MKERS LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE A Class-Book on American Literature BY EDWIN W. BOWEN, A. M., Ph. D. Formerly Assistant Professor of English in the University of Missouri, Now Professor of Latin in Randolph-Macon College; Author of " An Historical Study of the O- Vowel in English," Etc. New York and Washington THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1908 Copyright, 1908, by THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY B7U Discipulis Prioribus et Fidelibus Amicis 2S7294 CONTENTS PAGE. INTRODUCTION 11 I'llAl'TKi;. I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 17 II. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 2D III. WASHINGTON IRVING 53 IV. JAMES FENIMOKE COOPER 78 * \ V. EDGAR ALLAN POE 103 VI. WILLIAM HICKLING PBESCOTT 139 VII. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 159 VIII. RALPH WALDO EMERSON 193 IX. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 221 X. HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW 249 XI. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 266 XII. JOHN GREENLEAP WHITTIEH 293 XIII. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 325 XIV. SIDNEY LANIER 348 XV. WALT WHITMAN 371 BIBLIOCU.UMIY 405 PREFACE The present volume is designed as a guide, in a general way, to the study of American literature. It is of course not a history of American literature. It purports simply to discuss and consider the lit- erary achievement of our leading American auth- ors, those who stand out most conspicuously in a general survey of our literature and who are recog- nized among the foremost makers of American lit- erature. No attempt is made in the following chapters to assign the authors considered their relatively proper place in our literature. That would be a hazardous undertaking even for a thorough scholar and most competent critic, and the writer of this book is fully aware that he does not possess the nec- essary qualification for the successful performance of so difficult and delicate a task. Each essay is followed by a selection from the writings of the author discussed, in order to illus- trate his style. Several of the papers comprising the following chapters have been previously printed in magazines. These papers, I need hardly state, have been revised and adapted to the plan of the present volume. For permission to use these I wish here to express my thanks to the editors of the following journals : the Forum, the South Atlantic Quarterly, the Lutheran Quarterly, the Presbyterian Review, the Sewanee Review, and the Methodist Review. The selections from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, H. W. Longfellow, O. W. Holmes, PREFACE J. G. Whittier, and J. K. Lowell are published by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Hough ton, Mifflin & Company, the authorized pub- lishers of their works. The selection from Irving is published by the con- sent and permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, that from Prescott by the consent and permission of the J. B. Lippincott Company. The selection from Lanier is published by permis- sion of, and by special arrangement with, Charles Scribner's Sons, the authorized publishers of his works ; and the selections from Bryant and Whitman by permission of, and by special arrangement with, D. Appleton & Company, the authorized publishers of their works. To all of these publishers I wish to express my grateful thanks for permission to quote from their respective publications; and also to Mr. Horace Traubel, the literary executor of Walt Whitman, I here express my hearty appreciation of his kind consent to use the selection from Whitman. No one is more conscious of the many imperfec- tions of this little volume than myself, and I feel that I must beg the reader's kind indulgence as I send it forth on its mission into the world. EDWIN W. BOWEN. Randolph-Macon College, Virginia, November, 1907. INTRODUCTION The question is sometimes asked, Is there really an American literature? To this question the im- partial and discriminating student of the litera- luivs of the two great English-speaking nations of the world must surely make an affirmative reply. For American literature is as different from Eng- lish literature as the typical American is different from the typical Englishman. To be sure, the liter- ary product of the two countries is related, and there consequently exists a family resemblance, so to say, just as the two peoples are related and have much in common. But the two nations are sepa- rated by the broad Atlantic and differ essentially from each other; and this essential national differ- ence is reflected in the literary product of the kin- dred peoples. American literature, it need hardly be remarked, is centuries younger than English literature and hence less rich, less copious and less varied. It is also true that American literature sprang from English literature and, in its humble beginning, is not to be distinguished from the literature of the mother country. The first American writers were simply transplanted Englishmen, who wrote under the inspiration and stimulus of British literary traditions and ideals, until the physical conditions of climate and country coupled with the patriotic idea had their perfect work, and in due course of time a new nation was born. With the growth and development of the national independence there developed apace, like the child from the parent, a 12 INTRODUCTION distinctive national literature. Thus American literature is to-day essentially and radically differ- ent from English literature, and this difference is increasing with the passing years. It follows therefore that American literature is much farther removed from English literature at the present day than it was a century ago. It is a fact as interesting as it is unique that the United States and England, though speaking the same tongue, still have two distinct and independent literatures. Yet the explanation is not far to seek. It is simply the natural outgrowth of political causes and events. If the literature of a country is really the expression of the people's thoughts and emotions, their political, social and ethical ideals, in a word, the people's life in the broadest and deep- est sense of that term, then it is perfectly natural that American literature should be distinct and different from English literature. For surely these two peoples have distinct and different ideals and aspirations and different national entities. These characteristic national differences are re- flected of course in the literatures of the respective peoples. It is a mere accident that the two nations use the same language. And yet even the language is not entirely the same on both sides of the Atlan- tic. Horace's phrase, a the estranging ocean," seems especially apropos in view of the noteworthy differences in the use of our common vernacular in England and America. The language appears to have undergone some striking modifications on American soil, both in mode of utterance and in form of expression. These American variations from the Uritisli original are so decided as to serve as a shibboleth to differentiate American English from British English. No doubt time will accen- INTRODUCTION 13 tuate these variations, and a century hence the dif- ferences between the two great branches of our common speech will be even more marked than they are to-day. . Literature in its broadest sense is the interpre-\^ tation of life, national and individual, political and ^ social. Just as British authors have interpreted English life in the successive periods of that na- tion's existence, so our American writers have en- deavored, during the first century of our nation's history, to interpret American life, and our con- temporary writers are essaying to do likewise. But it is no slight undertaking to interpret accu- rately and adequately the varied and complex as- pects of our modern American life in terms of literature. The first attempts of our American writers in this direction were quite feeble, and naturally enough our early writers followed in the beaten paths of British authors and lacked origi- nality and initiative. American literature is mainly a product of the nineteenth century. Our Colonial writers were few and followed British models .so closely in theme * and method, and drew their inspiration so gener- ally from that source, that they failed to pro- duce any writings distinctively American. They did not portray American characters ; they did not paint American scenes; they did not depict Ameri- can life except in so far as American life was a re- flection of English life. Being under the domi- nance and inspiration of British ideals and tradi- tions, our Colonial writers naturally saw American life through British spectacles, which so colored their thought and emotion as to make their pro- ductions British rather than Americajn. Washing- ton Irving was the first American writer to make a 14 INTRODUCTION departure from the beaten track and to blaze out a path for himself in literature. He was therefore a pioneer who discarded the old literary landmarks and pointed out a better way to Americans of his generation aspiring to be men of letters. The example of his success soon infected others, and at length American literary independence was estab- lished, not long after the establishment of our polit- ical independence. The time-honored literary traditions of the mother country shattered, Ameri- can writers were thrown upon their own resources and were compelled to seek for themes and inspira- tion in our own American life and on our own American continent. So our literary independence followed in the wake of our political independence, and America has to-day a distinct national litera- ture as a logical result of our distinct national existence. The rapid and rich flowering of Ameri- can literature is a fit subject for felicitation, alto- gether creditable to our people. Nor has this matter failed to challenge the admiration of the foremost men of letters of the Old World, who view with amazement our phenomenal literary development quite as much as the statesmen of European nations view our marvelous political development. In writing a brief history of American literature, it is necessary that a great many names be omitted which would clamor for mention in a more compre- hensive treatise. A complete treatise would have to include all those writers who have contributed, in any manner, by their productions to swell the literary output of America. But such a volume would probably be more exhaustive than critical. For it would necessarily include contemporary as well as past writers, the living as well as the de- ceased; and no critic, however unbiased, can see INTRODUCTION 15 juid represent a living author in his true and proper perspective. Furthermore, some of our contempo- rary writers may have contributed far more gener- ously to the making of American literature than any of our authors whose activity ceased in the nineteenth century. Yet the plan of this volume precludes special mention of any such writer, how- ever important his work and influence may be in the history of American literature, simply because he is still living. In a treatise like the present which from the nature of. the case cannot include all of our American writers, the principle of selec- tion must be adopted and applied as wisely as may be. Representative authors must be chosen who are universally recognized as the literary leaders of America, the most prominent figures in the history of American literature. It is not to be supposed that the critics are agreed as to the relative rank and merits of each of our prominent American writers. Nor is it to be ex- pected that there should be unanimity of opinion as to what authors should be included in a com- pendium like the present. For, after all, it may be a debatable question just who are the makers of American literature, in the restricted sense of the term, and hence this seems a legitimate field for dif- ference of opinion. However, there can hardly be any room for doubt as to the propriety of including all the authors here discussed. Some critics may be disposed to inquire what was our guiding principle in the matter of selection. The reply is, that, in the first place, we have aimed to include those authors whose productions are clearly of a high order of merit and have contributed in an appreci- able and material manner to the enrichment of our literature; and in the second place, we have rigidly 16 INTRODUCTION excluded all living writers. Of course it is an in- disputable fact that some of our contemporary men of letters have greatly enriched American litera- ture by their generous and enduring contributions. Yet, for obvious reasons, no living author may prop- erly be here discussed since the lapse of time is, above all things, essential to furnish the true per- spective, in order critically and accurately to weigh and determine any writer's accomplishment. It is true that additional authors who are not excluded by the latter principle might have been selected for discussion. But a line had to be drawn somewhere and it seemed the part of wisdom to err on the scoi of exclusion rather than that of inclusion. CHAPTER I THE COLONIAL PERIOD The first products of American literature, such as those of the Colonial period, were not literature in the strict meaning of that term. In the strenuous times of our early history the settlers were so busily occupied with the stupendous undertaking of de- veloping their new country clearing the primeval forests, cultivating the virgin soil and incidentally decimating the aborigines that they found no leisure for the pursuit of letters. Whatever time the pioneer colonists had left over from these ab- sorbing activities, the Puritans among them devoted to the study of the Bible and the cavaliers among them devoted to outdoor sports and social pleasures. Small wonder therefore that the few specimens of literature produced in the Colonial period of Ameri- can history furnish but meager claim to be admitted to the dignity and rank of literature. Even the most enthusiastic and admiring student of Ameri- can letters is embarrassed, not to say bored, by our Colonial literary productions; they are so insuf- ferably tedious, insipid and inane utterly desti- tute of life and interest. The works of such writers as Captain John Smith and William Bradford make a dismal exhibit by the side of the brilliant productions of that galaxy of contemporary British authors who constitute the golden age of English literature. No American writer of our Colonial period deserves to be men- tioned in the same breath with such English au- 18 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE thors as Dryden, Congreve, Milton, Addison, Steele, Swift, Pope, Johnson and Goldsmith, to name only a few of those whose classic productions adorn the annals of English letters during that same period. Over against these English luminaries we can set only such feeble and sickly Colonial lights as Cap- tain John Smith, William Bradford, Jonathan Ed- wards and the Mathers, who are in total eclipse by comparison. It ought to be said, however, that this comparison is intended not as a reproach ( that would be as stupid as it is unpatriotic), but only as an indication how ill-adapted and utterly un- suited to the development of literature was the American environ in those early days of our history. Indeed, it is all the more creditable to American letters and a source of justifiable pride that our literature, within the brief space of a century, has grown and developed from this insignificant and unpromising beginning to its present established place of distinction and prestige among the litera- tures of the world. In our early Colonial period there were two well- marked and distinct foci of literary activity, viz: Virginia and Massachusetts. As early as 1624, Captain John Smith published his "History of Vir- ginia." A rover and adventurer, who relied more upon his sword than upon his pen to win him fame, Smith, after a two years' residence on American soil, quit Virginia, in 1609, and returned to the Old World, where his eventful and checkered career was terminated by his death, in London, in 1631. The romantic legend of his rescue by Pocahontas and other thrilling adventures connected with his name are so widely current that every schoolboy knows of this daring explorer, although few have ever read a line that he wrote. Critics have not THE COLONIAL PERIOD 19 failed to question the authenticity of the famous Pocahontas legend and have demonstrated the falsity of not a few of the author's marvelous asser- tions. Smith's picturesque and vigorous narrative, Avhile possessing only slight literary merit, is yet un- questionably on the borderland of pure literature. A singular interest attaches naturally to it for the reason that it is the first American contribution to letters. Of his rather voluminous productions the "History of Virginia" is Smith's most widely known work. But even this is far more valuable as a his- torical document than as a piece of literature. Since the Southern cavalier found his entertain- ment and diversion in social life, not in letters, few of the Virginia colonists therefore continued the literary tradition established by Smith. The Colo- nial annals of the Old Dominion, the foremost Southern State, are not adorned with any names famous even in American letters. There is George Sandys, Virginia's so-called first poet, to be sure; but he was simply a bird of passage who happened to complete Lis translation of Ovid during his brief sojourn on the banks of the noble James. There is nothing in him that is Southern, in fact nothing that smacks of American soil, for the matter of that. Besides, the mere accident of the completion of a piece of literature in America could not surely establish the claim of a foreign writer to be classed as an American author. Those most interested in maintaining the traditions of letters in our Colonial period were college professors and clergymen. Stith, the third president of William and Mary College, then recognized as the fountain of intellec- tual life in Virginia, wrote an interesting and much prized history of the colony. Stith perhaps had implicit confidence in Captain Smith as a veracious 20 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE chronicler of the early history of the Old Dominion and therefore did not deem it worth while to investi- gate for himself and verify Smith's statements in every instance. But the book is far from being a reprint of Smith's "History of Virginia" ; and Stith incorporated into his volume much fresh and accu- rate information gathered from various sources, making it the most important work of its kind pro- duced in Virginia before the Revolution. After Stith comes Colonel Byrd, the founder of Rich- mond, whose "History of the Dividing Line" between Virginia and North Carolina, far from being a dry-as-dust tome, is enlivened with imagin- ative touches here and there and possesses some real literary merit. It will be observed that the Southern writers of our Colonial literature had a decided bias for his- tory and descriptive narrative. But not so their New England contemporaries. These latter drew their inspiration from religious themes. Theology is the dominant note in their literary productions, prose and verse. Moreover, in New England the transplanted flower of literature appears to have taken firm root from the very first and to have flourished more vigorously there than in the South. Hence the long muster of such New England writ- ers as Bradford, Eliot, Wiuslow, Winthrop, Mor- ton, Hooker, Roger Williams, Anne Bradstreet, Wigglesworth, Ward, Sewell, Prince, the Mathers, and Jonathan Edwards. This formidable array of our early men of letters represented but little genuine literature. The poets of the number arc Anne P.radx! red ami Michel \Vigglesworth; but their verses have long aijo fallen into a well-merited oblivion. Mrs. Kradst reet was acclaimed the Tenth Muse by the uncritical colon- THE COLONIAL I'KUIOD 21 ists and enjoys the distinction of being Hie first woman in America to join the craft of authors. It would be ungallant, though true, to say of her pon- derous poems that they richly deserve the fate which hns overtaken them being a striking illustration of the dreary stuff which passed for poetry with our undixrHmiuatmg early colonists. Mrs. Brad- street's "The Four Elements 77 and "The Four Mon- archies 77 had their reward in their author's day. The Reverend Michel Wigglesworth 7 s "Doomsday," however, even despite its gloomy and forbidding Calvinistic meditations, enjoyed a greater popu- larity than Mrs. Bradstreet 7 s poetic reflections. But judged by present-day tastes Wiggles worth's effu- sions are little removed from mere theological dog- gerel and are without a ray of light to illuminate their gloom and dreariness. His verses are now interesting chiefly as a specimen of the so-called poetry of New England during the days of Milton and Dryden. To accept such drivel as poetry surely bespeaks a woeful lack of discrimination and taste on the part of our early critics, and is a gross reflec- tion upon the judgment of our early men of letters. The work of the prose writers is of a somewhat higher order of merit. The chief source of inspira- tion of most of the prose is religious interest, and the bulk of the work is sermons. Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, wrote a translation of the Bible for the use of the aborigines; and Hooker published a collection of his sermons for the edification of his readers. Winthrop 7 s "History of New England 17 possesses a certain interest for the historian, of course, while his "Letters' 7 are valuable as being the first collection of epistolary literature produced on this side of the Atlantic. Cotton Mather's vo- luminous "Mnynulid ('liristi Americana" stands as 22 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE a monument to its author's unflagging industry an< pedantic learning, rather than as a signal literary achievement. Mather's lack of accuracy and logi- cal treatment and his prolixity withal contrast sharply with the noteworthy love of accuracy, or- derly arrangement and succinctness which are so strikingly apparent in the diaries of Bradford, Sewell and Winthrop. The limits of space preclude a detailed considera- tion of this group of New England writers. I>ut simple justice demands that a few words be devoted to Jonathan Edwards, that eminent divine whose religious utterances impressed themselves so forci- bly upon the heart and conscience of his Puritan contemporaries. For Jonathan Edwards and Cot- ton Mather were far in advance of all the pre-revo- lutionary writers in the field of philosophy and the- ology; and of these Edwards is generally conceded to have been the greater in point of intellectual grasp and actual achievement. Edwards's impor- tant contribution to our Colonial literature was his famous treatise on the "Freedom of the Will," writ- ten during his presidency of Princeton College. Upon this erudite Calvinistic exposition of the 1'ree- dom of the will the learned author lavished his ripest thought. Edwards also wrote a memorable ordination sermon on the punishment of the wicked, which exerted an abiding influence on theological inquiry and discussion in New England during the nineteenth century. As the foremost exponent of Calvinism in (he North Edwards was succeeded, in turn, by Hopkins, Emmons and Dwight. Of these Dwight was by far the most brilliant. He is favor- ably known to the student of our early literature as the author of an epic poem "The Tongue THE COLONIAL PERIOD 23 Canaan," five volumes of sermons, and some de- scriptive writing oil travels. As the relations of the Colonies to the mother country became more and more strained, it was but natural that the stirring events of (lie Revolution should have called forth much political writing, and that the popular interest in philosophical and theo- logical discussion should have consequently waned. The flood of political tracts and pamphlets therefore which issued from the press in the latter half of the eighteenth century soon engrossed public attention, dominating the thought and literary activity of the entire country. Those strenuous times dictated simple and practical methods of appeal to the people. Consequently those who felt the impulse to write paid but little attention to the art of expres- sion or literary finish, their supreme aim being the practical effect. There are some famous names adorning the pages of American history during this period, but they are principally the names of our Revolutionary worthies, such as warriors and ora- tors. Thomas Jefferson, the man of ideas and the author of our immortal Declaration of Independ- ence, Patrick Henry, the silver-tongued orator of Virginia, and Samuel Adams and Otis of Massachu- setts no less distinguished for their burning eloquence and patriotism, these illustrious wor- thies, however great their services in the founding of our nation and in the making of history, really contributed very little of permanent interest to Am- erican letters. They were men who accomplished great achievements in the field of human activity; but they were not men of letters. The chief claim of Hamilton and likewise of Madison to mention here is their authorship of the Federalist papers, to be sure, an excellent production of its kind, but hardly 24 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE deserving to rank high as literature. Thomas Paine exhibited a forceful style and rendered a good serv- ice to his countrymen by his vigorous pamphlets on "Common Sense" and "The Crisis." His "Age of Reason," however, is a rather shallow book which created far more consternation among believers of his day than its merits warranted. The figures that stand out most prominently in the dawn of our literary history are John Wool- man, Joel Barlow and Philip Freneau. Woolman's "Journal" possesses some real literary merit and elicited from Charles Lamb the eulogistic comment ( in a letter to a friend ) : "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart." Whittier thought so favora- bly of Woolman's beautiful diary as to edit it, in 1871, and confessed himself greatly moved by the serene and lovely spirit of its author. Barlow is worthy of special mention because of his well- meant, though somewhat abortive attempt at pure literature. His prolix epic "The Columbiad," has been quite accurately described by Professor Rich- ardson as "the most stupendous and unmitigated failure in the annals of literature." On the con- trary, Barlow's mock-heroic, entitled "Hasty Pud- ding," offers something to the reader to repay a perusal of its pages. It displays a lively humor and some imaginative touches here and there in the pic- turesque descriptions of its rural scenes. Freneau is easily first of this trio of Revolution- ary writers and, in fact, is the only poet worthy of consideration in our Colonial period. This New Jersey bard had a checkered career as patriot, printer, and editor during those troublous times of political struggle. Vet lie produced more verse, good, bad and indifferent, than any contemporary singer, and deservedly won his distinguishing title, TIIK COLONIAL I'KUIOD 25 "Poet of the Revolution." It is true thai his facil- ity led him to publish much thai ought to have been suppressed, inert 1 doggerel rhymes simply be- cause, ha yiu- cau.uhf (he ear of the public, he felt thai he must force his jaded muse, to retain his hold upon popular favor. He used to dash off his verses with astonishing rapidity, and he gave proof of his versatility by writing upon a variety of themes of passing interest and in a varying humor. He wrote not only political, satirical and humorous produc- tions, but he also wrote descriptive poems of some worth, and even essayed society verse with a con- siderable measure of success. Some of Freneau's lyrics are very good of their kind and offer unmistakable indication of the gen- uine poetic gift. The best of them are marked by originality, imagination, and real poetic feeling, and stand out clear and distinct amid the inane life- less imitations, the jingling rhymes of our Colonial versifiers. His little song "The Wild Honey-suckle" breathes the true woodland note and is redolent of the breath of spring flowers. We venture to quote it in full : "Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet ; No roving foot shall crush thee here, No busy hand provoke a tear. "By nature's self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, And planted here the guardian shade, And sent soft waters murmuring by ; Thus quietly thy summer goes, Thy days declining to repose. 