JV 5HI 
 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ALPHONSO GERALD NEWCOMER 
 
 PROFESSOR OP ENGLISH IN THE LELAND STANFORD 
 JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 
 
 
 SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO NEW YORK 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1913 
 
 By 
 SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The method of teaching literature exclusively through a 
 historical text-book has for many years been discredited. The 
 substitution, however, of the study of a few selected " master 
 pieces" has also proved unsatisfactory, both because it leaves 
 literature unrelated to history, and because it leaves the stu 
 dent without any sense of relations and proportion in 
 literature itself. The remedy is sought in a compromise. 
 None will attempt to teach literature today without requir 
 ing liberal reading in the works of important writers; but at 
 the same time this reading will be regulated and the required 
 knowledge set in order by the use of a critical history. 
 
 Careful organization, therefore, should characterize every 
 such history. There should be adequate recognition both of 
 the various phases of literature and of individual writers. The 
 selection of a few names, however truly representative, will 
 not answer; and no writer may be presented in isolation from 
 the rest. Doubtless, for the purpose of elementary study, in 
 which memory plays so great a part, some sharpness of outline 
 is needed, and this calls for a partial detachment of authors. 
 But relations must still be attended to, and proportion ob 
 served. The lesser men may be crowded down, but they 
 should not be thrown out; they are needed to give the right 
 perspective to show that literature is not an affair of some 
 half a dozen overtopping names, but that it is a wide activity, 
 without definable metes and bounds. At the same time the 
 wise teacher will avoid burdening his pupils memories with 
 the more colorless names and dates, which are to be seen 
 rather than looked at, like the minor features of a landscape 
 that lie outside the focus of the eye. 
 
 470018 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 In the matter of critical estimates the writer of a text-book 
 finds himself in a position of uncomfortable responsibility. 
 Immature students, unused to judgment, and unable to test 
 the opinions delivered to them, often take those opinions 
 without question, like so much gospel. At first thought, the 
 only safe course would seem to lie in rigidly following "current 
 estimates." But it should be possible to preserve independ 
 ence of judgment without giving way to personal vagary, 
 and at the worst a little heresy may serve to stimulate the 
 student s critical faculty. After all, only time can determine 
 where the heresy lies. Current criticism, for instance, tends 
 perceptibly to depreciate our native literature. Possibly one 
 who, like the writer of this book, has an honest admiration 
 for our less academic writers, and ventures to set himself 
 against this attitude, may find himself justified in the end. 
 
 Of course, the writer of a text-book in this field owes much 
 to certain standard critical works. For the early period the 
 books of Professor Tyler, unhappily now concluded, are indis 
 pensable. For the later period Mr. Stedman s Poets of Amer 
 ica is a natural guide, though Mr. Stedman has such an easy 
 way of winning assent that one who values his own independ 
 ence will use him charily. Professor Richardson s American 
 Literature is valuable for the whole field. Professor Wendell s 
 Literary History of America has come too late to be of 
 service to the present work, but it is included among the 
 books of reference. All are commended to the student 
 with the simple advice to make the usual allowance for per 
 sonal and local influences. Mr. Stedman, for instance, though 
 he never fails to do justice to the Cambridge men, is disposed 
 to make more of the New York poets Bayard Taylor and 
 others than their merit seems to warrant; while on the 
 other hand Professor Wendell of Harvard, though certainly 
 never prejudiced in praise of New England genius, treats with 
 scant courtesy the Muses of the Crotonian fount. 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 The list of late writers included in the appendix of this 
 book is to be regarded chiefly as a directory. Upon many of 
 these writers it is altogether too early to pass judgment, and 
 many of the names have been admitted principally for the 
 reason that they are likely to be sought for, or to make a more 
 complete exhibition of the tendencies of a time or a locality. 
 The somewhat full references and suggestions for study are 
 intended for aids in the class room. 
 
 Thanks are due to Mr. Lindsay T. Damon, of the Univer 
 sity of Chicago, for most helpful criticism, both upon 
 organization and upon details. Acknowledgment is also due 
 to Messrs. D. Appleton and Co., of New York, the publishers 
 of Bryant s works, and to Mr. David McKay, of Philadelphia, 
 the publisher of Brown s and Whitman s works, for permission 
 to make extracts from books of which they hold the exclusive 
 copyright. 
 
 Stanford University, Cal. A. G. No 
 
 May 18, 1901. 
 
 Advantage has been taken of the opportunity afforded by 
 the making of a new set of plates for this work, to revise it, 
 whenever revision seemed called for, from beginning to end. 
 The names of Riley and Moody have been admitted to the 
 text, the record of deaths has been brought up to date, and 
 there have been some changes and additions in the classified 
 list of writers in the appendix. Though personal feelings and 
 tastes may change much in ten years, general critical opinion 
 cannot shift greatly in that time, and the author sees no 
 reasons to modify any of the larger aspects of the judgments 
 herein recorded. 
 July, 1913. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE .... 5 
 
 INTRODUCTION . ..... 
 
 PART I. BEGINNINGS 
 
 FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA IN 1607 TO THE 
 END or THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD ...... 17 
 
 History 19 
 
 Poetry ... . 
 
 Theology 25 
 
 II. TRANSITION. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN . . 32 
 
 III. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD ..... 38 
 Oratory and Political Prose 
 Poetry ... . .42 
 
 PART II. THE CREATIVE IMPULSE 
 FROM MAINE TO GEORGIA 1800-1860 
 
 IV. THE NEW ENVIRONMENT . . . . 55 
 
 Charles Brockden Brown ..... 55 
 
 Minor Early Fiction . . . . 61 
 
 Washington Irving ...... 
 
 James Fenimore Cooper ..... 77 
 
 Early Poetry ..... ... 93 
 
 William Cullen Bryant . .^ -. . . 100 
 
 V. ROMANCE . . . .111 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe . . 
 
 The Minor Romancers . . .127 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne . . 130 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe 147 
 
10 CONTENTS 
 
 VI. THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT . . . . 150 
 
 Religion and Philosophy in New England . .150 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson ..... 156 
 
 Henry David Thoreau . . . . .169 
 
 VII. NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE ..... 181 
 
 Oratory ... . . . ... 181 
 
 History and Criticism . . . . . 187 
 
 Henry Wads worth Longfellow . . , . .191 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier . . ... . . 205 
 
 James Russell Lowell . .- . . . 215 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes . . ... . 230 
 
 Minor Poetry and Miscellaneous Prose . . . 242 
 
 Walt Whitman . \ . . . . 252 
 
 PART III. LATER ACTIVITY 
 
 FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC 1860-1900 
 
 VIII. POETRY IN THE SOUTH * . . . v . 270 
 
 IX. PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST . . . . . 276 
 
 X. POETRY AND CRITICISM IN THE EAST .... 288 
 
 XL LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION . . . .- . 295 
 
 CONCLUSION .... .., ( : . . 307 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A Classified List of Late and Contemporary Writers . 313 
 
 Chronological Outline - . . . . . 328 
 
 References ... . 336 
 
 Suggestions for Reading and Study .... 340 
 
 INDEX . . . . . . . 355 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The English colonies on the western Atlantic seaboard, 
 and their political successors, the United States of America, 
 have won, by many and varied achievements, a conspicuous 
 place in the history of civilization. But no form of art stands 
 high among those achievements, and American literature 
 cannot yet take rank with the great literatures of the world. 
 It could scarcely be otherwise. Before the arts can flourish, 
 there must be a certain security of social and political life. 
 This security can come only after its foundations have been 
 laid in the struggle for existence itself, in the successful pro 
 viding of food, clothing, and shelter. The occupants of the 
 New World have been busy bringing the wilderness under cul 
 tivation, experimenting with a bewildering variety of soil and 
 climate, and exploring the countless sources of material 
 wealth. Above all, a population nominally English, but 
 really of diverse nationalities, has been learning the hard 
 lesson of self-government under novel and trying conditions. 
 There has been little leisure to devote to art. 
 
 It is further to be considered that the brief life of the 
 nation, as such, has fallen in an age of remarkable scientific 
 and material advance. What other centuries were content to 
 refer to vaguely as "wonders of nature" have in the nine 
 teenth century been searchingly investigated, to the opening 
 up of new and apparently boundless fields of knowledge. 
 The impulse once given, it is not surprising that men should 
 neglect the more abstruse creations of their brains for the 
 absorbing study of the creations around them and the utiliz- 
 
 11 
 
12 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ation of cheir discoveries in the practical concerns of 
 life. Energies that in another age would have gone to 
 the making of a statue or a poem have been steadily 
 diverted to science and the mechanic arts. And a nation 
 like our own, young and eager, with all the means for 
 scientific investigation and material progress and none of 
 the stimulus of ancient art, would of all nations feel this 
 impulse most keenly. 
 
 The effects upon our literature are evident. During only 
 one of the three centuries since the permanent occupation 
 of America by the English people has much literature worthy 
 of the name been produced. Few of our writers have been 
 writers primarily, and few of them have left any such volume 
 of work as we are accustomed to associate with the names of 
 great European authors. In quality, too, our literature is 
 often like a thin wine, without body. Many things are 
 lacking to it. A transplanted people, we are not like a race 
 that is born to the inheritance of its land and bound together 
 by long community of interests and of purpose. We have no 
 barbarous or legendary past to enrich our chronicles and fire 
 our imaginations. Chivalry and feudalism have no direct 
 part in us. We have no national deities or patron saints; no 
 ancient and mystic priesthood; no fairies, no knights, no cour 
 tiers, no kings. We have not even a distinct national name 
 about which traditions might gather and which, like Merrie 
 England or La Belle France, would serve to conjure with in the 
 realm of art. Thus our literature quite lacks the peculiar 
 flavor sometimes known as race. It lacks, too, the atmos 
 phere of aristocracy, and, in a sense, the atmosphere of 
 religion.* Worst of all, perhaps, it lacks the feeling for 
 artistic repose, the sense for proportion and beauty; for the 
 strenuous moral and intellectual life of our ancestors has left 
 us a heritage aesthetically barren. 
 
 * Charles Johnston, in the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1899. 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 Still, there are compensations. A new world is at least 
 new, and its writers may find novel themes and fresh inspira 
 tion just over their thresholds. Our colonial and national 
 history has not been uneventful. There have been religious 
 crusades, financial and industrial panics, and wars both for 
 eign and domestic. The very social chaos which paralyzes 
 art, the conflict and tumult of diverse races struggling towards 
 unity, is, to one who can detach himself and observe, a highly 
 dramatic spectacle. Besides, the world of nature does not 
 materially change. In a new country, indeed, the lure of out 
 door life is peculiarly strong. And in variety of natural 
 features, in charm of landscape, in diversity of seasons, in 
 wealth of flora and fauna, the old world has no advantage over 
 the new. Still less does human nature change, and wherever 
 two men find room to stand together, the primal passions will 
 assert themselves and the poet find his song. It was only a 
 question of time when there should be an American literature, 
 and the time was not unduly long in coming. 
 
 Now, indeed, some portion of our literature is safely en 
 shrined as classic, and it is possible for us to look back upon a 
 fairly definite and complete epoch. The literary spirit, the 
 instinct to record the thoughts, feelings, and observations of 
 men, has its fluctuations. At times it is strong and fertile, 
 at other times weak, at still others barren. But at no time in 
 our history has the literary spirit been absolutely barren, and 
 through one period it was strong enough to leave a record at 
 once great and worthy great in insight and originality, and 
 of adequate art. Now that that period seems to be passed 
 and that its leaders are gone with it, the history of American 
 literature may be written without fear or apology. 
 
 Manifestly there can be no elaborate time-division of a 
 literature that has had but one era of high accomplishment. 
 The simple facts stand out clearly: first, that down to the 
 very beginning of the nineteenth century scarcely a book was 
 
14 AMERICAN LITERATUTE 
 
 published in America that is read today for its imaginative 
 or artistic qualities; second, that at the beginning of the 
 nineteeth century letters were for the first time recognized in 
 America as a profession, and that though the work of the best 
 writers was still, for several decades, either slender or crude, 
 the literature of the nation grew steadily in breadth and 
 quality until, toward the middle of the century, we had in the 
 East a group of writers who were recognized as great both at 
 home and abroad, and whose work we still rank clearly above 
 all that has been produced since; and third, that in the last 
 few decades, or since our civil war, the literary impulse has 
 betrayed itself in every corner of our land, sending forth a 
 wealth of literature of which some account must be taken, but 
 upon which judgment cannot yet be final. These three large 
 and well defined periods may be indicated thus : 
 
 I. THE BEGINNINGS, extending from the founding of the 
 colony at Jamestown in 1607 down to about 1800. 
 
 II. THE CREATIVE IMPULSE, extending from the first 
 decade of the nineteenth century to the civil war. 
 
 III. THE PERIOD OF LATER ACTIVITY, extending from 
 the civil war to the present time. 
 
 It will be well, at this point, to note also some geographical 
 distinctions. Before the wide diffusion of our literature with 
 the growth of our territory and population, it flourished only 
 along the Atlantic seaboard. That region may be conven 
 iently divided into three sections: the North, or Massachu 
 setts Bay region New England with a literary capital at 
 Boston; the South, or the region about the James River and 
 Chesapeake Bay, with literary capitals (in the later time) at 
 Richmond, Baltimore, and Washington; and the somewhat 
 vaguely defined intermediate region of the Hudson and Dela 
 ware Rivers, with capitals at New York and Philadelphia. 
 We shall find first one and then another of these sections the 
 centre of the highest literary activity. 
 
PART I 
 
 BEGINNINGS 
 
 FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA IN 1607 TO THE 
 END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COLONIAL PERIOD. CAVALIER, PURITAN, 
 AND QUAKER 
 
 16071765 
 
 Our forefathers did not find it easy to cultivate simul 
 taneously the soil and the Muses. Their situation, like that 
 of most colonists, was an unnatural one. There was a lack 
 of harmony between themselves and their surroundings which 
 only generations of slow adjustment could remedy. On the 
 one hand they were far too civilized to develop a folk- 
 literature of song and legend, while on the other hand their 
 environment was too primitive to foster that literature of 
 culture which the educated element among them was fitted to 
 enjoy. In England the era immediately before and after the 
 colonization of America was eminently an era of court litera 
 ture. Sir Philip Sidney, courtier, warrior, romancer, and 
 poet, was the ideal of the early Elizabethans. Spenser never 
 ceased to mourn his half-enforced banishment to the wilds of 
 Ireland. The dramatists flocked to London. Bacon rose to 
 be lord chancellor and a peer. Milton, half a century later, 
 was secretary to the Commonwealth. Dry den was poet 
 laureate. Addison was secretary of state. Pope was a 
 London "wit," who throve, like his predecessors, under a 
 system of liberal patronage. It was too much to expect that 
 the men who crossed the sea and changed their sky should 
 change also their nature and find in their strange surround 
 ings inspiration to some new kind of song. 
 
 Of course, an original genius might have arisen here. 
 But original geniuses are rare, and the actual numbers of the 
 
 17 
 
18 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 new inhabitants were so small that the law of chance was 
 against such an event. Besides, men or families with a strong 
 bias toward literature and art were not likely to cast in their 
 lot with bands of adventurers. The charms of nature were 
 little felt or understood. The modern romantic spirit was 
 not yet rife, and poets did not fly to the wilderness to assuage 
 their woes or minister to their love of the picturesque. Not 
 for more than a century was a Chateaubriand to visit our 
 shores, penetrate the "forest primeval," and stand in rapt 
 admiration on the banks of the Mississippi while the trunks of 
 fallen oaks and pines floated past him between the islands of 
 yellow waterlilies. Moreover, those of Puritan faith, coming 
 here for freedom to worship God after their own manner, 
 were almost wholly bound up in that worship. The emo 
 tional side of their nature, finding the satisfaction of its needs 
 in their religion, led them neither to the solace of the fields 
 and the sky nor to the delights of art. Of art, indeed, they 
 were suspicious, as something concerning itself more with 
 form than with spirit, a worship, as it were, of graven images, 
 and intimately connected with Rome and Romanism, the 
 objects of their most deadly hatred. 
 
 Yet almost from the first day of the landing of the colo 
 nists, at Jamestown in 1607 and at Plymouth in 1620, writing 
 went on; for many of the colonists were educated people, 
 and the leaders at least were lettered men. The first books, 
 of course, remained long in manuscript or were sent to Eng 
 land for publication. By 1639, however, a printing-press was 
 imported and set up at Cambridge. On it were printed, first 
 a sheet or pamphlet, The Freeman s Oath, and second, Pierce s 
 Almanack. The Bay Psalm Book, 1640, was the first printed 
 book.* In 1636 a college (now Harvard University) was 
 founded and two years later named after the man who 
 endowed it with one-half of his estate and a library of three 
 
 * Books were printed in Mexico a century earlier. 
 
HISTORY 19 
 
 hundred volumes. By the middle of the century public 
 instruction was compulsory in most of the colonies. A 
 translation of the Bible into the Algonkin tongue, made by 
 John Eliot, the "apostle to the Indians," was published in 
 1661-1663, the first Bible printed in British America. Just 
 when the quaint little New England Primer began its long 
 career of usefulness is not known ; there is a notice of a second 
 impression of it in an almanac of 1691.* In 1704 the Boston 
 News-Letter marked the advent of American journalism, the 
 power which has grown to such gigantic proportions. 
 
 Such were a few of the significant events during the first 
 century of literary industry in America, an industry that for 
 full another century was to continue producing books which, 
 in Charles Lamb s sense, are no books, literature that is not 
 literature. Our review of this product may not be extended 
 or searching; the books themselves are for the most part 
 not easily accessible, sufficient proof that they are not live 
 books. The entire portion of the colonial literary product 
 that either aimed at or in any measure deserved permanence 
 falls into a simple classification under three heads history, 
 poetry, and theology. 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 The history comprises all the prose of a narrative or 
 
 descriptive nature. It was but natural that some of the 
 
 colonists should write down a record of their 
 
 Captain 
 
 John Smith, doings from day to day, in the form either of 
 diaries or of reports to the promoters of the colo 
 nies in the mother country. Sometimes these records became 
 more ambitious and took on the organized form and propor 
 tions of a professed history. Captain John Smith, the lead- 
 
 * Extract from "An Alphabet of Lessons for Youth": 
 
 "TTOLINESS becomes God s bouse for- "TT EEP thy heart with all diligence, 
 M ~~ ever. ( -*- v for out of it are the issues of life. 
 
 " TT is good for me to draw near unto " T IARS shall have their part in the 
 * God. ** lake which burns with fire and 
 
 brimstone." 
 
20 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 ing spirit of the Jamestown colony, whose affections seem 
 to have been evenly divided between his sword and his 
 pen, has the honor of inscribing his plain name first on 
 the roll of the writers of this new land. In 1608 he sent back 
 to England his True Relation of occurrences in Virginia, and 
 sixteen years later, while he was living in England, he pub 
 lished his General History of Virginia, a more comprehensive 
 account of those matters relating to the New World with 
 which he was familiar. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that Smith was in no 
 rightful sense an American, but an Englishman, a fair type 
 of the courtly, worldly royalists who came to be known a little 
 later in the English history and in Virginian colonization as 
 "cavaliers." He had travelled eastward as well as westward, 
 and he wrote much that had nothing to do with America. 
 He spent less than three years, all told, in this country. His 
 name and his works belong to England, where, of course, their 
 little lustre was even in his own day quite eclipsed. Yet we 
 are not ashamed to lay part claim to those two works, the 
 first literary fruits of the inspiration of the wilderness. 
 They may not be accurate as history, but they are a voice 
 out of momentous days and deeds. For Smith put into his 
 work no slight measure of the heroic, the Homeric quality, 
 which gives vitality to work in any age. Even when he 
 was not true to facts he could not help being true to himself, 
 and he unconsciously portrays himself with all his virtues 
 and vices, his energy, his bluntness, his bravado, and his 
 egotism. There is no reason, however, to suppose, as has 
 often been charged, that he was deliberately untruthful. The 
 pretty story of Pocahontas, for example, was for awhile 
 discredited. But there is more reason to believe the story 
 than to doubt it. We must simply remember the romantic 
 spirit of the man and read him by that light. When we hear 
 his tales of the gigantic Susquehannocks whose language 
 
HISTORY 21 
 
 "sounded from them as a voice in a vault" and whose calves 
 were "three-quarters of a yard about," we recognize the 
 writer for a man of imagination and a worthy member of the 
 literary guild. He was bound to magnify a little his deeds, 
 and through them the deeds of his patrons, the "most noble 
 Lords and worthy Gentlemen" of King James s court; and 
 though he chose to call his book a history and not a romance, 
 he was not the man to hang upon any subtle distinction 
 between the words history and story. He tells his story as 
 an "honest Souldier" should, with due regard to the enter 
 tainment of his readers. He can be practical, too, as well as 
 romantic. He studies the winds and the clouds in their 
 relation to seasons and harvests. He counts the ears on a 
 stalk of corn and the grains on an ear. He describes in one 
 place, with minutest detail, the methods of cooking maize, 
 but protests that burnt and powdered corn-cob "never tasted 
 well in bread nor broth," a point on which his veracity will 
 scarcely be questioned. 
 
 Of other writers in the South, both in Smith s time and 
 later, honest chroniclers enough, the names belong to history 
 
 and not to literature. An exception migh*; be 
 strachey. made in the case of one William Strachey, who 
 
 in his passage to Virginia in the fleet of Sir George 
 Somers and Sir Thomas Gates was wrecked on the Bermuda 
 Islands in 1609. His True Reportory of the Wrack, written 
 shortly after in a letter to a lady in England, is a really 
 graphic and imaginative account, and it is by no means 
 impossible that from this account, or from a similar one by 
 Silvester Jourdain, which was published earlier, Shakespeare 
 drew some of the pictures and phrases used in the description 
 of Prospero s island in The Tempest. So slender is the link 
 which connects American letters with the highest of England s 
 names. But the South, from the first more indifferent to 
 letters than the North, has never been prolific of writers, 
 
22 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 and with this short notice of John Smith and William 
 Strachey we take a long leave of that region. 
 
 The historical writers of colonial New England, from 
 Governor William Bradford in the seventeenth century to 
 Samuel Thomas Prince in the eighteenth, were likewise of 
 I652 a i730 tne plodding, sedate chronicler type. One or two, 
 however, succeeded in touching to a little life 
 the record of their times. We may mention in particular 
 Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, of Massachusetts, the publi 
 cation of whose diary only a few years since has given him a 
 new interest in our eyes. He is memorable for several things. 
 He was a judge in the witchcraft trials of 1692, passing 
 sentence for which he afterward made a public confession of 
 repentance. He published perhaps the first American tract 
 against slavery. And of one of his prophecies Whittier has 
 made a touching poem, praying that 
 
 "Green forever the memory be 
 Of the Judge of the old Theocracy." 
 
 But it is the diary, faithfully kept through a long lifetime, 
 that forces itself most upon our attention, and while we can 
 not take a profound interest in its minute, gossipy, and 
 unimaginative record in the fact that the Judge period 
 ically had his hair cut, or that his pussy-cat died in her 
 thirteenth year the book makes yet its appeal to our human 
 sympathies and will be read by many who could not be 
 persuaded to look into the more scholarly works of Bradford 
 and Prince. 
 
 POETRY 
 
 Poetry in early New England throve even less than 
 "Bay Psalm narrative and descriptive prose. Indeed, to call 
 Book." any Q f tne verse O f t h at t[ me poetry, argues 
 
 a lack of humor. The Bay Psalm Book, for instance, was a 
 heroic attempt, conspired in by three worthy divines, to set 
 
POETRY 23 
 
 the Psalms to metre and, when fortune favored, rhyme. The 
 verses were intended to be sung to the five or ten tunes 
 which the churches possessed. Here is one of the more 
 successful stanzas : 
 
 Yee gates lift-up your heads 
 
 and doors everlasting, 
 doe yee lift-up: & there into 
 
 shall come the glorious-King." 
 
 Few will succeed in reading even this stanza smoothly at 
 the first attempt. Such utter uncouthness of form, as far 
 removed from Miltonic harmonies as "from the centre thrice 
 to the utmost pole," shows how small a part even the mere 
 reading of poetry can have played in the culture of the New 
 World Puritans. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Puritans raised up poets, according 
 to their tastes and abilities. The poems of one of these, 
 Anne Mistress Anne Bradstreet, were introduced to the 
 
 Bradstreet. . . 
 
 wig h fesworth ltls a Amencan public of 1650 under this 
 alluring title, devised doubtless by her London 
 printer: The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America; or, 
 Several Poems, compiled with great variety of wit and learn 
 ing, full of delight. Whatever delight may lie concealed in 
 the rather voluminous verses, The Four Monarchies, The 
 Four Elements, Contemplations (published later), and other 
 physical and metaphysical speculations, is not worth 
 seeking for today. Some genuine terror, however, may still 
 be extracted from the verses of one of Mrs. Bradstreet s 
 contemporaries, Michael Wigglesworth, who in his Day of 
 Doom (1662) set to a lilting, double-rhymed, Yankee Doodle 
 sort of measure his conception of a Calvinistic Judgment, 
 infant damnation and all. The following is a fair example 
 of the product of the Reverend Mr. Wigglesworth s 
 poetic frenzy : 
 
24 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 " They wring their hands, their caitiff-hands 
 
 and gnash their teeth for terrour; 
 They cry, they roar for anguish sore, 
 
 and gnaw their tongues for horrour. 
 But get away with out delay, 
 
 Christ pities not your cry: 
 JDepart to Hell, there may you yell, 
 
 and roar Eternally." 
 
 Sad to relate, the poem was as popular in its day (and its day 
 lasted a hundred years) as the Psalm of Life has been in ours. 
 Of some thirty pre-revolutionary writers of verse whose 
 names stand recorded in the more elaborate histories of our 
 literature, one more may be mentioned here. This 
 was Thomas Godfrey, a watchmaker s apprentice 
 of Philadelphia, who died in the South in 1763 
 at the age of twenty-seven. His poems were published 
 two years later. The most notable among them was The 
 Prince of Parthia, a blank-verse tragedy, which, though 
 like the rest crudely juvenile, points at least to an intimate, 
 acquaintance with the dramas of Shakespeare. The imi 
 tation is sometimes very bald, These lines, for example, are 
 a clear echo of Horatio s : 
 
 " E en the pale dead, affrighted at the horror, 
 As though unsafe, start from their marble jails, 
 And howling through the streets are seeking shelter." 
 
 And these, of Lear s: 
 
 "Dead! she s cold and dead! 
 Her eyes are closed, and all my joys are flown. 
 Now burst, ye elements, from your restraint, 
 Let order cease, and chaos be again, 
 Break! break, tough heart!"* 
 
 But there are also passages that show a power quite inde 
 pendent of imitation, and Thomas Godfrey deserves to be 
 
 * See Hamlet, I., i., 115; Lear, III., ii. 
 
THEOLOGY 25 
 
 remembered as the first of America s few adventurers into 
 the dramatic field. His drama was a closet drama only. 
 One of the earliest native plays to be regularly staged and 
 acted was Royall Tyler s satirical comedy, The Contrast, 
 1786. 
 
 THEOLOGY 
 
 History, poetry, and theology, these three were the 
 forms in which colonial literature chiefly enshrined itself, 
 and the greatest of these was theology. The Puritans who 
 settled New England were practically religious refugees, men 
 seeking a land where they should be free to worship as 
 their consciences dictated. Their government was essentially 
 theocratic God was their great law-giver and the Bible 
 their chief statute-book. The New England Primer was 
 half catechism and prayer-book. The church, or meeting 
 house, was the centre of the community, and the ministers 
 were the most learned men. It was inevitable that literature, 
 which always reflects the highest intellectual and spiritual 
 interests of a people, should take on a strong theological cast. 
 
 This theology by which of course is meant, not religion 
 itself, but a special system and doctrine of religion (in this 
 case chiefly Calvinism) appears first in the unlovely guise of 
 controversy. The persecution which the Puritans had en 
 dured had not chastened them. They could be as intolerant 
 of those who did not agree with them as ever their own perse 
 cutors had been, and- in their course they saw no inconsist 
 ency. The profound conviction that they alone were right 
 justified them left, indeed, no other course open. In 1637 
 the Synod of Massachusetts took a definite stand against 
 religious toleration. In the same year Anne Hutchinson was 
 banished for heresy; and Roger Williams, the great apostle 
 of toleration, had been banished two years before. Heresy 
 became the crime of the age, and ministers thundered from 
 the pulpit, while laymen poured out vials of printed wrath. 
 
26 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 Perhaps the most striking book of this earlier period was 
 Nathaniel Ward s Simple Cobbler of Agawam, published at 
 
 London in 1647. Ward had himself been driven 
 Ward aniel out of England for heresy by Archbishop Laud, 
 
 and, to judge from his book, he found solace in 
 America by attacking everything that offered a fair mark, 
 from the doctrines of the Baptists to the Parisian millinery of 
 the women. "I dare take upon me to be the herald of New 
 England so far as to proclaim to the world, in the name of 
 our colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and 
 other enthusiasts, shall have free liberty to keep away 
 from us; and such as will come to be gone as fast as they can, 
 
 the sooner the better To tell a practical lie 
 
 is a great sin, but yet transient; but to set up a theoretical 
 untruth is to warrant every lie that lies from its root to the 
 top of every branch it hath, which are not a few!" Such 
 proclamations would hardly win converts the spirit is too 
 warlike to be Christian. Yet the force and picturesqueness 
 of the style suit well with the independence of the opinions, 
 and it is easy to see behind them the earnestness of the man. 
 Greater men than Ward took part in this theological con 
 flict There was John Cotton, one of the greatest pulpit 
 
 orators of the time, who had likewise been driven 
 
 John Cotton, 
 
 1585-1652. from England by Laud, and who came irom the 
 Wiiuams,^ o ld Boston to the new, which was named in his 
 honor. With little of Ward s fiery and contro 
 versial temper, he had yet attempted to justify the banish 
 ment of Roger Williams, and when the latter, in defense, pub 
 lished his Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience 
 (1644), Cotton felt bound to reply to it with The Bloody Tenet 
 washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb (1647) . So the 
 controversy went on, amiably enough in the main, and not 
 without a considerable array of learning on the part of Cotton, 
 and with graces of both mind and style on the part of Williams, 
 
THEOLOGY 27 
 
 But on the whole this theological literature pursued a 
 stern, uncompromising way. An age of fanaticism followed, 
 marked by such manifestations as the Salem witchcraft 
 craze of 1692 and the great religious revival of 1740-1745. 
 It almost seems as if the Puritans, left to themselves in the 
 wilderness (for there were few recruits from the old world 
 after 1640,) were in danger of reverting to the gross supersti 
 tions of primitive peoples. Their history proves at least that 
 there can be education without enlightenment. Toward the 
 end of the seventeenth century we find such book-titles as 
 Discourse Concerning Comets; Illustrious Providences; Mem 
 orable Providences relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, ivith 
 a Discourse on the Power and Malice of Devils; Wonders of the 
 Invisible World. 
 
