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diff --git a/7431.txt b/7431.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd3e86f --- /dev/null +++ b/7431.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5265 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Confessions and Criticisms, by Julian Hawthorne + +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: Confessions and Criticisms + +Author: Julian Hawthorne + +Posting Date: October 8, 2012 [EBook #7431] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: April 29, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS AND CRITICISMS *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, John R. Bilderback +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +CONFESSIONS AND CRITICISMS + +BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER + + I. A PRELIMINARY CONFESSION + II. NOVELS AND AGNOSTICISM + III. AMERICANISM IN FICTION + IV. LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN + V. THE MORAL AIM IN FICTION + VI. THE MAKER OF MANY BOOKS + VII. MR. MALLOCK'S MISSING SCIENCE + VIII. THEODORE WINTHROP'S WRITINGS + IX. EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN + X. MODERN MAGIC + XI. AMERICAN WILD ANIMALS IN ART + + + + +CONFESSIONS AND CRITICISMS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A PRELIMINARY CONFESSION. + + +In 1869, when I was about twenty-three years old, I sent a couple of +sonnets to the revived _Putnam's Magazine_. At that period I had no +intention of becoming a professional writer: I was studying civil +engineering at the Polytechnic School in Dresden, Saxony. Years before, +I had received parental warnings--unnecessary, as I thought--against +writing for a living. During the next two years, however, when I was +acting as hydrographic engineer in the New York Dock Department, I +amused myself by writing a short story, called "Love and Counter-Love," +which was published in _Harper's Weekly_, and for which I was paid +fifty dollars. "If fifty dollars can be so easily earned," I thought, +"why not go on adding to my income in this way from time to time?" I +was aided and abetted in the idea by the late Robert Carter, editor of +_Appletons' Journal_; and the latter periodical and _Harper's Magazine_ +had the burden, and I the benefit, of the result. When, in 1872, I was +abruptly relieved from my duties in the Dock Department, I had the +alternative of either taking my family down to Central America to watch +me dig a canal, or of attempting to live by my pen. I bought twelve +reams of large letter-paper, and began my first work,--"Bressant." I +finished it in three weeks; but prudent counsellors advised me that it +was too immoral to publish, except in French: so I recast it, as the +phrase is, and, in its chastened state, sent it through the post to a +Boston publisher. It was lost on the way, and has not yet been found. I +was rather pleased than otherwise at this catastrophe; for I had in +those days a strange delight in rewriting my productions: it was, +perhaps, a more sensible practice than to print them. Accordingly, I +rewrote and enlarged "Bressant" in Dresden (whither I returned with my +family in 1872); but--immorality aside--I think the first version was +the best of the three. On my way to Germany I passed through London, +and there made the acquaintance of Henry S. King, the publisher, a +charming but imprudent man, for he paid me one hundred pounds for the +English copyright of my novel: and the moderate edition he printed is, +I believe, still unexhausted. The book was received in a kindly manner +by the press; but both in this country and in England some surprise and +indignation were expressed that the son of his father should presume to +be a novelist. This sentiment, whatever its bearing upon me, has +undoubtedly been of service to my critics: it gives them something to +write about. A disquisition upon the mantle of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and +an analysis of the differences and similarities between him and his +successor, generally fill so much of a notice as to enable the reviewer +to dismiss the book itself very briefly. I often used to wish, when, +years afterwards, I was myself a reviewer for the London _Spectator_, +that I could light upon some son of his father who might similarly +lighten my labors. Meanwhile, I was agreeably astonished at what I +chose to consider the success of "Bressant," and set to work to surpass +it in another romance, called (for some reason I have forgotten) +"Idolatry." This unknown book was actually rewritten, in whole or in +part, no less than seven times. _Non sum qualis eram_. For seven or +eight years past I have seldom rewritten one of the many pages which +circumstances have compelled me to inflict upon the world. But the +discipline of "Idolatry" probably taught me how to clothe an idea in +words. + +By the time "Idolatry" was published, the year 1874 had come, and I was +living in London. From my note-books and recollections I compiled a +series of papers on life in Dresden, under the general title of "Saxon +Studies." Alexander Strahan, then editor of the _Contemporary Review_, +printed them in that periodical as fast as I wrote them, and they were +reproduced in certain eclectic magazines in this country,--until I +asserted my American copyright. Their publication in book form was +followed by the collapse of both the English and the American firm +engaging in that enterprise. I draw no deductions from that fact: I +simply state it. The circulation of the "Studies" was naturally small; +but one copy fell into the hands of a Dresden critic, and the manner in +which he wrote of it and its author repaid me for the labor of +composition and satisfied me that I had not done amiss. + +After "Saxon Studies" I began another novel, "Garth," instalments of +which appeared from month to month in _Harper's Magazine_. When it had +run for a year or more, with no signs of abatement, the publishers felt +obliged to intimate that unless I put an end to their misery they +would. Accordingly, I promptly gave Garth his quietus. The truth is, I +was tired of him myself. With all his qualities and virtues, he could +not help being a prig. He found some friends, however, and still shows +signs of vitality. I wrote no other novel for nearly two years, but +contributed some sketches of English life to _Appletons' Journal_, and +produced a couple of novelettes,--"Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds" and +"Archibald Malmaison,"--which, by reason of their light draught, went +rather farther than usual. Other short tales, which I hardly care to +recall, belong to this period. I had already ceased to take pleasure in +writing for its own sake,--partly, no doubt, because I was obliged to +write for the sake of something else. Only those who have no reverence +for literature should venture to meddle with the making of it,--unless, +at all events, they can supply the demands of the butcher and baker +from an independent source. + +In 1879, "Sebastian Strome" was published as a serial in _All the Year +Round_. Charley Dickens, the son of the great novelist, and editor of +the magazine, used to say to me while the story was in progress, "Keep +that red-haired girl up to the mark, and the story will do." I took a +fancy to Mary Dene myself. But I uniformly prefer my heroines to my +heroes; perhaps because I invent the former out of whole cloth, whereas +the latter are often formed of shreds and patches of men I have met. +And I never raised a character to the position of hero without +recognizing in him, before I had done with him, an egregious ass. +Differ as they may in other respects, they are all brethren in that; +and yet I am by no means disposed to take a Carlylese view of my actual +fellow-creatures. + +I did some hard work at this time: I remember once writing for +twenty-six consecutive hours without pausing or rising from my chair; +and when, lately, I re-read the story then produced, it seemed quite as +good as the average of my work in that kind. I hasten to add that it +has never been printed in this country: for that matter, not more than +half my short tales have found an American publisher. "Archibald +Malmaison" was offered seven years ago to all the leading publishers in +New York and Boston, and was promptly refused by all. Since its recent +appearance here, however, it has had a circulation larger perhaps than +that of all my other stories combined. But that is one of the accidents +that neither author nor publisher can foresee. It was the horror of +"Archibald Malmaison," not any literary merit, that gave it vogue,--its +horror, its strangeness, and its brevity. + +On Guy Fawkes's day, 1880, I began "Fortune's Fool,"--or "Luck," as it +was first called,--and wrote the first ten of the twelve numbers in +three months. I used to sit down to my table at eight o'clock in the +evening and write till sunrise. But the two remaining instalments were +not written and published until 1883, and this delay and its +circumstances spoiled the book. In the interval between beginning and +finishing it another long novel--"Dust"--was written and published. I +returned to America in 1882, after an absence in Europe far longer than +I had anticipated or desired. I trust I may never leave my native land +again for any other on this planet. + +"Beatrix Randolph," "Noble Blood," and "Love--or a Name," are the +novels which I have written since my return; and I also published a +biography, "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife." I cannot conscientiously +say that I have found the literary profession--in and for +itself--entirely agreeable. Almost everything that I have written has +been written from necessity; and there is very little of it that I +shall not be glad to see forgotten. The true rewards of literature, for +men of limited calibre, are the incidental ones,--the valuable +friendships and the charming associations which it brings about. For +the sake of these I would willingly endure again many passages of a +life that has not been all roses; not that I would appear to belittle +my own work: it does not need it. But the present generation (in +America at least) does not strike me as containing much literary +genius. The number of undersized persons is large and active, and we +hardly believe in the possibility of heroic stature. I cannot +sufficiently admire the pains we are at to make our work--embodying the +aims it does--immaculate in form. Form without idea is nothing, and we +have no ideas. If one of us were to get an idea, it would create its +own form, as easily as does a flower or a planet. I think we take +ourselves too seriously: our posterity will not be nearly so grave over +us. For my part, I do not write better than I do, because I have no +ideas worth better clothes than they can pick up for themselves. +"Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with your best pains," +is a saying which has injured our literature more than any other single +thing. How many a lumber-closet since the world began has been filled +by the results of this purblind and delusive theory! But this is not +autobiographical,--save that to have written it shows how little +prudence my life has taught me. + + * * * * * + +I remember wondering, in 1871, how anybody could write novels. I had +produced two or three short stories; but to expand such a thing until +it should cover two or three hundred pages seemed an enterprise far +beyond my capacity. Since then, I have accomplished the feat only too +often; but I doubt whether I have a much clearer idea than before of +the way it is done; and I am certain of never having done it twice in +the same way. The manner in which the plant arrives at maturity varies +according to the circumstances in which the seed is planted and +cultivated; and the cultivator, in this instance at least, is content +to adapt his action to whatever conditions happen to exist. + +While, therefore, it might be easy to formulate a cut-and-dried method +of procedure, which should be calculated to produce the best results by +the most efficient means, no such formula would truly represent the +present writer's actual practice. If I ever attempted to map out my +successive steps beforehand, I never adhered to the forecast or reached +the anticipated goal. The characters develop unexpected traits, and +these traits become the parents of incidents that had not been +contemplated. The characters themselves, on the other hand, cannot be +kept to any preconceived characteristics; they are, in their turn, +modified by the exigencies of the plot. + +In two or three cases I have tried to make portraits of real persons +whom I have known; but these persons have always been more lifeless +than the others, and most lifeless in precisely those features that +most nearly reproduced life. The best results in this direction are +realized by those characters that come to their birth simultaneously +with the general scheme of the proposed events; though I remember that +one of the most lifelike of my personages (Madge, in the novel "Garth") +was not even thought of until the story of which she is the heroine had +been for some time under consideration. + +Speaking generally, I should suppose that the best novels are apt to be +those that have been longest in the novelist's mind before being +committed to paper; and the best materials to use, in the way of +character and scenery, are those that were studied not less than seven +or eight years previous to their reproduction. Thereby is attained that +quality in a story known as atmosphere or tone, perhaps the most +valuable and telling quality of all. Occasionally, however, in the rare +case of a story that suddenly seizes upon the writer's imagination and +despotically "possesses" him, the atmosphere is created by the very +strength of the "possession." In the former instance, the writer is +thoroughly master of his subject; in the latter, the subject thoroughly +masters him; and both amount essentially to the same thing, harmony +between subject and writer. + +With respect to style, there is little to be said. Without a good +style, no writer can do much; but it is impossible really to create a +good style. A writer's style was born at the same time and under the +same conditions that he himself was. The only rule that can be given +him is, to say what he has to say in the clearest and most direct way, +using the most fitting and expressive words. But often, of course, this +advice is like that of the doctor who counsels his patient to free his +mind from all care and worry, to live luxuriously on the fat of the +land, and to make a voyage round the world in a private yacht. The +patient has not the means of following the prescription. A writer may +improve a native talent for style; but the talent itself he must either +have by nature, or forever go without. And the style that rises to the +height of genius is like the Phoenix; there is hardly ever more than +one example of it in an age. + +Upon the whole, I conceive that the best way of telling how a novel may +be written will be to trace the steps by which some one novel of mine +came into existence, and let the reader draw his own conclusions from +the record. For this purpose I will select one of the longest of my +productions, "Fortune's Fool." + +It is so long that, rather than be compelled to read it over again, I +would write another of equal length; though I hasten to add that +neither contingency is in the least probable. In very few men is found +the power of sustained conception necessary to the successful +composition of so prolix a tale; and certainly I have never betrayed +the ownership of such a qualification. The tale, nevertheless, is an +irrevocable fact; and my present business it is to be its biographer. + +When, in the winter of 1879, the opportunity came to write it, the +central idea of it had been for over a year cooking in my mind. It was +originally derived from a dream. I saw a man who, upon some occasion, +caught a glimpse of a woman's face. This face was, in his memory, the +ideal of beauty, purity, and goodness. Through many years and +vicissitudes he sought it; it was his religion, a human incarnation of +divine qualities. + +At certain momentous epochs of his career, he had glimpses of it again; +and the effect was always to turn him away from the wrong path and into +the right. At last, near the end of his life, he has, for the first +time, an opportunity of speaking to this mortal angel and knowing her; +and then he discovers that she is mortal indeed, and chargeable with +the worst frailties of mortality. The moral was that any substitute for +a purely spiritual religion is fatal, and, sooner or later, reveals its +rottenness. + +This seemed good enough for a beginning; but, when I woke up, I was not +long in perceiving that it would require various modifications before +being suitable for a novel; and the first modifications must be in the +way of rendering the plot plausible. What sort of a man, for example, +must the hero be to fall into and remain in such an error regarding the +character of the heroine? He must, I concluded, be a person of great +simplicity and honesty of character, with a strong tinge of ideality +and imagination, and with little or no education. + +These considerations indicated a person destitute of known parentage, +and growing up more or less apart from civilization, but possessing by +nature an artistic or poetic temperament. Fore-glimpses of the further +development of the story led me to make him the child of a wealthy +English nobleman, but born in a remote New England village. His +artistic proclivities must be inherited from his father, who was, +therefore, endowed with a talent for amateur sketching in oils; which +talent, again, led him, during his minority, to travel on the continent +for purposes of artistic study. While in Paris, this man, Floyd Vivian, +meets a young Frenchwoman, whom he secretly marries, and with whom he +elopes to America. Then Vivian receives news of his father's death, +compelling him to return to England; and he leaves his wife behind him. + +A child (Jack, the hero of the story) is born during his absence, and +the mother dies. Vivian, now Lord Castleman, finds reason to believe +that his wife is dead, but knows nothing of the boy; and he marries +again. The boy, therefore, is left to grow up in the Maine woods, +ignorant of his parentage, but with one or two chances of finding it +out hereafter. So far, so good. + +But now it was necessary to invent a heroine for this hero. In order to +make the construction compact, I made her Jack's cousin, the daughter, +of Lord Vivian's younger brother, who came into being for that purpose. +This brother (Murdock) was a black sheep; and his daughter, Madeleine, +was adopted by Lord Vivian, because I now perceived that Lord Vivian's +conscience was going to trouble him with regard to his dead wife and +her possible child, and that he would make a pilgrimage to New England +to settle his doubts, taking Madeleine with him; intending, if no child +by the first marriage were forthcoming, to make Madeleine his heir; for +he had no issue by his second marriage. This journey would enable Jack +and Madeleine to meet as children. But it was necessary that they +should have no suspicion of their cousinship. Consequently, Lord +Vivian, who alone could acquaint them with this fact, must die in the +very act of learning it himself. And what should be the manner of his +death? + +At first, I thought he should be murdered by his younger brother; but I +afterwards hit upon another plan, that seemed less hackneyed and +provided more interesting issues. Murdock should arrive at the Maine +village at the same time as Lord Vivian, and upon the same errand, to +get hold of Lord Vivian's son, of whose existence he had heard, and +whom he wished to get out of the way, in order that his own daughter, +Madeleine, might inherit the property. Murdock should find Jack, and +Jack, a mere boy, should kill him, though not, of course, +intentionally, or even consciously (for which purpose the machinery of +the Witch's Head was introduced). + +With Murdock's death, the papers that he carried, proving Jack's +parentage, should disappear, to be recovered long afterward, when they +were needed. Lord Vivian should quietly expire at the same time, of +heart disease (to which he was forthwith made subject), and Madeleine +should be left temporarily to her own devices. Thus was brought about +her meeting with Jack in the cave. It was their first meeting; and Jack +must remember her face, so as to recognize her when they meet, years +later, in England. But, as it was beyond belief that the girl's face +should resemble the woman's enough to make such a recognition possible, +I devised the miniature portrait of her mother, which Madeleine gave to +Jack for a keepsake, and which was the image of what Madeleine herself +should afterward become. + +Something more was needed, however, to complete the situation; and to +meet this exigency, I created M. Jacques Malgre, the grandfather of +Jack, who had followed his daughter to America, in the belief that she +had been seduced by Vivian; who had brought up Jack, hating him for his +father's sake, and loving him for his mother's sake; and who dwelt year +after year in the Maine village, hoping some day to wreak his vengeance +upon the seducer. But when M. Malgre and Vivian at last meet, this +revenge is balked by the removal of its supposed motive; Vivian having +actually married Malgre's daughter, and being prepared to make Jack +heir of Castlemere. Moral: "'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, 'I +will repay.'" + +The groundwork of the story was now sufficiently denned. Madeleine and +Jack were born and accounted for. They had met and made friends with +each other without either knowing who the other was; they were rival +claimants for the same property, and would hereafter contend for it; +still, without identifying each other as the little boy and girl that +had met by chance in the cave so long ago. In the meanwhile, there +might be personal meetings, in which they should recognize each other +as persons though not by name; and should thus be cementing their +friendship as man and woman, while, as Jack Vivian and Madeleine, they +were at open war in the courts of law. + +This arrangement would need careful handling to render it plausible; +but it could be done. I am now of opinion, however, that I should have +done well to have given up the whole fundamental idea of the story, as +suggested by the dream. The dream had done its office when it had +provided me with characters and materials for a more probable and less +abstruse and difficult plot. All further dependence upon it should then +have been relinquished, and the story allowed to work out its own +natural and unforced conclusion. But it is easy to be wise after the +event; and the event, at this time, was still in the future. + +As Madeleine was to be the opposite of the sinless, ideal woman that +Jack was to imagine her to be, it was necessary to subject her to some +evil influence; and this influence was embodied in the form of Bryan +Sinclair, who, though an afterthought, came to be the most powerful +figure in the story. But, before he would bring himself to bear upon +her, she must have reached womanhood; and I also perceived that Jack +must become a man before the action of the story, as between him and +Madeleine, could continue. An interval of ten or fifteen years must +therefore occur; and this was arranged by sending Jack into the western +wilderness of California, and fixing the period as just preceding the +date of the California gold fever of '49. + +Jack and Bryan were to be rivals for Madeleine; but artistic +considerations seemed to require that they should first meet and become +friends much in the same way that Jack and Madeleine had done. So I +sent Bryan to California, and made him the original discoverer of the +precious metal there; brought him and Jack together; and finally sent +them to England in each other's company. Jack, of course, as yet knows +nothing of his origin, and appears in London society merely as a +natural genius and a sculptor of wild animals. + +By this time, I had begun to make Madeleine's acquaintance, and, in +consequence, to doubt the possibility of her becoming wholly evil, even +under the influence of Bryan Sinclair. There would be a constant +struggle between them; she would love him, but would not yield to him, +though her life and happiness would be compromised by his means. He, on +the other hand, would love her, and he would make some effort to be +worthy of her; but his other crimes would weigh him down, until, at the +moment when the battle cost her her life, he should be destroyed by the +incarnation of his own wickedness, in the shape of Tom Berne. + +This was not the issue that I had originally designed, and, whether +better or worse than that, did not harmonize with what had gone before. +The story lacked wholeness and continuous vitality. As a work of art, +it was a failure. But I did not realize this fact until it was too +late, and probably should not have known how to mend matters had it +been otherwise. One of the dangers against which a writer has +especially to guard is that of losing his sense of proportion in the +conduct of a story. An episode that has little relative importance may +be allowed undue weight, because it seems interesting intrinsically, or +because he has expended special pains upon it. It is only long +afterward, when he has become cool and impartial, if not indifferent or +disgusted, that he can see clearly where the faults of construction lie. + +I need not go further into the details of the story. Enough has been +said to give a clew to what might remain to say. I began to write it in +the winter of 1879-80, in London; and, in order to avoid noise and +interruption, it was my custom to begin writing at eight in the +evening, and continue at work until six or seven o'clock the next +morning. In three months I had written as far as the 393d page, in the +American edition. The remaining seventy pages were not completed, in +their published form, until about three years later, an extraordinary +delay, which did not escape censure at the time, and into the causes of +which I will not enter here. + +The title of the story also underwent various vicissitudes. The one +first chosen was "Happy Jack"; but that was objected to as suggesting, +to an English ear at least, a species of cheap Jack or rambling +peddler. The next title fixed upon was "Luck"; but before this could be +copyrighted, somebody published a story called "Luck, and What Came of +It," and thereby invalidated my briefer version. For several weeks, I +was at a loss what to call it; but one evening, at a representation of +"Romeo and Juliet," I heard the exclamation of _Romeo_, "Oh, I am +fortune's fool!" and immediately appropriated it to my own needs. It +suited the book well enough, in more ways than one. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +NOVELS AND AGNOSTICISM. + + +The novel of our times is susceptible of many definitions. The American +publishers of Railway libraries think that it is forty or fifty +double-column pages of pirated English fiction. Readers of the "New +York Ledger" suppose it to be a romance of angelic virtue at last +triumphant over satanic villany. The aristocracy of culture describe it +as a philosophic analysis of human character and motives, with an +agnostic bias on the analyst's part. Schoolboys are under the +impression that it is a tale of Western chivalry and Indian +outrage--price, ten cents. Most of us agree in the belief that it +should contain a brace or two of lovers, a suspense, and a solution. + +To investigate the nature of the novel in the abstract would involve +going back to the very origin of things. It would imply the recognition +of a certain faculty of the mind, known as imagination; and of a +certain fact in history, called art. Art and imagination are +correlatives,--one implies the other. Together, they may be said to +constitute the characteristic badge and vindication of human nature; +imagination is the badge, and art is the vindication. Reason, which +gets so much vulgar glorification, is, after all, a secondary quality. +It is posterior to imagination,--it is one of the means by which +imagination seeks to realize its ends. Some animals reason, or seem to +do so: but the most cultivated ape or donkey has not yet composed a +sonnet, or a symphony, or "an arrangement in green and yellow." Man +still retains a few prerogatives, although, like Aesop's stag, which +despised the legs that bore it away from the hounds, and extolled the +antlers that entangled it in the thicket,--so man often magnifies those +elements of his nature that least deserve it. + +But, before celebrating art and imagination, we should have a clear +idea what those handsome terms mean. In the broadest sense, imagination +is the cause of the effect we call progress. It marks all forms of +human effort towards a better state of things. It embraces a perception +of existing shortcomings, and an aspiration towards a loftier ideal. It +is, in fact, a truly divine force in man, reminding him of his heavenly +origin, and stimulating him to rise again to the level whence he fell. +For it has glimpses of the divine Image within or behind the material +veil; and its constant impulse is to tear aside the veil and grasp the +image. The world, let us say, is a gross and finite translation of an +infinite and perfect Word; and imagination is the intuition of that +perfection, born in the human heart, and destined forever to draw +mankind into closer harmony with it. + +In common speech, however, imagination is deprived of this broader +significance, and is restricted to its relations with art. Art is not +progress, though progress implies art. It differs from progress chiefly +in disclaiming the practical element. You cannot apply a poem, a +picture, or a strain of music, to material necessities; they are not +food, clothing, or shelter. Only after these physical wants are +assuaged, does art supervene. Its sphere is exclusively mental and +moral. But this definition is not adequate; a further distinction is +needed. For such things as mathematics, moral philosophy, and political +economy also belong to the mental sphere, and yet they are not art. But +these, though not actually existing on the plane of material +necessities, yet do exist solely in order to relieve such necessities. +Unlike beauty, they are not their own excuse for being. Their +embodiment is utilitarian, that of art is aesthetic. Political economy, +for example, shows me how to buy two drinks for the same price I used +to pay for one; while art inspires me to transmute a pewter mug into a +Cellini goblet. My physical nature, perhaps, prefers two drinks to one; +but, if my taste be educated, and I be not too thirsty, I would rather +drink once from the Cellini goblet than twice from the mug. Political +economy gravitates towards the material level; art seeks incarnation +only in order to stimulate anew the same spiritual faculties that +generated it. Art is the production, by means of appearances, of the +illusion of a loftier reality; and imagination is the faculty which +holds that loftier reality up for imitation. + +The disposition of these preliminaries brings us once more in sight of +the goal of our pilgrimage. The novel, despite its name, is no new +thing, but an old friend in a modern dress. Ever since the time of +Cadmus,--ever since language began to express thought as well as +emotion,--men have betrayed the impulse to utter in forms of literary +art,--in poetry and story,--their conceptions of the world around them. +According to many philologists, poetry was the original form of human +speech. Be that as it may, whatever flows into the mind, from the +spectacle of nature and of mankind, that influx the mind tends +instinctively to reproduce, in a shape accordant with its peculiar bias +and genius. And those minds in which imagination is predominant, impart +to their reproductions a balance and beauty which stamp them as art. +Art--and literary art especially--is the only evidence we have that +this universal frame of things has relation to our minds, and is a +universe and not a poliverse. Outside revelation, it is our best +assurance of an intelligent purpose in creation. + +Novels, then, instead of being (as some persons have supposed) a wilful +and corrupt conspiracy on the part of the evilly disposed, against the +peace and prosperity of the realm, may claim a most ancient and +indefeasible right to existence. They, with their ancestors and near +relatives, constitute Literature,--without which the human race would +be little better than savages. For the effect of pure literature upon a +receptive mind is something more than can be definitely stated. Like +sunshine upon a landscape, it is a kind of miracle. It demands from its +disciple almost as much as it gives him, and is never revealed save to +the disinterested and loving eye. In our best moments, it touches us +most deeply; and when the sentiment of human brotherhood kindles most +warmly within us, we discover in literature an exquisite answering +ardor. When everything that can be, has been said about a true work of +art, its finest charm remains,--the charm derived from a source beyond +the conscious reach even of the artist. + +The novel, then, must be pure literature; as much so as the poem. But +poetry--now that the day of the broad Homeric epic is past, or +temporarily eclipsed--appeals to a taste too exclusive and abstracted +for the demands of modern readers. Its most accommodating metre fails +to house our endless variety of mood and movement; it exacts from the +student an exaltation above the customary level of thought and +sentiment greater than he can readily afford. The poet of old used to +clothe in the garb of verse his every observation on life and nature; +but to-day he reserves for it only his most ideal and abstract +conceptions. The merit of Cervantes is not so much that he laughed +Spain's chivalry away, as that he heralded the modern novel of +character and manners. It is the latest, most pliable, most catholic +solution of the old problem,--how to unfold man to himself. It improves +on the old methods, while missing little of their excellence. No one +can read a great novel without feeling that, from its outwardly prosaic +pages, strains of genuine poetry have ever and anon reached his ears. +It does not obtrude itself; it is not there for him who has not skill +to listen for it: but for him who has ears, it is like the music of a +bird, denning itself amidst the innumerable murmurs of the forest. + +So, the ideal novel, conforming in every part to the behests of the +imagination, should produce, by means of literary art, the illusion of +a loftier reality. This excludes the photographic method of +novel-writing. "That is a false effort in art," says Goethe, towards +the close of his long and splendid career, "which, in giving reality to +the appearance, goes so far as to leave in it nothing but the common, +every-day actual." It is neither the actual, nor Chinese copies of the +actual, that we demand of art. Were art merely the purveyor of such +things, she might yield her crown to the camera and the stenographer; +and divine imagination would degenerate into vulgar inventiveness. +Imagination is incompatible with inventiveness, or imitation. Imitation +is death, imagination is life. Imitation is servitude, imagination is +royalty. He who claims the name of artist must rise to that vision of a +loftier reality--a more true because a more beautiful world--which only +imagination can reveal. A truer world,--for the world of facts is not +and cannot be true. It is barren, incoherent, misleading. But behind +every fact there is a truth: and these truths are enlightening, +unifying, creative. Fasten your hold upon them, and facts will become +your servants instead of your tyrants. No charm of detail will be lost, +no homely picturesque circumstance, no touch of human pathos or humor; +but all hardness, rigidity, and finality will disappear, and your story +will be not yours alone, but that of every one who feels and thinks. +Spirit gives universality and meaning; but alas! for this new gospel of +the auctioneer's catalogue, and the crackling of thorns under a pot. He +who deals with facts only, deprives his work of gradation and +distinction. One fact, considered in itself, has no less importance +than any other; a lump of charcoal is as valuable as a diamond. But +that is the philosophy of brute beasts and Digger Indians. A child, +digging on the beach, may shape a heap of sand into a similitude of +Vesuvius; but is it nothing that Vesuvius towers above the clouds, and +overwhelms Pompeii? + + * * * * * + +In proceeding from the general to the particular,--to the novel as it +actually exists in England and America,--attention will be confined +strictly to the contemporary outlook. The new generation of novelists +(by which is intended not those merely living in this age, but those +who actively belong to it) differ in at least one fundamental respect +from the later representatives of the generation preceding them. +Thackeray and Dickens did not deliberately concern themselves about a +philosophy of life. With more or less complacency, more or less +cynicism, they accepted the religious and social canons which had grown +to be the commonplace of the first half of this century. They pictured +men and women, not as affected by questions, but as affected by one +another. The morality and immorality of their personages were of the +old familiar Church-of-England sort; there was no speculation as to +whether what had been supposed to be wrong was really right, and _vice +versa_. Such speculations, in various forms and degrees of energy, +appear in the world periodically; but the public conscience during the +last thirty or forty years had been gradually making itself comfortable +after the disturbances consequent upon the French Revolution; the +theoretical rights of man had been settled for the moment; and interest +was directed no longer to the assertion and support of these rights, +but to the social condition and character which were their outcome. +Good people were those who climbed through reverses and sorrows towards +the conventional heaven; bad people were those who, in spite of worldly +and temporary successes and triumphs, gravitated towards the +conventional hell. Novels designed on this basis in so far filled the +bill, as the phrase is: their greater or less excellence depended +solely on the veracity with which the aspect, the temperament, and the +conduct of the _dramatis personae_ were reported, and upon the amount +of ingenuity wherewith the web of events and circumstances was woven, +and the conclusion reached. Nothing more was expected, and, in general, +little