26 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE "Smit with those charms, that must decay, I grieve to see your future doom ; They died nor were those flowers more gay, The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; Unpitying frosts, and autumn's power, Shall leave no vestige of this flower. "From morning's suns and evening's dews At first thy little being came ; If nothing once, you nothing lose, For when you die, you are the same ; The space between is but an hour, The short duration of a flower." Freneau's masterpiece was "The House of Night," a more pretentious poem and bolder in conception, though not happier in execution, than his "Wild Honey-suckle. " It contains some palpable blem- ishes of versification as well as of expression, but it is decidedly original and is the best thing done in verse on this side of the Atlantic during the eighteenth century. Sombre and bizarre in con- ception and weird in effect, the poem, in spirit at least, is not unlike the genius which inspired Poe's poetry. But it is a far call from Freneau to Poe. Passing over Benjamin Franklin, whom we shall discuss in a separate chapter, we would call atten- tion next to Charles Brockden Brown. Brown was a writer of such promise as to make the critic feel that he would surely have achieved some rare litep- nry distinction, had not death claimed him before he reached the meridian of life. In IJrown's tales the American school of fiction st niggled to find its first expression as a new and distinct form of creative literature. True, Brown did not succeed entirely In freeing himself from the lOr.ijlisli traditions of fiction, and his work is imperfect and, for the most Till] COLONIAL I'KUIOD 27 part, violates all the canons of literary art and good taste. Yet he deserves no little credit for his effort as a pioneer writer to break with the time-honored traditions which bound authors of his class and In portray in his novels distinctly American scenes and characters. In portraying, in his stories, Amer- ican men and women, Brown made a noteAVorthy departure ; and his example commended itself to the judgment and taste of his immediate successor, Cooper, who found in the American Indian a fit theme to engage his creative fancy and prolific pen. Brown's genius is decidedly sombre. Critics have not failed to point him out as the precursor of that acknowledged American master in the domain of the grotesque and weird, to wit, Edgar Allan Poe. The two authors certainly have much in common, though Poe was infinitely more richly endowed with imagination and far surpassed Brown in the art of literary expression. Brown's "Wieland" is his best romance and, though far removed from such a harrowing, thrilling detective story as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," it still gives evidence of a vivid and vigorous imagination and compares not unfavorably with the English fiction of its period. Aside from the promising quality of his work Brown is interesting as being the earliest example of an American who endeavored to eke out a livelihood solely by the support of his pen. He was the first professional man of letters in America, and truly his lot was a hard one ; and as an author he saw few halcyon days in his all-too-brief years. Yet Brown's pathetic example did not result in an abatement of interest in letters, on the part of young writers aspiring to literary fame. On the contrary, his self-sacrificing spirit inspired young Americans with literary aspiration to do and dare 28 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE likewise. Brown's age was, so to say, the chill, gray dawn of our national literature, and our early professional men of letters had more of light, warmth and comfort to look forward to as time wore on. For already by the hopeful products of their pen Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were beginning to give no uncertain indica- tion that the spirit of literature had not perished utterly from our western shores with the untimely death of Brown. Nay, in Philadelphia, Brown's own city, there lived and wrought a contemporary, a man of varied activity, whose reputation as editor, diplomat, scientist and author was perma- nently established in the early history of our nation and whose fame as an author especially entitles him to the distinction of first place, in point of time, among the makers of American literature. This versatile and talented man was Benjamin Franklin, whose literary accomplishments and importance as an American man of letters are outlined in the fol- lowing chapter. CHAPTER II BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Benjamin Franklin is among the most conspicu- ous figures in the early history of American letters. Indeed, in the strict sense of the term, there was no American man of letters at the time when Franklin flourished. The man wlio made the closest approach to this literary distinction was the famous divine, Cotton .Mather; and surely he is not properly enti- tled to be called a man of letters. This fact that there were no American men of letters at the time Franklin lived but emphasizes the remoteness of our Colonial history from the present. At the time of Franklin's birth in Boston (17th January, 1706), the American colonies were under the rule of Queen Anne. At the time of Franklin's birth there was but one newspaper in America, and there was not a printing press south of Philadelphia. Yet despite these unfavorable conditions Frank- lin early showed his literary bent. Franklin's father took young Benjamin from school at the tender age of ten and put him in his chandler's shop, intending ultimately to fit him for the ministry. In his father's shop the boy gave unmistakable evi- dence of his love of letters by eagerly devouring the few books in his father's meager library. Only a love of literature amounting to a passion could induce a mere lad to read and re-read such dreary, dry-as-dust theological pamphlets as were found upon the shelves of Josiah Franklin's musty library. Of the entire collection only one book "Plutarch's Lives" would possess any interest for the average boy. But young Benjamin was far from being an average boy. For what average boy would save up his few pennies, as Franklin did, in order to buy 30 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and when he had read and re-read it, sell it, and with the proceeds supplemented by his scant savings, purchase a copy of Burton's "Historical Collections?" Though his father little realized it, young Franklin was rapidly developing a taste for a more profitable employment than that of molding candles or grinding knives. When Franklin was twelve, he was apprenticed to his older brother, who was a printer. This ap- prenticeship, no doubt, had decided weight in deter- mining Franklin's subsequent career. It was while setting type in his brother James's office for the Boston (tuzctte, the second newspaper published in America, that young Benjamin began to write, pro- ducing two ballads in doggerel verse. At that time the street ballad was the main source of popu- lar information. Franklin, having written up a recent occurrence in this form, at his brother's suggestion hawked his ballads through the streets of IJoston. His father, however, disliked see- ing his son resort to this device for selling his literary wares, and so he dissuaded him from any farther attempt at ballad poetry by telling him that all such poets were beggars. There- upon Benjamin gave up the manufacture of ballads and employed his leisure moments in voraciously devouring all the books that came within his reach. So strong was his passion for reading that, as his biographer informs us, he did not scruple to per- suade a book-seller's apprentice, who was his friend, to bring him books home from the store furtively at night. These Franklin would read, sometimes sit- ting up all night in order to finish the book by morn- ing and have it returned to the store without detec- tion. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 31 During this formative period Franklin was strongly influenced by whatever he read. It is inter- est ing to observe what books exerted the greatest influence upon him. Under the influence of a book on vegetable diet which lie read, he forthwith be- came a vegetarian. On reading Xenophon's "Memor- abilia," he became a convert to the Socratic method of dispute and subsequently adopted it in discus- sion, of which he was inordinately fond. Influenced by Shaftesbury's and Collin's writings, he soon drifted into skepticism. But, beyond and above all of these, the book which bore most lasting fruit was a volume of Addison, which Franklin read again and again. It is interesting to note that this remarkable book was the third volume of the "Spectator." This book Franklin literally read, marked and inwardly di- gested. Upon it he founded his admirable prose style which is a model of clearness, terseness and force. A mere lad, he was held spellbound by the wit, humor and charm of the "Spectator." Its beauty and grace of style sank into his mind and made a never-fading impression. All the leisure hours at his disposal he devoted to this volume. He set himself exercises from it. He would take some number that especially struck his fancy, jot down the substance in rough notes and, after a few days, reproduce the thought in his own language, imita- ting the style and manner of the original as closely as possible. He would even turn the essays into verse as an exercise designed to enlarge his vocabu- lary. Nor did he neglect the arrangement of the thought. He would separate the sentences, throw 7 them together promiscuously, and then re-arrange them in the original order. In this manner Frank- lin became steeped and saturated, so to say, with 32 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE the Addisonian style. It served as the model for that succinct, lucid, nervous and vigorous style which Franklin elaborated in his own writings. Thus equipped, Franklin addressed himself to his literary work, though not yet out of his teens. He contributed a series of letters to the New England Courant, a paper printed by his brother James. The first letter was called forth by the discussion as to the virtue of inoculation as a preventive against smallpox, which discovery at that time divided the Boston public into two hostile camps. Cotton Mather was an ardent advocate of inoculation. The Courant maintained that inoculation was an inven- tion of the devil. When the discussion was at its height, Franklin wrote an article and modestly thrust it under the door of the Courant office at night, in the vague hope that it might find its way into the columns of that paper. The article was published, and while there is no record of it pre- served, it is reasonable to suppose that it was the first of the famous Silence Dogood letters which Franklin contributed to the Courant. The authorship of the Dogood letters was not re- vealed at the time of their publication. They were first ascribed to Franklin in Parton's biography. Franklin, however, claims the Dogood papers in some notes intended for his "Autobiography." These papers are a noteworthy production for a mere boy. They reflect the spirit and style of the "Spectator" in a striking way. They exhibit the same playful humor and grace of style. The papers include a variety of composition, letters, criti- cisms and even dreams. Shortly after the publication of the Dogood papers Franklin left I Jos ton, setting out for New York, and ultimately made his way to Philadel- BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 33 phi;i. Every one is familiar with the graphic sketch the author himself gives in his "Autobiography," of his arrival in the Quaker City, seeking employment, and with barely enough money in his pocket to buy him a loaf of bread for breakfast. From Philadel- phia Franklin went on a fooFs errand to London. After sore disappointment in his mission he found work in London as a printer. Here while setting type for Wallaston's "Religion of Nature Delinea- ted," Franklin was inspired, from sheer disgust with the argument of that treatise, to write a refu- tation. The result was the trivial pamphlet, "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." Franklin afterwards repented of this stupid effort and endeavored to suppress the pam- phlet. It is an atheistic production and does not contribute a whit to its author's reputation. While leading an immoral life in the great British metropolis Franklin set out for Philadelphia, at the instance of a quondam Bristol merchant, who engaged him as a clerk in his Philadelphia store. Upon the death of his employer he secured work as a printer and continued at this trade afterwards, till he made his fortune and retired from business. At first he was employed by a printing house ; after- wards he set up a printing house of his own in part- nership with his old friend Meredith. This event marked the turn of Franklin's fortune. He con- ceived the idea of publishing a newspaper in con- nection with his printing house. At that time there was only one newspaper in America outside of Bos- ton. This was the Weekly Mercury, published by one Bradford, in Philadelphia. Franklin's plan of establishing a new sheet leaked out, somehow, and his rival Keimer forestalled his move in issuing, on December 28, 1728, the first number of the Univer- 34 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE sal Instructor in All Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette. To checkmate this new ven- ture of his rival printing house, Franklin immedi- ately began in the Mercury a long series of essays under the pen-name of the "Busybody/' written after the fashion of the Dogood papers. The up- shot of the matter was that, with the fortieth num- ber of the Universal Instructor and the Pennsyl- vania Gazette, the paper passed into Franklin's hands. The Busybody papers are of the nature of satire. They reflect, presumably, in an accurate manner the character of the times, the foibles and failings of Busybody's fellow-countrymen. The first paper sets forth the purpose of Busybody, viz., to censure the growing vices of the people, to lecture them on politics and morality, and to lead them to an appre- ciation of good literature by giving excerpts from the best books. The second paper is a diatribe directed against those who sin against good taste by indulging in excessive laughter on the slightest provocation, or who are guilty of any other folly equally offensive to good breeding. The third paper elicited a spirited reply from his old rival Keimer, in the form of a tract entitled "A Touch of the Times." To this Franklin published a rejoinder ridiculing Keimer. This was followed up by a paper denouncing impostors and mountebanks and exposing the folly of seeking the buried treasures of pirates. This was probably the last paper from Franklin's pen to the Busybody series. The rest were inn inly from the pen of Breintnal. It is evident from a comparison of the Busybody papers with the "Spectator" that Franklin took his cue in these essays from Addison. To be sure, it is a far cry from the Busybody essays to the "Spectator" BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 35 numbers, and the resemblance is only remote. Still, it is significant that there is a resemblance, however remote. In Franklin's essays, as in the "Specta- tor" papers, there is no excess of imagery, and the language is plain, simple, terse and direct. The words used are familiar Anglo-Saxon terms, such as are readily understood. The meaning is as clear as daylight and admits of no ambiguity. To this simplicity of language are wedded a keen wit and a racy humor and a certain vigor of style, which give peculiar force and cogency to these Busybody essays. From the Busybody papers Franklin next turned his attention to the all-absorbing question of the hour, viz., the currency question. Franklin pre- sented his views in a vigorous and cogent pamphlet, "A Modest Inquiry Into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." Judged by present-day notions this pamphlet was false political economy. Yet it carried conviction to Franklin's contemporaries and resulted in a large order for paper money to be executed by his printing house, which proved "a very profitable job and a great help," in the lan- guage of the "Autobiography." After the Pennsylvania Gazette came into Frank- lin's hands, the moribund journal took a new lease on life and soon developed into a flourishing semi- weekly. Franklin used the Gazette as the medium for his reflections and criticisms on contemporary doings and happenings, and contributed liberally to its columns. Occasionally, he even ventured into verse, discarding prose as inadequate to his pur- pose. The most notable example of verse he con- tributed to the columns of his Gazette is his long poem, entitled "David's Lamentation Over the Death of Saul and Jonathan." This is a close 36 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE paraphrase of the Scriptural narrative and was written about the time when Franklin, abandoning his atheistic views, formulated a liturgy for his own use, founded the Junto and penned his famous epi- taph. In 1732 there came from the press of Philadelphia three noteworthy publications, all bearing Frank- lin's imprint. The first was the Philadelphische Zeitung, the first German newspaper printed in America; the second was "The Honour of the Gout"; the third was "Poor Richard's Almanac." Of these the last, being by far the most important from the point of view of the present study, de- serves especial mention. The "Poor Richard's Almanac" had its origin in the popular demand for almanacs in the American Colonies, as in the mother country at that time. This demand is indicated by the fact that the first piece of printing done in the Middle States and the second done in America were almanacs. The American almanac-makers followed the precedent set by their English contemporaries, of including a hodge-podge of irrelevant matter, in addition to the calendar and allied subjects which find a legitimate place in an almanac. Franklin conformed scrupu- lously to the traditions of the philomaths even down to the detail of heaping liberal abuse upon the work of rival almanac-makers. He chose for his nom de pi nine "Richard Saunders," a philomath who, for a long time, was editor of the Apollo Anglicanus. "Poor Robin," an English comic almanac which was so indecent as utterly to shock modern tastes, fur- nished Franklin the general plan for his "Poor Richard's Almanac." From this clue Franklin pro- duced the first mi in her of his world-famous "Poor Richard" in October, 1732. The venture proved a BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 37 phenomenal success and the almanac went like wildfire. It is the prefaces to the "Poor Richard Almanac" which arrest our attention especially. The pref- aces, as they appeared from year to year, constitute an admirable piece of prose fiction. They are shot through with a rich vein of rollicking humor and with a vivacity that quickens the reader's interest and entertainment. It is here that we become ac- quainted with two characters of Franklin's creative imagination, Richard Saunders and his wife Bridget, whose portrayal is almost as artistic and complete as that of any two characters in the entire domain of English fiction in those times. The au- thor shows a rare acquaintance with human nature in his conception of these characters and his execu- tion leaves little to be desired in definition and dis- tinctness of outline. The broad humor is perhaps somewhat too coarse for modern tastes. But it must be borne in mind in this connection that the standards of literature in the eighteenth century are different from those of the twentieth. It is, therefore, conceivable that Franklin's coarse humor, which perhaps offends modern tastes, was not objec- tionable to his contemporaries. The humor of "Poor Richard," however, was not restricted to the preface. On the contrary, it ap- pears throughout the whole book, everywhere reliev- ing the monotony of the prognostications, eclipses, calendars, and so forth. For instance, on one page is found this diverting prognostication, for the edi- fication of sailors: "August, 1739. Ships sailing down the Delaware Bay this month shall hear at ten leagues' distance a confused rattling noise like a swarm of hail on a cake of ice. Don't be fright- ened, good passengers. The sailors can inform you 38 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE that it is nothing but Lower County teeth in the ague. In a southerly wind you may hear it in Philadelphia/' Sometimes amusement is afforded by the witty turn given a maxim, as "Never take a wife till you have a house (and a fire) to put her in." Franklin, like other philomaths, adopted the plan of inserting in his almanac pithy, striking sayings and maxims between the remarkable days of the calendar. In this manner he interlarded the cal- endar with bits of the condensed wisdom of the ages. These maxims he designed to encourage and incul- cate principles of thrift, industry and honesty. He introduced this feature as a means of dissemi- nating profitable instruction among the common people, after "Poor Richard" became so widely cir- culated. It may be worth while to quote a few of these proverbial sentences as illustrating Franklin's felicity at phrase-coining no less than his wisdom in inculcating principles of probity and virtue among the common people, many of whom read no other book than "Poor Richard." "It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright." "Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee." "Fools make feasts and wise men eat them." "The rotten apple spoils his com- panion." "If you would have your business done, go; if not, send." "God heals and the doctor takes the fee." "Necessity never made a good bargain/' "Marry your sons when you will, your daughters when you can." These pithy sentences, however, were not all the product of Franklin's own inven- tion. Many of them he borrowed from other alma- nac-makers. But when he borrowed a trite proverb, he recast it in his own imagination and sent it forth with a fresh stamp upon it from the die of his own invention. Such maxims afterwards BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 39 passed as new coins and formed not the least ele- ment in the success of "Poor Richard." Moreover, "Poor Richard" contains some of the best short pieces of Franklin's writings. Here may be mentioned "Father Abraham's Address," a mas- terpiece of its kind. This is a homily which "Poor Richard" put into the mouth of a sensible old man, familiarly known as Father. Abraham, and purport- ing to be delivered at an auction toward the close of the French and Indian War, when the outlook for the future was exceedingly gloomy during those memorable lean years. The effect of this brief paper on the sale of the Almanac was magnetic. It at- tracted hosts of readers to "Poor Richard." The popular demand for the Almanac was so great in consequence of "Father Abraham's Address" that, when the increased issue was exhausted, the news- papers published the "Address" again and again to satisfy the clamor. Franklin himself published it as a broadside. His nephew, of Boston, printed it in pamphlet form and sent it broadcast through the land. It crossed the Atlantic and was widely circu- lated in Europe under the caption, "The Way to Wealth." It has been translated into all the lan- guages of the Continent, and been twenty-seven times reprinted as a pamphlet in England, to say nothing of the numerous times it has been issued as a broadside in that country. Under the title "La Science du Bonhomme Richard" it has been printed at least thirty times in France. It is, no doubt, the most popular piece of literature produced in the American colonies, if translation into foreign tongues is any test of popularity. At the approach of the American Revolution Franklin was sent to England as a special repre- sentative of the province of Pennsylvania and sub- 40 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE sequently resided abroad most of the time. He was now deeply interested in politics and scientific re- search. He had little time left for mere literature. In fact, he never cared at any time of his life for literary fame, and was so indifferent to it as never to sign his name to anything he published. Amid his manifold duties as a diplomat he found time to write pamphlets on the burning questions of the day. His undaunted courage in those dark days of the Eevolution inspired the drooping spirits of the struggling colonists, and led them on to a suc- cessful issue. While abroad, besides his activities in politics, diplomacy and science, he undertook to write a history of his own life, the longest and most interesting of all his works. It was with great diffidence that Franklin under- took his "Autobiography." The five opening chap- ters were written during a visit to the Bishop St. Asaph, at Twyford, in 1771. The manuscript was then put aside, and the author's attention was next directed to political matters of a more pressing nature. When Franklin returned to America he brought the unfinished manuscript home with him. Here he left it, in care of his friend Galloway, when he went back to Europe on his French mission, in 1776. Galloway, meanwhile, turned royalist and his estate being confiscated, the precious manu- script fell into the hands of a Quaker friend and admirer of the author, who made a careful copy and forwarded the original to Franklin, at Passy, with the urgent request that he continue and finish so delightful and profitable a piece of work. Still Franklin was loath to resume the "Autobiography/ 1 though glad to recover the manuscript long given up for lost. He was busy with affairs of state and his health was now poor; and these reasons induced r.KX.I A.MIN FRANKLIN 41 him to postpone the task. At length, after being re- peatedly urged and enlrealed by his friends, he took up the "Autobiography" again, in 1788, but only to bring it down to the year 1757. Here he left off a second time and sent a copy to several of his friends and the original to M. le Veillard and Rochefou- cauld-Liancourt at Paris. Franklin died shortly after this, and his "Autobiography" was of course left unfinished. The manuscript met with many strange adventures before the memoirs were pub- lished first in a French translation by Buisson, in Paris, in 1791. This version had little to commend it to public favor. It was fragmentary, many pas- sages being omitted or garbled, and the whole work was little better than a travesty upon the genuine memoirs. Then after long reprehensible delay and many vicissitudes the "Autobiography" was first properly published in the Bigelow edition. The "Autobiography," even in its incomplete form, is by far the most important contribution Franklin made to American literature. Upon it reposes, in the main, his claim to a conspicuous place among American men of letters. As an auto- biography it is a model and has proved extremely popular ever since its publication. An idea of its popularity may be formed from the fact that in America alone the work has been republished up- wards of fifty times. It is the general verdict of critics that it is the best autobiography in the lan- guage. As literature it deserves to rank with "Robinson Crusoe." Franklin was not a voluminous author. Yet his collected works make a considerable bulk. Few writers have suffered more at the hands of their friends than has Franklin. The excessive zeal of his editors has led them to include too much of mere 42 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE ephemera in his works. Buisson, Price, Temple, Franklin Sparks, Parton, Bigelow and all the other editors after them have been overzealous to make their respective editions all-inclusive and definitive. The result is, there is much included in Franklin's collected works which the author himself never en- tertained the remotest idea of having attributed to him. Much of what makes up the bulk of his writings is mere padding, "remarks," "observa- tions," "essays," "notes," which ought, in justice to the author's reputation, to be eliminated. In almost all the editions Franklin is made to stand father to many a brief note or essay which he would have been very reluctant to acknowledge in print. Some future editor would enhance Franklin's fame as a writer if only he would eliminate everything that is of a trivial and ephemeral nature and in- clude such of his writings as are of merit and in- terest and are designed to perpetuate his name as a man of letters. It is true this plan would mate- rially reduce the size of his collected works; but it would, at the same time, greatly enhance their value. Such an edition would, of course, include the "Speech of Miss Polly Baker Before a Court of Judicature in New England," "The Witch Trial at Mount Holly," "Advice to a Young Tradesman," "Father Abraham's Speech," "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America," "Dialogue with the Gout," "The Ephemera," "The Petition of the Left Hand," "Martin's Account of His Consulship," "The Autobiography," the Prefaces to the Alma- nacs, the best essays from tho -ra- JAMES FENIMOUE COOPER 87 pliy of the country around Poston, in the hope of making his story accurate in every detail. The virtue of historical accuracy "Lionel Lincoln" may possess; but it lacks imagination, and the want of this prime essential in the romance degrades it as an artistic production below the level of mere mediocrity to that of flat failure. A glaring defect of the story is seen in the fact that the characters act from insufficient motive. As a novelist, Cooper is especially vulnerable on this score. His charac- ters are not clearly defined. Those in the story under discussion appear stilted and under consid- erable restraint in their intercourse with one an- other. They lack grace and freedom of action, and seem like puppets. The redeeming quality of "Lionel Lincoln" is the conceded excellence of the battle scenes, which contribute much to the reader's interest to atone for the want of life and action in the characters. The failure of "Lionel Lincoln" was fully offset, however, by the phenomenal success of the novel that followed it "The Last of the Mohicans." This is regarded by many critics as the best of the famous "Leather-Stocking" series, and perhaps the finest story Cooper ever wrote. Certainly it is true that of all Cooper's novels "The Last of the Mohi- cans" is the novel, preeminently, in which the inter- est is sustained throughout, and the tale is replete with excitement, bristling with incident and action. Unlike some of its author's stories, "The Last of the Mohicans" does not contain those dreary wastes of verbiage here and there which tax the reader's at- tention. On the contrary, this tale holds the read- er's rapt attention from beginning to end, without interruption. But the book, to use a somewhat 88 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE hackneyed phrase, is not faultily faultless. It, too, shows, in some measure, its author's characteristic defect of insufficiency of motive for action and lack of precision in characterization. But these draw- backs do not appreciably detract from the engaging, unflagging interest of the story, and they are not generally noticed except by the critical eye on the close hunt for flaws. "The Last of the Mohicans, 57 as compared with "The Pioneers," represents Leather-Stocking as greatly advanced in dignity and strength of charac- ter. In "The Pioneers" he is portrayed as an irri- table, petulant, ignorant old man, moving farther and farther away from civilization, into the interior of the trackless forests, and deploring the inevitable results of the march of progress. In "The Last of the Mohicans," on the other hand, his weaknesses are no longer emphasized, while the strong points of the bold adventurer's character are made to stand out in bold relief. He remains, to be sure, the same fearless, observant scout, but his senses have grown much more acute and his resources are a match for any situation, however perilous. This clever idealization and delineation of the intrepid hunter is a notable feature of "The Last of the Mohicans," and remains a great achievement in American literature. The delineation of the Indian character in Chingachook and Uncas, on the con- trary, is not regarded as quite so successful an achievement. Still Cooper's conception of the In- dian character, as elaborated in this and other novels of the Leather- Stocking series, has been almost universally adopted, and has entered perma- nently into the popular imagination. The publication of "The Last of the Mohicans" raised Cooper's popularity to its high- water mark. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 89 His novels now appeared simultaneously in Amer- ica and England. His reputation as a writer of fiction was unrivaled in America, and was sur- passed in Europe only by that of Scott, the Wizard of the North. The English, however, were not so enthusiastic in their admiration as the French. Yet even in England some critics were unbounded in their praise, and considered Cooper's novels as no whit inferior to the romances of Scott. "Have you read the American novels?" asked Mary Russell Mitford, herself a novelist of no mean repute, of a friend of hers, in 1842. "In my mind," con- tinued she, "they are as good as anything Sir Wal- ter ever wrote. He has opened fresh ground, too (if one may so say of the sea). No one but Smol- lett has ever attempted to delineate the naval char- acter; and then his novels are so coarse and hard. Now this has the same truth and power with a deep, grand feeling. . . . Imagine the author's bold- ness in taking Paul Jones for a hero, and his power in making one care for him ! I envy the Americans their Mr. Cooper. . . . There is a certain Long Tom who appears to me the finest thing since Par- son Adams." Referring particularly to "The Last of the Mohicans," she remarked subsequently, in a letter to Haydon: "I like it better than any of Scott's, except the first three and 'The Heart of Midlothian.' ' Such golden opinions as these, it need hardly be observed, were not generally current and openly expressed in England. It would have been re- garded as literary heresy for the English press to speak of Cooper as the peer of Sir Walter Scott. Indeed, the professional critics in Great Britain, on account of certain traditional prejudices, were rather slow to render Cooper his due meed of 90 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE praise. They did not venture openely to concede his merit until his power was everywhere freely ac- knowledged on the Continent as well as in America. The reason, presumably, is that Cooper displayed very little regard for English prejudices in the choice of his subjects for literary treatment, often selecting themes that were positively distasteful and offensive to them, as in "The Spy" and "The Pilot." Of American writers Irving was far more acceptable to English readers than Cooper. In fact, Irving was a favorite with them. Compari- sons of course are proverbially odious (sometimes also odorous, as Mrs. Malaprop puts it) ; and this is not the place to compare these two gifted American authors. Still, in the realm of romance, compari- son between Cooper and Irving would greatly re- dound, beyond all question, to the credit of the former. This, however, is not intended to the dis- paragement of Irving, who, in this, as well as in other departments, rendered generous and enduring service to American letters. Cooper sailed for Europe in 1826 when he was at the height of his fame. During his residence abroad his literary activity was incessant. "The Prairie," "The Bed Rover," "The Wept of Wisli- ton-Wish," and "The Water Witch" followed one another in quick succession, and attest his industry. These stories all portray scenes and characters dis- tinctively American, and were in the vein of his former fiction. "The Prairie" is pervaded with a spirit of submission and lacks the bustle and excite- ment that characterized its predecessor in the Leather-Stocking series. The scenes and characters are enveloped in an atmosphere of grandeur and solitude such as \\e may imagine tilled I lie primitive forests when the lonely white man pushed his way ,i A.MI:S ri:.\iMouK rooriii; 91 through their pathless domains. Natty Bumpo, or Leather-Stocking, is represented with his same unfaltering resolution and dauntless courage and woodland era ft withal, forging his way farther and farther from the stir and din of the settlements and becoming more and more resigned in his old age to the advance of civilization which was destined to destroy utterly the "majestic solitude of nature" and make it contribute to man's comfort and luxury. "The Red Rover" fully maintained its author's reputation as a writer of sea stories. Taken as a whole, it is probably the best thing Cooper ever did of its special kind of fiction. But "The Wept of Wishton-Wish," the very title is perplexing and altogether infelicitous, was not a success. In this tale Cooper attempted to delineate the Puritan character of New England, which was beyond the breadth of his sympathy, and the attempt proved abortive. "The Wept of Wish ton-Wish" may there- fore be passed over as a story of little merit, which did not enhance its author's reputation. If all of Cooper's novels had been like the last two of this group, he would never have won the distinguishing soubriquet, "the American Scott." Cooper's halcyon days were now fast approach- ing an end. The decade of his life from 1830 to 1840 was a period of vexatious stress and strain, when his popularity passed under a shadow and gave place to persistent misrepresentation and re- lentless calumny. This was not without its influ- ence upon the subsequent productions of his pen. The political turmoil in Europe engrossed his at- tention and lent color to his imagination. His feel- ings are reflected in his next three stories "The Bravo," "The Heideninauer," "The Headsman" 92 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE all of which were indebted to the political condi- tions in the Old World for their inspiration. They belong to that class of fiction known as the purpose novel, of which but few brilliant examples have ever been written. Cooper's purpose in these novels was to exalt republican institutions to the disadvantage of monarchical. The doctrine is sound enough. But Cooper's novels met with a cool reception at home as well as abroad. Cooper himself, becoming embroiled in a political contro- versy, soon returned to his native land a disgusted and embittered, but not a wiser, man. He vented his feelings in a novel written in a satiric vein and entitled "The Monikin." It fell flat, a sad failure. Cooper thereupon published a series of ten volumes of travels "Sketches of Switzerland" and "Glean- ings in Europe." These contain some fine descrip- tive passages interspersed with the author's sage reflections upon the respective countries visited. The travels were followed by two volumes of very unequal value "Homeward Bound" and "Home as Found." These are of the nature of novels, and the first, as the title implies, has its scenes laid upon the water, and is a tolerable story. The second is a decidedly unfortunate book in consequence of its drastic censure of the American people, and worked its author irreparable damage. It was this unto- ward book that brought down a storm of hostile criticism upon Cooper's head, utterly undermining his quondam popularity. During Cooper's war with the American press appeared his excellent "History of the Navy" a capital piece of historical research. This book never received the attention and credit it richly deserved because of the intense hatred and odium that Cooper, by his indiscreet conduct, had incurred in the public estimation. In- JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 93 deed, its appearance was but the signal for a re- newal of those scathing, envenomed attacks which the press made upon the author. The bitter controversy and the resulting dis favor, far from silencing Cooper, seemed rather to stimulate his productivity, so that the period from 1840 to 1845 was the most fecund of his creative genius. "The Pathfinder" and "The Deerslayer," representing to a conspicuous degree the very best in Cooper's literary art, are both products of this period. These form the concluding volumes of the "Leather-Stocking" series and, for artistic creation and finish, mark the culmination of Cooper's skill and power, in the opinion of his biographer, Profes- sor Lounsbury. They are certainly up to their author's early achievements and, together with the former stories of the series, form a complete history of the fitful, eventful life of Natty Bumpo the noblest creation of Cooper's imagination. "It is beautiful, it is grand," said Balzac to a friend in reference to "The Pathfinder." "Its interest is tre- mendous. He surely owed us this masterpiece after the last two or three rhapsodies he has been giving us. You must read it. I know no one in the world, save Walter Scott, who has risen to that grandeur and serenity of colors." Yet notwithstanding the "unquestionable worth of "The Pathfinder" and "The Deerslayer," the American Press, whenever it noticed them, simply did so to decry and disparage them, so intense were the animosity and malignity of the editors as a class toward Cooper. After the triumph achieved in these last two novels, Cooper reverted to his love for the sea and gave to the world two more sea stories "The Two Admirals" and "Wing and Wing." Of these the first is by far the better tale, and is really the last of Cooper's numer- 94 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE ous novels it is worth while specifically to mention in this imperfect sketch. Cooper is a strikingly unequal author. He at- tempted to cover a wide range from sea to forest. As long as he kept within the realm of his imagina- tion, he succeeded admirably. But when he trans- cended these bounds and wrote for an ulterior purpose, his inspiration deserted him completely, and the result was a dismal failure. Among his thirty-four distinct works of fiction are included eight fine novels which will amply repay the reader. These are the five Leather-Stocking Tales, the two sea stories, "The Pilot" and "The Red Kover," and the Revolutionary tale, "The Spy." The remaining novels, though they contain some brilliant bits of description scattered through them here and there, are hardly worth the laborious effort of reading them. Cooper as a writer has some glaring defects, such as the prolixity and tedium of his introduc- tions, his want of definite characterization, the weakness of his dialogue, the thinness of his plot, and his insufficiency of motive for action. More- over, his novels show unmistakable signs of haste and immature workmanship both in matter and manner. His language, too, is not above criticism. He appears to have experienced little concern for the beauty of style, although he doubtless appre- ciated this grace. These are the faults and blemishes in Cooper which have led to an undue depreciation of his works by the critics. With those of untrained and uncultivated taste, with the great unwashed, he remains still a favorite author. Cooper's forte, jxir c.rccltcnce, is his superior de- scriptive power. He is a master in the realm of description, and has greatly enriched our literature by his copious pages. Cooper occupies a unique .IA.MKS FKXIMOKK COOl'KK 95 place a in on American men of letters, also, as the discoverer of a new region of romance, which he worked with brilliant success. His romances even rivaled those of Scott, and afforded genuine delight to countless readers of two continents. They cast a spell over such an undisputed master of fiction as Balzac, who paid a glowing tribute to Cooper's creative imagination and power of description, ranking him with Scott. Surely it required genius to produce work of this class and to create such imaginative characters as Natty Bumpo and Long Tom Coffin. COOPER THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (OPENING CHAPTER). Mine ear Is open and my heart prepared : The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold. Say, is my kingdom lost? SHAKESPEARE, King Richard II., III. ii. 93. It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilder- ness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hos- tile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every diffi- culty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lonely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe. Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies between the waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes. JAMES FENIMORE COOPKK 97 The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of tin* combatants were too obvious to be neg- lected. The lengthened sheet of the Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the borders of the neighboring province of New York, form- ing a natural passage across half the distance that the French were compelled to master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern termination, it re- ceived the contributions of another lake, whose waters were so limpid as to have been exclusively selected by the Jesuit missionaries to perform the typical purifica- tion of baptism, and to obtain for it the title of lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less zealous English thought they conferred a sufficient honor on its unsul- lied fountains, when they bestowed the name of their reigning prince, the second of the house of Hanover. The two united to rob the untutored possessors of its wooded scenery of their native right to perpetuate its original appellation of "Horican." Winding its way among countless islands, and im- bedded in mountains, the "holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still further to the south. With the high plain that there interposed itself to the further passage of the water, commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the adventurer to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide. While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoy- ance, the restless- enterprise of the French even at- tempted the distant and difficult gorges of the Alle- ghany, it may easily be imagined that their proverbial acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the district we have just described. It became, em- phatically, the bloody arena, in which most of the bat- tles for the mastery of the colonies were contested. Forts were erected at the different points that com- manded the facilities of the route, and were taken and 98 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE retaken, rased and rebuilt, as victory alighted on the hostile banners. While the husbandman shrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer boundaries of the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those that had often disposed of the sceptres of the mother countries were seen to bury themselves in these forests, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands, that were haggard with care, or dejected by de- feat. Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region, its forests were alive with men ; its shades and glens rang with the sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw back the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant and reck- less youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to slumber in a long night of forgetfulness. It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to retain. The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of energy in her councils at home, had low- ered the character of Great Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed by the talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence of self-respect. In this mor- tifying abasement, the colonists, though innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible an army led by a chief who had boon selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his niro military endowments disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Vir- ginia hoy, whose riper fjimo has since dilVnscd itself, with the steady intluence of moral truth, to the utter- JA.MKS FKMMOKi: COOI'KK 99 most confines of Christendom. A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists be- lieved that the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific character of their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still vivid in their recollections ; nor was there any ear in the provinces so deaf as not to have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some fearful tale of midnight murder, in which the natives of the forests were the principal and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited traveler related the hazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of the timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even at those chil- dren which slumbered within the security of the largest towns. In short, the magnifying influence of fear be- gan to set at naught the calculations of reason, and to render those who should have remembered their man- hood, the slaves of the basest of passions. Even the most confident and the stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the contest was becoming doubtful; and that abject class was hourly increasing in numbers, who thought they foresaw all the possessions of the English crown in America subdued by their Christian foes, or laid waste by the inroads of their relentless allies. When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort which covered the southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an army "numerous as the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted with more of the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy that a warrior should feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his blow. The news had been brought, towards the decline of a day in mid- summer, by an Indian runner, who also bore an urgent 100 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE request from Munro, the commander of a work on the shore of the "holy lake," for a speedy and powerful reinforcement. It has already been mentioned that the distance between these two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path, which originally formed their line of communication, had been widened for the pas- sage of wagons; so that the distance which had been travelled by the son of the forest in two hours might easily be effected by a detachment of troops, with their necessary baggage, between the rising and setting of a summer sun. The loyal servants of the British crown had given to one of these forest fastnesses the name of William Henry, and to the other that of Fort Edward ; calling each after a favorite prince of the reigning family. The veteran Scotchman just named held the first, with a regiment of regulars and a few provincials ; a force really by far too small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, how- ever, lay General Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern provinces, with a body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the several de- tachments of his command, this officer might have ar- rayed nearly double that number of combatants- against the enterprising Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his reinforcements, with an army but little su- perior in numbers. But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and men appeared better disposed to wait the approach of their formidable antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow on their advance. After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little aba ted, a rumor was spread Ihrmigh the entrenched camp, which stretched along the margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of on I works to the body of the fort itself, that a chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn, for William Henry, the JAM i-:s FKMMOIM: coon: 1 ; :oi post at the northern extremity of the portage. That which at first was- only rumor soon became certainty, as orders passed from I ho quarters of the commander- in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this service, to prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the intention of Webb now vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces succeeded. The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrange- ments with a deliberation that scorned every appear- ance of haste ; though his sober lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently betrayed that he had no very strong pro- fessional relish for the as yet untried and dreaded war- fare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in a flood of glory, behind the distant western hills, and as dark- ness drew its veil around the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished ; the last light finally disap- peared from the log cabin of some officer ; the trees cast their deeper shadows over the mounds- and the rippling stream, and a silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which reigned in the vast forest by which it was environed. According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the army was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling echoes were heard issu- ing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista of the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some tall pines of the vicinity on the opening bright- ness of a soft and cloudless eastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the meanest soldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour. The simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the regular and trained hire- lings of the king marched with haughtiness to the right of the line, the less pretending colonists took their humbler position on its left, with a docility that long 1Q2 OF AMERICAN LITERATURE practice had rendered easy. The scouts departed; strong guards preceded and followed the lumbering vehicles' that bore the baggage; and before the gray light of the morning was mellowed by the rays of the sun, the main body of the combatants wheeled into column, and left the encampment with a show of high military bearing, that served to drown the slumbering apprehensions of many a novice, who was now about to make his first essay in arms. While in view of their admiring comrades, the same proud front and ordered array was observed, until the notes of their fifes grow- ing fainter in distance, the forest at length appeared to swallow up the living mass which had slowly entered its bosom. The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to be borne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had already disap- peared in pursuit ; but there still remained the signs of another departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and accommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds, who were known to guard the person of the English general. At this spot were gath- ered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner which showed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of females, of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds of the country. A third wore the trappings and arms of an officer of the staff ; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the traveling mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted for the reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already awaiting the pleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance from this unusual show were gathered divers groups of curious idlers; some admiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger, and others gnziiig at the preparations, with the dull wonder of vulgar curi- osity. There was one man, however, who, by his- coun- tenance and actions, formed a marked exception to those who composed the latter class of spectators, being neither idle, nor seemingly very ignorant. CHAPTER V EDGAR ALLAN POE In the history of American authors there probably not been a life of more pathetic interest than that of Edgar Allan Poe. Indeed, misfortune scc'ins to have pursued him to his grave; and even after his death his memory was unmercifully tra- duced. Griswold's spiteful and vicious attack in the memoir prefixed to his edition of Poe's works set the fashion, which, except in rare instances, has been followed somewhat blindly. But here and there a few brave writers have dared to offer a word in defence, and to state the facts, even at the risk of being voted biased and narrow of view. Some essayists, however, emboldened by these sporadic efforts, have recoiled to the other extreme, and by their unbounded admiration of everything that came from Poe's pen have done his cause quite as much harm as those who shamefully defame him. Needless to say, somewhere between these two ex- tremes lies the region of truth. Wholesome advice is contained in the maxim Ne quid nimis; and this motto will furnish us a safe guide in literary as well as in political controversies. It is wellnigh impossible to give a just and cor- rect estimate of an author either during his life or i in mediately after his death. Proximity to a beau- tiful landscape distorts our view, and prevents our receiving a correct and adequate impression of its beauty. We must get the proper perspective and view the landscape from a point not too near, on 104 MAKERS OP AMERICAN LITERATURE the one hand, or too remote, on the other. Surely, then, after the lapse of half a century we may turn our glass upon Poe, in the hope of obtaining a fairer and more adequate view of the author's genius than was possible on the part of his contemporaries. Poe's detractors have indicted him on the charge of gross immorality. To be more specific, they have said that he was an habitual drunkard, an ingrate, a scoffer, and a libertine. Now, it is not the purpose of this paper to defend Poe against the charge of occasional drunkenness. Not even his most ardent admirers, unless so utterly biased as to be incapable of appreciating an established fact, Avould presumably attempt to exonerate him from this accusation. But while it is true that Poe in- dulged all too freely his convivial passion, it is equally true that he endeavored to abstain, and that he actually did abstain, from such indulgence some- times for several months in succession. Like many others, however, he had been reared in a household where liberal potations seem to have been encour- aged, or, at all events, not forbidden. Poe, unfor- tunately, inherited from his parents, who were stage people, a lack of self-control; and it was against this inherited weakness and deficiency in will-power that he fought with varying success and failure all his mature years, until at last he yielded and sank down in utter despair. Little need be said in reply to the other specific charges. The conviction has grown upon us, after a careful study of his life and works, that, although at times he seemed to show but scant appreciation of the kindnesses bestowed upon him by some of his friends, Poe nevertheless was not an ingrate. He had many friends, who, when after his death an attempt was made by his enemies to plant thorns I:IH;AU ALLAN ioi<; 105 upon his grave, interposed and themselves planted roses there. We do not believe Poe was a scoffer. Nor, on the other hand, do we think that he had any deep and abiding religious convictions, or that he ever drew much comfort from his religion. In ref- erence to the last count in the indictment, we feel, after reading his biography, that few men have ever proved more devoted and faithful husbands than did Poe to his beautiful but frail Virginia. Upon the evidence of Mrs. Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, his conjugal relations were entirely free from every discordant element; and his untiring devotion to his wife in her last lingering illness was as beauti- ful as it was pathetic. Moreover, there is not the slightest suggestion of immorality in any poem or story which Poe wrote. His works are as chaste as an icicle. This is far more than can be said of much of our present-day fiction. Poe's biographers are not agreed as to some of the events in his life. Much of the uncertainty concerning him is to be charged to Poe himself, for his own autobiographical statements were not always consistent, and these discrepancies he never satisfactorily explained. Yet his recent biogra- phers, especially Woodberry and Harrison, by dili- gent and thorough investigation, have cleared up a number of points in his life which before were in dispute. Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. On his father's side he traced his ancestry back to an Italian family of the tenth century that had settled in Normandy and that later removed, successively, to England, Wales and Ireland. But Edgar's im- mediate ancestors on the spear side of the house had settled in Maryland, while on the spindle side they were still English. His father was David Poe 106 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE and his mother Elizabeth Arnold, both of whom followed the stage as a profession. They were filling an engagement at the Federal Street, Thea- tre, Boston, when Edgar was born. The parents both died before Edgar was two years old, and the boy with an elder brother and a younger sister were left objects of charity in Richmond, Virginia, where the family had been strailded. Edgar was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy tobacconist of Rich- mond, whose wife took a fancy to the bright child, and he was reared in comfort and affluence. In 1815 the Allans visited England, taking young Edgar with them, and they remained there for five years and put Edgar to school at Stoke Newington. When the family returned to Richmond, Edgar was sent to a local academy, where he attained profi- ciency in languages and exhibited special aptitude for verse-writing. He also showed considerable fondness for outdoor exercises and was recognized as a good athlete. In February, 1826, Poe matriculated at the Uni- versity of Virginia, recently founded, and there he made satisfactory progress in his studies. But he was there associated, unfortunately, with many dissipated students and himself lost heavy sums of money at cards, thereby incurring considerable debts. These his god-father refused flatly to pay and, moreover, summarily removed young Toe from the institution. Edgar then returned to Richmond, smarting under his disgrace chiefly because he was thus forced to leave his debts of honor unpaid, and was placed in Mr. Allan's counting-room. lint this prosaic occupation proved altogether uncongenial to the prospective poet, as was (o be expected; and so resenting such treatment, he deserted his foster- EDGAK ALLAN POE 107 father's roof and shook the dust of Richmond from his foot, to inako his own way in the cold world. ^Yo next find Poe in Boston, where on May 26, lSi'7, under an assumed name E. A. Perry he en- listed in the United States Army. However, dur- ing his sojourn in Boston he published anonymously his first volume of poetry, "Tamerlane and Other Poems." In the autumn he was transferred to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, and later to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. It was while he was sorving at this last-named post that a reconciliation was effected with Mr. Allan, who provided a substi- tute for his errant foster-son and secured him a cadet appointment at West Point. Young Poe entered the Academy July 1, 1830, but the rigid discipline of that renowned institute was far too exacting for so restless and wayward a youth as Poe, who chafed under its martinet life. He de- sired to resign, but Mr. Allan would not consent to this ; so he wilfully neglected his duties, in order to facilitate his early dismissal, which occurred in January, 1831. Poe thereupon made his way to New York and published a second volume of verse, entitling it sim- ply "Poems," in which he included "Israfel" and "To Helen." He had previously published (in 1829, while in the army) an acknowledged volume of verse, "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Other Poems," which was an enlargement of his maiden volume. But neither of these ventures had proved a financial success, and their author perhaps experienced some foreboding and disquietude as to his resolution to live by his pen. For even down to the Civil War a purely literary career in America gave assurance of extremely meager support and promised to the man wholly relying upon his pen for his daily bread only 108 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE the proverbial Grub Street comforts of life. How- ever fine his writings, Poe had no reason, therefore, to expect to live in affluence upon the receipts from his royalty. Furthermore, all hope of aid from his foster-father had been abandoned now that Mr. Allan had married again and had utterly broken with him. Yet Poe had to his credit experience, industry, culture and genius, qualities which or- dinarily go a long way to make for success in this life. On the other hand, and as an offset to these, Poe had developed as well as inherited moral weak- ness, extreme sensitiveness, an excitable and nerv- ous temperament and surroundings which were not propitious to his temperament. Possessed of these defects, which were as serious as his qualities were brilliant, this talented young Southerner started on what ought to have been a noble career with a happy end. But alas ! the performance of a life too frequently proves unequal to the promise. Poe left New York for Baltimore, where he took up his residence at the home of Mrs. Clemm, his father's widowed sister, whose beautiful, but frail daughter Virginia afterwards, at the early age of fourteen, became his bride. Here he was unable to secure steady work, and amid his disappointments was buoyed up by the encouraging words of the angel in the house, his beloved Virginia. He re- ceived a windfall in the shape of a prize of $100.00 which he won in October, 1833, by his story, the "Manuscript Found in a Bottle." His poem, "The Coliseum, 7 ' was awarded a smaller prize, but this had to be waived by the conditions of the contest which did not permit the same author to carry off both prizes. One of the judges was John P. Ken- nedy, the romancer, who thereupon became inter- ested in the promising young author, and, by way EDGAR ALLAN POE 109 of befriending him, secured for him a congenial position as assist ant to Thomas W. White, proprie- tor of the newly established Southern Literary Mes- ,vr;///(r. Accordingly, in 1834, Poe assumed practi- cal control of this famous Richmond journal, to the pjiges of which he contributed some of his cleverest stories and most trenchant critiques. To be sure, his literary criticisms were sometimes scathing and drastic enough, almost to the point of flaying his victim. Yet this severe type of review had a whole- some and tonic effect in an age when provincial eulogy on the one hand, or fulsome flattery on the other, passed for real literary criticism. In 1837, Poe's bibulous habits cost him his posi- tion with the Southern Literary Messenger, and he set out for New York to try his fortune in the great metropolis. There he was unable to secure suffi- cient work to maintain himself; and so Mrs. Clemm, who kept house for him and his wife, sup- ported the impecunious author by taking boarders. Meanwhile Poe wrote and published his longest story, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym." Failing to secure employment in New York, he moved his small family to Philadelphia, where he was offered a permanent position as editor of Gra- ham's Muyazine, with the opportunity to do hack- work to supplement his slender salary. Here he managed not only to keep the wolf from the door, but to live in comparative comfort, till 1842, when his besetting vice of intemperance forced the sever- ance of his connection with Graham's Magazine. Much of his best work was done during his resi- dence in Philadelphia, and to this period in his career we must assign his "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," published in the collection of 1839; "Ligeia," "The Fall of the House of Usher," 110 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Gold Bug," the setting of which last, story is a reminis- cence of his army days at Fort Moultrie. In 1844, Poe again settled in New York, where fortune had already dealt with him so harshly be- fore. But this time she relented somewhat. He secured an appointment on the staff of some of the newspapers, and in January, 1845, he contributed to The Evening Mirror his immortal "Haven," which greatly enhanced his reputation as a poet with the general public and heralded his name abroad throughout the land. After this he was connected with The Broadway Journal under the management of Charles F. Briggs, but a quarrel ensuing, Briggs retired and Poe assumed entire control, only to run the periodical in the ground within a year. Poe also signalized the year 1845 by issuing an edition of his collected poems with the "Raven," which had spread his fame far and wide, as leader. In 1846, he removed to Fordham, where a chapter of misfor- tunes followed, culminating in the death, toward the end of 1847, of his devoted wife, who was the in- spiration of his life. Dire want and acute suffering- marked his ill-fated days at Fordham. After the death of his fair young wife Poe ap- : pears to have lost heart, and from that time on, his course was one of gradual moral deterioration till the tragic end came. True, he had a few fitful sea- sons of moral reformation and creative impulse, but these were only temporary, brief intervals, when by extraordinary exertion of his enfeebled volition he strove to pull himself together again and work with his wonted interest and zest. During these intervals when he was himself and had his evil genius under control, he produced such work as "Eureka," "Ulalume," "Annabel Lee" and "The EDGAR ALLAN I' poetry in a manner as marvelous as it was unprecedented. In his brave struggle he sought feminine sympathy, which apparently never failed to stimulate him to his best effort and to brace him up morally. In- deed, it was a mission of this kind that brought him to Richmond in the early autumn of 1849, to ar- range for his wedding with an old sweetheart. On his way North to complete his plans for the wed- ding he stopped over in Baltimore where he fell victim to his fatal moral weakness, and died on a drunken debauch, Sunday morning, October 7, a pitiable outcast. He was buried in that city in the Westminster churchyard, where some years later a monument was erected over his grave by the children of the local public schools. Poe's irregularities and intemperate habits and irritable disposition all combined to make him a great many enemies. Moreover, his lack of poise and his whims and fancies led him frequently into error in his literary criticism, as for instance, his savage attack upon Longfellow, to cite only a single case in point. Of course this naturally brought about a re- action which prejudiced many against Poe, and his detractors have sought to malign him and to under- rate his works. The New England school of critic^ specially strove to decry his influence and to bring i his writings into disrepute, chiefly because the lead- ers of that school could not dissociate literature! from morality. They rejected Poe's artistic prin-J ciples because his life failed to measure up to the| Puritan standard of morality. So much for Poe, the man. It is now time to con- sider Poe, the author. Poe's genius may be considered in a threefold aspect. He may be regarded as a critic, as a poet, 112 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE and as a romancer. In each of these realms Poe attained to eminence; but it is mainly in the last two aspects that we wish especially to consider him now. We need hardly say that we do not intend by this to imply any disparagement of his critical genius. On the contrary, Poe, in our judgment, is rightly entitled to the distinction of being the first American man of letters to write criticism deserv- ing the name. Before his advent into journalism criticism had been but little better than fulsome flattery. After his appearance journalistic criti- cism entered upon a new era. His reviews, though frequently drastic, and sometimes it must be ad- mitted inspired by personal prejudice, had, never- theless, a wholesome and stimulating effect upon American authorship. His "Marginalia" awakened a sense of injustice and resentment in the breasts of the more virile, and struck sheer terror to the hearts of the weaklings. Mr. Stedman justly calls his sketches "a prose Dunciad, waspish and unfair, yet not without touches of magnanimity." It has been truly observed that whenever Poe, unbiased by per- sonal motives, pronounced favorably upon the tal- ents of an author, such as Bayard Taylor, Mrs, Browning, or Tennyson, his judgments have been sustained by the verdict of the present generation. But his prejudice made him merciless and unrelent- ing to the New England poets, as a class. Accord- ing to his view nothing good or beautiful could come out of the Nazareth of Boston. It need hardly be remarked that the present generation has, in many instances, reversed Poe's critical dicta. But enough of Poe as a critic. Let us now take up his poetry. In his masterly essay on Thomas Gray, Matthew Arnold says of that writer that his whole history as a poet is contained in a remark, EDGAR ALLAN POE 113 made by an appreciative friend, to the effect that "he never spoke out in poetry." The same remark is equally applicable to Poe; for it is a common feel- v ; ing, shared alike by the present generation and by his contemporaries, that he never really gave com- plete utterance to the poetry which kindled his im- agination and stirred his soul. Poe was not a prolific writer. All the poetry he ever published could be pressed between the covers of a very slender book. But volume is not the only, or even the main, criterion in determining the standing of a poet. Indeed, it is rather an insignifi- cant factor. In the determination of a poet's stand- ing, spontaneity and passion, not volume, are the criteria. "Poetry," says Poe, in the preface to his juvenile productions "has been with me a passion, not a purpose." Still, we heartily wish that he had written more of purpose, though no less of passion. It must be conceded that Poe's range of subject his register, to borrow a musical term was quite narrow. In his youth, as a critic has observed, he struck the key-notes of a few themes ; and the output of his mature years was but a variation on these. The death, in his youth, of a lady to whom he was devoted made a profound impression upon his sus- ceptible heart, and filled his soul with a poignant 1 feeling of sadness and of longing for one far remov- IH "J ed from human companionship and beyond recall. ' This henceforth was to be the inspiration of his genius and the burden of his song. Says Mr. Edmund Grosse, the eminent English critic, himself no mean poet: "If Poe had not harped so persist- ently on his one theme of remorseful passion for the irrevocable dead, if he had employed his extraordi- nary, his unparalleled gifts of melodius invention, 114 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE with equal skill, in illustrating a variety of themes, he must have been with the greatest poets." Poe's best-known poems, those upon which his fame as a poet rests, are "The Raven," first of all, "The Bells," "For Annie," "Ulalume," "The City in the Sea," "The Haunted Palace," and "The Con- queror Worm." Of these "The Kaven," written in 1845, is by far the most widely known, and deserv- edly the most popular. With its publication Poe, like Byron with the publication of "Childe Harold," leaped immediately into fame. His manuscript articles which, up to this time, editors had kept in dark pigeon-holes were now brought to the light of day, and were greatly in request; and enterprising magazines were eager to announce, as a special at- traction, a new poem by the author of "The Raven." The instant success of this production provoked a new edition of Poe's writings, which appeared toward the end of the year 1845, under the title, "The Raven and Other Poems." This volume con- tained wellnigh all the verse Poe had ever written. The early poems had undergone alterations more or less slight, in accordance with the author's fashion of recasting and republishing his early work as if it were appearing for the first time. In view of the popularity of "The Raven" and of its importance as being Poe's greatest poem, it will not be out of place to linger over it for a while and notice it somewhat in detail. In his "Philosophy of Composition," Poe gives a detailed account of his method of composing "The Raven" and of its motif; and the story has such a rniixcinhlinicc and such a posiliveness about it as almost to compel belief. Moreover, the author's peculiar views, which he set forth elsewhere, in respect of the poetic principle are involved in the account; and he uses "The KIM.AR ALLAN POE 115 Raven" to illustrate his theory as to the aim and scope of poetry. Poe believed, with Coleridge, that the pleasure arising from the contemplation of beauty is keener, more chaste, and more elevating to the soul than that which springs from the contemplation of truth by the mere intellect, or even than that which springs from any passion of the heart. He main- tained, further, that it is through this sentiment of beauty that man acquires his clearest conceptions of eternal nature, and is consequently brought into closest touch with the divine. This subtle power exists in the beauty of nature, which inspires man.r with a belief in something beyond nature, fairer and more beautiful still, to be discerned only by the im- agination. It is the province of art to fashion this ideal beauty for the gratification of man's spiritual emotion. This is the end and aim of all the fine arts, but more especially of the crowning arts of music and poetry. The incitements of passion, the pre- cepts of duty, and even the lessons of truth are in- cluded ; but they must be subordinated to the main point of the contemplation of beauty. It follows, therefore, that beauty is the sole legitimate theme ^f poetry; and so Poe defined poetry as "the rhyth- niical creation of beauty." However, Poe in his definition did not take the term beauty in its widest and broadest sense, which would include all truth, emotion, and ethics. On the contrary, he restricted the term to what he was pleased to call supernal beauty, that is, the domain of sadness and regret. He regarded a beautiful woman as the very quintessence of beauty, and the death of such a woman as the most poetical theme in the world. This is the motif and inspiration of "The Raven." On the general principle that vice 116 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE can never be beautiful, of course nothing base or degrading could legitimately fall within the prov- ince of poetry. As a minor consideration Poe insisted that, from the very nature of our mental constitution, it is ne- cessary that a poem be brief and aim at a single artistic effect, since the undivided attention cannot be held for several consecutive hours by one subject. This canon, however, was inspired by Schleg- el ? s dictum of the unity or totality of inter- est. Such a long poem as the "Iliad," the "Odyssey," or "Paradise Lost," according to Poe's theory, depends for its interest and effect upon the various briefer incidents or poems which go to make it up. When we read a poem of great length the attention naturally relaxes at intervals; and, since the interest is not sustained throughout, the poem fails to produce a single artistic effect. Further- more, Poe maintained that, in order for a poem to produce a characteristic effect, it should possess a distinct rhythm or metre, together with a certain grotesqueness of conception and quaintness of lan- guage. Now, all these conditions, Poe claimed, were met in "The Raven" in particular, and in his other poems in general. For in the former we find as the motif of the poem the death of a beautiful woman, Lenore; the unique refrain "Nevermore;" a certain grotesqueness of conception in the setting ; and an air of quaintness about the language. Like Lanier, another Southern singer whose career offers almost as many pathetic incidents, Poe was endowed by nature with a keen appreciation of i'li vt Inn and music. ~\J3.e was preeminently a melo- dist; and, what is more, the melody of his verse has not been equalled in the history of American litera- ture, and is not surpassed by any British poet. But, EDGAR ALLAN POE 117 as has been already stated, his register was not wide. Within a limited range he could and did achieve remarkable results, as in the refrain of "The Bells" or "The Raven." The musical effect of the ballad of either of these poems was, up to the time of their publication, unequalled, and it has not been surpassed since. Poe, with a few choice words, like Paganini with his simple violin, produced a spell which was truly marvellous. It is said of the great musician that such was his control of his instru- ment, and such his perfection of technique, that in every part of musical Europe even with his very first notes he held vast audiences spell-bound. It may be said of Poe that such was his intuitive sense of beauty, and such the melody of his verse, that he arrested the reluctant attention of the reading pub- lic of the two English-speaking nations, and by his haunting music cast a glamour over their poets which none of them, after repeated efforts, has ever since succeeded in reproducing. Mr. Gosse tells us that Poe has proved himself to be the Piper of Ham- elm to all later English poets, of whom there is hardly one whose verse music does not show traces of his influence. Surely, it is no small distinction thus to have stamped the impress of one's own gen- ius for melodious verse upon the succeeding genera- tion of English poets, and that, too, of the Victo- rian era. Poe is sometimes called a poet of one poem ; and the criticism is not altogether unjust. For to the world at large he is generally known as the author of "The Raven." We think Mr. Stedman comes nearer the truth, however, when in an epigrammatic sent once he says : "Poe was not a single-poem poet, but a poet of a single mood." The theme is the same in almost all his poems, namely, ruin. This is the 118 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE burden of his song; this is the one poetic subject that always kindled his imagination. To be sure, the treatment varies, as might be expected ; but the inspiration of his poetry is almost invariably drawn from this one source. "Israfel" furnishes an excep- tion, but it is an exception which proves the rule. This is Poe's greatest limitation; and a serious limitation it certainly is. It undermines the foun- dation of his claim to being regarded a great poet, in the sense that English poets like Milton, Dryden, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and many others that might be named are entitled to rank as great poets. Poe, in our judgment, is an artist in verse; a great artist, indeed, but hardly a great poet. It is true that he possesses "originality in the treatment of themes, perennial charm, exquisite finish in exe- cution, and distinction of individual manner" ele- ments of poetical greatness as set forth by an emi- nent English essayist and critic but he lacks, it seems to us, one of the qualifications needed to en- title him to rank with the great poets. His fatal defect is his narrowness of range. "The Kaven" may wing its ceaseless flight through anthologies, and be admired by generations yet unborn ; but this alone does not make its author a great poet any more than the "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" en- titles Gray to rank with the world's great poets. However, although this Southern poet may fail of the distinction of being entitled to rest in the Val- halla of the world's great poets, yet in our opinion, he justly deserves to rank with the greatest Ameri- can poets, if, indeed, he is not the very greatest among them. But it is time for us to consider our author in the aspect of romance. Dearly as lie loved iJ, poetry was never a serious purpose with Poe, as he himself EDGAR ALLAN l' not stand out upon the page. But Holgrove, \vlm is a mere son of the earth, a novus homo, without mi ttvedcnts or family traditions, serves the artistic end of a foil to Miss Hephzibah, who can never for- get her illustrious lineage and ever piques herself upon it. The moral of the "House of Seven Gables" is that families that isolate themselves and cut themselves off from association with the people, and refuse to recognize the broad principle of the brotherhood of man, are destined to be eventually overwhelmed in ruin and disaster. The first member of the Pynch- eon house representing the landed gentry had com- mitted a gross, ignoble crime against the first Maule, a poor laborer; but though the punishment is long delayed, two hundred years, the crime is finally avenged in the extinction of the Pyncheon house. The pride and Pharisaism of that family are at last brought down and dissolved by love, the universal solvent for all difficulties, real or fancied, and for all grievances, real or imaginary. So Holgrove and Phoebe, the latest descendants of the two families which were at enmity, agree to forget the past and forestall retribution by sinking their inherited ani- mosities in the bonds of w r edlock. Hawthorne's third American novel, the "Blithe- dale Romance," possesses a certain historic interest. The story grew out of the Brook Farm episode, in which the novelist himself figured as a character. But it is not an accurate account of the manners or of the people who established that once famous com- munity. While it is true that the picture has a historic background, it is not true that the charac- ters are strictly historic personages. As a matter 176 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE of fact, the men and women are the creation of the novelist's fancy, heirs of his own invention. Miles Coverdale, however, is generally interpreted as the counterpart of Hawthorne; and some critics think that Zenobia is modeled after Margaret Fuller. But these are mere surmises. Certainly Coverdale has much in common with his creator, whether intended as a portrait of Hawthorne or not. He is portrayed as a contemplative, observing man, with an imagin- ation ever active, who finds his happiness not so much in actual achievement as in conceiving plans and adventures. In a word, as some one has char- acterized him, he is half a poet, half a critic, and all a spectator. Who the prototype of Hollingsworth was, critics have not ventured to determine. In his earnestness of purpose, strength of conviction, and zeal for reform, he offers a sharp contrast to the somewhat irresolute, unconcerned Coverdale. Zeno- bia is the heroine of the romance, and her character is sketched with more definiteness of outline than any other in the story. Unlike most of Hawthorne's characters, she is not a mere picture : she stands out from the page, and, as an eminent critic has remark- ed of her, she is the nearest approach Hawthorne has made to the complete creation of a person. She is the most sharply outlined of all his female char- acters, and lacks but little of being a woman of real flesh and blood, such as Rubens painted. But, not to mention all the characters, suffice it to say that those named, together with the gentle, artless Pris- cilla, comprise the leading characters around whom the interest of the story centers. One might suppose that the author would have woven a thread of satire into the warp of his romance, but it is singularly free from satire. The social experiment of the Brook Farm was certainly NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 177 not beyond the legitimate bound of criticism, and we can hardly think thai I law! borne, by his failure to criticise the scheme, intended to indicate thereby his unqualified indorsement of the theory underly- i'ir the establishment of the once famous commu- nity. Indeed, the entire purport of the "Blithedale Romance" seems to be in condemnation of the plan. The moral of the book, if it may be said to have a moral, is to show that by adopting principles alien to those recognized by society as generally consti- tuted, and by setting up abnormal standards based on abstractions of individual intellects, we are likely to sacrifice those drawn to us by strong affin- ity or generous impulse. The sacrifice of Zenobia by the resolute Hollingsworth must be intended to teach this lesson. The book contains many inter- esting situations, teems with incident, and like all of Hawthorne's romances, possesses a rare charm; but, after all, it does not strike the reader as a strong novel. It makes the impression of being feebly conceived, and is, in our judgment, the weak- est of Hawthorne's American novels. After the achievement of three triumphs in his American novels, Hawthorne, during his residence abroad, ventured upon a new field in the production of the "Marble Faun," which was first published in England under the title of "Transformation." The setting of this charming romance is