WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
 A CRITICAL STUDY 
 
 BY 
 
 DELMAR GROSS COOKE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 681 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
COPYHIOHT, 
 
 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
TV) 
 
 STUART PRATT SHERMAN 
 
 AXD 
 
 ERNEST BERNBAUM 
 
 505843 
 
NOTE 
 
 The author is indebted to Harper and 
 Brothers and Houghton Mifflin Company for 
 their generous permission to quote from the 
 works of William Dean Howells, and to the 
 editor of The Texas Review for permission to 
 use with slight changes an article which first ap 
 peared in that journal. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MAN 1 
 
 II. His CONCEPTION OF CRITICISM .... 40 
 
 III. His IDEALS OF LITERATURE 60 
 
 IV. His LITERARY METHOD 83 
 
 V. His POETRY AND TRAVELS 117 
 
 VI. His FICTION : TRANSCRIPTS OF LIFE . . . 152 
 
 VII. His FICTION : STUDIES IN ETHICS .... 221 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 
 
 INDEX 273 
 
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 
WILLIAM DEAN 
 HOWELLS 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 CEITICISM has been reluctant to associate 
 with William Dean Howells those human 
 qualities he most prized or to identify the inform 
 ing spirit of his art with the spirit of democratic 
 living upon which he was most insistent. He will 
 presently be established in the critical conscious 
 ness as a literary leader, as a social historian, and 
 as an unrivalled technician. In the mind of the 
 student of letters, he will emerge from the great 
 artistic evolution that was consciously forming 
 the world-literature of his time the realistic 
 movement, as we loosely style it the most con 
 spicuous figure on this side of the Atlantic. Many 
 of less exclusive interests will look to him, with 
 astonishment at the accuracy of his methods and 
 at the length and singleness of his devotion, as an 
 indispensable recorder of the national life. And 
 his perfection in all that relates to literary han 
 dling ought to become a still more compelling 
 source of refreshment and renewal to the fellows 
 of his craft. But these valuations of his worth 
 
2 William Dean Howells 
 
 all point to a writer of yesterday. In one way or 
 another they commit him to the shadows of lit 
 erary history, while all that he valued in literature 
 was an essence that is timeless. He was content 
 to rest his title to immortality on qualities of 
 spirit that were to Chaucer and to Cervantes. 
 
 His exploits as a literary leader group them 
 selves about one central purpose the substitu 
 tion of simple humane criteria for all others, lit 
 erary or moral. The enterprises to which he lent 
 the weight of his authority and he commanded 
 an almost superstitious reverence were calcu 
 lated to loose in America dynamic forces that 
 should make for a humanistic and democratic 
 literature. And I do not believe that he cared 
 greatly about the nature of those forces, provided 
 they propelled the native talent in the right direc 
 tion. He was eager in the support of such dis 
 parate undertakings as the popularization of the 
 Eussian novel and the establishment of a school 
 of local or regional fiction, wishing American 
 literary youth to catch the complete naturalness 
 and high seriousness with which the Russian mas 
 ters handled their material and fearing lest it fall 
 under the spell of foreign themes and foreign 
 color. If the notoriety he once enjoyed as a 
 doctrinaire and dogmatist persists, it is because 
 some of his opponents made literature of their 
 controversial writings, Robert Louis Stevenson, 
 for example, putting the remonstrance greeting 
 him as a bondslave and zealot of the narrowest 
 convictions into Memories and Portraits. But it 
 is hardly an exaggeration to say that the chief of 
 his aims as a schoolmaster was the abolition of 
 
The Man 3 
 
 discipleship and pupilage. Mr. Hamlin Garland, 
 who told us through the magazines long before he 
 produced A Son of the Middle Border how he 
 became an adherent of Howells in the eighties, 
 when Howells was an " issue," was greatly im 
 pressed by this fact and recorded his realization 
 of it glowingly : 
 
 "As the art which Mr. Howells represents de 
 clines to be held accountable to any age, or land, 
 or individual, so it discourages discipleship. It 
 says to the young writer: Look to nature and to 
 actuality for your model not to any book, or man, 
 or number of men. Be true to yourself. Write of 
 that of which you know the most, and follow faith 
 fully the changes in your feeling. Put yourself 
 down before common realities, common hopes, 
 common men, till their pathos and mystery, and 
 significance flood you like a sea, and when the life 
 that is all about you is so rich with drama and 
 poetry, and the vista of human thought and pas 
 sion so infinite that you are in despair of ever ex 
 pressing a thousandth part of what you feel, then 
 all idea of discipleship will be at an end. Your 
 whole aim will be to be true to yourself and your 
 infinite teacher, nature, and you will no longer 
 strive to delineate beauty, but truth, and at last 
 truth will be beauty. 
 
 His unique importance as a recorder of Ameri 
 can civilization no less than his influence as chief 
 of a school is fundamentally conditioned not by 
 his genius as a reporter but by the humanity of 
 his motives. When he advertised himself as a 
 realist, he announced that realism was not a new 
 
 "Mr. Howolls* Latest Novels," in the New England 
 sine (1890), 2(n. s.):243. 
 
4 William Dean Howells 
 
 theory but only one that had never before so uni 
 versally characterized literary endeavor, and that 
 its assertions were simply that fidelity to experi 
 ence was the essential condition of a great imagi 
 native literature, and that the function of such a 
 literature was to widen the bounds of human sym 
 pathy and make men better known to one another. 
 "When realism becomes false to itself/ he sol 
 emnly warned, "when it heaps up facts merely, 
 and maps life instead of picturing it, realism will 
 perish too. 2 That was to say, even as classi 
 cism and romanticism perished because they 
 became faithless to fact. Thus, he proposed truth 
 to the actual as an essential but not a final condi 
 tion of art ; and if he ascribed any intrinsic finality 
 to veritism as a method it was because the course 
 of literary history presented itself to his view 
 not merely as a cyclic evolution but as an advance 
 a progress toward the conscious and exclusive 
 employment of the data of human experience and 
 the definite recognition of human values. 
 
 The subtleties of technique by which Howells 
 realized his large and generous aims will be found 
 to sustain a very close relation to them. This is 
 a matter that his critics and readers have scarcely 
 begun to understand. His insistence on imper 
 sonality and detachment as the authorial attitude, 
 for example, has brought him a great deal of ill 
 will from the critics and no end of miscomprehen 
 sion from his readers. Even so sound a theorist 
 and so discerning a commentator as Mr. W. C. 
 Brownell rushed to the defence of Thackeray 
 when Howells attacked him for his gross viola- 
 
 1 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 15. 
 
The Man 5 
 
 tions of this principle. Yet this is the very crux 
 of the Howells technique, involving the abandon 
 ment of sentimentalism and satire as instruments 
 of the moral novel, and thus serving more than 
 anything else to make it an experiment in human 
 ism. This is a sort of secret that yields itself 
 only to the few but sincere readers who come to 
 the Howells people without the common prepos 
 session for "literary creations. " I well remem 
 ber my pleasure in an article by Mr. W. B. Trites 
 in the Forum for February, 1913, in which he tells 
 how this happened with him, and of his boyish 
 difficulties with the characters of The Minister s 
 Charge, which was read in his home : 
 
 "It interested us profoundly. We discussed 
 Lemuel, Sewell, Statira, and the rest as though 
 they had been real people. I remember still and 
 starry nights of blood-curdling cold when I would 
 be intensely annoyed by Mr. Howells kindly treat 
 ment of the officious Mrs. Sewell for, little boy 
 that I was, I did not then perceive that for Mr. 
 Howells to give the squarest of * square deals to 
 a character does not inevitably mean that he up 
 holds all that character s conduct and I remem 
 ber nights of wild wind and snow when Lemuel s 
 stern aloofness shocked and displeased me, though 
 at the same time I liked very much the lad s honor, 
 his delicate pride." 
 
 Just as the practice of Howells gives a new and 
 a more literal meaning to the somewhat banal 
 precept that urges the "identification" of the 
 author with common humanity, so the greatest, 
 the most inclusive platitude of all that which 
 
6 William Dean Howells 
 
 exacts a general identification of the ideals of 
 literature with the ideals of life undergoes a 
 stringent reinterpretation in his works. No mod 
 ern master, save Tolstoi himself, has imagined a 
 fusion of the aims and methods of literature with 
 those of life so indissoluble as that upon which 
 Howells was accustomed to insist. Literature is 
 life ; life, literature. This is what he had in mind 
 when he entitled one of his later collections 
 Literature and Life (1902). "If I did not find 
 life in what professed to be literature, " he ex 
 plained in the foreword to that volume, "I dis 
 abled its profession, and possibly from this habit, 
 now inveterate with me, I am never quite sure of 
 life unless I find literature in it." 
 
 All the autobiographical works, especially the 
 intimate and indispensable Literary Passions, 
 are clear records of a growth from literature into 
 life, from books into the world from which books 
 are made a kind of recapitulation of the literary 
 movement with which their author became identi 
 fied. This development, therefore, will be domi 
 nant in what little account appears here of 
 Howells the Man. In this life, one of singular 
 devotion to letters, unwavering, unreserved de 
 votion, almost from the cradle, we shall see him 
 born of a reading race, nourished on printer s ink, 
 exulting in the very srnell of paper, obsessed by 
 the printed page, gradually awakening to a truer 
 literary sense. We shall see him climb down from 
 the "very high aesthetic horse " which he confesses 
 having ridden, draw near to humanity, and learn 
 "to see books from without the library." We 
 shall observe him emerge from the eighteenth 
 
The Man 7 
 
 century, his idol, Pope, crumbling in the dust; 
 close his Thackeray, open his Tolstoi. 
 
 These autobiographical documents are happily 
 as numerous as they are rich in interest and poetic 
 grace. Besides My Literary Passions (1895), we 
 have A Boy s Town (1890), one of the best of his 
 books, which is in all essentials autobiography, 
 thinly veiled by the use of the third person; My 
 Year in a Log Cabin (1893), the most immediately 
 engaging of the sketches of Ohio life; Literary 
 Friends and Acquaintance: a Personal Retrospect 
 of American Authorship (1900) ; and Years of 
 My Youth (1916). Supplementary portraits of 
 his father may be found in his introduction and 
 conclusion to Recollections of Life in Ohio, 1813- 
 1840 (1895), and the initial essay ("The Country 
 Printer ") to Impressions and Experiences 
 (1896). Furthermore, as we read the various 
 essaya and sketches, we come constantly upon 
 bits of Cambridge, Boston, and New York that 
 are to a measurable degree autobiographical. 
 And this is equally true of the travel books, Ital 
 ian, English, Spanish all of them. The auto 
 biographic manner is inveterate; everything is 
 projected upon the background of the author s 
 personality. When he contributes to a souvenir 
 volume like The Niagara Book (1893), that per 
 sonality is his contribution. Others deal forth 
 history, humor, geology, description, according to 
 their respective talents and interests; to him the 
 most interesting object at Niagara, and the one 
 he is most practiced in describing, is his own 
 genial self. "Niagara, First and Last," accord 
 ingly and characteristically, becomes a chapter 
 
8 William Dean Howells 
 
 toward an autobiography. These documents are 
 unequalled in their blend of intimacy with solid 
 dignity. Their inimitable modesty and human- 
 ness, their light play of self-depreciation, their 
 whimsicality and air of making an adventure of 
 everything all these mask the record of a career 
 in which the gods seem to have conspired to make 
 nothing capricious, nothing inconsequent. The 
 rigors of self-analysis are not merely shorn of the 
 sense of futility that is often their accompaniment 
 but are clothed in the glamour of poetry. 
 
 The habit of poetizing every-day existence and 
 the tendency to introspection were evidently an 
 inheritance with Howells. His great-grandmother 
 once wrote to a daughter, upon some occasion of 
 wilfulness, that she had "planted a dagger in her 
 mother s heart, " which led him to believe that 
 this ancestress was not unacquainted with the 
 romances of her day. It was from her, he 
 thought, that his grandfather inherited a love of 
 poetry, rather than from the great-grandfather, 
 who, although a Friend by l convincement, must 
 have had a somewhat worldly turn of mind, since 
 he accumulated a fortune in the manufacture of 
 flannels, which industry he founded in the pretty 
 little Welsh town called The Hay, on the river 
 Wye, and even made a prospecting trip to 
 America. 
 
 The Grandfather Howells sailed for Boston in 
 1808 and, after peregrinations extending over 
 New York, Virginia, and Ohio, with experiments 
 in woolen milling and farming, settled in Hamil 
 ton, Ohio, as proprietor of a drug and book store, 
 
The Man 9 
 
 the only book store in the place. He was a Meth 
 odist, and, says his grandson, "kept his affection 
 for certain poets of the graver, not to say gloom 
 ier sort." 
 
 Religion and poetry were both more pervading 
 influences in the life of William Cooper Howells, 
 the father of William Dean. He suffered a season 
 of skepticism, during which he vainly endeavored 
 to get himself converted at camp meetings, finally 
 espousing the doctrines of Swedenborg; and in 
 that faith the children were carefully reared. It 
 was an influence that dignified the home life, for 
 there was nothing of fanaticism or of dogmatism 
 in the elder Howells. He "despised austerity as 
 something owlish" and "loved a joke almost as 
 much as he loved a truth. " 3 It did, however, cut 
 the family off from church going, their Sundays 
 being enlivened only by occasional visits of min 
 isters and by readings from the Book of Worship 
 and the Heavenly Arcana. The children had their 
 "unwholesome spiritual pride in being different 
 from their fellows in religion, but, on the other 
 hand, it taught them not to fear being different 
 from others if they believed themselves right." 4 
 
 William Dean Howells was born on March 1, 
 1837, at Martin s Ferry, Ohio. Three years later 
 the family moved to Hamilton, the "Boy s 
 Town," where the father took charge of the 
 Intelligencer, Hamilton s Whig newspaper; but 
 since he was a staunch Henry Clay Whig and 
 Hamilton was overwhelmingly Democratic, the 
 
 9 A Boy s Town (1890), p. 14. 
 
 p. 12. 
 
1O William Dean Howells 
 
 Howells family did not enjoy any decided change 
 in fortune. They remained as always, poor as the 
 world reckons, but never in want. 
 
 The boy was particularly fortunate in his home 
 life. His mother, Mary Dean Howells, although 
 she suffered on account of her housewifely in 
 stincts, often failing to view the crudities of their 
 material surroundings in a poetic light, "was 
 always the best and tenderest mother, and her 
 love had the heavenly art of making each child 
 feel itself the most important, while she was par 
 tial to none." 5 
 
 The dominant influence in forming his ideas, 
 however, was his association with his father. 
 They were the most congenial of companions, dis 
 cussing literature and philosophy together as they 
 went about their work. And although they dif 
 fered in some matters of taste, the main traits are 
 notably similar in father and son the tendency 
 to moralize and philosophize on any subject, 
 always tempered by a fine strain of humor, the 
 love of nature, even of the most common things in 
 nature, and the sense of personal sympathy with 
 men, even with the most common men. The son 
 writes of his father: 
 
 " There was that in him which appealed to the 
 better qualities of those he came in contact with, 
 and made them wish to be as good as he thought 
 them capable of being. He was not a poet in the 
 artistic sense, but he was a poet in his view of life, 
 the universe, creation, and his dream of it in 
 cluded man, as well as the woods and fields and 
 their citizenship. His first emotion concerning 
 
 A Boy s Town (1890), p. 21. 
 
The Man ll 
 
 every form of life was sympathetic; he wished to 
 get upon common ground with every person and 
 with every thing. 
 
 "But he had the philosophic rather than the 
 imaginative temperament, and what he sometimes 
 thought he wished to do in literature and art (for 
 he used, when young, to write verse and to draw), 
 he would probably not have done if he had enjoyed 
 all those opportunities and advantages which cir 
 cumstances denied him. 6 
 
 At the age of ten, William Dean went to work 
 in the printing office. "This was not altogether 
 because he was needed there, I dare say, but 
 because it was part of his father s Swedenborgian 
 philosophy that everyone should fulfill a use; I 
 do not know that when the boy wanted to go swim 
 ming, or hunting, or skating, it consoled him much 
 to reflect that the angels in the highest heaven 
 delighted in uses; nevertheless, it was good for 
 him to be of use, though maybe not so much 
 use." 7 
 
 In 1849 the family moved to Dayton, where the 
 father had bought out the Transcript. This enter 
 prise proved a total failure ; and in the fall of the 
 following year occurred another removal, this 
 time to a log-cabin on the Little Miami River, 
 with the idea of superintending the "never- 
 accomplished transformation" of a saw-mill and 
 a grist-mill into paper-mills. Of the rude but 
 wholesome life there, Howells made one of his 
 most delightful records, My Year in a Log-Cabin. 
 
 "Introduction to William Cooper Howells Recollections of Life 
 in Ohio (1895), p. IV. 
 
 * A Boy s Town (1890), p. 20. 
 
12 William Dean Howells 
 
 The boys, at least, incited by their father, entered 
 into pioneer lif e with a zest and a romantic enthu 
 siasm that made hardship and privation attractive 
 and stimulating. 
 
 The Island was a fascinating feature, appealing 
 to the boyish imagination with a sense of mystery. 
 "I do not know just how it is with a boy s world 
 now," Howells once explained, "but at that time 
 it was a very dangerous world. It was full of 
 ghosts, for one thing, and it abounded in Indians 
 on the war-path, and amateurs of kidnapping and 
 murder of all sorts. " Often the Island resounded 
 to the war-cries of little savages, who had tutored 
 themselves in the ways of crime and depredation 
 with Howe s Collections for the History of Ohio 
 and a book called Western Adventure from the 
 Howells press at Dayton. A small gray pony was 
 a favorite participant in these Indian dramas, and 
 figured as an Arab charger when the Moors of 
 Granada charged upon the Spanish camp with 
 their iron-weed javelins. 
 
 There was work as well as play: the boys la 
 bored manfully at clearing the woods of black- 
 walnut, oak, and hickory, and at planting corn, 
 melons, and interminable rows of sweet-potatoes. 
 In all, the father was comrade and inspiration. 
 The son tells how famously they got on driving 
 the cow out to the new home, talking of the way 
 side things so beautiful in the beautiful autumnal 
 day, all panoplied in the savage splendor of its 
 painted leaves, and of the poems and histories so 
 dear to the boy who limped barefooted by his 
 father s side, with his eye on the cow and his mind 
 on Cervantes and Shakespeare, on 
 
The Man 13 
 
 The glory that was Greece, 
 
 And the grandeur that was Rome. n * 
 
 It is not surprising that this lad of thirteen, who 
 talked literature and philosophy with his father, 
 should have grown up with a kind heart and a 
 poetic imagination. Innumerable reminiscences, 
 unmistakable in their sincerity, reveal the sensi 
 tive and reflective qualities of his temper. Of such 
 is the memory of a rare moment that came to him 
 when returning with his brother from an evening 
 errand to some neighbor s: 
 
 "The shadows fell black from the trees upon 
 the smooth sward, but every; other place was full 
 of the tender light in wliich all forms were 
 rounded and softened ; the moon hung tranced in 
 the sky. We scarcely spoke in the shining soli 
 tude, the solitude which for once had no terrors 
 for the childish fancy, but was only beautiful. 
 This perfect beauty seemed not only to liberate 
 me from the fear which is the prevailing mood of 
 childhood, but to lift my soul nearer and nearer 
 to the soul of all things in an exquisite sympathy. 
 Such moments never pass ; they are ineffaceable ; 
 their rapture immortalizes; from them we know 
 that whatever perishes there is something in us 
 that cannot die, that divinely regrets, divinely 
 hopes. " * 
 
 His introduction to literature was through the 
 readings aloud in the family circle. That fine old 
 custom was in the Howells family an institution, 
 the Book of Worship and the Heavenly Arcana 
 being displaced on week-day evenings by the Eng- 
 
 9 My Year in a Log-Cabin (1893), p. 7. 
 p. 44. 
 
14 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 lish poets. His education was completed in the 
 printing-office, the exactions of the trade standing 
 him in lieu of school discipline. 
 
 His formal schooling was irregular in the ex 
 treme, and he set but little value on it. Few men 
 have been so completely self-educated as he. His 
 earliest memory was of a sort of dame school in a 
 private house. Then he came under the tutelage 
 of a master, who gave instruction in the basement 
 of a church. Here he disgraced himself in spell 
 ing and arithmetic, but displayed a proficiency in 
 geography which he long after confessed to have 
 lost. As a reward for his attainments in that 
 useful science, he received a history of Lexington, 
 Massachusetts, which flattered him immensely, 
 although he was vaguely disappointed in the book. 
 At a private school known as the Academy, he 
 studied what was then called philosophy, gather 
 ing valuable bits of information from the pictures, 
 learning, for example, that "you could not make a 
 boat go by filling her sail from bellows on 
 board. " 10 He did not see why. He later attended 
 a district, or public school, where the teacher led 
 the life of an executioner, and where he "lived in 
 an anguish of fear." n It was here that he dis 
 covered the part called Prosody in the back of his 
 grammar, and was delighted to find that "nature 
 had not dealt so charily with him concerning the 
 rules of prosody as the rules of arithmetic." 12 
 
 Prosody was at once put into practice on sub 
 jects drawn from a book on Greek mythology. 
 
 19 A Boy s Town (1890), p. 55. 
 "Jfetd., p. 60. 
 ., p. 61. 
 
The Man 15 
 
 He even essayed a tragedy in the meter of The 
 Lady of the Lake, one of the books his father had 
 read aloud to the family. The plot, based upon 
 the history of Julius Caesar, as recounted by Gold 
 smith, featured the tyrannical teacher in the role 
 of the great dictator, and was intended to afford 
 the school-boy conspirators with an opportunity 
 to wreak their vengeance in a sufficiently bloody 
 manner. The piece, its author informs us, was 
 never acted, owing to some difficulty about the 
 hayloft. 
 
 His real masters, not only during boyhood but 
 for long after, were the authors he came to know. 
 His early reading was a kind of worship, the 
 adoration of one god after another, the denial of 
 one creed in order to subscribe to the next. "To 
 give an account of one s reading, " he begins My 
 Literary Passions, "is in some sort to give an 
 account of one s life"; 13 and with him this is to 
 give it in the truest, if not the only sort. The 
 simple annals of his youth are made golden by 
 books, ever more books. Only one who has felt in 
 some measure the same transport can share with 
 him his ecstasies over a box of imported volumes 
 with their saffron-colored paper covers: 
 
 "The paper and the ink had a certain odor 
 which was sweeter to me than the perfumes of 
 Araby. The look of the type took me more than 
 the glance of a girl, and I had a fever of longing 
 to know the heart of the book, which was like a 
 lover s passion." 14 
 
 The grand passions of his boyhood were three : 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), p. 1. 
 u Ibid., p. 140. 
 
16 William Dean Howells 
 
 Goldsmith, Cervantes, and Irving. Goldsmith s 
 histories of Greece and Borne were precious mines 
 of knowledge; The Deserted Village became 
 an established favorite at the readings by the 
 home fireside; and The Vicar of Wakefield re 
 mained for him 1 1 one of the most modern novels ; 
 that is to say, one of the best." 15 Goldsmith he 
 finds endeared to us by his kindness and gentle 
 ness; these are what "make him our contempo 
 rary." "They are the source of all refinement," 
 he explains, "and I do not believe that the best 
 art of any kind exists without them." 16 
 
 His affection for Cervantes was more ardent; 
 and although he never gave us the biography he 
 promised at the age of fifteen, the passion was a 
 lasting one. "To this day," he confessed at the 
 age of fifty-eight, "I cannot meet a Spanish man 
 without clothing him in something of the honor 
 and worship I lavished upon Cervantes when I 
 was a child." 17 The Ingenious Gentleman of 
 La Mancha was his Robinson Crusoe. He first 
 heard the story from his father, who some time 
 later presented him with the book, "the most 
 wonderful and delightful book in the world," 18 
 two stout little volumes in calf, destined to become 
 his inseparable companions. In fact, he could 
 remember no time during his boyhood when he 
 was not reading them, and in his fifties he found 
 that in what formed the essential greatness of the 
 work, it seemed to him greater than ever. What 
 forms its greatness is its "free and simple design, 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), p. 16. 
 "Ibid., p. 17. 
 "Hid., p. 23. 
 "Ifctd., p. 21. 
 
The Man 17 
 
 where event follows event without the fettering 
 control of intrigue, but where all grows naturally 
 out of character and conditions. 1Q 
 
 The third of the great friends, Washington 
 Irving, was endeared to him early in life through 
 the charm of the Spanish books, the Conquest of 
 Granada and The Alhambra. He was unable to 
 share his father s amusement in the Knicker 
 bocker History of New York, but he liked The 
 Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van 
 Winkle. The Life of Goldsmith he very much pre 
 ferred to the more authoritative one by Forster, 
 finding in it, so closely were those genial tempers 
 allied, a "deeper and sweeter sense of Gold 
 smith. " 20 
 
 In 1851, at the age of fourteen, he went to 
 Columbus, his father being engaged there as a 
 reporter of legislative proceedings, and became a 
 compositor in the office of the Ohio State Journal, 
 at a salary of four dollars a week. Meanwhile, 
 he had been rapidly losing interest in having 
 things read to him, coming to read more and more 
 himself, so that he could let his fancy roam at 
 leisure. He was beginning to read with a literary 
 sense, that is, he explains, with a sense of the 
 author. The characters in books were ceasing to 
 affect him as real persons, although he had mo 
 ments of intimacy with Ulysses for he had at 
 last read Pope s Homer. He had become ac 
 quainted with Scott s prose, too, by this time; 
 but it never became a passion. One is tempted, 
 associating his coldness toward Scott s romances 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895). p. 26. 
 "Ibid., p. 22. 
 
i8 William Dean Howells 
 
 with his devotion to Don Quixote, to pronounce 
 the lad already a realist; but he assures us that 
 his actual interest was in literature, not in life. 
 "I was growing more literary, " he insists, "and 
 less human. " 
 
 One may believe that for a boy of fourteen he 
 was becoming very literary indeed, to prefer 
 Pope s pastorals to Ivanhoe. The fact is, he be 
 came passionately enamoured of purling brooks, 
 finny tribes, enameled meads, fleecy cares, feath 
 ered choirs, and aerial audiences. He essayed an 
 infinite number of imitations, most of which never 
 reached completion. "They all stopped some 
 where about half way," he recollects. "My 
 swains could not think of anything more to say, 
 and the merits of my shepherdesses remained un 
 decided." 21 
 
 I With all his later aversion to the romantic, 
 I Howells kept a fondness for the artificialities of 
 the pseudo-romanticism of the classic period, 
 ^ which make no misleading pretensions to reality. 
 However seriously the ardent swains and their 
 Dresden china shepherdesses may have been taken 
 in their day, the modern reader is not tempted to 
 confuse their Arcadia with any quarter of the 
 habitable globe. Like the extravaganza in the 
 theatre, they may be relished, not as the piece de 
 resistance, but as dainty confections after the 
 feast by those who are, as Howells was wont to 
 say, "in the joke of it." When he came to read 
 Italian literature, he found Tasso s Aminta and 
 the Pastor Fidp of Guarini "divinely excellent 
 artificialities.^ | He was rather glad, furthermore, 
 
 *My Literary Passwns (1895), p. 49. 
 
The Man 19 
 
 to have had Pope for an idol, because in imi 
 tating him he could not help imitating his method 
 of composition, which was essentially the method 
 of intelligence/1 Further than this, he was glad 
 to have acquainted himself with the poetry of 
 Pope; for, he thought, with all that we may say 
 against it, it was, as a mood of literature, the 
 perfect expression of a mood of civilization. 
 
 After the one winter in Columbus, the family 
 moved to Ashtabula, in the northeastern part of 
 the state. It was the next removal, however, from 
 Ashtabula to the county seat at Jefferson, that 
 inaugurated for the literary youth a period of 
 further enlightenment, a period from which he 
 dated his interest in contemporary writers, and in 
 periodicals, and during which he read his first 
 literary criticism. His reading was turned in new 
 directions largely through the influence of a series 
 of personal friendships, some of them fortunately 
 with men older than he, and of different tastes and 
 ideals. 
 
 The first important event of this period was 
 his suddenly, without notice or reason, 22 giv 
 ing his heart to Shakespeare ; and although Irving, 
 Goldsmith, and Cervantes kept their old altars, 
 the worship of the new divinity "went to heights 
 and lengths that it had reached with no earlier 
 idol. 23 He revelled with Falstaff in somewhat 
 the personal intimacy of older days, before he had 
 become literary; and he drew from the dramas 
 many of the ideas he was to hold most persistently 
 through later years, after he had become human. 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), p. 71. 
 " Ibid,, p. 73. 
 
2O William Dean Howells 
 
 These are concerned chiefly with those qualities 
 by which, in his droll way, he finally characterized 
 modernity, that is to say, the qualities that make 
 literature truly great. As Goldsmith is our con 
 temporary by virtue of his inherent purity, as 
 Cervantes is modern and realistic in his spacious 
 form, unhampered by the trivialities of plot, so 
 Shakespeare is one with us in his matchless indi 
 vidualizing of character, in his mingling of tears 
 and joy, just as we find them mingled in life, and 
 in the humor that pervades his work. Thus 
 Howells describes his first impression of the real 
 ity of Shakespeare s world : 
 
 " There I found a world appreciable to experi 
 ence, a world inexpressibly vaster and grander 
 than the poor little affair that I had only known a 
 small obscure corner of, and yet of one quality 
 with it, so that I could be as much at home and 
 citizen in it as where I actually lived. There I 
 found joy and sorrow mixed, and nothing abstract 
 or typical, but everything standing for itself and 
 not for some other thing. Then, I suppose it was 
 the interfusion of humor through so much of it, 
 that made it all precious and friendly. 24 
 
 The first literary criticism that he read was 
 Lowell s ; and he believed it implicitly, feeling that 
 any question of it would be blasphemy. He obe 
 diently made his farewells to Pope, but he could 
 not find it in his heart to like Spenser. For 
 Chaucer he came to have a personal attachment, 
 finding him very like Cervantes in "a certain 
 sweet and cheery humanity. " 25 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), p. 77. 
 "Hid., p. 108. 
 
The Man 21 
 
 He became acquainted with Dickens through an 
 old English organ builder, and revelled with de 
 light in the pages of that fascinating story-teller, 
 who then " colored the parlance of the English- 
 speaking race, and formed upon himself every 
 minor talent attempting fiction. " 26 His later re 
 action to the world of Dickens is thus recorded : 
 
 "The basis of his work is the whole breadth 
 and depth of humanity itself. It is helplessly ele 
 mental, but it is not the less grandly so, and if it 
 deals with the simpler manifestations of charac 
 ter, character affected by the interests and pas 
 sions rather than the tastes and preferences, it 
 certainly deals with the larger moods through 
 them. . . . His view of the world and of society, 
 though it was very little philosophized, was in 
 stinctively sane and reasonable, even when it was 
 most impossible. " 27 
 
 From Dickens he gained a conception of essen 
 tial democracy, presided over by a just and ever- 
 watchful Providence, and it made him very happy 
 to believe in such a world, even though he found 
 it already contradicted by his own small experi 
 ence. He wished it true, and he found it true 
 "with that truth which is at the bottom of 
 things/ 28 "In that world of his," he goes on to 
 relate, "in the ideal world, to which the real world 
 must finally conform itself, I dwelt among the 
 shows of things, but under a Providence that 
 governed all things to a good end, and where 
 neither wealth nor birth could avail against virtue 
 or right. " 28 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), p. 93. "Ibid., p. 98. 
 
 *Ilid., p. 96. 
 
22 William Dean Howells 
 
 He was introduced to Thackeray also by the 
 old organ builder, and by this time the literary 
 sense, attained when he began to imitate Pope, 
 had been completely acquired. In fact, his 
 absorption in literature as divorced from life 
 reached its culmination during the period of his 
 infatuation with Thackeray Thackeray, of all 
 novelists "the most thoroughly and profoundly 
 imbued with literature, 29 who speaks in ink, as 
 he expresses it, not in blood, as do Dickens and 
 Tolstoi. "Literature, not life, was my aim," is 
 Ho wells confession, "and to reproduce it was 
 my joy and my pride. 30 He is at some pains to 
 analyze his fascination with Thackeray *s superior 
 airs toward both literature and life : 
 
 < What flatters the worldly pride in a young man 
 is what fascinates him with Thackeray. With his 
 air of looking down on the highest, and confidently 
 inviting you to be of his company in the seat of the 
 scorner, he is irresistible ; his very confession that 
 he is a snob, too, is balm and solace to the reader 
 who secretly admires the splendors he affects to 
 despise. His sentimentality is also dear to the 
 heart of youth, and the boy who is dazzled by his 
 satire is melted by his easy pathos. Then, if the 
 boy has read a good many other books, he is taken 
 with that abundance of literary turn and allusion 
 in Thackeray; there is hardly a sentence but re 
 minds him that he is in the society of a great 
 literary swell, who has read everything, and can 
 mock or burlesque life right and left from the 
 literature always at his command. At the same 
 time he feels his mastery, and is abjectly grateful 
 
 My Literary Passion* (1895), p. 137. 
 Il>id., p. 147. 
 
The Man 23 
 
 to him in his own simple love of the good for his 
 patronage of the unassuming virtues. It is so 
 pleasing to one s vanity, and so safe, to be of the 
 master s side when he assails those vices and foi 
 bles which are inherent in the system of things, 
 and which one can contemn with vast applause so 
 long as one does not attempt to undo the con 
 ditions they spring from." 31 
 
 This boy did not know then, nor for long after 
 ward, "that society, as we have it, was neces 
 sarily a sham," 32 that snobbishness was not 
 something it was possible to reach and cure by 
 ridicule. "Now," he said later, "I know that so 
 long as we have social inequality we shall have 
 snobs . . . that it is futile to spurn them, or lash 
 them for trying to get on in the world, and that 
 the world is what it must be from the selfish 
 motives that underlie our economic life." 33 
 
 Among the contemporary poets, he never ceased 
 to read and admire Longfellow. Browning and 
 Tennyson he came to know at the age of eighteen, 
 soon after the inevitable nervous breakdown, 
 during which he consoled himself with being a 
 martyr to literature. Tennyson became such 
 another passion as Longfellow, but nothing of 
 Browning except The Ring and the Book seems 
 to have made any great appeal to him. "One 
 need not question the greatness of Browning," 
 he admits, "in owning the fact that the two poets 
 of his day who pre-eminently voiced their gen 
 eration were Tennyson and Longfellow; though 
 Browning, like Emerson, is probably now more 
 
 31 My Literary Passions (1895), p. 129. * Ibid., p. 131. 
 
 ., p. 130. 
 
24 William Dean Howells 
 
 modern than either. 34 Tennyson s Maud, which 
 he read first, he thought indeed pre-eminently 
 voiced his generation. "I suppose, " he con 
 tinues, "that at the time he wrote Maud he said 
 more fully what the whole English-speaking race 
 were then dimly longing to utter than any English 
 poet who has ever lived. 34 
 
 During the winter of 1856, Howells was in 
 Columbus doing legislative reporting for the Cin 
 cinnati Gazette and reading in the State Library. 
 In the spring he refused an offer of a thousand 
 dollars a year as city editor of the Gazette, fear 
 ing that his time for reading would be curtailed. 
 This act of devotion was soon to cause him regret, 
 when he came to realize the vital connection be 
 tween literature and experience. For the hour of 
 the supreme passion was at hand, the passion that 
 was to liberate him forever. It was time for the 
 Spanish idols to be placed in temporary retire 
 ment, their shrines occupied; by German gods. 
 He was at last to learn at the feet of Heine that 
 his ideal of literature was false. 
 
 / "I had supposed, with the sense at times that 
 I was all wrong, that the expression of literature 
 must be different from the expression of life; 
 that it must be an attitude, a pose, with something 
 of state or at least of formality in it ; that it must 
 be this style, and not that ; that it must be like that 
 sort of acting which you know is acting when you 
 see it and never mistake for reality. "ffj "He un 
 did my hands, which I had taken so much pains to 
 tie behind my back, and he forever persuaded me 
 
 94 My Literary Passions (1895), p. 155. 
 K Ibid., p. 171. 
 
The Man 25 
 
 that though it may be ingenious and surprising 
 to dance in chains, it is neither pretty nor use 
 ful. " 36 
 
 In 1859, Howells, as news editor of the Ohio 
 State Journal, began the period of which he 
 speaks as the heyday of his life. He met many 
 people in Columbus society with whom he could 
 talk literature to his full content; a world of 
 amusement not hitherto enjoyed was thrown open 
 to him ; and his friendship with J. J. Piatt ripened 
 into intimacy. It was in collaboration with Piatt 
 that in the following year he formally began his 
 literary career. But of more service in his ad 
 vancement than the Poems of Two Friends, which 
 they produced between them, was a campaign life 
 of Lincoln. This work won for him the post of 
 United States Consul to Venice, enabling him to 
 spend the four years of our Civil War in that 
 peaceful city, studying the Italian language and 
 literature. 
 
 Before going abroad, he employed the imme 
 diate proceeds of his book in making a visit to the 
 East, approaching New England by way of Niag 
 ara and the Canadian rivers and cities where he 
 was to lay the scene of his first fictions. The 
 young litterateur was by this time confirmed in 
 the ways of hero-worship, and recalling how truly 
 this was the Augustan age of New England let 
 ters, we can imagine the raptures with which this 
 " passionate pilgrim from the West approached 
 his holy land. " 37 Thus in a few fervid strokes he 
 sketches the group : 
 
 M My Literary Passions (1895), p. 174. 
 "Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1900), p. 18. 
 
26 William Dean Howells 
 
 "Lowell was then in perfect command of those 
 varied forces which will long, if not lastingly, 
 keep him in memory as first among our literary 
 men, and master in more kinds than any other 
 American. Longfellow was in the fulness of his 
 world- wide fame, and in the ripeness of the beau 
 tiful genius which was not to know decay while 
 life endured. Emerson had emerged from the 
 popular darkness which had so long held him a 
 hopeless mystic, and was shining a lambent star 
 of poesy and prophecy at the zenith. Hawthorne, 
 the exquisite artist, the unrivalled dreamer, whom 
 we still always liken this one and that one to, 
 whenever this one or that one promises greatly 
 to please us, and still leave without a rival, with 
 out a companion, had lately returned from his 
 long sojourn abroad, and had given us the last of 
 the incomparable romances which the world was 
 to have perfect from his hand. Doctor Holmes 
 had surpassed all expectations in those who most 
 admired his brilliant humor and charming poetry 
 by the invention of a new attitude if not a new 
 sort in literature. The turn that civic affairs had 
 taken was favorable to the widest recognition of 
 Whittier s splendid lyrical gift; and that heart of 
 fire, doubly snow-bound by Quaker tradition and 
 Puritan environment, was penetrating every gen 
 erous breast with its flamy impulses, and fusing all 
 wills in its noble purpose. Mrs. Stowe, who far 
 outfamed the rest as the author of the most re 
 nowned noyeliever written, was proving it no acci 
 dent or miracle by the fiction she was still writ 
 ing." 38 
 
 Introducing the timid pilgrim to this renowned 
 circle, Lowell, although not yet at the zenith of his 
 
 " Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1900), p. 10. 
 
The Man 27 
 
 prestige, played the good angel. 39 He had already 
 accepted some of Howells verses for the Atlantic, 
 after holding them long enough to ascertain that 
 they were not translations from Heine, and was 
 later to open for him the columns of the North 
 American Review. His welcome and his friend 
 ship through succeeding years not only color the 
 "Studies of Lowell " but shed their glow over the 
 whole of Howells retrospect of American author 
 ship. 
 
 It is saying a great deal to suggest that in a 
 gallery of portraits such as compose the Literary 
 Friends and Acquaintance f Lowell s is the most 
 distinguished. "The White Mr. Longfellow 40 
 is certainly a more beautiful figure, but there is a 
 charm of intimacy in which without intrusion we 
 are made to see Lowell with pipe and slippers, in 
 which without gossip he is almost literally made 
 to live. In this characteristic lies the peculiar 
 felicity of the book as a whole, and I wonder 
 whether we have another volume of literary remi 
 niscence so happy in its kind. The ego looms 
 large ; yet was ever egoism so modest, so faithful 
 to its illuminative purpose I And was candor ever 
 so delicate, so fearful of conveying the unintended 
 slight or giving a wound! One hazards nothing 
 in predicting for such a record a life at least as 
 
 39 For a selection from correspondence showing Lowell s some 
 times undiscriminating fondness for his prot4g6, see an article 
 on "Lowell and Howells" in Harper s Weekly (1902), 46:101. 
 
 ^"Something that Bjornstjerne Bjornson wrote to me when 
 he was leaving America after a winter in Cambridge, comes 
 nearer suggesting Longfellow than all my talk. The Norsemen, 
 in the days of their stormy and reluctant conversion, used always 
 to speak of Christ as the White Christ, and Bjornson said in his 
 letter, Give my love to the White Mr. Longfellow. " Literary 
 Friends and Acquaintance (1900), p. 208. 
 
28 William Dean Howells 
 
 long as there shall be any interest in the men who 
 made New England great in our literature. 
 
 Before linking his destiny with the patriciate of 
 Boston and Cambridge, however, he lived the Ital 
 ian years. Of these, he has given account in the 
 chapter "Roundabout to Boston " of the Literary 
 Friends and Acquaintance, and in My Literary 
 Passions, but chiefly, of course, in the golden book 
 Venetian Life. Notwithstanding the fascina 
 tion of Dante and mediaeval Italy, his interest 
 turned more and more toward the observation of 
 men and books of the day. And, discovering the 
 weakness of Italian fiction as a record of contem 
 porary life, he devoted himself eagerly to the 
 drama. Of all the dramatists, he loved Goldoni 
 best, and never ceased to regard him as the first 
 of the realists ; for although he lived in the eight 
 eenth century, he lived to fight hand-to-hand with 
 eighteenth-century romanticism. " Because I 
 have loved the truth in art above all things, " he 
 says, "I fell instantly and lastingly in love with 
 Carlo Goldoni. " 41 
 
 Three weeks after his return from abroad he 
 came to New York with the intent to resume jour 
 nalism. He wrote editorials for different papers, 
 mostly for the Times and the Tribune, and some 
 time in November accepted a salaried position on 
 the Nation, which had been using his Italian ma 
 terial. The following year (1866) he w r ent to 
 Boston as assistant editor to James T. Fields on 
 the Atlantic Monthly. He was evidently given a 
 large hand in the conduct of the magazine, and 
 on the retirement of Fields, in 1872, became, at the 
 
 *My Literary Passions (1895), p. 208. 
 
The Man 29 
 
 age of thirty-five, its editor-in-chief. Each of 
 these years of editorial promotion was signalized 
 by a corresponding advance in his reputation as 
 an author. The success of Venetian Life in book 
 form (1866) was as instant as it has been lasting, 
 and the reception accorded Their Wedding Jour 
 ney, his first novel, in 1872, determined his career 
 as a writer of fiction. Continuing with the maga 
 zine, he won not only the especial devotion of the 
 young but the esteem of nearly all the major 
 talents of the day, until, as Thomas Wentworth 
 Higginson remarked in 1879, 42 his leading con 
 temporaries were his contributors, although he 
 had already as assistant editor established the 
 friendships that were to be lifelong with Henry 
 James and Mark Twain, forming with them what 
 the English reviewers called a mutual admiration 
 society. 
 
 In 1881, after fifteen years of service, he reT] 
 signed his editorship to Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 in order to devote himself exclusively to the writ 
 ing of fiction, accepting a yearly salary from 
 James E. Osgood, who disposed of the serial 
 rights mostly to the Century. After the failure of 
 Osgood, he joined the Harper forces, and in 1885 
 moved to New York. His contract with Messrs. 
 Harper stipulated fiction only, but with some per 
 suasion he was induced to take charge of "The 
 Editor s Study" (1886), in which he waged his 
 six years critical warfare on romanticism. His 
 contract terminated, he became for a short time 
 editor of the Cosmopolitan (1892), but eventually 
 
 "Short Studies of American Authors (Ed. 1906), p. 32. N. Y., 
 Longmans, Green. 
 
30 William Dean Howells 
 
 reunited his fortunes with the house of Harper. 
 They remained his official publishers, though he 
 occasionally serialized a story elsewhere; and 
 from December, 1900, until the time of his death 
 he conducted the "Easy Chair " department in 
 i v _their magazine. New York was the home of his 
 later years, although there were periods of travel 
 and residence abroad, summers in New England, 
 and winters in Florida ; and in New York he died 
 on May 11, 1920. 
 
 The literary passions of later years were for 
 contemporary writers, largely for contemporary 
 novelists dedicated to realism. At the time he 
 made his book of worship, Howells wished that he 
 could call back some of the time he had squan 
 dered on the classics ; his counsel was to give no 
 time to old literature except that of the greatest 
 masters. All that one can get from minor writers, 
 he maintained, can be had in fuller measure and 
 better quality from the few really great ones. 
 Preference for the second-rate he regarded as 
 mainly an affectation of persons wishing to dis 
 tinguish themselves from the herd. Schools and 
 periods he thought should be left to the scholar, 
 whose business is concerned with them; and he 
 took occasion to remind the scholar that reading 
 done in order to become familiar with a period is 
 literally a business, a professional duty, in no way 
 concerned with the love of literature, which must 
 be a passion, not a duty. Read the old masters, 
 he advised, "and let their schools go, rather than 
 neglect any possible master of your own time. 
 Above all, I would not have any one read an old 
 author merely that he might not be ignorant of 
 
The Man 31 
 
 him ; that is most beggarly, and no good can come 
 of it." 43 
 
 In his extended review of the novel in English, 
 the two volumes of Heroines of Fiction (1901), 
 he finds it to have arrived in the hands of Jane 
 Austen at a perfection beyond which it has never 
 gone. George Eliot he pronounces the greatest 
 talent after the Divine Jane, and one with whom 
 it is useless to compare any of her contemporaries 
 except Hawthorne, or any who come after except 
 Thomas Hardy. 
 
 Howells salient attitudes in his survey of Con 
 tinental fiction are two : a reserve that amounts to 
 coldness toward the French realists and an alle 
 giance that verges on extravagance to the Rus 
 sian. To numerous Scandinavian, Spanish, and 
 Italian novelists he has played the admiring 
 brother, especially feeling his kinship with the 
 Spaniards and delighting in introducing them to 
 his American readers as masters. In fighting 
 romanticism, he took his weapons from their 
 critics, Palacio-Valdes and Emilia Pardo-Bazan, 
 rather than from the great warriors of France, 
 his opinions of them in either field of endeavor 
 echoing his youthful reverence for the country 
 men of Cervantes. 
 
 The imperfection of Howells French sympa 
 thies is the more remarkable in that he himself 
 aimed at a kind of experimental novel and was in 
 all matters of literary handling more French than 
 English or Spanish or Russian. To Zola, indeed, 
 he gives some very high praise, pronouncing him 
 the most moral of the French novelists the near 
 ly Literary Passions (1895), p. 228. 
 
32 William Dean Howells 
 
 est the Russians in the serious handling of his 
 material and acknowledging his "epic great 
 ness. " But Balzac, whom such diverse moderns 
 as Henry James and George Moore have revered 
 as "the master of us all" and the one who has 
 "shown greater wings of mind than any artist 
 that ever lived/ Balzac he approaches as he 
 does Thackeray, with distended and quivering 
 nostrils, sniffing the air for the first scent of the 
 "romanticistic," a very watch-dog of realism. 
 And he was finally capable of pairing him off with 
 Bulwer! 44 
 
 What he failed to discover in the French real 
 ists he found in the Russian. He was impressed 
 by the conscientiousness with which they handled 
 their themes, by the peculiar compulsion under 
 which they detailed all aspects of human nature 
 with equal fidelity and with equal earnestness. 
 The awful seriousness of their quest for truth 
 saddened while it inspired him. His "gay Ameri 
 can horizons were bathed in the vast melancholy 
 of the Slav, patient, agnostic, trustful." 45 Yet it 
 was with a "joyful astonishment" 46 at the per 
 fection of art that he read Turgeniev with a rap 
 ture inexpressible. "I cannot describe the satis 
 faction his work gave me," he exclaims; "I can 
 only impart some sense of it, perhaps, by saying 
 that it was like a happiness I had been waiting for 
 all my life, and now it had come, I was richly con 
 tent forever. 47 
 
 "Heroines of Fiction (1901), I, p. 125. 
 45 My Literary Passions (1895), p. 231. 
 "Ibid., p. 230. 
 "Ibid., p. 223. 
 
The Man 33 
 
 Having pronounced the dramatic method of 
 Turgeniev "as far as art can go,"" 48 he was to 
 know a method that seemed to transcend art alto 
 gether. The last, the supreme passion was for 
 Tolstoi, whom he read in 1886. It seemed to him 
 unbelievable that Turgeniev, with the transpar 
 ency of his style and his perfect concealment of 
 artifice, had not said the last word aesthetically 
 in everything relating to expression. But here 
 was no artifice to conceal; here was a style of 
 equal transparency divested even of personality, 
 quite without a manner at least Howells pro 
 fessed himself unable to describe Tolstoi s man 
 ner. "There are plenty of novelists to tell you 
 that their characters felt and thought so and so, 
 he explains, "but you have to take it on trust; 
 Tolstoi alone makes you know how and why it was 
 so with them and not otherwise. This is the only 
 trait I can put my hand on, this ability to show 
 men inwardly as well as outwardly. 49 
 
 It was naturally an ethic rather than an aesthetic 
 
 influence that Tolstoi exercised over him, coming 
 
 so late in life, and as such was a confirmatory 
 
 rather than a formative one. He confesses that 
 
 he no longer had any desire to imitate the methods 
 
 of another, but is overcome by gratitude in esti- 
 
 ^^ftating how much he was helped in the other way. 
 
 This, he declares, was "as much as one merely 
 
 I human being can help another." 50 "He has been 
 
 [to me the final consciousness, which he speaks of 
 
 48 My Literary Passions (1895), p. 229. 
 *IUd., p. 254. 
 "Hid., p. 250. 
 
34 William Dean Howells 
 
 so wisely in his essay on Life. . . . The supreme 
 art in literature had its highest effect in making 
 me set art forever below humanity. 51 
 ^ In so far as he withholds his admiration from 
 any of Tolstoi s work, it is in truth to his convic 
 tion that the greatest art together with the great 
 est moral power is in allowing things to stand for 
 what they are and not for something else. He 
 regrets that the master s moral sense can over 
 power his artistic sense. He detects the false note 
 in the exegesis to The Kreutzer Sonata, which 
 would apply "to marriage the lesson of one evil 
 marriage, " 52 as surely as he feels the power of 
 the drama unglossed in Anna Karenina. And 
 when Tolstoi casts his precious dramatic gift to 
 the winds, lapsing into allegory, when his tales 
 become parables, Howells asserts that the simple 
 pathos of Policoushka, the peasant conscript, is 
 worth more to him than myriads of parables. 
 "The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, the Philistine world 
 ling, " he insists, "will turn the hearts of many 
 more from the love of the world than such pale 
 fables of early Christian life as Work While Ye 
 Have the Light," 52 
 
 It remains to close the account of Howells long 
 discipleship with his tribute to his last master, 
 which I cannot refrain from giving entirely in his 
 own words, since he has compressed it into a 
 passage as notable as any to be found in the entire 
 range of his writings : 
 
 "Tolstoi awakens in his reader the will to be a 
 man; not effectively, not spectacularly, but sim- 
 
 61 My Literary Passions (1895), p. 258. 
 "Ibid., p. 256. 
 
The Man 35 
 
 ply, really. He leads you back to the only true 
 ideal, away from that false standard of the gentle 
 man, to the Man who sought not to be distin 
 guished from other men, but identified with them, 
 to that Presence in which the finest gentleman 
 shows his alloy of vanity, and the greatest genius 
 shrinks to the measure of his miserable egotism. 
 I learned from Tolstoi to try character and motive 
 by no other test, and though I am perpetually 
 false to that sublime ideal myself, still the ideal 
 remains with me, to make me ashamed that I am 
 not true to it. Tolstoi gave me heart to hope that 
 the world may yet be made over in the image of 
 Him who died for it, when all Csesar s things 
 shall be rendered unto Caesar, and men shall come 
 into their own, into the right to labor and the 
 right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, each one 
 master of himself and servant to every other. He 
 taught me to see life not as a chase of a forever 
 impossible personal happiness, but as a field for 
 endeavor toward the happiness of the whole 
 human family; and I can never lose this vision, 
 however I close my eyes, and strive to see my own 
 interest as the highest good. He gave me new 
 criterions, new principles, which, after all, were 
 those that are taught us in our earliest childhood, 
 before we have come to the evil wisdom of the 
 world. As I read his different ethical books, What 
 to Do, My Confession, and My Religion, I recog 
 nized their truth with a rapture such as I have 
 known in no other reading, and I rendered them 
 allegiance, heart and soul, with whatever sickness 
 of the one and despair of the other. They have it 
 yet, and I believe they will have it while I live." 53 
 
 Viewing at large the course of Howells literary 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), pp. 250-252. 
 
36 William Dean Howells 
 
 passions, from the great trio of his boyhood to 
 this last and greatest of them all, we see his 
 deference to masters but gradually outgrown ; but 
 we do observe the acquisition of a guiding prin 
 ciple that operates in the selection of the masters 
 and dictates the terms of allegiance to them, the 
 realistic principle to which he was awakened 
 under the influence of Heine and by which he 
 thenceforth judged books more and more accord 
 ing to their truth or their falsity to life. I like to 
 dwell upon the early supremacy of Cervantes, 
 significant beyond the affection for Goldsmith and 
 Irving, to whom he was allied on the tempera 
 mental rather than the philosophic side of his 
 nature, and lasting long after he had, as Lowell 
 expressed it, sweat the Heine out of his bones. 
 There is a fitness of sentiment in the circum 
 stance that made Don Quixote, with its spiritual, 
 not to speak of its formal and technical leanings 
 toward modernity, his Robinson Crusoe, his Ivan- 
 hoe, his Arabian Nights a fanciful symbol of his 
 own souPs adventures toward an ideal that should 
 reconcile and fuse the aesthetic passion with the 
 ethical, of his deliverance from Pope into the 
 hands of Heine, from literary formalism and 
 pseudo-romance to the poetry, the humor, the 
 poignant sadness of our familiar world. 
 
 The period of his infatuation with Pope and 
 Thackeray was a time of subservience to literosity 
 so complete as to presage revolt ; but thereafter it 
 was no less inevitable that Heine should be him 
 self supplanted. This was not accomplished in 
 the spectacular manner of revolt, but happened 
 when the young Howells, who gave himself to the 
 
The Man 37 
 
 cultivation of an ironic turn, quick though less 
 ghastly than Heine s, in his prose and the reflec 
 tion of a brooding sadness in his verse, acquired a 
 more personal seizure of the poetry and the 
 matter-of-fact in things, and a subtler mastery of 
 the art of disillusion. For Heine represents with 
 him less an immediate liberation than an ideal of 
 artistic freedom, an ideal that he realized for 
 himself later and in which he was more and more 
 confirmed by contact with the Continental realists 
 until in Tolstoi he came at once upon an artist of 
 seeming finality and a philosophic mind large 
 enough to accommodate and give abiding-place to 
 all his ideas. 
 
