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diff --git a/3389-h/3389-h.htm b/3389-h/3389-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..83b82a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/3389-h/3389-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,19805 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Literature and Life, by William Dean Howells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literature and Life, by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Literature and Life + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Release Date: October 28, 2006 [EBook #3389] +Last Updated: August 21, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERATURE AND LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + LITERATURE AND LIFE + </h1> + <h2> + by William Dean Howells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#linkbiog"> BIOGRAPHICAL </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE MAN OF LETTERS AS A MAN OF BUSINESS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> + VIII </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0011"> X. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI. + </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> CONFESSIONS OF A SUMMER COLONIST </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0017"> IV </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE EDITOR’S RELATIONS WITH THE YOUNG + CONTRIBUTOR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0022"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> VI. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> LAST DAYS IN A DUTCH HOTEL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> III </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0029"> IV </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> VI. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0032"> VII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> + VIII. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> SOME ANOMALIES OF THE SHORT STORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0038"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> VI. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> SPANISH PRISONERS OF WAR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0045"> IV. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> AMERICAN LITERARY CENTRES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0050"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> V. + </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> THE STANDARD HOUSEHOLD-EFFECT COMPANY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> + II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> STACCATO NOTES OF A VANISHED SUMMER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0058"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0059"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0060"> V. + </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0061"> <b><big>SHORT STORIES AND ESSAYS</big></b> + </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0063"> WORRIES OF A WINTER WALK </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0064"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0065"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0066"> III. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0067"> SUMMER ISLES OF EDEN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0068"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0069"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0070"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0071"> IV. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0072"> WILD FLOWERS OF THE ASPHALT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0073"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0074"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0075"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0076"> IV </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0077"> A CIRCUS IN THE SUBURBS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0078"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0079"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0080"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0081"> IV. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0082"> A SHE HAMLET </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0083"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0084"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0085"> III. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0086"> THE MIDNIGHT PLATOON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0087"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0088"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0089"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0090"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0091"> V. + </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0092"> THE BEACH AT ROCKAWAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0093"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0094"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0095"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0096"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0097"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0098"> VI. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0099"> SAWDUST IN THE ARENA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0100"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0101"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0102"> III. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0103"> AT A DIME MUSEUM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0104"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0105"> + II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0106"> AMERICAN LITERATURE IN EXILE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0107"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0108"> + II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0109"> THE HORSE SHOW </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0110"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0111"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0112"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0113"> IV. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0114"> THE PROBLEM OF THE SUMMER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0115"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0116"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0117"> III. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0118"> AESTHETIC NEW YORK FIFTY-ODD YEARS AGO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0119"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0120"> + II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0121"> FROM NEW YORK INTO NEW ENGLAND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0122"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0123"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0124"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0125"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0126"> V. + </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0127"> THE ART OF THE ADSMITH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0128"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0129"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0130"> III. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0131"> THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PLAGIARISM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0132"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0133"> + II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0134"> PURITANISM IN AMERICAN FICTION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0135"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0136"> + II. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0137"> THE WHAT AND THE HOW IN ART </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0138"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0139"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0140"> III. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0141"> POLITICS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0142"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0143"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0144"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0145"> IV. </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0146"> STORAGE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0147"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0148"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0149"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0150"> IV </a> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0151"> “FLOATING DOWN THE RIVER ON THE O-HI-O” </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0152"> I. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0153"> + II. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0154"> III. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0155"> IV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0156"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0157"> VI. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0158"> <b><big>MY LITERARY PASSIONS</big></b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0159"> BIBLIOGRAPHICAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0160"> I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0161"> II. GOLDSMITH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0162"> III. CERVANTES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0163"> IV. IRVING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0164"> V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0165"> VI. LONGFELLOW’S “SPANISH STUDENT” </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0166"> VII. SCOTT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0167"> VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0168"> IX. POPE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0169"> X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0170"> XI. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0171"> XII. OSSIAN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0172"> XIII. SHAKESPEARE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0173"> XIV. IK MARVEL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0174"> XV. DICKENS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0175"> XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0176"> XVII. MACAULAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0177"> XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0178"> XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0179"> XX. THACKERAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0180"> XXI. “LAZARILLO DE TORMES” </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0181"> XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0182"> XXIII. TENNYSON </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0183"> XXIV. HEINE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0184"> XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0185"> XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0186"> XXVII. CHARLES READE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0187"> XXVIII. DANTE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0188"> XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D’AZEGLIO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0189"> XXX. “PASTOR FIDO,” “AMINTA,” “ROMOLA,” + “YEAST,” “PAUL FERROLL” </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0190"> XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0191"> XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0192"> XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0193"> XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, + HARDY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0194"> XXXV. TOLSTOY </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0195"> <b><big>CRITICISM AND FICTION</big></b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0196"> I </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0197"> + II </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0198"> III </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0199"> IV </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0200"> V. + </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0201"> VI. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0202"> VII. </a> <br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0203"> VIII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0204"> + IX. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0205"> X. </a> <a + href="#link2H_4_0206"> XI. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0207"> + XII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0208"> XIII. </a> + <a href="#link2H_4_0209"> XIV. </a> <br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0210"> XV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0211"> + XVII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0212"> XVIII. </a> + <a href="#link2H_4_0213"> XIX. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0214"> + XX. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0215"> XXI. </a> <br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0216"> XXII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0217"> + XXIII. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0218"> XXIV. </a> + <a href="#link2H_4_0219"> XXV. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0220"> + XXVI. </a> <a href="#link2H_4_0221"> XXVII. </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0222"> <b><big>PG EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS</big></b> </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <a name="link2H_TOC" id="link2H_TOC"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> +<p> + <a name="linkbiog" id="linkbiog"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “So was it when my life began; + So is it, now I am a man; + So be it when I shall grow old.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.<br /> + W. D. HOWELLS. </> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE MAN OF LETTERS AS A MAN OF BUSINESS + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CONFESSIONS OF A SUMMER COLONIST + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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!” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! oh!” exclaimed another woman in the seat behind, “she’s left her + umbrella!” + </p> + <p> + The conductor promptly threw it out to her. + </p> + <p> + “Why,” demanded the witness, “did that lady wish to get out here?” + </p> + <p> + The conductor hesitated before he jerked the bellpull to go on: Then he + said, “Well, she’ll want her umbrella, anyway.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE EDITOR’S RELATIONS WITH THE YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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, + and 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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 + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “The wildwood flower that simply blows.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LAST DAYS IN A DUTCH HOTEL + </h2> + <h3> + (1897) + </h3> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + At the end of the programme the Queens rose and walked slowly out, while + the orchestra played the other national air. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOME ANOMALIES OF THE SHORT STORY + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SPANISH PRISONERS OF WAR + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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 farmhouses 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “The fact is,” he explained, “you’ve come to the wrong end for + transactions in buttons and tobacco.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AMERICAN LITERARY CENTRES + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE STANDARD HOUSEHOLD-EFFECT COMPANY + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + “Isn’t the eternal-womanly everywhere? What has happened to you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Come! That’s something.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really believe that?” I asked. “And if you do, what of it?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose we should hate that.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “The highest type of philosopher turns a thing over in his mind and lets + some one else study out a remedy.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “‘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.” + </p> + <p> + “Then your famous specific is that our eternal-womanly should go and live + in Paris?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear, not” said my friend. “Nothing so drastic as all that. Merely + the extinction of household property.” + </p> + <p> + “I see what you mean,” I said. “But—what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I see what you mean,” I murmured. “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And she has lived to tell the tale?