Class _PS^X Boole jVw 3 COHmiGHT DEPOSm / A HISTORY OF 0^ AMERICAN LITERATURE BY WILLIAM B. CAIRNS, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of American Literature in the University of Wisconsin NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH : 35 West 32nd Street LONDON, TORONTO, AND MELBOURNE. HENRY FROWDE 1912 f>'r y ,o^ Copyright, 1912 BY Oxford University Press AMERICAN BRANCH 11 SCI.A31G946 0^^ jix M CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The Colonial Time (1607-1765) 1-102 I. The Southern Colonies 1 II. The New England Colonies. First Period, 1620-1676 21 III. The New England Colonies. Second Period, 1676-1765 56 IV. The Middle Colonies , 90 CHAPTER II The Revolutionary Period (1765-1800) . 103-157 I. Controversial Writings 103 II. General Literature 122 CHAPTER III The Early Nineteenth Century (1800-1833) 158-219 I. General Conditions; the Knickerbocker Writers 158 II. Writers of New England 197 III. Writers of Philadelphia; the South; the West 209 IV. Orators; Scholars * 215 iii iv CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PAGE The Central Period (1833-1883) 220-460 I. General Conditions 220 II. The New England Transcendentalists 222 III. The New England Abolitionists 254 IV. Miscellaneous New England Writers 284 V. New York Writers 356 VI. Pennsylvania Writers 395 VII. Southern Writers 404 VIII. Western Writers 436 CHAPTER V Recent Years (1883-1912) 461-483 PEEFACE This book attempts to trace within reasonable compass the course of literary development in America^ and to present the most significant facts regarding American authors and their works. It places greatest emphasis on general move- ments, because American literature is first of all important as an expression of national life. There are few American writings that require careful analysis and merit intensive study as masterpieces. But in a nation where education has from the first been so generally diffused^ literary attempts of slight artistic merit may reflect not only the obvious changes in national life and ideals^ but subtler tendencies and aspira- tions. For this reason attention is given not only to the few greater writers^ but to many others whose works, though less important in themselves, are sometimes even more sig- nificant. The plan of the book and the decision what to include and what to exclude have been influenced by the author^s experiences with college classes; but an attempt has been made to meet the wants of the general reader as well as those of the systematic student. In tracing tendencies and movements it has been necessary to adopt a geographical classification of authors; and this has sometimes been carried beyond the point where it is significant. It is a matter of the greatest importance whether an author represents the spirit of Puritan New England or the spirit of Cavalier Virginia; it is of little importance whether he chances to write in New Hampshire or in Ver- mont. For convenience, however, smaller as well as larger groupings have been made on the basis of residence. In adopting this plan the author wishes to disclaim any intention of over-emphasizing sectional differences. V vi Preface As a general rule the works of living authors have not been discussed in detail. Exception has been made in the case of two or three men whose reputations were achieved many years ago, and whose Jiterary work is evidently done. It would have been easier, and perhaps more satisfactory, to close this history with authors who flourished in the middle of the nineteenth century; but it seemed desirable to add some comment on literary conditions in recent years. Liv- ing writers are mentioned as illustrations of schools and tendencies, but no attempt is made to estimate their rank, or to name all who are worthy. Even after this explanation is given it would doubtless be hard to tell why some are included and others are omitted. The author expects no general assent to the judgments in the last chapter; but it is his consolation that the lapse of a few years makes all estimates of contemporary writings seem strange. He trusts that he may live to feel for himself that many things in this section of the book are thoroughly amusing. W. B. C. University of Wisconsin, April, 1913. A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Vll CHAPTEK I The Colonial Time (1607-1765) I. The Southern Colonies The literature of America was an off-shoot from that of England. If an exact date for the divergence must be given, it may be set at 1607, the year of the found- The Beginning jj^g ^f h^q fj^g^ permanent British colony in Literature ^^^^ ^^^ world. At this time Shakespeare was still writing, and, as will be seen, may have received a suggestion for one play from an American book. The very year of the Jamestown settlement saw the writing or publication of works by Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, Dekker, Marston, and others of the group who, though they wrote largely in the reign of James, are known as the later Elizabethans. These men did not, however, exert any strong direct influence on their contemporaries who emigrated to the 'New World. Most of them, it will be noted, are remembered for their writings in two depart- ments of pure literature — the drama and the lyric. The early settlers of Virginia wrote mostly in prose, and they wrote, not as men of letters, but as practical explorers, colonists, business men. They told the story of their adven- tures, and described the country to which they had come; and if they tried to make their narratives and descriptions attractive it was with a commercial rather than with an esthetic purpose. But though the connection between Elizabethan literature and these early writers was indirect, it was none the less important. The whole colonization of Virginia was in itself an expression of the spirit and temper of the Elizabethan 1 2 American Literature time. The love of adventure, the credulity with which men believed in the existence of wealth in every unexplored land, the intense wonder with which they viewed the Influence of the flora, the fauna, and the inhabitants of their Soirit "^^^ home, are shown on every page of the history of Jamestown. One does not need to read far in the narratives of almost any of these early Vir- ginian writers before he realizes that here is the same attitude of mind, the same philosophy of life, so often expressed on the Elizabethan stage. The earliest American writings were in prose, and English prose had not at this time attained its full development. The day of Euphuism had gone by, and the Influence of fashion was setting toward a saner and more vigorous style of writing; but few works had yet appeared which were associated with the evolution of modern prose style. The first book written in America was published three years before the King James version of the Bihle, four years before any of Bacon^s Essays took their final form, and a generation before the religious and polit- ical writings of Jeremy Taylor and Milton. English prose of this time had a fire and a melody of its own ; but even in the hands of men of letters it was likely to be unformed, sometimes ungrammatical, and always lacking in the terse- ness and finish of a later day. When attempted by untrained literary workers it might lose none of its force, but it was likely to become involved, sometimes even chaotic, in struc- ture. All these crude but vigorous qualities are found in the style of the first American writer — Captain John Smith (1580P-1631). It is more than a coincidence Captam ^j^^^ ^j^ name which stands first in a history John Smith . i i. i of American literature is that of a man who is known to every schoolboy for different achievements from The Colonial Time 3 those of his pen. In the Elizabethan age men of letters were men of action. Conversely, many men known chiefly for their activities in politics, exploration, or war left writ- ings of value. Indeed, the peculiarities of Elizabethan prose style may be traced largely to the fact that prose was written by men like Sidney, Ealeigh, and others who possessed similar energy but slighter literary talent. It is impossible to judge what John Smith wrote without remembering what he did. The achievements of this man, if his own testimony is to be trusted, are among the most remarkable of modern times. According to his account he was born Captain Smith's ^^ WiUoughby on the flat coast of Lincoln- Achievements ^ *^ shire. While he was a mere boy his father died, and he was rather shabbily treated by his guardians, who finally apprenticed him to a merchant. The life to which his apprenticeship bound him was distasteful, and at' the age of fifteen he ran away and became a soldier of fortune. He fought in France and the low countries; journeyed to Scotland with letters to the king, but had little success as a courtier; went back to WiUoughby and lived for some months a hermit in the woods; returned to the continent, where he went through experiences too numerous to mention; was cast overboard from a vessel in the Mediterranean, and picked up by a pirate; took part in an engagement and received his share of the booty; and finally reached the East, the scene of his most marvellous adventures. Here he saw much of the war against the Turks, and in every movement, he tells us, he played a leading part. He was useful to his commander, both in suggesting plots and stratagems, and in actual conflict. One of his most dramatic accounts is that of his combat ^^to delight the ladies^^ with three Turks in succession, each of whom he slew and decapitated. Finally he was taken captive 4: American Literature and sent as slave to a Turkish lady of rank. The relations of the two soon became highly romantic — Smith always made a good impression on the other sex. Unfortunately the lady had a cruel brother who treated him with indignity. Finally the Captain killed his tormentor, appropriated his clothes and his horse, and escaped, riding alone many days through the desert. These adventures, but 'the most impor- tant of which have been mentioned, were accomplished before the hero returned to England in 1605, aged about twenty- five years. For the next year and a half Smith seems to have done nothing noteworthy. Then he comes into view again as one of the most conspicuous of the men who founded the colony at Jamestown. Here he appears, from his own writ- ings and those of his contemporaries, as a bluff, quarrel- some, energetic man, afraid of no one, sometimes under arrest, once in danger of execution, but generally coming out victor, and showing himself perhaps the most sagacious, practical manager in the whole settlement. He directed the palisading of the fort, explored the rivers, and the surround- ing country, traded and treated with the Indians, and at the same time took his part in all the intestine broils that characterized the first months of the colony. Smith's First j^. ^^^ j^ ^ ^^^^ ^^ f^^^^^ ^^ ^-{j^ Book all his other labors, to write what so far as we know was his first book, and what was certainly the first English book written in a permanent American settlement — A True Relation of such occurrences and acci- denis of noate as hath hapned in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony, which is notu resideiit in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence. This work, perhaps written with no thought of its publi- cation, contains a history of the first months of the settle- ment, with a description of the country and its inhabitants. The Colonial Time 5 It is not a long work^ occupying but forty pages of rather coarse type in Mr. Arber^s reprint; though it is possible that the proprietors of the colony suppressed some of Smith's frank statements. Very likely its composition was begun in 1607^ soon after the expedition landed. The manuscript was taken to England in the early summer of 1608, and printed later in the same year. During the rest of his stay in Virginia Smith wrote but one other work of importance — A Map of Virginia, with a Description of the Countrey the Commod- ^ith s Later {fies. People, Government and Religion. This contains little narrative, but is a descrip- tion of the country, its physical features, climate, plants, animals, and inhabitants. It was sent to England, probably late in the year 1608, but was not published until 1612, and then, somewhat strangely, at the University Press, Oxford. At the same time with the Map of Virginia Smith sent a letter to the London proprietors of the colony, answering sharply their demands for immediate financial returns. John Smith returned to England in 1609, and remained there till 1614, when he again sailed to America and made a map of the coast from Cape Cod to the Penobscot. In 1615 he started for New England with a colony, but the expedi- tion met disaster at the hands of French pirates. After his escape from his captors and his return to England he devoted himself to writing, producing a considerable number of works. Among those which have reference to America are: A Description of New England, 1616; New Englands Trials, 1620, 1622; The General Historic of Virginia, 1624; Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Anyivhere, 1631. His autobiography. The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith, was written about a year before his death, which occurred in 1631. 6 American Literature The only authority for the early adventures of Captain Smith is this autobiography. His statements regarding his exploits are therefore hard to prove or dis- prove; but it is safe to say that, though they evidently have some basis in fact, many of the details over- tax credulity. When we come to his experiences in Virginia there are other accounts that may be compared vi^ith his own. These all show that, whether he was a braggart or not, he was probably the one man among the helpless adventurers at Jamestown who was really equal to the occa- sion. But even in the American narrative it is obvious that he delights in the use of the pronoun "I,^^ the monotony of which he varies by frequent references to ^Taptain Smith^^; and there is strong reason for believing that some of the experiences that he relates have little or no basis in fact. The one which has aroused most discussion is the story of his rescue by Pocahontas. In the True Relation, written soon after he was captured and taken to Powhatan, he speaks of that monarch as most friendly, and in another connection refers to Pocahontas as a mere child. The first reference to the rescue was made in a letter which Smith wrote to Queen Anne in 1616, when he was living in obscurity, while the ^^Indian Princess,^^ now married to John Eolfe, was attract- ing much attention in London. It is possible that the account of Powhatan^s hostility was omitted from the Trtie Relation in order not to frighten immigrants; but it is much more likely that the story was coined to connect the heroes name with that of a social celebrity. Except for the fact that John Smith was the first Amer- ican writer, his place in the world of letters is unimportant. It must be remembered, however, that few SJus^ ^'*^^^^y of his English contemporaries who confined themselves to prose won high literary rank. Even as prose, his writings are by no means devoid of merit. The Colonial Time 7 In his later work^ written when he had more leisure, and looked on life in a calmer way, there are sentences that possess the true Elizabethan melody : Who can desire more content, that hath small meanes ; or but only his merit to advance his fortune, then to tread, and plant that ground hee hath purchased by the hazard of his life? If he have but the taste of virtue and magnanimitie, what to such a minde can bee more pleasant, then planting and building a foundation for his Pos- teritie, gotte from the rude earth, by God's blessing and his owne Industrie, without prejudice to any? If hee have any graine of faith or zeale in Religion, what can hee doe lesse hurtfull to any : or more agreeable to God then to seeke to convert those poore Salvages to know Christ, and humanitie, whose labors with discretion will tripple requite thy charge and paines? What so truely sutes with honour and honestie, as the discovering things unknowne? erecting Townes, peopling Countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching virtue ; and gaine to our Native mother-countrie a kingdom to attend her : finde imployment for those that are idle, because they know not what to doe : so farre from wronging any, as to cause Posteritie to remember thee ; and remembering thee, ever honour that remembrance with praise? In the works produced in America such passages as this are hardly to be found. The circumstances that repressed lit- erary activity in the colonies, and that in some measure have crippled American literature almost to the present, began to make themselves felt at once. The True Relation and the Map of Virginia must have been written hastily, at odd moments, in the midst of fatiguing physical toil and mental anxiety. Both are, for the most part, plain blunt narratives and descriptions of what the author had himself seen. There was not time even for such obvious general- izations as are found in the paragraph quoted above. In the True Relation, especially, narrative clauses often crowd each other, as in the following : The two and twenty day of Aprill, Captain Newport and myselfe with divers others, to the number of twenty two persons, set forward to discover the River, some fiftie or sixtie miles, finding it in some places broader, and in some narrower, the Countrie (for the moste 8 American Literature part) on each side plaine high ground, with many fresh Springes, the people in all places kindly intreating us, daunsing and feasting us with strawberries. Mulberries, Bread, Fish, and other their Countrie provisions whereof we had plenty : for which Captaine Newport kindely requited their least favours with Bels, Pinnes, Needles, beades, or Glasses, which so contented them that his liberallitie made them follow us from place to place, and ever kindely to respect us. Prose like this violates most rhetorical conventionalities, but it is perfectly clear. Smith is an example of the nnlearned pioneer and adventurer who writes because he has something to say, and whose straightforwardness saves him from ambiguity. William Strachey was a colonist of a different sort. Though little is known of his life he was evidently a man of some prominence and experience in polit- ei^ ^f°^ ical affairs, who in 1610 came to Virginia Strachey . . ^ ^ with Sir Thomas Gates, was secretary of the colony for about three years, and afterward returned to England. On the journey over Sir Thomas Gates^s fleet was scattered in a storm, and his own ship, on which Strachey was a passenger, was wrecked on the Bermudas. From these islands the survivors escaped in rude vessels of their own construction, and reached Jamestow^n nearly a year after they first set out. Strachey^s chief work written in America is an account of the hardships of this voyage, entitled A true Reportory of the Wracke, and Redemption of /?iV Thomas Gates Knight; upon and from the Hands of the Bermudas: his Com.ming to Virginia, and the Estate of that Colonie then, and after, under the Government of the Lord La Warre, This pamphlet was written in 1610, and printed in London before the close of the same year. It has for us an intrinsic interest as one of the strongest speci- mens of prose to be found among Southern colonial writings; and perhaps even greater interest from the fact that some Shakespearean scholars believe it to have furnished sug- The Colonial Time 9 gestions for "The Tempest/^ The claim can hardly be proved or disproved; but even a casual reader will notice correspondences between parts of the narrative and scenes of the play.* Strachey was a man of some education and culture, though probably not a trained writer. His Wmcke and Redemp- tion shows a conscious striving after effect such as might be expected of a man of literary inexperience who was trying to narrate a terrible occurrence. His Historie of Travaile into Virginia Brittania, partly written and partly compiled after his return to England, is plodding and uninspired. A later official of the colony was George Sandys (1577- 1644), who held the position of treasurer from 1621 to 1624 or 1625. At the time of his appoint- eorge a y jj^^^^ }^q ^^s engaged on a translation of Ovid^s Metamorphoses, and had already completed five books. After his arrival in Virginia he translated the remaining ten books, and the whole was published in 1626, after his return to England. It is one of the more notable of that group of translations of which Chapman^s Homer is perhaps the best known example, and for many years was given high rank by critics and scholars. In the dedication of the completed volume, addressed to King Charles, the author says: It needeth more than a single denization, being a double stranger ; sprung from the stock of the ancient Romanes, but bred in the new world, of the rudeness whereof it cannot but participate, especially having wars and tumults to bring it to light instead of the Muses. Very likely the work did suffer from the circumstances in which it was written; but it would puzzle a student to find any particular in which the translation is indebted to America, or to distinguish in manner between the ten books done here and the five completed in England. The connec- ♦ A fair and concise statement of the evidence on this question is given in the Variorum edition of the play, edited by Dr. Horace Howard Furness. 10 American Literature tion of Sandys with Virginia should be remembered chiefly as a reminder that official appointment sometimes brought to the New World men of high scholarship and real literary gift. Smith, Strachey, and Sandys typify three important classes of early writers — the unlettered adventurer who wrote with little thought of form, the gentleman in T ree Types o public life who attempted a literary record of his experiences, and the scholar whose work continued the same here as in England. The first two of these classes contained many representatives. In an age when everything connected with America excited so much interest and wonder, every emigrant who could guide a pen was likely to attempt, for private friends at least, some account of what he saw. So great was the demand for news from America that many of these private letters, as well as writings intended for publication, found their way into print. Some of these are only less notable — indeed some may be even more readable — than those of Smith and Strachey; but most of them do not merit consideration in a literary history. Mention should be made, however, of Alexander Whitaker (1585-1613?), "The Apostle of Virginia.'' Whitaker was a clergyman, a Cambridge graduate, who in ar y Minor IQH resigned his living in the north of England to come as a missionary to the Indians, and who labored faithfully at various places in the colony until his death some five or six years later. His Good News from Virginia, which appeared in London in 1613, contains some description of the country, but treats espe- cially of the natives and their moral and spiritual condition. Its object was to convince the English people that the Indian was not merely a curious animal, but a rational human being, for whom as a fellow-man they were responsible. John Pory (1570?-1635?), another Cambridge man, was a more amusing if a less edifying writer. He came to America The Colonial Time 11 under different circumstances, being presumably sent by his family because his drunkenness made him inconvenient at home. In his earlier years, about 1600, he was engaged in historical studies and in preparing translations of works of travel under the direction of Eichard Hakluyt. In America his indolence and his bad habits kept him from writing much, but he left an account of three excursions among the Indians, reprinted by Smith in his General Historie, and a gossipy letter to Sir Dudley Carleton. As an observer he seems to have had a way of looking on the odd and amus- ing side of things, and though he could not be classed as a humorist there is a touch of facetiousness about all his work. The writings produced during the first twenty years of the Jamestown colony, though meagre, were more than could be expected from men in such circumstances; and a con- temporary would have seemed justified in predicting that, with more leisure and fewer hardships, a distinctive Ameri- can literature would arise in that part of the continent to which they belonged. Such a prediction, if made, was never fulfilled. After the first half-generation of a er i erary settlement there was no continuous develop- Development ^ ment of literature m the South. The few works that did appear for the next one hundred and forty years were sporadic and unrelated. The reasons for this literary poverty were of two classes — those depending on the character of the colonists and those depending on their environment. The early immigrants to the Southern colonies differed widely in morals and in social position, but they agreed in one respect: with few exceptions they came Characteristics ^q i\^q ]yfe^ World for the sole purpose of Colonists bettering themselves in a material way. They were not, like the pioneers in Massachusetts, devotees to a principle, but adventurers, some in a good and 12 American Literature some in a bad sense of that term. Most of them came with the idea of returning to England as soon as they had acquired a competence; and those who stayed considered themselves^ at least for a generation or two^ not primarily Virginians or South Carolinians^ but Englishmen sojourn- ing in the wilderness. Such men did not feel called upon to produce much in the way of literature. The drama, the lyric, and lighter forms of writing that are associated with a life of polite leisure could not be expected during the period of hardship. The adventures of the early colonists, romantic as they seem to us, were such stern realities for all concerned that no one had time to be a laureate. Perhaps, too, the romantic element, as in the case of the Pocohontas story, has been mostly added by the imagination of later narrators. Love and war, it is sometimes said, are the great stimuli to literature. War there was, of a sort, but the Indian conflicts were not of a nature to call forth an Iliad; and love was not likely to inspire a poet while the planters' wives were imported girls secured from the ship-masters on payment of their passage-money. There was not even an incentive to the more matter-of-fact kinds of writing. The Pilgrim felt, from the first day of his outward voyage, that he was founding a Commonwealth, • and that upon him devolved the duty of writing its history for posterity. The Virginian felt no such duty to his new and probably temporary home. In politics the Virginian was usually a Eoyalist, and in religion an Episcopalian. In both he occupied traditional, conservative ground, which to his mind needed no defense or apology unless attacked. / There was no temptation, therefore, to publish controversial ' pamphlets and sermons. All that the early settler could be expected to do was to write narratives of his adventures, and descriptions of the country, and this is what he did. . By the time that the colonies became established, and men The Colonial Time 13 were proud to consider themselves Virginians, the causes of the second class, those arising from the circumstances of life, repressed literary activity. Chief among these Ts^h^^^I/f ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ education. The plantation system, which was made possible in Vir- ginia by the great number of navigable rivers, tended to the isolation of each family. Neighbors lived so far apart that common schools would have been impossible, even if the government had wished to establish them. Small children could be educated only by private tutors, and these were expensive and hard to secure. Under these conditions the Southerners came to consider education unnecessary, and acquiesced in the plans of the royal governors, who discour- aged it as a menace to their power. As a result, the state of learning, even in families of wealth and real refinement, was almost incredibly low. William and Mary, long the only public educational institution in the South, was digni- fied by the name of a college, but really devoted itself mostly to instruction in elementary branches. A few sons of wealthy families were sent to English universities, where, if tradition is true, they learned chiefly the dissipations and accomplishments of an English gentleman. Many members of even well-to-do families could hardly read or write. ... The repressive policy of the government extended not only to schools but to the printing press. There was virtually no printing in Virginia for over a hundred years, and but one printing house until ten years before the Eevolution. South- ern writings, if published at all, were sent to London. One other tendency must be noticed, which in its opera- tion both repressed the production of writings in the South and restricted the circulation of those that were produced. Following a notion current to some extent in England dur- ing the eighteenth century, the Southern gentleman felt that literature was not exactly a reputable profession. It was 14 American Literature proper for him to write, to circulate manuscript copies of his writings among his friends, and to have them neatly en- grossed on parchment and so transmitted to Southern Atti- ^ig children ; but it was not quite dignified Literature^ to have them printed, certainly not to print them for gain. At the same time the lack of facilities for printing in the colonies discouraged less punctilious authors, who might be financially unable to publish abroad. It may be conjectured that many works were written which, remaining in manuscript, have been lost in the ravages of three wars, or by the destructive acci- dents of two hundred years. True, this private and amateur authorship has not, in recent times, led to the best literary results. It is not probable that any great American epics or tragedies were lost to the world through the modesty of their authors; but it is very likely that works remained unpublished that were quite as important as some that are mentioned in this history. The dependence on England for education and for pub- lishing facilities, together with the general attitude of Southerners toward the mother country. Southern "^rit- accounts for the most notable characteristic English Models ^^ Southern colonial literature — namely, its connection with English rather than with American models. There was no ^^school^^ of Virginian writers. It can hardly be said that any Virginian book influ- enced any other Virginian book. At any given time, how- ever, the writings of Virginia gentlemen were certain to show the influence of contemporary or recent literary fashions in England. This characteristic is seen in the Burwell Papers, This name has been given to an anonymous manuscript which was found in the possession of the Burwell family in Virginia, and which deals with the civil disturbance of 1676, known as The Colonial Time 15 Bacon's rebellion. Prom internal evidence it appears to have been written by an adherent, though not a strong partisan, of the royal governor, at a period not far Bturwell subsequent to the events of which it treats. The most noticeable peculiarity of the style is the excessive use of conceits, puns, artificial balances, and all the other mannerisms found in the Restoration prose at its worst. The following passage, stating the assumption of leadership by Ingram after Bacon's death, illustrates the intolerable prolixity of the author:' The Lion had no sooner made his exitt, but the Ape (by indubi- table right) steps upon the stage. Bacon was no sooner removed by the hand of good providence, but another steps in, by the wheele of fickle fortune. The Countrey had, for som time, bin guided by a company of knaves, now it was to try how it would behave it selfe under a foole. Bacon had not long bin dead, (though it was a long time before som would beleive that he was dead) but one Ingram (or Isgrum, which you will) takes up Bacons Commission (or ells by the patterne of that cuts him out a new one) and as though he had bin his natureall heire, or that Bacons Commission had bin granted not onely to him selfe, but to his Executors, Administraters, and Assignes, he (in the Millitary Court) takes out a Probit of Bacons will, and proclames him selfe his Successer. In the latter part of the manuscript are two poems on the death of Bacon, in rhymed pentameter verse, which likewise show the author's devotion to contemporary English models. Among the literary curiosities dating from a slightly later time is a little booklet now much sought by collectors, pub- lished in London in 1708, and bearing the Facto?*^"^^'''^ title The Sot-Weed Factor, or a Voyage into Maryland, A Satyr. By Eben. Cooh, Gent, Sot-Weed will be recognized as an uncomplimentary name for tobacco. A factor was a merchant or, more accurately, an agent who handled wares for a principal at home. It is not known who Ebenezer Cook was, or whether this was his real name; but in the poem he represents himself as such a 16 American Literature factor, who had come to Maryland to barter for the chief product of the plantations. On first landing he notices the hospitality of the planters, even then proverbial; but the entertainment furnished is not much to his liking. After leaving the host who first entertains him the factor sets off on his business, and in the narrative of his adventures satir- izes the law courts, the inns, and all classes of the inhabi- tants, especially the Quakers. One of these he describes in lines perhaps the most frequently quoted of any in the poem : While riding near a Sandy Bay, I met a Quaker, Yea and Nay; A Pious Conscientious Rogue, As e*er woar Bonnet or a Brogue, Who neither Swore nor kept his Word, But cheated in the Fear of God ; And when his Debts he would not pay. By Light within he ran away. By trusting this Friend the factor is defrauded of all his goods. His efforts to recover them give occasion for further comments on the provincial courts and lawyers; and the victim, now penniless, returns home, leaving a curse on the whole country. In the absence of any knowledge regarding the author it is impossible to say what was the occasion of the poem, or how far the satire was inspired by malice. It gives the impression of being a shrewd caricature of some of the prevailing evils of the time. In form it shows evi- dent influence of Hudihras, which by 1700 was the model for burlesque satire; but it lacks the forced rhymes and the clever turns of phrase which characterize Butler's master- piece. At a later date there appeared in Maryland other poems which have been ascribed to Ebenezer Cook. The most not- able of these was a political satire, which was published at* Annapolis in 1730, and which bore the title Sotweed Redi- vivus: or the Planters Looking-Glass. In Burlesque Verse. The Colonial Time 17 Calculated for the Meridian of Maryland. By E. C. Gent. It is probable^ however^ that this is the work of some other satirist, who sought to attract attention by adopting the metrical form of a popular poem and the initials of its author. Indeed, it is by no means certain that Ebenezer Cook was really a resident of Maryland, though the vivid- ness of his descriptions shows that he must have visited the colony. The most important Southern writer of the early eigh- teenth century was William Byrd (1674-1744). Of the authors who have thus far been mentioned Byrd was the first who was a native of Amer- ica. He was the son of a prominent and wealthy Virginian family. He was sent to England and the Continent for his education, studied law at the Middle Temple, was called to the bar, and was honored with membership in the Eoyal Society. After his return to America he lived on the family estate at Westover. Here, besides managing his extensive private interests he served the public in various capacities. He was a member of the commission which in 1728 estab- lished the boundary line between Virginia and North Caro- lina, and an account of his experiences during this survey is the most valuable of his writings. These writings were not intended for publication, but were handed down to the author^s descendants in a manuscript volume carefully engrossed and bound under his direction. This collection, sometimes known as the Westover Manuscripts^ contains, besides "The History of the Dividing Line,^^ "A Journey to the Land of Eden,'' "A Progress to the Mines,'' and "An Essay on Bulk Tobacco." The last-named essay may not be Byrd's own work. The papers were not printed until 1841. Colonel Byrd seems to have been regarded, both in his own and in succeeding generations, as an example of the highest type of Southern gentleman. He was a man of 18 American Literature culture and social charm. He collected a private library, said to have been the largest in Virginia, and his writings show that he had an appreciation of literature, and a fondness for gaining — and sometimes for displaying. — odd bits of curious information. On his travels through the colonies he was a close observer, and he showed the catholic interest of an eighteenth century gentleman in matters of economic, his- torical, and scientific importance. ^^The History of the Dividing Line^^ gives much valuable information regarding the country, and the plants, animals, and natural curiosities, but it is most interesting for the shrewd comments on men and their ways, and for the revelation that it gives of the author's own character. Byrd's style is that of a man who had read and enjoyed the work of Addison and his contemporaries. While the New England writers were still adhering to the crabbed and pedantic manner of an earlier century, Byrd succeeded in writing prose that, though not remarkable for grace, had something of urbane charm. He occasionally indulged in the coarse jests that an eighteenth century Englishman seemed to think necessary, but in many other passages he showed a fine and genuine humor. All in all, his writings, though they have sometimes been absurdly over-praised, are among the most pleasantly readable of the colonial time. Besides the representative writings already mentioned, the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw the production of a considerable number of wSrs^^^^'^ other works written by Virginians and chiefly about Virginia. Perhaps the most readable of the early narratives is A Voyage to Virginia, by Colonel Norwood. Little is known of the author except that he was one of the disheartened royalists who fled to America in 1649 after the execution of the king. On the way his party endured almost incredible privations on sea and land, being The Colonial Time 19 forced at last to eat the bodies of their comrades who died of starvation. The story is a valuable one for its illustration of the hardships through which early colonists passed. It is also interesting for the picture which the author uncon- sciously gives of himself. A partisan of Cromwell would enjoy this revelation of one royalist, with his thoughts, even among the most appalling dangers, all fixed on the good things of this world-^with his appreciation of the physical charms of women, his love of good things to eat, and his shameless selfishness in gratifying his own appetite when his compan- ions were dying of starvation about him. In 1724 the Kever- end Hugh Jones (1669-1760), a professor in William and Mary college, published The Present State of Virginia. Pro- fessor Joneses literary method may be inferred from the fact that he entitled one chapter ^"^Of the Habits, Customs, Parts, Employments, Trade of the Virginians; and of the Weather, Coin, Sickness, Liquors, Servants, Poor, Pitch, Tar, Oar, &c.^^ He succeeded, however, in giving much valuable information, intermixed with many naive comments. By the beginning of the eighteenth century some thoughtful Vir- ginians began to turn attention to the history of their colony. Eobert Beverley (1675F-1716?) received his inspiration to historical study while completing his education in England, and brought out a history of Virginia in 1705. An enlarged version appeared in 1723. Like most histories of this time, the book contains a variety of geographical and miscellaneous information. Probably the most interesting section of the history is Part II, which treats of "The natural Produc- tions and Conveniences of the Country, suited to Trade and Improvement.^^ Beverley was a keen observer, with almost a poef s fondness for nature, combined with some of the explorer^s love of the venturesome and the marvellous. In 1747 William Stith (1689-1755) published at Williams- burg The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of 20 American Literature Virginia, covering the first sixteen years of the Jamestown settlement. For facts, he depends largely on John Smithes General Historie. His style is less attractive than that of Beverley. Mention must also be made of James Blair (1656- 1743), the founder and first president of William and Mary college. He was graduated at the University of Edinburgh and came to Virginia in 1685. His published writings, the chief of which is a series of one hundred and seventeen ser- mons on the Sermon on the Mount, are unimportant, but he was probably the greatest intellectual force in early Virginia. Published writings in the Southern colonies other than Virginia and Maryland were few. They consisted mostly of descriptions of the country, written to 0th cT • attract emigrants, pamphlets inspired by local or intercolonial disputes, and occasional sermons. Professor Moses Coit Tyler, after an exhaustive study, chose as representative of this extra- Virginian liter- ature John Lawson of North Carolina, Alexander Garden of South Carolina, and Patrick Tailfer of Georgia. Lawson (P-1712) came to America in 1700 and was surveyor- general of North Carolina. His writings are descriptions of his travels and explorations, given with more spirit than characterizes most such narratives. Alexander Garden (1685?-1756), who must not be confounded with two other South Carolinians of the same name, was an Episcopalian clergyman in Charleston about the middle of the eighteenth century. His literary work consisted of published sermons and letters directed against George Whitefield, the evangelist. Patrick Tailfer seems to have been the most prominent of a group of men who had quarrelled with the government of Georgia, and having left the colony, probably under com- pulsion, devoted themselves to publishing attacks upon Ogle- thorpe. They managed their case with considerable shrewd- ness and occasionally handled satire with effect. The Colonial Time 21 II. The New England Colonies. First Period, 1630-1676 In the earliest writings of the New England colonies are to be found the real beginnings of American letters. In a search for the origin of what is best, and espe- The Real Begin- cially of what is weakest in our national icTn Literature' literature, the student of tendencies is led back at last to the crude writings of Ply- mouth and Massachusetts Bay. Strong as have been the influences of English and at times of Continental writers, it is easy to trace a continuous development from these pioneers in authorship to the New England of to-day. That this is true will be no surprise to the reader who recalls the outlines of New England history. The men who founded the two colonies now within the Ch^acteristics limits of Massachusetts came to the New Colonists World not primarily for gain, but in support of a principle. We shall err if in accepting this fact we allow our fancy to idealize these pioneers too much. Among even the earliest there were undoubt- edly men who had an eye to the advantages that might be gained by exploiting the wilderness; and human nature is such that even the most rapt and devout divine may be a very practical hand at a bargain, and a very shrewd politician. But with all their inconsistencies the Pilgrims and the Puritans were men who had very serious and on the whole very high ideals of life and of the part that God destined them to play in it. Especially was this true of the leaders of thought, the men who were most likely to write. Judging simply from the character of these men, we expect, what we find, a considerable body of serious and well-con- sidered writings. It was natural that men like the founders of New England 22 American Literature should do all that was possible to encourage education. From the first grammar schools were required by law in every community; Harvard college was founded in New^En'^kn'd ^^^^' ^^^ *^^ ^^^^^ influence of church and state was exerted to secure the diffusion of learning. The result was^ first, a body of readers almost co-extensive with the population; and, second, a number of specially trained young men from whom the ranks of authorship were recruited. Side by side with the influence of educational institutions worked that of the printing press. A press was set up in Cambridge as early as 1639. Others followed soon after. And, though they were hampered by a strict church censor- ship, they put forth great quantities of such literature as was allowed. Both political and economic conditions made N"ew Eng- land largely dependent on herself for such writings as she wanted. To the Puritan, the great body of ^^ oi- ^j. ^" the glorious literary work of the Elizabethan ence Slight ^ ^ age was forbidden by the discipline of his church. His own party, prolific as it was in controver- sialists, produced few literary men of preeminent distin(i- tion. The sermons and pamphlets written in New Eng- land were not notably inferior to those of Old England, and often were better adapted to local needs. Moreover, the influx of immigrants from the mother country was mostly confined to one decade, from 1630 to 1640. With the tri- umph of the Puritan party in England the necessity of emi- gration ceased. After the later date it has been estimated that the immigrants to New England were fewer in number than the persons who returned to the mother country. The result was that the colonies became isolated. Their wants were few, and from the first they had encouraged arts and manufactures. They imported little. In every way the The Colonial Time 23 citizen of Massachusetts was far more remote from England than the Virginian, who annually loaded a ship with tobacco at his own wharf, and received from the same ship at its return even the simplest articles of household use. In no department of life was this isolation more complete or fraught with more serious results than in that of letters. To the time of the Eevolution the influence of English on New England literature was slight, indirect, and exerted by authors of inferior merit. It is not known that a copy of Shakespeare was brought to N"ew England until 1709, and none was offered for sale until 1722. Even Milton seems to have been ignored by the Puritans in America. There is no record of a copy of his works in New England before 1700, and no edition was printed in that section of the country until 1796. Standing thus aloof from all that was best in the literature that could do them the greatest good or harm, Americans carried on for a hundred and fifty years the tradi- tions that they brought with them. Students of language know that New England pronunciations, odd forms, and many so-called "Americanisms^^ are really survivals of English usage at the time of James the First. It is little more difficult to trace some of the peculiarities of our liter- ature back to the Puritan pamphleteers. The broader genial influence of the Elizabethans died out in Virginia; the narrow but intense spirit of the controversialists lived in New England, and after all the cosmopolitanism of the last hundred years may be seen in American literature to-day. At first glance it may seem strange that two colonies, both founded by Englishmen within the same quarter of a cen- tury, should differ so widely in literary ideals lish^nfluen ^^" ^^ ^^^ Virginia and Massachusetts. The ex- planation of this difference can be found both in the changed conditions in England and in the differ- ences between the men who emigrated to the North and to the 24 American Literature South. The years just following 1607 were one of those transition periods in English literature when the writers of one generation pass away and the nation seems waiting for their successors. In the thirteen years between the found- ing of Jamestown and the founding of Plymouth there died Shakespeare^ Beaumont, Ealeigh, Sackville, Daniel, and Hakluyt ; in the next decade, before the founding of Massa- chusetts Bay, these were followed by Bacon, Giles and John Fletcher, Lodge, Middleton, and Purchas. Of the few writers who remained, like Jonson, Drayton, and Donne, most had done their best work. In the same period were born Milton, Samuel Butler, Jeremy Taylor, Baxter, Bunyan, Evelyn, Marvell, Suckling, Lovelace, Cowley, and Vaughan — the majority of the men who are remembered in the literary history of the seventeenth century. Between the later writ- ings of the first group and the earlier writings of the second there was a gap, a period when English literature was least fitted to exert helpful influence on colonial writings. Nor were the Puritans likely to be much affected by even the best work that continued the Elizabethan tradition. In their revolt against corruption they protested against the forms of literature in which this corruption was sometimes expressed. Their thoughts were on matters of religion; and partly because of their influence it was mainly theological writings that filled the literary interregnum of the early seventeenth century. In the reign of James I, more than in any other period of English history, religion was fashion- able. The king himself, his courtiers, and writers of all lesser degrees of rank discussed sacred subjects, and when they treated secular subjects, made use of a cant, a phrase- ology and imagery borrowed from the Bible and from sacred things. The numerous dissertations that show these char- acteristics are now devoid of interest except to the special student; none of them has held a place in literature. But The Colonial Time 25 they were the models for the first writings produced in New England. The first literary impulse of any people emigrating to a new land is to write the story of their experiences, and the description of the country that they find. In The Historical ^-^q case of the Virginians this impulse ex- pressed itself in brief and hastily written accounts sent back to England for immediate publication. In New England its most important manifestation took a different form. To the mind of the Puritan the fact that he was a servant of God, founding a nation for God, in the wilderness, gave an importance to his every act. He realized, therefore, that a record of these acts would be valuable to posterity; and accordingly he wrote, not for the London public of the hour, but for the reader of that future when his deeds would be appreciated. In thus turning his atten- tion to history he carried out one of the few tendencies of the later Elizabethan time with which he could sympathize. The first quarter of the seventeenth . century was especially prolific in historical writings, of which Raleigh^s History of the World, DanieFs Wars of the Roses, and Bacon^s His- tory of Henry VII, are among those best remembered. As the authors of these works were many of them high in the affairs of the nation, so the first historians of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were governors of their respective colonies. William Bradford (1588-1657), the second governor of Plymouth, though but thirty-two years old when he landed from the Mayfiower, had been with the Pil- Bradf "d grims throughout their experiences in Holland, and had taken an active part in the delibera- tions that resulted in their coming to America. His first writing in the new world was done in collaboration with Edward Winslow, with whom he kept a journal of the first 26 American Literature thirteen months of the colony. This was sent to England immediately upon its completion, and was published in London in 1622. As it was issued without the authors^ names and bore a prefatory note signed "G. Mourt^^ it came to be known as Mourt's Relation, and is still sometimes referred to by that title. Bradford's most important work, however, was the History of Plymouth Plantation, begun in 1630, and continued for nearly twenty years. The first book of the history treats of the rise of the dissenters, the perse- cutions that induced them to flee to Holland, their expe- riences there, their reasons for desiring to come to America, and finally of the voyage of the Mayflower. The remainder of the work covers the period from 1620 to 1646 inclusive, and is in the form of annals. That the History of Plymouth was written for posterity is shown by the author's disposition of the manuscript. Throughout his life, so far as is known, he made no move toward giving it to the public. At his death it passed to a nephew, and so descended through various hands until the Eevolution, when it disappeared, and its loss was long mourned by historians. In 1855 it was discovered in the library of the Bishop of London, and has since been restored to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Throughout his history the author introduces copies of letters and of official documents, and evidently strives to leave an impartial record. The narrative is usually plain and straight-forward, but both matter and manner are tinged with the fanaticism of the day. To the writer's mind every event that favors the Pilgrims or confounds their enemies is the result of a direct intervention of Providence. And I may not omite hear a spetian worke of Gods providence. Ther was a proud & very profane yonge man, one of the sea-men, of a iustie, able body, which made him the more hauty ; he would allway be contemning the poore people in their siknes, & cursing them dayly with greevous execrations, and did not let to tell them, The Colonial Time 27 that he hoped to help to cast halfe of them over board before they came to their jurneys end, and to make mery with what they had ; and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it plased God before they came halfe seas over, to smite this yong man with a greeveous disease, of which he dyed in a desperate maner, and so was him selfe the first that was throwne overbord. Thus his curses light on his owne head. Of the destruction of the Pequots he writes : Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword ; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispachte, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400. at this time. It was a fearfull sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stinck & sente ther of ; but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prays thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfuly for them, thus to inclose their enimise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud & insulting an enimie. This is in the manner of an Hebrew historian. It was, indeed, the Old Testament and the Booh of Revelation, rather than the milder gospels and epistles, which chiefly influenced the literary expression of early New England. In 1646, looking with astonishment at the success of the Puritan party in England, Bradford breaks into this strain of triumph : Full litle did I thinke that the downfall of the Bishops, with their courts, cannons, & ceremonies, &c. had been so neare, when I first begane these scribled writings (which was aboute the year 1630, and so peeced up at times of leasure afterward), or that I should have lived to have scene or heard of the same ; but it is the Lords doing, and ought to be marvelous in our eyes! Every plante which mine heavenly father hath not planted (saith our Saviour) shall be rooted up. Mat : 15. 13. I have snared the, and thou art taken, O Babell (Bishops), and thou wast not aware; thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the Lord. Jer. 50. 24. . . . But who hath done it? Who, even he that siteth on the white horse, who is caled faithful!, & true, and judgeth and fighteth right- eously, Rev : 19. 11. whose garments are dipte in blood, and his name 28 American Literature was caled the word of God, v. 13. for he shall rule them with a rode of iron ; for it is he that treadeth the winepress of the feircenes and wrath of God almighty. And he hath upon his garments, and upon his thigh, a name writen, The King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. V. 15, 16. Hallelu-iah. The first governor and the first historian of the colony at Massachusetts Bay was John Winthrop (1588-1649). Like « . , many of the early Puritans, he was a person John Winthrop , -^ • i x • t^ i i i ^ of some weight m Ji/ngland, a member of a good family, a lawyer, and a man of considerable wealth. Such a person, even when moved by the deepest religious impulses, naturally looks at life more broadly than a man like Bradford, whose experiences since childhood had been closely bound up with the persecutions of a despised sect. This difference in point of view may be traced in his history. There is less of the rhapsodical use of scriptural phrase- ology, more of the calm and matter-of-fact treatment of events. That Winthrop was capable of true eloquence when occasion demanded is shown by his speech delivered on the occasion of his arraignment for some alleged usurpation of power in his office as governor. In this he speaks with the system and logi These, while mostly friendly, were not lavish in their praises, and many of them made unfavorable com- parison with the earlier volumes. So it came about that Irving found himself, at the age of forty-two, a literary man with an established reputation looking for a remunerative literary job. He declined liberal offers of editorships because he disliked to be tied down to routine work. He refused to contribute to the London "Quarterly Eeview^^ because it was unfavorable to America. While still uncertain what to do he went over to Bordeaux ^^to see the vintage.^^ Here he lingered until he received from Alexander H. Everett, then United States minister to Sp^m, the suggestion that he The Early ISTineteenth Century 169 translate Navarette's Voyages of Columbus, soon to appear at Madrid. On reaching the Spanish capital he found Navarette's work too scrappy to suit his purpose^ and he resolved to write an independent life of Columbus. Accord- Te spams ingly he remained at Madrid^ working on manuscripts in the government archives and on other original sources. Following a habit of his^ he laid aside the Life of Columbus to write the first draft of the Con- quest of Oranada, and the former was not finished until 1827 and not" published until 1828. He now travelled about Spain^ visited the Alhambra<, and settled down for about a year at Seville. Here he prepared a second edition of the Columbus, and put the Conquest of Granada into shape. In 1829 he made another visit to the Alhambra^ and it is chiefly the experiences of this second trip that are narrated in the work of that name. The Legends of the Conquest of Spain are said to have been finished at this time, but they were not published until later. In 1829 Irving was appointed secretary of lega- tion at London. Here he put in shape the Voyages of the Companions of Columbus and the Alhambra, The Spanish subjects to which Irving was led by the chance suggestion of Everett were admirably suited to his taste. The two chief characteristics seen in the Characteristics STcetch Booh were love of the picturesque and of the Spanish o Works genume patriotism. Spam could gratify the first of these, and Columbus had a connection with America. Irving's fitness for writing biography and history was, however, not remarkable. He was careful, con- scientious, and though desultory in his methods, by no means afraid of hard work. He investigated thoroughly many au- thorities. But he had neither the training nor the tempera- ment of an ideal biographer. Even in the languages that he must use he was mostly self-taught. He had an eye for the 170 American Literature picturesque rather than for that which was intrinsically im- portant. The result was that in the Life of Columbus he pro- duced a work readable, accurate in statement of unquestioned ' fact, and as judicial as he knew how to make it, but not, as the great biography must be, the final word on the subject. In the Conquest of Oranada he made the mistake of trying to tell history in the guise of fiction. The work purports to be extracts from the chronicle of an imaginary monk. Fray Antonio Agapida. Irving intended Fray Antonio to personify the churchman^s intense hatred of the Moors, as Carlyle sig- nified a certain temper of mind by Dry-as-Dust. The device was an unfortunate one. The monk is always felt to be a dummy, and his presence tends to discredit the whole work. Irving saw this as soon as the book was published. In a re- view that, according to the custom of the time, he was asked to write for the ^^Quarterly^^ his one object was to maintain that the narrative is veritable history. In the AThambra he was again free to mingle his observations and the results of his imagination without the historian's strict subserviency to facts. This collection of descriptions and tales is called with some justice a Spanish Sketch Book; but it is somewhat thinner and less virile than the earlier work. It seems, too, a little more artificial, as if the author had planned some of his experiences in the old Moorish palace for the ^^copy'^ that might be made of them. With the passing of the popular fondness for sentiment it has probably suffered more than the Shetch Booh, The Alhamhra was published just as Irving returned to America in 1832. He had been absent about half a genera- tion, during which time he had achieved an Writings on international reputation, and his native coun- Subjects ^^y h^^ experienced great changes. He had always protested his loyalty to America, but had said that he found less distraction from work and more The Early Nineteenth Century 171 inspiration in the old world. Although there had been much newspaper criticism of his course in remaining abroad, his reception on his return was enthusiastic, and there was a general demand that he write on American themes. It may have been in response to this demand that he took an el- tensive trip through the new West, going with a government party as far as the Arkansas river, and returning by way of Xew Orleans and Washington. The literary result of this journey was A Tour on the Prairies, published with other ma- terial as the Crayon Miscellany in 1835. Even before the Miscellany appeared Irving had received from John Jacob Astor a request to write the history of that merchant's business ventures on the Pacific coast. The circumstances attending the prepa- ration of Astoria were once the subject of much controversy, now of interest only as showing how jealously the country watched its literary men. The unquestioned facts are that John Jacob Astor offered to pay Irving for writing the his- tory; that at the suggestion of the latter his nephew, Pierre M. Irving, was employed on the work at a liberal salary paid by Astor; and that the book appeared as Astoria, by Washing- ton Irving. It was charged that Pierre M. Irving did most of the work, and that Washington Irving sold his name to Astor for a large sum. Pierre M. Irving maintains, and there is no good reason for doubting his word, that his own labors were mostly clerical, and that his uncle received no remunera- tion except from the sale of the book in the usual way. The third of Irving's writings with a western American theme was more purely a commercial venture. While engaged on Astoria he met Captain Bonneville, an Adventures of adventurer who had spent some time in the Captain Bonneville West, and had prepared an account of his ex- periences. Irving bought his manuscript for $1,000, touched it up somewhat — very slightly, if his preface 172 American Literature is to be believed — and issued it in 1837 as The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, The speculation was a good one, for Nephew Pierre proudly tells us that the sale of the work brought $7,500. These American works add little to the fame of Irving. The subjects were not such as he was best fitted to treat, and he was directed to them more by patriotism and popular de- mand than by any real interest. The Tour on the Prairies and the best parts of Astoria are of the grade of good maga- zine work, to be read, enjoyed, and forgotten. Irving next planned to continue his studies of Spanish achievement in a history of the conquest of Mexico; but he procrastinated until he found that Prescott B^ ^^ V ^^^ working upon the same subject, and then generously relinquished the field to the younger man. He began a life of Washington, but it was interrupted by his appointment as Minister to Spain in 1842, and by other writings. The first volume appeared in 1855, and the last just before his death in 1859. Meanwhile he had published a short Life of Goldsmith and Mahomet and his Successors, both in 1849. Wolferfs Roost, a collection of stories part of which had been written for magazines, appeared in 1855. Some sweepings of his portfolio were issued after his death as Spanish Papers. Many of the short sketches in the later volumes were good, though none equal the best of his earlier days. Of the later biographies, the Goldsmith is the best and the Mahomet the poorest. Irving was fitted by temperament to understand Groldsmith, and he had neither the temperament nor the train- ing for an adequate study of Mahomet. The Life of Wash- ington was a respectable treatment of a difficult theme. Irv- ing undertook it from motives of patriotism, but it was not the kind of subject that he really enjoyed. He complained of the ^Vant of f eature^^ even in the Eevolutionary war. The The Early Nineteenth Century 173 present neglect of the work is due, however, not to its lack of picturesqueness, but to the fact that it represents a kind of biography now out of fashion. In the early years of the century the veneration of Washington was carried to ridicu- lous extremes. Even conservative magazines printed his name only in capitals; and the introduction of the Commander-in- Chief, even in disguise, in Cooper^s Spy was condemned as sacrilege. Irving belonged to the time when these traditions prevailed; and his ancestry, his training, even his name, pre- disposed him to take an exalted view of his hero. It should be remembered to his credit that, artificial as the Washington he pictured seems to us, the portrait is more lifelike than any drawn by his predecessors. Irving lived until a change in literary taste had taken place. Just after his death there was a reaction against his works, and a generation fed on Transcendentalism General ^ ^ aii(j reform felt that they were thin and Characteristics ni ^ ^ a- j.i j j- >i i ^ of Irving unproiitable. Since that time there has been no enthusiastic Irving revival, yet he has slowly increased and seems to be still increasing in popular favor. In a study of American literature he is important, if for no other reason, because of his historical position. He was the first American to win international fame solely as an author. He was one of the first Americans to write without a didactic purpose. He was the last and the greatest of the American Addisonians. The intrinsic merit of his writings, however, warrants his fame. This merit is of stjde rather than of content, though the two are inseparable. And in style his writings are surprisingly uniform. Unlike Charles Brock- den Brown and many other men who have depended on authorship for support, he did not divide his time between hackwork and more purely literary efforts. Virtually every- thing that he wrote appears in his collected works ; and there are few pages of which he need have felt ashamed or which 174 American Literature the reader with leisure will not find fairly interesting. Still, his fame has come to rest mainly on the KnicheriocTcer History, the three works of the STcetch Booh group, and the more imaginative of the Spanish writings; and in these may be seen his chief excellences. The adjective most frequently applied by contemporaries to both the man and his writings was ^^genial.^^ With geniality were combined a certain old- fashioned quality and a masculine delicacy of taste. It is easy to enumerate many things that he could not do, yet he appeals as do few other American authors to the reader who is in the proper mood. \ The second of the greater Knickerbockers was James Fen- imore Cooper (1789-1851). He was born at Burlington, New Jersey, but before he was a year old James ^jg father removed to Cooperstown, New York, Cooper ^ settlement founded on a large family estate in the wilderness. There was Quaker blood in his father's family, and his mother was of Swedish descent. His boyhood was spent among the heterogeneous population of a backwoods settlement. Here he attended the village school, dignified by the name of ^^The Academy,^' and then continued his studies under a clergyman near Albany. In 1802, at the age of thirteen, he entered Yale college. According to his own statement he studied little, and in his junior year was dismissed for his share in some college scrape. It was then decided that he should enter the navy. As there was at this time no naval academy it was necessary for him to serve an apprenticeship in the merchant marine, and he shipped as a common sailor on a vessel bound for England and Mediter- ranean ports. In 1808 he was commissioned as midshipman, and was detailed with a party sent to supervise the construc- tion of a brig on Lake Ontario — an experience that he later made use of in writing The Pathfinder, He also saw some sea duty. In 1811 he married Miss DeLancey, of Westchester The Early ISTineteenth Century 175 county, New York; and as his wife objected to the separa- tion involved in a naval career he resigned from the service. For some years he lived at various places in New York state, with no other occupation than managing his property. It was in 1820, when Cooper was past thirty years of age, that he chanced to remark that he could write a better story than some fashionable novel which he was read- F^tN^ 1 ^^S* According to tradition, his wife dared him to make good the boast. As he had never written anything, or taken any interest in literature, it is un- likely that she expected him to do so. But he set to work, and before the close of the year had completed Precaution, a novel of English society life, with much pious moralizing. It seems dull now, but it was a fair representative of a type then in fashion, and was good enough to be reprinted in Eng- land, and to receive favorable notice from some reviewers who took it to be the work of an English woman. This would seem to indicate that it was superficially true to conventional ideas, if not to life, in its portrayal of English society. The author had seen England only as a sailor with a few days of shore leave in London, and it is a mystery where he obtained his ideas of English affairs. Very likely he had absorbed them from novels of the same sort that he attempted. The success of Precaution was not great, but it was enough to encourage another attempt. The author's friends of course urged him to try an American subject. Prob- T^^ p?^ ably the example of the author of Waverly in- The Pilot clined him to the historical novel. He took as the germ of his next story, The Spy, some anec- dotes that he had heard from John Jay regarding an Ameri- can secret service agent in the Eevolutionary war. The scene is laid in Westchester county, with which he had become thoroughly familiar after his marriage. He worked with little enthusiasm, the writing dragged, and it is said that, in order 176 American Literatuke to satisfy his printer that the work would really have an end, he wrote the last chapters and had them printed and paged before he completed the earlier parts of the second volume. Late in 1821, however. The Spy appeared, and met with a sale imprecedented in American fiction. This seems to have de- termined Cooper on more systematic authorship, though in the preface to his next work. The Pioneers, he expressed him- self as still undecided. He removed to New York city, where he was in closer touch with publishers, and where he founded the Bread and Cheese Lunch, a club of which most of the other Knickerbocker writers were members. In The Pioneers he portrayed the frontier life that he had seen in boyhood. Be- fore this appeared he had decided upon another work under circumstances slightly similar to those which led to Precau- tion. In a discussion of the identity of the ^^Great Unknown'^ he had maintained that The Pirate was written by a lands- man, and that a sailor would have achieved greater effects with the same material. One of his hearers was incredulous, and to show what could be made of a sea tale he decided to write one himself. The Pilot followed closely upon The Pio- neers, both of them appearing in 1823. Within less than four years after Cooper blundered, so to speak, into authorship, he had produced four novels of four distinct types — the novel of fashionable society, Variety of ^j^^ historical novel of the Eevolution, the ^Qflj novel of frontier life, and the sea tale. The first of these was relatively a failure; but in all the others he had succeeded, and The Spy, The Pioneers, and The Pilot are still among his most popular works. The historical novel appealed to him most strongly — both The Spy and The Pilot are to a certain extent of this class — and he decided on a series of tales based on Eevolutionary happen- ings in various states. The only one written was Lionel Lin- coin, for Massachusetts. This represents much careful study. The Early N'hsteteenth Century 177 but the author could never do justice to New England, and it fell flat. He then returned to the frontier tale and wrote what many consider his masterpiece — The Last of the Mohicans. In 1826 Cooper went abroad and remained for seven years, visiting most of the countries that a traveller ordinarily sees, but spending more time in France than else- Writings where. His travels did not interfere with his Produced Abroad writing. In the first two years of his foreign residence he produced The Prairie and The Bed Rover, which continue the frontier stories and the sea tales respectively. The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish and The Water-Witch, published in the next two years, were less suc- cessful. Before they appeared Cooper was being drawn into the controversies, that occupied much of his later life. He was irritated by the ignorance and misconceptions of Euro- peans, and particularly of Englishmen, regarding America. At the same time he felt that Americans lacked much of the refinement of the old world and were too self-satisfied. With a view to correcting the ideas of both parties he had written in 1828 Notions of the Americans Picked up hy a Travelling Bachelor, a series of imaginary letters by an imaginary Eng- lish traveller in America. He had a knack of antagonizing both sides in any controversy that he entered, and this book was not especially pleasing to either Englishmen or Americans. The course of European events, including the revolution in France and the revolt in Poland, now attracted his attention, and his next three novels, The Bravo, The Heidenmauer, and The Headsman, have European settings. This does not imply a diminution of the author's Americanism, for all the stories exalt the idea of democracy. In 1833 he returned to America and settled at Cooperstown. For almost all the remaining eighteen years of his life he was engaged in quarrels. The history of these troubles occupies 178 American Literature much space in a complete biography of Cooper, but it is hardly worth the reader^s time. The unpopularity caused by what he had written while abroad was in- o^oversies creased by A Letter to his Countrymen, a pamphlet in which he grew indignant at some of the criticisms on his novels, expressed contempt for the American press, and touched on politics in a way to anger both parties. The Monihins, a poor attempt [at a satirical novel, had the same effect. In 1836-38 he published ten volumes of travels in which he pointed out the faults of Europe and America in a way that was pleasing to neither. Mean- while he had trouble with his neighbors over the right of the public to use part of the Cooper estate as a picnic ground. The quarrel was trivial, but it was taken up by the press of the country to Cooper's disadvantage; and it led to two novels. Homeward Bound and Home as Found, which state Cooper's side of the matter, and contain much criticism of America. By this time he had come to be looked upon as an unreasonable grumbler, and a slanderer of his country, and was everyw^hero assailed. In 1839 he brought out his History of the Navy of the United States, a work which he had long had in mind. Two rival officers were claiming credit for the battle of Lake Erie, and as Cooper's judgment was not wholly in favor of either, the partisans of both added their clamors to those of his other enemies. Cooper had already begun suits for libel against newspapers in various parts of the country, and these were increased in number and continued for several years. He was successful in almost all, and it seems to be the verdict of a later generation that his worst offense was a lack of tact, and that his traducers were wholly unjustified. It is strange that in 1840 and 1841, in the midst of these disquieting experiences, Cooper produced two of his calmest and most successful stories. The Pathfinder and The Deer- slayer. Most of his other late novels have a controversial The Early Nineteenth Century 179 or at least a strong didactic element. Of these^ Mercedes of Castile, which appeared between The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer, is a story of the voyages of Colum- Novds '^ ^^^^'^ bus. The Two Admirals, Wing-and-Wing, Ned Meyers, and Afloat and Ashore deal with the sea. Wyandotte is a frontier story. Satanstoe, The Chainhearer, and The EedsTcins form a series called forth by Cooper's interest in the anti-rent war, waged by tenants against the patroon system in N"ew York. The Crater, Jach Tier, The Oah Openings, The Sea-Lions, and The Ways of the Hour, which appeared between 1847 and 1850, show an in- crease in didacticism and a decrease in creative imagination. It is said that the author contemplated a tale in which his favorite hero, Leatherstocking, should take part in the Eevo- Intion, but if the design existed its execution was prevented by his death. If popularity be accepted as a test only two novels written after 1828, The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer, deserve to rank with those of earlier date. Of the other oo^rs es ^^^^^ works, some of the sea stories are still read, though usually by persons who have enjoyed The Pilot and The Bed Rover, and who hope for something more of the same kind. The writings on which the author's reputation now rests are The Spy, The Pilot, The Red Rover, and the five frontier stories in which the character of Leatherstocking appears — The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer,"^ * This is the order in which the "Leatherstocking Tales" were written. Arranged according to the events of the hero's life they would stand: The Deerslayer » The Pathfinder, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pioneers, and The Prairie. Cooper began by picturing an old hunter such as the proprietor of Cooperstown doubtless found when he began his settlement. In later volumes he represents different epochs in the life of such a character. The Deerslayer pictures the young hunter just showing his aptness for woodcraft; The Pathfinder shows the lover; The Last of the Mohicans the woodsman in his prime; and The Prairie the old man, driven from his favorite hunting grounds in the forest by the advancing settlements. 180 American Literature Special praise for the other stories is not hard to find. Ban- croft pronounced the description of the battle of Bunker Hill in Lionel Lincoln the best ever written ; Bryant admired the spirit and lifelike quality of JacTc Tier; and only the other day a much-travelled English woman said that The Bravo was still the best guidebook to Venice. None of these works, however, appeals as a whole to the ordinary reader, and the novel of adventure that does not so appeal is a failure. In judging of the unsuccessful novels and miscellaneous works the reader is hampered by an imperfect knowledge of the author's personality. It was Cooper's dy- ooper s j^g ^-g-j^ ^j^^ ^^ authorized biography be per- mitted, and his family have never opened to the public any of the special sources of information in their possession. Cooper was a man with few close friends, and his manner, both in writing and in personal intercourse, was such as often to be misunderstood. It is unfortunate that posterity has not the fullest opportunity to do him justice. Certain characteristics are, however, fairly apparent. He was by con- viction and hereditary instinct an aristocrat, yet he was by political conviction a democrat. In religion he combined a love of the forms of Episcopalianism with almost Puritan ideas of conduct; so that it has been said that he hated the Puritans because he was so much like them. His many troubles seem to have been brought about by a lack of tact and a mistaken idea that it is always the duty of a friend to tell unpleasant truths. His strictures on America were not made, as was charged, because he was unpatriotic, but because he really wished that America might know her faults and mend them. These personal peculiarities explain much that was weak and unfortunate and ephemeral in Cooper's work. The en- during qualities of his better stories are associated with his genuine love of what is best in America, and his wholesome, The Early Nineteenth Century 181 large-hearted appreciation of nature and those types of men that are nearest nature. The scenes of all his best stories are laid in America or on board American ships, and his best characters are all Americans. His pictures of the forest, the lake and the sea have a wonderful freedom and life. One of the best indications of their merits is the fact that his long descriptions do not seem intolerable in an exciting story. The action rarely appears to drag except in those unfortu- nate novels where the author lectures and preaches. An unfriendly critic can easily formulate a long series of charges against Cooper. He fails in psychological analysis of the more complex types of man. He can- Cooper's -QQ^ portray a gentleman, or a N ew Englander, Excellences ^^ ^ woman. He has little command of humor. His plots are not carefully constructed and if coolly analyzed often seem improbable in detail. He over- works a few devices, such as the ^^broken twig'^ which Mark Twain ridicules, and the abstracted manner of his naval heroes. His language is often inexact and he sometimes makes downright grammatical blunders. The wise admirer of Cooper will concede the truth of most of these charges, but will maintain that they are not sufficient to justify the condemnation of his works. If Cooper's j^^ cannot portray the intricate workings of a Venial complex mind, he has chosen as his heroes men of simple life and elemental passions. Harvey Birch, Leatherstocking, and Tom CofBn, however unsatisfactory to a devotee of realism, have impressed thou- sands of readers as true to life. Even the imbecility of his women, of which much has been said, is not a fatal defect. The fashion of his time was that heroes should be of the male sex; and the weakness of those dependent upon them empha- sized their manly qualities by contrast. That he could por- tray at least one type of strong-minded woman is shown by 182 American Literature Betty Flanagan in The Spy. Moreover, Cooper's lacka- daisical heroines are not unlike those oi other novelists of his time, and the student of the period hesitates to say that they are wholly untrue to life. It was as much the fashion for women to be helpless and clinging then as it is for them to be athletic now; and in literature for and about women, and in personal letters that have been preserved, is evidence of the existence of a race of beings very similar to the ^^f emales'^ of The Pilot and The Last of the Mohicans. Cooper's lack of humor is a defect, but it is not noticed except when he attempts an unsuccessful comic character like the music master in The Last of the Mohicans, or the tailor and his wife in The Red Rover. The plots, whatever their de- fects, do not fail to hold interest, and in the outcome to sat- isfy a sense of poetic justice. Inconsistencies may be striking when they are pointed out, but the man who cares for a story of adventure rarely notices them as he reads. The defects of style are explained, though of course not excused, by the author's lack of early training and his haste in composition. They are not so serious as is often supposed, and the language often has ease of movement and genuine power. Final judgment on the value of Cooper's works could be passed only after deciding the relative merits of different schools of fiction. Without discussing this oopers ea question, one may fairly say that the narra- tion of heroic deeds has been popular from the days of Homer to those of Stevenson, and is likely to be popular longer still. Critics who feel that the tale of ad- venture gratifies only a crude taste will of course give Cooper little consideration. Those who insist on a certain precon- ceived standard of literary expression may find some things in his novels which they will not enjoy. Those, however, who require of such fiction only that it be absorbingly interesting, and that it contain nothing to shock the moral or esthetic The Early Nineteenth Century 183 sense, will be likely to rank him high. In the past there have been many of the last-mentioned class. Some of the men who were most hostile to the author personally were enthusi- astic admirers of his works. His better novels have been translated not once but many times into most European languages^ and it is said into those of the East. So far as can be judged their popularity is no less now than it was fifty years ago^ and this in spite of the fact that in the meantime all literary tendencies have pointed in a different direction. Whatever judgment is passed on his literary merits^ it must be remembered that Cooper created the American novel of the sea, and practically created the American O*^' t^d^^^ frontier story and the American historical novel. In his choice of literary form he was influenced by Scott; but once started he was in no sense an imitator. His American predecessors taught him nothing. That it was not easy to grow the flowers even after he had furnished the seed is shown by the fate of dozens of frontier stories written as soon as he had popularized the type. With the exception of those by Simms, hardly one is remembered by name. In his field Cooper was the pioneer and he still stands alone. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), the third of the more important Knickerbocker writers, was one of the many New England men who were attracted to New Brv nt^ ^ ^^ York. He was born in Cummington, Massa- chusetts, where his father was a physician and a man of some importance in the community. In his early years his maternal grandfather, an old Puritan of the strict- est school, had a considerable hand in family discipline; and Bryant mentions the impression made upon him by "prayers which were poems from beginning to end, mostly made up of sentences from the Old Testament writers.