 All the books just named were written by Increase and 
 Cotton Mather, father and son, both eminent divines, and 
 Cotton koth indefatigable writers. Cotton Mather, in- 
 
 JJather^ deed, stands clearly at the head of the writers of 
 colonial New England. His grandfathers, John 
 Cotton and Richard Mather, had been, like his father, 
 preachers and writers before him, and his son was a preacher 
 and writer after him. He was a prodigy of learning, who 
 spent ten hours a day in his study, and who published in one 
 year fourteen books and pamphlets, and in his life-time 
 nearly four hundred. His great book, over which he prayed 
 and fasted and wept, and which was published in folio the 
 only folio in our literature in 1702, is entitled Magnolia 
 Christi Americana; or, The Ecclesiastical History of New 
 England from its First Planting in the Year 1620 unto the year 
 of our Lord 1698. It is primarily a church history, as the 
 title and introduction indicate: 
 
 "I WRITE the WONDERS of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, flying from the 
 depravations of Europe, to the American Strand; and, assisted by the 
 Holy Author of that Religion, I do with all conscience of Truth, 
 
28 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 required therein by Him, who is the Truth itself, report the won 
 derful displays of His infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, and Faith 
 fulness, wherewith His Divine Providence hath irradiated an Indian 
 Wilderness." 
 
 The book is difficult to describe, difficult indeed to read, 
 though as students of American literature we are bound to 
 hold it in reverence; "the one single literary landmark," says 
 Charles Francis Adams, "in a century and a half of colonial 
 and provincial life a geologic record of a glacial period." 
 Our great New England writers have all been more or less 
 familiar with it. Longfellow, for example, drew from it the 
 legend versified in his poem, The Phantom Ship. But as a 
 historical document it is quite untrustworthy in details; its 
 chief value lies in the light which it throws upon the theo 
 logical interests and the superstitious temper of the times. 
 Its literary value, too, is slight. Beautiful and imaginative 
 phrases may be found in it, but in a larger sense it can 
 scarcely be said to have any style of its own, such a conglom 
 eration is it of the fragmentary learning of all ages gathered 
 cogether to embellish the plain statements beneath. All the 
 pedantic vices of the fantastic school of folio writers are here 
 in their most exaggerated form. The pages are sprinkled 
 with learned allusions, Greek,* Latin, and Hebrew phrases, 
 quotations, italics, puns, Bible references, and so forth. 
 Thus, for example, runs the account of the presidents of Har 
 vard College: 
 
 "After the death of Dr. Hoar, the place of President pro tempore, 
 was put upon Mr. Urian Oakes, the excellent Pastor of the church at 
 Cambridge; who did so, and would no otherwise accept of the place; 
 though the offer of a full settlement in the place was afterwards im 
 portunately made unto him. .... Reader, let us now upon 
 another account behold the students of Harvard-Colledge, as a ren 
 dezvous of happy Druids, under the influence of so rare a President. 
 But, alas! our joy must be short lived; for, on July 25, 1681, the 
 stroak of a sudden death fell d the tree, Qui tantum inter caput extulit 
 
THEOLOGY 29 
 
 omnes Mr. Oakes, thus being transplanted into the better 
 
 world, the Presidentship was immediately tendered unto Mr. Increase 
 Mather; but his Church, upon the application of the overseers unto 
 them to dismiss him unto the place whereto he was now chosen, 
 refusing to do it, he declined the motion. Wherefore, on April 10, 
 
 1682, Mr. John Rogers was elected unto that place He 
 
 was one of so sweet a temper, that the title of delicioe humani generis 
 might have on that score been given him; and his real piety set off 
 with the accomplishments of a gentleman, as a gem set in gold. In 
 his Presidentship, there fell out one thing particularly, for which the 
 Colledge has cause to remember him. It was his custom to be some 
 what long in his daily prayers (which our Presidents use to make) 
 with the scholars in the Colledge-hall. But one day, without being 
 able to give reason for it, he was not so long, it may be by half, as 
 he used to be. Heaven knew the reason !i The scholars, returning to 
 their chambers, found one of them on fire, and the fire had pro 
 ceeded so far, that if the devotions had hel 1 three minutes longer, 
 the Colledge had been irrecoverably laid in ashes, which now was 
 happily preserved. But him also a praemature death, on July 2, 
 1684, the day after the Commencement, snatcht away from a society 
 that hoped for a much longer enjoyment of him, and counted them 
 selves under as black an eclipse as the Sun did happen to be, at the 
 hour of his expiration." 
 
 Imposing as this book was in its day, and important as it 
 still is, it finds almost no readers now but students of history. 
 The third and latest edition was published in 1853. 
 
 Theology took yet another turn, from controversy, 
 through fanaticism and superstition, back to abstract dis 
 quisition. In this last-named phase we see it most 
 
 Jonathan .. . . i -i i i 
 
 Edwards, strikingly exhibited in the career and works 01 
 Jonathan Edwards, who was for twenty-three 
 years pastor of the church at Northampton, Massachusetts, 
 subsequently missionary to the Indians, and finally for a short 
 time president of the college of New Jersey (Princeton). 
 Edwards was a man of remarkable intellect, a born reasoner, 
 and, living when and where he did, he naturally turned the 
 powers of his brilliant mind to theology. He took the literal 
 
30 THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 statements of the Bible, and with unshrinking logic pushed 
 them to the most terrible conclusions. He could depict 
 for with all his logic he had a poetic imagination the 
 glories of heaven and the happiness of the saints, but he be 
 came most notorious for those sermons which were devoted to 
 portraying the miseries of the damned. The religious excite 
 ment of 17401745, known as "the Great Awakening," during 
 which the English preacher Whitefield preached to assemblies 
 of thirty thousand people on Boston Common, took its origin 
 in Edwards s church. Edwards is best remembered, however, 
 not for his sermons, but for his monumental work on the Free 
 dom of the Will, published in 1754. In this he tried to prove 
 that man is not a free agent and yet is responsible and punish 
 able for all his misdeeds, and he argued so well that few have 
 tried to confute him. Nevertheless, common sense today 
 generally refuses to be troubled by such speculations, and the 
 once famous treatise is more often alluded to than read. 
 Jonathan Edwards stands simply as the one great meta 
 physician, or builder of a systematic philosophy, that America 
 has produced. Emerson, in the next century, is a philosopher 
 of a very different type. 
 
 There is one other writer who must be named in this con 
 nection, though his life touches the Revolutionary period and 
 his work is not properly theology. This is 
 Wooiman, John Woolman, of whom Charles Lamb said, 
 " Get the writings of John Woolman by heart, 
 and love the early Quakers." He was a New Jersey tailor 
 and itinerant Friend who in his life-time published several 
 tracts in opposition to the "Keeping of Negroes" and who 
 died in 1772, leaving behind a Journal which was published 
 in 1774. There have been many editions of the Journal since, 
 one having been edited by Whittier, another by Dr. Charles 
 W. Eliot, and it would not be quite fair to say that Benjamin 
 Franklin s Autobiography is the only American book of the 
 
THEOLOGY 31 
 
 eighteenth century that lives today. Woolman s book lives, 
 although obscurely; indeed it has in it a simplicity and relig 
 ious sincerity that will remind one of Bunyan, together with 
 a sweetness and tenderness even beyond Bunyan and 
 sufficient to account for its hold upon life. One does not 
 readily forget, for example, such a confession of youthful 
 thoughtlessness and remorse as this : 
 
 "Once going to a neighbor s house, I saw on the way a robin 
 sitting on her nest, and as I came near she went off, but having young 
 ones, flew about, and with many cries expressed her concern for them. 
 I stood and threw stones at her, till one striking her she fell down dead. 
 At first I was pleased with the exploit, but after a few minutes was seized 
 with horror, as having, in a sportive way, killed an innocent creature 
 while she was careful of her young. I beheld her lying dead, and 
 thought those young ones, for which she was so careful, must now 
 perish for want of their dam to nourish them; and after some painful 
 considerations on the subject, I climbed up the tree, took all the young 
 birds, and killed them, supposing that better than to leave them to 
 pine away and die miserably. And I believed in this case that Scrip 
 ture proverb was fulfilled, The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. 
 I then went on my errand, but for some hours could think of nothing 
 else but the cruelties I had committed, and was much troubled." 
 
 It is pleasant to relieve the impression left by the stern 
 theologians of New England with this humble Christian diary 
 of a New Jersey Quaker. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TRANSITION. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 1706-1790 
 
 The figure of one great American looms large through the 
 eighteenth century. Born but three years after the birth of 
 Jonathan Edwards, and dying but nine years before the death 
 of Washington, Benjamin Franklin spans with his career the 
 entire transition from American colonial dependence to inde 
 pendence, union, and nationality. The story of this poor 
 tallow-chandler s son and printer s apprentice, migrating 
 from Boston to Philadelphia, and growing and expanding 
 with the fortunes of his country until he came to be a lion of 
 the social centres of Europe and ambassador to the courts of 
 kings, reads like a romance. But stripped of its glamour it is 
 seen to be a plain tale of sterling worth and tireless industry. 
 
 We shall not repeat it here: it is best read in his own 
 words in the famous Autobiography. Nor does it come prop 
 erly within the scope of a history of literature to 
 
 A Many- . i i i i i 
 
 Sided enumerate the services which this many-sided man 
 
 rendered to America and the world during his 
 long career, services which range from the invention of 
 stoves to the demonstration that lightning and electricity 
 are the same, and from the development of newspaper 
 advertising to the drawing up of the first plan for the 
 union of the American colonies. For Franklin was 
 journalist, scientist, philosopher, statesman, diplomatist, 
 and philanthropist in one. As for the writings which 
 he left behind him, though they fill nine volumes, they 
 
 32 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 COTTON MATHER 
 PHILIP FRENEAU 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 33 
 
 were produced incidentally, and were quite the least 
 part of his life-work. His name does not primarily belong 
 to literature. 
 
 Yet Franklin is for more than one reason exceedingly 
 interesting to the student of literature. In the first place, his 
 writings, like his life, mark a transition. He represents a new 
 spirit in American letters the change that had come over the 
 people in the generations of their existence in the New World. 
 The practical instincts, self-reliance, shrewdness, humor, 
 thrift, all of those qualities that we sum up in the word 
 Yankee, were being surely developed by a life of constant 
 hardship and enforced self-denial. And Franklin is the first 
 great exponent of them. While he still held to many of the 
 sterner virtues of the Puritans, he found the mainspring of 
 those virtues on earth rather than in heaven. He preached, 
 not godliness, but honesty, charity, and manliness; and he 
 accomplished quite as good results as the Puritans, by order 
 ing his life, not as if he were going to die tomorrow, but 
 rather as if he were going to live a hundred years. Such is the 
 gospel of his Poor Richard s Almanac, through which he first 
 came to fame; and the new American spirit at its best and 
 at its worst, too, for it was provincially rude and unenlight 
 ened, is to be found reflected in the pages of that curious 
 annual. 
 
 It will be remembered that an almanac was one of the 
 first publications of the American press. Indeed it is only 
 in our own day of cheap books and newspapers 
 that this particular form of light literature, com 
 bining information and advice with amusement, 
 has lost its popularity. But it is safe to say that no almanac 
 issued as a private enterprise was ever better adapted to its 
 patrons or became more justly celebrated than that which 
 Franklin began to issue in Philadelphia in the year 1732 and 
 continued, mainly under his own supervision, for twenty -five 
 
34 TRANSITION 
 
 years. The price of it was five pence, and the sales ran up to 
 ten thousand copies a year. Such is its fame that today a 
 single copy of the original will sell for twenty dollars. The 
 Almanac professed to be written by "Richard Saunders, 
 Philomath." There had been an English philomath of the 
 same name, and there was also a famous English almanac 
 called "Poor Robin." Of course the name "Poor Richard" 
 was only a mask for Franklin, who openly announced himself 
 as the printer of the pamphlet. That the philosophy of Poor 
 Richard was not always original, "but rather the gleanings 
 of the sense of all ages and nations," imports little. That 
 was only to be expected in a publication of such a nature. 
 Franklin s genius showed itself in the way in which his philos 
 ophy was gathered and adapted to the tastes and needs of his 
 readers. Poor Richard, who, according to his own descrip 
 tion, was "excessive poor" and his "wife, good woman, 
 excessive proud," became a very real personage to the thous 
 ands of people in all stations of life who quoted his pithy 
 maxims and recited his homely verses. These were given 
 the readier currency for the humor that so often accompanied 
 them. Indeed, the comic feature of the Almanac became 
 easily its distinctive one, so that Poor Richard stands as a 
 kind of forebear to a long line of droll philosophers, from 
 Diedrich Knickerbocker to Tom Sawyer. The humor is 
 frequently of a kind that the taste of the present age would 
 denounce as vulgar or even obscene, but the general tone of 
 the maxims is as wholesome as it is hearty. 
 
 "God helps them that help themselves." 
 
 "He that drinks fast pays slow." 
 
 "It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright." 
 
 "Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire." 
 
 "The poor man must walk to get meat for his stomach, the rich 
 man to get a stomach to his meat." * 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 35 
 
 "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." 
 "A good conscience is a continual Christmas." 
 "He that by the plow would thrive 
 Himself must either hold or drive." 
 
 And so they run on: "Keep thy shop," "Early to bed,"- 
 nearly every tongue will finish them of its own accord, so 
 familiar are they. This is literature only by a very liberal 
 definition indeed, but it is such literature as everybody could 
 and did read, and its influence for good was beyond all calcu 
 lation. The sayings were gathered together into a kind of 
 running sermon for the preface of the edition of 1758, and this 
 preface, under such titles as "Father Abraham s Speech," 
 "The Way to Wealth," "La Science du Bonhomme 
 Richard,"* has been printed literally hundreds of times and 
 translated into more than a dozen languages. 
 
 The Almanac, which afforded Franklin fame and com 
 petence in his early manhood, was late in life supplemented 
 by a work of greater literary importance. This is 
 biography." his Autobiography, the only American book writ 
 ten before the nineteenth century that is still 
 widely known and read. Its history is interesting. Frank 
 lin of course did not mean to write a book we have said that 
 he was not primarily a man of letters. It was in 1771, while 
 he was at the country home of the Bishop of St. Asaph, in 
 Hampshire, England, that he occupied some moments of 
 leisure in writing out an account of his early life in the form 
 of a letter to his son, then Governor of New Jersey. Thir 
 teen years later, after the manuscript had been actually 
 thrown into the street in Philadelphia and picked up by a 
 friend, who begged the author to complete it, Franklin, then 
 at Passy, France, added another chapter. And four years 
 
 * The Bon Homme Richard (that is, "Goodman Richard"), the famous flagship of Paul 
 Jones, was named by Jones in honor of Franklin at the time when Jones was put in command 
 of it through Franklin s advice to the French government. 
 
36 TRANSITION 
 
 later still, at Philadelphia, only two years before his death, he 
 continued the narrative, bringing it down to 1757, the year 
 of the beginning of his public services abroad. A copy of 
 this account having been sent to a friend in France, a portion 
 of it was there translated into French and published, shortly 
 after Franklin s death. This, it seems, though the whole 
 history is somewhat obscure, was turned into English again 
 and published at London in 1793. Not till 1817 was there 
 a direct publication of the manuscript, and not till 1868 of 
 the original first draft. 
 
 The book, though composed in this haphazard manner, 
 and though incomplete and ill proportioned, is not without 
 merits of style. Franklin has told us himself how studiously 
 he cultivated his style, taking for his model Addison. But it 
 is simplicity, rather than any studied grace, that gives the 
 Autobiography its charm. To this must be added a resolute 
 moral purpose, everywhere apparent yet never morbid or 
 offensive. The work was frankly intended for the instruction 
 of Franklin s son, and it was a most happy accident that so 
 incalculably widened its office. Boys are no longer in 
 demand to cut wicks for tallow candles; even typesetting is 
 a languishing trade; but "self-made men" are still held in 
 honor, and America will not soon reach the stage when her 
 youth can afford to omit the reading of this simple life-story 
 of one of her greatest men. 
 
 Franklin wrote nothing else of large significance, though 
 he wrote many things, both in jest and in earnest, both to 
 serve his country s need and to afford an outlet for energies 
 that scarcely knew how to pass an idle hour. Many trifles 
 written while he was in France, like "The Ephemera," 
 "The Whistle," and the "Dialogue between Franklin and the 
 Gout," designed for the amusement of the circle of wits who 
 gathered about one Madame Brillon, or like the dream of the 
 Elysian Fields in his letter to Madame Helvetius, show a 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 37 
 
 French delicacy of fancy, a gayety and wit, that are suffi 
 ciently rare in American letters and that are quite remarkable 
 as coming from Franklin. They set one to wondering what 
 this man might have done in literature had he chosen to be 
 less of a statesman and philosopher. Such work as he did do, 
 however, is on the whole purely American, virile, blunt 
 almost to rudeness, with only sufficient polish to give it cur 
 rency. He inculcated, as we have seen, a practical morality 
 only, and he did this best in plain, unvarnished prose. We 
 can see his limitation clearly enough, he partook but little 
 of enthusiasm and idealization, and his eyes were shut to the 
 poetry of life. His defect, in short, was a defect of spirit 
 uality, and he stands in strong contrast to even such feebly 
 poetical men as Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. 
 "There is a flower of religion, a flower of honor, a flower of 
 chivalry," says Sainte-Beuve, "that you must not require of 
 Franklin." Of course we remember the age. His life was 
 fairly contemporaneous with that of the great French sceptic, 
 Voltaire. And the eighteenth century in England was 
 notoriously an age of prose, dull and unimaginative in com 
 parison with the centuries before and the century after. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. INDEPENDENCE AND 
 NATIONALITY 
 
 1765-1800 
 
 The review of colonial literature in the first chapter closed 
 with the work of the theologians ; and a century later theology 
 will be found tingeing still the writings even of those who 
 openly rebelled against the Puritanism of their forefathers. 
 But interest in it had to give way before new and more vital 
 issues. Men cease to speculate on the freedom of the will 
 when their actual freedom of thought and deed is threatened. 
 The colonies were steadily growing, from New Hampshire on 
 the north to Georgia on the south. They were becoming 
 commercially and politically important. They found them 
 selves far away from the powers that governed them, and they 
 felt those powers to be often sadly out of sympathy with their 
 wishes and needs. There arose discontent, rebellion, revolution. 
 
 To trace in detail the growing sentiment among the colo 
 nies in favor of union, and the growing dissatisfaction with 
 British rule, which led to the Declaration of Independence of 
 1776, is the business of the historian, and here a very few 
 facts must suffice. The French and Indian War (1754-1763) 
 had indirectly much to do with the movement by showing the 
 necessity for union, perhaps also by proving the prowess of 
 American arms; and the very year in which Edwards pub 
 lished his Freedom of the Will the youthful Washington 
 marched with a regiment of soldiers into the western wilder 
 ness to resist the claims of the French. But the more direct 
 causes were the various measures passed by Parliament for 
 the taxation of the colonies, from the Importation Act of 1733 
 
 38 
 
ORATORY AND POLITICAL PROSE 39 
 
 to the Stamp Act of 1765. Some of the earliest and bitterest 
 opposition came from Massachusetts, where, in 1761, we find 
 the oratory of James Otis inciting among the people, hints of 
 resistance by arms; and fourteen years later the first armed 
 resistance came from Massachusetts . But the movement cen 
 tralized farther south. In 1 765 the young mountaineer Patrick 
 Henry startled the Virginia House of Burgesses with his resolu 
 tions against British taxation. The First Colonial Congress 
 met in 1765 at New York, the Second in 1774 at Philadelphia; 
 the Declaration of Independence was signed at Philadelphia; 
 the man chosen for commander-in-chief of the army and des 
 tined to become first President of the Union was a Virginian. 
 The literature of the time might be expected to follow the 
 course of these events, and in large measure it does. But 
 this period, like the century and a half that had gone before, 
 was not fruitful of good literature. For the most part it 
 produced only the fleeting record of its own immediate con 
 cerns, in the form of revolutionary speeches, state documents, 
 patriotic songs. These are all sincere enough and touch some 
 of the noblest passions of humanity, but they lack art; and it 
 takes art as well as sincerity to make any work lasting. The 
 calm, the impartiality, the sense of perspective which art 
 requires, are not at the command of one who celebrates con 
 temporary events. Franklin in his old age could write with 
 masterly skill the story of his youth, but not even Franklin, 
 granting him the poetic powers which he lacked, could have 
 fitly sung our nation s birth. It was reserved for Hawthorne, 
 in the nineteenth century, to transfer Puritanism from history 
 to literature, and our romancers are only just beginning to 
 busy themselves seriously with our revolutionary age. 
 
 ORATORY AND POLITICAL PROSE 
 
 It would be idle to review at length the oratory of the 
 period, or to single out the merits of this or that orator, from 
 
40 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 James Otis of Massachusetts, whom John Adams likened to a 
 "flame of fire," to Patrick Henry of Virginia, who spoke, 
 thought Jefferson, "as Homer wrote." These men spoke for 
 their time, and not ineffectually; and their speeches, devoutly 
 preserved, fired the youthful patriotism of several generations 
 and served as models to orators whose fame has since par 
 tially eclipsed their own. But we scarcely revert to their 
 speeches now. If we do, we find them often painfully 
 "academic"; the ideas are couched in stately and pompous 
 phrase long, balanced sentences, resonant, Latinized dic 
 tion, elaborate figures. We half fancy the orators must have 
 been cold and unimpassioned weighers of words and polishers 
 of periods. It was not so. Their style was the only style 
 taught and approved in their day. Precisely such oratory 
 was to be expected of an age which in England elevated 
 Samuel Johnson almost to the position of a literary dictator. 
 Yet a few of the words then uttered echo still. We shall be 
 slow indeed to forget that cry of Patrick Henry, the most 
 gifted, least academic speaker of them all that cry which is 
 the largest and deepest expression of the spirit of the age: 
 "Give me liberty or give me death." But our Revolution 
 brought forth no Edmund Burke, eloquent, cultured, and 
 profound, to measure himself with Demosthenes and Cicero 
 of old. With the noble Farewell Address of Washington in 
 1796, the old issues were fairly closed. Daniel Webster, 
 our greatest orator, belongs wholly to another era. 
 
 On the documentary side the literature was good, as such 
 literature goes. The Declaration of Independence easily takes 
 Thoma rank with the great state papers of history, not 
 
 I743 er i826 a l ne because of its political significance but also 
 because of its lofty theme and its earnest and 
 dignified expression. It was composed, of course, with the im 
 mediate object of making a wide popular appeal, "a kind of 
 war-song" says Professor Tyler, and it was but natural that 
 
ORATORY AND POLITICAL PROSE 41 
 
 it should contain some "glittering generalities" and that its 
 eloquence should approach grandiloquence. But it has stood 
 a long and severe test, and stood it well; and no one, whether 
 in youth or age, can read it without some stir of emotion. To 
 Thomas Jefferson belongs the chief credit of composing it, and 
 Jefferson was a writer of considerable ability. His Summary 
 View of the Rights of British America, published in 1774, 
 attracted contemporary attention in. England, where it was 
 republished by Edmund Burke. Moreover his voluminous 
 and scholarly letters, which make up the bulk of his collected 
 works, give him a respectable rank among writers of a class of 
 literature that has been much neglected since his day. 
 
 A most picturesque figure of this period, and one closely 
 associated in ideas with Jefferson, was Thomas Paine, an Eng- 
 Thomas lishman who came to America in 1774, at the age 
 
 of thirty-seven. He had neither the solid attain 
 ments nor the cultivated tastes of Jefferson, but he 
 had all of Jefferson s radicalism and was utterly fearless in 
 parading it. Jefferson had written on the Rights of America. 
 Paine wrote later, in England, on the Rights of Man. He was 
 an open sceptic and scoffer, at war generally with the estab 
 lished order of things. Such a revolutionary spirit belongs 
 to no land, and when the American cause was won, Paine 
 followed the torch of revolution to France, declaring, "Where 
 Liberty is not, there is my home."* After spending a consid 
 erable time there and in England he returned to America, 
 where he died in 1809. On the whole, Thomas Paine has 
 been too persistently remembered for his violence and his so- 
 called atheism, too little for his naturally humane instincts. 
 His coarse and superficial Age of Reason may well be neg 
 lected. Besides, that book, like the Rights of Man, was not 
 written in America. What Americans should remember him 
 for are his seventy-six pamphlet, Common Sense, which may 
 have turned the tide of popular sentiment toward independ- 
 
42 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 ence, and the series of tracts, entitled The Crisis, which he 
 published through the long and terrible struggle that followed. 
 Common Sense was said to have been worth an army of twenty 
 thousand men to the American cause, while the sixteen 
 successive numbers of The Crisis, widely distributed among 
 the soldiers, did priceless service in keeping alive their 
 patriotism through the darkest hours of Long Island and 
 Valley Forge. It was. in Common Sense that Paine called 
 George the Third the "royal brute of Britain," and it was the 
 first number of The Crisis that opened with the still famous 
 sentence, "These are the times that try men s souls." 
 
 Conspicuous among the statesmen who stood in oppo 
 sition to the extreme democratic views of men like Jefferson, 
 were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and 
 rldS-aiist." John Jay. While the adoption of the Constitu 
 tion was still in debate and strongly opposed by 
 the "State-rights" theorists, these men ably supported it in a 
 series of eighty-five papers published anonymously in a New 
 York journal and issued collectively in 1788 under the title of 
 The Federalist. The papers are political essays of a high 
 type, broad in principle, sound in argument, and stately in 
 style, and are well worth the study of those who would culti 
 vate that kind of writing. 
 
 POETRY 
 
 The verse of the period, like the prose, rarely succeeded in 
 detaching itself from current events; that is to say, its inspira 
 tion was fitful and its aims were immediate and 
 Ballads." practical rather than ultimate and artistic. Patri 
 otic songs and ballads, satires, squibs for the 
 corners of newspapers, were the staple verse products. Yan 
 kee Doodle, of somewhat obscure origin, sprang then into a 
 popularity that has waned only with the elevation of popular 
 taste. Even then, it was sustained chiefly by its air, and 
 
POETRY 43 
 
 belongs rather to music than to literature. Music and patri 
 otism together carried many a song of slender literary merits, 
 such as Timothy Dwight s hymn, Columbia, Columbia, to 
 Glory Arise, composed while its author was chaplain in the 
 army during the campaign against Burgoyne in 1777, and 
 Joseph Hopkinson s H ail Columbia, first sung at the Chestnut 
 Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1798, to the popular air of 
 "President s March." 
 
 In 1775, 1776 John Trumbull, a Connecticut lawyer, pub 
 lished a burlesque epic with the title of M Fingal, which 
 he expanded into four cantos in 1782. It was a vigorous 
 satire upon the Tories, and proved a powerful support to the 
 Revolution in that divided age, running to thirty editions. 
 In outward form it was modelled pretty closely after Butler s 
 Hudibras, the famous English satire upon the Puritans. Bom 
 bast, coarse wit, a lilting measure, and bad double rhymes are 
 almost necessary ingredients of a poem whose hero, Squire 
 M Fingal, "the vilest Tory in the town," is tried, condemned, 
 tied to a pole, tarred, and subjected to a shower of down until 
 
 "Not Milton s six-wing d angel gathers 
 Such superfluity of feathers." 
 
 Unquestionably the best ballad of the time that has come 
 down to us is an anonymous production, Hale in the Bush, 
 composed in memory of the fate of young Nathan Hale, who 
 was executed as a spy in September, 1776. 
 
 "The breezes went steadily through the tall pines 
 
 A saying oh hu-ush! a saying oh hu-ush! 
 As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, 
 
 For Hale in the bush, for Hale in the bush. * 
 
 The haunting quality of this opening stanza will be readily 
 felt, and the entire poem is much superior to the earliest 
 recorded and once famous American ballad of LovewelVs 
 Fight (composed about 1725). In point of popularity, 
 
44 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 however, there was nothing among Revolutionary ballads to 
 compete with the humorous Battle of the Kegs kags, the word 
 must have been pronounced, if rhyming it with bags be 
 trustworthy evidence. It was written in 1778 by Francis 
 Hopkinson, a Philadelphia lawyer and signer of the Decla 
 ration of Independence, and father of the writer of Hail 
 Columbia. Some kegs filled with powder and provided with 
 a lighted fuse had been sent floating down among the British 
 ships at Philadelphia and were promptly fired upon "with 
 amazing courage." 
 
 "The kegs, tis said, tho strongly made 
 
 Of rebel staves and hoops, Sir, 
 Could not oppose their powerful foes, 
 The conquering British troops, Sir." 
 
 All this popular verse barely escapes being dismissed as 
 doggerel. The kind of height to which it could rise may be 
 illustrated, perhaps, by one final example from Joel Barlow s 
 Hasty Pudding. Barlow, like Dwight and Trumbull, was a 
 Yale man of poetic proclivities, and in 1793, while he was 
 abroad in Savoy, a dish of savory polenta stirred the memories 
 of his palate and provoked his muse : 
 
 "I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel, 
 My morning incense, and my evening meal, 
 The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl, 
 Glide o er my palate, and inspire my soul. 
 The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine, 
 Its substance mingled, married in with thine, 
 Shall cool and temper thy superior heat 
 And save the pains of blowing while I eat." 
 
 He dedicated the poem, which was published in 1796, to Mrs. 
 Washington, without any fear that the "first lady of the land" 
 might be above taking interest in the homely concerns of a 
 housewife. 
 
POETRY 45 
 
 There were more serious attempts at poetry than these 
 some, indeed, most serious. Dr. Dwight, of Columbia fame, 
 
 tried his hand at an epic in eleven books and ten 
 verse. c thousand lines, The Conquest of Canaan (1785); 
 
 and Joel Barlow wrote a Vision of Columbus (1787) 
 which was afterwards expanded into the ten books of The 
 Columbiad (1807). But in both style and spirit these poems 
 were weakly imitative of a school of English poetry already 
 defunct. The curse of conventionality is over them. War 
 riors, for example, are never said to come to swords points, 
 but one hero on another "pours the tempest of resistless war." 
 If the night is bright, the moon is "sole empress on her silver 
 throne"; if dark, a cloud "involves the moon and wraps the 
 world in shade." Perhaps no American poem has aspired 
 higher or fallen lower than The Columbiad, which at the very 
 outset challenges comparison with the Iliad and the Aeneid: 
 
 "I sing the mariner who first unfurled 
 An eastern banner o er the western world, 
 And taught mankind where future empires lay 
 In these fair confines of descending day." 
 