 Howells problems, religious, political, and 
 social, are habitually reduced to such an aspect of 
 simple humanity and justice that their solutions, 
 if attainable at all in our selfish world, must be 
 sought in some such condition as the primitive 
 Christian brotherhood preached by Tolstoi. In so 
 far as he suffered discouragement or leaned 
 toward pessimism, it was that he could not follow 
 the sublime consistency of the master *s way, that 
 with an ideal end so similar he found so little 
 virtue in any immediate means, that the brother 
 hood of man being still beyond the bluest distance, 
 he was satisfied with nothing less. The abundance 
 of his experimental data on communal living, for 
 example, only convinced him that the democratic 
 spirit was an inward one and the slow fruit of 
 racial enlightenment. His belief was that civili 
 zation had no reasonable line of development but 
 toward democracy, and that the world was actu 
 ally becoming less selfish and more a brotherhood 
 
38 William Dean Howells 
 
 because men were coming to know each other bet 
 ter. His faith was always in something inwardly 
 good in man, something that now and again he 
 would call divine. His theology was of works 
 rather than of faith ; and although the clergymen 
 of the eighties do not make lovely figures in his 
 novels, he was in sympathy with them in their 
 emphasis on Christ as a life. In the sphere of 
 personal morals he was especially indebted to 
 Tolstoi. The supreme truth that fiction is potent 
 to reveal was to his mind the futility of the chase 
 after a forever impossible personal happiness; 
 and Anna Karenina is its Bible. 
 
 Much as he learned from the Russians, Howells, 
 except for an occasional similarity to Turgeniev, 
 did not imitate them. His methods are more 
 Gallic than Slavic, while his themes more often 
 parallel those of Jane Austen and George Eliot 
 than those of Tolstoi or -Dostoievsky. He was 
 above all things else true to himself, 1 to the Ameri 
 can background he loved, and despite the Celt in 
 him, to our common Anglo-Saxon heritage of sub 
 stance. Formative forces conspired to make him 
 democratic and humanitarian rather than indi 
 vidualistic, national rather than cosmopolitan, 
 and, in his sense of the facts of life, realistic 
 rather than romantic. The result, as we have it in 
 the Howells novel at its greatest, is above any 
 thing else of its kind American; and above 
 everything American of comparable excellence, 
 humane. 
 
 Finally, to characterize the Howells works as 
 American and humane is to describe only the 
 gross attributes of writings remarkable in their 
 
The Man 39 
 
 special tone or atmosphere. But I do not know 
 that one can define this atmosphere or the per 
 sonality from which it emanates. Its clearest dis 
 tinction lies perhaps in the combination of a rig 
 orously impersonal method, shunning equally 
 sentimentality and satire, with an intensely per 
 sonal manner and with irrepressible humor; so 
 that the very acuity of the observation he brings 
 to bear upon the human scene seems to condition 
 the romance and diversion he extracts from it. 
 The shrewder, the more dispassionate his scru 
 tiny, the greater his power to charm, to touch, or 
 to amuse ; the more transparent his fact, the more 
 keenly he makes his reader feel the sentiment, the 
 poetry, the humor, or the sermon that resides in 
 it and, if we are to believe him, nowhere else. 
 Fhere is something whimsical in this and some 
 thing gay ; but genial is a simpler and better word 
 ? or his most habitual and most fortunate mood, 
 jeniality is the qudlite maitresse. And that for- 
 ls him the field of satire. His ventures in that 
 direction all have the quality of his father s char 
 acteristic rebuke on a certain occasion when 
 Grandfather Howells had reported some juvenile 
 indecorum: "Boys, consider yourselves soundly 
 thrashed." 
 
n 
 
 HIS CONCEPTION OF CRITICISM 
 
 HOWELLS united in himself the offices of 
 critic and creator to an extraordinary de 
 gree. Few novelists have divulged at any such 
 length the ideals and methods of their art, and 
 still fewer critics have written novels to illustrate 
 their theories. The critical office, indeed, he 
 affected to despise, and by far the greater num 
 ber of his commentators have taken him at his 
 word. They have thus escaped the danger of 
 judging his work too exclusively with reference to 
 its intention, of emphasizing the moralist and 
 social philosopher rather than the artist. But 
 they have fallen pretty generally into the con 
 trary extreme, and have made him out a virtuoso 
 without a message, a delicate and wholly super 
 ficial artist, a faultless delineator of tea-parties. 
 Howells confession of faith demands examination 
 chiefly then because of the illumination it throws 
 upon his own work. But further than this, it fur 
 nishes an explicit guide in determining his status 
 in his school, and a key to his influence upon the 
 younger generation. For his influence on realism 
 in America, owing to the generally authoritative 
 character of his position, was vastly augmented 
 by the particular circumstance that made him a 
 critical authority. The present chapter, however, 
 
 40 
 
His Conception of Criticism 41 
 
 will go still further and deal with the theory un 
 derlying his criticism, and is naturally written on 
 the assumption that the criticism intrinsically is 
 not a negligible part of his contribution to our 
 letters. 
 
 The documents of importance begin with the 
 papers on Italian subjects, supplemented by arti 
 cles and reviews on his New England friends and 
 acquaintance, which made their appearance in the 
 North American Review during the sixties. His 
 regular book notices in the Atlantic Monthly 
 begin with the June number of 1866 and extend 
 to the issue for January, 1881, and all the while 
 he was contributing other matter to his own jour^ 
 nal as well as to the North American. During j 
 the year following his retirement from the Atlan 
 tic to devote himself more exclusively to the 
 writing of fiction, came his first really audible and 
 unmistakable revolt against the complacent 
 regime of the established English novelists, the 
 essay on Henry James in the Century for Novem 
 ber, 1882. Eichardson, Fielding, Dickens, and 
 Thackeray, all four were struck at a blow in one 
 sentence. It is all very mild to us now, who 
 understand that these great novelists are not per 
 fect models of artistry. But in those days such 
 heterodoxy precipitated an avalanche of indig 
 nant protest. Three years later the battle began 
 in earnest with Howells quartered in the "Edi 
 tor s Study " of Harper s Magazine. These 
 papers extend from January, 1886, to March, 
 1892, his occupancy of the "Easy Chair " dating . 
 from December, 1900, to the time of his deathj 
 Meanwhile, he contributed voluminously to other 
 
42 William Dean Howells 
 
 magazines, his reviews in the North American 
 being known to all who interest themselves in 
 contemporary literature. 
 
 Fortunately, the best of his work has already 
 been sifted and garnered for Messrs. Harper. 
 The collections include: Modern Italian Poets: 
 Essays and Versions (1887), his only comprehen 
 sive and systematic treatment of a literary 
 period; Criticism and Fiction (1891), the heart 
 of the "Editor s Study" discussion of these two 
 topics; My Literary Passions (1895), the invalu 
 able literary autobiography which appeared origi 
 nally in The Ladies Home Journal from Decem 
 ber, 1892, to October, 1893 ; Literary Friends and 
 Acquaintance: a Personal Retrospect of American 
 Authorship (1900); Heroines of Fiction (1901), 
 two volumes collected from Harper s Bazaar, 
 May, 1900, to October, 1901, a survey of English 
 and American fiction; Literature and Life: 
 Studies (1902) ; My Mark Twain: Reminiscences 
 and Criticisms (1910) ; and Imaginary Interviews 
 (1910). 
 
 In addition to those books of which Howells is 
 sole author, the student of his works will take 
 account of the great number in which he has col 
 laborated, mostly by way of critical or appreci 
 ative introduction. His connection with the mis 
 cellanies and collections in a critical capacity 
 began as early as 1860, the year of his first publi 
 cations in book form, and old age did not weary 
 him in this business, for which he was extraor 
 dinarily gifted. Those which by all means de 
 serve a reading are the introductions to Mary A. 
 Craig s translation of Verga s The House by the 
 
His Conception of Criticism 43 
 
 Medlar-Tree (1890), Hamlin Garland s Main- 
 Travelled Roads (1893), Galdos Dona Perfecta 
 (1896), and Paul Laurence Dunbar s Lyrics of 
 Lowly Life (1896). Among introductions more 
 purely appreciative may be cited that to Stuart 
 Merrill s exquisite translation of Pastels in Prose 
 (1890), selected from the French, and those to the 
 various volumes of "Harper s Novelettes"; 
 although an exception should be made in favor of 
 the significant foreword to Southern Lights and 
 Shadows (1907) in that series. 
 
 Another general division of the critical com 
 ment, one to be used with appropriate caution, of 
 course, is constituted by the fiction itself. There 
 are few oims novels in which some of the char 
 acters are not excessively given to conversation on 
 literary topics. It is unnecessary to point out the 
 danger involved in crediting Howells with opin 
 ions held by his characters, but the fact is that 
 he used the novel deliberately as a brief for real 
 ism. Consequently, there is unusual justification 
 for illustrating his philosophy of fiction from the 
 dialogue as well as from the structure of his 
 stories. 
 
 The first question pertinently put to any critic 
 is the excessively worn one: "What of the func 
 tion of criticism? What is the use of writing 
 books about books ? That is, what do you conceive 
 to be your ow r n status in the world of letters?" 
 Opinions on this matter are widely at variance, 
 ranging from the most depreciatory to the most 
 exalted. From time to time we find reviewers 
 who, under cover of anonymity, confess their 
 unworthiness of any sort of literary standing. 
 
44 William Dean Howells 
 
 Others, of whom Wordsworth, unmindful of his 
 own distinguished service, is a classic example, 
 merely stigmatize as an inglorious employment 
 this writing of books about books. One American 
 writer, Mr. H. C. Vedder, resenting such dis 
 paragement of " unoriginal" work, asserts his 
 position to be that of a respectable middle-man, 
 a purveyor to the public of literary merchandise. 1 
 So great a critic as Matthew Arnold, while hold 
 ing the function of criticism an essential one in 
 establishing an order of ideas, in creating an 
 intellectual and spiritual atmosphere indispen 
 sable for the highest type of creative work, 
 thought: "Everybody, too, would be willing to 
 admit, as a general proposition, that the critical 
 faculty is lower than the inventive. 2 But not 
 everybody would, since many find that as a gen 
 eral proposition the matter is scarcely intelligible. 
 John M. Eobertson, for example, refuses to allow 
 a general distinction between the critical and the 
 creative, pointing out the propensity of the latter 
 term to dwindle on definition to the mere inven 
 tion of stories about imaginary persons; and 
 Eemy de Gourmont, in his Promenades Litfe- 
 raires, maliciously inquires why Taine should be 
 called a critic and Octave Feuillet a creator. 
 And, indeed, the best critical intelligence of our 
 time and country seems to proceed upon the 
 Nietzschian dictum, "To value is to create." Mr. 
 Paul Elmer More has said substantially that ; and 
 Mr. Spingarn has been lecturing on the unity of 
 
 1 American Writers of To-day (1894), p. 62. 
 a The Function of Criticism, in Essays in Criticism, First 
 Series (1910), p. 3. 
 
His Conception of Criticism 45 
 
 genius and taste ; and Mr. W. C. Brownell in his 
 already classic brochure on Criticism has treated 
 his art as cognate with the other arts, plastic and 
 literary. 
 
 So it is disconcerting at the outset to find 
 Howells not merely clinging as does Matthew 
 Arnold to a traditional distinction, not merely 
 lamenting as does Wordsworth the waste of time 
 and energy expended in "uncreative" labor, but 
 declining to enforce the claims of a respectable 
 middle-man, ranging himself to all appearances 
 with that ignoble class first mentioned. We had 
 expected hostility toward the variety of criticism 
 stigmatized as "academic," but we find ourselves 
 plunged into a wholesale arraignment of "the 
 vested interests of criticism, " which too long have 
 been permitted to insult and browbeat the young 
 writer. So far from establishing the "current of 
 true and fresh ideas " of which Matthew Arnold 
 speaks so beautifully and so confidently, ideas 
 with which the creative genius may deal divinely, 
 "presenting them in the most effective and attrac 
 tive combinations, making beautiful works with 
 them," 3 criticism, we find, "has condemned what 
 ever was, from time to time, fresh and vital in 
 literature; it has always fought the new good 
 thing in behalf of the old good thing; it has in 
 variably fostered the tame, the trite, the nega 
 tive." 4 So far from endeavoring "to see the 
 object as in itself it really is," 5 "criticism does 
 
 "The Function of Criticism, " in Essays in Criticism, First 
 Series (1910), p. 5. 
 
 * Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 46. 
 
 5 "The Function of Criticism," in Essays in Criticism, First 
 Series (1910), p. 6. 
 
46 William Dean Howells 
 
 not inquire whether a work is true to life, but 
 tacitly or explicitly compares it with models, and 
 tests it by them." 6 It actually "cannot conceive 
 of the original except as the abnormal." 7 So far 
 from its being the inevitable precursor of true 
 creative activity, we learn that : "If literary art 
 travelled by any such road as criticism would have 
 it go, it would travel in a vicious circle, and would 
 arrive only at the point of departure." 8 To come 
 at once upon the worst, the critic is a parasite on 
 literature, whose "only excuse for being is that 
 somebody else has been. 8 Indeed, he is formally 
 likened to a caterpillar: 
 
 "The critic exists because the author first ex 
 isted. If books failed to appear, the critic must 
 disappear, like the poor aphis or the lowly cater 
 pillar in the absence of vegetation. These insects 
 may both suppose that they have something to do 
 with the creation of vegetation ; and the critic may 
 suppose that he has something to do with the 
 creation of literature ; but a very little reasoning 
 ought to convince alike aphis, caterpillar, and 
 critic that they are mistaken. 8 
 
 How is it, one hastens to ask, that literature 
 flourishes to-day more luxuriantly than ever be 
 fore with this canker at its heart! It is because, 
 while the parasite may fatten itself, may even 
 inflict pain, it is utterly powerless to effect any 
 lasting injury upon the vigorous life-stalk that 
 sustains it. It wounded John Keats, hurt him 
 cruelly, but kill him it did not. Wordsworth and 
 
 6 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 47. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 IMd., p. 37. 
 
His Conception of Criticism 47 
 
 Browning were treated barbarously, but how long 
 was their fame delayed? " Every literary move 
 ment, 7 Howells maintains, "has been violently 
 opposed at the start, and yet never stayed in the 
 least, or arrested, by criticism; every author has 
 been condemned for his virtues, but in no wise 
 changed by it. 9 Although the trite, the conven 
 tional, the negative have always been championed, 
 such is the vitality of literature that always the 
 fresh, the novel, and the positive have survived. 
 
 As a piece of self -arraignment, a case of 
 Howells versus Howells, this nihilistic conception 
 of the function of criticism has no great interest, 
 since a man may choose whether or not he will 
 take himself seriously in any given office. The 
 end of this aspect of the matter is that Howells 
 may ask us in vain to believe that he labored 
 devotedly throughout a long lifetime in a cause he 
 regarded as futile and unworthy of his talents. 
 The argument repays attention, however, for the 
 excellence of his handling and for the additional 
 piquancy it derives from the purity of his motives. 
 This confusion of the antics of a certain type of 
 critic with criticism as a genre of literature, as a 
 creative spiritual force, which has commonly com 
 mended itself to disappointed and injured au 
 thors, is not to be observed every day in the skilful 
 employ of a master, and one concerned solely 
 for the comfort of others. Moreover, it is perhaps 
 not superfluous to call attention from time to time 
 to the fact that while it may be true that every 
 literary movement has been violently opposed at 
 the start, it is at least equally true that every 
 
 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 39. 
 
48 William Dean Howells 
 
 literary movement has been violently championed 
 at the start, and that the domain of literature has 
 no monopoly of the very human condition that the 
 conservative forces have a certain advantage in 
 the strife. To maintain that "just as many good 
 novels, poems, plays, essays, sketches, would be 
 written if there were no such thing as criticism in 
 the literary world, and no more bad ones," 10 is 
 not very different from saying that the political 
 history of the race would be what it has been if no 
 one had recorded a thought on the subject of 
 politics. John M. Robertson (although he was 
 not so seriously perturbed over the caterpillar as 
 over the botanist, with whom we shall have pres 
 ently to deal) has taken pains to remind our 
 critic of the immense influence wielded by Pope, 
 Boileau, Lessing, Voltaire, Coleridge, Words 
 worth, and others. 11 He might well have carried 
 the list back to Aristotle, who appeared in the 
 Saturday Evening Post not many years ago as an 
 authority on the short-story. 
 
 The influence of criticism on the immediate 
 success or failure of a work is a different matter, 
 and one on which it is much easier to agree with 
 Howells. No phenomenon, he points out, is more 
 common than the uselessness of criticism against 
 a book "that strikes the popular fancy," unless it 
 be its uselessness in behalf of a book that "does 
 not generally please." 12 Indeed, we have seen 
 the novels of J. W. De Forest slip quietly and 
 certainly into oblivion, in spite of all Ho wells 
 
 10 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 47. 
 
 11 Essays Toward a Critical Method (1889), p. 144. 
 "Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 40. 
 
His Conception of Criticism 49 
 
 pleading and cajoling, and on the other hand, 
 those of M. Pierre Loti triumph) steadily and 
 surely over the unanimous damnation of the 
 Parisian press. This means that the reviewer is 
 not a dictator, and cannot arbitrate on the basis 
 of his personal preferences. It does not mean, 
 one may be sure, that he might as well be silent 
 as speak the word for true merit, fimile Faguet, 
 who is quite in accord with Howells on this point, 
 finds therein great cause for rejoicing, exclaim 
 ing: "Pour mon compte, j en suis enchante. 
 J aurais des scrupules de conscience terribles si je 
 croyais que je pusse avoir une influence sur le 
 succes ou Pinsucces d un ouvrage. Car, dans ce 
 cas, je ferais un assez villain metier. C est le 
 pain que j oterais de la bouche de Pauteur qui 
 aurait eu le malheur de ne pas me plaire. Ce 
 serait abominable/ 13 The French critic is able 
 to view the seeming disestablishment of his voca 
 tion with a light heart because he entertains no 
 delusion that his particular literary form is the 
 menial of another. "La critique est un genre 
 litteraire comme un autre," he maintains, "et 
 voila tout." 14 
 
 Even in this matter, however, our critic exag 
 gerates his negation. Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, 
 who, I take it, has not knowingly credited him 
 with any good thing, holds him largely responsi 
 ble for the "craze" or "fad" for Russian novels 
 in this country. She is reported as saying: 
 "Whatever any one says in a widely read maga- 
 
 M "Sur Cette Question: Quelle est 1 influence morale du cri 
 tique! " in Propos Litt&raires, I (1902), p. 3. 
 "Zfeid., p. 5. 
 
50 William Dean Howells 
 
 zine carries a great deal of weight. I remember 
 that I used to read whatever he suggested. I read 
 some of the Spanish novelists whom he praised so 
 highly. But," she added, "I never have "been 
 able to read his own novels." 15 
 
 Given such a negative conception as Howells 
 seems to hold of the function and influence of 
 criticism, an inquiry as to its methods and criteria 
 must seem superfluous if not impertinent. The 
 logical .method would be the immediate abandon 
 ment of the pernicious practice. Yet when we ask 
 him point blank if critics like himself fulfil no use 
 in this world, he replies, "I should not like to 
 think that, though I am not quite ready to define 
 our use." 16 He admits that critics have an obvi 
 ous historical use, and that aesthetic criticism may 
 perhaps have a "cumulative and final effect," 17 
 though its efforts at directly affecting the course 
 of literature are foreordained to futility. And a 
 further inquiry proves that his notions of critical 
 method do in fact display the same general ten 
 dency as his practice, a tendency toward the per 
 fecting, not the abandoning of the art. 
 
 The general method of criticism, Howells be 
 lieved, should be in a word the method of science. 
 Its aim should be to "place a book in such a light 
 that the reader shall know its class, its function, 
 its character." 18 Its purpose is "to ascertain 
 
 19 Joyce Kilmer, "An Interview with Gertrude Atherton, " re 
 printed from the New York Times in the Editor (1915), 42:299. 
 See also "Why Have We Not More Great Novelists?" in Cur 
 rent Literature (1908), 44:159, and Mrs. Atherton s article, 
 "Why Is American Literature Bourgeois? " in the North Ameri 
 can Review (1904), 177:771. 
 
 16 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 39. 
 
 ., p. 40. M /bid., p. 33. 
 
His Conception of Criticism 51 
 
 facts and traits of literature," 19 to discover prin 
 ciples, and to report them. Criticism which fondly 
 imagines that it can give laws must * altogether re- 
 conceive its office. " 20 "It must reduce this to the 
 business of observing, recording, and comparing ; 
 to analyzing the material before it, and then syn- 
 thetizing its impressions. " 20 It is a science, of 
 course, as far removed as possible from Brune- 
 tiere s evolution of genres. It studies the forms 
 of life rather than literary types. The ideal critic 
 will know life primarily, and will value literature 
 as a record of life simply. His sole criterion will 
 be its faithfulness to the life from which it 
 springs. He cannot give law, he will not dictate 
 law ; and, in fact, law cannot be given to the crea 
 tive mind, only to the imitative. He will be a 
 "gentle, dispassionate, scientific student of cur 
 rent literature who never imagines that he can 
 direct literature, but realizes that it is a plant 
 which springs from the nature of a people, and 
 draws its forces from their life, that its root is in 
 their character, and that it takes form from their 
 will and taste." 21 
 
 In so far as this is a plea for dispassionate 
 criticism, and in so far as it discountenances the 
 subjection of a work of art to aesthetic law exter 
 nal to it, it is quite in accord with the critical in 
 telligence of our time. To this extent, and just to 
 this extent, it meets the requirements suggested 
 by Mr. Brownell for a criterion free and eclectic 
 and at the same time reasonable. Such a crite- 
 
 19 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 38. 
 *Ibid., p. 47. 
 p. 55. 
 
52 William Dean Howells 
 
 rion, in Mr. BrowneH s words, is one " which is 
 untrammeled by precedent and unmoved by 
 change ; which is strict without rigidity, and seeks 
 the law of any performance within and not out 
 side it; which demands no correspondence to any 
 other concrete, but only to the appropriate ab 
 stract; which, in fact, substitutes for a concrete 
 ideal a purely abstract one of intrinsic applica 
 bility to the matter in hand." 22 There is, how 
 ever, one important omission in Howells 7 theo 
 retic statement, the critic s duty to judge the artis 
 tic performance. 
 
 We have seen what his image of the parasite 
 led him to, and here his fondness for botanical 
 analogy has again betrayed him. Forgetful of 
 the figurative nature of his conception of litera 
 ture as a plant springing from the life of a people, 
 and oblivious of distinctions between the biologi 
 cal and the social sciences, he identifies the dispas 
 sionateness of the ideal critic with that of the 
 botanist in the presence of his specimens, and ar 
 rives at a confusion of critical judgment with the 
 law-giving that Mr. Brownell condemns. The 
 ideal critic, who, after the manner of the botanist, 
 makes it his business to discover and report, will 
 also realize, we are told, that there is a measure 
 of the same absurdity in his trampling on a poem, 
 a novel, or an essay that does not please him as in 
 the botanist s grinding a plant underfoot because 
 he does not find it pretty . . . that it is his busi 
 ness rather to identify the species and then ex 
 plain how and where the specimen is imperfect 
 
 "Criticism (1914), p. 61. 
 
His Conception of Criticism 53 
 
 and irregular. 23 Here again, John M. Robert 
 son, the most serious and penetrating critic of this 
 phase of Mr. Howells work, has taken great but 
 maybe not altogether needless pains in exposing 
 the fallacy, incidentally pointing out the incon 
 sistency of the last phrase in the passage quoted. 
 In this matter, as in the case of the caterpillar, 
 one has simply to make an end by going to How- 
 ells actual practice, where he may be found doing 
 nothing if not judging, and sometimes, it must be 
 confessed, giving a very accurate imitation for 
 one of his gentle nature, of trampling and grind 
 ing underfoot. That is to say, he treats a book 
 or a literary idea which he regards as poisonous 
 in an utterly different manner from the way a 
 botanist would treat a poisonous flower. 
 
 Howells arraignment of criticism as it is prac 
 ticed is on the two general charges of dishonesty 
 and superstition. The first of these vices is dis 
 played in that criticism which judges a writer 
 without reference to his aims, which essays the 
 offensive role of instructor to the author, refus 
 ing to learn anything from him, which misrepre 
 sents his work by magnifying minor faults into 
 important ones, which descends to personalities, 
 or which, at its worst, adopts the brutal method 
 of satire, either for self -glory, or from spite and 
 prejudice, or from mere habit, or in accordance 
 with the policy of some particular journal. It 
 goes without saying that if we are to have perfect 
 honesty, the one thing needful is a critical con 
 science, but among more formal and specific de- 
 
 * Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 30. 
 
54 William Dean Howells 
 
 terrents, Howells has emphasized the total aboli 
 tion of the anonymous review, and the revival of 
 the fine old custom of quotational criticism as 
 practiced by Hunt, Lamb, and Hazlitt. 
 
 "He would even go so far as to say that there 
 was no just and honest criticism without quota 
 tion. The critic was bound to make out his case, 
 or else abdicate his function, and he could not 
 make out his case, either for or against an author, 
 without calling him in to testify. 24 
 
 Superstition reverences the classics as infalli 
 ble, attempts to set up minor works as classics, 
 and misleads by judging literature with reference 
 to models and to laws derived from the classics. 
 The last offence is, as we have seen, the bulwark 
 of a school of criticism so unpopular nowadays 
 that to assail it is to fight a phantom. It is by no 
 means easy to say, however, precisely when a 
 reverence for the classics becomes superstitious, 
 or precisely where the revivifying historic imagi 
 nation of the scholar overreaches itself and plays 
 tricks with rational aesthetics. The two things 
 are constantly happening, nevertheless, and How 
 ells objects with warrant to an absurd idolatry 
 which looks upon the great ones as altogether per 
 fect and that bids us admire beauties in literature 
 which, however useful to the historian, is barren 
 aesthetically. "At least three-fifths of the litera 
 ture called classic, in all languages, " he estimates, 
 "no more lives than the poems and stories that 
 perish monthly in our magazines. It is all printed 
 and reprinted, generation after generation, cen- 
 
 ** Imaginary Interviews (1910), p. 225. 
 
His Conception of Criticism 55 
 
 tury after century ; but it is not alive ; it is as dead 
 as the people who wrote it and read it, and to 
 whom it meant something, perhaps ; with whom it 
 was a fashion, a caprice, a passing taste. A super 
 stitious piety preserves it, and pretends that it 
 has aesthetic qualities which can delight or edify; 
 but nobody really enjoys it, except as a reflection 
 of the past moods and humors of the race, or a 
 revelation of the author s character; otherwise it 
 is trash, and often very filthy trash, which the 
 present trash generally is not." 25 
 
 Howells attack on superstition does not come 
 off with quite the eclat of his assault on dishonest 
 reviewing. One admires the sincerity and the zeal 
 with which he lays hands on pedagogic error, but 
 his scorn of historical studies obtrudes, not to his 
 undoing, but at times to the nullification of his 
 best effects. In the passage just quoted he 
 touches an undeniably weak spot in the academic 
 armor, but fails to pierce. He somehow succeeds 
 in conveying the impression that the superstition 
 lies as much in preserving and studying the his 
 torical documents as in attributing to them the 
 literary qualities they have not. It may be laid 
 down as a postulate that no progress can be made 
 toward a rationalized aesthetics by the easy ex 
 pedient of depressing historical studies. 
 
 This brings us to a consideration of Howells 
 doctrine of modernism, to which I have already 
 made casual allusion. We noted, in the first chap 
 ter, the view of literary history it implied and the 
 mannerism in speech resulting from it. If How- 
 ells did not, as Robert Louis Stevenson accused 
 
 "Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 146. 
 
56 William Dean Howells 
 
 him, think of the past as radically dead, he did 
 think of it for the most part as a definite progress 
 toward the present ; and the inexperienced reader 
 of his books may at first be mystified to find all of 
 the literary virtues and none of the vices attrib 
 uted to our own time. It will soon become clear, 
 however, that Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare 
 should be read only as our contemporaries, and 
 that the words modern and contemporary, which 
 applied to a classic author constitute the very 
 highest praise, are Howells favorite synonyms 
 for the terms universal and permanent, ordinarily 
 employed in speaking of literary values. He 
 would seek permanent and universal values in a 
 literary work by ignoring its age, seek positive 
 and independent merit in a scorn of relative merit 
 extending, so to speak, Matthew Arnold s fear 
 of the historical fallacy. But here again it is in 
 teresting to inquire whether he was able con 
 sistently to maintain this standard of modernity 
 in his own criticism. And again it must be said 
 that his practice lags behind his theory. We do 
 find that literature may be enjoyed as a reflection 
 of the past. Howells was glad to have acquainted 
 himself with Pope for this very reason. In his 
 words : 
 
 "He was the first of the writers of great Anna s 
 time whom I knew, and he made me ready to un 
 derstand, if he did not make me understand at 
 once, the order of mind and life which he belonged 
 to. Thanks to his pastorals, I could long after 
 wards enjoy with the double sense requisite for 
 full pleasure in them, such divinely excellent arti 
 ficialities as Tasso s Aminta and Guarini s Pastor 
 
His Conception of Criticism 57 
 
 Fido ; things which you will thoroughly like only 
 after you are in the joke of thinking how people 
 once seriously liked them as high examples of 
 poetry." 26 
 
 Of Goldoni s comedies, which he particularly ad 
 mired: "One ought not to smile at this morality, 
 however, without remembering the age, the relig 
 ion, and the race to which it was addressed; to 
 these some very elementary principles might have 
 seemed novel. 27 One wonders why this toler 
 ance cannot be extended to all literature. One 
 finds that it can to all that Howells liked; and it 
 is to be said to the credit of his heart again that 
 he liked especially to champion the despised and 
 rejected ; yes, even romanticists if they were suffi 
 ciently despised and rejected. The successive 
 chapters on Mrs. Radcliffe and Sir Walter Scott 
 in Heroines of Fiction, for instance, must furnish 
 a puzzle to any reader who is not, as Howells 
 would say, in the joke of this. The formula "of 
 its age" is after all an extremely adaptable one, 
 and may be used either to excuse or to condemn. 
 The fact is, Howells cherished not a few of the 
 preferences and prejudices associated with un 
 scientific criticism. His judgments suffer, for ex 
 ample, through his chivalrous attitude toward 
 women, though in the case of Mrs. Eadcliif e, just 
 cited, it was indeed, as he said, high time for some 
 one "to justify that poor lady s art." Again, he 
 was perhaps too eager to champion those of his 
 fellow-craftsmen who labored at a disadvantage, 
 
 89 My Literary Passions (1895), p. 51. 
 
 *" Carlo Gjldoni" in the Atlantic Monthly (1877), 40:608. 
 
58 William Dean Howells 
 
 whether of racial prejudice, as in the cases of Paul 
 Laurence Dunbar and Charles W. Chesnutt, or 
 of persistent unpopularity, as in the case of J. W. 
 De Forest, or of mere newness to the public, as in 
 most cases. This loyalty was sincere and in the 
 main praiseworthy and effective, but it did not 
 hold the new and the living to quite the standard 
 of the dead or the firmly established. Cause was 
 given for the misunderstanding that prompted one 
 irritated critic to exclaim: "To ask why Eden 
 Phillpotts is a great novelist, and Thackeray, 
 Dickens, and Meredith are not is not a question of 
 criticism. It is a conundrum." 
 
 All of these specific shortcomings, however, 
 really weigh very little in the balance against the 
 service he rendered by the simple but still unpopu 
 lar expedient of telling the truth about the mas 
 ters of the past. We well know that the veriest 
 tyro to-day would not commit some of the blun 
 ders common in the masters of yesterday. This is 
 the answer to the conundrum just proposed. Pro 
 fessor Brander Matthews puts it as follows : 
 
 "However great Scott was, and Dickens, and 
 Thackeray, they were none of them perfect artists ; 
 they were great in spite of gross derelictions from 
 the highest standard. This is what Mr. Howells 
 has tried to make plain even to careless readers ; 
 and it is for making this plain that careless read 
 ers are not willing to forgive him. Nothing is 
 more certain to arrest progress than a smug satis 
 faction with the past unless it is a slavish copy 
 ing of the inferior models bequeathed to us by our 
 more primitive predecessors. Nothing is more 
 helpful than a clear understanding of the merits 
 
His Conception of Criticism 59 
 
 and of the demerits of the early masters. The 
 merits are obvious enough, but the demerits need 
 to be discovered and declared before they can 
 serve as warnings. It is not a paradox but a 
 truism that the art of fiction is a finer art to-day 
 than it was when Thackeray was writing just as 
 it was a finer art in Thackeray s time than it was 
 when Cervantes was writing. " 28 
 
 Howells contribution to criticism is happily 
 out of all proportion to the merits of his theory, 
 just as the volume of his critical writing bears no 
 correspondence to his low opinion of the critical 
 office. He stands very much in relation to this 
 problem as the schoolboy to his sum when he ar 
 rives at the right answer by a wrong method of 
 working. Thus, while he habitually construed the 
 critical process as an occupation with books, his 
 practice was habitually concerned with the life 
 recorded in books. The body of his criticism is 
 very impressive in its faithfulness to the single 
 criterion of conformity to the realities. And mod 
 ern literature has been made to reflect life more 
 faithfully because it was written, and to acknowl 
 edge that reflection as an aim and ideal. 
 
 "Mr. Howells as a Critic" in the Forum (1902), 32:637. 
 
Ill 
 
 HIS IDEALS OF LITEBATUBE 
 
 THE essential fact about modern art was to 
 Howells, as I have said, its conscious fusion 
 of the ideals of literature, of architecture, or of 
 painting, with the ideals of life. The novel of to 
 day aspires to be not an aesthetic document merely, 
 not an ethic document in a didactic sense, but a 
 revelation of moral fact in terms of the highest 
 and most disinterested art. To state the matter in 
 its simplest terms, literature and the cognate arts 
 are to be identified in aim with all the other great 
 civilizing forces, like science, that have raised the 
 hnman family from a condition of savagery to a 
 comparatively rich and happy existence. The 
 great and sole function of scientific writing must 
 be recognized as that of all serious artistic writ 
 ing to make the truth prevail. "Men are more 
 like than unlike one another, " says Howells; "let 
 us make them know one another better, that they 
 may be all humbled and strengthened with a sense 
 of their fraternity. Neither arts, nor letters, nor 
 sciences, except as they somehow, clearly or ob 
 scurely, tend to make the race better and kinder, 
 are to be regarded as serious interests; they are 
 all lower than the rudest crafts that feed and 
 house and clothe, for except they do this office they 
 
 60 
 
His Ideals of Literature 61 
 
 are idle ; and they cannot do this except from and 
 through the truth." 1 
 
 Such a conception of the function of literature 
 presents little novelty to-day; nor was it by any 
 means original in the late eighties, when Howells 
 was issuing his pronouncements from the "Edi 
 tor s Study." It had in its contemporary impli 
 cations its genesis in the positivistic and scientific 
 furnace through which earlier in the century the 
 rich ore of romanticism had to pass. It attained 
 in the Zolaism of the seventies its extreme of for 
 mal exposition, the identification not only of liter 
 ary aims but of literary methods with the scien 
 tific. Then came its diffusion and modification. 
 The correction of the roman naturaliste came al 
 most immediately under the renaissance of the 
 roman psychologique. 2 But the winds of doc 
 trine, which blew mostly from France, left How- 
 ells unmoved. Although he was repeatedly called 
 a doctrinaire, the basic principles of his doctrine 
 were those simple ones that were the property of 
 no man or school but with which the atmosphere 
 of the whole literary world wa*s saturate. 
 
 His most grateful support he drew from his 
 Spanish friend and counterpart, Palacio-Valdes. 
 Using the declaration made for modernity by 
 Valdes in the prologue to La Hermana San Sul- 
 picio (1889), he explained the power of literature, 
 together with painting, sculpture, and music, to 
 ennoble the race through the spirit of beauty to 
 
 1 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 188. 
 
 a ln 1886, the year of Howells editorial accession, appeared 
 Bourget s Crime d Amour. The World of Chance, his novel of 
 literary life, includes an incidental treatment of the opposing 
 schools. 
 
62 William Dean Howclls 
 
 which the human heart is ever responsive. The 
 beautiful effect it "receives from the true mean 
 ing of things ; it does not matter what the things 
 are, and it is the function of the artist who feels 
 this effect to impart it to others. " "I may add," 
 he continues, "that there is no joy in art except 
 this perception of the meaning of things and its 
 communication; when you have felt it, and por 
 trayed it in a poem, a symphony, a novel, a statue, 
 a picture, an edifice, you have fulfilled the purpose 
 for which you were born an artist. 3 
 
 "The man of our time," says Valdes in his 
 preface, "wishes to know everything and enjoy 
 everything: he turns the objective of a powerful 
 equatorial towards the heavenly spaces where 
 gravitate the infinitude of the stars, just as he ap 
 plies the microscope to the infinitude of the small 
 est insects ; for their laws are identical. His ex 
 perience, united with intuition, has convinced him 
 that in nature there is neither great nor small; 
 all is equal. All is equally grand, all is equally 
 just, all is equally beautiful, because all is equally 
 divine." "Things that appear ugliest in reality 
 to the spectator who is not an artist," he con 
 tinues, "are transformed into beauty and poetry 
 when the spirit of the artist possesses itself of 
 them. We all take part every day in a thousand 
 domestic scenes, every day we see a thousand pic 
 tures in life, that do not make any impression 
 upon us, or if they make any it is one of repug 
 nance ; but let the novelist come, and without be 
 traying the truth, but painting them as they ap 
 pear to his vision, he produces a most interesting 
 
 3 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 62. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 63 
 
 work, whose perusal enchants us. That which in 
 life left us indifferent, or repelled us, in art de 
 lights us. Why? Simply because the artist has 
 made us see the idea that resides in it. Let not 
 the novelists, then, endeavor to add anything to 
 reality, to turn it and twist it, to restrict it. Since 
 nature has endowed them with this precious gift 
 of discovering ideas in things, their work will be 
 beautiful if they paint these as they appear. But 
 if the reality does not impress them, in vain will 
 they strive to make their work impress others. " 4 
 It was for this essentially democratic revalua 
 tion of artistic materials and experience that How- 
 ells stood in American literature and life; and 
 during the years 1886 to 1892, when he was quar 
 tered in the " Editor s Study, " to stand for it 
 meant warfare war on what he described, in re 
 viewing Matthew Arnold s charges that America 
 lacked interest and distinction, as the "supersti 
 tion" of the romantic, the bizarre, the heroic, the 
 distinguished. He and Mr. Henry Harper agreed 
 after it was over that the long fight had been a 
 losing one, so that during his occupancy of the 
 "Easy Chair" it was not aggressively renewed. 
 The discouragement was natural but not alto 
 gether reasonable, since it was based chiefly on the 
 assumption, already demonstrated as erroneous in 
 the case of Walt Whitman, that an art which drew 
 its vitality from the life of a people must in vir 
 tue of that fact be accepted of the people and at 
 once contribute to their life. The century had 
 closed in a blazing recrudescence of the historical 
 
 *Pr6logo to La Hermana San Sulpicio (1889), as translated 
 in Criticism and Fiction (1893), pp. 61, 71. 
 
64 William Dean Howells 
 
 romance. The boyish company gathered about 
 the memory of Robert Louis Stevenson had found 
 the time of the Spanish- American War propitious 
 for putting a sort of finishing touch upon popular 
 misconception of the new ideals. Realism was 
 more than ever discredited, standing in the pub 
 lic mind a " sordid " thing, a negation of all the 
 beauty and heroism and distinction in the world. 
 But it was really otherwise with the best artists. 
 In their minds beauty and heroism and distinc 
 tion had been indeed supplanted as artistic ideals 
 by the perception of meanings in things and its 
 communication. 
 
 It is now clearer, though not clear enough for 
 the salvation of popular fiction, that in disestab 
 lishing Beauty as an artistic criterion (even to the 
 universal tolerance of Mr. John Galsworthy a 
 "perpetual begging of the question ") the com 
 pany to which Howells belonged was seeking but 
 to extend its domain, was demanding only more 
 and more beauty. This is certainly what Howells 
 tried to make clear in his remarks about Matthew 
 Arnold. If we had not much of the kind Arnold 
 missed, he said, we did not undervalue it, but fer 
 vently hoped to acquire more and more of it 
 only the centre and bounds of our interest had 
 shifted to include "common beauty, common gran 
 deur, or the beauty and grandeur in which the 
 quality of solidarity so prevails that neither dis 
 tinguishes itself to the disadvantage of anything 
 else." So the case against romance was not a 
 grudge against nobility of character or the heroic 
 in conduct but against a spirit that suppressed, 
 where it did not sentimentalize, nine-tenths of the 
 
His Ideals of Literature 65 
 
 real nobility and heroism in the world, that was 
 inviting us to admire a swashbuckling that sus 
 tained no relation to the faith and feelings of the 
 best among us, and a grandeur that shone at the 
 expense of our common grandeur and greatly to 
 the disadvantage of the futile strivings and vague 
 aspirations on which we based our faith in man. 
 
 Sophisticated criticism now proceeds pretty 
 generally upon the axiom of the essential equality 
 of human experience for the purposes of art. It 
 has become more scientific, it is true, and from 
 time to time more metaphysical in its distinctions, 
 but I do not know that it has really superseded or 
 even essentially revised the enunciation of this 
 principle embodied in the prologue of Valdes. As 
 for Howells, it was always at the base of his rea 
 soning, even in the early days when, as he laugh 
 ingly declared to Boyesen, he was an "idealist." 
 He was always finding beautiful meanings in 
 things regarded by the general as ignoble. He 
 built his first published novel, Their Wedding 
 Journey (1872), entirely in illustration of it; and 
 he subsequently made it the philosophic justifica 
 tion for his tireless endeavor "to show poor real 
 life its foolish face." 5 
 
 But while to the democratic spirit it is no longer 
 permissible to question an artist s choice of sub 
 ject matter, but only the value of the artistic prod 
 uct into which the experience has been trans 
 muted, there is still with us an aristocratic spirit 
 which is the negation of this, which instructs the 
 author not to choose types and subjects unworthy 
 of the dignity of artistic representation, which 
 
 8 Vide Their Wedding Journey (ed. 1899), p. 67. 
 
66 William Dean Howells 
 
 will not forgive Howells for setting down the na 
 tive Philistinism without malice, and which de 
 clares that the world he portrayed is an uninter 
 esting world in spite of all that genius could do 
 for it. This frank objection to Howells attempt 
 to give America a novel of manners thus divides 
 criticism hostile to him into two classes, the one 
 repudiating his world, the other questioning his 
 method of treating it or, in the most unsympa 
 thetic instances, his capacity for catching its sig 
 nificance. I wish I could say that these categories 
 correspond to eras or periods of Howells criti 
 cism, if not of criticism in general, as in a loose 
 way they do. But the former gives constant evi 
 dences of its " unofficial survival. Among all the 
 reviews of this class in my collection, one of the 
 most thoroughgoing, and one of which I am espe 
 cially fond, appeared as late as 1903 in the col 
 umns of the Atlantic Monthly. Harriet Waters 
 Preston, reviewing The Kentons, writes: 
 
 "The truth is that the novel of manners de 
 mands, first of all, manners to be delineated. But 
 manners, in the widest sense, imply homogeneous 
 and stable conditions; a certain sodal creed and 
 hierarchy accepted without question and almost 
 without thought, together with a tyrannous tradi 
 tion antedating but always coexisting with long 
 codified laws of conduct ; and manners in this gen 
 eral sense, we have none in America." 6 
 
 As a useful technical distinction, such a limitation 
 of the term manners is perhaps to be recom 
 mended, but that such definition is not the critic s 
 
 Harriet Waters Preston, "The Latest Novels of Howells and 
 James," in the Atlantic Monthly (1903), 91:77. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 67 
 
 purpose is made evident by her use of the phrases 
 "in the widest sense " and "in this general 
 sense. " To the novelist like Howells, who has 
 found instability of social code a condition richly 
 productive of manners, the tyranny of tradition 
 is the dictator of manners in the narrowest sense. 
 Otherwise the Kentons are excluded from the cate 
 gory of proper types, and our critic says in so 
 many words that "we owe Mr. Howells a grudge " 
 for having made us know them. She may desire 
 with Senor Valdes to view the celestial spaces and 
 the infinitude of the stars, but she radically ob 
 jects to having the insects thrust into the field of 
 vision. The Kentons, the tender solicitude of 
 this aging pair for each other and for their foolish 
 children, their pathetic fatuity, their lamentable 
 ignorance of the ways of the world beyond the 
 Alleghanies, their beautiful and gradual growth 
 into mutual dependence how familiar and touch 
 ing it all is ! Yet we are bidden to regard it as a 
 deformity on the face of civilization. 
 
 "Types they may be, but normal and complete 
 human beings they are not. They are the scum 
 and spawn of a yeasty deep, the monstrous off 
 spring of barbarous and illicit social relations. 
 They are necessarily short-lived, and, it is to be 
 hoped, sterile; and if let alone would probably 
 perish with the transitory conditions that gave 
 them birth. To make of their deformities a dime 
 side show at our noisy National Fair is, to say the 
 least of it, not nice. To pursue them intently to 
 approach their sad case with paraphernalia of 
 literary preparation is like riding in pink, and 
 
68 William Dean Howells 
 
 with winding of horns, to a hunt of cock 
 roaches ! 7 
 
 Thus Brahmanism from time to time gets in its 
 word, but our literature has continued to develop 
 a positive and inclusive view of civilization such 
 as the conception of Howells and Valdes provides 
 for. The psychologic and sociologic spirit has 
 made all humanity its province and has found the 
 social relations evolved from new conditions far 
 from "barbarous and illicit/ As a matter of 
 fact, it has crossed the frontiers of barbarism in 
 pursuit of strange atavisms, but these have en 
 ticed those modern souls like Kipling and Conrad, 
 who include in their composition a perceptible 
 romantic strain. What is common to the men of 
 our epoch is an illimitable expansion of interest, 
 an outward-facing attitude which admits no imag 
 ining that their loyalty to a group, a tradition, or 
 an ideal, can be fostered to good issue by ignoring 
 the claims of the human to sympathetic under 
 standing wherever manifest and in whatever lowly 
 condition. The choicest spirits of our age are try 
 ing to make men better known to one another by 
 and through the truth. In this endeavor, it is 
 Ho wells distinction to have chosen his field at 
 our own door-steps, to have made the despised 
 and rejected American tradition of social equality 
 his ideal, and to have stressed more than others 
 the humanitarian impulse behind the enlighten 
 ments of art the impulse to liberate men from 
 the curse of narrowness and selfishness. 
 
 I would not suggest that Howells in his insis- 
 
 T Harriet Waters Preston, "The Latest Novels of Howells and 
 James," in the Atlantic Monthly (1903), 91:77. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 69 
 
 ^ 
 
 tence upon the instructional office of the novel 
 made any concession to didacticism. Modernity 
 meant to him a final mediation between moral art 
 and art for art s sake, and a dismissal of both. 
 In his view, the novel on the one hand could not 
 exist for its own sake nor on the other could it 
 accomplish anything by cultivating poetic justice 
 in its composition or encouraging generalization 
 and easy analogy in its interpretation. He wished 
 it to rely on fidelity alone to quicken the reader s 
 sense of kinship with his fellows and in particular 
 a sense of his own capacities for good or for evil. 
 And his faith in it as a socializing instrument in 
 cluded a Conradian belief in the efficacy of a vivid 
 impressionism to touch the heart and a Meredith- 
 ian confidence that it did point and aid to "the 
 firmer footing of those who succeed us." When 
 as a boy he came under Lowell s influence and 
 obediently tried to like everything the master 
 liked, and fell instantly in love with Chaucer, try 
 as he would he could find no place in his heart 
 for Spenser. As a man he flouted the polemic 
 wherever found, consigning the abstract and the 
 typical to the melodrama and extravaganza of 
 the theatre, and lamenting the Tolstoi of the par 
 ables as a loss to art, finding the apologue of high 
 morality as worthless as ever the great Russian 
 found the allegorizing of the decadents. 
 
 The realism of Howells, repudiating the simple 
 poetic justice of the sentimental novelists and 
 scorning to allow the truth to be tampered with 
 by way of making a sermon, is not, however, dis 
 posed to ignore indebtedness to the rare talents 
 of an earlier day who succeeded under the heavy 
 
yo William Dean Howells 
 
 handicap imposed by moral teaching. Howells 
 in his Heroines of Fiction is glad to head his 
 list of modern heroines with Clarissa Harlowe, 
 and pleads eloquently for a reversal of the sen 
 tence which relegates Maria Edgeworth to "the 
 sad society of mere sermoners." He says: 
 
 "Fiction had not yet conceived of the supreme 
 ethics which consist in portraying life truly and 
 letting the lesson take care of itself. After a hun 
 dred years this conception is not yet very clear to 
 many novelists, or, what is worse, to their critics ; 
 and the novel, to save itself alive from the con 
 tempt and abhorrence in which the most of good 
 people once held it, had to be good in the fashion 
 of the sermon rather than in the fashion of the 
 drama. It felt its way slowly and painfully by 
 heavy sloughs of didacticism and through dreary 
 tracts of moral sentiment to the standing it ^now 
 has, and we ought to look back at its flounderings, 
 not with wonder that it floundered so long, but 
 that it ever arrived. In fact, it did not flounder so 
 very long, and it arrived at what is still almost an 
 ideal perfection in the art of Jane Austen." 
 
 Clearly, so far as the time-worn formula of 
 I art pour I art is a protest against the subversion 
 of beauty by the moral intent, its claim has been 
 granted; so far as it would subvert the moral 
 sense in the pursuit of beauty it is to be answered 
 by a new interpretation of the old truism: 
 "Beauty is truth, truth beauty. " Good art, in 
 short, is good morality. Howells is willing enough 
 to concede the possibility of an unmoral aim, that 
 
 Heroines of Fiction (1901), I, 26. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 71 
 
 an artist may create solely with an eye for beauty, 
 but that beauty can ever be the sole effect of his 
 creation, is inconceivable. " Morality penetrates 
 all things, he says ; it is the soul of all things. 
 Beauty may clothe it on, whether it is false mo 
 rality and an evil soul, or whether it is true and 
 a good soul. In the one case the beauty will cor 
 rupt, and in the other it will edify, and in either 
 case it will infallibly and inevitably have an ethi 
 cal effect, now light, now grave, according as the 
 thing is light or grave. " 9 It is quite possible to 
 quarrel with Howells terminology, but not, I 
 think, with his meaning. A representation of life 
 is bound to be in effect a criticism of life, and an 
 artist cannot by invoking an old and still hazy 
 abstraction such as beauty escape his moral re 
 sponsibility. 
 
 His notions of the beauty that corrupts, how 
 ever, are neither so clear nor so unexceptionable ; 
 they hardly consist, indeed, with the rudimentary 
 principles thus far sketched. It appears on close 
 inquiry that the truth may be corrupting. There 
 is no inconsistency in a realist objecting to books 
 that portray bestiality "under a glamour of some 
 thing spiritual and beautiful and sublime. " 10 
 The manner of treatment would be sufficient to 
 remove such works from the realistic category. 
 But Howells does not hesitate to object to por 
 trayals of bestiality not only in the books of mod 
 ern writers whose sincerity he praises and whose 
 
 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 83. 
 
 "/Zn d., p. 61. Translation from La Hermana San Sulpicio 
 (1889), I, 
 
72 William Dean Howells 
 
 philosophy of life he admires but in the classics. 
 He goes so far as to call for expurgated editions 
 of the latter, saying : 
 
 * I hope the time will come when the beast-man 
 will be so far subdued and tamed in us that the 
 memory of him in literature shall be left to perish 
 . . . that the pedant pride which now perpetuates 
 it as an essential part of those poets shall no 
 longer have its way. At the end of the ends such 
 things do defile, they do corrupt. We may palli 
 ate them or excuse them for this reason or that, 
 but that is the truth, and I do not see why they 
 should not be dropped from literature, as they 
 were long ago dropped from the talk of decent 
 people." 11 
 
 I have already commented upon Howells ex 
 treme readiness to divorce the historic interest 
 from the aesthetic. This question, however, is one 
 that does not need to be debated on grounds of 
 scholarship. It is a matter of simple justice to 
 the author and his reader. We have all seen 
 Chaucer modernized and mangled, Burns purified 
 by ruining the rime and obscuring the reason, an 
 insult to the genius of the poet and to the intelli 
 gence of all who would know him. We have wit 
 nessed the droll spectacle of Swinburne inviting 
 us to admire the beauties of a poem by Villon part 
 of which the idolater of Mademoiselle de Maupin 
 found too vile to print even in its antique French. 
 And we ought all by this time to have seen that 
 no man can be trusted to exercise anything but 
 the wildest vagary in this procedure of expurga- 
 
 II My Literary Passions (1895), p. 54. Cf. ibid., pp. 109-113. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 73 
 
 tion, for it is in essence unnatural and unaesthetic. 
 To remove the parts from what was in its incep 
 tion and execution an organic whole requires the 
 assumption of a false attitude and a suspension of 
 appreciation. The suppression of evidence neces 
 sary for correct judgment, suppression by a med 
 dler of what the author has freely furnished, must 
 be an abomination before all mature and candid 
 souls; as for the young, they ought not to read 
 fragments of a work that would defile and corrupt 
 as a whole, or to cultivate authors apt to prove 
 dangerous on close acquaintanceship. Moreover, 
 one does not live long in this wicked world with 
 out encountering enough bestiality to render in 
 nocuous the works of the great literary masters. 
 And finally, it were double sacrilege to begin this 
 ghastly enterprise of dropping the beast-man 
 from our classics where one bent on preserving 
 the innocence of youth would naturally have to 
 begin it, with the greatest and most accessible of 
 our classics, the King James Bible. 
 
 Having agreed that there is no comfort in igno 
 rance, and having received with acclaim the decla 
 ration that the man of to-day should know every 
 thing, I see no consistency in being asked to live 
 by the talk of "decent people " alone. The Wife 
 of Bath is on her pilgrimage to-day, and to spurn 
 her acquaintance is clearly to invite sclerosis of 
 the sympathies. Howells squeamishness does not 
 end with the license of bygone centuries. He 
 brings it into the very holy of holies of modern 
 ism. He is happy to find that by virtue of what 
 he congratulates us upon as our Anglo-Saxon tra 
 dition or convention of decency, we are forbidden 
 
74 William Dean Howells 
 
 to follow in the footsteps of the great French and 
 Russian masters. He admonishes our writers: 
 "You cannot deal with Tolstoi s and Flaubert s 
 subjects in the absolute artistic freedom of Tol 
 stoi and Flaubert; since DeFoe, that is unknown 
 among us ; but if you deal with them in the man 
 ner of George Eliot, of Thackeray, of Dickens, of 
 society, you may deal with them even in the maga 
 zines." 12 But after all he has said about the 
 methods of these eminent Victorians, and after 
 he has told us so often of the infinite superiority 
 of Tolstoi s, this seems cruel. No one of the 
 great English trio fully satisfied him; George 
 Eliot is the only one who can be said to have satis 
 fied him at all; he saw the true light dawn over 
 the steppes of Russia ; he found the last word said 
 in Turgeniev and Tolstoi; and yet he rejoices that 
 darkness still hangs over our land; he finds it 
 right and fitting that the Anglo-Saxon mouth 
 should be stopped. Why? One would fain let the 
 question pass, but the truth must out: In our 
 country we write for young ladies. 13 Is not that 
 a pretty box in which to shut our budding Tolstoi ! 
 Grown-up Americans may have their Flaubert 
 and Zola, because the books can be locked up ; but 
 let our writers continue to write realism for young 
 ladies. 
 