Italian, and the scene is Rome. The book contains many fine pas- sages of descriptive writing, as accurate as beauti- ful; and its pages are eagerly perused by every English-speaking traveler who contemplates a visit to the Eternal City; for the "Marble Faun" (the title is a misnomer and singularly infelicitous) gives a very faithful description of many of the historic monuments and streets of Rome, and repro- 178 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE duces the locale of the romance with an accuracy and fidelity entirely foreign to the author's Ameri- can novels. The city on the banks of the Tiber, therefore, is the background upon which the ro- mancer with admirable art has painted the four leading characters of his story, Miriam and Dona- tello, Hilda and Kenyon. Miriam and Donatello, between whom a kind of Platonic love develops, do not possess much in com- mon. Miriam is a strong feminine character, who combines a wide acquaintance with life with her exceptional intelligence and power, and exercises a strange fascination over her lover. Donatello, on the other hand, is a gentle, disingenuous Italian youth of little experience, who is endowed with a peculiar fawn-like nature. Over him Miriam casts a powerful spell, which he is unable to break. In keeping with his impulsive nature, Donatello, under the influence of this mysterious spell, murders a man whom he fancied to be an enemy of Miriam; and by the common secret of the murder the two lovers are knit together in a close friendship which insu- lates them morally from society. Kenyon, the sculptor, and the gentle, innocent Hilda, by their romance, hold the reader's attention almost as com- pletely and unintermittedly as Miriam and the fawn-man Donatello. The guileless Hilda is by ac- cident made a reluctant witness of the murderous secret of Donatello and Miriam, whom she loved de- votedly. Hilda was a New England girl of Puritan ancestry, and so sensitive was her Puritan con- science that, although she was in no sense a partici- pant in the murder and was absolutely innocent, si ic yd felt that wrong-doing had become a part of her experience in consequence of the fact that she merely happened to be a witness of Donatello's NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 179 crime. Her conscience became so burdened with her imagined guilt that, strenuous Puritan as she was, she entered St. Peter's and made a full confes- sion to the priest. The burden was then removed, and sh<> became again free as before. This chapter is the finest touch of inspiration in the book, and this conception of Hilda's character is a mark of genius. The sin which Donatello committed brought him to himself, enabled him to find him- self, and revealed to his consciousness a new world of moral obligation of which he had never even dreamed before. In short, his nature was trans- formed, and from being a mere fawn destitute of all sense of moral obligation, he became a man with man's distinctive characteristic of a moral faculty. K( 'morse and passion were the means adopted to awaken and develop in him his dormant moral nature. The "Marble Faun" is probably Hawthorne's most popular romance. As a piece of imaginative work it is admirable, and deserves to be widely read ; yet as a work of art it has some serious weak- nesses. To begin with, the story is weak from the point of view of narration. The narrative art re- quires a story to move continuously forward, and any incident that fails to contribute to this end must be eliminated. The progress of the "Marble Faun" is too frequently interrupted by the intro- duction of incidents that are mere side issues, and the story seems to wander and lose itself in the numerous digressions and vague fancies into which the author lapses. The tale as an artistic product lacks directness and coherence. Again, the ele- ment of the unreal is not kept under control, as in the allusions to Donatello's fawn nature. His de- lineation vacillates between the fanciful and the 180 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE real, and places him in a region between myth and fact. His character therefore produces a sense of unreality in the mind of the reader. Moreover, the action of the story wavers between the realm of physical fact, where the streets of Home are de- scribed with the familiarity and accuracy of a na- tive resident, and the airy realm of imagination, where everything is vague and indeterminate, with- out local habitation or name. This defect did not presumably escape the observation of the author himself, for in a letter he speaks of the story as his "rnoonshiny romance," which is not an inapt de- scription. But after all has been said the "Marble Faun" remains a charming romance, and contains some of the finest pieces of imaginative writing in "American literature. Hawthorne occupies a prominent place in the American republic of letters. He was preeminently a romancer. He can hardly be called a novelist, certainly not in the strict meaning of that term. Like his gifted contemporary, Poe, he did not, per- haps he could not, write a first-class novel. In their genius and art these two men of letters have some points of contact and some of departure. They both combined a vivid, strong imagination with an exquisite artistic sense. It seems, however, that Poe had a more exuberant and robust imagination. Indeed, this faculty in him was abnormally devel- oped. We see indications of it in the intricate plots of his tales. His genius was speculative, ratiocina- tive, and analytical. Hawthorne, on the other and, inclined to simplicity and directness ; and his mind \vj;s less constructive, and not at all analyt- iV.il. His stories therefore all have simple plots, with few accessory devices. The creations of Poe's invention are like marble statues, beautiful and pol- NATHANIEL HAWTHORN!) 181 ished, but cold and without feeling. They are studies in black mid white, without color or expres- sion. The creations of Hawthorne's genius are per- haps not so polished, but they posseess color and warmth and have more inspiration and life. His canvas is always suffused with the warm, rosy glow of imagination, while Poe's, though finished and perfect in technical execution, is as cold as an icicle and without the slightest trace of color. Hawthorne was something of a moralist. His romances all have a moral purpose, as have also most of his short stories. But the moral is not ob- trusive, and does not detract from the interest of the story. The moral purpose is kept below the surface, so as not to arouse the reader's suspicion. Still it is present, and if the reader will dive below the surface, he may with no great effort discover it. However, this kind of moral is not offensive to good taste, concealed as it is by the author's spontaneous and glowing imagination. The conscience was Hawthorne's theme, but he clothed it in the soft, airy woof of his creative fancy; and far from being didactic, dull, or jejune, he rendered it all the more interesting and engaging. Hawthorne's romances do not appear to have been written to portray characters. Indeed, the romancer is weak in characterization. Like Poe, Hawthorne never created a character which is des- tined to live, such as Becky Sharp or Wilkins Mi- cawber, those inspired creations of Thackeray and Dickens, respectively. Hawthorne's characters are more in the nature of types than individuals. For the most part, they lack definition and sharpness of outline. They are somewhat vague and shadowy; nor do they live and move before the reader's eye, like real men and women. Themselves creations of 182 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE a glowing fancy, fashioned out of moonshine, they do not invite inspection in broad daylight, but need to be viewed through the shadowy twilight of romance to be appreciated fully. They therefore appear at their best, not in the dazzling glare of the noonday sunlight, but in the pale, eerie moon- light in which they stand half revealed and half ob- scured. This is probably what the author himself had in mind when in reference to his own work he used the suggestive phrase, "the moonlight of ro- mance." It was this characteristic of his work, also, that induced critics to apply to him the title of psychological dreamer. But this is simply a de- fect of his mental equipment, and shows the poetic nature of his genius, his idealistic affinities. Hawthorne's genius differs vastly from that of Thackeray or Dickens, names which stand at the very top of English writers of fiction. Consum- mate masters of the art of prose fiction, they could, by the interaction of the personages they portrayed upon their pages, put before the reader a veritable prose drama, with all its intricate parts leading up to the development and denouement of the plot. But Hawthorne, though endowed with a rare crea- tive imagination, lacked this inimitable power, this distinguishing mark of genius, which only the mas- ter novelists possess. He could paint dramatic situations, interesting, yea thrilling, scenes ; but he lacked that essential and distinguishing gift by which the novelist makes his characters live, move, and act their respective parts till they bring about the final consummation of the plot. Hawthorne's fanjgoj; stories, his romances, will be found upon close analysis to be much the same as liis short tales. The curly tales are of course very much shorter, but contain all the essentials of his NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 183 romances. The difference is quantitative, rather than qualitative. The romances are simply a series of dramatic situations approximating the length of a novel, but wanting the essential attribute of the novel, namely, the development of a plot. They are merely drawn out; they do not unfold or grow from \\ilhin out. Hawthorne's stories, there- fore, are not novels in the restricted acceptation of that term ; they are romances. Moreover, it is note- w r orthy that the series of dramatic situations con- stituting his longer stories or romances are designed by the author to impress upon the reader the lead- ing idea of the story, the theme. The situations, therefore, are ideal situations, all having this one end in view. For example, the leading thought of the "Scarlet Letter" is the effect of the sin of adul- tery, which is set forth in three or four dramatic situations of great power. So in the "House of Seven Gables," and in the other two romances, the principal idea of the respective stories is elaborated by a series of dramatic situations invented for the purpose. This repetition of the leading idea of his romance is the method the author adopted for pro- ducing the haunting effect so characteristic of his stories. However, we are forced to admit in conclusion that Hawthorne has enjoyed a remarkable vogue. He has been read, and is even yet read, almost as much as any other American writer of fiction. He may be eclipsed for a brief period by some new star that shoots like a meteor across the literary heav- ens, but he is not extinguished. When the meteor has spent its force and disappeared, his star is still seen shining with its accustomed luster, and shows no sign of a waning brilliance. Why is it, then, that amid the vast flood of present-day fiction which 184 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE threatens to deluge the reading public Hawthorne continues to hold his own? The answer is, Because he put himself into his works, made them reflect his own vision of life, with his moral seriousness and devotion to life's noblest aspirations, and irra- diated those works with the warm glow of his exu- berant imagination. His charming art, his exquis- ite beauty, his originality, his delicate humor, his purity of thought, his chasteness of language, and his lofty moral tone these all combine to give his work an enduring quality which will insure its popularity so long as imaginative writing is read and appreciated. HAWTHOKNE THE OLD APPLE DEALER The lover of the moral picturesque may sometimes find what he seeks in a character which is neverthe- less of too negative a description to be seized upon and represented to the imaginative vision by word j uiin ting. As an instance, I remember an old man who carries on a little trade of gingerbread and apples at the depot of one of our railroads. While awaiting the departure of the cars, my observation, itting to and fro among the livelier characteristics of the scene, has often settled insensibly upon this almost hueless object. Thus, unconsciously to myself and unsuspected by him, I have studied the old apple dealer until he has become a naturalized citizen of my inner world. How little would he imagine poor, neglected, friendless, unappreciated, and with little that demands appreciation that the mental eye of an utter stranger has so often reverted to his figure! Many a noble form, many a beautiful face, has flitted before me and vanished like a shadow. It is a strange witchcraft whereby this faded and featureless old apple dealer has gained a settlement in my memory. He is a small man, with gray hair and gray stubble beard, and is invariably clad in a shabby surtout of snuff color, closely buttoned, and half concealing a pair of gray pantaloons; the whole dress, though clean and entire, being evidently flimsy with much wear. His face, thin, withered, furrowed, and with features which even age has failed to render impres- sive, has a frost-bitten aspect. It is a moral frost which no physical warmth or comfortableness could counteract. The summer sunshine may fling its white heat upon him, or the good fire of the depot room may 186 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE make him the focus of its blaze on a winter's day ; but all in vain ; for still the old man looks as if he were in a frosty atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He is not desperate, that, though its etymology im- plies no more, would be too positive an expression, but merely devoid of hope. As all his past life, prob- ably, offers no spots of brightness to his memory, so he takes his present poverty and discomfort as en- tirely a matter of course: he thinks it the definition of existence, so far as himself is concerned, to be poor, cold, and uncomfortable. It may be added, that time has not thrown dignity as a mantle over the old man's figure : there is nothing venerable about him : you pity him without a scruple. He sits on a bench in the depot room; and before him, on the floor, are deposited two baskets of a capac- ity to contain his whole stock in trade. Across from one basket to the other extends a board, on which is displayed a plate of cakes and gingerbread, some rus- set and red-cheeked apples, and a box containing variegated sticks of candy, together with that delec- table condiment known by children as Gibraltar rock, neatly done up in white paper. There is likewise a half-peck measure of cracked walnuts and two or three tin half pints or gills- filled with the nut kernels, ready for purchasers. Such are the small commodi- ties with which our old friend comes daily before the world, ministering to its petty needs and little freaks of appetite, and seeking thence the solid subsistence so far as he may subsist of his life. A slight observer would speak of the old man's quie- tude; but, on closer scrutiny, you discover that there is a continual unrest within him. which somewhat re- sembles the fluttering action of the nerves in a corpse from which life has recently departed. Though he never exhibits any violent aetion, and, indeed, might api>ear to be sitting quite still, yet you perceive, when NAT I IAN IK I. HAWTHORNE 187 his minuter peculiarities begin to be detected, that he is always making some little movement or other. He looks anxiously at his plate of cakes or pyramid of apples and slightly alters their arrangement, with an evident idea that a great deal depends on their being disposed exactly Urns and so. Then for a moment he gazes out of the window; then he shivers- quietly and folds his anus across his breast, as if to draw himself closer within himself, and thus keep a flicker of warmth in his lonesome heart. Now he turns again to his mer- chandise of cakes 1 , apples, and candy, and discovers that this cake or that apple, or yonder stick of red and white candy, has somehow got out of its proper position. And is there not a walnut kernel too many or too few in one of those small tin measures? Again the whole arrangement appears to be settled to his mind; but, in the course of a minute or two, there will assuredly be something to set right. At times, by an indescribable shadow upon his features, too quiet, however, to be noticed until you are familiar with his ordinary aspect, the expression of frost-bitten, patient despondency becomes very touching. It seems as if just at that instant the snspicion occurred to him that, in his chill decline of life, earning scanty bread by selling cakes, apples, and candy, he is a very miser- able old fellow. But, if he think so, it is a mistake. He can never suffer the extreme of misery, because the tone of his whole being is too much subdued for him to feel any- thing acutely. Occasionally one of the passengers, to while away a tedious interval, approaches the old man, inspects the articles upon his board, and even peeps curiously into the two baskets. Another, striding to and fro along the room, throws a look at the apples and gingerbread at every turn. A third, it may be of a more sensitive and delicate texture of being, glances shyly thither- ward, cautious not to excite expectations of a pur- chaser while yet undetermined whether to buy. But 188 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE there appears to be no need of such a scrupulous re- gard to our old friend's feelings. True, he is con- scious of the remote possibility to sell a cake or an apple; but innumerable disappointments have ren- dered him so far a philosopher, that, even if the pur- chased article should be returned, he will consider it altogether in the ordinary train of events 1 . He speaks to none, and makes no sign of offering his wares to the public: not that he is deterred by pride, but by the certain conviction that such demonstrations would not increase his custom. Besides, this activity in business would require an energy that never could have been a characteristic of his almost passive disposition even in youth. Whenever an actual customer appears the old man looks up with a patient eye: if the price and the article are approved, he is ready to make change; otherwise his eyelids droop again sadly enough, but with no heavier despondency than before. He shivers, perhaps folds his lean arms around his lean body, and resumes- the lifelong, frozen patience in which consists his strength. Once in a while a school - boy comes hastily up, places a cent or two upon the board, and takes up a cake, or stick of candy, or a measure of walnuts, or an apple as red cheeked as himself. There are no words as to price, that being as well known to the buyer as to the seller. The old apple dealer never speaks an unnecessary word : not that he is sullen and morose; but there is none of the cheeriness and brisk- ness in him that stirs up people to talk. Not seldom he is greeted by some old neighbor, a man well to do in the world, who makes a civil, pat- ronizing observation about the weather; and then, by way of performing a charitable deed, begins to chall'cr for an apple. Our friend presumes not on any past acquaintance; he makes the briefest possible response to all general remarks, and shrinks quietly into him- self again. After every diminution of his stock lie takes care to produce from the basket another rako, another stick of candy, another apple, or another mcas- NATHANIEL HAWTHORN!] 189 lire of walnuts, in supply the place of the article sold. Two or three attempts- -or. perchance, half a. dozen are requisite before the board can be rearranged to his satisfaction. If he have received a silver coin, he Avails till the purchaser is out of sight, then he ex- amines it closely, and tries to bend it with his finger and thumb : finally he puts it into his waistcoat pocket with seemingly a gentle sigh. This sigh, so faint as to be hardly perceptible, and not expressive of any definite emotion, is the accompaniment and conclusion of all his actions. It is the symbol of the chillness and torpid melancholy of his old age, which only make themselves felt sensibly when his repose is slightly disturbed. Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a speci- men of the "needy man who has seen better days." Doubtless there have been better and brighter days in the far-off time of his youth; but none with so much sunshine of prosperity in them that the chill, the de- pression, the narrowness of means, in his declining years, can have come upon him by surprise. His life has all been of a piece. His subdued and nerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which likewise contained within itself the prophecy and image of his lean and torpid age. He was perhaps a mechanic, who never came to be a master in his craft, or a petty tradesman, rubbing onward between passably to do and poverty. Possibly he may look back to some brilliant epoch of his career when there were a hun- dred or two of dollars to his credit in the Savings Bank. Such must have been the extent of his better fortune his little measure of this world's triumphs all that he has known of success. A meek, down- cast, humble, uncomplaining creature, he probably has never felt himself entitled to more than so much of the gifts of Providence. Is it not still something that he has never held out his hand for charity, nor has yet been driven to that sad home and household of Earth's forlorn and broken-spirited children, the almshouse? 190 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE He cherishes no quarrel, therefore, with his destiny, nor with the Author of it. All is as it should be. If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son, a bold, energetic, vigorous young man, on whom the father's feeble nature leaned as on a staff of strength, in that case he may have felt a bitterness that could not oth- erwise have been generated in his- heart. But nie- thinks the joy of possessing such a son and the agony of losing him would have developed the old man's moral and intellectual nature to a much greater de- gree than we now find it. Intense grief appears to be as much out of keeping with his life as fervid hap- piness. To confess the truth, it is not the easiest matter in the world to define and individualize a character like this which we are now handling. The portrait must be so generally negative that the most delicate pencil is likely to spoil it by introducing some too positive tint. Every touch must be kept down, or else you destroy the subdued tone which is absolutely essential to the whole effect. Perhaps more may be done by contrast than by direct description. For this purpose I make use of another cake and candy merchant, who likewise infests the railroad depot. This latter wor- thy is a very smart and well-dressed boy of ten years old or thereabouts, who skips briskly hither and thither, addressing the passengers in a pert voice, yet with somewhat of good breeding in his tone and pronun- ciation. Now he has caught my eye, and skips across the room with a pretty pertness which I should like to correct with a box on the ear. "Any cake, sir? any candy?" No, none for me, my lad. I did but glance at your brisk figure in order to catch a reflected light and throw it upon your old rival yonder. Again, in order to invest my conception of the old man with a more decided sense of reality, I look at him in the very moment of intensest bustle, on the arrival of the cars. The shriek of the engine as it NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 191 rushes into the car-house is the utterance of the steam tiend, whom man lias subdued by magic spells and compels to serve as a beast of burden. He has skimmed rivers in his headlong rush, dashed through forests, plunged into the hearts of mountains, and glanced from the cily to the desert-place, and again to a far-off city, with a meteoric progress, seen and out of sight, while his reverberating roar still fills the ear. The travellers swarm forth from the cars. All are full of the momentum which they have caught from their mode of conveyance. It seems as if the whole world, both morally and physically, were de- tached from its old standfasts and set in rapid motion. And, in the midst of this terrible activity, there sits the old man of gingerbread; so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life, and yet not positively miser- able, there he sits, the forlorn old creature, one chill and sombre day after another, gathering scanty cop- pers for his cakes, apples, and candy, there sits the old apple dealer, in his threadbare suit of snuff color and gray and his grizzly stubble beard. See! he folds his lean arms around his lean figure with that quiet sigh and that scarcely perceptible shiver which are the tokens of his inward state. I have him now. He and the steam fiend are each other's antipodes; the latter's the type of all that go ahead, and the old man the representative of that melancholy class who, by some sad witchcraft, are doomed never to share in the world's exulting progress. Thus the contrast between mankind and this desolate brother becomes picturesque, and even sublime. And now farewell, old friend! Little do you sus- pect that a student of human life has made your char- acter the theme of more than one solitary and thought- ful hour. Many would say that you have hardly in- dividuality enough to be the object of your own self- love. How, then, can a stranger's eye detect anything in your mind and heart to study and to wonder at? Yet, could I read but a tithe of what is written there, 192 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE it would be a volume of deeper and more compre- hensive import than all that the wisest mortals have given to the world; for the soundless depths of the human soul and of eternity have an opening through your breast. God be praised, were it only for your sake, that the present shapes of human existence are not cast in iron nor hewn in everlasting adamant, but moulded of the vapors that vanish away while the es- sence flits upward to the Infinite. There is a spiritual essence in this gray and lean old shape that shall flit upward too. Yes; doubtless there is a region where the lifelong shiver will pass away from his being, and that quiet sigh, which it has taken him so many years to breathe, will be brought to a close for good and alL CHAPTER VIII RALPH WALDO EMERSON The historic old town of Concord is the literary Mecca of New England. Few places in America are richer in historic association, or have more in- teresting literary traditions clustering about them, than this quaint, typical New England town. Every true American must feel his breast swell w r ith patriotism as he visits Lexington and Concord and observes on all sides the many reminders of our hard-fought battles for American Independence. At the bridge hard by the town are two monuments marking the spot: "Where once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world." But the literary traditions and associations of the place are quite as interesting as the historic. AVhat a group of names famous in the history of American literature occurs to our minds at the very mention of Concord! How the pulse is quickened and the imagination kindled as soon as we set foot on the ground once daily trod by men and women whose names loom large in our literary annals ! Of these, however, none has greater drawing power than Emerson whose haunts and last resting place in Sleepy Hollow are almost as much frequented as Mount Vernon. A man may choose the place of his residence, but he has no choice as to his birthplace. Nature was 194 MAKERS OP AMERICAN LITERATURE kind to the seer of Concord, in permitting him to be born in Boston (near the place he esteemed above all others), where the sweet light of this world greeted his eyes on a May morning, 1803, now a century agone. His father, Reverend William Emerson, was pastor of a church in Boston at the time of the child's birth. Emerson's ancestors for several generations back were of the clerical order. It is not surprising therefore that Ealph Waldo should have inherited a disposition almost angelic, which he is reputed to have possessed. He is said to have been so naturally good that he hardly knew temptation and was acquainted with the effect of evil in others only by observation. We are told that he had no personal experience of the tendency to evil in human nature, that he was so far from being virtuous that he was pure and good spontane- ously, like beings that cannot sin. If then it be true, as reported, that Emerson was that rare phe- nomenon, a man of pure human innocence who always turned a deaf ear to the siren voice of sin so fascinating to ordinary mortals, small wonder that he made a profound impression on his disciples and was regarded as almost outside the pale of moral law. His father dying when young Emerson was but eight years old, his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, and her friend, Sarah Bedford, both women of singular earnestness and fine classical scholarship, prepared the boy for college. At the tender age of fourteen he entered Harvard. There he applied himself dili- gently of course, but did not distinguish himself above his fellows. He showed a fondness for the classics, but disliked mathematics. Montaigne and