^^ A little later 184 American Literature the father, while in Boston as a member of the legislature, was attracted by Unitarianism and the son afterward followed his lead; but the impressions made by this early training remained. After receiving his elementary education Bryant studied Latin and Greek under two clergymen, one of whom, it is interesting to note, gave him instruction and board for a dollar a week. At the age of sixteen he was prepared to en- roll as a sophomore in Williams college, then a struggling institution with but four instructors. His father was unable to give him a college education, and after one year he left Williams to take up the study of law. In time he was ad- mitted to the bar and became a moderately successful country practitioner at Great Barrington, Massachusetts. From an early age Bryant had been a great reader. His father's library contained the eighteenth century English classics in prose and verse, and the works of ryan s ar y ^^^ earlier American poets. Before he went to college he had read a large and surprisingly heterogeneous list of books. At twelve he was enthusiastic over Pope's Homer, and he always retained a kindly feeling for Pope, though he differed from him widely in poetic ideals. Later, he had a Scott period, which resulted in some attempts at narrative poems on Indian subjects, and a Byron period of which he was afterward ashamed. Shortly after leaving college he was interested in the gloomy sentimentalists like Blair and Henry Kirke White. His favorite poet, however, from the time that he first saw the Lyrical Ballads, was Wordsworth. His versification, especially his blank verse, shows most influence of Wordsworth, with some qualities derived from his early familiarity with Pope. It is notice- able that though his earliest attempts were in the heroic coup- let, he soon dropped that measure altogether, and it is found in no poem in his collected works. Still, his fondness for a The Early Nineteenth Century 185 marked rhythmical beat is seen in a few peculiarities of his versification. With the eighteenth century writers of blank verse he has little in common. Bryant himself tells us that in his very early childhood he used to pray that he might write verses that should endure. When thirteen years of age he wrote a political V W 't* ff satire, "The Embargo/^ which was published, and republished with affidavits certifying to the precocity of the author. While at Williams college he began a narrative poem on an Indian subject. When seven- teen or eighteen years of age, and while under the influence of Henry Kirke White and others of his school, he wrote the greater part of "Thanatopsis,'^ but the poem was not published until 1817. "To a Waterfowl'^ was written at the age of nineteen. In 1821 he was invited to deliver the annual poem before the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard. It is an indi- cation of the state of poetry at the time that this honor went to a country boy who had attended college but one year, and whose reputation rested on a few poems in the magazines. His performance on this occasion was "The Ages.^^ In the same year he published his first collection of poems, a volume of only forty-four pages, containing "Thanatopsis,^^ "To a Waterfowl,^' "The Ages,'' "The Yellow Violet/' and a few others. During the next few years he wrote a large number of his shorter poems. All this time Bryant had been practicing law in western Massachusetts, and his affiliations had been with Boston rather than with New York. The law had always New York ^ been somewhat distasteful to him, and in 1835 he gave up his practice and went to New York as editor of the "New York Eeview and Athenaeum Maga- zine.'' This periodical soon failed, and after some vicissitudes he accepted an editorship on the "Evening Post." In 1828 he became editor in chief. In 1834 he went to Europe for 186 American Literature two years and on his return assumed both the business and the editorial responsibility of the ^Tost/^ From this time until his death he led the active life of a New York newspaper man, relieving the monotony of his work by frequent trips abroad, by the purchase and improvement of a country place on Long Island and of the Bryant homestead at Cummington, and by literary diversions. On his arrival in New York in 1825 he established personal relations with most of the literary men of the city, and with several of the young enthusiasts who wei'e try- Bryant and - jj^g -j-() develop the fine arts in America. He Knickerbockers came too late, however, to be much influenced by these men, or to exert much influence on them. In 1825 he was thirty-one years of age, the head of a family, and a man of considerable business and professional experience. Many of his poems, including the two usually named as his best, were already.written. The other Knicker- bockers had also done much of their best work and were not likely to be changed by a new-comer. Such influence as Bryant did exert was, however, of a kind much needed. In a time when rapidity of composition was prized before other excellences he stood for care and revision. Though never a deep student, he endeavoured to take a broad view of literary matters, and his criticisms were more judicial than those of most of his contemporaries. For half a century the great bulk of Bryant's writings was composed of editorial articles. These hardly rank as litera- ture, and few of them have been reprinted. Bryant's L^j^g most of his work they are careful and Articles sedate, though not lacking in strength. In style they differ widely from the breezy edi- torials that have more recently characterized the "Post,'' yet they appealed to the same high class of readers. As an editor Bryant was especially interested in the improvement of news- The Early Nineteenth Century 187 paper English, and his rules for the printers of the "Post^^ are still traditions in many composing rooms. The two volumes of prose in Bryant's collected works in- clude tales and sketches, lectures, magazine articles on litera- ture and art, and memorial addresses. Many Sf/^^,!'^ of the lighter articles first appeared in the Miscellaneous ,,,^ ,. „ ,. . , . PjQse "Talisman,^^ a literary annual issued m 1827, 1828, and 1829 by Bryant, Verplanck, and Sands, and illustrated by Inman, S. F. B. Morse, and other artist friends of the editors. Bryant could not tell a story and he soon gave up the attempt. Some of the magazine articles show his interest in literary subjects and his appreciation of scholarly methods. An early paper ^^On Trisyllabic feet in Iambic Measure,^' though dealing with the mere rudiments of versification, shows research in a field that had hardly been touched in America. Some lectures on English poetry are ab- surdly inclusive, but indicate careful work. The memorial addresses dajte from the later years of his life. They invari- ably contain over-praise, but except for this are admirable. Excellent as was Bryant's work as editor and critic, it is to his verse alone that he owes his position among American authors. Yet his verse writing was always Bryant s incidental to his regular duties. All his poetry except his translation of Homer is collected in one small volume. Of this over one-fourth was written before he came to New York in 1825, and the rest was scat- tered over the fifty-three remaining years of his life. After he went to New York he studied several modern languages, and the result of this study and of his first visit to Europe was a number of translations of short poems. The influence of Irving on American taste is seen in the fact that over one- half of these are from the Spanish. The translation of Homer was taken up as a diversion after the death of his wife in 1866. The ^'Iliad'^ was published in 1870, the ^^Odysse/' in 1872. 188 American Literature In the poems certain limitations are at once apparent. The author could not tell a story, though he succeeded slightly better in verse than in prose. He had, if one may judge by his writings, no sense of humor. Few things in literature are more painful than the lines ^^To a Mosquito/^ and ^^A Medi- tation on Ehode Island Coal.^^ He lacked passion, fire, definite human sympathy. Bryant^s excellences are best seen in poems that present two favorite ideas. The first of these is that of "eternal change Which is the life of Nature." He loves to stand apart, watching with a remote sympathy the continual flux of things. This is seen in ryants ^The Crowded Street,^^ and on a larger scale in ^^The Ages,^^ "The Past,'' and the "Hymn to the North Star.'' The poems on death consider this most momentous change that comes to man as part of the great movement of nature. It is death in its relation to the body rather than to the soul that he treats, but as he approaches the subject it is never repulsive. As death is universal, so it is to be viewed calmly and bravely; this is the teaching first stated in "Thanatopsis," and many times repeated. The other favorite idea of the poems is love of nature. Bryant's feel- ing toward nature was that of a healthy man who enjoyed it for its own sake, without asking why. He does not philoso- phize over it like Wordsworth, or describe it microscopically like Tennyson, or sentimentalize over it like Burns. If he uses it to point a moral it is by the obvious device of a com- parison, as in "The West Wind," "The Hymn to the North Star," "A Summer Eamble," and "To the Fringed Gentian." Of all aspects of nature he enjoyed best the wild forest as he knew it in boyhood in western Massachusetts. The Italian landscape did not satisfy him because man had changed The Early Nineteenth Century 189 nature too much. He says little of the mountains, and little of the sea, though for the last thirty-five years of his life he over-looked it from his country home. His poems to particu- lar flowers treat common favorites without previous poetical associations, such as the yellow violet, the painted cup, and the fringed gentian. His melancholy shows itself in his poems on autumn, and the peculiar coldness of his tempera- ment is seen in his fondness for winter. One of his best love- songs has a winter setting, and ^^The Little People of the Snow,^^ the best of his narrative poems, is a unique story of the fairies of the cold who revel among the frost-flowers. Naturally, the best of his poems are those that connect both of his favorite ideas — the love of nature and the thought of death as change. These ideas are sometimes strangely combined, as in ^^June,^^ where the beautiful month appeals to the author as a pleasant time in which to be buried. The poems that deal with subjects other than those just mentioned are likely to be good, but not remarkable. The author^s taste did not often fail him except r^s a ion -^^hen he attempted humor, and he rarely wrote anything that was flat. Even the Homer is a work of some merit. When he began the translation nearly sixty years had elapsed since he received his scanty college training in Greek, and he could have given little time to 'the language afterward. He was the coldest of poets. He is said to have held with Poe that a long poem is an impossibility; and, as has been remarked, he did not succeed well in telling a story. Such a man could not make a very scholarly or a very popular translation of the most glow- ing and rapid of epic poets. His version has, however, dig- nity, and often ease, and is probably more nearly literal than any other verse translation. Although Bryant often shows quiet melancholy, he can hardly be accused of sentimentality. Most of the poems that 190 American Literature approach nearest to sentimentalising like "Consumption'^ and "The Death of the Flowers/^ have a personal reference. Di- dacticism seemed natural to him, yet he rarely wrote with a didactic purpose. The moral is almost always given at the end of a poem, in a few lines that though skillfully added might often be omitted without much loss. Indeed, the clos- ing lines of "Thanatopsis'^ were not written until some years after the rest of the poem had been published ; and the same might conceivably be true of "The West Wind/^ the "Hymn to the North Star/^ "^A Forest Hymn/^ and many others, among them even "To a Waterfowl.^^ Bryant was the first American poet to attain lasting fame, as Irving was the first essayist, and Cooper the first novelist. Unlike these men, he did not achieve an in- ternational reputation. The volume of poems issued in 1832 was reprinted in England through the instru- mentality of Irving, but it attracted little attention, and its author never became widely known abroad. He was, how- ever, for at least twenty-five years, the leading poet of America, and for a much longer time he had no rival in his own sec- tion of the country. This fact gave him a prestige which may have influence on his reputation, even to-day. But though he has perhaps been overrated he fully deserves a place among the greater American poets. No American has equalled him in the expression of his few favorite ideas; and these, while they are not of the sort to arouse enthusiasm, appeal strongly to most persons at some period of their lives. Though his manner is cold, his diction is always clear and his verse flawless; and occasionally, as in the line which so impressed Hartley Coleridge and Matthew Arnold, "The desert and inimitable air," there is a touch of inspiration. He is the least of the trio of the greater Knickerbockers, but he may live longest of them all. The Early Nineteenth Century 191 The lesser New York writers are all far inferior to the three already discussed, yet several of them produced single works that are still well known; and they Y k W^r showed forth fully as much as their superiors the characteristics of national life. Most of them were so versatile, or rather attempted so many things, that no classification according to forms of composition is practicable. Among the writers who link this period to the preceding is William Dunlap, whose dramas have already been noticed. «r.«. ^ , After 1800 his literary activities were mostly William Dunlap ., , i.- + • ;i i.- i. tt those of an historian and a biographer. He wrote the lives of George Frederick Cooke, the actor, and Charles Brockden Brown, a History of the American Theatre and a History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States. All these are full of facts, but are formless and without merit of style. Dun- lap was, however, a forceful and influential man among literary men, the friend of most of the newer authors, as he had been the friend of Charles Brockden Brown. The His- tory of the American Theatre is dedicated to Cooper. James Kirke Paulding (1778-1860), already mentioned as a collaborator with Irving in Salmagundi, was a peculiar specimen of Americanism. His family origi- PaS^E ^ nally had some property, but his father ex- pended it by an act of patriotism during the Eevolution, and was never reimbursed. The son was born in Dutchess County, New York, and grew up with little schooling and without going five miles from home until he was eighteen or nineteen years of age. He then secured a business clerkship in New York, where his sister had married William Irving. The Irvings introduced the green country boy to their literary friends, who at first took him up as the butt of their jokes. In time he became more sophisticated 193 American Literature and was able to do his full share in Salmagundi. This seems to have been his first attempt at authorship. In 1812 he brought out John Bull and Brother Jonathan, a political satire modeled on Arbuthnot, and he continued writing until 1849. The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle is a parody on Scott. The Backwoodsman is a poem descriptive of frontier life. Koningsmarhe, the Long Finne, The Dutchman's Fire- side, and Westward Ho are novels. Among his other works :are a play, The Lion of the West, a second series of Salma- gundi, and Merry Tales of the three Wise Men of Gotham — the last a heterogeneous satire on the theory of human per- fectibility, the common law, and phrenology. The author's temper was satiric, and even his novels were "complicated^^ — to use his own phrase — by irreverent burlesques of other authors. He seems always to have retained the attitude of the countryman in the city, who feels that he must ridicule everything he sees in order not to be ridiculed himself. When not engaged in political satire Paulding preferred to write of American frontier and country life. The scene of The Dutchman's Fireside is laid near Albany before the Eevolu- tion, that of Koningsmarhe in New Jersey, and that of Westward Ho in Virginia and Kentucky. The author has Cooper's fondness for the woods and the wilderness, but little of Cooper's power of description. In some of his lighter sketches he is like a crude and clumsy Irving, and might be suspected of imitation if he had not shown the same quali- ties before the Sketch Book was published. Among the lesser poets of New York two stand out with especial prominence. Of these, the younger, Joseph Eodman Drake (1795-1820), did not live to fulfill his josep oaman ^^pjy promise. He is said to have been a descendant of the Pilgrims, but was born in New York. Both his parents died when he was young and he was forced to support himself. He first engaged in busi- The Early Nineteenth Century 193 ness, then studied medicine, and afterward kept a drug store and practiced his profession. He married a woman of some means and was able to go abroad for his health, but it was use- less, and he died of consumption at the age of twenty-five. His lesser poems show the influence of Moore and occa- sionally of Wordsworth. His one important work is ^^The Culprit Fay/^ a narrative and descriptive poem in which he tried to acclimate fairies to the region of the Hudson. The story is that of a fay who has sinned by loving a mortal maiden and must do penance. Some of the situations are ingenious rather than imaginative, but there is music in the verse, and there are some truly poetic descriptions. It was the best work of the kind that had so far been done in America, with the possible exception of one or two poems by Freneau. Unfortunately Drake was anxious for the praise that was being bestowed so freely on rapid work, and he prefixed to "The Culprit Fay^^ an ingenious note so worded as to give the impression, without stating the fact, that the poem was written in three days. Fitzgreene Halleck (1790-1867), the close friend and lit- erary partner of Drake, was one of the New Englanders who were attracted by the commercial prosperity H «^^^^ of New York. He was born in Connecticut, where he taught school and clerked in a store until he was twenty-one years of age. He then secured a po- sition in a New York counting-house, and held this and a similar clerkship with John Jacob Astor during his active career. Shortly after he went to New York he met Drake. According to tradition the latter was captivated by Halleck's aflEected remark that it ^Vould be heaven to lounge upon the rainbow and read Tom Campbell,^^ and the two became at once fast friends. In 1819 they united to write the^^Croaker Papers,'^ a series of light and often satirical verses on topics of the time, published anonymously in the "Evening Post.^^ Some 194 American Literature of the papers are clever, but the great stir they made must have been due to the novelty of the plan and to the fact that the secret of authorship was so well kept. As time went on Halleck assumed the air of a blase bache- lor, and became a well-known figure in literary and social circles. His verse was influenced chiefly by p ^ ^ Campbell, and later by Byron. Among the tricks that he acquired from the latter was that of mixing in the same poem serious imaginative passages and bur- lesque. This is seen in ^Tanny,^^ ^^ Alnwick Castle,^^ ^Tonnecti- cut/^ and other poems. His longest poem, ^^Fanny,^^ published in 1819, is often called an imitation of Don Juan, but the dates are so close together as to make this doubtful. In this, and in some poems of the Alnwick Castle volume of 1827, are fine passages which earned for the author a temporary repu- tation as one of the few greater American poets. In later years he wrote little. Though probably second only to Bryant of the Knickerbocker poets, he is now remembered for little more than ^^Marco Bozzaris,^^ and one stanza of his tribute to Drake: Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days ! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. The names of three New York writers are preserved each by a single song. John Howard Payne (1792-1852), author of "Home, Sweet Home,^^ was born in New Sone-Writers York city, but spent part of his boyhood in Boston. He early showed an interest in the theatre, which his Puritan relatives tried in vain to suppress. He edited a dramatic paper at the age of thirteen and at eighteen went on the stage. During much of his life he was connected with the theatre in Europe and America, sometimes as actor, but more frequently as author and adapter of plays. The Early Nineteenth Century 195 For some time he resided in Paris and translated successful French plays for the London managers. His best drama, Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin, was not a direct adaptation, though he owns his indebtedness to other authors who had written on the same theme. It is a blank-verse tragedy with some striking situations, and was long in the repertoires of the greatest tragedians of England and America. ^^Home, Sweet Home^^ occurs in Clari, or the Maid of Milan, a senti- mental production which is remarkable for nothing else. Payne died at Tunis, where he was United States consul, and after many years his body was brought back for interment in his native country. Samuel Woodworth (1785-1843), born in Massachusetts and long a New York editor, wrote plays, a novel, and many short poems, most of them senti- mental. The only one that survives is "The Old Oaken Bucket,^' written in 1817. George P. Morris (1802-1864) was born in Philadelphia, but lived almost his entire life in New York. His editorial career, extending from 1823 to 1864, was divided between the "New York Mirror'^ and the "Home JournaV^ both light literary journals which reflect in an interesting way the transient taste of the country. Morris was long noted as the most successful American writer of songs. Of these only "Woodman, Spare that Tree^^ is now sung. Others, such as "Near the Lake where drooped the Willow,^' "We were Boys together,'' and "My Mother's Bible," are said to have been immensely popular in their day. Payne, Woodworth, and Morris all show the influence of the wave of sentimentalism that was sweeping over both England and America about 1820-1830. Among the less important Knickerbocker writers were Gulian C. Verplanck (1786-1870) and Robert C. Sands (1799-1832), who have been mentioned as collaborators with Bryant in the "Talisman." Verplanck was a descendant of one of the wealthy old Dutch families of New York, and was long 196 American Literature prominent in social, literary, and political life. His contribu- tions to the ^^Talisman/^ which are typical of his lighter work, include popular historical sketches, a YorkVri^rs romantic tale or two, and a humorous skit, ^Teregrinations of Petrus Mudd/^ In his serious work he is much heavier than Irving, but aims to produce the same effects. His humor, which he employed in several political satires, approaches burlesque. Verplanck was the author of serious essays and orations on literary mat- ters and edited the works of Shakespeare. He was the kind of man who gives weight and character to a literary set, but his own writings are now of little value. Eobert C. Sands had a part in several literary undertakings besides the ^^Talisman'^ during his short life of thirty-three years. While a student at Columbia college he formed a sort of literary partnership with James W. Eastburn (1797-1819), a young divinity student of much promise who died at a still earlier age than Sands. Together they started two periodicals, and later began a metrical translation of the Psalms and Yamoyden, a narrative poem with an Indian hero. The latter was fin- ished by Sands after his friend's death. Later Sands did editorial work on several periodicals and contributed, with Miss Sedgwick and others, to the Tales of Glauber Spa, His prose, much of which dates from the later years of his life, is somewhat Irvingesque. His verse is notable for the wide range of influence that it shows in both spirit and form. An early poem, ^^The Bridal of Vaumond," is in the measure of ^^The Lay of the Last MinstreV but has a Byronic motive. The introduction to Yamoyden is in the Spenserian stanza, and the body of the poem, which is in octosyllabics, contains echoes of Milton's minor poems, Scott, Shelley, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Sands was also familiar with the poets of Southern Europe and made several translations from their works. The Early Nineteenth Century 197 IT. Writers of ISTew England During the supremacy of the Knickerbocker school in American literature the most popular, though not the ablest group of New England writers, were the suc- Connecticut cessors of the Hartford Wits in Connecticut. These continued the milder traditions of their predecessors, but lacked their fire and enthusiasm. They were especially susceptible to the sentimental influence seen in the works of the lesser New York poets, and their work was almost all obviously moral and didactic. The most promi- nent of the group were Mrs. Sigourney, Percival, and Good- rich. Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865) was probably the most representative of the Connecticut writers. Before her marriage she taught ^^select'^ classes of young y la un ey j^dies : she was a model wife and mother ; and Sigourney ^ ^ after her husband lost his property she con- tributed by her pen to the support of the family. Her biog- rapher tells with pride that she composed or aided in the com- position of forty-six volumes, ^^besides more than 2,000 articles in prose and verse, contributed to nearly 300 periodi- cals.'^ Her first volume, aptly called Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, published over her maiden name in 1815, was composed largely of exercises written for her class of young ladies. Other representative titles of her books are Olive Buds, Letters to Mothers, Whisper to a Bride. Her first collection of poems appeared in 1827, and others followed at short intervals. Many of these volumes were issued as gift books, with fine paper, delicate binding, and the char- acteristic steel engravings of ninety years ago. Mrs. Sig- ourney was early styled ^The American Mrs. Hemans,'' and the characterization was fully as happy as most such nick- names. She dealt especially with the simpler domestic affec- 198 American Literature tions, with the beauty of piety, and the necessity of preparing for death. Her average mediocre work may be illustrated by a stanza from ^^The Bubble^^ : Out springs the bubble dazzling bright. With ever-changing hues of light, And so amid the flowery grass, Our gilded years of childhood pass. James Gates Percival (1795-1856) was known to his con- temporaries as one of the greatest American poets^ but is now almost forgotten. There is space here Percival ^ ^^ neither to trace the details of his shifting career nor to discuss his complex personality. He was born in Connecticut, and was graduated at Yale in 1815. He studied now law, now medicine, taught school in various places, thought of taking holy orders, gave popular lectures on botany, published a miscellany at Charles- ton, South Carolina, was appointed professor of chemistry at West Point, resigned because of fancied slights to his dig- nity, did philological work on Webster's dictionary and was state geologist in Connecticut and in Wisconsin. Meanwhile he had time for several unfortunate love affairs, an attempt at suicide, and the production of a large amount of verse. Among his personal traits seem to have been an acute sensi- tiveness and an extreme though genuine egotism. These peculiarities interfered with his success in life, and made it possible for an essay by Lowell, which is essentially unfair, to shatter whatever remained of his literary reputation. PercivaFs versatility shows itself in his poems. These include attempts in almost all conceivable metres, and trans- lations from most known tongues, besides PoemT ^ verses in foreign languages. Notwithstanding Lowell's patronizing sneer, Percival had great linguistic attainments and, although he was influenced by some of the bad fashions of his day, considerable taste. He The Early Nineteenth Century 199 held, however, the belief that poetry came by inspiration, not by labor, and he never revised. As a result, many fine lines and passages that show genuine poetic feeling and in- sight are buried amid masses of crude Byronic and other imi- tative verse. Some of his sonnets and one or two lyrics, such as "The Coral Grove^^ and "To Seneca Lake,^^ are sufficiently free from blemishes to hold a deserved place in the an- thologies. A little search among his works will reveal many beauties, and some touches of real genius, but there are few poems that are worthy of consideration in their entirety. He was one of the most notable victims of the belief in inspira- tion and hasty composition. Samuel G. Goodrich (1793-1860) was by birth and tempera- ment a Connecticut Yankee, though after a time he removed his publishing business from Hartford to Samuel G. Boston. As publisher, and as editor of his literary annual "The Token," he aided in in- troducing to the public several literary men, notably Haw- thorne. He was himself the author of the original Peter Parley books, though later works issued under this name were written by others. The Peter Parley books aimed to instruct the young in history, geography, and many other subjects by introducing edifying facts in a fictitious narrative. This sugar-coating of knowledge was clumsily done, but the plan just suited the temper of the time, and the series had a great sale, both in America and in England. To the list of Connecticut poets may be added the name of James A. Hillhouse (1789-1841), of New Haven, a Yale graduate of the class of 1808. His first publi- Minor ^ cation, a Phi Beta Kappa poem entitled "The Writers ^^^ Judgment, a Vision,^^ is commonplace, and suffers by comparison with Wigglesworth^s "Day of Doom.'^ "Hadad,^^ a drama, is his most ambitious work. The theme is the old one, based on a story in the Apoc- 200 American Literature rypha, of a maiden with a demon lover. The plot is crude, and the verse is often turgid with crowded and mixed imagery, but there are occasional passages of strangely powerful blank verse. J. G. C. Brainard (1796-1828) was another Connecti- cut poet. He was a born journalist, with a journalist's facility of expression, and the defects that arose from hurried compo- sition are less obvious in his work than in that of Percival, though his genius was very much less than PercivaPs. His friend Goodrich tells with much enjoyment that his once famous lines on Niagara were composed in a few minutes with the printers calling for copy, though the subject was entirely unpremeditated, and the author had never seen the Falls. His friends felt that he gave promise of great attain- ment, but he died of consumption at the age of thirty-two. Literary traditions in Boston during the early years of the nineteenth century were conserved chiefly by a group of young professional men, most of whom were mem- Boston Writers: bers of a social and literary association known Qub^*^^^^^ as the Anthology Club. From 1803 to 1811 they published the ^^Monthly Anthology,^^ and they were the chief contributors to the "North American Eeview^' when it was founded in 1815. The first editor of the "North American Eeview^^ was William Tudor, and among his associates were John Quincy Adams, Jared Sparks, Joseph Story, William Ellery Channing, George Ticknor, Edward Everett, Alexander H. Everett, Eichard Henry Dana, Wash- ington AUston, J. S. J. Gardiner, E. T. Channing, and others. The names of many of these men are remembered, though in some cases not solely because of the excellence of their literary work. Only two or three need be considered here. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) takes rank rather as a divine than as a man of letters, yet he had more of the literary gift than most of his contemporaries. Several ad- mirable reviews and miscellaneous essays dating from the The Early Nineteenth Century 201 time of the Anthology Club show what he might have achieved if he had devoted himself to pure literature. Even at this early time^ however, his chief interest was in William EUery theological and religious questions. A little later he found himself, though against his will, the recognized leader of the liberal forces in the great controversy between the Unitarians and the orthodox Congre- gationalists ; and still later he was involved in the anti- slavery agitation. His religious and sociological writings show the clearness of his thought and the lucidity and charm of his style, but the fact that they deal with unattractive subjects, and that they are chiefly claimed and circulated by a single sect, prevents them from being widely read. The ablest writer of this group, with the possible exception of Channing, was Eichard Henry Dana (1787-1879). He was a native of Cambridge, and entered Har- D^r^ ^"""^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ *^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^' ^^* ^^^ dismissed on account of some offence, and studied law. His connection with the Anthology Club dates from 1814, and he was for a time associated with Edward T. Channing in the editorship of the "North American Eeview.^^ When Channing resigned Dana failed of promotion to the editor- ship because he was too unpopular. Indeed, certain, personal peculiarities interfered not only with the smoothness of his personal relations with other men, but to some extent with the excellence of his writings. He was given to discussing him- self and his works with great self-complacency, and he had too little deference for well-established literary canons. Besides reviews and miscellaneous essays he wrote poems and prose tales. Some of these he published in "The Idle Man,^^ a miscellany which he issued in 1821-2. In the more powerful stories, such as "Paul Felton^^ and "Tom Thornton,^^ he shows the influence, though no direct imitation, of Charles Brockden Brown. Though these exhibit some lapses in taste, they are 202 American Literature better in their way than anything else of the kind between Brown and Poe. Verse-making seems to have been a late diversion for Dana. His first poem, ^^The Dying Eaven/^ was published in ^The ^ , ^ New York Eeview^^ in 1825, when the author Dana s Poems was thirty-eight years of age. Once started, he wrote freely, and in 1827 issued a volume of poems which won some praise from ^^Blackwood^s.^^ Another volume ap- peared in 1833. Dana's longest poem, ^^The Buccaneer/' in which a cruel pirate suffers for his misdeeds through the agency of a spectral horse, is grotesque in conception, but contains many good passages, as well as many examples of pathos suggestive of Crabbe. The author had a genuine ap- preciation of nature, and his best verse is that in which this is shown. "The Little Beach-Bird'' is probably his best known poem. Washington AUston (1779-1843), one of the greatest of early American painters, was a native of South Carolina, but removed to Ehode Island in early boyhood. He wasnmgton ^^^ graduated from Harvard, and studied art abroad until 1809, when he opened a studio in Boston. By his first marriage he was connected with the Channings and by his second with the Danas, and was thus thrown into close association with the Anthology set. In 1813 he published in London The Sylphs of the Seasons and other Poems, and by 1822 he had written Monaldi, a romance, which was not, however, printed until nearly twenty years later. He had the eye and the ear of an artist, and his serious poems show delicate beauties, but no great strength. Occa- sionally, as in "Eosalie," his metrical effects suggest those of Poe's lighter melodies. In "The Paint King" he attempts a burlesque on Scott. Monaldi is a melodramatic story of revenge and insanity, with a conventional Italian setting. The best passages in the book are one or two short descriptions The Early Nineteenth Century 203 of nature. At the time when AUston was writing, America needed the artist influence, and his fine personality as well as his talent enabled him to do his contemporaries much good; but his work is not of the sort to live for its own merits. Two members of the Anthology Club, George Ticknor (1791-1871) and Edward Everett (1794-1865), should be remembered as among the first Americans to George Ticknor gtndy at German universities and to introduce Everett ^^ Harvard college those German methods that revolutionized higher education in America. Ticknor served as professor of foreign languages at Harvard, again studied abroad, and in 1849 published a scholarly history of Spanish literature. Everett during his long and busy career was at different times pastor of the Brat- tle street church in Boston, professor of Greek at Harvard, president of Harvard, member of Congress and of the senate, minister to England, secretary of state, and candidate for the vice-presidency. He was prolific of both magazine articles and orations, his collected works containing about one hundred and seventy-five of the latter. In his day he was frequently named as the greatest American orator. His addresses, though he says he has ^^applied the pruning knife freely to the style,^^ are even in their amended form the best illustration of the high- flown manner which was the fashion in the early years of the nineteenth century. They abound in classical allusions, and are modelled, as the author apologetically says, on Johnson, Gibbon, and Burke. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), who has been mentioned as a member of the Anthology Club in Boston, is known rather as a statesman than as a literary man, though 51^^^^ 1. XX ]^st before he was elected to the presidency Massachusetts r ./ Writers of the United States he filled the chair of lelles lettres at Harvard. Joseph Story (1779- 1845), another member of the Anthology Club, was a 204 American Literature graduate of Harvard with the class of 1798. He wrote verses in his earlier years^ and was later a politician^ a judge, a pro- fessor in the Harvard law school, and the author of many able treatises on law. A contemporary of these men, though not exactly of their set, was Charles Sprague (1791-1875), a native of Boston and for nearly half a century a banker in that city. He wrote prize prologues for various theatres, and a didactic poem, ^^Curiosity,^^ which he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard. This piece, which is often spoken of as his best, is the usual metrical essay in the heroic couplet, with obvious echoes of Pope. As a whole it is smooth, but lacks striking or quotable passages. Sprague was an orator of the florid type. A sounding passage on ^The American Indian,^^ from his Fourth of July oration delivered in 1825, was a favorite school declamation until comparatively recent years. Another old-fashioned poet was John Pierpont (1785-1866), a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale, for many years pastor of the Hollis Street Church, Boston. He was a great traveller for his day, visiting the Holy Land. He was also an ardent temperance and antislavery reformer, and some of his enthusiasms are reflected in his verse. The Airs of Palestine w^^ published in 1816 and reissued with some additions in 1840. The best known of his occasional poems is ^^Warren's Address,^^ written for the banquet at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument, and begin- ning ^^Stand ! the ground^s your own, my braves.^^ Lucius M. Sargent (1786-1867) was another Boston poet and re- former. His chief interests were in the temperance move- ment. Some of his temperance tales, which to a later taste seem wofuUy commonplace, were widely read, and it is said that one of them passed through one hundred and thirty editions. Henry Coggswell Knight (1788-1835), a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Brown University with the class of 1812, published in 1809 The Cypriad, a coUec- The Early Nineteenth Century 205 tion of youthful verses, in 1815 The Broken Harp^ and 1821 Poems, His work is a strange mixture, occasionally poetic, sometimes witty, but often flat and unintentionally ludicrous. As a versifier he echoes every poet that he reads, and his work is perhaps most notable for the fact that at an early date he shows so strongly the influence of Wordsworth and Coleridge. His Letters from the South, published over the signature of Arthur Singleton, are studiously whimsical. New Englanders were especially susceptible to the pious and didactic sentimentality which was prevalent during the early nineteenth century, and several Boston women Sentimentality yj^^j ^i^]^ -|-]^g Connecticut authors in show- Writers i^g this quality. Their works are now of value only as an expression of the spirit of the time. Sarah Wentworth Morton (1759-1846), who as early as 1790 had published Oudbi, an Indian tale, in verse, brought out in 1823 a miscellany entitled My Mind and its Thoughts, Some of the prose ^"^thoughts^^ are sufficiently ^^Orphic^^ in form to suggest the later transcendentalists. The verse is in the form of ^^Odes^^ and ^^Lines^^ to Time, Memory, and other abstractions. Hannah P. Gould (1789-1865), the daughter of the principal of the Boston Latin school, wrote much for periodicals, and published several volumes of verse. Her poems are all short, and bear such suggestive titles as ^^The Empty Bird^s Nest,'' 'The Slave Mother,'' "To the Moon- beams," 'The Pebble and the Acorn." The early work of Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) also shows much senti- mentality and is obviously didactic. Holomok, her first novel, was published in 1821. The Rebels followed the next year. Both have historical American settings. More repre- sentative are some early writings for children. In 1831 she became interested in the antislavery movement through the influence of Garrison, and from that time she devoted her- self to this and kindred reforms. 206 American Literature Marie Gowen Brooks (1795-1845), whom Southey named ^^Maria del Occidente/^ and characterized . as ^^the most im- passioned and imaginative of all poetesses/^ Br^oks^''^^'' had a varied career. Her father died when she was a child, leaving her almost penniless. She was educated by Mr. Brooks, a wealthy Boston merchant, who married her, but soon afterward lost his property, and then died. The young widow, who had taken to writing verses ^^for consolation,^^ went to Cuba, and afterward to England. Her first volume, Judith, Esther and other Poems, was published in 1820. The first canto of Zophiel, or The Bride of Seven, was written in Cuba, and the rest under Southey^s direction in England. Idomen, which appeared in 1843, was autobiographical. Mrs. Brooks^s earliest verses were echoes of the English poets, especially those of the seven- teenth century. Zophiel, an Eastern tale, reminds us of the brief popularity that Byron, Moore, and others gave to oriental subjects. It tells again the story of a maiden whose suitors were slain one after another by her demon lover. The versi- fication is harsh, though many passages show the impassioned quality which Southey praised. Catherine M. Sedgwick (1789-1867), a prolific writer of fiction and miscellaneous works, was a somewhat more sane and important authoress. She was born in Catherine M. Stockbridge and, like other residents of western Massachusetts, had some associations with the New York literary set. In 1832 she contributed with Bryant and others to a miscellany, The Tales of Glauber Spa, For fifty years she conducted a school for young ladies ; and her novels, Hope Leslie, The Linwoods, and others, have the moral and educational qualities to be expected in the work of a preceptress, though they are by no means so weak as the usual ^^moral tales.'' Her patriotism was especially intense. The Linwoods, her latest and probably her best novel, is a tale The Early Nineteenth Century 207 of the Eevolutionary war. In this she ventured to introduce Washington among the characters, though she confesses in the preface that when mentioning his name ^^she has felt a senti- ment resembling the awe of the pious Israelite when he ap- proached the ark of the Lord/^ The plot is :a complicated one, involving all the fortunes of both love and war, and ends with strict poetical justice done to all parties. As was seen in the last chapter, the tendency to write broad burlesque and vituperative satire culminated about the be- ginning of the century, and the Hartford Wits Satire— Thomas and Mathew Carey did some of their most Fessenden offensive work just after 1800. As time went on the less dignified and more objectionable writings of this sort came to be recognized at their true value, and though they continued to be written and published they need not be noticed here. The satires of Thomas Green Fessenden (1771-1837) are still faintly remembered. Fes- senden was born in New Hampshire, took his degree at Dart- mouth, and went to England on a business enterprise. Here he became interested in Perkins's metallic tractors, a cure-all extensively advertised, and in 1803 attacked physicians who opposed their use in Terrible Tradoration, by Christopher Caustic, M.D. This is in four-line stanzas of Hudibrastic verse, and is accompanied by voluminous footnotes, in some of which there is great show of scientific knowledge. The verse itself seems far from brilliant, but the public, which always enjoys an attack on doctors or preachers, welcomed the poem, and it was generally read and quoted in England and America. In 1806, after his return from England, Fessenden published Democracy Unveiled, a violent attack on the Democrats, whom he designates as The scum — the scandal of the age, A blot on human nature's page. He is especially severe on Jefferson, and a relatively small 208 American Literature number of Hudibrastic verses serve as an excuse for footnotes in which are repeated the worst of the charges against Jef- ferson^s public and private character. Later, Fessenden pub- lished Pills, Poetical, Political, and Philosophical, A satirist of a different sort was Tabitha Tenney (1762-1837)^ a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, who published Female Quixotism in 1807. In this work Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are burlesqued in the heroine and her maid, whose adventures [are varied and some of them rather boisterous. One of the most picturesque of New England literary char- acters was John Neal (1793-1876), who was born in Port- land, Maine. His Wandering Recollections of N^af^ ^ 5omei(;/^af busy Life, written when he was about seventy-five years of age, recounts in' a breezy manner the varied experiences of an indefatigable Yankee. At different times he was in business, as clerk and proprietor in several cities, teacher of penmanship, lawyer, editor, and man of letters. His first story, Keep Cool, in ridi- cule of duelling, was published in 1817, and his poem, ^^The Battle of Niagara,^^ in 1818. These were followed in the next fifteen years by seven other novels and some miscellaneous work. Meanwhile he had gone to England, and with the assurance of a self-educated down-easter had made himself known to literary men, and become a contributor to ^^Black- wood's^^ and a protege of Jeremy Bentham. After five years he returned to America, to resume the practice of law and continue literary work. Neal exemplifies in an exaggerated degree most of the amusing characteristics that have been noticed in his contemporaries. He showed his patriotic wisli for literary independence by rejoicing that he did not write "what the English themselves call English.^^ In his review of American Literature in "Blackwood^s^^ he complacently wrote of his own poems : "Abounding throughout in absurdity, intemperance, affectation, extravagance — ^with continual but The Early Nineteenth Century 209 involuntary imitation : yet^ nevertheless, containing altogether more sincere poetry, more exalted, original, pure poetry, than all the works of all the other authors that have ever appeared in America/^ He published the dates at which he began and ended each of his novels, and called attention to the rapidity of composition — ^^four English volumes in thirty-six days/^ Most of his works are turgid and bombastic, others show traces of sentimentality. Yet, in spite of his ridiculous ex- travagance of thought and expression, Neal is far more than an epitome of the faults of American authors. There is much imagination and grace in some of his poems, and even the hastily written novels often hold the attention by their origi- nality of conception and vividness of portrayal. All in all, Neal and his works are among the most interesting literary curiosities of the time. III. Writers of Philadelphia; the South; the West At the opening of the century Philadelphia was tlie chief city of the country, and a centre for much of what was called ^^polite letters ;^^ but among the great number Joseph^Dennie ^^ creditable writers there were few whose works are now even faintly remembered. For the first decade of the century the most prominent literary figure was perhaps Joseph Dennie (1768-1812). He was a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard, and before he removed to Philadelphia in a political capacity in 1799 had been a newspaper editor in New England. From 1801 until his death he conducted the ^Tortfolio^^ under the name of ''Oliver Oldschool/' This journal contained letters of travel, literary and dramatic criticism, original and selected poetry, [and miscellaneous essays, after the manner of the better eighteenth century magazines. In dress, deportment, and literary style Dennie affected the fashions implied by his pen-name. His prose was formal and a trifle oracular, and 310 American Literature his tastes were in general those of the eighteenth century, though in an early number of the ^Tortfolio^^ he quoted from the Lyrical Ballads and gave them high praise. As ^^The Lay Preacher^^ he began in his New Hampshire newspaper and continued in the ^Tortfolio^^ a series of ^^sermons^^ — short essays each prefixed with a text of Scripture. Charles Jared Ingersoll (1782-1862), a Pennsylvania law- yer and politician, wrote poems, a tragedy, a history of the War of 1812, and his Recollections ; but was ar es jare ^^^^ known for IncJiiquin the Jesuit's Letters. These were published in 1810 at a time when America was greatly irritated by the unfavorable accounts written by foreign travellers in the United States, and pretended to give the observations and criticisms of a Jesuit in this country. They were written as if from Washington and vicinity, and contain slight censure and much praise of American customs and institutions. The pretense of foreign authorship ought not to have deceived anyone, and the great interest that the letters aroused can be accounted for only by the excited state of public feeling. John Blair Linn (1777-1804) was a native of Pennsylvania, but like his more famous brother-in-law, Charles Brockden Brown, lived for some time in New York. Minor ^ When but eighteen years of age he published Writers ^^ ^^^ latter city a volume of Miscellaneous Worlcs that show promise, and two years later wrote a play, Bourville Castle, which was acted with much success. He afterward underwent a change of feeling and became a clergyman, and was settled as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. Valerian, a narrative poem with some strong descriptive passages, was published after his death. Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), a Phila- delphia lawyer, owes his place in literary history only to the authorship of ^^Hail, Columbia/^ The Early Nineteenth Century 211 The South continued to furnish orators and statesmen, but produced no writers who gave themselves exclusively to litera- ture, and it was only occasionally that a pro- ^^J^^^ fessional man attempted literary composition Kennedy ^^ ^ diversion. The only city that could be called a literary center was Baltimore, and Maryland had a larger share of authors than any other Southern state. John Pendleton Kennedy (1795-1870) was a Maryland lawyer who during much of his life was active in politics. His first literary work was contributions to the ^^Eed Book/^ a fortnightly publication which he and a friend issued at Baltimore in 1818-19. Swallow Barn, published in 1833, is a series of sketches of life in lower Virginia, with a slight tale interwoven. Horseshoe Robinson, probably the author's most popular work, is a tale of the Eevolution. Rob of the Bowl is also an historical novel, with the scene laid in the times of the proprietary government in Maryland. In all these works the description of life and manners is faithful and picturesque, and the story is interestingly told. William Wirt (1772-1834) was also a native of Maryland, but spent most of his life in Virginia and at Washington. He was a lawyer, and held many political posi- WiUiam"wirt ^ions, but found time for much literary work. His first series of essays, the Letters of the Brit- ish Spy, adopts the old fiction of a packet of letters found in a boardinghouse, and purports to be written from Eichmond by an Englishman of rank to a member of parliament. The character of the supposed author is not well maintained, and the letters are really essays dealing with the nature of elo- quence, Buffon's theories of geological formation, the need of greater support for higher education in Virginia, and other of the author's faf orite topics. After their publication in the Eichmond "Argus'' in 1803 the letters were collected in book form and went through at least twelve editions. The sketch 212 American Literature of "The Blind Preacher'^ in Letter VI was long a favorite selection. The author shows the influence of Addison, whom he praises extravagantly in one letter, but his manner is heavier and more ornate than that of his model. It is hard to understand the admiration once felt for these papers as specimens of style, but they were long considered prose clas- sics. Two other series of Wirt^s essays. The Rainbow and The Old Bachelor, also went through several editions, and some of his speeches, especially that on the trial of Aaron Burr, were well known. Probably his most popular work was Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, a fasci- nating biography of the old-fashioned literary type. Another Maryland writer who should be remembered is Francis Scott Key (1780-1843), the author of "The Star- Spangled Banner.^^ Nothing else in the post- Mmor humous collection of his poems is of value. Writers John Shaw (1778-1809), a naval surgeon born in Annapolis, wrote poems which were collected and published after his death. A few of his more pleasing songs survive in the anthologies. Edward Coate Pinkney (1802-1828), son of a prominent Maryland poli- tician, in his short life was an officer in the navy, a member of the bar, a volunteer in the Mexican fight for independence, a professor in the University of Maryland, and an editor. He was a hot-headed youth with a propensity for duelling, and his literary models were Byron and Moore. ^^Eodolph,^^ his longest poem, is a story of illicit love, bloodshed, remorse, and madness. One or two gallant and sentimental songs are all that survive of his thin volume of poems. To the southward almost the only author whose name is preserved was Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847), a native of Ireland who came to Georgia in boyhood, and became a lawyer and a member of congress from that state. After suffering some political disappointments he went to Florence The Early Nineteenth Century 213 " and devoted himself to the study of Italian literature. His only important published writings are a work on Tasso and a long poem, Hesperia, which appeared after Georgia — his death. His fame has been kept alive by Richard Henry « ^ • i ;3 i t i *! Wilde ^ ^^^§ irom an uniinished opera, published under various titles, but best known by the first line^ ^^My life is like the summer rose.^^ By the opening of the nineteenth century the region west of the AUeghanies was beginning to be important politically and ^, „, economically, and to have a life of its own. The West . . There were two chief literary centres in the West, Lexington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio; but sev- eral other enterprising towns settled by emigrants from the more intellectual states of the Bast supported literary periodi- cals. Lexington was the seat of Transylvania University, which was founded as an academy in the preceding century, and began to confer the bachelor's degree in 1802. The ^^Medley,'' the first literary monthly in the West, was estab- lished at Lexington in 1803. The commercial importance of Cincinnati gave that city an advantage, and it early became a centre for the publication of both books and periodicals. The intrinsic merit of the western writings was not great, but the spirit shown in various literary enterprises was re- markable. The authors had the taste and the standards of the East, but their isolation, their enthusiasm for the new country, and the feeling of independence natural in frontier life con- spired to give western literature a distinction which it lost when improved means of communication bound East and West more closely together. Among the authors and editors of this region who deserve mention were Timothy Flint and James Hall. Flint (1780- , ^,. 1840) was born and died in Massachusetts, Timothy Fhnt , , , . . • ,. but spent some years as a missionary m the West, and was for a time editor of a magazine in Cincinnati. 214 American Literature His most valuable writings were historical and descriptive, but he also wrote two highly colored romances, and some translations from the French. James Hall (1793-1868) was born and educated in Phila- delphia. He served in the war of 1812, and afterward held TT II ^ commission in the regular army. In 1818 he resigned from the service to begin the prac- tice of law at Pittsburg. In 1820 he removed to Illinois, where for twelve years he was editor, lawyer, and judge. Among other literary activities he edited the "Western Sou- venir,^^ an annual, in 1829, and founded the "Illinois Monthly Magazine^^ in 1830. Later he removed to Cincinnati, where he continued his editorial labors. His first important work was a series of letters to the "Portfolio,^^ afterward collected as Letters from the West. These tell of his first trip down the Ohio. Several volumes, of which The West, its Soil, Surface, and Productions is typical, give statistical, historical and miscellaneous information in unusually readable fashion. More purely literary in form are his numerous tales, sketches, and poems. The longest of these is Harpe's Head, A Legend of Kentucky. This is a story with much action, and with many vivid descriptions of scenery and manners, first in Virginia and then in Kentucky. Among collections of shorter tales are Legends of the West, Tales of the Border, The Wilderness and the War-Path. These all treat almost ex- clusively of western themes. Hall's poetry, consisting mostly of brief narrative and sentimental pieces, is of little value. Many of his sketches, especially those which are quiet and sentimental, show the influence of Irving; others which are more purely frontier stories and stories of action are sugges- tive of Cooper. The author was, however, no mere imitator. He had an easy and effective narrative style, and his de- scriptions of western life and scenery are vivid and sym- pathetic. The Early N^ineteenth Century 215 IV. Orators; Scholars Public speaking continued to be held in high esteem in America^ and there were many men in all sections of the country whose eloquence was famous in their ^^^^Yw b t ^^y* Some of these have already been men- tioned in connection with other kinds of literary activity. The life of Daniel Webster (1782-1852), the great- est of the New England orators, belongs rather to political than to literary history, and is too well known to need more than brief statement here. He was the son of a New Hamp- - shire farmer. In childhood his chief characteristics were ill health and great shyness. Signs of intellectual brilliancy induced his father to send him to Dartmouth college. He studied law and practiced in various towns of Massachusetts, finally in Boston. For the last twenty-five years of his life he was a member of the United States senate, except during two periods when he was secretary of state. The best remembered of his occasional addresses are the oration delivered at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument and the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson. Of the congressional speeches the reply to Hayne, 1830, and the "Seventh of March Speech,^^ 1850, are best known. All of these owe some- thing of their fame to the importance of the occasion, and there are many other speeches in Webster^s collected works which, in parts at least, are hardly inferior. Some of his pleas at the bar, notably that at the trial of the murderers of Joseph White in Salem, have a high rank in the oratory of the legal profession. Though weak and shy as a boy, Webster developed into a man of powerful physique, with a dignity and a presence that verged on pomposity. The orations show the quality of the man. They are solid, formal, dignified, and have a touch of the artificial diction of the older classic English and American school. Webster was a man of great 216 American Literature intellectual power^ and he could express his ideas with abso- lute clearness ; but the distinctive characteristic of his orations is the combination of weight with the heightened manner. It is proof of real worth that though his style of public speak- ing has been abandoned in favor of the simpler manner repre- sented by Lincoln, yet his speeches are still read with un- diminished admiration. With the development of national consciousness and greater opportunities for leisurely work it was natural that there should be attempts in the direction of American scholarship. About 1820 a proposal was made to establish an American Academy, with headquarters at New York, but sectional jeal- ousies and the absurdly ambitious nature of the scheme brought about an early failure. A number of more modest learned societies came into existence during the first third of the century. Individual scholars, working independently or in connection with the leading colleges, did much creditable work. The most frequent attempts at scholarly writing were in the field of history and biography. As the men who had taken part in the Eevolution and the organization Biography ^^ ^^le government passed away, there was a Weems ' natural tendency to write their biographies. Every American with the instincts of an his- torian prepared his life of Washington, and from this often proceeded to the consideration of other men. Among the ear- liest was Mason L. Weems (1760P-1825), an eccentric Vir- ginia preacher and book agent, who took advantage of the interest occasioned by Washington's death, and the next year, 1800, brought out a biography. This was exceedingly popular, and is now notorious as the source of the hatchet story and other anecdotes which were apparently manufactured by an au- thor who knew what the public wanted. Weems later wrote lives of Franklin, Marion, and Penn, less famous than his Wash- The Early Nineteenth Century 217 ington, but equally unreliable. A very different biography is that by another Virginian^ John Marshall (1755-1835). By , , „ , „ his service as a soldier in the Eevolution and John Marshall , . . ., ... nis experience m various civil capacities, culminating in his appointment as Chief Justice of the United States, he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the public affairs with- which Washington was concerned. The prepara- tion of the Life was undertaken at the request of Washing- ton's family, and the five volumes appeared at intervals be- tween 1804 and 1807. It was too early for a judicial and definitive biography, but Marshall's work shows fairness, care, and the power and weight that characterize all his writ- ings. It is still a classic. Jared Sparks (1789-1866) was a more systematic historical scholar. His early connection with the "N'orth American Eeview'' has already been spoken of ; later he was professor of history and president at Harvard college. He " is remembered chiefly, however, as biographer, and as editor of the writings of Washington, Franklin, and other American statesmen. His practice of omitting passages from the letters that he edited, and of mak- ing grammatical and other emendations, is discountenanced by later scholars, but was justified on the theory that nothing should be made public which would lessen reverence for the founders of the nation. His work was carefully done and, except for these emendations, his editions are authentic. He was a worthy predecessor of the great historians that Har- vard produced in the next generation. Among minor historians who deserve brief mention is Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831), a New England editor and pub- lisher, who wrote a History of Printing in Historians America, which is still a standard work. Samuel L. Knapp (1783-1838), an editor and late in life a New York lawyer, published many miscellaneous 218 American Literature writings, and edited a Library of American History. To the student of to-day his most interesting work is a series of lec- tures on American Literature, published in 1829. These are rambling and over-patriotic, but give interesting contempo- rary estimates of American authors and of literature in gen- eral. David Eamsey (1749-1815), a native of Philadelphia, but for most of his life a resident of Charleston, South Carolina, was a surgeon in the Revolutionary war, and after- ward the author of History of the American Revolution, Life of Oeorge Washington, and History of the United States. While not a great judicial historian his writings carry con- siderable authority. Western writers gave the material for history rather than the finished work. Besides Timothy Flint and James Hall, who have already been mentioned, Henry Eowe Sh^lcrafr Schoolcraft (1793-1864) deserves to be re- membered. He was born in New York and was first attracted to the West by his interest in geology and mineralogy. Afterward he became an Indian agent and was connected with various government commissions. He published accounts of his travels and many historical and ethnological works relating to the Indians. He was especially interested in Indian folk lore, and prepared two collections of tales, Algic Researches, 1839, and The Myth of Hiawatha and other oral Legends, 1856. He also wrote a number of rather con- ventional poems on Indian subjects. The interest of his prose works lies chiefly in the subject matter, but his style is simple and usually adequate. In natural science America continued to furnish a con- siderable number of able workers, some of whom wrote with . ability. In Philadelphia, where scientific tra- ditions were strong, Benjamin Eush (1745- 1813), a prominent physician and man of affairs, published about the opening of the century several works on medical The Early Nineteenth Century 219 and miscellaneous subjects. To Philadelphia came the Scotch poet^ Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), who turned his atten- tion from verse-making to the preparation of his famous ornithology. In New England perhaps the leading scientist was Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), long professor at Yale college, and founder of the ^^American Journal of Science.'^ He combined the true scientific spirit with a faculty for popu- lar exposition, and probably did more than any other man to extend the interest in American science during the first half of the century. America has some claim to Benjamin Thompson, Count Eumford (1753-1814), Tory, soldier of fortune, and physicist. He was a native of Massachusetts, though his g ^^^. famous experiments on the nature of heat were conducted in France. Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), in early life a sailor of Salem, published valu- able works on applied mathematics and translated Laplace. Lexicography and the philological sciences were also well represented in New England. ISToah Webster, whose earlier work was mentioned in the preceding chapter. Lexicographers Published a grammar in 1807, and con- tinued his linguistic studies at Amherst, where he aided in founding the college, at New Haven, and in England. The first edition of his famous Dictionary was published in 1828. Joseph E. Worcester (1784-1865), a rival lexicographer, was born in New Hampshire, but lived most of his life in Massachusetts. He edited Johnson^s Dictionary and prepared an abridgment of Webster^s before he issued his own in 1830. CHAPTEK IV The Central Period (1833-1883) I. General Conditions It has already been remarked that in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century great changes took place in the po- . . litical, religious, and social thought of the of the Period country, and showed themselves in all forms National of literary expression. The perfection of the on 1 ions steam boat and the beginnings of the railroad established the possibility of easy communication between different sections of a great country, and definitely answered the question whether the United States could continue as one nation. At the same time sectional differences increased rather than diminished. The West grew influential in poli- tics, and through its influence the free, energetic, but unculti- vated type of man became more conspicuous in public affairs. The development of cotton raising and other industrial changes made the South more dependent than ever before on slave labor. On the other hand the disapproval of slavery, which had long existed and had been steadily growing in the North, was intensified by the spirit of democratic reform which was felt about this time in both Europe and America. As a result North and South found themselves sharply at variance over a matter which had serious moral aspects, and which appealed to the sentiments of both parties. In New England the increased interest in political and sociological questions was accompanied by great changes in philosophy and religious belief. About this time, too, appeared the first pub- lished writings of a number of men who were born in the first 220 The Central Period 221 decade of the century^,* and who afterward became the most distinguished in American letters. The men^ the problems, and the methods of thought that came into prominence between 1830 and 1840 continued strong in the intellectual life of the nation The Close of ^^-^ ^^ j^^^^ j^^lf ^ generation after the Civil the Period ° War. The change at the close of the period was even more gradual than that at the beginning; but be- tween 1880 and 1890 there was a noticeable weakening of the older sectional feeling, and a tendency toward a readjustment of political lines. Younger men came into prominence in literature, and the intellectual prestige of New England was weakened. ISTo one date in the decade is more significant than another of this change. The year 1883 has been chosen to end the period because it rounds out a half century. One characteristic of the period under discussion was the passage of literary supremacy from ISTew York to New Eng- land, or more specifically to Boston and its en- Massachus^^^^^^ virons. Irving and Cooper continued to write, but after 1833 they did nothing to increase the reputations that they had already won, and they inspired no successors of their own rank. The Connecticut writers, with their mild conservatism and their devotion to the moral and the commonplace, failed equally to express the spirit of the time. It was the beginning of an era of vigorous mental activity and moral questioning, and it was fitting that the descendants of the most virile of the Puritans should take the lead. The literary ascendency of Massachusetts was not geo- graphical but racial. The leaders whose names will be men- tioned later could almost without exception trace their an- cestry back to the emigrants of the early seventeenth century. Two great movements stirred New England during this * Garrison, Willis, Simms, Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Holmes, and Poe, as well as many of their lesser contemporaries, were born in the years 1803-9 inclusive. 222 American Literature period — transcendentalism and abolitionism. Both were ethical, but one looked toward religion and belief, the other toward politics and action. Both were so wo rea strongly reflected in literature that it will be convenient to group together the authors who were especially concerned with each. II. The New England Transcendentalists The term ^^transcendentalist'^ was originally a nickname applied to the enthusiastic devotees of the idealistic phi- losophy ; and transcendentalism has never been Transcenden- better defined than by Emerson when he said talism l?V^as Idealism ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ idealism as it appeared in New England about 1840. A more exact definition is impossible, for New England transcendentalism was not a system capable of formulation, and the transcendentalists agreed only in spirit, not in belief. Idealism in New England was not new. Though not definitely recognized and called by name, it was always strong in Puritanism. The revolution by which, in the preceding period. Harvard college and most of the older New England churches had become Unitarian was largely an intellectual movement. Its great achievement was the establishment of the right of free thought. Transcenden- talism in one of its aspects was the assertion, under the new conditions of freedom, of the idealism that survived from the old faith. The form of this assertion was modified by the formulated idealistic philosophy of Kant and other Germans. At first, however, the German language was almost unknown, and German thinkers were studied through the interpretations of Coleridge, Carlyle, and the French writers. As transcendentalism was not a system, perhaps no two of the so-called transcendentalists believed exactly the same. They agreed, however, in denying the postulate of Locke that the mind of a child is like a sheet of blank paper on The Central Period 223 which knowledge is written only by experience. They main- tained, on the contrary, that every man has certain ideas, like, for example, those of right and wrong, tsSS^B^eUefs" which are innate, which transcend experience, and which may be incapable of intellectual proof. This belief implies a close relation between every indi- vidual and the source of all wisdom, and carries as a corollary that in the domain of these innate ideas it is necessary only to look earnestly within one^s self to learn the truth. It was the absurd and unphilosophical application of this theory that did most to bring transcendentalism into disrepute. Into the transcendental camp rushed fanatics who looked within themselves and found the revelation that it was sin- ful to eat potatoes, or to wear clothing of a certain cut, or perhaps to wear any clothing at all. These absurdities are even yet associated with the word transcendentalism; but the transcendentalists were as a whole sensible people, who did valuable service in helping to preserve the idealism that has always been a marked American characteristic. With the development of idealism went other tendencies not philosophical which had their influence on transcenden- talism. The descendants of the Puritans were The "Renais- ^^ |g^g^ breakin^r loose from traditions of all sstuce of New England sorts, and beginning the period of investiga- tion and activity that Professor Wendell aptly calls the ^^renaissance^^ of New England. The college cur- riculum was broadened by increasing the attention given to ''belles lettres'' — the customary academic designation for courses in literature — and by the introduction of modern languages. Once the exploration of unfamiliar fields was begun, enthusiasts rushed everywhere — into the medieval poets and the oriental mystics. So sudden was this movement and so vast were the regions just discovered that at first there was no scholarly thoroughness, and no true appreciation of values. 234 American Literatu To know a poet's name and a few translated quotations from his works was justification for mentioning him in terms of familiarity. At the same time with these excursions into literature there was a sudden introduction of the other arts, attended often with the same strange judgments as to values. The nearest approach to an organization of the transcen- dentalists was an informal association sometimes spoken of ^ as the Symposium, and by outsiders as the g ® . Transcendental Club. Among the chief mem- bers were Ealph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, George Eip- ley, F. H. Hedge, James Freeman Clarke, C. A. Bartol, Eliza- beth Palmer Peabody, Theodore Parker, W. H. Channing, J. S. Dwight, and Jones Very. Brownson, Bancroft, Cranch, and others were occasional attendants. Meetings were first held in 1836, and continued for some time at irregular intervals. Among the tangible results of the transcendental move- ment were the ^^DiaF' and the Brook Farm Community. The ^^DiaP' was a quarterly published from The "Dial" 1840 to 1844 by the more enthusiastic devotees of the new philosophy. It was edited at first by Margaret Fuller and afterward by Emerson. Those who have access to its now rare files will find it the best illustration of the aspirations of the transcendentalists and of some of their chief follies. The Brook Farm Settlement was a mildly communistic experiment at West Eoxbury, near Boston, between 1841 and 1847. Its chief promoter was George Eipley, The Brook and among his coadjutors were Hawthorne Community ^^^ Charles A. Dana. George William Curtis was a resident, though not a stockholder. Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Horace Greeley, and others were interested in the plan and gave it qualified endorsement. The Central Period 225 though they regarded it as impracticable and declined to become members. The ideas that underlay the experiment were the dignity of labor^ the desirability of living close to nature, and the advantage of mutual helpfulness. The plan, especially at first, was not in any way radical, and aimed at no revolution in the social structure. A company was organ- ized and investors took stock as in any other business concern. Eesidents were to do a certain share of labor or pay for their board. Plans were made to conduct a school and in other ways to supplement the income from the farm. Families were to preserve their identity and every member was to retain full control of himself and his property. After a time the community became influenced by the more radical ideas of Fourier and lost something of its early simplicity. This may have hastened the inevitable dissolution of the association, as did a serious loss by fire in the spring of 1846. Though the fame of the community is due as much to its picturesque- ness as to its importance, it is a significant illustration of the way in which idealistic Yankees set about reforming the world. The greatest and the most representative of the transcenden- talists, and the oldest of the greater New England men of let- ters, was Ealph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Emeio™'' He was born in Boston, the descendant of long lines of clergymen. His father was pastor of the First Church of Boston, which had become Unitarian. The elder Emerson died in 1811, leaving his wife and five small children dependent upon themselves and the aid of friends. Expenditures for food and clothing were minimized to provide means for education. Pen pictures of Waldo as a ^^spiritual looking boy'^ who never smiled and never in- dulged in boy^s play are somewhat painful, and it would be pleasant to believe them the imaginings of later admirers. He attended the Boston Latin school, and afterward entered 236 American Literature Harvard college, where he ran errands for the president, waited on table at commons, and received aid from scholarT ship funds. He was poor in mathematics, E^i^cation satisfactory but not brilliant in other studies. Ehetoric and elocution interested him, and he is said always to have retained a fancy that he would like to be professor of these branches. His reading was extensive, but desultory. It seems to have been understood that he should enter the ministry, and there is no record of the usual agonies over the choice of a profession. After his graduation in 1821 he taught school for four years to save money. Then he entered Harvard Divinity School, but was soon forced to leave on account of poor health. The next year he was licensed to preach, without examination. His health con- tinued precarious, and for some time prevented him from becoming a candidate for a regular pulpit. At last, in 1839, he became pastor of the Old North Church, Boston — formerly the church of the Mathers. The same year he was married to Miss Ellen Tucker, of Concord, New Hampshire. Emerson was now approaching the age of thirty and gave no indication of any unusual or peculiar ability. As a pul- pit orator he had the fascination of a fine Emerson as personality, and his younger hearers said that he ^^made religion real;^^ but his biographer finds nothing remarkable in his sermons. He continued in his pastorate until 1833, when he resigned on account of a disinclination to administer the Lord^s Supper. He was no violent iconoclast or anti-ritualist, but he found that the sac- rament did not mean to him what it was supposed to mean, and rather than go through the form without the spirit he proposed either that he should be excused from administering it, or that he should resign. The church was unwilling to adopt the former alternative, and a separation followed, evi- dently without ill feeling on either side. The church con- The Central Period 237 tinned his salary for a time and he frequently occupied his old pulpit. Mrs. Emerson had died earlier in the same year, and in December he sailed for Malta, hoping to find better health. He travelled through much of Italy, visited ViSrto Euro e ^^^^^' ^^^ returned by way of England. He was not a sight-seer; he has little to say of scenery, or customs, or works of art. He found, as he said, always ^^the same faces under new caps and jackets.^^ His chief interest was in men, and he took pleasure in meeting Landor in Italy, and Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth in Great Britain. His visit to Carlyle at Craigenputtock was the beginning of a friendship that lasted till death. After his return to America in 1833 Emerson preached nearly every Sunday in Unitarian pulpits, and delivered many lectures. The ^^lyceums^^ which about this merson as ^-^^ were organized in every city and village and in most country districts gave the pro- fession of lecturer an unusual importance, and most men who were prominently before the public appeared more or less frequently upon the platform. With Emerson lecturing was an important avocation for forty years. He began with sub- jects from natural history and his travels, but his teaching was always ethical, and he soon gave his lectures such titles as his essays now bear. The extent of his tours gradually widened until it included Illinois and Wisconsin, and the border states of the South. In 1834 he settled at Concord, which was henceforth to be his home; and the next year he married Miss Lydia Jackson. A small income came to him from the estate of his first wife, and in later years his books brought him something; but at first he found it hard to live within his income. As the works of Carlyle appeared, he attended to theii republication in America, and often embar- rassed himself by advancing considerable sums for this pur- 228 American Literature pose. He also found it necessary to keep open house for the many pilgrims who came to Concord to ask advice, or more frequently to enlist him in some wild reform. But though he found it necessary to practice strict economy and to lecture each year to make up a deficit^ he never really suffered from poverty. With the exception of a lecturing trip to England in 1847-8 his life passed uneventfully until Ser Yeis *^^ burning of his house in 1872. Even before this his friends had noticed the beginnings of mental weakness^ the tendency to which was probably in the blood. The shock and exposure at the time of the fire hastened the process of decay, and for the remaining ten years of his life he was never quite himself. His memory was pre- carious, and his mind lacked its old incisiveness except at moments. Immediately after the fire friends provided for a trip to the Nile, which he had always wished to see, and on his return he found his house rebuilt and his library in its old place. He occasionally repeated some of his lectures, and nominally superintended the publication of some new works, made up from old manuscripts. Emerson's distinctive genius developed late. His first publication was a thin volume entitled Nature^ issued in 1836. The next year he attracted attention Emerson s ^^ j^-g pj^^ -g^^^ Kappa address at Harvard on ^^The American Scholar ;'' and in 1838 his famous address to the graduating class at Harvard Divinity School antagonized the conservative Unitarians, and gave him the reputation in some circles of being a dangerous man. The first series of Essays, 1841, and the second series, 1844, were adaptations of his lectures ; indeed the same may be said of most of his later prose volumes — Miscellanies, 1849, Rep- resentative Men, 1850, The Conduct of Life, 1860, Society and Solitude, 1870. English Traits, published in 1856, was the result of his second trip abroad. The volume entitled The Central Period 229 Letters and Social Aims was compiled from his manuscripts under his partial direction in 1875. Another collection, Natural History of the Intellect, was issued after his death. His correspondence with Carlyle and with other friends has since been published, and his Journals are now being given to the public. While in college Emerson had written verse, and there is evidence that he always cared much for the power of poetic expression. He frequently refers to his poetic Emerson s temperament, and even speaks of himself as by nature a poet. Some of his poems were published in the "DiaV^ but he issued no collection until 1847. Another volume appeared in 1865, May-Day in 1867, and a revised collection in 1878. In 1874 he published Par- nassus, an anthology made up of the English poems that he especially enjoyed. Most of the selections were made long be- fore; but the fact that some were admitted after his powers began to decline makes the book of little value, even as an indication of the editor^s taste. Emerson^s mind was so individual that it is hard to charac- terize it in ordinary terms. His great intellectuality is con- ceded by everyone; yet he was not a great Emerson's scholar or a systematic thinker. He read Intellectual i. -t pi'TJ^iii, j Characteristics ^^^^^ ^^ some periods oi his liie, but he cared for a striking sentence rather than for the organized thought of a book, and he always held that reading was only the recreation of a scholar. He was not deeply versed in any language, or science, or philosophy. His free handling of the names of German philosophers and of Ori-' ental poets might seem to imply familiarity, but, as was usual in his time, his references were often based on slight and second-hand information. As an observer, both of men and of nature, he was usually quick and accurate, though he sometimes seems shrewd rather than deep. His lack of system 230 American Literaturf is seen in the disorganized structure of his lectures and essays, and in his failure to formulate any system, or even to classify materials. His justification he found in his philosophy, which taught him to look within himself at each moment, without reference to the past, and to avoid forms and systems as re- pressing. But his beliefs and his habits of thought coincided. He proceeded by insight, by inspiration, in the cant phrase of his admirers, by "possession,^^ rather than by ratiocinative processes. With this idealism were combined intensely practical quali- ties. In this respect he resembled the older Puritans, who with all their religious intensity built up for- Emerson's tunes and managed shrewdly the affairs of Qualities state. Emerson was not an especially good financier, but he had fair business instincts and a practical common-sense way of looking at everyday affairs. He made a good neighbor, who ^^always kept his fences up.