or nothing more was attempted. Little more, certainly, will be +found in the writings of Thackeray or of Balzac, who, it is commonly +admitted, approach nearest to perfection of any novelists of their +time. There was nothing genuine or commanding in the metaphysical +dilettanteism of Bulwer: the philosophical speculations of Georges Sand +are the least permanently interesting feature of her writings; and the +same might in some measure be affirmed of George Eliot, whose gloomy +wisdom finally confesses its inability to do more than advise us rather +to bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. As +to Nathaniel Hawthorne, he cannot properly be instanced in this +connection; for he analyzed chiefly those parts of human nature which +remain substantially unaltered in the face of whatever changes of +opinion, civilization, and religion. The truth that he brings to light +is not the sensational fact of a fashion or a period, but a verity of +the human heart, which may foretell, but can never be affected by, +anything which that heart may conceive. In other words, Hawthorne +belonged neither to this nor to any other generation of writers further +than that his productions may be used as a test of the inner veracity +of all the rest. + +But of late years a new order of things has been coming into vogue, and +the new novelists have been among the first to reflect it; and of these +the Americans have shown themselves among the most susceptible. +Science, or the investigation of the phenomena of existence (in +opposition to philosophy, the investigation of the phenomena of being), +has proved nature to be so orderly and self-sufficient, and inquiry as +to the origin of the primordial atom so unproductive and quixotic, as +to make it convenient and indeed reasonable to accept nature as a +self-existing fact, and to let all the rest--if rest there be--go. From +this point of view, God and a future life retire into the background; +not as finally disproved,--because denial, like affirmation, must, in +order to be final, be logically supported; and spirit is, if not +illogical, at any rate outside the domain of logic,--but as being a +hopelessly vague and untrustworthy hypothesis. The Bible is a human +book; Christ was a gentleman, related to the Buddha and Plato families; +Joseph was an ill-used man; death, so far as we have any reason to +believe, is annihilation of personal existence; life is--the +predicament of the body previous to death; morality is the enlightened +selfishness of the greatest number; civilization is the compromises men +make with one another in order to get the most they can out of the +world; wisdom is acknowledgment of these propositions; folly is to +hanker after what may lie beyond the sphere of sense. The supporter of +these doctrines by no means permits himself to be regarded as a rampant +and dogmatic atheist; he is simply the modest and humble doubter of +what he cannot prove. He even recognizes the persistence of the +religious instinct in man, and caters to it by a new religion suited to +the times--the Religion of Humanity. Thus he is secure at all points: +for if the religion of the Bible turn out to be true, his +disappointment will be an agreeable one; and if it turns out false, he +will not be disappointed at all. He is an agnostic--a person bound to +be complacent whatever happens. He may indulge a gentle regret, a +musing sadness, a smiling pensiveness; but he will never refuse a +comfortable dinner, and always wear something soft next his skin, nor +can he altogether avoid the consciousness of his intellectual +superiority. + +Agnosticism, which reaches forward into nihilism on one side, and +extends back into liberal Christianity on the other, marks, at all +events, a definite turning-point from what has been to what is to come. +The human mind, in the course of its long journey, is passing through a +dark place, and is, as it were, whistling to keep up its courage. It is +a period of doubt: what it will result in remains to be seen; but +analogy leads us to infer that this doubt, like all others, will be +succeeded by a comparatively definite belief in something--no matter +what. It is a transient state--the interval between one creed and +another. The agnostic no longer holds to what is behind him, nor knows +what lies before, so he contents himself with feeling the ground +beneath his feet. That, at least, though the heavens fall, is likely to +remain; meanwhile, let the heavens take care of themselves. It may be +the part of valor to champion divine revelation, but the better part of +valor is discretion, and if divine revelation prove true, discretion +will be none the worse off. On the other hand, to champion a myth is to +make one's self ridiculous, and of being ridiculous the agnostic has a +consuming fear. From the superhuman disinterestedness of the theory of +the Religion of Humanity, before which angels might quail, he flinches +not, but when it comes to the risk of being laughed at by certain +sagacious persons he confesses that bravery has its limits. He dares do +all that may become an agnostic,--who dares do more is none. + +But, however open to criticism this phase of thought may be, it is a +genuine phase, and the proof is the alarm and the shifts that it has +brought about in the opposite camp. "Established" religion finds the +foundation of her establishment undermined, and, like the lady in +Hamlet's play, she doth protest too much. In another place, all manner +of odd superstitions and quasi-miracles are cropping up and gaining +credence, as if, since the immortality of the soul cannot be proved by +logic, it should be smuggled into belief by fraud and violence--that +is, by the testimony of the bodily senses themselves. Taking a +comprehensive view of the whole field, therefore, it seems to be +divided between discreet and supercilious skepticism on one side, and, +on the other, the clamorous jugglery of charlatanism. The case is not +really so bad as that: nihilists are not discreet and even the Bishop +of Rome is not necessarily a charlatan. Nevertheless, the outlook may +fairly be described as confused and the issue uncertain. And--to come +without further preface to the subject of this paper--it is with this +material that the modern novelist, so far as he is a modern and not a +future novelist, or a novelist _temporis acti_, has to work. Unless a +man have the gift to forecast the years, or, at least, to catch the +first ray of the coming light, he can hardly do better than attend to +what is under his nose. He may hesitate to identify himself with +agnosticism, but he can scarcely avoid discussing it, either in itself +or in its effects. He must entertain its problems; and the personages +of his story, if they do not directly advocate or oppose agnostic +views, must show in their lives either confirmation or disproof of +agnostic principles. It is impossible, save at the cost of affectation +or of ignorance, to escape from the spirit of the age. It is in the air +we breathe, and, whether we are fully conscious thereof or not, our +lives and thoughts must needs be tinctured by it. + +Now, art is creative; but Mephistopheles, the spirit that denies, is +destructive. A negative attitude of mind is not favorable for the +production of works of art. The best periods of art have also been +periods of spiritual or philosophical convictions. The more a man +doubts, the more he disintegrates and the less he constructs. He has in +him no central initial certainty round which all other matters of +knowledge or investigation may group themselves in symmetrical +relation. He may analyze to his heart's content, but must be wary of +organizing. If creation is not of God, if nature is not the expression +of the contact between an infinite and a finite being, then the +universe and everything in it are accidents, which might have been +otherwise or might have not been at all; there is no design in them nor +purpose, no divine and eternal significance. This being conceded, what +meaning would there be in designing works of art? If art has not its +prototype in creation, if all that we see and do is chance, uninspired +by a controlling and forming intelligence behind or within it, then to +construct a work of art would be to make something arbitrary and +grotesque, something unreal and fugitive, something out of accord with +the general sense (or nonsense) of things, something with no further +basis or warrant than is supplied by the maker's idle and irresponsible +fancy. But since no man cares to expend the trained energies of his +mind upon the manufacture of toys, it will come to pass (upon the +accidental hypothesis of creation) that artists will become shy of +justifying their own title. They will adopt the scientific method of +merely collecting and describing phenomena; but the phenomena will no +longer be arranged as parts or developments of a central controlling +idea, because such an arrangement would no longer seem to be founded on +the truth: the gratification which it gives to the mind would be deemed +illusory, the result of tradition and prejudice; or, in other words, +what is true being found no longer consistent with what we have been +accustomed to call beauty, the latter would cease to be an object of +desire, though something widely alien to it might usurp its name. If +beauty be devoid of independent right to be, and definable only as an +attribute of truth, then undoubtedly the cynosure to-day may be the +scarecrow of to-morrow, and _vice versa_, according to our varying +conception of what truth is. + +And, as a matter of fact, art already shows the effects of the agnostic +influence. Artists have begun to doubt whether their old conceptions of +beauty be not fanciful and silly. They betray a tendency to eschew the +loftier flights of the imagination, and confine themselves to what they +call facts. Critics deprecate idealism as something fit only for +children, and extol the courage of seeing and representing things as +they are. Sculpture is either a stern student of modern trousers and +coat-tails or a vapid imitator of classic prototypes. Painters try all +manner of experiments, and shrink from painting beneath the surface of +their canvas. Much of recent effort in the different branches of art +comes to us in the form of "studies," but the complete work still +delays to be born. We would not so much mind having our old idols and +criterions done away with were something new and better, or as good, +substituted for them. But apparently nothing definite has yet been +decided on. Doubt still reigns, and, once more, doubt is not creative. +One of two things must presently happen. The time will come when we +must stop saying that we do not know whether or not God, and all that +God implies, exists, and affirm definitely and finally either that he +does not exist or that he does. That settled, we shall soon see what +will become of art. If there is a God, he will be understood and +worshipped, not superstitiously and literally as heretofore, but in a +new and enlightened spirit; and an art will arise commensurate with +this new and loftier revelation. If there is no God, it is difficult to +see how art can have the face to show herself any more. There is no +place for her in the Religion of Humanity; to be true and living she +can be nothing which it has thus far entered into the heart of man to +call beautiful; and she could only serve to remind us of certain vague +longings and aspirations now proved to be as false as they were vain. +Art is not an orchid: it cannot grow in the air. Unless its root can be +traced as deep down as Yggdrasil, it will wither and vanish, and be +forgotten as it ought to be; and as for the cowslip by the river's +brim, a yellow cowslip it shall be, and nothing more; and the light +that never was on sea or land shall be permanently extinguished, in the +interests of common sense and economy, and (what is least inviting of +all to the unregenerate mind) we shall speedily get rid of the notion +that we have lost anything worth preserving. + +This, however, is only what may be, and our concern at present is with +things as they are. It has been observed that American writers have +shown themselves more susceptible of the new influences than most +others, partly no doubt from a natural sensitiveness of organization, +but in some measure also because there are with us no ruts and fetters +of old tradition from which we must emancipate ourselves before +adopting anything new. We have no past, in the European sense, and so +are ready for whatever the present or the future may have to suggest. +Nevertheless, the novelist who, in a larger degree than any other, +seems to be the literary parent of our own best men of fiction, is +himself not an American, nor even an Englishman, but a +Russian--Turguenieff. His series of extraordinary novels, translated +into English and French, is altogether the most important fact in the +literature of fiction of the last twelve years. To read his books you +would scarcely imagine that their author could have had any knowledge +of the work of his predecessors in the same field. Originality is a +term indiscriminately applied, and generally of trifling significance, +but so far as any writer may be original, Turguenieff is so. He is no +less original in the general scheme and treatment of his stories than +in their details. Whatever he produces has the air of being the outcome +of his personal experience and observation. He even describes his +characters, their aspect, features, and ruling traits, in a novel and +memorable manner. He seizes on them from a new point of vantage, and +uses scarcely any of the hackneyed and conventional devices for +bringing his portraits before our minds; yet no writer, not even +Carlyle, has been more vivid, graphic, and illuminating than he. Here +are eyes that owe nothing to other eyes, but examine and record for +themselves. Having once taken up a character he never loses his grasp +on it: on the contrary, he masters it more and more, and only lets go +of it when the last recesses of its organism have been explored. In the +quality and conduct of his plots he is equally unprecedented. His +scenes are modern, and embody characteristic events and problems in the +recent history of Russia. There is in their arrangement no attempt at +symmetry, nor poetic justice. Temperament and circumstances are made to +rule, and against their merciless fiat no appeal is allowed. Evil does +evil to the end; weakness never gathers strength; even goodness never +varies from its level: it suffers, but is not corrupted; it is the +goodness of instinct, not of struggle and aspiration; it happens to +belong to this or that person, just as his hair happens to be black or +brown. Everything in the surroundings and the action is to the last +degree matter-of-fact, commonplace, inevitable; there are no +picturesque coincidences, no providential interferences, no desperate +victories over fate; the tale, like the world of the materialist, moves +onward from a predetermined beginning to a helpless and tragic close. +And yet few books have been written of deeper and more permanent +fascination than these. Their grim veracity; the creative sympathy and +steady dispassionateness of their portrayal of mankind; their constancy +of motive, and their sombre earnestness, have been surpassed by none. +This earnestness is worth dwelling upon for a moment. It bears no +likeness to the dogmatism of the bigot or the fanaticism of the +enthusiast. It is the concentration of a broadly gifted masculine mind, +devoting its unstinted energies to depicting certain aspects of society +and civilization, which are powerfully representative of the tendencies +of the day. "Here is the unvarnished fact--give heed to it!" is the +unwritten motto. The author avoids betraying, either explicitly or +implicitly, the tendency of his own sympathies; not because he fears to +have them known, but because he holds it to be his office simply to +portray, and to leave judgment thereupon where, in any case, it must +ultimately rest--with the world of his readers. He tells us what is; it +is for us to consider whether it also must be and shall be. Turguenieff +is an artist by nature, yet his books are not intentionally works of +art; they are fragments of history, differing from real life only in +presenting such persons and events as are commandingly and exhaustively +typical, and excluding all others. This faculty of selection is one of +the highest artistic faculties, and it appears as much in the minor as +in the major features of the narrative. It indicates that Turguenieff +might, if he chose, produce a story as faultlessly symmetrical as was +ever framed. Why, then, does he not so choose? The reason can only be +that he deems the truth-seeming of his narrative would thereby be +impaired. "He is only telling a story," the reader would say, "and he +shapes the events and persons so as to fit the plot." But is this +reason reasonable? To those who believe that God has no hand in the +ordering of human affairs, it undoubtedly is reasonable. To those who +believe the contrary, however, it appears as if the story of no human +life or complex of lives could be otherwise than a rounded and perfect +work of art--provided only that the spectator takes note, not merely of +the superficial accidents and appearances, but also of the underlying +divine purpose and significance. The absence of this recognition in +Turguenieff's novels is the explanation of them: holding the creed +their author does, he could not have written them otherwise; and, on +the other hand, had his creed been different, he very likely would not +have written novels at all. + +The pioneer, in whatever field of thought or activity, is apt to be +also the most distinguished figure therein. The consciousness of being +the first augments the keenness of his impressions, and a mind that can +see and report in advance of others a new order of things may claim a +finer organization than the ordinary. The vitality of nature animates +him who has insight to discern her at first hand, whereas his followers +miss the freshness of the morning, because, instead of discovering, +they must be content to illustrate and refine. Those of our writers who +betray Turguenieff's influence are possibly his superiors in finish and +culture, but their faculty of convincing and presenting is less. Their +interest in their own work seems less serious than his; they may +entertain us more, but they do not move and magnetize so much. The +persons and events of their stories are conscientiously studied, and +are nothing if not natural; but they lack distinction. In an epitome of +life so concise as the longest novel must needs be, to use any but +types is waste of time and space. A typical character is one who +combines the traits or beliefs of a certain class to which he is +affiliated--who is, practically, all of them and himself besides; and, +when we know him, there is nothing left worth knowing about the others. +In Shakespeare's Hamlet and Enobarbus, in Fielding's Squire Western, in +Walter Scott's Edie Ochiltree and Meg Merrilies, in Balzac's Pere +Goriot and Madame Marneff, in Thackeray's Colonel Newcome and Becky +Sharp, in Turguenieff's Bazarof and Dimitri Roudine, we meet persons +who exhaust for us the groups to which they severally belong. Bazarof, +the nihilist, for instance, reveals to us the motives and influences +that have made nihilism, so that we feel that nothing essential on that +score remains to be learnt. + +The ability to recognize and select types is a test of a novelist's +talent and experience. It implies energy to rise above the blind walls +of one's private circle of acquaintance; the power to perceive what +phases of thought and existence are to be represented as well as who +represents them; the sagacity to analyze the age or the moment and +reproduce its dominant features. The feat is difficult, and, when done, +by no means blows its own trumpet. On the contrary, the reader must +open his eyes to be aware of it. He finds the story clear and easy of +comprehension; the characters come home to him familiarly and remain +distinctly in his memory; he understands something which was, till now, +vague to him: but he is as likely to ascribe this to an exceptional +lucidity in his own mental condition as to any special merit in the +author. Indeed, it often happens that the author who puts +out-of-the-way personages into his stories--characters that represent +nothing but themselves, or possibly some eccentricity of invention on +their author's part, will gain the latter a reputation for cleverness +higher than his fellow's who portrays mankind in its masses as well as +in its details. But the finest imagination is not that which evolves +strange images, but that which explains seeming contradictions, and +reveals the unity within the difference and the harmony beneath the +discord. + +Were we to compare our fictitious literature, as a whole, with that of +England, the balance must be immeasurably on the English side. Even +confining ourselves to to-day, and to the prospect of to-morrow, it +must be conceded that, in settled method, in guiding tradition, in +training and associations both personal and inherited, the average +English novelist is better circumstanced than the American. +Nevertheless, the English novelist is not at present writing better +novels than the American. The reason seems to be that he uses no +material which has not been in use for hundreds of years; and to say +that such material begins to lose its freshness is not putting the case +too strongly. He has not been able to detach himself from the +paralyzing background of English conventionality. The vein was rich, +but it is worn out; and the half-dozen pioneers had all the luck. + +There is no commanding individual imagination in England--nor, to say +the truth, does there seem to be any in America. But we have what they +have not--a national imaginative tendency. There are no fetters upon +our fancy; and, however deeply our real estate may be mortgaged, there +is freedom for our ideas. England has not yet appreciated the true +inwardness of a favorite phrase of ours,--a new deal. And yet she is +tired to death of her own stale stories; and when, by chance, any one +of her writers happens to chirp out a note a shade different from the +prevailing key, the whole nation pounces down upon him, with a shriek +of half-incredulous joy, and buys him up, at the rate of a million +copies a year. Our own best writers are more read in England, or, at +any rate, more talked about, than their native crop; not so much, +perhaps, because they are different as because their difference is felt +to be of a significant and typical kind. It has in it a gleam of the +new day. They are realistic; but realism, so far as it involves a +faithful study of nature, is useful. The illusion of a loftier reality, +at which we should aim, must be evolved from adequate knowledge of +reality itself. The spontaneous and assured faith, which is the +mainspring of sane imagination, must be preceded by the doubt and +rejection of what is lifeless and insincere. We desire no resurrection +of the Ann Radclyffe type of romance: but the true alternative to this +is not such a mixture of the police gazette and the medical reporter as +Emile Zola offers us. So far as Zola is conscientious, let him live; +but, in so far as he is revolting, let him die. Many things in the +world seem ugly and purposeless; but to a deeper intelligence than +ours, they are a part of beauty and design. What is ugly and +irrelevant, can never enter, as such, into a work of art; because the +artist is bound, by a sacred obligation, to show us the complete curve +only,--never the undeveloped fragments. + +But were the firmament of England still illuminated with her Dickenses, +her Thackerays, and her Brontes, I should still hold our state to be +fuller of promise than hers. It may be admitted that almost everything +was against our producing anything good in literature. Our men, in the +first place, had to write for nothing; because the publisher, who can +steal a readable English novel, will not pay for an American novel, for +the mere patriotic gratification of enabling its American author to +write it. In the second place, they had nothing to write about, for the +national life was too crude and heterogeneous for ordinary artistic +purposes. Thirdly, they had no one to write for: because, although, in +one sense, there might be readers enough, in a higher sense there were +scarcely any,--that is to say, there was no organized critical body of +literary opinion, from which an author could confidently look to +receive his just meed of encouragement and praise. Yet, in spite of all +this, and not to mention honored names that have ceased or are ceasing +to cast their living weight into the scale, we are contributing much +that is fresh and original, and something, it may be, that is of +permanent value, to literature. We have accepted the situation; and, +since no straw has been vouchsafed us to make our bricks with, we are +trying manfully to make them without. + +It will not be necessary, however, to call the roll of all the able and +popular gentlemen who are contending in the forlorn hope against +disheartening odds; and as for the ladies who have honored our +literature by their contributions, it will perhaps be well to adopt +regarding them a course analogous to that which Napoleon is said to +have pursued with the letters sent to him while in Italy. He left them +unread until a certain time had elapsed, and then found that most of +them no longer needed attention. We are thus brought face to face with +the two men with whom every critic of American novelists has to reckon; +who represent what is carefullest and newest in American fiction; and +it remains to inquire how far their work has been moulded by the +skeptical or radical spirit of which Turguenieff is the chief exemplar. + +The author of "Daisy Miller" had been writing for several years before +the bearings of his course could be confidently calculated. Some of his +earlier tales,--as, for example, "The Madonna of the Future,"--while +keeping near reality on one side, are on the other eminently fanciful +and ideal. He seemed to feel the attraction of fairyland, but to lack +resolution to swallow it whole; so, instead of idealizing both persons +and plot, as Hawthorne had ventured to do, he tried to persuade real +persons to work out an ideal destiny. But the tact, delicacy, and +reticence with which these attempts were made did not blind him to the +essential incongruity; either realism or idealism had to go, and step +by step he dismissed the latter, until at length Turguenieff's current +caught him. By this time, however, his culture had become too wide, and +his independent views too confirmed, to admit of his yielding +unconditionally to the great Russian. Especially his critical +familiarity with French literature operated to broaden, if at the same +time to render less trenchant, his method and expression. His +characters are drawn with fastidious care, and closely follow the tones +and fashions of real life. Each utterance is so exactly like what it +ought to be that the reader feels the same sort of pleased surprise as +is afforded by a phonograph which repeats, with all the accidental +pauses and inflections, the speech spoken into it. Yet the words come +through a medium; they are not quite spontaneous; these figures have +not the sad, human inevitableness of Turguenieff's people. The reason +seems to be (leaving the difference between the genius of the two +writers out of account) that the American, unlike the Russian, +recognizes no tragic importance in the situation. To the latter, the +vision of life is so ominous that his voice waxes sonorous and +terrible; his eyes, made keen by foreboding, see the leading elements +of the conflict, and them only; he is no idle singer of an empty day, +but he speaks because speech springs out of him. To his mind, the +foundations of human welfare are in jeopardy, and it is full time to +decide what means may avert the danger. But the American does not think +any cataclysm is impending, or if any there be, nobody can help it. The +subjects that best repay attention are the minor ones of civilization, +culture, behavior; how to avoid certain vulgarities and follies, how to +inculcate certain principles: and to illustrate these points heroic +types are not needed. In other words, the situation being unheroic, so +must the actors be; for, apart from the inspirations of circumstances, +Napoleon no more than John Smith is recognizable as a hero. + +Now, in adopting this view, a writer places himself under several +manifest disadvantages. If you are to be an agnostic, it is better (for +novel-writing purposes) not to be a complacent or resigned one. +Otherwise your characters will find it difficult to show what is in +them. A man reveals and classifies himself in proportion to the +severity of the condition or action required of him, hence the American +novelist's people are in considerable straits to make themselves +adequately known to us. They cannot lay bare their inmost soul over a +cup of tea or a picture by Corot; so, in order to explain themselves, +they must not only submit to dissection at the author's hands, but must +also devote no little time and ingenuity to dissecting themselves and +one another. But dissection is one thing, and the living word rank from +the heart and absolutely reeking of the human creature that uttered +it--the word that Turguenieff's people are constantly uttering--is +another. Moreover, in the dearth of commanding traits and stirring +events, there is a continual temptation to magnify those which are +petty and insignificant. Instead of a telescope to sweep the heavens, +we are furnished with a microscope to detect infusoria. We want a +description of a mountain; and, instead of receiving an outline, naked +and severe, perhaps, but true and impressive, we are introduced to a +tiny field on its immeasurable side, and we go botanizing and +insect-hunting there. This is realism; but it is the realism of +texture, not of form and relation. It encourages our glance to be +near-sighted instead of comprehensive. Above all, there is a misgiving +that we do not touch the writer's true quality, and that these scenes +of his, so elaborately and conscientiously prepared, have cost him much +thought and pains, but not one throb of the heart or throe of the +spirit. The experiences that he depicts have not, one fancies, marked +wrinkles on his forehead or turned his hair gray. There are two kinds +of reserve--the reserve which feels that its message is too mighty for +it, and the reserve which feels that it is too mighty for its message. +Our new school of writers is reserved, but its reserve does not strike +one as being of the former kind. It cannot be said of any one of Mr. +James's stories, "This is his best," or "This is his worst," because no +one of them is all one way. They have their phases of strength and +veracity, and, also, phases that are neither veracious nor strong. The +cause may either lie in a lack of experience in a certain direction on +the writer's part; or else in his reluctance to write up to the +experience he has. The experience in question is not of the ways of the +world,--concerning which Mr. James has every sign of being politely +familiar,--nor of men and women in their every-day aspect; still less +of literary ways and means, for of these, in his own line, he is a +master. The experience referred to is experience of passion. If Mr. +James be not incapable of describing passion, at all events he has +still to show that he is capable of it. He has introduced us to many +characters that seem to have in them capacity for the highest +passion,--as witness Christina Light,--and yet he has never allowed +them an opportunity to develop it. He seems to evade the situation; but +the evasion is managed with so much plausibility that, although we may +be disappointed, or even irritated, and feel, more or less vaguely, +that we have been unfairly dealt with, we are unable to show exactly +where or how the unfairness comes in. Thus his novels might be compared +to a beautiful face, full of culture and good breeding, but lacking +that fire of the eye and fashion of the lip that betray a living human +soul. + +The other one of the two writers whose names are so often mentioned +together, seems to have taken up the subject of our domestic and social +pathology; and the minute care and conscientious veracity which he has +brought to bear upon his work has not been surpassed, even by +Shakespeare. But, if I could venture a criticism upon his productions, +it would be to the effect that there is not enough fiction in them. +They are elaborate and amiable reports of what we see around us. They +are not exactly imaginative,--in the sense in which I have attempted to +define the word. There are two ways of warning a man against +unwholesome life--one is, to show him a picture of disease; the other +is, to show him a picture of health. The former is the negative, the +latter the positive treatment. Both have their merits; but the latter +is, perhaps, the better adapted to novels, the former to essays. A +novelist should not only know what he has got; he should also know what +he wants. His mind should have an active, or theorizing, as well as a +passive, or contemplative, side. He should have energy to discount the +people he personally knows; the power to perceive what phases of +thought are to be represented, as well as to describe the persons who +happen to be their least inadequate representatives; the sagacity to +analyze the age or the moment, and to reveal its tendency and meaning. +Mr. Howells has produced a great deal of finely wrought tapestry; but +does not seem, as yet, to have found a hall fit to adorn it with. + +And yet Mr. James and Mr. Howells have done more than all the rest of +us to make our literature respectable during the last ten years. If +texture be the object, they have brought texture to a fineness never +surpassed anywhere. They have discovered charm and grace in much that +was only blank before. They have detected and described points of human +nature hitherto unnoticed, which, if not intrinsically important, will +one day be made auxiliary to the production of pictures of broader as +well as minuter veracity than have heretofore been produced. All that +seems wanting thus far is a direction, an aim, a belief. Agnosticism +has brought about a pause for a while, and no doubt a pause is +preferable to some kinds of activity. It may enable us, when the time +comes to set forward again, to do so with better equipment and more +intelligent purpose. It will not do to be always at a prophetic heat of +enthusiasm, sympathy, denunciation: the coolly critical mood is also +useful to prune extravagance and promote a sense of responsibility. The +novels of Mr. James and of Mr. Howells have taught us that men and +women are creatures of infinitely complicated structure, and that even +the least of these complications, if it is portrayed at all, is worth +portraying truthfully. But we cannot forget, on the other hand, that +honest emotion and hearty action are necessary to the wholesomeness of +society, because in their absence society is afflicted with a +lamentable sameness and triviality; the old primitive impulses remain, +but the food on which they are compelled to feed is insipid and +unsustaining; our eyes are turned inward instead of outward, and each +one of us becomes himself the Rome towards which all his roads lead. +Such books as these authors have written are not the Great American +Novel, because they take life and humanity not in their loftier, but in +their lesser manifestations. They are the side scenes and the +background of a story that has yet to be written. That story will have +the interest not only of the collision of private passions and efforts, +but of the great ideas and principles which characterize and animate a +nation. It will discriminate between what is accidental and what is +permanent, between what is realistic and what is real, between what is +sentimental and what is sentiment. It will show us not only what we +are, but what we are to be; not only what to avoid, but what to do. It +will rest neither in the tragic gloom of Turguenieff, nor in the +critical composure of James, nor in the gentle deprecation of Howells, +but will demonstrate that the weakness of man is the motive and +condition of his strength. It will not shrink from romance, nor from +ideality, nor from artistic completeness, because it will know at what +depths and heights of life these elements are truly operative. It will +be American, not because its scene is laid or its characters born in +the United States, but because its burden will be reaction against old +tyrannies and exposure of new hypocrisies; a refutation of respectable +falsehoods, and a proclamation of unsophisticated truths. Indeed, let +us take heed and diligently improve our native talent, lest a day come +when the Great American Novel make its appearance, but written in a +foreign language, and by some author who--however purely American at +heart--never set foot on the shores of the Republic. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +AMERICANISM IN FICTION. + + +Contemporary criticism will have it that, in order to create an +American Literature, we must use American materials. The term +"Literature" has, no doubt, come to be employed in a loose sense. The +London _Saturday Review_ has (or used to have until lately) a monthly +two-column article devoted to what it called "American Literature," +three-fourths of which were devoted to an examination of volumes of +State Histories, Statistical Digests, Records of the Census, and other +such works as were never, before or since, suspected of being +literature; while the remaining fourth mentioned the titles +(occasionally with a line of comment) of whatever productions were at +hand in the way of essays, novels, and poetry. This would seem to +indicate that we may have--nay, are already possessed of--an American +Literature, composed of American materials, provided only that we +consent to adopt the _Saturday Review's_ conception of what literature +is. + +Many of us believe, however, that the essays, the novels, and the +poetry, as well as the statistical digests, ought to go to the making +up of a national literature. It has been discovered, however, that the +existence of the former does not depend, to the same extent as that of +the latter, upon the employment of exclusively American material. A +book about the census, if it be not American, is nothing; but a poem or +a romance, though written by a native-born American, who, perhaps, has +never crossed the Atlantic, not only may, but frequently does, have +nothing in it that can be called essentially American, except its +English and, occasionally, its ideas. And the question arises whether +such productions can justly be held to form component parts of what +shall hereafter be recognized as the literature of America. + +How was it with the makers of English literature? Beginning with +Chaucer, his "Canterbury Pilgrims" is English, both in scene and +character; it is even mentioned of the Abbess that "Frenche of Paris +was to her unknowe"; but his "Legende of Goode Women" might, so far as +its subject-matter is concerned, have been written by a French, a +Spanish, or an Italian Chaucer, just as well as by the British Daniel. +Spenser's "Faerie Queene" numbers St. George and King Arthur among its +heroes; but its scene is laid in Faerie Lande, if it be laid anywhere, +and it is a barefaced moral allegory throughout. Shakespeare wrote +thirty-seven plays, the elimination of which from English literature +would undeniably be a serious loss to it; yet, of these plays +twenty-three have entirely foreign scenes and characters. Milton, as a +political writer, was English; but his "Paradise Lost and Regained," +his "Samson," his "Ode on the Nativity," his "Comus," bear no reference +to the land of his birth. Dryden's best-known work to-day is his +"Alexander's Feast." Pope has come down to us as the translator of +Homer. Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne are the great quartet +of English novelists of the last century; but Smollett, in his preface +to "Roderick Random," after an admiring allusion to the "Gil Blas" of +Le Sage, goes on to say: "The following sheets I have modelled on his +plan"; and Sterne was always talking and thinking about Cervantes, and +comparing himself to the great Spaniard: "I think there is more +laughable humor, with an equal degree of Cervantic satire, if not more, +than in the last," he writes of one of his chapters, to "my witty +widow, Mrs. F." Many even of Walter Scott's romances are un-English in +their elements; and the fame of Shelley, Keats, and Byron rests +entirely upon their "foreign" work. Coleridge's poetry and philosophy +bear no technical stamp of nationality; and, to come down to later +times, Carlyle was profoundly imbued with Germanism, while the "Romola" +of George Eliot and the "Cloister and the Hearth" of Charles Reade are +by many considered to be the best of their works. In the above +enumeration innumerable instances in point are, of course, omitted; but +enough have been given, perhaps, to show that imaginative writers have +not generally been disowned by their country on the ground that they +have availed themselves, in their writings, of other scenes and +characters than those of their own immediate neighborhoods. + +The statistics of the work of the foremost American writers could +easily be shown to be much more strongly imbued with the specific +flavor of their environment. Benjamin Franklin, though he was an author +before the United States existed, was American to the marrow. The +"Leather-Stocking Tales" of Cooper are the American epic. Irving's +"Knickerbocker" and his "Woolfert's Roost" will long outlast his other +productions. Poe's most popular tale, "The Gold-Bug," is American in +its scene, and so is "The Mystery of Marie Roget," in spite of its +French nomenclature; and all that he wrote is strongly tinged with the +native hue of his strange genius. Longfellow's "Evangeline" and +"Hiawatha" and "Miles Standish," and such poems as "The Skeleton in +Armor" and "The Building of the Ship," crowd out of sight his graceful +translations and adaptations. Emerson is the veritable American eagle +of our literature, so that to be Emersonian is to be American. Whittier +and Holmes have never looked beyond their native boundaries, and +Hawthorne has brought the stern gloom of the Puritan period and the +uneasy theorizings of the present day into harmony with the universal +and permanent elements of human nature. There was certainly nothing +European visible in the crude but vigorous stories of Theodore +Winthrop; and Bret Harte, the most brilliant figure among our later +men, is not only American, but Californian,--as is, likewise, the Poet +of the Sierras. It is not necessary to go any further. Mr. Henry James, +having enjoyed early and singular opportunities of studying the effects +of the recent annual influx of Americans, cultured and otherwise, into +England and the Continent, has very sensibly and effectively, and with +exquisite grace of style and pleasantness of thought, made the +phenomenon the theme of a remarkable series of stories. Hereupon the +cry of an "International School" has been raised, and critics profess +to be seriously alarmed lest we should ignore the signal advantages for +_mise-en-scene_ presented by this Western half of the planet, and +should enter into vain and unpatriotic competition with foreign writers +on their own ground. The truth is, meanwhile, that it would have been a +much surer sign of affectation in us to have abstained from literary +comment upon the patent and notable fact of this international +_rapprochement_,--which is just as characteristic an American trait as +the episode of the Argonauts of 1849,--and we have every reason to be +grateful to Mr. Henry James, and to his school, if he has any, for +having rescued us from the opprobrium of so foolish a piece of +know-nothingism. The phase is, of course, merely temporary; its +interest and significance will presently be exhausted; but, because we +are American, are we to import no French cakes and English ale? As a +matter of fact, we are too timid and self-conscious; and these +infirmities imply a much more serious obstacle to the formation of a +characteristic literature than does any amount of gadding abroad. + +That must be a very shallow literature which depends for its national +flavor and character upon its topography and its dialect; and the +criticism which can conceive of no deeper Americanism than this is +shallower still. What is an American book? It is a book written by an +American, and by one who writes as an American; that is, unaffectedly. +So an English book is a book written by an unaffected Englishman. What +difference can it make what the subject of the writing is? Mr. Henry +James lately brought out a volume of essays on "French Poets and +Novelists." Mr. E. C. Stedman recently published a series of monographs +on "The Victorian Poets." Are these books French and English, or are +they nondescript, or are they American? Not only are they American, but +they are more essentially American than if they had been disquisitions +upon American literature. And the reason is, of course, that they +subject the things of the old world to the tests of the new, and +thereby vindicate and illustrate the characteristic mission of America +to mankind. We are here to hold up European conventionalisms and +prejudices in the light of the new day, and thus afford everybody the +opportunity, never heretofore enjoyed, of judging them by other +standards, and in other surroundings than those amidst which they came +into existence. In the same way, Emerson's "English Traits" is an +American thing, and it gives categorical reasons why American things +should be. And what is an American novel except a novel treating of +persons, places, and ideas from an American point of view? The point of +view is _the_ point, not the thing seen from it. + +But it is said that "the great American novel," in order fully to +deserve its name, ought to have American scenery. Some thousands of +years ago, the Greeks had a novelist--Homer--who evolved the great +novel of that epoch; but the scenery of that novel was Trojan, not +Greek. The story is a criticism, from a Greek standpoint, of foreign +affairs, illustrated with practical examples; and, as regards +treatment, quite as much care is bestowed upon the delineation of +Hector, Priam, and Paris, as upon Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Achilles. +The same story, told by a Trojan Homer, would doubtless have been very +different; but it is by no means certain that it would have been any +better told. It embodies, whether symbolically or literally matters +not, the triumph of Greek ideas and civilization. But, even so, the +sympathies of the reader are not always, or perhaps uniformly, on the +conquering side. Homer was doubtless a patriot, but he shows no signs +of having been a bigot. He described that great international episode +with singular impartiality; what chiefly interested him was the play of +human nature. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the Greeks were +backward in admitting his claims as their national poet; and we may +legitimately conclude that were an American Homer--whether in prose or +poetry--to appear among us, he might pitch his scene where he liked--in +Patagonia, or on the banks of the Zambezi--and we should accept the +situation with perfect equanimity. Only let him be a native of New +York, or Boston, or San Francisco, or Mullenville, and be inspired with +the American idea, and we ask no more. Whatever he writes will belong +to our literature, and add lustre to it. + +One hears many complaints about the snobbishness of running after +things European. Go West, young man, these moralists say, or go down +Fifth Avenue, and investigate Chatham Street, and learn that all the +elements of romance, to him who has the seeing eye, lie around your own +front doorstep and back yard. But let not these persons forget that he +who fears Europe is a less respectable snob than he who studies it. Let +us welcome Europe in our books as freely as we do at Castle Garden; we +may do so safely. If our digestion be not strong enough to assimilate +her, and work up whatever is valuable in her into our own bone and +sinew, then America is not the thing we took her for. For what is +America? Is it simply a reproduction of one of these Eastern +nationalities, which we are so fond of alluding to as effete? Surely +not. It is a new departure in history; it is a new door opened to the +development of the human race, or, as I should prefer to say, of +humanity. We are misled by the chatter of politicians and the bombast +of Congress. In the course of ages, the time has at last arrived when +man, all over this planet, is entering upon a new career of moral, +intellectual, and political emancipation; and America is the concrete +expression and theatre of that great fact, as all spiritual truths find +their fitting and representative physical incarnation. But what would +this huge western continent be, if America--the real America of the +mind--had no existence? It would be a body without a soul, and would +better, therefore, not be at all. If America is to be a repetition of +Europe on a larger scale, it is not worth the pain of governing it. +Europe has shown what European ideas can accomplish; and whatever fresh +thought or impulse comes to birth in it can be nothing else than an +American thought and impulse, and must sooner or later find its way +here, and become naturalized with its brethren. Buds and blossoms of +America are sprouting forth all over the Old World, and we gather in +the fruit. They do not find themselves at home there, but they know +where their home is. The old country feels them like thorns in her old +flesh, and is gladly rid of them; but such prickings are the only +wholesome and hopeful symptoms she presents; if they ceased to trouble +her, she would be dead indeed. She has an uneasy experience before her, +for a time; but the time will come when she, too, will understand that +her ease is her disease, and then Castle Garden may close its doors, +for America will be everywhere. + +If, then, America is something vastly more than has hitherto been +understood by the word nation, it is proper that we attach to that +other word, patriotism, a significance broader and loftier than has +been conceived till now. By so much as the idea that we represent is +great, by so much are we, in comparison with it, inevitably chargeable +with littleness and short-comings. For we are of the same flesh and +blood as our neighbors; it is only our opportunities and our +responsibilities that are fairer and weightier than theirs. +Circumstances afford every excuse to them, but none to us. "_E Pluribus +Unum_" is a frivolous motto; our true one should be, "_Noblesse +oblige_." But, with a strange perversity, in all matters of comparison +between ourselves and others, we display what we are pleased to call +our patriotism by an absurd touchiness as to points wherein Europe, +with its settled and polished civilization, must needs be our superior; +and are quite indifferent about those things by which our real strength +is constituted. Can we not be content to learn from Europe the graces, +the refinements, the amenities of life, so long as we are able to teach +her life itself? For my part, I never saw in England any appurtenance +of civilization, calculated to add to the convenience and +commodiousness of existence, that did not seem to me to surpass +anything of the kind that we have in this country. Notwithstanding +which--and I am far, indeed, from having any pretensions to +asceticism--I would have been fairly stifled at the idea of having to +spend my life there. No American can live in Europe, unless he means to +return home, or unless, at any rate, he returns here in mind, in hope, +in belief. For an American to accept England, or any other country, as +both a mental and physical finality, would, it seems to me, be +tantamount to renouncing his very life. To enjoy English comforts at +the cost of adopting English opinions, would be about as pleasant as to +have the privilege of retaining one's body on condition of surrendering +one's soul, and would, indeed, amount to just about the same thing. + +I fail, therefore, to feel any apprehension as to our literature +becoming Europeanized, because whatever is American in it must lie +deeper than anything European can penetrate. More than that, I believe +and hope that our novelists will deal with Europe a great deal more, +and a great deal more intelligently, than they have done yet. It is a +true and healthy artistic instinct that leads them to do so. +Hawthorne--and no American writer had a better right than he to +contradict his own argument--says, in the preface to the "Marble Faun," +in a passage that has been often quoted, but will bear repetition:-- + + "Italy, as the site of a romance, was chiefly valuable to him as < + affording a sort of poetic or fairy precinct, where actualities would + not be so terribly insisted on as they are, and must needs be, in + America. No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of + writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no + antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything + but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is + happily the case with my dear native land. It will be very long, I + trust, before romance writers may find congenial and easily handled + themes, either in the annals of our stalwart Republic, or in any + characteristic and probable events of our individual lives. Romance + and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers, need ruin to make them + grow." + +Now, what is to be understood from this passage? It assumes, in the +first place, that a work of art, in order to be effective, must contain +profound contrasts of light and shadow; and then it points out that the +shadow, at least, is found ready to the hand in Europe. There is no +hint of patriotic scruples as to availing one's self of such a +"picturesque and gloomy" background; if it is to be had, then let it be +taken; the main object to be considered is the work of art. Europe, in +short, afforded an excellent quarry, from which, in Hawthorne's +opinion, the American novelist might obtain materials which are +conspicuously deficient in his own country, and which that country is +all the better for not possessing. In the "Marble Faun" the author had +conceived a certain idea, and he considered that he had been not +unsuccessful in realizing it. The subject was new, and full of especial +attractions to his genius, and it would manifestly have been impossible +to adapt it to an American setting. There was one drawback connected +with it, and this Hawthorne did not fail to recognize. He remarks in +the preface that he had "lived too long abroad not to be aware that a +foreigner seldom acquires that knowledge of a country at once flexible +and profound, which may justify him in endeavoring to idealize its +traits." But he was careful not to attempt "a portraiture of Italian +manners and character." He made use of the Italian scenery and +atmosphere just so far as was essential to the development of his idea, +and consistent with the extent of his Italian knowledge; and, for the +rest, fell back upon American characters and principles. The result has +been long enough before the world to have met with a proper +appreciation. I have heard regret expressed that the power employed by +the author in working out this story had not been applied to a romance +dealing with a purely American subject. But to analyze this objection +is to dispose of it. A man of genius is not, commonly, enfeebled by his +own productions; and, physical accidents aside, Hawthorne was just as +capable of writing another "Scarlet Letter" after the "Marble Faun" was +published, as he had been before. Meanwhile, few will deny that our +literature would be a loser had the "Marble Faun" never been written. + +The drawback above alluded to is, however, not to be underrated. It may +operate in two ways. In the first place, the American's European +observations may be inaccurate. As a child, looking at a sphere, might +suppose it to be a flat disc, shaded at one side and lighted at the +other, so a sightseer in Europe may ascribe to what he beholds +qualities and a character quite at variance with what a more +fundamental knowledge would have enabled him to perceive. In the second +place, the stranger in a strange land, be he as accurate as he may, +will always tend to look at what is around him objectively, instead of +allowing it subjectively--or, as it were, unconsciously--to color his +narrative. He will be more apt directly to describe what he sees, than +to convey the feeling or aroma of it without description. It would +doubtless, for instance, be possible for Mr. Henry James to write an +"English" or even a "French" novel without falling into a single +technical error; but it is no less certain that a native writer, of +equal ability, would treat the same subject in a very different manner. +Mr. James's version might contain a great deal more of definite +information; but the native work would insinuate an impression which +both comes from and goes to a greater depth of apprehension. + +But, on the other hand, it is not contended that any American should +write an "English" or anything but an "American" novel. The contention +is, simply, that he should not refrain from using foreign material, +when it happens to suit his exigencies, merely because it is foreign. +Objective writing may be quite as good reading as subjective writing, +in its proper place and function. In fiction, no more than elsewhere, +may a writer pretend to be what he is not, or to know what he knows +not. When he finds himself abroad, he must frankly admit his situation; +and more will not then be required of him than he is fairly competent +to afford. It will seldom happen, as Hawthorne intimates, that he can +successfully reproduce the inner workings and philosophy of European +social and political customs and peculiarities; but he can give a +picture of the scenery as vivid as can the aborigine, or more so; he +can make an accurate study of personal native character; and, finally, +and most important of all, he can make use of the conditions of +European civilization in events, incidents, and situations which would +be impossible on this side of the water. The restrictions, the +traditions, the law, and the license of those old countries are full of +suggestions to the student of character and circumstances, and supply +him with colors and effects that he would else search for in vain. For +the truth may as well be admitted; we are at a distinct disadvantage, +in America, in respect of the materials of romance. Not that vigorous, +pathetic, striking stories may not be constructed here; and there is +humor enough, the humor of dialect, of incongruity of character; but, +so far as the story depends for its effect, not upon psychical and +personal, but upon physical and general events and situations, we soon +feel the limit of our resources. An analysis of the human soul, such as +may be found in the "House of the Seven Gables," for instance, is +absolute in its interest, apart from outward conditions. But such an +analysis cannot be carried on, so to say, _in vacuo_. You must have +solid ground to stand on; you must have fitting circumstances, +background, and perspective. The ruin of a soul, the tragedy of a +heart, demand, as a necessity of harmony and picturesque effect, a +corresponding and conspiring environment and stage--just as, in music, +the air in the treble is supported and reverberated by the bass +accompaniment. The immediate, contemporary act or predicament loses +more than half its meaning and impressiveness if it be re-echoed from +no sounding-board in the past--its notes, however sweetly and truly +touched, fall flatly on the ear. The deeper we attempt to pitch the key +of an American story, therefore, the more difficulty shall we find in +providing a congruous setting for it; and it is interesting to note how +the masters of the craft have met the difficulty. In the "Seven +Gables"--and I take leave to say that if I draw illustrations from this +particular writer, it is for no other reason than that he presents, +more forcibly than most, a method of dealing with the special problem +we are considering--Hawthorne, with the intuitive skill of genius, +evolves a background, and produces a reverberation, from materials +which he may be said to have created almost as much as discovered. The +idea of a house, founded two hundred years ago upon a crime, remaining +ever since in possession of its original owners, and becoming the +theatre, at last, of the judgment upon that crime, is a thoroughly +picturesque idea, but it is thoroughly un-American. Such a thing might +conceivably occur, but nothing in this country could well be more +unlikely. No one before Hawthorne had ever thought of attempting such a +thing; at all events, no one else, before or since, has accomplished +it. The preface to the romance in question reveals the principle upon +which its author worked, and incidentally gives a new definition of the +term "romance,"--a definition of which, thus far, no one but its +propounder has known how to avail himself. It amounts, in fact, to an +acknowledgment that it is impossible to write a "novel" of American +life that shall be at once artistic, realistic, and profound. A novel, +he says, aims at a "very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, +but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience." A +romance, on the other hand, "while, as a work of art, it must rigidly +subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may +swerve aside from the truth of the human heart, has fairly a right to +present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the +writer's own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so +manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out and mellow the lights, +and deepen and enrich the shadows, of the picture." This is good +advice, no doubt, but not easy to follow. We can all understand, +however, that the difficulties would be greatly lessened could we but +command backgrounds of the European order. Thackeray, the Brontes, +George Eliot, and others have written great stories, which did not have +to be romances, because the literal conditions of life in England have +a picturesqueness and a depth which correspond well enough with +whatever moral and mental scenery we may project upon them. Hawthorne +was forced to use the scenery and capabilities of his native town of +Salem. He saw that he could not present these in a realistic light, and +his artistic instinct showed him that he must modify or veil the +realism of his figures in the same degree and manner as that of his +accessories. No doubt, his peculiar genius and temperament eminently +qualified him to produce this magical change; it was a remarkable +instance of the spontaneous marriage, so to speak, of the means to the +end; and even when, in Italy, he had an opportunity to write a story +which should be accurate in fact, as well as faithful to "the truth of +the human heart," he still preferred a subject which bore to the +Italian environment the same relation that the "House of the Seven +Gables" and the "Scarlet Letter" do to the American one; in other +words, the conception of Donatello is removed as much further than +Clifford or Hester Prynne from literal realism as the inherent romance +of the Italian setting is above that of New England. The whole thing is +advanced a step further towards pure idealism, the relative proportions +being maintained. + +"The Blithedale Romance" is only another instance in point, and here, +as before, we find the principle admirably stated in the preface. "In +the old countries," says Hawthorne, "a novelist's work is not put +exactly side by side with nature; and he is allowed a license with +regard to everyday probability, in view of the improved effects he is +bound to produce thereby. Among ourselves, on the contrary, there is as +yet no Faery Land, so like the real world that, in a suitable +remoteness, we cannot well tell the difference, but with an atmosphere +of strange enchantment, beheld through which the inhabitants have a +propriety of their own. This atmosphere is what the American romancer +needs. In its absence, the beings of his imagination are compelled to +show themselves in the same category as actually living mortals; a +necessity that renders the paint and pasteboard of their composition +but too painfully discernible." Accordingly, Hawthorne selects the +Brook Farm episode (or a reflection of it) as affording his drama "a +theatre, a little removed from the highway of ordinary travel, where +the creatures of his brain may play their phantasmagorical antics, +without exposing them to too close a comparison with the actual events +of real lives." In this case, therefore, an exceptional circumstance is +made to answer the same purpose that was attained by different means in +the other romances. + +But in what manner have our other writers of fiction treated the +difficulties that were thus dealt with by Hawthorne?--Herman Melville +cannot be instanced here; for his only novel or romance, whichever it +be, was also the most impossible of all his books, and really a +terrible example of the enormities which a man of genius may perpetrate +when working in a direction unsuited to him. I refer, of course, to +"Pierre, or the Ambiguities." Oliver Wendell Holmes's two delightful +stories are as favorable examples of what can be done, in the way of an +American novel, by a wise, witty, and learned gentleman, as we are +likely to see. Nevertheless, one cannot avoid the feeling that they are +the work of a man who has achieved success and found recognition in +other ways than by stories, or even poems and essays. The interest, in +either book, centres round one of those physiological phenomena which +impinge so strangely upon the domain of the soul; for the rest, they +are simply accurate and humorous portraitures of local dialects and +peculiarities, and thus afford little assistance in the search for a +universally applicable rule of guidance. Doctor Holmes, I believe, +objects to having the term "medicated" applied to his tales; but surely +the adjective is not reproachful; it indicates one of the most charming +and also, alas! inimitable features of his work. + +Bret Harte is probably as valuable a witness as could be summoned in +this case. His touch is realistic, and yet his imagination is poetic +and romantic. He has discovered something. He has done something both +new and good. Within the space of some fifty pages, he has painted a +series of pictures which will last as long as anything in the fifty +thousand pages of Dickens. Taking "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" as +perhaps the most nearly perfect of the tales, as well as the most truly +representative of the writer's powers, let us try to guess its secret. +In the first place, it is very short,--a single episode, succinctly and +eloquently told. The descriptions of scenery and persons are masterly +and memorable. The characters of these persons, their actions, and the +circumstances of their lives, are as rugged, as grotesque, as terrible, +and also as beautiful, as the scenery. Thus an artistic harmony is +established,--the thing which is lacking in so much of our literature. +The story moves swiftly on, through humor, pathos, and tragedy, to its +dramatic close. It is given with perfect literary taste, and naught in +its phases of human nature is either extenuated or set down in malice. +The little narrative can be read in a few minutes, and can never be +forgotten. But it is only an episode; and it is an episode of an +episode,--that of the Californian gold-fever. The story of the +Argonauts is only one story, after all, and these tales of Harte's are +but so many facets of the same gem. They are not, however, like +chapters in a romance; there is no such vital connection between them +as develops a cumulative force. We are no more impressed after reading +half a dozen of them than after the first; they are variations of the +same theme. They discover to us no new truth about human nature; they +only show us certain human beings so placed as to act out their naked +selves,--to be neither influenced nor protected by the rewards and +screens of conventional civilization. The affectation and insincerity +of our daily life make such a spectacle fresh and pleasing to us. But +we enjoy it because of its unexpectedness, its separateness, its +unlikeness to the ordinary course of existence. It is like a huge, +strange, gorgeous flower, an exaggeration and intensification of such +flowers as we know; but a flower without roots, unique, never to be +reproduced. It is fitting that its portrait should be painted; but, +once done, it is done with; we cannot fill our picture-gallery with it. +Carlyle wrote the History of the French Revolution, and Bret Harte has +written the History of the Argonauts; but it is absurd to suppose that +a national literature could be founded on either episode. + +But though Mr. Harte has not left his fellow-craftsmen anything to +gather from the lode which he opened and exhausted, we may still learn +something from his method. He took things as he found them, and he +found them disinclined to weave themselves into an elaborate and +balanced narrative. He recognized the deficiency of historical +perspective, but he saw that what was lost in slowly growing, +culminating power was gained in vivid, instant force. The deeds of his +character could not be represented as the final result of +long-inherited proclivities; but they could appear between their motive +and their consequence, like the draw--aim--fire! of the Western +desperado,--as short, sharp, and conclusive. In other words, the +conditions of American life, as he saw it, justified a short story, or +any number of them, but not a novel; and the fact that he did +afterwards attempt a novel only served to confirm his original +position. I think that the limitation that he discovered is of much +wider application than we are prone to realize. American life has been, +as yet, nothing but a series of episodes, of experiments. There has +been no such thing as a fixed and settled condition of society, not +subject to change itself, and therefore affording a foundation and +contrast to minor or individual vicissitudes. We cannot write +American-grown novels, because a novel is not an episode, nor an +aggregation of episodes; we cannot write romances in the Hawthorne +sense, because, as yet, we do not seem to be clever enough. Several +courses are, however, open to us, and we are pursuing them all. First, +we are writing "short stories," accounts of episodes needing no +historical perspective, and not caring for any; and, so far as one may +judge, we write the best short stories in the world. Secondly, we may +spin out our short stories into long-short stories, just as we may +imagine a baby six feet high; it takes up more room, but is just as +much a baby as one of twelve inches. Thirdly, we may graft our flower +of romance on a European stem, and enjoy ourselves as much as the +European novelists do, and with as clear a conscience. We are stealing +that which enriches us and does not impoverish them. It is silly and +childish to make the boundaries of the America of the mind coincide +with those of the United States. We need not dispute about free trade +and protection here; literature is not commerce, nor is it politics. +America is not a petty nationality, like France, England, and Germany; +but whatever in such nationalities tends toward enlightenment and +freedom is American. Let us not, therefore, confirm ourselves in a +false and ignoble conception of our meaning and mission in the world. +Let us not carry into the temple of the Muse the jealousies, the +prejudice, the ignorance, the selfishness of our "Senate" and +"Representatives," strangely so called! Let us not refuse to breathe +the air of Heaven, lest there be something European or Asian in it. If +we cannot have a national literature in the narrow, geographical sense +of the phrase, it is because our inheritance transcends all +geographical definitions. The great American novel may not be written +this year, or even in this century. Meanwhile, let us not fear to ride, +and ride to death, whatever species of Pegasus we can catch. It can do +us no harm, and it may help us to acquire a firmer seat against the +time when our own, our very own winged steed makes his appearance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN. + + +Literature is that quality in books which affords delight and +nourishment to the soul. But this is a scientific and skeptical age, +insomuch that one hardly ventures to take for granted that every reader +will know what his soul is. It is not the intellect, though it gives +the intellect light; nor the emotions, though they receive their warmth +from it. It is the most catholic and constant element of human nature, +yet it bears no direct part in the practical affairs of life; it does +not struggle, it does not even suffer; but merely emerges or retires, +glows or congeals, according to the company in which it finds itself. +We might say that the soul is a name for man's innate sympathy with +goodness and truth in the abstract; for no man can have a bad soul, +though his heart may be evil, or his mind depraved, because the soul's +access to the mind or heart has been so obstructed as to leave the +moral consciousness cold and dark. The soul, in other words, is the +only conservative and peacemaker; it affords the only unalterable +ground upon which all men can always meet; it unselfishly identifies or +unites us with our fellows, in contradistinction to the selfish +intellect, which individualizes us and sets each man against every +other. Doubtless, then, the soul is an amiable and desirable +possession, and it would be a pity to deprive it of so much +encouragement as may be compatible with due attention to the serious +business of life. For there are moments, even in the most active +careers, when it seems agreeable to forget competition, rivalry, +jealousy; when it is a rest to think of one's self as a man rather than +a person;--moments when time and place appear impertinent, and that +most profitable which affords least palpable profit. At such seasons, a +man looks inward, or, as the American poet puts it, he loafs and +invites his soul, and then he is at a disadvantage if his soul, in +consequence of too persistent previous neglect, declines to respond to +the invitation, and remains immured in that secret place which, as +years pass by, becomes less and less accessible to so many of us. + +When I say that literature nourishes the soul, I implicitly refuse the +title of literature to anything in books that either directly or +indirectly promotes any worldly or practical use. Of course, what is +literature to one man may be anything but literature to another, or to +the same man under different circumstances; Virgil to the schoolboy, +for instance, is a very different thing from the Virgil of the scholar. +But whatever you read with the design of improving yourself in some +profession, or of acquiring information likely to be of advantage to +you in any pursuit or contingency, or of enabling yourself to hold your +own with other readers, or even of rendering yourself that enviable +nondescript, a person of culture,--whatever, in short, is read with any +assignable purpose whatever, is in so far not literature. The Bible may +be literature to Mr. Matthew Arnold, because he reads it for fun; but +to Luther, Calvin, or the pupils of a Sunday-school, it is essentially +something else. Literature is the written communications of the soul of +mankind with itself; it is liable to appear in the most unexpected +places, and in the oddest company; it vanishes when we would grasp it, +and appears when we look not for it. Chairs of literature are +established in the great universities, and it is literature, no doubt, +that the professor discourses; but it ceases to be literature before it +reaches the student's ear; though, again, when the same students +stumble across it in the recesses of their memory ten or twenty years +later, it may have become literature once more. Finally, literature +may, upon occasion, avail a man more than the most thorough technical +information; but it will not be because it supplements or supplants +that information, but because it has so tempered and exalted his +general faculty that whatever he may do is done more clearly and +comprehensively than might otherwise be the case. + +Having thus, in some measure, considered what is literature and what +the soul, let us note, further, that the literature proper to manhood +is not proper to childhood, though the reverse is not--or, at least, +never ought to be--true. In childhood, the soul and the mind act in +harmony; the mind has not become preoccupied or sophisticated by +so-called useful knowledge; it responds obediently to the soul's +impulses and intuitions. Children have no morality; they have not yet +descended to the level where morality suggests itself to them. For +morality is the outcome of spiritual pride, the most stubborn and +insidious of all sins; the pride which prompts each of us to declare +himself holier than his fellows, and to support that claim by parading +his