 And the poem proceeds, in ponderous fashion, to uphold 
 juster ideas of honor than those of old Homer, whose exis 
 tence, the author stoutly maintained, "had proved one of the 
 signal misfortunes of mankind." Barlow s purpose was good. 
 "This," he declared, "is the moment in America to give such 
 a direction to poetry, painting, and the other fine arts, that 
 true and useful ideas of glory may be implanted in the minds 
 of men." But the poetry was not good, and the minds of men 
 refused to take kindly to such implanting. Epics have not 
 flourished on American soil. 
 
 There was, however, one American who before 1800 
 produced poetry that can still be read for its own sake. This 
 was Philip Freneau. Freneau was born at New York in 
 
40 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 1752, of a family that had originally been French Protestant 
 refugees. He was graduated from Princeton several years 
 Phiii before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War 
 
 Freneau, and immediately entered upon an active and varied 
 
 1752-1832. 
 
 career, becoming journalist, editor, trader, sea- 
 captain, and government clerk by turns. His voyages took 
 him to the Madeiras and the West Indies; and at one time he 
 suffered the horrors of imprisonment on a British prison-ship 
 at New York. He was still a hale man of eighty when, 
 having set out one December evening to walk to his home, 
 about two miles from Monmouth, New Jersey, he lost his 
 way in a violent snow-storm and perished. 
 
 Freneau was best known in his own day as a "patriot 
 poet," having contributed to the newspapers, especially dur 
 ing the war, numerous occasional verses inspired by his 
 hatred of the British and the royalists. The character of 
 these, as of a whole flood of similar verse of the time, may be 
 judged from the opening lines of A Prophecy (1782) : 
 
 " When a certain great king, whose initial is G, 
 Shall force stamps upon paper and folks to drink tea; 
 When these folks burn his tea and stampt paper like stubble, 
 You may guess that this king is then coming to trouble. 
 
 But when B and C with their armies are taken, 
 This king will do well if he saves his own bacon. 
 In the year seventeen hundred and eighty and two, 
 A stroke he shall get that will make him look blue; 
 In the years eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five, 
 You hardly shall know that the king is alive; 
 In the year eighty-six the affair will be over, 
 And he shall eat turnips that grow in Hanover." 
 
 These verses, though rather above the average of the age, 
 are still only such as we might expect from a man of Freneau s 
 restless and adventuresome spirit, and were probably written 
 
POETRY 47 
 
 with a galloping pen. They have long since become obsolete. 
 But in calmer moods Freneau produced work of more lasting 
 qualities. A few of his poems deal with native American 
 scenes and themes, and two or three among these, such as 
 Eutaw Springs* and The Indian Bury ing -Ground, are usually 
 selected as examples of his poetic genius at its best. Scott 
 gave testimony to his appreciation of the former by adopting, 
 with a slight change, one of its lines for his Marmion (Intro 
 duction to Canto III.). 
 
 "And took the spear, but left the shield;" 
 
 while Campbell borrowed for his O Connor s Child the fine 
 fancy at the close of the following stanza from The Indian 
 B urying-Ground: 
 
 "By midnight moons, o er moistening dews, 
 
 In vestments for the chase arrayed, 
 The hunter still the deer pursues, 
 
 The hunter and the deer a shade." 
 
 Freneau s most ambitious poem is The House of Night, 
 written while he was in Jamaica, at the age of twenty-four. 
 It is grimly imaginative, and possibly, in places, foreshadows 
 the genius of Poe, but it is a very uneven production and has 
 been overpraised. Far better is the little lyric of four 
 stanzas, The Wild Honeysuckle (Poems, 1795), in which this 
 native flower is apostrophized in all its modest, evanescent 
 beauty : 
 
 "Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 
 
 Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 
 Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow, 
 
 Unseen thy little branches greet; 
 No roving foot shall find thee here, 
 
 No busy hand provoke a tear. 
 
 * Freneau s title was "To the Memory of the Brave Americans, under General Greene, 
 who Fell in the Action of September 8, 1781." 
 
48 THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 " From morning suns and evening dews 
 
 At first thy little being came; 
 If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
 
 For when you die you are the same; 
 The space between is but an hour, 
 
 The frail duration of a flower." 
 
 Most critics have cared to remember of Freneau only this 
 one lyric, but he essayed another and rather more difficult 
 kind of verse with such success that it should not be over 
 looked. This is "social verse," a somewhat inexact and 
 general term for various kinds of sentimental effusions that 
 are light without levity and grave without gravity, that, in 
 other words, range freely all the way from laughter to tears 
 without quite touching upon either. Freneau could write a 
 most pathetic tribute To the Dog Sancho who nearly lost his 
 life defending his master s cabin against midnight robbers; 
 or he could compose a graceful ditty on A Lady s Singing 
 Bird., or on Pewter Platter Alley: but his best efforts in this 
 direction are distinctly bacchanalian, celebrating the 
 praises of wine and the joys of tavern life. The Parting 
 Glass, On the Ruins of a Country Inn, To a Honey 
 Bee, are poems that should not be allowed to drop out 
 of our anthologies, all the more because we have so few 
 of the kind. The last named is especially happy. The 
 tippler addresses a wandering bee that has alighted on 
 his glass: 
 
 " Welcome! I hail you to my glass; 
 
 All welcome here you find; 
 
 Here let the cloud of trouble pass, 
 
 Here be all care resigned. 
 
 This fluid never fails to please, 
 
 And drown the griefs of men or bees." 
 
 But the bee finally succeeds in drowning itself as well as its 
 griefs: 
 
POETRY 49 
 
 "Do as you please, your will is mine; 
 
 Enjoy it without fear 
 And your grave will be this glass of wine, 
 Your epitaph a tear. 
 
 Go, take your seat in Charon s boat; 
 We ll tell the hive, you died afloat." 
 
 William Clifton, a young Philadelphian of promise who 
 died in 1799, also produced a few occasional poems, which 
 
 were published in 1800, the best one of which 
 Occasional a bit of melodious social verse with the refrain of 
 
 "Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song" scarcely 
 suffers by comparison with the lyrics of Freneau. And 
 in 1780, while the result of the Revolution still hung in the 
 balance, there appeared an anonymous drinking song with 
 a strong patriotic ring, The Volunteer Boys, of which it seems 
 worth while to preserve still an echo, if only that we may 
 catch at this distance a little of the spirit of our forefathers : 
 
 Hence with the lover who sighs o er his wine, 
 
 Chloes and Phillises toasting; 
 
 Hence with the slave who will whimper and whine, 
 Of ardour and constancy boasting; 
 Hence with love s joys, 
 Follies and noise, 
 The toast that I give is the Volunteer Boys." 
 
 From this time on the echoes of the Revolution grew 
 rapidly more and more faint, and though they did not cease 
 until well into the next century, we shall find, when we take 
 up the thread of poetry again, that the character of the poetry 
 was materially changed. 
 
PART II 
 
 THE CREATIVE IMPULSE 
 
 FROM MAINE TO GEORGIA 
 1800-1860 
 
THE CREATIVE IMPULSE 
 
 INDEPENDENCE was won. A federal constitution had 
 been adopted and a government organized under its pro 
 visions. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the 
 capital had been permanently fixed at Washington, a second 
 president had quietly given way to a third of a different 
 party, and the United States were a political fact to be reck 
 oned with in the councils of nations. It remained for them 
 to prove themselves worthy of the position they held, and to 
 carry on in America the work of European civilization and 
 culture. Foreign trade existed of course in ten years the 
 exports had increased from twenty to seventy millions of 
 dollars; here and there, too, a man of an investigating and 
 inventive turn of mind, like Benjamin Franklin, had con 
 tributed something to the practical knowledge of mankind; 
 but in that higher kind of commerce of which trade reviews 
 and public records take little note, the New World had as yet 
 given really nothing in exchange for what it received. W^ould 
 it ever have anything to give? European critics of art and 
 literature dared to ask the question, for it was a not uncom 
 mon belief in Europe that, as Irving humorously put it, all ani 
 mals degenerated in America, and man among the number." 
 
 The answer to their question did not come at once it is 
 not even yet such as we should like to make but it came. 
 The cause of popular education, so cherished by the Ameri 
 cans from the first, was taken up with new zeal. Noah 
 Webster s famous Speller appeared in 1783, Lindley Murray s 
 English Grammar in 1795, and Webster s Compendious 
 Dictionary in 1806. And in literature proper, the creative 
 impulse was plainly asserting itself. From the beginning of 
 the century, when Charles Brockden Brown of Philadelphia 
 deliberately took up the profession of letters, there was a con- 
 
 53 
 
54 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 scious awakening of literary activity. The manifestations of 
 that activity were most marked in New York, and that city, 
 within ten years, had among her ninety thousand inhabitants 
 an author Irving who was destined to win for American 
 letters some recognition in the literary circles of Europe. 
 
 Still, progress was slow. For after the decade that passed 
 between Brown s first novel in 1798 and Irving s Knicker 
 bocker History in 1809, it was almost another decade before 
 there was anything worth adding to the record. Then, in 
 1817, came Bryant s Thanatopsis; in 1818, Paulding s Back 
 woodsman; in 1819, the poems of Drake and Halleck; in 1819, 
 1820, Irving s Sketch-Book; in 1821, Cooper s Spy. Ten years 
 more found some of these writers distinguished. In 1852 
 Bryant, then editor of the New York Evening Post, was 
 bringing out his second volume of poems, Cooper s tales were 
 being widely translated in Europe, and Irving was at length 
 come back from his seventeen years residence abroad to 
 receive the highest honors from his countrymen. By that 
 time, too, Longfellow, Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whittier, 
 Holmes, and Lowell were either appearing or soon to appear 
 above the literary horizon. Another thirty years and the 
 United States had a respectable body of national literature, 
 that body of literature which, as w r e said at the outset, has 
 now become classic. 
 
 We need not deceive ourselves as to its relative im 
 portance. America has no world-names, no literature or art 
 that are secure in the sense in which Plato and Shakespeare, 
 the Iliad and the Song of Solomon, the Parthenon and the 
 Laokoon, are secure. But the United States have built up a 
 nationality through years of trial and heroic endeavor, and 
 have brought forth men spiritually gifted to tell the story. It 
 is the record of those years, sixty or seventy roundly speaking, 
 years in which, said Cooper, the nation was passing from the 
 gristle into the bone, that we now purpose to review in detail. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT. BROWN, IRVING, COOPER, 
 
 BRYANT 
 
 To the inhabitants of the United States of one hundred 
 years ago, the New World was in some respects quite as old as 
 it is to us. It had always been their home and their fathers 
 home. It had a continuous history of two hundred years, and 
 the Pilgrim Fathers were as remote to Irving and Bryant as 
 Cotton Mather is to us that is, if we measure by time alone. 
 But if we measure by achievements, we must alter our per 
 spective. In its unexplored area, its untamed natives, its 
 undeveloped resources, the country was still new, and it was 
 consciously so. It was new, too, in its dearth of art and 
 literature. The ocean and the wilderness, the motley- 
 peopled sea-ports, the vast lakes, the pine forests, the 
 stubborn New England soil and climate, the little log school- 
 house, the quaint Dutch burgher, the southern planter, the 
 prowling Indian, were all accepted in a matter-of-fact spirit, 
 and scarcely a poet or painter had looked upon them yet with 
 an imaginative eye. Two centuries of the primitive, heroic 
 age of America had already passed, and there was no epic 
 song. But, at last, in the peace of established nationhood, 
 the new environment, so fast becoming old, was yielding its 
 inspiration to native art. 
 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, 1771-1810 
 
 Philip Freneau failed to follow up worthily in days of 
 peace the gift which he had exercised in more eventful times, 
 and he had no contemporary of similar gifts; poetry lay 
 dormant. The new impulse was to be felt first in prose, 
 as it chanced, in prose fiction, a form of art thai? was being 
 
 55 
 
56 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 rapidly developed in England. That novels had been in free 
 circulation in America for some time is attested by Noah 
 Webster, who, in an essay on woman s education, written 
 about 1790, complained that "a hundred volumes of modern 
 novels may be read without acquiring a new idea." They 
 must have been the products of English pens. Of American 
 writers in this field during the eighteenth century, one might 
 almost say that the names of but two are remembered 
 Mrs. Susanna Rowson and Mrs. Tabitha Tenney; and their 
 numerous novels may be dismissed as unworthy of record, 
 though one of Mrs. Rowson s, Charlotte Temple, a crude 
 hysterical production published in 1790 (declared, by the 
 way, to be "a tale of truth"), may still be found in pamphlet 
 issues and doubtless has still some power of drawing tears. 
 The year 1798, however, marked the advent of a romancer 
 of somewhat more than passing worth Charles Brockden 
 Brown. 
 
 Brown was born at Philadelphia in 1771 and died there in 
 1810. Sickly in body from childhood, he somewhat illogic- 
 ally determined to devote his energy to the culti 
 vation of his mind. He became a diligent student 
 of language and literature, laboring to make himself a master 
 of style, and, after some dallying with the law, adopted the 
 profession of letters outright the first man in America to 
 take such a step and succeed well enough to be remembered 
 for it. Though he came of a Quaker family, he held very 
 liberal views: his first publication, Alcuin (1797), was a 
 dialogue on the rights of women. His sensitive and imagi 
 native temperament was one to respond quickly to the 
 extravagances of an age of revolutionary ardors and aspira 
 tions, an age which produced Shelley s and "iridescent 
 dreams." Brown s nature, however, was not long in finding 
 the proper, field of its activity in fiction. In the brief space 
 of four years, from 1798 to 1801, he published six novels, 
 
BROCKDEN BROWN 57 
 
 or romances,* of considerable length. But with this outburst 
 his creative power seems to have exhausted itself, for he 
 devoted the remainder of his short life to journalism. 
 
 Brown had much talent and some of the marks of genius, 
 
 and there can be little doubt that, if he had lived at a later 
 
 period in the development of fiction and had 
 
 Character , . , , , , 
 
 of his been given a stronger constitution, he would nave 
 
 Works. & . . . . , . 
 
 produced work ot a nigh order. As it is, his 
 Wieland, Arthur Mervyn, Edgar Huntly, and the rest, can 
 command only a qualified praise. Their strength is great, 
 but their weakness is greater, and while there will always be 
 some to read them with an interest mounting to absorption, 
 most people will be repelled by the sheer horror of their 
 themes and their grave offences against literary art. To 
 begin with, they are written in a strange style, at once nervous 
 and stilted. The sentences are short, hammering, and mo 
 notonous, quite unlike the elaborate and carefully modu 
 lated sentences affected by the political orators and essayists 
 of the time. The phrases, on the contrary, are roundabout, 
 and the words are the same long Latin derivatives that the 
 lawyers and the statesmen indulged in. The result is a 
 peculiar compound of abruptness and formalism. For 
 example, the first three paragraphs of Wieland open thus: 
 "I feel little reluctance in complying with your request "- 
 "My state is not destitute of tranquillity" "I address no 
 
 * It is well to use these names carefully. Fiction is a general term for imaginative prose. 
 Tale is an old word, once applied to almost any kind of story, true or false. It is now chiefly 
 limited to stories of adventure, stories in which the interest lies in the events. A romance is 
 a kind of elaborated and heightened tale, drawing its interest largely from the picturesque, 
 the marvellous, the supernatural. The novel, of later development, aims to keep more closely 
 to actual or possible life, and to portray character as affecting or affected by circumstances. 
 The short story corresponds to the novel somewhat as the tale does to the romance, in being 
 less elaborate. All the terms overlap, however, tale and romance in particular being still often 
 used interchangeably; and even though we keep the definitions distinct, any particular story 
 is likely to have characteristics of both tale and romance, or of both romance and novel. 
 Brown s stories may very properly be called either romances or novels. 
 
58 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 supplication to the Deity." Modern prose would prefer to 
 say: "I am quite willing to do as you wish" "I have mo 
 ments of peace" "I make no prayers to God." In another 
 place the revival of hope is described as "the re-exaltation of 
 that luminary of whose effulgencies I had so long and so 
 liberally partaken." Certainly no critic in Brown s day 
 would have found this style offensive, and the poet Shelley, 
 it may be said, read the tales with eagerness; but it is impos 
 sible for readers today not to be very differently moved. 
 
 The same thing is true of the exaggerated sentimentalism 
 of the tales. Sentimentalism was characteristic of the fiction 
 just then popular in England, from Mackenzie s Man of 
 Feeling to Godwin s Caleb Williams, the most widely read 
 novel of the time. Brown revels in situations that call for 
 display of feeling, especially of the so-called tender emotions ; 
 and such phrases as "extreme sensibility," "impressionable 
 nature," "tears of delicious sympathy," "agony of fondness," 
 "effusions of gratitude," "paroxysms of grief," sprinkle 
 his pages. 
 
 But the most striking feature of the stories is the machin 
 ery of mystery and terror which supports the plot. This, 
 too, had its English model in the "Gothic" romances of the 
 time, of which Horace Walpole s Castle of Otranto and Mrs. 
 Radcliffe s Mysteries of Udolpho are famous examples. 
 Secret passages, sliding panels, unearthly voices, midnight 
 murders, and vanishing trails tend to keep the reader in a 
 creepy state of body and mind. Of course these are good 
 romantic devices; only Brown, true to his "advanced" ideas, 
 would not allow them to stand frankly on their emotional 
 and artistic value. He felt obliged to support every fancy by 
 a fact, attested in a foot-note if need be, and to find a natural 
 explanation for his wildest absurdities. Thus he drags in 
 the phenomena of sleep-walking, mental hallucination, and 
 the like. The effect is not what he calculated, for his plots 
 
BROCKDEN BROWN 59 
 
 are made only the more absurd and trivial. He failed to 
 understand that the imagination will accept the impossible 
 but resents the improbable. Thus by straining probability 
 and allowing momentous events to turn upon light causes, he 
 weakens the reader s interest and makes him critical. In 
 Wieland, for example, Theodore Wieland, a religious fanatic, 
 murders his wife and children at the bidding of certain 
 "divine voices." The voices turn out to be merely the trick 
 of a scoundrelly ventriloquist. That such a thing might 
 happen, no one will deny, but it is extremely improbable; 
 and if it did happen, we should expect to find the account 
 of it among the items of a sensational newspaper, and not in a 
 romance written for our edification. 
 
 It is impossible to illustrate these things fully here, but 
 some idea of Brown s style, as well as of his predilection for 
 gruesome themes may be obtained from the following extract. 
 It is the beginning of the famous description, in Arthur 
 Mervyn, of the yellow fever epidemic at Philadelphia in 1793, 
 which he himself had witnessed and suffered from: 
 
 "The sun had nearly set before I reached the precincts of the city. 
 I pursued the track which I had formerly taken, and entered High Street 
 after nightfall. Instead of equipages and a throng of passengers, the 
 voice of levity and glee, which I had formerly observed, and which the 
 mildness of the season would, at other times, have produced, I found 
 nothing but a dreary solitude. 
 
 "The market-place, and each side of this magnificent avenue, were 
 illuminated, as before, by lamps; but between the verge of Schuylkill and 
 the heart of the city I met not more than a dozen figures; and these were 
 ghostlike, wrapped in cloaks, from behind which they cast upon me 
 glances of wonder and suspicion, and, as I approached, changed their 
 course, to avoid touching me. Their clothes were sprinkled with vinegar 
 and their nostrils defended from contagion by some powerful perfume. 
 
 "I cast a look upon the houses, which I reconnected to have form 
 erly been, at this hour, brilliant with lights, resounding with lively 
 voices, and thronged with busy faces. Now they were closed, above 
 and below; dark, and without tokens of being inhabited. From the 
 
60 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 upper windows of some, a gleam sometimes fell upon the pavement I 
 was traversing, and showed that their tenants had not fled, but were 
 secluded or disabled. 
 
 "These tokens were new, and awakened all my panics. Death 
 seemed to hover over this scene, and I dreaded that the floating pes 
 tilence had already lighted on my frame." 
 
 This is excellent in its kind, and the audacious realism of 
 the passages that follow fairly takes one s breath, almost 
 challenging comparison with similar passages in Boccaccio, 
 Manzoni, or Defoe. But the kind is morbid, even though the 
 artist s hand is strong enough to keep him clear of the hys 
 terical. And in the case of Brown s work the psychological 
 analysis that attends it all makes the matter worse. There is 
 endless deliberation without action, wearisome pausing to 
 portray every slightest phase of every fleeting sensation. 
 Nor is there any touch of humor to relieve the prevailing 
 gloom. 
 
 One thing in this work is to be praised without reserve. 
 Notwithstanding his adherence to the methods of the British 
 novelists, Brown had the courage to give his stories always a 
 New World background, now the city of Philadelphia or of 
 Baltimore, now the wilds of the Pennsylvania forests. The 
 suburban villas with their avenues of catalpas, the settler s 
 clay-plastered log cabin and square acre of clearing tilled 
 with the hoe, the panther in his cave, the Indian with his 
 tomahawk, these are living pictures out of a century 
 that is gone and are worth many volumes of sentimental 
 scenes. Here indeed Brown w T as a pioneer, and in this 
 reliance upon local color he anticipates Cooper, just as in 
 psychological analysis he anticipates Poe and Hawthorne, 
 and in unshrinking realism the writers of a modern French 
 school. For the rest, his romances are instructive more as 
 examples of what other romancers should avoid than of what 
 they should imitate. He did not have Scott or Hawthorne 
 
MPNOR EARLY FICTION 61 
 
 to teach him. He belonged to the experimental period of 
 English fiction, and he suffered the common fate that attends 
 early experiments. 
 
 MINOR EARLY FICTION 
 
 Brown s early devotion to romantic fiction was shortlived, 
 and he does not seem to have communicated the impulse, 
 genuine as it was, to any worthy contemporary or successor. 
 His only contemporaries, indeed, were such as the negligible 
 Mrs. Rowson and Mrs. Tenney afore-mentioned; and those 
 who followed him after an interval of nearly twenty years 
 were, with the shining exceptions of Irving and Cooper, little 
 more important. Yet a few of these latter need mention. 
 
 John Neal, of Maine, began in 1817 a long and industrious 
 literary career, and his scores of novels (Logan, 1821; Seventy- 
 Six, 1822; The Down-Easters, 1833) portray in a 
 1793*1876! vigorous, if somewhat erratic fashion, certain 
 phases of American life. But Neal, who boasted 
 of writing three volumes in twenty-seven days, "did not 
 pretend to write English," and though Hawthorne could 
 enjoy the "ranting stuff" in his youth, literature takes little 
 account of it. Farther south, amid the picturesque Berkshire 
 hills of Massachusetts, once the scene of Jonathan Edwards s 
 Catherine missionary labors among the Indians, Miss Sedg- 
 sed r gwick, wick, a school-teacher, made a similar but more 
 1789-1867. successful effort toward creating a native fiction, 
 weaving her local surroundings and reminiscences into 
 two- volume novels that had considerable vogue in their day. 
 A New England Tale (1822), Redwood (1824), Hope Leslie 
 (1827), and The Linwoods (1835), are at once sermons on the 
 moral and domestic virtues, and faithful pictures of New 
 England homestead life in the days when the Mohawk was 
 still a menace to the white man s security. 
 
62 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 A more important figure than either of the preceding was 
 
 James Kirke Paulding, who belonged to the region of the 
 
 Dutch settlements about New York and who was himself 
 
 probably a descendant of a Dutch family. A city politician 
 
 and "man about town," he had a facile pen and 
 
 James Kirke . , p 1-1 
 
 Paulding, spent much ol its energy in satire ot one kind or 
 another, now growing witty or caustic over the 
 relations between John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812), 
 now parodying Scott (The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle, 1813), 
 and now burlesquing Cooper. His earliest work consisted of 
 contributions to the Salmagundi papers (1807), in the publica 
 tion of which he was associated with his friends, the Irving- 
 brothers, and of which he published a second series by himself 
 (1819, 1820). His best work, however, is to be sought in 
 his more serious pictures of American life and manners, and 
 though his Backwoodsman (1818), a poem of three thousand 
 lines, was not successful, such two- volume novels as Konings- 
 marke, the Long Finne (1823), The Dutchman s Fireside (1831), 
 and Westward Ho! (1832) were. The first of these deals with 
 the Swedish settlements on the Delaware, the second with the 
 Dutch residents along the Hudson, and the third with life in 
 Virginia and Kentucky. But to say that the novels were 
 successful is not to give them high praise. Their crudity 
 may be judged from a single sentence in The Dutchman s 
 Fireside, in which the author, after picturing the overturning 
 of a boat-load of picnickers in the middle of a stream, naively 
 tries to soften the pain which he feels obliged to cause his 
 readers : " It is with sorrowful emotions I record that the acci 
 dent was fatal to two of the innocent girls and one of the 
 young men, who sat in the bow of the boat." The characters 
 are often caricatures, the humor is heavy, the pathos is 
 overdrawn, and the author s constant preaching against the 
 vices of an age of machinery and money-getting and extrava 
 gance is inappropriate and tedious. Yet the books are not 
 
MINOR EARLY FICTION 63 
 
 wholly unreadable, and for their lively pictures of the Dutch 
 man s fireside or the red man s lodge they deserve a humble 
 place by the works of Irving and Cooper. 
 
 To complete this brief survey of a fiction that at the begin 
 ning of the nineteenth century seemed to be exploiting the 
 John entire country almost as persistently as it is doing 
 
 Kenned?! 1 today, the name of John Pendleton Kennedy of 
 1795-1870. Baltimore may be added. Kennedy, like Paulding 
 was a public man. He served several terms in Congress, 
 and late in life was appointed, as Paulding had been before 
 him, Secretary of the Navy. Nor were his writings unlike 
 those of his northern contemporary. His earliest literary 
 venture was the Red Book (1818), a society serial similar to 
 Salmagundi, published in association with another Balti- 
 morean. Later, he turned to fiction, and in 1832 published 
 Swallow Barn, his best known work. Its plot is slight; it is 
 valuable chiefly as a collection of sketches of manorial life in 
 Virginia, of the easy-going days and ways at Swallow Barn, 
 "an aristocratical old edifice that squats, like a brooding hen, 
 on the southern bank of the James River." The style, in 
 grace and genial humor, reminds one of Irving, to whom the 
 book was dedicated. In his other works, Horse-Shoe Robin 
 son, a Tale of the Tory Ascendency (1835), and Rob of the Bowl 
 (1838), the author went back to revolutionary and colonial 
 times, still laying the scenes in the South. It has sometimes 
 been said that Kennedy wrote the fourth chapter of the 
 second volume of Thackeray s Virginians, but it seems more 
 probable that he only furnished Thackeray with some ma 
 terial of a local character which Thackeray s knowledge did 
 not enable him to supply himself. 
 
 Such are a few of the books that from 1815 onward were 
 published and advertised by the side of Irving s and Cooper s. 
 But the years have covered them with increasing neglect, and 
 we must turn to the works of the latter writers for the only 
 
64 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 permanent record of the romantic tendencies of the genera 
 tion before Poe and Hawthorne. 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING, 1783-1859 
 
 It seems eminently fitting that Irving, the oft-styled 
 "Father of American Letters," a very human, genial father, 
 too, like old Chaucer himself, should have borne the name 
 of him who, by a clearer title, was called the "Father of his 
 Country." He was born at New York in 1783, the year of 
 the treaty of peace. "Washington s work is ended," said his 
 mother; "the child shall be named after him." And the child 
 received at a later day the great man s blessing and lived to 
 be his biographer. 
 
 New York had then fewer than thirty thousand inhabit 
 ants and was still second to Philadelphia. It was corn- 
 Traits, paratively easy for the city boy to get into the 
 country and thus to see all sides of American life 
 commerce and agriculture, art and nature, society and soli 
 tude. Irving himself has told us of delightful holiday 
 afternoon rambles, and of long excursions up the Hudson, 
 squirrel-shooting and angling in the Sleepy Hollow region or 
 drifting lazily past the Catskills. The love of the open air 
 and of the picturesque always clung to him, and in one of his 
 essays on England he declares that fondness for rural life 
 has had a most healthful effect upon the English national 
 character. Still he was essentially a city boy, with a city 
 boy s tastes and habits. He lounged about the pier-heads, or 
 snatched eagerly at chances to attend the theatre. If he was 
 fond of visiting the scenes of murders and robberies, we must 
 attribute it in part to his surroundings and in part to his 
 active imagination; there could have been no morbid or 
 depraved instinct back of it, for with all his mischievousness 
 he had a noble and gentle disposition. 
 
 In the large family of eleven children, of whom he was the 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 
 WASHINGTON IRVINO 
 
IRVING 65 
 
 youngest, his social nature was fully developed, and as he 
 grew up he took more and more delight in social intercourse. 
 He entered a law office, but its regular routine had few charms 
 for him. Instead of reading law he read literature, and he 
 was glad at all times to escape to the clubs, the theatres, and 
 the drawing-rooms, where his observations furnished him 
 matter for the exercise of his pen in social sketches and satir 
 ical squibs to be printed in his brother Peter s morning news 
 paper. This very unacademic education received a proper 
 finishing touch when, in 1804, his brothers sent him to 
 Europe. 
 
 Thereby was revealed another marked trait. He went 
 to Europe in the first instance for his health, and he went 
 again later, he tells us, to see great men, though that is 
 half a humorous fling at European contempt of America. 
 But it is clear that a chief attraction was always the charm of 
 Europe s "storied and poetical association." The romantic 
 spirit was strong in him and it early took the form of a love of 
 mediaeval history and tradition. "My native country was 
 full of youthful promise: Europe was rich in the accumulated 
 treasures of age." And even as he sailed up the river Mersey, 
 he was thrilled by catching sight, through a telescope, of "the 
 mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy." 
 
 His first sojourn in Europe lasted nearly two years. He 
 returned to brighten the society of New York with his many 
 personal charms, to which were now added health 
 writings. and the polish of travel. For a year he was 
 associated with his eldest brother, William, 
 and William s brother-in-law, James Kirke Paulding, in the 
 publication of a semi-monthly periodical, Salmagundi, model 
 led, as such literary enterprises were wont to be, after the 
 Spectator. He seemed to be aware by this time of his propen 
 sity toward writing, but as literature was not a promising 
 profession for an American, he persisted, half-heartedly, in 
 
66 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 looking toward the law and politics. However, he was soon 
 engaged in another literary enterprise. With his brother 
 Peter he had planned to write a burlesque history of New 
 York as a parody upon Dr. Samuel Mitchell s pedantic 
 Picture of New York, just then published, when Peter was 
 suddenly called to Europe and the work was left in the hands 
 of Washington. He changed the scope of it at once, condens 
 ing the parody into five introductory chapters and continuing 
 the work as a chronicle, truthful in outline but still burlesque 
 in spirit, of the settlement of New York by the Dutch, and of 
 the reigns of the early Dutch governors. The work pur 
 ported to have been written by an eccentric Dutch antiquary, 
 and after some hoaxing notices in the newspaper of the 
 mysterious disappearance of the author and the discovery of 
 his manuscript, it was published in December, 1809, as A 
 History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. 
 
