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diff --git a/old/whlal10.txt b/old/whlal10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e97788 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whlal10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10306 @@ +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Literature and Life, Entire*** +#36 in our series by William Dean Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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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 are short lists of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of +each section and at the end of the file, for those who may wish to +sample the author's ideas before making an entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + +CONTENTS: + Man of Letters in Business + Confessions of a Summer Colonist + The Young Contributor + Last Days in a Dutch Hotel + Anomalies of the Short Story + Spanish Prisoners of War + American Literary Centers + Standard Household Effect Co. + Notes of a Vanished Summer + Worries of a Winter Walk + Summer Isles of Eden + Wild Flowers of the Asphalt + A Circus in the Suburbs + A She Hamlet + The Midnight Platoon + The Beach at Rockaway + Sawdust in the Arena + At a Dime Museum + American Literature in Exile + The Horse Show + The Problem of the Summer + Aesthetic New York Fifty-odd Years Ago + From New York into New England + The Art of the Adsmith + The Psychology of Plagiarism + Puritanism in American Fiction + The What and How in Art + Politics in American Authors + Storage + "Floating down the River on the O-hi-o" + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Man of Letters as a Man of Business + +by William Dean Howells + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + +Perhaps the reader may not feel in these papers that inner solidarity +which the writer is conscious of; and it is in this doubt that the writer +wishes to offer a word of explanation. He owns, as he must, that they +have every appearance of a group of desultory sketches and essays, +without palpable relation to one another, or superficial allegiance to +any central motive. Yet he ventures to hope that the reader who makes +his way through them will be aware, in the retrospect, of something like +this relation and this allegiance. + +For my own part, if I am to identify myself with the writer who is here +on his defence, I have never been able to see much difference between +what seemed to me Literature and what seemed to me Life. If I did not +find life in what professed to be literature, I disabled its profession, +and possibly from this habit, now inveterate with me, I am never quite +sure of life unless I find literature in it. Unless the thing seen +reveals to me an intrinsic poetry, and puts on phrases that clothe it +pleasingly to the imagination, I do not much care for it; but if it will +do this, I do not mind how poor or common or squalid it shows at first +glance: it challenges my curiosity and keeps my sympathy. Instantly I +love it and wish to share my pleasure in it with some one else, or as +many ones else as I can get to look or listen. If the thing is something +read, rather than seen, I am not anxious about the matter: if it is like +life, I know that it is poetry, and take it to my heart. There can be no +offence in it for which its truth will not make me amends. + +Out of this way of thinking and feeling about these two great things, +about Literature and Life, there may have arisen a confusion as to which +is which. But I do not wish to part them, and in their union I have +found, since I learned my letters, a joy in them both which I hope will +last till I forget my letters. + + So was it when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it when I shall grow old." + +It is the rainbow in the sky for me; and I have seldom seen a sky without +some bit of rainbow in it. Sometimes I can make others see it, sometimes +not; but I always like to try, and if I fail I harbor no worse thought of +them than that they have not had their eyes examined and fitted with +glasses which would at least have helped their vision. + +As to the where and when of the different papers, in which I suppose +their bibliography properly lies, I need not be very exact. "The Man of +Letters as a Man of Business" was written in a hotel at Lakewood in the +May of 1892 or 1893, and pretty promptly printed in Scribner's Magazine; +"Confessions of a Summer Colonist" was done at York Harbor in the fall of +1898 for the Atlantic Monthly, and was a study of life at that pleasant +resort as it was lived-in the idyllic times of the earlier settlement, +long before motors and almost before private carriages; "American +Literary Centres," "American Literature in Exile," "Puritanism in +American Fiction," "Politics of American Authors," were, with three or +four other papers, the endeavors of the American correspondent of the +London Times's literary supplement, to enlighten the British +understanding as to our ways of thinking and writing eleven years ago, +and are here left to bear the defects of the qualities of their obsolete +actuality in the year 1899. Most of the studies and sketches are from an +extinct department of "Life and Letters" which I invented for Harper's +Weekly, and operated for a year or so toward the close of the nineteenth +century. Notable among these is the "Last Days in a Dutch Hotel," which +was written at Paris in 1897; it is rather a favorite of mine, perhaps +because I liked Holland so much; others, which more or less personally +recognize effects of sojourn in New York or excursions into New England, +are from the same department; several may be recalled by the longer- +memoried reader as papers from the "Editor's Easy Chair" in Harper's +Monthly; "Wild Flowers of the Asphalt" is the review of an ever- +delightful book which I printed in Harper's Bazar; "The Editor's +Relations with the Young Contributor" was my endeavor in Youth's +Companion to shed a kindly light from my experience in both seats upon +the too-often and too needlessly embittered souls of literary beginners. + +So it goes as to the motives and origins of the collection which may +persist in disintegrating under the reader's eye, in spite of my well- +meant endeavors to establish a solidarity for it. The group at least +attests, even in this event, the wide, the wild, variety of my literary +production in time and space. From the beginning the journalist's +independence of the scholar's solitude and seclusion has remained with +me, and though I am fond enough of a bookish entourage, of the serried +volumes of the library shelves, and the inviting breadth of the library +table, I am not disabled by the hard conditions of a bedroom in a summer +hotel, or the narrow possibilities of a candle-stand, without a +dictionary in the whole house, or a book of reference even in the running +brooks outside. + W. D. HOWELLS. + + + + + + + LITERATURE AND LIFE + + + +THE MAN OF LETTERS AS A MAN OF BUSINESS + +I think that every man ought to work for his living, without exception, +and that, when he has once avouched his willingness to work, society +should provide him with work and warrant him a living. I do not think +any man ought to live by an art. A man's art should be his privilege, +when he has proven his fitness to exercise it, and has otherwise earned +his daily bread; and its results should be free to all. There is an +instinctive sense of this, even in the midst of the grotesque confusion +of our economic being; people feel that there is something profane, +something impious, in taking money for a picture, or a poem, or a statue. +Most of all, the artist himself feels this. He puts on a bold front with +the world, to be sure, and brazens it out as Business; but he knows very +well that there is something false and vulgar in it; and that the work +which cannot be truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money. +He can, of course, say that the priest takes money for reading the +marriage service, for christening the new-born babe, and for saying the +last office for the dead; that the physician sells healing; that justice +itself is paid for; and that he is merely a party to the thing that is +and must be. He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art +he cannot live, that society will leave him to starve if he does not hit +its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; and all this is bitterly +true. He is, and he must be, only too glad if there is a market for his +wares. Without a market for his wares he must perish, or turn to making +something that will sell better than pictures, or poems, or statues. +All the same, the sin and the shame remain, and the averted eye sees them +still, with its inward vision. Many will make believe otherwise, but I +would rather not make believe otherwise; and in trying to write of +Literature as Business I am tempted to begin by saying that Business is +the opprobrium of Literature. + + +I. + +Literature is at once the most intimate and the most articulate of the +arts. It cannot impart its effect through the senses or the nerves as +the other arts can; it is beautiful only through the intelligence; it is +the mind speaking to the mind; until it has been put into absolute terms, +of an invariable significance, it does not exist at all. It cannot +awaken this emotion in one, and that in another; if it fails to express +precisely the meaning of the author, if it does not say him, it says +nothing, and is nothing. So that when a poet has put his heart, much or +little, into a poem, and sold it to a magazine, the scandal is greater +than when a painter has sold a picture to a patron, or a sculptor has +modelled a statue to order. These are artists less articulate and less +intimate than the poet; they are more exterior to their work; they are +less personally in it; they part with less of themselves in the dicker. +It does not change the nature of the case to say that Tennyson and +Longfellow and Emerson sold the poems in which they couched the most +mystical messages their genius was charged to bear mankind. They +submitted to the conditions which none can escape; but that does not +justify the conditions, which are none the less the conditions of +hucksters because they are imposed upon poets. If it will serve to make +my meaning a little clearer, we will suppose that a poet has been crossed +in love, or has suffered some real sorrow, like the loss of a wife or +child. He pours out his broken heart in verse that shall bring tears of +sacred sympathy from his readers, and an editor pays him a hundred +dollars for the right of bringing his verse to their notice. It is +perfectly true that the poem was not written for these dollars, but it is +perfectly true that it was sold for them. The poet must use his emotions +to pay his provision bills; he has no other means; society does not +propose to pay his bills for him. Yet, and at the end of the ends, the +unsophisticated witness finds the transaction ridiculous, finds it +repulsive, finds it shabby. Somehow he knows that if our huckstering +civilization did not at every moment violate the eternal fitness of +things, the poet's song would have been given to the world, and the poet +would have been cared for by the whole human brotherhood, as any man +should be who does the duty that every man owes it. + +The instinctive sense of the dishonor which money-purchase does to art is +so strong that sometimes a man of letters who can pay his way otherwise +refuses pay for his work, as Lord Byron did, for a while, from a noble +pride, and as Count Tolstoy has tried to do, from a noble conscience. +But Byron's publisher profited by a generosity which did not reach his +readers; and the Countess Tolstoy collects the copyright which her +husband foregoes; so that these two eminent instances of protest against +business in literature may be said not to have shaken its money basis. +I know of no others; but there may be many that I am culpably ignorant +of. Still, I doubt if there are enough to affect the fact that +Literature is Business as well as Art, and almost as soon. At present +business is the only human solidarity; we are all bound together with +that chain, whatever interests and tastes and principles separate us, +and I feel quite sure that in writing of the Man of Letters as a Man of +Business I shall attract far more readers than I should in writing of him +as an Artist. Besides, as an artist he has been done a great deal +already; and a commercial state like ours has really more concern in him +as a business man. Perhaps it may sometime be different; I do not +believe it will till the conditions are different, and that is a long way +off. + + + + +II. + +In the mean time I confidently appeal to the reader's imagination with +the fact that there are several men of letters among us who are such good +men of business that they can command a hundred dollars a thousand words +for all they write. It is easy to write a thousand words a day, and, +supposing one of these authors to work steadily, it can be seen that his +net earnings during the year would come to some such sum as the President +of the United States gets for doing far less work of a much more +perishable sort. If the man of letters were wholly a business man, this +is what would happen; he would make his forty or fifty thousand dollars a +year, and be able to consort with bank presidents, and railroad +officials, and rich tradesmen, and other flowers of our plutocracy on +equal terms. But, unfortunately, from a business point of view, he is +also an artist, and the very qualities that enable him to delight the +public disable him from delighting it uninterruptedly. "No rose blooms +right along," as the English boys at Oxford made an American collegian +say in a theme which they imagined for him in his national parlance; and +the man of letters, as an artist, is apt to have times and seasons when +he cannot blossom. Very often it shall happen that his mind will lie +fallow between novels or stories for weeks and months at a stretch; when +the suggestions of the friendly editor shall fail to fruit in the essays +or articles desired; when the muse shall altogether withhold herself, or +shall respond only in a feeble dribble of verse which he might sell +indeed, but which it would not be good business for him to put on the +market. But supposing him to be a very diligent and continuous worker, +and so happy as to have fallen on a theme that delights him and bears him +along, he may please himself so ill with the result of his labors that he +can do nothing less in artistic conscience than destroy a day's work, a +week's work, a month's work. I know one man of letters who wrote to-day +and tore up tomorrow for nearly a whole summer. But even if part of the +mistaken work may be saved, because it is good work out of place, and not +intrinsically bad, the task of reconstruction wants almost as much time +as the production; and then, when all seems done, comes the anxious and +endless process of revision. These drawbacks reduce the earning capacity +of what I may call the high-cost man of letters in such measure that an +author whose name is known everywhere, and whose reputation is +commensurate with the boundaries of his country, if it does not transcend +them, shall have the income, say, of a rising young physician, known to a +few people in a subordinate city. + +In view of this fact, so humiliating to an author in the presence of a +nation of business men like ours, I do not know that I can establish the +man of letters in the popular esteem as very much of a business man, +after all. He must still have a low rank among practical people; and he +will be regarded by the great mass of Americans as perhaps a little off, +a little funny, a little soft! Perhaps not; and yet I would rather not +have a consensus of public opinion on the question; I think I am more +comfortable without it. + + +III. + +There is this to be said in defence of men of letters on the business +side, that literature is still an infant industry with us, and, so far +from having been protected by our laws, it was exposed for ninety years +after the foundation of the republic to the vicious competition of stolen +goods. It is true that we now have the international copyright law at +last, and we can at least begin to forget our shame; but literary +property has only forty-two years of life under our unjust statutes, and +if it is attacked by robbers the law does not seek out the aggressors and +punish them, as it would seek out and punish the trespassers upon any +other kind of property; it leaves the aggrieved owner to bring suit +against them, and recover damages, if he can. This may be right enough +in itself; but I think, then, that all property should be defended by +civil suit, and should become public after forty-two years of private +tenure. The Constitution guarantees us all equality before the law, but +the law-makers seem to have forgotten this in the case of our literary +industry. So long as this remains the case, we cannot expect the best +business talent to go into literature, and the man of letters must keep +his present low grade among business men. + +As I have hinted, it is but a little while that he has had any standing +at all. I may say that it is only since the Civil War that literature +has become a business with us. Before that time we had authors, and very +good ones; it is astonishing how good they were; but I do not remember +any of them who lived by literature except Edgar A. Poe, perhaps; and we +all know how he lived; it was largely upon loans. They were either men +of fortune, or they were editors or professors, with salaries or incomes +apart from the small gains of their pens; or they were helped out with +public offices; one need not go over their names or classify them. Some +of them must have made money by their books, but I question whether any +one could have lived, even very simply, upon the money his books brought +him. No one could do that now, unless he wrote a book that we could not +recognize as a work of literature. But many authors live now, and live +prettily enough, by the sale of the serial publication of their writings +to the magazines. They do not live so nicely as successful tradespeople, +of course, or as men in the other professions when they begin to make +themselves names; the high state of brokers, bankers, railroad operators, +and the like is, in the nature of the case, beyond their fondest dreams +of pecuniary affluence and social splendor. Perhaps they do not want the +chief seats in the synagogue; it is certain they do not get them. Still, +they do very fairly well, as things go; and several have incomes that +would seem riches to the great mass of worthy Americans who work with +their hands for a living--when they can get the work. Their incomes are +mainly from serial publication in the different magazines; and the +prosperity of the magazines has given a whole class existence which, as a +class, was wholly unknown among us before the Civil War. It is not only +the famous or fully recognized authors who live in this way, but the much +larger number of clever people who are as yet known chiefly to the +editors, and who may never make themselves a public, but who do well a +kind of acceptable work. These are the sort who do not get reprinted +from the periodicals; but the better recognized authors do get reprinted, +and then their serial work in its completed form appeals to the readers +who say they do not read serials. The multitude of these is not great, +and if an author rested his hopes upon their favor he would be a much +more imbittered man than he now generally is. But he understands +perfectly well that his reward is in the serial and not in the book; the +return from that he may count as so much money found in the road--a few +hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most, unless he is the author of +an historical romance. + + +IV + +I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary men are absolutely as +great as they were earlier in the century, in any of the English-speaking +countries; relatively they are nothing like as great. Scott had forty +thousand dollars for 'Woodstock,' which was not a very large novel, and +was by no means one of his best; and forty thousand dollars then had at +least the purchasing power of sixty thousand now. Moore had three +thousand guineas for 'Lalla Rookh,' but what publisher would be rash +enough to pay fifteen thousand dollars for the masterpiece of a minor +poet now? The book, except in very rare instances, makes nothing like +the return to the author that the magazine makes, and there are few +leading authors who find their account in that form of publication. +Those who do, those who sell the most widely in book form, are often not +at all desired by editors; with difficulty they get a serial accepted by +any principal magazine. On the other hand, there are authors whose +books, compared with those of the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet +they are eagerly sought for by editors; they are paid the highest prices, +and nothing that they offer is refused. These are literary artists; and +it ought to be plain from what I am saying that in belles-lettres, at +least, most of the best literature now first sees the light in the +magazines, and most of the second-best appears first in book form. The +old-fashioned people who flatter themselves upon their distinction in not +reading magazine fiction or magazine poetry make a great mistake, and +simply class themselves with the public whose taste is so crude that they +cannot enjoy the best. Of course, this is true mainly, if not merely, of +belles-lettres; history, science, politics, metaphysics, in spite of the +many excellent articles and papers in these sorts upon what used to be +called various emergent occasions, are still to be found at their best in +books. The most monumental example of literature, at once light and +good, which has first reached the public in book form is in the different +publications of Mark Twain; but Mr. Clemens has of late turned to the +magazines too, and now takes their mint-mark before he passes into +general circulation. All this may change again, but at present the +magazines--we have no longer any reviews form the most direct approach to +that part of our reading public which likes the highest things in +literary art. Their readers, if we may judge from the quality of the +literature they get, are more refined than the book readers in our +community; and their taste has no doubt been cultivated by that of the +disciplined and experienced editors. So far as I have known these, they +are men of aesthetic conscience and of generous sympathy. They have +their preferences in the different kinds, and they have their theory of +what kind will be most acceptable to their readers; but they exercise +their selective function with the wish to give them the best things they +can. I do not know one of them--and it has been, my good fortune to know +them nearly all--who would print a wholly inferior thing for the sake of +an inferior class of readers, though they may sometimes decline a good +thing because for one reason or another, they believe it would not be +liked. Still, even this does not often happen; they would rather chance +the good thing they doubted of than underrate their readers' judgment. + +The young author who wins recognition in a first-class magazine has +achieved a double success, first, with the editor, and then with the best +reading public. Many factitious and fallacious literary reputations have +been made through books, but very few have been made through the +magazines, which are not only the best means of living, but of outliving, +with the author; they are both bread and fame to him. If I insist a +little upon the high office which this modern form of publication fulfils +in the literary world, it is because I am impatient of the antiquated and +ignorant prejudice which classes the magazines as ephemeral. They are +ephemeral in form, but in substance they are not ephemeral, and what is +best in them awaits its resurrection in the book, which, as the first +form, is so often a lasting death. An interesting proof of the value of +the magazine to literature is the fact that a good novel will often have +wider acceptance as a book from having been a magazine serial. + + +V. + +Under the 'regime' of the great literary periodicals the prosperity of +literary men would be much greater than it actually is if the magazines +were altogether literary. But they are not, and this is one reason why +literature is still the hungriest of the professions. Two-thirds of the +magazines are made up of material which, however excellent, is without +literary quality. Very probably this is because even the highest class +of readers, who are the magazine readers, have small love of pure +literature, which seems to have been growing less and less in all +classes. I say seems, because there are really no means of ascertaining +the fact, and it may be that the editors are mistaken in making their +periodicals two-thirds popular science, politics, economics, and the +timely topics which I will call contemporanics. But, however that may +be, their efforts in this direction have narrowed the field of literary +industry, and darkened the hope of literary prosperity kindled by the +unexampled prosperity of their periodicals. They pay very well indeed +for literature; they pay from five or six dollars a thousand words for +the work of the unknown writer to a hundred and fifty dollars a thousand +words for that of the most famous, or the most popular, if there is a +difference between fame and popularity; but they do not, altogether, want +enough literature to justify the best business talent in devoting itself +to belles-lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or humorous sketches of travel, +or light essays; business talent can do far better in dry goods, +groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, railroads, and the like. I do not +think there is any danger of a ruinous competition from it in the field +which, though narrow, seems so rich to us poor fellows, whose business +talent is small, at the best. + +The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the subject of +agreement between the editor and the author; it is either suggested by +the author or is the fruit of some suggestion from the editor; in any +case the price is stipulated beforehand, and it is no longer the custom +for a well-known contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the +generosity of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor +ever a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a +truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well calculated +to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of selling his art at all. +It is as if a painter sold his picture at so much a square inch, or a +sculptor bargained away a group of statuary by the pound. But it is a +custom that you cannot always successfully quarrel with, and most writers +gladly consent to it, if only the price a thousand words is large enough. +The sale to the editor means the sale of the serial rights only, but if +the publisher of the magazine is also a publisher of books, the +republication of the material is supposed to be his right, unless there +is an understanding to the contrary; the terms for this are another +affair. Formerly something more could be got for the author by the +simultaneous appearance of his work in an English magazine; but now the +great American magazines, which pay far higher prices than any others in +the world, have a circulation in England so much exceeding that of any +English periodical that the simultaneous publication can no longer be +arranged for from this side, though I believe it is still done here from +the other side. + + +VI. + +I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with regard to +the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every way improved for +young authors. The magazines all maintain a staff for the careful +examination of manuscripts, but as most of the material they print has +been engaged, the number of volunteer contributions that they can use is +very small; one of the greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty in +the course of a year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be +accepted, and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. +The pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that one, +two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the young writer +has not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling his heels in +the courts of fame, or must do his best to earn something at once, the +book is his immediate hope. How slight a hope the book is I have tried +to hint already, but if a book is vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude +enough in taste, and flashy enough in incident, or, better or worse +still, if it is a bit hot in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not +indecency, there is a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean +success with a self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which does +not personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by it. +I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book which the +young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and an untainted mind, +such as most young men and women write; and I will suppose that it has +found a publisher. It is human nature, as competition has deformed human +nature, for the publisher to wish the author to take all the risks, and +he possibly proposes that the author shall publish it at his own expense, +and let him have a percentage of the retail price for managing it. If +not that, he proposes that the author shall pay for the stereotype +plates, and take fifteen per cent. of the price of the book; or if this +will not go, if the author cannot, rather than will not, do it (he is +commonly only too glad to do any thing he can), then the publisher offers +him ten per cent. of the retail price after the first thousand copies +have been sold. But if he fully believes in the book, he will give ten +per cent. from the first copy sold, and pay all the costs of publication +himself. The book is to be retailed for a dollar and a half, and the +publisher is not displeased with a new book that sells fifteen hundred +copies. Whether the author has as much reason to be pleased is a +question, but if the book does not sell more he has only himself to +blame, and had better pocket in silence the two hundred and twenty-five +dollars he gets for it, and bless his publisher, and try to find work +somewhere at five dollars a week. The publisher has not made any more, +if quite as much as the author, and until a book has sold two thousand +copies the division is fair enough. After that, the heavier expenses of +manufacturing have been defrayed and the book goes on advertising itself; +there is merely the cost of paper, printing, binding, and marketing to be +met, and the arrangement becomes fairer and fairer for the publisher. +The author has no right to complain of this, in the case of his first +book, which he is only too grateful to get accepted at all. If it +succeeds, he has himself to blame for making the same arrangement for his +second or third; it is his fault, or else it is his necessity, which is +practically the same thing. It will be business for the publisher to +take advantage of his necessity quite the same as if it were his fault; +but I do not say that he will always do so; I believe he will very often +not do so. + +At one time there seemed a probability of the enlargement of the author's +gains by subscription publication, and one very well-known American +author prospered fabulously in that way. The percentage offered by the +subscription houses was only about half as much as that paid by the +trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author could very well +afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the book-agent sold a +hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark Twain's books; and we +all thought it reasonable he could do so with ours. Such of us as made +experiment of him, however, found the facts illogical. No book of +literary quality was made to go by subscription except Mr. Clemens's +books, and I think these went because the subscription public never knew +what good literature they were. This sort of readers, or buyers, were so +used to getting something worthless for their money that they would not +spend it for artistic fiction, or, indeed, for any fiction at all except +Mr. Clemens's, which they probably supposed bad. Some good books of +travel had a measurable success through the book-agents, but not at all +the success that had been hoped for; and I believe now the subscription +trade again publishes only compilations, or such works as owe more to the +skill of the editor than the art of the writer. Mr. Clemens himself no +longer offers his books to the public in that way. + +It is not common, I think, in this country, to publish on the half- +profits system, but it is very common in England, where, owing probably +to the moisture in the air, which lends a fairy outline to every +prospect, it seems to be peculiarly alluring. One of my own early books +was published there on these terms, which I accepted with the insensate +joy of the young author in getting any terms from a publisher. The book +sold, sold every copy of the small first edition, and in due time the +publisher's statement came. I did not think my half of the profits was +very great, but it seemed a fair division after every imaginable cost had +been charged up against my poor book, and that frail venture had been +made to pay the expenses of composition, corrections, paper, printing, +binding, advertising, and editorial copies. The wonder ought to have +been that there was anything at all coming to me, but I was young and +greedy then, and I really thought there ought to have been more. I was +disappointed, but I made the best of it, of course, and took the account +to the junior partner of the house which employed me, and said that I +should like to draw on him for the sum due me from the London publishers. +He said, Certainly; but after a glance at the account he smiled and said +he supposed I knew how much the sum was? I answered, Yes; it was eleven +pounds nine shillings, was not it? But I owned at the same time that I +never was good at figures, and that I found English money peculiarly +baffling. He laughed now, and said, It was eleven shillings and +ninepence. In fact, after all those charges for composition, +corrections, paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies, +there was a most ingenious and wholly surprising charge of ten per cent. +commission on sales, which reduced my half from pounds to shillings, and +handsomely increased the publisher's half in proportion. I do not now +dispute the justice of the charge. It was not the fault of the half- +profits system; it was the fault of the glad young author who did not +distinctly inform himself of its mysterious nature in agreeing to it, and +had only to reproach himself if he was finally disappointed. + +But there is always something disappointing in the accounts of +publishers, which I fancy is because authors are strangely constituted, +rather than because publishers are so. I will confess that I have such +inordinate expectations of the sale of my books, which I hope I think +modestly of, that the sales reported to me never seem great enough. The +copyright due me, no matter how handsome it is, appears deplorably mean, +and I feel impoverished for several days after I get it. But, then, I +ought to add that my balance in the bank is always much less than I have +supposed it to be, and my own checks, when they come back to me, have the +air of having been in a conspiracy to betray me. + +No, we literary men must learn, no matter how we boast ourselves in +business, that the distress we feel from our publisher's accounts is +simply idiopathic; and I for one wish to bear my witness to the constant +good faith and uprightness of publishers. It is supposed that because +they have the affair altogether in their hands they are apt to take +advantage in it; but this does not follow, and as a matter of fact they +have the affair no more in their own hands than any other business man +you have an open account with. There is nothing to prevent you from +looking at their books, except your own innermost belief and fear that +their books are correct, and that your literature has brought you so +little because it has sold so little. + +The author is not to blame for his superficial delusion to the contrary, +especially if he has written a book that has set every one talking, +because it is of a vital interest. It may be of a vital interest, +without being at all the kind of book people want to buy; it may be the +kind of book that they are content to know at second hand; there are such +fatal books; but hearing so much, and reading so much about it, the +author cannot help hoping that it has sold much more than the publisher +says. The publisher is undoubtedly honest, however, and the author had +better put away the comforting question of his integrity. + +The English writers seem largely to suspect their publishers; but I +believe that American authors, when not flown with flattering reviews, +as largely trust theirs. Of course there are rogues in every walk of +life. I will not say that I ever personally met them in the flowery +paths of literature, but I have heard of other people meeting them there, +just as I have heard of people seeing ghosts, and I have to believe in +both the rogues and the ghosts, without the witness of my own senses. +I suppose, upon such grounds mainly, that there are wicked publishers, +but, in the case of our books that do not sell, I am afraid that it is +the graceless and inappreciative public which is far more to blame than +the wickedest of the publishers. It is true that publishers will drive a +hard bargain when they can, or when they must; but there is nothing to +hinder an author from driving a hard bargain, too, when he can, or when +he must; and it is to be said of the publisher that he is always more +willing to abide by the bargain when it is made than the author is; +perhaps because he has the best of it. But he has not always the best of +it; I have known publishers too generous to take advantage of the +innocence of authors; and I fancy that if publishers had to do with any +race less diffident than authors, they would have won a repute for +unselfishness that they do now now enjoy. It is certain that in the long +period when we flew the black flag of piracy there were many among our +corsairs on the high seas of literature who paid a fair price for the +stranger craft they seized; still oftener they removed the cargo and +released their capture with several weeks' provision; and although there +was undoubtedly a good deal of actual throat-cutting and scuttling, still +I feel sure that there was less of it than there would have been in any +other line of business released to the unrestricted plunder of the +neighbor. There was for a long time even a comity among these amiable +buccaneers, who agreed not to interfere with each other, and so were +enabled to pay over to their victims some portion of the profit from +their stolen goods. Of all business men publishers are probably the most +faithful and honorable, and are only surpassed in virtue when men of +letters turn business men. + + +VII. + +Publishers have their little theories, their little superstitions, and +their blind faith in the great god Chance which we all worship. These +things lead them into temptation and adversity, but they seem to do +fairly well as business men, even in their own behalf. They do not make +above the usual ninety-five per cent. of failures, and more publishers +than authors get rich. + +Some theories or superstitions publishers and authors share together. +One of these is that it is best to keep your books all in the hands of +one publisher if you can, because then he can give them more attention +and sell more of them. But my own experience is that when my books were +in the hands of three publishers they sold quite as well as when one had +them; and a fellow-author whom I approached in question of this venerable +belief laughed at it. This bold heretic held that it was best to give +each new book to a new publisher, for then the fresh man put all his +energies into pushing it; but if you had them all together, the publisher +rested in a vain security that one book would sell another, and that the +fresh venture would revive the public interest in the stale ones. +I never knew this to happen; and I must class it with the superstitions +of the trade. It may be so in other and more constant countries, but in +our fickle republic each last book has to fight its own way to public +favor, much as if it had no sort of literary lineage. Of course this is +stating it rather largely, and the truth will be found inside rather than +outside of my statement; but there is at least truth enough in it to give +the young author pause. While one is preparing to sell his basket of +glass, he may as well ask himself whether it is better to part with all +to one dealer or not; and if he kicks it over, in spurning the imaginary +customer who asks the favor of taking the entire stock, that will be his +fault, and not the fault of the customer. + +However, the most important question of all with the man of letters as a +man of business is what kind of book will sell the best of itself, +because, at the end of the ends, a book sells itself or does not sell at +all; kissing, after long ages of reasoning and a great deal of culture, +still goes by favor, and though innumerable generations of horses have +been led to the water, not one horse has yet been made to drink. With +the best, or the worst, will in the world, no publisher can force a book +into acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and reviewing is +notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the popular fancy, +or deal with some universal interest, which need by no means be a +profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals shall be beaten in +vain. The book may be one of the best and wisest books in the world, +but if it has not this sort of appeal in it the readers of it, and, +worse yet, the purchasers, will remain few, though fit. The secret of +this, like most other secrets of a rather ridiculous world, is in the +awful keeping of fate, and we can only hope to surprise it by some lucky +chance. To plan a surprise of it, to aim a book at the public favor, +is the most hopeless of all endeavors, as it is one of the unworthiest; +and I can, neither as a man of letters nor as a man of business, counsel +the young author to do it. The best that you can do is to write the book +that it gives you the most pleasure to write, to put as much heart and +soul as you have about you into it, and then hope as hard as you can to +reach the heart and soul of the great multitude of your fellow-men. That, +and that alone, is good business for a man of letters. + +The man of letters must make up his mind that in the United States the +fate of a book is in the hands of the women. It is the women with us who +have the most leisure, and they read the most books. They are far better +educated, for the most part, than our men, and their tastes, if not their +minds, are more cultivated. Our men read the newspapers, but our women +read the books; the more refined among them read the magazines. If they +do not always know what is good, they do know what pleases them, and it +is useless to quarrel with their decisions, for there is no appeal from +them. To go from them to the men would be going from a higher to a lower +court, which would be honestly surprised and bewildered, if the thing +were possible. As I say, the author of light literature, and often the +author of solid literature, must resign himself to obscurity unless the +ladies choose to recognize him. Yet it would be impossible to forecast +their favor for this kind or that. Who could prophesy it for another, +who guess it for himself? We must strive blindly for it, and hope +somehow that our best will also be our prettiest; but we must remember at +the same time that it is not the ladies' man who is the favorite of the +ladies. + +There are, of course, a few, a very few, of our greatest authors who have +striven forward to the first place in our Valhalla without the help of +the largest reading-class among us; but I should say that these were +chiefly the humorists, for whom women are said nowhere to have any warm +liking, and who have generally with us come up through the newspapers, +and have never lost the favor of the newspaper readers. They have become +literary men, as it were, without the newspaper readers' knowing it; but +those who have approached literature from another direction have won fame +in it chiefly by grace of the women, who first read them; and then made +their husbands and fathers read them. Perhaps, then, and as a matter of +business, it would be well for a serious author, when he finds that he is +not pleasing the women, and probably never will please them, to turn +humorous author, and aim at the countenance of the men. Except as a +humorist he certainly never will get it, for your American, when he is +not making money, or trying to do it, is making a joke, or trying to do +it. + + +VIII + +I hope that I have not been hinting that the author who approaches +literature through journalism is not as fine and high a literary man as +the author who comes directly to it, or through some other avenue; I have +not the least notion of condemning myself by any such judgment. But I +think it is pretty certain that fewer and fewer authors are turning from +journalism to literature, though the 'entente cordiale' between the two +professions seems as great as ever. I fancy, though I may be as mistaken +in this as I am in a good many other things, that most journalists would +have been literary men if they could, at the beginning, and that the +kindness they almost always show to young authors is an effect of the +self-pity they feel for their own thwarted wish to be authors. When an +author is once warm in the saddle, and is riding his winged horse to +glory, the case is different: they have then often no sentiment about +him; he is no longer the image of their own young aspiration, and they +would willingly see Pegasus buck under him, or have him otherwise brought +to grief and shame. They are apt to gird at him for his unhallowed +gains, and they would be quite right in this if they proposed any way for +him to live without them; as I have allowed at the outset, the gains are +unhallowed. Apparently it is unseemly for two or three authors to be +making half as much by their pens as popular ministers often receive in +salary; the public is used to the pecuniary prosperity of some of the +clergy, and at least sees nothing droll in it; but the paragrapher can +always get a smile out of his readers at the gross disparity between the +ten thousand dollars Jones gets for his novel and the five pounds Milton +got for his epic. I have always thought Milton was paid too little, but +I will own that he ought not to have been paid at all, if it comes to +that. Again I say that no man ought to live by any art; it is a shame to +the art if not to the artist; but as yet there is no means of the +artist's living otherwise and continuing an artist. + +The literary man has certainly no complaint to make of the newspaper man, +generally speaking. I have often thought with amazement of the kindness +shown by the press to our whole unworthy craft, and of the help so +lavishly and freely given to rising and even risen authors. To put it +coarsely, brutally, I do not suppose that any other business receives so +much gratuitous advertising, except the theatre. It is, enormous, the +space given in the newspapers to literary notes, literary announcements, +reviews, interviews, personal paragraphs, biographies, and all the rest, +not to mention the vigorous and incisive attacks made from time to time +upon different authors for their opinions of romanticism, realism, +capitalism, socialism, Catholicism, and Sandemanianism. I have sometimes +doubted whether the public cared for so much of it all as the editors +gave them, but I have always said this under my breath, and I have +thankfully taken my share of the common bounty. A curious fact, however, +is that this vast newspaper publicity seems to have very little to do +with an author's popularity, though ever so much with his notoriety. +Some of those strange subterranean fellows who never come to the surface +in the newspapers, except for a contemptuous paragraph at long intervals, +outsell the famousest of the celebrities, and secretly have their horses +and yachts and country seats, while immodest merit is left to get about +on foot and look up summer-board at the cheaper hotels. That is probably +right, or it would not happen; it seems to be in the general scheme, like +millionairism and pauperism; but it becomes a question, then, whether the +newspapers, with all their friendship for literature, and their actual +generosity to literary men, can really help one much to fortune, however +much they help one to fame. Such a question is almost too dreadful, and, +though I have asked it, I will not attempt to answer it. I would much +rather consider the question whether, if the newspapers can make an +author, they can also unmake him, and I feel pretty safe in saying that I +do not think they can. The Afreet, once out of the bottle, can never be +coaxed back or cudgelled back; and the author whom the newspapers have +made cannot be unmade by the newspapers. Perhaps he could if they would +let him alone; but the art of letting alone the creature of your favor, +when he has forfeited your favor, is yet in its infancy with the +newspapers. They consign him to oblivion with a rumor that fills the +land, and they keep visiting him there with an uproar which attracts more +and more notice to him. An author who has long enjoyed their favor +suddenly and rather mysteriously loses it, through his opinions on +certain matters of literary taste, say. For the space of five or six +years he is denounced with a unanimity and an incisive vigor that ought +to convince him there is something wrong. If he thinks it is his +censors, he clings to his opinions with an abiding constancy, while +ridicule, obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical refutation, and +personal detraction follow unsparingly upon every expression, for +instance, of his belief that romantic fiction is the highest form of +fiction, and that the base, sordid, photographic, commonplace school of +Tolstoy, Tourgunief, Zola, Hardy, and James is unworthy a moment's +comparison with the school of Rider Haggard. All this ought certainly to +unmake the author in question, but this is not really the effect. Slowly +but surely the clamor dies away, and the author, without relinquishing +one of his wicked opinions, or in any wise showing himself repentant, +remains apparently whole; and he even returns in a measure to the old +kindness--not indeed to the earlier day of perfectly smooth things, but +certainly to as much of it as he merits. + +I would not have the young author, from this imaginary case; believe that +it is well either to court or to defy the good opinion of the press. In +fact, it will not only be better taste, but it will be better business, +for him to keep it altogether out of his mind. There is only one whom he +can safely try to please, and that is himself. If he does this he will +very probably please other people; but if he does not please himself he +may be sure that he will not please them; the book which he has not +enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading. Still, I would not have him +attach too little consequence to the influence of the press. I should +say, let him take the celebrity it gives him gratefully but not too +seriously; let him reflect that he is often the necessity rather than the +ideal of the paragrapher, and that the notoriety the journalists bestow +upon him is not the measure of their acquaintance with his work, far less +his meaning. They are good fellows, those hard-pushed, poor fellows of +the press, but the very conditions of their censure, friendly or +unfriendly, forbid it thoroughness, and it must often have more zeal than +knowledge in it. + + +IX. + +There are some sorts of light literature once greatly in demand, but now +apparently no longer desired by magazine editors, who ought to know what +their readers desire. Among these is the travel sketch, to me a very +agreeable kind, and really to be regretted in its decline. There are +some reasons for its decline besides a change of taste in readers, and a +possible surfeit. Travel itself has become so universal that everybody, +in a manner, has been everywhere, and the foreign scene has no longer the +charm of strangeness. We do not think the Old World either so romantic +or so ridiculous as we used; and perhaps from an instinctive perception +of this altered mood writers no longer appeal to our sentiment or our +humor with sketches of outlandish people and places. Of course, this can +hold true only in a general way; the thing is still done, but not nearly +so much done as formerly. When one thinks of the long line of American +writers who have greatly pleased in this sort, and who even got their +first fame in it, one must grieve to see it obsolescent. Irving, Curtis, +Bayard Taylor, Herman Melville, Ross Browne, Warner, Ik Marvell, +Longfellow, Lowell, Story, Mr. James, Mr. Aldrich, Mr. Hay, Mrs. Hunt, +Mr. C. W. Stoddard, Mark Twain, and many others whose names will not come +to me at the moment, have in their several ways richly contributed to our +pleasure in it; but I cannot now fancy a young author finding favor with +an editor in a sketch of travel or a study of foreign manners and +customs; his work would have to be of the most signal importance and +brilliancy to overcome the editor's feeling that the thing had been done +already; and I believe that a publisher, if offered a book of such +things, would look at it askance and plead the well-known quiet of the +trade. Still, I may be mistaken. + +I am rather more confident about the decline of another literary species +--namely, the light essay. We have essays enough and to spare of certain +soberer and severer sorts, such as grapple with problems and deal with +conditions; but the kind that I mean, the slightly humorous, gentle, +refined, and humane kind, seems no longer to abound as it once did. I do +not know whether the editor discourages them, knowing his readers' frame, +or whether they do not offer themselves, but I seldom find them in the +magazines. I certainly do not believe that if any one were now to write +essays such as Warner's Backlog Studies, an editor would refuse them; and +perhaps nobody really writes them. Nobody seems to write the sort that +Colonel Higginson formerly contributed to the periodicals, or such as +Emerson wrote. Without a great name behind it, I am afraid that a volume +of essays would find few buyers, even after the essays had made a public +in the magazines. There are, of course, instances to the contrary, but +they are not so many or so striking as to make me think that the essay +could be offered as a good opening for business talent. + +I suspect that good poetry by well-known hands was never better paid in +the magazines than it is now. I must say, too, that I think the quality +of the minor poetry of our day is better than that of twenty-five or +thirty years ago. I could name half a score of young poets whose work +from time to time gives me great pleasure, by the reality of its feeling +and the delicate perfection of its art, but I will not name them, for +fear of passing over half a score of others equally meritorious. We have +certainly no reason to be discouraged, whatever reason the poets +themselves have to be so, and I do not think that even in the short story +our younger writers are doing better work than they are doing in the +slighter forms of verse. Yet the notion of inviting business talent into +this field would be as preposterous as that of asking it to devote itself +to the essay. What book of verse by a recent poet, if we except some +such peculiarly gifted poet as Mr. Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, +not to speak of any profit to the author? Of course, it would be rather +more offensive and ridiculous that it should do so than that any other +form of literary art should do so; and yet there is no more provision in +our economic system for the support of the poet apart from his poems than +there is for the support of the novelist apart from his novel. One could +not make any more money by writing poetry than by writing history, but it +is a curious fact that while the historians have usually been rich men, +and able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have usually +been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their devotion to a +calling which is so seldom an election. + +To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set up poet +than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying documents, or +visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact, except as historian, the +man of letters, in whatever walk, has not only none of the expenses of +other men of business, but none of the expenses of other artists. He has +no such outlay to make for materials, or models, or studio rent as the +painter or the sculptor has, and his income, such as it is, is immediate. +If he strikes the fancy of the editor with the first thing he offers, as +he very well may, it is as well with him as with other men after long +years of apprenticeship. Although he will always be the better for an +apprenticeship, and the longer apprenticeship the better, he may +practically need none at all. Such are the strange conditions of his +acceptance with the public, that he may please better without it than +with it. An author's first book is too often not only his luckiest, but +really his best; it has a brightness that dies out under the school he +puts himself to, but a painter or a sculptor is only the gainer by all +the school he can give himself. + + +X. + +In view of this fact it becomes again very hard to establish the author's +status in the business world, and at moments I have grave question +whether he belongs there at all, except as a novelist. There is, of +course, no outlay for him in this sort, any more than in any other sort +of literature, but it at least supposes and exacts some measure of +preparation. A young writer may produce a brilliant and very perfect +romance, just as he may produce a brilliant and very perfect poem, but in +the field of realistic fiction, or in what we used to call the novel of +manners, a writer can only produce an inferior book at the outset. For +this work he needs experience and observation, not so much of others as +of himself, for ultimately his characters will all come out of himself, +and he will need to know motive and character with such thoroughness and +accuracy as he can acquire only through his own heart. A man remains in +a measure strange to himself as long as he lives, and the very sources of +novelty in his work will be within himself; he can continue to give it +freshness in no other way than by knowing himself better and better. But +a young writer and an untrained writer has not yet begun to be acquainted +even with the lives of other men. The world around him remains a secret +as well as the world within him, and both unfold themselves +simultaneously to that experience of joy and sorrow that can come only +with the lapse of time. Until he is well on towards forty, he will +hardly have assimilated the materials of a great novel, although he may +have amassed them. The novelist, then, is a man of letters who is like a +man of business in the necessity of preparation for his calling, though +he does not pay store-rent, and may carry all his affairs under his hat, +as the phrase is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that +sort of continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence +in other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, +and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is +not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that +it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of +business. Still our people cannot deny some consideration to a man who +gets a hundred dollars a thousand words or whose book sells five hundred +thousand copies or less. That is a fact appreciable to business, and the +man of letters in the line of fiction may reasonably feel that his place +in our civilization, though he may owe it to the women who form the great +mass of his readers, has something of the character of a vested interest +in the eyes of men. There is, indeed, as yet no conspiracy law which +will avenge the attempt to injure him in his business. A critic, or a +dark conjuration of critics, may damage him at will and to the extent of +their power,and he has no recourse but to write better books, or worse. +The law will do nothing for him, and a boycott of his books might be +preached with immunity by any class of men not liking his opinions on the +question of industrial slavery or antipaedobaptism. Still the market for +his wares is steadier than the market for any other kind of literary +wares, and the prices are better. The historian, who is a kind of +inferior realist, has something like the same steadiness in the market, +but the prices he can command are much lower, and the two branches of the +novelist's trade are not to be compared in a business way. As for the +essayist, the poet, the traveller, the popular scientist, they are +nowhere in the competition for the favor of readers. The reviewer, +indeed, has a pretty steady call for his work, but I fancy the reviewers +who get a hundred dollars a thousand words could all stand upon the point +of a needle without crowding one another; I should rather like to see +them doing it. Another gratifying fact of the situation is that the best +writers of fiction, who are most in demand with the magazines, probably +get nearly as much money for their work as the inferior novelists who +outsell them by tens of thousands, and who make their appeal to the +innumerable multitude of the less educated and less cultivated buyers of +fiction in book form. I think they earn their money, but if I did not +think all of the higher class of novelists earned so much money as they +get, I should not be so invidious as to single out for reproach those who +did not. + +The difficulty about payment, as I have hinted, is that literature has no +objective value really, but only a subjective value, if I may so express +it. A poem, an essay, a novel, even a paper on political economy, may be +worth gold untold to one reader, and worth nothing whatever to another. +It may be precious to one mood of the reader, and worthless to another +mood of the same reader. How, then, is it to be priced, and how is it to +be fairly marketed? All people must be fed, and all people must be +clothed, and all people must be housed; and so meat, raiment, and shelter +are things of positive and obvious necessity, which may fitly have a +market price put upon them. But there is no such positive and obvious +necessity, I am sorry to say, for fiction, or not for the higher sort of +fiction. The sort of fiction which corresponds in literature to the +circus and the variety theatre in the show-business seems essential to +the spiritual health of the masses, but the most cultivated of the +classes can get on, from time to time, without an artistic novel. This +is a great pity, and I should be-very willing that readers might feel +something like the pangs of hunger and cold, when deprived of their finer +fiction; but apparently they never do. Their dumb and passive need is +apt only to manifest itself negatively, or in the form of weariness of +this author or that. The publisher of books can ascertain the fact +through the declining sales of a writer; but the editor of a magazine, +who is the best customer of the best writers, must feel the market with a +much more delicate touch. Sometimes it may be years before he can +satisfy himself that his readers are sick of Smith, and are pining for +Jones; even then he cannot know how long their mood will last, and he is +by no means safe in cutting down Smith's price and putting up Jones's. +With the best will in the world to pay justly, he cannot. Smith, who has +been boring his readers to death for a year, may write tomorrow a thing +that will please them so much that he will at once be a prime favorite +again; and Jones, whom they have been asking for, may do something so +uncharacteristic and alien that it will be a flat failure in the +magazine. The only thing that gives either writer positive value is his +acceptance with the reader; but the acceptance is from month to month +wholly uncertain. Authors are largely matters of fashion, like this +style of bonnet, or that shape of gown. Last spring the dresses were all +made with lace berthas, and Smith was read; this year the butterfly capes +are worn, and Jones is the favorite author. Who shall forecast the fall +and winter modes? + + +XI. + +In this inquiry it is always the author rather than the publisher, always +the contributor rather than the editor, whom I am concerned for. I study +the difficulties of the publisher and editor only because they involve +the author and the contributor; if they did not, I will not say with how +hard a heart I should turn from them; my only pang now in scrutinizing +the business conditions of literature is for the makers of literature, +not the purveyors of it. + +After all, and in spite of my vaunting title, is the man of letters ever +am business man? I suppose that, strictly speaking, he never is, except +in those rare instances where, through need or choice, he is the +publisher as well as the author of his books. Then he puts something on +the market and tries to sell it there, and is a man of business. But +otherwise he is an artist merely, and is allied to the great mass of +wage-workers who are paid for the labor they have put into the thing done +or the thing made; who live by doing or making a thing, and not by +marketing a thing after some other man has done it or made it. The +quality of the thing has nothing to do with the economic nature of the +case; the author is, in the last analysis, merely a working-man, and is +under the rule that governs the working-man's life. If he is sick or +sad, and cannot work, if he is lazy or tipsy, and will not, then he earns +nothing. He cannot delegate his business to a clerk or a manager; it +will not go on while he is sleeping. The wage he can command depends +strictly upon his skill and diligence. + +I myself am neither sorry nor ashamed for this; I am glad and proud to be +of those who eat their bread in the sweat of their own brows, and not the +sweat of other men's brows; I think my bread is the sweeter for it. In +the mean time, I have no blame for business men; they are no more of the +condition of things than we working-men are; they did no more to cause it +or create it; but I would rather be in my place than in theirs, and I +wish that I could make all my fellow-artists realize that economically +they are the same as mechanics, farmers, day-laborers. It ought to be +our glory that we produce something, that we bring into the world +something that was not choately there before; that at least we fashion or +shape something anew; and we ought to feel the tie that binds us to all +the toilers of the shop and field, not as a galling chain, but as a +mystic bond also uniting us to Him who works hitherto and evermore. +I know very well that to the vast multitude of our fellow-working-men we +artists are the shadows of names, or not even the shadows. I like to +look the facts in the face, for though their lineaments are often +terrible, yet there is light nowhere else; and I will not pretend, in +this light, that the masses care any more for us than we care for the +masses, or so much. Nevertheless, and most distinctly, we are not of the +classes. Except in our work, they have no use for us; if now and then +they fancy qualifying their material splendor or their spiritual dulness +with some artistic presence, the attempt is always a failure that bruises +and abashes. In so far as the artist is a man of the world, he is the +less an artist, and if he fashions himself upon fashion, he deforms his +art. We all know that ghastly type; it is more absurd even than the +figure which is really of the world, which was born and bred in it, and +conceives of nothing outside of it, or above it. In the social world, as +well as in the business world, the artist is anomalous, in the actual +conditions, and he is perhaps a little ridiculous. + +Yet he has to be somewhere, poor fellow, and I think that he will do well +to regard himself as in a transition state. He is really of the masses, +but they do not know it, and what is worse, they do not know him; as yet +the common people do not hear him gladly or hear him at all. He is +apparently of the classes; they know him, and they listen to him; he +often amuses them very much; but he is not quite at ease among them; +whether they know it or not, he knows that he is not of their kind. +Perhaps he will never be at home anywhere in the world as long as there +are masses whom he ought to consort with, and classes whom he cannot +consort with. The prospect is not brilliant for any artist now living, +but perhaps the artist of the future will see in the flesh the +accomplishment of that human equality of which the instinct has been +divinely planted in the human soul. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Artist has seasons, as trees, when he cannot blossom. . . . . . . . . . +Book that they are content to know at second hand. . . . . . . . . . . . +Business to take advantage of his necessity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Competition has deformed human nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Conditions of hucksters imposed upon poets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Fate of a book is in the hands of the women. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +God of chance leads them into temptation and adversity . . . . . . . . . +Historian, who is a kind of inferior realist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +I do not think any man ought to live by an art . . . . . . . . . . . . . +If he has not enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading. . . . . . . . . +Impropriety if not indecency promises literary success . . . . . . . . . +Literature beautiful only through the intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . +Literature has no objective value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Literature is Business as well as Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Man is strange to himself as long as he lives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Men read the newspapers, but our women read the books. . . . . . . . . . +More zeal than knowledge in it.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Most journalists would have been literary men if they could. . . . . . . +Never quite sure of life unless I find literature in it. . . . . . . . . +No man ought to live by any art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +No rose blooms right along . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Our huckstering civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Public whose taste is so crude that they cannot enjoy the best . . . . . +Results of art should be free to all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Reviewers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Reward is in the serial and not in the book--19th Century. . . . . . . . +Rogues in every walk of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +There is small love of pure literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Two branches of the novelist's trade: Novelist and Historian . . . . . . +Warner's Backlog Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Work not truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money . . . . . . + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Man of Letters in Business, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Confessions of a Summer Colonist + +by William Dean Howells + + +CONFESSIONS OF A SUMMER COLONIST + + +The season is ending in the little summer settlement on the Down East +coast where I have been passing the last three months, and with each +loath day the sense of its peculiar charm grows more poignant. +A prescience of the homesickness I shall feel for it when I go already +begins to torment me, and I find myself wishing to imagine some form of +words which shall keep a likeness of it at least through the winter; some +shadowy semblance which I may turn to hereafter if any chance or change +should destroy or transform it, or, what is more likely, if I should +never come back to it. Perhaps others in the distant future may turn to +it for a glimpse of our actual life in one of its most characteristic +phases; I am sure that in the distant present there are many millions of +our own inlanders to whom it would be altogether strange. + + + + +I. + +In a certain sort fragile is written all over our colony; as far as the +visible body of it is concerned it is inexpressibly perishable; a fire +and a high wind could sweep it all away; and one of the most American of +all American things is the least fitted among them to survive from the +present to the future, and impart to it the significance of what may soon +be a "portion and parcel" of our extremely forgetful past. + +It is also in a supremely transitional moment: one might say that last +year it was not quite what it is now, and next year it may be altogether +different. In fact, our summer colony is in that happy hour when the +rudeness of the first summer conditions has been left far behind, and +vulgar luxury has not yet cumbrously succeeded to a sort of sylvan +distinction. + +The type of its simple and sufficing hospitalities is the seven-o'clock +supper. Every one, in hotel or in cottage, dines between one and two, +and no less scrupulously sups at seven, unless it is a few extremists who +sup at half-past seven. At this function, which is our chief social +event, it is 'de rigueur' for the men not to dress, and they come in any +sort of sack or jacket or cutaway, letting the ladies make up the pomps +which they forego. From this fact may be inferred the informality of the +men's day-time attire; and the same note is sounded in the whole range of +the cottage life, so that once a visitor from the world outside, who had +been exasperated beyond endurance by the absence of form among us (if +such an effect could be from a cause so negative), burst out with the +reproach, "Oh, you make a fetish of your informality!" + +"Fetish" is, perhaps, rather too strong a word, but I should not mind +saying that informality was the tutelary genius of the place. American +men are everywhere impatient of form. It burdens and bothers them, and +they like to throw it off whenever they can. We may not be so very +democratic at heart as we seem, but we are impatient of ceremonies that +separate us when it is our business or our pleasure to get at one +another; and it is part of our splendor to ignore the ceremonies, as we +do the expenses. We have all the decent grades of riches and poverty in +our colony, but our informality is not more the treasure of the humble +than of the great. In the nature of things it cannot last, however, and +the only question is how long it will last. I think, myself, until some +one imagines giving an eight-o'clock dinner; then all the informalities +will go, and the whole train of evils which such a dinner connotes will +rush in. + + + + +II. + +The cottages themselves are of several sorts, and some still exist in the +earlier stages of mutation from the fishermen's and farmers' houses which +formed their germ. But these are now mostly let as lodgings to bachelors +and other single or semi-detached folks who go for their meals to the +neighboring hotels or boarding-houses. The hotels are each the centre of +this sort of centripetal life, as well as the homes of their own scores +or hundreds of inmates. A single boarding-house gathers about it half a +dozen dependent cottages which it cares for, and feeds at its table; and +even where the cottages have kitchens and all the housekeeping +facilities, their inmates sometimes prefer to dine at the hotels. +By far the greater number of cottagers, however, keep house, bringing +their service with them from the cities, and settling in their summer +homes for three or four or five months. + +The houses conform more or less to one type: a picturesque structure of +colonial pattern, shingled to the ground, and stained or left to take a +weather-stain of grayish brown, with cavernous verandas, and dormer- +windowed roofs covering ten or twelve rooms. Within they are, if not +elaborately finished, elaborately fitted up, with a constant regard to +health in the plumbing and drainage. The water is brought in a system of +pipes from a lake five miles away, and as it is only for summer use the +pipes are not buried from the frost, but wander along the surface, +through the ferns and brambles of the tough little sea-side knolls on +which the cottages are perched, and climb the old tumbling stone walls of +the original pastures before diving into the cemented basements. + +Most of the cottages are owned by their occupants, and furnished by them; +the rest, not less attractive and hardly less tastefully furnished, +belong to natives, who have caught on to the architectural and domestic +preferences of the summer people, and have built them to let. The +rugosities of the stony pasture land end in a wooded point seaward, and +curve east and north in a succession of beaches. It is on the point, and +mainly short of its wooded extremity, that the cottages of our settlement +are dropped, as near the ocean as may be, and with as little order as +birds' nests in the grass, among the sweet-fern, laurel, bay, wild +raspberries, and dog-roses, which it is the ideal to leave as untouched +as possible. Wheel-worn lanes that twist about among the hollows find +the cottages from the highway, but foot-paths approach one cottage from +another, and people walk rather than drive to each other's doors. +From the deep-bosomed, well-sheltered little harbor the tides swim +inland, half a score of winding miles, up the channel of a river which +without them would be a trickling rivulet. An irregular line of cottages +follows the shore a little way, and then leaves the river to the +schooners and barges which navigate it as far as the oldest pile-built +wooden bridge in New England, and these in their turn abandon it to the +fleets of row-boats and canoes in which summer youth of both sexes +explore it to its source over depths as clear as glass, past wooded +headlands and low, rush-bordered meadows, through reaches and openings of +pastoral fields, and under the shadow of dreaming groves. + +If there is anything lovelier than the scenery of this gentle river I do +not know it; and I doubt if the sky is purer and bluer in paradise. This +seems to be the consensus, tacit or explicit, of the youth who visit it, +and employ the landscape for their picnics and their water parties from +the beginning to the end of summer. + +The river is very much used for sunsets by the cottagers who live on it, +and who claim a superiority through them to the cottagers on the point. +An impartial mind obliges me to say that the sunsets are all good in our +colony; there is no place from which they are bad; and yet for a certain +tragical sunset, where the dying day bleeds slowly into the channel till +it is filled from shore to shore with red as far as the eye can reach, +the river is unmatched. + +For my own purposes, it is not less acceptable, however, when the fog has +come in from the sea like a visible reverie, and blurred the whole valley +with its whiteness. I find that particularly good to look at from the +trolley-car which visits and revisits the river before finally leaving +it, with a sort of desperation, and hiding its passion with a sudden +plunge into the woods. + + + + +III. + +The old fishing and seafaring village, which has now almost lost the +recollection of its first estate in its absorption with the care of the +summer colony, was sparsely dropped along the highway bordering the +harbor, and the shores of the river, where the piles of the time-worn +wharves are still rotting. A few houses of the past remain, but the type +of the summer cottage has impressed itself upon all the later building, +and the native is passing architecturally, if not personally, into +abeyance. He takes the situation philosophically, and in the season he +caters to the summer colony not only as the landlord of the rented +cottages, and the keeper of the hotels and boarding-houses, but as +livery-stableman, grocer, butcher, marketman, apothecary, and doctor; +there is not one foreign accent in any of these callings. If the native +is a farmer, he devotes himself to vegetables, poultry, eggs, and fruit +for the summer folks, and brings these supplies to their doors; his +children appear with flowers; and there are many proofs that he has +accurately sized the cottagers up in their tastes and fancies as well as +their needs. I doubt if we have sized him up so well, or if our somewhat +conventionalized ideal of him is perfectly representative. He is, +perhaps, more complex than he seems; he is certainly much more self- +sufficing than might have been expected. The summer folks are the +material from which his prosperity is wrought, but he is not dependent, +and is very far from submissive. As in all right conditions, it is here +the employer who asks for work, not the employee; and the work must be +respectfully asked for. There are many fables to this effect, as, for +instance, that of the lady who said to a summer visitor, critical of the +week's wash she had brought home, "I'll wash you and I'll iron you, but I +won't take none of your jaw." A primitive independence is the keynote of +the native character, and it suffers no infringement, but rather boasts +itself. "We're independent here, I tell you," said the friendly person +who consented to take off the wire door. "I was down Bangor way doin' a +piece of work, and a fellow come along, and says he, 'I want you should +hurry up on that job.' 'Hello!' says I, 'I guess I'll pull out.' Well, +we calculate to do our work," he added, with an accent which sufficiently +implied that their consciences needed no bossing in the performance. + +The native compliance with any summer-visiting request is commonly in +some such form as, "Well, I don't know but what I can," or, "I guess +there ain't anything to hinder me." This compliance is so rarely, if +ever, carried to the point of domestic service that it may fairly be said +that all the domestic service, at least of the cottagers, is imported. +The natives will wait at the hotel tables; they will come in "to +accommodate"; but they will not "live out." I was one day witness of the +extreme failure of a friend whose city cook had suddenly abandoned him, +and who applied to a friendly farmer's wife in the vain hope that she +might help him to some one who would help his family out in their strait. +"Why, there ain't a girl in the Hollow that lives out! Why, if you was +sick abed, I don't know as I know anybody 't you could git to set up with +you." The natives will not live out because they cannot keep their self- +respect in the conditions of domestic service. Some people laugh at this +self-respect, but most summer folks like it, as I own I do. + +In our partly mythical estimate of the native and his relation to us, he +is imagined as holding a kind of carnival when we leave him at the end of +the season, and it is believed that he likes us to go early. We have had +his good offices at a fair price all summer, but as it draws to a close +they are rendered more and more fitfully. From some, perhaps flattered, +reports of the happiness of the natives at the departure of the +sojourners, I have pictured them dancing a sort of farandole, and +stretching with linked hands from the farthest summer cottage up the +river to the last on the wooded point. It is certain that they get +tired, and I could not blame them if they were glad to be rid of their +guests, and to go back to their own social life. This includes church +festivals of divers kinds, lectures and shows, sleigh-rides, theatricals, +and reading-clubs, and a plentiful use of books from the excellently +chosen free village library. They say frankly that the summer folks have +no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone, and I am sure that the +gayeties to which we leave them must be more tolerable than those which +we go back to in the city. It may be, however, that I am too confident, +and that their gayeties are only different. I should really like to know +just what the entertainments are which are given in a building devoted to +them in a country neighborhood three or four miles from the village. It +was once a church, but is now used solely for social amusements. + + + + +IV + +The amusements of the summer colony I have already hinted at. Besides +suppers, there are also teas, of larger scope, both afternoon and +evening. There are hops every week at the two largest hotels, which are +practically free to all; and the bathing-beach is, of course, a supreme +attraction. The bath-houses, which are very clean and well equipped, +are not very cheap, either for the season or for a single bath, and there +is a pretty pavilion at the edge of the sands. This is always full of +gossiping spectators of the hardy adventurers who brave tides too remote +from the Gulf Stream to be ever much warmer than sixty or sixty-five +degrees. The bathers are mostly young people, who have the courage of +their pretty bathing-costumes or the inextinguishable ardor of their +years. If it is not rather serious business with them all, still I +admire the fortitude with which some of them remain in fifteen minutes. +Beyond our colony, which calls itself the Port, there is a far more +populous watering-place, east of the Point, known as the Beach, which is +the resort of people several grades of gentility lower than ours: so +many, in fact, that we never can speak of the Beach without averting our +faces, or, at the best, with a tolerant smile. It is really a succession +of beaches, all much longer and, I am bound to say, more beautiful than +ours, lined with rows of the humbler sort of summer cottages known as +shells, and with many hotels of corresponding degree. The cottages may +be hired by the week or month at about two dollars a day, and they are +supposed to be taken by inland people of little social importance. Very +likely this is true; but they seemed to be very nice, quiet people, and I +commonly saw the ladies reading, on their verandas, books and magazines, +while the gentlemen sprayed the dusty road before them with the garden +hose. The place had also for me an agreeable alien suggestion, and in +passing the long row of cottages I was slightly reminded of Scheveningen. +Beyond the cottage settlements is a struggling little park, dedicated to +the only Indian saint I ever heard of, though there may be others. His +statue, colossal in sheet-lead, and painted the copper color of his race, +offers any heathen comer the choice between a Bible in one of his hands +and a tomahawk in the other, at the entrance of the park; and there are +other sheet-lead groups and figures in the white of allegory at different +points. It promises to be a pretty enough little place in future years, +but as yet it is not much resorted to by the excursions which largely +form the prosperity of the Beach. The concerts and the "high-class +vaudeville" promised have not flourished in the pavilion provided for +them, and one of two monkeys in the zoological department has perished of +the public inattention. This has not fatally affected the captive bear, +who rises to his hind legs, and eats peanuts and doughnuts in that +position like a fellow-citizen. With the cockatoos and parrots, and the +dozen deer in an inclosure of wire netting, he is no mean attraction; but +he does not charm the excursionists away from the summer village at the +shore, where they spend long afternoons splashing among the waves, or in +lolling groups of men, women, and children on the sand. In the more +active gayeties, I have seen nothing so decided during the whole season +as the behavior of three young girls who once came up out of the sea, and +obliged me by dancing a measure on the smooth, hard beach in their +bathing-dresses. + +I thought it very pretty, but I do not believe such a thing could have +been seen on OUR beach, which is safe from all excursionists, and sacred +to the cottage and hotel life of the Port. + +Besides our beach and its bathing, we have a reading-club for the men, +evolved from one of the old native houses, and verandaed round for summer +use; and we have golf-links and a golf club-house within easy trolley +reach. The links are as energetically, if not as generally, frequented +as the sands, and the sport finds the favor which attends it everywhere +in the decay of tennis. The tennis-courts which I saw thronged about by +eager girl-crowds, here, seven years ago, are now almost wholly abandoned +to the lovers of the game, who are nearly always men. + +Perhaps the only thing (besides, of course, our common mortality) which +we have in common with the excursionists is our love of the trolley-line. +This, by its admirable equipment, and by the terror it inspires in +horses, has well-nigh abolished driving; and following the old country +roads, as it does, with an occasional short-cut though the deep, green- +lighted woods or across the prismatic salt meadows, it is of a +picturesque variety entirely satisfying. After a year of fervent +opposition and protest, the whole community--whether of summer or of +winter folks--now gladly accepts the trolley, and the grandest cottager +and the lowliest hotel dweller meet in a grateful appreciation of its +beauty and comfort. + +Some pass a great part of every afternoon on the trolley, and one lady +has achieved celebrity by spending four dollars a week in trolley-rides. +The exhilaration of these is varied with an occasional apprehension when +the car pitches down a sharp incline, and twists almost at right angles +on a sudden curve at the bottom without slacking its speed. A lady who +ventured an appeal to the conductor at one such crisis was reassured, and +at the same time taught her place, by his reply: "That motorman's life, +ma'am, is just as precious to him as what yours is to you." + +She had, perhaps, really ventured too far, for ordinarily the employees +of the trolley do not find occasion to use so much severity with their +passengers. They look after their comfort as far as possible, and seek +even to anticipate their wants in unexpected cases, if I may believe a +story which was told by a witness. She had long expected to see some one +thrown out of the open car at one of the sharp curves, and one day she +actually saw a woman hurled from the seat into the road. Luckily the +woman slighted on her feet, and stood looking round in a daze. + +"Oh! oh!" exclaimed another woman in the seat behind, "she's left her +umbrella!" + +The conductor promptly threw it out to her. + +"Why," demanded the witness, "did that lady wish to get out here?" + +The conductor hesitated before he jerked the bellpull to go on: Then he +said, "Well, she'll want her umbrella, anyway." + +The conductors are, in fact, very civil as well as kind. If they see a +horse in anxiety at the approach of the car, they considerately stop, and +let him get by with his driver in safety. By such means, with their +frequent trips and low fares, and with the ease and comfort of their +cars, they have conciliated public favor, and the trolley has drawn +travel away from the steam railroad in such measure that it ran no trains +last winter. + +The trolley, in fact, is a fad of the summer folks this year; but what it +will be another no one knows; it may be their hissing and by-word. In +the mean time, as I have already suggested, they have other amusements. +These are not always of a nature so general as the trolley, or so +particular as the tea. But each of the larger hotels has been fully +supplied with entertainments for the benefit of their projectors, though +nearly everything of the sort had some sort of charitable slant. I +assisted at a stereopticon lecture on Alaska for the aid of some youthful +Alaskans of both sexes, who were shown first in their savage state, and +then as they appeared after a merely rudimental education, in the +costumes and profiles of our own civilization. I never would have +supposed that education could do so much in so short a time; and I gladly +gave my mite for their further development in classic beauty and a final +elegance. My mite was taken up in a hat, which, passed round among the +audience, is a common means of collecting the spectators' expressions of +appreciation. Other entertainments, of a prouder frame, exact an +admission fee, but I am not sure that these are better than some of the +hat-shows, as they are called. + +The tale of our summer amusements would be sadly incomplete without some +record of the bull-fights given by the Spanish prisoners of war on the +neighboring island, where they were confined the year of the war. +Admission to these could be had only by favor of the officers in charge, +and even among the Elite of the colony those who went were a more elect +few. Still, the day I went, there were some fifty or seventy-five +spectators, who arrived by trolley near the island, and walked to the +stockade which confined the captives. A real bull-fight, I believe, is +always given on Sunday, and Puritan prejudice yielded to usage even in +the case of a burlesque bull-fight; at any rate, it was on a Sunday that +we crouched in an irregular semicircle on a rising ground within the +prison pale, and faced the captive audience in another semicircle, across +a little alley for the entrances and exits of the performers. The +president of the bull-fight was first brought to the place of honor in a +hand-cart, and then came the banderilleros, the picadores, and the +espada, wonderfully effective and correct in white muslin and colored +tissue-paper. Much may be done in personal decoration with advertising +placards; and the lofty mural crown of the president urged the public on +both sides to Use Plug Cut. The picador's pasteboard horse was attached +to his middle, fore and aft, and looked quite the sort of hapless jade +which is ordinarily sacrificed to the bulls. The toro himself was +composed of two prisoners, whose horizontal backs were covered with a +brown blanket; and his feet, sometimes bare and sometimes shod with +india-rubber boots, were of the human pattern. Practicable horns, of a +somewhat too yielding substance, branched from a front of pasteboard, and +a cloth tail, apt to come off in the charge, swung from his rear. I have +never seen a genuine corrida, but a lady present, who had, told me that +this was conducted with all the right circumstance; and it is certain +that the performers entered into their parts with the artistic gust of +their race. The picador sustained some terrific falls, and in his +quality of horse had to be taken out repeatedly and sewed up; the +banderilleros tormented and eluded the toro with table-covers, one red +and two drab, till the espada took him from them, and with due ceremony, +after a speech to the president, drove his blade home to the bull's +heart. I stayed to see three bulls killed; the last was uncommonly +fierce, and when his hindquarters came off or out, his forequarters +charged joyously among the aficionados on the prisoners' side, and made +havoc in their thickly packed ranks. The espada who killed this bull was +showered with cigars and cigarettes from our side. + +I do not know what the Sabbath-keeping shades of the old Puritans made of +our presence at such a fete on Sunday; but possibly they had got on so +far in a better life as to be less shocked at the decay of piety among us +than pleased at the rise of such Christianity as had brought us, like +friends and comrades, together with our public enemies in this harmless +fun. I wish to say that the tobacco lavished upon the espada was +collected for the behoof of all the prisoners. + +Our fiction has made so much of our summer places as the mise en scene of +its love stories that I suppose I ought to say something of this side of +our colonial life. But after sixty I suspect that one's eyes are poor +for that sort of thing, and I can only say that in its earliest and +simplest epoch the Port was particularly famous for the good times that +the young people had. They still have good times, though whether on just +the old terms I do not know. I know that the river is still here with +its canoes and rowboats, its meadowy reaches apt for dual solitude, and +its groves for picnics. There is not much bicycling--the roads are rough +and hilly--but there is something of it, and it is mighty pretty to see +the youth of both sexes bicycling with their heads bare. They go about +bareheaded on foot and in buggies, too, and the young girls seek the tan +which their mothers used so anxiously to shun. + +The sail-boats, manned by weather-worn and weatherwise skippers, are +rather for the pleasure of such older summer folks as have a taste for +cod-fishing, which is here very good. But at every age, and in whatever +sort our colonists amuse themselves, it is with the least possible +ceremony. It is as if, Nature having taken them so hospitably to her +heart, they felt convention an affront to her. Around their cottages, as +I have said, they prefer to leave her primitive beauty untouched, and she +rewards their forbearance with such a profusion of wild flowers as I have +seen nowhere else. The low, pink laurel flushed all the stony fields to +the edges of their verandas when we first came; the meadows were milk- +white with daisies; in the swampy places delicate orchids grew, in the +pools the flags and flowering rushes; all the paths and way-sides were +set with dog-roses; the hollows and stony tops were broadly matted with +ground juniper. Since then the goldenrod has passed from glory to glory, +first mixing its yellow-powdered plumes with the red-purple tufts of the +iron-weed, and then with the wild asters everywhere. There has come +later a dwarf sort, six or ten inches high, wonderfully rich and fine, +which, with a low, white aster, seems to hold the field against +everything else, though the taller golden-rod and the masses of the high, +blue asters nod less thickly above it. But these smaller blooms deck the +ground in incredible profusion, and have an innocent air of being stuck +in, as if they had been fancifully used for ornament by children or +Indians. + +In a little while now, as it is almost the end of September, all the +feathery gold will have faded to the soft, pale ghosts of that +loveliness. The summer birds have long been silent; the crows, as if +they were so many exultant natives, are shouting in the blue sky above +the windrows of the rowan, in jubilant prescience of the depopulation of +our colony, which fled the hotels a fortnight ago. The days are growing +shorter, and the red evenings falling earlier; so that the cottagers' +husbands who come up every Saturday from town might well be impatient for +a Monday of final return. Those who came from remoter distances have +gone back already; and the lady cottagers, lingering hardily on till +October, must find the sight of the empty hotels and the windows of the +neighboring houses, which no longer brighten after the chilly nightfall, +rather depressing. Every one says that this is the loveliest time of +year, and that it will be divine here all through October. But there are +sudden and unexpected defections; there is a steady pull of the heart +cityward, which it is hard to resist. The first great exodus was on the +first of the month, when the hotels were deserted by four-fifths of their +guests. The rest followed, half of them within the week, and within a +fortnight none but an all but inaudible and invisible remnant were left, +who made no impression of summer sojourn in the deserted trolleys. + +The days now go by in moods of rapid succession. There have been days +when the sea has lain smiling in placid derision of the recreants who +have fled the lingering summer; there have been nights when the winds +have roared round the cottages in wild menace of the faithful few who +have remained. + +We have had a magnificent storm, which came, as an equinoctial storm +should, exactly at the equinox, and for a day and a night heaped the sea +upon the shore in thundering surges twenty and thirty feet high. I +watched these at their awfulest, from the wide windows of a cottage that +crouched in the very edge of the surf, with the effect of clutching the +rocks with one hand and holding its roof on with the other. The sea was +such a sight as I have not seen on shipboard, and while I luxuriously +shuddered at it, I had the advantage of a mellow log-fire at my back, +purring and softly crackling in a quiet indifference to the storm. + +Twenty-four hours more made all serene again. Bloodcurdling tales of +lobster-pots carried to sea filled the air; but the air was as blandly +unconscious of ever having been a fury as a lady who has found her lost +temper. Swift alternations of weather are so characteristic of our +colonial climate that the other afternoon I went out with my umbrella +against the raw, cold rain of the morning, and had to raise it against +the broiling sun. Three days ago I could say that the green of the woods +had no touch of hectic in it; but already the low trees of the swamp-land +have flamed into crimson. Every morning, when I look out, this crimson +is of a fierier intensity, and the trees on the distant uplands are +beginning slowly to kindle, with a sort of inner glow which has not yet +burst into a blaze. Here and there the golden-rod is rusting; but there +seems only to be more and more asters sorts; and I have seen ladies +coming home with sheaves of blue gentians; I have heard that the orchids +are beginning again to light their tender lamps from the burning +blackberry vines that stray from the pastures to the edge of the swamps. + +After an apparently total evanescence there has been a like resuscitation +of the spirit of summer society. In the very last week of September we +have gone to a supper, which lingered far out of its season like one of +these late flowers, and there has been an afternoon tea which assembled +an astonishing number of cottagers, all secretly surprised to find one +another still here, and professing openly a pity tinged with contempt for +those who are here no longer. + +I blamed those who had gone home, but I myself sniff the asphalt afar; +the roar of the street calls to me with the magic that the voice of the +sea is losing. Just now it shines entreatingly, it shines winningly, in +the sun which is mellowing to an October tenderness, and it shines under +a moon of perfect orb, which seems to have the whole heavens to itself in +"the first watch of the night," except for "the red planet Mars." This +begins to burn in the west before the flush of sunset has passed from it; +and then, later, a few moon-washed stars pierce the vast vault with their +keen points. The stars which so powdered the summer sky seem mostly to +have gone back to town, where no doubt people take them for electric +lights. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ladies make up the pomps which they (the men) forego . . . . . . . . . . +Summer folks have no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone. . . . . +Their consciences needed no bossing in the performance . . . . . . . . . + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Confessions of a Summer Colonist, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Young Contributor + +by William Dean Howells + + +THE EDITOR'S RELATIONS WITH THE YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR + + +One of the trustiest jokes of the humorous paragrapher is that the editor +is in great and constant dread of the young contributor; but neither my +experience nor my observation bears out his theory of the case. + +Of course one must not say anything to encourage a young person to +abandon an honest industry in the vain hope of early honor and profit +from literature; but there have been and there will be literary men and +women always, and these in the beginning have nearly always been young; +and I cannot see that there is risk of any serious harm in saying that it +is to the young contributor the editor looks for rescue from the old +contributor, or from his failing force and charm. + +The chances, naturally, are against the young contributor, and vastly +against him; but if any periodical is to live, and to live long, it is by +the infusion of new blood; and nobody knows this better than the editor, +who may seem so unfriendly and uncareful to the young contributor. The +strange voice, the novel scene, the odor of fresh woods and pastures new, +the breath of morning, the dawn of tomorrow--these are what the editor is +eager for, if he is fit to be an editor at all; and these are what the +young contributor alone can give him. + +A man does not draw near the sixties without wishing people to believe +that he is as young as ever, and he has not written almost as many books +as he has lived years without persuading himself that each new work of +his has all the surprise of spring; but possibly there are wonted traits +and familiar airs and graces in it which forbid him to persuade others. +I do not say these characteristics are not charming; I am very far from +wishing to say that; but I do say and must say that after the fiftieth +time they do not charm for the first time; and this is where the +advantage of the new contributor lies, if he happens to charm at all. + + + + +I. + +The new contributor who does charm can have little notion how much he +charms his first reader, who is the editor. That functionary may bide +his pleasure in a short, stiff note of acceptance, or he may mask his joy +in a check of slender figure; but the contributor may be sure that he has +missed no merit in his work, and that he has felt, perhaps far more than +the public will feel, such delight as it can give. + +The contributor may take the acceptance as a token that his efforts have +not been neglected, and that his achievements will always be warmly +welcomed; that even his failures will be leniently and reluctantly +recognized as failures, and that he must persist long in failure before +the friend he has made will finally forsake him. + +I do not wish to paint the situation wholly rose color; the editor will +have his moods, when he will not see so clearly or judge so justly as at +other times; when he will seem exacting and fastidious, and will want +this or that mistaken thing done to the story, or poem, or sketch, which +the author knows to be simply perfect as it stands; but he is worth +bearing with, and he will be constant to the new contributor as long as +there is the least hope of him. + +The contributor may be the man or the woman of one story, one poem, one +sketch, for there are such; but the editor will wait the evidence of +indefinite failure to this effect. His hope always is that he or she is +the man or the woman of many stories, many poems, many sketches, all as +good as the first. + +From my own long experience as a magazine editor, I may say that the +editor is more doubtful of failure in one who has once done well than of +a second success. After all, the writer who can do but one good thing is +rarer than people are apt to think in their love of the improbable; but +the real danger with a young contributor is that he may become his own +rival. + +What would have been quite good enough from him in the first instance is +not good enough in the second, because he has himself fixed his standard +so high. His only hope is to surpass himself, and not begin resting on +his laurels too soon; perhaps it is never well, soon or late, to rest +upon one's laurels. It is well for one to make one's self scarce, and +the best way to do this is to be more and more jealous of perfection in +one's work. + +The editor's conditions are that having found a good thing he must get as +much of it as he can, and the chances are that he will be less exacting +than the contributor imagines. It is for the contributor to be exacting, +and to let nothing go to the editor as long as there is the possibility +of making it better. He need not be afraid of being forgotten because he +does not keep sending; the editor's memory is simply relentless; he could +not forget the writer who has pleased him if he would, for such writers +are few. + +I do not believe that in my editorial service on the Atlantic Monthly, +which lasted fifteen years in all, I forgot the name or the +characteristic quality, or even the handwriting, of a contributor who had +pleased me, and I forgot thousands who did not. I never lost faith in a +contributor who had done a good thing; to the end I expected another good +thing from him. I think I was always at least as patient with him as he +was with me, though he may not have known it. + +At the time I was connected with that periodical it had almost a monopoly +of the work of Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Mrs. Stowe, +Parkman, Higginson, Aldrich, Stedman, and many others not so well known, +but still well known. These distinguished writers were frequent +contributors, and they could be counted upon to respond to almost any +appeal of the magazine; yet the constant effort of the editors was to +discover new talent, and their wish was to welcome it. + +I know that, so far as I was concerned, the success of a young +contributor was as precious as if I had myself written his paper or poem, +and I doubt if it gave him more pleasure. The editor is, in fact, a sort +of second self for the contributor, equally eager that he should stand +well with the public, and able to promote his triumphs without egotism +and share them without vanity. + + + + +II. + +In fact, my curious experience was that if the public seemed not to feel +my delight in a contribution I thought good, my vexation and +disappointment were as great as if the work hod been my own. It was even +greater, for if I had really written it I might have had my misgivings of +its merit, but in the case of another I could not console myself with +this doubt. The sentiment was at the same time one which I could not +cherish for the work of an old contributor; such a one stood more upon +his own feet; and the young contributor may be sure that the editor's +pride, self-interest, and sense of editorial infallibility will all +prompt him to stand by the author whom he has introduced to the public, +and whom he has vouched for. + +I hope I am not giving the young contributor too high an estimate of his +value to the editor. After all, he must remember that he is but one of a +great many others, and that the editor's affections, if constant, are +necessarily divided. It is good for the literary aspirant to realize +very early that he is but one of many; for the vice of our comparatively +virtuous craft is that it tends to make each of us imagine himself +central, if not sole. + +As a matter of fact, however, the universe does not revolve around any +one of us; we make our circuit of the sun along with the other +inhabitants of the earth, a planet of inferior magnitude. The thing we +strive for is recognition, but when this comes it is apt to turn our +heads. I should say, then, that it was better it should not come in a +great glare and aloud shout, all at once, but should steal slowly upon +us, ray by ray, breath by breath. + +In the mean time, if this happens, we shall have several chances of +reflection, and can ask ourselves whether we are really so great as we +seem to other people, or seem to seem. + +The prime condition of good work is that we shall get ourselves out of +our minds. Sympathy we need, of course, and encouragement; but I am not +sure that the lack of these is not a very good thing, too. Praise +enervates, flattery poisons; but a smart, brisk snub is always rather +wholesome. + +I should say that it was not at all a bad thing for a young contributor +to get his manuscript back, even after a first acceptance, and even a +general newspaper proclamation that he is one to make the immortals +tremble for their wreaths of asphodel--or is it amaranth? I am never +sure which. + +Of course one must have one's hour, or day, or week, of disabling the +editor's judgment, of calling him to one's self fool, and rogue, and +wretch; but after that, if one is worth while at all, one puts the +rejected thing by, or sends it off to some other magazine, and sets about +the capture of the erring editor with something better, or at least +something else. + + + + +III. + +I think it a great pity that editors ever deal other than frankly with +young contributors, or put them off with smooth generalities of excuse, +instead of saying they do not like this thing or that offered them. It +is impossible to make a criticism of all rejected manuscripts, but in the +case of those which show promise I think it is quite possible; and if I +were to sin my sins over again, I think I should sin a little more on the +side of candid severity. I am sure I should do more good in that way, +and I am sure that when I used to dissemble my real mind I did harm to +those whose feelings I wished to spare. There ought not, in fact, to be +question of feeling in the editor's mind. + +I know from much suffering of my own that it is terrible to get back a +manuscript, but it is not fatal, or I should have been dead a great many +times before I was thirty, when the thing mostly ceased for me. One +survives it again and again, and one ought to make the reflection that it +is not the first business of a periodical to print contributions of this +one or of that, but that its first business is to amuse and instruct its +readers. + +To do this it is necessary to print contributions, but whose they are, or +how the writer will feel if they are not printed, cannot be considered. +The editor can consider only what they are, and the young contributor +will do well to consider that, although the editor may not be an +infallible judge, or quite a good judge, it is his business to judge, and +to judge without mercy. Mercy ought no more to qualify judgment in an +artistic result than in a mathematical result. + + + + +IV. + +I suppose, since I used to have it myself, that there is a superstition +with most young contributors concerning their geographical position. I +used to think that it was a disadvantage to send a thing from a small or +unknown place, and that it doubled my insignificance to do so. I +believed that if my envelope had borne the postmark of New York, or +Boston, or some other city of literary distinction, it would have arrived +on the editor's table with a great deal more authority. But I am sure +this was a mistake from the first, and when I came to be an editor myself +I constantly verified the fact from my own dealings with contributors. +A contribution from a remote and obscure place at once piqued my +curiosity, and I soon learned that the fresh things, the original things, +were apt to come from such places, and not from the literary centres. +One of the most interesting facts concerning the arts of all kinds is +that those who wish to give their lives to them do not appear where the +appliances for instruction in them exist. An artistic atmosphere does +not create artists a literary atmosphere does not create literators; +poets and painters spring up where there was never a verse made or a +picture seen. + +This suggests that God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, +but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the +instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- +pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the +teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach +himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he +will know how to use the appliances, of which the teacher is only the +first. + +The editor, if he does not consciously perceive the truth, will +instinctively feel it, and will expect the acceptable young contributor +from the country, the village, the small town, and he will look eagerly +at anything that promises literature from Montana or Texas, for he will +know that it also promises novelty. + +If he is a wise editor, he will wish to hold his hand as much as +possible; he will think twice before he asks the contributor to change +this or correct that; he will leave him as much to himself as he can. +The young contributor; on his part, will do well to realize this, and to +receive all the editorial suggestions, which are veiled commands in most +cases, as meekly and as imaginatively as possible. + +The editor cannot always give his reasons; however strongly he may feel +them, but the contributor, if sufficiently docile, can always divine +them. It behooves him to be docile at all times, for this is merely the +willingness to learn; and whether he learns that he is wrong, or that the +editor is wrong, still he gains knowledge. + +A great deal of knowledge comes simply from doing, and a great deal more +from doing over, and this is what the editor generally means. + +I think that every author who is honest with himself must own that his +work would be twice as good if it were done twice. I was once so +fortunately circumstanced that I was able entirely to rewrite one of my +novels, and I have always thought it the best written, or at least +indefinitely better than it would have been with a single writing. As a +matter of fact, nearly all of them have been rewritten in a certain way. +They have not actually been rewritten throughout, as in the case I speak +of, but they have been gone over so often in manuscript and in proof that +the effect has been much the same. + +Unless you are sensible of some strong frame within your work, something +vertebral, it is best to renounce it, and attempt something else in which +you can feel it. If you are secure of the frame you must observe the +quality and character of everything you build about it; you must touch, +you must almost taste, you must certainly test, every material you +employ; every bit of decoration must undergo the same scrutiny as the +structure. + +It will be some vague perception of the want of this vigilance in the +young contributor's work which causes the editor to return it to him for +revision, with those suggestions which he will do well to make the most +of; for when the editor once finds a contributor he can trust, he +rejoices in him with a fondness which the contributor will never perhaps +understand. + +It will not do to write for the editor alone; the wise editor understands +this, and averts his countenance from the contributor who writes at him; +but if he feels that the contributor conceives the situation, and will +conform to the conditions which his periodical has invented for itself, +arid will transgress none of its unwritten laws; if he perceives that he +has put artistic conscience in every general and detail, and though he +has not done the best, has done the best that he can do, he will begin to +liberate him from every trammel except those he must wear himself, and +will be only too glad to leave him free. He understands, if he is at all +fit for his place, that a writer can do well only what he likes to do, +and his wish is to leave him to himself as soon as possible. + + +V. + +In my own case, I noticed that the contributors who could be best left to +themselves were those who were most amenable to suggestion and even +correction, who took the blue pencil with a smile, and bowed gladly to +the rod of the proof-reader. Those who were on the alert for offence, +who resented a marginal note as a slight, and bumptiously demanded that +their work should be printed just as they had written it, were commonly +not much more desired by the reader than by the editor. + +Of course the contributor naturally feels that the public is the test of +his excellence, but he must not forget that the editor is the beginning +of the public; and I believe he is a faithfuller and kinder critic than +the writer will ever find again. + +Since my time there is a new tradition of editing, which I do not think +so favorable to the young contributor as the old. Formerly the magazines +were made up of volunteer contributions in much greater measure than they +are now. At present most of the material is invited and even engaged; it +is arranged for a long while beforehand, and the space that can be given +to the aspirant, the unknown good, the potential excellence, grows +constantly less and less. + +A great deal can be said for either tradition; perhaps some editor will +yet imagine a return to the earlier method. In the mean time we must +deal with the thing that is, and submit to it until it is changed. The +moral to the young contributor is to be better than ever, to leave +nothing undone that shall enhance his small chances of acceptance. +If he takes care to be so good that the editor must accept him in spite +of all the pressure upon his pages, he will not only be serving-himself +best, but may be helping the editor to a conception of his duty that +shall be more hospitable to all other young contributors. As it is, +however, it must be owned that their hope of acceptance is very, very +small, and they will do well to make sure that they love literature so +much that they can suffer long and often repeated disappointment in its +cause. + +The love of it is the great and only test of fitness for it. It is +really inconceivable how any one should attempt it without this, but +apparently a great many do. It is evident to every editor that a vast +number of those who write the things he looks at so faithfully, and reads +more or less, have no artistic motive. + +People write because they wish to be known, or because they have heard +that money is easily made in that way, or because they think they will +chance that among a number of other things. The ignorance of technique +which they often show is not nearly so disheartening as the palpable +factitiousness of their product. It is something that they have made; it +is not anything that has grown out of their lives. + +I should think it would profit the young contributor, before he puts pen +to paper, to ask himself why he does so, and, if he finds that he has no +motive in the love of the thing, to forbear. + +Am I interested in what I am going to write about? Do I feel it +strongly? Do I know it thoroughly? Do I imagine it clearly? The young +contributor had better ask himself all these questions, and as many more +like them as he can think of. Perhaps he will end by not being a young +contributor. + +But if he is able to answer them satisfactorily to his own conscience, by +all means let him begin. He may at once put aside all anxiety about +style; that is a thing that will take care of itself; it will be added +unto him if he really has something to say; for style is only a man's way +of saying a thing. + +If he has not much to say, or if he has nothing to say, perhaps he will +try to say it in some other man's way, or to hide his own vacuity with +rags of rhetoric and tags and fringes of manner, borrowed from this +author and that. He will fancy that in this disguise his work will be +more literary, and that there is somehow a quality, a grace, imparted to +it which will charm in spite of the inward hollowness. His vain hope +would be pitiful if it were not so shameful, but it is destined to suffer +defeat at the first glance of the editorial eye. + +If he really has something to say, however, about something he knows and +loves, he is in the best possible case to say it well. Still, from time +to time he may advantageously call a halt, and consider whether he is +saying the thing clearly and simply. + +If he has a good ear he will say it gracefully, and musically; and I +would by no means have him aim to say it barely or sparely. It is not so +that people talk, who talk well, and literature is only the thought of +the writer flowing from the pen instead of the tongue. + +To aim at succinctness and brevity merely, as some teach, is to practice +a kind of quackery almost as offensive as the charlatanry of rhetoric. +In either case the life goes out of the subject. + +To please one's self, honestly and thoroughly, is the only way to please +others in matters of art. I do not mean to say that if you please +yourself you will always please others, but that unless you please +yourself you will please no one else. It is the sweet and sacred +privilege of work done artistically to delight the doer. Art is the +highest joy, but any work done in the love of it is art, in a kind, and +it strikes the note of happiness as nothing else can. + +We hear much of drudgery, but any sort of work that is slighted becomes +drudgery; poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture, acting, architecture, if +you do not do your best by them, turn to drudgery sore as digging +ditches, hewing wood, or drawing water; and these, by the same blessings +of God, become arts if they are done with conscience and the sense of +beauty. + +The young contributor may test his work before the editor assays it, if +he will, and he may know by a rule that is pretty infallible whether it +is good or not, from his own experience in doing it. Did it give him +pleasure? Did he love it as it grew under his hand? Was he glad and +willing with it? Or did he force himself to it, and did it hang heavy +upon him? + +There is nothing mystical in all this; it is a matter of plain, every-day +experience, and I think nearly every artist will say the same thing about +it, if he examines himself faithfully. + +If the young contributor finds that he has no delight in the thing he has +attempted, he may very well give it up, for no one else will delight in +it. But he need not give it up at once; perhaps his mood is bad; let him +wait for a better, and try it again. He may not have learned how to do +it well, and therefore he cannot love it, but perhaps he can learn to do +it well. + +The wonder and glory of art is that it is without formulas. Or, rather, +each new piece of work requires the invention of new formulas, which will +not serve again for another. You must apprentice yourself afresh at +every fresh undertaking, and our mastery is always a victory over certain +unexpected difficulties, and not a dominion of difficulties overcome +before. + +I believe, in other words, that mastery is merely the strength that comes +of overcoming and is never a sovereign power that smooths the path of all +obstacles. The combinations in art are infinite, and almost never the +same; you must make your key and fit it to each, and the key that unlocks +one combination will not unlock another. + + + + +VI. + +There is no royal road to excellence in literature, but the young +contributor need not be dismayed at that. Royal roads are the ways that +kings travel, and kings are mostly dull fellows, and rarely have a good +time. They do not go along singing; the spring that trickles into the +mossy log is not for them, nor + + "The wildwood flower that simply blows." + +But the traveller on the country road may stop for each of these; and it +is not a bad condition of his progress that he must move so slowly that +he can learn every detail of the landscape, both earth and sky, by heart. + +The trouble with success is that it is apt to leave life behind, or +apart. The successful writer especially is in danger of becoming +isolated from the realities that nurtured in him the strength to win +success. When he becomes famous, he becomes precious to criticism, to +society, to all the things that do not exist from themselves, or have not +the root of the matter in them. + +Therefore, I think that a young writer's upward course should be slow and +beset with many obstacles, even hardships. Not that I believe in +hardships as having inherent virtues; I think it is stupid to regard them +in that way; but they oftener bring out the virtues inherent in the +sufferer from them than what I may call the 'softships'; and at least +they stop him, and give him time to think. + +This is the great matter, for if we prosper forward rapidly, we have no +time for anything but prospering forward rapidly. We have no time for +art, even the art by which we prosper. + +I would have the young contributor above all things realize that success +is not his concern. Good work, true work, beautiful work is his affair, +and nothing else. If he does this, success will take care of itself. + +He has no business to think of the thing that will take. It is the +editor's business to think of that, and it is the contributor's business +to think of the thing that he can do with pleasure, the high pleasure +that comes from the sense of worth in the thing done. Let him do the +best he can, and trust the editor to decide whether it will take. + +It will take far oftener than anything he attempts perfunctorily; and +even if the editor thinks it will not take, and feels obliged to return +it for that reason, he will return it with a real regret, with the honor +and affection which we cannot help feeling for any one who has done a +piece of good work, and with the will and the hope to get something from +him that will take the next time, or the next, or the next. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +An artistic atmosphere does not create artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Any sort of work that is slighted becomes drudgery . . . . . . . . . . . +Put aside all anxiety about style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Should sin a little more on the side of candid severity. . . . . . . . . +Trouble with success is that it is apt to leave life behind. . . . . . . +Work would be twice as good if it were done twice. . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Young Contributor, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Last Days in a Dutch Hotel + +by William Dean Howells + + +LAST DAYS IN A DUTCH HOTEL + +(1897) + + +When we said that we were going to Scheveningen, in the middle of +September, the portier of the hotel at The Hague was sure we should be +very cold, perhaps because we had suffered so much in his house already; +and he was right, for the wind blew with a Dutch tenacity of purpose for +a whole week, so that the guests thinly peopling the vast hostelry seemed +to rustle through its chilly halls and corridors like so many autumn +leaves. We were but a poor hundred at most where five hundred would not +have been a crowd; and, when we sat down at the long tables d'hote in the +great dining-room, we had to warm our hands with our plates before we +could hold our spoons. From time to time the weather varied, as it does +in Europe (American weather is of an exemplary constancy in comparison), +and three or four times a day it rained, and three or four times it +cleared; but through all the wind blew cold and colder. We were +promised, however, that the hotel would not close till October, and we +made shift, with a warm chimney in one room and three gas-burners in +another, if not to keep warm quite, yet certainly to get used to the +cold. + + + + +I. + +In the mean time the sea-bathing went resolutely on with all its forms. +Every morning the bathing machines were drawn down to the beach from the +esplanade, where they were secured against the gale every night; and +every day a half-dozen hardy invalids braved the rigors of wind and wave. +At the discreet distance which one ought always to keep one could not +always be sure whether these bold bathers were mermen or mermaids; for +the sea costume of both sexes is the same here, as regards an absence of +skirts and a presence of what are, after the first plunge, effectively +tights. The first time I walked down to the beach I was puzzled to make +out some object rolling about in the low surf, which looked like a +barrel, and which two bathing-machine men were watching with apparently +the purpose of fishing it out. Suddenly this object reared itself from +the surf and floundered towards the steps of a machine; then I saw that +it was evidently not a barrel, but a lady, and after that I never dared +carry my researches so far. I suppose that the bathing-tights are more +becoming in some cases than in others; but I hold to a modest preference +for skirts, however brief, in the sea-gear of ladies. Without them there +may sometimes be the effect of beauty, and sometimes the effect of +barrel. + +For the convenience and safety of the bathers there were, even in the +last half of September, some twenty machines, and half as many bath-men +and bath-women, who waded into the water and watched that the bathers +came to no harm, instead of a solitary lifeguard showing his statuesque +shape as he paced the shore beside the lifelines, or cynically rocked in +his boat beyond the breakers, as the custom is on Long Island. Here +there is no need of life-lines, and, unless one held his head resolutely +under water, I do not see how he could drown within quarter of a mile of +the shore. Perhaps it is to prevent suicide that the bathmen are so +plentifully provided. + +They are a provision of the hotel, I believe, which does not relax itself +in any essential towards its guests as they grow fewer. It seems, on the +contrary, to use them with a more tender care, and to console them as it +may for the inevitable parting near at hand. Now, within three or four +days of the end, the kitchen is as scrupulously and vigilantly perfect as +it could be in the height of the season; and our dwindling numbers sit +down every night to a dinner that we could not get for much more love or +vastly more money in the month of August, at any shore hotel in America. +It is true that there are certain changes going on, but they are going on +delicately, almost silently. A strip of carpeting has come up from along +our corridor, but we hardly miss it from the matting which remains. +Through the open doors of vacant chambers we can see that beds are coming +down, and the dismantling extends into the halls at places. Certain +decorative carved chairs which repeated themselves outside the doors have +ceased to be there; but the pictures still hang on the walls, and within +our own rooms everything is as conscientious as in midsummer. The +service is instant, and, if there is some change in it, the change is not +for the worse. Yesterday our waiter bade me good-bye, and when I said I +was sorry he was going he alleged a boil on his cheek in excuse; he would +not allow that his going had anything to do with the closing of the +hotel, and he was promptly replaced by another who speaks excellent +English. Now that the first is gone, I may own that he seemed not to +speak any foreign language long, but, when cornered in English, took +refuge in French, and then fled from pursuit in that to German, and +brought up in final Dutch, where he was practically inaccessible. + +The elevator runs regularly, if not rapidly; the papers arrive +unfailingly in the reading-room, including a solitary London Times, which +even I do not read, perhaps because I have no English-reading rival to +contend for it with. Till yesterday, an English artist sometimes got it; +but he then instantly offered it to me; and I had to refuse it because I +would not be outdone in politeness. Now even he is gone, and on all +sides I find myself in an unbroken circle of Dutch and German, where no +one would dispute the Times with me if he could. + +Every night the corridors are fully lighted, and some mornings swept, +while the washing that goes on all over Holland, night and morning, does +not always spare our unfrequented halls and stairs. I note these little +facts, for the contrast with those of an American hotel which we once +assisted in closing, and where the elevator stopped two weeks before we +left, and we fell from electricity to naphtha-gas, and even this died out +before us except at long intervals in the passages; while there were +lightning changes in the service, and a final failure of it till we had +to go down and get our own ice-water of the lingering room-clerk, after +the last bell-boy had winked out. + + + + +II. + +But in Europe everything is permanent, and in America everything is +provisional. This is the great distinction which, if always kept in +mind, will save a great deal of idle astonishment. It is in nothing more +apparent than in the preparation here at Scheveningen for centuries of +summer visitors, while at our Long Island hotel there was a losing bet on +a scant generation of them. When it seemed likely that it might be a +winning bet the sand was planked there in front of the hotel to the sea +with spruce boards. It was very handsomely planked, but it was never +afterwards touched, apparently, for any manner of repairs. Here, for +half a mile the dune on which the hotel stands is shored up with massive +masonry, and bricked for carriages, and tiled for foot-passengers; and it +is all kept as clean as if wheel or foot had never passed over it. I am +sure that there is not a broken brick or a broken tile in the whole +length or breadth of it. But the hotel here is not a bet; it is a +business. It has come to stay; and on Long Island it had come to see how +it would like it. + +Beyond the walk and drive, however, the dunes are left to the winds, and +to the vegetation with which the Dutch planting clothes them against the +winds. First a coarse grass or rush is sown; then a finer herbage comes; +then a tough brushwood, with flowers and blackberry-vines; so that while +the seaward slopes of the dunes are somewhat patched and tattered, the +landward side and all the pleasant hollows between are fairly held +against such gales as on Long Island blow the lower dunes hither and yon. +The sheep graze in the valleys at some points; in many a little pocket of +the dunes I found a potato-patch of about the bigness of a city lot, and +on week-days I saw wooden-shod men slowly, slowly gathering in the crop. +On Sundays I saw the pleasant nooks and corners of these sandy hillocks +devoted, as the dunes of Long Island were, to whispering lovers, who are +here as freely and fearlessly affectionate as at home. Rocking there is +not, and cannot be, in the nature of things, as there used to be at Mount +Desert; but what is called Twoing at York Harbor is perfectly +practicable. + +It is practicable not only in the nooks and corners of the dunes, but on +discreeter terms in those hooded willow chairs, so characteristic of the +Dutch sea-side. These, if faced in pairs towards each other, must be as +favorable to the exchange of vows as of opinions, and if the crowd is +ever very great, perhaps one chair could be made to hold two persons. +It was distinctly a pang, the other day, to see men carrying them up from +the beach, and putting them away to hibernate in the basement of the +hotel. Not all, but most of them, were taken; though I dare say that on +fine days throughout October they will go trooping back to the sands on +the heads of the same men, like a procession of monstrous, two-legged +crabs. Such a day was last Sunday, and then the beach offered a lively +image of its summer gayety. It was dotted with hundreds of hooded +chairs, which foregathered in gossiping groups or confidential couples; +and as the sun shone quite warm the flaps of the little tents next the +dunes were let down against it, and ladies in summer white saved +themselves from sunstroke in their shelter. The wooden booths for the +sale of candies and mineral waters, and beer and sandwiches, were flushed +with a sudden prosperity, so that when I went to buy my pound of grapes +from the good woman who understands my Dutch, I dreaded an indifference +in her which by no means appeared. She welcomed me as warmly as if I had +been her sole customer, and did not put up the price on me; perhaps +because it was already so very high that her imagination could not rise +above it. + +The hotel showed the same admirable constancy. The restaurant was +thronged with new-comers, who spread out even over the many-tabled +esplanade before it; but it was in no wise demoralized. That night we +sat down in multiplied numbers to a table d'hote of serenely unconscious +perfection; and we permanent guests--alas! we are now becoming transient, +too--were used with unfaltering recognition of our superior worth. We +shared the respect which, all over Europe, attaches to establishment, and +which sometimes makes us poor Americans wish for a hereditary nobility, +so that we could all mirror our ancestral value in the deference of our +inferiors. Where we should get our inferiors is another thing, but I +suppose we could import them for the purpose, if the duties were not too +great under our tariff. + +We have not yet imported the idea of a European hotel in any respect, +though we long ago imported what we call the European plan. No travelled +American knows it in the extortionate prices of rooms when he gets home, +or the preposterous charges of our restaurants, where one portion of +roast beef swimming in a lake of lukewarm juice costs as much as a +diversified and delicate dinner in Germany or Holland. But even if there +were any proportion in these things the European hotel will not be with +us till we have the European portier, who is its spring and inspiration. +He must not, dear home-keeping reader, be at all imagined in the moral or +material figure of our hotel porter, who appears always in his shirt- +sleeves, and speaks with the accent of Cork or of Congo. The European +portier wears a uniform, I do not know why, and a gold-banded cap, and he +inhabits a little office at the entrance of the hotel. He speaks eight +or ten languages, up to certain limit, rather better than people born to +them, and his presence commands an instant reverence softening to +affection under his universal helpfulness. There is nothing he cannot +tell you, cannot do for you; and you may trust yourself implicitly to +him. He has the priceless gift of making each nationality, each +personality, believe that he is devoted to its service alone. He turns +lightly from one language to another, as if he had each under his tongue, +and he answers simultaneously a fussy French woman, an angry English +tourist, a stiff Prussian major, and a thin-voiced American girl in +behalf of a timorous mother, and he never mixes the replies. He is an +inexhaustible bottle of dialects; but this is the least of his merits, of +his miracles. + +Our portier here is a tall, slim Dutchman (most Dutchmen are tall and +slim), and in spite of the waning season he treats me as if I were +multitude, while at the same time he uses me with the distinction due the +last of his guests. Twenty times in as many hours he wishes me good-day, +putting his hand to his cap for the purpose; and to oblige me he wears +silver braid instead of gilt on his cap and coat. I apologized yesterday +for troubling him so often for stamps, and said that I supposed he was +much more bothered in the season. + +"Between the first of August and the fifteenth," he answered, "you cannot +think. All that you can do is to say, Yes, No; Yes, No." And he left me +to imagine his responsibilities. + +I am sure he will hold out to the end, and will smile me a friendly +farewell from the door of his office, which is also his dining-room, as I +know from often disturbing him at his meals there. I have no fear of the +waiters either, or of the little errand-boys who wear suits of sailor +blue, and touch their foreheads when they bring you your letters like so +many ancient sea-dogs. I do not know why the elevator-boy prefers a suit +of snuff-color; but I know that he will salute us as we step out of his +elevator for the last time as unfalteringly as if we had just arrived at +the beginning of the summer. + + + + +IV + +It is our last day in the hotel at Scheveningen, and I will try to recall +in their pathetic order the events of the final week. + +Nothing has been stranger throughout than the fluctuation of the guests. +At times they have dwindled to so small a number that one must reckon +chiefly upon their quality for consolation; at other times they swelled +to such a tide as to overflow the table, long or short, at dinner, and +eddy round a second board beside it. There have been nights when I have +walked down the long corridor to my seaward room through a harking +solitude of empty chambers; there have been mornings when I have come out +to breakfast past door-mats cheerful with boots of both sexes, and door- +post hooks where dangling coats and trousers peopled the place with a +lively if a somewhat flaccid semblance of human presence. The worst was +that, when some one went, we lost a friend, and when some one came we +only won a stranger. + +Among the first to go were the kindly English folk whose acquaintance we +made across the table the first night, and who took with them so large a +share of our facile affections that we quite forgot the ancestral +enmities, and grieved for them as much as if they had been Americans. +There have been, in fact, no Americans here but ourselves, and we have +done what we could with the Germans who spoke English. The nicest of +these were a charming family from F-----, father and mother, and son and +daughter, with whom we had a pleasant week of dinners. At the very first +we disagreed with the parents so amicably about Ibsen and Sudermann that +I was almost sorry to have the son take our modern side of the +controversy and declare himself an admirer of those authors with us. +Our frank literary difference established a kindness between us that was +strengthened by our community of English, and when they went they left us +to the sympathy of another German family with whom we had mainly our +humanity in common. They spoke no English, and I only a German which +they must have understood with their hearts rather than their heads, +since it consisted chiefly of good-will. But in the air of their sweet +natures it flourished surprisingly, and sufficed each day for praise of +the weather after it began to be fine, and at parting for some fond +regrets, not unmixed with philosophical reflections, sadly perplexed in +the genders and the order of the verbs: with me the verb will seldom +wait, as it should in German, to the end. Both of these families, very +different in social tradition, I fancied, were one in the amiability +which makes the alien forgive so much militarism to the German nation, +and hope for its final escape from the drill-sergeant. When they went, +we were left for some meals to our own American tongue, with a brief +interval of that English painter and his wife with whom we spoke, our +language as nearly like English as we could. Then followed a desperate +lunch and dinner where an unbroken forest of German, and a still more +impenetrable morass of Dutch, hemmed us in. But last night it was our +joy to be addressed in our own speech by a lady who spoke it as admirably +as our dear friends from F-----. She was Dutch, and when she found we +were Americans she praised our historian Motley, and told us how his +portrait is gratefully honored with a place in the Queen's palace, The +House in the Woods, near Scheveningen. + + + + +V. + +She had come up from her place in the country, four hours away, for the +last of the concerts here, which have been given throughout the summer by +the best orchestra in Europe, and which have been thronged every +afternoon and evening by people from The Hague. + +One honored day this week even the Queen and the Queen Mother came down +to the concert, and gave us incomparably the greatest event of our waning +season. I had noticed all the morning a floral perturbation about the +main entrance of the hotel, which settled into the form of banks of +autumnal bloom on either side of the specially carpeted stairs, and put +forth on the roof of the arcade in a crown, much bigger round than a +barrel, of orange-colored asters, in honor of the Queen's ancestral house +of Orange. Flags of blue, white, and red fluttered nervously about in +the breeze from the sea, and imparted to us an agreeable anxiety not to +miss seeing the Queens, as the Dutch succinctly call their sovereign and +her parent; and at three o'clock we saw them drive up to the hotel. +Certain officials in civil dress stood at the door of the concert-room to +usher the Queens in, and a bareheaded, bald-headed dignity of military +figure backed up the stairs before them. I would not rashly commit +myself to particulars concerning their dress, but I am sure that the +elder Queen wore black, and the younger white. The mother has one of the +best and wisest faces I have seen any woman wear (and most of the good, +wise faces in this imperfectly balanced world are women's) and the +daughter one of the sweetest and prettiest. Pretty is the word for her +face, and it showed pink through her blond veil, as she smiled and bowed +right and left; her features are small and fine, and she is not above the +middle height. + +As soon as she had passed into the concert-room, we who had waited to see +her go in ran round to another door and joined the two or three thousand +people who were standing to receive the Queens. These had already +mounted to the royal box, and they stood there while the orchestra played +one of the Dutch national airs. (One air is not enough for the Dutch; +they must have two.) Then the mother faded somewhere into the +background, and the daughter sat alone in the front, on a gilt throne, +with a gilt crown at top, and a very uncomfortable carved Gothic back. +She looked so young, so gentle, and so good that the rudest Republican +could not have helped wishing her well out of a position so essentially +and irreparably false as a hereditary sovereign's. One forgot in the +presence of her innocent seventeen years that most of the ruling princes +of the world had left it the worse for their having been in it; at +moments one forgot her altogether as a princess, and saw her only as a +charming young girl, who had to sit up rather stiffly. + +At the end of the programme the Queens rose and walked slowly out, while +the orchestra played the other national air. + + + + +VI. + +I call them the Queens, because the Dutch do; and I like Holland so much +that I should hate to differ with the Dutch in anything. But, as a +matter of fact, they are neither of them quite Queens; the mother is the +regent and the daughter will not be crowned till next year. + +But, such as they are, they imparted a supreme emotion to our dying +season, and thrilled the hotel with a fulness of summer life. Since they +went, the season faintly pulses and respires, so that one can just say +that it is still alive. Last Sunday was fine, and great crowds came down +from The Hague to the concert, and spread out on the seaward terrace of +the hotel, around the little tables which I fancied that the waiters had +each morning wiped dry of the dew, from a mere Dutch desire of cleaning +something. The hooded chairs covered the beach; the children played in +the edges of the surf and delved in the sand; the lovers wandered up into +the hollows of the dunes. + +There was only the human life, however. I have looked in vain for the +crabs, big and little, that swarm on the Long Island shore, and there are +hardly any gulls, even; perhaps because there are no crabs for them to +eat, if they eat crabs; I never saw gulls doing it, but they must eat +something. Dogs there are, of course, wherever there are people; but +they are part of the human life. Dutch dogs are in fact very human; and +one I saw yesterday behaved quite as badly as a bad boy, with respect to +his muzzle. He did not like his muzzle, and by dint of turning +somersaults in the sand he got it off, and went frolicking to his master +in triumph to show him what he had done. + + + + +VII. + +It is now the last day, and the desolation is thickening upon our hotel. +This morning the door-posts up and down my corridor showed not a single +pair of trousers; not a pair of boots flattered the lonely doormats. In +the lower hall I found the tables of the great dining-room assembled, and +the chairs inverted on them with their legs in the air; but decently, +decorously, not with the reckless abandon displayed by the chairs in our +Long Island hotel for weeks before it closed. In the smaller dining-room +the table was set for lunch as if we were to go on dining there forever; +in the breakfast -room the service and the provision were as perfect as +ever. The coffee was good, the bread delicious, the butter of an +unfaltering sweetness; and the glaze of wear on the polished dress-coats +of the waiters as respectable as it could have been on the first day of +the season. All was correct, and if of a funereal correctness to me, I +am sure this effect was purely subjective. + +The little bell-boys in sailor suits (perhaps they ought to be spelled +bell-buoys) clustered about the elevator-boy like so many Roman sentinels +at their posts; the elevator-boy and his elevator were ready to take us +up or down at any moment. + +The portier and I ignored together the hour of parting, which we had +definitely ascertained and agreed upon, and we exchanged some compliments +to the weather, which is now settled, as if we expected to enjoy it long +together. I rather dread going in to lunch, however, for I fear the +empty places. + + + + +VIII. + +All is over; we are off. The lunch was an heroic effort of the hotel to +hide the fact of our separation. It was perfect, unless the boiled beef +was a confession of human weakness; but even this boiled beef was +exquisite, and the horseradish that went with it was so mellowed by art +that it checked rather than provoked the parting tear. The table d'hote +had reserved a final surprise for us; and when we sat down with the fear +of nothing but German around us, we heard the sound of our own speech +from the pleasantest English pair we had yet encountered; and the +travelling English are pleasant; I will say it, who am said by Sir Walter +Besant to be the only American who hates their nation. It was really an +added pang to go, on their account, but the carriage was waiting at the +door; the 'domestique' had already carried our baggage to the steam-tram +station; the kindly menial train formed around us for an ultimate +'douceur', and we were off, after the 'portier' had shut us into our +vehicle and touched his oft-touched cap for the last time, while the +hotel facade dissembled its grief by architecturally smiling in the soft +Dutch sun. + +I liked this manner of leaving better than carrying part of my own +baggage to the train, as I had to do on Long Island, though that, too, +had its charm; the charm of the whole fresh, pungent American life, which +at this distance is so dear. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Last Days in a Dutch Hotel, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Some Anomalies of the Short Story + +by William Dean Howells + + +SOME ANOMALIES OF THE SHORT STORY + + +The interesting experiment of one of our great publishing houses in +putting out serially several volumes of short stories, with the hope that +a courageous persistence may overcome the popular indifference to such +collections when severally administered, suggests some questions as to +this eldest form of fiction which I should like to ask the reader's +patience with. I do not know that I shall be able to answer them, or +that I shall try to do so; the vitality of a question that is answered +seems to exhale in the event; it palpitates no longer; curiosity flutters +away from the faded flower, which is fit then only to be folded away in +the 'hortus siccus' of accomplished facts. In view of this I may wish +merely to state the problems and leave them for the reader's solution, +or, more amusingly, for his mystification. + + + + +I. + +One of the most amusing questions concerning the short story is why a +form which is singly so attractive that every one likes to read a short +story when he finds it alone is collectively so repellent as it is said +to be. Before now I have imagined the case to be somewhat the same as +that of a number of pleasant people who are most acceptable as separate +householders, but who lose caste and cease to be desirable acquaintances +when gathered into a boarding-house. + +Yet the case is not the same quite, for we see that the short story where +it is ranged with others of its species within the covers of a magazine +is so welcome that the editor thinks his number the more brilliant the +more short story writers he can call about his board, or under the roof +of his pension. Here the boardinghouse analogy breaks, breaks so +signally that I was lately moved to ask a distinguished editor why a book +of short stories usually failed and a magazine usually succeeded because +of them. He answered, gayly, that the short stories in most books of +them were bad; that where they were good, they went; and he alleged +several well-known instances in which books of prime short stories had a +great vogue. He was so handsomely interested in my inquiry that I could +not well say I thought some of the short stories which he had boasted in +his last number were indifferent good, and yet, as he allowed, had mainly +helped sell it. I had in mind many books of short stories of the first +excellence which had failed as decidedly as those others had succeeded, +for no reason that I could see; possibly there is really no reason in any +literary success or failure that can be predicted, or applied in another +Base. + +I could name these books, if it would serve any purpose, but, in my +doubt, I will leave the reader to think of them, for I believe that his +indolence or intellectual reluctance is largely to blame for the failure +of good books of short stories. He is commonly so averse to any +imaginative exertion that he finds it a hardship to respond to that +peculiar demand which a book of good short stories makes upon him. He +can read one good short story in a magazine with refreshment, and a +pleasant sense of excitement, in the sort of spur it gives to his own +constructive faculty. But, if this is repeated in ten or twenty stories, +he becomes fluttered and exhausted by the draft upon his energies; +whereas a continuous fiction of the same quantity acts as an agreeable +sedative. A condition that the short story tacitly makes with the +reader, through its limitations, is that he shall subjectively fill in +the details and carry out the scheme which in its small dimensions the +story can only suggest; and the greater number of readers find this too +much for their feeble powers, while they cannot resist the incitement to +attempt it. + +My theory does not wholly account for the fact (no theory wholly accounts +for any fact), and I own that the same objections would lie from the +reader against a number of short stories in a magazine. But it may be +that the effect is not the same in the magazine because of the variety in +the authorship, and because it would be impossibly jolting to read all +the short stories in a magazine 'seriatim'. On the other hand, the +identity of authorship gives a continuity of attraction to the short +stories in a book which forms that exhausting strain upon the imagination +of the involuntary co-partner. + + + + +II. + +Then, what is the solution as to the form of publication for short +stories, since people do not object to them singly but collectively, and +not in variety, but in identity of authorship? Are they to be printed +only in the magazines, or are they to be collected in volumes combining a +variety of authorship? Rather, I could wish, it might be found feasible +to purvey them in some pretty shape where each would appeal singly to the +reader and would not exhaust him in the subjective after-work required of +him. In this event many short stories now cramped into undue limits by +the editorial exigencies of the magazines might expand to greater length +and breadth, and without ceasing to be each a short story might not make +so heavy a demand upon the subliminal forces of the reader. + +If any one were to say that all this was a little fantastic, I should not +contradict him; but I hope there is some reason in it, if reason can help +the short story to greater favor, for it is a form which I have great +pleasure in as a reader, and pride in as an American. If we have not +excelled all other moderns in it, we have certainly excelled in it; +possibly because we are in the period of our literary development which +corresponds to that of other peoples when the short story pre-eminently +flourished among them. But when one has said a thing like this, it +immediately accuses one of loose and inaccurate statement, and requires +one to refine upon it, either for one's own peace of conscience or for +one's safety from the thoughtful reader. I am not much afraid of that +sort of reader, for he is very rare, but I do like to know myself what I +mean, if I mean anything in particular. + +In this instance I am obliged to ask myself whether our literary +development can be recognized separately from that of the whole English- +speaking world. I think it can, though, as I am always saying American +literature is merely a condition of English literature. In some sense +every European literature is a condition of some other European +literature, yet the impulse in each eventuates, if it does not originate +indigenously. A younger literature will choose, by a sort of natural +selection, some things for assimilation from an elder literature, for no +more apparent reason than it will reject other things, and it will +transform them in the process so that it will give them the effect of +indigeneity. The short story among the Italians, who called it the +novella, and supplied us with the name devoted solely among us to fiction +of epical magnitude, refined indefinitely upon the Greek romance, if it +derived from that; it retrenched itself in scope, and enlarged itself in +the variety of its types. But still these remained types, and they +remained types with the French imitators of the Italian novella. It was +not till the Spaniards borrowed the form of the novella and transplanted +it to their racier soil that it began to bear character, and to fruit in +the richness of their picaresque fiction. When the English borrowed it +they adapted it, in the metrical tales of Chaucer, to the genius of their +nation, which was then both poetical and humorous. Here it was full of +character, too, and more and more personality began to enlarge the bounds +of the conventional types and to imbue fresh ones. But in so far as the +novella was studied in the Italian sources, the French, Spanish, and +English literatures were conditions of Italian literature as distinctly, +though, of course, not so thoroughly, as American literature is a +condition of English literature. Each borrower gave a national cast to +the thing borrowed, and that is what has happened with us, in the full +measure that our nationality has differenced itself from the English. + +Whatever truth there is in all this, and I will confess that a good deal +of it seems to me hardy conjecture, rather favors my position that we are +in some such period of our literary development as those other peoples +when the short story flourished among them. Or, if I restrict our claim, +I may safely claim that they abundantly had the novella when they had not +the novel at all, and we now abundantly have the novella, while we have +the novel only subordinately and of at least no such quantitative +importance as the English, French, Spanish, Norwegians, Russians, and +some others of our esteemed contemporaries, not to name the Italians. We +surpass the Germans, who, like ourselves, have as distinctly excelled in +the modern novella as they have fallen short in the novel. Or, if I may +not quite say this, I will make bold to say that I can think of many +German novelle that I should like to read again, but scarcely one German +novel; and I could honestly say the same of American novelle, though not +of American novels. + + + + +III. + +The abeyance, not to say the desuetude, that the novella fell into for +several centuries is very curious, and fully as remarkable as the modern +rise of the short story. It began to prevail in the dramatic form, for a +play is a short story put on the stage; it may have satisfied in that +form the early love of it, and it has continued to please in that form; +but in its original shape it quite vanished, unless we consider the +little studies and sketches and allegories of the Spectator and Tatler +and Idler and Rambler and their imitations on the Continent as guises of +the novella. The germ of the modern short story may have survived in +these, or in the metrical form of the novella which appeared in Chaucer +and never wholly disappeared. With Crabbe the novella became as +distinctly the short story as it has become in the hands of Miss Wilkins. +But it was not till our time that its great merit as a form was felt, for +until our time so great work was never done with it. I remind myself of +Boccaccio, and of the Arabian Nights, without the wish to hedge from my +bold stand. They are all elemental; compared with some finer modern work +which deepens inward immeasurably, they are all of their superficial +limits. They amuse, but they do not hold, the mind and stamp it with +large and profound impressions. + +An Occidental cannot judge the literary quality of the Eastern tales; but +I will own my suspicion that the perfection of the Italian work is +philological rather than artistic, while the web woven by Mr. James or +Miss Jewett, by Kielland or Bjornson, by Maupassant, by Palacio Valdes, +by Giovanni Verga, by Tourguenief, in one of those little frames seems to +me of an exquisite color and texture and of an entire literary +preciousness, not only as regards the diction, but as regards those more +intangible graces of form, those virtues of truth and reality, and those +lasting significances which distinguish the masterpiece. + +The novella has in fact been carried so far in the short story that it +might be asked whether it had not left the novel behind, as to perfection +of form; though one might not like to affirm this. Yet there have been +but few modern fictions of the novel's dimensions which have the beauty +of form many a novella embodies. Is this because it is easier to give +form in the small than in the large, or only because it is easier to hide +formlessness? It is easier to give form in the novella than in the +novel, because the design of less scope can be more definite, and because +the persons and facts are fewer, and each can be more carefully treated. +But, on the other hand, the slightest error in execution shows more in +the small than in the large, and a fault of conception is more evident. +The novella must be clearly imagined, above all things, for there is no +room in it for those felicities of characterization or comment by which +the artist of faltering design saves himself in the novel. + + + + +IV. + +The question as to where the short story distinguishes itself from the +anecdote is of the same nature as that which concerns the bound set +between it and the novel. In both cases the difference of the novella is +in the motive, or the origination. The anecdote is too palpably simple +and single to be regarded as a novella, though there is now and then a +novella like The Father, by Bjornson, which is of the actual brevity of +the anecdote, but which, when released in the reader's consciousness, +expands to dramatic dimensions impossible to the anecdote. Many +anecdotes have come down from antiquity, but not, I believe, one short +story, at least in prose; and the Italians, if they did not invent the +story, gave us something most sensibly distinguishable from the classic +anecdote in the novella. The anecdote offers an illustration of +character, or records a moment of action; the novella embodies a drama +and develops a type. + +It is not quite so clear as to when and where a piece of fiction ceases +to be a novella and becomes a novel. The frontiers are so vague that one +is obliged to recognize a middle species, or rather a middle magnitude, +which paradoxically, but necessarily enough, we call the novelette. +First we have the short story, or novella, then we have the long story, +or novel, and between these we have the novelette, which is in name a +smaller than the short story, though it is in point of fact two or three +times longer than a short story. We may realize them physically if we +will adopt the magazine parlance and speak of the novella as a one-number +story, of the novel as a serial, and of the novelette as a two-number or +a three-number story; if it passes the three-number limit it seems to +become a novel. As a two-number or three-number story it is the despair +of editors and publishers. The interest of so brief a serial will not +mount sufficiently to carry strongly over from month to month; when the +tale is completed it will not make a book which the Trade (inexorable +force!) cares to handle. It is therefore still awaiting its +authoritative avatar, which it will be some one's prosperity and glory to +imagine; for in the novelette are possibilities for fiction as yet +scarcely divined. + +The novelette can have almost as perfect form as the novella. In fact, +the novel has form in the measure that it approaches the novelette; and +some of the most symmetrical modern novels are scarcely more than +novelettes, like Tourguenief's Dmitri Rudine, or his Smoke, or Spring +Floods. The Vicar of Wakefield, the father of the modern novel, is +scarcely more than a novelette, and I have sometimes fancied, but no +doubt vainly, that the ultimated novel might be of the dimensions of +Hamlet. If any one should say there was not room in Hamlet for the +character and incident requisite in a novel, I should be ready to answer +that there seemed a good deal of both in Hamlet. + +But no doubt there are other reasons why the novel should not finally be +of the length of Hamlet, and I must not let my enthusiasm for the +novelette carry me too far, or, rather, bring me up too short. I am +disposed to dwell upon it, I suppose, because it has not yet shared the +favor which the novella and the novel have enjoyed, and because until +somebody invents a way for it to the public it cannot prosper like the +one-number story or the serial. I should like to say as my last word for +it here that I believe there are many novels which, if stripped of their +padding, would turn out to have been all along merely novelettes in +disguise. + +It does not follow, however, that there are many novelle which, if they +were duly padded, would be found novelettes. In that dim, subjective +region where the aesthetic origins present themselves almost with the +authority of inspirations there is nothing clearer than the difference +between the short-story motive and the long-story motive. One, if one is +in that line of work, feels instinctively just the size and carrying +power of the given motive. Or, if the reader prefers a different figure, +the mind which the seed has been dropped into from Somewhere is +mystically aware whether the seed is going to grow up a bush or is going +to grow up a tree, if left to itself. Of course, the mind to which the +seed is intrusted may play it false, and wilfully dwarf the growth, or +force it to unnatural dimensions; but the critical observer will easily +detect the fact of such treasons. Almost in the first germinal impulse +the inventive mind forefeels the ultimate difference and recognizes the +essential simplicity or complexity of the motive. There will be a +prophetic subdivision into a variety of motives and a multiplication of +characters and incidents and situations; or the original motive will be +divined indivisible, and there will be a small group of people +immediately interested and controlled by a single, or predominant, fact. +The uninspired may contend that this is bosh, and I own that something +might be said for their contention, but upon the whole I think it is +gospel. + +The right novel is never a congeries of novelle, as might appear to the +uninspired. If it indulges even in episodes, it loses in reality and +vitality. It is one stock from which its various branches put out, and +form it a living growth identical throughout. The right novella is never +a novel cropped back from the size of a tree to a bush, or the branch of +a tree stuck into the ground and made to serve for a bush. It is another +species, destined by the agencies at work in the realm of unconsciousness +to be brought into being of its own kind, and not of another. + + + + +V. + +This was always its case, but in the process of time the short story, +while keeping the natural limits of the primal novella (if ever there was +one), has shown almost limitless possibilities within them. It has shown +itself capable of imparting the effect of every sort of intention, +whether of humor or pathos, of tragedy or comedy or broad farce or +delicate irony, of character or action. The thing that first made itself +known as a little tale, usually salacious, dealing with conventionalized +types and conventionalized incidents, has proved itself possibly the most +flexible of all the literary forms in its adaptation to the needs of the +mind that wishes to utter itself, inventively or constructively, upon +some fresh occasion, or wishes briefly to criticise or represent some +phase or fact of life. + +The riches in this shape of fiction are effectively inestimable, if we +consider what has been done in the short story, and is still doing +everywhere. The good novels may be easily counted, but the good novelle, +since Boccaccio began (if it was he that first began) to make them, +cannot be computed. In quantity they are inexhaustible, and in quality +they are wonderfully satisfying. Then, why is it that so very, very few +of the most satisfactory of that innumerable multitude stay by you, as +the country people say, in characterization or action? How hard it is to +recall a person or a fact out of any of them, out of the most signally +good! We seem to be delightfully nourished as we read, but is it, after +all, a full meal? We become of a perfect intimacy and a devoted +friendship with the men and women in the short stories, but not +apparently of a lasting acquaintance. It is a single meeting we have +with them, and though we instantly love or hate them dearly, recurrence +and repetition seem necessary to that familiar knowledge in which we hold +the personages in a novel. + +It is here that the novella, so much more perfect in form, shows its +irremediable inferiority to the novel, and somehow to the play, to the +very farce, which it may quantitatively excel. We can all recall by name +many characters out of comedies and farces; but how many characters out +of short stories can we recall? Most persons of the drama give +themselves away by name for types, mere figments of allegory, and perhaps +oblivion is the penalty that the novella pays for the fineness of its +characterizations; but perhaps, also, the dramatic form has greater +facilities for repetition, and so can stamp its persons more indelibly on +the imagination than the narrative form in the same small space. The +narrative must give to description what the drama trusts to +representation; but this cannot account for the superior permanency of +the dramatic types in so great measure as we might at first imagine, for +they remain as much in mind from reading as from seeing the plays. It is +possible that as the novella becomes more conscious, its persons will +become more memorable; but as it is, though we now vividly and with +lasting delight remember certain short stories, we scarcely remember by +name any of the people in them. I may be risking too much in offering an +instance, but who, in even such signal instances as The Revolt of Mother, +by Miss Wilkins, or The Dulham Ladies, by Miss Jewett, can recall by name +the characters that made them delightful? + + + + +VI. + +The defect of the novella which we have been acknowledging seems an +essential limitation; but perhaps it is not insuperable; and we may yet +have short stories which shall supply the delighted imagination with +creations of as much immortality as we can reasonably demand. The +structural change would not be greater than the moral or material change +which has been wrought in it since it began as a yarn, gross and +palpable, which the narrator spun out of the coarsest and often the +filthiest stuff, to snare the thick fancy or amuse the lewd leisure of +listeners willing as children to have the same persons and the same +things over and over again. Now it has not only varied the persons and +things, but it has refined and verified them in the direction of the +natural and the supernatural, until it is above all other literary forms +the vehicle of reality and spirituality. When one thinks of a bit of Mr. +James's psychology in this form, or a bit of Verga's or Kielland's +sociology, or a bit of Miss Jewett's exquisite veracity, one perceives +the immense distance which the short story has come on the way to the +height it has reached. It serves equally the ideal and the real; that +which it is loath to serve is the unreal, so that among the short stories +which have recently made reputations for their authors very few are of +that peculiar cast which we have no name for but romanticistic. The only +distinguished modern writer of romanticistic novelle whom I can think of +is Mr. Bret Harte, and he is of a period when romanticism was so +imperative as to be almost a condition of fiction. I am never so +enamoured of a cause that I will not admit facts that seem to tell +against it, and I will allow that this writer of romanticistic short +stories has more than any other supplied us with memorable types and +characters. We remember Mr. John Oakhurst by name; we remember Kentuck +and Tennessee's Partner, at least by nickname; and we remember their +several qualities. These figures, if we cannot quite consent that they +are persons, exist in our memories by force of their creator's +imagination, and at the moment I cannot think of any others that do, +out of the myriad of American short stories, except Rip Van Winkle out of +Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Marjorie Daw out of Mr. Aldrich's +famous little caprice of that title, and Mr. James's Daisy Miller. + +It appears to be the fact that those writers who have first distinguished +themselves in the novella have seldom written novels of prime order. +Mr. Kipling is an eminent example, but Mr. Kipling has yet a long life +before him in which to upset any theory about him, and one can only +instance him provisionally. On the other hand, one can be much more +confident that the best novelle have been written by the greatest +novelists, conspicuously Maupassant, Verga, Bjornson, Mr. Thomas Hardy, +Mr. James, Mr. Cable, Tourguenief, Tolstoy, Valdes, not to name others. +These have, in fact, all done work so good in this form that one is +tempted to call it their best work. It is really not their best, but it +is work so good that it ought to have equal acceptance with their novels, +if that distinguished editor was right who said that short stories sold +well when they were good short stories. That they ought to do so is so +evident that a devoted reader of them, to whom I was submitting the +anomaly the other day, insisted that they did. I could only allege the +testimony of publishers and authors to the contrary, and this did not +satisfy him. + +It does not satisfy me, and I wish that the general reader, with whom the +fault lies, could be made to say why, if he likes one short story by +itself and four short stories in a magazine, he does not like, or will +not have, a dozen short stories in a book. This was the baffling +question which I began with and which I find myself forced to end with, +after all the light I have thrown upon the subject. I leave it where I +found it, but perhaps that is a good deal for a critic to do. If I had +left it anywhere else the reader might not feel bound to deal with it +practically by reading all the books of short stories he could lay hands +on, and either divining why he did not enjoy them, or else forever +foregoing his prejudice against them because of his pleasure in them. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Some Anomalies of the Short Story, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Spanish Prisoners of War + +by William Dean Howells + + +SPANISH PRISONERS OF WAR + + +Certain summers ago our cruisers, the St. Louis and the Harvard, arrived +at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with sixteen or seventeen hundred Spanish +prisoners from Santiago de Cuba. They were partly soldiers of the land +forces picked up by our troops in the fights before the city, but by far +the greater part were sailors and marines from Cervera's ill-fated fleet. +I have not much stomach for war, but the poetry of the fact I have stated +made a very potent appeal to me on my literary side, and I did not hold +out against it longer than to let the St. Louis get away with Cervera to +Annapolis, when only her less dignified captives remained with those of +the Harvard to feed either the vainglory or the pensive curiosity of the +spectator. Then I went over from our summer colony to Kittery Point, and +got a boat, and sailed out to have a look at these subordinate enemies in +the first hours of their imprisonment. + + + + +I. + +It was an afternoon of the brilliancy known only to an afternoon of the +American summer, and the water of the swift Piscataqua River glittered in +the sun with a really incomparable brilliancy. But nothing could light +up the great monster of a ship, painted the dismal lead-color which our +White Squadrons put on with the outbreak of the war, and she lay sullen +in the stream with a look of ponderous repose, to which the activities of +the coaling-barges at her side, and of the sailors washing her decks, +seemed quite unrelated. A long gun forward and a long gun aft threatened +the fleet of launches, tugs, dories, and cat-boats which fluttered about +her, but the Harvard looked tired and bored, and seemed as if asleep. +She had, in fact, finished her mission. The captives whom death had +released had been carried out and sunk in the sea; those who survived to +a further imprisonment had all been taken to the pretty island a mile +farther up in the river, where the tide rushes back and forth through the +Narrows like a torrent. Its defiant rapidity has won it there the +graphic name of Pull-and-be-Damned; and we could only hope to reach the +island by a series of skilful tacks, which should humor both the wind and +the tide, both dead against us. Our boatman, one of those shore New +Englanders who are born with a knowledge of sailing, was easily master of +the art of this, but it took time, and gave me more than the leisure I +wanted for trying to see the shore with the strange eyes of the captives +who had just looked upon it. It was beautiful, I had to own, even in my +quality of exile and prisoner. The meadows and the orchards came down to +the water, or, where the wandering line of the land was broken and lifted +in black fronts of rock, they crept to the edge of the cliff and peered +over it. A summer hotel stretched its verandas along a lovely level; +everywhere in clovery hollows and on breezy knolls were gray old farm- +houses and summer cottages-like weather-beaten birds' nests, and like +freshly painted marten-boxes; but all of a cold New England neatness +which made me homesick for my malodorous Spanish fishing-village, +shambling down in stony lanes to the warm tides of my native seas. Here, +every place looked as if it had been newly scrubbed with soap and water, +and rubbed down with a coarse towel, and was of an antipathetic +alertness. The sweet, keen breeze made me shiver, and the northern sky, +from which my blinding southern sun was blazing, was as hard as sapphire. +I tried to bewilder myself in the ignorance of a Catalonian or Asturian +fisherman, and to wonder with his darkened mind why it should all or any +of it have been, and why I should have escaped from the iron hell in +which I had fought no quarrel of my own to fall into the hands of +strangers, and to be haled over seas to these alien shores for a +captivity of unknown term. But I need not have been at so much pains; +the intelligence (I do not wish to boast) of an American author would +have sufficed; for if there is anything more grotesque than another in +war it is its monstrous inconsequence. If we had a grief with the +Spanish government, and if it was so mortal we must do murder for it, we +might have sent a joint committee of the House and Senate, and, with the +improved means of assassination which modern science has put at our +command, killed off the Spanish cabinet, and even the queen--mother and +the little king. This would have been consequent, logical, and in a sort +reasonable; but to butcher and capture a lot of wretched Spanish peasants +and fishermen, hapless conscripts to whom personally and nationally we +were as so many men in the moon, was that melancholy and humiliating +necessity of war which makes it homicide in which there is not even the +saving grace of hate, or the excuse of hot blood. + +I was able to console myself perhaps a little better for the captivity of +the Spaniards than if I had really been one of them, as we drew nearer +and nearer their prison isle, and it opened its knotty points and little +ravines, overrun with sweet-fern, blueberry -bushes, bay, and low +blackberry-vines, and rigidly traversed with a high stockade of yellow +pine boards. Six or eight long, low, wooden barracks stretched side by +side across the general slope, with the captive officers' quarters, +sheathed in weather-proof black paper, at one end of them. About their +doors swarmed the common prisoners, spilling out over the steps and on +the grass, where some of them lounged smoking. One operatic figure in a +long blanket stalked athwart an open space; but there was such poverty of +drama in the spectacle at the distance we were keeping that we were glad +of so much as a shirt-sleeved contractor driving out of the stockade in +his buggy. On the heights overlooking the enclosure Gatling guns were +posted at three or four points, and every thirty or forty feet sentries +met and parted, so indifferent to us, apparently, that we wondered if we +might get nearer. We ventured, but at a certain moment a sentry called to +us, "Fifty yards off, please!" Our young skipper answered, "All right," +and as the sentry had a gun on his shoulder which we had every reason to +believe was loaded, it was easily our pleasure to retreat to the +specified limit. In fact, we came away altogether, after that, so little +promise was there of our being able to satisfy our curiosity further. +We came away care fully nursing such impression as we had got of a spec +tacle whose historical quality we did our poor best to feel. It related +us, after solicitation, to the wars against the Moors, against the +Mexicans and Peruvians, against the Dutch; to the Italian campaigns of +the Gran Capitan, to the Siege of Florence, to the Sack of Rome, to the +wars of the Spanish Succession, and ` what others. I do not deny that +there was a certain aesthetic joy in having the Spanish prisoners there +for this effect; we came away duly grateful for what we had seen of them; +and we had long duly resigned ourselves to seeing no more, when word was +sent to us that our young skipper had got a permit to visit the island, +and wished us to go with him. + + + + +II. + +It was just such another afternoon when we went again, but this time we +took the joyous trolley-car, and bounded and pirouetted along as far as +the navyyard of Kittery, and there we dismounted and walked among the +vast, ghostly ship-sheds, so long empty of ships. The grass grew in the +Kittery navy-yard, but it was all the pleasanter for the grass, and those +pale, silent sheds were far more impressive in their silence than they +would have been if resonant with saw and hammer. At several points, an +unarmed marine left his leisure somewhere, and lunged across our path +with a mute appeal for our permit; but we were nowhere delayed till we +came to the office where it had to be countersigned, and after that we +had presently crossed a bridge, by shady, rustic ways, and were on the +prison island. Here, if possible, the sense of something pastoral +deepened; a man driving a file of cows passed before us under kindly +trees, and the bell which the foremost of these milky mothers wore about +her silken throat sent forth its clear, tender note as if from the depth +of some grassy bosk, and instantly witched me away to the woods-pastures +which my boyhood knew in southern Ohio. Even when we got to what seemed +fortifications they turned out to be the walls of an old reservoir, and +bore on their gate a paternal warning that children unaccompanied by +adults were not allowed within. + +We mounted some stone steps over this portal and were met by a young +marine, who left his Gatling gun for a moment to ask for our permit, and +then went back satisfied. Then we found ourselves in the presence of a +sentry with a rifle on his shoulder, who was rather more exacting. +Still, he only wished to be convinced, and when he had pointed out the +headquarters where we were next to go, he let us over his beat. At the +headquarters there was another sentry, equally serious, but equally +civil, and with the intervention of an orderly our leader saw the officer +of the day. He came out of the quarters looking rather blank, for he had +learned that his pass admitted our party to the lines, but not to the +stockade, which we might approach, at a certain point of vantage and look +over into, but not penetrate. We resigned ourselves, as we must, and +made what we could of the nearest prison barrack, whose door overflowed +and whose windows swarmed with swarthy captives. Here they were, at such +close quarters that their black, eager eyes easily pierced the pockets +full of cigarettes which we had brought for them. They looked mostly +very young, and there was one smiling rogue at the first window who was +obviously prepared to catch anything thrown to him. He caught, in fact, +the first box of cigarettes shied over the stockade; the next box flew +open, and spilled its precious contents outside the dead-line under the +window, where I hope some compassionate guard gathered them up and gave +them to the captives. + +Our fellows looked capable of any kindness to their wards short of +letting them go. They were a most friendly company, with an effect of +picnicking there among the sweet-fern and blueberries, where they had +pitched their wooden tents with as little disturbance to the shrubbery as +possible. They were very polite to us, and when, after that misadventure +with the cigarettes (I had put our young leader up to throwing the box, +merely supplying the corpus delicti myself), I wandered vaguely towards a +Gatling gun planted on an earthen platform where the laurel and the +dogroses had been cut away for it, the man in charge explained with a +smile of apology that I must not pass a certain path I had already +crossed. + +One always accepts the apologies of a man with a Gatling gun to back +them, and I retreated. That seemed the end; and we were going +crestfallenly away when the officer of the day came out and allowed us to +make his acquaintance. He permitted us, with laughing reluctance, to +learn that he had been in the fight at Santiago, and had come with the +prisoners, and he was most obligingly sorry that our permit did not let +us into the stockade. I said I had some cigarettes for the prisoners, +and I supposed I might send them; in, but he said he could not allow +this, for they had money to buy tobacco; and he answered another of our +party, who had not a soul above buttons, and who asked if she could get +one from the Spaniards, that so far from promoting her wish, he would +have been obliged to take away any buttons she might have got from them. + +"The fact is," he explained, "you've come to the wrong end for +transactions in buttons and tobacco." + +But perhaps innocence so great as ours had wrought upon him. When we +said we were going, and thanked him for his unavailing good-will, he +looked at his watch and said they were just going to feed the prisoners; +and after some parley he suddenly called out, "Music of the guard!" +Instead of a regimental band, which I had supposed summoned, a single +corporal ran out the barracks, touching his cap. + +"Take this party round to the gate," the officer said, and he promised us +that he would see us there, and hoped we would not mind a rough walk. We +could have answered that to see his prisoners fed we would wade through +fathoms of red-tape; but in fact we were arrested at the last point by +nothing worse than the barbed wire which fortified the outer gate. Here +two marines were willing to tell us how well the prisoners lived, while +we stared into the stockade through an inner gate of plank which was run +back for us. They said the Spaniards had a breakfast of coffee, and hash +or stew and potatoes, and a dinner of soup and roast; and now at five +o'clock they were to have bread and coffee, which indeed we saw the +white-capped, whitejacketed cooks bringing out in huge tin wash-boilers. +Our marines were of opinion, and no doubt rightly, that these poor +Spaniards had never known in their lives before what it was to have full +stomachs. But the marines said they never acknowledged it, and the one +who had a German accent intimated that gratitude was not a virtue of any +Roman (I suppose he meant Latin) people. But I do not know that if I +were a prisoner, for no fault of my own, I should be very explicitly +thankful for being unusually well fed. I thought (or I think now) that a +fig or a bunch of grapes would have been more acceptable to me under my +own vine and fig-tree than the stew and roast of captors who were indeed +showing themselves less my enemies than my own government, but were still +not quite my hosts. + + + + +III. + +How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us? The clock strikes +twelve as it strikes two, and with no more premonition. As we stood +there expecting nothing better of it than three at the most, it suddenly +struck twelve. Our officer appeared at the inner gate and bade our +marines slide away the gate of barbed wire and let us into the enclosure, +where he welcomed us to seats on the grass against the stockade, with +many polite regrets that the tough little knots of earth beside it were +not chairs. + +The prisoners were already filing out of their quarters, at a rapid trot +towards the benches where those great wash-boilers of coffee were set. +Each man had a soup-plate and bowl of enamelled tin, and each in his turn +received quarter of a loaf of fresh bread and a big ladleful of steaming +coffee, which he made off with to his place at one of the long tables +under a shed at the side of the stockade. One young fellow tried to get +a place not his own in the shade, and our officer when he came back +explained that he was a guerrillero, and rather unruly. We heard that +eight of the prisoners were in irons, by sentence of their own officers, +for misconduct, but all save this guerrillero here were docile and +obedient enough, and seemed only too glad to get peacefully at their +bread and coffee. + +First among them came the men of the Cristobal Colon, and these were the +best looking of all the captives. From their pretty fair average the +others varied to worse and worse, till a very scrub lot, said to be ex- +convicts, brought up the rear. They were nearly all little fellows, and +very dark, though here and there a six-footer towered up, or a blond +showed among them. They were joking and laughing together, harmlessly +enough, but I must own that they looked a crew of rather sorry jail- +birds; though whether any run of humanity clad in misfits of our navy +blue and white, and other chance garments, with close-shaven heads, and +sometimes bare feet, would have looked much less like jail-birds I am not +sure. Still, they were not prepossessing, and though some of them were +pathetically young, they had none of the charm of boyhood. No doubt they +did not do themselves justice, and to be herded there like cattle did not +improve their chances of making a favorable impression on the observer. +They were kindly used by our officer and his subordinates, who mixed +among them, and straightened out the confusion they got into at times, +and perhaps sometimes wilfully. Their guards employed a few handy words +of Spanish with them; where these did not avail, they took them by the +arm and directed them; but I did not hear a harsh tone, and I saw no +violence, or even so much indignity offered them as the ordinary trolley- +car passenger is subjected to in Broadway. At a certain bugle-call they +dispersed, when they had finished their bread and coffee, and scattered +about over the grass, or returned to their barracks. We were told that +these children of the sun dreaded its heat, and kept out of it whenever +they could, even in its decline; but they seemed not so much to withdraw +and hide themselves from that, as to vanish into the history of "old, +unhappy, far-off" times, where prisoners of war, properly belong. I +roused myself with a start as if I had lost them in the past. + +Our officer came towards us and said gayly, "Well, you have seen the +animals fed," and let us take our grateful leave. I think we were rather +a loss, in our going, to the marines, who seemed glad of a chance to +talk. I am sure we were a loss to the man on guard at the inner gate, +who walked his beat with reluctance when it took him from us, and eagerly +when it brought him back. Then he delayed for a rapid and comprehensive +exchange of opinions and ideas, successfully blending military +subordination with American equality in his manner. + +The whole thing was very American in the perfect decorum and the utter +absence of ceremony. Those good fellows were in the clothes they wore +through the fights at Santiago, and they could not have put on much +splendor if they had wished, but apparently they did not wish. They were +simple, straightforward, and adequate. There was some dry joking about +the superiority of the prisoners' rations and lodgings, and our officer +ironically professed his intention of messing with the Spanish officers. +But there was no grudge, and not a shadow of ill will, or of that stupid +and atrocious hate towards the public enemy which abominable newspapers +and politicians had tried to breed in the popular mind. There was +nothing manifest but a sort of cheerful purpose to live up to that +military ideal of duty which is so much nobler than the civil ideal of +self-interest. Perhaps duty will yet become the civil ideal, when the +peoples shall have learned to live for the common good, and are united +for the operation of the industries as they now are for the hostilities. + + + + +IV. + +Shall I say that a sense of something domestic, something homelike, +imparted itself from what I had seen? Or was this more properly an +effect from our visit, on the way back to the hospital, where a hundred +and fifty of the prisoners lay sick of wounds and fevers? I cannot say +that a humaner spirit prevailed here than in the camp; it was only a more +positive humanity which was at work. Most of the sufferers were +stretched on the clean cots of two long, airy, wooden shells, which +received them, four days after the orders for their reception had come, +with every equipment for their comfort. At five o'clock, when we passed +down the aisles between their beds, many of them had a gay, nonchalant +effect of having toothpicks or cigarettes in their mouths; but it was +really the thermometers with which the nurses were taking their +temperature. It suggested a possibility to me, however, and I asked if +they were allowed to smoke, and being answered that they did smoke, +anyway, whenever they could, I got rid at last of those boxes of +cigarettes which had been burning my pockets, as it were, all afternoon. +I gave them to such as I was told were the most deserving among the sick +captives, but Heaven knows I would as willingly have given them to the +least. They took my largesse gravely, as became Spaniards; one said, +smiling sadly, "Muchas gracias," but the others merely smiled sadly; and +I looked in vain for the response which would have twinkled up in the +faces of even moribund Italians at our looks of pity. Italians would +have met our sympathy halfway; but these poor fellows were of another +tradition, and in fact not all the Latin peoples are the same, though we +sometimes conveniently group them together for our detestation. Perhaps +there are even personal distinctions among their several nationalities, +and there are some Spaniards who are as true and kind as some Americans. +When we remember Cortez let us not forget Las Casas. + +They lay in their beds there, these little Spanish men, whose dark faces +their sickness could not blanch to more than a sickly sallow, and as they +turned their dull black eyes upon us I must own that I could not "support +the government" so fiercely as I might have done elsewhere. But the +truth is, I was demoralized by the looks of these poor little men, who, +in spite of their character of public enemies, did look so much like +somebody's brothers, and even somebody's children. I may have been +infected by the air of compassion, of scientific compassion, which +prevailed in the place. There it was as wholly business to be kind and +to cure as in another branch of the service it was business to be cruel +and to kill. How droll these things are! The surgeons had their +favorites among the patients, to all of whom they were equally devoted; +inarticulate friendships had sprung up between them and certain of their +hapless foes, whom they spoke of as "a sort of pets." One of these was +very useful in making the mutinous take their medicine; another was liked +apparently because he was so likable. At a certain cot the chief surgeon +stopped and said, "We did not expect this boy to live through the night." +He took the boy's wrist between his thumb and finger, and asked tenderly +as he leaned over him, "Poco mejor?" The boy could not speak to say that +he was a little better; he tried to smile--such things do move the +witness; nor does the sight of a man whose bandaged cheek has been half +chopped away by a machete tend to restore one's composure. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Spanish Prisoners of War, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--American Literary Centers + +by William Dean Howells + + +AMERICAN LITERARY CENTRES + + +One of the facts which we Americans have a difficulty in making clear to +a rather inattentive world outside is that, while we have apparently a +literature of our own, we have no literary centre. We have so much +literature that from time to time it seems even to us we must have a +literary centre. We say to ourselves, with a good deal of logic, Where +there is so much smoke there must be some fire, or at least a fireplace. +But it is just here that, misled by tradition, and even by history, we +deceive ourselves. Really, we have no fireplace for such fire as we have +kindled; or, if any one is disposed to deny this, then I say, we have a +dozen fireplaces; which is quite as bad, so far as the notion of a +literary centre is concerned, if it is not worse. + +I once proved this fact to my own satisfaction in some papers which I +wrote several years ago; but it appears, from a question which has lately +come to me from England, that I did not carry conviction quite so far as +that island; and I still have my work all before me, if I understand the +London friend who wishes "a comparative view of the centres of literary +production" among us; "how and why they change; how they stand at +present; and what is the relation, for instance, of Boston to other such +centres." + + + + +I. + +Here, if I cut my coat according to my cloth, t should have a garment +which this whole volume would hardly stuff out with its form; and I have +a fancy that if I begin by answering, as I have sometimes rather too +succinctly done, that we have no more a single literary centre than Italy +or than Germany has (or had before their unification), I shall not be +taken at my word. I shall be right, all the same, and if I am told that +in those countries there is now a tendency to such a centre, I can only +say that there is none in this, and that, so far as I can see, we get +further every day from having such a centre. The fault, if it is a +fault, grows upon us, for the whole present tendency of American life is +centrifugal, and just so far as literature is the language of our life, +it shares this tendency. I do not attempt to say how it will be when, in +order to spread ourselves over the earth, and convincingly to preach the +blessings of our deeply incorporated civilization by the mouths of our +eight-inch guns, the mind of the nation shall be politically centred at +some capital; that is the function of prophecy, and I am only writing +literary history, on a very small scale, with a somewhat crushing sense +of limits. + +Once, twice, thrice there was apparently an American literary centre: at +Philadelphia, from the time Franklin went to live there until the death +of Charles Brockden Brown, our first romancer; then at New York, during +the period which may be roughly described as that of Irving, Poe, Willis, +and Bryant; then at Boston, for the thirty or forty years illumined by +the presence of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Hawthorne, Emerson, Holmes, +Prescott, Parkman, and many lesser lights. These are all still great +publishing centres. If it were not that the house with the largest list +of American authors was still at Boston, I should say New York was now +the chief publishing centre; but in the sense that London and Paris, or +even Madrid and Petersburg, are literary centres, with a controlling +influence throughout England and France, Spain and Russia, neither New +York nor Boston is now our literary centre, whatever they may once have +been. Not to take Philadelphia too seriously, I may note that when New +York seemed our literary centre Irving alone among those who gave it +lustre was a New-Yorker, and he mainly lived abroad; Bryant, who was a +New Englander, was alone constant to the city of his adoption; Willis, a +Bostonian, and Poe, a Marylander, went and came as their poverty or their +prosperity compelled or invited; neither dwelt here unbrokenly, and Poe +did not even die here, though he often came near starving. One cannot +then strictly speak of any early American literary centre except Boston, +and Boston, strictly speaking, was the New England literary centre. + +However, we had really no use for an American literary centre before the +Civil War, for it was only after the Civil War that we really began to +have an American literature. Up to that time we had a Colonial +literature, a Knickerbocker literature, and a New England literature. +But as soon as the country began to feel its life in every limb with the +coming of peace, it began to speak in the varying accents of all the +different sections--North, East, South, West, and Farthest West; but not +before that time. + + + + +II. + +Perhaps the first note of this national concord, or discord, was sounded +from California, in the voices of Mr. Bret Harte, of Mark Twain, of Mr. +Charles Warren Stoddard (I am sorry for those who do not know his +beautiful Idyls of the South Seas), and others of the remarkable group of +poets and humorists whom these names must stand for. The San Francisco +school briefly flourished from 1867 till 1872 or so, and while it endured +it made San Francisco the first national literary centre we ever had, for +its writers were of every American origin except Californian. + +After the Pacific Slope, the great Middle West found utterance in the +dialect verse of Mr. John Hay, and after that began the exploitation of +all the local parlances, which has sometimes seemed to stop, and then has +begun again. It went on in the South in the fables of Mr. Joel Chandler +Harris's Uncle Remus, and in the fiction of Miss Murfree, who so long +masqueraded as Charles Egbert Craddock. Louisiana found expression in +the Creole stories of Mr. G. W. Cable, Indiana in the Hoosier poems of +Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, and central New York in the novels of Mr. +Harold Frederic; but nowhere was the new impulse so firmly and finely +directed as in New England, where Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's studies of +country life antedated Miss Mary Wilkins's work. To be sure, the +portrayal of Yankee character began before either of these artists was +known; Lowell's Bigelow Papers first reflected it; Mrs. Stowe's Old Town +Stories caught it again and again; Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, in her +unromantic moods, was of an excellent fidelity to it; and Mrs. Rose Terry +Cooke was even truer to the New England of Connecticut. With the later +group Mrs. Lily Chase Wyman has pictured Rhode Island work-life with +truth pitiless to the beholder, and full of that tender humanity for the +material which characterizes Russian fiction. + +Mr. James Lane Allen has let in the light upon Kentucky; the Red Men and +White of the great plains have found their interpreter in Mr. Owen +Wister, a young Philadelphian witness of their dramatic conditions and +characteristics; Mr. Hamlin Garlafid had already expressed the sad +circumstances of the rural Northwest in his pathetic idyls, colored from +the experience of one who had been part of what he saw. Later came Mr. +Henry B. Fuller, and gave us what was hardest and most sordid, as well as +something of what was most touching and most amusing, in the burly-burly +of Chicago. + + + + +III. + +A survey of this sort imparts no just sense of the facts, and I own that +I am impatient of merely naming authors and books that each tempt me to +an expansion far beyond the limits of this essay; for, if I may be so +personal, I have watched the growth of our literature in Americanism with +intense sympathy. In my poor way I have always liked the truth, and in +times past I am afraid that I have helped to make it odious to those who +believed beauty was something different; but I hope that I shall not now +be doing our decentralized literature a disservice by saying that its +chief value is its honesty, its fidelity to our decentralized life. +Sometimes I wish this were a little more constant; but upon the whole I +have no reason to complain; and I think that as a very interested +spectator of New York I have reason to be content with the veracity with +which some phases of it have been rendered. The lightning-or the flash- +light, to speak more accurately--has been rather late in striking this +ungainly metropolis, but it has already got in its work with notable +effect at some points. This began, I believe, with the local dramas of +Mr. Edward Harrigan, a species of farces, or sketches of character, +loosely hung together, with little sequence or relevancy, upon the thread +of a plot which would keep the stage for two or three hours. It was very +rough magic, as a whole, but in parts it was exquisite, and it held the +mirror up towards politics on their social and political side, and gave +us East-Side types--Irish, German, negro, and Italian--which were +instantly recognizable and deliciously satisfying. I never could +understand why Mr. Harrigan did not go further, but perhaps he had gone +far enough; and, at any rate, he left the field open for others. The +next to appear noticeably in it was Mr. Stephen Crane, whose Red Badge of +Courage wronged the finer art which he showed in such New York studies as +Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, and George's Mother. He has been followed +by Abraham Cahan, a Russian Hebrew, who has done portraits of his race +and nation with uncommon power. They are the very Russian Hebrews of +Hester Street translated from their native Yiddish into English, which +the author mastered after coming here in his early manhood. He brought +to his work the artistic qualities of both the Slav and the Jew, and in +his 'Jekl: A Story of the Ghetto', he gave proof of talent which his more +recent book of sketches--'The Imported Bride groom'--confirms. He sees +his people humorously, and he is as unsparing of their sordidness as he +is compassionate of their hard circumstance and the somewhat frowsy +pathos of their lives. He is a Socialist, but his fiction is wholly +without "tendentiousness." + +A good many years ago--ten or twelve, at least--Mr. Harry Harland had +shown us some politer New York Jews, with a romantic coloring, though +with genuine feeling for the novelty and picturesqueness of his material; +but I do not think of any one who has adequately dealt with our Gentile +society. Mr. James has treated it historically in Washington Square, and +more modernly in some passages of The Bostonians, as well as in some of +his shorter stories; Mr. Edgar Fawcett has dealt with it intelligently +and authoritatively in a novel or two; and Mr. Brander Matthews has +sketched it, in this aspect, and that with his Gallic cleverness, +neatness, and point. In the novel, 'His Father's Son', he in fact faces +it squarely and renders certain forms of it with masterly skill. He has +done something more distinctive still in 'The Action and the Word', one +of the best American stories I know. But except for these writers, our +literature has hardly taken to New York society. + + + + +IV. + +It is an even thing: New York society has not taken to our literature. +New York publishes it, criticises it, and circulates it, but I doubt if +New York society much reads it or cares for it, and New York is therefore +by no means the literary centre that Boston once was, though a large +number of our literary men live in or about New York. Boston, in my time +at least, had distinctly a literary atmosphere, which more or less +pervaded society; but New York has distinctly nothing of the kind, in any +pervasive sense. It is a vast mart, and literature is one of the things +marketed here; but our good society cares no more for it than for some +other products bought and sold here; it does not care nearly so much for +books as for horses or for stocks, and I suppose it is not unlike the +good society of any other metropolis in this. To the general, here, +journalism is a far more appreciable thing than literature, and has +greater recognition, for some very good reasons; but in Boston literature +had vastly more honor, and even more popular recognition, than +journalism. There journalism desired to be literary, and here literature +has to try hard not to be journalistic. If New York is a literary centre +on the business side, as London is, Boston was a literary centre, as +Weimar was, and as Edinburgh was. It felt literature, as those capitals +felt it, and if it did not love it quite so much as might seem, it always +respected it. + +To be quite clear in what I wish to say of the present relation of Boston +to our other literary centres, I must repeat that we have now no such +literary centre as Boston was. Boston itself has perhaps outgrown the +literary consciousness which formerly distinguished it from all our other +large towns. In a place of nearly a million people (I count in the +outlying places) newspapers must be more than books; and that alone says +everything. + +Mr. Aldrich once noticed that whenever an author died in Boston, the New- +Yorkers thought they had a literary centre; and it is by some such means +that the primacy has passed from Boston, even if it has not passed to New +York. But still there is enough literature left in the body at Boston to +keep her first among equals in some things, if not easily first in all. + +Mr. Aldrich himself lives in Boston, and he is, with Mr. Stedman, the +foremost of our poets. At Cambridge live Colonel T. W. Higginson, an +essayist in a certain sort without rival among us; and Mr. William James, +the most interesting and the most literary of psychologists, whose repute +is European as well as American. Mr. Charles Eliot Norton alone survives +of the earlier Cambridge group--Longfellow, Lowell, Richard Henry Dana, +Louis Agassiz, Francis J. Child, and Henry James, the father of the +novelist and the psychologist. + +To Boston Mr. James Ford Rhodes, the latest of our abler historians, has +gone from Ohio; and there Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, the Massachusetts +Senator, whose work in literature is making itself more and more known, +was born and belongs, politically, socially, and intellectually. Mrs. +Julia Ward Howe, a poet of wide fame in an elder generation, lives there; +Mr. T. B. Aldrich lives there; and thereabouts live Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart +Phelps Ward and Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, the first of a fame +beyond the last, who was known to us so long before her. Then at Boston, +or near Boston, live those artists supreme in the kind of short story +which we have carried so far: Miss Jewett, Miss Wilkins, Miss Alice +Brown, Mrs. Chase-Wyman, and Miss Gertrude Smith, who comes from Kansas, +and writes of the prairie farm-life, though she leaves Mr. E. W. Howe +(of 'The Story of a Country Town' and presently of the Atchison Daily +Globe) to constitute, with the humorous poet Ironquill, a frontier +literary centre at Topeka. Of Boston, too, though she is of western +Pennsylvania origin, is Mrs. Margaret Deland, one of our most successful +novelists. Miss Wilkins has married out of Massachusetts into New +Jersey, and is the neighbor of Mr. H. M. Alden at Metuchen. + +All these are more or less embodied and represented in the Atlantic +Monthly, still the most literary, and in many things still the first of +our magazines. Finally, after the chief publishing house in New York, +the greatest American publishing house is in Boston, with by far the +largest list of the best American books. Recently several firms of +younger vigor and valor have recruited the wasted ranks of the Boston +publishers, and are especially to be noted for the number of rather nice +new poets they give to the light. + + + + +V. + +Dealing with the question geographically, in the right American way, we +descend to Hartford obliquely by way of Springfield, Massachusetts, +where, in a little city of fifty thousand, a newspaper of metropolitan +influence and of distinctly literary tone is published. At Hartford +while Charles Dudley Warner lived, there was an indisputable literary +centre; Mark Twain lives there no longer, and now we can scarcely count +Hartford among our literary centres, though it is a publishing centre of +much activity in subscription books. + +At New Haven, Yale University has latterly attracted Mr. William H. +Bishop, whose novels I always liked for the best reasons, and has long +held Professor J. T. Lounsbury, who is, since Professor Child's death at +Cambridge, our best Chaucer scholar. Mr. Donald G. Mitchell, once +endeared to the whole fickle American public by his Reveries of a +Bachelor and his Dream Life, dwells on the borders of the pleasant town, +which is also the home of Mr. J. W. De Forest, the earliest real American +novelist, and for certain gifts in seeing and telling our life also one +of the greatest. + +As to New York (where the imagination may arrive daily from New Haven, +either by a Sound boat or by eight or ten of the swiftest express trains +in the world), I confess I am more and more puzzled. Here abide the +poets, Mr. R. H. Stoddard, Mr. E. C. Stedman, Mr. R. W. Gilder, and many +whom an envious etcetera must hide from view; the fictionists, Mr. R. H. +Davis, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, Mr. Brander Matthews, Mr. Frank +Hopkinson Smith, Mr. Abraham Cahan, Mr. Frank Norris, and Mr. James Lane +Allen, who has left Kentucky to join the large Southern contingent, which +includes Mrs. Burton Harrison and Mrs. McEnery Stuart; the historians, +Professor William M. Sloane and Dr. Eggleston (reformed from a novelist); +the literary and religious and economic essayists, Mr. Hamilton W. +Mabie, Mr. H. M. Alden, Mr. J. J. Chapman, and Mr. E. L. Godkin, with +critics, dramatists, satirists, magazinists, and journalists of literary +stamp in number to convince the wavering reason against itself that here +beyond all question is the great literary centre of these States. There +is an Authors' Club, which alone includes a hundred and fifty authors, +and, if you come to editors, there is simply no end. Magazines are +published here and circulated hence throughout the land by millions; and +books by the ton are the daily output of our publishers, who are the +largest in the country. + +If these things do not mean a great literary centre, it would be hard to +say what does; and I am not going to try for a reason against such facts. +It is not quality that is wanting, but perhaps it is the quantity of the +quality; there is leaven, but not for so large a lump. It may be that +New York is going to be our literary centre, as London is the literary +centre of England, by gathering into itself all our writing talent, but +it has by no means done this yet. What we can say is that more authors +come here from the West and South than go elsewhere; but they often stay +at home, and I fancy very wisely. Mr. Joel Chandler Harris stays at +Atlanta, in Georgia; Mr. James Whitcomb Riley stays at Indianapolis; Mr. +Maurice Thompson spent his whole literary life, and General Lew. Wallace +still lives at Crawfordsville, Indiana; Mr. Madison Cawein stays at +Louisville, Kentucky; Miss Murfree stays at St. Louis, Missouri; Francis +R. Stockton spent the greater part of the year at his place in West +Virginia, and came only for the winter months to New York; Mr. Edward +Bellamy, until his failing health exiled him to the Far West, remained at +Chicopee, Massachusetts; and I cannot think of one of these writers whom +it would have advantaged in any literary wise to dwell in New York. He +would not have found greater incentive than at home; and in society he +would not have found that literary tone which all society had, or wished +to have, in Boston when Boston was a great town and not yet a big town. + +In fact, I doubt if anywhere in the world there was ever so much taste +and feeling for literature as there was in that Boston. At Edinburgh (as +I imagine it) there was a large and distinguished literary class, and at +Weimar there was a cultivated court circle; but in Boston there was not +only such a group of authors as we shall hardly see here again for +hundreds of years, but there was such regard for them and their calling, +not only in good society, but among the extremely well-read people of the +whole intelligent city, as hardly another community has shown. New York, +I am quite sure, never was such a centre, and I see no signs that it ever +will be. It does not influence the literature of the whole country as +Boston once did through writers whom all the young writers wished to +resemble; it does not give the law, and it does not inspire the love that +literary Boston inspired. There is no ideal that it represents. + +A glance at the map of the Union will show how very widely our smaller +literary centres are scattered; and perhaps it will be useful in +following me to other more populous literary centres. Dropping southward +from New York, now, we find ourselves in a literary centre of importance +at Philadelphia, since that is the home of Mr. J. B. McMasters, the +historian of the American people; of Mr. Owen Wister, whose fresh and +vigorous work I have mentioned; and of Dr. Weir Mitchell, a novelist of +power long known to the better public, and now recognized by the larger +in the immense success of his historical romance, Hugh Wynne. + +If I skip Baltimore, I may ignore a literary centre of great promise, but +while I do not forget the excellent work of Johns Hopkins University in +training men for the solider literature of the future, no Baltimore names +to conjure with occur to me at the moment; and we must really get on to +Washington. This, till he became ambassador at the Court of St. James, +was the home of Mr. John Hay, a poet whose biography of Lincoln must rank +him with the historians, and whose public service as Secretary of State +classes him high among statesmen. He blotted out one literary centre at +Cleveland, Ohio, when he removed to Washington, and Mr. Thomas Nelson +Page another at Richmond, Virginia, when he came to the national capital. +Mr. Paul Dunbar, the first negro poet to divine and utter his race, +carried with him the literary centre of Dayton, Ohio, when he came to be +an employee in the Congressional Library; and Mr. Charles Warren +Stoddard, in settling at Washington as Professor of Literature in the +Catholic University, brought somewhat indirectly away with him the last +traces of the old literary centre at San Francisco. + +A more recent literary centre in the Californian metropolis went to +pieces when Mr. Gelett Burgess came to New York and silenced the 'Lark', +a bird of as new and rare a note as ever made itself heard in this air; +but since he has returned to California, there is hope that the literary +centre may form itself there again. I do not know whether Mrs. Charlotte +Perkins Stetson wrecked a literary centre in leaving Los Angeles or not. +I am sure only that she has enriched the literary centre of New York by +the addition of a talent in sociological satire which would be +extraordinary even if it were not altogether unrivalled among us. + +Could one say too much of the literary centre at Chicago? I fancy, yes; +or too much, at least, for the taste of the notable people who constitute +it. In Mr. Henry B. Fuller we have reason to hope, from what he has +already done, an American novelist of such greatness that he may well +leave being the great American novelist to any one who likes taking that +role. Mr. Hamlin Garland is another writer of genuine and original gift +who centres at Chicago; and Mrs. Mary Catherwood has made her name well +known in romantic fiction. Miss Edith Wyatt is a talent, newly known, of +the finest quality in minor fiction; Mr. Robert Herrick, Mr. Will Payne +in their novels, and Mr. George Ade and Mr. Peter Dump in their satires +form with those named a group not to be matched elsewhere in the country. +It would be hard to match among our critical journals the 'Dial' of +Chicago; and with a fair amount of publishing in a sort of books often as +good within as they are uncommonly pretty without, Chicago has a claim to +rank with our first literary centres. + +It is certainly to be reckoned not so very far below London, which, with +Mr. Henry James, Mr. Harry Harland, and Mr. Bret Harte, seems to me an +American literary centre worthy to be named with contemporary Boston. +Which is our chief literary centre, however, I am not, after all, ready +to say. When I remember Mr. G. W. Cable, at Northampton, Massachusetts, +I am shaken in all my preoccupations; when I think of Mark Twain, it +seems to me that our greatest literary centre is just now at Riverdale- +on-the-Hudson. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Leaven, but not for so large a lump. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Mark Twain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Not lack of quality but quantity of the quality . . . . . . . . . . . . +Our deeply incorporated civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of American Literary Centers, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Standard Household-Effect Company + +by William Dean Howells + + +THE STANDARD HOUSEHOLD-EFFECT COMPANY + + +My friend came in the other day, before we had left town, and looked +round at the appointments of the room in their summer shrouds, and said, +with a faint sigh, "I see you have had the eternal-womanly with you, +too." + + + + +I. + +"Isn't the eternal-womanly everywhere? What has happened to you?" +I asked. + +"I wish you would come to my house and see. Every rug has been up for a +month, and we have been living on bare floors. Everything that could be +tied up has been tied up, everything that could be sewed up has been +sewed up. Everything that could be moth-balled and put away in chests +has been moth-balled and put away. Everything that could be taken down +has been taken down. Bags with draw-strings at their necks have been +pulled over the chandeliers and tied. The pictures have been hidden in +cheese-cloth, and the mirrors veiled in gauze so that I cannot see my own +miserable face anywhere." + +"Come! That's something." + +"Yes, it's something. But I have been thinking this matter over very +seriously, and I believe it is going from bad to worse. I have heard +praises of the thorough housekeeping of our grandmothers, but the +housekeeping of their granddaughters is a thousand times more intense." + +"Do you really believe that?" I asked. "And if you do, what of it?" + +"Simply this, that if we don't put a stop to it, at the gait it's going, +it will put a stop to the eternal-womanly." + +"I suppose we should hate that." + +"Yes, it would be bad. It would be very bad; and I have been turning the +matter over in my mind, and studying out a remedy." + +"The highest type of philosopher turns a thing over in his mind and lets +some one else study out a remedy." + +"Yes, I know. I feel that I may be wrong in my processes, but I am sure +that I am right in my results. The reason why our grandmothers could be +such good housekeepers without danger of putting a stop to the eternal- +womanly was that they had so few things to look after in their houses. +Life was indefinitely simpler with them. But the modern improvements, +as we call them, have multiplied the cares of housekeeping without +subtracting its burdens, as they were expected to do. Every novel +convenience and comfort, every article of beauty and luxury, every means +of refinement and enjoyment in our houses, has been so much added to the +burdens of housekeeping, and the granddaughters have inherited from the +grandmothers an undiminished conscience against rust and the moth, which +will not suffer them to forget the least duty they owe to the naughtiest +of their superfluities." + +"Yes, I see what you mean," I said. This is what one usually says when +one does not quite know what another is driving at; but in this case I +really did know, or thought I did. "That survival of the conscience is a +very curious thing, especially in our eternal-womanly. I suppose that +the North American conscience was evolved from the rudimental European +conscience during the first centuries of struggle here, and was more or +less religious and economical in its origin. But with the advance of +wealth and the decay of faith among us, the conscience seems to be simply +conscientious, or, if it is otherwise, it is social. The eternal-womanly +continues along the old lines of housekeeping from an atavistic impulse, +and no one woman can stop because all the other women are going on. It +is something in the air, or something in the blood. Perhaps it is +something in both." + +"Yes," said my friend, quite as I had said already, "I see what you mean. +But I think it is in the air more than in the blood. I was in Paris, +about this time last year, perhaps because I was the only thing in my +house that had not been swathed in cheese-cloth, or tied up in a bag with +drawstrings, or rolled up with moth-balls and put away in chests. At any +rate, I was there. One day I left my wife in New York carefully tagging +three worn-out feather dusters, and putting them into a pillow-case, and +tagging it, and putting the pillow-case into a camphorated self-sealing +paper sack, and tagging it; and another day I was in Paris, dining at the +house of a lady whom I asked how she managed with the things in her house +when she went into the country for the summer. 'Leave them just as they +are,' she said. 'But what about the dust and the moths, and the rust and +the tarnish?' She said, 'Why, the things would have to be all gone over +when I came back in the autumn, anyway, and why should I give myself +double trouble?' I asked her if she didn't even roll anything up and put +it away in closets, and she said: 'Oh, you mean that old American horror +of getting ready to go away. I used to go through all that at home, too, +but I shouldn't dream of it here. In the first place, there are no +closets in the house, and I couldn't put anything away if I wanted to. +And really nothing happens. I scatter some Persian powder along the +edges of things, and under the lower shelves, and in the dim corners, and +I pull down the shades. When I come back in the fall I have the powder +swept out, and the shades pulled up, and begin living again. Suppose a +little dust has got in, and the moths have nibbled a little here and +there? The whole damage would not amount to half the cost of putting +everything away and taking everything out, not to speak of the weeks of +discomfort, and the wear and tear of spirit. No, thank goodness--I left +American housekeeping in America.' I asked her: 'But if you went back?' +and she gave a sigh, and said: + +'I suppose I should go back to that, along with all the rest. Everybody +does it there.' So you see," my friend concluded, "it's in the air, +rather than the blood." + +"Then your famous specific is that our eternal-womanly should go and live +in Paris?" + +"Oh, dear, not" said my friend. "Nothing so drastic as all that. Merely +the extinction of household property." + +"I see what you mean," I said. "But--what do you mean?" + +"Simply that hired houses, such as most of us live in, shall all be +furnished houses, and that the landlord shall own every stick in them, +and every appliance down to the last spoon and ultimate towel. There +must be no compromise, by which the tenant agrees to provide his own +linen and silver; that would neutralize the effect I intend by the +expropriation of the personal proprietor, if that says what I mean. It +must be in the lease, with severe penalties against the tenant in case of +violation, that the landlord into furnish everything in perfect order +when the tenant comes in, and is to put everything in perfect order when +the tenant goes out, and the tenant is not to touch anything, to clean +it, or dust it, or roll it up in moth-balls and put it away in chests. +All is to be so sacredly and inalienably the property of the landlord +that it shall constitute a kind of trespass if the tenant attempts to +close the house for the summer or to open it for the winter in the usual +way that houses are now closed and opened. Otherwise my scheme would be +measurably vitiated." + +"I see what you mean," I murmured. "Well?" + +"Some years ago," my friend went on, "when we came home from Europe, we +left our furniture in storage for a time, while we rather drifted about, +and did not settle anywhere in particular. During that interval my wife +opened and closed five furnished houses in two years." + +"And she has lived to tell the tale?" + +"She has lived to tell it a great many times. She can hardly be kept +from telling it yet. But it is my belief that, although she brought to +the work all the anguish of a quickened conscience, under the influence +of the American conditions she had returned to, she suffered far less in +her encounters with either of those furnished houses than she now does +with our own furniture when she shuts up our house in the summer, and +opens it for the winter. But if there had been a clause in the lease, as +there should have been, forbidding her to put those houses in order when +she left them, life would have been simply a rapture. Why, in Europe +custom almost supplies the place of statute in such cases, and you come +and go so lightly in and out of furnished houses that you do not mind +taking them for a month, or a few weeks. We are very far behind in this +matter, but I have no doubt that if we once came to do it on any extended +scale we should do it, as we do everything else we attempt, more +perfectly than any other people in the world. You see what I mean?" + +"I am not sure that I do. But go on." + +"I would invert the whole Henry George principle, and I would tax +personal property of the household kind so heavily that it would +necessarily pass out of private hands; I would make its tenure so costly +that it would be impossible to any but the very rich, who are also the +very wicked, and ought to suffer." + +"Oh, come, now!" + +"I refer you to your Testament. In the end, all household property would +pass into the hands of the state." + +"Aren't you getting worse and worse?" + +"Oh, I'm not supposing there won't be a long interval when household +property will be in the hands of powerful monopolies, and many +millionaires will be made by letting it out to middle-class tenants like +you and me, along with the houses we hire of them. I have no doubt that +there will be a Standard Household-Effect Company, which will extend its +relations to Europe, and get the household effects of the whole world +into its grasp. It will be a fearful oppression, and we shall probably +groan under it for generations, but it will liberate us from our personal +ownership of them, and from the far more crushing weight of the moth- +ball. We shall suffer, but--" + +"I see what you mean," I hastened to interrupt at this point, "but these +suggestive remarks of yours are getting beyond-- Do you think you could +defer the rest of your incompleted sentence for a week?" + +"Well, for not more than a week," said my friend, with an air of +discomfort in his arrest. + + + + +II. + +--"We shall not suffer so much as we do under our present system," said +my friend, completing his sentence after the interruption of a week. By +this time we had both left town, and were taking up the talk again on the +veranda of a sea-side hotel. "As for the eternal-womanly, it will be her +salvation from herself. When once she is expropriated from her household +effects, and forbidden under severe penalties from meddling with those of +the Standard Household-Effect Company, she will begin to get back her +peace of mind, and be the same blessing she was before she began +housekeeping." + +"That may all very well be," I assented, though I did not believe it, and +I found something almost too fantastical in my friend's scheme. "But +when we are expropriated from all our dearest belongings, what is to +become of our tender and sacred associations with them?" + +"What has become of devotion to the family gods, and the worship of +ancestors? Once the graves of the dead were at the door of the living, +so that libations might be conveniently poured out on them, and the +ground where they lay was inalienable because it was supposed to be used +by their spirits as well as their bodies. A man could not sell the +bones, because he could not sell the ghosts, of his kindred. By-and by, +when religion ceased to be domestic and became social, and the service of +the gods was carried on in temples common to all, it was found that the +tombs of one's forefathers could be sold without violence to their +spectres. I dare say it wouldn't be different in the case of our tender +and sacred associations with tables and chairs, pots and pans, beds and +bedding, pictures and bric-a-brac. We have only to evolve a little +further. In fact we have already evolved far beyond the point that +troubles you. Most people in modern towns and cities have changed their +domiciles from ten to twenty times during their lives, and have not paid +the slightest attention to the tender and sacred associations connected +with them. I don't suppose you would say that a man has no such +associations with the house that has sheltered him, while he has them +with the stuff that has furnished it?" + +"No, I shouldn't say that." + +"If anything, the house should be dearer than the household gear. Yet at +each remove we drag a lengthening chain of tables, chairs, side-boards, +portraits, landscapes, bedsteads, washstands, stoves, kitchen utensils, +and bric-a-brac after us, because, as my wife says, we cannot bear to +part with them. At several times in our own lives we have accumulated +stuff enough to furnish two or three house and have paid a pretty stiff +house-rent in the form of storage for the overflow. Why, I am doing that +very thing now! Aren't you?" + +"I am--in a certain degree," I assented. + +"We all are, we well-to-do people, as we think ourselves. Once my wife +and I revolted by a common impulse against the ridiculous waste and +slavery of the thing. We went to the storage warehouse and sent three or +four vanloads of the rubbish to the auctioneer. Some of the pieces we +had not seen for years, and as each was hauled out for us to inspect and +decide upon, we condemned it to the auction-block with shouts of +rejoicing. Tender and sacred associations! We hadn't had such light +hearts since we had put everything in storage and gone to Europe +indefinitely as we had when we left those things to be carted out of our +lives forever. Not one had been a pleasure to us; the sight of every one +had been a pang. All we wanted was never to set eyes on them again." + +"I must say you have disposed of the tender and sacred associations +pretty effectually, so far as they relate to things in storage. But the +things that we have in daily use?" + +"It is exactly the same with them. Why should they be more to us than +the floors and walls of the houses we move in and move out of with no +particular pathos? And I think we ought not to care for them, certainly +not to the point of letting them destroy our eternal-womanly with the +anxiety she feels for them. She is really much more precious, if she +could but realize it, than anything she swathes in cheese-cloth or wraps +up with moth-balls. The proof of the fact that the whole thing is a +piece of mere sentimentality is that we may live in a furnished house for +years, amid all the accidents of birth and death, joy and sorrow, and yet +not form the slightest attachment to the furniture. Why should we have +tender and sacred associations with a thing we have bought, and not with +a thing we have hired?" + +"I confess, I don't know. And do you really think we could liberate +ourselves from our belongings if they didn't belong to us? Wouldn't the +eternal-womanly still keep putting them away for summer and taking them +out for winter?" + +"At first, yes, there might be some such mechanical action in her; but it +would be purely mechanical, and it would soon cease. When the Standard +Household-Effect Company came down on the temporal-manly with a penalty +for violation of the lease, the eternal-womanly would see the folly of +her ways and stop; for the eternal-womanly is essentially economical, +whatever we say about the dressmaker's bills; and the very futilities of +putting away and taking out, that she now wears herself to a thread with, +are founded in the instinct of saving." + +"But," I asked, "wouldn't our household belongings lose a good deal of +character if they didn't belong to us? Wouldn't our domestic interiors +become dreadfully impersonal?" + +"How many houses now have character-personality? Most people let the +different dealers choose for them, as it is. Why not let the Standard +Household-Effect Company, and finally the state? I am sure that either +would choose much more wisely than people choose for themselves, in the +few cases where they even seem to choose for themselves. In most +interiors the appointments are without fitness, taste, or sense; they are +the mere accretions of accident in the greater number of cases; where +they are the result of design, they are worse. I see what you mean by +character and personality in them. You mean the sort of madness that let +itself loose a few years ago in what was called household art, and has +since gone to make the junk-shops hideous. Each of the eternal-womanly +was supposed suddenly to have acquired a talent for decoration and a gift +for the selection and arrangement of furniture, and each began to stamp +herself upon our interiors. One painted a high-shouldered stone bottle +with a stork and stood it at the right corner of the mantel on a scarf; +another gilded the bottle and stood it at the left corner, and tied the +scarf through its handle. One knotted a ribbon around the arm of a +chair; another knotted it around the leg. In a day, an hour, a moment, +the chairs suddenly became angular, cushionless, springless; and the +sofas were stood across corners, or parallel with the fireplace, in +slants expressive of the personality of the presiding genius. The walls +became all frieze and dado; and instead of the simple and dignified +ugliness of the impersonal period our interiors abandoned themselves to a +hysterical chaos, full of character. Some people had their doors painted +black, and the daughter or mother of the house then decorated them with +morning-glories. I saw such a door in a house I looked at the other day, +thinking I might hire it. The sight of that black door and its morning- +glories made me wish to turn aside and live with the cattle, as Walt +Whitman says. No, the less we try to get personality and character into +our household effects the more beautiful and interesting they will be. +As soon as we put the Standard Household-Effect Company in possession and +render it a relentless monopoly, it will corrupt a competent architect +and decorator in each of our large towns and cities, and when you hire a +new house these will be sent to advise with the eternal-womanly +concerning its appointments, and tell her what she wants, and what she +will like; for at present the eternal womanly, as soon as she has got a +thing she wants, begins to hate it. The company's agents will begin by +convincing her that she does not need half the things she has lumbered up +her house with, and that every useless thing is an ugly thing, even in +the region of pure aesthetics. I once asked an Italian painter if he did +not think a certain nobly imagined drawing-room was fine, and he said +'SI. Ma troppa roba.' There were too many rugs, tables, chairs, sofas, +pictures; vases, statues, chandeliers. 'Troppa roba' is the vice of all +our household furnishing, and it will be the death of the eternal-womanly +if it is not stopped. But the corrupt agents of a giant monopoly will +teach the eternal-womanly something of the wise simplicity of the South, +and she will end by returning to the ideal of housekeeping as it prevails +among the Latin races, whom it began with, whom civilization began with. +What of a harmless, necessary moth or two, or even a few fleas?" + +"That might be all very well as far as furniture and carpets and curtains +are concerned," I said, "but surely you wouldn't apply it to pictures and +objects of art?" + +"I would apply it to them first of all and above all," rejoined my +friend, hardily. "Among all the people who buy and own such things there +is not one in a thousand who has any real taste or feeling for them, and +the objects they choose are generally such as can only deprave and +degrade them further. The pictures, statues, and vases supplied by the +Standard Household-Effect Company would be selected by agents with a real +sense of art, and a knowledge of it. When the house-letting and house- +furnishing finally passed into the hands of the state, these things would +be lent from the public galleries, or from immense municipal stores for +the purpose." + +"And I suppose you would have ancestral portraits supplied along with the +other pictures?" I sneered. + +"Ancestral portraits, of course," said my friend, with unruffled temper. +"So few people have ancestors of their own that they will be very glad to +have ancestral portraits chosen for them out of the collections of the +company or the state. The agents of the one, or the officers of the +other, will study the existing type of family face, and will select +ancestors and ancestresses whose modelling, coloring, and expression +agree with it, and will keep in view the race and nationality of the +family whose ancestral portraits are to be supplied, so that there shall +be no chance of the grossly improbable effect which ancestral portraits +now have in many cases. Yes, I see no flaw in the scheme," my friend +concluded, "and no difficulty that can't be easily overcome. We must +alienate our household furniture, and make it so sensitively and +exclusively the property of some impersonal agency--company or community, +I don't care which--that any care of it shall be a sort of crime; any +sense of responsibility for its preservation a species of incivism +punishable by fine or imprisonment. This, and nothing short of it, will +be the salvation of the eternal-womanly." + +"And the perdition of something even more precious than that!" + +"What can be more precious?" + +"Individuality." + +"My dear friend," demanded my visitor, who had risen, and whom I was +gradually edging to the door, "do you mean to say there is any +individuality in such things now? What have we been saying about +character?" + +"Ah, I see what you mean," I said. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARK: + +As soon as she has got a thing she wants, begins to hate it. . . . . . . + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Standard Household Effect Co., +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer + +by William Dean Howells + + +STACCATO NOTES OF A VANISHED SUMMER + + +Monday afternoon the storm which had been beating up against the +southeasterly wind nearly all day thickened, fold upon fold, in the +northwest. The gale increased, and blackened the harbor and whitened the +open sea beyond, where sail after sail appeared round the reef of +Whaleback Light, and ran in a wild scamper for the safe anchorages +within. + +Since noon cautious coasters of all sorts had been dropping in with a +casual air; the coal schooners and barges had rocked and nodded knowingly +to one another, with their taper and truncated masts, on the breast of +the invisible swell; and the flock of little yachts and pleasure-boats +which always fleck the bay huddled together in the safe waters. The +craft that came scurrying in just before nightfall were mackerel seiners +from Gloucester. They were all of one graceful shape and one size; they +came with all sail set, taking the waning light like sunshine on their +flying-jibs, and trailing each two dories behind them, with their seines +piled in black heaps between the thwarts. As soon as they came inside +their jibs weakened and fell, and the anchor-chains rattled from their +bows. Before the dark hid them we could have counted sixty or seventy +ships in the harbor, and as the night fell they improvised a little +Venice under the hill with their lights, which twinkled rhythmically, +like the lamps in the basin of St. Mark, between the Maine and New +Hampshire coasts. + +There was a dash of rain, and we thought the storm had begun; but that +ended it, as so many times this summer a dash of rain has ended a storm. +The morning came veiled in a fog that kept the shipping at anchor through +the day; but the next night the weather cleared. We woke to the clucking +of tackle, and saw the whole fleet standing dreamily out to sea. When +they were fairly gone, the summer, which had held aloof in dismay of the +sudden cold, seemed to return and possess the land again; and the +succession of silver days and crystal nights resumed the tranquil round +which we thought had ceased. + + + + +I. + +One says of every summer, when it is drawing near its end, "There never +was such a summer"; but if the summer is one of those which slip from the +feeble hold of elderly hands, when the days of the years may be reckoned +with the scientific logic of the insurance tables and the sad conviction +of the psalmist, one sees it go with a passionate prescience of never +seeing its like again such as the younger witness cannot know. Each new +summer of the few left must be shorter and swifter than the last: its +Junes will be thirty days long, and its Julys and Augusts thirty-one, in +compliance with the almanac; but the days will be of so small a compass +that fourteen of them will rattle round in a week of the old size like +shrivelled peas in a pod. + +To be sure they swell somewhat in the retrospect, like the same peas put +to soak; and I am aware now of some June days of those which we first +spent at Kittery Point this year, which were nearly twenty-four hours +long. Even the days of declining years linger a little here, where there +is nothing to hurry them, and where it is pleasant to loiter, and muse +beside the sea and shore, which are so netted together at Kittery Point +that they hardly know themselves apart. The days, whatever their length, +are divided, not into hours, but into mails. They begin, without regard +to the sun, at eight o'clock, when the first mail comes with a few +letters and papers which had forgotten themselves the night before. At +half-past eleven the great mid-day mail arrives; at four o'clock there is +another indifferent and scattering post, much like that at eight in the +morning; and at seven the last mail arrives with the Boston evening +papers and the New York morning papers, to make you forget any letters +you were looking for. The opening of the mid-day mail is that which most +throngs with summer folks the little postoffice under the elms, opposite +the weather-beaten mansion of Sir William Pepperrell; but the evening +mail attracts a large and mainly disinterested circle of natives. The +day's work on land and sea is then over, and the village leisure, perched +upon fences and stayed against house walls, is of a picturesqueness which +we should prize if we saw it abroad, and which I am not willing to slight +on our own ground. + + + + +II. + +The type is mostly of a seafaring brown, a complexion which seems to be +inherited rather than personally acquired; for the commerce of Kittery +Point perished long ago, and the fishing fleets that used to fit out from +her wharves have almost as long ago passed to Gloucester. All that is +left of the fishing interest is the weir outside which supplies, fitfully +and uncertainly, the fish shipped fresh to the nearest markets. But in +spite of this the tint taken from the suns and winds of the sea lingers +on the local complexion; and the local manner is that freer and easier +manner of people who have known other coasts, and are in some sort +citizens of the world. It is very different from the inland New England +manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the +clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the +heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the +deck in it. + +Nothing could be better suited to progress through the long village, +which rises and sinks beside the shore like a landscape with its sea-legs +on; and nothing could be more charming and friendly than this village. +It is quite untainted as yet by the summer cottages which have covered so +much of the coast, and made it look as if the aesthetic suburbs of New +York and Boston had gone ashore upon it. There are two or three old- +fashioned summer hotels; but the summer life distinctly fails to +characterize the place. The people live where their forefathers have +lived for two hundred and fifty years; and for the century since the +baronial domain of Sir William was broken up and his possessions +confiscated by the young Republic, they have dwelt in small red or white +houses on their small holdings along the slopes and levels of the low +hills beside the water, where a man may pass with the least inconvenience +and delay from his threshold to his gunwale. Not all the houses are +small; some are spacious and ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns; but +most are simple and homelike. Their gardens, following the example of +Sir William's vanished pleasaunce, drop southward to the shore, where the +lobster-traps and the hen-coops meet in unembarrassed promiscuity. But +the fish-flakes which once gave these inclines the effect of terraced +vineyards have passed as utterly as the proud parterres of the old +baronet; and Kittery Point no longer "makes" a cod or a haddock for the +market. + +Three groceries, a butcher shop, and a small variety store study the few +native wants; and with a little money one may live in as great real +comfort here as for much in a larger place. The street takes care of +itself; the seafaring housekeeping of New England is not of the +insatiable Dutch type which will not spare the stones of the highway; but +within the houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. The other day I +found myself in a kitchen where the stove shone like oxidized silver; the +pump and sink were clad in oilcloth as with blue tiles; the walls were +papered; the stainless floor was strewn with home-made hooked and braided +rugs; and I felt the place so altogether too good for me that I pleaded +to stay there for the transaction of my business, lest a sharper sense of +my unfitness should await me in the parlor. + +The village, with scarcely an interval of farm-lands, stretches four +miles along the water-side to Portsmouth; but it seems to me that just at +the point where our lines have fallen there is the greatest concentration +of its character. This has apparently not been weakened, it has been +accented, by the trolley-line which passes through its whole length, with +gayly freighted cars coming and going every half-hour. I suppose they +are not longer than other trolley-cars, but they each affect me like a +procession. They are cheerful presences by day, and by night they light +up the dim, winding street with the flare of their electric bulbs, and +bring to the country a vision of city splendor upon terms that do not +humiliate or disquiet. During July and August they are mostly filled +with summer folks from a great summer resort beyond us, and their lights +reveal the pretty fashions of hats and gowns in all the charm of the +latest lines and tints. But there is an increasing democracy in these +splendors, and one might easily mistake a passing excursionist from some +neighboring inland town, or even a local native with the instinct of +clothes, for a social leader from York Harbor. + +With the falling leaf, the barge-like open cars close up into well-warmed +saloons, and falter to hourly intervals in their course. But we are +still far from the falling leaf; we are hardly come to the blushing or +fading leaf. Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn; +the ancient Pepperrell elms fling down showers of the baronet's fairy +gold in the September gusts; the sumacs and the blackberry vines are +ablaze along the tumbling black stone walls; but it is still summer, it +is still summer: I cannot allow otherwise! + + + + +III. + +The other day I visited for the first time (in the opulent indifference +of one who could see it any time) the stately tomb of the first +Pepperrell, who came from Cornwall to these coasts, and settled finally +at Kittery Point. He laid there the foundations of the greatest fortune +in colonial New England, which revolutionary New England seized and +dispersed, as I cannot but feel, a little ruthlessly. In my personal +quality I am of course averse to all great fortunes; and in my civic +capacity I am a patriot. But still I feel a sort of grace in wealth a +century old, and if I could now have my way, I would not have had their +possessions reft from those kindly Pepperrells, who could hardly help +being loyal to the fountain of their baronial honors. Sir William, +indeed; had helped, more than any other man, to bring the people who +despoiled him to a national consciousness. If he did not imagine, he +mainly managed the plucky New England expedition against Louisbourg at +Cape Breton a half century before the War of Independence; and his +splendid success in rending that stronghold from the French taught the +colonists that they were Americans, and need be Englishmen no longer than +they liked. His soldiers were of the stamp of all succeeding American +armies, and his leadership was of the neighborly and fatherly sort +natural to an amiable man who knew most of them personally. He was +already the richest man in America, and his grateful king made him a +baronet; but he came contentedly back to Kittery, and took up his old +life in a region where he had the comfortable consideration of an +unrivalled magnate. He built himself the dignified mansion which still +stands across the way from the post-office on Kittery Point, within an +easy stone's cast of the far older house, where his father wedded Margery +Bray, when he came, a thrifty young Welsh fisherman, from the Isles of +Shoals, and established his family on Kittery. The Bray house had been +the finest in the region a hundred years before the Pepperrell mansion +was built; it still remembers its consequence in the panelling and +wainscoting of the large, square parlor where the young people were +married and in the elaborate staircase cramped into the little, square +hall; and the Bray fortune helped materially to swell the wealth of the +Pepperrells. + +I do not know that I should care now to have a man able to ride thirty +miles on his own land; but I do not mind Sir William's having done it +here a hundred and fifty years ago; and I wish the confiscations had left +his family, say, about a mile of it. They could now, indeed, enjoy it +only in the collateral branches, for all Sir William's line is extinct. +The splendid mansion which he built his daughter is in alien hands, and +the fine old house which Lady Pepperrell built herself after his death +belongs to the remotest of kinsmen. A group of these, the descendants of +a prolific sister of the baronet, meets every year at Kittery Point as +the Pepperrell Association, and, in a tent hard by the little grove of +drooping spruces which shade the admirable renaissance cenotaph of Sir +William's father, cherishes the family memories with due American +"proceedings." + + + + +IV. + +The meeting of the Pepperrell Association was by no means the chief +excitement of our summer. In fact, I do not know that it was an +excitement at all; and I am sure it was not comparable to the presence of +our naval squadron, when for four days the mighty dragon and kraken +shapes of steel, which had crumbled the decrepit pride of Spain in the +fight at Santiago, weltered in our peaceful waters, almost under my +window. + +I try now to dignify them with handsome epithets; but while they were +here I had moments of thinking they looked like a lot of whited +locomotives, which had broken through from some trestle, in a recent +accident, and were waiting the offices of a wrecking-train. The poetry +of the man-of-war still clings to the "three-decker out of the foam" of +the past; it is too soon yet for it to have cast a mischievous halo about +the modern battle-ship; and I looked at the New York and the Texas and +the Brooklyn and the rest, and thought, "Ah, but for you, and our need of +proving your dire efficiency, perhaps we could have got on with the +wickedness of Spanish rule in Cuba, and there had been no war!" Under my +reluctant eyes the great, dreadful spectacle of the Santiago fight +displayed itself in peaceful Kittery Harbor. I saw the Spanish ships +drive upon the reef where a man from Dover, New Hampshire, was camping in +a little wooden shanty unconscious; and I heard the dying screams of the +Spanish sailors, seethed and scalded within the steel walls of their own +wicked war-kettles. + +As for the guns, battle or no battle, our ships, like "kind Lieutenant +Belay of the 'Hot Cross-Bun'," seemed to be "banging away the whole day +long." They set a bad example to the dreamy old fort on the Newcastle +shore, which, till they came, only recollected itself to salute the +sunrise and sunset with a single gun; but which, under provocation of the +squadron, formed a habit of firing twenty or thirty times at noon. + +Other martial shows and noises were not so bad. I rather liked seeing +the morning drill of the marines and the bluejackets on the iron decks, +with the lively music that went with it. The bugle calls and the bells +were charming; the week's wash hung out to dry had its picturesqueness by +day, and by night the spectral play of the search-lights along the waves +and shores, and against the startled skies, was even more impressive. +There was a band which gave us every evening the airs of the latest coon- +songs, and the national anthems which we have borrowed from various +nations; and yes, I remember the white squadron kindly, though I was so +glad to have it go, and let us lapse back into our summer silence and +calm. It was (I do not mind saying now) a majestic sight to see those +grotesque monsters gather themselves together, and go wallowing, one +after another, out of the harbor, and drop behind the ledge of Whaleback +Light, as if they had sunk into the sea. + + +V. + +A deep peace fell upon us when they went, and it must have been at this +most receptive moment, when all our sympathies were adjusted in a mood of +hospitable expectation, that Jim appeared. + +Jim was, and still is, and I hope will long be, a cat; but unless one has +lived at Kittery Point, and realized, from observation and experience, +what a leading part cats may play in society, one cannot feel the full +import of this fact. Not only has every house in Kittery its cat, but +every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and +young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a +whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a +kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in +supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of +Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it +plainly, and they prefer to have the bones taken out for them, though +they do not insist upon that point. + +At least, Jim never did so from the time when he first scented the odor +of delicate young mackerel in the evening air about our kitchen, and +dropped in upon the maids there with a fine casual effect of being merely +out for a walk, and feeling it a neighborly thing to call. He had on a +silver collar, engraved with his name and surname, which offered itself +for introduction like a visiting-card. He was too polite to ask himself +to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed to the family +circle, he formed the habit of finding himself with us at breakfast and +supper, when he sauntered in like one who should say, "Did I smell fish?" +but would not go further in the way of hinting. + +He had no need to do so. He was made at home, and freely invited to our +best not only in fish, but in chicken, for which he showed a nice taste, +and in sweetcorn, for which he revealed a most surprising fondness when +it was cut from the cob for him. After he had breakfasted or supped he +gracefully suggested that he was thirsty by climbing to the table where +the water-pitcher stood and stretching his fine feline head towards it. +When he had lapped up his saucer of water; he marched into the parlor, +and riveted the chains upon our fondness by taking the best chair and +going to sleep in it in attitudes of Egyptian, of Assyrian majesty. +His arts were few or none; he rather disdained to practise any; he +completed our conquest by maintaining himself simply a fascinating +presence; and perhaps we spoiled Jim. It is certain that he came under +my window at two o'clock one night, and tried the kitchen door. It +resisted his efforts to get in, and then Jim began to use language which +I had never heard from the lips of a cat before, and seldom from the lips +of a man. I will not repeat it; enough that it carried to the listener +the conviction that Jim was not sober. Where he could have got his +liquor in the totally abstinent State of Maine I could not positively +say, but probably of some sailor who had brought it from the neighboring +New Hampshire coast. There could be no doubt, however, that Jim was +drunk; and a dash from the water-pitcher seemed the only thing for him. +The water did not touch him, but he started back in surprise and grief, +and vanished into the night without a word. + +His feelings must have been deeply wounded, for it was almost a week +before he came near us again; and then I think that nothing but young +lobster would have brought him. He forgave us finally, and made us of +his party in the quarrel he began gradually to have with the large yellow +cat of a next-door neighbor. This culminated one afternoon, after a long +exchange of mediaeval defiance and insult, in a battle upon a bed of rag- +weed, with wild shrieks of rage, and prodigious feats of ground and lofty +tumbling. It seemed to our anxious eyes that Jim was getting the worst +of it; but when we afterwards visited the battle-field and picked up +several tufts of blond fur, we were in a doubt which was afterwards +heightened by Jim's invasion of the yellow cat's territory, where he +stretched himself defiantly upon the grass and seemed to be challenging +the yellow cat to come out and try to put him off the premises. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn . . . . . . . . +Houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Leading part cats may play in society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Picturesqueness which we should prize if we saw it abroad. . . . . . . . +Has the lurch and the sway of the deck in it.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Notes of a Vanished Summer, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Short Stories and Essays + +by William Dean Howells + + +CONTENTS: + Worries of a Winter Walk + Summer Isles of Eden + Wild Flowers of the Asphalt + A Circus in the Suburbs + A She Hamlet + The Midnight Platoon + The Beach at Rockaway + Sawdust in the Arena + At a Dime Museum + American Literature in Exile + The Horse Show + The Problem of the Summer + Aesthetic New York Fifty-odd Years Ago + From New York into New England + The Art of the Adsmith + The Psychology of Plagiarism + Puritanism in American Fiction + The What and How in Art + Politics in American Authors + Storage + "Floating down the River on the O-hi-o" + + + + +WORRIES OF A WINTER WALK + +The other winter, as I was taking a morning walk down to the East River, +I came upon a bit of our motley life, a fact of our piebald civilization, +which has perplexed me from time to time, ever since, and which I wish +now to leave with the reader, for his or her more thoughtful +consideration. + + + + +I. + +The morning was extremely cold. It professed to be sunny, and there was +really some sort of hard glitter in the air, which, so far from being +tempered by this effulgence, seemed all the stonier for it. Blasts of +frigid wind swept the streets, and buffeted each other in a fury of +resentment when they met around the corners. Although I was passing +through a populous tenement-house quarter, my way was not hindered by the +sports of the tenement-house children, who commonly crowd one from the +sidewalks; no frowzy head looked out over the fire-escapes; there were no +peddlers' carts or voices in the road-way; not above three or four shawl- +hooded women cowered out of the little shops with small purchases in +their hands; not so many tiny girls with jugs opened the doors of the +beer saloons. The butchers' windows were painted with patterns of frost, +through which I could dimly see the frozen meats hanging like hideous +stalactites from the roof. When I came to the river, I ached in sympathy +with the shipping painfully atilt on the rocklike surface of the brine, +which broke against the piers, and sprayed itself over them like showers +of powdered quartz. + +But it was before I reached this final point that I received into my +consciousness the moments of the human comedy which have been an +increasing burden to it. Within a block of the river I met a child so +small that at first I almost refused to take any account of her, until +she appealed to my sense of humor by her amusing disproportion to the +pail which she was lugging in front of her with both of her little +mittened hands. I am scrupulous about mittens, though I was tempted to +write of her little naked hands, red with the pitiless cold. This would +have been more effective, but it would not have been true, and the truth +obliges me to own that she had a stout, warm-looking knit jacket on. +The pail-which was half her height and twice her bulk-was filled to +overflowing with small pieces of coal and coke, and if it had not been +for this I might have taken her for a child of the better classes, she +was so comfortably clad. But in that case she would have had to be +fifteen or sixteen years old, in order to be doing so efficiently and +responsibly the work which, as the child of the worse classes, she was +actually doing at five or six. We must, indeed, allow that the early +self-helpfulness of such children is very remarkable, and all the more so +because they grow up into men and women so stupid that, according to the +theories of all polite economists, they have to have their discontent +with their conditions put into their heads by malevolent agitators. + +From time to time this tiny creature put down her heavy burden to rest; +it was, of course, only relatively heavy; a man would have made nothing +of it. From time to time she was forced to stop and pick up the bits of +coke that tumbled from her heaping pail. She could not consent to lose +one of them, and at last, when she found she could not make all of them +stay on the heap, she thriftily tucked them into the pockets of her +jacket, and trudged sturdily on till she met a boy some years older, who +planted himself in her path and stood looking at her, with his hands in +his pockets. I do not say he was a bad boy, but I could see in his +furtive eye that she was a sore temptation to him. The chance to have +fun with her by upsetting her bucket, and scattering her coke about till +she cried with vexation, was one which might not often present itself, +and I do not know what made him forego it, but I know that he did, and +that he finally passed her, as I have seen a young dog pass a little cat, +after having stopped it, and thoughtfully considered worrying it. + +I turned to watch the child out of sight, and when I faced about towards +the river again I received the second instalment of my present +perplexity. A cart, heavily laden with coke, drove out of the coal-yard +which I now perceived I had come to, and after this cart followed two +brisk old women, snugly clothed and tightly tucked in against the cold +like the child, who vied with each other in catching up the lumps of coke +that were jolted from the load, and filling their aprons with them; such +old women, so hale, so spry, so tough and tireless, with the withered +apples red in their cheeks, I have not often seen. They may have been +about sixty years, or sixty-five, the time of life when most women are +grandmothers and are relegated on their merits to the cushioned seats of +their children's homes, softly silk-gowned and lace-capped, dear visions +of lilac and lavender, to be loved and petted by their grandchildren. +The fancy can hardly put such sweet ladies in the place of those nimble +beldams, who hopped about there in the wind-swept street, plucking up +their day's supply of firing from the involuntary bounty of the cart. +Even the attempt is unseemly, and whether mine is at best but a feeble +fancy, not bred to strenuous feats of any kind, it fails to bring them +before me in that figure. I cannot imagine ladies doing that kind of +thing; I can only imagine women who had lived hard and worked hard all +their lives doing it; who had begun to fight with want from their +cradles, like that little one with the pail, and must fight without +ceasing to their graves. But I am not unreasonable; I understand and I +understood what I saw to be one of the things that must be, for the +perfectly good and sufficient reason that they always have been; and at +the moment I got what pleasure I could out of the stolid indifference of +the cart-driver, who never looked about him at the scene which interested +me, but jolted onward, leaving a trail of pungent odors from his pipe in +the freezing eddies of the air behind him. + + + + +II. + +It is still not at all, or not so much, the fact that troubles me; it is +what to do with the fact. The question began with me almost at once, or +at least as soon as I faced about and began to walk homeward with the +wind at my back. I was then so much more comfortable that the aesthetic +instinct thawed out in me, and I found myself wondering what use I could +make of what I had seen in the way of my trade. Should I have something +very pathetic, like the old grandmother going out day after day to pick +up coke for her sick daughter's freezing orphans till she fell sick +herself? What should I do with the family in that case? They could not +be left at that point, and I promptly imagined a granddaughter, a girl of +about eighteen, very pretty and rather proud, a sort of belle in her +humble neighborhood, who should take her grandmother's place. I decided +that I should have her Italian, because I knew something of Italians, and +could manage that nationality best, and I should call her Maddalena; +either Maddalena or Marina; Marina would be more Venetian, and I saw that +I must make her Venetian. Here I was on safe ground, and at once the +love-interest appeared to help me out. By virtue of the law of +contrasts; it appeared to me in the person of a Scandinavian lover, tall, +silent, blond, whom I at once felt I could do, from my acquaintance with +Scandinavian lovers in Norwegian novels. His name was Janssen, a good, +distinctive Scandinavian name; I do not know but it is Swedish; and I +thought he might very well be a Swede; I could imagine his manner from +that of a Swedish waitress we once had. + +Janssen--Jan Janssen, say-drove the coke-cart which Marina's grandmother +used to follow out of the coke-yard, to pick up the bits of coke as they +were jolted from it, and he had often noticed her with deep indifference. +At first he noticed Marina--or Nina, as I soon saw I must call her--with +the same unconcern; for in her grandmother's hood and jacket and check +apron, with her head held shamefacedly downward, she looked exactly like +the old woman. I thought I would have Nina make her self-sacrifice +rebelliously, as a girl like her would be apt to do, and follow the +cokecart with tears. This would catch Janssen's notice, and he would +wonder, perhaps with a little pang, what the old woman was crying about, +and then he would see that it was not the old woman. He would see that +it was Nina, and he would be in love with her at once, for she would not +only be very pretty, but he would know that she was good, if she were +willing to help her family in that way. + +He would respect the girl, in his dull, sluggish, Northern way. He would +do nothing to betray himself. But little by little he would begin to +befriend her. He would carelessly overload his cart before he left the +yard, so that the coke would fall from it more lavishly; and not only +this, but if he saw a stone or a piece of coal in the street he would +drive over it, so that more coke would be jolted from his load. + +Nina would get to watching for him. She must not notice him much at +first, except as the driver of the overladen, carelessly driven cart. +But after several mornings she must see that he is very strong and +handsome. Then, after several mornings more, their eyes must meet, her +vivid black eyes, with the tears of rage and shame in them, and his cold +blue eyes. This must be the climax; and just at this point I gave my +fancy a rest, while I went into a drugstore at the corner of Avenue B to +get my hands warm. + +They were abominably cold, even in my pockets, and I had suffered past +several places trying to think of an excuse to go in. I now asked the +druggist if he had something which I felt pretty sure he had not, and +this put him in the wrong, so that when we fell into talk he was very +polite. We agreed admirably about the hard times, and he gave way +respectfully when I doubted his opinion that the winters were getting +milder. I made him reflect that there was no reason for this, and that +it was probably an illusion from that deeper impression which all +experiences made on us in the past, when we were younger; I ought to say +that he was an elderly man, too. I said I fancied such a morning as this +was not very mild for people that had no fires, and this brought me back +again to Janssen and Marina, by way of the coke-cart. The thought of +them rapt me so far from the druggist that I listened to his answer with +a glazing eye, and did not know what he said. My hands had now got warm, +and I bade him good-morning with a parting regret, which he civilly +shared, that he had not the thing I had not wanted, and I pushed out +again into the cold, which I found not so bad as before. + +My hero and heroine were waiting for me there, and I saw that to be truly +modern, to be at once realistic and mystical, to have both delicacy and +strength, I must not let them get further acquainted with each other. +The affair must simply go on from day to day, till one morning Jan must +note that it was again the grandmother and no longer the girl who was +following his cart. She must be very weak from a long sickness--I was +not sure whether to have it the grippe or not, but I decided upon that +provisionally and she must totter after Janssen, so that he must get down +after a while to speak to her under pretence of arranging the tail-board +of his cart, or something of that kind; I did not care for the detail. +They should get into talk in the broken English which was the only +language they could have in common, and she should burst into tears, and +tell him that now Nina was sick; I imagined making this very simple, but +very touching, and I really made it so touching that it brought the lump +into my own throat, and I knew it would be effective with the reader. +Then I had Jan get back upon his cart, and drive stolidly on again, and +the old woman limp feebly after. + +There should not be any more, I decided, except that one very cold +morning, like that; Jan should be driving through that street, and should +be passing the door of the tenement house where Nina had lived, just as a +little procession should be issuing from it. The fact must be told in +brief sentences, with a total absence of emotionality. The last touch +must be Jan's cart turning the street corner with Jan's figure sharply +silhouetted against the clear, cold morning light. Nothing more. + +But it was at this point that another notion came into my mind, so antic, +so impish, so fiendish, that if there were still any Evil One, in a world +which gets on so poorly without him, I should attribute it to his +suggestion; and this was that the procession which Jan saw issuing from +the tenement-house door was not a funeral procession, as the reader will +have rashly fancied, but a wedding procession, with Nina at the head of +it, quite well again, and going to be married to the little brown youth +with ear-rings who had long had her heart. + +With a truly perverse instinct, I saw how strong this might be made, at +the fond reader's expense, to be sure, and how much more pathetic, in +such a case, the silhouetted figure on the coke-cart would really be. +I should, of course, make it perfectly plain that no one was to blame, +and that the whole affair had been so tacit on Jan's part that Nina might +very well have known nothing of his feeling for her. Perhaps at the very +end I might subtly insinuate that it was possible he might have had no +such feeling towards her as the reader had been led to imagine. + + + + +III. + +The question as to which ending I ought to have given my romance is what +has ever since remained to perplex me, and it is what has prevented my +ever writing it. Here is material of the best sort lying useless on my +hands, which, if I could only make up my mind, might be wrought into a +short story as affecting as any that wring our hearts in fiction; and I +think I could get something fairly unintelligible out of the broken +English of Jan and Nina's grandmother, and certainly something novel. +All that I can do now, however, is to put the case before the reader, and +let him decide for himself how it should end. + +The mere humanist, I suppose, might say, that I am rightly served for +having regarded the fact I had witnessed as material for fiction at all; +that I had no business to bewitch it with my miserable art; that I ought +to have spoken to that little child and those poor old women, and tried +to learn something of their lives from them, that I might offer my +knowledge again for the instruction of those whose lives are easy and +happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us. I own there is +something in this, but then, on the other hand, I have heard it urged by +nice people that they do not want to know about such squalid lives, that +it is offensive and out of taste to be always bringing them in, and that +we ought to be writing about good society, and especially creating +grandes dames for their amusement. This sort of people could say to the +humanist that he ought to be glad there are coke-carts for fuel to fall +off from for the lower classes, and that here was no case for sentiment; +for if one is to be interested in such things at all, it must be +aesthetically, though even this is deplorable in the presence of fiction +already overloaded with low life, and so poor in grades dames as ours. + + + + + + +SUMMER ISLES OF EDEN + +It may be all an illusion of the map, where the Summer Islands glimmer a +small and solitary little group of dots and wrinkles, remote from +continental shores, with a straight line descending southeastwardly upon +them, to show how sharp and swift the ship's course is, but they seem so +far and alien from my wonted place that it is as if I had slid down a +steepy slant from the home-planet to a group of asteroids nebulous +somewhere in middle space, and were resting there, still vibrant from the +rush of the meteoric fall. There were, of course, facts and incidents +contrary to such a theory: a steamer starting from New York in the raw +March morning, and lurching and twisting through two days of diagonal +seas, with people aboard dining and undining, and talking and smoking and +cocktailing and hot-scotching and beef-teaing; but when the ship came in +sight of the islands, and they began to lift their cedared slopes from +the turquoise waters, and to explain their drifted snows as the white +walls and white roofs of houses, then the waking sense became the +dreaming sense, and the sweet impossibility of that drop through air +became the sole reality. + + + + +I. + +Everything here, indeed, is so strange that you placidly accept whatever +offers itself as the simplest and naturalest fact. Those low hills, that +climb, with their tough, dark cedars, from the summer sea to the summer +sky, might have drifted down across the Gulf Stream from the coast of +Maine; but when, upon closer inspection, you find them skirted with palms +and bananas, and hedged with oleanders, you merely wonder that you had +never noticed these growths in Maine before, where you were so familiar +with the cedars. The hotel itself, which has brought the Green Mountains +with it, in every detail, from the dormer-windowed mansard-roof, and the +white-painted, green-shuttered walls, to the neat, school-mistressly +waitresses in the dining-room, has a clump of palmettos beside it, +swaying and sighing in the tropic breeze, and you know that when it +migrates back to the New England hill-country, at the end of the season, +you shall find it with the palmettos still before its veranda, and +equally at home, somewhere in the Vermont or New Hampshire July. There +will be the same American groups looking out over them, and rocking and +smoking, though, alas! not so many smoking as rocking. + +But where, in that translation, would be the gold braided red or blue +jackets of the British army and navy which lend their lustre and color +here to the veranda groups? Where should one get the house walls of +whitewashed stone and the garden walls which everywhere glow in the sun, +and belt in little spaces full of roses and lilies? These things must +come from some other association, and in the case of him who here +confesses, the lustrous uniforms and the glowing walls rise from waters +as far away in time as in space, and a long-ago apparition of Venetian +Junes haunts the coral shore. (They are beginning to say the shore is +not coral; but no matter.) To be sure, the white roofs are not accounted +for in this visionary presence; and if one may not relate them to the +snowfalls of home winters, then one must frankly own them absolutely +tropical, together with the green-pillared and green-latticed galleries. +They at least suggest the tropical scenery of Prue and I as one remembers +seeing it through Titbottom's spectacles; and yet, if one supplies roofs +of brown-red tiles, it is all Venetian enough, with the lagoon-like +expanses that lend themselves to the fond effect. It is so Venetian, +indeed, that it wants but a few silent gondolas and noisy gondoliers, +in place of the dark, taciturn oarsmen of the clumsy native boats, to +complete the coming and going illusion; and there is no good reason why +the rough little isles that fill the bay should not call themselves +respectively San Giorgio and San Clemente, and Sant' Elena and San +Lazzaro: they probably have no other names! + + + + +II. + +These summer isles of Eden have this advantage over the scriptural Eden, +that apparently it was not woman and her seed who were expelled, when +once she set foot here, but the serpent and his seed: women now abound in +the Summer Islands, and there is not a snake anywhere to be found. There +are some tortoises and a great many frogs in their season, but no other +reptiles. The frogs are fabled of a note so deep and hoarse that its +vibration almost springs the environing mines of dynamite, though it has +never yet done so; the tortoises grow to a great size and a patriarchal +age, and are fond of Boston brown bread and baked beans, if their +preferences may be judged from those of a colossal specimen in the care +of an American family living on the islands. The observer who +contributes this fact to science is able to report the case of a parrot- +fish, on the same premises, so exactly like a large brown and purple +cockatoo that, seeing such a cockatoo later on dry land, it was with a +sense of something like cruelty in its exile from its native waters. +The angel-fish he thinks not so much like angels; they are of a +transparent purity of substance, and a cherubic innocence of expression, +but they terminate in two tails, which somehow will not lend themselves +to the resemblance. + +Certainly the angel-fish is not so well named as the parrot-fish; it +might better be called the ghostfish, it is so like a moonbeam in the +pools it haunts, and of such a convertible quality with the iridescent +vegetable growths about it. All things here are of a weird +convertibility to the alien perception, and the richest and rarest facts +of nature lavish themselves in humble association with the commonest and +most familiar. You drive through long stretches of wayside willows, and +realize only now and then that these willows are thick clumps of +oleanders; and through them you can catch glimpses of banana-orchards, +which look like dishevelled patches of gigantic cornstalks. The fields +of Easter lilies do not quite live up to their photographs; they are +presently suffering from a mysterious blight, and their flowers are not +frequent enough to lend them that sculpturesque effect near to, which +they wear as far off as New York. The potato-fields, on the other hand, +are of a tender delicacy of coloring which compensates for the lilies' +lack, and the palms give no just cause for complaint, unless because they +are not nearly enough to characterize the landscape, which in spite of +their presence remains so northern in aspect. They were much whipped and +torn by a late hurricane, which afflicted all the vegetation of the +islands, and some of the royal palms were blown down. Where these are +yet standing, as four or five of them are in a famous avenue now quite +one-sided, they are of a majesty befitting that of any king who could +pass by them: no sovereign except Philip of Macedon in his least judicial +moments could pass between them. + +The century-plant, which here does not require pampering under glass, +but boldly takes its place out doors with the other trees of the garden, +employs much less than a hundred years to bring itself to bloom. +It often flowers twice or thrice in that space of time, and ought to take +away the reproach of the inhabitants for a want of industry and +enterprise: a century-plant at least could do no more in any air, and it +merits praise for its activity in the breath of these languorous seas. +One such must be in bloom at this very writing, in the garden of a house +which this very writer marked for his own on his first drive ashore from +the steamer to the hotel, when he bestowed in its dim, unknown interior +one of the many multiples of himself which are now pretty well dispersed +among the pleasant places of the earth. It fills the night with a heavy +heliotropean sweetness, and on the herb beneath, in the effulgence of the +waxing moon, the multiple which has spiritually expropriated the legal +owners stretches itself in an interminable reverie, and hears Youth come +laughing back to it on the waters kissing the adjacent shore, where other +white houses (which also it inhabits) bathe their snowy underpinning. +In this dream the multiple drives home from the balls of either hotel +with the young girls in the little victorias which must pass its sojourn; +and, being but a vision itself, fore casts the shapes of flirtation which +shall night-long gild the visions of their sleep with the flash of +military and naval uniforms. Of course the multiple has been at the +dance too (with a shadowy heartache for the dances of forty years ago), +and knows enough not to confuse the uniforms. + + + + +III. + +In whatever way you walk, at whatever hour, the birds are sweetly calling +in the way-side oleanders and the wild sage-bushes and the cedar-tops. +They are mostly cat-birds, quite like our own; and bluebirds, but of a +deeper blue than ours, and redbirds of as liquid a note, but not so +varied, as that of the redbirds of our woods. How came they all here, +seven hundred miles from any larger land? Some think, on the stronger +wings of tempests, for it is not within the knowledge of men that men +brought them. Men did, indeed, bring the pestilent sparrows which swarm +about their habitations here, and beat away the gentler and lovelier +birds with a ferocity unknown in the human occupation of the islands. +Still, the sparrows have by no means conquered, and in the wilder places +the catbird makes common cause with the bluebird and the redbird, and +holds its own against them. The little ground-doves mimic in miniature +the form and markings and the gait and mild behavior of our turtle-doves, +but perhaps not their melancholy cooing. Nature has nowhere anything +prettier than these exquisite creatures, unless it be the long-tailed +white gulls which sail over the emerald shallows of the landlocked seas, +and take the green upon their translucent bodies as they trail their +meteoric splendor against the midday sky. Full twenty-four inches they +measure from the beak to the tip of the single pen that protracts them a +foot beyond their real bulk; but it is said their tempers are shorter +than they, and they attack fiercely anything they suspect of too intimate +a curiosity concerning their nests. + +They are probably the only short-tempered things in the Summer Islands, +where time is so long that if you lose your patience you easily find it +again. Sweetness, if not light, seems to be the prevailing human +quality, and a good share of it belongs to such of the natives as are in +no wise light. Our poor brethren of a different pigment are in the large +majority, and they have been seventy years out of slavery, with the full +enjoyment of all their civil rights, without lifting themselves from +their old inferiority. They do the hard work, in their own easy way, and +possibly do not find life the burden they make it for the white man, whom +here, as in our own country, they load up with the conundrum which their +existence involves for him. They are not very gay, and do not rise to a +joke with that flashing eagerness which they show for it at home. If you +have them against a background of banana-stems, or low palms, or feathery +canes, nothing could be more acceptably characteristic of the air and +sky; nor are they out of place on the box of the little victorias, where +visitors of the more inquisitive sex put them to constant question. Such +visitors spare no islander of any color. Once, in the pretty Public +Garden which the multiple had claimed for its private property, three +unmerciful American women suddenly descended from the heavens and began +to question the multiple's gardener, who was peacefully digging at the +rate of a spadeful every five minutes. Presently he sat down on his +wheelbarrow, and then shifted, without relief, from one handle of it to +the other. Then he rose and braced himself desperately against the tool- +house, where, when his tormentors drifted away, he seemed to the soft eye +of pity pinned to the wall by their cruel interrogations, whose barbed +points were buried in the stucco behind him, and whose feathered shafts +stuck out half a yard before his breast. + +Whether he was black or not, pity could not see, but probably he was. +At least the garrison of the islands is all black, being a Jamaican +regiment of that color; and when one of the warriors comes down the white +street, with his swagger-stick in his hand, and flaming in scarlet and +gold upon the ground of his own blackness, it is as if a gigantic oriole +were coming towards you, or a mighty tulip. These gorgeous creatures +seem so much readier than the natives to laugh, that you wish to test +them with a joke. But it might fail. The Summer Islands are a British +colony, and the joke does not flourish so luxuriantly, here as some other +things. + +To be sure, one of the native fruits seems a sort of joke when you hear +it first named, and when you are offered a 'loquat', if you are of a +frivolous mind you search your mind for the connection with 'loquor' +which it seems to intimate. Failing in this, you taste the fruit, and +then, if it is not perfectly ripe, you are as far from loquaciousness as +if you had bitten a green persimmon. But if it is ripe, it is delicious, +and may be consumed indefinitely. It is the only native fruit which one +can wish to eat at all, with an unpractised palate, though it is claimed +that with experience a relish may come for the pawpaws. These break out +in clusters of the size of oranges at the top of a thick pole, which may +have some leaves or may not, and ripen as they fancy in the indefinite +summer. They are of the color and flavor of a very insipid little +muskmelon which has grown too near a patch of squashes. + +One may learn to like this pawpaw, yes, but one must study hard. It is +best when plucked by a young islander of Italian blood whose father +orders him up the bare pole in the sunny Sunday morning air to oblige the +signori, and then with a pawpaw in either hand stands talking with them +about the two bad years there have been in Bermuda, and the probability +of his doing better in Nuova York. He has not imagined our winter, +however, and he shrinks from its boldly pictured rigors, and lets the +signori go with a sigh, and a bunch of pink and crimson roses. + +The roses are here, budding and blooming in the quiet bewilderment which +attends the flowers and plants from the temperate zone in this latitude, +and which in the case of the strawberries offered with cream and cake at +another public garden expresses itself in a confusion of red, ripe fruit +and white blossoms on the same stem. They are a pleasure to the nose and +eye rather than the palate, as happens with so many growths of the +tropics, if indeed the Summer Islands are tropical, which some plausibly +deny; though why should not strawberries, fresh picked from the plant in +mid-March, enjoy the right to be indifferent sweet? + + + + +IV. + +What remains? The events of the Summer Islands are few, and none out of +the order of athletics between teams of the army and navy, and what may +be called societetics, have happened in the past enchanted fortnight. +But far better things than events have happened: sunshine and rain of +such like quality that one could not grumble at either, and gales, now +from the south and now from the north, with the languor of the one and +the vigor of the other in them. There were drives upon drives that were +always to somewhere, but would have been delightful the same if they had +been mere goings and comings, past the white houses overlooking little +lawns through the umbrage of their palm-trees. The lawns professed to be +of grass, but were really mats of close little herbs which were not +grass; but which, where the sparse cattle were grazing them, seemed to +satisfy their inexacting stomachs. They are never very green, and in +fact the landscape often has an air of exhaustion and pause which it +wears with us in late August; and why not, after all its interminable, +innumerable summers? Everywhere in the gentle hollows which the coral +hills (if they are coral) sink into are the patches of potatoes and +lilies and onions drawing their geometrical lines across the brown-red, +weedless soil; and in very sheltered spots are banana-orchards which are +never so snugly sheltered there but their broad leaves are whipped to +shreds. The white road winds between gray walls crumbling in an amiable +disintegration, but held together against ruin by a network of maidenhair +ferns and creepers of unknown name, and overhung by trees where the +cactus climbs and hangs in spiky links, or if another sort, pierces them +with speary stems as tall and straight as the stalks of the neighboring +bamboo. The loquat-trees cluster--like quinces in the garden closes, and +show their pale golden, plum-shaped fruit. + +For the most part the road runs by still inland waters, but sometimes it +climbs to the high downs beside the open sea, grotesque with wind-worn +and wave-worn rocks, and beautiful with opalescent beaches, and the black +legs of the negro children paddling in the tints of the prostrate +rainbow. + +All this seems probable and natural enough at the writing; but how will +it be when one has turned one's back upon it? Will it not lapse into the +gross fable of travellers, and be as the things which the liars who swap +them cannot themselves believe? What will be said to you when you tell +that in the Summer Islands one has but to saw a hole in his back yard and +take out a house of soft, creamy sandstone and set it up and go to living +in it? What, when you relate that among the northern and southern +evergreens there are deciduous trees which, in a clime where there is no +fall or spring, simply drop their leaves when they are tired of keeping +them on, and put out others when they feel like it? What, when you +pretend that in the absence of serpents there are centipedes a span long, +and spiders the bigness of bats, and mosquitoes that sweetly sing in the +drowsing ear, but bite not; or that there are swamps but no streams, and +in the marshes stand mangrove-trees whose branches grow downward into the +ooze, as if they wished to get back into the earth and pull in after them +the holes they emerged from? + +These every-day facts seem not only incredible to the liar himself, even +in their presence, but when you begin the ascent of that steep slant back +to New York you foresee that they will become impossible. As impossible +as the summit of the slant now appears to the sense which shudderingly +figures it a Bermuda pawpaw-tree seven hundred miles high, and fruiting +icicles and snowballs in the March air! + + + + + + +WILD FLOWERS OF THE ASPHALT + +Looking through Mrs. Caroline A. Creevey's charming book on the Flowers +of Field, Hill, and Swamp, the other day, I was very forcibly reminded of +the number of these pretty, wilding growths which I had been finding all +the season long among the streets of asphalt and the sidewalks of +artificial stone in this city; and I am quite sure that any one who has +been kept in New York, as I have been this year, beyond the natural time +of going into the country, can have as real a pleasure in this sylvan +invasion as mine, if he will but give himself up to a sense of it. + + + + +I. + +Of course it is altogether too late, now, to look for any of the early +spring flowers, but I can recall the exquisite effect of the tender blue +hepatica fringing the centre rail of the grip-cars, all up and down +Broadway, and apparently springing from the hollow beneath, where the +cable ran with such a brooklike gurgle that any damp-living plant must +find itself at home there. The water-pimpernel may now be seen, by any +sympathetic eye, blowing delicately along the track, in the breeze of the +passing cabs, and elastically lifting itself from the rush of the cars. +The reader can easily verify it by the picture in Mrs. Creevey's book. +He knows it by its other name of brook weed; and he will have my delight, +I am sure, in the cardinal-flower which will be with us in August. It is +a shy flower, loving the more sequestered nooks, and may be sought along +the shady stretches of Third Avenue, where the Elevated Road overhead +forms a shelter as of interlacing boughs. The arrow-head likes such +swampy expanses as the converging surface roads form at Dead Man's Curve +and the corners of Twenty third Street. This is in flower now, and will +be till September; and St.