docility to the Decalogue. Docility to any set of rules, no matter +of how divine authority, so long as it is inspired by hope of future +good or present advantage, is rather worse than useless: except our +righteousness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees,--that is, +except it be spontaneous righteousness or morality, and, therefore, not +morality, but unconscious goodness,--we shall in no wise have benefited +either ourselves or others. Children, when left to themselves, +artlessly and innocently act out the nature that is common to saint and +sinner alike; they are selfish, angry, and foolish, because their state +is human; and they are loving, truthful, and sincere, because their +origin is divine. All that pleases or agrees with them is good; all +that opposes or offends them is evil, and this, without any reference +whatever to the moral code in vogue among their elders. But, on the +other hand, children cannot be tempted as we are, because they suppose +that everything is free and possible, and because they are as yet +uncontaminated by the artificial cravings which the artificial +prohibitions incident to our civilization create. Life is to them a +constantly widening circle of things to be had and enjoyed; nor does it +ever occur to them that their desires can conflict with those of +others, or with the laws of the universe. They cannot consciously do +wrong, nor understand that any one else can do so; untoward accidents +may happen, but inanimate nature is just as liable to be objectionable +in this respect as human beings: the stone that trips them up, the +thorn that scratches them, the snow that makes their flesh tingle, is +an object of their resentment in just the same kind and degree as are +the men and women who thwart or injure them. But of duty--that dreary +device to secure future reward by present suffering; of +conscientiousness--that fear of present good for the sake of future +punishment; of remorse--that disavowal of past pleasure for fear of the +sting in its tail; of ambition--that begrudging of all honorable +results that are not effected by one's self; of these, and all similar +politic and arbitrary masks of self-love and pusillanimity, these poor +children know and suspect nothing. Yet their eyes are much keener than +ours, for they see through the surface of nature and perceive its +symbolism; they see the living reality, of which nature is the veil, +and are continually at fault because this veil is not, after all, the +reality,--because it is fixed and unplastic. The "deep mind of +dauntless infancy" is, in fact, the only revelation we have, except +divine revelation itself, of that pure and natural life of man which we +dream of, and liken to heaven; but we, nevertheless, in our penny-wise, +pound-foolish way, insist upon regarding it as ignorance, and do our +best, from the earliest possible moment, to disenchant and dispel it. +We call the outrage education, understanding thereby the process of +exterminating in the child the higher order of faculties and the +intuitions, and substituting for them the external memory, timidity, +self-esteem, and all that armament of petty weapons and defences which +may enable us to get the better of our fellow-creatures in this world, +and receive the reward of our sagacity in the next. The success of our +efforts is pitiably complete; for though the child, if fairly engaged +in single combat, might make a formidable resistance against the +infliction of "lessons," it cannot long withstand our crafty device of +sending it to a place where it sees a score or a hundred of little +victims like itself, all being driven to the same Siberia. The spirit +of emulation is aroused, and lo! away they all scamper, each straining +its utmost to reach the barren goal ahead of all competitors. So do we +make the most ignoble passions of our children our allies in the unholy +task of divesting them of their childhood. And yet, who is not aware +that the best men the world has seen have been those who, throughout +their lives, retained the aroma of childlike simplicity which they +brought with them into existence? Learning--the acquisition of specific +facts--is not wisdom; it is almost incompatible with wisdom; indeed, +unless the mind be powerful enough not only to fuse its facts, but to +vaporize them,--to sublimate them into an impalpable atmosphere,--they +will stand in wisdom's way. Wisdom comes from the pondering and the +application to life of certain truths quite above the sphere of facts, +and of infinitely more moment and less complexity,--truths which are +often found to be in accordance with the spiritual instinct called +intuition, which children possess more fully than grown persons. The +wisdom of our children would often astonish us, if we would only +forbear the attempt to make them knowing, and submissively accept +instruction from them. Through all the imperfection of their inherited +infirmity, we shall ever and anon be conscious of the radiance of a +beautiful, unconscious intelligence, worth more than the smartness of +schools and the cleverness of colleges. But no; we abhor the very +notion of it, and generally succeed in extinguishing it long before the +Three R's are done with. + +And yet, by wisely directing the child's use of the first of the Three, +much of the ill effects of the trio and their offspring might be +counteracted. If we believed--if the great mass of people known as the +civilized world did actually and livingly believe--that there was +really anything beyond or above the physical order of nature, our +children's literature, wrongly so called, would not be what it is. We +believe what we can see and touch; we teach them to believe the same, +and, not satisfied with that, we sedulously warn them not to believe +anything else. The child, let us suppose, has heard from some +unauthorized person that there are fairies--little magical creatures an +inch high, up to all manner of delightful feats. He comprehends the +whole matter at half a word, feels that he had known it already, and +half thinks that he sees one or two on his way home. He runs up to his +mother and tells her about it; and has she ever seen fairies? Alas! His +mother tells him that the existence of such a being as a fairy is +impossible. In old times, when the world was very ignorant and +superstitious, they used to ascribe everything that happened to +supernatural agency; even the trifling daily accidents of one's life, +such as tumbling down stairs, or putting the right shoe on the left +foot, were thought or fancied to be the work of some mysterious power; +and since ignorant people are very apt to imagine they see what they +believe [proceeds this mother] instead of only believing what they see; +and since, furthermore, ignorance disposes to exaggeration and thus to +untruth, these people ended by asserting that they saw fairies. "Now, +my child," continues the parent, "it would grieve me to see you the +victim of such folly. Do not read fairy stories. They are not true to +life; they fill your mind with idle notions; they cannot form your +understanding, or aid you to do your work in the world. If you should +happen to fall in with such fables, be careful as you read to bear in +mind that they are pure inventions--pretty, sometimes, perhaps, but +essentially frivolous, if not immoral. You have, however, thanks to the +enlightened enterprise of writers and publishers, an endless assortment +of juvenile books and periodicals which combine legitimate amusement +with sound and trustworthy instruction. Here are stories about little +children, just like yourself, who talk and act just as you do, and to +whom nothing supernatural or outlandish ever happens; and whose +adventures, when you have read them, convey to you some salutary moral +lesson. What more can you want? Yes, very likely 'Grimm's Tales' and +'The Arabian Nights' may seem more attractive; but in this world many +harmful things put on an inviting guise, which deceives the +inexperienced eye. May my child remember that all is not gold that +glitters, and desire, not what is diverting merely, but what is useful +and ... and conventional!" + +Let us admit that, things being as they are, it is necessary to develop +the practical side of the child's nature, to ground him in moral +principles, and to make him comprehend and fear--nominally God, but +really--society. But why, in addition to doing this, should we strangle +the unpractical side of his nature,--the ideal, imaginative, spiritual +side,--the side which alone can determine his value or worthlessness in +eternity? If our minds were visible as our bodies are, we should behold +on every side of us, and in our own private looking-glasses, such +abortions, cripples, and monstrosities as all the slums of Europe and +the East could not parallel. We pretend to make little men and women +out of our children, and we make little dwarfs and hobgoblins out of +them. Moreover, we should not diminish even the practical efficiency of +the coming generation by rejecting their unpractical side. Whether this +boy's worldly destination be to clean a stable or to represent his +country at a foreign court, he will do his work all the better, instead +of worse, for having been allowed freedom of expansion on the ideal +plane. He will do it comprehensively, or as from above downward, +instead of blindly, or as from below upward. To a certain extent, this +position is very generally admitted by instructors nowadays; but the +admission bears little or no fruit. The ideality and imagination which +they have in mind are but a partial and feeble imitation of what is +really signified by those terms. Ideality and imagination are +themselves merely the symptom or expression of the faculty and habit of +spiritual or subjective intuition--a faculty of paramount value in +life, though of late years, in the rush of rational knowledge and +discovery, it has fallen into neglect. But it is by means of this +faculty alone that the great religion of India was constructed--the +most elaborate and seductive of all systems; and although as a faith +Buddhism is also the most treacherous and dangerous attack ever made +upon the immortal welfare of mankind, that circumstance certainly does +not discredit or invalidate the claim to importance of spiritual +intuition itself. It may be objected that spiritual intuition is a +vague term. It undoubtedly belongs to an abstruse region of psychology; +but its meaning for our present purpose is simply the act of testing +questions of the moral consciousness by an inward touchstone of truth, +instead of by external experience or information. That the existence of +such a touchstone should be ridiculed by those who are accustomed to +depend for their belief upon palpable or logical evidence, goes without +saying; but, on the other hand, there need be no collision or argument +on the point, since no question with which intuition is concerned can +ever present itself to persons who pin their faith to the other sort of +demonstration. The reverse of this statement is by no means true; but +it would lead us out of our present path to discuss the matter. + +Assuming, however, that intuition is possible, it is evident that it +should exist in children in an extremely pure, if not in its most +potent state; and to deny it opportunity of development might fairly be +called a barbarity. It will hardly be disputed that children are an +important element in society. Without them we should lose the memory of +our youth, and all opportunity for the exercise of unselfish and +disinterested affection. Life would become arid and mechanical to a +degree now scarcely conceivable; chastity and all the human virtues +would cease to exist; marriage would be an aimless and absurd +transaction; and the brotherhood of man, even in the nominal sense that +it now exists, would speedily be abjured. Political economy and +sociology neglect to make children an element in their arguments and +deductions, and no small part of their error is attributable to that +circumstance. But although children still are born, and all the world +acknowledges their paramount moral and social value, the general +tendency of what we are forced to call education at the present day is +to shorten as much as possible the period of childhood. In America and +Germany especially--but more in America than in Germany--children are +urged and stimulated to "grow up" almost before they have been +short-coated. That conceptions of order and discipline should be early +instilled into them is proper enough; but no other order and discipline +seems to be contemplated by educators than the forcing them to stand +and be stuffed full of indigestible and incongruous knowledge, than +which proceeding nothing more disorderly could be devised. It looks as +if we felt the innocence and naturalness of our children to be a rebuke +to us, and wished to do away with it in short order. There is something +in the New Testament about offending the little ones, and the preferred +alternative thereto; and really we are outraging not only the objective +child, but the subjective one also--that in ourselves, namely, which is +innocent and pure, and without which we had better not be at all. Now I +do not mean to say that the only medicine that can cure this malady is +legitimate children's literature; wise parents are also very useful, +though not perhaps so generally available. My present contention is +that the right sort of literature is an agent of great efficiency, and +may be very easily come by. Children derive more genuine enjoyment and +profit from a good book than most grown people are susceptible of: they +see what is described, and themselves enact and perfect the characters +of the story as it goes along. + +Nor is it indispensable that literature of the kind required should +forthwith be produced; a great deal, of admirable quality, is already +on hand. There are a few great poems----Spenser's "Faerie Queene" is +one--which no well regulated child should be without; but poetry in +general is not exactly what we want. Children--healthy children--never +have the poetic genius; but they are born mystics, and they have the +sense of humor. The best way to speak to them is in prose, and the best +kind of prose is the symbolic. The hermetic philosophers of the Middle +Ages are probably the authors of some of the best children's stories +extant. In these tales, disguised beneath what is apparently the +simplest and most artless flow of narrative, profound truths are +discussed and explained. The child reads the narrative, and certainly +cannot be accused of comprehending the hidden philosophical problem; +yet that also has its share in charming him. The reason is partly that +true symbolic or figurative writing is the simplest form known to +literature. The simplest, that is to say, in outward form,--it may be +indefinitely abstruse as to its inward contents. Indeed, the very cause +of its formal simplicity is its interior profundity. The principle of +hermetic writing was, as we know, to disguise philosophical +propositions and results under a form of words which should ostensibly +signify some very ordinary and trivial thing. It was a secret language, +in the vocabulary of which material facts are used to represent +spiritual truths. But it differed from ordinary secret language in +this, that not only were the truths represented in the symbols, but the +philosophical development of the truth, in its ramifications, was +completely evolved under the cover of a logically consistent tale. +This, evidently, is a far higher achievement of ingenuity than merely +to string together a series of unrelated parts of speech, which, on +being tested by the "key," shall discover the message or information +really intended. It is, in fact, a practical application of the +philosophical discovery, made by or communicated to the hermetic +philosophers, that every material object in nature answers to or +corresponds with a certain one or group of philosophical truths. Viewed +in this light, the science of symbols or of correspondences ceases to +be an arbitrary device, susceptible of alteration according to fancy, +and avouches itself an essential and consistent relation between the +things of the mind and the things of the senses. There is a complete +mental creation, answering to the material creation, not continuously +evolved from it, but on a different or detached plane. The sun,--to +take an example,--the source of light and heat, and thereby of physical +nature, is in these fables always the symbol of God, of love and +wisdom, by which the spirit of man is created. Light, then, answers to +wisdom, and heat to love. And since all physical substances are the +result of the combined action of light and heat, we may easily perceive +how these hermetic sages were enabled to use every physical object as a +cloak of its corresponding philosophical truth,--with no other +liability to error than might result from the imperfect condition of +their knowledge of physical laws. + +To return, however, to the children, I need scarcely remark that the +cause of children's taking so kindly to hermetic writing is that it is +actually a living writing; it is alive in precisely the same way that +nature, or man himself, is alive. Matter is dead; life organizes and +animates it. And all writing is essentially dead which is a mere +transcript of fact, and is not inwardly organized and vivified by a +spiritual significance. Children do not know what it is that makes a +human being smile, move, and talk; but they know that such a phenomenon +is infinitely more interesting than a doll; and they prove it by +themselves supplying the doll with speech and motions out of their own +minds, so as to make it as much like a real person as possible. In the +same way, they do not perceive the philosophical truth which is the +cause of existence of the hermetic fable; but they find that fable far +more juicy and substantial than the ordinary narrative of every-day +facts, because, however fine the surface of the latter may be, it has, +after all, nothing but its surface to recommend it. It has no soul; it +is not alive; and, though they cannot explain why, they feel the +difference between that thin, fixed grimace and the changing smile of +the living countenance. + +It would scarcely be practicable, however, to confine the children's +reading to hermetic literature; for not much of it is extant in its +pure state. But it is hardly too much to say that all fairy stories, +and derivations from these, trace their descent from an hermetic +ancestry. They are often unaware of their genealogy; but the sparks of +that primal vitality are in them. The fairy is itself a symbol for the +expression of a more complex and abstract idea; but, once having come +into existence, and being, not a pure symbol, but a hybrid between the +symbol and that for which it stands, it presently began an independent +career of its own. The mediaeval imagination went to work with it, +found it singularly and delightfully plastic to its touch and +requirements, and soon made it the centre of a new and charming world, +in which a whole army of graceful and romantic fancies, which are +always in quest of an arena in which to disport themselves before the +mind, found abundant accommodation and nourishment. The fairy land of +mediaeval Christianity seems to us the most satisfactory of all fairy +lands, probably because it is more in accord with our genius and +prejudices than those of the East; and it fitted in so aptly with the +popular mediaeval ignorance on the subject of natural phenomena, that +it became actually an article of belief with the mass of men, who +trembled at it while they invented it, in the most delicious imaginable +state of enchanted alarm. All this is prime reading for children; +because, though it does not carry an orderly spiritual meaning within +it, it is more spiritual than material, and is constructed entirely +according to the dictates of an exuberant and richly colored, but, +nevertheless, in its own sphere, legitimate imagination. Indeed, fairy +land, though as it were accidentally created, has the same permanent +right to be that Beauty has; it agrees with a genuine aspect of human +nature, albeit one much discountenanced just at present. The sequel to +it, in which romantic human personages are accredited with fairy-like +attributes, as in the "Faerie Queene," already alluded to, is a step in +the wrong direction, but not a step long enough to carry us altogether +outside of the charmed circle. The child's instinct of selection being +vast and cordial,--he will make a grain of true imagination suffuse and +glorify a whole acre of twaddle,---we may with security leave him in +that fantastic society. Moreover, some children being less imaginative +than others, and all children being less imaginative in some moods and +conditions than at other seasons, the elaborate compositions of Tasso, +Cervantes, and the others, though on the boundary line between what is +meat for babes and the other sort of meat, have also their abiding use. + +The "Arabian Nights" introduced us to the domain of the Oriental +imagination, and has done more than all the books of travel in the East +to make us acquainted with the Asiatic character and its differences +from our own. From what has already been said on the subject of +spiritual intuition in relation to these races, one is prepared to find +that all the Eastern literature that has any value is hermetic writing, +and therefore, in so far, proper for children. But the incorrigible +subtlety of the Oriental intellect has vitiated much of their +symbology, and the sentiment of sheer wonder is stimulated rather than +that of orderly imagination. To read the "Arabian Nights" or the +"Bhagavad-Gita" is a sort of dissipation; upon the unhackneyed mind of +the child it leaves a reactionary sense of depression. The life which +it embodies is distorted, over-colored, and exciting; it has not the +serene and balanced power of the Western productions. Moreover, these +books were not written with the grave philosophic purpose that animated +our own hermetic school; it is rather a sort of jugglery practised with +the subject---an exercise of ingenuity and invention for their own +sake. It indicates a lack of the feeling of responsibility on the +writers' part,--a result, doubtless, of the prevailing fatalism that +underlies all their thought. It is not essentially wholesome, in short; +but it is immeasurably superior to the best of the productions called +forth by our modern notions of what should be given to children to read. + +But I can do no more than touch upon this branch of the subject; nor +will it be possible to linger long over the department of our own +literature which came into being with "Robinson Crusoe." No theory as +to children's books would be worth much attention which found itself +obliged to exclude that memorable work. Although it submits in a +certain measure to classification, it is almost _sui generis_; no book +of its kind, approaching it in merit, has ever been written. In what, +then, does its fascination consist? There is certainly nothing hermetic +about it; it is the simplest and most studiously matter-of-fact +narrative of events, comprehensible without the slightest effort, and +having no meaning that is not apparent on the face of it. And yet +children, and grown people also, read it again and again, and cannot +find it uninteresting. I think the phenomenon may largely be due to the +nature of the subject, which is really of primary and universal +interest to mankind. It is the story of the struggle of man with wild +and hostile nature,--in the larger sense an elementary theme,--his +shifts, his failures, his perils, his fears, his hopes, his successes. +The character of Robinson is so artfully generalized or universalized, +and sympathy for him is so powerfully aroused and maintained, that the +reader, especially the child reader, inevitably identifies himself with +him, and feels his emotions and struggles as his own. The ingredient of +suspense is never absent from the story, and the absence of any plot +prevents us from perceiving its artificiality. It is, in fact, a type +of the history of the human race, not on the higher plane, but on the +physical one; the history of man's contest with and final victory over +physical nature. The very simplicity and obviousness of the details +give them grandeur and comprehensiveness: no part of man's character +which his contact with nature can affect or develop is left untried in +Robinson. He manifests in little all historical earthly experiences of +the race; such is the scheme of the book; and its permanence in +literature is due to the sobriety and veracity with which that scheme +is carried out. To speak succinctly, it does for the body what the +hermetic and cognate literature does for the soul; and for the healthy +man, the body is not less important than the soul in its own place and +degree. It is not the work of the Creator, but it is contingent upon +creation. + +But poor Robinson has been most unfortunate in his progeny, which at +this day overrun the whole earth, and render it a worse wilderness than +ever was the immortal Crusoe Island. Miss Edgeworth, indeed, might +fairly pose as the most persistently malignant of all sources of error +in the design of children's literature; but it is to be feared that it +was Defoe who first made her aware of the availability of her own +venom. She foisted her prim and narrow moral code upon the commonplace +adventures of a priggish little boy and his companions; and straightway +the whole dreary and disastrous army of sectarians and dogmatists took +up the cry, and have been ringing the lugubrious changes on it ever +since. There is really no estimating the mortal wrong that has been +done to childhood by Maria Edgeworth's "Frank" and "The Parent's +Assistant"; and, for my part, I derive a melancholy joy in availing +myself of this opportunity to express my sense of my personal share in +the injury. I believe that my affection for the human race is as +genuine as the average; but I am sure it would have been greater had +Miss Edgeworth never been born; and were I to come across any +philosophical system whereby I could persuade myself that she belonged +to some other order of beings than the human, I should be strongly +tempted to embrace that system on that ground alone. + +After what has been advanced in the preceding pages, it does not need +that I should state how earnestly I deprecate the kind of literary food +which we are now furnishing to the coming generation in such sinister +abundance. I am sure it is written and published with good and +honorable motives; but at the very best it can only do no harm. +Moreover, however well intentioned, it is bad as literature; it is +poorly conceived and written, and, what is worse, it is saturated with +affectation. For an impression prevails that one needs to talk down to +children;--to keep them constantly reminded that they are innocent, +ignorant little things, whose consuming wish it is to be good and go to +Sunday-school, and who will be all gratitude and docility to whomsoever +provides them with the latest fashion of moral sugarplums; whereas, so +far as my experience and information goes, children are the most +formidable literary critics in the world. Matthew Arnold himself has +not so sure an instinct for what is sound and good in a book as any +intelligent little boy or girl of eight years old. They judge +absolutely; they are hampered by no comparisons or relative +considerations. They cannot give chapter and verse for their opinion; +but about the opinion itself there is no doubt. They have no theories; +they judge in a white light. They have no prejudices nor traditions; +they come straight from the simple source of life. But, on the other +hand, they are readily hocussed and made morbid by improper drugs, and +presently, no doubt, lose their appetite for what is wholesome. Now, we +cannot hope that an army of hermetic philosophers or Mother-Gooses will +arise at need and remedy all abuses; but at least we might refrain from +moralizing and instruction, and, if we can do nothing more, confine +ourselves to plain stories of adventure, say, with no ulterior object +whatever. There still remains the genuine literature of the past to +draw upon; but let us beware, as we would of forgery and perjury, of +serving it up, as has been done too often, medicated and modified to +suit the foolish dogmatism of the moment. Hans Christian Andersen was +the last writer of children's stories, properly so called; though, +considering how well married to his muse he was, it is a wonder as well +as a calamity that he left no descendants. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE MORAL AIM IN FICTION. + + +The producers of modern fiction, who have acquiesced more or less +completely in the theory of art for art's sake, are not, perhaps, aware +that a large class of persons still exist who hold fiction to be +unjustifiable, save in so far as the author has it at heart not only +(or chiefly) to adorn the tale, but also (and first of all) to point +the moral. The novelist, in other words, should so mould the characters +and shape the plot of his imaginary drama as to vindicate the wisdom +and integrity of the Decalogue: if he fail to do this, or if he do the +opposite of this, he deserves not the countenance of virtuous and +God-fearing persons. + +Doubtless it should be evident to every sane and impartial mind, +whether orthodox or agnostic, that an art which runs counter to the +designs of God toward the human race, or to the growth of the sentiment +of universal human brotherhood, must sooner or later topple down from +its fantastic and hollow foundation. "Hitch your wagon to a star," says +Emerson; "do not lie and steal: no god will help." And although, for +the sake of his own private interests of the moment, a man will +occasionally violate the moral law, yet, with mankind at large, the +necessity of vindicating the superior advantages of right over wrong is +acknowledged not only in the interests of civilized society, but +because we feel that, however hostile "goodness" may seem to be to my +or your personal and temporary aims, it still remains the only +wholesome and handsome choice for the race at large: and therefore do +we, as a race, refuse to tolerate--on no matter how plausible an +artistic plea--any view of human life which either professes +indifference to this universal sentiment, or perversely challenges it. + +The true ground of dispute, then, does not lie here. The art which can +stoop to be "procuress to the lords of hell," is art no longer. But, on +the other hand, it would be difficult to point to any great work of +art, generally acknowledged to be such, which explicitly concerns +itself with the vindication of any specific moral doctrine. The story +in which the virtuous are rewarded for their virtue, and the evil +punished for their wickedness, fails, somehow, to enlist our full +sympathy; it falls flatly on the ear of the mind; it does not stimulate +thought. It does not satisfy; we fancy that something still remains to +be said, or, if this be all, then it was hardly worth saying. The real +record of life--its terror, its beauty, its pathos, its depth--seems to +have been missed. We may admit that the tale is in harmony with what we +have been taught ought to happen; but the lessons of our private +experience have not authenticated our moral formulas; we have seen the +evil exalted and the good brought low; and we inevitably desire that +our "fiction" shall tell us, not what ought to happen, but what, as a +matter of fact, does happen. To put this a little differently: we feel +that the God of the orthodox moralist is not the God of human nature. +He is nothing but the moralist himself in a highly sublimated state, +but betraying, in spite of that sublimation, a fatal savor of human +personality. The conviction that any man--George Washington, let us +say--is a morally unexceptionable man, does not in the least reconcile +us to the idea of God being an indefinitely exalted counterpart of +Washington. Such a God would be "most tolerable, and not to be +endured"; and the more exalted he was, the less endurable would he be. +In short, man instinctively refuses to regard the literal inculcation +of the Decalogue as the final word of God to the human race, and much +less to the individuals of that race; and when he finds a story-teller +proceeding upon the contrary assumption, he is apt to put that +story-teller down as either an ass or a humbug. + +As for art--if the reader happen to be competent to form an opinion on +that phase of the matter--he will generally find that the art dwindles +in direct proportion as the moralized deity expatiates; in fact, that +they are incompatible. And he will also confess (if he have the courage +of his opinions) that, as between moralized deity and true art, his +choice is heartily and unreservedly for the latter. + +I do not apprehend that the above remarks, fairly interpreted, will +encounter serious opposition from either party to the discussion; and +yet, so far as I am aware, neither party has as yet availed himself of +the light which the conclusion throws upon the nature of art itself. It +should be obvious, however, that upon a true definition of art the +whole argument must ultimately hinge: for we can neither deny that art +exists, nor affirm that it can exist inconsistently with a recognition +of a divinely beneficent purpose in creation. It must, therefore, in +some way be an expression or reflection of that purpose. But in what +does the purpose in question essentially consist? + +Broadly speaking--for it would be impossible within the present limits +to attempt a full analysis of the subject--it may be considered as a +gradual and progressive Purification, not of this or that particular +individual in contradistinction to his fellows, but of human nature as +an entirety. The evil into which all men are born, and of which the +Decalogue, or conscience, makes us aware, is not an evil voluntarily +contracted on our part, but is inevitable to us as the creation of a +truly infinite love and wisdom. It is, in fact, our characteristic +nature as animals: and it is only because we are not only animal, but +also and above all human, that we are enabled to recognize it as evil +instead of good. We absolve the cat, the dog, the wolf, and the lion +from any moral responsibility for their deeds, because we feel them to +be deficient in conscience, which, is our own divinely bestowed gift +and privilege, and which has been defined as the spirit of God in the +created nature, seeking to become the creature's own spirit. Now, the +power to correct this evil does not abide in us as individuals, nor +will a literal adherence to the moral law avail to purify any mother's +son of us. Conscience always says "Do not,"--never "Do"; and obedience +to it neither can give us a personal claim on God's favor nor was it +intended to do so: its true function is to keep us innocent, so that we +may not individually obstruct the accomplishment of the divine ends +toward us as a race. Our nature not being the private possession of any +one of us, but the impersonal substratum of us all, it follows that it +cannot be redeemed piecemeal, but only as a whole; and, manifestly, the +only Being capable of effecting such redemption is not Peter, or Paul, +or George Washington, or any other atomic exponent of that nature, be +he who he may; but He alone whose infinitude is the complement of our +finiteness, and whose gradual descent into human nature (figured in +Scripture under the symbol of the Incarnation) is even now being +accomplished--as any one may perceive who reads aright the progressive +enlightenment of conscience and intellect which history, through many +vicissitudes, displays. We find, therefore, that art is, essentially, +the imaginative expression of a divine life in man. Art depends for its +worth and veracity, not upon its adherence to literal fact, but upon +its perception and portrayal of the underlying truth, of which fact is +but the phenomenal and imperfect shadow. And it can have nothing to do +with personal vice or virtue, in the way either of condemning the one +or vindicating the other; it can only treat them as elements in its +picture--as factors in human destiny. For the notion commonly +entertained that the practice of virtue gives us a claim upon the +Divine Exchequer (so to speak), and the habit of acting virtuously for +the sake of maintaining our credit in society, and ensuring our +prosperity in the next world,--in so thinking and acting we +misapprehend the true inwardness of the matter. To cultivate virtue +because its pays, no matter what the sort of coin in which payment is +looked for, is to be the victims of a lamentable delusion. For such +virtue makes each man jealous of his neighbor; whereas the aim of +Providence is to bring about the broadest human fellowship. A man's +physical body separates him from other men; and this fact disposes him +to the error that his nature is also a separate possession, and that he +can only be "good" by denying himself. But the only goodness that is +really good is a spontaneous and impersonal evolution, and this occurs, +not where self-denial has been practised, but only where a man feels +himself to be absolutely on the same level of desert or non-desert as +are the mass of his fellow-creatures. There is no use in obeying the +commandments, unless it be done, not to make one's self more deserving +than another of God's approbation, but out of love for goodness and +truth in themselves, apart from any personal considerations. The +difference between true religion and formal religion is that the first +leads us to abandon all personal claims to salvation, and to care only +for the salvation of humanity as a whole; whereas the latter stimulates +is to practise outward self-denial, in order that our real self may be +exalted. Such self-denial results not in humility, but in spiritual +pride. + +In no other way than this, it seems to me, can art and morality be +brought into harmony. Art bears witness to the presence in us of +something purer and loftier than anything of which we can be +individually conscious. Its complete expression we call inspiration; +and he who is the subject of the inspiration can account no better than +any one else for the result which art accomplishes through him. The +perfect poem is found, not made; the mind which utters it did not +invent it. Art takes all nature and all knowledge for her province; but +she does not leave it as she found it; by the divine necessity that is +upon her, she breathes a soul into her materials, and organizes chaos +into form. But never, under any circumstances, does she deign to +minister to our selfish personal hope or greed. She shows us how to +love our neighbor, never ourselves. Shakspeare, Homer, Phidias, +Raphael, were no Pharisees--at least in so far as they were artists; +nor did any one ever find in their works any countenance for that +inhuman assumption--"I am holier than thou!" In the world's darkest +hours, art has sometimes stood as the sole witness of the nobler life +that was in eclipse. Civilizations arise and vanish; forms of religion +hold sway and are forgotten; learning and science advance and gather +strength; but true art was as great and as beautiful three thousand +years ago as it is to-day. We are prone to confound the man with the +artist, and to suppose that he is artistic by possession and +inheritance, instead of exclusively by dint of what he does. No artist +worthy the name ever dreams of putting himself into his work, but only +what is infinitely distinct from and other than himself. It is not the +poet who brings forth the poem, but the poem that begets the poet; it +makes him, educates him, creates in him the poetic faculty. Those whom +we call great men, the heroes of history, are but the organs of great +crises and opportunities: as Emerson has said, they are the most +indebted men. In themselves they are not great; there is no ratio +between their achievements and them. Our judgment is misled; we do not +discriminate between the divine purpose and the human instrument. When +we listen to Napoleon fretting his soul away at Elba, or to Carlyle +wrangling with his wife at Chelsea, we are shocked at the discrepancy +between the lofty public performance and the petty domestic +shortcoming. Yet we do wrong to blame them; the nature of which they +are examples is the same nature that is shared also by the publican and +the sinner. + +Instead, therefore, of saying that art should be moral, we should +rather say that all true morality is art--that art is the test of +morality. To attempt to make this heavenly Pegasus draw the sordid +plough of our selfish moralistic prejudices is a grotesque subversion +of true order. Why should the novelist make believe that the wicked are +punished and the good are rewarded in this world? Does he not know, on +the contrary, that whatsoever is basest in our common life tends +irresistibly to the highest places, and that the selfish element in our +nature is on the side of public order? Evil is at present a more +efficient instrument of order (because an interested one) than good; +and the novelist who makes this appear will do a far greater and more +lasting benefit to humanity than he who follows the cut-and-dried +artificial programme of bestowing crowns on the saint and whips of +scorpions on the sinner. + +As a matter of fact, I repeat, the best influences of the best +literature have never been didactic, and there is no reason to believe +they ever will be. The only semblance of didacticism which can enter +into literature is that which conveys such lessons as may be learned +from sea and sky, mountain and valley, wood and stream, bird and beast; +and from the broad human life of races, nations, and firesides; a +lesson that is not obvious and superficial, but so profoundly hidden in +the creative depths as to emerge only to an apprehension equally +profound. For the chatter and affectation of sense disturb and offend +that inward spiritual ear which, in the silent recesses of meditation, +hears the prophetic murmur of the vast ocean of human nature that flows +within us and around us all. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE MAKER OF MANY BOOKS. + + +During the winter of 1879, when I was in London, it was my fortune to +attend, a social meeting of literary men at the rooms of a certain +eminent publisher. The rooms were full of tobacco-smoke and talk, amid +which were discernible, on all sides, the figures and faces of men more +or less renowned in the world of books. Most noticeable among these +personages was a broad-shouldered, sturdy man, of middle height, with a +ruddy countenance, and snow-white tempestuous beard and hair. He wore +large, gold-rimmed spectacles, but his eyes were black and brilliant, +and looked at his interlocutor with a certain genial fury of +inspection. He seemed to be in a state of some excitement; he spoke +volubly and almost boisterously, and his voice was full-toned and +powerful, though pleasant to the ear. He turned himself, as he spoke, +with a burly briskness, from one side to another, addressing himself +first to this auditor and then to that, his words bursting forth from +beneath his white moustache with such an impetus of hearty breath that +it seemed as if all opposing arguments must be blown quite away. +Meanwhile he flourished in the air an ebony walking-stick, with much +vigor of gesticulation, and narrowly missing, as it appeared, the pates +of his listeners. He was clad in evening dress, though the rest of the +company was, for the most part, in mufti; and he was an exceedingly +fine-looking old gentleman. At the first glance, you would have taken +him to be some civilized and modernized Squire Western, nourished with +beef and ale, and roughly hewn out of the most robust and least refined +variety of human clay. Looking at him more narrowly, however, you would +have reconsidered this judgment. Though his general contour and aspect +were massive and sturdy, the lines of his features were delicately cut; +his complexion was remarkably pure and fine, and his face was +susceptible of very subtle and sensitive changes of expression. Here +was a man of abundant physical strength and vigor, no doubt, but +carrying within him a nature more than commonly alert and impressible. +His organization, though thoroughly healthy, was both complex and +high-wrought; his character was simple and straightforward to a fault, +but he was abnormally conscientious, and keenly alive to others' +opinion concerning him. It might be thought that he was overburdened +with self-esteem, and unduly opinionated; but, in fact, he was but +overanxious to secure the good-will and agreement of all with whom he +came in contact. There was some peculiarity in him--some element or +bias in his composition that made him different from other men; but, on +the other hand, there was an ardent solicitude to annul or reconcile +this difference, and to prove himself to be, in fact, of absolutely the +same cut and quality as all the rest of the world. Hence he was in a +demonstrative, expository, or argumentative mood; he could not sit +quiet in the face of a divergence between himself and his associates; +he was incorrigibly strenuous to obliterate or harmonize the +irreconcilable points between him and others; and since these points +remained irreconcilable, he remained in a constant state of storm and +stress on the subject. + +It was impossible to help liking such a man at first sight; and I +believe that no man in London society was more generally liked than +Anthony Trollope. There was something pathetic in his attitude as above +indicated; and a fresh and boyish quality always invested him. His +artlessness was boyish, and so were his acuteness and his transparent +but somewhat belated good-sense. He was one of those rare persons who +not only have no reserves, but who can afford to dispense with them. +After he had shown you all he had in him, you would have seen nothing +that was not gentlemanly, honest, and clean. He was a quick-tempered +man, and the ardor and hurry of his temperament made him seem more so +than he really was; but he was never more angry than he was forgiving +and generous. He was hurt by little things, and little things pleased +him; he was suspicious and perverse, but in a manner that rather +endeared him to you than otherwise. Altogether, to a casual +acquaintance, who knew nothing of his personal history, he was +something of a paradox--an entertaining contradiction. The publication +of his autobiography explained many things in his character that were +open to speculation; and, indeed, the book is not only the most +interesting and amusing that its author has ever written, but it places +its subject before the reader more completely and comprehensively than +most autobiographies do. This, however, is due much less to any direct +effort or intention on the writer's part, than to the unconscious +self-revelation which meets the reader on every page. No narrative +could be simpler, less artificial; and yet, everywhere, we read between +the lines, and, so to speak, discover Anthony Trollope in spite of his +efforts to discover himself to us. + +The truth appears to be that the youthful Trollope, like a more famous +fellow-novelist, began the world with more kicks than half-pence. His +boyhood, he affirms, was as unhappy as that of a young gentleman could +well be, owing to a mixture of poverty and gentle standing on his +father's part, and, on his own, to "an utter lack of juvenile +manhood"--whatever that may be. His father was a lawyer, who frightened +away all his clients by his outrageous temper, and who encountered one +mischance after another until he landed himself and his family in open +bankruptcy; from which they were rescued, partly by death, which +carried away four of them (including the old gentleman), and partly by +Mrs. Trollope, who, at fifty years of age, brought out her famous book +on America, and continued to make a fair income by literature (as she +called it) until 1856, when, being seventy-six years old, and having +produced one hundred and fourteen volumes, she permitted herself to +retire. This extraordinary lady, in her youth, cherished what her son +calls "an emotional dislike to tyrants"; but when her American +experience had made her acquainted with some of the seamy aspects of +democracy, and especially after the aristocracy of her own country had +begun to patronize her, she confessed the error of her early way, "and +thought that archduchesses were sweet." But she was certainly a valiant +and indefatigable woman,--"of all the people I have ever known," says +her son, "the most joyous, or, at any rate, the most capable of joy"; +and he adds that her best novels were written in 1834-35, when her +husband and four of her six children were dying upstairs of +consumption, and she had to divide her time between nursing them and +writing. Assuredly, no son of hers need apprehend the +reproach--"_Tydides melior matre_"; though Anthony, and his brother +Thomas Adolphus, must, together, have run her pretty hard. The former +remarks, with that terrible complacency in an awful fact which is one +of his most noticeable and astounding traits, that the three of them +"wrote more books than were probably ever before produced by a single +family." The existence of a few more such families could be consistent +only with a generous enlargement of the British Museum. + +The elder Trollope was a scholar, and to make scholars of his sons was +one of his ruling ideas. Poor little Anthony endured no less than +twelve mortal years of schooling--from the time he was seven until he +was nineteen--and declares that, in all that time, he does not remember +that he ever knew a lesson. "I have been flogged," he says, "oftener +than any other human being." Nay, his troubles began before his +school-days; for his father used to make him recite his infantile tasks +to him while he was shaving, and obliged him to sit with his head +inclined in such a manner "that he could pull my hair without stopping +his razor or dropping his shaving-brush." This is a depressing picture; +and there are plenty more like it. Dr. Butler, the master of Harrow, +meeting the poor little draggletail urchin in the yard, desired to +know, in awful accents, how so dirty a boy dared to show himself near +the school! "He must have known me, had he seen me as he was wont to +see me, for he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps," +adds his victim, "he did not recognize me by my face!" But it is +comforting to learn, in another place, that justice overtook the +oppressor. "Dr. Butler only lived to be Dean of Peterborough; but his +successor (Dr. Longley) became Archbishop of Canterbury." There is a +great deal of Trollopian morality in the fate of these two men, the +latter of whom "could not have said anything ill-natured if he had +tried." + +Black care, however, continued to sit behind the horseman with +harrowing persistence. A certain Dr. Drury (another schoolmaster) +punished him on suspicion of "some nameless horror," of which the +unfortunate youngster happened to be innocent. When, afterward, the +latter fact began to be obvious, "he whispered to me half a word that +perhaps he had been wrong. But, with a boy's stupid slowness, I said +nothing, and he had not the courage to carry reparation farther." The +poverty of Anthony's father deprived the boy of all the external +advantages that might have enabled him to take rank with his fellows: +and his native awkwardness and sensitiveness widened the breach. "I had +no friend to whom I could pour out my sorrows. I was big, awkward and +ugly, and, I have no doubt, skulked about in a most unattractive +manner. Something of the disgrace of my school-days has clung to me all +through life. When I have been claimed as school-fellow by some of +those many hundreds who were with me either at Harrow or at Winchester, +I have felt that I had no right to talk of things from most of which I +was kept in estrangement. I was never a coward, but to make a stand +against three hundred tyrants required a moral courage which I did not +possess." Once, however, they pushed him too far, and he was driven to +rebellion. "And then came a great fight--at the end of which my +opponent had to be taken home to be cured." And then he utters the +characteristic wish that some one, of the many who witnessed this +combat, may still be left alive "who will be able to say that, in +claiming this solitary glory of my school-days, I am making no false +boast." The lonely, lugubrious little champion! One would almost have +been willing to have received from him a black eye and a bloody nose, +only to comfort his sad heart. It is delightful to imagine the terrific +earnestness of that solitary victory: and I would like to know what boy +it was (if any) who lent the unpopular warrior a knee and wiped his +face. + +After he got through his school-days, his family being then abroad, he +had an offer of a commission in an Austrian cavalry regiment; and he +might have been a major-general or field-marshal at this day had his +schooling made him acquainted with the French and German languages. +Being, however, entirely ignorant of these, he was obliged to study +them in order to his admission; and while he was thus employed, he +received news of a vacant clerkship in the General Post-Office, with +the dazzling salary of L90 a year. Needless to say that he jumped at +such an opening, seeing before him a vision of a splendid civil and +social career, at something over twenty pounds a quarter. But London, +even fifty years ago, was a more expensive place than Anthony imagined. +Moreover, the boy was alone in the wilderness of the city, with no one +to advise or guide him. The consequence was that these latter days of +his youth were as bad or worse than the beginning. In reviewing his +plight at this period, he observes: "I had passed my life where I had +seen gay things, but had never enjoyed them. There was no house in +which I could habitually see a lady's face or hear a lady's voice. At +the Post-Office I got credit for nothing, and was reckless. I hated my +work, and, more than all, I hated my idleness. Borrowings of money, +sometimes absolute want, and almost constant misery, followed as a +matter of course. I Had a full conviction that my life was taking me +down to the lowest pits--a feeling that I had been looked upon as an +evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing, a creature of whom those +connected with me had to be ashamed. Even my few friends were +half-ashamed of me. I acknowledge the weakness of a great desire to be +loved--a strong wish to be popular. No one had ever been less so." +Under these circumstances, he remarks that, although, no doubt, if the +mind be strong enough, the temptation will not prevail, yet he is fain +to admit that the temptation prevailed with him. He did not sit at +home, after his return from the office, in the evening, to drink tea +and read, but tramped out in the streets, and tried to see life and be +jolly on L90 a year. He borrowed four pounds of a money-lender, to +augment his resources, and found, after a few years, that he had paid +him two hundred pounds for the accommodation. He met with every variety +of absurd and disastrous adventure. The mother of a young woman with +whom he had had an innocent flirtation in the country appeared one day +at his desk in the office, and called out before all the clerks, +"Anthony Trollope, when are you going to marry my daughter?" On another +occasion a sum of money was missing from the table of the director. +Anthony was summoned. The director informed him of the loss--"and, by +G--!" he continued, thundering his fist down on the table, "no one has +been in the room but you and I." "Then, by G--!" cried Anthony, +thundering _his_ fist down upon something, "you have taken it!" This +was very well; but the thing which Anthony had thumped happened to be, +not a table, but a movable desk with an inkstand on it, and the ink +flew up and deluged the face and shirt-front of the enraged director. +Still another adventure was that of the Queen of Saxony and the +Half-Crown; but the reader must investigate these matters for himself. + +So far there has been nothing looking toward the novel-writer. But now +we learn that from the age of fifteen to twenty-six Anthony kept a +journal, which, he says, "convicted me of folly, ignorance, +indiscretion, idleness, and conceit, but habituated me to the rapid use +of pen and ink, and taught me how to express myself with facility." In +addition to this, and more to the purpose, he had formed an odd habit. +Living, as he was forced to do, so much to himself, if not by himself, +he had to play, not with other boys, but with himself; and his favorite +play was to conceive a tale, or series of fictitious events, and to +carry it on, day after day, for months together, in his mind. "Nothing +impossible was ever introduced, or violently improbable. I was my own +hero, but I never became a king or a duke, still less an Antinoues, or +six feet high. But I was a very clever person, and beautiful young +women used to be very fond of me. I learned in this way to live in a +world outside the world of my own material life." This is pointedly, +even touchingly, characteristic. Never, to the day of his death, did +Mr. Trollope either see or imagine anything impossible, or violently +improbable, in the world. This mortal plane of things never dissolved +before his gaze and revealed the mysteries of absolute Being; his +heavens were never rolled up as a scroll, and his earth had no bubbles +as the water hath. He took things as he found them; and he never found +them out. But if the light that never was on sea or land does not +illuminate the writings of Mr. Trollope, there is generally plenty of +that other kind of light with which, after all, the average reader is +more familiar, and which not a few, perhaps, prefer to the +transcendental lustre. There is no modern novelist who has more clearly +than Trollope defined to his own apprehension his own literary +capabilities and limitations. He is thoroughly acquainted with both his +fortes and his foibles; and so sound is his good sense, that he is +seldom beguiled into toiling with futile ambition after effects that +are beyond him. His proper domain is a sufficiently wide one; he is +inimitably at home here; and when he invites us there to visit him, we +may be sure of getting good and wholesome entertainment. The writer's +familiarity with his characters communicates itself imperceptibly to +the reader; there are no difficult or awkward introductions; the toning +of the picture (to use the painter's phrase) is unexceptionable; and if +it be rather tinted than colored, the tints are handled in a +workmanlike manner. Again, few English novelists seem to possess so +sane a comprehension of the modes of life and thought of the British +aristocracy as Trollope. He has not only made a study of them from the +observer's point of view, but he has reasoned them out intellectually. +The figures are not vividly defined; the realism is applied to events +rather than to personages: we have the scene described for us but we do +not look upon it. We should not recognize his characters if we saw +them; but if we were told who they were, we should know, from their +author's testimony, what were their characteristic traits and how they +would act under given circumstances. The logical sequence of events is +carefully maintained; nothing happens, either for good or for evil, +other than might befall under the dispensations of a Providence no more +unjust, and no more far-sighted, than Trollope himself. There is a good +deal of the _a priori_ principle in his method; he has made up his mind +as to certain fundamental data, and thence develops or explains +whatever complication comes up for settlement. But to range about +unhampered by any theories, concerned only to examine all phenomena, +and to report thereupon, careless of any considerations save those of +artistic propriety, would have been vanity and striving after wind to +Trollope, and derivatively so, doubtless, to his readers. + +Considered in the abstract, it is a curious question what makes his +novels interesting. The reader knows, in a sense, just what is in store +for him,--or, rather, what is not. There will be no astonishment, no +curdling horror, no consuming suspense. There may be, perhaps, as many +murders, forgeries, foundlings, abductions, and missing wills, in +Trollope's novels as in any others; but they are not told about in a +manner to alarm us; we accept them philosophically; there are +paragraphs in our morning paper that excite us more. And yet they are +narrated with art, and with dramatic effect. They are interesting, but +not uncourteously--not exasperatingly so; and the strangest part of it +is that the introductory and intermediate passages are no less +interesting, under Trollope's treatment, than are the murders and +forgeries. Not only does he never offend the modesty of nature,--he +encourages her to be prudish, and trains her to such evenness and +severity of demeanor that we never know when we have had enough of her. +His touch is eminently civilizing; everything, from the episodes to the +sentences, moves without hitch or creak: we never have to read a +paragraph twice, and we are seldom sorry to have read it once. + +Amusingly characteristic of Trollope is his treatment of his villains. +His attitude toward them betrays no personal uncharitableness or +animosity, but the villain has a bad time of it just the same. Trollope +places upon him a large, benevolent, but unyielding forefinger, and +says to us: "Remark, if you please, how this inferior reptile squirms +when pressure is applied to him. I will now augment the pressure. You +observe that the squirmings increase in energy and complexity. Now, if +you please, I will bear down yet a little harder. Do not be alarmed, +madam; the reptile undoubtedly suffers, but the spectacle may do us +some good, and you may trust me not to let him do you any harm. +There!--Yes, evisceration by means of pressure is beyond question +painful; but every one must have observed the benevolence of my +forefinger during the operation; and I fancy even the subject of the +experiment (were he in a condition to express his sentiments) would +have admitted as much. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I shall have +the pleasure of meeting you again very shortly. John, another reptile, +please!" Upon the whole, it is much to Trollope's credit that he wrote +somewhere about fifty long novels; and to the credit of the English +people that they paid him three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for +these novels--and read them! + +But his success as a man of letters was still many years in the future. +After seven years in the London office, he went to Ireland as assistant +surveyor, and thenceforward he began to enjoy his business, and to get +on in it. He was paid sixpence a mile, and he would ride forty miles a +day. He rode to hounds, incidentally, whenever he got a chance, and he +kept up the practice, with enthusiasm, to within a few years of his +death. "It will, I think, be accorded to me," he says, "that I have +ridden hard. I know very little about hunting; I am blind, very heavy, +and I am now old; but I ride with a boy's energy, hating the roads, and +despising young men who ride them; and I feel that life cannot give me +anything better than when I have gone through a long run to the finish, +keeping a place, not of glory, but of credit, among my juniors." +Riding, working, having a jolly time, and gradually increasing his +income, he lived until 1842, when he became engaged; and he was married +on June 11, 1844. "I ought to name that happy day," he declares, "as +the commencement of my better life." It was at about this date, also, +that he began and finished, not without delay and procrastination, his +first novel. Curiously enough, he affirms that he did not doubt his own +intellectual sufficiency to write a readable novel: "What I did doubt +was my own industry, and the chances of a market." Never, surely, was +self-distrust more unfounded. As for the first novel, he sent it to his +mother, to dispose of as best she could; and it never brought him +anything, except a perception that it was considered by his friends to +be "an unfortunate aggravation of the family disease." During the +ensuing ten years, this view seemed to be not unreasonable, for, in all +that time, though he worked hard, he earned by literature no more than +L55. But, between 1857 and 1860, he received for various novels, from +L100 to L1000 each; and thereafter, L3000 or more was his regular price +for a story in three volumes. As he maintained his connection with the +post-office until 1867, he was in receipt of an income of L4500, "of +which I spent two-thirds and put by one." We should be doing an +injustice to Mr. Trollope to omit these details, which he gives so +frankly; for, as he early informs us, "my first object in taking to +literature was to make an income on which I and those belonging to me +might live in comfort." Nor will he let us forget that novel-writing, +to him, was not so much an art, or even a profession, as a trade, in +which all that can be asked of a man is that he shall be honest and +punctual, turning out good average work, and the more the better. "The +great secret consists in"--in what?--why, "in acknowledging myself to +be bound to rules of labor similar to those which an artisan or +mechanic is forced to obey." There may be, however, other incidental +considerations. "I have ever thought of myself as a preacher of +sermons, and my pulpit as one I could make both salutary and agreeable +to my audience"; and he tells us that he has used some of his novels +for the expression of his political and social convictions. Again--"The +novelist must please, and he must teach; a good novel should be both +realistic and sensational in the highest degree." He says that he sees +no reason why two or three good novels should not be written at the +same time; and that, for his own part, he was accustomed to write two +hundred and fifty words every fifteen minutes, by the watch, during his +working hours. Nor does he mind letting us know that when he sits down +to write a novel, he neither knows nor cares how it is to end. And +finally, one is a little startled to hear him say, epigrammatically, +that a writer should not have to tell a story, but should have a story +to tell. Beyond a doubt, Anthony Trollope is something of a paradox. + +The world has long ago passed its judgment on his stories, but it is +interesting, all the same, to note his own opinion of them; and though +never arrogant, he is generally tolerant, if not genial. "A novel +should be a picture of common life, enlivened by humor and sweetened by +pathos. I have never fancied myself to be a man of genius," he says; +but again, with strange imperviousness, "A small daily task, if it be +daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules." Beat them, how? +Why, in quantity. But how about quality? Is the travail of a work of +art the same thing as the making of a pair of shoes? Emerson tells us +that-- + + "Ever the words of the gods resound, + But the porches of man's ear + Seldom, in this low life's round, + Are unsealed, that he may hear." + +No one disputes, however, that you may hear the tapping of the +cobbler's hammer at any time. + +To the view of the present writer, how much good soever Mr. Trollope +may have done as a preacher and moralist, he has done great harm to +English fictitious literature by his novels; and it need only be added, +in this connection, that his methods and results in novel-writing seem +best to be explained by that peculiar mixture of separateness and +commonplaceness which we began by remarking in him. The separateness +has given him the standpoint whence he has been able to observe and +describe the commonplaceness with which (in spite of his separateness) +he is in vital sympathy. + +But Trollope the man is the abundant and consoling compensation for +Trollope the novelist; and one wishes that his books might have died, +and he lived on indefinitely. It is charming to read of his life in +London after his success in the _Cornhill Magazine_. "Up to that time I +had lived very little among men. It was a festival to me to dine at the +'Garrick.' I think I became popular among those with whom I associated. +I have ever wished to be liked by those around me--a wish that during +the first half of my life was never gratified." And, again, in summing +up his life, he says: "I have betrayed no woman. Wine has brought to me +no sorrow. It has been the companionship, rather than the habit of +smoking that I loved. I have never desired to win money, and I have +lost none. To enjoy the excitement of pleasure, but to be free from its +vices and ill-effects--to have the sweet, and to leave the bitter +untasted--that has been my study. I will not say that I have never +scorched a finger; but I carry no ugly wounds." + +A man who, at the end of his career, could make such a profession as +this--who felt the need of no further self-vindication than this--such +a man, whatever may have been his accountability to the muse of +Fiction, is a credit to England and to human nature, and deserves to be +numbered among the darlings of mankind. It was an honor to be called +his friend; and what his idea of friendship was, may be learned from +the passage in which he speaks of his friend Millais--with the +quotation of which this paper may fitly be concluded:-- + +"To see him has always been a pleasure; his voice has always been a +sweet sound in my ears. Behind his back I have never heard him praised +without joining the eulogist; I have never heard a word spoken against +him without opposing the censurer. These words, should he ever see +them, will come to him from the grave, and will tell him of my +regard--as one living man never tells another." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +MR. MALLOCK'S MISSING SCIENCE. + + +Before criticising Mr. Mallock's little essay, let us summarize its +contents. The author begins with an analysis of the aims, the +principles, and the "pseudo-science" of modern Democracy. Having +established the evil and destructive character of these things, he sets +himself to show by logical argument that the present state of social +inequality, which Democrats wish to disturb, is a natural and wholesome +state; that the continuance of civilization is dependent upon it; and +that it could only be overturned by effecting a radical change--not in +human institutions, but in human character. The desire for inequality +is inherent in the human character; and in order to prove this +statement, Mr. Mallock proceeds to affirm that there is such a thing as +a science of human character; that of this science he is the +discoverer; and that the application of this science to the question at +issue will demonstrate the integrity of Mr. Mallock's views, and the +infirmity of all others. In the ensuing chapters the application is +made, and at the end the truth of the proposition is declared +established. + +This is the outline; but let us note some of the details. Mr. Mallock +asserts (Chap. I.) that the aim of modern Democracy is to overturn "all +that has hitherto been connected with high-breeding or with personal +culture"; and that "to call the Democrats a set of thieves and +confiscators is merely to apply names to them which they have no wish +to repudiate." He maintains (Chap. II.) that the first and foremost of +the Democratic principles is "that the perfection of society involves +social equality"; and that "the luxury of one man means the deprivation +of another." He credits the Democrats with arguing that "the means of +producing equality are a series of changes in existing institutions"; +that "by changing the institutions of a society we are able to change +its structure"; that "the cause of the distribution of wealth" is "laws +and forms of government"; and that "the wealthy classes, as such, are +connected with wealth in no other way but as the accidental +appropriators of it." In his third chapter he tells us that "the entire +theory of modern Democracy ... depends on the doctrine that the cause +of wealth is labor"; that Democrats believe we "may count on a man to +labor, just as surely as we may count on a man to eat"; that "the man +who does not labor is supported by the man who does"; and that the +pseudo-science of modern Democracy "starts with the conception of man +as containing in himself a natural tendency to labor." And here Mr. +Mallock's statement of his opponent's position ends. + +In the fourth chapter we are brought within sight of "The Missing +Substitute." "A man's character," we are told, "divides into his +desires on the one hand, and his capacities on the other"; and it is +observed that "various as are men's desires and capacities, yet if +talent and ambition commanded no more than idleness and stupidity, all +men practically would be idle and stupid." "Men's capacities," we are +reminded, "are practically unequal, because they develop their own +potential inequalities; they do this because they desire to place +themselves in unequal external circumstances,--which result the +condition of society renders possible." + +Coming now to the Science of Human Character itself, we find that it +"asserts a permanent relationship to exist between human character and +social inequality"; and the author then proceeds at some length to show +how near Herbert Spencer, Buckle, and other social and economic +philosophers, came to stumbling over his missing science, and yet +avoided doing so. Nevertheless, argues Mr. Mallock, "if there be such a +thing as a social science, or a science of history, there must be also +a science of biography"; and this science, though it "cannot show us +how any special man will act in the future," yet, if "any special +action be given us, it can show us that it was produced by a special +motive; and conversely, that if the special motive be wanting, the +special action is sure to be wanting also." As an example how to +distinguish between those traits of human character which are available +for scientific purposes, and those which are not, Mr. Mallock instances +a mob, which temporarily acts together for some given purpose: the +individual differences of character then "cancel out," and only points +of agreement are left. Proceeding to the sixth chapter, he applies +himself to setting to rest the scruples of those who find something +cynical in the idea that the desire for Inequality is compatible with a +respectable form of human character. It is true, he says, that man does +not live by bread alone; but he denies that he means to say "that all +human activity is motived by the desire for inequality"; he would +assert that only "of all productive labor, except the lowest." The only +actions independent of the desire for inequality, however, are those +performed in the name of art, science, philanthropy, and religion; and +even in these cases, so far as the actions are not motived by a desire +for inequality, they are not of productive use; and _vice versa_. In +the remaining chapters, which we must dismiss briefly, we meet with +such statements as "labor has been produced by an artificial creation +of want of food, and by then supplying the want on certain conditions"; +that "civilization has always been begun by an oppressive minority"; +that "progress depends on certain gifted individuals," and therefore +social equality would destroy progress; that inequality influences +production by existing as an object of desire and as a means of +pressure; that the evils of poverty are caused by want, not by +inequality; and that, finally, equality is not the goal of progress, +but of retrogression; that inequality is not an accidental evil of +civilization, but the cause of its development; the distance of the +poor from the rich is not the cause of the former's poverty as distinct +from riches, but of their civilized competence as distinct from +barbarism; and that the apparent changes in the direction of equality +recorded in history, have been, in reality, none other than "a more +efficient arrangement of inequalities." + + * * * * * + +Now, let us inquire what all this ingenious prattle about Inequality +and the Science of Human Character amounts to. What does Mr. Mallock +expect? His book has been out six months, and still Democracy exists. +But does any such Democracy as he combats exist, or could it +conceivably exist? Have his investigations of the human character +failed to inform him that one of the strongest natural instincts of +man's nature is immovably opposed to anything like an equal +distribution of existing wealth?