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not sure that I do. But go on.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come, now!” + </p> + <p> + “I refer you to your Testament. In the end, all household property would + pass into the hands of the state.” + </p> + <p> + “Aren’t you getting worse and worse?” + </p> + <p> + “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 mothball. + We shall suffer, but—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, for not more than a week,” said my friend, with an air of + discomfort in his arrest. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + —“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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I shouldn’t say that.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I am—in a certain degree,” I assented. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And I suppose you would have ancestral portraits supplied along with the + other pictures?” I sneered. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And the perdition of something even more precious than that!” + </p> + <p> + “What can be more precious?” + </p> + <p> + “Individuality.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, I see what you mean,” I said. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + STACCATO NOTES OF A VANISHED SUMMER + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + ragweed, 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0061" id="link2H_4_0061"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LITERATURE AND LIFE—Short Stories and Essays + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_CONT" id="link2H_CONT"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CONTENTS: + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 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” + </pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0063" id="link2H_4_0063"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WORRIES OF A WINTER WALK + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0065" id="link2H_4_0065"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0066" id="link2H_4_0066"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0067" id="link2H_4_0067"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SUMMER ISLES OF EDEN + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0068" id="link2H_4_0068"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0069" id="link2H_4_0069"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0070" id="link2H_4_0070"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0071" id="link2H_4_0071"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0072" id="link2H_4_0072"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WILD FLOWERS OF THE ASPHALT + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0073" id="link2H_4_0073"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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 goldenrod, 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0074" id="link2H_4_0074"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0075" id="link2H_4_0075"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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’. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0076" id="link2H_4_0076"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0077" id="link2H_4_0077"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A CIRCUS IN THE SUBURBS + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0078" id="link2H_4_0078"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0079" id="link2H_4_0079"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0080" id="link2H_4_0080"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0081" id="link2H_4_0081"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0082" id="link2H_4_0082"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A SHE HAMLET + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0083" id="link2H_4_0083"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0084" id="link2H_4_0084"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “What is the reason that you use me thus? + I loved you ever; but it is no matter.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0085" id="link2H_4_0085"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0086" id="link2H_4_0086"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE MIDNIGHT PLATOON + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0087" id="link2H_4_0087"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0088" id="link2H_4_0088"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0089" id="link2H_4_0089"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0090" id="link2H_4_0090"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0091" id="link2H_4_0091"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” he answered. “It seems to be the only way out.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it’s an easy way,” I admitted, “and it’s an idea that ought to + gratify the midnight platoon.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0092" id="link2H_4_0092"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BEACH AT ROCKAWAY + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0093" id="link2H_4_0093"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —“many an hour whiled away + Listening to the breakers’ roar + That washed the beach at Rockaway.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0094" id="link2H_4_0094"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0095" id="link2H_4_0095"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0096" id="link2H_4_0096"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0097" id="link2H_4_0097"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “I don’t like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Why,” I asked, “do you see any harm in it?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But I don’t like the looks of it. It ain’t nice. It’s queer.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0098" id="link2H_4_0098"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0099" id="link2H_4_0099"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SAWDUST IN THE ARENA + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0100" id="link2H_4_0100"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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’. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0101" id="link2H_4_0101"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + She called down, in English that sounded like some delocalized, + denaturalized speech, it was so strange then and there, “Is it all right?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0102" id="link2H_4_0102"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0103" id="link2H_4_0103"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AT A DIME MUSEUM + </h2> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0104" id="link2H_4_0104"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Ten cents, for instance?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What do you say to the ten-cent magazines?” my friend retorted. “And do + you pretend that the two-dollar drama is intellectual?” + </p> + <p> + I had to confess that it generally was not, and that this was part of my + grief with it. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “And do you think you had a profitable hour at that show?” I asked, with a + smile that was meant to be sceptical. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t think you’re making yourself rather offensive?” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0105" id="link2H_4_0105"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + “No, don’t fancy that!” I entreated. “One play is bad enough.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you think you are going from bad to worse?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + I said that I did not think this too much for twelve hours, if the + intellectual character of the entertainment was correspondingly high. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + My friend stopped, with a vague smile, and I asked: + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0106" id="link2H_4_0106"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AMERICAN LITERATURE IN EXILE + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0107" id="link2H_4_0107"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0108" id="link2H_4_0108"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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 folklore 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0109" id="link2H_4_0109"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE HORSE SHOW + </h2> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0110" id="link2H_4_0110"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0111" id="link2H_4_0111"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0112" id="link2H_4_0112"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0113" id="link2H_4_0113"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0114" id="link2H_4_0114"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PROBLEM OF THE SUMMER + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0115" id="link2H_4_0115"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0116" id="link2H_4_0116"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “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,” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0117" id="link2H_4_0117"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0118" id="link2H_4_0118"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AESTHETIC NEW YORK FIFTY-ODD YEARS AGO + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0119" id="link2H_4_0119"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0120" id="link2H_4_0120"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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”? + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0121" id="link2H_4_0121"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FROM NEW YORK INTO NEW ENGLAND + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0122" id="link2H_4_0122"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0123" id="link2H_4_0123"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0124" id="link2H_4_0124"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0125" id="link2H_4_0125"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0126" id="link2H_4_0126"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” I summarized, “it must be a great advantage to all the people + along the line.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you wouldn’t ‘a’ thought so, from the kick they made.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose the cottagers”—the summer colony—“didn’t like the + noise.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0127" id="link2H_4_0127"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ART OF THE ADSMITH + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0128" id="link2H_4_0128"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I expected some such objection from you,” said my friend. “You will admit + that there is everything else here?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Something like that. But you understand.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “The most important of all!” I cried, impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Still I should be interested in book—advertising, because it is the + most vital of human interests.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me,” said my friend, “do you read the advertisements of the books of + rival authors?” + </p> + <p> + “Brother authors,” I corrected him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, brother authors.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0129" id="link2H_4_0129"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + My friend did not pursue his inquiry to my personal disadvantage, but + seemed to prefer a more general philosophy of the matter. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you don’t believe that the offer to meet your want suggested it?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I know. But does it ever move you to get what you don’t want?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “This author calls him the adsmith.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps it is a branch of fiction.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “It is best in a wof, too. I am always saying that.” + </p> + <p> + “Wof?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, work of fiction. It’s another new word, like lunch or ad.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I should think your author might have written a recent article in ‘The————-, + reproaching fiction with its unhallowed gains.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said my friend, “he attacks foolish and ineffective display.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say he will when he knows what you think,” said my friend, with + imaginable sarcasm. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0130" id="link2H_4_0130"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I see a great opportunity for the wofsmith in some such dream,” said my + friend. “Why don’t you turn it to account?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I see what you mean,” said my friend; and he sighed gently. “I had much + better let you write about spring.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0131" id="link2H_4_0131"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PLAGIARISM + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0132" id="link2H_4_0132"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0133" id="link2H_4_0133"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0134" id="link2H_4_0134"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PURITANISM IN AMERICAN FICTION + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0135" id="link2H_4_0135"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 midday, 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0136" id="link2H_4_0136"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0137" id="link2H_4_0137"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WHAT AND THE HOW IN ART + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0138" id="link2H_4_0138"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0139" id="link2H_4_0139"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0140" id="link2H_4_0140"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0141" id="link2H_4_0141"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + POLITICS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0142" id="link2H_4_0142"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0143" id="link2H_4_0143"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0144" id="link2H_4_0144"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0145" id="link2H_4_0145"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0146" id="link2H_4_0146"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + STORAGE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0147" id="link2H_4_0147"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Portions and parcels of the dreadful past” + </pre> + <p> + have been known to wish for an earthquake, even, that would involve their + belongings in an indiscriminate ruin. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0148" id="link2H_4_0148"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0149" id="link2H_4_0149"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0150" id="link2H_4_0150"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0151" id="link2H_4_0151"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + “FLOATING DOWN THE RIVER ON THE O-HI-O” + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0152" id="link2H_4_0152"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0153" id="link2H_4_0153"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0154" id="link2H_4_0154"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Why should we only toil, that are the roof and crown of things.