-John's-wort, which some call the false golden- +rod, is already here. You may find it in any moist, low ground, but the +gutters of Wall Street, or even the banks of the Stock Exchange, are not +too dry for it. The real golden-rod is not much in evidence with us, for +it comes only when summer is on the wane. The other night, however, on +the promenade of the Madison Square Roof Garden, I was delighted to see +it growing all over the oblong dome of the auditorium, in response to the +cry of a homesick cricket which found itself in exile there at the base +of a potted ever green. This lonely insect had no sooner sounded its +winter-boding note than the fond flower began sympathetically to wave and +droop along those tarry slopes, as I have seen it on how many hill-side +pastures! But this may have been only a transitory response to the +cricket, and I cannot promise the visitor to the Roof Garden that he will +find golden-rod there every night. I believe there is always Golden +Seal, but it is the kind that comes in bottles, and not in the gloom of +"deep, cool, moist woods," where Mrs. Creevey describes it as growing, +along with other wildings of such sweet names or quaint as Celandine, and +Dwarf Larkspur, and Squirrel-corn, and Dutchman's breeches, and +Pearlwort, and Wood-sorrel, and Bishop's--cap, and Wintergreen, and +Indian-pipe, and Snowberry, and Adder's-tongue, and Wakerobin, and +Dragon-root, and Adam-and-Eve, and twenty more, which must have got their +names from some fairy of genius. I should say it was a female fairy of +genius who called them so, and that she had her own sex among mortals in +mind when she invented their nomenclature, and was thinking of little +girls, and slim, pretty maids, and happy young wives. The author tells +how they all look, with a fine sense of their charm in her words, but one +would know how they looked from their names; and when you call them over +they at once transplant themselves to the depths of the dells between our +sky-scrapers, and find a brief sojourn in the cavernous excavations +whence other sky-scrapers are to rise. + + + + +II. + +That night on the Roof Garden, when the cricket's cry flowered the dome +with golden-rod, the tall stems of rye growing among the orchestra sloped +all one way at times, just like the bows of violins, in the half-dollar +gale that always blows over the city at that height. But as one turns +the leaves of Mrs. Creevey's magic book-perhaps one ought to say turns +its petals--the forests and the fields come and make themselves at home +in the city everywhere. By virtue of it I have been more in the country +in a half-hour than if I had lived all June there. When I lift my eyes +from its pictures or its letter-press my vision prints the eidolons of +wild flowers everywhere, as it prints the image of the sun against the +air after dwelling on his brightness. The rose-mallow flaunts along +Fifth Avenue and the golden threads of the dodder embroider the house +fronts on the principal cross streets; and I might think at times that it +was all mere fancy, it has so much the quality of a pleasing illusion. + +Yet Mrs. Creevey's book is not one to lend itself to such a deceit by any +of the ordinary arts. It is rather matter of fact in form and manner, +and largely owes what magic it has to the inherent charm of its subject. +One feels this in merely glancing at the index, and reading such titles +of chapters as "Wet Meadows and Low Grounds"; "Dry Fields--Waste Places-- +Waysides"; "Hills and Rocky Woods, Open Woods"; and "Deep, Cool, Moist +Woods"; each a poem in itself, lyric or pastoral, and of a surpassing +opulence of suggestion. The spring and, summer months pass in stately +processional through the book, each with her fillet inscribed with the +names of her characteristic flowers or blossoms, and brightened with the +blooms themselves. + +They are plucked from where nature bade them grow in the wild places, or +their own wayward wills led them astray. A singularly fascinating +chapter is that called "Escaped from Gardens," in which some of these +pretty runagates are catalogued. I supposed in my liberal ignorance that +the Bouncing Bet was the only one of these, but I have learned that the +Pansy and the Sweet Violet love to gad, and that the Caraway, the +Snapdragon, the Prince's Feather, the Summer Savory, the Star of +Bethlehem, the Day-Lily, and the Tiger-Lily, and even the sluggish Stone +Crop are of the vagrant, fragrant company. One is not surprised to meet +the Tiger-Lily in it; that must always have had the jungle in its heart; +but that the Baby's Breath should be found wandering by the road-sides +from Massachusetts and Virginia to Ohio, gives one a tender pang as for a +lost child. Perhaps the poor human tramps, who sleep in barns and feed +at back doors along those dusty ways, are mindful of the Baby's Breath, +and keep a kindly eye out for the little truant. + + + + +III. + +As I was writing those homely names I felt again how fit and lovely they +were, how much more fit and lovely than the scientific names of the +flowers. Mrs. Creevey will make a botanist of you if you will let her, +and I fancy a very good botanist, though I cannot speak from experience, +but she will make a poet of you in spite of yourself, as I very well +know; and she will do this simply by giving you first the familiar name +of the flowers she loves to write of. I am not saying that the Day-Lily +would not smell as sweet by her title of 'Hemerocallis Fulva', or that +the homely, hearty Bouncing Bet would not kiss as deliciously in her +scholar's cap and gown of 'Saponaria Officinalis'; but merely that their +college degrees do not lend themselves so willingly to verse, or even +melodious prose, which is what the poet is often after nowadays. So I +like best to hail the flowers by the names that the fairies gave them, +and the children know them by, especially when my longing for them makes +them grow here in the city streets. I have a fancy that they would all +vanish away if I saluted them in botanical terms. As long as I talk of +cat-tail rushes, the homeless grimalkins of the areas and the back fences +help me to a vision of the swamps thickly studded with their stiff +spears; but if I called them 'Typha Latifolia', or even 'Typha +Angustifolia', there is not the hardiest and fiercest prowler of the roof +and the fire-escape but would fly the sound of my voice and leave me +forlorn amid the withered foliage of my dream. The street sparrows, +pestiferous and persistent as they are, would forsake my sylvan pageant +if I spoke of the Bird-foot Violet as the 'Viola Pedata'; and the +commonest cur would run howling if he beard the gentle Poison Dogwood +maligned as the 'Rhus Venenata'. The very milk-cans would turn to their +native pumps in disgust from my attempt to invoke our simple American +Cowslip as the 'Dodecatheon Meadia'. + + + + +IV + +Yet I do not deny that such scientific nomenclature has its uses; and I +should be far from undervaluing this side of Mrs. Creevey's book. In +fact, I secretly respect it the more for its botanical lore, and if ever +I get into the woods or fields again I mean to go up to some of the +humblest flowers, such as I can feel myself on easy terms with, and tell +them what they are in Latin. I think it will surprise them, and I dare +say they will some of them like it, and will want their initials +inscribed on their leaves, like those signatures which the medicinal +plants bear, or are supposed to bear. But as long as I am engaged in +their culture amid this stone and iron and asphalt, I find it best to +invite their presence by their familiar names, and I hope they will not +think them too familiar. I should like to get them all naturalized here, +so that the thousands of poor city children, who never saw them growing +in their native places, might have some notion of how bountifully the +world is equipped with beauty, and how it is governed by many laws which +are not enforced by policemen. I think that would interest them very +much, and I shall not mind their plucking my Barmecide blossoms, and +carrying them home by the armfuls. When good-will costs nothing we ought +to practise it even with the tramps, and these are very welcome, in their +wanderings over the city pave, to rest their weary limbs in any of my +pleached bowers they come to. + + + + + + +A CIRCUS IN THE SUBURBS + +We dwellers in cities and large towns, if we are well-to-do, have more +than our fill of pleasures of all kinds; and for now many years past we +have been used to a form of circus where surfeit is nearly as great +misery as famine in that kind could be. For our sins, or some of our +friends' sins, perhaps, we have now gone so long to circuses of three +rings and two raised-platforms that we scarcely realize that in the +country there are still circuses of one ring and no platform at all. +We are accustomed, in the gross and foolish-superfluity of these city +circuses, to see no feat quite through, but to turn our greedy eyes at +the most important instant in the hope of greater wonders in another +ring. We have four or five clowns, in as many varieties of grotesque +costume, as well as a lady clown in befitting dress; but we hear none of +them speak, not even the lady clown, while in the country circus the old +clown of our childhood, one and indivisible, makes the same style of +jokes, if not the very same jokes, that we used to hear there. It is not +easy to believe all this, and I do not know that I should quite believe +it myself if I had not lately been witness of it in the suburban village +where I was passing the summer. + + + + +I. + +The circus announced itself in the good old way weeks beforehand by the +vast posters of former days and by a profusion of small bills which fell +upon the village as from the clouds, and left it littered everywhere with +their festive pink. They prophesied it in a name borne by the first +circus I ever saw, which was also an animal show, but the animals must +all have died during the fifty years past, for there is now no menagerie +attached to it. I did not know this when I heard the band braying +through the streets of the village on the morning of the performance, +and for me the mangy old camels and the pimpled elephants of yore led the +procession through accompanying ranks of boys who have mostly been in +their graves for half a lifetime; the distracted ostrich thrust an +advertising neck through the top of its cage, and the lion roared to +himself in the darkness of his moving prison. I felt the old thrill of +excitement, the vain hope of something preternatural and impossible, and +I do not know what could have kept me from that circus as soon as I had +done lunch. My heart rose at sight of the large tent (which was yet so +very little in comparison with the tents of the three-ring and two- +platform circuses); the alluring and illusory sideshows of fat women and +lean men; the horses tethered in the background and stamping under the +fly-bites; the old, weather-beaten grand chariot, which looked like the +ghost of the grand chariot which used to drag me captive in its triumph; +and the canvas shelters where the cooks were already at work over their +kettles on the evening meal of the circus folk. + +I expected to be kept a long while from the ticket-wagon by the crowd, +but there was no crowd, and perhaps there never used to be much of a +crowd. I bought my admittances without a moment's delay, and the man who +sold me my reserve seats had even leisure to call me back and ask to look +at the change he had given me, mostly nickels. "I thought I didn't give +you enough," he said, and he added one more, and sent me on to the +doorkeeper with my faith in human nature confirmed and refreshed. +It was cool enough outside, but within it was very warm, as it should be, +to give the men with palm-leaf fans and ice-cold lemonade a chance. They +were already making their rounds, and crying their wares with voices from +the tombs of the dead past; and the child of the young mother who took my +seat-ticket from me was going to sleep at full length on the lowermost +tread of the benches, so that I had to step across its prostrate form. +These reserved seats were carpeted; but I had forgotten how little one +rank was raised above another, and how very trying they were upon the +back and legs. But for the carpeting, I could not see how I was +advantaged above the commoner folk in the unreserved seats, and I +reflected how often in this world we paid for an inappreciable splendor. +I could not see but they were as well off as I; they were much more gayly +dressed, and some of them were even smoking cigars, while they were +nearly all younger by ten, twenty, forty, or fifty years, and even more. +They did not look like the country people whom I rather hoped and +expected to see, but were apparently my fellow-villagers, in different +stages of excitement. They manifested by the usual signs their +impatience to have the performance begin, and I confess that I shared +this, though I did not take part in the demonstration. + + + + +II. + +I have no intention of following the events seriatim. Front time to time +during their progress I renewed my old one-sided acquaintance with the +circus-men. They were quite the same people, I believe, but strangely +softened and ameliorated, as I hope I am, and looking not a day older, +which I cannot say of myself, exactly. The supernumeraries were patently +farmer boys who had entered newly upon that life in a spirit of +adventure, and who wore their partial liveries, a braided coat here and a +pair of striped trousers there, with a sort of timorous pride, a +deprecating bravado, as if they expected to be hooted by the spectators +and were very glad when they were not. The man who went round with a dog +to keep boys from hooking in under the curtain had grown gentler, and his +dog did not look as if he would bite the worst boy in town. The man came +up and asked the young mother about her sleeping child, and I inferred +that the child had been sick, and was therefore unusually interesting to +all the great, kind-hearted, simple circus family. He was good to the +poor supes, and instructed them, not at all sneeringly, how best to +manage the guy ropes for the nets when the trapeze events began. + +There was, in fact, an air of pleasing domesticity diffused over the +whole circus. This was, perhaps, partly an effect from our extreme +proximity to its performances; I had never been on quite such intimate +terms with equitation and aerostation of all kinds; but I think it was +also largely from the good hearts of the whole company. A circus must +become, during the season, a great brotherhood and sisterhood, especially +sisterhood, and its members must forget finally that they are not united +by ties of blood. I dare say they often become so, as husbands and wives +and fathers and mothers, if not as brothers. + +The domestic effect was heightened almost poignantly when a young lady in +a Turkish-towel bath-gown came out and stood close by the band, waiting +for her act on a barebacked horse of a conventional pattern. She really +looked like a young goddess in a Turkish-towel bath-gown: goddesses must +have worn bath-gowns, especially Venus, who was often imagined in the +bath, or just out of it. But when this goddess threw off her bath-gown, +and came bounding into the ring as gracefully as the clogs she wore on +her slippers would let her, she was much more modestly dressed than most +goddesses. What I am trying to say, however, is that, while she stood +there by the band, she no more interested the musicians than if she were +their collective sister. They were all in their shirt-sleeves for the +sake of the coolness, and they banged and trumpeted and fluted away as +indifferent to her as so many born brothers. + +Indeed, when the gyrations of her horse brought her to our side of the +ring, she was visibly not so youthful and not so divine as she might have +been; but the girl who did the trapeze acts, and did them wonderfully, +left nothing to be desired in that regard; though really I do not see why +we who have neither youth nor beauty should always expect it of other +people. I think it would have been quite enough for her to do the +trapeze acts so perfectly; but her being so pretty certainly added a +poignancy to the contemplation of her perils. One could follow every +motion of her anxiety in that close proximity: the tremor of her chin as +she bit her lips before taking her flight through the air, the straining +eagerness of her eye as she measured the distance, the frown with which +she forbade herself any shrinking or reluctance. + + + + +III. + +How strange is life, how sad and perplexing its contradictions! Why +should such an exhibition as that be supposed to give pleasure? Perhaps +it does not give pleasure, but is only a necessary fulfilment of one of +the many delusions we are in with regard to each other in this +bewildering world. They are of all sorts and degrees, these delusions, +and I suppose that in the last analysis it was not pleasure I got from +the clown and his clowning, clowned he ever so merrily. I remember that +I liked hearing his old jokes, not because they were jokes, but because +they were old and endeared by long association. He sang one song which I +must have heard him sing at my first circus (I am sure it was he), about +"Things that I don't like to see," and I heartily agreed with him that +his book of songs, which he sent round to be sold, was fully worth the +half-dime asked for it, though I did not buy it. + +Perhaps the rival author in me withheld me, but, as a brother man, I will +not allow that I did not feel for him and suffer with him because of the +thick, white pigment which plentifully coated his face, and, with the +sweat drops upon it, made me think of a newly painted wall in the rain. +He was infinitely older than his personality, than his oldest joke +(though you never can be sure how old a joke is), and, representatively, +I dare say he outdated the pyramids. They must have made clowns whiten +their faces in the dawn of time, and no doubt there were drolls among the +antediluvians who enhanced the effect of their fun by that means. All +the same, I pitied this clown for it, and I fancied in his wildest +waggery the note of a real irascibility. Shall I say that he seemed the +only member of that little circus who was not of an amiable temper? But +I do not blame him, and I think it much to have seen a clown once more +who jested audibly with the ringmaster and always got the better of him +in repartee. It was long since I had known that pleasure. + + + + +IV. + +Throughout the performance at this circus I was troubled by a curious +question, whether it were really of the same moral and material grandeur +as the circuses it brought to memory, or whether these were thin and +slight, too. We all know how the places of our childhood, the heights, +the distances, shrink and dwindle when we go back to them, and was it +possible that I had been deceived in the splendor of my early circuses? +The doubt was painful, but I was forced to own that there might be more +truth in it than in a blind fealty to their remembered magnificence. +Very likely circuses have grown not only in size, but in the richness and +variety of their entertainments, and I was spoiled for the simple joys +of this. But I could see no reflection of my dissatisfaction on the +young faces around me, and I must confess that there was at least so much +of the circus that I left when it was half over. I meant to go into the +side-shows and see the fat woman and the living skeleton, and take the +giant by the hand and the armless man by his friendly foot, if I might be +so honored. But I did none of these things, and I am willing to believe +the fault was in me, if I was disappointed in the circus. It was I who +had shrunk and dwindled, and not it. To real boys it was still the size +of the firmament, and was a world of wonders and delights. At least I +can recognize this fact now, and can rejoice in the peaceful progress all +over the country of the simple circuses which the towns never see, but +which help to render the summer fairer and brighter to the unspoiled eyes +and hearts they appeal to. I hope it will be long before they cease to +find profit in the pleasure they give. + + + + + + +A SHE HAMLET + +The other night as I sat before the curtain of the Garden Theatre and +waited for it to rise upon the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt, a thrill of the +rich expectation which cannot fail to precede the rise of any curtain +upon any Hamlet passed through my eager frame. There is, indeed, no +scene of drama which is of a finer horror (eighteenth-century horror) +than that which opens the great tragedy. The sentry pacing up and down +upon the platform at Elsinore under the winter night; the greeting +between him and the comrade arriving to relieve him, with its hints of +the bitter cold; the entrance of Horatio and Marcellus to these before +they can part; the mention of the ghost, and, while the soldiers are in +the act of protesting it a veridical phantom, the apparition of the +ghost, taking the word from their lips and hushing all into a pulseless +awe: what could be more simply and sublimely real, more naturally +supernatural? What promise of high mystical things to come there is in +the mere syllabling of the noble verse, and how it enlarges us from +ourselves, for that time at least, to a disembodied unity with the +troubled soul whose martyry seems foreboded in the solemn accents! +As the many Hamlets on which the curtain had risen in my time passed in +long procession through my memory, I seemed to myself so much of their +world, and so little of the world that arrogantly calls itself the actual +one, that I should hardly have been surprised to find myself one of the +less considered persons of the drama who were seen but not heard in its +course. + + + + +I. + +The trouble in judging anything is that if you have the materials for an +intelligent criticism, the case is already prejudiced in your hands. +You do not bring a free mind to it, and all your efforts to free your +mind are a species of gymnastics more or less admirable, but not really +effective for the purpose. The best way is to own yourself unfair at the +start, and then you can have some hope of doing yourself justice, if not +your subject. In other words, if you went to see the Hamlet of Mme. +Bernhardt frankly expecting to be disappointed, you were less likely in +the end to be disappointed in your expectations, and you could not blame +her if you were. To be ideally fair to that representation, it would be +better not to have known any other Hamlet, and, above all, the Hamlet of +Shakespeare. + +From the first it was evident that she had three things overwhelmingly +against her--her sex, her race, and her speech. You never ceased to feel +for a moment that it was a woman who was doing that melancholy Dane, and +that the woman was a Jewess, and the Jewess a French Jewess. These three +removes put a gulf impassable between her utmost skill and the +impassioned irresolution of that inscrutable Northern nature which is in +nothing so masculine as its feminine reluctances and hesitations, or so +little French as in those obscure emotions which the English poetry +expressed with more than Gallic clearness, but which the French words +always failed to convey. The battle was lost from the first, and all you +could feel about it for the rest was that if it was magnificent it was +not war. + +While the battle went on I was the more anxious to be fair, because I +had, as it were, pre-espoused the winning side; and I welcomed, in the +interest of critical impartiality, another Hamlet which came to mind, +through readily traceable associations. This was a Hamlet also of French +extraction in the skill and school of the actor, but as much more deeply +derived than the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt as the large imagination of +Charles Fechter transcended in its virile range the effect of her +subtlest womanish intuition. His was the first blond Hamlet known to our +stage, and hers was also blond, if a reddish-yellow wig may stand for a +complexion; and it was of the quality of his Hamlet in masterly +technique. + + + + +II. + +The Hamlet of Fechter, which rose ghostlike out of the gulf of the past, +and cloudily possessed the stage where the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt was +figuring, was called a romantic Hamlet thirty years ago; and so it was in +being a break from the classic Hamlets of the Anglo-American theatre. +It was romantic as Shakespeare himself was romantic, in an elder sense of +the word, and not romanticistic as Dumas was romanticistic. It was, +therefore, the most realistic Hamlet ever yet seen, because the most +naturally poetic. Mme. Bernhardt recalled it by the perfection of her +school; for Fechter's poetic naturalness differed from the +conventionality of the accepted Hamlets in nothing so much as the +superiority of its self-instruction. In Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet, as in +his, nothing was trusted to chance, or "inspiration." Good or bad, what +one saw was what was meant to be seen. When Fechter played Edmond Dantes +or Claude Melnotte, he put reality into those preposterous inventions, +and in Hamlet even his alien accent helped him vitalize the part; it +might be held to be nearer the Elizabethan accent than ours; and after +all, you said Hamlet was a foreigner, and in your high content with what +he gave you did not mind its being in a broken vessel. When he +challenged the ghost with "I call thee keeng, father, rawl-Dane," you +Would hardly have had the erring utterance bettered. It sufficed as it +was; and when he said to Rosencrantz, "Will you pleh upon this pyip?" +it was with such a princely authority and comradely entreaty that you +made no note of the slips in the vowels except to have pleasure of their +quaintness afterwards. For the most part you were not aware of these +betrayals of his speech; and in certain high things it was soul +interpreted to soul through the poetry of Shakespeare so finely, so +directly, that there was scarcely a sense of the histrionic means. + +He put such divine despair into the words, "Except my life, except my +life, except my life!" following the mockery with which he had assured +Polonius there was nothing he would more willingly part withal than his +leave, that the heart-break of them had lingered with me for thirty +years, and I had been alert for them with every Hamlet since. But before +I knew, Mme. Bernhardt had uttered them with no effect whatever. Her +Hamlet, indeed, cut many of the things that we have learned to think the +points of Hamlet, and it so transformed others by its interpretation of +the translator's interpretation of Shakespeare that they passed +unrecognized. Soliloquies are the weak invention of the enemy, for the +most part, but as such things go that soliloquy of Hamlet's, "To be or +not to be," is at least very noble poetry; and yet Mme. Bernhardt was so +unimpressive in it that you scarcely noticed the act of its delivery. +Perhaps this happened because the sumptuous and sombre melancholy of +Shakespeare's thought was transmitted in phrases that refused it its +proper mystery. But there was always a hardness, not always from the +translation, upon this feminine Hamlet. It was like a thick shell with +no crevice in it through which the tenderness of Shakespeare's Hamlet +could show, except for the one moment at Ophelia's grave, where he +reproaches Laertes with those pathetic words + + "What is the reason that you use me thus? + I loved you ever; but it is no matter." + +Here Mme. Bernhardt betrayed a real grief, but as a woman would, and not +a man. At the close of the Gonzago play, when Hamlet triumphs in a mad +whirl, her Hamlet hopped up and down like a mischievous crow, a +mischievous she-crow. + +There was no repose in her Hamlet, though there were moments of leaden +lapse which suggested physical exhaustion; and there was no range in her +elocution expressive of the large vibration of that tormented spirit. +Her voice dropped out, or jerked itself out, and in the crises of strong +emotion it was the voice of a scolding or a hysterical woman. At times +her movements, which she must have studied so hard to master, were drolly +womanish, especially those of the whole person. Her quickened pace was a +woman's nervous little run, and not a man's swift stride; and to give +herself due stature, it was her foible to wear a woman's high heels to +her shoes, and she could not help tilting on them. + +In the scene with the queen after the play, most English and American +Hamlets have required her to look upon the counterfeit presentment of two +brothers in miniatures something the size of tea-plates; but Mme. +Bernhardt's preferred full-length, life-size family portraits. The dead +king's effigy did not appear a flattered likeness in the scene-painter's +art, but it was useful in disclosing his ghost by giving place to it in +the wall at the right moment. She achieved a novelty by this treatment +of the portraits, and she achieved a novelty in the tone she took with +the wretched queen. Hamlet appeared to scold her mother, but though it +could be said that her mother deserved a scolding, was it the part of a +good daughter to give it her? + +One should, of course, say a good son, but long before this it had become +impossible to think at all of Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet as a man, if it +ever had been possible. She had traversed the bounds which tradition as +well as nature has set, and violated the only condition upon which an +actress may personate a man. This condition is that there shall be +always a hint of comedy in the part, that the spectator shall know all +the time that the actress is a woman, and that she shall confess herself +such before the play is over; she shall be fascinating in the guise of a +man only because she is so much more intensely a woman in it. +Shakespeare had rather a fancy for women in men's roles, which, as +women's roles in his time were always taken by pretty and clever boys, +could be more naturally managed then than now. But when it came to the +eclaircissement, and the pretty boys, who had been playing the parts of +women disguised as men, had to own themselves women, the effect must have +been confused if not weakened. If Mme. Bernhardt, in the necessity of +doing something Shakespearean, had chosen to do Rosalind, or Viola, or +Portia, she could have done it with all the modern advantages of women in +men's roles. These characters are, of course, "lighter motions bounded +in a shallower brain" than the creation she aimed at; but she could at +least have made much of them, and she does not make much of Hamlet. + + + + +III. + +The strongest reason against any woman Hamlet is that it does violence to +an ideal. Literature is not so rich in great imaginary masculine types +that we can afford to have them transformed to women; and after seeing +Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet no one can altogether liberate himself from the +fancy that the Prince of Denmark was a girl of uncertain age, with crises +of mannishness in which she did not seem quite a lady. Hamlet is in +nothing more a man than in the things to which as a man he found himself +unequal; for as a woman he would have been easily superior to them. +If we could suppose him a woman as Mme. Bernhardt, in spite of herself, +invites us to do, we could only suppose him to have solved his +perplexities with the delightful precipitation of his putative sex. +As the niece of a wicked uncle, who in that case would have had to be a +wicked aunt, wedded to Hamlet's father hard upon the murder of her +mother, she would have made short work of her vengeance. No fine +scruples would have delayed her; she would not have had a moment's +question whether she had not better kill herself; she would have out with +her bare bodkin and ended the doubt by first passing it through her +aunt's breast. + +To be sure, there would then have been no play of " Hamlet," as we have +it; but a Hamlet like that imagined, a frankly feminine Hamlet, Mme. +Bernhardt could have rendered wonderfully. It is in attempting a +masculine Hamlet that she transcends the imaginable and violates an +ideal. It is not thinkable. After you have seen it done, you say, as +Mr. Clemens is said to have said of bicycling: "Yes, I have seen it, but +it's impossible. It doesn't stand to reason." + +Art, like law, is the perfection of reason, and whatever is unreasonable +in the work of an artist is inartistic. By the time I had reached these +bold conclusions I was ready to deduce a principle from them, and to +declare that in a true civilization such a thing as that Hamlet would be +forbidden, as an offence against public morals, a violence to something +precious and sacred. + +In the absence of any public regulation the precious and sacred ideals in +the arts must be trusted to the several artists, who bring themselves to +judgment when they violate them. After Mme. Bernhardt was perversely +willing to attempt the part of Hamlet, the question whether she did it +well or not was of slight consequence. She had already made her failure +in wishing to play the part. Her wish impugned her greatness as an +artist; of a really great actress it would have been as unimaginable as +the assumption of a sublime feminine role by a really great actor. There +is an obscure law in this matter which it would be interesting to trace, +but for the present I must leave the inquiry with the reader. I can note +merely that it seems somehow more permissible for women in imaginary +actions to figure as men than for men to figure as women. In the theatre +we have conjectured how and why this may be, but the privilege, for less +obvious reasons, seems yet more liberally granted in fiction. A woman +may tell a story in the character of a man and not give offence, but a +man cannot write a novel in autobiographical form from the personality of +a woman without imparting the sense of something unwholesome. One feels +this true even in the work of such a master as Tolstoy, whose Katia is a +case in point. Perhaps a woman may play Hamlet with a less shocking +effect than a man may play Desdemona, but all the same she must not play +Hamlet at all. That sublime ideal is the property of the human +imagination, and may not be profaned by a talent enamoured of the +impossible. No harm could be done by the broadest burlesque, the most +irreverent travesty, for these would still leave the ideal untouched. +Hamlet, after all the horse-play, would be Hamlet; but Hamlet played by a +woman, to satisfy her caprice, or to feed her famine for a fresh effect, +is Hamlet disabled, for a long time, at least, in its vital essence. +I felt that it would take many returns to the Hamlet of Shakespeare to +efface the impression of Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet; and as I prepared to +escape from my row of stalls in the darkening theatre, I experienced a +noble shame for having seen the Dane so disnatured, to use Mr. Lowell's +word. I had not been obliged to come; I had voluntarily shared in the +wrong done; by my presence I had made myself an accomplice in the wrong. +It was high ground, but not too high for me, and I recovered a measure of +self-respect in assuming it. + + + + + + +THE MIDNIGHT PLATOON + +He had often heard of it. Connoisseurs of such matters, young newspaper +men trying to make literature out of life and smuggle it into print under +the guard of unwary editors, and young authors eager to get life into +their literature, had recommended it to him as one of the most impressive +sights of the city; and he had willingly agreed with them that he ought +to see it. He imagined it very dramatic, and he was surprised to find it +in his experience so largely subjective. If there was any drama at all +it was wholly in his own consciousness. But the thing was certainly +impressive in its way. + + + + +I. + +He thought it a great piece of luck that he should come upon it by +chance, and so long after he had forgotten about it that he was surprised +to recognize it for the spectacle he had often promised himself the +pleasure of seeing. + +Pleasure is the right word; for pleasure of the painful sort that all +hedonists will easily imagine was what he expected to get from it; though +upon the face of it there seems no reason why a man should delight to see +his fellow-men waiting in the winter street for the midnight dole of +bread which must in some cases be their only meal from the last midnight +to the next midnight. But the mere thought of it gave him pleasure, and +the sight of it, from the very first instant. He was proud of knowing +just what it was at once, with the sort of pride which one has in knowing +an earthquake, though one has never felt one before. He saw the double +file of men stretching up one street, and stretching down the other from +the corner of the bakery where the loaves were to be given out on the +stroke of twelve, and he hugged himself in a luxurious content with his +perspicacity. + +It was all the more comfortable to do this because he was in a coup, +warmly shut against the sharp, wholesome Christmas-week weather, and was +wrapped to the chin in a long fur overcoat, which he wore that night as a +duty to his family, with a conscience against taking cold and alarming +them for his health. He now practised another piece of self-denial: he +let the cabman drive rapidly past the interesting spectacle, and carry +him to the house where he was going to fetch away the child from the +Christmas party. He wished to be in good time, so as to save the child +from anxiety about his coming; but he promised himself to stop, going +back, and glut his sensibility in a leisurely study of the scene. He got +the child, with her arms full of things from the Christmas-tree, into the +coup, and then he said to the cabman, respectfully leaning as far over +from his box to listen as his thick greatcoat would let him: "When you +get up there near that bakery again, drive slowly. I want to have a look +at those men." + +"All right, sir," said the driver intelligently, and he found his why +skilfully out of the street among the high banks of the seasonable +Christmas-week snow, which the street-cleaners had heaped up there till +they could get round to it with their carts. + +When they were in Broadway again it seemed lonelier and silenter than it +was a few minutes before. Except for their own coup, the cable-cars, +with their flaming foreheads, and the mechanical clangor of their gongs +at the corners, seemed to have it altogether to themselves. A tall, +lumbering United States mail van rolled by, and impressed my friend in +the coup with a cheap and agreeable sense of mystery relative to the +letters it was carrying to their varied destination at the Grand Central +Station. He listened with half an ear to the child's account of the fun +she had at the party, and he watched with both eyes for the sight of the +men waiting at the bakery for the charity of the midnight loaves. + +He played with a fear that they might all have vanished, and with an +apprehension that the cabman might forget and whirl him rapidly by the +place where he had left them. But the driver remembered, and checked his +horses in good time; and there were the men still, but in even greater +number than before, stretching farther up Broadway and farther out along +the side street. They stood slouched in dim and solemn phalanx under the +night sky, so seasonably, clear and frostily atwinkle with Christmas-week +stars; two by two they stood, slouched close together, perhaps for their +mutual warmth, perhaps in an unconscious effort to get near the door +where the loaves were to be given out, in time to share in them before +they were all gone. + + + + +II. + +My friend's heart beat with glad anticipation. He was really to see this +important, this representative thing to the greatest possible advantage. +He rapidly explained to his companion that the giver of the midnight +loaves got rid of what was left of his daily bread in that way: the next +day it could not be sold, and he preferred to give it away to those who +needed it, rather than try to find his account in it otherwise. She +understood, and he tried to think that sometimes coffee was given with +the bread, but he could not make sure of this, though he would have liked +very much to have it done; it would have been much more dramatic. +Afterwards he learned that it was done, and he was proud of having +fancied it. + +He decided that when he came alongside of the Broadway file he would get +out, and go to the side door of the bakery and watch the men receiving +the bread. Perhaps he would find courage to speak to them, and ask them +about themselves. At the time it did not strike him that it would be +indecent. + +A great many things about them were open to reasonable conjecture. It +was not probable that they were any of them there for their health, as +the saying is. They were all there because they were hungry, or else +they were there in behalf of some one else who was hungry. But it was +always possible that some of them were impostors, and he wondered if any +test was applied to them that would prove them deserving or undeserving. +If one were poor, one ought to be deserving; if one were rich, it did not +so much matter. + +It seemed to him very likely that if he asked these men questions they +would tell him lies. A fantastic association of their double files and +those of the galley-slaves whom Don Quixote released, with the tonguey +Gines de Passamonte at their head, came into his mind. He smiled, and +then he thought how these men were really a sort of slaves and convicts +--slaves to want and self-convicted of poverty. All at once he fancied +them actually manacled there together, two by two, a coffle of captives +taken in some cruel foray, and driven to a market where no man wanted to +buy. He thought how old their slavery was; and he wondered if it would +ever be abolished, as other slaveries had been. Would the world ever +outlive it? Would some New-Year's day come when some President would +proclaim, amid some dire struggle, that their slavery was to be no more? +That would be fine. + + + + +III. + +He noticed how still the most of them were. A few of them stepped a +little out of the line, and stamped to shake off the cold; but all the +rest remained motionless, shrinking into themselves, and closer together. +They might have been their own dismal ghosts, they were so still, with no +more need of defence from the cold than the dead have. + +He observed now that not one among them had a fur overcoat on; and at a +second glance he saw that there was not an overcoat of any kind among +them. He made his reflection that if any of them were impostors, and not +true men, with real hunger, and if they were alive to feel that stiff, +wholesome, Christmas-week cold, they were justly punished for their +deceit. + +He was interested by the celerity, the simultaneity of his impressions, +his reflections. It occurred to him that his abnormal alertness must be +something like that of a drowning person, or a person in mortal peril, +and being perfectly safe and well, he was obscurely flattered by the +fact. + +To test his condition further he took note of the fine mass of the great +dry-goods store on the hither corner, blocking itself out of the blue- +black night, and of the Gothic beauty of the church beyond, so near that +the coffle of captives might have issued from its sculptured portal, +after vain prayer. + +Fragments of conjecture, of speculation, drifted through his mind. How +early did these files begin to form themselves for the midnight dole of +bread? As early as ten, as nine o'clock? If so, did the fact argue +habitual destitution, or merely habitual leisure? Did the slaves in the +coffle make acquaintance, or remain strangers to one another, though they +were closely neighbored night after night by their misery? Perhaps they +joked away the weary hours of waiting; they must have their jokes. Which +of them were old-comers, and which novices? Did they ever quarrel over +questions of precedence? Had they some comity, some etiquette, which a +man forced to leave his place could appeal to, and so get it back? Could +one say to his next-hand man, "Will you please keep my place?" and would +this man say to an interloper, "Excuse me, this place is engaged"? How +was it with them, when the coffle worked slowly or swiftly past the door +where the bread and coffee were given out, and word passed to the rear +that the supply was exhausted? This must sometimes happen, and what did +they do then? + + + + +IV. + +My friend did not quite like to think. Vague, reproachful thoughts for +all the remote and immediate luxury of his life passed through his mind. +If he reformed that and gave the saving to hunger and cold? But what was +the use? There was so much hunger, so much cold, that it could not go +round. + +The cabman was obeying his orders too faithfully. He was not only +walking by the Broadway coffle, he was creeping by. His action caught +the notice of the slaves, and as the coups passed them they all turned +and faced it, like soldiers under review making ready to salute a +superior. They were perfectly silent, perfectly respectful, but their +eyes seemed to pierce the coupe through and through. + +My friend was suddenly aware of a certain quality of representivity; he +stood to these men for all the ease and safety that they could never, +never hope to know. He was Society: Society that was to be preserved +because it embodies Civilization. He wondered if they hated him in his +capacity of Better Classes. He no longer thought of getting out and +watching their behavior as they took their bread and coffee. He would +have liked to excuse that thought, and protest that he was ashamed of it; +that he was their friend, and wished them well--as well as might be +without the sacrifice of his own advantages or superfluities, which he +could have persuaded them would be perfectly useless. He put his hand on +that of his companion trembling on his arm with sympathy, or at least +with intelligence. + +"You mustn't mind. What we are and what we do is all right. It's what +they are and what they suffer that's all wrong." + + + + +V. + +"Does that view of the situation still satisfy you?" I asked, when he +had told me of this singular experience; I liked his apparently not +coloring it at all. + +"I don't know," he answered. "It seems to be the only way out." + +"Well, it's an easy way," I admitted, "and it's an idea that ought to +gratify the midnight platoon." + + + + + + +THE BEACH AT ROCKAWAY + +I confess that I cannot hear people rejoice in their summer sojourn as +beyond the reach of excursionists without a certain rebellion; and yet I +have to confess also that after spending a Sunday afternoon of late July, +four or five years ago, with the excursionists at one of the beaches near +New York, I was rather glad that my own summer sojourn was not within +reach of them. I know very well that the excursionists must go +somewhere, and as a man and a brother I am willing they should go +anywhere, but as a friend of quiet and seclusion I should be sorry to +have them come much where I am. It is not because I would deny them a +share of any pleasure I enjoy, but because they are so many and I am so +few that I think they would get all the pleasure and I none. I hope the +reader will see how this attitude distinguishes me from the selfish +people who inhumanly exult in their remoteness from excursionists. + + + + +I. + +It was at Rockaway Beach that I saw these fellow-beings whose mere +multitude was too much for me. They were otherwise wholly without +offence towards me, and so far as I noted, towards each other; they were, +in fact, the most entirely peaceable multitude I ever saw in any country, +and the very quietest. + +There were thousands, mounting well up towards tens of thousands, of +them, in every variety of age and sex; yet I heard no voice lifted above +the conversational level, except that of some infant ignorant of its +privileges in a day at the sea-side, or some showman crying the +attractions of the spectacle in his charge. I used to think the American +crowds rather boisterous and unruly, and many years ago, when I lived in +Italy, I celebrated the greater amiability and self-control of the +Italian crowds. But we have certainly changed all that within a +generation, and if what I saw the other day was a typical New York crowd, +then the popular joy of our poorer classes is no longer the terror it +once was to the peaceful observer. The tough was not visibly present, +nor the toughness, either of the pure native East Side stock or of the +Celtic extraction; yet there were large numbers of Americans with rather +fewer recognizable Irish among the masses, who were mainly Germans, +Russians, Poles, and the Jews of these several nationalities. + +There was eating and drinking without limit, on every hand and in every +kind, at the booths abounding in fried seafood, and at the tables under +all the wide-spreading verandas of the hotels and restaurants; yet I saw +not one drunken man, and of course not any drunken women. No one that I +saw was even affected by drink, and no one was guilty of any rude or +unseemly behavior. The crowd was, in short, a monument to the democratic +ideal of life in that very important expression of life, personal +conduct, I have not any notion who or what the people were, or how +virtuous or vicious they privately might be; but I am sure that no +society assemblage could be of a goodlier outside; and to be of a goodly +outside is all that the mere spectator has a right to ask of any crowd. + +I fancied, however, that great numbers of this crowd, or at least all the +Americans in it, were Long-Islanders from the inland farms and villages +within easy distance of the beach. They had probably the hereditary +habit of coming to it, for it was a favorite resort in the time of their +fathers and grandfathers, who had + + --"many an hour whiled away + Listening to the breakers' roar + That washed the beach at Rockaway." + +But the clothing store and the paper pattern have equalized the cheaper +dress of the people so that you can no longer know citizen and countryman +apart by their clothes, still less citizeness and countrywoman; and I can +only conjecture that the foreign-looking folk I saw were from New York +and Brooklyn. They came by boat, and came and went by the continually +arriving and departing trains, and last but not least by bicycles, both +sexes. A few came in the public carriages and omnibuses of the +neighborhood, but by far the vaster number whom neither the boats nor the +trains had brought had their own vehicles, the all-pervading bicycles, +which no one seemed so poor as not to be able to keep. The bicyclers +stormed into the frantic village of the beach the whole afternoon, in the +proportion of one woman to five men, and most of these must have ridden +down on their wheels from the great cities. Boys ran about in the +roadway with bunches of brasses, to check the wheels, and put them for +safekeeping in what had once been the stable-yards of the hotels; the +restaurants had racks for them, where you could see them in solid masses, +side by side, for a hundred feet, and no shop was without its door-side +rack, which the wheelman might slide his wheel into when he stopped for a +soda, a cigar, or a sandwich. All along the road the gay bicycler and +bicycless swarmed upon the piazzas of the inns, munching, lunching, while +their wheels formed a fantastic decoration for the underpinning of the +house and a novel balustering for the steps. + + + + +II. + +The amusements provided for these throngs of people were not different +from those provided for throngs of people everywhere, who must be of much +the same mind and taste the world over. I had fine moments when I moved +in an illusion of the Midway Plaisance; again I was at the Fete de +Neuilly, with all of Paris but the accent about me; yet again the county +agricultural fairs of my youth spread their spectral joys before me. At +none of these places, however, was there a sounding sea or a mountainous +chute, and I made haste to experience the variety these afforded, +beginning with the chute, since the sea was always there, and the chute +might be closed for the day if I waited to view it last. I meant only to +enjoy the pleasure of others in it, and I confined my own participation +to the ascent of the height from which the boat plunges down the watery +steep into the oblong pool below. When I bought my ticket for the car +that carried passengers up, they gave me also a pasteboard medal, +certifying for me, "You have shot the chute," and I resolved to keep this +and show it to doubting friends as a proof of my daring; but it is a +curious evidence of my unfitness for such deceptions that I afterwards +could not find the medal. So I will frankly own that for me it was quite +enough to see others shoot the chute, and that I came tamely down myself +in the car. There is a very charming view from the top, of the sea with +its ships, and all the mad gayety of the shore, but of course my main +object was to exult in the wild absurdity of those who shot the chute. +There was always a lady among the people in the clumsy flat-boat that +flew down the long track, and she tried usually to be a pretty girl, who +clutched her friends and lovers and shrieked aloud in her flight; but +sometimes it was a sober mother of a family, with her brood about her, +who was probably meditating, all the way, the inculpation of their father +for any harm that came of it. Apparently no harm came of it in any case. + +The boat struck the water with the impetus gained from a half- +perpendicular slide of a hundred feet, bounded high into the air, struck +again and again, and so flounced awkwardly across the pond to the farther +shore, where the passengers debarked and went away to commune with their +viscera, and to get their breath as they could. I did not ask any of +them what their emotions or sensations were, but, so far as I could +conjecture, the experience of shooting the chute must comprise the rare +transport of a fall from a ten-story building and the delight of a +tempestuous passage of the Atlantic, powerfully condensed. + +The mere sight was so athletic that it took away any appetite I might +have had to witness the feats of strength performed by Madame La Noire at +the nearest booth on my coming out, though madame herself was at the +door-to testify, in her own living picture, how much muscular force may +be masked in vast masses of adipose. She had a weary, bored look, and +was not without her pathos, poor soul, as few of those are who amuse the +public; but I could not find her quite justifiable as a Sunday +entertainment. One forgot, however, what day it was, and for the time I +did not pretend to be so much better than my neighbors that I would not +compromise upon a visit to, an animal show a little farther on. It was a +pretty fair collection of beasts that had once been wild, perhaps, and in +the cage of the lions there was a slight, sad-looking, long-haired young +man, exciting them to madness by blows of a whip and pistol-shots whom I +was extremely glad to have get away without being torn in pieces, or at +least bitten in two. A little later I saw him at the door of the tent, +very breathless, dishevelled, and as to his dress not of the spotlessness +one could wish. But perhaps spotlessness is not compatible with the +intimacy of lions and lionesses. He had had his little triumph; one +spectator of his feat had declared that you would not see anything like +that at Coney Island; and soiled and dusty as he was in his cotton +tights, he was preferable to the living picture of a young lady whom he +replaced as an attraction of the show. It was professedly a moral show; +the manager exhorted us as we came out to say whether it was good or not; +and in the box-office sat a kind and motherly faced matron who would have +apparently abhorred to look upon a living picture at any distance, much +less have it at her elbow. + +Upon the whole, there seemed a melancholy mistake in it all; the people +to whom the showmen made their appeal were all so much better, evidently, +than the showmen supposed; the showmen themselves appeared harmless +enough, and one could not say that there was personally any harm in the +living picture; rather she looked listless and dull, but as to the face +respectable enough. + +I would not give the impression that most of the amusements were not in +every respect decorous. As a means of pleasure, the merry-go-round, both +horizontal with horses and vertical with swinging cradles, prevailed, and +was none the worse for being called by the French name of carrousel, for +our people aniglicize the word, and squeeze the last drop of Gallic +wickedness from it by pronouncing it carousal. At every other step there +were machines for weighing you and ascertaining your height; there were +photographers' booths, and X-ray apparatus for showing you the inside of +your watch; and in one open tent I saw a gentleman (with his back to the +public) having his fortune read in the lines of his hand by an Egyptian +seeress. Of course there was everywhere soda, and places of the softer +drinks abounded. + + + + +III. + +I think you could only get a hard drink by ordering something to eat and +sitting down to your wine or beer at a table. Again I say that I saw no +effects of drink in the crowd, and in one of the great restaurants built +out over the sea on piers, where there was perpetual dancing to the +braying of a brass-band, the cotillon had no fire imparted to its figures +by the fumes of the bar. In fact it was a very rigid sobriety that +reigned here, governing the common behavior by means of the placards +which hung from the roof over the heads of the dancers, and repeatedly +announced that gentlemen were not allowed to dance together, or to carry +umbrellas or canes while dancing, while all were entreated not to spit on +the floor. + +The dancers looked happy and harmless, if not very wise or splendid; they +seemed people of the same simple neighborhoods, village lovers, young +wives and husbands, and parties of friends who had come together for the +day's pleasure. A slight mother, much weighed down by a heavy baby, +passed, rapt in an innocent envy of them, and I think she and the child's +father meant to join them as soon as they could find a place where to lay +it. Almost any place would do; at another great restaurant I saw two +chairs faced together, and a baby sleeping on them as quietly amid the +coming and going of lagers and frankfurters as if in its cradle at home. + +Lagers and frankfurters were much in evidence everywhere, especially +frankfurters, which seemed to have whole booths devoted to broiling them. +They disputed this dignity with soft-shell crabs, and sections of eels, +piled attractively on large platters, or sizzling to an impassioned brown +in deep skillets of fat. The old acrid smell of frying brought back many +holidays of Italy to me, and I was again at times on the Riva at Venice, +and in the Mercato Vecchio at Florence. But the Continental Sunday +cannot be felt to have quite replaced the old American Sabbath yet; the +Puritan leaven works still, and though so many of our own people consent +willingly to the transformation, I fancy they always enjoy themselves on +Sunday with a certain consciousness of wrong-doing. + + + + +IV. + +I have already said that the spectator quite lost sense of what day it +was. Nothing could be more secular than all the sights and sounds. It +was the Fourth of July, less the fire-crackers and the drunkenness, and +it was the high day of the week. But if it was very wicked, and I must +recognize that the scene would be shocking to most of my readers, I feel +bound to say that the people themselves did not look wicked. They looked +harmless; they even looked good, the most of them. I am sorry to say +they were not very good-looking. The women were pretty enough, and the +men were handsome enough; perhaps the average was higher in respect of +beauty than the average is anywhere else; I was lately from New England, +where the people were distinctly more hard-favored; but among all those +thousands at Rockaway I found no striking types. It may be that as we +grow older and our satisfaction with our own looks wanes, we become more +fastidious as to the looks of others. At any rate, there seems to be +much less beauty in the world than there was thirty or forty years ago. + +On the other hand, the dresses seem indefinitely prettier, as they should +be in compensation. When we were all so handsome we could well afford to +wear hoops or peg-top trousers, but now it is different, and the poor +things must eke out their personal ungainliness with all the devices of +the modiste and the tailor. I do not mean that there was any distinction +in the dress of the crowd, but I saw nothing positively ugly or +grotesquely out of taste. The costumes were as good as the customs, and +I have already celebrated the manners of this crowd. I believe I must +except the costumes of the bicyclesses, who were unfailingly dumpy in +effect when dismounted, and who were all the more lamentable for +tottering about, in their short skirts, upon the tips of their narrow +little, sharp-pointed, silly high-heeled shoes. How severe I am! +But those high heels seemed to take all honesty from their daring in the +wholesome exercise of the wheel, and to keep them in the tradition of +cheap coquetry still, and imbecilly dependent. + + + + +V. + +I have almost forgotten in the interest of the human spectacle that there +is a sea somewhere about at Rockaway Beach, and it is this that the +people have come for. I might well forget that modest sea, it is so +built out of sight by the restaurants and bath-houses and switch-backs +and shops that border it, and by the hotels and saloons and shows flaring +along the road that divides the village, and the planked streets that +intersect this. But if you walk southward on any of the streets, you +presently find the planks foundering in sand, which drifts far up over +them, and then you find yourself in full sight of the ocean and the ocean +bathing. Swarms and heaps of people in all lolling and lying and +wallowing shapes strew the beach, and the water is full of slopping and +shouting and shrieking human creatures, clinging with bare white arms to +the life-lines that run from the shore to the buoys; beyond these the +lifeguard stays himself in his boat with outspread oars, and rocks on the +incoming surf. + +All that you can say of it is that it is queer. It is not picturesque, +or poetic, or dramatic; it is queer. An enfilading glance gives this +impression and no other; if you go to the balcony of the nearest marine +restaurant for a flanking eye-shot, it is still queer, with the added +effect, in all those arms upstretched to the life-lines, of frogs' legs +inverted in a downward plunge. + +On the sand before this spectacle I talked with a philosopher of humble +condition who backed upon me and knocked my umbrella out of my hand. +This made us beg each other's pardon; he said that he did not know I was +there, and I said it did not matter. Then we both looked at the bathing, +and he said: + +"I don't like that." + +"Why," I asked, "do you see any harm in it?" + +"No. But I don't like the looks of it. It ain't nice. It's queer." + +It was indeed like one of those uncomfortable dreams where you are not +dressed sufficiently for company, or perhaps at all, and yet are making a +very public appearance. This promiscuous bathing was not much in excess +of the convention that governs the sea-bathing of the politest people; it +could not be; and it was marked by no grave misconduct. Here and there a +gentleman was teaching a lady to swim, with his arms round her; here and +there a wild nereid was splashing another; a young Jew pursued a flight +of naiads with a section of dead eel in his hand. But otherwise all was +a damp and dreary decorum. I challenged my philosopher in vain for a +specific cause of his dislike of the scene. + +Most of the people on the sand were in bathing-dress, but there were a +multitude of others who had apparently come for the sea-air and not the +sea-bathing. A mother sat with a sick child on her knees; babies were +cradled in the sand asleep, and people walked carefully round and over +them. There were everywhere a great many poor mothers and children, who +seemed getting the most of the good that was going. + + + + +VI. + +But upon the whole, though I drove away from the beach celebrating the +good temper and the good order of the scene to an applausive driver, I +have since thought of it as rather melancholy. It was in fact no wiser +or livelier than a society function in the means of enjoyment it +afforded. The best thing about it was that it left the guests very much +to their own devices. The established pleasures were clumsy and +tiresome-looking; but one could eschew them. The more of them one +eschewed, the merrier perhaps; for I doubt if the race is formed for much +pleasure; and even a day's rest is more than most people can bear. They +endure it in passing, but they get home weary and cross, even after a +twenty-mile run on the wheel. The road, by-the-by, was full of homeward +wheels by this time, single and double and tandem, and my driver +professed that their multitude greatly increased the difficulties of his +profession. + + + + + + +SAWDUST IN THE ARENA + +It was in the old Roman arena of beautiful Verona that the circus events +I wish to speak of took place; in fact, I had the honor and profit of +seeing two circuses there. Or, strictly speaking, it was one entire +circus that I saw, and the unique speciality of another, the dying glory +of a circus on its last legs, the triumphal fall of a circus superb in +adversity. + + + + +I. + +The entire circus was altogether Italian, with the exception of the +clowns, who, to the credit of our nation, are always Americans, or +advertised as such, in Italy. Its chief and almost absorbing event was a +reproduction of the tournament which had then lately been held at Rome in +celebration of Prince Tommaso's coming of age, and for a copy of a copy +it was really fine. It had fitness in the arena, which must have +witnessed many such mediaeval shows in their time, and I am sensible +still of the pleasure its effects of color gave me. There was one +beautiful woman, a red blonde in a green velvet gown, who might have +ridden, as she was, out of a canvas of Titian's, if he had ever painted +equestrian pictures, and who at any rate was an excellent Carpaccio. +Then, the 'Clowns Americani' were very amusing, from a platform devoted +solely to them, and it was a source of pride if not of joy with me to +think that we were almost the only people present who understood their +jokes. In the vast oval of the arena, however, the circus ring looked +very little, not half so large, say, as the rim of a lady's hat in front +of you at the play; and on the gradines of the ancient amphitheatre we +were all such a great way off that a good field-glass would have been +needed to distinguish the features of the actors. I could not make out, +therefore, whether the 'Clowns Americani' had the national expression or +not, but one of them, I am sorry to say, spoke the United States language +with a cockney accent. I suspect that he was an Englishman who had +passed himself off upon the Italian management as a true Yankee, and who +had formed himself upon our school of clowning, just as some of the +recent English humorists have patterned after certain famous wits of +ours. I do not know that I would have exposed this impostor, even if +occasion had offered, for, after all, his fraud was a tribute to our own +primacy in clowning, and the Veronese were none the worse for his erring +aspirates. + +The audience was for me the best part of the spectacle, as the audience +always is in Italy, and I indulged my fancy in some cheap excursions +concerning the place and people. I reflected that it was the same race +essentially as that which used to watch the gladiatorial shows in that +arena when it was new, and that very possibly there were among these +spectators persons of the same blood as those Veronese patricians who had +left their names carved on the front of the gradines in places, to claim +this or that seat for their own. In fact, there was so little +difference, probably, in their qualities, from that time to this, that I +felt the process of the generations to be a sort of impertinence; and if +Nature had been present, I might very well have asked her why, when she +had once arrived at a given expression of humanity, she must go on +repeating it indefinitely? How were all those similar souls to know +themselves apart in their common eternity? Merely to have been +differently circumstanced in time did not seem enough; and I think Nature +would have been puzzled to answer me. But perhaps not; she may have had +her reasons, as that you cannot have too much of a good thing, and that +when the type was so fine in most respects as the Italian you could not +do better than go on repeating impressions from it. + +Certainly I myself could have wished no variation from it in the young +officer of 'bersaglieri', who had come down from antiquity to the topmost +gradine of the arena over against me, and stood there defined against the +clear evening sky, one hand on his hip, and the other at his side, while +his thin cockerel plumes streamed in the light wind. I have since +wondered if he knew how beautiful he was, and I am sure that, if he did +not, all the women there did, and that was doubtless enough for the young +officer of 'bersaglieri'. + + + + +II. + +I think that he was preliminary to the sole event of that partial circus +I have mentioned. This event was one that I have often witnessed +elsewhere, but never in such noble and worthy keeping. The top of the +outer arena wall must itself be fifty feet high, and the pole in the +centre of its oval seemed to rise fifty feet higher yet. At its base an +immense net was stretched, and a man in a Prince Albert coat and a derby +hat was figuring about, anxiously directing the workmen who were fixing +the guy-ropes, and testing every particular of the preparation with his +own hands. While this went on, a young girl ran out into the arena, and, +after a bow to the spectators, quickly mounted to the top of the pole, +where she presently stood in statuesque beauty that took all eyes even +from the loveliness of the officer of 'bersaglieri'. There the man in +the Prince Albert coat and the derby hat stepped back from the net and +looked up at her. + +She called down, in English that sounded like some delocalized, +denaturalized speech, it was so strange then and there, "Is it all +right?" + +He shouted back in the same alienated tongue, "Yes; keep to the left," +and she dived straight downward in the long plunge, till, just before she +reached the net, she turned a quick somersault into its elastic mesh. + +It was all so exquisitely graceful that one forgot how wickedly dangerous +it was; but I think that the brief English colloquy was the great wonder +of the event for me, and I doubt if I could ever have been perfectly +happy again, if chance had not amiably suffered me to satisfy my +curiosity concerning the speakers. A few evenings after that, I was at +that copy of a copy of a tournament, and, a few gradines below me, I saw +the man of the Prince Albert coat and the derby hat. I had already made +up my mind that he was an American, for I supposed that an Englishman +would rather perish than wear such a coat with such a hat, and as I had +wished all my life to speak to a circus-man, I went down and boldly +accosted him. "Are you a brother Yankee?" I asked, and he laughed, and +confessed that he was an Englishman, but he said he was glad to meet any +one who spoke English, and he made a place for me by his side. He was +very willing to tell how he happened to be there, and he explained that +he was the manager of a circus, which had been playing to very good +business all winter in Spain. In an evil hour he decided to come to +Italy, but he found the prices so ruinously low that he was forced to +disband his company. This diving girl was all that remained to him of +its many attractions, and he was trying to make a living for both in a +country where the admission to a circus was six of our cents, with fifty +for a reserved seat. But he was about to give it up and come to America, +where he said Barnum had offered him an engagement. I hope he found it +profitable, and is long since an American citizen, with as good right as +any of us to wear a Prince Albert coat with a derby hat. + + + + +III. + +There used to be very good circuses in Venice, where many Venetians had +the only opportunity of their lives to see a horse. The horses were the +great attraction for them, and, perhaps in concession to their habitual +destitution in this respect, the riding was providentially very good. It +was so good that it did not bore me, as circus-riding mostly does, +especially that of the silk-clad jockey who stands in his high boots, on +his back-bared horse, and ends by waving an American flag in triumph at +having been so tiresome. + +I am at a loss to know why they make such an ado about the lady who jumps +through paper hoops, which have first had holes poked in them to render +her transit easy, or why it should be thought such a merit in her to hop +over a succession of banners which are swept under her feet in a manner +to minify her exertion almost to nothing, but I observe it is so at all +circuses. At my first Venetian circus, which was on a broad expanse of +the Riva degli Schiavoni, there was a girl who flung herself to the +ground and back to her horse again, holding by his mane with one hand, +quite like the goddess out of the bath-gown at my village circus the +other day; and apparently there are more circuses in the world than +circus events. It must be as hard to think up anything new in that kind +as in romanticistic fiction, which circus-acting otherwise largely +resembles. + +At a circus which played all one winter in Florence I saw for the first +time-outside of polite society--the clown in evening dress, who now seems +essential to all circuses of metropolitan pretensions, and whom I missed +so gladly at my village circus. He is nearly as futile as the lady +clown, who is one of the saddest and strangest developments of New +Womanhood. + +Of the clowns who do not speak, I believe I like most the clown who +catches a succession of peak-crowned soft hats on his head, when thrown +across the ring by an accomplice. This is a very pretty sight always, +and at the Hippodrome in Paris I once saw a gifted creature take his +stand high up on the benches among the audience and catch these hats on +his head from a flight of a hundred feet through the air. This made me +proud of human nature, which is often so humiliating; and altogether I do +not think that after a real country circus there are many better things +in life than the Hippodrome. It had a state, a dignity, a smoothness, a +polish, which I should not know where to match, and when the superb coach +drove into the ring to convey the lady performers to the scene of their +events, there was a majesty in the effect which I doubt if courts have +the power to rival. Still, it should be remembered that I have never +been at court, and speak from a knowledge of the Hippodrome only. + + + + + + +AT A DIME MUSEUM + +"I see," said my friend, "that you have been writing a good deal about +the theatre during the past winter. You have been attacking its high +hats and its high prices, and its low morals; and I suppose that you +think you have done good, as people call it." + + + + +I. + +This seemed like a challenge of some sort, and I prepared myself to take +it up warily. I said I should be very sorry to do good, as people called +it; because such a line of action nearly always ended in spiritual pride +for the doer and general demoralization for the doee. Still, I said, a +law had lately been passed in Ohio giving a man who found himself behind +a high hat at the theatre a claim for damages against the manager; and if +the passage of this law could be traced ever so faintly and indirectly to +my teachings, I should not altogether grieve for the good I had done. +I added that if all the States should pass such a law, and other laws +fixing a low price for a certain number of seats at the theatres, or +obliging the managers to give one free performance every month, as the +law does in Paris, and should then forbid indecent and immoral plays-- + +"I see what you mean," said my friend, a little impatiently. "You mean +sumptuary legislation. But I have not come to talk to you upon that +subject, for then you would probably want to do all the talking yourself. +I want to ask you if you have visited any of the cheaper amusements of +this metropolis, or know anything of the really clever and charming +things one may see there for a very little money." + +"Ten cents, for instance?" + +"Yes." + +I answered that I would never own to having come as low down as that; and +I expressed a hardy and somewhat inconsistent doubt of the quality of the +amusement that could be had for that money. I questioned if anything +intellectual could be had for it. + +"What do you say to the ten-cent magazines?" my friend retorted. "And +do you pretend that the two-dollar drama is intellectual?" + +I had to confess that it generally was not, and that this was part of my +grief with it. + +Then he said: "I don't contend that it is intellectual, but I say that it +is often clever and charming at the ten-cent shows, just as it is less +often clever and charming in the ten-cent magazines. I think the average +of propriety is rather higher than it is at the two-dollar theatres; and +it is much more instructive at the ten-cent shows, if you come to that. +The other day," said my friend, and in squaring himself comfortably in +his chair and finding room for his elbow on the corner of my table he +knocked off some books for review, "I went to a dime museum for an hour +that I had between two appointments, and I must say that I never passed +an hour's time more agreeably. In the curio hall, as one of the +lecturers on the curios called it--they had several lecturers in white +wigs and scholars' caps and gowns--there was not a great deal to see, I +confess; but everything was very high-class. There was the inventor of a +perpetual motion, who lectured upon it and explained it from a diagram. +There was a fortune-teller in a three-foot tent whom I did not interview; +there were five macaws in one cage, and two gloomy apes in another. On a +platform at the end of the hall was an Australian family a good deal +gloomier than the apes, who sat in the costume of our latitude, staring +down the room with varying expressions all verging upon melancholy +madness, and who gave me such a pang of compassion as I have seldom got +from the tragedy of the two-dollar theatres. They allowed me to come +quite close up to them, and to feed my pity upon their wild dejection in +exile without stint. I couldn't enter into conversation with them, and +express my regret at finding them so far from their native boomerangs and +kangaroos and pinetree grubs, but I know they felt my sympathy, it was so +evident. I didn't see their performance, and I don't know that they had +any. They may simply have been there ethnologically, but this was a good +object, and the sight of their spiritual misery was alone worth the price +of admission. + +"After the inventor of the perpetual motion had brought his harangue to a +close, we all went round to the dais where a lady in blue spectacles +lectured us upon a fire-escape which she had invented, and operated a +small model of it. None of the events were so exciting that we could +regret it when the chief lecturer announced that this was the end of the +entertainment in the curio hall, and that now the performance in the +theatre was about to begin. He invited us to buy tickets at an +additional charge of five, ten, or fifteen cents for the gallery, +orchestra circle, or orchestra. + +"I thought I could afford an orchestra stall, for once. We were three in +the orchestra, another man and a young mother, not counting the little +boy she had with her; there were two people in the gallery, and a dozen +at least in the orchestra circle. An attendant shouted, 'Hats off!' and +the other man and I uncovered, and a lady came up from under the stage +and began to play the piano in front of it. The curtain rose, and the +entertainment began at once. It was a passage apparently from real life, +and it involved a dissatisfied boarder and the daughter of the landlady. +There was not much coherence in it, but there was a good deal of +conscience on the part of the actors, who toiled through it with +unflagging energy. The young woman was equipped for the dance she +brought into it at one point rather than for the part she had to sustain +in the drama. It was a very blameless dance, and she gave it as if she +was tired of it, but was not going to falter. She delivered her lines +with a hard, Southwestern accent, and I liked fancying her having come up +in a simpler-hearted section of the country than ours, encouraged by a +strong local belief that she was destined to do Juliet and Lady Macbeth, +or Peg Woffington at the least; but very likely she had not. + +"Her performance was followed by an event involving a single character. +The actor, naturally, was blackened as to his skin, but as to his dress +he was all in white, and at the first glance I could see that he had +temperament. I suspect that he thought I had, too, for he began to +address his entire drama to me. This was not surprising, for it would +not have been the thing for him to single out the young mother; and the +other man in the orchestra stalls seemed a vague and inexperienced youth, +whom he would hardly have given the preference over me. I felt the +compliment, but upon the whole it embarrassed me; it was too intimate, +and it gave me a publicity I would willingly have foregone. I did what I +could to reject it, by feigning an indifference to his jokes; I even +frowned a measure of disapproval; but this merely stimulated his +ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a +number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and +looked over his audience with a woe-begone eye, and said, with an effect +of delicate apology, 'I hope I'm not disturbing you any,' I broke down +and laughed, and that delivered me into his hand. He immediately said to +me that now he would tell me about a friend of his, who had a pretty +large family, eight of them living, and one in Philadelphia; and then for +no reason he seemed to change his mind, and said he would sing me a song +written expressly for him--by an expressman; and he went on from one wild +gayety to another, until he had worked his audience up to quite a frenzy +of enthusiasm, and almost had a recall when he went off. + +"I was rather glad to be rid of him, and I was glad that the next +performers, who were a lady and a gentleman contortionist of Spanish- +American extraction, behaved more impartially. They were really +remarkable artists in their way, and though it's a painful way, I +couldn't help admiring their gift in bowknots and other difficult poses. +The gentleman got abundant applause, but the lady at first got none. I +think perhaps it was because, with the correct feeling that prevailed +among us, we could not see a lady contort herself with so much approval +as a gentleman, and that there was a wound to our sense of propriety in +witnessing her skill. But I could see that the poor girl was hurt in her +artist pride by our severity, and at the next thing she did I led off the +applause with my umbrella. She instantly lighted up with a joyful smile, +and the young mother in the orchestra leaned forward to nod her sympathy +to me while she clapped. We were fast becoming a domestic circle, and it +was very pleasant, but I thought that upon the whole I had better go." + +"And do you think you had a profitable hour at that show?" I asked, with +a smile that was meant to be sceptical. + +"Profitable?" said my friend. "I said agreeable. I don't know about +the profit. But it was very good variety, and it was very cheap. I +understand that this is the kind of thing you want the two-dollar theatre +to come down to, or up to." + +"Not exactly, or not quite," I returned, thoughtfully, "though I must say +I think your time was as well spent as it would have been at most of the +plays I have seen this winter." + +My friend left the point, and said, with a dreamy air: "It was all very +pathetic, in a way. Three out of those five people were really clever, +and certainly artists. That colored brother was almost a genius, a very +common variety of genius, but still a genius, with a gift for his calling +that couldn't be disputed. He was a genuine humorist, and I sorrowed +over him--after I got safely away from his intimacy--as I should over +some author who was struggling along without winning his public. Why +not? One is as much in the show business as the other. There is a +difference of quality rather than of kind. Perhaps by-and-by my colored +humorist will make a strike with his branch of the public, as you are +always hoping to do with yours." + +"You don't think you're making yourself rather offensive?" I suggested. + +"Not intentionally. Aren't the arts one? How can you say that any art +is higher than the others? Why is it nobler to contort the mind than to +contort the body?" + +"I am always saying that it is not at all noble to contort the mind," +I returned, "and I feel that to aim at nothing higher than the amusement +of your readers is to bring yourself most distinctly to the level of the +show business." + +"Yes, I know that is your pose," said my friend. "And I dare say you +really think that you make a distinction in facts when you make a +distinction in terms. If you don't amuse your readers, you don't keep +them; practically, you cease to exist. You may call it interesting them, +if you like; but, really, what is the difference? You do your little +act, and because the stage is large and the house is fine, you fancy you +are not of that sad brotherhood which aims to please in humbler places, +with perhaps cruder means--" + +"I don't know whether I like your saws less than your instances, or your +instances less than your saws," I broke in. "Have you been at the circus +yet?" + + + + +II. + +"Yet?" demanded my friend. "I went the first night, and I have been a +good deal interested in the examination of my emotions ever since. +I can't find out just why I have so much pleasure in the trapeze. +Half the time I want to shut my eyes, and a good part of the time I do +look away; but I wouldn't spare any actor the most dangerous feat. +One of the poor girls, that night, dropped awkwardly into the net after +her performance, and limped off to the dressing-room with a sprained +ankle. It made me rather sad to think that now she must perhaps give up +her perilous work for a while, and pay a doctor, and lose her salary, but +it didn't take away my interest in the other trapezists flying through +the air above another net. + +"If I had honestly complained of anything it would have been of the +superfluity which glutted rather than fed me. How can you watch three +sets of trapezists at once? You really see neither well. It's the same +with the three rings. There should be one ring, and each act should have +a fair chance with the spectator, if it took six hours; I would willingly +give the time. Fancy three stages at the theatre, with three plays going +on at once!" + +"No, don't fancy that!" I entreated. "One play is bad enough." + +"Or fancy reading three novels simultaneously, and listening at the same +time to a lecture and a sermon, which could represent the two platforms +between the rings," my friend calmly persisted. "The three rings are an +abuse and an outrage, but I don't know but I object still more to the +silencing of the clowns. They have a great many clowns now, but they are +all dumb, and you only get half the good you used to get out of the +single clown of the old one-ring circus. Why, it's as if the literary +humorist were to lead up to a charming conceit or a subtle jest, and then +put asterisks where the humor ought to come in." + +"Don't you think you are going from bad to worse?" I asked. + +My friend went on: "I'm afraid the circus is spoiled for me. It has +become too much of a good thing; for it is a good thing; almost the best +thing in the way of an entertainment that there is. I'm still very fond +of it, but I come away defeated and defrauded because I have been +embarrassed with riches, and have been given more than I was able to +grasp. My greed has been overfed. I think I must keep to those +entertainments where you can come at ten in the morning and stay till ten +at night, with a perpetual change of bill, only one stage, and no fall of +the curtain. I suppose you would object to them because they're getting +rather dear; at the best of them now they ask you a dollar for the first +seats." + +I said that I did not think this too much for twelve hours, if the +intellectual character of the entertainment was correspondingly high. + +"It's as high as that of some magazines," said my friend, "though I could +sometimes wish it were higher. It's like the matter in the Sunday +papers--about that average. Some of it's good, and most of it isn't. +Some of it could hardly be worse. But there is a great deal of it, and +you get it consecutively and not simultaneously. That constitutes its +advantage over the circus." + +My friend stopped, with a vague smile, and I asked: + +"Then, do I understand that you would advise me to recommend the dime +museums, the circus, and the perpetual-motion varieties in the place of +the theatres?" + +"You have recommended books instead, and that notion doesn't seem to have +met with much favor, though you urged their comparative cheapness. Now, +why not suggest something that is really level with the popular taste?" + + + + + + +AMERICAN LITERATURE IN EXILE + +A recently lecturing Englishman is reported to have noted the unenviable +primacy of the United States among countries where the struggle for +material prosperity has been disastrous to the pursuit of literature. +He said, or is said to have said (one cannot be too careful in +attributing to a public man the thoughts that may be really due to an +imaginative frame in the reporter), that among us, "the old race of +writers of distinction, such as Longfellow, Bryant, Holmes, and +Washington Irving, have (sic) died out, and the Americans who are most +prominent in cultivated European opinion in art or literature, like +Sargent, Henry James, or Marion Crawford, live habitually out of America, +and draw their inspiration from England, France, and Italy." + + + + +I. + +If this were true, I confess that I am so indifferent to what many +Americans glory in that it would not distress me, or wound me in the sort +of self-love which calls itself patriotism. If it would at all help to +put an end to that struggle for material prosperity which has eventuated +with us in so many millionaires and so many tramps, I should be glad to +believe that it was driving our literary men out of the country. This +would be a tremendous object-lesson, and might be a warning to the +millionaires and the tramps. But I am afraid it would not have this +effect, for neither our very rich nor our very poor care at all for the +state of polite learning among us; though for the matter of that, I +believe that economic conditions have little to do with it; and that if a +general mediocrity of fortune prevailed and there were no haste to be +rich and to get poor, the state of polite learning would not be +considerably affected. As matters stand, I think we may reasonably ask +whether the Americans "most prominent in cultivated European opinion," +the Americans who "live habitually out of America," are not less exiles +than advance agents of the expansion now advertising itself to the world. +They may be the vanguard of the great army of adventurers destined to +overrun the earth from these shores, and exploit all foreign countries to +our advantage. They probably themselves do not know it, but in the act +of "drawing their inspiration" from alien scenes, or taking their own +where they find it, are not they simply transporting to Europe "the +struggle for material prosperity " which Sir Lepel supposes to be fatal +to them here? + +There is a question, however, which comes before this, and that is the +question whether they have quitted us in such numbers as justly to alarm +our patriotism. Qualitatively, in the authors named and in the late Mr. +Bret Harte, Mr. Harry Harland, and the late Mr. Harold Frederic, as well +as in Mark Twain, once temporarily resident abroad, the defection is very +great; but quantitatively it is not such as to leave us without a fair +measure of home-keeping authorship. Our destitution is not nearly so +great now in the absence of Mr. James and Mr. Crawford as it was in the +times before the "struggle for material prosperity" when Washington +Irving went and lived in England and on the European continent well-nigh +half his life. + +Sir Lepel Griffin--or Sir Lepel Griffin's reporter--seems to forget the +fact of Irving's long absenteeism when he classes him with "the old race" +of eminent American authors who stayed at home. But really none of those +he names were so constant to our air as he seems--or his reporter seems-- +to think. Longfellow sojourned three or four years in Germany, Spain, +and Italy; Holmes spent as great time in Paris; Bryant was a frequent +traveller, and each of them "drew his inspiration" now and then from +alien sources. Lowell was many years in Italy, Spain, and England; +Motley spent more than half his life abroad; Hawthorne was away from us +nearly a decade. + + + + +II. + +If I seem to be proving too much in one way, I do not feel that I am +proving too much in another. My facts go to show that the literary +spirit is the true world-citizen, and is at home everywhere. If any good +American were distressed by the absenteeism of our authors, I should +first advise him that American literature was not derived from the folk- +lore of the red Indians, but was, as I have said once before, a condition +of English literature, and was independent even of our independence. +Then I should entreat him to consider the case of foreign authors who had +found it more comfortable or more profitable to live out of their +respective countries than in them. I should allege for his consolation +the case of Byron, Shelley, and Leigh Hunt, and more latterly that of the +Brownings and Walter Savage Landor, who preferred an Italian to an +English sojourn; and yet more recently that of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who +voluntarily lived several years in Vermont, and has "drawn his +inspiration" in notable instances from the life of these States. It will +serve him also to consider that the two greatest Norwegian authors, +Bjornsen and Ibsen, have both lived long in France and Italy. Heinrich +Heine loved to live in Paris much better than in Dusseldorf, or even in +Hamburg; and Tourguenief himself, who said that any man's country could +get on without him, but no man could get on without his country, managed +to dispense with his own in the French capital, and died there after he +was quite free to go back to St. Petersburg. In the last century +Rousseau lived in France rather than Switzerland; Voltaire at least tried +to live in Prussia, and was obliged to a long exile elsewhere; Goldoni +left fame and friends in Venice for the favor of princes in Paris. + +Literary absenteeism, it seems to me, is not peculiarly an American vice +or an American virtue. It is an expression and a proof of the modern +sense which enlarges one's country to the bounds of civilization. +I cannot think it justly a reproach in the eyes of the world, and if any +American feels it a grievance, I suggest that he do what he can to have +embodied in the platform of his party a plank affirming the right of +American authors to a public provision that will enable them to live as +agreeably at home as they can abroad on the same money. In the mean +time, their absenteeism is not a consequence of "the struggle for +material prosperity," not a high disdain of the strife which goes on not +less in Europe than in America, and must, of course, go on everywhere as +long as competitive conditions endure, but is the result of chances and +preferences which mean nothing nationally calamitous or discreditable. + + + + + + +THE HORSE SHOW + +"As good as the circus--not so good as the circus--better than the +circus." These were my varying impressions, as I sat looking down upon +the tanbark, the other day, at the Horse Show in Madison Square Garden; +and I came away with their blend for my final opinion. + + + + +I. + +I might think that the Horse Show (which is so largely a Man Show and a +Woman Show) was better or worse than the circus, or about as good; but I +could not get away from the circus, in my impression of it. Perhaps the +circus is the norm of all splendors where the horse and his master are +joined for an effect upon the imagination of the spectator. I am sure +that I have never been able quite to dissociate from it the +picturesqueness of chivalry, and that it will hereafter always suggest to +me the last correctness of fashion. It is through the horse that these +far extremes meet; in all times the horse has been the supreme expression +of aristocracy; and it may very well be that a dream of the elder world +prophesied the ultimate type of the future, when the Swell shall have +evolved into the Centaur. + +Some such teasing notion of their mystical affinity is what haunts you as +you make your round of the vast ellipse, with the well-groomed men about +you and the well-groomed horses beyond the barrier. + +In this first affair of the new--comer, the horses are not so much on +show as the swells; you get only glimpses of shining coats and tossing +manes, with a glint here and there of a flying hoof through the lines of +people coming and going, and the ranks of people, three or four feet +deep, against the rails of the ellipse; but the swells are there in +perfect relief, and it is they who finally embody the Horse Show to you. +The fact is that they are there to see, of course, but the effect is that +they are there to be seen. + +The whole spectacle had an historical quality, which I tasted with +pleasure. It was the thing that had eventuated in every civilization, +and the American might feel a characteristic pride that what came to Rome +in five hundred years had come to America in a single century. There was +something fine in the absolutely fatal nature of the result, and I +perceived that nowhere else in our life, which is apt to be reclusive in +its exclusiveness, is the prime motive at work in it so dramatically +apparent. "Yes," I found myself thinking, "this is what it all comes to: +the 'subiti guadagni' of the new rich, made in large masses and seeking a +swift and eager exploitation, and the slowly accumulated fortunes, put +together from sparing and scrimping, from slaving and enslaving, in +former times, and now in the stainless white hands of the second or third +generation, they both meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation, +and create a Horse Show." + +I cannot say that its creators looked much as if they liked it, now they +had got it; and, so far as I have been able to observe them, people of +wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy, and have the air of being +bored in the midst of their amusements. This reserve of rapture may be +their delicacy, their unwillingness to awaken envy in the less prospered; +and I should not have objected to the swells at the Horse Show looking +dreary if they had looked more like swells; except for a certain hardness +of the countenance (which I found my own sympathetically taking on) I +should not have thought them very patrician, and this hardness may have +been merely the consequence of being so much stared at. Perhaps, indeed, +they were not swells whom I saw in the boxes, but only companies of +ordinary people who had clubbed together and hired their boxes; +I understand that this can be done, and the student of civilization so +far misled. But certainly if they were swells they did not look quite up +to themselves; though, for that matter, neither do the nobilities of +foreign countries, and on one or two occasions when I have seen them, +kings and emperors have failed me in like manner. They have all wanted +that indescribable something which I have found so satisfying in +aristocracies and royalties on the stage; and here at the Horse Show, +while I made my tour, I constantly met handsome, actor-like folk on foot +who could much better have taken the role of the people in the boxes. +The promenaders may not have been actors at all; they may have been the +real thing for which I was in vain scanning the boxes, but they looked +like actors, who indeed set an example to us all in personal beauty and +in correctness of dress. + +I mean nothing offensive either to swells or to actors. We have not +distinction, as a people; Matthew Arnold noted that; and it is not our +business to have it: When it is our business our swells will have it, +just as our actors now have it, especially our actors of English birth. +I had not this reflection about me at the time to console me for my +disappointment, and it only now occurs to me that what I took for an +absence of distinction may have been such a universal prevalence of it +that the result was necessarily a species of indistinction. But in the +complexion of any social assembly we Americans are at a disadvantage with +Europeans from the want of uniforms. A few military scattered about in +those boxes, or even a few sporting bishops in shovel-hats and aprons, +would have done much to relieve them from the reproach I have been +heaping upon them. Our women, indeed, poor things, always do their duty +in personal splendor, and it is not of a poverty in their modes at the +Horse Show that I am complaining. If the men had borne their part as +well, there would not have been these tears: and yet, what am I saying? +There was here and there a clean-shaven face (which I will not believe +was always an actor's), and here and there a figure superbly set up, and +so faultlessly appointed as to shoes, trousers, coat, tie, hat, and +gloves as to have a salience from the mass of good looks and good clothes +which I will not at last call less than distinction. + + + + +II. + +At any rate, I missed these marked presences when I left the lines of the +promenaders around the ellipse, and climbed to a seat some tiers above +the boxes. I am rather anxious to have it known that my seat was not one +of those cheap ones in the upper gallery, but was with the virtuous poor +who could afford to pay a dollar and a half for their tickets. I bought +it of a speculator on the sidewalk, who said it was his last, so that I +conceived it the last in the house; but I found the chairs by no means +all filled, though it was as good an audience as I have sometimes seen in +the same place at other circuses. The people about me were such as I had +noted at the other circuses, hotel-sojourners, kindly-looking comers from +provincial towns and cities, whom I instantly felt myself at home with, +and free to put off that gloomy severity of aspect which had grown upon +me during my association with the swells below. My neighbors were +sufficiently well dressed, and if they had no more distinction than their +betters, or their richers, they had not the burden of the occasion upon +them, and seemed really glad of what was going on in the ring. + +There again I was sensible of the vast advantage of costume. The bugler +who stood up at one end of the central platform and blew a fine fanfare +(I hope it was a fanfare) towards the gates where the horses were to +enter from their stalls in the basement was a hussar-like shape that +filled my romantic soul with joy; and the other figures of the management +I thought very fortunate compromises between grooms and ringmasters. At +any rate, their nondescript costumes were gay, and a relief from the +fashions in the boxes and the promenade; they were costumes, and costumes +are always more sincere, if not more effective, than fashions. As I have +hinted, I do not know just what costumes they were, but they took the +light well from the girandole far aloof and from the thousands of little +electric bulbs that beaded the roof in long lines, and dispersed the +sullenness of the dull, rainy afternoon. When the knights entered the +lists on the seats of their dog-carts, with their squires beside them, +and their shining tandems before them, they took the light well, too, and +the spectacle was so brilliant that I trust my imagery may be forgiven a +novelist pining for the pageantries of the past. I do not know to this +moment whether these knights were bona fide gentlemen, or only their +deputies, driving their tandems for them, and I am equally at a loss to +account for the variety, of their hats. Some wore tall, shining silk +hats; some flat-topped, brown derbys; some simple black pot-hats;--and is +there, then, no rigor as to the head-gear of people driving tandems? +I felt that there ought to be, and that there ought to be some rule as to +where the number of each tandem should be displayed. As it was, this was +sometimes carelessly stuck into the seat of the cart; sometimes it was +worn at the back of the groom's waist, and sometimes full upon his +stomach. In the last position it gave a touch of burlesque which wounded +me; for these are vital matters, and I found myself very exacting in +them. + +With the horses themselves I could find no fault upon the grounds of my +censure of the show in some other ways. They had distinction; they were +patrician; they were swell. They felt it, they showed it, they rejoiced +in it; and the most reluctant observer could not deny them the glory of +blood, of birth, which the thoroughbred horse has expressed in all lands +and ages. Their lordly port was a thing that no one could dispute, and +for an aristocracy I suppose that they had a high average of +intelligence, though there might be two minds about this. They made me +think of mettled youths and haughty dames; they abashed the humble spirit +of the beholder with the pride of their high-stepping, their curvetting +and caracoling, as they jingled in their shining harness around the long +ring. Their noble uselessness took the fancy, for I suppose that there +is nothing so superbly superfluous as a tandem, outside or inside of the +best society. It is something which only the ambition of wealth and +unbroken leisure can mount to; and I was glad that the display of tandems +was the first event of the Horse Show which I witnessed, for it seemed to +me that it must beyond all others typify the power which created the +Horse Show. I wished that the human side of it could have been more +unquestionably adequate, but the equine side of the event was perfect. +Still, I felt a certain relief, as in something innocent and simple and +childlike, in the next event. + + + + +III. + +This was the inundation of the tan-bark with troops of pretty Shetland +ponies of all ages, sizes, and colors. A cry of delight went up from a +group of little people near me, and the spell of the Horse Show was +broken. It was no longer a solemnity of fashion, it was a sweet and +kindly pleasure which every one could share, or every one who had ever +had, or ever wished to have, a Shetland pony; the touch of nature made +the whole show kin. I could not see that the freakish, kittenish +creatures did anything to claim our admiration, but they won our +affection by every trait of ponyish caprice and obstinacy. The small +colts broke away from the small mares, and gambolled over the tanbark in +wanton groups, with gay or plaintive whinnyings, which might well have +touched a responsive chord in the bosom of fashion itself: I dare say it +is not so hard as it looks. The scene remanded us to a moment of +childhood; and I found myself so fond of all the ponies that I felt it +invidious of the judges to choose among them for the prizes; they ought +every one to have had the prize. + +I suppose a Shetland pony is not a very useful animal in our conditions; +no doubt a good, tough, stubbed donkey would be worth all their tribe +when it came down to hard work; but we cannot all be hard-working +donkeys, and some of us may be toys and playthings without too great +reproach. I gazed after the broken, refluent wave of these amiable +creatures, with the vague toleration here formulated, but I was not quite +at peace in it, or fully consoled in my habitual ethicism till the next +event brought the hunters with their high-jumping into the ring. These +noble animals unite use and beauty in such measure that the censor must +be of Catonian severity who can refuse them his praise. When I reflected +that by them and their devoted riders our civilization had been +assimilated to that of the mother-country in its finest expression, and +another tie added to those that bind us to her through the language of +Shakespeare and Milton; that they had tamed the haughty spirit of the +American farmer in several parts of the country so that he submitted for +a consideration to have his crops ridden over, and that they had all but +exterminated the ferocious anise-seed bag, once so common and destructive +among us, I was in a fit mood to welcome the bars and hurdles which were +now set up at four or five places for the purposes of the high-jumping. +As to the beauty of the hunting-horse, though, I think I must hedge a +little, while I stand firmly to my admiration of his use. To be honest, +the tandem horse is more to my taste. He is better shaped, and he bears +himself more proudly. The hunter is apt to behave, whatever his reserve +of intelligence, like an excited hen; he is apt to be ewe-necked and bred +away to nothing where the ideal horse abounds; he has the behavior of a +turkey-hen when not behaving like the common or garden hen. But there +can be no question of his jumping, which seems to be his chief business +in a world where we are all appointed our several duties, and I at once +began to take a vivid pleasure in his proficiency. I have always felt a +blind and insensate joy in running races, which has no relation to any +particular horse, and I now experienced an impartial rapture in the +performances of these hunters. They looked very much alike, and if it +had not been for the changing numbers on the sign-board in the centre of +the ring announcing that 650, 675, or 602 was now jumping, I might have +thought it was 650 all the time. + +A high jump is not so fine a sight as a running race when the horses have +got half a mile away and look like a covey of swift birds, but it is +still a fine sight. I became very fastidious as to which moment of it +was the finest, whether when the horse rose in profile, or when his +aerial hoof touched the ground (with the effect of half jerking his +rider's head half off), or when he showed a flying heel in perspective; +and I do not know to this hour which I prefer. But I suppose I was +becoming gradually spoiled by my pleasure, for as time went on I noticed +that I was not satisfied with the monotonous excellence of the horses' +execution. Will it be credited that I became willing something should +happen, anything, to vary it? I asked myself why, if some of the more +exciting incidents of the hunting-field which I had read of must befall; +I should not see them. Several of the horses had balked at the barriers, +and almost thrown their riders across them over their necks, but not +quite done it; several had carried away the green-tufted top rail with +their heels; when suddenly there came a loud clatter from the farther +side of the ellipse, where a whole panel of fence had gone down. I +looked eagerly for the prostrate horse and rider under the bars, but they +were cantering safely away. + + + + +IV. + +It was enough, however. I perceived that I was becoming demoralized, and +that if I were to write of the Horse Show with at all the superiority one +likes to feel towards the rich and great, I had better come away. But I +came away critical, even in my downfall, and feeling that, circus for +circus, the Greatest Show on Earth which I had often seen in that place +had certain distinct advantages of the Horse Show. It had three rings +and two platforms; and, for another thing, the drivers and riders in the +races, when they won, bore the banner of victory aloft in their hands, +instead of poorly letting a blue or red ribbon flicker at their horses' +ears. The events were more frequent and rapid; the costumes infinitely +more varied and picturesque. As for the people in the boxes, I do not +know that they were less distinguished than these at the Horse Show, but +if they were not of the same high level in which distinction was +impossible, they did not show it in their looks. + +The Horse Show, in fine, struck me as a circus of not all the first +qualities; and I had moments of suspecting that it was no more than the +evolution of the county cattle show. But in any case I had to own that +its great success was quite legitimate; for the horse, upon the whole, +appeals to a wider range of humanity, vertically as well as horizontally, +than any other interest, not excepting politics or religion. I cannot, +indeed, regard him as a civilizing influence; but then we cannot be +always civilizing. + + + + + + +THE PROBLEM OF THE SUMMER + +It has sometimes seemed to me that the solution of the problem how and +where to spend the summer was simplest with those who were obliged to +spend it as they spent the winter, and increasingly difficult in the +proportion of one's ability to spend it wherever and however one chose. +Few are absolutely released to this choice, however, and those few are +greatly to be pitied. I know that they are often envied and hated for it +by those who have no such choice, but that is a pathetic mistake. If we +could look into their hearts, indeed, we should witness there so much +misery that we should wish rather to weep over them than to reproach them +with their better fortune, or what appeared so. + + + + +I. + +For most people choice is a curse, and it is this curse that the summer +brings upon great numbers who would not perhaps otherwise be afflicted. +They are not in the happy case of those who must stay at home; their hard +necessity is that they can go away, and try to be more agreeably placed +somewhere else; but although I say they are in great numbers, they are an +infinitesimal minority of the whole bulk of our population. Their bane +is not, in its highest form, that of the average American who has no +choice of the kind; and when one begins to speak of the summer problem, +one must begin at once to distinguish. It is the problem of the East +rather than of the West (where people are much more in the habit of +staying at home the year round), and it is the problem of the city and +not of the country. I am not sure that there is one practical farmer in +the whole United States who is obliged to witness in his household those +sad dissensions which almost separate the families of professional men as +to where and how they shall pass the summer. People of this class, which +is a class with some measure of money, ease, and taste, are commonly of +varying and decided minds, and I once knew a family of the sort whose +combined ideal for their summer outing was summed up in the simple desire +for society and solitude, mountain-air and sea-bathing. They spent the +whole months of April, May, and June in a futile inquiry for a resort +uniting these attractions, and on the first of July they drove to the +station with no definite point in view. But they found that they could +get return tickets for a certain place on an inland lake at a low figure, +and they took the first train for it. There they decided next morning to +push on to the mountains, and sent their baggage to the station, but +before it was checked they changed their minds, and remained two weeks +where they were. Then they took train for a place on the coast, but in +the cars a friend told them they ought to go to another place; they +decided to go there, but before arriving at the junction they decided +again to keep on. They arrived at their original destination, and the +following day telegraphed for rooms at a hotel farther down the coast. +The answer came that there were no rooms, and being by this time ready to +start, they started, and in due time reported themselves at the hotel. +The landlord saw that something must be done, and he got them rooms, at a +smaller house, and 'mealed' them (as it used to be called at Mt. Desert) +in his own. But upon experiment of the fare at the smaller house they +liked it so well that they resolved to live there altogether, and they +spent a summer of the greatest comfort there, so that they would hardly +come away when the house closed in the fall. + +This was an extreme case, and perhaps such a venture might not always +turn out so happily; but I think that people might oftener trust +themselves to Providence in these matters than they do. There is really +an infinite variety of pleasant resorts of all kinds now, and one could +quite safely leave it to the man in the ticket-office where one should +go, and check one's baggage accordingly. I think the chances of an +agreeable summer would be as good in that way as in making a hard-and- +fast choice of a certain place and sticking to it. My own experience is +that in these things chance makes a very good choice for one, as it does +in most non-moral things. + + + + +II. + +A joke dies hard, and I am not sure that the life is yet quite out of the +kindly ridicule that was cast for a whole generation upon the people who +left their comfortable houses in town to starve upon farm-board or stifle +in the narrow rooms of mountain and seaside hotels. Yet such people were +in the right, and their mockers were in the wrong, and their patient +persistence in going out of town for the summer in the face of severe +discouragements has multiplied indefinitely the kinds of summer resorts, +and reformed them altogether. I believe the city boarding-house remains +very much what it used to be; but I am bound to say that the country +boarding-house has vastly improved since I began to know it. As for the +summer hotel, by steep or by strand, it leaves little to be complained of +except the prices. I take it for granted, therefore, that the out-of- +town summer has come to stay, for all who can afford it, and that the +chief sorrow attending it is that curse of choice, which I have already +spoken of. + +I have rather favored chance than choice, because, whatever choice you +make, you are pretty sure to regret it, with a bitter sense of +responsibility added, which you cannot feel if chance has chosen for you. +I observe that people who own summer cottages are often apt to wish they +did not, and were foot-loose to roam where they listed, and I have been +told that even a yacht is not a source of unmixed content, though so +eminently detachable. To great numbers Europe looks from this shore like +a safe refuge from the American summer problem; and yet I am not sure +that it is altogether so; for it is not enough merely to go to Europe; +one has to choose where to go when one has got there. A European city is +certainly always more tolerable than an American city, but one cannot +very well pass the summer in Paris, or even in London. The heart there, +as here, will yearn for some blessed seat + + Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies + Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns + And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea," + +and still, after your keel touches the strand of that alluring old world, +you must buy your ticket and register your trunk for somewhere in +particular. + + + + +III. + +It is truly a terrible stress, this summer problem, and, as I say, my +heart aches much more for those who have to solve it and suffer the +consequences of their choice than for those who have no choice, but must +stay the summer through where their work is, and be humbly glad that they +have any work to keep them there. I am not meaning now, of course, +business men obliged to remain in the city to earn the bread--or, more +correctly, the cake--of their families in the country, or even their +clerks and bookkeepers, and porters and messengers, but such people as I +sometimes catch sight of from the elevated trains (in my reluctant +midsummer flights through the city), sweltering in upper rooms over +sewing-machines or lap-boards, or stewing in the breathless tenement +streets, or driving clangorous trucks, or monotonous cars, or bending +over wash-tubs at open windows for breaths of the no-air without. +These all get on somehow, and at the end of the summer they have not to +accuse themselves of folly in going to one place rather than another. +Their fate is decided for them, and they submit to it; whereas those who +decide their fate are always rebelling against it. They it is whom I am +truly sorry for, and whom I write of with tears in my ink. Their case is +hard, and it will seem all the harder if we consider how foolish they +will look and how flat they will feel at the judgment-day, when they are +asked about their summer outings. I do not really suppose we shall be +held to a very strict account for our pleasures because everybody else +has not enjoyed them, too; that would be a pity of our lives; and yet +there is an old-fashioned compunction which will sometimes visit the +heart if we take our pleasures ungraciously, when so many have no +pleasures to take. I would suggest, then, to those on whom the curse of +choice between pleasures rests, that they should keep in mind those who +have chiefly pains to their portion in life. + +I am not, I hope, urging my readers to any active benevolence, or +counselling them to share their pleasures with others; it has been +accurately ascertained that there are not pleasures enough to go round, +as things now are; but I would seriously entreat them to consider whether +they could not somewhat alleviate the hardships of their own lot at the +sea-side or among the mountains, by contrasting it with the lot of others +in the sweat-shops and the boiler-factories of life. I know very well +that it is no longer considered very good sense or very good morality to +take comfort in one's advantages from the disadvantages of others, and +this is not quite what I mean to teach. Perhaps I mean nothing more than +an overhauling of the whole subject of advantages and disadvantages, +which would be a light and agreeable occupation for the leisure of the +summer outer. It might be very interesting, and possibly it might be +amusing, for one stretched upon the beach or swaying in the hammock to +inquire into the reasons for his or her being so favored, and it is not +beyond the bounds of expectation that a consensus of summer opinion on +this subject would go far to enlighten the world upon a question that has +vexed the world ever since mankind was divided into those who work too +much and those who rest too much. + + + + + + +AESTHETIC NEW YORK FIFTY-ODD YEARS AGO + +A study of New York civilization in 1849 has lately come into my hands, +with a mortifying effect, which I should like to share with the reader, +to my pride of modernity. I had somehow believed that after half a +century of material prosperity, such as the world has never seen before, +New York in 1902 must be very different from New York in 1849, but if I +am to trust either the impressions of the earlier student or my own, New +York is essentially the same now that it was then. The spirit of the +place has not changed; it is as it was, splendidly and sordidly +commercial. Even the body of it has undergone little or no alteration; +it was as shapeless, as incongruous; as ugly when the author of 'New York +in Slices' wrote as it is at this writing; it has simply grown, or +overgrown, on the moral and material lines which seem to have been +structural in it from the beginning. He felt in his time the same +vulgarity, the same violence, in its architectural anarchy that I have +felt in my time, and he noted how all dignity and beauty perished, amid +the warring forms, with a prescience of my own affliction, which deprives +me of the satisfaction of a discoverer and leaves me merely the sense of +being rather old-fashioned in my painful emotions. + + + + +I. + +I wish I could pretend that my author philosophized the facts of his New +York with something less than the raw haste of the young journalist; but +I am afraid I must own that 'New York in Slices' affects one as having +first been printed in an evening paper, and that the writer brings to the +study of the metropolis something like the eager horror of a country +visitor. This probably enabled him to heighten the effect he wished to +make with readers of a kindred tradition, and for me it adds a certain +innocent charm to his work. I may make myself better understood if I say +that his attitude towards the depravities of a smaller New York is much +the same as that of Mr. Stead towards the wickedness of a much larger +Chicago. He seizes with some such avidity upon the darker facts of the +prisons, the slums, the gambling-houses, the mock auctions, the toughs +(who then called themselves b'hoys and g'hals), the quacks, the theatres, +and even the intelligence offices, and exploits their iniquities with a +ready virtue which the wickedest reader can enjoy with him. + +But if he treated of these things alone, I should not perhaps have +brought his curious little book to the polite notice of my readers. +He treats also of the press, the drama, the art, and, above all, +"the literary soirees" of that remote New York of his in a manner to make +us latest New-Yorkers feel our close proximity to it. Fifty-odd years +ago journalism had already become "the absorbing, remorseless, clamorous +thing" we now know, and very different from the thing it was when +"expresses were unheard of, and telegraphs were uncrystallized from the +lightning's blue and fiery film." Reporterism was beginning to assume +its present importance, but it had not yet become the paramount +intellectual interest, and did not yet "stand shoulder to shoulder" with +the counting-room in authority. Great editors, then as now, ranked great +authors in the public esteem, or achieved a double primacy by uniting +journalism and literature in the same personality. They were often the +owners as well as the writers of their respective papers, and they +indulged for the advantage of the community the rancorous rivalries, +recriminations, and scurrilities which often form the charm, if not the +chief use, of our contemporaneous journals. Apparently, however, +notarially authenticated boasts of circulation had not yet been made the +delight of their readers, and the press had not become the detective +agency that it now is, nor the organizer and distributer of charities. + +But as dark a cloud of doubt rested upon its relations to the theatre as +still eclipses the popular faith in dramatic criticism. "How can you +expect," our author asks, "a frank and unbiassed criticism upon the +performance of George Frederick Cooke Snooks . . . when the editor or +reporter who is to write it has just been supping on beefsteak and stewed +potatoes at Windust's, and regaling himself on brandy-and-water cold, +without, at the expense of the aforesaid George Frederick Cooke Snooks?" +The severest censor of the press, however, would hardly declare now that +"as to such a thing as impartial and independent criticism upon theatres +in the present state of the relations between editors, reporters, +managers, actors--and actresses--the thing is palpably out of the +question," and if matters were really at the pass hinted, the press has +certainly improved in fifty years, if one may judge from its present +frank condemnations of plays and players. The theatre apparently has +not, for we read that at that period "a very great majority of the +standard plays and farces on the stage depend mostly for their piquancy +and their power of interesting an audience upon intrigues with married +women, elopements, seductions, bribery, cheating, and fraud of every +description . . . . Stage costume, too, wherever there is half a +chance, is usually made as lascivious and immodest as possible; and a +freedom and impropriety prevails among the characters of the piece which +would be kicked out of private society the instant it would have the +audacity to make its appearance there." + + + + +II. + +I hope private society in New York would still be found as correct if not +quite so violent; and I wish I could believe that the fine arts were +presently in as flourishing a condition among us as they were in 1849. +That was the prosperous day of the Art Unions, in which the artists +clubbed their output, and the subscribers parted the works among +themselves by something so very like raffling that the Art Unions were +finally suppressed under the law against lotteries. While they lasted, +however, they had exhibitions thronged by our wealth, fashion, and +intellect (to name them in the order they hold the New York mind), as our +private views now are, or ought to be; and the author "devotes an entire +number" of his series "to a single institution"--fearless of being +accused of partiality by any who rightly appreciate the influences of the +fine arts upon the morals and refinement of mankind." + +He devotes even more than an entire number to literature; for, besides +treating of various literary celebrities at the "literary soirees," he +imagines encountering several of them at the high-class restaurants. +At Delmonico's, where if you had "French and money" you could get in that +day "a dinner which, as a work of art, ranks with a picture by +Huntington, a poem by Willis, or a statue by Powers," he meets such a +musical critic as Richard Grant White, such an intellectual epicurean as +N. P. Willis, such a lyric poet as Charles Fenno Hoffman. But it would +be a warm day for Delmonico's when the observer in this epoch could +chance upon so much genius at its tables, perhaps because genius among us +has no longer the French or the money. Indeed, the author of 'New York +in Slices' seems finally to think that he has gone too far, even for his +own period, and brings himself up with the qualifying reservation that if +Willis and Hoffman never did dine together at Delmonico's, they ought to +have done so. He has apparently no misgivings as to the famous musical +critic, and he has no scruple in assembling for us at his "literary +soiree" a dozen distinguished-looking men and "twice as many women.... +listening to a tall, deaconly man, who stands between two candles held by +a couple of sticks summoned from the recesses of the back parlor, reading +a basketful of gilt-edged notes. It is . . . the annual Valentine +Party, to which all the male and female authors have contributed for the +purpose of saying on paper charming things of each other, and at which, +for a few hours, all are gratified with the full meed of that praise +which a cold world is chary of bestowing upon its literary cobweb- +spinners." + +It must be owned that we have no longer anything so like a 'salon' as +this. It is, indeed, rather terrible, and it is of a quality in its +celebrities which may well carry dismay to any among us presently +intending immortality. Shall we, one day, we who are now in the rich +and full enjoyment of our far-reaching fame, affect the imagination of +posterity as these phantoms of the past affect ours? Shall we, too, +appear in some pale limbo of unimportance as thin and faded as "John +Inman, the getter-up of innumerable things for the annuals and +magazines," or as Dr. Rufus Griswold, supposed for picturesque purposes +to be "stalking about with an immense quarto volume under his arm . . . +an early copy of his forthcoming 'Female Poets of America'"; or as Lewis +Gaylord Clark, the "sunnyfaced, smiling" editor of the Knickerbocker +Magazine, "who don't look as if the Ink-Fiend had ever heard of him," +as he stands up to dance a polka with "a demure lady who has evidently +spilled the inkstand over her dress"; or as "the stately Mrs. Seba Smith, +bending aristocratically over the centre-table, and talking in a bright, +cold, steady stream, like an antique fountain by moonlight"; or as "the +spiritual and dainty Fanny Osgood, clapping her hands and crowing like a +baby," where she sits "nestled under a shawl of heraldic devices, like a +bird escaped from its cage"; or as Margaret Fuller, "her large, gray eyes +Tamping inspiration, and her thin, quivering lip prophesying like a +Pythoness"? + +I hope not; I earnestly hope not. Whatever I said at the outset, +affirming the persistent equality of New York characteristics and +circumstances, I wish to take back at this point; and I wish to warn +malign foreign observers, of the sort who have so often refused to see us +as we see ourselves, that they must not expect to find us now grouped in +the taste of 1849. Possibly it was not so much the taste of 1849 as the +author of 'New York in Slices' would have us believe; and perhaps any one +who trusted his pictures of life among us otherwise would be deceived by +a parity of the spirit in which they are portrayed with that of our +modern "society journalism." + + + + + + +FROM NEW YORK INTO NEW ENGLAND + +There is, of course, almost a world's difference between England and the +Continent anywhere; but I do not recall just now any transition between +Continental countries which involves a more distinct change in the +superficial aspect of things than the passage from the Middle States into +New England. It is all American, but American of diverse ideals; and you +are hardly over the border before you are sensible of diverse effects, +which are the more apparent to you the more American you are. If you +want the contrast at its sharpest you had better leave New York on a +Sound boat; for then you sleep out of the Middle State civilization and +wake into the civilization of New England, which seems to give its stamp +to nature herself. As to man, he takes it whether native or alien; and +if he is foreign-born it marks him another Irishman, Italian, Canadian, +Jew, or negro from his brother in any other part of the United States. + + + + +I. + +When you have a theory of any kind, proofs of it are apt to seek you out, +and I, who am rather fond of my faith in New England's influence of this +sort, had as pretty an instance of it the day after my arrival as I could +wish. A colored brother of Massachusetts birth, as black as a man can +well be, and of a merely anthropoidal profile, was driving me along shore +in search of a sea-side hotel when we came upon a weak-minded young +chicken in the road. The natural expectation is that any chicken in +these circumstances will wait for your vehicle, and then fly up before it +with a loud screech; but this chicken may have been overcome by the heat +(it was a land breeze and it drew like the breath of a furnace over the +hay-cocks and the clover), or it may have mistimed the wheel, which +passed over its head and left it to flop a moment in the dust and then +fall still. The poor little tragedy was sufficiently distressful to me, +but I bore it well, compared with my driver. He could hardly stop +lamenting it; and when presently we met a young farmer, he pulled up. +"You goin' past Jim Marden's?" "Yes." "Well, I wish you'd tell him I +just run over a chicken of his, and I killed it, I guess. I guess it was +a pretty big one." "Oh no," I put in, "it was only a broiler. What do +you think it was worth?" I took out some money, and the farmer noted the +largest coin in my hand; "About half a dollar, I guess." On this I put +it all back in my pocket, and then he said, "Well, if a chicken don't +know enough to get out of the road, I guess you ain't to blame." +I expressed that this was my own view of the case, and we drove on. When +we parted I gave the half-dollar to my driver, and begged him not to let +the owner of the chicken come on me for damages; and though he chuckled +his pleasure in the joke, I could see that he was still unhappy, and I +have no doubt that he has that pullet on his conscience yet, unless he +has paid for it. He was of a race which elsewhere has so immemorially +plundered hen-roosts that chickens are as free to it as the air it +breathes, without any conceivable taint of private ownership. But the +spirit of New England had so deeply entered into him that the imbecile +broiler of another, slain by pure accident and by its own contributory +negligence, was saddening him, while I was off in my train without a pang +for the owner and with only an agreeable pathos for the pullet. + + + + +II. + +The instance is perhaps extreme; and, at any rate, it has carried me in a +psychological direction away from the simpler differences which I meant +to note in New England. They were evident as soon as our train began to +run from the steamboat landing into the country, and they have +intensified, if they have not multiplied, themselves as I have penetrated +deeper and deeper into the beautiful region. The land is poorer than the +land to the southward--one sees that at once; the soil is thin, and often +so thickly burdened with granite bowlders that it could never have borne +any other crop since the first Puritans, or Pilgrims, cut away the +primeval woods and betrayed its hopeless sterility to the light. But +wherever you come to a farm-house, whether standing alone or in one of +the village groups that New England farm-houses have always liked to +gather themselves into, it is of a neatness that brings despair, and of a +repair that ought to bring shame to the beholder from more easy-going +conditions. Everything is kept up with a strenuous virtue that imparts +an air of self-respect to the landscape, which the bleaching and +blackening stone walls, wandering over the hill-slopes, divide into wood +lots of white birch and pine, stony pastures, and little patches of +potatoes and corn. The mowing-lands alone are rich; and if the New +England year is in the glory of the latest June, the breath of the clover +blows honey--sweet into the car windows, and the fragrance of the new-cut +hay rises hot from the heavy swaths that seem to smoke in the sun. + +We have struck a hot spell, one of those torrid mood of continental +weather which we have telegraphed us ahead to heighten our suffering by +anticipation. But the farmsteads and village houses are safe in the +shade of their sheltering trees amid the fluctuation of the grass that +grows so tall about them that the June roses have to strain upward to get +themselves free of it. Behind each dwelling is a billowy mass of +orchard, and before it the Gothic archway of the elms stretches above the +quiet street. There is no tree in the world so full of sentiment as the +American elm, and it is nowhere so graceful as in these New England +villages, which are themselves, I think, the prettiest and wholesomest of +mortal sojourns. By a happy instinct, their wooden houses are all +painted white, to a marble effect that suits our meridional sky, and the +contrast of their dark-green shutters is deliciously refreshing. There +was an evil hour, the terrible moment of the aesthetic revival now +happily past, when white walls and green blinds were thought in bad +taste, and the village houses were often tinged a dreary ground color, or +a doleful olive, or a gloomy red, but now they have returned to their +earlier love. Not the first love; that was a pale buff with white trim; +but I doubt if it were good for all kinds of village houses; the eye +rather demands the white. The pale buff does very well for large +colonial mansions, like Lowell's or Longfellow's in Cambridge; but when +you come, say, to see the great square houses built in Portsmouth, New +Hampshire; early in this century, and painted white, you find that white, +after all, is the thing for our climate, even in the towns. + +In such a village as my colored brother drove me through on the way to +the beach it was of an absolute fitness; and I wish I could convey a due +sense of the exquisite keeping of the place. Each white house was more +or less closely belted in with a white fence, of panels or pickets; the +grassy door-yards glowed with flowers, and often a climbing rose +embowered the door-way with its bloom. Away backward or sidewise +stretched the woodshed from the dwelling to the barn, and shut the whole +under one cover; the turf grew to the wheel-tracks of the road-way, over +which the elms rose and drooped; and from one end of the village to the +other you could not, as the saying is, find a stone to throw at a dog. +I know Holland; I have seen the wives of Scheveningen scrubbing up for +Sunday to the very middle of their brick streets, but I doubt if Dutch +cleanliness goes so far without, or comes from so deep a scruple within, +as the cleanliness of New England. I felt so keenly the feminine quality +of its motive as I passed through that village, that I think if I had +dropped so much as a piece of paper in the street I must have knocked at +the first door and begged the lady of the house (who would have opened it +in person after wiping her hands from her work, taking off her apron, and +giving a glance at herself in the mirror and at me through the window +blind) to report me to the selectmen in the interest of good morals. + + + + +III. + +I did not know at once quite how to reconcile the present foulness of the +New England capital with the fairness of the New England country; and I +am still somewhat embarrassed to own that after New York (even under the +relaxing rule of Tammany) Boston seemed very dirty when we arrived there. +At best I was never more than a naturalized Bostonian; but it used to +give me great pleasure--so penetratingly does the place qualify even the +sojourning Westerner--to think of the defect of New York in the virtue +that is next to godliness; and now I had to hang my head for shame at the +mortifying contrast of the Boston streets to the well-swept asphalt which +I had left frying in the New York sun the afternoon before. Later, +however, when I began to meet the sort of Boston faces I remembered so +well--good, just, pure, but set and severe, with their look of challenge, +of interrogation, almost of reproof--they not only ignored the +disgraceful untidiness of the streets, but they convinced me of a state +of transition which would leave the place swept and garnished behind it; +and comforted me against the litter of the winding thoroughfares and +narrow lanes, where the dust had blown up against the brick walls, and +seemed permanently to have smutched and discolored them. + +In New York you see the American face as Europe characterizes it; in +Boston you see it as it characterizes Europe; and it is in Boston that +you can best imagine the strenuous grapple of the native forces which all +alien things must yield to till they take the American cast. It is +almost dismaying, that physiognomy, before it familiarizes itself anew; +and in the brief first moment while it is yet objective, you ransack your +conscience for any sins you may have committed in your absence from it +and make ready to do penance for them. I felt almost as if I had brought +the dirty streets with me, and were guilty of having left them lying +about, so impossible were they with reference to the Boston face. + +It is a face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety, and it +looked into the window of our carriage with the serious eyes of our +elderly hackman to make perfectly sure of our destination before we drove +away from the station. It was a little rigorous with us, as requiring us +to have a clear mind; but it was not unfriendly, not unkind, and it was +patient from long experience. In New York there are no elderly hackmen; +but in Boston they abound, and I cannot believe they would be capable of +bad faith with travellers. In fact, I doubt if this class is anywhere as +predatory as it is painted; but in Boston it appears to have the public +honor in its keeping. I do not mean that it was less mature, less self- +respectful in Portsmouth, where we were next to arrive; more so it could +not be; an equal sense of safety, of ease, began with it in both places, +and all through New England it is of native birth, while in New York it +is composed of men of many nations, with a weight in numbers towards the +Celtic strain. The prevalence of the native in New England helps you +sensibly to realize from the first moment that here you are in America as +the first Americans imagined and meant it; and nowhere in New England is +the original tradition more purely kept than in the beautiful old seaport +of New Hampshire. In fact, without being quite prepared to defend a +thesis to this effect, I believe that Portsmouth is preeminently +American, and in this it differs from Newburyport and from Salem, which +have suffered from different causes an equal commercial decline, and, +though among the earliest of the great Puritan towns after Boston, are +now largely made up of aliens in race and religion; these are actually +the majority, I believe, in Newburyport. + + + + +IV. + +The adversity of Portsmouth began early in the century, but before that +time she had prospered so greatly that her merchant princes were able to +build themselves wooden palaces with white walls and green shutters, of a +grandeur and beauty unmatched elsewhere in the country. I do not know +what architect had his way with them, though his name is richly worth +remembrance, but they let him make them habitations of such graceful +proportion and of such delicate ornament that they have become shrines of +pious pilgrimage with the young architects of our day who hope to house +our well-to-do people fitly in country or suburbs. The decoration is +oftenest spent on a porch or portal, or a frieze of peculiar refinement; +or perhaps it feels its way to the carven casements or to the delicate +iron-work of the transoms; the rest is a simplicity and a faultless +propriety of form in the stately mansions which stand under the arching +elms, with their gardens sloping, or dropping by easy terraces behind +them to the river, or to the borders of other pleasances. They are all +of wood, except for the granite foundations and doorsteps, but the stout +edifices rarely sway out of the true line given them, and they look as if +they might keep it yet another century. + +Between them, in the sun-shotten shade, lie the quiet streets, whose +gravelled stretch is probably never cleaned because it never needs +cleaning. Even the business streets, and the quaint square which gives +the most American of towns an air so foreign and Old Worldly, look as if +the wind and rain alone cared for them; but they are not foul, and the +narrower avenues, where the smaller houses of gray, unpainted wood crowd +each other, flush upon the pavements, towards the water--side, are +doubtless unvisited by the hoe or broom, and must be kept clean by a New +England conscience against getting them untidy. + +When you get to the river-side there is one stretch of narrow, high- +shouldered warehouses which recall Holland, especially in a few with +their gables broken in steps, after the Dutch fashion. These, with their +mouldering piers and grass-grown wharves, have their pathos, and the +whole place embodies in its architecture an interesting record of the +past, from the time when the homesick exiles huddled close to the water's +edge till the period of post-colonial prosperity, when proud merchants +and opulent captains set their vast square houses each in its handsome +space of gardened ground. + +My adjectives might mislead as to size, but they could not as to beauty, +and I seek in vain for those that can duly impart the peculiar charm of +the town. Portsmouth still awaits her novelist; he will find a rich +field when he comes; and I hope he will come of the right sex, for it +needs some minute and subtle feminine skill, like that of Jane Austen, to +express a fit sense of its life in the past. Of its life in the present +I know nothing. I could only go by those delightful, silent houses, and +sigh my longing soul into their dim interiors. When now and then a young +shape in summer silk, or a group of young shapes in diaphanous muslin, +fluttered out of them, I was no wiser; and doubtless my elderly fancy +would have been unable to deal with what went on in them. Some girl of +those flitting through the warm, odorous twilight must become the +creative historian of the place; I can at least imagine a Jane Austen now +growing up in Portsmouth. + + + + +V. + +If Miss Jewett were of a little longer breath than she has yet shown +herself in fiction, I might say the Jane Austen of Portsmouth was already +with us, and had merely not yet begun to deal with its precious material. +One day when we crossed the Piscataqua from New Hampshire into Maine, and +took the trolley-line for a run along through the lovely coast country, +we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of her own people, who are a +little different sort of New-Englanders from those of Miss Wilkins. They +began to flock into the car, young maidens and old, mothers and +grandmothers, and nice boys and girls, with a very, very few farmer youth +of marriageable age, and more rustic and seafaring elders long past it, +all in the Sunday best which they had worn to the graduation exercises at +the High School, where we took them mostly up. The womenkind were in a +nervous twitter of talk and laughter, and the men tolerantly gay beyond +their wont, "passing the time of day" with one another, and helping the +more tumultuous sex to get settled in the overcrowded open car. They +courteously made room for one another, and let the children stand between +their knees, or took them in their laps, with that unfailing American +kindness which I am prouder of than the American valor in battle, +observing in all that American decorum which is no bad thing either. We +had chanced upon the high and mighty occasion of the neighborhood year, +when people might well have been a little off their balance, but there +was not a boisterous note in the subdued affair. As we passed the +school-house door, three dear, pretty maids in white gowns and white +slippers stood on the steps and gently smiled upon our company. One +could see that they were inwardly glowing and thrilling with the +excitement of their graduation, but were controlling their emotions to a +calm worthy of the august event, so that no one might ever have it to say +that they had appeared silly. + +The car swept on, and stopped to set down passengers at their doors or +gates, where they severally left it, with an easy air as of private +ownership, into some sense of which the trolley promptly flatters people +along its obliging lines. One comfortable matron, in a cinnamon silk, +was just such a figure as that in the Miss Wilkins's story where the +bridegroom fails to come on the wedding-day; but, as I say, they made me +think more of Miss Jewett's people. The shore folk and the Down-Easters +are specifically hers; and these were just such as might have belonged in +'The Country of the Pointed Firs', or 'Sister Wisby's Courtship', or +'Dulham Ladies', or 'An Autumn Ramble', or twenty other entrancing tales. +Sometimes one of them would try her front door, and then, with a bridling +toss of the head, express that she had forgotten locking it, and slip +round to the kitchen; but most of the ladies made their way back at once +between the roses and syringas of their grassy door-yards, which were as +neat and prim as their own persons, or the best chamber in their white- +walled, green-shuttered, story-and-a-half house, and as perfectly kept as +the very kitchen itself. + +The trolley-line had been opened only since the last September, but in an +effect of familiar use it was as if it had always been there, and it +climbed and crooked and clambered about with the easy freedom of the +country road which it followed. It is a land of low hills, broken by +frequent reaches of the sea, and it is most amusing, most amazing, to see +how frankly the trolley-car takes and overcomes its difficulties. It +scrambles up and down the little steeps like a cat, and whisks round a +sharp and sudden curve with a feline screech, broadening into a loud +caterwaul as it darts over the estuaries on its trestles. Its course +does not lack excitement, and I suppose it does not lack danger; but as +yet there have been no accidents, and it is not so disfiguring as one +would think. The landscape has already accepted it, and is making the +best of it; and to the country people it is an inestimable convenience. +It passes everybody's front door or back door, and the farmers can get +themselves or their produce (for it runs an express car) into Portsmouth +in an hour, twice an hour, all day long. In summer the cars are open, +with transverse seats, and stout curtains that quite shut out a squall of +wind or rain. In winter the cars are closed, and heated by electricity. +The young motorman whom I spoke with, while we waited on a siding to let +a car from the opposite direction get by, told me that he was caught out +in a blizzard last Winter, and passed the night in a snowdrift. "But the +cah was so wa'm, I neva suff'ed a mite." + +"Well," I summarized, "it must be a great advantage to all the people +along the line." + +"Well, you wouldn't 'a' thought so, from the kick they made." + +"I suppose the cottagers"--the summer colony--"didn't like the noise." + +"Oh yes; that's what I mean. The's whe' the kick was. The natives like +it. I guess the summa folks 'll like it, too." + +He looked round at me with enjoyment of his joke in his eye, for we both +understood that the summer folks could not help themselves, and must bow +to the will of the majority. + + + + + + +THE ART OF THE ADSMITH + +The other day, a friend of mine, who professes all the intimacy of a bad +conscience with many of my thoughts and convictions, came in with a bulky +book under his arm, and said, "I see by a guilty look in your eye that +you are meaning to write about spring." + +"I am not," I retorted, "and if I were, it would be because none of the +new things have been said yet about spring, and because spring is never +an old story, any more than youth or love." + +"I have heard something like that before," said my friend, "and I +understand. The simple truth of the matter is that this is the fag-end +of the season, and you have run low in your subjects. Now take my advice +and don't write about spring; it will make everybody hate you, and will +do no good. Write about advertising." He tapped the book under his arm +significantly. "Here is a theme for you." + + + + +I. + +He had no sooner pronounced these words than I began to feel a weird and +potent fascination in his suggestion. I took the book from him and +looked it eagerly through. It was called Good Advertising, and it was +written by one of the experts in the business who have advanced it almost +to the grade of an art, or a humanity. + +"But I see nothing here," I said, musingly, "which would enable a self- +respecting author to come to the help of his publisher in giving due hold +upon the public interest those charming characteristics of his book which +no one else can feel so penetratingly or celebrate so persuasively." + +"I expected some such objection from you," said my friend. "You will +admit that there is everything else here?" + +"Everything but that most essential thing. You know how we all feel +about it: the bitter disappointment, the heart-sickening sense of +insufficiency that the advertised praises of our books give us poor +authors. The effect is far worse than that of the reviews, for the +reviewer is not your ally and copartner, while your publisher--" + +"I see what you mean," said my friend. "But you must have patience. +If the author of this book can write so luminously of advertising in +other respects, I am sure he will yet be able to cast a satisfactory +light upon your problem. The question is, I believe, how to translate +into irresistible terms all that fond and exultant regard which a writer +feels for his book, all his pervasive appreciation of its singular +beauty, unique value, and utter charm, and transfer it to print, without +infringing upon the delicate and shrinking modesty which is the +distinguishing ornament of the literary spirit?" + +"Something like that. But you understand." + +"Perhaps a Roentgen ray might be got to do it," said my friend, +thoughtfully, "or perhaps this author may bring his mind to bear upon it +yet. He seems to have considered every kind of advertising except book- +advertising." + +"The most important of all!" I cried, impatiently. + +"You think so because you are in that line. If you were in the line of +varnish, or bicycles, or soap, or typewriters, or extract of beef, or of +malt--" + +"Still I should be interested in book--advertising, because it is the +most vital of human interests." + +"Tell me," said my friend, "do you read the advertisements of the books +of rival authors?" + +"Brother authors," I corrected him. + +"Well, brother authors." + +I said, No, candidly, I did not; and I forbore to add that I thought them +little better than a waste of the publishers' money. + + + + +II. + +My friend did not pursue his inquiry to my personal disadvantage, but +seemed to prefer a more general philosophy of the matter. + +"I have often wondered," he said, "at the enormous expansion of +advertising, and doubted whether it was not mostly wasted. But my +author, here, has suggested a brilliant fact which I was unwittingly +groping for. When you take up a Sunday paper"--I shuddered, and my +friend smiled intelligence--" you are simply appalled at the miles of +announcements of all sorts. Who can possibly read them? Who cares even +to look at them? But if you want something in particular--to furnish a +house, or buy a suburban place, or take a steamer for Europe, or go, to +the theatre--then you find out at once who reads the advertisements, and +cares to look at them. They respond to the multifarious wants of the +whole community. You have before you the living operation of that law of +demand and supply which it has always been such a bore to hear about. +As often happens, the supply seems to come before the demand; but that's +only an appearance. You wanted something, and you found an offer to meet +your want." + +"Then you don't believe that the offer to meet your want suggested it?" + +"I see that my author believes something of the kind. We may be full of +all sorts of unconscious wants which merely need the vivifying influence +of an advertisement to make them spring into active being; but I have a +feeling that the money paid for advertising which appeals to potential +wants is largely thrown away. You must want a thing, or think you want +it; otherwise you resent the proffer of it as a kind of impertinence." + +"There are some kinds of advertisements, all the same, that I read +without the slightest interest in the subject matter. Simply the beauty +of the style attracts me." + +"I know. But does it ever move you to get what you don't want?" + +"Never; and I should be glad to know what your author thinks of that sort +of advertising: the literary, or dramatic, or humorous, or quaint." + +"He doesn't contemn it, quite. But I think he feels that it may have had +its day. Do you still read such advertisements with your early zest?" + +"No; the zest for nearly everything goes. I don't care so much for +Tourguenief as I used. Still, if I come upon the jaunty and laconic +suggestions of a certain well-known clothing-house, concerning the +season's wear, I read them with a measure of satisfaction. The +advertising expert--" + +"This author calls him the adsmith." + +"Delightful! Ad is a loathly little word, but we must come to it. It's +as legitimate as lunch. But as I was saying, the adsmith seems to have +caught the American business tone, as perfectly as any of our novelists +have caught the American social tone." + +"Yes," said my friend, "and he seems to have prospered as richly by it. +You know some of those chaps make fifteen or twenty thousand dollars by +adsmithing. They have put their art quite on a level with fiction +pecuniarily." + +"Perhaps it is a branch of fiction." + +"No; they claim that it is pure fact. My author discourages the +slightest admixture of fable. The truth, clearly and simply expressed, +is the best in an ad. + +"It is best in a wof, too. I am always saying that." + +"Wof?" + +"Well, work of fiction. It's another new word, like lunch or ad." + +"But in a wof," said my friend, instantly adopting it, "my author +insinuates that the fashion of payment tempts you to verbosity, while in +an ad the conditions oblige you to the greatest possible succinctness. +In one case you are paid by the word; in the other you pay by the word. +That is where the adsmith stands upon higher moral ground than the +wofsmith." + +"I should think your author might have written a recent article in +'The ---------, reproaching fiction with its unhallowed gains." + +"If you mean that for a sneer, it is misplaced. He would have been +incapable of it. My author is no more the friend of honesty in +adsmithing than he is of propriety, He deprecates jocosity in +apothecaries and undertakers, not only as bad taste, but as bad business; +and he is as severe as any one could be upon ads that seize the attention +by disgusting or shocking the reader. + +"He is to be praised for that, and for the other thing; and I shouldn't +have minded his criticising the ready wofsmith. I hope he attacks the +use of display type, which makes our newspapers look like the poster- +plastered fences around vacant lots. In New York there is only one paper +whose advertisements are not typographically a shock to the nerves." + +"Well," said my friend, "he attacks foolish and ineffective display." + +"It is all foolish and ineffective. It is like a crowd of people trying +to make themselves heard by shouting each at the top of his voice. +A paper full of display advertisements is an image of our whole congested +and delirious state of competition; but even in competitive conditions it +is unnecessary, and it is futile. Compare any New York paper but one +with the London papers, and you will see what I mean. Of course I refer +to the ad pages; the rest of our exception is as offensive with pictures +and scare heads as all the rest. I wish your author could revise his +opinions and condemn all display in ads." + +"I dare say he will when he knows what you think," said my friend, with +imaginable sarcasm. + + + + +III. + +"I wish," I went on, "that he would give us some philosophy of the +prodigious increase of advertising within the last twenty-five years, and +some conjecture as to the end of it all. Evidently, it can't keep on +increasing at the present rate. If it does, there will presently be no +room in the world for things; it will be filled up with the +advertisements of things." + +"Before that time, perhaps," my friend suggested, "adsmithing will have +become so fine and potent an art that advertising will be reduced in +bulk, while keeping all its energy and even increasing its +effectiveness." + +"Perhaps," I said, "some silent electrical process will be contrived, so +that the attractions of a new line of dress-goods or the fascination of a +spring or fall opening may be imparted to a lady's consciousness without +even the agency of words. All other facts of commercial and industrial +interest could be dealt with in the same way. A fine thrill could be +made to go from the last new book through the whole community, so that +people would not willingly rest till they had it. Yes, one can see an +indefinite future for advertising in that way. The adsmith may be the +supreme artist of the twentieth century. He may assemble in his grasp, +and employ at will, all the arts and sciences." + +"Yes," said my friend, with a sort of fall in his voice, "that is very +well. But what is to become of the race when it is penetrated at every +pore with a sense of the world's demand and supply?" + +"Oh, that is another affair. I was merely imagining the possible +resources of invention in providing for the increase of advertising while +guarding the integrity of the planet. I think, very likely, if the thing +keeps on, we shall all go mad; but then we shall none of us be able to +criticise the others. Or possibly the thing may work its own cure. You +know the ingenuity of the political economists in justifying the egotism +to which conditions appeal. They do not deny that these foster greed and +rapacity in merciless degree, but they contend that when the wealth- +winner drops off gorged there is a kind of miracle wrought, and good +comes of it all. I never could see how; but if it is true, why shouldn't +a sort of ultimate immunity come back to us from the very excess and +invasion of the appeals now made to us, and destined to be made to us +still more by the adsmith? Come, isn't there hope in that?" + +"I see a great opportunity for the wofsmith in some such dream," said my +friend. "Why don't you turn it to account?" + +"You know that isn't my line; I must leave that sort of wofsmithing to +the romantic novelist. Besides, I have my well-known panacea for all the +ills our state is heir to, in a civilization which shall legislate +foolish and vicious and ugly and adulterate things out of the possibility +of existence. Most of the adsmithing is now employed in persuading +people that such things are useful, beautiful, and pure. But in any +civilization they shall not even be suffered to be made, much less +foisted upon the community by adsmiths." + +"I see what you mean," said my friend; and he sighed gently. "I had much +better let you write about spring." + + + + + + +THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PLAGIARISM + +A late incident in the history of a very widespread English novelist, +triumphantly closed by the statement of his friend that the novelist had +casually failed to accredit a given passage in his novel to the real +author, has brought freshly to my mind a curious question in ethics. +The friend who vindicated the novelist, or, rather, who contemptuously +dismissed the matter, not only confessed the fact of adoption, but +declared that it was one of many which could be found in the novelist's +works. The novelist, he said, was quite in the habit of so using +material in the rough, which he implied was like using any fact or idea +from life, and he declared that the novelist could not bother to answer +critics who regarded these exploitations as a sort of depredation. In a +manner he brushed the impertinent accusers aside, assuring the general +public that the novelist always meant, at his leisure, and in his own +way, duly to ticket the flies preserved in his amber. + + + + +I. + +When I read this haughty vindication, I thought at first that if the case +were mine I would rather have several deadly enemies than such a friend +as that; but since, I have not been so sure. I have asked myself upon a +careful review of the matter whether plagiarism may not be frankly +avowed, as in nowise dishonest, and I wish some abler casuist would take +the affair into consideration and make it clear for me. If we are to +suppose that offences against society disgrace the offender, and that +public dishonor argues the fact of some such offence, then apparently +plagiarism is not such an offence; for in even very flagrant cases it +does not disgrace. The dictionary, indeed, defines it as "the crime of +literary theft"; but as no penalty attaches to it, and no lasting shame, +it is hard to believe it either a crime or a theft; and the offence, if +it is an offence (one has to call it something, and I hope the word is +not harsh), is some such harmless infraction of the moral law as white- +lying. + +The much-perverted saying of Moliere, that he took his own where he found +it, is perhaps in the consciousness of those who appropriate the things +other people have rushed in with before them. But really they seem to +need neither excuse nor defence with the impartial public if they are +caught in the act of reclaiming their property or despoiling the rash +intruder upon their premises. The novelist in question is by no means +the only recent example, and is by no means a flagrant example. While +the ratification of the treaty with Spain was pending before the Senate +of the United States, a member of that body opposed it in a speech almost +word for word the same as a sermon delivered in New York City only a few +days earlier and published broadcast. He was promptly exposed by the +parallel-column system; but I have never heard that his standing was +affected or his usefulness impaired by the offence proven against him. A +few years ago an eminent divine in one of our cities preached as his own +the sermon of a brother divine, no longer living; he, too, was detected +and promptly exposed by the parallel-column system, but nothing whatever +happened from the exposure. Every one must recall like instances, more +or less remote. I remember one within my youthfuller knowledge of a +journalist who used as his own all the denunciatory passages of +Macaulay's article on Barrere, and applied them with changes of name to +the character and conduct of a local politician whom he felt it his duty +to devote to infamy. He was caught in the fact, and by means of the +parallel column pilloried before the community. But the community did +not mind it a bit, and the journalist did not either. He prospered on +amid those who all knew what he had done, and when he removed to another +city it was to a larger one, and to a position of more commanding +influence, from which he was long conspicuous in helping shape the +destinies of the nation. + +So far as any effect from these exposures was concerned, they were as +harmless as those exposures of fraudulent spiritistic mediums which from +time to time are supposed to shake the spiritistic superstition to its +foundations. They really do nothing of the kind; the table-tippings, +rappings, materializations, and levitations keep on as before; and I do +not believe that the exposure of the novelist who has been the latest +victim of the parallel column will injure him a jot in the hearts or +heads of his readers. + + + + +II. + +I am very glad of it, being a disbeliever in punishments of all sorts. +I am always glad to have sinners get off, for I like to get off from my +own sins; and I have a bad moment from my sense of them whenever +another's have found him out. But as yet I have not convinced myself +that the sort of thing we have been considering is a sin at all, for it +seems to deprave no more than it dishonors; or that it is what the +dictionary (with very unnecessary brutality) calls a "crime" and a +"theft." If it is either, it is differently conditioned, if not +differently natured, from all other crimes and thefts. These may be more +or less artfully and hopefully concealed, but plagiarism carries +inevitable detection with it. If you take a man's hat or coat out of his +hall, you may pawn it before the police overtake you; if you take his +horse out of his stable, you may ride it away beyond pursuit and sell it; +if you take his purse out of his pocket, you may pass it to a pal in the +crowd, and easily prove your innocence. But if you take his sermon, or +his essay, or even his apposite reflection, you cannot escape discovery. +The world is full of idle people reading books, and they are only too +glad to act as detectives; they please their miserable vanity by showing +their alertness, and are proud to hear witness against you in the court +of parallel columns. You have no safety in the obscurity of the author +from whom you take your own; there is always that most terrible reader, +the reader of one book, who knows that very author, and will the more +indecently hasten to bring you to the bar because he knows no other, and +wishes to display his erudition. A man may escape for centuries and yet +be found out. In the notorious case of William Shakespeare the offender +seemed finally secure of his prey; and yet one poor lady, who ended in a +lunatic asylum, was able to detect him at last, and to restore the goods +to their rightful owner, Sir Francis Bacon. + +In spite, however, of this almost absolute certainty of exposure, +plagiarism goes on as it has always gone on; and there is no probability +that it will cease as long as there are novelists, senators, divines, and +journalists hard pressed for ideas which they happen not to have in mind +at the time, and which they see going to waste elsewhere. Now and then +it takes a more violent form and becomes a real mania, as when the +plagiarist openly claims and urges his right to a well-known piece of +literary property. When Mr. William Allen Butler's famous poem of +"Nothing to Wear" achieved its extraordinary popularity, a young girl +declared and apparently quite believed that she had written it and lost +the MS. in an omnibus. All her friends apparently believed so, too; and +the friends of the different gentlemen and ladies who claimed the +authorship of "Beautiful Snow" and "Rock Me to Sleep" were ready to +support them by affidavit against the real authors of those pretty +worthless pieces. + +From all these facts it must appear to the philosophic reader that +plagiarism is not the simple "crime" or "theft" that the lexicographers +would have us believe. It argues a strange and peculiar courage on the +part of those who commit it or indulge it, since they are sure of having +it brought home to them, for they seem to dread the exposure, though it +involves no punishment outside of themselves. Why do they do it, or, +having done it, why do they mind it, since the public does not? Their +temerity and their timidity are things almost irreconcilable, and the +whole position leaves one quite puzzled as to what one would do if one's +own plagiarisms were found out. But this is a mere question of conduct, +and of infinitely less interest than that of the nature or essence of the +thing itself. + + + + + + +PURITANISM IN AMERICAN FICTION + +The question whether the fiction which gives a vivid impression of +reality does truly represent the conditions studied in it, is one of +those inquiries to which there is no very final answer. The most +baffling fact of such fiction is that its truths are self-evident; +and if you go about to prove them you are in some danger of shaking the +convictions of those whom they have persuaded. It will not do to affirm +anything wholesale concerning them; a hundred examples to the contrary +present themselves if you know the ground, and you are left in doubt of +the verity which you cannot gainsay. The most that you can do is to +appeal to your own consciousness, and that is not proof to anybody else. +Perhaps the best test in this difficult matter is the quality of the art +which created the picture. Is it clear, simple, unaffected? Is it true +to human experience generally? If it is so, then it cannot well be false +to the special human experience it deals with. + + + + +I. + +Not long ago I heard of something which amusingly, which pathetically, +illustrated the sense of reality imparted by the work of one of our +writers, whose art is of the kind I mean. A lady was driving with a +young girl of the lighter-minded civilization of New York through one of +those little towns of the North Shore in Massachusetts, where the small; +wooden houses cling to the edges of the shallow bay, and the schooners +slip, in and out on the hidden channels of the salt meadows as if they +were blown about through the tall grass. She tried to make her feel the +shy charm of the place, that almost subjective beauty, which those to the +manner born are so keenly aware of in old-fashioned New England villages; +but she found that the girl was not only not looking at the sad-colored +cottages, with their weather-worn shingle walls, their grassy door-yards +lit by patches of summer bloom, and their shutterless windows with their +close-drawn shades, but she was resolutely averting her eyes from them, +and staring straightforward until she should be out of sight of them +altogether. She said that they were terrible, and she knew that in each +of them was one of those dreary old women, or disappointed girls, or +unhappy wives, or bereaved mothers, she had read of in Miss Wilkins's +stories. + +She had been too little sensible of the humor which forms the relief of +these stories, as it forms the relief of the bare, duteous, +conscientious, deeply individualized lives portrayed in them; and no +doubt this cannot make its full appeal to the heart of youth aching for +their stoical sorrows. Without being so very young, I, too, have found +the humor hardly enough at times, and if one has not the habit of +experiencing support in tragedy itself, one gets through a remote New +England village, at nightfall, say, rather limp than otherwise, and in +quite the mood that Miss Wilkins's bleaker studies leave one in. At mid- +day, or in the bright sunshine of the morning, it is quite possible to +fling off the melancholy which breathes the same note in the fact and the +fiction; and I have even had some pleasure at such times in identifying +this or, that one-story cottage with its lean-to as a Mary Wilkins house +and in placing one of her muted dramas in it. One cannot know the people +of such places without recognizing her types in them, and one cannot know +New England without owning the fidelity of her stories to New England +character, though, as I have already suggested, quite another sort of +stories could be written which should as faithfully represent other +phases of New England village life. + +To the alien inquirer, however, I should be by no means confident that +their truth would evince itself, for the reason that human nature is +seldom on show anywhere. I am perfectly certain of the truth of Tolstoy +and Tourguenief to Russian life, yet I should not be surprised if I went +through Russia and met none of their people. I should be rather more +surprised if I went through Italy and met none of Verga's or Fogazzaro's, +but that would be because I already knew Italy a little. In fact, I +suspect that the last delight of truth in any art comes only to the +connoisseur who is as well acquainted with the subject as the artist +himself. One must not be too severe in challenging the truth of an +author to life; and one must bring a great deal of sympathy and a great +deal of patience to the scrutiny. Types are very backward and shrinking +things, after all; character is of such a mimosan sensibility that if you +seize it too abruptly its leaves are apt to shut and hide all that is +distinctive in it; so that it is not without some risk to an author's +reputation for honesty that he gives his readers the impression of his +truth. + + + + +II. + +The difficulty with characters in fiction is that the reader there finds +them dramatized; not only their actions, but also their emotions are +dramatized; and the very same sort of persons when one meets them in real +life are recreantly undramatic. One might go through a New England +village and see Mary Wilkins houses and Mary Wilkins people, and yet not +witness a scene nor hear a word such as one finds in her tales. It is +only too probable that the inhabitants one met would say nothing quaint +or humorous, or betray at all the nature that she reveals in them; and +yet I should not question her revelation on that account. The life of +New England, such as Miss Wilkins deals with, and Miss Sarah O. Jewett, +and Miss Alice Brown, is not on the surface, or not visibly so, except to +the accustomed eye. It is Puritanism scarcely animated at all by the +Puritanic theology. One must not be very positive in such things, and I +may be too bold in venturing to say that while the belief of some New +Englanders approaches this theology the belief of most is now far from +it; and yet its penetrating individualism so deeply influenced the New +England character that Puritanism survives in the moral and mental make +of the people almost in its early strength. Conduct and manner conform +to a dead religious ideal; the wish to be sincere, the wish to be just, +the wish to be righteous are before the wish to be kind, merciful, +humble. A people are not a chosen people for half a dozen generations +without acquiring a spiritual pride that remains with them long after +they cease to believe themselves chosen. They are often stiffened in the +neck and they are often hardened in the heart by it, to the point of +making them angular and cold; but they are of an inveterate +responsibility to a power higher than themselves, and they are +strengthened for any fate. They are what we see in the stories which, +perhaps, hold the first place in American fiction. + +As a matter of fact, the religion of New England is not now so +Puritanical as that of many parts of the South and West, and yet the +inherited Puritanism stamps the New England manner, and differences it +from the manner of the straightest sects elsewhere. There was, however, +always a revolt against Puritanism when Puritanism was severest and +securest; this resulted in types of shiftlessness if not wickedness, +which have not yet been duly studied, and which would make the fortune of +some novelist who cared to do a fresh thing. There is also a +sentimentality, or pseudo-emotionality (I have not the right phrase for +it), which awaits full recognition in fiction. This efflorescence from +the dust of systems and creeds, carried into natures left vacant by the +ancestral doctrine, has scarcely been noticed by the painters of New +England manners. It is often a last state of Unitarianism, which +prevailed in the larger towns and cities when the Calvinistic theology +ceased to be dominant, and it is often an effect of the spiritualism so +common in New England, and, in fact, everywhere in America. Then, there +is a wide-spread love of literature in the country towns and villages +which has in great measure replaced the old interest in dogma, and which +forms with us an author's closest appreciation, if not his best. But as +yet little hint of all this has got into the short stories, and still +less of that larger intellectual life of New England, or that exalted +beauty of character which tempts one to say that Puritanism was a +blessing if it made the New-Englanders what they are; though one can +always be glad not to have lived among them in the disciplinary period. +Boston, the capital of that New England nation which is fast losing +itself in the American nation, is no longer of its old literary primacy, +and yet most of our right thinking, our high thinking, still begins +there, and qualifies the thinking of the country at large. The good +causes, the generous causes, are first befriended there, and in a +wholesome sort the New England culture, as well as the New England +conscience, has imparted itself to the American people. + +Even the power of writing short stories, which we suppose ourselves to +have in such excellent degree, has spread from New England. That is, +indeed, the home of the American short story, and it has there been +brought to such perfection in the work of Miss Wilkins, of Miss Jewett, +of Miss Brown, and of that most faithful, forgotten painter of manners, +Mrs. Rose Terry Cook, that it presents upon the whole a truthful picture +of New England village life in some of its more obvious phases. I say +obvious because I must, but I have already said that this is a life which +is very little obvious; and I should not blame any one who brought the +portrait to the test of reality, and found it exaggerated, overdrawn, and +unnatural, though I should be perfectly sure that such a critic was +wrong. + + + + + + +THE WHAT AND THE HOW IN ART + +One of the things always enforcing itself upon the consciousness of the +artist in any sort is the fact that those whom artists work for rarely +care for their work artistically. They care for it morally, personally, +partially. I suspect that criticism itself has rather a muddled +preference for the what over the how, and that it is always haunted by a +philistine question of the material when it should, aesthetically +speaking, be concerned solely with the form. + + + + +I. + +The other night at the theatre I was witness of a curious and amusing +illustration of my point. They were playing a most soul-filling +melodrama, of the sort which gives you assurance from the very first that +there will be no trouble in the end, but everything will come out just as +it should, no matter what obstacles oppose themselves in the course of +the action. An over-ruling Providence, long accustomed to the exigencies +of the stage, could not fail to intervene at the critical moment in +behalf of innocence and virtue, and the spectator never had the least +occasion for anxiety. Not unnaturally there was a black-hearted villain +in the piece; so very black-hearted that he seemed not to have a single +good impulse from first to last. Yet he was, in the keeping of the stage +Providence, as harmless as a blank cartridge, in spite of his deadly +aims. He accomplished no more mischief, in fact, than if all his intents +had been of the best; except for the satisfaction afforded by the +edifying spectacle of his defeat and shame, he need not have been in the +play at all; and one might almost have felt sorry for him, he was so +continually baffled. But this was not enough for the audience, or for +that part of it which filled the gallery to the roof. Perhaps he was +such an uncommonly black-hearted villain, so very, very cold-blooded in +his wickedness that the justice unsparingly dealt out to him by the +dramatist could not suffice. At any rate, the gallery took such a vivid +interest in his punishment that it had out the actor who impersonated the +wretch between all the acts, and hissed him throughout his deliberate +passage across the stage before the curtain. The hisses were not at all +for the actor, but altogether for the character. The performance was +fairly good, quite as good as the performance of any virtuous part in the +piece, and easily up to the level of other villanous performances (I +never find much nature in them, perhaps because there is not much nature +in villany itself; that is, villany pure and simple); but the mere +conception of the wickedness this bad man had attempted was too much for +an audience of the average popular goodness. It was only after he had +taken poison, and fallen dead before their eyes, that the spectators +forbore to visit him with a lively proof of their abhorrence; apparently +they did not care to "give him a realizing sense that there was a +punishment after death," as the man in Lincoln's story did with the dead +dog. + + + + +II. + +The whole affair was very amusing at first, but it has since put me upon +thinking (I like to be put upon thinking; the eighteenth-century +essayists were) that the attitude of the audience towards this deplorable +reprobate is really the attitude of most readers of books, lookers at +pictures and statues, listeners to music, and so on through the whole +list of the arts. It is absolutely different from the artist's attitude, +from the connoisseur's attitude; it is quite irreconcilable with their +attitude, and yet I wonder if in the end it is not what the artist works +for. Art is not produced for artists, or even for connoisseurs; it is +produced for the general, who can never view it otherwise than morally, +personally, partially, from their associations and preconceptions. + +Whether the effect with the general is what the artist works for or not, +he, does not succeed without it. Their brute liking or misliking is the +final test; it is universal suffrage that elects, after all. Only, in +some cases of this sort the polls do not close at four o'clock on the +first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, but remain open +forever, and the voting goes on. Still, even the first day's canvass is +important, or at least significant. It will not do for the artist to +electioneer, but if he is beaten, he ought to ponder the causes of his +defeat, and question how he has failed to touch the chord of universal +interest. He is in the world to make beauty and truth evident to his +fellowmen, who are as a rule incredibly stupid and ignorant of both, but +whose judgment he must nevertheless not despise. If he can make +something that they will cheer, or something that they will hiss, he may +not have done any great thing, but if he has made something that they +will neither cheer nor hiss, he may well have his misgivings, no matter +how well, how finely, how truly he has done the thing. + +This is very humiliating, but a tacit snub to one's artist-pride such as +one gets from public silence is not a bad thing for one. Not long ago I +was talking about pictures with a painter, a very great painter, to my +thinking; one whose pieces give me the same feeling I have from reading +poetry; and I was excusing myself to him with respect to art, and perhaps +putting on a little more modesty than I felt. I said that I could enjoy +pictures only on the literary side, and could get no answer from my soul +to those excellences of handling and execution which seem chiefly to +interest painters. He replied that it was a confession of weakness in a +painter if he appealed merely or mainly to technical knowledge in the +spectator; that he narrowed his field and dwarfed his work by it; and +that if he painted for painters merely, or for the connoisseurs of +painting, he was denying his office, which was to say something clear and +appreciable to all sorts of men in the terms of art. He even insisted +that a picture ought to tell a story. + +The difficulty in humbling one's self to this view of art is in the ease +with which one may please the general by art which is no art. Neither +the play nor the playing that I saw at the theatre when the actor was +hissed for the wickedness of the villain he was personating, was at all +fine; and yet I perceived, on reflection, that they had achieved a +supreme effect. If I may be so confidential, I will say that I should be +very sorry to have written that piece; yet I should be very proud if, on +the level I chose and with the quality I cared for, I could invent a +villain that the populace would have out and hiss for his surpassing +wickedness. In other words, I think it a thousand pities whenever an +artist gets so far away from the general, so far within himself or a +little circle of amateurs, that his highest and best work awakens no +response in the multitude. I am afraid this is rather the danger of the +arts among us, and how to escape it is not so very plain. It makes one +sick and sorry often to see how cheaply the applause of the common people +is won. It is not an infallible test of merit, but if it is wanting to +any performance, we may be pretty sure it is not the greatest +performance. + + + + +III. + +The paradox lies in wait here, as in most other human affairs, to +confound us, and we try to baffle it, in this way and in that. We talk, +for instance, of poetry for poets, and we fondly imagine that this is +different from talking of cookery for cooks. Poetry is not made for +poets; they have enough poetry of their own, but it is made for people +who are not poets. If it does not please these, it may still be poetry, +but it is poetry which has failed of its truest office. It is none the +less its truest office because some very wretched verse seems often to do +it. + +The logic of such a fact is not that the poet should try to achieve this +truest office of his art by means of doggerel, but that he should study +how and where and why the beauty and the truth he has made manifest are +wanting in universal interest, in human appeal. Leaving the drama out of +the question, and the theatre which seems now to be seeking only the +favor of the dull rich, I believe that there never was a time or a race +more open to the impressions of beauty and of truth than ours. The +artist who feels their divine charm, and longs to impart it, has now and +here a chance to impart it more widely than ever artist had in the world +before. Of course, the means of reaching the widest range of humanity +are the simple and the elementary, but there is no telling when the +complex and the recondite may not universally please. 