +ideal, and the chief use of Tolstoy is to enforce this fact in our age, +after nineteen centuries of hopeless endeavor to substitute ceremony for +character, and the creed for the life. I recognize the truth of this +without pretending to have been changed in anything but my point of view +of it. What I feel sure is that I can never look at life in the mean and +sordid way that I did before I read Tolstoy. + +Artistically, he has shown me a greatness that he can never teach me. +I am long past the age when I could wish to form myself upon another +writer, and I do not think I could now insensibly take on the likeness of +another; but his work has been a revelation and a delight to me, such as +I am sure I can never know again. I do not believe that in the whole +course of my reading, and not even in the early moment of my literary +enthusiasms, I have known such utter satisfaction in any writer, and this +supreme joy has come to me at a time of life when new friendships, not to +say new passions, are rare and reluctant. It is as if the best wine at +this high feast where I have sat so long had been kept for the last, and +I need not deny a miracle in it in order to attest my skill in judging +vintages. In fact, I prefer to believe that my life has been full of +miracles, and that the good has always come to me at the right time, so +that I could profit most by it. I believe if I had not turned the corner +of my fiftieth year, when I first knew Tolstoy, I should not have been +able to know him as fully as I did. He has been to me that final +consciousness, which he speaks of so wisely in his essay on "Life." +I came in it to the knowledge of myself in ways I had not dreamt of +before, and began at least to discern my relations to the race, without +which we are each nothing. The supreme art in literature had its highest +effect in making me set art forever below humanity, and it is with the +wish to offer the greatest homage to his heart and mind, which any man +can pay another, that I close this record with the name of Lyof Tolstoy. + + + + +PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + Account of one's reading is an account of one's life + Adam Bede + Affections will not be bidden + Air of looking down on the highest + Alliance of the tragic and the comic + Anthony Trollope + Authors I must call my masters + Capriciousness of memory: what it will hold and what lose + Celebration of the monkey and the goat in us + Conquest of Granada + Contemptible he found our pseudo-equality + Criticism still remains behind all the other literary arts + Dickens is purely democratic + Escaped at night and got into the boy's dreams + Fictions subtle effect for good and for evil on the young + Finer sort myself to be able to enjoy such a fine sort + Had the sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy + Hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon + Hazlitt + He undid my hands + Hospitable gift of making you at home with him + In school there was as little literature then as there is now + Inexperience takes this effect (literary lewdness) for realit + Jews are still the chosen people + Kindness and gentleness are never out of fashion + Kissing goes by favor, in literature as in life + Lamb + Lewd literature seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the life + Life of Goldsmith + Live it slowly into the past + Lubricity of literature + Made many of my acquaintances very tired of my favorite authors + Men who bully and truckle + Mustache, which in those days devoted a man to wickedness + My own youth now seems to me rather more alien + My reading gave me no standing among the boys + Neither worse nor better because of the theatre + Never appeals to the principle which sniffs, in his reader + None of the passions are reasoned, + Not very distinctly know their dreams from their experiences + Now little notion what it was about, but I love its memory + Our horrible sham of a slave-based freedom + Pendennis + Prejudice against certain words that I cannot overcome + President Garfield + Probably no dramatist ever needed the stage less + Rape of the Lock + Rapture of the new convert could not last + Reservations as to the times when he is not a master + Responsibility of finding him all we have been told he is + Secretly admires the splendors he affects to despise + Self-flattered scorn, his showy sighs, his facile satire + Self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality + Should probably have wasted the time if I had not read them + Slave-based freedom + So long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs + Society, as we have it, was necessarily a sham + Somehow expressed the feelings of his day + Somewhat too studied grace + Speaks it is not with words and blood, but with words and ink + Spit some hapless victim: make him suffer and the reader laugh + Style is the man, and he cannot hide himself in any garb + Surcharge all imitations of life and character + Surcharged in the serious moods, and caricatured in the comic + Swedenborg + Tales of the Alhambra + The great doctor's orotundity and ronderosity + To be for good or evil whatsoever I really was + Toiled, and I suppose no work is wasted + Trace no discrepancy between reading his plays and seeing them + Tried to like whatever they bade me like + Truth is beyond invention + Unmeet for ladies + Vicar of Wakefield + Vices and foibles which are inherent in the system of things + We did not know that we were poor + We see nothing whole, neither life nor art + What I had not I could hope for without unreason + What we thought ruin, but what was really release + When was love ever reasoned? + Wide leisure of a country village + Women who snub and crawl + Words of learned length and thundering sound + World's memory is equally bad for failure and success + Worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before + You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke + You may do a great deal (of work), and not get on + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's My Literary Passions, by William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LITERARY PASSIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 3378.txt or 3378.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/3378/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of +this file, for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before +making an entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +MY LITERARY PASSIONS + +by William Dean Howells + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL. + +I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME +II. GOLDSMITH +III. CERVANTES +IV. IRVING +V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA +VI. LONGFELLOW'S "SPANISH STUDENT" +VII. SCOTT +VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES +IX. POPE +X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES +XI. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN +XII. OSSIAN +XIII. SHAKESPEARE +XIV. IK MARVEL +XV. DICKENS +XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER +XVII. MACAULAY. +XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS. +XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE +XX. THACKERAY +XXI. "LAZARILLO DE TORMES" +XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL +XXIII. TENNYSON +XXIV. HEINE +XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW. +XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE +XXVII. CHARLES READE +XXVIII. DANTE. +XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D'AZEGLIO +XXX. "PASTOR FIDO," "AMINTA," "ROMOLA," "YEAST," "PAUL FERROLL" +XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON +XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH +XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES +XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY +XXXV. TOLSTOY + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + +The papers collected here under the name of 'My Literary Passions' were +printed serially in a periodical of such vast circulation that they might +well have been supposed to have found there all the acceptance that could +be reasonably hoped for them. Nevertheless, they were reissued in a +volume the year after they first appeared, in 1895, and they had a +pleasing share of such favor as their author's books have enjoyed. But +it is to be doubted whether any one liked reading them so much as he +liked writing them--say, some time in the years 1893 and 1894, in a New +York flat, where he could look from his lofty windows over two miles and +a half of woodland in Central Park, and halloo his fancy wherever he +chose in that faery realm of books which he re-entered in reminiscences +perhaps too fond at times, and perhaps always too eager for the reader's +following. The name was thought by the friendly editor of the popular +publication where they were serialized a main part of such inspiration as +they might be conjectured to have, and was, as seldom happens with editor +and author, cordially agreed upon before they were begun. + +The name says, indeed, so exactly and so fully what they are that little +remains for their bibliographer to add beyond the meagre historical +detail here given. Their short and simple annals could be eked out by +confidences which would not appreciably enrich the materials of the +literary history of their time, and it seems better to leave them to the +imagination of such posterity as they may reach. They are rather +helplessly frank, but not, I hope, with all their rather helpless +frankness, offensively frank. They are at least not part of the polemic +which their author sustained in the essays following them in this volume, +and which might have been called, in conformity with 'My Literary +Passions', by the title of 'My Literary Opinions' better than by the +vague name which they actually wear. + +They deal, to be sure, with the office of Criticism and the art of +Fiction, and so far their present name is not a misnomer. It follows +them from an earlier date and could not easily be changed, and it may +serve to recall to an elder generation than this the time when their +author was breaking so many lances in the great, forgotten war between +Realism and Romanticism that the floor of the "Editor's Study" in +Harper's Magazine was strewn with the embattled splinters. The "Editor's +Study" is now quite another place, but he who originally imagined it in +1886, and abode in it until 1892, made it at once the scene of such +constant offence that he had no time, if he had the temper, for defence. +The great Zola, or call him the immense Zola, was the prime mover in the +attack upon the masters of the Romanticistic school; but he lived to own +that he had fought a losing fight, and there are some proofs that he was +right. The Realists, who were undoubtedly the masters of fiction in +their passing generation, and who prevailed not only in France, but in +Russia, in Scandinavia, in Spain, in Portugal, were overborne in all +Anglo-Saxon countries by the innumerable hosts of Romanticism, who to +this day possess the land; though still, whenever a young novelist does +work instantly recognizable for its truth and beauty among us, he is seen +and felt to have wrought in the spirit of Realism. Not even yet, +however, does the average critic recognize this, and such lesson as the +"Editor's Study" assumed to teach remains here in all its essentials for +his improvement. + +Month after month for the six years in which the "Editor's Study" +continued in the keeping of its first occupant, its lesson was more or +less stormily delivered, to the exclusion, for the greater part, of other +prophecy, but it has not been found well to keep the tempestuous manner +along with the fulminant matter in this volume. When the author came to +revise the material, he found sins against taste which his zeal for +righteousness could not suffice to atone for. He did not hesitate to +omit the proofs of these, and so far to make himself not only a precept, +but an example in criticism. He hopes that in other and slighter things +he has bettered his own instruction, and that in form and in fact the +book is altogether less crude and less rude than the papers from which it +has here been a second time evolved. + +The papers, as they appeared from month to month, were not the product of +those unities of time and place which were the happy conditioning of +'My Literary Passions.' They could not have been written in quite so +many places as times, but they enjoyed a comparable variety of origin. +Beginning in Boston, they were continued in a Boston suburb, on the +shores of Lake George, in a Western New York health resort, in Buffalo, +in Nahant; once, twice, and thrice in New York, with reversions to +Boston, and summer excursions to the hills and waters of New England, +until it seemed that their author had at last said his say, and he +voluntarily lapsed into silence with the applause of friends and enemies +alike. + +The papers had made him more of the last than of the first, but not as +still appears to him with greater reason. At moments his deliverances +seemed to stir people of different minds to fury in two continents, so +far as they were English-speaking, and on the coasts of the seven seas; +and some of these came back at him with such violent personalities as it +is his satisfaction to remember that he never indulged in his attacks +upon their theories of criticism and fiction. His opinions were always +impersonal; and now as their manner rather than their make has been +slightly tempered, it may surprise the belated reader to learn that it +was the belief of one English critic that their author had "placed +himself beyond the pale of decency" by them. It ought to be less +surprising that, since these dreadful words were written of him, more +than one magnanimous Englishman has penitently expressed to the author +the feeling that he was not so far wrong in his overboldly hazarded +convictions. The penitence of his countrymen is still waiting +expression, but it may come to that when they have recurred to the +evidences of his offence in their present shape. + +KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909. + + + + + + + MY LITERARY PASSIONS + + + +I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME + +To give an account of one's reading is in some sort to give an account of +one's life; and I hope that I shall not offend those who follow me in +these papers, if I cannot help speaking of myself in speaking of the +authors I must call my masters: my masters not because they taught me +this or that directly, but because I had such delight in them that I +could not fail to teach myself from them whatever I was capable of +learning. I do not know whether I have been what people call a great +reader; I cannot claim even to have been a very wise reader; but I have +always been conscious of a high purpose to read much more, and more +discreetly, than I have ever really done, and probably it is from the +vantage-ground of this good intention that I shall sometimes be found +writing here rather than from the facts of the case. + +But I am pretty sure that I began right, and that if I had always kept +the lofty level which I struck at the outset I should have the right to +use authority in these reminiscences without a bad conscience. I shall +try not to use authority, however, and I do not expect to speak here of +all my reading, whether it has been much or little, but only of those +books, or of those authors that I have felt a genuine passion for. I +have known such passions at every period of my life, but it is mainly of +the loves of my youth that I shall write, and I shall write all the more +frankly because my own youth now seems to me rather more alien than that +of any other person. + +I think that I came of a reading race, which has always loved literature +in a way, and in spite of varying fortunes and many changes. From a +letter of my great-grandmother's written to a stubborn daughter upon some +unfilial behavior, like running away to be married, I suspect that she +was fond of the high-colored fiction of her day, for she tells the wilful +child that she has "planted a dagger in her mother's heart," and I should +not be surprised if it were from this fine-languaged lady that my +grandfather derived his taste for poetry rather than from his father, who +was of a worldly wiser mind. To be sure, he became a Friend by +Convincement as the Quakers say, and so I cannot imagine that he was +altogether worldly; but he had an eye to the main chance: he founded the +industry of making flannels in the little Welsh town where he lived, and +he seems to have grown richer, for his day and place, than any of us have +since grown for ours. My grandfather, indeed, was concerned chiefly in +getting away from the world and its wickedness. He came to this country +early in the nineteenth century and settled his family in a log-cabin in +the Ohio woods, that they might be safe from the sinister influences of +the village where he was managing some woollen-mills. But he kept his +affection for certain poets of the graver, not to say gloomier sort, and +he must have suffered his children to read them, pending that great +question of their souls' salvation which was a lifelong trouble to him. + +My father, at any rate, had such a decided bent in the direction of +literature, that he was not content in any of his several economical +experiments till he became the editor of a newspaper, which was then the +sole means of satisfying a literary passion. His paper, at the date when +I began to know him, was a living, comfortable and decent, but without +the least promise of wealth in it, or the hope even of a much better +condition. I think now that he was wise not to care for the advancement +which most of us have our hearts set upon, and that it was one of his +finest qualities that he was content with a lot in life where he was not +exempt from work with his hands, and yet where he was not so pressed by +need but he could give himself at will not only to the things of the +spirit, but the things of the mind too. After a season of scepticism he +had become a religious man, like the rest of his race, but in his own +fashion, which was not at all the fashion of my grandfather: a Friend who +had married out of Meeting, and had ended a perfervid Methodist. My +father, who could never get himself converted at any of the camp-meetings +where my grandfather often led the forces of prayer to his support, and +had at last to be given up in despair, fell in with the writings of +Emanuel Swedenborg, and embraced the doctrine of that philosopher with a +content that has lasted him all the days of his many years. Ever since I +can remember, the works of Swedenborg formed a large part of his library; +he read them much himself, and much to my mother, and occasionally a +"Memorable Relation" from them to us children. But he did not force them +upon our notice, nor urge us to read them, and I think this was very +well. I suppose his conscience and his reason kept him from doing so. +But in regard to other books, his fondness was too much for him, and when +I began to show a liking for literature he was eager to guide my choice. + +His own choice was for poetry, and the most of our library, which was not +given to theology, was given to poetry. I call it the library now, but +then we called it the bookcase, and that was what literally it was, +because I believe that whatever we had called our modest collection of +books, it was a larger private collection than any other in the town +where we lived. Still it was all held, and shut with glass doors, in a +case of very few shelves. It was not considerably enlarged during my +childhood, for few books came to my father as editor, and he indulged +himself in buying them even more rarely. My grandfather's book store +(it was also the village drug-store) had then the only stock of +literature for sale in the place; and once, when Harper & Brothers' agent +came to replenish it, be gave my father several volumes for review. One +of these was a copy of Thomson's Seasons, a finely illustrated edition, +whose pictures I knew long before I knew the poetry, and thought them the +most beautiful things that ever were. My father read passages of the +book aloud, and he wanted me to read it all myself. For the matter of +that he wanted me to read Cowper, from whom no one could get anything but +good, and he wanted me to read Byron, from whom I could then have got no +harm; we get harm from the evil we understand. He loved Burns, too, and +he used to read aloud from him, I must own, to my inexpressible +weariness. I could not away with that dialect, and I could not then feel +the charm of the poet's wit, nor the tender beauty of his pathos. Moore, +I could manage better; and when my father read "Lalla Rookh" to my mother +I sat up to listen, and entered into all the woes of Iran in the story of +the "Fire Worshippers." I drew the line at the "Veiled Prophet of +Khorassan," though I had some sense of the humor of the poet's conception +of the critic in "Fadladeen." But I liked Scott's poems far better, and +got from Ispahan to Edinburgh with a glad alacrity of fancy. I followed +the "Lady of the Lake" throughout, and when I first began to contrive +verses of my own I found that poem a fit model in mood and metre. + +Among other volumes of verse on the top shelf of the bookcase, of which I +used to look at the outside without penetrating deeply within, were +Pope's translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Dryden's Virgil, +pretty little tomes in tree-calf, published by James Crissy in +Philadelphia, and illustrated with small copper-plates, which somehow +seemed to put the matter hopelessly beyond me. It was as if they said to +me in so many words that literature which furnished the subjects of such +pictures I could not hope to understand, and need not try. At any rate, +I let them alone for the time, and I did not meddle with a volume of +Shakespeare, in green cloth and cruelly fine print, which overawed me in +like manner with its wood-cuts. I cannot say just why I conceived that +there was something unhallowed in the matter of the book; perhaps this +was a tint from the reputation of the rather profligate young man from +whom my father had it. If he were not profligate I ask his pardon. I +have not the least notion who he was, but that was the notion I had of +him, whoever he was, or wherever he now is. There may never have been +such a young man at all; the impression I had may have been pure +invention of my own, like many things with children, who do not very +distinctly know their dreams from their experiences, and live in the +world where both project the same quality of shadow. + +There were, of course, other books in the bookcase, which my +consciousness made no account of, and I speak only of those I remember. +Fiction there was none at all that I can recall, except Poe's 'Tales of +the Grotesque and the Arabesque' (I long afflicted myself as to what +those words meant, when I might easily have asked and found out) and +Bulwer's Last Days of Pompeii, all in the same kind of binding. History +is known, to my young remembrance of that library, by a History of the +United States, whose dust and ashes I hardly made my way through; and by +a 'Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada', by the ever dear and precious +Fray Antonio Agapida, whom I was long in making out to be one and the +same as Washington Irving. + +In school there was as little literature then as there is now, and I +cannot say anything worse of our school reading; but I was not really +very much in school, and so I got small harm from it. The printing- +office was my school from a very early date. My father thoroughly +believed in it, and he had his beliefs as to work, which he illustrated +as soon as we were old enough to learn the trade he followed. We could +go to school and study, or we could go into the printing-office and work, +with an equal chance of learning, but we could not be idle; we must do +something, for our souls' sake, though he was willing enough we should +play, and he liked himself to go into the woods with us, and to enjoy the +pleasures that manhood can share with childhood. I suppose that as the +world goes now we were poor. His income was never above twelve hundred a +year, and his family was large; but nobody was rich there or then; we +lived in the simple abundance of that time and place, and we did not know +that we were poor. As yet the unequal modern conditions were undreamed +of (who indeed could have dreamed of them forty or fifty years ago?) in +the little Southern Ohio town where nearly the whole of my most happy +boyhood was passed. + + + + +II. GOLDSMITH + +When I began to have literary likings of my own, and to love certain +books above others, the first authors of my heart were Goldsmith, +Cervantes, and Irving. In the sharply foreshortened perspective of the +past I seem to have read them all at once, but I am aware of an order of +time in the pleasure they gave me, and I know that Goldsmith came first. +He came so early that I cannot tell when or how I began to read him, but +it must have been before I was ten years old. I read other books about +that time, notably a small book on Grecian and Roman mythology, which I +perused with such a passion for those pagan gods and goddesses that, if +it had ever been a question of sacrificing to Diana, I do not really know +whether I should have been able to refuse. I adored indiscriminately all +the tribes of nymphs and naiads, demigods and heroes, as well as the high +ones of Olympus; and I am afraid that by day I dwelt in a world peopled +and ruled by them, though I faithfully said my prayers at night, and fell +asleep in sorrow for my sins. I do not know in the least how Goldsmith's +Greece came into my hands, though I fancy it must have been procured for +me because of a taste which I showed for that kind of reading, and I can +imagine no greater luck for a small boy in a small town of Southwestern +Ohio well-nigh fifty years ago. I have the books yet; two little, stout +volumes in fine print, with the marks of wear on them, but without those +dishonorable blots, or those other injuries which boys inflict upon books +in resentment of their dulness, or out of mere wantonness. I was always +sensitive to the maltreatment of books; I could not bear to see a book +faced down or dogs-eared or broken-backed. It was like a hurt or an +insult to a thing that could feel. + +Goldsmith's History of Rome came to me much later, but quite as +immemorably, and after I had formed a preference for the Greek Republics, +which I dare say was not mistaken. Of course I liked Athens best, and +yet there was something in the fine behavior of the Spartans in battle, +which won a heart formed for hero-worship. I mastered the notion of +their communism, and approved of their iron money, with the poverty it +obliged them to, yet somehow their cruel treatment of the Helots failed +to shock me; perhaps I forgave it to their patriotism, as I had to +forgive many ugly facts in the history of the Romans to theirs. There +was hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon in those days +to the slayers of tyrants; and the swagger form of such as despatched a +despot with a fine speech was so much to my liking that I could only +grieve that I was born too late to do and to say those things. + +I do not think I yet felt the beauty of the literature which made them +all live in my fancy, that I conceived of Goldsmith as an artist using +for my rapture the finest of the arts; and yet I had been taught to see +the loveliness of poetry, and was already trying to make it on my own +poor account. I tried to make verses like those I listened to when my +father read Moore and Scott to my mother, but I heard them with no such +happiness as I read my beloved histories, though I never thought then of +attempting to write like Goldsmith. I accepted his beautiful work as +ignorantly as I did my other blessings. I was concerned in getting at +the Greeks and Romans, and I did not know through what nimble air and by +what lovely ways I was led to them. Some retrospective perception of +this came long afterward when I read his essays, and after I knew all of +his poetry, and later yet when I read the 'Vicar of Wakefield'; but for +the present my eyes were holden, as the eyes of a boy mostly are in the +world of art. What I wanted with my Greeks and Romans after I got at +them was to be like them, or at least to turn them to account in verse, +and in dramatic verse at that. The Romans were less civilized than the +Greeks, and so were more like boys, and more to a boy's purpose. I did +not make literature of the Greeks, but I got a whole tragedy out of the +Romans; it was a rhymed tragedy, and in octosyllabic verse, like the +"Lady of the Lake." I meant it to be acted by my schoolmates, but I am +not sure that I ever made it known to them. Still, they were not +ignorant of my reading, and I remember how proud I was when a certain +boy, who had always whipped me when we fought together, and so outranked +me in that little boys' world, once sent to ask me the name of the Roman +emperor who lamented at nightfall, when he had done nothing worthy, that +he had lost a day. The boy was going to use the story, in a composition, +as we called the school themes then, and I told him the emperor's name; I +could not tell him now without turning to the book. + +My reading gave me no standing among the boys, and I did not expect it to +rank me with boys who were more valiant in fight or in play; and I have +since found that literature gives one no more certain station in the +world of men's activities, either idle or useful. We literary folk try +to believe that it does, but that is all nonsense. At every period of +life, among boys or men, we are accepted when they are at leisure, and +want to be amused, and at best we are tolerated rather than accepted. +I must have told the boys stories out of my Goldsmith's Greece and Rome, +or it would not have been known that I had read them, but I have no +recollection now of doing so, while I distinctly remember rehearsing the +allegories and fables of the 'Gesta Romanorum', a book which seems to +have been in my hands about the same time or a little later. I had a +delight in that stupid collection of monkish legends which I cannot +account for now, and which persisted in spite of the nightmare confusion +it made of my ancient Greeks and Romans. They were not at all the +ancient Greeks and Romans of Goldsmith's histories. + +I cannot say at what times I read these books, but they must have been +odd times, for life was very full of play then, and was already beginning +to be troubled with work. As I have said, I was to and fro between the +schoolhouse and the printing-office so much that when I tired of the one +I must have been very promptly given my choice of the other. The +reading, however, somehow went on pretty constantly, and no doubt my love +for it won me a chance for it. There were some famous cherry-trees in +our yard, which, as I look back at them, seem to have been in flower or +fruit the year round; and in one of them there was a level branch where a +boy could sit with a book till his dangling legs went to sleep, or till +some idler or busier boy came to the gate and called him down to play +marbles or go swimming. When this happened the ancient world was rolled +up like a scroll, and put away until the next day, with all its orators +and conspirators, its nymphs and satyrs, gods and demigods; though +sometimes they escaped at night and got into the boy's dreams. + +I do not think I cared as much as some of the other boys for the 'Arabian +Nights' or 'Robinson Crusoe,' but when it came to the 'Ingenious +Gentleman of La Mancha,' I was not only first, I was sole. + +Before I speak, however, of the beneficent humorist who next had my +boyish heart after Goldsmith, let me acquit myself in full of my debt to +that not unequal or unkindred spirit. I have said it was long after I +had read those histories, full of his inalienable charm, mere pot-boilers +as they were, and far beneath his more willing efforts, that I came to +know his poetry. My father must have read the "Deserted Village" to us, +and told us something of the author's pathetic life, for I cannot +remember when I first knew of "sweet Auburn," or had the light of the +poet's own troubled day upon the "loveliest village of the plain." +The 'Vicar of Wakefield' must have come into my life after that poem and +before 'The Traveler'. It was when I would have said that I knew all +Goldsmith; we often give ourselves credit for knowledge in this way +without having any tangible assets; and my reading has always been very +desultory. I should like to say here that the reading of any one who +reads to much purpose is always very desultory, though perhaps I had +better not say so, but merely state the fact in my case, and own that I +never read any one author quite through without wandering from him to +others. When I first read the 'Vicar of Wakefield' (for I have since +read it several times, and hope yet to read it many times), I found its +persons and incidents familiar, and so I suppose I must have heard it +read. It is still for me one of the most modern novels: that is to say, +one of the best. It is unmistakably good up to a certain point, and then +unmistakably bad, but with always good enough in it to be forever +imperishable. Kindness and gentleness are never out of fashion; it is +these in Goldsmith which make him our contemporary, and it is worth the +while of any young person presently intending deathless renown to take a +little thought of them. They are the source of all refinement, and I do +not believe that the best art in any kind exists without them. The style +is the man, and he cannot hide himself in any garb of words so that we +shall not know somehow what manner of man he is within it; his speech +betrayeth him, not only as to his country and his race, but more subtly +yet as to his heart, and the loves and hates of his heart. As to +Goldsmith, I do not think that a man of harsh and arrogant nature, of +worldly and selfish soul, could ever have written his style, and I do not +think that, in far greater measure than criticism has recognized, his +spiritual quality, his essential friendliness, expressed itself in the +literary beauty that wins the heart as well as takes the fancy in his +work. + +I should have my reservations and my animadversions if it came to close +criticism of his work, but I am glad that he was the first author I +loved, and that even before I knew I loved him I was his devoted reader. +I was not consciously his admirer till I began to read, when I was +fourteen, a little volume of his essays, made up, I dare say, from the +'Citizen of the World' and other unsuccessful ventures of his. It +contained the papers on Beau Tibbs, among others, and I tried to write +sketches and studies of life in their manner. But this attempt at +Goldsmith's manner followed a long time after I tried to write in the +style of Edgar A. Poe, as I knew it from his 'Tales of the Grotesque +erred Arabesque.' I suppose the very poorest of these was the "Devil in +the Belfry," but such as it was I followed it as closely as I could in +the "Devil in the Smoke-Pipes"; I meant tobacco-pipes. The resemblance +was noted by those to whom I read my story; I alone could not see it or +would not own it, and I really felt it a hardship that I should be found +to have produced an imitation. + +It was the first time I had imitated a prose writer, though I had +imitated several poets like Moore, Campbell, and Goldsmith himself. +I have never greatly loved an author without wishing to write like him. +I have now no reluctance to confess that, and I do not see why I should +not say that it was a long time before I found it best to be as like +myself as I could, even when I did not think so well of myself as of some +others. I hope I shall always be able and willing to learn something +from the masters of literature and still be myself, but for the young +writer this seems impossible. He must form himself from time to time +upon the different authors he is in love with, but when he has done this +he must wish it not to be known, for that is natural too. The lover +always desires to ignore the object of his passion, and the adoration +which a young writer has for a great one is truly a passion passing the +love of women. I think it hardly less fortunate that Cervantes was one +of my early passions, though I sat at his feet with no more sense of his +mastery than I had of Goldsmith's. + + + + +III. CERVANTES + +I recall very fully the moment and the place when I first heard of 'Don +Quixote,' while as yet I could not connect it very distinctly with +anybody's authorship. I was still too young to conceive of authorship, +even in my own case, and wrote my miserable verses without any notion of +literature, or of anything but the pleasure of seeing them actually come +out rightly rhymed and measured. The moment was at the close of a +summer's day just before supper, which, in our house, we had lawlessly +late, and the place was the kitchen where my mother was going about her +work, and listening as she could to what my father was telling my brother +and me and an apprentice of ours, who was like a brother to us both, of a +book that he had once read. We boys were all shelling peas, but the +story, as it went on, rapt us from the poor employ, and whatever our +fingers were doing, our spirits were away in that strange land of +adventures and mishaps, where the fevered life of the knight truly +without fear and without reproach burned itself out. I dare say that my +father tried to make us understand the satirical purpose of the book. +I vaguely remember his speaking of the books of chivalry it was meant to +ridicule; but a boy could not care for this, and what I longed to do at +once was to get that book and plunge into its story. He told us at +random of the attack on the windmills and the flocks of sheep, of the +night in the valley of the fulling-mills with their trip-hammers, of the +inn and the muleteers, of the tossing of Sancho in the blanket, of the +island that was given him to govern, and of all the merry pranks at the +duke's and duchess's, of the liberation of the galley-slaves, of the +capture of Mambrino's helmet, and of Sancho's invention of the enchanted +Dulcinea, and whatever else there was wonderful and delightful in the +most wonderful and delightful book in the world. I do not know when or +where my father got it for me, and I am aware of an appreciable time that +passed between my hearing of it and my having it. The event must have +been most important to me, and it is strange I cannot fix the moment when +the precious story came into my hands; though for the matter of that +there is nothing more capricious than a child's memory, what it will hold +and what it will lose. + +It is certain my Don Quixote was in two small, stout volumes not much +bigger each than my Goldsmith's 'Greece', bound in a sort of law-calf, +well fitted to withstand the wear they were destined to undergo. The +translation was, of course, the old-fashioned version of Jervas, which, +whether it was a closely faithful version or not, was honest eighteenth- +century English, and reported faithfully enough the spirit of the +original. If it had any literary influence with me the influence must +have been good. But I cannot make out that I was sensible of the +literature; it was the forever enchanting story that I enjoyed. +I exulted in the boundless freedom of the design; the open air of that +immense scene, where adventure followed adventure with the natural +sequence of life, and the days and the nights were not long enough for +the events that thronged them, amidst the fields and woods, the streams +and hills, the highways and byways, hostelries and hovels, prisons and +palaces, which were the setting of that matchless history. I took it as +simply as I took everything else in the world about me. It was full of +meaning that I could not grasp, and there were significances of the kind +that literature unhappily abounds in, but they were lost upon my +innocence. I did not know whether it was well written or not; I never +thought about that; it was simply there in its vast entirety, its +inexhaustible opulence, and I was rich in it beyond the dreams of +avarice. + +My father must have told us that night about Cervantes as well as about +his 'Don Quixote', for I seem to have known from the beginning that he +was once a slave in Algiers, and that he had lost a hand in battle, and I +loved him with a sort of personal affection, as if he were still living +and he could somehow return my love. His name and nature endeared the +Spanish name and nature to me, so that they were always my romance, and +to this day I cannot meet a Spanish man without clothing him in something +of the honor and worship I lavished upon Cervantes when I was a child. +While I was in the full flush of this ardor there came to see our school, +one day, a Mexican gentleman who was studying the American system of +education; a mild, fat, saffron man, whom I could almost have died to +please for Cervantes' and Don Quixote's sake, because I knew he spoke +their tongue. But he smiled upon us all, and I had no chance to +distinguish myself from the rest by any act of devotion before the +blessed vision faded, though for long afterwards, in impassioned +reveries, I accosted him and claimed him kindred because of my fealty, +and because I would have been Spanish if I could. + +I would not have had the boy-world about me know anything of these fond +dreams; but it was my tastes alone, my passions, which were alien there; +in everything else I was as much a citizen as any boy who had never heard +of Don Quixote. But I believe that I carried the book about with me most +of the time, so as not to lose any chance moment of reading it. Even in +the blank of certain years, when I added little other reading to my +store, I must still have been reading it. This was after we had removed +from the town where the earlier years of my boyhood were passed, and I +had barely adjusted myself to the strange environment when one of my +uncles asked me to come with him and learn the drug business, in the +place, forty miles away, where he practised medicine. We made the long +journey, longer than any I have made since, in the stage-coach of those +days, and we arrived at his house about twilight, he glad to get home, +and I sick to death with yearning for the home I had left. I do not know +how it was that in this state, when all the world was one hopeless +blackness around me, I should have got my 'Don Quixote' out of my bag; +I seem to have had it with me as an essential part of my equipment for my +new career. Perhaps I had been asked to show it, with the notion of +beguiling me from my misery; perhaps I was myself trying to drown my +sorrows in it. But anyhow I have before me now the vision of my sweet +young aunt and her young sister looking over her shoulder, as they stood +together on the lawn in the summer evening light. My aunt held my Don +Quixote open in one hand, while she clasped with the other the child she +carried on her arm. She looked at the book, and then from time to time +she looked at me, very kindly but very curiously, with a faint smile, so +that as I stood there, inwardly writhing in my bashfulness, I had the +sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy. She returned the book without +comment, after some questions, and I took it off to my room, where the +confidential friend of Cervantes cried himself to sleep. + +In the morning I rose up and told them I could not stand it, and I was +going home. Nothing they could say availed, and my uncle went down to +the stage-office with me and took my passage back. + +The horror of cholera was then in the land; and we heard in the stage- +office that a man lay dead of it in the hotel overhead. But my uncle led +me to his drugstore, where the stage was to call for me, and made me +taste a little camphor; with this prophylactic, Cervantes and I somehow +got home together alive. + +The reading of 'Don Quixote' went on throughout my boyhood, so that I +cannot recall any distinctive period of it when I was not, more or less, +reading that book. In a boy's way I knew it well when I was ten, and a +few years ago, when I was fifty, I took it up in the admirable new +version of Ormsby, and found it so full of myself and of my own +irrevocable past that I did not find it very gay. But I made a great +many discoveries in it; things I had not dreamt of were there, and must +always have been there, and other things wore a new face, and made a new +effect upon me. I had my doubts, my reserves, where once I had given it +my whole heart without question, and yet in what formed the greatness of +the book it seemed to me greater than ever. I believe that its free and +simple design, where event follows event without the fettering control of +intrigue, but where all grows naturally out of character and conditions, +is the supreme form of fiction; and I cannot help thinking that if we +ever have a great American novel it must be built upon some such large +and noble lines. As for the central figure, Don Quixote himself, in his +dignity and generosity, his unselfish ideals, and his fearless devotion +to them, he is always heroic and beautiful; and I was glad to find in my +latest look at his history that I had truly conceived of him at first, +and had felt the sublimity of his nature. I did not want to laugh at him +so much, and I could not laugh at all any more at some of the things done +to him. Once they seemed funny, but now only cruel, and even stupid, so +that it was strange to realize his qualities and indignities as both +flowing from the same mind. But in my mature experience, which threw a +broader light on the fable, I was happy to keep my old love of an author +who had been almost personally, dear to me. + + + + +IV + +IRVING + +I have told how Cervantes made his race precious to me, and I am sure +that it must have been he who fitted me to understand and enjoy the +American author who now stayed me on Spanish ground and kept me happy in +Spanish air, though I cannot trace the tie in time and circumstance +between Irving and Cervantes. The most I can make sure of is that I read +the 'Conquest of Granada' after I read Don Quixote, and that I loved the +historian so much because I had loved the novelist much more. Of course +I did not perceive then that Irving's charm came largely from Cervantes +and the other Spanish humorists yet unknown to me, and that he had formed +himself upon them almost as much as upon Goldsmith, but I dare say that +this fact had insensibly a great deal to do with my liking. Afterwards I +came to see it, and at the same time to see what was Irving's own in +Irving; to feel his native, if somewhat attenuated humor, and his +original, if somewhat too studied grace. But as yet there was no +critical question with me. I gave my heart simply and passionately to +the author who made the scenes of that most pathetic history live in my +sympathy, and companioned me with the stately and gracious actors in +them. + +I really cannot say now whether I loved the Moors or the Spaniards more. +I fought on both sides; I would not have had the Spaniards beaten, and +yet when the Moors lost I was vanquished with them; and when the poor +young King Boabdil (I was his devoted partisan and at the same time a +follower of his fiery old uncle and rival, Hamet el Zegri) heaved the +Last Sigh of the Moor, as his eyes left the roofs of Granada forever, it +was as much my grief as if it had burst from my own breast. I put both +these princes into the first and last historical romance I ever wrote. +I have now no idea what they did in it, but as the story never came to a +conclusion it does not greatly matter. I had never yet read an +historical romance that I can make sure of, and probably my attempt must +have been based almost solely upon the facts of Irving's history. I am +certain I could not have thought of adding anything to them, or at all +varying them. + +In reading his 'Chronicle' I suffered for a time from its attribution to +Fray Antonio Agapida, the pious monk whom he feigns to have written it, +just as in reading 'Don Quixote' I suffered from Cervantes masquerading +as the Moorish scribe, Cid Hamet Ben Engeli. My father explained the +literary caprice, but it remained a confusion and a trouble for me, and I +made a practice of skipping those passages where either author insisted +upon his invention. I will own that I am rather glad that sort of thing +seems to be out of fashion now, and I think the directer and franker +methods of modern fiction will forbid its revival. Thackeray was fond of +such open disguises, and liked to greet his reader from the mask of +Yellowplush and Michael Angelo Titmarsh, but it seems to me this was in +his least modern moments. + +My 'Conquest of Granada' was in two octavo volumes, bound in drab boards, +and printed on paper very much yellowed with time at its irregular edges. +I do not know when the books happened in my hands. I have no remembrance +that they were in any wise offered or commended to me, and in a sort of +way they were as authentically mine as if I had made them. I saw them at +home, not many months ago, in my father's library (it has long outgrown +the old bookcase, which has gone I know not where), and upon the whole I +rather shrank from taking them down, much more from opening them, though +I could not say why, unless it was from the fear of perhaps finding the +ghost of my boyish self within, pressed flat like a withered leaf, +somewhere between the familiar pages. + +When I learned Spanish it was with the purpose, never yet fulfilled, of +writing the life of Cervantes, although I have since had some forty-odd +years to do it in. I taught myself the language, or began to do so, when +I knew nothing of the English grammar but the prosody at the end of the +book. My father had the contempt of familiarity with it, having himself +written a very brief sketch of our accidence, and he seems to have let me +plunge into the sea of Spanish verbs and adverbs, nouns and pronouns, and +all the rest, when as yet I could not confidently call them by name, with +the serene belief that if I did not swim I would still somehow get ashore +without sinking. The end, perhaps, justified him, and I suppose I did +not do all that work without getting some strength from it; but I wish I +had back the time that it cost me; I should like to waste it in some +other way. However, time seemed interminable then, and I thought there +would be enough of it for me in which to read all Spanish literature; or, +at least, I did not propose to do anything less. + +I followed Irving, too, in my later reading, but at haphazard, and with +other authors at the same time. I did my poor best to be amused by his +'Knickerbocker History of New York', because my father liked it so much, +but secretly I found it heavy; and a few years ago when I went carefully +through it again. I could not laugh. Even as a boy I found some other +things of his uphill work. There was the beautiful manner, but the +thought seemed thin; and I do not remember having been much amused by +'Bracebridge Hall', though I read it devoutly, and with a full sense that +it would be very 'comme il faut' to like it. But I did like the 'Life of +Goldsmith'; I liked it a great deal better than the more authoritative +'Life by Forster', and I think there is a deeper and sweeter sense of +Goldsmith in it. Better than all, except the 'Conquest of Granada', +I liked the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and the story of Rip Van Winkle, +with their humorous and affectionate caricatures of life that was once of +our own soil and air; and the 'Tales of the Alhambra', which transported +me again, to the scenes of my youth beside the Xenil. It was long after +my acquaintance with his work that I came to a due sense of Irving as an +artist, and perhaps I have come to feel a full sense of it only now, when +I perceive that he worked willingly only when he worked inventively. +At last I can do justice to the exquisite conception of his 'Conquest of +Granada', a study of history which, in unique measure, conveys not only +the pathos, but the humor of one of the most splendid and impressive +situations in the experience of the race. Very possibly something of the +severer truth might have been sacrificed to the effect of the pleasing +and touching tale, but I do not under stand that this was really done. +Upon the whole I am very well content with my first three loves in +literature, and if I were to choose for any other boy I do not see how I +could choose better than Goldsmith and Cervantes and Irving, kindred +spirits, and each not a master only, but a sweet and gentle friend, whose +kindness could not fail to profit him. + + + + +V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA + +In my own case there followed my acquaintance with these authors certain +Boeotian years, when if I did not go backward I scarcely went forward in +the paths I had set out upon. They were years of the work, of the over- +work, indeed, which falls to the lot of so many that I should be ashamed +to speak of it except in accounting for the fact. My father had sold his +paper in Hamilton and had bought an interest in another at Dayton, and we +were all straining our utmost to help pay for it. My daily tasks began +so early and ended so late that I had little time, even if I had the +spirit, for reading; and it was not till what we thought ruin, but what +was really release, came to us that I got back again to my books. Then +we went to live in the country for a year, and that stress of toil, with +the shadow of failure darkening all, fell from me like the horror of an +evil dream. The only new book which I remember to have read in those two +or three years at Dayton, when I hardly remember to have read any old +ones, was the novel of 'Jane Eyre,' which I took in very imperfectly, and +which I associate with the first rumor of the Rochester Knockings, then +just beginning to reverberate through a world that they have not since +left wholly at peace. It was a gloomy Sunday afternoon when the book +came under my hand; and mixed with my interest in the story was an +anxiety lest the pictures on the walls should leave their nails and come +and lay themselves at my feet; that was what the pictures had been doing +in Rochester and other places where the disembodied spirits were +beginning to make themselves felt. The thing did not really happen in my +case, but I was alone in the house, and it might very easily have +happened. + +If very little came to me in those days from books, on the other hand my +acquaintance with the drama vastly enlarged itself. There was a hapless +company of players in the town from time to time, and they came to us for +their printing. I believe they never paid for it, or at least never +wholly, but they lavished free passes upon us, and as nearly as I can +make out, at this distance of time, I profited by their generosity, every +night. They gave two or three plays at every performance to houses +ungratefully small, but of a lively spirit and impatient temper that +would not brook delay in the representation; and they changed the bill +each day. In this way I became familiar with Shakespeare before I read +him, or at least such plays of his as were most given in those days, and +I saw "Macbeth" and "Hamlet," and above all "Richard III.," again and +again. I do not know why my delight in those tragedies did not send me +to the volume of his plays, which was all the time in the bookcase at +home, but I seem not to have thought of it, and rapt as I was in them I +am not sure that they gave me greater pleasure, or seemed at all finer, +than "Rollo," "The Wife," "The Stranger," "Barbarossa," "The Miser of +Marseilles," and the rest of the melodramas, comedies, and farces which I +saw at that time. I have a notion that there were some clever people in +one of these companies, and that the lighter pieces at least were well +played, but I may be altogether wrong. The gentleman who took the part +of villain, with an unfailing love of evil, in the different dramas, used +to come about the printing-office a good deal, and I was puzzled to find +him a very mild and gentle person. To be sure he had a mustache, which +in those days devoted a man to wickedness, but by day it was a blond +mustache, quite flaxen, in fact, and not at all the dark and deadly thing +it was behind the footlights at night. I could scarcely gasp in his +presence, my heart bounded so in awe and honor of him when he paid a +visit to us; perhaps he used to bring the copy of the show-bills. The +company he belonged to left town in the adversity habitual with them. + +Our own adversity had been growing, and now it became overwhelming. We +had to give up the paper we had struggled so hard to keep, but when the +worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before. There was no +more waiting till midnight for the telegraphic news, no more waking at +dawn to deliver the papers, no more weary days at the case, heavier for +the doom hanging over us. My father and his brothers had long dreamed of +a sort of family colony somewhere in the country, and now the uncle who +was most prosperous bought a milling property on a river not far from +Dayton, and my father went out to take charge of it until the others +could shape their business to follow him. The scheme came to nothing +finally, but in the mean time we escaped from the little city and its +sorrowful associations of fruitless labor, and had a year in the country, +which was blest, at least to us children, by sojourn in a log-cabin, +while a house was building for us. + + + + +VI. LONGFELLOW'S "SPANISH STUDENT" + +This log-cabin had a loft, where we boys slept, and in the loft were +stored in barrels the books that had now begun to overflow the bookcase. +I do not know why I chose the loft to renew my long-neglected friendship +with them. The light could not have been good, though if I brought my +books to the little gable window that overlooked the groaning and +whistling gristmill I could see well enough. But perhaps I liked the +loft best because the books were handiest there, and because I could be +alone. At any rate, it was there that I read Longfellow's "Spanish +Student," which I found in an old paper copy of his poems in one of the +barrels, and I instantly conceived for it the passion which all things +Spanish inspired in me. As I read I not only renewed my acquaintance +with literature, but renewed my delight in people and places where I had +been happy before those heavy years in Dayton. At the same time I felt a +little jealousy, a little grudge, that any one else should love them as +well as I, and if the poem had not been so beautiful I should have hated +the poet for trespassing on my ground. But I could not hold out long +against the witchery of his verse. The "Spanish Student" became one of +my passions; a minor passion, not a grand one, like 'Don Quixote' and the +'Conquest of Granada', but still a passion, and I should dread a little +to read the piece now, lest I should disturb my old ideal of its beauty. +The hero's rogue servant, Chispa, seemed to me, then and long afterwards, +so fine a bit of Spanish character that I chose his name for my first +pseudonym when I began to write for the newspapers, and signed my +legislative correspondence for a Cincinnati paper with it. I was in love +with the heroine, the lovely dancer whose 'cachucha' turned my head, +along with that of the cardinal, but whose name even I have forgotten, +and I went about with the thought of her burning in my heart, as if she +had been a real person. + + + + +VII. SCOTT + +All the while I was bringing up the long arrears of play which I had not +enjoyed in the toil-years at Dayton, and was trying to make my Spanish +reading serve in the sports that we had in the woods and by the river. +We were Moors and Spaniards almost as often as we were British and +Americans, or settlers and Indians. I suspect that the large, mild boy, +the son of a neighboring farmer, who mainly shared our games, had but a +dim notion of what I meant by my strange people, but I did my best to +enlighten him, and he helped me make a dream out of my life, and did his +best to dwell in the region of unrealities where I preferably had my +being; he was from time to time a Moor when I think he would rather have +been a Mingo. + +I got hold of Scott's poems, too, in that cabin loft, and read most of +the tales which were yet unknown to me after those earlier readings of my +father's. I could not say why "Harold the Dauntless" most took my fancy; +the fine, strongly flowing rhythm of the verse had a good deal to do with +it, I believe. I liked these things, all of them, and in after years I +liked the "Lady of the Lake" more and more, and from mere love of it got +great lengths of it by heart; but I cannot say that Scott was then or +ever a great passion with me. It was a sobered affection at best, which +came from my sympathy with his love of nature, and the whole kindly and +humane keeping of his genius. Many years later, during the month when I +was waiting for my passport as Consul for Venice, and had the time on my +hands, I passed it chiefly in reading all his novels, one after another, +without the interruption of other reading. 'Ivanhoe' I had known before, +and the 'Bride of Lammermoor' and 'Woodstock', but the rest had remained +in that sort of abeyance which is often the fate of books people expect +to read as a matter of course, and come very near not reading at all, or +read only very late. Taking them in this swift sequence, little or +nothing of them remained with me, and my experience with them is against +that sort of ordered and regular reading, which I have so often heard +advised for young people by their elders. I always suspect their elders +of not having done that kind of reading themselves. + +For my own part I believe I have never got any good from a book that I +did not read lawlessly and wilfully, out of all leading and following, +and merely because I wanted to read it; and I here make bold to praise +that way of doing. The book which you read from a sense of duty, or +because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you. +It may happen that it will yield you an unexpected delight, but this will +be in its own unentreated way and in spite of your good intentions. +Little of the book read for a purpose stays with the reader, and this is +one reason why reading for review is so vain and unprofitable. I have +done a vast deal of this, but I have usually been aware that the book was +subtly withholding from me the best a book can give, since I was not +reading it for its own sake and because I loved it, but for selfish ends +of my own, and because I wished to possess myself of it for business +purposes, as it were. The reading that does one good, and lasting good, +is the reading that one does for pleasure, and simply and unselfishly, +as children do. Art will still withhold herself from thrift, and she +does well, for nothing but love has any right to her. + +Little remains of the events of any period, however vivid they were in +passing. The memory may hold record of everything, as it is believed, +but it will not be easily entreated to give up its facts, and I find +myself striving in vein to recall the things that I must have read that +year in the country. Probably I read the old things over; certainly I +kept on with Cervantes, and very likely with Goldsmith. There was a +delightful history of Ohio, stuffed with tales of the pioneer times, +which was a good deal in the hands of us boys; and there was a book of +Western Adventure, full of Indian fights and captivities, which we wore +to pieces. Still, I think that it was now that I began to have a +literary sense of what I was reading. I wrote a diary, and I tried to +give its record form and style, but mostly failed. The versifying which +I was always at was easier, and yielded itself more to my hand. I should +be very glad to, know at present what it dealt with. + + + + +VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES + +When my uncles changed their minds in regard to colonizing their families +at the mills, as they did in about a year, it became necessary for my +father to look about for some new employment, and he naturally looked in +the old direction. There were several schemes for getting hold of this +paper and that, and there were offers that came to nothing. In that day +there were few salaried editors in the country outside of New York, and +the only hope we could have was of some place as printers in an office +which we might finally buy. The affair ended in our going to the State +capital, where my father found work as a reporter of legislative +proceedings for one of the daily journals, and I was taken into the +office as a compositor. In this way I came into living contact with +literature again, and the daydreams began once more over the familiar +cases of type. A definite literary ambition grew up in me, and in the +long reveries of the afternoon, when I was distributing my case, +I fashioned a future of overpowering magnificence and undying celebrity. +I should be ashamed to say what literary triumphs I achieved in those +preposterous deliriums. What I actually did was to write a good many +copies of verse, in imitation, never owned, of Moore and Goldsmith, and +some minor poets, whose work caught my fancy, as I read it in the +newspapers or put it into type. + +One of my pieces, which fell so far short of my visionary performances as +to treat of the lowly and familiar theme of Spring, was the first thing I +ever had in print. My father offered it to the editor of the paper I +worked on, and I first knew, with mingled shame and pride, of what he had +done when I saw it in the journal. In the tumult of my emotions I +promised myself that if I got through this experience safely I would +never suffer anything else of mine to be published; but it was not long +before I offered the editor a poem myself. I am now glad to think it +dealt with so humble a fact as a farmer's family leaving their old home +for the West. The only fame of my poem which reached me was when another +boy in the office quoted some lines of it in derision. This covered me +with such confusion that I wonder that I did not vanish from the earth. +At the same time I had my secret joy in it, and even yet I think it was +attempted in a way which was not false or wrong. I had tried to sketch +an aspect of life that I had seen and known, and that was very well +indeed, and I had wrought patiently and carefully in the art of the poor +little affair. + +My elder brother, for whom there was no place in the office where I +worked, had found one in a store, and he beguiled the leisure that light +trade left on his hands by reading the novels of Captain Marryat. I read +them after him with a great deal of amusement, but without the passion +that I bestowed upon my favorite authors. I believe I had no critical +reserves in regard to them, but simply they did not take my fancy. +Still, we had great fun with Japhet in 'Search of a Father', and with +'Midshipman Easy', and we felt a fine physical shiver in the darkling +moods of 'Snarle-yow the Dog-Fiend.' I do not remember even the names of +the other novels, except 'Jacob Faithful,' which I chanced upon a few +years ago and found very, hard reading. + +We children who were used to the free range of woods and fields were +homesick for the country in our narrow city yard, and I associate with +this longing the 'Farmer's Boy of Bloomfield,' which my father got for +me. It was a little book in blue cloth, and there were some mild wood- +cuts in it. I read it with a tempered pleasure, and with a vague +resentment of its trespass upon Thomson's ground in the division of its +parts under the names of the seasons. I do not know why I need have felt +this. I was not yet very fond of Thomson. I really liked Bloomfield +better; for one thing, his poem was written in the heroic decasyllabics +which I preferred to any other verse. + + + + +IX. POPE + +I infer, from the fact of this preference that I had already begun to +read Pope, and that I must have read the "Deserted Village" of Goldsmith. +I fancy, also, that I must by this time have read the Odyssey, for the +"Battle of the Frogs and Mice" was in the second volume, and it took me +so much that I paid it the tribute of a bald imitation in a mock-heroic +epic of a cat fight, studied from the cat fights in our back yard, with +the wonted invocation to the Muse, and the machinery of partisan gods and +goddesses. It was in some hundreds of verses, which I did my best to +balance as Pope did, with a caesura falling in the middle of the line, +and a neat antithesis at the end. + +The story of the Odyssey charmed me, of course, and I had moments of +being intimate friends with Ulysses, but I was passing out of that phase, +and was coming to read more with a sense of the author, and less with a +sense of his characters as real persons; that is, I was growing more +literary, and less human. I fell in love with Pope, whose life I read +with an ardor of sympathy which I am afraid he hardly merited. I was of +his side in all his quarrels, as far as I understood them, and if I did +not understand them I was of his side anyway. When I found that he was a +Catholic I was almost ready to abjure the Protestant religion for his +sake; but I perceived that this was not necessary when I came to know +that most of his friends were Protestants. If the truth must be told, +I did not like his best things at first, but long remained chiefly +attached to his rubbishing pastorals, which I was perpetually imitating, +with a whole apparatus of swains and shepherdesses, purling brooks, +enamelled meads, rolling years, and the like. + +After my day's work at the case I wore the evening away in my boyish +literary attempts, forcing my poor invention in that unnatural kind, and +rubbing and polishing at my wretched verses till they did sometimes take +on an effect, which, if it was not like Pope's, was like none of mine. +With all my pains I do not think I ever managed to bring any of my +pastorals to a satisfactory close. They all stopped somewhere about +halfway. My swains could not think of anything more to say, and the +merits of my shepherdesses remained undecided. To this day I do not know +whether in any given instance it was the champion of Chloe or of Sylvia +that carried off the prize for his fair, but I dare say it does not much +matter. I am sure that I produced a rhetoric as artificial and treated +of things as unreal as my master in the art, and I am rather glad that I +acquainted myself so thoroughly with a mood of literature which, whatever +we may say against it, seems to have expressed very perfectly a mood of +civilization. + +The severe schooling I gave myself was not without its immediate use. +I learned how to choose between words after a study of their fitness, +and though I often employed them decoratively and with no vital sense of +their qualities, still in mere decoration they had to be chosen +intelligently, and after some thought about their structure and meaning. +I could not imitate Pope without imitating his methods, and his method +was to the last degree intelligent. He certainly knew what he was doing, +and although I did not always know what I was doing, he made me wish to +know, and ashamed of not knowing. There are several truer poets who +might not have done this; and after all the modern contempt of Pope, he +seems to me to have been at least one of the great masters, if not one of +the great poets. The poor man's life was as weak and crooked as his +frail, tormented body, but he had a dauntless spirit, and he fought his +way against odds that might well have appalled a stronger nature. +I suppose I must own that he was from time to time a snob, and from time +to time a liar, but I believe that he loved the truth, and would have +liked always to respect himself if he could. He violently revolted, +now and again, from the abasement to which he forced himself, and he +always bit the heel that trod on him, especially if it was a very high, +narrow heel, with a clocked stocking and a hooped skirt above it. +I loved him fondly at one time, and afterwards despised him, but now I am +not sorry for the love, and I am very sorry for the despite. I humbly, +own a vast debt to him, not the least part of which is the perception +that he is a model of ever so much more to be shunned than to be followed +in literature. + +He was the first of the writers of great Anna's time whom I knew, and he +made me ready to understand, if he did not make me understand at once, +the order of mind and life which he belonged to. Thanks to his +pastorals, I could long afterwards enjoy with the double sense requisite +for full pleasure in them, such divinely excellent artificialities at +Tasso's "Aminta" and Guarini's "Pastor Fido"; things which you will +thoroughly like only after you are in the joke of thinking how people +once seriously liked them as high examples of poetry. + +Of course I read other things of Pope's besides his pastorals, even at +the time I read these so much. I read, or not very easily or willingly +read at, his 'Essay on Man,' which my father admired, and which he +probably put Pope's works into my hands to have me read; and I read the +'Dunciad,' with quite a furious ardor in the tiresome quarrels it +celebrates, and an interest in its machinery, which it fatigues me to +think of. But it was only a few years ago that I read the 'Rape of the +Lock,' a thing perfect of its kind, whatever we may choose to think of +the kind. Upon the whole I think much better of the kind than I once +did, though still not so much as I should have thought if I had read the +poem when the fever of my love for Pope was at the highest. + +It is a nice question how far one is helped or hurt by one's +idealizations of historical or imaginary characters, and I shall not try +to answer it fully. I suppose that if I once cherished such a passion +for Pope personally that I would willingly have done the things that he +did, and told the lies, and vented the malice, and inflicted the +cruelties that the poor soul was full of, it was for the reason, partly, +that I did not see these things as they were, and that in the glamour of +his talent I was blind to all but the virtues of his defects, which he +certainly had, and partly that in my love of him I could not take sides +against him, even when I knew him to be wrong. After all, I fancy not +much harm comes to the devoted boy from his enthusiasms for this +imperfect hero or that. In my own case I am sure that I distinguished as +to certain sins in my idols. I could not cast them down or cease to +worship them, but some of their frailties grieved me and put me to secret +shame for them. I did not excuse these things in them, or try to believe +that they were less evil for them than they would have been for less +people. This was after I came more or less to the knowledge of good and +evil. While I remained in the innocence of childhood I did not even +understand the wrong. When I realized what lives some of my poets had +led, how they were drunkards, and swindlers, and unchaste, and untrue, +I lamented over them with a sense of personal disgrace in them, and to +this day I have no patience with that code of the world which relaxes +itself in behalf of the brilliant and gifted offender; rather he should +suffer more blame. The worst of the literature of past times, before an +ethical conscience began to inform it, or the advance of the race +compelled it to decency, is that it leaves the mind foul with filthy +images and base thoughts; but what I have been trying to say is that the +boy, unless he is exceptionally depraved beforehand, is saved from these +through his ignorance. Still I wish they were not there, and I hope the +time will come when the beast-man will be so far subdued and tamed in us +that the memory of him in literature shall be left to perish; that what +is lewd and ribald in the great poets shall be kept out of such editions +as are meant for general reading, and that the pedant-pride which now +perpetuates it as an essential part of those poets shall no longer have +its way. At the end of the ends such things do defile, they do corrupt. +We may palliate them or excuse them for this reason or that, but that is +the truth, and I do not see why they should not be dropped from +literature, as they were long ago dropped from the talk of decent people. +The literary histories might keep record of them, but it is loath some to +think of those heaps of ordure, accumulated from generation to +generation, and carefully passed down from age to age as something +precious and vital, and not justly regarded as the moral offal which they +are. + +During the winter we passed at Columbus I suppose that my father read +things aloud to us after his old habit, and that I listened with the +rest. I have a dim notion of first knowing Thomson's 'Castle of +Indolence' in this way, but I was getting more and more impatient of +having things read to me. The trouble was that I caught some thought or +image from the text, and that my fancy remained playing with that while +the reading went on, and I lost the rest. But I think the reading was +less in every way than it had been, because his work was exhausting and +his leisure less. My own hours in the printing-office began at seven and +ended at six, with an hour at noon for dinner, which I often used for +putting down such verses as had come to me during the morning. As soon +as supper was over at night I got out my manuscripts, which I kept in +great disorder, and written in several different hands on several +different kinds of paper, and sawed, and filed, and hammered away at my +blessed Popean heroics till nine, when I went regularly to bed, to rise +again at five. Sometimes the foreman gave me an afternoon off on +Saturdays, and though the days were long the work was not always +constant, and was never very severe. I suspect now the office was not so +prosperous as might have been wished. I was shifted from place to place +in it, and there was plenty of time for my day-dreams over the +distribution of my case. I was very fond of my work, though, and proud +of my swiftness and skill in it. Once when the perplexed foreman could +not think of any task to set me he offered me a holiday, but I would not +take it, so I fancy that at this time I was not more interested in my art +of poetry than in my trade of printing. What went on in the office +interested me as much as the quarrels of the Augustan age of English +letters, and I made much more record of it in the crude and shapeless +diary which I kept, partly in verse and partly in prose, but always of a +distinctly lower literary kind than that I was trying otherwise to write. +There must have been some mention in it of the tremendous combat with wet +sponges I saw there one day between two of the boys who hurled them back +and forth at each other. This amiable fray, carried on during the +foreman's absence, forced upon my notice for the first time the boy who +has come to be a name well-known in literature. I admired his vigor as a +combatant, but I never spoke to him at that time, and I never dreamed +that he, too, was effervescing with verse, probably as fiercely as +myself. Six or seven years later we met again, when we had both become +journalists, and had both had poems accepted by Mr. Lowell for the +Atlantic Monthly, and then we formed a literary friendship which +eventuated in the joint publication of a volume of verse. 