 No one could have been more surprised than Irving at the 
 
 success of this haphazard production" a success which was 
 
 both immediate and lasting. His modesty was 
 
 "Knicker- . " 
 
 bocker quite overwhelmed with the attentions he re 
 
 ceived. He had furnished readers with an inex 
 haustible fund of wonder and amusement, he had given 
 America a genuine American book, he had shown New York 
 that she had a history and traditions, and he had fixed a 
 character and a name upon a quaint but worthy and influen 
 tial element of New World society. Some of the more 
 prosaic of his readers of Dutch descent could not enter at 
 once into the humor of the thing, and were disposed to 
 resentment. But they were defenceless, and moreover 
 Irving had written so wholly without malice that the feeling 
 speedily wore away. The Dutch families became actually 
 proud to acknowledge themselves Knickerbockers. Irving 
 has a good-natured allusion to this in the preface to "Rip 
 Van Winkle," wherein he says that the good Diedrich was 
 
IRVING 67 
 
 "apt to ride his hobby his own way, and though it did now 
 and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, 
 yet his errors and follies are remembered more in sorrow 
 than in anger." Indeed, he declared, it was beginning to 
 seem that Diedrich had some chance for immortality, inas 
 much as certain biscuit-makers were imprinting his likeness 
 on their New Year cakes. 
 
 In that same preface, Irving says whimsically of the liter 
 ary character of the Knickerbocker History that it is "not a 
 whit better than it should be," adding with mock gravity that 
 "its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, and it is now 
 admitted into all historical collections as a book of unques 
 tionable authority." Of course, the humor of the book is its 
 first great quality a humor of almost epic proportions, 
 extending from mere quips and puns and trivial colloquialisms 
 such as "jumping out of one s skin" and "keeping up the 
 raw," to the entire conception of the "Dutch dynasty" 
 as a momentous era in the world s history, with its wars, 
 its councils, its successions, its downfall and extinction. 
 We read here of how the benevolent inhabitants of Europe 
 introduced among the savages rum, gin, brandy, and the 
 other comforts of life, of how the town of New Amsterdam 
 arose out of mud, of the direful feud between Ten Breeches 
 and Tough Breeches, of the Pipe Plot, of the Mosquito War, 
 of the renowned Wouter van Twiller, who was exactly five 
 feet six inches in height and six feet five inches in circum 
 ference, of his unparalleled virtues and literally unutterable 
 wisdom, of how he fell into a profound doubt and finally 
 evaporated, of how William the Testy grew tough in propor 
 tion as he dried, and of the dignified retirement and mortal 
 surrender of Peter the Headstrong. The humor is of the 
 hearty, reckless kind that sometimes oversteps the line of 
 good taste, though that particular phase of it did not seem 
 to give any offence to contemporary readers. Walter Scott 
 
68 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 discovered the book and relates how he spent several even 
 ings reading it aloud until he and his guests were "sore with 
 laughter." He did it the high honor of comparing it with 
 the works of Dean Swift and of Laurence Sterne. 
 
 But there is another side to the merit of the book, and one 
 which later in life Irving felt moved to insist upon. He would 
 have the book read, not merely as humor, but as in some sense 
 poetry, that is to say, as a work of the romantic and creative 
 imagination. He had intended, in this amusing form, he said 
 to embody the traditions and customs of his native city, "to 
 clothe home scenes and places and familiar names with those 
 imaginative and whimsical associations so seldom met with in 
 our new country, but which live like charms and spells about 
 the cities of the old world, binding the heart of the native 
 inhabitant to his home. How well he succeeded was attested 
 by the swarm of investigators who followed him and, as he 
 expressed it, almost crowded him off the legendary ground 
 he had been the first to explore. But no investigator can rob 
 us of this legendary and now enchanted field. It was Irving s 
 triumph that he re-created this past and yet left it, to the 
 imagination, even more remotely past than ever, a fairy realm 
 of antiquity safe from the desecration of the mere historian. 
 The smoke of the burghers pipes hangs like a haze over the 
 picture, softening, yet leaving plainly discernible all the essen 
 tial features, the luxuriant cabbage-gardens, the brick-gabled 
 houses, the women s quilted calico caps and short, spreading 
 petticoats, the men s brass buttons and eel-skin queues. 
 
 "Ah, blissful and never-to-be-forgotten age! when everything 
 was better than it has ever been since, or ever will be again, when 
 Buttermilk Channel was quite dry at low water, when the shad in 
 the Hudson were all salmon, . . . when as yet New Amsterdam was 
 a mere pastoral town, shrouded in groves of sycamores and willows, 
 and surrounded by trackless forests and wide-spreading waters, that 
 seemed to shut out all the cares and vanities of a wicked world." 
 
IRVING G9 
 
 Notwithstanding the success of the Knickerbocker His 
 tory, Irving did not yet decide for a literary career. The 
 book, like many another masterpiece of humor, 
 Ib?old had been written or at least finished, in the midst 
 of profound personal grief. Matilda Hoffman, a 
 girl of seventeen, to whom Irving was deeply attached, had 
 suddenly died. The shock was one from which he recovered 
 but slowly, perhaps never entirely; at any rate, partly owing 
 to this and partly to other considerations, he remained 
 throughout life unmarried. In 1815 he went again to Europe 
 for a short visit, in the interests of his brothers hardware and 
 cutlery business, in which he was a rather inactive partner. 
 The visit, as it chanced, lasted seventeen years. The first 
 five years of this period were spent in England. The mer 
 cantile enterprise failed, and Irving was once more adrift. 
 Scott would have assisted him to an editorship, but the old 
 vagabond literary instincts were asserting themselves too 
 strongly again to allow him to look with favor upon routine 
 journalism. Clearly, it was to be literature at last, but 
 literature and freedom, not literature and drudgery and 
 time-serving. 
 
 He had been for some time revolving the plan of a volume 
 of literary essays on divers subjects. Now, feeling the need 
 of prompt publication, he sent off such papers as 
 he had completed to America, where they were 
 printed, and published simultaneously at New 
 York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, as the Sketch- 
 Book, written by "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." This was in 
 May, 1819. The first number contained the first five num 
 bers of the work as we now have it, "Rip Van Winkle" being 
 the most conspicuous. Other numbers followed, the sixth 
 containing "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and the seventh 
 (1820) closing the series. The whole was then published at 
 London in two volumes, with Scott once more in the role of 
 
70 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 good angel. The early numbers had already attracted 
 attention in England, and naturally enough; for to a charm of 
 personality and a finish of style scarcely excelled by the best 
 English prose writers, they added a freshness of spirit, and 
 occasionally of theme, that was quite un-English. Jeffrey, 
 of the Edinburgh Review, who could have had no possible 
 prejudice in favor of the book, gave it a cordial welcome, 
 most cordial for Jeffrey. The gracious tone of the essays 
 was well calculated to disarm criticism, the humor of several 
 sketches was irresistible, and if the pathos of others was 
 drawn in rather heavy lines, so much the better, for the age 
 was sentimental. American literature was no longer a 
 promise, but a fact. 
 
 Irving took his success modestly was even alarmed by it 
 and feared that it could not last. But with the praises of 
 Scott, Byron, and Moore, and the encouragement of his pub 
 lishers he could scarcely doubt long. At any rate he kept on, 
 and in the intervals of travel on the continent he completed 
 two more volumes Bracebridge Hall in 1822, and Tales of a 
 Traveller in 1824. They contained many excellent things, 
 some, like "The Stout Gentleman" and "Dolph Heyliger," 
 that have become fairly classic, but they were scarcely 
 different enough from the Sketch-Book in either form or 
 treatment to add anything to the author s reputation. In 
 1826 he went to Spain, drawn thither by the old magic of 
 romantic associations, and settled down to work of an his 
 torical nature. The chief results were the Life and Voyages 
 of Columbus (1828), the Conquest of Granada (1829), and the 
 Alhambra(l832). 
 
 Irving s historical works must not be judged by the tests 
 we apply today. He had not scholarship in the modern 
 sense, nor the philosophic mind, though neither was he 
 seriously deficient in these qualities. His defect was really 
 an excess an excess of imagination and sympathy. He 
 
IRVING 71 
 
 considered it the duty of a historian to be charitable, and he 
 was prone to magnify the deeds and the virtues of his heroes. 
 Thus the Columbus is more delightful than trustworthy; but 
 it was so much better than anything before it that its author 
 was honored with a gold medal from the British Royal 
 Society of Literature, and the book long and deservedly 
 remained a standard biography. The Conquest of Granada, 
 too, is an excellent work of its kind, and reads like a romance, 
 which, in fact, it partly is. 
 
 In the Alhambra, however, Irving once more escaped suffi 
 ciently from the thraldom of facts to be quite at home, and in 
 this work he repeated the success of the Knicker 
 bocker and the Sketch-Book. Prescott, indeed, 
 called it the Spanish Sketch-Book, and the Spanish them 
 selves have always regarded it as a kind of prose-poem. It 
 is a happy mixture of fact and fancy, of history and legend, 
 in which the old Moorish palace and fortress is removed as by 
 a rod of enchantment from the material world and set in the 
 realm of the imagination, secure against decay. Moreover, 
 in this book, Irving has done a peculiar service to Spain. 
 For while he has taken great pains to be accurate, correcting 
 certain fanciful conceptions of the country and portraying 
 it for the stern, rugged, and even barren land that it is, he has 
 yet enveloped it more inseparably than ever with the atmos 
 phere of romance. Travel in Spain to one who has read 
 Irving must be a very different thing from what it is to one 
 who has not. It is just such a poet s service as Scott did for 
 the Highlands of Scotland or Byron for the Isles of Greece. 
 
 "I tread haunted ground, and am surrounded by romantic asso 
 ciations. From earliest boyhood, when, on the banks of the Hudson, 
 I first pored over the pages of an old Spanish story about the wars of 
 Granada, that city has ever been a subject of my waking dreams; and 
 often have I trod in fancy the romantic halls of the Alhambra. Be 
 hold for once a day-dream realized; yet I can scarcely credit my senses 
 
72 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 or believe that I do indeed inhabit the palace of Boabdil, and look down 
 from its balconies upon chivalric Granada. As I loiter through the 
 Oriental chambers, and hear the murmuring of fountains and the song 
 of the nightingale; as I inhale the odo r of the rose, and feel the influence 
 of the balmy climate, I am almost tempted to fancy myself in the Par 
 adise of Mahomet, and that the plump little Dolores is one of the bright- 
 eyed Houris, destined to administer to the happiness of true believers. 
 
 "The peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace is its power of 
 calling up vague reveries and picturings of the past, and thus cloth 
 ing naked realities with the illusions of the memory and the imagina 
 tion. As I delight to walk in these vain shadows, I am prone to 
 seek those parts of the Alhambra which are most favorable to this 
 phantasmagoria of the mind; and none are more so than the Court 
 of Lions, and its surrounding halls. Here the hand of time has fallen 
 the lightest, and the traces of Moorish elegance and splendor exist in 
 almost their original brilliancy. Earthquakes have shaken the foun 
 dations of this pile, and rent its rudest towers; yet see! not one of those 
 slender columns has been displaced, not an arch of that light and fragile 
 colonnade has given way, and all the fairy fretwork of these domes, 
 apparently as unsubstantial as the crystal fabrics of a morning s frost, 
 yet exist after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh as if from the hand 
 of the Moslem artist. I write in the midst of these mementos of the 
 past, in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated Hall of the Aben- 
 cerrages. The blood-stained fountain, the legendary monument of 
 their massacre, is before me; the lofty jet almost casts its de\v upon my 
 paper. How difficult to reconcile the ancient tale of violence and blood 
 with the gentle and peaceful scene around! Everything here appears 
 calculated to inspire kind and happy feelings, for everything is delicate 
 and beautiful. The very light falls tenderly from above, through the 
 lantern of a dome tinted and wrought as if by fairy hands. Through 
 the ample and fretted arch of the portal I behold the Court of Lions, with 
 brilliant sunshine gleaming along its colonnades and sparkling in its 
 fountains. The lively swallow dives into the court, and then surging 
 upwards, darts away twittering over the roofs; the busy bee toils hum 
 ming among the flower-beds; and painted butterflies hover from plant 
 to plant, and flutter up and sport with each other in the sunny air. It 
 needs but a slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pensive beauty 
 of the harem, loitering in these secluded haunts of Oriental luxury. 
 
 "He, however, who would behold this scene under an aspect more 
 in unison with its fortunes, let him come when the shadows of evening 
 
IRVING 73 
 
 temper the brightness of the court, and throw a gloom into the surround 
 ing halls. Then nothing can be more serenely melancholy, or more in 
 harmony with the tale of departed grandeur. 
 
 "At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of Justice, whose deep 
 shadowy arcades extend across the upper end of the court. Here 
 were performed, in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella and their tri 
 umphant court, the pompous ceremonies of high mass, on taking pos 
 session of the Alhambra. The very cross is still to be seen upon the 
 wall, where the altar was erected, and where officiated the Grand 
 Cardinal of Spain, and others of the highest religious dignitaries of 
 the land. I picture to myself the scene when this place was filled 
 with the conquering host, that mixture of mitred prelate, and shorn 
 monk, and steel-clad knight, and silken courtier, when crosses and 
 crosiers and religious standards were mingled with proud armorial 
 ensigns and the banners of the haughty chiefs of Spain, and flaunted 
 in triumph through these Moslem halls. I picture to myself Colum 
 bus, the future discoverer of the world, taking his modest stand in a 
 remote corner, the humble and neglected spectator of the pageant. 
 I see in imagination the Catholic sovereigns prostrating themselves 
 before the altar, and pouring forth thanks for their victory; while the 
 vaults resound with sacred minstrelsy, and the deep-toned Te Deum. 
 
 "The transient illusion is over the pageant melts from the fancy 
 monarch, priest, and warrior return into oblivion with the poor Moslems 
 over whom they exulted. The hall of their triumph is waste and deso 
 late. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from 
 the neighboring tower of Comares." 
 
 Irving had now produced three works, each of a high order 
 in its kind one of humor, one of description and sentiment, 
 and one of romance. He was to write nothing 
 greater than these, though many years of literary 
 activity remained to him. Between 1829 and 1831 
 he was in London again, as Secretary of Legation to the 
 Court of St. James. In 1832 he was able to carry out 
 the design he had for some time been cherishing of returning 
 to America. Edward Everett, who reviewed the Alhambra 
 for the North American Review of that year, took the occasion 
 to congratulate both Irving and America, declaring that 
 Irving, by identifying his future fortunes with the United 
 
74 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 States, best consulted both his happiness and his permanent 
 literary fame. There had been some foolish criticism of the 
 author for remaining so long abroad and writing on foreign 
 themes. But one of his temperament could not be blamed for 
 finding in Old World society much that he really needed and 
 could not get in the New. Besides, though the bulk of his 
 Sketch-Book had a British inspiration, the best things in it 
 were wholly American; and what more fitting theme could an 
 American in Spain have chosen than the life of Columbus? 
 Irving was loyal at heart, and the good sense of his country 
 men knew it, and they applauded him to the echo when, at a 
 public banquet at New York in his honor, he closed his speech 
 .with the declaration that he should remain here as long as 
 he lived. 
 
 Now in his fiftieth year and passing the prime of life, he 
 was desirous of settling down in a home of his own. First, 
 
 however, for the roving instinct was not yet dead, 
 w^rks. he wanted to see with his own eyes something of 
 
 the country that had grown so in his absence, and 
 he embarked on a tour that took him through the forests 
 and Indian mounds of Ohio west to the buffalo ranges of the 
 upper Arkansas and south to New Orleans. Then he se 
 cured a picturesque spot at Tarrytown on the Hudson, not 
 far from Sleepy Hollow, and began to remodel an old stone 
 cottage into a "snug little Dutch nookery," which grew in 
 time to the well-known Sunnyside, his home for the remain 
 der of his life. Once he yielded to political pressure and 
 accepted the post of Minister to Spain, spending the four 
 years from 1842 to 1846 at Madrid. Apart from this, he 
 passed his time almost exclusively in literary work. A 
 Tour on the Prairies appeared in 1835 as a part of The Crayon 
 Miscellany, Astoria in 1836, The Adventures of Captain Bonne- 
 ville in 1837, Oliver Goldsmith and Mahomet and His Successors 
 in 1849, Wolfert s Roost in 1855, and Life of Washington in 
 
IRVING 75 
 
 1855-1859. He had, it seems, even from boyhood, cherished 
 the plan of writing a history of the conquest of Mexico, but 
 when he learned that Prescott desired to undertake such a 
 work, he magnanimously abandoned the field to him. Astoria 
 was a semi-historical compilation, prepared in collaboration 
 with his nephew, to celebrate the commercial enterprise of 
 John Jacob Astor in establishing a colony at the mouth of 
 the Columbia River. The biography of Goldsmith was a 
 work which he was well qualified to write, for in temper 
 ament, in tastes, and in clearness and charm of literary style, 
 he had much in common with the author of the Citizen of the 
 World and the Vicar of Wakefield. The Life of Washington,, 
 the life of the pioneer of freedom in America, was a most 
 fitting task to crown the labors of the pioneer of American 
 literature, who had told also the life-story of him who discov 
 ered the New World to the Old. 
 
 Toward the close of the year which saw the publication of 
 the fifth and final volume of the last named work, on Novem 
 ber 28, 1859, Irving died at his home on the Hudson. He was 
 buried on a hill overlooking the river and a portion of the 
 Sleepy Hollow valley. 
 
 It is not at once easy to say which is the strongest among 
 
 Irving s several titles to our praise. It has sometimes been 
 
 the fashion to regard the Knickerbocker History 
 
 Summary 
 
 and as his best work, and it is easy to understand the 
 
 Estimate. . 
 
 temptations which have led to such a judgment. 
 The book was wholly American in its inspiration, it was 
 written with manifest spontaneity and an almost reckless 
 gayety, its plan is highly original, its humor genuine and all- 
 pervading, and it has a largeness of scope and wholeness of 
 texture that were not always found in his writings. The fact 
 remains, however, that the majority of his readers have 
 taken the Sketch-Book most closely to heart, and perhaps 
 they are right. The latter book is admittedly wanting in 
 
76 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 unity, but it makes up for that in variety; and while the 
 stories of Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, and the Christ 
 mas Dinner may seem but trifles in extent, they are not 
 trifles when measured by the standards of literary art. Nor 
 does it matter greatly that the whole series is in some sense 
 the Spectator revived: the masters of English prose have 
 never been so many as to make such revivals unwelcome. 
 
 We may readily grant, indeed, that Irving s greatness did 
 not lie in originality. He was not so well fitted to create a 
 tradition as to perpetuate one or give it a new direction. 
 There was nothing revolutionary in his make-up; literature 
 was good enough as he found it, and he preserved to the end a 
 conservative, almost aristocratic ideal of its office. It is well, 
 too, that he did so, since it was to be his task to force from 
 English readers the first reluctant approval. Largely be 
 cause he was not revolutionary, he was admitted at once 
 to their favor; his homely, sentimental, or mediaeval themes 
 were entirely safe ones; and his style, formed upon familiar 
 British models, found its audience prepared. At the same 
 time, the American atmosphere lurked about it all, and so, 
 almost imperceptibly, he bridged the gulf between the two 
 nations and linked our literature to theirs. That this service 
 was a great one is unquestionable. 
 
 Of the sentimentalism which pervades so much of his 
 work, little need be said in apology. Its influence has some 
 times been bad; young admirers of Irving and his weak 
 imitators have very often fallen into a style of effusive 
 tenderness and namby-pamby moralizing that is anything 
 but agreeable. But for the man who longed to seek out the 
 tomb of Petrarch s Laura, and was ready to grieve over the 
 downfall of Napoleon, it seems only a natural and inoffensive 
 self-expression. Irving is saved, indeed, from mawkishness, 
 by his underlying manliness and sincerity and his fund of 
 humor. The blend of sentiment and humor which made a 
 
COOPER 77 
 
 perfect tale of the " Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was a blend na 
 tive to the man. And after all, there is far more health than 
 morbidness in his sentiment. It is impossible to read even 
 those passages of the Sketch-Book which describe his voyage 
 across the ocean in search of health, without catching the 
 infection of his energy and buoyant spirits. What a good 
 thing it is to be alive, he seems to say what a busy, brilliant, 
 bounteous world it is ! Such a personality as this was sure to 
 make its way in the world of men, and, with the gift of a style 
 as lucid and winning as itself, no less in the world of letters. 
 Further characterization of his writings seems almost idle. 
 They are very easily classified, since they require no profound 
 study, offer no puzzles, and excite no hostility. Everybody 
 reads them and likes them, and there the matter ends. They 
 are works of the heart rather than of the head gentle, human 
 books, that belong on the same shelf with the writings of 
 Addison and Goldsmith. If we desire to satisfy the hunger of 
 the intellect, to be thrilled with a new hope, or to get solace 
 for a lost faith, we do not go to Irving. He has little food 
 and few stimulants, and no medicines save such as the wisest 
 doctors always prescribe fresh air and sunshine and a 
 cheerful spirit. He is an entertainer for the idle hour, not 
 a companion of the unsatisfied years. Yet, without being 
 either a poet or a scholar, he goes so directly to all that is 
 best in human nature that he wins for his admirers both poets 
 and scholars, and at the same time that great audience of the 
 uncritical that poets and scholars cannot always win. 
 
 JAMES FEN I MO RE COOPER, 1789-1851 
 
 In James Fenimore Cooper we have once more a romancer 
 who approaches the novelist type, inviting comparison with 
 Brockden Brown and his successors. But Cooper stands 
 out from the group of pioneer novelists in strong relief as the 
 one man who, to a thorough knowledge of primitive con- 
 
78 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 ditions on the frontier, added both a quick discernment of 
 their romantic elements and the artist s power of broad and 
 serious imaginative treatment. He lacked Brown s subtlety 
 of mental analysis, but he was in every way saner and whole- 
 somer, with a stronger grasp upon the realities of life. 
 Whatever he did was done in a large, free way; and Brown s 
 Philadelphia scenes, Miss Sedgwick s pictures of New Eng 
 land home and school life, and the Dutch interiors of Paulding 
 pale before the sweeps of forest and ocean that fill the back 
 ground of Cooper s canvas. 
 
 This eminently befits the man whose father believed 
 himself to have settled more acres than any other man in 
 America, and who spent the first thirty-one years 
 of his own life mostly out of doors, in unconscious 
 preparation for the writing of the thirty-one years to follow. 
 He was born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 
 1789, the eleventh of twelve children. He was christened 
 simply James, Fenimore, the name of his mother, who 
 was of Swedish descent, not being assumed until 1826. When 
 he was but fourteen months old, his father, who had come into 
 possession of large tracts of land about the head- waters of the 
 Susquehanna in central New York, moved thither with his 
 entire household. There, on the southeastern shore of 
 Otsego Lake, had already been founded Cooperstown, and 
 there, within a few years, was erected the large, baronial- 
 like family mansion, Otsego Hall America s Abbotsford, 
 it has sometimes been called the home of Cooper s youth 
 and of his later manhood. It was the advance of civilization 
 upon the wilderness. The charm of the region, to this day 
 remarkably picturesque, made a deep impression on the 
 growing boy. The "beauteous valley" in the uplands, the 
 lake that "lay imbedded in mountains of evergreen, with 
 the long shadows of the pines on its surface," the "dark 
 ribbon of water that gushed from the lake s outlet and wound 
 
COOPER 79 
 
 its way toward the distant Chesapeake," are all faithfully 
 and lovingly described in the opening chapters of The 
 Pioneers a story in which it is easy to substitute for Judge 
 Marmaduke Temple of Templeton the name of Judge 
 William Cooper of Coopers town. In the settlement itself 
 was a motley population traders, trappers, and wood 
 cutters gathered from all quarters of the globe ; while to the 
 north and west stretched the seemingly interminable forests 
 of beech and maple, oak and pine, with their denizens of the 
 wild deer, wolf, bear, and panther, and the scarcely less wild 
 Indian. 
 
 Cooper s schooling began at the village "Academy, "was 
 continued in the family of an English rector at Albany, and 
 was concluded, though not completed, with three years at 
 Yale. He entered Yale at the age of thirteen, but as he 
 distinguished himself throughout his course more for mischief 
 than for scholarship, he was dismissed without being allowed 
 to graduate. He was thus left, like most of the writers of the 
 central and southern states, without the rigorous college 
 training that fell, with the single exception of Whittier, 
 to the lot of the New Englanders. But the young Cooper 
 had little thought of becoming a professional man, and 
 probably took his dismissal from Yale with a light heart, the 
 more so as it resulted in securing for him an education better 
 suited to his temperament. His father, who, as a Congres 
 sional representative and public man, would have some polit 
 ical influence, decided that he should fit himself for the 
 navy, and, as a preliminary, the youth of seventeen shipped 
 before the mast of a merchant vessel in the autumn of 1806. 
 The year s voyage, which, fortunately in this case, was excep 
 tionally stormy, took him from New York to London, thence 
 to Gibraltar, and by way again of London, back to Phila 
 delphia. His commission as midshipman in the navy 
 promptly followed. He served for three years, occupied part 
 
80 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 of the time in building a brig on Lake Ontario, and part of 
 the time in charge of the gunboats on Lake Champlain. 
 After his marriage in 1811, he resigned his commission, and 
 settled down to a happy domestic life, residing alternately 
 near his old home in Otsego County, and near the home of 
 his wife s parents in Westchester County. He was engaged 
 in the somewhat aimless occupations of a gentleman farmer, 
 with no thought of duties or interests extending beyond his 
 own household. But suddenly, after nine years of sheep- 
 shearing and tree-planting, by what seems the merest freak 
 of fancy he found himself launched on a literary career. 
 
 It must have been in 1819 or 1820. He had been reading 
 an English society novel, and as he laid it aside he declared in 
 disgust: "I could write a better story myself." He was 
 challenged to do it, and the matter passed from 
 J est to earnest. Precaution: a Novel (it was 
 the custom then to flaunt the moral of a story in 
 its title) was published in the fall of 1820. It was a conven 
 tional story of English society, and readers were allowed to 
 believe that the author was an Englishman. But it found 
 few readers. That it should have found any only proves 
 that there is always an indiscriminate public ready to read 
 anything called a novel. There was no inspiration behind 
 the work. What Cooper knew of England was confined to 
 what he had been able to pick up while on shore leave in 
 sailor rig at London; and what he knew of English "high 
 life" must have been all learned from books, probably from 
 the novels whose peculiar merits he was trying to excel. 
 But Precaution was only a beginning. His friends com 
 plained of his having gone abroad for a theme; he owed 
 something to America. Somewhat doggedly he set to work 
 again, turning to the American Revolution for a plot and. 
 choosing for the scene the "neutral ground" of Westchester 
 County, where he was then living. But he had little faith 
 
COOPER 81 
 
 that his countrymen could be made to take interest in a story 
 of scenes so familiar to them. The first volume of The Spy 
 was printed before the second was begun; and to set at rest 
 the fears of the printer in regard to its length, the last chapter 
 of the second volume was written, printed, and paged before 
 the intervening chapters were written. It appeared late in 
 1821 and its success was as immediate as it was unexpected. 
 There were three editions and a dramatization within three 
 months. It was republished in England with equal success, 
 and was promptly translated into French. 
 
 Cooper was roused to a consciousness of his powers. He 
 had discovered that writing is a trick not necessarily learned 
 at schools ; he had discovered, too, something of the wealth of 
 his own imagination and of the joys of creation. He turned 
 with lively affection to his other home, the region about 
 Otsego Lake, feeling that it would be an easy and pleasant 
 task to invest it likewise with a romantic interest. The 
 result was The Pioneers, published early in 1823, the one of all 
 his books into which he put most of his heart. He wrote it, 
 he declared, to please himself; but it pleased the public too, 
 and so well that there could be henceforth no question of his 
 fame or calling. One more field immediately allured him 
 with its romantic possibilities the sea, which he had known 
 so well in his youth, and which still called to him with its 
 old charm as he looked out from the Westchester hills across 
 the waves of Long Island Sound. He wrote and published 
 The Pilot in the same year. 
 
 From this time on there was no pause. Year after year he 
 turned, in the exercise of his imagination, from history and 
 
 tradition to the wilderness, and from the wilder- 
 Year s, ness to the sea, until, just the year before his 
 
 death, he published the last of the thirty-two tales 
 that bear his name. It is impossible to contemplate this 
 result without surprise. Cooper was hardly the man one 
 
82 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 would have expected to find in the field of letters. He would 
 have made an excellent colonizer or general. But he wielded 
 the pen as, in other circumstances, he would have wielded 
 the sword or driven the plow, iridefatigably and fearlessly. 
 His literary industry was probably unequalled by any man of 
 his time on this side of the Atlantic. In addition to his 
 romances, which he produced at the rate of rather more than 
 one a year (The Last of the Mohicans was planned and written 
 in four months), he found time to write various reviews and 
 articles, of a political or historical nature, and notably his 
 History of the United States Navy (1839). Besides this, he 
 attended faithfully to his social and business duties. He paid 
 off debts; he founded a club in New York City, and kept it 
 alive; he travelled in Europe and studied with keen interest 
 social and political conditions there, publishing notes of his 
 travel; he engaged in numerous controversies, and when they 
 led him into libel suits, as they frequently did, he argued his 
 own cause. 
 
 The story of Cooper s controversies is not a pleasant one 
 to read, and it might well be omitted if it were not so inti 
 mately connected with his personality and the character of 
 many of his later works. To begin with, all the traits of his 
 disposition, whether good or bad, were strongly marked. His 
 character can be read very plainly in his portrait. He was 
 upright, straightforward, patriotic, fearless, combative, and 
 proud. He held just as tenaciously to unreasonable views as 
 to reasonable ones. He was generally reasonable in matters 
 of right, but unreasonable in matters of expediency. He 
 scorned compromises. He could not wear honesty with 
 grace nor temper justice with amiability. A greater man 
 would have been content merely to be in the right; Cooper 
 could not rest until he had proved his right to others. The 
 result was years of strife and bitterness and barren victories ; 
 for even to win his cause at law was to lose it in the hearts 
 
COOPER 83 
 
 of the people. In 1826 he went to Europe and spent seven 
 years at the various capitals. There were good reasons why 
 he should find life there congenial. He had no hatred of the 
 English; his wife had come of a Tory family, and he bad 
 always been tolerant toward the attitude of the Tories in 
 the Revolution, as may be seen from the tale of The Spy. 
 Besides, the English read and praised his books. Indeed, 
 wherever he might go in Europe, he had the gratification of 
 seeing translations of his books displayed in the book-shops. 
 Nevertheless, the European contempt for most things Amer 
 ican, and the false ideas of American affairs which he found 
 everywhere current, were things he could not abide. He 
 spoke out boldly in defence of his country in conversation, 
 at public dinners, in printed articles, and in letters. He 
 even wrote romances embodying his views. The Red Rover 
 and The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, for example, contain 
 some very plain satire on foreign arrogance ("a certain con 
 descension" Lowell called it forty years later) ; and The Bravo 
 and The Headsman were written to glorify republican ways 
 and institutions. His literary work suffered, and his ends 
 were not gained. 
 