288 + +The art is to make them plain to every one, for every one has them in +him. Lowell used to say that Shakespeare was subtle, but in letters a +foot high. + +The painter, sculptor, or author who pleases the polite only has a +success to be proud of as far as it goes, and to be ashamed of that it +goes no further. He need not shrink from giving pleasure to the vulgar +because bad art pleases them. It is part of his reason for being that he +should please them, too; and if he does not it is a proof that he is +wanting in force, however much he abounds in fineness. Who would not +wish his picture to draw a crowd about it? Who would not wish his novel +to sell five hundred thousand copies, for reasons besides the sordid love +of gain which I am told governs novelists? One should not really wish it +any the less because chromos and historical romances are popular. + +Sometime, I believe, the artist and his public will draw nearer together +in a mutual understanding, though perhaps not in our present conditions. +I put that understanding off till the good time when life shall be more +than living, more even than the question of getting a living; but in the +mean time I think that the artist might very well study the springs of +feeling in others; and if I were a dramatist I think I should quite +humbly go to that play where they hiss the villain for his villany, and +inquire how his wickedness had been made so appreciable, so vital, so +personal. Not being a dramatist, I still cannot indulge the greatest +contempt of that play and its public. + + + + + + +POLITICS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS + +No thornier theme could well be suggested than I was once invited to +consider by an Englishman who wished to know how far American politicians +were scholars, and how far American authors took part in politics. In my +mind I first revolted from the inquiry, and then I cast about, in the +fascination it began to have for me, to see how I might handle it and +prick myself least. In a sort, which it would take too long to set +forth, politics are very intimate matters with us, and if one were to +deal quite frankly with the politics of a contemporary author, one might +accuse one's self of an unwarrantable personality. So, in what I shall +have to say in answer to the question asked me, I shall seek above all +things not to be quite frank. + + + + +I. + +My uncandor need not be so jealously guarded in speaking of authors no +longer living. Not to go too far back among these, it is perfectly safe +to say that when the slavery question began to divide all kinds of men +among us, Lowell, Longfellow, Whittier, Curtis, Emerson, and Bryant more +or less promptly and openly took sides against slavery. Holmes was very +much later in doing so, but he made up for his long delay by his final +strenuousness; as for Hawthorne, he was, perhaps, too essentially a +spectator of life to be classed with either party, though his +associations, if not his sympathies, were with the Northern men who had +Southern principles until the civil war came. After the war, when our +political questions ceased to be moral and emotional and became economic +and sociological, literary men found their standing with greater +difficulty. They remained mostly Republicans, because the Republicans +were the anti-slavery party, and were still waging war against slavery in +their nerves. + +I should say that they also continued very largely the emotional +tradition in politics, and it is doubtful if in the nature of things the +politics of literary men can ever be otherwise than emotional. In fact, +though the questions may no longer be so, the politics of vastly the +greater number of Americans are so. Nothing else would account for the +fact that during the last ten or fifteen years men have remained +Republicans and remained Democrats upon no tangible issues except of +office, which could practically concern only a few hundreds or thousands +out of every million voters. Party fealty is praised as a virtue, and +disloyalty to party is treated as a species of incivism next in +wickedness to treason. If any one were to ask me why then American +authors were not active in American politics, as they once were, I should +feel a certain diffidence in replying that the question of other people's +accession to office was, however emotional, unimportant to them as +compared with literary questions. I should have the more diffidence +because it might be retorted that literary men were too unpractical for +politics when they did not deal with moral issues. + +Such a retort would be rather mild and civil, as things go, and might +even be regarded as complimentary. It is not our custom to be tender +with any one who doubts if any actuality is right, or might not be +bettered, especially in public affairs. We are apt to call such a one +out of his name and to punish him for opinions he has never held. This +may be a better reason than either given why authors do not take part in +politics with us. They are a thin-skinned race, fastidious often, and +always averse to hard knocks; they are rather modest, too, and distrust +their fitness to lead, when they have quite a firm faith in their +convictions. They hesitate to urge these in the face of practical +politicians, who have a confidence in their ability to settle all affairs +of State not surpassed even by that of business men in dealing with +economic questions. + +I think it is a pity that our authors do not go into politics at least +for the sake of the material it would yield them; but really they do not. +Our politics are often vulgar, but they are very picturesque; yet, so +far, our fiction has shunned them even more decidedly than it has shunned +our good society--which is not picturesque or apparently anything but a +tiresome adaptation of the sort of drama that goes on abroad under the +same name. In nearly the degree that our authors have dealt with our +politics as material, they have given the practical politicians only too +much reason to doubt their insight and their capacity to understand the +mere machinery, the simplest motives, of political life. + + + + +II. + +There are exceptions, of course, and if my promise of reticence did not +withhold me I might name some striking ones. Privately and +unprofessionally, I think our authors take as vivid an interest in public +affairs as any other class of our citizens, and I should be sorry to +think that they took a less intelligent interest. Now and then, but only +very rarely, one of them speaks out, and usually on the unpopular side. +In this event he is spared none of the penalties with which we like to +visit difference of opinion; rather they are accumulated on him. + +Such things are not serious, and they are such as no serious man need +shrink from, but they have a bearing upon what I am trying to explain, +and in a certain measure they account for a certain attitude in our +literary men. No one likes to have stones, not to say mud, thrown at +him, though they are not meant to hurt him badly and may be partly thrown +in joke. But it is pretty certain that if a man not in politics takes +them seriously, he will have more or less mud, not to say stones, thrown +at him. He might burlesque or caricature them, or misrepresent them, +with safety; but if he spoke of public questions with heart and +conscience, he could not do it with impunity, unless he were authorized +to do so by some practical relation to them. I do not mean that then he +would escape; but in this country, where there were once supposed to be +no classes, people are more strictly classified than in any other. +Business to the business man, law to the lawyer, medicine to the +physician, politics to the politician, and letters to the literary man; +that is the rule. One is not expected to transcend his function, and +commonly one does not. We keep each to his last, as if there were not +human interests, civic interests, which had a higher claim than the last +upon our thinking and feeling. The tendency has grown upon us severally +and collectively through the long persistence of our prosperity; if +public affairs were going ill, private affairs were going so well that we +did not mind the others; and we Americans are, I think, meridional in our +improvidence. We are so essentially of to-day that we behave as if to- +morrow no more concerned us than yesterday. We have taught ourselves to +believe that it will all come out right in the end so long that we have +come to act upon our belief; we are optimistic fatalists. + + + + +III. + +The turn which our politics have taken towards economics, if I may so +phrase the rise of the questions of labor and capital, has not largely +attracted literary men. It is doubtful whether Edward Bellamy himself, +whose fancy of better conditions has become the abiding faith of vast +numbers of Americans, supposed that he was entering the field of +practical politics, or dreamed of influencing elections by his hopes of +economic equality. But he virtually founded the Populist party, which, +as the vital principle of the Democratic party, came so near electing its +candidate for the Presidency some years ago; and he is to be named first +among our authors who have dealt with politics on their more human side +since the days of the old antislavery agitation. Without too great +disregard of the reticence concerning the living which I promised myself, +I may mention Dr. Edward Everett Hale and Colonel Thomas Wentworth +Higginson as prominent authors who encouraged the Nationalist movement +eventuating in Populism, though they were never Populists. It may be +interesting to note that Dr. Hale and Colonel Higginson, who later came +together in their sociological sympathies, were divided by the schism of +1884, when the first remained with the Republicans and the last went off +to the Democrats. More remotely, Colonel Higginson was anti slavery +almost to the point of Abolitionism, and he led a negro regiment in the +war. Dr. Hale was of those who were less radically opposed to slavery +before the war, but hardly so after it came. Since the war a sort of +refluence of the old anti-slavery politics carried from his moorings in +Southern tradition Mr. George W. Cable, who, against the white sentiment +of his section, sided with the former slaves, and would, if the indignant +renunciation of his fellow-Southerners could avail, have consequently +ceased to be the first of Southern authors, though he would still have +continued the author of at least one of the greatest American novels. + +If I must burn my ships behind me in alleging these modern instances, as +I seem really to be doing, I may mention Mr. R. W. Gilder, the poet, as +an author who has taken part in the politics of municipal reform, Mr. +Hamlin Garland has been known from the first as a zealous George man, or +single-taxer. Mr. John Hay, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, and Mr. Henry Cabot +Lodge are Republican politicians, as well as recognized literary men. +Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, when not writing Uncle Remus, writes political +articles in a leading Southern journal. Mark Twain is a leading anti- +imperialist. + + + + +IV. + +I am not sure whether I have made out a case for our authors or against +them; perhaps I have not done so badly; but I have certainly not tried to +be exhaustive; the exhaustion is so apt to extend from the subject to the +reader, and I wish to leave him in a condition to judge for himself +whether American literary men take part in American politics or not. +I think they bear their share, in the quieter sort of way which we hope +(it may be too fondly) is the American way. They are none of them +politicians in the Latin sort. Few, if any, of our statesmen have come +forward with small volumes of verse in their hands as they used to do in +Spain; none of our poets or historians have been chosen Presidents of the +republic as has happened to their French confreres; no great novelist of +ours has been exiled as Victor Hugo was, or atrociously mishandled as +Zola has been, though I have no doubt that if, for instance, one had once +said the Spanish war wrong he would be pretty generally 'conspue'. +They have none of them reached the heights of political power, as several +English authors have done; but they have often been ambassadors, +ministers, and consuls, though they may not often have been appointed for +political reasons. I fancy they discharge their duties in voting rather +faithfully, though they do not often take part in caucuses or +conventions. + +As for the other half of the question--how far American politicians are +scholars--one's first impulse would be to say that they never were so. +But I have always had an heretical belief that there were snakes in +Ireland; and it may be some such disposition to question authority that +keeps me from yielding to this impulse. The law of demand and supply +alone ought to have settled the question in favor of the presence of the +scholar in our politics, there has been such a cry for him among us for +almost a generation past. Perhaps the response has not been very direct, +but I imagine that our politicians have never been quite so destitute of +scholarship as they would sometimes make appear. I do not think so many +of them now write a good style, or speak a good style, as the politicians +of forty, or fifty, or sixty years ago; but this may be merely part of +the impression of the general worsening of things, familiar after middle +life to every one's experience, from the beginning of recorded time. If +something not so literary is meant by scholarship, if a study of finance, +of economics, of international affairs is in question, it seems to go on +rather more to their own satisfaction than that of their critics. But +without being always very proud of the result, and without professing to +know the facts very profoundly, one may still suspect that under an +outside by no means academic there is a process of thinking in our +statesmen which is not so loose, not so unscientific, and not even so +unscholarly as it might be supposed. It is not the effect of specific +training, and yet it is the effect of training. I do not find that the +matters dealt with are anywhere in the world intrusted to experts; and in +this sense scholarship has not been called to the aid of our legislation +or administration; but still I should not like to say that none of our +politicians were scholars. That would be offensive, and it might not be +true. In fact, I can think of several whom I should be tempted to call +scholars if I were not just here recalled to a sense of my purpose not to +deal quite frankly with this inquiry. + + + + + + +STORAGE + +It has been the belief of certain kindly philosophers that if the one +half of mankind knew how the other half lived, the two halves might be +brought together in a family affection not now so observable in human +relations. Probably if this knowledge were perfect, there would still be +things, to bar the perfect brotherhood; and yet the knowledge itself is +so interesting, if not so salutary as it has been imagined, that one can +hardly refuse to impart it if one has it, and can reasonably hope, in the +advantage of the ignorant, to find one's excuse with the better informed. + + + + +I. + +City and country are still so widely apart in every civilization that one +can safely count upon a reciprocal strangeness in many every-day things. +For instance, in the country, when people break up house-keeping, they +sell their household goods and gods, as they did in cities fifty or a +hundred years ago; but now in cities they simply store them; and vast +warehouses in all the principal towns have been devoted to their storage. +The warehouses are of all types, from dusty lofts over stores, and +ammoniacal lofts over stables, to buildings offering acres of space, and +carefully planned for the purpose. They are more or less fire-proof, +slow-burning, or briskly combustible, like the dwellings they have +devastated. But the modern tendency is to a type where flames do not +destroy, nor moth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. Such a +warehouse is a city in itself, laid out in streets and avenues, with the +private tenements on either hand duly numbered, and accessible only to +the tenants or their order. The aisles are concreted, the doors are +iron, and the roofs are ceiled with iron; the whole place is heated by +steam and lighted by electricity. Behind the iron doors, which in the +New York warehouses must number hundreds of thousands, and throughout all +our other cities, millions, the furniture of a myriad households is +stored--the effects of people who have gone to Europe, or broken up +house-keeping provisionally or definitively, or have died, or been +divorced. They are the dead bones of homes, or their ghosts, or their +yet living bodies held in hypnotic trances; destined again in some future +time to animate some house or flat anew. In certain cases the spell +lasts for many years, in others for a few, and in others yet it prolongs +itself indefinitely. + +I may mention the case of one owner whom I saw visiting the warehouse to +take out the household stuff that had lain there a long fifteen years. +He had been all that while in Europe, expecting any day to come home and +begin life again, in his own land. That dream had passed, and now he was +taking his stuff out of storage and shipping it to Italy. I did not envy +him his feelings as the parts of his long-dead past rose round him in +formless resurrection. It was not that they were all broken or defaced. +On the contrary, they were in a state of preservation far more +heartbreaking than any decay. In well-managed storage warehouses the +things are handled with scrupulous care, and they are so packed into the +appointed rooms that if not disturbed they could suffer little harm in +fifteen or fifty years. The places are wonderfully well kept, and if you +will visit them, say in midwinter, after the fall influx of furniture has +all been hidden away behind the iron doors of the several cells, you +shall find their far-branching corridors scrupulously swept and dusted, +and shall walk up and down their concrete length with some such sense of +secure finality as you would experience in pacing the aisle of your +family vault. + +That is what it comes to. One may feign that these storage warehouses +are cities, but they are really cemeteries: sad columbaria on whose +shelves are stowed exanimate things once so intimately of their owners' +lives that it is with the sense of looking at pieces and bits of one's +dead self that one revisits them. If one takes the fragments out to fit +them to new circumstance, one finds them not only uncomformable and +incapable, but so volubly confidential of the associations in which they +are steeped, that one wishes to hurry them back to their cell and lock it +upon them forever. One feels then that the old way was far better, and +that if the things had been auctioned off, and scattered up and down, as +chance willed, to serve new uses with people who wanted them enough to +pay for them even a tithe of their cost, it would have been wiser. +Failing this, a fire seems the only thing for them, and their removal to +the cheaper custody of a combustible or slow-burning warehouse the best +recourse. Desperate people, aging husbands and wives, who have attempted +the reconstruction of their homes with these + + "Portions and parcels of the dreadful past " + +have been known to wish for an earthquake, even, that would involve their +belongings in an indiscriminate ruin. + + + + +II. + +In fact, each new start in life should be made with material new to you, +if comfort is to attend the enterprise. It is not only sorrowful but it +is futile to store your possessions, if you hope to find the old +happiness in taking them out and using them again. It is not that they +will not go into place, after a fashion, and perform their old office, +but that the pang they will inflict through the suggestion of the other +places where they served their purpose in other years will be only the +keener for the perfection with which they do it now. If they cannot be +sold, and if no fire comes down from heaven to consume them, then they +had better be stored with no thought of ever taking them out again. + +That will be expensive, or it will be inexpensive, according to the sort +of storage they are put into. The inexperienced in such matters may be +surprised, and if they have hearts they may be grieved, to learn that the +fire-proof storage of the furniture of the average house would equal the +rent of a very comfortable domicile in a small town, or a farm by which a +family's living can be earned, with a decent dwelling in which it can be +sheltered. Yet the space required is not very great; three fair-sized +rooms will hold everything; and there is sometimes a fierce satisfaction +in seeing how closely the things that once stood largely about, and +seemed to fill ample parlors and chambers, can be packed away. To be +sure they are not in their familiar attitudes; they lie on their sides or +backs, or stand upon their heads; between the legs of library or dining +tables are stuffed all kinds of minor movables, with cushions, pillows, +pictures, cunningly adjusted to the environment; and mattresses pad the +walls, or interpose their soft bulk between pieces of furniture that +would otherwise rend each other. Carpets sewn in cotton against moths, +and rugs in long rolls; the piano hovering under its ample frame a whole +brood of helpless little guitars, mandolins, and banjos, and 3supporting +on its broad back a bulk of lighter cases to the fire-proof ceiling of +the cell; paintings in boxes indistinguishable outwardly from their +companioning mirrors; barrels of china and kitchen utensils, and all the +what-not of householding and house-keeping contribute to the repletion. + +There is a science observed in the arrangement of the various effects; +against the rear wall and packed along the floor, and then in front of +and on top of these, is built a superstructure of the things that may be +first wanted, in case of removal, or oftenest wanted in some exigency of +the homeless life of the owners, pending removal. The lightest and +slightest articles float loosely about the door, or are interwoven in a +kind of fabric just within, and curtaining the ponderous mass behind. +The effect is not so artistic as the mortuary mosaics which the Roman +Capuchins design with the bones of their dead brethren in the crypt of +their church, but the warehousemen no doubt have their just pride in it, +and feel an artistic pang in its provisional or final disturbance. + +It had better never be disturbed, for it is disturbed only in some futile +dream of returning to the past; and we never can return to the past on +the old terms. It is well in all things to accept life implicitly, and +when an end has come to treat it as the end, and not vainly mock it as a +suspense of function. When the poor break up their homes, with no +immediate hope of founding others, they must sell their belongings +because they cannot afford to pay storage on them. The rich or richer +store their household effects, and cheat themselves with the illusion +that they are going some time to rehabilitate with them just such a home +as they have dismantled. But the illusion probably deceives nobody so +little as those who cherish the vain hope. As long as they cherish it, +however--and they must cherish it till their furniture or themselves fall +to dust--they cannot begin life anew, as the poor do who have kept +nothing of the sort to link them to the past. This is one of the +disabilities of the prosperous, who will probably not be relieved of it +till some means of storing the owner as well as the' furniture is +invented. In the immense range of modern ingenuity, this is perhaps not +impossible. Why not, while we are still in life, some sweet oblivious +antidote which shall drug us against memory, and after time shall elapse +for the reconstruction of a new home in place of the old, shall repossess +us of ourselves as unchanged as the things with which we shall again +array it? Here is a pretty idea for some dreamer to spin into the filmy +fabric of a romance, and I handsomely make a present of it to the first +comer. If the dreamer is of the right quality he will know how to make +the reader feel that with the universal longing to return to former +conditions or circumstances it must always be a mistake to do so, and he +will subtly insinuate the disappointment and discomfort of the stored +personality in resuming its old relations. With that just mixture of the +comic and pathetic which we desire in romance, he will teach convincingly +that a stored personality is to be desired only if it is permanently +stored, with the implication of a like finality in the storage of its +belongings. + +Save in some signal exception, a thing taken out of storage cannot be +established in its former function without a sense of its comparative +inadequacy. It stands in the old place, it serves the old use, and yet +a new thing would be better; it would even in some subtle wise be more +appropriate, if I may indulge so audacious a paradox; for the time is +new, and so will be all the subconscious keeping in which our lives are +mainly passed. We are supposed to have associations with the old things +which render them precious, but do not the associations rather render +them painful? If that is true of the inanimate things, how much truer it +is of those personalities which once environed and furnished our lives! +Take the article of old friends, for instance: has it ever happened to +the reader to witness the encounter of old friends after the lapse of +years? Such a meeting is conventionally imagined to be full of tender +joy, a rapture that vents itself in manly tears, perhaps, and certainly +in womanly tears. But really is it any such emotion? Honestly is not it +a cruel embarrassment, which all the hypocritical pretences cannot hide? +The old friends smile and laugh, and babble incoherently at one another, +but are they genuinely glad? Is not each wishing the other at that end +of the earth from which he came? Have they any use for each other such +as people of unbroken associations have? + +I have lately been privy to the reunion of two old comrades who are bound +together more closely than most men in a community of interests, +occupations, and ideals. During a long separation they had kept account +of each other's opinions as well as experiences; they had exchanged +letters, from time to time, in which they opened their minds fully to +each other, and found themselves constantly in accord. When they met +they made a great shouting, and each pretended that he found the other +just what he used to be. They talked a long, long time, fighting the +invisible enemy which they felt between them. The enemy was habit, the +habit of other minds and hearts, the daily use of persons and things +which in their separation they had not had in common. When the old +friends parted they promised to meet every day, and now, since their +lines had been cast in the same places again, to repair the ravage of the +envious years, and become again to each other all that they had ever +been. But though they live in the same town, and often dine at the same +table, and belong to the same club, yet they have not grown together +again. They have grown more and more apart, and are uneasy in each +other's presence, tacitly self-reproachful for the same effect which +neither of them could avert or repair. They had been respectively in +storage, and each, in taking the other out, has experienced in him the +unfitness which grows upon the things put away for a time and reinstated +in a former function. + + + + +III. + +I have not touched upon these facts of life, without the purpose of +finding some way out of the coil. There seems none better than the +counsel of keeping one's face set well forward, and one's eyes fixed +steadfastly upon the future. This is the hint we will get from nature if +we will heed her, and note how she never recurs, never stores or takes +out of storage. Fancy rehabilitating one's first love: how nature would +mock at that! We cannot go back and be the men and women we were, any +more than we can go back and be children. As we grow older, each year's +change in us is more chasmal and complete. There is no elixir whose +magic will recover us to ourselves as we were last year; but perhaps we +shall return to ourselves more and more in the times, or the eternity, to +come. Some instinct or inspiration implies the promise of this, but only +on condition that we shall not cling to the life that has been ours, and +hoard its mummified image in our hearts. We must not seek to store +ourselves, but must part with what we were for the use and behoof of +others, as the poor part with their worldly gear when they move from one +place to another. It is a curious and significant property of our +outworn characteristics that, like our old furniture, they will serve +admirably in the life of some other, and that this other can profitably +make them his when we can no longer keep them ours, or ever hope to +resume them. They not only go down to successive generations, but they +spread beyond our lineages, and serve the turn of those whom we never +knew to be within the circle of our influence. + +Civilization imparts itself by some such means, and the lower classes are +clothed in the cast conduct of the upper, which if it had been stored +would have left the inferiors rude and barbarous. We have only to think +how socially naked most of us would be if we had not had the beautiful +manners of our exclusive society to put on at each change of fashion when +it dropped them. + +All earthly and material things should be worn out with use, and not +preserved against decay by any unnatural artifice. Even when broken and +disabled from overuse they have a kind of respectability which must +commend itself to the observer, and which partakes of the pensive grace +of ruin. An old table with one leg gone, and slowly lapsing to decay in +the woodshed, is the emblem of a fitter order than the same table, with +all its legs intact, stored with the rest of the furniture from a broken +home. Spinning-wheels gathering dust in the garret of a house that is +itself falling to pieces have a dignity that deserts them when they are +dragged from their refuge, and furbished up with ribbons and a tuft of +fresh tow, and made to serve the hollow occasions of bric-a-brac, as they +were a few years ago. A pitcher broken at the fountain, or a battered +kettle on a rubbish heap, is a venerable object, but not crockery and +copper-ware stored in the possibility of future need. However carefully +handed down from one generation to another, the old objects have a +forlorn incongruity in their successive surroundings which appeals to the +compassion rather than the veneration of the witness. + +It was from a truth deeply mystical that Hawthorne declared against any +sort of permanence in the dwellings of men, and held that each generation +should newly house itself. He preferred the perishability of the wooden +American house to the durability of the piles of brick or stone which in +Europe affected him as with some moral miasm from the succession of sires +and sons and grandsons that had died out of them. But even of such +structures as these it is impressive how little the earth makes with the +passage of time. Where once a great city of them stood, you shall find a +few tottering walls, scarcely more mindful of the past than "the cellar +and the well" which Holmes marked as the ultimate monuments, the last +witnesses, to the existence of our more transitory habitations. It is +the law of the patient sun that everything under it shall decay, and if +by reason of some swift calamity, some fiery cataclysm, the perishable +shall be overtaken by a fate that fixes it in unwasting arrest, it cannot +be felt that the law has been set aside in the interest of men's +happiness or cheerfulness. Neither Pompeii nor Herculaneum invites the +gayety of the spectator, who as he walks their disinterred thoroughfares +has the weird sense of taking a former civilization out of storage, and +the ache of finding it wholly unadapted to the actual world. As far as +his comfort is concerned, it had been far better that those cities had +not been stored, but had fallen to the ruin that has overtaken all their +contemporaries. + + + + +IV + +No, good friend, sir or madam, as the case may be, but most likely madam: +if you are about to break up your household for any indefinite period, +and are not so poor that you need sell your things, be warned against +putting them in storage, unless of the most briskly combustible type. +Better, far better, give them away, and disperse them by that means to a +continuous use that shall end in using them up; or if no one will take +them, then hire a vacant lot, somewhere, and devote them to the flames. +By that means you shall bear witness against a custom that insults the +order of nature, and crowds the cities with the cemeteries of dead homes, +where there is scarcely space for the living homes. Do not vainly fancy +that you shall take your stuff out of storage and find it adapted to the +ends that it served before it was put in. You will not be the same, or +have the same needs or desire, when you take it out, and the new place +which you shall hope to equip with it will receive it with cold +reluctance, or openly refuse it, insisting upon forms and dimensions that +render it ridiculous or impossible. The law is that nothing taken out of +storage is the same as it was when put in, and this law, hieroglyphed in +those rude 'graffiti' apparently inscribed by accident in the process of +removal, has only such exceptions as prove the rule. + +The world to which it has returned is not the same, and that makes all +the difference. Yet, truth and beauty do not change, however the moods +and fashions change. The ideals remain, and these alone you can go back +to, secure of finding them the same, to-day and to-morrow, that they were +yesterday. This perhaps is because they have never been in storage, but +in constant use, while the moods and fashions have been put away and +taken out a thousand times. Most people have never had ideals, but only +moods and fashions, but such people, least of all, are fitted to find in +them that pleasure of the rococo which consoles the idealist when the old +moods and fashions reappear. + + + + + + +"FLOATING DOWN THE RIVER ON THE O-HI-O " + +There was not much promise of pleasure in the sodden afternoon of a mid- +March day at Pittsburg, where the smoke of a thousand foundry chimneys +gave up trying to rise through the thick, soft air, and fell with the +constant rain which it dyed its own black. But early memories stirred +joyfully in the two travellers in whose consciousness I was making my +tour, at sight of the familiar stern-wheel steamboat lying beside the +wharf boat at the foot of the dilapidated levee, and doing its best to +represent the hundreds of steamboats that used to lie there in the old +days. It had the help of three others in its generous effort, and the +levee itself made a gallant pretence of being crowded with freight, and +succeeded in displaying several saturated piles of barrels and +agricultural implements on the irregular pavement whose wheel-worn +stones, in long stretches, were sunken out of sight in their parent mud. +The boats and the levee were jointly quite equal to the demand made upon +them by the light-hearted youngsters of sixty-five and seventy, who were +setting out on their journey in fulfilment of a long-cherished dream, and +for whom much less freight and much fewer boats would have rehabilitated +the past. + + + + +I. + +When they mounted the broad stairway, tidily strewn with straw to save it +from the mud of careless boots, and entered the long saloon of the +steamboat, the promise of their fancy was more than made good for them. +From the clerk's office, where they eagerly paid their fare, the saloon +stretched two hundred feet by thirty away to the stern, a cavernous +splendor of white paint and gilding, starred with electric bulbs, and +fenced at the stern with wide windows of painted glass. Midway between +the great stove in the bow where the men were herded, and the great stove +at the stern where the women kept themselves in the seclusion which the +tradition of Western river travel still guards, after well-nigh a hundred +years, they were given ample state-rooms, whose appointments so exactly +duplicated those they remembered from far-off days that they could have +believed themselves awakened from a dream of insubstantial time, with the +events in which it had seemed to lapse, mere feints of experience. When +they sat down at the supper-table and were served with the sort of +belated steamboat dinner which it recalled as vividly, the kind, sooty +faces and snowy aprons of those who served them were so quite those of +other days that they decided all repasts since were mere Barmecide +feasts, and made up for the long fraud practised upon them with the +appetites of the year 1850. + + + + +II. + +A rigider sincerity than shall be practised here might own that the table +of the good steamboat 'Avonek' left something to be desired, if tested by +more sophisticated cuisines, but in the article of corn-bread it was of +an inapproachable preeminence. This bread was made of the white corn +which North knows not, nor the hapless East; and the buckwheat cakes at +breakfast were without blame, and there was a simple variety in the +abundance which ought to have satisfied if it did not flatter the choice. +The only thing that seemed strangely, that seemed sadly, anomalous in a +land flowing with ham and bacon was that the 'Avonek' had not imagined +providing either for the guests, no one of whom could have had a +religious scruple against them. + +The thing, indeed, which was first and last conspicuous in the +passengers, was their perfectly American race and character. At the +start, when with an acceptable observance of Western steamboat tradition +the 'Avonek' left her wharf eight hours behind her appointed time, there +were very few passengers; but they began to come aboard at the little +towns of both shores as she swam southward and westward, till all the +tables were so full that, in observance of another Western steamboat +tradition; one did well to stand guard over his chair lest some other who +liked it should seize it earlier. The passengers were of every age and +condition, except perhaps the highest condition, and they seemed none the +worse for being more like Americans of the middle of the last century +than of the beginning of this. Their fashions were of an approximation +to those of the present, but did not scrupulously study detail; their +manners were those of simpler if not sincerer days. + +The women kept to themselves at their end of the saloon, aloof from the +study of any but their husbands or kindred, but the men were everywhere +else about, and open to observation. They were not so open to +conversation, for your mid-Westerner is not a facile, though not an +unwilling, talker. They sat by their tall, cast-iron stove (of the oval +pattern unvaried since the earliest stove of the region), and silently +ruminated their tobacco and spat into the clustering, cuspidors at their +feet. They would always answer civilly if questioned, and oftenest +intelligently, but they asked nothing in return, and they seemed to have +none of that curiosity once known or imagined in them by Dickens and +other averse aliens. They had mostly faces of resolute power, and such a +looking of knowing exactly what they wanted as would not have promised +well for any collectively or individually opposing them. If ever the +sense of human equality has expressed itself in the human countenance it +speaks unmistakably from American faces like theirs. + +They were neither handsome nor unhandsome; but for a few striking +exceptions, they had been impartially treated by nature; and where they +were notably plain their look of force made up for their lack of beauty. +They were notably handsomest in a tall young fellow of a lean face, +absolute Greek in profile, amply thwarted with a branching mustache, and +slender of figure, on whom his clothes, lustrous from much sitting down +and leaning up, grew like the bark on a tree, and who moved slowly and +gently about, and spoke with a low, kind voice. In his young comeliness +he was like a god, as the gods were fancied in the elder world: a chewing +and a spitting god, indeed, but divine in his passionless calm. + +He was a serious divinity, and so were all the mid-Western human-beings +about him. One heard no joking either of the dapper or cockney sort of +cities, or the quaint graphic phrasing of Eastern country folk; and it +may have been not far enough West for the true Western humor. At any +rate, when they were not silent these men still were serious. + +The women were apparently serious, too, and where they were associated +with the men were, if they were not really subject, strictly abeyant, in +the spectator's eye. The average of them was certainly not above the +American woman's average in good looks, though one young mother of six +children, well grown save for the baby in her arms, was of the type some +masters loved to paint, with eyes set wide under low arched brows. She +had the placid dignity and the air of motherly goodness which goes fitly +with such beauty, and the sight of her was such as to disperse many of +the misgivings that beset the beholder who looketh upon the woman when +she is New. As she seemed, so any man might wish to remember his mother +seeming. + +All these river folk, who came from the farms and villages along the +stream, and never from the great towns or cities, were well mannered, if +quiet manners are good; and though the men nearly all chewed tobacco and +spat between meals, at the table they were of an exemplary behavior. The +use of the fork appeared strange to them, and they handled it strenuously +rather than agilely, yet they never used their knives shovel-wise, +however they planted their forks like daggers in the steak: the steak +deserved no gentler usage, indeed. They were usually young, and they +were constantly changing, bent upon short journeys between the shore +villages; they were mostly farm youth, apparently, though some were said +to be going to find work at the great potteries up the river for wages +fabulous to home-keeping experience. + +One personality which greatly took the liking of one of our tourists was +a Kentucky mountaineer who, after three years' exile in a West Virginia +oil town, was gladly returning to the home for which he and all his +brood-of large and little comely, red-haired boys and girls-had never +ceased to pine. His eagerness to get back was more than touching; it was +awing; for it was founded on a sort of mediaeval patriotism that could +own no excellence beyond the borders of the natal region. He had +prospered at high wages in his trade at that oil town, and his wife and +children had managed a hired farm so well as to pay all the family +expenses from it, but he was gladly leaving opportunity behind, that he +might return to a land where, if you were passing a house at meal-time, +they came out and made you come in and eat. "When you eat where I've +been living you pay fifty cents," he explained. "And are you taking all +your household stuff with you?" "Only the cook-stove. Well, I'll tell +you: we made the other things ourselves; made them out of plank, and they +were not worth-moving." Here was the backwoods surviving into the day of +Trusts; and yet we talk of a world drifted hopelessly far from the old +ideals! + + + + +III. + +The new ideals, the ideals of a pitiless industrialism, were sufficiently +expressed along the busy shores, where the innumerable derricks of oil- +wells silhouetted their gibbet shapes against the horizon, and the myriad +chimneys of the foundries sent up the smoke of their torment into the +quiet skies and flamed upon the forehead of the evening like baleful +suns. But why should I be so violent of phrase against these guiltless +means of millionairing? There must be iron and coal as well as wheat and +corn in the world, and without their combination we cannot have bread. +If the combination is in the form of a trust, such as has laid its giant +clutch upon all those warring industries beside the Ohio and swept them +into one great monopoly, why, it has still to show that it is worse than +competition; that it is not, indeed, merely the first blind stirrings of +the universal cooperation of which the dreamers of ideal commonwealths +have always had the vision. + +The derricks and the chimneys, when one saw them, seem to have all the +land to themselves; but this was an appearance only, terrifying in its +strenuousness, but not, after all, the prevalent aspect. That was rather +of farm, farms, and evermore farms, lying along the rich levels of the +stream, and climbing as far up its beautiful hills as the plough could +drive. In the spring and in the Mall, when it is suddenly swollen by the +earlier and the later rains, the river scales its banks and swims over +those levels to the feet of those hills, and when it recedes it leaves +the cornfields enriched for the crop that, has never failed since the +forests were first cut from the land. Other fertilizing the fields have +never had any, but they teem as if the guano islands had been emptied +into their laps. They feel themselves so rich that they part with great +lengths and breadths of their soil to the river, which is not good for +the river, and is not well for the fields; so that the farmers, whose +ease learns slowly, are beginning more and more to fence their borders +with the young willows which form a hedge in the shallow wash such a +great part of the way up and down the Ohio. Elms and maples wade in +among the willows, and in time the river will be denied the indigestion +which it confesses in shoals and bars at low water, and in a difficulty +of channel at all stages. + +Meanwhile the fields flourish in spite of their unwise largesse to the +stream, whose shores the comfortable farmsteads keep so constantly that +they are never out of sight. Most commonly they are of brick, but +sometimes of painted wood, and they are set on little eminences high +enough to save them from the freshets, but always so near the river that +they cannot fail of its passing life. Usually a group of planted +evergreens half hides the house from the boat, but its inmates will not +lose any detail of the show, and come down to the gate of the paling +fence to watch the 'Avonek' float by: motionless men and women, who lean +upon the supporting barrier, and rapt children who hold by their skirts +and hands. There is not the eager New England neatness about these +homes; now and then they have rather a sloven air, which does not discord +with their air of comfort; and very, very rarely they stagger drunkenly +in a ruinous neglect. Except where a log cabin has hardily survived the +pioneer period, the houses are nearly all of one pattern; their facades +front the river, and low chimneys point either gable, where a half-story +forms the attic of the two stories below. Gardens of pot-herbs flank +them, and behind cluster the corn-cribs, and the barns and stables +stretch into the fields that stretch out to the hills, now scantily +wooded, but ever lovely in the lines that change with the steamer's +course. + +Except in the immediate suburbs of the large towns, there is no ambition +beyond that of rustic comfort in the buildings on the shore. There is no +such thing, apparently, as a summer cottage, with its mock humility of +name, up or down the whole tortuous length of the Ohio. As yet the land +is not openly depraved by shows of wealth; those who amass it either keep +it to themselves or come away to spend it in European travel, or pause to +waste it unrecognized on the ungrateful Atlantic seaboard. The only +distinctions that are marked are between the homes of honest industry +above the banks and the homes below them of the leisure, which it is +hoped is not dishonest. But, honest or dishonest, it is there apparently +to stay in the house-boats which line the shores by thousands, and repeat +on Occidental terms in our new land the river-life of old and far Cathay. + +They formed the only feature of their travel which our tourists found +absolutely novel; they could clearly or dimly recall from the past every +other feature but the houseboats, which they instantly and gladly +naturalized to their memories of it. The houses had in common the form +of a freight-car set in a flat-bottomed boat; the car would be shorter or +longer, with one, or two, or three windows in its sides, and a section of +stovepipe softly smoking from its roof. The windows might be curtained +or they might be bare, but apparently there was no other distinction +among the houseboat dwellers, whose sluggish craft lay moored among the +willows, or tied to an elm or a maple, or even made fast to a stake on +shore. There were cases in which they had not followed the fall of the +river promptly enough, and lay slanted on the beach, or propped up to a +more habitable level on its slope; in a sole, sad instance, the house had +gone down with the boat and lay wallowing in the wash of the flood. But +they all gave evidence of a tranquil and unhurried life which the soul of +the beholder envied within him, whether it manifested itself in the lord +of the house-boat fishing from its bow, or the lady coming to cleanse +some household utensil at its stern. Infrequently a group of the house- +boat dwellers seemed to be drawing a net, and in one high event they +exhibited a good-sized fish of their capture, but nothing so strenuous +characterized their attitude on any other occasion. The accepted theory +of them was that they did by day as nearly nothing as men could do and +live, and that by night their forays on the bordering farms supplied the +simple needs of people who desired neither to toil nor to spin, but only +to emulate Solomon in his glory with the least possible exertion. The +joyful witness of their ease would willingly have sacrificed to them any +amount of the facile industrial or agricultural prosperity about them and +left them slumberously afloat, unmolested by dreams of landlord or tax- +gatherer. Their existence for the fleeting time seemed the true +interpretation of the sage's philosophy, the fulfilment of the poet's +aspiration. + + "Why should we only toil, that are the roof and crown of things. + +How did they pass their illimitable leisure, when they rested from the +fishing-net by day and the chicken-coop by night? Did they read the new +historical fictions aloud to one another? Did some of them even meditate +the thankless muse and not mind her ingratitude? Perhaps the ladies of +the house-boats, when they found themselves--as they often did--in +companies of four or five, had each other in to "evenings," at which one +of them read a paper on some artistic or literary topic. + + + + +IV. + +The trader's boat, of an elder and more authentic tradition, sometimes +shouldered the house-boats away from a village landing, but it, too, was +a peaceful home, where the family life visibly went hand-in-hand with +commerce. When the trader has supplied all the wants and wishes of a +neighborhood, he unmoors his craft and drops down the river's tide to +where it meets the ocean's tide in the farthermost Mississippi, and there +either sells out both his boat and his stock, or hitches his home to some +returning steamboat, and climbs slowly, with many pauses, back to the +upper Ohio. But his home is not so interesting as that of the +houseboatman, nor so picturesque as that of the raftsman, whose floor of +logs rocks flexibly under his shanty, but securely rides the current. As +the pilots said, a steamboat never tries to hurt a raft of logs, which is +adapted to dangerous retaliation; and by night it always gives a wide +berth to the lantern tilting above the raft from a swaying pole. By day +the raft forms one of the pleasantest aspects of the river-life, with its +convoy of skiffs always searching the stream or shore for logs which have +broken from it, and which the skiffmen recognize by distinctive brands or +stamps. Here and there the logs lie in long ranks upon the shelving +beaches, mixed with the drift of trees and fence-rails, and frames of +corn-cribs and hencoops, and even house walls, which the freshets have +brought down and left stranded. The tops of the little willows are +tufted gayly with hay and rags, and other spoil of the flood; and in one +place a disordered mattress was lodged high among the boughs of a water- +maple, where it would form building material for countless generations of +birds. The fat cornfields were often littered with a varied wreckage +which the farmers must soon heap together and burn, to be rid of it, and +everywhere were proofs of the river's power to devastate as well as +enrich its shores. The dwellers there had no power against it, in its +moments of insensate rage, and the land no protection from its +encroachments except in the simple device of the willow hedges, which, if +planted, sometimes refused to grow, but often came of themselves and kept +the torrent from the loose, unfathomable soil of the banks, otherwise +crumbling helplessly into it. + +The rafts were very well, and the house-boats and the traders' boats, but +the most majestic feature of the riverlife was the tow of coal-barges +which, going or coming, the 'Avonek' met every few miles. Whether going +or coming they were pushed, not pulled, by the powerful steamer which +gathered them in tens and twenties before her, and rode the mid-current +with them, when they were full, or kept the slower water near shore when +they were empty. They claimed the river where they passed, and the +'Avonek' bowed to an unwritten law in giving them the full right of way, +from the time when their low bulk first rose in sight, with the chimneys +of their steamer towering above them and her gay contours gradually +making themselves seen, till she receded from the encounter, with the +wheel at her stern pouring a cataract of yellow water from its blades. +It was insurpassably picturesque always, and not the tapering masts or +the swelling sails of any sea-going craft could match it. + + + + +V. + +So at least the travellers thought who were here revisiting the earliest +scenes of childhood, and who perhaps found them unduly endeared. They +perused them mostly from an easy seat at the bow of the hurricane-deck, +and, whenever the weather favored them, spent the idle time in selecting +shelters for their declining years among the farmsteads that offered +themselves to their choice up and down the shores. The weather commonly +favored them, and there was at least one whole day on the lower river +when the weather was divinely flattering. The soft, dull air lulled +their nerves while it buffeted their faces, and the sun, that looked +through veils of mist and smoke, gently warmed their aging frames and +found itself again in their hearts. Perhaps it was there that the water- +elms and watermaples chiefly budded, and the red-birds sang, and the +drifting flocks of blackbirds called and clattered; but surely these also +spread their gray and pink against the sky and filled it with their +voices. There were meadow-larks and robins without as well as within, +and it was no subjective plough that turned the earliest furrows in those +opulent fields. + +When they were tired of sitting there, they climbed, invited or +uninvited, but always welcomed, to the pilothouse, where either pilot of +the two who were always on watch poured out in an unstinted stream the +lore of the river on which all their days had been passed. They knew +from indelible association every ever-changing line of the constant +hills; every dwelling by the low banks; every aspect of the smoky towns; +every caprice of the river; every-tree, every stump; probably every bud +and bird in the sky. They talked only of the river; they cared for +nothing else. The Cuban cumber and the Philippine folly were equally far +from them; the German prince was not only as if he had never been here, +but as if he never had been; no public question concerned them but that +of abandoning the canals which the Ohio legislature was then foolishly +debating. Were not the canals water-ways, too, like the river, and if +the State unnaturally abandoned them would not it be for the behoof of +those railroads which the rivermen had always fought, and which would +have made a solitude of the river if they could? + +But they could not, and there was nothing more surprising and delightful +in this blissful voyage than the evident fact that the old river traffic +had strongly survived, and seemed to be more strongly reviving. Perhaps +it was not; perhaps the fondness of those Ohio-river-born passengers was +abused by an illusion (as subjective as that of the buds and birds) of a +vivid variety of business and pleasure on the beloved stream. But again, +perhaps not. They were seldom out of sight of the substantial proofs of +both in the through or way packets they encountered, or the nondescript +steam craft that swarmed about the mouths of the contributory rivers, and +climbed their shallowing courses into the recesses of their remotest +hills, to the last lurking-places of their oil and coal. + + + + +VI. + +The Avonek was always stopping to put off or take on merchandise or men. +She would stop for a single passenger, plaited in the mud with his +telescope valise or gripsack under the edge of a lonely cornfield, or to +gather upon her decks the few or many casks or bales that a farmer wished +to ship. She lay long hours by the wharf-boats of busy towns, exchanging +one cargo for another, in that anarchic fetching and carrying which we +call commerce, and which we drolly suppose to be governed by laws. But +wherever she paused or parted, she tested the pilot's marvellous skill; +for no landing, no matter how often she landed in the same place, could +be twice the same. At each return the varying stream and shore must be +studied, and every caprice of either divined. It was always a triumph, +a miracle, whether by day or by night, a constant wonder how under the +pilot's inspired touch she glided softly to her moorings, and without a +jar slipped from them again and went on her course. + +But the landings by night were of course the finest. Then the wide fan +of the search-light was unfurled upon the point to be attained and the +heavy staging lowered from the bow to the brink, perhaps crushing the +willow hedges in it's fall, and scarcely touching the land before a +black, ragged deck-hand had run out through the splendor and made a line +fast to the trunk of the nearest tree. Then the work of lading or +unlading rapidly began in the witching play of the light that set into +radiant relief the black, eager faces and the black, eager figures of the +deck-hands struggling up or down the staging under boxes of heavy wares, +or kegs of nails, or bales of straw, or blocks of stone, steadily mocked +or cursed at in their shapeless effort, till the last of them reeled back +to the deck down the steep of the lifting stage, and dropped to his +broken sleep wherever he could coil himself, doglike, down among the +heaps of freight. + +No dog, indeed, leads such a hapless life as theirs; and ah! and ah! why +should their sable shadows intrude in a picture that was meant to be all +so gay and glad? But ah! and ah! where, in what business of this hard +world, is not prosperity built upon the struggle of toiling men, who +still endeavor their poor best, and writhe and writhe under the burden of +their brothers above, till they lie still under the lighter load of their +mother earth? + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Absence of distinction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Advertising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your readers . . . . . . . . +Anise-seed bag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Any man's country could get on without him . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Begun to fight with want from their cradles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Blasts of frigid wind swept the streets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Clemens is said to have said of bicycling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Could not, as the saying is, find a stone to throw at a dog. . . . . . . +Disbeliever in punishments of all sorts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Do not want to know about such squalid lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Early self-helpfulness of children is very remarkable. . . . . . . . . . +Encounter of old friends after the lapse of years. . . . . . . . . . . . +Even a day's rest is more than most people can bear. . . . . . . . . . . +Eyes fixed steadfastly upon the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety . . . . . . . . . +For most people choice is a curse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +General worsening of things, familiar after middle life. . . . . . . . . +Happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us.. . . . . . . . . +Hard to think up anything new. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Heart of youth aching for their stoical sorrows. . . . . . . . . . . . . +Heighten our suffering by anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +If one were poor, one ought to be deserving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Lascivious and immodest as possible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Literary spirit is the true world-citizen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Look of challenge, of interrogation, almost of reproof . . . . . . . . . +Malevolent agitators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation . . . . . . . . . . . . +Neatness that brings despair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Noble uselessness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Openly depraved by shows of wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +People have never had ideals, but only moods and fashions. . . . . . . . +People might oftener trust themselves to Providence. . . . . . . . . . . +People of wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy. . . . . . . . . +Plagiarism carries inevitable detection with it. . . . . . . . . . . . . +Pure accident and by its own contributory negligence . . . . . . . . . . +Refused to see us as we see ourselves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Should be very sorry to do good, as people called it . . . . . . . . . . +So many millionaires and so many tramps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +So touching that it brought the lump into my own throat. . . . . . . . . +Solution of the problem how and where to spend the summer. . . . . . . . +Some of it's good, and most of it isn't. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Some of us may be toys and playthings without reproach . . . . . . . . . +Superiority one likes to feel towards the rich and great . . . . . . . . +Take our pleasures ungraciously. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +The old and ugly are fastidious as to the looks of others. . . . . . . . +They are so many and I am so few . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Those who decide their fate are always rebelling against it. . . . . . . +Those who work too much and those who rest too much. . . . . . . . . . . +Unfailing American kindness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Visitors of the more inquisitive sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +We cannot all be hard-working donkeys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +We who have neither youth nor beauty should always expect it . . . . . . +Whatever choice you make, you are pretty sure to regret it . . . . . . . + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Short Stories and Essays, +by William Dean Howells + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE FILE: + +Absence of distinction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Advertising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your readers . . . . . . . . +Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +An artistic atmosphere does not create artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Anise-seed bag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Any man's country could get on without him . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Any sort of work that is slighted becomes drudgery . . . . . . . . . . . +Artist has seasons, as trees, when he cannot blossom. . . . . . . . . . +As soon as she has got a thing she wants, begins to hate it. . . . . . . +Begun to fight with want from their cradles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Blasts of frigid wind swept the streets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Book that they are content to know at second hand. . . . . . . . . . . . +Business to take advantage of his necessity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Clemens is said to have said of bicycling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Competition has deformed human nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Conditions of hucksters imposed upon poets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Could not, as the saying is, find a stone to throw at a dog. . . . . . . +Disbeliever in punishments of all sorts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Do not want to know about such squalid lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Early self-helpfulness of children is very remarkable. . . . . . . . . . +Encounter of old friends after the lapse of years. . . . . . . . . . . . +Even a day's rest is more than most people can bear. . . . . . . . . . . +Eyes fixed steadfastly upon the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety . . . . . . . . . +Fate of a book is in the hands of the women. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +For most people choice is a curse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +General worsening of things, familiar after middle life. . . . . . . . . +God of chance leads them into temptation and adversity . . . . . . . . . +Happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us.. . . . . . . . . +Hard to think up anything new. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Heart of youth aching for their stoical sorrows. . . . . . . . . . . . . +Heighten our suffering by anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn . . . . . . . . +Historian, who is a kind of inferior realist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +I do not think any man ought to live by an art . . . . . . . . . . . . . +If he has not enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading. . . . . . . . . +If one were poor, one ought to be deserving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Impropriety if not indecency promises literary success . . . . . . . . . +Ladies make up the pomps which they (the men) forego . . . . . . . . . . +Lascivious and immodest as possible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Leading part cats may play in society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Leaven, but not for so large a lump. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Literary spirit is the true world-citizen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Literature beautiful only through the intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . +Literature has no objective value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Literature is Business as well as Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Look of challenge, of interrogation, almost of reproof . . . . . . . . . +Malevolent agitators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Man is strange to himself as long as he lives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Mark Twain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation . . . . . . . . . . . . +Men read the newspapers, but our women read the books. . . . . . . . . . +More zeal than knowledge in it.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Most journalists would have been literary men if they could. . . . . . . +Neatness that brings despair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Never quite sure of life unless I find literature in it. . . . . . . . . +No man ought to live by any art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +No rose blooms right along . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Noble uselessness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Not lack of quality but quantity of the quality . . . . . . . . . . . . +Openly depraved by shows of wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Our deeply incorporated civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Our huckstering civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +People have never had ideals, but only moods and fashions. . . . . . . . +People might oftener trust themselves to Providence. . . . . . . . . . . +People of wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy. . . . . . . . . +Picturesqueness which we should prize if we saw it abroad. . . . . . . . +Plagiarism carries inevitable detection with it. . . . . . . . . . . . . +Public whose taste is so crude that they cannot enjoy the best . . . . . +Pure accident and by its own contributory negligence . . . . . . . . . . +Put aside all anxiety about style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Refused to see us as we see ourselves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Results of art should be free to all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Reviewers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Reward is in the serial and not in the book--19th Century. . . . . . . . +Rogues in every walk of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Should be very sorry to do good, as people called it . . . . . . . . . . +Should sin a little more on the side of candid severity. . . . . . . . . +So many millionaires and so many tramps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +So touching that it brought the lump into my own throat. . . . . . . . . +Solution of the problem how and where to spend the summer. . . . . . . . +Some of it's good, and most of it isn't. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Some of us may be toys and playthings without reproach . . . . . . . . . +Summer folks have no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone. . . . . +Superiority one likes to feel towards the rich and great . . . . . . . . +Take our pleasures ungraciously. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +The old and ugly are fastidious as to the looks of others. . . . . . . . +Their consciences needed no bossing in the performance . . . . . . . . . +There is small love of pure literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +They are so many and I am so few . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Those who decide their fate are always rebelling against it. . . . . . . +Those who work too much and those who rest too much. . . . . . . . . . . +Trouble with success is that it is apt to leave life behind. . . . . . . +Two branches of the novelist's trade: Novelist and Historian . . . . . . +Unfailing American kindness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Visitors of the more inquisitive sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Wald with the lurch and the sway of the deck in it.. . . . . . . . . . . +Warner's Backlog Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +We cannot all be hard-working donkeys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +We who have neither youth nor beauty should always expect it . . . . . . +Whatever choice you make, you are pretty sure to regret it . . . . . . . +Work not truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money . . . . . . +Work would be twice as good if it were done twice. . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Literature and Life, Entire, +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/whlal10.zip b/old/whlal10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..54021a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whlal10.zip diff --git a/old/whlal11.txt b/old/whlal11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23fca3c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whlal11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17916 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Literature and Life, Entire, by Howells +#36 in our series by William Dean Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to 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D.W.] + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE, Entire + +by William Dean Howells + + + +CONTENTS: + Man of Letters in Business + Confessions of a Summer Colonist + The Young Contributor + Last Days in a Dutch Hotel + Anomalies of the Short Story + Spanish Prisoners of War + American Literary Centers + Standard Household Effect Co. + Notes of a Vanished Summer + Worries of a Winter Walk + Summer Isles of Eden + Wild Flowers of the Asphalt + A Circus in the Suburbs + A She Hamlet + The Midnight Platoon + The Beach at Rockaway + Sawdust in the Arena + At a Dime Museum + American Literature in Exile + The Horse Show + The Problem of the Summer + Aesthetic New York Fifty-odd Years Ago + From New York into New England + The Art of the Adsmith + The Psychology of Plagiarism + Puritanism in American Fiction + The What and How in Art + Politics in American Authors + Storage + "Floating down the River on the O-hi-o" + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Man of Letters as a Man of Business + +by William Dean Howells + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + +Perhaps the reader may not feel in these papers that inner solidarity +which the writer is conscious of; and it is in this doubt that the writer +wishes to offer a word of explanation. He owns, as he must, that they +have every appearance of a group of desultory sketches and essays, +without palpable relation to one another, or superficial allegiance to +any central motive. Yet he ventures to hope that the reader who makes +his way through them will be aware, in the retrospect, of something like +this relation and this allegiance. + +For my own part, if I am to identify myself with the writer who is here +on his defence, I have never been able to see much difference between +what seemed to me Literature and what seemed to me Life. If I did not +find life in what professed to be literature, I disabled its profession, +and possibly from this habit, now inveterate with me, I am never quite +sure of life unless I find literature in it. Unless the thing seen +reveals to me an intrinsic poetry, and puts on phrases that clothe it +pleasingly to the imagination, I do not much care for it; but if it will +do this, I do not mind how poor or common or squalid it shows at first +glance: it challenges my curiosity and keeps my sympathy. Instantly I +love it and wish to share my pleasure in it with some one else, or as +many ones else as I can get to look or listen. If the thing is something +read, rather than seen, I am not anxious about the matter: if it is like +life, I know that it is poetry, and take it to my heart. There can be no +offence in it for which its truth will not make me amends. + +Out of this way of thinking and feeling about these two great things, +about Literature and Life, there may have arisen a confusion as to which +is which. But I do not wish to part them, and in their union I have +found, since I learned my letters, a joy in them both which I hope will +last till I forget my letters. + + "So was it when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it when I shall grow old." + +It is the rainbow in the sky for me; and I have seldom seen a sky without +some bit of rainbow in it. Sometimes I can make others see it, sometimes +not; but I always like to try, and if I fail I harbor no worse thought of +them than that they have not had their eyes examined and fitted with +glasses which would at least have helped their vision. + +As to the where and when of the different papers, in which I suppose +their bibliography properly lies, I need not be very exact. "The Man of +Letters as a Man of Business" was written in a hotel at Lakewood in the +May of 1892 or 1893, and pretty promptly printed in Scribner's Magazine; +"Confessions of a Summer Colonist" was done at York Harbor in the fall of +1898 for the Atlantic Monthly, and was a study of life at that pleasant +resort as it was lived-in the idyllic times of the earlier settlement, +long before motors and almost before private carriages; "American +Literary Centres," "American Literature in Exile," "Puritanism in +American Fiction," "Politics of American Authors," were, with three or +four other papers, the endeavors of the American correspondent of the +London Times's literary supplement, to enlighten the British +understanding as to our ways of thinking and writing eleven years ago, +and are here left to bear the defects of the qualities of their obsolete +actuality in the year 1899. Most of the studies and sketches are from an +extinct department of "Life and Letters" which I invented for Harper's +Weekly, and operated for a year or so toward the close of the nineteenth +century. Notable among these is the "Last Days in a Dutch Hotel," which +was written at Paris in 1897; it is rather a favorite of mine, perhaps +because I liked Holland so much; others, which more or less personally +recognize effects of sojourn in New York or excursions into New England, +are from the same department; several may be recalled by the longer- +memoried reader as papers from the "Editor's Easy Chair" in Harper's +Monthly; "Wild Flowers of the Asphalt" is the review of an ever- +delightful book which I printed in Harper's Bazar; "The Editor's +Relations with the Young Contributor" was my endeavor in Youth's +Companion to shed a kindly light from my experience in both seats upon +the too-often and too needlessly embittered souls of literary beginners. + +So it goes as to the motives and origins of the collection which may +persist in disintegrating under the reader's eye, in spite of my well- +meant endeavors to establish a solidarity for it. The group at least +attests, even in this event, the wide, the wild, variety of my literary +production in time and space. From the beginning the journalist's +independence of the scholar's solitude and seclusion has remained with +me, and though I am fond enough of a bookish entourage, of the serried +volumes of the library shelves, and the inviting breadth of the library +table, I am not disabled by the hard conditions of a bedroom in a summer +hotel, or the narrow possibilities of a candle-stand, without a +dictionary in the whole house, or a book of reference even in the running +brooks outside. + W. D. HOWELLS. + + + + + + + LITERATURE AND LIFE + + + +THE MAN OF LETTERS AS A MAN OF BUSINESS + +I think that every man ought to work for his living, without exception, +and that, when he has once avouched his willingness to work, society +should provide him with work and warrant him a living. I do not think +any man ought to live by an art. A man's art should be his privilege, +when he has proven his fitness to exercise it, and has otherwise earned +his daily bread; and its results should be free to all. There is an +instinctive sense of this, even in the midst of the grotesque confusion +of our economic being; people feel that there is something profane, +something impious, in taking money for a picture, or a poem, or a statue. +Most of all, the artist himself feels this. He puts on a bold front with +the world, to be sure, and brazens it out as Business; but he knows very +well that there is something false and vulgar in it; and that the work +which cannot be truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money. +He can, of course, say that the priest takes money for reading the +marriage service, for christening the new-born babe, and for saying the +last office for the dead; that the physician sells healing; that justice +itself is paid for; and that he is merely a party to the thing that is +and must be. He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art +he cannot live, that society will leave him to starve if he does not hit +its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; and all this is bitterly +true. He is, and he must be, only too glad if there is a market for his +wares. Without a market for his wares he must perish, or turn to making +something that will sell better than pictures, or poems, or statues. +All the same, the sin and the shame remain, and the averted eye sees them +still, with its inward vision. Many will make believe otherwise, but I +would rather not make believe otherwise; and in trying to write of +Literature as Business I am tempted to begin by saying that Business is +the opprobrium of Literature. + + +I. + +Literature is at once the most intimate and the most articulate of the +arts. It cannot impart its effect through the senses or the nerves as +the other arts can; it is beautiful only through the intelligence; it is +the mind speaking to the mind; until it has been put into absolute terms, +of an invariable significance, it does not exist at all. It cannot +awaken this emotion in one, and that in another; if it fails to express +precisely the meaning of the author, if it does not say him, it says +nothing, and is nothing. So that when a poet has put his heart, much or +little, into a poem, and sold it to a magazine, the scandal is greater +than when a painter has sold a picture to a patron, or a sculptor has +modelled a statue to order. These are artists less articulate and less +intimate than the poet; they are more exterior to their work; they are +less personally in it; they part with less of themselves in the dicker. +It does not change the nature of the case to say that Tennyson and +Longfellow and Emerson sold the poems in which they couched the most +mystical messages their genius was charged to bear mankind. They +submitted to the conditions which none can escape; but that does not +justify the conditions, which are none the less the conditions of +hucksters because they are imposed upon poets. If it will serve to make +my meaning a little clearer, we will suppose that a poet has been crossed +in love, or has suffered some real sorrow, like the loss of a wife or +child. He pours out his broken heart in verse that shall bring tears of +sacred sympathy from his readers, and an editor pays him a hundred +dollars for the right of bringing his verse to their notice. It is +perfectly true that the poem was not written for these dollars, but it is +perfectly true that it was sold for them. The poet must use his emotions +to pay his provision bills; he has no other means; society does not +propose to pay his bills for him. Yet, and at the end of the ends, the +unsophisticated witness finds the transaction ridiculous, finds it +repulsive, finds it shabby. Somehow he knows that if our huckstering +civilization did not at every moment violate the eternal fitness of +things, the poet's song would have been given to the world, and the poet +would have been cared for by the whole human brotherhood, as any man +should be who does the duty that every man owes it. + +The instinctive sense of the dishonor which money-purchase does to art is +so strong that sometimes a man of letters who can pay his way otherwise +refuses pay for his work, as Lord Byron did, for a while, from a noble +pride, and as Count Tolstoy has tried to do, from a noble conscience. +But Byron's publisher profited by a generosity which did not reach his +readers; and the Countess Tolstoy collects the copyright which her +husband foregoes; so that these two eminent instances of protest against +business in literature may be said not to have shaken its money basis. +I know of no others; but there may be many that I am culpably ignorant +of. Still, I doubt if there are enough to affect the fact that +Literature is Business as well as Art, and almost as soon. At present +business is the only human solidarity; we are all bound together with +that chain, whatever interests and tastes and principles separate us, +and I feel quite sure that in writing of the Man of Letters as a Man of +Business I shall attract far more readers than I should in writing of him +as an Artist. Besides, as an artist he has been done a great deal +already; and a commercial state like ours has really more concern in him +as a business man. Perhaps it may sometime be different; I do not +believe it will till the conditions are different, and that is a long way +off. + + + + +II. + +In the mean time I confidently appeal to the reader's imagination with +the fact that there are several men of letters among us who are such good +men of business that they can command a hundred dollars a thousand words +for all they write. It is easy to write a thousand words a day, and, +supposing one of these authors to work steadily, it can be seen that his +net earnings during the year would come to some such sum as the President +of the United States gets for doing far less work of a much more +perishable sort. If the man of letters were wholly a business man, this +is what would happen; he would make his forty or fifty thousand dollars a +year, and be able to consort with bank presidents, and railroad +officials, and rich tradesmen, and other flowers of our plutocracy on +equal terms. But, unfortunately, from a business point of view, he is +also an artist, and the very qualities that enable him to delight the +public disable him from delighting it uninterruptedly. "No rose blooms +right along," as the English boys at Oxford made an American collegian +say in a theme which they imagined for him in his national parlance; and +the man of letters, as an artist, is apt to have times and seasons when +he cannot blossom. Very often it shall happen that his mind will lie +fallow between novels or stories for weeks and months at a stretch; when +the suggestions of the friendly editor shall fail to fruit in the essays +or articles desired; when the muse shall altogether withhold herself, or +shall respond only in a feeble dribble of verse which he might sell +indeed, but which it would not be good business for him to put on the +market. But supposing him to be a very diligent and continuous worker, +and so happy as to have fallen on a theme that delights him and bears him +along, he may please himself so ill with the result of his labors that he +can do nothing less in artistic conscience than destroy a day's work, a +week's work, a month's work. I know one man of letters who wrote to-day +and tore up tomorrow for nearly a whole summer. But even if part of the +mistaken work may be saved, because it is good work out of place, and not +intrinsically bad, the task of reconstruction wants almost as much time +as the production; and then, when all seems done, comes the anxious and +endless process of revision. These drawbacks reduce the earning capacity +of what I may call the high-cost man of letters in such measure that an +author whose name is known everywhere, and whose reputation is +commensurate with the boundaries of his country, if it does not transcend +them, shall have the income, say, of a rising young physician, known to a +few people in a subordinate city. + +In view of this fact, so humiliating to an author in the presence of a +nation of business men like ours, I do not know that I can establish the +man of letters in the popular esteem as very much of a business man, +after all. He must still have a low rank among practical people; and he +will be regarded by the great mass of Americans as perhaps a little off, +a little funny, a little soft! Perhaps not; and yet I would rather not +have a consensus of public opinion on the question; I think I am more +comfortable without it. + + +III. + +There is this to be said in defence of men of letters on the business +side, that literature is still an infant industry with us, and, so far +from having been protected by our laws, it was exposed for ninety years +after the foundation of the republic to the vicious competition of stolen +goods. It is true that we now have the international copyright law at +last, and we can at least begin to forget our shame; but literary +property has only forty-two years of life under our unjust statutes, and +if it is attacked by robbers the law does not seek out the aggressors and +punish them, as it would seek out and punish the trespassers upon any +other kind of property; it leaves the aggrieved owner to bring suit +against them, and recover damages, if he can. This may be right enough +in itself; but I think, then, that all property should be defended by +civil suit, and should become public after forty-two years of private +tenure. The Constitution guarantees us all equality before the law, but +the law-makers seem to have forgotten this in the case of our literary +industry. So long as this remains the case, we cannot expect the best +business talent to go into literature, and the man of letters must keep +his present low grade among business men. + +As I have hinted, it is but a little while that he has had any standing +at all. I may say that it is only since the Civil War that literature +has become a business with us. Before that time we had authors, and very +good ones; it is astonishing how good they were; but I do not remember +any of them who lived by literature except Edgar A. Poe, perhaps; and we +all know how he lived; it was largely upon loans. They were either men +of fortune, or they were editors or professors, with salaries or incomes +apart from the small gains of their pens; or they were helped out with +public offices; one need not go over their names or classify them. Some +of them must have made money by their books, but I question whether any +one could have lived, even very simply, upon the money his books brought +him. No one could do that now, unless he wrote a book that we could not +recognize as a work of literature. But many authors live now, and live +prettily enough, by the sale of the serial publication of their writings +to the magazines. They do not live so nicely as successful tradespeople, +of course, or as men in the other professions when they begin to make +themselves names; the high state of brokers, bankers, railroad operators, +and the like is, in the nature of the case, beyond their fondest dreams +of pecuniary affluence and social splendor. Perhaps they do not want the +chief seats in the synagogue; it is certain they do not get them. Still, +they do very fairly well, as things go; and several have incomes that +would seem riches to the great mass of worthy Americans who work with +their hands for a living--when they can get the work. Their incomes are +mainly from serial publication in the different magazines; and the +prosperity of the magazines has given a whole class existence which, as a +class, was wholly unknown among us before the Civil War. It is not only +the famous or fully recognized authors who live in this way, but the much +larger number of clever people who are as yet known chiefly to the +editors, and who may never make themselves a public, but who do well a +kind of acceptable work. These are the sort who do not get reprinted +from the periodicals; but the better recognized authors do get reprinted, +and then their serial work in its completed form appeals to the readers +who say they do not read serials. The multitude of these is not great, +and if an author rested his hopes upon their favor he would be a much +more imbittered man than he now generally is. But he understands +perfectly well that his reward is in the serial and not in the book; the +return from that he may count as so much money found in the road--a few +hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most, unless he is the author of +an historical romance. + + +IV + +I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary men are absolutely as +great as they were earlier in the century, in any of the English-speaking +countries; relatively they are nothing like as great. Scott had forty +thousand dollars for 'Woodstock,' which was not a very large novel, and +was by no means one of his best; and forty thousand dollars then had at +least the purchasing power of sixty thousand now. Moore had three +thousand guineas for 'Lalla Rookh,' but what publisher would be rash +enough to pay fifteen thousand dollars for the masterpiece of a minor +poet now? The book, except in very rare instances, makes nothing like +the return to the author that the magazine makes, and there are few +leading authors who find their account in that form of publication. +Those who do, those who sell the most widely in book form, are often not +at all desired by editors; with difficulty they get a serial accepted by +any principal magazine. On the other hand, there are authors whose +books, compared with those of the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet +they are eagerly sought for by editors; they are paid the highest prices, +and nothing that they offer is refused. These are literary artists; and +it ought to be plain from what I am saying that in belles-lettres, at +least, most of the best literature now first sees the light in the +magazines, and most of the second-best appears first in book form. The +old-fashioned people who flatter themselves upon their distinction in not +reading magazine fiction or magazine poetry make a great mistake, and +simply class themselves with the public whose taste is so crude that they +cannot enjoy the best. Of course, this is true mainly, if not merely, of +belles-lettres; history, science, politics, metaphysics, in spite of the +many excellent articles and papers in these sorts upon what used to be +called various emergent occasions, are still to be found at their best in +books. The most monumental example of literature, at once light and +good, which has first reached the public in book form is in the different +publications of Mark Twain; but Mr. Clemens has of late turned to the +magazines too, and now takes their mint-mark before he passes into +general circulation. All this may change again, but at present the +magazines--we have no longer any reviews form the most direct approach to +that part of our reading public which likes the highest things in +literary art. Their readers, if we may judge from the quality of the +literature they get, are more refined than the book readers in our +community; and their taste has no doubt been cultivated by that of the +disciplined and experienced editors. So far as I have known these, they +are men of aesthetic conscience and of generous sympathy. They have +their preferences in the different kinds, and they have their theory of +what kind will be most acceptable to their readers; but they exercise +their selective function with the wish to give them the best things they +can. I do not know one of them--and it has been, my good fortune to know +them nearly all--who would print a wholly inferior thing for the sake of +an inferior class of readers, though they may sometimes decline a good +thing because for one reason or another, they believe it would not be +liked. Still, even this does not often happen; they would rather chance +the good thing they doubted of than underrate their readers' judgment. + +The young author who wins recognition in a first-class magazine has +achieved a double success, first, with the editor, and then with the best +reading public. Many factitious and fallacious literary reputations have +been made through books, but very few have been made through the +magazines, which are not only the best means of living, but of outliving, +with the author; they are both bread and fame to him. If I insist a +little upon the high office which this modern form of publication fulfils +in the literary world, it is because I am impatient of the antiquated and +ignorant prejudice which classes the magazines as ephemeral. They are +ephemeral in form, but in substance they are not ephemeral, and what is +best in them awaits its resurrection in the book, which, as the first +form, is so often a lasting death. An interesting proof of the value of +the magazine to literature is the fact that a good novel will often have +wider acceptance as a book from having been a magazine serial. + + +V. + +Under the 'regime' of the great literary periodicals the prosperity of +literary men would be much greater than it actually is if the magazines +were altogether literary. But they are not, and this is one reason why +literature is still the hungriest of the professions. Two-thirds of the +magazines are made up of material which, however excellent, is without +literary quality. Very probably this is because even the highest class +of readers, who are the magazine readers, have small love of pure +literature, which seems to have been growing less and less in all +classes. I say seems, because there are really no means of ascertaining +the fact, and it may be that the editors are mistaken in making their +periodicals two-thirds popular science, politics, economics, and the +timely topics which I will call contemporanics. But, however that may +be, their efforts in this direction have narrowed the field of literary +industry, and darkened the hope of literary prosperity kindled by the +unexampled prosperity of their periodicals. They pay very well indeed +for literature; they pay from five or six dollars a thousand words for +the work of the unknown writer to a hundred and fifty dollars a thousand +words for that of the most famous, or the most popular, if there is a +difference between fame and popularity; but they do not, altogether, want +enough literature to justify the best business talent in devoting itself +to belles-lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or humorous sketches of travel, +or light essays; business talent can do far better in dry goods, +groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, railroads, and the like. I do not +think there is any danger of a ruinous competition from it in the field +which, though narrow, seems so rich to us poor fellows, whose business +talent is small, at the best. + +The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the subject of +agreement between the editor and the author; it is either suggested by +the author or is the fruit of some suggestion from the editor; in any +case the price is stipulated beforehand, and it is no longer the custom +for a well-known contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the +generosity of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor +ever a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a +truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well calculated +to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of selling his art at all. +It is as if a painter sold his picture at so much a square inch, or a +sculptor bargained away a group of statuary by the pound. But it is a +custom that you cannot always successfully quarrel with, and most writers +gladly consent to it, if only the price a thousand words is large enough. +The sale to the editor means the sale of the serial rights only, but if +the publisher of the magazine is also a publisher of books, the +republication of the material is supposed to be his right, unless there +is an understanding to the contrary; the terms for this are another +affair. Formerly something more could be got for the author by the +simultaneous appearance of his work in an English magazine; but now the +great American magazines, which pay far higher prices than any others in +the world, have a circulation in England so much exceeding that of any +English periodical that the simultaneous publication can no longer be +arranged for from this side, though I believe it is still done here from +the other side. + + +VI. + +I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with regard to +the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every way improved for +young authors. The magazines all maintain a staff for the careful +examination of manuscripts, but as most of the material they print has +been engaged, the number of volunteer contributions that they can use is +very small; one of the greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty in +the course of a year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be +accepted, and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. +The pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that one, +two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the young writer +has not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling his heels in +the courts of fame, or must do his best to earn something at once, the +book is his immediate hope. How slight a hope the book is I have tried +to hint already, but if a book is vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude +enough in taste, and flashy enough in incident, or, better or worse +still, if it is a bit hot in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not +indecency, there is a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean +success with a self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which does +not personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by it. +I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book which the +young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and an untainted mind, +such as most young men and women write; and I will suppose that it has +found a publisher. It is human nature, as competition has deformed human +nature, for the publisher to wish the author to take all the risks, and +he possibly proposes that the author shall publish it at his own expense, +and let him have a percentage of the retail price for managing it. If +not that, he proposes that the author shall pay for the stereotype +plates, and take fifteen per cent. of the price of the book; or if this +will not go, if the author cannot, rather than will not, do it (he is +commonly only too glad to do any thing he can), then the publisher offers +him ten per cent. of the retail price after the first thousand copies +have been sold. But if he fully believes in the book, he will give ten +per cent. from the first copy sold, and pay all the costs of publication +himself. The book is to be retailed for a dollar and a half, and the +publisher is not displeased with a new book that sells fifteen hundred +copies. Whether the author has as much reason to be pleased is a +question, but if the book does not sell more he has only himself to +blame, and had better pocket in silence the two hundred and twenty-five +dollars he gets for it, and bless his publisher, and try to find work +somewhere at five dollars a week. The publisher has not made any more, +if quite as much as the author, and until a book has sold two thousand +copies the division is fair enough. After that, the heavier expenses of +manufacturing have been defrayed and the book goes on advertising itself; +there is merely the cost of paper, printing, binding, and marketing to be +met, and the arrangement becomes fairer and fairer for the publisher. +The author has no right to complain of this, in the case of his first +book, which he is only too grateful to get accepted at all. If it +succeeds, he has himself to blame for making the same arrangement for his +second or third; it is his fault, or else it is his necessity, which is +practically the same thing. It will be business for the publisher to +take advantage of his necessity quite the same as if it were his fault; +but I do not say that he will always do so; I believe he will very often +not do so. + +At one time there seemed a probability of the enlargement of the author's +gains by subscription publication, and one very well-known American +author prospered fabulously in that way. The percentage offered by the +subscription houses was only about half as much as that paid by the +trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author could very well +afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the book-agent sold a +hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark Twain's books; and we +all thought it reasonable he could do so with ours. Such of us as made +experiment of him, however, found the facts illogical. No book of +literary quality was made to go by subscription except Mr. Clemens's +books, and I think these went because the subscription public never knew +what good literature they were. This sort of readers, or buyers, were so +used to getting something worthless for their money that they would not +spend it for artistic fiction, or, indeed, for any fiction at all except +Mr. Clemens's, which they probably supposed bad. Some good books of +travel had a measurable success through the book-agents, but not at all +the success that had been hoped for; and I believe now the subscription +trade again publishes only compilations, or such works as owe more to the +skill of the editor than the art of the writer. Mr. Clemens himself no +longer offers his books to the public in that way. + +It is not common, I think, in this country, to publish on the half- +profits system, but it is very common in England, where, owing probably +to the moisture in the air, which lends a fairy outline to every +prospect, it seems to be peculiarly alluring. One of my own early books +was published there on these terms, which I accepted with the insensate +joy of the young author in getting any terms from a publisher. The book +sold, sold every copy of the small first edition, and in due time the +publisher's statement came. I did not think my half of the profits was +very great, but it seemed a fair division after every imaginable cost had +been charged up against my poor book, and that frail venture had been +made to pay the expenses of composition, corrections, paper, printing, +binding, advertising, and editorial copies. The wonder ought to have +been that there was anything at all coming to me, but I was young and +greedy then, and I really thought there ought to have been more. I was +disappointed, but I made the best of it, of course, and took the account +to the junior partner of the house which employed me, and said that I +should like to draw on him for the sum due me from the London publishers. +He said, Certainly; but after a glance at the account he smiled and said +he supposed I knew how much the sum was? I answered, Yes; it was eleven +pounds nine shillings, was not it? But I owned at the same time that I +never was good at figures, and that I found English money peculiarly +baffling. He laughed now, and said, It was eleven shillings and +ninepence. In fact, after all those charges for composition, +corrections, paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies, +there was a most ingenious and wholly surprising charge of ten per cent. +commission on sales, which reduced my half from pounds to shillings, and +handsomely increased the publisher's half in proportion. I do not now +dispute the justice of the charge. It was not the fault of the half- +profits system; it was the fault of the glad young author who did not +distinctly inform himself of its mysterious nature in agreeing to it, and +had only to reproach himself if he was finally disappointed. + +But there is always something disappointing in the accounts of +publishers, which I fancy is because authors are strangely constituted, +rather than because publishers are so. I will confess that I have such +inordinate expectations of the sale of my books, which I hope I think +modestly of, that the sales reported to me never seem great enough. The +copyright due me, no matter how handsome it is, appears deplorably mean, +and I feel impoverished for several days after I get it. But, then, I +ought to add that my balance in the bank is always much less than I have +supposed it to be, and my own checks, when they come back to me, have the +air of having been in a conspiracy to betray me. + +No, we literary men must learn, no matter how we boast ourselves in +business, that the distress we feel from our publisher's accounts is +simply idiopathic; and I for one wish to bear my witness to the constant +good faith and uprightness of publishers. It is supposed that because +they have the affair altogether in their hands they are apt to take +advantage in it; but this does not follow, and as a matter of fact they +have the affair no more in their own hands than any other business man +you have an open account with. There is nothing to prevent you from +looking at their books, except your own innermost belief and fear that +their books are correct, and that your literature has brought you so +little because it has sold so little. + +The author is not to blame for his superficial delusion to the contrary, +especially if he has written a book that has set every one talking, +because it is of a vital interest. It may be of a vital interest, +without being at all the kind of book people want to buy; it may be the +kind of book that they are content to know at second hand; there are such +fatal books; but hearing so much, and reading so much about it, the +author cannot help hoping that it has sold much more than the publisher +says. The publisher is undoubtedly honest, however, and the author had +better put away the comforting question of his integrity. + +The English writers seem largely to suspect their publishers; but I +believe that American authors, when not flown with flattering reviews, +as largely trust theirs. Of course there are rogues in every walk of +life. I will not say that I ever personally met them in the flowery +paths of literature, but I have heard of other people meeting them there, +just as I have heard of people seeing ghosts, and I have to believe in +both the rogues and the ghosts, without the witness of my own senses. +I suppose, upon such grounds mainly, that there are wicked publishers, +but, in the case of our books that do not sell, I am afraid that it is +the graceless and inappreciative public which is far more to blame than +the wickedest of the publishers. It is true that publishers will drive a +hard bargain when they can, or when they must; but there is nothing to +hinder an author from driving a hard bargain, too, when he can, or when +he must; and it is to be said of the publisher that he is always more +willing to abide by the bargain when it is made than the author is; +perhaps because he has the best of it. But he has not always the best of +it; I have known publishers too generous to take advantage of the +innocence of authors; and I fancy that if publishers had to do with any +race less diffident than authors, they would have won a repute for +unselfishness that they do now now enjoy. It is certain that in the long +period when we flew the black flag of piracy there were many among our +corsairs on the high seas of literature who paid a fair price for the +stranger craft they seized; still oftener they removed the cargo and +released their capture with several weeks' provision; and although there +was undoubtedly a good deal of actual throat-cutting and scuttling, still +I feel sure that there was less of it than there would have been in any +other line of business released to the unrestricted plunder of the +neighbor. There was for a long time even a comity among these amiable +buccaneers, who agreed not to interfere with each other, and so were +enabled to pay over to their victims some portion of the profit from +their stolen goods. Of all business men publishers are probably the most +faithful and honorable, and are only surpassed in virtue when men of +letters turn business men. + + +VII. + +Publishers have their little theories, their little superstitions, and +their blind faith in the great god Chance which we all worship. These +things lead them into temptation and adversity, but they seem to do +fairly well as business men, even in their own behalf. They do not make +above the usual ninety-five per cent. of failures, and more publishers +than authors get rich. + +Some theories or superstitions publishers and authors share together. +One of these is that it is best to keep your books all in the hands of +one publisher if you can, because then he can give them more attention +and sell more of them. But my own experience is that when my books were +in the hands of three publishers they sold quite as well as when one had +them; and a fellow-author whom I approached in question of this venerable +belief laughed at it. This bold heretic held that it was best to give +each new book to a new publisher, for then the fresh man put all his +energies into pushing it; but if you had them all together, the publisher +rested in a vain security that one book would sell another, and that the +fresh venture would revive the public interest in the stale ones. +I never knew this to happen; and I must class it with the superstitions +of the trade. It may be so in other and more constant countries, but in +our fickle republic each last book has to fight its own way to public +favor, much as if it had no sort of literary lineage. Of course this is +stating it rather largely, and the truth will be found inside rather than +outside of my statement; but there is at least truth enough in it to give +the young author pause. While one is preparing to sell his basket of +glass, he may as well ask himself whether it is better to part with all +to one dealer or not; and if he kicks it over, in spurning the imaginary +customer who asks the favor of taking the entire stock, that will be his +fault, and not the fault of the customer. + +However, the most important question of all with the man of letters as a +man of business is what kind of book will sell the best of itself, +because, at the end of the ends, a book sells itself or does not sell at +all; kissing, after long ages of reasoning and a great deal of culture, +still goes by favor, and though innumerable generations of horses have +been led to the water, not one horse has yet been made to drink. With +the best, or the worst, will in the world, no publisher can force a book +into acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and reviewing is +notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the popular fancy, +or deal with some universal interest, which need by no means be a +profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals shall be beaten in +vain. The book may be one of the best and wisest books in the world, +but if it has not this sort of appeal in it the readers of it, and, +worse yet, the purchasers, will remain few, though fit. The secret of +this, like most other secrets of a rather ridiculous world, is in the +awful keeping of fate, and we can only hope to surprise it by some lucky +chance. To plan a surprise of it, to aim a book at the public favor, +is the most hopeless of all endeavors, as it is one of the unworthiest; +and I can, neither as a man of letters nor as a man of business, counsel +the young author to do it. The best that you can do is to write the book +that it gives you the most pleasure to write, to put as much heart and +soul as you have about you into it, and then hope as hard as you can to +reach the heart and soul of the great multitude of your fellow-men. That, +and that alone, is good business for a man of letters. + +The man of letters must make up his mind that in the United States the +fate of a book is in the hands of the women. It is the women with us who +have the most leisure, and they read the most books. They are far better +educated, for the most part, than our men, and their tastes, if not their +minds, are more cultivated. Our men read the newspapers, but our women +read the books; the more refined among them read the magazines. If they +do not always know what is good, they do know what pleases them, and it +is useless to quarrel with their decisions, for there is no appeal from +them. To go from them to the men would be going from a higher to a lower +court, which would be honestly surprised and bewildered, if the thing +were possible. As I say, the author of light literature, and often the +author of solid literature, must resign himself to obscurity unless the +ladies choose to recognize him. Yet it would be impossible to forecast +their favor for this kind or that. Who could prophesy it for another, +who guess it for himself? We must strive blindly for it, and hope +somehow that our best will also be our prettiest; but we must remember at +the same time that it is not the ladies' man who is the favorite of the +ladies. + +There are, of course, a few, a very few, of our greatest authors who have +striven forward to the first place in our Valhalla without the help of +the largest reading-class among us; but I should say that these were +chiefly the humorists, for whom women are said nowhere to have any warm +liking, and who have generally with us come up through the newspapers, +and have never lost the favor of the newspaper readers. They have become +literary men, as it were, without the newspaper readers' knowing it; but +those who have approached literature from another direction have won fame +in it chiefly by grace of the women, who first read them; and then made +their husbands and fathers read them. Perhaps, then, and as a matter of +business, it would be well for a serious author, when he finds that he is +not pleasing the women, and probably never will please them, to turn +humorous author, and aim at the countenance of the men. Except as a +humorist he certainly never will get it, for your American, when he is +not making money, or trying to do it, is making a joke, or trying to do +it. + + +VIII + +I hope that I have not been hinting that the author who approaches +literature through journalism is not as fine and high a literary man as +the author who comes directly to it, or through some other avenue; I have +not the least notion of condemning myself by any such judgment. But I +think it is pretty certain that fewer and fewer authors are turning from +journalism to literature, though the 'entente cordiale' between the two +professions seems as great as ever. I fancy, though I may be as mistaken +in this as I am in a good many other things, that most journalists would +have been literary men if they could, at the beginning, and that the +kindness they almost always show to young authors is an effect of the +self-pity they feel for their own thwarted wish to be authors. When an +author is once warm in the saddle, and is riding his winged horse to +glory, the case is different: they have then often no sentiment about +him; he is no longer the image of their own young aspiration, and they +would willingly see Pegasus buck under him, or have him otherwise brought +to grief and shame. They are apt to gird at him for his unhallowed +gains, and they would be quite right in this if they proposed any way for +him to live without them; as I have allowed at the outset, the gains are +unhallowed. Apparently it is unseemly for two or three authors to be +making half as much by their pens as popular ministers often receive in +salary; the public is used to the pecuniary prosperity of some of the +clergy, and at least sees nothing droll in it; but the paragrapher can +always get a smile out of his readers at the gross disparity between the +ten thousand dollars Jones gets for his novel and the five pounds Milton +got for his epic. I have always thought Milton was paid too little, but +I will own that he ought not to have been paid at all, if it comes to +that. Again I say that no man ought to live by any art; it is a shame to +the art if not to the artist; but as yet there is no means of the +artist's living otherwise and continuing an artist. + +The literary man has certainly no complaint to make of the newspaper man, +generally speaking. I have often thought with amazement of the kindness +shown by the press to our whole unworthy craft, and of the help so +lavishly and freely given to rising and even risen authors. To put it +coarsely, brutally, I do not suppose that any other business receives so +much gratuitous advertising, except the theatre. It is, enormous, the +space given in the newspapers to literary notes, literary announcements, +reviews, interviews, personal paragraphs, biographies, and all the rest, +not to mention the vigorous and incisive attacks made from time to time +upon different authors for their opinions of romanticism, realism, +capitalism, socialism, Catholicism, and Sandemanianism. I have sometimes +doubted whether the public cared for so much of it all as the editors +gave them, but I have always said this under my breath, and I have +thankfully taken my share of the common bounty. A curious fact, however, +is that this vast newspaper publicity seems to have very little to do +with an author's popularity, though ever so much with his notoriety. +Some of those strange subterranean fellows who never come to the surface +in the newspapers, except for a contemptuous paragraph at long intervals, +outsell the famousest of the celebrities, and secretly have their horses +and yachts and country seats, while immodest merit is left to get about +on foot and look up summer-board at the cheaper hotels. That is probably +right, or it would not happen; it seems to be in the general scheme, like +millionairism and pauperism; but it becomes a question, then, whether the +newspapers, with all their friendship for literature, and their actual +generosity to literary men, can really help one much to fortune, however +much they help one to fame. Such a question is almost too dreadful, and, +though I have asked it, I will not attempt to answer it. I would much +rather consider the question whether, if the newspapers can make an +author, they can also unmake him, and I feel pretty safe in saying that I +do not think they can. The Afreet, once out of the bottle, can never be +coaxed back or cudgelled back; and the author whom the newspapers have +made cannot be unmade by the newspapers. Perhaps he could if they would +let him alone; but the art of letting alone the creature of your favor, +when he has forfeited your favor, is yet in its infancy with the +newspapers. They consign him to oblivion with a rumor that fills the +land, and they keep visiting him there with an uproar which attracts more +and more notice to him. An author who has long enjoyed their favor +suddenly and rather mysteriously loses it, through his opinions on +certain matters of literary taste, say. For the space of five or six +years he is denounced with a unanimity and an incisive vigor that ought +to convince him there is something wrong. If he thinks it is his +censors, he clings to his opinions with an abiding constancy, while +ridicule, obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical refutation, and +personal detraction follow unsparingly upon every expression, for +instance, of his belief that romantic fiction is the highest form of +fiction, and that the base, sordid, photographic, commonplace school of +Tolstoy, Tourgunief, Zola, Hardy, and James is unworthy a moment's +comparison with the school of Rider Haggard. All this ought certainly to +unmake the author in question, but this is not really the effect. Slowly +but surely the clamor dies away, and the author, without relinquishing +one of his wicked opinions, or in any wise showing himself repentant, +remains apparently whole; and he even returns in a measure to the old +kindness--not indeed to the earlier day of perfectly smooth things, but +certainly to as much of it as he merits. + +I would not have the young author, from this imaginary case; believe that +it is well either to court or to defy the good opinion of the press. In +fact, it will not only be better taste, but it will be better business, +for him to keep it altogether out of his mind. There is only one whom he +can safely try to please, and that is himself. If he does this he will +very probably please other people; but if he does not please himself he +may be sure that he will not please them; the book which he has not +enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading. Still, I would not have him +attach too little consequence to the influence of the press. I should +say, let him take the celebrity it gives him gratefully but not too +seriously; let him reflect that he is often the necessity rather than the +ideal of the paragrapher, and that the notoriety the journalists bestow +upon him is not the measure of their acquaintance with his work, far less +his meaning. They are good fellows, those hard-pushed, poor fellows of +the press, but the very conditions of their censure, friendly or +unfriendly, forbid it thoroughness, and it must often have more zeal than +knowledge in it. + + +IX. + +There are some sorts of light literature once greatly in demand, but now +apparently no longer desired by magazine editors, who ought to know what +their readers desire. Among these is the travel sketch, to me a very +agreeable kind, and really to be regretted in its decline. There are +some reasons for its decline besides a change of taste in readers, and a +possible surfeit. Travel itself has become so universal that everybody, +in a manner, has been everywhere, and the foreign scene has no longer the +charm of strangeness. We do not think the Old World either so romantic +or so ridiculous as we used; and perhaps from an instinctive perception +of this altered mood writers no longer appeal to our sentiment or our +humor with sketches of outlandish people and places. Of course, this can +hold true only in a general way; the thing is still done, but not nearly +so much done as formerly. When one thinks of the long line of American +writers who have greatly pleased in this sort, and who even got their +first fame in it, one must grieve to see it obsolescent. Irving, Curtis, +Bayard Taylor, Herman Melville, Ross Browne, Warner, Ik Marvell, +Longfellow, Lowell, Story, Mr. James, Mr. Aldrich, Mr. Hay, Mrs. Hunt, +Mr. C. W. Stoddard, Mark Twain, and many others whose names will not come +to me at the moment, have in their several ways richly contributed to our +pleasure in it; but I cannot now fancy a young author finding favor with +an editor in a sketch of travel or a study of foreign manners and +customs; his work would have to be of the most signal importance and +brilliancy to overcome the editor's feeling that the thing had been done +already; and I believe that a publisher, if offered a book of such +things, would look at it askance and plead the well-known quiet of the +trade. Still, I may be mistaken. + +I am rather more confident about the decline of another literary species +--namely, the light essay. We have essays enough and to spare of certain +soberer and severer sorts, such as grapple with problems and deal with +conditions; but the kind that I mean, the slightly humorous, gentle, +refined, and humane kind, seems no longer to abound as it once did. I do +not know whether the editor discourages them, knowing his readers' frame, +or whether they do not offer themselves, but I seldom find them in the +magazines. I certainly do not believe that if any one were now to write +essays such as Warner's Backlog Studies, an editor would refuse them; and +perhaps nobody really writes them. Nobody seems to write the sort that +Colonel Higginson formerly contributed to the periodicals, or such as +Emerson wrote. Without a great name behind it, I am afraid that a volume +of essays would find few buyers, even after the essays had made a public +in the magazines. There are, of course, instances to the contrary, but +they are not so many or so striking as to make me think that the essay +could be offered as a good opening for business talent. + +I suspect that good poetry by well-known hands was never better paid in +the magazines than it is now. I must say, too, that I think the quality +of the minor poetry of our day is better than that of twenty-five or +thirty years ago. I could name half a score of young poets whose work +from time to time gives me great pleasure, by the reality of its feeling +and the delicate perfection of its art, but I will not name them, for +fear of passing over half a score of others equally meritorious. We have +certainly no reason to be discouraged, whatever reason the poets +themselves have to be so, and I do not think that even in the short story +our younger writers are doing better work than they are doing in the +slighter forms of verse. Yet the notion of inviting business talent into +this field would be as preposterous as that of asking it to devote itself +to the essay. What book of verse by a recent poet, if we except some +such peculiarly gifted poet as Mr. Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, +not to speak of any profit to the author? Of course, it would be rather +more offensive and ridiculous that it should do so than that any other +form of literary art should do so; and yet there is no more provision in +our economic system for the support of the poet apart from his poems than +there is for the support of the novelist apart from his novel. One could +not make any more money by writing poetry than by writing history, but it +is a curious fact that while the historians have usually been rich men, +and able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have usually +been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their devotion to a +calling which is so seldom an election. + +To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set up poet +than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying documents, or +visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact, except as historian, the +man of letters, in whatever walk, has not only none of the expenses of +other men of business, but none of the expenses of other artists. He has +no such outlay to make for materials, or models, or studio rent as the +painter or the sculptor has, and his income, such as it is, is immediate. +If he strikes the fancy of the editor with the first thing he offers, as +he very well may, it is as well with him as with other men after long +years of apprenticeship. Although he will always be the better for an +apprenticeship, and the longer apprenticeship the better, he may +practically need none at all. Such are the strange conditions of his +acceptance with the public, that he may please better without it than +with it. An author's first book is too often not only his luckiest, but +really his best; it has a brightness that dies out under the school he +puts himself to, but a painter or a sculptor is only the gainer by all +the school he can give himself. + + +X. + +In view of this fact it becomes again very hard to establish the author's +status in the business world, and at moments I have grave question +whether he belongs there at all, except as a novelist. There is, of +course, no outlay for him in this sort, any more than in any other sort +of literature, but it at least supposes and exacts some measure of +preparation. A young writer may produce a brilliant and very perfect +romance, just as he may produce a brilliant and very perfect poem, but in +the field of realistic fiction, or in what we used to call the novel of +manners, a writer can only produce an inferior book at the outset. For +this work he needs experience and observation, not so much of others as +of himself, for ultimately his characters will all come out of himself, +and he will need to know motive and character with such thoroughness and +accuracy as he can acquire only through his own heart. A man remains in +a measure strange to himself as long as he lives, and the very sources of +novelty in his work will be within himself; he can continue to give it +freshness in no other way than by knowing himself better and better. But +a young writer and an untrained writer has not yet begun to be acquainted +even with the lives of other men. The world around him remains a secret +as well as the world within him, and both unfold themselves +simultaneously to that experience of joy and sorrow that can come only +with the lapse of time. Until he is well on towards forty, he will +hardly have assimilated the materials of a great novel, although he may +have amassed them. The novelist, then, is a man of letters who is like a +man of business in the necessity of preparation for his calling, though +he does not pay store-rent, and may carry all his affairs under his hat, +as the phrase is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that +sort of continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence +in other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, +and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is +not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that +it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of +business. Still our people cannot deny some consideration to a man who +gets a hundred dollars a thousand words or whose book sells five hundred +thousand copies or less. That is a fact appreciable to business, and the +man of letters in the line of fiction may reasonably feel that his place +in our civilization, though he may owe it to the women who form the great +mass of his readers, has something of the character of a vested interest +in the eyes of men. There is, indeed, as yet no conspiracy law which +will avenge the attempt to injure him in his business. A critic, or a +dark conjuration of critics, may damage him at will and to the extent of +their power, and he has no recourse but to write better books, or worse. +The law will do nothing for him, and a boycott of his books might be +preached with immunity by any class of men not liking his opinions on the +question of industrial slavery or antipaedobaptism. Still the market for +his wares is steadier than the market for any other kind of literary +wares, and the prices are better. The historian, who is a kind of +inferior realist, has something like the same steadiness in the market, +but the prices he can command are much lower, and the two branches of the +novelist's trade are not to be compared in a business way. As for the +essayist, the poet, the traveller, the popular scientist, they are +nowhere in the competition for the favor of readers. The reviewer, +indeed, has a pretty steady call for his work, but I fancy the reviewers +who get a hundred dollars a thousand words could all stand upon the point +of a needle without crowding one another; I should rather like to see +them doing it. Another gratifying fact of the situation is that the best +writers of fiction, who are most in demand with the magazines, probably +get nearly as much money for their work as the inferior novelists who +outsell them by tens of thousands, and who make their appeal to the +innumerable multitude of the less educated and less cultivated buyers of +fiction in book form. I think they earn their money, but if I did not +think all of the higher class of novelists earned so much money as they +get, I should not be so invidious as to single out for reproach those who +did not. + +The difficulty about payment, as I have hinted, is that literature has no +objective value really, but only a subjective value, if I may so express +it. A poem, an essay, a novel, even a paper on political economy, may be +worth gold untold to one reader, and worth nothing whatever to another. +It may be precious to one mood of the reader, and worthless to another +mood of the same reader. How, then, is it to be priced, and how is it to +be fairly marketed? All people must be fed, and all people must be +clothed, and all people must be housed; and so meat, raiment, and shelter +are things of positive and obvious necessity, which may fitly have a +market price put upon them. But there is no such positive and obvious +necessity, I am sorry to say, for fiction, or not for the higher sort of +fiction. The sort of fiction which corresponds in literature to the +circus and the variety theatre in the show-business seems essential to +the spiritual health of the masses, but the most cultivated of the +classes can get on, from time to time, without an artistic novel. This +is a great pity, and I should be-very willing that readers might feel +something like the pangs of hunger and cold, when deprived of their finer +fiction; but apparently they never do. Their dumb and passive need is +apt only to manifest itself negatively, or in the form of weariness of +this author or that. The publisher of books can ascertain the fact +through the declining sales of a writer; but the editor of a magazine, +who is the best customer of the best writers, must feel the market with a +much more delicate touch. Sometimes it may be years before he can +satisfy himself that his readers are sick of Smith, and are pining for +Jones; even then he cannot know how long their mood will last, and he is +by no means safe in cutting down Smith's price and putting up Jones's. +With the best will in the world to pay justly, he cannot. Smith, who has +been boring his readers to death for a year, may write tomorrow a thing +that will please them so much that he will at once be a prime favorite +again; and Jones, whom they have been asking for, may do something so +uncharacteristic and alien that it will be a flat failure in the +magazine. The only thing that gives either writer positive value is his +acceptance with the reader; but the acceptance is from month to month +wholly uncertain. Authors are largely matters of fashion, like this +style of bonnet, or that shape of gown. Last spring the dresses were all +made with lace berthas, and Smith was read; this year the butterfly capes +are worn, and Jones is the favorite author. Who shall forecast the fall +and winter modes? + + +XI. + +In this inquiry it is always the author rather than the publisher, always +the contributor rather than the editor, whom I am concerned for. I study +the difficulties of the publisher and editor only because they involve +the author and the contributor; if they did not, I will not say with how +hard a heart I should turn from them; my only pang now in scrutinizing +the business conditions of literature is for the makers of literature, +not the purveyors of it. + +After all, and in spite of my vaunting title, is the man of letters ever +am business man? I suppose that, strictly speaking, he never is, except +in those rare instances where, through need or choice, he is the +publisher as well as the author of his books. Then he puts something on +the market and tries to sell it there, and is a man of business. But +otherwise he is an artist merely, and is allied to the great mass of +wage-workers who are paid for the labor they have put into the thing done +or the thing made; who live by doing or making a thing, and not by +marketing a thing after some other man has done it or made it. The +quality of the thing has nothing to do with the economic nature of the +case; the author is, in the last analysis, merely a working-man, and is +under the rule that governs the working-man's life. If he is sick or +sad, and cannot work, if he is lazy or tipsy, and will not, then he earns +nothing. He cannot delegate his business to a clerk or a manager; it +will not go on while he is sleeping. The wage he can command depends +strictly upon his skill and diligence. + +I myself am neither sorry nor ashamed for this; I am glad and proud to be +of those who eat their bread in the sweat of their own brows, and not the +sweat of other men's brows; I think my bread is the sweeter for it. In +the mean time, I have no blame for business men; they are no more of the +condition of things than we working-men are; they did no more to cause it +or create it; but I would rather be in my place than in theirs, and I +wish that I could make all my fellow-artists realize that economically +they are the same as mechanics, farmers, day-laborers. It ought to be +our glory that we produce something, that we bring into the world +something that was not choately there before; that at least we fashion or +shape something anew; and we ought to feel the tie that binds us to all +the toilers of the shop and field, not as a galling chain, but as a +mystic bond also uniting us to Him who works hitherto and evermore. +I know very well that to the vast multitude of our fellow-working-men we +artists are the shadows of names, or not even the shadows. I like to +look the facts in the face, for though their lineaments are often +terrible, yet there is light nowhere else; and I will not pretend, in +this light, that the masses care any more for us than we care for the +masses, or so much. Nevertheless, and most distinctly, we are not of the +classes. Except in our work, they have no use for us; if now and then +they fancy qualifying their material splendor or their spiritual dulness +with some artistic presence, the attempt is always a failure that bruises +and abashes. In so far as the artist is a man of the world, he is the +less an artist, and if he fashions himself upon fashion, he deforms his +art. We all know that ghastly type; it is more absurd even than the +figure which is really of the world, which was born and bred in it, and +conceives of nothing outside of it, or above it. In the social world, as +well as in the business world, the artist is anomalous, in the actual +conditions, and he is perhaps a little ridiculous. + +Yet he has to be somewhere, poor fellow, and I think that he will do well +to regard himself as in a transition state. He is really of the masses, +but they do not know it, and what is worse, they do not know him; as yet +the common people do not hear him gladly or hear him at all. He is +apparently of the classes; they know him, and they listen to him; he +often amuses them very much; but he is not quite at ease among them; +whether they know it or not, he knows that he is not of their kind. +Perhaps he will never be at home anywhere in the world as long as there +are masses whom he ought to consort with, and classes whom he cannot +consort with. The prospect is not brilliant for any artist now living, +but perhaps the artist of the future will see in the flesh the +accomplishment of that human equality of which the instinct has been +divinely planted in the human soul. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Artist has seasons, as trees, when he cannot blossom +Book that they are content to know at second hand +Business to take advantage of his necessity +Competition has deformed human nature +Conditions of hucksters imposed upon poets +Fate of a book is in the hands of the women +God of chance leads them into temptation and adversity +Historian, who is a kind of inferior realist +I do not think any man ought to live by an art +If he has not enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading +Impropriety if not indecency promises literary success +Literature beautiful only through the intelligence +Literature has no objective value +Literature is Business as well as Art +Man is strange to himself as long as he lives +Men read the newspapers, but our women read the books +More zeal than knowledge in it +Most journalists would have been literary men if they could +Never quite sure of life unless I find literature in it +No man ought to live by any art +No rose blooms right along +Our huckstering civilization +Public whose taste is so crude that they cannot enjoy the best +Results of art should be free to all +Reviewers +Reward is in the serial and not in the book--19th Century +Rogues in every walk of life +There is small love of pure literature +Two branches of the novelist's trade: Novelist and Historian +Warner's Backlog Studies +Work not truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Man of Letters in Business +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Confessions of a Summer Colonist + +by William Dean Howells + + + +CONFESSIONS OF A SUMMER COLONIST + + +The season is ending in the little summer settlement on the Down East +coast where I have been passing the last three months, and with each +loath day the sense of its peculiar charm grows more poignant. +A prescience of the homesickness I shall feel for it when I go already +begins to torment me, and I find myself wishing to imagine some form of +words which shall keep a likeness of it at least through the winter; some +shadowy semblance which I may turn to hereafter if any chance or change +should destroy or transform it, or, what is more likely, if I should +never come back to it. Perhaps others in the distant future may turn to +it for a glimpse of our actual life in one of its most characteristic +phases; I am sure that in the distant present there are many millions of +our own inlanders to whom it would be altogether strange. + + + + +I. + +In a certain sort fragile is written all over our colony; as far as the +visible body of it is concerned it is inexpressibly perishable; a fire +and a high wind could sweep it all away; and one of the most American of +all American things is the least fitted among them to survive from the +present to the future, and impart to it the significance of what may soon +be a "portion and parcel" of our extremely forgetful past. + +It is also in a supremely transitional moment: one might say that last +year it was not quite what it is now, and next year it may be altogether +different. In fact, our summer colony is in that happy hour when the +rudeness of the first summer conditions has been left far behind, and +vulgar luxury has not yet cumbrously succeeded to a sort of sylvan +distinction. + +The type of its simple and sufficing hospitalities is the seven-o'clock +supper. Every one, in hotel or in cottage, dines between one and two, +and no less scrupulously sups at seven, unless it is a few extremists who +sup at half-past seven. At this function, which is our chief social +event, it is 'de rigueur' for the men not to dress, and they come in any +sort of sack or jacket or cutaway, letting the ladies make up the pomps +which they forego. From this fact may be inferred the informality of the +men's day-time attire; and the same note is sounded in the whole range of +the cottage life, so that once a visitor from the world outside, who had +been exasperated beyond endurance by the absence of form among us (if +such an effect could be from a cause so negative), burst out with the +reproach, "Oh, you make a fetish of your informality!" + +"Fetish" is, perhaps, rather too strong a word, but I should not mind +saying that informality was the tutelary genius of the place. American +men are everywhere impatient of form. It burdens and bothers them, and +they like to throw it off whenever they can. We may not be so very +democratic at heart as we seem, but we are impatient of ceremonies that +separate us when it is our business or our pleasure to get at one +another; and it is part of our splendor to ignore the ceremonies, as we +do the expenses. We have all the decent grades of riches and poverty in +our colony, but our informality is not more the treasure of the humble +than of the great. In the nature of things it cannot last, however, and +the only question is how long it will last. I think, myself, until some +one imagines giving an eight-o'clock dinner; then all the informalities +will go, and the whole train of evils which such a dinner connotes will +rush in. + + + + +II. + +The cottages themselves are of several sorts, and some still exist in the +earlier stages of mutation from the fishermen's and farmers' houses which +formed their germ. But these are now mostly let as lodgings to bachelors +and other single or semi-detached folks who go for their meals to the +neighboring hotels or boarding-houses. The hotels are each the centre of +this sort of centripetal life, as well as the homes of their own scores +or hundreds of inmates. A single boarding-house gathers about it half a +dozen dependent cottages which it cares for, and feeds at its table; and +even where the cottages have kitchens and all the housekeeping +facilities, their inmates sometimes prefer to dine at the hotels. +By far the greater number of cottagers, however, keep house, bringing +their service with them from the cities, and settling in their summer +homes for three or four or five months. + +The houses conform more or less to one type: a picturesque structure of +colonial pattern, shingled to the ground, and stained or left to take a +weather-stain of grayish brown, with cavernous verandas, and dormer- +windowed roofs covering ten or twelve rooms. Within they are, if not +elaborately finished, elaborately fitted up, with a constant regard to +health in the plumbing and drainage. The water is brought in a system of +pipes from a lake five miles away, and as it is only for summer use the +pipes are not buried from the frost, but wander along the surface, +through the ferns and brambles of the tough little sea-side knolls on +which the cottages are perched, and climb the old tumbling stone walls of +the original pastures before diving into the cemented basements. + +Most of the cottages are owned by their occupants, and furnished by them; +the rest, not less attractive and hardly less tastefully furnished, +belong to natives, who have caught on to the architectural and domestic +preferences of the summer people, and have built them to let. The +rugosities of the stony pasture land end in a wooded point seaward, and +curve east and north in a succession of beaches. It is on the point, and +mainly short of its wooded extremity, that the cottages of our settlement +are dropped, as near the ocean as may be, and with as little order as +birds' nests in the grass, among the sweet-fern, laurel, bay, wild +raspberries, and dog-roses, which it is the ideal to leave as untouched +as possible. Wheel-worn lanes that twist about among the hollows find +the cottages from the highway, but foot-paths approach one cottage from +another, and people walk rather than drive to each other's doors. +From the deep-bosomed, well-sheltered little harbor the tides swim +inland, half a score of winding miles, up the channel of a river which +without them would be a trickling rivulet. An irregular line of cottages +follows the shore a little way, and then leaves the river to the +schooners and barges which navigate it as far as the oldest pile-built +wooden bridge in New England, and these in their turn abandon it to the +fleets of row-boats and canoes in which summer youth of both sexes +explore it to its source over depths as clear as glass, past wooded +headlands and low, rush-bordered meadows, through reaches and openings of +pastoral fields, and under the shadow of dreaming groves. + +If there is anything lovelier than the scenery of this gentle river I do +not know it; and I doubt if the sky is purer and bluer in paradise. This +seems to be the consensus, tacit or explicit, of the youth who visit it, +and employ the landscape for their picnics and their water parties from +the beginning to the end of summer. + +The river is very much used for sunsets by the cottagers who live on it, +and who claim a superiority through them to the cottagers on the point. +An impartial mind obliges me to say that the sunsets are all good in our +colony; there is no place from which they are bad; and yet for a certain +tragical sunset, where the dying day bleeds slowly into the channel till +it is filled from shore to shore with red as far as the eye can reach, +the river is unmatched. + +For my own purposes, it is not less acceptable, however, when the fog has +come in from the sea like a visible reverie, and blurred the whole valley +with its whiteness. I find that particularly good to look at from the +trolley-car which visits and revisits the river before finally leaving +it, with a sort of desperation, and hiding its passion with a sudden +plunge into the woods. + + + + +III. + +The old fishing and seafaring village, which has now almost lost the +recollection of its first estate in its absorption with the care of the +summer colony, was sparsely dropped along the highway bordering the +harbor, and the shores of the river, where the piles of the time-worn +wharves are still rotting. A few houses of the past remain, but the type +of the summer cottage has impressed itself upon all the later building, +and the native is passing architecturally, if not personally, into +abeyance. He takes the situation philosophically, and in the season he +caters to the summer colony not only as the landlord of the rented +cottages, and the keeper of the hotels and boarding-houses, but as +livery-stableman, grocer, butcher, marketman, apothecary, and doctor; +there is not one foreign accent in any of these callings. If the native +is a farmer, he devotes himself to vegetables, poultry, eggs, and fruit +for the summer folks, and brings these supplies to their doors; his +children appear with flowers; and there are many proofs that he has +accurately sized the cottagers up in their tastes and fancies as well as +their needs. I doubt if we have sized him up so well, or if our somewhat +conventionalized ideal of him is perfectly representative. He is, +perhaps, more complex than he seems; he is certainly much more self- +sufficing than might have been expected. The summer folks are the +material from which his prosperity is wrought, but he is not dependent, +and is very far from submissive. As in all right conditions, it is here +the employer who asks for work, not the employee; and the work must be +respectfully asked for. There are many fables to this effect, as, for +instance, that of the lady who said to a summer visitor, critical of the +week's wash she had brought home, "I'll wash you and I'll iron you, but I +won't take none of your jaw." A primitive independence is the keynote of +the native character, and it suffers no infringement, but rather boasts +itself. "We're independent here, I tell you," said the friendly person +who consented to take off the wire door. "I was down Bangor way doin' a +piece of work, and a fellow come along, and says he, 'I want you should +hurry up on that job.' 