'The Poems of +Two Friends' became instantly and lastingly unknown to fame; the West +waited, as it always does, to hear what the East should say; the East +said nothing, and two-thirds of the small edition of five hundred came +back upon the publisher's hands. I imagine these copies were "ground up" +in the manner of worthless stock, for I saw a single example of the book +quoted the other day in a book-seller's catalogue at ten dollars, and I +infer that it is so rare as to be prized at least for its rarity. It was +a very pretty little book, printed on tinted paper then called "blush," +in the trade, and it was manufactured in the same office where we had +once been boys together, unknown to each other. Another boy of that time +had by this time become foreman in the office, and he was very severe +with us about the proofs, and sent us hurting messages on the margin. +Perhaps he thought we might be going to take on airs, and perhaps we +might have taken on airs if the fate of our book had been different. +As it was I really think we behaved with sufficient meekness, and after +thirty four or five years for reflection I am still of a very modest mind +about my share of the book, in spite of the price it bears in the book- +seller's catalogue. But I have steadily grown in liking for my friend's +share in it, and I think that there is at present no American of twenty- +three writing verse of so good a quality, with an ideal so pure and high, +and from an impulse so authentic as John J. Piatt's were then. He +already knew how to breathe into his glowing rhyme the very spirit of the +region where we were both native, and in him the Middle West has its true +poet, who was much more than its poet, who had a rich and tender +imagination, a lovely sense of color, and a touch even then securely and +fully his own. I was reading over his poems in that poor little book a +few days ago, and wondering with shame and contrition that I had not at +once known their incomparable superiority to mine. But I used then and +for long afterwards to tax him with obscurity, not knowing that my own +want of simplicity and directness was to blame for that effect. +My reading from the first was such as to enamour me of clearness, of +definiteness; anything left in the vague was intolerable to me; but my +long subjection to Pope, while it was useful in other ways, made me so +strictly literary in my point of view that sometimes I could not see what +was, if more naturally approached and without any technical +preoccupation, perfectly transparent. It remained for another great +passion, perhaps the greatest of my life, to fuse these gyves in which I +was trying so hard to dance, and free me forever from the bonds which I +had spent so much time and trouble to involve myself in. But I was not +to know that passion for five or six years yet, and in the mean time I +kept on as I had been going, and worked out my deliverance in the +predestined way. What I liked then was regularity, uniformity, +exactness. I did not conceive of literature as the expression of life, +and I could not imagine that it ought to be desultory, mutable, and +unfixed, even if at the risk of some vagueness. + + + + +X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES + +My father was very fond of Byron, and I must before this have known that +his poems were in our bookcase. While we were still in Columbus I began +to read them, but I did not read so much of them as could have helped me +to a truer and freer ideal. I read "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," +and I liked its vulgar music and its heavy-handed sarcasm. These would, +perhaps, have fascinated any boy, but I had such a fanaticism for +methodical verse that any variation from the octosyllabic and +decasyllabic couplets was painful to me. The Spencerian stanza, with its +rich variety of movement and its harmonious closes, long shut "Childe +Harold" from me, and whenever I found a poem in any book which did not +rhyme its second line with its first I read it unwillingly or not at all. + +This craze could not last, of course, but it lasted beyond our stay in +Columbus, which ended with the winter, when the Legislature adjourned, +and my father's employment ceased. He tried to find some editorial work +on the paper which had printed his reports, but every place was full, and +it was hopeless to dream of getting a proprietary interest in it. We had +nothing, and we must seek a chance where something besides money would +avail us. This offered itself in the village of Ashtabula, in the +northeastern part of the State, and there we all found ourselves one +moonlight night of early summer. The Lake Shore Railroad then ended at +Ashtabula, in a bank of sand, and my elder brother and I walked up from +the station, while the rest of the family, which pretty well filled the +omnibus, rode. We had been very happy at Columbus, as we were apt to be +anywhere, but none of us liked the narrowness of city streets, even so +near to the woods as those were, and we were eager for the country again. +We had always lived hitherto in large towns, except for that year at the +Mills, and we were eager to see what a village was like, especially a +village peopled wholly by Yankees, as our father had reported it. I must +own that we found it far prettier than anything we had known in Southern +Ohio, which we were so fond of and so loath to leave, and as I look back +it still seems to me one of the prettiest little places I have ever +known, with its white wooden houses, glimmering in the dark of its elms +and maples, and their silent gardens beside each, and the silent, grass- +bordered, sandy streets between them. The hotel, where we rejoined our +family, lurked behind a group of lofty elms, and we drank at the town +pump before it just for the pleasure of pumping it. + +The village was all that we could have imagined of simply and sweetly +romantic in the moonlight, and when the day came it did not rob it of its +charm. It was as lovely in my eyes as the loveliest village of the +plain, and it had the advantage of realizing the Deserted Village without +being deserted. + + + + +XI. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN + +The book that moved me most, in our stay of six months at Ashtabula, was +then beginning to move the whole world more than any other book has moved +it. I read it as it came out week after week in the old National Era, +and I broke my heart over Uncle Tom's Cabin, as every one else did. Yet +I cannot say that it was a passion of mine like Don Quixote, or the other +books that I had loved intensely. I felt its greatness when I read it +first, and as often as I have read it since, I have seen more and more +clearly that it was a very great novel. With certain obvious lapses in +its art, and with an art that is at its best very simple, and perhaps +primitive, the book is still a work of art. I knew this, in a measure +then, as I know it now, and yet neither the literary pride I was +beginning to have in the perception of such things, nor the powerful +appeal it made to my sympathies, sufficed to impassion me of it. I could +not say why this was so. Why does the young man's fancy, when it lightly +turns to thoughts of love, turn this way and not that? There seems no +more reason for one than for the other. + +Instead of remaining steeped to the lips in the strong interest of what +is still perhaps our chief fiction, I shed my tribute of tears, and went +on my way. I did not try to write a story of slaver, as I might very +well have done; I did not imitate either the make or the manner of Mrs. +Stowe's romance; I kept on at my imitation of Pope's pastorals, which I +dare say I thought much finer, and worthier the powers of such a poet as +I meant to be. I did this, as I must have felt then, at some personal +risk of a supernatural kind, for my studies were apt to be prolonged into +the night after the rest of the family had gone to bed, and a certain +ghost, which I had every reason to fear, might very well have visited the +small room given me to write in. There was a story, which I shrank from +verifying, that a former inmate of our house had hung himself in it, but +I do not know to this day whether it was true or not. The doubt did not +prevent him from dangling at the door-post, in my consciousness, and many +a time I shunned the sight of this problematical suicide by keeping my +eyes fastened on the book before me. It was a very simple device, but +perfectly effective, as I think any one will find who employs it in like +circumstances; and I would really like to commend it to growing boys +troubled as I was then. + +I never heard who the poor soul was, or why he took himself out of the +world, if he really did so, or if he ever was in it; but I am sure that +my passion for Pope, and my purpose of writing pastorals, must have been +powerful indeed to carry me through dangers of that kind. I suspect that +the strongest proof of their existence was the gloomy and ruinous look of +the house, which was one of the oldest in the village, and the only one +that was for rent there. We went into it because we must, and we were to +leave it as soon as we could find a better. But before this happened we +left Ashtabula, and I parted with one of the few possibilities I have +enjoyed of seeing a ghost on his own ground, as it were. + +I was not sorry, for I believe I never went in or came out of the place, +by day or by night, without a shudder, more or less secret; and at least, +now, we should be able to get another house. + + + + +XII. OSSIAN + +Very likely the reading of Ossian had something to do with my morbid +anxieties. I had read Byron's imitation of him before that, and admired +it prodigiously, and when my father got me the book--as usual I did not +know where or how he got it--not all the tall forms that moved before the +eyes of haunted bards in the dusky vale of autumn could have kept me from +it. There were certain outline illustrations in it, which were very good +in the cold Flaxman manner, and helped largely to heighten the +fascination of the poems for me. They did not supplant the pastorals of +Pope in my affections, and they were never the grand passion with me that +Pope's poems had been. + +I began at once to make my imitations of Ossian, and I dare say they were +not windier and mistier than the original. At the same time I read the +literature of the subject, and gave the pretensions of Macpherson an +unquestioning faith. I should have made very short work of any one who +had impugned the authenticity of the poems, but happily there was no one +who held the contrary opinion in that village, so far as I knew, or who +cared for Ossian, or had even heard of him. This saved me a great deal +of heated controversy with my contemporaries, but I had it out in many +angry reveries with Dr. Johnson and others, who had dared to say in their +time that the poems of Ossian were not genuine lays of the Gaelic bard, +handed down from father to son, and taken from the lips of old women in +Highland huts, as Macpherson claimed. + +In fact I lived over in my small way the epoch of the eighteenth century +in which these curious frauds found polite acceptance all over Europe, +and I think yet that they were really worthier of acceptance than most of +the artificialities that then passed for poetry. There was a light of +nature in them, and this must have been what pleased me, so long-shut up +to the studio-work of Pope. But strangely enough I did not falter in my +allegiance to him, or realize that here in this free form was a +deliverance, if I liked, from the fetters and manacles which I had been +at so much pains to fit myself with. Probably nothing would then have +persuaded me to put them off permanently, or to do more than lay them +aside for the moment while I tried that new stop and that new step. + +I think that even then I had an instinctive doubt whether formlessness +was really better than formality. Something, it seems to me, may be +contained and kept alive in formality, but in formlessness everything +spills and wastes away. This is what I find the fatal defect of our +American Ossian, Walt Whitman, whose way is where artistic madness lies. +He had great moments, beautiful and noble thoughts, generous aspirations, +and a heart wide and warm enough for the whole race, but he had no +bounds, no shape; he was as liberal as the casing air, but he was often +as vague and intangible. I cannot say how long my passion for Ossian +lasted, but not long, I fancy, for I cannot find any trace of it in the +time following our removal from Ashtabula to the county seat at +Jefferson. I kept on with Pope, I kept on with Cervantes, I kept on with +Irving, but I suppose there was really not substance enough in Ossian to +feed my passion, and it died of inanition. + + + + +XIII. SHAKESPEARE + +The establishment of our paper in the village where there had been none +before, and its enlargement from four to eight pages, were events so +filling that they left little room for any other excitement but that of +getting acquainted with the young people of the village, and going to +parties, and sleigh rides, and walks, and drives, and picnics, and +dances, and all the other pleasures in which that community seemed to +indulge beyond any other we had known. The village was smaller than the +one we had just left, but it was by no means less lively, and I think +that for its size and time and place it had an uncommon share of what has +since been called culture. The intellectual experience of the people was +mainly theological and political, as it was everywhere in that day, but +there were several among them who had a real love for books, and when +they met at the druggist's, as they did every night, to dispute of the +inspiration of the Scriptures and the principles of the Free Soil party, +the talk sometimes turned upon the respective merits of Dickens and +Thackeray, Gibbon and Macaulay, Wordsworth and Byron. There were law +students who read "Noctes Ambrosianae," the 'Age of Reason', and Bailey's +"Festus," as well as Blackstone's 'Commentaries;' and there was a public +library in that village of six hundred people, small but very well +selected, which was kept in one of the lawyers' offices, and was free to +all. It seems to me now that the people met there oftener than they do +in most country places, and rubbed their wits together more, but this may +be one of those pleasing illusions of memory which men in later life are +subject to. + +I insist upon nothing, but certainly the air was friendlier to the tastes +I had formed than any I had yet known, and I found a wider if not deeper +sympathy with them. There was one of our printers who liked books, and +we went through 'Don Quixote' together again, and through the 'Conquest +of Granada', and we began to read other things of Irving's. There was a +very good little stock of books at the village drugstore, and among those +that began to come into my hands were the poems of Dr. Holmes, stray +volumes of De Quincey, and here and there minor works of Thackeray. +I believe I had no money to buy them, but there was an open account, +or a comity, between the printer and the bookseller, and I must have been +allowed a certain discretion in regard to getting books. + +Still I do not think I went far in the more modern authors, or gave my +heart to any of them. Suddenly, it was now given to Shakespeare, without +notice or reason, that I can recall, except that my friend liked him too, +and that we found it a double pleasure to read him together. Printers in +the old-time offices were always spouting Shakespeare more or less, and I +suppose I could not have kept away from him much longer in the nature of +things. I cannot fix the time or place when my friend and I began to +read him, but it was in the fine print of that unhallowed edition of +ours, and presently we had great lengths of him by heart, out of +"Hamlet," out of "The Tempest," out of "Macbeth," out of "Richard III.," +out of "Midsummer-Night's Dream," out of the "Comedy of Errors," out of +"Julius Caesar," out of "Measure for Measure," out of "Romeo and Juliet," +out of "Two Gentlemen of Verona." + +These were the plays that we loved, and must have read in common, or at +least at the same time: but others that I more especially liked were the +Histories, and among them particularly were the Henrys, where Falstaff +appeared. This gross and palpable reprobate greatly took my fancy. +I delighted in him immensely, and in his comrades, Pistol, and Bardolph, +and Nym. I could not read of his death without emotion, and it was a +personal pang to me when the prince, crowned king, denied him: blackguard +for blackguard, I still think the prince the worse blackguard. Perhaps I +flatter myself, but I believe that even then, as a boy of sixteen, +I fully conceived of Falstaff's character, and entered into the author's +wonderfully humorous conception of him. There is no such perfect +conception of the selfish sensualist in literature, and the conception is +all the more perfect because of the wit that lights up the vice of +Falstaff, a cold light without tenderness, for he was not a good fellow, +though a merry companion. I am not sure but I should put him beside +Hamlet, and on the name level, for the merit of his artistic +completeness, and at one time I much preferred him, or at least his +humor. + +As to Falstaff personally, or his like, I was rather fastidious, and +would not have made friends with him in the flesh, much or little. +I revelled in all his appearances in the Histories, and I tried to be as +happy where a factitious and perfunctory Falstaff comes to life again in +the "Merry Wives of Windsor," though at the bottom of my heart I felt the +difference. I began to make my imitations of Shakespeare, and I wrote 57 +out passages where Falstaff and Pistol and Bardolph talked together, in +that Ercles vein which is so easily caught. This was after a year or two +of the irregular and interrupted acquaintance with the author which has +been my mode of friendship with all the authors I have loved. My worship +of Shakespeare went to heights and lengths that it had reached with no +earlier idol, and there was a supreme moment, once, when I found myself +saying that the creation of Shakespeare was as great as the creation of a +planet. + +There ought certainly to be some bound beyond which the cult of favorite +authors should not be suffered to go. I should keep well within the +limit of that early excess now, and should not liken the creation of +Shakespeare to the creation of any heavenly body bigger, say, than one of +the nameless asteroids that revolve between Mars and Jupiter. Even this +I do not feel to be a true means of comparison, and I think that in the +case of all great men we like to let our wonder mount and mount, till it +leaves the truth behind, and honesty is pretty much cast out as ballast. +A wise criticism will no more magnify Shakespeare because he is already +great than it will magnify any less man. But we are loaded down with the +responsibility of finding him all we have been told he is, and we must do +this or suspect ourselves of a want of taste, a want of sensibility. At +the same time, we may really be honester than those who have led us to +expect this or that of him, and more truly his friends. I wish the time +might come when we could read Shakespeare, and Dante, and Homer, as +sincerely and as fairly as we read any new book by the least known of our +contemporaries. The course of criticism is towards this, but when I +began to read Shakespeare I should not have ventured to think that he was +not at every moment great. I should no more have thought of questioning +the poetry of any passage in him than of questioning the proofs of holy +writ. All the same, I knew very well that much which I read was really +poor stuff, and the persons and positions were often preposterous. It is +a great pity that the ardent youth should not be permitted and even +encouraged to say this to himself, instead of falling slavishly before a +great author and accepting him at all points as infallible. Shakespeare +is fine enough and great enough when all the possible detractions are +made, and I have no fear of saying now that he would be finer and greater +for the loss of half his work, though if I had heard any one say such a +thing then I should have held him as little better than one of the +wicked. + +Upon the whole it was well that I had not found my way to Shakespeare +earlier, though it is rather strange that I had not. I knew him on the +stage in most of the plays that used to be given. I had shared the +conscience of Macbeth, the passion of Othello, the doubt of Hamlet; many +times, in my natural affinity for villains, I had mocked and suffered +with Richard III. + +Probably no dramatist ever needed the stage less, and none ever brought +more to it. There have been few joys for me in life comparable to that +of seeing the curtain rise on "Hamlet," and hearing the guards begin to +talk about the ghost; and yet how fully this joy imparts itself without +any material embodiment! It is the same in the whole range of his plays: +they fill the scene, but if there is no scene they fill the soul. They +are neither worse nor better because of the theatre. They are so great +that it cannot hamper them; they are so vital that they enlarge it to +their own proportions and endue it with something of their own living +force. They make it the size of life, and yet they retire it so wholly +that you think no more of it than you think of the physiognomy of one who +talks importantly to you. I have heard people say that they would rather +not see Shakespeare played than to see him played ill, but I cannot agree +with them. He can better afford to be played ill than any other man that +ever wrote. Whoever is on the stage, it is always Shakespeare who is +speaking to me, and perhaps this is the reason why in the past I can +trace no discrepancy between reading his plays and seeing them. + +The effect is so equal from either experience that I am not sure as to +some plays whether I read them or saw them first, though as to most of +them I am aware that I never saw them at all; and if the whole truth must +be told there is still one of his plays that I have not read, and I +believe it is esteemed one of his greatest. There are several, with all +my reading of others, that I had not read till within a few years; and I +do not think I should have lost much if I, had never read "Pericles" and +"Winter's Tale." + +In those early days I had no philosophized preference for reality in +literature, and I dare say if I had been asked, I should have said that +the plays of Shakespeare where reality is least felt were the most +imaginative; that is the belief of the puerile critics still; but I +suppose it was my instinctive liking for reality that made the great +Histories so delightful to me, and that rendered "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" +vital in their very ghosts and witches. There I found a world +appreciable to experience, a world inexpressibly vaster and grander than +the poor little affair that I had only known a small obscure corner of, +and yet of one quality with it, so that I could be as much at home and +citizen in it as where I actually lived. There I found joy and sorrow +mixed, and nothing abstract or typical, but everything standing for +itself, and not for some other thing. Then, I suppose it was the +interfusion of humor through so much of it, that made it all precious and +friendly. I think I had a native love of laughing, which was fostered in +me by my father's way of looking at life, and had certainly been +flattered by my intimacy with Cervantes; but whether this was so or not, +I know that I liked best and felt deepest those plays and passages in +Shakespeare where the alliance of the tragic and the comic was closest. +Perhaps in a time when self-consciousness is so widespread, it is the +only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am sure that without it I +should not have been naturalized to that world of Shakespeare's +Histories, where I used to spend so much of my leisure, with such a sense +of his own intimate companionship there as I had nowhere else. I felt +that he must somehow like my being in the joke of it all, and that in his +great heart he had room for a boy willing absolutely to lose himself in +him, and be as one of his creations. + +It was the time of life with me when a boy begins to be in love with the +pretty faces that then peopled this world so thickly, and I did not fail +to fall in love with the ladies of that Shakespeare-world where I lived +equally. I cannot tell whether it was because I found them like my +ideals here, or whether my ideals acquired merit because of their +likeness to the realities there; they appeared to be all of one degree of +enchanting loveliness; but upon the whole I must have preferred them in +the plays, because it was so much easier to get on with them there; I was +always much better dressed there; I was vastly handsomer; I was not +bashful or afraid, and I had some defects of these advantages to contend +with here. + +That friend of mine, the printer whom I have mentioned, was one with me +in a sense of the Shakespearean humor, and he dwelt with me in the sort +of double being I had in those two worlds. We took the book into the +woods at the ends of the long summer afternoons that remained to us when +we had finished our work, and on the shining Sundays of the warm, late +spring, the early, warm autumn, and we read it there on grassy slopes or +heaps of fallen leaves; so that much of the poetry is mixed for me with a +rapturous sense of the out-door beauty of this lovely natural world. +We read turn about, one taking the story up as the other tired, and as we +read the drama played itself under the open sky and in the free air with +such orchestral effects as the soughing woods or some rippling stream +afforded. It was not interrupted when a squirrel dropped a nut on us +from the top of a tall hickory; and the plaint of a meadow-lark prolonged +itself with unbroken sweetness from one world to the other. + +But I think it takes two to read in the open air. The pressure of walls +is wanted to keep the mind within itself when one reads alone; otherwise +it wanders and disperses itself through nature. When my friend left us +for want of work in the office, or from the vagarious impulse which is so +strong in our craft, I took my Shakespeare no longer to the woods and +fields, but pored upon him mostly by night, in the narrow little space +which I had for my study, under the stairs at home. There was a desk +pushed back against the wall, which the irregular ceiling eloped down to +meet behind it, and at my left was a window, which gave a good light on +the writing-leaf of my desk. This was my workshop for six or seven +years, and it was not at all a bad one; I have had many since that were +not so much to the purpose; and though I would not live my life over, I +would willingly enough have that little study mine again. But it is gone +an utterly as the faces and voices that made home around it, and that I +was fierce to shut out of it, so that no sound or sight should molest me +in the pursuit of the end which I sought gropingly, blindly, with very +little hope, but with an intense ambition, and a courage that gave way +under no burden, before no obstacle. Long ago changes were made in the +low, rambling house which threw my little closet into a larger room; but +this was not until after I had left it many years; and as long as I +remained a part of that dear and simple home it was my place to read, to +write, to muse, to dream. + +I sometimes wish in these later years that I had spent less time in it, +or that world of books which it opened into; that I had seen more of the +actual world, and had learned to know my brethren in it better. I might +so have amassed more material for after use in literature, but I had to +fit myself to use it, and I suppose that this was what I was doing, in my +own way, and by such light as I had. I often toiled wrongly and +foolishly; but certainly I toiled, and I suppose no work is wasted. Some +strength, I hope, was coming to me, even from my mistakes, and though I +went over ground that I need not have traversed, if I had not been left +so much to find the way alone, yet I was not standing still, and some of +the things that I then wished to do I have done. I do not mind owning +that in others I have failed. For instance, I have never surpassed +Shakespeare as a poet, though I once firmly meant to do so; but then, it +is to be remembered that very few other people have surpassed him, and +that it would not have been easy. + + + + +XIV. IK MARVEL + +My ardor for Shakespeare must have been at its height when I was between +sixteen and seventeen years old, for I fancy when I began to formulate my +admiration, and to try to measure his greatness in phrases, I was less +simply impassioned than at some earlier time. At any rate, I am sure +that I did not proclaim his planetary importance in creation until I was +at least nineteen. But even at an earlier age I no longer worshipped at +a single shrine; there were many gods in the temple of my idolatry, and I +bowed the knee to them all in a devotion which, if it was not of one +quality, was certainly impartial. While I was reading, and thinking, and +living Shakespeare with such an intensity that I do not see how there +could have been room in my consciousness for anything else, there seem to +have been half a dozen other divinities there, great and small, whom I +have some present difficulty in distinguishing. I kept Irving, and +Goldsmith, and Cervantes on their old altars, but I added new ones, and +these I translated from the contemporary: literary world quite as often +as from the past. I am rather glad that among them was the gentle and +kindly Ik Marvel, whose 'Reveries of a Bachelor' and whose 'Dream Life' +the young people of that day were reading with a tender rapture which +would not be altogether surprising, I dare say, to the young people of +this. The books have survived the span of immortality fixed by our +amusing copyright laws, and seem now, when any pirate publisher may +plunder their author, to have a new life before them. Perhaps this is +ordered by Providence, that those who have no right to them may profit by +them, in that divine contempt of such profit which Providence so often +shows. + +I cannot understand just how I came to know of the books, but I suppose +it was through the contemporary criticism which I was then beginning to +read, wherever I could find it, in the magazines and newspapers; and I +could not say why I thought it would be very 'comme il faut' to like +them. Probably the literary fine world, which is always rubbing +shoulders with the other fine world, and bringing off a little of its +powder and perfume, was then dawning upon me, and I was wishing to be of +it, and to like the things that it liked; I am not so anxious to do it +now. But if this is true, I found the books better than their friends, +and had many a heartache from their pathos, many a genuine glow of +purpose from their high import, many a tender suffusion from their +sentiment. I dare say I should find their pose now a little old- +fashioned. I believe it was rather full of sighs, and shrugs and starts, +expressed in dashes, and asterisks, and exclamations, but I am sure that +the feeling was the genuine and manly sort which is of all times and +always the latest wear. Whatever it was, it sufficed to win my heart, +and to identify me with whatever was most romantic and most pathetic in +it. I read 'Dream Life' first--though the 'Reveries of a Bachelor' was +written first, and I believe is esteemed the better book--and 'Dream +Life' remains first in my affections. I have now little notion what it +was about, but I love its memory. The book is associated especially in +my mind with one golden day of Indian summer, when I carried it into the +woods with me, and abandoned myself to a welter of emotion over its page. +I lay, under a crimson maple, and I remember how the light struck through +it and flushed the print with the gules of the foliage. My friend was +away by this time on one of his several absences in the Northwest, and I +was quite alone in the absurd and irrelevant melancholy with which I read +myself and my circumstances into the book. I began to read them out +again in due time, clothed with the literary airs and graces that I +admired in it, and for a long time I imitated Ik Marvel in the voluminous +letters I wrote my friend in compliance with his Shakespearean prayer: + + "To Milan let me hear from thee by letters, + Of thy success in love, and what news else + Betideth here in absence of thy friend; + And I likewise will visit thee with mine." + +Milan was then presently Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Verona was our little +village; but they both served the soul of youth as well as the real +places would have done, and were as really Italian as anything else in +the situation was really this or that. Heaven knows what gaudy +sentimental parade we made in our borrowed plumes, but if the travesty +had kept itself to the written word it would have been all well enough. +My misfortune was to carry it into print when I began to write a story, +in the Ik Marvel manner, or rather to compose it in type at the case, for +that was what I did; and it was not altogether imitated from Ik Marvel +either, for I drew upon the easier art of Dickens at times, and helped +myself out with bald parodies of Bleak House in many places. It was all +very well at the beginning, but I had not reckoned with the future +sufficiently to have started with any clear ending in my mind, and as I +went on I began to find myself more and more in doubt about it. My +material gave out; incidents failed me; the characters wavered and +threatened to perish on my hands. To crown my misery there grew up an +impatience with the story among its readers, and this found its way to me +one day when I overheard an old farmer who came in for his paper say that +he did not think that story amounted to much. I did not think so either, +but it was deadly to have it put into words, and how I escaped the mortal +effect of the stroke I do not know. Somehow I managed to bring the +wretched thing to a close, and to live it slowly into the past. Slowly +it seemed then, but I dare say it was fast enough; and there is always +this consolation to be whispered in the ear of wounded vanity, that the +world's memory is equally bad for failure and success; that if it will +not keep your triumphs in mind as you think it ought, neither will it +long dwell upon your defeats. But that experience was really terrible. +It was like some dreadful dream one has of finding one's self in battle +without the courage needed to carry one creditably through the action, +or on the stage unprepared by study of the part which one is to appear +in. I have hover looked at that story since, so great was the shame and +anguish that I suffered from it, and yet I do not think it was badly +conceived, or attempted upon lines that were mistaken. If it were not +for what happened in the past I might like some time to write a story on +the same lines in the future. + + + + +XV. DICKENS + +What I have said of Dickens reminds me that I had been reading him at the +same time that I had been reading Ik Marvel; but a curious thing about +the reading of my later boyhood is that the dates do not sharply detach +themselves one from another. This may be so because my reading was much +more multifarious than it had been earlier, or because I was reading +always two or three authors at a time. I think Macaulay a little +antedated Dickens in my affections, but when I came to the novels of that +masterful artist (as I must call him, with a thousand reservations as to +the times when he is not a master and not an artist), I did not fail to +fall under his spell. + +This was in a season of great depression, when I began to feel in broken +health the effect of trying to burn my candle at both ends. It seemed +for a while very simple and easy to come home in the middle of the +afternoon, when my task at the printing-office was done, and sit down to +my books in my little study, which I did not finally leave until the +family were in bed; but it was not well, and it was not enough that I +should like to do it. The most that can be said in defence of such a +thing is that with the strong native impulse and the conditions it was +inevitable. If I was to do the thing I wanted to do I was to do it in +that way, and I wanted to do that thing, whatever it was, more than I +wanted to do anything else, and even more than I wanted to do nothing. +I cannot make out that I was fond of study, or cared for the things I was +trying to do, except as a means to other things. As far as my pleasure +went, or my natural bent was concerned, I would rather have been +wandering through the woods with a gun on my shoulder, or lying under a +tree, or reading some book that cost me no sort of effort. But there was +much more than my pleasure involved; there was a hope to fulfil, an aim +to achieve, and I could no more have left off trying for what I hoped and +aimed at than I could have left off living, though I did not know very +distinctly what either was. As I look back at the endeavor of those days +much of it seems mere purblind groping, wilful and wandering. I can see +that doing all by myself I was not truly a law to myself, but only a sort +of helpless force. + +I studied Latin because I believed that I should read the Latin authors, +and I suppose I got as much of the language as most school-boys of my +age, but I never read any Latin author but Cornelius Nepos. I studied +Greek, and I learned so much of it as to read a chapter of the Testament, +and an ode of Anacreon. Then I left it, not because I did not mean to go +farther, or indeed stop short of reading all Greek literature, but +because that friend of mine and I talked it over and decided that I could +go on with Greek any time, but I had better for the present study German, +with the help of a German who had come to the village. Apparently I was +carrying forward an attack on French at the same time, for I distinctly +recall my failure to enlist with me an old gentleman who had once lived a +long time in France, and whom I hoped to get at least an accent from. +Perhaps because he knew he had no accent worth speaking of, or perhaps +because he did not want the bother of imparting it, he never would keep +any of the engagements he made with me, and when we did meet he so +abounded in excuses and subterfuges that he finally escaped me, and I was +left to acquire an Italian accent of French in Venice seven or eight +years later. At the same time I was reading Spanish, more or less, +but neither wisely nor too well. Having had so little help in my +studies, I had a stupid pride in refusing all, even such as I might have +availed myself of, without shame, in books, and I would not read any +Spanish author with English notes. I would have him in an edition wholly +Spanish from beginning to end, and I would fight my way through him +single-handed, with only such aid as I must borrow from a lexicon. + +I now call this stupid, but I have really no more right to blame the boy +who was once I than I have to praise him, and I am certainly not going to +do that. In his day and place he did what he could in his own way; he +had no true perspective of life, but I do not know that youth ever has +that. Some strength came to him finally from the mere struggle, +undirected and misdirected as it often was, and such mental fibre as he +had was toughened by the prolonged stress. It could be said, of course, +that the time apparently wasted in these effectless studies could have +been well spent in deepening and widening a knowledge of English +literature never yet too great, and I have often said this myself; but +then, again, I am not sure that the studies were altogether effectless. +I have sometimes thought that greater skill had come to my hand from them +than it would have had without, and I have trusted that in making known +to me the sources of so much English, my little Latin and less Greek have +enabled me to use my own speech with a subtler sense of it than I should +have had otherwise. + +But I will by no means insist upon my conjecture. What is certain is +that for the present my studies, without method and without stint, began +to tell upon my health, and that my nerves gave way in all manner of +hypochondriacal fears. These finally resolved themselves into one, +incessant, inexorable, which I could escape only through bodily fatigue, +or through some absorbing interest that took me out of myself altogether +and filled my morbid mind with the images of another's creation. + +In this mood I first read Dickens, whom I had known before in the reading +I had listened to. But now I devoured his books one after another as +fast as I could read them. I plunged from the heart of one to another, +so as to leave myself no chance for the horrors that beset me. Some of +them remain associated with the gloom and misery of that time, so that +when I take them up they bring back its dreadful shadow. But I have +since read them all more than once, and I have had my time of thinking +Dickens, talking Dickens, and writing Dickens, as we all had who lived in +the days of the mighty magician. I fancy the readers who have come to +him since he ceased to fill the world with his influence can have little +notion how great it was. In that time he colored the parlance of the +English-speaking race, and formed upon himself every minor talent +attempting fiction. While his glamour lasted it was no more possible for +a young novelist to escape writing Dickens than it was for a young poet +to escape writing Tennyson. I admired other authors more; I loved them +more, but when it came to a question of trying to do something in fiction +I was compelled, as by a law of nature, to do it at least partially in +his way. + +All the while that he held me so fast by his potent charm I was aware +that it was a very rough magic now and again, but I could not assert my +sense of this against him in matters of character and structure. To +these I gave in helplessly; their very grotesqueness was proof of their +divine origin, and I bowed to the crudest manifestations of his genius in +these kinds as if they were revelations not to be doubted without +sacrilege. But in certain small matters, as it were of ritual, I +suffered myself to think, and I remember boldly speaking my mind about +his style, which I thought bad. + +I spoke it even to the quaint character whom I borrowed his books from, +and who might almost have come out of his books. He lived in Dickens in +a measure that I have never known another to do, and my contumely must +have brought him a pang that was truly a personal grief. He forgave it, +no doubt because I bowed in the Dickens worship without question on all +other points. He was then a man well on towards fifty, and he had come +to America early in life, and had lived in our village many years, +without casting one of his English prejudices, or ceasing to be of a +contrary opinion on every question, political, religious and social. +He had no fixed belief, but he went to the service of his church whenever +it was held among us, and he revered the Book of Common Prayer while he +disputed the authority of the Bible with all comers. He had become a +citizen, but he despised democracy, and achieved a hardy consistency only +by voting with the pro-slavery party upon all measures friendly to the +institution which he considered the scandal and reproach of the American +name. From a heart tender to all, he liked to say wanton, savage and +cynical things, but he bore no malice if you gainsaid him. I know +nothing of his origin, except the fact of his being an Englishman, or +what his first calling had been; but he had evolved among us from a +house-painter to an organ-builder, and he had a passionate love of music. +He built his organs from the ground up, and made every part of them with +his own hands; I believe they were very good, and at any rate the +churches in the country about took them from him as fast as he could make +them. He had one in his own house, and it was fine to see him as he sat +before it, with his long, tremulous hands outstretched to the keys, his +noble head thrown back and his sensitive face lifted in the rapture of +his music. He was a rarely intelligent creature, and an artist in every +fibre; and if you did not quarrel with his manifold perversities, he was +a delightful companion. + +After my friend went away I fell much to him for society, and we took +long, rambling walks together, or sat on the stoop before his door, +or lounged over the books in the drug-store, and talked evermore of +literature. He must have been nearly three times my age, but that did +not matter; we met in the equality of the ideal world where there is +neither old nor young, any more than there is rich or poor. He had read +a great deal, but of all he had read he liked Dickens best, and was +always coming back to him with affection, whenever the talk strayed. +He could not make me out when I criticised the style of Dickens; and when +I praised Thackeray's style to the disadvantage of Dickens's he could +only accuse me of a sort of aesthetic snobbishness in my preference. +Dickens, he said, was for the million, and Thackeray was for the upper +ten thousand. His view amused me at the time, and yet I am not sure that +it was altogether mistaken. + +There is certainly a property in Thackeray that somehow flatters the +reader into the belief that he is better than other people. I do not +mean to say that this was why I thought him a finer writer than Dickens, +but I will own that it was probably one of the reasons why I liked him +better; if I appreciated him so fully as I felt, I must be of a finer +porcelain than the earthen pots which were not aware of any particular +difference in the various liquors poured into them. In Dickens the +virtue of his social defect is that he never appeals to the principle +which sniffs, in his reader. The base of his work is the whole breadth +and depth of humanity itself. It is helplessly elemental, but it is not +the less grandly so, and if it deals with the simpler manifestations of +character, character affected by the interests and passions rather than +the tastes and preferences, it certainly deals with the larger moods +through them. I do not know that in the whole range of his work he once +suffers us to feel our superiority to a fellow-creature through any +social accident, or except for some moral cause. This makes him very fit +reading for a boy, and I should say that a boy could get only good from +him. His view of the world and of society, though it was very little +philosophized, was instinctively sane and reasonable, even when it was +most impossible. + +We are just beginning to discern that certain conceptions of our +relations to our fellow-men, once formulated in generalities which met +with a dramatic acceptation from the world, and were then rejected by it +as mere rhetoric, have really a vital truth in them, and that if they +have ever seemed false it was because of the false conditions in which we +still live. Equality and fraternity, these are the ideals which once +moved the world, and then fell into despite and mockery, as unrealities; +but now they assert themselves in our hearts once more. + +Blindly, unwittingly, erringly as Dickens often urged them, these ideals +mark the whole tendency of his fiction, and they are what endear him to +the heart, and will keep him dear to it long after many a cunninger +artificer in letters has passed into forgetfulness. I do not pretend +that I perceived the full scope of his books, but I was aware of it in +the finer sense which is not consciousness. While I read him, I was in a +world where the right came out best, as I believe it will yet do in this +world, and where merit was crowned with the success which I believe will +yet attend it in our daily life, untrammelled by social convention or +economic circumstance. In that world of his, in the ideal world, to +which the real world must finally conform itself, I dwelt among the shows +of things, but under a Providence that governed all things to a good end, +and where neither wealth nor birth could avail against virtue or right. +Of course it was in a way all crude enough, and was already contradicted +by experience in the small sphere of my own being; but nevertheless it +was true with that truth which is at the bottom of things, and I was +happy in it. I could not fail to love the mind which conceived it, and +my worship of Dickens was more grateful than that I had yet given any +writer. I did not establish with him that one-sided understanding which +I had with Cervantes and Shakespeare; with a contemporary that was not +possible, and as an American I was deeply hurt at the things he had said +against us, and the more hurt because I felt that they were often so +just. But I was for the time entirely his, and I could not have wished +to write like any one else. + +I do not pretend that the spell I was under was wholly of a moral or +social texture. For the most part I was charmed with him because he was +a delightful story-teller; because he could thrill me, and make me hot +and cold; because he could make me laugh and cry, and stop my pulse and +breath at will. There seemed an inexhaustible source of humor and pathos +in his work, which I now find choked and dry; I cannot laugh any more at +Pickwick or Sam Weller, or weep for little Nell or Paul Dombey; their +jokes, their griefs, seemed to me to be turned on, and to have a +mechanical action. But beneath all is still the strong drift of a +genuine emotion, a sympathy, deep and sincere, with the poor, the lowly, +the unfortunate. In all that vast range of fiction, there is nothing +that tells for the strong, because they are strong, against the weak, +nothing that tells for the haughty against the humble, nothing that tells +for wealth against poverty. The effect of Dickens is purely democratic, +and however contemptible he found our pseudo-equality, he was more truly +democratic than any American who had yet written fiction. I suppose it +was our instinctive perception in the region of his instinctive +expression, that made him so dear to us, and wounded our silly vanity so +keenly through our love when he told us the truth about our horrible sham +of a slave-based freedom. But at any rate the democracy is there in his +work more than he knew perhaps, or would ever have known, or ever +recognized by his own life. In fact, when one comes to read the story of +his life, and to know that he was really and lastingly ashamed of having +once put up shoe-blacking as a boy, and was unable to forgive his mother +for suffering him to be so degraded, one perceives that he too was the +slave of conventions and the victim of conditions which it is the highest +function of his fiction to help destroy. + +I imagine that my early likes and dislikes in Dickens were not very +discriminating. I liked 'David Copperfield,' and 'Barnaby Rudge,' and +'Bleak House,' and I still like them; but I do not think I liked them +more than 'Dombey & Son,' and 'Nicholas Nickleby,' and the 'Pickwick +Papers,' which I cannot read now with any sort of patience, not to speak +of pleasure. I liked 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' too, and the other day I read +a great part of it again, and found it roughly true in the passages that +referred to America, though it was surcharged in the serious moods, and +caricatured in the comic. The English are always inadequate observers; +they seem too full of themselves to have eyes and ears for any alien +people; but as far as an Englishman could, Dickens had caught the look of +our life in certain aspects. His report of it was clumsy and farcical; +but in a large, loose way it was like enough; at least he had caught the +note of our self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality, +and this was not altogether lost in his mocking horse-play. + +I cannot make out that I was any the less fond of Dickens because of it. +I believe I was rather more willing to accept it as a faithful +portraiture then than I should be now; and I certainly never made any +question of it with my friend the organ-builder. 'Martin Chuzzlewit' was +a favorite book with him, and so was the 'Old Curiosity Shop.' No doubt +a fancied affinity with Tom Pinch through their common love of music made +him like that most sentimental and improbable personage, whom he would +have disowned and laughed to scorn if he had met him in life; but it was +a purely altruistic sympathy that he felt with Little Nell and her +grandfather. He was fond of reading the pathetic passages from both +books, and I can still hear his rich, vibrant voice as it lingered in +tremulous emotion on the periods he loved. He would catch the volume up +anywhere, any time, and begin to read, at the book-store, or the harness- +shop, or the law-office, it did not matter in the wide leisure of a +country village, in those days before the war, when people had all the +time there was; and he was sure of his audience as long as he chose to +read. One Christmas eve, in answer to a general wish, he read the +'Christmas Carol' in the Court-house, and people came from all about to +hear him. + +He was an invalid and he died long since, ending a life of suffering in +the saddest way. Several years before his death money fell to his +family, and he went with them to an Eastern city, where he tried in vain +to make himself at home. He never ceased to pine for the village be had +left, with its old companionships, its easy usages, its familiar faces; +and he escaped to it again and again, till at last every tie was severed, +and he could come back no more. He was never reconciled to the change, +and in a manner he did really die of the homesickness which deepened an +hereditary taint, and enfeebled him to the disorder that carried him. +off. My memories of Dickens remain mingled with my memories of this +quaint and most original genius, and though I knew Dickens long before I +knew his lover, I can scarcely think of one without thinking of the +other. + + + + +XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER + +Certain other books I associate with another pathetic nature, of whom the +organ-builder and I were both fond. This was the young poet who looked +after the book half of the village drug and book store, and who wrote +poetry in such leisure as he found from his duties, and with such +strength as he found in the disease preying upon him. He must have been +far gone in consumption when I first knew him, for I have no recollection +of a time when his voice was not faint and husky, his sweet smile wan, +and his blue eyes dull with the disease that wasted him away, + + "Like wax in the fire, + Like snow in the sun." + +People spoke of him as once strong and vigorous, but I recall him fragile +and pale, gentle, patient, knowing his inexorable doom, and not hoping or +seeking to escape it. As the end drew near he left his employment and +went home to the farm, some twenty miles away, where I drove out to see +him once through the deep snow of a winter which was to be his last. +My heart was heavy all the time, but he tried to make the visit pass +cheerfully with our wonted talk about books. Only at parting, when he +took my hand in his thin, cold clasp, he said, "I suppose my disease is +progressing," with the patience he always showed. + +I did not see him again, and I am not sure now that his gift was very +distinct or very great. It was slight and graceful rather, I fancy, +and if he had lived it might not have sufficed to make him widely known, +but he had a real and a very delicate sense of beauty in literature, +and I believe it was through sympathy with his preferences that I came +into appreciation of several authors whom I had not known, or had not +cared for before. There could not have been many shelves of books in +that store, and I came to be pretty well acquainted with them all before +I began to buy them. For the most part, I do not think it occurred to me +that they were there to be sold; for this pale poet seemed indifferent to +the commercial property in them, and only to wish me to like them. + +I am not sure, but I think it was through some volume which I found in +his charge that I first came to know of De Quincey; he was fond of +Dr. Holmes's poetry; he loved Whittier and Longfellow, each represented +in his slender stock by some distinctive work. There were several stray +volumes of Thackeray's minor writings, and I still have the 'Yellowplush +Papers' in the smooth red cloth (now pretty well tattered) of Appleton's +Popular Library, which I bought there. But most of the books were in the +famous old brown cloth of Ticknor & Fields, which was a warrant of +excellence in the literature it covered. Besides these there were +standard volumes of poetry, published by Phillips & Sampson, from worn- +out plates; for a birthday present my mother got me Wordsworth in this +shape, and I am glad to think that I once read the "Excursion" in it, +for I do not think I could do so now, and I have a feeling that it is +very right and fit to have read the "Excursion." To be honest, it was +very hard reading even then, and I cannot truthfully pretend that I have +ever liked Wordsworth except in parts, though for the matter of that, +I do not suppose that any one ever did. I tried hard enough to like +everything in him, for I had already learned enough to know that I ought +to like him, and that if I did not, it was a proof of intellectual and +moral inferiority in me. My early idol, Pope, had already been tumbled +into the dust by Lowell, whose lectures on English Poetry had lately been +given in Boston, and had met with my rapturous acceptance in such +newspaper report as I had of them. So, my preoccupations were all in +favor of the Lake School, and it was both in my will and my conscience to +like Wordsworth. If I did not do so it was not my fault, and the fault +remains very much what it first was. + +I feel and understand him more deeply than I did then, but I do not think +that I then failed of the meaning of much that I read in him, and I am +sure that my senses were quick to all the beauty in him. After suffering +once through the "Excursion" I did not afflict myself with it again, +but there were other poems of his which I read over and over, as I fancy +it is the habit of every lover of poetry to do with the pieces he is fond +of. Still, I do not make out that Wordsworth was ever a passion of mine; +on the other hand, neither was Byron. Him, too, I liked in passages and +in certain poems which I knew before I read Wordsworth at all; I read him +throughout, but I did not try to imitate him, and I did not try to +imitate Wordsworth. + +Those lectures of Lowell's had a great influence with me, and I tried to +like whatever they bade me like, after a fashion common to young people +when they begin to read criticisms; their aesthetic pride is touched; +they wish to realize that they too can feel the fine things the critic +admires. From this motive they do a great deal of factitious liking; +but after all the affections will not be bidden, and the critic can only +avail to give a point of view, to enlighten a perspective. When I read +Lowell's praises of him, I had all the will in the world to read Spencer, +and I really meant to do so, but I have not done so to this day, and as +often as I have tried I have found it impossible. It was not so with +Chaucer, whom I loved from the first word of his which I found quoted in +those lectures, and in Chambers's 'Encyclopaedia of English Literature,' +which I had borrowed of my friend the organ-builder. + +In fact, I may fairly class Chaucer among my passions, for I read him +with that sort of personal attachment I had for Cervantes, who resembled +him in a certain sweet and cheery humanity. But I do not allege this as +the reason, for I had the same feeling for Pope, who was not like either +of them. Kissing goes by favor, in literature as in life, and one cannot +quite account for one's passions in either; what is certain is, I liked +Chaucer and I did not like Spencer; possibly there was an affinity +between reader and poet, but if there was I should be at a loss to name +it, unless it was the liking for reality; and the sense of mother earth +in human life. By the time I had read all of Chaucer that I could find +in the various collections and criticisms, my father had been made a +clerk in the legislature, and on one of his visits home he brought me the +poet's works from the State Library, and I set about reading them with a +glossary. It was not easy, but it brought strength with it, and lifted +my heart with a sense of noble companionship. + +I will not pretend that I was insensible to the grossness of the poet's +time, which I found often enough in the poet's verse, as well as the +goodness of his nature, and my father seems to have felt a certain +misgiving about it. He repeated to me the librarian's question as to +whether he thought he ought to put an unexpurgated edition in the hands +of a boy, and his own answer that he did not believe it would hurt me. +It was a kind of appeal to me to make the event justify him, and I +suppose he had not given me the book without due reflection. Probably he +reasoned that with my greed for all manner of literature the bad would +become known to me along with the good at any rate, and I had better know +that he knew it. + +The streams of filth flow down through the ages in literature, which +sometimes seems little better than an open sewer, and, as I have said, +I do not see why the time should not come when the noxious and noisome +channels should be stopped; but the base of the mind is bestial, and so +far the beast in us has insisted upon having his full say. The worst of +lewd literature is that it seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the +life, and that inexperience takes this effect for reality: that is the +danger and the harm, and I think the fact ought not to be blinked. +Compared with the meaner poets the greater are the cleaner, and Chaucer +was probably safer than any other English poet of his time, but I am not +going to pretend that there are not things in Chaucer which a boy would +be the better for not reading; and so far as these words of mine shall be +taken for counsel, I am not willing that they should unqualifiedly praise +him. The matter is by no means simple; it is not easy to conceive of a +means of purifying the literature of the past without weakening it, and +even falsifying it, but it is best to own that it is in all respects just +what it is, and not to feign it otherwise. I am not ready to say that +the harm from it is positive, but you do get smeared with it, and the +filthy thought lives with the filthy rhyme in the ear, even when it does +not corrupt the heart or make it seem a light thing for the reader's +tongue and pen to sin in kind. + +I loved my Chaucer too well, I hope, not to get some good from the best +in him; and my reading of criticism had taught me how and where to look +for the best, and to know it when I had found it. Of course I began to +copy him. That is, I did not attempt anything like his tales in kind; +they must have seemed too hopelessly far away in taste and time, but I +studied his verse, and imitated a stanza which I found in some of his +things and had not found elsewhere; I rejoiced in the freshness and +sweetness of his diction, and though I felt that his structure was +obsolete, there was in his wording something homelier and heartier than +the imported analogues that had taken the place of the phrases he used. + +I began to employ in my own work the archaic words that I fancied most, +which was futile and foolish enough, and I formed a preference for the +simpler Anglo-Saxon woof of our speech, which was not so bad. Of course, +being left so much as I was to my own whim in such things, I could not +keep a just mean; I had an aversion for the Latin derivatives which was +nothing short of a craze. Some half-bred critic whom I had read made me +believe that English could be written without them, and had better be +written so, and I did not escape from this lamentable error until I had +produced with weariness and vexation of spirit several pieces of prose +wholly composed of monosyllables. I suspect now that I did not always +stop to consider whether my short words were not as Latin by race as any +of the long words I rejected, and that I only made sure they were short. + +The frivolous ingenuity which wasted itself in this exercise happily +could not hold out long, and in verse it was pretty well helpless from +the beginning. Yet I will not altogether blame it, for it made me know, +as nothing else could, the resources of our tongue in that sort; and in +the revolt from the slavish bondage I took upon myself I did not go so +far as to plunge into any very wild polysyllabic excesses. I still like +the little word if it says the thing I want to say as well as the big +one, but I honor above all the word that says the thing. At the same +time I confess that I have a prejudice against certain words that I +cannot overcome; the sight of some offends me, the sound of others, and +rather than use one of those detested vocables, even when I perceive that +it would convey my exact meaning, I would cast about long for some other. +I think this is a foible, and a disadvantage, but I do not deny it. + +An author who had much to do with preparing me for the quixotic folly in +point was that Thomas Babington Macaulay, who taught simplicity of +diction in phrases of as "learned length and thundering sound," as any he +would have had me shun, and who deplored the Latinistic English of +Johnson in terms emulous of the great doctor's orotundity and +ronderosity. I wonder now that I did not see how my physician avoided +his medicine, but I did not, and I went on to spend myself in an endeavor +as vain and senseless as any that pedantry has conceived. It was none +the less absurd because I believed in it so devoutly, and sacrificed +myself to it with such infinite pains and labor. But this was long after +I read Macaulay, who was one of my grand passions before Dickens or +Chaucer. + + + + +XVII. MACAULAY + +One of the many characters of the village was the machinist who had his +shop under our printing-office when we first brought our newspaper to the +place, and who was just then a machinist because he was tired of being +many other things, and had not yet made up his mind what he should be +next. He could have been whatever he turned his agile intellect and his +cunning hand to; he had been a schoolmaster and a watch-maker, and I +believe an amateur doctor and irregular lawyer; he talked and wrote +brilliantly, and he was one of the group that nightly disposed of every +manner of theoretical and practical question at the drug-store; it was +quite indifferent to him which side he took; what he enjoyed was the +mental exercise. He was in consumption, as so many were in that region, +and he carbonized against it, as he said; he took his carbon in the +liquid form, and the last time I saw him the carbon had finally prevailed +over the consumption, but it had itself become a seated vice; that was +many years since, and it is many years since he died. + +He must have been known to me earlier, but I remember him first as he +swam vividly into my ken, with a volume of Macaulay's essays in his hand, +one day. Less figuratively speaking, he came up into the printing-office +to expose from the book the nefarious plagiarism of an editor in a +neighboring city, who had adapted with the change of names and a word or +two here and there, whole passages from the essay on Barere, to the +denunciation of a brother editor. It was a very simple-hearted fraud, +and it was all done with an innocent trust in the popular ignorance which +now seems to me a little pathetic; but it was certainly very barefaced, +and merited the public punishment which the discoverer inflicted by means +of what journalists call the deadly parallel column. The effect ought +logically to have been ruinous for the plagiarist, but it was really +nothing of the kind. He simply ignored the exposure, and the comments of +the other city papers, and in the process of time he easily lived down +the memory of it and went on to greater usefulness in his profession. + +But for the moment it appeared to me a tremendous crisis, and I listened +as the minister of justice read his communication, with a thrill which +lost itself in the interest I suddenly felt in the plundered author. +Those facile and brilliant phrases and ideas struck me as the finest +things I had yet known in literature, and I borrowed the book and read it +through. Then I borrowed another volume of Macaulay's essays, and +another and another, till I had read them every one. It was like a long +debauch, from which I emerged with regret that it should ever end. + +I tried other essayists, other critics, whom the machinist had in his +library, but it was useless; neither Sidney Smith nor Thomas Carlyle +could console me; I sighed for more Macaulay and evermore Macaulay. I +read his History of England, and I could measurably console myself with +that, but only measurably; and I could not go back to the essays and read +them again, for it seemed to me I had absorbed them so thoroughly that I +had left nothing unenjoyed in them. I used to talk with the machinist +about them, and with the organ-builder, and with my friend the printer, +but no one seemed to feel the intense fascination in them that I did, and +that I should now be quite unable to account for. + +Once more I had an author for whom I could feel a personal devotion, whom +I could dream of and dote upon, and whom I could offer my intimacy in +many an impassioned revery. I do not think T. B. Macaulay would really +have liked it; I dare say he would not have valued the friendship of the +sort of a youth I was, but in the conditions he was helpless, and I +poured out my love upon him without a rebuff. Of course I reformed my +prose style, which had been carefully modelled upon that of Goldsmith and +Irving, and began to write in the manner of Macaulay, in short, quick +sentences, and with the prevalent use of brief Anglo-Saxon words, which +he prescribed, but did not practise. As for his notions of literature, I +simply accepted them with the feeling that any question of them would +have been little better than blasphemy. + +For a long time he spoiled my taste for any other criticism; he made it +seem pale, and poor, and weak; and he blunted my sense to subtler +excellences than I found in him. I think this was a pity, but it was a +thing not to be helped, like a great many things that happen to our hurt +in life; it was simply inevitable. How or when my frenzy for him began +to abate I cannot say, but it certainly waned, and it must have waned +rapidly, for after no great while I found myself feeling the charm of +quite different minds, as fully as if his had never enslaved me. I +cannot regret that I enjoyed him so keenly as I did; it was in a way a +generous delight, and though he swayed me helplessly whatever way he +thought, I do not think yet that he swayed me in any very wrong way. He +was a bright and clear intelligence, and if his light did not go far, it +is to be said of him that his worst fault was only to have stopped short +of the finest truth in art, in morals, in politics. + + + + +XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS + +What remained to me from my love of Macaulay was a love of criticism, +and I read almost as much in criticism as I read in poetry and history +and fiction. It was of an eccentric doctor, another of the village +characters, that I got the works of Edgar A. Poe; I do not know just how, +but it must have been in some exchange of books; he preferred +metaphysics. At any rate I fell greedily upon them, and I read with no +less zest than his poems the bitter, and cruel, and narrow-minded +criticisms which mainly filled one of the volumes. As usual, I accepted +them implicitly, and it was not till long afterwards that I understood +how worthless they were. + +I think that hardly less immoral than the lubricity of literature, and +its celebration of the monkey and the goat in us, is the spectacle such +criticism affords of the tigerish play of satire. It is monstrous that +for no offence but the wish to produce something beautiful, and the +mistake of his powers in that direction, a writer should become the prey +of some ferocious wit, and that his tormentor should achieve credit by +his lightness and ease in rending his prey; it is shocking to think how +alluring and depraving the fact is to the young reader emulous of such +credit, and eager to achieve it. Because I admired these barbarities of +Poe's, I wished to irritate them, to spit some hapless victim on my own +spear, to make him suffer and to make the reader laugh. This is as far +as possible from the criticism that enlightens and ennobles, but it is +still the ideal of most critics, deny it as they will; and because it is +the ideal of most critics criticism still remains behind all the other +literary arts. + +I am glad to remember that at the same time I exulted in these ferocities +I had mind enough and heart enough to find pleasure in the truer and +finer work, the humaner work of other writers, like Hazlitt, and Leigh +Hunt, and Lamb, which became known to me at a date I cannot exactly fix. +I believe it was Hazlitt whom I read first, and he helped me to clarify +and formulate my admiration of Shakespeare as no one else had yet done; +Lamb helped me too, and with all the dramatists, and on every hand I was +reaching out for light that should enable me to place in literary history +the authors I knew and loved. + +I fancy it was well for me at this period to have got at the four great +English reviews, the Edinburgh, the Westminster, the London Quarterly, +and the North British, which I read regularly, as well as Blackwood's +Magazine. We got them in the American editions in payment for printing +the publisher's prospectus, and their arrival was an excitement, a joy, +and a satisfaction with me, which I could not now describe without having +to accuse myself of exaggeration. The love of literature, and the hope +of doing something in it, had become my life to the exclusion of all +other interests, or it was at least the great reality, and all other +things were as shadows. I was living in a time of high political tumult, +and I certainly cared very much for the question of slavery which was +then filling the minds of men; I felt deeply the shame and wrong of our +Fugitive Slave Law; I was stirred by the news from Kansas, where the +great struggle between the two great principles in our nationality was +beginning in bloodshed; but I cannot pretend that any of these things +were more than ripples on the surface of my intense and profound interest +in literature. If I was not to live by it, I was somehow to live for it. + +If I thought of taking up some other calling it was as a means only; +literature was always the end I had in view, immediately or finally. +I did not see how it was to yield me a living, for I knew that almost all +the literary men in the country had other professions; they were editors, +lawyers, or had public or private employments; or they were men of +wealth; there was then not one who earned his bread solely by his pen in +fiction, or drama, or history, or poetry, or criticism, in a day when +people wanted very much less butter on their bread than they do now. +But I kept blindly at my studies, and yet not altogether blindly, for, +as I have said, the reading I did had more tendency than before, and I +was beginning to see authors in their proportion to one another, and to +the body of literature. + +The English reviews were of great use to me in this; I made a rule of +reading each one of them quite through. To be sure I often broke this +rule, as people are apt to do with rules of the kind; it was not possible +for a boy to wade through heavy articles relating to English politics and +economics, but I do not think I left any paper upon a literary topic +unread, and I did read enough politics, especially in Blackwood's, to be +of Tory opinions; they were very fit opinions for a boy, and they did not +exact of me any change in regard to the slavery question. + + + + +XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE + +I suppose I might almost class my devotion to English reviews among my +literary passions, but it was of very short lease, not beyond a year or +two at the most. In the midst of it I made my first and only essay aside +from the lines of literature, or rather wholly apart from it. After some +talk with my father it was decided, mainly by myself, I suspect, that I +should leave the printing-office and study law; and it was arranged with +the United States Senator who lived in our village, and who was at home +from Washington for the summer, that I was to come into his office. The +Senator was by no means to undertake my instruction himself; his nephew, +who had just begun to read law, was to be my fellow-student, and we were +to keep each other up to the work, and to recite to each other, until we +thought we had enough law to go before a board of attorneys and test our +fitness for admission to the bar. + +This was the custom in that day and place, as I suppose it is still in +most parts of the country. We were to be fitted for practice in the +courts, not only by our reading, but by a season of pettifogging before +justices of the peace, which I looked forward to with no small shrinking +of my shy spirit; but what really troubled me most, and was always the +grain of sand between my teeth, was Blackstone's confession of his own +original preference for literature, and his perception that the law was +"a jealous mistress," who would suffer no rival in his affections. +I agreed with him that I could not go through life with a divided +interest; I must give up literature or I must give up law. I not only +consented to this logically, but I realized it in my attempt to carry on +the reading I had loved, and to keep at the efforts I was always making +to write something in verse or prose, at night, after studying law all +day. The strain was great enough when I had merely the work in the +printing-office; but now I came home from my Blackstone mentally fagged, +and I could not take up the authors whom at the bottom of my heart I +loved so much better. I tried it a month, but almost from the fatal day +when I found that confession of Blackstone's, my whole being turned from +the "jealous mistress" to the high minded muses: I had not only to go +back to literature, but I had also to go back to the printing-office. +I did not regret it, but I had made my change of front in the public eye, +and I felt that it put me at a certain disadvantage with my fellow- +citizens; as for the Senator, whose office I had forsaken, I met him now +and then in the street, without trying to detain him, and once when he +came to the printing-office for his paper we encountered at a point where +we could not help speaking. He looked me over in my general effect of +base mechanical, and asked me if I had given up the law; I had only to +answer him I had, and our conference ended. It was a terrible moment for +me, because I knew that in his opinion I had chosen a path in life, which +if it did not lead to the Poor House was at least no way to the White +House. I suppose now that he thought I had merely gone back to my trade, +and so for the time I had; but I have no reason to suppose that he judged +my case narrow-mindedly, and I ought to have had the courage to have the +affair out with him, and tell him just why I had left the law; we had +sometimes talked the English reviews over, for he read them as well as I, +and it ought not to have been impossible for me to be frank with him; +but as yet I could not trust any one with my secret hope of some day +living for literature, although I had already lived for nothing else. +I preferred the disadvantage which I must be at in his eyes, and in the +eyes of most of my fellow-citizens; I believe I had the applause of the +organ-builder, who thought the law no calling for me. + +In that village there was a social equality which, if not absolute, was +as nearly so as can ever be in a competitive civilization; and I could +have suffered no slight in the general esteem for giving up a profession +and going back to a trade; if I was despised at all it was because I had +thrown away the chance of material advancement; I dare say some people +thought I was a fool to do that. No one, indeed, could have imagined the +rapture it was to do it, or what a load rolled from my shoulders when I +dropped the law from them. Perhaps Sinbad or Christian could have +conceived of my ecstatic relief; yet so far as the popular vision reached +I was not returning to literature, but to the printing business, and I +myself felt the difference. My reading had given me criterions different +from those of the simple life of our village, and I did not flatter +myself that my calling would have been thought one of great social +dignity in the world where I hoped some day to make my living. +My convictions were all democratic, but at heart I am afraid I was a +snob, and was unworthy of the honest work which I ought to have felt it +an honor to do; this, whatever we falsely pretend to the contrary, is the +frame of every one who aspires beyond the work of his hands. I do not +know how it had become mine, except through my reading, and I think it +was through the devotion I then had for a certain author that I came to a +knowledge not of good and evil so much as of common and superfine. + + + + +XX. THACKERAY + +It was of the organ-builder that I had Thackeray's books first. He knew +their literary quality, and their rank in the literary, world; but I +believe he was surprised at the passion I instantly conceived for them. +He could not understand it; he deplored it almost as a moral defect in +me; though he honored it as a proof of my critical taste. In a certain +measure he was right. + +What flatters the worldly pride in a young man is what fascinates him +with Thackeray. With his air of looking down on the highest, and +confidentially inviting you to be of his company in the seat of the +scorner he is irresistible; his very confession that he is a snob, too, +is balm and solace to the reader who secretly admires the splendors he +affects to despise. His sentimentality is also dear to the heart of +youth, and the boy who is dazzled by his satire is melted by his easy +pathos. Then, if the boy has read a good many other books, he is taken +with that abundance of literary turn and allusion in Thackeray; there is +hardly a sentence but reminds him that he is in the society of a great +literary swell, who has read everything, and can mock or burlesque life +right and left from the literature always at his command. At the same +time he feels his mastery, and is abjectly grateful to him in his own +simple love of the good for his patronage of the unassuming virtues. +It is so pleasing to one's 'vanity, and so safe, to be of the master's +side when he assails those vices and foibles which are inherent in the +system of things, and which one can contemn with vast applause so long as +one does not attempt to undo the conditions they spring from. + +I exulted to have Thackeray attack the aristocrats, and expose their +wicked pride and meanness, and I never noticed that he did not propose to +do away with aristocracy, which is and must always be just what it has +been, and which cannot be changed while it exists at all. He appeared to +me one of the noblest creatures that ever was when he derided the shams +of society; and I was far from seeing that society, as we have it, was +necessarily a sham; when he made a mock of snobbishness I did not know +but snobbishness was something that might be reached and cured by +ridicule. Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall +have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub +and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for +trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from +the selfish motives which underlie our economic life. But I did not know +these things then, nor for long afterwards, and so I gave my heart to +Thackeray, who seemed to promise me in his contempt of the world a refuge +from the shame I felt for my own want of figure in it. He had the effect +of taking me into the great world, and making me a party to his splendid +indifference to titles, and even to royalties; and I could not see that +sham for sham he was unwittingly the greatest sham of all. + +I think it was 'Pendennis' I began with, and I lived in the book to the +very last line of it, and made its alien circumstance mine to the +smallest detail. I am still not sure but it is the author's greatest +book, and I speak from a thorough acquaintance with every line he has +written, except the Virginians, which I have never been able to read +quite through; most of his work I have read twice, and some of it twenty +times. + +After reading 'Pendennis' I went to 'Vanity Fair,' which I now think the +poorest of Thackeray's novels--crude, heavy-handed, caricatured. About +the same time I revelled in the romanticism of 'Henry Esmond,' with its +pseudo-eighteenth-century sentiment, and its appeals to an overwrought +ideal of gentlemanhood and honor. It was long before I was duly revolted +by Esmond's transfer of his passion from the daughter to the mother whom +he is successively enamoured of. I believe this unpleasant and +preposterous affair is thought one of the fine things in the story; I do +not mind owning that I thought it so myself when I was seventeen; and if +I could have found a Beatrix to be in love with, and a Lady Castlewood to +be in love with me, I should have asked nothing finer of fortune. +The glamour of Henry Esmond was all the deeper because I was reading the +'Spectator' then, and was constantly in the company of Addison, and +Steele, and Swift, and Pope, and all the wits at Will's, who are +presented evanescently in the romance. The intensely literary keeping, +as well as quality, of the story I suppose is what formed its highest +fascination for me; but that effect of great world which it imparts to +the reader, making him citizen, and, if he will, leading citizen of it, +was what helped turn my head. + +This is the toxic property of all Thackeray's writing. He is himself +forever dominated in imagination by the world, and even while he tells +you it is not worth while he makes you feel that it is worth while. It +is not the honest man, but the man of honor, who shines in his page; his +meek folk are proudly meek, and there is a touch of superiority, a glint +of mundane splendor, in his lowliest. He rails at the order of things, +but he imagines nothing different, even when he shows that its baseness, +and cruelty, and hypocrisy are well-nigh inevitable, and, for most of +those who wish to get on in it, quite inevitable. He has a good word for +the virtues, he patronizes the Christian graces, he pats humble merit on +the head; he has even explosions of indignation against the insolence and +pride of birth, and purse-pride. But, after all, he is of the world, +worldly, and the highest hope he holds out is that you may be in the +world and despise its ambitions while you compass its ends. + +I should be far from blaming him for all this. He was of his time; but +since his time men have thought beyond him, and seen life with a vision +which makes his seem rather purblind. He must have been immensely in +advance of most of the thinking and feeling of his day, for people then +used to accuse his sentimental pessimism of cynical qualities which we +could hardly find in it now. It was the age of intense individualism, +when you were to do right because it was becoming to you, say, as a +gentleman, and you were to have an eye single to the effect upon your +character, if not your reputation; you were not to do a mean thing +because it was wrong, but because it was mean. It was romanticism +carried into the region of morals. But I had very little concern then as +to that sort of error. + +I was on a very high esthetic horse, which I could not have conveniently +stooped from if I had wished; it was quite enough for me that Thackeray's +novels were prodigious works of art, and I acquired merit, at least with +myself, for appreciating them so keenly, for liking them so much. It +must be, I felt with far less consciousness than my formulation of the +feeling expresses, that I was of some finer sort myself to be able to +enjoy such a fine sort. No doubt I should have been a coxcomb of some +kind, if not that kind, and I shall not be very strenuous in censuring +Thackeray for his effect upon me in this way. No doubt the effect was +already in me, and he did not so much produce it as find it. + +In the mean time he was a vast delight to me, as much in the variety of +his minor works--his 'Yellowplush,' and 'Letters of Mr. Brown,' and +'Adventures of Major Gahagan,' and the 'Paris Sketch Book,' and the +'Irish Sketch Book,' and the 'Great Hoggarty Diamond,' and the 'Book of +Snobs,' and the 'English Humorists,' and the 'Four Georges,' and all the +multitude of his essays, and verses, and caricatures--as in the spacious +designs of his huge novels, the 'Newcomes,' and 'Pendennis,' and 'Vanity +Fair,' and 'Henry Esmond,' and 'Barry Lyndon.' + +There was something in the art of the last which seemed to me then, and +still seems, the farthest reach of the author's great talent. It is +couched, like so much of his work, in the autobiographic form, which next +to the dramatic form is the most natural, and which lends itself with +such flexibility to the purpose of the author. In 'Barry Lyndon' there +is imagined to the life a scoundrel of such rare quality that he never +supposes for a moment but he is the finest sort of a gentleman; and so, +in fact, he was, as most gentlemen went in his day. Of course, the +picture is over-colored; it was the vice of Thackeray, or of Thackeray's +time, to surcharge all imitations of life and character, so that a +generation apparently much slower, if not duller than ours, should not +possibly miss the artist's meaning. But I do not think it is so much +surcharged as 'Esmond;' 'Barry Lyndon' is by no manner of means so +conscious as that mirror of gentlemanhood, with its manifold self- +reverberations; and for these reasons I am inclined to think he is the +most perfect creation of Thackeray's mind. + +I did not make the acquaintance of Thackeray's books all at once, or even +in rapid succession, and he at no time possessed the whole empire of my +catholic, not to say, fickle, affections, during the years I was +compassing a full knowledge and sense of his greatness, and burning +incense at his shrine. But there was a moment when he so outshone and +overtopped all other divinities in my worship that I was effectively his +alone, as I have been the helpless and, as it were, hypnotized devotee of +three or four others of the very great. From his art there flowed into +me a literary quality which tinged my whole mental substance, and made it +impossible for me to say, or wish to say, anything without giving it the +literary color. That is, while he dominated my love and fancy, if I had +been so fortunate as to have a simple concept of anything in life, I must +have tried to give the expression of it some turn or tint that would +remind the reader of books even before it reminded him of men. + +It is hard to make out what I mean, but this is a try at it, and I do not +know that I shall be able to do better unless I add that Thackeray, of +all the writers that I have known, is the most thoroughly and profoundly +imbued with literature, so that when he speaks it is not with words and +blood, but with words and ink. You may read the greatest part of +Dickens, as you may read the greatest part of Hawthorne or Tolstoy, and +not once be reminded of literature as a business or a cult, but you can +hardly read a paragraph, hardly a sentence, of Thackeray's without being +reminded of it either by suggestion or downright allusion. + +I do not blame him for this; he was himself, and he could not have been +any other manner of man without loss; but I say that the greatest talent +is not that which breathes of the library, but that which breathes of the +street, the field, the open sky, the simple earth. I began to imitate +this master of mine almost as soon as I began to read him; this must be, +and I had a greater pride and joy in my success than I should probably +have known in anything really creative; I should have suspected that, I +should have distrusted that, because I had nothing to test it by, no +model; but here before me was the very finest and noblest model, and I +had but to form my lines upon it, and I had produced a work of art +altogether more estimable in my eyes than anything else could have been. +I saw the little world about me through the lenses of my master's +spectacles, and I reported its facts, in his tone and his attitude, with +his self-flattered scorn, his showy sighs, his facile satire. I need not +say I was perfectly satisfied with the result, or that to be able to +imitate Thackeray was a much greater thing for me than to have been able +to imitate nature. In fact, I could have valued any picture of the life +and character I knew only as it put me in mind of life and character as +these had shown themselves to me in his books. + + + + +XXI. "LAZARILLO DE TORMES" + +At the same time, I was not only reading many books besides Thackeray's, +but I was studying to get a smattering of several languages as well as I +could, with or without help. I could now manage Spanish fairly well, and +I was sending on to New York for authors in that tongue. I do not +remember how I got the money to buy them; to be sure it was no great sum; +but it must have been given me out of the sums we were all working so +hard to make up for the debt, and the interest on the debt (that is +always the wicked pinch for the debtor!), we had incurred in the purchase +of the newspaper which we lived by, and the house which we lived in. +I spent no money on any other sort of pleasure, and so, I suppose, it was +afforded me the more readily; but I cannot really recall the history of +those acquisitions on its financial side. In any case, if the sums I +laid out in literature could not have been comparatively great, the +excitement attending the outlay was prodigious. + +I know that I used to write on to Messrs. Roe Lockwood & Son, New York, +for my Spanish books, and I dare say that my letters were sufficiently +pedantic, and filled with a simulated acquaintance with all Spanish +literature. Heaven knows what they must have thought, if they thought +anything, of their queer customer in that obscure little Ohio village; +but he could not have been queerer to them than to his fellow-villagers, +I am sure. I haunted the post-office about the time the books were due, +and when I found one of them in our deep box among a heap of exchange +newspapers and business letters, my emotion was so great that it almost +took my breath. I hurried home with the precious volume, and shut myself +into my little den, where I gave myself up to a sort of transport in it. +These books were always from the collection of Spanish authors published +by Baudry in Paris, and they were in saffron-colored paper cover, printed +full of a perfectly intoxicating catalogue of other Spanish books which I +meant to read, every one, some time. The paper and the ink had a certain +odor which was sweeter to me than the perfumes of Araby. The look of the +type took me more than the glance of a girl, and I had a fever of longing +to know the heart of the book, which was like a lover's passion. Some +times I did not reach its heart, but commonly I did. Moratin's 'Origins +of the Spanish Theatre,' and a large volume of Spanish dramatic authors, +were the first Spanish books I sent for, but I could not say why I sent +for them, unless it was because I saw that there were some plays of +Cervantes among the rest. I read these and I read several comedies of +Lope de Vega, and numbers of archaic dramas in Moratin's history, and I +really got a fairish perspective of the Spanish drama, which has now +almost wholly faded from my mind. It is more intelligible to me why I +should have read Conde's 'Dominion of the Arabs in Spain;' for that was +in the line of my reading in Irving, which would account for my pleasure +in the 'History of the Civil Wars of Granada;' it was some time before I +realized that the chronicles in this were a bundle of romances and not +veritable records; and my whole study in these things was wholly +undirected and unenlightened. But I meant to be thorough in it, and I +could not rest satisfied with the Spanish-English grammars I had; I was +not willing to stop short of the official grammar of the Spanish Academy. +I sent to New York for it, and my booksellers there reported that they +would have to send to Spain for it. I lived till it came to hand through +them from Madrid; and I do not understand why I did not perish then from +the pride and joy I had in it. + +But, after all, I am not a Spanish scholar, and can neither speak nor +write the language. I never got more than a good reading use of it, +perhaps because I never really tried for more. But I am very glad of +that, because it has been a great pleasure to me, and even some profit, +and it has lighted up many meanings in literature, which must always have +remained dark to me. Not to speak now of the modern Spanish writers whom +it has enabled me to know in their own houses as it were, I had even in +that remote day a rapturous delight in a certain Spanish book, which was +well worth all the pains I had undergone to get at it. This was the +famous picaresque novel, 'Lazarillo de Tormes,' by Hurtado de Mendoza, +whose name then so familiarized itself to my fondness that now as I write +it I feel as if it were that of an old personal friend whom I had known +in the flesh. I believe it would not have been always comfortable to +know Mendoza outside of his books; he was rather a terrible person; he +was one of the Spanish invaders of Italy, and is known in Italian history +as the Tyrant of Sierra. But at my distance of time and place I could +safely revel in his friendship, and as an author I certainly found him a +most charming companion. The adventures of his rogue of a hero, who +began life as the servant and accomplice of a blind beggar, and then +adventured on through a most diverting career of knavery, brought back +the atmosphere of Don Quixote, and all the landscape of that dear wonder- +world of Spain, where I had lived so much, and I followed him with all +the old delight. + +I do not know that I should counsel others to do so, or that the general +reader would find his account in it, but I am sure that the intending +author of American fiction would do well to study the Spanish picaresque +novels; for in their simplicity of design he will find one of the best +forms for an American story. The intrigue of close texture will never +suit our conditions, which are so loose and open and variable; each man's +life among us is a romance of the Spanish model, if it is the life of a +man who has risen, as we nearly all have, with many ups and downs. The +story of 'Latzarillo' is gross in its facts, and is mostly "unmeet for +ladies," like most of the fiction in all languages before our times; but +there is an honest simplicity in the narration, a pervading humor, and a +rich feeling for character that gives it value. + +I think that a good deal of its foulness was lost upon me, but I +certainly understood that it would not do to present it to an American +public just as it was, in the translation which I presently planned to +make. I went about telling the story to people, and trying to make them +find it as amusing as I did, but whether I ever succeeded I cannot say, +though the notion of a version with modifications constantly grew with +me, till one day I went to the city of Cleveland with my father. There +was a branch house of an Eastern firm of publishers in that place, and I +must have had the hope that I might have the courage to propose a +translation of Lazarillo to them. My father urged me to try my fortune, +but my heart failed me. I was half blind with one of the headaches that +tormented me in those days, and I turned my sick eyes from the sign, +"J. P. Jewett & Co., Publishers," which held me fascinated, and went home +without at least having my much-dreamed-of version of Lazarillo refused. + + + + +XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL + +I am quite at a loss to know why my reading had this direction or that in +those days. It had necessarily passed beyond my father's suggestion, and +I think it must have been largely by accident or experiment that I read +one book rather than another. He made some sort of newspaper arrangement +with a book-store in Cleveland, which was the means of enriching our home +library with a goodly number of books, shop-worn, but none the worse for +that, and new in the only way that books need be new to the lover of +them. Among these I found a treasure in Curtis's two books, the 'Nile +Notes of a Howadji,' and the 'Howadji in Syria.' I already knew him by +his 'Potiphar Papers,' and the ever-delightful reveries which have since +gone under the name of 'Prue and I;' but those books of Eastern travel +opened a new world of thinking and feeling. They had at once a great +influence upon me. The smooth richness of their diction; the amiable +sweetness of their mood, their gracious caprice, the delicacy of their +satire (which was so kind that it should have some other name), their +abundance of light and color, and the deep heart of humanity underlying +their airiest fantasticality, all united in an effect which was different +from any I had yet known. + +As usual, I steeped myself in them, and the first runnings of my fancy +when I began to pour it out afterwards were of their flavor. I tried to +write like this new master; but whether I had tried or not, I should +probably have done so from the love I bore him. He was a favorite not +only of mine, but of all the young people in the village who were reading +current literature, so that on this ground at least I had abundant +sympathy. The present generation can have little notion of the deep +impression made upon the intelligence and conscience of the whole nation +by the 'Potiphar Papers,' or how its fancy was rapt with the 'Prue and I' +sketches, These are among the most veritable literary successes we have +had, and probably we who were so glad when the author of these beautiful +things turned aside from the flowery paths where he led us, to battle for +freedom in the field of politics, would have felt the sacrifice too great +if we could have dreamed it would be life-long. But, as it was, we could +only honor him the more, and give him a place in our hearts which he +shared with Longfellow. + +This divine poet I have never ceased to read. His Hiawatha was a new +book during one of those terrible Lake Shore winters, but all the other +poems were old friends with me by that time. With a sister who is no +longer living I had a peculiar affection for his pretty and touching and +lightly humorous tale of 'Kavanagh,' which was of a village life enough +like our own, )in some things, to make us know the truth of its delicate +realism. We used to read it and talk it fondly over together, and I +believe some stories of like make and manner grew out of our pleasure in +it. They were never finished, but it was enough to begin them, and there +were few writers, if any, among those I delighted in who escaped the +tribute of an imitation. One has to begin that way, or at least one had +in my day; perhaps it is now possible for a young writer to begin by +being himself; but for my part, that was not half so important as to be +like some one else. Literature, not life, was my aim, and to reproduce +it was my joy and my pride. + +I was widening my knowledge of it helplessly and involuntarily, and I was +always chancing upon some book that served this end among the great +number of books that I read merely for my pleasure without any real +result of the sort. Schlegel's 'Lectures on Dramatic Literature' came +into my hands not long after I had finished my studies in the history of +the Spanish theatre, and it made the whole subject at once luminous. +I cannot give a due notion of the comfort this book afforded me by the +light it cast upon paths where I had dimly made my way before, but which +I now followed in the full day. + +Of course, I pinned my faith to everything that Schlegel said. +I obediently despised the classic unities and the French and Italian +theatre which had perpetuated them, and I revered the romantic drama +which had its glorious course among the Spanish and English poets, and +which was crowned with the fame of the Cervantes and the Shakespeare whom +I seemed to own, they owned me so completely. It vexes me now to find +that I cannot remember how the book came into my hands, or who could have +suggested it to me. It is possible that it may have been that artist who +came and stayed a month with us while she painted my mother's portrait. +She was fresh from her studies in New York, where she had met authors and +artists at the house of the Carey sisters, and had even once seen my +adored Curtis somewhere, though she had not spoken with him. Her talk +about these things simply emparadised me; it lifted me into a heaven of +hope that I, too, might some day meet such elect spirits and converse +with them face to face. My mood was sufficiently foolish, but it was not +such a frame of mind as I can be ashamed of; and I could wish a boy no +happier fortune than to possess it for a time, at least. + + + + +XXIII. TENNYSON + +I cannot quite see now how I found time for even trying to do the things +I had in hand more or less. It is perfectly clear to me that I did none +of them well, though I meant at the time to do none of them other than +excellently. I was attempting the study of no less than four languages, +and I presently added a fifth to these. I was reading right and left in +every direction, but chiefly in that of poetry, criticism, and fiction. +From time to time I boldly attacked a history, and carried it by a 'coup +de main,' or sat down before it for a prolonged siege. There was +occasionally an author who worsted me, whom I tried to read and quietly +gave up after a vain struggle, but I must say that these authors were +few. I had got a very fair notion of the range of all literature, and +the relations of the different literatures to one another, and I knew +pretty well what manner of book it was that I took up before I committed +myself to the task of reading it. Always I read for pleasure, for the +delight of knowing something more; and this pleasure is a very different +thing from amusement, though I read a great deal for mere amusement, as I +do still, and to take my mind away from unhappy or harassing thoughts. +There are very few things that I think it a waste of time to have read; +I should probably have wasted the time if I had not read them, and at the +period I speak of I do not think I wasted much time. + +My day began about seven o'clock, in the printing-office, where it took +me till noon to do my task of so many thousand ems, say four or five. +Then we had dinner, after the simple fashion of people who work with +their hands for their dinners. In the afternoon I went back and +corrected the proof of the type I had set, and distributed my case for +the next day. At two or three o'clock I was free, and then I went home +and began my studies; or tried to write something; or read a book. +We had supper at six, and after that I rejoiced in literature, till I +went to bed at ten or eleven. I cannot think of any time when I did not +go gladly to my books or manuscripts, when it was not a noble joy as well +as a high privilege. + +But it all ended as such a strain must, in the sort of break which was +not yet known as nervous prostration. When I could not sleep after my +studies, and the sick headaches came oftener, and then days and weeks of +hypochondriacal misery, it was apparent I was not well; but that was not +the day of anxiety for such things, and if it was thought best that I +should leave work and study for a while, it was not with the notion that +the case was at all serious, or needed an uninterrupted cure. I passed +days in the woods and fields, gunning or picking berries; I spent myself +in heavy work; I made little journeys; and all this was very wholesome +and very well; but I did not give up my reading or my attempts to write. +No doubt I was secretly proud to have been invalided in so great a cause, +and to be sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, rather than by +some ignoble ague or the devastating consumption of that region. If I +lay awake, noting the wild pulsations of my heart, and listening to the +death-watch in the wall, I was certainly very much scared, but I was not +without the consolation that I was at least a sufferer for literature. +At the same time that I was so horribly afraid of dying, I could have +composed an epitaph which would have moved others to tears for my +untimely fate. But there was really not impairment of my constitution, +and after a while I began to be better, and little by little the health +which has never since failed me under any reasonable stress of work +established itself. + +I was in the midst of this unequal struggle when I first became +acquainted with the poet who at once possessed himself of what was best +worth having in me. Probably I knew of Tennyson by extracts, and from +the English reviews, but I believe it was from reading one of Curtis's +"Easy Chair" papers that I was prompted to get the new poem of "Maud," +which I understood from the "Easy Chair" was then moving polite youth in +the East. It did not seem to me that I could very well live without that +poem, and when I went to Cleveland with the hope that I might have +courage to propose a translation of Lazarillo to a publisher it was with +the fixed purpose of getting "Maud" if it was to be found in any book- +store there. + +I do not know why I was so long in reaching Tennyson, and I can only +account for it by the fact that I was always reading rather the earlier +than the later English poetry. To be sure I had passed through what I +may call a paroxysm of Alexander Smith, a poet deeply unknown to the +present generation, but then acclaimed immortal by all the critics, and +put with Shakespeare, who must be a good deal astonished from time to +time in his Elysian quiet by the companionship thrust upon him. I read +this now dead-and-gone immortal with an ecstasy unspeakable; I raved of +him by day, and dreamed of him by night; I got great lengths of his +"Life-Drama" by heart; and I can still repeat several gorgeous passages +from it; I would almost have been willing to take the life of the sole +critic who had the sense to laugh at him, and who made his wicked fun in +Graham's Magazine, an extinct periodical of the old extinct Philadelphian +species. I cannot tell how I came out of this craze, but neither could +any of the critics who led me into it, I dare say. The reading world is +very susceptible of such-lunacies, and all that can be said is that at a +given time it was time for criticism to go mad over a poet who was +neither better nor worse than many another third-rate poet apotheosized +before and since. What was good in Smith was the reflected fire of the +poets who had a vital heat in them; and it was by mere chance that I +bathed myself in his second-hand effulgence. I already knew pretty well +the origin of the Tennysonian line in English poetry; Wordsworth, and +Keats, and Shelley; and I did not come to Tennyson's worship a sudden +convert, but my devotion to him was none the less complete and exclusive. +Like every other great poet he somehow expressed the feelings of his day, +and I suppose that at the time he wrote "Maud" he said more fully what +the whole English-speaking race were then dimly longing to utter than any +English poet who has lived. + +One need not question the greatness of Browning in owning the fact that +the two poets of his day who preeminently voiced their generation were +Tennyson and Longfellow; though Browning, like Emerson, is possibly now +more modern than either. However, I had then nothing to do with +Tennyson's comparative claim on my adoration; there was for the time no +parallel for him in the whole range of literary divinities that I had +bowed the knee to. For that while, the temple was not only emptied of +all the other idols, but I had a richly flattering illusion of being his +only worshipper. When I came to the sense of this error, it was with the +belief that at least no one else had ever appreciated him so fully, stood +so close to him in that holy of holies where he wrought his miracles. + +I say tawdily and ineffectively and falsely what was a very precious and +sacred experience with me. This great poet opened to me a whole world of +thinking and feeling, where I had my being with him in that mystic +intimacy, which cannot be put into words. I at once identified myself +not only with the hero of the poem, but in some so with the poet himself, +when I read "Maud"; but that was only the first step towards the lasting +state in which his poetry has upon the whole been more to me than that of +any other poet. I have never read any other so closely and continuously, +or read myself so much into and out of his verse. There have been times +and moods when I have had my questions, and made my cavils, and when it +seemed to me that the poet was less than I had thought him; and certainly +I do not revere equally and unreservedly all that he has written; that +would be impossible. But when I think over all the other poets I have +read, he is supreme above them in his response to some need in me that he +has satisfied so perfectly. + +Of course, "Maud" seemed to me the finest poem I had read, up to that +time, but I am not sure that this conclusion was wholly my own; I think +it was partially formed for me by the admiration of the poem which I felt +to be everywhere in the critical atmosphere, and which had already +penetrated to me. I did not like all parts of it equally well, and some +parts of it seemed thin and poor (though I would not suffer myself to say +so then), and they still seem so. But there were whole passages and +spaces of it whose divine and perfect beauty lifted me above life. I did +not fully understand the poem then; I do not fully understand it now, but +that did not and does not matter; for there something in poetry that +reaches the soul by other enues than the intelligence. Both in this poem +and others of Tennyson, and in every poet that I have loved, there are +melodies and harmonies enfolding significance that appeared long after I +had first read them, and had even learned them by heart; that lay weedy +in my outer ear and were enough in their Mere beauty of phrasing, till +the time came for them to reveal their whole meaning. In fact they could +do this only to later and greater knowledge of myself and others, as +every one must recognize who recurs in after-life to a book that he read +when young; then he finds it twice as full of meaning as it was at first. + +I could not rest satisfied with "Maud"; I sent the same summer to +Cleveland for the little volume which then held all the poet's work, and +abandoned myself so wholly to it, that for a year I read no other verse +that I can remember. The volume was the first of that pretty blue-and- +gold series which Ticknor & Fields began to publish in 1856, and which +their imprint, so rarely affixed to an unworthy book, at once carried far +and wide. Their modest old brown cloth binding had long been a quiet +warrant of quality in the literature it covered, and now this splendid +blossom of the bookmaking art, as it seemed, was fitly employed to convey +the sweetness and richness of the loveliest poetry that I thought the +world had yet known. After an old fashion of mine, I read it +continuously, with frequent recurrences from each new poem to some that +had already pleased me, and with a most capricious range among the +pieces. "In Memoriam" was in that book, and the "Princess"; I read the +"Princess" through and through, and over and over, but I did not then +read "In Memoriam" through, and I have never read it in course; I am not +sure that I have even yet read every part of it. I did not come to the +"Princess," either, until I had saturated my fancy and my memory with +some of the shorter poems, with the "Dream of Fair Women," with the +"Lotus-Eaters," with the "Miller's Daughter," with the "Morte d'Arthur," +with "Edwin Morris, or The Lake," with "Love and Duty," and a score of +other minor and briefer poems. I read the book night and day, in-doors +and out, to myself and to whomever I could make listen. I have no words +to tell the rapture it was to me; but I hope that in some more articulate +being, if it should ever be my unmerited fortune to meet that 'sommo +poeta' face to face, it shall somehow be uttered from me to him, and he +will understand how completely he became the life of the boy I was then. +I think it might please, or at least amuse, that lofty ghost, and that he +would not resent it, as he would probably have done on earth. I can well +understand why the homage of his worshippers should have afflicted him +here, and I could never have been one to burn incense in his earthly +presence; but perhaps it might be done hereafter without offence. +I eagerly caught up and treasured every personal word I could find about +him, and I dwelt in that sort of charmed intimacy with him through his +verse, in which I could not presume nor he repel, and which I had enjoyed +in turn with Cervantes and Shakespeare, without a snub from them. + +I have never ceased to adore Tennyson, though the rapture of the new +convert could not last. That must pass like the flush of any other +passion. I think I have now a better sense of his comparative greatness, +but a better sense of his positive greatness I could not have than I had +at the beginning; and I believe this is the essential knowledge of a +poet. It is very well to say one is greater than Keats, or not so great +as Wordsworth; that one is or is not of the highest order of poets like +Shakespeare and Dante and Goethe; but that does not mean anything of +value, and I never find my account in it. I know it is not possible for +any less than the greatest writer to abide lastingly in one's life. Some +dazzling comer may enter and possess it for a day, but he soon wears his +welcome out, and presently finds the door, to be answered with a not-at- +home if he knocks again. But it was only this morning that I read one of +the new last poems of Tennyson with a return of the emotion which he +first woke in me well-nigh forty years ago. There has been no year of +those many when I have not read him and loved him with something of the +early fire if not all the early conflagration; and each successive poem +of his has been for me a fresh joy. + +He went with me into the world from my village when I left it to make my +first venture away from home. My father had got one of those legislative +clerkships which used to fall sometimes to deserving country editors when +their party was in power, and we together imagined and carried out a +scheme for corresponding with some city newspapers. We were to furnish a +daily, letter giving an account of the legislative proceedings which I +was mainly to write up from material he helped me to get together. The +letters at once found favor with the editors who agreed to take them, and +my father then withdrew from the work altogether, after telling them who +was doing it. We were afraid they might not care for the reports of a +boy of nineteen, but they did not seem to take my age into account, and I +did not boast of my youth among the lawmakers. I looked three or four +years older than I was; but I experienced a terrible moment once when a +fatherly Senator asked me my age. I got away somehow without saying, but +it was a great relief to me when my twentieth birthday came that winter, +and I could honestly proclaim that I was in my twenty-first year. + +I had now the free range of the State Library, and I drew many sorts of +books from it. Largely, however, they were fiction, and I read all the +novels of Bulwer, for whom I had already a great liking from 'The +Caxtons' and 'My Novel.' I was dazzled by them, and I thought him a +great writer, if not so great a one as he thought himself. Little or +nothing of those romances, with their swelling prefaces about the poet +and his function, their glittering criminals, and showy rakes and rogues +of all kinds, and their patrician perfume and social splendor, remained +with me; they may have been better or worse; I will not attempt to say. +If I may call my fascination with them a passion at all, I must say that +it was but a fitful fever. I also read many volumes of Zschokke's +admirable tales, which I found in a translation in the Library, and I +think I began at the same time to find out De Quincey. These authors I +recall out of the many that passed through my mind almost as tracelessly +as they passed through my hands. I got at some versions of Icelandic +poems, in the metre of "Hiawatha"; I had for a while a notion of studying +Icelandic, and I did take out an Icelandic grammar and lexicon, and +decided that I would learn the language later. By this time I must have +begun German, which I afterwards carried so far, with one author at +least, as to find in him a delight only second to that I had in Tennyson; +but as yet Tennyson was all in all to me in poetry. I suspect that I +carried his poems about with me a great part of the time; I am afraid +that I always had that blue-and-gold Tennyson in my pocket; and I was +ready to draw it upon anybody, at the slightest provocation. This is the +worst of the ardent lover of literature: he wishes to make every one else +share his rapture, will he, nill he. Many good fellows suffered from my +admiration of this author or that, and many more pretty, patient maids. +I wanted to read my favorite passages, my favorite poems to them; I am +afraid I often did read, when they would rather have been talking; in the +case of the poems I did worse, I repeated them. This seems rather +incredible now, but it is true enough, and absurd as it is, it at least +attests my sincerity. It was long before I cured myself of so pestilent +a habit; and I am not yet so perfectly well of it that I could be safely +trusted with a fascinating book and a submissive listener. I dare say I +could not have been made to understand at this time that Tennyson was not +so nearly the first interest of life with other people as he was with me; +I must often have suspected it, but I was helpless against the wish to +make them feel him as important to their prosperity and well-being as he +was to mine. My head was full of him; his words were always behind my +lips; and when I was not repeating his phrase to myself or to some one +else, I was trying to frame something of my own as like him as I could. +It was a time of melancholy from ill-health, and of anxiety for the +future in which I must make my own place in the world. Work, and hard +work, I had always been used to and never afraid of; but work is by no +means the whole story. You may get on without much of it, or you may do +a great deal, and not get on. I was willing to do as much of it as I +could get to do, but I distrusted my health, somewhat, and I had many +forebodings, which my adored poet helped me to transfigure to the +substance of literature, or enabled me for the time to forget. I was +already imitating him in the verse I wrote; he now seemed the only worthy +model for one who meant to be as great a poet as I did. None of the +authors whom I read at all displaced him in my devotion, and I could not +have believed that any other poet would ever be so much to me. In fact, +as I have expressed, none ever has been. + + + + +XXIV. HEINE + +That winter passed very quickly and happily for me, and at the end of the +legislative session I had acquitted myself so much to the satisfaction of +one of the newspapers which I wrote for that I was offered a place on it. +I was asked to be city editor, as it was called in that day, and I was to +have charge of the local reporting. It was a great temptation, and for a +while I thought it the greatest piece of good fortune. I went down to +Cincinnati to acquaint myself with the details of the work, and to fit +myself for it by beginning as reporter myself. One night's round of the +police stations with the other reporters satisfied me that I was not +meant for that work, and I attempted it no farther. I have often been +sorry since, for it would have made known to me many phases of life that +I have always remained ignorant of, but I did not know then that life was +supremely interesting and important. I fancied that literature, that +poetry was so; and it was humiliation and anguish indescribable to think +of myself torn from my high ideals by labors like those of the reporter. +I would not consent even to do the office work of the department, and the +proprietor and editor who was more especially my friend tried to make +some other place for me. All the departments were full but the one I +would have nothing to do with, and after a few weeks of sufferance and +suffering I turned my back on a thousand dollars a year, and for the +second time returned to the printing-office. + +I was glad to get home, for I had been all the time tormented by my old +malady of homesickness. But otherwise the situation was not cheerful for +me, and I now began trying to write something for publication that I +could sell. I sent off poems and they came back; I offered little +translations from the Spanish that nobody wanted. At the same time I +took up the study of German, which I must have already played with, at +such odd times as I could find. My father knew something of it, and that +friend of mine among the printers was already reading it and trying to +speak it. I had their help with the first steps so far as the +recitations from Ollendorff were concerned, but I was impatient to read +German, or rather to read one German poet who had seized my fancy from +the first line of his I had seen. + +This poet was Heinrich Heine, who dominated me longer than any one author +that I have known. Where or when I first acquainted myself with his most +fascinating genius, I cannot be sure, but I think it was in some article +of the Westminster Review, where several poems of his were given in +English and German; and their singular beauty and grace at once possessed +my soul. I was in a fever to know more of him, and it was my great good +luck to fall in with a German in the village who had his books. He was a +bookbinder, one of those educated artisans whom the revolutions of 1848 +sent to us in great numbers. He was a Hanoverian, and his accent was +then, I believe, the standard, though the Berlinese is now the accepted +pronunciation. But I cared very little for accent; my wish was to get at +Heine with as little delay as possible; and I began to cultivate the +friendship of that bookbinder in every way. I dare say he was glad of +mine, for he was otherwise quite alone in the village, or had no +companionship outside of his own family. I clothed him in all the +romantic interest I began to feel for his race and language, which new +took the place of the Spaniards and Spanish in my affections. He was a +very quick and gay intelligence, with more sympathy for my love of our +author's humor than for my love of his sentiment, and I can remember very +well the twinkle of his little sharp black eyes, with their Tartar slant, +and the twitching of his keenly pointed, sensitive nose, when we came to +some passage of biting satire, or some phrase in which the bitter Jew had +unpacked all the insult of his soul. + +We began to read Heine together when my vocabulary had to be dug almost +word by word out of the dictionary, for the bookbinder's English was +rather scanty at the best, and was not literary. As for the grammar, I +was getting that up as fast as I could from Ollendorff, and from other +sources, but I was enjoying Heine before I well knew a declension or a +conjugation. As soon as my task was done at the office, I went home to +the books, and worked away at them until supper. Then my bookbinder and +I met in my father's editorial room, and with a couple of candles on the +table between us, and our Heine and the dictionary before us, we read +till we were both tired out. + +The candles were tallow, and they lopped at different angles in the flat +candlesticks heavily loaded with lead, which compositors once used. +It seems to have been summer when our readings began, and they are +associated in my memory with the smell of the neighboring gardens, which +came in at the open doors and windows, and with the fluttering of moths, +and the bumbling of the dorbugs, that stole in along with the odors. +I can see the perspiration on the shining forehead of the bookbinder as +he looks up from some brilliant passage, to exchange a smile of triumph +with me at having made out the meaning with the meagre facilities we had +for the purpose; he had beautiful red pouting lips, and a stiff little +branching mustache above them, that went to the making of his smile. +Sometimes, in the truce we made with the text, he told a little story of +his life at home, or some anecdote relevant to our reading, or quoted a +passage from some other author. It seemed to me the make of a high +intellectual banquet, and I should be glad if I could enjoy anything as +much now. + +We walked home as far as his house, or rather his apartment over one of +the village stores; and as he mounted to it by an outside staircase, we +exchanged a joyous "Gute Nacht," and I kept on homeward through the dark +and silent village street, which was really not that street, but some +other, where Heine had been, some street out of the Reisebilder, of his +knowledge, or of his dream. When I reached home it was useless to go to +bed. I shut myself into my little study, and went over what we had read, +till my brain was so full of it that when I crept up to my room at last, +it was to lie down to slumbers which were often a mere phantasmagory of +those witching Pictures of Travel. + +I was awake at my father's call in the morning, and before my mother had +breakfast ready I had recited my lesson in Ollendorff to him. To tell +the truth, I hated those grammatical studies, and nothing but the love of +literature, and the hope of getting at it, could ever have made me go +through them. Naturally, I never got any scholarly use of the languages +I was worrying at, and though I could once write a passable literary +German, it has all gone from me now, except for the purposes of reading. +It cost me so much trouble, however, to dig the sense out of the grammar +and lexicon, as I went on with the authors I was impatient to read, that +I remember the words very well in all their forms and inflections, and I +have still what I think I may call a fair German vocabulary. + +The German of Heine, when once you are in the joke of his capricious +genius, is very simple, and in his poetry it is simple from the first, +so that he was, perhaps, the best author I could have fallen in with if I +wanted to go fast rather than far. I found this out later, when I +attempted other German authors without the glitter of his wit or the +lambent glow of his fancy to light me on my hard way. I should find it +hard to say just why his peculiar genius had such an absolute fascination +for me from the very first, and perhaps I had better content myself with +saying simply that my literary liberation began with almost the earliest +word from him; for if he chained me to himself he freed me from all other +bondage. I had been at infinite pains from time to time, now upon one +model and now upon another, to literarify myself, if I may make a word +which does not quite say the thing for me. What I mean is that I had +supposed, with the sense at times that I was all wrong, that the +expression of literature must be different from the expression of life; +that it must be an attitude, a pose, with something of state or at least +of formality in it; that it must be this style, and not that; that it +must be like that sort of acting which you know is acting when you see it +and never mistake for reality. There are a great many children, +apparently grown-up, and largely accepted as critical authorities, who +are still of this youthful opinion of mine. But Heine at once showed me +that this ideal of literature was false; that the life of literature was +from the springs of the best common speech and that the nearer it could +be made to conform, in voice, look and gait, to graceful, easy, +picturesque and humorous or impassioned talk, the better it was. + +He did not impart these truths without imparting certain tricks with +them, which I was careful to imitate as soon as I began to write in his +manner, that is to say instantly. His tricks he had mostly at second- +hand, and mainly from Sterne, whom I did not know well enough then to +know their origin. But in all essentials he was himself, and my final +lesson from him, or the final effect of all my lessons from him, was to +find myself, and to be for good or evil whatsoever I really was. + +I kept on writing as much like Heine as I could for several years, +though, and for a much longer time than I should have done if I had +ever become equally impassioned of any other author. + +Some traces of his method lingered so long in my work that nearly ten +years afterwards Mr. Lowell wrote me about something of mine that +he had been reading: "You must sweat the Heine out of your bones as +men do mercury," and his kindness for me would not be content with less +than the entire expulsion of the poison that had in its good time saved +my life. I dare say it was all well enough not to have it in my bones +after it had done its office, but it did do its office. + +It was in some prose sketch of mine that his keen analysis had found the +Heine, but the foreign property had been so prevalent in my earlier work +in verse that he kept the first contribution he accepted from me for the +Atlantic Monthly a long time, or long enough to make sure that it was not +a translation of Heine. Then he printed it, and I am bound to say that +the poem now justifies his doubt to me, in so much that I do not see why +Heine should not have had the name of writing it if he had wanted. His +potent spirit became immediately so wholly my "control," as the mediums +say, that my poems might as well have been communications from him so far +as any authority of my own was concerned; and they were quite like other +inspirations from the other world in being so inferior to the work of the +spirit before it had the misfortune to be disembodied and obliged to use +a medium. But I do not think that either Heine or I had much lasting +harm from it, and I am sure that the good, in my case at least, was one +that can only end with me. He undid my hands, which had taken so much +pains to tie behind my back, and he forever persuaded me that though it +may be ingenious and surprising to dance in chains, it is neither pretty +nor useful. + + + + +XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW + +Another author who was a prime favorite with me about this time was De +Quincey, whose books I took out of the State Library, one after another, +until I had read them all. We who were young people of that day thought +his style something wonderful, and so indeed it was, especially in those +passages, abundant everywhere in his work, relating to his own life with +an intimacy which was always-more rather than less. His rhetoric there, +and in certain of his historical studies, had a sort of luminous +richness, without losing its colloquial ease. I keenly enjoyed this +subtle spirit, and the play of that brilliant intelligence which lighted +up so many ways of literature with its lambent glow or its tricksy +glimmer, and I had a deep sympathy with certain morbid moods and +experiences so like my own, as I was pleased to fancy. I have not looked +at his Twelve Caesars for twice as many years, but I should be greatly +surprised to find it other than one of the greatest historical monographs +ever written. His literary criticisms seemed to me not only exquisitely +humorous, but perfectly sane and just; and it delighted me to have him +personally present, with the warmth of his own temperament in regions of +cold abstraction; I am not sure that I should like that so much now. De +Quincey was hardly less autobiographical when he wrote of Kant, or the +Flight of the Crim-Tartars, than when he wrote of his own boyhood or the +miseries of the opium habit. He had the hospitable gift of making you at +home with him, and appealing to your sense of comradery with something of +the flattering confidentiality of Thackeray, but with a wholly different +effect. + +In fact, although De Quincey was from time to time perfunctorily Tory, +and always a good and faithful British subject, he was so eliminated from +his time and place by his single love for books, that one could be in his +company through the whole vast range of his writings, and come away +without a touch of snobbishness; and that is saying a great deal for an +English writer. He was a great little creature, and through his intense +personality he achieved a sort of impersonality, so that you loved the +man, who was forever talking-of himself, for his modesty and reticence. +He left you feeling intimate with him but by no means familiar; with all +his frailties, and with all those freedoms he permitted himself with the +lives of his contemporaries, he is to me a figure of delicate dignity, +and winning kindness. I think it a misfortune for the present generation +that his books have fallen into a kind of neglect, and I believe that +they will emerge from it again to the advantage of literature. + +In spite of Heine and Tennyson, De Quincey had a large place in my +affections, though this was perhaps because he was not a poet; for more +than those two great poets there was then not much room. I read him the +first winter I was at Columbus, and when I went down from the village the +next winter, to take up my legislative correspondence again, I read him +more than ever. But that was destined to be for me a very disheartening +time. I had just passed through a rheumatic fever, which left my health +more broken than before, and one morning shortly after I was settled in +the capital, I woke to find the room going round me like a wheel. It was +the beginning of a vertigo which lasted for six months, and which I began +to fight with various devices and must yield to at last. I tried +medicine and exercise, but it was useless, and my father came to take my +letters off my hands while I gave myself some ineffectual respites. +I made a little journey to my old home in southern Ohio, but there and +everywhere, the sure and firm-set earth waved and billowed under my feet, +and I came back to Columbus and tried to forget in my work the fact that +I was no better. I did not give up trying to read, as usual, and part of +my endeavor that winter was with Schiller, and Uhland, and even Goethe, +whose 'Wahlverwandschaften,' hardly yielded up its mystery to me. To +tell the truth, I do not think that I found my account in that novel. +It must needs be a disappointment after Wilhelm Meister, which I had read +in English; but I dare say my disappointment was largely my own fault; +I had certainly no right to expect such constant proofs and instances of +wisdom in Goethe as the unwisdom of his critics had led me to hope for. +I remember little or nothing of the story, which I tried to find very +memorable, as I held my, sick way through it. Longfellow's "Miles +Standish" came out that winter, and I suspect that I got vastly more real +pleasure from that one poem of his than I found in all my German authors +put together, the adored Heine always excepted; though certainly I felt +the romantic beauty of 'Uhland,' and was aware of something of Schiller's +generous grandeur. + +Of the American writers Longfellow has been most a passion with me, as +the English, and German, and Spanish, and Russian writers have been. I +am sure that this was largely by mere chance. It was because I happened, +in such a frame and at such a time, to come upon his books that I loved +them above those of other men as great. I am perfectly sensible that +Lowell and Emerson outvalue many of the poets and prophets I have given +my heart to; I have read them with delight and with a deep sense of their +greatness, and yet they have not been my life like those other, those +lesser, men. But none of the passions are reasoned, and I do not try to +account for my literary preferences or to justify them. + +I dragged along through several months of that winter, and did my best to +carry out that notable scheme of not minding my vertigo. I tried doing +half-work, and helping my father with the correspondence, but when it +appeared that nothing would avail, he remained in charge of it, till the +close of the session, and I went home to try what a complete and +prolonged rest would do for me. I was not fit for work in the printing- +office, but that was a simpler matter than the literary work that was +always tempting me. I could get away from it only by taking my gun and +tramping day after day through the deep, primeval woods. The fatigue was +wholesome, and I was so bad a shot that no other creature suffered loss +from my gain except one hapless wild pigeon. The thawing snow left the +fallen beechnuts of the autumn before uncovered among the dead leaves, +and the forest was full of the beautiful birds. In most parts of the +middle West they are no longer seen, except in twos or threes, but once +they were like the sands of the sea for multitude. It was not now the +season when they hid half the heavens with their flight day after day; +but they were in myriads all through the woods, where their iridescent +breasts shone like a sudden untimely growth of flowers when you came upon +them from the front. When they rose in fright, it was like the upward +leap of fire, and with the roar of flame. I use images which, after all, +are false to the thing I wish to express; but they must serve. I tried +honestly enough to kill the pigeons, but I had no luck, or too much, till +I happened to bring down one of a pair that I found apart from the rest +in a softy tree-top. The poor creature I had widowed followed me to the +verge of the woods, as I started home with my prey, and I do not care to +know more personally the feelings of a murderer than I did then. I tried +to shoot the bird, but my aim was so bad that I could not do her this +mercy, and at last she flew away, and I saw her no more. + +The spring was now opening, and I was able to keep more and more with +Nature, who was kinder to me than I was to her other children, or wished +to be, and I got the better of my malady, which gradually left me for no +more reason apparently than it came upon me. But I was still far from +well, and I was in despair of my future. I began to read again-- +I suppose I had really never altogether stopped. I borrowed from my +friend the bookbinder a German novel, which had for me a message of +lasting cheer. It was the 'Afraja' of Theodore Mugge, a story of life in +Norway during the last century, and I remember it as a very lovely story +indeed, with honest studies of character among the Norwegians, and a +tender pathos in the fate of the little Lap heroine Gula, who was perhaps +sufficiently romanced. The hero was a young Dane, who was going up among +the fiords to seek his fortune in the northern fisheries; and by a +process inevitable in youth I became identified with him, so that I +adventured, and enjoyed, and suffered in his person throughout. There +was a supreme moment when he was sailing through the fiords, and finding +himself apparently locked in by their mountain walls without sign or hope +of escape, but somehow always escaping by some unimagined channel, and +keeping on. The lesson for him was one of trust and courage; and I, who +seemed to be then shut in upon a mountain-walled fiord without inlet or +outlet, took the lesson home and promised myself not to lose heart again. +It seems a little odd that this passage of a book, by no means of the +greatest, should have had such an effect with me at a time when I was no +longer so young as to be unduly impressed by what I read; but it is true +that I have never since found myself in circumstances where there seemed +to be no getting forward or going back, without a vision of that fiord +scenery, and then a rise of faith, that if I kept on I should, somehow, +come out of my prisoning environment. + + + + +XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE + +I got back health enough to be of use in the printing office that autumn, +and I was quietly at work there with no visible break in my surroundings +when suddenly the whole world opened to me through what had seemed an +impenetrable wall. The Republican newspaper at the capital had been +bought by a new management, and the editorial force reorganized upon a +footing of what we then thought metropolitan enterprise; and to my great +joy and astonishment I was asked to come and take a place in it. The +place offered me was not one of lordly distinction; in fact, it was +partly of the character of that I had already rejected in Cincinnati, +but I hoped that in the smaller city its duties would not be so odious; +and by the time I came to fill it, a change had taken place in the +arrangements so that I was given charge of the news department. This +included the literary notices and the book reviews, and I am afraid that +I at once gave my prime attention to these. + +It was an evening paper, and I had nearly as much time for reading and +study as I had at home. But now society began to claim a share of this +leisure, which I by no means begrudged it. Society was very charming in +Columbus then, with a pretty constant round of dances and suppers, and an +easy cordiality, which I dare say young people still find in it +everywhere. I met a great many cultivated people, chiefly young ladies, +and there were several houses where we young fellows went and came almost +as freely as if they were our own. There we had music and cards, and +talk about books, and life appeared to me richly worth living; if any one +had said this was not the best planet in the universe I should have +called him a pessimist, or at least thought him so, for we had not the +word in those days. A world in which all those pretty and gracious women +dwelt, among the figures of the waltz and the lancers, with chat between +about the last instalment of 'The Newcomes,' was good enough world for +me; I was only afraid it was too good. There were, of course, some girls +who did not read, but few openly professed indifference to literature, +and there was much lending of books back and forth, and much debate of +them. That was the day when 'Adam Bede' was a new book, and in this I +had my first knowledge of that great intellect for which I had no +passion, indeed, but always the deepest respect, the highest honor; and +which has from time to time profoundly influenced me by its ethics. + +I state these things simply and somewhat baldly; I might easily refine +upon them, and study that subtle effect for good and for evil which young +people are always receiving from the fiction they read; but this its not +the time or place for the inquiry, and I only wish to own that so far as +I understand it, the chief part of my ethical experience has been from +novels. The life and character I have found portrayed there have +appealed always to the consciousness of right and wrong implanted in me; +and from no one has this appeal been stronger than from George Eliot. +Her influence continued through many years, and I can question it now +only in the undue burden she seems to throw upon the individual, and her +failure to account largely enough for motive from the social environment. +There her work seems to me unphilosophical. + +It shares whatever error there is in its perspective with that of +Hawthorne, whose 'Marble Faun' was a new book at the same time that 'Adam +Bede' was new, and whose books now came into my life and gave it their +tinge. He was always dealing with the problem of evil, too, and I found +a more potent charm in his more artistic handling of it than I found in +George Eliot. Of course, I then preferred the region of pure romance +where he liked to place his action; but I did not find his instances the +less veritable because they shone out in + + "The light that never was on sea or land." + +I read the 'Marble Faun' first, and then the 'Scarlet Letter,' and then +the 'House of Seven Gables,' and then the 'Blithedale Romance;' but I +always liked best the last, which is more nearly a novel, and more +realistic than the others. They all moved me with a sort of effect such +as I had not felt before. They veers so far from time and place that, +although most of them related to our country and epoch, I could not +imagine anything approximate from them; and Hawthorne himself seemed a +remote and impalpable agency, rather than a person whom one might +actually meet, as not long afterward happened with me. I did not hold +the sort of fancied converse with him that I held with ether authors, +and I cannot pretend that I had the affection for him that attracted me +to them. But he held me by his potent spell, and for a time he dominated +me as completely as any author I have read. More truly than any other +American author he has been a passion with me, and lately I heard with a +kind of pang a young man saying that he did not believe I should find the +'Scarlet Letter' bear reading now. I did not assent to the possibility, +but the notion gave me a shiver of dismay. I thought how much that book +had been to me, how much all of Hawthorne's books had been, and to have +parted with my faith in their perfection would have been something I +would not willingly have risked doing. + +Of course there is always something fatally weak in the scheme of the +pure romance, which, after the color of the contemporary mood dies out of +it, leaves it in danger of tumbling into the dust of allegory; and +perhaps this inherent weakness was what that bold critic felt in the +'Scarlet Letter.' But none of Hawthorne's fables are without a profound +and distant reach into the recesses of nature and of being. He came back +from his researches with no solution of the question, with no message, +indeed, but the awful warning, "Be true, be true," which is the burden of +the Scarlet Letter; yet in all his books there is the hue of thoughts +that we think only in the presence of the mysteries of life and death. +It is not his fault that this is not intelligence, that it knots the brow +in sorer doubt rather than shapes the lips to utterance of the things +that can never be said. Some of his shorter stories I have found thin +and cold to my later reading, and I have never cared much for the 'House +of Seven Gables,' but the other day I was reading the 'Blithedale +Romance' again, and I found it as potent, as significant, as sadly and +strangely true as when it first enthralled my soul. + +In those days when I tried to kindle my heart at the cold altar of +Goethe, I did read a great deal of his prose and somewhat of his poetry, +but it was to be ten years yet before I should go faithfully through with +his Faust and come to know its power. For the present, I read 'Wilhelm +Meister' and the 'Wahlverwandschaften,' and worshipped him much at +second-hand through Heine. In the mean time I invested such Germans as +I met with the halo of their national poetry, and there was one lady of +whom I heard with awe that she had once known my Heine. When I came to +meet her, over a glass of the mild egg-nog which she served at her house +on Sunday nights, and she told me about Heine, and how he looked, and +some few things he said, I suffered an indescribable disappointment; and +if I could have been frank with myself I should have owned to a fear that +it might have been something like that, if I had myself met the poet in +the flesh, and tried to hold the intimate converse with him that I held +in the spirit. But I shut my heart to all such misgivings and went on +reading him much more than I read any other German author. I went on +writing him too, just as I went on reading and writing Tennyson. Heine +was always a personal interest with me, and every word of his made me +long to have had him say it to me, and tell me why he said it. In a poet +of alien race and language and religion I found a greater sympathy than I +have experienced with any other. Perhaps the Jews are still the chosen +people, but now they bear the message of humanity, while once they bore +the message of divinity. I knew the ugliness of Heine's nature: his +revengefulness, and malice, and cruelty, and treachery, and uncleanness; +and yet he was supremely charming among the poets I have read. The +tenderness I still feel for him is not a reasoned love, I must own; but, +as I am always asking, when was love ever reasoned? + +I had a room-mate that winter in Columbus who was already a contributor +to the Atlantic Monthly, and who read Browning as devotedly as I read +Heine. I will not say that he wrote him as constantly, but if that had +been so, I should not have cared. What I could not endure without pangs +of secret jealousy was that he should like Heine, too, and should read +him, though it was but an arm's-length in an English version. He had +found the origins of those tricks and turns of Heine's in 'Tristram +Shandy' and the 'Sentimental Journey;' and this galled me, as if he had +shown that some mistress of my soul had studied her graces from another +girl, and that it was not all her own hair that she wore. I hid my +rancor as well as I could, and took what revenge lay in my power by +insinuating that he might have a very different view if he read Heine in +the original. I also made haste to try my own fate with the Atlantic, +and I sent off to Mr. Lowell that poem which he kept so long in order to +make sure that Heine had not written it, as well as authorized it. + + + + +XXVII. CHARLES READE + +This was the winter when my friend Piatt and I made our first literary +venture together in those 'Poems of Two Friends;' which hardly passed the +circle of our amity; and it was altogether a time of high literary +exaltation with me. I walked the streets of the friendly little city by +day and by night with my head so full of rhymes and poetic phrases that +it seemed as if their buzzing might have been heard several yards away; +and I do not yet see quite how I contrived to keep their music out of my +newspaper paragraphs. Out of the newspaper I could not keep it, and from +time to time I broke into verse in its columns, to the great amusement of +the leading editor, who knew me for a young man with a very sharp tooth +for such self-betrayals in others. He wanted to print a burlesque review +he wrote of the 'Poems of Two Friends' in our paper, but I would not +suffer it. I must allow that it was very, funny, and that he was always +a generous friend, whose wounds would have been as faithful as any that +could have been dealt me then. He did not indeed care much for any +poetry but that of Shakespeare and the 'Ingoldsby Legends;' and when one +morning a State Senator came into the office with a volume of Tennyson, +and began to read, + + "The poet in a golden clime was born, + With golden stars above; + Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn + The love of love," + +he hitched his chair about, and started in on his leader for the day. + +He might have been more patient if he had known that this State Senator +was to be President Garfield. But who could know anything of the +tragical history that was so soon to follow that winter of 1859-60? +Not I; at least I listened rapt by the poet and the reader, and it seemed +to me as if the making and the reading of poetry were to go on forever, +and that was to be all there was of it. To be sure I had my hard little +journalistic misgivings that it was not quite the thing for a State +Senator to come round reading Tennyson at ten o'clock in the morning, and +I dare say I felt myself superior in my point of view, though I could not +resist the charm of the verse. I myself did not bring Tennyson to the +office at that time. I brought Thackeray, and I remember that one day +when I had read half an hour or so in the 'Book of Snobs,' the leading +editor said frankly, Well, now, he guessed we had had enough of that. +He apologized afterwards as if he were to blame, and not I, but I dare +say I was a nuisance with my different literary passions, and must have +made many of my acquaintances very tired of my favorite authors. I had +some consciousness of the fact, but I could not help it. + +I ought not to omit from the list of these favorites an author who was +then beginning to have his greatest vogue, and who somehow just missed of +being a very great one. We were all reading his jaunty, nervy, knowing +books, and some of us were questioning whether we ought not to set him +above Thackeray and Dickens and George Eliot, 'tulli quanti', so great +was the effect that Charles Reade had with our generation. He was a man +who stood at the parting of the ways between realism and romanticism, and +if he had been somewhat more of a man he might have been the master of a +great school of English realism; but, as it was, he remained content to +use the materials of realism and produce the effect of romanticism. He +saw that life itself infinitely outvalued anything that could be feigned +about it, but its richness seemed to corrupt him, and he had not the +clear, ethical conscience which forced George Eliot to be realistic when +probably her artistic prepossessions were romantic. + +As yet, however, there was no reasoning of the matter, and Charles Reade +was writing books of tremendous adventure and exaggerated character, +which he prided himself on deriving from the facts of the world around +him. He was intoxicated with the discovery he had made that the truth +was beyond invention, but he did not know what to do with the truth in +art after he had found it in life, and to this day the English mostly do +not. We young people were easily taken with his glittering error, and we +read him with much the same fury, that he wrote. 