UK* poets he read with keen zest. He did not con- fine himself to the curriculum in his intellectual KALI' 1 1 WALDO EMERSON 195 training. lie acted on the principle enunciated later in his life: "What we do not call education is more gracious than what we do call so." It is sig- nificant that the office of class poet fell to his lot on the occasion of his graduation. After his graduation Emerson began to teach school for a livelihood (an occupation which count- less young men and women fall back upon to tide over an impecunious period of indecision). After two years' experience at teaching he decided to pre- pare himself in obedience to a call to the ministry. After studying under the direction of Dr. William Ellery Channing, Emerson was ready to enter the Unitarian pulpit, when only twenty years old. But at this juncture, failing health compelled him to seek a milder climate; and so he spent the following winter or two in South Carolina and Florida. He preached several times during his sojourn in the South and, upon his return home in 1826, he was "approbated to preach." After several trial sermons preached at various points in his native State, he received a call to the pastorate of the Second Church, in Boston. Emerson had scarcely become settled as a minis- ter in Boston before a dark shadow was thrown across his path by the early death of his wife, in 1832, after three all too brief years of married life. A few months after this sad event, perplexed by theological doubts concerning the Lord's Supper, he resigned his pastorate and determined to strike out in a new field where he would be untrammeled by religious traditions and free to think and act as his conscience dictated. He thereupon visited Europe. Here he met a number of distinguished men of letters, including Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, De Quincey, and 196 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Carlyle. Of these his acquaintance with Carlyle ripened into a friendship which was fostered by a correspondence till death. In the winter of 18334 Emerson returned to America with his mind brim- ful of impressions and his heart of inspiration. He settled in Concord, taking up his residence in the "Old Manse." This quaint, old-fashioned gambrel- roof house (still standing) was built years ago for Emerson's grandfather, the shepherd of the Concord flock; and in one of its rooms Emerson wrote "Na- ture," and it is interesting to note in passing that Hawthorne later wrote his famous "Mosses from an Old Manse" in this same room. Immediately on his return to his native heath Emerson decided to appear in a new role, that of a Lyceum lecturer. This role was destined to be his vocation for the next forty-six years. In his early repertoire he included such subjects as "Water," "The Kelation of Man to the Globe," "Michael An- gelo," "Milton," "Luther,' "George Fox," and "Edmund Burke." In these lectures are contained the germs of many of the thoughts which the seer afterwards expanded into separate productions, both prose and verse. If it be true, according to Holmes' dictum, that men consciously or unconsciously describe them- selves in the characters they draw, Emerson must have found sympathy and congeniality in the great men he made the subjects of his early lectures. It is no tax on our faith to believe our bard had a spirit akin to that of the great Puritan poet of Eng- land in the stress he placed upon the purity of life and nobility of character. It is evident he was like him in certain external circumstances of life, as, for instance, his early experience as a schoolmaster, the abandonment of the clerical office from conscien- KALI'II WALDO EMERSON 197 tious scruples and the sad bereavement of his early married life. This fact, though only a coincidence, may have exerted some influence on Emerson and stimulated his development in the direction whence .Milton drew his inspiration. "It is the prerogative of this great man," says Emerson in his lecture on Milton, "to stand at this hour foremost of all men in literary history, and so (shall we not say?) of all men in the power to inspire. Virtue goes out of him into others." . . . "He is identified in the mind with all select and holy images, with the supreme interests of the human race." "Better than any other he has dis- charged the office of every great man, namely, to raise the idea of man in the minds of his contem- poraries and of posterity to draw after nature life of man, exhibiting such a composition of grace, of strength, and of virtue as poet had not described nor hero lived. Human nature in these ages is in- debted to him for its best portrait. Many philoso- phers in England, France and Germany have for- mally dedicated their study to this problem; and we think it impossible to recall one in those cen- turies who communicates the same vibration of hope, of self-reverence, of piety, of delight in beauty, which the name of Milton awakens." From Concord Emerson made frequent excur- sions on his lecturing tours. He departed from his beaten path of lectures when he delivered, in 1835, in Boston, a course on English literature, and dur- ing the following year on the history of philosophy. Later he delivered a course on human culture. Some of his popular lectures he subsequently recast and published under the title of "Essays and Ad- dresses." He kept his time occupied during these years with Lyceum work, and his services as a pub- MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE lie speaker were much in request on special occa- sions. In 1836, Emerson published anonymously a slen- der volume of essays, entitled "Nature." This was the first sheaf of his intellectual harvest, the first fruits of his authorship. Though he withheld his name from the title-page, he could not conceal his identity, despite the fact that the style of the book was quite unlike that of his public lectures. How- ever, this little literary waif did not meet with a cordial reception from the reading public. The con- tents of the volume were vague and indefinite, mys- tical and obscure. The thought soared into cloud- land and proved incomprehensible to most of the critics. The uninitiated could not understand the book and so did not read it ; and, however much the esoterists might revel in it, they were not numerous enough to make the venture a financial success. Consequently the sales amounted only to 500 copies in twelve years. "Nature" is a kind of nrose poem, like most of Emerson's essays, and is dividecTTnTo" eight chapters containing the author's impressions of the various aspects of his subject. After a delirious outbreak in which he loses himself in the contemplation of his theme, he discovers himself and addresses himself to the proposition of considering nature in the aspect of ministry to the senses. This chapter he denominates Commodity or natural conveniences. The second chapter shows how "a nobler want of man is served by Nature, namely, the love of JJeai^ty."_ Here we find some of Emerson's philo- sopmcalideas advanced which he subsequently clothed in poetic form in his poem "llhodora." "Beauty," says lie, "in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe ; God is the KAI.l'II \VAL1><> KMKKSON 199 all fair. Truth and goodness and beauty are'but dif- ferent faces of t lie same nil. I Jut beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must therefore stand as a part anfl not as yet the highest expression of the final cause of na- ture." The author next considers Language, showing how words are called into being first from nature and later become transformed and exhausted. In the fourth chapter he discusses Discipline as illus- trating the influences of nature in training the in- tellect, the moral sense and the will. Then follow two chapters on Idealism and Spirit, respectively, which prove a stumbling block and rock of offense to the unimaginative reader. Such a reader sees here only the misty vagaries of a morbid imagina- tion. The book closes with a discussion of Pros- pects, which soars far above the level of prose into the region of poetry, detailing "some traditions of man and nature which a certain poet sang." This is the quintessence of transcendentalism of which Emerson was the chief exponent. If Emerson's philosophy as expounded in "Na- ture" signified foolishness to the man of average intelligence, not so his superb oration on "The American Scholar" delivered before that learned body at Harvard, on August 31, 1837. This schol- arly and inspiring address, we are told, was listened to with rapt attention by an audience that was well- nigh spellbound by the speaker's eloquence. Lowell, referring to it, says that its delivery "was an event without any parallel in literary annals, a scene to be always treasured in the memory for its pic- turesqueness and its inspiration. What crowded and breathless aisles, what windows clustering with 200 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE eager heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what grim silence of foregone dissent/' Holmes speaks of it, in his Life of Emerson, as our intellectual Declaration of Independence; and his language is not mere rhetorical exaggeration. The essay is a masterly plea for a broad and liberal culture which shall embrace the full development of all the facul- ties. The general verdict of the auditors was that that address could never be forgotten, which burst upon their ears like a clarion note calling to a broader, fuller and nobler life. The following year Emerson delivered an address before the Divinity College in Cambridge which proved a rude shock to the orthodox thinkers of the world and threw them into a paroxysm of excite- ment. This address was in sharp contrast to the memorable address of the year before. Yet the unorthodox address was the logical outcome of the spirit of intellectual independence which breathes through every sentence of "The American Scholar." The publication of this essay proclaiming Emer- son's emancipation from dogma was the signal for a veritable swarm of hostile critics of the orthodox school to gather about his head and fill the air with their angry buzz. In 1841 Emerson gave to the world the first vol- ume of his collected "Essays." The table of con- tents is stimulating and suggestive: History, Self- Reliance, Compensation, Spiritual Laws, Love, Friendship, Prudence, Heroism, The Over Soul, Circles, Intellect, Art and the Young American (in- cluded in the later editions). These essays estab- lished Emerson's reputation as the prince of Ameri- can essayists. This prose vein he developed and made distinctively his own. It is noteworthy that he confined his expression in prose exclusively to RALPH WALDO EMERSON 201 this species of composition. He is recognized there- fore in American letters as an essayist par excel- lence. The reason why he chose this special form for the expression of his thought is not far to seek. A moment's reflection AVI 11 explain why a lecturer should adopt the essay style. This first series of essays is characteristic of their author's manner and method. If, according to Buf- fon's dictum, the style is the man, these essays re- flect Emerson as in a mirror. We observe his subtle wit, his bold, imaginative spirit, his magnetic charm and his power to inspire. The thought is driven home with peculiar force by the author's wealth of happy illustration and is clothed, withal, in crisp, trenchant, vigorous English. The essays abound in short pithy sayings setting forth the sage's philosophy of life. Yet here and there we stumble upon sentences that are wellnigh unintel- ligible, mere words without sense. Those not initiated into the mysteries of transcendentalism can deduce no meaning from such passages and gen- erally regard them as utter nonsense. An example in point is the conclusion of the essay on history where in a paragraph Emerson exclaims : "I am ashamed to see what a shallow' village tale our so- called history is. How many times we must say Rome and Paris and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olym- piads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience of succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, for the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the steve- dore, the porter?" Now, this passage may be per- fectly intelligible to the student versed in transcend- entalism. But to the average reader it is a veritable enigma. 202 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Moreover there is a degree of sameness about the several essays that is quite noticeable. The sub- jects, to be sure, differ. But on close analysis the thought will be seen to be very much the same in all. Each essay serves to present another point of view, another angle from which to look at the truth which is repeated again and again. An eminent divine used to say, after having preached innumerable sermons, that, after all, he had only one sermon, only one truth. Certainly this seems true of Emer- son's essays. The message he brings is much the same in all. He had a revelation of the import of creation and this constituted his message to the world. This he presented in a variety of ways and under different figures, but the message was still the same. Critics have pointed out reminiscences of various philosophers in these "Essays." In one place they recognize the influence of Plato, who was Emer- son's favorite among the ancient philosophers. In another place they attribute the original thought to Swedenborg, or to Schelling, or to the God-intoxi- Hcated Spinoza. In the essay, "Over Soul," Emer- son verges on pantheism in his rhapsodies. But whether this idea is borrowed or is evolved from his own inner consciousness, it would be difficult to de- termine. The author himself informs us that he read sedulously not only the above-mentioned philosophers, but many others. What is more natural than that his own writings should take tone and color from the works he fed on just as the chameleon takes its color from the object it feeds upon? If questioned himself about this matter, Emerson would probably have replied, "Every book is a quotation; every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. When we are praising Plato, it RALPH WALDO EMERSON 203 seems we arc praising quotations from Solon and Soph ron and I'hilolaus." In 1844, appeared the second series of "Essays." These are very much of the same general character as the first series and embrace such titles as the Poet, Character, Manners, Experience, Gifts, Na- ture, Politics, and Nominalist and Realist. Two years later Emerson published his first volume of poems. These, however, were not all new. Many of them had already seen the light in "The Dial," and their appearance in book form did not excite much enthusiasm. Besides, the sentiment was strikingly akin to that expressed in the "Essays." In 1847, Emerson made his second visit to Eu- rope, gathering fresh inspiration and renewing his acquaintance with the literary lights met on his first trip abroad. While in England his admirers and friends prevailed on him to deliver a series of lectures, which were received with considerable demonstration of approval. These lectures were subsequently published under the title of "Repre- sentative Men." The men selected as the subjects of the essays, it is interesting to note, were men of thought and action, such as Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Goethe. In the choice of these men for portrayal Emerson clearly indicated to the world his own affinities and repulsions and revealed his own character perhaps all unconsciously and unintentionally. Of the six representative men Plato seems to approximate most closely his ideal man. Yet he does not hold up even Plato for our unqualified admiration. Another book, "English Traits," though not pub- lished till 1856, was also indebted for its inspiration to this European tour. This volume and "Repre- sentative Men" mark something of a departure 204 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE from our author's customary method as a literary artist, "English Traits" is an attempt at portrayal of character. But no individual Englishman is se- lected and held up as representative of his nation. Emerson's plan was rather to delineate the national characteristics of the English people, and in this respect he succeeded admirably. For the book is decidedly original, like all of its author's produc- tions, and contains many clever, piquant observa- tions upon the characteristic ways and manners of our British cousins across the sea. The strength of the book, however, lies in its broad generalizations and in its epigrammatic characterizations, as an eminent critic has felicitously expressed it. It is evident to the reader that Emerson was favorably impressed by the sturdy, stolid character of the typical Englishman, his indomitable pluck and vigor, his deep-rooted conservatism, his love of routine, and, withal, his refreshing self-compla- cency and contentment. When the Atlantic Monthly was founded, Emer- son was solicited to become a contributor. From this time forth much of his best work, verse as well as prose, found its way into the columns of this famous magazine. Here first appeared his poems "The Romany Girl," "Days," "Brahma," "Waldein- samkeit," "The Titmouse," "Saadi," and "Termi- nus," not to mention any of his prose contributions. In 1860 Emerson published a new collection of essays, entitled the "Conduct of Life." This vol- ume contained his ripe reflections upon such themes as power, fate, culture, worship, wealth, behavior, beauty and illusions. These essays are in a similar philosophical vein to those previously published from his pen, and so do not call for a detailed con- sideration here. Six years after this Emerson col- RALPH WALDO EMERSON 205 lected a slender volume of his fugitive poems, giv- ing them more permanent form under the title, "May-Day and Other Pieces." The booklet con- tained some of its author's finest poems, but little that was really new. Its reception by the public was not attended with any special demonstration or gush. Nor did Emerson care for this. He did not write for the approval of the public or of the critics. He acted altogether independently of the opinion of his contemporaries. Not that he was altogether insensible to criticism, for he was not. But conscience was his guiding principle. It is not to be inferred that Emerson's literary productions were not cordially received. Far from this, they were accorded a hearty welcome, espe- cially by the hosts of his ardent admirers on both sides of the Atlantic. This was but the natural consequence from the admiration and reverence in which he was held by all who knew him. His repu- tation as a philosopher and as an author was not confined to the shores of his native country. He counted his disciples in Europe by the score. He shed lustre upon the republic of American letters, and though he was not a voluminous author, the quality of his writings has extended his fame throughout the world. After the publication of another collection of es- says which he called "Society and Solitude", Emer- son left America for a third visit to Europe. Upon his return he published a poetic anthology and re- sumed his work as a lecturer. But approaching old age admonished his to relax his arduous literary labors. Two volumes in his collected work, "Lec- tures and Biographical Sketches" and "Miscella- nies," represent the last gleanings of his intellec- tual harvest. Some of the essays, however, which 206 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE make up these last two volumes were the product of his earlier years when his mental vigor showed no indication of abatement. The contents of these volumes embrace a variety of topics, but do not en- hance their author's reputation especially. As we have seen, Emerson was not a prolific writer. About a dozen volumes of prose and verse represent the entire output of his literary labors. It need hardly be remarked that the bulk of his work is prose. Yet his collected poems make a good stout volume. He did not produce any lengthy prose work. The essay is his favorite form. After this general survey it is fitting to consider the question of Emerson's place in American litera- ture. Emerson's poetry has been variously estimated by the critics, and has proved an unfailing source of contention. It seems to have divided the critics into two distinct classes. One class holds that Emerson was pre-eminently a poet by nature and instinct, and that even when he lapsed into prose, his thought was essentially poetic. The other class, with equally firm conviction, maintains that Emerson was a mere versifier, only a poetaster, not a poet. In proof of this thesis they cite, with sonic pretence of right, the innumerable palpable defects of versification that blur and mar many of Emer- son's pages. It is true that the mechanical blemishes of his verse do tend to discount Emerson's poetic gift. But the question in dispute is a subjective one which, in the very nature of things, cannot be satis- factorily settled. Each critic may record his opin- ion and that is the end of the matter as far as he is personally concerned; but the question is far from solution. Suffice it to say in respect of the present RALPH NYAl.IK) KMKRSON 207 question, however, that the majority of critics are overwhelmingly in favor of voting Emerson a gen- uine poet. First as to Emerson's prose. Emerson confined himself, as is well known, almost exclusively to the essay. He did not enter the vast domain of fiction which at present engaged the attention of most au- thors. He did not even venture upon the portrayal of character, except in a limited extent in his "Eng- lish Traits." Emerson did not possess the faculty of definition (if that is the proper word) which is a pre-requisite to the novelist for describing with sharpness of outline the various characters of his story, so that they stand out from his page as clear- cut and distinct from each other as in real life. Nor did Emerson exhibit that type of creative mind which invents characters, and which sketches scenes bristling with action. In short, Emerson could not construct a plot and fill it in with men and women of his own creation. Emerson's genius was of a distinctly philosoph- ical type. This determined the product of his liter- ary efforts. Not in works of fiction, but in his- tory, in biography and in philosophy did he seek instruction and inspiration. Mere fiction did not appeal to him. His favorite authors were Plato, Plutarch, Montaigne, Goethe, Bacon, Sweden- borg, Socrates, Aristotle, Milton and Shakes- peare. These were the authors who stimulated his imagination and kindled his genius. These he quotes again and again as emphasizing the proper conception of life and as illustrating the principle of pure living and high thinking. Emerson had an exalted conception of life and human destiny. He realized that he had a message for the world, and he was as much in earnest in the delivery of his 208 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE message as was his friend Carlyle. Like the sage of Chelsea, Emerson was a moralist and took his mission very seriously, and made a lasting impres- sion upon the world. Though in revolt against the accepted traditions of the Church, he dared to an- nounce to the world his declaration of intellectual independence with absolute unconcern as to author- ity, names or institutions. Nor was he altogether like one crying in the wilderness. He had a large following. The world admires a man who has the moral courage to express his convictions, regardless of the penalty. As a philosopher, Emerson's place is difficult to determine. He was not a psychologist. Yet he wrote and delivered lectures on the natural history of the intellect. He was a seer, a man of intuition. He lived and wrote as if by divine instinct. He arrived at truth, not by any mental process of rea- soning, but by intuition. Unlike most men, he did not reason out anything. The ratiocinative faculty was not developed in him. If il had been, he would have been more logical and consistent, and less of an enigma to his disciples. This is the reason why his writings appear wanting in logical connection. You may read his essays backward as well as for- ward with much the same effect. The arrangement is not always logical and the sequence of thought is frequently interrupted. Nor do the titles invari- ably furnish a true index to the contents. Hence not a few readers find Emerson rambling and inco- herent, and sometimes, obscure and unintelligible. The obscurity is perhaps due to his idealism, his mysticism ; for he is an idealist, a spiritualist, not a materialist. His mysticism, too, sometimes leads him perilously near the ridiculous and the absurd. RALPH WALDO EMERSON 209 But these lapses, it ought to be added, are only occasional. Emerson's philosophy offers as its chief and dis- tinctive achievement his analysis and interpreta- tion of nature. This is the purport of his maiden volume and it is the theme of all his subsequent volumes. Nature in its broadest sense he con- ceives as comprehending everything in the universe except man's soul, and it is the symbol even of this. In nature God has expressed in concrete form his infinite ideas, has incarnated himself, so to say, for man's development. Man represents the highest principle in nature, and the whole effect of nature upon him is disciplinary. Therefore, nature itself cannot be said to have any natural existence apart from man, and things do not exist in space, but are only reflected as from man's soul. The soul con- ceives the world as one vast canvas, as it were, painted by the master artist upon eternity and em- bodying his eternal ideas. When nature rises into mind and its tendency is ever in that direction individuality begins. Nature gradually evolves it- self into spiritual man as the final cause of exist- ence, and is itself but the projection of a Being in the form of man, that is, God. Such, in a nutshell, is Emerson's philosophy. But Emerson was also a poet. In his verse as in his prose, however, he was still a philosopher. Like Lucretius, Emerson was a philosopher and poet both at one and the same time. But in the poet he is the philosopher transformed. In his philosoph- ical poems expressing the great elementary ideas he is at his best, and is, in a sense, unapproachable. Here he deals in general symbols and abstract ideas, and impresses upon the reader his majestic conception of the infinite. These poems, it is true, 210 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE contain more or less of mysticism ; but, for all that, they are masterly productions of their kind. In the judgment of some of the most eminent critics these poems are the finest Emerson wrote and reach the very high-water mark of poetic composition. Of this class of poems suffice it to mention "The Sphinx," "Brahma," "Uriel," and "Guy." Yet other critics fail to discover any striking merit in these poems and derive no pleasure from their read- ing. They find them unsatisfying as poetry be- cause of their hidden meaning, their mysticism. These poems are assuredly not radiant with light, whatever other excellences they may have to com- mend them. For this reason, mainly, they do not appeal to the popular taste. They are too philo- sophical to please the average reader, who likes simplicity. Probably most people prefer Emer- son's love poems, such as "To Ehea," "Give All to Love," and "Initial, Daemonic and Celestial Love." Though these may not be models of simplicity and clearness, their meaning is not deep or far to seek. But whether one prefers the love poems or the philosophical poems, is, after all, a matter of taste. However, Emerson's poetic output is not ex- hausted by these two kinds of poems. He produced another kind of poetry whose "beauty is its own ex- cuse for being." Such are "The Humble-Bee," "Rhodora," "Painting and Sculpture," "Forbear- ance," "Good-Bye," and the famous Concord "Hymn." The beauty of these poems appeals to all men, the uninitiated as well as the initiated, and every one can appreciate them. If all his other poems were lost, these would be sufficient of them- selves to preserve the bard's reputation as an orig- inal poet with a rare gift of expression. RALPH WALDO EMERSON 211 Yet it must be admitted that, excellent as much of Emerson's poetry is, it has some serious defects. Emerson did not possess a faultless ear, as is very evident from a cursory examination of his verse. He paid too little attention to the mechanical struc- ture of his lines, to metre. Some of his verses show a cloven foot and go limping along in a fashion that offends delicate tastes. This result is the logical outcome of the "fatal facility" of his favorite metre. Like Byron, Emerson depended upon the inspira- tion of the moment to mold his thought in final shape, apparently disdaining to supplement the product of his genius with art. The labor of the file would have easily removed all the metrical blem- ishes, and that without sacrificing the spontaneity of the verse. But Emerson was unwilling to revise or to resort to art, to polish and perfect his lines. He concerned himself with the thought, not with the form, acting on the maxim of Cato, Rem tene, verba sequentur. Aside from the mechanical imperfections, Emer- son's verse is open to criticism on the same score as his prose. His poetry no less than his prose is marred by occasional obscurity and lack of coher- ence. The poet is sometimes carried off his feet in his rhapsodies and soars into cloudland. Hence, as has been noted, some of Emerson's poems are en- veloped in mysticism and for this reason are diffi- cult to understand. They smack too strongly of the transcendental school, and too often lapse into doggerel. Poe who was endowed with a keen artis- tic touch and was himself no mean judge of verse found much of the Concord bard's verse mere jin- gling rhymes, devoid of melody, beauty and senti- ment. But Poe could not away with any of the transcendental poets. 