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0155" id="link2H_4_0155"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0156" id="link2H_4_0156"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0157" id="link2H_4_0157"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0158" id="link2H_4_0158"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MY LITERARY PASSIONS + </h2> + <h3> + By William Dean Howells + </h3> + <h4> + 1895 + </h4> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 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 +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0159" id="link2H_4_0159"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0160" id="link2H_4_0160"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. THE BOOKCASE AT HOME + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + His own choice was for poetry, and the most of our library, which was not + given to theology, was given to poetry. I call it the library now, but + then we called it the bookcase, and that was what literally it was, + because I believe that whatever we had called our modest collection of + books, it was a larger private collection than any other in the town where + we lived. Still it was all held, and shut with glass doors, in a case of + very few shelves. It was not considerably enlarged during my childhood, + for few books came to my father as editor, and he indulged himself in + buying them even more rarely. My grandfather’s book store (it was also the + village drug-store) had then the only stock of literature for sale in the + place; and once, when Harper & Brothers’ agent came to replenish it, + he gave my father several volumes for review. One of these was a copy of + Thomson’s Seasons, a finely illustrated edition, whose pictures I knew + long before I knew the poetry, and thought them the most beautiful things + that ever were. My father read passages of the book aloud, and he wanted + me to read it all myself. For the matter of that he wanted me to read + Cowper, from whom no one could get anything but good, and he wanted me to + read Byron, from whom I could then have got no harm; we get harm from the + evil we understand. He loved Burns, too, and he used to read aloud from + him, I must own, to my inexpressible weariness. I could not away with that + dialect, and I could not then feel the charm of the poet’s wit, nor the + tender beauty of his pathos. Moore, I could manage better; and when my + father read “Lalla Rookh” to my mother I sat up to listen, and entered + into all the woes of Iran in the story of the “Fire Worshippers.” I drew + the line at the “Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,” though I had some sense of + the humor of the poet’s conception of the critic in “Fadladeen.” But I + liked Scott’s poems far better, and got from Ispahan to Edinburgh with a + glad alacrity of fancy. I followed the “Lady of the Lake” throughout, and + when I first began to contrive verses of my own I found that poem a fit + model in mood and metre. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0161" id="link2H_4_0161"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. GOLDSMITH + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0162" id="link2H_4_0162"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. CERVANTES + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0163" id="link2H_4_0163"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. IRVING + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0164" id="link2H_4_0164"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0165" id="link2H_4_0165"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. LONGFELLOW’S “SPANISH STUDENT” + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0166" id="link2H_4_0166"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. SCOTT + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0167" id="link2H_4_0167"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. LIGHTER FANCIES + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + We children who were used to the free range of woods and fields were + homesick for the country in our narrow city yard, and I associate with + this longing the ‘Farmer’s Boy of Bloomfield,’ which my father got for me. + It was a little book in blue cloth, and there were some mild woodcuts in + it. I read it with a tempered pleasure, and with a vague resentment of its + trespass upon Thomson’s ground in the division of its parts under the + names of the seasons. I do not know why I need have felt this. I was not + yet very fond of Thomson. I really liked Bloomfield better; for one thing, + his poem was written in the heroic decasyllabics which I preferred to any + other verse. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0168" id="link2H_4_0168"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. POPE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0169" id="link2H_4_0169"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. VARIOUS PREFERENCES + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0170" id="link2H_4_0170"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0171" id="link2H_4_0171"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII. OSSIAN + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0172" id="link2H_4_0172"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII. SHAKESPEARE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0173" id="link2H_4_0173"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV. IK MARVEL + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “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.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0174" id="link2H_4_0174"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV. DICKENS + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + He was an invalid and he died long since, ending a life of suffering in + the saddest way. Several years before his death money fell to his family, + and he went with them to an Eastern city, where he tried in vain to make + himself at home. He never ceased to pine for the village he had left, with + its old companionships, its easy usages, its familiar faces; and he + escaped to it again and again, till at last every tie was severed, and he + could come back no more. He was never reconciled to the change, and in a + manner he did really die of the homesickness which deepened an hereditary + taint, and enfeebled him to the disorder that carried him. off. My + memories of Dickens remain mingled with my memories of this quaint and + most original genius, and though I knew Dickens long before I knew his + lover, I can scarcely think of one without thinking of the other. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0175" id="link2H_4_0175"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI. WORDSWORTH, LOWELL, CHAUCER + </h2> + <p> + 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, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Like wax in the fire, + Like snow in the sun.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I am not sure, but I think it was through some volume which I found in his + charge that I first came to know of De Quincey; he was fond of Dr. + Holmes’s poetry; he loved Whittier and Longfellow, each represented in his + slender stock by some distinctive work. There were several stray volumes + of Thackeray’s minor writings, and I still have the ‘Yellowplush Papers’ + in the smooth red cloth (now pretty well tattered) of Appleton’s Popular + Library, which I bought there. But most of the books were in the famous + old brown cloth of Ticknor & Fields, which was a warrant of excellence + in the literature it covered. Besides these there were standard volumes of + poetry, published by Phillips & Sampson, from wornout plates; for a + birthday present my mother got me Wordsworth in this shape, and I am glad + to think that I once read the “Excursion” in it, for I do not think I + could do so now, and I have a feeling that it is very right and fit to + have read the “Excursion.” To be honest, it was very hard reading even + then, and I cannot truthfully pretend that I have ever liked Wordsworth + except in parts, though for the matter of that, I do not suppose that any + one ever did. I tried hard enough to like everything in him, for I had + already learned enough to know that I ought to like him, and that if I did + not, it was a proof of intellectual and moral inferiority in me. My early + idol, Pope, had already been tumbled into the dust by Lowell, whose + lectures on English Poetry had lately been given in Boston, and had met + with my rapturous acceptance in such newspaper report as I had of them. + So, my preoccupations were all in favor of the Lake School, and it was + both in my will and my conscience to like Wordsworth. If I did not do so + it was not my fault, and the fault remains very much what it first was. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0176" id="link2H_4_0176"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII. MACAULAY + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0177" id="link2H_4_0177"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII. CRITICS AND REVIEWS + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0178" id="link2H_4_0178"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX. A NON-LITERARY EPISODE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0179" id="link2H_4_0179"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX. THACKERAY + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0180" id="link2H_4_0180"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI. “LAZARILLO DE TORMES” + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0181" id="link2H_4_0181"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII. CURTIS, LONGFELLOW, SCHLEGEL + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0182" id="link2H_4_0182"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIII. TENNYSON + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I was in the midst of this unequal struggle when I first became acquainted + with the poet who at once possessed himself of what was best worth having + in me. Probably I knew of Tennyson by extracts, and from the English + reviews, but I believe it was from reading one of Curtis’s “Easy Chair” + papers that I was prompted to get the new poem of “Maud,” which I + understood from the “Easy Chair” was then moving polite youth in the East. + It did not seem to me that I could very well live without that poem, and + when I went to Cleveland with the hope that I might have courage to + propose a translation of Lazarillo to a publisher it was with the fixed + purpose of getting “Maud” if it was to be found in any bookstore there. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0183" id="link2H_4_0183"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV. HEINE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0184" id="link2H_4_0184"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXV. DE QUINCEY, GOETHE, LONGFELLOW + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0185" id="link2H_4_0185"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVI. GEORGE ELIOT, HAWTHORNE, GOETHE, HEINE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “The light that never was on sea or land.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0186" id="link2H_4_0186"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVII. CHARLES READE + </h2> + <p> + 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, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “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,” + </pre> + <p> + he hitched his chair about, and started in on his leader for the day. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0187" id="link2H_4_0187"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVIII. DANTE + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0188" id="link2H_4_0188"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIX. GOLDONI, MANZONI, D’AZEGLIO + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0189" id="link2H_4_0189"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXX. “PASTOR FIDO,” “AMINTA,” “ROMOLA,” “YEAST,” “PAUL FERROLL” + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0190" id="link2H_4_0190"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXI. ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, BJORSTJERNE BJORNSON + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0191" id="link2H_4_0191"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXII. TOURGUENIEF, AUERBACH + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0192" id="link2H_4_0192"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIII. CERTAIN PREFERENCES AND EXPERIENCES + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I have a fondness for books of popular science, perhaps because they too + are part of the human story. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0193" id="link2H_4_0193"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIV. VALDES, GALDOS, VERGA, ZOLA, TROLLOPE, HARDY + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + I do not know whether the Spaniards themselves rank Valdes with Galdos or + not, and I have no wish to decide upon their relative merits. They are + both present passions of mine, and I may say of the ‘Dona Perfecta’ of + Galdos that no book, if I except those of the greatest Russians, has given + me a keener and deeper impression; it is infinitely pathetic, and is full + of humor, which, if more caustic than that of Valdes, is not less + delicious. But I like all the books of Galdos that I have read, and though + he seems to have worked more tardily out of his romanticism than Valdes, + since he has worked finally into such realism as that of Leon Roch, his + greatness leaves nothing to be desired. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0194" id="link2H_4_0194"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXV. TOLSTOY + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0195" id="link2H_4_0195"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CRITICISM AND FICTION + </h2> + <h3> + By William Dean Howells + </h3> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0196" id="link2H_4_0196"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0197" id="link2H_4_0197"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0198" id="link2H_4_0198"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0199" id="link2H_4_0199"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0200" id="link2H_4_0200"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. + </h2> + <p> + 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 + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “So dyed double red” + </pre> + <p> + in deed 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0201" id="link2H_4_0201"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0202" id="link2H_4_0202"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0203" id="link2H_4_0203"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0204" id="link2H_4_0204"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0205" id="link2H_4_0205"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0206" id="link2H_4_0206"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0207" id="link2H_4_0207"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0208" id="link2H_4_0208"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII. + </h2> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0209" id="link2H_4_0209"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV. + </h2> + <p> + “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!’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0210" id="link2H_4_0210"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0211" id="link2H_4_0211"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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”? + </p> + <p> + 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; he 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? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0212" id="link2H_4_0212"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII. + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0213" id="link2H_4_0213"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0214" id="link2H_4_0214"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0215" id="link2H_4_0215"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “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.” + </pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0216" id="link2H_4_0216"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0217" id="link2H_4_0217"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it’s much worse than being shut up to their tradition of + indecency?” said his friend. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0218" id="link2H_4_0218"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + But what editor of what American magazine would print such a story? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0219" id="link2H_4_0219"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXV. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0220" id="link2H_4_0220"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVI. + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0221" id="link2H_4_0221"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVII. + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0222" id="link2H_4_0222"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h4> + PG EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: + </h4> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 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 +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s Literature and Life, by William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERATURE AND LIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 3389-h.htm or 3389-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/8/3389/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the 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