 The argument by which Howells half -reconciles 
 this amazing prescription with the large and gen 
 erous aims already defined for a national litera 
 ture is interesting and displays an unsuspected 
 relevance to those aims. He declares that America 
 
 " Criticism and Fiction (1891), p. 161. 
 "Ibid., p. 149. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 75 
 
 has not the sex problems of Continental fiction, 
 that conditions are actually more fortunate here 
 than abroad, and that, consequently, the novelist 
 who portrays our conditions does wrong to in 
 fuse unwholesome conceptions of love. 14 Now, 
 such a declaration presents two distinct aspects, 
 representing on the one hand a regrettable re 
 striction and on the other a peculiar strength of 
 Howells own art. In his geographical distinc 
 tions Howells is in the first place clearly theoriz 
 ing away his self-imposed limitations in subject 
 matter and seeking to form others upon himself ; 
 but in the second place he is sincerely describing 
 the representative America of his day, the world 
 which no one else could portray as he portrayed 
 it, and in which the situations of the Continental 
 novel did not figure. Eespectability was in all its 
 implications supremely characteristic of that 
 world, and the young lady did occupy in it a posi 
 tion she has held in no other. It is the peculiar 
 glory of the Howells art to have taken the repre 
 sentative and characteristic and without betraying 
 the truth to have made it rich with beauty and 
 meaning; but this is the result of a temperamen 
 tal fitness and an intense specialization that by 
 neither his own declarations nor those of his col 
 leagues should be exacted of others. 
 
 The limitations, consequently, are for the most 
 part evident in their effect upon others. For one 
 does not think of Howells simply as a supreme 
 literary artist, or simply as an active and en 
 lightened apostle, preaching the aims and methods 
 
 M Vide l Mr. Howells on Love and Literature, " by A. Schade 
 van Westrum, in Lamp (1904), 28:26. 
 
76 William Dean Howells 
 
 of the European masters who brought him into 
 his own. His long leadership in precept and ex 
 ample, coupled with his powerful editorial con 
 nections, made him in a very real sense a school 
 master to the younger generation, although his 
 school denied being a school as such. And into 
 this "magazine school," which Mrs. Atherton 
 periodically denounces, and for which she holds 
 Howells responsible, he did infuse, under the 
 specious title of Anglo-Saxon convention of de 
 cency, an ideal largely the property of writers 
 whom he did not particularly admire. But while 
 I do not consider the influence of this tradition of 
 "niceness" on his minor disciples a matter for 
 gratitude, I am happy to detect an exaggeration 
 in Mr. Alexander Harvey s statement that every 
 time Howells praises a writer, he turns out to be 
 of the sissy school." 15 The major figures reached 
 by his influence took radical exception to his ex 
 altation of prudery. It is a pleasure to note that 
 Boyesen, who of all his admirers stands most 
 closely in relation of discipleship, rose ardently in 
 rebellion against the "young ladies"; and in gen 
 eral those men whose vitality in our literature 
 Howells was most continuously predicting and ac 
 knowledging have displayed the most virility. 
 His difficulties with the work of Mr. Robert Her 
 ri ck, for example, which he found almost une 
 qualled in moral power, were considerable. Mr. 
 Herrick, he complained, "sees the social condi 
 tions, as regards the wilfulness and waywardness 
 
 18 William Dean Howells: A Study of the Achievement of a 
 Literary Artist (1917), p. 196. The first book-length study of 
 Howells to appear. 
 
His Ideals of Literature 77 
 
 of women, rather redder than they are, or say 
 yellower, for there is a strain of vulgarity in their 
 aberrations which is very suggestive of a kind 
 of modern journalism. " 16 Again, the work of 
 Mr. Hamlin Garland he followed with the highest 
 interest and approbation; yet he could not enjoy 
 its frankness in facing facts when the facts hap 
 pened to be those about sexual relationships. His 
 comment on Garland s handling of erotic themes 
 is of especial interest because, being less geo 
 graphical, it shows his willingness to expose his 
 temperamental and conventional bias: 
 
 ". . . It puts the gross passions, the propensi 
 ties to shame, rather than flatters or entices them ; 
 but it doesn t recognize the beast in the man s de 
 sire of the woman, the satyr leer which is the 
 complement of the lover s worship. In Rose of 
 Butcher s Coolly, in Hesper, in Money Magic, 
 measurably in them all, you find the refusal, when 
 it comes to the fact, to ignore what cannot be de 
 nied. I am old-fashioned, and I have moments 
 when I could wish that the author had not been 
 of such unsparing conscience. That is all, and 
 with this wish noted I can give myself to the entire 
 pleasure which the purity and wholesomeness of 
 his fiction offers me." 17 
 
 The biographical facts commonly cited to bear 
 out the contention that Howells penchant for re 
 spectability seriously limited his own sympathies 
 are amusing rather than impressive. The inci- 
 
 M " Robert Herriek" in the North American Review (1909), 
 189:812. 
 
 17 Mr. Garland s Books in the North American Review 
 (1912), 196:523. 
 
78 William Dean Howells 
 
 dent of Pfaff s beer-cellar, which promises to be 
 come another such classic as the Whittier birth 
 day story, has recently been suggested as a final 
 criticism of him and his work. Howells visited 
 this celebrated Bohemia on Broadway as a young 
 man fresh from the ultra-refinement of the Bos- 
 tonian literary circle, and penned a description of 
 it in a manner somewhat foreign to his gentle and 
 tolerant nature. Those who took offence at it, 
 however, did not hold themselves strictly to the 
 letter of justice, since Howells chief objection to 
 Pfaff s was that it was a sham Bohemia, though 
 it was perfectly evident that he would have been 
 no more at home in the Bohemia of Paul Verlaine. 
 Nor was this aspect of the matter, in which lay 
 the point of Howells jibe, duly noted on the pub 
 lication of William Winter s Memories of Au 
 thors, when the episode was brought out for re- 
 hauling and given its vogue as a critical weapon. 
 Of the comments called forth by Winter s mem 
 oirs, I liked best an editorial by Mr. Colby of 
 the Bookman. Mr. Colby, after remarking that 
 extreme niceness leads readers to plunge "into 
 rebellious extremes of coarseness, swearing, per 
 haps, or eating with their knives," goes on to dis 
 cuss a detail from "The Pursuit of the Piano." 
 
 "Thus the hero of one of his short stories 
 printed a few years ago, observes from his win 
 dow a piano-case having on it the name and ad 
 dress of a young woman. After long and very 
 minute reflection he concludes that the young 
 woman may have been a little girl whom he used 
 to see years before running barefooted on her 
 father s lawn. The fancied identification of this 
 
His Ideals of Literature 79 
 
 young woman, now no doubt quite grown-up, with 
 the child whose active brown legs he distinctly re 
 members, brings the hot blushes to that hero s 
 cheeks. It is the romanticism of prudery an ex 
 treme instance, perhaps, but illustrating Mr. 
 Howells spinster-like intemperance in matters of 
 propriety. The romancers idealize the manly vir 
 tues of their heroes; he idealizes the niceness of 
 his. It is no harder to slay a giant than to blush 
 in solitude at the thought of brown legs. There 
 are, of course, deeds of propriety no less incred 
 ible than deeds of blood, and the * refinement of 
 Mr. Howells heroes often seems as unfamiliar to 
 this earth as the beauty and bravery of Sir Wal 
 ter s." 18 
 
 The fashion of poking fun at Howells niceness 
 and of insisting upon the limitation represented 
 by his reverence for "decent people" will dis 
 appear before a wider and deeper acquaintance 
 with his works, in which it must be found that he 
 has reaped a unique and a substantial reward for 
 his circumspection. Objections are prevalently 
 based on the assumption that there is such a thing 
 as a realism that can treat a given subject with 
 out leaving lacunas the realism, let us say, that 
 was to give us the "great American novel" we 
 used to hear so much about and that is still em 
 ployed as a hypothetical standard of comparison. 
 Howells in confining himself to such erotic mani 
 festations as he found in the society he treated, 
 and especially devoting himself to a detached and 
 intensive study of the minutiae of sexual differ 
 ences as displayed in that highly correct society, 
 
 "The Bookman (1908), 28:124. 
 
8o William Dean Howells 
 
 has left lacunae so far as concerns a hypothetically 
 complete portrayal of life, comparable to those 
 left by novelists engrossed with the animal side of 
 man s nature, but he has given us a great many 
 things that are not to be found elsewhere than in 
 his novels. To cite an example, the subtleties of 
 American courtship as contrasted with the Euro 
 pean are nowhere exposed as in these novels. 
 The wooing of Marcia Hubbard he might well 
 have called a national as well as a modern in 
 stance, and it took a prodigious niceness to enter 
 into it as he did. The affair of Ellen Kenton is 
 done with amazing insight. No one has studied in 
 such an attitude of critical detachment the oddi 
 ties of the Mid-Western combination of Puritani 
 cal rectitude with unlimited freedom. It may 
 truly be said that Howells beyond any one else has 
 given a nationally verifiable character to love- 
 making, and this he could never have done without 
 his sympathy with "decent people " and his vast 
 acquaintance with the proprieties. It is only 
 after the proprieties are understood and accepted 
 as social phenomena that the passion of his peo 
 ple can be appreciated. And the passions of some 
 of these people derive a truly dreadful power 
 from the decora that hedge them in. One might 
 wander a long time in loose company without get 
 ting such a shock as that afforded by the ani- 
 mality of Christine Dryfoos, for example, in A 
 Hazard of New Fortunes. 
 
 In general, Howells fulfilled a rare artistic mis 
 sion in applying the doctrine of the equality of 
 experience to American society. He proved that 
 the commonplace is not necessarily trivial or in- 
 
His Ideals of Literature 81 
 
 significant. Being a poet (except when he wrote 
 in verse), he wanted above all things else to make 
 men appreciate the poetry at their doorsteps. 
 And his unique gift was that which enabled him 
 to discover how rich the vein of it is that strikes 
 through the quotidian fact of existence. He found 
 it in the routine of receptions and teas, and in the 
 inanities of the summer veranda. He found the 
 glow of romance to employ the favorite phrase 
 of his detractors not under tropical moons (the 
 shipwreck and adventures of Captain Fenton 
 among the coral islands must be conceded the most 
 ineffective episode in the entire range of his writ 
 ings) but in the desolation of snow-locked New 
 England villages. His cry was ever and it was a 
 cri du cceur: "Ah! poor real life which I love, 
 can I make others share the delight I find in thy 
 foolish and insipid face?" f*^ot 
 
 There was a time when Howells was a little too 
 sure that dissatisfaction with the commonplace 
 betokened a shallow mind. This was the time 
 when with a variety of mock-apology and critical 
 admonition to discard all abnormal and unusual 
 manifestations he wrote his creed into the dia 
 logue and comment of Their Wedding Journey 
 (1872): 
 
 "As in literature the true artist will shun the 
 use of real events if they are of an improbable 
 character, so the sincere observer of man will not 
 desire to look upon his heroic or occasional 
 phases, but will seek him in his habitual moods of 
 vacancy and tiresomeness. To me, at any rate, 
 he is at such times very precious ; and I never per 
 ceive him to be so much of a man and a brother as 
 
82 William Dean Howells 
 
 when I feel the pressure of his vast, natural, un 
 affected dullness. Then I am able to enter con 
 fidently into his life and inhabit there, to think 
 his shallow and feeble thoughts, to be moved by 
 his dumb, stupid desires, to be dimly illumined by 
 his stinted inspirations, to share his foolish preju 
 dices, to practice his obtuse selfishness. " 
 
 He came later to regret what he pronounced the 
 misconception that construed these remarks as 
 prohibitory dicta and gave his descriptions of the 
 true realist a more positive cast : 
 
 "In life he finds nothing insignificant; all tells 
 for destiny and character; nothing that God has 
 made is contemptible. He cannot look upon hu 
 man life and declare this or that thing unworthy 
 of notice, any more than the scientist can declare 
 a fact of the material world beneath the dignity 
 of his inquiry." 19 
 
 As a critical apostle of the commonplace he may 
 have misdirected a multitude of second-rate and 
 imitative writers, but on the original minds he was 
 a compulsion to fresh beauties and an exactitude 
 our literature had never known. They have not 
 devoted themselves, any more than novelists ever 
 have devoted themselves, exclusively to chroni 
 cling the noon-day spaces of life, nor have they 
 habitually sought existence upon the normal plane 
 of the average man and woman, so incomparably 
 incarnated in the persons of Basil and Isabel 
 March; but whether seeking high or low, they 
 have learned to approach their matter with a 
 reverence for the verities such as moved neither 
 Sir Walter nor the apostle to Les Miserables. 
 
 "Criticism and Fiction (1891), p. 16. 
 
IV 
 
 HIS LITEEAEY METHOD 
 
 fTlHE aim of the Howells-Valdes type of real- 
 A ism, to delight and ennoble the soul by reveal 
 ing the truth, the idea that resides in all things 
 great and trivial, and this through the ever-living 
 sense of beauty, is thus couched in terms too gen 
 erous for monopoly by the literature of any one 
 time or place. Such was the aim of romanticism 
 at its best, and so far as romanticism was faithful 
 to its highest calling, we are to reverence it. It 
 struggled, says Howells, "to overthrow the classic 
 tradition ... to seek poetry in the common ex 
 periences of men and to find beauty in any theme ; 
 to be utterly free, untrammeled, and abundant ; to 
 be in literature what the Gothic is in architecture. 
 It perished because it came to look for beauty 
 only, and all that was good in it became merged in 
 realism, which looks for truth. * We have now 
 to deal with the romanticism that lived on unoffi 
 cially, and in particular to deal with it as it lived 
 to prod the dominant school into a defence, into 
 an analysis of its literary methods. 
 
 Here especially must it be remembered that we 
 labor with a loose and difficult terminology. The 
 word romantic is perhaps the vaguest in the criti 
 cal lexicon, but so firmly ensconced that even the 
 historian defines it at his peril. Consider how 
 
 1 Modern Italian Poets (1887), p. 135. 
 
 83 
 
84 William Dean Howells 
 
 Professor Beers has had to defend himself for 
 having tried to make it mean something in a his 
 torical sense. Professor Brander Matthews some 
 years ago proposed relieving this long-suffering 
 word by making derivative terms share some of 
 its technical meanings, but his discerning effort 
 was wholly ineffectual. More recently, it is true, 
 Professor Stuart P. Sherman in his brilliant se 
 quence of essays on contemporary literature 2 
 has cleared the way to a re-establishment of this 
 and other old and misused terms, endowing them 
 with meanings at once definite and comprehen 
 sive ; and Mr. Wilson Follett, taking several hints 
 from Professor Sherman, has in his discussion of 
 the modern novel 3 treated " romances " with en 
 gaging lucidity. But the antithesis of realism and 
 romanticism is still generally employed with the 
 devious connotation described in the popular 
 handbooks of Professor Bliss Perry and Mr. Clay 
 ton Hamilton and was almost exclusively so em 
 ployed in the days when Robert Louis Stevenson 
 and his supporters were remonstrating against 
 William Dean Howells and his school. 
 
 The realist, in the common acceptation of the 
 title, first endeavors to link art beyond all sever 
 ance with the actual facts of life; he holds the 
 raison d etre of fiction to be the exact depiction of 
 human conduct and motive. Reasonable as this 
 seems, the romanticist will shy at any such words 
 as actual or exact. "And as the root of the whole 
 matter, " bids Robert Louis Stevenson, "let him 
 bear in mind that his novel is not a transcript of 
 
 *On Contemporary Literature, N. Y., Holt, 1917. 
 The Modern Novel, N. Y., Knopf, 1918. 
 
His Literary Method 85 
 
 life, to be judged by its exactitude ; but a simplifi 
 cation of some side or point of life, to stand or 
 fall by its significant simplicity. 4 
 
 The romancer, then, wishes his characters and 
 their story simplified and unified. From the tan 
 gled play of contradictory motives, he plucks out 
 a ruling passion. His narrative is a chain of di 
 rect causes and effects, many of them dependent 
 upon the complicity of accident and coincidence. 
 The right thing to keep the plot moving in its 
 foreordained direction is sure to happen, whether 
 the chances of its happening in life are favorable 
 or not. If too obviously not, the author adds 
 events or alters with the purpose of making the 
 tale believable. In fine, he creates a world of his 
 own, which he manipulates as he chooses, offering 
 it perhaps as a means of escape from the real and 
 " sordid " world. The novel then becomes either 
 a work of "idealism" or an instrument of diver 
 sion, the "pocket theatre" of Marion Crawford. 
 Or perhaps he holds it the duty of art to explain 
 life by reconstructing it in a more intelligible me 
 dium, by scorning its mere facts to make its essen 
 tials the more readily appreciable. He then offers 
 his work as a vehicle of truth as well as diversion. 
 Stevenson again: 
 
 * * For the welter of impressions, all forcible but 
 discrete, which life presents, it substitutes a cer 
 tain artificial series of impressions, all indeed 
 most feebly represented, but all aiming at the 
 same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all 
 
 *"A Humble Remonstrance," in Memories and Portraits. 
 Works, Scribner (1909), XIII, 357. Originally appeared in 
 Longman s Magazine, December, 1884. 
 
86 William Dean Howells 
 
 chiming together like consonant notes in music 
 or like the graduated tints in a good picture. 
 From all its chapters, from all its pages, from 
 all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and 
 re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought ; 
 to this must every incident and character con 
 tribute; the style must have been pitched in uni 
 son with this; and if there is anywhere a word 
 that looks another way, the book would be 
 stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller 
 without it. " 6 
 
 Realism is the reverse of this. Especially does 
 it find in the simplification upon which Stevenson 
 insists as a capital condition of beauty the be 
 trayal of art; it is in the substitution of lighter 
 and more natural but not trivial causes for the 
 crude propulsive forces of an elder day includ 
 ing Balzac s day that it chiefly seeks its effect. 
 The realist aims at attenuation and complexity of 
 motive, finding life the more complex the more 
 closely it is scrutinized. He cultivates also free 
 dom and simplicity of design and plumes himself 
 especially on the absence of theatricalities from 
 his work. Accidents happen in his novel too, just 
 as they happen in the real and daily world ; but 
 they are likely to be not of the " moving " variety, 
 and furthermore, they are often not set right. 
 Hence, he is said to be pessimistic, and to deny the 
 principle of selection in art. Howells was stung 
 by this accusation that realism adopted absence 
 of selection as its principle, and attributed the 
 misconception to a polemical delusion of Zola s. 
 
 6 l A Humble Remonstrance, ; in Memories <md Portraits. 
 Works, Scribner (1909), XIII, 357. Originally appeared in 
 Longman s Magazine, December, 1884. 
 
His Literary Method 87 
 
 Certainly it could not have derived from Zola s 
 practice, or from the practice of any one else ; for 
 it is difficult indeed to imagine any art the result 
 of so ludicrous a principle. The art of Howells is 
 the result of the nicest selection, but it selects not 
 to eliminate but to preserve a sense of "the welter 
 of impressions . . . that life presents." The 
 freshness and charm of life to employ the ro 
 mantic term, its glow as well as the infinite 
 depths of its sadness, are to be felt with poignancy 
 only as the impression approaches actuality, as 
 the artist has caught and transfixed upon his page 
 something of life s recognizable complexity, its 
 confusion, its chaos, if you like, its kaleido 
 scopic succession of sights, and its inextricable 
 tangling of motives. The manipulation of a "cer 
 tain artificial series of impressions ... all elo 
 quent of the same idea" is an art to charm the 
 young or divert the weary. With whatever skill 
 it be accomplished, it robs the reader of his most 
 precious privilege, to observe life in the actual 
 living through the medium of the printed page. 
 And this, all said and done, is the abiding privi 
 lege, the permanent urge of the fiction reader. 
 Rare souls are they indeed whose joy in unifica 
 tion and simplification survives many decades of 
 novel reading, who can continue their delight in 
 what the realist depreciatingly terms "stories." 
 Now, the taste for stories, one gathers from 
 Howells, is a very natural part of life, but a part 
 that is especially characteristic of adolescence. 
 He has dwelt longest upon this theme in his de 
 piction of Boyne Kenton (The Kentons). When 
 a grown man devotes himself to romance and feels 
 
88 William Dean Howells 
 
 that realism is a process somehow of abstracting 
 the briskness and joy from life, he is shown not 
 yet to have outgrown the tastes of his boyhood. 
 He wishes to find in the world of modern litera 
 ture a world comparable to that in which moved 
 the Indians, the athletes, or the heroes of chivalry 
 who once delighted him. Not all members of 
 civilized communities, Howells once reminded us 
 in "The Editor s Study, " are civilized even in 
 their habits; much less should we expect to find 
 them sophisticated in their tastes. Nay, he ad 
 mitted, we all have our moods of barbarism, which 
 may be harmless, but are not "high moods or for 
 tunate moments, " when we relish trapeze per 
 formances, prestidigitation, negro minstrelsy, and 
 romantic fiction. Psycho-analysis, in treating of 
 the "consolatory mechanisms" of literature, has 
 accomplished much since Howells spoke to clarify 
 our notions of these moods and to make us less 
 scornful of them; but our esteem for the intel 
 lects of those who constantly demand romance as 
 consolatory literature has not greatly increased. 
 Normally, after we have consumed a large quan 
 tity of romances in youth, the taste for conjuring 
 becomes a matter of occasional mood with us, and 
 we take our joy and find our consolation not in the 
 skilful construction of an imitation of life, or in 
 an improvement upon it, but in a mirror held up 
 to Nature herself. This is the realist s ideal, to 
 hold the mirror up to Nature, not to make a model 
 illustrating Nature, in hope of eliminating the un 
 essential and confusing, or to depart from her, in 
 the childish desire to construct something prettier 
 or more amusing than anything she has to offer. 
 
His Literary Method 89 
 
 The manifesto of 1882, the Century essay on 
 Henry James, declares not only that the new 
 school "studies human nature much more in its 
 wonted aspects, and finds its ethical and dramatic 
 examples in the operation of lighter but really not 
 less vital motives," 6 but that the " stories " 
 meaning specifically in this connection, plots 
 were all told long ago. Human character, it main 
 tains, is the novelist s proper field, and any con 
 triving of plots is to be discouraged as false and 
 mechanical. Stevenson offered the writer a 
 choice: he might either let his characters make 
 the plot or provide the characters necessary to 
 work out a preconceived scheme of events. For 
 the realist, the second, with whatever dexterity it 
 be accomplished, is bound to result in the incom 
 parably lower form of art. Every event, barring 
 chance and accident, must grow out of human 
 character; and (I think it was Mr. John Galswor 
 thy who put it in three words) "plot cannot char 
 acterize." Turgeniev is said to have begun his 
 stories by sketching the biography of each person 
 age, formulating as completely as possible the 
 tastes, habits, and traits of each, with exhaustive 
 genealogical researches (his readers may well be 
 lieve) before thinking at all of what they were to 
 do, into what complications their respective pro 
 pensities were to lead them. Then, thoroughly fa 
 miliar with his group of imaginary people, he 
 needed only to bring them together into some re 
 lationship, when they would proceed to act out 
 the drama for themselves. The ideal method, 
 whether actually realized or not, is for the artist 
 
 "Henry James, Jr." in the Century (1882), 3(n. B.) :28. 
 
90 William Dean Howells 
 
 to refrain from all management of affairs, con 
 ceiving his office to be that of reporter, not stage 
 director. It would be a generalization of the 
 " glittering " variety, but I imagine it would an 
 swer pretty well the feeling of the extreme realist, 
 to say that the plot is the beginning of a romantic 
 tale, and upon its construction the romancer ex 
 pends his arduous labor, while the characters 
 themselves begin a realistic story, the plot being 
 the inevitable result rather than the conscious 
 aim. The realist, Howells would say, writes 
 "from the beginning forward, and never from the 
 ending backward. 7 Writing from the ending 
 backward is, of course, precisely what Stevenson 
 and Poe recommend in their celebrated essays on 
 the method of composition. 
 
 Here again Howells is characteristically the 
 extremist. His admiration for the Spanish pica 
 resque will be recalled. He urges literary youth 
 to emulate its freedom in structure. He would 
 have no manner of prevision, entire dependence 
 being placed upon revision. If it be found difficult 
 to imagine Turgeniev s perfection the result of 
 such a method, we are informed that the inspira 
 tion of freedom from pre-established design is 
 capable of crowning a work with "unimagined 
 beauty." The writer as he proceeds is educated 
 out of his mediocrity. For example, the follow 
 ing account informs how Shakespeare was prob 
 ably educated by the composition of his immortal 
 Hamlet : 
 
 T "The Counsel of Literary Age," in Imaginary Interviews 
 (1910), p. 290. 
 
His Literary Method 91 
 
 " Probably the playwright started with the no 
 tion of making Hamlet promptly kill his step 
 father, rescue Ophelia from the attempt to climb 
 out over the stream on a willow branch, forgive 
 his erring mother as more sinned against than 
 sinning, welcome Laertes back to Denmark, and 
 with the Ghost of his father blessing the whole 
 group, and Polonius with his arm in a sling, se 
 verely but not fatally wounded, form the sort of 
 stage picture, as the curtain went down, that has 
 sent audiences home, dissolved in happy tears, 
 from so many theatres. But Shakespeare, being a 
 dramatist as well as a playwright, learned from 
 Hamlet himself that Hamlet could not end as he 
 had meant him to end. Hamlet, in fact, could not 
 really end at all, and, in the sort of anticlimax in 
 which the tragedy closes, he must rise from death, 
 another and a truer ghost than the buried majesty 
 of Denmark, and walk the world forever. " 8 
 
 In this matter of plot the realist has his most 
 serious difficulty with the unskilled reader; and 
 the quarrel usually resolves into a rebellion on 
 the part of the "savage" against the ending of 
 the story. It is true that the tawdry and theatri 
 cal finale that delighted another generation with 
 the spectacle of every one from lord and lady to 
 maid and butler ecstatically falling into each 
 other s arms, with the villain safe in the arms of 
 God or the law, has long since been discarded by 
 writers of any pretensions to modernity. The 
 crudest witness, however he may applaud such a 
 delightful consummation, realizes that for the 
 
 8 "The Counsel of Literary Age," in Imaginary Interviews 
 (1910), p. 289. 
 
92 William Dean Howells 
 
 nonce he has forsaken this ill-ordered world and 
 its disappointments. Nevertheless, even in the 
 most serious work, it is still demanded that the 
 ending be right. Almost any amount of cruel 
 truth will be endured throughout the novel, if 
 only, in some subtle manner, it be contrived to 
 evade what the magazines used to advise their 
 contributors to shun the "artistic ending. " 
 
 This is a matter, however, upon which readers 
 have small cause to quarrel with Howells. Henry 
 James, indeed, found no endings in life, no "sto 
 ries, only episodes ; hence, conceiving the height 
 of veracity to be attained by transcribing our ex 
 istence in its episodical nature, he declined to end 
 many of his compositions at all. But such per 
 versity Howells only commended from afar. He 
 found definite endings in life, and constantly sup- 
 plied them in his fiction. He has, in fact, been ac 
 cused of bidding for popularity in his easy de- 
 scensions to the conventional. Without the pre 
 sumption of attributing such a motive, one may 
 safely say that he was rather too fond of giving 
 his characters in marriage. 
 
 Aristotle speaks for new schools as well as old. 
 He voiced a timeless truth for the narrative art 
 when he prescribed for the drama a beginning, a 
 middle, and an end. No story is brought about 
 except through an unstable situation; and no 
 meaning can be given a story except by resolving 
 that situation to some sort of concluding status. 
 The common misapprehension not only of readers 
 but of artists themselves lies in the assumption 
 that in discarding marriage, death, and like ca 
 tastrophes, this concluding status is discarded. 
 
His Literary Method 93 
 
 Henry James and Howells were at one in their so 
 phistication, realizing that a conclusion may be 
 wholly spiritual. In the case of many earlier real 
 ists, we can see that the novelist s aesthetics did 
 not keep pace with his widening and deepening 
 comprehension of life. Some of the clumsy intro 
 ductions and conclusions of Balzac and Turgeniev, 
 for example, bear witness to an art not only in 
 advance of the readers to whom they seem loath 
 to commit it, but ever so little beyond their own 
 understanding of its fineness. Can one imagine 
 Turgeniev s Lisa (Nest of Nobles) inconclusive? 
 Yet hear him : 
 
 " And is that the end? the unsatisfied reader 
 may perhaps ask. What became of Lavretsky 
 afterwards? and of Liza! But what can one say 
 about people who are still alive, but who have 
 already quitted the worldly stage? Why should 
 we turn back to them? It is said that Lavretsky 
 has visited the distant convent in which Liza has 
 hidden herself and has seen her. . . ." 
 
 Old notions such as the poetic justice that awarded 
 happiness to virtue and punishment to vice were 
 long ago consigned to the realm of fairy tales, and 
 their extinction in serious fiction has naturally 
 wrought havoc with old-fashioned methods of 
 story-telling ; but it is lamentable that their pass 
 ing should have given rise to the notion that the 
 higher art must consist in being inconclusive. 
 
 We arrive here at a matter in which the ro 
 mancers are more deeply deserving of antipathy. 
 They have not merely, in perpetuating the old 
 convention of poetic justice, pandered to the "un- 
 
94 William Dean Howclls 
 
 official sentimentalism, " to borrow the admirable 
 phrase of Mr. Conrad, that is always with us, not 
 merely divorced the novel from life by simplifica 
 tion of motive and theatric design; they have in 
 their reliance on action, exalting the overt and 
 often meaningless event above the motive, brought 
 themselves to impotence in the depiction of spirit 
 ual crises. They prove the power of the spirit of 
 man by appeal to miracles. Theirs is the artistic 
 faith that demands a sign and as such has alien 
 ated from itself all honest and inquiring hearts. 
 If you would see the spiritual breakdown of an 
 art which displays in many respects an admirable 
 solicitude for the realities but which in its final 
 appeal concedes to the popular demand for mira 
 cles, witness the orgy of expiation in which Mr. 
 William Allen White, when he came to finish A 
 Certain Rich Man, felt it necessary to close the 
 career of John Barclay. It is not enough that 
 Barclay restore his family to poverty and happi 
 ness; he must rise from the fireplace, where he 
 has stirred the last of his blazing stock, the poker 
 in one hand, bless the reunion of his daughter and 
 her lover with the other, and go out to a heroic 
 death. And his mother, when she learns that he 
 has sacrificed his life to rescue a woman of bad 
 reputation from drowning, must lift her arms 
 heavenward arid cry: "Mine eyes have seen the 
 glory of the coming of the Lord." Compare this 
 with the regeneration of Dryfoos, whose avarice 
 also brought death to his own flesh and blood, and 
 think of the benediction that descended upon Silas 
 Lapham as the reward of his less tragic coming 
 to social consciousness : 
 
His Literary Method 95 
 
 In the shadow of his disaster they returned to 
 something like their old, united life ; they were at 
 least all together again ; and it will be intelligible 
 to those whom life has blessed with vicissitude, 
 that Lapham should come home the evening after 
 he had given up everything to his creditors, and 
 should sit down to his supper so cheerful that 
 Penelope could joke with him in the old way, and 
 tell him that she thought from his looks they had 
 concluded to pay him a hundred cents on every 
 dollar he owed them. 9 
 
 The people still clamor for a sign, just as they 
 revel in the horrors that Jonathan Edwards 
 preached ; but they will not always do so. The au 
 thentic peace of Silas Lapham will yet move the 
 hearts of men, and long after the Hebraic furies 
 of John Barclay are forgotten. 
 
 It is worth while insisting on this point, so much 
 has the demand for action that is virile and red- 
 blooded done to emasculate our fiction and to keep 
 it on the level of puerile entertainment. It is al 
 most the business of a fiction absorbed in action 
 to misconceive the nature of emotional crises. 
 And especially does it busy itself disseminating 
 the notion that tragedy and catastrophe are the 
 circumstances most provocative of character reve 
 lation. Howells pointed out a thousand times 
 how the inner life, which should be the humanist s 
 chief concern, is checked and ceases in the imme- 
 diate presence of catastrophe, in so far as the dis 
 aster produces any effect whatever. He further 
 maintained that great changes in character are 
 rare and isolated phenomena, and that when they 
 
 9 The Eise of Silas Lapham (1884), p. 495. 
 
96 William Dean Howells 
 
 do occur they are obscure in their causes and 
 gradual in their operation. He was at great pains 
 in A Hazard of New Fortunes to show how incom 
 plete was the regeneration of Dryfoos effected by 
 the violent death of his son Conrad, and in New 
 Leaf Mills to show how much more complex an 
 effect than reconciliation was wrought in the sim 
 ple soul of Overdale, the disgruntled miller, by 
 the rescue of his boy from drowning. I do not 
 know that he was not excessive in his scorn of 
 those Baphometic moments that were an unfailing 
 resource with the older story-tellers ; but that was 
 inevitable in one whose message was so deeply 
 concerned with the real and the inward man. 
 
 George Eliot had a great deal of this power to 
 compel the glance inward upon the secret places 
 of the soul, to make an inhibited impulse more 
 impressive than an action, a potential graver than 
 a consequence. She could on occasion make a few 
 words of moral conviction more touching than 
 chapters of sin and repentance. Such were the 
 words of Maggie Tulliver, for example, when she 
 left Stephen Guest at the inn in Mudport : 
 
 "But she raised her eyes and met his with a 
 glance that was filled with the anguish of regret 
 not with yielding. No not with my whole heart 
 and soul, Stephen, she said, with timid resolution. 
 I have never consented to it with my whole mind. 
 There are memories and affections, and longings 
 after perfect goodness, that have such a strong 
 hold on me ; they would never quit me for long ; 
 they would come back and be pain to me repent 
 ance. I couldn t live in peace if I put the shadow 
 of a wilful sin between mvself and God. I have 
 
His Literary Method 97 
 
 caused sorrow already I know I feel it; but I 
 have never deliberately consented to it ; I have 
 never said, "They shall suffer, that I may have 
 joy." It has never been my will to marry you; 
 if you were to win consent from the momentary 
 triumph of my feeling for you, you would not 
 have my whole soul. If I could wake back again 
 into the time before yesterday, I would choose to 
 be true to my calmer affections, and live without 
 the joy of love/ " 
 
 The realism of William Dean Howells and 
 Henry James is distinguished by its emphasis on 
 such interior states. This is why, despite the 
 chasmal difference that separates these two art 
 ists, even dull readers are sensible of kinship 
 between them. This is why Howells, who could 
 not have approved the departure of Henry James 
 from the field of common beauties to follow what 
 he called the "aesthetic adventure, " on which 
 many before him had been led to disaster, but 
 which with him culminated beautifully in The 
 Golden Bowl, could find in his work an "ever- 
 deepening insight, " and why James could con 
 tinue his delight in Howells. This is why to the 
 vulgar or to the youthful mind nothing is accom 
 plished in the novels of either. The classic in 
 eptitude about Turgeniev in George Moore s 
 Confessions of a Young Man puts them together, 
 and the cry of this exasperated young man over a 
 story of James might as well have been over one 
 of Howells : 
 
 "Why does a woman never leave the house with 
 her lover? Why does a man never kill a man? 
 
98 William Dean Howells 
 
 Why does a man never kill himself f Why is noth 
 ing ever accomplished?" 
 
 To both of these writers the beautiful motive is 
 more significant than the beautiful deed, the 
 vicious motive more terrifying than crime. The 
 lesson they have to teach in common is that what V 
 people do is of infinitely less importance than p 
 xwhat they are. 
 
 What Henry James lost through his lack of 
 feeling for common reality, because he found his 
 native land dull, crude, and uninspiring, Howells 
 gained. This one may call a sense of the integrity 
 of life, the most precious thing shared by Howells 
 and Balzac, whom James called his master. A 
 fair portion of James* writing interests us onlyl 
 by its exceeding fineness and cunning of texture ; I 
 it weaves life into a shimmering and iridescent 
 tapestry; it is memorable in vividness, delicacy, 
 and variety of nuance. Such a realism may with 
 out deprecation be distinguished as decadent, not 
 degenerate in the sense of Lombroso and Nordau, 
 but specialized, as Mr. Havelock Ellis makes clear 
 in his study of Karl Huysmans, where he speaks 
 of the breaking up of the whole for the benefit of 
 its parts. 10 The classic realism of The Rise of 
 Silas Lapham and The Landlord at Lion s Head, 
 on the other hand, prizes more consistently the 
 
 10 Technically, a decadent style is only such in relation to a 
 classic style. It is simply a further development of a classic 
 style, a further specialisation, the homogeneous, in Spencerian 
 phraseology, having become heterogeneous. The first is beauti 
 ful because the parts are subordinated to the whole; the second 
 is beautiful because the whole is subordinated to the parts. 
 Among our own early prose writers Sir Thomas Browne repre 
 sents the type orf decadence in style. Swift s prose is classic, 
 Pater s decadent. Affirmations (ed. 1915), p. 175. 
 
His Literary Method 99 
 
 larger contours. It is as national as Balzac; an 
 overarching moral purpose proves it no distant 
 Jdn to George Eliot and Hawthorne. 
 
 Silas Lapham is as true to the economic and 
 social conditions of our Reconstruction Period as 
 Cesar Birotteau to the life of Paris during the 
 Restoration. The role played by Mrs. Lapham is 
 triumphantly American in its conception, just as 
 that of Constance is perfect in its depiction of the 
 Parisian bourgeoise, who presides at her hus 
 band s cash-desk and knows his daily sales to the 
 sou. The American paint manufacturer yields 
 nothing in essential simplicity, in business sense, 
 in vanity, in hazardous social aspirations, in that 
 family affection which is the most warmly human 
 feature of either chronicle, to the Parisian per 
 fumer who becomes through arduous stages simi 
 lar to his the proprietor of a prosperous estab 
 lishment, deputy-mayor of his arrondissement, 
 and chevalier of the Legion of Honor. But James ? 
 self-made man, Christopher Newman of The 
 American, succeeds as a fictional creation, so to 
 speak, on his own merits. And it is because he 
 bears so little relation to his externals to his 
 native land, to the common moralities, or even to 
 his money that he fails to sustain comparison 
 with either of the others* 
 
 Each of the three offers us the spectacle of 
 latent strength of character emerging under stress 
 of adversity. But Christopher s drama, in so far 
 as it is not peculiarly his own, is universal; it 
 wants that power of conviction that comes from 
 relevance to French or to American conditions. 
 The supreme moment, when the bottom falls out 
 
ioo William Dean Howells 
 
 of his contemplated revenge on the Bellegardes; 
 when, in the darkness of Notre Dame, after his 
 walk through the Rue d Enfer, he realizes that 
 such things are not his game, is a spiritual crisis 
 of universal import. It is when we inquire what 
 is Christopher s game that his insufficiency beside 
 Cesar Birotteau or Silas Lapham becomes appar 
 ent. Neither his aims nor his origins are veri 
 fiable in the American commercial world he is 
 supposed to represent. He is an artist and noth 
 ing else, an aesthetic impressionist who doesn t 
 quite understand how to be one, an awkward 
 recruit of Henry James. Save for his remarks 
 on the difficulties of achieving the life of elegant 
 leisure, his origins have slipped from view. So 
 slight a hold do his business habits have on him 
 that we finally cease to believe in his money at all 
 and suspect a rich uncle somewhere in the back 
 ground. Wealth like Christopher s is won by men 
 like Silas Lapham, who glorifies the landscape 
 with advertisements of his mineral paint, or like 
 Cesar Birotteau, to whom a picture of Hero and 
 Leander suggests that the ancients did not put oil 
 on their hair for nothing. 
 
 What makes Silas Lapham the unforgettable I 
 representative of his type the supreme charac-1 
 terization of the self-made American is that he 1 
 is real inside and outside. He is as definitely 
 attached to New England as John Barclay to 
 Kansas and has spiritual reactions as authentic 
 and impressive as Christopher Newman s. And 
 in this concern for the realities both internal and 
 external resides the secret of Howells art and 
 the source of his power. This appealed to him as 
 
His Literary Method 101 
 
 the condition on which the novel could be fine art 
 and at the same time fulfill an instructional office ; 
 and realism, as I have said, presented itself to his 
 view as a final mediation between didacticism and 
 an art that thought it could exist for itself. He* , 
 was too confident that the novel did fulfill a use 
 ever to urge it ; but he especially valued books like 
 Anna Karenina and / Malavoglia, which bring 
 home to us how inevitably we are part of a social 
 order, whether that order be regarded as man- 
 made or divine; books which present a conflict 
 between that order and a present and personal 
 happiness under circumstances so verifiable as to 
 stir us into an awareness of our own capacities 
 for good or evil. Among native works he found - 
 the novels of Mr. Robert Herrick especially full 
 of this quickening power. They are not only ter 
 rible, he said, but they are terrifying in certain 
 climaxes, such as that awful hour in The Com 
 mon Lot/ when the architect who has stood in* 
 with the jerry-builder sees the victims of his 
 fraudulent construction drop into the roaring vol 
 cano which his fire-proof edifice has become. As 
 you look on with the wretched man, whose moral 
 ruin has been so reasonable, so logical, you become 
 one with him in your consciousness of like possi 
 bilities in yourself. When a novelist can do this 
 with his reader, he has taken himself out of the 
 category of futile villain-mongers and placed 
 himself in the high, clear air where George Eliot 
 discovered in our common nature her immortal 
 Tito." 11 
 
 u < Kobert Herrick " in the North American Review (1909), 
 189:816. 
 
1O2 William Dean Howells 
 
 It is the glory of George Eliot and of Tolstoi 
 in the freest and most untrammeled reaches of 
 their art to have translated these simple problems 
 into vividly real, ineffaceable, and universally 
 intelligible terms. Howells, who wings a lower 
 flight than either, has been no less triumphant in 
 revealing the operation of identical motives in 
 lighter but profoundly significant aspects. His 
 particular metier is the analysis of the moral life 
 in its wonted routine, as it fails of the clarifying 
 and compelling support of tremendous crises. It 
 is, in fact, characteristic of his people to learn 
 very little on the earthly sojourn. Those like 
 Silas Lapham, who learn comparatively much, 
 whose opportunities, so to speak, have been com 
 mensurate with their capacities, are rare in his 
 work, and should be correspondingly popular with 
 readers. His supreme artistic creation, Jeff 
 Durgin, the landlord at Lion s Head, is a study, 
 without parallel in our literature, of the tragedy 
 of worldly success which meets no effective oppo 
 sition, of the insidious selfishness which has its 
 way with a nature too strong to be tempted into 
 crime and too fortunate to be called to a reckon 
 ing with itself in any large moral crisis. It is a 
 subtle and marvellous weighing of the imponder 
 able of the imponderable elements which we can 
 observe in ourselves and our brothers making for 
 callousness of soul and insufficient living. 
 
 This tremendous moral force with which real 
 ism has endowed modern art, so different from 
 the false and clumsy didacticism of an earlier day, 
 was to Howells the largest aspect of the school he 
 championed. Veracity to life was his test of 
 
His Literary Method 103 
 
 morality in art, but it was more ; it is scarcely too 
 much to say that with him it was a religion of art. 
 And this ethical, even religious, import of realism, 
 so far from being at variance with its aesthetic 
 credo, he believed the very source and origin of 
 all sound artistry. The endeavor to be true not 
 symbolically but actually has indeed been the 
 greatest stimulus to technique that the art of 
 fiction has known. 
 
 The books that Howells calls upon us to admire 
 as perfect specimens of realistic art are those 
 which draw a convincing power in the illustration 
 of human conduct from a verisimilitude that is 
 not merely national but regional, and from which 
 all evidences of authorial manipulation have been 
 removed. I have just mentioned Giovanni 
 Verga s beautiful story, I Malavoglia, translated 
 by Mary A. Craig under the title, The House by 
 the Medlar-Tree, and to show how far the road 
 toward perfection in these matters has been trav 
 ersed there is none better. "When we talk of 
 the great modern movement towards reality, " 
 says Howells in his introduction to the Harper 
 translation (1890), "we speak without the docu 
 ments if we leave this book out of the count, for I 
 can think of no other novel in which the facts have 
 been more faithfully reproduced, or with a pro- 
 founder regard for the poetry that resides in facts 
 and resides nowhere else." 
 
 The reader who approaches 1 Malavoglia in 
 spirits for a Crawford romance will have his diffi 
 culties with the opening chapters. There, nothing 
 is announced, simplified, isolated, or explained; 
 no clues are thrown out to excite the curiosity. It 
 
1O4 William Dean Howells 
 
 is an actual transportation to the little Sicilian 
 fishing-hamlet where Padron Ntoni and his fam 
 ily, Don Silvestro, La Vespa, Cousin Agostino 
 Goosefoot, Uncle Crucifix, Nunziata, a bewildering 
 number, are simultaneously glimpsed at their 
 daily occupations and gossip. By and by the 
 reader who lives with them in Trezza learns to 
 know them, much as he would become acquainted 
 with the natives of any village in which he might 
 take up a residence, through their daily acts, and 
 the frequently misleading testimony of their 
 neighbors. Far from a manipulator of events, 
 Verga does not seem even a competent guide. 
 The whole thing has been cunningly done behind 
 the scenes, and will be avoided or promptly aban 
 doned by those who take their delight in watching 
 the author simplify, unify, interpret, or what not. 
 The tragic degeneration of Ntoni s Ntoni is as 
 obscure in its causes as that of any young friend 
 of ours who goes to the bad. With nothing 
 worked up for effect, it is a tragedy of thrilling 
 interest. There is an idyllic sweetness in it, too, 
 and humor ; a tender beauty along with the dark 
 ness and sordidness. There is, as Howells points 
 out, a profound poetry in its facts; and its sad 
 ness is the sadness of life everywhere, especially 
 where, as among such simple peoples as those of 
 Southern Italy and Sicily, men have not yet 
 learned the lessons of humanity and brotherly 
 love; and finally, its lesson is the lesson of life 
 everywhere : 
 
 " There, as in every part of the world, and in 
 the whole world, goodness brings not pleasure, not 
 
His Literary Method 105 
 
 happiness, but it brings peace and rest to the soul, 
 and lightens all burdens ; and the trial and the sor 
 row go on for good and evil alike ; only, those who 
 choose the evil have no peace. " 
 
 Such supreme veracity as that of Verga imposes 
 upon the artist a certain restriction. No observer, 
 after a mere season of residence among them, 
 could write as he has done of his fishermen. 
 Verga knows his characters, inwardly and out 
 wardly; he knows the minutiae of their existence, 
 their habits, their traits, and their propensities; 
 he knows their lightest and their profoundest 
 thought. He knows their milieu: every shape, 
 every color in the eyes of his fisherfolk is seen of 
 him ; the sea they strive with is his sea ; the grass 
 beneath their feet, his grass. And every realist 
 must, in a sense not demanded of the unifier and 
 simplifier, "know his characters and their milieu. 
 George Eliot had her Romola, and Flaubert his 
 Salammbo, astonishing both, and very precious in 
 their respective values, but both artists came 
 home to do their most realistic work. 
 
 This is, however, a topic with which the dog 
 matist may not be allowed to play loose. Sir 
 Walter Besant, in his contribution to the con 
 troversy that evoked Henry James "Art of 
 Fiction, " as well as Stevenson s not very humble 
 remonstrance., came so near dogmatism as half to 
 merit James reproof. Said Besant: 
 
 "A young lady brought up in a quiet country 
 village should avoid descriptions of garrison life ; 
 a writer whose friends and personal experiences 
 belong to what we call the lower middle class 
 
io6 William Dean Howells 
 
 should carefully avoid introducing his characters 
 into society; a South-countryman would hesitate 
 before attempting to reproduce the North-country 
 accent. This is a very simple rule, but one to 
 which there should be no exception never to go 
 beyond your own experience. 9 12 
 
 "What kind of experience is intended," asks 
 James with some pertinence, "and where does it 
 begin and end? Experience is never limited, and 
 it is never complete ; it is an immense sensibility, 
 a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken 
 threads suspended in the chamber of conscious 
 ness, and catching every air-borne particle in its 
 tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; 
 and when the mind is imaginative much more 
 when it happens to be that of a man of genius it 
 takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts 
 the very pulses of the air into revelations. The 
 young lady living in a village has only to be a 
 damsel upon whom nothing is lost to make it quite 
 unfair (as it seems to me) to declare to her that 
 she shall have nothing to say about the military. 
 Greater miracles have been seen than that, imagi 
 nation assisting, she should speak the truth about 
 some of these gentlemen." 13 
 
 This elucidates Mr. G. K. Chesterton s sage 
 remarks on the "godlike power of guessing," 
 which seems to have been given young ladies like 
 Jane Austen and Elizabeth Barrett, and which is 
 not quite guessing after all. 
 
 There is something further to note on this topic 
 
 "Quoted from Clayton Hamilton s Materials and Methods of 
 Fiction (1911), p. 35. 
 
 u Partial Portraits (1888), p. 388. 
 
His Literary Method 107 
 
 than the danger of dogmatism. In our country 
 we have been made aware of some of the dangers 
 of local color itself : it may revert to its origins in 
 the romantic desire to add strangeness to beauty, 
 or, what is worse, it may reduce realism to the 
 mechanical sort of map-making that many of its 
 detractors think it is. With our illimitable diver 
 sity of color and character, the desire for veracity 
 that Howells did so much to awaken, has become 
 a passion. Each individual has found a way to 
 originality in the cultivation of his own little 
 garden-patch, and a library of local color has 
 resulted, descriptive in the aggregate of the entire 
 continent; exactitude has been made a cult; an 
 error in the matter of a bit of costume, a turn of 
 speech, a rock, a plant, a bird, or a tree, has be 
 come a serious literary offense. One debates the 
 origins and authenticity of provincial terms and 
 customs through the newspapers. 
 
 Let us not forget, however, now that the reac 
 tion against this mechanical accuracy has set in, 
 that whatever may be said to ridicule it, it is the 
 expression of a spirit that penetrates to the heart 
 of literary endeavor. With it has come a new 
 technique, which promises a perfection of artistry, 
 and, more wonderful than all else, that spirit of 
 humanity and democracy in literature which was 
 to Howells the very soul of realism. Nothing in 
 our literary history appeared to him quite so 
 amazing as the promptitude with which the effete 
 romanticism of the South, so direly afflicted with 
 what Mark Twain used to call the Walter Scott 
 disease, when once it took the breath of a realistic 
 life, abandoned its former absurdities, and became 
 
io8 William Dean Howells 
 
 great in our literature. Yet this, he believed, 
 must always happen when the sense for the real is 
 awakened and the pilgrimage to the shrine of 
 Truth begun. Out-worn ideals are discredited; 
 " literature (Howells translation from De Sanc- 
 tis, the historian of Italian letters) undergoes 
 transformation. The ugly stands beside the beau 
 tiful ; or rather, there is no longer ugly or beauti 
 ful, neither ideal nor real, neither infinite nor 
 finite. . . . There is but one thing only, the Liv 
 ing. " Much of the regional fiction developed 
 under the sponsorship of Howells may presently 
 pass into literary history, but it will not pass 
 without leaving us a spiritual heritage. 
 
 Many who have come to concede the superior 
 power of real life to unified and simplified life, 
 have but imperfectly grasped another and a more 
 technical matter. In praising Verga for with 
 holding his hand from the manipulation of events, 
 we but suggested the superb reticence with which 
 he refrains from any comment upon them or upon 
 the persons implicated in them. "He seems to 
 have no more sense of authority or supremacy 
 concerning the personages, " says Howells in his 
 beautiful introduction to The House by the 
 Medlar-Tree, "than any one of them would have 
 in telling the story, and he has as completely 
 freed himself from literosity as the most unlet 
 tered among them." The thoroughly modern 
 artist, who holds himself related to the scientist, 
 remains an impassive witness of his drama; his 
 ideal he describes as one of objectivity, detach 
 ment, self -obliteration. Since Howells has made 
 many critical enemies by his insistence on this 
 
His Literary Method 109 
 
 point, it may be well to begin by enumerating a 
 few of the things that this ideal does not imply. 
 It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that objec 
 tivity does not seek to limit the fictive art to what 
 is decried as "mere photography, " which usually 
 comes down to mean depiction through the media 
 of things perceptible to the five senses. There is 
 no such art outside the minds of those who think 
 realism an abandonment of the principle of selec 
 tion. It ought to be stated, however, that this 
 ideal does not deprive the novelist of his power 
 of judgment ; it requires him to preserve the in 
 tegrity of his genre and if he wish to discourse on 
 ethics or sociology or in any wise to state criti 
 cally the truths he has discovered, to provide 
 himself with a preface. It is a very different 
 thing from Howells proposal to deny the critic 
 the right to pass judgment on works of art. A 
 representation of life that achieves the condition 
 of art is necessarily a criticism of life, and the 
 personal explanation of the author could not make 
 it any the more so. Nor can self-obliteration, 
 despite the destructive sound of the word, make 
 an author s work any the less his own any the 
 less, as Samuel Butler expresses it, his portrait. 
 No valuable personal qualities are sacrificed in 
 withdrawing an artist s license to plead, explain, 
 excuse, or interpret. In fact, it is difficult to find 
 the admonition to detachment a restriction in any 
 sense: it is a counsel of perfection in the tech 
 nique of pure narrative. 
 
 Comments and judgments like those of Thack 
 eray, sometimes highly valued as expressions of 
 the author s personality, have no longer a place in 
 
no William Dean Howells 
 
 representative art. A dramatist, Howells went so 
 far as to say in the passage that brought him most 
 notoriety, would scarcely commit a more grievous 
 artistic sin should he spring upon the boards 
 during the presentation of his play and explain 
 the action to the audience or blame his characters 
 publicly for their misdeeds. Such manifestations 
 of personality are destructive not merely of artis 
 tic illusion but of confidence in the artist s fair 
 ness. It is only when the fictive materials are 
 disposed with such consummate artistry that the 
 awkward explanation and interpretation coun 
 tenanced by literary convention do not stand 
 between the most sensitive reader and the pic 
 tured page, that we feel a perfect security in the 
 author s sense of justice. Just as localism in its 
 true sense furnishes an assurance of human qual 
 ity in an author s materials, so impersonality in 
 manner affords an index to his impartiality in the 
 disposition of them. Howells indeed found Thack 
 eray s mannerisms, far from deepening the illu 
 sion, as Mr. Brownell maintained in his spirited 
 essay, 14 not merely distracting, but definitely asso 
 ciated with the great Victorian s propensities to 
 sentimentalism and satire. 
 
 It is the crowning tribute to Thackeray s great 
 ness as an artist, thinks Howells, that he suc 
 ceeded in being poignantly dramatic in spite of 
 his tendency "to stand about in his scene, talking 
 
 M Victorian Prose Masters (1901), the entire essay, but espe 
 cially pp. 9ff. It should be mentioned that Mr. Brownell affords 
 a distinguished exception to the rule by which the generality of 
 Thackeray s defenders have, as Professor Brander Matthews 
 complains, ignored the issue and argued on the ground of vir 
 tues that no one is disposed to deny. 
 