^^ He attended town-meetings and mingled in a perfectly natural way with the farmers and villagers about him. He foretold, as clearly as any banker or merchant could have done, the causes that would interfere with the success of the Brook Farm community. Surrounded as he was by cranks and enthusiasts, he tried no wilder experiments than practicing vegetarianism for a few weeks, and inviting the house-maids to sit at the family table. It was this happy balance between the transcendental and the practical that gave him his leadership. His words inspired the most ideal- istic of his followers. His actions gave no offense and little chance for ridicule to the most hard-headed critic. Moreover he had the judgment to see what he could and could not do, and where his own work lay, and he refused to be closely allied with extreme reforms of any kind. Even where he sympathized with a crusade like that against slavery, he felt that the active work could best be done by others. He never , The Central Period 231 temporized, or concealed his thoughts. His speech on John Brown and other anti-slavery utterances are strong; but he did not give himself entirely to the movement, and to re- formers with one idea seemed lukewarm. Personally Emerson seems to have exercised a fascination on all who knew him. People went to his lectures because of the man, if not for his ideas. Even the Emerson s ^jj^ reformers who failed to win him to their Personality . m n ,> i . . . i n own notions usually left him with no less of love and admiration because of their disappointment. The few glimpses that we have of his home life show almost ideal relations with his children ; and the ^^curious, sociable, cheer- ful public funeral/^ as Henry James calls it, was only one indication of the way he was regarded by his Concord neigh- bors. Still, there was an aloofness about him that kept all men at a little distance. He had no intimates outside of his own family. While in college he sometimes joined convivial circles, and later he was a welcome member of the famous Saturday Club, which included all the prominent literary men of Boston. But though always gracious and winning, he never allowed his reserve to be broken down. Emerson's literary tastes are not easily learned or under- stood. His biographer says that he saw nothing in Shelley, Aristophanes, Don Quixote, Miss Austen, £.merson s Dickens — a list as heterogeneous as those which he loved to put together for himself. There is hardly more similarity between the authors that he admired — Byron, Moore, George Herbert, Beaumont and Fletcher. One is led to suppose that his enthusiasm for Goethe was caught mostly from Carlyle; and that his interest in Hafiz and other Orientals was, unconsciously of course, a little faddish. His writings show quotations from a great range of authors, but they are mostly striking phrases, chosen for themselves and not for their connection with a sys- 233 American Literature tern of ideas. It was probably the authors who could furnish such phrases that he enjoyed most. He set great store by form of expression, and was forever striving for it. Not even personal friendship could reconcile him to Carlyle's prose style. He had, as Lowell points out, an acute sense for the inevitable word. He composed by sentences, and when a sentence shaped itself for him he put it in his notebook for use as occasion arose. His lectures and essays were made up of these prearranged sentences with more or less of connective material supplied. He never spoke impromptu, and he was not great as a letter writer. On the whole, he seems to have had no philosophy of literature, but to have liked the work which had form, and which appealed to him in his mood. It seems hopeless to attempt to trace a connection between his reading and his prose style. The first published work. Nature, differs but little in style from those that follow. It has slightly more of plan, though logical sequence is not always found where it ^ ^^® is promised. It contains illustrations of the author's favorite habit of enumerating a list of heterogeneous persons, or things, as ^^anguage, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex.'' And it abounds in the short, quotable sentences which are so forceful in the essays: ^^N'ature never wears a mean appearance;" ^^Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous;" ^^Man is the dwarf of himself f "k\\ that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and do." The leading idea of Nature is that which has already been given as the central thought of transcen- dentalism. Every soul is of the divine essence, and may have communication with all that is divine in the universe; and since all things and all actions are manifesta- mTs^e^T ^ *^^^^ ^^ ^^^ divine, it may read a spiritual les- son in every work of nature or of art. This thought, with its resulting lesson of individual dignity and its The Central Period 233 innumerable corollaries and applications, is the author's one message to the world, and is found on almost every page that he wrote. Thus, the essay on ^^History'^ begins : There is one mind common to aU individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think ; what a saint has felt, he may feel ; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind, is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. Passages were frequently transferred from one lecture to another, and new lectures were made up by piecing together passages from old ones. It is often impossible on reading a paragraph to guess in what particular essay or lecture it may be found. It is not true, however, that the author mainly repeats him- self. His lesson is one which has so many applications, and on which so much depends, that each statement under new conditions seems a new thought. It is probably impossible now for anyone to receive from the Essays the same tonic effect that they gave to the author's contemporaries. For two generations they have been common property, and not only their ideas but their imagery are everywhere echoed in the pulpit, the lecture room, and the review article. Every young man and woman is familiar through indirect sources with much of the best that Emerson has to offer. Yet it is probable that to-day few readers, certainly few young readers of idealistic tendencies, make their first acquaintance with the Essays without receiving a distinct stimulus. There is little that seems really new. Indeed, some of the most effective ideas are those that the reader at once recognizes as his own ; but there is a suggestiveness which starts train after train of thought. It is sometimes charged that Emerson is too hopeful, that he disregards the evil and the disappointment in the world, 234 American Literature and leads his readers to expect too much of life. This is undoubtedly true^ and each reader must decide for himself whether it is a defect. In Emerson's own Emerson's ^y^g j|. ^^g ^^j.^ ^ ^^^ ^jj-j^ j.^^ acuteness Optimism of observation shown in his countless descrip- tions of nature and in his homely illustrations from life could hardly fail to see the evil as well as the good. That he pre- ferred to ignore it rather than to make it conspicuous by wag- ing open fight only shows his faith in his ideals. A more serious charge against the essays is the inconsistency of oc- casional passages^ and the use of phrases which taken by theni- selves seem over-audacious. This arises from J^^;^g^^^^^^^^ the habit of looking at a truth from different angles in order to gain a complete view, and caused the author no concern whatever. Yet the reader who, ignorant of Emerson^ meets for the first time the phrase "I am part or parcel of God/' or a passage like the following from the essay on ^^Self-Eeliance/' is likely to be shocked or bewildered : Do not teU me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put aU poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold ; for them I will go to prison, if need be ; but your miscellaneous popular charities ; the education at college of fools ; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand ; alms to sots ; and the thousand-fold Relief Societies ; — though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by-and-by I shall have the manhood to withhold. To the habitual reader of Emerson, however, statements like these appear in their true relation, and seem both plain and natural. The peculiar structure of the prose is such that what is true of one volume is true of all. Probably the two series The Central Period 235 of Essays are now the most widely read^ though at first they attracted little attention. Representative Men was in plan suggested by Heroes and Hero-Worship. Characteristics Some of the early addresses collected in the Pj.Qgg volume of Miscellanies are more coherent and more logical in structure than most of the other works. English Traits is not an ordinary traveller's book^ but as the title implies is a discussion of the characteris- tics of a people, with such chapter headings as ^^Eace/' ^'Ability/' '^Manners/' "Truth/' and "Character.'' Emerson liked the English, though he saw their weaknesses, and the book shows shrewd and kindly insight. The posthumous vol- ume Natural History of the Intellect bears a title which Emerson had long had in mind as that of a work on philoso- phy, and which he gave to a series of lectures delivered at Harvard college; but most of the material of these lectures appears in his other writings, and but two or three of them are given in this final volume. The poems show as much individuality as the prose, and have probably been the cause of more discussion. The ideas that they present are the same as those of the Emerson's p essays, though with more stress on the beauty of nature. In form they tend to the irregular and occasionally to the eccentric. The usual verdict of the author's early contemporaries was that of the "Fable for Critics :" Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows, Is some of it pr — No, 'tis not even prose ! and they were accused of utter lack of rhythm, melody, and metre. It is an interesting illustration of the growing accom- modation of the ear to flexibility in verse that these criticisms seem absurd now. Still there are occasional harsh lines, and false rhymes, many of which are not, however, displeasing to those who enjoy a subtle assonance. Metrical students also 236 American Literature say with truth that he commanded few measures, and had a fondness for the somewhat jigging octosyllabics. Another peculiarity which offends some readers is the use in imagina- tive passages of words with unpoetic associations. Emerson went as far as any of the poets who believed in the democracy of words. His usage has sometimes an effectiveness of its own, as in the quatrain: He planted where the deluge ploughed, His hired hands were wind and cloud ; His eyes detect the Gods concealed In the hummock of the field. More questionable are the lines on the pine-tree in ^^Wood- notes '/^ My garden is the cloven rock, And my manure the snow. And to the unsympathetic reader the poetic approaches the ridiculous in the passage from "The Sphinx:'^ Erect as a sunbeam Upspringeth the palm ; The elephant browses, Undaunted and calm. Despite all this technical criticism the poems have a wonderful charm for many readers. Among the rough verses are passages of haunting cadence and melody, and often whole poems where an admirer, at least, would want no line changed. True, the longer poems are formless, and "May-Day^^ when republished was changed as "if half its paragraphs were to be taken and shuffled like a pack of cards.^^ The "Threnody,'^ written on the death of the author's son, shows too intense personal sorrow to compete with smoother and more academic elegies. The long poems must be read, like the essays, in bits. A few of the shorter poems, like "The Sphinx^' and "The Problem,'^ were long held up to ridicule as unintelligible, though it does not seem that they should offer much difficulty The Central Period 337 to one who knew Emerson's philosophy. It is in some of the briefer poems^, like the "Concord Hymn/' "Ehodora/' and "Days/' and even more epigrammatic passages and fragments, that his power is seen. The bulk of these is very small, but their value lies in the concentration of thought and perfection of form. It is the usual fate of a prose essayist whose ideas are more valuable than his form to be neglected after his message is understood and diffused; and it seems prob- Fate of ^ ^^Iq j^Y^^j^ ^j^^g fate will slowly overtake Emerson. Pj.Qgg So far as the sentence and the apt word are con- cerned his manner is worthy of his thought ; and many of his phrases are now embedded in our speech. The lack of unity and logical sequence, however, is so serious a blemish on the prose writings as a whole that it would be rash to pre- dict their permanency. As yet, however, the Essays, judged by the test of cheap reprints and large sales, are almost un- diminished in popularity. It seems possible, though it is too soon to make the predic- tion, that the writings of Emerson that stand best chance of permanency are the better poems. These won th^^^^^^^*^ ^ their first appreciation from persons who knew the essays, while other readers maintained that they were obscure. With the wider dissemination of ideal- istic views, most persons have the clew to their interpretation, and few of the verses trouble any careful reader to-day. The essays, built as they were from lyceum lectures, have something of the provincial about them. They seem calculated for the meridian of Boston and the year 184 — . The poems have, as all true poetry has, more of a universal quality. British readers, for whom the essays were not especially designed, have always ranked the poems relatively high. It is notice- able, too, that much of the late verse of minor American poets shows a legitimate but unmistakable influence of Emerson. 238 American Literature Whatever the ultimate fate of Emerson's writings, he will always occupy a prominent place in the history of American thought. At the most critical time in the Emerson s intellectual development of the country his influence was greater than that of any other man. He suited his generation and his surroundings. Even to the present time he takes almost unquestioned rank as the most powerful and stimulating ethical teacher that the nation has produced. The second of the transcendentalists in literary importance was Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). He was born at Concord, Massachusetts, where his father had enry avia failed in trade and become a maker of lead Thoreau pencils. Though his family was not well-to-do, he managed, partly through the aid of scholarships and his own labors, to complete a course at Harvard. He seems to have been a fair student, though he was not always tractable, and made a not wholly favorable impression on the faculty. After his graduation he supported himself by surveying and such odd jobs as whitewashing, and by the slight returns from lecturing and writing. His failure to adopt a profession came not from laziness, but from the fact that he had no dependents and few physical wants, and that he wished to be independent. His acquaintance with Emerson began about the time of his graduation from Harvard in 1837, and from 1841 to 1843 he was a member of Emerson's household. In 1845 he built a hut on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord, and lived there alone for two or three years. At various times he took trips through New England by boat and on foot, and these furnished material for much of his writing. During his life- time he published two volumes, A WeeTc on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, and Walden, or Life in the Woods. He de- livered occasional lectures, and contributed a number of short essays to the "Dial" and other magazines. Since his death The Central Period 239 these essays^ and other writings left unpublished^ have been issued in several volumes. None of the biographies of Thoreau is satisfactory, and it is hard to arrive at a sure estimate of his personality. He had a strain of eccentricity, probably derived oreau s from his mother's family, but his peculiarities Personality . ' ^ seem to have been misunderstood and their importance overrated. His experiment in the simple life at Walden has caused him to be styled a hermit and a recluse, though he vrent to the village daily, and always welcomed in- tercourse with friends. One-sided and paradoxical statements which he loved to make for their startling effect earned for him the reputation of being stoical and misanthropic, and of "not believing in civilization.'^ His refusal to pay taxes to a government that he thought unjust was a procedure advo- cated by many other abolitionists. Though he had many pe- culiarities, he was a man of strong human emotions, which :at times he liked to conceal. He had a great fondness for nature, of which he was an almost abnormally keen observer. He took especial delight in seeing what others left unnoticed in things about him. He says, "I omit the unusual . . . and describe the common. This has the greatest charm, and is the true theme of poetry.'' It was with the eye of a poet that he usually looked at nature, though he turned his powers to account in making some natural history collections for Agassiz. His love of nature did not, however, interfere with his interest in books. He was a wide reader, of catholic taste, and an indefatigable student when he once began a subject. He knew the Greek poets thoroughly and made careful trans- lations from some of them. Like many other transcendental- ists he dabbled in the Oriental writers. He was widely read in English literature, not only in the classics, but in out-of- the-way writers, like the minor Elizabethan dramatists and the lesser poets of the seventeenth century. His biographer 240 American Literature computes that there are quotations from a hundred authors in one of his books alone; and most of these fit the context naturally, not as if introduced to show recently acquired eru- dition. His criticisms, as of Chaucer in the Weelc on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, show shrewd appreciation of literary merit. His reading extended even to town histories and similar sources of information, from which he gathered interesting bits of fact. He was strongly influenced by the transcendental ideas, and as he lacked Emerson's sanity and balance he sometimes went astray. He was, however, prob- ably aware of the full absurdity of his most startling expressions. The character of Thoreau's writings is indicated by the titles of the two books published during his lifetime, and by those given to some of the posthumous coUec- ^oreau's ^^^^^ — Excursions, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yanlcee in Canada, etc. These are mostly descriptions of nature, combined with discussions of the author's philosophy of life. The nature descriptions are characterized by clearness, picturesqueness, quiet humor, and a rare individual quality. At times, however, they are marred by a forced pun or other consciously startling expression. This tendency to be startling is still more prominent in the frequent bits of moralizing. It is the quotation of isolated sayings from these passages that has given Thoreau the repu- tation of being more erratic than he is. In Walden, the best of his works, the reader is likely to be struck first by the oddity of a passage like the following : None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftless- ness. There is plenty of such chairs as I Uke best in the viUage garrets to be had for taking them away. Furniture ! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furni- ture packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes. That The Central Period 241 is Spaulding's furniture. I could never tell from inspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a poor one. Indeed, the more you have of such things the poorer you are. It is only after a re-reading, perhaps after reading aloud, that one feels the full charm of a chapter like that on ^^Sounds :'^ Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated an'd echoed from vale to vale. Thoreau^s verse was mostly written while he was young, though a few bits are scattered through his later prose. It has been enthusiastically praised by admirers Ver^^^^ ^ ^^ ^^^ author^s philosophy, and contains some fine couplets and quatrains; but it is rarely well sustained, and the writer^s taste is not sure. Sometimes he strikes out a stanza like the following, in which he ante- dates a well-known poem of Matthew Arnold: The smothered streams of love, which flow More bright than Phlegethon, more low, Island us ever, like the sea, In an Atlantic mystery. But in close juxtaposition to this are lines like those on the boatbuilders heard across the river: The waves slowly beat Just to keep the noon sweet. And no sound is floated o*er. Save the mallet on shore. Which echoing on high, Seems a-calking the sky. 242 American Literature In his lifetime Thoreaii was looked upon as an imitator of Emerson; of late years he has seemed remarkable for his > p ir individuality. His philosophy was no doubt greatly influenced by Emerson, but his literary style seems to have suffered more from occasional Carlylisms than from any unfortunate indebtedness to his friend and neighbor. He is one of the few American writers whose fame has steadily increased. His contemporaries refused to take him seriously, or to buy his books. Later generations have been glad to collect and publish all his available writings, and have come to esteem him for his delicate and sympathetic portrayals of nature and for his pointed, if impractical, comments on life. Though his eccentricities prevent him from ranking with the greatest American essayists, he has a unique charm for many readers, and his place in American literature seems secure. Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), the best known of the more erratic idealists, was the son of a Connecticut farmer. His family name was Alcox, and he made the ^^^^^^^^^^^^ change to Alcott on reaching manhood. He received a slight education in the country schools and from the parish minister, but by the time he was fifteen years of age he was working in a clock factory. After an unsuccessful experience as peddler in New York, Massa- chusetts, and the South he turned to school teaching. His first venture was at Cheshire, where he introduced so many innovations in methods of instruction and discipline that he was forced to leave. Afterward he taught in various schools, the most important of which was in Boston. Here a number of prominent families placed their children under his instruc- tion, and his attempts at educational reform attracted consid- erable attention. He interpreted literally the ideas expressed in Wordsworth's ^^Ode on Intimations of Immortality,^' and spent much time in discussing the eternal verities with the The Central Period 243 infants committed to his charge. Some of these discussions were published as Conversations with Children on the Gospels in 1836. His patrons were startled to learn from this book that he had been conversing with his pupils on the physical phenomena of birth, and many of them withdrew their chil- dren. The end of the school came a litile later when he alienated his remaining supporters by admitting a colored pupil. By this time Alcott was a transcendentalist of the mystic sort, interested in temperance, women^s rights, dress reform, dietetics, the water cure, and all the other fads Alcotfs Tran- ^^^^ which New England was then agitated, scendentalism . . ° ° He aided in founding the Symposium, which included most of the leading devotees of the new philosophy. He also began to hold ^^conversations'^ at which, for a sub- stantial fee, he discussed the nature of things. In 1837 he had completed a rhapsodical work entitled Psyche, or the Breath of Childhood, but it was never published. A few years later he removed to Concord and endeavored to make a living by day labor among his neighbors. The demands made upon his time by reform conventions and the visits of other enthusiasts were, however, so great that his family had but precarious support. His theories had already gained some following among the more erratic liberals abroad, and in 1842 Emerson and other friends subscribed money to send him to England. Here he found some congenial spirits, but failed to make a favorable impression on Carlyle. When he returned he brought with him two Englishmen, Lane and Wright, who were looking for a spot ^Vhereon the new Eden may be planted.^^ They secured a farm which they rechris- tened "Pruitlands,'^ and on which they endeavored to found a community which should be less sordid than that at Brook Farm. No animal products were to be eaten, and the soil was not to be insulted by the admixture of manures of animal 244 American Literature origin. The rights of worms and insects were to be respected. No vegetables were to be eaten which, like the potato, grew downward instead of aspiring. After the failure of this experiment the Alcott family endured various vicissitudes until 1857, when they again settled at Concord. After the eldest daughter, Louisa, became able to support the family with her pen her father gave all his time to writing and philo- sophical speculation. In 1879 he was instrumental in found- ing the Concord School of Philosophy, of which he continued as dean until his death. In the winter of 1880-81 he made an extended trip in the West giving conversations. At this time he was returning to something approaching orthodoxy in religious belief. In 1882 he suffered a paralytic stroke, after which he wrote nothing. Besides the writings already mentioned Alcott published in the ^^DiaF^ his ^^Orphic Sayings,'^ a series of sententious ob- servations which were often unintelligible, and ^^?, ^ which did as much as any one thing to expose transcendentalists to ridicule. Between 1868 and his death he issued several volumes — Tablets, Concord Days, and Table Talk in prose, and Sonnets and Canzonets and New Connecticut in verse. Some of his prose essays, like those on lighter topics in Concord Days, have a pleasant literary flavor. Wherever he deals with philosophical questions he shows an abnormal mysticism in thought, and a tendency to be ^^orphic^^ in form. New Connecticut is autobiography in jingling quatrains. Sonnets and Canzonets, a series part of which tells the story of his love and marriage after the manner of an Elizabethan sonnet cycle, is in smooth conven- tional form, but there is evidence that his lines were retouched by his friends. In all his writings he shows the sense of his own importance which inspired his question to Emerson: "You write on the genius of Plato, of Pythagoras, of Jesus; why do you not write of me ?" The Central Period 245 Alcott's friends, among whom were most of the greater transeendentalists, found something in the man which they , ^ , liked, and much in his thought which they Alcott'sRank /, , .. a ^ i.- ;i considered suggestive. Some oi his peda- gogical notions foreshadow theories since generally accepted. It is probable that he does not appear at his best in his writ- ings, and that he does not now have full justice done him. But it seems to be his fate to be remembered as an awful example of the extremes to which transcendentalists could go. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), the most famous woman of the transcendental movement, was born in Cambridgeport, ,. « Massachusetts. Her father, a somewhat er- Margaret Fuller . , , t • . • i i ratic lawyer and politician, took personal charge of her education, and put her through a process of intellectual forcing which she resented in later years. She began the study of Latin at six years of age, and by the time that she was a young woman was well versed in Latin, Ger- man, French, and Italian, and knew some Greek. After her father^s death she voluntarily assumed much of the responsi- bility for the care, support, and education of her younger brothers and sisters. She taught in Alcott's famous school in Boston, and in Providence, Ehode Island, and she con- ducted with great success conversations for classes of women in Boston. From 1840 to 1842 she edited the ''Dial.'' In 1844 she became a member of the editorial staff of the ''New York Tribune,'' and lived for a time in the family of Horace Greeley. While in New York she visited many of the chari- table and penal institutions, and was greatly interested in sociological questions, particularly those relating to women. Her contributions to the "Tribune" were artistic, dramatic, and literary criticisms, and miscellaneous articles. In 1846 she went abroad and visited England, France, and Italy. In England she met most of the leading men of letters, and in Paris formed the acquaintance of George Sand. She was in 246 American Literature Italy during the troubles of 1848-9^ and was the friend and confidante of Mazzini^ whom she had met in London. Late in 1847 she was secretly married to the Count Ossoli, a young Italian gentleman who had forsaken his family principles and become a liberal. The next summer she spent in the moun- tains of Abruzzi, where her son was born. As her marriage was still a secret^ she left the child with a nurse and returned to Eome. During the siege of 1849 she attended the wounded in one of the hospitals. After the victory of the French she went with her husband and child to Florence, and in the spring of 1850 the family sailed from Leghorn for New York. The vessel was a small merchant brig, carrying but two other passengers. After an unfortunate voyage, during which the captain died and the child was ill with the small-pox, the ves- sel was wrecked off Fire Island, New York, and the entire family was drowned. An attempt to understand Margaret Fuller's personality leads to great perplexity. To the unsympathetic world which saw her at a distance she was a type of the Maxg^et mystical transcendentalist, and a woman in Personality whom intellectual ambition and an extraordi- nary egotism had crowded out all other quali- ties. This estimate might be 'supported by many citations from her journals, letters, and writings intended for publica- tion. On the other hand, her friends saw in her many admir- able womanly qualities. A series of love-letters written in 1845-6 to James Nathan, a Jewish commission merchant of New York, while they tempt severe comment on the recipient who made them public, tell the story of an intense romance, hardly to be expected of an abnormally intellectual blue-stock- ing of thirty-five. In the end, however, she says in her journal: "I shall write a sketch of it and turn the whole to account in a literary way, since the affections and ideal hopes are so unproductive.^' Her secret marriage on short acquaint- The Central Period 247 ance to a man who was much her junior^ and who according to her own frank statement was not her intellectual equal, was surprising, though it proved to be ideally happy. Her refusal in the final crisis of her life to be saved by the only available means because it involved separation of the family during the process of rescue is interpreted by some as an illustration of self-will, and by others as an instance of wifely and maternal devotion. While no theory of her personality will explain all the facts that are recorded of her, the most plausible seems to be that she was a woman of great mental alertness and strongly passionate nature, influenced by all the forces of transcendental K'ew England. An unattractive personal ap- pearance, a lack of tact, and a blunt and irritating manner in- herited from her father repelled most persons at first sight, while she fascinated those who came within the range of her attraction. Her long friendship with Emerson is the most important of her intimacies. The world failed to satisfy either her intellectual or her emotional longings. From one disappointment came her mysticism, her occasional indulgence in the satiric mood, and her expressions of ridiculous or re- pelling egotism; from the other came the abandon shown in her letters to James Nathan, and perhaps in her marriage. Ill health and constant introspection led to many of her in- consistencies and sudden changes of mood. It is as an illustration of the effect of transcendentalism on .such a woman that the career of Margaret Fuller is chiefly important. Both she and her friends agreed Margaret ^.j^^^. ^^le talked much better than she wrote. Writings ^^^ ^^^^ volume. Summer on the Lakes, pub- lished in 1843, was based on a Western excur- sion, supplemented by much hard labor in the library of Har- vard college. Even since the editor of her collected works has omitted some of the longer digressions it is a disjointed and ill-proportioned work. Indeed, she seems always to have 248 American Literature lacked a sense of literary form. Her pamphlet^ Woman in the Nineteenth Century, expanded from an article in the ^^Dial/^ was published in 1844. It was long regarded as one of the ablest presentations of the claims of woman, but is now interesting chiefly as an indication of the way in which the important questions regarding woman's place in society have changed. Just before she went abroad in 1846 she gathered together two volumes of her fugitive writings under the title of Papers on Literature and Art, The manuscript of a work on the Italian Eepublic, the fruit of her best labors abroad, was lost at the time of her death. In 1855-6 her brother edited four volumes of her collected works, which include, besides the writings already mentioned, other papers from periodicals, and from manuscripts, a few original poems, and an early metrical translation of Goethe's ^^Tasso.'' Her verse is unsuccessful. Her prose is on a variety of subjects. She enjoyed nature, and wrote of it, though Emerson is right in saying that her ^^raptures'' are somewhat "sickly and super- ficial.'' She had much to say of art, to which she was perhaps drawn by her study of Goethe, but her judgments are erratic. The same is true in a lesser degree of her literary criticism. Many of her writings are significant as indications of the transcendental view of things, but few of them deserve preser- vation for either content or manner. Much more interesting is the memoir in which Emerson, Channing, and James Free- man Clarke join their reminiscences and interpretations of her life and work. Theodore Parker (1810-1860) was the most active practi- cal reformer among the transcendentalists. His father was unable to send him to college, but he took the Parker^^* entrance examinations at Harvard and studied by himself for four years, coming up from his home in Lexington, Massachusetts, to pass the examinations with each class. As he had not been in residence and had The Central Period 249 paid no tuition^ he did not receive his bachelor's degree. After completing a course at the Harvard Divinity school he became minister of the Unitarian church at West Eoxbnry^ Massa- chusetts. His radicalism was soon apparent and older min- isters of his denomination shunned him. In 1845 he began to preach in Boston, where he continued until just before his death. Though denied fellowship by other Unitarian churches he attracted a large congregation, and became known as a great pulpit orator and lyceum lecturer. He was active in all reforms, but especially in the anti-slavery movement. He aided fugitive slaves, incited mobs to rescue negroes from the hands of the authorities, secured arms to send to Kansas, and was privy to part, at least, of John Brown's plans for his Virginia campaign. His writings were numerous. He con- tributed several papers to the "Dial,'' and, beginning in 1849, conducted for three years the "Massachusetts Quarterly Re- view." His complete works, published in Boston and London after his death, include sermons, lectures, and suggestive articles on many themes. Parker was a persistent and energetic student, and he had remarkable powers of acquisition. He knew something of twenty different languages, and he had made Attai^^^ ts some investigations in most departments of knowledge, particularly those relating to phi- losophy. He had the power which belongs to a self-educated man with a vast store of facts which he can command and use at will. The calm patience of the scholar or the higher tastes of the man of culture he did not have. He wrote that he would rather have been a Franklin than a Michael Angelo. His sense of literature as well as of other arts was uncertain. His own works, though they are always forcible and show the rare power of introducing numerous facts and allusions with- out the appearance of pedantry, are often slightly bombastic, and lack reserve and sustained dignity of tone. 250 American Literature Unitarianism changed rapidly in Parker's lifetime, and when he died those who had earlier denied him fellowship were ready to build his tomb as that of a prophet. His biography has several times been written, his works are still published, and the centenary of his birth was widely observed. He was an attractive and forceful man, able and sincere, and he contributed something to the develop- ment of religious thought. In American letters he was a striking and picturesque rather than an important figure. George Eipley (1803-1880) was born in Greenfield, Massa- chusetts, was graduated at Harvard in 1823, and after com- r p* 1 pleting his divinity course became pastor of a newly organized Unitarian church in Bos- ton. He was a thorough student, and soon came to be re- garded as one of the scholars of the transcendental movement. His devotion to the new ideas was not wholly approved by his church, and he resigned his pastorate to become the leader in the Brook Farm Association. In all his work he was greatly assisted by his wife, who was a woman of remarkable person- ality. Both Mr. and Mrs. Eipley devoted themselves with equal earnestness to the speculative and the practical questions involved in the new scheme. Both did their share of manual labor and taught in the school. Eipley's devotion to the community continued to the last, and when failure came he assumed the debts that remained, and sold his extensive private library to meet them. For a time he conducted at New York the ^^Harbinger,'' which had been founded by the Brook Farm community as an organ of Fourierism. When this failed Horace Greeley, who had been interested in Brook Farm, made him literary editor of the "New York Tribune,^' a position that he held to his death. He also did much mis- cellaneous writing and with C. A. Dana edited the New American Cyclopcedia. Eipley is important for his connection with Brook Farm The Central Period 351 and kindred movements, and for his later work as literary critic on the ^^New York Tribune/^ When he accepted his position on the ^"Tribune^^ no daily newspaper in the country gave a scholarly and dignified discussion of literary matters. Though he was not a great critic, his taste was sound, his reading wide, and his scholar- ship thorough, and he made his department a model for other journals. He is, however, to be remembered for his influence, not for his achievements. A projected collection of his essays and reviews was never published and only the curious student is likely to read his writings to-day. Among the minor poets of transcendentalism were Christo- pher P. Cranch, Jones Very, and William Ellery Channing. Cranch (1813-1892) was born in Virginia, Minor Poets ^^g graduated from Harvard, and during the Channing ' early years of the transcendental movement was a clergyman. Later he withdrew from the ministry, studied art in Italy and Prance, lived for a time in New York, and returned to Cambridge, where he died in 1892. His poems of the transcendental period were mostly short lyrics, of which the best is the "Stanzas^^ published in the ^^DiaV^ beginning: Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought. Later he published a translation of Virgil, some tales for children, and other writings. Jones Very (1813-1880) was born in Salem and after graduation from Harvard was tutor in that institution. He became afflicted, however, with a re- ligious monomania that interfered with his career. Though licensed to preach he never had a congregation, and after the transcendental excitement was over lived quietly until his death in 1880. The seven hundred poems in his collected works are all short, many of them being sonnets, and the ma- 253 American Literature jority of them express his idealistic beliefs. They are smooth, and delicate in manner, and some of them still hold their places in the anthologies ; but the author is more likely to be remembered as another erratic member of Emerson^s circle than as a poet. William Ellery Channing (1818-1901), fre- quently known as Ellery Channing to distinguish him from his more eminent uncle of the same name, was a native of Boston. He attended Harvard college for a time, went west for two or three years, and engaged in editorial work in New York and elsewhere. His wife was a sister of Margaret Fuller, and he was intimate with Thoreau, whose biography he wrote. His friends felt that he had the temperament and the insight of a true poet ; and some of his verses strike a purer note than those of Cranch or Very, though they are usually not well sustained. Among the early transcendentalists who afterward became practical men of affairs were George William Curtis (1824- 1892) and Charles A. Dana (1819-1897). Both were contributors to the ^^DiaF^ and resi- dents at Brook Farm, and after the failure of that experiment both removed to New York and engaged in editorial work. The former will be considered among the New York writers. Dana^s later work, which included many years of editorial writing for the New York "Tribune'^ and the ^^Sun,^^ and the editing with Eipley of the New American Cyclopcedia, is less important. His early verses and some prose work in the "DiaF^ and the ^^Harbinger'^ show an idealism and aspiration not to be suspected from his later career. Orestes A. Brownson (1803-1876), who during his life- time dallied with most of the faiths, religious and political, known in America, was a transcendentalist during the central years of the movement. When a young man he joined the Presbyterian church, but a few years later he was a IJni- versalist minister and editor of a Universalist journal. He The Central Period 253 next transferred his allegiance to the Unitarians. After serving some time in the ministry of that denomination he became a transcendent alist^ and from 1836 M"i<>^ to 1843 was pastor of the Society for Christian wSs''^^''*^^ Union and Progress in Boston. From 1844 until his death he was a communicant of the Eoman Catholic Church, though his orthodoxy was often questioned by the American Catholic clergy. He was active in politics, much of the time as a member of the Democratic party, but often independent. In 1838 he founded the "Boston Quarterly Eeview;'^ and after he became a Catholic he edited "Brownson^s Quarterly Eeview.^^ Besides his maga- zine and review articles he published Charles Elwood, or The Infidel Converted, a novel, in 1840, The Spirit-Rapper, an Autobiography, in 1854, and several other works on religion, philosophy, and questions of the day. Of these Charles El- wood is the only one of importance in which he takes the transcendental point of view. He was an occasional attendant at the meetings of the Symposium, and the contributors to the "Boston Quarterly Eeview^^ were in some cases the same as those of the "Dial.^^ Brownson was a born controversialist, and no matter what his position might be at the time, he sup- ported it with cleverness and some ability. His frequent changes of party and church did much to discredit him, and his ideas were often not taken seriously. His style was well adapted to temporary controversy, but it was too flippant and uncertain in manner to ensure a lasting reputation for the author. James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) was another transcendentalist. Unitarian clergyman, and versatile author whose fame as a man of letters is by no means commensurate with his influence while living. He founded the Church of the Disciples in Boston, and became known as a transcen- dentalist, an abolitionist, and an advocate of woman's suffrage and other reforms. In later years he was often spoken of as 254 American Literature the leader of the Unitarian church in America. His numer- ous published works include many sermons, popular essays on theological subjects, some translations, and several histori- cal and biographical works. His book on Ten Great Religions attracted considerable attention. A later work. The Legend of Tliomas Didymus, the Jewish Sceptic, was an attempt to vivify and reconcile the gospel stories by means of an imagi- nary narrative credited to Thomas. The book is unsatisfac- tory; and indeed the author is rarely successful in anything but sermons and popular religious tracts. III. The New England Abolitionists The belief in the unrighteousness of human slavery, which finally resulted in the Emancipation Proclamation, did not originate in N^ew England. It had been de- e o ion veloping for generations throughout the civi- lized world, and in the early part of the nine- teenth century was generally diffused. More enlightened thinkers in the South, as well as those in the North, con- demned the institution until changing economic conditions and resentment at what they considered unwarranted inter- ference with local affairs forced them to support theories which at bottom they did not really believe. Both circum- stances and temperament united, however, to make the de- scendants of the New England Puritans the leaders in the movement for wider human freedom. At first the North realized the practical difficulties of emancipation, as the South realized its theoretical desirability. But about the beginning of the period now under consideration a few persons began to emphasize the moral at the expense of the practical aspects of the question, and to call for immediate abolition. At first these radicals were condemned in the North as bitterly as in the South. Business advantage and a more laudable hesi- tancy to interfere in the affairs of other states led most citi- The Central Period 255 zens to resent any inflammatory utterances against slavery; and the lower and more selfish classes of the community carried their resentment against the reformers to the point of perse- cution. The early transcendentalists had to withstand ridi- cule and supercilious unbelief; the early abolitionists were forced to endure social ostracism, and even physical violence. The revolution which changed the feeling toward the abo- litionists from abhorrence to honor came partly from an awakening of the public conscience, and partly from the political and economic developments that drove N'orth and South into extreme opposing positions. This change was accomplished first in New England and was hastened by a great number and variety of writings by New England men. All the transcendentalists who have been mentioned, with the partial exception of Brownson, were in sj^mpathy with the anti-slavery agitation. Some of them, notably . ®.. . . Emerson, felt that they had other messages to bear, and declined to take a very active part in abolition meetings and organizations; others were equally notable as anti-slavery workers and as transcendentalists. Parker and Clarke not only preached abolitionism, but per- sonally aided in the rescue and secretion of runaway slaves. Dana, especially after he took up newspaper work in New York, was a strong supporter of the anti-slavery crusade. There was also a number of men, less speculative and mystical than the transcendentalists, whose chief energies were devoted to the abolition movement, and who fairly constitute a group of anti-slavery writers. One of the earliest and most influential of these writers, though by no means the most meritorious, was William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879). He was a native of Garrison ^^ Massachusetts, and after he had served an apprenticeship on a local paper edited several minor journals, among them the ^^Genius of Universal Eman- 256 American Literature cipation'^ at Baltimore. In 1831 he founded the ^^Liberator'^ at Boston, and he continued to edit it and to speak and write for abolition until his end was accomplished. Garrison conducted his campaign, not by means of elaborate argument, but by the blunt and continued iteration of a few statements that he believed self-evident. His The Appeal of reasoning was simple. Starting with the pos- Writings tulate that all men are created free and equal, he argued that no man has a right to enslave another. Therefore, every slave is entitled to immediate emancipation regardless of consequences ; the man who with- holds due hire from the slave is a thief; and a Union based on a Constitution that recognizes an iniquity like slavery is accursed. The repetition of these ideas, expressed in the plainest language, on almost every page of Garrison^s writings is inartistic, and to the man who thinks of expediency seems fanatical; but the very fact that it irritates makes it forcible. This force is increased by a certain earnestness and dignity that pervades even the most bitter passages. There is harsh language in abundance, but it is never blackguardism, and rarely personal vituperation. It is because his utterances, extreme and impractical as they were, contained a grain of uncomfortable truth, that Garrison was hated, reviled, and mobbed, and in the end brought men to his side. His personal courage, his unceasing application, and his power of striking expression made him one of the most important forces in bringing about emancipation. In the literary history of the country he holds only the minor place accorded to a forceful pamphleteer. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), the chief poet of the anti-slavery movement, was born in Haverhill, Whittfer^'"''^''^ Massachusetts. Unlike the other more promi- nent literary men of New England he was a representative of the uncultured rural class. His ancestors The Central Period 257 were Quaker fanners who had quietly tilled the same home- stead since 1647, and had occupied the house in which he was born since 1688. Whittier^s own childhood was spent in the hard labor that devolved on a New England farmer^s boy, varied by attendance at brief winter terms of country school. When about fourteen years of age he made the acquaintance of Burns^s poems and was inspired to write verses of his own. A familiar story relates that one of these rhymed effusions was sent to a local paper, and that the editor, William Lloyd Garrison, rode to the Whittier home to see the young con- tributor, and to urge him to continue his education. The elder Whittier had a conservative Quaker farmer's distrust of superfluous learning, but his prejudices were so far overcome that the son spent two winters at Haverhill academy, earning his own expenses by shoe-making and teaching. Here he gained the rudiments of French and somewhat greater famili- arity with English literature. Through the influence of Garrison, Whittier secured in 1828 the editorship of the ^^American Manufacturer,'' published at Boston. Later he edited for brief periods of Ab rf ^^ *^t ^™^ weekly papers at Haverhill and at Hart- ford, Connecticut. Poor health, which throughout life interfered with his activities, and the cir- cumstances of his family induced him to return to the farm in 1832. In 1836 the old homestead was sold, and he re- moved to the village of Amesbury, which was his permanent residence until his death. Meanwhile he had become, through Garrison's influence, an abolitionist, had published in 1833 a pamphlet on slavery entitled Justice and Expediency, and was taking an active part in the anti-slavery propaganda. This devotion to an unpopular cause had a radical effect on both his worldly and his literary career. It blasted his political future, which is said to have been promising, and it changed the character of his writings. Before this he had 258 American Literature aflEected the manner of Byron and Scott, and had published many poems in newspapers and magazines. In 1831 he had collected a series of sketches first contributed to the "New England Magazine/^ and issued them as Early Writings ^ ^®^^ Legends of New England, and the next year he published a long narrative poem, "Moll Pitcher/^ These early writings, almost all of which were suppressed in later life, :are intrinsically unimportant, but they indicate how different might have been his literary career if he had not deliberately given himself for thirty years to the anti-slavery cause. Poor health and limited financial circumstances restricted Whittier^s activities, but he gave to the abolition movement all the energy that he possessed. He con- A • ^!^o^ ^^ ducted for .a short time an abolitionist paper in Against Slavery , . . ^ ^ Philadelphia, where his office was destroyed by a mob, and he was threatened with personal violence ; and from time to time he did editorial work on other papers. When new occasions arose he put in verse the feelings of his party. Nor was he useful merely as a writer. He believed in accomplishing results by any honorable means, and he became associated with the "New Movement,^^ opposed in method to Garrison and others who refused to exercise political privi- leges under a government that tolerated slavery. The qualities which had made his own political prospects bright while he was a conservative still served him, and he took an active and often effective part in the work of conventions, committees, and other organizations. His Quaker faith pre- vented him from approving the war as such, but he seems to have felt that it was necessary, and he rejoiced in the result. Whittier never married. Certain poems which he charac- terized as "subjective and reminiscent'^ imply that he had loved, but such was his reserve that his biographers have not succeeded in learning much regarding his affections, or even The Central Period 259 in identifying their object or objects with certainty. One reason for his celibacy was probably his financial circum- stances, and his feeling of obligation to his mother and sister. His health prevented him from engaging in w ittiers regular remunerative work, and it was not until after the war that his copyrights yielded enough to relieve him from anxiety over business affairs. He was a man with few intimates, and these were mostly in the humbler walks of life. With the members of the Boston lit- erary set he was on terms of pleasant acquaintanceship, but nothing more. His relations with James T. Fields and Bayard Taylor, whom he associates with himself in his poem, ^^The Tent on the Beach,^^ were somewhat closer. Probably some of his neighbors in the little village of Amesbury knew him best. His closest friends outside his own social class were women. The frequency of Whittier's publications suggests the ra- pidity and fluency with which he wrote. Besides the early works already mentioned he published ^^Mogg SoUfic Writer ^^S^^^/' ^ ^^^S narrative poem, in 1836, and collections of poems in 1837, 1838, 1840, 1843, 1846, 1849, 1850, 1853, 1856, 1860, 1864, and 1865, besides several volumes of prose, and many articles in periodicals. When the ^^ Atlantic Monthly^^ was founded he became one of the contributors. His volumes published before 1865 contain some of his best miscellaneous work, but throughout almost all of them the anti-slavery element is prominent, and in many it predominates. Although he was interested in woman's suffrage and other reforms his heart was bound up only in the abolition move- ment, and when this was accomplished he became less of a propagandist and more of a man of letters. At the close of the war he was, however, nearly sixty years old, and his lit- erary manner was well formed. He continued to write pro- 260 American Literature fusely until his death, publishing ^^Snow-Bound^' in 1866, "The Tent on the Beach^' in 1867, and other volumes of verse in 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1881, 1883, 1886, and 1892, besides a revised edition of his complete writings in 1888-9, and some miscellaneous work. If an in- creased proportion of his better poems is found in the late vol- umes it is because he gave more time to themes of permanent importance, rather than because of any great development. The habit of writing rapidly and with little revision had be- come fixed, and he was too old to break it. He attempted no new forms and acquired but little greater skill in the old ones. Whittier^s favorite themes, aside from those connected with slavery, were events in the early history of New England, especially the persecution of the Quakers and Whittier's -t^g witches; Indian legends; the simple life Poems ^^ rural New England; and religious doubt and belief. The anti-slavery poems were mostly inspired by particular events — "editorials in verse,^^ they have been aptly called. Their lack of interest now is due in part to the qualities that once made them effective — their intensity and their pertinency to questions of immediate timely inter- est. It must be remembered, however, that they were the best of the innumerable verses on similar themes. Even to-day it is impossible to read "The Hunters of Men,^^ with its sarcasm and scorn, or "Massachusetts to Virginia,^^ with its impassioned indignation, and not feel something of the stirring of the old conflict. Nominally in this group of poems, though different in character and quality, are "Ichabod^^ in which he expressed his grief at what he felt to be the apostasy of Webster, and "Laus Deo,^^ his noble hymn of thanksgiving over the fall of slavery. It is in his narrative poems that Whittier shows the great- est development. His early ambition was to write long nar- rative poems on American themes. This was, however, be- The Central Period 261 yond his powers. Both ^^Mogg Megone'^ and "Moll Pitcher^' were failures; and the author turned to the form of verse in which he excelled, the short and simple ballad. Whittier's The majority of his ballads, like "Mabel l^mT^ Martin/^ "Skipper Ireson^s Eide/' "Barbara Frietchie/^ and most of the tales in "The Tent on the Beach/^ have an historical or legendary origin, but some of the most effective, such as "Telling the Bees'^ and "Maud MuUer/^ are creations of fancy expressing some ele- mental emotional experience. All those mentioned are simple stories simply told; "The Sisters^^ shows that if need be he could produce a dramatic effect. Whittier^s powers of description are seen to advantage in the narrative poems. His handling of descriptive background in poems like "Telling the Bees^^ is unsur- Whittier's passed, if not unequalled, in American verse. owers of jj^g purely objective poems of nature are hardly as good; but some of those in which there is a strong subjective element must be ranked, with his ballads, as his j&nest work. Such are "Sunset on the Bear- Camp,'' "The Eiver Path,'' "A Sea Dream," "The Barefoot Boy," and, greatest of all, "Snow-Bound." In these, as in the ballads, the chief characteristic is absolute naturalness and fidelity to nature and to human life, without reference to artificial conventionalities. Everywhere in Whittier as in Burns the reader is struck by conversational turns of phrase, homely figures of speech, which would be fatal if used with the slightest affectation, but which constitute one of the chief charms of the verse. God's colors all are fast, from "Sunset on the Bear-Camp" may serve as an illustration. The religious verses are not great poetry, but they express the genuine spiritual emotions of a simple and devout man. 363 American Literature Quakerism, long a despised faith, found itself in many re- spects in harmony with the new transcendental spirit of New England, and the poef s expressions of Whittier's quiet trust in the Divine had an especial e gious charm for those who had reached a belief in the Verse Inner Light by the troubled way of German philosophy. Whittier's true attitude is indicated by the familiar stanza from "The Eternal Goodness :^^ I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. In other poems he showed just enough questioning to prove that he was intellectually alert in the midst of the nineteenth century; but serious religious doubt he probably never felt. His fondness for subjects connected with the Holy Land is a curious illustration of his old-fashioned attitude toward religious matters. It is noticeable that though he was a Quaker the hymnbooks of most denominations contain more of his hymns than of those by any other American poet. The three volumes of prose in Whittier's collected writings contain some meritorious work, but little that would have been reprinted if it had not been for the ^^^** w' Y author's reputation as a poet. Most important from a literary standpoint is ^^Margaret Smith's Journal,'' a painstaking piece of work which aims to recreate, by means of a slight fictitious narrative, something of colonial New England. It introduces the author's favorite topics of slavery, the Quakers, and the Indians, and its thread of tragic romance implies a provincial distrust of those who came from the gayer social life of England. Some of the lighter sketches, such as ''Yankee Gypsies," and ''The Fish I didn't Catch," are pleasant reading. The author's first anti- slavery utterance, "Justice and Expediency," is in a height- The Central Period 263 ened oratorical manner, and presents both the moral and the practical arguments against slavery with great intensity. The Portraits, Sketches, Historical Papers, Criticisms, etc., are mostly unimportant articles collected from maga- zines. In both his limitations and his excellences Whittier was representative of rural New England. In many ways his life was narrow. He never travelled. His educa- r ?T^ tipn as a boy was slight and he never owed much to books. Most of the greater works of English literature influenced him little and those of other literatures not at all. His Quaker training restricted him in many ways. He had no knowledge or appreciation of music ; he never entered a theatre; he seems to have cared little for painting and sculpture; and it is doubtful if he ever fully appreciated the value of form in poetry. His own metres are simple and few in number, and he rarely attempted anything so slightly artificial as the sonnet. He had a characteristic love of the didactic, and showed his limitations in the remark that the ^Tsalm of Lif e'^ was ^Vorth more than all the dreams of Shelley and Keats and Wordsworth.^^ Indeed, the fact that his moral was stronger than his artistic sense :accounts directly and indirectly for his chief deficiencies, his common- places, his careless rhymes, and all the crudities due to haste and lack of revision. Whittier's good qualities were equally typical of his class and his environment. He had the seeing eye and the feeling for the picturesque that are natural to a race of ExceUences intelligent men who know life from observation rather than from books. He had all the ISTew England shrewdness, idealism, belief in democracy, and devo- tion to truth. From these characteristics came his accuracy and vividness in description, his knack of story-telling, his mastery of the forms of language and of verse that make 264 American^ Literature a strong, simple appeal, and the high moral quality that is everywhere present in his poems. It is because New England ideals have, in the course of national development, become common to so many sections of the country that Whittier has good claim Ameiic^%oQt^ ^^ ^^ called the most representative American poet. Though the life detailed in ^^Snow- Bound'^ and "Maud MuUer'^ is long a thing of the past, a large part of the American people still hold the Quaker farmer's ideas of the independence and dignity of labor, and still feel, though reason may tell them differently, that a union between the Judge and the barefoot maiden would have been neither impractical nor unwise. Conditions change, and Americans are no doubt coming to read "Maud MuUer'^ as Englishmen read of King Cophetua and the beggar maid. For the many who have taken it, or still take it, as a literal commentary on life, Whittier has spoken better than any other poet. The author's personality also aided in giving him the char- acter of a national representative. Strong as was his indig- nation over slavery, and bitter as were his denunciations, he never seemed to be actuated by selfish motives, or to harbor personal ill-feeling. His desire to do absolute justice is illus- trated by his care that "Ichabod'' should be followed in his poems by "The Lost Occasion,'' in which he expresses a more charitable opinion of Webster; and by the note in which he showed his anxiety lest "Skipper Ireson's Eide" might per- petuate a tradition that did injustice to a man long dead. Probably no other abolitionist uttered such strong words and aroused so little personal hostility. His gentleness, his obvi- ous genuineness, his dignified simplicity, his adherence to the forms of Quakerism, even his bachelor loneliness, separated him from other men, and made him appear as the world feels a poet should; and as the man shows in all his works, these The Central Period 265 same characteristics still seem to make him typical of the best in old New England^ if not in the nation at large. The greatest orator of the anti-slavery canse^ Wendell Phil- lips (1811-1884), was the descendant of an old and aristo- cratic New England family. He was gradu- ^ ^ ated from Harvard college and Harvard law school, and opened an office in Boston. When he identified himself with the abolitionists he fnlly realized that he was sacrificing social position and professional success. He first attracted attention in 1837 when at a meeting in Paneuil Hall he made a sudden and dramatic reply to a speech by the attorney-general of the commonwealth^ who had defended the mobbing of Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor in Illinois. Erom this time until emancipation was secured he was constantly active, speaking wherever he could be heard. Be- sides his anti-slavery addresses he delivered lyceum lectures on other topics. Even before the close of the war he was interested in woman's suffrage and teetotalism, and after the slave was freed he supported various extreme theories of reform. As an abolitionist Wendell Phillips excites admiration for the moral and physical courage that he displayed, and deserves credit for accomplishing much in behalf of his cause. As an orator he had, according to tradition, wonderful infiuence over an audience. As a man of letters he was of less im- portance. It is, indeed, hard to see on reading his speeches what constituted their power. They usually begin tactfully; some of them, like that on Toussaint FOuverture, contain highly wrought passages much m vogue for school and college declamations; and a few, like the plea for the removal of Judge Loring, show skilful and logical reasoning. Most of them, however, appeal to the prejudices of the hearers, and are only clever and rather specious in argument, though ap- parently the work of a man who was not deliberately insincere. 266 American Literature His most famous lyceum lecture not on a controversial topic, ^^The Lost Arts/^ contains some history and science, partly false, so stated as to produce an eminently heightened effect. Indeed, many of his addresses give the reader an impression of unintentional distortion to make an effective case. J^mes Eussell Lowell (1819-1891) belongs partly to the anti-slavery writers and partly to the group of New Eng- landers who were in the largest sense men of James ussell Jitters. His interests were wide, and he wrote on many themes; but he gave, though not quite so completely as Whittier, some of his best years to the support of abolitionism. He was born in Cambridge in 1819, almost a half-generation after the other N'ew England writers of first rank. His family was one of considerable distinction. One member founded the town of Lowell, Massachusetts, another established the Lowell Institute in Boston. His father was pastor of the West Church, Boston. James Eussell Lowell was the youngest of six children. He inherited from his mother an imaginative disposition, and he grew fond of reading imaginative books — among the earliest being Scott^s tales and the Faerie Queen. He was fortunate in having among his playmates boys like the Danas, William Wetmore Story, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. In 1834 he en- tered Harvard college, where he read much in his own fashion, formed friends among the literary set, and edited the col- lege magazine, but neglected such of his studies as were un- attractive to him. The faculty showed him the leniency with which faculties are likely to treat a bright and wholesome boy who insists on doing things in his own way, but at la&t his record grew too bad. It was apparently the sum of many minor delinquencies rather than any one serious act that led to his "rustication^^ in his senior year. This old-fashioned punishment consisted in placing the culprit in the family of some scholarly country clerg}nnan, who furnished board, lodg- The Central Period 267 ing^ instruction, and exhortation. In this case the place of banishment was Concord. After receiving a degree Lowell hesitated in the choice of a profession. He considered the ministry, law, business, even medicine. The final decision was law, and he Maria White — ^^s graduated from the Harvard Law school Encasement ^^ 1840. In college he had been a careless, sentimental youth, with a tendency to be mildly satirical, perhaps to affect the blase. While at Concord he had refused to take Emerson seriously, and in his class-day poem had satirized him and the abolitionists. He would inevitably have changed as- he became older, but the change was hastened by his acquaintance with Maria White. This young woman was of the more spiritual New England type, a writer of verses, and a reformer who dared at that early date to appear on the public platform, yet who kept the most perfect modesty and girlish womanliness. Lowell had met her while he was agitated over the choice of a profession, and about the time of his graduation from the law school they became engaged. It is significant of the young people them- selves and of the idyllic society in which they lived that their love-letters were passed about among their many friends that others might enjoy their happiness. Miss White stimulated Lowell to greater literary productive- ness and interested him in the anti-slavery reform. His first volume of verse, which appeared a year after UUra^WoX *^^^^^ betrothal with the significant title of A Year's Life, consisted mostly of love poems. But few of these have been preserved in the author^s collected works. At this time he was nominally practicing law, but really occupying himself with contributing to the magazines and lecturing a little. Besides poems he published a series of papers on the ^^Old English Dramatists^^ in the ^^Boston Miscellany,'' and a prose tale, ''My first Client.'' In 1843 he 268 American Literature joined with his friend Eobert Carter in founding a magazine of his own, "The Pioneer/^ This lasted but three months, and left the proprietors in debt, but it is valuable as illustrat- ing the remarkable selective ability which Lowell always showed as an editor. The three numbers contain contributions by Poe, Story, Hawthorne, Neal, Jones Very, and others then inconspicuous who have since won fame. In 1844 Lowell was married, and lived for the winter in Philadelphia and afterward at the family home, Blmwood, in Cambridge. He had little money, and like Hawthorne in the early days of his married life found it difficult to make ends meet. In the year of his marriage he published another collection of poems, containing among others "Prometheus"^ and the "Legend of Brittany.^^ The next year he issued his first volume of prose, Conversations on some of the Old Poets, In 1846 he became a regular contributor to the "Anti- Slavery Standard,^^ and in this year he wrote the first of the "Biglow Papers.^^ These were published in newspapers, and in 1848 collected into a volume. The year 1848, the most im- portant in Lowell's literary life, also saw the publication of the "Fable for Critics,^' "The Vision of Sir LaunfaV' and another volume of poems. In the hope of reviving Mrs. Lowell's failing health the family went abroad in 1851, but the benefit was slight, and she died in 1853. Pour chil- dren had been born to them, of whom but one survived the mother. The record of these joys and sorrows may be traced in some of the father's finest poems. In 1855 James Eussell Lowell was chosen to deliver the Lowell Institute lectures at Boston, and the indirect result of his success was his appointment to succeed Lowell Longfellow as Smith professor of modern H^vard^ ^* languages and literatures at Harvard. Before entering upon his duties he went abroad to study, spending most of his time in Germany. In 1857 he The Central Period 269 was married to Miss Frances Dunlap. The same year he became editor of the "Atlantic Monthly.'^ The "Atlantic Monthly^^ was planned as a medium of ex- pression for the literary men of New England who were in sym- pathy with the new movements for reform and M^l ^^^ ^^^ social tendencies. Among its early contributors were Longfellow, Whittier, Emer- son, Holmes, J. T. Trowbridge, T. W. Higginson, Mrs. Stowe, and a little later Hawthorne and many others. Before this time the only important New England magazine had been the "North American Eeview,^^ and this, through fear of injur- ing its subscription list, had become a trimmer on all political and social questions. Under Lowell^s editorship the "At- lantic^^ at once achieved a preeminence never before or since attained by an American magazine, and for many years after- ward represented what was best in American literature. Lowell retained the editorship of the "Atlantic'^ until 1861, when he surrendered it to James T. Fields, of the firm of Ticknor and Fields, which had purchased Lowell's ^ the magazine. In 1863 he became one of the to Magazines editors of the "North American Eeview,^^ and succeeded in making it a live periodical with real opinions. His prose contributions to the "Atlantic^^ and the "North American'^ were both literary and political, the political being in the early years the more important. Most of his greater critical essays were written after the war was finished, and reconstruction was well under way. Since the "North American'' did not publish verse his poems were printed in the "Atlantic.'' In 1862, after repeated solicita- tion, he began in the "Atlantic" a second series of "Biglow Papers," and continued them at intervals until 1866. In 1864 Lowell collected a volume of prose miscellanies which was issued as Fireside Travels— a fanciful title which, like those of later collections, was chosen by the publisher. 270 American Literature not by the author. In 1865, at the services held in honor of the sons of Harvard who died in the Civil War, he read his "Commemoration Ode/^ considered by many WrTto ^s^^*^^ critics his poetical masterpiece. In 1868 ap- peared a collection entitled Under the Wil- lows, and in 1870 a long poem, The Cathedral. Two volumes of critical essays, the first series of Among my Books and My Study Windows, were published in 1870 and 1871 re- spectively. In 1872 Lowell resigned the editorship of the "North American Eeview,^^ secured a respite from his professorial duties, and went to Europe for two years. On Lowell's Ills return to America he wrote for the "Na- Activities tion^^ some satirical verse on the political morals of the country in which he came as near as his geniality allowed to showing ill-nature. This re- sulted in unpleasant criticism, and was the first occasion of the absurd charge, often repeated, that Lowell was losing his Americanism. In 1876 he took an active interest in the cam- paign, and was delegate to the national convention and presi- dential elector. After the election of President Hayes he was appointed minister to Spain, where he served for three years. In 1880 he was promoted to the Court of» Saint James, and represented the United States there until he was recalled by President Cleveland in 1885. In Spain he made an efficient minister, but was out of the main current of events. In Eng- land he succeeded as no American before him had done in being ambassador not only to the court but to the literary and social circles of the country. He developed great powers as an occasional speaker, and was everywhere in demand. The second Mrs. Lowell died in the year of his recall from England, and after his return to America he made his home with his married daughter, first at Southborough, Massachu- setts, then in the family residence at Elmwood. For the The Central Period 271 summers he usually went to England. In 1887 he again de- livered the Lowell Institute lectures, choosing as a subject his favorite theme, the Old English Drama- Yerrs^^'^ ^^^* tists. These lectures were printed in 1893. Other late volumes were Democracy and other Addresses, 1886, Heartsease and Rue, 1888, Political Essays, 1888. For many years he had been troubled with gout, and after suffering hopelessly from a complication of troubles he died in 1891. He had almost prepared for the press another collection of essays, and this was issued soon after his death. In 1893 appeared two volumes of his let- ters edited by Charles Eliot K'orton. These volumes of letters give a delightful view of LowelFs life and personality, and afford the best means of knowing an author whose works can be appreciated P^^^ \tv ^^^^ ^^ those who have formed the acquaint- ance of the man himself. In boyhood he was bright and interesting, and already showed some of the traits of the man. In college he was one of those brilliant but ir- repressible youths who are admired not for what they do, but for what they are and what they seem capable of doing. At this early age he had developed the habits, which he always retained, of an omnivorous reader and a bibliophile. In these years and those just following he had great aspirations and great though not unpleasing confidence in himself. As his acquaintance with Maria White brought out what lay deeper in his nature he came to sympathize strongly with the anti- slavery movement, and sacrificed something by allying him- self with the unpopular cause. At this time he was a mystic, seeing visions, and even feeling that he received direct revela- tions from God. Life dealt somewhat harshly with him, and it is in connection with his troubles and sorrows that his sweet- ness of character is best shown. It is pathetic to note the change from his enthusiastic confidence in his future as a 273 AMERiCAisr Literature poet to his questioning dissatisfaction with all his later work. There were no sudden transitions in his life^ but he passed gradually from the buoyant hopefulness of ^^The Vision of Sir LaunfaF^ and the rollicking humor of the ^^Fable for Critics^^ to a calmer though no less genial view of life. His diplomatic and social successes came in his later years^ the proper though unexpected reward of what had gone before. Through all he appears the same — ^whimsical^ kindly^ a man of the world in the better sense^ but as stern as his Puritan ancestors in his devotion to moral truth. Lowell^s earliest writing was in verse. He made rhymes in his boyhood, and in college his capabilities were recognized when he was chosen to write the class poem. Lowe s ar y jj^ ^^^ ^ student of the English poets, and his early work was often little more than a mosaic of phrases suggested by his reading. In the poems from his first volume the chief influence seems to be that of Tennyson. ''The Sirens'^ suggests ''The Lotos-Eaters:'' The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, The sea is restless and uneasy ; Thou seekest quiet, thou art weary, Wandering thou knowest not whither ; — Our little isle is green and breezy, Come and rest thee ! O come hither, Come to this peaceful home of ours, Where evermore The low west wind creeps panting up the shore To be at rest among the flowers ; Full of rest the green moss lifts, As the dark waves of the sea Draw in and out of rocky rifts. Calling solemnly to thee. There is even a closer imitation of Coleridge in, From the close-shut windows gleams no spark. The night is chilly, the night is dark ; and there are obvious echoes of Shelley, Keats, Southey, and others. This imitation grows less noticeable as time passes, The Central Period 273 but some of the later poems suggest Browning and Matthew- Arnold. In the early published poems there is no touch of humor^ though the letters of this time show that Lowell often scribbled verses that were full of fun. There is much on love and woman, something on the grave problems of life and the mission of the poet, relatively little on nature. In the poems written between the appearance of A Years Life and the author^s flowering year of 1848 there is more variety, often more power. Here come ^Trometheus^^ with its radical democracy, ''To a * Pine-Tree,'' ''To the Dandelion,'' and "Beaver Brook'' with their nature descriptions, the ringing verses of "The Present Crisis," and the restrained expressions of personal grief in "The Changeling" and "She Came and Went." The earliest work to attract much public attention was the first series of the "Biglow Papers," begun in the "Boston Courier" in 1846, and continued in the The Biglow "Anti-Slavery Standard" until 1848. In F^^t^s""' their original form these were poems in the Yankee dialect satirizing the Mexican War and the policy that favored it. The elaborate set- ting in which these poems are now found was added when they were collected in 1848. Some of the best things in the "Papers" are in this later part — the "Notices of an Inde- pendent Press," the rambling introduction by the Eeverend Homer Wilbur, and the notes interspersed throughout. The additions, however, tend to obscure the fact that the original design was wholly political. As the "Papers" now stand they satirize log-rolling literary criticism, later tendencies in verse, the pedantry and mild weaknesses of the New England clergy, the popular enthusiasm for Carlyle, and many other things. The greatest fault is that there is too much of this added material. Lowell never knew when to stop fooling, once he had begun. No other writer ever prepared a whole glossary 274 American Literature as a joke. It is a less se]:ious fault that the characters are none of them consistent. Birdofredom Sawin is so much of a clown that we hardly expect him to be true to real life. Hosea Biglow himself is always the same in his political be- liefs, but not in form of expression. His faults of spelling are much more exaggerated in some poems than in others, and oc- casional passages employ a learned diction quite impossible for a rustic like Hosea. Parson Wilbur shows the greatest inconsistencies of all. At times he is a ludicrous caricature of a narrow pedantic clergyman, at times a pathetic old con- servative, at times he is identical with Lowell himself. The use of dialect is explained partly by the author's interest in the peculiarities of local New England speech, partly by the fact that it gives greater freedom of expression. Audacities like those in the last lines of the following stanza would be intolerable in plain English: Ez fer war, I caU it murder, — There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that; God hez sed so plump an' fairly, It's ez long ez it is broad,' An' you've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. Dialect was also favorable to the introduction of humor, al- ways a necessity in effective political satire. The second series of the "Biglow Papers'' differs from the first chiefly in being less spontaneous. The Lowell of 1862 was more of a philologist and less of an en- SSn^ Series^ thusiastic reformer than the Lowell of 1846. The long introduction to the second series is signed by J. E. L. in his proper person, and is wholly serious. ''The CourtinV LowelFs only important dialect poem outside the ''Biglow Papers'' proper, is repeated from the Introduction to the first series, carefully enlarged to nearly twice its original The Central Period 275 bulk. The poems of the series as they appeared in the ^^At- lantic^^ show a tendency to wander from strictly political themes, as if to experiment with the possibilities of dialect verse. Indeed, certain pastoral and descriptive passages were adapted from an abandoned narrative poem, ^^The Nooning.'^ The extravagances attributed to Birdofredom Sawin seem, to a later day reader, less pleasing than those of the earlier series. Some effective lines of Yankee colloquialisms are, however, unexcelled. ^^ Jonathan to John^^ is full of them : Who made the law thet hurts, John, Heads I win, — ditto tails? "J. ^." was on his shirts, John, Onless my memory fails. We own the ocean, tu, John : You mus'n' take it hard, Ef we can't think with you, John, It's jest your own back-yard. Ole Uncle S. sez he, **I guess, Ef thefs his claim," sez he, "The fencin'-stuff'U cost enough To bust up friend J. B., Ez wal ez you an' me !" The ^^Fable for Critics^^ illustrates two of the author^s chief characteristics — his ability to form a correct estimate of an author from his early work, and his inability e a e or ^^ ^^^p joking when the reader has had enough. The parts of the work best known are the critical estimates of contemporary writers. A few of these show personal bias — Lowell over-praises his fellow-abolition- ist Mrs. Child, he shows his personal dislike of Margaret Puller, and he is rather patronizing in his attitude toward the Knickerbocker writers. Most of his judgments are, however, those of posterity, though often, as in case of Hawthorne, he was characterizing writers who had not done their best work. It is doubtful if many persons read the whole poem, with its 276 American Literature rhymed title-page and preface, and its rambling fable of Apollo, into which are brought innumerable puns, and discus- sions of all sorts of things, even capital punishment. On every page are clever lines, but the whole is too long and too hard to follow. There is a striking difference between the "Vision of Sir LaunfaV^ which also appeared in 1848, and either the "Big- low Papers^^ or the "Fable for Critics.^^ The S^ISal^^ "Vision^' was undoubtedly suggested by Ten- nyson^s treatment of the Grail legend. Its great popularity is due to its obvious moralizing and to the presence of some fine nature-descriptions. It is, however, lacking in originality of both idea and expression, and it shows great unevenness of execution. In the famous pas- sage on June there are prosaic lines like. The jflush of life may well be seen ; and close to the perfect characterization. Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, is the ridiculous metaphor: But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir LaunfaFs gray hair it makes a harp. The poem is said to have been written hurriedly, and it was evidently the product of one of those periods of spiritual exaltation that sometimes came to Lowell. "The Unhappy Lot of Mr. Knott,^^ which appeared in 1850, is worth notice only as the worst example of the extremes to which the author could go in punning. In owe s ater -j^-g ]^^gp poems he excelled in his appreciations of nature, and in short finished poems of senti- ment. The poems "Under the Willows^^ and "Pictures from Appledore'^ are representative of one class, "For an Auto- graph,^' "Auf Wiedersehen,'' and "Monna Lisa'' of the other. The "Harvard Commemoration Ode'' is his most ambitious The Central Period 277 production and has called forth various judgments. Jt is probably safe to say that it ranks well among the occasional poems written in the English language during the last half of the nineteenth century^ but it is not one of the world^s great odes. It has many sonorous passages and many quotable lines which, after all, do not seem to get themselves quoted. The best known section, that on Lincoln, was not part of the origi- nal poem. ^^'^The CathedraV^ reminiscent of a day spent at Chartres years before, is the only long poem in which Lowell treats the great changes in religious thought during the century in which he lived. It has some effective lines, but is strangely inconsistent in tone, and as a whole leaves an unsatisfactory impression. The last volume of verse. Heartsease and Rue, contains many sonnets to persons, and other minor poems, and some earlier pieces not included in former volumes. The long poem on the death of Agassiz, written in 1874, treats in a reminiscent way of the Cambridge men that Lowell knew, and has a per- sonal interest. ^'^FitzAdam^s Story,^^ which had originally been published in the ^'Atlantic Monthly'^ for 1867, is all that was written of a proposed series of verse tales. It is partly in dialect of a less pronounced order than that of the ^^Biglow Papers.^^ LowelPs prose writings consist of political and literary essays and a few miscellaneous papers. All the political essays which he cared to have preserved are contained ^TJ' ^ -n^ in a thin volume which he compiled late in life. Political Essays . ^ With but one or two exceptions the papers m this collection were written during the period of Civil War and reconstruction, and first appeared in the ^^Atlantic'^ or the "North American.^^ There is no representative of the earlier contributions to the "Anti-Slavery Standard,^^ and other reform publications, and but a small part of what he wrote at a later time. Even the few essays that were chosen for preser- 278 American Literature vation were edited and revised, some of them with a resulting confusion of tenses; so that they occasionally seem like prophecy written after the fact. This selection and revision was no doubt wise. During the early part of his life Lowell considered that his mission was poetry, and prose was but an unimportant avocation. In later years his most carefully written articles had, in order to be immediately effective, some of the qualities that make against permanency. The few selected essays give an adequate idea of his method and of his principles. Chief among these principles is a faith in democracy, based on faith in mankind. His confidence in the soundness of the American idea did not, however, blind him to Lowell's American faults. In his later essays, such as PriSes *^^* ^^ ''"^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ *^^ Independent in Poli- tics,^^ he shows his appreciation of American shortcomings with almost unpleasant frankness. His ideal- ism led him to argue from general truths rather than from expediency, even where practical questions were most immi- nent. His whimsicality led him to indulge in puns and di- gressions, even in the discussion of the most serious subjects. He played on the name of a Southern statesman to entitle one of his most earnest essays written during the War ^^The Pick- ens and Stealings Eebellion.