212 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Yet after criticism has said her last word, and analysis can go no farther, there still remains a beauty, a charm, about Emerson which is perceived more clearly than it can be expressed. His wealth of imagery and illustration which seems almost Oriental, his breadth and vigor of thought, his deli- cacy of treatment, his terseness of speech and his moral earnestness withal combine to make him a favorite author even despite his mysticism and transcendentalism. He dwells in a bracing atmo- sphere on the very mountain top of thought and, as a seer, catches visions of the infinite which he re- veals to us for our upbuilding and inspiration. We recognize in him one of the most original and vital- izing forces in our literature. EMERSON CONCORD HYMN By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone ; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires-, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. EACH AND ALL Little thinks, in the field, you red-cloaked clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down ; The heifer that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ; The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; 214 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one ; Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky ; He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye. The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. Then I said, "I covet truth ; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat ; I leave it behind with the games of youth :" As I spoke, beneath my feet The grounipine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; J'ine-coues and acorns lay on the ground; KALPH WALDO EMERSON 215 Over me soared the eternal sky, Full of liiilil :nid of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird ; Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole. THE RHODORA ON BEING ASKED,, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay ; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew: But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. THE PROBLEM I like a church : I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul ; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles : Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be. 216 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure? Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old ; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano's- tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below, The canticles of love and woe: The hand that rounded Peter's dome And groined the aisles of Christian Rome Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew ; The conscious stone to beauty grew. Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest Of leaves, and- feathers from her breast ? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads? Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone, And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids ; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye; For out of Thought's interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air; And Nature gladly -nv<> UHMU place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat. RALPH WALDO EMERSON 217 These temples grew as grows the grass; Art might obey, but not surpass. The passive Master lent his hand To the vasi soul that o'er him planned ; And the same power that reared the shrine Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless host, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, And through the priest the mind inspires. The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost. I know what say the fathers wise, The Book itself before me lies, Old Chrysostom, best Augusiine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger Golden Lips or mines, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines, His words are music in my ear, I see his cowled portrait dear; And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be. DAYS Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. 218 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. GOOD-BYE Good-bye, proud world ! Fm going home : Thou are not my friend, and I'm not thine. Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; A river-ark on the ocean brine, Long I've been tossed like the driven foam ; But now, proud world ! I'm going home. Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace ; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high ; To crowded halls, to court and street ; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come ; Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home. I am going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone, A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned, Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and God. O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugli at the lore and the prido of man. At the sophist schools and (lie l<':irn<>, with its broad outlook on nature and on life. Bryant, therefore, has no successful rival to his claim as the "father of American song." He is the first of our American poets, in point of time, whose place in English liter- ature is definitely assured. No quality of Bryant's poetry is more noteworthy than his extraordinary precocity. In poetry, as in prose, maturity of art usually comes with years of unremitting toil and practice. But Bryant served no apprenticeship. His maiden poem "Thanatop- sis," though thrust aside into a pigeon-hole and not published till years after it was written, was as faultless in quality and execution as the best pro- duction of his mature genius. The seventeen-year- old author of "Thanatopsis," who also wrote his lines "To a Waterfowl" before he attained his ma- jority, even with all the practice and accumulated experience of many years spent in productive liter- ary work, never succeeded in striking a more melodi- ous note or teaching a profounder philosophy than he expressed in his first two lyrics. The key of his song, of course, varied, but the rhythm and quality remained almost on the same level. He enhanced the beauty of his later poetry by broadening its range rather than by improving its quality and he never surpassed the high standard of excellence es- tablished by the first products of his muse. In this respect Bryant's example sets at naught all literary traditions, and forms an exception to the rule of poetic development. Bryant's chief source of inspiration is nature, and as a poet of nature he shows his affinity and kinship with the renowned master of the Lake school of English poets. No element of our bard's poetry is 236 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE more characteristic or more universally appreciated than his nature poems. His love of nature was little short of passionate and, moreover, it expressed itself in a number of lyrics which constitute his finest work. A notable example is his ode "To the Fringed Gentian," to mention a specific example. In his familiar, pathetic verses on "Death of the Flowers," equally illustrative of his penetrating love of nature, he touches an elegiac chord which contributes not a little to the tender charm of the piece. Another quality of Bryant's genius is exhibited in the meditative, reflective character of his poetry. This distinctive feature of his verse appears in his very first song, "Thanatopsis," and, like a golden thread, can be traced through the warp and woof of his entire poetic fabric. "Thanatopsis" is reputed to have been written under the immediate inspira- tion of Kirk White's melancholy poem "The Grave," which superinduced in young Bryant's muse a meditative, pensive mood. This seems a a sufficient explanation of the sombre, reflective vein running through this chaste and classic song. But this element is found in all of Bryant's themes and marks his genius. It was his habit to meditate on the significance of life, its moral meaning, and upon death and the hereafter. In the contempla- tion of such disturbing questions his deep religious nature and Puritanism afforded him consolation and peace, and he naturally gave utterance to his feelings in his song. Like all the poets of the New England school, Bryant could hardly resist the temptation to use his song to point a moral. He felt compelled such was his Puritan nature to teach religious truth even in his verse, to give a moral turn to every WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 237 poetic scene or thought that kindled his i inn filia- tion. To him beauty did not appear a sufficient excuse for its own being, as it did to Poe, and Bry- ant, therefore, subordinated it to the higher end, in his eyes, of conveying religious instruction. This didactic feature is repugnant to modern canons of art; and, for this reason, some of the critics dis- parage Bryant's verse, relegating it to the limbo of mere religious poetry. Yet it is this very religious quality that explains, in large measure, the hold of IBryant's poetry upon the people, his widespread popularity. The American people, by and large, are not critical, and hence their literary sensibili- ties are not offended by a poem w T ith "a moral tag." Bryant's most noticeable defect is, probably, his narrowness of range, He sang mostly in one note. There are themes unlimited in number, capable of beautiful poetic interpretation and treatment, which did not, apparently, appeal to his muse. But this fault is not peculiar to Bryant: it is common to most poets. It is only the very great singers who have a wide register and are capable of running the entire gamut of song. Some critics find Bryant cold and lacking in breadth of sympathy and also in spontaneity. The criticism is not without some foundation in fact. Bryant, the man, was not a warm-hearted, impulsive, magnetic personality. He was reserved, cautious and calculating, but pure, noble and generous withal. It is but natural, therefore, that his verse, in its limitations as well as in its excellences, should reflect somewhat its au- thor's character, his individuality. Thus Bryant's song may be viewed as interpreting himself to the world, his characteristic thought and feeling. He revealed his inner nature to the world in terms of his song. 238 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Bryant never essayed a poem requiring prolonged effort and inspiration. Like Poe, he rejected the theory and principle of the long poem as contrary to the recognized canons of poetic invention. He contended that, on analysis, a long poem simply resolves itself into a series of short lyrics of more or less intensity of inspiration. Moreover, the ethical element in Bryant's poetry does not comport well with a long narrative or descriptive poem, and he had sufficient appreciation of the divine fitness of things not to attempt to reconcile two such in- congruities. Our poet's chief triumphs are found in his simple, unimpassioned lyrics which demand no long-sustained attention. His inspiration was intermittent. Nature denied him the dramatic power of invention and constructive skill, such as a long narrative poem like "Hiawatha" implies in its author. She also denied the intensity of passion necessary for the production of erotic verse. Bry- ant's nearest approach to fervor and passion is per- haps found in his patriotic song, "The Battlefield," of which some lines have won a Avide currency. Bryant's choice in the use of his metres is as limited and narrow as is the range of his themes. In keeping with his simplicity of manner, he con- fined himself to a few familiar metres, never once inventing or using any intricate forms. In his stanzaic forms he harked back to the eighteenth century models and attempted few or none of the metrical effects, such as engaged the attention of those masters of rhythm, Poe and S \viuburne. Yet Bryant was an expert in versification ; and probably no poet was more skilled in I he technique, the archi- tectonics of verse, than was he. His rhymes, too, are as scrupulously accurate as his verses are cor- rect and polished. He bestowed upon their struc- WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 239 ture unstinted care and spared not the labor of the file. Hence his verses, in respect of their polish and finish, compel our admiration, even when the senti- ment seems cold and wanting in inspiration. The beauty of his blank verse excited the envy of his fellow-poets and filled them with despair. The skill with which he handled this difficult metre, as re- vealed in his "Thanatopsis," that famous produc- tion of his boyhood, proved the poetical marvel of his age, and even now can only be explained as con- clusive evidence of his precocious genius. It follows, therefore, that Bryant occupies no in- significant, no inconspicuous place in the history of American letters. He appears a calm, dignified, noble seer who had visions, ever and anon, of the grand divine purpose concerning man, and who felt impelled to teach the people the high moral signifi- cance of life and death as related to the Great Be- yond. Like one of the ancient Hebrew prophets, he caught now and then inspiring glimpses of man's sublime destiny and interpreted it to us in terms of song. BRYANT TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty night. Thou comest not when violets' lean O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, in purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. Thou waitest late and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near his end. Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue blue as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall. I would that thus, when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, blossoming within my heart, May look at heaven as I depart. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead ; WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 241 They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's trend : The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sister- hood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold No- vember rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the sum- mer glow; But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from up- land, glade, and glen. And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; 242 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fra- grance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. ROBERT OF LINCOLN Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame, Over the mountain-side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Snug and safe is that nest of ours, Hidden among the summer flowers. Ghee, chee, chee. Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, Wearing a bright black wedding-coat; White are his- shoulders and white his crest. Hear him call in his merry note : WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 243 Bob-oMink, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Look, what a nice new coat is mine, Sure there was never a bird so fine. Chee, chee, chee. Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife, Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, Passing at home a patient life, Broods in the grass while her husband sings : Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Brood, kind creature; you need not fear Thieves and robbers while I am here. Chee, chee, chee. Modest and shy as a nun is she ; One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat : Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can ! Chee, chee, chee. Six white eggs on a bed of hay, Flecked with purple, a pretty sight! There as the mother sits all day, Robert's singing with all his might : Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Nice good wife, that never goes out, Keeping house while I frolic about. Chee, chee, chee. Soon as the little ones chip the shell, Six wide mouths are open for food; Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well, Gathering seeds for the hungry brood. 244 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; This new life is likely to be Hard for a gay young fellow like me. Ghee, chee, chee. Kobert of Lincoln at length is made Sober with work, and silent with care : Off is his holiday garment laid, Half forgotten that merry air : Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Nobody knows but my mate and I Where our nest and our nestlings lie. Chee, chee, chee. Summer wanes ; the children are grown ; Fun and frolic no more he knows; Kobert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone; Off he flies, and we sing as he goes : Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; When you can pipe that merry old strain, Robert of Lincoln, come back again. Chee, chee, chee. TO A WATERFOWL Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 245 Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side? There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast The desert and illimitable air Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright. 246 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE THANATOPSIS WRITTEN IN THE FOETUS EIGHTEENTH YEAR To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language ; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless- darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around Earth and her waters, and the depths of air Comes a still voice Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. \YILUAM: CULLEN BRYANT 247 Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world with kings, The powerful of the earth the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings yet the dead are there : And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glides away, the sons of men, 248 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. CHAPTER X HENEY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW It has been now somewhat more than a score of years since the death of Longfellow. Perhaps we are not yet far enough removed from his day to form an impartial estimate of the rank and place in our literature which this deservedly popular poet is destined to occupy. It requires a considerable lapse of time to dispel the illusion and glamour which his charming poetry cast over the minds of his readers ; and it may be that we are not yet pre- pared to examine his verse in the cold and dispas- sionate light of criticism. Longfellow was born in Portland^ Maine, in 1807. He came of one of the first New England families, and his father, who was a successful lawyer, spared no expense to equip his son fully for a literary life. The way, therefore, was made smooth for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to attain to the eminent distinction of being America's most popular poet at the time of his death. It seems fitting to review his poetic achievement and inquire whether the fore- most American poet of a generation ago is still hold- ing his own. It is possible that his popularity has been eclipsed by the fame of some bard whose star had not risen two decades ago. In his own time, as just stated, Longfellow en- joyed a wider fame than any other poet, alive or dead, on this side of the Atlantic. Emerson was doubtless a profounder thinker and more philosoph- ical, and appealed more powerfully to a select circle 250 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE of readers. But he was the recognized exponent of a certain school, and his audience was therefore limited. Whittier's verse smacked too much of a party, or of a section, to be universally admired. Profoundly stirred by the evils of slavery, he canie to regard himself, for the nonce, as the poetic mouthpiece of the Abolition party, and when his party passed away together with the cause which called it into being, Whittier's poetry lost much of its power and charm, even for his most zealous co- partizans. Lowell was perhaps more brilliant and versatile than Longfellow ; but he was rather book- ish, and his poetry is not infrequently open to the charge of pedantry. Bryant was chaste and fin- ished and grand even; but his poetry was as life- less and as cold as marble. There was no fire or passion in it : it came from the head, not from the heart. Longfellow, however, "looked into his own heart and wrote" ; and he touched in his song those chords which awaken an echo in every heart. For this reason his poetry approximates that class of literature which critics sometimes denominate "universal." Not that Longfellow deserves to rank with the world's great poets, for he does not: nor would the most ardent admirers of his genius make any such claim for him. But his poetry has more in it that appeals to the human heart than has the poetry of any of his American contemporaries. Longfellow's fame is not confined to America. He is favorably known in Europe. No other American poet, with the possible exception of Poe, is so widely known on the other side of the Atlantic. Indeed, it is questionable that Poe forms an excep- tion. For while Poe is much read on the Continent, especially in France, still it is his tales rather than his poetry that foreigners read. Longfellow's HENRY \VA!S\Y()RT1L LONUFKLLOW 251 poetry has been far more extensively translated. His recent biographer is authority for the state- incut that there have been one hundred versions, in whole or in part, of Longfellow's work, extending into eighteen foreign languages. What other American author can equal, much less surpass, this flattering record of appreciation? Longfellow has been aptly called the people's poet; and, in the judgment of many discriminating critics, the title is well founded in fact. For his sym- pathies and affections were ever with the people; for them he wrought, for them he sang. By educa- tion and culture, by his happy faculty of literary expression and by his unfailing good taste he was peculiarly qualified and equipped for this office; and herein lies the secret of his unbounded popular- ity and success. His message was not erudite or eso- teric; nor did it presuppose any extraordinary de- gree of mental acumen in those to whom it was addressed, to appreciate it. But it was such as a man of average intellectual endowment could com- prehend and appreciate. In this respect our poet was poles removed from Browning, whose poetry fully yields its hidden meaning only to the most acute and best trained intellects. But Longfellow's simplicity of utterance makes his poetry readily "understanded of the people" and renders a com- mentary unnecessary. His verse is at once lucid and clear and melodious and beautiful. Indeed, his distinguishing virtue consists in his power of expressing in chaste, lucid and musical verse what everybody has felt, but few can say with such felicity of phrase. He possessed the rare faculty of re-clothing old, familiar truths in a poetic dress in such a manner as to give them the appearance of entirely new and original creations. Difficile est 252 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE proprie communia dicere, says Horace, himself a master in the art of literary expression ; but, some- how, Longfellow seems to have acquired the secret of this difficult art of putting commonplace things happily. Longfellow was of a poetic temperament. His taste and feelings were essentially those of a poet. This is evident from the glamour and witchery of phrase, which we have just observed as character- istic of his style. He first felt the poem in his own soul, and then he translated it into terms of sur- passing grace, beauty and music. Herein lies the secret of his genius. Some critics are willing to concede Longfellow facility, beauty and charm ; but they deny him orig- inality. There is a sense in which this criticism is true ; but, like all half truths, the dictum is mislead- ing and does the poet an injustice. Longfellow, it is true, was not original in the sense in which Poe was original; nor was he original in the sense in which Browning was original. It is not probable that Longfellow possessed as high a degree of orig- inality perhaps as either of these poets. Yet, if by originality is meant creative genius, then Longfellow was unquestionably original. For does it not require a high order of creative genius to give to the prosy, commonplace sentiments and experiences of every- day life poetic form and beauty and spontaneity as well? Now, this, as has been observed, is just what Longfellow has done. Let us have done there- fore with the cant that he was not an original poet. Longfellow achieved his greatest triumphs in lyrical poetry. As a dramatic poet he was not a success. But this is no great disparagement. It only proves that, like most authors, our poet had his limitations. For few, indeed, are the poets of HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 253 the last century who have won laurels in the prov- ince of the drama. Not even Tennyson with all the glamour of his name could make one of his dramas hold the stage. Longfellow produced two success- ful narrative poems. I }iii it is not chiefly these that have won him his enviable reputation as the poet of the people. It is rather his sonnets, his shorter poems, in which he excelled. Of these perhaps the best known is his "Psalm of Life," now as familiar as a household word. This contains a larger number of lines, long since become familiar quotations, than any other of our poet's lyrics. In point of furnish- ing quotable lines, as well as in point of spontaneity and general excellence, it challenges comparison with Gray's beautiful Elegy. Longfellow gave con- clusive proof of his good taste and sound literary judgment in resisting the temptation to make of his theme a mere didactic poem. He speaks to us through the lines of this psalm as standing, not on a plane above and beyond us, but on the same level with us and as being himself one of our own num- ber. The poem is a stirring and inspiriting appeal for sympathy, of a man who aspires with us, to a higher and nobler life. There is nothing of didac- ticism about it. On the contrary, it is imaginative and spontaneous and pulsates with emotion and sympathy. Worthy of special mention among our poet's lyrics are "Excelsior," "The Reaper and the Flow- ers/' "Footsteps of Angels," "Maidenhood" and "Resignation." These are all excellent and have attained a wide currency. They are poems instinct with tender sentiment and make a strong, al- beit mute, appeal to gentle and pensive natures. Equally beautiful in technical execution, though not so pathetic perhaps, are such snatches of song 254 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE as "Land of the Desert," "The Lighthouse," "The Jewish Cemetery," and "The Arsenal." In the production of such sonorous trifles (if that is not too frivolous a word to apply to these songs), Long- fellow stands unexcelled in American literature. Indeed, few English singers have surpassed him in this kind of verse. In his ballads, such as "The Skeleton in Armor" and kindred lyrics, Longfellow made a new depar- ture and entered the domain of romance. This and the sad sea ballad, "The Wreck of the Hesperus," are perhaps his finest. But however much critics may praise these ballads, we feel nevertheless that the romantic vein was not their author's forte. Probably the most felicitous sea poem that Long- fellow wrote was "The Building of the Ship.'' This furnishes a noteworthy example of his metrical skill. Moreover it is full of energy and patriotic fervor and challenges comparison with Horace's graceful, patriotic ode, which was its prototype. The glowing apostrophe to the Union, at the close, is a far more impassioned appeal to patriotism than Horace's paean of victory over the defeated Cleo- patra. In his narrative poems Longfellow blazed out an entirely new path in our literature. Accordingly, he deserves the distinction of being the first Ameri- can poet to compose a long narrative poem the in- terest of which is sustained throughout. In this respect Longfellow essayed a bold undertaking, but the generous and cordial welcome which "Evan- geline" received fully justified the author's daring attempt. The pathetic story of "Evangeline" is well told, and the delicate descriptive passages here and there throughout the poem indicate the pres- ence of the hand of a master artist. The concep- HENKY WADSWOKTH LONGFELLOW 255 lion, loo, of the heroine, in her noble and inspiring exam pic of sacrifice for Hie sake of her lost lover, is as beautiful as it is tender and pathetic. The author was happy both in conception and execu- tion, and the result is that "Evangeline" is an ex- quisite idyl which deserves to take rank as a classic by the side of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village." Still, notwithstanding its beauty and pathos, "Evangel! ne" is not a poem which rivets our atten- tion and co P.I pels our unqualified admiration. Con- sidered from the point of view of art, the poem has blemishes and imperfections, that impair its charm and beauty not a little. The characters are not portrayed with that skill and power which one could desire. They do not stand out upon the page with distinctness and with clearness of outline. .Moreover, there are long stretches