His Literary Method ill 
 
 it over with his hands in his pockets, interrupting 
 the action, and spoiling the illusion in which alone 
 the truth of art resides." 15 His most perfect 
 character, Becky Sharp, actually succeeds in spite 
 of her creator. He tries in vain to distract us by 
 nudges, whispers, and even shouts: 
 
 "He is boisterously sarcastic at her expense, as 
 if she were responsible for the defects of her na 
 ture, and must be punished for her sins as well as 
 by them. His morality regarding her is the old 
 conventional morality which we are now a little 
 ashamed of, but in his time and place he could 
 scarcely have any other ; after all, he was a simple 
 soul, and strictly of his epoch. A later and sub 
 tler time must do finer justice to a woman badly 
 born, and reared in dependence and repression; 
 liberated from school to a world where she must 
 fight her own way; taught the evil consciousness 
 of the fascination which she had but which she 
 never felt for men ; married to a reprobate aristo 
 crat not her superior in nature, and distinctly her 
 inferior in mind ; tempted by ambition and spurred 
 by necessity the greater since she had her hus 
 band as well as herself to care for, she was pre 
 destined to the course she ran ; and she could not 
 have run any other, made as she was, so clever, 
 so pretty, so graceful, so unprincipled." 16 
 
 At the climax in Becky s career, when Rawdon 
 enters unexpectedly upon her supper scene with 
 Lord Steyne, the author, true to his finer instincts, 
 holds his hand, and commits his work to the read 
 er s intelligence. But there is one false and 
 
 15 Criticism and Fiction (1891), p. 76. 
 "Heroines of Fiction (1901), I, 194. 
 
112 William Dean Howells 
 
 wrong touch in this great and intense scene, ex 
 plains Howells with penetrating discernment, 
 which would leave the reader with the impression 
 that Rawdon Crawley is somehow better than she. 
 
 Thus do authorial manners and morals go hand 
 in hand. Taine realized their intimate connection 
 when, in contrasting Thackeray s treatment of 
 Becky Sharp with Balzac s of Valerie Marneffe 17 
 ("Balzac aime sa Valerie"), he gave currency to 
 this line of criticism and set subsequent discussion 
 of the topic of impersonality to revolving about 
 the English satirist as its chief victim. 
 
 It may be noted parenthetically that while 
 Howells has demonstrated better than any one 
 else how manifestly Becky rises superior to her 
 creator, he was not impressed by the possibility 
 that in the matter of "the fascination which she 
 had but which she never felt for men" she suc 
 cumbed to suppression. Mr. George Moore and 
 Mr. James Huneker are of the opinion that she 
 was in this respect overpowered by her creator in 
 the interests of mid-Victorian morality. 18 
 
 The attitude of sympathetic detachment is the 
 crucial feature of the Howells technique, and 
 virtually involves the abandonment of senti- 
 mentalism and satire as novelistic moods. It was 
 with him a native as well as an acquired attitude, 
 his incapacity for satire being in the first instance 
 a temperamental inheritance and in the second the 
 result of reasoned conviction after the period of 
 his debauchery with Pope and Thackeray, during 
 
 "Histoire de la Litttrature Anglaise (ed. 1911), V, the entire 
 chapter, but especially pp. 11 Off. 
 
 18 James Huneker, Ivory Apes and Peacocks (1915), p. 313. 
 
His Literary Method 113 
 
 which he thought that the superior attitude 
 toward life was the literary thing. When he came 
 to deal with the problem of social snobbery, and 
 it was the first seriously to engage his artistic 
 attention, although his interest in the spiritual 
 snobbery represented by the surviving Puritanism 
 of New England was almost coeval with his in 
 terest in the New England aristocracy as a caste 
 system, he had long been convinced of the futil 
 ity of satiric castigation against anything so in 
 herent in the social system ; and we find nothing of 
 the superior attitude in his work except the great 
 artist s natural superiority to his materials. 
 Even the irony commonly thought requisite to the 
 poise and control of great conscious artistry, he 
 had refined and diluted almost to the amenities of 
 familiar intercourse. 
 
 To the phrase "identification with common hu 
 manity " he has thus given an extremely literal 
 meaning, a sort of scriptural interpretation. He 
 loves whom he chasteneth. In a sense, Howells 
 loves even the Reverend David Sewell, the most 
 unlovely figure in all his works, with the exception 
 of Mrs. Sewell. Through that slough of con 
 science and piety, The Minister s Charge, he drags 
 him, with all the soil of his cant, his deference to 
 his wife, his tactless blundering upon him, yet 
 full of friendliness to him, and brings him at last 
 in his great sermon very near to his own belief 
 that you can have a righteous public only by the 
 slow process of having righteous men and 
 women. " He never satirizes a social or a voca 
 tional class, with such possible minor exceptions 
 as hotel clerks, who as a race, one gathers from 
 
114 William Dean Howells 
 
 his novels, are given over to insolence and effront 
 ery. The only human trait enduringly offensive to 
 him is "freshness" in young men; consequently, 
 his heroes prevailingly lack aggressiveness and 
 initiative, while his bad young men are over- 
 supplied with these qualities. His tolerance is 
 all but universal, and his books can not be intelli 
 gently read without a secure grasp of this central 
 and distinguishing feature. 
 
 A " self -identification that has reacted much 
 to the disfavor of Howells as an author is that 
 which made him a part of the Boston society he so 
 amazingly portrayed. This more than any other 
 has sown the history of Howells appreciation 
 with amusing misinterpretations. It goes without 
 saying that the Boston that read him in the 
 eighties and made an " issue " of him, pretty 
 largely misread him. He has himself told of his 
 difficulties in persuading Francis Parkman that 
 the rise of Silas Lapham was not a social one. In 
 fact, he never succeeded in persuading the great 
 historian; he lived the offense down. The ladies 
 of the seventies, according to the solemn and 
 awful report of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 
 confidently awaited a sequel to A Chance Ac 
 quaintance that should settle matters more ad 
 vantageously to the fortunes of Mr. Miles Arbu- 
 ton, that most wonderful donkey who ever repre 
 sented a city or a social caste, and reward him 
 with the hand of pretty Kitty Ellison, whom he 
 had so boorishly treated. It is now the vogue to 
 discover in the fact that Howells creations were 
 at all acceptable to the ladies of Boston a serious 
 infirmity of spirit, and to hold it up against him 
 
His Literary Method 115 
 
 almost as a final judgment of his work that he 
 appreciated and commemorated those qualities of 
 "exquisiteness" and "respectability" fostered by 
 that unofficial aristocracy he knew so well. The 
 undoing of Howells, we are assured, was that "he 
 kowtowed to the stuffy nabobs of Boston/ that 
 in the circle of Lowell he found an intellectual 
 haven in which the inquiry promised by his genius 
 was effectually stilled. This fashion too will dis 
 appear before a deeper comprehension of his 
 methods of "square dealing." For, while How- 
 ells accorded his subjects a complete and impar 
 tial acceptance, there was ever in the impulse 
 behind his portraiture a feeling for the humanity 
 that was alien to them. 
 
 The Howells method, in a word, represents the j 
 most modern stage of pure artistry, but it does 
 not in any wise answer the current demand that 
 the novelist create new social values. It is not 
 within its scope to debate the validity of moral 
 concepts but the relation of men to them. Its 
 criticism of the social order is conducted from \ 
 within instead of from without. It measures 
 each society by the best in itself, but does not 
 permit any social body to confer a final judgment 
 on itself. It aims at the sympathetic enlargement 
 that comes from understanding everything from 
 its own point of view. The subtleties of such an 
 artistic intention, an intention as different as pos 
 sible from that, let us say, of Mr. H. G. Wells, are 
 altogether too easily ignored at the present time, 
 especially when applied to such social phenomena 
 as the aristocracy of Boston, the plutocracy of 
 New York, and the native Puritanism and Philis- 
 
ii6 William Dean Howells 
 
 tinism at a variety of times and places. It is 
 quite unfair to judge A Modern Instance or The 
 Rise of Silas Lapham as if they came from the 
 pen of Mr. Wells, to identify as the author s in 
 competence to handle his situation the natural 
 incompetence of the Athertons, who represent the 
 social opinion of a community and an epoch, to 
 solve the final situation of A Modern Instance, or 
 to take the canting speculations of the Reverend 
 David Sewell, who represents the best religious 
 opinion of the same community and epoch, as the 
 last word of the author on the ways of Providence 
 with Silas Lapham. The purpose and, rightly 
 considered, the effect of these conclusions is to 
 record standards, not to conform to them or to 
 sanction them. And this condition as time goes 
 on cannot but work for the permanence of these 
 I great novels. 
 
HIS POETRY AND TRAVELS 
 
 HO WELLS contribution to miscellaneous lit 
 erature, that is, literature exclusive of the 
 fiction novels, stories, and plays upon which his 
 reputation depends, is enormous. For this brief 
 chapter, which is rather in the nature of an inter 
 mezzo, I choose two forms that he consistently 
 cultivated, the one for which he was strongly to 
 be suspected of having a predilection, and the one 
 for which I certainly have. In no other depart 
 ment of his work do I get so fine and so complete 
 a sense of his authorship as in these companion 
 able and wholly delectable volumes of Italian, 
 Spanish, and English wanderings. His poetry, 
 on the other hand, is a thing apart. This is neces 
 sarily so, since his maitresse qualite of whole- 
 souled geniality is fatally absent from his verse. 
 But to say that it inadequately represents him, is 
 to understate the case. It represents better the 
 literosity of his youth at which he later poked 
 fun. It displaces the humanity which informs 
 every page of his prose with an intensely personal 
 threnody on the sadness of the human lot. 
 
 The aspirations of his youth were altogether 
 toward poetry. Of the time (1860) of the memo 
 rable New England pilgrimage, he writes: "In 
 wardly I was a poet, with no wish to be anything 
 
 117 
 
n8 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 else, unless in a moment of careless affluence I 
 might so far forget myself as to be a novelist. I 
 was, with my friend J. J. Piatt, the half -author of 
 a little volume of very unknown verse, and Mr. 
 Lowell had lately accepted and had begun to print 
 in the Atlantic Monthly five or six poems of mine. 
 Besides this I had written poems, and sketches, 
 and criticisms for the Saturday Press of New 
 York, a long-forgotten but once very lively ex 
 pression of literary intention in an extinct bohe- 
 mia of that city ; and I was always writing poems, 
 and sketches, and criticisms in our own paper. " x 
 The Poems of Two Friends (1860) alluded to, 
 did not quite, as he somewhere else depreciatingly 
 avers, become "instantly and lastingly unknown 
 to fame." Lowell noticed the book in the Atlantic, 
 albeit without the enthusiasm he came later to 
 indulge for one of its authors. Nevertheless, it is 
 now the property of bibliophiles, being the rarest 
 with one exception of the Howells books. It has 
 a history to delight collectors. Lida R. McCabe 
 is authority for the statement that (1898) Howells 
 himself did not possess a copy. 2 Its failure, how 
 ever, did not dishearten the young poet; he com 
 posed assiduously during his Venetian consulate, 
 and assaulted with little success editorial offices 
 on both sides of the water. After his return, when 
 he became an editor himself, publication seems to 
 have come more easily ; and in 1869 No Love Lost, 
 a Romance of Travel, in his favorite hexameters, 
 
 1 Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1900), p. 1. 
 
 2 Lida E. McCabe, "One Never Can Tell," in the Outlook 
 (1898), 59:131. Niagara Revisited is the first of the Howells 
 books in order of rarity, and the first edition of Venetian Life 
 conies third. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 119 
 
 was reprinted from Putnam s Magazine in the 
 form of a little gift book. This booklet is also 
 somewhat rare, the copy I use having been ac 
 quired, according to the librarian s annotation in 
 1899, at an expense of two dollars and fifty cents. 
 The work, however, survives in the latest edition 
 of the Poems. These Poems were first collected in 
 1873, and have enjoyed two subsequent editions 
 with slight alteration of contents (1885 and 1901). 
 Two other volumes of single authorship are de 
 voted to verse, Stops of Various Quills (1895), 
 and The Mother and the Father; Dramatic Pas 
 sages (1909) ; while recent specimens are included 
 in the prose and verse miscellany, The Daughter 
 of the Storage (1916). 
 
 The early productions are redolent of Heine 
 and Longfellow, Heine dominating those in lyric 
 mood, which frequently suggest Longfellow s 
 translations from the German. The Heinesque 
 manner and atmosphere are tempered by the lin 
 gering pathos of the American poet, whose in 
 fluence is more clearly discernible in the narrative 
 numbers. The perfection of form, the compres 
 sion, and the poignancy of the Heine lieder are 
 seldom attained in these lyrics. Metrically, they 
 are surprisingly uneven, coming from one so 
 ardently trained in the school of Pope. It seems 
 a little odd that Lowell should strenuously have 
 objected to the coinage " silvern " (on analogy 
 with golden, leathern, and the like) in the stanza 
 which follows, and should not have suggested a 
 more ingratiating rhythmical effect : 
 
 "The silvern chords of the piano trembled 
 Still with the music wrung 
 
12O William Dean Howells 
 
 From them; the silence of the room dissembled 
 The closes of the songs that she had sung." 
 
 The pieces are seldom marred by harsh or faulty 
 lines, but as seldom rise to high distinction. In 
 some, such as "Pleasure-Pain" ("Das Vergnii- 
 gen ist Nichts als ein hochst angenehmer 
 Schmerz," Heine), 4 the lyric mood and the lyric 
 measure sustain each other over a considerable 
 length. 
 
 Of the narrative poems, "The Pilot s Story, " 
 though by no means the best, is by far the best 
 known, owing to the quite comprehensible vogue 
 which it enjoyed in its day. It was widely ex 
 changed, sometimes to the youthful poet s cha 
 grin, being printed as prose. Lincoln s secre 
 taries, Hay and Nicolay, knew young Howells as 
 its author, not merely as the author of the Life 
 of Lincoln, which was their immediate concern. 
 It recounts through the lips of a Mississippi pilot 
 a melodramatic episode depicting the horrors of 
 slavery. Louise, a beautiful octoroon, is gambled 
 away at monte to a villain of long black hair and 
 moustaches. Overwhelmed by this confession 
 from her weak master, who had promised her her 
 freedom for the sake of their little boy in Saint 
 Louis, and terrified at the approach of the gam 
 bler, she hurls herself from the stern of the 
 steamer and is plowed under by the wheel. 
 
 The poem came upon the mid-century revival of 
 the hexameter, established in this country by 
 Longfellow ; and Howells never outgrew the pen 
 chant he then acquired for the meter. In the 
 
 "Forlorn" in Poems (Houghton Ed. 1901), p. 13. 
 4 Ibid., p. 19. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 121 
 
 descriptive interlude and conclusion, the master 
 has his inning. The rhythm is not bad in simple 
 and straightforward passages, but the imagery is 
 far less felicitously conceived than is Longfellow s 
 wont. Critics who carp at the tendency of Long 
 fellow to strain a simile will not be pleased with 
 the metrical tales of Howells. For my part, I 
 have never consented to hear maligned the bold 
 ness in simplicity of some of the Longfellow meta 
 phors. 
 
 "Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of 
 
 heaven, 
 
 Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots 
 of the angels. " 
 
 This in "The Pilot s Story," however, lapses 
 easily into banality: 
 
 "Softly the sunset had faded, and now on the 
 
 eastern horizon 
 
 Hung, like a tear in the sky, the beautiful star 
 of the evening. " 5 
 
 "Louis Lebeau s Conversion/ "Clement," and 
 others of the sketches and tales are saturate with 
 Evangeline. But Howells reinforced the impulse 
 to write hexameters given by Longfellow, going, 
 as did Bayard Taylor, directly to the eighteenth- 
 century German popularizers of the measure. He 
 studied Kingsley s Andromeda also, but the in 
 fluence of this, the supreme English exemplar, is 
 hardly to be detected in his handling. The sketch 
 entitled "The Movers" is reminiscent of Her 
 mann und Dorothea. 
 
 *Poem* (Houghton Ed. 1901), p. 9. 
 
122 William Dean Howells 
 
 "Parting was over at last, and all the good-bys had been 
 
 spoken. 
 
 Up the long hillside road the white-tented wagon moved slowly, 
 Bearing the mother and children, while onward before them 
 
 the father 
 Trudged with his gun on his arm, and the faithful house-dog 
 
 beside him, 
 Grave and sedate, as if knowing the sorrowful thoughts of 
 
 his master. 
 
 "April was in her prime, and the day in its dewy awaking: 
 Like a great flower, afar on the crest of the eastern woodland, 
 Goldenly bloomed the sun, and over the beautiful valley, 
 Dim with its dew and shadow, and bright with its dream of a 
 
 river, 
 
 Looked to the western hills, and shone on the humble pro 
 cession, 
 
 Paining with splendor the children s eyes, and the heart of 
 the mother." " 
 
 Tennyson, almost a twin-idol with Longfellow, 
 contributes somewhat to the versification, but his 
 effect is more clearly discernible in the sentiment. 
 It is when in Stops of Various Quills the mood of 
 doubt struggling with belief becomes a dominant 
 motif, that Tennyson comes into his own. Our 
 poet was never a Browning enthusiast; but the 
 roughness of "No Love Lost," the poem curiously 
 chosen for separate publication, savors more of 
 Browning than of any other master we have men 
 tioned, without, however, attaining Browning s 
 weight, virility, or choiceness. I quote the envoy, 
 which is the realistic touch to this very romantic 
 tale ; but that fact does not account for the meter : 
 
 "Well, I m glad, I am sure, if Fanny supposes 
 
 she s happy. 
 
 IVe no doubt her lover is good and noble as 
 men go. 
 
 Poems (Houghton Ed. 1901), p. 115. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 123 
 
 But, as regards his release of a woman who d 
 
 wholly forgot him, 
 And whom he loved no longer, for one whom he 
 
 loves, and who loves him, 
 7 don t exactly see where the heroism coin- 
 
 When we come to Stops of Various 
 (1895), we feel that the pessimism, so purely a 
 literary mood as it informs the Poems, is assum 
 ing the cast and complexion of a philosophy. And 
 it is all pervasive. Howard Pyle, who illustrates 
 the book lavishly, has expressed it perfectly, 
 albeit after the German mythological manner of 
 the Boecklin school. The baubles of the mask, 
 the death s head, the thorns, and the bitter chalice 
 are its symbols. The fiddler Death, or the grim 
 reaper with sickle and glass, stalks through its 
 pages while angels weep and mortals bid him stay. 
 Melancholia is written large over all. "The Be 
 wildered Guest" is most quoted, a sonnet, of which 
 form the book includes several specimens. 
 
 "I was not asked if I should like to come. 
 I have not seen my host here since I came, 
 Or had a word of welcome in his name. 
 Some say that we shall never see him, and some 
 That we shall see him elsewhere, and then know 
 Why we were bid. How long I am to stay 
 I have not the least notion. None, they say, 
 Was ever told when he should come or go. 
 But every now and then there bursts upon 
 The song and mirth a lamentable noise, 
 A sound of shrieks and sobs, that strikes our joys 
 Dumb in our breasts ; and then, some one is gone. 
 They say we meet him. None knows where or when. 
 We know we shall not meet him here again." 8 
 Poems (Houghton Ed. 1901), p. 198. 
 
 9 Stops of Various Quills (1895), number five. Being an art- 
 book, the work is unpaginated. 
 
124 William Dean Howells 
 
 The number immediately preceding this, "From 
 Generation to Generation, " counsels the bright 
 throng of innocent spirits unborn to shun this evil 
 star. But, alas, they cry in chorus : 
 
 "The doom is on us, as it is on you, 
 That nothing can undo; 
 And all in vain you warn: 
 As your fate is to die, our fate is to be born." 
 
 The logic is hardly worthy of a Schopenhauer, for 
 our poet fears but a changeless grave; and the 
 conclusion of his philosophy as voiced in "What 
 Shall it Profit," number forty-three, is Tenny- 
 sonian : 
 
 "If I lay waste and wither up with doubt 
 The blessed fields of heaven where once my faith 
 Possessed itself serenely safe from death; 
 If I deny the things past finding out; 
 Or if I orphan my own soul of One 
 That seemed a Father, and make void the place 
 Within me where He dwelt in power and grace, 
 What do I gain by that I have undone?" 
 
 The depth and originality of these verses will 
 blind one to the fact that they form even as the 
 early and imitative ones, a private pleasure 
 ground for their author, a garden of moods. To 
 correlate them, as some have done, with the great 
 novels is to exaggerate their importance. The 
 great novels like A Hazard of New Fortunes 
 indeed reflect the popular pessimism of their day, 
 but only in their minor aspects. In the presence 
 of human scenes, Howells sense of the real is 
 irrepressible ; and the philosophic infection is not 
 toxic in its effect. Stops of Various Quills, on the 
 
His Poetry and Travels 125 
 
 other hand, is, as he would say, strictly of its 
 epoch. As a poet he was perfectly in the mode of 
 the nineties. 
 
 In craftsmanship, the verse of Stops of Various 
 Quills varies as widely as that of the Poems, but 
 on a superior level. "Materials for a Story " and 
 "Labor and Capital " 9 are not improved by rime. 
 The latter is a splendid " impression, " which a 
 French poet would have put into memorable 
 prose. "The Bewildered Guest" just quoted and 
 the probably superior "If" (number thirteen) 
 discover our poet at the apogee of his art, and 
 will not be passed over by the anthologists of the 
 future. 
 
 The impression left by the two remaining vol 
 umes is of retrogression in technique. The Mother 
 and the Father; Dramatic Passages, which is 
 arresting and altogether superior in content, real 
 izing the emotions of a mother and a father in 
 the presence of the great facts of birth, marriage, 
 and death, cries as loudly for prose as did No 
 Love Lost, but is happier than the Venetian tale 
 in attaining a really excellent prose, so that it 
 makes delightful reading. On the whole, it is less 
 metrical than Lorna Doone. I cite almost at ran 
 dom a good conversational sentence : 
 
 "Oh no ; you only 
 
 Said that you did not know, and I have only 
 Bettered your ignorance a little and said 
 I knew. Women must have some faith or other 
 Even if they make a faith of disbelief." 10 
 
 9 Stops of Various Quills (1895), numbers thirty and thirty-two. 
 
 10 The Mother and the Father (1909), p. 27. 
 
126 William Dean Howells 
 
 The Daughter of the Storage (1914), which 
 contains, among other beautiful pieces of prose, 
 two of the gem-like farces in which its author is 
 quite unapproachable, discloses between book- 
 covers the lowest level to which he ever descended 
 in the matter of metrical form. Small wonder 
 that it should have been heralded in I fail to 
 recall which of the New York Sunday editions by 
 a front-page review with portrait, as Howells 
 initial venture into vers libre, and as a sort of 
 official approval conferred by literary authority 
 upon the free forms. Unfortunately, this reviewer 
 was mistaken. There is not an authentic piece of 
 vers libre in the collection. I say this, however, 
 with a confidence which I do not feel in ascribing 
 specific metrical intentions to individual poems. 
 I can maintain only to be personally persuaded 
 that "Captain Dunlevy s Last Trip" is in no 
 other meter than our old favorite hexameter ; and 
 Southey never did worse by it. 
 
 "It was against the law, in such case made and 
 provided, 
 
 Of the United States, but by the good will of the 
 pilots 
 
 That we would some of us climb to the pilot 
 house after our breakfast 
 
 For a morning smoke, and find ourselves seats 
 on the benching. " lx 
 
 "The Face at the Window " 12 shows clearly a 
 return to its author s first love, the heroic couplet : 
 
 u The Daughter of the Storage (1914), p. 67. 
 "Ibid., p. 107. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 127 
 
 "He had gone down at Christmas, where our host 
 Had opened up his house on the Maine coast 
 For the week s holidays, and we were all, 
 On Christmas night, sitting in the great hall." 
 
 A diary recently recovered in a storage ware 
 house and used by Howells in the composition of 
 Years of My Youth furnished an interesting speci 
 men of the early Popeian imitations. "I have no 
 facts to support my conjecture/ he remarks in 
 submitting it, "but I will hazard the belief that 
 the winter of 1851-2 was largely given to pro 
 ducing and polishing this plaster-of-paris master 
 piece/ He forbears mockery out of reverence 
 for the boy who long ago strove so fervently to 
 realize an ideal, albeit an ideal which the man 
 branded as false. However, I will go into court 
 and say in defence of the same boy that his pas 
 toral, imitative though it be, makes better reading 
 than "The Face at the Window." One does not 
 have to lower one s evaluation of the informing 
 ideal one jot in saying that in the presence of so 
 abysmal a technical falling off it must content 
 itself with second place. I can scarce forbear 
 repeating all we have of the pastoral, which con 
 cerns one Corydon, in evidence of this. I give, 
 however, only young Corydon s first round at the 
 song ; his competitors, unhappily, do not appear : 
 
 "Now ceases Philomel her nightly strain, 
 And trembling stars forsake the ethereal plain; 
 Pale Luna fades and down the distant West 
 Sadly and slowly lowers her rayless crest; 
 But yellow Phoebus pours his beams along 
 And linnets sport where Philomela sung. 
 Here robins chirp and joyful orioles sing 
 Where late the owlet flapped his noiseless wing; 
 
128 William Dean Howells 
 
 Here the pale lily spreads its petals wide, 
 And snowy daisies deck the green hillside; 
 Here violets bloom with waterflowers wreath, 
 And forest blossoms scent the Zephyr s breath. 
 Fit spot for song where Spring in every flower 
 Rich incense offers to the morning hour. 
 Then let us sing! The hour is meet for love, 
 The plain, the vale, the music-breathing grove; 
 Let gentle Daphnis judge the doubtful song, 
 And soft ^Eolus bear the notes along. 
 I stake my pipe with whose soft notes I while 
 The tedious hours, and my toil beguile; 
 Whose mellow voice gives joy serener charms, 
 And grief of half its bitterness disarms." " 
 
 In taking leave of the poetry and turning to the 
 books of travel, we approach something incon 
 ceivably different, something that those who 
 would make much of Howells 7 pessimism should 
 omit from the count. Beggars, indeed, touch his 
 sensibilities keenly, but one must go to the socio 
 logical essays to prove that they becloud his 
 Weltanschauung. Each record of his wanderings 
 pays fresh tribute to the youth and vitality that 
 were ever associated with him. I complained that 
 his poetry does not fairly represent him, and that 
 its technical deficiencies sometimes prohibit en 
 joyment. In both respects the travels are antip 
 odal. His ingratiating prose is here to be enjoyed 
 at its best, its very best ; and, so far from consti 
 tuting, so to speak, a private department of his 
 work, these volumes are all of a piece with it. A 
 persistence of the early and unnative literary 
 ideal seems to have vitiated his poetry, while in 
 the sketches of travel he developed the native and 
 sterling qualities that characterized his fiction. It 
 
 "Years of My Youth (1916), pp. 76-77. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 129 
 
 is a significant fact that the fiction had its genesis 
 in these sketches of travel, the first novel, Their 
 Wedding Journey, being nothing more nor less 
 than a magnified sketch. The reason is not ob 
 scure, since a special province of his lies in the 
 depiction of manners, and in the handling of the 
 lighter revelations of character, or, as the inju 
 dicious will have it, the depiction of externals and 
 the handling of superficial aspects. 
 
 In these sketches, begun with a journalistic in 
 tent, he achieved a contact with reality which his 
 more "literary" verse was incapable of affording. 
 This he did not see very clearly, so firmly had 
 been ingrained the notion that poetry was the 
 occupation for a literary man. His earliest read 
 ing and writing had been poetry ; the first literary 
 heroes he met in the flesh were poets, men like 
 Bayard Taylor, the very first, Lowell, and 
 Longfellow. Indeed, when he joined the circle 
 of the New England elect, he found the type of 
 literary man to be the poet. Difficult, therefore, 
 as it may be to understand why he was born for 
 mediocrity in versification, it is not at all difficult 
 to understand why he should so long have failed 
 to recognize in himself the consummate prosateur 
 that he was. Lowell felt this better than he. The 
 phenomenon is repeated in his hesitancy in mak 
 ing the transition from the simpler style of prose 
 narrative displayed in these chronicles to the 
 more highly organized type represented by the 
 novels. 
 
 I cannot say that these writings will ever add 
 greatly to his reputation. He who would hazard 
 such a prediction should first ask to see what 
 
130 William Dean Howells 
 
 records of actual travel have resisted the tooth of 
 time. What has put a blight upon this charming 
 genre, so that its choicest specimen will perish 
 before the time of a second-rate novel or a voyage 
 imaginaire? The sufficient fact is, I suppose, as 
 Howells realized when he did make the transition 
 to fiction, that the great and permanent interest of 
 mankind is in man, in the study of human charac 
 ter; and in dealing solely with the actual the 
 author is handicapped in this study, the real in 
 the novelist s sense having nothing to do with the 
 actual. He once told us how he abandoned a great 
 subject because its facts interfered with the fic 
 tional mask, without which, he asserted, one can 
 not give "the living complexion of events/ 
 
 The letters which became Venetian Life ap 
 peared first in the Boston Advertiser, having been 
 vainly offered "to more aesthetic periodicals, 14 
 and at once enlisted the admiration of Howells 
 diplomatic chief, John Lothrop Motley, the his 
 torian, and of Lowell, who wrote: "They make 
 the most careful and picturesque study I have 
 ever seen on any part of Italy. They are the 
 thing itself/ 15 There could certainly be no 
 higher praise than this, considering the plethoric 
 literature about Italy, especially Venice, quanti 
 ties of which must have been known to the Ital- 
 ianate Lowell. The publication of these letters in 
 book form (1866) laid the foundation for Howells 
 literary success, and so frequently is misunder 
 standing displayed concerning the facts of that 
 
 14 Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1900), p. 92. 
 "Quoted from " Lowell and Howells," in Harper s Weekly 
 (1902), 46:101. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 131 
 
 transaction that I am going to give the account in 
 his own words. 
 
 "Before I left Venice I had made my sketches 
 into a book, which I sent on to Messrs. Triibner 
 & Co., in London. They had consented to look at 
 it to oblige my friend Conway, who during his 
 sojourn with us in Venice, before his settlement in 
 London, had been forced to listen to some of it. 
 They answered me in due time that they would 
 publish an edition of a thousand, at half profits, 
 if I could get some American house to take five 
 hundred copies. When I stopped in London I 
 had so little hope of being able to do this that I 
 asked the Triibners if I might, without losing 
 their offer, try to get some other London house to 
 publish my book. They said Yes, almost joy 
 ously; and I began to take my manuscript about. 
 At most places they would not look at me or it, and 
 they nowhere consented to read it. The house 
 promptest in refusing to consider it afterwards 
 pirated one of my novels, and with some expres 
 sions of good intention in that direction, never 
 paid me anything for it ; though I believe the Eng 
 lish still think that this sort of behavior was pe 
 culiar to the American publisher in the old bucca 
 neering times. I was glad to go back to the 
 Triibners with my book, and on my way across the 
 Atlantic I met a publisher who finally agreed to 
 take those five hundred copies. This was Mr. 
 M. M. Hurd, of Hurd and Houghton, a house then 
 newly established in New York and Cambridge. 
 We played ring-toss and shuffleboard together, 
 and became of a friendship which lasts to this day. 
 But it was not till some months later, when I saw 
 him in New York, that he consented to publish my 
 book. I remember how he said, with an air of 
 
132 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 vague misgiving, and an effect of trying to justify 
 himself in an imprudence, that it was not a great 
 matter anyway. I perceived that he had no faith 
 in it, and to tell the truth I had not much myself. 
 But the book had an instant success, and it has 
 gone on from edition to edition ever since. There 
 was just then the interest of a not wholly gener 
 ous surprise at American things among the Eng 
 lish. Our success in putting down the great Con 
 federate rebellion had caught the fancy of our 
 cousins, and I think it was to this mood of theirs 
 that I owed largely the kindness they showed my 
 book. There were long and cordial reviews in all 
 the great London journals, which I used to carry 
 about with me like love-letters; when I tried to 
 show them to other people, I could not understand 
 their coldness concerning them." 16 
 
 The following year (1867) Hurd followed up 
 the success of Venetian Life with Italian Jour 
 neys, some half dozen papers of which had ap 
 peared in the Nation after being returned un- 
 printed by the Advertiser unaesthetic journal 
 too! The long and scholarly article on " Ducal 
 Mantua" is from the North American Review for 
 January, 1866. The next bona fide travel book, 
 Tuscan Cities (1886), is a worthy sequel to Italian 
 Journeys. In 1892 Messrs. Harper added to their 
 " Black and White" series A Little Swiss So 
 journ, in the Canton Vaud, at Montreux, Vevay 
 and Villeneuve. Beginning with London Films 
 (1905), a book that leaves one with lasting regret 
 that Howells did not find Paris a field for his 
 "mental kodak," they come apace: Certain 
 
 w Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1900), p. 101. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 133 
 
 Delightful English Towns; with Glimpses of the 
 Pleasant Country Between (1906), Roman Holi 
 days, and Others (1908), Seven English Cities 
 (1909), and Familiar Spanish Travels (1913) to 
 which must be added The Seen and Unseen at 
 Stratford-on-Avon; a Fantasy (1914), although 
 the delight of that book lies in its fantastic satire 
 on the Baconian authorship theory, and Hither 
 and Thither in Germany (1920), although the 
 material of that book had already done service in 
 Their Silver Wedding Journey. 
 
 It is alleged by those who find Howells a ro 
 mancer who repressed his natural proclivities in 
 order to be "in the movement," that the earliest 
 volume, Venetian Life, is suffused with a certain 
 "glow" which is lacking in the later ones. Mr. 
 Pattee makes something of the point, 17 and 
 Howells himself, I believe, let fall a few remarks 
 to color the charge. Now, the detection of this 
 aura is in all probability a matter too impression 
 istic in character to be made the subject of con 
 troversy. It may well be that my organ for per 
 ceiving it has undergone sclerosis. I can only say, 
 therefore, that I am able to detect no quality in 
 Venetian Life that does not abound in the suc 
 ceeding works. There is as much exotic color in 
 Familiar Spanish Travels, and what that book 
 may lack in exuberant spirits is amply made up in 
 Certain Delightful English Towns. The wonder 
 is, in very fact, how any traveler, whatever his 
 aesthetic persuasion, could have maintained such 
 joy in the foreign scene. 
 
 "A History of American Literature Since 1870 (1915), pp. 
 197-219. 
 
134 William Dean Howells 
 
 Moreover, Venetian Life is a document as rich 
 as any other in disillusion. If the "glow" is 
 conceived to consist in an abrogation of the 
 Heinesque trick of disillusionment (I reiterate, I 
 do not know in what it is supposed to consist), the 
 early work has small claim indeed to its posses 
 sion; for this trick is essentially a mannerism of 
 youth which becomes presently more discreet. To 
 observe it at its baldest, one must see the letters 
 written to the Cincinnati Gazette, which preceded 
 the Venetian letters; and when we come to the 
 very late English books it is tempered by a notice 
 able infusion of Washington Irving. It may con 
 fidently be called a mannerism, for our author s 
 resemblances to Heine are in reality exceedingly 
 superficial. He cannot hate ; at any rate he cannot 
 bite swiftly and keenly ; but more than all else, he 
 lacks Heine s power of sustained emotion. He 
 has, in fact, a more natural affinity in Daudet ; for 
 often when he is most critical he is most truly 
 simpatico. But the mood, such as it is, is charac 
 teristic of all the travel books. He has never 
 ceased to be amusingly critical of the emotions of 
 himself and of others. In Venetian Life we have 
 as little moonshine as anywhere else, an even more 
 deliberate hand than usual being brought to the 
 demolition of the romantic Italy of Byron. 
 
 Howells seldom passes up an opportunity for a 
 jibe at the noble lord. He has been ungenerous 
 enough to attempt a blot at the splendor of the 
 bard s reputation as a swimmer. Childe Harold 
 appears to be his vade mecum of what not to feel 
 in Italy. The lament 
 
His Poetry and Travels 135 
 
 "In Venice Tasso s echoes are no more, 
 And silent rows the songless gondolier" 
 
 is clearly the inspiration of the following bit of 
 archery, in which he draws a bow as long as does 
 the sentimental pilgrim: 
 
 "As for the singing of the gondoliers, they are 
 the only class of Venetians who have not good 
 voices, and I am scarcely inclined to regret the 
 silence which long ago fell upon them. I am quite 
 satisfied with the peculiar note of warning which 
 they utter as they approach the corner of a canal, 
 and which meaning simply, To the Eight, or i To 
 the Left/ is the most pathetic and melancholy 
 sound in the world. If, putting aside my own 
 comfort, I have sometimes wished for the sake of 
 a dear, sentimental old friend at home, who loves 
 such idle illusions with an ardor unbecoming his 
 years, that I might hear the voice 
 
 of Adrians gondolier, 
 By distance mellowed, o er the waters sweep, 
 
 I must still confess that I never did hear it under 
 similar circumstances, except in conversation 
 across half a mile of lagoon, when, as usual, the 
 burden of the lay was polenta or soldi. " 18 
 
 Sometimes rudely and sometimes tenderly the 
 cherished illusions are laid to rest. The rudeness 
 of the sentimental pilgrimage to the "Prigione di 
 Tasso" in Ferrara, "the coal-cellar in which was 
 never imprisoned the poet whose works I had not 
 
 w Venetian Life (ed. 1896), p. 337. 
 
136 William Dean Howells 
 
 read, 19 is in part owing to the fact that it con 
 cerns one of the dungeons where the noble bard 
 had himself locked up. This is recounted in the 
 Italian Journeys, on the whole a more enjoyable 
 book than Venetian Life. The humor is airier. I 
 should not know where to match the lugubrious 
 voyage from Genoa to Naples, on which they en 
 vied "the bones of the Venetians, Pisans, and 
 Genoese who met and slew each other in the long- 
 forgotten sea-fights, and sank too deeply through 
 the waves to be stirred by their restless 
 tumult, " 20 unless it would be in Daudet, with the 
 doleful crossing of Tartarin of Tarascon, when 
 that dauntless hunter set out to depopulate Africa 
 of lions. 
 
 As a painter of sky and sea, Howells is not 
 inimitable. The magic canvas of Pierre Loti is 
 not for him; and the chromatics of Gautier are 
 beyond the resources of his palette. He seldom 
 evokes an atmosphere with the swift saliency of 
 De Maupassant, or lingers in the descriptive mood 
 with the loving eye of a plastic artist as does 
 Henry James, who learned the secrets of light 
 from the impressionistic painters. He attains an 
 idyllic touch in the English books, but the chief 
 charm of his work resides in the vivid sense of 
 reality which accrues from the cinematographic 
 succession of images. "I try to give the reader," 
 he confesses in Tuscan Cities, "a true impression 
 of the sweet confusion of travel in those old 
 lands." 21 And this book displays more clearly 
 
 "Italian Journeys (ed. 1896), p. 14. 
 
 *> Ibid., p. 69. 
 
 Tuscan Cities (ed. 1894), p. 222. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 137 
 
 than any other perhaps his deftness in catching 
 the fleeting bit of life or scene, so pregnant, and 
 so elusive : a cab-driver, a vender with his tray of 
 Chianti flasks, a weather-beaten fragment of stat 
 uary, a group of cypresses, or an anemone blow 
 ing in the March wind. The episodic dramas of 
 the street attract him mightily, out of all propor 
 tion, some will say, to their significance ; and he is 
 superbly happy in depicting the color and move 
 ment of crowds. 
 
 Some will be disappointed that Howells is so 
 little a technician in the other arts than his own. 
 But we surely suffer no dearth of technical writ 
 ing on Italian painting, and should be properly 
 grateful that Howells has been true to himself in 
 refraining from any kind of ready-made apprecia 
 tion. On this point, Maurice Hewlett is in accord, 
 the burden of whose preambulatory remarks to 
 The Road in Tuscany is: "Let cooks take de 
 light in the mixing of dishes, but let gentlemen eat 
 of them." As for describing architecture, How 
 ells holds it a sin, if not a bore. On the other 
 hand, he is an authority on the fine art of mendi 
 cancy in its protean forms, and a connoisseur in 
 birds and flowers. Yet in regard to the scenic 
 properties of architecture, I am going to say that 
 his lively appreciation is fertile not only in con 
 ceiving just characterizations, as often as not in 
 the form of droll personifications, but in indi 
 cating points of view that have escaped more 
 sophisticated observers. 
 
 The all-pervading characteristic of his descrip 
 tive method is his inability to keep the human 
 element out of the landscape for even a paragraph 
 
138 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 of moderate length. Of course, scene-painting as 
 we come upon it in Radcliffe, Scott, and Cooper, 
 is a lost art, but Henry James and Mrs. Edith 
 Wharton, not to mention Mr. Kipling and Mr. 
 Conrad, do enthrall the reader in his own emo 
 tions, making him directly the spectator. Howells 
 interestingly makes one of his characters express 
 a skepticism of this procedure so far as the drama 
 is concerned; but the passage is more interesting 
 in its applicability not only to his own novels but 
 even to these books of travel. It occurs in The 
 Story of a Play, as Maxwell the playwright and 
 his Louise sit swinging on their cottage veranda : 
 
 ". . . The sea came and went among the rocks 
 below, marking its course in the deepening twi 
 light with a white rope of foam, and raving hus 
 kily to itself, with now and then the long plunge of 
 some heavier surge against the bowlders, and a 
 hoarse shout. The Portland boat swam by in the 
 offing, a glitter of irregular lights, and the lamps 
 on the different points of the Cape blinked as they 
 revolved in their towers. This is the kind of 
 thing you can get only in a novel/ said Maxwell, 
 musingly. You couldn t possibly give the feel 
 ing of it in a play. 
 
 " Couldn t you give the feeling of the people 
 looking at it! suggested his wife, and she put out 
 her hand to lay it on his. Yes, you could do that/ 
 he assented, with pleasure in her notion ; and that 
 would be better. I suppose that is what would be 
 aimed at in a description of the scene, which 
 would be tiresome if it didn t give the feeling of 
 the spectator. 
 
 "The Story of a Play (1898), p. 29 
 
His Poetry and Travels 139 
 
 It is the feeling of the spectator in the play 
 wright s sense that is seldom wanting in How- 
 ells scene. People are an obsession with him; 
 when they are long absent, he goes into the by 
 ways and hedges and compels them to come in. 
 Or if he forsakes the midday throng to view a 
 city in the silence of night, he steals back almost 
 before one is aware. This is what he does at 
 Carlsbad in Their Silver Wedding Journey, but I 
 prefer to give an example from Venetian Life: 
 
 ". . . I remember distinctly among the beauti 
 ful nights of that time, the soft night of late win 
 ter which first showed me the scene you may be 
 hold from the Public Gardens at the end of the 
 long concave line of the Eiva degli Schiavoni. 
 Lounging there upon the southern parapet of the 
 Gardens, I turned from the dim bell-towers of the 
 evanescent islands in the east (a solitary gondola 
 gliding across the calm of the water, and striking 
 its moonlight silver into multitudinous ripples), 
 and glanced athwart the vague shipping in the 
 basin of St. Mark, and saw all the lights from the 
 Piazzetta to the Giudecca, making a crescent of 
 flame in the air, and casting deep into the water 
 under them a crimson glory that sank also down 
 and down in my own heart, and illumined all its 
 memories of beauty and delight. Behind these 
 lamps rose the shadowy masses of church and 
 palace; the moon stood bright and full in the 
 heavens, the gondola drifted away to the north 
 ward; the islands of the lagoons seemed to rise 
 and sink with the light palpitations of the waves 
 like pictures on the undulating fields of banners; 
 the stark rigging of a ship showed black against 
 the sky ; the Lido sank from sight upon the east, 
 
140 William Dean Howells 
 
 as if the shore had composed itself to sleep by the 
 side of its beloved sea to the music of the surge 
 that gently beat its sands ; the yet leafless boughs 
 of the trees above me stirred themselves together, 
 and out of one of those trembling towers in the 
 lagoons, one rich, full sob burst from the heart 
 of a bell, too deeply stricken with the glory of the 
 scene, and suffused the languid night with the 
 murmur of luxurious, ineffable sadness. 
 
 "But there is a perfect democracy in the realm 
 of the beautiful, and whatsoever pleases is equal 
 to any other thing there, no matter how low its 
 origin or humble its composition ; and the magnifi 
 cence of that moonlight scene gave me no deeper 
 joy than I won from the fine spectacle of an old 
 man whom I saw burning coffee one night in the 
 little court behind my lodgings, and whom I recol 
 lect now as one of the most interesting people I 
 saw in my first days at Venice. All day long the 
 air of that neighborhood had reeked with the 
 odors of the fragrant berry, and all day long this 
 patient old man sage, let me call him had 
 turned the sheet-iron cylinder in which it was 
 roasting over an open fire after the picturesque 
 fashion of roasting coffee in Venice. Now that 
 the night had fallen, and the stars shone down 
 upon him, and the red of the flame luridly illu 
 mined him, he showed more grand and venerable 
 than ever. Simple, abstract humanity has its own 
 grandeur in Italy ; and it is not hard here for the 
 artist to find the primitive types with which 
 genius loves best to deal. As for this old man, he 
 had the beard of a saint, and the dignity of a sen 
 ator, harmonized with the squalor of a beggar, 
 superior to which shone his abstract, unconscious 
 grandeur of humanity. A vast and calm melan 
 choly, which had nothing to do with burning cof- 
 
His Poetry and Travels 141 
 
 fee, dwelt in his aspect and attitude ; and if he had 
 been some dread supernatural agency, turning the 
 wheel of fortune, and doing men, instead of coffee, 
 brown, he could not have looked more sadly and 
 weirdly impressive. When, presently, he rose 
 from his seat, and lifted the cylinder from its 
 place, and the clinging flames leaped after it, and 
 he shook it, and a volume of luminous smoke en 
 veloped him and glorified him then I felt with 
 secret anguish that he was beyond art, and turned 
 sadly from the spectacle of that sublime and hope 
 less magnificence. 23 
 
 I have presented these companion pieces of a 
 night in Venice that the reader may judge for 
 himself which challenges its author s art. The 
 first is immeasurably the less characteristic, and 
 even for its early period in his development has 
 the nature of an indulgence. And this brings me 
 to say, with regret, that Howells was so afraid of 
 scene-painting that in Their Silver Wedding 
 Journey, a work largely devoted to scenes, he 
 apologized for a sunrise. 24 One recalls Balzac s 
 admiration for The Pathfinder; but the question 
 does not concern realism. It is an indubitable 
 fact that the sun does sometimes rise in majesty. 
 Nor must one love Man the less to insist that 
 sometimes 
 
 " There is society where none intrudes. * 
 
 A trifle less humanity on Howells part would 
 have dispensed with the intrusion of the sexton s 
 son at the graves of Shelley and Keats ; 25 a little 
 
 " Venetian Life (1896), pp. 33ff. 
 
 "Their Silver Wedding Journey (1899), p. 481. 
 
 "Italian Journeys, pp. 166-8. 
 
142 William Dean Howells 
 
 less interest in the pilgrims at San Sebastiano 
 and he would have breathed the true atmosphere 
 of that shrine. The pilgrims are ubiquitous, but 
 San Sebastiano is unique. It would be only fair, 
 however, to match these two relative failures 
 with places by two hundred triumphant successes 
 with people. The elderly man who gave our trav 
 elers their information concerning "Cromwell s 
 castle" is certainly such a success, but the person 
 I would have no one miss is the lady knitting who 
 shared their compartment from Plymouth to Bris 
 tol both acquaintanceships recorded in the ever- 
 delightful English Towns. I can think of nothing 
 better than the visit to Petrarch s house at Arqua 
 for a fine subordination of the transient human 
 element to its proper function of enlivening a 
 scene of integral permanent aspects. 26 
 
 I am loath to leave these charming books, but 
 my chapter has already violated its promised 
 character of an intermezzo. The reader may recall 
 my prefatory distinction that stylistically consid 
 ered the two forms which it has treated are posi 
 tively antipodal. And since the travels represent 
 our author at the apogee of his verbal art, I can 
 not conclude without a word on the lavishly eulo 
 gized Howells style. 
 
 Of tributes to this graceful and musical style 
 there is no end. Even those who deny its pos 
 sessor ideas are ready to promise him immortality 
 because of it. But now, all that it is possible to 
 say in praise of it has been finally phrased by 
 Mark Twain, whose essay on Howells, almost 
 
 "Italian Journeys, PP- 216ff. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 143 
 
 entirely devoted to manner, is far and away the 
 best thing we have on the subject. His analysis 
 of the Howells humor is something in which he 
 speaks with authority. 
 
 "As concerns his humor, I will not try to say 
 anything, yet I would try if I had the words that 
 might approximately reach up to its high place. 
 I do not think any one else can play with humor 
 ous fancies so gracefully and delicately and deli- 
 ciously as he does, nor has so many to play with, 
 nor can come so near making them look as if they 
 were doing the playing themselves and he was not 
 aware that they were at it. For they are unob 
 trusive, and quiet in their ways, and well con 
 ducted. His is a humor which flows softly all 
 around about and over and through the mesh of 
 the page, pervasive, refreshing, health-giving, and 
 makes no more show and no more noise than does 
 the circulation of the blood. " 27 
 
 He has nothing but praise for the easy-flowing 
 rhythms which vex Mrs. Atherton, 28 not realizing, 
 it is to be feared, how often they are antithetic to 
 the compactness which he also praises. Profes 
 sor Pitkin in his Short Story Writing makes a 
 valuable suggestion concerning the noticeable 
 psychological mannerism which inflates his style 
 at times, albeit a suggestion that does not lack 
 
 * "William Dean Howells," in Harper s (1906), 113:223. 
 
 38 "Mr. Howells, you know, denounces originality. He tells 
 us to stick to the small things of life in fiction, to shun the big 
 things. He has produced, and his followers maintain, a literary 
 style that is all Ps and n s and r s. It is the cultivation of a 
 perfectly flat, even surface. It is afraid of rough surfaces, of 
 mountain peaks and deep valleys. * Gertrude Atherton as re 
 ported in the New York Times, reviewed in Current Literature 
 (1908), 44:159. 
 
144 William Dean Howells 
 
 its touch of humor when later on it is advised that 
 students cultivate vividness, clarity, and dramatic 
 velocity by rewriting a story of Howells , strip 
 ping it of verbiage. One would rather say : read 
 De Maupassant as a sovereign antidote. But no 
 doubt Mr. Pitkin gives that advice as well. 
 
 I hope I shall not be suggesting that our delight 
 in the phrasal excellencies of Howells will not be 
 a perpetual one in saying that it is excessive to 
 the point of falsity to credit him, as Mark Twain 
 does, with almost every virtue of style, including 
 a Frenchman s solicitude for the inevitable 
 phrase. I do not think it is finding fault with his 
 way of saying things, or even wishing his verbal 
 manner different from what it is, to insist that he 
 cannot be held up for the very highest standard 
 of artistry. He suffers unjustly when measured 
 from the heights attained in our tongue by virtu 
 osi like Walter Pater, who took to heart the pre 
 cept of Buskin: "A book is written, not to mul 
 tiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but 
 to perpetuate it." The perpetuation of the voice 
 obviously exacts both a difference of intention 
 and a longer patience than its multiplication a 
 patience that Howells did not have and a differ 
 ence of intention that he did not clearly under 
 stand, and against which he warned his pupils. 
 This difference of intention Henry James had ; he 
 was consciously a stylist, like the style or not as 
 you choose. Mrs. Wharton has both the artistic 
 intent and a larger measure of deliberation than 
 had James. Take the dawning of spring in Italy 
 as exquisitely depicted in her Italian Backgrounds 
 (" March in Italy "), as it challenged the pen of 
 
His Poetry and Travels 145 
 
 Henry James on his "Roman Rides" (Trans 
 atlantic Sketches of 1893), and as Howells scat 
 tered its sweetness through the last third of 
 Tuscan Cities, and observe how easily, by what we 
 commonly know as French standards, she bears 
 off the prize. 
 
 Howells staggering output is sufficient warrant 
 that he did not conceive art as a long patience, but 
 it may be interesting to inquire somewhat more 
 closely into his intention, his theory of style. His 
 ideal of style in literature is, as a matter of fact, 
 perfectly consonant with his ideal of structure. 
 Just as the form of the novel should be free and 
 flexible, adaptable always to the exact transcrip 
 tion of ordinary events, so the manner of speech 
 should be the ordinary manner of a clear and 
 musical speaker. Since he would not have the 
 form distorted or molded in accord with Steven 
 son s "one creative and controlling thought," to 
 which every incident and character must contrib 
 ute, he could not have the style pitched "in unison 
 with this," as the romancer bids. The eternal 
 vigilance against the word that "looks another 
 way," the contriving of patterns and webs of 
 discourse, which for Stevenson make writing a 
 fine art, appear to him of an artificiality only less 
 dangerous than the contriving of plots. 
 
 In boyhood, he played the ape as sedulously as 
 did the Scot ; he never loved an author, he tells us, 
 without wishing to write in his manner. He could 
 not admire even old Chaucer without borrowing 
 his archaic phrases. At one time he had a craze 
 for the simple Anglo-Saxon words, despising most 
 heartily all long Latin derivatives. "I still like 
 
146 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 the little word," he remarks, "if it says the thing 
 I want to say as well as the big one, but I honor 
 above all the word that says the thing. " 29 "To 
 aim at succinctness and brevity, merely, as some 
 teach, is to practice a kind of quackery almost as 
 offensive as the charlatanry of rhetoric. In either 
 case the life goes out of the subject. " 
 
 He came to learn that "style is only a man s 
 way of saying a thing, 30 and that although one 
 may always learn from the masters, it is quite 
 futile to practice talking in their various manners. 
 His advice to the youthful contributor is to "put 
 aside all anxiety about style ; that is a thing that 
 will take care of itself ; it will be added unto him if 
 he really has something to say." He continues: 
 
 "If he has not much to say, or if he has nothing 
 to say, perhaps he will try to say it in some other 
 man s way, or to hide his own vacuity with rags of 
 rhetoric and tags and fringes of manner, bor 
 rowed from this author and that. He will fancy 
 that in this disguise his work will be more literary, 
 and that there is somehow a quality, a grace, im 
 parted to it which will charm in spite of the in 
 ward hollowness. His vain hope would be pitiful 
 if it were not so shameful, but it is destined to 
 suffer defeat at the first glance of the editorial 
 eye. 
 
 "If he really has something to say, however, 
 about something he knows and loves, he is in the 
 best possible case to say it well. Still, from time 
 to time he may advantageously call a halt, and 
 consider whether he is saying the thing clearly 
 
 "My Literary Passions (1895), p. 112. 
 50 Literature and Life (1902), p. 74. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 147 
 
 and simply. If lie has a good ear he will say it 
 gracefully and musically; and I would by no 
 means have him aim to say it barely or sparely. 
 It is not so that people talk, who talk well, and 
 literature is only the thought of the writer flowing 
 from the pen instead of the tongue. 31 
 
 Hence, Howells is convinced that we grossly 
 overestimate the value of style as a permanent 
 literary quality. He holds no author great or 
 worthy of remembrance because of his manner 
 of speech. Style he will have it is something that 
 is added unto a writer, whether that writer be the 
 youthful contributor or Dante or Shakespeare or 
 Tolstoi. The psychology of this view, which is 
 one of wide and easy currency at the present time, 
 is beautifully appropriate to its author, but it need 
 not be adopted literally, any more than that of the 
 extreme classicist, who looks to style as the prime 
 preservative of literature, or of the extreme 
 euphuist, who carries his doctrine of unique qual 
 ity and inevitable word to a length which identifies 
 manner with matter. While we are waiting for 
 some one adequately and finally to philosophize 
 the problem of style, however, we have the prac 
 tical truth to content us; and that lies, as usual, 
 between extremes. A good counsel is that which 
 would neither adjure the youthful contributor to 
 squander his nights in quest of the inevitable 
 word nor induce him to trust the efficacy of an 
 occasional halt to i consider whether he is saying 
 the thing clearly and simply. 7 The results of the 
 latter procedure are evident in the writing of 
 
 Literature and Life (1902). 
 