'Hello!' says I, 'I guess I'll pull out.' Well, +we calculate to do our work," he added, with an accent which sufficiently +implied that their consciences needed no bossing in the performance. + +The native compliance with any summer-visiting request is commonly in +some such form as, "Well, I don't know but what I can," or, "I guess +there ain't anything to hinder me." This compliance is so rarely, if +ever, carried to the point of domestic service that it may fairly be said +that all the domestic service, at least of the cottagers, is imported. +The natives will wait at the hotel tables; they will come in "to +accommodate"; but they will not "live out." I was one day witness of the +extreme failure of a friend whose city cook had suddenly abandoned him, +and who applied to a friendly farmer's wife in the vain hope that she +might help him to some one who would help his family out in their strait. +"Why, there ain't a girl in the Hollow that lives out! Why, if you was +sick abed, I don't know as I know anybody 't you could git to set up with +you." The natives will not live out because they cannot keep their self- +respect in the conditions of domestic service. Some people laugh at this +self-respect, but most summer folks like it, as I own I do. + +In our partly mythical estimate of the native and his relation to us, he +is imagined as holding a kind of carnival when we leave him at the end of +the season, and it is believed that he likes us to go early. We have had +his good offices at a fair price all summer, but as it draws to a close +they are rendered more and more fitfully. From some, perhaps flattered, +reports of the happiness of the natives at the departure of the +sojourners, I have pictured them dancing a sort of farandole, and +stretching with linked hands from the farthest summer cottage up the +river to the last on the wooded point. It is certain that they get +tired, and I could not blame them if they were glad to be rid of their +guests, and to go back to their own social life. This includes church +festivals of divers kinds, lectures and shows, sleigh-rides, theatricals, +and reading-clubs, and a plentiful use of books from the excellently +chosen free village library. They say frankly that the summer folks have +no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone, and I am sure that the +gayeties to which we leave them must be more tolerable than those which +we go back to in the city. It may be, however, that I am too confident, +and that their gayeties are only different. I should really like to know +just what the entertainments are which are given in a building devoted to +them in a country neighborhood three or four miles from the village. It +was once a church, but is now used solely for social amusements. + + + + +IV + +The amusements of the summer colony I have already hinted at. Besides +suppers, there are also teas, of larger scope, both afternoon and +evening. There are hops every week at the two largest hotels, which are +practically free to all; and the bathing-beach is, of course, a supreme +attraction. The bath-houses, which are very clean and well equipped, +are not very cheap, either for the season or for a single bath, and there +is a pretty pavilion at the edge of the sands. This is always full of +gossiping spectators of the hardy adventurers who brave tides too remote +from the Gulf Stream to be ever much warmer than sixty or sixty-five +degrees. The bathers are mostly young people, who have the courage of +their pretty bathing-costumes or the inextinguishable ardor of their +years. If it is not rather serious business with them all, still I +admire the fortitude with which some of them remain in fifteen minutes. +Beyond our colony, which calls itself the Port, there is a far more +populous watering-place, east of the Point, known as the Beach, which is +the resort of people several grades of gentility lower than ours: so +many, in fact, that we never can speak of the Beach without averting our +faces, or, at the best, with a tolerant smile. It is really a succession +of beaches, all much longer and, I am bound to say, more beautiful than +ours, lined with rows of the humbler sort of summer cottages known as +shells, and with many hotels of corresponding degree. The cottages may +be hired by the week or month at about two dollars a day, and they are +supposed to be taken by inland people of little social importance. Very +likely this is true; but they seemed to be very nice, quiet people, and I +commonly saw the ladies reading, on their verandas, books and magazines, +while the gentlemen sprayed the dusty road before them with the garden +hose. The place had also for me an agreeable alien suggestion, and in +passing the long row of cottages I was slightly reminded of Scheveningen. +Beyond the cottage settlements is a struggling little park, dedicated to +the only Indian saint I ever heard of, though there may be others. His +statue, colossal in sheet-lead, and painted the copper color of his race, +offers any heathen comer the choice between a Bible in one of his hands +and a tomahawk in the other, at the entrance of the park; and there are +other sheet-lead groups and figures in the white of allegory at different +points. It promises to be a pretty enough little place in future years, +but as yet it is not much resorted to by the excursions which largely +form the prosperity of the Beach. The concerts and the "high-class +vaudeville" promised have not flourished in the pavilion provided for +them, and one of two monkeys in the zoological department has perished of +the public inattention. This has not fatally affected the captive bear, +who rises to his hind legs, and eats peanuts and doughnuts in that +position like a fellow-citizen. With the cockatoos and parrots, and the +dozen deer in an inclosure of wire netting, he is no mean attraction; but +he does not charm the excursionists away from the summer village at the +shore, where they spend long afternoons splashing among the waves, or in +lolling groups of men, women, and children on the sand. In the more +active gayeties, I have seen nothing so decided during the whole season +as the behavior of three young girls who once came up out of the sea, and +obliged me by dancing a measure on the smooth, hard beach in their +bathing-dresses. + +I thought it very pretty, but I do not believe such a thing could have +been seen on OUR beach, which is safe from all excursionists, and sacred +to the cottage and hotel life of the Port. + +Besides our beach and its bathing, we have a reading-club for the men, +evolved from one of the old native houses, and verandaed round for summer +use; and we have golf-links and a golf club-house within easy trolley +reach. The links are as energetically, if not as generally, frequented +as the sands, and the sport finds the favor which attends it everywhere +in the decay of tennis. The tennis-courts which I saw thronged about by +eager girl-crowds, here, seven years ago, are now almost wholly abandoned +to the lovers of the game, who are nearly always men. + +Perhaps the only thing (besides, of course, our common mortality) which +we have in common with the excursionists is our love of the trolley-line. +This, by its admirable equipment, and by the terror it inspires in +horses, has well-nigh abolished driving; and following the old country +roads, as it does, with an occasional short-cut though the deep, green- +lighted woods or across the prismatic salt meadows, it is of a +picturesque variety entirely satisfying. After a year of fervent +opposition and protest, the whole community--whether of summer or of +winter folks--now gladly accepts the trolley, and the grandest cottager +and the lowliest hotel dweller meet in a grateful appreciation of its +beauty and comfort. + +Some pass a great part of every afternoon on the trolley, and one lady +has achieved celebrity by spending four dollars a week in trolley-rides. +The exhilaration of these is varied with an occasional apprehension when +the car pitches down a sharp incline, and twists almost at right angles +on a sudden curve at the bottom without slacking its speed. A lady who +ventured an appeal to the conductor at one such crisis was reassured, and +at the same time taught her place, by his reply: "That motorman's life, +ma'am, is just as precious to him as what yours is to you." + +She had, perhaps, really ventured too far, for ordinarily the employees +of the trolley do not find occasion to use so much severity with their +passengers. They look after their comfort as far as possible, and seek +even to anticipate their wants in unexpected cases, if I may believe a +story which was told by a witness. She had long expected to see some one +thrown out of the open car at one of the sharp curves, and one day she +actually saw a woman hurled from the seat into the road. Luckily the +woman slighted on her feet, and stood looking round in a daze. + +"Oh! oh!" exclaimed another woman in the seat behind, "she's left her +umbrella!" + +The conductor promptly threw it out to her. + +"Why," demanded the witness, "did that lady wish to get out here?" + +The conductor hesitated before he jerked the bellpull to go on: Then he +said, "Well, she'll want her umbrella, anyway." + +The conductors are, in fact, very civil as well as kind. If they see a +horse in anxiety at the approach of the car, they considerately stop, and +let him get by with his driver in safety. By such means, with their +frequent trips and low fares, and with the ease and comfort of their +cars, they have conciliated public favor, and the trolley has drawn +travel away from the steam railroad in such measure that it ran no trains +last winter. + +The trolley, in fact, is a fad of the summer folks this year; but what it +will be another no one knows; it may be their hissing and by-word. In +the mean time, as I have already suggested, they have other amusements. +These are not always of a nature so general as the trolley, or so +particular as the tea. But each of the larger hotels has been fully +supplied with entertainments for the benefit of their projectors, though +nearly everything of the sort had some sort of charitable slant. I +assisted at a stereopticon lecture on Alaska for the aid of some youthful +Alaskans of both sexes, who were shown first in their savage state, and +then as they appeared after a merely rudimental education, in the +costumes and profiles of our own civilization. I never would have +supposed that education could do so much in so short a time; and I gladly +gave my mite for their further development in classic beauty and a final +elegance. My mite was taken up in a hat, which, passed round among the +audience, is a common means of collecting the spectators' expressions of +appreciation. Other entertainments, of a prouder frame, exact an +admission fee, but I am not sure that these are better than some of the +hat-shows, as they are called. + +The tale of our summer amusements would be sadly incomplete without some +record of the bull-fights given by the Spanish prisoners of war on the +neighboring island, where they were confined the year of the war. +Admission to these could be had only by favor of the officers in charge, +and even among the Elite of the colony those who went were a more elect +few. Still, the day I went, there were some fifty or seventy-five +spectators, who arrived by trolley near the island, and walked to the +stockade which confined the captives. A real bull-fight, I believe, is +always given on Sunday, and Puritan prejudice yielded to usage even in +the case of a burlesque bull-fight; at any rate, it was on a Sunday that +we crouched in an irregular semicircle on a rising ground within the +prison pale, and faced the captive audience in another semicircle, across +a little alley for the entrances and exits of the performers. The +president of the bull-fight was first brought to the place of honor in a +hand-cart, and then came the banderilleros, the picadores, and the +espada, wonderfully effective and correct in white muslin and colored +tissue-paper. Much may be done in personal decoration with advertising +placards; and the lofty mural crown of the president urged the public on +both sides to Use Plug Cut. The picador's pasteboard horse was attached +to his middle, fore and aft, and looked quite the sort of hapless jade +which is ordinarily sacrificed to the bulls. The toro himself was +composed of two prisoners, whose horizontal backs were covered with a +brown blanket; and his feet, sometimes bare and sometimes shod with +india-rubber boots, were of the human pattern. Practicable horns, of a +somewhat too yielding substance, branched from a front of pasteboard, and +a cloth tail, apt to come off in the charge, swung from his rear. I have +never seen a genuine corrida, but a lady present, who had, told me that +this was conducted with all the right circumstance; and it is certain +that the performers entered into their parts with the artistic gust of +their race. The picador sustained some terrific falls, and in his +quality of horse had to be taken out repeatedly and sewed up; the +banderilleros tormented and eluded the toro with table-covers, one red +and two drab, till the espada took him from them, and with due ceremony, +after a speech to the president, drove his blade home to the bull's +heart. I stayed to see three bulls killed; the last was uncommonly +fierce, and when his hindquarters came off or out, his forequarters +charged joyously among the aficionados on the prisoners' side, and made +havoc in their thickly packed ranks. The espada who killed this bull was +showered with cigars and cigarettes from our side. + +I do not know what the Sabbath-keeping shades of the old Puritans made of +our presence at such a fete on Sunday; but possibly they had got on so +far in a better life as to be less shocked at the decay of piety among us +than pleased at the rise of such Christianity as had brought us, like +friends and comrades, together with our public enemies in this harmless +fun. I wish to say that the tobacco lavished upon the espada was +collected for the behoof of all the prisoners. + +Our fiction has made so much of our summer places as the mise en scene of +its love stories that I suppose I ought to say something of this side of +our colonial life. But after sixty I suspect that one's eyes are poor +for that sort of thing, and I can only say that in its earliest and +simplest epoch the Port was particularly famous for the good times that +the young people had. They still have good times, though whether on just +the old terms I do not know. I know that the river is still here with +its canoes and rowboats, its meadowy reaches apt for dual solitude, and +its groves for picnics. There is not much bicycling--the roads are rough +and hilly--but there is something of it, and it is mighty pretty to see +the youth of both sexes bicycling with their heads bare. They go about +bareheaded on foot and in buggies, too, and the young girls seek the tan +which their mothers used so anxiously to shun. + +The sail-boats, manned by weather-worn and weatherwise skippers, are +rather for the pleasure of such older summer folks as have a taste for +cod-fishing, which is here very good. But at every age, and in whatever +sort our colonists amuse themselves, it is with the least possible +ceremony. It is as if, Nature having taken them so hospitably to her +heart, they felt convention an affront to her. Around their cottages, as +I have said, they prefer to leave her primitive beauty untouched, and she +rewards their forbearance with such a profusion of wild flowers as I have +seen nowhere else. The low, pink laurel flushed all the stony fields to +the edges of their verandas when we first came; the meadows were milk- +white with daisies; in the swampy places delicate orchids grew, in the +pools the flags and flowering rushes; all the paths and way-sides were +set with dog-roses; the hollows and stony tops were broadly matted with +ground juniper. Since then the goldenrod has passed from glory to glory, +first mixing its yellow-powdered plumes with the red-purple tufts of the +iron-weed, and then with the wild asters everywhere. There has come +later a dwarf sort, six or ten inches high, wonderfully rich and fine, +which, with a low, white aster, seems to hold the field against +everything else, though the taller golden-rod and the masses of the high, +blue asters nod less thickly above it. But these smaller blooms deck the +ground in incredible profusion, and have an innocent air of being stuck +in, as if they had been fancifully used for ornament by children or +Indians. + +In a little while now, as it is almost the end of September, all the +feathery gold will have faded to the soft, pale ghosts of that +loveliness. The summer birds have long been silent; the crows, as if +they were so many exultant natives, are shouting in the blue sky above +the windrows of the rowan, in jubilant prescience of the depopulation of +our colony, which fled the hotels a fortnight ago. The days are growing +shorter, and the red evenings falling earlier; so that the cottagers' +husbands who come up every Saturday from town might well be impatient for +a Monday of final return. Those who came from remoter distances have +gone back already; and the lady cottagers, lingering hardily on till +October, must find the sight of the empty hotels and the windows of the +neighboring houses, which no longer brighten after the chilly nightfall, +rather depressing. Every one says that this is the loveliest time of +year, and that it will be divine here all through October. But there are +sudden and unexpected defections; there is a steady pull of the heart +cityward, which it is hard to resist. The first great exodus was on the +first of the month, when the hotels were deserted by four-fifths of their +guests. The rest followed, half of them within the week, and within a +fortnight none but an all but inaudible and invisible remnant were left, +who made no impression of summer sojourn in the deserted trolleys. + +The days now go by in moods of rapid succession. There have been days +when the sea has lain smiling in placid derision of the recreants who +have fled the lingering summer; there have been nights when the winds +have roared round the cottages in wild menace of the faithful few who +have remained. + +We have had a magnificent storm, which came, as an equinoctial storm +should, exactly at the equinox, and for a day and a night heaped the sea +upon the shore in thundering surges twenty and thirty feet high. I +watched these at their awfulest, from the wide windows of a cottage that +crouched in the very edge of the surf, with the effect of clutching the +rocks with one hand and holding its roof on with the other. The sea was +such a sight as I have not seen on shipboard, and while I luxuriously +shuddered at it, I had the advantage of a mellow log-fire at my back, +purring and softly crackling in a quiet indifference to the storm. + +Twenty-four hours more made all serene again. Bloodcurdling tales of +lobster-pots carried to sea filled the air; but the air was as blandly +unconscious of ever having been a fury as a lady who has found her lost +temper. Swift alternations of weather are so characteristic of our +colonial climate that the other afternoon I went out with my umbrella +against the raw, cold rain of the morning, and had to raise it against +the broiling sun. Three days ago I could say that the green of the woods +had no touch of hectic in it; but already the low trees of the swamp-land +have flamed into crimson. Every morning, when I look out, this crimson +is of a fierier intensity, and the trees on the distant uplands are +beginning slowly to kindle, with a sort of inner glow which has not yet +burst into a blaze. Here and there the golden-rod is rusting; but there +seems only to be more and more asters sorts; and I have seen ladies +coming home with sheaves of blue gentians; I have heard that the orchids +are beginning again to light their tender lamps from the burning +blackberry vines that stray from the pastures to the edge of the swamps. + +After an apparently total evanescence there has been a like resuscitation +of the spirit of summer society. In the very last week of September we +have gone to a supper, which lingered far out of its season like one of +these late flowers, and there has been an afternoon tea which assembled +an astonishing number of cottagers, all secretly surprised to find one +another still here, and professing openly a pity tinged with contempt for +those who are here no longer. + +I blamed those who had gone home, but I myself sniff the asphalt afar; +the roar of the street calls to me with the magic that the voice of the +sea is losing. Just now it shines entreatingly, it shines winningly, in +the sun which is mellowing to an October tenderness, and it shines under +a moon of perfect orb, which seems to have the whole heavens to itself in +"the first watch of the night," except for "the red planet Mars." This +begins to burn in the west before the flush of sunset has passed from it; +and then, later, a few moon-washed stars pierce the vast vault with their +keen points. The stars which so powdered the summer sky seem mostly to +have gone back to town, where no doubt people take them for electric +lights. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ladies make up the pomps which they (the men) forego +Summer folks have no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone +Their consciences needed no bossing in the performance + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Confessions of a Summer Colonist, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Young Contributor + +by William Dean Howells + + + +THE EDITOR'S RELATIONS WITH THE YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR + + +One of the trustiest jokes of the humorous paragrapher is that the editor +is in great and constant dread of the young contributor; but neither my +experience nor my observation bears out his theory of the case. + +Of course one must not say anything to encourage a young person to +abandon an honest industry in the vain hope of early honor and profit +from literature; but there have been and there will be literary men and +women always, and these in the beginning have nearly always been young; +and I cannot see that there is risk of any serious harm in saying that it +is to the young contributor the editor looks for rescue from the old +contributor, or from his failing force and charm. + +The chances, naturally, are against the young contributor, and vastly +against him; but if any periodical is to live, and to live long, it is by +the infusion of new blood; and nobody knows this better than the editor, +who may seem so unfriendly and uncareful to the young contributor. The +strange voice, the novel scene, the odor of fresh woods and pastures new, +the breath of morning, the dawn of tomorrow--these are what the editor is +eager for, if he is fit to be an editor at all; and these are what the +young contributor alone can give him. + +A man does not draw near the sixties without wishing people to believe +that he is as young as ever, and he has not written almost as many books +as he has lived years without persuading himself that each new work of +his has all the surprise of spring; but possibly there are wonted traits +and familiar airs and graces in it which forbid him to persuade others. +I do not say these characteristics are not charming; I am very far from +wishing to say that; but I do say and must say that after the fiftieth +time they do not charm for the first time; and this is where the +advantage of the new contributor lies, if he happens to charm at all. + + + + +I. + +The new contributor who does charm can have little notion how much he +charms his first reader, who is the editor. That functionary may bide +his pleasure in a short, stiff note of acceptance, or he may mask his joy +in a check of slender figure; but the contributor may be sure that he has +missed no merit in his work, and that he has felt, perhaps far more than +the public will feel, such delight as it can give. + +The contributor may take the acceptance as a token that his efforts have +not been neglected, and that his achievements will always be warmly +welcomed; that even his failures will be leniently and reluctantly +recognized as failures, and that he must persist long in failure before +the friend he has made will finally forsake him. + +I do not wish to paint the situation wholly rose color; the editor will +have his moods, when he will not see so clearly or judge so justly as at +other times; when he will seem exacting and fastidious, and will want +this or that mistaken thing done to the story, or poem, or sketch, which +the author knows to be simply perfect as it stands; but he is worth +bearing with, and he will be constant to the new contributor as long as +there is the least hope of him. + +The contributor may be the man or the woman of one story, one poem, one +sketch, for there are such; but the editor will wait the evidence of +indefinite failure to this effect. His hope always is that he or she is +the man or the woman of many stories, many poems, many sketches, all as +good as the first. + +From my own long experience as a magazine editor, I may say that the +editor is more doubtful of failure in one who has once done well than of +a second success. After all, the writer who can do but one good thing is +rarer than people are apt to think in their love of the improbable; but +the real danger with a young contributor is that he may become his own +rival. + +What would have been quite good enough from him in the first instance is +not good enough in the second, because he has himself fixed his standard +so high. His only hope is to surpass himself, and not begin resting on +his laurels too soon; perhaps it is never well, soon or late, to rest +upon one's laurels. It is well for one to make one's self scarce, and +the best way to do this is to be more and more jealous of perfection in +one's work. + +The editor's conditions are that having found a good thing he must get as +much of it as he can, and the chances are that he will be less exacting +than the contributor imagines. It is for the contributor to be exacting, +and to let nothing go to the editor as long as there is the possibility +of making it better. He need not be afraid of being forgotten because he +does not keep sending; the editor's memory is simply relentless; he could +not forget the writer who has pleased him if he would, for such writers +are few. + +I do not believe that in my editorial service on the Atlantic Monthly, +which lasted fifteen years in all, I forgot the name or the +characteristic quality, or even the handwriting, of a contributor who had +pleased me, and I forgot thousands who did not. I never lost faith in a +contributor who had done a good thing; to the end I expected another good +thing from him. I think I was always at least as patient with him as he +was with me, though he may not have known it. + +At the time I was connected with that periodical it had almost a monopoly +of the work of Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Mrs. Stowe, +Parkman, Higginson, Aldrich, Stedman, and many others not so well known, +but still well known. These distinguished writers were frequent +contributors, and they could be counted upon to respond to almost any +appeal of the magazine; yet the constant effort of the editors was to +discover new talent, and their wish was to welcome it. + +I know that, so far as I was concerned, the success of a young +contributor was as precious as if I had myself written his paper or poem, +and I doubt if it gave him more pleasure. The editor is, in fact, a sort +of second self for the contributor, equally eager that he should stand +well with the public, and able to promote his triumphs without egotism +and share them without vanity. + + + + +II. + +In fact, my curious experience was that if the public seemed not to feel +my delight in a contribution I thought good, my vexation and +disappointment were as great as if the work hod been my own. It was even +greater, for if I had really written it I might have had my misgivings of +its merit, but in the case of another I could not console myself with +this doubt. The sentiment was at the same time one which I could not +cherish for the work of an old contributor; such a one stood more upon +his own feet; and the young contributor may be sure that the editor's +pride, self-interest, and sense of editorial infallibility will all +prompt him to stand by the author whom he has introduced to the public, +and whom he has vouched for. + +I hope I am not giving the young contributor too high an estimate of his +value to the editor. After all, he must remember that he is but one of a +great many others, and that the editor's affections, if constant, are +necessarily divided. It is good for the literary aspirant to realize +very early that he is but one of many; for the vice of our comparatively +virtuous craft is that it tends to make each of us imagine himself +central, if not sole. + +As a matter of fact, however, the universe does not revolve around any +one of us; we make our circuit of the sun along with the other +inhabitants of the earth, a planet of inferior magnitude. The thing we +strive for is recognition, but when this comes it is apt to turn our +heads. I should say, then, that it was better it should not come in a +great glare and aloud shout, all at once, but should steal slowly upon +us, ray by ray, breath by breath. + +In the mean time, if this happens, we shall have several chances of +reflection, and can ask ourselves whether we are really so great as we +seem to other people, or seem to seem. + +The prime condition of good work is that we shall get ourselves out of +our minds. Sympathy we need, of course, and encouragement; but I am not +sure that the lack of these is not a very good thing, too. Praise +enervates, flattery poisons; but a smart, brisk snub is always rather +wholesome. + +I should say that it was not at all a bad thing for a young contributor +to get his manuscript back, even after a first acceptance, and even a +general newspaper proclamation that he is one to make the immortals +tremble for their wreaths of asphodel--or is it amaranth? I am never +sure which. + +Of course one must have one's hour, or day, or week, of disabling the +editor's judgment, of calling him to one's self fool, and rogue, and +wretch; but after that, if one is worth while at all, one puts the +rejected thing by, or sends it off to some other magazine, and sets about +the capture of the erring editor with something better, or at least +something else. + + + + +III. + +I think it a great pity that editors ever deal other than frankly with +young contributors, or put them off with smooth generalities of excuse, +instead of saying they do not like this thing or that offered them. It +is impossible to make a criticism of all rejected manuscripts, but in the +case of those which show promise I think it is quite possible; and if I +were to sin my sins over again, I think I should sin a little more on the +side of candid severity. I am sure I should do more good in that way, +and I am sure that when I used to dissemble my real mind I did harm to +those whose feelings I wished to spare. There ought not, in fact, to be +question of feeling in the editor's mind. + +I know from much suffering of my own that it is terrible to get back a +manuscript, but it is not fatal, or I should have been dead a great many +times before I was thirty, when the thing mostly ceased for me. One +survives it again and again, and one ought to make the reflection that it +is not the first business of a periodical to print contributions of this +one or of that, but that its first business is to amuse and instruct its +readers. + +To do this it is necessary to print contributions, but whose they are, or +how the writer will feel if they are not printed, cannot be considered. +The editor can consider only what they are, and the young contributor +will do well to consider that, although the editor may not be an +infallible judge, or quite a good judge, it is his business to judge, and +to judge without mercy. Mercy ought no more to qualify judgment in an +artistic result than in a mathematical result. + + + + +IV. + +I suppose, since I used to have it myself, that there is a superstition +with most young contributors concerning their geographical position. I +used to think that it was a disadvantage to send a thing from a small or +unknown place, and that it doubled my insignificance to do so. I +believed that if my envelope had borne the postmark of New York, or +Boston, or some other city of literary distinction, it would have arrived +on the editor's table with a great deal more authority. But I am sure +this was a mistake from the first, and when I came to be an editor myself +I constantly verified the fact from my own dealings with contributors. +A contribution from a remote and obscure place at once piqued my +curiosity, and I soon learned that the fresh things, the original things, +were apt to come from such places, and not from the literary centres. +One of the most interesting facts concerning the arts of all kinds is +that those who wish to give their lives to them do not appear where the +appliances for instruction in them exist. An artistic atmosphere does +not create artists a literary atmosphere does not create literators; +poets and painters spring up where there was never a verse made or a +picture seen. + +This suggests that God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, +but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the +instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- +pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the +teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach +himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he +will know how to use the appliances, of which the teacher is only the +first. + +The editor, if he does not consciously perceive the truth, will +instinctively feel it, and will expect the acceptable young contributor +from the country, the village, the small town, and he will look eagerly +at anything that promises literature from Montana or Texas, for he will +know that it also promises novelty. + +If he is a wise editor, he will wish to hold his hand as much as +possible; he will think twice before he asks the contributor to change +this or correct that; he will leave him as much to himself as he can. +The young contributor; on his part, will do well to realize this, and to +receive all the editorial suggestions, which are veiled commands in most +cases, as meekly and as imaginatively as possible. + +The editor cannot always give his reasons; however strongly he may feel +them, but the contributor, if sufficiently docile, can always divine +them. It behooves him to be docile at all times, for this is merely the +willingness to learn; and whether he learns that he is wrong, or that the +editor is wrong, still he gains knowledge. + +A great deal of knowledge comes simply from doing, and a great deal more +from doing over, and this is what the editor generally means. + +I think that every author who is honest with himself must own that his +work would be twice as good if it were done twice. I was once so +fortunately circumstanced that I was able entirely to rewrite one of my +novels, and I have always thought it the best written, or at least +indefinitely better than it would have been with a single writing. As a +matter of fact, nearly all of them have been rewritten in a certain way. +They have not actually been rewritten throughout, as in the case I speak +of, but they have been gone over so often in manuscript and in proof that +the effect has been much the same. + +Unless you are sensible of some strong frame within your work, something +vertebral, it is best to renounce it, and attempt something else in which +you can feel it. If you are secure of the frame you must observe the +quality and character of everything you build about it; you must touch, +you must almost taste, you must certainly test, every material you +employ; every bit of decoration must undergo the same scrutiny as the +structure. + +It will be some vague perception of the want of this vigilance in the +young contributor's work which causes the editor to return it to him for +revision, with those suggestions which he will do well to make the most +of; for when the editor once finds a contributor he can trust, he +rejoices in him with a fondness which the contributor will never perhaps +understand. + +It will not do to write for the editor alone; the wise editor understands +this, and averts his countenance from the contributor who writes at him; +but if he feels that the contributor conceives the situation, and will +conform to the conditions which his periodical has invented for itself, +arid will transgress none of its unwritten laws; if he perceives that he +has put artistic conscience in every general and detail, and though he +has not done the best, has done the best that he can do, he will begin to +liberate him from every trammel except those he must wear himself, and +will be only too glad to leave him free. He understands, if he is at all +fit for his place, that a writer can do well only what he likes to do, +and his wish is to leave him to himself as soon as possible. + + +V. + +In my own case, I noticed that the contributors who could be best left to +themselves were those who were most amenable to suggestion and even +correction, who took the blue pencil with a smile, and bowed gladly to +the rod of the proof-reader. Those who were on the alert for offence, +who resented a marginal note as a slight, and bumptiously demanded that +their work should be printed just as they had written it, were commonly +not much more desired by the reader than by the editor. + +Of course the contributor naturally feels that the public is the test of +his excellence, but he must not forget that the editor is the beginning +of the public; and I believe he is a faithfuller and kinder critic than +the writer will ever find again. + +Since my time there is a new tradition of editing, which I do not think +so favorable to the young contributor as the old. Formerly the magazines +were made up of volunteer contributions in much greater measure than they +are now. At present most of the material is invited and even engaged; it +is arranged for a long while beforehand, and the space that can be given +to the aspirant, the unknown good, the potential excellence, grows +constantly less and less. + +A great deal can be said for either tradition; perhaps some editor will +yet imagine a return to the earlier method. In the mean time we must +deal with the thing that is, and submit to it until it is changed. The +moral to the young contributor is to be better than ever, to leave +nothing undone that shall enhance his small chances of acceptance. +If he takes care to be so good that the editor must accept him in spite +of all the pressure upon his pages, he will not only be serving-himself +best, but may be helping the editor to a conception of his duty that +shall be more hospitable to all other young contributors. As it is, +however, it must be owned that their hope of acceptance is very, very +small, and they will do well to make sure that they love literature so +much that they can suffer long and often repeated disappointment in its +cause. + +The love of it is the great and only test of fitness for it. It is +really inconceivable how any one should attempt it without this, but +apparently a great many do. It is evident to every editor that a vast +number of those who write the things he looks at so faithfully, and reads +more or less, have no artistic motive. + +People write because they wish to be known, or because they have heard +that money is easily made in that way, or because they think they will +chance that among a number of other things. The ignorance of technique +which they often show is not nearly so disheartening as the palpable +factitiousness of their product. It is something that they have made; it +is not anything that has grown out of their lives. + +I should think it would profit the young contributor, before he puts pen +to paper, to ask himself why he does so, and, if he finds that he has no +motive in the love of the thing, to forbear. + +Am I interested in what I am going to write about? Do I feel it +strongly? Do I know it thoroughly? Do I imagine it clearly? The young +contributor had better ask himself all these questions, and as many more +like them as he can think of. Perhaps he will end by not being a young +contributor. + +But if he is able to answer them satisfactorily to his own conscience, by +all means let him begin. He may at once put aside all anxiety about +style; that is a thing that will take care of itself; it will be added +unto him if he really has something to say; for style is only a man's way +of saying a thing. + +If he has not much to say, or if he has nothing to say, perhaps he will +try to say it in some other man's way, or to hide his own vacuity with +rags of rhetoric and tags and fringes of manner, borrowed from this +author and that. He will fancy that in this disguise his work will be +more literary, and that there is somehow a quality, a grace, imparted to +it which will charm in spite of the inward hollowness. His vain hope +would be pitiful if it were not so shameful, but it is destined to suffer +defeat at the first glance of the editorial eye. + +If he really has something to say, however, about something he knows and +loves, he is in the best possible case to say it well. Still, from time +to time he may advantageously call a halt, and consider whether he is +saying the thing clearly and simply. + +If he has a good ear he will say it gracefully, and musically; and I +would by no means have him aim to say it barely or sparely. It is not so +that people talk, who talk well, and literature is only the thought of +the writer flowing from the pen instead of the tongue. + +To aim at succinctness and brevity merely, as some teach, is to practice +a kind of quackery almost as offensive as the charlatanry of rhetoric. +In either case the life goes out of the subject. + +To please one's self, honestly and thoroughly, is the only way to please +others in matters of art. I do not mean to say that if you please +yourself you will always please others, but that unless you please +yourself you will please no one else. It is the sweet and sacred +privilege of work done artistically to delight the doer. Art is the +highest joy, but any work done in the love of it is art, in a kind, and +it strikes the note of happiness as nothing else can. + +We hear much of drudgery, but any sort of work that is slighted becomes +drudgery; poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture, acting, architecture, if +you do not do your best by them, turn to drudgery sore as digging +ditches, hewing wood, or drawing water; and these, by the same blessings +of God, become arts if they are done with conscience and the sense of +beauty. + +The young contributor may test his work before the editor assays it, if +he will, and he may know by a rule that is pretty infallible whether it +is good or not, from his own experience in doing it. Did it give him +pleasure? Did he love it as it grew under his hand? Was he glad and +willing with it? Or did he force himself to it, and did it hang heavy +upon him? + +There is nothing mystical in all this; it is a matter of plain, every-day +experience, and I think nearly every artist will say the same thing about +it, if he examines himself faithfully. + +If the young contributor finds that he has no delight in the thing he has +attempted, he may very well give it up, for no one else will delight in +it. But he need not give it up at once; perhaps his mood is bad; let him +wait for a better, and try it again. He may not have learned how to do +it well, and therefore he cannot love it, but perhaps he can learn to do +it well. + +The wonder and glory of art is that it is without formulas. Or, rather, +each new piece of work requires the invention of new formulas, which will +not serve again for another. You must apprentice yourself afresh at +every fresh undertaking, and our mastery is always a victory over certain +unexpected difficulties, and not a dominion of difficulties overcome +before. + +I believe, in other words, that mastery is merely the strength that comes +of overcoming and is never a sovereign power that smooths the path of all +obstacles. The combinations in art are infinite, and almost never the +same; you must make your key and fit it to each, and the key that unlocks +one combination will not unlock another. + + + + +VI. + +There is no royal road to excellence in literature, but the young +contributor need not be dismayed at that. Royal roads are the ways that +kings travel, and kings are mostly dull fellows, and rarely have a good +time. They do not go along singing; the spring that trickles into the +mossy log is not for them, nor + + "The wildwood flower that simply blows." + +But the traveller on the country road may stop for each of these; and it +is not a bad condition of his progress that he must move so slowly that +he can learn every detail of the landscape, both earth and sky, by heart. + +The trouble with success is that it is apt to leave life behind, or +apart. The successful writer especially is in danger of becoming +isolated from the realities that nurtured in him the strength to win +success. When he becomes famous, he becomes precious to criticism, to +society, to all the things that do not exist from themselves, or have not +the root of the matter in them. + +Therefore, I think that a young writer's upward course should be slow and +beset with many obstacles, even hardships. Not that I believe in +hardships as having inherent virtues; I think it is stupid to regard them +in that way; but they oftener bring out the virtues inherent in the +sufferer from them than what I may call the 'softships'; and at least +they stop him, and give him time to think. + +This is the great matter, for if we prosper forward rapidly, we have no +time for anything but prospering forward rapidly. We have no time for +art, even the art by which we prosper. + +I would have the young contributor above all things realize that success +is not his concern. Good work, true work, beautiful work is his affair, +and nothing else. If he does this, success will take care of itself. + +He has no business to think of the thing that will take. It is the +editor's business to think of that, and it is the contributor's business +to think of the thing that he can do with pleasure, the high pleasure +that comes from the sense of worth in the thing done. Let him do the +best he can, and trust the editor to decide whether it will take. + +It will take far oftener than anything he attempts perfunctorily; and +even if the editor thinks it will not take, and feels obliged to return +it for that reason, he will return it with a real regret, with the honor +and affection which we cannot help feeling for any one who has done a +piece of good work, and with the will and the hope to get something from +him that will take the next time, or the next, or the next. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +An artistic atmosphere does not create artists +Any sort of work that is slighted becomes drudgery +Put aside all anxiety about style +Should sin a little more on the side of candid severity +Trouble with success is that it is apt to leave life behind +Work would be twice as good if it were done twice + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Young Contributor +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Last Days in a Dutch Hotel + +by William Dean Howells + + + +LAST DAYS IN A DUTCH HOTEL + +(1897) + + +When we said that we were going to Scheveningen, in the middle of +September, the portier of the hotel at The Hague was sure we should be +very cold, perhaps because we had suffered so much in his house already; +and he was right, for the wind blew with a Dutch tenacity of purpose for +a whole week, so that the guests thinly peopling the vast hostelry seemed +to rustle through its chilly halls and corridors like so many autumn +leaves. We were but a poor hundred at most where five hundred would not +have been a crowd; and, when we sat down at the long tables d'hote in the +great dining-room, we had to warm our hands with our plates before we +could hold our spoons. From time to time the weather varied, as it does +in Europe (American weather is of an exemplary constancy in comparison), +and three or four times a day it rained, and three or four times it +cleared; but through all the wind blew cold and colder. We were +promised, however, that the hotel would not close till October, and we +made shift, with a warm chimney in one room and three gas-burners in +another, if not to keep warm quite, yet certainly to get used to the +cold. + + + + +I. + +In the mean time the sea-bathing went resolutely on with all its forms. +Every morning the bathing machines were drawn down to the beach from the +esplanade, where they were secured against the gale every night; and +every day a half-dozen hardy invalids braved the rigors of wind and wave. +At the discreet distance which one ought always to keep one could not +always be sure whether these bold bathers were mermen or mermaids; for +the sea costume of both sexes is the same here, as regards an absence of +skirts and a presence of what are, after the first plunge, effectively +tights. The first time I walked down to the beach I was puzzled to make +out some object rolling about in the low surf, which looked like a +barrel, and which two bathing-machine men were watching with apparently +the purpose of fishing it out. Suddenly this object reared itself from +the surf and floundered towards the steps of a machine; then I saw that +it was evidently not a barrel, but a lady, and after that I never dared +carry my researches so far. I suppose that the bathing-tights are more +becoming in some cases than in others; but I hold to a modest preference +for skirts, however brief, in the sea-gear of ladies. Without them there +may sometimes be the effect of beauty, and sometimes the effect of +barrel. + +For the convenience and safety of the bathers there were, even in the +last half of September, some twenty machines, and half as many bath-men +and bath-women, who waded into the water and watched that the bathers +came to no harm, instead of a solitary lifeguard showing his statuesque +shape as he paced the shore beside the lifelines, or cynically rocked in +his boat beyond the breakers, as the custom is on Long Island. Here +there is no need of life-lines, and, unless one held his head resolutely +under water, I do not see how he could drown within quarter of a mile of +the shore. Perhaps it is to prevent suicide that the bathmen are so +plentifully provided. + +They are a provision of the hotel, I believe, which does not relax itself +in any essential towards its guests as they grow fewer. It seems, on the +contrary, to use them with a more tender care, and to console them as it +may for the inevitable parting near at hand. Now, within three or four +days of the end, the kitchen is as scrupulously and vigilantly perfect as +it could be in the height of the season; and our dwindling numbers sit +down every night to a dinner that we could not get for much more love or +vastly more money in the month of August, at any shore hotel in America. +It is true that there are certain changes going on, but they are going on +delicately, almost silently. A strip of carpeting has come up from along +our corridor, but we hardly miss it from the matting which remains. +Through the open doors of vacant chambers we can see that beds are coming +down, and the dismantling extends into the halls at places. Certain +decorative carved chairs which repeated themselves outside the doors have +ceased to be there; but the pictures still hang on the walls, and within +our own rooms everything is as conscientious as in midsummer. The +service is instant, and, if there is some change in it, the change is not +for the worse. Yesterday our waiter bade me good-bye, and when I said I +was sorry he was going he alleged a boil on his cheek in excuse; he would +not allow that his going had anything to do with the closing of the +hotel, and he was promptly replaced by another who speaks excellent +English. Now that the first is gone, I may own that he seemed not to +speak any foreign language long, but, when cornered in English, took +refuge in French, and then fled from pursuit in that to German, and +brought up in final Dutch, where he was practically inaccessible. + +The elevator runs regularly, if not rapidly; the papers arrive +unfailingly in the reading-room, including a solitary London Times, which +even I do not read, perhaps because I have no English-reading rival to +contend for it with. Till yesterday, an English artist sometimes got it; +but he then instantly offered it to me; and I had to refuse it because I +would not be outdone in politeness. Now even he is gone, and on all +sides I find myself in an unbroken circle of Dutch and German, where no +one would dispute the Times with me if he could. + +Every night the corridors are fully lighted, and some mornings swept, +while the washing that goes on all over Holland, night and morning, does +not always spare our unfrequented halls and stairs. I note these little +facts, for the contrast with those of an American hotel which we once +assisted in closing, and where the elevator stopped two weeks before we +left, and we fell from electricity to naphtha-gas, and even this died out +before us except at long intervals in the passages; while there were +lightning changes in the service, and a final failure of it till we had +to go down and get our own ice-water of the lingering room-clerk, after +the last bell-boy had winked out. + + + + +II. + +But in Europe everything is permanent, and in America everything is +provisional. This is the great distinction which, if always kept in +mind, will save a great deal of idle astonishment. It is in nothing more +apparent than in the preparation here at Scheveningen for centuries of +summer visitors, while at our Long Island hotel there was a losing bet on +a scant generation of them. When it seemed likely that it might be a +winning bet the sand was planked there in front of the hotel to the sea +with spruce boards. It was very handsomely planked, but it was never +afterwards touched, apparently, for any manner of repairs. Here, for +half a mile the dune on which the hotel stands is shored up with massive +masonry, and bricked for carriages, and tiled for foot-passengers; and it +is all kept as clean as if wheel or foot had never passed over it. I am +sure that there is not a broken brick or a broken tile in the whole +length or breadth of it. But the hotel here is not a bet; it is a +business. It has come to stay; and on Long Island it had come to see how +it would like it. + +Beyond the walk and drive, however, the dunes are left to the winds, and +to the vegetation with which the Dutch planting clothes them against the +winds. First a coarse grass or rush is sown; then a finer herbage comes; +then a tough brushwood, with flowers and blackberry-vines; so that while +the seaward slopes of the dunes are somewhat patched and tattered, the +landward side and all the pleasant hollows between are fairly held +against such gales as on Long Island blow the lower dunes hither and yon. +The sheep graze in the valleys at some points; in many a little pocket of +the dunes I found a potato-patch of about the bigness of a city lot, and +on week-days I saw wooden-shod men slowly, slowly gathering in the crop. +On Sundays I saw the pleasant nooks and corners of these sandy hillocks +devoted, as the dunes of Long Island were, to whispering lovers, who are +here as freely and fearlessly affectionate as at home. Rocking there is +not, and cannot be, in the nature of things, as there used to be at Mount +Desert; but what is called Twoing at York Harbor is perfectly +practicable. + +It is practicable not only in the nooks and corners of the dunes, but on +discreeter terms in those hooded willow chairs, so characteristic of the +Dutch sea-side. These, if faced in pairs towards each other, must be as +favorable to the exchange of vows as of opinions, and if the crowd is +ever very great, perhaps one chair could be made to hold two persons. +It was distinctly a pang, the other day, to see men carrying them up from +the beach, and putting them away to hibernate in the basement of the +hotel. Not all, but most of them, were taken; though I dare say that on +fine days throughout October they will go trooping back to the sands on +the heads of the same men, like a procession of monstrous, two-legged +crabs. Such a day was last Sunday, and then the beach offered a lively +image of its summer gayety. It was dotted with hundreds of hooded +chairs, which foregathered in gossiping groups or confidential couples; +and as the sun shone quite warm the flaps of the little tents next the +dunes were let down against it, and ladies in summer white saved +themselves from sunstroke in their shelter. The wooden booths for the +sale of candies and mineral waters, and beer and sandwiches, were flushed +with a sudden prosperity, so that when I went to buy my pound of grapes +from the good woman who understands my Dutch, I dreaded an indifference +in her which by no means appeared. She welcomed me as warmly as if I had +been her sole customer, and did not put up the price on me; perhaps +because it was already so very high that her imagination could not rise +above it. + +The hotel showed the same admirable constancy. The restaurant was +thronged with new-comers, who spread out even over the many-tabled +esplanade before it; but it was in no wise demoralized. That night we +sat down in multiplied numbers to a table d'hote of serenely unconscious +perfection; and we permanent guests--alas! we are now becoming transient, +too--were used with unfaltering recognition of our superior worth. We +shared the respect which, all over Europe, attaches to establishment, and +which sometimes makes us poor Americans wish for a hereditary nobility, +so that we could all mirror our ancestral value in the deference of our +inferiors. Where we should get our inferiors is another thing, but I +suppose we could import them for the purpose, if the duties were not too +great under our tariff. + +We have not yet imported the idea of a European hotel in any respect, +though we long ago imported what we call the European plan. No travelled +American knows it in the extortionate prices of rooms when he gets home, +or the preposterous charges of our restaurants, where one portion of +roast beef swimming in a lake of lukewarm juice costs as much as a +diversified and delicate dinner in Germany or Holland. But even if there +were any proportion in these things the European hotel will not be with +us till we have the European portier, who is its spring and inspiration. +He must not, dear home-keeping reader, be at all imagined in the moral or +material figure of our hotel porter, who appears always in his shirt- +sleeves, and speaks with the accent of Cork or of Congo. The European +portier wears a uniform, I do not know why, and a gold-banded cap, and he +inhabits a little office at the entrance of the hotel. He speaks eight +or ten languages, up to certain limit, rather better than people born to +them, and his presence commands an instant reverence softening to +affection under his universal helpfulness. There is nothing he cannot +tell you, cannot do for you; and you may trust yourself implicitly to +him. He has the priceless gift of making each nationality, each +personality, believe that he is devoted to its service alone. He turns +lightly from one language to another, as if he had each under his tongue, +and he answers simultaneously a fussy French woman, an angry English +tourist, a stiff Prussian major, and a thin-voiced American girl in +behalf of a timorous mother, and he never mixes the replies. He is an +inexhaustible bottle of dialects; but this is the least of his merits, of +his miracles. + +Our portier here is a tall, slim Dutchman (most Dutchmen are tall and +slim), and in spite of the waning season he treats me as if I were +multitude, while at the same time he uses me with the distinction due the +last of his guests. Twenty times in as many hours he wishes me good-day, +putting his hand to his cap for the purpose; and to oblige me he wears +silver braid instead of gilt on his cap and coat. I apologized yesterday +for troubling him so often for stamps, and said that I supposed he was +much more bothered in the season. + +"Between the first of August and the fifteenth," he answered, "you cannot +think. All that you can do is to say, Yes, No; Yes, No." And he left me +to imagine his responsibilities. + +I am sure he will hold out to the end, and will smile me a friendly +farewell from the door of his office, which is also his dining-room, as I +know from often disturbing him at his meals there. I have no fear of the +waiters either, or of the little errand-boys who wear suits of sailor +blue, and touch their foreheads when they bring you your letters like so +many ancient sea-dogs. I do not know why the elevator-boy prefers a suit +of snuff-color; but I know that he will salute us as we step out of his +elevator for the last time as unfalteringly as if we had just arrived at +the beginning of the summer. + + + + +IV + +It is our last day in the hotel at Scheveningen, and I will try to recall +in their pathetic order the events of the final week. + +Nothing has been stranger throughout than the fluctuation of the guests. +At times they have dwindled to so small a number that one must reckon +chiefly upon their quality for consolation; at other times they swelled +to such a tide as to overflow the table, long or short, at dinner, and +eddy round a second board beside it. There have been nights when I have +walked down the long corridor to my seaward room through a harking +solitude of empty chambers; there have been mornings when I have come out +to breakfast past door-mats cheerful with boots of both sexes, and door- +post hooks where dangling coats and trousers peopled the place with a +lively if a somewhat flaccid semblance of human presence. The worst was +that, when some one went, we lost a friend, and when some one came we +only won a stranger. + +Among the first to go were the kindly English folk whose acquaintance we +made across the table the first night, and who took with them so large a +share of our facile affections that we quite forgot the ancestral +enmities, and grieved for them as much as if they had been Americans. +There have been, in fact, no Americans here but ourselves, and we have +done what we could with the Germans who spoke English. The nicest of +these were a charming family from F-----, father and mother, and son and +daughter, with whom we had a pleasant week of dinners. At the very first +we disagreed with the parents so amicably about Ibsen and Sudermann that +I was almost sorry to have the son take our modern side of the +controversy and declare himself an admirer of those authors with us. +Our frank literary difference established a kindness between us that was +strengthened by our community of English, and when they went they left us +to the sympathy of another German family with whom we had mainly our +humanity in common. They spoke no English, and I only a German which +they must have understood with their hearts rather than their heads, +since it consisted chiefly of good-will. But in the air of their sweet +natures it flourished surprisingly, and sufficed each day for praise of +the weather after it began to be fine, and at parting for some fond +regrets, not unmixed with philosophical reflections, sadly perplexed in +the genders and the order of the verbs: with me the verb will seldom +wait, as it should in German, to the end. Both of these families, very +different in social tradition, I fancied, were one in the amiability +which makes the alien forgive so much militarism to the German nation, +and hope for its final escape from the drill-sergeant. When they went, +we were left for some meals to our own American tongue, with a brief +interval of that English painter and his wife with whom we spoke, our +language as nearly like English as we could. Then followed a desperate +lunch and dinner where an unbroken forest of German, and a still more +impenetrable morass of Dutch, hemmed us in. But last night it was our +joy to be addressed in our own speech by a lady who spoke it as admirably +as our dear friends from F-----. She was Dutch, and when she found we +were Americans she praised our historian Motley, and told us how his +portrait is gratefully honored with a place in the Queen's palace, The +House in the Woods, near Scheveningen. + + + + +V. + +She had come up from her place in the country, four hours away, for the +last of the concerts here, which have been given throughout the summer by +the best orchestra in Europe, and which have been thronged every +afternoon and evening by people from The Hague. + +One honored day this week even the Queen and the Queen Mother came down +to the concert, and gave us incomparably the greatest event of our waning +season. I had noticed all the morning a floral perturbation about the +main entrance of the hotel, which settled into the form of banks of +autumnal bloom on either side of the specially carpeted stairs, and put +forth on the roof of the arcade in a crown, much bigger round than a +barrel, of orange-colored asters, in honor of the Queen's ancestral house +of Orange. Flags of blue, white, and red fluttered nervously about in +the breeze from the sea, and imparted to us an agreeable anxiety not to +miss seeing the Queens, as the Dutch succinctly call their sovereign and +her parent; and at three o'clock we saw them drive up to the hotel. +Certain officials in civil dress stood at the door of the concert-room to +usher the Queens in, and a bareheaded, bald-headed dignity of military +figure backed up the stairs before them. I would not rashly commit +myself to particulars concerning their dress, but I am sure that the +elder Queen wore black, and the younger white. The mother has one of the +best and wisest faces I have seen any woman wear (and most of the good, +wise faces in this imperfectly balanced world are women's) and the +daughter one of the sweetest and prettiest. Pretty is the word for her +face, and it showed pink through her blond veil, as she smiled and bowed +right and left; her features are small and fine, and she is not above the +middle height. + +As soon as she had passed into the concert-room, we who had waited to see +her go in ran round to another door and joined the two or three thousand +people who were standing to receive the Queens. These had already +mounted to the royal box, and they stood there while the orchestra played +one of the Dutch national airs. (One air is not enough for the Dutch; +they must have two.) Then the mother faded somewhere into the +background, and the daughter sat alone in the front, on a gilt throne, +with a gilt crown at top, and a very uncomfortable carved Gothic back. +She looked so young, so gentle, and so good that the rudest Republican +could not have helped wishing her well out of a position so essentially +and irreparably false as a hereditary sovereign's. One forgot in the +presence of her innocent seventeen years that most of the ruling princes +of the world had left it the worse for their having been in it; at +moments one forgot her altogether as a princess, and saw her only as a +charming young girl, who had to sit up rather stiffly. + +At the end of the programme the Queens rose and walked slowly out, while +the orchestra played the other national air. + + + + +VI. + +I call them the Queens, because the Dutch do; and I like Holland so much +that I should hate to differ with the Dutch in anything. But, as a +matter of fact, they are neither of them quite Queens; the mother is the +regent and the daughter will not be crowned till next year. + +But, such as they are, they imparted a supreme emotion to our dying +season, and thrilled the hotel with a fulness of summer life. Since they +went, the season faintly pulses and respires, so that one can just say +that it is still alive. Last Sunday was fine, and great crowds came down +from The Hague to the concert, and spread out on the seaward terrace of +the hotel, around the little tables which I fancied that the waiters had +each morning wiped dry of the dew, from a mere Dutch desire of cleaning +something. The hooded chairs covered the beach; the children played in +the edges of the surf and delved in the sand; the lovers wandered up into +the hollows of the dunes. + +There was only the human life, however. I have looked in vain for the +crabs, big and little, that swarm on the Long Island shore, and there are +hardly any gulls, even; perhaps because there are no crabs for them to +eat, if they eat crabs; I never saw gulls doing it, but they must eat +something. Dogs there are, of course, wherever there are people; but +they are part of the human life. Dutch dogs are in fact very human; and +one I saw yesterday behaved quite as badly as a bad boy, with respect to +his muzzle. He did not like his muzzle, and by dint of turning +somersaults in the sand he got it off, and went frolicking to his master +in triumph to show him what he had done. + + + + +VII. + +It is now the last day, and the desolation is thickening upon our hotel. +This morning the door-posts up and down my corridor showed not a single +pair of trousers; not a pair of boots flattered the lonely doormats. In +the lower hall I found the tables of the great dining-room assembled, and +the chairs inverted on them with their legs in the air; but decently, +decorously, not with the reckless abandon displayed by the chairs in our +Long Island hotel for weeks before it closed. In the smaller dining-room +the table was set for lunch as if we were to go on dining there forever; +in the breakfast-room the service and the provision were as perfect as +ever. The coffee was good, the bread delicious, the butter of an +unfaltering sweetness; and the glaze of wear on the polished dress-coats +of the waiters as respectable as it could have been on the first day of +the season. All was correct, and if of a funereal correctness to me, I +am sure this effect was purely subjective. + +The little bell-boys in sailor suits (perhaps they ought to be spelled +bell-buoys) clustered about the elevator-boy like so many Roman sentinels +at their posts; the elevator-boy and his elevator were ready to take us +up or down at any moment. + +The portier and I ignored together the hour of parting, which we had +definitely ascertained and agreed upon, and we exchanged some compliments +to the weather, which is now settled, as if we expected to enjoy it long +together. I rather dread going in to lunch, however, for I fear the +empty places. + + + + +VIII. + +All is over; we are off. The lunch was an heroic effort of the hotel to +hide the fact of our separation. It was perfect, unless the boiled beef +was a confession of human weakness; but even this boiled beef was +exquisite, and the horseradish that went with it was so mellowed by art +that it checked rather than provoked the parting tear. The table d'hote +had reserved a final surprise for us; and when we sat down with the fear +of nothing but German around us, we heard the sound of our own speech +from the pleasantest English pair we had yet encountered; and the +travelling English are pleasant; I will say it, who am said by Sir Walter +Besant to be the only American who hates their nation. It was really an +added pang to go, on their account, but the carriage was waiting at the +door; the 'domestique' had already carried our baggage to the steam-tram +station; the kindly menial train formed around us for an ultimate +'douceur', and we were off, after the 'portier' had shut us into our +vehicle and touched his oft-touched cap for the last time, while the +hotel facade dissembled its grief by architecturally smiling in the soft +Dutch sun. + +I liked this manner of leaving better than carrying part of my own +baggage to the train, as I had to do on Long Island, though that, too, +had its charm; the charm of the whole fresh, pungent American life, which +at this distance is so dear. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Last Days in a Dutch Hotel +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Some Anomalies of the Short Story + +by William Dean Howells + + + +SOME ANOMALIES OF THE SHORT STORY + + +The interesting experiment of one of our great publishing houses in +putting out serially several volumes of short stories, with the hope that +a courageous persistence may overcome the popular indifference to such +collections when severally administered, suggests some questions as to +this eldest form of fiction which I should like to ask the reader's +patience with. I do not know that I shall be able to answer them, or +that I shall try to do so; the vitality of a question that is answered +seems to exhale in the event; it palpitates no longer; curiosity flutters +away from the faded flower, which is fit then only to be folded away in +the 'hortus siccus' of accomplished facts. In view of this I may wish +merely to state the problems and leave them for the reader's solution, +or, more amusingly, for his mystification. + + + + +I. + +One of the most amusing questions concerning the short story is why a +form which is singly so attractive that every one likes to read a short +story when he finds it alone is collectively so repellent as it is said +to be. Before now I have imagined the case to be somewhat the same as +that of a number of pleasant people who are most acceptable as separate +householders, but who lose caste and cease to be desirable acquaintances +when gathered into a boarding-house. + +Yet the case is not the same quite, for we see that the short story where +it is ranged with others of its species within the covers of a magazine +is so welcome that the editor thinks his number the more brilliant the +more short story writers he can call about his board, or under the roof +of his pension. Here the boardinghouse analogy breaks, breaks so +signally that I was lately moved to ask a distinguished editor why a book +of short stories usually failed and a magazine usually succeeded because +of them. He answered, gayly, that the short stories in most books of +them were bad; that where they were good, they went; and he alleged +several well-known instances in which books of prime short stories had a +great vogue. He was so handsomely interested in my inquiry that I could +not well say I thought some of the short stories which he had boasted in +his last number were indifferent good, and yet, as he allowed, had mainly +helped sell it. I had in mind many books of short stories of the first +excellence which had failed as decidedly as those others had succeeded, +for no reason that I could see; possibly there is really no reason in any +literary success or failure that can be predicted, or applied in another +Base. + +I could name these books, if it would serve any purpose, but, in my +doubt, I will leave the reader to think of them, for I believe that his +indolence or intellectual reluctance is largely to blame for the failure +of good books of short stories. He is commonly so averse to any +imaginative exertion that he finds it a hardship to respond to that +peculiar demand which a book of good short stories makes upon him. He +can read one good short story in a magazine with refreshment, and a +pleasant sense of excitement, in the sort of spur it gives to his own +constructive faculty. But, if this is repeated in ten or twenty stories, +he becomes fluttered and exhausted by the draft upon his energies; +whereas a continuous fiction of the same quantity acts as an agreeable +sedative. A condition that the short story tacitly makes with the +reader, through its limitations, is that he shall subjectively fill in +the details and carry out the scheme which in its small dimensions the +story can only suggest; and the greater number of readers find this too +much for their feeble powers, while they cannot resist the incitement to +attempt it. + +My theory does not wholly account for the fact (no theory wholly accounts +for any fact), and I own that the same objections would lie from the +reader against a number of short stories in a magazine. But it may be +that the effect is not the same in the magazine because of the variety in +the authorship, and because it would be impossibly jolting to read all +the short stories in a magazine 'seriatim'. On the other hand, the +identity of authorship gives a continuity of attraction to the short +stories in a book which forms that exhausting strain upon the imagination +of the involuntary co-partner. + + + + +II. + +Then, what is the solution as to the form of publication for short +stories, since people do not object to them singly but collectively, and +not in variety, but in identity of authorship? Are they to be printed +only in the magazines, or are they to be collected in volumes combining a +variety of authorship? Rather, I could wish, it might be found feasible +to purvey them in some pretty shape where each would appeal singly to the +reader and would not exhaust him in the subjective after-work required of +him. In this event many short stories now cramped into undue limits by +the editorial exigencies of the magazines might expand to greater length +and breadth, and without ceasing to be each a short story might not make +so heavy a demand upon the subliminal forces of the reader. + +If any one were to say that all this was a little fantastic, I should not +contradict him; but I hope there is some reason in it, if reason can help +the short story to greater favor, for it is a form which I have great +pleasure in as a reader, and pride in as an American. If we have not +excelled all other moderns in it, we have certainly excelled in it; +possibly because we are in the period of our literary development which +corresponds to that of other peoples when the short story pre-eminently +flourished among them. But when one has said a thing like this, it +immediately accuses one of loose and inaccurate statement, and requires +one to refine upon it, either for one's own peace of conscience or for +one's safety from the thoughtful reader. I am not much afraid of that +sort of reader, for he is very rare, but I do like to know myself what I +mean, if I mean anything in particular. + +In this instance I am obliged to ask myself whether our literary +development can be recognized separately from that of the whole English- +speaking world. I think it can, though, as I am always saying American +literature is merely a condition of English literature. In some sense +every European literature is a condition of some other European +literature, yet the impulse in each eventuates, if it does not originate +indigenously. A younger literature will choose, by a sort of natural +selection, some things for assimilation from an elder literature, for no +more apparent reason than it will reject other things, and it will +transform them in the process so that it will give them the effect of +indigeneity. The short story among the Italians, who called it the +novella, and supplied us with the name devoted solely among us to fiction +of epical magnitude, refined indefinitely upon the Greek romance, if it +derived from that; it retrenched itself in scope, and enlarged itself in +the variety of its types. But still these remained types, and they +remained types with the French imitators of the Italian novella. It was +not till the Spaniards borrowed the form of the novella and transplanted +it to their racier soil that it began to bear character, and to fruit in +the richness of their picaresque fiction. When the English borrowed it +they adapted it, in the metrical tales of Chaucer, to the genius of their +nation, which was then both poetical and humorous. Here it was full of +character, too, and more and more personality began to enlarge the bounds +of the conventional types and to imbue fresh ones. But in so far as the +novella was studied in the Italian sources, the French, Spanish, and +English literatures were conditions of Italian literature as distinctly, +though, of course, not so thoroughly, as American literature is a +condition of English literature. Each borrower gave a national cast to +the thing borrowed, and that is what has happened with us, in the full +measure that our nationality has differenced itself from the English. + +Whatever truth there is in all this, and I will confess that a good deal +of it seems to me hardy conjecture, rather favors my position that we are +in some such period of our literary development as those other peoples +when the short story flourished among them. Or, if I restrict our claim, +I may safely claim that they abundantly had the novella when they had not +the novel at all, and we now abundantly have the novella, while we have +the novel only subordinately and of at least no such quantitative +importance as the English, French, Spanish, Norwegians, Russians, and +some others of our esteemed contemporaries, not to name the Italians. We +surpass the Germans, who, like ourselves, have as distinctly excelled in +the modern novella as they have fallen short in the novel. Or, if I may +not quite say this, I will make bold to say that I can think of many +German novelle that I should like to read again, but scarcely one German +novel; and I could honestly say the same of American novelle, though not +of American novels. + + + + +III. + +The abeyance, not to say the desuetude, that the novella fell into for +several centuries is very curious, and fully as remarkable as the modern +rise of the short story. It began to prevail in the dramatic form, for a +play is a short story put on the stage; it may have satisfied in that +form the early love of it, and it has continued to please in that form; +but in its original shape it quite vanished, unless we consider the +little studies and sketches and allegories of the Spectator and Tatler +and Idler and Rambler and their imitations on the Continent as guises of +the novella. The germ of the modern short story may have survived in +these, or in the metrical form of the novella which appeared in Chaucer +and never wholly disappeared. With Crabbe the novella became as +distinctly the short story as it has become in the hands of Miss Wilkins. +But it was not till our time that its great merit as a form was felt, for +until our time so great work was never done with it. I remind myself of +Boccaccio, and of the Arabian Nights, without the wish to hedge from my +bold stand. They are all elemental; compared with some finer modern work +which deepens inward immeasurably, they are all of their superficial +limits. They amuse, but they do not hold, the mind and stamp it with +large and profound impressions. + +An Occidental cannot judge the literary quality of the Eastern tales; but +I will own my suspicion that the perfection of the Italian work is +philological rather than artistic, while the web woven by Mr. James or +Miss Jewett, by Kielland or Bjornson, by Maupassant, by Palacio Valdes, +by Giovanni Verga, by Tourguenief, in one of those little frames seems to +me of an exquisite color and texture and of an entire literary +preciousness, not only as regards the diction, but as regards those more +intangible graces of form, those virtues of truth and reality, and those +lasting significances which distinguish the masterpiece. + +The novella has in fact been carried so far in the short story that it +might be asked whether it had not left the novel behind, as to perfection +of form; though one might not like to affirm this. Yet there have been +but few modern fictions of the novel's dimensions which have the beauty +of form many a novella embodies. Is this because it is easier to give +form in the small than in the large, or only because it is easier to hide +formlessness? It is easier to give form in the novella than in the +novel, because the design of less scope can be more definite, and because +the persons and facts are fewer, and each can be more carefully treated. +But, on the other hand, the slightest error in execution shows more in +the small than in the large, and a fault of conception is more evident. +The novella must be clearly imagined, above all things, for there is no +room in it for those felicities of characterization or comment by which +the artist of faltering design saves himself in the novel. + + + + +IV. + +The question as to where the short story distinguishes itself from the +anecdote is of the same nature as that which concerns the bound set +between it and the novel. In both cases the difference of the novella is +in the motive, or the origination. The anecdote is too palpably simple +and single to be regarded as a novella, though there is now and then a +novella like The Father, by Bjornson, which is of the actual brevity of +the anecdote, but which, when released in the reader's consciousness, +expands to dramatic dimensions impossible to the anecdote. Many +anecdotes have come down from antiquity, but not, I believe, one short +story, at least in prose; and the Italians, if they did not invent the +story, gave us something most sensibly distinguishable from the classic +anecdote in the novella. The anecdote offers an illustration of +character, or records a moment of action; the novella embodies a drama +and develops a type. + +It is not quite so clear as to when and where a piece of fiction ceases +to be a novella and becomes a novel. The frontiers are so vague that one +is obliged to recognize a middle species, or rather a middle magnitude, +which paradoxically, but necessarily enough, we call the novelette. +First we have the short story, or novella, then we have the long story, +or novel, and between these we have the novelette, which is in name a +smaller than the short story, though it is in point of fact two or three +times longer than a short story. We may realize them physically if we +will adopt the magazine parlance and speak of the novella as a one-number +story, of the novel as a serial, and of the novelette as a two-number or +a three-number story; if it passes the three-number limit it seems to +become a novel. As a two-number or three-number story it is the despair +of editors and publishers. The interest of so brief a serial will not +mount sufficiently to carry strongly over from month to month; when the +tale is completed it will not make a book which the Trade (inexorable +force!) cares to handle. It is therefore still awaiting its +authoritative avatar, which it will be some one's prosperity and glory to +imagine; for in the novelette are possibilities for fiction as yet +scarcely divined. + +The novelette can have almost as perfect form as the novella. In fact, +the novel has form in the measure that it approaches the novelette; and +some of the most symmetrical modern novels are scarcely more than +novelettes, like Tourguenief's Dmitri Rudine, or his Smoke, or Spring +Floods. The Vicar of Wakefield, the father of the modern novel, is +scarcely more than a novelette, and I have sometimes fancied, but no +doubt vainly, that the ultimated novel might be of the dimensions of +Hamlet. If any one should say there was not room in Hamlet for the +character and incident requisite in a novel, I should be ready to answer +that there seemed a good deal of both in Hamlet. + +But no doubt there are other reasons why the novel should not finally be +of the length of Hamlet, and I must not let my enthusiasm for the +novelette carry me too far, or, rather, bring me up too short. I am +disposed to dwell upon it, I suppose, because it has not yet shared the +favor which the novella and the novel have enjoyed, and because until +somebody invents a way for it to the public it cannot prosper like the +one-number story or the serial. I should like to say as my last word for +it here that I believe there are many novels which, if stripped of their +padding, would turn out to have been all along merely novelettes in +disguise. + +It does not follow, however, that there are many novelle which, if they +were duly padded, would be found novelettes. In that dim, subjective +region where the aesthetic origins present themselves almost with the +authority of inspirations there is nothing clearer than the difference +between the short-story motive and the long-story motive. One, if one is +in that line of work, feels instinctively just the size and carrying +power of the given motive. Or, if the reader prefers a different figure, +the mind which the seed has been dropped into from Somewhere is +mystically aware whether the seed is going to grow up a bush or is going +to grow up a tree, if left to itself. Of course, the mind to which the +seed is intrusted may play it false, and wilfully dwarf the growth, or +force it to unnatural dimensions; but the critical observer will easily +detect the fact of such treasons. Almost in the first germinal impulse +the inventive mind forefeels the ultimate difference and recognizes the +essential simplicity or complexity of the motive. There will be a +prophetic subdivision into a variety of motives and a multiplication of +characters and incidents and situations; or the original motive will be +divined indivisible, and there will be a small group of people +immediately interested and controlled by a single, or predominant, fact. +The uninspired may contend that this is bosh, and I own that something +might be said for their contention, but upon the whole I think it is +gospel. + +The right novel is never a congeries of novelle, as might appear to the +uninspired. If it indulges even in episodes, it loses in reality and +vitality. It is one stock from which its various branches put out, and +form it a living growth identical throughout. The right novella is never +a novel cropped back from the size of a tree to a bush, or the branch of +a tree stuck into the ground and made to serve for a bush. It is another +species, destined by the agencies at work in the realm of unconsciousness +to be brought into being of its own kind, and not of another. + + + + +V. + +This was always its case, but in the process of time the short story, +while keeping the natural limits of the primal novella (if ever there was +one), has shown almost limitless possibilities within them. It has shown +itself capable of imparting the effect of every sort of intention, +whether of humor or pathos, of tragedy or comedy or broad farce or +delicate irony, of character or action. The thing that first made itself +known as a little tale, usually salacious, dealing with conventionalized +types and conventionalized incidents, has proved itself possibly the most +flexible of all the literary forms in its adaptation to the needs of the +mind that wishes to utter itself, inventively or constructively, upon +some fresh occasion, or wishes briefly to criticise or represent some +phase or fact of life. + +The riches in this shape of fiction are effectively inestimable, if we +consider what has been done in the short story, and is still doing +everywhere. The good novels may be easily counted, but the good novelle, +since Boccaccio began (if it was he that first began) to make them, +cannot be computed. In quantity they are inexhaustible, and in quality +they are wonderfully satisfying. Then, why is it that so very, very few +of the most satisfactory of that innumerable multitude stay by you, as +the country people say, in characterization or action? How hard it is to +recall a person or a fact out of any of them, out of the most signally +good! We seem to be delightfully nourished as we read, but is it, after +all, a full meal? We become of a perfect intimacy and a devoted +friendship with the men and women in the short stories, but not +apparently of a lasting acquaintance. It is a single meeting we have +with them, and though we instantly love or hate them dearly, recurrence +and repetition seem necessary to that familiar knowledge in which we hold +the personages in a novel. + +It is here that the novella, so much more perfect in form, shows its +irremediable inferiority to the novel, and somehow to the play, to the +very farce, which it may quantitatively excel. We can all recall by name +many characters out of comedies and farces; but how many characters out +of short stories can we recall? Most persons of the drama give +themselves away by name for types, mere figments of allegory, and perhaps +oblivion is the penalty that the novella pays for the fineness of its +characterizations; but perhaps, also, the dramatic form has greater +facilities for repetition, and so can stamp its persons more indelibly on +the imagination than the narrative form in the same small space. The +narrative must give to description what the drama trusts to +representation; but this cannot account for the superior permanency of +the dramatic types in so great measure as we might at first imagine, for +they remain as much in mind from reading as from seeing the plays. It is +possible that as the novella becomes more conscious, its persons will +become more memorable; but as it is, though we now vividly and with +lasting delight remember certain short stories, we scarcely remember by +name any of the people in them. I may be risking too much in offering an +instance, but who, in even such signal instances as The Revolt of Mother, +by Miss Wilkins, or The Dulham Ladies, by Miss Jewett, can recall by name +the characters that made them delightful? + + + + +VI. + +The defect of the novella which we have been acknowledging seems an +essential limitation; but perhaps it is not insuperable; and we may yet +have short stories which shall supply the delighted imagination with +creations of as much immortality as we can reasonably demand. The +structural change would not be greater than the moral or material change +which has been wrought in it since it began as a yarn, gross and +palpable, which the narrator spun out of the coarsest and often the +filthiest stuff, to snare the thick fancy or amuse the lewd leisure of +listeners willing as children to have the same persons and the same +things over and over again. Now it has not only varied the persons and +things, but it has refined and verified them in the direction of the +natural and the supernatural, until it is above all other literary forms +the vehicle of reality and spirituality. When one thinks of a bit of Mr. +James's psychology in this form, or a bit of Verga's or Kielland's +sociology, or a bit of Miss Jewett's exquisite veracity, one perceives +the immense distance which the short story has come on the way to the +height it has reached. It serves equally the ideal and the real; that +which it is loath to serve is the unreal, so that among the short stories +which have recently made reputations for their authors very few are of +that peculiar cast which we have no name for but romanticistic. The only +distinguished modern writer of romanticistic novelle whom I can think of +is Mr. Bret Harte, and he is of a period when romanticism was so +imperative as to be almost a condition of fiction. I am never so +enamoured of a cause that I will not admit facts that seem to tell +against it, and I will allow that this writer of romanticistic short +stories has more than any other supplied us with memorable types and +characters. We remember Mr. John Oakhurst by name; we remember Kentuck +and Tennessee's Partner, at least by nickname; and we remember their +several qualities. These figures, if we cannot quite consent that they +are persons, exist in our memories by force of their creator's +imagination, and at the moment I cannot think of any others that do, +out of the myriad of American short stories, except Rip Van Winkle out of +Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Marjorie Daw out of Mr. Aldrich's +famous little caprice of that title, and Mr. James's Daisy Miller. + +It appears to be the fact that those writers who have first distinguished +themselves in the novella have seldom written novels of prime order. +Mr. Kipling is an eminent example, but Mr. Kipling has yet a long life +before him in which to upset any theory about him, and one can only +instance him provisionally. On the other hand, one can be much more +confident that the best novelle have been written by the greatest +novelists, conspicuously Maupassant, Verga, Bjornson, Mr. Thomas Hardy, +Mr. James, Mr. Cable, Tourguenief, Tolstoy, Valdes, not to name others. +These have, in fact, all done work so good in this form that one is +tempted to call it their best work. It is really not their best, but it +is work so good that it ought to have equal acceptance with their novels, +if that distinguished editor was right who said that short stories sold +well when they were good short stories. That they ought to do so is so +evident that a devoted reader of them, to whom I was submitting the +anomaly the other day, insisted that they did. I could only allege the +testimony of publishers and authors to the contrary, and this did not +satisfy him. + +It does not satisfy me, and I wish that the general reader, with whom the +fault lies, could be made to say why, if he likes one short story by +itself and four short stories in a magazine, he does not like, or will +not have, a dozen short stories in a book. This was the baffling +question which I began with and which I find myself forced to end with, +after all the light I have thrown upon the subject. I leave it where I +found it, but perhaps that is a good deal for a critic to do. If I had +left it anywhere else the reader might not feel bound to deal with it +practically by reading all the books of short stories he could lay hands +on, and either divining why he did not enjoy them, or else forever +foregoing his prejudice against them because of his pleasure in them. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Some Anomalies of the Short Story, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Spanish Prisoners of War + +by William Dean Howells + + + +SPANISH PRISONERS OF WAR + + +Certain summers ago our cruisers, the St. Louis and the Harvard, arrived +at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with sixteen or seventeen hundred Spanish +prisoners from Santiago de Cuba. They were partly soldiers of the land +forces picked up by our troops in the fights before the city, but by far +the greater part were sailors and marines from Cervera's ill-fated fleet. +I have not much stomach for war, but the poetry of the fact I have stated +made a very potent appeal to me on my literary side, and I did not hold +out against it longer than to let the St. Louis get away with Cervera to +Annapolis, when only her less dignified captives remained with those of +the Harvard to feed either the vainglory or the pensive curiosity of the +spectator. Then I went over from our summer colony to Kittery Point, and +got a boat, and sailed out to have a look at these subordinate enemies in +the first hours of their imprisonment. + + + + +I. + +It was an afternoon of the brilliancy known only to an afternoon of the +American summer, and the water of the swift Piscataqua River glittered in +the sun with a really incomparable brilliancy. But nothing could light +up the great monster of a ship, painted the dismal lead-color which our +White Squadrons put on with the outbreak of the war, and she lay sullen +in the stream with a look of ponderous repose, to which the activities of +the coaling-barges at her side, and of the sailors washing her decks, +seemed quite unrelated. A long gun forward and a long gun aft threatened +the fleet of launches, tugs, dories, and cat-boats which fluttered about +her, but the Harvard looked tired and bored, and seemed as if asleep. +She had, in fact, finished her mission. The captives whom death had +released had been carried out and sunk in the sea; those who survived to +a further imprisonment had all been taken to the pretty island a mile +farther up in the river, where the tide rushes back and forth through the +Narrows like a torrent. Its defiant rapidity has won it there the +graphic name of Pull-and-be-Damned; and we could only hope to reach the +island by a series of skilful tacks, which should humor both the wind and +the tide, both dead against us. Our boatman, one of those shore New +Englanders who are born with a knowledge of sailing, was easily master of +the art of this, but it took time, and gave me more than the leisure I +wanted for trying to see the shore with the strange eyes of the captives +who had just looked upon it. It was beautiful, I had to own, even in my +quality of exile and prisoner. The meadows and the orchards came down to +the water, or, where the wandering line of the land was broken and lifted +in black fronts of rock, they crept to the edge of the cliff and peered +over it. A summer hotel stretched its verandas along a lovely level; +everywhere in clovery hollows and on breezy knolls were gray old farm- +houses and summer cottages-like weather-beaten birds' nests, and like +freshly painted marten-boxes; but all of a cold New England neatness +which made me homesick for my malodorous Spanish fishing-village, +shambling down in stony lanes to the warm tides of my native seas. Here, +every place looked as if it had been newly scrubbed with soap and water, +and rubbed down with a coarse towel, and was of an antipathetic +alertness. The sweet, keen breeze made me shiver, and the northern sky, +from which my blinding southern sun was blazing, was as hard as sapphire. +I tried to bewilder myself in the ignorance of a Catalonian or Asturian +fisherman, and to wonder with his darkened mind why it should all or any +of it have been, and why I should have escaped from the iron hell in +which I had fought no quarrel of my own to fall into the hands of +strangers, and to be haled over seas to these alien shores for a +captivity of unknown term. But I need not have been at so much pains; +the intelligence (I do not wish to boast) of an American author would +have sufficed; for if there is anything more grotesque than another in +war it is its monstrous inconsequence. If we had a grief with the +Spanish government, and if it was so mortal we must do murder for it, we +might have sent a joint committee of the House and Senate, and, with the +improved means of assassination which modern science has put at our +command, killed off the Spanish cabinet, and even the queen--mother and +the little king. This would have been consequent, logical, and in a sort +reasonable; but to butcher and capture a lot of wretched Spanish peasants +and fishermen, hapless conscripts to whom personally and nationally we +were as so many men in the moon, was that melancholy and humiliating +necessity of war which makes it homicide in which there is not even the +saving grace of hate, or the excuse of hot blood. + +I was able to console myself perhaps a little better for the captivity of +the Spaniards than if I had really been one of them, as we drew nearer +and nearer their prison isle, and it opened its knotty points and little +ravines, overrun with sweet-fern, blueberry-bushes, bay, and low +blackberry-vines, and rigidly traversed with a high stockade of yellow +pine boards. Six or eight long, low, wooden barracks stretched side by +side across the general slope, with the captive officers' quarters, +sheathed in weather-proof black paper, at one end of them. About their +doors swarmed the common prisoners, spilling out over the steps and on +the grass, where some of them lounged smoking. One operatic figure in a +long blanket stalked athwart an open space; but there was such poverty of +drama in the spectacle at the distance we were keeping that we were glad +of so much as a shirt-sleeved contractor driving out of the stockade in +his buggy. On the heights overlooking the enclosure Gatling guns were +posted at three or four points, and every thirty or forty feet sentries +met and parted, so indifferent to us, apparently, that we wondered if we +might get nearer. We ventured, but at a certain moment a sentry called to +us, "Fifty yards off, please!" Our young skipper answered, "All right," +and as the sentry had a gun on his shoulder which we had every reason to +believe was loaded, it was easily our pleasure to retreat to the +specified limit. In fact, we came away altogether, after that, so little +promise was there of our being able to satisfy our curiosity further. +We came away care fully nursing such impression as we had got of a spec +tacle whose historical quality we did our poor best to feel. It related +us, after solicitation, to the wars against the Moors, against the +Mexicans and Peruvians, against the Dutch; to the Italian campaigns of +the Gran Capitan, to the Siege of Florence, to the Sack of Rome, to the +wars of the Spanish Succession, and what others. I do not deny that +there was a certain aesthetic joy in having the Spanish prisoners there +for this effect; we came away duly grateful for what we had seen of them; +and we had long duly resigned ourselves to seeing no more, when word was +sent to us that our young skipper had got a permit to visit the island, +and wished us to go with him. + + + + +II. + +It was just such another afternoon when we went again, but this time we +took the joyous trolley-car, and bounded and pirouetted along as far as +the navyyard of Kittery, and there we dismounted and walked among the +vast, ghostly ship-sheds, so long empty of ships. The grass grew in the +Kittery navy-yard, but it was all the pleasanter for the grass, and those +pale, silent sheds were far more impressive in their silence than they +would have been if resonant with saw and hammer. At several points, an +unarmed marine left his leisure somewhere, and lunged across our path +with a mute appeal for our permit; but we were nowhere delayed till we +came to the office where it had to be countersigned, and after that we +had presently crossed a bridge, by shady, rustic ways, and were on the +prison island. Here, if possible, the sense of something pastoral +deepened; a man driving a file of cows passed before us under kindly +trees, and the bell which the foremost of these milky mothers wore about +her silken throat sent forth its clear, tender note as if from the depth +of some grassy bosk, and instantly witched me away to the woods-pastures +which my boyhood knew in southern Ohio. Even when we got to what seemed +fortifications they turned out to be the walls of an old reservoir, and +bore on their gate a paternal warning that children unaccompanied by +adults were not allowed within. + +We mounted some stone steps over this portal and were met by a young +marine, who left his Gatling gun for a moment to ask for our permit, and +then went back satisfied. Then we found ourselves in the presence of a +sentry with a rifle on his shoulder, who was rather more exacting. +Still, he only wished to be convinced, and when he had pointed out the +headquarters where we were next to go, he let us over his beat. At the +headquarters there was another sentry, equally serious, but equally +civil, and with the intervention of an orderly our leader saw the officer +of the day. He came out of the quarters looking rather blank, for he had +learned that his pass admitted our party to the lines, but not to the +stockade, which we might approach, at a certain point of vantage and look +over into, but not penetrate. We resigned ourselves, as we must, and +made what we could of the nearest prison barrack, whose door overflowed +and whose windows swarmed with swarthy captives. Here they were, at such +close quarters that their black, eager eyes easily pierced the pockets +full of cigarettes which we had brought for them. They looked mostly +very young, and there was one smiling rogue at the first window who was +obviously prepared to catch anything thrown to him. He caught, in fact, +the first box of cigarettes shied over the stockade; the next box flew +open, and spilled its precious contents outside the dead-line under the +window, where I hope some compassionate guard gathered them up and gave +them to the captives. + +Our fellows looked capable of any kindness to their wards short of +letting them go. They were a most friendly company, with an effect of +picnicking there among the sweet-fern and blueberries, where they had +pitched their wooden tents with as little disturbance to the shrubbery as +possible. They were very polite to us, and when, after that misadventure +with the cigarettes (I had put our young leader up to throwing the box, +merely supplying the corpus delicti myself), I wandered vaguely towards a +Gatling gun planted on an earthen platform where the laurel and the +dogroses had been cut away for it, the man in charge explained with a +smile of apology that I must not pass a certain path I had already +crossed. + +One always accepts the apologies of a man with a Gatling gun to back +them, and I retreated. That seemed the end; and we were going +crestfallenly away when the officer of the day came out and allowed us to +make his acquaintance. He permitted us, with laughing reluctance, to +learn that he had been in the fight at Santiago, and had come with the +prisoners, and he was most obligingly sorry that our permit did not let +us into the stockade. I said I had some cigarettes for the prisoners, +and I supposed I might send them; in, but he said he could not allow +this, for they had money to buy tobacco; and he answered another of our +party, who had not a soul above buttons, and who asked if she could get +one from the Spaniards, that so far from promoting her wish, he would +have been obliged to take away any buttons she might have got from them. + +"The fact is," he explained, "you've come to the wrong end for +transactions in buttons and tobacco." + +But perhaps innocence so great as ours had wrought upon him. When we +said we were going, and thanked him for his unavailing good-will, he +looked at his watch and said they were just going to feed the prisoners; +and after some parley he suddenly called out, "Music of the guard!" +Instead of a regimental band, which I had supposed summoned, a single +corporal ran out the barracks, touching his cap. + +"Take this party round to the gate," the officer said, and he promised us +that he would see us there, and hoped we would not mind a rough walk. We +could have answered that to see his prisoners fed we would wade through +fathoms of red-tape; but in fact we were arrested at the last point by +nothing worse than the barbed wire which fortified the outer gate. Here +two marines were willing to tell us how well the prisoners lived, while +we stared into the stockade through an inner gate of plank which was run +back for us. They said the Spaniards had a breakfast of coffee, and hash +or stew and potatoes, and a dinner of soup and roast; and now at five +o'clock they were to have bread and coffee, which indeed we saw the +white-capped, whitejacketed cooks bringing out in huge tin wash-boilers. +Our marines were of opinion, and no doubt rightly, that these poor +Spaniards had never known in their lives before what it was to have full +stomachs. But the marines said they never acknowledged it, and the one +who had a German accent intimated that gratitude was not a virtue of any +Roman (I suppose he meant Latin) people. But I do not know that if I +were a prisoner, for no fault of my own, I should be very explicitly +thankful for being unusually well fed. I thought (or I think now) that a +fig or a bunch of grapes would have been more acceptable to me under my +own vine and fig-tree than the stew and roast of captors who were indeed +showing themselves less my enemies than my own government, but were still +not quite my hosts. + + + + +III. + +How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us? The clock strikes +twelve as it strikes two, and with no more premonition. As we stood +there expecting nothing better of it than three at the most, it suddenly +struck twelve. Our officer appeared at the inner gate and bade our +marines slide away the gate of barbed wire and let us into the enclosure, +where he welcomed us to seats on the grass against the stockade, with +many polite regrets that the tough little knots of earth beside it were +not chairs. + +The prisoners were already filing out of their quarters, at a rapid trot +towards the benches where those great wash-boilers of coffee were set. +Each man had a soup-plate and bowl of enamelled tin, and each in his turn +received quarter of a loaf of fresh bread and a big ladleful of steaming +coffee, which he made off with to his place at one of the long tables +under a shed at the side of the stockade. One young fellow tried to get +a place not his own in the shade, and our officer when he came back +explained that he was a guerrillero, and rather unruly. We heard that +eight of the prisoners were in irons, by sentence of their own officers, +for misconduct, but all save this guerrillero here were docile and +obedient enough, and seemed only too glad to get peacefully at their +bread and coffee. + +First among them came the men of the Cristobal Colon, and these were the +best looking of all the captives. From their pretty fair average the +others varied to worse and worse, till a very scrub lot, said to be ex- +convicts, brought up the rear. They were nearly all little fellows, and +very dark, though here and there a six-footer towered up, or a blond +showed among them. They were joking and laughing together, harmlessly +enough, but I must own that they looked a crew of rather sorry jail- +birds; though whether any run of humanity clad in misfits of our navy +blue and white, and other chance garments, with close-shaven heads, and +sometimes bare feet, would have looked much less like jail-birds I am not +sure. Still, they were not prepossessing, and though some of them were +pathetically young, they had none of the charm of boyhood. No doubt they +did not do themselves justice, and to be herded there like cattle did not +improve their chances of making a favorable impression on the observer. +They were kindly used by our officer and his subordinates, who mixed +among them, and straightened out the confusion they got into at times, +and perhaps sometimes wilfully. Their guards employed a few handy words +of Spanish with them; where these did not avail, they took them by the +arm and directed them; but I did not hear a harsh tone, and I saw no +violence, or even so much indignity offered them as the ordinary trolley- +car passenger is subjected to in Broadway. At a certain bugle-call they +dispersed, when they had finished their bread and coffee, and scattered +about over the grass, or returned to their barracks. We were told that +these children of the sun dreaded its heat, and kept out of it whenever +they could, even in its decline; but they seemed not so much to withdraw +and hide themselves from that, as to vanish into the history of "old, +unhappy, far-off" times, where prisoners of war, properly belong. I +roused myself with a start as if I had lost them in the past. + +Our officer came towards us and said gayly, "Well, you have seen the +animals fed," and let us take our grateful leave. I think we were rather +a loss, in our going, to the marines, who seemed glad of a chance to +talk. I am sure we were a loss to the man on guard at the inner gate, +who walked his beat with reluctance when it took him from us, and eagerly +when it brought him back. Then he delayed for a rapid and comprehensive +exchange of opinions and ideas, successfully blending military +subordination with American equality in his manner. + +The whole thing was very American in the perfect decorum and the utter +absence of ceremony. Those good fellows were in the clothes they wore +through the fights at Santiago, and they could not have put on much +splendor if they had wished, but apparently they did not wish. They were +simple, straightforward, and adequate. There was some dry joking about +the superiority of the prisoners' rations and lodgings, and our officer +ironically professed his intention of messing with the Spanish officers. +But there was no grudge, and not a shadow of ill will, or of that stupid +and atrocious hate towards the public enemy which abominable newspapers +and politicians had tried to breed in the popular mind. There was +nothing manifest but a sort of cheerful purpose to live up to that +military ideal of duty which is so much nobler than the civil ideal of +self-interest. Perhaps duty will yet become the civil ideal, when the +peoples shall have learned to live for the common good, and are united +for the operation of the industries as they now are for the hostilities. + + + + +IV. + +Shall I say that a sense of something domestic, something homelike, +imparted itself from what I had seen? Or was this more properly an +effect from our visit, on the way back to the hospital, where a hundred +and fifty of the prisoners lay sick of wounds and fevers? I cannot say +that a humaner spirit prevailed here than in the camp; it was only a more +positive humanity which was at work. Most of the sufferers were +stretched on the clean cots of two long, airy, wooden shells, which +received them, four days after the orders for their reception had come, +with every equipment for their comfort. At five o'clock, when we passed +down the aisles between their beds, many of them had a gay, nonchalant +effect of having toothpicks or cigarettes in their mouths; but it was +really the thermometers with which the nurses were taking their +temperature. It suggested a possibility to me, however, and I asked if +they were allowed to smoke, and being answered that they did smoke, +anyway, whenever they could, I got rid at last of those boxes of +cigarettes which had been burning my pockets, as it were, all afternoon. +I gave them to such as I was told were the most deserving among the sick +captives, but Heaven knows I would as willingly have given them to the +least. They took my largesse gravely, as became Spaniards; one said, +smiling sadly, "Muchas gracias," but the others merely smiled sadly; and +I looked in vain for the response which would have twinkled up in the +faces of even moribund Italians at our looks of pity. Italians would +have met our sympathy halfway; but these poor fellows were of another +tradition, and in fact not all the Latin peoples are the same, though we +sometimes conveniently group them together for our detestation. Perhaps +there are even personal distinctions among their several nationalities, +and there are some Spaniards who are as true and kind as some Americans. +When we remember Cortez let us not forget Las Casas. + +They lay in their beds there, these little Spanish men, whose dark faces +their sickness could not blanch to more than a sickly sallow, and as they +turned their dull black eyes upon us I must own that I could not "support +the government" so fiercely as I might have done elsewhere. But the +truth is, I was demoralized by the looks of these poor little men, who, +in spite of their character of public enemies, did look so much like +somebody's brothers, and even somebody's children. I may have been +infected by the air of compassion, of scientific compassion, which +prevailed in the place. There it was as wholly business to be kind and +to cure as in another branch of the service it was business to be cruel +and to kill. How droll these things are! The surgeons had their +favorites among the patients, to all of whom they were equally devoted; +inarticulate friendships had sprung up between them and certain of their +hapless foes, whom they spoke of as "a sort of pets." One of these was +very useful in making the mutinous take their medicine; another was liked +apparently because he was so likable. At a certain cot the chief surgeon +stopped and said, "We did not expect this boy to live through the night." +He took the boy's wrist between his thumb and finger, and asked tenderly +as he leaned over him, "Poco mejor?" The boy could not speak to say that +he was a little better; he tried to smile--such things do move the +witness; nor does the sight of a man whose bandaged cheek has been half +chopped away by a machete tend to restore one's composure. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Spanish Prisoners of War, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--American Literary Centers + +by William Dean Howells + + + +AMERICAN LITERARY CENTRES + + +One of the facts which we Americans have a difficulty in making clear to +a rather inattentive world outside is that, while we have apparently a +literature of our own, we have no literary centre. We have so much +literature that from time to time it seems even to us we must have a +literary centre. We say to ourselves, with a good deal of logic, Where +there is so much smoke there must be some fire, or at least a fireplace. +But it is just here that, misled by tradition, and even by history, we +deceive ourselves. Really, we have no fireplace for such fire as we have +kindled; or, if any one is disposed to deny this, then I say, we have a +dozen fireplaces; which is quite as bad, so far as the notion of a +literary centre is concerned, if it is not worse. + +I once proved this fact to my own satisfaction in some papers which I +wrote several years ago; but it appears, from a question which has lately +come to me from England, that I did not carry conviction quite so far as +that island; and I still have my work all before me, if I understand the +London friend who wishes "a comparative view of the centres of literary +production" among us; "how and why they change; how they stand at +present; and what is the relation, for instance, of Boston to other such +centres." + + + + +I. + +Here, if I cut my coat according to my cloth, t should have a garment +which this whole volume would hardly stuff out with its form; and I have +a fancy that if I begin by answering, as I have sometimes rather too +succinctly done, that we have no more a single literary centre than Italy +or than Germany has (or had before their unification), I shall not be +taken at my word. I shall be right, all the same, and if I am told that +in those countries there is now a tendency to such a centre, I can only +say that there is none in this, and that, so far as I can see, we get +further every day from having such a centre. The fault, if it is a +fault, grows upon us, for the whole present tendency of American life is +centrifugal, and just so far as literature is the language of our life, +it shares this tendency. I do not attempt to say how it will be when, in +order to spread ourselves over the earth, and convincingly to preach the +blessings of our deeply incorporated civilization by the mouths of our +eight-inch guns, the mind of the nation shall be politically centred at +some capital; that is the function of prophecy, and I am only writing +literary history, on a very small scale, with a somewhat crushing sense +of limits. + +Once, twice, thrice there was apparently an American literary centre: at +Philadelphia, from the time Franklin went to live there until the death +of Charles Brockden Brown, our first romancer; then at New York, during +the period which may be roughly described as that of Irving, Poe, Willis, +and Bryant; then at Boston, for the thirty or forty years illumined by +the presence of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Hawthorne, Emerson, Holmes, +Prescott, Parkman, and many lesser lights. These are all still great +publishing centres. If it were not that the house with the largest list +of American authors was still at Boston, I should say New York was now +the chief publishing centre; but in the sense that London and Paris, or +even Madrid and Petersburg, are literary centres, with a controlling +influence throughout England and France, Spain and Russia, neither New +York nor Boston is now our literary centre, whatever they may once have +been. Not to take Philadelphia too seriously, I may note that when New +York seemed our literary centre Irving alone among those who gave it +lustre was a New-Yorker, and he mainly lived abroad; Bryant, who was a +New Englander, was alone constant to the city of his adoption; Willis, a +Bostonian, and Poe, a Marylander, went and came as their poverty or their +prosperity compelled or invited; neither dwelt here unbrokenly, and Poe +did not even die here, though he often came near starving. One cannot +then strictly speak of any early American literary centre except Boston, +and Boston, strictly speaking, was the New England literary centre. + +However, we had really no use for an American literary centre before the +Civil War, for it was only after the Civil War that we really began to +have an American literature. Up to that time we had a Colonial +literature, a Knickerbocker literature, and a New England literature. +But as soon as the country began to feel its life in every limb with the +coming of peace, it began to speak in the varying accents of all the +different sections--North, East, South, West, and Farthest West; but not +before that time. + + + + +II. + +Perhaps the first note of this national concord, or discord, was sounded +from California, in the voices of Mr. Bret Harte, of Mark Twain, of Mr. +Charles Warren Stoddard (I am sorry for those who do not know his +beautiful Idyls of the South Seas), and others of the remarkable group of +poets and humorists whom these names must stand for. The San Francisco +school briefly flourished from 1867 till 1872 or so, and while it endured +it made San Francisco the first national literary centre we ever had, for +its writers were of every American origin except Californian. + +After the Pacific Slope, the great Middle West found utterance in the +dialect verse of Mr. John Hay, and after that began the exploitation of +all the local parlances, which has sometimes seemed to stop, and then has +begun again. It went on in the South in the fables of Mr. Joel Chandler +Harris's Uncle Remus, and in the fiction of Miss Murfree, who so long +masqueraded as Charles Egbert Craddock. Louisiana found expression in +the Creole stories of Mr. G. W. Cable, Indiana in the Hoosier poems of +Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, and central New York in the novels of Mr. +Harold Frederic; but nowhere was the new impulse so firmly and finely +directed as in New England, where Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's studies of +country life antedated Miss Mary Wilkins's work. To be sure, the +portrayal of Yankee character began before either of these artists was +known; Lowell's Bigelow Papers first reflected it; Mrs. Stowe's Old Town +Stories caught it again and again; Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, in her +unromantic moods, was of an excellent fidelity to it; and Mrs. Rose Terry +Cooke was even truer to the New England of Connecticut. With the later +group Mrs. Lily Chase Wyman has pictured Rhode Island work-life with +truth pitiless to the beholder, and full of that tender humanity for the +material which characterizes Russian fiction. + +Mr. James Lane Allen has let in the light upon Kentucky; the Red Men and +White of the great plains have found their interpreter in Mr. Owen +Wister, a young Philadelphian witness of their dramatic conditions and +characteristics; Mr. Hamlin Garlafid had already expressed the sad +circumstances of the rural Northwest in his pathetic idyls, colored from +the experience of one who had been part of what he saw. Later came Mr. +Henry B. Fuller, and gave us what was hardest and most sordid, as well as +something of what was most touching and most amusing, in the burly-burly +of Chicago. + + + + +III. + +A survey of this sort imparts no just sense of the facts, and I own that +I am impatient of merely naming authors and books that each tempt me to +an expansion far beyond the limits of this essay; for, if I may be so +personal, I have watched the growth of our literature in Americanism with +intense sympathy. In my poor way I have always liked the truth, and in +times past I am afraid that I have helped to make it odious to those who +believed beauty was something different; but I hope that I shall not now +be doing our decentralized literature a disservice by saying that its +chief value is its honesty, its fidelity to our decentralized life. +Sometimes I wish this were a little more constant; but upon the whole I +have no reason to complain; and I think that as a very interested +spectator of New York I have reason to be content with the veracity with +which some phases of it have been rendered. The lightning-or the flash- +light, to speak more accurately--has been rather late in striking this +ungainly metropolis, but it has already got in its work with notable +effect at some points. This began, I believe, with the local dramas of +Mr. Edward Harrigan, a species of farces, or sketches of character, +loosely hung together, with little sequence or relevancy, upon the thread +of a plot which would keep the stage for two or three hours. It was very +rough magic, as a whole, but in parts it was exquisite, and it held the +mirror up towards politics on their social and political side, and gave +us East-Side types--Irish, German, negro, and Italian--which were +instantly recognizable and deliciously satisfying. I never could +understand why Mr. Harrigan did not go further, but perhaps he had gone +far enough; and, at any rate, he left the field open for others. The +next to appear noticeably in it was Mr. Stephen Crane, whose Red Badge of +Courage wronged the finer art which he showed in such New York studies as +Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, and George's Mother. He has been followed +by Abraham Cahan, a Russian Hebrew, who has done portraits of his race +and nation with uncommon power. They are the very Russian Hebrews of +Hester Street translated from their native Yiddish into English, which +the author mastered after coming here in his early manhood. He brought +to his work the artistic qualities of both the Slav and the Jew, and in +his 'Jekl: A Story of the Ghetto', he gave proof of talent which his more +recent book of sketches--'The Imported Bride groom'--confirms. He sees +his people humorously, and he is as unsparing of their sordidness as he +is compassionate of their hard circumstance and the somewhat frowsy +pathos of their lives. He is a Socialist, but his fiction is wholly +without "tendentiousness." + +A good many years ago--ten or twelve, at least--Mr. Harry Harland had +shown us some politer New York Jews, with a romantic coloring, though +with genuine feeling for the novelty and picturesqueness of his material; +but I do not think of any one who has adequately dealt with our Gentile +society. Mr. James has treated it historically in Washington Square, and +more modernly in some passages of The Bostonians, as well as in some of +his shorter stories; Mr. Edgar Fawcett has dealt with it intelligently +and authoritatively in a novel or two; and Mr. Brander Matthews has +sketched it, in this aspect, and that with his Gallic cleverness, +neatness, and point. In the novel, 'His Father's Son', he in fact faces +it squarely and renders certain forms of it with masterly skill. He has +done something more distinctive still in 'The Action and the Word', one +of the best American stories I know. But except for these writers, our +literature has hardly taken to New York society. + + + + +IV. + +It is an even thing: New York society has not taken to our literature. +New York publishes it, criticises it, and circulates it, but I doubt if +New York society much reads it or cares for it, and New York is therefore +by no means the literary centre that Boston once was, though a large +number of our literary men live in or about New York. Boston, in my time +at least, had distinctly a literary atmosphere, which more or less +pervaded society; but New York has distinctly nothing of the kind, in any +pervasive sense. It is a vast mart, and literature is one of the things +marketed here; but our good society cares no more for it than for some +other products bought and sold here; it does not care nearly so much for +books as for horses or for stocks, and I suppose it is not unlike the +good society of any other metropolis in this. To the general, here, +journalism is a far more appreciable thing than literature, and has +greater recognition, for some very good reasons; but in Boston literature +had vastly more honor, and even more popular recognition, than +journalism. There journalism desired to be literary, and here literature +has to try hard not to be journalistic. If New York is a literary centre +on the business side, as London is, Boston was a literary centre, as +Weimar was, and as Edinburgh was. It felt literature, as those capitals +felt it, and if it did not love it quite so much as might seem, it always +respected it. + +To be quite clear in what I wish to say of the present relation of Boston +to our other literary centres, I must repeat that we have now no such +literary centre as Boston was. Boston itself has perhaps outgrown the +literary consciousness which formerly distinguished it from all our other +large towns. In a place of nearly a million people (I count in the +outlying places) newspapers must be more than books; and that alone says +everything. + +Mr. Aldrich once noticed that whenever an author died in Boston, the New- +Yorkers thought they had a literary centre; and it is by some such means +that the primacy has passed from Boston, even if it has not passed to New +York. But still there is enough literature left in the body at Boston to +keep her first among equals in some things, if not easily first in all. + +Mr. Aldrich himself lives in Boston, and he is, with Mr. Stedman, the +foremost of our poets. At Cambridge live Colonel T. W. Higginson, an +essayist in a certain sort without rival among us; and Mr. William James, +the most interesting and the most literary of psychologists, whose repute +is European as well as American. Mr. Charles Eliot Norton alone survives +of the earlier Cambridge group--Longfellow, Lowell, Richard Henry Dana, +Louis Agassiz, Francis J. Child, and Henry James, the father of the +novelist and the psychologist. + +To Boston Mr. James Ford Rhodes, the latest of our abler historians, has +gone from Ohio; and there Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, the Massachusetts +Senator, whose work in literature is making itself more and more known, +was born and belongs, politically, socially, and intellectually. Mrs. +Julia Ward Howe, a poet of wide fame in an elder generation, lives there; +Mr. T. B. Aldrich lives there; and thereabouts live Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart +Phelps Ward and Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, the first of a fame +beyond the last, who was known to us so long before her. Then at Boston, +or near Boston, live those artists supreme in the kind of short story +which we have carried so far: Miss Jewett, Miss Wilkins, Miss Alice +Brown, Mrs. Chase-Wyman, and Miss Gertrude Smith, who comes from Kansas, +and writes of the prairie farm-life, though she leaves Mr. E. W. Howe +(of 'The Story of a Country Town' and presently of the Atchison Daily +Globe) to constitute, with the humorous poet Ironquill, a frontier +literary centre at Topeka. Of Boston, too, though she is of western +Pennsylvania origin, is Mrs. Margaret Deland, one of our most successful +novelists. Miss Wilkins has married out of Massachusetts into New +Jersey, and is the neighbor of Mr. H. M. Alden at Metuchen. + +All these are more or less embodied and represented in the Atlantic +Monthly, still the most literary, and in many things still the first of +our magazines. Finally, after the chief publishing house in New York, +the greatest American publishing house is in Boston, with by far the +largest list of the best American books. Recently several firms of +younger vigor and valor have recruited the wasted ranks of the Boston +publishers, and are especially to be noted for the number of rather nice +new poets they give to the light. + + + + +V. + +Dealing with the question geographically, in the right American way, we +descend to Hartford obliquely by way of Springfield, Massachusetts, +where, in a little city of fifty thousand, a newspaper of metropolitan +influence and of distinctly literary tone is published. At Hartford +while Charles Dudley Warner lived, there was an indisputable literary +centre; Mark Twain lives there no longer, and now we can scarcely count +Hartford among our literary centres, though it is a publishing centre of +much activity in subscription books. + +At New Haven, Yale University has latterly attracted Mr. William H. +Bishop, whose novels I always liked for the best reasons, and has long +held Professor J. T. Lounsbury, who is, since Professor Child's death at +Cambridge, our best Chaucer scholar. Mr. Donald G. Mitchell, once +endeared to the whole fickle American public by his Reveries of a +Bachelor and his Dream Life, dwells on the borders of the pleasant town, +which is also the home of Mr. J. W. De Forest, the earliest real American +novelist, and for certain gifts in seeing and telling our life also one +of the greatest. + +As to New York (where the imagination may arrive daily from New Haven, +either by a Sound boat or by eight or ten of the swiftest express trains +in the world), I confess I am more and more puzzled. Here abide the +poets, Mr. R. H. Stoddard, Mr. E. C. Stedman, Mr. R. W. Gilder, and many +whom an envious etcetera must hide from view; the fictionists, Mr. R. H. +Davis, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, Mr. Brander Matthews, Mr. Frank +Hopkinson Smith, Mr. Abraham Cahan, Mr. Frank Norris, and Mr. James Lane +Allen, who has left Kentucky to join the large Southern contingent, which +includes Mrs. Burton Harrison and Mrs. McEnery Stuart; the historians, +Professor William M. Sloane and Dr. Eggleston (reformed from a novelist); +the literary and religious and economic essayists, Mr. Hamilton W. +Mabie, Mr. H. M. Alden, Mr. J. J. Chapman, and Mr. E. L. Godkin, with +critics, dramatists, satirists, magazinists, and journalists of literary +stamp in number to convince the wavering reason against itself that here +beyond all question is the great literary centre of these States. There +is an Authors' Club, which alone includes a hundred and fifty authors, +and, if you come to editors, there is simply no end. Magazines are +published here and circulated hence throughout the land by millions; and +books by the ton are the daily output of our publishers, who are the +largest in the country. + +If these things do not mean a great literary centre, it would be hard to +say what does; and I am not going to try for a reason against such facts. +It is not quality that is wanting, but perhaps it is the quantity of the +quality; there is leaven, but not for so large a lump. It may be that +New York is going to be our literary centre, as London is the literary +centre of England, by gathering into itself all our writing talent, but +it has by no means done this yet. What we can say is that more authors +come here from the West and South than go elsewhere; but they often stay +at home, and I fancy very wisely. Mr. Joel Chandler Harris stays at +Atlanta, in Georgia; Mr. James Whitcomb Riley stays at Indianapolis; Mr. +Maurice Thompson spent his whole literary life, and General Lew. Wallace +still lives at Crawfordsville, Indiana; Mr. Madison Cawein stays at +Louisville, Kentucky; Miss Murfree stays at St. Louis, Missouri; Francis +R. Stockton spent the greater part of the year at his place in West +Virginia, and came only for the winter months to New York; Mr. Edward +Bellamy, until his failing health exiled him to the Far West, remained at +Chicopee, Massachusetts; and I cannot think of one of these writers whom +it would have advantaged in any literary wise to dwell in New York. He +would not have found greater incentive than at home; and in society he +would not have found that literary tone which all society had, or wished +to have, in Boston when Boston was a great town and not yet a big town. + +In fact, I doubt if anywhere in the world there was ever so much taste +and feeling for literature as there was in that Boston. At Edinburgh (as +I imagine it) there was a large and distinguished literary class, and at +Weimar there was a cultivated court circle; but in Boston there was not +only such a group of authors as we shall hardly see here again for +hundreds of years, but there was such regard for them and their calling, +not only in good society, but among the extremely well-read people of the +whole intelligent city, as hardly another community has shown. New York, +I am quite sure, never was such a centre, and I see no signs that it ever +will be. It does not influence the literature of the whole country as +Boston once did through writers whom all the young writers wished to +resemble; it does not give the law, and it does not inspire the love that +literary Boston inspired. There is no ideal that it represents. + +A glance at the map of the Union will show how very widely our smaller +literary centres are scattered; and perhaps it will be useful in +following me to other more populous literary centres. Dropping southward +from New York, now, we find ourselves in a literary centre of importance +at Philadelphia, since that is the home of Mr. J. B. McMasters, the +historian of the American people; of Mr. Owen Wister, whose fresh and +vigorous work I have mentioned; and of Dr. Weir Mitchell, a novelist of +power long known to the better public, and now recognized by the larger +in the immense success of his historical romance, Hugh Wynne. + +If I skip Baltimore, I may ignore a literary centre of great promise, but +while I do not forget the excellent work of Johns Hopkins University in +training men for the solider literature of the future, no Baltimore names +to conjure with occur to me at the moment; and we must really get on to +Washington. This, till he became ambassador at the Court of St. James, +was the home of Mr. John Hay, a poet whose biography of Lincoln must rank +him with the historians, and whose public service as Secretary of State +classes him high among statesmen. He blotted out one literary centre at +Cleveland, Ohio, when he removed to Washington, and Mr. Thomas Nelson +Page another at Richmond, Virginia, when he came to the national capital. +Mr. Paul Dunbar, the first negro poet to divine and utter his race, +carried with him the literary centre of Dayton, Ohio, when he came to be +an employee in the Congressional Library; and Mr. Charles Warren +Stoddard, in settling at Washington as Professor of Literature in the +Catholic University, brought somewhat indirectly away with him the last +traces of the old literary centre at San Francisco. + +A more recent literary centre in the Californian metropolis went to +pieces when Mr. Gelett Burgess came to New York and silenced the 'Lark', +a bird of as new and rare a note as ever made itself heard in this air; +but since he has returned to California, there is hope that the literary +centre may form itself there again. I do not know whether Mrs. Charlotte +Perkins Stetson wrecked a literary centre in leaving Los Angeles or not. +I am sure only that she has enriched the literary centre of New York by +the addition of a talent in sociological satire which would be +extraordinary even if it were not altogether unrivalled among us. + +Could one say too much of the literary centre at Chicago? I fancy, yes; +or too much, at least, for the taste of the notable people who constitute +it. In Mr. Henry B. Fuller we have reason to hope, from what he has +already done, an American novelist of such greatness that he may well +leave being the great American novelist to any one who likes taking that +role. Mr. Hamlin Garland is another writer of genuine and original gift +who centres at Chicago; and Mrs. Mary Catherwood has made her name well +known in romantic fiction. Miss Edith Wyatt is a talent, newly known, of +the finest quality in minor fiction; Mr. Robert Herrick, Mr. Will Payne +in their novels, and Mr. George Ade and Mr. Peter Dump in their satires +form with those named a group not to be matched elsewhere in the country. +It would be hard to match among our critical journals the 'Dial' of +Chicago; and with a fair amount of publishing in a sort of books often as +good within as they are uncommonly pretty without, Chicago has a claim to +rank with our first literary centres. + +It is certainly to be reckoned not so very far below London, which, with +Mr. Henry James, Mr. Harry Harland, and Mr. Bret Harte, seems to me an +American literary centre worthy to be named with contemporary Boston. +Which is our chief literary centre, however, I am not, after all, ready +to say. When I remember Mr. G. W. Cable, at Northampton, Massachusetts, +I am shaken in all my preoccupations; when I think of Mark Twain, it +seems to me that our greatest literary centre is just now at Riverdale- +on-the-Hudson. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Leaven, but not for so large a lump +Mark Twain +Not lack of quality but quantity of the quality +Our deeply incorporated civilization + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of American Literary Centers, +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Standard Household-Effect Company + +by William Dean Howells + + +THE STANDARD HOUSEHOLD-EFFECT COMPANY + + +My friend came in the other day, before we had left town, and looked +round at the appointments of the room in their summer shrouds, and said, +with a faint sigh, "I see you have had the eternal-womanly with you, +too." + + + + +I. + +"Isn't the eternal-womanly everywhere? What has happened to you?" +I asked. + +"I wish you would come to my house and see. Every rug has been up for a +month, and we have been living on bare floors. Everything that could be +tied up has been tied up, everything that could be sewed up has been +sewed up. Everything that could be moth-balled and put away in chests +has been moth-balled and put away. Everything that could be taken down +has been taken down. Bags with draw-strings at their necks have been +pulled over the chandeliers and tied. The pictures have been hidden in +cheese-cloth, and the mirrors veiled in gauze so that I cannot see my own +miserable face anywhere." + +"Come! That's something." + +"Yes, it's something. But I have been thinking this matter over very +seriously, and I believe it is going from bad to worse. I have heard +praises of the thorough housekeeping of our grandmothers, but the +housekeeping of their granddaughters is a thousand times more intense." + +"Do you really believe that?" I asked. "And if you do, what of it?" + +"Simply this, that if we don't put a stop to it, at the gait it's going, +it will put a stop to the eternal-womanly." + +"I suppose we should hate that." + +"Yes, it would be bad. It would be very bad; and I have been turning the +matter over in my mind, and studying out a remedy." + +"The highest type of philosopher turns a thing over in his mind and lets +some one else study out a remedy." + +"Yes, I know. I feel that I may be wrong in my processes, but I am sure +that I am right in my results. The reason why our grandmothers could be +such good housekeepers without danger of putting a stop to the eternal- +womanly was that they had so few things to look after in their houses. +Life was indefinitely simpler with them. But the modern improvements, +as we call them, have multiplied the cares of housekeeping without +subtracting its burdens, as they were expected to do. Every novel +convenience and comfort, every article of beauty and luxury, every means +of refinement and enjoyment in our houses, has been so much added to the +burdens of housekeeping, and the granddaughters have inherited from the +grandmothers an undiminished conscience against rust and the moth, which +will not suffer them to forget the least duty they owe to the naughtiest +of their superfluities." + +"Yes, I see what you mean," I said. This is what one usually says when +one does not quite know what another is driving at; but in this case I +really did know, or thought I did. "That survival of the conscience is a +very curious thing, especially in our eternal-womanly. I suppose that +the North American conscience was evolved from the rudimental European +conscience during the first centuries of struggle here, and was more or +less religious and economical in its origin. But with the advance of +wealth and the decay of faith among us, the conscience seems to be simply +conscientious, or, if it is otherwise, it is social. The eternal-womanly +continues along the old lines of housekeeping from an atavistic impulse, +and no one woman can stop because all the other women are going on. It +is something in the air, or something in the blood. Perhaps it is +something in both." + +"Yes," said my friend, quite as I had said already, "I see what you mean. +But I think it is in the air more than in the blood. I was in Paris, +about this time last year, perhaps because I was the only thing in my +house that had not been swathed in cheese-cloth, or tied up in a bag with +drawstrings, or rolled up with moth-balls and put away in chests. At any +rate, I was there. One day I left my wife in New York carefully tagging +three worn-out feather dusters, and putting them into a pillow-case, and +tagging it, and putting the pillow-case into a camphorated self-sealing +paper sack, and tagging it; and another day I was in Paris, dining at the +house of a lady whom I asked how she managed with the things in her house +when she went into the country for the summer. 'Leave them just as they +are,' she said. 'But what about the dust and the moths, and the rust and +the tarnish?' She said, 'Why, the things would have to be all gone over +when I came back in the autumn, anyway, and why should I give myself +double trouble?' I asked her if she didn't even roll anything up and put +it away in closets, and she said: 'Oh, you mean that old American horror +of getting ready to go away. I used to go through all that at home, too, +but I shouldn't dream of it here. In the first place, there are no +closets in the house, and I couldn't put anything away if I wanted to. +And really nothing happens. I scatter some Persian powder along the +edges of things, and under the lower shelves, and in the dim corners, and +I pull down the shades. When I come back in the fall I have the powder +swept out, and the shades pulled up, and begin living again. Suppose a +little dust has got in, and the moths have nibbled a little here and +there? The whole damage would not amount to half the cost of putting +everything away and taking everything out, not to speak of the weeks of +discomfort, and the wear and tear of spirit. No, thank goodness--I left +American housekeeping in America.' I asked her: 'But if you went back?' +and she gave a sigh, and said: + +"'I suppose I should go back to that, along with all the rest. Everybody +does it there.' So you see," my friend concluded, "it's in the air, +rather than the blood." + +"Then your famous specific is that our eternal-womanly should go and live +in Paris?" + +"Oh, dear, not" said my friend. "Nothing so drastic as all that. Merely +the extinction of household property." + +"I see what you mean," I said. "But--what do you mean?" + +"Simply that hired houses, such as most of us live in, shall all be +furnished houses, and that the landlord shall own every stick in them, +and every appliance down to the last spoon and ultimate towel. There +must be no compromise, by which the tenant agrees to provide his own +linen and silver; that would neutralize the effect I intend by the +expropriation of the personal proprietor, if that says what I mean. It +must be in the lease, with severe penalties against the tenant in case of +violation, that the landlord into furnish everything in perfect order +when the tenant comes in, and is to put everything in perfect order when +the tenant goes out, and the tenant is not to touch anything, to clean +it, or dust it, or roll it up in moth-balls and put it away in chests. +All is to be so sacredly and inalienably the property of the landlord +that it shall constitute a kind of trespass if the tenant attempts to +close the house for the summer or to open it for the winter in the usual +way that houses are now closed and opened. Otherwise my scheme would be +measurably vitiated." + +"I see what you mean," I murmured. "Well?" + +"Some years ago," my friend went on, "when we came home from Europe, we +left our furniture in storage for a time, while we rather drifted about, +and did not settle anywhere in particular. During that interval my wife +opened and closed five furnished houses in two years." + +"And she has lived to tell the tale?" + +"She has lived to tell it a great many times. She can hardly be kept +from telling it yet. But it is my belief that, although she brought to +the work all the anguish of a quickened conscience, under the influence +of the American conditions she had returned to, she suffered far less in +her encounters with either of those furnished houses than she now does +with our own furniture when she shuts up our house in the summer, and +opens it for the winter. But if there had been a clause in the lease, as +there should have been, forbidding her to put those houses in order when +she left them, life would have been simply a rapture. Why, in Europe +custom almost supplies the place of statute in such cases, and you come +and go so lightly in and out of furnished houses that you do not mind +taking them for a month, or a few weeks. We are very far behind in this +matter, but I have no doubt that if we once came to do it on any extended +scale we should do it, as we do everything else we attempt, more +perfectly than any other people in the world. You see what I mean?" + +"I am not sure that I do. But go on." + +"I would invert the whole Henry George principle, and I would tax +personal property of the household kind so heavily that it would +necessarily pass out of private hands; I would make its tenure so costly +that it would be impossible to any but the very rich, who are also the +very wicked, and ought to suffer." + +"Oh, come, now!" + +"I refer you to your Testament. In the end, all household property would +pass into the hands of the state." + +"Aren't you getting worse and worse?" + +"Oh, I'm not supposing there won't be a long interval when household +property will be in the hands of powerful monopolies, and many +millionaires will be made by letting it out to middle-class tenants like +you and me, along with the houses we hire of them. I have no doubt that +there will be a Standard Household-Effect Company, which will extend its +relations to Europe, and get the household effects of the whole world +into its grasp. It will be a fearful oppression, and we shall probably +groan under it for generations, but it will liberate us from our personal +ownership of them, and from the far more crushing weight of the moth- +ball. We shall suffer, but--" + +"I see what you mean," I hastened to interrupt at this point, "but these +suggestive remarks of yours are getting beyond--Do you think you could +defer the rest of your incompleted sentence for a week?" + +"Well, for not more than a week," said my friend, with an air of +discomfort in his arrest. + + + + +II. + +--"We shall not suffer so much as we do under our present system," said +my friend, completing his sentence after the interruption of a week. By +this time we had both left town, and were taking up the talk again on the +veranda of a sea-side hotel. "As for the eternal-womanly, it will be her +salvation from herself. When once she is expropriated from her household +effects, and forbidden under severe penalties from meddling with those of +the Standard Household-Effect Company, she will begin to get back her +peace of mind, and be the same blessing she was before she began +housekeeping." + +"That may all very well be," I assented, though I did not believe it, and +I found something almost too fantastical in my friend's scheme. "But +when we are expropriated from all our dearest belongings, what is to +become of our tender and sacred associations with them?" + +"What has become of devotion to the family gods, and the worship of +ancestors? Once the graves of the dead were at the door of the living, +so that libations might be conveniently poured out on them, and the +ground where they lay was inalienable because it was supposed to be used +by their spirits as well as their bodies. A man could not sell the +bones, because he could not sell the ghosts, of his kindred. By-and by, +when religion ceased to be domestic and became social, and the service of +the gods was carried on in temples common to all, it was found that the +tombs of one's forefathers could be sold without violence to their +spectres. I dare say it wouldn't be different in the case of our tender +and sacred associations with tables and chairs, pots and pans, beds and +bedding, pictures and bric-a-brac. We have only to evolve a little +further. In fact we have already evolved far beyond the point that +troubles you. Most people in modern towns and cities have changed their +domiciles from ten to twenty times during their lives, and have not paid +the slightest attention to the tender and sacred associations connected +with them. I don't suppose you would say that a man has no such +associations with the house that has sheltered him, while he has them +with the stuff that has furnished it?" + +"No, I shouldn't say that." + +"If anything, the house should be dearer than the household gear. Yet at +each remove we drag a lengthening chain of tables, chairs, side-boards, +portraits, landscapes, bedsteads, washstands, stoves, kitchen utensils, +and bric-a-brac after us, because, as my wife says, we cannot bear to +part with them. At several times in our own lives we have accumulated +stuff enough to furnish two or three house and have paid a pretty stiff +house-rent in the form of storage for the overflow. Why, I am doing that +very thing now! Aren't you?" + +"I am--in a certain degree," I assented. + +"We all are, we well-to-do people, as we think ourselves. Once my wife +and I revolted by a common impulse against the ridiculous waste and +slavery of the thing. We went to the storage warehouse and sent three or +four vanloads of the rubbish to the auctioneer. Some of the pieces we +had not seen for years, and as each was hauled out for us to inspect and +decide upon, we condemned it to the auction-block with shouts of +rejoicing. Tender and sacred associations! We hadn't had such light +hearts since we had put everything in storage and gone to Europe +indefinitely as we had when we left those things to be carted out of our +lives forever. Not one had been a pleasure to us; the sight of every one +had been a pang. All we wanted was never to set eyes on them again." + +"I must say you have disposed of the tender and sacred associations +pretty effectually, so far as they relate to things in storage. But the +things that we have in daily use?" + +"It is exactly the same with them. Why should they be more to us than +the floors and walls of the houses we move in and move out of with no +particular pathos? And I think we ought not to care for them, certainly +not to the point of letting them destroy our eternal-womanly with the +anxiety she feels for them. She is really much more precious, if she +could but realize it, than anything she swathes in cheese-cloth or wraps +up with moth-balls. The proof of the fact that the whole thing is a +piece of mere sentimentality is that we may live in a furnished house for +years, amid all the accidents of birth and death, joy and sorrow, and yet +not form the slightest attachment to the furniture. Why should we have +tender and sacred associations with a thing we have bought, and not with +a thing we have hired?" + +"I confess, I don't know. And do you really think we could liberate +ourselves from our belongings if they didn't belong to us? Wouldn't the +eternal-womanly still keep putting them away for summer and taking them +out for winter?" + +"At first, yes, there might be some such mechanical action in her; but it +would be purely mechanical, and it would soon cease. When the Standard +Household-Effect Company came down on the temporal-manly with a penalty +for violation of the lease, the eternal-womanly would see the folly of +her ways and stop; for the eternal-womanly is essentially economical, +whatever we say about the dressmaker's bills; and the very futilities of +putting away and taking out, that she now wears herself to a thread with, +are founded in the instinct of saving." + +"But," I asked, "wouldn't our household belongings lose a good deal of +character if they didn't belong to us? Wouldn't our domestic interiors +become dreadfully impersonal?" + +"How many houses now have character-personality? Most people let the +different dealers choose for them, as it is. Why not let the Standard +Household-Effect Company, and finally the state? I am sure that either +would choose much more wisely than people choose for themselves, in the +few cases where they even seem to choose for themselves. In most +interiors the appointments are without fitness, taste, or sense; they are +the mere accretions of accident in the greater number of cases; where +they are the result of design, they are worse. I see what you mean by +character and personality in them. You mean the sort of madness that let +itself loose a few years ago in what was called household art, and has +since gone to make the junk-shops hideous. Each of the eternal-womanly +was supposed suddenly to have acquired a talent for decoration and a gift +for the selection and arrangement of furniture, and each began to stamp +herself upon our interiors. One painted a high-shouldered stone bottle +with a stork and stood it at the right corner of the mantel on a scarf; +another gilded the bottle and stood it at the left corner, and tied the +scarf through its handle. One knotted a ribbon around the arm of a +chair; another knotted it around the leg. In a day, an hour, a moment, +the chairs suddenly became angular, cushionless, springless; and the +sofas were stood across corners, or parallel with the fireplace, in +slants expressive of the personality of the presiding genius. The walls +became all frieze and dado; and instead of the simple and dignified +ugliness of the impersonal period our interiors abandoned themselves to a +hysterical chaos, full of character. Some people had their doors painted +black, and the daughter or mother of the house then decorated them with +morning-glories. I saw such a door in a house I looked at the other day, +thinking I might hire it. The sight of that black door and its morning- +glories made me wish to turn aside and live with the cattle, as Walt +Whitman says. No, the less we try to get personality and character into +our household effects the more beautiful and interesting they will be. +As soon as we put the Standard Household-Effect Company in possession and +render it a relentless monopoly, it will corrupt a competent architect +and decorator in each of our large towns and cities, and when you hire a +new house these will be sent to advise with the eternal-womanly +concerning its appointments, and tell her what she wants, and what she +will like; for at present the eternal womanly, as soon as she has got a +thing she wants, begins to hate it. The company's agents will begin by +convincing her that she does not need half the things she has lumbered up +her house with, and that every useless thing is an ugly thing, even in +the region of pure aesthetics. I once asked an Italian painter if he did +not think a certain nobly imagined drawing-room was fine, and he said +'SI. Ma troppa roba.' There were too many rugs, tables, chairs, sofas, +pictures; vases, statues, chandeliers. 