^^ His candor and fairness showed itself now and then in some surprisingly frank statement ; and his moral enthusiasm is often expressed in passages of strong, almost impassioned, prose. LowelFs first volume of literary criticism was Conversations on some of the Old Poets, published in 1845. He chose this old-fashioned form in which to present his Cridcal^E opinions because it gave him the chance for a rambling treatment without apparent lack of unity. His later literary essays, though in more conventional form, are still conversations, or rather monologues, on the The Central Period 279 greater writers. He rarely discussed his contemporaries, and — strangely in view of his sure editorial judgments — when he did he was not at his best. His essays on Peicival and Thoreau are unsound and unfair. When he professed to re- view a recent book he wrote an essay, after the English fashion, on some subject which the book suggested. He was a wide reader and he early acquired the habit of making marginal and flyleaf annotations. When he undertook an essay on Dante, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, his own copies of these masters contained an abundance of suggestions. The disadvantage was that these marginal annotations, made at different times and in different moods, led to a rambling method of treat- ment, and sometimes to abrupt changes of tone. There is, however, usually an underlying plan to the essay, and a certain consistency is secured by the reappearance of a few favorite ideas. Among these are his faith in democracy, a punctiliousness regarding certain matters in the form of prose, an aversion to the exaltation of the Saxon element in the language, an insistence on the legitimacy of the Ameri- can idiom, a tendency to depreciate what America has done in literature, and a habit, more common now since the vogue of Matthew Arnold, of adopting the comparative method in discussing English literature. One of his peculiarities in method is that of referring to obscure and unheard of au- thorities in a manner that sometimes seems pedantic, and that is often unilluminating and wearisome. This is shown in an essay like ^^New England Two Centuries Ago,^^ which is nominally a review of two historical works. Another pe- culiarity is the unexpected introduction of quips, puns, and odd turns of phrase. Thus, in the essay on Shakespeare, he remarks in the midst of an otherwise serious and straight- forward passage: ^^Shakespeare himself has left us a preg- nant satire on dogmatical and categorical aesthetics (which commonly in discussion soon lose their ceremonious tails 280 American Literature and are reduced to the internecine dog and cat of their bald first syllables)/^ These whimsical expressions are less notice- able in the later prose. With the peculiarities of the essays that have been mentioned goes naturally their chief virtue — that they are the frank, genuine expression of opinion and feeling by a scholar who is at the same time a whole-souled lovable man. It is a mistake to read the essays without thinking as much of the author as of the subject. The only volume of miscellaneous essays is the Fireside Travels, made up in 1864 of papers that had been published in magazines. The first and the best of the LowelPs collection is ^^Cambridge Thirty Years Ago/^ Ess^^s^^^^^^ in which the author recalls boyish memories of his native village. ^^The Moosehead Jour- naF^ is a rather dull account of a journey into the Northern woods. The greater part of the volume is made up of remi- niscences of Italian travels with his friend W. W. Story. These are somewhat thin and are full of traveller's Italian phrases and of references to happenings of little interest to anyone except the participants. Better than anything in this col- lection are ^'^My Garden Acquaintance^' and ^^On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners/' in the volume My Study Wiiv- dows. The first of these is an especially charming out-of- door essay, showing as well as any of the poems the author's close observation of nature. The second, on a more patriotic theme, contains some of his finest humor. During the later years of his life Lowell suffered from over- praise, due partly to his diplomatic and social successes abroad, partly to the fact that he was the most Lowell's available man for Harvard and literary Bos- ermanent ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^p ^^ ^^ .^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^j^^ -^ ^^^ came customary to designate him as ^^the great- est American man of letters." When he died he left so de- lightful a memory that it is still hard to determine just how The Central Period 381 much this phrase means. Even in the future the critic who forms the acquaintance of his charming personality through the Letters will be tempted to rank his writings higher than they deserve. It seems^ however, that his poetry, the work by which he set the greatest store, has not the qualities that will give permanency. Notwithstanding its high ideals it is too commonplace in thought and far too imitative in form. Lowell never succeeded, except in his dialect verse, in develop- ing an individual manner. Some of the nature poems will long delight those who enjoy descriptive verse, the "Vision of Sir Launf aP^ will appeal to those who love a poetic [allegory, and the "Commemoration Ode^^ will hold its place among American patriotic poems — but the verse as a whole hardly makes the same popular appeal as that of Longfellow and Whittier, while it just lacks the perfection that would endear it to the scholar. The prose has been dismissed by one of the greatest Ameri- can critics with the remark that it "is of a transitory nature, and steadily grows less interesting.^^ This is no doubt true of the political writings; if it is true of the critical essays it is because they contain so much of the author that they are valuable only to those who know his personality. It seems likely that they will long continue to be suggestive, though they will no doubt lose much of their popularity as the traditions of Lowell the man fade away. It is unfortunate that whimsical lapses of taste mar the perfect form of all but the latest writings in owe s apses \^q^i^ verse and prose. In the poems the^re are not only prosaic lines such as have been cited from the "Vision of Sir Launf al,^^ but such eccentricities as : I waited with a maddened grin To hear that voice all icy thin Slide forth and tell my deadly sin To hell and heaven, Rosaline! 382 American Literature in the midst of a serious impassioned lyric. In the prose there are puns, flippant digressions, allusions to unheard of men and things, and pedantic exhibitions of vocabulary, as in the following from Fireside Travels: By and by, perhaps, enough observations will have been recorded to assure us that these recurrences are firmamental, and histrionomers will have measured accurately the sidereal years of races. When that is once done, events will move with the quiet of an orrery and nations will consent to their peridynamis and apodynamis with planetary composure. Such peculiarities as these may be pardoned, or even enjoyed by the author^s friends, but they repel the disinterested reader who loves artistic work for its own sake. The writings of Lowell that have most chance of life are probably the ^^Biglow Papers.^^ These are without question the greatest American political satire, and L ^ ^ W k ^^^^ show better than anything else the author^s originality. It may safely be pre- dicted that they will live in American political history :as other political satires have lived; and they are fairly well known abroad, where it is customary to refer to Lowell as an American humorist. But after a generation such writings are little read except by the special student — it is their fame, and not themselves, that survives. In this case the dialect, now obsolete in the community where the author heard it spoken, may aid in hastening oblivion. In conclusion, it should be remembered that the promise of enduring literary fame is not the only praise that can be bestowed upon a man of letters. The greater part of LowelPs life and energy was given to affairs of his own time, and his influence on his contemporaries, if not his published works, gives him a place in the literary history of his country. As political reformer, as editor, as teacher, above all as an ex- ample of the type of scholarly gentleman that the new world was able to produce, he perhaps did more than any of his The Central Period 283 contemporaries to dignify American literature at home and to win for it respect abroad. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911), the last sur- vivor of the distinguished group to which he belonged, was a man of interesting personality and no Thomas small ability. He was a graduate of Harvard, Hkdnson ^^^ preached for a time, but gave up his pul- pit because of his transcendental and anti- slavery views. He took part in attempts to rescue fugitive slaves, aided in the strife to keep Kansas free, and had sym- pathetic knowledge of John Brown^s Virginia campaign. In 1862 he entered the war, and was later colonel of the first black regiment organized. After two years he was forced to leave the service on account of wounds, and for the rest of his life devoted himself mainly to literature and to the woman's suffrage movement. He published a great variety of works — poems, biographies, histories, and essays. As a controversialist he was saved from tediousness by a touch of humor, and his literary and miscellaneous essays are often charming in manner. Perhaps his most valuable work is found in his autobiography, which bears the apt title of Cheerful Yesterdays, and in some of the many late essays in which he gives reminiscences of the greater men he had known, and of the great happenings in which he had borne a part. A great host of N'ew England men and women wrote and spoke in favor of abolition, but few won a place in literary history. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) Minor^ . was the daughter of a New York banker, but Writers lived in Boston after her marriage in 1843. Her early interests were in literary and philo- sophical studies, but the greater part of her long life was given to reforms. With her husband she edited an anti- Blavery paper in Boston, and after the war she became active 384 American Literature in the woman's suffrage propaganda. She wrote poems, two plays, descriptions of travel, and other miscellaneous prose, and published a somewhat disappointing volume of Bemi- niscences. Her only work which is likely to live is the intense but not very intelligible "^^Battle Hymn of the Eepublic^' — one of many attempts by patriotic poets to fit dignified words to the stirring tune of ^"^John Brown^s Body/^ Lucy Larcom (1826-1893) belongs by association with the anti- slavery group, though few of the poems preserved in her col- lected works touch on slavery. Her girlhood was spent as an operative in the Lowell cotton mills. For a time she lived in Illinois, but returned to Massachusetts in 1852, where she taught school and edited ^^Our Young Folks.^^ She early made the acquaintance of Whittier, who often revised her writings. Her poems are short and mostly lyric, and many of the best seem like thinner echoes of Whittier's. She had a fondness for sentimental themes, such as the sailor^s wife still asking for the long lost vessel; and she wrote many poems for children. Her work is fairly well sustained on the level she adopts, and if she never approaches the heights of her model, Whittier, her occasional lapses are less noticeable. IV. Miscellaneous New England Writers The N'ew England writers still to be considered cannot be classed either as transcendentalists or as anti-slavery re- formers, yet most of them had some relations with one or both of these groups. Longfellow wrote poems on slavery, Hawthorne resided at Brook Farm, and Holmes was the life- long friend of many of the transcendentalists and wrote the biography of their chief. With none of these men, however, was political reform or idealistic philosophy the chief con- sideration. They represent rather the more distinctly scholarly and esthetic impulses of the "renaissance of New England.'' The Central Period 385 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) traced back his ancestry to John and Priscilla Alden and other passengers in the Mayflower. His father, a Harvard Henry graduate, was a successful lawyer in Portland, Longfellow where Henry was born. As a boy he showed characteristics that seem to foreshadow cer- tain limitations of his poems. He attended public school but one week because the boys were too rough; his favorite play- mates were girls; he shot off a gun but once; and he was wont to stuff his ears with cotton on the Fourth of July, that he might escape the noise. On the other hand he was a bright and intelligent boy, of excellent manners and disposition. He studied in private schools and at Bowdoin college, where he was graduated with the class of 1825. Among his fellow students at Bowdoin were Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne, and Abbott, the historian. The Longfellow home was one of culture, with a fair li- brary, and Henry early formed the habit of reading. His ^'boy's one book^^ was Irving's ShetcJi-BooTc, Of the poets we know that he read Tom Moore, Cowper, Longfellow's Qssian, and on Sundays Hannah More. He Early Training ' -^ early began to write verse> and one oi his pro- ductions was published in a local paper when he was but thirteen. While in college many of his verses appeared in the ^^United States Literary Gazette,^^ and they made up a con- siderable part of a volume of Miscellaneous Poems selected from that journal in 1826. Like hundreds of other Ameri- cans he felt that the time had come for the production of a native literature. He chose this theme for his commence- ment piece, and he wished to devote himself to letters as a profession. His father, however, advised him to study law, and he would probably have done so if he had not by chance made a favorable impression on one of the trustees of Bow- doin college, and so received the offer of a professorship of 286 American Literature modern languages. The proffer of such a position to a fresh graduate seems strange now, but it must be remembered that Ticknor at Harvard was almost the only professor of modern languages in an American college, and that the salary of a professor at Bowdoin was only $800 or $1,000. To fit himself for the position Longfellow went abroad for three years, spending most time in France, Spain, and Italy, and a few months in Germany. After his return he taught French, Italian, and Spanish; and as textbooks were few and unsatis- factory he translated a French grammar, and edited read- ing books in French and Spanish. In 1831 he was married to Mary S. Potter, daughter of a neighbor at Portland. He began to contribute articles on literary subjects to the "North American Eeview,^^ and he published in the "New England Magazine'^ "The Schoolmaster,^^ a series of articles with an Addisonian introduction and notes of foreign scenes after the manner of the Shetch-Booh, Some of this material was used again in Outre-Mer, which began to appear in numbers in 1833, and was published complete in two volumes in 1835. In 1833 he had also published in a thin volume a translation of "Coplas de Manrique.^^ When in 1834 Ticknor decided to resign the Smith pro- fessorship at Harvard, Longfellow was chosen as his successor. Early in the next year he went abroad, this ^ "^ time to perfect himself in the languages of northern Europe. He sailed to England and spent the sum- mer in Sweden and Denmark. In Holland his wife died after a brief illness. He went to Heidelberg for the winter, and after a summer in Switzerland returned to take up his duties at Harvard. In 1839 he published Hyperion, a Ro- mance, and Voices of the Night, a collection of poems. Hy- perion is an idealized traveller's journal, the events of which correspond with those of the author's second visit to Europe, from the death of his wife to the end of his stay in Switzer- The Central Period 287 land. The sub-title, ^^A Eomance'^ is deserved, if at all, be- cause of the introduction of a heroine, Mary Ashburton, whom the hero, Paul Flemming, meets in Switzerland, and whom he leaves after an ardent but unsuccessful wooing. This was a recognizable portrait of Miss Frances E. Appleton, whom Longfellow had met at the place described, and of whom he saw much in Switzerland. The more emotional scenes were presumably imaginary, but all the other details were real. This representation of a courtship on the part of a widower of but a few months, and the portrayal of real characters, seemed to many persons in bad taste, and the lady and her family are said to have been for a time displeased. Other gossip of this date pictures Longfellow as a little of a dandy, with what seemed to sedate Cambridge an over-fas- tidiousness and a love of gorgeousness in waistcoats. But he was successful with his classes, and he drew to himself a close circle of friends. Four of these. Professor Felton, Charles Sumner, George S. Hillard, and Henry B. Cleve- land, made up with Longfellow a set known as the ^^Five of Clubs,^^ or as they were nicknamed the ^^Mutual Admiration Society.^^ The larger group of his friends came to include Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, and indeed nearly all the Boston and Cambridge literary men. While Hyperion met with some unfriendly criticism, Voices of the Night was warmly received, and Longfellow again turned to poetry. His next work was in the Longfellow's ballad form, and in 1841 he published Ballads Poetry ^^^ other Poems, The next year he went abroad for his health. While confined to his berth during the stormy passage home he wrote his Poems on Slavery, These were published in a volume on his return, 3,nd were included in the popular edition of his works, but were omitted from a Philadelphia edition intended for Southern circulation. This omission incensed the abolitionists, as the 388 American Literature poems themselves had incensed others, and for a time the author found himself between two fires. In 1843 Miss Appleton yielded to the protracted wooing of the poet. Her father purchased as a gift the historic Craigie House, in which Longfellow had taken rooms ongfe ow s when he first went to Cambridge, and which has since been associated with his name. This was the beginning of a period of great happiness and earnest productive work. The poet's domestic life was ideal, the circle of his friends was large and delightful, and Mrs. Longfellow's property together with his salary and the re- turns from his literary work enabled him to live in comfort. His works followed in rapid succession — The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems in 1846, Evangeline in 1847^ Kavanagh, a prose romance, in 1849, The Seaside and the Fireside in 1850, The Golden Legend in 1851, Hiawatha in 1855, Miles Standish in 1858. Many of the shorter poems were first pub- lished in the magazines, particularly in the ^^Atlantic Monthly" after this was established in 1857. In 1854 he resigned his professorship that he might give himself entirely to literary work, and from this timxC the amount of his writ- ings increased. In 1861 the course of his life was broken by the tragic death of his wife. While she was sitting in the library with her family her dress caught fire and she was fatally burned. In his distress Longfellow tried to find distraction in com- pleting the translation of Dante, which he had begun years before. He also published Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1863, and Fleur-de-Luce, a collection of shorter poems, 1866. The New England Tragedies, 1868, and The Divine Tragedy, 1871, were united with The Oolden Legend, published earlier, to make up the trilogy Christus, a Mystery, issued in this form in 1872. Other late volumes were Three Boohs of Song, containing the second day of Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1873, The Central Period 289 The Masque of Pandora, 1875, Keramos, 1878, Ultima Thule, 1880, In the Harbor, 1882. In 1868-9 Longfellow was again abroad, and during his visit to England received the degrees of LL.D. from Cambridge and D.C.L from Oxford. During his later years he lived at Craigie House, surrounded by his children and friends, receiving modestly but complacently the tributes of admiration from many readers. The long dramatic poem ^^Michael Angelo,^^ which he had had by him for many years, but never fully completed, was published the year after his death. Longfellow^s character was one of great mildness, sweet- ness, and purity rather than of strength. He made himself widely beloved; and he took his chief enjoy- Ch^ t^^^ ment in the home circle, the library, and the quieter pleasures of life. He was strangely indifferent to the forces that were acting about him. He was a friend of Emerson and other transcendentalists, yet one might read all his writings and never suspect that a great ethical and philosophical upheaval was going on about him. He lived through the anti-slavery struggle, and always pro- fessed in a quiet way his opposition to slavery; yet his few poems on the subject were written as a diversion on a rough ocean voyage as early as 1842. In the more stirring years that followed his interest seems to have come largely second- hand through his friendship for Charles Sumner. Still more strange was his apparent indifference to art. At the time of his early journeys abroad all New England was experiencing an artistic awakening, but in poems, essays, and published letters he scarcely makes mention of a picture or a statue, and he refers to a building, if at all, only for its connection with some legend. In Florence he notices only some wax- works representing scenes of the plague, and these he ranks as ^^equally admirable^^ with Dante's poem. Even in ^^Michael Angelo,'' written late in life, he touches on art but lightly, 290 AliiERiCAN Literature and then only to echo commonplace criticism. His nearest approach to an adequate treatment of an artistic theme is perhaps found in the bookish dilettantism of ^^Keramos/^ In minute scholarship Longfellow was inferior to Ticknor, his predecessor, and Lowell, his successor, in the Smith pro- fessorship. The weakness of his classics, s h 1 h^^ especially, gave critics a chance to make an absurd ado over such matters as the use of the adjective for the adverbial form in ^^Excelsior,^^ and the mis- quotation in the opening lines of ^^Jugurtha/^ His favorite reading was in the poets of the middle ages and Southern Europe, and he took especial pleasure in those legends which teach a truth of universal application. He left no essays of value to the careful student, but he did much to acquaint America with the songs, sayings, and traditions of Conti- nental Europe. Tip to the time of his graduation from college Longfellow had sought expression in verse rather than prose. The early T ^ 11 » poems show smoothness of versification and Longfellow's . .. -4. j? • ;i ^ • x.- x. I>rose Outre- simplicity oi expression, and contain hints, Mer and though no obvious imitations, of Wordsworth, Hyperion Moore, Bryant, and others. On his selection for the Bowdoin professorship he relinquished the idea of writing poetry, and for ten or twelve years his chief literary activity was in prose. Outre-Mer, written under the influence of Southern Europe, and after the model of Irving's Sketch- Booh, is a thin copy of a popular original. The style, at least in the opening parts, has a slight affectation of quaintness, the descriptions tend to run to adjectives, and the humor is but partly successful. The book illustrates the author's fondness for old legends, his tendency to observe persons rather than things, and his quiet moralizing. Hyperion, written after his second trip abroad, shows the influence of German senti- mentalism. It is a less healthy book than Outre-Mer, and The Central Period 291 it represents a passing mood of the author^s mind rather than his real self. The style is too affected^ and there is too much of a disposition to discuss the great problems of life on the part of a young man whose experience was on the whole very limited. At no other period, probably, would Longfellow have written in just this way of ^'^Dante, Cer- vantes, Byron, and others ; men of iron — men who have dared to breast the strong breath of public opinion,^^ and more of the same sort. The only later prose work aside from unimportant maga- zine articles was Kavanagh, written ten years after Hyperion. This romance was suggested by the author's observations of life at Pittsfield, Massachu- setts, where he spent a summer. In the village school- master, whose duties keep him from the great literary work that he wishes to undertake, Longfellow evidently saw him- self. The hero, Kavanagh, is a wonderful young clergyman, who quotes Maria del Occidente, and is adored by the two most charming young women of his congregation. In the end he marries one of these heroines, and the other dies of a broken heart. The book contains much admirable material in the shape of incidents of village life, but they are introduced as if from a notebook, without the vivifying touch that would make them effective. The story is not well knit together and leaves but an unsatisfactory impression. All of Longfellow's prose work received considerable praise, and Hyperion was especially popular with sentimental people, some of whom it is said took it for their guide book for the Ehine, and in Switzerland traced out the exact course fol- lowed by the hero. Kavanagh has been commended by such diverse critics as Hawthorne and Howells. Yet it is doubt- ful if the names of these works would be remembered to-day if it were not for the author's fame as a poet. 293 American Literature This poetic fame may be said to have begun with the pub- lication of Voices of the Night in 1839. Up to this time Longfellow^s claims as a poet rested on some jjj , ^ creditable juvenile pieces in the magazines and the verse translation of ^^Coplas de Man- rique/' It was in 1838-9, while in the mood that resulted in Hyperion, that he wrote some moralizing pieces that he called ^Tsalms/^ — a term which he retained in the title of but one of them, the ^Tsalm of Life/^ These are in a variety of simple lyric measures, and show, in both thought and form, some influence of the German. Each presents simple reflec- tions on some of the great problems of life, and closes, as was the author^s wont, with a definite exhortation or moral les- son. It was these "^^psalms^^ that really gave popularity to the Voices of the Night, and that have been retained under the title of this volume in later editions. They are typical of a large group of the author's poems — the simple rhymed expression of simple, genuine aspiration and feeling. This form of poetry, whatever critical judgment may be passed upon it, is one which makes a wide appeal. Of the eight poems which, with the ^Trelude,'' are grouped as "Voices of the Nighf ' in late editions, all may be said to be familiar, and at least one-half are among the best known poems in the language. In his next volume Longfellow turned to the ballad. In adopting this form he was probably influenced by the German and Norse ballads, some of which he trans- LongfeUow's ^^^^^^ j.^^ ^^^^g^. ^^^ ^^^^ ^j^^ j^^ followed BaUads the advice which he had earlier given to Ameri- can authors, and chose distinctively American subjects. Yet "The Skeleton in Armor'' and "The Wreck of the Hesperus'' are in form imitations of the antique. The test of a ballad should perhaps be its popularity; and judged by this test "Tlie Wreck of the Hesperus" must be pronounced successful. The Central Period 393 Yet it is untrue to life and contains an obtrusive moral that the true folk-ballad would have avoided. The poems on slavery^ written the next year, were another attempt to treat an American theme. They are simple and pretty, but the inevitable comparison with The Spanish Whittier's utterances on the same subject Student t i , « r> brings out their bookishness and lack of force. ^^The Spanish Student/^ the first of several dramatic compositions, had really preceded the two last-mentioned volumes in date of writing, but was not published in book form until 1843. The story was an old one, told by Cer- vantes, and used by various Spanish dramatists and by Middleton. It fits well with the romantic mood in which the author found himself about the time of its composition, and gives the opportunity for some good verse, including Long- fellow's best song for music, ^*^Stars of the Summer Night/^ The action, however, does not carry the reader along with it. The characters are bookish, not real. Even the speeches of the servant, Chispa, with their apt application of Spanish proverbs, seem artificial, and give the impression of excellent material unskilfully used. In the volumes of 1845 and 1846 Longfellow continued the forms of composition which he had tried before, but in ^^Evangeline^' he attempted a long narrative poem. The well-known story that Hawthorne declined to use the plot, while Longfellow eagerly welcomed it, shows, if true, how well each knew his own capabilities. The mildly sentimental story, with its slight action and its pathos, was admirably suited to the poet's genius, and many of his critics consider the poem his masterpiece. In view of the fact that the descriptions have a great charm for many readers it is interesting to note that they were based on such works as the author found in his library, and on a travelling diorama of the Mississippi, the coming of which he records 394 American Literature in his diary as a ^^special benediction/' He had never seen and he made no attempt to see the places which he por- trays. The poem precipitated a discussion on the possibilities of English hexameters^ and is still one of the best known illustrations of what may be accomplished in this metre. The poet again turned to the middle age in the ^^Golden Legend/' which will be mentioned later as part of the trilogy of "Christus.'' In "Hiawatha'' he took up another American theme. Many authors had made use of Indian subjects^ and each had been blamed either for over-idealizing his characters^ or for making them so realistic as to be repulsive. Longfellow decided to write, not of individual Indians, but of the myths and traditions of the race. His material was mostly taken from Schoolcraft, who had just published the result of his researches among the Indians of the ISTorthwest. The legends are of course selected and modified for poetic purposes. The metre, the unrhymed trochaic tetrameter, is that of the Finnish epic, the "Kale- vala," and was chosen as being in keeping with the nature of the subject and the character of the Indians themselves. The metre is perhaps the most marked characteristic of the poem. Its movement took the ear, though it was often criti- cised as jigging and monotonous. The lack of rhyme made easy a host of parodies that complicated the discussion. The popular judgment was strongly in favor of both the content and the form of the poem, and it is still known to every one. Of late, however, it seems to make its strongest appeal to children. The choice of these unusual metres for "Evangeline" and "Hiawatha" indicates how carefully Longfellow studied metri- cal effects, and how readily he adopted meas- M^^^l^Eff^ t ^^^^ from foreign sources. His ear was not so sensitive as that of some poets, and he sometimes carried the use of a device too far, as often in The Central Period 295 "^^Hiawatha/^ and in the sibilant line often quoted from ^^Evangeline/^ When she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music. On the other hand his taste never failed him altogether; and often his verses have a haunting quality that defies analysis, as in "My Lost Youth •/' I can see the shadowy lines of trees, And catch, in sudden gleams, The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, And islands that were the Hesperides Of all my boyish dreams. And the burden of that old song. It murmurs and whispers still : "A boy*s will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." "The Courtship of Miles Standish^^ suggests "Evangeline'^ in both form and method, though it is less sentimental and probably stronger. Priscilla's answer, about p ®^ arrative ^j^j^,]^ fj^^ story centers, was a tradition in the poef s family. The "Tales of a Wayside Inn'' are a series of stories put in the mouths of various persons supposed to gather at the old inn at Sudbury, a favorite resort of college parties from Cambridge. The characters, whose identity is but thinly veiled, were friends of the author, the best-known being Ole Bull, the violinist, and Thomas William Parsons, the poet. The fact that the speakers repre- sent many nationalities made it easy to introduce a great variety of stories which the author had met in his reading. But one of the tales is said to be of his own invention. Christus, made up of the "Divine Tragedy,'' "The Golden Legend," and "The New England Tragedies," was a work by which the author set great store, but which never became popular. It is a trilogy in which Part I represents the ancient world. Part II the mid- dle age, and Part III the present. "The Divine Tragedy^' 296 American Literature is little more than a paraphrase into verse of the gospel ac- count of Christ's life, the three acts or ^^passovers'^ each repre- senting a year of his ministry. It seems strange that Long- fellow, with his fondness for simple expression, should not have seen how far inferior his version was to the prose of the Scripture narrative. ^^The Golden Legend/' the earliest and the most popular of the divisions of the poem, retells a story of superstition and maidenly devotion. The main events and the illustrative material are not well interwoven, and the reader feels as he often does in Longfellow's complex nar- ratives, that material has been introduced from a notebook. The "New England Tragedies" are two, "John Endicott" and "Giles Corey." Both deal with Puritan intolerance and superstition, shown in the former in the persecution of the Quakers, and in the latter in the delusion of the Salem witchcraft. The pictures are worked up with considerable antiquarian detail, but the plots are not well organized. This is especially true of "John Endicott," where both the hero and the heroine are lost sight of at the end, and the chief interest in the plot is not resolved. In the trilogy as a whole the difference between the parts is so great that there is no sense of unity, and the representation of the present by Puritan intolerance hardly seems adequate. The later poems of Longfellow are similar in kind and quality to those which had gone before. They include more "Tales of a Wayside Inn," the dramatic poems La?ef pl'Lms ''^^^ Masque of Pandora" and "Judas Mac- cabseus," and short poems, many of them of a personal nature. Among the best known of these is "The Hanging of the Crane," suggested by the home-making of the poet's friend, Thomas Bailey Aldrich. "Michael Angelo" is in dramatic form. It represents scenes in the life of the great artist and teaches the virtue of labor and single-minded devotion to art. The Central Period 297 Short translations, chiefly lyrics and ballads, from most of the European languages, were produced throughout the poet's life. Those which were suited to his genius tSSs ^^^^^ ^^*^ faithfully and sympathetically ren- dered. His most ambitious translation, that of Dante, is praised for its "elegant literalness,^^ but the strength and power of the original were not his to give. All of Longfellow's works are readable, but in searching for those on which his fame rests it is as well to discard the prose, the dramas and dramatic poems, the Ek asToet translation of Dante, and most of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn.'' There remain "Hia- watha,^' "Evangeline," and "Miles Standish,'^ a few ballads and other verse narratives, and a large number of poems of human aspiration and feeling. All these live with undimin- ished vigor, but it is those of the last group that are best known and that constitute the poet's best claim to remem- brance. If judgment is based on the number of poems that are household quotations there is no question that in America and probably in England Longfellow exceeds every modern poet in popularity. His admirers also point out that the works of no other English-speaking poet of his century have been so widely translated. It is much to be the favorite poet of so many people. But the extravagant praise which has followed this popularity has sometimes seemed to lay on the critic the necessity of calling attention to the author's limi- tations. These are mostly due to the character of the man, and many of them have been indicated in the preceding dis- cussion. He lacked strength, originality, the seeing eye. He wrote from books rather than from first hand observa- tion, and he failed to appreciate the great movements that were stirring the nation, and all deeply thinking men. On the other hand, the purity of his life, his patriotism, and the tenderness with which he sympathized with the more com- 298 American Literature mon trials of men and women are as fully reflected in his verse as are his defects. He never wrote an impure line, or one that would lessen the reverence of man for truth. And to the youngs and to thousands of readers whose lives have fallen in quiet places, his ^Tsalms'^ bring exactly the solace and inspiration that they need. It is to be regretted that some of these poems sin against perfect art. The ^Tsalm of Life^' would be a richer possession if its lesson had been presented effectively in less sing-song verse, and without the absurd mixture of metaphor so often pointed out : And departing leave behind us, Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er lifers solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing f shall take heart again. Still, most of the faults in the poems are not glaring. Few true-minded persons fail to find in Longfellow's poems something that appeals strongly to them in childhood and early youth ; and fortunate are they to whom the same simple consolation and exhortation remains adequate throughout life. The man who feels the full stress of modern thought may be tempted to exclaim: And common is the commonplace And vacant chaff well meant for grain, but he is an intellectual snob if he fails to honor the poetry that he found an inspiration in his simpler days. Nathaniel Hathorne (1804-1864), or, as he wrote it later, Hawthorne, was born in Salem. His earliest American an- cestor, who came to Salem in 1637, was a Hawth ^^^ ^^ weight in the community, and his son was one of the witch judges. The family declined in social importance, however, and for two genera- The Central Period 299 tions before the birth of Nathaniel the Hathornes had been sea captains. The story of loss of title to an estate in Maine, and certain traditions regarding family temper and peculiari- ties, are pretty faithfully repeated in The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel^s father died in 1808, and his mother, though apparently not a morbid woman, withdrew entirely from the world, living in her own room, and never sitting at table even with her children. This peculiar home life doubt- less had its effect on her son. In 1818 she removed for a time to Maine, where she had relatives, and here Nathaniel rambled in the woods and, as he says, acquired his habit of solitude. Although the family were left with little means an uncle undertook the charge of his education, and he suf- fered no great hardships. He went back to Salem to pre- pare for college and in 1821 entered Bowdoin. There seems to have been nothing unusual about Haw- thorne^s boyhood and college days. He had few intimates, but he was not a recluse, and he had his share Youth ^^^^ ^ ^^ boyish escapades and college scrapes. His feat of printing a weekly ^^Spectator^^ with his pen at the age of sixteen, and some juvenile rhymes are hardly significant of anything more than an interest in books. His pride at the same age in learning to chew tobacco, and later in some college dissipations shows nothing but boy- ishness. His scholarship was fair. Among his fellow stu- dents at Bowdoin were Longfellow, Franklin Pierce, and Horatio Bridge, the last two throughout life his closest friends. It was during his last year at college that he adopted the ^V^^ in his name. After his graduation Hawthorne went back to Salem, where he lived twelve or fourteen years in a secluded way, entering no profession, and seeing little of the world. It is possible that he had begun Fanshawe while at college. If not, his earliest literary attempt was ^^Seven Tales of my Native 300 American Literature Land/' a collection of short stories which he burned after trying in vain to find a publisher. In 1828 he published at ^ his own expense Fanshawe, a rather melo- Early Writings dramatic romance of college life. This at- tracted little attention, and he soon regretted its publication and made every effort to suppress it. After his death his family characteristically included it in his col- lected works. He next wrote ^Trovincial Tales/' for which as a collection he could find no publisher, but some of which Goodrich took for use in his annual, the ^^Token.'' Among these were ^The Gentle Boy/' and some of the other better known ^^Twice-Told Tales." From this time he continued to write tales and short sketches, publishing in the ^^Token'' and in magazines. In 1836, after he had been eleven years out of college without any regular remunerative employment, he undertook the editorship of the ^^ American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge" at a salary of $500. This was mere hackwork, and he did not regret that the venture soon failed. The next year he compiled for Goodrich a Peter Parley book. Universal History on the Basis of Geography. All this time he had published nothing over his own signature, and his name was first made known to the public through an enthusiastic notice by his friend Park Benjamin, published in a New York magazine in 1835. About this time Horatio Bridge, without Hawthorne's knowledge, gave a financial guarantee that insured the pub- lication in 1837 of a volume of short sketches. The fact that these had been published before, most of them in the ''Token/' led to the adoption of the title Twice Told Tales, The appearance of this, his first work under his own name, tended to bring the author out of his seclusion. A stronger influence in the same direction was exerted by the Peabodys, an old Salem family, who began a systematic attempt to form the acquaintance of their recluse neighbor. The ulti- The Central Period 301 mate result was the engagement of IsTathaniel Hawthorne to the younger daughter^ Sophie Peabody. The responsibility of an engagement impressed on Haw- thorne the need of doing something for a living, and through the influence of friends he secured an appoint- aw ornem jj^ej^t as weigher and ganger in the Boston custom house. His duties were to watch the unloading of vessels and to keep tally of the cargo. At first he enjoyed the novelty of the occupation, but he soon sickened of it, as he always did of any systematic work. The Peabody family had removed to Boston, where they engaged in pub- lishing and bookselling. It was probably at the solicitation of the older sister, Elizabeth Peabody, that he wrote three volum-es of child^s stories. Grandfather s Chair, Famous Old People, and Liberty Tree, These represent his only important literary work during his residence in Boston. In 1841, with the change of administration, he lost his position, and at once joined the Brook Farm community. The Brook Farm scheme seems impractical in retrospect, yet it was carefully planned by men of business sense, and was really more promising than many of the Hawthorne at ^^promoted^^ enterprises in which literary and professional men are every year induced to invest their money. Hawthorne was not enthusiastic over transcendentalism, though Miss Peabody and her family were, and he seems to have joined the community because he thought it the best way to provide for a home. The original plan looked to the building on the farm of cottages for mar- ried couples and he hoped soon to occupy one of these. He invested his entire savings, $1,000, in stock, and took up his residence as a working member of the community. At first he had some slight enthusiasms, but they soon passed away, and he recorded in his journal the conclusion that ^^Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it 303 American Literature without being proportionably brutified/^ By the middle of the first summer he was sick of the whole affair, but after an absence of some weeks he returned as a boarder. He com- plained that the conditions were not favorable to literary work, and he produced only one short story, and another child^s book, Biographical Stories for Children. In the spring of 1842 Hawthorne left Brook Farm for good, and though his savings were tied up in the company, and he had no regular occupation, he was the Old^M^ married in July, and took up his residence in the Old Manse at Concord. Glimpses of his life here show an idyllic sort of existence, with the most romantic devotion on the part of the married lovers, and delightful excursions by wood and stream with Thoreau and Ellery Channing. The care of providing for a family weighed on him, and he was troubled by lack of means — just how seri- ously is uncertain. Through the influence of friends he at last secured the position of surveyor of customs at Salem. During his four years' residence in Concord he had written a considerable number of tales, and these he collected in 1846 as Mosses from an Old Manse. In the same year he assumed his duties in the Salem custom house, CusU)m Ho?se ^^^ continued until he was removed after the change of administration in 1849. His salary was only $1,200, but his official duties occupied only three or four hours daily. As usual, he found them uncongenial after the novelty was gone. Notwithstanding what seems abundant time he wrote very little. Hawthorne was a non-resident when he was given one of the most important offices in the little city of Salem. His appointment came through influences not local, and though he was faithful and business-like he stood aloof from his fellow townsmen, and especially from those with commercial interests. It was natural that when a change of administra- The Central Period 303 tion came no one should protest strongly if he fell a victim to the spoils system. He had felt^ however, that his appoint- ment was a sort of literary pension, and was not only indig- nant but apparently surprised that anyone should think of displacing him. His indignation was directed against the entire community of Salem, but especially against some of his associates, whom he lampooned in the introduction to The Scarlet Letter, and a Mr. TJpham, whom he tried to hold up to scorn in The House of the Seven Gables, In his first despondency after leaving the custom house he wrote his friend Hillard asking for the suggestion of ^^some stated literary employment, in con- Hawthorne nection with a newspaper, or as corrector Writes The a ^ ^ Scarlet Letter ^^ ^^^ press to some printing establishment.^' So far as is known this was the only time except during his brief editorship of the ^^Magazine of Use- ful and Entertaining Knowledge^' that he ever signified a willingness to accept any systematic literary employment, or indeed any employment not political. This request was not pushed, and he began work on The Scarlet Letter, while the family lived on a small sum that Mrs. Hawthorne had saved from her household allowance, and on a contribution from Hillard and other friends. The time was unfavorable for literary production, for besides worrying over financial affairs he was distracted by his mother's illness and death, and by illness in his own family. According to the well- known story The Scarlet Letter was planned as the leading tale in a collection of short stories, and was expanded at the suggestion of James T. Fields, the publisher. It appeared in April, 1850, and had remarkable success. Its author was at last famous. Although Hawthorne had expressed his contempt for Salem and its people he continued to reside there until after the publication oi The Scarlet Letter. The ill-natured per- 304 American Literature sonal comments on his associates in the custom house, which were introduced in the sketch prefixed to this romance, aroused an indignation that must have made Hawthorne's life in the city unpleasant ; and it was with lit- Residences ^^^ regret on either side that he left his native town and took up his residence in the Berk- shire hills. Here, with the Sedgwicks and Herman Melville for neighbors, he lived for a year and a half. During the fall and early winter of 1850 he wrote his second romance, The House of the Seven Gables. Part of the next year he gave to The Wonder Booh, which, like the Tanglewood Tales, published two years later, was a retelling of classic myths for children. Later in 1851 he compiled The Snow Image and Other Twice Told Tales, a series of sketches that had appeared in periodicals, but had not been republished. In the same year the family removed to West Newton, and after- ward to Concord, where Hawthorne had bought Alcott's house, the Wayside. West Newton was near the site of Brook Farm, though this may have had nothing to do with the fact that he made the famous community the background for his next long tale. The Blithedale Romance, published in 1852. Shortly after his removal to the Wayside he was asked to write a campaign life of his old friend, Franklin Pierce, now a candidate for the presidency. This work had no literary importance, and is of interest mainly because of the views which it expresses on slavery and kindred matters. After his election Pierce reciprocated the favor by appointing Hawthorne TJnited States consul at Liverpool. For four years Hawthorne was an efficient consul, but as before he fretted under his official duties. He travelled somewhat about England, but he never really came to enjoy the country, or to have more than a half affection for its people. He did not meet the greater literary men, and he never entered, except in a formal way, into any of the The Central Period 305 life about him. Only the salary reconciled him to his position. This, though reduced by congress during his term, enabled him to repay the gift which Hawthorne friends had made through Hillard, and to Liverpool ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^ *^^* relieved him from fear of later want. After resigning the consulate in 1857 he spent a year and a half in Italy, living for a time in Eome and Hawthorne in -^ Florence. In the latter he occupied the old villa Just outside the city which furnished the suggestion of Monte Beni in The Marble Faun. In the spring of 1859 he returned to England and took up his resi- dence on the Yorkshire coast. He had begun another romance at Florence, and he finished it at Eedcar. The next year it was published in England as The Transforma- tion, and in America as The Marble Faun. In 1860 Haw- thorne returned to Concord. The reader of Hawthorne^s notebooks kept during his foreign residence is impressed with the fact that he went abroad too late in life to derive the greatest Effect of enjoyment from his travels. Until he reached Travds^^^^'^ middle age he had scarcely been outside New England, and he found it hard to adapt him- self to new methods of life, not to mention new habits of thought. The petty annoyances of travel irritated him, and while he was never an habitual grumbler, he sometimes found it hard to be a sympathetic visitor. Italy pleased him, on the whole, more than England, yet the remark on sour bread, forced so absurdly into The Marble Faun, is only one of many indications that show how he dwelt on unpleasant trifles. Among the most interesting passages in the foreign notebooks are those that trace the development of his taste in art. While in England he began to visit galleries, and to analyze his appreciation and lack of appreciation, and he 30fi American Literature continued the process under more favorable conditions in Italy. His usual attitude is that of the man who feels that he ought to enjoy art, but who is really bored by it. Occa- sionally he grew enthusiastic. His appreciations were, how- ever, erratic, and he never became quite at ease regarding such conventionalities as the nude in sculpture. When Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1860 his career as an author was almost finished. His health was failing and he was troubled by the state of political Hawthorne s affairs. He had never taken an active interest in politics, but he had been nominally a democrat, and he retained his old political faith, such as it was, with little change. He never came to sympathize with the anti-slavery agitation, and he wrote, ^^I rejoice that the old Union is smashed.^^ Though he spoke of himself as a war democrat and a ISTorthern man he could not but realize that he was out of sympathy with his natural associates. He published nothing concerning contemporary events except an article "Chiefly about War Matters,^^ in the "Atlantic^^ for 1862. The next year he contributed to the same periodical Our Old Home, a series of papers compiled from the note- books that he had kept in England. He was trying to pro- duce another stor)^, and he completed an instalment or two of The Dolliver Romance for the "Atlantic,^' but his power of sustained work was gone, and he died in May, 1864. Available information regarding Hawthorne the man is less than might be desired. The chief facts of his life, as already given, are unquestioned, but it is hard ?p"^^l^^''^^® to feel that one really knows his character. of Hawthorne ^ -,. ., ,. . -, i -, i . He was ordinarily retiring and revealed him- self but little outside his family circle. He expressed the wish that no authorized biography be published, and the family refused to allow Lowell, or other competent biogra- phers, access to the materials in their possession. Their The Central Period 307 scruples did not prevent the son from writing Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife, a Biography, or the daughter and her husband from publishing various works on the father. All these books are gossipy, but exceedingly unsatisfactory. The reader is left with the uncomfortable feeling that he may be doing injustice to a man because of insufficient data. Though in some ways representative of Xew England, Hawthorne seems to have lacked the energy and the sense of independence so common in his neighbors. Hawthorne's His family was not well-to-do, and he owed Personal ^ j^lg education to the bounty of a relative, yet l^eiiciexicies ^ >j he was content to settle down at home after leaving college, and made no serious attempt to earn his own living. Indeed, though he faithfully performed tasks that he undertook, he seems to have had an aversion to systematic labor of all sorts. Having devoted himself to literature, he apparently felt that the nation owed him a living. His atti- tude toward Groodrich, who really did much for him, was ungrateful and somewhat patronizing. He was indignant at his fellow-townsmen because they did not appreciate him, and at the government because it did not continue him in office. After he was removed from the Salem custom house he accepted a gift of money made up by subscription among his friends. It is true that he paid this back at a later time, and even if he had not done so there was nothing at all discred- itable in his receiving such a token of esteem; but not every able-bodied and able-minded Yankee would have taken it without making stronger efforts in his own behalf. These apparent weaknesses, if they are such, are over- shadowed by characteristics of which we are convinced by indications rather than by direct evidence. The devotion which his friends Pierce and Bridge felt for him could have been inspired only by a man who had something noble in his nature. The faithfulness with which he always per- 308 American Literature formed unpleasant duties is greatly to his credit. So is his manliness in refusing to withdraw the dedicatory address to his friend Pierce when the publishers protested Hawthorne's that association with the name of that dis- OualYw^ credited statesman would ruin the sale of Our Old Home. In his family life he ap- pears, even after allowance is made for some over-drawn idyllic pictures, as a man of wonderful sympathy and sweet- ness. It is the fact that some of these traits are not readily reconciled with others mentioned before that makes the man in his relation to his writings hard to comprehend. After Hawthorne's death his family published several volumes of selections from his notebooks, and some unfin- ished romances. The notebooks were a com- NTb^k^^^ bination of commonplace book and journal, in which he jotted down hints for stories, and thought and facts that might be useful, together with detailed accounts of excursions and interesting experiences. They were intended for his eye alone and the propriety of pub- lishing them might be questioned. Still, if available as he wrote them, they would be of value to the close student of his literary art. Unfortunately they are so edited as to be almost worthless. In Passages from the American Note-Boohs omissions are not indicated, and quotations from letters are introduced without being clearly designated as such. In the English Note-Books passages used in the preparation of Our Old Home, and in the Italian Note-Boohs some of those used in The Marble Faun are omitted, so that there is little opportunity to study the author's method of re-working ma- terial. A similar criticism may be passed on the editing of the unfinished romances. There are four of these, representing as many attempts to develop ideas long in the author's mind. One of these, published as ''The Ancestral Foot- Step," is a The Central Period 309 series of studies written in 1858. The story is connected with the tradition of a bloody footprint at the entrance of SmithelFs Hall^ England^ and involves the Hawthorne's relation between the fortunes of an English Unfinished t t j. • xi - £ Romances house and a secret m the possession oi an American emigrant. ^^Doctor Grimshaw's Secret'^ is another and probably a later attempt to use the same material, with the addition of a reference to the elixir of life. ^^Septimius Felton" makes use of the same theme. All these had been abandoned by the author, and he had de- termined that the final form should be that of the ^^Dolliver Eomance.^^ In this the idea of a bloody footprint and the international element do not occur. These fragmentary and rejected manuscripts, if printed exactly as Hawthorne wrote them, would be of interest in showing how he built up a romance. But they have, according to the editor's notes, been changed in minor but unindicated respects, evidently with the idea of improving the continuity and making them more readable. On the whole, the posthumous volumes as issued are chiefly a vexation to the student of Hawthorne, and serve little useful purpose except to swell the copyright receipts of his heirs. The unfinished romances do, however, illustrate the per- sistency with which he clung to an idea which impressed him as having literary possibilities. Long before he knew the legend of SmithelFs Hall he had entered in the notebooks a reference to a man whose foot left everywhere a bloody print. The thought of earthly immortality had long fascinated him, as is shown by references in the notebooks, and by the use of a simi- lar idea in ^^Doctor Heidegger's Experiment.'' The plan of writing an Anglo-American romance occurred to him when he first thought of going abroad, and he relinquished it only after repeated trials. These unfinished narratives also show how the habit of using vague symbolism grew with years. 310 American Literature They contain some passages quite as powerful in their sug- gestiveness as anything that he ever wrote. Hawthorne^s important literary work divided itself into two groups, the short stories and sketches and the romances. The most valuable of the former are included Hawthorne's in three volumes, the Twice-Told Tales, the Sketches Mosses from an Old Manse, and The Snow Image and other Twice-Told Tales. Some of them are stories with action and plot, some are mere sketches owing their interest to the charm with which the author invests the commonplace. The stories show consider- able variety, but the best of them are studies of human beings placed in some peculiar situation with reference to their fel- low men, or to moral problems. Thus, ^The Minister's Black VeiF' shows a man who separates himself from others by wearing a symbol of the isolation of every human soul; ^^Dr. Heidegger's Experiment'' is a study of the actions of three old persons who are able, temporarily^ to regain youth. ^^Eappaccini's Daughter" develops the conception of a woman so nurtured that her touch, or even her breath, is poison to others of her race. Though the situations which interested him involved moral problems, he rarely, as in ^^A Eill from the Town-Pump," wrote with the apparent purpose of teach- ing a lesson. In ^^The Gentle Boy," and a few other early stories, he approached very near the sentimentality whicli has been seen in some of his contemporaries. He was fond of old New England backgrounds, as in ^^The Gentle Boy," ^'The Gray Champion," ''Endicott and the Eed Cross," and the four "Legends of the Province House." One of the most individual characteristics of his method is his suggestive- ness. This is reasonably definite in "The Great Carbuncle," "The Minister's Black Veil," "The Snow Image." In other and on the whole better tales it is indefinite — a faint smbol- ism, too evanescent to be analyzed, or illustrated by quota- The Central Period 311 tions apart from the context^ but plainly felt. The falling rose leaves in ^^The Maypole of Merry Mounf ' have a sug- gestiveness more forcible than that of obvious allegory. The other volumes of short stories were intended for chil- dren, and though excellent of their kind are not to be ranked among the author's important work. The Hawthorne's most noticeable are the adaptations of old C^^en^^ myths, in the Wonderboolc and the Tangle- wood Tales, It has been questioned whether such a modification of a classic story is fair or desirable. However this may be, it is interesting to notice the success- ful manner in which Hawthorne has eliminated all suggestion of immorality and all elements beyond the comprehension of children and still left in every case the essence of the story. In some of the myths he found an underlying moral not unlike those of his original New England tales. After his unsuccessful attempt at a romance in Fanshawe, Hawthorne confined himself for more than twenty years to the short tale or sketch. It was in the creation of these smaller units that he learned what he could and could not do, and perfected his prose style. That The Scarlet Letter took on the proportions of a romance is said to have been due to Pields's advice. Once he learned his power in the creation of longer stories he did not care to write short ones. Either the discovery of his abilities or the sudden achievement of success stimulated him, and the years from 1850 to 1853, in which he published Tlie Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and the Blithedale Romance, besides miscel- laneous work, were the most productive of his life. The central idea of The Scarlet Letter had long been in Hawthorne's mind, and is introduced incidentally in ^^Endi- cott and the Eed Cross.'' It is probable, though there is no direct evidence, that the story had been taking shape long before the loss of his office led him to put it on paper. The 312 American Literature romance is prefaced by an introduction entitled ^^The Cus- tom House/^ and Hawthorne is quoted as saying that the vogue of the book was due to this preliminary The Scarlet sketch. This remark and the sketch itself Introduction show a peculiar aberration on the part of the author. When he wrote he was disaffected at the loss of his position, and this fact prejudiced his views of his co-workers who were so fortunate as to remain un- disturbed. The most regrettable remarks concern ^^a certain permanent Inspector.^^ Hawthorne writes of his "moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients ; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours ;^^ and continues "My conclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind ; ... It might be difficult — and it was so— -to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem.^^ Naturally such comments shocked the little city where the man so characterized had been generally known, and where his de- scendants still lived — especially since he had died before the sketch was published. In the preface to the second edition Hawthorne made matters worse, if possible, by saying: "It appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity or ill-feel- ing of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives.^^ If one accepts this statement it convicts Hawthorne of an utter lack of taste and sense of propriety. The affair was evidently one of those in which men of genius sometimes get entangled; but it is unfortunate that The Scarlet Letter should have been given to the world with such an introduction. The Scarlet Letter is usually conceded to be the best of The Central Period 313 the four romances. Both the theme and the setting of the story were suited to the author. The problem to which he was most strongly attracted was that of the The Scarlet effect of sin. The background that he used Plot Characters ^^^^ effectively was that of early Puritan New England. In The Scarlet Letter he repre- sented against this background the effect of one great sin on the four persons most intimately concerned, and on the com- munity. The story cannot be analyzed in the ordinary fashion. There is little plot or action in the usual sense of these words. None of the characters does anything, or except for the abortive attempt to fly from New England plans to do any- thing. Yet there is a plot of absorbing interest, in which the events are psychological, not physical. The most success- ful character in the book is Hester. She is the central figure of the story, and she is a type that Hawthorne could best portray. He pictures two sorts of women — the pale, ethereal kind like Priscilla and Hilda, and the full-blooded, queenly creatures represented by Hester, Zenobia, and Miriam. It is significant that he makes the former his heroines — rather perfunctorily, as it sometimes seems; but that though the Hesters and Zenobias and Miriams all sin he really enjoys them more and paints them more successfully. Dimmesdale, Hester's partner in sin, is a trifle shadowy, as is shown by the fact that he moves some readers to pity, others only to contempt. Chillingworth, who supplies the place of the vil- lain in a novel of action, is somewhat melodramatic in his psychology. Little Pearl gives the one touch of color in a sombre picture, and is artistically a success, though it has been questioned how far she is true to child nature. The other characters, whether viewed individually or as part of the cruel Puritan populace', are properly costumed and har- monize with the general plan. The romance illustrates in an especial degree the peculiar 314 American Literature narrative methods that the author had been evolving. Sym- bolism is everywhere. The scarlet letter itself is introduced _- « - time after time^ and always with a new sugges- Letter— tiveness. The vision of the flaming symbol in Narrative the heavens may be an artistic mistake^ but the allusion to the same device on the min- ister's breast, with the hint at explanations not definitely given, is masterly. More intangible still are such touches as that of the rose before the prison door in the first chapter. Another peculiarity of the narrative is the telling, as if it were perfectly natural, of each character's secret thoughts. What no other person could ever know, what the characters would hardly admit to themselves, the writer narrates as frankly as the most obvious actions, and the reader never thinks of questioning. Whether or not he was a transcen- dentalist in avowed belief, Hawthorne proceeds in his ro- mances on the transcendental theory that every mind can comprehend the workings of every other mind. A man of the slightest external experience, he was able to enter into the feelings of the guilty man or woman, and so to portray them that the reader knows they would be his own emotions under like circumstances. The power of analyzing dark and sin-haunted minds is a great element in his genius. With brighter and happier moods he does not succeed quite so well. The House of the Seven Gables has the same New England setting, and it deals with something of the same problems as The Scarlet Letter, It is, however, thinner, The House of and leaves a less unified impression. The ac- Q^ljjgg tion is in the present, but interest centers more in the background — in the old house itself, in the story of its origin, of the wizard Maule's curse on the Pyncheon family, and of the lost title deeds. Next in interest for many readers are the bits of seriously playful description, as of the urchin who patronizes the cent-shop, of The Central Period 315 the chickens in the garden, of old Hepzibah herself. Last in interest is the story, with its slight thread of action, end- ing in the removal of the curse by the inter-marriage of the Maule and Pyncheon families. Perhaps this slight interest of the story is due in part to the fact that Hawthorne was at the same time indulging his personal animosities and reveal- ing family traditions. The story of the curse and of the lost title deeds are from the history of the Hathornes. The por- trait or caricature of Judge Pyncheon is supposed to be recognizable as the politician who was chiefly instrumental in removing the author from the custom house. This latter fact is responsible for some faults of the story. The Judge is a melodramatic villain, and the scenes in which he appears, and especially his death, are more melodramatic than is usual with Hawthorne. The portrait of Hepzibah is well drawn, and that of Phoebe is a pleasant sketch, not very fully filled in. Clifford, the victim of a great wrong, is somewhat shadowy, and to some readers is unpleasant, rather than an object of pity as the author intended. The young daguerro- typist with his up-to-date notions is not the sort of character that Hawthorne could portray well, but he plays his slight part acceptably. Uncle Venner, the gardener, is a clever conception, though inferior to Silas Foster, the farmer in Blithedale. These deficiencies in the characters are not obvious at first reading, but they help to account for the thinness and sense of unreality felt in the story. The moral problems are those of heredity rather than those of personal sin, and their relations to actual life are not definitely pointed out. Suggestiveness is everywhere present — obvious as in the degenerate brood of chickens, more subtle in Clifford blowing bubbles, or the cat stealing across the garden after Judge Pyncheon's death. The Blithedale Romance differs from the other longer stories in motive, scene, and narrative method. Like the 316 American Literature others, it shows the effect of sin, but the sin of the hero is the somewhat strange one of selfish philanthropy — the enthusi- asm of a reformer which blinds him to all The Blithedale ^^^^^ claims. The fault of the heroine is a Romance wayward impetuosity, derived from heredi- tary tendencies. The motive is more nearly that of a modern "problem noveF^ than are the subtle studies of conscience in The Scarlet Letter and The Marble Faun, The book seems to be the author^s comment on the movements for reform which were all about him in the early fifties. The scene is a community which is plainly that at Brook Farm, and Haw- thorne has drawn on his experiences for many of the inci- dents and some of the characters. Silas Foster is pictured from life, and Priscilla was clearly suggested by the little seamstress from Boston who is referred to in the notebooks. Miles Coverdale has a few of the characteristics of Hawthorne himself. On the first appearance of the book Zenobia was said to represent Margaret Fuller. However many points of resemblance may have been plain to contemporaries, the reader of to-day finds little similarity between the beautiful, passionate creature of the romance and the Margaret Fuller of the biographies. It is more likely that both Zenobia and HoUingsworth, in whom the author works out the results of their respective sins, are wholly imaginary portraits. Unlike the other romances the story is not told by a narrator who knows the secret workings of each heart, but by an eye-witness who can recount only what he observes, and draw his infer- ences. In spite of the modern setting and the ordinary story- teller's method, symbolism is frequent. The flower in Zenobia's hair is a striking example. Critics have so frequently spoken of Blithedale as an in- ferior production that the reader who questions this judgment probably does well to keep silence; yet he may be pardoned for maintaining that the inferiority is not so great as is The Central Period 317 sometimes charged. The problem of the book is worthy of the novelist, though the reader may not agree with his solu- tion. The characters, with the exception of Rank of the Coverdale, are as life-like a group as Haw- Romance^ thorne ever created. Coverdale is but lightly sketched for the same reasons that led Poe to employ shadowy narrators for many of his tales. The scene, though somewhat abnormal, is made to seem real. The story moves on to an ending that is artistically inevitable. The general impression left by the book is one of strength, though it is not wholly pleasing. Of all Hawthorne's works it is the most pessimistic, and the pessimism is all the stronger for being hinted rather than definitely expressed. The Marble Faun followed the other romances after a con- siderable interval, and was in part the result of the author's Italian experiences. His Anglo-American Faun ^^ ^ romance would not take shape, and he turned to an Italian-American plot. The theme re- sembles that of The Scarlet Letter, but is broader, being no less than the place of sin in the development of the soul. The scene is Italy, but the characters are Americans, or of no particular nationality. Kenyon is a New England gentle- man who commands entire respect, but does not win the heart. Hilda, who has been said to be modelled after the author's daughter, is one of Hawthorne's pale, ethereal creatures. Miriam is of the other type that he loved to portray — the full-blooded, voluptuous woman, with a suggestion of the South in her nature. Donatello, though nominally an Italian, is the incarnation of primeval innocence and joyousness, rather than a definite human being. The Marble Faun has more action than the other romances, but the movement is hindered by digressions and descriptions. The fact that it has been commended as a guide book to Eome hints at its defects as a work of fiction. It is, moreover, 318 American Literature a guide book written by a provincial visitor^ who retains his fresh enthusiasms, but who has not gained an idea of relative values. Excellent as many of the descriptions M^ ble^Fa ^ ^^^ ^^ themselves, they detract greatly from the effectiveness of the romance. The sug- gestive method, which fitted so well with the Italian back- ground, was employed not only in details but in the resolu- tion of the plot itself. Eeaders complained that the ending as originally written was unintelligible, and the author added a chapter which made no improvement. Hawthorne shows his New England relationships more clearly than any other American author, yet he was not a typical New Englander. He cared little for NeTSanr"^ formal religion, and it is impossible to de- termine exactly what his faith was. Although he was so closely associated with the transcendental leaders he took no real part in the transcendental movement; and he had no interest in the many reforms in which New Eng- landers were engaged. His recurrence to the thought of sin in the world seems at first sight a Puritan characteristic, but he was concerned not with forgiveness and salvation in the theologian^s sense, but with the effects of sin on the soul. In his fondness for studying the troubled conscience he showed a temperament which, despite the protests of those who knew him best, must be pronounced somewhat morbid and pessimistic. The best evidences of this are not his gloomy subjects, but little indications here and there in his writings. The comments on the death of Zenobia in Blithe- dale could have been written only by a man who felt the full weakness of human nature. The plucking from above Wordsworth^s head of ^Veeds'^ that might "have drawn their nutriment from his mortal remains'^ would hardly have sug- gested itself to a buoyant mind. The questionings that came to him regarding the virtue of women that he met must have The Central Period 319 been inspired^ in a man so far from libertinism, by a pro- found distrust of human nature. Many such indications, in sketches, romances, and journals, indicate his lack of the hope- ful spirit. In every way he was a product of New England, but not a representative. His style and narrative method were his own. He was not a wide reader and his reading had little apparent influence on his writings. After Fanshawe, in which Hawthorne's }^q followed the fashion of leading his chapters Methc^ with mottoes, it is rare to find a quotation or a literary allusion. The influence of his con- temporaries was no greater. He was on intimate terms with few men of letters at home or abroad, and his community of interest with these few was not literary. The chief quality of his prose style is a charm that cannot be analyzed. In Fanshawe this is hinted at, and a few passages seem like sym- pathetic parodies of his later work. His individual manner was, however, developed during his long seclusion at Salem. It is seen at its best in descriptions and personal comments, as in some of the sketches without plot, where it is everything. It is most unreal in conversation. His characters express appropriate thoughts, but in such language as human beings never used. Yet even here the tone of the diction so har- monizes with the idea that there is little sense of unfitness; the characters, though stiff and unnatural in words and ac- tions, always seem essentially real. The peculiarities of his narrative method have been mentioned in connection with separate works. Perhaps the most striking of these are his assumption of almost omniscient insight into the hearts of his characters and his masterly handling of suggestiveness and symbolism. His sense of humor was but slightly and unequally developed, and there is sometimes a monotony of tone in his work; but he rarely spoils a tale by attempting humor unsuccessfully. 320 American Literature After all has been said^ the best qualities of Hawthorne's" work are too subtle to be catalogued. Notwithstanding his provincialisms^ his morbidness^ and his occa- Hawthorne's gional exhibitions of bad taste, his work as a Rank . . ^ whole leaves the impression of sustained artistic effect. In America he has taken almost unquestioned rank as our greatest romancer; and although his subjects appeal less to European readers, and his defects are such as would impress European critics, his value is recognized abroad. More distinctively than Longfellow or Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was a product and representa- tive of New England culture. By birth he R^eT'"''^^^^ was a typical New Englander of the better class. On his mother's side he was a lineal descendant of Anne Bradstreet, and was connected in more or less remote degrees of cousinship with some of the best known families in New England. Holmes's father, a Yale graduate, was one of the relatively few New England clergy- men who clung sternly to the Calvinistic faith. He was also a man of letters, the possessor of a good library, the author of some verse, and of the Annals of America in prose. The mother was probably less rigid in her orthodoxy and had something of the vivacity so noticeable in her son. Oliver Wendell was born at Cambridge in 1809, the birth year, as he was fond of remarking, of Lincoln, Gladstone, Tennyson, Darwin, and other notables, among whom he might have included Poe. His early schooling was received at Cambridge, and he was sent for a year to that stronghold of orthodoxy, Phillips Academy at Andover. Among his early school fellows were several Cambridge boys and girls who were later to become famous, among them the younger Eichard Henry Dana and Margaret Fuller. Holmes was, according to his own picture of himself, an active, inquisitive, ingenious boy, The Central Period 321 who thought much and read much^ though he rarely read a book through. In 1825 he entered Harvard and was gradu- ated with the now famous class of 1829. After the usual hesitation over the choice of a profession he took up law for a year^ but abandoned it for medicine. For two years he studied in Boston, and for two years in Paris, getting glimpses in vacation of England, Scotland, Holland, the Ehine, Switzerland, and Italy. His letters from Paris show that though he enjoyed good living and a good time, he was en- thusiastically devoted to his profession. On his return to America he opened an office in Boston, and built up a fair, though never a very large or remunerative, practice. He was, however, a successful and convincing writer of essays on medical topics. For two or three years he was professor of anatomy in Dartmouth college, a position that involved the delivery of a course of lectures for three months each year. In 1847 he was called to a professorship of anatomy in the Harvard medical school. Meanwhile, Holmes had been building up a local reputa- tion as a poet, an essayist, and a wit. While an undergradu- ate he had written poems, humorous and senti- wSgs^^""^^ mental, for the Harvard ^^CoUegian.^^ It was while he was studying law that he be- came indignant at the proposal to destroy the frigate ^^Consti- tution,^^ and made his protest in ^^Old Ironsides.^^ He also contributed to various periodicals articles in prose and verse. Two of these, which appeared in the ^^ISTew England Maga- zine^^ under the title of ^'The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table,^^ were the precursors of the more famous series written later. In 1836 he published a collection of poems. After his appointment to the Harvard professorship Holmes's life was outwardly an uneventful one. For thirty- five years he delivered regularly his four lectures a week throughout the college year. During the better days of the 322 American Literature lyceum movement he lectured on several subjects, among them the English poets of the nineteenth century. A liability to asthma tended to keep him at home, and Hohnes's Later ^^ travelled little, and rarely left New Eng- land, even for a short stay. He resigned from the professorship of anatomy in 1882 because he desired a rest and more time for literary work. The summer of 1886 he spent with his daughter in England and Paris. A pleasant incident of the trip was the receipt of honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. Though threatened with blindness he retained some use of his eyes and almost the full command of his other faculties until his death. Holmes^s literary reputation was achieved late in life. In 1857, when the ^"^ Atlantic Monthly'^ was founded, he was a middle-aged Boston gentleman, a Harvard olmess professor, the author of a number of occa- sional poems and of some sentimental and humorous trifles in verse, a writer of fairly valuable and very readable medical essays, but by no means a notable man of letters. Yet it is a familiar story that Lowell insisted on his becoming a contributor to the new magazine. As usual, LowelPs instinct as an editor was true; and The Autocrat of the Breahfast-Table, which ran as a serial throughout the first twelve numbers, did more than anything else to insure the success of the "Atlantic.