'Never Too Late to +Mend;' 'Love Me Little, Love Me Long;' 'Christie Johnstone;' 'Peg +Woffington;' and then, later, 'Hard Cash,' 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' +'Foul Play,' 'Put Yourself in His Place'--how much they all meant once, +or seemed to mean! + +The first of them, and the other poems and fictions I was reading, meant +more to me than the rumors of war that were then filling the air, and +that so soon became its awful actualities. To us who have our lives so +largely in books the material world is always the fable, and the ideal +the fact. I walked with my feet on the ground, but my head was in the +clouds, as light as any of them. I neither praise nor blame this fact; +but I feel bound to own it, for that time, and for every time in my life, +since the witchery of literature began with me. + +Those two happy winters in Columbus, when I was finding opportunity and +recognition, were the heydey of life for me. There has been no time like +them since, though there have been smiling and prosperous times a plenty; +for then I was in the blossom of my youth, and what I had not I could +hope for without unreason, for I had so much of that which I had most +desired. Those times passed, and there came other times, long years of +abeyance, and waiting, and defeat, which I thought would never end, but +they passed, too. + +I got my appointment of Consul to Venice, and I went home to wait for my +passport and to spend the last days, so full of civic trouble, before I +should set out for my post. If I hoped to serve my country there and +sweep the Confederate cruisers from the Adriatic, I am afraid my prime +intent was to add to her literature and to my own credit. I intended, +while keeping a sleepless eye out for privateers, to write poems. +concerning American life which should eclipse anything yet done in that +kind, and in the mean time I read voraciously and perpetually, to make +the days go swiftly which I should have been so glad to have linger. In +this month I devoured all the 'Waverley novels,' but I must have been +devouring a great many others, for Charles Reade's 'Christie Johnstone' +is associated with the last moment of the last days. + +A few months ago I was at the old home, and I read that book again, +after not looking at it for more than thirty years; and I read it with +amazement at its prevailing artistic vulgarity, its prevailing aesthetic +error shot here and there with gleams of light, and of the truth that +Reade himself was always dimly groping for. The book is written +throughout on the verge of realism, with divinations and conjectures +across its border, and with lapses into the fool's paradise of +romanticism, and an apparent content with its inanity and impossibility. +But then it was brilliantly new and surprising; it seemed to be the last +word that could be said for the truth in fiction; and it had a spell that +held us like an anesthetic above the ache of parting, and the anxiety for +the years that must pass, with all their redoubled chances, before our +home circle could be made whole again. I read on, and the rest listened, +till the wheels of the old stage made themselves heard in their approach +through the absolute silence of the village street. Then we shut the +book and all went down to the gate together, and parted under the pale +sky of the October night. There was one of the home group whom I was not +to see again: the young brother who died in the blossom of his years +before I returned from my far and strange sojourn. He was too young then +to share our reading of the novel, but when I ran up to his room to bid +him good-by I found him awake, and, with aching hearts, we bade each +other good-by forever! + + + + +XXVIII. DANTE + +I ran through an Italian grammar on my way across the Atlantic, and from +my knowledge of Latin, Spanish, and French, I soon had a reading +acquaintance with the language. I had really wanted to go to Germany, +that I might carry forward my studies in German literature, and I first +applied for the consulate at Munich. The powers at Washington thought it +quite the same thing to offer me Rome; but I found that the income of the +Roman consulate would not give me a living, and I was forced to decline +it. Then the President's private secretaries, Mr. John Nicolay and Mr. +John Hay, who did not know me except as a young Westerner who had written +poems in the Atlantic Monthly, asked me how I would like Venice, and +promised that they would have the salary put up to a thousand a year, +under the new law to embarrass privateers. It was really put up to +fifteen hundred, and with this income assured me I went out to the city +whose influence changed the whole course of my literary life. + +No privateers ever came, though I once had notice from Turin that the +Florida had been sighted off Ancona; and I had nearly four years of +nearly uninterrupted leisure at Venice, which I meant to employ in +reading all Italian literature, and writing a history of the republic. +The history, of course, I expected would be a long affair, and I did not +quite suppose that I could despatch the literature in any short time; +besides, I had several considerable poems on hand that occupied me a good +deal, and worked at these as well as advanced myself in Italian, +preparatory to the efforts before me. + +I had already a slight general notion of Italian letters from Leigh Hunt, +and from other agreeable English Italianates; and I knew that I wanted to +read not only the four great poets, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, +but that whole group of burlesque poets, Pulci, Berni, and the rest, who, +from what I knew of them, I thought would be even more to my mind. As a +matter of fact, and in the process of time, I did read somewhat of all +these, but rather in the minor than the major way; and I soon went off +from them to the study of the modern poets, novelists, and playwrights +who interested me so much more. After my wonted fashion I read half a +dozen of these authors together, so that it would be hard to say which I +began with, but I had really a devotion to Dante, though not at that +time, or ever for the whole of Dante. During my first year in Venice I +met an ingenious priest, who had been a tutor in a patrician family, and +who was willing to lead my faltering steps through the "Inferno." This +part of the "Divine Comedy" I read with a beginner's carefulness, and +with a rapture in its beauties, which I will whisper the reader do not +appear in every line. + +Again I say it is a great pity that criticism is not honest about the +masterpieces of literature, and does not confess that they are not every +moment masterly, that they are often dull and tough and dry, as is +certainly the case with Dante's. Some day, perhaps, we shall have this +way of treating literature, and then the lover of it will not feel +obliged to browbeat himself into the belief that if he is not always +enjoying himself it is his own fault. At any rate I will permit myself +the luxury of frankly saying that while I had a deep sense of the majesty +and grandeur of Dante's design, many points of its execution bored me, +and that I found the intermixture of small local fact and neighborhood +history in the fabric of his lofty creation no part of its noblest +effect. What is marvellous in it is its expression of Dante's +personality, and I can never think that his personalities enhance its +greatness as a work of art. I enjoyed them, however, and I enjoyed them +the more, as the innumerable perspectives of Italian history began to +open all about me. Then, indeed, I understood the origins if I did not +understand the aims of Dante, which there is still much dispute about +among those who profess to know them clearly. What I finally perceived +was that his poem came through him from the heart of Italian life, such +as it was in his time, and that whatever it teaches, his poem expresses +that life, in all its splendor and squalor, its beauty and deformity, its +love and its hate. + +Criticism may torment this sense or that sense out of it, but at the end +of the ends the " Divine Comedy " will stand for the patriotism of +medieval Italy, as far as its ethics is concerned, and for a profound and +lofty ideal of beauty, as far as its aesthetics is concerned. This is +vague enough and slight enough, I must confess, but I must confess also +that I had not even a conception of so much when I first read the +"Inferno." I went at it very simply, and my enjoyment of it was that +sort which finds its account in the fine passages, the brilliant +episodes, the striking pictures. This was the effect with me of all the +criticism which I had hitherto read, and I am not sure yet that the +criticism which tries to be of a larger scope, and to see things "whole," +is of any definite effect. As a matter of fact we see nothing whole, +neither life nor art. We are so made, in soul and in sense, that we can +deal only with parts, with points, with degrees; and the endeavor to +compass any entirety must involve a discomfort and a danger very +threatening to our intellectual integrity. + +Or if this postulate is as untenable as all the others, still I am very +glad that I did not then lose any fact of the majesty, and beauty, and +pathos of the great certain measures for the sake of that fourth +dimension of the poem which is not yet made palpable or visible. I took +my sad heart's fill of the sad story of "Paolo and Francesca," which I +already knew in Leigh Hunt's adorable dilution, and most of the lines +read themselves into my memory, where they linger yet. I supped on the +horrors of Ugolino's fate with the strong gust of youth, which finds +every, exercise of sympathy a pleasure. My good priest sat beside me in +these rich moments, knotting in his lap the calico handkerchief of the +snuff-taker, and entering with tremulous eagerness into my joy in things +that he had often before enjoyed. No doubt he had an inexhaustible +pleasure in them apart from mine, for I have found my pleasure in them +perennial, and have not failed to taste it as often as I have read or +repeated any of the great passages of the poem to myself. This pleasure +came often from some vital phrase, or merely the inspired music of a +phrase quite apart from its meaning. I did not get then, and I have not +got since, a distinct conception of the journey through Hell, and as +often as I have tried to understand the topography of the poem I have +fatigued myself to no purpose, but I do not think the essential meaning +was lost upon me. + +I dare say my priest had his notion of the general shape and purport, +the gross material body of the thing, but he did not trouble me with it, +while we sat tranced together in the presence of its soul. He seemed, +at times, so lost in the beatific vision, that he forgot my stumblings in +the philological darkness, till I appealed to him for help. Then he +would read aloud with that magnificent rhythm the Italians have in +reading their verse, and the obscured meaning would seem to shine out of +the mere music of the poem, like the color the blind feel in sound. + +I do not know what has become of him, but if he is like the rest of the +strange group of my guides, philosophers, and friends in literature--the +printer, the organ-builder, the machinist, the drug-clerk, and the +bookbinder--I am afraid he is dead. In fact, I who was then I, might be +said to be dead too, so little is my past self like my present self in +anything but the "increasing purpose" which has kept me one in my love of +literature. He was a gentle and kindly man, with a life and a longing, +quite apart from his vocation, which were never lived or fulfilled. +I did not see him after he ceased to read Dante with me, and in fact I +was instructed by the suspicions of my Italian friends to be careful how +I consorted with a priest, who might very well be an Austrian spy. +I parted with him for no such picturesque reason, for I never believed +him other than the truest and faithfulest of friends, but because I was +then giving myself more entirely to work in which he could not help me. + +Naturally enough this was a long poem in the terza rima of the "Divina +Commedia," and dealing with a story of our civil war in a fashion so +remote that no editor would print it. This was the first fruits and the +last of my reading of Dante, in verse, and it was not so like Dante as I +would have liked to make it; but Dante is not easy to imitate; he is too +unconscious, and too single, too bent upon saying the thing that is in +him, with whatever beauty inheres in it, to put on the graces that others +may catch. + + + + +XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D'AZEGLIO + +However, this poem only shared the fate of nearly, all the others that I +wrote at this time; they came back to me with unfailing regularity from +all the magazine editors of the English-speaking world; I had no success +with any of them till I sent Mr. Lowell a paper on recent Italian comedy +for the North American Review, which he and Professor Norton had then +begun to edit. I was in the mean time printing the material of Venetian +Life and the Italian Journeys in a Boston newspaper after its rejection +by the magazines; and my literary life, almost without my willing it, had +taken the course of critical observance of books and men in their +actuality. + +That is to say, I was studying manners, in the elder sense of the word, +wherever I could get at them in the frank life of the people about me, +and in such literature of Italy as was then modern. In this pursuit I +made a discovery that greatly interested me, and that specialized my +inquiries. I found that the Italians had no novels which treated of +their contemporary life; that they had no modern fiction but the +historical romance. I found that if I wished to know their life from +their literature I must go to their drama, which was even then +endeavoring to give their, stage a faithful picture of their +civilization. There was even then in the new circumstance of a people +just liberated from every variety of intellectual repression and +political oppression, a group of dramatic authors, whose plays were not +only delightful to see but delightful to read, working in the good +tradition of one of the greatest realists who has ever lived, and +producing a drama of vital strength and charm. One of them, whom I by no +means thought the best, has given us a play, known to all the world, +which I am almost ready to think with Zola is the greatest play of modern +times; or if it is not so, I should be puzzled to name the modern drama +that surpasses "La Morte Civile" of Paolo Giacometti. I learned to know +all the dramatists pretty well, in the whole range of their work, on the +stage and in the closet, and I learned to know still better, and to love +supremely, the fine, amiable genius whom, as one of them said, they did +not so much imitate as learn from to imitate nature. + +This was Carlo Goldoni, one of the first of the realists, but antedating +conscious realism so long as to have been born at Venice early in the +eighteenth century, and to have come to his hand-to-hand fight with the +romanticism of his day almost before that century had reached its noon. +In the early sixties of our own century I was no more conscious of his +realism than he was himself a hundred years before; but I had eyes in my +head, and I saw that what he had seen in Venice so long before was so +true that it was the very life of Venice in my own day; and because I +have loved the truth in art above all other things, I fell instantly and +lastingly in love with Carlo Goldoni. I was reading his memoirs, and +learning to know his sweet, honest, simple nature while I was learning to +know his work, and I wish that every one who reads his plays would read +his life as well; one must know him before one can fully know them. I +believe, in fact, that his autobiography came into my hands first. But, +at any rate, both are associated with the fervors and languors of that +first summer in Venice, so that I cannot now take up a book of Goldoni's +without a renewed sense of that sunlight and moonlight, and of the sounds +and silences of a city that is at once the stillest and shrillest in the +world. + +Perhaps because I never found his work of great ethical or aesthetical +proportions, but recognized that it pretended to be good only within its +strict limitations, I recur to it now without that painful feeling of a +diminished grandeur in it, which attends us so often when we go back to +something that once greatly pleased us. It seemed to me at the time that +I must have read all his comedies in Venice, but I kept reading new ones +after I came home, and still I can take a volume of his from the shelf, +and when thirty years are past, find a play or two that I missed before. +Their number is very great, but perhaps those that I fancy I have not +read, I have really read once or more and forgotten. That might very +easily be, for there is seldom anything more poignant in any one of them +than there is in the average course of things. The plays are light and +amusing transcripts from life, for the most part, and where at times they +deepen into powerful situations, or express strong emotions, they do so +with persons so little different from the average of our acquaintance +that we do not remember just who the persons are. + +There is no doubt but the kindly playwright had his conscience, and meant +to make people think as well as laugh. I know of none of his plays that +is of wrong effect, or that violates the instincts of purity, or insults +common sense with the romantic pretence that wrong will be right if you +will only paint it rose-color. He is at some obvious pains to "punish +vice and reward virtue," but I do not mean that easy morality when I +praise his; I mean the more difficult sort that recognizes in each man's +soul the arbiter not of his fate surely, but surely of his peace. He +never makes a fool of the spectator by feigning that passion is a reason +or justification, or that suffering of one kind can atone for wrong of +another. That was left for the romanticists of our own century to +discover; even the romanticists whom Goldoni drove from the stage, were +of that simpler eighteenth-century sort who had not yet liberated the +individual from society, but held him accountable in the old way. As for +Goldoni himself, he apparently never dreams of transgression; he is of +rather an explicit conventionality in most things, and he deals with +society as something finally settled. How artfully he deals with it, +how decently, how wholesomely, those who know ,Venetian society of the +eighteenth century historically, will perceive when they recall the +adequate impression he gives of it without offence in character or +language or situation. This is the perpetual miracle of his comedy, +that it says so much to experience and worldly wisdom, and so little to +inexperience and worldly innocence. No doubt the Serenest Republic was +very strict with the theatre, and suffered it to hold the mirror up to +nature only when nature was behaving well, or at least behaving as if +young people were present. Yet the Italians are rather plain-spoken, and +they recognize facts which our company manners at least do not admit the +existence of. I should say that Goldoni was almost English, almost +American, indeed, in his observance of the proprieties, and I like this +in him; though the proprieties are not virtues, they are very good +things, and at least are better than the improprieties. + +This, however, I must own, had not a great deal to do with my liking him +so much, and I should be puzzled to account for my passion, as much in +his case as in most others. If there was any reason for it, perhaps it +was that he had the power of taking me out of my life, and putting me +into the lives of others, whom I felt to be human beings as much as +myself. To make one live in others, this is the highest effect of +religion as well as of art, and possibly it will be the highest bliss we +shall ever know. I do not pretend that my translation was through my +unselfishness; it was distinctly through that selfishness which perceives +that self is misery; and I may as well confess here that I do not regard +the artistic ecstasy as in any sort noble. It is not noble to love the +beautiful, or to live for it, or by it; and it may even not be refining. +I would not have any reader of mine, looking forward to some aesthetic +career, suppose that this love is any merit in itself; it may be the +grossest egotism. If you cannot look beyond the end you aim at, and seek +the good which is not your own, all your sacrifice is to yourself and not +of yourself, and you might as well be going into business. In itself and +for itself it is no more honorable to win fame than to make money, and +the wish to do the one is no more elevating than the wish to do the +other. + +But in the days I write of I had no conception of this, and I am sure +that my blindness to so plain a fact kept me even from seeking and +knowing the highest beauty in the things I worshipped. I believe that if +I had been sensible of it I should hays read much more of such humane +Italian poets and novelists as Manzoni and D'Azeglio, whom I perceived to +be delightful, without dreaming of them in the length and breadth of +their goodness. Now and then its extent flashed upon me, but the glimpse +was lost to my retroverted vision almost as soon as won. It is only in +thinking back to there that I can realize how much they might always have +meant to me. They were both living in my time in Italy, and they were +two men whom I should now like very much to have seen, if I could have +done so without that futility which seems to attend every effort to pay +one's duty to such men. + +The love of country in all the Italian poets and romancers of the long +period of the national resurrection ennobled their art in a measure which +criticism has not yet taken account of. I conceived of its effect then, +but I conceived of it as a misfortune, a fatality; now I am by no means +sure that it was so; hereafter the creation of beauty, as we call it, for +beauty's sake, may be considered something monstrous. There is forever a +poignant meaning in life beyond what mere living involves, and why should +not there be this reference in art to the ends beyond art? +The situation, the long patience, the hope against hope, dignified and +beautified the nature of the Italian writers of that day, and evoked from +them a quality which I was too little trained in their school to +appreciate. But in a sort I did feel it, I did know it in them all, so +far as I knew any of them, and in the tragedies of Manzoni, and in the +romances of D'Azeglio, and yet more in the simple and modest records of +D'Azeglio's life published after his death, I profited by it, and +unconsciously prepared myself for that point of view whence all the arts +appear one with all the uses, and there is nothing beautiful that is +false. + +I am very glad of that experience of Italian literature, which I look +back upon as altogether wholesome and sanative, after my excesses of +Heine. No doubt it was all a minor affair as compared with equal +knowledge of French literature, and so far it was a loss of time. It is +idle to dispute the general positions of criticism, and there is no +useful gainsaying its judgment that French literature is a major +literature and Italian a minor literature in this century; but whether +this verdict will stand for all time, there may be a reasonable doubt. +Criterions may change, and hereafter people may look at the whole affair +so differently that a literature which went to the making of a people +will not be accounted a minor literature, but will take its place with +the great literary movements. + +I do not insist upon this possibility, and I am far from defending myself +for liking the comedies of Goldoni better than the comedies of Moliere, +upon purely aesthetic grounds, where there is no question as to the +artistic quality. Perhaps it is because I came to Moliere's comedies +later, and with my taste formed for those of Goldoni; but again, it is +here a matter of affection; I find Goldoni for me more sympathetic, and +because he is more sympathetic I cannot do otherwise than find him more +natural, more true. I will allow that this is vulnerable, and as I say, +I do not defend it. Moliere has a place in literature infinitely loftier +than Goldoni's; and he has supplied types, characters, phrases, to the +currency of thought, and Goldoni has supplied none. It is, therefore, +without reason which I can allege that I enjoy Goldoni more. I am +perfectly willing to be rated low for my preference, and yet I think that +if it had been Goldoni's luck to have had the great age of a mighty +monarchy for his scene, instead of the decline of an outworn republic, +his place in literature might have been different. + + + + +XXX. "PASTOR FIDO," "AMINTA," "ROMOLA," "YEAST," "PAUL FERROLL" + +I have always had a great love for the absolutely unreal, the purely +fanciful in all the arts, as well as of the absolutely real; I like the +one on a far lower plane than the other, but it delights me, as a +pantomime at a theatre does, or a comic opera, which has its being wholly +outside the realm of the probabilities. When I once transport myself to +this sphere I have no longer any care for them, and if I could I would +not exact of them an allegiance which has no concern with them. For this +reason I have always vastly enjoyed the artificialities of pastoral +poetry; and in Venice I read with a pleasure few serious poems have given +me the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini. I came later but not with fainter zest +to the "Aminta" of Tasso, without which, perhaps, the "Pastor Fido" would +not have been, and I revelled in the pretty impossibilities of both these +charming effects of the liberated imagination. + +I do not the least condemn that sort of thing; one does not live by +sweets, unless one is willing to spoil one's digestion; but one may now +and then indulge one's self without harm, and a sugar-plum or two after +dinner may even be of advantage. What I object to is the romantic thing +which asks to be accepted with all its fantasticality on the ground of +reality; that seems to me hopelessly bad. But I have been able to dwell +in their charming out-land or no-land with the shepherds and +shepherdesses and nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, of Tasso and Guarini, and I +take the finest pleasure in their company, their Dresden china loves and +sorrows, their airy raptures, their painless throes, their polite +anguish, their tears not the least salt, but flowing as sweet as the +purling streams of their enamelled meadows. I wish there were more of +that sort of writing; I should like very much to read it. + +The greater part of my reading in Venice, when I began to find that I +could not help writing about the place, was in books relating to its life +and history, which I made use of rather than found pleasure in. My +studies in Italian literature were full of the most charming interest, +and if I had to read a good many books for conscience' sake, there were a +good many others I read for their own sake. They were chiefly poetry; +and after the first essays in which I tasted the classic poets, they were +chiefly the books of the modern poets. + +For the present I went no farther in German literature, and I recurred to +it in later years only for deeper and fuller knowledge of Heine; my +Spanish was ignored, as all first loves are when one has reached the age +of twenty-six. My English reading was almost wholly in the Tauchnitz +editions, for otherwise English books were not easily come at then and +there. George Eliot's 'Romola' was then new, and I read it again and +again with the sense of moral enlargement which the first fiction to +conceive of the true nature of evil gave all of us who were young in that +day. Tito Malema was not only a lesson, he was a revelation, and I +trembled before him as in the presence of a warning and a message from +the only veritable perdition. His life, in which so much that was good +was mixed, with so much that was bad, lighted up the whole domain of +egotism with its glare, and made one feel how near the best and the worst +were to each other, and how they sometimes touched without absolute +division in texture and color. The book was undoubtedly a favorite of +mine, and I did not see then the artistic falterings in it which were +afterwards evident to me. + +There were not Romolas to read all the time, though, and I had to devolve +upon inferior authors for my fiction the greater part of the time. Of +course, I kept up with 'Our Mutual Friend,' which Dickens was then +writing, and with 'Philip,' which was to be the last of Thackeray. I was +not yet sufficiently instructed to appreciate Trollope, and I did not +read him at all. + +I got hold of Kingsley, and read 'Yeast,' and I think some other novels +of his, with great relish, and without sensibility to his Charles +Readeish lapses from his art into the material of his art. But of all +the minor fiction that I read at this time none impressed me so much as +three books which had then already had their vogue, and which I knew +somewhat from reviews. They were Paul Ferroll, 'Why Paul Ferroll Killed +His Wife,' and 'Day after Day.' The first two were, of course, related +to each other, and they were all three full of unwholesome force. As to +their aesthetic merit I will not say anything, for I have not looked at +either of the books for thirty years. I fancy, however, that their +strength was rather of the tetanic than the titanic sort. They made your +sympathies go with the hero, who deliberately puts his wife to death for +the lie she told to break off his marriage with the woman he had loved, +and who then marries this tender and gentle girl, and lives in great +happiness with her till her death. Murder in the first degree is +flattered by his fate up to the point of letting him die peacefully in +Boston after these dealings of his in England; and altogether his story +could not be commended to people with a morbid taste for bloodshed. +Naturally enough the books were written by a perfectly good woman, the +wife of an English clergyman, whose friends were greatly scandalized by +them. As a sort of atonement she wrote 'Day after Day,' the story of a +dismal and joyless orphan, who dies to the sound of angelic music, faint +and farheard, filling the whole chamber. A carefuller study of the +phenomenon reveals the fact that the seraphic strains are produced by the +steam escaping from the hot-water bottles at the feet of the invalid. + +As usual, I am not able fully to account for my liking of these books, +and I am so far from wishing to justify it that I think I ought rather to +excuse it. But since I was really greatly fascinated with them, and read +them with an evergrowing fascination, the only honest thing to do is to +own my subjection to them. It would be an interesting and important +question for criticism to study, that question why certain books at a. +certain time greatly dominate our fancy, and others manifestly better +have no influence with us. A curious proof of the subtlety of these Paul +Ferroll books in the appeal they made to the imagination is the fact that +I came to them fresh from 'Romolo,' and full of horror for myself in +Tito; yet I sympathized throughout with Paul Ferroll, and was glad when +he got away. + + + + +XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON + +On my return to America, my literary life immediately took such form that +most of my reading was done for review. I wrote at first a good many of +the lighter criticisms in 'The Nation', at New York, and after I went to +Boston to become the assistant editor of the 'Atlantic Monthly' I wrote +the literary notices in that periodical for four or five years. + +It was only when I came into full charge of the magazine that I began to +share these labors with others, and I continued them in some measure as +long as I had any relation to it. My reading for reading's sake, as I +had hitherto done it, was at an end, and I read primarily for the sake of +writing about the book in hand, and secondarily for the pleasure it might +give me. This was always considerable, and sometimes so great that I +forgot the critic in it, and read on and on for pleasure. I was master +to review this book or that as I chose, and generally I reviewed only +books I liked to read, though sometimes I felt that I ought to do a book, +and did it from a sense of duty; these perfunctory criticisms I do not +think were very useful, but I tried to make them honest. + +In a long sickness, which I had shortly after I went to live in +Cambridge, a friend brought me several of the stories of Erckmann- +Chatrian, whom people were then reading much more than they are now, I +believe; and I had a great joy in them, which I have renewed since as +often as I have read one of their books. They have much the same quality +of simple and sincerely moralized realism that I found afterwards in the +work of the early Swiss realist, Jeremias Gotthelf, and very likely it +was this that captivated my judgment. As for my affections, battered and +exhausted as they ought to have been in many literary passions, they +never went out with fresher enjoyment than they did to the charming story +of 'L'Ami Fritz,' which, when I merely name it, breathes the spring sun +and air about me, and fills my senses with the beauty and sweetness of +cherry blossoms. It is one of the loveliest and kindest books that ever +was written, and my heart belongs to it still; to be sure it belongs to +several hundreds of other books in equal entirety. + +It belongs to all the books of the great Norwegian Bjorstjerne Bjornson, +whose 'Arne,' and whose 'Happy Boy,' and whose 'Fisher Maiden' I read in +this same fortunate sickness. I have since read every other book of his +that I could lay hands on: 'Sinnove Solbakken,' and 'Magnhild,' and +'Captain Manzanca,' and 'Dust,' and 'In God's Ways,' and 'Sigurd,' and +plays like "The Glove" and "The Bankrupt." He has never, as some authors +have, dwindled in my sense; when I open his page, there I find him as +large, and free, and bold as ever. He is a great talent, a clear +conscience, a beautiful art. He has my love not only because he is a +poet of the most exquisite verity, but because he is a lover of men, +with a faith in them such as can move mountains of ignorance, +and dulness, and greed. He is next to Tolstoy in his willingness to give +himself for his kind; if he would rather give himself in fighting than in +suffering wrong, I do not know that his self-sacrifice is less in degree. + +I confess, however, that I do not think of him as a patriot and a +socialist when I read him; he is then purely a poet, whose gift holds me +rapt above the world where I have left my troublesome and wearisome self +for the time. I do not know of any novels that a young endeavorer in +fiction could more profitably read than his for their large and simple +method, their trust of the reader's intelligence, their sympathy with +life. With him the problems are all soluble by the enlightened and +regenerate will; there is no baffling Fate, but a helping God. In +Bjornson there is nothing of Ibsen's scornful despair, nothing of his +anarchistic contempt, but his art is full of the warmth and color of a +poetic soul, with no touch of the icy cynicism which freezes you in the +other. I have felt the cold fascination of Ibsen, too, and I should be +far from denying his mighty mastery, but he has never possessed me with +the delight that Bjornson has. + +In those days I read not only all the new books, but I made many forays +into the past, and came back now and then with rich spoil, though I +confess that for the most part I had my trouble for my pains; and I wish +now that I had given the time I spent on the English classics to +contemporary literature, which I have not the least hesitation in saying +I like vastly better. In fact, I believe that the preference for the +literature of the past, except in the case of the greatest masters, is +mainly the affectation of people who cannot otherwise distinguish +themselves from the herd, and who wish very much to do so. + +There is much to be learned from the minor novelists and poets of the +past about people's ways of thinking and feeling, but not much that the +masters do not give you in better quality and fuller measure; and I +should say, Read the old masters and let their schools go, rather than +neglect any possible master of your own time. Above all, I would not +have any one read an old author merely that he might not be ignorant of +him; that is most beggarly, and no good can come of it. When literature +becomes a duty it ceases to be a passion, and all the schoolmastering in +the world, solemnly addressed to the conscience, cannot make the fact +otherwise. It is well to read for the sake of knowing a certain ground +if you are to make use of your knowledge in a certain way, but it would +be a mistake to suppose that this is a love of literature. + + + + +XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH + +In those years at Cambridge my most notable literary experience without +doubt was the knowledge of Tourguenief's novels, which began to be +recognized in all their greatness about the middle seventies. I think +they made their way with such of our public as were able to appreciate +them before they were accepted in England; but that does not matter. It +is enough for the present purpose that 'Smoke,' and 'Lisa,' and 'On the +Eve,' and 'Dimitri Roudine,' and 'Spring Floods,' passed one after +another through my hands, and that I formed for their author one of the +profoundest literary passions of my life. + +I now think that there is a finer and truer method than his, but in its +way, Tourguenief's method is as far as art can go. That is to say, his +fiction is to the last degree dramatic. The persons are sparely +described, and briefly accounted for, and then they are left to transact +their affair, whatever it is, with the least possible comment or +explanation from the author. The effect flows naturally from their +characters, and when they have done or said a thing you conjecture why as +unerringly as you would if they were people whom you knew outside of a +book. I had already conceived of the possibility of this from Bjornson, +who practises the same method, but I was still too sunken in the gross +darkness of English fiction to rise to a full consciousness of its +excellence. When I remembered the deliberate and impertinent moralizing +of Thackeray, the clumsy exegesis of George Eliot, the knowing nods and +winks of Charles Reade, the stage-carpentering and limelighting of +Dickens, even the fine and important analysis of Hawthorne, it was with a +joyful astonishment that I realized the great art of Tourguenief. + +Here was a master who was apparently not trying to work out a plot, who +was not even trying to work out a character, but was standing aside from +the whole affair, and letting the characters work the plot out. The +method was revealed perfectly in 'Smoke,' but each successive book of his +that I read was a fresh proof of its truth, a revelation of its +transcendent superiority. I think now that I exaggerated its value +somewhat; but this was inevitable in the first surprise. The sane +aesthetics of the first Russian author I read, however, have seemed more +and more an essential part of the sane ethics of all the Russians I have +read. It was not only that Tourguenief had painted life truly, but that +he had painted it conscientiously. + +Tourguenief was of that great race which has more than any other fully +and freely uttered human nature, without either false pride or false +shame in its nakedness. His themes were oftenest those of the French +novelist, but how far he was from handling them in the French manner and +with the French spirit! In his hands sin suffered no dramatic +punishment; it did not always show itself as unhappiness, in the personal +sense, but it was always unrest, and without the hope of peace. If the +end did not appear, the fact that it must be miserable always appeared. +Life showed itself to me in different colors after I had once read +Tourguenief ; it became more serious, more awful, and with mystical +responsibilities I had not known before. My gay American horizons were +bathed in the vast melancholy of the Slav, patient, agnostic, trustful. +At the same time nature revealed herself to me through him with an +intimacy she had not hitherto shown me. There are passages in this +wonderful writer alive with a truth that seems drawn from the reader's +own knowledge; who else but Tourguenief and one's own most secret self +ever felt all the rich, sad meaning of the night air drawing in at the +open window, of the fires burning in the darkness on the distant fields? +I try in vain to give some notion of the subtle sympathy with nature +which scarcely put itself into words with him. As for the people of his +fiction, though they were of orders and civilizations so remote from my +experience, they were of the eternal human types whose origin and +potentialities every one may find in his own heart, and I felt their +verity in every touch. + +I cannot describe the satisfaction his work gave me; I can only impart +some sense of it, perhaps, by saying that it was like a happiness I had +been waiting for all my life, and now that it had come, I was richly +content forever. I do not mean to say that the art of Tourguenief +surpasses the art of Bjornson; I think Bjornson is quite as fine and +true. But the Norwegian deals with simple and primitive circumstances +for the most part, and always with a small world; and the Russian has to +do with human nature inside of its conventional shells, and his scene is +often as large as Europe. Even when it is as remote as Norway, it is +still related to the great capitals by the history if not the actuality +of the characters. Most of Tourguenief's books I have read many times +over, all of them I have read more than twice. For a number of years I +read them again and again without much caring for other fiction. It was +only the other day that I read Smoke through once more, with no +diminished sense of its truth, but with somewhat less than my first +satisfaction in its art. Perhaps this was because I had reached the +point through my acquaintance with Tolstoy where I was impatient even of +the artifice that hid itself. In 'Smoke' I was now aware of an artifice +that kept out of sight, but was still always present somewhere, invisibly +operating the story. + +I must not fail to own the great pleasure that I have had in some of the +stories of Auerbach. It is true that I have never cared greatly for 'On +the Heights,' which in its dealing with royalties seems too far aloof +from the ordinary human life, and which on the moral side finally fades +out into a German mistiness. But I speak of it with the imperfect +knowledge of one who was never able to read it quite through, and I have +really no right to speak of it. The book of his that pleased me most was +'Edelweiss,' which, though the story was somewhat too catastrophical, +seemed to me admirably good and true. I still think it very delicately +done, and with a deep insight; but there is something in all Auerbach's +work which in the retrospect affects me as if it dealt with pigmies. + + + + + +XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES + +I have always loved history, whether in the annals of peoples or in the +lives of persons, and I have at all times read it. I am not sure but I +rather prefer it to fiction, though I am aware that in looking back over +this record of my literary passions I must seem to have cared for very +little besides fiction. I read at the time I have just been speaking of, +nearly all the new poetry as it came out, and I constantly recurred to it +in its mossier sources, where it sprang from the green English ground, or +trickled from the antique urns of Italy. + +I do not think that I have ever cared much for metaphysics, or to read +much in that way, but from time to time I have done something of it. + +Travels, of course, I have read as part of the great human story, and +autobiography has at times appeared to me the most delightful reading in +the world; I have a taste in it that rejects nothing, though I have never +enjoyed any autobiographies so much as those of such Italians as have +reasoned of themselves. + +I suppose I have not been a great reader of the drama, and I do not know +that I have ever greatly relished any plays but those of Shakespeare and +Goldoni, and two or three of Beaumont and Fletcher, and one or so of +Marlow's, and all of Ibsen's and Maeterlinck's. The taste for the old +English dramatists I believe I have never formed. + +Criticism, ever since I filled myself so full of it in my boyhood, I have +not cared for, and often I have found it repulsive. + +I have a fondness for books of popular science, perhaps because they too +are part of the human story. + +I have read somewhat of the theology of the Swedenborgian faith I was +brought up in, but I have not read other theological works; and I do not +apologize for not liking any. The Bible itself was not much known to me +at an age when most children have been obliged to read it several times +over; the gospels were indeed familiar, and they have always been to me +the supreme human story; but the rest of the New Testament I had not read +when a man grown, and only passages of the Old Testament, like the story +of the Creation, and the story of Joseph, and the poems of Job and +Ecclesiastes, with occasional Psalms. I therefore came to the Scriptures +with a sense at once fresh and mature, and I can never be too glad that I +learned to see them under the vaster horizon and in the truer +perspectives of experience. + +Again as lights on the human story I have liked to read such books of +medicine as have fallen in my way, and I seldom take up a medical +periodical without reading of all the cases it describes, and in fact +every article in it. + +But I did not mean to make even this slight departure from the main +business of these papers, which is to confide my literary passions to the +reader; he probably has had a great many of his own. I think I may class +the "Ring and the Book" among them, though I have never been otherwise a +devotee of Browning. But I was still newly home from Italy, or away from +home, when that poem appeared, and whether or not it was because it took +me so with the old enchantment of that land, I gave my heart promptly to +it. Of course, there are terrible longueurs in it, and you do get tired +of the same story told over and over from the different points of view, +and yet it is such a great story, and unfolded with such a magnificent +breadth and noble fulness, that one who blames it lightly blames himself +heavily. There are certain books of it--"Caponsacchi's story," +"Pompilia's story," and "Count Guido's story"--that I think ought to rank +with the greatest poetry ever written, and that have a direct, dramatic +expression of the fact and character, which is without rival. There is a +noble and lofty pathos in the close of Caponsacchi's statement, an +artless and manly break from his self-control throughout, that seems to +me the last possible effect in its kind; and Pompilia's story holds all +of womanhood in it, the purity, the passion, the tenderness, the +helplessness. But if I begin to praise this or any of the things I have +liked, I do not know when I should stop. Yes, as I think it over, the +"Ring and the Book " appears to me one of the great few poems whose +splendor can never suffer lasting eclipse, however it may have presently +fallen into abeyance. If it had impossibly come down to us from some +elder time, or had not been so perfectly modern in its recognition of +feeling and motives ignored by the less conscious poetry of the past, it +might be ranked with the great epics. + +Of other modern poets I have read some things of William Morris, like the +"Life and Death of Jason," the "Story of Gudrun," and the "Trial of +Guinevere," with a pleasure little less than passionate, and I have +equally liked certain pieces of Dante Rossetti. I have had a high joy in +some of the great minor poems of Emerson, where the goddess moves over +Concord meadows with a gait that is Greek, and her sandalled tread +expresses a high scorn of the india-rubber boots that the American muse +so often gets about in. + +The "Commemoration Ode" of Lowell has also been a source from which I +drank something of the divine ecstasy of the poet's own exalted mood, and +I would set this level with the 'Biglow Papers,' high above all his other +work, and chief of the things this age of our country shall be remembered +by. Holmes I always loved, and not for his wit alone, which is so +obvious to liking, but for those rarer and richer strains of his in which +he shows himself the lover of nature and the brother of men. The deep +spiritual insight, the celestial music, and the brooding tenderness of +Whittier have always taken me more than his fierier appeals and his civic +virtues, though I do not underrate the value of these in his verse. + +My acquaintance with these modern poets, and many I do not name because +they are so many, has been continuous with their work, and my pleasure in +it not inconstant if not equal. I have spoken before of Longfellow as +one of my first passions, and I have never ceased to delight in him; but +some of the very newest and youngest of our poets have given me thrills +of happiness, for which life has become lastingly sweeter. + + +Long after I had thought never to read it--in fact when I was 'nel mezzo +del cammin di nostra vita'--I read Milton's "Paradise Lost," and found in +it a majestic beauty that justified to me the fame it wears, and eclipsed +the worth of those lesser poems which I had ignorantly accounted his +worthiest. In fact, it was one of the literary passions of the time I +speak of, and it shared my devotion for the novels of Tourguenief and +(shall I own it?) the romances of Cherbuliez. After all, it is best to +be honest, and if it is not best, it is at least easiest; it involves the +fewest embarrassing consequences; and if I confess the spell that the +Revenge of Joseph Noirel cast upon me for a time, perhaps I shall be able +to whisper the reader behind my hand that I have never yet read the +"AEneid " of Virgil; the "Georgics," yes; but the "AEneid," no. Some +time, however, I expect to read it and to like it immensely. That is +often the case with things that I have held aloof from indefinitely. + +One fact of my experience which the reader may, find interesting is that +when I am writing steadily I have little relish for reading. I fancy, +that reading is not merely a pastime when it is apparently the merest +pastime, but that a certain measure of mind-stuff is used up in it, and +that if you are using up all the mind stuff you have, much or little, in +some other way, you do not read because you have not the mind-stuff for +it. At any rate it is in this sort only that I can account for my +failure to read a great deal during four years of the amplest quiet that +I spent in the country at Belmont, whither we removed from Cambridge. +I had promised myself that in this quiet, now that I had given up +reviewing, and wrote little or nothing in the magazine but my stories, +I should again read purely for the pleasure of it, as I had in the early +days before the critical purpose had qualified it with a bitter alloy. +But I found that not being forced to read a number of books each month, +so that I might write about them, I did not read at all, comparatively +speaking. To be sure I dawdled over a great many books that I had read +before, and a number of memoirs and biographies, but I had no intense +pleasure from reading in that time, and have no passions to record of it. +It may have been a period when no new thing happened in literature deeply +to stir one's interest; I only state the fact concerning myself, and +suggest the most plausible theory I can think of. + +I wish also to note another incident, which may or may not have its +psychological value. An important event of these years was a long +sickness which kept me helpless some seven or eight weeks, when I was +forced to read in order to pass the intolerable time. But in this misery +I found that I could not read anything of a dramatic cast, whether in the +form of plays or of novels. The mere sight of the printed page, broken +up in dialogue, was anguish. Yet it was not the excitement of the +fiction that I dreaded, for I consumed great numbers of narratives of +travel, and was not in the least troubled by hairbreadth escapes, or +shipwrecks, or perils from wild beasts or deadly serpents; it was the +dramatic effect contrived by the playwright or novelist, and worked up to +in the speech of his characters that I could not bear. I found a like +impossible stress from the Sunday newspaper which a mistaken friend sent +in to me, and which with its scare-headings, and artfully wrought +sensations, had the effect of fiction, as in fact it largely was. + +At the end of four years we went abroad again, and travel took away the +appetite for reading as completely as writing did. I recall nothing read +in that year in Europe which moved me, and I think I read very little, +except the local histories of the Tuscan cities which I afterwards wrote +of. + + + + +XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY + +In fact, it was not till I returned, and took up my life again in Boston, +in the old atmosphere of work, that I turned once more to books. Even +then I had to wait for the time when I undertook a critical department in +one of the magazines, before I felt the rise of the old enthusiasm for an +author. That is to say, I had to begin reading for business again before +I began reading for pleasure. One of the first great pleasures which I +had upon these terms was in the book of a contemporary Spanish author. +This was the 'Marta y Maria' of Armando Palacio Valdes, a novelist who +delights me beyond words by his friendly and abundant humor, his feeling +for character, and his subtle insight. I like every one of his books +that I have read, and I believe that I have read nearly every one that he +has written. As I mention 'Riverito, Maximina, Un Idilio de un Inferno, +La Hermana de San Sulpizio, El Cuarto Poder, Espuma,' the mere names +conjure up the scenes and events that have moved me to tears and +laughter, and filled me with a vivid sense of the life portrayed in them. +I think the 'Marta y Maria' one of the most truthful and profound +fictions I have read, and 'Maximina' one of the most pathetic, and +'La Hermana de San Sulpizio' one of the most amusing. Fortunately, these +books of Valdes's have nearly all been translated, and the reader may +test the matter in English; though it necessarily halts somewhat behind +the Spanish. + +I do not know whether the Spaniards themselves rank Valdes with Galdos or +not, and I have no wish to decide upon their relative merits. They are +both present passions of mine, and I may say of the 'Dona Perfecta' of +Galdos that no book, if I except those of the greatest Russians, has +given me a keener and deeper impression; it is infinitely pathetic, and +is full of humor, which, if more caustic than that of Valdes, is not less +delicious. But I like all the books of Galdos that I have read, and +though he seems to have worked more tardily out of his romanticism than +Valdes, since be has worked finally into such realism as that of Leon +Roch, his greatness leaves nothing to be desired. + +I have read one of the books of Emilia Pardo-Bazan, called 'Morrina,' +which must rank her with the great realists of her country and age; she, +too, has that humor of her race, which brings us nearer the Spanish than +any other non-Anglo-Saxon people. + +A contemporary Italian, whom I like hardly less than these noble +Spaniards, is Giovanni Verga, who wrote 'I Malavoglia,' or, as we call it +in English, 'The House by the Medlar Tree': a story of infinite beauty, +tenderness and truth. As I have said before, I think with Zola that +Giacometti, the Italian author of "La Morte Civile," has written almost +the greatest play, all round, of modern times. + +But what shall I say of Zola himself, and my admiration of his epic +greatness? About his material there is no disputing among people of our +Puritanic tradition. It is simply abhorrent, but when you have once +granted him his material for his own use, it is idle and foolish to deny +his power. Every literary theory of mine was contrary to him when I took +up 'L'Assommoir,' though unconsciously I had always been as much of a +realist as I could, but the book possessed me with the same fascination +that I felt the other day in reading his 'L'Argent.' The critics know +now that Zola is not the realist he used to fancy himself, and he is full +of the best qualities of the romanticism he has hated so much; but for +what he is, there is but one novelist of our time, or of any, that +outmasters him, and that is Tolstoy. For my own part, I think that the +books of Zola are not immoral, but they are indecent through the facts +that they nakedly represent; they are infinitely more moral than the +books of any other French novelist. This may not be saying a great deal, +but it is saying the truth, and I do not mind owning that he has been one +of my great literary passions, almost as great as Flaubert, and greater +than Daudet or Maupassant, though I have profoundly appreciated the +exquisite artistry of both these. No French writer, however, has moved +me so much as the Spanish, for the French are wanting in the humor which +endears these, and is the quintessence of their charm. + +You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke, and I +suppose this is what deprived me of a final satisfaction in the company +of Anthony Trollope, who jokes heavily or not at all, and whom I should +otherwise make bold to declare the greatest of English novelists; as it +is, I must put before him Jane Austen, whose books, late in life, have +been a youthful rapture with me. Even without, much humor Trollope's +books have been a vast pleasure to me through their simple truthfulness. +Perhaps if they were more humorous they would not be so true to the +British life and character present in them in the whole length and +breadth of its expansive commonplaceness. It is their serious fidelity +which gives them a value unique in literature, and which if it were +carefully analyzed would afford a principle of the same quality in an +author who was undoubtedly one of the finest of artists as well as the +most Philistine of men. + +I came rather late, but I came with all the ardor of what seems my +perennial literary youth, to the love of Thomas Hardy, whom I first knew +in his story 'A Pair of Blue Eyes.' As usual, after I had read this book +and felt the new charm in it, I wished to read the books of no other +author, and to read his books over and over. I love even the faults of +Hardy; I will let him play me any trick he chooses (and he is not above +playing tricks, when he seems to get tired of his story or perplexed with +it), if only he will go on making his peasants talk, and his rather +uncertain ladies get in and out of love, and serve themselves of every +chance that fortune offers them of having their own way. We shrink from +the unmorality of the Latin races, but Hardy has divined in the heart of +our own race a lingering heathenism, which, if not Greek, has certainly +been no more baptized than the neo-hellenism of the Parisians. His +heroines especially exemplify it, and I should be safe in saying that his +Ethelbertas, his Eustacias, his Elfridas, his Bathshebas, his Fancies, +are wholly pagan. I should not dare to ask how much of their charm came +from that fact; and the author does not fail to show you how much harm, +so that it is not on my conscience. His people live very close to the +heart of nature, and no one, unless it is Tourguenief, gives you a richer +and sweeter sense of her unity with human nature. Hardy is a great poet +as well as a great humorist, and if he were not a great artist also his +humor would be enough to endear him to me. + + + + +XXXV. TOLSTOY + +I come now, though not quite in the order of time, to the noblest of all +these enthusiasms--namely, my devotion for the writings of Lyof Tolstoy. +I should wish to speak of him with his own incomparable truth, yet I do +not know how to give a notion of his influence without the effect of +exaggeration. As much as one merely human being can help another I +believe that he has helped me; he has not influenced me in aesthetics +only, but in ethics, too, so that I can never again see life in the way I +saw it before I knew him. Tolstoy awakens in his reader the will to be a +man; not effectively, not spectacularly, but simply, really. He leads +you back to the only true ideal, away from that false standard of the +gentleman, to the Man who sought not to be distinguished from other men, +but identified with them, to that Presence in which the finest gentleman +shows his alloy of vanity, and the greatest genius shrinks to the measure +of his miserable egotism. I learned from Tolstoy to try character and +motive by no other test, and though I am perpetually false to that +sublime ideal myself, still the ideal remains with me, to make me ashamed +that I am not true to it. Tolstoy gave me heart to hope that the world +may yet be made over in the image of Him who died for it, when all +Caesars things shall be finally rendered unto Caesar, and men shall come +into their own, into the right to labor and the right to enjoy the fruits +of their labor, each one master of himself and servant to every other. +He taught me to see life not as a chase of a forever impossible personal +happiness, but as a field for endeavor towards the happiness of the whole +human family; and I can never lose this vision, however I close my eyes, +and strive to see my own interest as the highest good. He gave me new +criterions, new principles, which, after all, were those that are taught +us in our earliest childhood, before we have come to the evil wisdom of +the world. As I read his different ethical books, 'What to Do,' +'My Confession,' and 'My Religion,' I recognized their truth with a +rapture such as I have known in no other reading, and I rendered them my +allegiance, heart and soul, with whatever sickness of the one and despair +of the other. They have it yet, and I believe they will have it while I +live. It is with inexpressible astonishment that I bear them attainted +of pessimism, as if the teaching of a man whose ideal was simple goodness +must mean the prevalence of evil. The way he showed me seemed indeed +impossible to my will, but to my conscience it was and is the only +possible way. If there, is any point on which he has not convinced my +reason it is that of our ability to walk this narrow way alone. Even +there he is logical, but as Zola subtly distinguishes in speaking of +Tolstoy's essay on "Money," he is not reasonable. Solitude enfeebles and +palsies, and it is as comrades and brothers that men must save the world +from itself, rather than themselves from the world. It was so the +earliest Christians, who had all things common, understood the life of +Christ, and I believe that the latest will understand it so. + +I have spoken first of the ethical works of Tolstoy, because they are of +the first importance to me, but I think that his aesthetical works are as +perfect. To my thinking they transcend in truth, which is the highest +beauty, all other works of fiction that have been written, and I believe +that they do this because they obey the law of the author's own life. +His conscience is one ethically and one aesthetically; with his will to +be true to himself he cannot be false to his knowledge of others. I +thought the last word in literary art had been said to me by the novels +of Tourguenief, but it seemed like the first, merely, when I began to +acquaint myself with the simpler method of Tolstoy. I came to it by +accident, and without any manner, of preoccupation in The Cossacks, one +of his early books, which had been on my shelves unread for five or six +years. I did not know even Tolstoy's name when I opened it, and it was +with a kind of amaze that I read it, and felt word by word, and line by +line, the truth of a new art in it. + +I do not know how it is that the great Russians have the secret of +simplicity. Some say it is because they have not a long literary past +and are not conventionalized by the usage of many generations of other +writers, but this will hardly account for the brotherly directness of +their dealing with human nature; the absence of experience elsewhere +characterizes the artist with crudeness, and simplicity is the last +effect of knowledge. Tolstoy is, of course, the first of them in this +supreme grace. He has not only Tourguenief's transparency of style, +unclouded by any mist of the personality which we mistakenly value in +style, and which ought no more to be there than the artist's personality +should be in a portrait; but he has a method which not only seems without +artifice, but is so. I can get at the manner of most writers, and tell +what it is, but I should be baffled to tell what Tolstoy's manner is; +perhaps he has no manner. This appears to me true of his novels, which, +with their vast variety of character and incident, are alike in their +single endeavor to get the persons living before you, both in their +action and in the peculiarly dramatic interpretation of their emotion and +cogitation. There are plenty of novelists to tell you that their +characters felt and thought so and so, but you have to take it on trust; +Tolstoy alone makes you know how and why it was so with them and not +otherwise. If there is anything in him which can be copied or burlesqued +it is this ability of his to show men inwardly as well as outwardly; it +is the only trait of his which I can put my hand on. + +After 'The Cossacks' I read 'Anna Karenina' with a deepening sense of the +author's unrivalled greatness. I thought that I saw through his eyes a +human affair of that most sorrowful sort as it must appear to the +Infinite Compassion; the book is a sort of revelation of human nature in +circumstances that have been so perpetually lied about that we have +almost lost the faculty of perceiving the truth concerning an illicit +love. When you have once read 'Anna Karenina' you know how fatally +miserable and essentially unhappy such a love must be. But the character +of Karenin himself is quite as important as the intrigue of Anna and +Vronsky. It is wonderful how such a man, cold, Philistine and even mean +in certain ways, towers into a sublimity unknown (to me, at least), in +fiction when he forgives, and yet knows that he cannot forgive with +dignity. There is something crucial, and something triumphant, not +beyond the power, but hitherto beyond the imagination of men in this +effect, which is not solicited, not forced, not in the least romantic, +but comes naturally, almost inevitably, from the make of man. + +The vast prospects, the far-reaching perspectives of 'War and Peace' made +it as great a surprise for me in the historical novel as 'Anna Karenina' +had been in the study of contemporary life; and its people and interests +did not seem more remote, since they are of a civilization always as +strange and of a humanity always as known. + +I read some shorter stories of Tolstoy's before I came to this greatest +work of his: I read 'Scenes of the Siege of Sebastopol,' which is so much +of the same quality as 'War and Peace;' and I read 'Policoushka' and most +of his short stories with a sense of my unity with their people such as I +had never felt with the people of other fiction. + +His didactic stories, like all stories of the sort, dwindle into +allegories; perhaps they do their work the better for this, with the +simple intelligences they address; but I think that where Tolstoy becomes +impatient of his office of artist, and prefers to be directly a teacher, +he robs himself of more than half his strength with those he can move +only through the realization of themselves in others. The simple pathos, +and the apparent indirectness of such a tale as that of 'Poticoushka,' +the peasant conscript, is of vastly more value to the world at large than +all his parables; and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,' the Philistine +worldling, will turn the hearts of many more from the love of the world +than such pale fables of the early Christian life as "Work while ye have +the Light." A man's gifts are not given him for nothing, and the man who +has the great gift of dramatic fiction has no right to cast it away or to +let it rust out in disuse. + +Terrible as the 'Kreutzer Sonata' was, it had a moral effect dramatically +which it lost altogether when the author descended to exegesis, and +applied to marriage the lesson of one evil marriage. In fine, Tolstoy is +certainly not to be held up as infallible. He is very, distinctly +fallible, but I think his life is not less instructive because in certain +things it seems a failure. There was but one life ever lived upon the +earth which was without failure, and that was Christ's, whose erring and +stumbling follower Tolstoy is. There is no other example, no other +ideal, and the chief use of Tolstoy is to enforce this fact in our age, +after nineteen centuries of hopeless endeavor to substitute ceremony for +character, and the creed for the life. I recognize the truth of this +without pretending to have been changed in anything but my point of view +of it. What I feel sure is that I can never look at life in the mean and +sordid way that I did before I read Tolstoy. + +Artistically, he has shown me a greatness that he can never teach me. +I am long past the age when I could wish to form myself upon another +writer, and I do not think I could now insensibly take on the likeness of +another; but his work has been a revelation and a delight to me, such as +I am sure I can never know again. I do not believe that in the whole +course of my reading, and not even in the early moment of my literary +enthusiasms, I have known such utter satisfaction in any writer, and this +supreme joy has come to me at a time of life when new friendships, not to +say new passions, are rare and reluctant. It is as if the best wine at +this high feast where I have sat so long had been kept for the last, and +I need not deny a miracle in it in order to attest my skill in judging +vintages. In fact, I prefer to believe that my life has been full of +miracles, and that the good has always come to me at the right time, so +that I could profit most by it. I believe if I had not turned the corner +of my fiftieth year, when I first knew Tolstoy, I should not have been +able to know him as fully as I did. He has been to me that final +consciousness, which he speaks of so wisely in his essay on "Life." +I came in it to the knowledge of myself in ways I had not dreamt of +before, and began at least to discern my relations to the race, without +which we are each nothing. The supreme art in literature had its highest +effect in making me set art forever below humanity, and it is with the +wish to offer the greatest homage to his heart and mind, which any man +can pay another, that I close this record with the name of Lyof Tolstoy. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Account of one's reading is an account of one's life . . . . . . . . . . +Adam Bede. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Affections will not be bidden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Air of looking down on the highest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Alliance of the tragic and the comic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Anthony Trollope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Authors I must call my masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Capriciousness of memory: what it will hold and what lose. . . . . . . . +Celebration of the monkey and the goat in us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Conquest of Granada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Contemptible he found our pseudo-equality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Criticism still remains behind all the other literary arts . . . . . . . +Dickens is purely democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Escaped at night and got into the boy's dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Fictions subtle effect for good and for evil on the young. . . . . . . . +Finer sort myself to be able to enjoy such a fine sort . . . . . . . . . +Had the sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy . . . . . . . . . . . . +Hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon. . . . . . . . . . +Hazlitt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +He undid my hands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Hospitable gift of making you at home with him . . . . . . . . . . . . . +In school there was as little literature then as there is now. . . . . . +Inexperience takes this effect (literary lewdness) for realit. . . . . . +Jews are still the chosen people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Kindness and gentleness are never out of fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . +Kissing goes by favor, in literature as in life. . . . . . . . . . . . . +Lamb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Lewd literature seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the life . . . . +Life of Goldsmith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Live it slowly into the past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Lubricity of literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Made many of my acquaintances very tired of my favorite authors. . . . . +Men who bully and truckle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Mustache, which in those days devoted a man to wickedness. . . . . . . . +My own youth now seems to me rather more alien . . . . . . . . . . . . . +My reading gave me no standing among the boys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Neither worse nor better because of the theatre. . . . . . . . . . . . . +Never appeals to the principle which sniffs, in his reader . . . . . . . +None of the passions are reasoned, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Not very distinctly know their dreams from their experiences . . . . . . +Now little notion what it was about, but I love its memory . . . . . . . +Our horrible sham of a slave-based freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Pendennis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Prejudice against certain words that I cannot overcome . . . . . . . . . +President Garfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Probably no dramatist ever needed the stage less . . . . . . . . . . . . +Rape of the Lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Rapture of the new convert could not last. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Reservations as to the times when he is not a master . . . . . . . . . . +Responsibility of finding him all we have been told he is. . . . . . . . +Secretly admires the splendors he affects to despise . . . . . . . . . . +Self-flattered scorn, his showy sighs, his facile satire . . . . . . . . +Self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality . . . . . . . +Should probably have wasted the time if I had not read them. . . . . . . +Slave-based freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +So long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs . . . . . . . . +Society, as we have it, was necessarily a sham . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Somehow expressed the feelings of his day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Somewhat too studied grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Speaks it is not with words and blood, but with words and ink. . . . . . +Spit some hapless victim: make him suffer and the reader laugh . . . . . +Style is the man, and he cannot hide himself in any garb . . . . . . . . +Surcharge all imitations of life and character . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Surcharged in the serious moods, and caricatured in the comic. . . . . . +Swedenborg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Tales of the Alhambra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +The great doctor's orotundity and ronderosity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . +To be for good or evil whatsoever I really was . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Toiled, and I suppose no work is wasted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Trace no discrepancy between reading his plays and seeing them . . . . . +Tried to like whatever they bade me like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Truth is beyond invention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Unmeet for ladies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Vicar of Wakefield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Vices and foibles which are inherent in the system of things . . . . . . +We did not know that we were poor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +We see nothing whole, neither life nor art.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +What I had not I could hope for without unreason . . . . . . . . . . . . +What we thought ruin, but what was really release. . . . . . . . . . . . +When was love ever reasoned? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Wide leisure of a country village. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Women who snub and crawl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Words of learned length and thundering sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +World's memory is equally bad for failure and success. . . . . . . . . . +Worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before. . . . . . . . +You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke. . . . . . +You may do a great deal(of work), and not get on.. . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of My Literary Passions, +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/whmlp10.zip b/old/whmlp10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f124239 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whmlp10.zip diff --git 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DICKENS +XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER +XVII. MACAULAY. +XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS. +XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE +XX. THACKERAY +XXI. "LAZARILLO DE TORMES" +XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL +XXIII. TENNYSON +XXIV. HEINE +XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW. +XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE +XXVII. CHARLES READE +XXVIII. DANTE. +XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D'AZEGLIO +XXX. "PASTOR FIDO," "AMINTA," "ROMOLA," "YEAST," "PAUL FERROLL" +XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON +XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH +XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES +XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY +XXXV. TOLSTOY + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + +The papers collected here under the name of 'My Literary Passions' were +printed serially in a periodical of such vast circulation that they might +well have been supposed to have found there all the acceptance that could +be reasonably hoped for them. Nevertheless, they were reissued in a +volume the year after they first appeared, in 1895, and they had a +pleasing share of such favor as their author's books have enjoyed. But +it is to be doubted whether any one liked reading them so much as he +liked writing them--say, some time in the years 1893 and 1894, in a New +York flat, where he could look from his lofty windows over two miles and +a half of woodland in Central Park, and halloo his fancy wherever he +chose in that faery realm of books which he re-entered in reminiscences +perhaps too fond at times, and perhaps always too eager for the reader's +following. The name was thought by the friendly editor of the popular +publication where they were serialized a main part of such inspiration as +they might be conjectured to have, and was, as seldom happens with editor +and author, cordially agreed upon before they were begun. + +The name says, indeed, so exactly and so fully what they are that little +remains for their bibliographer to add beyond the meagre historical +detail here given. Their short and simple annals could be eked out by +confidences which would not appreciably enrich the materials of the +literary history of their time, and it seems better to leave them to the +imagination of such posterity as they may reach. They are rather +helplessly frank, but not, I hope, with all their rather helpless +frankness, offensively frank. They are at least not part of the polemic +which their author sustained in the essays following them in this volume, +and which might have been called, in conformity with 'My Literary +Passions', by the title of 'My Literary Opinions' better than by the +vague name which they actually wear. + +They deal, to be sure, with the office of Criticism and the art of +Fiction, and so far their present name is not a misnomer. It follows +them from an earlier date and could not easily be changed, and it may +serve to recall to an elder generation than this the time when their +author was breaking so many lances in the great, forgotten war between +Realism and Romanticism that the floor of the "Editor's Study" in +Harper's Magazine was strewn with the embattled splinters. The "Editor's +Study" is now quite another place, but he who originally imagined it in +1886, and abode in it until 1892, made it at once the scene of such +constant offence that he had no time, if he had the temper, for defence. +The great Zola, or call him the immense Zola, was the prime mover in the +attack upon the masters of the Romanticistic school; but he lived to own +that he had fought a losing fight, and there are some proofs that he was +right. The Realists, who were undoubtedly the masters of fiction in +their passing generation, and who prevailed not only in France, but in +Russia, in Scandinavia, in Spain, in Portugal, were overborne in all +Anglo-Saxon countries by the innumerable hosts of Romanticism, who to +this day possess the land; though still, whenever a young novelist does +work instantly recognizable for its truth and beauty among us, he is seen +and felt to have wrought in the spirit of Realism. Not even yet, +however, does the average critic recognize this, and such lesson as the +"Editor's Study" assumed to teach remains here in all its essentials for +his improvement. + +Month after month for the six years in which the "Editor's Study" +continued in the keeping of its first occupant, its lesson was more or +less stormily delivered, to the exclusion, for the greater part, of other +prophecy, but it has not been found well to keep the tempestuous manner +along with the fulminant matter in this volume. When the author came to +revise the material, he found sins against taste which his zeal for +righteousness could not suffice to atone for. He did not hesitate to +omit the proofs of these, and so far to make himself not only a precept, +but an example in criticism. He hopes that in other and slighter things +he has bettered his own instruction, and that in form and in fact the +book is altogether less crude and less rude than the papers from which it +has here been a second time evolved. + +The papers, as they appeared from month to month, were not the product of +those unities of time and place which were the happy conditioning of +'My Literary Passions.' They could not have been written in quite so +many places as times, but they enjoyed a comparable variety of origin. +Beginning in Boston, they were continued in a Boston suburb, on the +shores of Lake George, in a Western New York health resort, in Buffalo, +in Nahant; once, twice, and thrice in New York, with reversions to +Boston, and summer excursions to the hills and waters of New England, +until it seemed that their author had at last said his say, and he +voluntarily lapsed into silence with the applause of friends and enemies +alike. + +The papers had made him more of the last than of the first, but not as +still appears to him with greater reason. At moments his deliverances +seemed to stir people of different minds to fury in two continents, so +far as they were English-speaking, and on the coasts of the seven seas; +and some of these came back at him with such violent personalities as it +is his satisfaction to remember that he never indulged in his attacks +upon their theories of criticism and fiction. His opinions were always +impersonal; and now as their manner rather than their make has been +slightly tempered, it may surprise the belated reader to learn that it +was the belief of one English critic that their author had "placed +himself beyond the pale of decency" by them. It ought to be less +surprising that, since these dreadful words were written of him, more +than one magnanimous Englishman has penitently expressed to the author +the feeling that he was not so far wrong in his overboldly hazarded +convictions. The penitence of his countrymen is still waiting +expression, but it may come to that when they have recurred to the +evidences of his offence in their present shape. + +KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909. + + + + + + + MY LITERARY PASSIONS + + + +I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME + +To give an account of one's reading is in some sort to give an account of +one's life; and I hope that I shall not offend those who follow me in +these papers, if I cannot help speaking of myself in speaking of the +authors I must call my masters: my masters not because they taught me +this or that directly, but because I had such delight in them that I +could not fail to teach myself from them whatever I was capable of +learning. I do not know whether I have been what people call a great +reader; I cannot claim even to have been a very wise reader; but I have +always been conscious of a high purpose to read much more, and more +discreetly, than I have ever really done, and probably it is from the +vantage-ground of this good intention that I shall sometimes be found +writing here rather than from the facts of the case. + +But I am pretty sure that I began right, and that if I had always kept +the lofty level which I struck at the outset I should have the right to +use authority in these reminiscences without a bad conscience. I shall +try not to use authority, however, and I do not expect to speak here of +all my reading, whether it has been much or little, but only of those +books, or of those authors that I have felt a genuine passion for. I +have known such passions at every period of my life, but it is mainly of +the loves of my youth that I shall write, and I shall write all the more +frankly because my own youth now seems to me rather more alien than that +of any other person. + +I think that I came of a reading race, which has always loved literature +in a way, and in spite of varying fortunes and many changes. From a +letter of my great-grandmother's written to a stubborn daughter upon some +unfilial behavior, like running away to be married, I suspect that she +was fond of the high-colored fiction of her day, for she tells the wilful +child that she has "planted a dagger in her mother's heart," and I should +not be surprised if it were from this fine-languaged lady that my +grandfather derived his taste for poetry rather than from his father, who +was of a worldly wiser mind. To be sure, he became a Friend by +Convincement as the Quakers say, and so I cannot imagine that he was +altogether worldly; but he had an eye to the main chance: he founded the +industry of making flannels in the little Welsh town where he lived, and +he seems to have grown richer, for his day and place, than any of us have +since grown for ours. My grandfather, indeed, was concerned chiefly in +getting away from the world and its wickedness. He came to this country +early in the nineteenth century and settled his family in a log-cabin in +the Ohio woods, that they might be safe from the sinister influences of +the village where he was managing some woollen-mills. But he kept his +affection for certain poets of the graver, not to say gloomier sort, and +he must have suffered his children to read them, pending that great +question of their souls' salvation which was a lifelong trouble to him. + +My father, at any rate, had such a decided bent in the direction of +literature, that he was not content in any of his several economical +experiments till he became the editor of a newspaper, which was then the +sole means of satisfying a literary passion. His paper, at the date when +I began to know him, was a living, comfortable and decent, but without +the least promise of wealth in it, or the hope even of a much better +condition. I think now that he was wise not to care for the advancement +which most of us have our hearts set upon, and that it was one of his +finest qualities that he was content with a lot in life where he was not +exempt from work with his hands, and yet where he was not so pressed by +need but he could give himself at will not only to the things of the +spirit, but the things of the mind too. After a season of scepticism he +had become a religious man, like the rest of his race, but in his own +fashion, which was not at all the fashion of my grandfather: a Friend who +had married out of Meeting, and had ended a perfervid Methodist. My +father, who could never get himself converted at any of the camp-meetings +where my grandfather often led the forces of prayer to his support, and +had at last to be given up in despair, fell in with the writings of +Emanuel Swedenborg, and embraced the doctrine of that philosopher with a +content that has lasted him all the days of his many years. Ever since I +can remember, the works of Swedenborg formed a large part of his library; +he read them much himself, and much to my mother, and occasionally a +"Memorable Relation" from them to us children. But he did not force them +upon our notice, nor urge us to read them, and I think this was very +well. I suppose his conscience and his reason kept him from doing so. +But in regard to other books, his fondness was too much for him, and when +I began to show a liking for literature he was eager to guide my choice. + +His own choice was for poetry, and the most of our library, which was not +given to theology, was given to poetry. I call it the library now, but +then we called it the bookcase, and that was what literally it was, +because I believe that whatever we had called our modest collection of +books, it was a larger private collection than any other in the town +where we lived. Still it was all held, and shut with glass doors, in a +case of very few shelves. It was not considerably enlarged during my +childhood, for few books came to my father as editor, and he indulged +himself in buying them even more rarely. My grandfather's book store +(it was also the village drug-store) had then the only stock of +literature for sale in the place; and once, when Harper & Brothers' agent +came to replenish it, be gave my father several volumes for review. One +of these was a copy of Thomson's Seasons, a finely illustrated edition, +whose pictures I knew long before I knew the poetry, and thought them the +most beautiful things that ever were. My father read passages of the +book aloud, and he wanted me to read it all myself. For the matter of +that he wanted me to read Cowper, from whom no one could get anything but +good, and he wanted me to read Byron, from whom I could then have got no +harm; we get harm from the evil we understand. He loved Burns, too, and +he used to read aloud from him, I must own, to my inexpressible +weariness. I could not away with that dialect, and I could not then feel +the charm of the poet's wit, nor the tender beauty of his pathos. Moore, +I could manage better; and when my father read "Lalla Rookh" to my mother +I sat up to listen, and entered into all the woes of Iran in the story of +the "Fire Worshippers." I drew the line at the "Veiled Prophet of +Khorassan," though I had some sense of the humor of the poet's conception +of the critic in "Fadladeen." But I liked Scott's poems far better, and +got from Ispahan to Edinburgh with a glad alacrity of fancy. I followed +the "Lady of the Lake" throughout, and when I first began to contrive +verses of my own I found that poem a fit model in mood and metre. + +Among other volumes of verse on the top shelf of the bookcase, of which I +used to look at the outside without penetrating deeply within, were +Pope's translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Dryden's Virgil, +pretty little tomes in tree-calf, published by James Crissy in +Philadelphia, and illustrated with small copper-plates, which somehow +seemed to put the matter hopelessly beyond me. It was as if they said to +me in so many words that literature which furnished the subjects of such +pictures I could not hope to understand, and need not try. At any rate, +I let them alone for the time, and I did not meddle with a volume of +Shakespeare, in green cloth and cruelly fine print, which overawed me in +like manner with its wood-cuts. I cannot say just why I conceived that +there was something unhallowed in the matter of the book; perhaps this +was a tint from the reputation of the rather profligate young man from +whom my father had it. If he were not profligate I ask his pardon. I +have not the least notion who he was, but that was the notion I had of +him, whoever he was, or wherever he now is. There may never have been +such a young man at all; the impression I had may have been pure +invention of my own, like many things with children, who do not very +distinctly know their dreams from their experiences, and live in the +world where both project the same quality of shadow. + +There were, of course, other books in the bookcase, which my +consciousness made no account of, and I speak only of those I remember. +Fiction there was none at all that I can recall, except Poe's 'Tales of +the Grotesque and the Arabesque' (I long afflicted myself as to what +those words meant, when I might easily have asked and found out) and +Bulwer's Last Days of Pompeii, all in the same kind of binding. History +is known, to my young remembrance of that library, by a History of the +United States, whose dust and ashes I hardly made my way through; and by +a 'Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada', by the ever dear and precious +Fray Antonio Agapida, whom I was long in making out to be one and the +same as Washington Irving. + +In school there was as little literature then as there is now, and I +cannot say anything worse of our school reading; but I was not really +very much in school, and so I got small harm from it. The printing- +office was my school from a very early date. My father thoroughly +believed in it, and he had his beliefs as to work, which he illustrated +as soon as we were old enough to learn the trade he followed. We could +go to school and study, or we could go into the printing-office and work, +with an equal chance of learning, but we could not be idle; we must do +something, for our souls' sake, though he was willing enough we should +play, and he liked himself to go into the woods with us, and to enjoy the +pleasures that manhood can share with childhood. I suppose that as the +world goes now we were poor. His income was never above twelve hundred a +year, and his family was large; but nobody was rich there or then; we +lived in the simple abundance of that time and place, and we did not know +that we were poor. As yet the unequal modern conditions were undreamed +of (who indeed could have dreamed of them forty or fifty years ago?) in +the little Southern Ohio town where nearly the whole of my most happy +boyhood was passed. + + + + +II. GOLDSMITH + +When I began to have literary likings of my own, and to love certain +books above others, the first authors of my heart were Goldsmith, +Cervantes, and Irving. In the sharply foreshortened perspective of the +past I seem to have read them all at once, but I am aware of an order of +time in the pleasure they gave me, and I know that Goldsmith came first. +He came so early that I cannot tell when or how I began to read him, but +it must have been before I was ten years old. I read other books about +that time, notably a small book on Grecian and Roman mythology, which I +perused with such a passion for those pagan gods and goddesses that, if +it had ever been a question of sacrificing to Diana, I do not really know +whether I should have been able to refuse. I adored indiscriminately all +the tribes of nymphs and naiads, demigods and heroes, as well as the high +ones of Olympus; and I am afraid that by day I dwelt in a world peopled +and ruled by them, though I faithfully said my prayers at night, and fell +asleep in sorrow for my sins. I do not know in the least how Goldsmith's +Greece came into my hands, though I fancy it must have been procured for +me because of a taste which I showed for that kind of reading, and I can +imagine no greater luck for a small boy in a small town of Southwestern +Ohio well-nigh fifty years ago. I have the books yet; two little, stout +volumes in fine print, with the marks of wear on them, but without those +dishonorable blots, or those other injuries which boys inflict upon books +in resentment of their dulness, or out of mere wantonness. I was always +sensitive to the maltreatment of books; I could not bear to see a book +faced down or dogs-eared or broken-backed. It was like a hurt or an +insult to a thing that could feel. + +Goldsmith's History of Rome came to me much later, but quite as +immemorably, and after I had formed a preference for the Greek Republics, +which I dare say was not mistaken. Of course I liked Athens best, and +yet there was something in the fine behavior of the Spartans in battle, +which won a heart formed for hero-worship. I mastered the notion of +their communism, and approved of their iron money, with the poverty it +obliged them to, yet somehow their cruel treatment of the Helots failed +to shock me; perhaps I forgave it to their patriotism, as I had to +forgive many ugly facts in the history of the Romans to theirs. There +was hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon in those days +to the slayers of tyrants; and the swagger form of such as despatched a +despot with a fine speech was so much to my liking that I could only +grieve that I was born too late to do and to say those things. + +I do not think I yet felt the beauty of the literature which made them +all live in my fancy, that I conceived of Goldsmith as an artist using +for my rapture the finest of the arts; and yet I had been taught to see +the loveliness of poetry, and was already trying to make it on my own +poor account. I tried to make verses like those I listened to when my +father read Moore and Scott to my mother, but I heard them with no such +happiness as I read my beloved histories, though I never thought then of +attempting to write like Goldsmith. I accepted his beautiful work as +ignorantly as I did my other blessings. I was concerned in getting at +the Greeks and Romans, and I did not know through what nimble air and by +what lovely ways I was led to them. Some retrospective perception of +this came long afterward when I read his essays, and after I knew all of +his poetry, and later yet when I read the 'Vicar of Wakefield'; but for +the present my eyes were holden, as the eyes of a boy mostly are in the +world of art. What I wanted with my Greeks and Romans after I got at +them was to be like them, or at least to turn them to account in verse, +and in dramatic verse at that. The Romans were less civilized than the +Greeks, and so were more like boys, and more to a boy's purpose. I did +not make literature of the Greeks, but I got a whole tragedy out of the +Romans; it was a rhymed tragedy, and in octosyllabic verse, like the +"Lady of the Lake." I meant it to be acted by my schoolmates, but I am +not sure that I ever made it known to them. Still, they were not +ignorant of my reading, and I remember how proud I was when a certain +boy, who had always whipped me when we fought together, and so outranked +me in that little boys' world, once sent to ask me the name of the Roman +emperor who lamented at nightfall, when he had done nothing worthy, that +he had lost a day. The boy was going to use the story, in a composition, +as we called the school themes then, and I told him the emperor's name; I +could not tell him now without turning to the book. + +My reading gave me no standing among the boys, and I did not expect it to +rank me with boys who were more valiant in fight or in play; and I have +since found that literature gives one no more certain station in the +world of men's activities, either idle or useful. We literary folk try +to believe that it does, but that is all nonsense. At every period of +life, among boys or men, we are accepted when they are at leisure, and +want to be amused, and at best we are tolerated rather than accepted. +I must have told the boys stories out of my Goldsmith's Greece and Rome, +or it would not have been known that I had read them, but I have no +recollection now of doing so, while I distinctly remember rehearsing the +allegories and fables of the 'Gesta Romanorum', a book which seems to +have been in my hands about the same time or a little later. I had a +delight in that stupid collection of monkish legends which I cannot +account for now, and which persisted in spite of the nightmare confusion +it made of my ancient Greeks and Romans. They were not at all the +ancient Greeks and Romans of Goldsmith's histories. + +I cannot say at what times I read these books, but they must have been +odd times, for life was very full of play then, and was already beginning +to be troubled with work. As I have said, I was to and fro between the +schoolhouse and the printing-office so much that when I tired of the one +I must have been very promptly given my choice of the other. The +reading, however, somehow went on pretty constantly, and no doubt my love +for it won me a chance for it. There were some famous cherry-trees in +our yard, which, as I look back at them, seem to have been in flower or +fruit the year round; and in one of them there was a level branch where a +boy could sit with a book till his dangling legs went to sleep, or till +some idler or busier boy came to the gate and called him down to play +marbles or go swimming. When this happened the ancient world was rolled +up like a scroll, and put away until the next day, with all its orators +and conspirators, its nymphs and satyrs, gods and demigods; though +sometimes they escaped at night and got into the boy's dreams. + +I do not think I cared as much as some of the other boys for the 'Arabian +Nights' or 'Robinson Crusoe,' but when it came to the 'Ingenious +Gentleman of La Mancha,' I was not only first, I was sole. + +Before I speak, however, of the beneficent humorist who next had my +boyish heart after Goldsmith, let me acquit myself in full of my debt to +that not unequal or unkindred spirit. I have said it was long after I +had read those histories, full of his inalienable charm, mere pot-boilers +as they were, and far beneath his more willing efforts, that I came to +know his poetry. My father must have read the "Deserted Village" to us, +and told us something of the author's pathetic life, for I cannot +remember when I first knew of "sweet Auburn," or had the light of the +poet's own troubled day upon the "loveliest village of the plain." +The 'Vicar of Wakefield' must have come into my life after that poem and +before 'The Traveler'. It was when I would have said that I knew all +Goldsmith; we often give ourselves credit for knowledge in this way +without having any tangible assets; and my reading has always been very +desultory. I should like to say here that the reading of any one who +reads to much purpose is always very desultory, though perhaps I had +better not say so, but merely state the fact in my case, and own that I +never read any one author quite through without wandering from him to +others. When I first read the 'Vicar of Wakefield' (for I have since +read it several times, and hope yet to read it many times), I found its +persons and incidents familiar, and so I suppose I must have heard it +read. It is still for me one of the most modern novels: that is to say, +one of the best. It is unmistakably good up to a certain point, and then +unmistakably bad, but with always good enough in it to be forever +imperishable. Kindness and gentleness are never out of fashion; it is +these in Goldsmith which make him our contemporary, and it is worth the +while of any young person presently intending deathless renown to take a +little thought of them. They are the source of all refinement, and I do +not believe that the best art in any kind exists without them. The style +is the man, and he cannot hide himself in any garb of words so that we +shall not know somehow what manner of man he is within it; his speech +betrayeth him, not only as to his country and his race, but more subtly +yet as to his heart, and the loves and hates of his heart. As to +Goldsmith, I do not think that a man of harsh and arrogant nature, of +worldly and selfish soul, could ever have written his style, and I do not +think that, in far greater measure than criticism has recognized, his +spiritual quality, his essential friendliness, expressed itself in the +literary beauty that wins the heart as well as takes the fancy in his +work. + +I should have my reservations and my animadversions if it came to close +criticism of his work, but I am glad that he was the first author I +loved, and that even before I knew I loved him I was his devoted reader. +I was not consciously his admirer till I began to read, when I was +fourteen, a little volume of his essays, made up, I dare say, from the +'Citizen of the World' and other unsuccessful ventures of his. It +contained the papers on Beau Tibbs, among others, and I tried to write +sketches and studies of life in their manner. But this attempt at +Goldsmith's manner followed a long time after I tried to write in the +style of Edgar A. Poe, as I knew it from his 'Tales of the Grotesque +erred Arabesque.' I suppose the very poorest of these was the "Devil in +the Belfry," but such as it was I followed it as closely as I could in +the "Devil in the Smoke-Pipes"; I meant tobacco-pipes. The resemblance +was noted by those to whom I read my story; I alone could not see it or +would not own it, and I really felt it a hardship that I should be found +to have produced an imitation. + +It was the first time I had imitated a prose writer, though I had +imitated several poets like Moore, Campbell, and Goldsmith himself. +I have never greatly loved an author without wishing to write like him. +I have now no reluctance to confess that, and I do not see why I should +not say that it was a long time before I found it best to be as like +myself as I could, even when I did not think so well of myself as of some +others. I hope I shall always be able and willing to learn something +from the masters of literature and still be myself, but for the young +writer this seems impossible. He must form himself from time to time +upon the different authors he is in love with, but when he has done this +he must wish it not to be known, for that is natural too. The lover +always desires to ignore the object of his passion, and the adoration +which a young writer has for a great one is truly a passion passing the +love of women. I think it hardly less fortunate that Cervantes was one +of my early passions, though I sat at his feet with no more sense of his +mastery than I had of Goldsmith's. + + + + +III. CERVANTES + +I recall very fully the moment and the place when I first heard of 'Don +Quixote,' while as yet I could not connect it very distinctly with +anybody's authorship. I was still too young to conceive of authorship, +even in my own case, and wrote my miserable verses without any notion of +literature, or of anything but the pleasure of seeing them actually come +out rightly rhymed and measured. The moment was at the close of a +summer's day just before supper, which, in our house, we had lawlessly +late, and the place was the kitchen where my mother was going about her +work, and listening as she could to what my father was telling my brother +and me and an apprentice of ours, who was like a brother to us both, of a +book that he had once read. We boys were all shelling peas, but the +story, as it went on, rapt us from the poor employ, and whatever our +fingers were doing, our spirits were away in that strange land of +adventures and mishaps, where the fevered life of the knight truly +without fear and without reproach burned itself out. I dare say that my +father tried to make us understand the satirical purpose of the book. +I vaguely remember his speaking of the books of chivalry it was meant to +ridicule; but a boy could not care for this, and what I longed to do at +once was to get that book and plunge into its story. He told us at +random of the attack on the windmills and the flocks of sheep, of the +night in the valley of the fulling-mills with their trip-hammers, of the +inn and the muleteers, of the tossing of Sancho in the blanket, of the +island that was given him to govern, and of all the merry pranks at the +duke's and duchess's, of the liberation of the galley-slaves, of the +capture of Mambrino's helmet, and of Sancho's invention of the enchanted +Dulcinea, and whatever else there was wonderful and delightful in the +most wonderful and delightful book in the world. I do not know when or +where my father got it for me, and I am aware of an appreciable time that +passed between my hearing of it and my having it. The event must have +been most important to me, and it is strange I cannot fix the moment when +the precious story came into my hands; though for the matter of that +there is nothing more capricious than a child's memory, what it will hold +and what it will lose. + +It is certain my Don Quixote was in two small, stout volumes not much +bigger each than my Goldsmith's 'Greece', bound in a sort of law-calf, +well fitted to withstand the wear they were destined to undergo. The +translation was, of course, the old-fashioned version of Jervas, which, +whether it was a closely faithful version or not, was honest eighteenth- +century English, and reported faithfully enough the spirit of the +original. If it had any literary influence with me the influence must +have been good. But I cannot make out that I was sensible of the +literature; it was the forever enchanting story that I enjoyed. +I exulted in the boundless freedom of the design; the open air of that +immense scene, where adventure followed adventure with the natural +sequence of life, and the days and the nights were not long enough for +the events that thronged them, amidst the fields and woods, the streams +and hills, the highways and byways, hostelries and hovels, prisons and +palaces, which were the setting of that matchless history. I took it as +simply as I took everything else in the world about me. It was full of +meaning that I could not grasp, and there were significances of the kind +that literature unhappily abounds in, but they were lost upon my +innocence. I did not know whether it was well written or not; I never +thought about that; it was simply there in its vast entirety, its +inexhaustible opulence, and I was rich in it beyond the dreams of +avarice. + +My father must have told us that night about Cervantes as well as about +his 'Don Quixote', for I seem to have known from the beginning that he +was once a slave in Algiers, and that he had lost a hand in battle, and I +loved him with a sort of personal affection, as if he were still living +and he could somehow return my love. His name and nature endeared the +Spanish name and nature to me, so that they were always my romance, and +to this day I cannot meet a Spanish man without clothing him in something +of the honor and worship I lavished upon Cervantes when I was a child. +While I was in the full flush of this ardor there came to see our school, +one day, a Mexican gentleman who was studying the American system of +education; a mild, fat, saffron man, whom I could almost have died to +please for Cervantes' and Don Quixote's sake, because I knew he spoke +their tongue. But he smiled upon us all, and I had no chance to +distinguish myself from the rest by any act of devotion before the +blessed vision faded, though for long afterwards, in impassioned +reveries, I accosted him and claimed him kindred because of my fealty, +and because I would have been Spanish if I could. + +I would not have had the boy-world about me know anything of these fond +dreams; but it was my tastes alone, my passions, which were alien there; +in everything else I was as much a citizen as any boy who had never heard +of Don Quixote. But I believe that I carried the book about with me most +of the time, so as not to lose any chance moment of reading it. Even in +the blank of certain years, when I added little other reading to my +store, I must still have been reading it. This was after we had removed +from the town where the earlier years of my boyhood were passed, and I +had barely adjusted myself to the strange environment when one of my +uncles asked me to come with him and learn the drug business, in the +place, forty miles away, where he practised medicine. We made the long +journey, longer than any I have made since, in the stage-coach of those +days, and we arrived at his house about twilight, he glad to get home, +and I sick to death with yearning for the home I had left. I do not know +how it was that in this state, when all the world was one hopeless +blackness around me, I should have got my 'Don Quixote' out of my bag; +I seem to have had it with me as an essential part of my equipment for my +new career. Perhaps I had been asked to show it, with the notion of +beguiling me from my misery; perhaps I was myself trying to drown my +sorrows in it. But anyhow I have before me now the vision of my sweet +young aunt and her young sister looking over her shoulder, as they stood +together on the lawn in the summer evening light. My aunt held my Don +Quixote open in one hand, while she clasped with the other the child she +carried on her arm. She looked at the book, and then from time to time +she looked at me, very kindly but very curiously, with a faint smile, so +that as I stood there, inwardly writhing in my bashfulness, I had the +sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy. She returned the book without +comment, after some questions, and I took it off to my room, where the +confidential friend of Cervantes cried himself to sleep. + +In the morning I rose up and told them I could not stand it, and I was +going home. Nothing they could say availed, and my uncle went down to +the stage-office with me and took my passage back. + +The horror of cholera was then in the land; and we heard in the stage- +office that a man lay dead of it in the hotel overhead. But my uncle led +me to his drugstore, where the stage was to call for me, and made me +taste a little camphor; with this prophylactic, Cervantes and I somehow +got home together alive. + +The reading of 'Don Quixote' went on throughout my boyhood, so that I +cannot recall any distinctive period of it when I was not, more or less, +reading that book. In a boy's way I knew it well when I was ten, and a +few years ago, when I was fifty, I took it up in the admirable new +version of Ormsby, and found it so full of myself and of my own +irrevocable past that I did not find it very gay. But I made a great +many discoveries in it; things I had not dreamt of were there, and must +always have been there, and other things wore a new face, and made a new +effect upon me. I had my doubts, my reserves, where once I had given it +my whole heart without question, and yet in what formed the greatness of +the book it seemed to me greater than ever. I believe that its free and +simple design, where event follows event without the fettering control of +intrigue, but where all grows naturally out of character and conditions, +is the supreme form of fiction; and I cannot help thinking that if we +ever have a great American novel it must be built upon some such large +and noble lines. As for the central figure, Don Quixote himself, in his +dignity and generosity, his unselfish ideals, and his fearless devotion +to them, he is always heroic and beautiful; and I was glad to find in my +latest look at his history that I had truly conceived of him at first, +and had felt the sublimity of his nature. I did not want to laugh at him +so much, and I could not laugh at all any more at some of the things done +to him. Once they seemed funny, but now only cruel, and even stupid, so +that it was strange to realize his qualities and indignities as both +flowing from the same mind. But in my mature experience, which threw a +broader light on the fable, I was happy to keep my old love of an author +who had been almost personally, dear to me. + + + + +IV + +IRVING + +I have told how Cervantes made his race precious to me, and I am sure +that it must have been he who fitted me to understand and enjoy the +American author who now stayed me on Spanish ground and kept me happy in +Spanish air, though I cannot trace the tie in time and circumstance +between Irving and Cervantes. The most I can make sure of is that I read +the 'Conquest of Granada' after I read Don Quixote, and that I loved the +historian so much because I had loved the novelist much more. Of course +I did not perceive then that Irving's charm came largely from Cervantes +and the other Spanish humorists yet unknown to me, and that he had formed +himself upon them almost as much as upon Goldsmith, but I dare say that +this fact had insensibly a great deal to do with my liking. Afterwards I +came to see it, and at the same time to see what was Irving's own in +Irving; to feel his native, if somewhat attenuated humor, and his +original, if somewhat too studied grace. But as yet there was no +critical question with me. I gave my heart simply and passionately to +the author who made the scenes of that most pathetic history live in my +sympathy, and companioned me with the stately and gracious actors in +them. + +I really cannot say now whether I loved the Moors or the Spaniards more. +I fought on both sides; I would not have had the Spaniards beaten, and +yet when the Moors lost I was vanquished with them; and when the poor +young King Boabdil (I was his devoted partisan and at the same time a +follower of his fiery old uncle and rival, Hamet el Zegri) heaved the +Last Sigh of the Moor, as his eyes left the roofs of Granada forever, it +was as much my grief as if it had burst from my own breast. I put both +these princes into the first and last historical romance I ever wrote. +I have now no idea what they did in it, but as the story never came to a +conclusion it does not greatly matter. I had never yet read an +historical romance that I can make sure of, and probably my attempt must +have been based almost solely upon the facts of Irving's history. I am +certain I could not have thought of adding anything to them, or at all +varying them. + +In reading his 'Chronicle' I suffered for a time from its attribution to +Fray Antonio Agapida, the pious monk whom he feigns to have written it, +just as in reading 'Don Quixote' I suffered from Cervantes masquerading +as the Moorish scribe, Cid Hamet Ben Engeli. My father explained the +literary caprice, but it remained a confusion and a trouble for me, and I +made a practice of skipping those passages where either author insisted +upon his invention. I will own that I am rather glad that sort of thing +seems to be out of fashion now, and I think the directer and franker +methods of modern fiction will forbid its revival. Thackeray was fond of +such open disguises, and liked to greet his reader from the mask of +Yellowplush and Michael Angelo Titmarsh, but it seems to me this was in +his least modern moments. + +My 'Conquest of Granada' was in two octavo volumes, bound in drab boards, +and printed on paper very much yellowed with time at its irregular edges. +I do not know when the books happened in my hands. I have no remembrance +that they were in any wise offered or commended to me, and in a sort of +way they were as authentically mine as if I had made them. I saw them at +home, not many months ago, in my father's library (it has long outgrown +the old bookcase, which has gone I know not where), and upon the whole I +rather shrank from taking them down, much more from opening them, though +I could not say why, unless it was from the fear of perhaps finding the +ghost of my boyish self within, pressed flat like a withered leaf, +somewhere between the familiar pages. + +When I learned Spanish it was with the purpose, never yet fulfilled, of +writing the life of Cervantes, although I have since had some forty-odd +years to do it in. I taught myself the language, or began to do so, when +I knew nothing of the English grammar but the prosody at the end of the +book. My father had the contempt of familiarity with it, having himself +written a very brief sketch of our accidence, and he seems to have let me +plunge into the sea of Spanish verbs and adverbs, nouns and pronouns, and +all the rest, when as yet I could not confidently call them by name, with +the serene belief that if I did not swim I would still somehow get ashore +without sinking. The end, perhaps, justified him, and I suppose I did +not do all that work without getting some strength from it; but I wish I +had back the time that it cost me; I should like to waste it in some +other way. However, time seemed interminable then, and I thought there +would be enough of it for me in which to read all Spanish literature; or, +at least, I did not propose to do anything less. + +I followed Irving, too, in my later reading, but at haphazard, and with +other authors at the same time. I did my poor best to be amused by his +'Knickerbocker History of New York', because my father liked it so much, +but secretly I found it heavy; and a few years ago when I went carefully +through it again. I could not laugh. Even as a boy I found some other +things of his uphill work. There was the beautiful manner, but the +thought seemed thin; and I do not remember having been much amused by +'Bracebridge Hall', though I read it devoutly, and with a full sense that +it would be very 'comme il faut' to like it. But I did like the 'Life of +Goldsmith'; I liked it a great deal better than the more authoritative +'Life by Forster', and I think there is a deeper and sweeter sense of +Goldsmith in it. Better than all, except the 'Conquest of Granada', +I liked the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and the story of Rip Van Winkle, +with their humorous and affectionate caricatures of life that was once of +our own soil and air; and the 'Tales of the Alhambra', which transported +me again, to the scenes of my youth beside the Xenil. It was long after +my acquaintance with his work that I came to a due sense of Irving as an +artist, and perhaps I have come to feel a full sense of it only now, when +I perceive that he worked willingly only when he worked inventively. +At last I can do justice to the exquisite conception of his 'Conquest of +Granada', a study of history which, in unique measure, conveys not only +the pathos, but the humor of one of the most splendid and impressive +situations in the experience of the race. Very possibly something of the +severer truth might have been sacrificed to the effect of the pleasing +and touching tale, but I do not under stand that this was really done. +Upon the whole I am very well content with my first three loves in +literature, and if I were to choose for any other boy I do not see how I +could choose better than Goldsmith and Cervantes and Irving, kindred +spirits, and each not a master only, but a sweet and gentle friend, whose +kindness could not fail to profit him. + + + + +V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA + +In my own case there followed my acquaintance with these authors certain +Boeotian years, when if I did not go backward I scarcely went forward in +the paths I had set out upon. They were years of the work, of the over- +work, indeed, which falls to the lot of so many that I should be ashamed +to speak of it except in accounting for the fact. My father had sold his +paper in Hamilton and had bought an interest in another at Dayton, and we +were all straining our utmost to help pay for it. My daily tasks began +so early and ended so late that I had little time, even if I had the +spirit, for reading; and it was not till what we thought ruin, but what +was really release, came to us that I got back again to my books. Then +we went to live in the country for a year, and that stress of toil, with +the shadow of failure darkening all, fell from me like the horror of an +evil dream. The only new book which I remember to have read in those two +or three years at Dayton, when I hardly remember to have read any old +ones, was the novel of 'Jane Eyre,' which I took in very imperfectly, and +which I associate with the first rumor of the Rochester Knockings, then +just beginning to reverberate through a world that they have not since +left wholly at peace. It was a gloomy Sunday afternoon when the book +came under my hand; and mixed with my interest in the story was an +anxiety lest the pictures on the walls should leave their nails and come +and lay themselves at my feet; that was what the pictures had been doing +in Rochester and other places where the disembodied spirits were +beginning to make themselves felt. The thing did not really happen in my +case, but I was alone in the house, and it might very easily have +happened. + +If very little came to me in those days from books, on the other hand my +acquaintance with the drama vastly enlarged itself. There was a hapless +company of players in the town from time to time, and they came to us for +their printing. I believe they never paid for it, or at least never +wholly, but they lavished free passes upon us, and as nearly as I can +make out, at this distance of time, I profited by their generosity, every +night. They gave two or three plays at every performance to houses +ungratefully small, but of a lively spirit and impatient temper that +would not brook delay in the representation; and they changed the bill +each day. In this way I became familiar with Shakespeare before I read +him, or at least such plays of his as were most given in those days, and +I saw "Macbeth" and "Hamlet," and above all "Richard III.," again and +again. I do not know why my delight in those tragedies did not send me +to the volume of his plays, which was all the time in the bookcase at +home, but I seem not to have thought of it, and rapt as I was in them I +am not sure that they gave me greater pleasure, or seemed at all finer, +than "Rollo," "The Wife," "The Stranger," "Barbarossa," "The Miser of +Marseilles," and the rest of the melodramas, comedies, and farces which I +saw at that time. I have a notion that there were some clever people in +one of these companies, and that the lighter pieces at least were well +played, but I may be altogether wrong. The gentleman who took the part +of villain, with an unfailing love of evil, in the different dramas, used +to come about the printing-office a good deal, and I was puzzled to find +him a very mild and gentle person. To be sure he had a mustache, which +in those days devoted a man to wickedness, but by day it was a blond +mustache, quite flaxen, in fact, and not at all the dark and deadly thing +it was behind the footlights at night. I could scarcely gasp in his +presence, my heart bounded so in awe and honor of him when he paid a +visit to us; perhaps he used to bring the copy of the show-bills. The +company he belonged to left town in the adversity habitual with them. + +Our own adversity had been growing, and now it became overwhelming. We +had to give up the paper we had struggled so hard to keep, but when the +worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before. There was no +more waiting till midnight for the telegraphic news, no more waking at +dawn to deliver the papers, no more weary days at the case, heavier for +the doom hanging over us. My father and his brothers had long dreamed of +a sort of family colony somewhere in the country, and now the uncle who +was most prosperous bought a milling property on a river not far from +Dayton, and my father went out to take charge of it until the others +could shape their business to follow him. The scheme came to nothing +finally, but in the mean time we escaped from the little city and its +sorrowful associations of fruitless labor, and had a year in the country, +which was blest, at least to us children, by sojourn in a log-cabin, +while a house was building for us. + + + + +VI. LONGFELLOW'S "SPANISH STUDENT" + +This log-cabin had a loft, where we boys slept, and in the loft were +stored in barrels the books that had now begun to overflow the bookcase. +I do not know why I chose the loft to renew my long-neglected friendship +with them. The light could not have been good, though if I brought my +books to the little gable window that overlooked the groaning and +whistling gristmill I could see well enough. But perhaps I liked the +loft best because the books were handiest there, and because I could be +alone. At any rate, it was there that I read Longfellow's "Spanish +Student," which I found in an old paper copy of his poems in one of the +barrels, and I instantly conceived for it the passion which all things +Spanish inspired in me. As I read I not only renewed my acquaintance +with literature, but renewed my delight in people and places where I had +been happy before those heavy years in Dayton. At the same time I felt a +little jealousy, a little grudge, that any one else should love them as +well as I, and if the poem had not been so beautiful I should have hated +the poet for trespassing on my ground. But I could not hold out long +against the witchery of his verse. The "Spanish Student" became one of +my passions; a minor passion, not a grand one, like 'Don Quixote' and the +'Conquest of Granada', but still a passion, and I should dread a little +to read the piece now, lest I should disturb my old ideal of its beauty. +The hero's rogue servant, Chispa, seemed to me, then and long afterwards, +so fine a bit of Spanish character that I chose his name for my first +pseudonym when I began to write for the newspapers, and signed my +legislative correspondence for a Cincinnati paper with it. I was in love +with the heroine, the lovely dancer whose 'cachucha' turned my head, +along with that of the cardinal, but whose name even I have forgotten, +and I went about with the thought of her burning in my heart, as if she +had been a real person. + + + + +VII. SCOTT + +All the while I was bringing up the long arrears of play which I had not +enjoyed in the toil-years at Dayton, and was trying to make my Spanish +reading serve in the sports that we had in the woods and by the river. +We were Moors and Spaniards almost as often as we were British and +Americans, or settlers and Indians. I suspect that the large, mild boy, +the son of a neighboring farmer, who mainly shared our games, had but a +dim notion of what I meant by my strange people, but I did my best to +enlighten him, and he helped me make a dream out of my life, and did his +best to dwell in the region of unrealities where I preferably had my +being; he was from time to time a Moor when I think he would rather have +been a Mingo. + +I got hold of Scott's poems, too, in that cabin loft, and read most of +the tales which were yet unknown to me after those earlier readings of my +father's. I could not say why "Harold the Dauntless" most took my fancy; +the fine, strongly flowing rhythm of the verse had a good deal to do with +it, I believe. I liked these things, all of them, and in after years I +liked the "Lady of the Lake" more and more, and from mere love of it got +great lengths of it by heart; but I cannot say that Scott was then or +ever a great passion with me. It was a sobered affection at best, which +came from my sympathy with his love of nature, and the whole kindly and +humane keeping of his genius. Many years later, during the month when I +was waiting for my passport as Consul for Venice, and had the time on my +hands, I passed it chiefly in reading all his novels, one after another, +without the interruption of other reading. 'Ivanhoe' I had known before, +and the 'Bride of Lammermoor' and 'Woodstock', but the rest had remained +in that sort of abeyance which is often the fate of books people expect +to read as a matter of course, and come very near not reading at all, or +read only very late. Taking them in this swift sequence, little or +nothing of them remained with me, and my experience with them is against +that sort of ordered and regular reading, which I have so often heard +advised for young people by their elders. I always suspect their elders +of not having done that kind of reading themselves. + +For my own part I believe I have never got any good from a book that I +did not read lawlessly and wilfully, out of all leading and following, +and merely because I wanted to read it; and I here make bold to praise +that way of doing. The book which you read from a sense of duty, or +because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you. +It may happen that it will yield you an unexpected delight, but this will +be in its own unentreated way and in spite of your good intentions. +Little of the book read for a purpose stays with the reader, and this is +one reason why reading for review is so vain and unprofitable. I have +done a vast deal of this, but I have usually been aware that the book was +subtly withholding from me the best a book can give, since I was not +reading it for its own sake and because I loved it, but for selfish ends +of my own, and because I wished to possess myself of it for business +purposes, as it were. The reading that does one good, and lasting good, +is the reading that one does for pleasure, and simply and unselfishly, +as children do. Art will still withhold herself from thrift, and she +does well, for nothing but love has any right to her. + +Little remains of the events of any period, however vivid they were in +passing. The memory may hold record of everything, as it is believed, +but it will not be easily entreated to give up its facts, and I find +myself striving in vein to recall the things that I must have read that +year in the country. Probably I read the old things over; certainly I +kept on with Cervantes, and very likely with Goldsmith. There was a +delightful history of Ohio, stuffed with tales of the pioneer times, +which was a good deal in the hands of us boys; and there was a book of +Western Adventure, full of Indian fights and captivities, which we wore +to pieces. Still, I think that it was now that I began to have a +literary sense of what I was reading. I wrote a diary, and I tried to +give its record form and style, but mostly failed. The versifying which +I was always at was easier, and yielded itself more to my hand. I should +be very glad to, know at present what it dealt with. + + + + +VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES + +When my uncles changed their minds in regard to colonizing their families +at the mills, as they did in about a year, it became necessary for my +father to look about for some new employment, and he naturally looked in +the old direction. There were several schemes for getting hold of this +paper and that, and there were offers that came to nothing. In that day +there were few salaried editors in the country outside of New York, and +the only hope we could have was of some place as printers in an office +which we might finally buy. The affair ended in our going to the State +capital, where my father found work as a reporter of legislative +proceedings for one of the daily journals, and I was taken into the +office as a compositor. In this way I came into living contact with +literature again, and the daydreams began once more over the familiar +cases of type. A definite literary ambition grew up in me, and in the +long reveries of the afternoon, when I was distributing my case, +I fashioned a future of overpowering magnificence and undying celebrity. +I should be ashamed to say what literary triumphs I achieved in those +preposterous deliriums. What I actually did was to write a good many +copies of verse, in imitation, never owned, of Moore and Goldsmith, and +some minor poets, whose work caught my fancy, as I read it in the +newspapers or put it into type. + +One of my pieces, which fell so far short of my visionary performances as +to treat of the lowly and familiar theme of Spring, was the first thing I +ever had in print. My father offered it to the editor of the paper I +worked on, and I first knew, with mingled shame and pride, of what he had +done when I saw it in the journal. In the tumult of my emotions I +promised myself that if I got through this experience safely I would +never suffer anything else of mine to be published; but it was not long +before I offered the editor a poem myself. I am now glad to think it +dealt with so humble a fact as a farmer's family leaving their old home +for the West. The only fame of my poem which reached me was when another +boy in the office quoted some lines of it in derision. This covered me +with such confusion that I wonder that I did not vanish from the earth. +At the same time I had my secret joy in it, and even yet I think it was +attempted in a way which was not false or wrong. I had tried to sketch +an aspect of life that I had seen and known, and that was very well +indeed, and I had wrought patiently and carefully in the art of the poor +little affair. + +My elder brother, for whom there was no place in the office where I +worked, had found one in a store, and he beguiled the leisure that light +trade left on his hands by reading the novels of Captain Marryat. I read +them after him with a great deal of amusement, but without the passion +that I bestowed upon my favorite authors. I believe I had no critical +reserves in regard to them, but simply they did not take my fancy. +Still, we had great fun with Japhet in 'Search of a Father', and with +'Midshipman Easy', and we felt a fine physical shiver in the darkling +moods of 'Snarle-yow the Dog-Fiend.' I do not remember even the names of +the other novels, except 'Jacob Faithful,' which I chanced upon a few +years ago and found very, hard reading. + +We children who were used to the free range of woods and fields were +homesick for the country in our narrow city yard, and I associate with +this longing the 'Farmer's Boy of Bloomfield,' which my father got for +me. It was a little book in blue cloth, and there were some mild wood- +cuts in it. I read it with a tempered pleasure, and with a vague +resentment of its trespass upon Thomson's ground in the division of its +parts under the names of the seasons. I do not know why I need have felt +this. I was not yet very fond of Thomson. I really liked Bloomfield +better; for one thing, his poem was written in the heroic decasyllabics +which I preferred to any other verse. + + + + +IX. POPE + +I infer, from the fact of this preference that I had already begun to +read Pope, and that I must have read the "Deserted Village" of Goldsmith. +I fancy, also, that I must by this time have read the Odyssey, for the +"Battle of the Frogs and Mice" was in the second volume, and it took me +so much that I paid it the tribute of a bald imitation in a mock-heroic +epic of a cat fight, studied from the cat fights in our back yard, with +the wonted invocation to the Muse, and the machinery of partisan gods and +goddesses. It was in some hundreds of verses, which I did my best to +balance as Pope did, with a caesura falling in the middle of the line, +and a neat antithesis at the end. + +The story of the Odyssey charmed me, of course, and I had moments of +being intimate friends with Ulysses, but I was passing out of that phase, +and was coming to read more with a sense of the author, and less with a +sense of his characters as real persons; that is, I was growing more +literary, and less human. I fell in love with Pope, whose life I read +with an ardor of sympathy which I am afraid he hardly merited. I was of +his side in all his quarrels, as far as I understood them, and if I did +not understand them I was of his side anyway. When I found that he was a +Catholic I was almost ready to abjure the Protestant religion for his +sake; but I perceived that this was not necessary when I came to know +that most of his friends were Protestants. If the truth must be told, +I did not like his best things at first, but long remained chiefly +attached to his rubbishing pastorals, which I was perpetually imitating, +with a whole apparatus of swains and shepherdesses, purling brooks, +enamelled meads, rolling years, and the like. + +After my day's work at the case I wore the evening away in my boyish +literary attempts, forcing my poor invention in that unnatural kind, and +rubbing and polishing at my wretched verses till they did sometimes take +on an effect, which, if it was not like Pope's, was like none of mine. +With all my pains I do not think I ever managed to bring any of my +pastorals to a satisfactory close. They all stopped somewhere about +halfway. My swains could not think of anything more to say, and the +merits of my shepherdesses remained undecided. To this day I do not know +whether in any given instance it was the champion of Chloe or of Sylvia +that carried off the prize for his fair, but I dare say it does not much +matter. I am sure that I produced a rhetoric as artificial and treated +of things as unreal as my master in the art, and I am rather glad that I +acquainted myself so thoroughly with a mood of literature which, whatever +we may say against it, seems to have expressed very perfectly a mood of +civilization. + +The severe schooling I gave myself was not without its immediate use. +I learned how to choose between words after a study of their fitness, +and though I often employed them decoratively and with no vital sense of +their qualities, still in mere decoration they had to be chosen +intelligently, and after some thought about their structure and meaning. +I could not imitate Pope without imitating his methods, and his method +was to the last degree intelligent. He certainly knew what he was doing, +and although I did not always know what I was doing, he made me wish to +know, and ashamed of not knowing. There are several truer poets who +might not have done this; and after all the modern contempt of Pope, he +seems to me to have been at least one of the great masters, if not one of +the great poets. The poor man's life was as weak and crooked as his +frail, tormented body, but he had a dauntless spirit, and he fought his +way against odds that might well have appalled a stronger nature. +I suppose I must own that he was from time to time a snob, and from time +to time a liar, but I believe that he loved the truth, and would have +liked always to respect himself if he could. He violently revolted, +now and again, from the abasement to which he forced himself, and he +always bit the heel that trod on him, especially if it was a very high, +narrow heel, with a clocked stocking and a hooped skirt above it. +I loved him fondly at one time, and afterwards despised him, but now I am +not sorry for the love, and I am very sorry for the despite. I humbly, +own a vast debt to him, not the least part of which is the perception +that he is a model of ever so much more to be shunned than to be followed +in literature. + +He was the first of the writers of great Anna's time whom I knew, and he +made me ready to understand, if he did not make me understand at once, +the order of mind and life which he belonged to. Thanks to his +pastorals, I could long afterwards enjoy with the double sense requisite +for full pleasure in them, such divinely excellent artificialities at +Tasso's "Aminta" and Guarini's "Pastor Fido"; things which you will +thoroughly like only after you are in the joke of thinking how people +once seriously liked them as high examples of poetry. + +Of course I read other things of Pope's besides his pastorals, even at +the time I read these so much. I read, or not very easily or willingly +read at, his 'Essay on Man,' which my father admired, and which he +probably put Pope's works into my hands to have me read; and I read the +'Dunciad,' with quite a furious ardor in the tiresome quarrels it +celebrates, and an interest in its machinery, which it fatigues me to +think of. But it was only a few years ago that I read the 'Rape of the +Lock,' a thing perfect of its kind, whatever we may choose to think of +the kind. Upon the whole I think much better of the kind than I once +did, though still not so much as I should have thought if I had read the +poem when the fever of my love for Pope was at the highest. + +It is a nice question how far one is helped or hurt by one's +idealizations of historical or imaginary characters, and I shall not try +to answer it fully. I suppose that if I once cherished such a passion +for Pope personally that I would willingly have done the things that he +did, and told the lies, and vented the malice, and inflicted the +cruelties that the poor soul was full of, it was for the reason, partly, +that I did not see these things as they were, and that in the glamour of +his talent I was blind to all but the virtues of his defects, which he +certainly had, and partly that in my love of him I could not take sides +against him, even when I knew him to be wrong. After all, I fancy not +much harm comes to the devoted boy from his enthusiasms for this +imperfect hero or that. In my own case I am sure that I distinguished as +to certain sins in my idols. I could not cast them down or cease to +worship them, but some of their frailties grieved me and put me to secret +shame for them. I did not excuse these things in them, or try to believe +that they were less evil for them than they would have been for less +people. This was after I came more or less to the knowledge of good and +evil. While I remained in the innocence of childhood I did not even +understand the wrong. When I realized what lives some of my poets had +led, how they were drunkards, and swindlers, and unchaste, and untrue, +I lamented over them with a sense of personal disgrace in them, and to +this day I have no patience with that code of the world which relaxes +itself in behalf of the brilliant and gifted offender; rather he should +suffer more blame. The worst of the literature of past times, before an +ethical conscience began to inform it, or the advance of the race +compelled it to decency, is that it leaves the mind foul with filthy +images and base thoughts; but what I have been trying to say is that the +boy, unless he is exceptionally depraved beforehand, is saved from these +through his ignorance. Still I wish they were not there, and I hope the +time will come when the beast-man will be so far subdued and tamed in us +that the memory of him in literature shall be left to perish; that what +is lewd and ribald in the great poets shall be kept out of such editions +as are meant for general reading, and that the pedant-pride which now +perpetuates it as an essential part of those poets shall no longer have +its way. At the end of the ends such things do defile, they do corrupt. +We may palliate them or excuse them for this reason or that, but that is +the truth, and I do not see why they should not be dropped from +literature, as they were long ago dropped from the talk of decent people. +The literary histories might keep record of them, but it is loath some to +think of those heaps of ordure, accumulated from generation to +generation, and carefully passed down from age to age as something +precious and vital, and not justly regarded as the moral offal which they +are. + +During the winter we passed at Columbus I suppose that my father read +things aloud to us after his old habit, and that I listened with the +rest. I have a dim notion of first knowing Thomson's 'Castle of +Indolence' in this way, but I was getting more and more impatient of +having things read to me. The trouble was that I caught some thought or +image from the text, and that my fancy remained playing with that while +the reading went on, and I lost the rest. But I think the reading was +less in every way than it had been, because his work was exhausting and +his leisure less. My own hours in the printing-office began at seven and +ended at six, with an hour at noon for dinner, which I often used for +putting down such verses as had come to me during the morning. As soon +as supper was over at night I got out my manuscripts, which I kept in +great disorder, and written in several different hands on several +different kinds of paper, and sawed, and filed, and hammered away at my +blessed Popean heroics till nine, when I went regularly to bed, to rise +again at five. Sometimes the foreman gave me an afternoon off on +Saturdays, and though the days were long the work was not always +constant, and was never very severe. I suspect now the office was not so +prosperous as might have been wished. I was shifted from place to place +in it, and there was plenty of time for my day-dreams over the +distribution of my case. I was very fond of my work, though, and proud +of my swiftness and skill in it. Once when the perplexed foreman could +not think of any task to set me he offered me a holiday, but I would not +take it, so I fancy that at this time I was not more interested in my art +of poetry than in my trade of printing. What went on in the office +interested me as much as the quarrels of the Augustan age of English +letters, and I made much more record of it in the crude and shapeless +diary which I kept, partly in verse and partly in prose, but always of a +distinctly lower literary kind than that I was trying otherwise to write. +There must have been some mention in it of the tremendous combat with wet +sponges I saw there one day between two of the boys who hurled them back +and forth at each other. This amiable fray, carried on during the +foreman's absence, forced upon my notice for the first time the boy who +has come to be a name well-known in literature. I admired his vigor as a +combatant, but I never spoke to him at that time, and I never dreamed +that he, too, was effervescing with verse, probably as fiercely as +myself. Six or seven years later we met again, when we had both become +journalists, and had both had poems accepted by Mr. Lowell for the +Atlantic Monthly, and then we formed a literary friendship which +eventuated in the joint publication of a volume of verse. 