148 William Dean Howells 
 
 Howells, just as the results of Stevenson s method 
 are evident in his writing. 32 
 
 The fact is, that very much as Howells failed to 
 dissociate the description of purely natural 
 phenomena from scene-painting, he failed to dis 
 sociate style from what is known in journalistic 
 parlance as "fine writing." The nineteenth- 
 century euphuism which promulgated the doctrine 
 of la vrai verite, welcomed by both aesthetes and 
 realists, took an entirely dissimilar view of the 
 matter. "Fine writing " attaches to the Eliza 
 bethan euphuism, which ingeniously conceals 
 thought, or tricks it out in fantastic vesture, its 
 ideal being one of elegance; whereas the later 
 euphuism, scientific, pseudo-scientific, if you 
 will, postulates a unique essence for every idea, 
 and strips the thought to its essence, its ideal 
 being one of exactitude. 
 
 Howells, in practice, rises superbly superior to 
 his convictions. He practices, as do all who write 
 well, the principle of Flaubert, but with infinitesi- 
 mally less labor. Observing no doubt that in 
 striving for style he misses it, he cautions others 
 not to strive. So great is his facility in the easy, 
 almost conversational manner, that, for him, 
 strife does not connote any endeavor to preciser 
 that manner ; it connotes literosity rather. When 
 
 M And, on the other hand, how many do we continue to 
 peruse and reperuse with pleasure whose only merit is elegance 
 of texture? I am tempted to mention Cicero; and since Mr. 
 Anthony Trollope is dead, I will. It is a poor diet for the 
 mind, a very colorless and toothless criticism of life ; but we 
 may enjoy the pleasure of a most intricate and dexterous pat 
 tern, every stitch a model at once of elegance and of good 
 sense; and the two oranges, even if one of them be rotten, kept 
 dancing with inimitable grace." On Style in Literature. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 149 
 
 he does go out of his way to attain style, he is 
 very apt to throw off some image that can be 
 branded as "literose," that takes the eye off the 
 object, as Wordsworth explained it in his stric 
 tures on Pope. This is style, but it would have 
 made Flaubert cringe with horror, to the delight, 
 no doubt, of the refractory Zola : The wheel of 
 the steamer was as usual chewing the sea, and 
 finding it unpalatable, and making vain efforts at 
 expectoration. 33 Mr. Pitkin would have his 
 students expunge the italicized clause from the 
 following sentence : The sunset struck its hard 
 red light through the fringe of leafless trees to the 
 westward, and gave their outlines that black defi 
 nition which a French school of landscape saw a 
 few years ago, and now seems to see no longer." 84 
 Mr. Pitkin objects quite properly that this clause, 
 which appears to be l a sober historical allusion, 
 is in reality "a private reminiscence," and as 
 such is to be identified with the psychological 
 mannerism. However it be classified, it is an 
 evasion of the labor which a perfect stylist ex 
 pends in search of le mot juste, a more pleasing 
 evasion than the strained metaphor of the expec 
 torating wheel, but an evasion none the less. One 
 need not be hyperaesthetic to feel that the follow 
 ing description removes the mind s eye some 
 thousands of miles from its object: "By and by 
 they passed a fisherman drawing his nets, and 
 bending from his boat, there near Albany, N.Y., 
 in the picturesque immortal attitudes of 
 Raphael s Galilean fisherman; and now a flush 
 
 * Italian Journeys, p. 273. 
 
 "Short Story Writing (1912), pp. 117 and 119. 
 
150 William Dean Howells 
 
 mounted the pale face of the east, and through 
 the dewy coolness of the dawn there came, more 
 to the sight than to any other sense, a vague 
 menace of heat." 35 It is quite possible that here 
 the author wished to reflect the thoughts of his 
 characters, rather than give his reader a pristine 
 impression; if so, he fell a little below his own 
 standard of doing that sort of thing ; and the man 
 nerism is none the less his very own mannerism, 
 which he carried so far as to indicate the bodily 
 posture and verbal accent of a character by com 
 parison with those of an actor no longer living. 
 
 Neither was Howells concerned for the style 
 that preserves or is supposed to preserve 
 writing against the corrosion of time nor did he 
 achieve it. His style, if simply examined with 
 reference to its sources of interest, will be found 
 hardly to exist outside of its author s acute feel 
 ing for men and women. Mastery of dialogue, the 
 language of men and women, is its crowning 
 glory. Even those hostile to Howells social and 
 artistic ideals will tell you that he has no com 
 petitor living or dead in this branch of the nar 
 rative art. And I have exposed in excerpts the 
 secret of his descriptive vitality together with 
 something of its limitations. His instinct for con 
 crete humanity lends it the power it has and also 
 delimits it. And the venerable figure of the Vene 
 tian coffee-burner will perhaps suffice to show 
 how the humanity that in the concrete was an 
 absorption with him was in the abstract an in 
 toxication. For he loved Man not only as Chaucer 
 loved him, but as Spinoza loved God. 
 
 u Their Wedding Journey (ed. 1899), p. 78. 
 
His Poetry and Travels 151 
 
 It is a somewhat ironic circumstance that Mark 
 Twain, one of the few to realize the true source 
 of Howells perfection as an artist, should be the 
 chief of those who exalt him as a stylist. But if 
 he was excessive in crediting his paragon with a 
 Gallic reverence for le mot juste, he atoned nobly 
 by himself capturing one of the inevitable words, 
 in what is thus far the most felicitous characteri 
 zation we have sustained. In any of the mem 
 orable records of his wanderings, and in his novels 
 and tales as well, it may be noted how remarkably 
 Howells prose displays this quality. This quality 
 it is which reveals in him the sincere and exquisite 
 prosateur, even as the absence of the same token 
 betrays the mediocre versifier. "I intrench my 
 self, " says Mark, "behind that protecting word. 
 There are others who exhibit those great qualities 
 as greatly as does he, but only by intervalled 
 distributions of rich moonlight, with stretches of 
 veiled and dimmer landscape between; whereas 
 Howells s moon sails cloudless skies all night and 
 all the nights." 
 
VI 
 
 HIS FICTION: TRANSCRIPTS OF LIFE 
 
 DESPITE Howells > prodigious versatility, 
 literature became for him almost synony 
 mous with fiction. In this his practice is con 
 sonant with his theory, which makes but little of 
 literature in other than the narrative form and 
 recognizes the novel as the type of types. Indeed, 
 the production of novels was the serious business 
 of his literary life. Such being the case, it may 
 appear an anomalous circumstance in his devel 
 opment that he should have approached the su 
 preme genre with hesitance and long delay. This 
 circumstance in a development more precocious 
 than retarded may even seem to support the hy 
 pothesis that has grown up about the suggestion 
 of Eobert Louis Stevenson, that Howells forced 
 his talent in undertaking the realistic novel at all. 
 The long apprenticeship and the timidity of han 
 dling observable in his early examples, however, 
 far from indicating a natural inaptitude, are evi 
 dences of his sincerity in method. 
 
 It is frequently said that no author writes a 
 sound novel before he is forty (Henry James 
 made it thirty) ; and Howells is of that distin 
 guished company whose sound instincts prevented 
 them from writing any novels before hard upon 
 the forties. Their Wedding Journey (1872) 
 
 152 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 153 
 
 scarcely pretended to be a novel ; it was not until 
 his third essay in the form, A Foregone Conclu 
 sion (1875), written at the age of thirty-seven, 
 that he attained novelistic stature in intent, that 
 he completely overcame his unwillingness to leave 
 the actual and embraced the imaginatively real. 
 His enamorment of the actual and his reluctance 
 to give wing to his imagination, while thus delay 
 ing the development of his novel, had the fortu 
 nate effect of bringing him to the form with the 
 perfected style and the cultivated faculty of ob 
 servation very necessary for success in his par 
 ticular kind. Such a story as Their Wedding 
 Journey would have failed dismally not only in 
 the hands of an immature writer, but in those of 
 any writer without his very special gifts and 
 training. Henry James, who underwent no such 
 training, found himself when scarcely younger, 
 which makes it instructive to note that his devel 
 opment, unlike that of Howells, was from an im 
 mature handling of the imaginatively bold to an 
 artistic treatment of the normal, while the older 
 man, coming to the writing of fiction with his 
 ideals and methods comparatively fixed, made a 
 deliberate and cautious advance from the com 
 monplace and clearly verifiable towards the ab 
 normal and the more striking aspects of the 
 normal. 
 
 Henry James, moreover, had not and never 
 acquired a humanity capable of inspiring in him 
 an affection for the commonplace. He and his 
 father before him were exiles in their native land, 
 precisely because it was crude and common. 
 Howells and his father before him were firmly 
 
154 William Dean Howells 
 
 rooted, making the crudeness and commonness 
 gladly their portion because it was alive, human, 
 and real. Howells felt the charm, the spell of the 
 Old World, just as did James, but it never had 
 the effect of making the New World in his eyes 
 flat and profitless. Coming from the more primi 
 tive West, he found in what seemed to James the 
 crudities of the East, particularly in the intel 
 lectual life of Boston and its environs, the grati 
 fication which James found in manorial England. 
 Color and picturesqueness he found and continued 
 to find in all places where men dwell, since color 
 and picturesqueness are not conditioned by archi 
 tecture and costume, however delightful these 
 things may be, but by a state of mind and heart in 
 the observer. His early environment was wholly 
 fortunate, since it was supplemented by cosmo 
 politan experience, in; reinforcing an inherited 
 temperament which made for an estimate of mod 
 ern life comparatively free from illusion. It 
 helped make of him an interpreter of America, of 
 American democracy, clear and exacting, if not 
 like Whitman joyously cleaving the heavenward 
 spaces. In this difference lies the final reason 
 why Henry James could not have written Their 
 Wedding Journey. 
 
 The story, if it can be called a story, shows 
 how clearly the genesis of the Howells novel lies 
 in the books of travel and those engaging minia 
 tures of life at home collected under the title 
 Suburban Sketches (1871). It is really a sketch 
 on magnified dimensions, dimensions made pos 
 sible by the fact that it is also a travel book. It 
 is perfectly transitional, and therein lies its chief 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 155 
 
 interest. We could not wish Howells to have 
 repeated its type with any frequency; for the 
 advantage of the novel over the sketch and the 
 short-story being the ampler canvas, there is small 
 point in any writer s choosing the larger form 
 and spurning the opportunity offered for the de 
 velopment of character. Their Wedding Journey, 
 however, does have the merit of being so thor 
 oughly consistent with itself that it would hardly 
 occur to question its propriety were it not for the 
 manner in which the author confides his own 
 questioning. If there is any little lapse in taste 
 to mar this pleasant work it is the author s mis 
 calculation of the power of ironic cajolery. He 
 begins by expressing a distrust of his fitness for 
 1 1 a sustained or involved narration, l and on this 
 account refrains from rehearsing the love story 
 antecedent to the journey. Again, he queries: 
 "Do I pitch the pipe too low? We poor honest 
 men are at a sad disadvantage ; and now and then 
 I am minded to give a loose to fancy, and attribute 
 something really grand and fine to my people, in 
 order to make them worthier the reader s re 
 spected acquaintance." 2 Such implicit commen 
 dation of his wares, while seeming to bespeak im 
 maturity, is by no means to be accounted an indis 
 cretion of youth. Quite to the contrary, it is but 
 a milder manifestation of a kind of reclame ob 
 servable in his later and more pretentious work, 
 which introduces romantic fiction as a corrupting 
 influence upon his characters, as in The Minister s 
 Charge, or even gives some of the characters a 
 
 1 Their Wedding Journey (1899), p. 1. 
 Ibid., p. 239. 
 
156 William Dean Howells 
 
 polemical cast, as when the insane hero of The 
 Shadow of a Dream is made a rabid romanticist 
 and idolater of Byron. 
 
 In the present instance, no manner of apology 
 is called for, since the book could not deliver more 
 exactly what it promises. It details the experi 
 ences of Basil and Isabel March, incognito, after 
 the manner of bridal couples, on their honeymoon 
 trip to Niagara, the St. Lawrence, Montreal, and 
 Quebec. Clever in portraiture, rich in historical 
 flavor, and in kaleidoscopic description, with a 
 classic bit of scene-painting at Niagara, the work 
 has its most remarkable quality in the air of ad 
 venture investing the thousand little incidents of 
 travel. This, its life-essence, no reader can or 
 need be argued into accepting. He should feel it 
 a phenomenon the roll of an express-train into 
 the night ; but if he does not, he will not be cajoled 
 into doing so. 
 
 ~ Tn the persons of the Marches, it is fair to 
 assume, Howells has incarnated his idea of the 
 normal male and female of our species. They 
 appear again and again in his novels, advancing 
 in years with their creator, receiving now and 
 then a biographical touch, lovingly bestowed, but 
 certainly sharing more in his irrepressible vitality 
 than in his deepening wisdom. "But where," I 
 hear the reader ask, "do you get a standard of 
 normality f" In truth, the matter is sadly sub 
 jective. The Marches, however, do succeed in 
 passing most of the convenient tests. For one 
 thing, they affect us variously according to our 
 moods, and thus represent pretty faithfully the 
 dull average of humanity. At rare and idealistic 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 157 
 
 moments, our hearts surcharged with esteem for 
 our fellow-men, we spurn them contemptuously as 
 libels on our kind ; and then in pessimistic mood, 
 rebellious at the simian antics of God s creatures, 
 we welcome them as at least a shade more wise 
 than most. They are in general less constant in 
 their effect, more complete and subtle, than the 
 bookish characters we know, and always a trifle 
 below the level we expect people with their ad 
 vantages to attain. 
 
 The variety they most conspicuously attain as 
 fictional creations is two-fold. In the first place, 
 although they are static characters to whom life 
 has very little to teach, they do grow old. The 
 worldly wisdom that comes to every one as a 
 consequence of living is nowhere more beautifully 
 made evident than in the Marches as we meet 
 them, unchanged but indescribably mellowed in 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889) and Their, 
 Silver Wedding Journey (1899). More striking, 
 however, is their emotional susceptibility to the 
 situation in which they happen to be placed ; their 
 thought is tinctured by the mood of the dramatic 
 moment ; they are true spectators. This is wholly 
 fortunate when it is artistically desirable to re 
 inforce the atmosphere of a scene by its reaction 
 upon sympathetic natures, but not so fortunate 
 when foils are desired to throw its elements into 
 relief. This might pass unnoted had not Howells 
 on occasion used his Marches for the latter pur 
 pose so perfectly, as in A Pair of Patient Lovers 
 (1901), where they play their parts with a detach 
 ment suggestive of Ben Jonson s comedy of hu 
 mors. They maintain a sympathy with the prin- 
 
158 William Dean Howells 
 
 cipal characters, who are quite abnormal, un 
 known to the norms of Jonsonian comedy, but at 
 the same time intensify and clarify the effect of 
 the action. A dismal contrast is the Hawthorn- 
 esque tale, The Shadow of a Dream (1890), so 
 fatally deficient in chiaroscuro, where our dear 
 friends become positively morbid, as direly shad 
 owed by the dream as any of the miserable com 
 pany. 
 
 To depict the effect upon the Marches of ad 
 vancing age is the motive for the additional chap 
 ter added to editions of Their Wedding Journey 
 subsequent to 1887, "Niagara Revisited, Twelve 
 Years After Their Wedding Journey. " Life has 
 not used them ill; neither have they enjoyed too 
 much prosperity. The parents of two children, 
 they have in fact come to the practice of certain 
 mean economies. Marriage for Isabel has not 
 realized "the poetic dream of a perfect union that 
 a girl imagines it. ... It was a state of trial, of 
 probation ; it was an ordeal, not an ecstasy. 8 
 Less depressing is Their Silver Wedding Journey 
 (1899), the longest chronicle devoted exclusively 
 to the Marches, where the theme of disillusion 
 ment is more lightly handled. 
 
 Basil, now the editor of Every Other Week, the 
 rise of which journal furnishes the title A Hazard 
 of New Fortunes (1889), takes a Sabbatical year 
 on leave, which, counting time, is neither a Sab 
 batical year nor a silver wedding journey. With 
 much ado, he persuades his eager consort, con 
 firmed in the feminine wiles of contrariness, that 
 they should renew the memories of their courtship 
 
 * Their Wedding Journey (1899), p. 317. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 159 
 
 abroad. The result is a complete travel book, 
 augmented in volume and turned into novelistic 
 form by the addition of a flirtatious love story, 
 true to the Howells type, in which Mrs. March is 
 given ample opportunity to practice her art as 
 match-maker. Her skill in this art, hinted in 
 Their Wedding Journey and exhaustively exhib 
 ited in subsequent volumes, we are led to believe, 
 is, like her contrariety and illogicality, a natural 
 endowment of woman, more or less incompre 
 hensible to man. Howells incessant playing upon 
 these three motives, together with the less gra 
 cious one of hysterics, has outraged many critics, 
 who are not at all assuaged by the perception that 
 the Howells men betray complementary though 
 different intellectual deficiencies. I believe that 
 it is the men rather than the women themselves 
 who refuse to accept the Howells portrayals ; and 
 I believe that it is no longer necessary to say 
 much on this topic, for despite the rather frequent 
 explosions of indignation it has become pretty 
 well established as a canon of Howells criticism 
 that he displays a very remarkable insight into 
 the feminine heart. It ought to be said, however, 
 that the three major motives indicated do not 
 merely represent superficial annoyances. The 
 illogicality of the Howells woman in general and 
 of Mrs. March in particular, for example, enables 
 her to compass a pure idealism that sometimes 
 mystifies and sometimes inspires the men under 
 her influence and not infrequently works out in 
 pure goodness and kindness. Kindness and good 
 ness, of course, should not be allowed to happen 
 in that way ; but that is the way in which they do 
 
160 William Dean Howells 
 
 very often happen. Every day we are called upon 
 to admire benefactors who are in no sense models 
 of mentality and who have probably proceeded on 
 entirely wrong assumptions, and even to love 
 them. So to accept a Howells heroine is not, as 
 one incensed critic puts it, "to believe the future 
 of our country hopeless/ It is perhaps to be 
 lieve that the progress of our country, or the hap 
 piness of any one of us, will not be along the beau 
 tiful lines of logic. Howells own acceptance of 
 his women is based very little on gallantry and 
 still less on illusion ; it goes with his ready accept 
 ance of all reality, and his disposition, somewhat 
 vociferously discovered by the above-mentioned 
 critic, to "throw the responsibility on the Al 
 mighty. " In Their Silver Wedding Journey, a 
 finished and unobtrusive handling of his favorite 
 motives, added to a nicely balanced wielding of the 
 theme of age versus youth, which he exhausted 
 in Indian Summer (1886), enlivens the sojourning 
 and sight-seeing in Hamburg, Leipsic, Carlsbad, 
 Weimar, and Berlin. Finally, Mrs. March decides 
 they shall not go home. Then we are sure they 
 are on their way. 
 
 The Marches share with many others of How 
 ells people their pleasing habit of walking in and 
 out of his scene. Although he has never chosen to 
 follow in the scientific fashion of Thackeray or 
 Zola the fortunes of any single family, and has 
 written but one bona fide sequel, the Utopian ro 
 mance, Through the Eye of the Needle, he is prop 
 erly loath to relinquish the personages of his crea 
 tion, right realistically permitting his reader to 
 renew their acquaintance, or to catch unexpected 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 161 
 
 glimpses of them here and there. This practice 
 imparts a convincing unity to his comedie hu- 
 maine. Our casual meeting with Mr. Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley Ray, the promising young novelist 
 of The World of Chance, after five years, in The 
 Story of a Play, is managed in a way to leave a 
 brisk sense of the touch and go of actual affairs. 
 The presence of the Hilarys in the latter book is 
 an instance of the more thoroughgoing treatment 
 which does illumine the history of a family. Or 
 dinarily, however, there is no profound purpose 
 in the resumption, but a gratification of our sense 
 of familiarity with his world. Such is the effect 
 when we take up the second novel, A Chance Ac 
 quaintance (1873), of our having caught a glimpse 
 of its charming heroine, Kitty Ellison, in Their 
 Wedding Journey. 
 
 While the travel interest gets the better of the 
 first story, the imaginative eclipses the actual in 
 the second, which is descriptive of travel through 
 the same region. To this work he brings a ma 
 turity in the development of theme and a deftness 
 in the handling of plot, slight as the plot is, com 
 parable to the finish of style and the keenness of 
 observation noted in the earlier book. More re 
 markable even than the fact of his attaining these 
 qualities at a bound, is the evidence afforded of 
 their utter nativeness to him. The dominant 
 themes are not only heavily foreshadowed in 
 Their Wedding Journey but are prophetic of his 
 future writings. His concern with the affairs of 
 the heart, his general treatment of the love theme, 
 as well as his tricks of illuminating the feminine 
 mind and contrasting the sexes, his preoccupation 
 
162 William Dean Howells 
 
 with the question of social distinctions, and, above 
 x all, his sturdy nationalism, were to be with him al 
 ways very much as they were with him in A 
 Chance Acquaintance. Primarily, however, the 
 volume is a study of American aristocracy, the 
 caste spirit in conflict with the leveling force of 
 love. It is the American Pride and Prejudice. 
 
 The story is set in motion by an exceedingly 
 commonplace and lifelike accident of travel. Miss 
 Kitty inadvertently takes the arm of Mr. Miles 
 Arbuton, the aristocratic protagonist; and the 
 embarrassing episode which ensues is made very 
 naturally to prepare the way to a delightful 
 steamboat acquaintanceship. This acquaintance 
 ship is brought to the stage of love with an expe 
 dition scarcely paralleled except in the romantic 
 comedy Out of the Question, for Howells heroes 
 and heroines have remarkable difficulties in de 
 ciding whether or not they are in love his pro 
 test against the romantic doctrine of love at first 
 sight. A climax of the most noiseless and perfect 
 nature finally separates the ill-mated pair, after 
 the incompatibility of such a sweet, sincere, and 
 democratic soul as Kitty Ellison with such a mon 
 ster of inane insolence and condescension as Mr. 
 Arbuton has been demonstrated from a thousand 
 angles, so that the ending, incidentally a protest 
 against the romantic doctrine that love levels all 
 barriers, is inevitable, just as the ending of Pride 
 and Prejudice, which does not erect impassable 
 barriers, is inevitable. 
 
 If A Chance Acquaintance fail to transmit the 
 full artistic satisfaction of Pride and Prejudice, 
 it is because the problem transferred to American 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 163 
 
 soil and adapted to American conditions, offers 
 difficulties that the Divine Jane did not have to 
 reckon with. American aristocracy is at best a 
 very unlovely manifestation spasmodic, refrac 
 tory, and implastic to the artist s hand, no true 
 aristocracy at all to the purpose of Henry James. 
 And in Mr. Miles Arbuton, Howells, as if on a 
 wager, furnished himself with a subject as vacu 
 ous as one could possibly find. Beside him, Basil 
 March is a hero of romance. An idiot is pictur 
 esque and usually appealing, but an educated, 
 travelled, well-dressed man with no vestige of in 
 telligence is a challenge to the subtlest art. The 
 aggressive egoism of Silas Lapham and Sir Wil- 
 loughby Patterne has an inherent fascination of 
 which the utterly passive egoism of Miles Arbuton 
 is quite devoid. Consequently, Howells not only 
 set himself a difficult task but weakened at the 
 outstart what is one of the strongest features of 
 Pride and Prejudice the love motivation. The 
 conclusion of A Chance Acquaintance is inevita 
 ble, but the beginning of Jane Austen s novel is 
 compulsory. Howells is of course prevented by 
 the nature of his problem from crediting his hero 
 with the blameless manners admired by the ladies, 
 the import of the action being that this blameless 
 person, in the sense that he would die rather than 
 in any way violate the conventions, is from the 
 simply human point of view boorish and cruel. 
 He does, however, try for a point d appui by leav 
 ing us to believe with the ladies that his creation 
 is very handsome and that, although he is too well- 
 bred for humor, there is a certain aptness in his 
 wit. The latter is somewhat difficult for any one 
 
164 William Dean Howells 
 
 who enjoys humor to see, and the illustrator, evi 
 dently brushed by the mantle of George Cruik- 
 shank, has done for the former. Mr. Arbuton 
 touches humanity for one frenzied moment, in 
 which he so far loses his dignity as to throw a 
 pebble against the cliff at Cape Eternity, a mo 
 ment in which "he feared himself capable of shak 
 ing hands with the shabby Englishman in the 
 Glengarry cap, or of asking the whole admiring 
 company of passengers down to the bar. 
 
 It ought also to be remembered that Pride and 
 Prejudice is variously great and altogether of a 
 high excellence below which it is not a defect so 
 much as an inevitability to fall. Howells in his 
 manner of telling his story makes technical feats 
 of some things that go for granted in Jane Aus 
 ten s, and this is to lose something of brightness 
 and charm. The matter of the author s attitude 
 toward his characters, so far as it affects these 
 two stories, is not structural but pervasive, de 
 termining the color and tone of the whole. Each 
 attains impartiality and formal objectivity of 
 manner, but the English work, for all that it lashes 
 the presumptions and condescensions of aristoc 
 racy, is saturate with sunshine. Its shade is the 
 mottled glory of ancestral parks. Its author, 
 though she clearly speaks through the lips of 
 Elizabeth Bennet in that immortal scene which 
 depicts the taking down of Lady Catharine de 
 Burgh, is nevertheless completely detached, as 
 wholly superior to Elizabeth as to the irate lady. 
 Howells, for all the wholesome fun he makes, does 
 not quite achieve that superb and unconscious 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 165 
 
 aloofness which insures his way of telling the 
 story against tincture from the emotions of his 
 characters. It is not so much that we feel his sym 
 pathetic preoccupation with the perplexities of 
 his people as that we detect self -consciousness in 
 the elaborate attentions he bestows upon them. 
 The danger of all "psychologizing" in fiction 
 (Howells does not offend here as he does in such 
 a later novel as Fennel and Rue) lies in muddling 
 the color, not in disturbing the structure or alter 
 ing the real import of the work. Trifles light as 
 air become clothed in the trimmings of tragedy, so 
 that the most ordinary situation takes the cast of 
 "inexorable fate/ or "sinister chance," and 
 dawns upon the participants with "paralyzing 
 clearness." Headers of Heroines of Fiction may 
 recall Howells high admiration for Jane Aus 
 ten s skill in the utilization of trivial events, es 
 pecially his just and amusing appreciation of the 
 lifelike quality in Anne Eliot s rescue from the 
 teasing clutches of two-year-old Walter in Per 
 suasion; and his own rescues usually have the true 
 Austenian ring. In A Chance Acquaintance it is 
 true that he employs a more formidable device 
 than a naughty little boy a dog; but again the 
 slight difference in tone is due to the fact that 
 he forces the note. His trivialities are insisted 
 upon, whereas Jane Austen never for a moment 
 conveys the impression that hers are anything 
 more than the trivialities they are. She continues 
 to reap the reward of a superbly unconscious su 
 periority to her material; while Howells is fre 
 quently caught exhibiting his, with an air of say- 
 
166 William Dean Howells 
 
 ing, "Behold, how delightfully insignificant ! 
 much as a romancer might exclaim, Behold, how 
 sublime ! 
 
 The romantic comedy Out of the Question 
 (1877) deals with the same problem of American 
 aristocracy, but after the fashion of stageland. 
 In the interests of theatric effect, the conditions 
 are reversed, the hero, Blake, being a poor but 
 immaculate steamboat engineer, very importunate 
 in the service of the aristocratic Mrs. Bellingham 
 and her daughter Leslie, having been started in 
 that direction by the exactions of Aunt Kate. The 
 scene plays at the Ponkwasset Hotel, a country 
 hostelry familiar to Howells readers. In the ad 
 jacent woods, our hero rescues Miss Leslie from 
 a couple of brigands, and, not content with that, 
 pursues the ruffians and rends from them their 
 booty, receiving in the encounter a broken wrist. 
 His modesty, on all occasions nauseous, is quite 
 ludicrous when, torn and bleeding, he pretends to 
 have found the watch quite by accident. The zeal 
 of his creator, however, comes very near spoiling 
 him as a stage hero, through an excessive expo 
 sition of his sublime qualities. His spiritual 
 graces no doubt require testimony from the other 
 characters, but it is bad dramatic technique to 
 have them forever commenting on his handsome 
 face and superb figure. No actor is to be envied 
 who has an entrance cued in this manner : Hello ! 
 That s Blake s voice now. ... I don t wonder it 
 takes Leslie. It s the most sympathetic voice in 
 the world." 4 
 
 But that Blake s goodness and greatness should 
 
 * Out of the Question (1877), p. 153. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 167 
 
 avail to win the hand of the fair Leslie is "out of 
 the question/ Having once been a steamboat 
 engineer, he can never be a "gentleman." 
 Accordingly, Mr. Charles Bellingham, Leslie s 
 brother, is summoned to give him his conge in a 
 merciful manner. The superstructure of moving 
 accident is about to be completed by the discovery 
 that Blake is known to Mr. Charles of old, is re 
 vered by him as a paragon of manly virtue, and is 
 bound and endeared to him as his savior from a 
 watery death in the Mississippi, when suddenly 
 the character of the play changes from romantic 
 comedy to farce. With the swiftness of magic, 
 the questions raised by the first part are dropped, 
 and the subject is now the diplomacy of Mr. 
 Charles Bellingham, the manner adopted being 
 that of the one-act farces. For this reason Out of 
 the Question is hardly to be regarded as a com 
 plement to A Chance Acquaintance. 
 
 A Counterfeit Presentment (1877) was the sec 
 ond and last of Howells flirtations with melo 
 drama. It enjoyed presentation with Lawrence 
 Barrett in the leading role; and, parenthetically, 
 it may interest theatre-goers of this generation to 
 know that the version of Yorick s Love in which 
 Barrett often appeared was made for him by 
 Ho wells from Un Drama Nuevo by Estebanez. 
 Happily thereafter Howells gratified his instinct 
 for play-writing in the creation of his inimitable 
 farces, although an excellent specimen, The Parlor 
 Car (1876), had preceded the comedies. These 
 farces he turned out mostly for the use of Messrs. 
 Harper at Christmas time, to appear later in the 
 "Black and White Series," and finally to be col- 
 
168 William Dean Howells 
 
 lected in books as delightful as any from his pen. 
 Evening Dress (1893) was reprinted from the 
 Cosmopolitan, being, together with the romance, 
 A Traveler from Altruria, and the story, A Part 
 ing and a Meeting, the souvenir of its author s 
 brief editorial connection with that journal. In 
 1900, four came from the Riverside Press at Cam 
 bridge, namely, Room Forty-Five, Bride Roses: 
 a Scene, The Smoking Car, and An Indian Giver: 
 a Comedy. The others are included in the follow 
 ing list: The Sleeping Car (1883), The Register 
 (1884), The Elevator (1885), The Garroters 
 (1886), A Sea-Change; or Love s Stowaway: a 
 Lyricated Farce (1888, Ticknor), the collections 
 The Mouse-Trap and Other Farces (1889) and 
 The Sleeping Car and Other Farces (1890), The 
 Albany Depot (1892), A Letter of Introduction 
 (1892), The Unexpected Guests (1893), A Likely 
 Story (1894), Five Clock Tea (1894), A Previ 
 ous Engagement: Comedy (1897), and Parting 
 Friends (1911). The presence of two of the best 
 among the later ones lends the miscellany, The 
 Daughter of the Storage, its chief distinction. 
 
 In some of these little farces Howells has given 
 us his most perfect work; they are like the 
 sketches of travel in realizing completely the pos 
 sibilities of a secondary genre. That they have 
 appealed mostly to amateur actors is altogether 
 due to their genre, for they are anything but ama 
 teurish in execution. They are parlor plays par 
 excellence, and have been played privately every 
 where, even the advance sheets, according to the 
 testimony of Henry Mills Alden, being in request 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 169 
 
 before publication. 5 In England they have en 
 joyed a somewhat more public favor, The Mouse 
 Trap having been twice played in London with an 
 all-star cast which included Ellen Terry and Mrs. 
 Kendall. Another one aroused the enthusiasm of 
 no more lenient a critic than Mr. Bernard Shaw, 
 who recorded in his Dramatic Opinions: "The 
 little piece showed, as might have been expected, 
 that with three weeks practice the American nov 
 elist could write the heads off the poor bunglers to 
 whom our managers generally appeal when they 
 want a small bit of work to amuse the people who 
 come at eight/ 6 
 
 One reason for Howells success with the form 
 may be that the farces represent him in a fairly 
 complete though evanescent state of liberation 
 from his Anglo-Saxon heritage. They form, in 
 fact, his most intimate attachment to the French. 
 There are few things more interesting to observe 
 in his work than the disappearance of the senti 
 mentality of the long comedies when the subtle 
 psychologist goes out to play, unburdened of the 
 necessity of making a drama, and content to treat 
 manners in their amusing aspects with unlimited 
 indulgence, Mr. Pattee in his chapter on Howells 
 has attractively and in some detail drawn a com 
 parison with Richardson which, in considering the 
 farces, might very well be made with Richard 
 son s great French contemporary, Marivaux, in 
 stead. While in Howells we have no more the 
 complicate intrigue of Le Jeu de V Amour et du 
 
 "J. Henry Harper, The House of Harper (1912), p. 320. 
 Dramatic Opinions, I, 265. 
 
170 William Dean Howells 
 
 Hasard than the moral sentiment of Clarissa 
 Harlowe, we do have a closer alliance with the 
 spirit of the French analyst. The delicate psy 
 chology of the feminine heart, especially in its 
 vain and ineffectual effort to mask itself with 
 words, and with its pride in the suppression of 
 feelings that will not down, is handled with an 
 infinitude of nuance. The motives are often if 
 not prevailingly satiric, but no deep notes are 
 struck. Lovers quarrel incessantly, their mutual 
 esteem in no jeopardy. No passion enters the 
 conflict, only moods and whims. Essentially so 
 cial and humane, these pieces leave the larger 
 humanity behind for a space, shut without draw 
 ing-room doors; and with the restricted aim and 
 lightened mood, their author has his most signal 
 success in his ever-obvious desire to make femi 
 nine absurdity charming. Their clearest ana 
 logue may be found in the Proverbes of Alfred de 
 Musset, the most gifted nineteenth-century expo 
 nent of marivaudage. Ours are simpler and more 
 fully blooded in theme and structure, but quite as 
 rarefied in psychology. Again, they are more 
 realistic, preserving the world of Boston, never 
 attaining the almost Arcadian, Watteau-like, sum 
 mer-garden atmosphere, much less the moonlight 
 fantasy which so often etherealizes the theatre of 
 De Musset ; but the two are very like in preferring 
 badinage to wit, and bird-like chatter to conver 
 sation. 
 
 These little plays vary in merit, from compara 
 tively bald studies in hysteria, like The Mouse 
 Trap, based on the feminine fear of small rodents, 
 a theme none too novel but seemingly of perennial 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 171 
 
 appeal, to pieces of orient ivory like The Gar- 
 roters. Some very few, like Five Clock Tea, 
 have no complication, merely events. Some do 
 not scorn the moving accident, A Likely Story de 
 riving its mildly ironic title from the fact that 
 complication and resolution rest upon an ex 
 tremely improbable double accident; but in gen 
 eral a truly farcical complication is created en 
 tirely from character. In the majority of cases 
 we encounter nothing external, merely ludicrous 
 self-deception; there is no mouse in The Mouse 
 Trap, much less a footpad in The Garroters. The 
 latter piece is, in fact, an extreme example of so 
 licitude in reducing a supposed basis in coinci 
 dence to pure misunderstanding. 
 
 The characters are all of the same social set 
 and the dramatis persona fairly constant. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Willis Campbell are omnipresent, the 
 sublimated counterparts of Mr. and Mrs. Basil 
 March. Mrs. Campbell is chief exponent of illogi 
 cality and contrariety, while her sister-in-law, 
 Mrs. Roberts, specializes in exaggeration. Mr. 
 Campbell, tease and trickster, usually sensible and 
 witty, enjoying hugely the predicaments of others, 
 except when, as in A Likely Story, he is forced to 
 be one of the dupes himself, ordinarily plays the 
 norm. Mr. Edward Eoberts, his brother-in-law, 
 very absent-minded, candid, honest, and utterly 
 unresourceful, makes a good gull. He habitually 
 serves as a butt for the teasing of Mr. Willis, and 
 is exhibited best perhaps in A Letter of Introduc 
 tion and The Albany Depot. In general, the men 
 of this elect circle are hardly more resourceful 
 than the women, though less noisy. They are 
 
172 William Dean Howells 
 
 quite as helpless in The Elevator, when the arriv 
 ing guests at Mrs. Roberts apartments in the 
 Hotel Bellingham get caught between floors, 
 whereupon there is much ado, until the arrival of 
 Mr. Willis Campbell, who suggests that since the 
 elevator will not go up they start it down and 
 walk up. 
 
 The long "lyricated" farce, A Sea-Change; or 
 Love s Stowaway, is unique among Howells 
 plays, a sustained extravaganza somewhat in the 
 style of the Gilbert-Sullivan operettas. It is bur 
 lesque in tone rather than farcical, and never vio 
 lates its tone, making one of his merriest efforts 
 to woo the laughing muse. The verse is quite Gil- 
 bertian, and the best in rhythmic quality that he 
 ever did. The vers libre of the recitatives betrays 
 a facility in the handling of free meters never to 
 be suspected from his more pretentious poetry. 
 
 Howells took the drama with less seriousness 
 than any other form. In their artistic serious 
 ness, however, the farces are at one with the 
 novels ; and the fact that the latter abound in pro 
 tracted comic situations or pathetic situations that 
 can be turned over with their comic side upper 
 most, makes the similarity appear greater than it 
 really is. Turning back to his third novel, A 
 Foregone Conclusion (1875), we shall see that he 
 could very successfully employ the ordinary ma 
 terials of pathos, but in his fifth, The Lady of the 
 Aroo&ook (1879), he returned to the style and 
 problem of A Chance Acquaintance in lighter 
 mood than ever. 
 
 A Foregone Conclusion is the first novelistic 
 fruit of his Venetian consulate, and represents 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 173 
 
 him in his initial attempt fully to realize the form, 
 to touch deep springs of character, to give certain 
 direction to dramatic forces, and to build as the 
 architect builds. The result is a structure less 
 like those Spanish tales of the picaresque which 
 he was fond of holding up as models than he was 
 again to attain for many years. To this end the 
 descriptive element is subordinated and finely in 
 tegrated, fulfilling only its noblest function of fix 
 ing and enriching the human scene. Except in a 
 few passages, where he looses his hand, notably a 
 lavish picture of Casa Vervain, the residence of 
 his heroine, and a gorgeously colored description 
 of a Corpus Christi procession, his purpose has 
 been by discreet touches to give the sense of 
 Venice by sunlight or candle-light. " Little mira 
 cles of observation, he has somewhere called 
 them, which lend a salient touch of odor, sound, 
 or color the creak of an oar, or the breathing of 
 the gondoliers. In clear characterization and ar 
 tistic plotting it is the first of his books to suggest 
 TurgenieVr* This it does not merely in method, 
 but to a certain degree in substance. Don Ippo- 
 lito, for example, who as a matter of fact was 
 drawn from life, his original being the priest with 
 whom Howells read Dante, seems to have taken 
 over something from the type of idealist who, 
 with his fertile brain, and his vague but irrepres 
 sible longings, unpacks his heart with words 
 through so many Eussian novels. Although 
 marred by a prolonged and tawdry ending, A 
 Foregone Conclusion is altogether a more pro 
 found and moving book, as well as a more shapely, 
 than either of the antecedent ones. 
 
174 William Dean Howells 
 
 Don Ippolito, strange, pathetic, and sinister fig 
 ure of a priest fallen from the arms of the Church 
 in that place and that day when a priest found his 
 only refuge, his only consolation in the Church, 
 defies characterization in a word. Ferris, the 
 United States consul, calls him a universal genius, 
 another Da Vinci, yet is ever appalled by his 
 childlike ignorance of the world. The pathos lies 
 in his ignorance of the fact that the double life 
 under which he chafes bars him effectively from 
 what he most needs love and sympathy. Ferris, 
 from whom we learn most of what we know about 
 him, surmises this but hardly realizes it. Don 
 Ippolito longs for America, the inventor s Utopia, 
 as artists long for Italy, and the circumstance of 
 Civil War in America gives him an opportunity to 
 approach Ferris with an ingenious model of can 
 non for use by the Union army. The acquaint 
 anceship leads to his engagement by an American 
 lady, Mrs. Vervain, as Italian teacher to her 
 daughter, Florida, Mrs. Vervain being led to be 
 lieve that she has thus put an end to the annoy 
 ance suffered in the past of having tutors turn 
 lovers. All things conspire to make the dawn of 
 love in the poor priest s heart inevitable, if ever 
 love dawned inevitably. Howells seldom handled 
 a more complex situation, or one more serious for 
 the persons involved, or one depending so little 
 upon the conventions. The* inexorably delicate 
 predicament of Ferris in finding himself in love 
 after being bound by Don Ippolito s confidence, 
 is, on the other hand, the typical situation for 
 Howells lovers, being brought about by his own 
 obtuseness and prolonged by his unresoureeful- 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 175 
 
 ness. The author s success with the tragedy of 
 the priest is the more remarkable in that he con 
 sistently subordinates him to the hero, and pre 
 fers to view him through the eyes of the other 
 parties to the complication. This does not seem 
 to spoil Don Ippolito, although it does contribute 
 to the mystery that shrouds him to the end. Like 
 Florida, he has his dossier, while Ferris is more 
 or less an improvisation. 
 
 Florida is a made character, but beautifully and 
 strongly made. She is studied by the method of 
 contradictory traits. A certain hauteur, not to 
 say arrogance, of her nature, for example, drives 
 her to an excessive humility in her devotion to her 
 mother, and later, we are told, to her children. 
 Her fiery temper, a bequest, along with her tropi 
 cal name, from her father, the late Colonel Ver 
 vain, seeks compensation in effusive remorse. She 
 is strikingly contrasted with her mother, who is 
 of the fragile, frank, and impulsive type, but who 
 has, nevertheless, a charm which on two or three 
 occasions frustrates her author in a seeming de 
 sire to hold her up to ridicule. Florida s intense 
 reserve is a chill wall against the brusqueries of 
 Ferris, especially when directed against her 
 mother. She is a ritualist in religion, but almost 
 fierce in her scorn of hypocrisy and in her devo 
 tion to truth, which triples the barrier in the way 
 of her understanding the priestly lover. The re 
 action of these two disparate and complex natures 
 upon each other is the arresting feature of the 
 novel. Unwittingly she touches the most danger 
 ous chords, bringing him finally to the declaration 
 that overwhelms her with horror. It is impossi- 
 
176 William Dean Howells 
 
 ble that she should not bruise him cruelly, but a 
 flood of comprehension and remorse compels her 
 at the parting moment to fling her arms about his 
 neck in a pitying embrace. 
 
 A Foregone Conclusion, although different from 
 most of Howells novels, more Continental in 
 theme and handling, is true to type in its elaborate 
 faithfulness to a background and to characters 
 thoroughly known to him. The life of Ferris, 
 while not autobiographical, reflects perfectly the 
 spirit of the life he must have led as Consul to 
 Venice, with an air almost of self -consciousness in 
 the change of avocation from literature to paint 
 ing. In his next novel, Private Theatricals, which 
 appeared in the Atlantic Monthly from November, 
 1875, to May, 1876, he seems to have overstepped 
 the bounds of propriety in this regard, for the 
 book, which appeared in Edinburgh, was sup 
 pressed. Mr. Pattee guessed the reason, and a 
 writer for the Bookman, who signs himself 
 "Bicus," claims to have first-hand information 
 that the inhabitants of the little mountain resort 
 where the scene is laid, furious at the portraits of 
 themselves which they found between the covers 
 of the Atlantic, threatened Howells with the 
 law. 7 Parenthetically, it may interest biblio 
 philes to know that the suppression of Niagara 
 Revisited (1884) was for a different reason, al 
 though the same might be surmised. The truth is, 
 however, that that pamphlet was in its original 
 form written and printed as railroad advertising 
 matter, and the difficulties which led to the de- 
 
 1 " A Suppressed Novel of Mr. Howells in the Bookman 
 (1910), 32:201. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 177 
 
 struction of the edition were pecuniary. Private 
 Theatricals has posthumously (1921) been added 
 to the list of Howells works as Mrs. Farrell, and 
 happily so, containing as it does his only full 
 length portrait of a true flirt. Its problem 
 is the delicate one of the misery left in the 
 trail of a heartless coquette, and it is premoni 
 tory of the reversion from the style of A Fore 
 gone Conclusion to the earlier manner of A 
 Chance Acquaintance a reversion brought fully 
 to pass in The Lady of the Aroostook (1879). 
 It is still true in a sense that A Foregone Conclu 
 sion inaugurates a second period in his work, just 
 as there is a certain justification for dating a third 
 from A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), but 
 these " periods " are very scornful of chronology, 
 and The Lady of the Aroostook, except that it is 
 an " international " novel and makes audible the 
 " conscience " motif, carries on the spirit and tra 
 dition of Their Wedding Journey and A Chance 
 Acquaintance. Like the latter, it is aimed directly 
 at Boston. 
 
 The Lady of the Aroostook seems to me to enjoy 
 a reputation somewhat beyond its deserving. It 
 is pronounced by Harry Thurston Peck the most 
 perfect story that American literature has yet 
 produced, 8 and is constantly cited in private 
 conversation as the most characteristic of all 
 Howells productions. It is a story whose pecu 
 liar charm makes even the slightest detraction 
 appear mean and ungrateful, but this is surely 
 to make it shine at the expense of many of How- 
 ells nobler works. Its heroine, Lydia Blood, is a 
 
 9 The Personal Equation (1898), p. 26. 
 
178 William Dean Howells 
 
 New England edition of Kitty Ellison, rather than 
 "a second Marcia Hubbard, but with finer traits/ 
 as Harry Thurston Peck has it, displaying among 
 other local attributes the New England conscience, 
 a malady destined direly to afflict some of How- 
 ells later creations. Her function is identical 
 with Kitty s, to represent the true gentility of de 
 mocracy as opposed to the snobbery of a super 
 ficially Europeanized society. The sharpest shot 
 is delivered in having her originality and her fine 
 instincts appreciated in a society with more con 
 ventions than it could possibly know what to do 
 with. This is typical of Howells handling of the 
 so-called international situation, which differs 
 from that of Henry James in conceiving the situa 
 tion in its dramatic rather than in its critical as 
 pect. That is to say, he is concerned with mutual 
 reactions; and so far from seeing in the conven 
 tions of a stable social organization something 
 sacred, fixed, and immutable, he is impressed by 
 the fact that Europeans themselves do not regard 
 them so. And if some of his heroines do redound 
 rather too much to the credit of America, they are 
 at least as true as Daisy Miller. 
 
 He here seeks to have Lydia Blood prove herself 
 a "lady" in a situation so unladylike as to har 
 row up the souls of Anglicized Bostonians. Ac 
 cordingly, he gets her, after it has been arranged 
 that she shall be sent to her aunt in Venice, aboard 
 the freighter Aroostook, where it is discovered 
 that she is the only woman on board, and is mak 
 ing the voyage with three men passengers, not to 
 speak of the crew. It must be confessed that the 
 situation is shorn somewhat of its horror by the 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 179 
 
 previous introduction of Lydia s protector, the 
 fatherly Captain Jenness, an incarnation of bluff 
 courtesy, kindness, and loyalty, who has an old 
 sea-dog s habit of saying grace at meals; but if 
 we are to judge by the conduct of the two " gentle 
 men, " Mr. Stamford and Mr. Dunham, the thing 
 is passing bold. These exquisites are many days 
 out before they recover from the shock. They 
 give the matter a most exhaustive analysis, debat 
 ing ways and means of keeping their fair fellow- 
 passenger unconscious of the anomaly of her po 
 sition, no very difficult matter it seems, and ut 
 terly unable to do the one possible thing accept 
 the situation. 
 
 The story falls into three parts, geographical as 
 well as structural: the New England village of 
 Lydia s origin, which is inimitably done ; the voy 
 age, which will at length become dull to those of 
 limited liking for the conversation in gramaphonic 
 record of Messrs. Stanif ord and Dunham ; and the 
 international events at Trieste and Venice, which 
 ought briskly to refresh the weary. Messrs. 
 Stanif ord and Dunham indeed outshine all others 
 of the Howells "gentlemen" in their capacity for 
 protracted and cattish gossip. Their effeminate 
 interest in Lydia s gowns and their perturbation 
 over the mild provincialism of her speech are end 
 less. The book ought always to live by virtue of 
 its truly monumental study of South Bradfield, 
 to which there is a happy reversion at the end. 
 We are given not merely a wealth of factual de 
 tail concerning existence among the New England 
 villagers their habits of thought, their peculiar 
 intonations in speech, and minutiae such as their 
 
180 William Dean Howells 
 
 preference of Japan to China tea but pictorial 
 embodiments that defy obliteration. The parlor 
 lamp of pea-green glass and red woollen wick that 
 sheds its radiance from Miss Maria s centre-table 
 has a value that is unforgettable. The wisest 
 words uttered by Harry Thurston Peck, the most 
 enthusiastic commentator on this novel, are his 
 cry of wonder and delight at that lamp, which 
 " alone is sufficient claim to immortality, for its 
 glow, somehow or other, makes the whole lif e and 
 aspect of South Bradfield perceptible at a 
 glance. " 9 
 
 Howells intolerance in his criticism of anything 
 remotely resembling traditional machinery in the 
 conduct of a story, justifies one, I think, in being 
 rigorously critical of his own work in this regard. 
 He has even cast a reflection upon the impeccable 
 Jane, apropos of Louisa Musgrove s jumping 
 from the sea-wall at Lyme Regis in Persuasion. 
 So I am emboldened to say that I find the devices 
 of The Lady of the Aroostook rather " obvious, " 
 in particular, the rescue of Hicks. Howells has 
 elsewhere in his novels as well as in his criticism 
 been at great pains to demonstrate the futility of 
 trying to redeem a hero by making him take part 
 in a rescue or other heroic exploit. That can be 
 done only by making the nobility inherent in his 
 character. Yet the knights-errant of Sir Walter, 
 imbued as they are with the ideals of a vanished 
 chivalry, do not commonly participate in adven 
 turous episodes more unconvincing than that in 
 which he seeks to redeem Stamford. The letter 
 device, also, could easily be strengthened if not 
 
 9 The Personal Equation (1898), p. 28. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 181 
 
 removed from the category of accident, say by 
 having the porter steal it for the stamps, after a 
 manner far from rare among the race of hotel por 
 ters. Howells was either uncommonly fortunate 
 or uncommonly wise in that his Italian experience 
 did not dictate such an enhancement to the realism 
 of his study. Then there is the heart-easing chap 
 ter descriptive of the wedding, which appears to 
 be a conventional falling-off from the high cour 
 age displayed in A Chance Acquaintance; but it 
 must be conceded that Staniford is by no means 
 so impossible a match as Mr. Arbuton. The 
 Aroostook is conveniently laid up for repairs in 
 order that Captain Jenness may attend the cere 
 mony, and that his cheery prophecy of happiness 
 may fortify the reader against the speculations of 
 more discerning friends. 
 
 The Undiscovered Country (1880), reminiscent 
 of The Blithedale Romance, in which Howells un 
 der the influence of Hawthorne falls into a mild 
 and pretty strain of symbolism of a kind that he 
 is wont studiously to avoid, brings to mind his 
 curious critical judgment expressing no uncertain 
 preference for that one among all Hawthorne s 
 novels. I am not sure that when he came to write 
 Heroines of Fiction it lay at all heavily upon his 
 mind to justify that odd preference ; but I do feel 
 that the reader of those causeries must agree with 
 me that they unwittingly exhibit the greatness of 
 The Scarlet Letter. His exaggerated antipathy to 
 symbolism explains his coldness toward The Mar 
 ble Faun; and it is not difficult to understand why 
 he should like least of all The House of the Seven 
 Gables, hovering as it does between heaven and 
 
182 William Dean Howells 
 
 earth. Yet his dismissal of the latter book one 
 might not be prepared for, since, not to mention 
 the fact that Hawthorne has scarcely equalled its 
 minute photography elsewhere, the symbolism is 
 more firmly integrated than in The Marble Faun; 
 that is, there is little so completely externalized as 
 the faun s ears and Hilda s doves. But perhaps 
 that is the very reason: the symbolism of The 
 House of the Seven Gables simply cannot be 
 evaded. 
 
 There are fancies in Howells earlier books, 
 it is true, which indicate a capacity for such indul 
 gence as we find here. There is, for example, a 
 rose in A Chance Acquaintance which one expects 
 momently to become a symbolic rose ; and on the 
 gray morning that closes Kitty s love drama the 
 heavens are made to weep a fine autumnal rain in 
 the garden of the Ursalines. More striking than 
 anything elsewhere to be found, however, is the 
 symbolic value which the dullest reader must at 
 tach to the inventions of the Venetian priest, Don 
 Ippolito, in A Foregone Conclusion, foreshadow 
 ing as they do the final strife after the impossible 
 which is to bring his tragic life to its close. The 
 episode of his repairing the fountain may even be 
 said to have no other than a symbolic value. 
 
 In the present story, the spiritualist, Dr. Boyn- 
 ton, and his daughter, Egeria, have found refuge 
 in a community of Shakers. Egeria, her nerves 
 shattered by her experiences as her father s me 
 dium, succumbs to the rigors of the journey, a 
 journey made very rigorous indeed by her fa 
 ther s utter helplessness in the world of railroads, 
 and falls ill with a fever. Old Boynton, who has 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 183 
 
 dedicated his child to the study of truth, and ex 
 plains, I have seen her change from a creature of 
 robust, terrestrial tendencies to a being of moods 
 almost as ethereal as those of the spirits with 
 which it has been my struggle to associate her," 
 awaits her return to health, eager to resume ex 
 periments in his present favorable surroundings, 
 free from the atmosphere of mercenary, profes 
 sional mediumism. But as spring advances his 
 hitherto faithful subject takes an earthy joy in 
 the rich vitality of the season. The full tide of 
 youth, so long repressed by her sense of duty to 
 her father, comes surging back, and carries her 
 beyond his influence. The exquisite complement 
 to the episode is the autumnal decline of the old 
 man, who never recovers from the blow. " You 
 see/ he said, how they have tricked out my room 
 for me? and he indicated the boughs of colored 
 leaves, varied with bunches of wild asters and tops 
 of golden-rod, in which the Shakers had carried 
 him the autumn. * There isn t any healing in my 
 leaves, as there was in the flowers which they 
 brought Egeria this spring/ he added, with a 
 slight sigh, but there is sympathy sympa 
 thy. " 10 
 
 This book has three important bearings upon 
 its author s development as a novelist : it consti 
 tutes his first extended study in religious sectari 
 anism, a subject of great interest to him; it in 
 augurates his delvings into the occult ; and it rep 
 resents the apotheosis of the Howells love story. 
 Ford, the lover of Egeria, creates his story out of 
 his own sheer stupidity, making a rival of the in- 
 
 M The Undiscovered Country (1908), p. 316. 
 
184 William Dean Howells 
 
 nocent Hatch, who is guilty of nothing worse than 
 a more effectual kindness to the Boyntons than 
 his, a most unconvincing hallucination that per 
 sists until the actual engagement of Hatch to an 
 other is announced. While the most excessive 
 thing of its kind that Howells has given us, it is 
 readily forgiven on account of the finishing touch 
 which it lends to the figure of Sister Frances. 
 
 In Sister Frances, the most exquisite vignette 
 that ever adorned a novel, Howells has managed 
 to say more beautifully and with finer articula 
 tion than he has elsewhere said it, all that any one 
 could say from the standpoint of simple and 
 e very-day humanity, upon the subject of celibacy 
 in religious sects and orders. And by inheritance 
 and by virtue of early training in tolerance of ec 
 centric sectarianism and sympathy with it, he is 
 eminently qualified to pass judgment upon it. In 
 The Day of Their Wedding (1896), he has given 
 the comedy of the matter, in a lively chronicle of 
 the adventures of Althea Brown and Lorenzo 
 Weaver, who attempt to give up the "angelic 
 life" for the earthly order. 
 