--because whoever owns anything, if it +be only a coat, wishes to keep it; and that wish makes him aware that +his fellow-man will wish to keep, and will keep at all hazards, +whatever things belong to him. What Democrats really desire is to +enable all men to have an equal chance to obtain wealth, instead of +being, as is largely the case now, hampered and kept down by all manner +of legal and arbitrary restrictions. As for the "desire for +Inequality," it seems to exist chiefly in Mr. Mallock's imagination. +Who does desire it? Does the man who "strikes" for higher wages desire +it? Let us see. A strike, to be successful, must be not an individual +act, but the act of a large body of men, all demanding the same +thing--an increase in wages. If they gain their end, no difference has +taken place in their mutual position; and their position in regard to +their employers is altered only in that an approach has been made +toward greater equality with the latter. And so in other departments of +human effort: the aim, which the man who wishes to better his position +sets before himself, is not to rise head and shoulders above his +equals, but to equal his superiors. And as to the Socialist schemes for +the reorganization of society, they imply, at most, a wish to see all +men start fair in the race of life, the only advantages allowed being +not those of rank or station, but solely of innate capacity. And the +reason the Socialist desires this is, because he believes, rightly or +wrongly, that many inefficient men are, at present, only artificially +protected from betraying their inefficiency; and that many efficient +men are only artificially prevented from showing their efficiency; and +that the fair start he proposes would not result in keeping all men on +a dead level, but would simply put those in command who had a genuine +right to be there. + + * * * * * + +But this is taxing Mr. Mallock too seriously: he has not written in +earnest. But, as his uncle, Mr. Froude, said, when reading "The New +Republic,"--"The rogue is clever!" He has read a good deal, he has an +active mind, a smooth redundancy of expression, a talent for +caricature, a fondness for epigram and paradox, a useful shallowness, +and an amusing impudence. He has no practical knowledge of mankind, no +experience of life, no commanding point of view, and no depth of +insight. He has no conception of the meaning and quality of the +problems with whose exterior aspects he so prettily trifles. He has +constructed a Science of Human Character without for one moment being +aware that, for instance, human character and human nature are two +distinct things; and that, furthermore, the one is everything that the +other is not. As little is he conscious of the significance of the +words "society" and "civilization"; nor can he explain whether, or why, +either of them is desirable or undesirable, good or bad. He has never +done, and (judging from his published works) we do not believe him +capable of doing, any analytical or constructive thinking; at most, as +in the present volume, he turns a few familiar objects upside down, and +airily invites his audience to believe that he has thereby earned the +name of Discoverer, if not of Creator. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THEODORE WINTHROP'S WRITINGS. + + +On an accessible book-shelf in my library, stand side by side four +volumes whose contents I once knew by heart, and which, after the lapse +of twenty years, are yet tolerably distinct in my memory. These are +stoutly bound in purple muslin, with a stamp, of Persian design +apparently, on the centre of each cover. They are stained and worn, and +the backs have faded to a brownish hue, from exposure to the light, and +a leaf in one of the volumes has been torn across; but the paper and +the sewing and the clear bold type are still as serviceable as ever. +The books seem to have been made to last,--to stand a great deal of +reading. Contrasted with the aesthetically designed covers one sees +nowadays, they would be considered inexcusably ugly, and the least +popular novelist of our time would protest against having his +lucubrations presented to the public in such plain attire. +Nevertheless, on turning to the title-pages, you may see imprinted, on +the first, "Fourteenth Edition"; on the second, "Twelfth Edition"; and +on the others, indications somewhat less magnificent, but still +evidence of very exceptional circulation. The date they bear is that of +the first years of our civil war; and the first published of them is +prefaced by a biographical memoir of the author, written by his friend +George William Curtis. This memoir was originally printed in the +_Atlantic Monthly_, two or three months after the death of its subject, +Theodore Winthrop. + +For these books,--three novels, and one volume of records of +travel,--came from his hand, though they did not see the light until +after he had passed beyond the sphere of authors and publishers. At +that time, the country was in an exalted and heroic mood, and the men +who went to fight its battles were regarded with a personal affection +by no means restricted to their personal acquaintances. Their names +were on all lips, and those of them who fell were mourned by multitudes +instead of by individuals. Winthrop's historic name, and the +influential position of some of his nearest friends, would have +sufficed to bring into unusual prominence his brief career and his fate +as a soldier, even had his intrinsic qualities and character been less +honorable and winning than they were. But he was a type of a young +American such as America is proud to own. He was high-minded, refined, +gifted, handsome. I recollect a portrait of him published soon after +his death,--a photograph, I think, from a crayon drawing; an eloquent, +sensitive, rather melancholy, but manly and courageous face, with grave +eyes, the mouth veiled by a long moustache. It was the kind of +countenance one would wish our young heroes to have. When, after the +catastrophe at Great Bethel, it became known that Winthrop had left +writings behind him, it would have been strange indeed had not every +one felt a desire to read them. + +Moreover, he had already begun to be known as a writer. It was during +1860, I believe, that a story of his, in two instalments, entitled +"Love on Skates," appeared in the "Atlantic." It was a brilliant and +graphic celebration of the art of skating, engrafted on a love-tale as +full of romance and movement as could be desired. Admirably told it +was, as I recollect it; crisp with the healthy vigor of American wintry +atmosphere, with bright touches of humor, and, here and there, passages +of sentiment, half tender, half playful. It was something new in our +literature, and gave promise of valuable work to come. But the writer +was not destined to fulfil the promise. In the next year, from the camp +of his regiment, he wrote one or two admirable descriptive sketches, +touching upon the characteristic points of the campaigning life which +had just begun; but, before the last of these had become familiar to +the "Atlantic's" readers, it was known that it would be the last. +Theodore Winthrop had been killed. + +He was only in his thirty-third year. He was born in New Haven, and had +entered Yale College with the class of '48. The Delta Kappa Epsilon +Fraternity was, I believe, founded in the year of his admission, and he +must, therefore, have been among its earliest members. He was +distinguished as a scholar, and the traces of his classic and +philosophical acquirements are everywhere visible in his books. During +the five or six years following his graduation, he travelled abroad, +and in the South and West; a wild frontier life had great attractions +for him, as he who reads "John Brent" and "The Canoe and the Saddle" +need not be told. He tried his hand at various things, but could settle +himself to no profession,--an inability which would have excited no +remark in England, which has had time to recognize the value of men of +leisure, as such; but which seems to have perplexed some of his friends +in this country. Be that as it may, no one had reason to complain of +lack of energy and promptness on his part when patriotism revealed a +path to Winthrop. He knew that the time for him had come; but he had +also known that the world is not yet so large that all men, at all +times, can lay their hands upon the work that is suitable for them to +do. + +Let us, however, return to the novels. They appear to have been written +about 1856 and 1857, when their author was twenty-eight or nine years +old. Of the order in which they were composed I have no record; but, +judging from internal evidence, I should say that "Edwin Brothertoft" +came first, then "Cecil Dreeme," and then "John Brent." The style, and +the quality of thought, in the latter is more mature than in the +others, and its tone is more fresh and wholesome. In the order of +publication, "Cecil Dreeme" was first, and seems also to have been most +widely read; then "John Brent," and then "Edwin Brothertoft," the scene +of which was laid in the last century. I remember seeing, at the house +of James T. Fields, their publisher, the manuscripts of these books, +carefully bound and preserved. They were written on large ruled +letter-paper, and the handwriting was very large, and had a +considerable slope. There were scarcely any corrections or erasures; +but it is possible that Winthrop made clean copies of his stories after +composing them. Much of the dialogue, especially, bears evidence of +having been revised, and of the author's having perhaps sacrificed ease +and naturalness, here and there, to the craving for conciseness which +has been one of the chief stumbling-blocks in the way of our young +writers. He wished to avoid heaviness and "padding," and went to the +other extreme. He wanted to cut loose from the old, stale traditions of +composition, and to produce something which should be new, not only in +character and significance, but in manner of presentation. He had the +ambition of the young Hafiz, who professed a longing to "tear down this +tiresome old sky." But the old sky has good reasons for being what and +where it is, and young radicals finally come to perceive that, regarded +from the proper point of view, and in the right spirit, it is not so +tiresome after all. Divine Revelation itself can be expressed in very +moderate and commonplace language; and if one's thoughts are worth +thinking, they are worth clothing in adequate and serene attire. + +But "culture," and literature with it, have made such surprising +advances of late, that we are apt to forget how really primitive and +unenlightened the generation was in which Winthrop wrote. Imagine a +time when Mr. Henry James, Jr., and Mr. W. D. Howells had not been +heard of; when Bret Harte was still hidden below the horizon of the far +West; when no one suspected that a poet named Aldrich would ever write +a story called "Marjorie Daw"; when, in England, "Adam Bede" and his +successors were unborn;--a time of antiquity so remote, in short, that +the mere possibility of a discussion upon the relative merit of the +ideal and the realistic methods of fiction was undreamt of! What had an +unfortunate novelist of those days to fall back upon? Unless he wished +to expatriate himself, and follow submissively in the well worn steps +of Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope, the only models he could look to +were Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Foe, James Fenimore Cooper, and +Nathaniel Hawthorne. "Elsie Venner" had scarcely made its appearance at +that date. Irving and Cooper were, on the other hand, somewhat +antiquated. Poe and Hawthorne were men of very peculiar genius, and, +however deep the impression they have produced on our literature, they +have never had, because they never can have, imitators. As for the +author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," she was a woman in the first place, and, +in the second place, she sufficiently filled the field she had +selected. A would-be novelist, therefore, possessed of ambition, and +conscious of not being his own father or grandfather, saw an untrodden +space before him, into which he must plunge without support and without +guide. No wonder if, at the outset, he was a trifle awkward and +ill-at-ease, and, like a raw recruit under fire, appeared affected from +the very desire he felt to look unconcerned. It is much to his credit +that he essayed the venture at all; and it is plain to be seen that, +with each forward step he took, his self-possession and simplicity +increased. If time had been given him, there is no reason to doubt that +he might have been standing at the head of our champions of fiction +to-day. + +But time was not given him, and his work, like all other work, if it is +to be judged at all, must be judged on its merits. He excelled most in +passages descriptive of action; and the more vigorous and momentous the +action, the better, invariably, was the description; he rose to the +occasion, and was not defeated by it. Partly for this reason, "Cecil +Dreeme," the most popular of his books, seems to me the least +meritorious of them all. The story has little movement; it stagnates +round Chrysalis College. The love intrigue is morbid and unwholesome, +and the characters (which are seldom Winthrop's strong point) are more +than usually artificial and unnatural. The _dramatis personae_ are, +indeed, little more than moral or immoral principles incarnate. There +is no growth in them, no human variableness or complexity; it is "Every +Man in his Humor" over again, with the humor left out. Densdeth is an +impossible rascal; Churm, a scarcely more possible Rhadamanthine saint. +Cecil Dreeme herself never fully recovers from the ambiguity forced +upon her by her masculine attire; and Emma Denman could never have been +both what we are told she was, and what she is described as being. As +for Robert Byng, the supposed narrator of the tale, his name seems to +have been given him in order wantonly to increase the confusion caused +by the contradictory traits with which he is accredited. The whole +atmosphere of the story is unreal, fantastic, obscure. An attempt is +made to endow our poor, raw New York with something of the stormy and +ominous mystery of the immemorial cities of Europe. The best feature of +the book (morbidness aside) is the construction of the plot, which +shows ingenuity and an artistic perception of the value of mystery and +moral compensation. It recalls, in some respects, the design of +Hawthorne's "Blithedale Romance,"--that is, had the latter never been +written, the former would probably have been written differently. In +spite of its faults, it is an interesting book, and, to the critical +eye, there are in almost every chapter signs that indicate the +possession of no ordinary gifts on the author's part. But it may be +doubted whether the special circumstances under which it was published +had not something to do with its wide popularity. I imagine "John +Brent" to have been really much more popular, in the better sense; it +was read and liked by a higher class of readers. It is young ladies and +school-girls who swell the numbers of an "edition," and hence the +difficulty in arguing from this as to the literary merit of the book +itself. + +"Edwin Brothertoft," though somewhat disjointed in construction, and +jerky in style, is yet a picturesque and striking story; and the gallop +of the hero across country and through the night to rescue from the +burning house the woman who had been false to him, is vigorously +described, and gives us some foretaste of the thrill of suspense and +excitement we feel in reading the story of the famous "Gallop of three" +in "John Brent." The writer's acquaintance with the history of the +period is adequate, and a romantic and chivalrous tone is preserved +throughout the volume. It is worth noting that, in all three of +Winthrop's novels, a horse bears a part in the crisis of the tale. In +"Cecil Dreeme" it is Churm's pair of trotters that convey the party of +rescuers to the private Insane Asylum in which Densdeth had confined +the heroine. In "Edwin Brothertoft," it is one of Edwin's renowned +breed of white horses that carries him through almost insuperable +obstacles to his goal. In "John Brent," the black stallion, Don Fulano, +who is throughout the chief figure in the book, reaches his apogee in +the tremendous race across the plains and down the rocky gorge of the +mountains, to where the abductors of the heroine are just about to +pitch their camp at the end of their day's journey. The motive is fine +and artistic, and, in each of the books, these incidents are as good +as, or better then, anything else in the narrative. + +"John Brent" is, in fact, full enough of merit to more than redeem its +defects. The self-consciousness of the writer is less noticeable than +in the other works, and the effort to be epigrammatic, short, sharp, +and "telling" in style, is considerably modified. The interest is +lively, continuous, and cumulative; and there is just enough tragedy in +the story to make the happy ending all the happier. It was a novel and +adventurous idea to make a horse the hero of a tale, and the manner in +which the idea is carried out more than justifies the hazard. Winthrop, +as we know, was an ideal horseman, and knows what he is writing about. +He contrives to realize Don Fulano for us, in spite of the almost +supernatural powers and intelligence that he ascribes to the gallant +animal. One is willing to stretch a point of probability when such a +dashing and inspiring end is in view. In the present day we are getting +a little tired of being brought to account, at every turn, by Old +Prob., who tyrannizes over literature quite as much as over the +weather. Theodore Winthrop's inspiration, in this instance at least, +was strong and genuine enough to enable him to feel what he was telling +as the truth, and therefore it produces an effect of truth upon the +reader. How distinctly every incident of that ride remains stamped on +the memory, even after so long an interval as has elapsed since it was +written! And I recollect that one of the youthful devourers of this +book, who was of an artistic turn, was moved to paint three little +water-color pictures of the Gallop; the first showing the three +horses,--the White, the Gray, and the Black, scouring across the +prairie, towards the barrier of mountains behind which the sun was +setting; the second depicting Don Fulano, with Dick Wade and John Brent +on his back, plunging down the gorge upon the abductors, one of whom +had just pulled the trigger of his rifle; while the third gives the +scene in which the heroic horse receives his death-wound in carrying +the fugitive across the creek away from his pursuers. At this distance +of time, I am unable to bear any testimony as to the technical value of +the little pictures; I am inclined to fancy that they would have to be +taken _cum grano amoris_, as they certainly were executed _con amore_. +But, however that may be, the instance (which was doubtless only one of +many analogous to it) shows that Winthrop possessed the faculty of +stimulating and electrifying the imagination of his readers, which all +our recent improvements in the art and artifice of composition have not +made too common, and for which, if for nothing else, we might well feel +indebted to him. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +EMERSON AS AN AMERICAN. + + +It is not with Americans as with other peoples. Our position is more +vague and difficult, because it is not primarily related to the senses. +I can easily find out where England or Prussia is, and recognize an +Englishman or German when we meet; but we Americans are not, to the +same extent as these, limited by geographical and physical boundaries. +The origin of America was not like that of the European nations; the +latter were born after the flesh, but we after the spirit. It is of the +first consequence to them that their frontiers should be defended, and +their nationality kept distinct. But, though I esteem highly all our +innumerable square miles of East and West, North and South, and our +Pacific and Atlantic coasts, I cannot help deeming them quite a +secondary consideration. If America is not a great deal more than these +United States, then the United States are no better than a penal +colony. It is convenient, no doubt, for a great idea to find a great +embodiment--a suitable incarnation and stage; but the idea does not +depend upon these things. It is an accidental--or, I would rather say, +a Providential--matter that the Puritans came to New England, or that +Columbus discovered the continent in time for them; but it has always +happened that when a soul is born it finds a body ready fitted to it. +The body, however, is an instrument merely; it enables the spirit to +take hold of its mortal life, just as the hilt enables us to grasp the +sword. If the Puritans had not come to New England, still the spirit +that animated them would have lived, and made itself a place somehow. +And, in fact, how many Puritans, for how many ages previous, had been +trying to find standing-room in the world, and failed! They called +themselves by many names; their voices were heard in many countries; +the time had not yet come for them to be born--to touch their earthly +inheritance; but, meantime, the latent impetus was accumulating, and +the Mayflower was driven across the Atlantic by it at last. Nor is this +all--the Mayflower is sailing still between the old world and the new. +Every day it brings new settlers, if not to our material harbors--to +our Boston Bay, our Castle Garden, our Golden Gate--at any rate, to our +mental ports and wharves. We cannot take up a European newspaper +without finding an American idea in it. It is said that a great many of +our countrymen take the steamer to England every summer. But they come +back again; and they bring with them many who come to stay. I do not +refer specially to the occupants of the steerage--the literal +emigrants. One cannot say much about them--they may be Americans or +not, as it turns out. But England and the continent are full of +Americans who were born there, and many of whom will die there. +Sometimes they are better Americans than the New Yorker or the +Bostonian who lives in Beacon Street or the Bowery and votes in the +elections. They may be born and reside where they please, but they +belong to us, and, in the better sense, they are among us. Broadway and +Washington Street, Vermont and Colorado extend all over Europe. Russia +is covered with them; she tries to shove them away to Siberia, but in +vain. We call mountains and prairies solid facts; but the geography of +the mind is infinitely more stubborn. I dare say there are a great many +oblique-eyed, pig-tailed New Englanders in the Celestial Empire. They +may never have visited these shores, or even heard of them; but what of +that? They think our thought--they have apprehended our idea, and, by +and by, they or their heirs will cause it to prevail. + +It is useless for us to hide our heads in the grass and refuse to rise +to the height of our occasion. We are here as the realization of a +truth--the fulfilment of a prophecy; we must attest a new departure in +the moral and intellectual development of the human race; for whichever +of us does not, must suffer annihilation. If I deny my birthright as an +American, I shall disappear and not be missed, for an American will +take my place. It is not altogether a luxurious position to find +yourself in. You cannot sit still and hold your hands. All manner of +hard and unpleasant things are expected of you, which you neglect at +your peril. It is like the old fable of the mermaid. She loved a mortal +youth, and, in order that she might win his affection, she prayed that +she might have the limbs and feet of a human maiden. Her prayer was +answered, and she met her prince; but every step she took was as if she +trod on razors. It is a fine thing to sit in your chair and reflect on +being an American; but when you have to rise up and do an American's +duty before the world--how sharp the razors are! + +Of course, we do not always endure the test; the flesh and blood on +this side of the planet is not, so far as I have observed, of a quality +essentially different from that on the other. Possibly our population +is too many for us. Out of fifty million people it would be strange if +here and there one appeared who was not at all points a hero. Indeed, I +am sometimes tempted to think that that little band of original +Mayflower Pilgrims has not greatly multiplied since their +disembarkation. However it may be with their bodily offspring, their +spiritual progeny are not invariably found in the chair of the Governor +or on the floor of the Senate. What are these Irish fellow-creatures +doing here? Well, Bridget serves us in the kitchen; but Patrick is more +helpful yet; he goes to the legislature, and is the servant of the +people at large. It is very obliging of him; but turn and turn about is +fair play; and it would be no more than justice were we, once in a +while, to take off our coat and serve Patrick in the same way. + +When we get into a tight place we are apt to try to slip out of it +under some plea of a European precedent. But it used to be supposed +that it was precisely European precedents that we came over here to +avoid. I am not profoundly versed in political economy, nor is this the +time or place to discuss its principles; but, as regards protection, +for example, I can conceive that there may be arguments against it as +well as for it. Emerson used to say that the way to conquer the foreign +artisan was not to kill him but to beat his work. He also pointed out +that the money we made out of the European wars, at the beginning of +this century, had the result of bringing the impoverished population of +those countries down upon us in the shape of emigrants. They shared our +crops and went on the poor-rates, and so we did not gain so much after +all. One cannot help wishing that America would assume the loftiest +possible ground in her political and commercial relations. With all due +respect to the sagacity and ability of our ruling demagogues, I should +not wish them to be quoted as typical Americans. The domination of such +persons has an effect which is by no means measurable by their personal +acts. What they can do is of infinitesimal importance. But the mischief +is that they incline every one of us to believe, as Emerson puts it, in +two gods. They make the morality of Wall Street and the White House +seem to be a different thing from that of our parlors and nurseries. +"He may be a little shady on 'change," we say, "but he is a capital +fellow when you know him." But if he is a capital fellow when I know +him, then I shall never find much fault with his professional +operations, and shall end, perhaps, by allowing him to make some +investments for me. Why should not I be a capital fellow too--and a +fellow of capital, to boot! I can endure public opprobrium with +tolerable equanimity so long as it remains public. It is the private +cold looks that trouble me. + +In short, we may speak of America in two senses--either meaning the +America that actually meets us at the street corners and in the +newspapers, or the ideal America--America as it ought to be. They are +not the same thing; and, at present, there seems to be a good deal more +of the former than of the latter. And yet, there is a connection +between them; the latter has made the former possible. We sometimes see +a great crowd drawn together by proclamation, for some noble +purpose--to decide upon a righteous war, or to pass a just decree. But +the people on the outskirts of the crowd, finding themselves unable to +hear the orators, and their time hanging idle on their hands, take to +throwing stones, knocking off hats, or, perhaps, picking pockets. They +may have come to the meeting with as patriotic or virtuous intentions +as the promoters themselves; nay, under more favorable circumstances, +they might themselves have become promoters. Virtue and patriotism are +not private property; at certain times any one may possess them. And, +on the other hand, we have seen examples enough, of late, of persons of +the highest respectability and trust turning out, all at once, to be +very sorry scoundrels. A man changes according to the person with whom +he converses; and though the outlook is rather sordid to-day, we have +not forgotten that during the Civil War the air seemed full of heroism. +So that these two Americas--the real and the ideal--far apart though +they may be in one sense, may, in another sense, be as near together as +our right hand to our left. In a greater or less degree, they exist +side by side in each one of us. But civil wars do not come every day; +nor can we wish them to, even to show us once more that we are worthy +of our destiny. We must find some less expensive and quieter method of +reminding ourselves of that. And of such methods, none, perhaps, is +better than to review the lives of Americans who were truly great; to +ask what their country meant to them; what they wished her to become; +what virtues and what vices they detected in her. Passion may be +generous, but passion cannot last; and when it is over, we are cold and +indifferent again. But reason and example reach us when we are calm and +passive; and what they inculcate is more likely to abide. At least, it +will be only evil passion that can cast it out. + +I have said that many a true American is doubtless born, and lives, +abroad; but that does not prevent Emerson from having been born here. +So far as the outward accidents of generation and descent go, he could +not have been more American than he was. Of course, one prefers that it +should be so. A rare gem should be fitly set. A noble poem should be +printed with the fairest type of the Riverside Press, and upon fine +paper with wide margins. It helps us to believe in ourselves to be told +that Emerson's ancestry was not only Puritan, but clerical; that the +central and vital thread of the idea that created us, ran through his +heart. The nation, and even New England, Massachusetts, Boston, have +many traits that are not found in him; but there is nothing in him that +is not a refinement, a sublimation and concentration of what is good in +them; and the selection and grouping of the elements are such that he +is a typical figure. Indeed, he is all type; which is the same as +saying that there is nobody like him. And, mentally, he produces the +impression of being all force; in his writings, his mind seems to have +acted immediately, without natural impediment or friction; as if a +machine should be run that was not hindered by the contact of its +parts. As he was physically lean and narrow of figure, and his face +nothing but so many features welded together, so there was no adipose +tissue in his thought. It is pure, clear, and accurate, and has the +fault of dryness; but often moves in forms of exquisite beauty. It is +not adhesive; it sticks to nothing, nor anything to it; after ranging +through all the various philosophies of the world, it comes out as +clean and characteristic as ever. It has numberless affinities, but no +adhesion; it does not even adhere to itself. There are many separate +statements in any one of his essays which present no logical +continuity; but although this fact has caused great anxiety to many +disciples of Emerson, it never troubled him. It was the inevitable +result of his method of thought. Wandering at will in the flower-garden +of religious and moral philosophy, it was his part to pluck such +blossoms as he saw were beautiful; not to find out their botanical +interconnection. He would afterward arrange them, for art or harmony's +sake, according to their color or their fragrance; but it was not his +affair to go any farther in their classification. + +This intuitive method of his, however little it may satisfy those who +wish to have all their thinking done for them, who desire not only to +have given to them all the cities of the earth, but also to have +straight roads built for them from one to the other, carries with it +its own justification. "There is but one reason," is Emerson's saying; +and again and again does he prove without proving it. We confess, over +and over, that the truth which he asserts is indeed a truth. Even his +own variations from the truth, when he is betrayed into them, serve to +confirm the rule. For these are seldom or never intuitions at first +hand--pure intuitions; but, as it were, intuitions from previous +intuitions--deductions. The form of statement is the same, but the +source is different; they are from Emerson, instead of from the +Absolute; tinted, not colorless. They show a mental bias, very slight, +but redeeming him back to humanity. We love him the more for them, +because they indicate that for him, too, there was a choice of ways, +and that he must struggle and watch to choose the right. + +We are so much wedded to systems, and so accustomed to connect a system +with a man, that the absence of system, either explicit or implicit, in +Emerson, strikes us as a defect. And yet truth has no system, nor the +human mind. This philosopher maintains one, that another thesis. Both +are true essentially, and yet there seems a contradiction between them. +We cannot bear to be illogical, and so we enlist some under this +banner, some under that. By so doing we sacrifice to consistency at +least the half of truth. Thence we come to examine our intuitions, and +ask them, not whether they are true in themselves, but what are their +tendencies. If it turn out that they will lead us to stultify some past +conclusion to which we stand committed, we drop them like hot coals. To +Emerson, this behavior appeared the nakedest personal vanity. +Recognizing that he was finite, he could not desire to be consistent. +If he saw to-day that one thing was true, and to-morrow that its +opposite was true, was it for him to elect which of the two truths +should have his preference? No; to reject either would be to reject +all; it belonged to God alone to reconcile these contradictious. +Between infinite and finite can be no ratio; and the consistency of the +Creator implies the inconsistency of the creature. + +Emerson's Americanism, therefore, was Americanism in its last and +purest analysis, which is giving him high praise, and to America great +hope. But I do not mean to pay him, who was so full of modesty and +humility, the ungrateful compliment of holding him up as the permanent +American ideal. It is his tendencies, his quality, that are valuable, +and only in a minor, incipient degree his actual results. All human +results must be strictly limited, and according to the epoch and +outlook. Emerson does not solve for all time the problem of the +universe; he solves nothing; but he does what is far more useful--he +gives a direction and an impetus to lofty human endeavor. He does not +anticipate the lessons and the discipline of the ages, but he shows us +how to deal with circumstances in such a manner as to secure the good +instead of the evil influence. New conditions, fresh discoveries, +unexpected horizons opening before us, will, no doubt, soon carry us +beyond the scope of Emerson's surmise; but we shall not so easily +improve upon his aim and attitude. In the spaces beyond the stars there +may be marvels such as it has not entered into the mind of man to +conceive; but there, as here, the right way to look will still be +upward, and the right aspiration be still toward humbleness and +charity. I have just spoken of Emerson's absence of system; but his +writings have nevertheless a singular coherence, by virtue of the +single-hearted motive that has inspired them. Many will, doubtless, +have noticed, as I have done, how the whole of Emerson illustrates +every aspect of him. + +Whether your discourse be of his religion, of his ethics, of his +relation to society, or what not, the picture that you draw will have +gained color and form from every page that he has written. He does not +lie in strata; all that he is permeates all that he has done. His books +cannot be indexed, unless you would refer every subject to each +paragraph. And so he cannot treat, no matter what subject, without +incorporating in his statement the germs at least of all that he has +thought and believed. In this respect he is like light--the presence of +the general at the particular. And, to confess the truth, I find myself +somewhat loath to diffract this pure ray to the arbitrary end of my +special topic. Why should I speak of him as an American? That is not +his definition. He was an American because he was himself. America, +however, gives less limitation than any other nationality to a generous +and serene personality. + +I am sometimes disposed to think that Emerson's "English Traits" reveal +his American traits more than anything else he has written. We are +described by our own criticisms of others, and especially by our +criticisms of another nation; the exceptions we take are the mould of +our own figures. So we have valuable glimpses of Emerson's contours +throughout this volume. And it is in all respects a fortunate work; as +remarkable a one almost for him to write as a volume of his essays for +any one else. Comparatively to his other books, it is as flesh and +blood to spirit; Emersonian flesh and blood, it is true, and +semi-translucent; but still it completes the man for us: he would have +remained too problematical without it. Those who have never personally +known him may finish and solidify their impressions of him here. He +likes England and the English, too; and that sympathy is beyond our +expectation of the mind that evolved "Nature" and "The Over-Soul." The +grasp of his hand, I remember, was firm and stout, and we perceive +those qualities in the descriptions and cordiality of "English Traits." +Then, it is an objective book; the eye looks outward, not inward; these +pages afford a basis not elsewhere obtainable of comparing his general +human faculty with that of other men. Here he descends from the airy +heights he treads so easily and, standing foot to foot with his peers, +measures himself against them. He intends only to report their stature, +and to leave himself out of the story; but their answers to his +questions show what the questions were, and what the questioner. And we +cannot help suspecting, though he did not, that the Englishmen were not +a little put to it to keep pace with their clear-faced, penetrating, +attentive visitor. + +He has never said of his own countrymen the comfortable things that he +tells of the English; but we need not grumble at that. The father who +is severe with his own children will freely admire those of others, for +whom he is not responsible. Emerson is stern toward what we are, and +arduous indeed in his estimate of what we ought to be. He intimates +that we are not quite worthy of our continent; that we have not as yet +lived up to our blue china. "In America the geography is sublime, but +the men are not." And he adds that even our more presentable public +acts are due to a money-making spirit: "The benefaction derived in +Illinois and the great West from railroads is inestimable, and vastly +exceeding any intentional philanthropy on record." He does not think +very respectfully of the designs or the doings of the people who went +to California in 1849, though he admits that "California gets civilized +in this immoral way," and is fain to suppose that, "as there is use in +the world for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues," and +that, in respect of America, "the huge animals nourish huge parasites, +and the rancor of the disease attests the strength of the +constitution." He ridicules our unsuspecting provincialism: "Have you +seen the dozen great men of New York and Boston? Then you may as well +die!" He does not spare our tendency to spread-eagleism and +declamation, and having quoted a shrewd foreigner as saying of +Americans that, "Whatever they say has a little the air of a speech," +he proceeds to speculate whether "the American forest has refreshed +some weeds of old Pictish barbarism just ready to die out?" He finds +the foible especially of American youth to be--pretension; and remarks, +suggestively, that we talk much about the key of the age, but "the key +to all ages is imbecility!" He cannot reconcile himself to the mania +for going abroad. "There is a restlessness in our people that argues +want of character.... Can we never extract this tapeworm of Europe from +the brain of our countrymen?" He finds, however, this involuntary +compensation in the practice--that, practically "we go to Europe to be +Americanized," and has faith that "one day we shall cast out the +passion for Europe by the passion for America." As to our political +doings, he can never regard them with complacency. "Politics is an +afterword," he declares--"a poor patching. We shall one day learn to +supersede politics by education." He sympathizes with Lovelace's theory +as to iron bars and stone walls, and holds that freedom and slavery are +inward, not outward conditions. Slavery is not in circumstance, but in +feeling; you cannot eradicate the irons by external restrictions; and +the truest way to emancipate the slave would be to educate him to a +comprehension of his inviolable dignity and freedom as a human being. +Amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect, but can never +be the means of mental and moral improvement. "Nothing is more +disgusting," he affirms, generalizing the theme, "than the crowing +about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking +for freedom of some paper preamble like a 'Declaration of Independence' +or the statute right to vote." But, "Our America has a bad name for +superficialness. Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and +buffoons, but perceivers of the terrors of life, and have nerved +themselves to face it." He will not be deceived by the clamor of +blatant reformers. "If an angry bigot assumes the bountiful cause of +abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why +should I not say to him: 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be +good-natured and modest; have that grace, and never varnish your hard, +uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a +thousand miles off!'" + +He does not shrink from questioning the validity of some of our pet +institutions, as, for instance, universal suffrage. He reminds us that +in old Egypt the vote of a prophet was reckoned equal to one hundred +hands, and records his opinion that it was much underestimated. "Shall +we, then," he asks, "judge a country by the majority or by the +minority? By the minority, surely! 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by +the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their +importance to the mind of the time." The majority are unripe, and do +not yet know their own opinion. He would not, however, counsel an +organic alteration in this respect, believing that, with the progress +of enlightenment, such coarse constructions of human rights will adjust +themselves. He concedes the sagacity of the Fultons and Watts of +politics, who, noticing that the opinion of the million was the terror +of the world, grouped it on a level, instead of piling it into a +mountain, and so contrived to make of this terror the most harmless and +energetic form of a State. But, again, he would not have us regard the +State as a finality, or as relieving any man of his individual +responsibility for his actions and purposes. We are to confide in +God--and not in our money, and in the State because it is guard of it. +The Union itself has no basis but the good pleasure of the majority to +be united. The wise and just men impart strength to the State, not +receive it; and, if all went down, they and their like would soon +combine in a new and better constitution. Yet he will not have us +forget that only by the supernatural is a man strong; nothing so weak +as an egotist. We are mighty only as vehicles of a truth before which +State and individual are alike ephemeral. In this sense we, like other +nations, shall have our kings and nobles--the leading and inspiration +of the best; and he who would become a member of that nobility must +obey his heart. + +Government, he observes, has been a fossil--it should be a plant; +statute law should express, not impede, the mind of mankind. In tracing +the course of human political institutions, he finds feudalism +succeeding monarchy, and this again followed by trade, the good and +evil of which is that it would put everything in the market, talent, +beauty, virtue, and man himself. By this means it has done its work; it +has faults and will end as the others. Its aristocracy need not be +feared, for it can have no permanence, it is not entailed. In the time +to come, he hopes to see us less anxious to be governed, in the +technical sense; each man shall govern himself in the interests of all; +government without any governor will be, for the first time, +adamantine. Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? Men are +conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most +luxurious; conservatism stands on man's limitations, reform on his +infinitude. The age of the quadruped is to go out; the age of the brain +and the heart is to come in. We are too pettifogging and imitative in +our legislative conceptions; the Legislature of this country should +become more catholic and cosmopolitan than any other. Let us be brave +and strong enough to trust in humanity; strong natures are inevitable +patriots. The time, the age, what is that, but a few prominent persons +and a few active persons who epitomize the times? There is a bribe +possible for any finite will; but the pure sympathy with universal ends +is an infinite force, and cannot be bribed or bent. The world wants +saviors and religions; society is servile from want of will; but there +is a Destiny by which the human race is guided, the race never dying, +the individual never spared; its law is, you shall have everything as a +member, nothing to yourself. Referring to the communities of various +kinds, which were so much in vogue some years ago, he holds such to be +valuable, not for what they have done, but for the indication they give +of the revolution that is on the way. They place great faith in mutual +support, but it is only as a man puts off from himself all external +support and stands alone, that he is strong and will prevail. He is +weaker by every recruit to his banner. A man ought to compare +advantageously with a river, an oak, or a mountain. He must not shun +whatever comes to him in the way of duty; the only path of escape +is--performance. He must rely on Providence, but not in a timid or +ecclesiastical spirit; it is no use to dress up that terrific +benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student of +divinity. We shall come out well, whatever personal or political +disasters may intervene. For here in America is the home of man. After +deducting our pitiful politics--shall John or Jonathan sit in the chair +and hold the purse?--and making due allowance for our frivolities and +insanities, there still remains an organic simplicity and liberty, +which, when it loses its balance, redresses itself presently, and which +offers to the human mind opportunities not known elsewhere. + +Whenever he touches upon the fundamental elements of social and +rational life, it is always to enlarge and illuminate our conception of +them. We are not wont to question the propriety of the sentiment of +patriotism, for instance. We are to swear by our own _lares_ and +_penates_, and stand up for the American eagle, right or wrong. But +Emerson instantly goes beneath this interpretation and exposes its +crudity. The true sense of patriotism, according to him, is almost the +reverse of its popular sense. He has no sympathy with that boyish +egotism, hoarse with cheering for our side, for our State, for our +town; the right patriotism consists in the delight which springs from +contributing our peculiar and legitimate advantages to the benefit of +humanity. Every foot of soil has its proper quality; the grape on two +sides of the fence has new flavors; and so every acre on the globe, +every family of men, every point of climate, has its distinguishing +virtues. This being admitted, however, Emerson will yield in patriotism +to no one; his only concern is that the advantages we contribute shall +be the most instead of the least possible. "This country," he says, +"does not lie here in the sun causeless, and though it may not be easy +to define its influence, men feel already its emancipating quality in +the careless self-reliance of the manners, in the freedom of thought, +in the direct roads by which grievances are reached and redressed, and +even in the reckless and sinister politics, not less than in purer +expressions. Bad as it is, this freedom leads onward and upward to a +Columbia of thought and art, which is the last and endless end of +Columbus's adventure." Nor is this poet of virtue and philosophy ever +more truly patriotic, from his spiritual standpoint, than when he +throws scorn and indignation upon his country's sins and frailties. +"But who is he that prates of the culture of mankind, of better arts +and life? Go, blind worm, go--behold the famous States harrying Mexico +with rifle and with knife! Or who, with accent bolder, dare praise the +freedom-loving mountaineer? I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook! and +in thy valleys, Agiochook! the jackals of the negro-holder.... What +boots thy zeal, O glowing friend, that would indignant rend the +northland from the South? Wherefore? To what good end? Boston Bay and +Bunker Hill would serve things still--things are of the snake. The +horseman serves the horse, the neat-herd serves the neat, the merchant +serves the purse, the eater serves his meat; 'tis the day of the +chattel, web to weave, and corn to grind; things are in the saddle, and +ride mankind!" + +But I must not begin to quote Emerson's poetry; only it is worth noting +that he, whose verse is uniformly so abstractly and intellectually +beautiful, kindles to passion whenever his theme is of America. The +loftiest patriotism never found more ardent and eloquent expression +than in the hymn sung at the completion of the Concord monument, on the +19th of April, 1836. There is no rancor in it; no taunt of triumph; +"the foe long since in silence slept"; but throughout there resounds a +note of pure and deep rejoicing at the victory of justice over +oppression, which Concord fight so aptly symbolized. In "Hamatreya" and +"The Earth Song," another chord is struck, of calm, laconic irony. +Shall we too, he asks, we Yankee farmers, descendants of the men who +gave up all for freedom, go back to the creed outworn of medieval +feudalism and aristocracy, and say, of the land that yields us its +produce, "'Tis mine, my children's, and my name's"? Earth laughs in +flowers at our boyish boastfulness, and asks "How am I theirs if they +cannot hold me, but I hold them?" "When I heard 'The Earth Song,' I was +no longer brave; my avarice cooled, like lust in the child of the +grave" Or read "Monadnoc," and mark the insight and the power with +which the significance and worth of the great facts of nature are +interpreted and stated. "Complement of human kind, having us at vantage +still, our sumptuous indigence, oh, barren mound, thy plenties fill! We +fool and prate; thou art silent and sedate. To myriad kinds and times +one sense the constant mountain doth dispense; shedding on all its +snows and leaves, one joy it joys, one grief it grieves. Thou seest, +oh, watchman tall, our towns and races grow and fall, and imagest the +stable good for which we all our lifetime grope; and though the +substance us elude, we in thee the shadow find." ... "Thou dost supply +the shortness of our days, and promise, on thy Founder's truth, long +morrow to this mortal youth!" I have ignored the versified form in +these extracts, in order to bring them into more direct contrast with +the writer's prose, and show that the poetry is inherent. No other +poet, with whom I am acquainted, has caused the very spirit of a land, +the mother of men, to express itself so adequately as Emerson has done +in these pieces. Whitman falls short of them, it seems to me, though +his effort is greater. + +Emerson is continually urging us to give heed to this grand voice of +hills and streams, and to mould ourselves upon its suggestions. The +difficulty and the anomaly are that we are not native; that England is +our mother, quite as much as Monadnoc; that we are heirs of memories +and traditions reaching far beyond the times and the confines of the +Republic. We cannot assume the splendid childlikeness of the great +primitive races, and exhibit the hairy strength and unconscious genius +that the poet longs to find in us. He remarks somewhere that the +culminating period of good in nature and the world is in just that +moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully +from nature, but their astringency or acidity is got out by ethics and +humanity. + +It was at such a period that Greece attained her apogee; but our +experience, it seems to me, must needs be different. Our story is not +of birth, but of regeneration, a far more subtle and less obvious +transaction. The Homeric California of which Bret Harte is the reporter +does not seem to me in the closest sense American. It is a +comparatively superficial matter--this savage freedom and raw poetry; +it belongs to all pioneering life, where every man must stand for +himself, and Judge Lynch strings up the defaulter to the nearest tree. +But we are only incidentally pioneers in this sense; and the +characteristics thus impressed upon us will leave no traces in the +completed American. "A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont," says +Emerson, "who in turn tries all the professions--who teams it, farms +it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to +Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and +always, like a cat, falls on his feet--is worth a hundred of these city +dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not +studying a 'profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives +already." That is stirringly said: but, as a matter of fact, most of +the Americans whom we recognize as great did not have such a history; +nor, if they had it, would they be on that account more American. On +the other hand, the careers of men like Jim Fiske and Commodore +Vanderbilt might serve very well as illustrations of the above sketch. +If we must wait for our character until our geographical advantages and +the absence of social distinctions manufacture it for us, we are likely +to remain a long while in suspense. When our foreign visitors begin to +evince a more poignant interest in Concord and Fifth Avenue than in the +Mississippi and the Yellowstone, it may be an indication to us that we +are assuming our proper position relative to our physical environment. +"The _land_," says Emerson, "is a sanative and Americanizing influence +which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come." Well, when we +are virtuous, we may, perhaps, spare our own blushes by allowing our +topography, symbolically, to celebrate us, and when our admirers would +worship the purity of our intentions, refer them to Walden Pond; or to +Mount Shasta, when they would expatiate upon our lofty generosity. It +is, perhaps, true, meanwhile, that the chances of a man's leading a +decent life are greater in a palace than in a pigsty. + +But this is holding our author too strictly to the letter of his +message. And, at any rate, the Americanism of Emerson is better than +anything that he has said in vindication of it. He is the champion of +this commonwealth; he is our future, living in our present, and showing +the world, by anticipation, as it were, what sort of excellence we are +capable of attaining. A nation that has produced Emerson, and can +recognize in him bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh--and, still +more, spirit of her spirit--that nation may look toward the coming age +with security. But he has done more than thus to prophesy of his +country; he is electric and stimulates us to fulfil our destiny. To use +a phrase of his own, we "cannot hear of personal vigor of any kind, +great power of performance, without fresh resolution." Emerson, helps +us most in provoking us to help ourselves. The pleasantest revenge is +that which we can sometimes take upon our great men in quoting of +themselves what they have said of others. + +It is easy to be so revenged upon Emerson, because he, more than most +persons of such eminence, has been generous and cordial in his +appreciation of all human worth. "If there should appear in the +company," he observes, "some gentle soul who knows little of persons +and parties, of Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that disposes +these particulars, and so certifies me of the equity which checkmates +every false player, bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises me of my +independence on any conditions of country, or time, or human body, that +man liberates me.... I am made immortal by apprehending my possession +of incorruptible goods." Who can state the mission and effect of +Emerson more tersely and aptly than those words do it? + +But, once more, he does not desire eulogiums, and it seems half +ungenerous to force them upon him now that he can no longer defend +himself. I prefer to conclude by repeating a passage characteristic of +him both as a man and as an American, and which, perhaps, conveys a +sounder and healthier criticism, both for us and for him, than any mere +abject and nerveless admiration; for great men are great only in so far +as they liberate us, and we undo their work in courting their tyranny. +The passage runs thus:-- + +"Let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set +the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, +as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all +things. No facts to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply +experiment--an endless seeker, with no Past at my back!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MODERN MAGIC. + + +Human nature enjoys nothing better than to wonder--to be mystified; and +it thanks and remembers those who have the skill to gratify this +craving. The magicians of old knew that truth and conducted themselves +accordingly. But our modern wonder-workers fail of their due influence, +because, not content to perform their marvels, they go on to explain +them. Merlin and Roger Bacon were greater public benefactors than Morse +and Edison. Man is--and he always has been and will be--something else +besides a pure intelligence: and science, in order to become really +popular, must contrive to touch man somewhere else besides on the +purely intellectual side: it must remember that man is all heart, all +hope, all fear, and all foolishness, quite as much as he is all brains. +Otherwise, science can never expect to take the place of superstition, +much less of religion, in mankind's affection. In order to be a really +successful man of science, it is first of all indispensable to make +one's self master of everything in nature and in human nature that +science is not. + +What must one do, in short, in order to become a magician? I use the +term, here, in its weightiest sense. How to make myself visible and +invisible at will? How to present myself in two or more places at once? +How answer your question before you ask it, and describe to you your +most secret thoughts and actions? How shall I call spirits from the +vasty deep, and make you see and hear and feel them? How paralyze your +strength with a look, heal your wound with a touch, or cause your +bullet to rebound harmless from my unprotected flesh? How shall I walk +on the air, sink through the earth, pass through stone walls, or walk, +dry-shod, on the floor of the ocean? How shall I visit the other side +of the moon, jump through the ring of Saturn, and gather sunflowers in +Sirius? There are persons now living who profess to do no less +remarkable feats, and to regard them as incidental merely to +achievements far more important. A school of hierophants or adepts is +said to exist in Tibet, who, as a matter of daily routine, quite +transcend everything that we have been accustomed to consider natural +possibility. What is the course of study, what are the ways and means +whereby such persons accomplish such results? + +The conventional attitude towards such matters is, of course, that of +unconditional scepticism. But it is pleasant, occasionally, to take an +airing beyond the bounds of incredulity. For my own part, it is true, I +must confess my inability to believe in anything positively +supernatural. The supernatural and the illusory are to my mind +convertible terms: they cannot really exist or take place. Let us be +sure, however, that we are agreed as to what supernatural means. If a +magician, before my eyes, transformed an old man into a little girl, I +should call that supernatural; and nothing should convince me that my +senses had not been grossly deceived. But were the magician to leave +the room by passing through the solid wall, or "go out" like an +exploding soap-bubble,--I might think what I please, but I should not +venture to dogmatically pronounce the thing supernatural; because the +phenomenon known as "matter" is scientifically unknown, and therefore +no one can tell what modifications it may not be susceptible of:--no +one, that is to say, except the person who, like the magician of our +illustration, professes to possess, and (for aught I can affirm to the +contrary) may actually possess a knowledge unshared by the bulk of +mankind. The transformation of an old man into a little girl, on the +other hand, would be a transaction involving the immaterial soul as +well as the material body; and if I do not know that that cannot take +place, I am forever incapable of knowing anything. These are extreme +examples, but they serve to emphasize an important distinction. + +The whole domain of magic, in short, occupies that anomalous neutral +ground that intervenes between the facts of our senses and the truths +of our intuitions. Fact and truth are not convertible terms; they abide +in two distinct planes, like thought and speech, or soul and body; one +may imply or involve the other, but can never demonstrate it. +Experience and intuition together comprehend the entire realm of actual +and conceivable knowledge. Whatever contradicts both experience and +intuition may, therefore, be pronounced illusion. But this neutral +ground is the home of phenomena which intuition does not deny, and +which experience has not confirmed. It is still a wide zone, though not +so wide as it was a hundred years ago, or fifty, or even ten. It +narrows every day, as science, or the classification of experience, +expands. Are we, then, to look for a time when the zone shall have +dwindled to a mathematical line, and magic confess itself to have been +nothing but the science of an advanced school of investigators? Will +the human intellect acquire a power before which all mysteries shall +become transparent? Let us dwell upon this question a little longer. + +A mystery that is a mystery can never, humanly speaking, become +anything else. Instances of such mysteries can readily be adduced. The +universe itself is built upon them and is the greatest of them. They +lie before the threshold and at the basis of all existence. For +example:--here is a lump of compact, whitish, cheese-like substance, +about as much as would go into a thimble. From this I profess to be +able to produce a gigantic, intricate structure, sixty feet in height +and diameter, hard, solid, and enduring, which shall furthermore +possess the power of extending and multiplying itself until it covers +the whole earth, and even all the earths in the universe, if it could +reach them. Is such a profession as this credible? It is entirely +credible, as soon as I paraphrase it by saying that I propose to plant +an acorn. And yet all magic has no mystery which is so wonderful as +this universal mystery of growth: and the only reason we are not lost +in amazement at it is that it goes quietly on all the time, and +perfects itself under uniform conditions. But let me eliminate from the +phenomenon the one element of time--which is logically the least +essential factor in the product, unreal and arbitrary, based on the +revolution of the earth, and conceivably variable to any extent--grant +me this, and the world would come to see me do the miracle. But, with +time or without it, the mystery is just as mysterious. + +Natural mysteries, then,--the mysteries of life, death, creation, +growth,--do not fall under our present consideration: they are beyond +the legitimate domain of magic: and no intellectual development to +which we may hereafter attain will bring us a step nearer their +solution. But with the problems proper to magic, the case is different. +Magic is distinctively not Divine, but human: a finite conundrum, not +an Infinite enigma. If there has ever been a magician since the world +began, then all mankind may become magicians, if they will give the +necessary time and trouble. And yet, magic is not simply an advanced +region of the path which science is pursuing. Science is concerned with +results,--with material phenomena; whereas magic is, primarily, the +study of causes, or of spiritual phenomena; or, to use another +definition,--of phenomena which the senses perceive, not in themselves, +but only in their results. So long as we restrict ourselves to results, +our activity is confined to analysis; but when we begin to investigate +causes, we are on the road not only to comprehend results, but (within +limits) to modify or produce them. + +Science, however, blocks our advance in this direction by denying, or +at least refusing to admit, the existence of the spiritual world, or +world of causes: because, being spiritual, it is not sensible, or +cognizable in sense. Science admits only material causes, or the +changes wrought in matter by itself. If we ask what is the cause of a +material cause, we are answered that it is a supposed entity called +Force, concerning which there is nothing further to be known. + +At this point, then, argument (on the material plane) comes to an end, +and speculation or assumption begins. Science answers its own +questions, but neither can nor will answer any others. And upon what +pretence do we ask any others? We ask them upon two grounds. The first +is that some people,--we might even say, most people,--would be glad to +believe in supersensuous existence, and are always on the alert to +examine any plausible hypothesis pointing in that direction: and +secondly, there exists a vast amount of testimony (we need not call it +evidence) tending to show that the supersensuous world has been +discovered, and that it endows its discoverers with sundry notable +advantages. Of course, we are not obliged to credit this testimony, +unless we want to: and--for some reason, never fully explained--a great +many people who accept natural mysteries quite amiably become indignant +when requested to examine mysteries of a much milder order. But it is +not my intention to discuss the limits of the probable; but to swallow +as much as possible first, and endeavor to account for it afterwards. + +There is, as every reader knows, a class of phenomena--such as +hypnotism, trance, animal magnetism, and so forth--the occurrence of +which science has conceded, though failing as yet to offer any +intelligent explanation of them. It is suggested that they are peculiar +states of the brain and nerve-centres, physical in their nature and +origin, though evading our present physical tests. Be that as it may, +they afford a capital introduction to the study of magic; if, indeed, +they, and a few allied phenomena, do not comprise the germs of the +whole matter. Apropos of this subject, a society has lately been +organized in London, with branches on the Continent and in this +country, composed of scientific men, Fellows of the Royal Society, +members of Parliament, professors, and literary men, calling themselves +the "Psychical Research Society," and making it their business to test +and investigate these very marvels, under the most stringent scientific +conditions. But the capacity to be deceived of the bodily senses is +almost unlimited; in fact, we know that they are incapable of telling +us the ultimate truth on any subject; and we are able to get along with +them only because we have found their misinformation to be sufficiently +uniform for most practical purposes. But once admit that the origin of +these phenomena is not on the physical plane, and then, if we are to +give any weight at all to them, it can be only from a spiritual +standpoint. In other words, unless we can approach such questions by an +_a priori_ route, we might as well let them alone. We can reason from +spirit to body--from mind to matter--but we can never reverse that +process, and from matter evolve mind. The reason is that matter is not +found to contain mind, but is only acted upon by it, as inferior by +superior; and we cannot get out of the bag more than has been put into +it. The acorn (to use our former figure) can never explain the oak; but +the oak readily accounts for the acorn. It may be doubted, therefore, +whether the Psychical Research Society can succeed in doing more than +to give a respectable endorsement to a perplexing possibility,--so long +as they adhere to the inductive method. Should they, however, abandon +the inductive method for the deductive, they will forfeit the +allegiance of all consistently scientific minds; and they may, perhaps, +make some curious contributions to philosophy. At present, they appear +to be astride the fence between philosophy and science, as if they +hoped in some way to make the former satisfy the latter's demands. But +the difference between the evidence that demonstrates a fact and the +evidence that confirms a truth is, once more, a difference less of +degree than of kind. We can never obtain sensible verification of a +proposition that transcends sense. We must accept it without material +proof, or not at all. We may believe, for instance, that Creation is +the work of an intelligent Divine Being; or we may disbelieve it; but +we can never prove it. If we do believe it, innumerable confirmations +of it meet us at every turn: but no such confirmations, and no +multiplication of them, can persuade a disbeliever. For belief is ever +incommunicable from without; it can be generated only from within. The +term "belief" cannot be applied to our recognition of a physical fact: +we do not believe in that--we are only sensible of it. + +In this connection, a few words will be in order concerning what is +called Spiritism,--a subject which has of late years been exciting a +good deal of remark. Its disciples claim for it the dignity of a new +and positive revelation,--a revelation to sense of spiritual being. +Now, the entire universe may be described as a revelation to sense of +spiritual being--for those who happen to believe _a priori_, or from +spontaneous inward conviction, in spiritual being. We may believe a +man's body, for example, to be the effect of which his soul is the +cause; but no one can reach that conviction by the most refined +dissection of the bodily tissues. How, then, does the spiritists' +Positive Revelation help the matter? Their answer is that the physical +universe is a permanent and orderly phenomenon which (setting aside the +problem of its First Cause) fully accounts for itself; whereas the +phenomena of Spiritism, such as rapping, table-tipping, materializing, +and so forth, are, if not supernatural, at any rate extra-natural. They +occur in consequence of a conscious effort to bring them about; they +cease when that effort is discontinued; they abound in indications of +being produced by independent intelligencies; they are inexplicable +upon any recognized theory of physics; and, therefore, there is nothing +for it but to regard them as spiritual. And what then? Then, of course, +there must be spirits, and a life after the death of the body; and the +great question of Immortality is answered in the affirmative! + +Let us, for the sake of argument, concede that the manifestations upon +which the Spiritists found their claims are genuine: that they are or +can be produced without fraud; and let us then enquire in what respect +our means for the conversion of the sceptic are improved. In the first +place we find that all the manifestations--be their cause what it +may--can occur only on the physical plane. However much the origin of +the phenomena may perplex us, the phenomena themselves must be purely +material, in so far as they are perceptible at all. "Raps" are audible +according to the same laws of vibration as other sounds: the tilting +table is simply a material body displaced by an adequate agency; the +materialized hand or face is nothing but physical substance assuming +form. Plainly, therefore, we have as much right to ascribe a spiritual +source to such phenomena as we have to ascribe a spiritual source to +the ordinary phenomena of nature, such as a tree or a man's body,--just +as much right--and no more! Consequently, we are no nearer converting +our sceptic than we were at the outset. He admits the physical +manifestation: there is no intrinsic novelty about that: but when we +proceed to argue that the manifestations are wrought by spirits, he +points out to us that this is sheer assumption on our part. "I have not +seen a spirit," he says: "I have not heard one; I have not felt one; +nor is it possible that my bodily senses should perceive anything that +is not at least as physical as they are. I have witnessed certain +transactions effected by means unknown to me--possibly by the action of +a natural law not yet fully expounded by science. If there was anything +spiritual in the affair, it has not been manifest to my apprehension: +and I must decline to lend my countenance to any such pretensions." + +That would be the reply of the sceptic who was equal to the emergency. +But let us suppose that he is not equal to it: that he is a weak-kneed, +impressionable person, with a tendency to jump at conclusions; and that +he is scared or mystified into believing that "spirits" may be at the +bottom of it. What, then, will be the character of the faith which the +Positive Revelation has furnished him? He has discovered that existence +continues, in some fashion, after the death of the body. He has learned +that there may be such a thing as--not immortality exactly, +but--postmortem consciousness. He has been saddled with the conviction +that the other world is full of restless ghosts, who come shuddering +back from their cold emptiness, and try to warm themselves in the +borrowed flesh and blood, and with the purblind selfishness and +curiosity of us who still remain here. "Have faith: be not impatient: +the conditions are unfavorable: but we are working for you!"