 He came back to America in 1833, only to find that his 
 own countrymen did not appreciate his loyalty. Apparently 
 they had no desire for a defender who persisted in "flaunting 
 his Americanism through Europe" and redoubling the ridicule 
 he sought to allay. He turned upon the Americans, re 
 viling their provincialism, their greed, their vulgarity, in the 
 very terms in which he had heard these things reviled in 
 Europe. He published more and worse romances The Mon- 
 ikins, Homeward Bound, Home as Found, "six volumes," 
 said Lowell, "to show he s as good as a lord." "I think," 
 wrote a friend, "you lose hold on the American public by rub 
 bing down their shins with brickbats as you do." Of course 
 he lost hold. At Cooperstown, where he made his home after 
 
84 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 his return from Europe, he got into an unfortunate contro 
 versy with his fellow-townsmen over the possession of a piece 
 of land. It led to a long train of libel suits. Libel suits also 
 followed the publication of his Naval History, which was 
 characteristically outspoken in its judgments of many 
 prominent men and events. But with every case he won, 
 and he won almost all, he lost still more of his popularity. 
 
 Naturally he grew embittered. Especially did he grieve 
 over the attacks made upon him for his Naval History, in 
 wliich he had tried to tell the simple truth as he saw it, with 
 out bias or partisanship. He took some consolation, how 
 ever, from the thought that his children could, in the future, 
 "point to the facts, with just pride that they had a father who 
 dared to stem popular prejudice in order to write truth." 
 He found refuge in his home, and in the exercise of his art, 
 for his literary fertility seemed to increase with his years 
 and in spite of numerous distractions. Seventeen of his 
 tales, a little more than half of the entire number, w T ere 
 written between 1840 and 1850. Ten of these belong to the 
 years 1840-1845, including at least four of high rank, The 
 Pathfinder, The Deer-slayer, The Two Admirals, and Wing- 
 and-Wing. But he never quite forgave the public, and it 
 was one of his last injunctions to his family that no one should 
 be authorized to w r rite his biography. He died in 1851, on 
 the eve of his sixty-second birthday. A few months later a 
 public gathering in his memory was held in New York City, 
 at which Webster presided and Bryant delivered the memo 
 rial address. 
 
 In reviewing Cooper s literary product, it will be well to 
 
 fix attention upon the surviving portion only, dismissing at 
 
 once all those books which grew out of temporary 
 
 "The Spy." . if T 
 
 passions or personal prejudices and which have 
 fallen into the oblivion they deserve. First, then, to follow 
 a division already indicated, there are the romances drawn 
 
COOPER 85 
 
 more or less directly from history. They are of very different 
 degrees of merit. Lionel Lincoln, which ventured upon New 
 England soil (it has stirring accounts of the fights at Concord 
 and Bunker Hill) was a relative failure. So, likewise, was 
 Mercedes of Castile, which has some interest, however, in 
 that it weaves a romance about the first voyage of Columbus. 
 Better are Afloat and Ashore and Satanstoe, tales of old 
 colonial life in New York. But The Spy, which made 
 Cooper s fame at home and which carried it farther abroad 
 than Irving s was ever carried, remains still one of his most 
 widely read books. Moreover, it retained for three-quarters 
 of a century the distinction of being the one highly successful 
 romance constructed out of incidents in the war of the 
 Revolution.* It derives its chief interest from its central 
 character, Harvey Birch, the Spy of the Neutral Ground, a 
 humble peddler and patriot, who risks life and honor in a 
 condemned office, suspected even by his countrymen, and 
 who goes down to his grave with no other exoneration or 
 reward than the written, but unrevealed, testimony of Wash 
 ington to the loyalty of his deeds. Few heroes of fiction have 
 been more admired. A military officer in Salvador was 
 known to speak of "Seiior Birch" as a "model guerrillero," 
 and a French agent of the secret service under Louis Philippe 
 imitated his, virtues. 
 
 The second important division of Cooper s works consists 
 of the stories of the frontier, especially the five Leather- 
 Stocking Tales. These latter get their unity and 
 
 Leather- J 
 
 stocking much of their interest from a singular character, 
 Natty Bumppo, who appears in them all under 
 various names Leather Stocking, Hawkeye, Deerslayer, 
 Pathfinder, La Longue Carabine. He is the pioneer of the 
 woods; the friend of the Mohicans, Chingachgook and Uncas, 
 
 * Kennedy s Horse-Shoe Robinson, Simms s Partisan, Thompson s Green Mountain Boys, 
 and Theodore Winthrop s Edwin Brothertoft hold a much inferior place. Hawthorne s 
 Septimius Felton was left unfinished. 
 
86 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 though himself a white man "without a cross"; the scout, 
 hunter, trapper, and philosopher, who is always ready to 
 judge men as he would judge animals, according to their 
 several "gifts." In The Pioneers (1823), the first of the 
 stories of the wilderness, he is portrayed in somewhat rude 
 outlines an old man in the background of the tale, living 
 with his still more aged friend, Chingachgook, now chris 
 tianized into Indian John. Cooper could have had no 
 thought, when writing this book, of using the character a 
 second time. But the portrait took his fancy, and when, 
 in 1826, he came to write The Last of the Mohicans,, he intro 
 duced Leather-Stocking again, this time in the prime of his 
 life, taking, with Chingachgook and Uncas, an active part 
 in the French and Indian War. Here he appears in the 
 dignity of mature manhood, with an Indian s cunning, 
 courage, and fortitude, and a white man s finer sense of 
 honor. In The Prairie, which followed in 1827, are depicted 
 the closing scenes of his life, wherein, pushed by civilization 
 far out upon the Western plains, his mind at the last moment 
 wanders pathetically back to his home among the Otsego hills. 
 But Cooper was not yet satisfied. TW T O more chapters were 
 added to the history of the scout. The Pathfinder (1840) gives 
 us the romance of his middle life, by the shores of Lake Ontario; 
 The Deer slayer (1841) shows him on his first w T ar-path, by 
 the Otsego. Those who would read the books in the order 
 of events, should arrange them thus (as it happens, in alpha 
 betical order) : Deerslayer, Last of the Mohicans, Pathfinder, 
 Pioneers, Prairie. It is impossible to say which is the best of 
 the five. Most readers will prefer The Last of the Mohicans 
 for the lively interest of its rapidly succeeding events, the 
 narration of which is seldom checked by description or mor 
 alizing. Cooper himself regarded The Pcihfinder and The 
 Deer slayer as his best works. They certainly represent him 
 at the maturity of his powers; and it was of the former that 
 
COOPER 87 
 
 Balzac said: "It is beautiful, it is grand- I know of no one 
 in the world, save Walter Scott, who has risen to that grand 
 eur and serenity of colors." Yet The Pioneers and The 
 Prairie have charms of their own, the former with its almost 
 lyric descriptions of forest and lake, the latter with its strange, 
 overpowering sense, found also in the pages of Chateaubriand 
 and Bryant, of the vastness and majesty of nature as exhib 
 ited in the solitudes of the American continent.^ Together the 
 five tales are a kind of prose epic of the settlement of the new 
 world, of the conquest of man over nature/ And the charac 
 ter that binds them into one, the frontiersman who bridges 
 the gap between white man and red, is a rude type of the 
 independence, energy, honesty, and toleration, that have 
 made the United States one of the great nations of the earth. 
 Of Cooper s tales dealing with the sea, the third natural 
 division of his works, five are noteworthy The Pilot, The Red 
 Rover, The Water-Witch, The Two Admirals, and 
 Wing-and-Wing. It is sufficient to say of these 
 that by common consent they stand at the head of romances 
 of their kind. Smollett, in the eighteenth century, had 
 drawn sailors to the life, but Cooper was virtually the creator 
 of the sea- tale as a form of modern fiction. He wrote The 
 Pilot just after the appearance of Scott s The Pirate, partly 
 with the object of showing how such a theme would be treated 
 by one who, unlike Scott, was personally familiar with life 
 on the ocean, and who had not to "get up" his technical 
 knowledge for the purpose. The difference will be immedi 
 ately evident to any one who reads the opening chapters 
 of The Pilot. But it is safe to say that whoever takes up 
 those chapters for the first time will speedily forget any 
 critical purpose he may have had. The gathering storm 
 and darkness on the Northumberland coast, the wild anchor 
 age in a strange roadstead, the mysterious pilot, and finally 
 the slow working of the frigate out to sea in the teeth of the 
 
88 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 gale, arouse precisely those feelings of terror and admiration 
 that it is one of the chief aims of romance to arouse. Cooper 
 differs from other sea-romancers by making the reader feel 
 that he is on shipboard, not as a passenger and spectator 
 merely, but as one of the crew, with an exact knowledge of all 
 the dangers that beset him from wind and tide and rock and 
 shoal, and with a power to calculate to a nicety the reliance 
 to be placed upon every force arrayed against those dangers, 
 from spring of mast to draught of keel. It is the nearest 
 substitute for actual experience that art can give. We can 
 understand how the old seaman to whom Cooper read the 
 opening chapters of The Pilot paced the floor in a frenzy of 
 excitement. This story, also, be it said in passing, contains a 
 character that has been much admired Long Tom Coffin, 
 the veteran whaler of Nantucket. 
 
 Cooper s service to America has already been indicated. 
 
 Never in the recorded history of the world has pioneering been 
 
 carried on upon the same great scale or under 
 
 Achievement. 
 
 such picturesque circumstances as here in our own 
 country. That the romance, or rather the epic, of this great 
 civilizing movement should have been unwritten is a calamity 
 the mind refuses to picture. And without Cooper s work it 
 would have been pitifully crude and fragmentary. Imagine, 
 for a comparison, the loss to Western Europe if Scott had 
 not brought his genius to the reconstruction of her history 
 and legend. And our loss would have been Europe s also. 
 It is easy to understand why Europe seized upon Cooper s 
 books with such eagerness. The tales suffered nothing by 
 translation, for they depended not upon any merits of style 
 but upon the story they had to tell. And it was just then a 
 story of thrilling interest to Europeans, whose eyes were 
 turned curiously upon the new world. Some odd results 
 followed, for readers did not always stop to consider that they 
 were getting only a partial view. Many Europeans thought 
 
COOPER 89 
 
 that life in America meant nothing but clearing forests and 
 fighting Indians, and in out-of-the-way corners the notion 
 clings even yet. But Cooper should not be blamed. It is 
 merely our misfortune that the other features of American 
 life found no such adequate portrayal. If we had had our 
 Dickens and our Thackeray as well as our Scott, the matter 
 might have been different. 
 
 No more is Cooper morally responsible for the flood of yel 
 low-backed literature that followed in his wake. He never 
 panders to brutal or vicious appetites. His heroes never hunt 
 or fight for pure love of sport, nor lose the occasion to admin 
 ister a sharp reproof to one who does. Natty Bumppo is no 
 "monster of goodness," but beneath his uncouth exterior are 
 to be found most of the moral virtues. It is inconceivable 
 that any boy could be fired, by reading his history, with a 
 desire to go out and scalp Indians. ^Cooper s very idealiza 
 tion of the Indian character, which has been so much criti 
 cised, is strong evidence of his own faith in the high possibil 
 ities of humanity. Possibly the idealization was carried too 
 far, though we are not so sure of that today. At the most, it 
 must be remembered that it was so only in the case of one or 
 two characters. His Indians in general are inhuman, con 
 scienceless savages, and he does not hesitate to make them 
 perpetrate deeds so revolting that we hurry over the written 
 passage without daring to look back? Le Renard Subtil is 
 more than a complement for the noble Chingachgook and his 
 ill-fated son, who stand out as marked exceptions, like the 
 wise man among the wild beasts of Plato s Republic. 
 
 Yet Cooper had many faults. In most points of 
 literary art, in style, plot, and dramatic setting, he was dis 
 tinctly inferior to Scott. Scott was himself no 
 master of style; yet Cooper occasionally committed 
 blunders that would have put the former to the blush. This 
 was partly a result of ignorance, due to his ragged training 
 
90 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 and partly a result of his indifference and his headlong habits 
 of composition. We cannot but wish that some kindly ad 
 viser had been at his elbow while he wrote, to save him 
 from some of his vices, to make him, for example, substitute 
 man or person for individual, and woman for female, or to 
 hint that there is neither character-drawing nor humor in 
 such distortions as Hurry Harry s and-bush for ambush or 
 Leather Stocking s references to "judgmatical" actions and 
 "my-hog-guinea" chairs. His plots suffer in much the 
 same way. He was too little of an artist and too much of a 
 moralist to be a perfect writer of tales. He was everywhere 
 concerned for moral effect; and this, together with his lack of 
 humor, led him into constructing absurd situations, thereby 
 making it easy for a humorist like Mark Twain to poke fun 
 at his entire method.* His warriors often harangue on the 
 battlefield like Homer s. Natty Bumppo will give an Indian 
 a lesson in behavior before he puts a bullet through his heart, 
 sublimely indifferent to the fact that the Indian cannot under 
 stand, and that even if he could he might find the code of eti 
 quette different in Indian-heaven. .But more serious than all 
 this is Cooper s weakness in character-drawing a weakness 
 which sets him once more below Scott, and far below writers 
 like Balzac and Thackeray. Of course we must remember 
 that he was writing romances and not character novels; yet 
 it is a pity that, aside from two or three fairly life-like crea 
 tions, his characters, especially his women, are little better 
 than puppets. They talk, but their talk is pedantic and 
 labored. Their virtues and vices are hung on them like so 
 much wearing apparel.^ 
 
 But while these things condemn Cooper, as a literary 
 artist, to an inferior rank, they cannot be held to condemn 
 him utterly. Even his style is not so bad as it is sometimes 
 painted : so long as he is writing narrative and not dialogue 
 
 *"Cooper s Literary Offences," North American Review, July, 1895. 
 
COOPER 91 
 
 it is really remarkable for firmness and ease. Moreover, in his 
 
 best work, his minor defects in this respect and others, are 
 
 to a great extent obscured by his virtues by 
 
 Greatness. & ; . J 
 
 the absorbing interest of his thrilling situations, 
 by the commanding presence of his able-bodied and large- 
 hearted heroes, and by the poetical glamour which, through 
 his real genius for description, he has succeeded in throwing 
 over nearly every scene. Let two pages, taken from the 
 quietest part of The Last of the Mohicans, speak for some 
 qualities of his art : 
 
 While Heyward and his companions hesitated to approach a building 
 so decayed, Hawkeye and the Indians entered within the low walls, 
 not only without fear, but with obvious interest. While the former 
 surveyed the ruins, both internally and externally, with the curiosity 
 of one whose recollections were reviving at each moment, Chingachgook 
 related to his son, in the language of the Delawares, and with the pride 
 of the conqueror, the brief history of the skirmish which had been 
 fought in his youth in that secluded spot. A strain of melancholy, 
 however, blended with his triumph, rendering his voice, as usual, soft 
 and musical. 
 
 In the meantime the sisters gladly dismounted, and prepared to 
 enjoy their halt in the coolness of the evening, and in a security which 
 they believed nothing but the beasts of the forest could invade. 
 
 "Would not our resting place have been more retired, my worthy 
 friend," demanded the more vigilant Duncan, perceiving that the 
 scout had already finished his short survey, "had we chosen a spot 
 less known and one more rarely visited than this?" 
 
 "Few live who know the block-house was ever raised," was the 
 slow and musing answer; " tis not often that books are made, and 
 narratives written, of such a scrimmage as was here fou t atween the 
 Mohicans and the Mohawks, in a war of their own waging. I was 
 then a younker and went out with the Delawares. because I knew 
 they were a scandalized and wronged race. Forty days and forty 
 nights did the imps crave our blood around this pile of logs, which I 
 designed and partly reared, being, as you ll remember, no Indian 
 myself, but a man without a cross. The Delawares lent themselves 
 to the work and we made it good, ten to twenty, until our numbers 
 were nearly equal, and then we sallied out upon the hounds, and not 
 
92 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 
 
 a man of them ever got back to tell the fate of his party. Yes, yes; 
 I was then young and new to the sight of blood; and not relishing the 
 thought that creatures who had spirits like myself should lay on the 
 naked ground, to be torn asunder by beasts or to bleach in the rains, 
 I buried the dead with my own hands, under that very little hillock 
 where you have placed yourselves; and no bad seat does it make, 
 neither, though it be raised by the bones of mortal men." 
 
 Heyward and the sisters arose, on the instant, from the grassy 
 sepulchre; nor could the two latter, notwithstanding the terrific scenes 
 they had so recently passed through, entirely suppress an emotion 
 of natural horror, when they found themselves in such familiar contact 
 with the grave of the dead Mohawks. The gray light, the gloomy 
 little area of dark grass, surrounded by its border of brush, beyond 
 which the pines rose, in breathing silence, apparently, into the very 
 clouds, and the deathlike stillness of the vast forest, were all in unison 
 to deepen such a sensation. 
 
 "They are gone, and they are harmless," continued Hawkeye, 
 waving his hand, with a melancholy smile, at their manifest alarm; 
 "they ll never shout the war-whoop nor strike a blow with the tomahawk 
 again! And of all those who aided in placing them where they lie, 
 Chingachgook and I only are living! The brothers and family of the 
 Mohican formed our war party; arid you see before you all that are now 
 left of his race." 
 
 The eyes of the listeners involuntarily sought the forms of the 
 Indians, with a compassionate interest in their desolate fortune. Their 
 dark persons were still to be seen within the shadows of the block-house, 
 the son listening to the relation of his father with that sort of intenseness 
 which would be created by a narrative that redounded so much to the 
 honor of those whose names he had long revered for their courage and 
 savage virtues. 
 
 "I had thought the Dela wares a pacific people," said Duncan, 
 "and that they never waged war in person; trusting the defence of 
 their lands to those very Mohaw r ks that you slew!" 
 
 "Tis true in part," returned the scout, "and yet, at the bottom, 
 tis a wicked lie. Such a treaty was made in ages gone by, through 
 the deviltries of the Dutchers, who wished to disarm the natives that 
 had the best right to the country, where they had settled themselves. 
 The Mohicans, though a part of the same nation, having to deal with 
 the English, never entered into the silly bargain, but kept to their 
 manhood; as in truth did the Delawares, when their eyes were opened 
 to their folly. You see before you a chief of the great Mohican Saga- 
 
EARLY POETRY 93 
 
 mores! Once his family could chase their deer over tracks of country 
 wider than that which belongs to the Albany Patterroon, without 
 crossing brook or hill that was not their own; but what is left to their 
 descendant! He may find his six feet of earth when God chooses, and 
 keep it in peace, perhaps, if he has a friend who will take the pains to 
 sink his head so low that the plowshares cannot reach it!" 
 
 Cooper s place is clear as a writer in the field of strictly 
 legitimate romance the romance of real life, of stirring ad 
 venture and daring deeds, made romantic simply by their in 
 accessibility to most men at most times. His kinship is with 
 Scott and Stevenson and all large, healthy, out-of-door na 
 tures. Moreover, he has some claim to consideration among 
 writers of universal interest in virtue of the elemental passions 
 with which he deals, for the fashions of human heroism do not 
 change. Had his insight and his art been equal to his ideal 
 izing imagination, he would have been second to no writer of 
 modern romance. His old trapper stands upright in the 
 death-hour and answers "Here" as Colonel Newcome 
 answers "Adsum!" David Gamut goes forth to battle like 
 David of old, with a sling in his hand and a song on his lips. 
 The mourning of the Delawares over the body of Uncas 
 reminds us of the mourning of the Trojans over the body of 
 Hector. Leather-Stocking straps the aged Chingachgook on 
 his back and carries him out of the forest-fire as J^neas 
 carried Anchises out of burning Troy. Indeed, the funda 
 mental conception of Leather-Stocking and his rifle Kill-deer 
 suggests a comparison with Odysseus and his bow or King 
 Arthur and his good sword Excalibur. But we may not 
 press the comparison. We can only deplore the fatal defects 
 that marred a genius which might otherwise have set at the 
 beginning of our literature an epic worthy to stand by the 
 epics of the old world. 
 
 EARLY POETRY 
 
 That the genius of poetry in America was even more slow 
 to respond to the creative impulse than the genius of prose 
 
94 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 romance, is made evident by the story of the publication of 
 Bryant s Thanatopsis. When, in 1817, the manuscript of 
 that poem appeared in the office of the North American 
 Review of Boston a magazine then but two years old, yet 
 already a criterion of literary taste it caused no little 
 commotion. Mr. Dana, the most sagacious of the young 
 editors, declared that it could not have been written in Ameri 
 ca, and would consent to publish it only upon the mistaken 
 assurance of his colleague that Dr. Bryant, the poet s father, 
 then at Boston as senator to the state legislature, was its 
 author. Nor was Mr. Dana s caution unjustified. It is true 
 that nothing could be greatly better in its modest way than 
 Freneau s Wild Honeysuckle, written long before, but it is 
 also true that that lyric was, as one of its admirers has called 
 it, little more than a "first stammer."* American poetry 
 became fairly articulate only with Thanatopsis. But the 
 young author of 1817 was still quite unknown to fame, and 
 the part that he was to play in American poetry reaches so 
 far through the nineteenth century that it will be well here, 
 before considering him, to glance at a few of his contempo 
 raries whose work was associated exclusively with the early 
 decades. 
 
 There is perhaps little to keep alive in literary history the 
 names of such men as Washington Allston and John Pierpont 
 Washington except the fact that they published collections of 
 poetry before Bryant. Allston, who is remem- 
 bered still as a painter, studied art abroad, and 
 * 66 had the good fortune while at Rome to become 
 intimate with Coleridge. At Boston, where he resided, he 
 exercised a deep influence upon early art and culture in New 
 England. He published a volume of refined verse, The 
 Sylphs of the Seasons, in 1813. Pierpont, who was a Unitar 
 ian clergyman of Connecticut, published several volumes of 
 
 * Greenough White: Philosophy of American Literature. 
 
 Jon?, Pier ~ 
 
EARLY POETRY 95 
 
 poems, the first in 1816. Many of his verses, such as 
 Warren s Address to the American Soldiers ("Stand! the 
 ground s your own, my braves!"), had a touch of grandil 
 oquence in them that made them favorites for recitation. 
 The spirit of the Revolution survived long in poetry of this 
 nature. 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake and Fitz-Greene Halleck, whose 
 
 names are inseparably associated, and who belonged to the 
 
 New York group of writers, are two minor poets 
 
 Joseph Rod- . 
 
 man Drake, still held in something like ariectionate remem 
 brance. Drake, the younger, showed perhaps the 
 greater promise, but he died t of consumption at the age of 
 twenty-five. He was a youth of many graces of both body 
 and mind, who wrote verses as a bird sings, for the pure joy. 
 of it. His fame, as well as Halleck s, was made by what was 
 locally known as "The Croakers" a series of forty poems 
 contributed by them in 1819 to the New York Evening Post, 
 and signed "Croaker & Co." Among these was The Amer 
 ican Flag ("When Freedom from her mountain height"), 
 probably the most widely known of our patriotic poems, 
 though it is too declamatory in tone to be given high praise. 
 The last four lines were written by Halleck : 
 
 "Forever float that standard sheet! 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us? 
 With freedom s soil beneath our feet, 
 
 And freedom s banner streaming o er us!" 
 
 They are not made readily clear even by careful punctuation, 
 and it is a pity that the finer lines of Drake s were not allowed 
 to stand, in spite of their concluding hyperbole: 
 
 "As fixed as yonder orb divine, 
 
 That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled, 
 Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine, 
 The guard and glory of the world." 
 
96 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 Drake s longest poem is The Culprit Fay, which was 
 published in a volume of selected poems ten years after his 
 death.* It is the story of a fairy who is compelled to do 
 penance for his sinful love of a mortal. The scene is laid in 
 the highlands of the Hudson. It is an airy work of fancy in 
 the manner of Scott and Moore, whose poems were just then 
 at the height of popularity. Like their poems, too, it 
 undeniably owes much to Coleridge s Christabel in melody 
 and imagery, the two qualities into which most of the merits 
 of Drake s poem resolve themselves : 
 
 "The stars are on the moving stream. 
 And fling, as its ripples gently flow, 
 A burnished length of wavy beam 
 In an eel-like, spiral line below; 
 The winds are whist and the owl is still, 
 
 The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, 
 And naught is heard on the lonely hill 
 But the cricket s chirp and the answer shrill 
 
 Of the gauze- winged katydid, 
 And the plaint of the waiting whip-poor-will. 
 Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, 
 
 Ever a note of wail and woe, 
 Till morning spreads her rosy wings, 
 
 And earth and sky in her glances glow." 
 
 Halleck was not of New York City by birth, but went 
 thither from his Connecticut home in 1811, and spent nearly 
 forty years there as an accountant, writing verse between 
 
 * The poem was written hastily, and grew out of a conversation with Cooper and Halleck 
 over the possibility of giving old world romance a new world setting. The date commonly 
 given is 1819. Halleck s biographer produces what appears to be incontrovertible evidence 
 that the date should be 1816. Yet Cooper did not move to the neighborhood of New York 
 City until 1817. Moreover, the poem contains these lines: 
 
 "Joy to thee, Fay! thy task is done, 
 Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won." 
 
 It is difficult to believe that these lines were written before the appearance of Moore s Lalla 
 Rookh, which was published in the spring of 1817, and which has, at the conclusion of Paradise 
 and the Peri, these lines: 
 
 "Joy, joy forever! my task is done-^- 
 The Gates are passed, and Heaven is won!" 
 
 Besides, the tasks set the culprit Fay are not unlike the tasks set the fallen Peri. 
 
EARLY POETRY 97 
 
 whiles when the mood prompted. He rarely wrote with suffi 
 cient seriousness for entire success, some caprice of humor 
 
 or cynicism frequently leading him to lower the 
 Haiieck, tone and spoil the effect of an otherwise fine poem. 
 
 His best work was done in his youth when, like 
 Drake, he came under the spell of the popular British poets, 
 in his case particularly Campbell and Byron. Fanny, his 
 longest poem, which belongs to the same year as his Croaker 
 contributions, and which was written in Byron s satirical 
 vein, though without any of the abiding elements of Byron s 
 work, was immensely popular in its day. A tender monody 
 on Burns and a spirited apostrophe to Red Jacket, chief of the 
 Tuscaroras, also deserve mention. But Halleck lives for us 
 in two poems only the martial Marco Bozzaris, celebrating 
 the deeds and death of that Greek patriot in the defence of 
 liberty in 1823, which left him 
 
 " Freedom s now, and Fame s, 
 
 One of the few, the immortal names 
 That were not born to die;" 
 
 and the little elegy of half a dozen stanzas written after the 
 death of his friend Drake, with the frequently quoted 
 prayer: 
 
 "Green be the turf above thee, 
 
 Friend of my better days! 
 None knew thee but to love thee, 
 Nor named thee but to praise." 
 
 Richard Henry Dana, a critic and journalist, who was best 
 known in the early twenties for his short-lived Idle Man, to 
 
 which both Bryant and Allston contributed, was 
 fy sT- i??^ another writer who fell under the English romantic 
 
 influence. His most ambitious piece of verse, 
 The Buccaneers, a poem of more than one hundred stanzas, 
 was published in 1827. It is a wild tale of conscience and 
 
98 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 remorse against a background of high-sea piracy and murder, 
 with supernatural accessories of a burning ship and a spectre 
 horse. It has elements of fascination, but is an uneven pro 
 duction; there are many bad lines, and the good lines have 
 always the disadvantage of suggesting the Ancient Mariner. 
 One short lyric of Dana s is worth preserving The Little 
 Beach Bird, beginning, 
 
 "Thou little bird, them dweller by the sea, 
 Why takest them its melancholy voice, 
 And with that boding cry 
 Along the waves dost fly? 
 Oh rather, bird, with me 
 
 Through the fair land rejoice!" 
 
 Nathaniel Parker Willis, though somewhat younger than 
 the foregoing poets, may very properly be considered in this 
 
 place, because he helped to perpetuate at New 
 180611867 1 ! 8 York the tradition , established there by Irving, 
 
 Paulding, Halleck, and Drake a tradition which 
 turned journalism and literature into something of a social 
 pastime. Willis came from Portland, Maine; was a graduate 
 of Yale and an early contributor to the Youth s Companion, 
 which his father had founded; founded several magazines 
 himself; was associated with G. P. Morris on the New York 
 Mirror and the Home Journal; published poems and letters 
 of travel (Sketches, 1827, Pencillings by the Way, 1835); and 
 was once led, by reporting some social and political gossip, 
 into a conventional and bloodless duel. He had a taste both 
 for society and for rural life, and spent his later years at his 
 beautiful home, "Idlewild," in the Highlands of the Hudson, 
 dying, however, in the pursuit of his profession, which had 
 become at last anything but a pastime. He was for many 
 years a kind of literary autocrat, standing at the head of 
 those sentimental "Knickerbocker" writers who, if we omit 
 Bryant and Poe, dominated New York letters in the palmy 
 
EARLY POETRY 99 
 
 days of the Knickerbocker Magazine, before the appearance 
 of the manlier poetry of Taylor and Stoddard. Willis had 
 many talents, but employed them mostly upon common 
 place and even frivolous themes, where his quick percep 
 tion, wit, sentiment, and grace, shone to the best advantage. 
 He struck his highest note in the poem, Unseen Spirits ("The 
 shadows lay along Broadway"). His sacred poems, such as 
 Absalom and Lazarus and Mary, are composed in a smooth, 
 well-sustained blank verse, and had at one time wide popular 
 ity. But the vogue of Willis passed with the coming of a 
 more strenuous national life and sentiment, and now we have 
 little more than his memory, which, like the golden tress of 
 Melanie, one of his poetic heroines, 
 
 "Floats back upon the summer gale." 
 