 The volume in hand records his first skirmish 
 ing on the frontier of the undiscovered country, a 
 frontier which, needless to say, remains unpene- 
 trated in the novel of realism. Howells enthusi 
 asm was enlisted rather by the psychological prob 
 lems involved; his interest lay in the effects in 
 duced in the minds of investigators of supernor 
 mal phenomena, not so much in the phenomena 
 themselves. This being the case, it is not strictly 
 true to say that as the years rolled on he became 
 more and more skeptical with regard to them. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 185 
 
 What clearly happened was that he studied their 
 reaction upon more and more sophisticated ob 
 servers. The personnel of The Undiscovered 
 Country is worlds apart from the intellectually 
 veneered circle of Between the Dark and the Day 
 light. No greater disparity can be imagined than 
 that between the boundless faith of the visionary 
 whose portrait is drawn at full length in The Un 
 discovered Country, and the chill worldliness of 
 the little club of skeptics whose proceedings are 
 sketched in the short stories. This fact invites a 
 suspension of judgment on the question of How- 
 ells personal beliefs; but it does give a unique 
 value to Dr. Boynton among this class of his char 
 acters. 
 
 Dr. Boynton is a country physician who has lost 
 friends and practice in his blind and passionate 
 devotion to the occult. Sympathy, the sympathy 
 of understanding, is the motive for his portrayal ; 
 his creator abstains cautiously from idealizing 
 him. No attempt is made to repress the ironic 
 humor or to gloss the unlovely aspects which must 
 of necessity manifest themselves when a mortal 
 makes the hope of immortality the sole concern 
 of his earthly existence. He becomes capable of 
 reproaching himself for having in attending an 
 injured child neglected the larger duty to the race. 
 A clever stroke is that which makes him take the 
 hat of a gentleman who is in seance for the recov 
 ery of lost property. He is sublimely impatient 
 of all opposition to his theories, indulging in out 
 bursts of flamboyant rhetoric, swiftly to be suc 
 ceeded by moods of childlike repentance and rec 
 onciliation, as soon as a new theory is evolved in 
 
i86 William Dean Howells 
 
 his poor busy brain. His is not withal a simple 
 type of visionary ; he is actually endowed not only 
 with the race conscience but with a certain scien 
 tific attitude of mind, however amusing his claims 
 to its possession may sound; and there is a pa 
 thetic inevitability in his construction of a new 
 hypothesis out of the debris of his former theories 
 that spiritualism is not spiritualism at all, but 
 "a grosser materialism than that which denies; a 
 materialism that asserts and affirms, and appeals 
 for proof to purely physical phenomena. " 1 1 
 Finally, it is a true psychology that shows the 
 vigor of his speculative power triumphant over 
 the ruin of his life s hope, and permits him to die 
 in "an enthusiasm for death." 
 
 This striking and pathetic figure, Howells sec 
 ond venture with a bold and unusual type, exalts 
 his study, making it in the fullest sense a docu 
 ment in human character, not a mere expose. It 
 has, however, the latter nature as well: by way 
 of glaring contrast to the presence of Dr. Boyn- 
 ton and Egeria, and in order to reinforce the 
 idyllic value of the life depicted among the Shak 
 ers, it opens sordidly enough, plunging us at once 
 into the depths of mediumistic Boston, the Boston 
 of Henry James Bostonians. In this portion of 
 the story we scent the note-book a trifle more de 
 cidedly than in the depictions of Shaker life, but 
 the re-creation is not less masterly. Its somewhat 
 Zolaistic and documentary order accrues no doubt 
 from the more deliberate marshalling of types. 
 Howells has here been under necessity of exhibit- 
 
 "The Undiscovered Country (1908), p. 307. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 187 
 
 ing in smaller compass a representative variety 
 of charlatans and their habitues. 
 
 His interest in psychic problems did not wane. 
 The Shadow of a Dream (1890), one of the epi 
 sodes which entangle our friends the Marches, 
 must be mentioned because it pursues the matter 
 of dreams over onto the borderland of the specu 
 lative, although it has next to no value as a study 
 of such a problem, being primarily concerned with 
 morbid psychology. The crucial matter of divina 
 tion is needlessly evaded. It is a pale and melan 
 choly book, unrelieved by the light of normal in 
 telligences, a light which the Marches should fur 
 nish, but which they do not. The subject himself 
 seems no more sick of soul than all those who live 
 after him in the shadow of his dream. In The 
 Landlord at Lion s Head (1897), spiritism ap 
 pears purely as a realistic accessory, proposing no 
 problem, in the operations of Jackson Durgin and 
 Whitwell with the planchette. Howells late man 
 ner of treating the supernormal may be studied 
 first in the three tales comprising the volume 
 Questionable Shapes (1903) questionable, it 
 should be understood, in the modern, not in the 
 Shakespearian sense suggested by the title. They 
 indicate a familiarity with the Proceedings of the 
 Society for Psychical Eesearch. The sophisti 
 cated, not to say cynical, atmosphere into which 
 we now emerge is by comparison with The Shadow 
 of a Dream, altogether gay. 
 
 It is this lightened atmosphere that enables him 
 in the first story of the volume to defy the dictum 
 of ghost-tellers time out of mind that love interest 
 
i88 William Dean Howells 
 
 will not consort with the ghostly mood. What he 
 has really given us is not a weird tale but a maga 
 zine comedy in His Apparition apparition being 
 the scientific term for ghost, cleverly evasive of 
 the old but ever-thrilling connotation. The two 
 others are serious studies. The Angel of the 
 Lord deals with what is known to morbid psy 
 chology as "personification." The hero, haunted 
 by a consciousness of mortality, secludes himself 
 in his country home, where he revels in the Eng 
 lish poets of the grave, his obsession being finally 
 personified in the likeness of an angel of the Lord, 
 come to deliver him. Though One Rose from the 
 Dead, a study of telepathy and telepathic commu 
 nication after death, is the most interesting of the 
 group. We shall have occasion to refer to it 
 again, since it relates to the stories of the normal 
 through its peculiar doctrine of love. 
 
 In the volume Between the Dark and the Day 
 light (1907) are selected a number of later stories 
 dealing with abnormal phases of consciousness. 
 A Sleep and a Forgetting ingeniously gives a 
 speculative turn to the trite theme of suspension 
 of memory. "I was wondering, " says Lanfear, 
 "whether in some other possible life our con 
 sciousness would not be more independent of what 
 we have been than it seems to be here. I mean 
 whether there shall not be something absolute in 
 our existence, whether it shall not realize itself 
 more in each experience of the moment, and not 
 be always seeking to verify itself from the past." 
 The Eidolons of Brooks Alford builds a pretty 
 romance of the magazine variety upon the psycho- 
 physical phenomenon suggested by its title, by 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 189 
 
 which images present in the mind of the hero are 
 externated in his physical vision. A Memory 
 that Worked Overtime is likewise suggested hy its 
 title, a humorous episode quite possibly indebted 
 to the research of the late Hugo Mimsterberg. 
 A Case of Metaphantasmia gives a farcical turn 
 to the matter of dream transference, a subject 
 richly documented by the Proceedings of the So 
 ciety for Psychical Research, by having a night 
 mare communicated to a sleeping-car full of pas 
 sengers. 
 
 These interesting adventures in the psychical 
 were delayed by Howells absorption in the more 
 pragmatic problem of the personal conscience. At 
 the time of The Undiscovered Country (1880) he 
 had already been fascinated by the phenomenon 
 known as the New England conscience, that grim 
 aftercrop of Puritanism, " he somewhere calls it, 
 which flourishes so long after blue law has per 
 ished. He had noted the infection in The Lady of 
 the Aroostook (1879), and continued his study of 
 it in many later books, but in Dr. Breen s Prac 
 tice (1881) he gave us its apotheosis. Grace 
 Breen is the encyclopedian creation who unites in 
 herself all the morbid manifestations of a " hypo 
 chondria of the soul" which has outlived its relig 
 ious phase and persists in the ethical condition. 
 Grace has undertaken the medical profession with 
 the sole idea of. service, and plans to go to one of 
 the great factory towns, there to begin practice 
 among the operatives. Her plans are interfered 
 with by her duty to a private patient, thrust upon 
 her in the person of an old school friend, Mrs. 
 Maynard, invalided and separated from her hus- 
 
igo William Dean Howells 
 
 band (it is not difficult to understand why). She 
 represents perverse femininity in the most vicious 
 form that Howells had imagined up to the time the 
 novel was written. To this deadly combination is 
 added the nagging of Grace s mother, Mrs. Breen. 
 "She was an old lady, who had once kept a vigi 
 lant conscience for herself ; but after making her 
 life unhappy with it for some three-score years, 
 she now applied it entirely to the exasperation 
 and condemnation of others. She especially de 
 voted it to fretting a New England girPs natu 
 rally morbid sense of duty in her daughter, and 
 keeping it in the irritation of perpetual self- 
 question. " 12 
 
 The early portion of the book suffers from a 
 gloom like that of the later Fennel and Rue 
 (1908), though by no means so implacable in its 
 analysis as that sinister study. It merely lacks the 
 fine chiaroscuro to which Howells has habituated 
 us. The lighter character of Mr. Libby is too in 
 consequent, lacks the weight necessary for relief. 
 He is the nice young man we know so well. Even 
 the first part, however, is superior to Fennel and 
 Rue by virtue of its motivation and its strongly 
 limned characters, but above all in its earthiness. 
 It is grey and neutral, but substantial, being given 
 a mundane atmosphere through the modulated 
 though sombre tones of beach and sea. Fennel 
 and ~Rue is Henry James reduced to morbidity ; 
 but there is an exultant and barbaric note in Dr. 
 Breen s Practice which is Charlotte Bronte hav 
 ing suffered a sea-change. 
 
 In this novel Howells is reticent with analysis, 
 
 M Dr. Breen s Practice (1881), p. 13. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 191 
 
 but implacable in conjoining the forces which 
 unite in their savage energy to keep this poor girl 
 faithful to her false ideal. If there were but a 
 drop of human sympathy and tenderness in the 
 relation of Grace and her patient, if the sacrifice 
 were ennobled by a love which could sometimes 
 shake itself free from the clutch of duty, if a spark 
 of gratitude could only flame steadily for a little 
 space, it would not so wear the nerves. Mrs. May- 
 nard, however, is incapable of anything but 
 sparks; her metier is to exhibit feminine whims 
 and vagaries. The peevishness of the patient, the 
 withered conscience of the mother, the live and 
 quivering conscience of Grace, stirred to re 
 doubled action by the force of advanced ideas, all 
 form a manifold that fairly grills the nerves. At 
 last, like a shaft of sunlight, enters Dr. Mulbridge 
 with his brutal declaration: "I m not a doctor of 
 divinity. He laughs her conscience to scorn, but 
 counts upon it to win him her hand, knowing that 
 she cannot fulfill her life s plan alone. In the 
 supreme struggle, however, love conquers duty. 
 The conspiring forces overreach themselves, and 
 the girl, in an intoxication of freedom, not only 
 gives herself to the man she loves, but plans to go 
 to Boston for a season of opera. But, alas, this 
 orgy consummated, and the supreme aesthetic dis 
 sipation of a trip to Italy realized, she is a Puri 
 tan still, and her husband mercifully finds a way 
 for her to turn her professional training to ac 
 count in the service of his operatives children. 
 "At the end of the ends," comments her author, 
 "she was a Puritan; belated, misdated, if the 
 reader will, and cast upon good works for the 
 
192 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 consolation which the Puritans formerly found in 
 a creed. Riches and ease were sinful to her, and 
 somehow to be atoned for; and she had no real 
 love for anything that was not of an immediate 
 humane and spiritual effect/ 13 
 
 The consensus of reviewers finds in Dr. Breen s 
 Practice an anti-feminist document, on account 
 of its heroine s failure in a profession at a time 
 when women were beginning to enter the profes 
 sions. There is more evidence for regarding it as 
 a satire on the medical profession in general. 
 Likewise, An Imperative Duty (1891) was re 
 ceived as a discussion of the race problem, because 
 its heroine, whose grandmother was a negress, 
 marries a white man. It would be difficult to re 
 fute any one who should insist upon a polemic 
 intent in the earlier novel, but An Imperative 
 Duty so clearly discourages such unwarranted 
 divination that it may serve as a warning applica 
 ble to the case of its predecessor. The ending, in 
 which Olney marries Rhoda and takes her to Italy, 
 where she passes for an Italian, almost univer 
 sally pronounced a weak solution, is transparently 
 intended to preclude raising the question at all. 
 If offered as a solution, the word weak would fail 
 to describe it. The real question is whether 
 Rhoda s aunt, Mrs. Meredith, another exemplar 
 of the prodigious conscience, is duty bound to re 
 veal a secret which would bring tragedy into at 
 least two lives. It is a more intense and scathing 
 dramatic exposition than Dr. Breen s Practice of 
 how the "Puritan civilization has carried the cult 
 of the personal conscience into mere dutiola- 
 
 " Dr. Breen s Practice (1881), p. 270. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 193 
 
 try. " 14 I do not know how critical obtuseness has 
 rendered Howells ranker injustice than in accus 
 ing him of dealing flippantly with the race prob 
 lem. Omey s joking is a pathetic effort to draw 
 his wife out of her morbid self -probing and self- 
 denunciation, for she had inherited too little from 
 "the sunny-natured antetypes of her mo ther s 
 race, too little of t i the heaven-born cheerfulness 
 with which it meets contumely and injustice. " 16 
 He is not successful in combating her sense of 
 guilt, any more than love and Italy could infuse 
 the joy of life apart from service into the Calvin- 
 ized soul of Grace Breen. Of course, Howells 
 pity for the black people is infinite, imperiously 
 dictated by his ever-present sense of humanity, 
 but An Imperative Duty is not a brief for them, 
 being concerned only with the problem which its 
 title states. The only sort of equality it demands 
 for them is equality before their Maker, an ideal 
 which its author finds more nearly realized in the 
 Church of Rome than in any of the Protestant 
 denominations. 
 
 The same passion for pointing a moral of easy 
 applicability has discovered A Woman s Reason 
 (1883) to be an educational tract, a book for all 
 rich girls to read and take to heart against the 
 time when their papas must die insolvent and 
 leave them to battle alone against a cruel and sor 
 did world which would deny them bread. The fact 
 is that Helen Harkness, had she been given the 
 advantage of a business and industrial education, 
 would nevertheless have been at an insuperable 
 
 14 An Imperative Duty (1891), p. 132. 
 p. 149. 
 
194 William Dean Howells 
 
 disadvantage in the economic struggle, for she too 
 has the demoniacal conscience. She has also her 
 quota of that New England stubbornness of will 
 with which Mrs. Wilkins-Freeman so freely en 
 dows her provincial characters. This trait is a 
 breeder of woes more prolific for Helen than the 
 conscience, but worse than either is her native 
 shallowness and general incompetency to cope 
 with any situation. Furthermore, her lover, 
 Eobert Fenton, who might have brought her to 
 her senses, is, impossible though it may seem, 
 more incompetent than she, which calls to mind 
 sundry observations of Balzac on the difficulties 
 of demonstrating anything from the conduct of 
 shallow persons. In fact, the spectacle of Miss 
 Harkness among the bread-winners argues more 
 feebly than the frank and simple caricature of the 
 pampered daughter of society delivered in the 
 person of Muriel, the heroine of A Sea-Change. 
 No sort of education, in short, is potent to pro 
 duce a Helen Harkness. 
 
 Her sad story, which is doubled in length by the 
 accident of a ship s breaking its shaft, is made 
 possible at all only by Fenton s folly in taking her 
 at her word when she says she cannot be his, 
 whereupon he secures a post in China, through ex 
 change with a brother officer. Even then, Mrs. 
 Butler "felt that all Helen need really do was to 
 go to Europe with her, and return to marry Rob 
 ert Fenton as soon as he could get leave to come 
 home." 16 Instead, the interim is passed in futile 
 attempts at financial independence, the finer sen 
 sibilities dictating that she give away what little 
 
 A Woman s Season (1883), p. 170. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 195 
 
 money she has. In the case of her giving up her 
 entire estate of five thousand dollars, against the 
 vehement advice of her lawyer, we are left to un 
 derstand that there actually was fraud in the auc 
 tion lay which it was saved to her, the selling price 
 of her father s property being run up by fictitious 
 bids. But the facts in the case were unknown to 
 Helen in her quixotic determination; so we can 
 applaud, if we care to applaud, only the triumph 
 of feminine divination. 
 
 The most unconvincing episode is her endeavor 
 to make a living by ceramics, an episode which 
 surely overleaps its au thor s purpose, posing this 
 exemplar of the fine sensibilities in a hopelessly 
 vulgar light. To take her painted vases to a jew 
 eler s shop, she must needs ride in a carriage; 
 and finding that she is known to the dealer, she is 
 utterly unable to explain what she wants done 
 with her wares, but makes an ignominious flight. 
 She finally succeeds in leaving them at another 
 shop. She actually survives the shame of seeing 
 her work exposed to the public for sale. But then 
 comes the catastrophe, the last ignominy to which 
 she helplessly succumbs. Some of the vases are 
 sold. Now, even were one willing to take it on 
 trust that a "lady" would be outraged on learn 
 ing that some one had purchased her vases painted 
 for that purpose, what stretch of imagination 
 could picture her venting her wrath upon the inno 
 cent shopkeeper, or indignantly demanding of the 
 purchaser the motive for his insolence? 
 
 There has here occurred a temporary but inter 
 esting breakdown of Ho wells objective technique, 
 a natural result of employing so fine an instru- 
 
196 William Dean Howells 
 
 ment on crude stock materials. His efforts at de 
 tachment are laborious, and it is difficult to say 
 whether Helen suffers the more from idealization 
 or ridicule. He now feels it necessary to cajole his 
 reader into an admiration for her "fine sensibili 
 ties " and again, as in the episode of the vases, 
 lunges boldly into satire, in perfect confidence that 
 the reader catches her ladylike witchery. Her 
 story would pass with slight alteration either for 
 one of those familiar tales of the noble poor, such 
 as Octave Feuillet s Roman d un Jeune Homme 
 Pauvre, or for a capital burlesque of them. The 
 satiric note is struck again and again, as in 
 Helen s romantic notion of being in humble cir 
 cumstances when Robert conies to claim her: 
 " Don t you see? I must be here, and I must be 
 wretched, to be perfectly true to him." 17 Then 
 come explanations. "She saw the reasonableness 
 of pain," it is urged, "that to a coarser sense 
 would only have been ludicrous." 18 
 
 But Helen s story is only the half. The agonies 
 of Fenton, who after the separation is attacked 
 by a malignant nostalgia and love-sickness, might 
 have been copied out of some mediaeval adaptation 
 of Ovid, did not the heroes of courtly romance 
 know better how to ease their malady. He furi 
 ously resents all attempts to send him home ; but 
 the poor doctor, who is treated worse than the 
 purchaser of Helen s vases, finally has him or 
 dered back with dispatches. The doctor s relief, 
 however, is not shared by the reader. Fearful 
 adventures are brought to pass on coral islands, 
 
 " A Woman s Season (1883), p. 212. 
 " Ibid., p. 205. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 197 
 
 among man-eating sharks and what not, which 
 prolong indefinitely the separation of the lovers. 
 
 This portion of the novel warrants careful scru 
 tiny by students of the narrative art, for it ex 
 hibits a curious technical perversion to which 
 Howells is very naturally subject in writing ro 
 mance. Instead of aiming to induce that "volun 
 tary suspension of disbelief " which Coleridge 
 fixed upon as the desideratum in dealing poeti 
 cally with the supernatural, and which all skilful 
 romancers like Marion Crawford and Kobert 
 Louis Stevenson secure in dealing fictionally with 
 the improbable, he undertakes to inspire convic 
 tion by forestalling his reader in pointing out the 
 impossibility of his events, seeming to point with 
 pride to his realism in dissipating the spirit and 
 aroma of adventure. The motive will at first 
 blush strike the reader as either amateurishly 
 apologetic or satiric, but he will finally come to 
 view the author in the naive attitude of assuring 
 him that, whereas such things have hitherto hap 
 pened only in cheap romances, here, strange to 
 say, we have them occurring in actual fact. This 
 curious literary self-consciousness, I am sorry 
 to say, is not a sporadic manifestation in Howells 
 art, oddly as it consorts with an art so fine ; it first 
 appeared as the comparatively innocuous manner 
 ism noted in Their Wedding Journey, and is in 
 deed innocuous enough in A Woman s Reason so 
 long as the events to which he is calling attention 
 are natural and real. 
 
 He carefully calls our attention to the "series 
 of trivial chances" employed in contriving Helen s 
 story "those chances of real life which one must 
 
198 William Dean Howells 
 
 hesitate to record because they have so much the 
 air of having been contrived!" 19 One can only 
 regret the intrusions of this mannerism, since the 
 coincidences that call them forth stand on their 
 own merits. Sometimes they are lifelike and 
 amusing, sometimes unreal. The special Provi 
 dence, as Jessie Butler declares it, which ar 
 ranges that Helen shall meet Lord Eainford, her 
 noble suitor, at Mrs. Wilson s, after being hurried 
 there to avoid him, is well engineered, for exam 
 ple; but there is a distressing insincerity about 
 the "trivial chance" by which Margaret s hus 
 band is blown up at the glass works. He was a 
 coarse fellow who objected in very unrefined 
 terms to Helen s coming in and breaking up his 
 home; but his taking off was not in punishment 
 for this, as the reader is left to suppose, but solely 
 to permit Margaret to resume her duties as 
 Helen s housekeeper without the indecorum of a 
 quarrel. Eobert is at hand; the Fenton home 
 would not be complete without Margaret, and 
 nothing must be suffered to mar the happiness in 
 which the long tale draws to its close. We do not 
 here detect that solicitude for the happiness of 
 laboring men which is shortly to loom so large in 
 Howells work after he no longer permitted him 
 self to turn aside from his real work to do ro 
 mancing. 
 
 It must not be believed that such a piece of 
 "nefarious art," John M. Eobertson brands it, is 
 characteristic of this period of Howells career as 
 a novelist. It was permitted immediately to fol 
 low the strong and sincere novel, A Modern In- 
 
 A Woman s Reason (1883), p. 453. 
 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 199 
 
 stance (1882), and it in turn was followed by The 
 Rise of Silas Lapham (1884), one of the very high 
 est reaches of his art. Immediately before A 
 Modern Instance appeared another inferior work, 
 A Fearful Responsibility (1881), but in this novel 
 or novelette the author does not take his re 
 sponsibilities as an artist quite so lightly as he 
 did in A Woman s Reason. 
 
 The invalid professor in this story, Owen El- 
 more, who goes abroad during the Civil War to 
 work on what is referred to as a national enter 
 prise, since so many Americans projected it, a 
 history of Venice, has neither the brains nor the 
 spine to bear a responsibility. The responsibility 
 is nevertheless foisted upon him in the person of 
 a young sister of one of his wife s friends, and 
 the international drama begins. What fills the 
 soul of the professor with trembling and dismay 
 is the prospect of Miss Mayhew s making ac 
 quaintances in an unconventional manner, not his 
 real duty to investigate and appraise the worth 
 of the young Austrian officer whose acquaintance 
 she does make. Horror of the unconventional 
 situation paralyzes him, precluding all the useful 
 efforts that a sane and normal man might make in 
 behalf of his charge. His brutal dismissal of Von 
 Ehrhardt, whose letter enclosing the proposal of 
 marriage he acknowledges "touchingly brave and 
 fine," 20 causes him poignant remorse later, but 
 that helps the story very little. The pity is that 
 Von Ehrhardt is dismissed by the author as well 
 as by his crazy hero. This is regrettable not 
 merely because he makes fair promise of becom- 
 
 30 A Fearful Responsibility (1881), p. 78. 
 
2OO William Dean Howells 
 
 ing one of the most valuable and original con 
 tributions to the foreign sketches, a complement 
 to the trifling officers drawn in The Lady of the 
 AroostooJc and Indian Summer, but because with 
 out knowing him we can make nothing of Lily s 
 disappointment. The author s way of patching 
 this up is to take away the disappointment. He 
 descends unwillingly to exegesis; but presently, 
 almost congratulating us on our ignorance of the 
 facts, he begins to hint that Elmore s regrets were 
 unfounded, and that Lily, after all her agonies, 
 did not care so very much. It finally appears, 
 then, that the only person whom the story could 
 possibly concern is Elmore, who would have made 
 a tragedy of life under any circumstances. 
 
 "He could not at once realize that the tragedy 
 of this romance, such as it was, remained to him 
 alone, except perhaps as Ehrhardt shared it. 
 With him, indeed, Elmore still sought to fret his 
 remorse and keep it poignant, and his final fail 
 ure to do so made him ashamed. But what last 
 ing sorrow can one have from the disappointment 
 of a man whom one has never seen ? If Lily could 
 console herself, it seemed probable that Ehrhardt 
 too had got along/ 
 
 The reader may pertinently ask here, as in con 
 nection with A Woman s Reason, what has be 
 fallen Howells with his great principle of objec 
 tivity and detachment; and here again I think it 
 may fairly be answered that he has not flagged in 
 his strife to attain it. His method, however, has 
 defeated its own end. Thus, the suppression of 
 
 *A Fearful Responvibility (1881), p. 163. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 201 
 
 fact which, necessitates the descent to bald exe 
 gesis is presumably in the interest of detachment, 
 to convey a strikingly veracious impression of 
 life s incertitude for the casual observer. The 
 death of Mrs. Meredith in An Imperative Duty is 
 a successful instance; but aloofness for its own 
 sake, as we have it in A Fearful Responsibility, 
 is hardly worth while. We are here invited to 
 take delight in a situation not "subject to inter 
 pretation, " as Henry James liked his situations, 
 but subject merely to pointless guessing. It is not 
 so that certain French masters who have made a 
 fetich of objectivity dispose their materials. How 
 artfully De Maupassant contrives that nothing 
 shall be withheld, and that what is given shall 
 have its full effect! Howells, in this story, by 
 getting himself so deeply engrossed in his poor 
 professor s qualms and fears, deprives him of 
 some of his best effects and actually fails to bring 
 off the one big joke of his career. De Maupas 
 sant, without injustice to the merits of Owen El- 
 more, would have raised hilarious laughter at his 
 being recalled to America to become the head of a 
 military college. 
 
 I have dwelt on these two stories of Howells not 
 for the sake of passing judgment upon them but 
 to illustrate in the first instance his incapacity for 
 handling second-rate materials, and in the second 
 a limitation of his literary method which does not 
 often betray itself so disastrously, but which does 
 lend some of his highly successful stories an air of 
 being mere tours de force. The Story of a Play 
 (1898), for example, is a dazzling piece of tech 
 nique but leaves with its reader a certain sense 
 
202 William Dean Howells 
 
 not of futility perhaps, but of undue lavishness in 
 the means by which it brings about its simple end. 
 This novel gives us the private history of Mr. 
 Brice Maxwell s first play, from composition 
 through the vicissitudes of placing and rehearsal 
 to final triumph. Mrs. Maxwell, who will be re 
 membered by readers of The Quality of Mercy as 
 Miss Louise Hilary, has allowed a good deal of 
 her own courtship to be written into her husband s 
 play, and sentimental memories color her whole 
 attitude toward it. The situation is further com 
 plicated by the presence in the cast of the actor 
 Launcelot Godolphin, whose instinct for collabora 
 tion, and whose capacity for inspired clap-trap, 
 which he wishes incorporated into the drama that 
 is to make his fortune, may be feebly inferred 
 from his name. The crisis is brought about by the 
 discovery of a real emotional actress with i smoul 
 dering eyes," who promises to assure the success 
 of the production, but who takes away the honors 
 from Godolphin and by the liberal infusion of 
 passion violates everything in the play that makes 
 it sacred to Louise. Now this, which is in reality 
 a very simple problem, becomes an intrigue of 
 astonishing complexity as the author carries it on 
 through chapter after chapter without once con 
 descending to take his side with any participant. 
 Here is clearly a case in which the verbal art, how 
 ever cunning, cannot give the full effect of life. 
 One personal attendance at rehearsal would solve 
 for the spectator the whole problem of the woman 
 with the smouldering eyes. With nothing but what 
 an impartial author is willing to give us, however, 
 we must witness the thing from a thousand angles 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 203 
 
 and collect the most amazing variety of evidence. 
 The defect of this method as here displayed is that 
 we are really more concerned with the adroitness 
 of the author than with the aspirations of any of 
 his characters. The objection to calling it a 
 shallow or superficial method, however, is that in 
 the process we secure accurate measures of the 
 jealousy and sentimentality of Louise and arrive 
 at a comprehension of her mind and heart such as 
 we could never have attained had the author told 
 us all about them. 
 
 To show Howells method in the fulness of its 
 triumph it is unnecessary to turn to the more am 
 bitious works, A Modern Instance and The Rise of 
 Silas Lapham, that appeared at the time of A 
 Woman s Reason and A Fearful Responsibility. 
 These will be treated in the next chapter. In 
 Indian Summer (1885) he achieved what seems to 
 me perfection in the vein of The Lady of the 
 Aroostook. I am quite unable to follow my favor 
 ite commentator, John M. Robertson, in his dis 
 satisfaction with this book; I can only with diffi 
 culty catch the point of view, a thoroughly unsym 
 pathetic one, from which the ending in which the 
 fat Adonis of forty is "severed from the too ini 
 tiative young woman and saved to the too obstruc 
 tive widow" appears "so merely childish as to 
 move derision. 22 This ending was begun on the 
 very first page of the novel. 
 
 In his attitude toward the personages of the 
 story, Howells is happy throughout, but signally 
 so in the case of Imogene Grahame, the romantic 
 young lady. To the reader who keeps Helen 
 
 * Essays Toward a Critical Method (1889), p. 115. 
 
204 William Dean Howells 
 
 Harkness in mind, Imogene must appear a veri 
 table triumph of the author over himself, so com 
 plete is his superiority to her. He never leaves us 
 with the suspicion that her sentimental notions 
 are not her very own. He sometimes goes out of 
 his way to portray her from a fresh angle, but 
 these occasions, such as the one on which he em 
 ploys a whole band of German students, are al 
 ways welcome. 
 
 The principal characters are not precisely sen 
 sible people, but they are quite different from the 
 mental weaklings of A Fearful Responsibility. 
 Hence, though their situation is essentially of 
 their own making, they prove something. They 
 illustrate life in a selective phase, a highly selec 
 tive phase, perhaps beyond or beneath the reach 
 of a more pretentious art. Certainly the problem 
 of love between persons of disparate ages is em 
 bellished with subtler shades of thought and feel 
 ing than Turgeniev had opportunity to display in 
 his serious treatment of the theme. And I can 
 think of no one who in a novel has elaborated with 
 such a wealth of exquisite nuance, and with so 
 keen an eye for its humorous and whimsical as 
 well as its pathetic aspects, the emotion voiced 
 with divine despair in Tennyson s immortal lyric, 
 Tears, Idle Tears. " 
 
 Theodore Colville is no hero, but it is readily 
 understood why he became a successful Indiana 
 journalist, while a godlike imagination is required 
 to figure Owen Elmore at the head of a military 
 college or Robert Fenton as a naval officer. Col 
 ville has just crossed the meridian of forty, when 
 political reverses and freedom from professional 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 205 
 
 duties turn him toward Europe and youthful 
 dreams of architecture. Age, he discovers, has 
 brought in its disillusionments and he has not 
 yet lived. He suffers a cosmic incompatibility, 
 more acutely than James Christopher Newman; 
 and even as Christopher, he makes a desperate, 
 sometimes despairing effort to play the flaneur. 
 He achieves a very complex, a fatal state of mind 
 and heart in which to meet Imogene Grahame, so 
 beautiful, so susceptible, so keenly interested in 
 his emotional history, so eager to sacrifice herself 
 for some noble ideal. This follows a chance en 
 counter with his old acquaintance Mrs. Bowen on 
 the Ponte Vecchio. Mrs. Bowen, a charming 
 widow, until we know her better, just in the bloom 
 of maturity, is placed in a delicate situation as 
 Imogene J s protectress. The devious course by 
 which Imogene s sacrifice is averted to her advan 
 tage must be followed leisurely to be enjoyed. 
 
 Howells has done nothing more enjoyable in his 
 lighter vein, combining as this story does the sa 
 lient features of the international novel, the love 
 romance, and the conscience story, without excess, 
 over-emphasis, or disproportion. Colville is some 
 what obtuse, as must be, but he does not share the 
 monumental stupidity of Ford, the lover in The 
 Undiscovered Country. He proves his courage in 
 an accident, but an accident free from the heroics 
 of The Lady of the Aroostook. And he champions 
 the social institutions of American democracy 
 wisely if not so well as certain earlier and later 
 compatriots. In the picturesque quality of its 
 Florentine setting the novel does not fall below the 
 high excellence to which Howells has habituated 
 
206 William Dean Howells 
 
 us, although this feature is less ornately accom 
 plished than the Venetian background against 
 which A Foregone Conclusion plays. Indian Sum 
 mer is, in a word, a sublimated synthesis of the 
 elements that define the so-called early manner, 
 though that manner be a scant respecter of chro 
 nology. 
 
 The novels immediately succeeding Indian Sum 
 mer mark Howells return in deadly earnest to his 
 researches in morbid conscientiousness. In The 
 Minister s Charge; or the Apprenticeship of 
 Lemuel Barker (1887) we encounter the dawn of 
 Tolstoian humanitarianism, but a dark and cheer 
 less dawn, scarcely distinguishable from the sul 
 len twilight of Puritanism. It is the precursor of 
 the sociological novels, avowedly Tolstoian, which 
 begin with Annie Kilburn (1888) ; but these will 
 be spoken of in a later chapter. Meanwhile, in 
 April Hopes (1888), he turned off a love story in 
 more playful mood, but impregnated by the two 
 themes then engrossing him, contemporary Puri 
 tanism and social democracy. 
 
 I cannot but rank April Hopes a little below In 
 dian Summer, although Robertson, who did not 
 like Indian Summer at all, pronounces it "a com 
 plete success. " The two are alike in being com 
 prehensively characteristic of Howells lighter 
 manner, but in the later book the conscience mo 
 tive, for one thing, is a trifle overworked for a 
 story calculated, as we may presume it is, to dem 
 onstrate 
 
 "how this spring of love resembleth 
 The uncertain glory of an April day." 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 207 
 
 The weather is conspicuously lacking in glory. 
 Gloriously to show forth the infection of love de 
 mands a heroine of more wholesome normality 
 than Alice Pasmer, who, one must agree with Miss 
 Anderson, is, if not positively morbid, something 
 very like it. "I think she s moybid, Alice is," 
 Miss Anderson comments. "She isn t moybid 
 in the usual sense of the woyd, but she expects 
 more of herself and of the woyld generally than 
 anybody s going to get out of it." 23 Alice is a 
 pastiche of Turgeniev s Liza, who has lent her 
 loveliness to many of the Howells girls, but she 
 suffers by being put through some of Liza s emo 
 tional experiences without the visible situation to 
 call them forth. She contemplates taking the veil 
 ridiculously early. The story opens with a lei 
 surely description of a Harvard class day, where 
 Alice has been reminded she is sure to meet her 
 fate, a consummation requiring five hundred pages 
 or something less of misgivings, disagreements, 
 and reconciliations, and after which the curtain 
 falls on a Jane Austenian note, presaging storms 
 ahead, but hardly resonant enough. We groan 
 for them. 
 
 But despite the spirituality of its heroine, April 
 Hopes is a gay book. The love story is constantly 
 enlivened by sketches of the Boston aristocracy, 
 introducing the Coreys and the Bellinghams, 
 known of old. Harvard men may like the college 
 color even less than that in The Landlord at 
 Lion s Head, since a more deliberately destruc 
 tive touch is brought to bear upon the vaunted 
 democracy and fellowship of student life. The 
 
 * April Hopes (1888), p. 90. 
 
208 William Dean Howells 
 
 effect, however, is not essentially different from 
 that of the more sympathetic Harvard Episodes 
 of Charles M. Flandrau. The thesis, which seems 
 ably defended, is that the world has little to teach 
 these undergraduates of worldliness and snob 
 bery. Mrs. Pasmer, Alice s mother, is the chef- 
 d ozuvre of aristocratic portraiture, mistress of 
 all the ridiculous social arts of feigned uncon 
 sciousness, simulated surprises, and persistent 
 fibbing. None can approach her excellence in ac 
 centing those most damning words in the parlance 
 of the elect: "We don t know anything about 
 them." 
 
 One of the most delightful of these lighter tran 
 scripts of manners is The Coast of Bohemia 
 (1893), in which Howells turns, after the severer 
 sociological researches of Annie Kilburn (1888), 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), and The 
 Quality of Mercy (1892), to the artistic world of 
 the metropolis or rather to the fringes of that 
 world, for his theme. All the old problems are 
 with us in a fresh atmosphere and informed by 
 the presence of a very grateful motive, not new 
 actually of course, but new in its pervasive effect 
 upon the story, the variegated follies of the artis 
 tic temperament. The ostensible heroine, Cor 
 nelia Saunders, an inveterate self -analyst, and a 
 second Helen Harkness in pride, tries in vain to 
 spoil the story and make it only a less impossible 
 version of A Woman s Reason. In this attempt 
 she is frustrated by the presence of her foil, Char- 
 mian Maybough. 
 
 It was a structural master-stroke to make Char- 
 mian, the chief sufferer with the disease, the ar- 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 209 
 
 tistic temperament, at the same time the one fun 
 damentally well-balanced and clear-sighted char 
 acter in the novel. Charmian s favorite maxim is 
 that art is all one, in accordance with which she 
 makes up her deficiencies in drawing by leading 
 the artistic life, that is, so far as her step-mother, 
 who is passionately devoted to the conventions, 
 will allow her. Her innate common sense, which 
 Howells conceals from the reader as artfully as 
 she conceals it from herself, restrains her from 
 disrupting the family peace, so that she lives her 
 double life of respectability and art in serene 
 complacency. Giving up her mother as a hope 
 less slave to society, she revels in martyrdom, and 
 cleverly arranges her studio in their apartments 
 with a low-hung canvas ceiling to simulate pov 
 erty. Here she finds an exquisite freedom from 
 the "unreality" of the life to which she must re 
 turn as part of the bargain, and makes heroic ef 
 forts to smoke cigarettes. From this vantage 
 point she wafts her breezy comments on the social 
 customs of her mother s kind. "And my one lux 
 ury is going home alone, " she confides on one 
 occasion. "Mamma doesn t allow it, except to 
 and from the Synthesis. Then I m an art student 
 and perfectly safe. If I were a young lady my 
 life wouldn t be worth anything. 24 The foolish 
 tragedy of Cornelia supplies her with an orgy of 
 romance. The significant thing about her partici 
 pation, however, is that when the affair has be 
 come too preposterous even for her to maintain 
 an ecstasy in it, she is the only one who realizes 
 that the thing has been played out. Charmian is 
 
 "The Coast of Bohemia (1893), p. 164. 
 
2io William Dean Howells 
 
 the clou of the book. Though she is presented as 
 a fantastic creation, her eccentricity is erected on 
 normal substratum, and she is constantly saving 
 the aberrant natures surrounding her from laps 
 ing into vapidity. 
 
 Ragged Lady (1899), in which the international 
 theme is resumed and the love and conscience 
 problems continued, has no such savior as Char- 
 mian Maybough, but needs her less. This novel 
 has a quite extraordinary charm in detail, and 
 cannot be omitted by those interested in Puritan 
 ism or desiring proof that the possibilities of 
 morbid conscientiousness in its personal applica 
 tions are exhaustless. In Dr. Breen s Practice, 
 Howells fully exposed the sheer inhumanity of 
 dutiology, but he has in this lighter tale uncov 
 ered new and interesting aspects of the matter. 
 
 In The Kentons (1902), the most popular of 
 Howells later novels, we continue to observe 
 spirituality in its Mid- Western condition. Miss 
 Ellen Kenton is a typical maiden of the tearful 
 and conscience-stricken type, who ends by accus 
 ing herself of "a certain essential levity of na 
 ture. From her unselfishness spring all the woes 
 of the Kenton family. Here again, I am afraid 
 that Howells in his desire to do his creation justice 
 has slipped into too effective a sympathy for her. 
 Miss Ellen is exalted for her spiritual qualities 
 greatly to the disadvantage of her slangy, minx- 
 like, conscience-free, but wholesome-hearted sis 
 ter, Lottie, who for all her wilful ways, brings no 
 such grief to her parents. That this partiality 
 does not lack an appreciative audience, moreover, 
 is proved by the remarks of Professor William 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 211 
 
 Lyon Phelps, who discovers something very fine 
 in the fact that Lottie, with her lively charm for 
 men, is retired as "an admirable wife and house 
 keeper/ 25 while Ellen, whose lack of such charm 
 is lamented, is left "preserving in her wealthy en 
 vironment all the fruits of the spirit. This is to 
 set the shade of the moral Richardson abroad. 
 Surely such is not the spirit of American realism. 
 
 The Kentons is the chronicle of an Ohio family 
 in flight over two continents in order to save their 
 daughter from an unfortunate love affair. Its 
 main thesis may seem to reduce to absurdity the 
 proposition that American parents are helpless 
 and afraid before their children ; but the marvels 
 of American parenthood are in fact beyond belief, 
 and when the international situation is arrived at, 
 much trenchant comment results. The Kenton 
 girls are less qualified than the Lydia Bloods and 
 Clementina Claxons of Howells imagination to 
 bring Europe to its knees, and this circumstance 
 introduces a fresh note into the European criti 
 cism. A neat point is scored when an amiable 
 Dutch lady, having observed the actions of Miss 
 Ellen, remarks to Mrs. Kenton that her daughter 
 evidently has not been long married. 
 
 In Letters Home (1903), which, notwithstand 
 ing Howells declaration, apropos of Richardson, 
 in Heroines of Fiction, that nobody writes novels 
 in letters any more, appears in epistolary form, 
 we find the New England conscience afflicting a 
 young man instead of a sentimental maid, and a 
 young man from as far west as Iowa, Mr. Wallace 
 
 ""William Dean Howells," in Essays on Modern Novelists 
 (1910), pp. 56-81. 
 
212 William Dean Howells 
 
 Ardith, who has come to New York for a literary 
 career. There is a lady also, Miss Dennam, a con 
 temporary Puritan from a village in western New 
 York settled by New England people, who has 
 her principles pretty well frayed in the course of 
 her metropolitan experiences. If there is any 
 doubt that the quest after righteousness may be 
 more productive of suffering than a thoroughly 
 selfish course, the history of Mr. Wallace Ardith 
 ought to dispel it. An absorbing feature of this 
 history is the attempt on the part of those inter 
 ested to fix the responsibility, although in the end 
 they lay it all to fate. Letters Home also adds a 
 portrait to the Howells gallery of self-made mil 
 lionaires that of old Ralston, quite worthy to 
 hang beside those of Lapham and Dryfoos; and 
 Miss America Ralston has her points of superi 
 ority to the Lapham and the Dryfoos girls. 
 
 Of the last phase of Howells work as a novelist, 
 his return in reminiscent mood and with some 
 thing of the historian s intent to his native Ohio, 
 I shall speak later. The next to last phase, repre 
 sented by the two novels, Miss Bellard s Inspira 
 tion (1905) and Fennel and Rue (1908), which 
 together with an Altrurian (Utopian) romance 
 follow the very high achievement of The Son of 
 Royal Langbrith (1904), is a sort of decadence 
 into the psychological manner. In these books 
 there is more of Henry James and less of Jane 
 Austen than in any other two from his pen. Fen 
 nel and Rue is an elaborate piece of vivisection. 
 Although the scene is a hospitable home thrown 
 open for the Christmas revels, it is not gay. But 
 it does feature a type which fascinated Howells 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 213 
 
 and with which, in whatever excess of analysis, he 
 was never to know failure or anything like it the 
 fatuous mother of a morbidly egoistic son. 
 
 Miss Bellard s Inspiration has the characteris 
 tic gaiety which is lacking in Fennel and Rue, but 
 it is a kind of joke on the reader. In technical 
 execution it is superb and of a quality with the 
 farces, but it ends not with the logic of a farce but 
 with a play on words. We find in it HowenV 
 repertoire of whimsical variations on the themes 
 of love and marriage, all rendered with a virtu 
 osity that precludes ennui. The greater part of 
 the minor action is illustrative of the innate con 
 trariety of women. The major theses are two : 
 that love is a bar to marital happiness after the 
 first stages have been traversed, and that intel 
 lectuality avails nothing in combination with 
 femininity. In support of the latter, Miss Lillias 
 Bellard, lecturer on oratory in a Western college, 
 is offered, while the sad case of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mevison, who are loving and fighting each other 
 toward a final separation under the hospitable 
 roof of the Crombies, is evidence for the former. 
 They are reminiscent of the Alderlings in 
 Though One Rose from the Dead; in fact, 
 theirs is a theme upon which Howells felt deeply. 
 "Love," he told A. Schade Van Westrum, "is for 
 the springtime of life ; in maturity it pales, in the 
 most fortunate cases into a beautiful friendship, 
 into loyalty rewarded by contentment, which is a 
 more enduring prize than the ill-defined state 
 vaguely described as happiness. " 26 Now, Miss 
 
 M "Mr. Howells on Love and Literature" in Lamp (1904), 
 28:28. 
 
214 William Dean Howells 
 
 Bellard, intellectual, emancipated, knowing that 
 she and Mr. Claybourne love each other too much, 
 and with the horrible example of the Mevisons be 
 fore her, not to mention the " sweet intimacy" of 
 her aunt and uncle, does not yield easily. She 
 heartlessly insists that there can be no room for 
 two such couples in the world, and they must 
 learn to love each other much less before the 
 union can be thought of, until suddenly she has 
 an inspiration. The logical argument by which 
 she appeases her intellect, is Howells neatest 
 compliment to the emancipated woman. 
 
 A completely domesticated man was Howells, 
 who liked to read plays in his arm-chair better 
 than to go to the theatre. George Moore s vision 
 of him, which must in that day have been intended 
 to confer a final damnation, is essentially true, 
 much truer than the inept aphorism so often 
 quoted : 
 
 "I see him the happy father of a numerous 
 family; the sun is shining, the girls and boys are 
 playing on the lawn, they come trooping in to a 
 high tea, and there is dancing in the evening." 2T 
 
 For all that he has made of love in its springtime, 
 he is more successful with age. His young lovers 
 never quite compare in effectiveness with the el 
 derly pair in the background, or, by rare fortune, 
 as in The Rise of Silas Lapham or The Son of 
 Royal Langbrith, in the foreground. The Ken- 
 tons, who have attained that beautiful state of 
 contentment which is the prize of loyalty, are the 
 clou of their book, without which Ellen s lovesick- 
 
 v Confessions of a Young Man (1906), p. 143. 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 215 
 
 ness would be shorn of meaning; and the Dry- 
 f ooses, and the Gaylords, many others come troop 
 ing up. 
 
 Those who complain of Howells treatment of 
 young love are invariably mistaken in attributing 
 their dissatisfaction to his conventionality. The 
 trouble lies not in his acceptance of social conven 
 tion for his young people but in his repudiation 
 of literary convention for them. I do not believe 
 it has been noted that if one were to construct a 
 Howells doctrine of love, it would destroy precept 
 upon precept the traditional creed of fiction, which 
 is essentially romantic. The spirit of his work 
 is often a spirit of literary criticism and only 
 after that a criticism of life. I do not mean that 
 at these times he writes from the closet ; he writes 
 from close contact with the life he pictures, but in 
 his function as realistic novelist, he embraces that 
 contact with the spirit of an evangelist. And no 
 missionary was ever content with the eternal veri 
 ties. The result in his work is that, not content to 
 record life as he sees it, he must needs record it 
 as others, inclusively branded romanticists, do not 
 see it. Most of the flaws are left by a talent that 
 overleaps itself in excess of zeal. The stupidity 
 of his lovers, for example, which makes it all but 
 impossible for them to know that they are in love, 
 is owing to no lack of passion on their part, but 
 to an uncontrollable aversion on the part of their 
 author to the notion of love at first sight. He is 
 excessive in his eagerness to demolish the super 
 stition that young women find great joy in the in 
 terval before marriage. The virtues of faithful 
 ness and self-sacrifice as they are extolled in Scott, 
 
216 William Dean Howells 
 
 Dickens, and Thackeray, he finds unsocial and un- 
 humane. Faithfulness after death, such as that 
 of Helen Pendennis, fills him with inextinguish 
 able wrath. 
 
 By his willingness to mar a few of his own sto 
 ries in order to show the obverse of the medal, 
 Howells has had a very salutary effect on con 
 temporary fiction. He has made us critical of 
 traditional notions, some handed down from Ovid, 
 through the courtly singers of Provence, and the 
 whole line of mediaeval romancers, some of origins 
 less remote. The general notion of love as a mys 
 tic power binding two human beings forever and 
 beyond the grave, he has done his best to make a 
 laughing-stock. This, if anything, has a historical 
 claim upon the term, so sinister from his pen, 
 * romantic, " evoking as it does what images of 
 chivalry and courts of love ! The knight beholds 
 his lady at her casement, and knows from the in 
 stant that they have been celestially bound one to 
 the other ; that he must serve and worship her for 
 years until he win her ; that if death claim either, 
 the other must follow, or as the least concession 
 to beauty must live a whole life long in wretched 
 ness. If the lady have a husband, it will be his 
 divine consolation to know that their passion can 
 not injure him, since no double matches are made 
 in heaven ! It is not without historical propriety 
 that we stigmatize as romantic those fictions which 
 exist to proclaim an ennobling effect for the most 
 vulgar liaisons. 
 
 Equally variable has been the result on his own 
 fiction of Howells 7 violent revulsion from the 
 grand climaxes, dreadful catastrophes, and star- 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 217 
 
 tlingly contrived coincidences of fictional tradition. 
 In a number of instances lie has wilfully with 
 drawn every external support from his action. 
 No other realist has carried this exaltation of the 
 character element to such a length, certainly not 
 Jane Austen, nor Valdes. Valdes, indeed, has 
 given us a charming though simple-hearted love 
 story in Jose with the obstacles to happiness com 
 pletely externalized, the characters being given, 
 and exhibited only as the situation calls them 
 forth. At a point long before the close of The 
 Undiscovered Country there is but one obstacle to 
 Ford s happiness, his own stupidity. This is all 
 that need be said about the weakness of some of 
 Howells characters. They are subnormal because 
 in the absence of obstacles to overcome it requires 
 subnormal people to make a story. An older in 
 terpretation made Hamlet insane ; some commen 
 tators still find his tragedy in vacillation and de 
 lay ; but a newer and stronger reading has discov 
 ered the heart of his mystery in the inexorable 
 difficulty of his position. Howells has gained much 
 more than he has lost through his natural pre 
 occupation with subjective problems, but as for 
 vitiating a character out of a spirit of sheer bra 
 vado, that has been a dead loss. We do not judge 
 The Undiscovered Country, however, by the in 
 tellectual worth of Ford, who is after all a minor 
 adornment to the tale. 
 
 I do not leave this large group of novels that I 
 have elected to treat as transcripts of American 
 life without a disturbing consciousness of having 
 rendered inadequate tribute to the national spirit 
 that receives expression in them. Not only are 
 
218 William Dean Ho wells 
 
 they the product of a mind tireless in the contem 
 plation of the national life, but they proceed from 
 a heart that cherished dearly the very rudimen 
 tary principles that actuated our forefathers. 
 They constitute the only large and significant 
 body of fiction inspired by the spirit of American 
 democracy. The social problems which he dealt 
 with very simply in his first novel never ceased 
 to engage his attention; and although he never 
 expressed the four million with the intimacy of 
 Mark Twain or of 0. Henry, he always spoke for 
 them and tested the aristocracy and plutocracy 
 which have taken foothold on our soil by the prin 
 ciples of liberty, equality, and fraternity for which 
 we still profess to stand. 
 
 How subtly this concern for the equalities has 
 insinuated itself into the texture of his theme, 
 whether that theme be light or profound, grave or 
 gay, without ever disturbing the dramatic range, 
 and without any dictatorial airs, is nowhere more 
 evident than in the last novel that we are to have 
 from his hand, his one posthumous work, The 
 Vacation of the Kelwyns, prepared for publica 
 tion ten years ago, but withheld by his own wish, 
 from motives not dissimilar to those which led to 
 the suppression of Private Theatricals. In The 
 Vacation of the Kelwyns, which comes from the 
 press as I write (September, 1920), sub-titled An 
 Idyl of the Middle Eighteen-Seventies, to be pre 
 cise, the Centennial summer, he has given us 
 primarily, to be sure, a cool but eloquent pastoral, 
 playing on the country roadsides near a commu 
 nity of New England Shakers, from whom the 
 Kelwyns have taken a place for the summer a 
 
His Fiction: Transcripts of Life 219 
 
 simple chronicle with certain colorful distractions 
 in the way of a dancing bear, some Gipsy fortune 
 tellers, and roving organ-grinders, together with 
 a choice of less picturesque wayfarers; a chroni 
 cle into which is deftly woven the love story of 
 Parthenope Brook, a cousin of artistic leanings, 
 who comes out to visit her kinsfolk and to acquire, 
 if possible, a "fresh point of view." But How- 
 ells, in his own serene and unobtrusive way, has 
 made these quiet materials into a study not merely 
 in social atmospheres but of some ever puzzling 
 though rudimentary problems in the relations be 
 tween the social orders. We see in the first place 
 the delicate process by which Parthenope s lover, 
 a young man of dubious social and vocational 
 standing, even harboring some loose if not hereti 
 cal notions on the subject of private property, es 
 tablishes his gentility. He is the visionary, the 
 experimenter or, as he holds himself, the "em 
 piricist that Howells always loved to draw, but 
 so nearly a " gentleman " from the beginning that 
 his case pales in interest before that offered by 
 the family of Kites, who have been engaged to 
 keep the house, and to whom the farm has been 
 sub-let. The Kelwyns, imbued, as they think 
 themselves, with a quite unsentimental passion for 
 fairness in their dealings with their "inferiors," 
 find the lower classes, as represented by the Kites, 
 of an unsuspected and disturbing complexity, and 
 the most reasonable and simple relations with 
 them amazingly difficult. They never quite achieve 
 human contact with them, but in approximating 
 such contact they do come to a knowledge and 
 sympathy to which they have hitherto been 
 
22O William Dean Howells 
 
 strangers. And Professor Kelwyn himself, 
 whose business is to give graduate lectures on his 
 torical sociology, discovers many valuable things 
 not taken account of in his "studies of the con 
 ditions/* and arrives as a result of his vacation 
 at a clearer understanding of the sociology of the 
 present. 
 
vn 
 
 HIS FICTION: STUDIES IN ETHICS 
 
 IT is a somewhat heretical and arbitrary pro 
 cedure to select a comparatively small group of 
 Ho wells novels as his contribution to the subjects 
 of social and political ethics. In the totality of his 
 work as well as in the supreme reaches of his art, 
 he has fulfilled the promise of his critical message, 
 with its indissoluble fusion of ethics and aesthetics. 
 Among his stories, however, though they are all of 
 a substance, those which reverberate most loudly 
 to the voice of duty, those in which the characters 
 live in eternal questioning of the rightness or 
 wrongness of their actions, are the ones which will 
 live as pictures of our society, as transcripts of 
 manners rather than studies in human character. 
 In Ragged Lady, for example, the conscience prob 
 lem is handled in a specialized condition and an 
 essentially picturesque aspect, while in The Son 
 of Royal Langbrith the matter for all its local 
 coloring is most compelling in its universal appli 
 cability. The questions of human happiness in the 
 latter novel will continue to enlist the efforts of 
 readers at solution, while the difficulties in the for 
 mer, when they are not indeed phantoms fought 
 by the characters alone, are readily settled in the 
 mind of the humane observer. Likewise, though 
 the ideal of democracy constantly guided his pen, 
 
 221 
 
222 William Dean Howells 
 
 which limned in so relentlessly the blemishes upon 
 the face of our national life, a distinction may be 
 drawn between the delineation of aristocratic in 
 solence and the less entertaining but more seri 
 ously promulgated preaching of social equality. 
 