'The Poems of +Two Friends' became instantly and lastingly unknown to fame; the West +waited, as it always does, to hear what the East should say; the East +said nothing, and two-thirds of the small edition of five hundred came +back upon the publisher's hands. I imagine these copies were "ground up" +in the manner of worthless stock, for I saw a single example of the book +quoted the other day in a book-seller's catalogue at ten dollars, and I +infer that it is so rare as to be prized at least for its rarity. It was +a very pretty little book, printed on tinted paper then called "blush," +in the trade, and it was manufactured in the same office where we had +once been boys together, unknown to each other. Another boy of that time +had by this time become foreman in the office, and he was very severe +with us about the proofs, and sent us hurting messages on the margin. +Perhaps he thought we might be going to take on airs, and perhaps we +might have taken on airs if the fate of our book had been different. +As it was I really think we behaved with sufficient meekness, and after +thirty four or five years for reflection I am still of a very modest mind +about my share of the book, in spite of the price it bears in the book- +seller's catalogue. But I have steadily grown in liking for my friend's +share in it, and I think that there is at present no American of twenty- +three writing verse of so good a quality, with an ideal so pure and high, +and from an impulse so authentic as John J. Piatt's were then. He +already knew how to breathe into his glowing rhyme the very spirit of the +region where we were both native, and in him the Middle West has its true +poet, who was much more than its poet, who had a rich and tender +imagination, a lovely sense of color, and a touch even then securely and +fully his own. I was reading over his poems in that poor little book a +few days ago, and wondering with shame and contrition that I had not at +once known their incomparable superiority to mine. But I used then and +for long afterwards to tax him with obscurity, not knowing that my own +want of simplicity and directness was to blame for that effect. +My reading from the first was such as to enamour me of clearness, of +definiteness; anything left in the vague was intolerable to me; but my +long subjection to Pope, while it was useful in other ways, made me so +strictly literary in my point of view that sometimes I could not see what +was, if more naturally approached and without any technical +preoccupation, perfectly transparent. It remained for another great +passion, perhaps the greatest of my life, to fuse these gyves in which I +was trying so hard to dance, and free me forever from the bonds which I +had spent so much time and trouble to involve myself in. But I was not +to know that passion for five or six years yet, and in the mean time I +kept on as I had been going, and worked out my deliverance in the +predestined way. What I liked then was regularity, uniformity, +exactness. I did not conceive of literature as the expression of life, +and I could not imagine that it ought to be desultory, mutable, and +unfixed, even if at the risk of some vagueness. + + + + +X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES + +My father was very fond of Byron, and I must before this have known that +his poems were in our bookcase. While we were still in Columbus I began +to read them, but I did not read so much of them as could have helped me +to a truer and freer ideal. I read "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," +and I liked its vulgar music and its heavy-handed sarcasm. These would, +perhaps, have fascinated any boy, but I had such a fanaticism for +methodical verse that any variation from the octosyllabic and +decasyllabic couplets was painful to me. The Spencerian stanza, with its +rich variety of movement and its harmonious closes, long shut "Childe +Harold" from me, and whenever I found a poem in any book which did not +rhyme its second line with its first I read it unwillingly or not at all. + +This craze could not last, of course, but it lasted beyond our stay in +Columbus, which ended with the winter, when the Legislature adjourned, +and my father's employment ceased. He tried to find some editorial work +on the paper which had printed his reports, but every place was full, and +it was hopeless to dream of getting a proprietary interest in it. We had +nothing, and we must seek a chance where something besides money would +avail us. This offered itself in the village of Ashtabula, in the +northeastern part of the State, and there we all found ourselves one +moonlight night of early summer. The Lake Shore Railroad then ended at +Ashtabula, in a bank of sand, and my elder brother and I walked up from +the station, while the rest of the family, which pretty well filled the +omnibus, rode. We had been very happy at Columbus, as we were apt to be +anywhere, but none of us liked the narrowness of city streets, even so +near to the woods as those were, and we were eager for the country again. +We had always lived hitherto in large towns, except for that year at the +Mills, and we were eager to see what a village was like, especially a +village peopled wholly by Yankees, as our father had reported it. I must +own that we found it far prettier than anything we had known in Southern +Ohio, which we were so fond of and so loath to leave, and as I look back +it still seems to me one of the prettiest little places I have ever +known, with its white wooden houses, glimmering in the dark of its elms +and maples, and their silent gardens beside each, and the silent, grass- +bordered, sandy streets between them. The hotel, where we rejoined our +family, lurked behind a group of lofty elms, and we drank at the town +pump before it just for the pleasure of pumping it. + +The village was all that we could have imagined of simply and sweetly +romantic in the moonlight, and when the day came it did not rob it of its +charm. It was as lovely in my eyes as the loveliest village of the +plain, and it had the advantage of realizing the Deserted Village without +being deserted. + + + + +XI. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN + +The book that moved me most, in our stay of six months at Ashtabula, was +then beginning to move the whole world more than any other book has moved +it. I read it as it came out week after week in the old National Era, +and I broke my heart over Uncle Tom's Cabin, as every one else did. Yet +I cannot say that it was a passion of mine like Don Quixote, or the other +books that I had loved intensely. I felt its greatness when I read it +first, and as often as I have read it since, I have seen more and more +clearly that it was a very great novel. With certain obvious lapses in +its art, and with an art that is at its best very simple, and perhaps +primitive, the book is still a work of art. I knew this, in a measure +then, as I know it now, and yet neither the literary pride I was +beginning to have in the perception of such things, nor the powerful +appeal it made to my sympathies, sufficed to impassion me of it. I could +not say why this was so. Why does the young man's fancy, when it lightly +turns to thoughts of love, turn this way and not that? There seems no +more reason for one than for the other. + +Instead of remaining steeped to the lips in the strong interest of what +is still perhaps our chief fiction, I shed my tribute of tears, and went +on my way. I did not try to write a story of slaver, as I might very +well have done; I did not imitate either the make or the manner of Mrs. +Stowe's romance; I kept on at my imitation of Pope's pastorals, which I +dare say I thought much finer, and worthier the powers of such a poet as +I meant to be. I did this, as I must have felt then, at some personal +risk of a supernatural kind, for my studies were apt to be prolonged into +the night after the rest of the family had gone to bed, and a certain +ghost, which I had every reason to fear, might very well have visited the +small room given me to write in. There was a story, which I shrank from +verifying, that a former inmate of our house had hung himself in it, but +I do not know to this day whether it was true or not. The doubt did not +prevent him from dangling at the door-post, in my consciousness, and many +a time I shunned the sight of this problematical suicide by keeping my +eyes fastened on the book before me. It was a very simple device, but +perfectly effective, as I think any one will find who employs it in like +circumstances; and I would really like to commend it to growing boys +troubled as I was then. + +I never heard who the poor soul was, or why he took himself out of the +world, if he really did so, or if he ever was in it; but I am sure that +my passion for Pope, and my purpose of writing pastorals, must have been +powerful indeed to carry me through dangers of that kind. I suspect that +the strongest proof of their existence was the gloomy and ruinous look of +the house, which was one of the oldest in the village, and the only one +that was for rent there. We went into it because we must, and we were to +leave it as soon as we could find a better. But before this happened we +left Ashtabula, and I parted with one of the few possibilities I have +enjoyed of seeing a ghost on his own ground, as it were. + +I was not sorry, for I believe I never went in or came out of the place, +by day or by night, without a shudder, more or less secret; and at least, +now, we should be able to get another house. + + + + +XII. OSSIAN + +Very likely the reading of Ossian had something to do with my morbid +anxieties. I had read Byron's imitation of him before that, and admired +it prodigiously, and when my father got me the book--as usual I did not +know where or how he got it--not all the tall forms that moved before the +eyes of haunted bards in the dusky vale of autumn could have kept me from +it. There were certain outline illustrations in it, which were very good +in the cold Flaxman manner, and helped largely to heighten the +fascination of the poems for me. They did not supplant the pastorals of +Pope in my affections, and they were never the grand passion with me that +Pope's poems had been. + +I began at once to make my imitations of Ossian, and I dare say they were +not windier and mistier than the original. At the same time I read the +literature of the subject, and gave the pretensions of Macpherson an +unquestioning faith. I should have made very short work of any one who +had impugned the authenticity of the poems, but happily there was no one +who held the contrary opinion in that village, so far as I knew, or who +cared for Ossian, or had even heard of him. This saved me a great deal +of heated controversy with my contemporaries, but I had it out in many +angry reveries with Dr. Johnson and others, who had dared to say in their +time that the poems of Ossian were not genuine lays of the Gaelic bard, +handed down from father to son, and taken from the lips of old women in +Highland huts, as Macpherson claimed. + +In fact I lived over in my small way the epoch of the eighteenth century +in which these curious frauds found polite acceptance all over Europe, +and I think yet that they were really worthier of acceptance than most of +the artificialities that then passed for poetry. There was a light of +nature in them, and this must have been what pleased me, so long-shut up +to the studio-work of Pope. But strangely enough I did not falter in my +allegiance to him, or realize that here in this free form was a +deliverance, if I liked, from the fetters and manacles which I had been +at so much pains to fit myself with. Probably nothing would then have +persuaded me to put them off permanently, or to do more than lay them +aside for the moment while I tried that new stop and that new step. + +I think that even then I had an instinctive doubt whether formlessness +was really better than formality. Something, it seems to me, may be +contained and kept alive in formality, but in formlessness everything +spills and wastes away. This is what I find the fatal defect of our +American Ossian, Walt Whitman, whose way is where artistic madness lies. +He had great moments, beautiful and noble thoughts, generous aspirations, +and a heart wide and warm enough for the whole race, but he had no +bounds, no shape; he was as liberal as the casing air, but he was often +as vague and intangible. I cannot say how long my passion for Ossian +lasted, but not long, I fancy, for I cannot find any trace of it in the +time following our removal from Ashtabula to the county seat at +Jefferson. I kept on with Pope, I kept on with Cervantes, I kept on with +Irving, but I suppose there was really not substance enough in Ossian to +feed my passion, and it died of inanition. + + + + +XIII. SHAKESPEARE + +The establishment of our paper in the village where there had been none +before, and its enlargement from four to eight pages, were events so +filling that they left little room for any other excitement but that of +getting acquainted with the young people of the village, and going to +parties, and sleigh rides, and walks, and drives, and picnics, and +dances, and all the other pleasures in which that community seemed to +indulge beyond any other we had known. The village was smaller than the +one we had just left, but it was by no means less lively, and I think +that for its size and time and place it had an uncommon share of what has +since been called culture. The intellectual experience of the people was +mainly theological and political, as it was everywhere in that day, but +there were several among them who had a real love for books, and when +they met at the druggist's, as they did every night, to dispute of the +inspiration of the Scriptures and the principles of the Free Soil party, +the talk sometimes turned upon the respective merits of Dickens and +Thackeray, Gibbon and Macaulay, Wordsworth and Byron. There were law +students who read "Noctes Ambrosianae," the 'Age of Reason', and Bailey's +"Festus," as well as Blackstone's 'Commentaries;' and there was a public +library in that village of six hundred people, small but very well +selected, which was kept in one of the lawyers' offices, and was free to +all. It seems to me now that the people met there oftener than they do +in most country places, and rubbed their wits together more, but this may +be one of those pleasing illusions of memory which men in later life are +subject to. + +I insist upon nothing, but certainly the air was friendlier to the tastes +I had formed than any I had yet known, and I found a wider if not deeper +sympathy with them. There was one of our printers who liked books, and +we went through 'Don Quixote' together again, and through the 'Conquest +of Granada', and we began to read other things of Irving's. There was a +very good little stock of books at the village drugstore, and among those +that began to come into my hands were the poems of Dr. Holmes, stray +volumes of De Quincey, and here and there minor works of Thackeray. +I believe I had no money to buy them, but there was an open account, +or a comity, between the printer and the bookseller, and I must have been +allowed a certain discretion in regard to getting books. + +Still I do not think I went far in the more modern authors, or gave my +heart to any of them. Suddenly, it was now given to Shakespeare, without +notice or reason, that I can recall, except that my friend liked him too, +and that we found it a double pleasure to read him together. Printers in +the old-time offices were always spouting Shakespeare more or less, and I +suppose I could not have kept away from him much longer in the nature of +things. I cannot fix the time or place when my friend and I began to +read him, but it was in the fine print of that unhallowed edition of +ours, and presently we had great lengths of him by heart, out of +"Hamlet," out of "The Tempest," out of "Macbeth," out of "Richard III.," +out of "Midsummer-Night's Dream," out of the "Comedy of Errors," out of +"Julius Caesar," out of "Measure for Measure," out of "Romeo and Juliet," +out of "Two Gentlemen of Verona." + +These were the plays that we loved, and must have read in common, or at +least at the same time: but others that I more especially liked were the +Histories, and among them particularly were the Henrys, where Falstaff +appeared. This gross and palpable reprobate greatly took my fancy. +I delighted in him immensely, and in his comrades, Pistol, and Bardolph, +and Nym. I could not read of his death without emotion, and it was a +personal pang to me when the prince, crowned king, denied him: blackguard +for blackguard, I still think the prince the worse blackguard. Perhaps I +flatter myself, but I believe that even then, as a boy of sixteen, +I fully conceived of Falstaff's character, and entered into the author's +wonderfully humorous conception of him. There is no such perfect +conception of the selfish sensualist in literature, and the conception is +all the more perfect because of the wit that lights up the vice of +Falstaff, a cold light without tenderness, for he was not a good fellow, +though a merry companion. I am not sure but I should put him beside +Hamlet, and on the name level, for the merit of his artistic +completeness, and at one time I much preferred him, or at least his +humor. + +As to Falstaff personally, or his like, I was rather fastidious, and +would not have made friends with him in the flesh, much or little. +I revelled in all his appearances in the Histories, and I tried to be as +happy where a factitious and perfunctory Falstaff comes to life again in +the "Merry Wives of Windsor," though at the bottom of my heart I felt the +difference. I began to make my imitations of Shakespeare, and I wrote 57 +out passages where Falstaff and Pistol and Bardolph talked together, in +that Ercles vein which is so easily caught. This was after a year or two +of the irregular and interrupted acquaintance with the author which has +been my mode of friendship with all the authors I have loved. My worship +of Shakespeare went to heights and lengths that it had reached with no +earlier idol, and there was a supreme moment, once, when I found myself +saying that the creation of Shakespeare was as great as the creation of a +planet. + +There ought certainly to be some bound beyond which the cult of favorite +authors should not be suffered to go. I should keep well within the +limit of that early excess now, and should not liken the creation of +Shakespeare to the creation of any heavenly body bigger, say, than one of +the nameless asteroids that revolve between Mars and Jupiter. Even this +I do not feel to be a true means of comparison, and I think that in the +case of all great men we like to let our wonder mount and mount, till it +leaves the truth behind, and honesty is pretty much cast out as ballast. +A wise criticism will no more magnify Shakespeare because he is already +great than it will magnify any less man. But we are loaded down with the +responsibility of finding him all we have been told he is, and we must do +this or suspect ourselves of a want of taste, a want of sensibility. At +the same time, we may really be honester than those who have led us to +expect this or that of him, and more truly his friends. I wish the time +might come when we could read Shakespeare, and Dante, and Homer, as +sincerely and as fairly as we read any new book by the least known of our +contemporaries. The course of criticism is towards this, but when I +began to read Shakespeare I should not have ventured to think that he was +not at every moment great. I should no more have thought of questioning +the poetry of any passage in him than of questioning the proofs of holy +writ. All the same, I knew very well that much which I read was really +poor stuff, and the persons and positions were often preposterous. It is +a great pity that the ardent youth should not be permitted and even +encouraged to say this to himself, instead of falling slavishly before a +great author and accepting him at all points as infallible. Shakespeare +is fine enough and great enough when all the possible detractions are +made, and I have no fear of saying now that he would be finer and greater +for the loss of half his work, though if I had heard any one say such a +thing then I should have held him as little better than one of the +wicked. + +Upon the whole it was well that I had not found my way to Shakespeare +earlier, though it is rather strange that I had not. I knew him on the +stage in most of the plays that used to be given. I had shared the +conscience of Macbeth, the passion of Othello, the doubt of Hamlet; many +times, in my natural affinity for villains, I had mocked and suffered +with Richard III. + +Probably no dramatist ever needed the stage less, and none ever brought +more to it. There have been few joys for me in life comparable to that +of seeing the curtain rise on "Hamlet," and hearing the guards begin to +talk about the ghost; and yet how fully this joy imparts itself without +any material embodiment! It is the same in the whole range of his plays: +they fill the scene, but if there is no scene they fill the soul. They +are neither worse nor better because of the theatre. They are so great +that it cannot hamper them; they are so vital that they enlarge it to +their own proportions and endue it with something of their own living +force. They make it the size of life, and yet they retire it so wholly +that you think no more of it than you think of the physiognomy of one who +talks importantly to you. I have heard people say that they would rather +not see Shakespeare played than to see him played ill, but I cannot agree +with them. He can better afford to be played ill than any other man that +ever wrote. Whoever is on the stage, it is always Shakespeare who is +speaking to me, and perhaps this is the reason why in the past I can +trace no discrepancy between reading his plays and seeing them. + +The effect is so equal from either experience that I am not sure as to +some plays whether I read them or saw them first, though as to most of +them I am aware that I never saw them at all; and if the whole truth must +be told there is still one of his plays that I have not read, and I +believe it is esteemed one of his greatest. There are several, with all +my reading of others, that I had not read till within a few years; and I +do not think I should have lost much if I, had never read "Pericles" and +"Winter's Tale." + +In those early days I had no philosophized preference for reality in +literature, and I dare say if I had been asked, I should have said that +the plays of Shakespeare where reality is least felt were the most +imaginative; that is the belief of the puerile critics still; but I +suppose it was my instinctive liking for reality that made the great +Histories so delightful to me, and that rendered "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" +vital in their very ghosts and witches. There I found a world +appreciable to experience, a world inexpressibly vaster and grander than +the poor little affair that I had only known a small obscure corner of, +and yet of one quality with it, so that I could be as much at home and +citizen in it as where I actually lived. There I found joy and sorrow +mixed, and nothing abstract or typical, but everything standing for +itself, and not for some other thing. Then, I suppose it was the +interfusion of humor through so much of it, that made it all precious and +friendly. I think I had a native love of laughing, which was fostered in +me by my father's way of looking at life, and had certainly been +flattered by my intimacy with Cervantes; but whether this was so or not, +I know that I liked best and felt deepest those plays and passages in +Shakespeare where the alliance of the tragic and the comic was closest. +Perhaps in a time when self-consciousness is so widespread, it is the +only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am sure that without it I +should not have been naturalized to that world of Shakespeare's +Histories, where I used to spend so much of my leisure, with such a sense +of his own intimate companionship there as I had nowhere else. I felt +that he must somehow like my being in the joke of it all, and that in his +great heart he had room for a boy willing absolutely to lose himself in +him, and be as one of his creations. + +It was the time of life with me when a boy begins to be in love with the +pretty faces that then peopled this world so thickly, and I did not fail +to fall in love with the ladies of that Shakespeare-world where I lived +equally. I cannot tell whether it was because I found them like my +ideals here, or whether my ideals acquired merit because of their +likeness to the realities there; they appeared to be all of one degree of +enchanting loveliness; but upon the whole I must have preferred them in +the plays, because it was so much easier to get on with them there; I was +always much better dressed there; I was vastly handsomer; I was not +bashful or afraid, and I had some defects of these advantages to contend +with here. + +That friend of mine, the printer whom I have mentioned, was one with me +in a sense of the Shakespearean humor, and he dwelt with me in the sort +of double being I had in those two worlds. We took the book into the +woods at the ends of the long summer afternoons that remained to us when +we had finished our work, and on the shining Sundays of the warm, late +spring, the early, warm autumn, and we read it there on grassy slopes or +heaps of fallen leaves; so that much of the poetry is mixed for me with a +rapturous sense of the out-door beauty of this lovely natural world. +We read turn about, one taking the story up as the other tired, and as we +read the drama played itself under the open sky and in the free air with +such orchestral effects as the soughing woods or some rippling stream +afforded. It was not interrupted when a squirrel dropped a nut on us +from the top of a tall hickory; and the plaint of a meadow-lark prolonged +itself with unbroken sweetness from one world to the other. + +But I think it takes two to read in the open air. The pressure of walls +is wanted to keep the mind within itself when one reads alone; otherwise +it wanders and disperses itself through nature. When my friend left us +for want of work in the office, or from the vagarious impulse which is so +strong in our craft, I took my Shakespeare no longer to the woods and +fields, but pored upon him mostly by night, in the narrow little space +which I had for my study, under the stairs at home. There was a desk +pushed back against the wall, which the irregular ceiling eloped down to +meet behind it, and at my left was a window, which gave a good light on +the writing-leaf of my desk. This was my workshop for six or seven +years, and it was not at all a bad one; I have had many since that were +not so much to the purpose; and though I would not live my life over, I +would willingly enough have that little study mine again. But it is gone +an utterly as the faces and voices that made home around it, and that I +was fierce to shut out of it, so that no sound or sight should molest me +in the pursuit of the end which I sought gropingly, blindly, with very +little hope, but with an intense ambition, and a courage that gave way +under no burden, before no obstacle. Long ago changes were made in the +low, rambling house which threw my little closet into a larger room; but +this was not until after I had left it many years; and as long as I +remained a part of that dear and simple home it was my place to read, to +write, to muse, to dream. + +I sometimes wish in these later years that I had spent less time in it, +or that world of books which it opened into; that I had seen more of the +actual world, and had learned to know my brethren in it better. I might +so have amassed more material for after use in literature, but I had to +fit myself to use it, and I suppose that this was what I was doing, in my +own way, and by such light as I had. I often toiled wrongly and +foolishly; but certainly I toiled, and I suppose no work is wasted. Some +strength, I hope, was coming to me, even from my mistakes, and though I +went over ground that I need not have traversed, if I had not been left +so much to find the way alone, yet I was not standing still, and some of +the things that I then wished to do I have done. I do not mind owning +that in others I have failed. For instance, I have never surpassed +Shakespeare as a poet, though I once firmly meant to do so; but then, it +is to be remembered that very few other people have surpassed him, and +that it would not have been easy. + + + + +XIV. IK MARVEL + +My ardor for Shakespeare must have been at its height when I was between +sixteen and seventeen years old, for I fancy when I began to formulate my +admiration, and to try to measure his greatness in phrases, I was less +simply impassioned than at some earlier time. At any rate, I am sure +that I did not proclaim his planetary importance in creation until I was +at least nineteen. But even at an earlier age I no longer worshipped at +a single shrine; there were many gods in the temple of my idolatry, and I +bowed the knee to them all in a devotion which, if it was not of one +quality, was certainly impartial. While I was reading, and thinking, and +living Shakespeare with such an intensity that I do not see how there +could have been room in my consciousness for anything else, there seem to +have been half a dozen other divinities there, great and small, whom I +have some present difficulty in distinguishing. I kept Irving, and +Goldsmith, and Cervantes on their old altars, but I added new ones, and +these I translated from the contemporary: literary world quite as often +as from the past. I am rather glad that among them was the gentle and +kindly Ik Marvel, whose 'Reveries of a Bachelor' and whose 'Dream Life' +the young people of that day were reading with a tender rapture which +would not be altogether surprising, I dare say, to the young people of +this. The books have survived the span of immortality fixed by our +amusing copyright laws, and seem now, when any pirate publisher may +plunder their author, to have a new life before them. Perhaps this is +ordered by Providence, that those who have no right to them may profit by +them, in that divine contempt of such profit which Providence so often +shows. + +I cannot understand just how I came to know of the books, but I suppose +it was through the contemporary criticism which I was then beginning to +read, wherever I could find it, in the magazines and newspapers; and I +could not say why I thought it would be very 'comme il faut' to like +them. Probably the literary fine world, which is always rubbing +shoulders with the other fine world, and bringing off a little of its +powder and perfume, was then dawning upon me, and I was wishing to be of +it, and to like the things that it liked; I am not so anxious to do it +now. But if this is true, I found the books better than their friends, +and had many a heartache from their pathos, many a genuine glow of +purpose from their high import, many a tender suffusion from their +sentiment. I dare say I should find their pose now a little old- +fashioned. I believe it was rather full of sighs, and shrugs and starts, +expressed in dashes, and asterisks, and exclamations, but I am sure that +the feeling was the genuine and manly sort which is of all times and +always the latest wear. Whatever it was, it sufficed to win my heart, +and to identify me with whatever was most romantic and most pathetic in +it. I read 'Dream Life' first--though the 'Reveries of a Bachelor' was +written first, and I believe is esteemed the better book--and 'Dream +Life' remains first in my affections. I have now little notion what it +was about, but I love its memory. The book is associated especially in +my mind with one golden day of Indian summer, when I carried it into the +woods with me, and abandoned myself to a welter of emotion over its page. +I lay, under a crimson maple, and I remember how the light struck through +it and flushed the print with the gules of the foliage. My friend was +away by this time on one of his several absences in the Northwest, and I +was quite alone in the absurd and irrelevant melancholy with which I read +myself and my circumstances into the book. I began to read them out +again in due time, clothed with the literary airs and graces that I +admired in it, and for a long time I imitated Ik Marvel in the voluminous +letters I wrote my friend in compliance with his Shakespearean prayer: + + "To Milan let me hear from thee by letters, + Of thy success in love, and what news else + Betideth here in absence of thy friend; + And I likewise will visit thee with mine." + +Milan was then presently Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Verona was our little +village; but they both served the soul of youth as well as the real +places would have done, and were as really Italian as anything else in +the situation was really this or that. Heaven knows what gaudy +sentimental parade we made in our borrowed plumes, but if the travesty +had kept itself to the written word it would have been all well enough. +My misfortune was to carry it into print when I began to write a story, +in the Ik Marvel manner, or rather to compose it in type at the case, for +that was what I did; and it was not altogether imitated from Ik Marvel +either, for I drew upon the easier art of Dickens at times, and helped +myself out with bald parodies of Bleak House in many places. It was all +very well at the beginning, but I had not reckoned with the future +sufficiently to have started with any clear ending in my mind, and as I +went on I began to find myself more and more in doubt about it. My +material gave out; incidents failed me; the characters wavered and +threatened to perish on my hands. To crown my misery there grew up an +impatience with the story among its readers, and this found its way to me +one day when I overheard an old farmer who came in for his paper say that +he did not think that story amounted to much. I did not think so either, +but it was deadly to have it put into words, and how I escaped the mortal +effect of the stroke I do not know. Somehow I managed to bring the +wretched thing to a close, and to live it slowly into the past. Slowly +it seemed then, but I dare say it was fast enough; and there is always +this consolation to be whispered in the ear of wounded vanity, that the +world's memory is equally bad for failure and success; that if it will +not keep your triumphs in mind as you think it ought, neither will it +long dwell upon your defeats. But that experience was really terrible. +It was like some dreadful dream one has of finding one's self in battle +without the courage needed to carry one creditably through the action, +or on the stage unprepared by study of the part which one is to appear +in. I have hover looked at that story since, so great was the shame and +anguish that I suffered from it, and yet I do not think it was badly +conceived, or attempted upon lines that were mistaken. If it were not +for what happened in the past I might like some time to write a story on +the same lines in the future. + + + + +XV. DICKENS + +What I have said of Dickens reminds me that I had been reading him at the +same time that I had been reading Ik Marvel; but a curious thing about +the reading of my later boyhood is that the dates do not sharply detach +themselves one from another. This may be so because my reading was much +more multifarious than it had been earlier, or because I was reading +always two or three authors at a time. I think Macaulay a little +antedated Dickens in my affections, but when I came to the novels of that +masterful artist (as I must call him, with a thousand reservations as to +the times when he is not a master and not an artist), I did not fail to +fall under his spell. + +This was in a season of great depression, when I began to feel in broken +health the effect of trying to burn my candle at both ends. It seemed +for a while very simple and easy to come home in the middle of the +afternoon, when my task at the printing-office was done, and sit down to +my books in my little study, which I did not finally leave until the +family were in bed; but it was not well, and it was not enough that I +should like to do it. The most that can be said in defence of such a +thing is that with the strong native impulse and the conditions it was +inevitable. If I was to do the thing I wanted to do I was to do it in +that way, and I wanted to do that thing, whatever it was, more than I +wanted to do anything else, and even more than I wanted to do nothing. +I cannot make out that I was fond of study, or cared for the things I was +trying to do, except as a means to other things. As far as my pleasure +went, or my natural bent was concerned, I would rather have been +wandering through the woods with a gun on my shoulder, or lying under a +tree, or reading some book that cost me no sort of effort. But there was +much more than my pleasure involved; there was a hope to fulfil, an aim +to achieve, and I could no more have left off trying for what I hoped and +aimed at than I could have left off living, though I did not know very +distinctly what either was. As I look back at the endeavor of those days +much of it seems mere purblind groping, wilful and wandering. I can see +that doing all by myself I was not truly a law to myself, but only a sort +of helpless force. + +I studied Latin because I believed that I should read the Latin authors, +and I suppose I got as much of the language as most school-boys of my +age, but I never read any Latin author but Cornelius Nepos. I studied +Greek, and I learned so much of it as to read a chapter of the Testament, +and an ode of Anacreon. Then I left it, not because I did not mean to go +farther, or indeed stop short of reading all Greek literature, but +because that friend of mine and I talked it over and decided that I could +go on with Greek any time, but I had better for the present study German, +with the help of a German who had come to the village. Apparently I was +carrying forward an attack on French at the same time, for I distinctly +recall my failure to enlist with me an old gentleman who had once lived a +long time in France, and whom I hoped to get at least an accent from. +Perhaps because he knew he had no accent worth speaking of, or perhaps +because he did not want the bother of imparting it, he never would keep +any of the engagements he made with me, and when we did meet he so +abounded in excuses and subterfuges that he finally escaped me, and I was +left to acquire an Italian accent of French in Venice seven or eight +years later. At the same time I was reading Spanish, more or less, +but neither wisely nor too well. Having had so little help in my +studies, I had a stupid pride in refusing all, even such as I might have +availed myself of, without shame, in books, and I would not read any +Spanish author with English notes. I would have him in an edition wholly +Spanish from beginning to end, and I would fight my way through him +single-handed, with only such aid as I must borrow from a lexicon. + +I now call this stupid, but I have really no more right to blame the boy +who was once I than I have to praise him, and I am certainly not going to +do that. In his day and place he did what he could in his own way; he +had no true perspective of life, but I do not know that youth ever has +that. Some strength came to him finally from the mere struggle, +undirected and misdirected as it often was, and such mental fibre as he +had was toughened by the prolonged stress. It could be said, of course, +that the time apparently wasted in these effectless studies could have +been well spent in deepening and widening a knowledge of English +literature never yet too great, and I have often said this myself; but +then, again, I am not sure that the studies were altogether effectless. +I have sometimes thought that greater skill had come to my hand from them +than it would have had without, and I have trusted that in making known +to me the sources of so much English, my little Latin and less Greek have +enabled me to use my own speech with a subtler sense of it than I should +have had otherwise. + +But I will by no means insist upon my conjecture. What is certain is +that for the present my studies, without method and without stint, began +to tell upon my health, and that my nerves gave way in all manner of +hypochondriacal fears. These finally resolved themselves into one, +incessant, inexorable, which I could escape only through bodily fatigue, +or through some absorbing interest that took me out of myself altogether +and filled my morbid mind with the images of another's creation. + +In this mood I first read Dickens, whom I had known before in the reading +I had listened to. But now I devoured his books one after another as +fast as I could read them. I plunged from the heart of one to another, +so as to leave myself no chance for the horrors that beset me. Some of +them remain associated with the gloom and misery of that time, so that +when I take them up they bring back its dreadful shadow. But I have +since read them all more than once, and I have had my time of thinking +Dickens, talking Dickens, and writing Dickens, as we all had who lived in +the days of the mighty magician. I fancy the readers who have come to +him since he ceased to fill the world with his influence can have little +notion how great it was. In that time he colored the parlance of the +English-speaking race, and formed upon himself every minor talent +attempting fiction. While his glamour lasted it was no more possible for +a young novelist to escape writing Dickens than it was for a young poet +to escape writing Tennyson. I admired other authors more; I loved them +more, but when it came to a question of trying to do something in fiction +I was compelled, as by a law of nature, to do it at least partially in +his way. + +All the while that he held me so fast by his potent charm I was aware +that it was a very rough magic now and again, but I could not assert my +sense of this against him in matters of character and structure. To +these I gave in helplessly; their very grotesqueness was proof of their +divine origin, and I bowed to the crudest manifestations of his genius in +these kinds as if they were revelations not to be doubted without +sacrilege. But in certain small matters, as it were of ritual, I +suffered myself to think, and I remember boldly speaking my mind about +his style, which I thought bad. + +I spoke it even to the quaint character whom I borrowed his books from, +and who might almost have come out of his books. He lived in Dickens in +a measure that I have never known another to do, and my contumely must +have brought him a pang that was truly a personal grief. He forgave it, +no doubt because I bowed in the Dickens worship without question on all +other points. He was then a man well on towards fifty, and he had come +to America early in life, and had lived in our village many years, +without casting one of his English prejudices, or ceasing to be of a +contrary opinion on every question, political, religious and social. +He had no fixed belief, but he went to the service of his church whenever +it was held among us, and he revered the Book of Common Prayer while he +disputed the authority of the Bible with all comers. He had become a +citizen, but he despised democracy, and achieved a hardy consistency only +by voting with the pro-slavery party upon all measures friendly to the +institution which he considered the scandal and reproach of the American +name. From a heart tender to all, he liked to say wanton, savage and +cynical things, but he bore no malice if you gainsaid him. I know +nothing of his origin, except the fact of his being an Englishman, or +what his first calling had been; but he had evolved among us from a +house-painter to an organ-builder, and he had a passionate love of music. +He built his organs from the ground up, and made every part of them with +his own hands; I believe they were very good, and at any rate the +churches in the country about took them from him as fast as he could make +them. He had one in his own house, and it was fine to see him as he sat +before it, with his long, tremulous hands outstretched to the keys, his +noble head thrown back and his sensitive face lifted in the rapture of +his music. He was a rarely intelligent creature, and an artist in every +fibre; and if you did not quarrel with his manifold perversities, he was +a delightful companion. + +After my friend went away I fell much to him for society, and we took +long, rambling walks together, or sat on the stoop before his door, +or lounged over the books in the drug-store, and talked evermore of +literature. He must have been nearly three times my age, but that did +not matter; we met in the equality of the ideal world where there is +neither old nor young, any more than there is rich or poor. He had read +a great deal, but of all he had read he liked Dickens best, and was +always coming back to him with affection, whenever the talk strayed. +He could not make me out when I criticised the style of Dickens; and when +I praised Thackeray's style to the disadvantage of Dickens's he could +only accuse me of a sort of aesthetic snobbishness in my preference. +Dickens, he said, was for the million, and Thackeray was for the upper +ten thousand. His view amused me at the time, and yet I am not sure that +it was altogether mistaken. + +There is certainly a property in Thackeray that somehow flatters the +reader into the belief that he is better than other people. I do not +mean to say that this was why I thought him a finer writer than Dickens, +but I will own that it was probably one of the reasons why I liked him +better; if I appreciated him so fully as I felt, I must be of a finer +porcelain than the earthen pots which were not aware of any particular +difference in the various liquors poured into them. In Dickens the +virtue of his social defect is that he never appeals to the principle +which sniffs, in his reader. The base of his work is the whole breadth +and depth of humanity itself. It is helplessly elemental, but it is not +the less grandly so, and if it deals with the simpler manifestations of +character, character affected by the interests and passions rather than +the tastes and preferences, it certainly deals with the larger moods +through them. I do not know that in the whole range of his work he once +suffers us to feel our superiority to a fellow-creature through any +social accident, or except for some moral cause. This makes him very fit +reading for a boy, and I should say that a boy could get only good from +him. His view of the world and of society, though it was very little +philosophized, was instinctively sane and reasonable, even when it was +most impossible. + +We are just beginning to discern that certain conceptions of our +relations to our fellow-men, once formulated in generalities which met +with a dramatic acceptation from the world, and were then rejected by it +as mere rhetoric, have really a vital truth in them, and that if they +have ever seemed false it was because of the false conditions in which we +still live. Equality and fraternity, these are the ideals which once +moved the world, and then fell into despite and mockery, as unrealities; +but now they assert themselves in our hearts once more. + +Blindly, unwittingly, erringly as Dickens often urged them, these ideals +mark the whole tendency of his fiction, and they are what endear him to +the heart, and will keep him dear to it long after many a cunninger +artificer in letters has passed into forgetfulness. I do not pretend +that I perceived the full scope of his books, but I was aware of it in +the finer sense which is not consciousness. While I read him, I was in a +world where the right came out best, as I believe it will yet do in this +world, and where merit was crowned with the success which I believe will +yet attend it in our daily life, untrammelled by social convention or +economic circumstance. In that world of his, in the ideal world, to +which the real world must finally conform itself, I dwelt among the shows +of things, but under a Providence that governed all things to a good end, +and where neither wealth nor birth could avail against virtue or right. +Of course it was in a way all crude enough, and was already contradicted +by experience in the small sphere of my own being; but nevertheless it +was true with that truth which is at the bottom of things, and I was +happy in it. I could not fail to love the mind which conceived it, and +my worship of Dickens was more grateful than that I had yet given any +writer. I did not establish with him that one-sided understanding which +I had with Cervantes and Shakespeare; with a contemporary that was not +possible, and as an American I was deeply hurt at the things he had said +against us, and the more hurt because I felt that they were often so +just. But I was for the time entirely his, and I could not have wished +to write like any one else. + +I do not pretend that the spell I was under was wholly of a moral or +social texture. For the most part I was charmed with him because he was +a delightful story-teller; because he could thrill me, and make me hot +and cold; because he could make me laugh and cry, and stop my pulse and +breath at will. There seemed an inexhaustible source of humor and pathos +in his work, which I now find choked and dry; I cannot laugh any more at +Pickwick or Sam Weller, or weep for little Nell or Paul Dombey; their +jokes, their griefs, seemed to me to be turned on, and to have a +mechanical action. But beneath all is still the strong drift of a +genuine emotion, a sympathy, deep and sincere, with the poor, the lowly, +the unfortunate. In all that vast range of fiction, there is nothing +that tells for the strong, because they are strong, against the weak, +nothing that tells for the haughty against the humble, nothing that tells +for wealth against poverty. The effect of Dickens is purely democratic, +and however contemptible he found our pseudo-equality, he was more truly +democratic than any American who had yet written fiction. I suppose it +was our instinctive perception in the region of his instinctive +expression, that made him so dear to us, and wounded our silly vanity so +keenly through our love when he told us the truth about our horrible sham +of a slave-based freedom. But at any rate the democracy is there in his +work more than he knew perhaps, or would ever have known, or ever +recognized by his own life. In fact, when one comes to read the story of +his life, and to know that he was really and lastingly ashamed of having +once put up shoe-blacking as a boy, and was unable to forgive his mother +for suffering him to be so degraded, one perceives that he too was the +slave of conventions and the victim of conditions which it is the highest +function of his fiction to help destroy. + +I imagine that my early likes and dislikes in Dickens were not very +discriminating. I liked 'David Copperfield,' and 'Barnaby Rudge,' and +'Bleak House,' and I still like them; but I do not think I liked them +more than 'Dombey & Son,' and 'Nicholas Nickleby,' and the 'Pickwick +Papers,' which I cannot read now with any sort of patience, not to speak +of pleasure. I liked 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' too, and the other day I read +a great part of it again, and found it roughly true in the passages that +referred to America, though it was surcharged in the serious moods, and +caricatured in the comic. The English are always inadequate observers; +they seem too full of themselves to have eyes and ears for any alien +people; but as far as an Englishman could, Dickens had caught the look of +our life in certain aspects. His report of it was clumsy and farcical; +but in a large, loose way it was like enough; at least he had caught the +note of our self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality, +and this was not altogether lost in his mocking horse-play. + +I cannot make out that I was any the less fond of Dickens because of it. +I believe I was rather more willing to accept it as a faithful +portraiture then than I should be now; and I certainly never made any +question of it with my friend the organ-builder. 'Martin Chuzzlewit' was +a favorite book with him, and so was the 'Old Curiosity Shop.' No doubt +a fancied affinity with Tom Pinch through their common love of music made +him like that most sentimental and improbable personage, whom he would +have disowned and laughed to scorn if he had met him in life; but it was +a purely altruistic sympathy that he felt with Little Nell and her +grandfather. He was fond of reading the pathetic passages from both +books, and I can still hear his rich, vibrant voice as it lingered in +tremulous emotion on the periods he loved. He would catch the volume up +anywhere, any time, and begin to read, at the book-store, or the harness- +shop, or the law-office, it did not matter in the wide leisure of a +country village, in those days before the war, when people had all the +time there was; and he was sure of his audience as long as he chose to +read. One Christmas eve, in answer to a general wish, he read the +'Christmas Carol' in the Court-house, and people came from all about to +hear him. + +He was an invalid and he died long since, ending a life of suffering in +the saddest way. Several years before his death money fell to his +family, and he went with them to an Eastern city, where he tried in vain +to make himself at home. He never ceased to pine for the village be had +left, with its old companionships, its easy usages, its familiar faces; +and he escaped to it again and again, till at last every tie was severed, +and he could come back no more. He was never reconciled to the change, +and in a manner he did really die of the homesickness which deepened an +hereditary taint, and enfeebled him to the disorder that carried him. +off. My memories of Dickens remain mingled with my memories of this +quaint and most original genius, and though I knew Dickens long before I +knew his lover, I can scarcely think of one without thinking of the +other. + + + + +XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER + +Certain other books I associate with another pathetic nature, of whom the +organ-builder and I were both fond. This was the young poet who looked +after the book half of the village drug and book store, and who wrote +poetry in such leisure as he found from his duties, and with such +strength as he found in the disease preying upon him. He must have been +far gone in consumption when I first knew him, for I have no recollection +of a time when his voice was not faint and husky, his sweet smile wan, +and his blue eyes dull with the disease that wasted him away, + + "Like wax in the fire, + Like snow in the sun." + +People spoke of him as once strong and vigorous, but I recall him fragile +and pale, gentle, patient, knowing his inexorable doom, and not hoping or +seeking to escape it. As the end drew near he left his employment and +went home to the farm, some twenty miles away, where I drove out to see +him once through the deep snow of a winter which was to be his last. +My heart was heavy all the time, but he tried to make the visit pass +cheerfully with our wonted talk about books. Only at parting, when he +took my hand in his thin, cold clasp, he said, "I suppose my disease is +progressing," with the patience he always showed. + +I did not see him again, and I am not sure now that his gift was very +distinct or very great. It was slight and graceful rather, I fancy, +and if he had lived it might not have sufficed to make him widely known, +but he had a real and a very delicate sense of beauty in literature, +and I believe it was through sympathy with his preferences that I came +into appreciation of several authors whom I had not known, or had not +cared for before. There could not have been many shelves of books in +that store, and I came to be pretty well acquainted with them all before +I began to buy them. For the most part, I do not think it occurred to me +that they were there to be sold; for this pale poet seemed indifferent to +the commercial property in them, and only to wish me to like them. + +I am not sure, but I think it was through some volume which I found in +his charge that I first came to know of De Quincey; he was fond of +Dr. Holmes's poetry; he loved Whittier and Longfellow, each represented +in his slender stock by some distinctive work. There were several stray +volumes of Thackeray's minor writings, and I still have the 'Yellowplush +Papers' in the smooth red cloth (now pretty well tattered) of Appleton's +Popular Library, which I bought there. But most of the books were in the +famous old brown cloth of Ticknor & Fields, which was a warrant of +excellence in the literature it covered. Besides these there were +standard volumes of poetry, published by Phillips & Sampson, from worn- +out plates; for a birthday present my mother got me Wordsworth in this +shape, and I am glad to think that I once read the "Excursion" in it, +for I do not think I could do so now, and I have a feeling that it is +very right and fit to have read the "Excursion." To be honest, it was +very hard reading even then, and I cannot truthfully pretend that I have +ever liked Wordsworth except in parts, though for the matter of that, +I do not suppose that any one ever did. I tried hard enough to like +everything in him, for I had already learned enough to know that I ought +to like him, and that if I did not, it was a proof of intellectual and +moral inferiority in me. My early idol, Pope, had already been tumbled +into the dust by Lowell, whose lectures on English Poetry had lately been +given in Boston, and had met with my rapturous acceptance in such +newspaper report as I had of them. So, my preoccupations were all in +favor of the Lake School, and it was both in my will and my conscience to +like Wordsworth. If I did not do so it was not my fault, and the fault +remains very much what it first was. + +I feel and understand him more deeply than I did then, but I do not think +that I then failed of the meaning of much that I read in him, and I am +sure that my senses were quick to all the beauty in him. After suffering +once through the "Excursion" I did not afflict myself with it again, +but there were other poems of his which I read over and over, as I fancy +it is the habit of every lover of poetry to do with the pieces he is fond +of. Still, I do not make out that Wordsworth was ever a passion of mine; +on the other hand, neither was Byron. Him, too, I liked in passages and +in certain poems which I knew before I read Wordsworth at all; I read him +throughout, but I did not try to imitate him, and I did not try to +imitate Wordsworth. + +Those lectures of Lowell's had a great influence with me, and I tried to +like whatever they bade me like, after a fashion common to young people +when they begin to read criticisms; their aesthetic pride is touched; +they wish to realize that they too can feel the fine things the critic +admires. From this motive they do a great deal of factitious liking; +but after all the affections will not be bidden, and the critic can only +avail to give a point of view, to enlighten a perspective. When I read +Lowell's praises of him, I had all the will in the world to read Spencer, +and I really meant to do so, but I have not done so to this day, and as +often as I have tried I have found it impossible. It was not so with +Chaucer, whom I loved from the first word of his which I found quoted in +those lectures, and in Chambers's 'Encyclopaedia of English Literature,' +which I had borrowed of my friend the organ-builder. + +In fact, I may fairly class Chaucer among my passions, for I read him +with that sort of personal attachment I had for Cervantes, who resembled +him in a certain sweet and cheery humanity. But I do not allege this as +the reason, for I had the same feeling for Pope, who was not like either +of them. Kissing goes by favor, in literature as in life, and one cannot +quite account for one's passions in either; what is certain is, I liked +Chaucer and I did not like Spencer; possibly there was an affinity +between reader and poet, but if there was I should be at a loss to name +it, unless it was the liking for reality; and the sense of mother earth +in human life. By the time I had read all of Chaucer that I could find +in the various collections and criticisms, my father had been made a +clerk in the legislature, and on one of his visits home he brought me the +poet's works from the State Library, and I set about reading them with a +glossary. It was not easy, but it brought strength with it, and lifted +my heart with a sense of noble companionship. + +I will not pretend that I was insensible to the grossness of the poet's +time, which I found often enough in the poet's verse, as well as the +goodness of his nature, and my father seems to have felt a certain +misgiving about it. He repeated to me the librarian's question as to +whether he thought he ought to put an unexpurgated edition in the hands +of a boy, and his own answer that he did not believe it would hurt me. +It was a kind of appeal to me to make the event justify him, and I +suppose he had not given me the book without due reflection. Probably he +reasoned that with my greed for all manner of literature the bad would +become known to me along with the good at any rate, and I had better know +that he knew it. + +The streams of filth flow down through the ages in literature, which +sometimes seems little better than an open sewer, and, as I have said, +I do not see why the time should not come when the noxious and noisome +channels should be stopped; but the base of the mind is bestial, and so +far the beast in us has insisted upon having his full say. The worst of +lewd literature is that it seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the +life, and that inexperience takes this effect for reality: that is the +danger and the harm, and I think the fact ought not to be blinked. +Compared with the meaner poets the greater are the cleaner, and Chaucer +was probably safer than any other English poet of his time, but I am not +going to pretend that there are not things in Chaucer which a boy would +be the better for not reading; and so far as these words of mine shall be +taken for counsel, I am not willing that they should unqualifiedly praise +him. The matter is by no means simple; it is not easy to conceive of a +means of purifying the literature of the past without weakening it, and +even falsifying it, but it is best to own that it is in all respects just +what it is, and not to feign it otherwise. I am not ready to say that +the harm from it is positive, but you do get smeared with it, and the +filthy thought lives with the filthy rhyme in the ear, even when it does +not corrupt the heart or make it seem a light thing for the reader's +tongue and pen to sin in kind. + +I loved my Chaucer too well, I hope, not to get some good from the best +in him; and my reading of criticism had taught me how and where to look +for the best, and to know it when I had found it. Of course I began to +copy him. That is, I did not attempt anything like his tales in kind; +they must have seemed too hopelessly far away in taste and time, but I +studied his verse, and imitated a stanza which I found in some of his +things and had not found elsewhere; I rejoiced in the freshness and +sweetness of his diction, and though I felt that his structure was +obsolete, there was in his wording something homelier and heartier than +the imported analogues that had taken the place of the phrases he used. + +I began to employ in my own work the archaic words that I fancied most, +which was futile and foolish enough, and I formed a preference for the +simpler Anglo-Saxon woof of our speech, which was not so bad. Of course, +being left so much as I was to my own whim in such things, I could not +keep a just mean; I had an aversion for the Latin derivatives which was +nothing short of a craze. Some half-bred critic whom I had read made me +believe that English could be written without them, and had better be +written so, and I did not escape from this lamentable error until I had +produced with weariness and vexation of spirit several pieces of prose +wholly composed of monosyllables. I suspect now that I did not always +stop to consider whether my short words were not as Latin by race as any +of the long words I rejected, and that I only made sure they were short. + +The frivolous ingenuity which wasted itself in this exercise happily +could not hold out long, and in verse it was pretty well helpless from +the beginning. Yet I will not altogether blame it, for it made me know, +as nothing else could, the resources of our tongue in that sort; and in +the revolt from the slavish bondage I took upon myself I did not go so +far as to plunge into any very wild polysyllabic excesses. I still like +the little word if it says the thing I want to say as well as the big +one, but I honor above all the word that says the thing. At the same +time I confess that I have a prejudice against certain words that I +cannot overcome; the sight of some offends me, the sound of others, and +rather than use one of those detested vocables, even when I perceive that +it would convey my exact meaning, I would cast about long for some other. +I think this is a foible, and a disadvantage, but I do not deny it. + +An author who had much to do with preparing me for the quixotic folly in +point was that Thomas Babington Macaulay, who taught simplicity of +diction in phrases of as "learned length and thundering sound," as any he +would have had me shun, and who deplored the Latinistic English of +Johnson in terms emulous of the great doctor's orotundity and +ronderosity. I wonder now that I did not see how my physician avoided +his medicine, but I did not, and I went on to spend myself in an endeavor +as vain and senseless as any that pedantry has conceived. It was none +the less absurd because I believed in it so devoutly, and sacrificed +myself to it with such infinite pains and labor. But this was long after +I read Macaulay, who was one of my grand passions before Dickens or +Chaucer. + + + + +XVII. MACAULAY + +One of the many characters of the village was the machinist who had his +shop under our printing-office when we first brought our newspaper to the +place, and who was just then a machinist because he was tired of being +many other things, and had not yet made up his mind what he should be +next. He could have been whatever he turned his agile intellect and his +cunning hand to; he had been a schoolmaster and a watch-maker, and I +believe an amateur doctor and irregular lawyer; he talked and wrote +brilliantly, and he was one of the group that nightly disposed of every +manner of theoretical and practical question at the drug-store; it was +quite indifferent to him which side he took; what he enjoyed was the +mental exercise. He was in consumption, as so many were in that region, +and he carbonized against it, as he said; he took his carbon in the +liquid form, and the last time I saw him the carbon had finally prevailed +over the consumption, but it had itself become a seated vice; that was +many years since, and it is many years since he died. + +He must have been known to me earlier, but I remember him first as he +swam vividly into my ken, with a volume of Macaulay's essays in his hand, +one day. Less figuratively speaking, he came up into the printing-office +to expose from the book the nefarious plagiarism of an editor in a +neighboring city, who had adapted with the change of names and a word or +two here and there, whole passages from the essay on Barere, to the +denunciation of a brother editor. It was a very simple-hearted fraud, +and it was all done with an innocent trust in the popular ignorance which +now seems to me a little pathetic; but it was certainly very barefaced, +and merited the public punishment which the discoverer inflicted by means +of what journalists call the deadly parallel column. The effect ought +logically to have been ruinous for the plagiarist, but it was really +nothing of the kind. He simply ignored the exposure, and the comments of +the other city papers, and in the process of time he easily lived down +the memory of it and went on to greater usefulness in his profession. + +But for the moment it appeared to me a tremendous crisis, and I listened +as the minister of justice read his communication, with a thrill which +lost itself in the interest I suddenly felt in the plundered author. +Those facile and brilliant phrases and ideas struck me as the finest +things I had yet known in literature, and I borrowed the book and read it +through. Then I borrowed another volume of Macaulay's essays, and +another and another, till I had read them every one. It was like a long +debauch, from which I emerged with regret that it should ever end. + +I tried other essayists, other critics, whom the machinist had in his +library, but it was useless; neither Sidney Smith nor Thomas Carlyle +could console me; I sighed for more Macaulay and evermore Macaulay. I +read his History of England, and I could measurably console myself with +that, but only measurably; and I could not go back to the essays and read +them again, for it seemed to me I had absorbed them so thoroughly that I +had left nothing unenjoyed in them. I used to talk with the machinist +about them, and with the organ-builder, and with my friend the printer, +but no one seemed to feel the intense fascination in them that I did, and +that I should now be quite unable to account for. + +Once more I had an author for whom I could feel a personal devotion, whom +I could dream of and dote upon, and whom I could offer my intimacy in +many an impassioned revery. I do not think T. B. Macaulay would really +have liked it; I dare say he would not have valued the friendship of the +sort of a youth I was, but in the conditions he was helpless, and I +poured out my love upon him without a rebuff. Of course I reformed my +prose style, which had been carefully modelled upon that of Goldsmith and +Irving, and began to write in the manner of Macaulay, in short, quick +sentences, and with the prevalent use of brief Anglo-Saxon words, which +he prescribed, but did not practise. As for his notions of literature, I +simply accepted them with the feeling that any question of them would +have been little better than blasphemy. + +For a long time he spoiled my taste for any other criticism; he made it +seem pale, and poor, and weak; and he blunted my sense to subtler +excellences than I found in him. I think this was a pity, but it was a +thing not to be helped, like a great many things that happen to our hurt +in life; it was simply inevitable. How or when my frenzy for him began +to abate I cannot say, but it certainly waned, and it must have waned +rapidly, for after no great while I found myself feeling the charm of +quite different minds, as fully as if his had never enslaved me. I +cannot regret that I enjoyed him so keenly as I did; it was in a way a +generous delight, and though he swayed me helplessly whatever way he +thought, I do not think yet that he swayed me in any very wrong way. He +was a bright and clear intelligence, and if his light did not go far, it +is to be said of him that his worst fault was only to have stopped short +of the finest truth in art, in morals, in politics. + + + + +XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS + +What remained to me from my love of Macaulay was a love of criticism, +and I read almost as much in criticism as I read in poetry and history +and fiction. It was of an eccentric doctor, another of the village +characters, that I got the works of Edgar A. Poe; I do not know just how, +but it must have been in some exchange of books; he preferred +metaphysics. At any rate I fell greedily upon them, and I read with no +less zest than his poems the bitter, and cruel, and narrow-minded +criticisms which mainly filled one of the volumes. As usual, I accepted +them implicitly, and it was not till long afterwards that I understood +how worthless they were. + +I think that hardly less immoral than the lubricity of literature, and +its celebration of the monkey and the goat in us, is the spectacle such +criticism affords of the tigerish play of satire. It is monstrous that +for no offence but the wish to produce something beautiful, and the +mistake of his powers in that direction, a writer should become the prey +of some ferocious wit, and that his tormentor should achieve credit by +his lightness and ease in rending his prey; it is shocking to think how +alluring and depraving the fact is to the young reader emulous of such +credit, and eager to achieve it. Because I admired these barbarities of +Poe's, I wished to irritate them, to spit some hapless victim on my own +spear, to make him suffer and to make the reader laugh. This is as far +as possible from the criticism that enlightens and ennobles, but it is +still the ideal of most critics, deny it as they will; and because it is +the ideal of most critics criticism still remains behind all the other +literary arts. + +I am glad to remember that at the same time I exulted in these ferocities +I had mind enough and heart enough to find pleasure in the truer and +finer work, the humaner work of other writers, like Hazlitt, and Leigh +Hunt, and Lamb, which became known to me at a date I cannot exactly fix. +I believe it was Hazlitt whom I read first, and he helped me to clarify +and formulate my admiration of Shakespeare as no one else had yet done; +Lamb helped me too, and with all the dramatists, and on every hand I was +reaching out for light that should enable me to place in literary history +the authors I knew and loved. + +I fancy it was well for me at this period to have got at the four great +English reviews, the Edinburgh, the Westminster, the London Quarterly, +and the North British, which I read regularly, as well as Blackwood's +Magazine. We got them in the American editions in payment for printing +the publisher's prospectus, and their arrival was an excitement, a joy, +and a satisfaction with me, which I could not now describe without having +to accuse myself of exaggeration. The love of literature, and the hope +of doing something in it, had become my life to the exclusion of all +other interests, or it was at least the great reality, and all other +things were as shadows. I was living in a time of high political tumult, +and I certainly cared very much for the question of slavery which was +then filling the minds of men; I felt deeply the shame and wrong of our +Fugitive Slave Law; I was stirred by the news from Kansas, where the +great struggle between the two great principles in our nationality was +beginning in bloodshed; but I cannot pretend that any of these things +were more than ripples on the surface of my intense and profound interest +in literature. If I was not to live by it, I was somehow to live for it. + +If I thought of taking up some other calling it was as a means only; +literature was always the end I had in view, immediately or finally. +I did not see how it was to yield me a living, for I knew that almost all +the literary men in the country had other professions; they were editors, +lawyers, or had public or private employments; or they were men of +wealth; there was then not one who earned his bread solely by his pen in +fiction, or drama, or history, or poetry, or criticism, in a day when +people wanted very much less butter on their bread than they do now. +But I kept blindly at my studies, and yet not altogether blindly, for, +as I have said, the reading I did had more tendency than before, and I +was beginning to see authors in their proportion to one another, and to +the body of literature. + +The English reviews were of great use to me in this; I made a rule of +reading each one of them quite through. To be sure I often broke this +rule, as people are apt to do with rules of the kind; it was not possible +for a boy to wade through heavy articles relating to English politics and +economics, but I do not think I left any paper upon a literary topic +unread, and I did read enough politics, especially in Blackwood's, to be +of Tory opinions; they were very fit opinions for a boy, and they did not +exact of me any change in regard to the slavery question. + + + + +XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE + +I suppose I might almost class my devotion to English reviews among my +literary passions, but it was of very short lease, not beyond a year or +two at the most. In the midst of it I made my first and only essay aside +from the lines of literature, or rather wholly apart from it. After some +talk with my father it was decided, mainly by myself, I suspect, that I +should leave the printing-office and study law; and it was arranged with +the United States Senator who lived in our village, and who was at home +from Washington for the summer, that I was to come into his office. The +Senator was by no means to undertake my instruction himself; his nephew, +who had just begun to read law, was to be my fellow-student, and we were +to keep each other up to the work, and to recite to each other, until we +thought we had enough law to go before a board of attorneys and test our +fitness for admission to the bar. + +This was the custom in that day and place, as I suppose it is still in +most parts of the country. We were to be fitted for practice in the +courts, not only by our reading, but by a season of pettifogging before +justices of the peace, which I looked forward to with no small shrinking +of my shy spirit; but what really troubled me most, and was always the +grain of sand between my teeth, was Blackstone's confession of his own +original preference for literature, and his perception that the law was +"a jealous mistress," who would suffer no rival in his affections. +I agreed with him that I could not go through life with a divided +interest; I must give up literature or I must give up law. I not only +consented to this logically, but I realized it in my attempt to carry on +the reading I had loved, and to keep at the efforts I was always making +to write something in verse or prose, at night, after studying law all +day. The strain was great enough when I had merely the work in the +printing-office; but now I came home from my Blackstone mentally fagged, +and I could not take up the authors whom at the bottom of my heart I +loved so much better. I tried it a month, but almost from the fatal day +when I found that confession of Blackstone's, my whole being turned from +the "jealous mistress" to the high minded muses: I had not only to go +back to literature, but I had also to go back to the printing-office. +I did not regret it, but I had made my change of front in the public eye, +and I felt that it put me at a certain disadvantage with my fellow- +citizens; as for the Senator, whose office I had forsaken, I met him now +and then in the street, without trying to detain him, and once when he +came to the printing-office for his paper we encountered at a point where +we could not help speaking. He looked me over in my general effect of +base mechanical, and asked me if I had given up the law; I had only to +answer him I had, and our conference ended. It was a terrible moment for +me, because I knew that in his opinion I had chosen a path in life, which +if it did not lead to the Poor House was at least no way to the White +House. I suppose now that he thought I had merely gone back to my trade, +and so for the time I had; but I have no reason to suppose that he judged +my case narrow-mindedly, and I ought to have had the courage to have the +affair out with him, and tell him just why I had left the law; we had +sometimes talked the English reviews over, for he read them as well as I, +and it ought not to have been impossible for me to be frank with him; +but as yet I could not trust any one with my secret hope of some day +living for literature, although I had already lived for nothing else. +I preferred the disadvantage which I must be at in his eyes, and in the +eyes of most of my fellow-citizens; I believe I had the applause of the +organ-builder, who thought the law no calling for me. + +In that village there was a social equality which, if not absolute, was +as nearly so as can ever be in a competitive civilization; and I could +have suffered no slight in the general esteem for giving up a profession +and going back to a trade; if I was despised at all it was because I had +thrown away the chance of material advancement; I dare say some people +thought I was a fool to do that. No one, indeed, could have imagined the +rapture it was to do it, or what a load rolled from my shoulders when I +dropped the law from them. Perhaps Sinbad or Christian could have +conceived of my ecstatic relief; yet so far as the popular vision reached +I was not returning to literature, but to the printing business, and I +myself felt the difference. My reading had given me criterions different +from those of the simple life of our village, and I did not flatter +myself that my calling would have been thought one of great social +dignity in the world where I hoped some day to make my living. +My convictions were all democratic, but at heart I am afraid I was a +snob, and was unworthy of the honest work which I ought to have felt it +an honor to do; this, whatever we falsely pretend to the contrary, is the +frame of every one who aspires beyond the work of his hands. I do not +know how it had become mine, except through my reading, and I think it +was through the devotion I then had for a certain author that I came to a +knowledge not of good and evil so much as of common and superfine. + + + + +XX. THACKERAY + +It was of the organ-builder that I had Thackeray's books first. He knew +their literary quality, and their rank in the literary, world; but I +believe he was surprised at the passion I instantly conceived for them. +He could not understand it; he deplored it almost as a moral defect in +me; though he honored it as a proof of my critical taste. In a certain +measure he was right. + +What flatters the worldly pride in a young man is what fascinates him +with Thackeray. With his air of looking down on the highest, and +confidentially inviting you to be of his company in the seat of the +scorner he is irresistible; his very confession that he is a snob, too, +is balm and solace to the reader who secretly admires the splendors he +affects to despise. His sentimentality is also dear to the heart of +youth, and the boy who is dazzled by his satire is melted by his easy +pathos. Then, if the boy has read a good many other books, he is taken +with that abundance of literary turn and allusion in Thackeray; there is +hardly a sentence but reminds him that he is in the society of a great +literary swell, who has read everything, and can mock or burlesque life +right and left from the literature always at his command. At the same +time he feels his mastery, and is abjectly grateful to him in his own +simple love of the good for his patronage of the unassuming virtues. +It is so pleasing to one's 'vanity, and so safe, to be of the master's +side when he assails those vices and foibles which are inherent in the +system of things, and which one can contemn with vast applause so long as +one does not attempt to undo the conditions they spring from. + +I exulted to have Thackeray attack the aristocrats, and expose their +wicked pride and meanness, and I never noticed that he did not propose to +do away with aristocracy, which is and must always be just what it has +been, and which cannot be changed while it exists at all. He appeared to +me one of the noblest creatures that ever was when he derided the shams +of society; and I was far from seeing that society, as we have it, was +necessarily a sham; when he made a mock of snobbishness I did not know +but snobbishness was something that might be reached and cured by +ridicule. Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall +have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub +and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for +trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from +the selfish motives which underlie our economic life. But I did not know +these things then, nor for long afterwards, and so I gave my heart to +Thackeray, who seemed to promise me in his contempt of the world a refuge +from the shame I felt for my own want of figure in it. He had the effect +of taking me into the great world, and making me a party to his splendid +indifference to titles, and even to royalties; and I could not see that +sham for sham he was unwittingly the greatest sham of all. + +I think it was 'Pendennis' I began with, and I lived in the book to the +very last line of it, and made its alien circumstance mine to the +smallest detail. I am still not sure but it is the author's greatest +book, and I speak from a thorough acquaintance with every line he has +written, except the Virginians, which I have never been able to read +quite through; most of his work I have read twice, and some of it twenty +times. + +After reading 'Pendennis' I went to 'Vanity Fair,' which I now think the +poorest of Thackeray's novels--crude, heavy-handed, caricatured. About +the same time I revelled in the romanticism of 'Henry Esmond,' with its +pseudo-eighteenth-century sentiment, and its appeals to an overwrought +ideal of gentlemanhood and honor. It was long before I was duly revolted +by Esmond's transfer of his passion from the daughter to the mother whom +he is successively enamoured of. I believe this unpleasant and +preposterous affair is thought one of the fine things in the story; I do +not mind owning that I thought it so myself when I was seventeen; and if +I could have found a Beatrix to be in love with, and a Lady Castlewood to +be in love with me, I should have asked nothing finer of fortune. +The glamour of Henry Esmond was all the deeper because I was reading the +'Spectator' then, and was constantly in the company of Addison, and +Steele, and Swift, and Pope, and all the wits at Will's, who are +presented evanescently in the romance. The intensely literary keeping, +as well as quality, of the story I suppose is what formed its highest +fascination for me; but that effect of great world which it imparts to +the reader, making him citizen, and, if he will, leading citizen of it, +was what helped turn my head. + +This is the toxic property of all Thackeray's writing. He is himself +forever dominated in imagination by the world, and even while he tells +you it is not worth while he makes you feel that it is worth while. It +is not the honest man, but the man of honor, who shines in his page; his +meek folk are proudly meek, and there is a touch of superiority, a glint +of mundane splendor, in his lowliest. He rails at the order of things, +but he imagines nothing different, even when he shows that its baseness, +and cruelty, and hypocrisy are well-nigh inevitable, and, for most of +those who wish to get on in it, quite inevitable. He has a good word for +the virtues, he patronizes the Christian graces, he pats humble merit on +the head; he has even explosions of indignation against the insolence and +pride of birth, and purse-pride. But, after all, he is of the world, +worldly, and the highest hope he holds out is that you may be in the +world and despise its ambitions while you compass its ends. + +I should be far from blaming him for all this. He was of his time; but +since his time men have thought beyond him, and seen life with a vision +which makes his seem rather purblind. He must have been immensely in +advance of most of the thinking and feeling of his day, for people then +used to accuse his sentimental pessimism of cynical qualities which we +could hardly find in it now. It was the age of intense individualism, +when you were to do right because it was becoming to you, say, as a +gentleman, and you were to have an eye single to the effect upon your +character, if not your reputation; you were not to do a mean thing +because it was wrong, but because it was mean. It was romanticism +carried into the region of morals. But I had very little concern then as +to that sort of error. + +I was on a very high esthetic horse, which I could not have conveniently +stooped from if I had wished; it was quite enough for me that Thackeray's +novels were prodigious works of art, and I acquired merit, at least with +myself, for appreciating them so keenly, for liking them so much. It +must be, I felt with far less consciousness than my formulation of the +feeling expresses, that I was of some finer sort myself to be able to +enjoy such a fine sort. No doubt I should have been a coxcomb of some +kind, if not that kind, and I shall not be very strenuous in censuring +Thackeray for his effect upon me in this way. No doubt the effect was +already in me, and he did not so much produce it as find it. + +In the mean time he was a vast delight to me, as much in the variety of +his minor works--his 'Yellowplush,' and 'Letters of Mr. Brown,' and +'Adventures of Major Gahagan,' and the 'Paris Sketch Book,' and the +'Irish Sketch Book,' and the 'Great Hoggarty Diamond,' and the 'Book of +Snobs,' and the 'English Humorists,' and the 'Four Georges,' and all the +multitude of his essays, and verses, and caricatures--as in the spacious +designs of his huge novels, the 'Newcomes,' and 'Pendennis,' and 'Vanity +Fair,' and 'Henry Esmond,' and 'Barry Lyndon.' + +There was something in the art of the last which seemed to me then, and +still seems, the farthest reach of the author's great talent. It is +couched, like so much of his work, in the autobiographic form, which next +to the dramatic form is the most natural, and which lends itself with +such flexibility to the purpose of the author. In 'Barry Lyndon' there +is imagined to the life a scoundrel of such rare quality that he never +supposes for a moment but he is the finest sort of a gentleman; and so, +in fact, he was, as most gentlemen went in his day. Of course, the +picture is over-colored; it was the vice of Thackeray, or of Thackeray's +time, to surcharge all imitations of life and character, so that a +generation apparently much slower, if not duller than ours, should not +possibly miss the artist's meaning. But I do not think it is so much +surcharged as 'Esmond;' 'Barry Lyndon' is by no manner of means so +conscious as that mirror of gentlemanhood, with its manifold self- +reverberations; and for these reasons I am inclined to think he is the +most perfect creation of Thackeray's mind. + +I did not make the acquaintance of Thackeray's books all at once, or even +in rapid succession, and he at no time possessed the whole empire of my +catholic, not to say, fickle, affections, during the years I was +compassing a full knowledge and sense of his greatness, and burning +incense at his shrine. But there was a moment when he so outshone and +overtopped all other divinities in my worship that I was effectively his +alone, as I have been the helpless and, as it were, hypnotized devotee of +three or four others of the very great. From his art there flowed into +me a literary quality which tinged my whole mental substance, and made it +impossible for me to say, or wish to say, anything without giving it the +literary color. That is, while he dominated my love and fancy, if I had +been so fortunate as to have a simple concept of anything in life, I must +have tried to give the expression of it some turn or tint that would +remind the reader of books even before it reminded him of men. + +It is hard to make out what I mean, but this is a try at it, and I do not +know that I shall be able to do better unless I add that Thackeray, of +all the writers that I have known, is the most thoroughly and profoundly +imbued with literature, so that when he speaks it is not with words and +blood, but with words and ink. You may read the greatest part of +Dickens, as you may read the greatest part of Hawthorne or Tolstoy, and +not once be reminded of literature as a business or a cult, but you can +hardly read a paragraph, hardly a sentence, of Thackeray's without being +reminded of it either by suggestion or downright allusion. + +I do not blame him for this; he was himself, and he could not have been +any other manner of man without loss; but I say that the greatest talent +is not that which breathes of the library, but that which breathes of the +street, the field, the open sky, the simple earth. I began to imitate +this master of mine almost as soon as I began to read him; this must be, +and I had a greater pride and joy in my success than I should probably +have known in anything really creative; I should have suspected that, I +should have distrusted that, because I had nothing to test it by, no +model; but here before me was the very finest and noblest model, and I +had but to form my lines upon it, and I had produced a work of art +altogether more estimable in my eyes than anything else could have been. +I saw the little world about me through the lenses of my master's +spectacles, and I reported its facts, in his tone and his attitude, with +his self-flattered scorn, his showy sighs, his facile satire. I need not +say I was perfectly satisfied with the result, or that to be able to +imitate Thackeray was a much greater thing for me than to have been able +to imitate nature. In fact, I could have valued any picture of the life +and character I knew only as it put me in mind of life and character as +these had shown themselves to me in his books. + + + + +XXI. "LAZARILLO DE TORMES" + +At the same time, I was not only reading many books besides Thackeray's, +but I was studying to get a smattering of several languages as well as I +could, with or without help. I could now manage Spanish fairly well, and +I was sending on to New York for authors in that tongue. I do not +remember how I got the money to buy them; to be sure it was no great sum; +but it must have been given me out of the sums we were all working so +hard to make up for the debt, and the interest on the debt (that is +always the wicked pinch for the debtor!), we had incurred in the purchase +of the newspaper which we lived by, and the house which we lived in. +I spent no money on any other sort of pleasure, and so, I suppose, it was +afforded me the more readily; but I cannot really recall the history of +those acquisitions on its financial side. In any case, if the sums I +laid out in literature could not have been comparatively great, the +excitement attending the outlay was prodigious. + +I know that I used to write on to Messrs. Roe Lockwood & Son, New York, +for my Spanish books, and I dare say that my letters were sufficiently +pedantic, and filled with a simulated acquaintance with all Spanish +literature. Heaven knows what they must have thought, if they thought +anything, of their queer customer in that obscure little Ohio village; +but he could not have been queerer to them than to his fellow-villagers, +I am sure. I haunted the post-office about the time the books were due, +and when I found one of them in our deep box among a heap of exchange +newspapers and business letters, my emotion was so great that it almost +took my breath. I hurried home with the precious volume, and shut myself +into my little den, where I gave myself up to a sort of transport in it. +These books were always from the collection of Spanish authors published +by Baudry in Paris, and they were in saffron-colored paper cover, printed +full of a perfectly intoxicating catalogue of other Spanish books which I +meant to read, every one, some time. The paper and the ink had a certain +odor which was sweeter to me than the perfumes of Araby. The look of the +type took me more than the glance of a girl, and I had a fever of longing +to know the heart of the book, which was like a lover's passion. Some +times I did not reach its heart, but commonly I did. Moratin's 'Origins +of the Spanish Theatre,' and a large volume of Spanish dramatic authors, +were the first Spanish books I sent for, but I could not say why I sent +for them, unless it was because I saw that there were some plays of +Cervantes among the rest. I read these and I read several comedies of +Lope de Vega, and numbers of archaic dramas in Moratin's history, and I +really got a fairish perspective of the Spanish drama, which has now +almost wholly faded from my mind. It is more intelligible to me why I +should have read Conde's 'Dominion of the Arabs in Spain;' for that was +in the line of my reading in Irving, which would account for my pleasure +in the 'History of the Civil Wars of Granada;' it was some time before I +realized that the chronicles in this were a bundle of romances and not +veritable records; and my whole study in these things was wholly +undirected and unenlightened. But I meant to be thorough in it, and I +could not rest satisfied with the Spanish-English grammars I had; I was +not willing to stop short of the official grammar of the Spanish Academy. +I sent to New York for it, and my booksellers there reported that they +would have to send to Spain for it. I lived till it came to hand through +them from Madrid; and I do not understand why I did not perish then from +the pride and joy I had in it. + +But, after all, I am not a Spanish scholar, and can neither speak nor +write the language. I never got more than a good reading use of it, +perhaps because I never really tried for more. But I am very glad of +that, because it has been a great pleasure to me, and even some profit, +and it has lighted up many meanings in literature, which must always have +remained dark to me. Not to speak now of the modern Spanish writers whom +it has enabled me to know in their own houses as it were, I had even in +that remote day a rapturous delight in a certain Spanish book, which was +well worth all the pains I had undergone to get at it. This was the +famous picaresque novel, 'Lazarillo de Tormes,' by Hurtado de Mendoza, +whose name then so familiarized itself to my fondness that now as I write +it I feel as if it were that of an old personal friend whom I had known +in the flesh. I believe it would not have been always comfortable to +know Mendoza outside of his books; he was rather a terrible person; he +was one of the Spanish invaders of Italy, and is known in Italian history +as the Tyrant of Sierra. But at my distance of time and place I could +safely revel in his friendship, and as an author I certainly found him a +most charming companion. The adventures of his rogue of a hero, who +began life as the servant and accomplice of a blind beggar, and then +adventured on through a most diverting career of knavery, brought back +the atmosphere of Don Quixote, and all the landscape of that dear wonder- +world of Spain, where I had lived so much, and I followed him with all +the old delight. + +I do not know that I should counsel others to do so, or that the general +reader would find his account in it, but I am sure that the intending +author of American fiction would do well to study the Spanish picaresque +novels; for in their simplicity of design he will find one of the best +forms for an American story. The intrigue of close texture will never +suit our conditions, which are so loose and open and variable; each man's +life among us is a romance of the Spanish model, if it is the life of a +man who has risen, as we nearly all have, with many ups and downs. The +story of 'Latzarillo' is gross in its facts, and is mostly "unmeet for +ladies," like most of the fiction in all languages before our times; but +there is an honest simplicity in the narration, a pervading humor, and a +rich feeling for character that gives it value. + +I think that a good deal of its foulness was lost upon me, but I +certainly understood that it would not do to present it to an American +public just as it was, in the translation which I presently planned to +make. I went about telling the story to people, and trying to make them +find it as amusing as I did, but whether I ever succeeded I cannot say, +though the notion of a version with modifications constantly grew with +me, till one day I went to the city of Cleveland with my father. There +was a branch house of an Eastern firm of publishers in that place, and I +must have had the hope that I might have the courage to propose a +translation of Lazarillo to them. My father urged me to try my fortune, +but my heart failed me. I was half blind with one of the headaches that +tormented me in those days, and I turned my sick eyes from the sign, +"J. P. Jewett & Co., Publishers," which held me fascinated, and went home +without at least having my much-dreamed-of version of Lazarillo refused. + + + + +XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL + +I am quite at a loss to know why my reading had this direction or that in +those days. It had necessarily passed beyond my father's suggestion, and +I think it must have been largely by accident or experiment that I read +one book rather than another. He made some sort of newspaper arrangement +with a book-store in Cleveland, which was the means of enriching our home +library with a goodly number of books, shop-worn, but none the worse for +that, and new in the only way that books need be new to the lover of +them. Among these I found a treasure in Curtis's two books, the 'Nile +Notes of a Howadji,' and the 'Howadji in Syria.' I already knew him by +his 'Potiphar Papers,' and the ever-delightful reveries which have since +gone under the name of 'Prue and I;' but those books of Eastern travel +opened a new world of thinking and feeling. They had at once a great +influence upon me. The smooth richness of their diction; the amiable +sweetness of their mood, their gracious caprice, the delicacy of their +satire (which was so kind that it should have some other name), their +abundance of light and color, and the deep heart of humanity underlying +their airiest fantasticality, all united in an effect which was different +from any I had yet known. + +As usual, I steeped myself in them, and the first runnings of my fancy +when I began to pour it out afterwards were of their flavor. I tried to +write like this new master; but whether I had tried or not, I should +probably have done so from the love I bore him. He was a favorite not +only of mine, but of all the young people in the village who were reading +current literature, so that on this ground at least I had abundant +sympathy. The present generation can have little notion of the deep +impression made upon the intelligence and conscience of the whole nation +by the 'Potiphar Papers,' or how its fancy was rapt with the 'Prue and I' +sketches, These are among the most veritable literary successes we have +had, and probably we who were so glad when the author of these beautiful +things turned aside from the flowery paths where he led us, to battle for +freedom in the field of politics, would have felt the sacrifice too great +if we could have dreamed it would be life-long. But, as it was, we could +only honor him the more, and give him a place in our hearts which he +shared with Longfellow. + +This divine poet I have never ceased to read. His Hiawatha was a new +book during one of those terrible Lake Shore winters, but all the other +poems were old friends with me by that time. With a sister who is no +longer living I had a peculiar affection for his pretty and touching and +lightly humorous tale of 'Kavanagh,' which was of a village life enough +like our own, in some things, to make us know the truth of its delicate +realism. We used to read it and talk it fondly over together, and I +believe some stories of like make and manner grew out of our pleasure in +it. They were never finished, but it was enough to begin them, and there +were few writers, if any, among those I delighted in who escaped the +tribute of an imitation. One has to begin that way, or at least one had +in my day; perhaps it is now possible for a young writer to begin by +being himself; but for my part, that was not half so important as to be +like some one else. Literature, not life, was my aim, and to reproduce +it was my joy and my pride. + +I was widening my knowledge of it helplessly and involuntarily, and I was +always chancing upon some book that served this end among the great +number of books that I read merely for my pleasure without any real +result of the sort. Schlegel's 'Lectures on Dramatic Literature' came +into my hands not long after I had finished my studies in the history of +the Spanish theatre, and it made the whole subject at once luminous. +I cannot give a due notion of the comfort this book afforded me by the +light it cast upon paths where I had dimly made my way before, but which +I now followed in the full day. + +Of course, I pinned my faith to everything that Schlegel said. +I obediently despised the classic unities and the French and Italian +theatre which had perpetuated them, and I revered the romantic drama +which had its glorious course among the Spanish and English poets, and +which was crowned with the fame of the Cervantes and the Shakespeare whom +I seemed to own, they owned me so completely. It vexes me now to find +that I cannot remember how the book came into my hands, or who could have +suggested it to me. It is possible that it may have been that artist who +came and stayed a month with us while she painted my mother's portrait. +She was fresh from her studies in New York, where she had met authors and +artists at the house of the Carey sisters, and had even once seen my +adored Curtis somewhere, though she had not spoken with him. Her talk +about these things simply emparadised me; it lifted me into a heaven of +hope that I, too, might some day meet such elect spirits and converse +with them face to face. My mood was sufficiently foolish, but it was not +such a frame of mind as I can be ashamed of; and I could wish a boy no +happier fortune than to possess it for a time, at least. + + + + +XXIII. TENNYSON + +I cannot quite see now how I found time for even trying to do the things +I had in hand more or less. It is perfectly clear to me that I did none +of them well, though I meant at the time to do none of them other than +excellently. I was attempting the study of no less than four languages, +and I presently added a fifth to these. I was reading right and left in +every direction, but chiefly in that of poetry, criticism, and fiction. +From time to time I boldly attacked a history, and carried it by a 'coup +de main,' or sat down before it for a prolonged siege. There was +occasionally an author who worsted me, whom I tried to read and quietly +gave up after a vain struggle, but I must say that these authors were +few. I had got a very fair notion of the range of all literature, and +the relations of the different literatures to one another, and I knew +pretty well what manner of book it was that I took up before I committed +myself to the task of reading it. Always I read for pleasure, for the +delight of knowing something more; and this pleasure is a very different +thing from amusement, though I read a great deal for mere amusement, as I +do still, and to take my mind away from unhappy or harassing thoughts. +There are very few things that I think it a waste of time to have read; +I should probably have wasted the time if I had not read them, and at the +period I speak of I do not think I wasted much time. + +My day began about seven o'clock, in the printing-office, where it took +me till noon to do my task of so many thousand ems, say four or five. +Then we had dinner, after the simple fashion of people who work with +their hands for their dinners. In the afternoon I went back and +corrected the proof of the type I had set, and distributed my case for +the next day. At two or three o'clock I was free, and then I went home +and began my studies; or tried to write something; or read a book. +We had supper at six, and after that I rejoiced in literature, till I +went to bed at ten or eleven. I cannot think of any time when I did not +go gladly to my books or manuscripts, when it was not a noble joy as well +as a high privilege. + +But it all ended as such a strain must, in the sort of break which was +not yet known as nervous prostration. When I could not sleep after my +studies, and the sick headaches came oftener, and then days and weeks of +hypochondriacal misery, it was apparent I was not well; but that was not +the day of anxiety for such things, and if it was thought best that I +should leave work and study for a while, it was not with the notion that +the case was at all serious, or needed an uninterrupted cure. I passed +days in the woods and fields, gunning or picking berries; I spent myself +in heavy work; I made little journeys; and all this was very wholesome +and very well; but I did not give up my reading or my attempts to write. +No doubt I was secretly proud to have been invalided in so great a cause, +and to be sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, rather than by +some ignoble ague or the devastating consumption of that region. If I +lay awake, noting the wild pulsations of my heart, and listening to the +death-watch in the wall, I was certainly very much scared, but I was not +without the consolation that I was at least a sufferer for literature. +At the same time that I was so horribly afraid of dying, I could have +composed an epitaph which would have moved others to tears for my +untimely fate. But there was really not impairment of my constitution, +and after a while I began to be better, and little by little the health +which has never since failed me under any reasonable stress of work +established itself. + +I was in the midst of this unequal struggle when I first became +acquainted with the poet who at once possessed himself of what was best +worth having in me. Probably I knew of Tennyson by extracts, and from +the English reviews, but I believe it was from reading one of Curtis's +"Easy Chair" papers that I was prompted to get the new poem of "Maud," +which I understood from the "Easy Chair" was then moving polite youth in +the East. It did not seem to me that I could very well live without that +poem, and when I went to Cleveland with the hope that I might have +courage to propose a translation of Lazarillo to a publisher it was with +the fixed purpose of getting "Maud" if it was to be found in any book- +store there. + +I do not know why I was so long in reaching Tennyson, and I can only +account for it by the fact that I was always reading rather the earlier +than the later English poetry. To be sure I had passed through what I +may call a paroxysm of Alexander Smith, a poet deeply unknown to the +present generation, but then acclaimed immortal by all the critics, and +put with Shakespeare, who must be a good deal astonished from time to +time in his Elysian quiet by the companionship thrust upon him. I read +this now dead-and-gone immortal with an ecstasy unspeakable; I raved of +him by day, and dreamed of him by night; I got great lengths of his +"Life-Drama" by heart; and I can still repeat several gorgeous passages +from it; I would almost have been willing to take the life of the sole +critic who had the sense to laugh at him, and who made his wicked fun in +Graham's Magazine, an extinct periodical of the old extinct Philadelphian +species. I cannot tell how I came out of this craze, but neither could +any of the critics who led me into it, I dare say. The reading world is +very susceptible of such-lunacies, and all that can be said is that at a +given time it was time for criticism to go mad over a poet who was +neither better nor worse than many another third-rate poet apotheosized +before and since. What was good in Smith was the reflected fire of the +poets who had a vital heat in them; and it was by mere chance that I +bathed myself in his second-hand effulgence. I already knew pretty well +the origin of the Tennysonian line in English poetry; Wordsworth, and +Keats, and Shelley; and I did not come to Tennyson's worship a sudden +convert, but my devotion to him was none the less complete and exclusive. +Like every other great poet he somehow expressed the feelings of his day, +and I suppose that at the time he wrote "Maud" he said more fully what +the whole English-speaking race were then dimly longing to utter than any +English poet who has lived. + +One need not question the greatness of Browning in owning the fact that +the two poets of his day who preeminently voiced their generation were +Tennyson and Longfellow; though Browning, like Emerson, is possibly now +more modern than either. However, I had then nothing to do with +Tennyson's comparative claim on my adoration; there was for the time no +parallel for him in the whole range of literary divinities that I had +bowed the knee to. For that while, the temple was not only emptied of +all the other idols, but I had a richly flattering illusion of being his +only worshipper. When I came to the sense of this error, it was with the +belief that at least no one else had ever appreciated him so fully, stood +so close to him in that holy of holies where he wrought his miracles. + +I say tawdily and ineffectively and falsely what was a very precious and +sacred experience with me. This great poet opened to me a whole world of +thinking and feeling, where I had my being with him in that mystic +intimacy, which cannot be put into words. I at once identified myself +not only with the hero of the poem, but in some so with the poet himself, +when I read "Maud"; but that was only the first step towards the lasting +state in which his poetry has upon the whole been more to me than that of +any other poet. I have never read any other so closely and continuously, +or read myself so much into and out of his verse. There have been times +and moods when I have had my questions, and made my cavils, and when it +seemed to me that the poet was less than I had thought him; and certainly +I do not revere equally and unreservedly all that he has written; that +would be impossible. But when I think over all the other poets I have +read, he is supreme above them in his response to some need in me that he +has satisfied so perfectly. + +Of course, "Maud" seemed to me the finest poem I had read, up to that +time, but I am not sure that this conclusion was wholly my own; I think +it was partially formed for me by the admiration of the poem which I felt +to be everywhere in the critical atmosphere, and which had already +penetrated to me. I did not like all parts of it equally well, and some +parts of it seemed thin and poor (though I would not suffer myself to say +so then), and they still seem so. But there were whole passages and +spaces of it whose divine and perfect beauty lifted me above life. I did +not fully understand the poem then; I do not fully understand it now, but +that did not and does not matter; for there something in poetry that +reaches the soul by other enues than the intelligence. Both in this poem +and others of Tennyson, and in every poet that I have loved, there are +melodies and harmonies enfolding significance that appeared long after I +had first read them, and had even learned them by heart; that lay weedy +in my outer ear and were enough in their Mere beauty of phrasing, till +the time came for them to reveal their whole meaning. In fact they could +do this only to later and greater knowledge of myself and others, as +every one must recognize who recurs in after-life to a book that he read +when young; then he finds it twice as full of meaning as it was at first. + +I could not rest satisfied with "Maud"; I sent the same summer to +Cleveland for the little volume which then held all the poet's work, and +abandoned myself so wholly to it, that for a year I read no other verse +that I can remember. The volume was the first of that pretty blue-and- +gold series which Ticknor & Fields began to publish in 1856, and which +their imprint, so rarely affixed to an unworthy book, at once carried far +and wide. Their modest old brown cloth binding had long been a quiet +warrant of quality in the literature it covered, and now this splendid +blossom of the bookmaking art, as it seemed, was fitly employed to convey +the sweetness and richness of the loveliest poetry that I thought the +world had yet known. After an old fashion of mine, I read it +continuously, with frequent recurrences from each new poem to some that +had already pleased me, and with a most capricious range among the +pieces. "In Memoriam" was in that book, and the "Princess"; I read the +"Princess" through and through, and over and over, but I did not then +read "In Memoriam" through, and I have never read it in course; I am not +sure that I have even yet read every part of it. I did not come to the +"Princess," either, until I had saturated my fancy and my memory with +some of the shorter poems, with the "Dream of Fair Women," with the +"Lotus-Eaters," with the "Miller's Daughter," with the "Morte d'Arthur," +with "Edwin Morris, or The Lake," with "Love and Duty," and a score of +other minor and briefer poems. I read the book night and day, in-doors +and out, to myself and to whomever I could make listen. I have no words +to tell the rapture it was to me; but I hope that in some more articulate +being, if it should ever be my unmerited fortune to meet that 'sommo +poeta' face to face, it shall somehow be uttered from me to him, and he +will understand how completely he became the life of the boy I was then. +I think it might please, or at least amuse, that lofty ghost, and that he +would not resent it, as he would probably have done on earth. I can well +understand why the homage of his worshippers should have afflicted him +here, and I could never have been one to burn incense in his earthly +presence; but perhaps it might be done hereafter without offence. +I eagerly caught up and treasured every personal word I could find about +him, and I dwelt in that sort of charmed intimacy with him through his +verse, in which I could not presume nor he repel, and which I had enjoyed +in turn with Cervantes and Shakespeare, without a snub from them. + +I have never ceased to adore Tennyson, though the rapture of the new +convert could not last. That must pass like the flush of any other +passion. I think I have now a better sense of his comparative greatness, +but a better sense of his positive greatness I could not have than I had +at the beginning; and I believe this is the essential knowledge of a +poet. It is very well to say one is greater than Keats, or not so great +as Wordsworth; that one is or is not of the highest order of poets like +Shakespeare and Dante and Goethe; but that does not mean anything of +value, and I never find my account in it. I know it is not possible for +any less than the greatest writer to abide lastingly in one's life. Some +dazzling comer may enter and possess it for a day, but he soon wears his +welcome out, and presently finds the door, to be answered with a not-at- +home if he knocks again. But it was only this morning that I read one of +the new last poems of Tennyson with a return of the emotion which he +first woke in me well-nigh forty years ago. There has been no year of +those many when I have not read him and loved him with something of the +early fire if not all the early conflagration; and each successive poem +of his has been for me a fresh joy. + +He went with me into the world from my village when I left it to make my +first venture away from home. My father had got one of those legislative +clerkships which used to fall sometimes to deserving country editors when +their party was in power, and we together imagined and carried out a +scheme for corresponding with some city newspapers. We were to furnish a +daily, letter giving an account of the legislative proceedings which I +was mainly to write up from material he helped me to get together. The +letters at once found favor with the editors who agreed to take them, and +my father then withdrew from the work altogether, after telling them who +was doing it. We were afraid they might not care for the reports of a +boy of nineteen, but they did not seem to take my age into account, and I +did not boast of my youth among the lawmakers. I looked three or four +years older than I was; but I experienced a terrible moment once when a +fatherly Senator asked me my age. I got away somehow without saying, but +it was a great relief to me when my twentieth birthday came that winter, +and I could honestly proclaim that I was in my twenty-first year. + +I had now the free range of the State Library, and I drew many sorts of +books from it. Largely, however, they were fiction, and I read all the +novels of Bulwer, for whom I had already a great liking from 'The +Caxtons' and 'My Novel.' I was dazzled by them, and I thought him a +great writer, if not so great a one as he thought himself. Little or +nothing of those romances, with their swelling prefaces about the poet +and his function, their glittering criminals, and showy rakes and rogues +of all kinds, and their patrician perfume and social splendor, remained +with me; they may have been better or worse; I will not attempt to say. +If I may call my fascination with them a passion at all, I must say that +it was but a fitful fever. I also read many volumes of Zschokke's +admirable tales, which I found in a translation in the Library, and I +think I began at the same time to find out De Quincey. These authors I +recall out of the many that passed through my mind almost as tracelessly +as they passed through my hands. I got at some versions of Icelandic +poems, in the metre of "Hiawatha"; I had for a while a notion of studying +Icelandic, and I did take out an Icelandic grammar and lexicon, and +decided that I would learn the language later. By this time I must have +begun German, which I afterwards carried so far, with one author at +least, as to find in him a delight only second to that I had in Tennyson; +but as yet Tennyson was all in all to me in poetry. I suspect that I +carried his poems about with me a great part of the time; I am afraid +that I always had that blue-and-gold Tennyson in my pocket; and I was +ready to draw it upon anybody, at the slightest provocation. This is the +worst of the ardent lover of literature: he wishes to make every one else +share his rapture, will he, nill he. Many good fellows suffered from my +admiration of this author or that, and many more pretty, patient maids. +I wanted to read my favorite passages, my favorite poems to them; I am +afraid I often did read, when they would rather have been talking; in the +case of the poems I did worse, I repeated them. This seems rather +incredible now, but it is true enough, and absurd as it is, it at least +attests my sincerity. It was long before I cured myself of so pestilent +a habit; and I am not yet so perfectly well of it that I could be safely +trusted with a fascinating book and a submissive listener. I dare say I +could not have been made to understand at this time that Tennyson was not +so nearly the first interest of life with other people as he was with me; +I must often have suspected it, but I was helpless against the wish to +make them feel him as important to their prosperity and well-being as he +was to mine. My head was full of him; his words were always behind my +lips; and when I was not repeating his phrase to myself or to some one +else, I was trying to frame something of my own as like him as I could. +It was a time of melancholy from ill-health, and of anxiety for the +future in which I must make my own place in the world. Work, and hard +work, I had always been used to and never afraid of; but work is by no +means the whole story. You may get on without much of it, or you may do +a great deal, and not get on. I was willing to do as much of it as I +could get to do, but I distrusted my health, somewhat, and I had many +forebodings, which my adored poet helped me to transfigure to the +substance of literature, or enabled me for the time to forget. I was +already imitating him in the verse I wrote; he now seemed the only worthy +model for one who meant to be as great a poet as I did. None of the +authors whom I read at all displaced him in my devotion, and I could not +have believed that any other poet would ever be so much to me. In fact, +as I have expressed, none ever has been. + + + + +XXIV. HEINE + +That winter passed very quickly and happily for me, and at the end of the +legislative session I had acquitted myself so much to the satisfaction of +one of the newspapers which I wrote for that I was offered a place on it. +I was asked to be city editor, as it was called in that day, and I was to +have charge of the local reporting. It was a great temptation, and for a +while I thought it the greatest piece of good fortune. I went down to +Cincinnati to acquaint myself with the details of the work, and to fit +myself for it by beginning as reporter myself. One night's round of the +police stations with the other reporters satisfied me that I was not +meant for that work, and I attempted it no farther. I have often been +sorry since, for it would have made known to me many phases of life that +I have always remained ignorant of, but I did not know then that life was +supremely interesting and important. I fancied that literature, that +poetry was so; and it was humiliation and anguish indescribable to think +of myself torn from my high ideals by labors like those of the reporter. +I would not consent even to do the office work of the department, and the +proprietor and editor who was more especially my friend tried to make +some other place for me. All the departments were full but the one I +would have nothing to do with, and after a few weeks of sufferance and +suffering I turned my back on a thousand dollars a year, and for the +second time returned to the printing-office. + +I was glad to get home, for I had been all the time tormented by my old +malady of homesickness. But otherwise the situation was not cheerful for +me, and I now began trying to write something for publication that I +could sell. I sent off poems and they came back; I offered little +translations from the Spanish that nobody wanted. At the same time I +took up the study of German, which I must have already played with, at +such odd times as I could find. My father knew something of it, and that +friend of mine among the printers was already reading it and trying to +speak it. I had their help with the first steps so far as the +recitations from Ollendorff were concerned, but I was impatient to read +German, or rather to read one German poet who had seized my fancy from +the first line of his I had seen. + +This poet was Heinrich Heine, who dominated me longer than any one author +that I have known. Where or when I first acquainted myself with his most +fascinating genius, I cannot be sure, but I think it was in some article +of the Westminster Review, where several poems of his were given in +English and German; and their singular beauty and grace at once possessed +my soul. I was in a fever to know more of him, and it was my great good +luck to fall in with a German in the village who had his books. He was a +bookbinder, one of those educated artisans whom the revolutions of 1848 +sent to us in great numbers. He was a Hanoverian, and his accent was +then, I believe, the standard, though the Berlinese is now the accepted +pronunciation. But I cared very little for accent; my wish was to get at +Heine with as little delay as possible; and I began to cultivate the +friendship of that bookbinder in every way. I dare say he was glad of +mine, for he was otherwise quite alone in the village, or had no +companionship outside of his own family. I clothed him in all the +romantic interest I began to feel for his race and language, which new +took the place of the Spaniards and Spanish in my affections. He was a +very quick and gay intelligence, with more sympathy for my love of our +author's humor than for my love of his sentiment, and I can remember very +well the twinkle of his little sharp black eyes, with their Tartar slant, +and the twitching of his keenly pointed, sensitive nose, when we came to +some passage of biting satire, or some phrase in which the bitter Jew had +unpacked all the insult of his soul. + +We began to read Heine together when my vocabulary had to be dug almost +word by word out of the dictionary, for the bookbinder's English was +rather scanty at the best, and was not literary. As for the grammar, I +was getting that up as fast as I could from Ollendorff, and from other +sources, but I was enjoying Heine before I well knew a declension or a +conjugation. As soon as my task was done at the office, I went home to +the books, and worked away at them until supper. Then my bookbinder and +I met in my father's editorial room, and with a couple of candles on the +table between us, and our Heine and the dictionary before us, we read +till we were both tired out. + +The candles were tallow, and they lopped at different angles in the flat +candlesticks heavily loaded with lead, which compositors once used. +It seems to have been summer when our readings began, and they are +associated in my memory with the smell of the neighboring gardens, which +came in at the open doors and windows, and with the fluttering of moths, +and the bumbling of the dorbugs, that stole in along with the odors. +I can see the perspiration on the shining forehead of the bookbinder as +he looks up from some brilliant passage, to exchange a smile of triumph +with me at having made out the meaning with the meagre facilities we had +for the purpose; he had beautiful red pouting lips, and a stiff little +branching mustache above them, that went to the making of his smile. +Sometimes, in the truce we made with the text, he told a little story of +his life at home, or some anecdote relevant to our reading, or quoted a +passage from some other author. It seemed to me the make of a high +intellectual banquet, and I should be glad if I could enjoy anything as +much now. + +We walked home as far as his house, or rather his apartment over one of +the village stores; and as he mounted to it by an outside staircase, we +exchanged a joyous "Gute Nacht," and I kept on homeward through the dark +and silent village street, which was really not that street, but some +other, where Heine had been, some street out of the Reisebilder, of his +knowledge, or of his dream. When I reached home it was useless to go to +bed. I shut myself into my little study, and went over what we had read, +till my brain was so full of it that when I crept up to my room at last, +it was to lie down to slumbers which were often a mere phantasmagory of +those witching Pictures of Travel. + +I was awake at my father's call in the morning, and before my mother had +breakfast ready I had recited my lesson in Ollendorff to him. To tell +the truth, I hated those grammatical studies, and nothing but the love of +literature, and the hope of getting at it, could ever have made me go +through them. Naturally, I never got any scholarly use of the languages +I was worrying at, and though I could once write a passable literary +German, it has all gone from me now, except for the purposes of reading. +It cost me so much trouble, however, to dig the sense out of the grammar +and lexicon, as I went on with the authors I was impatient to read, that +I remember the words very well in all their forms and inflections, and I +have still what I think I may call a fair German vocabulary. + +The German of Heine, when once you are in the joke of his capricious +genius, is very simple, and in his poetry it is simple from the first, +so that he was, perhaps, the best author I could have fallen in with if I +wanted to go fast rather than far. I found this out later, when I +attempted other German authors without the glitter of his wit or the +lambent glow of his fancy to light me on my hard way. I should find it +hard to say just why his peculiar genius had such an absolute fascination +for me from the very first, and perhaps I had better content myself with +saying simply that my literary liberation began with almost the earliest +word from him; for if he chained me to himself he freed me from all other +bondage. I had been at infinite pains from time to time, now upon one +model and now upon another, to literarify myself, if I may make a word +which does not quite say the thing for me. What I mean is that I had +supposed, with the sense at times that I was all wrong, that the +expression of literature must be different from the expression of life; +that it must be an attitude, a pose, with something of state or at least +of formality in it; that it must be this style, and not that; that it +must be like that sort of acting which you know is acting when you see it +and never mistake for reality. There are a great many children, +apparently grown-up, and largely accepted as critical authorities, who +are still of this youthful opinion of mine. But Heine at once showed me +that this ideal of literature was false; that the life of literature was +from the springs of the best common speech and that the nearer it could +be made to conform, in voice, look and gait, to graceful, easy, +picturesque and humorous or impassioned talk, the better it was. + +He did not impart these truths without imparting certain tricks with +them, which I was careful to imitate as soon as I began to write in his +manner, that is to say instantly. His tricks he had mostly at second- +hand, and mainly from Sterne, whom I did not know well enough then to +know their origin. But in all essentials he was himself, and my final +lesson from him, or the final effect of all my lessons from him, was to +find myself, and to be for good or evil whatsoever I really was. + +I kept on writing as much like Heine as I could for several years, +though, and for a much longer time than I should have done if I had +ever become equally impassioned of any other author. + +Some traces of his method lingered so long in my work that nearly ten +years afterwards Mr. Lowell wrote me about something of mine that +he had been reading: "You must sweat the Heine out of your bones as +men do mercury," and his kindness for me would not be content with less +than the entire expulsion of the poison that had in its good time saved +my life. I dare say it was all well enough not to have it in my bones +after it had done its office, but it did do its office. + +It was in some prose sketch of mine that his keen analysis had found the +Heine, but the foreign property had been so prevalent in my earlier work +in verse that he kept the first contribution he accepted from me for the +Atlantic Monthly a long time, or long enough to make sure that it was not +a translation of Heine. Then he printed it, and I am bound to say that +the poem now justifies his doubt to me, in so much that I do not see why +Heine should not have had the name of writing it if he had wanted. His +potent spirit became immediately so wholly my "control," as the mediums +say, that my poems might as well have been communications from him so far +as any authority of my own was concerned; and they were quite like other +inspirations from the other world in being so inferior to the work of the +spirit before it had the misfortune to be disembodied and obliged to use +a medium. But I do not think that either Heine or I had much lasting +harm from it, and I am sure that the good, in my case at least, was one +that can only end with me. He undid my hands, which had taken so much +pains to tie behind my back, and he forever persuaded me that though it +may be ingenious and surprising to dance in chains, it is neither pretty +nor useful. + + + + +XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW + +Another author who was a prime favorite with me about this time was De +Quincey, whose books I took out of the State Library, one after another, +until I had read them all. We who were young people of that day thought +his style something wonderful, and so indeed it was, especially in those +passages, abundant everywhere in his work, relating to his own life with +an intimacy which was always-more rather than less. His rhetoric there, +and in certain of his historical studies, had a sort of luminous +richness, without losing its colloquial ease. I keenly enjoyed this +subtle spirit, and the play of that brilliant intelligence which lighted +up so many ways of literature with its lambent glow or its tricksy +glimmer, and I had a deep sympathy with certain morbid moods and +experiences so like my own, as I was pleased to fancy. I have not looked +at his Twelve Caesars for twice as many years, but I should be greatly +surprised to find it other than one of the greatest historical monographs +ever written. His literary criticisms seemed to me not only exquisitely +humorous, but perfectly sane and just; and it delighted me to have him +personally present, with the warmth of his own temperament in regions of +cold abstraction; I am not sure that I should like that so much now. De +Quincey was hardly less autobiographical when he wrote of Kant, or the +Flight of the Crim-Tartars, than when he wrote of his own boyhood or the +miseries of the opium habit. He had the hospitable gift of making you at +home with him, and appealing to your sense of comradery with something of +the flattering confidentiality of Thackeray, but with a wholly different +effect. + +In fact, although De Quincey was from time to time perfunctorily Tory, +and always a good and faithful British subject, he was so eliminated from +his time and place by his single love for books, that one could be in his +company through the whole vast range of his writings, and come away +without a touch of snobbishness; and that is saying a great deal for an +English writer. He was a great little creature, and through his intense +personality he achieved a sort of impersonality, so that you loved the +man, who was forever talking-of himself, for his modesty and reticence. +He left you feeling intimate with him but by no means familiar; with all +his frailties, and with all those freedoms he permitted himself with the +lives of his contemporaries, he is to me a figure of delicate dignity, +and winning kindness. I think it a misfortune for the present generation +that his books have fallen into a kind of neglect, and I believe that +they will emerge from it again to the advantage of literature. + +In spite of Heine and Tennyson, De Quincey had a large place in my +affections, though this was perhaps because he was not a poet; for more +than those two great poets there was then not much room. I read him the +first winter I was at Columbus, and when I went down from the village the +next winter, to take up my legislative correspondence again, I read him +more than ever. But that was destined to be for me a very disheartening +time. I had just passed through a rheumatic fever, which left my health +more broken than before, and one morning shortly after I was settled in +the capital, I woke to find the room going round me like a wheel. It was +the beginning of a vertigo which lasted for six months, and which I began +to fight with various devices and must yield to at last. I tried +medicine and exercise, but it was useless, and my father came to take my +letters off my hands while I gave myself some ineffectual respites. +I made a little journey to my old home in southern Ohio, but there and +everywhere, the sure and firm-set earth waved and billowed under my feet, +and I came back to Columbus and tried to forget in my work the fact that +I was no better. I did not give up trying to read, as usual, and part of +my endeavor that winter was with Schiller, and Uhland, and even Goethe, +whose 'Wahlverwandschaften,' hardly yielded up its mystery to me. To +tell the truth, I do not think that I found my account in that novel. +It must needs be a disappointment after Wilhelm Meister, which I had read +in English; but I dare say my disappointment was largely my own fault; +I had certainly no right to expect such constant proofs and instances of +wisdom in Goethe as the unwisdom of his critics had led me to hope for. +I remember little or nothing of the story, which I tried to find very +memorable, as I held my, sick way through it. Longfellow's "Miles +Standish" came out that winter, and I suspect that I got vastly more real +pleasure from that one poem of his than I found in all my German authors +put together, the adored Heine always excepted; though certainly I felt +the romantic beauty of 'Uhland,' and was aware of something of Schiller's +generous grandeur. + +Of the American writers Longfellow has been most a passion with me, as +the English, and German, and Spanish, and Russian writers have been. I +am sure that this was largely by mere chance. It was because I happened, +in such a frame and at such a time, to come upon his books that I loved +them above those of other men as great. I am perfectly sensible that +Lowell and Emerson outvalue many of the poets and prophets I have given +my heart to; I have read them with delight and with a deep sense of their +greatness, and yet they have not been my life like those other, those +lesser, men. But none of the passions are reasoned, and I do not try to +account for my literary preferences or to justify them. + +I dragged along through several months of that winter, and did my best to +carry out that notable scheme of not minding my vertigo. I tried doing +half-work, and helping my father with the correspondence, but when it +appeared that nothing would avail, he remained in charge of it, till the +close of the session, and I went home to try what a complete and +prolonged rest would do for me. I was not fit for work in the printing- +office, but that was a simpler matter than the literary work that was +always tempting me. I could get away from it only by taking my gun and +tramping day after day through the deep, primeval woods. The fatigue was +wholesome, and I was so bad a shot that no other creature suffered loss +from my gain except one hapless wild pigeon. The thawing snow left the +fallen beechnuts of the autumn before uncovered among the dead leaves, +and the forest was full of the beautiful birds. In most parts of the +middle West they are no longer seen, except in twos or threes, but once +they were like the sands of the sea for multitude. It was not now the +season when they hid half the heavens with their flight day after day; +but they were in myriads all through the woods, where their iridescent +breasts shone like a sudden untimely growth of flowers when you came upon +them from the front. When they rose in fright, it was like the upward +leap of fire, and with the roar of flame. I use images which, after all, +are false to the thing I wish to express; but they must serve. I tried +honestly enough to kill the pigeons, but I had no luck, or too much, till +I happened to bring down one of a pair that I found apart from the rest +in a softy tree-top. The poor creature I had widowed followed me to the +verge of the woods, as I started home with my prey, and I do not care to +know more personally the feelings of a murderer than I did then. I tried +to shoot the bird, but my aim was so bad that I could not do her this +mercy, and at last she flew away, and I saw her no more. + +The spring was now opening, and I was able to keep more and more with +Nature, who was kinder to me than I was to her other children, or wished +to be, and I got the better of my malady, which gradually left me for no +more reason apparently than it came upon me. But I was still far from +well, and I was in despair of my future. I began to read again-- +I suppose I had really never altogether stopped. I borrowed from my +friend the bookbinder a German novel, which had for me a message of +lasting cheer. It was the 'Afraja' of Theodore Mugge, a story of life in +Norway during the last century, and I remember it as a very lovely story +indeed, with honest studies of character among the Norwegians, and a +tender pathos in the fate of the little Lap heroine Gula, who was perhaps +sufficiently romanced. The hero was a young Dane, who was going up among +the fiords to seek his fortune in the northern fisheries; and by a +process inevitable in youth I became identified with him, so that I +adventured, and enjoyed, and suffered in his person throughout. There +was a supreme moment when he was sailing through the fiords, and finding +himself apparently locked in by their mountain walls without sign or hope +of escape, but somehow always escaping by some unimagined channel, and +keeping on. The lesson for him was one of trust and courage; and I, who +seemed to be then shut in upon a mountain-walled fiord without inlet or +outlet, took the lesson home and promised myself not to lose heart again. +It seems a little odd that this passage of a book, by no means of the +greatest, should have had such an effect with me at a time when I was no +longer so young as to be unduly impressed by what I read; but it is true +that I have never since found myself in circumstances where there seemed +to be no getting forward or going back, without a vision of that fiord +scenery, and then a rise of faith, that if I kept on I should, somehow, +come out of my prisoning environment. + + + + +XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE + +I got back health enough to be of use in the printing office that autumn, +and I was quietly at work there with no visible break in my surroundings +when suddenly the whole world opened to me through what had seemed an +impenetrable wall. The Republican newspaper at the capital had been +bought by a new management, and the editorial force reorganized upon a +footing of what we then thought metropolitan enterprise; and to my great +joy and astonishment I was asked to come and take a place in it. The +place offered me was not one of lordly distinction; in fact, it was +partly of the character of that I had already rejected in Cincinnati, +but I hoped that in the smaller city its duties would not be so odious; +and by the time I came to fill it, a change had taken place in the +arrangements so that I was given charge of the news department. This +included the literary notices and the book reviews, and I am afraid that +I at once gave my prime attention to these. + +It was an evening paper, and I had nearly as much time for reading and +study as I had at home. But now society began to claim a share of this +leisure, which I by no means begrudged it. Society was very charming in +Columbus then, with a pretty constant round of dances and suppers, and an +easy cordiality, which I dare say young people still find in it +everywhere. I met a great many cultivated people, chiefly young ladies, +and there were several houses where we young fellows went and came almost +as freely as if they were our own. There we had music and cards, and +talk about books, and life appeared to me richly worth living; if any one +had said this was not the best planet in the universe I should have +called him a pessimist, or at least thought him so, for we had not the +word in those days. A world in which all those pretty and gracious women +dwelt, among the figures of the waltz and the lancers, with chat between +about the last instalment of 'The Newcomes,' was good enough world for +me; I was only afraid it was too good. There were, of course, some girls +who did not read, but few openly professed indifference to literature, +and there was much lending of books back and forth, and much debate of +them. That was the day when 'Adam Bede' was a new book, and in this I +had my first knowledge of that great intellect for which I had no +passion, indeed, but always the deepest respect, the highest honor; and +which has from time to time profoundly influenced me by its ethics. + +I state these things simply and somewhat baldly; I might easily refine +upon them, and study that subtle effect for good and for evil which young +people are always receiving from the fiction they read; but this its not +the time or place for the inquiry, and I only wish to own that so far as +I understand it, the chief part of my ethical experience has been from +novels. The life and character I have found portrayed there have +appealed always to the consciousness of right and wrong implanted in me; +and from no one has this appeal been stronger than from George Eliot. +Her influence continued through many years, and I can question it now +only in the undue burden she seems to throw upon the individual, and her +failure to account largely enough for motive from the social environment. +There her work seems to me unphilosophical. + +It shares whatever error there is in its perspective with that of +Hawthorne, whose 'Marble Faun' was a new book at the same time that 'Adam +Bede' was new, and whose books now came into my life and gave it their +tinge. He was always dealing with the problem of evil, too, and I found +a more potent charm in his more artistic handling of it than I found in +George Eliot. Of course, I then preferred the region of pure romance +where he liked to place his action; but I did not find his instances the +less veritable because they shone out in + + "The light that never was on sea or land." + +I read the 'Marble Faun' first, and then the 'Scarlet Letter,' and then +the 'House of Seven Gables,' and then the 'Blithedale Romance;' but I +always liked best the last, which is more nearly a novel, and more +realistic than the others. They all moved me with a sort of effect such +as I had not felt before. They veers so far from time and place that, +although most of them related to our country and epoch, I could not +imagine anything approximate from them; and Hawthorne himself seemed a +remote and impalpable agency, rather than a person whom one might +actually meet, as not long afterward happened with me. I did not hold +the sort of fancied converse with him that I held with ether authors, +and I cannot pretend that I had the affection for him that attracted me +to them. But he held me by his potent spell, and for a time he dominated +me as completely as any author I have read. More truly than any other +American author he has been a passion with me, and lately I heard with a +kind of pang a young man saying that he did not believe I should find the +'Scarlet Letter' bear reading now. I did not assent to the possibility, +but the notion gave me a shiver of dismay. I thought how much that book +had been to me, how much all of Hawthorne's books had been, and to have +parted with my faith in their perfection would have been something I +would not willingly have risked doing. + +Of course there is always something fatally weak in the scheme of the +pure romance, which, after the color of the contemporary mood dies out of +it, leaves it in danger of tumbling into the dust of allegory; and +perhaps this inherent weakness was what that bold critic felt in the +'Scarlet Letter.' But none of Hawthorne's fables are without a profound +and distant reach into the recesses of nature and of being. He came back +from his researches with no solution of the question, with no message, +indeed, but the awful warning, "Be true, be true," which is the burden of +the Scarlet Letter; yet in all his books there is the hue of thoughts +that we think only in the presence of the mysteries of life and death. +It is not his fault that this is not intelligence, that it knots the brow +in sorer doubt rather than shapes the lips to utterance of the things +that can never be said. Some of his shorter stories I have found thin +and cold to my later reading, and I have never cared much for the 'House +of Seven Gables,' but the other day I was reading the 'Blithedale +Romance' again, and I found it as potent, as significant, as sadly and +strangely true as when it first enthralled my soul. + +In those days when I tried to kindle my heart at the cold altar of +Goethe, I did read a great deal of his prose and somewhat of his poetry, +but it was to be ten years yet before I should go faithfully through with +his Faust and come to know its power. For the present, I read 'Wilhelm +Meister' and the 'Wahlverwandschaften,' and worshipped him much at +second-hand through Heine. In the mean time I invested such Germans as +I met with the halo of their national poetry, and there was one lady of +whom I heard with awe that she had once known my Heine. When I came to +meet her, over a glass of the mild egg-nog which she served at her house +on Sunday nights, and she told me about Heine, and how he looked, and +some few things he said, I suffered an indescribable disappointment; and +if I could have been frank with myself I should have owned to a fear that +it might have been something like that, if I had myself met the poet in +the flesh, and tried to hold the intimate converse with him that I held +in the spirit. But I shut my heart to all such misgivings and went on +reading him much more than I read any other German author. I went on +writing him too, just as I went on reading and writing Tennyson. Heine +was always a personal interest with me, and every word of his made me +long to have had him say it to me, and tell me why he said it. In a poet +of alien race and language and religion I found a greater sympathy than I +have experienced with any other. Perhaps the Jews are still the chosen +people, but now they bear the message of humanity, while once they bore +the message of divinity. I knew the ugliness of Heine's nature: his +revengefulness, and malice, and cruelty, and treachery, and uncleanness; +and yet he was supremely charming among the poets I have read. The +tenderness I still feel for him is not a reasoned love, I must own; but, +as I am always asking, when was love ever reasoned? + +I had a room-mate that winter in Columbus who was already a contributor +to the Atlantic Monthly, and who read Browning as devotedly as I read +Heine. I will not say that he wrote him as constantly, but if that had +been so, I should not have cared. What I could not endure without pangs +of secret jealousy was that he should like Heine, too, and should read +him, though it was but an arm's-length in an English version. He had +found the origins of those tricks and turns of Heine's in 'Tristram +Shandy' and the 'Sentimental Journey;' and this galled me, as if he had +shown that some mistress of my soul had studied her graces from another +girl, and that it was not all her own hair that she wore. I hid my +rancor as well as I could, and took what revenge lay in my power by +insinuating that he might have a very different view if he read Heine in +the original. I also made haste to try my own fate with the Atlantic, +and I sent off to Mr. Lowell that poem which he kept so long in order to +make sure that Heine had not written it, as well as authorized it. + + + + +XXVII. CHARLES READE + +This was the winter when my friend Piatt and I made our first literary +venture together in those 'Poems of Two Friends;' which hardly passed the +circle of our amity; and it was altogether a time of high literary +exaltation with me. I walked the streets of the friendly little city by +day and by night with my head so full of rhymes and poetic phrases that +it seemed as if their buzzing might have been heard several yards away; +and I do not yet see quite how I contrived to keep their music out of my +newspaper paragraphs. Out of the newspaper I could not keep it, and from +time to time I broke into verse in its columns, to the great amusement of +the leading editor, who knew me for a young man with a very sharp tooth +for such self-betrayals in others. He wanted to print a burlesque review +he wrote of the 'Poems of Two Friends' in our paper, but I would not +suffer it. I must allow that it was very, funny, and that he was always +a generous friend, whose wounds would have been as faithful as any that +could have been dealt me then. He did not indeed care much for any +poetry but that of Shakespeare and the 'Ingoldsby Legends;' and when one +morning a State Senator came into the office with a volume of Tennyson, +and began to read, + + "The poet in a golden clime was born, + With golden stars above; + Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn + The love of love," + +he hitched his chair about, and started in on his leader for the day. + +He might have been more patient if he had known that this State Senator +was to be President Garfield. But who could know anything of the +tragical history that was so soon to follow that winter of 1859-60? +Not I; at least I listened rapt by the poet and the reader, and it seemed +to me as if the making and the reading of poetry were to go on forever, +and that was to be all there was of it. To be sure I had my hard little +journalistic misgivings that it was not quite the thing for a State +Senator to come round reading Tennyson at ten o'clock in the morning, and +I dare say I felt myself superior in my point of view, though I could not +resist the charm of the verse. I myself did not bring Tennyson to the +office at that time. I brought Thackeray, and I remember that one day +when I had read half an hour or so in the 'Book of Snobs,' the leading +editor said frankly, Well, now, he guessed we had had enough of that. +He apologized afterwards as if he were to blame, and not I, but I dare +say I was a nuisance with my different literary passions, and must have +made many of my acquaintances very tired of my favorite authors. I had +some consciousness of the fact, but I could not help it. + +I ought not to omit from the list of these favorites an author who was +then beginning to have his greatest vogue, and who somehow just missed of +being a very great one. We were all reading his jaunty, nervy, knowing +books, and some of us were questioning whether we ought not to set him +above Thackeray and Dickens and George Eliot, 'tulli quanti', so great +was the effect that Charles Reade had with our generation. He was a man +who stood at the parting of the ways between realism and romanticism, and +if he had been somewhat more of a man he might have been the master of a +great school of English realism; but, as it was, he remained content to +use the materials of realism and produce the effect of romanticism. He +saw that life itself infinitely outvalued anything that could be feigned +about it, but its richness seemed to corrupt him, and he had not the +clear, ethical conscience which forced George Eliot to be realistic when +probably her artistic prepossessions were romantic. + +As yet, however, there was no reasoning of the matter, and Charles Reade +was writing books of tremendous adventure and exaggerated character, +which he prided himself on deriving from the facts of the world around +him. He was intoxicated with the discovery he had made that the truth +was beyond invention, but he did not know what to do with the truth in +art after he had found it in life, and to this day the English mostly do +not. We young people were easily taken with his glittering error, and we +read him with much the same fury, that he wrote. 