'Troppa roba' is the vice of all +our household furnishing, and it will be the death of the eternal-womanly +if it is not stopped. But the corrupt agents of a giant monopoly will +teach the eternal-womanly something of the wise simplicity of the South, +and she will end by returning to the ideal of housekeeping as it prevails +among the Latin races, whom it began with, whom civilization began with. +What of a harmless, necessary moth or two, or even a few fleas?" + +"That might be all very well as far as furniture and carpets and curtains +are concerned," I said, "but surely you wouldn't apply it to pictures and +objects of art?" + +"I would apply it to them first of all and above all," rejoined my +friend, hardily. "Among all the people who buy and own such things there +is not one in a thousand who has any real taste or feeling for them, and +the objects they choose are generally such as can only deprave and +degrade them further. The pictures, statues, and vases supplied by the +Standard Household-Effect Company would be selected by agents with a real +sense of art, and a knowledge of it. When the house-letting and house- +furnishing finally passed into the hands of the state, these things would +be lent from the public galleries, or from immense municipal stores for +the purpose." + +"And I suppose you would have ancestral portraits supplied along with the +other pictures?" I sneered. + +"Ancestral portraits, of course," said my friend, with unruffled temper. +"So few people have ancestors of their own that they will be very glad to +have ancestral portraits chosen for them out of the collections of the +company or the state. The agents of the one, or the officers of the +other, will study the existing type of family face, and will select +ancestors and ancestresses whose modelling, coloring, and expression +agree with it, and will keep in view the race and nationality of the +family whose ancestral portraits are to be supplied, so that there shall +be no chance of the grossly improbable effect which ancestral portraits +now have in many cases. Yes, I see no flaw in the scheme," my friend +concluded, "and no difficulty that can't be easily overcome. We must +alienate our household furniture, and make it so sensitively and +exclusively the property of some impersonal agency--company or community, +I don't care which--that any care of it shall be a sort of crime; any +sense of responsibility for its preservation a species of incivism +punishable by fine or imprisonment. This, and nothing short of it, will +be the salvation of the eternal-womanly." + +"And the perdition of something even more precious than that!" + +"What can be more precious?" + +"Individuality." + +"My dear friend," demanded my visitor, who had risen, and whom I was +gradually edging to the door, "do you mean to say there is any +individuality in such things now? What have we been saying about +character?" + +"Ah, I see what you mean," I said. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARK: + +As soon as she has got a thing she wants, begins to hate it +Heard praises of the thorough housekeeping of our grandmothers +Yes, I see what you mean + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Standard Household Effect Co. +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer + +by William Dean Howells + + + +STACCATO NOTES OF A VANISHED SUMMER + + +Monday afternoon the storm which had been beating up against the +southeasterly wind nearly all day thickened, fold upon fold, in the +northwest. The gale increased, and blackened the harbor and whitened the +open sea beyond, where sail after sail appeared round the reef of +Whaleback Light, and ran in a wild scamper for the safe anchorages +within. + +Since noon cautious coasters of all sorts had been dropping in with a +casual air; the coal schooners and barges had rocked and nodded knowingly +to one another, with their taper and truncated masts, on the breast of +the invisible swell; and the flock of little yachts and pleasure-boats +which always fleck the bay huddled together in the safe waters. The +craft that came scurrying in just before nightfall were mackerel seiners +from Gloucester. They were all of one graceful shape and one size; they +came with all sail set, taking the waning light like sunshine on their +flying-jibs, and trailing each two dories behind them, with their seines +piled in black heaps between the thwarts. As soon as they came inside +their jibs weakened and fell, and the anchor-chains rattled from their +bows. Before the dark hid them we could have counted sixty or seventy +ships in the harbor, and as the night fell they improvised a little +Venice under the hill with their lights, which twinkled rhythmically, +like the lamps in the basin of St. Mark, between the Maine and New +Hampshire coasts. + +There was a dash of rain, and we thought the storm had begun; but that +ended it, as so many times this summer a dash of rain has ended a storm. +The morning came veiled in a fog that kept the shipping at anchor through +the day; but the next night the weather cleared. We woke to the clucking +of tackle, and saw the whole fleet standing dreamily out to sea. When +they were fairly gone, the summer, which had held aloof in dismay of the +sudden cold, seemed to return and possess the land again; and the +succession of silver days and crystal nights resumed the tranquil round +which we thought had ceased. + + + + +I. + +One says of every summer, when it is drawing near its end, "There never +was such a summer"; but if the summer is one of those which slip from the +feeble hold of elderly hands, when the days of the years may be reckoned +with the scientific logic of the insurance tables and the sad conviction +of the psalmist, one sees it go with a passionate prescience of never +seeing its like again such as the younger witness cannot know. Each new +summer of the few left must be shorter and swifter than the last: its +Junes will be thirty days long, and its Julys and Augusts thirty-one, in +compliance with the almanac; but the days will be of so small a compass +that fourteen of them will rattle round in a week of the old size like +shrivelled peas in a pod. + +To be sure they swell somewhat in the retrospect, like the same peas put +to soak; and I am aware now of some June days of those which we first +spent at Kittery Point this year, which were nearly twenty-four hours +long. Even the days of declining years linger a little here, where there +is nothing to hurry them, and where it is pleasant to loiter, and muse +beside the sea and shore, which are so netted together at Kittery Point +that they hardly know themselves apart. The days, whatever their length, +are divided, not into hours, but into mails. They begin, without regard +to the sun, at eight o'clock, when the first mail comes with a few +letters and papers which had forgotten themselves the night before. At +half-past eleven the great mid-day mail arrives; at four o'clock there is +another indifferent and scattering post, much like that at eight in the +morning; and at seven the last mail arrives with the Boston evening +papers and the New York morning papers, to make you forget any letters +you were looking for. The opening of the mid-day mail is that which most +throngs with summer folks the little postoffice under the elms, opposite +the weather-beaten mansion of Sir William Pepperrell; but the evening +mail attracts a large and mainly disinterested circle of natives. The +day's work on land and sea is then over, and the village leisure, perched +upon fences and stayed against house walls, is of a picturesqueness which +we should prize if we saw it abroad, and which I am not willing to slight +on our own ground. + + + + +II. + +The type is mostly of a seafaring brown, a complexion which seems to be +inherited rather than personally acquired; for the commerce of Kittery +Point perished long ago, and the fishing fleets that used to fit out from +her wharves have almost as long ago passed to Gloucester. All that is +left of the fishing interest is the weir outside which supplies, fitfully +and uncertainly, the fish shipped fresh to the nearest markets. But in +spite of this the tint taken from the suns and winds of the sea lingers +on the local complexion; and the local manner is that freer and easier +manner of people who have known other coasts, and are in some sort +citizens of the world. It is very different from the inland New England +manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the +clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the +heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the +deck in it. + +Nothing could be better suited to progress through the long village, +which rises and sinks beside the shore like a landscape with its sea-legs +on; and nothing could be more charming and friendly than this village. +It is quite untainted as yet by the summer cottages which have covered so +much of the coast, and made it look as if the aesthetic suburbs of New +York and Boston had gone ashore upon it. There are two or three old- +fashioned summer hotels; but the summer life distinctly fails to +characterize the place. The people live where their forefathers have +lived for two hundred and fifty years; and for the century since the +baronial domain of Sir William was broken up and his possessions +confiscated by the young Republic, they have dwelt in small red or white +houses on their small holdings along the slopes and levels of the low +hills beside the water, where a man may pass with the least inconvenience +and delay from his threshold to his gunwale. Not all the houses are +small; some are spacious and ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns; but +most are simple and homelike. Their gardens, following the example of +Sir William's vanished pleasaunce, drop southward to the shore, where the +lobster-traps and the hen-coops meet in unembarrassed promiscuity. But +the fish-flakes which once gave these inclines the effect of terraced +vineyards have passed as utterly as the proud parterres of the old +baronet; and Kittery Point no longer "makes" a cod or a haddock for the +market. + +Three groceries, a butcher shop, and a small variety store study the few +native wants; and with a little money one may live in as great real +comfort here as for much in a larger place. The street takes care of +itself; the seafaring housekeeping of New England is not of the +insatiable Dutch type which will not spare the stones of the highway; but +within the houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. The other day I +found myself in a kitchen where the stove shone like oxidized silver; the +pump and sink were clad in oilcloth as with blue tiles; the walls were +papered; the stainless floor was strewn with home-made hooked and braided +rugs; and I felt the place so altogether too good for me that I pleaded +to stay there for the transaction of my business, lest a sharper sense of +my unfitness should await me in the parlor. + +The village, with scarcely an interval of farm-lands, stretches four +miles along the water-side to Portsmouth; but it seems to me that just at +the point where our lines have fallen there is the greatest concentration +of its character. This has apparently not been weakened, it has been +accented, by the trolley-line which passes through its whole length, with +gayly freighted cars coming and going every half-hour. I suppose they +are not longer than other trolley-cars, but they each affect me like a +procession. They are cheerful presences by day, and by night they light +up the dim, winding street with the flare of their electric bulbs, and +bring to the country a vision of city splendor upon terms that do not +humiliate or disquiet. During July and August they are mostly filled +with summer folks from a great summer resort beyond us, and their lights +reveal the pretty fashions of hats and gowns in all the charm of the +latest lines and tints. But there is an increasing democracy in these +splendors, and one might easily mistake a passing excursionist from some +neighboring inland town, or even a local native with the instinct of +clothes, for a social leader from York Harbor. + +With the falling leaf, the barge-like open cars close up into well-warmed +saloons, and falter to hourly intervals in their course. But we are +still far from the falling leaf; we are hardly come to the blushing or +fading leaf. Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn; +the ancient Pepperrell elms fling down showers of the baronet's fairy +gold in the September gusts; the sumacs and the blackberry vines are +ablaze along the tumbling black stone walls; but it is still summer, it +is still summer: I cannot allow otherwise! + + + + +III. + +The other day I visited for the first time (in the opulent indifference +of one who could see it any time) the stately tomb of the first +Pepperrell, who came from Cornwall to these coasts, and settled finally +at Kittery Point. He laid there the foundations of the greatest fortune +in colonial New England, which revolutionary New England seized and +dispersed, as I cannot but feel, a little ruthlessly. In my personal +quality I am of course averse to all great fortunes; and in my civic +capacity I am a patriot. But still I feel a sort of grace in wealth a +century old, and if I could now have my way, I would not have had their +possessions reft from those kindly Pepperrells, who could hardly help +being loyal to the fountain of their baronial honors. Sir William, +indeed; had helped, more than any other man, to bring the people who +despoiled him to a national consciousness. If he did not imagine, he +mainly managed the plucky New England expedition against Louisbourg at +Cape Breton a half century before the War of Independence; and his +splendid success in rending that stronghold from the French taught the +colonists that they were Americans, and need be Englishmen no longer than +they liked. His soldiers were of the stamp of all succeeding American +armies, and his leadership was of the neighborly and fatherly sort +natural to an amiable man who knew most of them personally. He was +already the richest man in America, and his grateful king made him a +baronet; but he came contentedly back to Kittery, and took up his old +life in a region where he had the comfortable consideration of an +unrivalled magnate. He built himself the dignified mansion which still +stands across the way from the post-office on Kittery Point, within an +easy stone's cast of the far older house, where his father wedded Margery +Bray, when he came, a thrifty young Welsh fisherman, from the Isles of +Shoals, and established his family on Kittery. The Bray house had been +the finest in the region a hundred years before the Pepperrell mansion +was built; it still remembers its consequence in the panelling and +wainscoting of the large, square parlor where the young people were +married and in the elaborate staircase cramped into the little, square +hall; and the Bray fortune helped materially to swell the wealth of the +Pepperrells. + +I do not know that I should care now to have a man able to ride thirty +miles on his own land; but I do not mind Sir William's having done it +here a hundred and fifty years ago; and I wish the confiscations had left +his family, say, about a mile of it. They could now, indeed, enjoy it +only in the collateral branches, for all Sir William's line is extinct. +The splendid mansion which he built his daughter is in alien hands, and +the fine old house which Lady Pepperrell built herself after his death +belongs to the remotest of kinsmen. A group of these, the descendants of +a prolific sister of the baronet, meets every year at Kittery Point as +the Pepperrell Association, and, in a tent hard by the little grove of +drooping spruces which shade the admirable renaissance cenotaph of Sir +William's father, cherishes the family memories with due American +"proceedings." + + + + +IV. + +The meeting of the Pepperrell Association was by no means the chief +excitement of our summer. In fact, I do not know that it was an +excitement at all; and I am sure it was not comparable to the presence of +our naval squadron, when for four days the mighty dragon and kraken +shapes of steel, which had crumbled the decrepit pride of Spain in the +fight at Santiago, weltered in our peaceful waters, almost under my +window. + +I try now to dignify them with handsome epithets; but while they were +here I had moments of thinking they looked like a lot of whited +locomotives, which had broken through from some trestle, in a recent +accident, and were waiting the offices of a wrecking-train. The poetry +of the man-of-war still clings to the "three-decker out of the foam" of +the past; it is too soon yet for it to have cast a mischievous halo about +the modern battle-ship; and I looked at the New York and the Texas and +the Brooklyn and the rest, and thought, "Ah, but for you, and our need of +proving your dire efficiency, perhaps we could have got on with the +wickedness of Spanish rule in Cuba, and there had been no war!" Under my +reluctant eyes the great, dreadful spectacle of the Santiago fight +displayed itself in peaceful Kittery Harbor. I saw the Spanish ships +drive upon the reef where a man from Dover, New Hampshire, was camping in +a little wooden shanty unconscious; and I heard the dying screams of the +Spanish sailors, seethed and scalded within the steel walls of their own +wicked war-kettles. + +As for the guns, battle or no battle, our ships, like "kind Lieutenant +Belay of the 'Hot Cross-Bun'," seemed to be "banging away the whole day +long." They set a bad example to the dreamy old fort on the Newcastle +shore, which, till they came, only recollected itself to salute the +sunrise and sunset with a single gun; but which, under provocation of the +squadron, formed a habit of firing twenty or thirty times at noon. + +Other martial shows and noises were not so bad. I rather liked seeing +the morning drill of the marines and the bluejackets on the iron decks, +with the lively music that went with it. The bugle calls and the bells +were charming; the week's wash hung out to dry had its picturesqueness by +day, and by night the spectral play of the search-lights along the waves +and shores, and against the startled skies, was even more impressive. +There was a band which gave us every evening the airs of the latest coon- +songs, and the national anthems which we have borrowed from various +nations; and yes, I remember the white squadron kindly, though I was so +glad to have it go, and let us lapse back into our summer silence and +calm. It was (I do not mind saying now) a majestic sight to see those +grotesque monsters gather themselves together, and go wallowing, one +after another, out of the harbor, and drop behind the ledge of Whaleback +Light, as if they had sunk into the sea. + + +V. + +A deep peace fell upon us when they went, and it must have been at this +most receptive moment, when all our sympathies were adjusted in a mood of +hospitable expectation, that Jim appeared. + +Jim was, and still is, and I hope will long be, a cat; but unless one has +lived at Kittery Point, and realized, from observation and experience, +what a leading part cats may play in society, one cannot feel the full +import of this fact. Not only has every house in Kittery its cat, but +every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and +young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a +whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a +kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in +supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of +Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it +plainly, and they prefer to have the bones taken out for them, though +they do not insist upon that point. + +At least, Jim never did so from the time when he first scented the odor +of delicate young mackerel in the evening air about our kitchen, and +dropped in upon the maids there with a fine casual effect of being merely +out for a walk, and feeling it a neighborly thing to call. He had on a +silver collar, engraved with his name and surname, which offered itself +for introduction like a visiting-card. He was too polite to ask himself +to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed to the family +circle, he formed the habit of finding himself with us at breakfast and +supper, when he sauntered in like one who should say, "Did I smell fish?" +but would not go further in the way of hinting. + +He had no need to do so. He was made at home, and freely invited to our +best not only in fish, but in chicken, for which he showed a nice taste, +and in sweetcorn, for which he revealed a most surprising fondness when +it was cut from the cob for him. After he had breakfasted or supped he +gracefully suggested that he was thirsty by climbing to the table where +the water-pitcher stood and stretching his fine feline head towards it. +When he had lapped up his saucer of water; he marched into the parlor, +and riveted the chains upon our fondness by taking the best chair and +going to sleep in it in attitudes of Egyptian, of Assyrian majesty. +His arts were few or none; he rather disdained to practise any; he +completed our conquest by maintaining himself simply a fascinating +presence; and perhaps we spoiled Jim. It is certain that he came under +my window at two o'clock one night, and tried the kitchen door. It +resisted his efforts to get in, and then Jim began to use language which +I had never heard from the lips of a cat before, and seldom from the lips +of a man. I will not repeat it; enough that it carried to the listener +the conviction that Jim was not sober. Where he could have got his +liquor in the totally abstinent State of Maine I could not positively +say, but probably of some sailor who had brought it from the neighboring +New Hampshire coast. There could be no doubt, however, that Jim was +drunk; and a dash from the water-pitcher seemed the only thing for him. +The water did not touch him, but he started back in surprise and grief, +and vanished into the night without a word. + +His feelings must have been deeply wounded, for it was almost a week +before he came near us again; and then I think that nothing but young +lobster would have brought him. He forgave us finally, and made us of +his party in the quarrel he began gradually to have with the large yellow +cat of a next-door neighbor. This culminated one afternoon, after a long +exchange of mediaeval defiance and insult, in a battle upon a bed of rag- +weed, with wild shrieks of rage, and prodigious feats of ground and lofty +tumbling. It seemed to our anxious eyes that Jim was getting the worst +of it; but when we afterwards visited the battle-field and picked up +several tufts of blond fur, we were in a doubt which was afterwards +heightened by Jim's invasion of the yellow cat's territory, where he +stretched himself defiantly upon the grass and seemed to be challenging +the yellow cat to come out and try to put him off the premises. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns +Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn +Houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness +Leading part cats may play in society +Picturesqueness which we should prize if we saw it abroad +Has the lurch and the sway of the deck in it + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Notes of a Vanished Summer +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Short Stories and Essays + +by William Dean Howells + + +CONTENTS: + Worries of a Winter Walk + Summer Isles of Eden + Wild Flowers of the Asphalt + A Circus in the Suburbs + A She Hamlet + The Midnight Platoon + The Beach at Rockaway + Sawdust in the Arena + At a Dime Museum + American Literature in Exile + The Horse Show + The Problem of the Summer + Aesthetic New York Fifty-odd Years Ago + From New York into New England + The Art of the Adsmith + The Psychology of Plagiarism + Puritanism in American Fiction + The What and How in Art + Politics in American Authors + Storage + "Floating down the River on the O-hi-o" + + + + +WORRIES OF A WINTER WALK + +The other winter, as I was taking a morning walk down to the East River, +I came upon a bit of our motley life, a fact of our piebald civilization, +which has perplexed me from time to time, ever since, and which I wish +now to leave with the reader, for his or her more thoughtful +consideration. + + + + +I. + +The morning was extremely cold. It professed to be sunny, and there was +really some sort of hard glitter in the air, which, so far from being +tempered by this effulgence, seemed all the stonier for it. Blasts of +frigid wind swept the streets, and buffeted each other in a fury of +resentment when they met around the corners. Although I was passing +through a populous tenement-house quarter, my way was not hindered by the +sports of the tenement-house children, who commonly crowd one from the +sidewalks; no frowzy head looked out over the fire-escapes; there were no +peddlers' carts or voices in the road-way; not above three or four shawl- +hooded women cowered out of the little shops with small purchases in +their hands; not so many tiny girls with jugs opened the doors of the +beer saloons. The butchers' windows were painted with patterns of frost, +through which I could dimly see the frozen meats hanging like hideous +stalactites from the roof. When I came to the river, I ached in sympathy +with the shipping painfully atilt on the rocklike surface of the brine, +which broke against the piers, and sprayed itself over them like showers +of powdered quartz. + +But it was before I reached this final point that I received into my +consciousness the moments of the human comedy which have been an +increasing burden to it. Within a block of the river I met a child so +small that at first I almost refused to take any account of her, until +she appealed to my sense of humor by her amusing disproportion to the +pail which she was lugging in front of her with both of her little +mittened hands. I am scrupulous about mittens, though I was tempted to +write of her little naked hands, red with the pitiless cold. This would +have been more effective, but it would not have been true, and the truth +obliges me to own that she had a stout, warm-looking knit jacket on. +The pail-which was half her height and twice her bulk-was filled to +overflowing with small pieces of coal and coke, and if it had not been +for this I might have taken her for a child of the better classes, she +was so comfortably clad. But in that case she would have had to be +fifteen or sixteen years old, in order to be doing so efficiently and +responsibly the work which, as the child of the worse classes, she was +actually doing at five or six. We must, indeed, allow that the early +self-helpfulness of such children is very remarkable, and all the more so +because they grow up into men and women so stupid that, according to the +theories of all polite economists, they have to have their discontent +with their conditions put into their heads by malevolent agitators. + +From time to time this tiny creature put down her heavy burden to rest; +it was, of course, only relatively heavy; a man would have made nothing +of it. From time to time she was forced to stop and pick up the bits of +coke that tumbled from her heaping pail. She could not consent to lose +one of them, and at last, when she found she could not make all of them +stay on the heap, she thriftily tucked them into the pockets of her +jacket, and trudged sturdily on till she met a boy some years older, who +planted himself in her path and stood looking at her, with his hands in +his pockets. I do not say he was a bad boy, but I could see in his +furtive eye that she was a sore temptation to him. The chance to have +fun with her by upsetting her bucket, and scattering her coke about till +she cried with vexation, was one which might not often present itself, +and I do not know what made him forego it, but I know that he did, and +that he finally passed her, as I have seen a young dog pass a little cat, +after having stopped it, and thoughtfully considered worrying it. + +I turned to watch the child out of sight, and when I faced about towards +the river again I received the second instalment of my present +perplexity. A cart, heavily laden with coke, drove out of the coal-yard +which I now perceived I had come to, and after this cart followed two +brisk old women, snugly clothed and tightly tucked in against the cold +like the child, who vied with each other in catching up the lumps of coke +that were jolted from the load, and filling their aprons with them; such +old women, so hale, so spry, so tough and tireless, with the withered +apples red in their cheeks, I have not often seen. They may have been +about sixty years, or sixty-five, the time of life when most women are +grandmothers and are relegated on their merits to the cushioned seats of +their children's homes, softly silk-gowned and lace-capped, dear visions +of lilac and lavender, to be loved and petted by their grandchildren. +The fancy can hardly put such sweet ladies in the place of those nimble +beldams, who hopped about there in the wind-swept street, plucking up +their day's supply of firing from the involuntary bounty of the cart. +Even the attempt is unseemly, and whether mine is at best but a feeble +fancy, not bred to strenuous feats of any kind, it fails to bring them +before me in that figure. I cannot imagine ladies doing that kind of +thing; I can only imagine women who had lived hard and worked hard all +their lives doing it; who had begun to fight with want from their +cradles, like that little one with the pail, and must fight without +ceasing to their graves. But I am not unreasonable; I understand and I +understood what I saw to be one of the things that must be, for the +perfectly good and sufficient reason that they always have been; and at +the moment I got what pleasure I could out of the stolid indifference of +the cart-driver, who never looked about him at the scene which interested +me, but jolted onward, leaving a trail of pungent odors from his pipe in +the freezing eddies of the air behind him. + + + + +II. + +It is still not at all, or not so much, the fact that troubles me; it is +what to do with the fact. The question began with me almost at once, or +at least as soon as I faced about and began to walk homeward with the +wind at my back. I was then so much more comfortable that the aesthetic +instinct thawed out in me, and I found myself wondering what use I could +make of what I had seen in the way of my trade. Should I have something +very pathetic, like the old grandmother going out day after day to pick +up coke for her sick daughter's freezing orphans till she fell sick +herself? What should I do with the family in that case? They could not +be left at that point, and I promptly imagined a granddaughter, a girl of +about eighteen, very pretty and rather proud, a sort of belle in her +humble neighborhood, who should take her grandmother's place. I decided +that I should have her Italian, because I knew something of Italians, and +could manage that nationality best, and I should call her Maddalena; +either Maddalena or Marina; Marina would be more Venetian, and I saw that +I must make her Venetian. Here I was on safe ground, and at once the +love-interest appeared to help me out. By virtue of the law of +contrasts; it appeared to me in the person of a Scandinavian lover, tall, +silent, blond, whom I at once felt I could do, from my acquaintance with +Scandinavian lovers in Norwegian novels. His name was Janssen, a good, +distinctive Scandinavian name; I do not know but it is Swedish; and I +thought he might very well be a Swede; I could imagine his manner from +that of a Swedish waitress we once had. + +Janssen--Jan Janssen, say-drove the coke-cart which Marina's grandmother +used to follow out of the coke-yard, to pick up the bits of coke as they +were jolted from it, and he had often noticed her with deep indifference. +At first he noticed Marina--or Nina, as I soon saw I must call her--with +the same unconcern; for in her grandmother's hood and jacket and check +apron, with her head held shamefacedly downward, she looked exactly like +the old woman. I thought I would have Nina make her self-sacrifice +rebelliously, as a girl like her would be apt to do, and follow the +cokecart with tears. This would catch Janssen's notice, and he would +wonder, perhaps with a little pang, what the old woman was crying about, +and then he would see that it was not the old woman. He would see that +it was Nina, and he would be in love with her at once, for she would not +only be very pretty, but he would know that she was good, if she were +willing to help her family in that way. + +He would respect the girl, in his dull, sluggish, Northern way. He would +do nothing to betray himself. But little by little he would begin to +befriend her. He would carelessly overload his cart before he left the +yard, so that the coke would fall from it more lavishly; and not only +this, but if he saw a stone or a piece of coal in the street he would +drive over it, so that more coke would be jolted from his load. + +Nina would get to watching for him. She must not notice him much at +first, except as the driver of the overladen, carelessly driven cart. +But after several mornings she must see that he is very strong and +handsome. Then, after several mornings more, their eyes must meet, her +vivid black eyes, with the tears of rage and shame in them, and his cold +blue eyes. This must be the climax; and just at this point I gave my +fancy a rest, while I went into a drugstore at the corner of Avenue B to +get my hands warm. + +They were abominably cold, even in my pockets, and I had suffered past +several places trying to think of an excuse to go in. I now asked the +druggist if he had something which I felt pretty sure he had not, and +this put him in the wrong, so that when we fell into talk he was very +polite. We agreed admirably about the hard times, and he gave way +respectfully when I doubted his opinion that the winters were getting +milder. I made him reflect that there was no reason for this, and that +it was probably an illusion from that deeper impression which all +experiences made on us in the past, when we were younger; I ought to say +that he was an elderly man, too. I said I fancied such a morning as this +was not very mild for people that had no fires, and this brought me back +again to Janssen and Marina, by way of the coke-cart. The thought of +them rapt me so far from the druggist that I listened to his answer with +a glazing eye, and did not know what he said. My hands had now got warm, +and I bade him good-morning with a parting regret, which he civilly +shared, that he had not the thing I had not wanted, and I pushed out +again into the cold, which I found not so bad as before. + +My hero and heroine were waiting for me there, and I saw that to be truly +modern, to be at once realistic and mystical, to have both delicacy and +strength, I must not let them get further acquainted with each other. +The affair must simply go on from day to day, till one morning Jan must +note that it was again the grandmother and no longer the girl who was +following his cart. She must be very weak from a long sickness--I was +not sure whether to have it the grippe or not, but I decided upon that +provisionally and she must totter after Janssen, so that he must get down +after a while to speak to her under pretence of arranging the tail-board +of his cart, or something of that kind; I did not care for the detail. +They should get into talk in the broken English which was the only +language they could have in common, and she should burst into tears, and +tell him that now Nina was sick; I imagined making this very simple, but +very touching, and I really made it so touching that it brought the lump +into my own throat, and I knew it would be effective with the reader. +Then I had Jan get back upon his cart, and drive stolidly on again, and +the old woman limp feebly after. + +There should not be any more, I decided, except that one very cold +morning, like that; Jan should be driving through that street, and should +be passing the door of the tenement house where Nina had lived, just as a +little procession should be issuing from it. The fact must be told in +brief sentences, with a total absence of emotionality. The last touch +must be Jan's cart turning the street corner with Jan's figure sharply +silhouetted against the clear, cold morning light. Nothing more. + +But it was at this point that another notion came into my mind, so antic, +so impish, so fiendish, that if there were still any Evil One, in a world +which gets on so poorly without him, I should attribute it to his +suggestion; and this was that the procession which Jan saw issuing from +the tenement-house door was not a funeral procession, as the reader will +have rashly fancied, but a wedding procession, with Nina at the head of +it, quite well again, and going to be married to the little brown youth +with ear-rings who had long had her heart. + +With a truly perverse instinct, I saw how strong this might be made, at +the fond reader's expense, to be sure, and how much more pathetic, in +such a case, the silhouetted figure on the coke-cart would really be. +I should, of course, make it perfectly plain that no one was to blame, +and that the whole affair had been so tacit on Jan's part that Nina might +very well have known nothing of his feeling for her. Perhaps at the very +end I might subtly insinuate that it was possible he might have had no +such feeling towards her as the reader had been led to imagine. + + + + +III. + +The question as to which ending I ought to have given my romance is what +has ever since remained to perplex me, and it is what has prevented my +ever writing it. Here is material of the best sort lying useless on my +hands, which, if I could only make up my mind, might be wrought into a +short story as affecting as any that wring our hearts in fiction; and I +think I could get something fairly unintelligible out of the broken +English of Jan and Nina's grandmother, and certainly something novel. +All that I can do now, however, is to put the case before the reader, and +let him decide for himself how it should end. + +The mere humanist, I suppose, might say, that I am rightly served for +having regarded the fact I had witnessed as material for fiction at all; +that I had no business to bewitch it with my miserable art; that I ought +to have spoken to that little child and those poor old women, and tried +to learn something of their lives from them, that I might offer my +knowledge again for the instruction of those whose lives are easy and +happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us. I own there is +something in this, but then, on the other hand, I have heard it urged by +nice people that they do not want to know about such squalid lives, that +it is offensive and out of taste to be always bringing them in, and that +we ought to be writing about good society, and especially creating +grandes dames for their amusement. This sort of people could say to the +humanist that he ought to be glad there are coke-carts for fuel to fall +off from for the lower classes, and that here was no case for sentiment; +for if one is to be interested in such things at all, it must be +aesthetically, though even this is deplorable in the presence of fiction +already overloaded with low life, and so poor in grades dames as ours. + + + + + + +SUMMER ISLES OF EDEN + +It may be all an illusion of the map, where the Summer Islands glimmer a +small and solitary little group of dots and wrinkles, remote from +continental shores, with a straight line descending southeastwardly upon +them, to show how sharp and swift the ship's course is, but they seem so +far and alien from my wonted place that it is as if I had slid down a +steepy slant from the home-planet to a group of asteroids nebulous +somewhere in middle space, and were resting there, still vibrant from the +rush of the meteoric fall. There were, of course, facts and incidents +contrary to such a theory: a steamer starting from New York in the raw +March morning, and lurching and twisting through two days of diagonal +seas, with people aboard dining and undining, and talking and smoking and +cocktailing and hot-scotching and beef-teaing; but when the ship came in +sight of the islands, and they began to lift their cedared slopes from +the turquoise waters, and to explain their drifted snows as the white +walls and white roofs of houses, then the waking sense became the +dreaming sense, and the sweet impossibility of that drop through air +became the sole reality. + + + + +I. + +Everything here, indeed, is so strange that you placidly accept whatever +offers itself as the simplest and naturalest fact. Those low hills, that +climb, with their tough, dark cedars, from the summer sea to the summer +sky, might have drifted down across the Gulf Stream from the coast of +Maine; but when, upon closer inspection, you find them skirted with palms +and bananas, and hedged with oleanders, you merely wonder that you had +never noticed these growths in Maine before, where you were so familiar +with the cedars. The hotel itself, which has brought the Green Mountains +with it, in every detail, from the dormer-windowed mansard-roof, and the +white-painted, green-shuttered walls, to the neat, school-mistressly +waitresses in the dining-room, has a clump of palmettos beside it, +swaying and sighing in the tropic breeze, and you know that when it +migrates back to the New England hill-country, at the end of the season, +you shall find it with the palmettos still before its veranda, and +equally at home, somewhere in the Vermont or New Hampshire July. There +will be the same American groups looking out over them, and rocking and +smoking, though, alas! not so many smoking as rocking. + +But where, in that translation, would be the gold braided red or blue +jackets of the British army and navy which lend their lustre and color +here to the veranda groups? Where should one get the house walls of +whitewashed stone and the garden walls which everywhere glow in the sun, +and belt in little spaces full of roses and lilies? These things must +come from some other association, and in the case of him who here +confesses, the lustrous uniforms and the glowing walls rise from waters +as far away in time as in space, and a long-ago apparition of Venetian +Junes haunts the coral shore. (They are beginning to say the shore is +not coral; but no matter.) To be sure, the white roofs are not accounted +for in this visionary presence; and if one may not relate them to the +snowfalls of home winters, then one must frankly own them absolutely +tropical, together with the green-pillared and green-latticed galleries. +They at least suggest the tropical scenery of Prue and I as one remembers +seeing it through Titbottom's spectacles; and yet, if one supplies roofs +of brown-red tiles, it is all Venetian enough, with the lagoon-like +expanses that lend themselves to the fond effect. It is so Venetian, +indeed, that it wants but a few silent gondolas and noisy gondoliers, +in place of the dark, taciturn oarsmen of the clumsy native boats, to +complete the coming and going illusion; and there is no good reason why +the rough little isles that fill the bay should not call themselves +respectively San Giorgio and San Clemente, and Sant' Elena and San +Lazzaro: they probably have no other names! + + + + +II. + +These summer isles of Eden have this advantage over the scriptural Eden, +that apparently it was not woman and her seed who were expelled, when +once she set foot here, but the serpent and his seed: women now abound in +the Summer Islands, and there is not a snake anywhere to be found. There +are some tortoises and a great many frogs in their season, but no other +reptiles. The frogs are fabled of a note so deep and hoarse that its +vibration almost springs the environing mines of dynamite, though it has +never yet done so; the tortoises grow to a great size and a patriarchal +age, and are fond of Boston brown bread and baked beans, if their +preferences may be judged from those of a colossal specimen in the care +of an American family living on the islands. The observer who +contributes this fact to science is able to report the case of a parrot- +fish, on the same premises, so exactly like a large brown and purple +cockatoo that, seeing such a cockatoo later on dry land, it was with a +sense of something like cruelty in its exile from its native waters. +The angel-fish he thinks not so much like angels; they are of a +transparent purity of substance, and a cherubic innocence of expression, +but they terminate in two tails, which somehow will not lend themselves +to the resemblance. + +Certainly the angel-fish is not so well named as the parrot-fish; it +might better be called the ghostfish, it is so like a moonbeam in the +pools it haunts, and of such a convertible quality with the iridescent +vegetable growths about it. All things here are of a weird +convertibility to the alien perception, and the richest and rarest facts +of nature lavish themselves in humble association with the commonest and +most familiar. You drive through long stretches of wayside willows, and +realize only now and then that these willows are thick clumps of +oleanders; and through them you can catch glimpses of banana-orchards, +which look like dishevelled patches of gigantic cornstalks. The fields +of Easter lilies do not quite live up to their photographs; they are +presently suffering from a mysterious blight, and their flowers are not +frequent enough to lend them that sculpturesque effect near to, which +they wear as far off as New York. The potato-fields, on the other hand, +are of a tender delicacy of coloring which compensates for the lilies' +lack, and the palms give no just cause for complaint, unless because they +are not nearly enough to characterize the landscape, which in spite of +their presence remains so northern in aspect. They were much whipped and +torn by a late hurricane, which afflicted all the vegetation of the +islands, and some of the royal palms were blown down. Where these are +yet standing, as four or five of them are in a famous avenue now quite +one-sided, they are of a majesty befitting that of any king who could +pass by them: no sovereign except Philip of Macedon in his least judicial +moments could pass between them. + +The century-plant, which here does not require pampering under glass, +but boldly takes its place out doors with the other trees of the garden, +employs much less than a hundred years to bring itself to bloom. +It often flowers twice or thrice in that space of time, and ought to take +away the reproach of the inhabitants for a want of industry and +enterprise: a century-plant at least could do no more in any air, and it +merits praise for its activity in the breath of these languorous seas. +One such must be in bloom at this very writing, in the garden of a house +which this very writer marked for his own on his first drive ashore from +the steamer to the hotel, when he bestowed in its dim, unknown interior +one of the many multiples of himself which are now pretty well dispersed +among the pleasant places of the earth. It fills the night with a heavy +heliotropean sweetness, and on the herb beneath, in the effulgence of the +waxing moon, the multiple which has spiritually expropriated the legal +owners stretches itself in an interminable reverie, and hears Youth come +laughing back to it on the waters kissing the adjacent shore, where other +white houses (which also it inhabits) bathe their snowy underpinning. +In this dream the multiple drives home from the balls of either hotel +with the young girls in the little victorias which must pass its sojourn; +and, being but a vision itself, fore casts the shapes of flirtation which +shall night-long gild the visions of their sleep with the flash of +military and naval uniforms. Of course the multiple has been at the +dance too (with a shadowy heartache for the dances of forty years ago), +and knows enough not to confuse the uniforms. + + + + +III. + +In whatever way you walk, at whatever hour, the birds are sweetly calling +in the way-side oleanders and the wild sage-bushes and the cedar-tops. +They are mostly cat-birds, quite like our own; and bluebirds, but of a +deeper blue than ours, and redbirds of as liquid a note, but not so +varied, as that of the redbirds of our woods. How came they all here, +seven hundred miles from any larger land? Some think, on the stronger +wings of tempests, for it is not within the knowledge of men that men +brought them. Men did, indeed, bring the pestilent sparrows which swarm +about their habitations here, and beat away the gentler and lovelier +birds with a ferocity unknown in the human occupation of the islands. +Still, the sparrows have by no means conquered, and in the wilder places +the catbird makes common cause with the bluebird and the redbird, and +holds its own against them. The little ground-doves mimic in miniature +the form and markings and the gait and mild behavior of our turtle-doves, +but perhaps not their melancholy cooing. Nature has nowhere anything +prettier than these exquisite creatures, unless it be the long-tailed +white gulls which sail over the emerald shallows of the landlocked seas, +and take the green upon their translucent bodies as they trail their +meteoric splendor against the midday sky. Full twenty-four inches they +measure from the beak to the tip of the single pen that protracts them a +foot beyond their real bulk; but it is said their tempers are shorter +than they, and they attack fiercely anything they suspect of too intimate +a curiosity concerning their nests. + +They are probably the only short-tempered things in the Summer Islands, +where time is so long that if you lose your patience you easily find it +again. Sweetness, if not light, seems to be the prevailing human +quality, and a good share of it belongs to such of the natives as are in +no wise light. Our poor brethren of a different pigment are in the large +majority, and they have been seventy years out of slavery, with the full +enjoyment of all their civil rights, without lifting themselves from +their old inferiority. They do the hard work, in their own easy way, and +possibly do not find life the burden they make it for the white man, whom +here, as in our own country, they load up with the conundrum which their +existence involves for him. They are not very gay, and do not rise to a +joke with that flashing eagerness which they show for it at home. If you +have them against a background of banana-stems, or low palms, or feathery +canes, nothing could be more acceptably characteristic of the air and +sky; nor are they out of place on the box of the little victorias, where +visitors of the more inquisitive sex put them to constant question. Such +visitors spare no islander of any color. Once, in the pretty Public +Garden which the multiple had claimed for its private property, three +unmerciful American women suddenly descended from the heavens and began +to question the multiple's gardener, who was peacefully digging at the +rate of a spadeful every five minutes. Presently he sat down on his +wheelbarrow, and then shifted, without relief, from one handle of it to +the other. Then he rose and braced himself desperately against the tool- +house, where, when his tormentors drifted away, he seemed to the soft eye +of pity pinned to the wall by their cruel interrogations, whose barbed +points were buried in the stucco behind him, and whose feathered shafts +stuck out half a yard before his breast. + +Whether he was black or not, pity could not see, but probably he was. +At least the garrison of the islands is all black, being a Jamaican +regiment of that color; and when one of the warriors comes down the white +street, with his swagger-stick in his hand, and flaming in scarlet and +gold upon the ground of his own blackness, it is as if a gigantic oriole +were coming towards you, or a mighty tulip. These gorgeous creatures +seem so much readier than the natives to laugh, that you wish to test +them with a joke. But it might fail. The Summer Islands are a British +colony, and the joke does not flourish so luxuriantly, here as some other +things. + +To be sure, one of the native fruits seems a sort of joke when you hear +it first named, and when you are offered a 'loquat', if you are of a +frivolous mind you search your mind for the connection with 'loquor' +which it seems to intimate. Failing in this, you taste the fruit, and +then, if it is not perfectly ripe, you are as far from loquaciousness as +if you had bitten a green persimmon. But if it is ripe, it is delicious, +and may be consumed indefinitely. It is the only native fruit which one +can wish to eat at all, with an unpractised palate, though it is claimed +that with experience a relish may come for the pawpaws. These break out +in clusters of the size of oranges at the top of a thick pole, which may +have some leaves or may not, and ripen as they fancy in the indefinite +summer. They are of the color and flavor of a very insipid little +muskmelon which has grown too near a patch of squashes. + +One may learn to like this pawpaw, yes, but one must study hard. It is +best when plucked by a young islander of Italian blood whose father +orders him up the bare pole in the sunny Sunday morning air to oblige the +signori, and then with a pawpaw in either hand stands talking with them +about the two bad years there have been in Bermuda, and the probability +of his doing better in Nuova York. He has not imagined our winter, +however, and he shrinks from its boldly pictured rigors, and lets the +signori go with a sigh, and a bunch of pink and crimson roses. + +The roses are here, budding and blooming in the quiet bewilderment which +attends the flowers and plants from the temperate zone in this latitude, +and which in the case of the strawberries offered with cream and cake at +another public garden expresses itself in a confusion of red, ripe fruit +and white blossoms on the same stem. They are a pleasure to the nose and +eye rather than the palate, as happens with so many growths of the +tropics, if indeed the Summer Islands are tropical, which some plausibly +deny; though why should not strawberries, fresh picked from the plant in +mid-March, enjoy the right to be indifferent sweet? + + + + +IV. + +What remains? The events of the Summer Islands are few, and none out of +the order of athletics between teams of the army and navy, and what may +be called societetics, have happened in the past enchanted fortnight. +But far better things than events have happened: sunshine and rain of +such like quality that one could not grumble at either, and gales, now +from the south and now from the north, with the languor of the one and +the vigor of the other in them. There were drives upon drives that were +always to somewhere, but would have been delightful the same if they had +been mere goings and comings, past the white houses overlooking little +lawns through the umbrage of their palm-trees. The lawns professed to be +of grass, but were really mats of close little herbs which were not +grass; but which, where the sparse cattle were grazing them, seemed to +satisfy their inexacting stomachs. They are never very green, and in +fact the landscape often has an air of exhaustion and pause which it +wears with us in late August; and why not, after all its interminable, +innumerable summers? Everywhere in the gentle hollows which the coral +hills (if they are coral) sink into are the patches of potatoes and +lilies and onions drawing their geometrical lines across the brown-red, +weedless soil; and in very sheltered spots are banana-orchards which are +never so snugly sheltered there but their broad leaves are whipped to +shreds. The white road winds between gray walls crumbling in an amiable +disintegration, but held together against ruin by a network of maidenhair +ferns and creepers of unknown name, and overhung by trees where the +cactus climbs and hangs in spiky links, or if another sort, pierces them +with speary stems as tall and straight as the stalks of the neighboring +bamboo. The loquat-trees cluster--like quinces in the garden closes, and +show their pale golden, plum-shaped fruit. + +For the most part the road runs by still inland waters, but sometimes it +climbs to the high downs beside the open sea, grotesque with wind-worn +and wave-worn rocks, and beautiful with opalescent beaches, and the black +legs of the negro children paddling in the tints of the prostrate +rainbow. + +All this seems probable and natural enough at the writing; but how will +it be when one has turned one's back upon it? Will it not lapse into the +gross fable of travellers, and be as the things which the liars who swap +them cannot themselves believe? What will be said to you when you tell +that in the Summer Islands one has but to saw a hole in his back yard and +take out a house of soft, creamy sandstone and set it up and go to living +in it? What, when you relate that among the northern and southern +evergreens there are deciduous trees which, in a clime where there is no +fall or spring, simply drop their leaves when they are tired of keeping +them on, and put out others when they feel like it? What, when you +pretend that in the absence of serpents there are centipedes a span long, +and spiders the bigness of bats, and mosquitoes that sweetly sing in the +drowsing ear, but bite not; or that there are swamps but no streams, and +in the marshes stand mangrove-trees whose branches grow downward into the +ooze, as if they wished to get back into the earth and pull in after them +the holes they emerged from? + +These every-day facts seem not only incredible to the liar himself, even +in their presence, but when you begin the ascent of that steep slant back +to New York you foresee that they will become impossible. As impossible +as the summit of the slant now appears to the sense which shudderingly +figures it a Bermuda pawpaw-tree seven hundred miles high, and fruiting +icicles and snowballs in the March air! + + + + + + +WILD FLOWERS OF THE ASPHALT + +Looking through Mrs. Caroline A. Creevey's charming book on the Flowers +of Field, Hill, and Swamp, the other day, I was very forcibly reminded of +the number of these pretty, wilding growths which I had been finding all +the season long among the streets of asphalt and the sidewalks of +artificial stone in this city; and I am quite sure that any one who has +been kept in New York, as I have been this year, beyond the natural time +of going into the country, can have as real a pleasure in this sylvan +invasion as mine, if he will but give himself up to a sense of it. + + + + +I. + +Of course it is altogether too late, now, to look for any of the early +spring flowers, but I can recall the exquisite effect of the tender blue +hepatica fringing the centre rail of the grip-cars, all up and down +Broadway, and apparently springing from the hollow beneath, where the +cable ran with such a brooklike gurgle that any damp-living plant must +find itself at home there. The water-pimpernel may now be seen, by any +sympathetic eye, blowing delicately along the track, in the breeze of the +passing cabs, and elastically lifting itself from the rush of the cars. +The reader can easily verify it by the picture in Mrs. Creevey's book. +He knows it by its other name of brook weed; and he will have my delight, +I am sure, in the cardinal-flower which will be with us in August. It is +a shy flower, loving the more sequestered nooks, and may be sought along +the shady stretches of Third Avenue, where the Elevated Road overhead +forms a shelter as of interlacing boughs. The arrow-head likes such +swampy expanses as the converging surface roads form at Dead Man's Curve +and the corners of Twenty third Street. This is in flower now, and will +be till September; and St.-John's-wort, which some call the false golden- +rod, is already here. You may find it in any moist, low ground, but the +gutters of Wall Street, or even the banks of the Stock Exchange, are not +too dry for it. The real golden-rod is not much in evidence with us, for +it comes only when summer is on the wane. The other night, however, on +the promenade of the Madison Square Roof Garden, I was delighted to see +it growing all over the oblong dome of the auditorium, in response to the +cry of a homesick cricket which found itself in exile there at the base +of a potted ever green. This lonely insect had no sooner sounded its +winter-boding note than the fond flower began sympathetically to wave and +droop along those tarry slopes, as I have seen it on how many hill-side +pastures! But this may have been only a transitory response to the +cricket, and I cannot promise the visitor to the Roof Garden that he will +find golden-rod there every night. I believe there is always Golden +Seal, but it is the kind that comes in bottles, and not in the gloom of +"deep, cool, moist woods," where Mrs. Creevey describes it as growing, +along with other wildings of such sweet names or quaint as Celandine, and +Dwarf Larkspur, and Squirrel-corn, and Dutchman's breeches, and +Pearlwort, and Wood-sorrel, and Bishop's--cap, and Wintergreen, and +Indian-pipe, and Snowberry, and Adder's-tongue, and Wakerobin, and +Dragon-root, and Adam-and-Eve, and twenty more, which must have got their +names from some fairy of genius. I should say it was a female fairy of +genius who called them so, and that she had her own sex among mortals in +mind when she invented their nomenclature, and was thinking of little +girls, and slim, pretty maids, and happy young wives. The author tells +how they all look, with a fine sense of their charm in her words, but one +would know how they looked from their names; and when you call them over +they at once transplant themselves to the depths of the dells between our +sky-scrapers, and find a brief sojourn in the cavernous excavations +whence other sky-scrapers are to rise. + + + + +II. + +That night on the Roof Garden, when the cricket's cry flowered the dome +with golden-rod, the tall stems of rye growing among the orchestra sloped +all one way at times, just like the bows of violins, in the half-dollar +gale that always blows over the city at that height. But as one turns +the leaves of Mrs. Creevey's magic book-perhaps one ought to say turns +its petals--the forests and the fields come and make themselves at home +in the city everywhere. By virtue of it I have been more in the country +in a half-hour than if I had lived all June there. When I lift my eyes +from its pictures or its letter-press my vision prints the eidolons of +wild flowers everywhere, as it prints the image of the sun against the +air after dwelling on his brightness. The rose-mallow flaunts along +Fifth Avenue and the golden threads of the dodder embroider the house +fronts on the principal cross streets; and I might think at times that it +was all mere fancy, it has so much the quality of a pleasing illusion. + +Yet Mrs. Creevey's book is not one to lend itself to such a deceit by any +of the ordinary arts. It is rather matter of fact in form and manner, +and largely owes what magic it has to the inherent charm of its subject. +One feels this in merely glancing at the index, and reading such titles +of chapters as "Wet Meadows and Low Grounds"; "Dry Fields--Waste Places-- +Waysides"; "Hills and Rocky Woods, Open Woods"; and "Deep, Cool, Moist +Woods"; each a poem in itself, lyric or pastoral, and of a surpassing +opulence of suggestion. The spring and, summer months pass in stately +processional through the book, each with her fillet inscribed with the +names of her characteristic flowers or blossoms, and brightened with the +blooms themselves. + +They are plucked from where nature bade them grow in the wild places, or +their own wayward wills led them astray. A singularly fascinating +chapter is that called "Escaped from Gardens," in which some of these +pretty runagates are catalogued. I supposed in my liberal ignorance that +the Bouncing Bet was the only one of these, but I have learned that the +Pansy and the Sweet Violet love to gad, and that the Caraway, the +Snapdragon, the Prince's Feather, the Summer Savory, the Star of +Bethlehem, the Day-Lily, and the Tiger-Lily, and even the sluggish Stone +Crop are of the vagrant, fragrant company. One is not surprised to meet +the Tiger-Lily in it; that must always have had the jungle in its heart; +but that the Baby's Breath should be found wandering by the road-sides +from Massachusetts and Virginia to Ohio, gives one a tender pang as for a +lost child. Perhaps the poor human tramps, who sleep in barns and feed +at back doors along those dusty ways, are mindful of the Baby's Breath, +and keep a kindly eye out for the little truant. + + + + +III. + +As I was writing those homely names I felt again how fit and lovely they +were, how much more fit and lovely than the scientific names of the +flowers. Mrs. Creevey will make a botanist of you if you will let her, +and I fancy a very good botanist, though I cannot speak from experience, +but she will make a poet of you in spite of yourself, as I very well +know; and she will do this simply by giving you first the familiar name +of the flowers she loves to write of. I am not saying that the Day-Lily +would not smell as sweet by her title of 'Hemerocallis Fulva', or that +the homely, hearty Bouncing Bet would not kiss as deliciously in her +scholar's cap and gown of 'Saponaria Officinalis'; but merely that their +college degrees do not lend themselves so willingly to verse, or even +melodious prose, which is what the poet is often after nowadays. So I +like best to hail the flowers by the names that the fairies gave them, +and the children know them by, especially when my longing for them makes +them grow here in the city streets. I have a fancy that they would all +vanish away if I saluted them in botanical terms. As long as I talk of +cat-tail rushes, the homeless grimalkins of the areas and the back fences +help me to a vision of the swamps thickly studded with their stiff +spears; but if I called them 'Typha Latifolia', or even 'Typha +Angustifolia', there is not the hardiest and fiercest prowler of the roof +and the fire-escape but would fly the sound of my voice and leave me +forlorn amid the withered foliage of my dream. The street sparrows, +pestiferous and persistent as they are, would forsake my sylvan pageant +if I spoke of the Bird-foot Violet as the 'Viola Pedata'; and the +commonest cur would run howling if he beard the gentle Poison Dogwood +maligned as the 'Rhus Venenata'. The very milk-cans would turn to their +native pumps in disgust from my attempt to invoke our simple American +Cowslip as the 'Dodecatheon Meadia'. + + + + +IV + +Yet I do not deny that such scientific nomenclature has its uses; and I +should be far from undervaluing this side of Mrs. Creevey's book. In +fact, I secretly respect it the more for its botanical lore, and if ever +I get into the woods or fields again I mean to go up to some of the +humblest flowers, such as I can feel myself on easy terms with, and tell +them what they are in Latin. I think it will surprise them, and I dare +say they will some of them like it, and will want their initials +inscribed on their leaves, like those signatures which the medicinal +plants bear, or are supposed to bear. But as long as I am engaged in +their culture amid this stone and iron and asphalt, I find it best to +invite their presence by their familiar names, and I hope they will not +think them too familiar. I should like to get them all naturalized here, +so that the thousands of poor city children, who never saw them growing +in their native places, might have some notion of how bountifully the +world is equipped with beauty, and how it is governed by many laws which +are not enforced by policemen. I think that would interest them very +much, and I shall not mind their plucking my Barmecide blossoms, and +carrying them home by the armfuls. When good-will costs nothing we ought +to practise it even with the tramps, and these are very welcome, in their +wanderings over the city pave, to rest their weary limbs in any of my +pleached bowers they come to. + + + + + + +A CIRCUS IN THE SUBURBS + +We dwellers in cities and large towns, if we are well-to-do, have more +than our fill of pleasures of all kinds; and for now many years past we +have been used to a form of circus where surfeit is nearly as great +misery as famine in that kind could be. For our sins, or some of our +friends' sins, perhaps, we have now gone so long to circuses of three +rings and two raised-platforms that we scarcely realize that in the +country there are still circuses of one ring and no platform at all. +We are accustomed, in the gross and foolish-superfluity of these city +circuses, to see no feat quite through, but to turn our greedy eyes at +the most important instant in the hope of greater wonders in another +ring. We have four or five clowns, in as many varieties of grotesque +costume, as well as a lady clown in befitting dress; but we hear none of +them speak, not even the lady clown, while in the country circus the old +clown of our childhood, one and indivisible, makes the same style of +jokes, if not the very same jokes, that we used to hear there. It is not +easy to believe all this, and I do not know that I should quite believe +it myself if I had not lately been witness of it in the suburban village +where I was passing the summer. + + + + +I. + +The circus announced itself in the good old way weeks beforehand by the +vast posters of former days and by a profusion of small bills which fell +upon the village as from the clouds, and left it littered everywhere with +their festive pink. They prophesied it in a name borne by the first +circus I ever saw, which was also an animal show, but the animals must +all have died during the fifty years past, for there is now no menagerie +attached to it. I did not know this when I heard the band braying +through the streets of the village on the morning of the performance, +and for me the mangy old camels and the pimpled elephants of yore led the +procession through accompanying ranks of boys who have mostly been in +their graves for half a lifetime; the distracted ostrich thrust an +advertising neck through the top of its cage, and the lion roared to +himself in the darkness of his moving prison. I felt the old thrill of +excitement, the vain hope of something preternatural and impossible, and +I do not know what could have kept me from that circus as soon as I had +done lunch. My heart rose at sight of the large tent (which was yet so +very little in comparison with the tents of the three-ring and two- +platform circuses); the alluring and illusory sideshows of fat women and +lean men; the horses tethered in the background and stamping under the +fly-bites; the old, weather-beaten grand chariot, which looked like the +ghost of the grand chariot which used to drag me captive in its triumph; +and the canvas shelters where the cooks were already at work over their +kettles on the evening meal of the circus folk. + +I expected to be kept a long while from the ticket-wagon by the crowd, +but there was no crowd, and perhaps there never used to be much of a +crowd. I bought my admittances without a moment's delay, and the man who +sold me my reserve seats had even leisure to call me back and ask to look +at the change he had given me, mostly nickels. "I thought I didn't give +you enough," he said, and he added one more, and sent me on to the +doorkeeper with my faith in human nature confirmed and refreshed. +It was cool enough outside, but within it was very warm, as it should be, +to give the men with palm-leaf fans and ice-cold lemonade a chance. They +were already making their rounds, and crying their wares with voices from +the tombs of the dead past; and the child of the young mother who took my +seat-ticket from me was going to sleep at full length on the lowermost +tread of the benches, so that I had to step across its prostrate form. +These reserved seats were carpeted; but I had forgotten how little one +rank was raised above another, and how very trying they were upon the +back and legs. But for the carpeting, I could not see how I was +advantaged above the commoner folk in the unreserved seats, and I +reflected how often in this world we paid for an inappreciable splendor. +I could not see but they were as well off as I; they were much more gayly +dressed, and some of them were even smoking cigars, while they were +nearly all younger by ten, twenty, forty, or fifty years, and even more. +They did not look like the country people whom I rather hoped and +expected to see, but were apparently my fellow-villagers, in different +stages of excitement. They manifested by the usual signs their +impatience to have the performance begin, and I confess that I shared +this, though I did not take part in the demonstration. + + + + +II. + +I have no intention of following the events seriatim. Front time to time +during their progress I renewed my old one-sided acquaintance with the +circus-men. They were quite the same people, I believe, but strangely +softened and ameliorated, as I hope I am, and looking not a day older, +which I cannot say of myself, exactly. The supernumeraries were patently +farmer boys who had entered newly upon that life in a spirit of +adventure, and who wore their partial liveries, a braided coat here and a +pair of striped trousers there, with a sort of timorous pride, a +deprecating bravado, as if they expected to be hooted by the spectators +and were very glad when they were not. The man who went round with a dog +to keep boys from hooking in under the curtain had grown gentler, and his +dog did not look as if he would bite the worst boy in town. The man came +up and asked the young mother about her sleeping child, and I inferred +that the child had been sick, and was therefore unusually interesting to +all the great, kind-hearted, simple circus family. He was good to the +poor supes, and instructed them, not at all sneeringly, how best to +manage the guy ropes for the nets when the trapeze events began. + +There was, in fact, an air of pleasing domesticity diffused over the +whole circus. This was, perhaps, partly an effect from our extreme +proximity to its performances; I had never been on quite such intimate +terms with equitation and aerostation of all kinds; but I think it was +also largely from the good hearts of the whole company. A circus must +become, during the season, a great brotherhood and sisterhood, especially +sisterhood, and its members must forget finally that they are not united +by ties of blood. I dare say they often become so, as husbands and wives +and fathers and mothers, if not as brothers. + +The domestic effect was heightened almost poignantly when a young lady in +a Turkish-towel bath-gown came out and stood close by the band, waiting +for her act on a barebacked horse of a conventional pattern. She really +looked like a young goddess in a Turkish-towel bath-gown: goddesses must +have worn bath-gowns, especially Venus, who was often imagined in the +bath, or just out of it. But when this goddess threw off her bath-gown, +and came bounding into the ring as gracefully as the clogs she wore on +her slippers would let her, she was much more modestly dressed than most +goddesses. What I am trying to say, however, is that, while she stood +there by the band, she no more interested the musicians than if she were +their collective sister. They were all in their shirt-sleeves for the +sake of the coolness, and they banged and trumpeted and fluted away as +indifferent to her as so many born brothers. + +Indeed, when the gyrations of her horse brought her to our side of the +ring, she was visibly not so youthful and not so divine as she might have +been; but the girl who did the trapeze acts, and did them wonderfully, +left nothing to be desired in that regard; though really I do not see why +we who have neither youth nor beauty should always expect it of other +people. I think it would have been quite enough for her to do the +trapeze acts so perfectly; but her being so pretty certainly added a +poignancy to the contemplation of her perils. One could follow every +motion of her anxiety in that close proximity: the tremor of her chin as +she bit her lips before taking her flight through the air, the straining +eagerness of her eye as she measured the distance, the frown with which +she forbade herself any shrinking or reluctance. + + + + +III. + +How strange is life, how sad and perplexing its contradictions! Why +should such an exhibition as that be supposed to give pleasure? Perhaps +it does not give pleasure, but is only a necessary fulfilment of one of +the many delusions we are in with regard to each other in this +bewildering world. They are of all sorts and degrees, these delusions, +and I suppose that in the last analysis it was not pleasure I got from +the clown and his clowning, clowned he ever so merrily. I remember that +I liked hearing his old jokes, not because they were jokes, but because +they were old and endeared by long association. He sang one song which I +must have heard him sing at my first circus (I am sure it was he), about +"Things that I don't like to see," and I heartily agreed with him that +his book of songs, which he sent round to be sold, was fully worth the +half-dime asked for it, though I did not buy it. + +Perhaps the rival author in me withheld me, but, as a brother man, I will +not allow that I did not feel for him and suffer with him because of the +thick, white pigment which plentifully coated his face, and, with the +sweat drops upon it, made me think of a newly painted wall in the rain. +He was infinitely older than his personality, than his oldest joke +(though you never can be sure how old a joke is), and, representatively, +I dare say he outdated the pyramids. They must have made clowns whiten +their faces in the dawn of time, and no doubt there were drolls among the +antediluvians who enhanced the effect of their fun by that means. All +the same, I pitied this clown for it, and I fancied in his wildest +waggery the note of a real irascibility. Shall I say that he seemed the +only member of that little circus who was not of an amiable temper? But +I do not blame him, and I think it much to have seen a clown once more +who jested audibly with the ringmaster and always got the better of him +in repartee. It was long since I had known that pleasure. + + + + +IV. + +Throughout the performance at this circus I was troubled by a curious +question, whether it were really of the same moral and material grandeur +as the circuses it brought to memory, or whether these were thin and +slight, too. We all know how the places of our childhood, the heights, +the distances, shrink and dwindle when we go back to them, and was it +possible that I had been deceived in the splendor of my early circuses? +The doubt was painful, but I was forced to own that there might be more +truth in it than in a blind fealty to their remembered magnificence. +Very likely circuses have grown not only in size, but in the richness and +variety of their entertainments, and I was spoiled for the simple joys +of this. But I could see no reflection of my dissatisfaction on the +young faces around me, and I must confess that there was at least so much +of the circus that I left when it was half over. I meant to go into the +side-shows and see the fat woman and the living skeleton, and take the +giant by the hand and the armless man by his friendly foot, if I might be +so honored. But I did none of these things, and I am willing to believe +the fault was in me, if I was disappointed in the circus. It was I who +had shrunk and dwindled, and not it. To real boys it was still the size +of the firmament, and was a world of wonders and delights. At least I +can recognize this fact now, and can rejoice in the peaceful progress all +over the country of the simple circuses which the towns never see, but +which help to render the summer fairer and brighter to the unspoiled eyes +and hearts they appeal to. I hope it will be long before they cease to +find profit in the pleasure they give. + + + + + + +A SHE HAMLET + +The other night as I sat before the curtain of the Garden Theatre and +waited for it to rise upon the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt, a thrill of the +rich expectation which cannot fail to precede the rise of any curtain +upon any Hamlet passed through my eager frame. There is, indeed, no +scene of drama which is of a finer horror (eighteenth-century horror) +than that which opens the great tragedy. The sentry pacing up and down +upon the platform at Elsinore under the winter night; the greeting +between him and the comrade arriving to relieve him, with its hints of +the bitter cold; the entrance of Horatio and Marcellus to these before +they can part; the mention of the ghost, and, while the soldiers are in +the act of protesting it a veridical phantom, the apparition of the +ghost, taking the word from their lips and hushing all into a pulseless +awe: what could be more simply and sublimely real, more naturally +supernatural? What promise of high mystical things to come there is in +the mere syllabling of the noble verse, and how it enlarges us from +ourselves, for that time at least, to a disembodied unity with the +troubled soul whose martyry seems foreboded in the solemn accents! +As the many Hamlets on which the curtain had risen in my time passed in +long procession through my memory, I seemed to myself so much of their +world, and so little of the world that arrogantly calls itself the actual +one, that I should hardly have been surprised to find myself one of the +less considered persons of the drama who were seen but not heard in its +course. + + + + +I. + +The trouble in judging anything is that if you have the materials for an +intelligent criticism, the case is already prejudiced in your hands. +You do not bring a free mind to it, and all your efforts to free your +mind are a species of gymnastics more or less admirable, but not really +effective for the purpose. The best way is to own yourself unfair at the +start, and then you can have some hope of doing yourself justice, if not +your subject. In other words, if you went to see the Hamlet of Mme. +Bernhardt frankly expecting to be disappointed, you were less likely in +the end to be disappointed in your expectations, and you could not blame +her if you were. To be ideally fair to that representation, it would be +better not to have known any other Hamlet, and, above all, the Hamlet of +Shakespeare. + +From the first it was evident that she had three things overwhelmingly +against her--her sex, her race, and her speech. You never ceased to feel +for a moment that it was a woman who was doing that melancholy Dane, and +that the woman was a Jewess, and the Jewess a French Jewess. These three +removes put a gulf impassable between her utmost skill and the +impassioned irresolution of that inscrutable Northern nature which is in +nothing so masculine as its feminine reluctances and hesitations, or so +little French as in those obscure emotions which the English poetry +expressed with more than Gallic clearness, but which the French words +always failed to convey. The battle was lost from the first, and all you +could feel about it for the rest was that if it was magnificent it was +not war. + +While the battle went on I was the more anxious to be fair, because I +had, as it were, pre-espoused the winning side; and I welcomed, in the +interest of critical impartiality, another Hamlet which came to mind, +through readily traceable associations. This was a Hamlet also of French +extraction in the skill and school of the actor, but as much more deeply +derived than the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt as the large imagination of +Charles Fechter transcended in its virile range the effect of her +subtlest womanish intuition. His was the first blond Hamlet known to our +stage, and hers was also blond, if a reddish-yellow wig may stand for a +complexion; and it was of the quality of his Hamlet in masterly +technique. + + + + +II. + +The Hamlet of Fechter, which rose ghostlike out of the gulf of the past, +and cloudily possessed the stage where the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt was +figuring, was called a romantic Hamlet thirty years ago; and so it was in +being a break from the classic Hamlets of the Anglo-American theatre. +It was romantic as Shakespeare himself was romantic, in an elder sense of +the word, and not romanticistic as Dumas was romanticistic. It was, +therefore, the most realistic Hamlet ever yet seen, because the most +naturally poetic. Mme. Bernhardt recalled it by the perfection of her +school; for Fechter's poetic naturalness differed from the +conventionality of the accepted Hamlets in nothing so much as the +superiority of its self-instruction. In Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet, as in +his, nothing was trusted to chance, or "inspiration." Good or bad, what +one saw was what was meant to be seen. When Fechter played Edmond Dantes +or Claude Melnotte, he put reality into those preposterous inventions, +and in Hamlet even his alien accent helped him vitalize the part; it +might be held to be nearer the Elizabethan accent than ours; and after +all, you said Hamlet was a foreigner, and in your high content with what +he gave you did not mind its being in a broken vessel. When he +challenged the ghost with "I call thee keeng, father, rawl-Dane," you +Would hardly have had the erring utterance bettered. It sufficed as it +was; and when he said to Rosencrantz, "Will you pleh upon this pyip?" +it was with such a princely authority and comradely entreaty that you +made no note of the slips in the vowels except to have pleasure of their +quaintness afterwards. For the most part you were not aware of these +betrayals of his speech; and in certain high things it was soul +interpreted to soul through the poetry of Shakespeare so finely, so +directly, that there was scarcely a sense of the histrionic means. + +He put such divine despair into the words, "Except my life, except my +life, except my life!" following the mockery with which he had assured +Polonius there was nothing he would more willingly part withal than his +leave, that the heart-break of them had lingered with me for thirty +years, and I had been alert for them with every Hamlet since. But before +I knew, Mme. Bernhardt had uttered them with no effect whatever. Her +Hamlet, indeed, cut many of the things that we have learned to think the +points of Hamlet, and it so transformed others by its interpretation of +the translator's interpretation of Shakespeare that they passed +unrecognized. Soliloquies are the weak invention of the enemy, for the +most part, but as such things go that soliloquy of Hamlet's, "To be or +not to be," is at least very noble poetry; and yet Mme. Bernhardt was so +unimpressive in it that you scarcely noticed the act of its delivery. +Perhaps this happened because the sumptuous and sombre melancholy of +Shakespeare's thought was transmitted in phrases that refused it its +proper mystery. But there was always a hardness, not always from the +translation, upon this feminine Hamlet. It was like a thick shell with +no crevice in it through which the tenderness of Shakespeare's Hamlet +could show, except for the one moment at Ophelia's grave, where he +reproaches Laertes with those pathetic words + + "What is the reason that you use me thus? + I loved you ever; but it is no matter." + +Here Mme. Bernhardt betrayed a real grief, but as a woman would, and not +a man. At the close of the Gonzago play, when Hamlet triumphs in a mad +whirl, her Hamlet hopped up and down like a mischievous crow, a +mischievous she-crow. + +There was no repose in her Hamlet, though there were moments of leaden +lapse which suggested physical exhaustion; and there was no range in her +elocution expressive of the large vibration of that tormented spirit. +Her voice dropped out, or jerked itself out, and in the crises of strong +emotion it was the voice of a scolding or a hysterical woman. At times +her movements, which she must have studied so hard to master, were drolly +womanish, especially those of the whole person. Her quickened pace was a +woman's nervous little run, and not a man's swift stride; and to give +herself due stature, it was her foible to wear a woman's high heels to +her shoes, and she could not help tilting on them. + +In the scene with the queen after the play, most English and American +Hamlets have required her to look upon the counterfeit presentment of two +brothers in miniatures something the size of tea-plates; but Mme. +Bernhardt's preferred full-length, life-size family portraits. The dead +king's effigy did not appear a flattered likeness in the scene-painter's +art, but it was useful in disclosing his ghost by giving place to it in +the wall at the right moment. She achieved a novelty by this treatment +of the portraits, and she achieved a novelty in the tone she took with +the wretched queen. Hamlet appeared to scold her mother, but though it +could be said that her mother deserved a scolding, was it the part of a +good daughter to give it her? + +One should, of course, say a good son, but long before this it had become +impossible to think at all of Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet as a man, if it +ever had been possible. She had traversed the bounds which tradition as +well as nature has set, and violated the only condition upon which an +actress may personate a man. This condition is that there shall be +always a hint of comedy in the part, that the spectator shall know all +the time that the actress is a woman, and that she shall confess herself +such before the play is over; she shall be fascinating in the guise of a +man only because she is so much more intensely a woman in it. +Shakespeare had rather a fancy for women in men's roles, which, as +women's roles in his time were always taken by pretty and clever boys, +could be more naturally managed then than now. But when it came to the +eclaircissement, and the pretty boys, who had been playing the parts of +women disguised as men, had to own themselves women, the effect must have +been confused if not weakened. If Mme. Bernhardt, in the necessity of +doing something Shakespearean, had chosen to do Rosalind, or Viola, or +Portia, she could have done it with all the modern advantages of women in +men's roles. These characters are, of course, "lighter motions bounded +in a shallower brain" than the creation she aimed at; but she could at +least have made much of them, and she does not make much of Hamlet. + + + + +III. + +The strongest reason against any woman Hamlet is that it does violence to +an ideal. Literature is not so rich in great imaginary masculine types +that we can afford to have them transformed to women; and after seeing +Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet no one can altogether liberate himself from the +fancy that the Prince of Denmark was a girl of uncertain age, with crises +of mannishness in which she did not seem quite a lady. Hamlet is in +nothing more a man than in the things to which as a man he found himself +unequal; for as a woman he would have been easily superior to them. +If we could suppose him a woman as Mme. Bernhardt, in spite of herself, +invites us to do, we could only suppose him to have solved his +perplexities with the delightful precipitation of his putative sex. +As the niece of a wicked uncle, who in that case would have had to be a +wicked aunt, wedded to Hamlet's father hard upon the murder of her +mother, she would have made short work of her vengeance. No fine +scruples would have delayed her; she would not have had a moment's +question whether she had not better kill herself; she would have out with +her bare bodkin and ended the doubt by first passing it through her +aunt's breast. + +To be sure, there would then have been no play of "Hamlet," as we have +it; but a Hamlet like that imagined, a frankly feminine Hamlet, Mme. +Bernhardt could have rendered wonderfully. It is in attempting a +masculine Hamlet that she transcends the imaginable and violates an +ideal. It is not thinkable. After you have seen it done, you say, as +Mr. Clemens is said to have said of bicycling: "Yes, I have seen it, but +it's impossible. It doesn't stand to reason." + +Art, like law, is the perfection of reason, and whatever is unreasonable +in the work of an artist is inartistic. By the time I had reached these +bold conclusions I was ready to deduce a principle from them, and to +declare that in a true civilization such a thing as that Hamlet would be +forbidden, as an offence against public morals, a violence to something +precious and sacred. + +In the absence of any public regulation the precious and sacred ideals in +the arts must be trusted to the several artists, who bring themselves to +judgment when they violate them. After Mme. Bernhardt was perversely +willing to attempt the part of Hamlet, the question whether she did it +well or not was of slight consequence. She had already made her failure +in wishing to play the part. Her wish impugned her greatness as an +artist; of a really great actress it would have been as unimaginable as +the assumption of a sublime feminine role by a really great actor. There +is an obscure law in this matter which it would be interesting to trace, +but for the present I must leave the inquiry with the reader. I can note +merely that it seems somehow more permissible for women in imaginary +actions to figure as men than for men to figure as women. In the theatre +we have conjectured how and why this may be, but the privilege, for less +obvious reasons, seems yet more liberally granted in fiction. A woman +may tell a story in the character of a man and not give offence, but a +man cannot write a novel in autobiographical form from the personality of +a woman without imparting the sense of something unwholesome. One feels +this true even in the work of such a master as Tolstoy, whose Katia is a +case in point. Perhaps a woman may play Hamlet with a less shocking +effect than a man may play Desdemona, but all the same she must not play +Hamlet at all. That sublime ideal is the property of the human +imagination, and may not be profaned by a talent enamoured of the +impossible. No harm could be done by the broadest burlesque, the most +irreverent travesty, for these would still leave the ideal untouched. +Hamlet, after all the horse-play, would be Hamlet; but Hamlet played by a +woman, to satisfy her caprice, or to feed her famine for a fresh effect, +is Hamlet disabled, for a long time, at least, in its vital essence. +I felt that it would take many returns to the Hamlet of Shakespeare to +efface the impression of Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet; and as I prepared to +escape from my row of stalls in the darkening theatre, I experienced a +noble shame for having seen the Dane so disnatured, to use Mr. Lowell's +word. I had not been obliged to come; I had voluntarily shared in the +wrong done; by my presence I had made myself an accomplice in the wrong. +It was high ground, but not too high for me, and I recovered a measure of +self-respect in assuming it. + + + + + + +THE MIDNIGHT PLATOON + +He had often heard of it. Connoisseurs of such matters, young newspaper +men trying to make literature out of life and smuggle it into print under +the guard of unwary editors, and young authors eager to get life into +their literature, had recommended it to him as one of the most impressive +sights of the city; and he had willingly agreed with them that he ought +to see it. He imagined it very dramatic, and he was surprised to find it +in his experience so largely subjective. If there was any drama at all +it was wholly in his own consciousness. But the thing was certainly +impressive in its way. + + + + +I. + +He thought it a great piece of luck that he should come upon it by +chance, and so long after he had forgotten about it that he was surprised +to recognize it for the spectacle he had often promised himself the +pleasure of seeing. + +Pleasure is the right word; for pleasure of the painful sort that all +hedonists will easily imagine was what he expected to get from it; though +upon the face of it there seems no reason why a man should delight to see +his fellow-men waiting in the winter street for the midnight dole of +bread which must in some cases be their only meal from the last midnight +to the next midnight. But the mere thought of it gave him pleasure, and +the sight of it, from the very first instant. He was proud of knowing +just what it was at once, with the sort of pride which one has in knowing +an earthquake, though one has never felt one before. He saw the double +file of men stretching up one street, and stretching down the other from +the corner of the bakery where the loaves were to be given out on the +stroke of twelve, and he hugged himself in a luxurious content with his +perspicacity. + +It was all the more comfortable to do this because he was in a coup, +warmly shut against the sharp, wholesome Christmas-week weather, and was +wrapped to the chin in a long fur overcoat, which he wore that night as a +duty to his family, with a conscience against taking cold and alarming +them for his health. He now practised another piece of self-denial: he +let the cabman drive rapidly past the interesting spectacle, and carry +him to the house where he was going to fetch away the child from the +Christmas party. He wished to be in good time, so as to save the child +from anxiety about his coming; but he promised himself to stop, going +back, and glut his sensibility in a leisurely study of the scene. He got +the child, with her arms full of things from the Christmas-tree, into the +coup, and then he said to the cabman, respectfully leaning as far over +from his box to listen as his thick greatcoat would let him: "When you +get up there near that bakery again, drive slowly. I want to have a look +at those men." + +"All right, sir," said the driver intelligently, and he found his why +skilfully out of the street among the high banks of the seasonable +Christmas-week snow, which the street-cleaners had heaped up there till +they could get round to it with their carts. + +When they were in Broadway again it seemed lonelier and silenter than it +was a few minutes before. Except for their own coup, the cable-cars, +with their flaming foreheads, and the mechanical clangor of their gongs +at the corners, seemed to have it altogether to themselves. A tall, +lumbering United States mail van rolled by, and impressed my friend in +the coup with a cheap and agreeable sense of mystery relative to the +letters it was carrying to their varied destination at the Grand Central +Station. He listened with half an ear to the child's account of the fun +she had at the party, and he watched with both eyes for the sight of the +men waiting at the bakery for the charity of the midnight loaves. + +He played with a fear that they might all have vanished, and with an +apprehension that the cabman might forget and whirl him rapidly by the +place where he had left them. But the driver remembered, and checked his +horses in good time; and there were the men still, but in even greater +number than before, stretching farther up Broadway and farther out along +the side street. They stood slouched in dim and solemn phalanx under the +night sky, so seasonably, clear and frostily atwinkle with Christmas-week +stars; two by two they stood, slouched close together, perhaps for their +mutual warmth, perhaps in an unconscious effort to get near the door +where the loaves were to be given out, in time to share in them before +they were all gone. + + + + +II. + +My friend's heart beat with glad anticipation. He was really to see this +important, this representative thing to the greatest possible advantage. +He rapidly explained to his companion that the giver of the midnight +loaves got rid of what was left of his daily bread in that way: the next +day it could not be sold, and he preferred to give it away to those who +needed it, rather than try to find his account in it otherwise. She +understood, and he tried to think that sometimes coffee was given with +the bread, but he could not make sure of this, though he would have liked +very much to have it done; it would have been much more dramatic. +Afterwards he learned that it was done, and he was proud of having +fancied it. + +He decided that when he came alongside of the Broadway file he would get +out, and go to the side door of the bakery and watch the men receiving +the bread. Perhaps he would find courage to speak to them, and ask them +about themselves. At the time it did not strike him that it would be +indecent. + +A great many things about them were open to reasonable conjecture. It +was not probable that they were any of them there for their health, as +the saying is. They were all there because they were hungry, or else +they were there in behalf of some one else who was hungry. But it was +always possible that some of them were impostors, and he wondered if any +test was applied to them that would prove them deserving or undeserving. +If one were poor, one ought to be deserving; if one were rich, it did not +so much matter. + +It seemed to him very likely that if he asked these men questions they +would tell him lies. A fantastic association of their double files and +those of the galley-slaves whom Don Quixote released, with the tonguey +Gines de Passamonte at their head, came into his mind. He smiled, and +then he thought how these men were really a sort of slaves and convicts +--slaves to want and self-convicted of poverty. All at once he fancied +them actually manacled there together, two by two, a coffle of captives +taken in some cruel foray, and driven to a market where no man wanted to +buy. He thought how old their slavery was; and he wondered if it would +ever be abolished, as other slaveries had been. Would the world ever +outlive it? Would some New-Year's day come when some President would +proclaim, amid some dire struggle, that their slavery was to be no more? +That would be fine. + + + + +III. + +He noticed how still the most of them were. A few of them stepped a +little out of the line, and stamped to shake off the cold; but all the +rest remained motionless, shrinking into themselves, and closer together. +They might have been their own dismal ghosts, they were so still, with no +more need of defence from the cold than the dead have. + +He observed now that not one among them had a fur overcoat on; and at a +second glance he saw that there was not an overcoat of any kind among +them. He made his reflection that if any of them were impostors, and not +true men, with real hunger, and if they were alive to feel that stiff, +wholesome, Christmas-week cold, they were justly punished for their +deceit. + +He was interested by the celerity, the simultaneity of his impressions, +his reflections. It occurred to him that his abnormal alertness must be +something like that of a drowning person, or a person in mortal peril, +and being perfectly safe and well, he was obscurely flattered by the +fact. + +To test his condition further he took note of the fine mass of the great +dry-goods store on the hither corner, blocking itself out of the blue- +black night, and of the Gothic beauty of the church beyond, so near that +the coffle of captives might have issued from its sculptured portal, +after vain prayer. + +Fragments of conjecture, of speculation, drifted through his mind. How +early did these files begin to form themselves for the midnight dole of +bread? As early as ten, as nine o'clock? If so, did the fact argue +habitual destitution, or merely habitual leisure? Did the slaves in the +coffle make acquaintance, or remain strangers to one another, though they +were closely neighbored night after night by their misery? Perhaps they +joked away the weary hours of waiting; they must have their jokes. Which +of them were old-comers, and which novices? Did they ever quarrel over +questions of precedence? Had they some comity, some etiquette, which a +man forced to leave his place could appeal to, and so get it back? Could +one say to his next-hand man, "Will you please keep my place?" and would +this man say to an interloper, "Excuse me, this place is engaged"? How +was it with them, when the coffle worked slowly or swiftly past the door +where the bread and coffee were given out, and word passed to the rear +that the supply was exhausted? This must sometimes happen, and what did +they do then? + + + + +IV. + +My friend did not quite like to think. Vague, reproachful thoughts for +all the remote and immediate luxury of his life passed through his mind. +If he reformed that and gave the saving to hunger and cold? But what was +the use? There was so much hunger, so much cold, that it could not go +round. + +The cabman was obeying his orders too faithfully. He was not only +walking by the Broadway coffle, he was creeping by. His action caught +the notice of the slaves, and as the coups passed them they all turned +and faced it, like soldiers under review making ready to salute a +superior. They were perfectly silent, perfectly respectful, but their +eyes seemed to pierce the coupe through and through. + +My friend was suddenly aware of a certain quality of representivity; he +stood to these men for all the ease and safety that they could never, +never hope to know. He was Society: Society that was to be preserved +because it embodies Civilization. He wondered if they hated him in his +capacity of Better Classes. He no longer thought of getting out and +watching their behavior as they took their bread and coffee. He would +have liked to excuse that thought, and protest that he was ashamed of it; +that he was their friend, and wished them well--as well as might be +without the sacrifice of his own advantages or superfluities, which he +could have persuaded them would be perfectly useless. He put his hand on +that of his companion trembling on his arm with sympathy, or at least +with intelligence. + +"You mustn't mind. What we are and what we do is all right. It's what +they are and what they suffer that's all wrong." + + + + +V. + +"Does that view of the situation still satisfy you?" I asked, when he +had told me of this singular experience; I liked his apparently not +coloring it at all. + +"I don't know," he answered. "It seems to be the only way out." + +"Well, it's an easy way," I admitted, "and it's an idea that ought to +gratify the midnight platoon." + + + + + + +THE BEACH AT ROCKAWAY + +I confess that I cannot hear people rejoice in their summer sojourn as +beyond the reach of excursionists without a certain rebellion; and yet I +have to confess also that after spending a Sunday afternoon of late July, +four or five years ago, with the excursionists at one of the beaches near +New York, I was rather glad that my own summer sojourn was not within +reach of them. I know very well that the excursionists must go +somewhere, and as a man and a brother I am willing they should go +anywhere, but as a friend of quiet and seclusion I should be sorry to +have them come much where I am. It is not because I would deny them a +share of any pleasure I enjoy, but because they are so many and I am so +few that I think they would get all the pleasure and I none. I hope the +reader will see how this attitude distinguishes me from the selfish +people who inhumanly exult in their remoteness from excursionists. + + + + +I. + +It was at Rockaway Beach that I saw these fellow-beings whose mere +multitude was too much for me. They were otherwise wholly without +offence towards me, and so far as I noted, towards each other; they were, +in fact, the most entirely peaceable multitude I ever saw in any country, +and the very quietest. + +There were thousands, mounting well up towards tens of thousands, of +them, in every variety of age and sex; yet I heard no voice lifted above +the conversational level, except that of some infant ignorant of its +privileges in a day at the sea-side, or some showman crying the +attractions of the spectacle in his charge. I used to think the American +crowds rather boisterous and unruly, and many years ago, when I lived in +Italy, I celebrated the greater amiability and self-control of the +Italian crowds. But we have certainly changed all that within a +generation, and if what I saw the other day was a typical New York crowd, +then the popular joy of our poorer classes is no longer the terror it +once was to the peaceful observer. The tough was not visibly present, +nor the toughness, either of the pure native East Side stock or of the +Celtic extraction; yet there were large numbers of Americans with rather +fewer recognizable Irish among the masses, who were mainly Germans, +Russians, Poles, and the Jews of these several nationalities. + +There was eating and drinking without limit, on every hand and in every +kind, at the booths abounding in fried seafood, and at the tables under +all the wide-spreading verandas of the hotels and restaurants; yet I saw +not one drunken man, and of course not any drunken women. No one that I +saw was even affected by drink, and no one was guilty of any rude or +unseemly behavior. The crowd was, in short, a monument to the democratic +ideal of life in that very important expression of life, personal +conduct, I have not any notion who or what the people were, or how +virtuous or vicious they privately might be; but I am sure that no +society assemblage could be of a goodlier outside; and to be of a goodly +outside is all that the mere spectator has a right to ask of any crowd. + +I fancied, however, that great numbers of this crowd, or at least all the +Americans in it, were Long-Islanders from the inland farms and villages +within easy distance of the beach. They had probably the hereditary +habit of coming to it, for it was a favorite resort in the time of their +fathers and grandfathers, who had + + --"many an hour whiled away + Listening to the breakers' roar + That washed the beach at Rockaway." + +But the clothing store and the paper pattern have equalized the cheaper +dress of the people so that you can no longer know citizen and countryman +apart by their clothes, still less citizeness and countrywoman; and I can +only conjecture that the foreign-looking folk I saw were from New York +and Brooklyn. They came by boat, and came and went by the continually +arriving and departing trains, and last but not least by bicycles, both +sexes. A few came in the public carriages and omnibuses of the +neighborhood, but by far the vaster number whom neither the boats nor the +trains had brought had their own vehicles, the all-pervading bicycles, +which no one seemed so poor as not to be able to keep. The bicyclers +stormed into the frantic village of the beach the whole afternoon, in the +proportion of one woman to five men, and most of these must have ridden +down on their wheels from the great cities. Boys ran about in the +roadway with bunches of brasses, to check the wheels, and put them for +safekeeping in what had once been the stable-yards of the hotels; the +restaurants had racks for them, where you could see them in solid masses, +side by side, for a hundred feet, and no shop was without its door-side +rack, which the wheelman might slide his wheel into when he stopped for a +soda, a cigar, or a sandwich. All along the road the gay bicycler and +bicycless swarmed upon the piazzas of the inns, munching, lunching, while +their wheels formed a fantastic decoration for the underpinning of the +house and a novel balustering for the steps. + + + + +II. + +The amusements provided for these throngs of people were not different +from those provided for throngs of people everywhere, who must be of much +the same mind and taste the world over. I had fine moments when I moved +in an illusion of the Midway Plaisance; again I was at the Fete de +Neuilly, with all of Paris but the accent about me; yet again the county +agricultural fairs of my youth spread their spectral joys before me. At +none of these places, however, was there a sounding sea or a mountainous +chute, and I made haste to experience the variety these afforded, +beginning with the chute, since the sea was always there, and the chute +might be closed for the day if I waited to view it last. I meant only to +enjoy the pleasure of others in it, and I confined my own participation +to the ascent of the height from which the boat plunges down the watery +steep into the oblong pool below. When I bought my ticket for the car +that carried passengers up, they gave me also a pasteboard medal, +certifying for me, "You have shot the chute," and I resolved to keep this +and show it to doubting friends as a proof of my daring; but it is a +curious evidence of my unfitness for such deceptions that I afterwards +could not find the medal. So I will frankly own that for me it was quite +enough to see others shoot the chute, and that I came tamely down myself +in the car. There is a very charming view from the top, of the sea with +its ships, and all the mad gayety of the shore, but of course my main +object was to exult in the wild absurdity of those who shot the chute. +There was always a lady among the people in the clumsy flat-boat that +flew down the long track, and she tried usually to be a pretty girl, who +clutched her friends and lovers and shrieked aloud in her flight; but +sometimes it was a sober mother of a family, with her brood about her, +who was probably meditating, all the way, the inculpation of their father +for any harm that came of it. Apparently no harm came of it in any case. + +The boat struck the water with the impetus gained from a half- +perpendicular slide of a hundred feet, bounded high into the air, struck +again and again, and so flounced awkwardly across the pond to the farther +shore, where the passengers debarked and went away to commune with their +viscera, and to get their breath as they could. I did not ask any of +them what their emotions or sensations were, but, so far as I could +conjecture, the experience of shooting the chute must comprise the rare +transport of a fall from a ten-story building and the delight of a +tempestuous passage of the Atlantic, powerfully condensed. + +The mere sight was so athletic that it took away any appetite I might +have had to witness the feats of strength performed by Madame La Noire at +the nearest booth on my coming out, though madame herself was at the +door-to testify, in her own living picture, how much muscular force may +be masked in vast masses of adipose. She had a weary, bored look, and +was not without her pathos, poor soul, as few of those are who amuse the +public; but I could not find her quite justifiable as a Sunday +entertainment. One forgot, however, what day it was, and for the time I +did not pretend to be so much better than my neighbors that I would not +compromise upon a visit to, an animal show a little farther on. It was a +pretty fair collection of beasts that had once been wild, perhaps, and in +the cage of the lions there was a slight, sad-looking, long-haired young +man, exciting them to madness by blows of a whip and pistol-shots whom I +was extremely glad to have get away without being torn in pieces, or at +least bitten in two. A little later I saw him at the door of the tent, +very breathless, dishevelled, and as to his dress not of the spotlessness +one could wish. But perhaps spotlessness is not compatible with the +intimacy of lions and lionesses. He had had his little triumph; one +spectator of his feat had declared that you would not see anything like +that at Coney Island; and soiled and dusty as he was in his cotton +tights, he was preferable to the living picture of a young lady whom he +replaced as an attraction of the show. It was professedly a moral show; +the manager exhorted us as we came out to say whether it was good or not; +and in the box-office sat a kind and motherly faced matron who would have +apparently abhorred to look upon a living picture at any distance, much +less have it at her elbow. + +Upon the whole, there seemed a melancholy mistake in it all; the people +to whom the showmen made their appeal were all so much better, evidently, +than the showmen supposed; the showmen themselves appeared harmless +enough, and one could not say that there was personally any harm in the +living picture; rather she looked listless and dull, but as to the face +respectable enough. + +I would not give the impression that most of the amusements were not in +every respect decorous. As a means of pleasure, the merry-go-round, both +horizontal with horses and vertical with swinging cradles, prevailed, and +was none the worse for being called by the French name of carrousel, for +our people aniglicize the word, and squeeze the last drop of Gallic +wickedness from it by pronouncing it carousal. At every other step there +were machines for weighing you and ascertaining your height; there were +photographers' booths, and X-ray apparatus for showing you the inside of +your watch; and in one open tent I saw a gentleman (with his back to the +public) having his fortune read in the lines of his hand by an Egyptian +seeress. Of course there was everywhere soda, and places of the softer +drinks abounded. + + + + +III. + +I think you could only get a hard drink by ordering something to eat and +sitting down to your wine or beer at a table. Again I say that I saw no +effects of drink in the crowd, and in one of the great restaurants built +out over the sea on piers, where there was perpetual dancing to the +braying of a brass-band, the cotillon had no fire imparted to its figures +by the fumes of the bar. In fact it was a very rigid sobriety that +reigned here, governing the common behavior by means of the placards +which hung from the roof over the heads of the dancers, and repeatedly +announced that gentlemen were not allowed to dance together, or to carry +umbrellas or canes while dancing, while all were entreated not to spit on +the floor. + +The dancers looked happy and harmless, if not very wise or splendid; they +seemed people of the same simple neighborhoods, village lovers, young +wives and husbands, and parties of friends who had come together for the +day's pleasure. A slight mother, much weighed down by a heavy baby, +passed, rapt in an innocent envy of them, and I think she and the child's +father meant to join them as soon as they could find a place where to lay +it. Almost any place would do; at another great restaurant I saw two +chairs faced together, and a baby sleeping on them as quietly amid the +coming and going of lagers and frankfurters as if in its cradle at home. + +Lagers and frankfurters were much in evidence everywhere, especially +frankfurters, which seemed to have whole booths devoted to broiling them. +They disputed this dignity with soft-shell crabs, and sections of eels, +piled attractively on large platters, or sizzling to an impassioned brown +in deep skillets of fat. The old acrid smell of frying brought back many +holidays of Italy to me, and I was again at times on the Riva at Venice, +and in the Mercato Vecchio at Florence. But the Continental Sunday +cannot be felt to have quite replaced the old American Sabbath yet; the +Puritan leaven works still, and though so many of our own people consent +willingly to the transformation, I fancy they always enjoy themselves on +Sunday with a certain consciousness of wrong-doing. + + + + +IV. + +I have already said that the spectator quite lost sense of what day it +was. Nothing could be more secular than all the sights and sounds. It +was the Fourth of July, less the fire-crackers and the drunkenness, and +it was the high day of the week. But if it was very wicked, and I must +recognize that the scene would be shocking to most of my readers, I feel +bound to say that the people themselves did not look wicked. They looked +harmless; they even looked good, the most of them. I am sorry to say +they were not very good-looking. The women were pretty enough, and the +men were handsome enough; perhaps the average was higher in respect of +beauty than the average is anywhere else; I was lately from New England, +where the people were distinctly more hard-favored; but among all those +thousands at Rockaway I found no striking types. It may be that as we +grow older and our satisfaction with our own looks wanes, we become more +fastidious as to the looks of others. At any rate, there seems to be +much less beauty in the world than there was thirty or forty years ago. + +On the other hand, the dresses seem indefinitely prettier, as they should +be in compensation. When we were all so handsome we could well afford to +wear hoops or peg-top trousers, but now it is different, and the poor +things must eke out their personal ungainliness with all the devices of +the modiste and the tailor. I do not mean that there was any distinction +in the dress of the crowd, but I saw nothing positively ugly or +grotesquely out of taste. The costumes were as good as the customs, and +I have already celebrated the manners of this crowd. I believe I must +except the costumes of the bicyclesses, who were unfailingly dumpy in +effect when dismounted, and who were all the more lamentable for +tottering about, in their short skirts, upon the tips of their narrow +little, sharp-pointed, silly high-heeled shoes. How severe I am! +But those high heels seemed to take all honesty from their daring in the +wholesome exercise of the wheel, and to keep them in the tradition of +cheap coquetry still, and imbecilly dependent. + + + + +V. + +I have almost forgotten in the interest of the human spectacle that there +is a sea somewhere about at Rockaway Beach, and it is this that the +people have come for. I might well forget that modest sea, it is so +built out of sight by the restaurants and bath-houses and switch-backs +and shops that border it, and by the hotels and saloons and shows flaring +along the road that divides the village, and the planked streets that +intersect this. But if you walk southward on any of the streets, you +presently find the planks foundering in sand, which drifts far up over +them, and then you find yourself in full sight of the ocean and the ocean +bathing. Swarms and heaps of people in all lolling and lying and +wallowing shapes strew the beach, and the water is full of slopping and +shouting and shrieking human creatures, clinging with bare white arms to +the life-lines that run from the shore to the buoys; beyond these the +lifeguard stays himself in his boat with outspread oars, and rocks on the +incoming surf. + +All that you can say of it is that it is queer. It is not picturesque, +or poetic, or dramatic; it is queer. An enfilading glance gives this +impression and no other; if you go to the balcony of the nearest marine +restaurant for a flanking eye-shot, it is still queer, with the added +effect, in all those arms upstretched to the life-lines, of frogs' legs +inverted in a downward plunge. + +On the sand before this spectacle I talked with a philosopher of humble +condition who backed upon me and knocked my umbrella out of my hand. +This made us beg each other's pardon; he said that he did not know I was +there, and I said it did not matter. Then we both looked at the bathing, +and he said: + +"I don't like that." + +"Why," I asked, "do you see any harm in it?" + +"No. But I don't like the looks of it. It ain't nice. It's queer." + +It was indeed like one of those uncomfortable dreams where you are not +dressed sufficiently for company, or perhaps at all, and yet are making a +very public appearance. This promiscuous bathing was not much in excess +of the convention that governs the sea-bathing of the politest people; it +could not be; and it was marked by no grave misconduct. Here and there a +gentleman was teaching a lady to swim, with his arms round her; here and +there a wild nereid was splashing another; a young Jew pursued a flight +of naiads with a section of dead eel in his hand. But otherwise all was +a damp and dreary decorum. I challenged my philosopher in vain for a +specific cause of his dislike of the scene. + +Most of the people on the sand were in bathing-dress, but there were a +multitude of others who had apparently come for the sea-air and not the +sea-bathing. A mother sat with a sick child on her knees; babies were +cradled in the sand asleep, and people walked carefully round and over +them. There were everywhere a great many poor mothers and children, who +seemed getting the most of the good that was going. + + + + +VI. + +But upon the whole, though I drove away from the beach celebrating the +good temper and the good order of the scene to an applausive driver, I +have since thought of it as rather melancholy. It was in fact no wiser +or livelier than a society function in the means of enjoyment it +afforded. The best thing about it was that it left the guests very much +to their own devices. The established pleasures were clumsy and +tiresome-looking; but one could eschew them. The more of them one +eschewed, the merrier perhaps; for I doubt if the race is formed for much +pleasure; and even a day's rest is more than most people can bear. They +endure it in passing, but they get home weary and cross, even after a +twenty-mile run on the wheel. The road, by-the-by, was full of homeward +wheels by this time, single and double and tandem, and my driver +professed that their multitude greatly increased the difficulties of his +profession. + + + + + + +SAWDUST IN THE ARENA + +It was in the old Roman arena of beautiful Verona that the circus events +I wish to speak of took place; in fact, I had the honor and profit of +seeing two circuses there. Or, strictly speaking, it was one entire +circus that I saw, and the unique speciality of another, the dying glory +of a circus on its last legs, the triumphal fall of a circus superb in +adversity. + + + + +I. + +The entire circus was altogether Italian, with the exception of the +clowns, who, to the credit of our nation, are always Americans, or +advertised as such, in Italy. Its chief and almost absorbing event was a +reproduction of the tournament which had then lately been held at Rome in +celebration of Prince Tommaso's coming of age, and for a copy of a copy +it was really fine. It had fitness in the arena, which must have +witnessed many such mediaeval shows in their time, and I am sensible +still of the pleasure its effects of color gave me. There was one +beautiful woman, a red blonde in a green velvet gown, who might have +ridden, as she was, out of a canvas of Titian's, if he had ever painted +equestrian pictures, and who at any rate was an excellent Carpaccio. +Then, the 'Clowns Americani' were very amusing, from a platform devoted +solely to them, and it was a source of pride if not of joy with me to +think that we were almost the only people present who understood their +jokes. In the vast oval of the arena, however, the circus ring looked +very little, not half so large, say, as the rim of a lady's hat in front +of you at the play; and on the gradines of the ancient amphitheatre we +were all such a great way off that a good field-glass would have been +needed to distinguish the features of the actors. I could not make out, +therefore, whether the 'Clowns Americani' had the national expression or +not, but one of them, I am sorry to say, spoke the United States language +with a cockney accent. I suspect that he was an Englishman who had +passed himself off upon the Italian management as a true Yankee, and who +had formed himself upon our school of clowning, just as some of the +recent English humorists have patterned after certain famous wits of +ours. I do not know that I would have exposed this impostor, even if +occasion had offered, for, after all, his fraud was a tribute to our own +primacy in clowning, and the Veronese were none the worse for his erring +aspirates. + +The audience was for me the best part of the spectacle, as the audience +always is in Italy, and I indulged my fancy in some cheap excursions +concerning the place and people. I reflected that it was the same race +essentially as that which used to watch the gladiatorial shows in that +arena when it was new, and that very possibly there were among these +spectators persons of the same blood as those Veronese patricians who had +left their names carved on the front of the gradines in places, to claim +this or that seat for their own. In fact, there was so little +difference, probably, in their qualities, from that time to this, that I +felt the process of the generations to be a sort of impertinence; and if +Nature had been present, I might very well have asked her why, when she +had once arrived at a given expression of humanity, she must go on +repeating it indefinitely? How were all those similar souls to know +themselves apart in their common eternity? Merely to have been +differently circumstanced in time did not seem enough; and I think Nature +would have been puzzled to answer me. But perhaps not; she may have had +her reasons, as that you cannot have too much of a good thing, and that +when the type was so fine in most respects as the Italian you could not +do better than go on repeating impressions from it. + +Certainly I myself could have wished no variation from it in the young +officer of 'bersaglieri', who had come down from antiquity to the topmost +gradine of the arena over against me, and stood there defined against the +clear evening sky, one hand on his hip, and the other at his side, while +his thin cockerel plumes streamed in the light wind. I have since +wondered if he knew how beautiful he was, and I am sure that, if he did +not, all the women there did, and that was doubtless enough for the young +officer of 'bersaglieri'. + + + + +II. + +I think that he was preliminary to the sole event of that partial circus +I have mentioned. This event was one that I have often witnessed +elsewhere, but never in such noble and worthy keeping. The top of the +outer arena wall must itself be fifty feet high, and the pole in the +centre of its oval seemed to rise fifty feet higher yet. At its base an +immense net was stretched, and a man in a Prince Albert coat and a derby +hat was figuring about, anxiously directing the workmen who were fixing +the guy-ropes, and testing every particular of the preparation with his +own hands. While this went on, a young girl ran out into the arena, and, +after a bow to the spectators, quickly mounted to the top of the pole, +where she presently stood in statuesque beauty that took all eyes even +from the loveliness of the officer of 'bersaglieri'. There the man in +the Prince Albert coat and the derby hat stepped back from the net and +looked up at her. + +She called down, in English that sounded like some delocalized, +denaturalized speech, it was so strange then and there, "Is it all +right?" + +He shouted back in the same alienated tongue, "Yes; keep to the left," +and she dived straight downward in the long plunge, till, just before she +reached the net, she turned a quick somersault into its elastic mesh. + +It was all so exquisitely graceful that one forgot how wickedly dangerous +it was; but I think that the brief English colloquy was the great wonder +of the event for me, and I doubt if I could ever have been perfectly +happy again, if chance had not amiably suffered me to satisfy my +curiosity concerning the speakers. A few evenings after that, I was at +that copy of a copy of a tournament, and, a few gradines below me, I saw +the man of the Prince Albert coat and the derby hat. I had already made +up my mind that he was an American, for I supposed that an Englishman +would rather perish than wear such a coat with such a hat, and as I had +wished all my life to speak to a circus-man, I went down and boldly +accosted him. "Are you a brother Yankee?" I asked, and he laughed, and +confessed that he was an Englishman, but he said he was glad to meet any +one who spoke English, and he made a place for me by his side. He was +very willing to tell how he happened to be there, and he explained that +he was the manager of a circus, which had been playing to very good +business all winter in Spain. In an evil hour he decided to come to +Italy, but he found the prices so ruinously low that he was forced to +disband his company. This diving girl was all that remained to him of +its many attractions, and he was trying to make a living for both in a +country where the admission to a circus was six of our cents, with fifty +for a reserved seat. But he was about to give it up and come to America, +where he said Barnum had offered him an engagement. I hope he found it +profitable, and is long since an American citizen, with as good right as +any of us to wear a Prince Albert coat with a derby hat. + + + + +III. + +There used to be very good circuses in Venice, where many Venetians had +the only opportunity of their lives to see a horse. The horses were the +great attraction for them, and, perhaps in concession to their habitual +destitution in this respect, the riding was providentially very good. It +was so good that it did not bore me, as circus-riding mostly does, +especially that of the silk-clad jockey who stands in his high boots, on +his back-bared horse, and ends by waving an American flag in triumph at +having been so tiresome. + +I am at a loss to know why they make such an ado about the lady who jumps +through paper hoops, which have first had holes poked in them to render +her transit easy, or why it should be thought such a merit in her to hop +over a succession of banners which are swept under her feet in a manner +to minify her exertion almost to nothing, but I observe it is so at all +circuses. At my first Venetian circus, which was on a broad expanse of +the Riva degli Schiavoni, there was a girl who flung herself to the +ground and back to her horse again, holding by his mane with one hand, +quite like the goddess out of the bath-gown at my village circus the +other day; and apparently there are more circuses in the world than +circus events. It must be as hard to think up anything new in that kind +as in romanticistic fiction, which circus-acting otherwise largely +resembles. + +At a circus which played all one winter in Florence I saw for the first +time-outside of polite society--the clown in evening dress, who now seems +essential to all circuses of metropolitan pretensions, and whom I missed +so gladly at my village circus. He is nearly as futile as the lady +clown, who is one of the saddest and strangest developments of New +Womanhood. + +Of the clowns who do not speak, I believe I like most the clown who +catches a succession of peak-crowned soft hats on his head, when thrown +across the ring by an accomplice. This is a very pretty sight always, +and at the Hippodrome in Paris I once saw a gifted creature take his +stand high up on the benches among the audience and catch these hats on +his head from a flight of a hundred feet through the air. This made me +proud of human nature, which is often so humiliating; and altogether I do +not think that after a real country circus there are many better things +in life than the Hippodrome. It had a state, a dignity, a smoothness, a +polish, which I should not know where to match, and when the superb coach +drove into the ring to convey the lady performers to the scene of their +events, there was a majesty in the effect which I doubt if courts have +the power to rival. Still, it should be remembered that I have never +been at court, and speak from a knowledge of the Hippodrome only. + + + + + + +AT A DIME MUSEUM + +"I see," said my friend, "that you have been writing a good deal about +the theatre during the past winter. You have been attacking its high +hats and its high prices, and its low morals; and I suppose that you +think you have done good, as people call it." + + + + +I. + +This seemed like a challenge of some sort, and I prepared myself to take +it up warily. I said I should be very sorry to do good, as people called +it; because such a line of action nearly always ended in spiritual pride +for the doer and general demoralization for the doee. Still, I said, a +law had lately been passed in Ohio giving a man who found himself behind +a high hat at the theatre a claim for damages against the manager; and if +the passage of this law could be traced ever so faintly and indirectly to +my teachings, I should not altogether grieve for the good I had done. +I added that if all the States should pass such a law, and other laws +fixing a low price for a certain number of seats at the theatres, or +obliging the managers to give one free performance every month, as the +law does in Paris, and should then forbid indecent and immoral plays-- + +"I see what you mean," said my friend, a little impatiently. "You mean +sumptuary legislation. But I have not come to talk to you upon that +subject, for then you would probably want to do all the talking yourself. +I want to ask you if you have visited any of the cheaper amusements of +this metropolis, or know anything of the really clever and charming +things one may see there for a very little money." + +"Ten cents, for instance?" + +"Yes." + +I answered that I would never own to having come as low down as that; and +I expressed a hardy and somewhat inconsistent doubt of the quality of the +amusement that could be had for that money. I questioned if anything +intellectual could be had for it. + +"What do you say to the ten-cent magazines?" my friend retorted. "And +do you pretend that the two-dollar drama is intellectual?" + +I had to confess that it generally was not, and that this was part of my +grief with it. + +Then he said: "I don't contend that it is intellectual, but I say that it +is often clever and charming at the ten-cent shows, just as it is less +often clever and charming in the ten-cent magazines. I think the average +of propriety is rather higher than it is at the two-dollar theatres; and +it is much more instructive at the ten-cent shows, if you come to that. +The other day," said my friend, and in squaring himself comfortably in +his chair and finding room for his elbow on the corner of my table he +knocked off some books for review, "I went to a dime museum for an hour +that I had between two appointments, and I must say that I never passed +an hour's time more agreeably. In the curio hall, as one of the +lecturers on the curios called it--they had several lecturers in white +wigs and scholars' caps and gowns--there was not a great deal to see, I +confess; but everything was very high-class. There was the inventor of a +perpetual motion, who lectured upon it and explained it from a diagram. +There was a fortune-teller in a three-foot tent whom I did not interview; +there were five macaws in one cage, and two gloomy apes in another. On a +platform at the end of the hall was an Australian family a good deal +gloomier than the apes, who sat in the costume of our latitude, staring +down the room with varying expressions all verging upon melancholy +madness, and who gave me such a pang of compassion as I have seldom got +from the tragedy of the two-dollar theatres. They allowed me to come +quite close up to them, and to feed my pity upon their wild dejection in +exile without stint. I couldn't enter into conversation with them, and +express my regret at finding them so far from their native boomerangs and +kangaroos and pinetree grubs, but I know they felt my sympathy, it was so +evident. I didn't see their performance, and I don't know that they had +any. They may simply have been there ethnologically, but this was a good +object, and the sight of their spiritual misery was alone worth the price +of admission. + +"After the inventor of the perpetual motion had brought his harangue to a +close, we all went round to the dais where a lady in blue spectacles +lectured us upon a fire-escape which she had invented, and operated a +small model of it. None of the events were so exciting that we could +regret it when the chief lecturer announced that this was the end of the +entertainment in the curio hall, and that now the performance in the +theatre was about to begin. He invited us to buy tickets at an +additional charge of five, ten, or fifteen cents for the gallery, +orchestra circle, or orchestra. + +"I thought I could afford an orchestra stall, for once. We were three in +the orchestra, another man and a young mother, not counting the little +boy she had with her; there were two people in the gallery, and a dozen +at least in the orchestra circle. An attendant shouted, 'Hats off!' and +the other man and I uncovered, and a lady came up from under the stage +and began to play the piano in front of it. The curtain rose, and the +entertainment began at once. It was a passage apparently from real life, +and it involved a dissatisfied boarder and the daughter of the landlady. +There was not much coherence in it, but there was a good deal of +conscience on the part of the actors, who toiled through it with +unflagging energy. The young woman was equipped for the dance she +brought into it at one point rather than for the part she had to sustain +in the drama. It was a very blameless dance, and she gave it as if she +was tired of it, but was not going to falter. She delivered her lines +with a hard, Southwestern accent, and I liked fancying her having come up +in a simpler-hearted section of the country than ours, encouraged by a +strong local belief that she was destined to do Juliet and Lady Macbeth, +or Peg Woffington at the least; but very likely she had not. + +"Her performance was followed by an event involving a single character. +The actor, naturally, was blackened as to his skin, but as to his dress +he was all in white, and at the first glance I could see that he had +temperament. I suspect that he thought I had, too, for he began to +address his entire drama to me. This was not surprising, for it would +not have been the thing for him to single out the young mother; and the +other man in the orchestra stalls seemed a vague and inexperienced youth, +whom he would hardly have given the preference over me. I felt the +compliment, but upon the whole it embarrassed me; it was too intimate, +and it gave me a publicity I would willingly have foregone. I did what I +could to reject it, by feigning an indifference to his jokes; I even +frowned a measure of disapproval; but this merely stimulated his +ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a +number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and +looked over his audience with a woe-begone eye, and said, with an effect +of delicate apology, 'I hope I'm not disturbing you any,' I broke down +and laughed, and that delivered me into his hand. He immediately said to +me that now he would tell me about a friend of his, who had a pretty +large family, eight of them living, and one in Philadelphia; and then for +no reason he seemed to change his mind, and said he would sing me a song +written expressly for him--by an expressman; and he went on from one wild +gayety to another, until he had worked his audience up to quite a frenzy +of enthusiasm, and almost had a recall when he went off. + +"I was rather glad to be rid of him, and I was glad that the next +performers, who were a lady and a gentleman contortionist of Spanish- +American extraction, behaved more impartially. They were really +remarkable artists in their way, and though it's a painful way, I +couldn't help admiring their gift in bowknots and other difficult poses. +The gentleman got abundant applause, but the lady at first got none. I +think perhaps it was because, with the correct feeling that prevailed +among us, we could not see a lady contort herself with so much approval +as a gentleman, and that there was a wound to our sense of propriety in +witnessing her skill. But I could see that the poor girl was hurt in her +artist pride by our severity, and at the next thing she did I led off the +applause with my umbrella. She instantly lighted up with a joyful smile, +and the young mother in the orchestra leaned forward to nod her sympathy +to me while she clapped. We were fast becoming a domestic circle, and it +was very pleasant, but I thought that upon the whole I had better go." + +"And do you think you had a profitable hour at that show?" I asked, with +a smile that was meant to be sceptical. + +"Profitable?" said my friend. "I said agreeable. I don't know about +the profit. But it was very good variety, and it was very cheap. I +understand that this is the kind of thing you want the two-dollar theatre +to come down to, or up to." + +"Not exactly, or not quite," I returned, thoughtfully, "though I must say +I think your time was as well spent as it would have been at most of the +plays I have seen this winter." + +My friend left the point, and said, with a dreamy air: "It was all very +pathetic, in a way. Three out of those five people were really clever, +and certainly artists. That colored brother was almost a genius, a very +common variety of genius, but still a genius, with a gift for his calling +that couldn't be disputed. He was a genuine humorist, and I sorrowed +over him--after I got safely away from his intimacy--as I should over +some author who was struggling along without winning his public. Why +not? One is as much in the show business as the other. There is a +difference of quality rather than of kind. Perhaps by-and-by my colored +humorist will make a strike with his branch of the public, as you are +always hoping to do with yours." + +"You don't think you're making yourself rather offensive?" I suggested. + +"Not intentionally. Aren't the arts one? How can you say that any art +is higher than the others? Why is it nobler to contort the mind than to +contort the body?" + +"I am always saying that it is not at all noble to contort the mind," +I returned, "and I feel that to aim at nothing higher than the amusement +of your readers is to bring yourself most distinctly to the level of the +show business." + +"Yes, I know that is your pose," said my friend. "And I dare say you +really think that you make a distinction in facts when you make a +distinction in terms. If you don't amuse your readers, you don't keep +them; practically, you cease to exist. You may call it interesting them, +if you like; but, really, what is the difference? You do your little +act, and because the stage is large and the house is fine, you fancy you +are not of that sad brotherhood which aims to please in humbler places, +with perhaps cruder means--" + +"I don't know whether I like your saws less than your instances, or your +instances less than your saws," I broke in. "Have you been at the circus +yet?" + + + + +II. + +"Yet?" demanded my friend. "I went the first night, and I have been a +good deal interested in the examination of my emotions ever since. +I can't find out just why I have so much pleasure in the trapeze. +Half the time I want to shut my eyes, and a good part of the time I do +look away; but I wouldn't spare any actor the most dangerous feat. +One of the poor girls, that night, dropped awkwardly into the net after +her performance, and limped off to the dressing-room with a sprained +ankle. It made me rather sad to think that now she must perhaps give up +her perilous work for a while, and pay a doctor, and lose her salary, but +it didn't take away my interest in the other trapezists flying through +the air above another net. + +"If I had honestly complained of anything it would have been of the +superfluity which glutted rather than fed me. How can you watch three +sets of trapezists at once? You really see neither well. It's the same +with the three rings. There should be one ring, and each act should have +a fair chance with the spectator, if it took six hours; I would willingly +give the time. Fancy three stages at the theatre, with three plays going +on at once!" + +"No, don't fancy that!" I entreated. "One play is bad enough." + +"Or fancy reading three novels simultaneously, and listening at the same +time to a lecture and a sermon, which could represent the two platforms +between the rings," my friend calmly persisted. "The three rings are an +abuse and an outrage, but I don't know but I object still more to the +silencing of the clowns. They have a great many clowns now, but they are +all dumb, and you only get half the good you used to get out of the +single clown of the old one-ring circus. Why, it's as if the literary +humorist were to lead up to a charming conceit or a subtle jest, and then +put asterisks where the humor ought to come in." + +"Don't you think you are going from bad to worse?" I asked. + +My friend went on: "I'm afraid the circus is spoiled for me. It has +become too much of a good thing; for it is a good thing; almost the best +thing in the way of an entertainment that there is. I'm still very fond +of it, but I come away defeated and defrauded because I have been +embarrassed with riches, and have been given more than I was able to +grasp. My greed has been overfed. I think I must keep to those +entertainments where you can come at ten in the morning and stay till ten +at night, with a perpetual change of bill, only one stage, and no fall of +the curtain. I suppose you would object to them because they're getting +rather dear; at the best of them now they ask you a dollar for the first +seats." + +I said that I did not think this too much for twelve hours, if the +intellectual character of the entertainment was correspondingly high. + +"It's as high as that of some magazines," said my friend, "though I could +sometimes wish it were higher. It's like the matter in the Sunday +papers--about that average. Some of it's good, and most of it isn't. +Some of it could hardly be worse. But there is a great deal of it, and +you get it consecutively and not simultaneously. That constitutes its +advantage over the circus." + +My friend stopped, with a vague smile, and I asked: + +"Then, do I understand that you would advise me to recommend the dime +museums, the circus, and the perpetual-motion varieties in the place of +the theatres?" + +"You have recommended books instead, and that notion doesn't seem to have +met with much favor, though you urged their comparative cheapness. Now, +why not suggest something that is really level with the popular taste?" + + + + + + +AMERICAN LITERATURE IN EXILE + +A recently lecturing Englishman is reported to have noted the unenviable +primacy of the United States among countries where the struggle for +material prosperity has been disastrous to the pursuit of literature. +He said, or is said to have said (one cannot be too careful in +attributing to a public man the thoughts that may be really due to an +imaginative frame in the reporter), that among us, "the old race of +writers of distinction, such as Longfellow, Bryant, Holmes, and +Washington Irving, have (sic) died out, and the Americans who are most +prominent in cultivated European opinion in art or literature, like +Sargent, Henry James, or Marion Crawford, live habitually out of America, +and draw their inspiration from England, France, and Italy." + + + + +I. + +If this were true, I confess that I am so indifferent to what many +Americans glory in that it would not distress me, or wound me in the sort +of self-love which calls itself patriotism. If it would at all help to +put an end to that struggle for material prosperity which has eventuated +with us in so many millionaires and so many tramps, I should be glad to +believe that it was driving our literary men out of the country. This +would be a tremendous object-lesson, and might be a warning to the +millionaires and the tramps. But I am afraid it would not have this +effect, for neither our very rich nor our very poor care at all for the +state of polite learning among us; though for the matter of that, I +believe that economic conditions have little to do with it; and that if a +general mediocrity of fortune prevailed and there were no haste to be +rich and to get poor, the state of polite learning would not be +considerably affected. As matters stand, I think we may reasonably ask +whether the Americans "most prominent in cultivated European opinion," +the Americans who "live habitually out of America," are not less exiles +than advance agents of the expansion now advertising itself to the world. +They may be the vanguard of the great army of adventurers destined to +overrun the earth from these shores, and exploit all foreign countries to +our advantage. They probably themselves do not know it, but in the act +of "drawing their inspiration" from alien scenes, or taking their own +where they find it, are not they simply transporting to Europe "the +struggle for material prosperity," which Sir Lepel supposes to be fatal +to them here? + +There is a question, however, which comes before this, and that is the +question whether they have quitted us in such numbers as justly to alarm +our patriotism. Qualitatively, in the authors named and in the late Mr. +Bret Harte, Mr. Harry Harland, and the late Mr. Harold Frederic, as well +as in Mark Twain, once temporarily resident abroad, the defection is very +great; but quantitatively it is not such as to leave us without a fair +measure of home-keeping authorship. Our destitution is not nearly so +great now in the absence of Mr. James and Mr. Crawford as it was in the +times before the "struggle for material prosperity" when Washington +Irving went and lived in England and on the European continent well-nigh +half his life. + +Sir Lepel Griffin--or Sir Lepel Griffin's reporter--seems to forget the +fact of Irving's long absenteeism when he classes him with "the old race" +of eminent American authors who stayed at home. But really none of those +he names were so constant to our air as he seems--or his reporter seems-- +to think. Longfellow sojourned three or four years in Germany, Spain, +and Italy; Holmes spent as great time in Paris; Bryant was a frequent +traveller, and each of them "drew his inspiration" now and then from +alien sources. Lowell was many years in Italy, Spain, and England; +Motley spent more than half his life abroad; Hawthorne was away from us +nearly a decade. + + + + +II. + +If I seem to be proving too much in one way, I do not feel that I am +proving too much in another. My facts go to show that the literary +spirit is the true world-citizen, and is at home everywhere. If any good +American were distressed by the absenteeism of our authors, I should +first advise him that American literature was not derived from the folk- +lore of the red Indians, but was, as I have said once before, a condition +of English literature, and was independent even of our independence. +Then I should entreat him to consider the case of foreign authors who had +found it more comfortable or more profitable to live out of their +respective countries than in them. I should allege for his consolation +the case of Byron, Shelley, and Leigh Hunt, and more latterly that of the +Brownings and Walter Savage Landor, who preferred an Italian to an +English sojourn; and yet more recently that of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who +voluntarily lived several years in Vermont, and has "drawn his +inspiration" in notable instances from the life of these States. It will +serve him also to consider that the two greatest Norwegian authors, +Bjornsen and Ibsen, have both lived long in France and Italy. Heinrich +Heine loved to live in Paris much better than in Dusseldorf, or even in +Hamburg; and Tourguenief himself, who said that any man's country could +get on without him, but no man could get on without his country, managed +to dispense with his own in the French capital, and died there after he +was quite free to go back to St. Petersburg. In the last century +Rousseau lived in France rather than Switzerland; Voltaire at least tried +to live in Prussia, and was obliged to a long exile elsewhere; Goldoni +left fame and friends in Venice for the favor of princes in Paris. + +Literary absenteeism, it seems to me, is not peculiarly an American vice +or an American virtue. It is an expression and a proof of the modern +sense which enlarges one's country to the bounds of civilization. +I cannot think it justly a reproach in the eyes of the world, and if any +American feels it a grievance, I suggest that he do what he can to have +embodied in the platform of his party a plank affirming the right of +American authors to a public provision that will enable them to live as +agreeably at home as they can abroad on the same money. In the mean +time, their absenteeism is not a consequence of "the struggle for +material prosperity," not a high disdain of the strife which goes on not +less in Europe than in America, and must, of course, go on everywhere as +long as competitive conditions endure, but is the result of chances and +preferences which mean nothing nationally calamitous or discreditable. + + + + + + +THE HORSE SHOW + +"As good as the circus--not so good as the circus--better than the +circus." These were my varying impressions, as I sat looking down upon +the tanbark, the other day, at the Horse Show in Madison Square Garden; +and I came away with their blend for my final opinion. + + + + +I. + +I might think that the Horse Show (which is so largely a Man Show and a +Woman Show) was better or worse than the circus, or about as good; but I +could not get away from the circus, in my impression of it. Perhaps the +circus is the norm of all splendors where the horse and his master are +joined for an effect upon the imagination of the spectator. I am sure +that I have never been able quite to dissociate from it the +picturesqueness of chivalry, and that it will hereafter always suggest to +me the last correctness of fashion. It is through the horse that these +far extremes meet; in all times the horse has been the supreme expression +of aristocracy; and it may very well be that a dream of the elder world +prophesied the ultimate type of the future, when the Swell shall have +evolved into the Centaur. + +Some such teasing notion of their mystical affinity is what haunts you as +you make your round of the vast ellipse, with the well-groomed men about +you and the well-groomed horses beyond the barrier. + +In this first affair of the new--comer, the horses are not so much on +show as the swells; you get only glimpses of shining