 The two themes are scarcely separable in How- 
 ells novels. Their alliance in genesis is espe 
 cially close, some of the New England moralists 
 having exchanged their personal daemons for a 
 race conscience, or, in the most unhappy cases, 
 having rather illogically retained the problem of 
 their own souls salvation while shouldering the 
 Hburdens of all humanity. In the New York novels, 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889) and The World 
 of Chance (1893), we emerge into a clearer atmos 
 phere, where the advanced ethical conceptions, for 
 which in the New England novels ministers of the 
 gospel stand spokesmen, are mouthed by vener 
 able and eccentric socialists. But already in Annie 
 Kilburn (1888) the point had been made clearly; 
 perhaps Howells never made it more dramatically, 
 and with a preacher for a hero ! 
 
 The Minister s Charge (1887) is best considered 
 here because, like Annie Kilburn, it is strictly of 
 the Eobert Elsmere and Mark Eutherford period. 
 It belongs in this group, however, only because it 
 poses the social problem in its religious aspect. 
 Otherwise, it is to be classified with Ragged Lady 
 as a picture of religious conditions and a drama 
 of weaklings. In Annie Kilburn we have charac 
 ters of relatively superior intelligence. The 
 tragedy of its protagonist, the Eeverend Mr. Peck, 
 lies in the victory of his humanitarianism over his 
 orthodoxy, while the Eeverend Mr. Sewell of The 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 223 
 
 Minister s Charge, who will be remembered by 
 readers of Silas Lapham, has Mrs. Sewell always 
 at hand to keep him in the straight and narrow 
 path. The consciousness of being his brother B 
 keeper works in his soul an awful and ineffectual 
 spell. And to this obfuscation of brain is added 
 a natural lack of talent for practical helpfulness 
 and a charge stupidly and stubbornly opposed 
 to being helped, the combination resulting in 
 some ludicrous applications of the principle he 
 preached, "that no one for good or for evil, for 
 sorrow or joy, for sickness or health, stood apart 
 from his fellows, but each was bound to the high 
 est and lowest by ties that centered in the hand 
 of God." 1 
 
 Howells achieved one of his most astonishing 
 triumphs in the fascination he contrived to bring 
 out of this clergyman s intellectual history. The 
 most fascinating thing about Sewell is perhaps 
 the worst thing to be held against him his devo 
 tion to his wife. There is something positively 
 dreadful in the circumstance that his responsi 
 bility for Lemuel is undertaken against her better 
 judgment, when he praises some verses the coun 
 try lad has written. So much are we our brothers 
 keepers that thereupon Mr. Sewell s is the blame 
 that Lemuel comes to Boston, lighted by false 
 fires, and has all his dreadful experiences there. 
 Lemuel s notions of social equality are as eccen 
 tric as his guardian s; his sense of guilt as un 
 usual. And he seems to share Helen Harkness 
 antipathy to money, along with other "fine sensi 
 bilities." He loses appetite and starts into a de- 
 
 *The Minister s Charge (1887), p. 458. 
 
224 William Dean Howells 
 
 cline after kissing a young girl, feeling himself 
 " guilty of an enormity that nothing could ever 
 excuse. 2 Yet Lemuel, for all his smug and pious 
 ways, has his qualities. Mr. Alexander Harvey 
 indeed thinks that in him Howells unwittingly 
 drew a genius. Bromfield Corey, whom readers 
 of Silas LapJiam again will remember as the aris 
 tocratic amateur of the arts, and with whom Lem 
 uel secures a position as reader, is exceedingly 
 drawn to him, and exclaims, after his disappear 
 ance: "All my moral and intellectual being has 
 stopped like a watch. 8 
 
 Annie Kilburn is a simpler, bolder, and, I think, 
 a more wholesome depiction of the decline of or 
 thodoxy. The New England conscience lives on in 
 Annie, but with a sea-change, for she has taken 
 her Italy not in a volcanic but ineffectual revolt 
 against herself, as Grace Breen took hers, but 
 easily and naturally in an eleven years residence 
 abroad with her father. She returns to her native 
 land a Puritan still, but a Puritan accessible to 
 new ideas, and finds South Hatboro electric with 
 them. In the efforts of the Keverend Mr. Peck, 
 the new religion of social service, whose premoni 
 tory symptoms were such an agitation in the soul 
 of David Sewell, is finding its expression, and an 
 organization for social " betterment " known as 
 the Social Union is on foot. But the two forces 
 are not at all in accord, Mr. Peck, with his ideal of 
 social equality, being presently brought into ac 
 tive conflict with the Union, with its old ideal of 
 charity, which does so little beyond confirming the 
 
 a The Minister s Charge (1887), p. 167. 
 Ibid., p. 430. 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 225 
 
 rich in their vanity and snobbishness and the poor 
 in their discontent. Annie, who wants to do good 
 with her money, finds her natural alliance with the 
 Union, and is made, even as all Hatboro , ex 
 tremely uncomfortable by Mr. Peck. She cannot 
 see the impossibility of friendly intercourse be 
 tween the poor and their benefactors, having often 
 heard her father say "that the great superiority 
 of the American practice of democracy over the 
 French ideal was that it didn t involve any as 
 sumption of social equality. 4 She demands of 
 Mr. Peck: 
 
 "Then you mean to say that people can t do 
 any good at all with their money f " 
 
 "Money is a palliative, but it can t cure. It 
 can sometimes create a bond of gratitude perhaps, 
 but it can t create sympathy between rich and 
 poor." 
 
 "But why can t it?" 
 
 * Because sympathy common feeling can 
 spring only from like experiences, like hopes, like 
 fears. And money can t buy these." 5 
 
 Injured orthodoxy and commercialism have 
 their most interesting protagonist in Mr. Gerrish, 
 who will appear again in The Quality of Mercy. 
 His arraignment of the minister after his fatal 
 sermon on the Union theatricals is a masterly 
 disquisition, fully to be appreciated only by those 
 acquainted with Mr. Gerrish : 
 
 "Understand me, sir, we do not object, neither 
 I nor any of those who agree with me, to the 
 
 * Annie Killurn (1888), p. 64. 
 6 Ibid., p. 65. 
 
226 William Dean Howells 
 
 preaching of Christ as a life. That is all very 
 well in its place, and it is the wish of every true 
 Christian to conform and adapt his own fife as 
 far as as circumstances will permit of. But 
 when I come to this sanctuary, and they come, 
 Sabbath after Sabbath, and hear nothing said of 
 my Redeemer as a means of salvation, and noth 
 ing of Him crucified ; and when I find the precious 
 promises of the gospel ignored and neglected 
 continually and and all the time, and each dis 
 course from yonder pulpit filled up with generali 
 ties glittering generalities, as has been well said 
 by another in relation to and connection with 
 mere conduct, I am disappointed, sir, and dissat 
 isfied, and I feel to protest against that line of 
 of preaching. 6 
 
 In A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889), Howells 
 transfers his scene to New York and spreads an 
 epical canvas. The longest and most complicated 
 of his novels, it has nevertheless proved one of 
 the most popular, and justly so. A vital reason 
 for his success with it lies in the fact that he has 
 furnished himself for the first time with materials 
 lavish enough for the easy and natural attainment 
 of that loose and ample structure which he so 
 admires in the work of Zola and the elder Span 
 iards. Except in The Landlord at Lion s Head 
 he was hardly again to fulfill his own formula so 
 perfectly, although he has rather exceeded the 
 prescription in the matter of action, the moral 
 regeneration of Dryfoos, the capitalist, being 
 brought about by the violent death of his son 
 Conrad. The vast number of personages who 
 
 * Annie Kilburn, (1888), p. 273. 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 227 
 
 share its events, their destinies united now by 
 slender threads and now by bonds of steel, enable 
 him to convey better than he has elsewhere been 
 able to convey it, that feeling for life s confusion 
 and complexity which has ever engaged his ar 
 tistic sense. 
 
 Such a condition, furthermore, is as happy for 
 the polemic interests of the book as for the ar 
 tistic. It affords a natural escape from the senti 
 mental mood, perhaps the prevailing mood of so 
 ciological fiction, which limits the end of so much 
 humanitarian writing to making well-to-do people 
 vaguely uncomfortable, which makes such an in 
 nocent production as Galsworthy s Pigeon more 
 depressing to many minds than the ghastly tales 
 Arthur Morrison tells of Mean Streets. Howells 
 is ordinarily most in danger of excessive sympa 
 thy and futile musing when his ordinary, well- 
 to-do, somewhat sensitive people are able to mo 
 nopolize the foreground. Accordingly, it is sig 
 nificant for the present work that the Marches, 
 ostensibly the central figures, are lost in the 
 welter. They are brought to New York for the 
 purpose of reacting to the social and economic 
 cruelties of metropolitan life, and obediently come 
 to excel in the sad knowledge of the line at which 
 respectability distinguishes itself from shabbi- 
 ness," 7 and to suffer at the sights they see in 
 tenement streets; but they are forced into their 
 proper place in the picture by the multiplicity of 
 more interesting and more rugged types. 
 
 From these characters, limned with a virile 
 touch, there is, however, an omission of represen- 
 
 1 A Hazard of New* Fortunes (1891), vol. I, p. 71. 
 
228 William Dean Howells 
 
 tatives of the very low classes, at least in very 
 unfortunate circumstances, an omission that will 
 strike the reader of later sociological fiction as a 
 deficiency of Howells view of our society. This 
 objection he explained away in a manner very 
 similar to that in which he disposed of the sex 
 problems of the Continental novel, remarking on 
 one occasion, I believe, that New York could not 
 furnish Dostoievsky with the materials of his 
 preference. There may at the time have been 
 something to say for this, but less, I suspect, than 
 for the sexual argument. At any rate, the sub 
 jects meet with a very unequal disposition in his 
 own fictions. Howells did not like to depict ir 
 regular sexual relations, and he did not like to de 
 pict humanity unwashed. But he did love hu 
 manity in whatever condition; so, while guilty 
 lovers are banished utterly from his stage, the 
 great unwashed cry incessantly behind the scenes. 
 They have able spokesmen in characters like the 
 venerable German socialist Lindau and the bour 
 geois intellectual, " Conrad Dryfoos, but they 
 themselves do not appear, at least in any very 
 painful guise. The author shrinks with Basil 
 March from concrete suffering, and asks us to shed 
 tears over the general fact that people are hungry. 
 He is willing to leave us, after we have actually 
 seen a poor wretch pick a crust from the gutter, in 
 the belief with which March consoled his wife, 
 that it was after all only a mendicant s ruse for 
 eliciting sympathy. This is more discomforting 
 than a knowledge of the fact would be. By sacri 
 ficing such aloofness from the unpleasant and 
 boldly descending into the depths of degradation 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 229 
 
 he could here and there have put a note of cheer 
 into his message, a note of hope; for, as he so 
 often told us, there is consolation and delight in 
 the truth, and only in the truth. 
 
 He also told us that in its apostleship to the 
 lowly, realism inherits the better part of romanti 
 cism. "The romantic spirit, " he noted long ago, 
 "worshipped genius, worshipped heroism, but at 
 its best, in such a man as Victor Hugo, this spirit 
 recognized the supreme claim of the lowest hu 
 manity. Its error was to idealize the victims of 
 society, to paint them impossibly virtuous and 
 beautiful; but truth, which has succeeded to the 
 highest mission of romance, paints these as they 
 are, and bids the world consider them not because 
 they are beautiful and virtuous, but because they 
 are ugly and vicious, cruel, filthy, and only not 
 altogether loathsome because the divine can never 
 wholly die out of the human. 8 Howells has not 
 indeed painted the victims of society as beautiful 
 and virtuous, but neither has he shown their 
 viciousness, their cruelty, and their filthiness. He 
 has not revealed how the spark of the divine 
 smoulders in places dark and vile. He gave those 
 places a more searching scrutiny than did the 
 fathers of humamtarianism, but he recoiled from 
 them in the end, thus impersonalizing his view of 
 the lower ranks, inducing a general and unlocal- 
 ized pain, a hatred of all suffering whatsoever, a 
 feeling that is only less in degree than that which 
 one gets from the writings of Mr. John Galswor 
 thy, not different from it in kind. This is a feel 
 ing that Dostoievsky, for example, never conveys. 
 
 9 Criticism and Fiction (1893), p. 185. 
 

 230 William Dean Howells 
 
 This should not concern us as a limitation of 
 subject matter, but as a condition that enfeebles 
 his depiction of certain subjects when he insists 
 upon treating them. It always happens when a 
 reformer is touched by griefs and aspirations into 
 which he cannot fully enter. It means a double 
 accusation of the social system, and its effect is 
 to shake one s faith in the efficacy of individual 
 effort. A burden is thrown upon corporate so 
 ciety such as Victor Hugo never contemplated. 
 We become our brother s keeper not merely in the 
 sense that branded the first murderer, but in a 
 sense that would make Abel responsible for his 
 own fate. 
 
 That the only tenable ideal of a perfect society 
 is one in which all stand equal before each other 
 and before their God, is a fact that no one living in 
 our century should deny ; but it is equally true that 
 such an ideal will not be realized in our century 
 nor for many to come. We can accept it but as the 
 far goal toward which the democratic spirit is 
 gradually bringing the race. No one knew better 
 than Howells that it could be reached only by a 
 slow evolution, a struggle cheerfully and joyously 
 to be waged. In an essay on equality as the only 
 tenable basis of good society, he makes it clear 
 that the world is growing better for the very 
 reason that we have more and more of that good 
 society which does not take a shabby pleasure in 
 inequality, but which finds its satisfaction in get 
 ting on common ground with others. "As nearly 
 as we can conceive it or forecast it," he says, "the 
 new condition, the equality of the future, will be 
 the enlargement of good society to the whole of 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 231 
 
 humanity. This seems to me so not only because, 
 so far as we have social equality, it has grown out 
 of human nature, but because we have already 
 more of that equality than any other. " 9 In this 
 natural and optimistic view his discouragement is 
 unreasonable, and his reflection on individual ef 
 fort especially dangerous. The enlargement of 
 good society to all humanity being so transpar 
 ently conditioned by the spiritual growth of indi 
 viduals, of which legislation can only be the ulti 
 mate expression, it is idle to declare that society is 
 cruel and unnatural because it is obviously imper 
 fect, or to lament that men are not free and equal. 
 Why, then, in the same essay, should he be dis 
 turbed by the man who stands behind his chair at 
 dinner, or by the richer man who sits across the 
 table? It is for essentially the same reason that 
 the Eeverend Mr. Peck is taken off by a railroad 
 accident the moment it becomes imminent that 
 either his ideas or those of his parishioners must 
 prevail. For the same reason Mr. Wallace Ardith 
 in Letters Home is pitied for the misery he 
 causes even more than his victim because How- 
 ells was a sensitive personality, and even as other 
 popular and philosophic reformers, became fright 
 ened at the notion of holding the individual re 
 sponsible for either good or evil. It is so con 
 venient to lay everything at the door of that great 
 ogre, Society. 
 
 Thus Howells as a social philosopher suffers in 
 much the same manner that he suffers as a theo 
 rist of criticism, through minimizing the value of 
 
 
 8 "Equality as the Basis of Good Society," in the Century 
 (1895), 29:67. 
 
232 William Dean Howells 
 
 individual achievement. The reader may recall 
 the odd figure to which his attention was directed 
 in a previous chapter that of a critic industri 
 ously engaged in expounding literature through 
 the decades, but at the same time largely con 
 cerned in maintaining the futility of such employ 
 ment. We here find him zealous in another cause 
 dear to his heart, and in a like manner discarding 
 the instrument of its prosecution. Strange figure 
 of a perfectibilian harassed by doubts as to the 
 perfectibility of the human soul! 
 
 He ought to be more greatly inspired even by 
 the tragic efforts put forth by the personages of 
 his creation. The really ardent reformers in his 
 novels all die ineffectual deaths, most of them 
 violent deaths. In their taking off the gentle 
 Conrad Dryfoos and the patriarchal Lindau of 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes bear the benediction 
 ^>f martyrdom, but Ansel Denton in The World 
 i/ Chance perishes by his own hand in a delirium 
 Brought on by his obsession with socialistic no 
 tions. In his work as engraver, he has hit upon 
 an invention, a new art process that will make 
 him rich. He obeys the inner voice and destroys 
 his work through fear that it will throw some 
 other engravers out of work, but the sacrifice is 
 not enough. Some innocent life must be paid in 
 expiation of the crime; but, frustrate in his at 
 tempt to take that of his sister-in-law, Peace 
 Hughes, he ends his own guilty one with prussic 
 acid the most lurid scene in all Howells pages. 
 And it is made perfectly clear that the more in 
 telligent efforts of his father-in-law come to no 
 more fruitful, though a more peaceful end. 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 233 
 
 The exoneration of the individual and the attri 
 bution of his misdeeds to the social order, an 
 order which individual effort seems powerless to 
 better, is the underlying purpose of The- Quality 
 of Mercy (1892). On the whole an impressive 
 chronicle, with it s searching and implacable in 
 quiry after the far-reaching consequences of its 
 hero s crime, it nevertheless offends more gravely 
 than either The World of Chance or A Hazard 
 of New Fortunes in the certainty with which its 
 author feels able to fix the responsibility. North- 
 wick, the absconding defaulter, is represented as 
 a man with instincts toward the highest integrity, 
 but cast into a world where supposedly honorable 
 men very frequently take other people s money 
 and find themselves unable to pay it backi By 
 early training he believes in the moral govern 
 ment of the universe, and thus, from the religious 
 point of view, is presented as a horrible example 
 of the futility of that belief as a guide to conduct. 
 The whole trouble with him is an environment 
 which makes his sort of robbery possible. Says 
 Matt Hilary, the softest of the tribe of millionaire 
 socialists whom Howells called into being: 
 "Northwick isn t the disease; he s merely the 
 symptom." 10 And Putney: "He was a mere 
 creature of circumstances like the rest of us! 
 His environment made him rich, and his environ 
 ment made him a rogue. Sometimes I think there 
 was nothing to Northwick, except what happened 
 to him." n And thus the matter is developed at 
 great length by Maxwell, the philosophic journal- 
 
 "The Quality of Mercy (1892), p. 166. 
 11 Ibid., p. 474. 
 
234 William Dean Howells 
 
 1st of the Abstract, who is done as a foil to 
 Bartley Hubbard of the flashy and vulgar Events. 
 The message of The Quality of Mercy, aside from 
 its multitude of faithful and painstaking sub 
 sidiary studies, is that the social body is sick; 
 but Howells is its anatomist, not its physician. 
 
 After all, the social conscience displays most 
 of the phenomena exhibited in the operation of 
 the personal variety. The race conscience hyper- 
 sesthetized to a degree precluding the execution of 
 immediate duties to oneself and one s own, is, 
 more perfectly than Howells has indicated in 
 these works, the analogue of the personal con 
 science which tortured the Puritan on his pillow, 
 and which is so hateful to him. One cannot but 
 wish that he had sympathized with it less keenly, 
 and been more critical of its excesses and mor 
 bidities. 
 
 The Utopian romance, A Traveler from Altruria 
 (1894), is as definitely of its epoch as Annie 
 Kilburn (1888), though it followed Bellamy s 
 Looking Backward (1888), in which Howells was 
 greatly interested, after a number of years, while 
 Annie Kilburn was strictly coeval with Robert 
 Elsmere (1888). This romance and its much later 
 sequel, Through the Eye of the Needle (1907), 
 still make delightful reading, since they enclose 
 with the repertoire, of current banalities the most 
 exquisite portraits of their sponsors, and give 
 rein to the sort of argumentative fantasy which 
 enlivens The Seen and Unseen at Stratford-on- 
 Avon, a diversion at which our author has scarcely 
 been approached. At work of this kind he is 
 always in the vein, and never permits the argu- 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 235 
 
 ment to spoil the fun. He cleverly forestalls 
 criticism on the platitudinous character of his 
 ideal state by introducing at the lecture of the 
 distinguished voyageur, Mr. Aristides Homos of 
 Altruria, a professor of economics, who is prompt 
 to a marvel in pointing out the borrowings from 
 Plato, More, Bacon, Campanella, Bellamy, and 
 William Morris. 
 
 If A Traveler from Altruria emphasizes any 
 feature of Howells complaint against American 
 conditions better than the novels, it is his wonder 
 ment at the apathy of the poor, who have the 
 remedial agency at hand by which the Altrurians 
 saved themselves alive from the tentacles of plu 
 tocracy the ballot. "If the poor American/ 
 / he maintained in an essay of about the same time 
 as the Traveler, "does not like it, or if he does 
 not prefer a plutocracy to a democracy, he has 
 the affair in his own hands, for he has an over 
 whelming majority of the votes. ... If we have 
 a plutocracy, it may be partly because the rich 
 want it, but it is infinitely more because the poor 
 choose it or allow it." 12 Which ought to suggest 
 a closer examination of how it came about that 
 the Altrurians did not allow it, for he has taken 
 great pains to draw the parallel perfectly between 
 Altrurian and American conditions. 
 
 The Altrurians, like the inhabitants of most 
 visionary states, are palpably of a different clay 
 from the humanity with which we have to deal. 
 It is unnecessary to inquire whether or not their 
 government would be desirable for America, since 
 
 We a Plutocracy?" in the North American Eeview 
 (1894), 158:196. 
 
236 William Dean Howells 
 
 it would in any event be impossible. A helpful 
 social philosophy will show not the vision of a 
 New Jerusalem, but the steps by which it was 
 attained. Such a philosophy will be bound to re 
 gard aristocracy as an inevitable stage in the 
 progress of civilization, not as something un 
 natural to be swept away; but it will not be so 
 short-sighted as to conclude that in view of the 
 past service of aristocracy, we must have it al 
 ways. In such a rational view, the duties of so 
 ciety to the individual will cease to appear anti 
 thetic to the responsibilities of the individual for 
 himself and to the society of which he is a part. 
 The ideal order will be offered as an ideal, not as 
 a standard of comparison. As an ideal it spells 
 hope, but as a present necessity it invites despair. 
 A profitable voyage imaginaire would lead its 
 reader to decrease his faith in the millennium and 
 reconceive his notion of present efficacy. Such 
 a reconception would not reveal in the social and 
 economic world the operation of laws so exactly 
 definable as those of the material world, but it 
 would bring some order out of the chaos of The 
 World of Chance. 13 Basil March, in A Hazard of 
 New Fortunes, seems to voice Howells desire : 
 
 13 * Life is never the logical and consequent thing we argue 
 from the moral and intellectual premises. There ought always 
 to be evident reason in it; but such reason as it has is often 
 crossed and obscured by perverse events, which, in our brief 
 perspective, give it the aspect of a helpless craze. Obvious 
 effect does not follow obvious cause; there is sometimes no 
 perceptible cause for the effects we see. The law that we find 
 at work in the material world is, apparently, absent from the 
 moral world; not, imaginably, because it is without law, but 
 because the law is of such cosmical vastness in its operation 
 that it is only once or twice sensible to any man s experience. 
 The seasons come and go in orderly course, but the incidents of 
 human life have not the orderly procession of the seasons; so 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 237 
 
 ( t 
 
 But what I object to is this economic chance- 
 world in which we live, and which we men seem to 
 have created. It ought to be law as inflexible in 
 human affairs as the order of day and night in the 
 physical world, that if a man will work he shall 
 both rest and eat, and shall not be harassed with 
 any question as to how his repose and his provi 
 sion shall come. Nothing less ideal than this satis 
 fies the reason." 14 
 
 After Mr. March has proceeded to some length 
 with a dismal picture of the capricious world we 
 have created and maintain, his wife suggests that 
 matters would be less uncertain were people not 
 so greedy and so foolish. "Oh, without doubt !" 
 admits Mr. March. "We can t put it all on the 
 conditions; we must put some of the blame on 
 character. 
 
 "But conditions make character; and people are 
 greedy and foolish, and wish to have and to shine, 
 because having and shining are held up to them by 
 civilization as the chief good of life. We all know 
 they are not the chief good, perhaps not good at 
 all ; but if some one ventures to say so, all the rest 
 of us call him a fraud and a crank, and go moiling 
 and toiling on to the palace or the poor-house. 
 We can t help it. If one were less greedy, or less 
 foolish, some one else would have, and would shine 
 at his expense. We don t moil and toil to our 
 selves alone; the palace or the poor-house is not 
 merely for ourselves, but for our children, whom 
 
 far as the sages or the saints are able convincingly to affirm, they 
 have only the capricious vicissitudes of weather. The Son of 
 Royal Langbrith (1904), p. 282. 
 14 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1891), vol. II, p. 252. 
 
238 William Dean Howells 
 
 we ve brought up in the superstition that having 
 and shining is the chief good. We dare not teach 
 them otherwise, for fear they may falter in the 
 fight, when it comes their turn; and the children 
 of others will crowd them out of the palace into 
 the poor-house. If we felt sure that honest work 
 shared by all would bring them honest food shared 
 by all, some heroic few of us, who did not wish our 
 children to rise above their fellows though we 
 could not bear to have them fall below might 
 trust them with the truth. But we have no such 
 assurance; and so we go on trembling before 
 Dryfooses, and living in gimcrackeries." 15 
 
 Howells has shown us very few of the people 
 who do not tremble before Dryfooses and do not 
 live in gimcrackeries, presumably because they 
 are not representative of our civilization. Those 
 who in his novels wage war on Dryfooses and 
 gimcrackeries do so for the most part in the 
 Utopian manner. Impatient of the slow processes 
 of racial enlightenment, they offer us perfection 
 or nothing and fail. They are perhaps the na 
 tional types, but it is greatly to be feared that 
 their author leaned toward them as he did not 
 lean toward his aristocrats and Puritans, and that 
 he himself from time to time found discourage 
 ment in the fact that human effort does not work 
 with the precision of a mechanical or a chemical 
 process, as Altrurian effort does. He killed the 
 Eeverend Mr. Peck and allowed the Reverend Mr. 
 Sewell to live on. The recrudescence of the his 
 torical romance in which the last century closed 
 caused him to despair for literature, although the 
 
 18 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1891), vol. II, p. 253. 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 239 
 
 infection was losing its hold when he spoke, and 
 quickly subsided. He doubted the influence of 
 his father s newspaper, almost the sole intel- 
 lectu^al force operating in his community. 
 
 In the domain of personal ethics, he always 
 breathes a more inspiriting message ; for if amid 
 the destruction and the chaos through which the 
 race of men are struggling toward brotherhood 
 the God of Israel slumbers, man finds consolation 
 and reward in being true to himself. However 
 irrational the moral government of the universe 
 may appear, the fact of sin remains with us, and 
 the "agency which we must still call God pun 
 ishes it." 16 Howells used "that quaint old word 
 sin/ which has almost dropped out of our vocab 
 ulary, with a certain sense of its obsolescence, 
 and perhaps of its original inaccuracy"; 16 but 
 he finds proved on the experimental plane that 
 its wages is death, and that goodness has its re 
 ward of inward peace. That is the reward of 
 Dr. Anther in The 8 on of Royal Langbrith (1904), 
 when his long love story draws to its disappoint 
 ing close, with the happiness that should have 
 been his withheld the rest to the soul. The 
 happiness that comes for no particular merit to 
 the son of Langbrith is seen to be a much less 
 precious thing. 
 
 There is a freshness about The Son of Royal 
 Langbrith that holds it long in the reader s mem 
 ory. In general the novels written by Howells 
 in his later years display a greater variety in 
 substance and treatment than those of his earlier 
 
 ""Robert Herrick" in the North American Review (1909), 
 189:814. 
 
240 William Dean Howells 
 
 and middle life, and this one takes up a new aspect 
 of the provincial aristocracy its subtle changes 
 of tone with the coming of a new generation and 
 new conditions. The central problem, as hinted 
 by the title, is that ever-compelling one of fathers 
 and sons, the cleavage between generations. In 
 particular it deals with the sins of the fathers 
 and the baronial tendencies of the young to an 
 cestor-worship, and their peculiar emphasis on 
 money they have not earned. This book is also 
 one of its author s triumphs over literary self- 
 consciousness a triumph so complete that one 
 looks back at it not with admiration for the rare 
 nature of its achievement, as one looks back at 
 The Minister s Charge, but with a sense of the 
 simplest and purest artistic pleasure. And 
 finally, in this story, Howells reconceives in a way 
 the sociological notions of The Quality of Mercy, 
 and vigorously tempers his mercy with justice. 
 
 Howells, as I have said, carries his fullest 
 jthical conviction when he is defining and illus 
 trating the responsibilities of the individual for 
 tis own happiness. The books he values most 
 fighly are those like Anna Karenina, I Malavoglia, 
 and The Mill on the Floss, which show under the 
 most ordinary circumstances the truth of the con 
 flict between desire for present happiness and 
 the instinct to be good, which reveal the necessity 
 of moral law for the individual. To picture forth 
 the degeneracy latent in a selfish nature, and to 
 fix that more firmly in terms of our common con 
 dition than did George Eliot in Romola, was his 
 purpose in his first " great " novel and his only 
 " strong" one, A Modern Instance (1882). It was 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 241 
 
 surely Ms instinct for verifiability, and his desire 
 to awaken his reader to consciousness of like 
 possibilities in himself, that led him to dispense 
 with the stronger motivation which places Romola 
 above the sort of questioning that A Modern 
 Instance has invited. The prevailing criticism 
 has been that the book is under-motived, and that 
 the catastrophe, wiiile brought about by the re 
 action of character upon character, lacks inevi 
 tability that one so shrewd and unscrupulous 
 as Bartley Hubbard should at least have suc 
 ceeded in a worldly way socially and materially. 
 It has been objected that Bartley s beer-drinking 
 does not adequately account for his disintegration 
 of soul. And indeed it were a feeble warning 
 against the perils of the cup. The trouble with 
 Bartley lies deeper and is very accurately diag 
 nosed by Squire Gaylord very early in his history 
 on that memorable night when, after the en 
 gagement has been broken, Bartley dismissed, and 
 Marcia sent away to visit in the town where she 
 used to go to school, she steals back to tell her 
 father that she cannot live without him. 
 
 "Oh, you poor, crazy girl!" groaned her fa 
 ther. "Don t you see that the trouble is in what 
 the fellow is, and not in any particular thing that 
 he s done? He s a scamp, through and through; 
 and he s all the more a scamp when he doesn t 
 know it. He hasn t got the first idea of anything 
 but selfishness." 17 
 
 That is a scene fraught with greater terror than 
 many of those which signalize Bartley s actual 
 
 M A Modem Instance (1882), p. 110. 
 
242 William Dean Howells 
 
 decline, the wholesome terror of unrealized possi 
 bilities, which Howells found so salutary and was 
 so anxious to inspire. It was Mr. Hamlin Gar 
 land, if I remember correctly, who called Bartley 
 Hubbard the modern substitute for a villain. 
 
 If in making Bartley consummately worldly, he 
 raised the question as to why such a man should 
 not succeed in the world, he answered it in The 
 Landlord at Lion s Head, his master novel, by 
 allowing Jeff Durgin to reap the full reward of 
 his worldliness, and making his spiritual tragedy 
 even more impressive than Bartley s. There is, 
 however, a subtler reason for the inferiority of 
 A Modern Instance to this greatest of all his 
 novels, and that lies in the fact that Hartley s 
 particular variety of smartness constitutes a man 
 ifestation that always arouses Howells wrath 
 more than his pity. Howells seldom indulges in 
 partiality, but he has taken a brief against the 
 smart young man, the one American type odious 
 to him. Freshness is his abomination, and in 
 its protean guises he scourges it through a full 
 third of his novels. The miserable little Dicker- 
 son in The Coast of Bohemia is perhaps the worst 
 example of his kind. Beaton, in A Hazard of 
 New Fortunes, who is made to enact a fiasco- 
 suicide in the Russian manner, represents the 
 aesthetic egoist, but is not much different at heart 
 from the salesmen and journalists. Bittredge, the 
 pursuer of Ellen Kenton in The Kentons, is Hub- 
 bard apotheosized; and while a note of poignant 
 pathos is struck by introducing his fatuous 
 mother, the sympathy is all for the mother, none 
 for the offspring. Hubbard is accorded a more 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 243 
 
 humane treatment than any of these, it is true; 
 but his redeeming traits are not greatly insisted 
 upon, and he arouses no tithe of the sympathy one 
 feels for Jeff Durgin. 
 
 Two sure claims A Modern Instance has to im 
 mortality: Squire Gaylord, the shrewd, quiet old 
 lawyer of Equity, Maine, whither Bartley comes 
 to run his newspaper and much against his 
 prophetic instincts to win his daughter, and 
 Marcia herself, almost universally pronounced 
 the most fascinating and full-blooded of the 
 Howells heroines. The Squire, a Yankee of 
 Yankees, is a type that Howells was never to 
 repeat in any such perfection ; and that is to say 
 that no one else has done his type half so well, 
 for he is strictly in Howells metier. His tragedy 
 is not secondary in interest to the matrimonial 
 wreck of Bartley and Marcia. In fact, the real 
 tragedy, the one that cannot be touched by criti 
 cism, because it is in no sense a manipulation of 
 life, but life itself, the simple and living fact of 
 heart-broken fatherhood, is his. The courtroom 
 scene in which the old man, so near the grave, 
 offers up his last strength in defence of his 
 daughter, is after all the ineffaceable moment of 
 the book. 
 
 In The Rise of Silas Lapham (1884) Howells 
 furnished the study of degeneration in A Modern 
 Instance with its complementary theme as 
 strongly handled, and showed that ghastly picture 
 of marital unhappiness its obverse in the affection 
 and loyalty of the Lapham family. The theme of 
 moral regeneration is not a common one in his 
 work. For all his devotion to the Eussians he 
 
244 William Dean Howells 
 
 remained cautious if not skeptical as to the capac 
 ity of the human individual for essential change 
 and development, reading the great novels like 
 Crime and Punishment, The Resurrection, and 
 War and Peace, his creative power unmoved by 
 the redemption theme written so large in them. 
 The extent of the liberty he allowed himself in 
 Silas Lapham s case may be appreciated by re 
 calling that of Dryfoos, where everything is done 
 to persuade us that the capitalist was not really 
 changed by his change of heart. l Does anything 
 from without change us 1 " asks Basil March in his 
 fashion of expounding his author s philosophy. 
 "We re brought up to think so by the novelists, 
 who really have the charge of people s thinking, 
 nowadays. But I doubt it, especially if the thing 
 outside is some great event, something cataclys- 
 mal, like this tremendous sorrow of Dryfoos s." 18 
 His apology would no doubt be that nothing cata- 
 clysmal happens to Silas Lapham, and that Silas 
 does not change, but develops. For Howells does 
 make a distinction an exceedingly nice one be 
 tween changing and developing. Mr. March is 
 made to bring this out as he continues his discus 
 sion with Mrs. March, who very properly wants to 
 know what in the world it is that changes us, since 
 things without cannot : 
 
 "Well, it won t do to say the Holy Spirit in 
 dwelling. That would sound like cant at this day. 
 But the old fellows that used to say that had some 
 glimpses of the truth. They knew that it is the 
 still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deaf 
 ening blasts of doom. I suppose I should have to 
 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1891), vol. II, p. 318. 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 245 
 
 say that we didn t change at all. We develop. 
 There s the making of several characters in each 
 of us; we are each several characters, and some 
 times this character has the lead in us, and some 
 times that. From what Fulkerson has told me of 
 Dryfoos I should say he had always had the po 
 tentiality of better things in him than he has ever- 
 been yet ; and perhaps the time has come for the 
 good to have its chance. The growth in one direc 
 tion has stopped ; it s begun in another ; that s all. 
 The man hasn t been changed by his son s death; 
 it stunned, it benumbed him; but it couldn t 
 change him. It was an event, like any other, and 
 it had to happen as much as his being born. It 
 was forecast from the beginning of time, and was 
 entirely an effect of his coming into the world. 19 
 
 At this point, Mrs. March interrupts her husband 
 with cries, draws him back from the brink of fa 
 talism, and involves him in confusions into which 
 we perhaps ought not to go too deeply in view of 
 the general validity of his observation and the 
 need for its teaching still shown by our novel and 
 by our theatre. The notion that makes tragedy, 
 as Howells once expressed it in propria persona, 
 a sort of spiritual chemistry, combining the ele 
 ments of character anew," is still a too common 
 one. Call it change or development, as you will, 
 Dryfoos does not get far in the process and Silas 
 Lapham does. As Mr. March says, Dryfoos s 
 offer to sell Every Other Week on easy terms 
 when he has no further use for it is no miracle of 
 magnanimity; Silas Lapham s sacrifice of all his 
 worldly interests in response to an awakened 
 
 19 A Hazard of New Fortunes (1891), vol. II, p. 318. 
 
246 William Dean Howells 
 
 sense of honesty, and his return to the little Ver 
 mont town of his early struggles, is a deeper 
 thing. Silas has changed his view of life in the 
 process of suffering not as Pierre Bezukhoi of 
 War and Peace exchanged his, but certainly after 
 a fashion observable in no other of Howells 
 heroes. 
 
 This condition has contributed to the popularity 
 of the story and there can be little doubt that 
 Silas Lapham is the best beloved of Howells 
 works. It probably owes much also to the fact 
 that it immortalizes a type vastly more flattering 
 to American readers than his other great charac 
 ters not only more flattering, but everyone is 
 pleased to believe, actually more characteristic. 
 Foreigners, indeed, agree that the financier and 
 industrial captain, quickly risen from obscure 
 origins to colossal prosperity and power is a type 
 distinctive of our civilization. Neither they nor 
 we, however, always recognize as one of his char 
 acteristic traits an Anglo-Saxon love of fair play. 
 He habitually regards his business as a game to 
 be played honestly, and is not apt to be cruel and 
 unjust without self-deception. He is often un 
 fortunate in having the rules in his own making, 
 b at in his darkest scheming he does love the game 
 beyond the prize. The interesting moment in his 
 career is when, as his ambitions grow and widen, 
 he encounters something which he wants social 
 position, usually, but maybe only a new way of 
 looking at and enjoying life but which seems to 
 be not a part of his game. He cannot see why. 
 Such is the experience of Dryfoos in A Hazard 
 of New Fortunes, and of Ralston in Letters 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 247 
 
 Home, but Silas Lapham epitomizes the whole of 
 this truly national drama. His magnitude em 
 braces as well those lesser types of American 
 business men, like the enterprising Fulkerson of 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes but with the merely 
 " smart 77 men of smaller ability and meaner ego 
 tism, the Bartley Hubbards and better, he has 
 little in common. This is admirably left in the 
 reader s mind by the interview with which the 
 book opens. While primarily intended to place 
 Silas Lapham on exhibition in all his pride, this 
 chapter exhibits the interviewer as fully; egoism 
 meets egoism, but the merely flippant air of su 
 periority is struck off against substantial achieve 
 ment. One does not escape the impression, I 
 think, that Howells has tried to give a national as 
 well as a dramatic significance to the vital cir 
 cumstance that Lapham s innate honesty is made 
 to contribute to his downfall. He has at any rate 
 succeeded in giving it a strong racial color, differ 
 encing Lapham s honesty from the honesty of 
 Cesar Birotteau. 
 
 In comparing Silas Lapham with his French 
 prototype, as I did in an earlier chapter, I neg 
 lected to note that even this superb creation is not 
 without a touch of his author s literary self -con 
 sciousness. Howells plumes himself unduly in 
 giving an air of finality to his hero s acceptance 
 of the hard conditions which it has been his life s 
 work to surmount. The year after Silas Lapham 
 had come from the press, he blamed Balzac pub 
 licly for his leniency to Cesar, complaining: "It 
 is not enough to have rehabilitated Birotteau pe 
 cuniarily and socially, he must make him die tri- 
 
248 William Dean Howells 
 
 urnphantly, spectacularly, of an opportune hemor 
 rhage, in the midst of the festivities which cele 
 brate his restoration to his old home." 20 This is 
 a little arbitrary, since, although Balzac does 
 overdo Cesar s honesty in its effect on his credi 
 tors, there is reason in his rehabilitation, just as 
 there is in Lapham s failure to retrieve his for 
 tune. 
 
 Howells scorn of crises has left its finest effect 
 upon Silas Lapham in the perfect naturalness 
 with which the calamities are permitted to de 
 scend upon its hero s head. He declines to pur 
 sue the man as many authors do. One has only to 
 recall, say The Vicar of Wake field, which he has 
 so lavishly praised from time to time, to feel the 
 difference. There the author s hand is ruthless 
 upon the shoulder of poor Doctor Primrose, push 
 ing him from disaster into still more hopeless dis 
 aster. The only instance in which we catch How- 
 ells in the act of assisting tardy fate is when with 
 specious cunning he burns the new house on the 
 water side of Beacon Street. Save for this ex 
 ample of promptitude, the disasters accumulate 
 with the delays and indirections which attend such 
 matters in actual life. ; 
 
 In the optimistic air with which Lapham s ca 
 lamity is consummated not in the very end, 
 which is given over to the Eeverend David Sewell 
 with his eternal speculation on the mysterious 
 ways of Providence may be read the moral sig 
 nificance of his history in the repose in which his 
 strong nature receives the worst and which is in- 
 
 "The Editor s Study, " in Harper s Magazine (1886), 73: 
 156. 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 249 
 
 sensibly communicated to his family. In his way 
 Lapham has tasted consciousness of the elemental 
 fact that we are part of a social order; and his 
 cheerfulness is the cheerfulness of a capacity for 
 acting his part in that order realized and ful 
 filled, just as truly as the bitterness which is Anna 
 Karenina s portion is the bitterness of a capable 
 soul whose part is denied and unfulfilled. The 
 tragedy of Anna is that she finds by a thorny road, 
 from which she is unable to extricate herself, 
 what Maggie Tulliver divined that individualism 
 doesn t work, except for souls with some essential 
 meanness in their composition. Those who ask 
 little of life commonly receive less, but they have 
 the mean compensation of seldom discovering 
 what is lost. Anna has asked much of life ; she is 
 a soul above Emma Bovary, and infinitely above 
 their swarm of lesser sisters who come to the same 
 end. Consequently, when she discovers that 
 Vronsky does not hold happiness for her, her dis 
 illusionment is a much vaster thing. It includes 
 much more than her own fate, so much more that 
 her death is only a personal culmination, which 
 Tolstoi might or might not have given. Death and 
 loss of fortune really have no vital importance as 
 conclusions to two such histories of the spirit as 
 Anna Karenina and The Rise of Silas Lapham. 
 The fact that Silas Lapham does not retrieve his 
 fortune is as inconsequent as that Cesar Birotteau 
 should rupture a blood vessel and die magnifi 
 cently. When we come to The Landlord at Lion s 
 Head (1897) we find so far as concerns Jeff Dur- 
 gin, whose spiritual history is there recorded, no 
 ending at all. 
 
250 William Dean Howells 
 
 At the close of his book, Silas Lapham emerges 
 captain of his soul, though mastered hy fate ; Jeff 
 Durgin, unthwarted hy fate, never discovers that 
 he has a soul. Jeff asks only the attainable of life, 
 and realizes but vaguely the failure of his success. 
 His tragedy is a tragedy of sheer incapacity for 
 good, a complement in its way to Anna Kare- 
 nina s, the supreme tragedy of capacity. The 
 failure of the American youth is distinctly per 
 ceptible only to the observer of finer qualities than 
 he among his associates, Westover, the artist, 
 who comes up to the hills one late summer s day 
 to paint the mountain known from its striking 
 configuration as Lion s Head. Protracting his 
 sojourn at the Durgin farm-house in order to com 
 plete his canvas in the deep evening light which 
 lends the huge granite mass its most impressive 
 aspect, he strikes up a tentative comradeship with 
 the boy whose fortunes he is to follow through 
 later life. But "Westover is the "Howells young 
 man" the insipid and somewhat feminized crea 
 tion that Howells employed to typify the Boston 
 culture, the nice young man. Hard as he tries, he 
 is incapable of any effective sympathy with Jeff, 
 who, for all his selfishness and materialism, is one 
 of the most "sympathetic" characters among the 
 men of Howells world. He has not merely 
 strength of body and power of will, but geniality 
 and before it is repressed by his disillusionment 
 at Harvard even joviality. His coming to 
 worldly wisdom, his belief in the wickedness of the 
 beau monde, his appetite for scandal, synchronous 
 with his taste for wine and the theatre these are 
 beautifully done, but arouse only disgust in West- 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 251 
 
 over. Westover finally succeeds in convincing his 
 young friend that his is an old-fashioned mo 
 rality, and the young friend goes on with his own, 
 which holds that "you pay, or you don t pay, just 
 as it happens. " 21 And Jeff is singularly quali 
 fied to get on without paying. 
 
 It was a triumph of an unusual kind for How- 
 ells to make a character of Jeff s stamp so appeal 
 ing; but it might well have been predicted that 
 the greatest of his novels would teach the lesson 
 of such a life. Opposing as he did the persistence 
 in our fiction of a morality that bestows upon 
 spirituality rewards anything but spiritual, he 
 was bound to show us in his most significant in 
 stance, not the selfishness punished by both in 
 ward and outward devastation, as he did in A 
 Modern Instance, nor yet the serene triumph of 
 honesty over material adversity,] as he did in The 
 Rise of Silas Lapham, but the sad insufficiency of 
 the success which our world commonly allots to 
 those mean enough to aim at individual happiness 
 and strong enough to achieve it, this very national 
 phenomenon of the successful failure. This is not 
 merely to remove himself from "the category of 
 futile villain-mongers," but to terrify us in the 
 truest sense with what we are. The Landlord at 
 Lion s Head is essentially a beautiful and a dis 
 turbing illumination of things not done. And no 
 novel ever so searchingly revealed the inconse 
 quence of what we do. Jeff might have succumbed 
 to drink, but he did not ; for he had inherited along 
 with his maternal grandfather s weakness for 
 wine a powerful will and a herculean constitution. 
 
 * The Landlord at Lion s Head (1908), p. 309. 
 
252 William Dean Howells 
 
 He might have formed a vicious liaison with Bes 
 sie Lynde, but the impressiveness and the very 
 validity of the Lynde episode are conditioned by 
 the fact that he did not. He might have been a 
 murderer, but he spared when he had him by the 
 throat the man who had insulted and injured him. 
 He might at the very least have committed arson, 
 but his hotel burned by accident during his ab 
 sence. Jeff s character is implacably delineated 
 in view of his intentions and potentialities, for 
 which things there is no place in his philosophy. 
 And this is the rare and peculiar capacity in which 
 the art of Howells, with its scorn of crimes and 
 climaxes, can touch deeply. 
 
 The last phase of Howells work as a novelist 
 was his return for inspiration to the Middle-West 
 from which he sprang. New Leaf MiUs (1913) 
 takes us back to the Ohio valley and to the time 
 when Chicago was "quite a growing place, " and 
 substitutes for the psychological style which had 
 begun disturbingly to afflict its author s work the 
 glowingly reminiscent manner of My Year in a 
 Log-Cabin. The Leatherwood God (1916) is like 
 wise affectional rather than political in motive, 
 limning the features of that primitive ante-bellum 
 civilization with tenderness, but likewise presents 
 in effect a most appealing picture of America in 
 formation. These are autochthonous documents 
 of the Mid-West, records that will stand with 
 Hamlin Garland s A Son of the Middle Border 
 and Ed Howe s The Story of a Country Town. 
 
 The humanistic problem presented by our fron 
 tier communities, as Ed Howe made compellingly 
 clear in The Story of a Country Town, was largely 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 253 
 
 a religious one. The early settlers when they 
 ceased to be pioneers still lived remotely, undis 
 turbed by the commercial and industrial prob 
 lems that agitated the populous quarters of the 
 Republic, and religion remained the chief of their 
 serious interests. "A fierce religiosity," notes 
 Howells, "choosing between salvation and per 
 dition, was the spiritual life which an open atheist 
 here and there sweepingly denied. 22 And 
 against this life he projects in the first of these 
 chronicles the figure of Owen Powell, one from his 
 own family portrait gallery, a democratic vision 
 ary of serene temperament and large benevolence, 
 while in the second he offers an engagingly human 
 specimen of the local "infidel." 
 
 In Matthew Braile, the genial agnostic and Jus 
 tice of the Peace at Leatherwood, with his sense 
 of justice and fair-play, with the infinite humanity 
 that clothes his poor philosophy, and with the 
 unconscious reverence in his nature, delicately 
 touched, there is immortalized for early Ohio a 
 type as verifiable as Squire Gaylord of New Eng 
 land. He sits on his splint-bottom chair, haloed 
 by fumes from his corncob pipe, a figure of hawk 
 like repose, and discourses, compelling the respect 
 and even the affection of the rustics about him, for 
 all his maliciously reticent way of taking "the 
 shine off of religious experience." 
 
 The story has its universal import as well, the 
 career of Joseph Dylks, the horse-like creature 
 with a black mane of hair and in broadcloth, who 
 appears among the native exhorters with all the 
 thrill of an apparition, snorting salvation, being 
 
 *New Leaf Mitts (1913), p. 22. 
 
254 William Dean Howells 
 
 symbolic of evangelistic imposture in all times the 
 world over. Yet this aspect of the work did not 
 please those who looked to The Leatherwood God 
 for a sensational exposure of professional sin- 
 hounding. Those who looked for that did not 
 know their Howells. The big moments of this 
 book are not those which compass the downfall of 
 Dylks, when he is stripped and despitefully used, 
 in "squalid travesty of the supreme tragedy of 
 the race," or bring him, after that terrible night 
 in the Temple, to trial and acquittal before Squire 
 Braile. The excitement to the Howells initiate is 
 in the little moments the cry in the night of the 
 poor woman who has brought the bolt of cloth 
 from which her family is to be clothed in the win 
 ter that it may be wrought into a seamless gar 
 ment and sees it maliciously rent by the "hounds." 
 These are the moments that Howells alone ren 
 ders ineffaceable, that invite his reader to actual 
 spectatorship in his events, that contain the fine 
 secret of his humanity. 
 
 It is gratifying to close this review of Howells 
 work with so happy an example of the way in 
 which his nationalism and his humanitarianism 
 worked together and of the way in which he was 
 wont to resolve his human problems into their 
 simplest and truest aspects, and to make these 
 aspects the most impressive. His literary achieve 
 ment is rooted in the condition that he was a great 
 novelist who was also a great democrat. His va 
 rious accomplishments array themselves about the 
 central and arresting fact of his absorption in 
 every-day men and women. He was not a great 
 sociological theorist nor was he one of the multi- 
 
His Fiction: Studies in Ethics 
 
 tude; he was something better. He was a great 
 artist who made the basis of his art the basis of 
 all sociology. There is a letter from Mark Twain 
 in the third volume of Mr. Paine s wonderful biog 
 raphy which puts this much better than I can. 
 "You are old enough to be a weary man with 
 paling interests," it reads, "but you do not show 
 it; you do your work in the same old, delicate & 
 delicious & forceful & searching & perfect way. 
 I don t know how you can but I suspect. I sus 
 pect that to you there is still dignity in human 
 life, & that man is not a joke a poor joke the 
 poorest that was ever contrived. Since I wrote 
 my Bible (last year), which Mrs. Clemens loathes 
 & shudders over & will not listen to the last half 
 nor allow me to print any part of it, man is not to 
 me the respect-worthy person he was before, & so 
 I have lost my pride in him & can t write gaily nor 
 praisefully about him any more. . . ." These, I 
 think, are the most searching words that have ever 
 ? been uttered on the art of William Dean Howells. 
 One aspect of Howells democracy that should 
 be mentioned in conclusion will continue to occa- 
 Jsion difficulty with his admirers the democratiza 
 tion of the arts. For many it were easier to vision 
 the brotherhood of man than, let us say, popular 
 .editions of the Howells novels. But Howells never 
 relinquished his faith in the effectiveness of the 
 : novel as a socializing instrument. He thought of 
 literature as already out of the palace and the 
 cloister and perhaps as far as the forum, and 
 cherished what will seem to many of his friends 
 the optimistic delusion that it must one day reach 
 the market-place. He believed in Michael Ange- 
 
2^6 William Dean Howells 
 
 lo s "light of the piazza" as an artistic criterion, 
 even when Tolstoi invoked it to condemn "The 
 Last Judgment, and spoke on more than one oc 
 casion of the "communistic era in taste. " Mark 
 Twain, indeed, in a friendly letter gave America 
 one hundred years to make the Howells books as 
 common as Bibles; but it were safer perhaps to 
 rely on a more modest prophecy now made public 
 in the letters of Henry James, who looked forward 
 to what he called a "beautiful" time when the 
 critical intelligence, an entity about which he was 
 somewhat doubtful, should begin to render 
 Howells its tribute. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Three bibliographies have been of assistance in compiling 
 this one: P. K. Foley s American Authors 1795-1895: A Bib 
 liography of First and Notable Editions (1897), Boston; 
 Albert Lee s "Bibliography of First Editions (William Dean 
 Howells)," in the Book Buyer (1897), 14:143, 269, person 
 ally revised by Mr. Howells; and the "List of Publications" 
 prepared by Mr. Andrew Keogh for Professor W. L. Phelps 
 Essays on Modern Novelists (1910), N. Y., Macmillan. The 
 books brought out by Osgood are now published by Houghton 
 Mifflin Company. 
 
 I. BOOKS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTEREST 
 
 A Boy s Town. N. Y. Harper. 1890. 
 
 My Year in a Log Cabin. N. Y. Harper. 1893. 
 
 Eecollections of Life in Ohio. 1813-1840. By William Cooper 
 Howells. With an Introduction by his son, William Dean 
 Howells. Cincinnati. The Robert Clark Company. 1895. 
 
 Impressions and Experiences. N. Y. Harper. 1896. 
 
 Tears of My Youth. N. Y. Harper. 1916. 
 
 See also My Literary Passions and Literary Friends and 
 Acquaintance, under Books of Criticism; New Leaf Mitts, 
 under Novels; A Day s Pleasure and Other Sketches ("A 
 Year in a Venetian Palace"), under Sketches and Stories; 
 and A Little Girl Among the Old Masters , under Miscellaneous 
 Works. 
 
 II. BOOKS OF CRITICISM 
 
 Modern Italian Poets: Essays and Versions. N. Y. Harper. 
 
 1887. 
 
 Criticism and Fiction. N. Y. Harper. 1891. 
 My Literary Passions. N. Y. Harper. 1895. 
 
 257 
 
258 Bibliography 
 
 Literary Friends and Acquaintance: a Personal Retrospect of 
 American Authorship. N. Y. Harper. 1900. 
 
 Heroines of Fiction. 2 vols. N. Y. Harper. 1901. 
 
 Literature and Life: Studies. N. Y. Harper. 1902. 
 
 My Mark Twain: Reminiscences and Criticisms. N. Y. 
 Harper. 1910. 
 