 To search further among the professed poets of the first 
 third of the century is only to revive, rather uselessly, such 
 Mrs. Brooks, names as that of Maria Gowen Brooks, who was 
 jlG 7 percivai, once compared with Mrs. Browning, and whose 
 1795-1856. sentimental and highly colored Oriental tale of 
 Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven (1825-1833) won for her from 
 Sou they the sobriquet of "Maria del Occident"; or that of 
 James Gates Percival, who was sometimes called by courtesy 
 a scholar, and who, among his voluminous verse, left one or 
 two poems, like The Coral Grove, of an undeniably 
 1*779-1843 . distinctive charm. Rather better worth record- 
 i792"-i82? Cl ing, it seems, are the names of a few who, not 
 f 7 K842 0rth otherwise thought of as poets, chanced to write 
 18021 ijJX* 18 a single poem or song of sufficiently genuine feel- 
 i779li863. re ing and melody to give it more than a fleeting 
 existence. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer of Wash 
 ington, wrote The Star-Spangled Banner on the occasion of 
 the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British in 1814. 
 John Howard Payne, the dramatist, won lasting fame with 
 
100 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 his Home, Sweet Home, sung first at the Covent Garden The 
 atre, London, as a part of his opera, Clari, the Maid of Milan 
 (1823) . Samuel Woodworth, a journalist of New York, wrote 
 The Old Oaken Bucket (1826); George P. Morris, a younger 
 associate of Woodworth s, was the author of My Mother s 
 Bible and Woodman, Spare that Tree. Dr. Clement C. Moore, 
 a Greek and Hebrew scholar of New York, was the author of 
 R. H. Wilde, that children s classic, founded upon an old Dutch 
 E^apinknly.legend, A Visit from St. Nicholas (" Twas the 
 1802-1828. night bef Qre Christmas") . In the South, Richard 
 Henry Wilde of Georgia, also a scholar, echoed the melodies of 
 his native Ireland in his stanzas (about 1815), My Life is Like 
 the Summer Rose; while the southern romantic and chivalric 
 spirit was fairly represented by Edward Coate Pinkney, a 
 young midshipman, who printed at Baltimore in 1825 a small 
 volume of poems containing the one beginning, 
 
 "I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone." 
 
 These were the bardlings and songsters. We turn now to 
 the one man born in America before 1800 whose call to poetry 
 was both high and steadfastly, consistently honored. 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 1794-1878 
 
 William Cullen Bryant virtually belongs, like Irving and 
 Cooper, to New York, though he was a native of New Eng 
 land and wrote his earliest poetry there. He was 
 / born in the autumn of 1794 in the little town of 
 
 Cummington, where the north fork of the Westfield River 
 goes "brawling over a bed of loose stones in a very narrow 
 valley" in the semi-mountainous region of western Massa 
 chusetts. He was the second of seven children. His ances 
 tors had been Americans for generations, several of them 
 having been among the passengers of the Mayflower. His 
 father was a physician and surgeon, of abilities quite beyond 
 
BRYANT 101 
 
 the small country practice with which he contented himself; 
 he also served several terms in the state legislature. His 
 mother was a model housewife, equally adept, as her diary 
 shows, at "teaching Cullen his letters" and "making him a 
 pair of breeches." 
 
 The boy s early schooling was carried on at home and at 
 the district school. At home he had the use of a library 
 exceptionally fine for that time and place, containing, as it 
 did, most of the world s classics from Plutarch to Shake 
 speare, together with such English classics as Gibbon, John 
 son, and Wordsworth. His outdoor sports were many, 
 trout-fishing, squirrel-hunting, and snow-balling; and there 
 were the time-honored devices for turning work into play 
 at the seasons of making maple-syrup and cider, and husking 
 corn. Barn-raisings and singing-schools varied the diver 
 sions. Few of these things, however, found their way into 
 young Cullen s verses for he began to write verses in his 
 ninth year. Boy-like, he was ambitious of greater themes 
 and sought exercise in paraphrasing the Book of Job, or in 
 celebrating an eclipse in turgid lines : 
 
 "How awfully sublime and grand to see 
 The lamp of Day wrapped in Obscurity!" 
 
 Of course, in this juvenile verse, the sun s ray is "genial," 
 birds "sit upon the spray," "stillness broods," and so forth. 
 It is difficult now to understand how people of taste could 
 ever delight in such circumlocutions as "the lamp of day" or 
 such stately phraseology as "to see the sun remove behind the 
 moon." But so it was. The English poetic models upon 
 which Bryant formed his taste were full of this sort of thing, 
 and he naturally caught the manner. Unfortunately, it was 
 a manner irom which he never, even in his best work, entirely 
 escaped. At the age of thirteen he wrote a poem that was 
 published at Boston (1808) in pamphlet form. It was a polit- 
 
102 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 ical satire in five hundred lines, called The Embargo, and was 
 aimed at the unpopular policy of Jefferson s administration in 
 closing our ports to foreign commerce because of certain dis 
 putes with Great Britain. In it the President was held up to 
 scorn along with Error and Faction and other monsters that 
 made "injured Commerce weep." There was sufficient 
 reason why the poem should be popular then, though there is 
 no reason why it should be remembered now except as the 
 work of a very precocious little boy. 
 
 He was sent away to an uncle to learn Latin; then to a 
 minister in a neighboring township, where he paid a dollar a 
 week for his bodily and mental fare, the former chiefly bread 
 and milk, the latter Greek and mathematics. In the fall 
 of 1810 he went to Williams College, where he remained 
 seven months. This completed his schooling. He made 
 some preparation for continuing his studies at Yale, 
 but his father was unable to send him there, and he had 
 to content himself with chanting Greek choruses among 
 the Hampshire hills, or making his own first essays at 
 poetry. 
 
 It was during a ramble among these hills in the autumn of 
 
 1811, when he was not yet quite seventeen years old, that the 
 
 conception of Thanatopsis ("Vision of Death") 
 
 ^Thanatop- came to ^{ m:> an( j the composition immediately 
 
 followed. He had been reading Blair s poem, The 
 
 Grave, and certain verses of Kirke White s and Southey s, 
 
 and these may have helped to suggest the sombre theme 
 
 of his own poem; the influence of Wordsworth s Tintern 
 
 Abbey is also apparent; but the immediate inspiration came 
 
 from the autumnal scene around him, the subdued colors of 
 
 earth and sky, the bare branches, the fallen leaves, and the 
 
 decaying trunks of the forest trees. He went home and, 
 
 sitting at his father s desk, began to write in the middle of 
 
 aline; 
 
BRYANT 103 
 
 "Yet a few days, and thee 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 In all his course." 
 
 He broke off, almost as abruptly, in the middle of the forty- 
 ninth line, and left the poem in a pigeon-hole of the desk. 
 There it was afterward found by his father, who had always 
 taken a sympathetic interest in his poetical exercises, and who 
 realized at once that this was a good poem, though it is doubt 
 ful whether even a father s pride enabled him to realize just 
 how good. He at least thought it worthy to be offered to the 
 North American Review, with the result described earlier in 
 this chapter. It is interesting to turn to that old number of 
 the Review and read the poem in its first form. We miss the 
 familiar beginning; 
 
 "To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language." 
 
 We miss also the homily at the close, which, although not the 
 best part of the poem, is the most frequently quoted: 
 
 "So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan which moves 
 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 These additions were made when Bryant published his 
 first thin volume of poems in 1821, and a few further changes / 
 were made afterward. But the central theme, the univer- v 
 sality of death, was fully set forth in the original form and 
 required no changes to make it complete. This youth in his 
 seventeenth year had quite unconsciously produced a poem 
 
104 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 which none of the brilliant galaxy of poets then ascendant in 
 England would have been ashamed to own. If it be true, as 
 we have said, that no American boy can afford not to read 
 Benjamin Franklin s Autobiography, it is almost equally true 
 that no one who cares to cultivate a love of the best in poetry 
 can afford not to learn by heart the eighty-one lines of 
 Thanatopsis. 
 
 Of course the anonymous, fragmentary-looking bit of 
 verse brought no immediate fame to Bryant, who was indus 
 triously preparing himself for the very practical life he was 
 destined to lead. He read law, and in 1815 was licensed to 
 practice. The celebrated lines To a Waterfowl were the out 
 come of an incident of this stage in his career. He was walk 
 ing to a neighboring village with the object of finding a place 
 to open a law office, and chanced to observe the flight of a 
 lone bird across the evening sky. 
 
 " Whither, midst falling dew, 
 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths dost thou pursue 
 Thy solitary way." 
 
 He fancied he saw in this uncompanioned voyage along 
 "that pathless coast, the desert and illimitable air," a likeness 
 to his own situation and, full of the forebodings natural to a 
 young man when first confronting the world, he sought to 
 derive from it consolation: 
 
 "He who from zone to zone 
 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the*long way that I must tread alone 
 Will lead my steps aright." 
 
 After some years of practice at Great Barrington, and 
 after his marriage, which had meanwhile followed upon the 
 lyrical prelude of "Oh fairest of the rural maids," Bryant 
 determined to abandon the law, partly because of his disgust 
 
BRYANT 105 
 
 at learning that in that profession mere technicalities could 
 sometimes defeat justice, and partly because he longed for 
 larger opportunities. 
 
 In 1825 he went to New York and entered upon what 
 proved to be his lifelong career journalism. He succeeded 
 rather slowly at first, but after his connection with 
 Career. the Evening Post, and especially after his succes 
 
 sion to the chief editorship of that journal, his 
 fortunes rapidly mended. He not only made the Evening 
 Post a newspaper of the highest rank, but by the purity of his 
 life and ideals, and the courage with which he always espoused 
 what he believed to be the right, he sensibly elevated the 
 somewhat low tone of the American press, and exercised a 
 profound and wholesome influence upon American politics 
 and public life. He lived and acted in the full conviction 
 that, in his own words, 
 
 "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers; 
 But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
 And dies among his worshipers." 
 
 For fifty years he faithfully performed the exacting duties 
 that fell to him, finding change and rest in half a dozen 
 voyages to Europe, or in such hours of retirement as he could 
 snatch at the old Cummington homestead, or at the beautiful 
 suburban residence he had provided for himself at Roslyn, 
 Long Island. From time to time he gathered his fugitive 
 verses and published a slender volume. Late in life, too, 
 he sought relief from more strenuous duties by translating 
 the Iliad and the Odyssey into the blank verse of which he 
 rightly felt himself to be a master. The translations are a 
 little cold, but for faithfulness and majesty they rank among 
 the best that have been made. These were finished in 1871. 
 For nearly seven years more the poet s mental activity kept 
 
106 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 pace with his bodily vigor, until the fataj fall, in his eighty- 
 fourth year, on the stone steps of General Wilson s house, 
 just after he had delivered a public address on Mazzini, in 
 the hot sun at Central Park. He died after two weeks of 
 semi-consciousness and was buried at Roslyn. 
 
 Bryant s prose, although several volumes, consisting 
 chiefly of occasional addresses, have been preserved, holds no 
 Th M rea ^ P^ ace m our literature. It was through his 
 
 Poet the poetry that he won his wide audience, and through 
 the high quality of it only, never from its range or 
 quantity. His poems are all short the merely necessary 
 and spontaneous expression of a poetic spirit, bound for the 
 most part to a prosaic life. He never attempted anything so 
 large as an epic or a drama. Even in the lyric field he con- 
 \J fined himself to simple subjects and long-tried measures, mak 
 ing no experiments in the multitude of forms and moods with 
 which our lyric poetry of the nineteenth century has been 
 enriched. The sensuous warmth of Keats, the ethereal 
 brightness of Shelley, were not in his manner. The Tenny- 
 sonian idyll and ballad were quite as much beyond his reach 
 as the ballade and the rondeau that came in with his old age. 
 His employment of the Spenserian stanza is not happy. 
 His few sonnets are irregular and ineffective. Yet, by such 
 simple magic as he knew, he produced some lyrics that show 
 a mastery of form and music most surprising in one who 
 practiced so little, together with a sincerity of feeling that 
 puts any mere technical mastery quite into the background. 
 There is no better example of this than a poem written late 
 in life (as characteristic, by the way, of Bryant as Crossing 
 the Bar is of Tennyson or Prospice of Browning) Waiting 
 by the Gate, in which the evening bird, the streaming sunshine, 
 the quiet wood and lea, and the turning hinges of the gate, 
 conspire to make a song and a picture of unfading charm. 
 Other examples almost equally good, and most of them more 
 
BRYANT 107 
 
 widely known, are June, The Planting of the Apple Tree, 
 Robert of Lincoln, The Snow-Shower, The Death of the Flowers. 
 However, Bryant s peculiar excellence lies in that depart 
 ment of lyric poetry which is farthest removed from all that 
 the word lyric strictly implies namely, in descriptive and 
 meditative verse. He loves to stand upon Monument 
 Mountain and brood over the slow changes of the centuries, 
 or to walk by Green River, trying to put behind him the cares 
 of existence, and envying the stream 
 
 "as it glides along 
 Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song." 
 
 Some of his descriptions are as sharp as etchings. Take 
 almost any part of the Summer Wind, of the Winter Piece, of 
 the Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood; 
 
 "The thick roof 
 
 Of green and stirring branches is alive 
 And musical with birds, that sing and sport 
 In wantonness of spirit; while below 
 The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, 
 Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade 
 Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam 
 That waked them into life." 
 
 The Waterfowl, too, is a poem that engraves itself on the 
 memory; to read it is to add a permanent picture to the mind, 
 so that ever afterward the slightest suggestion is sufficient to 
 call up the vision of that dark-limned fowl pursuing its way 
 along the pathless coast. These vivid effects are produced, 
 of course, by a vivid imagination, an imagination that always 
 derives from intensely seized fact. That the strong line in 
 Thanatopsis, 
 
 "Old Ocean s gray and melancholy waste," 
 
 was inserted only after Bryant had seen the ocean, is proof 
 that his inspiration was of the most genuine kind. 
 
108 THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 Enough has been quoted already to show that Bryant was 
 pre-eminently a poet of nature. Two-thirds of his poems 
 have some aspect of nature for their theme. He belongs to 
 that school of which Wordsworth, among modern English 
 writers, stands at the head. He has often been compared 
 with Wordsworth. It was inevitable, perhaps, that in the 
 case of our early writers these comparisons should be made, 
 as of Irving with Goldsmith, of Cooper with Scott. No harm 
 can come of them, so long as we feel and frankly admit that 
 our own writers are secondary, and even in some measure 
 derivative, while still maintaining that they were never 
 weakly imitative. Bryant was as sincere a lover of Nature 
 as Wordsworth, and had, if not quite the same high endow 
 ment, the same divine right, to sing her beauties and her 
 consolations. What the primrose and the daffodil were to 
 Wordsworth, the yellow violet and the fringed gentian were 
 to Bryant, and if ever he seemed to follow Wordsworth it was 
 in a spirit of sympathy, not of emulation. New England 
 has her own flowers and birds, and we can only rejoice that 
 they found their poet. 
 
 Yet Bryant was much more than the poet of the Hamp 
 shire and Berkshire hills; nor was his vision limited to the 
 birds and flowers. His imagination, large and seer-like, 
 swept beyond the landscape spread before his eye, exploring 
 the vast reaches of a continent, from "Hudson s western 
 marge" to the 
 
 "palms of Mexico and vines 
 
 Of Texas and the limpid brooks 
 
 That from the fountains of Sonora glide 
 Into the calm Pacific." 
 
 Read A Forest Hymn, The Hurricane, A Rain-Dream, The 
 Prairies, The Night Journey of a River, and mark how the poet 
 is resistlessly drawn to the larger music and beauty of nature 
 the anthems of the forest trees and the panorama of the 
 
BRYANT 109 
 
 storm; how he traces the currents of life through sap and sun 
 beam and river; how he penetrates into the graves of the 
 Mound-builders and conjures up pictures of long-gone ages, 
 when 
 
 "lovers walked, and wooed 
 In a forgotten language, and old tunes 
 From instruments of unremembered form 
 Gave the soft winds a voice." 
 
 It is this high imaginative gift which Bryant possessed, in 
 common with Cooper of our prose writers, and with Emerson 
 and Whitman of our poets, yet touched in him with a fervor 
 and a reverence all his own, that makes him peculiarly a 
 poet of the new world and of an elder, almost primitive, 
 time in a word, bardic. 
 
 Yet Bryant had limitations fully as marked as his abilities. 
 He had quite as little humor in his composition as certain 
 other poets of "high seriousness" Dante, for instance, or 
 Walt Whitman. He "had a talent for solitude and silence." 
 Though by no means a man of gloomy disposition, he was 
 overgiven to melancholy musings; in spite of his beautiful 
 lyric of June, he was the poet of October and November, 
 
 "Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sere." 
 
 And he was, in his poetry at least, almost passionless; he gives 1 
 but few evidences in it of strong human interests or sympa 
 thies, and altogether too few words of hearty, hopeful cheer. 
 His very love of nature was in part a distaste for society he 
 sought and found in woods and fields a refuge from the tur 
 moil of life and the sordidness of the world. If we did not 
 know so well his character and deeds, we should have imag 
 ined him like the river he has described on its night journey, 
 stealing away from the pollution of human abodes to the 
 stainless sea, or like his Wind of Night, 
 
HO THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 "A lonely wanderer between earth and cloud, 
 In the black shadow and the chilly mist, 
 Along the streaming mountainside, and through 
 The dripping woods, and o er the plashy fields, 
 Roaming and sorrowing still, like one who makes 
 The journey of life alone, and nowhere meets 
 A welcome or a friend, and still goes on 
 In darkness." 
 
 Thanatopsis remains, first and last, his great achievement 
 in form a perfect example of English blank verse, of which 
 he alone among American writers has attained to any real 
 mastery; in substance an epitome of his powers, with its lofty 
 imagination and its musings upon the themes of nature and 
 death. It barely escapes, too, his besetting melancholy, 
 though, on the whole, it is more consoling than depressing, 
 with the benign presence of Nature felt through it all, and 
 sweet, 
 
 "Strange intimations of invisible things 
 Which, while they seem to sadden, give delight, 
 And hurt not, but persuade the soul to prayer."* 
 
 It has been called a pagan poem, with no ray of Christian 
 hope or promise of immortality. The mere absence of these 
 things does not make it pagan; yet if any one is left unsatisfied 
 with the spirit of reverence that breathes through its lines, 
 he may find a complement in The Flood of Years, that majes 
 tic chant written in the poet s eighty-second year. Together 
 the two poems make a perfect confession of faith, and mark 
 both verges of a life and genius that for purity and conse 
 cration it would be hard to find excelled. 
 
 * R. H. Stoddard: The Dead Master. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 ROMANCE. POE, HAWTHORNE 
 
 The dearth of American literature for nearly two hundred 
 years was essentially a dearth of romance. The cause may 
 be traced in part to Puritanism. The Puritan temperament 
 was not one to indulge visions save such as were born of 
 religion or superstition, and the New England writers rarely 
 turned to fictitious themes. The early New England 
 chroniclers, for instance, were content to remain chroniclers; 
 they showed no such tendency as did John Smith to infuse 
 imagination into their narratives. In the non-Puritan 
 South, indeed, had the South been studious of the literary 
 art, romance might have appeared early. As it was, we have 
 seen that the beginnings were made at Philadelphia by 
 Charles Brockden Brown, though not until about 1800. 
 Shortly after that, the romantic spirit, in a poetic guise, 
 could be detected in the ephemeral work of such New York 
 writers as Drake and the elder Dana, or in the poems of 
 Mrs. Brooks, written largely in Cuba. With Irving and 
 Cooper, both also of New York, the creative imagination 
 was finally unfettered and American literature came into 
 being. Little then remained but to refine upon the work of 
 these two prolific writers, to combine the art of the one with 
 the inventive faculty of the other, and to make those further 
 excursions into the regions of the supernatural or the spiritual 
 that afford the final test of the romancer s power. This is 
 virtually what is done by two writers of the second third of 
 the century, Poe and Hawthorne the greatest representa 
 tives of our literature on its purely creative side. And of 
 these it may be noted that the one to come earliest to fame 
 
 111 
 
112 ROMANCE 
 
 belonged, by everything but the accident of birth, to the 
 South. 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE, 1809-1849 
 
 It is a striking commentary upon the transitory and un 
 reliable nature of human records that a man should be able to 
 live, as Edgar Allan Poe did, for many years in the public eye, 
 and in an age when everything seems to go on record, and yet 
 leave the simplest facts of his biography surrounded with 
 mystery. Poe s ancestry, the place and date of his birth, his 
 character and manner of life, and the cause and manner of 
 his death, have all been subjects of doubt and sometimes of 
 violent dispute. This is due in some measure to the irregu 
 larity of his life, which made mystification on his part possible 
 or even desirable, and in some measure to the prejudices of 
 his critics. The main facts and dates seem to be now settled, 
 but in the more delicate matter of character and habits we 
 must still speak in qualified terms. 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe was born, the second of three children, 
 at Boston, January 19, 1809. His father was a Baltimorean, 
 the son of a Revolutionary patriot, possibly of 
 Irish descent. His mother was of English birth. 
 Both were members of a theatrical company then playing at 
 Boston. Nearly three years later, by the death of the mother 
 at Richmond, Virginia, the children were left orphans. Edgar 
 was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a Scotchman who had made 
 a fortune in Virginia in the tobacco trade. He was brought 
 up in luxury, a much spoiled child petted for his beauty 
 and precocity, amusing himself with dogs and ponies at 
 summer resorts, and declaiming on the table for Mr. Allan s 
 guests while they drank their wine. In his seventh year he 
 was taken to England and put into school in a London 
 suburb, an experience which afterward furnished a setting 
 for the story of William Wilson. Five years later he returned 
 with his adoptive parents to Richmond. At the age of 
 
POE 113 
 
 seventeen, a proud, reserved, half-melancholy and wholly 
 self-willed youth, he entered the University of Virginia. 
 There he studied the ancient and modern languages and prac 
 ticed athletics and the several "gentlemanly" forms of dissi 
 pation. He was withdrawn by Mr. Allan for incurring 
 gambling debts. From the tedious routine of Mr. Allan s 
 counting-room he ran away to Boston, published there an 
 anonymous little volume of forty pages the Byronic Tam 
 erlane and Other Poems (1827) and enlisted in the army 
 under an assumed name.* Poe afterward allowed the story 
 to be circulated that during this period he had gone abroad 
 to assist the Greeks in their struggle for liberty, like Byron, 
 and that he had spent part of the time in St. Petersburg. 
 Mr. Allan, discovering his whereabouts, secured his discharge 
 from the army, and obtained his appointment, as a cadet, to 
 West Point. A few months of the severe discipline of that 
 school, however, sufficed for Poe s restless nature, and it is 
 probable that he deliberately brought upon himself the dis 
 missal which followed. He found himself adrift, at the age 
 of twenty-two, with nothing further to expect from Mr. Allan. 
 Literature presented itself as his most natural vocation. 
 Poe had, indeed, begun to take himself very seriously as a 
 poet before he was twenty, and he had published a 
 
 Manhood. _. . . , M ... P i . 
 
 second volume at Baltimore while waiting lor his 
 cadetship. This volume contained, in addition to a revision 
 of the ambitious Tamerlane and some minor poems, the 
 mystical and scarcely intelligible Al Aaraaf. A second 
 edition, issued at New York shortly after his expulsion from 
 West Point, contained several new poems of real promise, 
 like Israfel and To Helen. But poverty and the maturing of 
 his powers conspired to turn his attention to prose, and his 
 first success of note was made through that medium. In 
 1833 a Baltimore weekly, The Saturday Visiter, offered a prize 
 
 * Woodberry s Poe, American Men of Letters Series. 
 
114 ROMANCE 
 
 of one hundred dollars for the best prose tale submitted. 
 Poe, then in desperate straits, submitted half a dozen. 
 A MS. Found in a Bottle was awarded the first prize. John 
 P. Kennedy, the novelist, who was one of the judges, took a 
 kindly interest in the author, securing him some work in 
 journalism, and probably providing even food and clothing. 
 Poe was then living at Baltimore with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, 
 and her daughter Virginia. Two years later he went to 
 Richmond to assist in editing the Southern Literary Messen 
 ger, and about the same time married Virginia Clemm. She 
 was a mere child, scarcely fourteen, but Poe, whose reverence 
 for women was his noblest trait, loved and cared for her 
 devotedly through all the vicissitudes of poverty and ill 
 health that ensued, until her death eleven years later, a short 
 time before his own. The inspiration of some of his finest 
 creations the child lovers of Eleonora, for instance is 
 to be found in this tender and ill-fated attachment. 
 
 It is a melancholy history to follow, a history of fierce 
 struggle and final defeat. That Poe should be blamed for 
 waging war upon society as he sometimes did, is not clear; on 
 the principle of retaliation there was much to justify him. 
 Yet we must feel that if he had only spent the little moral 
 strength that w^as given him in waging war upon his own 
 weaknesses, the end might have been happier. When fame 
 did come to him, it was accompanied with envy and detrac 
 tion, and he never had any measure of real prosperity. His 
 wilful and erratic temperament further perverted by his 
 more or less frequent yielding to the temptations of liquor 
 and opium, made any continued effort impossible. One 
 career after another was opened to him only to be closed 
 again; one enterprise after another was undertaken only to 
 fail or be abandoned. The eighteen months at Richmond 
 were followed by seven years at Philadelphia, where he edited 
 successfully The Gentleman s Magazine and Graham s Maga- 
 
FOE 115 
 
 zine. In the editorship of the latter he was succeeded by 
 Rufus W. Griswold, who became, after Poe s death, his hos 
 tile biographer. This was the period of his greatest pro 
 ductiveness. In 1838 was published The Narrative of Arthur 
 Gordon Pym, a fantastic and horrible, but professedly realis 
 tic sea- tale. In 1839 appeared Tales of the Grotesque and 
 Arabesque. Through this period, too, must have been 
 written many of the poems that were published in the volume 
 of 1845, The Raven and Other Poems. In 1844 he went to 
 New York, and finally took up his residence at a cottage at 
 Fordham, on the outskirts of the city. There, in January, 
 1847, his wife died, and he followed her body to the grave 
 wrapped in the military cloak that had been her last coverlet 
 against the winter s cold. A severe illness succeeded, from 
 which he recovered physically, but the Poe of the remaining 
 two years was scarcely the same man, the wreck of a wreck, 
 though able yet to compose such monodies of madness as 
 Eureka and The Bells and Ulalume. The end came tragi 
 cally. He was returning to New York from a visit to Rich 
 mond in the autumn of 1849, when chance brought him and 
 election day together in the city of Baltimore. He was 
 found in an election booth intoxicated, or drugged, or both, 
 and was taken to a hospital where he died in a delirium 
 several days later. 
 
 Immediately men s fancies began to play with the mem 
 ory of the erratic genius, and a process of myth-making began 
 
 which has gone on for half a century, transforming 
 Character. P e mt o a kind of superhuman creature, angelic or 
 
 diabolic according to the prejudices of the myth- 
 maker. The mere seeker for facts is everywhere met by such 
 maundering as that of Griswold, who, shortly after Poe s 
 death, described him as one who "would walk the streets, 
 in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct 
 curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer," or who, 
 
116 ROMANCE 
 
 "with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish 
 and with a face shrouded in gloom, would brave the wildest 
 storms, and all night, with drenched garments and arms 
 beating the winds and rains, would speak as if to spirits that 
 at such times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn." 
 It is almost impossible now to get behind this veil of tradition 
 and see the man Poe face to face as his fellows saw him, a 
 desperate struggler for his daily bread. Even with the clear 
 est light, so complex a character as his would be hard to 
 analyze and still harder to judge. We must admit that, with 
 all his genius, he was morally delinquent on many counts. 
 He lacked a fine sense of honor. He had no adequate con 
 ception of a man s duties either to himself or to his fellows, 
 and though many stood ready to befriend him, he lived in 
 spiritual solitude, the friend of no man. He did not exactly 
 lack will, as has been so often said, for he acted vigorously 
 through his short life; but he seemed not to recognize any 
 specific moral ends toward which a man should bend his 
 activity. He was full of contradictions. Though possessed 
 of a keen, cool, logical mind, he was always toying with specu 
 lations that sober science repudiates. His exalted dreams 
 of purity and goodness were in strong contrast to the per 
 versity of his deeds. It is doubtful whether he knew the 
 meaning of the word morality, and the judge of his character 
 must feel that if there be such a thing as a man who can do 
 evil deeds without being himself evil, Poe was that man. 
 At any rate, between his admirers and his detractors one may 
 most safely take the middle ground that his was not a case 
 for either praise or blame, but only pity. Heredity and 
 training were against him, the very conditions of American 
 life were adverse, 1 and the tragedy of his career is best remem 
 bered in sorrow. After all, his works are our permanent 
 possession, and the highest of them were touched only with 
 the misery and pathos of his life, never with its dishonor. 
 
POE 117 
 
 Poe s work as a journalist and critic does not call for much 
 comment. In the circle of his authority he came to be well 
 known and feared; and the independence of his 
 views and his frankness in expressing them did a 
 real service to the profession of literary criticism 
 in America, which had degenerated to mere idle compliment 
 and mutual admiration. But his critical method was not 
 the method of calm inquiry which sets up standards and 
 judges fearlessly and honestly by them. He was fearless 
 enough, but unfair. He had critical acumen and exquisite 
 literary sensibilities, and so long as he depended on these he 
 did well. He knew the marks of genius; a Tennyson or a 
 Hawthorne, even though unknown to fame, was immediately 
 known to Poe. But his foolish prejudices and personal 
 jealousies often rendered his judgments worthless. A man 
 who could write an article on Longfellow and Other Plagiar 
 ists was not likely to carry with him either sympathy or 
 conviction. He was too extravagant and too fond of the 
 sensational. The charge of literary theft in particular 
 he liked to make, though he rarely proved anything more 
 than a measure of indebtedness which the authors them 
 selves would have been ready to acknowledge. Efforts have 
 since been made to show that he was himself not innocent of 
 plagiarism. But these efforts have succeeded scarcely better 
 than his own. That he should have gone to Macaulay s War 
 ren Hastings instead of to an encyclopedia for a description 
 of the holy city of Benares, which he needed in his Tale of the 
 Ragged Mountains, counts for little. And as for the many 
 striking parallels between his poems and those of a certain Dr. 
 Chivers, of Georgia,* the only conclusion an impartial student 
 can reach is that Chivers owed far more to Poe than Poe ever 
 owed to Chivers. Probably Poe has been the least "in 
 fluenced" of all melodious poets since Spenser. 
 
 *Joel Bentcm: In the Poe Circle. 
 
118 ROMANCE 
 
 Poe s best criticisms of a general nature are his essays on 
 The Poetic Principle and The Philosophy of Composition, 
 though both must be read guardedly. One of the theories 
 laid down in the first, that there can be no such thing as a 
 long poem, may be supported only by assuming that there is 
 no poetry but lyrical or emotional poetry. The second essay 
 is occupied with an explanation of the mechanical way in 
 which The Raven was constructed a very entertaining 
 explanation, but one that no one who knows Poe or who 
 knows poetry will accept as final. His so-called scientific 
 or philosophical works, Eureka and the rest, are worthless. 
 He loved to make a great show of learning by all sorts of 
 obscure references, but he had little real scholarship, and 
 though he was a subtle analyst he was not a profound reas- 
 oner. His greatness lay in his imaginative work his tales 
 and his poems. 
 