--such is +the constant burden of the communications. But, if there be a God, why +must our relations with him be complicated by the interference of such +forlorn prevaricators and amateur Paracletes as these? we do not wish +to be "worked for,"--to be carried heavenward on some one else's +shoulders: but to climb thither by God's help and our own will, or to +stay where we are. Moreover, by what touchstone shall we test the +veracity of the self-appointed purveyors of this Positive Revelation? +Are we to believe what they say, because they have lost their bodies? +If life teaches us anything, it is that God does above all things +respect the spiritual freedom of his creatures. He does not terrify and +bully us into acknowledging Him by ghostly juggleries in darkened +rooms, and by vapid exhibitions addressed to our outward senses. He +approaches each man in the innermost sacred audience-chamber of his +heart, and there shows him good and evil, truth and falsehood, and bids +him choose. And that choice, if made aright, becomes a genuine and +undying belief, because it was made in freedom, unbiassed by external +threats and cajoleries. + +Such belief is, itself, immortality,--something as distinct from +post-mortem consciousness as wisdom is distinct from mere animal +intelligence. On the whole, therefore, there seems to be little real +worth in Spiritism, even accepting it at its own valuation. The +nourishment it yields the soul is too meagre; and--save on that one +bare point of life beyond the grave, which might just as easily prove +an infinite curse as an infinite blessing--it affords no trustworthy +news whatever. + +But these objections do not apply to magic proper. Magic seems to +consist mainly in the control which mind may exceptionally exercise +over matter. In hypnotism, the subject abjectly believes and obeys the +operator. If he be told that he cannot step across a chalk mark on the +floor, he cannot step across it. He dissolves in tears or explodes with +laughter, according as the operator tells him he has cause for +merriment or tears: and if he be assured that the water he drinks is +Madeira wine or Java coffee, he has no misgiving that such is not the +case. + +To say that this state of things is brought about by the exercise of +the operator's will, is not to explain the phenomenon, but to put it in +different terms. What is the will, and how does it produce such a +result? Here is a man who believes, at the word of command, that the +thing which all the rest of the world calls a chair is a horse. How is +such misapprehension on his part possible? our senses are our sole +means of knowing external objects: and this man's senses seem to +confirm--at least they by no means correct--his persuasion that a given +object is something very different. Could we solve this puzzle, we +should have done something towards gaining an insight into the +philosophy of magic. + +We observe, in the first place, that the _rationale_ of hypnotism, and +of trance in general, is distinct from that of memory and of +imagination, and even from that of dreams. It resembles these only in +so far as it involves a quasi-perception of something not actually +present or existent. But memory and imagination never mislead us into +mistaking their suggestions for realities: while in dreams, the +dreamer's fancy alone is active; the bodily faculties are not in +action. In trance, however, the subject may appear to be, to all +intents and purposes, awake. Yet this state, unlike the others, is +abnormal. The brain seems to be in a passive, or, at any rate, in a +detached condition; it cannot carry out or originate ideas, nor can it +examine an idea as to its truth or falsehood. Furthermore, it cannot +receive or interpret the reports of its own bodily senses. In short, +its relations with the external world are suspended: and since the body +is a part of the external world, the brain can no longer control the +body's movements. + +Bodily movements are, however, to some extent, automatic. Given a +certain stimulus in the brain or nerve-centres, and certain +corresponding muscular contractions follow: and this whether or not the +stimulus be applied in a normal manner. Although, therefore, the +entranced brain cannot spontaneously control the body, yet if we can +apply an independent stimulus to it, the body will make a fitting and +apparently intelligent response. The reader has doubtless seen those +ingenious pieces of mechanism which are set in motion by dropping into +an orifice a coin or pellet. Now, could we drop into the passive brain +of an entranced person the idea that a chair is a horse, for +instance,--the person would give every sensible indication of having +adopted that figment as a fact. + +But how (since he can no longer communicate with the world by means of +his senses) is this idea to be insinuated? The man is magnetized--that +is to say, insulated; how can we have intercourse with him? + +Experiments show that this can be effected only through the magnetizer. +Asleep towards the rest of the world, towards him the entranced person +is awake. Not awake, however, as to the bodily senses; neither the +magnetizer nor any one else can approach by that route. It is true +that, if the magnetizer speaks to him, he knows what is said: but he +does not hear physically; because he perceives the unspoken thought +just as readily. But since whatever does not belong to his body must +belong to his soul (or mind, if that term be preferable), it follows +that the magnetizer must communicate with the magnetized on the mental +or spiritual plane; that is, immediately, or without the intervention +of the body. + +Let us review the position we have reached:--We have an entranced or +magnetized person,--a person whose mind, or spirit, has, by a certain +process, been so far withdrawn from conscious communion with his own +bodily senses as to disable him from receiving through them any tidings +from the external world. He is not, however, wholly withdrawn from his +body, for, in that case, the body would be dead; whereas, in fact, its +organic or animal life continues almost unimpaired. He is therefore +neither out of the body nor in it, but in an anomalous region midway +between the two,--a state in which he can receive no sensuous +impressions from the physical world, nor be put in conscious +communication with the spiritual world through any channel--save one. + +This one exception is, as we have seen, the person who magnetized him. +The magnetizer is, then, the one and only medium through which the +person magnetized can obtain impressions: and these impressions are +conveyed directly from the mind, or spirit, of the magnetizer to that +of the magnetized. Let us note, further, that the former is not, like +the latter, in a semi-disembodied state, but is in the normal exercise +of his bodily functions and faculties. He possesses, consequently, his +normal ability to originate ideas and to impart them: and whatever +ideas he chooses to impart to the magnetized person, the latter is fain +passively and implicitly to accept. And having so received them, they +descend naturally into the automatic mechanism of the body, and are by +it mechanically interpreted or enacted. + +So far, the theory is good: but something seems amiss in the working. +We find that a certain process frequently issues in a certain effect: +but we do not yet know why this should be the case. Some fundamental +link is wanting; and this link is manifestly a knowledge of the true +relations between mind and matter: of the laws to which the mental or +spiritual world is subject: of what nature itself is: and of what +Creation means. Let us cast a glance at these fundamental subjects; for +they are the key without which the secrets of magic must remain locked +and hidden. + +In common speech we call the realm of the material universe, Creation; +but philosophy denies its claim to that title. Man alone is Creation: +everything else is appearance. The universe appears, because man +exists: he implies the universe, but is not implied by it. We may +assist our metaphysics, here, by a physical illustration. Take a glass +prism and hold in the sunlight before a white surface. Let the prism +represent man: the sun, man's Creator: and the seven-hued ray cast by +the prism, nature, or the material universe. Now, if we remove the +light, the ray vanishes: it vanishes, also, if we take away the prism: +but so long as the sun and the prism--God and man--remain in their +mutual relation, so long must the rainbow nature appear. Nature, in +short, is not God; neither is it man; but it is the inevitable +concomitant or expression of the creative attitude of God towards man. +It is the shadow of the elements of which humanity or human nature is +composed: or, shall we say, it is the apparition in sense of the +spiritual being of mankind,--not, be it observed, of the being of any +individual or of any aggregation of individuals; but of humanity as a +whole. For this reason, also, is nature orderly, complete, and +permanent,--that it is conditioned not upon our frail and faulty +personalities, but upon our impersonal, universal human nature, in +which is transacted the miracle of God's incarnation, and through which +He forever shines. + +Besides Creator and creature, nothing else can be; and whatever else +seems to be, must be only a seeming. Nature, therefore, is the shadow +of a shade, but it serves an indispensable use. For since there can be +no direct communication between finite and Infinite--God and man--a +medium or common ground is needed, where they may meet; and nature, the +shadow which the Infinite causes the finite to project, is just that +medium. Man, looking upon this shadow, mistakes it for real substance, +serving him for foothold and background, and assisting him to attain +self-consciousness. God, on the other hand, finds in nature the means +of revealing Himself to His creature without compromising the +creature's freedom. Man supposes the universe to be a physical +structure made by God in space and time, and in some region of which He +resides, at a safe distance from us His creatures: whereas, in truth, +God is distant from us only so far as we remove ourselves from our own +inmost intuitions of truth and good. + +But what is that substance or quality which underlies and gives +homogeneity to the varying forms of nature, so that they seem to us to +own a common origin?--what is that logical abstraction upon which we +have bestowed the name of matter? scientific analysis finds matter only +as forms, never as itself: until, in despair, it invents an atomic +theory, and lets it go at that. But if, discarding the scientific +method, we question matter from the philosophical standpoint, we shall +find it less obdurate. + +Man, considered as a mind or spirit, consists of volition and +intelligence; or, what is the same, of emotion or affection, and of the +thoughts which are created by this affection. Nothing can be affirmed +of man as a spirit which does not fall under one or other of these two +parts. Now, a creature consisting solely of affections and thoughts +must, of course, have something to love and to think about. Man's final +destiny is no doubt to love and consider his Creator; but that can only +be after a reactionary or regenerative process has begun in him. +Meanwhile, he must love and consider the only other available +object--that is, himself. Manifestly, however, in order to bestow this +attention upon himself, he must first be made aware of his own +existence. In order to effect this, something must be added to man as +spirit, enabling him to discriminate between the subject thinking and +loving, and the object loved and thought of. This additional something, +again, in order to fulfill its purpose, must be so devised as not to +appear an addition: it must seem even more truly the man than the man +himself. It must, therefore, perfectly represent or correspond to the +spiritual form and constitution; so that the thoughts and affections of +the spirit may enter into it as into their natural home and continent. + +This continent or vehicle of the mind is the human body. The body has +two aspects,--substance and form, answering to the two aspects of the +mind,--affection and thought: and affection finds its incarnation or +correspondence in substance; and thought, in form. The mind, in short, +realizes itself in terms of its reflection in the body, much as the +body realizes itself in terms of its reflection in the looking-glass: +but it does more than this, for it identifies itself with this its +image. And how is this identification made possible? + +It is brought about by the deception of sense, which is the medium of +communication between the spiritual and the material man. Until this +miraculous medium is put in action, there can be no conscious relation +between these two planes, admirably as they are adapted to each other. +Sense is spiritual on one side and material on the other: but it is +only on the material side that it gathers its reports: on the spiritual +side it only delivers them. Every one of the five messengers whereby we +are apprised of external existence brings us an earthly message only. +And since these messengers act spontaneously, and since the mind's only +other source of knowledge is intuition, which cannot be sensuously +confirmed,--it is little wonder if man has inclined to the persuasion +that what is highest in him is but an attribute of what is lowest, and +that when the body dies, the soul must follow it into nothingness. + +Creative energy, being infinite, passes through the world of causes to +the world of effects--through the spiritual to the physical plane. +Matter is therefore the symbol of the ultimate of creative activity; it +is the negative of God. As God is infinite, matter is finite; as He is +life, it is death; as He is real, it is unreal; as He reveals, matter +veils. And as the relation of God to man's spirit is constant and +eternal, so is the physical quality of matter fixed and permanent. Now, +in order to arrive at a comprehension of what matter is in itself, let +us descend from the general to the specific, and investigate the +philosophical elements of a pebble, for instance. A pebble is two +things: it is a mineral: and it is a particular concrete example of +mineral. In its mineral aspect, it is out of space and time, and +is--not a fact, but--a truth; a perception of the mind. In so far as it +is mineral, therefore, it has no relation to sense, but only to +thought: and on the other hand, in so far as it is a particular +concrete pebble, it is cognizable by sense but not by thought; for what +is in sense is out of thought: the one supersedes the other. But if +sense thus absorbs matter, so as to be philosophically +indistinguishable from it, we are constrained to identify matter with +our sensuous perception of it: and if our exemplary pebble had nothing +but its material quality to depend upon, it would cease to exist not +only to thought, but to sense likewise. Its metaphysical aspect, in +short, is the only reality appertaining to it. Matter, then, may be +defined as the impact upon sense of that prismatic ray which we have +called nature. + +To apply this discussion to the subject in hand: Magic is a sort of +parody of reality. And when we recognize that Creation proceeds from +within outwards, or endogenously; and that matter is not the objective +but the subjective side of the universe, we are in a position to +perceive that in order magically to control matter, we must apply our +efforts not to matter itself, but to our own minds. The natural world +affects us from without inwards: the magical world affects us from +within outwards: instead of objects suggesting ideas, ideas are made to +suggest objects. And as, in the former case, when the object is removed +the idea vanishes; so in the latter case, when the idea is removed, the +object vanishes. Both objects are illusions; but the illusion in the +first instance is the normal illusion of sense, whereas in the second +instance it is the abnormal illusion of mind. + +The above argument can at best serve only as a hint to such as incline +seriously to investigate the subject, and perhaps as a touchstone for +testing the validity of a large and noisy mass of pretensions which +engage the student at the outset of his enquiry. Many of these +pretensions are the result of ignorance; many of deliberate intent to +deceive; some, again, of erroneous philosophical theories. The Tibetan +adepts seem to belong either to the second or to the last of these +categories,--or, perhaps, to an impartial mingling of all three. They +import a cumbrous machinery of auras, astral bodies, and elemental +spirits; they divide man into seven principles, nature into seven +kingdoms; they regard spirit as a refined form of matter, and matter as +the one absolute fact of the universe,--the alpha and omega of all +things. They deny a supreme Deity, but hold out hopes of a practical +deityship for the majority of the human race. In short, their +philosophy appeals to the most evil instincts of the soul, and has the +air of being ex-post-facto; whenever they run foul of a prodigy, they +invent arbitrarily a fanciful explanation of it. But it will be found, +I think, that the various phases of hypnotism, and a systematized use +of spiritism, will amply account for every miracle they actually bring +to pass. + +Upon the whole, a certain vulgarity is inseparable from even the most +respectable forms of magic,--an atmosphere of tinsel, of ostentation, +of big cry and little wool. A child might have told us that matter is +not almighty, that minds are sometimes transparent to one another, that +love and faith can work wonders. And we also know that, in this mortal +life, our means are exquisitely adapted to our ends; and that we can +gain no solid comfort or advantage by striving to elbow our way a few +inches further into the region of the occult and abnormal. Magic, +however specious its achievements, is only a mockery of the Creative +power, and exposes its unlikeness to it. "It is the attribute of +natural existence," a profound writer has said, "to be a form of use to +something higher than itself, so that whatever does not, either +potentially or actually, possess within it this soul of use, does not +honestly belong to nature, but is a sensational effect produced upon +the individual intelligence." [Footnote: Henry James, in "Society the +Redeemed Form of Man."] + +No one can overstep the order and modesty of general existence without +bringing himself into perilous proximity to subjects more profound and +sacred than the occasion warrants. Life need not be barren of mystery +and miracle to any one of us; but they shall be such tender mysteries +and instructive miracles as the devotion of motherhood, and the +blooming of spring. We are too close to Infinite love and wisdom to +play pranks before it, and provoke comparison between our paltry +juggleries and its omnipotence and majesty. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +AMERICAN WILD ANIMALS IN ART. + + +The hunter and the sportsman are two very different persons. The hunter +pursues animals because he loves them and sympathizes with them, and +kills them as the champions of chivalry used to slay one +another--courteously, fairly, and with admiration and respect. To stalk +and shoot the elk and the grizzly bear is to him what wooing and +winning a beloved maiden would be to another man. Far from being the +foe or exterminator of the game he follows, he, more than any one else, +is their friend, vindicator, and confidant. A strange mutual ardor and +understanding unites him with his quarry. He loves the mountain sheep +and the antelope, because they can escape him; the panther and the +bear, because they can destroy him. His relations with them are clean, +generous, and manly. And on the other hand, the wild animals whose +wildness can never be tamed, whose inmost principle of existence it is +to be apart and unapproachable,--those creatures who may be said to +cease to be when they cease to be intractable,--seem, after they have +eluded their pursuer to the utmost, or fought him to the death, to +yield themselves to him with a sort of wild contentment--as if they +were glad to admit the sovereignty of man, though death come with the +admission. The hunter, in short, asks for his happiness only to be +alone with what he hunts; the sportsman, after his day's sport, must +needs hasten home to publish the size of the "bag," and to wring from +his fellow-men the glory and applause which he has not the strength and +simplicity to find in the game itself. + +But if the true hunter is rare, the union of the hunter and the artist +is rarer still. It demands not only the close familiarity, the loving +observation, and the sympathy, but also the faculty of creation--the +eye which selects what is constructive and beautiful, and passes over +what is superfluous and inharmonious, and the hand skilful to carry out +what the imagination conceives. In the man whose work I am about to +consider, these qualities are developed in a remarkable degree, though +it was not until he was a man grown, and had fought with distinction +through the civil war, that he himself became aware of the artistic +power that was in him. The events of his life, could they be rehearsed +here, would form a tale of adventure and vicissitude more varied and +stirring than is often found in fiction. He has spent by himself days +and weeks in the vast solitudes of our western prairies and southern +morasses. He has been the companion of trappers and frontiersmen, the +friend and comrade of Indians, sleeping side by side with them in their +wigwams, running the rapids in their canoes, and riding with them in +the hunt. He has met and overcome the panther and the grizzly +single-handed, and has pursued the flying cimmaron to the snowy summits +of the Rocky Mountains, and brought back its crescent horns as a +trophy. He has fought and slain the gray wolf with no other weapons +than his hands and teeth; and at night he has lain concealed by lonely +tarns, where the wild coyote came to patter and bark and howl at the +midnight moon. His name and achievements are familiar to the dwellers +in those savage regions, whose estimate of a man is based, not upon his +social and financial advantages, but upon what he is and can do. Yet he +is not one who wears his merit outwardly. His appearance, indeed, is +striking; tall and athletic, broad-shouldered and stout-limbed, with +the long, elastic step of the moccasined Indian, and something of the +Indian's reticence and simplicity. But he can with difficulty be +brought to allude to his adventures, and is reserved almost to the +point of ingenuity on all that concerns himself or redounds to his +credit. It is only in familiar converse with friends that the humor, +the cultivation, the knowledge, and the social charm of the man appear, +and his marvellous gift of vivid and picturesque narration discloses +itself. But, in addition to all this, or above it all, he is the only +great animal sculptor of his time, the successor of the French Barye, +and (as any one may satisfy himself who will take the trouble to +compare their works) the equal of that famous artist in scope and +treatment of animal subjects, and his superior in knowledge and in +truth and power of conception. It would be a poor compliment to call +Edward Kemeys the American Barye; but Barye is the only man whose +animal sculptures can bear comparison with Mr. Kemeys's. + +Of Mr. Kemeys's productions, a few are to be seen at his studio, 133 +West Fifty-third Street, New York city. These are the models, in clay +or plaster, as they came fresh from the artist's hand. From this +condition they can either be enlarged to life or colossal size, for +parks or public buildings, or cast in bronze in their present +dimensions for the enrichment of private houses. Though this collection +includes scarce a tithe of what the artist has produced, it forms a +series of groups and figures which, for truth to nature, artistic +excellence, and originality, are actually unique. So unique are they, +indeed, that the uneducated eye does not at first realize their really +immense value. Nothing like this little sculpture gallery has been seen +before, and it is very improbable that there will ever again be a +meeting of conditions and qualities adequate to reproducing such an +exhibition. For we see here not merely, nor chiefly, the accurate +representation of the animal's external aspect, but--what is vastly +more difficult to seize and portray--the essential animal character or +temperament which controls and actuates the animal's movements and +behavior. Each one of Mr. Kemeys's figures gives not only the form and +proportions of the animal, according to the nicest anatomical studies +and measurements, but it is the speaking embodiment of profound insight +into that animal's nature and knowledge of its habits. The spectator +cannot long examine it without feeling that he has learned much more of +its characteristics and genius than if he had been standing in front of +the same animal's cage at the Zoological Gardens; for here is an artist +who understands how to translate pose into meaning, and action into +utterance, and to select those poses and actions which convey the +broadest and most comprehensive idea of the subject's prevailing +traits. He not only knows what posture or movement the anatomical +structure of the animal renders possible, but he knows precisely in +what degree such posture or movement is modified by the animal's +physical needs and instincts. In other words, he always respects the +modesty of nature, and never yields to the temptation to be dramatic +and impressive at the expense of truth. Here is none of Barye's +exaggeration, or of Landseer's sentimental effort to humanize animal +nature. Mr. Kemeys has rightly perceived that animal nature is not a +mere contraction of human nature; but that each animal, so far as it +owns any relation to man at all, represents the unimpeded development +of some particular element of man's nature. Accordingly, animals must +be studied and portrayed solely upon their own basis and within their +own limits; and he who approaches them with this understanding will +find, possibly to his surprise, that the theatre thus afforded is wide +and varied enough for the exercise of his best ingenuity and +capacities. At first, no doubt, the simple animal appears too simple to +be made artistically interesting, apart from this or that conventional +or imaginative addition. The lion must be presented, not as he is, but +as vulgar anticipation expects him to be; not with the savageness and +terror which are native to him, but with the savageness and terror +which those who have trembled and fled at the echo of his roar invest +him with,--which are quite another matter. Zooelogical gardens and +museums have their uses, but they cannot introduce us to wild animals +as they really are; and the reports of those who have caught terrified +or ignorant glimpses of them in their native regions will mislead us no +less in another direction. Nature reveals her secrets only to those who +have faithfully and rigorously submitted to the initiation; but to them +she shows herself marvellous and inexhaustible. The "simple animal" +avouches his ability to transcend any imaginative conception of him. +The stern economy of his structure and character, the sureness and +sufficiency of his every manifestation, the instinct and capacity which +inform all his proceedings,--these are things which are concealed from +a hasty glance by the very perfection of their state. Once seen and +comprehended, however, they work upon the mind of the observer with an +ever increasing power; they lead him into a new, strange, and +fascinating world, and generously recompense him for any effort he may +have made to penetrate thither. Of that strange and fascinating world +Mr. Kemeys is the true and worthy interpreter, and, so far as appears, +the only one. Through difficulty and discouragement of all kinds, he +has kept to the simple truth, and the truth has rewarded him. He has +done a service of incalculable value to his country, not only in +vindicating American art, but in preserving to us, in a permanent and +beautiful form, the vivid and veracious figures of a wild fauna which, +in the inevitable progress of colonization and civilization, is +destined within a few years to vanish altogether. The American bear and +bison, the cimmaron and the elk, the wolf and the 'coon--where will +they be a generation hence? Nowhere, save in the possession of those +persons who have to-day the opportunity and the intelligence to +decorate their rooms and parks with Mr. Kemeys's inimitable bronzes. +The opportunity is great--much greater, I should think, than the +intelligence necessary for availing ourselves of it; and it is a unique +opportunity. In other words, it lies within the power of every +cultivated family in the United States to enrich itself with a work of +art which is entirely American; which, as art, fulfils every +requirement; which is of permanent and increasing interest and value +from an ornamental point of view; and which is embodied in the most +enduring of artistic materials. + +The studio in which Mr. Kemeys works--a spacious apartment--is, in +appearance, a cross between a barn-loft and a wigwam. Round the walls +are suspended the hides, the heads, and the horns of the animals which +the hunter has shot; and below are groups, single figures, and busts, +modelled by the artist, in plaster, terracotta, or clay. The colossal +design of the "Still Hunt"--an American panther crouching before its +spring--was modelled here, before being cast in bronze and removed to +its present site in Central Park. It is a monument of which New York +and America may be proud; for no such powerful and veracious conception +of a wild animal has ever before found artistic embodiment. The great +cat crouches with head low, extended throat, and ears erect. The +shoulders are drawn far back, the fore paws huddled beneath the jaws. +The long, lithe back rises in an arch in the middle, sinking thence to +the haunches, while the angry tail makes a strong curve along the +ground to the right. The whole figure is tense and compact with +restrained and waiting power; the expression is stealthy, pitiless, and +terrible; it at once fascinates and astounds the beholder. While Mr. +Kemeys was modelling this animal, an incident occurred which he has +told me in something like the following words. The artist does not +encourage the intrusion of idle persons while he is at work, though no +one welcomes intelligent inspection and criticism more cordially than +he. On this occasion he was alone in the studio with his Irish +factotum, Tom, and the outer door, owing to the heat of the weather, +had been left ajar. All of a sudden the artist was aware of the +presence of a stranger in the room. "He was a tall, hulking fellow, +shabbily dressed, like a tramp, and looked as if he might make trouble +if he had a mind to. However, he stood quite still in front of the +statue, staring at it, and not saying anything. So I let him alone for +a while; I thought it would be time enough to attend to him when he +began to beg or make a row. But after some time, as he still hadn't +stirred, Tom came to the conclusion that a hint had better be given him +to move on; so he took a broom and began sweeping the floor, and the +dust went all over the fellow; but he didn't pay the least attention. I +began to think there would probably be a fight; but I thought I'd wait +a little longer before doing anything. At last I said to him, 'Will you +move aside, please? You're in my way.' He stepped over a little to the +right, but still didn't open his mouth, and kept his eyes fixed on the +panther. Presently I said to Tom, 'Well, Tom, the cheek of some people +passes belief!' Tom replied with more clouds of dust; but the stranger +never made a sign. At last I got tired, so I stepped up to the fellow +and said to him: 'Look here, my friend, when I asked you to move aside, +I meant you should move the other side of the door.' He roused up then, +and gave himself a shake, and took a last look at the panther, and said +he, 'That's all right, boss; I know all about the door; but--what a +spring she's going to make!' Then," added Kemeys, self-reproachfully, +"I could have wept!" + +But although this superb figure no longer dominates the studio, there +is no lack of models as valuable and as interesting, though not of +heroic size. Most interesting of all to the general observer are, +perhaps, the two figures of the grizzly bear. These were designed from +a grizzly which Mr. Kemeys fought and killed in the autumn of 1881 in +the Rocky Mountains, and the mounted head of which grins upon the wall +overhead, a grisly trophy indeed. The impression of enormous strength, +massive yet elastic, ponderous yet alert, impregnable for defence as +irresistible in attack; a strength which knows no obstacles, and which +never meets its match,--this impression is as fully conveyed in these +figures, which are not over a foot in height, as if the animal were +before us in its natural size. You see the vast limbs, crooked with +power, bound about with huge ropes and plates of muscle, and clothed in +shaggy depths of fur; the vast breadth of the head, with its thick, low +ears, dull, small eyes, and long up-curving snout; the roll and lunge +of the gait, like the motion of a vessel plunging forward before the +wind; the rounded immensity of the trunk, and the huge bluntness of the +posteriors; and all these features are combined with such masterly +unity of conception and plastic vigor, that the diminutive model +insensibly grows mighty beneath your gaze, until you realize the +monster as if he stood stupendous and grim before you. In the first of +the figures the bear has paused in his great stride to paw over and +snuff at the horned head of a mountain sheep, half buried in the soil. +The action of the right arm and shoulder, and the burly slouch of the +arrested stride, are of themselves worth a gallery of pseudo-classic +Venuses and Roman senators. The other bear is lolling back on his +haunches, with all four paws in the air, munching some grapes from a +vine which he has torn from its support. The contrast between the +savage character of the beast and his absurdly peaceful employment +gives a touch of terrific comedy to this design. After studying these +figures, one cannot help thinking what a noble embellishment either of +them would be, put in bronze, of colossal size, in the public grounds +of one of our great Western cities. And inasmuch as the rich citizens +of the West not only know what a grizzly bear is, but are more fearless +and independent, and therefore often more correct in their artistic +opinion than the somewhat sophisticated critics of the East, there is +some cause for hoping that this thing may be brought to pass. + +Beside the grizzly stands the mountain sheep, or cimmaron, the most +difficult to capture of all four-footed animals, whose gigantic curved +horns are the best trophy of skill and enterprise that a hunter can +bring home with him. The sculptor has here caught him in one of his +most characteristic attitudes--just alighted from some dizzy leap on +the headlong slope of a rocky mountainside. On such a spot nothing but +the cimmaron could retain its footing; yet there he stands, firm and +secure as the rock itself, his fore feet planted close together, the +fore legs rigid and straight as the shaft of a lance, while the hind +legs pose easily in attendance upon them. "The cimmaron always strikes +plumb-centre, and he never makes a mistake," is Mr. Kemeys's laconic +comment; and we can recognize the truth of the observation in this +image. Perfectly at home and comfortable on its almost impossible +perch, the cimmaron curves its great neck and turns its head upward, +gazing aloft toward the height whence it has descended. "It's the +golden eagle he hears," says the sculptor; "they give him warning of +danger." It is a magnificent animal, a model of tireless vigor in all +its parts; a creature made to hurl itself head-foremost down appalling +gulfs of space, and poise itself at the bottom as jauntily as if +gravitation were but a bugbear of timid imaginations. I find myself +unconsciously speaking about these plaster models as if they were the +living animals which they represent; but the more one studies Mr. +Kemeys's works, the more instinct with redundant and breathing life do +they appear. + +It would be impossible even to catalogue the contents of this studio, +the greater part of which is as well worth describing as those examples +which have already been touched upon; nor could a more graphic pen than +mine convey an adequate impression of their excellence. But there is +here a figure of the 'coon, which, as it is the only one ever modelled, +ought not to be passed over in silence. In appearance this animal is a +curious medley of the fox, the wolf, and the bear, besides +I-know-not-what (as the lady in "Punch" would say) that belongs to none +of those beasts. As may be imagined, therefore, its right portrayal +involves peculiar difficulties, and Mr. Kemeys's genius is nowhere +better shown than in the manner in which these have been surmounted. +Compact, plump, and active in figure, quick and subtle in its +movements, the 'coon crouches in a flattened position along the limb of +a tree, its broad, shallow head and pointed snout a little lifted, as +it gazes alertly outward and downward. It sustains itself by the clutch +of its slender-clawed toes on the branch, the fore legs being spread +apart, while the left hind leg is withdrawn inward, and enters smoothly +into the contour of the furred side; the bushy, fox-like tail, ringed +with dark and light bands, curving to the left. Thus posed and modelled +in high relief on a tile-shaped plaque, Mr. Kemeys's coon forms a most +desirable ornament for some wise man's sideboard or mantle-piece, where +it may one day be pointed out as the only surviving representative of +its species. + +The two most elaborate groups here have already attained some measure +of publicity; the "Bison and Wolves" having been exhibited in the Paris +Salon in 1878, and the "Deer and Panther" having been purchased in +bronze by Mr. Winans during the sculptor's sojourn in England. Each +group represents one of those deadly combats between wild beasts which +are among the most terrific and at the same time most natural incidents +of animal existence; and they are of especial interest as showing the +artist's power of concentrated and graphic composition. A complicated +story is told in both these instances with a masterly economy of +material and balance of proportion; so that the spectator's eye takes +in the whole subject at a glance, and yet finds inexhaustible interest +in the examination of details, all of which contribute to the central +effect without distracting the attention. A companion piece to the +"Deer and Panther" shows the same animals as they have fallen, locked +together in death after the combat is over. In the former group, the +panther, in springing upon the deer, had impaled its neck on the deer's +right antler, and had then swung round under the latter's body, burying +the claws of its right fore foot in the ruminant's throat. In order +truthfully to represent the second stage of the encounter, therefore, +it was necessary not merely to model a second group, but to retain the +elements and construction of the first group under totally changed +conditions. This is a feat of such peculiar difficulty that I think few +artists in any branch of art would venture to attempt it; nevertheless, +Mr. Kemeys has accomplished it; and the more the two groups are studied +in connection with each other, the more complete will his success be +found to have been. The man who can do this may surely be admitted a +master, whose works are open only to affirmative criticism. For his +works the most trying of all tests is their comparison with one +another; and the result of such comparison is not merely to confirm +their merit, but to illustrate and enhance it. + +For my own part, my introduction to Mr. Kemeys's studio was the opening +to me of a new world, where it has been my good fortune to spend many +days of delightful and enlightening study. How far the subject of this +writing may have been already familiar to the readers of it, I have no +means of knowing; but I conceive it to be no less than my duty, as a +countryman of Mr. Kemeys's and a lover of all that is true and original +in art, to pay the tribute of my appreciation to what he has done. +There is no danger of his getting more recognition than he deserves, +and he is not one whom recognition can injure. He reverences his art +too highly to magnify his own exposition of it; and when he reads what +I have set down here, he will smile and shake his head, and mutter that +I have divined the perfect idea in the imperfect embodiment. Unless I +greatly err, however, no one but himself is competent to take that +exception. The genuine artist is never satisfied with his work; he +perceives where it falls short of his conception. But to others it will +not be incomplete; for the achievements of real art are always invested +with an atmosphere and aroma--a spiritual quality perhaps--proceeding +from the artist's mind and affecting that of the beholder. And thus it +happens that the story or the poem, the picture or the sculpture, +receives even in its material form that last indefinable grace, that +magic light that never was on sea or land, which no pen or brush or +graving-tool has skill to seize. Matter can never rise to the height of +spirit; but spirit informs it when it has done its best, and ennobles +it with the charm that the artist sought and the world desired. + +*** Since the above was written, Mr. Kemeys has removed his studio to +Perth Amboy, N. J. + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Confessions and Criticisms, by Julian Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS AND CRITICISMS *** + +***** This file should be named 7431.txt or 7431.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/4/3/7431/ + +Produced by Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, John R. Bilderback +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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