 Imaginary Interviews. N. Y. Harper. 1910. 
 
 III. BOOKS CONTAINING CRITICAL INTRO 
 DUCTIONS 
 
 Choice Autobiographies. Edited, with introductory essays. 
 8 vols. Boston. Osgood. 1877. 
 
 Living Truths from the Writings of Charles Kingsley. Bos 
 ton. Lothrop. 1882^ 
 
 Sevastopol. Tolstoi. Translated from the French by F. D. 
 Millet. N. Y. Harper. 1887. 
 
 The House by the Medlar-Tree. Giovanni Verga. Trans 
 lated by Mary A. Craig. N. Y. Harper. 1890. 
 
 Pastels in Prose. From the French. Translated by Stuart 
 Merrill. N. Y. Harper. 1890. 
 
 Poems. George Pellew. Edited, with introduction. Boston. 
 W. B. Clarke. 1892. 
 
 Main-Travelled Roads. Hamlin Garland. Revised Edition. 
 Chicago. Stone and Kimball. 1893. (New Edition. N. Y. 
 Harper. 1899.) 
 
 Dona Perfecta. Galdos. N. Y. Harper. 1896. 
 
 Lyrics of Lowly Life. Paul Laurence Dunbar. N. Y. Dodd, 
 Mead. 1896. 
 
 English Society. George Du Maurier. N. Y. Harper. 
 1897. 
 
 Harpers Novelettes. Edited jointly by William Dean Howells 
 and Henry Mills Alden. 8 vols. N. Y. Harper. 1906- 
 1907. 
 
 Mark Twain s Speeches*. N. Y. Harper. 1910. 
 
 Poems. Madison J. Cawein. N. Y. Macmillan. 1911. 
 
 Artemus Ward s Best Stories. Edited by Clifton Johnson. 
 N. Y. Harper. 1912. 
 
 The Second Odd Number. Thirteen Tales by Guy de Mau 
 passant. N. Y. Harper. 1917. 
 
Bibliography 259 
 
 The Shadow of the Cathedral. Vicente Blasco-Ibanez. 
 Translated by Mrs. W. A. Gillespie. N. Y. Button. 1919. 
 
 Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen. (The Modern Students 
 Library.) N. Y. Scribner. 1919. 
 
 The Actor-Manager. Leonard Merrick. N. Y. Button. 1919. 
 
 Great Modern American Stories. Collected with an introduc 
 tion by William Bean Howells. N. Y. Boni and Liveright. 
 1920. 
 
 Daisy Miller [and] An International Episode. Henry James. 
 (The Modern Library.) N. Y. Boni and Liveright. n.d. 
 
 IV. POETRY 
 
 Poems of Two Friends. With John James Piatt. Columbus. 
 Follett, Foster and Company. 1860. 
 
 The Poets and Poetry of the West. Containing six poems and 
 four biographical notices by William Bean Howells. Co 
 lumbus. Fbllett, Foster and Company. 1860. 
 
 No Love Lost: A Romance of Travel. N. Y. Putnam. 1869. 
 
 Poems. Boston. Osgood. 1873. (There are two later edi 
 tions of the collected poems with slight alteration of con 
 tents, that of 1885 and that of 1901, Boston, Houghton.) 
 
 Stops of Various Quills. N. Y. Harper. 1895. 
 
 The Mother and the Father: Dramatic Passages. N. Y. 
 Harper. 1909. 
 
 See also The Daughter of the Storage, under Sketches and 
 Stories. 
 
 V. BOOKS OF TRAVEL 
 
 Venetian Life. N. Y. Hurd. 1866. 
 
 Italian Journeys. N. Y. Hurd. 1867. 
 
 Three Villages. Boston. Osgood. 1884. 
 
 Tuscan Cities. Boston. Ticknor. 1886. 
 
 A Little Swiss Sojourn. N. Y. Harper. 1892. 
 
 The Niagara Book. With S. L. Clemens and others. Buffalo. 
 
 Underbill and Nichols. 1893. 
 London Films. N. Y. Harper. 1905. 
 Certain Delightful English Towns; with Glimpses of the 
 
 Pleasant Country Between. N. Y. Harper. 1906. 
 
260 Bibliography 
 
 Roman Holidays, and Others. N. Y. Harper. 1908. 
 
 Seven English Cities. N. Y. Harper. 1909. 
 
 Familiar Spanish Travels. N. Y. Harper. 1913. 
 
 The Seen and Unseen at Strat ford-on- Avon; A Fantasy. 
 
 N. Y. Harper. 1914. 
 Hither and Thither in Germany. N. Y. Harper. 1920. 
 
 VI. NOVELS 
 
 Their Wedding Journey. Boston. Osgood. 1872. (The 
 
 same, with additional chapter, "Niagara Revisited," Boston, 
 
 1887.) 
 
 A Chance Acquaintance. Boston. Osgood. 1873. 
 A Foregone Conclusion. Boston. Osgood. 1875. 
 The Lady of the Aroostook. Boston. Houghton. 1879. 
 The Undiscovered Country. Boston. Houghton. 1880. 
 Dr. Breen s Practice: a Novel. Boston. Osgood. 1881. 
 A Modern Instance: a Novel. Boston. Osgood. 1882. 
 A Woman s Reason: a Novel. Boston. Osgood. 1883. 
 The Rise of Silas Lapham. Boston. Ticknor. 1884. 
 Indian Summer. Boston. Ticknor. 1885. 
 The Minister s Charge; or, the Apprenticeship of Lemuel 
 
 Barker. Boston. Ticknor. 1887. 
 April Hopes. N. Y. Harper. 1888. 
 Annie Kilburn: a Novel. N. Y. Harper. 1888. 
 A Hazard of New Fortunes : a Novel. N. Y. Harper. 1889. 
 
 (Also issued in 2 vols., 1890.) 
 
 The Shadow of a Dream: a Story. N. Y. Harper, 1890. 
 An Imperative Duty: a Novel. N. Y. Harper. 1891. 
 The Quality of Mercy: a Novel N. Y. Harper. 1892. 
 The Coast of Bohemia: a Novel N. Y. Harper. 1893. 
 The World of Chance: a Novel N. Y. Harper. 1893. 
 A Traveler from Altruria: Romance. N. Y. Harper. 1894. 
 The Day of Their Wedding. N. Y. Harper. 1896. 
 The Landlord at Lion s Head. N. Y. Harper. 1897. 
 An Open-Eyed Conspiracy: an Idyl of Saratoga. N. Y. 
 
 Harper. 1897. 
 
 The Story of a Play: a Novel N. Y. Harper. 1898. 
 Ragged Lady: a Novel N. Y. Harper. 1899. 
 
Bibliography 261 
 
 Their Silver Wedding Jowrney. 2 vols. N. Y. Harper. 
 1899. 
 
 The Kentons: a Novel. N. Y. Harper. 1902. 
 
 Letters Home. N. Y. Harper. 1903. 
 
 The Son of Eoyal Langbrith: a Novel. N. Y. Harper. 1904. 
 
 Miss Bellard s Inspiration. N. Y. Harper. 1905. 
 
 Through the Eye of the Needle: a Romance with an Intro 
 duction. N. Y. Harper. 1907. 
 
 Fennel and Rue: a Novel. N. Y. Harper. 1908. 
 
 New Leaf Mills: a Chronicle. N. Y. Harper. 1913. 
 
 The Leatherwood God. N. Y. Century. 1916. 
 
 The Vacation of the Kelwyns. N. Y. Harper. 1920. 
 
 Mrs. Farrell: a Novel. With an Introduction by Mildred 
 Howells. N. Y. Harper. 1921. 
 
 VII. SKETCHES AND STORIES 
 
 Suburban Sketches. N. Y. Hurd. 1871. (The same re 
 vised and enlarged, Boston, 1872.) 
 
 A Day s Pleasure, and Other Sketches. Boston. Osgood. 
 1876. 
 
 A Fearful Responsibility, and Other Stories. Boston. Os 
 good. 1881. (Contains "At the Sign of the Savage" and 
 "Tonelli s Marriage.") 
 
 Buying a Horse. Boston. 1881. (Reprinted from A Day s 
 Pleasure.} 
 
 Niagara Revisited, 12 Years After Their Wedding Journey, by 
 the Hoosac Tunnel Route. Chicago. Dalziel. 1884. 
 (Not circulated.) 
 
 Christmas Every Day, and Other Stories Told for Children. 
 N. Y. Harper. 1893. 
 
 A Parting and a Meeting: Story. N. Y. Harper. 1896. 
 
 Doorstep Acquaintance, and Other Sketches. Boston. 
 Houghton. 1900. 
 
 A Pair of Patient Lovers. N. Y. Harper. 1901. 
 
 The Flight of Pony Baker: a Boy s Town Story. N. Y. Har 
 per. 1902. 
 
 Questionable Shapes (Three stories of the occult). N. Y. 
 Harper. 1903. 
 
262 Bibliography 
 
 Between the Dark and the Daylight; Romances. N. Y. Har 
 per. 1907. 
 
 The Daughter of the Storage, and Other Things in Prose and 
 Verse. N. Y. Harper. 1916. 
 
 See also Impressions and Experiences, under Books of 
 Autobiographical Interest. 
 
 VIII. PLAYS 
 
 The Parlor Car: Farce. Boston. Osgood. 1876. 
 
 Out of the Question: a Comedy. Boston. Osgood. 1877. 
 
 A Counterfeit Presentment: Comedy. Boston. Osgood. 
 1877. 
 
 The Sleeping Car: a Farce. Boston. Osgood, 1883. 
 
 The Register: Farce. Boston. Osgood. 1884. 
 
 The Elevator: Farce. Boston. Osgood. 1885. 
 
 The Garroters: Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1886. 
 
 A Sea-Change; or Love s Stowaway: a Lyricated Farce. Bos 
 ton. Tieknor. 1888. 
 
 The Mouse-Trap, and Other Farces. N. Y. Harper. 1889. 
 
 The Sleeping Car and Other Farces. N. Y. Harper. 1890. 
 
 The Albany Depot. N. Y. Harper. 1892. 
 
 A Letter of Introduction: Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1892. 
 
 The Unexpected Guests: a Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1893. 
 
 Evening Dress: Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1893. 
 
 A Likely Story : Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1894. 
 
 Five O Clock Tea: Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1894. 
 
 A Previous Engagement : Comedy. N. Y. Harper. 1897. 
 
 Room Forty-five: a Farce. Boston. Houghton. 1900. 
 
 Bride Roses: a Scene. Boston. Houghton. 1900. 
 
 The Smoking Car: a Farce. Boston. Houghton. 1900. 
 
 An Indian Giver: a Comedy. Boston. Houghton. 1900. 
 
 Parting Friends: a Farce. N. Y. Harper. 1911. 
 
 Two plays ( "Self-Sacrifice : a Farce-Tragedy" and "The 
 Night Before Christmas: a Morality") are included in the 
 miscellany, The Daughter of the Storage, listed under Sketches 
 and Stories. The Sleeping Car and The Parlor Car have 
 been reprinted together as No. 240 of the Riverside Literature 
 Series, Houghton Mifflin Company, 
 
Bibliography 263 
 
 IX. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 
 
 Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Ham- 
 lin. Columbus. Follett, Foster and Company. 1860. 
 (Contains a life of Lincoln by William Dean Howells.) 
 
 Echoes of Harper s Ferry. Boston. 1860. (Edited by James 
 Redpath. Contains a memorial tribute by William Dean 
 Howells.) 
 
 The Atlantic Almanac. 1870. Boston. 1869. (Contains 
 "Bo-Peep: a Pastoral" by William Dean Howells.) 
 
 Balloon Post. 6 nos. Boston. 1871. (Consists of original 
 contributions by Henry James, William Dean Howells, 
 Bret Harte, and others. Published at the French Fair in 
 aid of the destitute people of France.) 
 
 Jubilee Days. An Illustrated Record of the Humorous Fea 
 tures of the World s Peace Jubilee. 16 nos. Boston. Os- 
 good. 1872. ("Edited anonymously by T. B. Aldrich and 
 W. D. Howells, who, with E. P. Whipple, were the prin 
 cipal contributors." Foley. ) 
 
 Sketch of the Life and Character of Eutlierford B. Hai/es^ 
 N. Y. Kurd. 1876. (Contains a sketch of Wm. A. 
 Wheeler by another author.) 
 
 The Cambridge of 1776. Cambridge. 1876. (Contains an 
 introductory sonnet by William Dean Howells.) 
 
 The City and the Sea [Longfellow] with other Cambridge 
 Contributions. Cambridge. John Wilson and Son. 1881. 
 (Contains "My First Friend in Cambridge.") 
 
 A Little Girl [Mildred Howells] among the Old Masters. 
 With Introduction and Comment by William Dean Howells. 
 Boston. Osgood. 1884. 
 
 George Fuller: his Life and Works. A Memorial Volume. 
 Boston. Houghton. 1886. (Contains a biographical 
 sketch by William Dean Howells.) 
 
 Library of Universal Adventure by Sea and Land. Edited by 
 William Dean Howells and Thomas S. Perry. N. Y. 
 Harper. 1888. 
 
 Character and Comment. Selections from the works of Wil 
 liam Dean Howells by M. Macoun. Boston. Houghton. 
 1889. 
 
264 Bibliography 
 
 South Sea Idyls. C. W. Stoddard. With Introductory Let 
 ter by William Dean Howells. Boston. 1892. 
 
 Stories of Ohio. N. Y. American Book Company. 1897. 
 
 The Howells Story Book. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Mil 
 dred Howells; illustrated by Mildred Howells. N. Y. 
 Scribner. 1900. 
 
 Mulberries in Pay s Garden. Cincinnati. Clarke. 1907. 
 
 The Whole Family: a Novel by 12 Authors. N. Y. Harper. 
 1908. (William Dean Howells joint author.) 
 
 Boy Life. Stories and readings selected by Percival Chubb. 
 N. Y. Harper. 1909. 
 
 In After Days : Thoughts on the Future Life. N. Y. Harper. 
 1910. (William Dean Howells joint author.) 
 
 X. A SELECTED LIST OF PERIODICAL 
 CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 Book notices in the Atlantic Monthly from June, 1866, to 
 
 January, 1881 (17:775-47:126). 
 "The Question of Monuments," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1866), 17:646. 
 
 "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," in the North American Re 
 view (1867), 104:531. 
 "The Next President," in the Atlantic Monthly (1868), 
 
 21 : 628. 
 "George William Curtis," in the North American Review 
 
 (1868), 107:104. 
 "The New Taste in Theatricals," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1869), 23:635. 
 "Some Arcadian Shepherds," in the Atlantic Monthly (1872), 
 
 29 : 84. 
 "Mr. Parkman s Histories," in the Atlantic Monthly (1874), 
 
 34:602. 
 "Private Theatricals," a novel in the Atlantic Monthly (1875- 
 
 1876), 36: 513, 674, and 37: 1, 182, 329, 437, 559. 
 "Pour New Books of Poetry," in the Atlantic Monthly (1876), 
 
 37:105. 
 
 "A Shaker Village," in the Atlantic Monthly (1876), 37: 699. 
 "A Sennight of the Centennial," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1876), 38:92. 
 
Bibliography 265 
 
 "Some New Books of Poetry," in the Atlantic Monthly (1877), 
 
 39 : 87. 
 
 "Carlo G-oldoni," in the Atlantic Monthly (1877), 40:601. 
 "Some Recent Volumes of Verse," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1878), 41:629. 
 
 "Henry James, Jr.," in the Century (1882), 3(n.s.) : 25. 
 "The Laureate of Death" (Leopardi), in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1885), 56:311. 
 "The Editor s Study," essays in Harper s from January, 1886, 
 
 to March, 1892 (72 : 312-84 : 640). 
 "A Masterpiece of Diplomacy: Farce," in Harper s (1891), 
 
 88 : 371. 
 "Are We a Plutocracy?" in the North American Review 
 
 (1894), 158:185. 
 "Equality as the Basis of Good Society," in the Century 
 
 (1895), 29:63. 
 
 "The Nature of Liberty," in the Forum (1895), 20: 401. 
 "On Coming Back," in the Atlantic Monthly (1896), 78:562. 
 "Who Are Our Brethren?" in the Century (1896), 29: 932. 
 "The Modem American Mood," in Harper s (1897), 95:199. 
 "The Laureate of the Larger England" (Kipling), in Mc- 
 
 Clure s (1897), 8:453. 
 "Confessions of a Summer Colonist," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1898), 82:742. 
 
 "Edward Bellamy," in the Atlantic Monthly (1898), 82:253. 
 "Pictures for Don Quixote," in the Century (1898), 34:177. 
 "In Honor of Tolstoy," in the Critic (1898), 30(n.s.) : 288. 
 "Charles W. Chesnutt s Stories," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1900), 85:699. 
 "Mr. Stockton and All His Works," in the Book Buyer (1900), 
 
 20 : 19. 
 
 "The New Historical Romances," in the North American Re 
 view (1900), 171:935. 
 "The Easy Chair," essays in Harper s from December, 1900, 
 
 to April, 1920 (102:153-140:710). 
 "At Third Hand: a Psychological Inquiry," in the Century 
 
 (1901), 39(n.s.):496. 
 "An Earlier American" (W. J. Stillman), in the North 
 
 American Review (1901), 172:934. 
 
266 Bibliography 
 
 "An Exemplary Citizen," in the North American Beview 
 
 (1901), 173:280. 
 
 "A Hundred Years of American Verse," in the North Ameri 
 can Beview (1901), 172:148. 
 "The New Poetic Drama," in the North American Beview 
 
 (1901), 172:794. 
 "A Possible Difference in English and American Fiction," in 
 
 the North American Beview (1901), 173: 134. 
 "Professor Barrett Wendell s Notions of American Literature," 
 
 in the North American Beview (1901), 172: 623. 
 "A Psychological Counter-current in Recent Fiction," in the 
 
 North American Beview (1901), 173:872. 
 "A Double-barrelled Sonnet to Mark Twain," in Harper s 
 
 Weekly (1902), 46:1943. 
 
 "fimile Zola," in the North American Beview (1902), 175: 587. 
 "Frank Norris," in the North American Beview (1902), 
 
 175 : 769. 
 "Certain of the Chicago School of Fiction," in the North 
 
 American Beview (1903), 176:734. 
 "Henry James s Later Work," in the North American Beview 
 
 (1903), 176:125. 
 "English Feeling Towards Americans," in the North American 
 
 Beview (1904), 179:815. 
 "John Hay in Literature," in the North American Beview 
 
 (1905), 181:343. 
 
 "Henrik Ibsen," in the North American Beview (1906), 183: 1. 
 "The Fiction of John Oliver Hobbes," in the North American 
 
 Beview (1906), 183:1251. 
 "The Art of Longfellow," in the North American Beview 
 
 (1907), 184:472. 
 "A Great New York Journalist" (E. L. Godkin), in the 
 
 North American Beview (1907), 185:44. 
 "The Fiction of Leonard Merrick," in the North American 
 
 Beview (1907), 185:378. 
 "On Reading the Plays of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones," in the 
 
 North American Beview (1907), 186:205. 
 "Recollections of an Atlantic Editorship," in the Atlantic 
 
 Monthly (1907), 100:594. 
 "The Poetry of Mr. Madison Cawein," in the North American 
 
 Beview (1908), 187:124. 
 
Bibliography 267 
 
 "The Justice of a Friend/ in the North American Review 
 
 (1908), 187:880. 
 "Some Unpalatable Suggestions," in the North American Re- 
 
 view (1908), 188:254. 
 "Lyof N. Tolstoy/ in the North American Review (1908), 
 
 188:842. 
 "Robert Herrick," in the North American Review (1909), 
 
 189:812. 
 
 "The Fiction of Eden Phillpotts," in the North American Re 
 view (1909), 190:15. 
 "Professor Cross s Life of Sterne," in the North American 
 
 Review (1910), 191:273. 
 "A Political Novelist and More" (Brand Whitlock), in the 
 
 North American Review (1910), 192: 93. 
 "Mr. Garland s Books," in the North American Review (1912), 
 
 196 : 523. 
 "Part of Which I Was," in the North American Review 
 
 (1915), 201:135. (Occasioned by the centenary of the 
 
 Review.) 
 "Plays of Eugene Brieux," in the North American Review 
 
 (1915), 201:402. 
 
 "Why?" in the North American Review (1915), 201:676. 
 "In Charleston," in Harper s (1915), 131:747. 
 "Irish Executions," in the New York Nation (1916), 102:541. 
 "The Passengers of a Retarded Submersible," in the North 
 
 American Review (1916), 204:741. 
 "Eighty Years and After," in Harper s (1919), 140:21. 
 
 XI. WRITINGS ABOUT HOWELLS 
 
 Henry James, early reviews in the North American Review 
 
 (1868), 106:336, and (1875), 120:207. 
 W. C. Brownell, "The Novels of Mr. Howells," in the New 
 
 York Nation (1880), 31:49. 
 Mrs. Sutherland Orr, "International Novelists and Mr. 
 
 Howells," in the Contemporary Review (1880), 37:741. 
 
 Reprinted in the Living Age, 145 : 599. 
 Thomas Sargent Perry, "William Dean Howells," in the 
 
 Century (1882), 1:680. 
 
268 Bibliography 
 
 "American Literature in England," in Blackwood s (1883), 
 
 133 : 136. 
 G. H. Badger, "William Dean Howells as an Interpreter of 
 
 American Life," in the International Review (1883), 
 
 14:380. 
 H. E. Scudder, "The East and the West in Recent Fiction," 
 
 in the Atlantic Monthly (1883), 52:704. 
 Henry James, "William Dean Howells," in Harper s Weekly 
 
 (1886), 30:394. 
 
 H. K Scudder, "James, Crawford, and Howells," in the Atlan 
 tic Monthly (1886), 57:855. 
 W. H. Bishop, "Mr. Howells in Beacon Street, Boston," in 
 
 the Critic (1886), 6(n.s.) : 259. 
 Harriet E. Monroe, "Statesman and Novelist," in Lippincott s 
 
 (1887), 39:128. 
 "Mr. Maurice Thompson on Mr. Howells," in the Boston 
 
 Literary World (1887), 18:281. 
 Mrs. S. K. Bolton, Famous American Authors. N. Y. Crowell. 
 
 1887. 
 W. H. Bideing, Boyhood of Living Authors. N. Y. Crowell. 
 
 1887. 
 Jeannette L. and J. B. Gilder, Authors at Home. N. Y. 
 
 Cassell. 1888. 
 G. E. Woodberry, "Modern Italian Poets," in the Atlantic 
 
 Monthly (1888), 61:130. 
 Anna Laurens Dawes, "The Moral Purpose in Howells s 
 
 Novels," in the Andover Review (1889), 11:23. 
 John M. Robertson, Essays Toward a Critical Method. Lon 
 don. Fisher Unwin. 1889. 
 "New York in Recent Fiction," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 (1890), 65:563. 
 Hamlin Garland, "Mr. Howells s Latest Novels," in the New 
 
 England Magazine (1890), 2(n.s.) : 243. 
 J. A. Steuart, Letters to Living Authors. London. Sampson 
 
 Low, Marston. 1892. 
 H. H. Boyesen, "William Deau Howells and His Work," in 
 
 the Cosmopolitan (1892), 12:502. 
 T. C. Crawford, "Literary Methods of William Dean Howells," 
 
 in the Critic (1892), 18(n.s.) : 36. 
 H. H. Boyesen, "A Dialogue Between William Dean Howells 
 
 and Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen," in McClure s (1893), 1:3. 
 
Bibliography 269 
 
 Sylvester Baxter, "Howells s Boston," in the New England 
 
 Magazine (1893), 9(n.s.) : 129. 
 
 Celia Parker Woolley, "Mr. Howells Again," in the New Eng 
 land Magazine (1893), 9(n.s.) : 408. 
 "Mr. Howells Americanisms," in the Critic (1894), 22(n.s.) : 
 
 193. 
 H. C. Vedder, American Writers of To-day. Boston. Silver, 
 
 Burdett. 1894. 
 
 Harry Thurston Peck, "Mr. Howells as a Poet," in the Book 
 man (1896), 2:525. 
 Lida R. McCahe, "One Never Can Tell," in the Outlook 
 
 (1898), 59:131. 
 John D. Barry, "The Story of a Play," in the Bookman 
 
 (1898), 7:515. 
 Harry Thurston Peck, The Personal Equation. N. Y. Harper. 
 
 1898. 
 Waldon Fawcett, "William Dean Howells and [Joseph] his 
 
 Brother," in the Critic (1899), 32(n.s.) : 1026. 
 Gerald Stanley Lee, "Mr. Howells on the Platform," in the 
 
 Critic (1899), 32(n.s.) : 1029. 
 
 Cornelia Atwood Pratt, "William Dean Howells: Some As 
 pects of His Realistic Novels," in the Critic (1899), 
 
 32 (n^.): 1021. 
 W. P. Trent, The Authority of Criticism. N. Y. Scribner. 
 
 1899. 
 F. W. Halsey, American Authors and Their Homes. N. Y. 
 
 Pott. 1901. 
 Brander Matthews, "Mr. Howells as a Critic," in the Forum 
 
 (1902), 32:629. 
 "Lowell and Howells," in Harper s Weekly (1902), 46: 
 
 101. 
 John M. Robertson, Criticisms, vol. 1. London. Bradlaugh 
 
 Bonner. 1902. 
 Harriet Waters Preston, "The Latest Novels of Howells and 
 
 James," in the Atlantic Monthly (1903), 91:77. 
 M. H. Vorse, "Certain Overlooked Phases of American Life," 
 
 in the Critic (1903), 43: 83. 
 Richard Arthur, "The Poetry of William Dean Howells," in 
 
 the Booklover s Magazine (1903), 2:569. 
 Gertrude Atherton, "Why is American Literature Bourgeois?" 
 
 in the North American Review (1904), 178:771. 
 
270 Bibliography 
 
 A. Schade van Westrum, "Mr. Howells on Love and Liter 
 ature," in Lamp (1904), 28:26. 
 
 Frederic Taber Cooper, "Miss Bellard s Inspiration," in the 
 Bookman (1905), 21:610. 
 
 L. F. Hartman, "Howells and the Logic of Love," in Harper s 
 Weekly (1905), 49:871. 
 
 Mark Twain, "William Dean Howells," in Harper s (1906), 
 113:221. 
 
 T. W. Higginson, Short Studies of American Authors. N. Y. 
 Longmans. 1906. 
 
 John Townsend Trowbridge, "An Early Contributor s Recol 
 lections," in the Atlantic Monthly (1907), 100 : 59. 
 
 A. Schade van Westrum, "Mr. Howells and American Aristoc 
 racies," in the Bookman (1907), 25: 67. 
 
 A. Schade van Westrum, "Altruria Once More," in the Book 
 man (1907), 25:434. 
 
 Horace Spencer Fiske, Provincial Types in American Fiction. 
 Chautauqua, N. Y. The Chautauqua Press. 1907. 
 
 Frederic Taber Cooper, "The Many Italics," in the Bookman 
 (1908), 26:509. 
 
 "Why Have We Not More Great Novelists?" in Current Lit 
 erature (1908), 44:158. Review of New York Times inter 
 view with Mrs. Gertrude Atherton. 
 
 A. Schade van Westrum, "Mr. Howells Fennel and Rue/" 
 in the Bookman (1908), 27: 281. 
 
 Edith M. Thomas, "Mr. Howells Way of Saying Things," in 
 Putnam s (1908), 4:443. 
 
 F. M. Colby, "Curiosities of Literary Controversy," in the 
 Bookman (1908), 28:124. 
 
 W. C. Wilkinson, Some New Literary Values. N. Y. Funk. 
 1908. 
 
 Van Wyck Brooks, "Mr. Howells at Work at Seventy-two," 
 in The World s Work (1909), 18:11547. 
 
 "Ricus," "A Suppressed Novel of Mr. Howells," in the Book 
 man (1910), 32:201. 
 
 W. L. Phelps, Essays on Modern Novelists. N. Y. Macmil- 
 lan. 1910. 
 
 J. Henry Harper, The House of Harper. N. Y. Harper. 
 1912. 
 
 Mary Wilkins-Freeman, "A Woman s Tribute to Mr. Howells," 
 in the Literary Digest (1912), 44: 485. 
 
Bibliography 271 
 
 V Henry James and Frank B. Sanborn, "Literary Recollec 
 tions," in the North American Review (1912), 195: 550. 
 
 Note prefatory to "The Coming," in the Bookman (1912), 
 35 : 510. 
 
 "America s Foremost Living Man of Letters," a symposium 
 
 in Current Literature (1912), 52:461. 
 
 V W. D. H. and T. S. P., "Recent Russian Fiction: a Conver 
 sation," in the North American Review (1912), 196:85. 
 
 Edith Wyatt, "A National Contribution," in the North Ameri 
 can Review (1912), 196:339. 
 
 "Diplomaticus," "A Portrayer of the Commonplace," in the 
 Westminster Review (1912), 178:597. 
 
 John Macy, The Spirit of American Literature. N. Y. 
 Doubleday, Page. 1913. 
 
 "Howells as a Victim of the Dead Hand in American Fic 
 tion," a reply to John Macy, in Current Opinion (1913), 
 54:411. 
 
 W. B. Trites, "William Dean Howells," in the Forum (1913), 
 49 : 217. 
 
 "William Dean Howells as a Medium," in Current Opinion 
 (1914), 57:51. 
 
 John Curtis Underwood, Literature and Insurgency: Ten 
 Studies in Racial Evolution. N. Y. M. Kennerley. 1914. 
 
 H. W. Mabie, "William Dean Howells," in the Outlook (1915), 
 111 : 786. Presentation address at the Boston meeting of 
 the Academy of Arts and Letters. 
 
 Fred Lewis Pattee, A History of American Literature Since 
 1870. N. Y. The Century Company. 1915. 
 
 Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett, "Contemporary 
 Novelists: William Dean Howells," in the Atlantic Monthly 
 (1917), 119:362. Reprinted in their book, Some Modern 
 Novelists: Appreciations and Estimates. N. Y. Holt. 
 1918. 
 
 Hamlin Garland, "Meetings with Howells," in the Bookman 
 (1917), 45: 1. See also A Son of the Middle Border, and 
 for general comment on the movement toward localism his 
 Crumbling Idols. 
 
 Alexander Harvey, William Dean Howells: A Study of the 
 Achievement of a Literary Artist. N. Y. Huebsch. 1917. 
 
 Alexander Harvey, Introduction to A Hazard of New Fortunes 
 (The Modern Library). N. Y. Boni and Liveright. n.d. 
 
272 Bibliography 
 
 Van Wyck Brooks, Letters and Leadership. N. Y. Huebsch. 
 
 1918. 
 
 Henry Mills Alden, "William Dean Howells," in the Book 
 man (1919), 49:549. 
 H. L. Mencken, "The Dean," in Prejudices: First Series. 
 
 N. Y. Knopf. 1919. 
 John Erskine, "William Dean Howells," in the Bookman 
 
 (1920), 51:385. 
 Arthur Hobson Quinn, "The Art of William Dean Howells," 
 
 in the Century (1920), 100:674. 
 "The Safe and Sane Genius of William Dean Howells," in 
 
 Current Opinion (1920), 69:93. 
 Edward S. Martin, "W. D. Howells," in Harper s (1920), 
 
 141 : 265. 
 Booth Tarkington, "Mr. Howells," in Harper s (1920), 141: 
 
 346. 
 "William Dean Howells, Printer, Journalist, Poet, Novelist," 
 
 in the Literary Digest (1920), 65: 53. 
 E. Gosse, "The Passing of William Dean Howells," in the 
 
 Living Age (1920), 306:98. 
 "William Dean Howells," in the North American Review 
 
 (1920), 212:1. 
 _ W. L. Phelps, "An Appreciation," in the North American 
 
 Re-view (1920), 212:17. 
 Altha Leah Bass, "The Social Consciousness of William Dean 
 
 Howells," in the New Republic (1921), 26: 192. 
 May Tomlinson, "Fiction and Mr. Howells," in the South 
 
 Atlantic Quarterly (1921), 20:360. 
 Carl Van Doren, "Howells and Realism," in The American 
 
 Novel N. Y. Macmillan. 1921. 
 
 Carl Van Doren, "The Later Novel: Howells," in The Cam 
 bridge History of American Literature, vol. 3. N. Y. 
 
 Putnam. 1921. 
 
 NOTE: Many letters of the highest interest will be found in 
 Albert Bigelow Paine s Mark Twain: A Biography (3 vols., 
 N. Y., Harper, 1912), and in The Letters of Henry James, 
 selected and edited by Percy Lubbock (2 vols., N. Y., Scrib- 
 ner, 1920). 
 
INDEX 
 
 Albany Depot, The, 168, 171 
 Alden, Henry Mills, 168 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 29 
 American, The, 99-100 
 Aminta, 18 
 Andromeda, 121 
 Angel of the Lord, The, 188 
 Anna Karenina, 34, 38, 101, 
 
 240, 249, 250 
 Annie Kilburn, 206, 208, 222, 
 
 224-226, 234 
 April Hopes, 206-208 
 Arabian Nights, 36 
 Arbuton, Miles, 114, 162-164, 
 
 181 
 
 Ardith, Wallace, 211-212, 231 
 Aristotle, 48, 92 
 Arnold, Matthew, 44-45, 56, 63- 
 
 64 
 
 Art of Fiction, The, 105 
 Atherton, Gertrude, 49-50, 76, 
 
 143 
 Atlantic Monthly, The, 27, 28, 
 
 29, 41, 66, 118, 176 
 Austen, Jane, 31, 38, 70, 106, 
 
 207, 217; Persuasion, 165; 
 
 Pride and Prejudice, 162-165 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 235 
 
 Balzac, 32, 86, 93, 98, 99, 141, 
 194; Cesar Birotteau, 99-100, 
 247-249 
 
 Barker, Lemuel, 5, 223-224 
 
 Beers, H. A., 84 
 
 Bellamy, Edward, 234, 235 
 
 Besant, Walter, 105 
 
 Between the Dark and the Day 
 light, 185, 188-189 
 
 Bewildered Guest, The, 123, 125 
 
 Bjornson, B., 27 
 
 Blithedale Eomanoe, The, 181 
 
 Blood, Lydia, 177-178, 211 
 Boileau, 48 
 Bourget, Paul, 61 
 Boyesen, H. H., 65, 76 
 Boynton, Doctor, 182-186 
 Boynton, Egeria, 182-183 
 Boy s Town, A, 7, 9, 11, 14 
 Braile, Matthew, 253-254 
 Breen, Grace, 189-192, 224 
 Bride Eoses, 168 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 190 
 Brook, Parthenope, 219 
 Brown, Althea, 184 
 Brownell, W. C., 4, 45, 51-52, 
 
 110 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 
 
 106 
 
 Browning, Robert, 23, 47, 122 
 Brunetiere, R, 51 
 Burns, Robert, 72 
 Butler, Samuel, 109 
 Byron, 134-135 
 
 Cesar Birotteau, 99-100, 247- 
 
 249 
 
 Campanella, 235 
 Campbell, Willis, 171, 172 
 Captain Dunlevy s Last Trip, 
 
 126 
 Case of Metaphantasmia, A, 
 
 189 
 Century Magazine, The, 29, 41, 
 
 89 
 Certain Delightful English 
 
 Towns, 133, 142 
 Certain Kicli Man, A, 94-95 
 Cervantes, 2, 12, 16, 19, 20, 31, 
 
 36, 59; Don Quixote, 18, 36 
 Chance Acquaintance, A, 161- 
 
 165, 167, 172, 177, 181, 182 
 Chaucer, 2, 20, 69, 72, 145, 150 
 
 273 
 
274 
 
 Index 
 
 Chesnutt, Charles W., 58 
 Chesterton, G. K., 106 
 Cincinnati Gazette, 24, 134 
 Claxon, Clementina, 211 
 Clement, 121 
 Coast of Bohemia, The, 208-210, 
 
 242 
 
 Colby, F. M., 78-79 
 Coleridge, 8. T., 48, 197 
 Collections for the History of 
 
 Ohio, 12 
 
 Colville, Theodore, 204-205 
 Confessions of a Young Man, 
 
 97, 214 
 
 Conrad, Joseph, 68, 69, 94, 138 
 Cooper, J. F., 138 
 Corey, Bromfield, 224 
 Cosmopolitan, The, 29, 168 
 Counterfeit Presentment, A, 
 
 167 
 
 Craig, Mary A., 42, 103 
 Crawford, Marion, 85, 103, 197 
 Crime and Punishment, 244 
 Criticism, 45 
 Criticism and Fiction, 42, 45- 
 
 55, 60-61, 62-63, 71, 74, 82, 
 
 111, 229 
 Cruikshank, George, 164 
 
 Dante, 28, 56, 147, 173 
 Daudet, Alphonse, 134, 136 
 Daughter of the Storage, The, 
 
 119, 126, 168 
 Day of Their Wedding, The, 
 
 184 
 Defoe, Daniel, 74; Robinson 
 
 Crusoe, 36 
 
 De Forest, J. W., 48, 58 
 Denton, Ansel, 232 
 Deserted Village, The, 16 
 Dickens, Charles, 21-22, 41, 58, 
 
 74, 216 
 Dr. Breen s Practice, 189-192, 
 
 210 
 
 Dona Perfecta, 43 
 Don Quixote, 18, 36 
 Dostoievsky, Fedor, 38, 228; 
 
 Crime and Punishment, 244 
 Drama Nuevo, Un, 167 
 Dryfoos, Christine, 80 
 
 Dryfoos, Conrad, 226, 228, 232 
 Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 58; 
 
 Lyrics of Lowly Life, 43 
 Durgin, Jackson, 187 
 Durgin, Jeff, 102, 242, 243, 
 
 249-252 
 Dylks, Joseph, 253-254 
 
 Easy Chair, The, 30, 41, 63 
 Edgeworth, Maria, 70 
 Editor s Study, The, 29, 41, 42, 
 
 63-64, 88, 248 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 95 
 Eidolons of Brooks Alford, The, 
 
 188 
 
 Elevator, The, 168, 172 
 Eliot, George, 31, 38, 74, 99, 
 
 102; The Mill on the Floss, 
 
 96-97, 240; Eomola, 101, 105, 
 
 240-241 
 
 Ellis, Havelock, 98 
 Ellison, Kitty, 114, 161-162, 
 
 178, 182 
 
 Elmore, Owen, 199-201, 204 
 Emerson, Kalph Waldo, 23, 26 
 Essays in Criticism, 44-45 
 Essays Towards a Critical 
 
 Method, 48, 203 
 Evangeline, 121 
 Evening Dress, 168 
 
 Face at the Window, The, 126- 
 
 127 , 
 
 Faguet, Emile, 49 
 Falstaff, 19 
 
 Familiar Spanish Travels, 133 
 Fearful Eesponsibility, A, 199- 
 
 201, 203, 204 
 Fennel and Eue, 165, 190, 212, 
 
 213 
 Fenton, Kobert, 81, 194, 196- 
 
 197, 204 
 
 Feuillet, Octave, 44, 196 
 Fielding, Henry, 41 
 Fields, James T., 28 
 Five O Cloclc Tea, 168, 171 
 Flandrau, Charles M., 208 
 Flaubert, Gustave, 74, 148, 
 
 149; Madame Bovary, 249; 
 
 Salammbd, 105 
 
Index 
 
 275 
 
 Follett, Wilson, 84 
 
 Foregone Conclusion, A, 153, 
 172-176, 177, 182, 206 
 
 Forlorn, 120 
 
 Forster, John, Life of Gold 
 smith, 17 
 
 Frances, Sister, 184 
 
 From Generation to Generation, 
 124 
 
 Galdos, Benito Perez, 43 
 
 Galsworthy, John, 64, 89, 227, 
 229 
 
 Garland, Hamlin, 3, 77, 242; 
 Hesper, 77; Main - Travelled 
 Eoads, 43 ; Money Magic, 77 ; 
 Eose of Dutcher s Coolly, 
 77; A Son of the Middle 
 Border, 3, 252 
 
 Garroters, The, 168, 171 
 
 Gautier, Theophile, 136; Made 
 moiselle de Maupin, 72 
 
 Goethe, Hermann und Dorothea, 
 121-122 
 
 Golden Bowl, The, 97 
 
 Goldoni, Carlo, 28, 57 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 15, 16, 19, 
 20, 36; The Deserted Vil 
 lage, 16 ; The Vicar of Walce- 
 field, 248 
 
 Gourmont, K6my de, Prome 
 nades Litteraires, 44 
 
 Grahame, Imogene, 203-204, 
 205 
 
 Guarini, Pastor Fido, 18 
 
 Hamilton, Clayton, 84 
 Hamlet, 90-91 
 Hardy, Thomas, 31 
 Harkness, Helen, 193-196, 204, 
 
 208, 223 
 
 Harlowe, Clarissa, 70 
 Harper, the firm of, 29, 30, 42, 
 
 132 
 
 Harper, J. Henry, 169 
 Harper s Magazine, 29, 30, 41 
 Harper s Novelettes, 43 
 Harvey, Alexander, 76, 224 
 
 Hawthorne, 26, 31, 99 
 
 Hazard of New Fortunes, A, 
 
 80, 96, 124, 157-158, 177, 208, 
 
 222, 226-228, 232, 233, 236- 
 
 238, 242, 244-245, 246, 247 
 Hazlitt, 54 
 Heine, 24-25, 36-37, 119-120, 
 
 134 
 Hermana San Sulpicio, La, 61- 
 
 63, 65, 71 
 Hermann und Dorothea, 121- 
 
 122 
 Heroines of Fiction, 31, 32, 42, 
 
 57, 70, 111, 165, 181, 211 
 Herrick, Robert, 76-77, 101 
 Hesper, 77 
 
 Hewlett, Maurice, 137 
 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 
 
 29, 114 
 
 Hilary, the family of, 161 
 Hilary, Louise, 138, 202 
 Hilary, Matt, 233 
 His Apparition, 188 
 Hither and Thither in Ger 
 many, 133 
 Holmes, O. W., 26 
 Homer, 56 
 
 Homos, Aristides, 235 
 House ~by the Medlar-Tree, The, 
 
 (I Malavoglia), 42, 101, 103- 
 
 105, 108, 240 
 House of the Seven Gables, The, 
 
 181, 182 
 
 Howe, E. W., 252 
 Howells, Mary Dean, 10 
 Howells, William Cooper, 9, 10- 
 
 11 
 Hubbard, Hartley, 234, 241-243, 
 
 247 
 Hubbard, Marcia, 80, 178, 241, 
 
 243 
 
 Hughes, Peace, 232 
 Hugo, Victor, 82, 229, 230 
 Huneker, James, 112 
 Hunt, Leigh, 54 
 Huysmans, Karl, 98 
 
 If, 125 
 
 Imaginary Interviews, 42. 54, 
 90-91 
 
276 
 
 Index 
 
 Imperative Duty, An, 192-193, 
 
 201 
 
 Impressions and Experiences, 7 
 Indian Summer, 160, 168, 200, 
 
 203-206 
 
 Ippolito, Don, 173-175, 182 
 Irving, Washington, 16, 17, 19, 
 
 36, 134 
 Italian Journeys, 132, 136, 141- 
 
 142, 149 
 Ivan Ilyitch, 34 
 
 James, Henry, 29, 32, 41, 89, 
 92-93, 98, 136, 138, 144-145, 
 152-154, 163, 178, 190, 201, 
 256; The American, 99-100, 
 205; The Art of Fiction 
 (Partial Portraits), 105; 
 Daisy Miller, 178; The Gold 
 en Bowl, 97; Transatlantic 
 Sketches, 145 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 157-158 
 
 Keats, John, 46, 141 
 
 Kenton, Boyne, 87 
 
 Kenton, Ellen, 80, 210-211, 214, 
 
 242 
 
 Kenton, Lottie, 210-211 
 Kentons, The, 66-68, 87, 210- 
 
 211, 242 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, 121 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 68, 138 
 Kreutzer Sonata, The, 34 
 
 Labor and Capital, 25 
 
 Lady of the Aroostook, The, 
 
 172, 177-181, 189, 200, 203, 
 
 205 
 
 Lady of the Lake, The, 15 
 Lamb, Charles, 54 
 Landlord at Lion s Head, The, 
 
 98, 102, 187, 207, 226, 242, 
 
 249-252 
 Lapham, Silas, 94-95, 102, 114, 
 
 163, 244-249, 250 
 Leat herwoobT God, The, 252-254 
 Lessing, 48 
 Letter of Introduction, A, 168, 
 
 171 
 Letters Home, 211-212, 231, 247 
 
 Life of Lincoln, 25, 120 
 Likely Story, A, 168, 171 
 Literary Friends and Acquain 
 tance, 7, 25-28, 42, 118, 130- 
 132 
 Literature and Life, 6, 42, 146- 
 
 Little Swiss Sojourn, A, 132 
 Liza, 93 
 
 London Films, 132 
 Longfellow, 23, 26, 27, 119, 
 
 120-121, 122, 129; Evange- 
 
 line, 121 
 
 Looking Backward, 234 
 Lorna Doone, 125 - 
 Loti, Pierre, 49, 136 
 Louis Lebeau s Conversion, 121 
 Lbwell, J. R., 20, 26, 27, 69, 
 
 115, 118, 119, 129, 130 
 Lynde, Bessie, 252 
 Lyrics of Lowly Life, 43 
 
 McCabe, Lida R., 118 
 Madame Bovary, 249 
 Mademoiselle de Maupin, 72 
 Main-Travelled Eoads, 43 
 Marble Faun, The, 181, 182 
 March, Basil and Isabel, 82, 
 
 156-160, 163, 171, 187, 227, 
 
 228, 236-238, 244-245 
 Marivaux, 169 
 Materials for a Story, 125 
 Matthews, Brander, 58, 84, 110 
 Maupassant, Guy de, 136, 144, 
 
 201 
 
 Maxwell, Brice, 138, 202, 233 
 Maybough, Charmian, 208-210 
 Mayhew, Lily, 199-200 
 Memories and Portraits, 2, 85- 
 
 86 
 
 Memories of Authors, 78 
 Memory That Worked Over 
 time, A, 189 
 Meredith. George, 58, 69 
 Merrill, Stuart, 43 
 Miller, Daisy, 178 
 Mill on the Floss, The, 96-97, 
 
 240 
 Minister s Charge, The, 5, 113, 
 
 155, 206, 222-224, 240 
 
Index 
 
 277 
 
 Miss Bellard * Inspiration, 212- 
 
 214 
 Modern Instance, A, 116, 198, 
 
 199, 203, 240-243, 251 
 Modern Italian Poets, 42, 83 
 Modern Novel, The, 84 
 Money Magic, 77 
 Mother and the Father, The, 
 
 119, 125 
 
 Motley, John Lothrop, 130 
 Moore, George, 32, 97, 112, 214 
 More, Sir Thomas, 235 
 More, Paul Elmer, 44 
 Morris, William, 235 
 Morrison, Arthur, 227, 229 
 Mouse-trap, The, 168, 169, 170, 
 
 171 
 
 Movers, The, 121-122 
 Mrs. Fair ell, 111 
 Miinsterberg, Hugo, 189 
 Musset, Alfred de, 170 
 My Literary Passions, 6, 7, 15- 
 
 25, 28, 30-36, 42, 57, 72, 
 
 146 
 
 My Marie Twain, 42 
 My Year in a Log Cabin, 7. 11, 
 
 13, 252 
 
 Nest of Nobles, 93 
 
 New Leaf Mills, 96, 252-253 
 
 Newman, Christopher, 99-100, 
 
 205 
 
 Niagara Book, The, 7 
 Niagara, First and Last, 7 
 Niagara Revisited, 158, 176 
 No Love Lost, 118, 122-123, 
 
 125 
 North American Beview, The, 
 
 27, 41, 42, 132 
 
 Ohio State Journal, 17, 25 
 On Contemporary Literature, 
 
 84 
 
 Osgood, James E., 29 
 Out of the Question, 162, 166- 
 
 167 
 
 Paine, Albert Bigelow, 255 
 Pair of Patient Lovers, A, 
 157 
 
 Palacio-Valde"s, Armando, 31, 
 
 67, 68 ; La Hermana San Sul- 
 
 picio, 61-63, 65, 71; Jose, 
 
 217 
 
 Pardo-Bazan, Emilia, 31 
 Parkman, Francis, 114 
 Parlor Car, The, 167 
 Parting and a Meeting, A, 168 
 Parting Friends, 168 
 Pasmer, Alice, 207 
 Pastels in Prose, 43 
 Pastor Fido, 18 
 Pater, Walter, 144 
 Pathfinder, The, 141 
 Pattee, F. L., 133, 169, 176 
 Patterne, Sir Willoughby, 163 
 Peck, Harry Thurston, 177-178, 
 
 180 
 
 Perry, Bliss, 84 
 Persuasion, 180 
 Pfaff s beer-cellar, 78 
 Phelps, William Lyon, 210-211 
 Phillpotts, Eden, 58 
 Piatt, J. J., 118 
 Pilot s Story, The, 120-121 
 Pitkin, Walter B., 143-144, 149 
 Plato, 235 
 Pleasure-Pain, 120 
 Poe, E. A., 90 
 Poems, 119-123, 125 
 Poems of Two Friends, 25, 118 
 Pope, 7, 17-20, 22, 36, 48, 112, 
 
 119, 127, 149 
 Powell, Owen, 253 
 Preston, Harriet Waters, 66 
 Previous Engagement, A, 168 
 Pride and Prejudice, 162-165 
 Private Theatricals, 176-177, 
 
 218 
 
 Promenades Litt&raires, 44 
 Propos Litteraires, 49 
 Pursuit of the Piano, The, 78- 
 
 79 
 Pyle, Howard, 123 
 
 .-- 
 Quality of Mercy, The, 208, 
 
 225, 233-234, 240 
 Questionable Shapes, 187 
 
 Badeliffe, Anne, 57, 138 
 
2 7 8 
 
 Index 
 
 Ragged Lady, 210, 221, 222 
 Ralston, America, 212 
 Recollections of Life in Ohio, 
 
 7, 11 
 
 Register, The, 168 
 Eesurrection, 244 
 Richardson, Samuel, 41, 169, 
 
 211 ; Clarissa Harlowe, 170 
 Rise of Silas Lapham, The, 95, 
 
 98, 99-100, 102, 116, 199, 2W% 
 
 214, 223, 224, 243-249, 251 
 Road in Tuscany, The, 137 
 Robert Elsmere, 234 
 Robertson, John M., 44, 48, 53, 
 
 198, 203, 206 
 Robinson Crusoe, 36 
 Roman Holidays, 133 
 Romola, 101, 105, 240-241 
 Room Forty-five, 168 
 Rose of Dutcher s Coolly, 77 
 Ruskin, John, 144 
 
 Salammbo, 105 
 
 Saunders, Cornelia, 208 
 
 Scarlet Letter, The, 181 
 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 124 
 
 Scott, Walter, 17, 57, 58, 79, 
 82, 107, 138, 180, 215; Ivan- 
 hoe, 18, 36; The Lady of the 
 Lake, 15 
 
 Sea-Change, A, 168, 172, 194 
 
 Seen and Unseen at Stratford- 
 on-Avon, The, 133, 234 
 
 Seven English Cities, 133 
 
 Sewell, David, 5, 113, 116, 222- 
 223, 224, 238, 248 
 
 Shadow of a Dream, The, 156, 
 158, 187 
 
 Shakespeare, 12, 19, 20, 56, 90- 
 91, 147 
 
 Shaw, Bernard, 169 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 141 
 
 Sherman, Stuart P., 84 
 
 Sleep and a Forgetting, A, 188 
 
 Sleeping Car, The, 168 
 
 Smoking Car, The, 168 
 
 Son of Royal Langbrith, The, 
 212, 214, 221, 237, 239-240 
 
 Son of the Middle Border, A, 
 3.252 
 
 Southern Lights and Shadows, 
 
 43 
 
 Southey, Robert, 126 
 Spenser, Edmund, 20, 69 
 Spingarn, J. E., 44 
 Spinoza, Baruch, 150 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 2, 55, 
 
 64, 84, 89, 90, 105, 145, 148, 
 
 152, 197; Memories and 
 
 Portraits, 2, 85-86 
 Stops of Various Quills, 119, 
 
 122, 123-125 
 Story of a Country Town, The, 
 
 252 
 Story of a Play, The, 138, 161, 
 
 201-203 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 26 
 Suburban Sketches, 154 
 Swinburne, A. C., 72 
 
 Taine, H. A., 44, 112 
 Tasso, 18 
 
 Taylor, Bayard, 121, 129 
 Tennyson, 23, 122, 124, 204; 
 
 Maud, 24 
 Thackeray, W. M., 4, 7, 22-23, 
 
 32, 36, 41, 58, 59, 74, 109- 
 
 112, 160, 216 
 Their Silver Wedding Journey, 
 
 133, 139, 141, 157-158, 160 
 Their Wedding Journey, 29, 65, 
 
 81-82, 129, 150, 152-156, 158, 
 
 159, 161, 177, 197 
 
 Though One Rose from the 
 
 Dead, 188, 213 
 Through the Eye of the Needle, 
 
 160, 234 
 
 Tolstoi, 6, 7, 22, 33-35, 37-38, 
 69, 74, 102, 147, 206, 256: 
 Anna Karenina, 34, 38, 101, 
 240, 249, 250; Ivan Ilyitch, 
 34; The Kreutzer Sonata, 
 34; My Confession, 35; My 
 Religion, 35 ; Resurrection, 
 244; War and Peace, 244, 
 246; What to Do, 35 
 
 Transatlantic Sketches, 145 
 
 Traveler from Altrwia, A, 168, 
 234-236 
 
 Trites. W. B., 5 
 
Index 
 
 279 
 
 Tulliver, Maggie, 96, 249 
 Turgeniev, 32-33, 74, 89, 90, 93, 
 
 173, 204, 207 
 
 Tuscan Cities, 132, 1<>6, 145 
 Twain, Mark, 29, 107, 142-144, 
 
 151, 218, 255, 256 
 
 Undiscovered Country, The, 
 
 181-187, 189, 205, 217 
 Unexpected Guests, The, 168 
 
 Vacation of the Kelwyns, The, 
 
 218 
 
 Vedder, H. C., 44 
 Venetian Life, 28, 29, 118, 130- 
 
 136, 139-141 
 Verga, Giovanni. See The 
 
 House by the Medlar-Tree 
 Verlaine, Paul, 78 
 Vervain, Florida, 174-176 
 Vicar of Wakefield, The, 248 
 Villon, Francois, 72 
 Voltaire, 48 
 
 War and Peace, 244, 246 
 Weaver, Lorenzo, 184 
 
 Wells, H. GK, 115-116 
 
 Western Adventure, 12 
 Westrum, A. Schade van, 12, 
 
 75, 213 
 
 Wharton, Edith, 138, 144-145 
 What Shall It Profit? 124 
 White, William Allen, 94-95 
 Whitman, Walt, 63, 154 
 Whittier, J. G., 26, 78 
 Woman s Eeason, A, 193-199, 
 
 200, 203, 208 
 
 Wilkins-Freeman, Mary, 194 
 Winter, William, 78 
 Wordsworth, William, 44, 45, 
 
 46, 48, 149 
 Work While Ye Have the 
 
 Light, 34 
 World of Chance, The, 61, 161, 
 
 222, 232, 233, 236 
 
 Years of My Youth, 7, 127-128 
 YoricTc s Love, 167 
 
 Zola, Emile, 31-32, 61, 74, 86- 
 87, 149, 160, 226 
 
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