coats and tossing +manes, with a glint here and there of a flying hoof through the lines of +people coming and going, and the ranks of people, three or four feet +deep, against the rails of the ellipse; but the swells are there in +perfect relief, and it is they who finally embody the Horse Show to you. +The fact is that they are there to see, of course, but the effect is that +they are there to be seen. + +The whole spectacle had an historical quality, which I tasted with +pleasure. It was the thing that had eventuated in every civilization, +and the American might feel a characteristic pride that what came to Rome +in five hundred years had come to America in a single century. There was +something fine in the absolutely fatal nature of the result, and I +perceived that nowhere else in our life, which is apt to be reclusive in +its exclusiveness, is the prime motive at work in it so dramatically +apparent. "Yes," I found myself thinking, "this is what it all comes to: +the 'subiti guadagni' of the new rich, made in large masses and seeking a +swift and eager exploitation, and the slowly accumulated fortunes, put +together from sparing and scrimping, from slaving and enslaving, in +former times, and now in the stainless white hands of the second or third +generation, they both meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation, +and create a Horse Show." + +I cannot say that its creators looked much as if they liked it, now they +had got it; and, so far as I have been able to observe them, people of +wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy, and have the air of being +bored in the midst of their amusements. This reserve of rapture may be +their delicacy, their unwillingness to awaken envy in the less prospered; +and I should not have objected to the swells at the Horse Show looking +dreary if they had looked more like swells; except for a certain hardness +of the countenance (which I found my own sympathetically taking on) I +should not have thought them very patrician, and this hardness may have +been merely the consequence of being so much stared at. Perhaps, indeed, +they were not swells whom I saw in the boxes, but only companies of +ordinary people who had clubbed together and hired their boxes; +I understand that this can be done, and the student of civilization so +far misled. But certainly if they were swells they did not look quite up +to themselves; though, for that matter, neither do the nobilities of +foreign countries, and on one or two occasions when I have seen them, +kings and emperors have failed me in like manner. They have all wanted +that indescribable something which I have found so satisfying in +aristocracies and royalties on the stage; and here at the Horse Show, +while I made my tour, I constantly met handsome, actor-like folk on foot +who could much better have taken the role of the people in the boxes. +The promenaders may not have been actors at all; they may have been the +real thing for which I was in vain scanning the boxes, but they looked +like actors, who indeed set an example to us all in personal beauty and +in correctness of dress. + +I mean nothing offensive either to swells or to actors. We have not +distinction, as a people; Matthew Arnold noted that; and it is not our +business to have it: When it is our business our swells will have it, +just as our actors now have it, especially our actors of English birth. +I had not this reflection about me at the time to console me for my +disappointment, and it only now occurs to me that what I took for an +absence of distinction may have been such a universal prevalence of it +that the result was necessarily a species of indistinction. But in the +complexion of any social assembly we Americans are at a disadvantage with +Europeans from the want of uniforms. A few military scattered about in +those boxes, or even a few sporting bishops in shovel-hats and aprons, +would have done much to relieve them from the reproach I have been +heaping upon them. Our women, indeed, poor things, always do their duty +in personal splendor, and it is not of a poverty in their modes at the +Horse Show that I am complaining. If the men had borne their part as +well, there would not have been these tears: and yet, what am I saying? +There was here and there a clean-shaven face (which I will not believe +was always an actor's), and here and there a figure superbly set up, and +so faultlessly appointed as to shoes, trousers, coat, tie, hat, and +gloves as to have a salience from the mass of good looks and good clothes +which I will not at last call less than distinction. + + + + +II. + +At any rate, I missed these marked presences when I left the lines of the +promenaders around the ellipse, and climbed to a seat some tiers above +the boxes. I am rather anxious to have it known that my seat was not one +of those cheap ones in the upper gallery, but was with the virtuous poor +who could afford to pay a dollar and a half for their tickets. I bought +it of a speculator on the sidewalk, who said it was his last, so that I +conceived it the last in the house; but I found the chairs by no means +all filled, though it was as good an audience as I have sometimes seen in +the same place at other circuses. The people about me were such as I had +noted at the other circuses, hotel-sojourners, kindly-looking comers from +provincial towns and cities, whom I instantly felt myself at home with, +and free to put off that gloomy severity of aspect which had grown upon +me during my association with the swells below. My neighbors were +sufficiently well dressed, and if they had no more distinction than their +betters, or their richers, they had not the burden of the occasion upon +them, and seemed really glad of what was going on in the ring. + +There again I was sensible of the vast advantage of costume. The bugler +who stood up at one end of the central platform and blew a fine fanfare +(I hope it was a fanfare) towards the gates where the horses were to +enter from their stalls in the basement was a hussar-like shape that +filled my romantic soul with joy; and the other figures of the management +I thought very fortunate compromises between grooms and ringmasters. At +any rate, their nondescript costumes were gay, and a relief from the +fashions in the boxes and the promenade; they were costumes, and costumes +are always more sincere, if not more effective, than fashions. As I have +hinted, I do not know just what costumes they were, but they took the +light well from the girandole far aloof and from the thousands of little +electric bulbs that beaded the roof in long lines, and dispersed the +sullenness of the dull, rainy afternoon. When the knights entered the +lists on the seats of their dog-carts, with their squires beside them, +and their shining tandems before them, they took the light well, too, and +the spectacle was so brilliant that I trust my imagery may be forgiven a +novelist pining for the pageantries of the past. I do not know to this +moment whether these knights were bona fide gentlemen, or only their +deputies, driving their tandems for them, and I am equally at a loss to +account for the variety, of their hats. Some wore tall, shining silk +hats; some flat-topped, brown derbys; some simple black pot-hats;--and is +there, then, no rigor as to the head-gear of people driving tandems? +I felt that there ought to be, and that there ought to be some rule as to +where the number of each tandem should be displayed. As it was, this was +sometimes carelessly stuck into the seat of the cart; sometimes it was +worn at the back of the groom's waist, and sometimes full upon his +stomach. In the last position it gave a touch of burlesque which wounded +me; for these are vital matters, and I found myself very exacting in +them. + +With the horses themselves I could find no fault upon the grounds of my +censure of the show in some other ways. They had distinction; they were +patrician; they were swell. They felt it, they showed it, they rejoiced +in it; and the most reluctant observer could not deny them the glory of +blood, of birth, which the thoroughbred horse has expressed in all lands +and ages. Their lordly port was a thing that no one could dispute, and +for an aristocracy I suppose that they had a high average of +intelligence, though there might be two minds about this. They made me +think of mettled youths and haughty dames; they abashed the humble spirit +of the beholder with the pride of their high-stepping, their curvetting +and caracoling, as they jingled in their shining harness around the long +ring. Their noble uselessness took the fancy, for I suppose that there +is nothing so superbly superfluous as a tandem, outside or inside of the +best society. It is something which only the ambition of wealth and +unbroken leisure can mount to; and I was glad that the display of tandems +was the first event of the Horse Show which I witnessed, for it seemed to +me that it must beyond all others typify the power which created the +Horse Show. I wished that the human side of it could have been more +unquestionably adequate, but the equine side of the event was perfect. +Still, I felt a certain relief, as in something innocent and simple and +childlike, in the next event. + + + + +III. + +This was the inundation of the tan-bark with troops of pretty Shetland +ponies of all ages, sizes, and colors. A cry of delight went up from a +group of little people near me, and the spell of the Horse Show was +broken. It was no longer a solemnity of fashion, it was a sweet and +kindly pleasure which every one could share, or every one who had ever +had, or ever wished to have, a Shetland pony; the touch of nature made +the whole show kin. I could not see that the freakish, kittenish +creatures did anything to claim our admiration, but they won our +affection by every trait of ponyish caprice and obstinacy. The small +colts broke away from the small mares, and gambolled over the tanbark in +wanton groups, with gay or plaintive whinnyings, which might well have +touched a responsive chord in the bosom of fashion itself: I dare say it +is not so hard as it looks. The scene remanded us to a moment of +childhood; and I found myself so fond of all the ponies that I felt it +invidious of the judges to choose among them for the prizes; they ought +every one to have had the prize. + +I suppose a Shetland pony is not a very useful animal in our conditions; +no doubt a good, tough, stubbed donkey would be worth all their tribe +when it came down to hard work; but we cannot all be hard-working +donkeys, and some of us may be toys and playthings without too great +reproach. I gazed after the broken, refluent wave of these amiable +creatures, with the vague toleration here formulated, but I was not quite +at peace in it, or fully consoled in my habitual ethicism till the next +event brought the hunters with their high-jumping into the ring. These +noble animals unite use and beauty in such measure that the censor must +be of Catonian severity who can refuse them his praise. When I reflected +that by them and their devoted riders our civilization had been +assimilated to that of the mother-country in its finest expression, and +another tie added to those that bind us to her through the language of +Shakespeare and Milton; that they had tamed the haughty spirit of the +American farmer in several parts of the country so that he submitted for +a consideration to have his crops ridden over, and that they had all but +exterminated the ferocious anise-seed bag, once so common and destructive +among us, I was in a fit mood to welcome the bars and hurdles which were +now set up at four or five places for the purposes of the high-jumping. +As to the beauty of the hunting-horse, though, I think I must hedge a +little, while I stand firmly to my admiration of his use. To be honest, +the tandem horse is more to my taste. He is better shaped, and he bears +himself more proudly. The hunter is apt to behave, whatever his reserve +of intelligence, like an excited hen; he is apt to be ewe-necked and bred +away to nothing where the ideal horse abounds; he has the behavior of a +turkey-hen when not behaving like the common or garden hen. But there +can be no question of his jumping, which seems to be his chief business +in a world where we are all appointed our several duties, and I at once +began to take a vivid pleasure in his proficiency. I have always felt a +blind and insensate joy in running races, which has no relation to any +particular horse, and I now experienced an impartial rapture in the +performances of these hunters. They looked very much alike, and if it +had not been for the changing numbers on the sign-board in the centre of +the ring announcing that 650, 675, or 602 was now jumping, I might have +thought it was 650 all the time. + +A high jump is not so fine a sight as a running race when the horses have +got half a mile away and look like a covey of swift birds, but it is +still a fine sight. I became very fastidious as to which moment of it +was the finest, whether when the horse rose in profile, or when his +aerial hoof touched the ground (with the effect of half jerking his +rider's head half off), or when he showed a flying heel in perspective; +and I do not know to this hour which I prefer. But I suppose I was +becoming gradually spoiled by my pleasure, for as time went on I noticed +that I was not satisfied with the monotonous excellence of the horses' +execution. Will it be credited that I became willing something should +happen, anything, to vary it? I asked myself why, if some of the more +exciting incidents of the hunting-field which I had read of must befall; +I should not see them. Several of the horses had balked at the barriers, +and almost thrown their riders across them over their necks, but not +quite done it; several had carried away the green-tufted top rail with +their heels; when suddenly there came a loud clatter from the farther +side of the ellipse, where a whole panel of fence had gone down. I +looked eagerly for the prostrate horse and rider under the bars, but they +were cantering safely away. + + + + +IV. + +It was enough, however. I perceived that I was becoming demoralized, and +that if I were to write of the Horse Show with at all the superiority one +likes to feel towards the rich and great, I had better come away. But I +came away critical, even in my downfall, and feeling that, circus for +circus, the Greatest Show on Earth which I had often seen in that place +had certain distinct advantages of the Horse Show. It had three rings +and two platforms; and, for another thing, the drivers and riders in the +races, when they won, bore the banner of victory aloft in their hands, +instead of poorly letting a blue or red ribbon flicker at their horses' +ears. The events were more frequent and rapid; the costumes infinitely +more varied and picturesque. As for the people in the boxes, I do not +know that they were less distinguished than these at the Horse Show, but +if they were not of the same high level in which distinction was +impossible, they did not show it in their looks. + +The Horse Show, in fine, struck me as a circus of not all the first +qualities; and I had moments of suspecting that it was no more than the +evolution of the county cattle show. But in any case I had to own that +its great success was quite legitimate; for the horse, upon the whole, +appeals to a wider range of humanity, vertically as well as horizontally, +than any other interest, not excepting politics or religion. I cannot, +indeed, regard him as a civilizing influence; but then we cannot be +always civilizing. + + + + + + +THE PROBLEM OF THE SUMMER + +It has sometimes seemed to me that the solution of the problem how and +where to spend the summer was simplest with those who were obliged to +spend it as they spent the winter, and increasingly difficult in the +proportion of one's ability to spend it wherever and however one chose. +Few are absolutely released to this choice, however, and those few are +greatly to be pitied. I know that they are often envied and hated for it +by those who have no such choice, but that is a pathetic mistake. If we +could look into their hearts, indeed, we should witness there so much +misery that we should wish rather to weep over them than to reproach them +with their better fortune, or what appeared so. + + + + +I. + +For most people choice is a curse, and it is this curse that the summer +brings upon great numbers who would not perhaps otherwise be afflicted. +They are not in the happy case of those who must stay at home; their hard +necessity is that they can go away, and try to be more agreeably placed +somewhere else; but although I say they are in great numbers, they are an +infinitesimal minority of the whole bulk of our population. Their bane +is not, in its highest form, that of the average American who has no +choice of the kind; and when one begins to speak of the summer problem, +one must begin at once to distinguish. It is the problem of the East +rather than of the West (where people are much more in the habit of +staying at home the year round), and it is the problem of the city and +not of the country. I am not sure that there is one practical farmer in +the whole United States who is obliged to witness in his household those +sad dissensions which almost separate the families of professional men as +to where and how they shall pass the summer. People of this class, which +is a class with some measure of money, ease, and taste, are commonly of +varying and decided minds, and I once knew a family of the sort whose +combined ideal for their summer outing was summed up in the simple desire +for society and solitude, mountain-air and sea-bathing. They spent the +whole months of April, May, and June in a futile inquiry for a resort +uniting these attractions, and on the first of July they drove to the +station with no definite point in view. But they found that they could +get return tickets for a certain place on an inland lake at a low figure, +and they took the first train for it. There they decided next morning to +push on to the mountains, and sent their baggage to the station, but +before it was checked they changed their minds, and remained two weeks +where they were. Then they took train for a place on the coast, but in +the cars a friend told them they ought to go to another place; they +decided to go there, but before arriving at the junction they decided +again to keep on. They arrived at their original destination, and the +following day telegraphed for rooms at a hotel farther down the coast. +The answer came that there were no rooms, and being by this time ready to +start, they started, and in due time reported themselves at the hotel. +The landlord saw that something must be done, and he got them rooms, at a +smaller house, and 'mealed' them (as it used to be called at Mt. Desert) +in his own. But upon experiment of the fare at the smaller house they +liked it so well that they resolved to live there altogether, and they +spent a summer of the greatest comfort there, so that they would hardly +come away when the house closed in the fall. + +This was an extreme case, and perhaps such a venture might not always +turn out so happily; but I think that people might oftener trust +themselves to Providence in these matters than they do. There is really +an infinite variety of pleasant resorts of all kinds now, and one could +quite safely leave it to the man in the ticket-office where one should +go, and check one's baggage accordingly. I think the chances of an +agreeable summer would be as good in that way as in making a hard-and- +fast choice of a certain place and sticking to it. My own experience is +that in these things chance makes a very good choice for one, as it does +in most non-moral things. + + + + +II. + +A joke dies hard, and I am not sure that the life is yet quite out of the +kindly ridicule that was cast for a whole generation upon the people who +left their comfortable houses in town to starve upon farm-board or stifle +in the narrow rooms of mountain and seaside hotels. Yet such people were +in the right, and their mockers were in the wrong, and their patient +persistence in going out of town for the summer in the face of severe +discouragements has multiplied indefinitely the kinds of summer resorts, +and reformed them altogether. I believe the city boarding-house remains +very much what it used to be; but I am bound to say that the country +boarding-house has vastly improved since I began to know it. As for the +summer hotel, by steep or by strand, it leaves little to be complained of +except the prices. I take it for granted, therefore, that the out-of- +town summer has come to stay, for all who can afford it, and that the +chief sorrow attending it is that curse of choice, which I have already +spoken of. + +I have rather favored chance than choice, because, whatever choice you +make, you are pretty sure to regret it, with a bitter sense of +responsibility added, which you cannot feel if chance has chosen for you. +I observe that people who own summer cottages are often apt to wish they +did not, and were foot-loose to roam where they listed, and I have been +told that even a yacht is not a source of unmixed content, though so +eminently detachable. To great numbers Europe looks from this shore like +a safe refuge from the American summer problem; and yet I am not sure +that it is altogether so; for it is not enough merely to go to Europe; +one has to choose where to go when one has got there. A European city is +certainly always more tolerable than an American city, but one cannot +very well pass the summer in Paris, or even in London. The heart there, +as here, will yearn for some blessed seat + + "Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies + Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns + And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea," + +and still, after your keel touches the strand of that alluring old world, +you must buy your ticket and register your trunk for somewhere in +particular. + + + + +III. + +It is truly a terrible stress, this summer problem, and, as I say, my +heart aches much more for those who have to solve it and suffer the +consequences of their choice than for those who have no choice, but must +stay the summer through where their work is, and be humbly glad that they +have any work to keep them there. I am not meaning now, of course, +business men obliged to remain in the city to earn the bread--or, more +correctly, the cake--of their families in the country, or even their +clerks and bookkeepers, and porters and messengers, but such people as I +sometimes catch sight of from the elevated trains (in my reluctant +midsummer flights through the city), sweltering in upper rooms over +sewing-machines or lap-boards, or stewing in the breathless tenement +streets, or driving clangorous trucks, or monotonous cars, or bending +over wash-tubs at open windows for breaths of the no-air without. +These all get on somehow, and at the end of the summer they have not to +accuse themselves of folly in going to one place rather than another. +Their fate is decided for them, and they submit to it; whereas those who +decide their fate are always rebelling against it. They it is whom I am +truly sorry for, and whom I write of with tears in my ink. Their case is +hard, and it will seem all the harder if we consider how foolish they +will look and how flat they will feel at the judgment-day, when they are +asked about their summer outings. I do not really suppose we shall be +held to a very strict account for our pleasures because everybody else +has not enjoyed them, too; that would be a pity of our lives; and yet +there is an old-fashioned compunction which will sometimes visit the +heart if we take our pleasures ungraciously, when so many have no +pleasures to take. I would suggest, then, to those on whom the curse of +choice between pleasures rests, that they should keep in mind those who +have chiefly pains to their portion in life. + +I am not, I hope, urging my readers to any active benevolence, or +counselling them to share their pleasures with others; it has been +accurately ascertained that there are not pleasures enough to go round, +as things now are; but I would seriously entreat them to consider whether +they could not somewhat alleviate the hardships of their own lot at the +sea-side or among the mountains, by contrasting it with the lot of others +in the sweat-shops and the boiler-factories of life. I know very well +that it is no longer considered very good sense or very good morality to +take comfort in one's advantages from the disadvantages of others, and +this is not quite what I mean to teach. Perhaps I mean nothing more than +an overhauling of the whole subject of advantages and disadvantages, +which would be a light and agreeable occupation for the leisure of the +summer outer. It might be very interesting, and possibly it might be +amusing, for one stretched upon the beach or swaying in the hammock to +inquire into the reasons for his or her being so favored, and it is not +beyond the bounds of expectation that a consensus of summer opinion on +this subject would go far to enlighten the world upon a question that has +vexed the world ever since mankind was divided into those who work too +much and those who rest too much. + + + + + + +AESTHETIC NEW YORK FIFTY-ODD YEARS AGO + +A study of New York civilization in 1849 has lately come into my hands, +with a mortifying effect, which I should like to share with the reader, +to my pride of modernity. I had somehow believed that after half a +century of material prosperity, such as the world has never seen before, +New York in 1902 must be very different from New York in 1849, but if I +am to trust either the impressions of the earlier student or my own, New +York is essentially the same now that it was then. The spirit of the +place has not changed; it is as it was, splendidly and sordidly +commercial. Even the body of it has undergone little or no alteration; +it was as shapeless, as incongruous; as ugly when the author of 'New York +in Slices' wrote as it is at this writing; it has simply grown, or +overgrown, on the moral and material lines which seem to have been +structural in it from the beginning. He felt in his time the same +vulgarity, the same violence, in its architectural anarchy that I have +felt in my time, and he noted how all dignity and beauty perished, amid +the warring forms, with a prescience of my own affliction, which deprives +me of the satisfaction of a discoverer and leaves me merely the sense of +being rather old-fashioned in my painful emotions. + + + + +I. + +I wish I could pretend that my author philosophized the facts of his New +York with something less than the raw haste of the young journalist; but +I am afraid I must own that 'New York in Slices' affects one as having +first been printed in an evening paper, and that the writer brings to the +study of the metropolis something like the eager horror of a country +visitor. This probably enabled him to heighten the effect he wished to +make with readers of a kindred tradition, and for me it adds a certain +innocent charm to his work. I may make myself better understood if I say +that his attitude towards the depravities of a smaller New York is much +the same as that of Mr. Stead towards the wickedness of a much larger +Chicago. He seizes with some such avidity upon the darker facts of the +prisons, the slums, the gambling-houses, the mock auctions, the toughs +(who then called themselves b'hoys and g'hals), the quacks, the theatres, +and even the intelligence offices, and exploits their iniquities with a +ready virtue which the wickedest reader can enjoy with him. + +But if he treated of these things alone, I should not perhaps have +brought his curious little book to the polite notice of my readers. +He treats also of the press, the drama, the art, and, above all, +"the literary soirees" of that remote New York of his in a manner to make +us latest New-Yorkers feel our close proximity to it. Fifty-odd years +ago journalism had already become "the absorbing, remorseless, clamorous +thing" we now know, and very different from the thing it was when +"expresses were unheard of, and telegraphs were uncrystallized from the +lightning's blue and fiery film." Reporterism was beginning to assume +its present importance, but it had not yet become the paramount +intellectual interest, and did not yet "stand shoulder to shoulder" with +the counting-room in authority. Great editors, then as now, ranked great +authors in the public esteem, or achieved a double primacy by uniting +journalism and literature in the same personality. They were often the +owners as well as the writers of their respective papers, and they +indulged for the advantage of the community the rancorous rivalries, +recriminations, and scurrilities which often form the charm, if not the +chief use, of our contemporaneous journals. Apparently, however, +notarially authenticated boasts of circulation had not yet been made the +delight of their readers, and the press had not become the detective +agency that it now is, nor the organizer and distributer of charities. + +But as dark a cloud of doubt rested upon its relations to the theatre as +still eclipses the popular faith in dramatic criticism. "How can you +expect," our author asks, "a frank and unbiassed criticism upon the +performance of George Frederick Cooke Snooks . . . when the editor or +reporter who is to write it has just been supping on beefsteak and stewed +potatoes at Windust's, and regaling himself on brandy-and-water cold, +without, at the expense of the aforesaid George Frederick Cooke Snooks?" +The severest censor of the press, however, would hardly declare now that +"as to such a thing as impartial and independent criticism upon theatres +in the present state of the relations between editors, reporters, +managers, actors--and actresses--the thing is palpably out of the +question," and if matters were really at the pass hinted, the press has +certainly improved in fifty years, if one may judge from its present +frank condemnations of plays and players. The theatre apparently has +not, for we read that at that period "a very great majority of the +standard plays and farces on the stage depend mostly for their piquancy +and their power of interesting an audience upon intrigues with married +women, elopements, seductions, bribery, cheating, and fraud of every +description . . . . Stage costume, too, wherever there is half a +chance, is usually made as lascivious and immodest as possible; and a +freedom and impropriety prevails among the characters of the piece which +would be kicked out of private society the instant it would have the +audacity to make its appearance there." + + + + +II. + +I hope private society in New York would still be found as correct if not +quite so violent; and I wish I could believe that the fine arts were +presently in as flourishing a condition among us as they were in 1849. +That was the prosperous day of the Art Unions, in which the artists +clubbed their output, and the subscribers parted the works among +themselves by something so very like raffling that the Art Unions were +finally suppressed under the law against lotteries. While they lasted, +however, they had exhibitions thronged by our wealth, fashion, and +intellect (to name them in the order they hold the New York mind), as our +private views now are, or ought to be; and the author "devotes an entire +number" of his series "to a single institution"--fearless of being +accused of partiality by any who rightly appreciate the influences of the +fine arts upon the morals and refinement of mankind. + +He devotes even more than an entire number to literature; for, besides +treating of various literary celebrities at the "literary soirees," he +imagines encountering several of them at the high-class restaurants. +At Delmonico's, where if you had "French and money" you could get in that +day "a dinner which, as a work of art, ranks with a picture by +Huntington, a poem by Willis, or a statue by Powers," he meets such a +musical critic as Richard Grant White, such an intellectual epicurean as +N. P. Willis, such a lyric poet as Charles Fenno Hoffman. But it would +be a warm day for Delmonico's when the observer in this epoch could +chance upon so much genius at its tables, perhaps because genius among us +has no longer the French or the money. Indeed, the author of 'New York +in Slices' seems finally to think that he has gone too far, even for his +own period, and brings himself up with the qualifying reservation that if +Willis and Hoffman never did dine together at Delmonico's, they ought to +have done so. He has apparently no misgivings as to the famous musical +critic, and he has no scruple in assembling for us at his "literary +soiree" a dozen distinguished-looking men and "twice as many women.... +listening to a tall, deaconly man, who stands between two candles held by +a couple of sticks summoned from the recesses of the back parlor, reading +a basketful of gilt-edged notes. It is . . . the annual Valentine +Party, to which all the male and female authors have contributed for the +purpose of saying on paper charming things of each other, and at which, +for a few hours, all are gratified with the full meed of that praise +which a cold world is chary of bestowing upon its literary cobweb- +spinners." + +It must be owned that we have no longer anything so like a 'salon' as +this. It is, indeed, rather terrible, and it is of a quality in its +celebrities which may well carry dismay to any among us presently +intending immortality. Shall we, one day, we who are now in the rich +and full enjoyment of our far-reaching fame, affect the imagination of +posterity as these phantoms of the past affect ours? Shall we, too, +appear in some pale limbo of unimportance as thin and faded as "John +Inman, the getter-up of innumerable things for the annuals and +magazines," or as Dr. Rufus Griswold, supposed for picturesque purposes +to be "stalking about with an immense quarto volume under his arm . . . +an early copy of his forthcoming 'Female Poets of America'"; or as Lewis +Gaylord Clark, the "sunnyfaced, smiling" editor of the Knickerbocker +Magazine, "who don't look as if the Ink-Fiend had ever heard of him," +as he stands up to dance a polka with "a demure lady who has evidently +spilled the inkstand over her dress"; or as "the stately Mrs. Seba Smith, +bending aristocratically over the centre-table, and talking in a bright, +cold, steady stream, like an antique fountain by moonlight"; or as "the +spiritual and dainty Fanny Osgood, clapping her hands and crowing like a +baby," where she sits "nestled under a shawl of heraldic devices, like a +bird escaped from its cage"; or as Margaret Fuller, "her large, gray eyes +Tamping inspiration, and her thin, quivering lip prophesying like a +Pythoness"? + +I hope not; I earnestly hope not. Whatever I said at the outset, +affirming the persistent equality of New York characteristics and +circumstances, I wish to take back at this point; and I wish to warn +malign foreign observers, of the sort who have so often refused to see us +as we see ourselves, that they must not expect to find us now grouped in +the taste of 1849. Possibly it was not so much the taste of 1849 as the +author of 'New York in Slices' would have us believe; and perhaps any one +who trusted his pictures of life among us otherwise would be deceived by +a parity of the spirit in which they are portrayed with that of our +modern "society journalism." + + + + + + +FROM NEW YORK INTO NEW ENGLAND + +There is, of course, almost a world's difference between England and the +Continent anywhere; but I do not recall just now any transition between +Continental countries which involves a more distinct change in the +superficial aspect of things than the passage from the Middle States into +New England. It is all American, but American of diverse ideals; and you +are hardly over the border before you are sensible of diverse effects, +which are the more apparent to you the more American you are. If you +want the contrast at its sharpest you had better leave New York on a +Sound boat; for then you sleep out of the Middle State civilization and +wake into the civilization of New England, which seems to give its stamp +to nature herself. As to man, he takes it whether native or alien; and +if he is foreign-born it marks him another Irishman, Italian, Canadian, +Jew, or negro from his brother in any other part of the United States. + + + + +I. + +When you have a theory of any kind, proofs of it are apt to seek you out, +and I, who am rather fond of my faith in New England's influence of this +sort, had as pretty an instance of it the day after my arrival as I could +wish. A colored brother of Massachusetts birth, as black as a man can +well be, and of a merely anthropoidal profile, was driving me along shore +in search of a sea-side hotel when we came upon a weak-minded young +chicken in the road. The natural expectation is that any chicken in +these circumstances will wait for your vehicle, and then fly up before it +with a loud screech; but this chicken may have been overcome by the heat +(it was a land breeze and it drew like the breath of a furnace over the +hay-cocks and the clover), or it may have mistimed the wheel, which +passed over its head and left it to flop a moment in the dust and then +fall still. The poor little tragedy was sufficiently distressful to me, +but I bore it well, compared with my driver. He could hardly stop +lamenting it; and when presently we met a young farmer, he pulled up. +"You goin' past Jim Marden's?" "Yes." "Well, I wish you'd tell him I +just run over a chicken of his, and I killed it, I guess. I guess it was +a pretty big one." "Oh no," I put in, "it was only a broiler. What do +you think it was worth?" I took out some money, and the farmer noted the +largest coin in my hand; "About half a dollar, I guess." On this I put +it all back in my pocket, and then he said, "Well, if a chicken don't +know enough to get out of the road, I guess you ain't to blame." +I expressed that this was my own view of the case, and we drove on. When +we parted I gave the half-dollar to my driver, and begged him not to let +the owner of the chicken come on me for damages; and though he chuckled +his pleasure in the joke, I could see that he was still unhappy, and I +have no doubt that he has that pullet on his conscience yet, unless he +has paid for it. He was of a race which elsewhere has so immemorially +plundered hen-roosts that chickens are as free to it as the air it +breathes, without any conceivable taint of private ownership. But the +spirit of New England had so deeply entered into him that the imbecile +broiler of another, slain by pure accident and by its own contributory +negligence, was saddening him, while I was off in my train without a pang +for the owner and with only an agreeable pathos for the pullet. + + + + +II. + +The instance is perhaps extreme; and, at any rate, it has carried me in a +psychological direction away from the simpler differences which I meant +to note in New England. They were evident as soon as our train began to +run from the steamboat landing into the country, and they have +intensified, if they have not multiplied, themselves as I have penetrated +deeper and deeper into the beautiful region. The land is poorer than the +land to the southward--one sees that at once; the soil is thin, and often +so thickly burdened with granite bowlders that it could never have borne +any other crop since the first Puritans, or Pilgrims, cut away the +primeval woods and betrayed its hopeless sterility to the light. But +wherever you come to a farm-house, whether standing alone or in one of +the village groups that New England farm-houses have always liked to +gather themselves into, it is of a neatness that brings despair, and of a +repair that ought to bring shame to the beholder from more easy-going +conditions. Everything is kept up with a strenuous virtue that imparts +an air of self-respect to the landscape, which the bleaching and +blackening stone walls, wandering over the hill-slopes, divide into wood +lots of white birch and pine, stony pastures, and little patches of +potatoes and corn. The mowing-lands alone are rich; and if the New +England year is in the glory of the latest June, the breath of the clover +blows honey--sweet into the car windows, and the fragrance of the new-cut +hay rises hot from the heavy swaths that seem to smoke in the sun. + +We have struck a hot spell, one of those torrid mood of continental +weather which we have telegraphed us ahead to heighten our suffering by +anticipation. But the farmsteads and village houses are safe in the +shade of their sheltering trees amid the fluctuation of the grass that +grows so tall about them that the June roses have to strain upward to get +themselves free of it. Behind each dwelling is a billowy mass of +orchard, and before it the Gothic archway of the elms stretches above the +quiet street. There is no tree in the world so full of sentiment as the +American elm, and it is nowhere so graceful as in these New England +villages, which are themselves, I think, the prettiest and wholesomest of +mortal sojourns. By a happy instinct, their wooden houses are all +painted white, to a marble effect that suits our meridional sky, and the +contrast of their dark-green shutters is deliciously refreshing. There +was an evil hour, the terrible moment of the aesthetic revival now +happily past, when white walls and green blinds were thought in bad +taste, and the village houses were often tinged a dreary ground color, or +a doleful olive, or a gloomy red, but now they have returned to their +earlier love. Not the first love; that was a pale buff with white trim; +but I doubt if it were good for all kinds of village houses; the eye +rather demands the white. The pale buff does very well for large +colonial mansions, like Lowell's or Longfellow's in Cambridge; but when +you come, say, to see the great square houses built in Portsmouth, New +Hampshire; early in this century, and painted white, you find that white, +after all, is the thing for our climate, even in the towns. + +In such a village as my colored brother drove me through on the way to +the beach it was of an absolute fitness; and I wish I could convey a due +sense of the exquisite keeping of the place. Each white house was more +or less closely belted in with a white fence, of panels or pickets; the +grassy door-yards glowed with flowers, and often a climbing rose +embowered the door-way with its bloom. Away backward or sidewise +stretched the woodshed from the dwelling to the barn, and shut the whole +under one cover; the turf grew to the wheel-tracks of the road-way, over +which the elms rose and drooped; and from one end of the village to the +other you could not, as the saying is, find a stone to throw at a dog. +I know Holland; I have seen the wives of Scheveningen scrubbing up for +Sunday to the very middle of their brick streets, but I doubt if Dutch +cleanliness goes so far without, or comes from so deep a scruple within, +as the cleanliness of New England. I felt so keenly the feminine quality +of its motive as I passed through that village, that I think if I had +dropped so much as a piece of paper in the street I must have knocked at +the first door and begged the lady of the house (who would have opened it +in person after wiping her hands from her work, taking off her apron, and +giving a glance at herself in the mirror and at me through the window +blind) to report me to the selectmen in the interest of good morals. + + + + +III. + +I did not know at once quite how to reconcile the present foulness of the +New England capital with the fairness of the New England country; and I +am still somewhat embarrassed to own that after New York (even under the +relaxing rule of Tammany) Boston seemed very dirty when we arrived there. +At best I was never more than a naturalized Bostonian; but it used to +give me great pleasure--so penetratingly does the place qualify even the +sojourning Westerner--to think of the defect of New York in the virtue +that is next to godliness; and now I had to hang my head for shame at the +mortifying contrast of the Boston streets to the well-swept asphalt which +I had left frying in the New York sun the afternoon before. Later, +however, when I began to meet the sort of Boston faces I remembered so +well--good, just, pure, but set and severe, with their look of challenge, +of interrogation, almost of reproof--they not only ignored the +disgraceful untidiness of the streets, but they convinced me of a state +of transition which would leave the place swept and garnished behind it; +and comforted me against the litter of the winding thoroughfares and +narrow lanes, where the dust had blown up against the brick walls, and +seemed permanently to have smutched and discolored them. + +In New York you see the American face as Europe characterizes it; in +Boston you see it as it characterizes Europe; and it is in Boston that +you can best imagine the strenuous grapple of the native forces which all +alien things must yield to till they take the American cast. It is +almost dismaying, that physiognomy, before it familiarizes itself anew; +and in the brief first moment while it is yet objective, you ransack your +conscience for any sins you may have committed in your absence from it +and make ready to do penance for them. I felt almost as if I had brought +the dirty streets with me, and were guilty of having left them lying +about, so impossible were they with reference to the Boston face. + +It is a face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety, and it +looked into the window of our carriage with the serious eyes of our +elderly hackman to make perfectly sure of our destination before we drove +away from the station. It was a little rigorous with us, as requiring us +to have a clear mind; but it was not unfriendly, not unkind, and it was +patient from long experience. In New York there are no elderly hackmen; +but in Boston they abound, and I cannot believe they would be capable of +bad faith with travellers. In fact, I doubt if this class is anywhere as +predatory as it is painted; but in Boston it appears to have the public +honor in its keeping. I do not mean that it was less mature, less self- +respectful in Portsmouth, where we were next to arrive; more so it could +not be; an equal sense of safety, of ease, began with it in both places, +and all through New England it is of native birth, while in New York it +is composed of men of many nations, with a weight in numbers towards the +Celtic strain. The prevalence of the native in New England helps you +sensibly to realize from the first moment that here you are in America as +the first Americans imagined and meant it; and nowhere in New England is +the original tradition more purely kept than in the beautiful old seaport +of New Hampshire. In fact, without being quite prepared to defend a +thesis to this effect, I believe that Portsmouth is preeminently +American, and in this it differs from Newburyport and from Salem, which +have suffered from different causes an equal commercial decline, and, +though among the earliest of the great Puritan towns after Boston, are +now largely made up of aliens in race and religion; these are actually +the majority, I believe, in Newburyport. + + + + +IV. + +The adversity of Portsmouth began early in the century, but before that +time she had prospered so greatly that her merchant princes were able to +build themselves wooden palaces with white walls and green shutters, of a +grandeur and beauty unmatched elsewhere in the country. I do not know +what architect had his way with them, though his name is richly worth +remembrance, but they let him make them habitations of such graceful +proportion and of such delicate ornament that they have become shrines of +pious pilgrimage with the young architects of our day who hope to house +our well-to-do people fitly in country or suburbs. The decoration is +oftenest spent on a porch or portal, or a frieze of peculiar refinement; +or perhaps it feels its way to the carven casements or to the delicate +iron-work of the transoms; the rest is a simplicity and a faultless +propriety of form in the stately mansions which stand under the arching +elms, with their gardens sloping, or dropping by easy terraces behind +them to the river, or to the borders of other pleasances. They are all +of wood, except for the granite foundations and doorsteps, but the stout +edifices rarely sway out of the true line given them, and they look as if +they might keep it yet another century. + +Between them, in the sun-shotten shade, lie the quiet streets, whose +gravelled stretch is probably never cleaned because it never needs +cleaning. Even the business streets, and the quaint square which gives +the most American of towns an air so foreign and Old Worldly, look as if +the wind and rain alone cared for them; but they are not foul, and the +narrower avenues, where the smaller houses of gray, unpainted wood crowd +each other, flush upon the pavements, towards the water--side, are +doubtless unvisited by the hoe or broom, and must be kept clean by a New +England conscience against getting them untidy. + +When you get to the river-side there is one stretch of narrow, high- +shouldered warehouses which recall Holland, especially in a few with +their gables broken in steps, after the Dutch fashion. These, with their +mouldering piers and grass-grown wharves, have their pathos, and the +whole place embodies in its architecture an interesting record of the +past, from the time when the homesick exiles huddled close to the water's +edge till the period of post-colonial prosperity, when proud merchants +and opulent captains set their vast square houses each in its handsome +space of gardened ground. + +My adjectives might mislead as to size, but they could not as to beauty, +and I seek in vain for those that can duly impart the peculiar charm of +the town. Portsmouth still awaits her novelist; he will find a rich +field when he comes; and I hope he will come of the right sex, for it +needs some minute and subtle feminine skill, like that of Jane Austen, to +express a fit sense of its life in the past. Of its life in the present +I know nothing. I could only go by those delightful, silent houses, and +sigh my longing soul into their dim interiors. When now and then a young +shape in summer silk, or a group of young shapes in diaphanous muslin, +fluttered out of them, I was no wiser; and doubtless my elderly fancy +would have been unable to deal with what went on in them. Some girl of +those flitting through the warm, odorous twilight must become the +creative historian of the place; I can at least imagine a Jane Austen now +growing up in Portsmouth. + + + + +V. + +If Miss Jewett were of a little longer breath than she has yet shown +herself in fiction, I might say the Jane Austen of Portsmouth was already +with us, and had merely not yet begun to deal with its precious material. +One day when we crossed the Piscataqua from New Hampshire into Maine, and +took the trolley-line for a run along through the lovely coast country, +we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of her own people, who are a +little different sort of New-Englanders from those of Miss Wilkins. They +began to flock into the car, young maidens and old, mothers and +grandmothers, and nice boys and girls, with a very, very few farmer youth +of marriageable age, and more rustic and seafaring elders long past it, +all in the Sunday best which they had worn to the graduation exercises at +the High School, where we took them mostly up. The womenkind were in a +nervous twitter of talk and laughter, and the men tolerantly gay beyond +their wont, "passing the time of day" with one another, and helping the +more tumultuous sex to get settled in the overcrowded open car. They +courteously made room for one another, and let the children stand between +their knees, or took them in their laps, with that unfailing American +kindness which I am prouder of than the American valor in battle, +observing in all that American decorum which is no bad thing either. We +had chanced upon the high and mighty occasion of the neighborhood year, +when people might well have been a little off their balance, but there +was not a boisterous note in the subdued affair. As we passed the +school-house door, three dear, pretty maids in white gowns and white +slippers stood on the steps and gently smiled upon our company. One +could see that they were inwardly glowing and thrilling with the +excitement of their graduation, but were controlling their emotions to a +calm worthy of the august event, so that no one might ever have it to say +that they had appeared silly. + +The car swept on, and stopped to set down passengers at their doors or +gates, where they severally left it, with an easy air as of private +ownership, into some sense of which the trolley promptly flatters people +along its obliging lines. One comfortable matron, in a cinnamon silk, +was just such a figure as that in the Miss Wilkins's story where the +bridegroom fails to come on the wedding-day; but, as I say, they made me +think more of Miss Jewett's people. The shore folk and the Down-Easters +are specifically hers; and these were just such as might have belonged in +'The Country of the Pointed Firs', or 'Sister Wisby's Courtship', or +'Dulham Ladies', or 'An Autumn Ramble', or twenty other entrancing tales. +Sometimes one of them would try her front door, and then, with a bridling +toss of the head, express that she had forgotten locking it, and slip +round to the kitchen; but most of the ladies made their way back at once +between the roses and syringas of their grassy door-yards, which were as +neat and prim as their own persons, or the best chamber in their white- +walled, green-shuttered, story-and-a-half house, and as perfectly kept as +the very kitchen itself. + +The trolley-line had been opened only since the last September, but in an +effect of familiar use it was as if it had always been there, and it +climbed and crooked and clambered about with the easy freedom of the +country road which it followed. It is a land of low hills, broken by +frequent reaches of the sea, and it is most amusing, most amazing, to see +how frankly the trolley-car takes and overcomes its difficulties. It +scrambles up and down the little steeps like a cat, and whisks round a +sharp and sudden curve with a feline screech, broadening into a loud +caterwaul as it darts over the estuaries on its trestles. Its course +does not lack excitement, and I suppose it does not lack danger; but as +yet there have been no accidents, and it is not so disfiguring as one +would think. The landscape has already accepted it, and is making the +best of it; and to the country people it is an inestimable convenience. +It passes everybody's front door or back door, and the farmers can get +themselves or their produce (for it runs an express car) into Portsmouth +in an hour, twice an hour, all day long. In summer the cars are open, +with transverse seats, and stout curtains that quite shut out a squall of +wind or rain. In winter the cars are closed, and heated by electricity. +The young motorman whom I spoke with, while we waited on a siding to let +a car from the opposite direction get by, told me that he was caught out +in a blizzard last Winter, and passed the night in a snowdrift. "But the +cah was so wa'm, I neva suff'ed a mite." + +"Well," I summarized, "it must be a great advantage to all the people +along the line." + +"Well, you wouldn't 'a' thought so, from the kick they made." + +"I suppose the cottagers"--the summer colony--"didn't like the noise." + +"Oh yes; that's what I mean. The's whe' the kick was. The natives like +it. I guess the summa folks 'll like it, too." + +He looked round at me with enjoyment of his joke in his eye, for we both +understood that the summer folks could not help themselves, and must bow +to the will of the majority. + + + + + + +THE ART OF THE ADSMITH + +The other day, a friend of mine, who professes all the intimacy of a bad +conscience with many of my thoughts and convictions, came in with a bulky +book under his arm, and said, "I see by a guilty look in your eye that +you are meaning to write about spring." + +"I am not," I retorted, "and if I were, it would be because none of the +new things have been said yet about spring, and because spring is never +an old story, any more than youth or love." + +"I have heard something like that before," said my friend, "and I +understand. The simple truth of the matter is that this is the fag-end +of the season, and you have run low in your subjects. Now take my advice +and don't write about spring; it will make everybody hate you, and will +do no good. Write about advertising." He tapped the book under his arm +significantly. "Here is a theme for you." + + + + +I. + +He had no sooner pronounced these words than I began to feel a weird and +potent fascination in his suggestion. I took the book from him and +looked it eagerly through. It was called Good Advertising, and it was +written by one of the experts in the business who have advanced it almost +to the grade of an art, or a humanity. + +"But I see nothing here," I said, musingly, "which would enable a self- +respecting author to come to the help of his publisher in giving due hold +upon the public interest those charming characteristics of his book which +no one else can feel so penetratingly or celebrate so persuasively." + +"I expected some such objection from you," said my friend. "You will +admit that there is everything else here?" + +"Everything but that most essential thing. You know how we all feel +about it: the bitter disappointment, the heart-sickening sense of +insufficiency that the advertised praises of our books give us poor +authors. The effect is far worse than that of the reviews, for the +reviewer is not your ally and copartner, while your publisher--" + +"I see what you mean," said my friend. "But you must have patience. +If the author of this book can write so luminously of advertising in +other respects, I am sure he will yet be able to cast a satisfactory +light upon your problem. The question is, I believe, how to translate +into irresistible terms all that fond and exultant regard which a writer +feels for his book, all his pervasive appreciation of its singular +beauty, unique value, and utter charm, and transfer it to print, without +infringing upon the delicate and shrinking modesty which is the +distinguishing ornament of the literary spirit?" + +"Something like that. But you understand." + +"Perhaps a Roentgen ray might be got to do it," said my friend, +thoughtfully, "or perhaps this author may bring his mind to bear upon it +yet. He seems to have considered every kind of advertising except book- +advertising." + +"The most important of all!" I cried, impatiently. + +"You think so because you are in that line. If you were in the line of +varnish, or bicycles, or soap, or typewriters, or extract of beef, or of +malt--" + +"Still I should be interested in book--advertising, because it is the +most vital of human interests." + +"Tell me," said my friend, "do you read the advertisements of the books +of rival authors?" + +"Brother authors," I corrected him. + +"Well, brother authors." + +I said, No, candidly, I did not; and I forbore to add that I thought them +little better than a waste of the publishers' money. + + + + +II. + +My friend did not pursue his inquiry to my personal disadvantage, but +seemed to prefer a more general philosophy of the matter. + +"I have often wondered," he said, "at the enormous expansion of +advertising, and doubted whether it was not mostly wasted. But my +author, here, has suggested a brilliant fact which I was unwittingly +groping for. When you take up a Sunday paper"--I shuddered, and my +friend smiled intelligence--" you are simply appalled at the miles of +announcements of all sorts. Who can possibly read them? Who cares even +to look at them? But if you want something in particular--to furnish a +house, or buy a suburban place, or take a steamer for Europe, or go, to +the theatre--then you find out at once who reads the advertisements, and +cares to look at them. They respond to the multifarious wants of the +whole community. You have before you the living operation of that law of +demand and supply which it has always been such a bore to hear about. +As often happens, the supply seems to come before the demand; but that's +only an appearance. You wanted something, and you found an offer to meet +your want." + +"Then you don't believe that the offer to meet your want suggested it?" + +"I see that my author believes something of the kind. We may be full of +all sorts of unconscious wants which merely need the vivifying influence +of an advertisement to make them spring into active being; but I have a +feeling that the money paid for advertising which appeals to potential +wants is largely thrown away. You must want a thing, or think you want +it; otherwise you resent the proffer of it as a kind of impertinence." + +"There are some kinds of advertisements, all the same, that I read +without the slightest interest in the subject matter. Simply the beauty +of the style attracts me." + +"I know. But does it ever move you to get what you don't want?" + +"Never; and I should be glad to know what your author thinks of that sort +of advertising: the literary, or dramatic, or humorous, or quaint." + +"He doesn't contemn it, quite. But I think he feels that it may have had +its day. Do you still read such advertisements with your early zest?" + +"No; the zest for nearly everything goes. I don't care so much for +Tourguenief as I used. Still, if I come upon the jaunty and laconic +suggestions of a certain well-known clothing-house, concerning the +season's wear, I read them with a measure of satisfaction. The +advertising expert--" + +"This author calls him the adsmith." + +"Delightful! Ad is a loathly little word, but we must come to it. It's +as legitimate as lunch. But as I was saying, the adsmith seems to have +caught the American business tone, as perfectly as any of our novelists +have caught the American social tone." + +"Yes," said my friend, "and he seems to have prospered as richly by it. +You know some of those chaps make fifteen or twenty thousand dollars by +adsmithing. They have put their art quite on a level with fiction +pecuniarily." + +"Perhaps it is a branch of fiction." + +"No; they claim that it is pure fact. My author discourages the +slightest admixture of fable. The truth, clearly and simply expressed, +is the best in an ad. + +"It is best in a wof, too. I am always saying that." + +"Wof?" + +"Well, work of fiction. It's another new word, like lunch or ad." + +"But in a wof," said my friend, instantly adopting it, "my author +insinuates that the fashion of payment tempts you to verbosity, while in +an ad the conditions oblige you to the greatest possible succinctness. +In one case you are paid by the word; in the other you pay by the word. +That is where the adsmith stands upon higher moral ground than the +wofsmith." + +"I should think your author might have written a recent article in +'The ---------, reproaching fiction with its unhallowed gains." + +"If you mean that for a sneer, it is misplaced. He would have been +incapable of it. My author is no more the friend of honesty in +adsmithing than he is of propriety, He deprecates jocosity in +apothecaries and undertakers, not only as bad taste, but as bad business; +and he is as severe as any one could be upon ads that seize the attention +by disgusting or shocking the reader. + +"He is to be praised for that, and for the other thing; and I shouldn't +have minded his criticising the ready wofsmith. I hope he attacks the +use of display type, which makes our newspapers look like the poster- +plastered fences around vacant lots. In New York there is only one paper +whose advertisements are not typographically a shock to the nerves." + +"Well," said my friend, "he attacks foolish and ineffective display." + +"It is all foolish and ineffective. It is like a crowd of people trying +to make themselves heard by shouting each at the top of his voice. +A paper full of display advertisements is an image of our whole congested +and delirious state of competition; but even in competitive conditions it +is unnecessary, and it is futile. Compare any New York paper but one +with the London papers, and you will see what I mean. Of course I refer +to the ad pages; the rest of our exception is as offensive with pictures +and scare heads as all the rest. I wish your author could revise his +opinions and condemn all display in ads." + +"I dare say he will when he knows what you think," said my friend, with +imaginable sarcasm. + + + + +III. + +"I wish," I went on, "that he would give us some philosophy of the +prodigious increase of advertising within the last twenty-five years, and +some conjecture as to the end of it all. Evidently, it can't keep on +increasing at the present rate. If it does, there will presently be no +room in the world for things; it will be filled up with the +advertisements of things." + +"Before that time, perhaps," my friend suggested, "adsmithing will have +become so fine and potent an art that advertising will be reduced in +bulk, while keeping all its energy and even increasing its +effectiveness." + +"Perhaps," I said, "some silent electrical process will be contrived, so +that the attractions of a new line of dress-goods or the fascination of a +spring or fall opening may be imparted to a lady's consciousness without +even the agency of words. All other facts of commercial and industrial +interest could be dealt with in the same way. A fine thrill could be +made to go from the last new book through the whole community, so that +people would not willingly rest till they had it. Yes, one can see an +indefinite future for advertising in that way. The adsmith may be the +supreme artist of the twentieth century. He may assemble in his grasp, +and employ at will, all the arts and sciences." + +"Yes," said my friend, with a sort of fall in his voice, "that is very +well. But what is to become of the race when it is penetrated at every +pore with a sense of the world's demand and supply?" + +"Oh, that is another affair. I was merely imagining the possible +resources of invention in providing for the increase of advertising while +guarding the integrity of the planet. I think, very likely, if the thing +keeps on, we shall all go mad; but then we shall none of us be able to +criticise the others. Or possibly the thing may work its own cure. You +know the ingenuity of the political economists in justifying the egotism +to which conditions appeal. They do not deny that these foster greed and +rapacity in merciless degree, but they contend that when the wealth- +winner drops off gorged there is a kind of miracle wrought, and good +comes of it all. I never could see how; but if it is true, why shouldn't +a sort of ultimate immunity come back to us from the very excess and +invasion of the appeals now made to us, and destined to be made to us +still more by the adsmith? Come, isn't there hope in that?" + +"I see a great opportunity for the wofsmith in some such dream," said my +friend. "Why don't you turn it to account?" + +"You know that isn't my line; I must leave that sort of wofsmithing to +the romantic novelist. Besides, I have my well-known panacea for all the +ills our state is heir to, in a civilization which shall legislate +foolish and vicious and ugly and adulterate things out of the possibility +of existence. Most of the adsmithing is now employed in persuading +people that such things are useful, beautiful, and pure. But in any +civilization they shall not even be suffered to be made, much less +foisted upon the community by adsmiths." + +"I see what you mean," said my friend; and he sighed gently. "I had much +better let you write about spring." + + + + + + +THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PLAGIARISM + +A late incident in the history of a very widespread English novelist, +triumphantly closed by the statement of his friend that the novelist had +casually failed to accredit a given passage in his novel to the real +author, has brought freshly to my mind a curious question in ethics. +The friend who vindicated the novelist, or, rather, who contemptuously +dismissed the matter, not only confessed the fact of adoption, but +declared that it was one of many which could be found in the novelist's +works. The novelist, he said, was quite in the habit of so using +material in the rough, which he implied was like using any fact or idea +from life, and he declared that the novelist could not bother to answer +critics who regarded these exploitations as a sort of depredation. In a +manner he brushed the impertinent accusers aside, assuring the general +public that the novelist always meant, at his leisure, and in his own +way, duly to ticket the flies preserved in his amber. + + + + +I. + +When I read this haughty vindication, I thought at first that if the case +were mine I would rather have several deadly enemies than such a friend +as that; but since, I have not been so sure. I have asked myself upon a +careful review of the matter whether plagiarism may not be frankly +avowed, as in nowise dishonest, and I wish some abler casuist would take +the affair into consideration and make it clear for me. If we are to +suppose that offences against society disgrace the offender, and that +public dishonor argues the fact of some such offence, then apparently +plagiarism is not such an offence; for in even very flagrant cases it +does not disgrace. The dictionary, indeed, defines it as "the crime of +literary theft"; but as no penalty attaches to it, and no lasting shame, +it is hard to believe it either a crime or a theft; and the offence, if +it is an offence (one has to call it something, and I hope the word is +not harsh), is some such harmless infraction of the moral law as white- +lying. + +The much-perverted saying of Moliere, that he took his own where he found +it, is perhaps in the consciousness of those who appropriate the things +other people have rushed in with before them. But really they seem to +need neither excuse nor defence with the impartial public if they are +caught in the act of reclaiming their property or despoiling the rash +intruder upon their premises. The novelist in question is by no means +the only recent example, and is by no means a flagrant example. While +the ratification of the treaty with Spain was pending before the Senate +of the United States, a member of that body opposed it in a speech almost +word for word the same as a sermon delivered in New York City only a few +days earlier and published broadcast. He was promptly exposed by the +parallel-column system; but I have never heard that his standing was +affected or his usefulness impaired by the offence proven against him. A +few years ago an eminent divine in one of our cities preached as his own +the sermon of a brother divine, no longer living; he, too, was detected +and promptly exposed by the parallel-column system, but nothing whatever +happened from the exposure. Every one must recall like instances, more +or less remote. I remember one within my youthfuller knowledge of a +journalist who used as his own all the denunciatory passages of +Macaulay's article on Barrere, and applied them with changes of name to +the character and conduct of a local politician whom he felt it his duty +to devote to infamy. He was caught in the fact, and by means of the +parallel column pilloried before the community. But the community did +not mind it a bit, and the journalist did not either. He prospered on +amid those who all knew what he had done, and when he removed to another +city it was to a larger one, and to a position of more commanding +influence, from which he was long conspicuous in helping shape the +destinies of the nation. + +So far as any effect from these exposures was concerned, they were as +harmless as those exposures of fraudulent spiritistic mediums which from +time to time are supposed to shake the spiritistic superstition to its +foundations. They really do nothing of the kind; the table-tippings, +rappings, materializations, and levitations keep on as before; and I do +not believe that the exposure of the novelist who has been the latest +victim of the parallel column will injure him a jot in the hearts or +heads of his readers. + + + + +II. + +I am very glad of it, being a disbeliever in punishments of all sorts. +I am always glad to have sinners get off, for I like to get off from my +own sins; and I have a bad moment from my sense of them whenever +another's have found him out. But as yet I have not convinced myself +that the sort of thing we have been considering is a sin at all, for it +seems to deprave no more than it dishonors; or that it is what the +dictionary (with very unnecessary brutality) calls a "crime" and a +"theft." If it is either, it is differently conditioned, if not +differently natured, from all other crimes and thefts. These may be more +or less artfully and hopefully concealed, but plagiarism carries +inevitable detection with it. If you take a man's hat or coat out of his +hall, you may pawn it before the police overtake you; if you take his +horse out of his stable, you may ride it away beyond pursuit and sell it; +if you take his purse out of his pocket, you may pass it to a pal in the +crowd, and easily prove your innocence. But if you take his sermon, or +his essay, or even his apposite reflection, you cannot escape discovery. +The world is full of idle people reading books, and they are only too +glad to act as detectives; they please their miserable vanity by showing +their alertness, and are proud to hear witness against you in the court +of parallel columns. You have no safety in the obscurity of the author +from whom you take your own; there is always that most terrible reader, +the reader of one book, who knows that very author, and will the more +indecently hasten to bring you to the bar because he knows no other, and +wishes to display his erudition. A man may escape for centuries and yet +be found out. In the notorious case of William Shakespeare the offender +seemed finally secure of his prey; and yet one poor lady, who ended in a +lunatic asylum, was able to detect him at last, and to restore the goods +to their rightful owner, Sir Francis Bacon. + +In spite, however, of this almost absolute certainty of exposure, +plagiarism goes on as it has always gone on; and there is no probability +that it will cease as long as there are novelists, senators, divines, and +journalists hard pressed for ideas which they happen not to have in mind +at the time, and which they see going to waste elsewhere. Now and then +it takes a more violent form and becomes a real mania, as when the +plagiarist openly claims and urges his right to a well-known piece of +literary property. When Mr. William Allen Butler's famous poem of +"Nothing to Wear" achieved its extraordinary popularity, a young girl +declared and apparently quite believed that she had written it and lost +the MS. in an omnibus. All her friends apparently believed so, too; and +the friends of the different gentlemen and ladies who claimed the +authorship of "Beautiful Snow" and "Rock Me to Sleep" were ready to +support them by affidavit against the real authors of those pretty +worthless pieces. + +From all these facts it must appear to the philosophic reader that +plagiarism is not the simple "crime" or "theft" that the lexicographers +would have us believe. It argues a strange and peculiar courage on the +part of those who commit it or indulge it, since they are sure of having +it brought home to them, for they seem to dread the exposure, though it +involves no punishment outside of themselves. Why do they do it, or, +having done it, why do they mind it, since the public does not? Their +temerity and their timidity are things almost irreconcilable, and the +whole position leaves one quite puzzled as to what one would do if one's +own plagiarisms were found out. But this is a mere question of conduct, +and of infinitely less interest than that of the nature or essence of the +thing itself. + + + + + + +PURITANISM IN AMERICAN FICTION + +The question whether the fiction which gives a vivid impression of +reality does truly represent the conditions studied in it, is one of +those inquiries to which there is no very final answer. The most +baffling fact of such fiction is that its truths are self-evident; +and if you go about to prove them you are in some danger of shaking the +convictions of those whom they have persuaded. It will not do to affirm +anything wholesale concerning them; a hundred examples to the contrary +present themselves if you know the ground, and you are left in doubt of +the verity which you cannot gainsay. The most that you can do is to +appeal to your own consciousness, and that is not proof to anybody else. +Perhaps the best test in this difficult matter is the quality of the art +which created the picture. Is it clear, simple, unaffected? Is it true +to human experience generally? If it is so, then it cannot well be false +to the special human experience it deals with. + + + + +I. + +Not long ago I heard of something which amusingly, which pathetically, +illustrated the sense of reality imparted by the work of one of our +writers, whose art is of the kind I mean. A lady was driving with a +young girl of the lighter-minded civilization of New York through one of +those little towns of the North Shore in Massachusetts, where the small; +wooden houses cling to the edges of the shallow bay, and the schooners +slip, in and out on the hidden channels of the salt meadows as if they +were blown about through the tall grass. She tried to make her feel the +shy charm of the place, that almost subjective beauty, which those to the +manner born are so keenly aware of in old-fashioned New England villages; +but she found that the girl was not only not looking at the sad-colored +cottages, with their weather-worn shingle walls, their grassy door-yards +lit by patches of summer bloom, and their shutterless windows with their +close-drawn shades, but she was resolutely averting her eyes from them, +and staring straightforward until she should be out of sight of them +altogether. She said that they were terrible, and she knew that in each +of them was one of those dreary old women, or disappointed girls, or +unhappy wives, or bereaved mothers, she had read of in Miss Wilkins's +stories. + +She had been too little sensible of the humor which forms the relief of +these stories, as it forms the relief of the bare, duteous, +conscientious, deeply individualized lives portrayed in them; and no +doubt this cannot make its full appeal to the heart of youth aching for +their stoical sorrows. Without being so very young, I, too, have found +the humor hardly enough at times, and if one has not the habit of +experiencing support in tragedy itself, one gets through a remote New +England village, at nightfall, say, rather limp than otherwise, and in +quite the mood that Miss Wilkins's bleaker studies leave one in. At mid- +day, or in the bright sunshine of the morning, it is quite possible to +fling off the melancholy which breathes the same note in the fact and the +fiction; and I have even had some pleasure at such times in identifying +this or, that one-story cottage with its lean-to as a Mary Wilkins house +and in placing one of her muted dramas in it. One cannot know the people +of such places without recognizing her types in them, and one cannot know +New England without owning the fidelity of her stories to New England +character, though, as I have already suggested, quite another sort of +stories could be written which should as faithfully represent other +phases of New England village life. + +To the alien inquirer, however, I should be by no means confident that +their truth would evince itself, for the reason that human nature is +seldom on show anywhere. I am perfectly certain of the truth of Tolstoy +and Tourguenief to Russian life, yet I should not be surprised if I went +through Russia and met none of their people. I should be rather more +surprised if I went through Italy and met none of Verga's or Fogazzaro's, +but that would be because I already knew Italy a little. In fact, I +suspect that the last delight of truth in any art comes only to the +connoisseur who is as well acquainted with the subject as the artist +himself. One must not be too severe in challenging the truth of an +author to life; and one must bring a great deal of sympathy and a great +deal of patience to the scrutiny. Types are very backward and shrinking +things, after all; character is of such a mimosan sensibility that if you +seize it too abruptly its leaves are apt to shut and hide all that is +distinctive in it; so that it is not without some risk to an author's +reputation for honesty that he gives his readers the impression of his +truth. + + + + +II. + +The difficulty with characters in fiction is that the reader there finds +them dramatized; not only their actions, but also their emotions are +dramatized; and the very same sort of persons when one meets them in real +life are recreantly undramatic. One might go through a New England +village and see Mary Wilkins houses and Mary Wilkins people, and yet not +witness a scene nor hear a word such as one finds in her tales. It is +only too probable that the inhabitants one met would say nothing quaint +or humorous, or betray at all the nature that she reveals in them; and +yet I should not question her revelation on that account. The life of +New England, such as Miss Wilkins deals with, and Miss Sarah O. Jewett, +and Miss Alice Brown, is not on the surface, or not visibly so, except to +the accustomed eye. It is Puritanism scarcely animated at all by the +Puritanic theology. One must not be very positive in such things, and I +may be too bold in venturing to say that while the belief of some New +Englanders approaches this theology the belief of most is now far from +it; and yet its penetrating individualism so deeply influenced the New +England character that Puritanism survives in the moral and mental make +of the people almost in its early strength. Conduct and manner conform +to a dead religious ideal; the wish to be sincere, the wish to be just, +the wish to be righteous are before the wish to be kind, merciful, +humble. A people are not a chosen people for half a dozen generations +without acquiring a spiritual pride that remains with them long after +they cease to believe themselves chosen. They are often stiffened in the +neck and they are often hardened in the heart by it, to the point of +making them angular and cold; but they are of an inveterate +responsibility to a power higher than themselves, and they are +strengthened for any fate. They are what we see in the stories which, +perhaps, hold the first place in American fiction. + +As a matter of fact, the religion of New England is not now so +Puritanical as that of many parts of the South and West, and yet the +inherited Puritanism stamps the New England manner, and differences it +from the manner of the straightest sects elsewhere. There was, however, +always a revolt against Puritanism when Puritanism was severest and +securest; this resulted in types of shiftlessness if not wickedness, +which have not yet been duly studied, and which would make the fortune of +some novelist who cared to do a fresh thing. There is also a +sentimentality, or pseudo-emotionality (I have not the right phrase for +it), which awaits full recognition in fiction. This efflorescence from +the dust of systems and creeds, carried into natures left vacant by the +ancestral doctrine, has scarcely been noticed by the painters of New +England manners. It is often a last state of Unitarianism, which +prevailed in the larger towns and cities when the Calvinistic theology +ceased to be dominant, and it is often an effect of the spiritualism so +common in New England, and, in fact, everywhere in America. Then, there +is a wide-spread love of literature in the country towns and villages +which has in great measure replaced the old interest in dogma, and which +forms with us an author's closest appreciation, if not his best. But as +yet little hint of all this has got into the short stories, and still +less of that larger intellectual life of New England, or that exalted +beauty of character which tempts one to say that Puritanism was a +blessing if it made the New-Englanders what they are; though one can +always be glad not to have lived among them in the disciplinary period. +Boston, the capital of that New England nation which is fast losing +itself in the American nation, is no longer of its old literary primacy, +and yet most of our right thinking, our high thinking, still begins +there, and qualifies the thinking of the country at large. The good +causes, the generous causes, are first befriended there, and in a +wholesome sort the New England culture, as well as the New England +conscience, has imparted itself to the American people. + +Even the power of writing short stories, which we suppose ourselves to +have in such excellent degree, has spread from New England. That is, +indeed, the home of the American short story, and it has there been +brought to such perfection in the work of Miss Wilkins, of Miss Jewett, +of Miss Brown, and of that most faithful, forgotten painter of manners, +Mrs. Rose Terry Cook, that it presents upon the whole a truthful picture +of New England village life in some of its more obvious phases. I say +obvious because I must, but I have already said that this is a life which +is very little obvious; and I should not blame any one who brought the +portrait to the test of reality, and found it exaggerated, overdrawn, and +unnatural, though I should be perfectly sure that such a critic was +wrong. + + + + + + +THE WHAT AND THE HOW IN ART + +One of the things always enforcing itself upon the consciousness of the +artist in any sort is the fact that those whom artists work for rarely +care for their work artistically. They care for it morally, personally, +partially. I suspect that criticism itself has rather a muddled +preference for the what over the how, and that it is always haunted by a +philistine question of the material when it should, aesthetically +speaking, be concerned solely with the form. + + + + +I. + +The other night at the theatre I was witness of a curious and amusing +illustration of my point. They were playing a most soul-filling +melodrama, of the sort which gives you assurance from the very first that +there will be no trouble in the end, but everything will come out just as +it should, no matter what obstacles oppose themselves in the course of +the action. An over-ruling Providence, long accustomed to the exigencies +of the stage, could not fail to intervene at the critical moment in +behalf of innocence and virtue, and the spectator never had the least +occasion for anxiety. Not unnaturally there was a black-hearted villain +in the piece; so very black-hearted that he seemed not to have a single +good impulse from first to last. Yet he was, in the keeping of the stage +Providence, as harmless as a blank cartridge, in spite of his deadly +aims. He accomplished no more mischief, in fact, than if all his intents +had been of the best; except for the satisfaction afforded by the +edifying spectacle of his defeat and shame, he need not have been in the +play at all; and one might almost have felt sorry for him, he was so +continually baffled. But this was not enough for the audience, or for +that part of it which filled the gallery to the roof. Perhaps he was +such an uncommonly black-hearted villain, so very, very cold-blooded in +his wickedness that the justice unsparingly dealt out to him by the +dramatist could not suffice. At any rate, the gallery took such a vivid +interest in his punishment that it had out the actor who impersonated the +wretch between all the acts, and hissed him throughout his deliberate +passage across the stage before the curtain. The hisses were not at all +for the actor, but altogether for the character. The performance was +fairly good, quite as good as the performance of any virtuous part in the +piece, and easily up to the level of other villanous performances (I +never find much nature in them, perhaps because there is not much nature +in villany itself; that is, villany pure and simple); but the mere +conception of the wickedness this bad man had attempted was too much for +an audience of the average popular goodness. It was only after he had +taken poison, and fallen dead before their eyes, that the spectators +forbore to visit him with a lively proof of their abhorrence; apparently +they did not care to "give him a realizing sense that there was a +punishment after death," as the man in Lincoln's story did with the dead +dog. + + + + +II. + +The whole affair was very amusing at first, but it has since put me upon +thinking (I like to be put upon thinking; the eighteenth-century +essayists were) that the attitude of the audience towards this deplorable +reprobate is really the attitude of most readers of books, lookers at +pictures and statues, listeners to music, and so on through the whole +list of the arts. It is absolutely different from the artist's attitude, +from the connoisseur's attitude; it is quite irreconcilable with their +attitude, and yet I wonder if in the end it is not what the artist works +for. Art is not produced for artists, or even for connoisseurs; it is +produced for the general, who can never view it otherwise than morally, +personally, partially, from their associations and preconceptions. + +Whether the effect with the general is what the artist works for or not, +he, does not succeed without it. Their brute liking or misliking is the +final test; it is universal suffrage that elects, after all. Only, in +some cases of this sort the polls do not close at four o'clock on the +first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, but remain open +forever, and the voting goes on. Still, even the first day's canvass is +important, or at least significant. It will not do for the artist to +electioneer, but if he is beaten, he ought to ponder the causes of his +defeat, and question how he has failed to touch the chord of universal +interest. He is in the world to make beauty and truth evident to his +fellowmen, who are as a rule incredibly stupid and ignorant of both, but +whose judgment he must nevertheless not despise. If he can make +something that they will cheer, or something that they will hiss, he may +not have done any great thing, but if he has made something that they +will neither cheer nor hiss, he may well have his misgivings, no matter +how well, how finely, how truly he has done the thing. + +This is very humiliating, but a tacit snub to one's artist-pride such as +one gets from public silence is not a bad thing for one. Not long ago I +was talking about pictures with a painter, a very great painter, to my +thinking; one whose pieces give me the same feeling I have from reading +poetry; and I was excusing myself to him with respect to art, and perhaps +putting on a little more modesty than I felt. I said that I could enjoy +pictures only on the literary side, and could get no answer from my soul +to those excellences of handling and execution which seem chiefly to +interest painters. He replied that it was a confession of weakness in a +painter if he appealed merely or mainly to technical knowledge in the +spectator; that he narrowed his field and dwarfed his work by it; and +that if he painted for painters merely, or for the connoisseurs of +painting, he was denying his office, which was to say something clear and +appreciable to all sorts of men in the terms of art. He even insisted +that a picture ought to tell a story. + +The difficulty in humbling one's self to this view of art is in the ease +with which one may please the general by art which is no art. Neither +the play nor the playing that I saw at the theatre when the actor was +hissed for the wickedness of the villain he was personating, was at all +fine; and yet I perceived, on reflection, that they had achieved a +supreme effect. If I may be so confidential, I will say that I should be +very sorry to have written that piece; yet I should be very proud if, on +the level I chose and with the quality I cared for, I could invent a +villain that the populace would have out and hiss for his surpassing +wickedness. In other words, I think it a thousand pities whenever an +artist gets so far away from the general, so far within himself or a +little circle of amateurs, that his highest and best work awakens no +response in the multitude. I am afraid this is rather the danger of the +arts among us, and how to escape it is not so very plain. It makes one +sick and sorry often to see how cheaply the applause of the common people +is won. It is not an infallible test of merit, but if it is wanting to +any performance, we may be pretty sure it is not the greatest +performance. + + + + +III. + +The paradox lies in wait here, as in most other human affairs, to +confound us, and we try to baffle it, in this way and in that. We talk, +for instance, of poetry for poets, and we fondly imagine that this is +different from talking of cookery for cooks. Poetry is not made for +poets; they have enough poetry of their own, but it is made for people +who are not poets. If it does not please these, it may still be poetry, +but it is poetry which has failed of its truest office. It is none the +less its truest office because some very wretched verse seems often to do +it. + +The logic of such a fact is not that the poet should try to achieve this +truest office of his art by means of doggerel, but that he should study +how and where and why the beauty and the truth he has made manifest are +wanting in universal interest, in human appeal. Leaving the drama out of +the question, and the theatre which seems now to be seeking only the +favor of the dull rich, I believe that there never was a time or a race +more open to the impressions of beauty and of truth than ours. The +artist who feels their divine charm, and longs to impart it, has now and +here a chance to impart it more widely than ever artist had in the world +before. Of course, the means of reaching the widest range of humanity +are the simple and the elementary, but there is no telling when the +complex and the recondite may not universally please. 288 + +The art is to make them plain to every one, for every one has them in +him. Lowell used to say that Shakespeare was subtle, but in letters a +foot high. + +The painter, sculptor, or author who pleases the polite only has a +success to be proud of as far as it goes, and to be ashamed of that it +goes no further. He need not shrink from giving pleasure to the vulgar +because bad art pleases them. It is part of his reason for being that he +should please them, too; and if he does not it is a proof that he is +wanting in force, however much he abounds in fineness. Who would not +wish his picture to draw a crowd about it? Who would not wish his novel +to sell five hundred thousand copies, for reasons besides the sordid love +of gain which I am told governs novelists? One should not really wish it +any the less because chromos and historical romances are popular. + +Sometime, I believe, the artist and his public will draw nearer together +in a mutual understanding, though perhaps not in our present conditions. +I put that understanding off till the good time when life shall be more +than living, more even than the question of getting a living; but in the +mean time I think that the artist might very well study the springs of +feeling in others; and if I were a dramatist I think I should quite +humbly go to that play where they hiss the villain for his villany, and +inquire how his wickedness had been made so appreciable, so vital, so +personal. Not being a dramatist, I still cannot indulge the greatest +contempt of that play and its public. + + + + + + +POLITICS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS + +No thornier theme could well be suggested than I was once invited to +consider by an Englishman who wished to know how far American politicians +were scholars, and how far American authors took part in politics. In my +mind I first revolted from the inquiry, and then I cast about, in the +fascination it began to have for me, to see how I might handle it and +prick myself least. In a sort, which it would take too long to set +forth, politics are very intimate matters with us, and if one were to +deal quite frankly with the politics of a contemporary author, one might +accuse one's self of an unwarrantable personality. So, in what I shall +have to say in answer to the question asked me, I shall seek above all +things not to be quite frank. + + + + +I. + +My uncandor need not be so jealously guarded in speaking of authors no +longer living. Not to go too far back among these, it is perfectly safe +to say that when the slavery question began to divide all kinds of men +among us, Lowell, Longfellow, Whittier, Curtis, Emerson, and Bryant more +or less promptly and openly took sides against slavery. Holmes was very +much later in doing so, but he made up for his long delay by his final +strenuousness; as for Hawthorne, he was, perhaps, too essentially a +spectator of life to be classed with either party, though his +associations, if not his sympathies, were with the Northern men who had +Southern principles until the civil war came. After the war, when our +political questions ceased to be moral and emotional and became economic +and sociological, literary men found their standing with greater +difficulty. They remained mostly Republicans, because the Republicans +were the anti-slavery party, and were still waging war against slavery in +their nerves. + +I should say that they also continued very largely the emotional +tradition in politics, and it is doubtful if in the nature of things the +politics of literary men can ever be otherwise than emotional. In fact, +though the questions may no longer be so, the politics of vastly the +greater number of Americans are so. Nothing else would account for the +fact that during the last ten or fifteen years men have remained +Republicans and remained Democrats upon no tangible issues except of +office, which could practically concern only a few hundreds or thousands +out of every million voters. Party fealty is praised as a virtue, and +disloyalty to party is treated as a species of incivism next in +wickedness to treason. If any one were to ask me why then American +authors were not active in American politics, as they once were, I should +feel a certain diffidence in replying that the question of other people's +accession to office was, however emotional, unimportant to them as +compared with literary questions. I should have the more diffidence +because it might be retorted that literary men were too unpractical for +politics when they did not deal with moral issues. + +Such a retort would be rather mild and civil, as things go, and might +even be regarded as complimentary. It is not our custom to be tender +with any one who doubts if any actuality is right, or might not be +bettered, especially in public affairs. We are apt to call such a one +out of his name and to punish him for opinions he has never held. This +may be a better reason than either given why authors do not take part in +politics with us. They are a thin-skinned race, fastidious often, and +always averse to hard knocks; they are rather modest, too, and distrust +their fitness to lead, when they have quite a firm faith in their +convictions. They hesitate to urge these in the face of practical +politicians, who have a confidence in their ability to settle all affairs +of State not surpassed even by that of business men in dealing with +economic questions. + +I think it is a pity that our authors do not go into politics at least +for the sake of the material it would yield them; but really they do not. +Our politics are often vulgar, but they are very picturesque; yet, so +far, our fiction has shunned them even more decidedly than it has shunned +our good society--which is not picturesque or apparently anything but a +tiresome adaptation of the sort of drama that goes on abroad under the +same name. In nearly the degree that our authors have dealt with our +politics as material, they have given the practical politicians only too +much reason to doubt their insight and their capacity to understand the +mere machinery, the simplest motives, of political life. + + + + +II. + +There are exceptions, of course, and if my promise of reticence did not +withhold me I might name some striking ones. Privately and +unprofessionally, I think our authors take as vivid an interest in public +affairs as any other class of our citizens, and I should be sorry to +think that they took a less intelligent interest. Now and then, but only +very rarely, one of them speaks out, and usually on the unpopular side. +In this event he is spared none of the penalties with which we like to +visit difference of opinion; rather they are accumulated on him. + +Such things are not serious, and they are such as no serious man need +shrink from, but they have a bearing upon what I am trying to explain, +and in a certain measure they account for a certain attitude in our +literary men. No one likes to have stones, not to say mud, thrown at +him, though they are not meant to hurt him badly and may be partly thrown +in joke. But it is pretty certain that if a man not in politics takes +them seriously, he will have more or less mud, not to say stones, thrown +at him. He might burlesque or caricature them, or misrepresent them, +with safety; but if he spoke of public questions with heart and +conscience, he could not do it with impunity, unless he were authorized +to do so by some practical relation to them. I do not mean that then he +would escape; but in this country, where there were once supposed to be +no classes, people are more strictly classified than in any other. +Business to the business man, law to the lawyer, medicine to the +physician, politics to the politician, and letters to the literary man; +that is the rule. One is not expected to transcend his function, and +commonly one does not. We keep each to his last, as if there were not +human interests, civic interests, which had a higher claim than the last +upon our thinking and feeling. The tendency has grown upon us severally +and collectively through the long persistence of our prosperity; if +public affairs were going ill, private affairs were going so well that we +did not mind the others; and we Americans are, I think, meridional in our +improvidence. We are so essentially of to-day that we behave as if to- +morrow no more concerned us than yesterday. We have taught ourselves to +believe that it will all come out right in the end so long that we have +come to act upon our belief; we are optimistic fatalists. + + + + +III. + +The turn which our politics have taken towards economics, if I may so +phrase the rise of the questions of labor and capital, has not largely +attracted literary men. It is doubtful whether Edward Bellamy himself, +whose fancy of better conditions has become the abiding faith of vast +numbers of Americans, supposed that he was entering the field of +practical politics, or dreamed of influencing elections by his hopes of +economic equality. But he virtually founded the Populist party, which, +as the vital principle of the Democratic party, came so near electing its +candidate for the Presidency some years ago; and he is to be named first +among our authors who have dealt with politics on their more human side +since the days of the old antislavery agitation. Without too great +disregard of the reticence concerning the living which I promised myself, +I may mention Dr. Edward Everett Hale and Colonel Thomas Wentworth +Higginson as prominent authors who encouraged the Nationalist movement +eventuating in Populism, though they were never Populists. It may be +interesting to note that Dr. Hale and Colonel Higginson, who later came +together in their sociological sympathies, were divided by the schism of +1884, when the first remained with the Republicans and the last went off +to the Democrats. More remotely, Colonel Higginson was anti slavery +almost to the point of Abolitionism, and he led a negro regiment in the +war. Dr. Hale was of those who were less radically opposed to slavery +before the war, but hardly so after it came. Since the war a sort of +refluence of the old anti-slavery politics carried from his moorings in +Southern tradition Mr. George W. Cable, who, against the white sentiment +of his section, sided with the former slaves, and would, if the indignant +renunciation of his fellow-Southerners could avail, have consequently +ceased to be the first of Southern authors, though he would still have +continued the author of at least one of the greatest American novels. + +If I must burn my ships behind me in alleging these modern instances, as +I seem really to be doing, I may mention Mr. R. W. Gilder, the poet, as +an author who has taken part in the politics of municipal reform, Mr. +Hamlin Garland has been known from the first as a zealous George man, or +single-taxer. Mr. John Hay, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, and Mr. Henry Cabot +Lodge are Republican politicians, as well as recognized literary men. +Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, when not writing Uncle Remus, writes political +articles in a leading Southern journal. Mark Twain is a leading anti- +imperialist. + + + + +IV. + +I am not sure whether I have made out a case for our authors or against +them; perhaps I have not done so badly; but I have certainly not tried to +be exhaustive; the exhaustion is so apt to extend from the subject to the +reader, and I wish to leave him in a condition to judge for himself +whether American literary men take part in American politics or not. +I think they bear their share, in the quieter sort of way which we hope +(it may be too fondly) is the American way. They are none of them +politicians in the Latin sort. Few, if any, of our statesmen have come +forward with small volumes of verse in their hands as they used to do in +Spain; none of our poets or historians have been chosen Presidents of the +republic as has happened to their French confreres; no great novelist of +ours has been exiled as Victor Hugo was, or atrociously mishandled as +Zola has been, though I have no doubt that if, for instance, one had once +said the Spanish war wrong he would be pretty generally 'conspue'. +They have none of them reached the heights of political power, as several +English authors have done; but they have often been ambassadors, +ministers, and consuls, though they may not often have been appointed for +political reasons. I fancy they discharge their duties in voting rather +faithfully, though they do not often take part in caucuses or +conventions. + +As for the other half of the question--how far American politicians are +scholars--one's first impulse would be to say that they never were so. +But I have always had an heretical belief that there were snakes in +Ireland; and it may be some such disposition to question authority that +keeps me from yielding to this impulse. The law of demand and supply +alone ought to have settled the question in favor of the presence of the +scholar in our politics, there has been such a cry for him among us for +almost a generation past. Perhaps the response has not been very direct, +but I imagine that our politicians have never been quite so destitute of +scholarship as they would sometimes make appear. I do not think so many +of them now write a good style, or speak a good style, as the politicians +of forty, or fifty, or sixty years ago; but this may be merely part of +the impression of the general worsening of things, familiar after middle +life to every one's experience, from the beginning of recorded time. If +something not so literary is meant by scholarship, if a study of finance, +of economics, of international affairs is in question, it seems to go on +rather more to their own satisfaction than that of their critics. But +without being always very proud of the result, and without professing to +know the facts very profoundly, one may still suspect that under an +outside by no means academic there is a process of thinking in our +statesmen which is not so loose, not so unscientific, and not even so +unscholarly as it might be supposed. It is not the effect of specific +training, and yet it is the effect of training. I do not find that the +matters dealt with are anywhere in the world intrusted to experts; and in +this sense scholarship has not been called to the aid of our legislation +or administration; but still I should not like to say that none of our +politicians were scholars. That would be offensive, and it might not be +true. In fact, I can think of several whom I should be tempted to call +scholars if I were not just here recalled to a sense of my purpose not to +deal quite frankly with this inquiry. + + + + + + +STORAGE + +It has been the belief of certain kindly philosophers that if the one +half of mankind knew how the other half lived, the two halves might be +brought together in a family affection not now so observable in human +relations. Probably if this knowledge were perfect, there would still be +things, to bar the perfect brotherhood; and yet the knowledge itself is +so interesting, if not so salutary as it has been imagined, that one can +hardly refuse to impart it if one has it, and can reasonably hope, in the +advantage of the ignorant, to find one's excuse with the better informed. + + + + +I. + +City and country are still so widely apart in every civilization that one +can safely count upon a reciprocal strangeness in many every-day things. +For instance, in the country, when people break up house-keeping, they +sell their household goods and gods, as they did in cities fifty or a +hundred years ago; but now in cities they simply store them; and vast +warehouses in all the principal towns have been devoted to their storage. +The warehouses are of all types, from dusty lofts over stores, and +ammoniacal lofts over stables, to buildings offering acres of space, and +carefully planned for the purpose. They are more or less fire-proof, +slow-burning, or briskly combustible, like the dwellings they have +devastated. But the modern tendency is to a type where flames do not +destroy, nor moth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. Such a +warehouse is a city in itself, laid out in streets and avenues, with the +private tenements on either hand duly numbered, and accessible only to +the tenants or their order. The aisles are concreted, the doors are +iron, and the roofs are ceiled with iron; the whole place is heated by +steam and lighted by electricity. Behind the iron doors, which in the +New York warehouses must number hundreds of thousands, and throughout all +our other cities, millions, the furniture of a myriad households is +stored--the effects of people who have gone to Europe, or broken up +house-keeping provisionally or definitively, or have died, or been +divorced. They are the dead bones of homes, or their ghosts, or their +yet living bodies held in hypnotic trances; destined again in some future +time to animate some house or flat anew. In certain cases the spell +lasts for many years, in others for a few, and in others yet it prolongs +itself indefinitely. + +I may mention the case of one owner whom I saw visiting the warehouse to +take out the household stuff that had lain there a long fifteen years. +He had been all that while in Europe, expecting any day to come home and +begin life again, in his own land. That dream had passed, and now he was +taking his stuff out of storage and shipping it to Italy. I did not envy +him his feelings as the parts of his long-dead past rose round him in +formless resurrection. It was not that they were all broken or defaced. +On the contrary, they were in a state of preservation far more +heartbreaking than any decay. In well-managed storage warehouses the +things are handled with scrupulous care, and they are so packed into the +appointed rooms that if not disturbed they could suffer little harm in +fifteen or fifty years. The places are wonderfully well kept, and if you +will visit them, say in midwinter, after the fall influx of furniture has +all been hidden away behind the iron doors of the several cells, you +shall find their far-branching corridors scrupulously swept and dusted, +and shall walk up and down their concrete length with some such sense of +secure finality as you would experience in pacing the aisle of your +family vault. + +That is what it comes to. One may feign that these storage warehouses +are cities, but they are really cemeteries: sad columbaria on whose +shelves are stowed exanimate things once so intimately of their owners' +lives that it is with the sense of looking at pieces and bits of one's +dead self that one revisits them. If one takes the fragments out to fit +them to new circumstance, one finds them not only uncomformable and +incapable, but so volubly confidential of the associations in which they +are steeped, that one wishes to hurry them back to their cell and lock it +upon them forever. One feels then that the old way was far better, and +that if the things had been auctioned off, and scattered up and down, as +chance willed, to serve new uses with people who wanted them enough to +pay for them even a tithe of their cost, it would have been wiser. +Failing this, a fire seems the only thing for them, and their removal to +the cheaper custody of a combustible or slow-burning warehouse the best +recourse. Desperate people, aging husbands and wives, who have attempted +the reconstruction of their homes with these + + "Portions and parcels of the dreadful past" + +have been known to wish for an earthquake, even, that would involve their +belongings in an indiscriminate ruin. + + + + +II. + +In fact, each new start in life should be made with material new to you, +if comfort is to attend the enterprise. It is not only sorrowful but it +is futile to store your possessions, if you hope to find the old +happiness in taking them out and using them again. It is not that they +will not go into place, after a fashion, and perform their old office, +but that the pang they will inflict through the suggestion of the other +places where they served their purpose in other years will be only the +keener for the perfection with which they do it now. If they cannot be +sold, and if no fire comes down from heaven to consume them, then they +had better be stored with no thought of ever taking them out again. + +That will be expensive, or it will be inexpensive, according to the sort +of storage they are put into. The inexperienced in such matters may be +surprised, and if they have hearts they may be grieved, to learn that the +fire-proof storage of the furniture of the average house would equal the +rent of a very comfortable domicile in a small town, or a farm by which a +family's living can be earned, with a decent dwelling in which it can be +sheltered. Yet the space required is not very great; three fair-sized +rooms will hold everything; and there is sometimes a fierce satisfaction +in seeing how closely the things that once stood largely about, and +seemed to fill ample parlors and chambers, can be packed away. To be +sure they are not in their familiar attitudes; they lie on their sides or +backs, or stand upon their heads; between the legs of library or dining +tables are stuffed all kinds of minor movables, with cushions, pillows, +pictures, cunningly adjusted to the environment; and mattresses pad the +walls, or interpose their soft bulk between pieces of furniture that +would otherwise rend each other. Carpets sewn in cotton against moths, +and rugs in long rolls; the piano hovering under its ample frame a whole +brood of helpless little guitars, mandolins, and banjos, and supporting +on its broad back a bulk of lighter cases to the fire-proof ceiling of +the cell; paintings in boxes indistinguishable outwardly from their +companioning mirrors; barrels of china and kitchen utensils, and all the +what-not of householding and house-keeping contribute to the repletion. + +There is a science observed in the arrangement of the various effects; +against the rear wall and packed along the floor, and then in front of +and on top of these, is built a superstructure of the things that may be +first wanted, in case of removal, or oftenest wanted in some exigency of +the homeless life of the owners, pending removal. The lightest and +slightest articles float loosely about the door, or are interwoven in a +kind of fabric just within, and curtaining the ponderous mass behind. +The effect is not so artistic as the mortuary mosaics which the Roman +Capuchins design with the bones of their dead brethren in the crypt of +their church, but the warehousemen no doubt have their just pride in it, +and feel an artistic pang in its provisional or final disturbance. + +It had better never be disturbed, for it is disturbed only in some futile +dream of returning to the past; and we never can return to the past on +the old terms. It is well in all things to accept life implicitly, and +when an end has come to treat it as the end, and not vainly mock it as a +suspense of function. When the poor break up their homes, with no +immediate hope of founding others, they must sell their belongings +because they cannot afford to pay storage on them. The rich or richer +store their household effects, and cheat themselves with the illusion +that they are going some time to rehabilitate with them just such a home +as they have dismantled. But the illusion probably deceives nobody so +little as those who cherish the vain hope. As long as they cherish it, +however--and they must cherish it till their furniture or themselves fall +to dust--they cannot begin life anew, as the poor do who have kept +nothing of the sort to link them to the past. This is one of the +disabilities of the prosperous, who will probably not be relieved of it +till some means of storing the owner as well as the' furniture is +invented. In the immense range of modern ingenuity, this is perhaps not +impossible. Why not, while we are still in life, some sweet oblivious +antidote which shall drug us against memory, and after time shall elapse +for the reconstruction of a new home in place of the old, shall repossess +us of ourselves as unchanged as the things with which we shall again +array it? Here is a pretty idea for some dreamer to spin into the filmy +fabric of a romance, and I handsomely make a present of it to the first +comer. If the dreamer is of the right quality he will know how to make +the reader feel that with the universal longing to return to former +conditions or circumstances it must always be a mistake to do so, and he +will subtly insinuate the disappointment and discomfort of the stored +personality in resuming its old relations. With that just mixture of the +comic and pathetic which we desire in romance, he will teach convincingly +that a stored personality is to be desired only if it is permanently +stored, with the implication of a like finality in the storage of its +belongings. + +Save in some signal exception, a thing taken out of storage cannot be +established in its former function without a sense of its comparative +inadequacy. It stands in the old place, it serves the old use, and yet +a new thing would be better; it would even in some subtle wise be more +appropriate, if I may indulge so audacious a paradox; for the time is +new, and so will be all the subconscious keeping in which our lives are +mainly passed. We are supposed to have associations with the old things +which render them precious, but do not the associations rather render +them painful? If that is true of the inanimate things, how much truer it +is of those personalities which once environed and furnished our lives! +Take the article of old friends, for instance: has it ever happened to +the reader to witness the encounter of old friends after the lapse of +years? Such a meeting is conventionally imagined to be full of tender +joy, a rapture that vents itself in manly tears, perhaps, and certainly +in womanly tears. But really is it any such emotion? Honestly is not it +a cruel embarrassment, which all the hypocritical pretences cannot hide? +The old friends smile and laugh, and babble incoherently at one another, +but are they genuinely glad? Is not each wishing the other at that end +of the earth from which he came? Have they any use for each other such +as people of unbroken associations have? + +I have lately been privy to the reunion of two old comrades who are bound +together more closely than most men in a community of interests, +occupations, and ideals. During a long separation they had kept account +of each other's opinions as well as experiences; they had exchanged +letters, from time to time, in which they opened their minds fully to +each other, and found themselves constantly in accord. When they met +they made a great shouting, and each pretended that he found the other +just what he used to be. They talked a long, long time, fighting the +invisible enemy which they felt between them. The enemy was habit, the +habit of other minds and hearts, the daily use of persons and things +which in their separation they had not had in common. When the old +friends parted they promised to meet every day, and now, since their +lines had been cast in the same places again, to repair the ravage of the +envious years, and become again to each other all that they had ever +been. But though they live in the same town, and often dine at the same +table, and belong to the same club, yet they have not grown together +again. They have grown more and more apart, and are uneasy in each +other's presence, tacitly self-reproachful for the same effect which +neither of them could avert or repair. They had been respectively in +storage, and each, in taking the other out, has experienced in him the +unfitness which grows upon the things put away for a time and reinstated +in a former function. + + + + +III. + +I have not touched upon these facts of life, without the purpose of +finding some way out of the coil. There seems none better than the +counsel of keeping one's face set well forward, and one's eyes fixed +steadfastly upon the future. This is the hint we will get from nature if +we will heed her, and note how she never recurs, never stores or takes +out of storage. Fancy rehabilitating one's first love: how nature would +mock at that! We cannot go back and be the men and women we were, any +more than we can go back and be children. As we grow older, each year's +change in us is more chasmal and complete. There is no elixir whose +magic will recover us to ourselves as we were last year; but perhaps we +shall return to ourselves more and more in the times, or the eternity, to +come. Some instinct or inspiration implies the promise of this, but only +on condition that we shall not cling to the life that has been ours, and +hoard its mummified image in our hearts. We must not seek to store +ourselves, but must part with what we were for the use and behoof of +others, as the poor part with their worldly gear when they move from one +place to another. It is a curious and significant property of our +outworn characteristics that, like our old furniture, they will serve +admirably in the life of some other, and that this other can profitably +make them his when we can no longer keep them ours, or ever hope to +resume them. They not only go down to successive generations, but they +spread beyond our lineages, and serve the turn of those whom we never +knew to be within the circle of our influence. + +Civilization imparts itself by some such means, and the lower classes are +clothed in the cast conduct of the upper, which if it had been stored +would have left the inferiors rude and barbarous. We have only to think +how socially naked most of us would be if we had not had the beautiful +manners of our exclusive society to put on at each change of fashion when +it dropped them. + +All earthly and material things should be worn out with use, and not +preserved against decay by any unnatural artifice. Even when broken and +disabled from overuse they have a kind of respectability which must +commend itself to the observer, and which partakes of the pensive grace +of ruin. An old table with one leg gone, and slowly lapsing to decay in +the woodshed, is the emblem of a fitter order than the same table, with +all its legs intact, stored with the rest of the furniture from a broken +home. Spinning-wheels gathering dust in the garret of a house that is +itself falling to pieces have a dignity that deserts them when they are +dragged from their refuge, and furbished up with ribbons and a tuft of +fresh tow, and made to serve the hollow occasions of bric-a-brac, as they +were a few years ago. A pitcher broken at the fountain, or a battered +kettle on a rubbish heap, is a venerable object, but not crockery and +copper-ware stored in the possibility of future need. However carefully +handed down from one generation to another, the old objects have a +forlorn incongruity in their successive surroundings which appeals to the +compassion rather than the veneration of the witness. + +It was from a truth deeply mystical that Hawthorne declared against any +sort of permanence in the dwellings of men, and held that each generation +should newly house itself. He preferred the perishability of the wooden +American house to the durability of the piles of brick or stone which in +Europe affected him as with some moral miasm from the succession of sires +and sons and grandsons that had died out of them. But even of such +structures as these it is impressive how little the earth makes with the +passage of time. Where once a great city of them stood, you shall find a +few tottering walls, scarcely more mindful of the past than "the cellar +and the well" which Holmes marked as the ultimate monuments, the last +witnesses, to the existence of our more transitory habitations. It is +the law of the patient sun that everything under it shall decay, and if +by reason of some swift calamity, some fiery cataclysm, the perishable +shall be overtaken by a fate that fixes it in unwasting arrest, it cannot +be felt that the law has been set aside in the interest of men's +happiness or cheerfulness. Neither Pompeii nor Herculaneum invites the +gayety of the spectator, who as he walks their disinterred thoroughfares +has the weird sense of taking a former civilization out of storage, and +the ache of finding it wholly unadapted to the actual world. As far as +his comfort is concerned, it had been far better that those cities had +not been stored, but had fallen to the ruin that has overtaken all their +contemporaries. + + + + +IV + +No, good friend, sir or madam, as the case may be, but most likely madam: +if you are about to break up your household for any indefinite period, +and are not so poor that you need sell your things, be warned against +putting them in storage, unless of the most briskly combustible type. +Better, far better, give them away, and disperse them by that means to a +continuous use that shall end in using them up; or if no one will take +them, then hire a vacant lot, somewhere, and devote them to the flames. +By that means you shall bear witness against a custom that insults the +order of nature, and crowds the cities with the cemeteries of dead homes, +where there is scarcely space for the living homes. Do not vainly fancy +that you shall take your stuff out of storage and find it adapted to the +ends that it served before it was put in. You will not be the same, or +have the same needs or desire, when you take it out, and the new place +which you shall hope to equip with it will receive it with cold +reluctance, or openly refuse it, insisting upon forms and dimensions that +render it ridiculous or impossible. The law is that nothing taken out of +storage is the same as it was when put in, and this law, hieroglyphed in +those rude 'graffiti' apparently inscribed by accident in the process of +removal, has only such exceptions as prove the rule. + +The world to which it has returned is not the same, and that makes all +the difference. Yet, truth and beauty do not change, however the moods +and fashions change. The ideals remain, and these alone you can go back +to, secure of finding them the same, to-day and to-morrow, that they were +yesterday. This perhaps is because they have never been in storage, but +in constant use, while the moods and fashions have been put away and +taken out a thousand times. Most people have never had ideals, but only +moods and fashions, but such people, least of all, are fitted to find in +them that pleasure of the rococo which consoles the idealist when the old +moods and fashions reappear. + + + + + + +"FLOATING DOWN THE RIVER ON THE O-HI-O" + +There was not much promise of pleasure in the sodden afternoon of a mid- +March day at Pittsburg, where the smoke of a thousand foundry chimneys +gave up trying to rise through the thick, soft air, and fell with the +constant rain which it dyed its own black. But early memories stirred +joyfully in the two travellers in whose consciousness I was making my +tour, at sight of the familiar stern-wheel steamboat lying beside the +wharf boat at the foot of the dilapidated levee, and doing its best to +represent the hundreds of steamboats that used to lie there in the old +days. It had the help of three others in its generous effort, and the +levee itself made a gallant pretence of being crowded with freight, and +succeeded in displaying several saturated piles of barrels and +agricultural implements on the irregular pavement whose wheel-worn +stones, in long stretches, were sunken out of sight in their parent mud. +The boats and the levee were jointly quite equal to the demand made upon +them by the light-hearted youngsters of sixty-five and seventy, who were +setting out on their journey in fulfilment of a long-cherished dream, and +for whom much less freight and much fewer boats would have rehabilitated +the past. + + + + +I. + +When they mounted the broad stairway, tidily strewn with straw to save it +from the mud of careless boots, and entered the long saloon of the +steamboat, the promise of their fancy was more than made good for them. +From the clerk's office, where they eagerly paid their fare, the saloon +stretched two hundred feet by thirty away to the stern, a cavernous +splendor of white paint and gilding, starred with electric bulbs, and +fenced at the stern with wide windows of painted glass. Midway between +the great stove in the bow where the men were herded, and the great stove +at the stern where the women kept themselves in the seclusion which the +tradition of Western river travel still guards, after well-nigh a hundred +years, they were given ample state-rooms, whose appointments so exactly +duplicated those they remembered from far-off days that they could have +believed themselves awakened from a dream of insubstantial time, with the +events in which it had seemed to lapse, mere feints of experience. When +they sat down at the supper-table and were served with the sort of +belated steamboat dinner which it recalled as vividly, the kind, sooty +faces and snowy aprons of those who served them were so quite those of +other days that they decided all repasts since were mere Barmecide +feasts, and made up for the long fraud practised upon them with the +appetites of the year 1850. + + + + +II. + +A rigider sincerity than shall be practised here might own that the table +of the good steamboat 'Avonek' left something to be desired, if tested by +more sophisticated cuisines, but in the article of corn-bread it was of +an inapproachable preeminence. This bread was made of the white corn +which North knows not, nor the hapless East; and the buckwheat cakes at +breakfast were without blame, and there was a simple variety in the +abundance which ought to have satisfied if it did not flatter the choice. +The only thing that seemed strangely, that seemed sadly, anomalous in a +land flowing with ham and bacon was that the 'Avonek' had not imagined +providing either for the guests, no one of whom could have had a +religious scruple against them. + +The thing, indeed, which was first and last conspicuous in the +passengers, was their perfectly American race and character. At the +start, when with an acceptable observance of Western steamboat tradition +the 'Avonek' left her wharf eight hours behind her appointed time, there +were very few passengers; but they began to come aboard at the little +towns of both shores as she swam southward and westward, till all the +tables were so full that, in observance of another Western steamboat +tradition; one did well to stand guard over his chair lest some other who +liked it should seize it earlier. The passengers were of every age and +condition, except perhaps the highest condition, and they seemed none the +worse for being more like Americans of the middle of the last century +than of the beginning of this. Their fashions were of an approximation +to those of the present, but did not scrupulously study detail; their +manners were those of simpler if not sincerer days. + +The women kept to themselves at their end of the saloon, aloof from the +study of any but their husbands or kindred, but the men were everywhere +else about, and open to observation. They were not so open to +conversation, for your mid-Westerner is not a facile, though not an +unwilling, talker. They sat by their tall, cast-iron stove (of the oval +pattern unvaried since the earliest stove of the region), and silently +ruminated their tobacco and spat into the clustering, cuspidors at their +feet. They would always answer civilly if questioned, and oftenest +intelligently, but they asked nothing in return, and they seemed to have +none of that curiosity once known or imagined in them by Dickens and +other averse aliens. They had mostly faces of resolute power, and such a +looking of knowing exactly what they wanted as would not have promised +well for any collectively or individually opposing them. If ever the +sense of human equality has expressed itself in the human countenance it +speaks unmistakably from American faces like theirs. + +They were neither handsome nor unhandsome; but for a few striking +exceptions, they had been impartially treated by nature; and where they +were notably plain their look of force made up for their lack of beauty. +They were notably handsomest in a tall young fellow of a lean face, +absolute Greek in profile, amply thwarted with a branching mustache, and +slender of figure, on whom his clothes, lustrous from much sitting down +and leaning up, grew like the bark on a tree, and who moved slowly and +gently about, and spoke with a low, kind voice. In his young comeliness +he was like a god, as the gods were fancied in the elder world: a chewing +and a spitting god, indeed, but divine in his passionless calm. + +He was a serious divinity, and so were all the mid-Western human-beings +about him. One heard no joking either of the dapper or cockney sort of +cities, or the quaint graphic phrasing of Eastern country folk; and it +may have been not far enough West for the true Western humor. At any +rate, when they were not silent these men still were serious. + +The women were apparently serious, too, and where they were associated +with the men were, if they were not really subject, strictly abeyant, in +the spectator's eye. The average of them was certainly not above the +American woman's average in good looks, though one young mother of six +children, well grown save for the baby in her arms, was of the type some +masters loved to paint, with eyes set wide under low arched brows. She +had the placid dignity and the air of motherly goodness which goes fitly +with such beauty, and the sight of her was such as to disperse many of +the misgivings that beset the beholder who looketh upon the woman when +she is New. As she seemed, so any man might wish to remember his mother +seeming. + +All these river folk, who came from the farms and villages along the +stream, and never from the great towns or cities, were well mannered, if +quiet manners are good; and though the men nearly all chewed tobacco and +spat between meals, at the table they were of an exemplary behavior. The +use of the fork appeared strange to them, and they handled it strenuously +rather than agilely, yet they never used their knives shovel-wise, +however they planted their forks like daggers in the steak: the steak +deserved no gentler usage, indeed. They were usually young, and they +were constantly changing, bent upon short journeys between the shore +villages; they were mostly farm youth, apparently, though some were said +to be going to find work at the great potteries up the river for wages +fabulous to home-keeping experience. + +One personality which greatly took the liking of one of our tourists was +a Kentucky mountaineer who, after three years' exile in a West Virginia +oil town, was gladly returning to the home for which he and all his +brood-of large and little comely, red-haired boys and girls-had never +ceased to pine. His eagerness to get back was more than touching; it was +awing; for it was founded on a sort of mediaeval patriotism that could +own no excellence beyond the borders of the natal region. He had +prospered at high wages in his trade at that oil town, and his wife and +children had managed a hired farm so well as to pay all the family +expenses from it, but he was gladly leaving opportunity behind, that he +might return to a land where, if you were passing a house at meal-time, +they came out and made you come in and eat. "When you eat where I've +been living you pay fifty cents," he explained. "And are you taking all +your household stuff with you?" "Only the cook-stove. Well, I'll tell +you: we made the other things ourselves; made them out of plank, and they +were not worth-moving." Here was the backwoods surviving into the day of +Trusts; and yet we talk of a world drifted hopelessly far from the old +ideals! + + + + +III. + +The new ideals, the ideals of a pitiless industrialism, were sufficiently +expressed along the busy shores, where the innumerable derricks of oil- +wells silhouetted their gibbet shapes against the horizon, and the myriad +chimneys of the foundries sent up the smoke of their torment into the +quiet skies and flamed upon the forehead of the evening like baleful +suns. But why should I be so violent of phrase against these guiltless +means of millionairing? There must be iron and coal as well as wheat and +corn in the world, and without their combination we cannot have bread. +If the combination is in the form of a trust, such as has laid its giant +clutch upon all those warring industries beside the Ohio and swept them +into one great monopoly, why, it has still to show that it is worse than +competition; that it is not, indeed, merely the first blind stirrings of +the universal cooperation of which the dreamers of ideal commonwealths +have always had the vision. + +The derricks and the chimneys, when one saw them, seem to have all the +land to themselves; but this was an appearance only, terrifying in its +strenuousness, but not, after all, the prevalent aspect. That was rather +of farm, farms, and evermore farms, lying along the rich levels of the +stream, and climbing as far up its beautiful hills as the plough could +drive. In the spring and in the Mall, when it is suddenly swollen by the +earlier and the later rains, the river scales its banks and swims over +those levels to the feet of those hills, and when it recedes it leaves +the cornfields enriched for the crop that, has never failed since the +forests were first cut from the land. Other fertilizing the fields have +never had any, but they teem as if the guano islands had been emptied +into their laps. They feel themselves so rich that they part with great +lengths and breadths of their soil to the river, which is not good for +the river, and is not well for the fields; so that the farmers, whose +ease learns slowly, are beginning more and more to fence their borders +with the young willows which form a hedge in the shallow wash such a +great part of the way up and down the Ohio. Elms and maples wade in +among the willows, and in time the river will be denied the indigestion +which it confesses in shoals and bars at low water, and in a difficulty +of channel at all stages. + +Meanwhile the fields flourish in spite of their unwise largesse to the +stream, whose shores the comfortable farmsteads keep so constantly that +they are never out of sight. Most commonly they are of brick, but +sometimes of painted wood, and they are set on little eminences high +enough to save them from the freshets, but always so near the river that +they cannot fail of its passing life. Usually a group of planted +evergreens half hides the house from the boat, but its inmates will not +lose any detail of the show, and come down to the gate of the paling +fence to watch the 'Avonek' float by: motionless men and women, who lean +upon the supporting barrier, and rapt children who hold by their skirts +and hands. There is not the eager New England neatness about these +homes; now and then they have rather a sloven air, which does not discord +with their air of comfort; and very, very rarely they stagger drunkenly +in a ruinous neglect. Except where a log cabin has hardily survived the +pioneer period, the houses are nearly all of one pattern; their facades +front the river, and low chimneys point either gable, where a half-story +forms the attic of the two stories below. Gardens of pot-herbs flank +them, and behind cluster the corn-cribs, and the barns and stables +stretch into the fields that stretch out to the hills, now scantily +wooded, but ever lovely in the lines that change with the steamer's +course. + +Except in the immediate suburbs of the large towns, there is no ambition +beyond that of rustic comfort in the buildings on the shore. There is no +such thing, apparently, as a summer cottage, with its mock humility of +name, up or down the whole tortuous length of the Ohio. As yet the land +is not openly depraved by shows of wealth; those who amass it either keep +it to themselves or come away to spend it in European travel, or pause to +waste it unrecognized on the ungrateful Atlantic seaboard. The only +distinctions that are marked are between the homes of honest industry +above the banks and the homes below them of the leisure, which it is +hoped is not dishonest. But, honest or dishonest, it is there apparently +to stay in the house-boats which line the shores by thousands, and repeat +on Occidental terms in our new land the river-life of old and far Cathay. + +They formed the only feature of their travel which our tourists found +absolutely novel; they could clearly or dimly recall from the past every +other feature but the houseboats, which they instantly and gladly +naturalized to their memories of it. The houses had in common the form +of a freight-car set in a flat-bottomed boat; the car would be shorter or +longer, with one, or two, or three windows in its sides, and a section of +stovepipe softly smoking from its roof. The windows might be curtained +or they might be bare, but apparently there was no other distinction +among the houseboat dwellers, whose sluggish craft lay moored among the +willows, or tied to an elm or a maple, or even made fast to a stake on +shore. There were cases in which they had not followed the fall of the +river promptly enough, and lay slanted on the beach, or propped up to a +more habitable level on its slope; in a sole, sad instance, the house had +gone down with the boat and lay wallowing in the wash of the flood. But +they all gave evidence of a tranquil and unhurried life which the soul of +the beholder envied within him, whether it manifested itself in the lord +of the house-boat fishing from its bow, or the lady coming to cleanse +some household utensil at its stern. Infrequently a group of the house- +boat dwellers seemed to be drawing a net, and in one high event they +exhibited a good-sized fish of their capture, but nothing so strenuous +characterized their attitude on any other occasion. The accepted theory +of them was that they did by day as nearly nothing as men could do and +live, and that by night their forays on the bordering farms supplied the +simple needs of people who desired neither to toil nor to spin, but only +to emulate Solomon in his glory with the least possible exertion. The +joyful witness of their ease would willingly have sacrificed to them any +amount of the facile industrial or agricultural prosperity about them and +left them slumberously afloat, unmolested by dreams of landlord or tax- +gatherer. Their existence for the fleeting time seemed the true +interpretation of the sage's philosophy, the fulfilment of the poet's +aspiration. + + "Why should we only toil, that are the roof and crown of things." + +How did they pass their illimitable leisure, when they rested from the +fishing-net by day and the chicken-coop by night? Did they read the new +historical fictions aloud to one another? Did some of them even meditate +the thankless muse and not mind her ingratitude? Perhaps the ladies of +the house-boats, when they found themselves--as they often did--in +companies of four or five, had each other in to "evenings," at which one +of them read a paper on some artistic or literary topic. + + + + +IV. + +The trader's boat, of an elder and more authentic tradition, sometimes +shouldered the house-boats away from a village landing, but it, too, was +a peaceful home, where the family life visibly went hand-in-hand with +commerce. When the trader has supplied all the wants and wishes of a +neighborhood, he unmoors his craft and drops down the river's tide to +where it meets the ocean's tide in the farthermost Mississippi, and there +either sells out both his boat and his stock, or hitches his home to some +returning steamboat, and climbs slowly, with many pauses, back to the +upper Ohio. But his home is not so interesting as that of the +houseboatman, nor so picturesque as that of the raftsman, whose floor of +logs rocks flexibly under his shanty, but securely rides the current. As +the pilots said, a steamboat never tries to hurt a raft of logs, which is +adapted to dangerous retaliation; and by night it always gives a wide +berth to the lantern tilting above the raft from a swaying pole. By day +the raft forms one of the pleasantest aspects of the river-life, with its +convoy of skiffs always searching the stream or shore for logs which have +broken from it, and which the skiffmen recognize by distinctive brands or +stamps. Here and there the logs lie in long ranks upon the shelving +beaches, mixed with the drift of trees and fence-rails, and frames of +corn-cribs and hencoops, and even house walls, which the freshets have +brought down and left stranded. The tops of the little willows are +tufted gayly with hay and rags, and other spoil of the flood; and in one +place a disordered mattress was lodged high among the boughs of a water- +maple, where it would form building material for countless generations of +birds. The fat cornfields were often littered with a varied wreckage +which the farmers must soon heap together and burn, to be rid of it, and +everywhere were proofs of the river's power to devastate as well as +enrich its shores. The dwellers there had no power against it, in its +moments of insensate rage, and the land no protection from its +encroachments except in the simple device of the willow hedges, which, if +planted, sometimes refused to grow, but often came of themselves and kept +the torrent from the loose, unfathomable soil of the banks, otherwise +crumbling helplessly into it. + +The rafts were very well, and the house-boats and the traders' boats, but +the most majestic feature of the riverlife was the tow of coal-barges +which, going or coming, the 'Avonek' met every few miles. Whether going +or coming they were pushed, not pulled, by the powerful steamer which +gathered them in tens and twenties before her, and rode the mid-current +with them, when they were full, or kept the slower water near shore when +they were empty. They claimed the river where they passed, and the +'Avonek' bowed to an unwritten law in giving them the full right of way, +from the time when their low bulk first rose in sight, with the chimneys +of their steamer towering above them and her gay contours gradually +making themselves seen, till she receded from the encounter, with the +wheel at her stern pouring a cataract of yellow water from its blades. +It was insurpassably picturesque always, and not the tapering masts or +the swelling sails of any sea-going craft could match it. + + + + +V. + +So at least the travellers thought who were here revisiting the earliest +scenes of childhood, and who perhaps found them unduly endeared. They +perused them mostly from an easy seat at the bow of the hurricane-deck, +and, whenever the weather favored them, spent the idle time in selecting +shelters for their declining years among the farmsteads that offered +themselves to their choice up and down the shores. The weather commonly +favored them, and there was at least one whole day on the lower river +when the weather was divinely flattering. The soft, dull air lulled +their nerves while it buffeted their faces, and the sun, that looked +through veils of mist and smoke, gently warmed their aging frames and +found itself again in their hearts. Perhaps it was there that the water- +elms and watermaples chiefly budded, and the red-birds sang, and the +drifting flocks of blackbirds called and clattered; but surely these also +spread their gray and pink against the sky and filled it with their +voices. There were meadow-larks and robins without as well as within, +and it was no subjective plough that turned the earliest furrows in those +opulent fields. + +When they were tired of sitting there, they climbed, invited or +uninvited, but always welcomed, to the pilothouse, where either pilot of +the two who were always on watch poured out in an unstinted stream the +lore of the river on which all their days had been passed. They knew +from indelible association every ever-changing line of the constant +hills; every dwelling by the low banks; every aspect of the smoky towns; +every caprice of the river; every-tree, every stump; probably every bud +and bird in the sky. They talked only of the river; they cared for +nothing else. The Cuban cumber and the Philippine folly were equally far +from them; the German prince was not only as if he had never been here, +but as if he never had been; no public question concerned them but that +of abandoning the canals which the Ohio legislature was then foolishly +debating. Were not the canals water-ways, too, like the river, and if +the State unnaturally abandoned them would not it be for the behoof of +those railroads which the rivermen had always fought, and which would +have made a solitude of the river if they could? + +But they could not, and there was nothing more surprising and delightful +in this blissful voyage than the evident fact that the old river traffic +had strongly survived, and seemed to be more strongly reviving. Perhaps +it was not; perhaps the fondness of those Ohio-river-born passengers was +abused by an illusion (as subjective as that of the buds and birds) of a +vivid variety of business and pleasure on the beloved stream. But again, +perhaps not. They were seldom out of sight of the substantial proofs of +both in the through or way packets they encountered, or the nondescript +steam craft that swarmed about the mouths of the contributory rivers, and +climbed their shallowing courses into the recesses of their remotest +hills, to the last lurking-places of their oil and coal. + + + + +VI. + +The Avonek was always stopping to put off or take on merchandise or men. +She would stop for a single passenger, plaited in the mud with his +telescope valise or gripsack under the edge of a lonely cornfield, or to +gather upon her decks the few or many casks or bales that a farmer wished +to ship. She lay long hours by the wharf-boats of busy towns, exchanging +one cargo for another, in that anarchic fetching and carrying which we +call commerce, and which we drolly suppose to be governed by laws. But +wherever she paused or parted, she tested the pilot's marvellous skill; +for no landing, no matter how often she landed in the same place, could +be twice the same. At each return the varying stream and shore must be +studied, and every caprice of either divined. It was always a triumph, +a miracle, whether by day or by night, a constant wonder how under the +pilot's inspired touch she glided softly to her moorings, and without a +jar slipped from them again and went on her course. + +But the landings by night were of course the finest. Then the wide fan +of the search-light was unfurled upon the point to be attained and the +heavy staging lowered from the bow to the brink, perhaps crushing the +willow hedges in it's fall, and scarcely touching the land before a +black, ragged deck-hand had run out through the splendor and made a line +fast to the trunk of the nearest tree. Then the work of lading or +unlading rapidly began in the witching play of the light that set into +radiant relief the black, eager faces and the black, eager figures of the +deck-hands struggling up or down the staging under boxes of heavy wares, +or kegs of nails, or bales of straw, or blocks of stone, steadily mocked +or cursed at in their shapeless effort, till the last of them reeled back +to the deck down the steep of the lifting stage, and dropped to his +broken sleep wherever he could coil himself, doglike, down among the +heaps of freight. + +No dog, indeed, leads such a hapless life as theirs; and ah! and ah! why +should their sable shadows intrude in a picture that was meant to be all +so gay and glad? But ah! and ah! where, in what business of this hard +world, is not prosperity built upon the struggle of toiling men, who +still endeavor their poor best, and writhe and writhe under the burden of +their brothers above, till they lie still under the lighter load of their +mother earth? + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Absence of distinction +Advertising +Aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your readers +Anise-seed bag +Any man's country could get on without him +Begun to fight with want from their cradles +Blasts of frigid wind swept the streets +Clemens is said to have said of bicycling +Could not, as the saying is, find a stone to throw at a dog +Disbeliever in punishments of all sorts +Do not want to know about such squalid lives +Early self-helpfulness of children is very remarkable +Encounter of old friends after the lapse of years +Even a day's rest is more than most people can bear +Eyes fixed steadfastly upon the future +Face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety +For most people choice is a curse +General worsening of things, familiar after middle life +Happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us +Hard to think up anything new +Heart of youth aching for their stoical sorrows +Heighten our suffering by anticipation +If one were poor, one ought to be deserving +Lascivious and immodest as possible +Literary spirit is the true world-citizen +Look of challenge, of interrogation, almost of reproof +Malevolent agitators +Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation +Neatness that brings despair +Noble uselessness +Openly depraved by shows of wealth +People have never had ideals, but only moods and fashions +People might oftener trust themselves to Providence +People of wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy +Plagiarism carries inevitable detection with it +Pure accident and by its own contributory negligence +Refused to see us as we see ourselves +Should be very sorry to do good, as people called it +So many millionaires and so many tramps +So touching that it brought the lump into my own throat +Solution of the problem how and where to spend the summer +Some of it's good, and most of it isn't +Some of us may be toys and playthings without reproach +Superiority one likes to feel towards the rich and great +Take our pleasures ungraciously +The old and ugly are fastidious as to the looks of others +They are so many and I am so few +Those who decide their fate are always rebelling against it +Those who work too much and those who rest too much +Unfailing American kindness +Visitors of the more inquisitive sex +We cannot all be hard-working donkeys +We who have neither youth nor beauty should always expect it +Whatever choice you make, you are pretty sure to regret it + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Short Stories and Essays +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +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, 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 + + + + + + +CRITICISM AND FICTION + +By William Dean Howells + + + +The question of a final criterion for the appreciation of art is one that +perpetually recurs to those interested in any sort of aesthetic endeavor. +Mr. John Addington Symonds, in a chapter of 'The Renaissance in Italy' +treating of the Bolognese school of painting, which once had so great +cry, and was vaunted the supreme exemplar of the grand style, but which +he now believes fallen into lasting contempt for its emptiness and +soullessness, seeks to determine whether there can be an enduring +criterion or not; and his conclusion is applicable to literature as to +the other arts. "Our hope," he says, "with regard to the unity of taste +in the future then is, that all sentimental or academical seekings after +the ideal having been abandoned, momentary theories founded upon +idiosyncratic or temporary partialities exploded, and nothing accepted +but what is solid and positive, the scientific spirit shall make men +progressively more and more conscious of these 'bleibende Verhaltnisse,' +more and more capable of living in the whole; also, that in proportion as +we gain a firmer hold upon our own place in the world, we shall come to +comprehend with more instinctive certitude what is simple, natural, and +honest, welcoming with gladness all artistic products that exhibit these +qualities. The perception of the enlightened man will then be the task +of a healthy person who has made himself acquainted with the laws of +evolution in art and in society, and is able to test the excellence of +work in any stage from immaturity to decadence by discerning what there +is of truth, sincerity, and natural vigor in it." + + + + +I + +That is to say, as I understand, that moods and tastes and fashions +change; people fancy now this and now that; but what is unpretentious and +what is true is always beautiful and good, and nothing else is so. This +is not saying that fantastic and monstrous and artificial things do not +please; everybody knows that they do please immensely for a time, and +then, after the lapse of a much longer time, they have the charm of the +rococo. Nothing is more curious than the charm that fashion has. +Fashion in women's dress, almost every fashion, is somehow delightful, +else it would never have been the fashion; but if any one will look +through a collection of old fashion plates, he must own that most +fashions have been ugly. A few, which could be readily instanced, have +been very pretty, and even beautiful, but it is doubtful if these have +pleased the greatest number of people. The ugly delights as well as the +beautiful, and not merely because the ugly in fashion is associated with +the young loveliness of the women who wear the ugly fashions, and wins a +grace from them, not because the vast majority of mankind are tasteless, +but for some cause that is not perhaps ascertainable. It is quite as +likely to return in the fashions of our clothes and houses and furniture, +and poetry and fiction and painting, as the beautiful, and it may be from +an instinctive or a reasoned sense of this that some of the extreme +naturalists have refused to make the old discrimination against it, or to +regard the ugly as any less worthy of celebration in art than the +beautiful; some of them, in fact, seem to regard it as rather more +worthy, if anything. Possibly there is no absolutely ugly, no absolutely +beautiful; or possibly the ugly contains always an element of the +beautiful better adapted to the general appreciation than the more +perfectly beautiful. This is a somewhat discouraging conjecture, but I +offer it for no more than it is worth; and I do not pin my faith to the +saying of one whom I heard denying, the other day, that a thing of beauty +was a joy forever. He contended that Keats's line should have read, +"Some things of beauty are sometimes joys forever," and that any +assertion beyond this was too hazardous. + + + + +II + +I should, indeed, prefer another line of Keats's, if I were to profess +any formulated creed, and should feel much safer with his "Beauty is +Truth, Truth Beauty," than even with my friend's reformation of the more +quoted verse. It brings us back to the solid ground taken by Mr. +Symonds, which is not essentially different from that taken in the great +Mr. Burke's Essay on the Sublime and the Beautiful--a singularly modern +book, considering how long ago it was wrote (as the great Mr. Steele +would have written the participle a little longer ago), and full of a +certain well-mannered and agreeable instruction. In some things it is of +that droll little eighteenth-century world, when philosophy had got the +neat little universe into the hollow of its hand, and knew just what it +was, and what it was for; but it is quite without arrogance. "As for +those called critics," the author says, "they have generally sought +the rule of the arts in the wrong place; they have sought among poems, +pictures, engravings, statues, and buildings; but art can never give the +rules that make an art. This is, I believe, the reason why artists in +general, and poets principally, have been confined in so narrow a circle; +they have been rather imitators of one another than of nature. Critics +follow them, and therefore can do little as guides. I can judge but +poorly of anything while I measure it by no other standard than itself. +The true standard of the arts is in every man's power; and an easy +observation of the most common, sometimes of the meanest things, in +nature will give the truest lights, where