^^ This series was immedi- ately followed by another. The Professor at the Breahfast- Table, Then came The Professor's Story, issued in book form as Elsie Venner, and in 1867 another novel. The Guardian Angel. The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, pub- lished in 1872, completed the Breakfast-Table series. Then followed :a decade of literary inactivity, in which a memoir of Motley was the only work of importance. After the resig- nation from the Harvard professorship came another series of interesting works — the life of Emerson in 1884, A Mortal The Central Period 333 Antipathy in 1884-5^ Our Hundred Days in Europe in 1887, Over the Tea-Cups in 1888-90. For the edition of his works issued in 1883 he compiled a volume of Medical Essays, and another of miscellaneous papers collected under the title Pages from an Old Volume of Life. Several volumes of verse appeared at different times. Personally as well as in ancestry Dr. Holmes was repre- sentative of much that was best in New England. He had the Yankee characteristics of mental alert- Holmes's ness, of ingenuity, of interest in many things. Characteristics "^^ ^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ always working with tools and contriving new devices. As a man he experi- mented with the microscope before it was recognized as a neces- sary instrument in the study of anatomy. He was an enthusi- astic amateur photographer in the days of the old and difficult wet process. He invented the ordinary hand stereoscope. Even in his latest years he was greatly interested in the mechanical ingenuity shown in such contrivances as the safety razor and the illuminating devices that aided his weakened vision. The diversity of his general interests may be seen by turning through a few pages of one of his discursive volumes. This breadth was necessarily incompatible with the greatest depth. Even in his specialty Dr. Holmes, though said always to have been abreast of the times, was not an investigator. That he chose his position, or at least occupied it knowingly, is shown in The Poet at the Brealcfast-Table and other works in which he paid his respects to the narrow specialist. His habit of reading ^^in books rather than through them" has been mentioned; and it was probably lack of system rather than lack of quantity in his reading that led him to say, "ISTo graduate of Harvard — or at least very few — had ever read less at my age than myself." It was also owing to his New England training that Holmes took great interest in theology. He early suffered a 324 American Literature reaction from the strict views of his father. His professionaL studies gave him data not known to his neighbors, and led him to approach many problems from the Holmes's gi^g of what would now be called physiological Theology psychology. Of the popular N"ew England writers on religious subjects he was almost the only one who gave full weight to the revelations of modern science. His favorite speculations were on sin and moral responsibility as determined by heredity and environ- ment; but he had much to say on the belief in a future state, and the nature of the relations between God and man. These were his pet topics, to which he returned time after time in almost everything that he wrote. Much of what he said is generally unquestioned to-day, and the rest is nothing new; but at first he seemed, to the followers of his father's faith, a blasphemer. In all matters but religion Dr. Holmes was a conservative and something of an aristocrat. He disliked the extremists in reform movements, though he professed Holmes s ^^ -^^ ^^ sympathy with the general aims of many of them. His lack of interest in abo- lition was so noticeable that he was accused of being a pro- slavery man, though when the war began no one spoke more clearly than he in favor of the Union. His aristocratic ten- dencies show themselves in his frequent disquisitions on the subject of family and heredity, in which he called in his pro- fessional knowledge to reenforce his sympathies. There was nothing of snobbishness in all this, but rather the feeling which prefers the orderly, the well established, and the pleas- ant to the strenuous and the radical. On the other hand his broad S3rmpathy is shown in many ways. It was his feelings as much as conscious determination that led him always to address the duller half of his class in his lectures. When- ever he could he refused the ungracious task of writing lit- The Central Period 325 erary criticisms. Early in his career he gained the name of being the best talker and diner out in Boston; and his geniality made it impossible to be oiSEended at his sharp sayings. As he grew old the differences between his belief and that of the orthodox church became less marked^ and this tended to remove the one hindrance to his being universally beloved. Dr. Holmes's best prose is seen in the Breakfast-Table series. The Autocrat, the first and the best — to use his own phrase, the first pressing of the grapes — is The Autocrat of made up of the best things that the author Table " could say, and doubtless had said at the break- fast and dinner tables of Boston. The form, that of conversation running to monologue at a table where the boarders represented a diversity of interests, gave a chance to introduce any subject, and to treat it in almost any man- ner. The first instalment, for example, touches on mutual admiration societies, the philosophy of conversation, puns, poetic composition, and a dozen other topics. The author's favorite theological ideas come in frequently. Poems are read by the Autocrat and others at the table. Puns, of the truly clever sort, are frequent, as in much of the author's prose and verse. Epigrams, among the best in American literature, are scattered here and there. Through the whole runs a slender thread of a love story. The characters at the table are lightly but admirably sketched, and the book has just enough unity not to be a hodgepodge, and not enough to prevent its being opened and read at any page. It has been compared to Lamb's essays, to Christopher North's Nodes Ambrosiance, and to various other informal books, but while it has resemblances to some of them it has a flavor and an individuality of its own. The Professor at the Breahfast-Tahle, which followed im- mediately after The Autocrat, is on the whole the least satis- 326 American Literature factory of the series. The book is more serious^ which means that it deals more with theological controversy. It is less in the form of conversation or broken monologue. Sd5?Poet ^^^^ characters, and especially the cripple, Little Boston, on whom the author lavished much care, are less attractive than those of The Autocrat. Though there are many excellent quotable passages the general impression left by the volume is far inferior to that of its predecessor. The Poet at the Breahfast-Tahle, which concludes the series, was written after a considerable interval, during which the author no doubt acquired a new fund of witty sayings. Though inferior to The Autocrat it is better than The Professor, In the character of the Master the author created as it were a second self, wlio could make remarks which he hesitated to give in the first person, now that the speaker was so definitely identified in the public mind as 0. W. H. Dr. Holmes again adopted a form similar to that of the Breakfast-Table series in his last important work, Over the Tea-Cups. This was begun in the ^^Atlantic'^ T^-C^\ in 1888, but was interrupted by the death of his wife and his daughter, and resumed in 1890. The greater part of it was, therefore, written after the author was over eighty years of age. It is inferior to the Breakfast-Table series, but there is nothing to suggest the work of a superannuated man. It is a trifle more frank than the earlier papers in its personal references, and is written, as the author says, rather for his old friends than for new acquaintances. It contains some allusions to his favorite ideas on religious and other subjects, but its frequent discussion of new things and new problems shows how alertly the author kept pace with the times. The first two novels deal with the same problem — that of inherited tendencies — and were intended to teach something The Central Period 327 regarding moral responsibility. ^^Medieated fiction^^ a friend of the author once called them, and he often quoted the phrase with a protest, though with evident Elsi6 Venner— enjoyment of its aptness. Elsie Venner, the The Guardian -, . j* ±1 n i rv j* xi m i. ^ ^ I heroine oi the first, suiters irom the eiiects oi a rattlesnake bite received by her mother before her birth, so that her nature has a strange element not human. The Gitardian Angel shows in a more ordinary fashion the culmination and power of strong family tendencies. The setting in both stories is in New England, and there are shrewd and happy portrayals of village life, which make use of material similar to that which Longfellow handled unsuc- cessfully in KavanagJi. The characters are sketchily yet effectively drawn, with a touch of humor, and a great deal of human sympathy. Miles Gridley, in The Guardian Angel, is a delightful creation, and some admirable epigrams are intro- duced as quotations from his forgotten book. The plot, aside from the action necessitated by the leading idea, is of the quiet, obvious, old-fashioned sort. This, indeed, is the kind of story which Holmes always used, in his novels and in the Breakfast-Table series — the simple love story, with stock hero, heroine, and villain, the action varied occasionally by a touch of the melodramatic, as in one episode of Elsie Ven- ner, The lack of a more closely knit structure and the pres- ence of so obvious a didactic motive are the chief defects in the novels. Though not great works of fiction they are wonderfully readable, and once read are likely to be remem- bered. Of the two, Elsie Venner is the more striking, but it contains no character so good as Miles Gridley. A Mortal Antipathy suffers from an extreme lack of plausi- bility. The story is, briefly, that of a young man who has an uncontrollable aversion to all young women, the result of an injury at the hands of a pretty girl in his infancy. The resolution of the plot comes when the hero, helplessly weak 338 American Literature with typhoid fever, is rescued from a burning house by an- other pretty girl, a college athlete in bloomers. It seems strange that Holmes should have attempted Antipathy ^ ^^^^ which his keen perception must have told him was not only improbable but some- what ludicrous. He went conscientiously about the task of making it seem plausible, but he did not succeed. The story is most interesting for its sketches of two types of college girl, and for its reflection of the author's views on the ^^new woman.'' It is much more discursive than a novel is usually permitted to be, and may be said to stand midway between a romance and a work like those in the Breakfast-Table series. The preparation of a memoir of Motley was a difficult task, especially while unfortunate events in the political life of the historian were fresh in the public mind, and Holmes s j^^^ Holmes did little more than write a Biographies tribute to a friend. The life of Emerson is interesting as showing how the Sage of Concord was viewed by a friend and neighbor not in sympathy with his phi- losophy. Transcendentalism appealed to Holmes inasmuch as it stood for greater freedom of thought, but the oddities and extremes of the movement and its lack of repose shocked him. In his biography he succeeded in portraying one im- portant side of Emerson's character, but another side he could hardly understand. The Medical Essays, though included in the collected works, and readable enough, are relatively unimportant. They ex- press views on physiological and psychological Hohnes's matters which are repeated in more popular Sose"^''^''''^ form in the other essays. Several of them attack one of the Doctor's chief aversions, homeopathy. The Pages from an Old Volume of Life in- cludes a variety of papers, among them ^^My Hunt after the Captain," an account of a journey in search of his son, who The Central Period 339 had been wounded at Antietam, and ^^Cinders from the Ashes/^ a short paper containing some interesting recollections of his early life. The least important of his volumes is Our Hun- dred Days in Europe, in which he writes of his summer in England. With its testimonials to asthma cures and patent razors, its minute chronicle of goings, comings, and social attentions, this seems unworthy of ^^The Autocrat.^^ If it had not been followed four years later by the bright and thought- ful Over the Tea-Cups it might have led to the belief that the author was lapsing into the painful garrulity of old age. As a poet Holmes showed his conservative tendency. He was fond of the heroic couplet and continued to write it throughout life. He disliked the ^^rattlety- ohnes as a bang sort of verse,^^ as, in a goodnatured letter to Lowell, he characterized the metre of ^^Sir Launfal.^^ He wrote /^metrical essays,^^ and his lyrics were often of the mildly sentimental sort, with the quiet good taste of an old-fashioned gentleman. As an occasional poet he has been unequalled in America. His poems for the class of ^29 and for many societies and anniversaries fill a consider- able space in his works; and all have the merit of special fitness for the occasion, while a few possess an enduring quality. Those best known are of the lyric order, such as "Bill and Joe,^^ and "The Boys,^^ both among the class poems. The longer didactic pieces, with their happy mixture of humor and sense, are of a kind that has gone out of fashion; but "Poetry; a Metrical Essay'^ and "A Ehymed Lesson^^ contain many quotable couplets. Many of the early poems and a few of the later ones are wholly humorous. Holmes is at his best, however, in the blending of humor and pathos, as in "The Last Leaf,^^ or of humor and material for solid thought, as in "The Deacon^s Masterpiece'^ — better known as "The One-Hoss Shay.'' A poem of this latter sort, in which the humor predominates, was "The Broomstick Train," writ- 330 American Literature ten when the author was over eighty^ and as fresh and in- genious as his boyhood verses. Of the purely serious poems "The Chambered Nautilus/^ first given in The Autocrat, is the best known^ and was the author^s favorite. Its great vogue is probably due to the obvious moral lesson in the last stanza^ but for a poem of its kind it is almost flawless. The long "Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts/^ published section by section in TJie Poet at the Breakfast-Table, is smooth, land phrases well the author^s beliefs. Many of the short poems are of the sort sometimes called society verse — the brief treat- ment in perfect taste of subjects neither too serious nor too trivial. Holmes had an old-fashioned fondness for pathos, which is often shown in his prose, and in such poems as "The Voiceless^^ and "Under the Violets/^ but he usually saved himself from sentimentality by the introduction of humor. In discussing Dr. Holmes^s rank as a man of letters it is perhaps well to begin with sweeping concessions. He was not a great scholar, a great moral teacher, a great Holmes's Rank , , • j. tt ^ • ;i x poet, or a great essayist. He did not repre- sent the aggressive spirit of the time. He was to a consider- able extent provincial. On the other hand he was a kindly, genial, observing man, with a gift of happy expression in prose and verse. He is always suggestive, if not deep. He made a personal impression on his hearers and readers. For this reason he occupies an important and in some respects a unique place in American literature. Many a critic who would unhesitatingly concede all the limitations that have been mentioned picks up Holmes's poems and The Autocrat more frequently and with more pleasure than the works of any other American poet or essayist. In the great variety which these works offer there is something for every mood except that of the deepest thought, and perhaps suggestions even for that. And whatever is there is given with the in- The Central Period 331 describable quality which we call perfect taste, and which marks the author as a gentleman. The six greater New England writers^^Emerson, Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and Holmes, were all of old New England ancestry and, with the ex- Lesser ception of Longfellow, were all born in eastern Authors Massachusetts. AH but Whittier spent their active lives within twenty miles of Boston and Harvard college, and Whittier was but little farther away. All of them were on terms of pleasant acquaintanceship, and they met frequently in Boston, especially after the founding of the ^^Atlantic Monthly.^^ Besides these men and their contemporaries who have already been mentioned there were many other Massachusetts writers who were of importance in their day, and a considerable number of whom deserve to be remembered. Among those who were associated with what may be called the main literary set were James T. Fields, E. H. Dana, Jr., Edward Everett Hale, J. T. Trowbridge, Charles Eliot Norton, Samuel Longfellow, E. T. S. Lowell, William Ware, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. James T. Fields (1817-1881) was born in New Hampshire, but went to Boston when a young man, and for over thirty years was a member of the leadinsf publishinsc firm of that city. Unlike most of the New England literary men he did not have a college education; but he was a wide reader, and he had the instincts of a biblio- phile and a collector. As publisher, and as editor of the ''Atlantic Monthly'' from 1862 to 1870, he became the help- ful friend of many American men of letters. During fre- quent visits to England he made the acquaintance of leading English writers. His most valuable work is Yesterdays with Authors, first published in 1872. In this he writes of Thackeray, Hawthorne, Dickens, Wordsworth, Miss Mitford, 333 American^ Literature and Barry Cornwall^, all of whom he had known. The papers are gossipy and appreciative rather than critical^ but have real value. Underljrusli is a collection of miscellaneous essays and sketches^ some of them containing partly successful at- tempts at humor^ and some, like a paper on ^^Diamonds and Pearls/^ the gleanings of a reader in out-of-the-way places. His poems contain some old favorites of the school readers, with humorous turns and moral lessons, but are of slight importance. As publisher, editor, lecturer, and center of a literary circle Fields rendered services to American litera- ture altogether incommensurable with the value of his own writings. Eichard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882), abolitionist, writer on international law, and occasional contributor to the ^^North American Eeview,^^ owes his permanent Dana^Tr"^^^^ literary reputation to one book. Two Years Before the Mast, This tells the story of the author^s experiences on a cruise which he made to California for the purpose of regaining his health. It was published in 1840, and remains the best portrayal of sea life in the old days of American sailing vessels. The style is graphic, and the facts, though evidently uncolored, are so told that they have the charm of a romance. Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) came of a family that had been distinguished since the early days of Massachusetts Bay. After his graduation from Harvard at war verett ^-^^ ^^^ ^£ seventeen he entered the ministry in 1842, and became pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston in 1856. For almost seventy years he was active in many ways — as preacher, lecturer, philanthropist, social reformer, editor, historian, biographer, essayist, and story writer. He was a frequent contributor to magazines, and the number and variety of his published volumes seems incredible until one remembers how long and persistently The Central Period 333 he wrote. Though prolific, he was not a hasty or at least not a slovenly writer. His style was always easy and indi- vidual, and though he may seem a trifle garrulous in some of his later work he never loses his charm. As an historian he was accurate and reasonably thorough, but he had not the time and perhaps not the temper for deep investigation. His FranMin in France and other historical writings will probably be superseded ; and his essays and novels can hardly last. His pleasant and gossipy recollections of N"ew England men and affairs will long be a delight to students of these sub- jects, though for concise criticism and statement of fact they will go to other authorities. Perhaps his work which is most likely to live is his short stories. "My Double, and How he Undid Me,^' published in the "Atlantic'^ in 1859, showed clever and ingenious humor. "The Man without a Country,'^ written during the Civil War, is a masterly story, and deserves to be remembered not only for its lesson of patriotism but for its literary art. The feeling is intense, yet never seems over-done ; and the verisimilitude is so great that the tale has been taken for history. John Townsend Trowbridge (1827- ), another late sur- vivor of the early "Atlantic^^ group, is a native of New York, but removed to Boston about 1848. He is Trowbridffe most successful in stories for boys, and Cud jo's Cave and the "Jack Hazard^^ stories are now being enjoyed by the sons and grandsons of those who first delighted in them. His work for adults is on the whole less valuable, though the "Vagabonds^^ and one or two other poems are commonly known, and some of his novels were popular in their day. My Own Story, a late book of reminis- cences, is both readable and valuable to the student of literary history. Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908) is better known as a •translator and editor than as a creative author, but filled \ 334 American Literature an important place in the N"ew England literary set. He was born at Cambridge^, graduated at Harvard^ and for many years occupied a chair in that college. He and Critk^^ ^^^^^ made a journey to India, and spent much time in Europe. Besides editing the correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson and the letters of Lowell he translated Dante, and published several works on artistic and literary topics. Edwin Percy Whipple (1819- 1886) was another man of literary interests, whose writings are now but little read. He held a business clerkship in Boston when in 1843 he attracted attention by an article on Macaulay, modelled somewhat on the style of that author. He soon won a reputation as an essayist and lyceum lecturer, and was one of the most respected critics of his day. Among his volumes are Essays and Reviews^ 1848-9, Literature and Life, 1849, The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 1876. It is now difficult to understand the basis of Whipple's con- temporary reputation. He was a conscientious critic, with fairly definite though narrow canons of judgment, and he tried to write in an entertaining way; but his essays show neither keen insight nor effective phrasing. Doubtless his fame was helped by the fact that he was a self-educated man, by his success as a popular lecturer, and perhaps by his style, which was modelled on that of the favorite essayist of the day, Macaulay. Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892), younger brother of the more distinguished poet, was a graduate of Harvard and [a Unitarian clergyman. He made important contributions to hymnology, both as author and editor, and he also wrote the life of his brother. Samuel F. Smith (1808-1895), a member of the famous Harvard class of 1829, and later a Baptist clergyman and an editor, wrote several hymns, and other poems, but is remembered only as the author of ^^My Country, 'tis of thee." The Central Period 335 Eobert Traill Spence Lowell (1816-1891), elder brother of James Eussell Lowell, was a graduate of Harvard college and Harvard medical school, but later be- ^^FUi^^^*^^^ came an Episcopal clergyman. He served parishes in the Bermudas, Newfoundland, New York, and New England, and was for a time professor of Latin in Union College. He wrote poems which, while they never reach the heights, are musical and admirably sustained. More important are his stories. The New Priest in Conception Bay, Anthony Brade, and A Story or two from a Dutch Town, The New Priest in Conception Bay, his most important work, has for its setting the fishing village in Newfoundland where he was stationed. It is a strong story, with vivid character painting, but suffers from the fact that it is written with a sectarian purpose. William Ware (1797-1852), another Harvard graduate and Unitarian clergyman, published three historical or semi-historical novels —Zenohia, or the Fall of Palmyra (first published as Letters from Palmyra), Aurelian (first published as Probus), and Julian, or Scenes in Judea. In each of these the story is told in letters purporting to be written by one of the principal characters. The author makes a conscientious attempt to re-create ancient scenes, and his results are in some ways praiseworthy; but the length of his stories, the artificiality of his form, and the lack of a light touch interfere with his success. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911), who published over her maiden name, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, was a precocious Andover girl who was a contributor to "The Youth's Companion'^ at the age of thirteen, and to "Harper's Monthly'' before she was twenty. Her many stories, sketches, and essays have most of them a moral aim. The Gates Ajar, her most popular work, is an imaginative presentation of the possibilities of the future life, and was inspired by the death of her brother. Louise Chandler 336 American Literature Moulton (1835-1908) was a native of Connecticut, but after her marriage lived in Boston. She wrote much for periodi- cals, and published some twenty volumes of fiction, essays, and poems. Somewhat younger than the authors who have been men- tioned was Louisa M. Alcott (1832-1888), daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. The hardships which that L ^^a M^ Al^t ^^^^^^^ transcendentalist brought upon his family gave her valuable training and fur- nished material for some of her later literary work. She early wrote verses, plays, and stories, some of which were published, but her first work of importance was Hospital Sketches, issued in 1863. This told of the author^s experi- ences during a few weeks as army nurse in Washington. In 1869 it was reprinted with the addition of a group of "Camp and Fireside Stories.^^ It is said that some of Miss Alcott^s earliest tales had been of the ultra-sensational kind, and a few of those in this group show a trace of melodrama. Others abound in graphic and detailed description, and show an ir- repressible sense of humor. She really found herself in the first of her long series of juvenile stories. Little Women, published in 1868. Many of these tales are cleverly realistic pictures of New England life as she had known it. It is usually said that she wrote for girls, as Trowbridge wrote for boys; but young people of both sexes enjoy her bright and wholesome books. Other writers whose literary work was not fairly begun until after the close of the Civil War were John Fiske, Charles Dudley Warner, and Horace E. Scud- John Fiske .^^^^ j^^^ -p.gj^^ (1842-1901) holds a unique place as a scholarly expositor and popularizer of philosophy and history. He was born in Hartford, was graduated at Harvard, and lived most of his later life at Cambridge. He had a brief connection with Harvard college after his gradu- The Central Period 337 ation, but his advancement was prevented by rumors of his atheism. Later he engaged in lecturing, and was nonresident professor of history in Washington University, St. Louis. Throughout life his interests were broad, but he was first attracted chiefly by the theory of evolution, and after- ward by American history. Before 1885 he published a number of books on philosophical topics, which had great influence in interpreting the views of Darwin and Spencer to Americans. Between 1888 and his death he wrote a num- ber of historical works. The chief characteristic of all his writings is their great clearness. He had a remarkable faculty of stating difficult matters for the common man without serious loss of scholarly accuracy. Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) was born in western Massachusetts, and was graduated from Hamilton college in 1851, and from the University of Pennsyl- Later Minor yania law school in 1856. After practicing his profession in Chicago for four years he turned to journalism, and later was one of the editors of Harper's Magazine. His first book to gain attention was My Summer in a Garden, a collection of light newspaper sketches pub- lished in 1870. From this time until his death he wrote voluminously. Several of his books are accounts of travel, some are fiction, and some are miscellaneous essays. Being a Boy, one of his most pleasing books, is full of autobiographi- cal reminiscences. The Gilded Age he wrote in collaboration with Mark Twain. He was general editor of the American Men of Letters series, to which he contributed the volume on Irving. He was a journalist of the best type, a man of wide interests, of literary taste, and though genial, of sternly up- right principles. His work is simple, homely, and humorous — charming reading for a summer's day, but without very dis- tinctive qualities. Horace E. Scudder (1838-1902), a native of Boston and a graduate of Williams college, was for many 338 American Literature years literary adviser of the leading publishing house of New- England and edited some of the more important series issued by that firm. From 1890 to 1898 he was editor of the ''At- lantic Monthly/^ His earlier writings were largely for children, and he always took an interest in child life and in juvenile literature. His most important work was the Life of James Russell Lowell, and' he wrote other biographies and essays. Several Massachusetts authors vfere, because of tempera- ment or circumstances of residence, less closely associated with the group that centered about Boston, Harvard college, and the ''x^tlantic Monthly/^ Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881) w^as a Yankee w^ho tried keeping waiting school, taking daguerreotypes, teaching, and practicing medicine, and finally found his calling in editing a new^spaper and giving general good advice. At the age of thirty he became associate editor of the ''Springfield Eepub- lican,^^ and did much to develop the reputation of that paper. After 1870 he lived in New York and edited "Scribner's Monthly.^^ His first work to attract attention was Timothy TitcomVs Letters to Young People, Married and Single, published in the "Springfield Eepublican^^ and collected in book form in 1858. This was followed the same year by Bitter-Sweet, a dramatic poem, and later by Kathrina, a long narrative poem. Lessons in Life, Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects, Gold Foil Hammered from Popular Proverbs, a Life of Lincoln, Arthur Bonnicastle, a novel, and many more. Dr. Holland^s great popularity as a lyceum lecturer and the immense sales of his books indicate that he had a message for many of his contemporaries; and his works are still in print. His ideals were true, and he stated them strongly, apparently unconscious that they were commonplace. His prejudices, his religious narrowness, a sort of cheap reverberating quality of his style, and his use of up-to-date if The Central Period 339 not slangy expressions no doubt helped to impress his moral on readers of a certain class. His poems teach the same lessons as his prose^ but they move from beginning to end without a touch of inspiration. He is an example of the author who has a contemporary reputation and an influence wholly disproportioned to the artistic value of his work. Thomas William Parsons (1819-1892) was a native of Bos- ton. During several years of his early manhood he lived in Italy^ where he became interested in Dante^ Thomas William ^^^ published a verse translation of the Parsons ^ first ten cantos of the Inferno in 184:3. He adopted the supposedly unpoetic profession of dentistry^ which he practiced in Boston^ and afterward in London. He completed the translation of the Inferno in 1867^ and issued a number of small volumes of original verse^, some of them privately printed. A selection from these was published as Poems the year after his death. The translation of Dante has been highly praised by competent scholars^ and impresses the reader who does not know the original as the loving, painstaking work of a man with the poef s instinct. Par- sons was a poet^s poet, and he wrought little, but with great care and exquisite taste. His best known poem, ^^On a Bust of Dante,^^ is one of the few flawless lyrics written by an American. Though never widely popular, he was one of the truest artists among minor American writers of verse. Another self-exiled American who wrote poetry as an avo- cation was William Wetmore Story (1819-1895), the lawyer and artist. He was a native of Salem and a W^tm^ St graduate of Harvard. After being admitted to the bar he published several legal treatises of recognized authority. In 1848 he went to Italy, where he resided for the rest of his life, and attained international fame as a sculptor. He possessed an attractive personality, his interests were wide, and his writings touch many sub- 340 American Literature jects. His poems were produced at various times throughout his life. After he went abroad he published a play or two and some prose works^ among them Roia di Roma, or Walks and Talks about Rome, and Conversations in a Studio, His verse was obviously influenced by Browning. He made fre- quent use of the dramatic monologue^ and succeeded well with the broken blank verse that fits this kind of composition. ^^A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem/^ a defense of Judas, is the longest and the most ingenious of his exercises in psychological analysis. His most familiar poem, ^^Cleopatra/^ shows some- thing of the same treatment in briefer compass and lighter measure. Some of his lyrics are well sustained and indeed all his work is usually pleasing and in good taste. Among the minor poets whose names are occasionally re- called was George Lunt (1803-1885), a Newburyport lawyer and editor. He published several volumes of ore inor verse, but all is now forgotten except a lyric or two. Frances Sargent Osgood (1811-1850) was the daughter of a Boston merchant, but after her mar- riage lived in London and New York. Mrs. Osgood is per- haps now best remembered because of Poe^s extravagant praise of her work, yet her contemporary fame was considerable. Her poems are most of them sentimental lyrics, often intense, and often with an element of over-fanciful imagination. The quality which attracted Poe was doubtless her smoothness and facility in versification. Epes Sargent (1813-1880), a descendant of a prominent New England family, was a pains- taking editor and compiler, and the author of many original works of various kinds. Several of his plays were put on the stage and his tales for young people once had considerable vogue. John Boyle O'Eeilly (1844-1890) was a native of Ireland who escaped from Australia, where he had been trans- ported for treason. He became editor of the "Boston Pilot," and was noted as .a public speaker and a poet. His verses The Central Period 341 show a Celtic fluency, and are characterized by smoothness, and many aphoristic lines and couplets. The instinct for historical writing had been strong in Massachusetts since the days of Bradford and Winthrop, and four Massachusetts men, Prescott, Bancroft, "^^^ Motley, and Parkman, produced histories that Massachusetts . . , , ^'^. > ah Historians ^^^ ^ ^^ important as literature. All were of old New England stock, born within a few miles of Boston, and graduated at Harvard college. Two of them, Prescott and Motley, devoted themselves to European history, though they chose subjects that had some connection with America ; and two, Bancroft and Parkman, chose Ameri- can themes. William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) was a native of Salem, and in 1811 entered college as a sophomore. The William ^^^^ J^^^ he was struck by a piece of bread Hickling thrown by a fellow student at commons, and Prescott received injuries that resulted in the blind- ness of one eye and great weakness of the other. He had been a fair student, and the faculty showed him some considera- tion, so that he was able to receive his degree. He spent some time in travel and contributed a few papers to the "North American Eeview^^ and other magazines. His finan- cial circumstances were such that he might have lived without definite employment, but he rejected this possibility and re- solved to become a writer. To make up for the deficiencies of his college training he outlined a course of study, most of which he carried out. After much consideration he decided on a subject from Spanish history, and in 1837 published his Ferdinand and Isabella. He then turned naturally to The Conquest of Mexico, the theme of which Irving generously relinquished to him, and afterward to The Conquest of Peru, Before his death he had completed three of four projected volumes on Philip the Second, 342 American Literature Prescott's methods of study and composition were de- termined by his infirmity. He could not himself ransack libraries and manuscript collections^ or even resco ^ visit with profit the places where these au- thorities were found. He never went to Spain^ Mexico^ or Peru. Fortunately he had both influence and money^ and was able to engage the best copyists and to secure for them admission to the most valuable collections. The results of their labors were brought to his darkened study and used with the aid of readers. After he had planned a work he got in mind the facts relating to a single topic, and thought out the details and even the phraseology before a line was written. In Ferdinand and Isabella every sentence is elaborated as if it were intended as a textbook example of its type. Later he gained greater ease, but he always gave the impression of studious care. His methods of work also affected the value of his history as history, though he recognized the difficulties under which he labored and tried to overcome them. It is a common charge that he painted his historical pictures with too gorgeous coloring. John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877) was born at Dorchester, a half generation younger than Prescott. After a brilliant though not very diligent career at Harvard, SSe^''*^'^^ he studied at Berlin and Goettingen. His first two volumes were novels. The earlier, Morton's Hope, is partly autobiographical, and in some places has a little of the fiavor of Wilhelm Meister, Merry Mount is historical fiction. At an early date he had written a re- view article or two on historical subjects, and he began sys- tematic study of the history of the Dutch Eepublic. On learn- ing that Prescott intended a work on Philip the Second he was tempted to give up, but Prescott encouraged him, as he had himself been encouraged by Irving under similar! circumstances. From 1851 to 1856 he worked among thd The Central Period 343 manuscript collections of Europe and finished The Rise of the Dutch Republic in 1856. In 1860 he published two volumes of The United Netherlands and completed the work in 1868. Meanwhile he had been for a time minister to Austria and in 1869 was made minister to England. In both positions he had serious trouble, which led to bitter and confusing newspaper controversy. After his summary recall from England he wrote a life of John of Barneveldt, and planned a work on the Thirty Years^ War which his failing health did not allow him to prepare. Motley was a careful and thorough student, and any defects of his w^ork come rather from his personality than from his methods. He seems to have had the temper of an advocate rather than that of a judge, and perhaps that of a dramatist more than either. When he considered historical questions analogous to those in the United States he was somewhat of a partizan, and he was likely to sympathize with the most picturesque character. His history always has a hero. George Bancroft (1800-1891), the elder of the two his- torians who chose American themes, was born in Worcester. He was one of the first of the Harvard men to George Bancroft i i - n ^ • i xi t ^ study m Germany and received the degree of Ph.D. from Goettingen in 1820. In 1822-3 he was tutor in Greek at Harvard, and in the latter year published a volume of poems. He had, however, already determined to devote himself to history, and in 1834 he published the first volume of his History of the United States, This history was his chief literary task throughout life, though his work upon it was much interrupted by his participation in politics. He was successively collector of the port of Boston, secretary of the navy, and minister to England and to Germany. After 1849 he lived in New York. Twelve volumes of his history appeared at intervals until 1882, the last bringing the narra- tive to the adoption of the constitution. The final revised 344 American Literature edition was published in 1884-5. His other writings are mostly magazine articles and occasional addresses. Bancroft differed from most of his New England con- temporaries in being a democrat, and his political beliefs influenced both his views of history and his T ^*°^^^ ^ *t. J style. He was much of a moralist, as is shown Literary Method ^ ^ by some of his earliest essays. He inter- preted history in the light of his views on life and govern- ment, and thus to a certain extent laid himself open to the charge of partizanship. His style, especially in the earlier volumes, had something of the heightened quality that was affected by the democrats rather than the federalists. He was, however, a thorough and conscientious investigator, trained even more than most of his contemporaries in the methods of German scholarship. If his history is not abso- lutely impartial it is not because of any deliberate misrepre- sentation or coloring. Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was born in Boston, and after his graduation from Harvard studied law, but never practiced. In 1846 he went on an extended rancis ^^-p -{;]^j.Q^g]^ i\^q wilderness west of the Mis- sissippi, and improved every opportunity to become familiar with the life of the hunter, the guide, and the Indian. His account of this trip, first published in the "Knickerbocker Magazine,^^ and afterward issued as The Cali- fornia and Oregon Trail, is an unusually interesting narra- tive of personal adventure. Two years later he published his first historical work. The Conspiracy of Pontiac, His health was never good, and was permanently impaired by exposure and over exertion during his first visit to the West. Much ot the time he was wholly unable to use his eyes, and anotherj affliction deprived him for a time of the use of hisf limbs. While in a depressed state of mind after the comple-j tion of The Conspiracy of Pontiac he wrote a novel. Vassal The Central Period 345 Morton, published in 1856^ but omitted from his collected works. This is slightly melodramatic in plot^ and is evi- dently in a degree autobiographical. At a later time he turned to horticulture as an out-door avocation. He published a book on roses in 1866^ and in 1871-2 was professor of horti- culture at Harvard. In spite of all difficulties he persevered in his historical work^ and produced a series of volumes cover- ing the entire conflict between France and England for su- premacy in the New World. Those that followed The Conspir- acy of Pontiac were Pioneers of France in the New World, 1865 ; The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Cen- tury, 1867; La Salle: or The Discovery of the Great West, 1869 ; The Old Regime in Canada, 1874; Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, 1877; Montcalm and Wolfe, 1884; and A Half-Century of Conflict, 1892. In the prepara- tion of these works Parkman made five trips to Prance to ex- amine authorities^ and visited nearly every part of America in which the scenes of his histories are laid. He combined in a remarkable degree the accurate method and impartial sense of a modern historian with a keen observation of nature and man, and an eye for the picturesque. His works are of un- questioned value as authorities, and his style has a finish and charm hardly to be found in the work of any other American historian of equal scholarly rank. He wrote narrative rather than philosophical history, yet his analyses of causes and of great movements are sufficient and sound. Several of the Massachusetts publicists and orators have been discussed in other connections, and a few more deserve mention. Eufus Choate (1799-1859), a law- u icists and ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ term United States senator from Massachusetts, was a man of brilliant and magnetic personality. He was a devoted student of the classics, and he deliberately applied the results of his studies to the development of his own style, not always with fortu- 346 American Literature nate effects. In some orations he uses long and involved sentences in which the reader becomes entangled, though his delivery is said to have concealed the defect. He belongs on the whole to the same group of orators as Webster ; but he had more brilliancy and less weight and dignity, and his power probably depended more on his personal manner. Though his speeches are still traditionally classic they are little read, and have little influence on modern public speaking. Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886), son of John Quincy Adams, had a long public career, the most important incident of which was the ministry to England under President Lincoln. In his younger days he contributed articles on literary and mis- cellaneous subjects to the ^^North American Eeview;^^ he edited with great care the works of his father and his grand- father, and wrote their memoirs ; he published some political pamphlets; and he delivered many orations and addresses. The frank determination and the literary tastes and interests which had characterized the earlier members of tlie family are seen to a considerable extent in all these works. Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was the son of an old ISTew England family, a graduate of Harvard, a student of literature, and in his day the ^^scholar in politics^^ from Massachusetts. A Fourth of July oration, ^^On the True Grandeur of Nations,^^ in which he opposed war, attracted much attention. After 1850 almost all his speeches were on political questions; but he continued to keep his interest in literature, and was a life- long intimate of Longfellow and others of the Cambridge literary set. The discussion of his long service in the senate, with the sensational assault by Brooks, and the later aliena- tion from his party, belongs to political history. The fifteen volumes of his works offer little attraction to the ordinary reader. They are made up largely of speeches in the senate. His formal addresses before that body were usually four hours in length and were in a style that has been called The Central Period 347 ^^architectural/^ This epithet is apt in the sense that they were built up with great labor^ not that they were admirable in proportion. His style was formal, and his use of many quo- tations and allusions was in a manner already almost obsolete. The literary work in the other New England states was far inferior to that in Massachusetts. Connecticut still held the second place with a few minor poets and Connecticut — several prose writers of more importance. Of Mitchell ^^^ latter perhaps Donald Grant Mitchell (1822-1908) shows most markedly the char- acteristics that have been seen in earlier Connecticut writers, though he also has some resemblance in both temper and literary manner to Irving. He was born in Norwich and was graduated from Yale in 1841. His first writings were sketches of European travel and light satirical essays. In 1850 he published, over the pen-name ^^Ik Marvel/^ Reveries of a Bachelor, and the next year Dream Life, These books can be described neither as romances nor as personal essays, but have some of the characteristics of both. They partly tell and partly imply a story, but the narrative ele- ment is not predominant. Reveries of a Bachelor^ especially, is a charming embodiment of the old-fashioned genial and delicate sentimentalism at its best. After serving for a time as United States consul at Venice, Mitchell settled in 1855 at Edgewood, a farm near New Haven, where he lived until his death. He writes of this in My Farm of Edgewood, Wet Days at Edgewood, and other volumes that combine ap- preciation of nature, practical observations on farming, and gleanings from the georgic writings of English and classic poets. His English Lands, Letters, and Kings, and American Lands and Letters are literary criticism with a strong personal element. Mitchell is said to have been annoyed that the public pre- ferred Reveries of a Bachelor to his later writings; and 348 American Literature many of his warmest admirers give first rank to such volumes as Wet Days at Edgewood, It is probable^ however, that the public is right, and that though the earlier volumes belong to a kind of literature now out of fashion they have more real vitality than the author's slightly self-conscious writings as gentleman farmer or as amateur critic. All MitchelFs work, however, is delicate in manner and pervaded by lan air of leisurely culture that is too rare in American books. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), though at different times resident in many places, fairly belongs to Connecticut. She was born in Litchfield, the daughter of ^towi^*^^^''^^'' the Eeverend Lyman Beecher, one of the strongest of the New England clergymen who clung to Trinitarian Congregationalism, and the sister of a still more distinguished clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher. Her mother died four years after her birth, and her father, though he married twice afterward, took chief charge of her education. Numerous anecdotes are told of the homely, simple, humorous life of the family. The children were allowed a wider course of reading than some Calvinists would have approved, and Mrs. Stowe remembered especially her experiences with the Arabian Nights, Scott, and Byron. Dr. Beecher was called to a conservative pulpit in Boston, and in 1832 to the presidency of a theological seminary in Cincinnati. Here Harriet became intimate with Mrs. Calvin E. Stowe, wife of a professor in the seminary; and after her friend's death in 1834 her efforts to console the husband led to an engagement and her marriage in 1836. Professor Stowe afterward accepted calls in the East, first at Bowdoin college, Brunswick, Maine, and then at Andover theological seminary; and in 1864 the family settled permanently at Hartford. After the war they also had a winter home in Florida. Before her marriage Mrs. Stowe had published a geography The Central Period 349 and done some other slight work with her pen ; and although her health was poor, and limited means imposed on her a large share of household duties, she continued nee oms ^^ write occasionally. It was just after her removal to Brunswick, that she began the com- position of Uncle Tom's Cabin. During her residence in Cin- cinnati she had seen much of slavery across the border, and she had visited friends in the slave states. She always be- lieved slavery an evil, but she was not at first an abolitionist, and even after her convictions became more intense she was never guilty of the vindictive sentiments shown by many northerners who knew nothing of the South at first hand. In Uncle Tom's Cabin she tried to show the bright as well as the dark side of slavery; and she pictured the most brutal slave-master and the woman with the most unreasonable race prejudice as northerners. Indeed, she was surprised that opposition to the book came from the South rather than from the radical abolitionists, whom she thought she was too mild to please. The inspiration to write Uncle Tom's Cabin came from a desire to arouse interest in the evils of slavery, supplemented by a purpose to increase the meagre family income. The work grew to completion slowly, during the few spare mo- ments of a busy housewife. It first appeared serially during 1851-3 in the ^^National Era,^^ an abolitionist paper of small circulation published in Washington. As soon as it was completed it was issued in book form at Boston, and achieved remarkable success. Statistics are somewhat conflicting, but it is usually said that half a million copies were sold in five years. In England the book had an almost equally re- markable run, and it was translated into most continental languages. As a reply to critics who doubted the truth of her portrayals the author published in 1853 A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. 350 American Literature The same year she went abroad^ and the inevitable volume of experiences appeared in 1854 as Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, In 1856 she issued a second novel of lT W^ti^ slavery^ Dred, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, based on some events in the Nat Turner slave insurrection of 1831. In later editions of her works this story appeared with the title Nina Oordori. At the time of its publication Mrs. Stowe went to England to protect her copyrights, and made a tour of the continent. After her return to America she continued to write profusely until she was seventy years of age. After that time her powers declined and she published nothing of importance. The Eiverside edition of her works comprises sixteen volumes. Among her later writings that deserve mention are two stories with New England background. The Minister's Woo- ing and Old-Town Folks. The former has a theological motive, less interesting now than when the book was written. The charm of both is due to the shrewd, S5rtnpathetic, and human portrayal of New England life — a life that the author knew far better than that which she depicts in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Some of her volumes are for young people and others are sketches with. a moral and didactic purpose. In 1869 she contributed to the ^^Atlantic Monthly^^ a vindication of Lady Byron, which she followed by a book on the same sub- ject. It is based on revelations which she received, or be- lieved herself to have received, from Lady Byron herself. Her sincerity cannot be doubted, but her story was so revolt- ing that the world was not prepared to believe it without bet- ter authentication than she could offer, and the episode must be considered the most unfortunate in her literary career. Though many critics find the nearest approach to artistic excellence in the New England tales, Mrs. Stowe seems des- tined to be known as the author of one book. Uncle Tom's Cabin. The faults of this story are obvious. It is sensational. The Central Period 351 and the plot structure is especially open to criticism. It is, however, a sympathetic presentation of life by an alert, kindly, and intensely human woman. After Mrs. Stowe s ^^^ analysis of such a book is likely to be less satisfactory than a statement of its success. At first its great sale in America was ascribed to its timeli- ness; but it had almost equal vogue in countries where the domestic institutions of America caused little concern, and after more than half a century it still maintains its popu- larity, and dramatized versions are still played not only in America but in England and on the Continent. Whatever the formal critic may say, such wide and long continued popularity shows the presence of some elements of literary greatness, if not of artistic skill. The author who has suddenly become a celebrity writes ever after at a disadvantage. After 1852 Mrs. Stowe worked with the public eye continually upon her. Personally she continued unspoiled by praise; but the quality of her work may have been injured by a knowledge of what was expected of her. At all events it is the critics rather than the common readers who have pointed out the excellences in her work of later date, while her first story has appealed to millions. Two lesser Connecticut authors were connected with events of the Civil War. H. H. Brownell (1820-1872), a Hartford lawyer, attracted the attention of Admiral Minor Farragut by some of his poems on naval sub- Connecticut . , n . T '11 1' Writers ]ects, and received an appointment as acting ensign that enabled him to see actual service. ^The Bay Pighf ^ describes the battle of Mobile, at which he was present, and ^^The Eiver Pight'^ the engagement at New Orleans. Both seem imitative of greater poems on similar themes, such as Tennyson's ^The Eevenge/' and Cowper's ^^On the Loss of the Eoyal George ;'' but both are tediously long and not well sustained. As the events of which they 352 American Literature treat pass farther back into history the praise that they once received seems strangely overdone. Brownell's miscellaneous poems are equally unsuccessful. Theodore Winthrop (1828- 1861) was descended from the early governor of Massachu- setts Bay, and on his mother's side from Jonathan Edwards. In the six years after his graduation from Yale in 1848 he visited various parts of Europe, Panama, California, and Oregon, and returned overland to the East. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted, rose to the rank of major, and was killed in battle in 1861. Before his death he had published little except some short papers in the ^^Atlantic Monthly.'^ His three novels, Cecil Dreeme, John Brent, and Edwin BrotJiertoft, two volumes of short sketches, and a collection of poems appeared posthumously and gained considerable vogue. The experiences of the author's short life gave him an abundance of material, and his stories and sketches of travel show great variety. It is probable, however, that public in- terest was stimulated somewhat by a knowledge of his per- sonality, and the picturesque facts of his career; and few persons now read his works. Eose Terry Cooke (1827-1892) published light and melodious verses, and short magazine stories. A touch of sentiment suggests the work of the earlier Connecticut school, though she is saved from offensive senti- mentality by a good sense of humor and by the change in the spirit of the times. In Ehode Island Albert G. Greene (1802-1868), a Provi- dence lawyer of literary tastes, wrote a number of poems, in- cluding two favorites of the old school readers, SandWrUws "^^^ Grimes'' and '^The Baron's Last Ban- quet." He also deserves to be remembered as the founder of the Harris Collection of American Poetry. Sarah Helen Whitman (1803-1878) was also a resident of Providence. Her maiden name was Power. In 1828 she was married to Mr. Whitman; in 1833 she was widowed. In 1 I The Central Period 353 1848 she was provisionally engaged to Poe, but the arrange- ment was broken off^ partly through the agency of friends. Mrs. Whitman is best remembered on account of her rela- tions to Poe, and her essay ^^Edgar A. Poe and his Critics ;^^ but her poems are better than the average minor verse of the time. They have a tendency to be sentimental^ and are not highly original;, but they are remarkably melodious^ and show considerable familiarity with modern European litera- ture. Some of those which grew out of her relations Vith Poe are among her best and have an added biographic value. In Vermont Daniel P. Thompson (1795-1868)/ a farmer's boy who was educated at Middlebury college and became a prominent lawyer, J"iidge, politician, and edi- Minor Vermont ^^ wrote a number of historical and other writers ^ novels. Only one of these survives — The Green Mountain Boys, an historical romance dealing with Vermont in the Eevolution. The patriotic nature of the subject no doubt had much to do with the popularity of this tale; but the story is stirring and well told, and the book is still a good one for boys, and not beneath the notice of their elders. John G. Saxe (1816-1887) was also a native of Ver- mont, a graduate of Middlebury, a lawyer, an editor, and a politician. During his later years he resided in New York City and Albany. He is said to have been a brilliant but erratic man, with periods of nervous excitement which in later years became downright insanity. He began his literary career as [a newspaper humorist; and his best work is as the author of humorous poems, many of "^ which satirize social foibles. ^^The Proud Miss McBride,^^ one of the most popular of these, is aimed at the airs of the newly rich. It is clever, but like many of his poems is too long. Some of his other verses abound in puns, and have a slight burlesque element, suggesting Hood. His few serious poems are not of great value. Though not one of the greater American humorists. 354 American Literature Saxe is well above the level of the ordinary newspaper rhym- ster, and his fun is genuine and clean. Celia Leighton Thaxter (1836-1894) was a native of Ports- mouth, New Hampshire, and passed most of her life on the Isle of Shoals, where her father was lighthouse Minor New keeper. Her prose sketches, Among the Isles '^j.-^gj. of Slioals, first published in the "Atlantic,^' and many of her poems show the influence of her life-long environment. Her prose is over-crowded with adjectives, but vivid, and full of suggestive description and anecdote. Her poems, many of them on subjects connected with the sea, have no great distinction, but rank well among the minor verse of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In Maine Jacob Abbott (1803-1879), a Congregational clergyman, and for a time professor of mathematics and nat- ural philosophy in Amherst college, emulated wSrf ^^^ 'Teter Parley'^ as a writer of moral and in- structive books for the young. His biographer credits him with more than two hundred works. The most important are the twenty-eight volumes of the EoUo series, which tell of the life, adventures, and travels of EoUo Holiday and his family. Characters and events are both natural, but the story in each volume is slight, and the real aim is to give information. Jacob Abbott^s brother, John S. C. Abbott (1805-1877), also a clergyman, wrote a number of popular histories, some of them still read. He was a compiler rather than an original student. Mrs. Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832- ) was born and passed the first thirty years of her life in Maine; later she lived in Washington, in Baltimore, and in New York. Her poems, some of them published over the signature of Florence Percy, are mostly lyrics. The only one now generally remembered is the sentimental ^^Eock me to Sleep, Mother,^^ which by no means represents her best work. A Maine writer of greater distinction was Sylvester Judd The Central Period 355 (1813-1853)^ long pastor of a Unitarian church at Augusta. He was born in Massachusetts and was graduated from Yale college and from Harvard divinity school. •^ His most important work bears the rather appalling title of Margaret, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Bloom; Including Sketches of a Place not before Described, called Mons Christi. It was first published in 1845 and revised in 1851. The scene is laid in ISTew Eng- land in the years just following the Eevolution. The heroine, Margaret, is a waif who grows up among the lowest classes of New England society, in the midst of vice and without religious instruction, but remains pure, and has religious dreams and visions. After many experiences she marries a wonderful Mr. Evelyn, who converts her to Unitarianism, and together they purchase the country about her former home and establish an ideal state of society. The first part of the book was written after careful antiquarian research, and impresses the reader as true to life, even without the tributes to its fidelity from older New England critics. The later part shows the strangely confused ideals of a transcen- dental Unitarian. The book was devoutly written to interpret the author^s views more freely than he could express them in sermons. As a unified work of art it is nothing; but some scenes are strong, the interpretation of New England life and nature is excellent, and the ^^idea?^ parts are an interest- ing if sometimes an amusing revelation of certain aspects of New England thought. Judd also published Philo, an Evan- geliad, in verse, and a second tale, Richard Edney, which deals with contemporary New England life. His biographer gives copious extracts from a blank verse tragedy which was never published. These works have the defects of Margaret, with less of its power. New England produced several writers who became famous for a coarse grained and more hilarious humor than that of 356 American Literature Lowell and Holmes. Chief among these was Charles Farrar Browne (1834-1867), who wrote over the name of Artemns Ward. He was born in Maine, and after re- ew ngan ceivine^ an elementary education worked first Humorists ^ -^ as printer and then as reporter on various papers in New England, New York and Ohio. He first at- tracted attention by humorous articles i'n a Cleveland news- paper about 1858. In 1861 he began to lecture, and was successful both in the East and in California, where he made an extended trip in 1862-4. In 1866 he went to England on a lecturing tour which opened auspiciously, but was soon ended by his death from consumption at the age of thirty- two. As a lecturer Artemus Ward is said to have possessed an imperturbable gravity of manner which added much to the effect of his drolleries. The humor in his writings comes from his extreme whimsicality and unexpected turns of thought and phrase. Many of his newspaper essays read better than the lectures. A few are slightly coarse, but the majority are wholly clean and wholesome. Among less important humorists was Seba Smith (1792-1868), also a native of Maine and a journalist. As Major Jack Downing he wrote humorous letters, largely on political topics. Benjamin P. Shillaber (1814-1890), a Boston editor, won fame as the creator of Mrs. Partington, a sort of Yankee Mrs. Malaprop. Besides the Mrs. Partington sayings, which depend for their humor on the misuse of words, he wrote many other sketches, several of them for juvenile readers. V. New York Writers While Boston was in one sense the literary capital of the country from 1833 to 1883, New York was the center of those commercial industries most closely allied with literature. New England developed one magazine of great literary sig- nificance, and one publishing house that controlled the copy- The Central Period 357 rights of many of the best works of American authors; but New York was the center of the book trade and of general publishing interests^ it had the best daily pa- Condrtionsm ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ came to lead in the publication of magazines. The ^^Knickerbocker Magazine'^ and ^Tutnam^s Monthly Magazine^^ were both solid and respectable periodicals^ though they never equalled the "At- lantic ;'^ and with the increased use of high grade illustrations in magazines "Harper's Monthly Magazine/' "Scribner's Monthly/' (afterward the "Century Magazine")^ and later the new "Scribner's Magazine" and others came to occupj^ a high place. The presence of these publishing interests could not fail to make New York the home of many writers, and the literary headquarters, so to speak, of many others. A large number of men were attracted from different sections of the country to editorial positions on New York newspapers and magazines. The list includes writers like Ed^t ^^ ^^ Dana and Eipley, who have been discussed among New England writers, and Poe, who more properly belongs to the South; and others, like Sted- man. Gilder, Aldrich, and Howells, who will be remembered chiefly as poets or novelists. A considerable number of men, however, who should be credited to New York deserve a place in literary history on account of work that was closely associ- ated with editorial labors. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867) was one of the most prominent of early New York editors and was a great figure in the literary life of his time. He was born N. P. Willis . . in Portland, Maine, of the strictest New Eng- land ancestry, and was educated at Andover and Yale. Even before he left college he had gained a wide reputation by his poems, especially some of his paraphrases of Scripture narra- tives. After his graduation he wrote poems, edited annuals for Goodrich, and founded in Boston the "American Monthly 358 American Literature Magazine/' This failed, and in 1831 Willis, who was find- ing the strict tradition to which he was born irksome, removed to New York and became associated with George P. Morris in the editorship of the ^^New York Mirror.*^ AVith this paper and its successors, the "New Mirror'^ and the "Home Journal,^^ he maintained an uninterrupted connection until his death. From 1831 to 1836 he was abroad. He travelled widely in Europe, made his way into the best society, and turned what he saw to account in gossipy letters for pub- lication. He married an English lady and brought her home to a country place near Owego which he named Glenmary. Nine years later his wife died, and some time afterward he married again and settled in a less pretentious residence, Idlewild, on the Hudson. Both Glenmary and Idlewild figure in his writings. Willis avowed a frank preference for editorial work and journalistic correspondence that would please his contem- poraries, rather than for the preparation of ^ ^ ^ elaborate productions in the hope of post- humous fame. With the exception of one novel, Paul Fane, almost all his prose was in the form of short letters, sketches, and tales, and was first published in some periodical. Several of his volumes, like Pencilling s by the Way, smdi Loiterings of Travel, are made up of travellers' letters. Others, like Letters from Under a Bridge, Out Doors at Idlewild, and The Convalescent, are gossipy correspondence from hif5 country homes. Life Here and There, Hurrygraphs, Fun Jottings, The Rag-Bag, and others are more miscellaneous, and are made up of magazine ephemera. Two dramas, "Bianca Visconti'' and "Tortessa; or The Usurer Matched,'' and "Lady Jane/' a poem influenced by Don Juan, are, with the novel already mentioned, his most ambitious productions. The bulk of his poetical work was done in early life. As editor and elder man of letters Willis was the helpful The Central Period 359 friend of many young American writers ; but the great popu- larity of his works^ and a certain jaunty air which he affected, made him enemies. In some respects he was Willis's Q ^^ criticism. He was a man of the world who without family or money made his way into some of the best society of Europe; and he was accused of turning into newspaper copy family and society secrets which a more delicately minded man would have re- frained from mentioning. It should be said, however, that this charge was brought by rival Americans, rather than by the European friends who were supposed to have suffered. He fought a duel with an English author, and he was named as co-respondent in the most famous divorce case that agi- tated New York society about the middle of the nineteenth century. In this, as in many of the matters charged against him, his guilt was not proved. He should probably be remem- bered as a kindly but rather weak man, whose shortcomings were due to a deficient sense of the highest fitness of things, rather than to any deliberate violation of the ethical and social code. As a poet Willis enjoyed great vogue and still finds a few readers. His paraphrases of Scripture seem flat and artificial, now that the simplicity and directness of the Willis's Poems Tt-i-i n • j t x Bible prose are so generally appreciated. In a time when the sacredness of the book precluded the thought of reading it as literature there was need of anything that would visualize Bible scenes and make Bible characters seem real men and women. To many devout readers ^^Hagar in the Wilderness'^ and ^^Jephthah's Daughter'^ were the highest type of poetry. Many of the miscellaneous verses show the sentimentality of the author's time ; some, like ^^Parrhasius,'' though powerful, are artificial. His satire, ^^Lady Jane," has deservedly shared the fate of other imitations of Don Juan. Perhaps the best of the poems are sentimental or 360 American Literature humorous trifles which would at a little later time have been called society verse. As a prose writer Willis had a taking journalistic style. He knew what would interest the public ; and he was a master of the art of making his writing personal without seeming to be egotistical. He kept himself prominent in his letters from abroad; many of his sketches and tales are autobiographic. His letters from Glen- mary and Idlewild often dealt with the most trivial and com- monplace matters^ and drew their interest from the fact that the author, a distinguished man of letters, seemed to be chatting with the individual reader concerning his garden, his poultry, or his personal ailments. The chief defects of form are those that come from haste and a lack of feeling for the chastity of language. The titles of his books indicate a tendency to be striking; and the same tendency is shown in the coinage of barbarous words and the forming of strange compounds. Both as a man and as an author Willis was genial, and truly devoted to America and American literature; but both his personal and his literary ideals were lack- Willis's Rank . . . .,., J n TT :i-J 1 i? mg m virility and firmness. He did much for American authors and American letters, and later critics have been somewhat slow to appreciate his services. The oblivion which is overtaking his works is deserved, but not the slighting obloquy which is sometimes cast upon the author. Almost the opposite of Willis in most particulars was Horace Greeley (1811-1872), the founder of the ''N'ew York Tribune.'^ He was born in Amherst, New Horace Greeley tt i • i i • ± ci x i, Hampshire, where his parents were Scotch- Irish farmers of the lowest class. After receiving slight edu- cation and serving an apprenticeship in country newspaper offices he became a tramp printer and made his way to New York. Here, after a variety of experiences as printer, publisher, The Central Period 361 and editor of campaign papers, he founded the ^^Tribune," which he controlled editorially until shortly before his death. In 1872 he seceded from the Eepublican party and became a candidate for president on the Liberal Eepublican and Demo- cratic tickets. The strain of the campaign, followed by the disappointment of an overwhelming defeat, broke down his healthy and he died a few days after the election. As a writer, Greeley was master of a rough and ready outspoken style that impressed his readers with his honesty and fearlessness. In both writings and actions he had a way of occasionally doing the unexpected thing. He was to some degree in sympathy with the New England transcendental movement, and he employed on the ^^Tribune'^ Margaret Fuller, George Eipley, George William Curtis, C. A. Dana, and other transcendentalists. He defended in the ^^Tribune'^ some of the doctrines of Fourier, and he gave much space to reports and discussions of table-tipping and other spiritual- istic phenomena, though he did not profess belief. It was through the ^^Tribune^' that the spirit of ^^the newness^^ which inspired New England found its way to many readers in other parts of the country. The paper also led public thought on political and economic questions. Greeley wrote a history of the civil war, which was naturally somewhat partizan; What I know of Farming, an amusing book telling of his unsuccessful agricultural experiences; and an interesting autobiography. Recollections of a Busy Life. He is remem- bered, however, not because of these works, but because of his influence through the ^^Tribune'' — an influence not easily realized now, when the race of great personal editors is ex- tinct, and not one reader in ten can name the man who con- trols the policy of his favorite newspaper. With New York editors may also be included the Eeverend Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1815-1857). He was a native of Vermont, and in early life had a varied career as printer, 362 American Literature editor, and Baptist clergyman. From 1841 to 1843 he edited ^^Graham^s Magazine^^ in Philadelphia, and then removed to New York, where he was connected with various us Wiimo minor periodicals. His own inconsiderable Gnswold ^ writings m prose and verse are now for- gotten, but he is remembered as the compiler and editor of several collections of American literature. His Poets and Poetry of America, Prose Writers of America, and Female Poets of America each went through several editions. In these works he bestowed praise on American authors with a lavishness that now seems ridiculous ; nevertheless he antago- nized many persons who did not receive what they felt to be their due share of compliments. A much better man would have made the same enemies ; and much was charged against him that was untrue. Still, after all possible allowances are made, he seems to have been conceited, and not always impar- tial, and, what is worse, to have lacked a high sense of honor. His edition of Poe will be considered in another place. His collections and criticisms did considerable service in calling attention to the body of readable American writings; but it is a distinct misfortune that this labor could not have been performed by an abler and a juster man. Of less importance than the men already mentioned was Park Benjamin (1809-1864), son of a Connecticut man who had removed to British Guiana. He was con- E^t^^ ^^ ^^ nected editorially with a number of papers and magazines, among them the ^^American Monthly Magazine,^^ and "Brother Jonathan,^^ and he wrote many verses and miscellaneous essays. Lewis Gaylord Clark (1810-1873), for many years editor of the "Knickerbocker Magazine,^^ was a native of western New York. He was known in his day as a writer of clever and genial quips and sketches, which usually appeared in the editorial departments of his magazine and a few of which were collected in book The Central Period 363 form. T. S. Fay (1807-1898), a native of New York city, was for a time associated with Morris and Willis on the ^'New York Mirror/^ and published a novel, Norman Leslie, and several volumes of miscellaneous essays. George William Curtis (1824-1892) represented the New York of a slightly later date than the men who have already been mentioned. He was born in Providence, VmS ^'"'^"^ Rhode Island, but his family removed to New York in 1839. He served for a year as clerk in a mercantile house, and gained the familiarity with New York business life that he showed later in Prue and I, Trumps, and other writings. In 1842 he and his brother became pupils in the school at Brook Farm, and later he spent some time with the families of two farmers near Con- cord. In these days he was a young man of fascinating per- sonality, devoted to music, and so strongly affected by tran- scendentalism that he adopted various fads in dress and diet. At Concord he was a member of the little transcendental circle that gathered about Emerson, though he was not blind to the humorous aspects of the movement. From 1846 to 1850 he was abroad, journeying in a leisurely manner through Europe and spending some time in Egypt and Syria. The chief literary results of this trip were Nile Notes of a Howadji, and The Hoivadji in Syria, published in 1851 and 1852 respectively. These differ from ordinary books of travel in that they attempt to give the spirit of the scene rather than minute descriptive details; and they surprised some of the author^s friends by showing a frank yielding to the sensuous charm of the East. Though the descriptions are too full of adjectives and too intense, the volumes still have power to delight the sympathetic reader and almost to carry him into a land of enchantment. On his return to America Curtis began his long career as an editor. He was at first connected with the "New 364 American Literature York Tribune/' but soon became editor of "Putnam's" and began to conduct the Easy Chair department in "Harper's Monthly." In 1857 he also became chief editorial writer for "Harper's Weekly." He achieved much fame as an orator and went on the lyceum platform. Though he persistently declined public office he was always active in politics, and in his later years was perhaps the most prominent leader in the movement for civil service reform. After the publication of his first two volumes Curtis's chief literary work was done for the periodicals which he edited and for the lecture platform. Lotus- Writings Bating is a series of letters from American watering places, full of comparisons with the European scenes that were still fresh in his mind, and of satire on American social crudeness. The Potiphar Papers, Prue and I, and his one novel. Trumps, are the work of a man who has read Thackeray and who takes something of the same view of the world, but is much more downright in thought and expression. All satirize the selfishness and sordidness of ISTew York life. Prue and I, the most delicate of the three, still has its admirers, but in all the satire is too serious to be really pleasing. By far the most charming volumes that bear the author's name are those which contain essays selected from the "Easy Chair." Next in interest are a collection of Orations and Addresses and another of Literary and Social Essays, issued after his death. George William Curtis's great power was due to his geni- ality, to the absolute purity and disinterestedness of his na- ture, and to his genuine devotion to democratic Curtis's ^ ideals. He offered the too rare spectacle of an American in politics without desire of per- sonal reward. In the midst of New York life he always kept some of the characteristics of transcendental New England — a touch of sentiment, high idealism, and an intense devotion The Central Period 365 to duty. His essays in the ^^Easy Chair'' often announced views on moral questions with which many of his readers must have disagreed^ but no one who had felt the charm of the author could take offense. On the whole^ he was at his best in descriptive and reminiscent sketches where his kindliness and human sympathy predominate, and in his simple comments on life where his reiteration of old but needed truths never seems trite. Another influential journalist of the latter half of the period was Edwin Lawrence Godkin (1831-1902), a native of Ireland, who came to America in 1856. E^* ^^^ After engaging in miscellaneous journalistic work and studying law he founded in 1865 the New York ^^Nation/' with which he was connected until his death. He was master of a vigorous style of editorial writing which was effective, but likely to be irritating to those who disagreed with him. Though he published some works in book form, the achievement for which he deserves to be remembered is the establishment of the ^^N^ation'' in the high position which it has long held among American weeklies. Parke Godwin (1816-1904), a native of New Jersey and a graduate of Princeton, was long associated with his father-in- law, William CuUen Bryant, on the ^^Evening Post.'' He also edited other periodicals, among them the "Harbinger," the organ of Fourierism in New York, and "Putnam's Monthly." The first essay in his volume Out of the Past is a review of Bryant's poems, written in 1839, and his last volume was A New Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 1900. During all the intervening years he took an active interest in matters pertaining to art and literature, and was a figure of some literary importance, though few of his works have a lasting literary quality. Mary Mapes Dodge (1838-1905), a native of New York, was for over thirty years editor of "St. Nicholas," and achieved a national reputation as the 366 American Literature author of stories and verses for children. Her most popular story is ^^Hans Brinker^ or the Silver Skates/^ the scene of which is laid in Holland. She had a sense of humor, and the art of writing stories that children enjoy, rather than those which adults think they ought to enjoy. Eichard Grant White (1821-1885) passed his entire life in New York city, and was connected with several newspapers. He published two editions of Shakespeare^s works, much Shakespearian criticism, and some popular treatises on modern linguistics. He was also the author of an anonymous political satire, The New Gospel of Peace according to Saint Benjamin, a novel, and other works. White maintained some peculiar views regarding the English language, and his manner in his writings was of a nature to attract attention, but not to strengthen his authority. He was a pronounced Anglo- maniac, and he always gave the impression of feeling con- tempt for anyone who questioned his dogmatic critical dicta. He was really a student of industry and considerable insight, and though not a great scholar, made some valuable contri- butions to the mass of Shakespearian criticism. Aside from the editors already mentioned and the poets who were also remembered for their prose, New York pro- duced few important essayists. The influence Es^^sTs-- of Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was Henry Ward largely due to his published writings, though Beecher ^^ might from his twenty years^ connection with the New York ^^Independent'^ be classed among the edi- tors, and to his contemporaries he was first of all an orator. He was born in Connecticut, a son of the Eeverend Lyman Beecher and a brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. After graduating from Amherst college and entering the ministry he preached for a time in Indiana. In 1847 he was called to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, and held the pastorate until his death. Here he soon became recognized as the most The Central Period 367 influential pulpit orator in America, and his sermons,. pub- lished week by week from stenographic reports, reached thousands of persons who never heard him preach. He be- lieved in carrying into the pulpit the discussion of ethical and sociological matters and in going out upon the platform to discuss political and social questions. He was a leader in the anti-slavery movement, and during the war he visited England and did much to turn public sentiment, which had been largely with the South. His addresses in some of the manufacturing towns are probably unexcelled in modern times as examples of the art of managing a hostile audience. He was a man of great energy and wide interests. With him religion was a matter of action rather than of belief; and his theological views, always liberal, became so modified that Plymouth Church finally withdrew from the fellowship of Congregational churches. In 1874 his name was involved in a scandal which was discussed throughout the country. Public opinion, like the jury before which the case was tried, disagreed, but the prevailing view was in favor of his inno- cence. His church was loyal to him, but his influence in the country at large suffered somewhat. He did some editorial work while he was preaching in the West, and later on the New York ^^Independent.^^ His published works were numer- ous, and include a novel, Norwood; or Village Life in New England, and essays on many subjects; the best, however, are the reports of his spoken discourses. Directness, practicality, humor, and insight are the char- acteristics of Beecher^s best works. He was never afraid to express his thoughts and he had the knack of Beecher's Rank . .,,. , n- . t, . . hittmg upon telling phrases, it was mevi- table that work done as his was should be uneven, and after he became famous it was hard for him to avoid publishing the poor as well as the good. His geniality sometimes led him, also, to attempt work for which he was not fitted. It 368 American Literature was at the solicitation of his friend, Eobert Bonner, of the New York ^^Ledger/^ that he wrote Norwood; neither his previous experiences nor his habits of mind were likely to make him successful in novel-writing. The bulk of Ms mediocre work has tended to obscure his real merit, but he holds an unquestioned place among the few great American orators, and he should also be remembered as an essayist of much power. Henry T. Tuckerman (1813-1871), a native of Boston who after 1845 lived in New York, was an essayist of con- siderable contemporary reputation. In early Minor New York j^anhood he spent some time in Italy, and Essayists ^ •^ ^ produced the inevitable books of travel. Later he wrote verses and many essays on literature and art. The most readable of the latter are rambling and slow-moving — at times slightly suggestive of Irving — the evident work of a man who has gained much from books and travel. His more formal works, like Thoughts on the Poets, are more solid, but lack charm. Among the New York writers of prose fiction the name of Mr. William Dean Howells would stand first if it were not for the fortunate fact that he is still actively New York writing, and hence does not come within Fiction^ ^ the scope of this history. In the earlier years of the period New York failed to maintain the reputation of the preceding generation. Not until the later magazine writers were there produced short stories that could compare with those of Irving. And although some of the authors named below wrote stories of adventure no one deserves to be classed with Cooper or above Paulding in this field. Herman Melville (1819-1891) wrote tales of adventure, both authentic and fictitious. He was the descendant of an old New England family, but his parents removed to New The Central Period 369 York before his birth. He early developed a taste for adven- ture, which was perhaps strengthened by reading Dana's Two Years before the Mast. Before he was Herman twenty he had made a voyage to Liverpool; and in 1841 he joined a whaling crew bound for the Pacific by way of Cape Horn. Before he returned to America in 1845 he deserted the ship, lived for some time with a cannibal tribe on one of the South Sea Islands, es- caped in an Australian whaler, was concerned in an incipient mutiny, had various shore experiences on Tahiti, and came home in an American man-of-war. His first book was Typee, published in 1846, in which he tells of his experiences among the cannibal tribe. Omoo continues his story, and tells of life on the Australian whaler and on Tahiti. These two works are not fiction, but sections of autobiography, told from recollection. Both are simple, straight-forward narra- tives, and though wholly without plot-interest are fascinating. Redburn is a novel based on his early voyage to Liverpool. White-Jachet continues the Typee and Omoo series, and tells of his return voyage on a man-of-war. Moby Dick, or the White Whale, is a story of a crazed sea captain who pursued around the world the invincible white whale that had maimed him for life. Many incidents are told with a detail that sug- gests that they were actual experiences of the author's own whaling voyage. The conception of the story is a powerful one, but it is not adequately sustained. By this time (1850) the author had become deeply interested in abstruse phi- losophy, and especially, it is said, in Sir Thomas Browne. As a result his style suffered a complete and disastrous change from the directness of Typee and Omoo, The beginnings of this change are seen in Moby Dick; and it is more marked in the author's later prose works, which are hardly readable. Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War is a collection of poems, mostly crude and formless, but written with much enthusiasm. 