 The tales may be said to constitute a distinct addition to 
 the world s literature. From time immemorial there have 
 been tales in prose and in verse, tales legendary, 
 romantic, and humorous, but never any quite like 
 Poe s. How difficult it is to find any derivation for them 
 may be seen from the fact that the writers most commonly 
 mentioned as having given some direction to Poe s genius are 
 Defoe and Bulwer ! Godwin and the German Hoffmann would 
 be nearer the mark, yet very distant still. "Bizarre" and 
 "terrific" are the words which Kennedy in his helplessness 
 applied to the tales ; and the words represent fairly the first 
 impression which they will always make, for the two qualities 
 of strangeness and power are to be found in nearly all. A 
 few are grotesque only, but they are among the weakest and 
 are seldom read. Perhaps we may venture to divide the 
 important ones, according to their dominant motives, into 
 analytical tales, allegorical or moral tales, and tales of the 
 supernatural. 
 
POE 119 
 
 The analytical tales are tales embracing situations that 
 call for the acutest exercise of the human reason the unrav 
 eling of a mystery, the detection of some obscure law of 
 nature, or the achievement of some difficult feat by the 
 resources of science. The Gotd-Biig is one of the best of this 
 type. It has in it a strong element of adventure, but that 
 Poe s chief interest did not lie in this is shown by the fact 
 that the climax of the story is not the finding of Captain 
 Kidd s treasure, but the deciphering of the cryptogram 
 through which the treasure was found. Other writers of 
 such stories, Jules Verne, for instance, in his Journey to the 
 Center of the Earth, invert this order. The Murders in the 
 Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined 
 Letter are all what we should call "detective stories," and are 
 the forerunners of many stories of their kind from sensational 
 novels up to novels of elaborate mystery and skill, like 
 Wilkie Collins s Moonstone. To be convinced of Poe s 
 influence in this field one needs only to read his Purloined 
 Letter and then A Scandal in Bohemia in Dr. Conan Doyle s 
 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Several of the analytical 
 tales have subsidiary elements of interest, notably horror 
 in the baboon murderer of the Rue Morgue, an element 
 which Mr. Kipling, with questionable art, has ventured to 
 make the sole theme of his gruesome Bimi. Among the tales 
 of adventure with a background of semi-scientific specu 
 lation are Hans Pfaall (the story of a trip to the moon), 
 A MS. Found in a Bottle, and A Descent into the Maelstrom. 
 In the two latter, however, the interest of mere ingenuity is 
 overshadowed by the interest of the narratives themselves, 
 enriched, as they are, with all the resources of Poe s imagi 
 nation. It may well be that the wild fancy of a descent into 
 the maelstrom grew primarily out of a mathematical theorem 
 concerning the action of cylinders in a vortex, but the 
 qualities that give that tale its distinction and its power, 
 
120 ROMANCE 
 
 setting it indeed in a place apart, are higher than this. It is 
 in such passages as the following, where subtlety of analysis 
 gives way before the splendor and majesty of the* pictured 
 scene, that we find the real genius of Poe: 
 
 " We are now, he continued in that particularizing manner which 
 distinguished him we are now close upon the Norwegian coast in the 
 sixty-eighth degree of latitude in the great province of Nordland 
 and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top 
 we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher 
 hold on to the grass if you feel giddy so and look out, beyond the 
 belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea. 
 
 "I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose 
 waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian 
 geographer s account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more 
 deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the 
 right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, 
 like ramparts of the world, lines of horribly black and beetling cliff, 
 whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the 
 surf which reared high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howling 
 and shrieking forever. 
 
 "As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually 
 increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon 
 an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what 
 seamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us, was rap 
 idly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while 
 I gazed this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment 
 added to its speed to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the 
 whole sea as far as Vurrgh was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it 
 was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its 
 sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a 
 thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convul 
 sion heaving, boiling, hissing, gyrating in gigantic and innumer 
 able vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with 
 rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous 
 descents. 
 
 "In a few minutes more there came over the scene another radical 
 alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the 
 whirlpools one by one disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam 
 became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, 
 
POE 121 
 
 at length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into com 
 bination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided 
 vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Sud 
 denly very suddenly this assumed a distinct and definite existence 
 in a circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl 
 was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle 
 of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, 
 as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black 
 wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five 
 degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering 
 motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half-shriek, 
 half-roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts 
 up in its agony to Heaven. The mountain trembled to its very base, 
 and the rock rocked." 
 
 The allegorical tales, comparatively few in number, are 
 weakened in point of art by their moral intent. William 
 Wilson is an allegory of the two-fold nature of man of the 
 conflict between the upward tendency to good and the 
 downward tendency to evil. Robert Louis Stevenson s 
 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is another story with the same 
 theme. But William Wilson, though written in a flowing 
 style and with patient, deliberate art, is not a great tale. The 
 moral is crystallized, not held in solution. What should 
 be the undermeaning is on the surface: the tale yields to the 
 homily. We note, too, an incongruous mixture of things 
 real and things unreal. The details of the background are 
 faithfully given only to be completely lost sight of again: 
 they are not organic. Hence the story, as a story, fails. 
 The Black Cat is much better, and is, indeed, one of Poe s 
 best known tales. It is possible to read it and scarcely 
 perceive the underlying motive of the accusing conscience. 
 Its only weak point is one common to all the tales a lack 
 of characterization. Poe s characters are never real human 
 beings, and no matter what atrocities they commit or what 
 agonies they suffer, we feel neither disgust nor sympathy, 
 
122 ROMANCE 
 
 we are moved purely by the abstract horror of the situation. 
 Poe lacked the tear-compelling power which even a carica 
 turist like Dickens possessed. But for naked horror The 
 Black Cat is hardly to be surpassed. It certainly produces 
 an effect, and that, Poe declared, was the main object in most 
 of his tales. The Man in the Crowd and The T ell-Tale Heart 
 are also tales of conscience, though less distinctly allegorical. 
 The Masque of the Red Death is allegorical, but without moral 
 significance, the fear it symbolizes is purely physical. But 
 this is another of Poe s most successful fantasies, at once 
 gorgeous and spectral, ridiculously impossible yet awfully 
 real. 
 
 In these several forms of narrative the detective story, 
 the tale of pseudo-science, the moral allegory Poe s influ 
 ence has been both wide and deep. But there is another 
 domain in which his unique genius found a still higher expres 
 sion and in which he has had no successful imitators. This is 
 the domain of the supernatural. Here belong the tales of 
 Berenice, Morella, Shadow, Poe s own favorite Ligeia, and 
 that tale which critical opinion commonly ranks highest 
 The Fall of the House of Usher. The motive of the two last 
 is one of the most fantastic and terrible in the field of ro 
 mance. It is the idea, which seems to have been almost a 
 hallucination with Poe, of the possible life of the spirit, that is, 
 of the thinking, sentient part of man, after the death of the 
 body not immortality, be it understood, but a temporary 
 prolonging of spirit life by sheer power of will. Yet the 
 motive, gruesome as it is, is saved by the cunning of the artist 
 from being repulsive or ridiculous; for Poe builds up, with 
 unerring skill, his effects of transcendent beauty and at the 
 same time transcendent horror and awe. It would be almost 
 as difficult to say how. the effects are produced as it would 
 be to say why a violin fantasia has the power to move or 
 fascinate, but the perfection of the art that produces them is 
 
POE 123 
 
 no more to be questioned in the one case than in the other. 
 The deficiencies of the tales we must grant, though we 
 need not hold the deficiencies to be defects. They contain 
 nothing refreshing, nothing morally uplifting or sweetly 
 humanizing. The sunshine is not the broad sunshine of the 
 fields, it comes sifted through dense foliage or colored glass. 
 The winds blow from caverns and vaulted tombs. The color 
 on the cheeks is hectic, the mirth is hysterical. Everywhere 
 are grief and madness, disease and death. But the aesthetic 
 passion, which supplied in Poe the place of the ethic passion, 
 works a transfiguration, making beauty even out of ugliness 
 and ghastliness. Two or three impressions, indeed, must be 
 left abidingly upon every reader of Poe s prose. First, there 
 is the charm of the language itself, sometimes swift and 
 strong, as in the description of the setting sun that, "a dim, 
 silver-like rim alone, rushed down the unfathomable ocean," 
 sometimes lyric in its melody, as in the description of "Ven 
 ice, a star-beloved Elysium of the sea, the wide windows of 
 whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter 
 meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters." With this 
 goes the fascination of the vivid scenes, ranging from terror 
 to beauty and sublimity. What a picture is that of the 
 spectral crew: "their knees trembled with infirmity; their 
 shoulders were bent double with decrepitude ; their shrivelled 
 skins rattled in the wind; their voices were low, tremulous, 
 and broken; their eyes glistened with the rheum of years; 
 and their gray hairs streamed terribly in the tempest." Or 
 who that has once seen in imagination ever forgets the 
 "Valley of the Many-Colored Grass," the noble hall "in a 
 dim city called Ptolemais," the "black and lurid tarn that 
 lay in unruffled lustre" by the melancholy house of Usher? 
 Lastly, there is the magic touch, the necromancer s wand, 
 which removes all these scenes into the uncharted realm 
 of the supernatural and invests them with a kind of sacred 
 
124 ROMANCE 
 
 awe, so that one who has wandered for an hour in the 
 country of Poe comes back to this every-day world like a 
 dreamer and an alien. 
 
 The poetry of Poe s mature years has the same attributes, 
 only it is, as poetry should be, still more ethereal. If we had 
 His not come to demand so much of poetry, there 
 
 Poetry. CO uld be little hesitation in ranking Poe s with the 
 
 very greatest in any language. But cultivated readers have 
 fallen into the habit of searching beneath emotions for moral 
 and intellectual stimulus. They want, in Matthew Arnold s 
 phrase, a "criticism of life," and failing to find that, they are 
 dissatisfied. Now that, Poe cannot be said to afford life as 
 we know it he scarcely touches at all. But youth, that is 
 always a poet and that knows little of definitions, reads Poe 
 and says, "This is pure poetry." And the test should satisfy 
 us about Poe and make us doubt our definitions. Beyond 
 all question, whatever Poe lacked and he lacked many 
 things he possessed the two fundamental attributes of a 
 poet, melody and imagination, in a supreme degree. They 
 are attributes, too, that speak for themselves, requiring no 
 proof or argument. When The Raven was published in 
 Willis s Evening Mirror in January 1845, America knew for a 
 certainty that English literature had another poet to reckon 
 with. The Raven immediately became, and remains, one of 
 the most widely known of English poems; it can be mentioned 
 anywhere without apology or explanation, and there is 
 scarcely a lover of melodious verse who cannot repeat many 
 of its lines and stanzas. Strange it seems that Poe s poetic 
 genius should ever require vindication. 
 
 It is true, the product is meagre. The Raven, The Bells, 
 Ulalume, Annabel Lee, The Haunted Palace, The Conqueror 
 Worm, Israfel, To Helen, To One in Paradise, The City in the 
 Sea one can almost count on the fingers his great poems. 
 But that is true of many notable poets, even where the 
 
POE 125 
 
 product is large. Poe s trash (certain stanzas, for instance, 
 in For Annie) is very sorry trash, but there is not a great deal 
 of it, and there is practically no mediocre verse. What is 
 good touches the high-water mark of excellence. 
 
 And its quality is unmistakable. Its appeal is to the sen 
 timent of Beauty the one appeal which, according to Poe s 
 theory, is the final justification of any poem. Language is 
 made to yield its utmost of melody. From words, even from 
 letters, one might say for Poe actually fabricated words 
 whose sounds would suit his purpose effects are wrested such 
 as had never been wrested before. 
 
 "The skies they were ashen and sober; 
 
 The leaves they were crisped and sere, 
 
 The leaves they were withering and sere, 
 It was night in the lonesome October 
 
 Of my most immemorial year; 
 It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 
 
 In the misty mid-region of Weir, 
 It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, 
 
 In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." 
 
 This is haunting music, though here again, as in the tales, if 
 we seek to know precisely how the effect is secured, we are 
 baffled. The ordinary devices of alliteration, refrains, and 
 repetends, are freely used, but no mere resort to those devices 
 can parallel the effect. The truth is, the verse is not only 
 haunting, but haunted. In it is the strange, unearthly 
 imagery, and over it is the spectral light, that only Poe s 
 imagination could create. To a beauty of language, by its 
 very nature as indescribable as music, is added a weird 
 enchantment of scene that vanishes before any attempt to 
 reclothe it in other words. Analysis and criticism are help 
 less before this final achievement of Poe s art the creation 
 of that "supernal loveliness" which, he declared, it is the 
 struggle of all fit souls to apprehend. 
 
126 ROMANCE 
 
 Beyond this we may scarcely go. There are dark hints 
 of other things in Poe s poetry. The Raven of his dreams is, 
 in the words of Mr. Stedman, "an emblem of the Irreparable, 
 the guardian of pitiless memories." The Haunted Palace and 
 the Conqueror Worm have a direct and almost frightful alle 
 gorical significance. And what music may not come from the 
 lute of Israfel, what hopes are not barred by the legended 
 tomb of Ulalume? But we gain little from the study of these 
 things, indeed we almost resent any covert significance. For 
 of Poe s poetry, as of his highest prose, it must be said that it 
 makes almost no moral appeal. Nothing is conceived on a 
 moral plane. He has nothing to teach us no mission, no 
 message. But the sounds and the visions remain, the poet s 
 mastery over the secrets of the terrible, the mysterious, the 
 sublime, and the beautiful; and we may well rest content to 
 listen without questions to the wild measures of Israfel s lute, 
 to gaze awe-stricken upon the city in the sea, or to pass 
 speechless by the dim lake of Auber and through the ghoul- 
 haunted woodland of Weir. 
 
 By all that has been said, Poe s romantic temper is made 
 
 plain. It does not betray itself in any dominant love for 
 
 nature, nor in any tender sentimentalizing, but 
 
 Position in rather in a passion for the antique, the highly 
 
 Literature. 
 
 adorned, the odd, the gloomy, the marvellous, 
 in a word, for that "strangeness in beauty" which Mr. Pater, 
 borrowing a phrase from Bacon, has declared to be the 
 distinctive romantic note. Poe was passionately fond of 
 mystery, and he was drawn irresistibly to the supreme 
 mysteries of life and death. In so far as his work is morbidly 
 psychological, it allies him with Charles Brockden Brown, 
 and through him with the metaphysical school of Godwin, 
 though Poe s imagination was of a higher order. If we must 
 name any prototype, it would be Coleridge. But Poe was 
 Poe. We may account for Longfellow, for Hawthorne, for 
 
THE MINOR ROMANCERS 127 
 
 Emerson; but the individual note, the "inexpressible monad" 
 which evolutionary science itself as yet fails to account for, 
 was peculiarly strong in Poe, and we must leave him unde- 
 rived. Abroad he has long been considered as a creative 
 writer of the first rank. It is to the shame of Americano 
 that they have seldom been able to take quite his full meas 
 ure; but our best critics have been instinctively attracted 
 to him, and it is worthy of note that he was the first of our 
 nineteenth century men of letters whose works were honored 
 with a scholarly and fairly definitive critical edition. 
 
 THE MINOR ROMANCERS 
 
 Our review of the minor fiction that was produced contem 
 poraneously with the earliest and, in general, the best work of 
 Cooper closed with the record of one writer of the region 
 south of New York John Pendleton Kennedy, of Baltimore. 
 Accompanying and following Kennedy, whose activity in 
 fiction was not long continued, were several writers who 
 availed themselves, like him, of the romantic possibilities of 
 their environment, and so became, in their modest way, 
 more destinctively romancers of the South than Poe, whose 
 genius was really of no land or clime. One of these was a 
 certain Dr. Bird, of Delaware and Philadelphia, an 
 
 Robert Mont- 
 
 lomery^Bird, early explorer of the Mammoth Cave, and an 
 industrious writer of tragedies and tales. Two 
 romances of Mexico Calavar (1834) and The Infidel (1835) 
 received high praise from Prescott; and the once famous 
 Kentucky romance, Nick of the Woods, or the Jibbenainosay 
 (1837), had the merit of portraying the North American 
 savages without any of Cooper s idealization. 
 
 The writer of the South, however, who was most genuinely 
 moved by its romantic scenes and legends, and who succeeded 
 in doing for colonial and border life there a service similar to 
 that Cooper did for the North, was William Gilmore Simms, 
 
128 ROMANCE 
 
 of Charleston, South Carolina. Simms began his career as a 
 lawyer, but soon adopted the profession of journalism and 
 William Gil literature. To the end he remained a professional 
 more Simms, author, writing both poetry and prose with great 
 
 1806-lo70. . . . 
 
 facility romance, drama, history, and criticism. 
 His published works number over sixty titles. Perhaps the 
 best of his romances is The Yemassee, published in 1835, a 
 tale of the war in 1715 between the early Carolina settlers 
 and the Indians. Others are Guy Rivers (1834), a tale of 
 Georgia; The Partisan (1835), a tale of Marion s men; Mel- 
 lichampe (1836), another tale of the Revolution; and Beau- 
 champe (1842), a tale of Kentucky. Hastily written, his 
 stories are naturally deficient in the higher qualities of con 
 struction and style, but they have plenty of vigor and imagi 
 native color, and their vogue is still great enough to warrant 
 their publication in fairly complete editions. 
 
 To New York belonged several writers of tales of adven 
 ture, whose scenes were laid on shipboard or in remote quar- 
 wiiiiam star- ters of the earth. One of these was Dr. Mayo, the 
 m C 2*$9 a 5 yo author of Kaloolah (1849), an extravagant story 
 Me r i m fie, of Yankee exploration in the wilds of Africa. 
 1819-1891. Another, and more important, was Herman 
 Melville, who in his youth embarked upon a whaling vessel 
 bound for the Pacific and spent several years, a portion of 
 the time in captivity, among the South Sea Islands. The 
 series of partly fanciful tales founded upon his experiences 
 Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), Moby Dick, or the White Whale 
 (1851), etc., had a wide circulation, and an occasional 
 admirer can still be found who will pronounce them superior 
 to Cooper s. They differ from Cooper s tales of the sea in 
 that they portray, not the life of the merchant or the naval 
 officer, but the life of the common sailor who ships "before 
 the mast." 
 
 Superior, however, to all these tales in quality, and 
 
THE MINOR ROMANCERS 129 
 
 scarcely inferior in romantic interest, is the wholly truthful 
 narrative of Two Years Before the Mast. It was written by 
 
 Richard Henry Dana, Jr., son of the author 
 Henry Dana, o f The Buccaneers, and was published in 1840. 
 
 Obliged by some weakness of the eyes to suspend 
 his course of studies at Harvard, Dana went to sea in the 
 American merchant service, and of the faithful record of his 
 experiences in the journey around Cape Horn and trading 
 up and down the coast of California he made a book that in 
 its fascination for youthful readers is a rival not only of 
 Cooper s stories but almost of Robinson Crusoe itself. 
 
 Few romances of the extravagant type came out of New 
 England. Even Dana s narrative for Dana was a New 
 Englander had the warrant of truth. For the justification 
 of fiction the warrant of a moral purpose might serve, but 
 pure physical adventure for the mere entertainment of it was 
 little likely to be tolerated. And so, as we search among the 
 minor romancers of New England, we find only such writers 
 
 as William Ware and Sylvester Judd, both Uni- 
 
 WilliamWare, 
 
 1797-1852. tanan ministers, and both writers who enlisted 
 I8i3 d i853 romance in the cause of religion. Ware s books 
 Zenobia (first printed as Letters from Palmyra, 
 1837), Aurelian (first printed as Probus, 1838), and Julian 
 1841) portray, with considerable learning and imagination, 
 the conflict of Christianity and paganism in the days of the 
 decline of Rome. It is the type of romance since made 
 familiar to us by the greater work of the English Kingsley 
 and the German Ebers. Judd s one book of importance was 
 Margaret, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal (1845), a story at 
 once more realistic and more fantastic than Ware s stories. 
 In spite of its crudeness and prolixity, it long held a respec 
 table place on New England bookshelves, both for its 
 vigorous portraiture of Maine life and scenery and for the 
 rare spirituality which it throws about its central character. 
 
130 ROMANCE 
 
 Lowell s rather extravagant praise of it, in his Fable for 
 Critics, as 
 
 "the first Yankee book 
 With the soul of Down East in t, and things farther East," 
 
 doubtless prolonged its life. About all we care to preserve 
 of it is a certain description of a snowstorm which has often 
 been reprinted and which may well be read for its own sake. 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 1804-1864 
 
 From writers like those just described it is not difficult to 
 make the transition to the most spiritual of American roman 
 cers Nathaniel Hawthorne. And it should be noted in 
 passing that we have returned once more, and for a long stay, 
 to New England soil. For, after Poe, the names of first 
 importance that follow immediately in the wake of those 
 pioneers of our literature who were considered in the pre 
 ceding chapter, belong almost without exception to New 
 England. The old centre of literary activity regains its 
 prestige: New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore yield to 
 Boston, Cambridge, and Concord, and we confront that 
 remarkable group of men who have stamped our literature 
 with their own characteristics of courage, manliness, and 
 ideality. Why the New England literary spirit should have 
 lain so comparatively dormant during the early years of our 
 nationality is not easy to say. Of course there could not be 
 any high development of literature without a highly devel 
 oped sense of art, and we have seen that the Puritan temper 
 was hostile to art, as something savoring of luxury and vain 
 glory, or even idolatry. The Puritan spirit was easily 
 aroused in a moral cause, hardly in an aesthetic one. And 
 we cannot fail to note that even of this great group of New 
 Englanders who gave us the body, as it were, of our nine 
 teenth century literature, the majority were primarily schol 
 ars, thinkers, and moralists, and only secondarily artists. 
 
HAWTHORNE 131 
 
 Emerson, Thoreau, Webster, Whittier, Lowell, even Holmes, 
 fought in some cause of freedom or righteousness. Only 
 Longfellow in poetry and Hawthorne in prose held stead 
 fastly to the fundamental principles of creation for artistic 
 ends; and Longfellow s scholastic and didactic instincts are 
 never far from the surface, while in Hawthorne the moral 
 purpose comes plainly into sight. The romance, t however, 
 in the choice of which as the sole medium of his expression 
 Hawthorne stands apart from the rest of the group, is essen 
 tially a form of pure art, and that fact Hawthorne never 
 allowed himself to forget. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne was born at Salem, Massachusetts, 
 July 4, 1804. The absence of a clerical ancestry in his case is 
 noteworthy, as also in the case of Longfellow, the 
 other of the great New England writers in whom 
 we have just remarked that the artistic bent was not subordi 
 nate to the ethical. Hawthorne s ancestors were magis 
 trates, soldiers, and seamen; one of them, a judge during the 
 witchcraft trials, dealt so harshly with an accused woman as 
 to call down upon his head a curse, and from the story of 
 that curse sprang in good time The House of the Seven Gables. 
 The father was a sea-captain who died of a fever at Surinam 
 in 1808. The mother spent the remainder of her life forty 
 years in the closest seclusion, and the little Nathaniel and 
 his two sisters would have had a dark time of it but for the 
 mother s family, the Mannings, with whom they went to 
 live. In 1813 they removed to the Manning estate on the 
 Sebago Lake in Maine, and it is there that Hawthorne s 
 happiest years were spent. The lonely life of nature, where 
 in summer he roamed through the woods with his gun, or in 
 winter skated on the lake until midnight, was at least better 
 for him than the lonely, unsocial life of the town all the 
 better, perhaps, in view of his delicate health and his con 
 fessed "grievous disinclination to go to school." In due time, 
 
132 ROMANCE 
 
 however, he was sent back to Salem to prepare for college, 
 whence he wrote letters of playful complaint to his mother: 
 
 "I am quite reconciled to going to college, since I am to spend 
 my vacation with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a 
 great deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what profession 
 I shall have. . .. . Oh that I were rich enough to live without a 
 profession! What do you think of my becoming an author, and 
 relying for support upon my pen?" 
 
 A beautiful and somew^hat wilful youth, whose discipline 
 had been neglected, he was not always easy to manage, in 
 school or out, and during his residence at Bowdoin College he 
 showed some of the same tendencies as Poe toward dissi 
 pation, at least in its milder forms. But he possessed an 
 essentially noble nature and there were no lasting evil results. 
 His more intimate college mates were Franklin Pierce and 
 Horatio Bridge (see the dedication of The Snow Image). 
 Longfellow was a classmate, but there was probably not 
 enough in common between him and Longfellow, who was 
 several years his junior, to draw them closely together, 
 though then and in later life their relations were always cordial. 
 
 After his graduation from Bowdoin in 1825, Hawthorne 
 entered upon, or rather drifted into, a strange mode of life. 
 Seclusion Though strong, active, and apparently well fitted 
 to do his share of the world s work, he virtually 
 disappeared from the world for a period of twelve or fourteen 
 years. In the seclusion of his Salem home, "by some witch 
 craft or other carried apart from the main current of life," 
 in a family whose members were in the habit of taking their 
 meals in their private rooms, scarcely, he declared, seeing his 
 elder sister in three months, avoiding society and walking 
 out by night, he was left to pursue whatever course of intel 
 lectual work or idleness his fancy prompted. He was 
 actually accomplishing far more than he would have then 
 dared to believe. He could dream undisturbed; he was 
 
HAWTHORNE 133 
 
 quietly gathering a precious store of material, some of which 
 may be read now in the American Note Books; he was slowly 
 perfecting himself in the art of composition ; and above all he 
 was developing the individual traits of his genius in a way 
 that would have been practically impossible had he been 
 surrounded, like Longfellow and Lowell, by the diverse . 
 influences of travel and men and books. He had no very 
 definite purpose. He wrote without encouragement and 
 almost without hope. A little collection of seven tales was 
 sent, we are told, to seventeen publishers without success. 
 One hundred dollars secured the publication of Fanshawe in 
 1828, but afterward all the copies of this literary folly" 
 that could be found were destroyed. Some later tales 
 fared better. Goodrich published The Gentle Boy and three 
 others anonymously in his annual, The Token, for 1832. 
 Others appeared in succeeding issues of that annual and in 
 various other magazines. This, added to the help of his 
 friend Bridge, paved the way for the publication, in 1837, of 
 the first series of Twice- Told Tales. Longfellow wrote a favor 
 able review of the volume for the North American Review 
 (July, 1837), and six hundred copies of the book were sold. 
 The encouragement of this modest success, which yielded 
 him, by the way, no money, had something to do with drawing 
 
 him out of his seclusion, though it may be imag- 
 vennires. ined that the process was not easy. "I have made 
 
 a captive of myself," he wrote to Longfellow, 
 "and put me into a dungeon; and now I cannot find the key to 
 let myself out." But the key was found. For a hint of the 
 manner, read the entry in the American Note Books under 
 October 4, 1840. Miss Elizabeth Peabody had discovered 
 Hawthorne through his writings, and Hawthorne, through 
 Miss Elizabeth Peabody, had discovered her beautiful and 
 gifted young invalid sister, Sophia Peabody. The deep 
 affection that sprung up between these two was the spur so 
 
134 ROMANCE 
 
 much needed. The first result was decidedly practical. 
 Hawthorne secured a position, which he held for two years, 
 as weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House under 
 George Bancroft, a position in which he learned with a kind 
 of amused surprise that there are other "duties" in this world 
 besides moral and religious ones. The next result was more 
 visionary. In 1841 he joined the experimenters at Brook 
 Farm, an agricultural community established under the 
 leadership of George Ripley.* He spent a fairly happy 
 year there, but abandoned his investment of a thousand 
 dollars the second spring, satisfied that it was not the life for 
 him. He learned a little about farming that is to say, he 
 hoed potatoes and milked cows and a great deal about 
 human nature, and he carried away experiences that were 
 later woven into The Blithedale Romance. 
 
 In 1842 he married Sophia Peabody and took up, courage 
 ously enough, a life of poverty, hard literary work, and per 
 fect domestic happiness at Concord,! in the Old 
 
 Success. 
 
 Manse, which had already been Emerson s home. 
 There he came to know and value the friendship of Emerson, 
 who, we may well believe, was the inspiration of the allegory 
 of The Great Stone Face. Thoreau on a time sold him a boat; 
 and there are memories of all three skating on the river 
 Emerson wearily, Hawthorne gracefully, Thoreau fantasti 
 cally. There, too, he was brought into some contact with 
 Alcott and Margaret Fuller and, in short, the whole circle of 
 Concord "philosophers." He published a second volume of 
 Twice-Told Tales in 1842 and Mosses from an Old Manse in 
 1846. In the latter year an appointment to the Custom 
 House at Salem, under the Democratic administration of 
 Polk, took him back to his native town. His duties there 
 gave him little time for writing, and when, three years later, 
 
 * See Chapter VI. 
 
 t This Concord, so famous in American letters, is the Massachusetts Concord, also famous 
 in American history, and is not to be confounded with the New Hampshire capital. 
 
HAWTHORNE 135 
 
 a change of administration left him again without a position, 
 his wife said to him encouragingly, "Now you can write your 
 book!" The book thus referred to was promptly written, 
 and early in 1850 ten thousand people, in America and Eng 
 land were reading The Scarlet Letter up to the present day, 
 it is scarcely too much to affirm, the central book of American 
 literature. It is possible that, if this success had been antici 
 pated and there was nothing in Hawthorne s earlier exper 
 ience to lead to such an anticipation he would have touched 
 more lightly certain passages in the introductory sketch of 
 the Custom House. However that be, the sketch gave 
 considerable offense to his Salem fellow-townsmen, and it was 
 therefore not without satisfaction on his part that he carried 
 out plans already made for a final removal from the place. 
 He cherished no ill-will; and Salem, on her part, has since been 
 proud to point out the site of the Town Pump and the House 
 of the Seven Gables. 
 
 The story of the remainder of his life may be briefly told. 
 With his family (there were two children, Una and Julian 
 
 Rose was born shortly afterward) , he removed first 
 Xd^SSS" to Lenox, among the Berkshire Hills in Western 
 
 Massachusetts. The House of the Seven Gables., 
 published in 1851, was written there; there too were written 
 and read and re-read to the children before publication The 
 Wonder-Book and The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told 
 Tales. The next move was to West Newton, a suburb of 
 Boston, and thence, in 1852, back to Concord, where he had 
 purchased Alcott s house, which he named "The Wayside." 
 The Blithedale Romance appeared in that year, and Tangle- 
 wood Tales in the following. Then came his appointment as 
 consul at Liverpool under the administration of his old 
 friend, Franklin Pierce. After four years in England he 
 resigned his consulship and spent several years in travel on 
 the continent, passing two winters at Rome. Here The 
 
136 ROMANCE 
 
 Marble Faun was conceived (his own daughter, Una, was the 
 model of the spiritual Hilda), to be written out at Florence 
 and in England, and published at London and Boston in 
 1860. The title of the English edition was Transformation. 
 In June of 1860 he returned to Concord. More literary 
 work was projected Septimius Felton, The Dolliver Romance, 
 Dr. Grimshawe s Secret but it was not his fortune to write 
 any more in peace, and nothing was completed. He was 
 deeply agitated by the Civil War, the more so because his 
 sympathies were not wholly with his Northern friends; he 
 was in constant concern for the health of his idolized Una; 
 and his own health was rapidly failing. In March, 1864, at 
 the urgent desire of his friends, he set out for the South in the 
 companionship of his publisher, W. D. Ticknor, only to see 
 Ticknor die suddenly at Philadelphia. A few weeks later he 
 and ex-president Pierce started northward on a similar excur 
 sion. But Ticknor s fate became also his own. He died 
 peacefully, on the nineteenth of May, in a hotel at Plymouth, 
 New Hampshire. Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Pierce, 
 Agassiz, Lowell, Holmes, and many other friends stood by 
 the grave where he was buried at Concord, on the "hill- top 
 hearsed with pines." The unfinished Dolliver Romance lay 
 on his coffin during the funeral; and shortly afterward 
 Longfellow wrote his beautiful tribute : 
 
 "Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, 
 
 And the lost clew regain? 
 The unfinished window in Aladdin s tower 
 Unfinished must remain." 
 