of narrative which do not contribute materially to the develop- ment and interest of the story. There are few dramatic episodes, though the poem affords numer- ous glimpses of interesting and picturesque charac- ters. Perhaps we ought to take "Evangeline," however, as the author probably intended it, viz., as a tender and graceful idyl fashioned out of a beautiful and pathetic legend of early American history. Viewed in that light it cannot fail to charm and entertain the reader. But if we attempt to apply to it the canons of the drama, or of the novel, it is immedi- ately open to serious criticism. Longfellow culled the pathetic legend of "Evan- Celine" from the gray dawn of our country's history and suffused it with a soft glow of his poetic imagi- nation, thus imparting to it its charm and romantic interest, and made of it "the flower of American idyls." But the poem is much indebted to the clas- 256 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE sic measure the author chose, for its beauty and for the delightful spell it casts over the reader. The selection of the hexameter for the meter of "Evan- geline" seems a stroke of genius, because this meter, somehow, is specially well adapted to the bucolic love story. And the author handled this difficult measure with rare skill and deftness so much so, indeed, that his hexameters challenge comparison with the most graceful in our language. Longfel- low has hardly yet received his due meed of ^praise for his service in helping to domicile a form of verse which is almost universally condemned by the critics as an exotic and as unadapted to the exi- gencies of English poetry. The critics poured out the vials of their wrath upon his head for such a bold attempt, and almost exhausted their vocabu- lary of censure. All this Longfellow anticipated, but he felt that the hexameter was the measure for his idyl, and so he adopted it despite the storm of criticism it was destined to call forth. In no point of literary art did our bard show more conclusive evidence of the courage of his convictions than in his deliberate choice of the meter for his "Evan- geline." The popularity of this delightful bucolic love story has justified his choice and fully vindi- cated the soundness of his judgment. For many of the familiar lines of the "Evangeline" have won their currency chiefly through the sonorous cadence and roll of the hexameter. The "Courtship of Miles Standish" formed a com- panion piece to the author's favorite idyl, "Evan- geline." The former is a Pilgrim idyl in which Priscilla, John Alden and the bluff old captain form the principal figures. It is so familiar as to render an analysis of it superfluous. Though not. so popular as "Evaiigeline," the "Courtship of HENRY \VADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 257 Miles Standish" marks a distinct advance upon its predecessor in constructive skill and in the delinea- tion of the characters. The figures stand out with greater defiuiteness and distinctness of outline. Not the least noteworthy feature of this entertain- ing idyl is the broad humour that lights up the con- ventional conception of the Pilgrim character in those far-off times in our history. We do not usually invest that character with much charm or romance. But Longfellow's conception glows with a warm imagination and a romantic interest more in keeping with the impulsive character of the Vir- ginia cavalier than with the cold, impassive charac- ter of the Pilgrim. In his narrative poem of "Hiawatha" Longfellow achieved a notable success. This poem, as is well known, deals with the manners, customs and legends of the various tribes of our North American Indians. The one idea which, like a golden cord, runs through the twenty-two different legends and binds them all together, giving them unity and har- mony, is the life of Hiawatha. The "Song of Hia- watha" is a distinctive American product and smacks of the soil whence it sprang. It breathes the wild outdoor odor of forest and stream in every line. Its strange wildness and grim weirdness, as reflected in the interplay of the savage aborigines upon the rugged background of nature, combine to impart to the poem the beauty and fascination of a fairy tale. The characters of Hiawatha and of his Indian wife, the laughing Minnehaha, are both mas- terful poetic conceptions, such as only a true poet would or could conceive. In the creation of these characters Longfellow gave indisputable proof of his inventive genius and originality, for nothing approaching "Hiawatha" even remotely had been 258 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE attempted before in our literature, and nothing has been done since that equals it. "Hiawatha," there- fore, stands alone in American literature; and English literature offers no parallel to it. The meter conspired with the subject matter of "Hiawatha" to make the poem unique and original. For the characteristic verse rhymeless trochaic dimeter had never before been employed in a long poem, and was, in fact, almost unknown in English literature. It is a difficult meter to handle; and for this reason it required consummate skill on the part of the poet to prevent the verse from degener- ating into commonplace chant, or mere singsong. The grotesque Indian names are woven into the poem with a musical effect little short of marvel- ous, and impart to the story a decided epic quality. Had the meter been other than it is, it were impossi- ble to say what the result would have been. Long- fellow so blended the meter and the substance into a poem, at once beautiful and melodious, as to make it impossible to divorce them without marring the artistic effect. "Hiawatha," therefore, is the form the Indian legends assumed as the poem was crys- tallized in the poet's imagination. Not the least important service which Longfellow rendered American letters was his excellent and scholarly interpretation of the great Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His translation of Dante proved a touchstone of his own invention and art; and the result is a metrical version both musical and accu- rate. To be sure, the translation is not absolutely impeccable, or faultily faultless. (Nor would it l>c true to say, as an enthusiastic German critic said of Tieck and SchlegePs version of Shakespeare, that the translation is better than the original.) But the faults are such as almost necessarily follow HENRY NVADSWOKTII LONGFELLOW 259 from a scrupulous effort to give a faithful and lit- eral rendering. No American man of letters was probably better fitted by taste, natural endowment and training for the difficult and delicate work. Longfellow, moreover, addressed himself to his arduous task with the proper conception of transla- tion, viz., to produce a "literal and lineal render- ing." As might have been expected, therefore, he caught the spirit and thought of the great Floren- tine and reproduced them with remarkable grace, smoothness and accuracy. The translation imme- diately took rank with the best in our tongue. Like Tennyson and many other poets who have achieved distinction in the field of lyric verse, Long- fellow was ambitious to win laurels in the province of the drama. But it does not follow that because a poet is successful as a lyricist that he is also a dramatist, This fact Longfellow of course knew at first theoretically, and he subsequently had it veri- fied in experience. Emboldened by the partial success of his romance "Hyperion" and by that of his first dramatic effort, "The Spanish Student," he set out resolutely to score an unqualified and com- plete success in a new and original drama. Accord- ingly, he at length gave to the world his Trilogy of "Christus," which he regarded as the high-water mark of his dramatic genius and art. But his hopes were doomed to disappointment, for the Trilogy fell flat and proved a signal failure. Justice to the poet, however, requires us to modify this remark and add that a part of the Trilogy did possess merit. Of this more anon. The "Christus" was a very unequal production. The first part, "The Divine Tragedy," and the third part, "The New England Tragedies," are decidedly tame and weak and little short of inane. The sub- 260 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE jects selected may be such as to offer great possibili- ties to a dramatist of real genius, but in the hands of Longfellow the treatment is feeble and alto- gether inadequate. The work may have the proper personages and situations and the form of a play, but it lacks the action, fire and passion. The author has evidently overestimated his power and chosen a theme beyond his capacity and range. Of the second part of the Trilogy, however, a favorable word may be spoken. This part, which, by the way, was published a score of years before the "Divine Tragedy," was entitled the "Golden Legend" and is the oasis in the desert. It is the sole redeeming part of the Trilogy. The "Golden Legend" is a fascinating romance cast in dramatic form, and, according to some critics, it reflects the author's versatile genius at its best. John Kuskin wrote of it at the time of its production : "Longfel- low, in his 'Golden Legend/ has entered more closely into the temper of the monk, for good or for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian, though they may have given their life's labor to the analy- sis." But even the "Golden Legend," brilliant as >'i is in parts, was not sufficient to redeem from a speedy oblivion the first and third parts of "Chris- tus," and so the Trilogy remains to-day unread a striking monument of the poet's misdirected ambi- tion. The fact is, Longfellow lacked dramatic skill ; he TJIS not, and never could become, a playwright. This was one of his limitations, and a limitation which lie was very slow to recognize. Indeed, he never fully realized it, as his posthumous drama "Mirheal Angelo" attests. If the energy and effort which he expended upon the drama had been given to lyric poetry, Longfellow would have won even HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 261 greater triumphs than those he did achieve and would have left behind him a more enduring name. If Longfellow had consulted his reputation as a poet, ho would probably have withheld from publi- cation his "Tales of a Wayside Inn." These he pub- lished in instalments extending through a decade, but they did not enchance his fame. They possess rather meagre literary merit. The poems which compose the collection are too diffuse and rambling, and the work lacks unity. They are a series of short stories gleaned from various foreign litera- tures and are strung together somewhat after the manner of Ovid's Metamorphoses. There seems, too, to be no obvious principle of classification. To be sure, there are some fine passages here and there, but the tales, as a whole, make upon the reader the wearisome impression of being long-drawn-out and prolix. The author was presumably led into this error by his extraordinary lyrical facility and by his superior qualities as a raconteur. He was therefore handicapped by the defects of his qualities. It has been said that Longfellow was the poet of the people, and the remark is true. In England he is regarded as the poet of the middle classes^ Now, this was also the class for whom Tennyson wrote. It is a noteworthy fact that these two poets pos- sessed much in common. But we need not dwell upon this point. Neither Longfellow nor Tenny- son was a "poet of passion or pain." This phrase, however, is a more apt characterization of the great English poet than of the gifted American singer. Longfellow never touched any very deep chord either of joy or of sorrow. His register did not in- clude either of these extremes. He pursued the even tenor of his song, never rising to the height of ineffable joy, on the one hand, nor descending to 262 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE the depth of unutterable anguish, on the other. Still, he was not "an idle singer of an empty day." Being neither rich nor poor, he occupied a fortunate intermediate station in life; and following his own exhortation, he wrote out of his own heart and ex- perience. Longfellow had a keen appreciation of nature. Probably nature would have appealed to him with something of the power and force with which she appealed to Wordsworth, if his lot had been cast among other surroundings. A college professor has a great deal of drudgery connected with his arduous duties, and the class-room does not afford the most glorious aspects of nature. But Longfel- low's love of nature was by no means an absorbing, passionate love. It has not that May-morning freshness about it, such as we find in the father of English poesy and in those who have drawn their inspiration from the same source as he. Like his contemporary Lowell, Longfellow could never quite forget his books ; but unlike Lowell, Longfellow did not allow his learning to obtrude itself unduly, and thus render his art over-literary. A good illustra- tion o 1^ what is meant is found in the poet's com- memoration ode, "Morituri Salutamus," written for the fiftieth anniversary of his graduating class. As Mr. Stedman has pointed out in his appreciative 1 sketch of Longfellow in his "Poets of America," this ode contains more than twenty learned references within the brief compass of three hundred lines, and yet the allusions are so deftly wrought into the poem that the effect is simple, natural and artless. Had Lowell essayed to do the same thing, he would {ilmost. inevitably have produced the impression of airing his erudition and parading his art. HENRY WADSWORTII LONGFELLOW 263 Longfellow learned the art, as happy as it is rare, of veiling his learning, and he knew the value of simplicity and artlessness. Above all things he strove to be natural. Affectation and display were foreign to his nature. He never posed for effect. His motto in art as in life was, Esse quam videri mallm. His poetry was but the natural expression of his sterling character, which despised sham and pretense in whatever form masquerading, and was as sincere and chaste as his own pure soul. Longfellow's genius was lyrical. His inspiration he sought more often in the heart than in the head. Tenderness, sympathy and love, combined with melody and charm, are the distinctive qualities of his verse. He aimed to look, not upon the dark, threatening exterior of the cloud, but upon its bright silver lining. In a word, he was an optimist, and looked out upon life through roseate glasses. There was nothing morbid about him, as there was, for instance, about Poe. He is thoroughly sane and wholesome as well as chaste and pure. He put him- self into his work and through his verse gave him- self to the world. Guileless, pure and true, he would no sooner have written a line which he felt to be un- true than he would have told a glaring falsehood. Of the sacredness and importance of the office of the poet no man ever entertained a more exalted opinion. His poetry is the flower and fruit of his noble life. LONGFELLOW MORITURI SALUTAMUS "O CAESAR, we who are about to die Salute you !" was the gladiators' cry In the arena, standing face to face With death and with the Eoman populace. O ye familiar scenes, ye groves of pine, That once were mine and are no longer mine, Thou river, widening through the meadows green To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen, Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose And vanished, we who are about to die Salute you ; earth and air and sea and sky, And the Imperial Sun that scatters down His sovereign splendor upon grove and town. Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear ! We are forgotten ; and in your austere And calm indifference, ye little care Whether we come or go, or whence or where. What passing generations fill these halls, What passing voices echo from these walls, Ye heed not ; we are only as the blast, A moment heard, and then forever past. Not so the teachers who in earlier days Led our bewildered feet through learning's maze; They answer us alas! what have I said? What greetings come there from the voiceless dead? What salutation, welcome, or reply? What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie? They are no longer here ; they all are gone Into the land of shadows, all save one. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 265 Honor and reverence, and the good repute That follows fj\i tli ful service as its fruit, Be unto him, whom living we salute. The great Italian poet, when he made His dreadful journey to the realms of shade, Met there the old instructor of his youth, And cried in tones of pity and of ruth : "Oh, never from the memory of my heart Your dear, paternal image shall depart, Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised, Taught me how mortals are immortalized ; How grateful am I for that patient care All my life long my language shall declare." To-day we make the poet's words- our own, And utter them in plaintive undertone; Nor to the living only be they said, But to the other living called the dead, Whose dear, paternal images appear Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here. CHAPTEK XI OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Few years in the history of English and Ameri- can literature have been more signalized by the birth of great men than the year 1809. Nature dis- tributed her gifts with a lavish hand to her babes of that year, for among those babes were Gladstone, Lincoln, Darwin, Tennyson, and Poe, to mention only a few, the bare recital of whose names quickens the pulse and kindles the imagination. There was another born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, during that annus miralnlis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who made for himself a name and, when he died in 1894, left behind him a record destined to stimulate and inspire our American youth for years to come. He was not a powerful factor, like Gladstone or Lin- coln in the councils of State, in shaping the desti- nies of nations; nor was he, like Darwin, a brilliant investigator of nature, devoting himself to the ad- vancement of science with an energy and zeal al- most unparalleled in the world's history. Yet he was inspired by a spirit somewhat akin to that which fired Darwin's soul and started him on the line of his daring researches into the secrets of na- ture. For he devoted himself to the noble profes- sion of medicine, and lent his healing art to the re- lief of suffering humanity, and though he made no brilliant discoveries, he yet strove to advance the bounds of human knowledge and to contribute to man's comfort and welfare. But it is not this phase of Holmes' life that we propose to consider. OLIYKU \VI:MM:LL IIOLMKS 267 Our object here is to discuss Holmes as a man of letters, in which capacity he achieved as great dis- l iiici ion as lie did as a follower of .Ksenlapius. Young Holmes was intended by his father, him- self a rongregiitional clergyman, for the ministry, but nature decreed otherwise. "I might have been a minister myself, for aught I know," wrote Holmes in later life, "if a certain clergyman had not looked and talked so like an undertaker." Again, speak- ing in a satiric vein of the impressions the ministers visiting his father's house made upon his youthful mind, he says : "But now and then would come along a clerical visitor with a sad face and a wailing voice, which sounded exactly as if somebody must be lying dead upstairs, who took no interest in us children except a painful one as being in a bad way, with our cheery looks, and did more to unchristianize us with his woe-begone ways than all his sermons were likely to accomplish in the other direction." Thus the boy was repelled rather than attracted to the ministry by a well-meaning clergyman, and did not yield to his father's wishes. Upon his graduation from Harvard, in 1829, Holmes felt some inclination to the law, but he pursued it only a short time when he discovered that he had not yet "found himself," and that law was not to his taste. He then addressed himself to medicine, which he felt to be his calling. After the comple- tion of his medical course, which he pursued mainly in Paris, he returned to his native State of Massa- chusetts and began the practice of his profession. In 1838 he was called to a professorship of anatomy in Dartmouth College, and a few years afterwards he was called thence to Harvard, his alma mater. Here he remained and continued to lecture till his 268 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE resignation of his professorship in 1882. The even- ing of life he devoted exclusively to his literary pursuits. The Little Man of Boston, as Dr. Holmes was familiarly called, enjoyed an enviable reputation as a raconteur and wit and became a familiar figure upon the lyceum platform. In 1884, he visited Eu- rope fifty years or more after his first prolonged visit when a student and w r as cordially received wherever he went, for his writings had already made his name famous, and the literati vied with each other in doing him homage. Oxford and Cam- bridge conferred upon him their highest honors. Upon his return to America he described his trip in an entertaining volume of travels, "Our Hun- dred Days in Europe." Holmes then settled down in Beacon Street to spend a peaceful and happy old age, accompanied with "honor, love, obedience and troops of friends." After this brief biographical sketch it is in order to review Holmes's writings, prose and poetry, and to determine his place, as best we may, among American men of letters. For convenience of treat- ment his prose works will be considered first and afterwards his poetry. Holmes is, no doubt, quite as favorably known by his prose as by his poetry. He is not of the num- ber of authors who excelled in only one of the great departments of literature. As in case of his life- long friend, James Russell Lowell, it is difficult to affirm whether Holmes advanced his reputation as an author more by his prose or by his poetry. Both his prose and verse exhibit very much the same OLIVER WENDELL HOLMKS 269 qualities of wit, humor, piquancy, and good taste. Perhaps, however, his genial originality is the most distinctive characteristic of his work. It shines forth from every page that he wrote, just as it is said to have flashed and sparkled in the conversa- tion of the man himself. Holmes showed a decided penchant for literal u re early in life. Even during his college days he began to write. But most of his early work was verse metrical essays, of light banter, with an occasional poem in a sober, serious vein. He was fast ap- proaching the meridian of life before he seems to have developed any special aptitude for prose com- position. At any rate, if he possessed it before, he does not appear to have appreciated it. When The Atlantic Monthly was projected in 1857, James Russell Lowell was asked to become the editor. This he reluctantly consented to do, but only on condition that Holmes should become a regular contributor and be "the first contributor to be engaged.'' Referring to this honor that Lowell paid him, Holmes afterwards said : "I, who felt myself outside the charmed circle drawn around the scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself to other studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell insisted upon my becoming a contributor. I looked at the old portfolio and said to myself, 'Too late! too late! This tarnished gold will never brighten, these battered covers will stand no wear and tear; close them and leave them to the spider and the bookworm.' ' With this famous magazine, which was indebted for its name to a suggestion of our author, a new star swam into the ken of the American reading public. That star was Holmes, who, as Howells 270 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE said, not only named, but made The Atlantic the foremost literary magazine in America. It was the publication, in that journal of those inimitable papers, the "Breakfast Table" series, that gave the monthly caste and established its reputation. The first of this well-known series to appear in the columns of The Atlantic was "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." But this was not the author's maiden effort. More than a score of years before he had dashed off two papers in a similar vein, which he had published under the same nom de plume in the short-lived New England Magazine. In the "Autocrat's Autobiography," Holmes says of these two early essays that "the recollection of the crude products of his uncombed literary boyhood suggested the thought that it would be a curious experiment to shake the same bough again, and see if the ripe fruit were better or worse than the early windfalls." But the Avorld, if it had tasted his early windfalls, had forgotten them; and so the "Autocrat" series appeared with all the freshness and attendant interest of the discovery by the pub- lic of a new author. It is related that when the management of the magazine announced the title of the series as "a drawing card," the proprietor of a well-known re- ligious weekly took it for granted that it was a cook book, and that a Frenchman, perplexed at the odd title, exclaimed, "L' Autocrate a la table du dejeuner, titre bizarre!" The series was eagerly expected and read far and wide when it appeared, and it elicited no little comment, both favorable and unfavorable. Sonic critics, enraged a I (he daring views set forth, applied uncomplimentary, not to say sulphurous, epithets to the Autocrat. Some in mild protest called him undignified and "an inordi- OLIVKK WKNDELL HOLM KS 271 nate egotist"; and one even suggested that the poems with which tin* essays close "showed as ill as diamonds among the spangles of the court fool." The religious press in general took umbrage at the universalist opinions which the book reflected, and voided its rheum upon the author. It is prob- ably a safe statement that no book published in those times created a greater sensation in the American literary world. "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" was really a unique book and an entirely new departure. Nothing quite like it, or indeed approaching it, had ever before appeared in this country. It is usually regarded as the best of Holmes's prose works, and is slightly above the level of the subsequent volumes of the series. But the entire "Breakfast Table" series is excellent. It is a New England product, and smacks of the soil. Like Hawthorne's Puritan romances, the "Breakfast Table" books could not have been written by any other than one born and bred in New England. (Both authors had a good deal of the Puritan in them, Hawthorne more than Holmes.) The characters of the books are dis- tinctively local and correspondingly provincial; they were drawn from New England models. Their language, their way of thinking, their general bear- ing, and the local color withal, conspire beyond question to betray their origin, and to stamp them peculiarly New England creations. It is to be observed by way of parenthesis that Holmes rendered American literature a vast service in thus presenting and preserving for all time these various types of New England character; and for this reason alone his work merits high praise. For the "Breakfast Table" series is, in its way, as true and admirable a portrayal of New England charac- 272 MAKERS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE ter as Lowell's equally famous "Biglow Papers." It is true that Lowell's creation is more valuable in preserving the language, since in this respect it is a veritable treasure-trove for the student of the Yan- kee dialect. But barring this difference, the two works are almost equally valuable as exhibiting a faithful and vivid portrayal of fast-disappearing types of New England character. That character and that country were dear to the heart of Holmes ; and old Boston, Avith all its historic associations and memories, was dear to his heart above all the other spots in his beloved Massachusetts. Indeed, few men have loved their native place more passionately than did he. No Roman could have loved Kome with more ardor, and no ancient Hebrew the Holy City with more devotion, than Holmes loved Bos- ton. "I would not," exclaims he in an impassioned outburst of patriotism, when speaking of his native city, "I would not take all the glory of all the great- est cities in the world for my birthright in the soil of little Boston!" It is true that Boston repre- sented the best in New England life and character ; and Holmes, being of the people of that locality and a New Englander to the core, regarded himself as an exponent of this peculiar type of American civili- zation, and conceived it to be his special mission to give expression to it for the benefit of our literature. That he was truly representative of New England cannot be questioned. Indeed, he was a more faith- ful exponent of the place and the people than was Lowell, or perhaps even Hawthorne; for these both resided abroad long enough to rub off considerable of their provincialism, and in their diplomatic capacities and contact with men of various nation- alities they took on something of a cosmopolitan veneer and finish; but Holmes remained New Eng- land till his death. OL1YKK \VKNDELL IIOLMKS 273 "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" was fol- lowed by "The Professor at the Breakfast Table," which, like its predecessor, also first appeared as a serial in The Atlantic. This book is of course, very rnuch in the same manner as "The Autocrat," though perhaps not quite up to the level of the lat- t