370 American Literature Melville's early work is so good as to cause serious regret at the deterioration of his style. The Eeverend Edward Payson Eoe (1838-1888), a novel- ist of a different sort^ must be mentioned because his works afford an index of popular taste. His literary career began in 1872 with the publication of Barriers Burned Away, a story of the great Chicago fire. The success of this was so great that the author resigned his pastorate at Highland Falls^ near the Hudson, and devoted himself to writing. From this time until his death he pub- lished an average of more than a volume a year, all fiction except two or three books on horticulture. Among his novels were The Opening of a Chestnut Burr, 'Near to Nature's Heart, and Nature's Serial Story. All these were very popu- lar, and at the time of his death his publishers estimated that nearly 1,400,000 copies of his books had been sold. Eoe took his writing seriously, visiting factories, jails, and courtrooms for literary material, and he always wrote with a moral purpose. His great success is due in part to the fact that he made use of mildly sensational plots to inculcate moral lessons. His stories are always wholesome and they are sometimes told with power. In both structure and style they are, however, crude and slovenly. Their unequalled popularity shows high moral standards rather than cultivated literary taste on the part of middle class American readers. Fitz James O^Brien (1828P-1862) wrote poems, essays, and dramas, but is best remembered for a few of his short stories. He was born in Limerick, Ireland, and edu- O'BrieT^^ cated at the University of Dublin, and is reputed to have run through with a fortune of £8,000 before he came to New York at the age of twenty- four. Here he became a member of the "Bohemian^^ set, and in the ten years before his death did a great amount of writ- ing for newspapers and magazines. At the opening of the The Central Period 371 Civil War he enlisted in the IJnion army^ and his death was the result of wounds. Some of the best of his work has been collected and edited by his friend^ William Winter. O^Brien was a genius of remarkable power and originality. His ir- regular life and his habits of hasty writing interfered with the production of finished work, and render hazardous any conjecture as to what he might have accomplished if he had not been killed at the early age of thirty-four. It was a hopeful sign, however, that his three best short stories, ^^The Diamond Lens,'' ''The Wondersmith,'' and ''What Was It? a Mystery,'' were written in his later years. These three tales are by no means perfect in structure, but they show a mar- vellous originality of imagination. The unique conception of a being invisible, but palpable to the other senses, which he develops in "What Was It? a Mystery," has since been borrowed by de Maupassant and other artists who deal with the supernatural. Among the lesser writers of adventure in the early part of the period was Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland (1801-1864). After her marriage she lived for a time in Minor New York Michigan, and her experiences on what was Fiction ^^^^ ^^^ frontier furnished the inspiration for her earliest and best writings, A New Home: Who'll Follow? Forest Life, and Western Clearings. These tales and sketches, published under the assumed name of Mrs. Mary Clavers, give shrewd, humorous, observant pictures of pioneer life, and lack the exaggeration common in western sketches. Several miscellaneous works published after Mrs. Kirkland's return to New York are unimportant. The literary achievements of Cornelius Mathews (1817- 1889) were so varied that he is hard to classify, but he may well be placed among the writers of fiction. He was a New York lawyer, but gave most of his time to litera- ture. His stories The Career of Puffer Hopkins, and 373 American Literature Big Ahel and the Little Manhattan, satirize conditions in New York city. Mathews took great interest in the Indians. He published Behemoth, a Legend of the Mound-Builders, WaJcendah, an Indian poem^, and a collection of Indian legends adapted from Schoolcraft. Among his other writ- ings are dramas and poems. He had versatility, imagination, and some humor, but was lacking in finish. Hjalmar Iljorth Boyesen (1848-1895) was born in Norway and educated at Leipsic and at the University of his native country. He came to America in 1869, and after editing a Norwegian weekly in Chicago and teaching the classics in a western college he became professor of German at Cornell, and afterward at Columbia. Boyesen^s masters in fiction were Tolstoi and Turgenieff among Europeans, and Mr. Howells among Americans, and the latter frankly admits that his pupil ^^out- realisted'^ him. Boyesen's work has individuality and is pleasingly suggestive of his foreign birth and training. He is at his best in stories that deal with Norwegian life. Some of his tales for boys are especially good. In humorists New York was less prolific than were other sections of the country. Eobert H. Newell (1836-1901) wrote between 1861 and 1868 a series of political Humodsfs ^^*^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ''Orpheus C. Kerr.'' Nothing in the papers is better than the pun in this signature. Mrs. Frances M. Whitcher (1811-1852), who passed her life in central New York state, was the author of The Widow Bedott Papers, and some other humorous sketches in prose. The Widow Bedott is funny chiefly because of her garrulity, and her proclivity for endless digressions in her narratives. Of the many New York writers who essayed verse, only one, Whitman, is commonly named among the greater American poets. With Whitman were grouped, in the late fifties and early sixties, a small circle nicknamed the Bohemians, whose The Central Period 373 rendezvous was Pfafl's restaurant on — or more accurately under — Broadway^, near Bleecker street. Many fables are told of this coterie^ which seems to have Literary Groups j^g^^^ made up of erratic and often impecunious and "Schools" ^ ^ xx i t x in New York newspaper men and unattached writers. With the exceptions of Whitman, Fitz James O'Brien, and William Winter most of them are now wholly forgotten. The names of several other New York writers who may have been rare visitors at Pfaffs are sometimes erroneously added to the list. The Bohemians are an inter- esting literary tradition in New York, but they are more pic- turesque than significant, and even their picturesqueness has very likely increased with time. The only group of poets which could in any sense be called a New York ^^schooF^ was composed of Bayard Taylor, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Eichard Henry Stoddard, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Of this group Taylor should more properly be considered with the Pennsylvania writers. Eichard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) was born in Hing- ham, Massachusetts. His father, a sailor, was lost at sea when he was but a few years old. His mother Stodd^ d ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^* ^^ P^^^ financial circumstances, which were not improved after her second marriage. In 1835 the family went to New York. Here young Stoddard gained a little schooling, but at the age of fifteen he was set to work. He tried all sorts of occupations — errand-boy, shop-boy, copyist in a lawyer's ofiice, black- smith, molder in an iron foundry, and assistant to a carriage painter. Meanwhile he was reading such poetry as he could lay his hands on, and writing verses for his own amusement. In 1849 he issued his first volume of poems, which he after- ward suppressed. In 1852 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Barstow, who also attained some reputation as a writer of verse. By this time he had formed an acquaintance with 374 - American Literature many men of letters^ and through the influence of some of them, especially Hawthorne and Whipple, he secured a clerk- ship in the New York custom house. This position he held from 1853 to 1870. The next three years he was a clerk in the dock commissioner's office, and for a short time he was city librarian. During his last ten years in the custom house he was literary editor of the New York ^^World/' and from 1880 until his death he filled the same position on the ^^Mail and Express.'^ He edited and compiled several books, revised Griswold's Poets of America, and published several volumes of his own poems, and a collection of essays entitled Under the Evening Lamp, His Recollections, which he was pre- paring for the press at the time of his death, appeared post- humously. It is pleasant to notice that Stoddard's friends and many of his acquaintances speak in the warmest terms of his per- sonality. His prose writings give the impres- Stoddard's Prose • p ^ , - ±^ > i sion 01 a man who was too conscious that he had risen by his own exertions, and who was a little inclined to patronize others. He speaks slightingly of his mother, who seems really to have done for him all that her means and her strength allowed. His criticisms are likely to be generalities, or to be warped by apparent prejudice. In his early years Poe declined, in a way that offended him, to pub- lish one of his poems, and he was always fond of repeating the most unfavorable stories regarding Poe, and of character- izing his poems with such penetrating remarks as "The parent of Annabel Lee was Mother Goose.^^ All in all, his critical work is of little value, as regards either content or style. It is Stoddard^s poetry that constitutes his best claim to remembrance. He was of those who care for beauty of form and concept rather than for didacticism; and he had a fine sense of melody. His friends and special admirers are in the The Central Period 375 habit of praising his blank verse and his odes^ but it seems probable that his lyrics will be more likely to last. Some of the briefest of these, like '^Birds/' '^The Po'itJ^'''^'^ Flight of Youth/' have a finish and a finality that should insure them a permanent place in any collection of American verse. The longer poems, even those in lyric measures, are likely to be uneven, and in places too obviously imitative. Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) was born at Hart- ford, Connecticut, the descendant of an old New England family. His father died when he was but two Edmund years old, and his mother, who was herself a Stedman writer of poetry, relinquished him to his father's relatives and married again. Hb entered Yale, where he attracted some attention by his verses, but was rusticated, and then dismissed for general wildness and dissipation. Many years later he made application for his degree and it was granted. After his dismissal from Yale he went South, edited country papers in New England, en- gaged in the clock business, and was married without his guardian's consent at the age of twenty. In 1855 he became a real estate and general broker in New York. Here he lived in a ^^Unitary Home," one of the cooperative experiments organized by readers of Fourier, and a number of his asso- ciates were writers and newspaper men. His poem, ^^The Diamond Wedding," a satire on a much heralded society event, was published in the ^^Tribune" in 1859, and attracted attention which was intensified when the father of the bride demanded ^^satisfaction" from the young author. A little later he contributed to the ^Tribune" ^^How Old John Brown Took Harper's Ferry," and ^^The Ballad of Lager Bier" — one a patriotic and the other a humorous lyric. The popularity of these three effusions led to an engagement on the ^^Tribune," which he soon left for the ^^World." He was 376 American Literature war correspondent after the attack on Fort Sumter, and for a time held a government clerkship at Washington. In 1863 he came back to New York, and entered Wall Street, becoming a member of the Stock Exchange a few years later. From this time until 1900 his life was a series of financial ups and downs, with much anxiety and never more than moderate success. In 1900 he sold his seat on the Stock Exchange and retired on a rather meager competency to devote himself wholly to literary work. Stedman always maintained that his chief interests were literary, and that he endured business only for the purpose of winning an opportunity for writing. Not- e mans withstanding the exactions of his feverish life in the Stock Exchange and almost constant ill health, he managed to do a considerable* amount of work as editor, as critic, and as poet. He compiled A. Victorian An- thology and An American Anthology, and, at an earlier date, collaborated with Ellen M. Hutchinson in A Library of American Literature, He also edited with George E. Wood- berry the works of Poe. His important criticism is contained in three volumes, Victorian Poets, Poets of America, and The Nature and Elements of Poetry — the last a series of lectures originally delivered at Johns Hopkins University. He also gave much study to the Sicilian idyllists, but never brought his work into shape for publication. His poems were written at various times throughout his life. Stedman^s letters show him to have been painstaking in matters of scholarly detail, and most of his editing is well done; though students of the Poe for which Ed*t°^^ d C 'f ^^ ^^^ ^^ P^^^ responsible are sometimes an- noyed by errors in collation, and strange de- cisions in choice of texts. His critical writings deal mostly with poetry. At an early age he arrived at the conclusion that "Beauty is governed by laws as severe and disco vera- The Central Period S1:7 ble as are mathematics/^ and "The great poet — the great artist — is a nniversalist/ an eclectic/^ These views he never seriously modified^ and he developed them in his last and most serious critical volume^ The Nature and Ele- ments of Poetry, All his critical essays are careful work, based on "reading up" both in the poets themselves and in the writings of other critics — a type of production which every college instructor knows well, and which he should surely honor when it is well done. They are, however, lacking in the fl ashes of insight that characterize the work of the great critics, and they have little of the personal quality of LowelFs essays. The author sometimes shows erratic appreciations, as when he ranks Lord^s turgid lines "On the Defeat of a Great Man" with Whittier's "Ichabod." Often the breadth of his reading in preparation for a paper leads him to give oddly incongruous lists, as: "Bascom and Euskin follow Mill"; "Browning, Banville, Whitman, Emerson." N'otwith- standing these peculiarities his critical writings are solid, and not to be ignored by any student of the subjects which he treats. His Poets of America has no real rival in its field. Stedman's earliest verses in the "Tribune" were only tak- ing work of good newspaper grade, though the careful reader detects in them hints of such later and more Poe^^ ^^ finished poems as "Pan in Wall Street." In his more serious attempts of this time Ten- nyson was the chief influence, but he succeeded fairly well in being faithful to his belief that the true artist is an eclectic. His longer poems, like "The Blameless Prince," have their ex- cellences but they were never widely popular, and will be less and less read. In his later years he was a successful writer of occasional poems— perhaps the most successful after Holmes. He was at his best, however, in a variety of shorter poems scattered throughout his works — in one or two short patri- otic pieces like "Wanted — A Man," in New England idyls 378 American Literature like ^^The Doorstep^^ and ^^Country Sleighing/^ in a trifle like "Toujours Amour/^ and in his almost unique impassioned song beginning, ^^Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word/^ All those named were, as it happens, written before he had passed middle age. But as the stress and disappointment of life grew upon him, he still wrote hopefully and with no less of excellence in form, yet with a calm recognition of the deeper meaning of things. It is a question whether Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836- 1907) should not have been discussed among the New Eng- land writers. He was a native of New Eng- Sdrkh ^^'^^^ land, he spent a great part of his literary life in Boston, and he felt most at home there. Still, he began to write in New York, and so far as essential characteristics are concerned his poetry had more in common with that of Stoddard and Taylor than with that of his Boston and Cambridge literary friends. Though the least ^^Bohemian'^ of the group in temperament he was at one time associated in a literary way with some of the frequenters of Pfaff^s restaurant. Aldrich was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but spent part of his boyhood in New York and three years in New Orleans. His life after his return to Portsmouth is pictured with reasonable fidelity in The Story of a Bad Boy, For financial reasons he did not go to Harvard as he had planned, but at the age of sixteen entered his uncle's business office in New York. Here he began to publish verses and at the age of nineteen brought out a volume of poems. The same year, 1855, he wrote ^^Baby Beiy his first work to at- tract general attention. About this time he gave up busi- ness, and later held various editorial positions on New York papers. Before he was twenty-three he had published two volumes of verse and one of prose, and had made friends with Willis, Taylor, Stoddard, and other New York literary The Central Period 379 men. For a time he was connected with the ^^Saturday Press/^ a lively satirical journal founded by Clapp^ the ^^King of Bohemia/^ with the assistance of two other Bo- hemians^ O^Brien and Winter. At the outbreak of the war he asked for a military appointment, but missed it through an accident. For a few weeks he was war correspondent for the New York "Tribune.^^ By 1865 he had made himself well known as a writer of prose fiction and of verse, and was called to Boston to edit ^"^Every Saturday/^ a literary paper published by Fields and Osgood. From this time until his death Boston was his literary home, and his actual residence was in the city or not far away. From 1881 to 1890 he edited the ^^Atlantic.^^ After the latter date he travelled much, spend- ing several summers in Europe and twice going around the world. Aldrich was a fairly prolific writer, but he was an unspar- ing critic of himself and he chose carefully the work which he wished to be preserved. He retained not a single poem from his first collection of fifty, and rejected many of later date. His prose works were subjected to the same careful sifting. The residue is contained in seven volumes of prose and two of verse. Aldrich^s novels. Prudence Palfrey, The Stillwater Tragedy, and others, are well told, but they lack the vitality of his best work. His one long narrative which is sure to live is The Story of a Bad Boy, The slight change of Portsmouth to Eivermouth and the name of the hero, Tom Bailey, suggest how largely the story is autobiographical. It is the work of a man who re- tained full sympathy with his own boyhood and with other boys after he had lived long enough to learn what life really means. His insight into boyish ways suggests Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer and HucMeherry Finn, but his attitude is more sympathetic and his tone is quieter. Every reader who 380 American Literature was fortunate enough to know the book in his boyhood will still recall passages, humorous and pathetic, which have fixed themselves in his memory. Among these is sure to be the few lines of restrained narrative which tell of the drifting away of Binny Wallace. A comparison of this impressively simple account with the treatment of tragic and pathetic events in other boys' stories will reveal much of the author's nature and the secret of his power. Next to The Story of A Bad Boy, Aldrich's best prose is in his short stories. He was a careful student of prose style and of the art of nar- ration, and he has left some of the most carefully planned and delicately wrought stories of the later nineteenth century. ^^Marjory Daw/' usually conceded to be his masterpiece in short fiction, is one of the two best hoax stories by Ameri- can authors. That it is, however, more than ;a hoax is shown by the fact that it may be re-read with little loss of interest. Several other stories have a similar unexpected ending, but he confined himself to no one type of plot. His sketches of travel and the miscellanies in the Ponkapog Papers show, like everything else that he did, the charm of his manner, but are relatively unimportant. After compiling for the complete edition of his works all his poems which he wished preserved, Aldrich made, in the year before his death, a still briefer collection Aldrich's Poems . ^ -, a , i-ii - 1 ±1 01 Songs and Sonnets which he evidently felt embodied the best of his verse. This judgment was undoubtedly correct. Much might be said in praise of his longer poems like ^^Wyndham Towers" and "Judith and Holo- fernes," but his most distinctive and most remarkable work is in the shorter poems which he called "Interludes." The lightest of these are mere society verse, but many of them, while equally exquisite in form, touch grave themes with an insight and a finality of expression that place them with the truest poetry. There are many of these poems, and no one The Central Period 381 will serve as an adequate example^ for each has its individual quality. In all his writings, both prose and verse, Aldrieh was an artist, forever striving for perfection of form. He not only rejected his unsuccessful work, but he revised Artis^^ ^^^^ which he retained with a frequent and minute care that suggests the similar labors of Tennyson. He had a fine feeling for the purity of the English tongue, and he was shocked and pained by the vagaries of some of his later contemporaries. Yet, as he pro- tests in one of his poems, art for art's sake did not mean to him technique for technique's sake. Though he was not a propagandist or a preacher he had the IsTew England con- science, and the New England sense of the deeper things of life; and his work, though never obviously didactic, always rests on a sound and worthy philosophy of things. Aldrich's reputation as a wit and as a kindly gentleman still makes it difficult to judge his permanent rank. The Story of a Bad Boy and some of his best short stories ought to last. Of his poems, ^^Baby BelV one of his less distinctive pieces, is still popular after over half a century. It is no doubt a misfortune that his best work is in sonnets or still slighter poems which lack the bulk necessary to make an impression. Such pieces are likely to become mere fugitives, and to be denied credit for the excellence which they really possess. Still, it seems to many of Aldrich's admirers that, whether his popular reputation endures or not, he missed by only the slightest of margins a place with the greater American men of letters. Taylor, Stoddard, Stedman, and Aldrieh constitute the second most important group of American authors in the last half of the nineteenth century. In both external circum- stances and literary ideals they offer many points of contrast to the New England poets. They were not born in New York, 383 American Literature but came, one from Pennsylvania, and the others from New England. Two of them, Taylor and Aldrich, lived in New York but a limited time. They were not The New go fortunate as to cluster about a erreat collefi^e York "School" ri tt a u 4- x r^ of Poets ^^^^ Harvard, or about a great literary magazine like the ^^Atlantic.^^ During their formative years such literary connections as they had were largely with newspapers and ephemeral literary magazines. Unfortunately for their fame they lacked a set of admiring friends like those survivors of the golden days in New Eng- land who have written so many interesting volumes of recol- lections and literary reminiscences. They met each other as friends, but privately and informally, and no Boswell has left a very definite record of what they said and did. We know, however, that they agreed — and this is their chief significance as a "schooP^ — in viewing poetry not primarily as an instru- ment for moral edification, but as an art. It would be mis- leading to push the comparison far, but in some ways they were related to literature in America as the Pre-Eaphaelite group were related to literature in England. The models for their juvenile work were the English poets who had form and music — Keats, Shelley, Tennyson. Among the slight affectations common to all, or at least to all but Stedman, was a fondness for Oriental themes. Stoddard has his "Oriental Songs,'' and Aldrich his collection. Cloth of Gold. The ideal of poetry which these men held was different from that of the New Englanders and, in the view of many persons, higher. Their achievement was by no means to be despised. Still, they never attained a popular recognition at all approaching that of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, and Holmes. In explanation of this it has been said that the older poets so occupied the public mind that no attention was paid to new ones. The true reason seems to be that they lacked, except here and there, as in Aldrich's "Baby Bell,'' the touch of The Central Period 383 common nature which endeared even the mediocre verse of Longfellow and Whittier to the mass of uncritical readers. On the other hand they often failed — whether for lack of genius or because of diversity of interests — of that absolute perfection of form which makes a poem an undying work of art. More recent writers have inclined to their view of poetry rather than to that of the New England school, and it may be that their influence was more valuable than their achieve- ment. This can hardly be known with certainty until the tendencies of later verse are more clearly evident than they are to-day. New York attracted many writers of verse who, after their arrival in the city, had little direct connection with any literary set. From Ohio came, in 1852, the Gary sis- Phabe^Carv *^^^^ *^^ J^^^S women who from pure love of writing had begun to compose verses under most discouraging conditions in their western home, and who had published a joint volume of poems in Philadelphia in 1850. The elder, Alice (1820-1871), wrote a number of prose tales, in the best of which she sketched western life as she had known it. Both she and her sister Phoebe (1824-1871) are now, however, remembered for their poems. Alice was the more voluminous ' writer, and critics have usually credited her with the greater poetic gift ; but none of her verses has equalled in popularity Phcebe^s hymn beginning ^*^One sweetly solemn thought/^ or her humorously philosophical juvenile poem, Suppose, my Uttle lady, Your don should break her head. The verses of both incline toward sentimental moralizing. Those of Alice are likely to be more deeply pathetic, and to take a more intense view of things ; those of Phoebe are more hopeful, have more humor, and are sometimes, it seems, a little more genuine. Phoebe occasionally takes a shrewd and 384 American Literature kindly view of life that suggests Whittier. Some of Alice's early poems show the influence of Longfellow's moralizing lyrics. Much younger than the poets already mentioned was Emma Lazarus (1849-1887). She was born in New York city^ of an orthodox Jewish family of Portu- Emma Lazarus i i an i i guese descent. She was precocious, and her first volume of poems was published when she was but eighteen. Her early work was influenced by her devotion to art and music, by Heine, and by Emerson, whom she knew personally. In 1871 she published Admetus and Other Poems, and in 1876, The Spagnoletto, a tragedy with the scene in Italy in the seventeenth century. The outbreak of anti-Semitic feeling in Europe about 1879 aroused her sym- pathy for her race, and from that time until her death she. gave her best energies to the cause of her people. A collec- tion of miscellaneous poems issued in 1882 bore the title Songs of a Semite, The Dance to Death is a blank verse drama based on the persecution of the Jews in Thuringia. Among her other works were translations from Heine, and from some of the Hebrew poets; Alide, a romance based on Goethe's Autobiography; some ^^prose poems'' ; and magazine articles on questions relating to the Jews. In much of her work are seen a fine artistic quality and a trace of the rich sensuousness of her race. Some of her earlier narrative poems, like ^^Admetus" and ^^Tannhauser," tell old legends in good blank verse, with much originality, and remarkably visualized description. Epochs, a cycle of poems with simple lyrical movements, touches on some of the serious problems of life with great genuineness. Her later poems on Jewish themes are more stirring, but show no loss of artistic power. Her ^^prose poems," which suggest Whitman, are less success- ful, as are the dramas. Of the latter, The Dance to Death has most merit. The Central Period 385 Among lesser poets who came to New York was William E. Wallace (1819-1881), a native of Kentucky. His early- occasional poems like ^^The Battle of Tippe- Lesser New canoe'^ have music and life, but are close inii- York Poets . ^ tations of Byron and at times of Halleck and Holmes. Throughout life he was successful in growing showy flowers from seed furnished by other poets. His patri- otic lyric ^^The Sword of Bunker Hill/^ though conventional, is less imitative than most of his work. Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902) was born in Pennsjdvania and lived at different times in Virginia and New Jersey, but did most of his literary work in New York. He edited a literary maga- zine, wrote novels and plays, and engaged in an exciting quarrel with Poe. His poems are varied in character, but he is remembered only for his sentimental songs. Of these, ^^Ben Bolf ^ attained great popularity when it was published in the "New York Mirror^^ in 1843, and was recalled to favor when it was inwoven in the plot of Du Maurier^s Trilby half a century later. William A. Butler (1825-1902) came from Albany to New York for the practice of law. His miscellaneous writings include letters of travel, humorous sketches, papers on art, novels, biography, and several occa- sional poems. His genius was satiric, and his greatest suc- cess was achieved in Nothing to Wear, a take-off on the wardrobe of a society woman. The popularity of the poem is due rather to its content than to the poet's art. Charles G. Halpine (1829-1868) was an Irishman, a graduate of Trinity college, Dublin, who entered the journalistic field in New York about 1852. At the beginning of the war he en- listed, and it was while he was at the front that he began to write for the New York "HeraW a series of articles over the signature of Private Miles O'Eeilly. The prose that these contain is of little account, but some of the poems attained considerable popularity. These and Halpine's other verses 386 American Literature ran smoothly, and had a local and temporary application that gave them vogue, but they are now unimportant. To New York state, though not to the city, belongs Alfred B. Street (1811-1881), for over thirty years state librarian at Albany. He was born in Poughkeepsie, and spent his early years in the picturesque region near the Hudson. Almost all his verse treats of nature, which he portrayed with great accuracy, but with little imagination. His poems were highly praised in their day, but are of the sort that satisfies a critical theory rather than appeals to the heart, and are now almost forgotten. The most famous and the most difficult to criticise of the New York poets during the mid-century was Walt Whit- man (1819-1892). He was born on Long Island. His father and mother were of Eng- lish and Dutch ancestry, respectively. His father was a carpenter, but most of the Whitmans had been farmers. Walt, or as he was named Walter, attended the Brooklyn common schools, and at the age of fourteen learned to set type in a printing office. He taught country school for a winter or two, but most of the time until he was thirty years of age he was employed about Brooklyn and New York newspaper offices as compositor, contributor, editor, and what-not. In 1848 he made a leisurely journey to New Orleans, where he had been offered an editorship on the ^^Cres- cent.^^ Soon afterward he returned at a still more leisurely pace by a roundabout route through the West and North. He next published a paper and kept a bookstore, and a little later took up the business of building and selling small dwell- ing houses in Brooklyn. It was some time in the early fifties that he conceived the idea of writing Leaves of Grass, and he brought out his first volume bearing this title in 1855. Late in 1862 he went South in search of his brother, who had been wounded at Fredericksburg, and during the rest of the The Central Period 387 war he ministered to the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals at Washington — serving not as regular nurse, but as visitor, friend, and almoner to those who needed his atten- tions. He secured a clerkship in the Department of the Interior, but was removed in 1865 as the author of an im- moral book. Friends soon procured him another clerkship in the office of the attorney-general, and he held this until 1873, when he was incapacitated for service by a stroke of paralysis. From this time until his death in 1892 he lived the life of an invalid or semi-invalid at Camden, I^ew Jersey. Whitman^s writings before he was thirty-five years of age were those of a miscellaneous contributor to the newspapers and magazines. The few examples which he ^ . . included in his collected works consist of rather halting conventional verses, and little moral tales and sketches, which usually leave a sense of in- completeness, and imply a deficiency in the author^s sense of literary form. The peculiar manner which he afterward used almost exclusively in his poems was first employed in his volume published in 1855. As a designation for all his poetical works after this date he adopted the name Leaves of Grass. From 1855 to 1891 inclusive he issued ten successively enlarged volumes under this title, each containing his com- plete poems to the date of publication. The first issue, 1855, was printed partly by Whitman himself, and appeared in Brooklyn without the name of a publisher. The edition of 1881 was suppressed in Massachusetts on the ground that it was obscene. Many other bibliographical facts concerning the various forms of the book are of interest to the special student. Before his death the author also collected into one volume such of his prose work as he wished preserved. His most important essay, ^^Democratic Vistas,^' appeared in 1870. The prose volume also includes ^^Specimen Days,^' a scrappy series of autobiographic memoranda, and many short mis- 388 American Literature cellaneous pieces. The Letters to Peter Doyle, The Wound- Dresser, made up chiefly of letters to his mother, the Diary in Canada, and other posthumous publications are of some biographic value. The main facts of Whitman^s life as already given are well known; but there is a scarcity of the more detailed informa- tion that would enable one to form a sure Character^ estimate of the man and his character. Though far from reticent so far as his ordi- nary actions were concerned, he was secretive regarding other affairs. His relations to women have been a subject of much discussion and conjecture, which is justifiable in so far as further knowledge of his life might aid in the interpretation of some of his poems. In his Bohemian days in Few York he indulged in all the dissipations of a great city. Late in life he admitted that he was the father of children still liv- ing, but nothing is known of their mother or mothers, or of the circumstances that attended his breaches of conven- tional social usage. His later life was, so far as direct evi- dence shows, exemplary. The charge of disgustingly intense egotism has been brought against him, and has been strenu- ously denied. So far as this rests on the use of the first person in his poems it may be considered as disproved; but there are other facts not easily explainable on any other theory. He took pleasure in commendation by any news- paper, no matter how insignificant, and he was in the habit of writing notices of himself and distributing them to editors and reporters. His personal letters, in which the pronoun "I^^ can surely have no unusual meaning, tell seriously and with monotonous frequency the most absurdly trivial details of his life. The persistent use of the nickname "Walt^^ in- stead of his baptismal name Walter, and the habitual wearing of a distinctive dress, seem to show an affectation that is found only with egotism. On the other hand many of his The Central Period 389 letters and other prose writings indicate a man of great genuineness^ simplicity, and unselfishness. The impressions that he made on others were various. His friends and some casual acquaintances speak of the charm of his personality. Others agree more nearly with Thomas Wentworth Higgin- son, who says that he seemed^, in Lanier^s phrase, a "dandy roustabout/^ and gave the impression "not so much of manli- ness as of Boweriness.^^ From the mass of conflicting evidence it seems probable that "Whitman was in youth a man of perfect bodily health, though not a man of athletic temperament, or one who took much pleasure in his own bodily exertions. He was mentally alert and wonderfully sensitive to the impressions made by the varied activities of human life. Nature appealed to him most strongly in her larger and freer aspects, such as the sea; and man in his aspect of energetic, practical, creative laborer. He took great pleasure in the society of omnibus drivers, ferry boat pilots, horse car conductors, and other men of rude manners, but of real capability. His trip to the West and South added to his knowledge of the common people of America. This affection for men, not in mass, but as individual living human beings, was his most marked char- acteristic. He wrote, "There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well.^^ It is significant that notwithstanding his advocacy of the American ideal he never thought of enlisting in the Civil War and fighting for a principle. Once his sympathies were aroused, however, by the sight of the sufferings in the army hospitals he volun- tarily gave to individuals services more valuable and more trying than those of most soldiers in the field. To this hos- pital experience he recurred more frequently and with greater satisfaction than to anything else in his career. It is to The Wound-Dresser and the hospital passages of "Specimen Da-ys^^ 390 American Literature that those who doubt after reading the poems should turn before forming an adverse estimate of the man. Personally he was much given to posing, but his moments of genuine- ness made a powerful impression on those who were so fortu- nate as to behold them. The impulse that led to the writing of Leaves of Grass is believed by the poef s worshippers to have been an inspira- tion akin to that of the older prophets-. To Writog"* unsympathetic critics it has seemed an at- tempt on the part of a man who had failed in ordinary literary forms to attract attention by oddity. Neither of these judgments is probably wholly true. The doctrine of the importance of the individual human soul, as announced by Emerson and other transcendentalists, may have suggested to an experimenter in literary fields the idea of a new and different literature of which this doctrine should be the center. Once started, he became a lifelong apostle of what he called democracy. After a study of both his prose and his poetry it is hard not to believe that, though he was egotistical and self-conscious, he was in the main sincere. He evolved his poems with pains at first, and fre- quently revised and elaborated them afterward. As he con- sidered Leaves of Grass a unified work rather than a collec- tion he took equal pains in regard to grouping and arrange- ment. The most striking characteristic of Whitman's poetry is its lack of ordinary verse form. Except in a few cases it is without rhyme or sustained metre. For these it substitutes a rude and irregular rhythm, akin to that which is found, it is said, in the chants of primitive peoples. Many lines, often first lines, are examples of the highest rhythmical effects; but two lines with the same rhythm are rarely found together. An attempt to read such work as verse is sure to result disastrously. To The Central Period 391 appreciate it, one should read it as he reads the finer parts of the King James version of the Bible, simply as rhythmical prose. Treated in this way much of it will be found to have a subtle melody which is more and more impressive as the ear becomes accustomed to it. The author says that many of the poems were directly inspired by music ; and some of them suggest in a vague way the movement of great orchestral pieces. The power of Whitman^s poems comes, not so much from long passages taken as wholes, as from short suggestive phrases. It is probable that in other poetry this is true more often than is generally realized. The success of rhymes in which good phrases are deliberately woven together to make nonsense, and the frequency with which readers are moved by sounding verse that they do not fully understand, illustrate how much is due to the suggestiveness of telling words and groups of words. The art of making these effec- tive phrases Whitman had in a remarkable degree ; and he also relied much on the picturing power of simple terms. This he carried to an extreme in his long catalogues of objects or attributes, often thrown together promiscuously: The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of lis- teners, Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the indi- viduality of the States, each for itself — the money-makers, Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever, pulley, all certainties. The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, In space the sporades, the scattered islands, the stars — on the firm earth the lands, my lands. If this sort of thing is ever poetry it is because the reader finds in the long list some items that appeal to his imagi- nation. Whitman^s chief idea, as has been said, is that of democ- racy. By this word, as he shows in his chief prose work 393 American Literature ^^Democratic Vistas/' he means a conception of man and of the universe to which all earlier civilizations have been tending, and in accordance with which shall Whitman's ^^^^^ ^j^^ j^jj^g^ development of the future. Philosophy ^ He accepts something resembling the transcen- dental doctrine of the individual. In his many poems written in the first person he uses "V' and ^^me'^ to designate not alone himself, but every man and woman. Moreover, he believes that as all objects, actions, and attributes are part of the divine scheme, nothing is to be despised or thought unworthy of celebration in poetry. The severest censure which he received was directed against those poems in which he extended this theory to the phenomena of sex. Sex is, according to the poet, as pure and as natural as anything else in human experience, and should be treated as freely. Much may be said in favor of this theory as a theory, but the results of its application are displeasing to most persons. The majority of Americans are also too puritanical to accept a new poetry of the sex relation from a man whose own life had not conformed to conventional standards of morality. It may indeed be questioned whether if Whitman had married and become the father of a family he would have written some of the passages which have given offence. In view of the fact that so many prejudices and preconceived notions enter into our estimate of poems on this subject, it is safer to judge first of the author when he violates not moral but purely esthetic sensibilities. His whole philosophy stands or falls with such passages as The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table, What is removed drops horribly in a pail ; or, Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from, The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer. The Central Period 393 All men honor the surgeon, and any sqneamishness on his part would be a misfortune to humanity. In the eyes of science there is no essential difference between the biologic processes that produce beautiful or repulsive forms, or be- tween the chemical processes that yield pleasant or unpleasant odors. The question is whether art is as inclusive as science. This every reader must answer for himself; and his answer will decide the question whether, for him, Walt Whitman is the prophet of a new poetry. Such a prophet the author undoubtedly believed himself to be. He proclaimed that the poetry of the future was not His Conception only to be new in substance and form, but of his Art -jj^at it was to supersede all that had gone before. It was to sing of the artisan equally with the noble, of the body equally with the soul, of death equally with life. In form it was to be unrestricted by laws of metre, it was to use the slang of the street as well as bookish diction, and, in America, it should contain French and Spanish expressions in proportion as French and Spanish elements enter into national life. It was to celebrate ^^adhesiveness,^^ an extraordinary, in- tense friendship between man and man, which is perhaps the most perplexing of the author^s conceptions. All these charac- teristics, which he enumerated in ^^Democratic Vistas^^ and other prose essays, are seen in his own poems. From the first conception of Leaves of Grass he apparently held his views al- most unchanged. His later poems have a little less of the physical and more of the spiritual element, and are slightly less eccentric in form; but the difference indicates only an advance in years and experience, not a change of philosophy. The reader who rejects Whitman as a philosopher and a prophet should not summarily dismiss his poetry as unworthy of attention. To such a critic a careful study of his work will show many deficiencies and many beauties. Among the deficiencies are the lack of any 394 American Literature romantic element, of humor, and of sure taste. Eomantic love, or even the more tender emotions centering around childhood, is rarely mentioned. The relations of the sexes and other rela- tions within the family are thought of much as a sociologist might think of them. The lack of humor and of sure taste go together. The author was unable to see the ridicu- lous side of his own work. His long catalogues of things, his affected use of strange words, and his incongruous group- ings of ideas were by no means necessary results of his poetic theories. His prose, though readable and valuable for the light it throws on the author and his views, has even more artistic defects than the poems. Sentences are scrappy and disconnected, often ungrammatical. On the other hand, al- most anyone may gain inspiration, as did John Addington Symonds, from the broad free view and the contagious optimism of the poet. To those who care for the picturing force of words his many exquisite lines and phrases are sure to appeal; and many readers will find in the subtle melody of his finer compositions, as, for example, ^^When Lilacs Last in the Door- Yard Bloom'd,^^ a charm rarely equalled in more formal verse. Whitman has been the unfortunate center of a fierce dis- cussion in which both friends and enemies have gone to extremes. A letter from Emerson commend- ing the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which with questionable taste Whitman made public, was misun- derstood, though it helped to gain the popular ear. The Good Gray Poet, an excited, illogical pamphlet in which W. D. O'Connor expressed his indignation at Whitman's dismissal from the Interior Department, was the first and perhaps the worst of a series of absurd defences and pane- gyrics. On the whole these writings of foolish friends did the poet more harm than the attacks of his enemies. The most bitter attacks were based on misunderstandings of the The Central Period 395 poems. Critics who grasped the author's theories but believed them wrong have mostly written with calmness and dignity. In Europe, especially on the Continent, it has been the fashion to look on Whitman as the one distinctively American poet, in whom the American idea found its appropriate expression. This is due in part to a misconception of American civiliza- tion, in part to the fact that the poet's ideas harmonize with those of the most audacious old-world reformers. For many years the majority of American critics spoke of Whitman only to ridicule his form and condemn his morals, and the great mass of Americans, whom he claimed to represent, found his work unreadable. He is still almost unknown to the common people for whom he wished to speak. Cultured readers, however, have come to take his poems more seriously. Much of the admiration professed for his work is intelligent, but the element of fad may be seen in the fact that many persons are equally devotees of Whitman and of Poe — two men whose theories of poetry are the most diverse and irrec- oncilable to be found in literature. While his extreme manner has found few imitators, his influence has been strong on recent poets both in England and America. VI. Pennsylvania Writers Philadelphia continued as in the earlier years of the cen- tury to be a literary center of importance without numbering among its permanent residents many writers Periodkals^^ of high rank. It was noteworthy, especially before 1860, for the publication of annuals and popular magazines. Among the latter "Godey's Lady's Book'^ and ^^Graham's Magazine^' long held national repu- tations. Some of the more important editors of these, like Griswold and Poe, did most of their literary work elsewhere. Others of lesser consequence, like Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, Eliza 396 American Literature Leslie, and a little later Willis Gaylord Clark and E. T. Conrad, fairly belong to Philadelphia. Mrs. Sarah J. Hale (1788-1879), bom Buell, was a native of New Hampshire. At the age of thirty-four she was left a widow with five small children, and, as she Minor ^ ^as fond of reminding her readers, turned to Editors literary work for support. For some time she conducted the ^^Ladies^ Magazine^^ in Boston, and in 1837 became editor of "Godey^s Lady^s Book.^^ She also edited annuals, among them the ^^Opal,^^ and was the author of a novel, a tragedy, several volumes of poems, and other miscellaneous work. Her prose and verse are both highly moral and commonplace, even for writings of their class. Eliza Leslie (1787-1858), a contributor to "GodeyV' and editor of an annual, the "Gift,^^ published besides a classic cook-book some mildly humorous tales and sketches. Willis Gaylord Clark (1810-1841), a twin brother of Lewis Gaylord Clark, was editorially connected with several Phila- delphia journals. His poems, in smooth academic form, incline to melancholy — a fact that may be associated with the early death by consumption of both his wife and himself. His prose, on the other hand, consists mostly of brief humor- ous sketches. Eobert Taylor Conrad (1810-1858), a Phila- delphia lawyer, in early life editor of two newspapers, and later of ^^Graham's Magazine,^^ was the author of a few poems and of three plays, of which "Aylmere, or the Bond- man of Kent,^^ was successfully acted by Forrest. A more important editor and miscellaneous literary worker w.as Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903). He was born in Philadelphia, and after taking his degree at G dfr ^ L 1 d P^i^ceton and studying abroad contributed to many of the leading magazines of the country. For a time he edited a Philadelphia newspaper. He had wide interests and a fondness for curious researches. The Central Period 397^ One of his early writings was on "The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams ;^^ and later he published the results of interesting studies on the gipsy language and customs, on the legends of the Algonquins, on the early discovery of America by the Chinese, etc. Besides these he wrote sketches of travel and edited a series of art manuals. He was a careful observer, and what he has to say is valuable; but his prose works are sometimes slightly but unfortunately flippant and discursive. His most popular literary work was the Hans Breitmann Ballads, which began to appear in 1857. These are bur- lesques in German-American dialect on the peculiar ideal- istic German who was turned loose on America by the troubles of 1848, and below the broad fun on the surface they show the author's interest in the study of odd tj^pes of character. Leland was associated with a group of Philadelphia writers which included Eobert Montgomery Bird, George H. Boker, Bayard Taylor, and, a little apart from the A Group of others, Thomas Buchanan Eead. These men Philadelphia t . . i i? j.i x- x- • -i j? Writers agreed m caring much lor the artistic side oi literature. The more typical members of the group. Bird, Boker, and Taylor, all attempted dramatic com- position. Eobert Montgomery Bird (1805-1854) was educated as a physician, but early turned to literature. He began with plays, of which the most famous, ^^The Gladi- Robert ator,^^ was a favorite with Porrest, the actor. Bij.^ He then wrote Calavar and The Infidel, two romances of which the scene is laid in Mexico, and followed these by other fiction. All his work is of a highly romantic order. His stories are weak in plot, but hold interest by a succession of incidents. A far abler man was George H. Boker (1823-1890). He was a native of Pennsylvania and a graduate of Princeton, a man born to wealth and social position, who followed litera- 398 American Literature ture because he loved it. During the war he was the leader of the Union League Club of Philadelphia^ and later was minister to Turkey and to Russia. After George H. Boker . -, j. i? j. -i • ^ some early poems he wrote lour tragedies, "Calaynos/^ ^"^Anne Boleyn/^ ^^Leonor de Guzman/^ and ^^Francesca da Eimini.^^ His Plays and Poems, collected in 1856, include two lighter dramatic compositions. Later pub- lications were Poems of the War, Street Lyrics, KoenigsmarJc and Other Poems, The Booh of the Dead, and a volume of Sonnets. Boker's tragedies have intense and over-romantic plots, and make use of all the old-fashioned devices of the dramatist. "Calaynos^^ and ^^^Leonor de Guzman'^ have Spanish settings. The best is ^^Francesca da Eimini,^^ which still holds the stage. The story as told by Dante is amplified, and so man- aged that the hearer is led to sympathize with all three lovers. The prominent use of the court fool in developing the action and the frequent asides are conventionalities which were more tolerable sixty years ago than they are to-day. In spite of artificiality, however, the story has unity and consistency, and never drags. The blank verse is well handled, though it does not rise to great heights. Boker's lyrical poems sometimes sug- gest Shelley and occasionally Tennyson, but can never be called imitative. His sonnets, which Leigh Huiit thought the best on the legitimate model produced in America, show rather too much influence of the Elizabethan sonneteers. His work, throughout, is that of a man of taste and enthusi- asm for literature who has a considerable, but not the high- est, literary gift. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), or as he was known until early manhood James Bayard Taylor, was distinctively a product of Pennsylvania, though many of his literary Bayard Taylor .,, ' .xi_ at tt i n x. r. associations were with New York, and he has already been mentioned in connection with the New York The Central Period 399 group. He was born in Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania. His ancestry included both Quaker and Lutheran elements. After a precocious boyhood, in which he showed his fondness for books, he spent a short time in an academy, and at seventeen was apprenticed to a country printer. Even before this he had contributed poems to the Philadelphia papers, and in 1844 he published on the advice of Griswold his first volume of poems. He had always wished to travel, and now, on the strength of the slight literary repu- tation derived from his book, he secured contracts from sev- eral papers to write letters from abroad. His first visit to Europe, which occupied two years and covered parts of Eng- land, Scotland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and France, was made at an expense of about $500. His newspaper letters were collected in 1846 into his first book of travel. Views Afoot, From this point Taylor's varied and industrious career cannot be traced in detail. For a time he published a country - p paper, and then went to New York on the staff of the ^'Tribune.'' In 1850 came the culmination of the tragic romance of his life. He had long been betrothed to Mary Agnew, a Quaker girl. For some time it had been evident that she was afflicted with consumption, and the lovers were married in full antici- pation of her death, which occurred two months later. The success of Views Afoot and the author's love of new scenes united in urging him to travel. He went to California in the days of the gold excitement; and before his death he had the Holy Land, India, Iceland, and most corners of the more visited, besides many sections of the United States, Egypt, frequented countries. From all these places he wrote letters, which were afterward collected into volumes. It was in Germany that he felt most at home; and here, in 1857, he married Marie Hansen, who survived to write his life and 400 American Literature edit his works. After his second marriage he bought a tract of land and built a mansion near his boyhood home. The desire of founding an estate, which has been disastrous to so many men of letters, was strong upon him. He went beyond his means and although he slaved at lecturing and literary hackwork, he was still embarrassed financially. Just as all things began to look brighter he died, in 1878, soon after he had taken his place as United States minister to Germany. It was partly the pressure of external circumstances and partly the inherent activity of his mind that led Taylor to undertake so many kinds of writing. Besides Taylor's Poems . , i. i i i i •^ the merest hackwork, such as newspaper cor- respondence, editing, and compiling school histories, he at- tempted various forms of poems, the drama, books of travel, short stories, novels, literary essays, literary burlesques, and translations ; and at the time of his death was planning a life of Goethe. He is said to have valued his own prose lightly, but to have cared much for the name of poet; and it is in his poetry that his development may best be traced. Of his first two or three volumes of poems, little need be said except that they possess some of the qualities of the later work. Poems of the Orient, 1854, shows how strong a hold the East took on his passionate nature. Few other poets have put into their work so much of the sensuous spirit of the Ori- ental lands and still kept themselves so free from sensuality. These poems show the influence of Shelley, and are over- intense, over-rhetorical, yet the best of them must be ranked high among American lyrics. The Poet's Journal, 1862, is a sort of serious medley, with a little of a story told, and more implied by interwoven lyrics. It is really the account of the author's first and second loves, and culminates with the birth of his child. From this time on the echoes in his poems are of Tennyson rather than of Shelley, and there are hints of Swinburne, and, in subject and treatment, of Lowell. From The Central Period 401 this time, too, he felt moved to attempt higher things in poetry. The Picture of Saint John, 1866, Lars, a Pastoral of Norway, the ^^Gettysburg Ode/^ and above all his dramatic works and the translation of Faust are more ambitious than anything that he had undertaken before. Taylor's moral ideals were as pure as those of the New England poets, and at bottom he had some of their tendency to didacticism. Like his associates in New of^^oetrv^ York, however, he believed that the highest quality of poetry is beauty. His artistic in- stincts were strong in all directions, and at times he devoted himself with some earnestness to painting. In his early years he inclined to the prevailing sentimentalism, and later there was an element of artistic mysticism in his work. His taste ripened late, as none knew better than himself. In the end, his critical judgment was stronger than his creative power. As a result, his later work — indeed nearly all after the Poems of the Orient — seems too carefully wrought out to move the reader. The odes and many lyrics in ^Trince Deukalion'^ and other works have few flaws in structure, but they lack the charm of the Shelleyan and rhetorical ^^Bedouin Song.'^ Taylor was a true poet, who fell just a little short of fulfilling his great promise. Of the original dramatic works ^^The Prophet'^ is the only one that is strictly a drama. The subject, Mormonism, is ill adapted to a play, the structure is poor, Dramatic Works and the blank verse is by no means the au- thor's best. "The Masque of the Gods'' and "Prince Deukalion" are dramatic poems in which spirits and the Gods of old speak. They teach, in a veiled allegorical way, the author's later religious beliefs. The best parts of both are the lyrics that are frequently interspersed. "Prince Deukalion" shows the influence of the author's study, of Faust. The translation of Goethe's masterpiece is probably 402 American Literature Taylor's highest achievement. He devoted to it some of the best years of his life ; and though he had not high scholarship, he had the scholarly enthusiasm that stops at no labor. Crit- ics of his FaiLst have generally given high praise to the subtle interpretation of the original. The novels^ Hannah Thurston, John Godfrey's Fortunes, The Story of Kennett, and Joseph and his Friend, appeared between 1863 and 1870. The scenes of all are laid in America and the first three are in part autobiographical. Hannah Thurston is another of the many unsuccessful attempts to write a story of American village life. It deals with the reforms and -isms of the mid-century, and shows how Taylor felt toward some of his strict neighbors. The plot is poorly organized and the story often drags. John Godfrey's Fortunes was evidently sug- gested by some of the author's literary experiences. The scenes, and to some extent the incidents, in Kennett are avowedly drawn from life in his own neighborhood. As novels, none of these works ranks very high; but they show some of the author's views, and especially his thorough Ameri- canism and belief in democracy. The short stories, potboilers written for magazines, are in structure little better than the novels. Taylor's critical essays, as represented in the volume col- lected by his wife, are mostly disappointing. They rarely show insight; when they are best they are x!^*.^? commonplace, and when they differ from re- ceived opinion they are often absurd. The Echo Club is a series of burlesques suggested by early literary recreations of Taylor, Stoddard, O'Brien, and others. Taylor's best prose work is probably that which he valued least, his books of travel. He had an observing eye, a ready sympathy, and good powers of description. He rarely moral- ized, or sentimentalized, or lectured on history or science. The Central Period 403 He knew better than to write long descriptions of nature with- out introducing in some way a human interest. He told his own experiences^ keeping himself in the Boo sot center, and still his narratives never seem egotistical. It is doubtful if truer, saner, better written books of travel have been produced in America. Even to-day, when such works are wholly out of fashion, the reader who picks up one of these old volumes is loth to lay it down. Taylor felt when he accepted the ministry to Germany that he was just getting ready for his best work. It may be P . doubted whether if he had lived his literary hopes would have been gratified. He was too much the victim of circumstances, he had too many ambitions, he attempted too many kinds of work, to do his best; and it is uncertain just how great that best might have been. He became, with the possible exception of Whitman, the most eminent literary man of the middle states in his time; and the sweetness of his personality, his conscientious industry, and the disappointment of his aspirations constituted a tradition which, after his death, tended to perpetuate his memory. How much of his work, aside from the translation of Faust, will be remembered in fifty years is a question hard to answer. Thomas Buchanan Eead (1822-1872) was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, of parents in poor financial circum- stances. He was apprenticed to a tailor, but Thomas ran away to Philadelphia and afterward to j^g^^ the West. Before he was twenty years of age he had been grocer's clerk, cigar-maker, sculptor, sign-painter, actor, and artist. Much of his later life was spent abroad, where he painted the portraits of many distinguished people, and less successful fanciful pictures. His many poems were published at intervals from 1847 to his death. Among 404 American Literature them are The New Pastoral in thirty-six books, which treats of pioneer life in America, The House hy the Sea, The Wagoner of the AlleghanieSj a tale of Eevolutionary times, and The Oood Samaritans, Besides these longer works he wrote many lyrics and shorter poems. He had the artistic instinct, in verse as in painting, but he wrote too freely, and with too little self-criticism. He had a fondness for strongly accentu- ated rhythms, for lines rhyming in triplets, and for me- chanical arrangements of his poems. He is at his best in his lyrics, of which the most popular example is "Sheridan^s Eide.^^ VII. Southern Writers In the South conditions were still unfavorable to the pro- duction of literature. There were fewer cities than in the North, and hence fewer literary centers; and th*%^*^t^ ^^ facilities for publishing were not so readily at hand. Both custom and temperament in- clined the more cultured Southerners to the appreciation rather than the creation of literature; and if they wrote at all it was likely to be for recreation, and in the spirit of a dilettante. It is noticeable that though the patricians were often the most generous contributors to Southern literary magazines, a good proportion of the writers who are best remembered, such as Poe, Simms, and Timrod, represented less exclusive social circles. Before the war politics offered the most attrac- tive field for men of intellectual tastes who might have at- tained some excellence in letters. Indeed, most historians of Southern literature have enlarged their lists of authors by including men who are chiefly distinguished in political his- tory. Southern statesmen maintained, as they always have, a high average of excellence as orators and as writers on public affairs, but few of them merit much consideration as men of letters. The war left the South unfitted, for a few The Central Period 405 years, to do much in literature. Although a considerable number of Southern writers have since arisen, most of them belong to the period after 1883. Baltimore was always a center of culture, particularly of Eoman Catholic culture ; and in the latest years of the period Johns Hopkins University attracted men de- a imore voted to the newer scholarship. Baltimore periodicals were among the best in the South. Among the writers who were temporarily drawn there were Poe and Father Eyan. Few, however, of the permanent residents of the city deserve mention. George H. Calvert (1803-1889), a descendant of the founder of Maryland, lived near Baltimore until 1843, when he removed to Ehode Island. He studied at Harvard, at Goettingen, and later edited a Baltimore paper, and published translations from the German, and many original works, both prose and verse. His prose essays show an attempt to be aphoristic, and at times suggest the influence of Emerson, but are on the whole a rather artificial expression of commonplace thought. His two plays, in blank verse, seem to have been modelled on the more intense work of the Elizabethans. His poems are characterized by artificial diction. His work is that of a gentleman of culture and wide interests, who is not quite sure in taste, and who allows himself to be over-ambitious. The literary career of Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) is asso- ciated with the newer intellectual movement in Baltimore, though the greater part of his life was spent ey anier f^p^j^gp South. He was born in Macon, Georgia, of good family, though not of the oldest Southern aristocracy. His father was a successful lawyer. Even as a boy he was noteworthy as a musician. He entered Ogle- thorpe college, a small sectarian institution at Midway, Georgia, and on his graduation in 1860 was made tutor. His ambition was to study in Germany and become a college 40G Americak Literature teacher^ but this was frustrated by the war. He enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861, and served in the line, as scout, and in the signal service. He was finally captured on board a blockade runner and confined in Point Lookout prison. After the war he was clerk in a hotel, principal of an academy, and from 1868 to 1872 an assistant in his father's law office. His only important publication up to this time was Tiger Lilies, a novel begun while he was in the army, and finished in 1867. He had always retained his interest in literature and music, however, and had worked when time permitted on a volume of prose essays and on a long poem, ^^The Jacquerie,^' neither of which was ever com- pleted. In the winter of 1872-3 he resolved to devote himself to the life of an artist and a scholar. Even before this he was afflicted with consumption, but he did not lose hope. He went to Baltimore, where he played first flute in the Peabody Orchestra, and revelled in Lanier in ^j^^ opportunities for study afforded by the Pea- body library and the newly-organized Johns Hopkins University. Prom this time until his death in 1881 his life was a brave struggle against disease and financial embarrassment, and in the last years a race with death to see how much he could accomplish before the end. At first he was obliged to leave his wife and children at the South, but after a time the returns from his music and from his lit- erary work enabled the family to live quietly at Baltimore. "Corn,^^ his first poem to attract much notice, was published in 1875. This aided him in forming several literary friends, and through one of these. Bayard Taylor, came the invita- tion to write the cantata for the opening of the Centennial Exposition. This made him better known, though the pro- duction itself adds little to his poetic fame. His first volume of verse appeared in 1877. A book on Florida, 1876; The Boy's Froissart, 1878; The Boy's King Arthur, 1880; The The Central Period 407 Boy's Mdbinogion, 1881; and the posthumously published Boy's Percy were hackwork^ though the editing of the old romances was by no means distasteful to him. He organized classes of ladies for the study of literature, and in 1879 was appointed lecturer in English literature in Johns Hopkins. He projected several scholarly works, of which he published only one, The Science of English Verse, 1880. Since his death have appeared several volumes of his writings, includ- ing a complete edition of his poems, his letters, some collec- tions of his essays, and his lectures on The English Novel and on Shakespeare and his Forerunners. All who knew Lanier testify to his personal charm. He was a man of wide interests and broad views and sympathies. While he never lost for a moment his devotion anier s ^ ^^^ South, after the war he accepted the inevitable, and looked to the future rather than the past. He was born in one of the more democratic of the Southern states, and he responded to influences that were not strong in the South — notably modern scientific thought and German transcendentalism. He was able, there- fore, to stand in close relations with men in both sections of the country. The pathos of his life, his personal sweetness, his relations to the new and the old South, and to one of the younger American universities all make his story one of interest, but tend to render difficult a just estimate of his importance. By his admirers he has been praised as a scholar, a prose essayist, and a poet. Lanier had some of the characteristics of a scholar — in- terest in many subjects, a consciousness of his own deficien- cies, and an ambition to learn. While in the Scholarshio army, and while at work under the most dis- couraging circumstances in the South, he managed to learn many things, and particularly to become well read in older English literature. When he decided on a 408 American Literature literary career he felt the need of a broader and more thorough trainings and set himself to acquire it. His biogra- pher prints an interesting letter in which^ in 1877, he ap- plied for a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in order that he might study the physics of musical tone, mineralogy, botany, comparative anatomy, French, and German — a course which he goes on to say ^^akes straight towards the final result of all my present thought/^ There is a strange mix- ture of the ludicrous and the pathetic in the idea of an in- valid of thirty-five proposing to master these diverse branches of knowledge in order that he might become a poet. With all his enthusiasm, however, he lacked the patience and the sound judgment of a true scholar. He was too ready to speak and write before he had investigated his subject deeply and made certain of his conclusions. It would be unfair to judge him severely on account of his India papers, imaginative maga- zine articles into which he worked much half-assimilated guide- book information, or by his lectures on the novel and Shake- speare; but the same unripeness is evident in The Science of English Verse, which he deliberately published as a contribu- tion to scholarship. His lack of sure judgment is shown in his tendency to give the highest praise to minor writers who took his fancy. The exuberance and lack of sureness which characterized his scholarship also account for the chief defects of his prose. His early novel. Tiger Lilies, is strained, rhe- Lanier's Prose , - i -i p -i? i • • mi torical, and overianciiul m imagery. These faults he outgrew to some extent, but few pages of even his latest prose are wholly free from them. This is the more sur- prising since he himself points them out in an early bit of self-criticism. A few of his letters are charming revela- tions of a charming personality, but most of them — even those to his wife — are highly artificial, full of bookish words, and archaic forms, and unnatural, involved sentences. The Central Period 409 Lanier's chief literary ambition was in the direction of poetry. He wrote : ^^I know . . . that I am in sonl^, and shall be in life and utterance^ a great poet/' His Lanier's achievement can in fairness be judged only of Po^ry ^^ connection with his theories of mnsic and poetry. To his mind the relations between these two forms of art are far closer than has usually been supposed. He believed that a poem should have a solid basis of idea^ but he emphasized the fact that it should appeal to the ear through subtle effects of appropriate tone-color and rhythm. It is the form rather than the idea that is strik- ing in his verse. Indeed^ his thought^ except in poems like the "Hymns of the Marshes/' in which he shows the response of his imaginative temperament to the influence of nature^ is likely to be commonplace. The ideas that maize rather than cotton will save the agricultural industries of the Souths which underlies "Corn/' and that the nation is too much absorbed in sordid trade^ which underlies "The Symphony/' seem when stated baldly to be hardly worth the poet's while. Worse than the triteness of his ideas is his torturing and twisting them in strange long-drawn-out figures and odd conceits. As a poet even more than as a prose writer he found it impossible to think and speak simply^ clearly^ and naturally. What Edmund Gosse calls his "strain and rage" was probably due not alone to a striving after poetic effect in accordance with his theories, but to the immaturity of his taste and thought. For, although he was in his fortieth year when he died, he seemed as immature at the end as some boys of twenty. Among Lanier's most striking poems are "The 'Symphony/' "The Marshes of Glynn/' and "Sunrise." In the first the author attempts to suggest by both the music Lanier's Poems n j_i • j j? Trx? i. x £ j.i and the idea oi diiierent parts oi the poem the effect of different orchestral instruments. In the other 410 American Literature two poems the verse is even more musical and more arti- ficial. His use of alliteration and tone-color, and some of his rhythms, suggest Swinburne — the modern English poet whom he most disliked. Better than the longer poems, though less distinctive, are a few lyrics in which he deliberately and avowedly worked out a conceit. Among these is the much praised ^^Ballad of Trees and the Master,^^ which, with its pun on the word ^^tree,^^ is after all somewhat forced. Still better is the ^"^Evening Song,^^ in which are blended with remarkable effect the Elizabethan and the nineteenth century conceptions of love. Lanier wrote at a time when I^orth and South were becom- ing reconciled, and when Northern critics, in their desire to be fair, gave eager recognition to a promising Southern man of letters. He attracted little attention abroad, but at home he had, and still has, a consider- able body of enthusiastic readers. Even these are wont to admit that he must be judged not so much by what he did as by what he would have done. He stands as the most dis- tinguished literary man of the New South; but it is by no means certain that when the careers of the many successful Southern writers now living are completed he will deserve this distinction. If Virginia had a literary center it was Eichmond, which in the old days was a city of much culture. Here was pub- lished the ^^Southern Literary Messenger/^ B ^iT^^ c k ^C)st frequently remembered in connection with Poe, but the leading magazine of the South both before and after his editorship. Other and shorter lived periodicals had considerable merit. Among the representative Virginia writers was Philip Pendleton Cooke (1816-1850), a graduate of Princeton. He studied law, but devoted himself largely to writing and sportsmanship. He published in the periodicals a few prose tales and part of a The Central Period 411 romance. His only volume was Froissart Ballads and other Poems, 1847. The preface announces the plan of turning stories from Froissart into verse^ but only three such narra- tives are given. The rest of the volume is taken up with verse tales of his own invention^ and miscellaneous poems, includ- ing his best remembered lyric, ^*^Florence Yane.^^ The author may be taken as a type of the Virginia gentleman of family and wealth who dabbled in literature for his own pleasure. His younger brother, John Esten Cooke (1830-1886), came to take letters more seriously. After studying law he turned his attention to romance writing, and in 1854 published three works. Leather StocJcing and Silk, The Virginia Comedians, and The Youth of Jefferson. The scenes of all these are laid in Virginia in pre-Eevolutionary times. Leather StocJc- ing and Silh is a tale of pioneer days in the Shenandoah Valley. The Youth of Jefferson is a story of college life at Williamsburg, based on tradition and on some slight hints in the early letters of Jefferson. It is an intensely romantic story of love and gallantry, in which the heroine dons male attire and becomes the confidante of her poor and bashful lover. The Virginia Comedians, often ranked as the au- thor^s best work, is another romantic tale of pre-Eevolution- ary times, full of intense devotion on the part of handsome cavaliers and of languishing on the part of the ladies. The plot is poorly organized, especially in the latter part; and an attempt to gain historic interest by introducing Patrick Henry is unsuccessful. Phlegmatic readers of the present day may doubt whether this artificial romantic society ever existed, but it is the society which tradition loves to paint as that of the old regime in the South, and which Cooke was especially fond of reproducing in his novels. He wrote several other stories in the same strain, though after the war, in which he served with distinction, he turned more to scenes from 1860 to 1865. Besides fiction he wrote a life of Stone- U13 American Literature wall Jackson and other biographical and semi-historical works. He was one of the most prolific writers of the Old South and many of his works are still in print. All are char- acterized by devotion to Virginia and by the air of the old- time romancer. Haste in composition and the inability to construct good plots account for the fact that his stories do not stand higher in their class. Virginia was also the native state of Abram J. Eyan (1839- 1886), whose wanderings in the service of his church after- ward took him through nearly every Southern wXs^^^^^^^ state. He entered the Eoman Catholic priest- hood and became a chaplain in the Confed- erate army. His poems stand to Eoman Catholicism and devotion to the South as the more sentimental poems of the New England writers do to puritanism and loyalty to the Union, respectively. They have a swing that catches the popular ear and they are full of sincere emotion. Many are on distinctly religious subjects, many on the lost cause. The greatest favorites are "The Conquered Banner/^ and "The Sword of Lee/^ but several of the religious poems are really better. Mrs. Margaret Junkin Preston (1820-1897) was a native of Philadelphia, but lived most of her life at Lexington, Virginia, and became closely identified with the South. Her earliest publication was a novel, Silverwood, but she was more successful in her poetry, of which she pro- duced several volumes. Her work shows some influence of Mrs. Browning, and is praised by her admirers for grace, delicacy of finish, purity of sentiment, and an intense religious element. Her poems are usually free from blemishes due to bad taste, and they show wide interests and some feeling ; but they lack positive qualities which would entitle them to high rank. Her journals and letters give an interesting view of experiences during the war. It is difficult to identify Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) The Central Period 413 with any section of ihe country. By family relationship he was a Southerner^ but he was born in Boston, received much of his schooling in England, and did his most ^ effective literary work in Philadelphia and New York. He was not so much a cosmopolitan as a man independent of place and environment. If any section can lay claim to him it is the South, and if any state of the South, Virginia. It is impossible to discuss Poe^s position as a writer without some reference to the unfortunate controversies that arose regarding his life and character. When he Controversies ^j^^ ^^ jg^g ^^ named as his literary executor Regarding Poe -^ the Eeverend Eufus W. Griswold, whose labors as editor and compiler have already been mentioned. The relations between Poe and Griswold had been strained, and Poe had at one time expressed a bitter contempt for Griswold and all his works; but he apparently believed that there had been a complete reconciliation. A few days after Poe^s death Griswold published in the New York ^^Tribune'^ an article the tone of which may be inferred from the state- ments that Poe ^^had few or no friends/^ and that ^^There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honor." Griswold claimed, and it is charitable to believe, that when he wrote this article he was ignorant of the trust which Poe had imposed upon him. When, a little later, he undertook the preparation of a memoir to accompany Poe's works, he felt that he must adhere to his former state- ments, and he painted the author's character blacker, if possible, than before. When there was conflict between two authorities as to a fact, or two interpretations of an action, he uniformly chose the more unfavorable ; and it is as certain as circumstantial evidence can make it that he falsified docu- ments to support his case. This picture of depravity appealed 414 American Literature to people who since the days of Byron had been fond of associating genius with the diabolical^ and in spite of protests by N". P. Willis and others who knew Poe it was long accepted as true. At length the reaction set in^ and apologists went to ridiculous extremes in an attempt to prove Poe^s character spotless. Even to-day the reader is sometimes troubled to decide just what he should believe. It was not altogether Griswold^s fault that hardly half the statements in his memoir are correct. Poe himself, whether through mere perversity, or for some other Poft's Life reason, gave currency to many wild tales re- garding his life. The main facts are now, however, well established. He was born in Boston, where his parents were playing a temporary theatrical engagement. His father, who belonged to a respectable Southern family, had been disowned by his relatives when he went on the stage, and a year later had married an actress. Both parents died when Edgar was very young, and he was adopted by Mr. Allan, a merchant of Eichmond, Virginia, who afterward acquired considerable wealth. From 1815 to 1820 the Allans were 'abroad, and Edgar was in a boys' school in the suburbs of London. He spent one year at the University of Virginia, where he made an excellent record for scholarship, but fell into the prevailing student dissipations. A quarrel with Mr. Allan over his gambling debts prevented his return to the University, and later led to his leaving home and to his disinheritance. He is said to have enlisted in the army, and to have served so faithfully that friends secured a discharge and an appointment to West Point. Here he neglected his military duties and was dismissed in 1831. Meanwhile he had published Tamerlane and Other Poems, hy a Bostonian, in 1827; Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, in 1829; and another volume of Poems in 1831. After many vicissitudes he attracted the attention of some literary men of Baltimore, The Central Period 415 who secured him a position as editor of the "Southern Lit- erary Messenger'^ at Eichmond. In 1835 he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a girl of thirteen. In 1837 he left Eichmond and went first to New York and then to Phila- delphia, where he was editor successively of "Burton's Gentle- man's Magazine'' and of "Graham's Magazine." In 1844 he went to New York, and became connected with- the "Eve- ning Mirror," and afterward was editor and part proprietor of the "Broadway Journal." After this failed he wrote for various periodicals. In 1847 his wife died. In 1849 he went South to further a project, which had been the dream of his life, for founding an independent literary magazine. While in Eichmond he met Mrs. Sheldon, an old sweetheart, now a widow, and it is supposed that they became engaged. He started back to arrange his affairs in New York, but died in Baltimore. Most of his poems and prose tales were published in the magazines of which he was the editor. His longest tale, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," the first part of which appeared in the "Southern Literary Messenger,'^ was issued in book form in 1838. Collections of tales were published in 1839 and 1845, and a volume of poems in 1845. It is harder to speak of Poe's character than of his life, not so much because the facts are unknown as because it is difficult to interpret them. Poe was addicted, Poe's Character i 1 1 j? i x xi • i probably irom an early age, to the occasional use of intoxicants. His nervous temperament seems to have been such that a slight indulgence was productive of the worst results. He was not, at least during the greater part of his life, an habitual drunkard; but his weakness often prevented him from securing and holding regular employ- ment. There is evidence that after the death of his wife he took to the use of drugs ; and it is probable, though not certain, that his death in Baltimore was the result of a debauch. In his relations with other men Poe was not a saint, but 416 American Literature he does not seem to have shown any serious moral obliquity. The worst stories told by Griswold have not been substanti- ated by later biographers^ and his letters show nothing worse than some duplicity in criticising friends behind their backs. He exerted a strong influence over women^ and in his later years had several intense ^^platonic friendships/^ at least one of which perhaps went a trifle beyond social conventionalities; yet there is no suspicion of moral wrongdoing. Indeed, both his writings and his life show a remarkable freedom from im- pure passion. His business relations have been the subject of detailed discussion, and even his failure to return a borrowed volume of no great value has been given a publicity that does not always attend delinquencies of this sort. In this case the discovery of a letter has proved him guiltless, not only of dishonesty, but of undue carelessness. There is no ques- tion, however, that he sometimes borrowed small sums of money that he was unable to repay; but there is nothing in these transactions to show deliberate dishonesty. Poe was, indeed, never mercenary, unless in his engagement to Mrs. Sheldon, and accounts of this affair are confused and un- certain. On the other hand the unselfishness of his devotion to his wife and her mother is shown by the testimony of all who knew the family, and by numerous letters written by Mrs. Clemm both before and after his death. Poe^s moral weaknesses were undoubtedly the chief cause of his failure in life, yet this does not mean that they were greater than those of many other men. Cir- M'V t ^ cumstances, which must be counted for some- thing, were against him. His boyhood was passed in the expectation of a comfortable position in life, and the fact that it was his own vices which led Mr. Allan to cast him off did not fit him the better to make his own way. In literature he was in advance of his time. Editorial labors which, even though interrupted by his fits of intemperance. The Central Period 417 would now be worth great salaries, brought him but a few dollars a week. It is probable that his poems and prose tales now yield annually to many publishers who acknowledge no obligations of copyright sums larger than that which the author received from them during his entire life. Add to the lack of appreciation the fact that he had not the trick of making friends, and that he was too independent to worship the literary divinities of the day, and we have an explanation if not a palliation of much that was unfortunate in his life. Though a man of the finest nervous organization, he endured all his life the hardships of poverty. Worst of all, he was forced to see his invalid wife suffer, and perhaps die the sooner for want of the common comforts of existence. Had Poe been a model of thrift and propriety he could no doubt have eked out a comfortable existence on the money that he might have earned. But if his talents had brought him half the return with which they would have been rewarded a few years later, we should hear less about his moral faults. So much has been said of Poe^s life and character only be- cause these subjects cannot be ignored in a consideration of his works. Though he revealed himself much ffis Works ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ supposed, the man and his works have always been inseparable in the popular mind. Critics, too, have been guilty of arguing in a circle, assuming that the writings were autobiographical because they dealt with sin and remorse, and then substan- tiating the popular conception of the author^s character by reference to his writings. Poe was a poet, a writer of prose tales, and a critic. His criticism, once dismissed lightly and held to be little more than the expression of bitter prejudices, is CritiSm ^^^ more widely read, and serves as the best introduction to his other work. As a critic he belonged to the school of Coleridge, though his ideas were 418 American Literature mostly individual. He stood for literature as an art^ and for the idea properly expressed by the much abused phrase^ ^^Art for art^s sake/^ The object of a work of pure literature should be, he felt, to make a definite pleasurable impression on the mind, and this impression should be made for itself, and not for any ulterior purpose of giving information or incul- cating a moral. His most important ideas on the function of criticism in general are set forth in the letter prefixed to the Poems of 1831. His views of the poem are summarized in his popular lecture on ^^The Poetic Principle,^^ and applied in his many reviews of poems by other authors. His theory of the prose story is best expressed in his review of Haw- thorne^s Twice-Told Tales, It is sometimes said, uncharitably, that Poe so shaped his critical dicta as to give the highest place to the only kinds of literature that he could himself produce. This seems to be disproved by the fact that in ^^Al Aaraaf,^^ published when he was but twenty, and itself written in a form which his criti- cisms disapprove, he sets forth in a mystical way the idea of beauty which underlies his later theory of poetry. As he developed this theory he defined poetry as ^^the rhythmical creation of beauty,^^ and insisted that it should be treated as an art, not as the result of insane inspiration. The latter idea underlies ^^The Philosophy of Composition,'^ an essay in which he professes to give, with absurd detail, his method in composing ^^The Eaven.'