the greatest sagacity and +industry that slights such observation must leave us in the dark, or, +what is worse, amuse and mislead us by false lights." + +If this should happen to be true and it certainly commends itself to +acceptance--it might portend an immediate danger to the vested interests +of criticism, only that it was written a hundred years ago; and we shall +probably have the "sagacity and industry that slights the observation" of +nature long enough yet to allow most critics the time to learn some more +useful trade than criticism as they pursue it. Nevertheless, I am in +hopes that the communistic era in taste foreshadowed by Burke is +approaching, and that it will occur within the lives of men now overawed +by the foolish old superstition that literature and art are anything but +the expression of life, and are to be judged by any other test than that +of their fidelity to it. The time is coming, I hope, when each new +author, each new artist, will be considered, not in his proportion to any +other author or artist, but in his relation to the human nature, known to +us all, which it is his privilege, his high duty, to interpret. "The +true standard of the artist is in every man's power" already, as Burke +says; Michelangelo's "light of the piazza," the glance of the common eye, +is and always was the best light on a statue; Goethe's "boys and +blackbirds" have in all ages been the real connoisseurs of berries; but +hitherto the mass of common men have been afraid to apply their own +simplicity, naturalness, and honesty to the appreciation of the +beautiful. They have always cast about for the instruction of some one +who professed to know better, and who browbeat wholesome common-sense +into the self-distrust that ends in sophistication. They have fallen +generally to the worst of this bad species, and have been "amused and +misled" (how pretty that quaint old use of amuse is!) "by the false +lights" of critical vanity and self-righteousness. They have been taught +to compare what they see and what they read, not with the things that +they have observed and known, but with the things that some other artist +or writer has done. Especially if they have themselves the artistic +impulse in any direction they are taught to form themselves, not upon +life, but upon the masters who became masters only by forming themselves +upon life. The seeds of death are planted in them, and they can produce +only the still-born, the academic. They are not told to take their work +into the public square and see if it seems true to the chance passer, but +to test it by the work of the very men who refused and decried any other +test of their own work. The young writer who attempts to report the +phrase and carriage of every-day life, who tries to tell just how he has +heard men talk and seen them look, is made to feel guilty of something +low and unworthy by people who would like to have him show how +Shakespeare's men talked and looked, or Scott's, or Thackeray's, or +Balzac's, or Hawthorne's, or Dickens's; he is instructed to idealize his +personages, that is, to take the life-likeness out of them, and put the +book-likeness into them. He is approached in the spirit of the pedantry +into which learning, much or little, always decays when it withdraws +itself and stands apart from experience in an attitude of imagined +superiority, and which would say with the same confidence to the +scientist: "I see that you are looking at a grasshopper there which you +have found in the grass, and I suppose you intend to describe it. Now +don't waste your time and sin against culture in that way. I've got a +grasshopper here, which has been evolved at considerable pains and +expense out of the grasshopper in general; in fact, it's a type. It's +made up of wire and card-board, very prettily painted in a conventional +tint, and it's perfectly indestructible. It isn't very much like a real +grasshopper, but it's a great deal nicer, and it's served to represent +the notion of a grasshopper ever since man emerged from barbarism. You +may say that it's artificial. Well, it is artificial; but then it's +ideal too; and what you want to do is to cultivate the ideal. You'll +find the books full of my kind of grasshopper, and scarcely a trace of +yours in any of them. The thing that you are proposing to do is +commonplace; but if you say that it isn't commonplace, for the very +reason that it hasn't been done before, you'll have to admit that it's +photographic." + +As I said, I hope the time is coming when not only the artist, but the +common, average man, who always "has the standard of the arts in his +power," will have also the courage to apply it, and will reject the ideal +grasshopper wherever he finds it, in science, in literature, in art, +because it is not "simple, natural, and honest," because it is not like a +real grasshopper. But I will own that I think the time is yet far off, +and that the people who have been brought up on the ideal grasshopper, +the heroic grasshopper, the impassioned grasshopper, the self-devoted, +adventureful, good old romantic card-board grasshopper, must die out +before the simple, honest, and natural grasshopper can have a fair field. +I am in no haste to compass the end of these good people, whom I find in +the mean time very amusing. It is delightful to meet one of them, either +in print or out of it--some sweet elderly lady or excellent gentleman +whose youth was pastured on the literature of thirty or forty years ago +--and to witness the confidence with which they preach their favorite +authors as all the law and the prophets. They have commonly read little +or nothing since, or, if they have, they have judged it by a standard +taken from these authors, and never dreamed of judging it by nature; they +are destitute of the documents in the case of the later writers; they +suppose that Balzac was the beginning of realism, and that Zola is its +wicked end; they are quite ignorant, but they are ready to talk you down, +if you differ from them, with an assumption of knowledge sufficient for +any occasion. The horror, the resentment, with which they receive any +question of their literary saints is genuine; you descend at once very +far in the moral and social scale, and anything short of offensive +personality is too good for you; it is expressed to you that you are one +to be avoided, and put down even a little lower than you have naturally +fallen. + +These worthy persons are not to blame; it is part of their intellectual +mission to represent the petrifaction of taste, and to preserve an image +of a smaller and cruder and emptier world than we now live in, a world +which was feeling its way towards the simple, the natural, the honest, +but was a good deal "amused and misled" by lights now no longer +mistakable for heavenly luminaries. They belong to a time, just passing +away, when certain authors were considered authorities in certain kinds, +when they must be accepted entire and not questioned in any particular. +Now we are beginning to see and to say that no author is an authority +except in those moments when he held his ear close to Nature's lips and +caught her very accent. These moments are not continuous with any +authors in the past, and they are rare with all. Therefore I am not +afraid to say now that the greatest classics are sometimes not at all +great, and that we can profit by them only when we hold them, like our +meanest contemporaries, to a strict accounting, and verify their work by +the standard of the arts which we all have in our power, the simple, the +natural, and the honest. + +Those good people must always have a hero, an idol of some sort, and it +is droll to find Balzac, who suffered from their sort such bitter scorn +and hate for his realism while he was alive, now become a fetich in his +turn, to be shaken in the faces of those who will not blindly worship +him. But it is no new thing in the history of literature: whatever is +established is sacred with those who do not think. At the beginning of +the century, when romance was making the same fight against effete +classicism which realism is making to-day against effete romanticism, the +Italian poet Monti declared that "the romantic was the cold grave of the +Beautiful," just as the realistic is now supposed to be. The romantic of +that day and the real of this are in certain degree the same. +Romanticism then sought, as realism seeks now, to widen the bounds of +sympathy, to level every barrier against aesthetic freedom, to escape +from the paralysis of tradition. It exhausted itself in this impulse; +and it remained for realism to assert that fidelity to experience and +probability of motive are essential conditions of a great imaginative +literature. It is not a new theory, but it has never before universally +characterized literary endeavor. When realism becomes false to itself, +when it heaps up facts merely, and maps life instead of picturing it, +realism will perish too. Every true realist instinctively knows this, +and it is perhaps the reason why he is careful of every fact, and feels +himself bound to express or to indicate its meaning at the risk of +overmoralizing. In life he finds nothing insignificant; all tells for +destiny and character; nothing that God has made is contemptible. He +cannot look upon human life and declare this thing or that thing unworthy +of notice, any more than the scientist can declare a fact of the material +world beneath the dignity of his inquiry. He feels in every nerve the +equality of things and the unity of men; his soul is exalted, not by vain +shows and shadows and ideals, but by realities, in which alone the truth +lives. In criticism it is his business to break the images of false gods +and misshapen heroes, to take away the poor silly, toys that many grown +people would still like to play with. He cannot keep terms with "Jack +the Giant-killer" or "Puss-in-Boots," under any name or in any place, +even when they reappear as the convict Vautrec, or the Marquis de +Montrivaut, or the Sworn Thirteen Noblemen. He must say to himself that +Balzac, when he imagined these monsters, was not Balzac, he was Dumas; he +was not realistic, he was romanticistic. + + + + +III + +Such a critic will not respect Balzac's good work the less for contemning +his bad work. He will easily account for the bad work historically, and +when he has recognized it, will trouble himself no further with it. In +his view no living man is a type, but a character; now noble, now +ignoble; now grand, now little; complex, full of vicissitude. He will +not expect Balzac to be always Balzac, and will be perhaps even more +attracted to the study of him when he was trying to be Balzac than when +he had become so. In 'Cesar Birotteau,' for instance, he will be +interested to note how Balzac stood at the beginning of the great things +that have followed since in fiction. There is an interesting likeness +between his work in this and Nicolas Gogol's in 'Dead Souls,' which +serves to illustrate the simultaneity of the literary movement in men of +such widely separated civilizations and conditions. Both represent their +characters with the touch of exaggeration which typifies; but in bringing +his story to a close, Balzac employs a beneficence unknown to the +Russian, and almost as universal and as apt as that which smiles upon the +fortunes of the good in the Vicar of Wakefield. It is not enough to have +rehabilitated Birotteau pecuniarily and socially; he must make him die +triumphantly, spectacularly, of an opportune hemorrhage, in the midst of +the festivities which celebrate his restoration to his old home. Before +this happens, human nature has been laid under contribution right and +left for acts of generosity towards the righteous bankrupt; even the king +sends him six thousand francs. It is very pretty; it is touching, and +brings the lump into the reader's throat; but it is too much, and one +perceives that Balzac lived too soon to profit by Balzac. The later men, +especially the Russians, have known how to forbear the excesses of +analysis, to withhold the weakly recurring descriptive and caressing +epithets, to let the characters suffice for themselves. All this does +not mean that 'Cesar Birotteau' is not a beautiful and pathetic story, +full of shrewdly considered knowledge of men, and of a good art +struggling to free itself from self-consciousness. But it does mean that +Balzac, when he wrote it, was under the burden of the very traditions +which he has helped fiction to throw off. He felt obliged to construct a +mechanical plot, to surcharge his characters, to moralize openly and +baldly; he permitted himself to "sympathize" with certain of his people, +and to point out others for the abhorrence of his readers. This is not +so bad in him as it would be in a novelist of our day. It is simply +primitive and inevitable, and he is not to be judged by it. + + + + +IV + +In the beginning of any art even the most gifted worker must be crude in +his methods, and we ought to keep this fact always in mind when we turn, +say, from the purblind worshippers of Scott to Scott himself, and +recognize that he often wrote a style cumbrous and diffuse; that he was +tediously analytical where the modern novelist is dramatic, and evolved +his characters by means of long-winded explanation and commentary; that, +except in the case of his lower-class personages, he made them talk as +seldom man and never woman talked; that he was tiresomely descriptive; +that on the simplest occasions he went about half a mile to express a +thought that could be uttered in ten paces across lots; and that he +trusted his readers' intuitions so little that he was apt to rub in his +appeals to them. He was probably right: the generation which he wrote +for was duller than this; slower-witted, aesthetically untrained, and in +maturity not so apprehensive of an artistic intention as the children of +to-day. All this is not saying Scott was not a great man; he was a great +man, and a very great novelist as compared with the novelists who went +before him. He can still amuse young people, but they ought to be +instructed how false and how mistaken he often is, with his mediaeval +ideals, his blind Jacobitism, his intense devotion to aristocracy and +royalty; his acquiescence in the division of men into noble and ignoble, +patrician and plebeian, sovereign and subject, as if it were the law of +God; for all which, indeed, he is not to blame as he would be if he were +one of our contemporaries. Something of this is true of another master, +greater than Scott in being less romantic, and inferior in being more +German, namely, the great Goethe himself. He taught us, in novels +otherwise now antiquated, and always full of German clumsiness, that it +was false to good art--which is never anything but the reflection of +life--to pursue and round the career of the persons introduced, whom he +often allowed to appear and disappear in our knowledge as people in the +actual world do. This is a lesson which the writers able to profit by it +can never be too grateful for; and it is equally a benefaction to +readers; but there is very little else in the conduct of the Goethean +novels which is in advance of their time; this remains almost their sole +contribution to the science of fiction. They are very primitive in +certain characteristics, and unite with their calm, deep insight, an +amusing helplessness in dramatization. "Wilhelm retired to his room, and +indulged in the following reflections," is a mode of analysis which would +not be practised nowadays; and all that fancifulness of nomenclature in +Wilhelm Meister is very drolly sentimental and feeble. The adventures +with robbers seem as if dreamed out of books of chivalry, and the +tendency to allegorization affects one like an endeavor on the author's +part to escape from the unrealities which he must have felt harassingly, +German as he was. Mixed up with the shadows and illusions are honest, +wholesome, every-day people, who have the air of wandering homelessly +about among them, without definite direction; and the mists are full of a +luminosity which, in spite of them, we know for common-sense and poetry. +What is useful in any review of Goethe's methods is the recognition of +the fact, which it must bring, that the greatest master cannot produce a +masterpiece in a new kind. The novel was too recently invented in +Goethe's day not to be, even in his hands, full of the faults of +apprentice work. + + + + +V. + +In fact, a great master may sin against the "modesty of nature" in many +ways, and I have felt this painfully in reading Balzac's romance--it is +not worthy the name of novel--'Le Pere Goriot,' which is full of a +malarial restlessness, wholly alien to healthful art. After that +exquisitely careful and truthful setting of his story in the shabby +boarding-house, he fills the scene with figures jerked about by the +exaggerated passions and motives of the stage. We cannot have a cynic +reasonably wicked, disagreeable, egoistic; we must have a lurid villain +of melodrama, a disguised convict, with a vast criminal organization at +his command, and + + "So dyed double red" + +indeed and purpose that he lights up the faces of the horrified +spectators with his glare. A father fond of unworthy children, and +leading a life of self-denial for their sake, as may probably and +pathetically be, is not enough; there must be an imbecile, trembling +dotard, willing to promote even the liaisons of his daughters to give +them happiness and to teach the sublimity of the paternal instinct. +The hero cannot sufficiently be a selfish young fellow, with alternating +impulses of greed and generosity; he must superfluously intend a career +of iniquitous splendor, and be swerved from it by nothing but the most +cataclysmal interpositions. It can be said that without such personages +the plot could not be transacted; but so much the worse for the plot. +Such a plot had no business to be; and while actions so unnatural are +imagined, no mastery can save fiction from contempt with those who really +think about it. To Balzac it can be forgiven, not only because in his +better mood he gave us such biographies as 'Eugenie Grandet,' but because +he wrote at a time when fiction was just beginning to verify the +externals of life, to portray faithfully the outside of men and things. +It was still held that in order to interest the reader the characters +must be moved by the old romantic ideals; we were to be taught that +"heroes" and "heroines" existed all around us, and that these abnormal +beings needed only to be discovered in their several humble disguises, +and then we should see every-day people actuated by the fine frenzy of +the creatures of the poets. How false that notion was, few but the +critics, who are apt to be rather belated, need now be told. Some of +these poor fellows, however, still contend that it ought to be done, and +that human feelings and motives, as God made them and as men know them, +are not good enough for novel-readers. + +This is more explicable than would appear at first glance. The critics +--and in speaking of them one always modestly leaves one's self out of +the count, for some reason--when they are not elders ossified in +tradition, are apt to be young people, and young people are necessarily +conservative in their tastes and theories. They have the tastes and +theories of their instructors, who perhaps caught the truth of their day, +but whose routine life has been alien to any other truth. There is +probably no chair of literature in this country from which the principles +now shaping the literary expression of every civilized people are not +denounced and confounded with certain objectionable French novels, or +which teaches young men anything of the universal impulse which has given +us the work, not only of Zola, but of Tourguenief and Tolstoy in Russia, +of Bjornson and Ibsen in Norway, of Valdes and Galdos in Spain, of Verga +in Italy. Till these younger critics have learned to think as well as to +write for themselves they will persist in heaving a sigh, more and more +perfunctory, for the truth as it was in Sir Walter, and as it was in +Dickens and in Hawthorne. Presently all will have been changed; they +will have seen the new truth in larger and larger degree; and when it +shall have become the old truth, they will perhaps see it all. + + + + +VI. + +In the mean time the average of criticism is not wholly bad with us. +To be sure, the critic sometimes appears in the panoply of the savages +whom we have supplanted on this continent; and it is hard to believe that +his use of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife is a form of conservative +surgery. It is still his conception of his office that he should assail +those who differ with him in matters of taste or opinion; that he must be +rude with those he does not like. It is too largely his superstition +that because he likes a thing it is good, and because he dislikes a thing +it is bad; the reverse is quite possibly the case, but he is yet +indefinitely far from knowing that in affairs of taste his personal +preference enters very little. Commonly he has no principles, but only +an assortment of prepossessions for and against; and this otherwise very +perfect character is sometimes uncandid to the verge of dishonesty. He +seems not to mind misstating the position of any one he supposes himself +to disagree with, and then attacking him for what he never said, or even +implied; he thinks this is droll, and appears not to suspect that it is +immoral. He is not tolerant; he thinks it a virtue to be intolerant; it +is hard for him to understand that the same thing may be admirable at one +time and deplorable at another; and that it is really his business to +classify and analyze the fruits of the human mind very much as the +naturalist classifies the objects of his study, rather than to praise or +blame them; that there is a measure of the same absurdity in his +trampling on a poem, a novel, or an essay that does not please him as in +the botanist's grinding a plant underfoot because he does not find it +pretty. He does not conceive that it is his business rather to identify +the species and then explain how and where the specimen is imperfect and +irregular. If he could once acquire this simple idea of his duty he +would be much more agreeable company than he now is, and a more useful +member of society; though considering the hard conditions under which he +works, his necessity of writing hurriedly from an imperfect examination +of far more books, on a greater variety of subjects, than he can even +hope to read, the average American critic--the ordinary critic of +commerce, so to speak--is even now very, well indeed. Collectively he is +more than this; for the joint effect of our criticism is the pretty +thorough appreciation of any book submitted to it + + + + +VII. + +The misfortune rather than the fault of our individual critic is that he +is the heir of the false theory and bad manners of the English school. +The theory of that school has apparently been that almost any person of +glib and lively expression is competent to write of almost any branch of +polite literature; its manners are what we know. The American, whom it +has largely formed, is by nature very glib and very lively, and commonly +his criticism, viewed as imaginative work, is more agreeable than that of +the Englishman; but it is, like the art of both countries, apt to be +amateurish. In some degree our authors have freed themselves from +English models; they have gained some notion of the more serious work of +the Continent: but it is still the ambition of the American critic to +write like the English critic, to show his wit if not his learning, to +strive to eclipse the author under review rather than illustrate him. +He has not yet caught on to the fact that it is really no part of his +business to display himself, but that it is altogether his duty to place +a book in such a light that the reader shall know its class, its +function, its character. The vast good-nature of our people preserves us +from the worst effects of this criticism without principles. Our critic, +at his lowest, is rarely malignant; and when he is rude or untruthful, +it is mostly without truculence; I suspect that he is often offensive +without knowing that he is so. Now and then he acts simply under +instruction from higher authority, and denounces because it is the +tradition of his publication to do so. In other cases the critic is +obliged to support his journal's repute for severity, or for wit, or for +morality, though he may himself be entirely amiable, dull, and wicked; +this necessity more or less warps his verdicts. + +The worst is that he is personal, perhaps because it is so easy and so +natural to be personal, and so instantly attractive. In this respect our +criticism has not improved from the accession of numbers of ladies to its +ranks, though we still hope so much from women in our politics when they +shall come to vote. They have come to write, and with the effect to +increase the amount of little-digging, which rather superabounded in our +literary criticism before. They "know what they like"--that pernicious +maxim of those who do not know what they ought to like and they pass +readily from censuring an author's performance to censuring him. They +bring a stock of lively misapprehensions and prejudices to their work; +they would rather have heard about than known about a book; and they take +kindly to the public wish to be amused rather than edified. But neither +have they so much harm in them: they, too, are more ignorant than +malevolent. + + + + +VIII. + +Our criticism is disabled by the unwillingness of the critic to learn +from an author, and his readiness to mistrust him. A writer passes his +whole life in fitting himself for a certain kind of performance; the +critic does not ask why, or whether the performance is good or bad, but +if he does not like the kind, he instructs the writer to go off and do +some other sort of thing--usually the sort that has been done already, +and done sufficiently. If he could once understand that a man who has +written the book he dislikes, probably knows infinitely more about its +kind and his own fitness for doing it than any one else, the critic might +learn something, and might help the reader to learn; but by putting +himself in a false position, a position of superiority, he is of no use. +He is not to suppose that an author has committed an offence against him +by writing the kind of book he does not like; he will be far more +profitably employed on behalf of the reader in finding out whether they +had better not both like it. Let him conceive of an author as not in any +wise on trial before him, but as a reflection of this or that aspect of +life, and he will not be tempted to browbeat him or bully him. + +The critic need not be impolite even to the youngest and weakest author. +A little courtesy, or a good deal, a constant perception of the fact that +a book is not a misdemeanor, a decent self-respect that must forbid the +civilized man the savage pleasure of wounding, are what I would ask for +our criticism, as something which will add sensibly to its present +lustre. + + + + +IX. + +I would have my fellow-critics consider what they are really in the world +for. The critic must perceive, if he will question himself more +carefully, that his office is mainly to ascertain facts and traits of +literature, not to invent or denounce them; to discover principles, not +to establish them; to report, not to create. + +It is so much easier to say that you like this or dislike that, than to +tell why one thing is, or where another thing comes from, that many +flourishing critics will have to go out of business altogether if the +scientific method comes in, for then the critic will have to know +something besides his own mind. He will have to know something of the +laws of that mind, and of its generic history. + +The history of all literature shows that even with the youngest and +weakest author criticism is quite powerless against his will to do his +own work in his own way; and if this is the case in the green wood, how +much more in the dry! It has been thought by the sentimentalist that +criticism, if it cannot cure, can at least kill, and Keats was long +alleged in proof of its efficacy in this sort. But criticism neither +cured nor killed Keats, as we all now very well know. It wounded, it +cruelly hurt him, no doubt; and it is always in the power of the critic +to give pain to the author--the meanest critic to the greatest author-- +for no one can help feeling a rudeness. But every literary movement has +been violently opposed at the start, and yet never stayed in the least, +or arrested, by criticism; every author has been condemned for his +virtues, but in no wise changed by it. In the beginning he reads the +critics; but presently perceiving that he alone makes or mars himself, +and that they have no instruction for him, he mostly leaves off reading +them, though he is always glad of their kindness or grieved by their +harshness when he chances upon it. This, I believe, is the general +experience, modified, of course, by exceptions. + +Then, are we critics of no use in the world? I should not like to think +that, though I am not quite ready to define our use. More than one sober +thinker is inclining at present to suspect that aesthetically or +specifically we are of no use, and that we are only useful historically; +that we may register laws, but not enact them. I am not quite prepared +to admit that aesthetic criticism is useless, though in view of its +futility in any given instance it is hard to deny that it is so. +It certainly seems as useless against a book that strikes the popular +fancy, and prospers on in spite of condemnation by the best critics, +as it is against a book which does not generally please, and which no +critical favor can make acceptable. This is so common a phenomenon that +I wonder it has never hitherto suggested to criticism that its point of +view was altogether mistaken, and that it was really necessary to judge +books not as dead things, but as living things--things which have an +influence and a power irrespective of beauty and wisdom, and merely as +expressions of actuality in thought and feeling. Perhaps criticism has a +cumulative and final effect; perhaps it does some good we do not know of. +It apparently does not affect the author directly, but it may reach him +through the reader. It may in some cases enlarge or diminish his +audience for a while, until he has thoroughly measured and tested his own +powers. If criticism is to affect literature at all, it must be through +the writers who have newly left the starting-point, and are reasonably +uncertain of the race, not with those who have won it again and again in +their own way. + + + + +X. + +Sometimes it has seemed to me that the crudest expression of any creative +art is better than the finest comment upon it. I have sometimes +suspected that more thinking, more feeling certainly, goes to the +creation of a poor novel than to the production of a brilliant criticism; +and if any novel of our time fails to live a hundred years, will any +censure of it live? Who can endure to read old reviews? One can hardly +read them if they are in praise of one's own books. + +The author neglected or overlooked need not despair for that reason, if +he will reflect that criticism can neither make nor unmake authors; that +there have not been greater books since criticism became an art than +there were before; that in fact the greatest books seem to have come much +earlier. + +That which criticism seems most certainly to have done is to have put a +literary consciousness into books unfelt in the early masterpieces, +but unfelt now only in the books of men whose lives have been passed in +activities, who have been used to employing language as they would have +employed any implement, to effect an object, who have regarded a thing to +be said as in no wise different from a thing to be done. In this sort I +have seen no modern book so unconscious as General Grant's 'Personal +Memoirs.' The author's one end and aim is to get the facts out in words. +He does not cast about for phrases, but takes the word, whatever it is, +that will best give his meaning, as if it were a man or a force of men +for the accomplishment of a feat of arms. There is not a moment wasted +in preening and prettifying, after the fashion of literary men; there is +no thought of style, and so the style is good as it is in the 'Book of +Chronicles,' as it is in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' with a peculiar, +almost plebeian, plainness at times. There is no more attempt at +dramatic effect than there is at ceremonious pose; things happen in that +tale of a mighty war as they happened in the mighty war itself, without +setting, without artificial reliefs one after another, as if they were +all of one quality and degree. Judgments are delivered with the same +unimposing quiet; no awe surrounds the tribunal except that which comes +from the weight and justice of the opinions; it is always an unaffected, +unpretentious man who is talking; and throughout he prefers to wear the +uniform of a private, with nothing of the general about him but the +shoulder-straps, which he sometimes forgets. + + + + +XI. + +Canon Fairfax,'s opinions of literary criticism are very much to my +liking, perhaps because when I read them I found them so like my own, +already delivered in print. He tells the critics that "they are in no +sense the legislators of literature, barely even its judges and police"; +and he reminds them of Mr. Ruskin's saying that "a bad critic is probably +the most mischievous person in the world," though a sense of their +relative proportion to the whole of life would perhaps acquit the worst +among them of this extreme of culpability. A bad critic is as bad a +thing as can be, but, after all, his mischief does not carry very far. +Otherwise it would be mainly the conventional books and not the original +books which would survive; for the censor who imagines himself a law- +giver can give law only to the imitative and never to the creative mind. +Criticism has condemned whatever was, from time to time, fresh and vital +in literature; it has always fought the new good thing in behalf of the +old good thing; it has invariably fostered and encouraged the tame, the +trite, the negative. Yet upon the whole it is the native, the novel, the +positive that has survived in literature. Whereas, if bad criticism were +the most mischievous thing in the world, in the full implication of the +words, it must have been the tame, the trite, the negative, that +survived. + +Bad criticism is mischievous enough, however; and I think that much if +not most current criticism as practised among the English and Americans +is bad, is falsely principled, and is conditioned in evil. It is falsely +principled because it is unprincipled, or without principles; and it is +conditioned in evil because it is almost wholly anonymous. At the best +its opinions are not conclusions from certain easily verifiable +principles, but are effects from the worship of certain models. They are +in so far quite worthless, for it is the very nature of things that the +original mind cannot conform to models; it has its norm within itself; it +can work only in its own way, and by its self-given laws. Criticism does +not inquire whether a work is true to life, but tacitly or explicitly +compares it with models, and tests it by them. If literary art travelled +by any such road as criticism would have it go, it would travel in a +vicious circle, and would arrive only at the point of departure. Yet +this is the course that criticism must always prescribe when it attempts +to give laws. Being itself artificial, it cannot conceive of the +original except as the abnormal. It must altogether reconceive its +office before it can be of use to literature. It must reduce this to the +business of observing, recording, and comparing; to analyzing the +material before it, and then synthetizing its impressions. Even then, it +is not too much to say that literature as an art could get on perfectly +well without it. Just as many good novels, poems, plays, essays, +sketches, would be written if there were no such thing as criticism in +the literary world, and no more bad ones. + +But it will be long before criticism ceases to imagine itself a +controlling force, to give itself airs of sovereignty, and to issue +decrees. As it exists it is mostly a mischief, though not the greatest +mischief; but it may be greatly ameliorated in character and softened in +manner by the total abolition of anonymity. + +I think it would be safe to say that in no other relation of life is so +much brutality permitted by civilized society as in the criticism of +literature and the arts. Canon Farrar is quite right in reproaching +literary criticism with the uncandor of judging an author without +reference to his aims; with pursuing certain writers from spite and +prejudice, and mere habit; with misrepresenting a book by quoting a +phrase or passage apart from the context; with magnifying misprints and +careless expressions into important faults; with abusing an author for +his opinions; with base and personal motives. + +Every writer of experience knows that certain critical journals will +condemn his work without regard to its quality, even if it has never been +his fortune to learn, as one author did from a repentent reviewer, that +in a journal pretending to literary taste his books were given out for +review with the caution, "Remember that the Clarion is opposed to Mr. +Blank's books." + +The final conclusion appears to be that the man, or even the young lady, +who is given a gun, and told to shoot at some passer from behind a hedge, +is placed in circumstances of temptation almost too strong for human +nature. + + + + +XII. + +As I have already intimated, I doubt the more lasting effects of unjust +criticism. It is no part of my belief that Keats's fame was long delayed +by it, or Wordsworth's, or Browning's. Something unwonted, unexpected, +in the quality of each delayed his recognition; each was not only a poet, +he was a revolution, a new order of things, to which the critical +perceptions and habitudes had painfully to adjust themselves: But I have +no question of the gross and stupid injustice with which these great men +were used, and of the barbarization of the public mind by the sight of +the wrong inflicted on them with impunity. This savage condition still +persists in the toleration of anonymous criticism, an abuse that ought to +be as extinct as the torture of witnesses. It is hard enough to treat a +fellow-author with respect even when one has to address him, name to +name, upon the same level, in plain day; swooping down upon him in the +dark, panoplied in the authority of a great journal, it is impossible. +Every now and then some idealist comes forward and declares that you +should say nothing in criticism of a man's book which you would not say +of it to his face. But I am afraid this is asking too much. I am afraid +it would put an end to all criticism; and that if it were practised +literature would be left to purify itself. I have no doubt literature +would do this; but in such a state of things there would be no provision +for the critics. We ought not to destroy critics, we ought to reform +them, or rather transform them, or turn them from the assumption of +authority to a realization of their true function in the civilized state. +They are no worse at heart, probably, than many others, and there are +probably good husbands and tender fathers, loving daughters and careful +mothers, among them. + +It is evident to any student of human nature that the critic who is +obliged to sign his review will be more careful of an author's feelings +than he would if he could intangibly and invisibly deal with him as the +representative of a great journal. He will be loath to have his name +connected with those perversions and misstatements of an author's meaning +in which the critic now indulges without danger of being turned out of +honest company. He will be in some degree forced to be fair and just +with a book he dislikes; he will not wish to misrepresent it when his sin +can be traced directly to him in person; he will not be willing to voice +the prejudice of a journal which is "opposed to the books" of this or +that author; and the journal itself, when it is no longer responsible for +the behavior of its critic, may find it interesting and profitable to +give to an author his innings when he feels wronged by a reviewer and +desires to right himself; it may even be eager to offer him the +opportunity. We shall then, perhaps, frequently witness the spectacle of +authors turning upon their reviewers, and improving their manners and +morals by confronting them in public with the errors they may now commit +with impunity. Many an author smarts under injuries and indignities +which he might resent to the advantage of literature and civilization, +if he were not afraid of being browbeaten by the journal whose nameless +critic has outraged him. + +The public is now of opinion that it involves loss of dignity to creative +talent to try to right itself if wronged, but here we are without the +requisite statistics. Creative talent may come off with all the dignity +it went in with, and it may accomplish a very good work in demolishing +criticism. + +In any other relation of life the man who thinks himself wronged tries to +right himself, violently, if he is a mistaken man, and lawfully if he is +a wise man or a rich one, which is practically the same thing. But the +author, dramatist, painter, sculptor, whose book, play, picture, statue, +has been unfairly dealt with, as he believes, must make no effort to +right himself with the public; he must bear his wrong in silence; he is +even expected to grin and bear it, as if it were funny. Every body +understands that it is not funny to him, not in the least funny, but +everybody says that he cannot make an effort to get the public to take +his point of view without loss of dignity. This is very odd, but it is +the fact, and I suppose that it comes from the feeling that the author, +dramatist, painter, sculptor, has already said the best he can for his +side in his book, play, picture, statue. This is partly true, and yet if +he wishes to add something more to prove the critic wrong, I do not see +how his attempt to do so should involve loss of dignity. The public, +which is so jealous for his dignity, does not otherwise use him as if he +were a very great and invaluable creature; if he fails, it lets him +starve like any one else. I should say that he lost dignity or not as he +behaved, in his effort to right himself, with petulance or with +principle. If he betrayed a wounded vanity, if he impugned the motives +and accused the lives of his critics, I should certainly feel that he was +losing dignity; but if he temperately examined their theories, and tried +to show where they were mistaken, I think he would not only gain dignity, +but would perform a very useful work. + + + + +XIII. + +I would beseech the literary critics of our country to disabuse +themselves of the mischievous notion that they are essential to the +progress of literature in the way critics have imagined. Canon Farrar +confesses that with the best will in the world to profit by the many +criticisms of his books, he has never profited in the least by any of +them; and this is almost the universal experience of authors. It is not +always the fault of the critics. They sometimes deal honestly and fairly +by a book, and not so often they deal adequately. But in making a book, +if it is at all a good book, the author has learned all that is knowable +about it, and every strong point and every weak point in it, far more +accurately than any one else can possibly learn them. He has learned to +do better than well for the future; but if his book is bad, he cannot be +taught anything about it from the outside. It will perish; and if he has +not the root of literature in him, he will perish as an author with it. +But what is it that gives tendency in art, then? What is it makes people +like this at one time, and that at another? Above all, what makes a +better fashion change for a worse; how can the ugly come to be preferred +to the beautiful; in other words, how can an art decay? + +This question came up in my mind lately with regard to English fiction +and its form, or rather its formlessness. How, for instance, could +people who had once known the simple verity, the refined perfection of +Miss Austere, enjoy, anything less refined and less perfect? + +With her example before them, why should not English novelists have gone +on writing simply, honestly, artistically, ever after? One would think +it must have been impossible for them to do otherwise, if one did not +remember, say, the lamentable behavior of the actors who support Mr. +Jefferson, and their theatricality in the very presence of his beautiful +naturalness. It is very difficult, that simplicity, and nothing is so +hard as to be honest, as the reader, if he has ever happened to try it, +must know. "The big bow-wow I can do myself, like anyone going," said +Scott, but he owned that the exquisite touch of Miss Austere was denied +him; and it seems certainly to have been denied in greater or less +measure to all her successors. But though reading and writing come by +nature, as Dogberry justly said, a taste in them may be cultivated, or +once cultivated, it may be preserved; and why was it not so among those +poor islanders? One does not ask such things in order to be at the pains +of answering them one's self, but with the hope that some one else will +take the trouble to do so, and I propose to be rather a silent partner in +the enterprise, which I shall leave mainly to Senor Armando Palacio +Valdes. This delightful author will, however, only be able to answer my +question indirectly from the essay on fiction with which he prefaces one +of his novels, the charming story of 'The Sister of San Sulpizio,' and I +shall have some little labor in fitting his saws to my instances. It is +an essay which I wish every one intending to read, or even to write, a +novel, might acquaint himself with; for it contains some of the best and +clearest things which have been said of the art of fiction in a time when +nearly all who practise it have turned to talk about it. + +Senor Valdes is a realist, but a realist according to his own conception +of realism; and he has some words of just censure for the French +naturalists, whom he finds unnecessarily, and suspects of being sometimes +even mercenarily, nasty. He sees the wide difference that passes between +this naturalism and the realism of the English and Spanish; and he goes +somewhat further than I should go in condemning it. "The French +naturalism represents only a moment, and an insignificant part of life." +. . . It is characterized by sadness and narrowness. The prototype of +this literature is the 'Madame Bovary' of Flaubert. I am an admirer of +this novelist, and especially of this novel; but often in thinking of it +I have said, How dreary would literature be if it were no more than this! +There is something antipathetic and gloomy and limited in it, as there is +in modern French life; but this seems to me exactly the best possible +reason for its being. I believe with Senor Valdes that "no literature +can live long without joy," not because of its mistaken aesthetics, +however, but because no civilization can live long without joy. The +expression of French life will change when French life changes; and +French naturalism is better at its worst than French unnaturalism at its +best. "No one," as Senor Valdes truly says, "can rise from the perusal +of a naturalistic book . . . without a vivid desire to escape" from +the wretched world depicted in it, "and a purpose, more or less vague, +of helping to better the lot and morally elevate the abject beings who +figure in it. Naturalistic art, then, is not immoral in itself, for then +it would not merit the name of art; for though it is not the business of +art to preach morality, still I think that, resting on a divine and +spiritual principle, like the idea of the beautiful, it is perforce +moral. I hold much more immoral other books which, under a glamour of +something spiritual and beautiful and sublime, portray the vices in which +we are allied to the beasts. Such, for example, are the works of Octave +Feuillet, Arsene Houssaye, Georges Ohnet, and other contemporary +novelists much in vogue among the higher classes of society." + +But what is this idea of the beautiful which art rests upon, and so +becomes moral? "The man of our time," says Senor Valdes, "wishes to know +everything and enjoy everything: he turns the objective of a powerful +equatorial towards the heavenly spaces where gravitates the infinitude of +the stars, just as he applies the microscope to the infinitude of the +smallest insects; for their laws are identical. His experience, united +with intuition, has convinced him that in nature there is neither great +nor small; all is equal. All is equally grand, all is equally just, all +is equally beautiful, because all is equally divine." But beauty, Senor +Valdes explains, exists in the human spirit, and is the beautiful effect +which it receives from the true meaning of things; it does not matter +what the things are, and it is the function of the artist who feels this +effect to impart it to others. I may add that there is no joy in art +except this perception of the meaning of things and its communication; +when you have felt it, and portrayed it in a poem, a symphony, a novel, +a statue, a picture, an edifice, you have fulfilled the purpose for which +you were born an artist. + +The reflection of exterior nature in the individual spirit, Senor Valdes +believes to be the fundamental of art. "To say, then, that the artist +must not copy but create is nonsense, because he can in no wise copy, and +in no wise create. He who sets deliberately about modifying nature, +shows that he has not felt her beauty, and therefore cannot make others +feel it. The puerile desire which some artists without genius manifest +to go about selecting in nature, not what seems to them beautiful, but +what they think will seem beautiful to others, and rejecting what may +displease them, ordinarily produces cold and insipid works. For, instead +of exploring the illimitable fields of reality, they cling to the forms +invented by other artists who have succeeded, and they make statues of +statues, poems of poems, novels of novels. It is entirely false that the +great romantic, symbolic, or classic poets modified nature; such as they +have expressed her they felt her; and in this view they are as much +realists as ourselves. In like manner if in the realistic tide that now +bears us on there are some spirits who feel nature in another way, in the +romantic way, or the classic way, they would not falsify her in +expressing her so. Only those falsify her who, without feeling classic +wise or romantic wise, set about being classic or romantic, wearisomely +reproducing the models of former ages; and equally those who, without +sharing the sentiment of realism, which now prevails, force themselves to +be realists merely to follow the fashion." + +The pseudo-realists, in fact, are the worse offenders, to my thinking, +for they sin against the living; whereas those who continue to celebrate +the heroic adventures of "Puss-in-Boots" and the hair-breadth escapes of +"Tom Thumb," under various aliases, only cast disrespect upon the +immortals who have passed beyond these noises. + + + + +XIV. + +"The principal cause," our Spaniard says, "of the decadence of +contemporary literature is found, to my thinking, in the vice which has +been very graphically called effectism, or the itch of awaking at all +cost in the reader vivid and violent emotions, which shall do credit to +the invention and originality of the writer. This vice has its roots in +human nature itself, and more particularly in that of the artist; he has +always some thing feminine in him, which tempts him to coquet with the +reader, and display qualities that he thinks will astonish him, as women +laugh for no reason, to show their teeth when they have them white and +small and even, or lift their dresses to show their feet when there is no +mud in the street . . . . What many writers nowadays wish, is to +produce an effect, grand and immediate, to play the part of geniuses. +For this they have learned that it is only necessary to write exaggerated +works in any sort, since the vulgar do not ask that they shall be quietly +made to think and feel, but that they shall be startled; and among the +vulgar, of course, I include the great part of those who write literary +criticism, and who constitute the worst vulgar, since they teach what +they do not know .. . . There are many persons who suppose that the +highest proof an artist can give of his fantasy is the invention of a +complicated plot, spiced with perils, surprises, and suspenses; and that +anything else is the sign of a poor and tepid imagination. And not only +people who seem cultivated, but are not so, suppose this, but there are +sensible persons, and even sagacious and intelligent critics, who +sometimes allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the dramatic mystery and +the surprising and fantastic scenes of a novel. They own it is all +false; but they admire the imagination, what they call the 'power' of the +author. Very well; all I have to say is that the 'power' to dazzle with +strange incidents, to entertain with complicated plots and impossible +characters, now belongs to some hundreds of writers in Europe; while +there are not much above a dozen who know how to interest with the +ordinary events of life, and by the portrayal of characters truly human. +If the former is a talent, it must be owned that it is much commoner than +the latter . . . . If we are to rate novelists according to their +fecundity, or the riches of their invention, we must put Alexander Dumas +above Cervantes. Cervantes wrote a novel with the simplest plot, without +belying much or little the natural and logical course of events. This +novel which was called 'Don Quixote,' is perhaps the greatest work of +human wit. Very well; the same Cervantes, mischievously influenced +afterwards by the ideas of the vulgar, who were then what they are now +and always will be, attempted to please them by a work giving a lively +proof of his inventive talent, and wrote the 'Persiles and Sigismunda,' +where the strange incidents, the vivid complications, the surprises, the +pathetic scenes, succeed one another so rapidly and constantly that it +really fatigues you . . . . But in spite of this flood of invention, +imagine," says Seflor Valdes, "the place that Cervantes would now occupy +in the heaven of art, if he had never written 'Don Quixote,'" but only +'Persiles and Sigismund!' + +From the point of view of modern English criticism, which likes to be +melted, and horrified, and astonished, and blood-curdled, and goose- +fleshed, no less than to be "chippered up" in fiction, Senor Valdes were +indeed incorrigible. Not only does he despise the novel of complicated +plot, and everywhere prefer 'Don Quixote' to 'Persiles and Sigismunda,' +but he has a lively contempt for another class of novels much in favor +with the gentilities of all countries. He calls their writers "novelists +of the world," and he says that more than any others they have the rage +of effectism. "They do not seek to produce effect by novelty and +invention in plot . . . they seek it in character. For this end they +begin by deliberately falsifying human feelings, giving them a +paradoxical appearance completely inadmissible . . . . Love that +disguises itself as hate, incomparable energy under the cloak of +weakness, virginal innocence under the aspect of malice and impudence, +wit masquerading as folly, etc., etc. By this means they hope to make an +effect of which they are incapable through the direct, frank, and +conscientious study of character." He mentions Octave Feuillet as the +greatest offender in this sort among the French, and Bulwer among the +English; but Dickens is full of it (Boffin in 'Our Mutual Friend' will +suffice for all example), and most drama is witness of the result of this +effectism when allowed full play. + +But what, then, if he is not pleased with Dumas, or with the effectists +who delight genteel people at all the theatres, and in most of the +romances, what, I ask, will satisfy this extremely difficult Spanish +gentleman? He would pretend, very little. Give him simple, lifelike +character; that is all he wants. "For me, the only condition of +character is that it be human, and that is enough. If I wished to know +what was human, I should study humanity." + +But, Senor Valdes, Senor Valdes! Do not you know that this small +condition of yours implies in its fulfilment hardly less than the gift of +the whole earth? You merely ask that the character portrayed in fiction +be human; and you suggest that the novelist should study humanity if he +would know whether his personages are human. This appears to me the +cruelest irony, the most sarcastic affectation of humility. If you had +asked that character in fiction be superhuman, or subterhuman, or +preterhuman, or intrahuman, and had bidden the novelist go, not to +humanity, but the humanities, for the proof of his excellence, it would +have been all very easy. The books are full of those "creations," of +every pattern, of all ages, of both sexes; and it is so much handier to +get at books than to get at Men; and when you have portrayed "passion" +instead of feeling, and used "power" instead of common-sense, and shown +yourself a "genius" instead of an artist, the applause is so prompt and +the glory so cheap, that really anything else seems wickedly wasteful of +one's time. One may not make one's reader enjoy or suffer nobly, but one +may give him the kind of pleasure that arises from conjuring, or from a +puppet-show, or a modern stage-play, and leave him, if he is an old fool, +in the sort of stupor that comes from hitting the pipe; or if he is a +young fool, half crazed with the spectacle of qualities and impulses like +his own in an apotheosis of achievement and fruition far beyond any +earthly experience. + +But apparently Senor Valdes would not think this any great artistic +result. "Things that appear ugliest in reality to the spectator who is +not an artist, are transformed into beauty and poetry when the spirit of +the artist possesses itself of them. We all take part every day in a +thousand domestic scenes, every day we see a thousand pictures in life, +that do not make any impression upon us, or if they make any it is one of +repugnance; but let the novelist come, and without betraying the truth, +but painting them as they appear to his vision, he produces a most +interesting work, whose perusal enchants us. That which in life left us +indifferent, or repelled us, in art delights us. Why? Simply because +the artist has made us see the idea that resides in it. Let not the +novelists, then, endeavor to add anything to reality, to turn it and +twist it, to restrict it. Since nature has endowed them with this +precious gift of discovering ideas in things, their work will be +beautiful if they paint these as they appear. But if the reality does +not impress them, in vain will they strive to make their work impress +others." + + + + +XV. + +Which brings us again, after this long way about, to Jane Austen and her +novels, and that troublesome question about them. She was great and they +were beautiful, because she and they were honest, and dealt with nature +nearly a hundred years ago as realism deals with it to-day. Realism is +nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material, +and Jane Austen was the first and the last of the English novelists to +treat material with entire truthfulness. Because she did this, she +remains the most artistic of the English novelists, and alone worthy to +be matched with the great Scandinavian and Slavic and Latin artists. It +is not a question of intellect, or not wholly that. The English have +mind enough; but they have not taste enough; or, rather, their taste has +been perverted by their false criticism, which is based upon personal +preference, and not upon, principle; which instructs a man to think that +what he likes is good, instead of teaching him first to distinguish what +is good before he likes it. The art of fiction, as Jane Austen knew it, +declined from her through Scott, and Bulwer, and Dickens, and Charlotte +Bronte, and Thackeray, and even George Eliot, because the mania of +romanticism had seized upon all Europe, and these great writers could not +escape the taint of their time; but it has shown few signs of recovery in +England, because English criticism, in the presence of the Continental +masterpieces, has continued provincial and special and personal, and has +expressed a love and a hate which had to do with the quality of the +artist rather than the character of his work. It was inevitable that in +their time the English romanticists should treat, as Senor Valdes says, +"the barbarous customs of the Middle Ages, softening and distorting them, +as Walter Scott and his kind did;" that they should "devote themselves to +falsifying nature, refining and subtilizing sentiment, and modifying +psychology after their own fancy," like Bulwer and Dickens, as well as +like Rousseau and Madame de Stael, not to mention Balzac, the worst of +all that sort at his worst. This was the natural course of the disease; +but it really seems as if it were their criticism that was to blame for +the rest: not, indeed, for the performance of this writer or that, for +criticism can never affect the actual doing of a thing; but for the +esteem in which this writer or that is held through the perpetuation of +false ideals. The only observer of English middle-class life since Jane +Austen worthy to be named with her was not George Eliot, who was first +ethical and then artistic, who transcended her in everything but the form +and method most essential to art, and there fell hopelessly below her. +It was Anthony Trollope who was most like her in simple honesty and +instinctive truth, as unphilosophized as the light of common day; but he +was so warped from a wholesome ideal as to wish at times to be like +Thackeray, and to stand about in his scene, talking it over with his +hands in his pockets, interrupting the action, and spoiling the illusion +in which alone the truth of art resides. Mainly, his instinct was too +much for his ideal, and with a low view of life in its civic relations +and a thoroughly bourgeois soul, he yet produced works whose beauty is +surpassed only by the effect of a more poetic writer in the novels of +Thomas Hardy. Yet if a vote of English criticism even at this late day, +when all Continental Europe has the light of aesthetic truth, could be +taken, the majority against these artists would be overwhelmingly in +favor of a writer who had so little artistic sensibility, that he never +hesitated on any occasion, great or small, to make a foray among his +characters, and catch them up to show them to the reader and tell him how +beautiful or ugly they were; and cry out over their amazing properties. + +"How few materials," says Emerson, "are yet used by our arts! The mass of +creatures and of qualities are still hid and expectant," and to break new +ground is still one of the uncommonest and most heroic of the virtues. +The artists are not alone to blame for the timidity that keeps them in +the old furrows of the worn-out fields; most of those whom they live to +please, or live by pleasing, prefer to have them remain there; it wants +rare virtue to appreciate what is new, as well as to invent it; and the +"easy things to understand" are the conventional things. This is why the +ordinary English novel, with its hackneyed plot, scenes, and figures, is +more comfortable to the ordinary American than an American novel, which +deals, at its worst, with comparatively new interests and motives. To +adjust one's self to the enjoyment of these costs an intellectual effort, +and an intellectual effort is what no ordinary person likes to make. It +is only the extraordinary person who can say, with Emerson: "I ask not +for the great, the remote, the romantic . . . . I embrace the common; +I sit at the feet of the familiar and the low . . . . Man is +surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous +than things remote . . . . The perception of the worth of the vulgar +is fruitful in discoveries . . . . The foolish man wonders at the +unusual, but the wise man at the usual . . . . To-day always looks +mean to the thoughtless; but to-day is a king in disguise . . . . +Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and caucus, Methodism and Unitarianism, +are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same foundations of +wonder as the town of Troy and the temple of Delphos." + +Perhaps we ought not to deny their town of Troy and their temple of +Delphos to the dull people; but if we ought, and if we did, they would +still insist upon having them. An English novel, full of titles and +rank, is apparently essential to the happiness of such people; their weak +and childish imagination is at home in its familiar environment; they +know what they are reading; the fact that it is hash many times warmed +over reassures them; whereas a story of our own life, honestly studied +and faithfully represented, troubles them with varied misgiving. They +are not sure that it is literature; they do not feel that it is good +society; its characters, so like their own, strike them as commonplace; +they say they do not wish to know such people. + +Everything in England is appreciable to the literary sense, while the +sense of the literary worth of things in America is still faint and weak +with most people, with the vast majority who "ask for the great, the +remote, the romantic," who cannot "embrace the common," cannot "sit at +the feet of the familiar and the low," in the good company of Emerson. +We are all, or nearly all, struggling to be distinguished from the mass, +and to be set apart in select circles and upper classes like the fine +people we have read about. We are really a mixture of the plebeian +ingredients of the whole world; but that is not bad; our vulgarity +consists in trying to ignore "the worth of the vulgar," in believing that +the superfine is better. + + + + +XVII. + +Another Spanish novelist of our day, whose books have given me great +pleasure, is so far from being of the same mind of Senor Valdes about +fiction that he boldly declares himself, in the preface to his 'Pepita +Ximenez,' "an advocate of art for art's sake." I heartily agree with him +that it is "in very bad taste, always impertinent and often pedantic, to +attempt to prove theses by writing stories," and yet if it is true that +"the object of a novel should be to charm through a faithful +representation of human actions and human passions, and to create by this +fidelity to nature a beautiful work," and if "the creation of the +beautiful" is solely "the object of art," it never was and never can be +solely its effect as long as men are men and women are women. If ever +the race is resolved into abstract qualities, perhaps this may happen; +but till then the finest effect of the "beautiful" will be ethical and +not aesthetic merely. Morality penetrates all things, it is the soul of +all things. Beauty may clothe it on, whether it is false morality and an +evil soul, or whether it is true and a good soul. In the one case the +beauty will corrupt, and in the other it will edify, and in either case +it will infallibly and inevitably have an ethical effect, now light, now +grave, according as the thing is light or grave. We cannot escape from +this; we are shut up to it by the very conditions of our being. For the +moment, it is charming to have a story end happily, but after one has +lived a certain number of years, and read a certain number of novels, it +is not the prosperous or adverse fortune of the characters that affects +one, but the good or bad faith of the novelist in dealing with them. +Will he play us false or will he be true in the operation of this or that +principle involved? I cannot hold him to less account than this: he must +be true to what life has taught me is the truth, and after that he may +let any fate betide his people; the novel ends well that ends faithfully. +The greater his power, the greater his responsibility before the human +conscience, which is God in us. But men come and go, and what they do in +their limited physical lives is of comparatively little moment; it is +what they say that really survives to bless or to ban; and it is the evil +which Wordsworth felt in Goethe, that must long sur vive him. There is a +kind of thing--a kind of metaphysical lie against righteousness and +common-sense which is called the Unmoral; and is supposed to be different +from the Immoral; and it is this which is supposed to cover many of the +faults of Goethe. His 'Wilhelm Meister,' for example, is so far removed +within the region of the "ideal" that its unprincipled, its evil +principled, tenor in regard to women is pronounced "unmorality," and is +therefore inferably harmless. But no study of Goethe is complete without +some recognition of the qualities which caused Wordsworth to hurl the +book across the room with an indignant perception of its sensuality. +For the sins of his life Goethe was perhaps sufficiently punished in his +life by his final marriage with Christiane; for the sins of his +literature many others must suffer. I do not despair, however, of the +day when the poor honest herd of man kind shall give universal utterance +to the universal instinct, and shall hold selfish power in politics, in +art, in religion, for the devil that it is; when neither its crazy pride +nor its amusing vanity shall be flattered by the puissance of the +"geniuses" who have forgotten their duty to the common weakness, and have +abused it to their own glory. In that day we shall shudder at many +monsters of passion, of self-indulgence, of heartlessness, whom we still +more or less openly adore for their "genius," and shall account no man +worshipful whom we do not feel and know to be good. The spectacle of +strenuous achievement will then not dazzle or mislead; it will not +sanctify or palliate iniquity; it will only render it the more hideous +and pitiable. + +In fact, the whole belief in "genius" seems to me rather a mischievous +superstition, and if not mischievous always, still always a superstition. +From the account of those who talk about it, "genius" appears to be the +attribute of a sort of very potent and admirable prodigy which God has +created out of the common for the astonishment and confusion of the rest +of us poor human beings. But do they really believe it? Do they mean +anything more or less than the Mastery which comes to any man according +to his powers and diligence in any direction? If not, why not have an +end of the superstition which has caused our race to go on so long +writing and reading of the difference between talent and genius? It is +within the memory of middle-aged men that the Maelstrom existed in the +belief of the geographers, but we now get on perfectly well without it; +and why should we still suffer under the notion of "genius" which keeps +so many poor little authorlings trembling in question whether they have +it, or have only "talent"? + +One of the greatest captains who ever lived [General U. S. Grant D.W.] +--a plain, taciturn, unaffected soul--has told the story of his wonderful +life as unconsciously as if it were all an every-day affair, not +different from other lives, except as a great exigency of the human race +gave it importance. So far as he knew, he had no natural aptitude for +arms, and certainly no love for the calling. But he went to West Point +because, as he quaintly tells us, his father "rather thought he would +go"; and he fought through one war with credit, but without glory. The +other war, which was to claim his powers and his science, found him +engaged in the most prosaic of peaceful occupations; be obeyed its call +because he loved his country, and not because he loved war. All the +world knows the rest, and all the world knows that greater military +mastery has not been shown than his campaigns illustrated. He does not +say this in his book, or hint it in any way; he gives you the facts, and +leaves them with you. But the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, written +as simply and straightforwardly as his battles were fought, couched in +the most unpretentious phrase, with never a touch of grandiosity or +attitudinizing, familiar, homely in style, form a great piece of +literature, because great literature is nothing more nor less than the +clear expression of minds that have some thing great in them, whether +religion, or beauty, or deep experience. Probably Grant would have said +that he had no more vocation to literature than he had to war. He owns, +with something like contrition, that he used to read a great many novels; +but we think he would have denied the soft impeachment of literary power. +Nevertheless, he shows it, as he showed military power, unexpectedly, +almost miraculously. All the conditions here, then, are favorable to +supposing a case of "genius." Yet who would trifle with that great heir +of fame, that plain, grand, manly soul, by speaking of "genius" and him +together? Who calls Washington a genius? or Franklin, or Bismarck, or +Cavour, or Columbus, or Luther, or Darwin, or Lincoln? Were these men +second-rate in their way? Or is "genius" that indefinable, preternatural +quality, sacred to the musicians, the painters, the sculptors, the +actors, the poets, and above all, the poets? Or is it that the poets, +having most of the say in this world, abuse it to shameless self- +flattery, and would persuade the inarticulate classes that they are on +peculiar terms of confidence with the deity? + + + + +XVIII. + +In General Grant's confession of novel-reading there is a sort of +inference that he had wasted his time, or else the guilty conscience of +the novelist in me imagines such an inference. But however this may be, +there is certainly no question concerning the intention of a +correspondent who once wrote to me after reading some rather bragging +claims I had made for fiction as a mental and moral means. "I have very +grave doubts," he said, "as to the whole list of magnificent things that +you seem to think novels have done for the race, and can witness in +myself many evil things which they have done for me. Whatever in my +mental make-up is wild and visionary, whatever is untrue, whatever is +injurious, I can trace to the perusal of some work of fiction. Worse +than that, they beget such high-strung and supersensitive ideas of life +that plain industry and plodding perseverance are despised, and matter- +of-fact poverty, or every-day, commonplace distress, meets with no +sympathy, if indeed noticed at all, by one who has wept over the +impossibly accumulated sufferings of some gaudy hero or heroine." + +I am not sure that I had the controversy with this correspondent that he +seemed to suppose; but novels are now so fully accepted by every one +pretending to cultivated taste and they really form the whole +intellectual life of such immense numbers of people, without question of +their influence, good or bad, upon the mind that it is refreshing to have +them frankly denounced, and to be invited to revise one's ideas and +feelings in regard to them. A little honesty, or a great deal of +honesty, in this quest will do the novel, as we hope yet to have it, and +as we have already begun to have it, no harm; and for my own part I will +confess that I believe fiction in the past to have been largely +injurious, as I believe the stage-play to be still almost wholly +injurious, through its falsehood, its folly, its wantonness, and its +aimlessness. It may be safely assumed that most of the novel-reading +which people fancy an intellectual pastime is the emptiest dissipation, +hardly more related to thought or the wholesome exercise of the mental +faculties than opium-eating; in either case the brain is drugged, and +left weaker and crazier for the debauch. If this may be called the +negative result of the fiction habit, the positive injury that most +novels work is by no means so easily to be measured in the case of young +men whose character they help so much to form or deform, and the women of +all ages whom they keep so much in ignorance of the world they +misrepresent. Grown men have little harm from them, but in the other +cases, which are the vast majority, they hurt because they are not true-- +not because they are malevolent, but because they are idle lies about +human nature and the social fabric, which it behooves us to know and to +understand, that we may deal justly with ourselves and with one another. +One need not go so far as our correspondent, and trace to the fiction +habit "whatever is wild and visionary, whatever is untrue, whatever is +injurious," in one's life; bad as the fiction habit is it is probably not +responsible for the whole sum of evil in its victims, and I believe that +if the reader will use care in choosing from this fungus-growth with +which the fields of literature teem every day, he may nourish himself as +with the true mushroom, at no risk from the poisonous species. + +The tests are very plain and simple, and they are perfectly infallible. +If a novel flatters the passions, and exalts them above the principles, +it is poisonous; it may not kill, but it will certainly injure; and this +test will alone exclude an entire class of fiction, of which eminent +examples will occur to all. Then the whole spawn of so-called unmoral +romances, which imagine a world where the sins of sense are unvisited by +the penalties following, swift or slow, but inexorably sure, in the real +world, are deadly poison: these do kill. The, novels that merely tickle +our prejudices and lull our judgment, or that coddle our sensibilities or +pamper our gross appetite for the marvellous, are not so fatal, but they +are innutritious, and clog the soul with unwholesome vapors of all kinds. +No doubt they too help to weaken the moral fibre, and make their readers +indifferent to "plodding perseverance and plain industry," and to +"matter-of-fact poverty and commonplace distress." + +Without taking them too seriously, it still must be owned that the "gaudy +hero and heroine" are to blame for a great deal of harm in the world. +That heroine long taught by example, if not precept, that Love, or the +passion or fancy she mistook for it, was the chief interest of a life, +which is really concerned with a great many other things; that it was +lasting in the way she knew it; that it was worthy of every sacrifice, +and was altogether a finer thing than prudence, obedience, reason; that +love alone was glorious and beautiful, and these were mean and ugly in +comparison with it. More lately she has begun to idolize and illustrate +Duty, and she is hardly less mischievous in this new role, opposing duty, +as she did love, to prudence, obedience, and reason. The stock hero, +whom, if we met him, we could not fail to see was a most deplorable +person, has undoubtedly imposed himself upon the victims of the fiction +habit as admirable. With him, too, love was and is the great affair, +whether in its old romantic phase of chivalrous achievement or manifold +suffering for love's sake, or its more recent development of the +"virile," the bullying, and the brutal, or its still more recent agonies +of self-sacrifice, as idle and useless as the moral experiences of the +insane asylums. With his vain posturings and his ridiculous splendor he +is really a painted barbarian, the prey of his passions and his +delusions, full of obsolete ideals, and the motives and ethics of a +savage, which the guilty author of his being does his best--or his worst +--in spite of his own light and knowledge, to foist upon the reader as +something generous and noble. I am not merely bringing this charge +against that sort of fiction which is beneath literature and outside of +it, "the shoreless lakes of ditch-water," whose miasms fill the air below +the empyrean where the great ones sit; but I am accusing the work of some +of the most famous, who have, in this instance or in that, sinned against +the truth, which can alone exalt and purify men. I do not say that they +have constantly done so, or even commonly done so; but that they have +done so at all marks them as of the past, to be read with the due +historical allowance for their epoch and their conditions. For I believe +that, while inferior writers will and must continue to imitate them in +their foibles and their errors, no one here after will be able to achieve +greatness who is false to humanity, either in its facts or its duties. +The light of civilization has already broken even upon the novel, and no +conscientious man can now set about painting an image of life without +perpetual question of the verity of his work, and without feeling bound +to distinguish so clearly that no reader of his may be misled, between +what is right and what is wrong, what is noble and what is base, what is +health and what is perdition, in the actions and the characters he +portrays. + +The fiction that aims merely to entertain--the fiction that is to serious +fiction as the opera-bouffe, the ballet, and the pantomime are to the +true drama--need not feel the burden of this obligation so deeply; but +even such fiction will not be gay or trivial to any reader's hurt, and +criticism should hold it to account if it passes from painting to +teaching folly. + +I confess that I do not care to judge any work of the imagination without +first of all applying this test to it. We must ask ourselves before we +ask anything else, Is it true?--true to the motives, the impulses, the +principles that shape the life of actual men and women? This truth, +which necessarily includes the highest morality and the highest artistry- +this truth given, the book cannot be wicked and cannot be weak; and +without it all graces of style and feats of invention and cunning of +construction are so many superfluities of naughtiness. It is well for +the truth to have all these, and shine in them, but for falsehood they +are merely meretricious, the bedizenment of the wanton; they atone for +nothing, they count for nothing. But in fact they come naturally of +truth, and grace it without solicitation; they are added unto it. In the +whole range of fiction I know of no true picture of life--that is, of +human nature--which is not also a masterpiece of literature, full of +divine and natural beauty. It may have no touch or tint of this special +civilization or of that; it had better have this local color well +ascertained; but the truth is deeper and finer than aspects, and if the +book is true to what men and women know of one another's souls it will be +true enough, and it will be great and beautiful. It is the conception of +literature as something apart from life, superfinely aloof, which makes +it really unimportant to the great mass of mankind, without a message or +a meaning for them; and it is the notion that a novel may be false in its +portrayal of causes and effects that makes literary art contemptible even +to those whom it amuses, that forbids them to regard the novelist as a +serious or right-minded person. If they do not in some moment of +indignation cry out against all novels, as my correspondent does, they +remain besotted in the fume of the delusions purveyed to them, with no +higher feeling for the author than such maudlin affection as the +frequenter of an opium-joint perhaps knows for the attendant who fills +his pipe with the drug. + +Or, as in the case of another correspondent who writes that in his youth +he "read a great many novels, but always regarded it as an amusement, +like horse racing and card-playing," for which he had no time when he +entered upon the serious business of life, it renders them merely +contemptuous. His view of the matter may be commended to the brotherhood +and sisterhood of novelists as full of wholesome if bitter suggestion; +and I urge them not to dismiss it with high literary scorn as that of +some Boeotian dull to the beauty of art. Refuse it as we may, it is +still the feeling of the vast majority of people for whom life is +earnest, and who find only a distorted and misleading likeness of it in +our books. We may fold ourselves in our scholars' gowns, and close the +doors of our studies, and affect to despise this rude voice; but we +cannot shut it out. It comes to us from wherever men are at work, from +wherever they are truly living, and accuses us of unfaithfulness, of +triviality, of mere stage-play; and none of us can escape conviction +except he prove himself worthy of his time--a time in which the great +masters have brought literature back to life, and filled its ebbing veins +with the red tides of reality. We cannot all equal them; we need not +copy them; but we can all go to the sources of their inspiration and +their power; and to draw from these no one need go far--no one need +really go out of himself. + +Fifty years ago, Carlyle, in whom the truth was always alive, but in whom +it was then unperverted by suffering, by celebrity, and by despair, wrote +in his study of Diderot: "Were it not reasonable to prophesy that this +exceeding great multitude of novel-writers and such like must, in a new +generation, gradually do one of two things: either retire into the +nurseries, and work for children, minors, and semi-fatuous persons of +both sexes, or else, what were far better, sweep their novel-fabric into +the dust-cart, and betake themselves with such faculty as they have to +understand and record what is true, of which surely there is, and will +forever be, a whole infinitude unknown to us of infinite importance to +us? Poetry, it will more and more come to be understood, is nothing but +higher knowledge; and the only genuine Romance (for grown persons), +Reality." + +If, after half a century, fiction still mainly works for "children, +minors, and semi-fatuous persons of both sexes," it is nevertheless one +of the hopefulest signs of the world's progress that it has begun to work +for "grown persons," and if not exactly in the way that Carlyle might +have solely intended in urging its writers to compile memoirs instead of +building the "novel-fabric," still it has, in the highest and widest +sense, already made Reality its Romance. I cannot judge it, I do not +even care for it, except as it has done this; and I can hardly conceive +of a literary self-respect in these days compatible with the old trade of +make-believe, with the production of the kind of fiction which is too +much honored by classification with card-playing and horse-racing. But +let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they +are, actuated by the motives and the passions in the measure we all know; +let it leave off painting dolls and working them by springs and wires; +let it show the different interests in their true proportions; let it +forbear to preach pride and revenge, folly and insanity, egotism and +prejudice, but frankly own these for what they are, in whatever figures +and occasions they appear; let it not put on fine literary airs; let it +speak the dialect, the language, that most Americans know--the language +of unaffected people everywhere--and there can be no doubt of an +unlimited future, not only of delightfulness but of usefulness, for it. + + + + +XIX. + +This is what I say in my severer moods, but at other times I know that, +of course, no one is going to hold all fiction to such strict account. +There is a great deal of it which may be very well left to amuse us, if +it can, when we are sick or when we are silly, and I am not inclined to +despise it in the performance of this office. Or, if people find +pleasure in having their blood curdled for the sake of having it +uncurdled again at the end of the book, I would not interfere with their +amusement, though I do not desire it. + +There is a certain demand in primitive natures for the kind of fiction +that does this, and the author of it is usually very proud of it. The +kind of novels he likes, and likes to write, are intended to take his +reader's mind, or what that reader would probably call his mind, off +himself; they make one forget life and all its cares and duties; they are +not in the least like the novels which make you think of these, and shame +you into at least wishing to be a helpfuller and wholesomer creature than +you are. No sordid details of verity here, if you please; no wretched +being humbly and weakly struggling to do right and to be true, suffering +for his follies and his sins, tasting joy only through the mortification +of self, and in the help of others; nothing of all this, but a great, +whirling splendor of peril and achievement, a wild scene of heroic +adventure and of emotional ground and lofty tumbling, with a stage +"picture" at the fall of the curtain, and all the good characters in a +row, their left hands pressed upon their hearts, and kissing their right +hands to the audience, in the old way that has always charmed and always +will charm, Heaven bless it! + +In a world which loves the spectacular drama and the practically +bloodless sports of the modern amphitheatre the author of this sort of +fiction has his place, and we must not seek to destroy him because he +fancies it the first place. In fact, it is a condition of his doing well +the kind of work he does that he should think it important, that he +should believe in himself; and I would not take away this faith of his, +even if I could. As I say, he has his place. The world often likes to +forget itself, and he brings on his heroes, his goblins, his feats, his +hair-breadth escapes, his imminent deadly breaches, and the poor, +foolish, childish old world renews the excitements of its nonage. +Perhaps this is a work of beneficence; and perhaps our brave conjurer in +his cabalistic robe is a philanthropist in disguise. + +Within the last four or five years there has been throughout the whole +English-speaking world what Mr. Grant Allen happily calls the +"recrudescence" of taste in fiction. The effect is less noticeable in +America than in England, where effete Philistinism, conscious of the dry- +rot of its conventionality, is casting about for cure in anything that is +wild and strange and unlike itself. But the recrudescence has been +evident enough here, too; and a writer in one of our periodicals has put +into convenient shape some common errors concerning popularity as a test +of merit in a book. He seems to think, for instance, that the love of +the marvellous and impossible in fiction, which is shown not only by +"the unthinking multitude clamoring about the book counters" for fiction +of that sort, but by the "literary elect" also, is proof of some +principle in human nature which ought to be respected as well as +tolerated. He seems to believe that the ebullition of this passion forms +a sufficient answer to those who say that art should represent life, and +that the art which misrepresents life is feeble art and false art. But +it appears to me that a little carefuller reasoning from a little closer +inspection of the facts would not have brought him to these conclusions. +In the first place, I doubt very much whether the "literary elect" have +been fascinated in great numbers by the fiction in question; but if I +supposed them to have really fallen under that spell, I should still be +able to account for their fondness and that of the "unthinking multitude" +upon the same grounds, without honoring either very much. It is the +habit of hasty casuists to regard civilization as inclusive of all the +members of a civilized community; but this is a palpable error. Many +persons in every civilized community live in a state of more or less +evident savagery with respect to their habits, their morals, and their +propensities; and they are held in check only by the law. Many more yet +are savage in their tastes, as they show by the decoration of their +houses and persons, and by their choice of books and pictures; and these +are left to the restraints of public opinion. In fact, no man can be +said to be thoroughly civilized or always civilized; the most refined, +the most enlightened person has his moods, his moments of barbarism, in +which the best, or even the second best, shall not please him. At these +times the lettered and the unlettered are alike primitive and their +gratifications are of the same simple sort; the highly cultivated person +may then like melodrama, impossible fiction, and the trapeze as sincerely +and thoroughly as a boy of thirteen or a barbarian of any age. + +I do not blame him for these moods; I find something instructive and +interesting in them; but if they lastingly established themselves in him, +I could not help deploring the state of that person. No one can really +think that the "literary elect," who are said to have joined the +"unthinking multitude" in clamoring about the book counters for the +romances of no-man's land, take the same kind of pleasure in them as they +do in a novel of Tolstoy, Tourguenief, George Eliot, Thackeray, Balzac, +Manzoni, Hawthorne, Mr. Henry James, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Senor Palacio +Valdes, or even Walter Scott. They have joined the "unthinking +multitude," perhaps because they are tired of thinking, and expect to +find relaxation in feeling--feeling crudely, grossly, merely. For once +in a way there is no great harm in this; perhaps no harm at all. It is +perfectly natural; let them have their innocent debauch. But let us +distinguish, for our own sake and guidance, between the different kinds +of things that please the same kind of people; between the things that +please them habitually and those that please them occasionally; between +the pleasures that edify them and those that amuse them. Otherwise we +shall be in danger of becoming permanently part of the "unthinking +multitude," and of remaining puerile, primitive, savage. We shall be so +in moods and at moments; but let us not fancy that those are high moods +or fortunate moments. If they are harmless, that is the most that can be +said for them. They are lapses from which we can perhaps go forward more +vigorously; but even this is not certain. + +My own philosophy of the matter, however, would not bring me to +prohibition of such literary amusements as the writer quoted seems to +find significant of a growing indifference to truth and sanity in +fiction. Once more, I say, these amusements have their place, as the +circus has, and the burlesque and negro minstrelsy, and the ballet, and +prestidigitation. No one of these is to be despised in its place; but we +had better understand that it is not the highest place, and that it is +hardly an intellectual delight. The lapse of all the "literary elect" +in the world could not dignify unreality; and their present mood, if it +exists, is of no more weight against that beauty in literature which +comes from truth alone, and never can come from anything else, than the +permanent state of the "unthinking multitude." + +Yet even as regards the "unthinking multitude," I believe I am not able +to take the attitude of the writer I have quoted. I am afraid that I +respect them more than he would like to have me, though I cannot always +respect their taste, any more than that of the "literary elect." +I respect them for their good sense in most practical matters; for their +laborious, honest lives; for their kindness, their good-will; for that +aspiration towards something better than themselves which seems to stir, +however dumbly, in every human breast not abandoned to literary pride or +other forms of self-righteousness. I find every man interesting, whether +he thinks or unthinks, whether he is savage or civilized; for this reason +I cannot thank the novelist who teaches us not to know but to unknow our +kind. Yet I should by no means hold him to such strict account as +Emerson, who felt the absence of the best motive, even in the greatest of +the masters, when he said of Shakespeare that, after all, he was only +master of the revels. The judgment is so severe, even with the praise +which precedes it, that one winces under it; and if one is still young, +with the world gay before him, and life full of joyous promise, one is +apt to ask, defiantly, Well, what is better than being such a master of +the revels as Shakespeare was? Let each judge for himself. To the heart +again of serious youth, uncontaminate and exigent of ideal good, it must +always be a grief that the great masters seem so often to have been +willing to amuse the leisure and vacancy of meaner men, and leave their +mission to the soul but partially fulfilled. This, perhaps, was what +Emerson had in mind; and if he had it in mind of Shakespeare, who gave +us, with his histories and comedies and problems, such a searching homily +as "Macbeth," one feels that he scarcely recognized the limitations of +the dramatist's art. Few consciences, at times, seem so enlightened as +that of this personally unknown person, so withdrawn into his work, and +so lost to the intensest curiosity of after-time; at other times he seems +merely Elizabethan in his coarseness, his courtliness, his imperfect +sympathy. + + + + +XX. + +Of the finer kinds of romance, as distinguished from the novel, I would +even encourage the writing, though it is one of the hard conditions of +romance that its personages starting with a 'parti pris' can rarely be +characters with a living growth, but are apt to be types, limited to the +expression of one principle, simple, elemental, lacking the God-given +complexity of motive which we find in all the human beings we know. + +Hawthorne, the great master of the romance, had the insight and the power +to create it anew as a kind in fiction; though I am not sure that 'The +Scarlet Letter' and the 'Blithedale Romance' are not, strictly speaking, +novels rather than romances. They, do not play with some old +superstition long outgrown, and they do not invent a new superstition to +play with, but deal with things vital in every one's pulse. I am not +saying that what may be called the fantastic romance--the romance that +descends from 'Frankenstein' rather than 'The Scarlet Letter'--ought not +to be. On the contrary, I should grieve to lose it, as I should grieve +to lose the pantomime or the comic opera, or many other graceful things +that amuse the passing hour, and help us to live agreeably in a world +where men actually sin, suffer, and die. But it belongs to the +decorative arts, and though it has a high place among them, it cannot be +ranked with the works of the imagination--the works that represent and +body forth human experience. Its ingenuity, can always afford a refined +pleasure, and it can often, at some risk to itself, convey a valuable +truth. + +Perhaps the whole region of historical romance might be reopened with +advantage to readers and writers who cannot bear to be brought face to +face with human nature, but require the haze of distance or a far +perspective, in which all the disagreeable details shall be lost. There +is no good reason why these harmless people should not be amused, or +their little preferences indulged. + +But here, again, I have my modest doubts, some recent instances are so +fatuous, as far as the portrayal of character goes, though I find them +admirably contrived in some respects. When I have owned the excellence +of the staging in every respect, and the conscience with which the +carpenter (as the theatrical folks say) has done his work, I am at the +end of my praises. The people affect me like persons of our generation +made up for the parts; well trained, well costumed, but actors, and +almost amateurs. They have the quality that makes the histrionics of +amateurs endurable; they are ladies and gentlemen; the worst, the +wickedest of them, is a lady or gentleman behind the scene. + +Yet, no doubt it is well that there should be a reversion to the earlier +types of thinking and feeling, to earlier ways of looking at human +nature, and I will not altogether refuse the pleasure offered me by the +poetic romancer or the historical romancer because I find my pleasure +chiefly in Tolstoy and Valdes and Thomas Hardy and Tourguenief, and +Balzac at his best. + + + + +XXI. + +It used to be one of the disadvantages of the practice of romance in +America, which Hawthorne more or less whimsically lamented, that there +were so few shadows and inequalities in our broad level of prosperity; +and it is one of the reflections suggested by Dostoievsky's novel, 'The +Crime and the Punishment,' that whoever struck a note so profoundly +tragic in American fiction would do a false and mistaken thing--as false +and as mistaken in its way as dealing in American fiction with certain +nudities which the Latin peoples seem to find edifying. Whatever their +deserts, very few American novelists have been led out to be shot, or +finally exiled to the rigors of a winter at Duluth; and in a land where +journeymen carpenters and plumbers strike for four dollars a day the sum +of hunger and cold is comparatively small, and the wrong from class to +class has been almost inappreciable, though all this is changing for the +worse. Our novelists, therefore, concern themselves with the more +smiling aspects of life, which are the more American, and seek the +universal in the individual rather than the social interests. It is +worth while, even at the risk of being called commonplace, to be true to +our well-to-do actualities; the very passions themselves seem to be +softened and modified by conditions which formerly at least could not be +said to wrong any one, to cramp endeavor, or to cross lawful desire. +Sin and suffering and shame there must always be in the world, I suppose, +but I believe that in this new world of ours it is still mainly from one +to another one, and oftener still from one to one's self. We have death, +too, in America, and a great deal of disagreeable and painful disease, +which the multiplicity of our patent medicines does not seem to cure; +but this is tragedy that comes in the very nature of things, and is not +peculiarly American, as the large, cheerful average of health and success +and happy life is. It will not do to boast, but it is well to be true to +the facts, and to see that, apart from these purely mortal troubles, +the race here has enjoyed conditions in which most of the ills that have +darkened its annals might be averted by honest work and unselfish +behavior. + +Fine artists we have among us, and right-minded as far as they go; and we +must not forget this at evil moments when it seems as if all the women +had taken to writing hysterical improprieties, and some of the men were +trying to be at least as hysterical in despair of being as improper. +Other traits are much more characteristic of our life and our fiction. +In most American novels, vivid and graphic as the best of them are, the +people are segregated if not sequestered, and the scene is sparsely +populated. The effect may be in instinctive response to the vacancy of +our social life, and I shall not make haste to blame it. There are few +places, few occasions among us, in which a novelist can get a large +number of polite people together, or at least keep them together. Unless +he carries a snap-camera his picture of them has no probability; they +affect one like the figures perfunctorily associated in such deadly old +engravings as that of "Washington Irving and his Friends." Perhaps it is +for this reason that we excel in small pieces with three or four figures, +or in studies of rustic communities, where there is propinquity if not +society. Our grasp of more urbane life is feeble; most attempts to +assemble it in our pictures are failures, possibly because it is too +transitory, too intangible in its nature with us, to be truthfully +represented as really existent. + +I am not sure that the Americans have not brought the short story nearer +perfection in the all-round sense that almost any other people, and for +reasons very simple and near at hand. It might be argued from the +national hurry and impatience that it was a literary form peculiarly +adapted to the American temperament, but I suspect that its extraordinary +development among us is owing much more to more tangible facts. +The success of American magazines, which is nothing less than prodigious, +is only commensurate with their excellence. Their sort of success is not +only from the courage to decide which ought to please, but from the +knowledge of what does please; and it is probable that, aside from the +pictures, it is the short stories which please the readers of our best +magazines. The serial novels they must have, of course; but rather more +of course they must have short stories, and by operation of the law of +supply and demand, the short stories, abundant in quantity and excellent +in quality, are forthcoming because they are wanted. By another +operation of the same law, which political economists have more recently +taken account of, the demand follows the supply, and short stories are +sought for because there is a proven ability to furnish them, and people +read them willingly because they are usually very good. The art of +writing them is now so disciplined and diffused with us that there is no +lack either for the magazines or for the newspaper "syndicates" which +deal in them almost to the exclusion of the serials. + +An interesting fact in regard to the different varieties of the short +story among us is that the sketches and studies by the women seem +faithfuller and more realistic than those of the men, in proportion to +their number. Their tendency is more distinctly in that direction, and +there is a solidity, an honest observation, in the work of such women, +which often leaves little to be desired. I should, upon the whole, +be disposed to rank American short stories only below those of such +Russian writers as I have read, and I should praise rather than blame +their free use of our different local parlances, or "dialects," as people +call them. I like this because I hope that our inherited English may be +constantly freshened and revived from the native sources which our +literary decentralization will help to keep open, and I will own that as +I turn over novels coming from Philadelphia, from New Mexico, from +Boston, from Tennessee, from rural New England, from New York, every +local flavor of diction gives me courage and pleasure. Alphonse Daudet, +in a conversation with H. H. Boyesen said, speaking of Tourguenief, +"What a luxury it must be to have a great big untrodden barbaric language +to wade into! We poor fellows who work in the language of an old +civilization, we may sit and chisel our little verbal felicities, only to +find in the end that it is a borrowed jewel we are polishing. The crown- +jewels of our French tongue have passed through the hands of so many +generations of monarchs that it seems like presumption on the part of any +late-born pretender to attempt to wear them." + +This grief is, of course, a little whimsical, yet it has a certain +measure of reason in it, and the same regret has been more seriously +expressed by the Italian poet Aleardi: + + "Muse of an aged people, in the eve + Of fading civilization, I was born. + . . . . . . Oh, fortunate, + My sisters, who in the heroic dawn + Of races sung! To them did destiny give + The virgin fire and chaste ingenuousness + Of their land's speech; and, reverenced, their hands + Ran over potent strings." + +It will never do to allow that we are at such a desperate pass in +English, but something of this divine despair we may feel too in thinking +of "the spacious times of great Elizabeth," when the poets were trying +the stops of the young language, and thrilling with the surprises of +their own music. We may comfort ourselves, however, unless we prefer a +luxury of grief, by remembering that no language is ever old on the lips +of those who speak it, no matter how decrepit it drops from the pen. +We have only to leave our studies, editorial and other, and go into the +shops and fields to find the "spacious times" again; and from the +beginning Realism, before she had put on her capital letter, had divined +this near-at-hand truth along with the rest. Lowell, almost the greatest +and finest realist who ever wrought in verse, showed us that Elizabeth +was still Queen where he heard Yankee farmers talk. One need not invite +slang into the company of its betters, though perhaps slang has been +dropping its "s" and becoming language ever since the world began, and is +certainly sometimes delightful and forcible beyond the reach of the +dictionary. I would not have any one go about for new words, but if one +of them came aptly, not to reject its help. For our novelists to try to +write Americanly, from any motive, would be a dismal error, but being +born Americans, I then use "Americanisms" whenever these serve their +turn; and when their characters speak, I should like to hear them speak +true American, with all the varying Tennesseean, Philadelphian, +Bostonian, and New York accents. If we bother ourselves to write what +the critics imagine to be "English," we shall be priggish and artificial, +and still more so if we make our Americans talk "English." There is also +this serious disadvantage about "English," that if we wrote the best +"English" in the world, probably the English themselves would not know +it, or, if they did, certainly would not own it. It has always been +supposed by grammarians and purists that a language can be kept as they +find it; but languages, while they live, are perpetually changing. God +apparently meant them for the common people; and the common people will +use them freely as they use other gifts of God. On their lips our +continental English will differ more and more from the insular English, +and I believe that this is not deplorable, but desirable. + +In fine, I would have our American novelists be as American as they +unconsciously can. Matthew Arnold complained that he found no +"distinction" in our life, and I would gladly persuade all artists +intending greatness in any kind among us that the recognition of the fact +pointed out by Mr. Arnold ought to be a source of inspiration to them, +and not discouragement. We have been now some hundred years building up +a state on the affirmation of the essential equality of men in their +rights and duties, and whether we have been right or been wrong the gods +have taken us at our word, and have responded to us with a civilization +in which there is no "distinction" perceptible to the eye that loves and +values it. Such beauty and such grandeur as we have is common beauty, +common grandeur, or the beauty and grandeur in which the quality of +solidarity so prevails that neither distinguishes itself to the +disadvantage of anything else. It seems to me that these conditions +invite the artist to the study and the appreciation of the common, and to +the portrayal in every art of those finer and higher aspects which unite +rather than sever humanity, if he would thrive in our new order of +things. The talent that is robust enough to front the every-day world +and catch the charm of its work-worn, care-worn, brave, kindly face, need +not fear the encounter, though it seems terrible to the sort nurtured in +the superstition of the romantic, the bizarre, the heroic, the +distinguished, as the things alone worthy of painting or carving or +writing. The arts must become democratic, and then we shall have the +expression of America in art; and the reproach which Arnold was half +right in making us shall have no justice in it any longer; we shall be +"distinguished." + + + + +XXII. + +In the mean time it has been said with a superficial justice that our +fiction is narrow; though in the same sense I suppose the present English +fiction is as narrow as our own; and most modern fiction is narrow in a +certain sense. In Italy the best men are writing novels as brief and +restricted in range as ours; in Spain the novels are intense and deep, +and not spacious; the French school, with the exception of Zola, is +narrow; the Norwegians are narrow; the Russians, except Tolstoy, are +narrow, and the next greatest after him, Tourguenief, is the narrowest +great novelist, as to mere dimensions, that ever lived, dealing nearly +always with small groups, isolated and analyzed in the most American +fashion. In fact, the charge of narrowness accuses the whole tendency of +modern fiction as much as the American school. But I do not by any means +allow that this narrowness is a defect, while denying that it is a +universal characteristic of our fiction; it is rather, for the present, +a virtue. Indeed, I should call the present American work, North and +South, thorough rather than narrow. In one sense it is as broad as life, +for each man is a microcosm, and the writer who is able to acquaint us +intimately with half a dozen people, or the conditions of a neighborhood +or a class, has done something which cannot in any, bad sense be called +narrow; his breadth is vertical instead of lateral, that is all; and this +depth is more desirable than horizontal expansion in a civilization like +ours, where the differences are not of classes, but of types, and not of +types either so much as of characters. A new method was necessary in +dealing with the new conditions, and the new method is worldwide, because +the whole world is more or less Americanized. Tolstoy is exceptionally +voluminous among modern writers, even Russian writers; and it might be +said that the forte of Tolstoy himself is not in his breadth sidewise, +but in his breadth upward and downward. 'The Death of Ivan Ilyitch' +leaves as vast an impression on the reader's soul as any episode of +'War and Peace,' which, indeed, can be recalled only in episodes, and not +as a whole. I think that our writers may be safely counselled to +continue their work in the modern way, because it is the best way yet +known. If they make it true, it will be large, no matter what its +superficies are; and it would be the greatest mistake to try to make it +big. A big book is necessarily a group of episodes more or less loosely +connected by a thread of narrative, and there seems no reason why this +thread must always be supplied. Each episode may be quite distinct, or +it may be one of a connected group; the final effect will be from the +truth of each episode, not from the size of the group. + +The whole field of human experience as never so nearly covered by +imaginative literature in any age as in this; and American life +especially is getting represented with unexampled fulness. It is true +that no one writer, no one book, represents it, for that is not possible; +our social and political decentralization forbids this, and may forever +forbid it. But a great number of very good writers are instinctively +striving to make each part of the country and each phase of our +civilization known to all the other parts; and their work is not narrow +in any feeble or vicious sense. The world was once very little, and it +is now very large. Formerly, all science could be grasped by a single +mind; but now the man who hopes to become great or useful in science must +devote himself to a single department. It is so in everything--all arts, +all trades; and the novelist is not superior to the universal rule +against universality. He contributes his share to a thorough knowledge +of groups of the human race under conditions which are full of inspiring +novelty and interest. He works more fearlessly, frankly, and faithfully +than the novelist ever worked before; his work, or much of it, may be +destined never to be reprinted from the monthly magazines; but if he +turns to his book-shelf and regards the array of the British or other +classics, he knows that they, too, are for the most part dead; he knows +that the planet itself is destined to freeze up and drop into the sun at +last, with all its surviving literature upon it. The question is merely +one of time. He consoles himself, therefore, if he is wise, and works +on; and we may all take some comfort from the thought that most things +cannot be helped. Especially a movement in literature like that which +the world is now witnessing cannot be helped; and we could no more turn +back and be of the literary fashions of any age before this than we could +turn back and be of its social, economical, or political conditions. + +If I were authorized to address any word directly to our novelists I +should say, Do not trouble yourselves about standards or ideals; but try +to be faithful and natural: remember that there is no greatness, no +beauty, which does not come from truth to your own knowledge of things; +and keep on working, even if your work is not long remembered. + +At least three-fifths of the literature called classic, in all languages, +no more lives than the poems and stories that perish monthly in our +magazines. It is all printed and reprinted, generation after generation, +century after century; but it is not alive; it is as dead as the people +who wrote it and read it, and to whom it meant something, perhaps; with +whom it was a fashion, a caprice, a passing taste. A superstitious piety +preserves it, and pretends that it has aesthetic qualities which can +delight or edify; but nobody really enjoys it, except as a reflection of +the past moods and humors of the race, or a revelation of the author's +character; otherwise it is trash, and often very filthy trash, which the +present trash generally is not. + + + + +XXIII. + +One of the great newspapers the other day invited the prominent American +authors to speak their minds upon a point in the theory and practice of +fiction which had already vexed some of them. It was the question of how +much or how little the American novel ought to deal with certain facts of +life which are not usually talked of before young people, and especially +young ladies. Of course the question was not decided, and I forget just +how far the balance inclined in favor of a larger freedom in the matter. +But it certainly inclined that way; one or two writers of the sex which +is somehow supposed to have purity in its keeping (as if purity were a +thing that did not practically concern the other sex, preoccupied with +serious affairs) gave it a rather vigorous tilt to that side. In view of +this fact it would not be the part of prudence to make an effort to dress +the balance; and indeed I do not know that I was going to make any such +effort. But there are some things to say, around and about the subject, +which I should like to have some one else say, and which I may myself +possibly be safe in suggesting. + +One of the first of these is the fact, generally lost sight of by those +who censure the Anglo-Saxon novel for its prudishness, that it is really +not such a prude after all; and that if it is sometimes apparently +anxious to avoid those experiences of life not spoken of before young +people, this may be an appearance only. Sometimes a novel which has this +shuffling air, this effect of truckling to propriety, might defend +itself, if it could speak for itself, by saying that such experiences +happened not to come within its scheme, and that, so far from maiming or +mutilating itself in ignoring them, it was all the more faithfully +representative of the tone of modern life in dealing with love that was +chaste, and with passion so honest that it could be openly spoken of +before the tenderest society bud at dinner. It might say that the guilty +intrigue, the betrayal, the extreme flirtation even, was the exceptional +thing in life, and unless the scheme of the story necessarily involved +it, that it would be bad art to lug it in, and as bad taste as to +introduce such topics in a mixed company. It could say very justly that +the novel in our civilization now always addresses a mixed company, and +that the vast majority of the company are ladies, and that very many, if +not most, of these ladies are young girls. If the novel were written for +men and for married women alone, as in continental Europe, it might be +altogether different. But the simple fact is that it is not written for +them alone among us, and it is a question of writing, under cover of our +universal acceptance, things for young girls to read which you would be +put out-of-doors for saying to them, or of frankly giving notice of your +intention, and so cutting yourself off from the pleasure--and it is a +very high and sweet one of appealing to these vivid, responsive +intelligences, which are none the less brilliant and admirable because +they are innocent. + +One day a novelist who liked, after the manner of other men, to repine at +his hard fate, complained to his friend, a critic, that he was tired of +the restriction he had put upon himself in this regard; for it is a +mistake, as can be readily shown, to suppose that others impose it. "See +how free those French fellows are!" he rebelled. "Shall we always be +shut up to our tradition of decency?" + +"Do you think it's much worse than being shut up to their tradition of +indecency?" said his friend. + +Then that novelist began to reflect, and he remembered how sick the +invariable motive of the French novel made him. He perceived finally +that, convention for convention, ours was not only more tolerable, but on +the whole was truer to life, not only to its complexion, but also to its +texture. No one will pretend that there is not vicious love beneath the +surface of our society; if he did, the fetid explosions of the divorce +trials would refute him; but if he pretended that it was in any just +sense characteristic of our society, he could be still more easily +refuted. Yet it exists, and it is unquestionably the material of +tragedy, the stuff from which intense effects are wrought. The question, +after owning this fact, is whether these intense effects are not rather +cheap effects. I incline to think they are, and I will try to say why I +think so, if I may do so without offence. The material itself, the mere +mention of it, has an instant fascination; it arrests, it detains, till +the last word is said, and while there is anything to be hinted. This is +what makes a love intrigue of some sort all but essential to the +popularity of any fiction. Without such an intrigue the intellectual +equipment of the author must be of the highest, and then he will succeed +only with the highest class of readers. But any author who will deal +with a guilty love intrigue holds all readers in his hand, the highest +with the lowest, as long as he hints the slightest hope of the smallest +potential naughtiness. He need not at all be a great author; he may be a +very shabby wretch, if he has but the courage or the trick of that sort +of thing. The critics will call him "virile" and "passionate"; decent +people will be ashamed to have been limed by him; but the low average +will only ask another chance of flocking into his net. If he happens to +be an able writer, his really fine and costly work will be unheeded, and +the lure to the appetite will be chiefly remembered. There may be other +qualities which make reputations for other men, but in his case they will +count for nothing. He pays this penalty for his success in that kind; +and every one pays some such penalty who deals with some such material. + +But I do not mean to imply that his case covers the whole ground. So far +as it goes, though, it ought to stop the mouths of those who complain +that fiction is enslaved to propriety among us. It appears that of a +certain kind of impropriety it is free to give us all it will, and more. +But this is not what serious men and women writing fiction mean when they +rebel against the limitations of their art in our civilization. They +have no desire to deal with nakedness, as painters and sculptors freely +do in the worship of beauty; or with certain facts of life, as the stage +does, in the service of sensation. But they ask why, when the +conventions of the plastic and histrionic arts liberate their followers +to the portrayal of almost any phase of the physical or of the emotional +nature, an American novelist may not write a story on the lines of 'Anna +Karenina' or 'Madame Bovary.' They wish to touch one of the most serious +and sorrowful problems of life in the spirit of Tolstoy and Flaubert, and +they ask why they may not. At one time, they remind us, the Anglo-Saxon +novelist did deal with such problems--De Foe in his spirit, Richardson in +his, Goldsmith in his. At what moment did our fiction lose this +privilege? In what fatal hour did the Young Girl arise and seal the lips +of Fiction, with a touch of her finger, to some of the most vital +interests of life? + +Whether I wished to oppose them in their aspiration for greater freedom, +or whether I wished to encourage them, I should begin to answer them by +saying that the Young Girl has never done anything of the kind. The +manners of the novel have been improving with those of its readers; that +is all. Gentlemen no longer swear or fall drunk under the table, or +abduct young ladies and shut them up in lonely country-houses, or so +habitually set about the ruin of their neighbors' wives, as they once +did. Generally, people now call a spade an agricultural implement; they +have not grown decent without having also grown a little squeamish, but +they have grown comparatively decent; there is no doubt about that. They +require of a novelist whom they respect unquestionable proof of his +seriousness, if he proposes to deal with certain phases of life; they +require a sort of scientific decorum. He can no longer expect to be +received on the ground of entertainment only; he assumes a higher +function, something like that of a physician or a priest, and they expect +him to be bound by laws as sacred as those of such professions; they hold +him solemnly pledged not to betray them or abuse their confidence. If he +will accept the conditions, they give him their confidence, and he may +then treat to his greater honor, and not at all to his disadvantage, of +such experiences, such relations of men and women as George Eliot treats +in 'Adam Bede,' in 'Daniel Deronda,' in 'Romola,' in almost all her +books; such as Hawthorne treats in 'The Scarlet Letter;' such as Dickens +treats in 'David Copperfield;' such as Thackeray treats in 'Pendennis,' +and glances at in every one of his fictions; such as most of the masters +of English fiction have at same time treated more or less openly. It is +quite false or quite mistaken to suppose that our novels have left +untouched these most important realities of life. They have only not +made them their stock in trade; they have kept a true perspective in +regard to them; they have relegated them in their pictures of life to the +space and place they occupy in life itself, as we know it in England and +America. They have kept a correct proportion, knowing perfectly well +that unless the novel is to be a map, with everything scrupulously laid +down in it, a faithful record of life in far the greater extent could be +made to the exclusion of guilty love and all its circumstances and +consequences. + +I justify them in this view not only because I hate what is cheap and +meretricious, and hold in peculiar loathing the cant of the critics who +require "passion" as something in itself admirable and desirable in a +novel, but because I prize fidelity in the historian of feeling and +character. Most of these critics who demand "passion" would seem to have +no conception of any passion but one. Yet there are several other +passions: the passion of grief, the passion of avarice, the passion of +pity, the passion of ambition, the passion of hate, the passion of envy, +the passion of devotion, the passion of friendship; and all these have a +greater part in the drama of life than the passion of love, and +infinitely greater than the passion of guilty love. Wittingly or +unwittingly, English fiction and American fiction have recognized this +truth, not fully, not in the measure it merits, but in greater degree +than most other fiction. + + + + +XXIV. + +Who can deny that fiction would be incomparably stronger, incomparably +truer, if once it could tear off the habit which enslaves it to the +celebration chiefly of a single passion, in one phase or another, and +could frankly dedicate itself to the service of all the passions, all the +interests, all the facts? Every novelist who has thought about his art +knows that it would, and I think that upon reflection he must doubt +whether his sphere would be greatly enlarged if he were allowed to treat +freely the darker aspects of the favorite passion. But, as I have shown, +the privilege, the right to do this, is already perfectly recognized. +This is proved again by the fact that serious criticism recognizes as +master-works (I will not push the question of supremacy) the two great +novels which above all others have, moved the world by their study of +guilty love. If by any chance, if by some prodigious miracle, any +American should now arise to treat it on the level of 'Anna Karenina' and +'Madame Bovary,' he would be absolutely sure of success, and of fame and +gratitude as great as those books have won for their authors. + +But what editor of what American magazine would print such a story? + +Certainly I do not think any one would; and here our novelist must again +submit to conditions. If he wishes to publish such a story (supposing +him to have once written it), he must publish it as a book. A book is +something by itself, responsible for its character, which becomes quickly +known, and it does not necessarily penetrate to every member of the +household. The father or the mother may say to the child, "I would +rather you wouldn't read that book"; if the child cannot be trusted, the +book may be locked up. But with the magazine and its serial the affair +is different. Between the editor of a reputable English or American +magazine and the families which receive it there is a tacit agreement +that he will print nothing which a father may not read to his daughter, +or safely leave her to read herself. + +After all, it is a matter of business; and the insurgent novelist should +consider the situation with coolness and common-sense. The editor did +not create the situation; but it exists, and he could not even attempt to +change it without many sorts of disaster. He respects it, therefore, +with the good faith of an honest man. Even when he is himself a +novelist, with ardor for his art and impatience of the limitations put +upon it, he interposes his veto, as Thackeray did in the case of Trollope +when a contributor approaches forbidden ground. + +It does not avail to say that the daily papers teem with facts far fouler +and deadlier than any which fiction could imagine. That is true, but it +is true also that the sex which reads the most novels reads the fewest +newspapers; and, besides, the reporter does not command the novelist's +skill to fix impressions in a young girl's mind or to suggest conjecture. +The magazine is a little despotic, a little arbitrary; but unquestionably +its favor is essential to success, and its conditions are not such narrow +ones. You cannot deal with Tolstoy's and Flaubert's subjects in the +absolute artistic freedom of Tolstoy and Flaubert; since De Foe, that is +unknown among us; but if you deal with them in the manner of George +Eliot, of Thackeray, of Dickens, of society, you may deal with them even +in the magazines. There is no other restriction upon you. All the +horrors and miseries and tortures are open to you; your pages may drop +blood; sometimes it may happen that the editor will even exact such +strong material from you. But probably he will require nothing but the +observance of the convention in question; and if you do not yourself +prefer bloodshed he will leave you free to use all sweet and peaceable +means of interesting his readers. + +It is no narrow field he throws open to you, with that little sign to +keep off the grass up at one point only. Its vastness is still almost +unexplored, and whole regions in it are unknown to the fictionist. Dig +anywhere, and do but dig deep enough, and you strike riches; or, if you +are of the mind to range, the gentler climes, the softer temperatures, +the serener skies, are all free to you, and are so little visited that +the chance of novelty is greater among them. + + + + +XXV. + +While the Americans have greatly excelled in the short story generally, +they have almost created a species of it in the Thanksgiving story. +We have transplanted the Christmas story from England, while the +Thanksgiving story is native to our air; but both are of Anglo-Saxon +growth. Their difference is from a difference of environment; and the +Christmas story when naturalized among us becomes almost identical in +motive, incident, and treatment with the Thanksgiving story. If I were +to generalize a distinction between them, I should say that the one dealt +more with marvels and the other more with morals; and yet the critic +should beware of speaking too confidently on this point. It is certain, +however, that the Christmas season is meteorologically more favorable to +the effective return of persons long supposed lost at sea, or from a +prodigal life, or from a darkened mind. The longer, darker, and colder +nights are better adapted to the apparition of ghosts, and to all manner +of signs and portents; while they seem to present a wider field for the +intervention of angels in behalf of orphans and outcasts. The dreams of +elderly sleepers at this time are apt to be such as will effect a lasting +change in them when they awake, turning them from the hard, cruel, and +grasping habits of a lifetime, and reconciling them to their sons, +daughters, and nephews, who have thwarted them in marriage; or softening +them to their meek, uncomplaining wives, whose hearts they have trampled +upon in their reckless pursuit of wealth; and generally disposing them to +a distribution of hampers among the sick and poor, and to a friendly +reception of gentlemen with charity subscription papers. + +Ships readily drive upon rocks in the early twilight, and offer exciting +difficulties of salvage; and the heavy snows gather quickly round the +steps of wanderers who lie down to die in them, preparatory to their +discovery and rescue by immediate relatives. The midnight weather is +also very suitable for encounter with murderers and burglars; and the +contrast of its freezing gloom with the light and cheer in-doors promotes +the gayeties which merge, at all well-regulated country-houses, in love +and marriage. In the region of pure character no moment could be so +available for flinging off the mask of frivolity, or imbecility, or +savagery, which one has worn for ten or twenty long years, say, for the +purpose of foiling some villain, and surprising the reader, and helping +the author out with his plot. Persons abroad in the Alps, or Apennines, +or Pyrenees, or anywhere seeking shelter in the huts of shepherds or the +dens of smugglers, find no time like it for lying in a feigned slumber, +and listening to the whispered machinations of their suspicious looking +entertainers, and then suddenly starting up and fighting their way out; +or else springing from the real sleep into which they have sunk +exhausted, and finding it broad day and the good peasants whom they had +so unjustly doubted, waiting breakfast for them. + +We need not point out the superior advantages of the Christmas season for +anything one has a mind to do with the French Revolution, of the Arctic +explorations, or the Indian Mutiny, or the horrors of Siberian exile; +there is no time so good for the use of this material; and ghosts on +shipboard are notoriously fond of Christmas Eve. In our own logging +camps the man who has gone into the woods for the winter, after +quarrelling with his wife, then hears her sad appealing voice, and is +moved to good resolutions as at no other period of the year; and in the +mining regions, first in California and later in Colorado, the hardened +reprobate, dying in his boots, smells his mother's doughnuts, and +breathes his last in a soliloquized vision of the old home, and the +little brother, or sister, or the old father coming to meet him from +heaven; while his rude companions listen round him, and dry their eyes on +the butts of their revolvers. + +It has to be very grim, all that, to be truly effective; and here, +already, we have a touch in the Americanized Christmas story of the +moralistic quality of the American Thanksgiving story. This was seldom +written, at first, for the mere entertainment of the reader; it was meant +to entertain him, of course; but it was meant to edify him, too, and to +improve him; and some such intention is still present in it. I rather +think that it deals more probably with character to this end than its +English cousin, the Christmas story, does. It is not so improbable that +a man should leave off being a drunkard on Thanksgiving, as that he +should leave off being a curmudgeon on Christmas; that he should conquer +his appetite as that he should instantly change his nature, by good +resolutions. He would be very likely, indeed, to break his resolutions +in either case, but not so likely in the one as in the other. + +Generically, the Thanksgiving story is cheerfuller in its drama and +simpler in its persons than the Christmas story. Rarely has it dealt +with the supernatural, either the apparition of ghosts or the +intervention of angels. The weather being so much milder at the close of +November than it is a month later, very little can be done with the +elements; though on the coast a northeasterly storm has been, and can be, +very usefully employed. The Thanksgiving story is more restricted in its +range; the scene is still mostly in New England, and the characters are +of New England extraction, who come home from the West usually, or New +York, for the event of the little drama, whatever it may be. It may be +the reconciliation of kinsfolk who have quarrelled; or the union of +lovers long estranged; or husbands and wives who have had hard words and +parted; or mothers who had thought their sons dead in California and find +themselves agreeably disappointed in their return; or fathers who for old +time's sake receive back their erring and conveniently dying daughters. +The notes are not many which this simple music sounds, but they have a +Sabbath tone, mostly, and win the listener to kindlier thoughts and +better moods. The art is at its highest in some strong sketch of Rose +Terry Cooke's, or some perfectly satisfying study of Miss Jewett's, or +some graphic situation of Miss Wilkins's; and then it is a very fine art. +But mostly it is poor and rude enough, and makes openly, shamelessly, for +the reader's emotions, as well as his morals. It is inclined to be +rather descriptive. The turkey, the pumpkin, the corn-field, figure +throughout; and the leafless woods are blue and cold against the evening +sky behind the low hip-roofed, old-fashioned homestead. The parlance is +usually the Yankee dialect and its Western modifications. + +The Thanksgiving story is mostly confined in scene to the country; it +does not seem possible to do much with it in town; and it is a serious +question whether with its geographical and topical limitations it can +hold its own against the Christmas story; and whether it would not be +well for authors to consider a combination with its elder rival. + +The two feasts are so near together in point of time that they could be +easily covered by the sentiment of even a brief narrative. Under the +agglutinated style of 'A Thanksgiving-Christmas Story,' fiction +appropriate to both could be produced, and both could be employed +naturally and probably in the transaction of its affairs and the +development of its characters. The plot for such a story could easily be +made to include a total-abstinence pledge and family reunion at +Thanksgiving, and an apparition and spiritual regeneration over a bowl of +punch at Christmas. + + + + +XXVI. + +It would be interesting to know the far beginnings of holiday literature, +and I commend the quest to the scientific spirit which now specializes +research in every branch of history. In the mean time, without being too +confident of the facts, I venture to suggest that it came in with the +romantic movement about the beginning of this century, when mountains +ceased to be horrid and became picturesque; when ruins of all sorts, but +particularly abbeys and castles, became habitable to the most delicate +constitutions; when the despised Gothick of Addison dropped its "k," and +arose the chivalrous and religious Gothic of Scott; when ghosts were +redeemed from the contempt into which they had fallen, and resumed their +place in polite society; in fact, the politer the society; the welcomer +the ghosts, and whatever else was out of the common. In that day the +Annual flourished, and this artificial flower was probably the first +literary blossom on the Christmas Tree which has since borne so much +tinsel foliage and painted fruit. But the Annual was extremely Oriental; +it was much preoccupied with, Haidees and Gulnares and Zuleikas, with +Hindas and Nourmahals, owing to the distinction which Byron and Moore had +given such ladies; and when it began to concern itself with the +actualities of British beauty, the daughters of Albion, though inscribed +with the names of real countesses and duchesses, betrayed their descent +from the well-known Eastern odalisques. It was possibly through an +American that holiday literature became distinctively English in +material, and Washington Irving, with his New World love of the past, may +have given the impulse to the literary worship of Christmas which has +since so widely established itself. A festival revived in popular +interest by a New-Yorker to whom Dutch associations with New-year's had +endeared the German ideal of Christmas, and whom the robust gayeties of +the season in old-fashioned country-houses had charmed, would be one of +those roundabout results which destiny likes, and "would at least be +Early English." + +If we cannot claim with all the patriotic confidence we should like to +feel that it was Irving who set Christmas in that light in which Dickens +saw its aesthetic capabilities, it is perhaps because all origins are +obscure. For anything that we positively know to the contrary, the +Druidic rites from which English Christmas borrowed the inviting +mistletoe, if not the decorative holly, may have been accompanied by the +recitations of holiday triads. But it is certain that several plays of +Shakespeare were produced, if not written, for the celebration of the +holidays, and that then the black tide of Puritanism which swept over +men's souls blotted out all such observance of Christmas with the +festival itself. It came in again, by a natural reaction, with the +returning Stuarts, and throughout the period of the Restoration it +enjoyed a perfunctory favor. There is mention of it; often enough in the +eighteenth-century essayists, in the Spectators and Idlers and Tatlers; +but the world about the middle of the last century laments the neglect +into which it had fallen. Irving seems to have been the first to observe +its surviving rites lovingly, and Dickens divined its immense advantage +as a literary occasion. He made it in some sort entirely his for a time, +and there can be no question but it was he who again endeared it to the +whole English-speaking world, and gave it a wider and deeper hold than it +had ever had before upon the fancies and affections of our race. + +The might of that great talent no one can gainsay, though in the light of +the truer work which has since been done his literary principles seem +almost as grotesque as his theories of political economy. In no one +direction was his erring force more felt than in the creation of holiday +literature as we have known it for the last half-century. Creation, of +course, is the wrong word; it says too much; but in default of a better +word, it may stand. He did not make something out of nothing; the +material was there before him; the mood and even the need of his time +contributed immensely to his success, as the volition of the subject +helps on the mesmerist; but it is within bounds to say that he was the +chief agency in the development of holiday literature as we have known +it, as he was the chief agency in universalizing the great Christian +holiday as we now have it. Other agencies wrought with him and after +him; but it was he who rescued Christmas from Puritan distrust, and +humanized it and consecrated it to the hearts and homes of all. + +Very rough magic, as it now seems, he used in working his miracle, but +there is no doubt about his working it. One opens his Christmas stories +in this later day--'The Carol, The Chimes, The Haunted Man, The Cricket +on the Hearth,' and all the rest--and with "a heart high-sorrowful and +cloyed," asks himself for the preternatural virtue that they once had. +The pathos appears false and strained; the humor largely horseplay; the +character theatrical; the joviality pumped; the psychology commonplace; +the sociology alone funny. It is a world of real clothes, earth, air, +water, and the rest; the people often speak the language of life, but +their motives are as disproportioned and improbable, and their passions +and purposes as overcharged, as those of the worst of Balzac's people. +Yet all these monstrosities, as they now appear, seem to have once had +symmetry and verity; they moved the most cultivated intelligences of the +time; they touched true hearts; they made everybody laugh and cry. + +This was perhaps because the imagination, from having been fed mostly +upon gross unrealities, always responds readily to fantastic appeals. +There has been an amusing sort of awe of it, as if it were the channel of +inspired thought, and were somehow sacred. The most preposterous +inventions of its activity have been regarded in their time as the +greatest feats of the human mind, and in its receptive form it has been +nursed into an imbecility to which the truth is repugnant, and the fact +that the beautiful resides nowhere else is inconceivable. It has been +flattered out of all sufferance in its toyings with the mere elements of +character, and its attempts to present these in combinations foreign to +experience are still praised by the poorer sort of critics as +masterpieces of creative work. + +In the day of Dickens's early Christmas stories it was thought admirable +for the author to take types of humanity which everybody knew, and to add +to them from his imagination till they were as strange as beasts and +birds talking. Now we begin to feel that human nature is quite enough, +and that the best an author can do is to show it as it is. But in those +stories of his Dickens said to his readers, Let us make believe so-and- +so; and the result was a joint juggle, a child's-play, in which the +wholesome allegiance to life was lost. Artistically, therefore, the +scheme was false, and artistically, therefore, it must perish. It did +not perish, however, before it had propagated itself in a whole school of +unrealities so ghastly that one can hardly recall without a shudder those +sentimentalities at secondhand to which holiday literature was abandoned +long after the original conjurer had wearied of his performance. + +Under his own eye and of conscious purpose a circle of imitators grew up +in the fabrication of Christmas stories. They obviously formed +themselves upon his sobered ideals; they collaborated with him, and it +was often hard to know whether it was Dickens or Sala or Collins who was +writing. The Christmas book had by that time lost its direct application +to Christmas. It dealt with shipwrecks a good deal, and with perilous +adventures of all kinds, and with unmerited suffering, and with ghosts +and mysteries, because human nature, secure from storm and danger in a +well-lighted room before a cheerful fire, likes to have these things +imaged for it, and its long-puerilized fancy will bear an endless +repetition of them. The wizards who wrought their spells with them +contented themselves with the lasting efficacy of these simple means; +and the apprentice-wizards and journeyman-wizards who have succeeded them +practise the same arts at the old stand; but the ethical intention which +gave dignity to Dickens's Christmas stories of still earlier date has +almost wholly disappeared. It was a quality which could not be worked so +long as the phantoms and hair-breadth escapes. People always knew that +character is not changed by a dream in a series of tableaux; that a ghost +cannot do much towards reforming an inordinately selfish person; that a +life cannot be turned white, like a head of hair, in a single night, by +the most allegorical apparition; that want and sin and shame cannot be +cured by kettles singing on the hob; and gradually they ceased to make +believe that there was virtue in these devices and appliances. Yet the +ethical intention was not fruitless, crude as it now appears. + +It was well once a year, if not oftener, to remind men by parable of the +old, simple truths; to teach them that forgiveness, and charity, and the +endeavor for life better and purer than each has lived, are the +principles upon which alone the world holds together and gets forward. +It was well for the comfortable and the refined to be put in mind of the +savagery and suffering all round them, and to be taught, as Dickens was +always teaching, that certain feelings which grace human nature, as +tenderness for the sick and helpless, self-sacrifice and generosity, +self-respect and manliness and womanliness, are the common heritage of +the race; the direct gift of Heaven, shared equally by the rich and poor. +It did not necessarily detract from the value of the lesson that, with +the imperfect art of the time, he made his paupers and porters not only +human, but superhuman, and too altogether virtuous; and it remained true +that home life may be lovely under the lowliest roof, although he liked +to paint it without a shadow on its beauty there. It is still a fact +that the sick are very often saintly, although he put no peevishness into +their patience with their ills. His ethical intention told for manhood +and fraternity and tolerance, and when this intention disappeared from +the better holiday literature, that literature was sensibly the poorer +for the loss. + + + + +XXVII. + +But if the humanitarian impulse has mostly disappeared from Christmas +fiction, I think it has never so generally characterized all fiction. +One may refuse to recognize this impulse; one may deny that it is in any +greater degree shaping life than ever before, but no one who has the +current of literature under his eye can fail to note it there. People +are thinking and feeling generously, if not living justly, in our time; +it is a day of anxiety to be saved from the curse that is on selfishness, +of eager question how others shall be helped, of bold denial that the +conditions in which we would fain have rested are sacred or immutable. +Especially in America, where the race has gained a height never reached +before, the eminence enables more men than ever before to see how even +here vast masses of men are sunk in misery that must grow every day more +hopeless, or embroiled in a struggle for mere life that must end in +enslaving and imbruting them. + +Art, indeed, is beginning to find out that if it does not make friends +with Need it must perish. It perceives that to take itself from the many +and leave them no joy in their work, and to give itself to the few whom +it can bring no joy in their idleness, is an error that kills. The men +and women who do the hard work of the world have learned that they have a +right to pleasure in their toil, and that when justice is done them they +will have it. In all ages poetry has affirmed something of this sort, +but it remained for ours to perceive it and express it somehow in every +form of literature. But this is only one phase of the devotion of the +best literature of our time to the service of humanity. No book written +with a low or cynical motive could succeed now, no matter how brilliantly +written; and the work done in the past to the glorification of mere +passion and power, to the deification of self, appears monstrous and +hideous. The romantic spirit worshipped genius, worshipped heroism, but +at its best, in such a man as Victor Hugo, this spirit recognized the +supreme claim of the lowest humanity. Its error was to idealize the +victims of society, to paint them impossibly virtuous and beautiful; but +truth, which has succeeded to the highest mission of romance, paints +these victims as they are, and bids the world consider them not because +they are beautiful and virtuous, but because they are ugly and vicious, +cruel, filthy, and only not altogether loathsome because the divine can +never wholly die out of the human. The truth does not find these victims +among the poor alone, among the hungry, the houseless, the ragged; but it +also finds them among the rich, cursed with the aimlessness, the satiety, +the despair of wealth, wasting their lives in a fool's paradise of shows +and semblances, with nothing real but the misery that comes of +insincerity and selfishness. + +I do not think the fiction of our own time even always equal to this +work, or perhaps more than seldom so. But as I once expressed, to the +long-reverberating discontent of two continents, fiction is now a finer +art than it, has been hitherto, and more nearly meets the requirements of +the infallible standard. I have hopes of real usefulness in it, because +it is at last building on the only sure foundation; but I am by no means +certain that it will be the ultimate literary form, or will remain as +important as we believe it is destined to become. On the contrary, it is +quite imaginable that when the great mass of readers, now sunk in the +foolish joys of mere fable, shall be lifted to an interest in the meaning +of things through the faithful portrayal of life in fiction, then fiction +the most faithful may be superseded by a still more faithful form of +contemporaneous history. I willingly leave the precise character of this +form to the more robust imagination of readers whose minds have been +nurtured upon romantic novels, and who really have an imagination worth +speaking of, and confine myself, as usual, to the hither side of the +regions of conjecture. + +The art which in the mean time disdains the office of teacher is one of +the last refuges of the aristocratic spirit which is disappearing from +politics and society, and is now seeking to shelter itself in aesthetics. +The pride of caste is becoming the pride of taste; but as before, it is +averse to the mass of men; it consents to know them only in some +conventionalized and artificial guise. It seeks to withdraw itself, to +stand aloof; to be distinguished, and not to be identified. Democracy in +literature is the reverse of all this. It wishes to know and to tell the +truth, confident that consolation and delight are there; it does not care +to paint the marvellous and impossible for the vulgar many, or to +sentimentalize and falsify the actual for the vulgar few. Men are more +like than unlike one another: let us make them know one another better, +that they may be all humbled and strengthened with a sense of their +fraternity. Neither arts, nor letters, nor sciences, except as they +somehow, clearly or obscurely, tend to make the race better and kinder, +are to be regarded as serious interests; they are all lower than the +rudest crafts that feed and house and clothe, for except they do this +office they are idle; and they cannot do this except from and through the +truth. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A Thanksgiving-Christmas Story +Anthony Trollope +Authorities +Browbeat wholesome common-sense into the self-distrust +Canon Fairfax,'s opinions of literary criticism +Comfort from the thought that most things cannot be helped +Concerning popularity as a test of merit in a book +Critical vanity and self-righteousness +Critics are in no sense the legislators of literature +Dickens rescued Christmas from Puritan distrust +Effectism +Fact that it is hash many times warmed over reassures them +Forbear the excesses of analysis +Glance of the common eye, is and always was the best light +Greatest classics are sometimes not at all great +Holiday literature +Imitators of one another than of nature +Jane Austen +Languages, while they live, are perpetually changing +Let fiction cease to lie about life +Long-puerilized fancy will bear an endless repetition +Made them talk as seldom man and never woman talked +Michelangelo's "light of the piazza," +No greatness, no beauty, which does not come from truth +Novels hurt because they are not true +Plain industry and plodding perseverance are despised +Pseudo-realists +Public wish to be amused rather than edified +Teach what they do not know +Tediously analytical +To break new ground +Unless we prefer a luxury of grief +Vulgarity: bad art to lug it in +What makes a better fashion change for a worse +Whatever is established is sacred with those who do not think + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Criticism and Fiction +by William Dean Howells + + + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE FILE: + +Absence of distinction +Advertising +Aim at nothing higher than the amusement of your readers +Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns +An artistic atmosphere does not create artists +Anise-seed bag +Any man's country could get on without him +Any sort of work that is slighted becomes drudgery +Artist has seasons, as trees, when he cannot blossom +As soon as she has got a thing she wants, begins to hate it +Begun to fight with want from their cradles +Blasts of frigid wind swept the streets +Book that they are content to know at second hand +Business to take advantage of his necessity +Clemens is said to have said of bicycling +Competition has deformed human nature +Conditions of hucksters imposed upon poets +Could not, as the saying is, find a stone to throw at a dog +Disbeliever in punishments of all sorts +Do not want to know about such squalid lives +Early self-helpfulness of children is very remarkable +Encounter of old friends after the lapse of years +Even a day's rest is more than most people can bear +Eyes fixed steadfastly upon the future +Face that expresses care, even to the point of anxiety +Fate of a book is in the hands of the women +For most people choice is a curse +General worsening of things, familiar after middle life +God of chance leads them into temptation and adversity +Happy in the indifference which ignorance breeds in us +Hard to think up anything new +Heart of youth aching for their stoical sorrows +Heighten our suffering by anticipation +Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn +Historian, who is a kind of inferior realist +Houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness +I do not think any man ought to live by an art +If he has not enjoyed writing no one will enjoy reading +If one were poor, one ought to be deserving +Impropriety if not indecency promises literary success +Ladies make up the pomps which they (the men) forego +Lascivious and immodest as possible +Leading part cats may play in society +Leaven, but not for so large a lump +Literary spirit is the true world-citizen +Literature beautiful only through the intelligence +Literature has no objective value +Literature is Business as well as Art +Look of challenge, of interrogation, almost of reproof +Malevolent agitators +Man is strange to himself as long as he lives +Mark Twain +Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation +Men read the newspapers, but our women read the books +More zeal than knowledge in it +Most journalists would have been literary men if they could +Neatness that brings despair +Never quite sure of life unless I find literature in it +No man ought to live by any art +No rose blooms right along +Noble uselessness +Not lack of quality but quantity of the quality +Openly depraved by shows of wealth +Our deeply incorporated civilization +Our huckstering civilization +People have never had ideals, but only moods and fashions +People might oftener trust themselves to Providence +People of wealth and fashion always dissemble their joy +Picturesqueness which we should prize if we saw it abroad +Plagiarism carries inevitable detection with it +Public whose taste is so crude that they cannot enjoy the best +Pure accident and by its own contributory negligence +Put aside all anxiety about style +Refused to see us as we see ourselves +Results of art should be free to all +Reviewers +Reward is in the serial and not in the book--19th Century +Rogues in every walk of life +Should be very sorry to do good, as people called it +Should sin a little more on the side of candid severity +So many millionaires and so many tramps +So touching that it brought the lump into my own throat +Solution of the problem how and where to spend the summer +Some of it's good, and most of it isn't +Some of us may be toys and playthings without reproach +Summer folks have no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone +Superiority one likes to feel towards the rich and great +Take our pleasures ungraciously +The old and ugly are fastidious as to the looks of others +Their consciences needed no bossing in the performance +There is small love of pure literature +They are so many and I am so few +Those who decide their fate are always rebelling against it +Those who work too much and those who rest too much +Trouble with success is that it is apt to leave life behind +Two branches of the novelist's trade: Novelist and Historian +Unfailing American kindness +Visitors of the more inquisitive sex +Wald with the lurch and the sway of the deck in it +Warner's Backlog Studies +We cannot all be hard-working donkeys +We who have neither youth nor beauty should always expect it +Whatever choice you make, you are pretty sure to regret it +Work not truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money +Work would be twice as good if it were done twice + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Literature and Life, Entire +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/whlal11.zip b/old/whlal11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..93583e9 --- 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