'Never Too Late to +Mend;' 'Love Me Little, Love Me Long;' 'Christie Johnstone;' 'Peg +Woffington;' and then, later, 'Hard Cash,' 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' +'Foul Play,' 'Put Yourself in His Place'--how much they all meant once, +or seemed to mean! + +The first of them, and the other poems and fictions I was reading, meant +more to me than the rumors of war that were then filling the air, and +that so soon became its awful actualities. To us who have our lives so +largely in books the material world is always the fable, and the ideal +the fact. I walked with my feet on the ground, but my head was in the +clouds, as light as any of them. I neither praise nor blame this fact; +but I feel bound to own it, for that time, and for every time in my life, +since the witchery of literature began with me. + +Those two happy winters in Columbus, when I was finding opportunity and +recognition, were the heydey of life for me. There has been no time like +them since, though there have been smiling and prosperous times a plenty; +for then I was in the blossom of my youth, and what I had not I could +hope for without unreason, for I had so much of that which I had most +desired. Those times passed, and there came other times, long years of +abeyance, and waiting, and defeat, which I thought would never end, but +they passed, too. + +I got my appointment of Consul to Venice, and I went home to wait for my +passport and to spend the last days, so full of civic trouble, before I +should set out for my post. If I hoped to serve my country there and +sweep the Confederate cruisers from the Adriatic, I am afraid my prime +intent was to add to her literature and to my own credit. I intended, +while keeping a sleepless eye out for privateers, to write poems. +concerning American life which should eclipse anything yet done in that +kind, and in the mean time I read voraciously and perpetually, to make +the days go swiftly which I should have been so glad to have linger. In +this month I devoured all the 'Waverley novels,' but I must have been +devouring a great many others, for Charles Reade's 'Christie Johnstone' +is associated with the last moment of the last days. + +A few months ago I was at the old home, and I read that book again, +after not looking at it for more than thirty years; and I read it with +amazement at its prevailing artistic vulgarity, its prevailing aesthetic +error shot here and there with gleams of light, and of the truth that +Reade himself was always dimly groping for. The book is written +throughout on the verge of realism, with divinations and conjectures +across its border, and with lapses into the fool's paradise of +romanticism, and an apparent content with its inanity and impossibility. +But then it was brilliantly new and surprising; it seemed to be the last +word that could be said for the truth in fiction; and it had a spell that +held us like an anesthetic above the ache of parting, and the anxiety for +the years that must pass, with all their redoubled chances, before our +home circle could be made whole again. I read on, and the rest listened, +till the wheels of the old stage made themselves heard in their approach +through the absolute silence of the village street. Then we shut the +book and all went down to the gate together, and parted under the pale +sky of the October night. There was one of the home group whom I was not +to see again: the young brother who died in the blossom of his years +before I returned from my far and strange sojourn. He was too young then +to share our reading of the novel, but when I ran up to his room to bid +him good-by I found him awake, and, with aching hearts, we bade each +other good-by forever! + + + + +XXVIII. DANTE + +I ran through an Italian grammar on my way across the Atlantic, and from +my knowledge of Latin, Spanish, and French, I soon had a reading +acquaintance with the language. I had really wanted to go to Germany, +that I might carry forward my studies in German literature, and I first +applied for the consulate at Munich. The powers at Washington thought it +quite the same thing to offer me Rome; but I found that the income of the +Roman consulate would not give me a living, and I was forced to decline +it. Then the President's private secretaries, Mr. John Nicolay and Mr. +John Hay, who did not know me except as a young Westerner who had written +poems in the Atlantic Monthly, asked me how I would like Venice, and +promised that they would have the salary put up to a thousand a year, +under the new law to embarrass privateers. It was really put up to +fifteen hundred, and with this income assured me I went out to the city +whose influence changed the whole course of my literary life. + +No privateers ever came, though I once had notice from Turin that the +Florida had been sighted off Ancona; and I had nearly four years of +nearly uninterrupted leisure at Venice, which I meant to employ in +reading all Italian literature, and writing a history of the republic. +The history, of course, I expected would be a long affair, and I did not +quite suppose that I could despatch the literature in any short time; +besides, I had several considerable poems on hand that occupied me a good +deal, and worked at these as well as advanced myself in Italian, +preparatory to the efforts before me. + +I had already a slight general notion of Italian letters from Leigh Hunt, +and from other agreeable English Italianates; and I knew that I wanted to +read not only the four great poets, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, +but that whole group of burlesque poets, Pulci, Berni, and the rest, who, +from what I knew of them, I thought would be even more to my mind. As a +matter of fact, and in the process of time, I did read somewhat of all +these, but rather in the minor than the major way; and I soon went off +from them to the study of the modern poets, novelists, and playwrights +who interested me so much more. After my wonted fashion I read half a +dozen of these authors together, so that it would be hard to say which I +began with, but I had really a devotion to Dante, though not at that +time, or ever for the whole of Dante. During my first year in Venice I +met an ingenious priest, who had been a tutor in a patrician family, and +who was willing to lead my faltering steps through the "Inferno." This +part of the "Divine Comedy" I read with a beginner's carefulness, and +with a rapture in its beauties, which I will whisper the reader do not +appear in every line. + +Again I say it is a great pity that criticism is not honest about the +masterpieces of literature, and does not confess that they are not every +moment masterly, that they are often dull and tough and dry, as is +certainly the case with Dante's. Some day, perhaps, we shall have this +way of treating literature, and then the lover of it will not feel +obliged to browbeat himself into the belief that if he is not always +enjoying himself it is his own fault. At any rate I will permit myself +the luxury of frankly saying that while I had a deep sense of the majesty +and grandeur of Dante's design, many points of its execution bored me, +and that I found the intermixture of small local fact and neighborhood +history in the fabric of his lofty creation no part of its noblest +effect. What is marvellous in it is its expression of Dante's +personality, and I can never think that his personalities enhance its +greatness as a work of art. I enjoyed them, however, and I enjoyed them +the more, as the innumerable perspectives of Italian history began to +open all about me. Then, indeed, I understood the origins if I did not +understand the aims of Dante, which there is still much dispute about +among those who profess to know them clearly. What I finally perceived +was that his poem came through him from the heart of Italian life, such +as it was in his time, and that whatever it teaches, his poem expresses +that life, in all its splendor and squalor, its beauty and deformity, its +love and its hate. + +Criticism may torment this sense or that sense out of it, but at the end +of the ends the "Divine Comedy" will stand for the patriotism of +medieval Italy, as far as its ethics is concerned, and for a profound and +lofty ideal of beauty, as far as its aesthetics is concerned. This is +vague enough and slight enough, I must confess, but I must confess also +that I had not even a conception of so much when I first read the +"Inferno." I went at it very simply, and my enjoyment of it was that +sort which finds its account in the fine passages, the brilliant +episodes, the striking pictures. This was the effect with me of all the +criticism which I had hitherto read, and I am not sure yet that the +criticism which tries to be of a larger scope, and to see things "whole," +is of any definite effect. As a matter of fact we see nothing whole, +neither life nor art. We are so made, in soul and in sense, that we can +deal only with parts, with points, with degrees; and the endeavor to +compass any entirety must involve a discomfort and a danger very +threatening to our intellectual integrity. + +Or if this postulate is as untenable as all the others, still I am very +glad that I did not then lose any fact of the majesty, and beauty, and +pathos of the great certain measures for the sake of that fourth +dimension of the poem which is not yet made palpable or visible. I took +my sad heart's fill of the sad story of "Paolo and Francesca," which I +already knew in Leigh Hunt's adorable dilution, and most of the lines +read themselves into my memory, where they linger yet. I supped on the +horrors of Ugolino's fate with the strong gust of youth, which finds +every, exercise of sympathy a pleasure. My good priest sat beside me in +these rich moments, knotting in his lap the calico handkerchief of the +snuff-taker, and entering with tremulous eagerness into my joy in things +that he had often before enjoyed. No doubt he had an inexhaustible +pleasure in them apart from mine, for I have found my pleasure in them +perennial, and have not failed to taste it as often as I have read or +repeated any of the great passages of the poem to myself. This pleasure +came often from some vital phrase, or merely the inspired music of a +phrase quite apart from its meaning. I did not get then, and I have not +got since, a distinct conception of the journey through Hell, and as +often as I have tried to understand the topography of the poem I have +fatigued myself to no purpose, but I do not think the essential meaning +was lost upon me. + +I dare say my priest had his notion of the general shape and purport, +the gross material body of the thing, but he did not trouble me with it, +while we sat tranced together in the presence of its soul. He seemed, +at times, so lost in the beatific vision, that he forgot my stumblings in +the philological darkness, till I appealed to him for help. Then he +would read aloud with that magnificent rhythm the Italians have in +reading their verse, and the obscured meaning would seem to shine out of +the mere music of the poem, like the color the blind feel in sound. + +I do not know what has become of him, but if he is like the rest of the +strange group of my guides, philosophers, and friends in literature--the +printer, the organ-builder, the machinist, the drug-clerk, and the +bookbinder--I am afraid he is dead. In fact, I who was then I, might be +said to be dead too, so little is my past self like my present self in +anything but the "increasing purpose" which has kept me one in my love of +literature. He was a gentle and kindly man, with a life and a longing, +quite apart from his vocation, which were never lived or fulfilled. +I did not see him after he ceased to read Dante with me, and in fact I +was instructed by the suspicions of my Italian friends to be careful how +I consorted with a priest, who might very well be an Austrian spy. +I parted with him for no such picturesque reason, for I never believed +him other than the truest and faithfulest of friends, but because I was +then giving myself more entirely to work in which he could not help me. + +Naturally enough this was a long poem in the terza rima of the "Divina +Commedia," and dealing with a story of our civil war in a fashion so +remote that no editor would print it. This was the first fruits and the +last of my reading of Dante, in verse, and it was not so like Dante as I +would have liked to make it; but Dante is not easy to imitate; he is too +unconscious, and too single, too bent upon saying the thing that is in +him, with whatever beauty inheres in it, to put on the graces that others +may catch. + + + + +XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D'AZEGLIO + +However, this poem only shared the fate of nearly, all the others that I +wrote at this time; they came back to me with unfailing regularity from +all the magazine editors of the English-speaking world; I had no success +with any of them till I sent Mr. Lowell a paper on recent Italian comedy +for the North American Review, which he and Professor Norton had then +begun to edit. I was in the mean time printing the material of Venetian +Life and the Italian Journeys in a Boston newspaper after its rejection +by the magazines; and my literary life, almost without my willing it, had +taken the course of critical observance of books and men in their +actuality. + +That is to say, I was studying manners, in the elder sense of the word, +wherever I could get at them in the frank life of the people about me, +and in such literature of Italy as was then modern. In this pursuit I +made a discovery that greatly interested me, and that specialized my +inquiries. I found that the Italians had no novels which treated of +their contemporary life; that they had no modern fiction but the +historical romance. I found that if I wished to know their life from +their literature I must go to their drama, which was even then +endeavoring to give their, stage a faithful picture of their +civilization. There was even then in the new circumstance of a people +just liberated from every variety of intellectual repression and +political oppression, a group of dramatic authors, whose plays were not +only delightful to see but delightful to read, working in the good +tradition of one of the greatest realists who has ever lived, and +producing a drama of vital strength and charm. One of them, whom I by no +means thought the best, has given us a play, known to all the world, +which I am almost ready to think with Zola is the greatest play of modern +times; or if it is not so, I should be puzzled to name the modern drama +that surpasses "La Morte Civile" of Paolo Giacometti. I learned to know +all the dramatists pretty well, in the whole range of their work, on the +stage and in the closet, and I learned to know still better, and to love +supremely, the fine, amiable genius whom, as one of them said, they did +not so much imitate as learn from to imitate nature. + +This was Carlo Goldoni, one of the first of the realists, but antedating +conscious realism so long as to have been born at Venice early in the +eighteenth century, and to have come to his hand-to-hand fight with the +romanticism of his day almost before that century had reached its noon. +In the early sixties of our own century I was no more conscious of his +realism than he was himself a hundred years before; but I had eyes in my +head, and I saw that what he had seen in Venice so long before was so +true that it was the very life of Venice in my own day; and because I +have loved the truth in art above all other things, I fell instantly and +lastingly in love with Carlo Goldoni. I was reading his memoirs, and +learning to know his sweet, honest, simple nature while I was learning to +know his work, and I wish that every one who reads his plays would read +his life as well; one must know him before one can fully know them. I +believe, in fact, that his autobiography came into my hands first. But, +at any rate, both are associated with the fervors and languors of that +first summer in Venice, so that I cannot now take up a book of Goldoni's +without a renewed sense of that sunlight and moonlight, and of the sounds +and silences of a city that is at once the stillest and shrillest in the +world. + +Perhaps because I never found his work of great ethical or aesthetical +proportions, but recognized that it pretended to be good only within its +strict limitations, I recur to it now without that painful feeling of a +diminished grandeur in it, which attends us so often when we go back to +something that once greatly pleased us. It seemed to me at the time that +I must have read all his comedies in Venice, but I kept reading new ones +after I came home, and still I can take a volume of his from the shelf, +and when thirty years are past, find a play or two that I missed before. +Their number is very great, but perhaps those that I fancy I have not +read, I have really read once or more and forgotten. That might very +easily be, for there is seldom anything more poignant in any one of them +than there is in the average course of things. The plays are light and +amusing transcripts from life, for the most part, and where at times they +deepen into powerful situations, or express strong emotions, they do so +with persons so little different from the average of our acquaintance +that we do not remember just who the persons are. + +There is no doubt but the kindly playwright had his conscience, and meant +to make people think as well as laugh. I know of none of his plays that +is of wrong effect, or that violates the instincts of purity, or insults +common sense with the romantic pretence that wrong will be right if you +will only paint it rose-color. He is at some obvious pains to "punish +vice and reward virtue," but I do not mean that easy morality when I +praise his; I mean the more difficult sort that recognizes in each man's +soul the arbiter not of his fate surely, but surely of his peace. He +never makes a fool of the spectator by feigning that passion is a reason +or justification, or that suffering of one kind can atone for wrong of +another. That was left for the romanticists of our own century to +discover; even the romanticists whom Goldoni drove from the stage, were +of that simpler eighteenth-century sort who had not yet liberated the +individual from society, but held him accountable in the old way. As for +Goldoni himself, he apparently never dreams of transgression; he is of +rather an explicit conventionality in most things, and he deals with +society as something finally settled. How artfully he deals with it, +how decently, how wholesomely, those who know Venetian society of the +eighteenth century historically, will perceive when they recall the +adequate impression he gives of it without offence in character or +language or situation. This is the perpetual miracle of his comedy, +that it says so much to experience and worldly wisdom, and so little to +inexperience and worldly innocence. No doubt the Serenest Republic was +very strict with the theatre, and suffered it to hold the mirror up to +nature only when nature was behaving well, or at least behaving as if +young people were present. Yet the Italians are rather plain-spoken, and +they recognize facts which our company manners at least do not admit the +existence of. I should say that Goldoni was almost English, almost +American, indeed, in his observance of the proprieties, and I like this +in him; though the proprieties are not virtues, they are very good +things, and at least are better than the improprieties. + +This, however, I must own, had not a great deal to do with my liking him +so much, and I should be puzzled to account for my passion, as much in +his case as in most others. If there was any reason for it, perhaps it +was that he had the power of taking me out of my life, and putting me +into the lives of others, whom I felt to be human beings as much as +myself. To make one live in others, this is the highest effect of +religion as well as of art, and possibly it will be the highest bliss we +shall ever know. I do not pretend that my translation was through my +unselfishness; it was distinctly through that selfishness which perceives +that self is misery; and I may as well confess here that I do not regard +the artistic ecstasy as in any sort noble. It is not noble to love the +beautiful, or to live for it, or by it; and it may even not be refining. +I would not have any reader of mine, looking forward to some aesthetic +career, suppose that this love is any merit in itself; it may be the +grossest egotism. If you cannot look beyond the end you aim at, and seek +the good which is not your own, all your sacrifice is to yourself and not +of yourself, and you might as well be going into business. In itself and +for itself it is no more honorable to win fame than to make money, and +the wish to do the one is no more elevating than the wish to do the +other. + +But in the days I write of I had no conception of this, and I am sure +that my blindness to so plain a fact kept me even from seeking and +knowing the highest beauty in the things I worshipped. I believe that if +I had been sensible of it I should hays read much more of such humane +Italian poets and novelists as Manzoni and D'Azeglio, whom I perceived to +be delightful, without dreaming of them in the length and breadth of +their goodness. Now and then its extent flashed upon me, but the glimpse +was lost to my retroverted vision almost as soon as won. It is only in +thinking back to there that I can realize how much they might always have +meant to me. They were both living in my time in Italy, and they were +two men whom I should now like very much to have seen, if I could have +done so without that futility which seems to attend every effort to pay +one's duty to such men. + +The love of country in all the Italian poets and romancers of the long +period of the national resurrection ennobled their art in a measure which +criticism has not yet taken account of. I conceived of its effect then, +but I conceived of it as a misfortune, a fatality; now I am by no means +sure that it was so; hereafter the creation of beauty, as we call it, for +beauty's sake, may be considered something monstrous. There is forever a +poignant meaning in life beyond what mere living involves, and why should +not there be this reference in art to the ends beyond art? +The situation, the long patience, the hope against hope, dignified and +beautified the nature of the Italian writers of that day, and evoked from +them a quality which I was too little trained in their school to +appreciate. But in a sort I did feel it, I did know it in them all, so +far as I knew any of them, and in the tragedies of Manzoni, and in the +romances of D'Azeglio, and yet more in the simple and modest records of +D'Azeglio's life published after his death, I profited by it, and +unconsciously prepared myself for that point of view whence all the arts +appear one with all the uses, and there is nothing beautiful that is +false. + +I am very glad of that experience of Italian literature, which I look +back upon as altogether wholesome and sanative, after my excesses of +Heine. No doubt it was all a minor affair as compared with equal +knowledge of French literature, and so far it was a loss of time. It is +idle to dispute the general positions of criticism, and there is no +useful gainsaying its judgment that French literature is a major +literature and Italian a minor literature in this century; but whether +this verdict will stand for all time, there may be a reasonable doubt. +Criterions may change, and hereafter people may look at the whole affair +so differently that a literature which went to the making of a people +will not be accounted a minor literature, but will take its place with +the great literary movements. + +I do not insist upon this possibility, and I am far from defending myself +for liking the comedies of Goldoni better than the comedies of Moliere, +upon purely aesthetic grounds, where there is no question as to the +artistic quality. Perhaps it is because I came to Moliere's comedies +later, and with my taste formed for those of Goldoni; but again, it is +here a matter of affection; I find Goldoni for me more sympathetic, and +because he is more sympathetic I cannot do otherwise than find him more +natural, more true. I will allow that this is vulnerable, and as I say, +I do not defend it. Moliere has a place in literature infinitely loftier +than Goldoni's; and he has supplied types, characters, phrases, to the +currency of thought, and Goldoni has supplied none. It is, therefore, +without reason which I can allege that I enjoy Goldoni more. I am +perfectly willing to be rated low for my preference, and yet I think that +if it had been Goldoni's luck to have had the great age of a mighty +monarchy for his scene, instead of the decline of an outworn republic, +his place in literature might have been different. + + + + +XXX. "PASTOR FIDO," "AMINTA," "ROMOLA," "YEAST," "PAUL FERROLL" + +I have always had a great love for the absolutely unreal, the purely +fanciful in all the arts, as well as of the absolutely real; I like the +one on a far lower plane than the other, but it delights me, as a +pantomime at a theatre does, or a comic opera, which has its being wholly +outside the realm of the probabilities. When I once transport myself to +this sphere I have no longer any care for them, and if I could I would +not exact of them an allegiance which has no concern with them. For this +reason I have always vastly enjoyed the artificialities of pastoral +poetry; and in Venice I read with a pleasure few serious poems have given +me the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini. I came later but not with fainter zest +to the "Aminta" of Tasso, without which, perhaps, the "Pastor Fido" would +not have been, and I revelled in the pretty impossibilities of both these +charming effects of the liberated imagination. + +I do not the least condemn that sort of thing; one does not live by +sweets, unless one is willing to spoil one's digestion; but one may now +and then indulge one's self without harm, and a sugar-plum or two after +dinner may even be of advantage. What I object to is the romantic thing +which asks to be accepted with all its fantasticality on the ground of +reality; that seems to me hopelessly bad. But I have been able to dwell +in their charming out-land or no-land with the shepherds and +shepherdesses and nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, of Tasso and Guarini, and I +take the finest pleasure in their company, their Dresden china loves and +sorrows, their airy raptures, their painless throes, their polite +anguish, their tears not the least salt, but flowing as sweet as the +purling streams of their enamelled meadows. I wish there were more of +that sort of writing; I should like very much to read it. + +The greater part of my reading in Venice, when I began to find that I +could not help writing about the place, was in books relating to its life +and history, which I made use of rather than found pleasure in. My +studies in Italian literature were full of the most charming interest, +and if I had to read a good many books for conscience' sake, there were a +good many others I read for their own sake. They were chiefly poetry; +and after the first essays in which I tasted the classic poets, they were +chiefly the books of the modern poets. + +For the present I went no farther in German literature, and I recurred to +it in later years only for deeper and fuller knowledge of Heine; my +Spanish was ignored, as all first loves are when one has reached the age +of twenty-six. My English reading was almost wholly in the Tauchnitz +editions, for otherwise English books were not easily come at then and +there. George Eliot's 'Romola' was then new, and I read it again and +again with the sense of moral enlargement which the first fiction to +conceive of the true nature of evil gave all of us who were young in that +day. Tito Malema was not only a lesson, he was a revelation, and I +trembled before him as in the presence of a warning and a message from +the only veritable perdition. His life, in which so much that was good +was mixed, with so much that was bad, lighted up the whole domain of +egotism with its glare, and made one feel how near the best and the worst +were to each other, and how they sometimes touched without absolute +division in texture and color. The book was undoubtedly a favorite of +mine, and I did not see then the artistic falterings in it which were +afterwards evident to me. + +There were not Romolas to read all the time, though, and I had to devolve +upon inferior authors for my fiction the greater part of the time. Of +course, I kept up with 'Our Mutual Friend,' which Dickens was then +writing, and with 'Philip,' which was to be the last of Thackeray. I was +not yet sufficiently instructed to appreciate Trollope, and I did not +read him at all. + +I got hold of Kingsley, and read 'Yeast,' and I think some other novels +of his, with great relish, and without sensibility to his Charles +Readeish lapses from his art into the material of his art. But of all +the minor fiction that I read at this time none impressed me so much as +three books which had then already had their vogue, and which I knew +somewhat from reviews. They were Paul Ferroll, 'Why Paul Ferroll Killed +His Wife,' and 'Day after Day.' The first two were, of course, related +to each other, and they were all three full of unwholesome force. As to +their aesthetic merit I will not say anything, for I have not looked at +either of the books for thirty years. I fancy, however, that their +strength was rather of the tetanic than the titanic sort. They made your +sympathies go with the hero, who deliberately puts his wife to death for +the lie she told to break off his marriage with the woman he had loved, +and who then marries this tender and gentle girl, and lives in great +happiness with her till her death. Murder in the first degree is +flattered by his fate up to the point of letting him die peacefully in +Boston after these dealings of his in England; and altogether his story +could not be commended to people with a morbid taste for bloodshed. +Naturally enough the books were written by a perfectly good woman, the +wife of an English clergyman, whose friends were greatly scandalized by +them. As a sort of atonement she wrote 'Day after Day,' the story of a +dismal and joyless orphan, who dies to the sound of angelic music, faint +and farheard, filling the whole chamber. A carefuller study of the +phenomenon reveals the fact that the seraphic strains are produced by the +steam escaping from the hot-water bottles at the feet of the invalid. + +As usual, I am not able fully to account for my liking of these books, +and I am so far from wishing to justify it that I think I ought rather to +excuse it. But since I was really greatly fascinated with them, and read +them with an evergrowing fascination, the only honest thing to do is to +own my subjection to them. It would be an interesting and important +question for criticism to study, that question why certain books at a. +certain time greatly dominate our fancy, and others manifestly better +have no influence with us. A curious proof of the subtlety of these Paul +Ferroll books in the appeal they made to the imagination is the fact that +I came to them fresh from 'Romolo,' and full of horror for myself in +Tito; yet I sympathized throughout with Paul Ferroll, and was glad when +he got away. + + + + +XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON + +On my return to America, my literary life immediately took such form that +most of my reading was done for review. I wrote at first a good many of +the lighter criticisms in 'The Nation', at New York, and after I went to +Boston to become the assistant editor of the 'Atlantic Monthly' I wrote +the literary notices in that periodical for four or five years. + +It was only when I came into full charge of the magazine that I began to +share these labors with others, and I continued them in some measure as +long as I had any relation to it. My reading for reading's sake, as I +had hitherto done it, was at an end, and I read primarily for the sake of +writing about the book in hand, and secondarily for the pleasure it might +give me. This was always considerable, and sometimes so great that I +forgot the critic in it, and read on and on for pleasure. I was master +to review this book or that as I chose, and generally I reviewed only +books I liked to read, though sometimes I felt that I ought to do a book, +and did it from a sense of duty; these perfunctory criticisms I do not +think were very useful, but I tried to make them honest. + +In a long sickness, which I had shortly after I went to live in +Cambridge, a friend brought me several of the stories of Erckmann- +Chatrian, whom people were then reading much more than they are now, I +believe; and I had a great joy in them, which I have renewed since as +often as I have read one of their books. They have much the same quality +of simple and sincerely moralized realism that I found afterwards in the +work of the early Swiss realist, Jeremias Gotthelf, and very likely it +was this that captivated my judgment. As for my affections, battered and +exhausted as they ought to have been in many literary passions, they +never went out with fresher enjoyment than they did to the charming story +of 'L'Ami Fritz,' which, when I merely name it, breathes the spring sun +and air about me, and fills my senses with the beauty and sweetness of +cherry blossoms. It is one of the loveliest and kindest books that ever +was written, and my heart belongs to it still; to be sure it belongs to +several hundreds of other books in equal entirety. + +It belongs to all the books of the great Norwegian Bjorstjerne Bjornson, +whose 'Arne,' and whose 'Happy Boy,' and whose 'Fisher Maiden' I read in +this same fortunate sickness. I have since read every other book of his +that I could lay hands on: 'Sinnove Solbakken,' and 'Magnhild,' and +'Captain Manzanca,' and 'Dust,' and 'In God's Ways,' and 'Sigurd,' and +plays like "The Glove" and "The Bankrupt." He has never, as some authors +have, dwindled in my sense; when I open his page, there I find him as +large, and free, and bold as ever. He is a great talent, a clear +conscience, a beautiful art. He has my love not only because he is a +poet of the most exquisite verity, but because he is a lover of men, +with a faith in them such as can move mountains of ignorance, +and dulness, and greed. He is next to Tolstoy in his willingness to give +himself for his kind; if he would rather give himself in fighting than in +suffering wrong, I do not know that his self-sacrifice is less in degree. + +I confess, however, that I do not think of him as a patriot and a +socialist when I read him; he is then purely a poet, whose gift holds me +rapt above the world where I have left my troublesome and wearisome self +for the time. I do not know of any novels that a young endeavorer in +fiction could more profitably read than his for their large and simple +method, their trust of the reader's intelligence, their sympathy with +life. With him the problems are all soluble by the enlightened and +regenerate will; there is no baffling Fate, but a helping God. In +Bjornson there is nothing of Ibsen's scornful despair, nothing of his +anarchistic contempt, but his art is full of the warmth and color of a +poetic soul, with no touch of the icy cynicism which freezes you in the +other. I have felt the cold fascination of Ibsen, too, and I should be +far from denying his mighty mastery, but he has never possessed me with +the delight that Bjornson has. + +In those days I read not only all the new books, but I made many forays +into the past, and came back now and then with rich spoil, though I +confess that for the most part I had my trouble for my pains; and I wish +now that I had given the time I spent on the English classics to +contemporary literature, which I have not the least hesitation in saying +I like vastly better. In fact, I believe that the preference for the +literature of the past, except in the case of the greatest masters, is +mainly the affectation of people who cannot otherwise distinguish +themselves from the herd, and who wish very much to do so. + +There is much to be learned from the minor novelists and poets of the +past about people's ways of thinking and feeling, but not much that the +masters do not give you in better quality and fuller measure; and I +should say, Read the old masters and let their schools go, rather than +neglect any possible master of your own time. Above all, I would not +have any one read an old author merely that he might not be ignorant of +him; that is most beggarly, and no good can come of it. When literature +becomes a duty it ceases to be a passion, and all the schoolmastering in +the world, solemnly addressed to the conscience, cannot make the fact +otherwise. It is well to read for the sake of knowing a certain ground +if you are to make use of your knowledge in a certain way, but it would +be a mistake to suppose that this is a love of literature. + + + + +XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH + +In those years at Cambridge my most notable literary experience without +doubt was the knowledge of Tourguenief's novels, which began to be +recognized in all their greatness about the middle seventies. I think +they made their way with such of our public as were able to appreciate +them before they were accepted in England; but that does not matter. It +is enough for the present purpose that 'Smoke,' and 'Lisa,' and 'On the +Eve,' and 'Dimitri Roudine,' and 'Spring Floods,' passed one after +another through my hands, and that I formed for their author one of the +profoundest literary passions of my life. + +I now think that there is a finer and truer method than his, but in its +way, Tourguenief's method is as far as art can go. That is to say, his +fiction is to the last degree dramatic. The persons are sparely +described, and briefly accounted for, and then they are left to transact +their affair, whatever it is, with the least possible comment or +explanation from the author. The effect flows naturally from their +characters, and when they have done or said a thing you conjecture why as +unerringly as you would if they were people whom you knew outside of a +book. I had already conceived of the possibility of this from Bjornson, +who practises the same method, but I was still too sunken in the gross +darkness of English fiction to rise to a full consciousness of its +excellence. When I remembered the deliberate and impertinent moralizing +of Thackeray, the clumsy exegesis of George Eliot, the knowing nods and +winks of Charles Reade, the stage-carpentering and limelighting of +Dickens, even the fine and important analysis of Hawthorne, it was with a +joyful astonishment that I realized the great art of Tourguenief. + +Here was a master who was apparently not trying to work out a plot, who +was not even trying to work out a character, but was standing aside from +the whole affair, and letting the characters work the plot out. The +method was revealed perfectly in 'Smoke,' but each successive book of his +that I read was a fresh proof of its truth, a revelation of its +transcendent superiority. I think now that I exaggerated its value +somewhat; but this was inevitable in the first surprise. The sane +aesthetics of the first Russian author I read, however, have seemed more +and more an essential part of the sane ethics of all the Russians I have +read. It was not only that Tourguenief had painted life truly, but that +he had painted it conscientiously. + +Tourguenief was of that great race which has more than any other fully +and freely uttered human nature, without either false pride or false +shame in its nakedness. His themes were oftenest those of the French +novelist, but how far he was from handling them in the French manner and +with the French spirit! In his hands sin suffered no dramatic +punishment; it did not always show itself as unhappiness, in the personal +sense, but it was always unrest, and without the hope of peace. If the +end did not appear, the fact that it must be miserable always appeared. +Life showed itself to me in different colors after I had once read +Tourguenief; it became more serious, more awful, and with mystical +responsibilities I had not known before. My gay American horizons were +bathed in the vast melancholy of the Slav, patient, agnostic, trustful. +At the same time nature revealed herself to me through him with an +intimacy she had not hitherto shown me. There are passages in this +wonderful writer alive with a truth that seems drawn from the reader's +own knowledge; who else but Tourguenief and one's own most secret self +ever felt all the rich, sad meaning of the night air drawing in at the +open window, of the fires burning in the darkness on the distant fields? +I try in vain to give some notion of the subtle sympathy with nature +which scarcely put itself into words with him. As for the people of his +fiction, though they were of orders and civilizations so remote from my +experience, they were of the eternal human types whose origin and +potentialities every one may find in his own heart, and I felt their +verity in every touch. + +I cannot describe the satisfaction his work gave me; I can only impart +some sense of it, perhaps, by saying that it was like a happiness I had +been waiting for all my life, and now that it had come, I was richly +content forever. I do not mean to say that the art of Tourguenief +surpasses the art of Bjornson; I think Bjornson is quite as fine and +true. But the Norwegian deals with simple and primitive circumstances +for the most part, and always with a small world; and the Russian has to +do with human nature inside of its conventional shells, and his scene is +often as large as Europe. Even when it is as remote as Norway, it is +still related to the great capitals by the history if not the actuality +of the characters. Most of Tourguenief's books I have read many times +over, all of them I have read more than twice. For a number of years I +read them again and again without much caring for other fiction. It was +only the other day that I read Smoke through once more, with no +diminished sense of its truth, but with somewhat less than my first +satisfaction in its art. Perhaps this was because I had reached the +point through my acquaintance with Tolstoy where I was impatient even of +the artifice that hid itself. In 'Smoke' I was now aware of an artifice +that kept out of sight, but was still always present somewhere, invisibly +operating the story. + +I must not fail to own the great pleasure that I have had in some of the +stories of Auerbach. It is true that I have never cared greatly for 'On +the Heights,' which in its dealing with royalties seems too far aloof +from the ordinary human life, and which on the moral side finally fades +out into a German mistiness. But I speak of it with the imperfect +knowledge of one who was never able to read it quite through, and I have +really no right to speak of it. The book of his that pleased me most was +'Edelweiss,' which, though the story was somewhat too catastrophical, +seemed to me admirably good and true. I still think it very delicately +done, and with a deep insight; but there is something in all Auerbach's +work which in the retrospect affects me as if it dealt with pigmies. + + + + + +XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES + +I have always loved history, whether in the annals of peoples or in the +lives of persons, and I have at all times read it. I am not sure but I +rather prefer it to fiction, though I am aware that in looking back over +this record of my literary passions I must seem to have cared for very +little besides fiction. I read at the time I have just been speaking of, +nearly all the new poetry as it came out, and I constantly recurred to it +in its mossier sources, where it sprang from the green English ground, or +trickled from the antique urns of Italy. + +I do not think that I have ever cared much for metaphysics, or to read +much in that way, but from time to time I have done something of it. + +Travels, of course, I have read as part of the great human story, and +autobiography has at times appeared to me the most delightful reading in +the world; I have a taste in it that rejects nothing, though I have never +enjoyed any autobiographies so much as those of such Italians as have +reasoned of themselves. + +I suppose I have not been a great reader of the drama, and I do not know +that I have ever greatly relished any plays but those of Shakespeare and +Goldoni, and two or three of Beaumont and Fletcher, and one or so of +Marlow's, and all of Ibsen's and Maeterlinck's. The taste for the old +English dramatists I believe I have never formed. + +Criticism, ever since I filled myself so full of it in my boyhood, I have +not cared for, and often I have found it repulsive. + +I have a fondness for books of popular science, perhaps because they too +are part of the human story. + +I have read somewhat of the theology of the Swedenborgian faith I was +brought up in, but I have not read other theological works; and I do not +apologize for not liking any. The Bible itself was not much known to me +at an age when most children have been obliged to read it several times +over; the gospels were indeed familiar, and they have always been to me +the supreme human story; but the rest of the New Testament I had not read +when a man grown, and only passages of the Old Testament, like the story +of the Creation, and the story of Joseph, and the poems of Job and +Ecclesiastes, with occasional Psalms. I therefore came to the Scriptures +with a sense at once fresh and mature, and I can never be too glad that I +learned to see them under the vaster horizon and in the truer +perspectives of experience. + +Again as lights on the human story I have liked to read such books of +medicine as have fallen in my way, and I seldom take up a medical +periodical without reading of all the cases it describes, and in fact +every article in it. + +But I did not mean to make even this slight departure from the main +business of these papers, which is to confide my literary passions to the +reader; he probably has had a great many of his own. I think I may class +the "Ring and the Book" among them, though I have never been otherwise a +devotee of Browning. But I was still newly home from Italy, or away from +home, when that poem appeared, and whether or not it was because it took +me so with the old enchantment of that land, I gave my heart promptly to +it. Of course, there are terrible longueurs in it, and you do get tired +of the same story told over and over from the different points of view, +and yet it is such a great story, and unfolded with such a magnificent +breadth and noble fulness, that one who blames it lightly blames himself +heavily. There are certain books of it--"Caponsacchi's story," +"Pompilia's story," and "Count Guido's story"--that I think ought to rank +with the greatest poetry ever written, and that have a direct, dramatic +expression of the fact and character, which is without rival. There is a +noble and lofty pathos in the close of Caponsacchi's statement, an +artless and manly break from his self-control throughout, that seems to +me the last possible effect in its kind; and Pompilia's story holds all +of womanhood in it, the purity, the passion, the tenderness, the +helplessness. But if I begin to praise this or any of the things I have +liked, I do not know when I should stop. Yes, as I think it over, the +"Ring and the Book" appears to me one of the great few poems whose +splendor can never suffer lasting eclipse, however it may have presently +fallen into abeyance. If it had impossibly come down to us from some +elder time, or had not been so perfectly modern in its recognition of +feeling and motives ignored by the less conscious poetry of the past, it +might be ranked with the great epics. + +Of other modern poets I have read some things of William Morris, like the +"Life and Death of Jason," the "Story of Gudrun," and the "Trial of +Guinevere," with a pleasure little less than passionate, and I have +equally liked certain pieces of Dante Rossetti. I have had a high joy in +some of the great minor poems of Emerson, where the goddess moves over +Concord meadows with a gait that is Greek, and her sandalled tread +expresses a high scorn of the india-rubber boots that the American muse +so often gets about in. + +The "Commemoration Ode" of Lowell has also been a source from which I +drank something of the divine ecstasy of the poet's own exalted mood, and +I would set this level with the 'Biglow Papers,' high above all his other +work, and chief of the things this age of our country shall be remembered +by. Holmes I always loved, and not for his wit alone, which is so +obvious to liking, but for those rarer and richer strains of his in which +he shows himself the lover of nature and the brother of men. The deep +spiritual insight, the celestial music, and the brooding tenderness of +Whittier have always taken me more than his fierier appeals and his civic +virtues, though I do not underrate the value of these in his verse. + +My acquaintance with these modern poets, and many I do not name because +they are so many, has been continuous with their work, and my pleasure in +it not inconstant if not equal. I have spoken before of Longfellow as +one of my first passions, and I have never ceased to delight in him; but +some of the very newest and youngest of our poets have given me thrills +of happiness, for which life has become lastingly sweeter. + + +Long after I had thought never to read it--in fact when I was 'nel mezzo +del cammin di nostra vita'--I read Milton's "Paradise Lost," and found in +it a majestic beauty that justified to me the fame it wears, and eclipsed +the worth of those lesser poems which I had ignorantly accounted his +worthiest. In fact, it was one of the literary passions of the time I +speak of, and it shared my devotion for the novels of Tourguenief and +(shall I own it?) the romances of Cherbuliez. After all, it is best to +be honest, and if it is not best, it is at least easiest; it involves the +fewest embarrassing consequences; and if I confess the spell that the +Revenge of Joseph Noirel cast upon me for a time, perhaps I shall be able +to whisper the reader behind my hand that I have never yet read the +"AEneid" of Virgil; the "Georgics," yes; but the "AEneid," no. Some +time, however, I expect to read it and to like it immensely. That is +often the case with things that I have held aloof from indefinitely. + +One fact of my experience which the reader may, find interesting is that +when I am writing steadily I have little relish for reading. I fancy, +that reading is not merely a pastime when it is apparently the merest +pastime, but that a certain measure of mind-stuff is used up in it, and +that if you are using up all the mind stuff you have, much or little, in +some other way, you do not read because you have not the mind-stuff for +it. At any rate it is in this sort only that I can account for my +failure to read a great deal during four years of the amplest quiet that +I spent in the country at Belmont, whither we removed from Cambridge. +I had promised myself that in this quiet, now that I had given up +reviewing, and wrote little or nothing in the magazine but my stories, +I should again read purely for the pleasure of it, as I had in the early +days before the critical purpose had qualified it with a bitter alloy. +But I found that not being forced to read a number of books each month, +so that I might write about them, I did not read at all, comparatively +speaking. To be sure I dawdled over a great many books that I had read +before, and a number of memoirs and biographies, but I had no intense +pleasure from reading in that time, and have no passions to record of it. +It may have been a period when no new thing happened in literature deeply +to stir one's interest; I only state the fact concerning myself, and +suggest the most plausible theory I can think of. + +I wish also to note another incident, which may or may not have its +psychological value. An important event of these years was a long +sickness which kept me helpless some seven or eight weeks, when I was +forced to read in order to pass the intolerable time. But in this misery +I found that I could not read anything of a dramatic cast, whether in the +form of plays or of novels. The mere sight of the printed page, broken +up in dialogue, was anguish. Yet it was not the excitement of the +fiction that I dreaded, for I consumed great numbers of narratives of +travel, and was not in the least troubled by hairbreadth escapes, or +shipwrecks, or perils from wild beasts or deadly serpents; it was the +dramatic effect contrived by the playwright or novelist, and worked up to +in the speech of his characters that I could not bear. I found a like +impossible stress from the Sunday newspaper which a mistaken friend sent +in to me, and which with its scare-headings, and artfully wrought +sensations, had the effect of fiction, as in fact it largely was. + +At the end of four years we went abroad again, and travel took away the +appetite for reading as completely as writing did. I recall nothing read +in that year in Europe which moved me, and I think I read very little, +except the local histories of the Tuscan cities which I afterwards wrote +of. + + + + +XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY + +In fact, it was not till I returned, and took up my life again in Boston, +in the old atmosphere of work, that I turned once more to books. Even +then I had to wait for the time when I undertook a critical department in +one of the magazines, before I felt the rise of the old enthusiasm for an +author. That is to say, I had to begin reading for business again before +I began reading for pleasure. One of the first great pleasures which I +had upon these terms was in the book of a contemporary Spanish author. +This was the 'Marta y Maria' of Armando Palacio Valdes, a novelist who +delights me beyond words by his friendly and abundant humor, his feeling +for character, and his subtle insight. I like every one of his books +that I have read, and I believe that I have read nearly every one that he +has written. As I mention 'Riverito, Maximina, Un Idilio de un Inferno, +La Hermana de San Sulpizio, El Cuarto Poder, Espuma,' the mere names +conjure up the scenes and events that have moved me to tears and +laughter, and filled me with a vivid sense of the life portrayed in them. +I think the 'Marta y Maria' one of the most truthful and profound +fictions I have read, and 'Maximina' one of the most pathetic, and +'La Hermana de San Sulpizio' one of the most amusing. Fortunately, these +books of Valdes's have nearly all been translated, and the reader may +test the matter in English; though it necessarily halts somewhat behind +the Spanish. + +I do not know whether the Spaniards themselves rank Valdes with Galdos or +not, and I have no wish to decide upon their relative merits. They are +both present passions of mine, and I may say of the 'Dona Perfecta' of +Galdos that no book, if I except those of the greatest Russians, has +given me a keener and deeper impression; it is infinitely pathetic, and +is full of humor, which, if more caustic than that of Valdes, is not less +delicious. But I like all the books of Galdos that I have read, and +though he seems to have worked more tardily out of his romanticism than +Valdes, since be has worked finally into such realism as that of Leon +Roch, his greatness leaves nothing to be desired. + +I have read one of the books of Emilia Pardo-Bazan, called 'Morrina,' +which must rank her with the great realists of her country and age; she, +too, has that humor of her race, which brings us nearer the Spanish than +any other non-Anglo-Saxon people. + +A contemporary Italian, whom I like hardly less than these noble +Spaniards, is Giovanni Verga, who wrote 'I Malavoglia,' or, as we call it +in English, 'The House by the Medlar Tree': a story of infinite beauty, +tenderness and truth. As I have said before, I think with Zola that +Giacometti, the Italian author of "La Morte Civile," has written almost +the greatest play, all round, of modern times. + +But what shall I say of Zola himself, and my admiration of his epic +greatness? About his material there is no disputing among people of our +Puritanic tradition. It is simply abhorrent, but when you have once +granted him his material for his own use, it is idle and foolish to deny +his power. Every literary theory of mine was contrary to him when I took +up 'L'Assommoir,' though unconsciously I had always been as much of a +realist as I could, but the book possessed me with the same fascination +that I felt the other day in reading his 'L'Argent.' The critics know +now that Zola is not the realist he used to fancy himself, and he is full +of the best qualities of the romanticism he has hated so much; but for +what he is, there is but one novelist of our time, or of any, that +outmasters him, and that is Tolstoy. For my own part, I think that the +books of Zola are not immoral, but they are indecent through the facts +that they nakedly represent; they are infinitely more moral than the +books of any other French novelist. This may not be saying a great deal, +but it is saying the truth, and I do not mind owning that he has been one +of my great literary passions, almost as great as Flaubert, and greater +than Daudet or Maupassant, though I have profoundly appreciated the +exquisite artistry of both these. No French writer, however, has moved +me so much as the Spanish, for the French are wanting in the humor which +endears these, and is the quintessence of their charm. + +You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke, and I +suppose this is what deprived me of a final satisfaction in the company +of Anthony Trollope, who jokes heavily or not at all, and whom I should +otherwise make bold to declare the greatest of English novelists; as it +is, I must put before him Jane Austen, whose books, late in life, have +been a youthful rapture with me. Even without, much humor Trollope's +books have been a vast pleasure to me through their simple truthfulness. +Perhaps if they were more humorous they would not be so true to the +British life and character present in them in the whole length and +breadth of its expansive commonplaceness. It is their serious fidelity +which gives them a value unique in literature, and which if it were +carefully analyzed would afford a principle of the same quality in an +author who was undoubtedly one of the finest of artists as well as the +most Philistine of men. + +I came rather late, but I came with all the ardor of what seems my +perennial literary youth, to the love of Thomas Hardy, whom I first knew +in his story 'A Pair of Blue Eyes.' As usual, after I had read this book +and felt the new charm in it, I wished to read the books of no other +author, and to read his books over and over. I love even the faults of +Hardy; I will let him play me any trick he chooses (and he is not above +playing tricks, when he seems to get tired of his story or perplexed with +it), if only he will go on making his peasants talk, and his rather +uncertain ladies get in and out of love, and serve themselves of every +chance that fortune offers them of having their own way. We shrink from +the unmorality of the Latin races, but Hardy has divined in the heart of +our own race a lingering heathenism, which, if not Greek, has certainly +been no more baptized than the neo-hellenism of the Parisians. His +heroines especially exemplify it, and I should be safe in saying that his +Ethelbertas, his Eustacias, his Elfridas, his Bathshebas, his Fancies, +are wholly pagan. I should not dare to ask how much of their charm came +from that fact; and the author does not fail to show you how much harm, +so that it is not on my conscience. His people live very close to the +heart of nature, and no one, unless it is Tourguenief, gives you a richer +and sweeter sense of her unity with human nature. Hardy is a great poet +as well as a great humorist, and if he were not a great artist also his +humor would be enough to endear him to me. + + + + +XXXV. TOLSTOY + +I come now, though not quite in the order of time, to the noblest of all +these enthusiasms--namely, my devotion for the writings of Lyof Tolstoy. +I should wish to speak of him with his own incomparable truth, yet I do +not know how to give a notion of his influence without the effect of +exaggeration. As much as one merely human being can help another I +believe that he has helped me; he has not influenced me in aesthetics +only, but in ethics, too, so that I can never again see life in the way I +saw it before I knew him. Tolstoy awakens in his reader the will to be a +man; not effectively, not spectacularly, but simply, really. He leads +you back to the only true ideal, away from that false standard of the +gentleman, to the Man who sought not to be distinguished from other men, +but identified with them, to that Presence in which the finest gentleman +shows his alloy of vanity, and the greatest genius shrinks to the measure +of his miserable egotism. I learned from Tolstoy to try character and +motive by no other test, and though I am perpetually false to that +sublime ideal myself, still the ideal remains with me, to make me ashamed +that I am not true to it. Tolstoy gave me heart to hope that the world +may yet be made over in the image of Him who died for it, when all +Caesars things shall be finally rendered unto Caesar, and men shall come +into their own, into the right to labor and the right to enjoy the fruits +of their labor, each one master of himself and servant to every other. +He taught me to see life not as a chase of a forever impossible personal +happiness, but as a field for endeavor towards the happiness of the whole +human family; and I can never lose this vision, however I close my eyes, +and strive to see my own interest as the highest good. He gave me new +criterions, new principles, which, after all, were those that are taught +us in our earliest childhood, before we have come to the evil wisdom of +the world. As I read his different ethical books, 'What to Do,' +'My Confession,' and 'My Religion,' I recognized their truth with a +rapture such as I have known in no other reading, and I rendered them my +allegiance, heart and soul, with whatever sickness of the one and despair +of the other. They have it yet, and I believe they will have it while I +live. It is with inexpressible astonishment that I bear them attainted +of pessimism, as if the teaching of a man whose ideal was simple goodness +must mean the prevalence of evil. The way he showed me seemed indeed +impossible to my will, but to my conscience it was and is the only +possible way. If there, is any point on which he has not convinced my +reason it is that of our ability to walk this narrow way alone. Even +there he is logical, but as Zola subtly distinguishes in speaking of +Tolstoy's essay on "Money," he is not reasonable. Solitude enfeebles and +palsies, and it is as comrades and brothers that men must save the world +from itself, rather than themselves from the world. It was so the +earliest Christians, who had all things common, understood the life of +Christ, and I believe that the latest will understand it so. + +I have spoken first of the ethical works of Tolstoy, because they are of +the first importance to me, but I think that his aesthetical works are as +perfect. To my thinking they transcend in truth, which is the highest +beauty, all other works of fiction that have been written, and I believe +that they do this because they obey the law of the author's own life. +His conscience is one ethically and one aesthetically; with his will to +be true to himself he cannot be false to his knowledge of others. I +thought the last word in literary art had been said to me by the novels +of Tourguenief, but it seemed like the first, merely, when I began to +acquaint myself with the simpler method of Tolstoy. I came to it by +accident, and without any manner, of preoccupation in The Cossacks, one +of his early books, which had been on my shelves unread for five or six +years. I did not know even Tolstoy's name when I opened it, and it was +with a kind of amaze that I read it, and felt word by word, and line by +line, the truth of a new art in it. + +I do not know how it is that the great Russians have the secret of +simplicity. Some say it is because they have not a long literary past +and are not conventionalized by the usage of many generations of other +writers, but this will hardly account for the brotherly directness of +their dealing with human nature; the absence of experience elsewhere +characterizes the artist with crudeness, and simplicity is the last +effect of knowledge. Tolstoy is, of course, the first of them in this +supreme grace. He has not only Tourguenief's transparency of style, +unclouded by any mist of the personality which we mistakenly value in +style, and which ought no more to be there than the artist's personality +should be in a portrait; but he has a method which not only seems without +artifice, but is so. I can get at the manner of most writers, and tell +what it is, but I should be baffled to tell what Tolstoy's manner is; +perhaps he has no manner. This appears to me true of his novels, which, +with their vast variety of character and incident, are alike in their +single endeavor to get the persons living before you, both in their +action and in the peculiarly dramatic interpretation of their emotion and +cogitation. There are plenty of novelists to tell you that their +characters felt and thought so and so, but you have to take it on trust; +Tolstoy alone makes you know how and why it was so with them and not +otherwise. If there is anything in him which can be copied or burlesqued +it is this ability of his to show men inwardly as well as outwardly; it +is the only trait of his which I can put my hand on. + +After 'The Cossacks' I read 'Anna Karenina' with a deepening sense of the +author's unrivalled greatness. I thought that I saw through his eyes a +human affair of that most sorrowful sort as it must appear to the +Infinite Compassion; the book is a sort of revelation of human nature in +circumstances that have been so perpetually lied about that we have +almost lost the faculty of perceiving the truth concerning an illicit +love. When you have once read 'Anna Karenina' you know how fatally +miserable and essentially unhappy such a love must be. But the character +of Karenin himself is quite as important as the intrigue of Anna and +Vronsky. It is wonderful how such a man, cold, Philistine and even mean +in certain ways, towers into a sublimity unknown (to me, at least), in +fiction when he forgives, and yet knows that he cannot forgive with +dignity. There is something crucial, and something triumphant, not +beyond the power, but hitherto beyond the imagination of men in this +effect, which is not solicited, not forced, not in the least romantic, +but comes naturally, almost inevitably, from the make of man. + +The vast prospects, the far-reaching perspectives of 'War and Peace' made +it as great a surprise for me in the historical novel as 'Anna Karenina' +had been in the study of contemporary life; and its people and interests +did not seem more remote, since they are of a civilization always as +strange and of a humanity always as known. + +I read some shorter stories of Tolstoy's before I came to this greatest +work of his: I read 'Scenes of the Siege of Sebastopol,' which is so much +of the same quality as 'War and Peace;' and I read 'Policoushka' and most +of his short stories with a sense of my unity with their people such as I +had never felt with the people of other fiction. + +His didactic stories, like all stories of the sort, dwindle into +allegories; perhaps they do their work the better for this, with the +simple intelligences they address; but I think that where Tolstoy becomes +impatient of his office of artist, and prefers to be directly a teacher, +he robs himself of more than half his strength with those he can move +only through the realization of themselves in others. The simple pathos, +and the apparent indirectness of such a tale as that of 'Poticoushka,' +the peasant conscript, is of vastly more value to the world at large than +all his parables; and 'The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,' the Philistine +worldling, will turn the hearts of many more from the love of the world +than such pale fables of the early Christian life as "Work while ye have +the Light." A man's gifts are not given him for nothing, and the man who +has the great gift of dramatic fiction has no right to cast it away or to +let it rust out in disuse. + +Terrible as the 'Kreutzer Sonata' was, it had a moral effect dramatically +which it lost altogether when the author descended to exegesis, and +applied to marriage the lesson of one evil marriage. In fine, Tolstoy is +certainly not to be held up as infallible. He is very, distinctly +fallible, but I think his life is not less instructive because in certain +things it seems a failure. There was but one life ever lived upon the +earth which was without failure, and that was Christ's, whose erring and +stumbling follower Tolstoy is. There is no other example, no other +ideal, and the chief use of Tolstoy is to enforce this fact in our age, +after nineteen centuries of hopeless endeavor to substitute ceremony for +character, and the creed for the life. I recognize the truth of this +without pretending to have been changed in anything but my point of view +of it. What I feel sure is that I can never look at life in the mean and +sordid way that I did before I read Tolstoy. + +Artistically, he has shown me a greatness that he can never teach me. +I am long past the age when I could wish to form myself upon another +writer, and I do not think I could now insensibly take on the likeness of +another; but his work has been a revelation and a delight to me, such as +I am sure I can never know again. I do not believe that in the whole +course of my reading, and not even in the early moment of my literary +enthusiasms, I have known such utter satisfaction in any writer, and this +supreme joy has come to me at a time of life when new friendships, not to +say new passions, are rare and reluctant. It is as if the best wine at +this high feast where I have sat so long had been kept for the last, and +I need not deny a miracle in it in order to attest my skill in judging +vintages. In fact, I prefer to believe that my life has been full of +miracles, and that the good has always come to me at the right time, so +that I could profit most by it. I believe if I had not turned the corner +of my fiftieth year, when I first knew Tolstoy, I should not have been +able to know him as fully as I did. He has been to me that final +consciousness, which he speaks of so wisely in his essay on "Life." +I came in it to the knowledge of myself in ways I had not dreamt of +before, and began at least to discern my relations to the race, without +which we are each nothing. The supreme art in literature had its highest +effect in making me set art forever below humanity, and it is with the +wish to offer the greatest homage to his heart and mind, which any man +can pay another, that I close this record with the name of Lyof Tolstoy. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Account of one's reading is an account of one's life +Adam Bede +Affections will not be bidden +Air of looking down on the highest +Alliance of the tragic and the comic +Anthony Trollope +Authors I must call my masters +Capriciousness of memory: what it will hold and what lose +Celebration of the monkey and the goat in us +Conquest of Granada +Contemptible he found our pseudo-equality +Criticism still remains behind all the other literary arts +Dickens is purely democratic +Escaped at night and got into the boy's dreams +Fictions subtle effect for good and for evil on the young +Finer sort myself to be able to enjoy such a fine sort +Had the sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy +Hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon +Hazlitt +He undid my hands +Hospitable gift of making you at home with him +In school there was as little literature then as there is now +Inexperience takes this effect (literary lewdness) for realit +Jews are still the chosen people +Kindness and gentleness are never out of fashion +Kissing goes by favor, in literature as in life +Lamb +Lewd literature seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the life +Life of Goldsmith +Live it slowly into the past +Lubricity of literature +Made many of my acquaintances very tired of my favorite authors +Men who bully and truckle +Mustache, which in those days devoted a man to wickedness +My own youth now seems to me rather more alien +My reading gave me no standing among the boys +Neither worse nor better because of the theatre +Never appeals to the principle which sniffs, in his reader +None of the passions are reasoned, +Not very distinctly know their dreams from their experiences +Now little notion what it was about, but I love its memory +Our horrible sham of a slave-based freedom +Pendennis +Prejudice against certain words that I cannot overcome +President Garfield +Probably no dramatist ever needed the stage less +Rape of the Lock +Rapture of the new convert could not last +Reservations as to the times when he is not a master +Responsibility of finding him all we have been told he is +Secretly admires the splendors he affects to despise +Self-flattered scorn, his showy sighs, his facile satire +Self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality +Should probably have wasted the time if I had not read them +Slave-based freedom +So long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs +Society, as we have it, was necessarily a sham +Somehow expressed the feelings of his day +Somewhat too studied grace +Speaks it is not with words and blood, but with words and ink +Spit some hapless victim: make him suffer and the reader laugh +Style is the man, and he cannot hide himself in any garb +Surcharge all imitations of life and character +Surcharged in the serious moods, and caricatured in the comic +Swedenborg +Tales of the Alhambra +The great doctor's orotundity and ronderosity +To be for good or evil whatsoever I really was +Toiled, and I suppose no work is wasted +Trace no discrepancy between reading his plays and seeing them +Tried to like whatever they bade me like +Truth is beyond invention +Unmeet for ladies +Vicar of Wakefield +Vices and foibles which are inherent in the system of things +We did not know that we were poor +We see nothing whole, neither life nor art +What I had not I could hope for without unreason +What we thought ruin, but what was really release +When was love ever reasoned? +Wide leisure of a country village +Women who snub and crawl +Words of learned length and thundering sound +World's memory is equally bad for failure and success +Worst came it was not half so bad as what had gone before +You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke +You may do a great deal(of work), and not get on + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of My Literary Passions +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/whmlp11.zip b/old/whmlp11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4a4ef8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whmlp11.zip |