^ It is a corollary to his theory of the function of poetry that the lyric is a higher form than the epic; and, indeed, he went so far as to say that a long poem could not exist. His conception of the short prose tale is stated less definitely. He preferred it to the novel, because it allowed greater unity and definiteness of impression. He considered that though a lower form than the poem, it had possibilities which the poem had not, since it admitted im- pressions like terror and mystery, while poetry should be The Central Period 419 limited to the presentation of beauty. In regard to other forms of literature^ he laid down few general principles. A dramatic poem which was not an acting drama he was inclined to consider ^^a flat contradiction in terms.^^ In all his chief critical ideas Poe was in opposition to his most popular contemporaries. New England was dominant in American literature^ an.d N'ew England was Poe and His ^ represented by the intellectual didacticism of Contemporaries ^ "^ Peter Parley^ and the moral didacticism of Longfellow. The idea of inspiration and the ^^divine afflatus^^ prevailed; and the public admired the poet who could write his poems at a sitting, rather than the one who perfected his work by years of polishing. Considering the individuality of his ideas, his reviews were usually fair in essentials. There are exceptions, such as his bitter attack on Griswold, and he had some prejudices that influenced much of his critical work. Toward female writers he was likely to be unduly charitable — he gave unstinted praise even to such senti- mentalists as L. E. L. He had little friendly feeling for the New Englanders, partly because he differed so widely from their ideals, partly because it irked him to see them so popular while he was neglected, partly because he objected to their mutual admiration societies and log-rolling criticism. It was probably dislike of New England as much as love of the South that led him to pose occasionally as the repre- sentative of Southern ideas and institutions. Still, he always ranked Longfellow at the head of American poets, except when he wavered in favor of Lowell; and there is hardly a case in which he did not give a New England author as much praise as is conceded by posterity. Poe's contemporary reputation as a bitter and unfair critic was due to the unpopularity of his critical standards, to his independence and lack of tact, and to the fact that he allowed himself to ride several hobbies. Chief among these were 420 American Literature grammar, versification, and originality. He rarely reviewed a prose work without quoting a list of expressions that were /n . . fTT ,.,-. grammatically incorrect. Usually, it must Critical Hobbies , -i -, , n t - . , m i i be admitted, his points were well taken. The same cannot be said of his criticisms on versification. When he trusted his ear he was usually right, but he often preferred to base his criticisms on pedantic theories of technique. His favorite hobby was originality. He admitted no degrees of legitimate indebtedness, but characterized every case of similarity as plagiarism. Longfellow was the object of his most persistent and most unreasonable attacks on this charge. All these hobbies touched points on which writers are extremely sensitive; and an author^s personal feeling toward the reviewer was influenced not by the pages of discriminating praise, but by the paragrapli that exposed his grammatical blunders and bad rhymes, or passed harsh judgment on his borrowings. Most of Poe's own writings conform strictly to his theories. The only exceptions in his verse are three long poems, pub- lished in early youth. ^^Tamerlane,^^ which Th^-^F^^^~~ ^PP^^^^^ when he was but eighteen, and which according to his own statement was written much earlier, shows plainly, though not obtrusively, the influence of Byron. Only an occasional favorite word like "bodiless'^ suggests the later verse. ^^Al Aaraaf,^^ pub- lished two years later, was evidently written under the in- fluence of Shelley. It is mystic and highly imaginative, and contains one lyric passage of rare and subtle beauty. It was originally prefaced by the sonnet, "To Science,^^ which shows the author^s youthful mastery of a form which he afterward rejected. The dramatic fragment, "Politian,'^ is the least valuable of the three, and shows Poe out of his element. In these early years he was beginning to work out the wonderful music of his verse. His masters were Cole- The Central Period 431 ridge^ who may have suggested the use of the repetend, and Shelley, from whom he gained the trick of using a special vocabulary of onomatopoetic words. Later in life he took an occasional hint from Mrs. Browning, and perhaps from others. But what he borrowed he used in his own way, and he deserves the credit of originating a new effect in the music of English verse. The attainment of perfection was a mat- ter of years. Many of the poems as we now have them were of exceedingly slow growth. Their successive stages of de- velopment may be seen in the versions published, often with change of title, in the periodicals of which the author was editor. His judgment on a freshly written poem was by no means sure. ^^The City in the Sea,^^ ^^Ulalume,^^ and others contained, as first published, stanzas that are almost ridicu- lously weak. But he rarely reprinted without making changes, and nearly every change is an improvement. Among poems that date from the earlier time with relatively few emendations are ^^Israfel'^ and ^^To Helen.^^ ^^The Sleeper,'^ which Poe considered his best poem, was changed almost out of semblance to its original form. The poems of his later years, such as ^^The Eaven,^^ '^Ulalume,^^ and ^^Annabel Lee,'^ were of course subject to less revision. They exemplify, however, the artistic mastery of verse which he at last at- tained. ^^The Eaven^^ probably owes as much of its popularity to mere effects of sound as to the thought and imagery. "Ulalume'^ shows the author's highest attainment in the pro- duction of unusual effects by the use of the repetend and ono- matopoetic words. The subjects of the poems also accord with the author's theories of the nature of poetry. His ideals limited him to the lyric, and in writing lyrics he aimed at Th^*^ C^^T^T *^^ presentation of the highest beauty. In this, he tells us, there is always a touch of sadness; and the saddest of all thoughts are occasioned by 422 American Literature the death of a beautiful woman. This theme is found in "The Eaven/' "Annabel Lee/' "Ulalume/^ "To Helen/' "To One in Paradise/' "The Sleeper/' and many more. In "Isra- fel/' "The Haunted Palace/' "The City in the Sea/' and others the element of sadness is present, but with different associations. Undoubtedly the range of ideas in the poem was limited by the author's conception of his art. War, happy love, and other usual themes of the lyric are wanting. The thought, too, is always subdued to a single emotional effect. It is not true, however, as is sometimes charged, that thought is absent, or trivial. Every poem except "The Bells," which is little more than a rhythmical exercise, has a definite and sufficient content, and can, if anyone desires, be paraphrased in prose. Even "Ulalume/' which some critics have pronounced meaningless, should offer no diffi- culties of interpretation to any person who understands the vocabulary and takes up the poem with no preconceived idea of its autobiographical significance. Poe's first published tale was "The MS. Found in a Bottle," which won a prize offered by the "Baltimore Saturday Visi- tor" in 1833. The others were published at Poe s Prose intervals, most of them in the periodicals with which he was connected. Many of those that are included in his collected works are trash — the per- functory output of a journalist who had to fill space. Poe himself is not responsible for the preservation of these pieces, and their mediocrity should not affect our judgment of his better work. His tales which are really excellent exceed in number those of any other American except Hawthorne. All these better stories, with the exception of the long "Narra- tive of Arthur Gordon Pym," conform to the author's critical theory. This restricted him to a single definite effect or im- pression in each tale. The variety of effects, though much greater than in the poems, was limited. He handled humor m The Central Period 423 with only moderate success, and no humorous tale deserves a place among his productions of first rank. He succeeded best in the representation of mystery, horror, and terror. This fact suggests comparisons with the English novelists of terror, with the German romanticists, and with Hawthorne. In no case is the resemblance very clear. He differed from Monk Lewis and Mrs. EadcliflEe in making prominent not so much the terrible as the effect of terror on the human mind. The resemblance to Hoffmann and the German roman- ticists is plainer, but the evidence of indebtedness is not clear. It seems reasonably certain that Poe did not read German, and the explanation that he knew Hoffmann through French and English translations is not convincing. Like Hawthorne, he delighted in psychological analysis, particularly the analy- sis of a morbid or terror-stricken mind. But he pictured the mind troubled by mental disease or physical suffering rather than by moral questionings. The narrative method in the prose tales is that of a writer who wishes to make an emotional impression rather than to recount an action for its own sake. He suc- M^t^d^^ ceeds admirably in creating and sustaining what it is now fashionable to call ^^atmos- phere.^^ To aid in doing this he often employs the device of a colorless, almost an impersonal, narrator, whose comments serve the purpose of a chorus, but who takes little important part in the action. This is the case in ^^The Fall of the House of Usher,'' "The Descent into the Maelstrom,'' "The Murders in the Eue Morgue," and many more. Even when the nar- rator has a significant part in the story, as in "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Ligeia," his personal traits are left vague and ill defined, and the reader thinks of him as passive rather than active. In the tales which have a more definite and everyday setting great care is taken to secure verisimili- tude by the use of realistic details in both the narrative aud 424 AMERicAisr Literature the descriptive passages. This is shown to best advantage in the first part of "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym/^ "The Gold-Bug/^ the detective tales, and some of the newspaper hoaxes. The descriptions are, indeed, sometimes too long and detailed to suit modern taste ; and the same may be said of the expository passages in which, in a few tales, the author airs his philosophy. Usually, however, the tales are excel- lent in unity and proportion. A careful student of the stories soon notices the frequent repetition of a few ideas. The thought of a partial sentience of the body after death, or at least of an in- Ideas dissoluble relation between the soul and the body, is common, as in the "Colloquy of Monos and Una^^ and in "Morella.^^ With this may be connected the thought of premature burial, found in "The Fall of the House of UshcT,^^ and referred to in other tales. Eeference to the walling up of a dead body is found in "The Cask of Amontillado^^ and "The Black Cat,^^ and in a slightly differ- ent form in "The Tell-Tale Heart.'' These and a few other ideas recur constantly. This repetition of ideas makes any satisfactory classifica- tion of the tales difficult. There is great variety of subject and treatment, but tales that difler most Po^^s^Ta^^^^^ widely in other respects are often associated through the recurrence of some favorite idea. A few overlapping groups readily suggest themselves. The tales in which horror is painfully obtrusive, like "The Black Cat,'' "Berenice," and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valde- mar," deserve little attention. They are powerful, and they devebp some of Poe's favorite conceptions, but they indicate a partial lapse of taste, and it 'is the authors misfortune that they are so widely known. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Imp of the Perverse," and "The Cask of Amon- The Central Period 425 tillado" the portrayal of horror is subsidiary to the study of its effects on the mind, and the story is more artistic. "The Masque of the Eed Death^' is still more unreal, and connects itself with the rhapsodies "Shadow^^ and "Silence/^ which are prose trenching on the domain of poetry. In "Ligeia^^ and to a slighter extent in "Morella^^ and "Eleonora^^ the author carries us out of all place and time, and deals with the very mysteries of existence. It seems hard to believe that the same mind that conceived "Ligeia'^ planned also "The Gold-Bug/' "The Murders i^ the Eue Morgue/^ "The Mystery of Marie Poe^s Stories of Roget/' and "The Purloined Letter.'' The Ratiocination o ^ first of these is a story of the finding of buried treasure by means of a memorandum in cypher, and connects itself on the one hand with tales of adventure like the "Nar- rative of Arthur Gordon Pym,'' and on the other hand with the last three named. These three have the distinction of being the first detective stories, and in spite of countless imitations for more than sixty years they are still unexcelled. They represent a comparatively late period in Poe's literary work. While he was in Philadelphia he published a paper on methods of secret writing, and for a time amused him- self by reading all cyphers sent him. It was about the same time that he began to write his tales of ratiocina- tion. The scenes of these three stories are laid in Paris, and all have the same hero, M. Dupin. The thesis of "The Mur- ders in the Rue Morgue'' is that the more mysterious the aspect of a crime, the more readily should the facts be discov- ered by an acute reasoner. "The Purloined Letter" presents the converse of this proposition, that the simplest things are the most puzzling to ordinary minds. In "The Mystery of Marie Roget" the author dealt with a crime that had been a short time before the sensation of New York. He gave a French form to the name of the victim, Mary Rogers, ex- 426 American Literature changed Paris for New York and the Seine for the Hudson, and endeavored to have M. Dupin settle, from information furnished by the newspapers, the responsibility for a crime which had baffled the police. His reasoning is plausible, and it is said that later revelations showed the truth of his theory ; but the necessity of adhering to fact, and of sifting much irrelevant testimony to show its worthlessness spoils the pro- portion of the story. This union of the intellectual, the ratiocinative faculty with the highly imaginative is the most distinctive character- istic of Poe^s genius. It was his own theory rr^^^o^?^}^^ that a mathematician could not reason well Two-Sided unless he were something of a poet. Certainly his imaginative faculty helped in the production of his in- tellectual tales; and his intellectuality doubtless aided as much in the creation of his poetry and his imaginative stories. The two together gave him an insight that accomplished what he could have done with neither alone. This was strikingly illustrated by his prediction, from the first few chapters, of the outcome of ^^Barnaby Eudge.^^ It is shown, also, in his article on the automatic chess player, and in many of his critical works. In some of his essays he called to his aid both intellect and imagination in forming conjectures of the things that lie beyond human knowledge. The prose rhap- sodies, the mystical tales like "Ligeia,^^ and the late "prose poem^^ "Eureka^^ all show how persistently he thought on the great mysteries of existence. It was probably this habit of questioning the unknowable that led him to the production of those tales that are too uncanny and weird. It is a mistake to suppose that these are only theatrical at- tempts at effect, or that they have no relation to life. Poe was forever thinking about life, and about its deepest prob- lems. Like any journalist, he sometimes wrote under com- pulsion, and to meet the popular demand. He lacked The Central Period 437 thorough scholarly trainings though he was widely read;, and he sometimes attempted to conceal his limitations by tricks like those which he exposed in "How to Write a Blackwood Article/^ But when he was at his best he was not a charla- tan, but a conscious artist, using the tricks of his art only to secure the greater fidelity to truth. Poe^s genius was recognized to some extent before his death, but full appreciation of his worth has been a matter of slow s^rowth. It is the misfortune of such a writer Poe's Rank that his more obvious and less subtle work attracts most attention. "The Eaven'^ is still the most popu- lar of his poems, and "The Black Cat^^ is at least as well known as any of his tales. It was also his misfortune to be worshipped by a cult, against the extravagant claims of which saner readers felt bound to protest. He has, however, won the praise of the most conservative critics, and many later writers have done him the honor of imitation. Swinburne, Eossetti, and even Tennyson were influenced by his verse; Stevenson^s "Treasure Island'^ shows obvious similarity to "The Gold-Bug'^; Jules Verne took the hint for some of his extravagant sketches from the newspaper hoaxes; de Mau- passant and a host of short story writers in France, England, and America have acknowledged hinl as master; and the in- numerable writers of detective stories have modeled their work on "The Murders in the Eue Morgue'^ and "The Pur- loined Letter.^^ The fact that his works have given sugges- tions to such widely different writers is a sufficient answer to the remark sometimes made that Poe^s range is narrow. It is a just criticism that his range, though broad, did not include the more common forms and themes^ — the narrative poem, the love lyric, the love tale, and the presentation of commonplace truth in prose and verse. These are the stuff of which most literature is made, and the writer who lacks them has a restricted audience, and a somewhat weaker hold 428 American Literature on all readers who have strong human sympathies ; yet there is much else in literature. With all his limitations Poe has attained a foreign reputation that is probably more secure than that of any other American author, and for the last fifty years has been steadily gaining in recognition at home. South of Virginia the only important literary center was Charleston. Here were established from time to time a number of short-lived magazines, and here Charleston— ^^^^ found several writers of national repu- Simms tation. The most important of these was William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870). He was a native of Charleston. When he was a mere child his mother died, and his father failed in business and went West, leaving him in the charge of his grandmother. After a brief and unsatisfactory schooling he became a drug clerk as a prelimi- nary to the study of medicine. By the time he was eighteen, however, he abandoned this occupation for the study of law. After a visit to his father in Mississippi, where he saw some- thing of frontier life, he practiced his profession in Charles- ton for a year, and then turned to literature. Between 1827 and 1832 he was editor of a magazine and of a newspaper which successively failed, wrote tales and miscellaneous articles for the magazines, and published five volumes of verse. The last of these was his most ambitious poetical attempt, Atalantis. He went to New York to see it through the press, and began life-long friendships with Bryant and several other northern men of letters. In 1833 he brought out his first romance, Martin Faber, and a collection of short tales. The former is said to have been a harrowing story of crime, based partly on fact. The author afterward excluded it from his collected works. Guy Rivers^ a story of wild life on the frontier, was issued in 1834, and The Yem- assee, the first of his historical tales, in 1835. From this time on Simms^s literary activities were too The Central Period 429 numerous to mention in detail. He worked indef atigably and with wonderful rapidity. Before the outbreak of the Civil War he had been associated editorially with lT^V half a dozen periodicals^ and had published a dozen or more volumes of verse, two dozen volumes of fiction, two dramas, and many miscellaneous works, besides a good share of the two hundred and fifty magazine articles which his biographer was able to identify. Meanwhile his first wife had died, and he had married a lady of some for- tune, and lived on her father's plantation near Charleston. He made frequent visits to New York, where most of his books were published, and during part of the year he lived in Charleston. Here, in the fifties, he became the center of a group of literary men, most of them younger than him- self, which included the poets Timrod and Hayne. Although after his second marriage he was in somewhat easier circum- stances financially, his life was not wholly pleasant. Charles- ton society, the most exclusive in the South, gave little recog- nition to the former drug clerk. His health began to fail ; he suffered afiliction in the illness and death of several of his children; his home was partly destroyed by fire; and he worried greatly over the political troubles that were agitat- ing his state. Long before the outbreak of the war he had become a strong secessionist, and a believer in the beneficence of slavery. He advocated extreme measures, and when the culmination came took great interest in the attack on Sum- ter, and made suggestions for fortifications, some of which were adopted. Throughout the war he continued to write, but as his connection with Northern publishing houses was broken off he printed only in Southern periodicals. The close of the struggle left him in poverty and broken in health. His wife had died during the war. His library and the rest of the buildings on his estate had been burned. He could support himself only by incessant writing. The kind of fie- 430 American Literature tion which he produced was going out of fashion and he was forced to contribute stories to cheap Northern periodicals, or to send his work to ambitious Southern magazines which were unable to pay. Soon after the war he renewed his friend- ship with many of the Northerners whom he had known, and some of them were able to make life easier for him without wounding his pride. As has been seen, Simms tried most forms of writing in prose and verse. He began with verse, and it is said that he always esteemed his poems more highly than Simms's Poems . . t-t- t t t ji i • his prose. His readers disagreed with him, however, and this fact, though it disappointed him, led him to give more of his time to fiction. Most of his poetry was written before 1850. His earliest verses show considerable influence of Byron and Wordsworth. His longest poem, Atalantis; a Story of the Sea, was evidently written after reading Comus, The persons of the poem include the King of the Sea-Demons, a Princess of the Nereids, a Zephyr- Spirit, and several flesh and blood Spaniards. The poem opens with the princess enchanted upon a magical island raised by the King of the Sea-Demons, but, like Milton^s heroine, resolute in mind. The plot is resolved when one of the Spaniards, sole survivor of a shipwreck, becomes her lover and rescues her magic wand. Interspersed throughout the blank verse dialogue are some of the author's most melodi- ous or most nearly melodious lyrics. The other poems show considerable variety, but none of them is of great importance. Simms's best work is his fiction. Even this varies greatly in kind and quality. Some of the least known romances are psychological studies influenced by God- Ficti^n ^^^* Pelayo and Count Julian are based on romantic incidents in Spanish history, and The Damsel of Darien on the adventures of Balboa. The short stories were also in a variety of manners and on a va- The Central Period 431 riety of subjects. The two important groups of his romances are those that deal with frontier life^ and those that are based on events in the colonial and revolutionary history of the South. In these he was trying to do for his section of the country what Cooper had done for the North. The border romances are tales of outlawry and crime^ exciting, but with little artistic merit. The chief are Quy Rivers, Richard Hardis, Border Beagles, Beauchamp, and Charlemonf. The scenes of the first four are laid in Georgia, Alabama, Mis- sissippi, and Kentucky respectively. More important, on the whole, are the colonial and revolutionary tales. These include The Yemassee, The Partisan, Mellichampe, The Kinsman (renamed The Scout), Katherine Walton, The Sword and the Distaff (renamed Woodcraft), The Foray ers, Eutaio, and others, some of them published only in maga- zines. The first of the series. The Yemassee, is usually con- ceded to be the best. The scene is in South Carolina during the colonial time, and the story is one of Indian warfare, with the usual love incidents. The characters, especially the Indians, are well portrayed, the descriptions of natural scenery are true and sympathetic, and the fights are exciting. Though the reader is many times reminded of The Spy and The Last of the Mohicans the book is far more than an imitation. Simms's two dramas, ^^Norman Maurice'^ and ^^Michael Bonham,^^ and his ^^dramatic essay,^^ ^^Benedict Arnold,^^ are far more crude than either his poems or his Miscellaneous romances; at least their form makes their Work crudities more noticeable. The blank verse tragedy, ^^Norman Maurice,^^ in which the hero, a lawyer and politician, triumphs over all sorts of dia- bolical enemies and becomes United States Senator from Missouri, reads in parts like a burlesque on a melodrama, and it is hard to realize that it is serious work, written when the 433 American Literature author was in his prime. His miscellaneous works include popu- lar biographies of Marion^ Captain John Smith, the Chevalier Bayard, and Nathanael Greene, and treatises on the history and geography of South Carolina. He also edited several apocryphal Shakespeare plays, and in 1867 a volume of War Poetry of the South. Temperament, lack of critical training, financial necessi- ties, and indeed all circumstances conspired to make Simms a hasty and careless writer. He had all the Simms's literary faults of his Northern prototype, Importance r j r y Cooper, and much less of genius. Still, he deserves a place among American writers of romance, not merely as the leading representative of his class in the South, but as the author of several works that show more than a fair mastery of the difficult art of planning an exciting nar- rative. Among the younger men of letters who gathered about Simms were Henry Timrod and Paul Hamilton Hayne. Both were natives of Charleston of nearly the ^^^ same age, and though they differed widely in social position they were friends from boyhood. Timrod (1829-1867) was of German ancestry, the son of a book- binder who sometimes made verses, and who achieved a lit- tle military distinction in the Seminole War. The death of the father left the family poor, and Henry was unable to complete his course at the University of Georgia. He studied law, but never practiced, and for some time served as tutor in a private family. At the opening of the Civil War he enlisted, but was obliged to leave the service on account of ill health. He made an unsuccessful attempt to act as war correspondent, and edited a paper at Columbia, South Carolina. When this city was burned he lost all his property. From this time until his death in 1867 his life was one of privation and suffering. He was already afflicted with con- The Central Period 433 sumption, and he seems to have been of an impractical turn of mind, and unable to make the best of circumstances. Timrod's first volume of verse was published in Boston in I860, and was praised as a work of promise. In 1873 his friend Hayne collected his works and pub- lished them with a memoir. The poems by which he is best remembered were written during and after the war. Several of them are of the emotional sort which consists in praise of his state and objurgation of her enemies. They have fire and lyric swing; but a comparison of his ^^Carolina^^ and Whittier's "Massachusetts to Virginia/^ poems with about the same proportion of intellectual and emotional elements, will show the lack of weight behind the Southern fierceness. "The Cotton BolV^ one of his best poems, has fine melodious passages, but seems less success- ful if it is read as a whole. Some of his personal poems and poems of nature show an ear for verse harmonies and a lyric gift. The bulk of his excellent work is, however, small. Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886) came of an old South Carolina family. He was educated at the College of South Carolina in his native city, and then studied Paul Hamilton |^^. ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ abandoned his profession for letters. He was connected editorially with Charleston periodicals. Like Timrod, he served in the war until his health failed; and like him, he lost his library and his home by fire. He was left almost penniless, and removed to a few acres of land in the pine barrens near Augusta, Georgia. Here he remained until his death, supporting himself mainly by writing. He published volumes of poems in 1855, 1857, 1859, 1872, and 1875, and a collected edition in 1882. In prose he wrote the lives of his uncle, Eobert Young Hayne, and of Hugh S. Lagare, and many magazine articles. At the time of his death he left a romance unfinished. As a 434 American Literature poet Hayne was influenced by the more musical English mas- ters — by Chaucer and Tennyson, and to some extent by Poe. The bulk of his verse is considerable, and much of it gives the impression of having been written too easily. When he took pains and was at his best he attained to charming musi- cal effects. Almost all his poems are short. During the war he wrote patriotic lyrics that were intense, but not so bitter as those of his friend Timrod. In later years he became reconciled, in a manly and honorable way, to the new order, and while he never lost his devotion to the South, he wrote many poems that tended to a better understanding between the sections of the country. His writings, like his life, show the sweetness of his temper, his bravery in adversity, and his loyalty to his principles and his friends. In feeling for the subtle tones of verse he was inferior to Timrod, and he has received less praise ; but it is doubtful if he was not as true a poet, and a better representative of what was best in the South. It is only by the fact of residence and choice of subjects that Albion W. Tourgee (1838-1905) is classed with South- ern writers. He was born in Ohio, attended wSter^^^*^^^^ Eochester University, and served in the Union :army during the Civil War. In 1865 he settled in North Carolina, where he held various offices, and as judge of the superior court was concerned in breaking up the secret political organization known as the Ku-Klux-Klan. After 1881 he lived in Pennsylvania and New York, and held appointments in the United States con- sular service. His first novel, Toineite, a study of social con- ditions at the South, made little stir ; but Figs and Thistles, A FooVs Errand, and BricTcs Without Straw, all published in 1879-80, and all dealing with Southern social and political conditions, were widely read. Later works touching on the same theme, among them Hot Plowshares, and An Appeal to The Central Period 435 Ccesar, were less successful. His best work, A FooVs Errand, is based in part on his own experiences, and contains inci- dents said to have been revealed in the investigation of the Ku-Klux-Klan. It is the obviously partisan work of a man who wished to be fair, but who could not overcome his preju- dices. Some of the situations are strong and are told with considerable power. Unlike Uncle Tom's Cahin, with which, in the days of its popularity, it was sometimes compared, it lacked the art and the insight necessary to give it perma- nence. Dr. Frank 0. Ticknor (1822-1874), a physician and farmer of Columbus, Georgia, is remembered as the author of a number of smooth lyrics, with a faint touch of archaic simplicity, and some restraint. His best known poem, ^^Little Giffin of Tennessee,^^ is said to be based on fact. Most of his best pieces were written during the war, but they deal with home, friends, nature, and love of children, rather than with military achievements. They were not published in book form until 1879. With the Southwestern states were associated several writers of ISTorthern birth who became Southerners both by residence and by sympathies. William Wil- ^^S^YJ'*^''!''^ berforce Lord (1819-1907), a native of N^ew the Southwest ^ ^ ^ York, was many years rector of an Episco- palian church at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and during the war was chaplain in the Confederate army. He published a volume of Poems, Christ in Hades, and Andre, a tragedy. His work is imitative, especially of Wordsworth. Albert Pike (1809-1891) was born in Boston, attended Harvard college, and taught for a time in New England. In 1831 he went to the far Southwest, and after various adventures returned to Arkansas, where he became an editor and a law- yer. He served in the Mexican War and in the Confederate army. After the close of the Civil War he removed to Memphis and then to Washington. His twelve ^^Hymns to 436 American Literature the Gods/^ eight of which were published in Blackwoods' Magazine^^ in 1839, were written while he was still a school teacher in New England. They are rhetorical apostrophes to the heathen deities, and show the influence of Coleridge and Keats, but are well sustained, and give promise of better things. The author's removal from literary associations and his interest in other activities probably account for his failure to fulfill this promise. His Prose STcetches and Poems, written in the Southwest, in the preface of which he says, ^^It is some time since I have seen the works of any poet,'' are naturally more interesting for subject matter than for ar- tistic excellence. He is best remembered as the author of ^^Dixie" and a few other short poems, among them an ^^Ode to the Mocking-Bird," modelled to some extent on Keats's ''Ode to the Nightingale." Mary Ashley Townsend (1832- 1901), born in New York, and after her marriage a resi- dent of New Orleans, wrote under the pen name of Xariffa. Her humorous sketches in prose are forgotten, but her mildly sentimental poems hold for her a place in the anthologies. VIII. Western Writers In the early years of the period under discussion, before railroads had bound together the East and the West, the Ohio valley continued to maintain a fairly Western Writers ^^^^^^e group or school of writers. Like Flint, Hall, and other pioneers who were noticed in the preceding chapter, these men were most of them born in the East, but entered enthusiastically into the spirit of the West. They wrote on Western subjects, edited and contributed to Western periodicals, and often had their books printed by Western publishers. George D. Prentice (1802-1870) was a precocious Con- necticut boy who was graduated from Brown and became an editor at Hartford. In 1830 he left his paper in cliarge of The Central Period 437 a promising young contributor, John Greenleaf Whittier, and went to Kentucky to gather material for a life of his political idol, Henry Clay. He was induced George D. ^^ remain, and continued until his death as Prentice editor of the ^^Louisville Journal/^ afterward the "Courier-Journal/^ He was a clever newspaper writer in a day when personalities and smart repartee were more the fashion than now. A collection of his best paragraphs was published in 1859 under the title Prenticeana, These are mostly quick, humorous thrusts at opponents and their ideas, and are not always characterized by delicacy. Of more im- portance were the author's poems, published at intervals dur- ing his life, and collected into a volume after his death. He was strongly influenced by Bryant, and some of his most popular pieces, such as "The Closing Year,'' are almost imitations in both idea and versification. He also wrote poems of lighter sentiment with the trite diction and imagery so common in his day. Some of these are faintly suggestive of Moore. William D. Gallagher (1808-1894) was born in Phila- delphia, but removed to Ohio at the age of ten. He edited several newspapers and short-lived magazines GaUaffher ' ^^ Cincinnati and other Ohio cities, and after- ward in Louisville. His interest in Western literature was always strong. Besides encouraging the writers of his section in the journals that he edited, he com- piled in 1841 Selections from the Poetical Literature of the West, He wrote many poems, of which the most ambitious was "Miami Woods." This contains sympathetic nature de- scriptions, and moralizings, mostly commonplace, on subjects suggested by the forest. The rather halting blank verse is at times reminiscent of Bryant, and perhaps of Byron and Cowper, and is interspersed with stanzas in unrhymed metres. Gallagher's miscellaneous poems are on various themes; some 438 American Literature preach the democratic idea of the dignity of labor, and others, on tlie whole his best, picture various aspects of nature as seen in ihe West. Among the literary proteges of Prentice was Amdia B. Welby (1819-1852), born Coppuck, a native of Maryland who removed to Kentucky in childhood. She wrote over the signature of ^^Amelia^^ pas- sionate sentimental verses which went through many editions, and won for her a share of the praise which Poe was fond of distributing among poetesses. A writer of a very different sort, and one not so closely connected with the Kentucky- Cincinnati school, was Eobert Dale Owen (1801-1877). He was the son of the noted Scotch reformer Eobert Owen, and came to the United States in 1825 to aid in the establishment of a communistic colony at New Harmony, Indiana. After this failed he served in congress from Indiana, and held other political offices. Though somewhat erratic in his ideas he was a forceful writer on social and educational questions, and in his later years published several works on spiritualism. He also attempted a drama on the subject of Pocahontas, and in 1874 published Threading my Way, an interesting though rambling autobiography covering his life until he settled in America. Among native Western writers was Henry M. Brackenridge (1786-1871), son of H. H. Brackenridge, the versatile author of Modern Chivalry. He was born in Pitts- burg and spent a considerable portion of his life in that city. As early as 1812 he published an account of Louisiana, and followed this by other miscellaneous historical and descrip- tive writing. His more important works are Recollections of Persons and Places in the West, 1834, and a History of the Western Insurrection, written to vindicate his father. His prose is pleasant and readable, without his father^s erratic humor. To the West of this time also belongs Abraham Lincoln The Central Period 439 (1809-1865), whose qualities as a statesman have tended to distract attention from his ability as a writer and a speaker. In simplicity, candor, and pleasing directness A ra am ^^ expression his prose has probably been equalled by that of no other American publicist except Franklin; and he far excels Franklin when he mixes an emotional element with the intellectual. Even when he is slightly rhetorical, as in the ^^Second Inaugural Address,^' and to a lesser exent in the ^^Gettysburg Address,'^ he seems perfectly genuine. In acquiring this prose style Lincoln probably owed fully as much to the frankness and vigor of pioneer life in Kentucky and Illinois as to the frequently mentioned study of Shakespeare and the Bible. In the later years of the period the writers of the middle West were less closely associated. After railroads were opened they were more likely to publish their Writers ^^^^ books and to form their literary friendships in the East. As the region to which they belonged became less isolated their writings lost many of the distinctively Western characteristics. Moncure D. Con- way (1832-1907) was active in the anti-slavery agitation in Ohio, and wrote on a variety of subjects while pastor of a Unitarian church in Cincinnati. He was born of a slaveholding family in Virginia, studied law, entered the Methodist minis- try, became a Unitarian, attended Harvard divinity school, and preached as a Unitarian in Washington, Cincinnati, and London, England. He wrote on many things and was the friend of many distinguished men of letters in England and America. He cannot be associated definitely with any section of the country, but his career as an author virtually began in Cincinnati. J. J. Piatt (1835- ) has continued, in poetry, some of the traditions of the Ohio valley school. In Michigan Will Carleton (1845- ) has written simple bal- lads of domestic life. These men are still living. 440 American Literature Edward Eggleston (1837-1902) was born in Indiana of Virginia ancestry. He attended school but two years and was mainly self-educated. He served as a Ec^eston Kethodist preacher and agent of a Bible society in Indiana and Minnesota, and after- ward edited juvenile papers in Illinois. In 1870 he removed to New York. His first novel. The Hoosier Schoolmaster, was published in 1871. This was followed by several others, the most important being The Circuit Rider, Boxy, The Hoosier Schoolboy, The Oraysons, and The Faith Doctor; and by some collections of short stories. In his later years Eggleston gave much attention to the history of the United States and wrote several popular historical works. He had a high ideal of the duties and the importance of the novelist, and in his stories of Western life he endeavored to paint ac- curately the scenes and the types of character which he knew in his boyhood. This painful sense of duty was fatal to artistic excellence. His attempt to show both the good and the bad sides of pioneer life and pioneer character interfered with the romantic effect of his stories, and yet did not assure realism. Nevertheless, the intrinsic interest of the life described and the author's moral earnestness secured great popularity for The Hoosier Schoolmaster, The Circuit Rider, and their successors; and they are still valuable for the glimpses they give of pioneer times. Another Indiana novelist, Lewis, or Lew Wallace (1827- 1905), was a lawyer, who also served with distinction in both the Mexican and the Civil Wars. His career as a writer began late in life. The Fair God, 1873, a story of the conquest of Mexico, is full of vivid de- scriptions, highly colored after Prescott, and shows consider- able archaeological research. Both this and Wallace^s most successful novel, Ben-Hur, a Tale of the Christ, 1880, are somewhat crude and melodramatic, but show a remarkable The Central Period 441 power of realizing and picturing the details of unfamiliar scenes. His later works were The Boyhood of Christ, The Prince of India, a novels The Wooing of Malkatoon, a long poem in prosaic blank verse, and Commodus, a blank verse drama. These have all the faults of Ben-Hur and fewer excellences. John Hay (1838-1905) was born in Indiana, was gradu- ated from Brown University, and studied and practiced law in Illinois until 1861. He was private sec- ^^ ^^ retary to President Lincoln, and held diplo- matic positions abroad until 1870. For a time he was edi- torial writer on the "New York Tribune.'^ After 1875 his residence was in Ohio, but he was much of the time in the public service. Under President McKinley he was ambassa- dor to England, and later secretary of state. The Pihe County Ballads were published while he was engaged on the "Tribune,^^ as was Castilian Days, the result of studies of Spanish life made while he was attached to the legation at Madrid. The Breadwinners, an anonymous novel of which he is generally conceded to be the author, appeared in 1883. In 1890 were published another volume of poems and the monumental work of Nicolay and Hay on Lincoln's adminis- tration. The Pihe County Ballads present the rough lan- guage and crude but intense ideas usually associated with the West. Some of the "Ballads'^ were wholly humorous, but the most popular, "Jim Bludsoe'^ and "Little Breeches,^' combine humor and pathos. Hay was not a great writer, but both his verse and his prose show that in addition to his capabilities for statesmanship and diplomacy he had the instincts of a man of letters. Another Western verse writer, whose work, if not his name, is most widely known of all, was Stephen C. Foster (1826- 1864). He was born in Pittsburg and spent most of his life in that city and in Cincinnati. He was always devoted to 442 American Literature music, and finally relinquished business to become an author and composer of songs. He wrote ^^Old Black Joe/^ ^^Old Folks at Home/' "Nellie was a Lady/' "Old Fo^er° Kentucky Home/' and many more songs in negro dialect, and also sentimental pieces, among them "Come where my Love Lies Dreaming." Though none of these belongs to the higher order of poetical or musi- cal composition, they are free from the cheapness and vul- garity of many of their class, and the popularity of some of them, notably "Old Polks at Home," has been almost universal. A geographical classification of authors makes no place for a wanderer like Eichard Eealf (1834-1878), but he was associated with the West, and his longest Richard Realf . ^ . i n . residence m one place, five years, was at Pittsburg. He was born in England, where his precocity secured the patronage of Lady Byron and others. At eighteen he published a volume of poems entitled Ouesses at the Beautiful, An intrigue with a woman older and of higher social rank than himself ruined his prospects and led him to come to America in 1854. He worked in the Five Points mission in New York, then went to Kansas, where he became associated with John Brown. Subsequently he visited Eng- land, lived for a time in the South, did newspaper work in Ohio, served in the Union army during the war, afterward in the regular army, and was editor of a Pittsburg paper. In the end he committed suicide in California. At various times he was a proselyte to the Eoman Catholic church and student in a Jesuit college, lecturer for the Shakers, and appli- cant for admission to the Oneida community. He seems to have married three women, all of whom were living, undi- vorced, at the time of his death. There was probably a touch of insanity in his nature which accounted for his vagrant and non-moral career. In one of three sonnets The Central Period 443 written on the night of his death he spoke of himself as ^^a great soul killed by cruel wrong/^ but he rarely mentioned or even commented indirectly upon his own life. On the other hand many of his poems on love and friendship are strong and apparently genuine. His work shows a combina- tion of idealism and sensuousness that suggests the Pre- Eaphaelites. His poems were published in the ^^Atlantic/^ "Scribner's/^ and other periodicals, and have been collected since his death. A few of them, such as ^^Indirection'^ and ^^An Old Man^s Idyl/' entitle him to a definite place among minor American poets. Among orators of the middle West may be mentioned Eobert G. IngersoU (1833-1899). He was born in New York, but spent almost his entire life in Roberta. Illinois. His best speeches were pleas in important cases in which he was counsel, and occasional orations, notably his nomination of Blaine in the presidential convention of 1876. He attracted most atten- tion, however, by his lectures attacking the conventional aspects of Christianity. All his speeches show a tendency to be flamboyant and over-rhetorical, and in those on reli- gious questions he makes use of ridicule and irritating satire. He had an effective command of language, but his works will always be more highly admired by the sophomore than by the maturer mind. The West has produced more than its fair proportion of popular humorists. Most of these have little literary merit, though they cannot quite be ignored. There SorSr*^^'' is a distinctly Western quality in the work of Henry W. Shaw (1818-1885) which can be traced to an experience of twenty years as steamboat hand, auctioneer, and Ohio farmer, though he did not become famous as ^^Josh Billings^^ until after his return to the East. He owed his popularity to short sayings, which usually ex- 444 American Literature pressed commonplace moral truths in an odd way, and were made more striking by the cheap device of bad spelling. When he attempted a connected discourse he was insufferably flat. David Boss Locke (1833-1888), a native of New York but long an Ohio newspaper man, wrote the ^Tetroleum V. Nasby'^ letters, which were among the most popular po- litical satires during the war and reconstruction periods. Most of these were published in the ^^Toledo Blade'^ and afterward collected in several volumes. They purport to be written from Kentucky by an illiterate and morally irre- sponsible Democrat. During the exciting years in which they appeared they were widely read, and they are said to have been greatly enjoyed by President Lincoln. To the reader of to-day they seem to be characterized by flatness, vulgarity, and an exaggeration too great to be funny. A novel entitled A Paper City, and a book of travels, Nasby in Exile, are worthless. Edgar W. ISTye (1850-1896), who grew to manhood in Wisconsin, and for a time edited a paper in Wyoming, wrote sketches over the name "Bill Nye,^^ al- ready made famous by Bret Harte. He probably had more genius, and certainly more refinement, than either Shaw or Locke, but he had less didactic purpose, and his fame is likely to be even shorter lived than theirs. An incomparably greater humorist was Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910), who seems destined to be remembered by his pen name, Mark Twain. He was born at Florida, Missouri, where his father, a Vir- ginian of good family, had gone after an unsuccessful career as lawyer and business man in Kentucky and Tennessee. Most of his boyhood was spent in the sleepy slave-holding river town of Hannibal, Missouri. His environment and many of his adventures are pictured in Tom Sawyer and Huchleherry Finn, When he was twelve years of age his father died and he was apprenticed to a local printer. Later he went The Central Period 445 East for a year, worked at his trade in New York and Phila- delphia, and visited Washington. At the age of twenty-one he started to ^^learn the river/' and in less than two years was a licensed steamboat pilot on the lower Mississippi. The incidents in the first part of Life on the Missis- sippi are largely autobiographical, though in the book he represents himself as somewhat younger than was actually the case. Up to this time he had written nothing of importance. Tradition tells of a sensational issue of his brother's newspaper which he produced when left in charge, and of some unidentified contributions to the "Saturday Evening Post.'' While on the river he contributed to a New Orleans paper a burlesque on the reminiscent and oracular utterances which Captain Sellers, an old pilot, was in the habit of publishing over the signature /^Mark Twain." Cap- tain Sellers is said to have been so offended that he never wrote again. At a later date Clemens had occasion to make use of both his real and his pen name. At the outbreak of the war the young pilot found his occu- pation gone, and after a brief and unimportant experience in the Confederate army he went West with L^r Career^ ^^^ brother, who had been appointed secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada. He saw various aspects of life in the West, tried mining, took up a timber claim on the shores of Lake Tahoe, and did editorial work on a paper at Virginia City, Nevada, and later on the "San Francisco Morning Call." In San Francisco he came in contact with Bret Harte and others of the interesting group who were trying to develop literature on the Pacific slope. For a few months he was in the Sandwich islands as a newspaper correspondent, and he lectured a little. He had already established a local reputation as a humorist, but he attracted slight attention until 1867, when The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras was published in a New York 446 American Literature paper. Two years later he was sent by a newspaper on a cruise to Southern Europe and the Holy Land — the first, apparently, of the Mediterranean tours by chartered steamer which are now so common. His newspaper correspond- ence written on this trip was worked over into The In- nocents Abroad, which appeared in book form in 1869. This was printed for the subscription trade, rather showily, with crude if sometimes vigorous woodcuts. It achieved a large sale, though chiefly among readers who bought litera- ture on the solicitations of agents. On his return from his first trip abroad he became editor of a paper in Buffalo, New York, and in 1871 removed to Hartford, Connecticut. After this time he lived in Connecticut and New York, with several visits abroad. Shortly before his death Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. C. L. Like Scott he was heavily in- volved in the failure of a firm that published his own and other books, but he lived to pay all debts and to spend his last years in comfortable circumstances. Mark Twain passed the greater part of his literary life in the East, but he was distinctly a product of the West. The unpro2^ressive existence in the Missouri and th W t community where he spent his boyhood, and the free, varied life on the Mississippi in- fluenced him profoundly in different ways, and his later experiences on the Pacific slope gave just the element that was needed to produce a man who was typical of the most picturesque parts of the West. It is not quite certain when he changed his views on slavery and kindred matters. He was of Virginia ancestry^ his own family held slaves, and at the outbreak of the war he evidently inclined toward the South. Through all his later writings he was unsparing in his con- demnation of slavery, both because it was a moral wrong and because it repressed the economic and industrial advance- lent in which he so thoroughly believed. Mr. Howells says. The Central Period 447 "The part of him that was Western in his Southwestern origin Clemens kept to the end, but he was the most de- southernized Southerner I ever knew/^ Like many humorists Mark Twain showed eccentric and contradictory personal traits. Some of these were no doubt inborn and others were acquired during the P^sonaUr^^ varied experiences of his early years. The slow drawl which many persons thought was affected for use on the lecture platform is said to have been characteristic of his mother's speech as well. His unrepressed indulgence in profanity and his habit of using broad lan- guage in conyersation and personal letters may have been acquired on the river. He had a fondness for striking cos- tumes, such as the sealskin coat which caused discomfort to his friends as they walked with him on Broadway, and the white serge suit which he wore conspicuously in his later years ; and he was fond of doing things to surprise and shock the conservative public. He was enthusiastic over the prac- tical achievements of modern scientists and inventors, though, if we are to believe his own statement, he lacked the mechani- cal sense necessary to comprehend even the simplest device. A more important characteristic was his liability to form intense dislikes for persons and institutions. In both his humorous and his serious works he occasionally pauses to deliver a fling of concentrated bitterness at something which has aroused his hatred. In Innocents Abroad he denounces Abe- lard. In Tom Sawyer he condemns the sentimentality which shows sympathy for criminals. Among his pet literary aver- sions was Sir Walter Scott, and with a total disregard of chronology he seriously held Scott's romances responsible for the false ideals of chivalry and the backward condition of the South. Mark Twain was the author of many works, not all of which need be mentioned here. After The Innocents Abroad 448 American Literature he wrote Roughing It (1872), which tells of his early ex- periences in Nevada and California. His sketches of travel were continued, at a later date, by A Tramp WriuJr^"^'^ 4&road and Following the Equator. In 1873 he wrote, in collaboration with Charles Dud- ley Warner, The Gilded Age. The chief character of this story is Colonel Sellers, the delightfully enthusiastic and impecunious promoter of great business ventures. Colonel Sellers is said to have been drawn from the life after a cousin of Clemens^s mother, and the fact that the caricature was sympathetic doubtless adds to his charm. A drama- tized version of the book, centering around the character of Sellers, held the stage for some years. In 1876 ap- peared The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and in 1884 the companion volume, HucJcleherry Finn. The Prince and the Pauper, which was also dramatized, was published in 1882, and Life on the Mississippi in 1883. Among other note- worthy works were A Connecticut Yanlcee in King Arthur's Court, 1889, in which the author keeps up his quarrel with feudal ideals, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894, another tale of a Mississippi Eiver town, Joan of Arc, an historical novel, and Christian Science, an attack on the new faith. Mark Twain made his first reputation as a humorist. There is much that is not funny in The Innocents Abroad, but the great majority of readers who bought the inar- Mar Twain s ^jg^ic volume from a persuasive agent thought of it only as a funny book and the author as another American "funny man.^^ In essence the humor is of the same sort that had been shown by other newspaper writers. There is much exaggeration, some of it less effective than statement of fact would have been. The tourist who had a napoleon changed for copper in Tangier "had bought eleven quarts of coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street to negotiate for the balance of the change.'' There The Central Period 449 is a striving after incongruity — an incongruity often secured by treating in a light way things of dignity and importance. Gibraltar from the sea is "suggestive of a ^goV of mud on the end of a shingle/^ The much quoted meditation at the tomb of Adam is not irreverent in the sense that it shocks anyone's religious faith; but it shows a disposition to force mirth on any subject. Even in these early volumes, however, Mark Twain was usually far better than his journalistic contemporaries, and in his best work he was incomparably above them. He took the so-called "American humor'' — the humor of excessive statement and juxtaposition of irrele- vant ideas — and showed that in the hands of a literary artist it was a form worthy of respect. But in essentials his rela- tionships are always with Artemus Ward rather than with Oliver Wendell Holmes. The humor in Mark Twain's later stories is better than that in his earlier works chiefly because it presents a more genuine view of life. When at his best he shows a sure in- sight into human nature. Compare, on the one hand, the meditation at the tomb of Adam or the well-known experience with the mummy and the Genoa guide from The Innocents Abroad, and on the other hand the chapter in which Tom Sawyer whitewashes the fence, or the coarser episode of "The Eoyal Nonesuch" from Huchleherry Finn, The two selections last named are not more refined or more clever than the others, but they rest on a basis of fundamental truth that gives them far greater value. In his stories, Tom Sawyer, Huchleherry Finn, and Pudd'nhead Wilson, and in the first part of Life on the Mis- sissippi, Mark Twain pictured the world as Mark Twain's he saw it in boyhood and youth. The plots River^ Tales ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ somewhat forced. As a critic he was merciless in his comments on romantic writers, and he attacked Cooper for the improbability of his 450 American Literature incidents. Yet nothing in Cooper is so unlikely as the story of Pudd'nhead Wilson, with two Italian noblemen running for office in a little Western town, and the discovery after many years that slave and master had been exchanged in their cradles. It would be ungracious to apply the author's criticisms to his own work. In spite of over-ingenuity and the use of trite romantic situations, Pudd'nhead Wilson is interesting and in parts powerful. Most readers, however, prefer the earlier tales, Tom Sawyer and HucTcleherry Finn, The first, which as has been said is largely autobiographical, has more force, but less unity. It is preeminently a study of boy nature, though there is much on other human nature as well. Huchleberry Finn is regarded by many critics as the author's masterpiece. It is as truly humorous as Tom Sawyer, but the underlying view of life is more serious, iand it suggests more important questions. Especially interest- ing is the implied commentary on slavery. It has more to do with the Mississippi, and no one else has presented so strongly and sympathetically the elusive fascination of the mighty stream. It was perhaps the fact that the river affected him so pro- foundly that led Mark Twain to rank Life on the Mississippi as his best work. Yet it may be that he was M^ssi^ssi^^r not far from right. The book contains a few of his finest descriptions — passages which, like others of almost equal excellence in HucTcleherry Finn, show his response to the subtler appeals of nature, and which, if he had written no humor, might have given him a reputation as a prose poet. No other of his works shows better the power and flexibility of his style, and no other has so much diversity and is at the same time so well sustained. There is no bois- terousness, and there is less fun of any sort than in most of his writings, but there is much humor in the true sense of that word. These comments apply only to the chapters The Central Period 451 which tell of the author^s experiences before the war. The last part of the volume is like disjointed and rather unin- teresting newspaper correspondence and the effect of anti- climax which it produces is a disappointing reminder of some of Mark Twain's artistic deficiencies. Of the tales with imaginative and historical settings A Connecticut Yanhee in King Arthur's Court is perhaps the most notable. Those who rank this work Med^^Tal^ among the author's best, point to the abundant humor and to the lessons which the story teaches — ^the selfishness of feudalism and the service of modern science and invention in securing rights to the indi- vidual. Those who are less enthusiastic complain that a humor based so purely on burlesque and incongruity is more forced than that of HucMeberry Finn and Life on the Mis- sissippi, and feel that the lessons need no such grotesquely elaborate enforcement. The more conservative are likely to regret, also, that the good in chivalry should not have a more respectful recognition. It is characteristic of Mark Twain that while he had only ridicule for the knights who were accustomed to "go grailing'' and gather at the Table Eound, he regarded Joan of Arc with the most intense admiration and reverence. His historical novel, Joan of Arc, purporting to be the me- moirs of the Maid as written by her private secretary, is a serious piece of work. It shows careful historical reading and much pains, but it is not wholly successful or convincing. If Mark Twain was taken too lightly at first, he was taken seriously, perhaps too seriously, in his later years. Headers who discovered that he was something more Sioullfipts *^^^ ^ newspaper joker began to hail him as a philosopher, and he himself undertook to express opinions on a variety of subjects ranging from for- eign missions to politics. He attacked Christian Science in a volume which is probably more deeply regretted by his 453 American Literature friends who share his disapprobation of the new sect than by the victims of his ridicule and scorn. It would be unduly rash to predict at this time the future place of Mark Twain in American literature. It already becomes evident that in his later years and Mark Twain s gince his death he has been overrated. Little Rank of his ambitiously serious work appears to have the elements of permanency, and it is probable that with change of taste his purely funny writings will seem less and less interesting. He has left, however, a considerable amount of truly genuine work in which the humor is more than cleverness and the seriousness is without affectation; and it will be strange if American readers willingly let this die. Between the Mississippi and the Pacific slope there was little literary production worthy of notice. Colorado may perhaps lay claim to Mrs. Helen Hunt Jack- faSon^^* son (1831-1885). She was the daughter of Professor Fiske of Amherst, and was first married to Captain Edward B. Hunt of the United States army. After the death of her husband and children she be- gan to write, and was soon one of the regular contributors to the ^^Atlantic.^^ The state of her health induced her to remove to Colorado, and here she was later married to Wil- liam S. Jackson, of Colorado Springs. About 1879 or 1880 she became strongly interested in the wrongs of the Indians, and from that time many of her writings dealt with various aspects of the Indian question. She was a woman of intense and thoroughly genuine personality, violent in her likes and dislikes, and often, though never intentionally, unjust. One of her marked characteristics was a love of wandering, which led her to Europe and many times through favorite parts of America. Her poems, most of them originally published in periodicals, were collected in volumes at various times. Her The Central Period 453 prose included sketches of travel^ literary criticism, fiction, stories for children, fend miscellaneous essays. For the greater number of her writings she used the signature "H. H./^ and later Helen Jackson. The question of her author- ship of a series of clever magazine stories signed ^^Saxe Holme'^ once aroused much discussion, and was never abso- lutely settled. Mrs. Jackson^s poems reflect the strong emotions character- istic of her nature. They tell old legends of the church, they treat of death and religious consolation, of wSJr^^''"''^ happy and of unrequited love, and of the de- lights of nature. Most of them are short and in lyric measures. They are likely to be over-rich in imagery and to lack calmness and repose. Much of her prose shows the same intensity as her verse. Her early accounts of European travel jumble together valuable matter and trivially uninteresting personal detail, but some of her later sketches, such as ^^Glimpses of California and the Missions,^^ are charm- ing in both matter and style. A Century of Dishonor, an ar- raignment of the Ilnited States government for its treatment of the Indians, was written after conscientious researches in the Astor library, but is a one-sided and almost hysterical presentation of the subject. As a tract it had an immediate effect, but it can hardly add much to the author's permanent literary reputation. Her best prose work, Eamona, a story of early life in Southern California, also introduces the wrongs of the Indians, somewhat to the detriment of the novel as a work of art. It abounds in accurate and graphic descriptions, sometimes more detailed than is necessary to give local color. The plot is simple and not wholly artistic. The study of three women in the first part of the book is excellent. The author succeeded in portraying the Indian and the Spaniard better than less passionate and more complex Anglo-Saxon types. The power of the novel is due in part to its intensity 454 American Literature and moral earnestness, in part to the fact that it shows an- other of the local and distinctive methods of life in America that have been so thoroughly exploited by recent story tellers. The Pacific slope, like the Ohio valley, developed a literary center of its own which maintained some importance until ^, ^ .^ «, ^fter the completion of trans-continental rail- The Pacific Slope ^ ^^ ^ _.^ . -,. i roads. JN ewspapers, literary periodicals, pub- lishing houses, and libraries were all founded in San Fran- cisco soon after the American occupation of California. Be- tween 1850 and 1856 at least three literary magazines were started in the city. More important was the ^^Overland Monthly,'^ founded in 1868. This was ambitiously modelled after the ^^Atlantic,^^ and though of course very provincial, had some merit. Many of the articles dealt with Western sub- jects, but there was also a brave attempt to be cosmopolitan. The contributors to this as to earlier magazines were mostly men of Eastern birth, some of them only temporarily resi- dent in California. The most distinctive of the California writers was Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902), who after he achieved literary suc- cess wrote over the shortened signature of Bret Harte. He was born in Albany, New York, and received a common school education. His father died while he was still young, and at the age of fifteen he went with his mother to California. He taught school and worked as miner, tax-collector, express messenger, drug clerk, and compositor — all before he was twenty years of age. He contributed to the ^^Californian,^^ a literary weekly that preceded the ^^Overland,^^ and as early as 1863 published a Spanish-American tale in the ^^Atlantic.^^ When the ^^Over- land Monthly^^ was founded he became its editor, and in the second issue brought out ^The Luck of Eoaring Camp,'^ his first great success. This was quickly followed by "The Outcasts of Poker Flat'^ and several other of his best tales. ^HE Centeal Period 455 and by some of his most popular poems, among them ^Tlain Language from Truthful James/^ better known as "The Heathen Chinee/^ These were more highly valued in the East than in California, and in 1871 the author resigned his editorship and the professorship of English literature in the University of California to which he had just been elected, and removed to New York. He contributed to the "Atlantic'' and lectured in various parts of the country. In 1878 he was ap- pointed consul at Crefeld, Germany, and two years later was transferred to Glasgow. After his removal from the latter position in 1885 he continued to reside in England until his death. His works include Condensed Novels, 1867; The Luch of Roaring Camp and other STcetches, 1871; Tales of the Argonauts and other Sketches, 1875 ; and many other col- lections of short tales; Qahriel Conroy, a novel, 1876; Two Men of Sandy Bar, a drama, 1876; and several collections of poems, the first published in 1871. Bret Harte had some conspicuous personal peculiarities which were freely commented upon during his life time, and not even the work of his latest biographer has Personality Bret Harte s made it possible to form a sure estimate of his character. He is said to have been unreliable in keeping dinner engagements, paying debts, and attend- ing to consular duties. During his later years there was some estrangement between him and his family. On the other hand published letters to his wife and children are charming and apparently genuine. He was welcome in literary and the better social circles of England, and formed warm friendships with Englishmen. He enjoyed children and won their confidence. It seems probable that he suffered from a lack of business aptitude, and of firmness of charac- ter, so that without any serious moral delinquencies he alien- ated some friends and gave his enemies opportunity for malicious attacks. 456 American Literature Life in California in the early fifties was unique. The discovery of gold had attracted great crowds of adventurers, representative of all parts of America and CaUfomian Life -^^^^P^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ grades of society and all degrees of education. Their one common characteristic was intense energy; and in the free atmos- phere of a new country they were boisterous and unrestrained, even to the point of lawlessness. In contrast to the rawness of this society were the remains of the old, drowsy, Spanish civilization. Still other elements of picturesqueness were added by the Indians and the Chinese. Bret Harte seems to have been greatly impressed by this heterogeneous life as he saw it during the varied experiences of his early years. His first sketch in the ^^Atlantic,^^ published Bret Harte's {^^ i863, tells an old Spanish tradition in a Tales of x i • i t • t^- California Life ^^^^ ^^^ Irvmgesque manner. Five years later, in "The Luck of Eoaring Camp,'^ and the stories that immediately followed it, he turned to the portrayal of rude life in the mining camp. These early short sketches are his best work. They copy some of the less ad- mirable traits of Dickens; they are over-sentimental and somewhat sensational; the conclusions, even in the best stories like "The Outcasts of Poker Plat,^^ are inartistically melodramatic. Nevertheless, they are characterized by indi- viduality, humor, wide sympathy, and truth to the ultimate facts of human nature. If they serve any didactic purpose it is to show that there are some elements of gentleness and goodness in the roughest men and the lowest social outcasts. The heroes and the heroines are often vicious characters, but the author always distinguishes sharply between their heroic qualities and their vices. After he went abroad Bret Harte continued to write stories of the early life in California. His admirers point out now one and now another of these later sketches as evidence that The Central Period 457 ♦ his powers had not diminished, but none of these is convinc- ing to the average reader. He had been too long away from the scenes that he described; he had lost too L t T 1 ^ niuch of his early idealism and enthusiasm and he had come too much under the influence of the conventional in literature. He often took the stock plots of the ordinary story writer and developed them with a Cali- fornia setting that was also becoming formal. He yielded to the latter-day temptation to character analysis, and in this he was unsuccessful. Some of the characters of his earlier stories, such as Oakhurst and Yuba Bill, really live, and Colonel Starbottle is at least an interesting caricature; but even these persons, when he elaborated them in later works, become incomprehensible beings. He had most difficulty in portraying women, and this he rashly undertook in many of the later tales. His few sketches of a more refined civi- lization are even less successful than the later Western stories, and this fact offers the justification for his persistent ad- herence to the earlier form of work. The prose other than the short stories is of less importance. The two series of Condensed Novels, one among the earliest and the other among the latest of his writ- Bret Harte's ings, are at times clever in their parodies Miscellaneous « , r, .. i i .i i ^Q^y^ 01 contemporary fiction, but the cleverness is on the whole specious. The longer stories, especially the novel Gabriel Convoy, are failures. The author could no more organize a complex plot than he could analyze a complex character. The same deficiencies led to the failure of his prose drama, ^^Two Men of Sandy Bar.^^ In this some of the scenes are so far over-done that they seem like burlesque ; and the story is confused, improbable, and fails to satisfy a sense of poetic justice. Though not a great poet Harte was a verse writer of con- siderable merit. He handled a variety of lyric measures with 458 American Literature success. He managed the "dramatic monologue'^ with a great deal of naturalness; and he was able to write dialect verse that was humorous without being cheap, ret ar e s j^ j^ perhaps his humorous poems like "The Heathen Chinee'^ and "The Society upon the Stanislaus^^ that are best known; but some of the senti- mental and mildly pathetic pieces like "Her Letter'^ and "Dickens in Camp^^ are almost as popular. "Jim/^ his best dramatic monologue, blends humor and pathos. His patri- otic and some of his juvenile poems are smooth and effective. Little of his work is distinctly imitative, but there are sug- gestions of divers poets, among them Longfellow, Emerson, and Browning. Bret Harte is said to have been fastidious in matters of diction and to have spared no pains to secure the proper word and phrase. He lacked somewhat, how- Bret Harte s QYeVy in sense for style ; and his style did not improve with years. Yet in spite of all artistic defects some of his work is too strong and too genuine to be lost. In his lifetime he probably did not receive due recognition at home. At first California resented his sketches and feared that the East would accept them as a complete picture of Western civilization. Later the East, which had welcomed him, grew sensitive lest the vogue of his books abroad might give Englishmen a wrong idea of America. It now seems that he is assured of a permanent place among American story writers, though the amount of work for which he will ultimately be remembered may be small. The most gifted California writer of a slightly later date was Edward Eowland Sill (1841-1887). He was born in Connecticut and was graduated at Yale. Rowland SiU ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ "^^^^ ^^ ^^® engaged in busi- ness on the Pacific coast. He then returned East, studied a few months in Harvard divinity school, did The Central Period 459 editorial work on a Kew York paper, and taught in an Ohio academy. From 1871 to 1874 he was instructor in the Oak- land, California, high school, and from 1874 to 1882 was professor of English literature in the University of Cali- fornia. The last four years of his life were spent in Ohio, where he was engaged in literary work. His writings were contributed to the magazines, especially to the ^^Atlantic Monthly,^^ and most of them were published anonymously. The only volumes issued in his lifetime were a small collec- tion of poems published in 1867, and another privately printed for his friends when he left California in 1883. Since his death there have been published three small volumes of his poems, and a volume of prose, all, or almost all, gathered from the magazines. Sill was a New England idealist who never succeeded in putting his mind at rest regarding the problems and doubts which the nineteenth century brought to thinking men. His poems present, not doubt overcome by faith, as in Tennyson, nor doubt accepted with a resignation that becomes half pleasurable, as in Arnold, but the real doubt of a sensitive and conscientious man who continues to question the uni- verse. They are individual poems, and reveal a personality of great sweetness, naturalness, and human sympathy. His best known ^hort poem, ^^A FooPs Prayer,^^ has an epigram- matic quality. ^^The Venus of Milo,^^ his best poem of mod- erate length, blends with the spirit of the later nineteenth century something of the spirit of Keats. "The Hermitage,'^ his longest poem, has some fine passages and much micro- scopic description of nature, but taken as a whole is not strong. His prose, which is mostly in the form of brief essays, has the same charm as his poetry, and sometimes a lightness that most of the poetry lacks. His limitations in both prose and verse are obvious, but he will continue to at- tract a small circle of persons whose intellectual experiences 460 American Literature fit them to uiiderstand his own, and who read him closely enough to come in sympathy with his fine personality. Of living writers in California who attained a reputation before 1883, Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, who writes as "Joaquin Miller/^ is the most distinctive. He has written prose fiction, but is known especially for his vigorous verse. Miss Ina D. Coolbrith has written poems, the best of Living California Writers them lyrical. CHAPTER V Eecent Years (1883-1912) A WORK which does not consider living authors in detail can give little more than a general discussion of the literary achievements of the last thirty years. Besides the survivors from the earlier time, whose work has been discussed in the preceding chapter, there have arisen many American writers of merit, but few of obvious distinction. Periods of medi- ocrity are likely to intervene between major creative periods, and it may be that the next generation will see great and original achievement; but the signs of the new time are not yet sufficiently plain to justify prophecy. An important phenomenon of the last twenty-five years has been the loss of literary prestige by New England, without the corresponding development of any other lLSS^cS lit^^^^y ^e^t^^- Boston is still the seat of important educational and publishing inter- ests, and the home of much culture. New York, as the chief commercial center, leads in the magazine and book publish- ing industries, and offers the greatest attractions to those who. are interested in the drama and other arts. But though the majority of American writers visit New York, contribute to New York magazines, and publish with New York houses, no great proportion of them live in the city, and there is no very distinctive New York school of writers. Other cities, notably Philadelphia and Chicago, have literary interests of importance. The tendency seems to be, however, to concen- trate publishing in the East, especially in New York, but to leave authors scattered throughout the country. This is u 461 463 American Literature natural result of modern means of communication, and the modern dissemination of books. Diversity of residence and ease of communication make possible the expression of minor sectional traits, and at the same time an increase in the homo- geneity of national literature. Another interesting fact is the development of periodicals in such a way as to change the relation between author and reader. In an earlier day magazines were sup- Changes m ported directly by their readers, and could pay Magazines ^ . . . . their contributors only in proportion to the amount received from subscriptions. In commercial phrase, the magazine stood in the position of middleman between the producer and the consumer of literature. With the devel- opment of modern business methods magazines are supported by advertising, and in some cases subscriptions form a rela- tively small source of income. The manager may care for a large circulation more on account of the greater advantages in advertising contracts than on account of the money received from the sale of copies. He is in danger of regarding the literary contents as in itself an advertising feature, and of choosing contributors for their advertising value. It is true that all magazine editors are on the alert for the desirable work of any new author; but it is also true that many of them are willing to pay a popular writer his own price for anything, good or bad, that bears his name. As a result authors of established reputation are sorely tempted to allow the publication of hasty and ill considered works. More serious is the fact that even the better magazines are forced by competition to supply novelties, and to accept material that is striking and speciously attractive, rather than that which is sound. Since a much larger proportion of writings than ever before are first published in magazines, these facts are of serious importance. Modem processes of illustration also influence writings in- Eecent Years 463 tended for magazines, and to a lesser extent those published in books. They have already revolutionized the literature of travel; so that the up-to-date traveller's narrative is no longer a series of graphic descriptions and interesting inci- dents, but a thin letter-press commentary on the work of his camera, or maybe of his brush and pencil. It is hard to believe, too, that some of the stories published by magazines are not accepted because they lend themselves to illustration rather than for their literary qualities. These changed conditions are by no means unmixed evils; nor are their concomitants, the middleman between author and publisher, and the syndicate of periodicals. They do, however, affect the circumstances of publication so seriously that they must affect the method and quality of literary pro- duction. Whether the sum of their influences is for good or for bad it is now too soon to say. It is in accordance with the spirit of the time that recent tendencies in novel writing are in the direction of realism and character analysis. There have been oc- endency casional violent reactions in the direction of Toward Realism ultra-romanticism, and about the close of the century the country suffered from an epidemic of hastily written historical novels. The two most distinguished living American novelists, William Dean Howells and Henry James, stand, however, for the study and portrayal of things as they are. In the recent development of the short story as a distinct literary form America has done its full share, and more; and perhaps American writers of short stories are relatively more distinguished than Ameri- can authors in any other field of literature. The increasing number of magazines offers opportunities for the publication of short stories, and short stories in turn help to make the magazines possible and popular. Many young persons with 464 American Literature literary interests have found time to attempt the briefer form when circumstances would have prevented them from writing an old-fashioned two volume novel; and though this has led to the production of an immense amount of experi- mental and mediocre work, it has developed a few writers who might not otherwise have discovered their capabilities. During the last few years the short story has come to be re- garded as a worthy form of fiction with laws of its own, and its technique is now being studied by many critics. A notable characteristic of recent short story writing in America is the use of ^^local color/^ Almost every distinctive community and mode of life in the country has been exploited by story tellers. Among the many writers who have made special fields their own are Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman for New England, George W. Cable for the Louisi- ana Creoles, Mary M. Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock) for the Tennessee mountains, F. Hopkinson Smith for some aspects of the South, Thomas Nelson Page and Joel Chandler Harris for the Southern Aegro, James Lan^ Allen for Ken- tucky, Hamlin Garland and Owen Wister for certain features of life in the middle West and the Southwest, respectively. Not only different sections of the country, but occupations which have distinctive peculiarities :are drawn upon for set- tings for short stories. The V'aluable achievement of the last quarter-century in poetry has been small. The best work has been done by _ writers who made their reputation before Poetry . 1883. The fashion has set toward short and epigrammatic lyrics, and few poems on an ambitious scale have been attempted. The Americans who have had most influence on their latest successors are Emerson and Whit- man. There are many experiments in the manner of Euro- pean poets and of other times, but there is little that seems a high and genuine expression of to-day. Eecent Years 465 An increasing number of younger men have been tempted to the writing of plays^ and some of them have produced work admirably suited to effective presenta- tion by the complex art of the modern stage. There have, however, been no dramas of the first literary rank, and few of the second. The perpetual demand for sensa- tional plays has been filled by melodramas which stage-craft is able to make more lurid than ever before ; but the tendency in the drama, as in prose fiction, is toward realism. It may be partly as a result of that tendency that the successful act- ing plays written within the last few years have been almost all in prose. Within recent years there have been many writers of good prose essays, but none of preeminent distinction. The sharp differentiation of - the short story from the essay has modified the latter, and no recent writings are of the same order as some of the most charming work" of Addison, Lamb, and Irving. Essays on various aspects of nature-study have become popular, and discussions of literary and artistic matters are more widely read than ever before. In the better newspapers lighter discussions of social questions and of evils of the day have been more refined :and more truly humorous than formerly. Though these can hardly be classed as literature their improvement indicates better popular taste. With the development of modern ideals of scholarship the writings of scholars take less and less rank [as literature. Thoroughness of investigation and imparti- ality of statement are the chief merits of the monograph or treatise; and many investigators seem to fear that literary graces are to be shunned lest they seduce the writer from accuracy in the presentation of facts. For this reason few of the m^ny able scientists and historians of recent years need be mentioned in this volume. 466 American Literature On account of the increased homogeneity of the country and the great frequency of migrations, classification of au- thors according to location is less easy and far Writers^^ ^ ^^^^ significant in this period than in those that have preceded. In New England, where the lit- erary life has fortunately been conducive to longevity, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Julia Ward Howe, J. T. Trowbridge, and Donald G. Mitchell, all contribu- tors to the ^^^Atlantic^^ in its early days, continued to write un- til well into the twentieth century ; and so did Harriet Prescott Spoflord, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, slightly younger members of the ^^Atlantic^' group. Among surviving writers who entered the field later are Julia C. E. Dorr, of Vermont, who has written popular verse, Arthur Sherburne Hardy, of New Hampshire, who has pub- lished several novels and miscellaneous essays, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, of Massachusetts, who has written short stories. Winston Churchill, one of the most popular of later novelists, lives in New Hampshire. Margaret W. Deland, poet and novelist, has been a resident of Boston since 1880, though she was a native of Pennsylvania. The relative importance of women in the literary life of New England is an interest- ing fact. One of the most interesting writers of verse who no longer survives is Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), who was born and spent her life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson ^, , « ^ • i ^ Though a woman of grace and social accom- plishment she voluntarily lived almost as a recluse. Only three or four of her poems were published during her life- time, and not even her closest friends realized her power, or knew of the amount of excellent work that she was storing away in her portfolio. The three little volumes of verse pub- lished after her death abound in short startling bits of self- revelation and incisive comments on life. Though uneven, Eecent Years 467 as secret poetical work is almost sure to be, they sliow un- questionable genius. The author had humor, insight, and an unusual power of terse and well rounded expression. Her Letters are interesting, but are disappointing in that they give so little clue to her personality. Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) began to write before 1883, though most of her work was done later. She was a descendant of old and cultured New England T tt ^^^ families, and was born at South Berwick, Maine, where her father was a doctor with a large country practice. As a member of a physician's family Miss Jewett had an exceptional opportunity to know inti- mately the lives of persons of all social grades. During her early womanhood the summer boarder was beginning to frequent the vicinity of South Berwick, and it was with a kindly hope of interpreting her humbler neighbors to these visitors that she began to write. Her first sketches were printed in the "Atlantic Monthly.^^ Deephaven, her first novel, appeared in 1877, but is said to have b^en written earlier. After the publication of Deephaven she continued to write abundantly, producing a novel or a volume of short stories almost every year. Most of her work portrays New England life, and she is at her best in the representation of placid existence in a manner that frequently invites comparisons with Cranford. The Country of the Pointed Firs is prob- ably her best novel. Constance Fenimore Woolson (1838-1894), a niece of James Fenimore Cooper, illustrates the migratory tendency that makes geographical grouping of authors Constance difficult. She was born in New Hampshire, Woolson ^^^ educated in Cleveland and New York city, for several years spent her winters in Florida, and after 1879 lived mostly in Italy. She fairly belongs, however, to New Hampshire. She began to write 468 American Literature fiction about 1870 and continued until her death. Most of her work, which consisted of both short stories and novels, was first published in ^^Harper's Magazine/^ and much of it was afterward reprinted in book form. She is distinguished from the mass ♦of magazine short story writers by her close obser- vation and careful workmanship, but she hardly had genius. New York has attracted a large number of writers, many of whom are or have been connected with literary periodicals. Possibly this association with journalism may W^te s ^^^^ encouraged the tendency to mild Bo- hemianism which many of them have shown or affected. No single characteristic, not even Bohemianism, is, however, common to them all. There is really no later New York school, Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896) was a native of Oswego, New York, but passed all his life after early manhood in the city. From 1877 until his death he was J^^^^^y^®^ editor of ^Tuck,^^ and expended much of his energy in the difficult task of seri- ously influencing public opinion through the editorial articles of a comic paper. He also wrote stories [and verses which prove his good humor ;and cleverness and which show a deft literary touch. Among his prose volumes are Short Sixes, 1890; Zadoc Pine and other Stories, 1891; Love in Old Cloathes and other Stories, 1896; the longer Story of a 'New Yorlc House, 1887, and Made in France, a volume of translations, 1893. There is humor in all of these, though they are by no means "funny stories.^^ The best of them are charmingly told. Two volumes of verse. Airs from Arcady and Rowen, appeared during the author's lifetime, and after his death a collection of his poems. He is best in parody of the finer sort and in society verse. Some of his more delicate lyrics show the influence of Herrick and per- haps of Austin Dobson. Recent Iears 469 Laurence Hutton (1843-1904) was a native of New York city, and though he travelled much abroad and during his latest years lived at Princeton, New Jersey, H ^ton^^ was always associated with the literary life of the metropolis. For a number of years he conducted the department of ^^Literary Notes'^ in "Harper's Magazine,^^ he contributed to other periodicals, and he is said to have written or edited nearly fifty volumes. His chief interests were in literature and the stage. Many of his books deal with actors and the theatre, others are literary reminiscence and minor criticism. His Literary LandmarTcs of London, a carefully prepared guide to places of literary interest, was followed by similar volumes on Edinburgh, Paris, and other cities. He had an attractive personality, and his writings were pleasant reading to his contemporaries; but his more ambitious works hardly show the scholarship that will make them last, and his lighter prose is too informal to survive the traditions of the man himself. Francis Eichard Stockton (1834-1902), who wrote as Frank E. Stockton, was born in Philadelphia and began journalistic work in that city, but during most g^^~ of his literary career was connected with "Scribner's Monthly^' and "St. Nicholas'^ in New York. His reputation was achieved rather late in life. He published a volume of stories in 1870, but it was not until some years later that the "Eudder Grange^^ gi'oup, and especially "The Lady or the Tiger,'^ brought him general rec- ognition. He wrote voluminously, :and during the last thirty years of his life published more than forty volumes. He was a quiet humorist of the ingenious and quizzical order, and was most successful in portraying with apparent seriousness unusual or impossible situations. "The Lady or the Tiger,'' his best known story, is a new type of hoax. He is likely to be remembered chiefly for this and for a few more of his 470 American Literature best short stories. His novels, The Late Mrs, Null, The Hundredth Man, and others, several collections of juvenile tales, and such compilations as Stories of New Jersey and Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coasts are respectable work, but have little enduring quality. Among essayists and miscellaneous writers still living in New York, or closely connected with the city, are Lyman Abbott, whose chief interest is in religious and Y ^W^r sociological questions; Henry van Dyke, now of Princeton University, preacher, poet, and essayist ; John Burroughs, who writes on the study of nature ; and Hamilton W. Mabie, Brander Matthews, and George E. Woodberry, who discuss questions of literature. Professors Matthews and Woodberry are also known as writers of verse, and Professor Matthews has written clever short stories. Theodore. Roosevelt has written on a variety of topics, espe- cially history and manly sports. William Winter has writ- ten important dramatic criticisms. Edith Wharton, one of the latest writers of prose fiction, was born in New York and her literary associations are chiefly with this city. Among New York writers should also be mentioned Francis Hop- kinson Smith, author of many delightful stories, though by birth and temperament he belongs with the South. Henry James, the most distinguished American novelist resident abroad, has his chief American associations with New York. Mr. James has created the ^^international noveV^ in which he represents a cosmopolitan group of characters, each some- what at loss to understand the other^s points of view. This is perhaps the best place to notice Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909), whose literary relationships, at least in a business way, were also with New York. Crawford^ Though he spent most of his life abroad he was of the purest American ancestry. He was descended from General Francis Marion of Eevolutionary Eecent Years 471 fame, and his father was a noted American sculptor. His mother was a sister of Julia Ward Howe. He was bom in Italy and remained there until his twelfth year. He received part of his preparatory schooling at Concord, Massachusetts ; attended in turn the Universities of Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Eome ; visited India, whither he was drawn by his inter- est in Sanscrit; and returned for a time to America, where he studied at Harvard and began his literary career. He soon went abroad again and lived most of the time in Italy. Dur- ing the later years of his life he owned a villa overlooking the sea at Sorrento. Crawford gained some acquaintance with journalism in India, but his first serious writing was done while he was at Harvard. Mr. Isaacs, which appeared in 1883 ^awfords ^^^ attracted great attention, was a story of the East Indian life which still had a strong hold on his imagination. From this time he wrote incessantly until his death. Hardly a year went by without its volume from his pen, and some years yielded two or more. This rapidity could hardly be conducive to the most finished work- manship, though it must be owned that his stories rarely show obvious marks of haste. He attempted a few stories with American settings, but after Mr. Isaacs the scenes of his best tales were laid in Europe. A Cigarette-Maher's Ro- mance, one of the most finished of his shorter novels, is a story of Eussian exiles in Munich. The action of many of his most popular stories takes place, naturally, in Italy. Among these Italian tales are A Roman Singer, Saracinesca, Sanf liario, and Don Orsino, the last three forming a trilogy which traces the fortunes of a group of Eoman characters during the troubled times after the fall of the papal power. All his books are readable ; and it would be difficult to choose a restricted list of the best to which his admirers would agree. Besides fiction he wrote some popular historical works, 472 American Literature Rulers of the South, Ave Roma Immortalis, and Salve Venetiaj and an interesting essay, "The Novel — ^What Is It ?'^ In the essay just named Crawford defined the novel as a "pocket theatre/^ and took his stand firmly with the romanticists as opposed to the realists. His of^ Fiction^ ^^^ plots are, indeed, romantic ; and his characters are unusual in either personality or situation ; but every character acts from comprehensible motives, and the backgrounds of his stories are pictured with the greatest accuracy of detail. He was a keen observer, and he had the interest in arts and crafts and the manual dexterity in irias- tering them that was once considered an American trait. He could picture a cobbler^s shop or a cigarette maker's workroom as accurately as the scenes of higher life. He also succeeded as few men do in being really cosmopolitan, so that even the citizens of the various countries where he placed his plots bear witness that he had actually entered into their life, and for the time being looked from their point of view. He was, too, a born story teller, who never let the peculiarities of his characters or the vividness of his backgrounds obscure the interest in the story itself. As a result his characters, even the most romantic of them, seem to live, and the action of his novels leaves an impression of reality which is more lasting than that of most romantic stories. Marion Crawford was not a great novelist, but he ranked very high among writers of clean, genuine, interesting tales. With perhaps one exception he is the most cosmopolitan of American writers. His style, notwithstanding his hasty composition, is always clear and dignified. Considerably younger than most of the men already named were Eichard Hovey, Stephen Crane, :and Paul Leicester Ford. Eichard Hovey (1864-1900) was born ovey ^^ Illinois, was graduated at Dartmouth, and after studying for the ministry changed his plans and became Eecent Years 473 journalist, :actor, and finally professor of English literature in Barnard college. His poems are varied in form and kind; they show such diverse influences as Whitman, Emerson, Kipling, and the later French poets, and they attempt many Greek and other unusual metres. His most ambitious work was Launcelot and Guenevere, a Poem in Dramas, of which he published four parts, ^^The Quest of Merlin, a Masque ;^^ ^^The Marriage of Guenevere, a Tragedy ;^^ ^^The Birth of Galahad, a Eomantic Drama ;^^ and ^^Taliesin, a Masque/^ The last of these is a mystical allegory of the poet in his relation to life, and has some lyrics that are almost fine, though they never quite sing themselves. In the earlier parts, especially, there is often a conscious striving and a lack of perfect touch and taste. In moral tone the poem represents the reaction against the exaltation of the domestic virtues in the Idyls of the King, and Launcelot is made the chief hero. The admirers of the poet ranked Launcelot and Guenevere high, and it is certainly a work of promise. If Hovey had lived he might have done better things on the grand scale. As it is, his best work is probably some of his less ambitious lyrics, many of which appeared in Songs from Yagahondia, which he published jointly with his friend Bliss Carman. As the title of this volume implies, his lighter verses have freedom and something of Bohemianism, but it is the Bohemianism of the open air rather than that of the city beer cellar. At the time of the Spanish- American war Hovey wrote several patriotic pieces, of which "Unmani- fest Destiny'^ is the best. Stephen Cr^e (1871-1900) attended Lafayette college and Syracuse university, and served as war correspondent during the Grseco-Turkish and the Spanish- American wars. For the last two years of his life he made his home in England. His stories, especially ^The Eed Badge of Courage,^^ attracted great attention. 474 American Literature especially in England, where they won high praise from con- servative critics. Since his death his reputation has faded and it is doubtful if it will be revived. He had the reporter's knack of seeing the striking fact and stating it in the pic- turesque way, and he had something of the literary artist's technique and sense of form ; but his work lacked repose and perfect taste. His poems, some of which appeared in a volume. War is Kind, show the influence of Whitman. Paul Leicester Ford (1865-1902), a native of Brooklyn, besides important work as editor, biographer, and bibliogra- pher, wrote several novels. Among these were Pauj Leicester j.^^ Honorahle Peter Stirling, The Great K. and A, Train Robbery, and Janice Meredith. The last, a story of the Eevolution, is a conscientious his- torical novel, and appeared in 1899, just as this class of fic- tion was temporarily in vogue. The Honorable Peter Stirling was obviously based on facts in the life of Grover Cleveland. In spite of glaring faults in both style and construction it is a graphic, realistic story and will remain as a valuable study of some aspects of American life. During recent years as in the past Philadelphia has main- tained publishing interests of importance, and has been a center of quiet, conservative culture. Among iladep la living authors associated with the city are Dr, Silas Weir Mitchell, author of several novels and poems, as well as technical and semi-technical works; Owen Wister, whose best work in fiction deals with the West and the Southwest; Agnes Eepplier, the author of many sug- gestive essays, and Horace Howard Furness, the Shake- spearean scholar. Since the trials and uncertainties of the reconstruction'' period Southerners have turned to literature as never before. The greater number of Southern authors have written fiction, especially stories which portray aspects of provincial life Recent Years 475 with which they are familiar; but the South has produced, during the last twenty-five years, at least its fair share of workers in all departments of literature. The South -g^^^ ^^^ ^^Atlantic Monthly^^ was for a time in editorial charge of a man of Southern birth. Most of these writers are still living and can only be mentioned here; but when the future history of American literature is written this infusion of the Southern element is sure to give the material for an interesting and instructive chapter. In Maryland Richard Malcolm Johnston (1822-1898), a native of Georgia and long the head of a boys' school near Baltimore, was the author of some excellent Maryland ^ short stories. He was nearly sixty years of Writers ^ ^S^ before he wrote much, but he gained his greatest success in portraying the ^^cracker'^ life of Georgia which he had known in his youth. Several of the best of the Georgia stories were grouped together as The Duheshorough Tales, John B. Tabb (1845-1909), a native of Virginia and long instructor in English literature in a Roman Catholic college near Baltimore, was the author of many quatrains, sonnets, and other brief lyrics. Father Tahb's range was narrow, but his exquisite bits of ver«se show a genuineness of feeling and a perfection of form that has rarely been equalled by minor American poets. Maurice Francis Egan, of Washington, author of many tales and essays, still survives. Thomas Nelson Page, of Virginia, still writes delightful stories, in the best of which the oldtime darkey is a prominent character. In Georgia Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) wrote tales based on the folklore of the negroes. As a boy he learned the printer's trade in the office of a literary periodical published by a wealthy Georgia planter on his estate, and here when his work was over he listened to the superstitious stories of the slaves. Later, when he was on the editorial staff of the 476 American Literature ^^^Atlanta Constitution/^ he created the character of Uncle Eemus^ an old-fashioned negro into whose mouth he put his tales. These early Uncle Eemus sketches were Georgia Writers unique, and they are among the most inter- Harris esting and valuable contributions of the South to national literature. Like many newspaper writers who attain great popularity Harris worked too fast, and is said to have published twenty-six volumes of different sorts between 1880 and 1897, besides performing his editorial duties during that time. Much of this work is relatively unimportant; and even the later Uncle Eemus stories are inferior to their predecessors, partly, perhaps, because the author tried to make them more ac- curately representative of real negro folklore. As illustrative of a different phase of Southern development mention should perhaps be made of Henry W. Grady (1850-1889), a native of Georgia, a graduate of the University of Georgia, and for some time editor of the ^^Atlanta Constitution.^^ Though none of his work is likely to live as literature he is one of the best illustrations of the development of new and promising intellectual tendencies in the section which he represented. The Western and Southwestern states of the Old South have also had their share of writers. Among those still living is Mary N. Murfree, of Tennessee, who writes Writer'*^''' over the name of Charles Egbert Craddock. Her work consists largely of the portrayal, in short stories, of life in the less progressive regions of her state. Another writer of short stories, Frances Hodgson Bur- nett, is a native of England, but for some time resided in Tennessee, and may fairly be assigned to that state. In Louisiana George W. Cable has effectively portrayed Creole life in novels and short tales. It is doubtful whether Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) can fairly be claimed as an American writer; yet he lived for Recent Years 477 some time in New Orleans, and it is probable that it was here that he developed his individual style; and he always published in America. He was born in the Lafcadio Hearn ^ • • i j xi ^ t • i •* Ionian islands, the son of an Irishman serving as surgeon in the British army, and a Greek mother. He was educated in preparation for the priesthood, part of the time in a boys^ school in Paris. At the age of nineteen he came to America and was reporter on a Cincinnati paper. After- ward he went to New Orleans, where he did newspaper work and wrote tales and sketches. Between 1887 and 1890 he spent considerable time in the West Indies, and did some journalistic work in New York. In 1890 he went to Japan under contract with a magazine to furnish correspondence, but remained to become a teacher in the University of Tokio, to marry a Japanese wife and become a naturalized citizen of the empire, to accept, nominally at least. Buddhism, and to direct that his body be cremated according to Buddhist rites. Hearn's best work before he went to Japan consisted of sketches of life and scenes along the Gulf of Mexico and in the West Indies. In his later years he pub- 5f^J.^^ lished many books on Japan and Japanese life and thought. The Japanese themselves gave him credit for gaining a better insight into the national character than any other English speaking writer. His prose style was the result of careful, conscientious effort. In his earlier sketches it was characterized by richness and over- luxuriousness, and by wonderful picturing power. In his books on Japan this exuberance was somewhat restrained, and though his style was always strongly adjectival, many passages in his later work have great excellence of form. In wealth, in the dissemination of that intelligence that is almost but not quite culture, and in the development of higher education the middle West has made great advance in 478 American Literature the last twenty-five years. The literary importance of the section has not, however, increased proportionally. This is due to several causes. Much of the upper The West .... Mississippi valley is now in that prosperous but unpoetic state of development which must intervene be- tween the picturesqueness of pioneer days and the picturesque- ness of an old civilization. The commercial rather than the artistic ideal dominates the West, even in education. The state universities, the most important institutions of higher learning, are forced by public sentiment to lay most stress on "practical branches of knowledge. Many cities have good libraries, and some of them creditable monuments, art gal- leries, and musical organizations; but these are often sup- ported by men of wealth who realize the value of a culture that they do not themselves understand, and are enjoyed by women, or by men who have developed the esthetic at the expense of other faculties. The most important reason, how- ever, why the West cuts so small a figure in the literary world is that the majority of Western writers of merit associate themselves sooner or later with the East. Ohio may fairly lay claim to Edith Thomas, one of the better living writers of verse. A reminder of the eagerness with which parts of Ohio took up the cause of the black man is found in the fact that Paul L. Dunbar (1872-1906), a colored writer who achieved con- siderable success in both prose and poetrj^, was born and edu- cated in that state. Indiana has developed a school of writers several of whom have become widely popular, though they have never been taken very seriously by critics. Wallace and Hay have been mentioned in the preceding chapter. The most notable living representative is James Whitcomb Eiley, an especially popular writer of humorous and sentimental poems, largely in dialect. George Ade, Eecext Years 479 author of dramas, stories, essays, and much miscellaneous humorous work, is a native of Indiana, though his training as a writer was gained in Chicago. Maurice Thompson (1844- 1901) was born and passed the greater part of his life in Indiana, but his early manhood was speni in the South, and he served through the war in the Confederate army. Later he was railway engineer, lawyer, politician, state geologist of Indiana, and for many years non-resident editor of the ^^iSTew York Independent.^^ His published writings include fiction, poetry, books of archery and other sports, popular studies in natural science, literary essays, and history. Con- sidering the quantity and the variety it is good, but the fa- cility with which the author wrote and a certain lack of train- ing and restraint interfered with his success. Chicago, the metropolis and the leading commercial city of the West, is naturally a bookselling and publishing center of some importance. Chicago newspapers, ^ though they bear a reputation for sensational- ism, are energetically and ably edited. Two or three pub- lishers issue respectable lists of books ; and for some years the ^^DiaP^ has been recognized as one of the best critical journals in the country. Hamlin Garland, whose most realistic stories are of life in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, has many associations with the Chicago writers. Harriet Mann Miller, who writes sketches on nature and miscellaneous essays over the signature of Olive Thorne Miller, was for some time a resident of the city. Peter Dunne, the creator of "Mr. Dooley,^^ began his humorous sketches while employed on a Chicago paper. These writers form no school, and not even a group except in a purely geographical sense. Eugene Field (1850-1895), the most important writer yet distinctly associated with Chicago, was born in Saint Louis of New England parentage. His mother died when he was very young, and he grew to manhood under the charge of 480 American Literature relatives in Vermont. After spending a few months each at Williams college^ Knox college, and the University of Mis- souri he became engaged to the fourteen-year- ^ old sister of a friend, and partly to pass the time until she was of marriageable age went abroad. He returned after he had exhausted all that was available of his patrimony, married, and became a newspaper man in Saint Joseph, Saint Louis, Kansas City, and Denver, suc- cessively. In 1833 he went to Chicago to take charge of a special column in the ^^Daily News,^^ afterward the "Eecord.^^ This column, which he entitled ^^Sharps and Flats,^^ he con- tinued with slight interruption until his death. According to his friends and associates Eield was an un- usually lovable, convivial, impecunious, and irresponsible newspaper man, a great practical joker, always J^ ^ perpetrating hoaxes on his friends and on public characters of whatever dignity or position. He was fond of writing reports of imaginary speeches, and reviews of imaginary books, and anecdotes of imaginary children, which he assigned to persons more or less in the public eye; and these were often propounded with such seriousness as to deceive all but the most sophisticated readers. Until he went to Chicago he had read little and cared little for literature. There he became interested in the old romances and ballads, and later in Horace. It was still later that he became addicted to the book collecting of which he says so much in his writings. Almost everything preserved in Field^s collected works appeared first in the ^^ Sharps and Flats^^ column. His first books, The Tribune Primer^ published in Den- ver in 18,82, and Culture's Garland, Boston, 1887, are both slight and humorous, and of interest chiefiy to collectors. In 1889 he issued A Little Boole of Profitable Tales and A Little Boole of Western Verse, Subsequent prose Eecent Years 481 volumes include more tales^ The House, a series of sketches, based on the author^s experiences in securing and fitting up his own residence^, and Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, The two last named had appeared in detached parts in the ^^Sharps and Flats^^ column^ and neither was finished at the time of the author's death. Of the other volumes of verse the most notable are Songs of Childhood, and Echoes from the Saline Farm, a series of half-translations and half-parodies of Horace^ written by Eugene Field and his brother Eoswell Martin Field. The chief characteristics of all Field's works are geniality, humor, sentimentality, and a tendency to imitation and parody, in the broader sense of these terms. of Field?"W ^\s ^^^^ ^^' became interested in the romances and ballads he made free use, in both prose and verse, of a rudely manufactured Old English dialect; and in many of his stories he imitates the tone and manner of the old tales. At later periods the influence of Christopher North, of Father Prout, and of Ber anger is seen in his work. He also had a tendency, explained perhaps by the necessity of furnishing a stint of copy each day, to imitate or repeat himself. Once started on songs for children he wrote not only English, but Scotch, Irish, Dutch^ and Japanese lulla- bies. The theme of the death of a child, which he handled with popular success in ^^Little Boy Blue,'' recurs again land again. His prose tales, though iii some way they always impress the reader as the expression of a charming person- ality, are mostly too artificial and too much overcharged with sentiment to take the highest rank. His discursive essays, like The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, though immeasur- ably above ordinary newspaper work, show the lack of that deep scholarship and broad culture that lie back of the great- est informal literary discussions. Much of his verse is ephemeral by nature of the subject; much of it is only cleverly 483 American Literature and rather cheaply humorous. Of this sort is ^^The Little Peach/^ which for a few years was sung or recited by half the comedians in the country. His more sentimental poems are effective, but often show a touch of artificiality. Even ^^Little Boy Blue/^ probably the most popular of all, suggests the use of pathos as literary capital. His best work was in his poems for children, which include such fanciful lullabies as ^^Wynken, Blynken, and Nod/^ and "The Hush-a-bye Lady/^ and such semi-humorous appreciations of childish feeling as ''Seein' Things at Night.'' Eugene Field's importance in American literary history comes not from the value of what he wrote, but from his relation to the West and to his occupation as T . iournalist. Thouprh he owed much to New Importance •' ^ England, he was a thorough Westerner. He declined time after time remunerative offers from Eastern newspapers because the East oppressed him. His view of life, of books, of culture was that of the section in which he lived. Moreover, he furnishes the best illustration that the country has yet produced of the possible relations between the daily newspaper and the man of letters. Not only jokes, hoaxes, poems, and tales, but book-lore and transla- tions of Horace were first offered to the patrons of a Chi- cago daily, at least nine tenths of whom probably read "Sharps and Flats" with persistent interest. The fact that he planned his writings for the masses explains many of the weaknesses of Field's work, but it is by no means certain that it does not account for many of its excellences. He wrote for popular readers, but his individuality was so strong that he refused to follow the obvious popular demand, and he gave to the man on the street glimpses of subjects that are usually associated with higher literary culture. Opinions will differ as to whether or not this was a desirable achieve- ment; but more than any other recent American Eugene Eecent Years 483 Field raises questions as to the future democracy of litera- ture. William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910) was a native of In- diana and a graduate of Harvard with the class of 1893. In 1895 he was called to the faculty of the Ilni- 'NLooT^ ^^^ ^ versity of Chicago^ and was nominally con- nected with that institution until his death, though for the last three years of his life he did little or no regular teaching. The Masque of Judgment, published in 1900, and especially Poems, 1901, were hailed by many critics as works of unusual promise. A few pieces, notably the ^^Ode in Time of Hesitation,^^ have a sure and sustained manner that has rarely been attained in the last three decades. In the remaining years of his life the poet did not quite fulfill the hopes of his friends. He published The Fire-Bringer in 1904, and then turned his attention to the writing of plays. His prose drama, ^^The Great Divide,'^ attained great success on the stage, and his second play, ^The Faith Healer,^^ had some merit. Just before his death it seemed that he might accomplish still greater things both as a poet and as a dramatist. Farther West than Chicago literary production in recent years has been less important. To Iowa belongs Alice French, who writes, as Octave Thanet, stories of SrtherWe^t^ Western life. On the Pacific slope H. H. Bancroft is engaged in businesslike fashion in preparing the history of the West. Here, too, John Vance Cheney wrote his best known poems. INDEX Abolitionism, 222. Abolitionists, 254-284. Abbott, Jacob, 354. Abbott, John S. C, 354. Abbott, Lyman, 470. Academy, American, 216. Adams and Liberty, 138. Adams, Charles Francis, 346. Adams, Hannah, 138. Adams, John, 104, 107-8, 109, 125, 136, 138. Adams, Rev. John, 85. Adams, John Quincy, 200, 203. Adams, Samuel, 83, 106-7, 108. Addison, 92, 120, 124, 156, 163, 173, 465; see also ''Spectator.'" Address of Father Abraham, 95-6. Ade, George, 478-9. AdmetuSj 384. Admetus and Other Poems, 384. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 171-2. Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 448. Advertisement for the Unexperienced Planters of New England or Any^ where, 5. Advice to the Privileged Orders, 131. Adulator, 135. Afloat and Ashore, 179. Age of Reason, 115, 116. Ages, 185, 188. Airs from Arcady, 468. Airs of Palestine, 204. Al Aaraaf, 418, 420. Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, 414. Alcott, Amos Bronson, 224, 242-5: life, 242-3, transcendentalism, 243-4, writings, 244, rank, 245; 336. Alcott, Louisa M., 244, 336. Aldrich, T. B., 296, 357, 373, 378-81: life, 378-9, prose, 379-80, rank, 381; 382, 466. Algerine Captive, 139. Algic Researches, 218. Alhambra, 169, 170. Alide, 384. Allen, Elizabeth Akers, 354. Allen, Ethan, 155. Allen, James Lane, 464. Allston, Washington, 200, 202-3. Alnwick Castle, 194. Alsop, Richard, 123, 133, 134. ''Amelia," 438. American Anthology, 376. American Antiquities, 133-4. American Lands and Letters, 347. American Note-Books (Hawthorne's), 308. American Scholar, 228. Americanisms, 23. Ames, Fisher, 110, 156. Ames, Nathaniel, 84. Among My Books, 270. Among the Isles of Shoals, 354. Anarchiad, 133-4, 137. Ancestral Footstep, 308. AndrS (Dunlap), 140. AndrS (Lord), 435. Annabel Lee, 374, 421, 422. Anne Boleyn, 398. Anthology Club, 200, 201, 203. Anthony Brade, 335. Anti-Slavery, first tract favoring, 65. Anti-Slavery Movement; see "Aboli- tionism." Antisynodalia Americana, 45. "Apostle of Virginia," 10. Appeal to CcBsar, 434. **Artemus Ward," 356, 449. Arthur Bonnicastle, 338. Arthur Mervyn, 151, 152, 153. ••Arthur Singleton," 205. Astoria, 171, 172. Atalantis, 428, 430. Atlantic Monthly, 259, 269, 275, 322, 331, 338, 379, 475. Auf Wiedersehen, 276. Aurelian, 335. Autobiography (Franklin's), 75, 89, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96-7, 98, 99, 100. Autobiography (Jefferson's), 118. Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 321, 322, 325, 326, 330. Ave Roma Immortalis, 472. Aylmere, or the Bondman of Kentt 396. Baby Bell, 378, 381, 382. Backwoodsman, 192. Bacon's Rebellion, 14, 15. Bagatelles, 95, 97. 485 486 Index Ballad of Lager Bier, 375. Ballad of Trees and the Master, 410. Ballads and Other Poems, 287. Ballads of the Revolution, 120-1. Bancroft, George, 224, 341, 343-4. Bancroft, H. H., 483. Barbara Frietchie, 261. Barefoot Boy, 261. Barlow, Joel, 123, 124, 129, 130-2, 133. Barnard, John, 82. Baron's Last Banquet, 352. Barriers Burned Away, 370. Barstow, Elizabeth, 373. Bartol, C. A., 224. Barton, B. S., 155. Bartram, John, 101. * Bartram, William, 155. Battle Hymn of the Rep^ihlic, 284. Battle of Niagara, 208. Battle of the Kegs, 146. Battle of Tippecanoe, 385. Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War, 369. Bay Fight, 351. Bay Psalm Book, 45. 48-9, 68. Beauchamp, 431. Beaver Brook, 273. Bedouin Song, 401. Beecher, Henry Ward, 348, 366-8. Behemoth, a Legend of the Mound Builders, 372. Being a Boy, 337. Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems, 288. Belknap, Jeremy, 153-4. Bells, 422. Ben Bolt, 385. Benedict Arnold, 431. Ben-Hur, 440-1. Benjamin, Park. 300, 362. Berenice, 424. Beverley, Robert, 19. Bianca Visconti, 358. Bible, literary influence of, 24, 27. Big Abel and the Little Manhattan, 372. Biglow Papers, 126, 268, 273-5, 277, 282. Bill a7}d Joe, 329. "Bill Nye," 444. Bird, Robert Montgomery, 397. "Birdofreedum Say^in," 274, 275. Birds, 375. Birth of Galahad, 473. Bitter-Sweet, 338. Black Cat, 424, 427. Blair, James, 20. Blameless Prince, 377. Blithedale Romance, 304, 311, 315-7, 318. Bloody Tenent Washed and Made White, 42. Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody, 42. Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, 42. •'Bohemians," 370, 372-3, 378, 379. Boker, George H., 397-8. Bonifacius, 75. Bonneville, Captain, 171. Book of the Dead, 398. Border Beagles, 431. Bourville Castle, 210. Bowditch, Nathaniel, 219. Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth, 372. Boyhood of Christ, 441. Boys, The, 329. Bracebridge Hall, 166-7, 168. Brackenridge, H. H., 119, 140, 146-7, 438. Brackenridge, H. M., 438. Bradford, William, 25-8, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 46, 62, 341. Bradstreet, Anne, 49-51, 84, 85, 320. Bradstreet, Simon, 49. Brainard, J. G. C., 200. Bravo, 177, 180. Breadwinners, 441. Breakfast-Table Series, 325, 327. Bricks without Straw, 434. Broken Harp, 205. Brook Farm Community, 224, 230, 243, 250, 252, 284, 301, 302, 304, 363. Brooks, Marie Gowen, 206. Broomstick Train, 329. Brown, Charles Brockden, 151-3, 157, 173, 191, 201, 202, 210. Brown, Charles Farrar, 356. Brownell, H. H., 351. Bro.wnson, Orestes A., 224, 252-3, 255. Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin, 195. Bryant, William Cullen, 145, 160, 183-90: early years, 183-5, early verse, 185, removal to New York, 185-6, editorial articles, 186^7, other prose, 187, poems, 187-8, favorite ideas, 188-9, translation of Homer, 189, literary importance, 190; 196, 206, 290, 365, 437. Buccaneer, 202. Buccaneers and Pirates of our Coasts, 470. L_, Bulkley, Peter, 47. Bunner, Henry Cuyler, 468. Burroughs, John, 470. Butler, Samuel, 120, 156; see Hudi- bras. Butler, William A., 385. Burwell Papers, 14, 15. Index 487 Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 476. Byles, Mather, 86, 87. Byrd, William, 17-8, 90. Cable, George W., 476. Calavar, 397. Calaynos, 398. Calef, 75 n., 89. California and Oregon Trail, 344. California writers, 454-60, 483. Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, 280. "Camilius," 112. Candid Examination of the Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies, 113. Career of Puffer Hopkins, 371. Carey, Mathew, 134, 149-50, 207. Carleton, Will, 439. Cariyian, Bliss, 473. Carolina, 433. Carter, Robert, 268. Carver, Jonathan, 154, Cary, Alice, 383. Cary, Phoebe, 383. Cask of Amontillado, 424. Castilian Days, 441. Cathedral, 270, 277. Cecil Dreeme, 352. Celebrated Jumping^ Frog of Calaveras, 445. Century of Dishonor, 453. Chainbearer, 179. Chambered Nautilus, 330. Changeling, 273. Channing, Edward T., 200, 201. Channing, William Ellery, 51, 200-1. Channing. William Ellery (2nd), 251. 252 302. Channing, William H., 224. Charlemont, 431. Charlotte Temple, 137. ''Charles Egbert Craddock"; see Murfree, M. N. Charles Elwood, or the Infidel Con- verted, 253. Chauncy, Charles, 45. Chauncy, Charles (2nd), 82-3. Cheerful Yesterdays, 283. Cheney, John Vance, 483. Chicago as publishing center, 461. Child, Lydia Maria, 205, 275. Choate, Rufus, 345. Christ in Hades, 435. Christian Science, 448. "Christopher Caustic, M. D.,'* 207-8. Christus, a Mystery, 288, 294, 295-6. Chronological History of New England, 61. Church, Benjamin, 59, 138. Churchill, Charles, 120, 126. Churchill, Winston, 466. Cigarette-Maker's Romance, 471. Cinders from the Ashes, 329. Circuit Rider, 440. City in the Sea, 421, 422. Clara Howard, 151. Clari, or the Maid of Milan, 195. Clark, Lewis Gaylord, 362, 396. Clark, Willis Gaylord, 396. Clarke, James Freeman, 224, 248, 253-4, 255. Clapp, Henry, 379. Clear Sunshine of the Gospel Breaking forth upon the Indians in New England, 39. Clemens, Samuel L. ; see Twain, Mark. Cliffton, William, 150-1. Closing Year, 437. Cloth of Gold, 382. Cobbett, William, 148-9. Colden, Cadwallader, 101. Colloquy of Monos and Una, 424 Colonial Literature, 1-102. Colorado writers, 452-4. Columbia, 128, 129. Columbia College, 101. Columbiad, 131-2, 135, 159. Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming, 442. Commemoration Ode, 270. Commodus, 441. Common Sense, 114, 115, 116. Concord Days, 244. Concord Hymn, 237. Concord Sohool of Philosophy, 244. Condensed Novels, 455, 457. Conduct of Life, 228. Connecticut, literary supremacy of, 123. Connecticut writers, 123-35, 155, 197-200, 221, 347-52. Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, 448, 451. Conquered Banner, 412. Conquest of Canaan, 127-8, 129, 135. Conquest of Granada, 169, 170. Conquest of Mexico, 341. Conquest of Peru, 341. Conrad, Robert Taylor, 396. Considerations on the Propriety of Im- posing Taxes on the British Col- onies, 119. Conspiracy of Kings, 131. Conspiracy of Pontiac, 344, 345. Contemplations, 50. Contrast, The, 139. Controversial Writings in Revolu- tionary time, 103-122. Convalescent, 358. 488 Index Conversations in a Studio, 340. Conversations on some of the Old Poets, 268, 278. Conversations with Children on the Gospels, 243. Conway, Moncure D., 439. Coolbrith, Ina D., 460. Cook, Ebenezer, 15-7. Cooke, John Esten, 411. Cooke, Philip Pendleton, 410-1. Cooke, Rose Terry, 352. Cooper, James Fenimore, 160, 173, 174-83: early life, 174, early writ- ings, -175-7, writings abroad, 177, controversies, 177-8, later writings, 178-9, personality, 180-1, hterary importance, 181-3; 190, 191, 192, 214, 221, 368, 431, 432, 450, 467. Coplas de Manrique, 286, 292. Coquette, 138. Coral Grove, 199. Com, 406, 409. Correspondent, 125, 127, 129. Cotton Boll, 433. Cotton, John, 38, 39, 41-3, 47, 69, 87. Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, 345. Count Julian, 430. Country of the Pointed Firs, 467. Country Sleighing, 378. Courtin', The, 274. Courtship of Miles Standish, 295, 297. Craigie House, 288, 289. Cranch, Christopher P., 224, 251, 252. Crane, Stephen, 472, 473-4. Crater, 179. Crawford, Francis Marion, 470-2. Crayon Miscellany, 171. Crevecoeur, Jean Hector St. John, de, 148. Crisis, The, 115, 116. Croaker Papers, 193. Crowded Street, 188. Cudjo's Cave, 333. Culprit Fay, 193. Culture's Garland, 480. Curiositu 204 Curtis, George William, 224, 252, 361, 363-5. Cypriad, 204. Damsel of Darien, 430. Dana, Charles A., 224, 250, 252, 255, 357, 361. Dana, Richard H., 51, 200, 201, 320. Dana, R. H., Jr., 331, 332, 369. Dance to Death, 384. Dante, Longfellow's translation, 297; Parsons's translation, 339. Day of Doom, 52-4, 199. Days, 237. Deacon's Masterpiece, 329. Death of the Flowers, 190. Declaration of Independence, 107, 118-9, 145, 156. Deephaven, 467. Deer slayer, 178, 179. Defense of the Constitutions of Govern- ment of the United States of Amer- ica, 107. Deland, Margaret W., 466. Democracy and other Addresses, 271. Democracy Unveiled, 207. Democratic Vistas, 387, 392, 393. Dennie, Joseph, 209. Descent into the Maelstrom, 423. Description of New England, 5. Dial, 224, 229, 238, 244, 245, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253. Diamond Lens, 371. Diamond Wedding, 375. Diary, Sewall's, 65-6, 89. Diary in Canada, 388. Dickens in Camp, 458. Dickinson, Emily, 466-7. Dickinson, John, 113-4, 120. Dictionary, Webster's, 156, 219; Wor- cester's, 219. "Diedrich Knickerbocker," 163. Discourses of Davilla, 107. Divine Tragedy, 288, 295. Dixie, 436. Doctor Grimshaw*s Secret, 309. Doctor Heidegger's Experiment, 309, 310. Dodge, Mary Mapes, 365. Do Good Papers, 92. Dolliver Romance, 306, 309. Don Orsino, 471. Doorstep, 378. Dorr, Julia C. R., 466. Douglass, William, 63-4. Drake, Joseph Rodman, 160, 192-3, 194. Drama, 54, 55; recent tendencies in, 465. Dream Life, 347. Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp, 350. Dudley, Thomas, 49. Dukesborough Tales, 475. Dulany, Daniel, 119. Dunbar, Paul L., 478. Dunlap, William, 140, 191. Dunne, Peter, 479. Dutchman's Fireside, 192. Dwight, J. S., 224. Index 489 Dwight, Theodore, 123, 133, 134. Dwight, Timothy, 123, 125, 126-30, 132. Dying Raven, 202. Eastburn, James W., 196. "Easy Chair" Essays, 364, 365. Echo, 134. Echo Club, 402. Echoes from the Sabine Farm, 481. Edgar A. Poe and His Critics, 353. Edgar Huntley, 151, 152. Education in New England, 21-2, 67; in New York, 101 ; in Pennsylvania, 99; in Southern colonies, 13. Edwards, Jonathan, 68, 76-81: tem- perament, 76, early years, 77, ministry, 77-8, at Northampton, 78, writings, 79-81 ; 90, 126, 352. Edwin Brothertoft, 352. Egan, Maurice Francis, 475. Elegiac verse in New England col- onies, 46-8. Elegy on the Times, 125. Eleonora, 425. Eliot, John, 48. Elizabethan influence on American hterature, 1, 2, 3, 4, 32. Elsie Venner, 322, 327. Embargo, 185. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 224, 225-238: early life, 225-6, as pastor, 226-7, in Europe, 227, as lecturer, 227, later years, 228, prose writings, 228, verse, 229, personal and intel- lectual qualities, 229-31, literary tastes, 231-2, message, 232-3, op- timism, 234; literary qualities, 234-7, rank, 238; 242, 243, 247, 248, 269, 287, 289, 322, 328, 331, 334, 363, 382, 384, 458, 464, 473. Endicott, John, 29. Endicott and the Red Cross, 310, 311. English, Thomas Dunn, 385. English criticisms of American lit- erature, 158. English influence in Southern col- or^ ies, 1, 2, 3, 14; in New England colonies, 22-25. English Lands, Letters, and Kings, 347. English Note-Books, 308. English Traits, 228, 235. Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War, 59. Epochs, 384. Essays and Reviews, 334. Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, 74. Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law, 107. Essays to Do Good, 75. Eternal Goodness, 262. Eggleston, Edward, 440. Eureka, 426. Eutaw, 431. Evangeline, 288, 293, 294, 295, 297. Evening Song, 410. Everett, Alexander H., 200. Everett, Edward, 200, 203. Excelsior, 290. Excursions, 240. ^-- "Fabius," 114. Fable for Critics, 268, 272, 275-6. Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, 424. Fair God, 440. Faith Doctor, 440. Faith Healer, 483. Fall of the House of Usher, 423, 424. ; Famous Old People, 301. Fanny, 194. Fanshawe, 299, 300, 311, 319. Father, 140. Father Abbey's Will, 86. "Father Abraham," 95-6. Faust, Taylor's translation, 401, 402, 403. Fay, T. S., 363. Federalist, 110, 111-2, 119. Female Poets of America, 362. Ferdinand and Isabella, 341, 342. Fessenden, Thomas Green, 207. Fiction, early substitutes for, 60. Field, Eugene, 479-83: life, 479, char- acter, 480, writings, 480-1, charac- teristics and importance, 481-3. Field, Roswell Martin, 481. Fields, James T., 259, »269, 303, 311, 331-2. Figs and Thistles, 434. Fire-Bringer, 483. Fireside Travels, 269, 280, 282. Fish I Didn't Catch, 262. Fiske, John, 336-7. Fitz-Adam's Story, 277. Fleur-de-Luce, 288. Flight of Youth, 375. Flint, Timothy, 213, 214, 218, 436. "Florence Percy," 354. Florence Vane, 411. Folger, Peter, 87-8, 91. Following the Equator, 448. Fool's Errand, 434, 435. Fool's Prayer, 459. For an Autograph, 276. Forayers, 431. "^ Ford, Paul Leicester, 472, 474. 490 Index Forest Hymn, 190. Forest Life, 371. Foresters, 154. Foster, Hannah W., 138. Foster, Stephen C, 441. Four Ages of Man, 49, 56. Four Elements, 49. Four Humours, 49. Four Monarchies, 49. Four Seasons of the Year, 49. Francesca da Rimini, 398. Franklin, Benjamin, 75, 88, 90-9: early years, 90-1, early writings, 92, characteristics, 92, in Phila- delphia, 93, later years, 94, writ- ings, 94-7, as teacher, 98; 101, 112, 148, 149, 155. Franklin, James, 91, 92, 93. Franklin in France, 333. Freedom of the Will, Edwards' trea- tise on, 79, 81. Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, 464, 466. Freneau, Philip, 119, 140-145: early life, 141, poems, 141-4, significance of, 145; 146, 193. French, Alice, 483. Froissart Ballads and Other Poems, 411. Fruitlands, 243. Fuller, Margaret, 224, 245-8: life, 245-6, personality, 246-7, writings, 247-8; 252, 275, 316, 320, 361. Fun Jottings, 358. Furness, Horace Howard, 474. Gabriel Conroy, 455, 457. Gallagher, William D., 437-8. Galloway, Joseph, 113. Garden, Alexander, 20. Gardiner, J. S. J., 200. Garland, HamHn, 464, 479. Garrison, William Lloyd, 255-6, 257, 258. Gates Ajar, 335. Gazette Publications, 147. General History of Connecticut, 155. General Historic of Virginia, 5, 11, 20. Gentle Boy, 300, 310. "Gentleman at Halifax," 106, 109. Georgia Writers, 20, 212-3, 475-6. German influence at Harvard College, 203. Gettysburg Address, 439. Gettysburg Ode, 401. Gilded Age, 337, 448. Gilder, Richard Watson, 357. Giles Corey, 296. Gladiator, 397. Glenmary, 358, 360. Glimpses of California and the Mis- aions, 453. Godfrey, Thomas, 100. Godfrey, James, 101. Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 365. God's Controversy with New England^ 61. Godwin, Parke, 365. Gold-Bug, 424, 425, 427. Gold Foil Hammered from Popular Proverbs, 338. Golden Legend, 288, 294, 295, 296. Good Gray Poet, 394. Good News from Virginia, 10. Good Samaritans, 404. Goodrich, Samuel G.. 197, 198, 199. 300, 307, 357. Gookin, Daniel, 36. Gould, Hannah F., 205. Grady, Henry W., 476. Grandfather's Chair, 301. Gray Champion, 310. Graysons, 440. Great Awakening, 76, 78. Great Carbuncle, 310. Great Divide, 483. Great K. and A. Train Robbery, 474. Greeley, Horace, 224, 245, 250, 360-1. Green, Joseph, 87. Green Mountain Boys, 353. Greene, Albert G., 352. Greenfield Hill, 128, 129. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, 361-2, 374, 395, 413, 416, 419. Group (Mercy Warren), 135. Group (William Cliffton), 150-1. Guardian Angel, 322, 327. Guesses at the Beautiful, 442, Guy Rivers, 428, 431. "H. H.," 452-4. Hadad, 199. Hagar in the Wilderness, 359. Hail Columbia, 210. Hale, Edward Everett, 331, 332-3, 466. Hale in the Bush, 121. Hale, Sarah J., 395, 396. Half-Century of Conflict, 345. Hall, James, 213, 214, 218, 436. Halleck, FitzGreene, 150, 193-4, 385. Halpine, Charles G., 385. Hamilton, Alexander, 111-2. Hanging of the Crane, 296. Hannah Thurston, 402. Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skatea] 366. Hans Breitmann Ballads, 397. Hardy, Arthur Sherburne, 466. Index 491 Harpe's Head, a Legend of Kentucky, 214. Harris, Joel Chandler, 464, 475-6. Harris Collection of American Po- etry, 352. Harte, Bret, 444, 445, 454-8: life, 454-5, personality, 455, treatment of California scenes, 456, writings, 456-8, rank, 458. Hartford Wits, 123-35: list of, 123, conservative tendencies of, 124, Trumbull, 124-6, Timothy Dwight, 126-30, Barlow, 130-2, Humph- reys, 132, Hopkins, 133, Theodore Dwight, 133, Aisop, 133, joint writings, 133-4, significance of group, 134-5; 151, 197, 207. Harvard College, 22, 77, 81, 86, 123. Harvard Commemoration Ode^ 276-7, 281. Hasty Pudding, 131. Hathorne; see Hawthorne. Haunted Palace, 422. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 29, 33, 152, 199, 224, 268, 269, 275, 284, 285, 291, 293, 298-320: early life, 298-9, early writings, 299-301, at Boston and Brook Farm, 301-2, at Old Manse and Salem, 302-3, later residences and travels, 303-6, per- sonal characteristics, 306-8, post- humous publications, 308-9, short tales, 310-11, romances, 311-18, literary characteristics, 318-20; 331, 374, 418, 422, 423. Hay, John, 441, 478. Hayne, Paul H., 429, 432, 433-4. Headsman, 177. Hearn, Lafcadio, 476-7. Hearts of Oak, 120. Heartsease and Rue, 271, 277. Heathen Chinee, 455, 458. Hedge, F. H., 224. Heidenmauer, 177. Henry, Patrick, 116-7. Her Letter, 458. Hermitage, 459. Hesperia, 213. Hiawatha, 288, 294, 295, 297. Higgeson, Francis, 35. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 266, 269, 283, 389, 466. HillhousQ, James A., 199. Historical Collections of the Indians in New England, 36. Historical writings in New England, 25, 57-66, 341-5. Historie of Travaile into Virginia Brittania, 0. History of the Navy of the United States, 178. History of New England, 28-30. History of Plymouth Plantation, 26-8, 29. History of Printing in America, 217. History of the Dividing Line, 17, 18. History of the Western Insurrection, 438. Hobomok, 205. Holland, Josiah Gilbert, 338. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 61, 269, 284, 287. 320-31: early life, 320-1, early writings, 321, later life, 322, literary career, 322-3, personal and intellectual' characteristics, 323-5, prose writings, 325-9, poems, 329- 30, literary rank, 330-1; 356, 377, 382, 385, 449. Home as Found, 178. Home, Sweet Home, 194, 195. Homer, Bryant's translation, 187, 189. "Homer Wilbur," 273. Homeward Bound, 178. Honorable Peter Sterling, 474. Hooker, Thomas, 39, 47. Hoosier Schoolboy, 440. Hoosier Schoolmaster, 440. Hope Leslie, 206. Hopkins, Lemuel, 123, 133, 134. Hopkins, Stephen, 109. Hopkinson, Francis, 145-6. Hopkinson, Joseph, 210. Horseshoe Robinson, 211. "Hosea Biglow," 274. Hospital Sketches, 336. Hot Plowshares, 434. House, 481. House by the Sea, 404. House of Night, 143, 144, 145. House of the Seven Gables, 299, 303, 304, 311, 314-5. Hovey, Richard, 472-3. How Old John Brown Took Harper's Ferry, 375. How to Write a Blackwood Article, 427. Howadji in Syria, 363. Howard, Martin, 109. Howe, JuHa Ward, 283, 466, 471. Howells, William Dean, 291, 357, 368, 372, 446, 463. Hubbard, William, 58, 63. Huckleberry Finn, 379, 444, 448, 449, 450, 451. Hudibras, 16, 32, 126, 134, 207. Humorists, later New England, 356; later New York, 372; later West- ern, 443-62. 492 Index Humphreys, David, 123, 132. Hundredth Man^ 470. Hunters of Men, 260. Hurrygraphs, 358. Hush-a-hye Lady, 482. Hutchinson, Thomas, 62-3, 153. Hutton, Laurence, 469. Hyperion, a Romance, 286, 287, 290, 291 292. Hymn to the North Star, 188, 190. Hymn Written during a Voyage, 87. Hymns of the Marshes, 409. Hymns to the Gods, 435. Ichahod, 260, 264, 377. Idle Man, 201. Idlewild, 358, 360. Idomen, 206. "Ik Marvel," 347. Iliad, Bryant's translation, 187. Illinois writers, 479. Illustrations, effects of on recent writ- ings, 462-3. Imp of the Perverse, 424. In the Harbor, 289. Inchiquin, the Jesuit's Letters, 210. Indian Burying Ground, 144. Indiana writers, 478-9. Indirection, 443. Infidel, 397. Ingersoll, Charles Jared, 210. Ingersoll, Robert G., 443. Innocents Abroad, 446, 447, 448, 449. Iowa writers, 483. Irving, Pierre M., 171, 172. Irving, Peter, 163. Irving, Washington, 160, 162-74: youth, 162, early writings, 162-3, Knickerbocker's History, 163-5, Sketch Book, 165, Bracebridge Hall, 166, Tales of a Traveller, 167, Spanish writings, 169-70, writings on American subjects, 170-1, later biographies, 172-3, general char- acteristics, 173-4; 190, 191, 192, 196. 214, 221, 285, 342, 347, 368, 465. Irving, WilHam, 163, 191. Israfel, 421, 422. Italian Note-Books, 308. *'Jack Hazard" stories, 333. Jack Tier, 180. Jackson, Helen Hunt, 452-4. Jacobiniad, 137. Jacquerie, 406. James, Henry, 231, 463, 470. Jamestown colony, writings in, 1-11. Jane Talbot, 151, 153. Janice Meredith, 474. Jay, John, 112. Jefferson, Thomas, 104, 107, 117-9. Jefferson, Joseph, 167. JephthaKs Daughter, 359. Jesuits in North America, 345. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 464, 467. Jim, 458. Jim Bludsoe, 441. Joan of Arc, 451, 448. "Joaquin Miller," 460. John Brent, 352. John Bull and Brother Jofiathan, 192. John Endicott, 296. John Godfrey's Fortunes, 402. Johns Hopkins University, 405. Johnson, Edward, 33-4, 56. Johnston, Richard Malcolm, 475. Jonathan Oldstyle Papers, 162-3, 164. Jonathan to John, 275. Jones, Hugh, 19. Joseph and his Friend, 402. "Josh Billings," 443. Josselyn, John, 36. Journey to the Land of Eden, 17. Judas Maccaboeus, 296. Judd, Sylvester, 354-5. Judgment {The), A Vision, 199. Judith and Holofernes, 380. Judith, Esther, and other Poems, 206. Jugurtha, 290. Julian, or Scenes in Judea, 335. June, 189. Justice and Expediency, 262, 257. Kathrina, 338. Kavanagh, 288, 291, 327. Katherine Walton, 431. Keep Cool, 208. Keimer, Samuel, 93, 99-100. Kennedy, John P., 211. Kentucky writers, 213, 214, 436-8. Keramos, 289, 290. Key, Francis Scott, 212. Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, 349. Kinsman, 431. Kirkland, Caroline M., 371. Knapp, Samuel L., 217. "Knickerbocker" writers, 160-196, 197, 275. Knickerbocker's History of New York, 161, 163-5, 167, 174. Knight, Henry Coggswell, 204. Knight, Sarah Kemble, 66. Koenigsmark and Other Poems, 398. Koningsmarke, the Long Finne, 192. Ladd, Joseph Brown, 139. Ladies of Castile, 136. Index 493 Lady Jane, 358, 359. Lody or the Tiger, 469. Lanier, Sidney, 389, 405-10: life, 405-7, personality, 407, scholar- 1 ship, 407-8, prose, 408, poems, 409-10, rank, 410. Larcom, Lucy, 284. Lars, a Pastoral of Norway, 401. La Salle or the Discovery of the Great West, 345. Last Leaf, 329. Last of the Mohicans, 177, 179, 182, 431. Late Mrs. Null, 470. Launcelot and Guenevere, 473. Laurens, Henry, 155. Laus Deo, 260. Lawson, John, 20. Lawyers in early New England, 67. Lay of the Scottish Fiddle, 192. "Lay Preacher, The," 210. Lazarus, Emma, 384. Leather Stocking and Silk, 411. "Leather stocking" tales, 179. Leaves of Grass, 386, 387, 390, 393, 394, Legend of Thomas Didymus, the Jew- ish Sceptic, 254. Legend of Brittany, 268. Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 166, 167, 168. Legends of New England, 258. Legends of the Conquest of Spain, 169. Legends of the Province House, 310. Legends of the West, 214. Lexcester 140 Leland, Charles Godfrey, 396-7. Leonard, Daniel, 107, 109. Leonor de Guzman, 398. Leslie, Eliza, 396. Lessons in Life, 338. Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax, 109. Letters and Social Aims, 229. Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer, 114. Letters from Palmyra; see Zenohia. Letters from the South, 205. Letters from the West, 214. Letters from Under a Bridge, 358. Letters of an American Farmer, 148. Letters of the British Spy, 211. Letters to Peter Doyle, 388. Liberator, 255. Liberty Song, 114, 120. Liberty Tree, 301. Library of American Literature, 376. Life Here and There, 358. Life of Columbus, 169, 170. Life of Goldsmith, 172. Life of Washington, 172. Life on the Mississippi, 445, 448, 449, 450, 451. Ligeia, 423, 425, 426. Lincoln, Abraham, 216, 438-9. Linn, John Blair, 210. Linwoods, 206. Lionel Lincoln, 176, 180. Literature and Life, 334. Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 334. Literary and Social Essays, 364. Literary Landmarks of London, 469. Little Beach-Bird, 202. Little Book of Profitable Tales, 480. - Little Book of Western Verse, 480. Little Boy Blue, 481, 482. Little Breeches, 441. Little Giffin of Tennessee, 435. Little Peach, 482. Little People of the Snow, 189. Little Women, 336. Livingston, William, 102. Locke, David Ross, 444. Loiterings of Travel, 358. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 268, 269, 284, 285-98: life and writings, 285-9, character, 289-90, prose, 290-1, poems, 292-7, rank as poet, 297-8; 299, 327, 331, 346, 382, 383, 384, 419, 420, 458. Longfellow, Samuel, 331, 334. Looking Glass for the Times, 88. Lord, W. W., 377, 435. Lost Occasion, 264. Lotus-Eating, 364. Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, 481. Love in Old Cloathes and other Stories, 468. Lowell, James Russell, 198, 232, 266- 83: early life, 266-7, early literary work, 267-8, academic and editorial labors, 268-9, later writings, 269- 70, poHtical career, 270-1, per- sonality, 271-2, early verse, 272-3, Biglow Papers, 273-5, poems, 275-7, prose, 277-80, hterary char- acteristics, 280-3; 287, 290, 322, 329, 331, 334, 335, 338, 356, 377, 382,419. Lowell, Robert Traill Spence, 331, 335. Luck of Roaring Camp, 454, 456. Luck of Roaring Camp and other Sketches, 455. Lunt, George, 340. Lyars, 137. Lyceums, 227. 494 Index Mabel Martin, 261. Mabie, Hamilton W., 470. McFingal, 125-6. Made in France, 468. Madison, James, 112, 119. Magazines, recent tendencies in, 462. Ma^nalia Christi Americana, 61, 74-5. Mahomet and his Successors, 172. Maine writers, 354-5. Maine Woods, 240. ** Major Jack Downing," 356. Man without a Country, 333. MS. Found in a Bottle, 422. Map of Virginia, 5, 7. Marble Faun, 305, 308, 316, 317. Marco Bozzaris, 194. Margaret, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, 355. Margaret Smith's Journal, 262. "Maria del Occidente," 206, 291. Marjory Daw, 380. "Mark Twain"; see Twain, Mark. Markoe, Peter, 148. Marriage of Guenevere, 473. Marshall, John, 217. Marshes of Glynn, 409. Martin Faber, 428. Maryland writers, 15-7, 119, 211, 212, 404-10, 475. Masque of the Gods, 401. Masque of Judgment, 483. Masque of Pandora, 289, 296. Masque of the Red Death, 425. Mason, Captain John, 33. Massachusetts, literary supremacy of, 123, 221. Massachusetts Bay Colony, 21, 28. Massachusetts to Virginia, 260, 433. Massachusetts writers, 21-90, 105-9, 135-8, 200-7, 222-347. "Massachusettensis," 107, 109. Mather, Cotton, 60, 68, 69-76: birth, ^^ 69, education, 70, connection with witchcraft, 71, character, 72, lit- erary style, 73, writings, 74; 90, 92, 101. Mather, Increase, 58, 68-76: birth, 68, education, 69, political mission, 69-70, revolt against, 70, connec- tion with witchcraft, 71, charac- ter, 72, literary style, 73, writings, 74-6; 92. Mather, Richard, 45, 48, 68, 87. Mathews, Cornelius, 371. Matthews, Brander, 470. Maud Muller, 261, 264. May-Day, 229, 236. May-Day, or New York in an Uproar, 139. Mayhew, Jonathan, 83. May-Pole of Merry Mount, 33, 311. Meat out of the Eater, 51. Medical Essays, 323, 328. Medicine in early New England, 67. Meditations, 50. Medler, 125, 127, 129. Mellichampe, 431. Melville, Herman, 304, 368-370. Memorial Verse in New England colo- nies, 46-8. Mercedes of Castile, 179. Merry Mount, 30, 33. Merry Mount, 33, 342. Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham, 192. Miami Woods, 437. Michael Angelo, 289, 296. Michael Bonham, 431. Middle Colonies, 90-102. Miles Standish, 288. Miller, Cincinnatus Hiner, 460. Miller, Harriet Mann, 479. MHton, 2, 23, 24, 143. Ministers, Early New England, 37-8, 66-84. Minister's Black Veil, 310. Minister's Wooing, 350. Miscellanies, 235. "Mr. Dooley," 479. Mr. Isaacs, 471. "Mrs. Mary Clavers," 371. "Mrs. Partington," 356. Mitchell, Donald G., 347, 466. Mitchell, Samuel, 163. Mitchell, Silas Weir, 474. Moby Dick, or the White Whale, 369. Modern Chivalry, 147, 438. Mogg Megone, 259, 261. Moll Pitcher, 258, 261. Monaldi, 202. Monikins, 178. Monna Lisa, 276. "M. Dupin," 425, 426. Montcalm and Wolfe, 345. Moody, WiUiam Vaughn, 483. More Wonders of the Invisible Worlds 75, note. Morrell, William, 54. Morella, 424, 425. Morris, George P., 195, 358, 363. Mortal Antipathy, 322, 327. Morton, Nathaniel, 34-5, 47. Morton, Sarah Wentworth, 205. Morton, Thomas, 30-3: his settle- ment at Merry Mount, 30, his book, 31, his character, 32-3. Index 495 Morton's Hope, 342. Mosses from an Old Manse, 302, 310. Motley, John Lothrop, 33, 322, 328. Moulton, Louise Chandler, 336. Mount Wollaston, 30. Mourfs Relation, 26. Murders in the Rue Morgue, 423, 425, 427. Murfree, Mary N., 464, 476. Murray, Lindley, 156. My Country, His of Thee, 334. My Double and How he Undid Me, 333. My Farm of Edgewood, 347. My First Client, 267. My Garden Acquaintance, 280. My Hunt After the Captain, 328. My Life is like the Summer Rose, 213. My Lost Youth, 295. My Mind and its Thoughts, 205. My Own Story, 333. My Study Windows, 270, 280. My Summer in a Garden, 337. Mystery of Marie Roget, 425. Myth of Hiawatha and other Oral Legends, 218. Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 415, 422, 424, 425. Narratives of Surprising Conversions, 77. Nasby in Exile, 4A4i, Nature, 228, 232. Nathan, James, 246, 247. Nathan Hale, 121. "Native of Algiers," 148. Natural History of the Intellect, 229, 235. Nature and Elements of Poetry, 376, 377. Nature's Serial Story, 370. Navarette, 169. Neal, John, 208-9, 268. Near to Nature's Heart, 370. Ned Meyers, 179. Nellie was a Lady, 442. New American Cyclopedia, 250, 252. New Connecticut, 244. New England characteristics seen in Franklin, 98-9. New England characteristics in co- lonial time, 21-2, 54-6. New England, literary supremacy and decline, 159-60, 221, 461. New England Two Centuries Ago, 279. New England Tragedies, 288, 295, 296. New England writers, 21-90, 105-10, 123-40, 153-5, 197-209, 222-356, 466-8; Poe's attitude toward, 419. New England's Lamentations for Old England Errours, 39. New England's Memorial, 34-5, 47. New England's Plantation, 35. New England's Prospect, 35, 46. New England's Rarities Discovered, 36. New England's Trials, 5. New English Canaan, 31-2, 33. New Gospel of Peace according to Saint Benjamin, 366. New Hampshire writers, 139, 354. New Home {A): Who'll Follow? 371. New Jersey writers, 140-5. New Pastoral, 404. New Priest in Conception Bay, 335. New Roof, 146. New Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 365. New York, as publishing center, 461; loses literary supremacy, 221. New York writers, 101-2, 110-2, 140, 160-96, 356-95, 468-74. Newell, Robert H., 372. News from Virginia, 10. Nile Notes of a Howadji, 363. Niles, Samuel, 64. Nina Gordon; see Dred, Norman Leslie, 363. Norman Maurice, 431. North American Review, 200, 201, 217, 269-70. North CaroHna writers, 20. Norton, Charles Eliot, 271, 331, 333—4. Norton,' John, 47, 69, 85. Norwood, Colonel, 18-9. Norwood; or Village Life in New England, 367, 368. Nothing to Wear, 385. Notions of the Americans picked up by a Travelling Bachelor, 177. Notes on Virginia, 118. Nova Anglia, 54. *'Novangelus," 107. Noyes, Nicholas, 85. Nye, Edgar W., 444. Oak Openings, 179. Oakes, Urian, 81, 85. O'Brien, Fitz James, 370-1, 373, 379, 402. O'Connor, W. D., 394. "Octave Thanet," 483. Ode in Time of Hesitation, 483. Ode to the Mocking-Bird, 436. Odell, Jonathan, 121-2. Odyssey, Bryant's translation, 187. Ohio writers, 213, 214, 439, 478. Old Bachelor, 212. 496 Index Old Black Joe, 442. Old English Dramatists, 267. Old Folks at Home, 442. Old Grimes, 352. Old Ironsides, 321. Old Kentucky Home, 442. Old Man's Idyl, 443. Old Manse, 302. Old Oaken Bucket, 195. Old Regime in Canada, 345. Old-Town Folks, 350. Olive Branch, 150. "Olive Thorne Miller"; see Miller, Harriet Mann. "Oliver Oldschool," 209. Omoo, 369. On a Bust of Dante, 339. On a Certain Condescension in For- eigners, 280. On the Defeat of a Great Man, 377. On the True Grandeur of Nations, 346. One- H OSS Shay; see Deacon's Master- piece. Opening of a Chestnut Burr, 370. O'Reilly, John Boyle, 340. Oriental Songs, 382. Ormond, 151, 153. "Orpheus C. Kerr," 372. Orphic Sayings, 244. Osgood, Francis Sargent, 340. Ossoli, Countess; see Fuller, Mar- garet. Otis, James, 83, 105-6, 108, 135. Ouabi, 205. Our Hundred Days in Europe, 323, 329. Our Old Home, 306, 308. Out Doors at Idlewild, 358. Out of the Past, 365. Outcasts of Poker Flat, 454, 456. Outre-Mer, 286, 290. Over the Tea-Cups, 323, 326, 329. Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Sandys, 9. Owen, Robert Dale, 438. "Pacificus," 112. Page, Thomas Nelson, 464, 475. Pages from an Old Volume of Life, 323, 328. Paine, Robert Treat, 137-8. Paine, Thomas, 114-6. Pan in Wall Street, 377. Paper City, 444. Papers on Literature and Art, 248. Parrhasius, 359. Parker, Theodore, 224, 248-50, 255. Parkman, Francis, 341, 344-5. Parnassus, 229. Parsons, Thomas W., 295, 339. Partisan, 431. Past, 188. Pathfinder, 174, 178, 179. Patrick Henry, Wirt's Life of, 212. Patriot Chief, 148. Pattee, F. H., 141. Paulding, James Kirke, 163, 368. Paul Fane, 358. Paul Felton, 201. Pavne, John Howard, 194-5. Peabody, EUzabeth Palmer, 224. Pelayo, 430. Pencilings by the Way, 358. Penhallow, Samuel, 64. "Pennsylvania Farmer," 114. Pennsylvania Song, 120. Pennsylvania writers, 90-101, 112-6, 145-53, 155, 209-10, 395-404. Pequots, 27, 33. Percival, James Gates, 197, 198-9, 200, 279. "Peter Parley," 199, 300, 354, 419. "Peter Porcupine," 148-9. "Petroleum V. Nasby," 444. Peters, Samuel, 155. Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart; see Ward,, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Philadelphia writers, 90-101, 112-6, 145-53, 155, 209-10, 395-8, 474. Philadelphia as a publishing center, 461. Philip the Second, 341. Phillips, Wendell, 51, 265-6. Philo, an Evangeliad, 355. Philosophic Solitude, 102. Philosophy of Composition, 418. Piatt, J. J., 439. Pickens and Stealings Rebellion, 278. Picture of Saint John, 401. Picture of New York, 163. Pictures from Appledore, 276. Pictures of Columbus, 143. Pierpont, John, 204. Pike, Albert, 435. Pike County Ballads, 441. Pilgrims, 21, 25, 26, 30, 31; con- trasted with Southern writers, 12. Pills, Poetical, Political, and Philo- sophical, 208. Pilot, 176, 179, 182. Pinkney, Edward Coate, 212. Pioneers, 176, 179, 268. Pioneers of France in the New World, 345. Pit and the Pendulum, 423, 424. Place of the Independent in Politics, 278. Index 497 Plain Language from Truthful James, 455. Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects, 338. Plays and Poems, 398. Plumb Pudding for Peter Porcupine, 149-50. Plymouth Colony, 21, 25, 30. Poe, Edgar Allan, 143, 152, 159, 268, 317, 340, 353, 357, 362, 374, 376, 385, 395, 404, 410, 412-28: life and character, 414-7, literary criti- cism, 417-20, poems, 420-22, prose tales, 422-6, genius and rank, 426-8; 438. Poem on the Happiness of America, 133. Poems of Arouet, 139. Poems of the Orient, 400, 401. Poems of the War, 398. Poems on Several Occasions, 100. Poems on Slavery, 287. Poet at the Breakfast-Table, 322, 323, 326, 330. "Poet of the American Revolution," 141. Poets and Poetry of America, 362. Poefs Journal, 400. Poets of America, 374, 376, 377. Poetic Principle, 418. Poetry, a Metrical Essay, 329. Poetry and Mystery of Dreams, 397. Poetry in New England, 46, 54, 55-6, 84-8. Politian, 420. Political Essays, 271. Political Greenhouse, 134. PoHtical writings, 103-22, 156-7. Ponkapog Papers, 380. Ponteach, 139. "Poor Richard," 84, 95-6, 98. Pope, 86, 120, 124, 133, 156, 157, 184. Porcupiniad, 150. Pory, John, 10. Potiphar Papers, 364. Prairie, 177, 179. Precaution, 175, 176. Prentice, George D., 436-7. Prenticeana, 437. Prescott, William Kicking, 341-2. Present Crisis, 273. Present State of Virginia, 19. Preston, Margaret Junkin, 412. Pretty Story, 146. Prince, Thomas, 61-2. Prince and the Pauper, 448. Prince Deukalion, 401. Prince of India, 441. Prince of Parthia, 100. Printing in New England colonies, 22; in Virginia, 13. "Private Miles O'Reilly," 385. Problem, 236. Probus; see Aurelian. Professor at the Breakfast-Table, 322, 325, 326. Professor's Story; see Elsie Venner. Progress of Dulness, 125. Progress to the Mines, 17. Prometheus, 268, 273. Prose Sketches and Poems, 436. Prose Writers of America, 362. Prospect of Peace, 131. Prophet, 401. Proud Miss McBride, 353. Prudence Palfrey, 379. Prue and I, 363, 364. Psalm of Life, 263, 292, 298. Pudd'nhead Wilson, 448, 449, 450. Puritans, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31, 33, 37, 40, 55, 56, 57, 221, 222, 223, 254; contrasted with Southern colonists, 11, 12. Purloined Letter, 425, 427. Quest of Merlin, 473. Rag-Bag, 358. Rainbow, 212. Rappaccini's Daughter, 310. Ralph, James, 100. Ramona, 453. Ramsey, David, 218. Raven, 418, 421, 422, 427. Realism, recent tendencies toward, 463. Realf, Richard, 442. Read, Thomas Buchanan, 397, 403. Recollections, 374. Recollections of a Busy Life, 361. Recollections of Persons and Places in the West, 438. Reconciliation, 148. Red Badge of Courage, 473. Red Rover, 177, 179, 182. Redburn, 369. Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion, 59-60. Redskins, 179. Religious writings in New England, 36-45. "Renaissance" of New England, 223. Repplier, Agnes, 474. Representative Men, 228, 235. Reveries of a Bachelor, 347. Revolutionary Period, 103-157. Rhode Island writers, 109, 139, 352-3. 498 Index Rhodora, 237. Rhymed Lesson, 329. Richard Edney, 355. Richard Hardis, 431. Rights of Man, 115. Riley, James Whitcomb, 478. Rill from the Town Pump, 310. Ripley, George, 224, 250-1, 357, 361. Rip van Winkle, 166, 167, 168. Rise of the Dutch Republic, 343. Rising Glory of America, 141. Rittenhouse, David, 101. River Fight, 351. River Path, 261. Rob of the Bowl, 211. Roba di Roma, 340. Rock me to Sleep, Mother, 354. Roe, Edward Payson, 370. Rogers, Robert, 139. "Rollo" books, 354. Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem, 340. Roman Singer, 471. Rose, Aquilla, 99. Roosevelt, Theodore, 470. Roughing It, 448. Rowen, 468. Rowlandson, Mary, 59. Rowson, Susanna Haswell, 136. Roxy, 440. Rudder Grange, 469. Rulers of the South, 472. Ruling Passion, 138. Rush, Benjamin, 218-9. Ryan, Abram J., 412. Sack of Rome, 136. Salmagundi, 161, 163, 164, 165, 191, 192. Salve Venetia, 472. Sands, R. C, 187, 195, 196. Sandys, George, 9-10. Sant' Ilario, 471. Saracinesca, 471. Sargent, Epes, 340. Sargent, Lucius M., 204. Satanstoe, 179. "Saxe Holme," 453. Saxe, John G., 353. Scarlet Letter, 303, 304, 311-4, 316, 317. Scholarship, 153, 216-9. Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 218, 294, 372. Science of English Verse, 407, 408. Scientists, 218-9. Scout; see Kinsman. Scudder, Horace E., 336, 337. Sea Dream, 261. Seabury, Samuel, 110, 111, 114. Sea-Lions, 179. Seaside and the Fireside^ 288. Seccomb, John, 86. Sectionalism in American literature, 159. Sedgwick, Catherine M., 196, 206, 3X)4. Seein' Things at Night, 482. Selections from the Poetical Literature of the West, 437. Selling of Joseph, 65. Septimius Felton, 309. Sermons in early New England, 37, 38-9. Sewall, Jonathan, 109, 139. Sewall, Samuel, 56, 65-6, 89, 92. Shadow, 425. Shakespeare, 1, 8, 23, 24, 196, 279, 366; possibly indebted to Strachey, 8, 9. Sharps and Flats, 480, 481, 482. Shaw, Henry W., 443, 444. Shaw, John, 212. She Came and Went, 273. Shepard, Thomas, 39, 40-1, 81, 85. Sheridan's Ride, 404. Shillaber, Benjamin P., 356. Short Sixes, 468. Short story, recent development of, 463. Sigourney, Lydia Huntley, 197-8. Silence 42^ Sill, Edward Rowland, 458-60. Silliman, Benjamin, 219. Silverwood, 412. Simms, 404, 428-32: life, 428-30, poems, 430, prose fiction, 430-1, miscellaneous work, 431-2, rank, 432. Simple Cobler of Aggawamm, 43-5, 46. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 79. Sirens, 272. Sisters, 261. Skeleton in Armor, 292. Sketch Book, 165-6, 167, 168, 169, 170, 174, 192, 285, 286. Skipper Ireson's Ride, 261, 264. Sleeper, 421, 422. Smith, F. Hopkinson, 464, 470. Smith, John, 2-8: life and adven- tures, 3-4, writings, 4-5, his ve- racity, 6, literary qualities, 6-8; 10, 11, 20. Smith, Samuel F., 334. Smith, Seba, 356. South Carolina writers, 428-34. Snow Ima^ge, 310. Index 499 Snow Image and other Twice-Told Tales, 304, 310. Snow-Bound, 259, 261. Society and Solitude, 228. Society upon the Stanislaus, 458. Songs and Sonnets, 380. Songs from Vagabondia, 473. Songs of a Semite, 384. Songs of Childhood, 481. Songs of the Revolution, 120-1. Sonnets and Canzonets, 244. Sot-Weed Factor, 15-6. Sotweed Redivivus, 16-7. South Carolina writers, 20, 428-34. Southern characteristics affecting ht- Southern 'writers, 116-9, 211-3, 404- 36, 474-7. Spagnoletto, 384. Spanish Papers, 172. Spanish Student, 293. Sparks, Jared, 200, 217. Specimen Days, 387, 389. Spectator, 91, 95, 125. Sphinx, 236. Spirit-Rapper (The), an Autohiog- raphy, 253. Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes, 38. Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 331, 466. Sprague, Charles, 204. Spy, 173, 175, 176, 179, 182, 431. Stansbury, Joseph, 121-2. Stars of the Summer Night, 293. Star-Spangled Banner, 212. Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 357, 373, 375-8: life and literary labors, 375-6, as editor and critic, 376-7, as poet, 377-8; 381, 382. Stiles, Ezra, 156. Stillwater Tragedy, 379. Stith, WiUiam, 19-20. Stockton, Frank R., 469. Stoddard, Richard Henry, 373-5, 378, 381, 382, 402. Stone, Reverend Mr., 47. Stories of New Jersey, 470. Story, Joseph, 200, 203. Story, WilHam Wetmore, 266, 268, 280, 339-40. Story of a Bad Boy, 378, 379, 380, 381. Story of a New York House, 468. Story of Kennett, 402. Story of the Whistle, 97. Story or two from a Dutch Town, 335. Stout Gentleman, 168. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 269, 348-51, 366. Strachey, William, 8-9, 10. Street, Alfred B., 386. Street Lyrics, 398. Summary, Historical and Politii^al, of the First Planting, Progressive Im- provements and Present State of the British Settlements in North Amer- ica, 64. Summary View of the Rights of British America, 118. Summer on the Lakes, 247. Sumner, Charles, 287, 346. Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, 350. Sunrise, 409. Sunset on the Bear camp, 261. Swallow Barn, 211. Sword and the Distaff, 431. Sword of Bunker Hill, 385. Sword of Lee, 412. Sylphs of the Seasons, 202. Symphony, 409. Symposium, 224, 243. Tabb, John B., 475. Table Talk, 244. Tablets, 244. Tailfer, Patrick, 20. Tales of a Traveller, 167, 168. Tales of a Wayside Inn, 288, 295, 296, 297. Tales of Glauber Spa, 196, 206. Tales of the Argonauts and other Sketches, 455. Tales of the Border, 214. Taliesin, 473. Talisman, 187, 195, 196. Tamerlane, 420. Tamerlane and other Poems, 414. Tanglewood Tales, 304, 311. Tannhauser, 384. Taylor, Bayard, 259, 373, 378, 381, 382, 397, 398-403: life, 398-400, poetry, 400-1, dramatic works, 401-2, novels, 402, other prose, 402-3, rank, 403. Telling the Bees, 261. T ell-Tale Heart, 424. Ten Great Religions, 254. Tent on the Beach, 259, 260, 261. Tenth Muse, 49. Terrible Tractoration, 207. Thanatopsis, 185, 188, 190. Thaxter, Celia L., 354. Theology Explained and Defended, 129. Thomas, Isaiah, 217. Thomas, Edith, 478. Thompson, Benjamin, Count Rum- ford, 219. Thompson, Daniel P., 353. Thompson, Maurice, 479. 600 Index Thoreau, Henry David, 224, 238-42: life, 238, personality, 239-40, prose, 240-1, verse, 241, rank, 242; 252, 279, 302. *^Thou art minej thou hast given thy word,'' 378. Thoughts on the poets, 368. Threading my Way, 438. Threnody, 236. Ticknor, Frank O., 435. Ticknor, George, 200, 203, 286, 290. Ti{ier Lilies, 406, 408. Timothy Titcomb's Letters, 338. Timrod, Henry, 404, 429, 432-3, 434. To a Mosquito, 188. To a Pine-Tree, 273. To a Waterfowl, 185, 190. To Heleri, 421, 422. To One in Paradise, 422. To Science, 420. To Seneca Lake, 199. To the Dandelion, 273. To the Fringed Gentian, 188. Toinette, 434. Token, 199, 300. Tortessa; or the Usurer Matched, 358. Tom Sawyer, 379, 444, 447, 448, 449, 450. Tom Thornton, 201. Tour on the Prairies, 171, 172. Tourgee, Albert W., 434. Toujours Amour, 378. Townsend, Mary Ashley, 436. Tramp Abroad, 448. Transcendental Club, 224. Transcendentalism, 161, 173. Transcendentalists, 222-254, 361. Transformation; see Marble Faun, Treatise on the Freedom of the Will, 79. Tribune, New York, 245, 250, 251, 252. Tribune Primer, 480. Trowbridge, J. T., 269, 331, 333, 336, 466. True Relation of Virginia, 4, 6, 7. True Reportory of the Wracke and Re- demption of Sir Thomas Gates, 8, 9. True Travels, Adventures, and Obser- vations of Captain John Smith, 5. Trumps, 363, 364. Trumbull, John, 123, 124-6, 129, 132, 133, 134. Tuckerman, Henry T., 368. Tudor, William, 200. Twain, Mark, 181, 337, 379, 444-52: life, 444-6, influenced by West, 446, personality, 447, writings, 447- 52, humor, 448, rank, 452. Twice-Told Tales, 300, 310, 418. Two Admirals, 179. Two Men of Sandy Bar, 455, 457. Two Years Before the Mast, 332, 369. Tyler, Royall, 138-9. Typee, 369. Ulalume, 421, 422. Ultima Thule, 289. "Uncle Remus" tales, 476. Uncle Tom's Cabin, 349, 350, 435. Under the Evening Lamp, 374. Under the Violets, 330. Under the Willows, 270, 276. Underbrush, 332. Unhappy Lot of Mr, Knott, 276. United Netherlands, 343. Universal History on the Basis of Geography, 300. University of Pennsylvania, 99. Vagabonds, 333. Valerian, 210. Van Dyke, Henry, 470. Vassal Morton, 344. Venus of Milo, 459. Vermont writers, 138, 353. Verplanck, GuHan C, 187, 195-6. Verse in New England colonies, 46-54, 84-8. Very, Jones, 224, 251, 252, 268. Victorian Anthology, 376. Victorian Poets, 376. Views Afoot, 399. Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives, 105. Vindication of the Government of New England Churches, 82. Virginia Comedians, 411. Virginia writers, 1-20, 116-9, 211, 410-28; contrasted with those of Massachusetts, 23. Vision of Columbus, 131, 132. Vision of Sir Launfal, 268, 272, 276, 281, 329. Voiceless, 330. Voices of the Night, 286, 287, 292. Voyage to Virginia, 18. Voyages of Columbus, 169. Voyages of the Companions of Colum- bus, 169. Wagoner of the Alleghanies, 404. Wakendah, 372. Walden, or Life in the Woods, 238, 240-1. Wallace, Lew, 440-1, 478. Wallace, William R., 385. Wandering Recollections of a Some^ what Busy Life, 208. Wanted — A Man, 377. Index 501 War is Kind, 474. War Poetry of the South, 432. Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 331, 335, 466. Ward, Nathaniel, 43-5, 46. Ware, WiUiam, 335, 337. Warner, Charles Dudley, 336, 337, 448. Warren, Mercy Otis, 135-6, 153. Warren's Address, 204. Water-Witch, 177. Way to Wealth, 95-6. Ways of the Hour, 179. Wayside, 304. Webster, Daniel, 215-6, 346. Webster, Noah, 155, 219; his dic- tionary, 198. Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, 238, 240. Weems, Mason L., 216-7. Welby, Ameha B., 438. Welde, Thomas, 48. Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, 177. West Wind, 190. "Westchester Farmer," 110, 111. Western Clearings, 371. Western Souvenir, 214. Western writers, 213-4, 477-83, 436^ 60. Westovev Manuscripts, 17. Westward Ho, 192. Wet Days at Edgewood, 347, 348. Wharton, Edith, 470. What I know of Farming, 361. What Was It? a Mystery, 371. Wheatley, PhilHs, 136. When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd, 394. Whitaker, Alexander, 10. Whitcher, Frances M., 372. White, Maria, 267, 271. White, Richard Grant, 366. Whitefield, George, 20, 68, 78. White-Jacket, 369. Whitman, Sarah Helen, 352-3. Whitman, Walt, 372, 373, 384, 386- 95: hfe and writings, 386-8, char- acter, 388-9, motive in writing, 390, verse form, 390-1, views on life and Uterature, 392-4, rank, 394; 403, 464, 473, 474. Whittier, James Greenleaf, 145, 256- 65: early life, 256-7, early writings, 258, antislavery labors, 257-8, per- sonal life, 258-9, poems, 259-62, prose, 262-3, literary characteris- tics, 263-5; 269, 284, 377, 382, 383, 384, 433, 437. Whipple, Edwin Percy, 334, 374. Widow Bedott Papers, 372. Widow of Malabar, 133. Wieland, 151, 152, 153. Wigglesworth, Michael, 51-4, 56, 84, 199. Wild Honeysuckle, 144. Wilde, Richard Henry, 212-3. Wilderness and the War-Path, 214. Wilkins, Mary E. ; see Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins. Willard, Samuel, 82. William and Mary College, 13, 19, 20. WiUiams, Roger, 38, 41-3. Wmiams, John, 59-60, 84. WilHs, Nathaniel Parker, 150, 357- 60, 363, 378, 414. Wilson, Alexander, 219. Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts, 330. Wing-and-Wing, 179. Winslow, Edward, 25-6. Winter, William, 371, 373, 379, 470. Winthrop, John, 28, 30, 62, 341, 352. Winthrop, Theodore, 352. Wirt, WilUam, 117, 211. Wise, John, 81. Wister, Owen, 464, 474. Witchcraft, 71. Witherspoon, John, 156. WolferVs Roost, 172. Woman in colonial New England, 55-6. Woman in the Nineteenth Century^ 248. Wonder Book, 304, 311. Wondersmith, 371. Wonders of the Invisible World, 75. Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England, 33-4. Wood, WilUam, 35, 46. Woodberry, George E., 376, 470. Woodcraft; see Sword and Distaff, Woodman, Spare that Tree^ 195. Woodnotes, 236. Woodworth, Samuel, 195. Wooing of Malkatoon, 441. Woolman, John, 145. Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 467. Worcester, Joseph E., 219. Wound-Dresser, 388, 389. Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, 8, 9. Wreck of the Hesperus, 292. Wyandotte, 179. Wyndham Towers, 380. Wynken^ Blynken, and Nod, 482, "Xariffa," 436. 502 Index Yale College, 77, 123. Yesterdays with Authors, 331. Yamoyden, 196. Youth of Jefferson, 411. Yankee Doodle, 120. Yankee Gypsies, 262. Zadoc Pine and other Stories, 468. Yankee in Canada, 240. Zenobia, or the Fall of Palmyra, Year's Life, 267, 273. 335. Ytmassee, 428, 431. Zophiel, or The Bride of Seven, 206. AUG 16 19U f^ LbMr'30 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ' 011 813 244 «0