 As the years go by, it becomes more and more apparent 
 that Hawthorne s is quite the rarest genius that has been 
 fostered on the bleak New England shore. To analyze that 
 genius, or even to appraise it rightly, is no easy task. Yet 
 the task is rendered less difficult by the essentially simple 
 nature of the man. From first to last Hawthorne worked 
 
HAWTHORNE 137 
 
 steadfastly in a single direction. One concession to friendship 
 he made when he wrote a campaign biography of Franklin 
 
 Pierce, and another later when he dedicated to the 
 ness S o?Aim. same friend the fruits of his consular experience 
 
 the charming sketches of English life and scenery 
 in Our Old Home. Apart from these, he never allowed him 
 self to be enticed from the path along which his genius urged 
 him. He seemed to understand precisely the nature, if not 
 entirely the scope, of his powers; and he never felt around 
 for something better or easier or pleasanter to do. He 
 burned many manuscripts, but they were all experiments in 
 the one direction of prose romance, the necessary apprentice 
 work by which he perfected himself in his difficult art. 
 Even the various Note Books that were published after his 
 death were but gathered threads of experience to be woven 
 at a favorable opportunity into the magic web of his dreams. 
 On the basis of form it is possible to make a division of 
 his imaginative work into short tales and long romances, 
 
 though their substantial singleness of character 
 
 remains. The tales were written and published 
 at intervals through the early and middle portions of his life. 
 Some of the lightest and brightest were directly addressed to 
 children the pleasant little histories and biographies of 
 Grandfather s Chair, and the delightful modernized versions 
 of Greek arid Roman myths in the Wonder-Book and Tangle- 
 wood Tales. Stronger, and higher in aim, are the eighty or 
 more narratives and sketches that make up the several vol 
 umes of Tivice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse. 
 Very slight is the material of which most of them are con 
 structed an image of snow, a profile-shaped mass of rock, 
 a toll-gatherer on his bridge, an old witch and her pipe, an 
 artist making a mechanical butterfly. Yet they hold us 
 both by the variety of their outward charm and by their deep 
 inner significance. They run through the whole gamut of 
 
138 ROMANCE 
 
 fancy, from the wildly whimsical and humorous to the 
 intensely sombre and profoundly sad. And woven into them, 
 as the very life and substance of them, are speculations upon 
 many of the gravest problems of existence. Indeed, more of 
 the spiritual history of New England may be found in a single 
 tale like Young Goodman Brown or The Minister s Black Veil, 
 than in a hundred sermons of the theologians. The material 
 setting is soon discovered to be only a screen upon which to 
 throw the spiritual portrait. 
 
 The long romances, of which but four stand completed, 
 differ from the tales chiefly in their greater elaborateness and 
 sharper delineation of character. The Scarlet Letter was the 
 first to be written and published. Poking among 
 the documentary rubbish of the custom house at 
 Salem, the author had brought to light a mysterious scrap of 
 old scarlet cloth with a few pages of explanatory record. Im 
 mediately his imagination began to work. Out of the haze of 
 two centuries the New England of the days when Richard 
 Bellingham sat in the governor s chair gradually arose; the 
 streets of Boston were peopled with hooded women, and 
 bearded men in steeple-crowned hats; the jail, the pillory, 
 the whipping-post, the finger of scorn, the badge of dishonor 
 all the grim accessories of the Puritan tribunal of justice, 
 became once more as things of reality; and upon this back 
 ground was projected the sorrowful drama of two sinning 
 human hearts, the one persecuted and the other self -tor 
 mented even beyond their sinning. Such was the substance 
 of The Scarlet Letter, a chapter out of old Puritan life in New 
 England, the work of a professed romancer, creating and 
 analyzing rather than recording, yet more compelling in its 
 truthfulness than the most painstaking of histories. 
 
 Perhaps no one of the three other romances quite equals 
 The Scarlet Letter in imaginative insight or dramatic intensity, 
 though taken together they show better the range of the 
 
HAWTHORNE 139 
 
 author s genius. The House of the Seven Gables, which is 
 likely to yield greater pleasure to the ordinary reader, pre 
 sents a more modern phase of the old New England life, with 
 somewhat less of analysis and more of movement. The 
 Blithedale Romance strikes farthest out of the Hawthornian 
 track, coming humanly near to our work-a-day world and 
 presenting characters that seem almost more real than the 
 real men and women, now fading into shadows, who once 
 peopled the high-hearted community at Brook Farm. The 
 Marble Faun, which was written last, during the years abroad, 
 differs outwardly from the others in having its scene laid in 
 Italy, and the story resolves itself into what, for those who 
 do not understand the purposes of Hawthorne, is only tan 
 talizing mystery. Yet it, like the others, is devoted to the 
 illumination of moral problems, and the characters are delin 
 eated with the same strength and delicacy, while in some of 
 its aspects it reveals the handiwork of a man still further 
 enriched by knowledge and ripened by experience. 
 
 The final seal of security upon Hawthorne s work is the 
 style in which it is written. Airy, sparkling, graceful, flow 
 ing, pellucid the style is all these and much more. 
 Hawthorne plays upon language as upon an instru 
 ment of many stops, and the swiftest changes, from irony to 
 pity and from humor to pathos, are made without a discor 
 dant note. Better, however, than any description will be an 
 example ; and we choose, from The House of the Seven Gables, 
 the picture of the hard-hearted Judge Pyncheon overtaken by 
 the ancestral curse and sitting dead in his chair while one 
 by one the hours of his appointments to business duties or 
 social pleasures creep steadily by : 
 
 "Well! it is absolutely too late for dinner! Turtle, salmon, tautog, 
 woodcock, boiled turkey, Southdown mutton, pig, roast beef, have 
 vanished, or exist only in fragments, with lukewarm potatoes, and 
 gravies crusted over with cold fat. The judge, had he done nothing 
 
140 ROMANCE 
 
 else, would have achieved wonders with his knife and fork. It was he, 
 you know, of whom it used to be said, in reference to his ogre-like 
 appetite, that his Creator made him a great animal, but that the dinner- 
 hour made, him a great beast. Persons of his large sensual endowments 
 must claim indulgence, at their feeding time. But, for once, the judge 
 is entirely too late for dinner! Too late, we fear, even to join the party 
 at their wine! The guests are warm and merry; they have given up the 
 judge; and, concluding that the free-soilers have him, they will fix upon 
 another candidate. Were our friend now to stalk in among them, with 
 that wide-open stare, at once wild and stolid, his ungenial presence 
 would be apt to change their cheer. Neither would it be seemly in 
 Judge Pyncheon, generally so scrupulous in his attire, to show himself 
 at a dinner-table with that crimson stain upon his shirt-bosom. By-the- 
 by, how came it there? It is an ugly sight, at any rate; and the wisest 
 way for the judge is to button his coat closely over his breast, and, tak 
 ing his horse and chaise from the livery-stable, to make all speed to 
 his own house. There, after a glass of brandy and water, and a mutton- 
 chop, a beef-steak, a broiled fowl, or some such hasty little dinner and 
 supper all in one, he had better spend the evening by the fire-side. He 
 must toast his slippers a long while, in order to get rid of the chilliness 
 which the air of this vile old house has sent curdling through his veins. 
 
 "Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon, up! You have lost a day. But 
 to-morrow will be here anon. Will you rise, betimes, and make the 
 most of it? To-morrow! To-morrow! To-morrow! We, that are 
 alive, may rise betimes to-morrow. As for him that has died to 
 day, his morrow will be the resurrection morn. 
 
 " Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward out of the corners 
 of the room. The shadows of the tall furniture grow deeper, and at 
 first become more definite; then, spreading wider, they lose their 
 distinctness of outline in the dark gray tide of oblivion, as it were, 
 that creeps slowly over the various objects, and the one human figure 
 sitting in the midst of them. The gloom has not entered from without; 
 it has brooded here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable time, 
 will possess itself of everything. The judge s face, indeed, rigid, and 
 singularly white, refuses to melt into this universal solvent. Fainter 
 and fainter grows the light. It is as if another double handful of dark 
 ness had been scattered through the air. Now it is no longer gray, but 
 sable. There is still a faint appearance at the window; neither a glow, 
 nor a gleam, nor a glimmer, any phrase of light would express some 
 thing far brighter than this doubtful perception, or sense, rather, that 
 there i.s a window there. Has it yet vanished? No! yes! not quite! 
 
HAWTHORNE 141 
 
 /\nd there is still the swarthy whiteness we shall venture to marry 
 these ill-agreeing words the swarthy whiteness of Judge Pyncheon s 
 face. The features are all gone; there is only the paleness of them left. 
 And how looks it now? There is no window! There is no face! An 
 infinite inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our 
 universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos, may 
 hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and murmur 
 ing about in quest of what was once a world! " 
 
 Hawthorne s romanticism, to turn from his style to the 
 
 atmosphere which envelops tales and romances alike, is of a 
 
 de P ecuuar type, strangely linking the past with the 
 
 toward present and the remote with the near. The Ger- 
 
 Romance. . . . 
 
 man romantic movement, with its return to feud 
 alism and mysticism, did not allure him. He never fell, as 
 did Irving and Longfellow, under the enchantment of 
 mediaeval history and legend. True, he named his eldest 
 daughter "Una," after Spenser s heroine, but only "to take 
 the name out of the realm of Faery." Certain old super 
 stitions had a charm for him witchcraft, for instance, and 
 demonology; and his fancy was continually playing with the 
 pseudo-science of alchemy. But these things were used only 
 for their symbolism he never took them seriously; he might 
 have borrowed from Ariosto or Cervantes the suspicion of 
 banter in his tone. 
 
 We might liken him to Brockden Brown, if Brown had not 
 attempted to construct spiritual dramas out of such forced 
 and mechanical situations. Or we might liken him to Poe, 
 who was fully his equal in art, if only Poe had imported more 
 of the human element into his eerie fancies. Two points of 
 contact with those strange spirits he certainly had, his 
 proneness to psychological analysis, and his preference of that 
 mysterious border land of human life which, if we may not 
 call it the supernatural, we must yet call the preternatural.* 
 
 * It is interesting to note that one of two poems which he appears to have written is in the 
 measure and much in the spirit of Coleridge s Ancient Manner. See Stedman s American 
 Anthology. 
 
142 ROMANCE 
 
 He felt assured that there are more things in heaven and earth 
 than were dreamed of in the philosophy of the utilitarians. 
 The world of hard matter-of-fact, of cold calculation of daily 
 needs, of supply and demand, of use, of convenience, of profit, 
 was not the world to engage his fancy. We cannot imagine 
 him making a novel out of a journalist s career or laying his 
 scenes in the wheat pit or the divorce court. The realists 
 might have the real world and welcome; he preferred that 
 twilight world of the fancy where objects take on all the 
 strange shapes imaginable, and where, if beauty is not, we 
 can still create it at will. 
 
 Yet his work, as has been hinted, is never without ground 
 in actuality. He may see fantastic visions in the clouds, but 
 
 his feet are always on the earth. He treads airily 
 d but securely. He was afraid of mysticism; he 
 
 shied at transcendentalism, though caught for a 
 time by one of its vagaries. Dreams were very fine, as 
 dreams, but he soon saw the mistake of confounding them 
 with reality a lesson learned possibly at Brook Farm. At 
 any rate, he came to know accurately the line that divides 
 the ideal from the real. It is true there are many things in 
 his tales that will not square with experience. Whoever 
 reads for the first time Feathertop, or Young Goodman Brown, 
 or The Snow Image, or The Birlh-Mark, or Rappaccini s 
 Daughter, is likely to rub his eyes to see if he is awake. Don- 
 atello s ears are a perpetual mystery. But we soon learn the 
 symbolic intent of these wild fancies. Often, indeed, Haw 
 thorne entirely rationalizes the fancies, or leaves them with 
 but a faint suggestion of the miraculous. Maule s well 
 turned bitter when a house was built over Maule s unquiet 
 grave; but we are reminded that the sources might have been 
 disturbed in digging the deep foundations. It is to such 
 methods as this, of which our example is but one of a hun 
 dred, methods which Brown used so bunglingly, that Haw- 
 
HAWTHORNE 143 
 
 thorne owes his secure tread. However wide the excursion 
 of his fancy, he is careful not to lose the way; and so he never 
 loses even the most prosaic reader s confidence. This is his 
 immense advantage over Poe. 
 
 A further proof of Hawthorne s foot-hold in actuality is to 
 be found in some of his chosen themes and scenes. His love 
 for nature never amounted to a passion, whether sentimental 
 or scientific, but he was acutely sensitive to the charms of 
 outdoor life, as a dozen sympathetic sketches like Buds and 
 Bird Voices and The Old Manse testify. He localizes strongly, 
 too. His Old Manse stands in marked contrast to the Do 
 main of Arnheim or the Landor s Cottage of Poe s dreams. 
 Ethan Brand, we know, was, in spite of his diabolical laugh, a 
 plain man who burned lime in the New England hills ; but who 
 was Roderick Usher and where did he dwell? The Great 
 Stone Face may be seen today; who but Poe ever saw the 
 Masquers of the Red Death? And there are the Town 
 Pump and the Salem Custom House and the Catacombs of 
 Rome. Assuredly, in its external features, this world of 
 Hawthorne s romances is our world, though it must be 
 admitted, too, that there is always something added or some 
 thing taken away that makes it seem like another world. 
 Of course there is idealization. We are not to suppose that 
 Blithedale is an absolutely faithful picture of Brook Farm. 
 Donatello the Faun bears little resemblance to Maurice 
 Hewlett s Italians. And The Scarlet Letter, with its scene 
 laid at the author s very door, reverts to the New England 
 of the past, where the fancy can at need escape from the 
 bounds of the actual. We readily perceive the difference 
 when we pass from the prologue of the Custom House to the 
 story proper. Yet The Scarlet Letter is a tale that by ideal 
 izing attains a more perfect verisimilitude than is ever 
 attained by photographic realism, becoming, one must 
 almost think, the final portrayal of Puritanism. 
 
144 ROMANCE 
 
 The characters of the stories, which are always few in 
 number, may be, best described as possessing precisely this 
 same peculiarity of seeming at once real and unreal. They 
 act normally and rationally. They move amid natural 
 surroundings. They say "Good-morning," and "Ah, I see," 
 and "Shut the door." They are neither like the caricatures 
 of Dickens nor like the impossible creatures of the old ro 
 mances, who are always doing impossible things. But 
 neither are they like the characters of the realists; that is to 
 say, they are not exactly the sort of people we have met or 
 ever quite expect to meet. It is because, as we have seen, 
 Hawthorne preferred to move in that border land of spiritual 
 life where fancy and speculation will always run in advance 
 of observation and knowledge. He does not shun the actual; 
 he simply rejects a large part of the actions and motives that 
 enter into every-day life as unsuited to his purpose, and 
 allows his characters to be governed in every thought and 
 deed by those principles of good or evil conduct which the 
 ordinary man knows well enough, but of which he is most of 
 the time scarcely conscious. There is in his characters so 
 much of the truth of inner life that they seem to be untrue to 
 outer life without really being so. One wonders how, shyly 
 and aloof as he lived, he came to understand so well the heart 
 of man. One is tempted to say that by some special dispen 
 sation he was given worldly wisdom without contact with the 
 world. Contact he undoubtedly had in his unobtrusive 
 way in his walks through New England and in his Custom 
 House and consular life. But it need not have been exten 
 sive; one experience would enrich him more than a dozen 
 would enrich other men. His Note Books, the great key to his 
 character, show this: his habit of noting and meditating 
 made each single experience fruitful. His imagination, too, 
 enabled him to learn as by divination. He did not need to 
 fight a duel; his friend Cilley fell in a duel and he got the whole 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 HENRY DAVID THOREAU 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
HAWTHORNE 145 
 
 spiritual experience. We know that he had, however it was 
 obtained, that admixture of worldliness so necessary to 
 breadth of genius. 
 
 Yet catholic as were his sympathies, it was the darker 
 
 phases of the interior drama that moved him when he came to 
 
 write. Balzac wrote what he called the Human 
 
 Shadow of Comedy. Hawthorne s work, so much narrower 
 
 Puritanism. 
 
 in scope and so much more intense in its seizure of 
 sin and sorrow, grappling with moral problems often to the 
 exclusion of intellectual and aesthetic ones, might well be 
 called the Human Tragedy. He has sometimes been 
 described as morbid, but that is not the right word. His own 
 tone and attitude are thoroughly healthy, though he does not 
 always keep in the sunshine. There is a large leaven of 
 humor in his work, and humor of the most genuine, spon 
 taneous kind. It would be interesting, if we had space, to 
 follow it through such a book as The House of the Seven Gables, 
 from the early chapters where it bubbles genially over the 
 little boy and his weakness for gingerbreads, to the final 
 phases of its subdued yet pitiless play about the stricken 
 Judge. Yet even there it only serves to throw the over 
 hanging shadow of the book into darker relief. And Haw 
 thorne knew it. He longed to write "a sunshiny book." 
 It was not that he loved the gloom, as the term "morbid" 
 would seem to imply, but only that he could not shut his 
 eyes to it. 
 
 Beyond question, the one fact of life and the world which 
 to Hawthorne looms larger than all others, is the fact of sin. 
 This, too, is the Puritan inheritance, though he is so far 
 emancipated as to see the sin of Puritanism itself, and in The 
 Scarlet Letter the sin of Hester Prynne pales before the sin of 
 her Puritan persecutors. But the shadows have only shifted 
 in one form or another the problem of evil holds for him an 
 unconquerable fascination. In Ethan Brand he plays with 
 
146 ROMANCE 
 
 the idea of the Unpardonable Sin, which he logically enough 
 makes to be the continual barring out of good influences. 
 In The House of the Seven Gables it is the problem of inherited 
 evil tendencies, made into romance by the fiction of an ances 
 tral curse. In The Scarlet Letter it is the sin of nature against 
 conscience, offset by the sins of social and religious creed 
 against nature, and complicated by the sins of hypocrisy and 
 revenge. In The Marble Faun it is the old drama of the 
 temptation and the fall of man. Yet these sombre themes 
 are not used to morbid ends. Sin itself is clearly shown 
 to be educative, playing a useful part in the beneficent 
 plan of the world. It does not, of course, lead to happi 
 ness, for the suffering and sorrow are necessary parts of the 
 education; but we mark Hester Prynne s broadened and 
 sweetened nature, and we know that Arthur Dimmesdale 
 the innocent would never have attained to the spirituality of 
 Arthur Dimmesdale the guilty. And Donatello, the happy, 
 the ignorant, the child-like, the faun-like, loves, commits mur 
 der, and steps at once into the common human inheritance of 
 knowledge and sorrow and hope. It is of such material as 
 this that the world s great books are made. 
 
 We have already spoken of Hawthorne s style. Let a 
 final word be said of his art in its larger aspects. The secret 
 of its greatness lies in the fact that it is not some 
 thing added to the man, but that, however care 
 fully cultivated, it is at bottom a genuine self-expression. 
 When a Longfellow writes a poem like Hiawatha we admire 
 the art, but we know it to be largely mechanical a thing of 
 much study and experiment. A Hawthorne writes as he 
 must. It was one of Emerson s theories that worthy matter 
 may safely be left to find its own form. Hawthorne wrote 
 greatly and nobly because he felt greatly and nobly. He 
 invested art with an almost religious sanctity. He could 
 stoop to no tricks; he could not even try to meet the taste of 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 147 
 
 the public. He envied Longfellow for his popularity, but 
 he felt that he must go his own way even though he hardly 
 knew where food for his family was to come from. Fame or 
 popularity did not enter into his calculations. He was one 
 more artist who, after Emerson s ideal, "wrought in a sad 
 sincerity." 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 1812-1896 
 
 It would be in some degree an abuse of terms to include in 
 a chapter on romance such distinctly moral and instructive 
 tales as the once popular story of The Lamplighter (1853) by 
 Maria S. Cummins, of Salem, or the juvenile Rollo and Lucy 
 Books which from 1830 onward Jacob Abbott, a Maine clergy 
 man, used to turn out by the score. Nor is a history of litera 
 ture imperatively called upon to take account of such as these. 
 But they are at least interesting as showing the purposeful 
 nature of the New England temperament so purposeful that 
 even its popular fiction, no less than its creations of a finer 
 art, moved along sober lines to didactic ends. It is precisely 
 this nature that was brought to the creation of a book which 
 not only far transcended these and all other American novels 
 in popularity, but which rose almost to the level of great 
 literature. That book, of course, was Uncle Tom s Cabin, 
 and its author was Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
 
 It is not to be understood that Mrs. Stowe wrote very con 
 sciously toward the end she served, but only that when she 
 came to write she brought to the work all the moral convic 
 tion which arose from New England birth in a family of 
 divines. As a matter of fact, her book was produced in a 
 rather haphazard fashion. Her early married years were 
 spent at Cincinnati, where she had some opportunities of 
 becoming acquainted with Southern life, including the insti 
 tution of slave-holding. It was later, in 1851, when she was 
 living at Brunswick, Maine, where her husband was a pro 
 fessor in Bowdoin College, that she was asked by the editor 
 
148 ROMANCE 
 
 of the Washington National Era to write for his paper a 
 sketch of slave life. She wrote out and sent him the scene of 
 "The Death of Uncle Tom." The attention which this 
 sketch excited moved her to add other scenes, and in 1852 
 the entire novel, thus irregularly put together, was published. 
 The sales ran at once into the hundreds of thousands, and the 
 influence which the book had in helping to crystallize the 
 slowly gathering sentiment against slave-holding is quite 
 incalculable. The characters of Uncle Tom, Topsy, little 
 Eva, Miss Ophelia, St. Clair, Marks, Legree, fixed them 
 selves at once in the popular fancy as so many real persons. 
 
 Indeed, the book was in intent more a novel than a ro 
 mance, for Mrs. Stowe aimed to set forth life as it really was. 
 Readers of course made the mistake of assuming that all 
 slavery was as bad as the one picture of it which she drew, and 
 so she was often charged with exaggeration. But that she 
 meant to be just, and that she was aiming, not at a section of 
 people, but at a national crime, is shown by the fact that some 
 of the best characters in the book are Southerners, w r hile the 
 brutal slave-driver is of the North. The story is deficient 
 in many points of art, but it has the art of life real people 
 and real passions, humor, pathos, dramatic situation and 
 action and this, even apart from its political and social 
 interest, would doubtless have carried it well into favor. 
 
 Yet the strength of the book on this point is scarcely suffi 
 cient to insure its future vitality. If the extent of a writer s 
 audience and the measure of his immediate influence were 
 the final tests, and not artistic excellence and the measure 
 of his insight into the eternal verities of the human spirit, 
 Mrs. Stowe would deserve to stand with the major novelists 
 of her time. But the book to which her fame is inseparably 
 bound grew out of a single social movement, and it will 
 surely suffer the final eclipse that overtakes all such produc 
 tions. The movement, as it chanced in this case, was of 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 149 
 
 extraordinary significance, and the fate of the book is there 
 fore indefinitely postponed, but already it has long been more 
 like a historical document than a living force. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe continued to exercise her gift for drawing 
 character, and some of her later stories such sketches of 
 New England village life, for instance, as The Minister s 
 Wooing (1859) and Oldtown Folks (1869) would in them 
 selves give her a respectable place among writers of fiction. 
 But these books are in no sense romances. With Mrs. 
 Stowe s later work, indeed, those phases of romantic activity 
 which it has been the purpose of the present chapter to set 
 forth, are practically lost sight of, and the realistic novel of 
 the post-bellum period begins to appear. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT. EMERSON, 
 THOREAU 
 
 There has been in American literature but one instance of 
 anything like a conscious and organized intellectual "move 
 ment." The groups of writers we have thus far considered 
 are groups made by the historian of literature who, looking 
 back over the field, tries to bring men and events into some 
 definite relations. Writers have been discussed together, not 
 because they consciously worked together, but because they 
 were contemporaries or because they chanced to possess 
 similar traits. But about a decade before the middle of the 
 nineteenth century a few men and women in New England, 
 holding certain views of life and morals, made a deliberate 
 attempt to unite for the defence and spread of their views; 
 and though they never effected any organization that could 
 be called a church, nor even established a permanent school 
 of philosophy, they did make a strong impression upon the 
 intellectual life of their time, and their theories had issue in a 
 small but very vital body of literature. The history, there 
 fore, of Transcendentalism a ponderous but not unfitting 
 name which these thinkers themselves imported from abroad 
 and which, though it was often employed by others in ridicule, 
 they always treated gravely belongs peculiarly to the his 
 tory of American literature. 
 
 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 In the theology of New England, Calvinism had for two 
 centuries held its own almost unchallenged. But the spirit of 
 revolution and free thought that, about 1800, was working 
 
 150 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN NEW ENGLAND 151 
 
 such changes in Europe, made itself felt also in America, and 
 the sterner features of the religion of the Puritans had to give 
 way before it. Many found it no longer possible to subscribe 
 to the old doctrines, which taught, among other things, that 
 human nature is totally depraved and that only certain 
 "elect" are marked for salvation. They began to declare 
 more liberal views, and their declarations rapidly crystallized 
 into what is now familiarly known as Unitarianism. This 
 was a form of faith which practically ignored all revelation 
 outside of conscience, holding that man must look for guid 
 ance solely to the moral nature within, believing it to be 
 good, and so between himself and the one God work out his 
 salvation. 
 
 The new theology spread, if not far, at least so effectually 
 that it was soon established at the Divinity School at Harvard 
 and in many of the prominent churches in and about Boston. 
 Its growth and influence were largely due to that great 
 vindicator of personal character as against professed creed, 
 Dr. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), who was regarded 
 through the thirty-odd years of his ministry at Boston as the 
 most eloquent pulpit orator in America, and whose works are 
 still held in high respect. Other prominent advocates were 
 Theodore Parker (1810-1860), who gave to the cause his 
 youthful zeal, and James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888), one 
 of the foremost of the later Unitarians, both in the pulpit 
 and in letters. 
 
 Of course, the old church was not overthrown. Congre 
 gationalism, though of a liberalized type, still prevailed in 
 many parts of New England as it did elsewhere. And in 
 Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), who preached at Hartford, and 
 Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), who preached at Brooklyn, 
 Congregationalism had, through the middle of the century, 
 exponents nearly or quite as distinguished as Channing, 
 But though these two published as well as preached Beecher 
 
152 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 even wrote a novel they scarcely concern us here. Neither 
 Congregationalism nor Unitarianism, as such, produced any 
 thing in the nature of enduring literature, and their progress 
 has been glanced at here only because it will assist to an 
 understanding of the half-religious and half-philosophical 
 Transcendental movement, which, as was said, does touch 
 literature closely enough to demand our attention. 
 
 Into the precise origin of this movement we need not 
 inquire. Doubtless the underlying philosophical ideas are 
 older than Plato or Buddha, and were transmitted from the 
 far East. The immediate impulse came from the philoso 
 phers of Germany, through many agents, conspicuously the 
 English Coleridge and Carlyle. Beginning as a speculative 
 philosophy only, it struck in New England upon very ardent 
 moralists and very practical-minded men, among whom had 
 already been sown the seeds of liberalism, and who, dissatis 
 fied with their old forms and creeds, caught up this attractive 
 philosophy and proceeded at once to erect it into a kind of 
 gospel and guide of life. At the base of it lay what is called 
 idealism the reliance, as the word implies, upon ideas, or the 
 world within, as the only sure testimony we can have of 
 matter, or the world without. Transcendentalism (as under 
 stood in New England not the Transcendentalism of the 
 German Kant) meant the belief that within the mind are 
 certain intuitions, or knowledge of truth and right, that 
 transcend, that is to say, go beyond, are independent of, all 
 experience. Whence these intuitions come we do not know; 
 nor can we logically prove their validity "truths which 
 pertain to the soul cannot be proved by any external testi 
 mony whatsoever." We can only follow, with implicit 
 trust, the "inner light." This, of course, is sheer individual 
 ism, the doctrine of the Unitarians pushed to its extreme, 
 making every man his own moral guide and sweeping away at 
 a blow all theological systems. It is therefore no matter for 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN NEW ENGLAND 153 
 
 surprise that many men, among them notably Theodore 
 Parker, were carried partly or completely outside of the 
 Unitarian church. 
 
 The movement, however, was not of a nature to attract 
 the masses. It differed from "The Great Awakening," that 
 religious revival of a century earlier,* in being less sudden, 
 less violent, and in every way more restricted. It differed 
 radically, too, from the temperance and abolition movements 
 of its own time, both of which owed much to it, in that these, 
 being more definite "causes," could be fought out on the 
 platform or by the people at the polls. Transcendentalism 
 was a cult of the cultured, and the other classes scarcely 
 knew of its existence. Yet, though stripped of emotional 
 and popular elements, it was none the less a wave of senti 
 ment and reform a genuine quickening of spiritual life. 
 It had a large element of religion in it. Nothing could 
 lightly shake the moral earnestness of the New Englanders, 
 deepened as it was by more than two centuries of perse 
 cutions, hardships, and wars. The Unitarianism that came 
 to divide the old church was altogether reverent and serious. 
 And when new doctrines came to burst even the wide bonds 
 of Unitarianism, there was still never any thought of giving 
 up the fundamental principles of morality and religion. 
 Men concerned themselves no longer about special schemes 
 of salvation. But they were all the more deeply concerned 
 about right living and thinking; and the common definition of 
 Transcendentalism as a doctrine of "plain living and high 
 thinking," loose as it is, is by no means bad. 
 
 Some definite facts may serve to set the movement in a 
 clearer light. 
 
 Some time in 1836 a little knot of men and women began 
 to meet in Boston, drawn together by a common interest 
 in matters that affected religion, and especially the condition 
 
 * See page 30. 
 
154 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 of the Unitarian Church. This knot, though never definitely 
 organized, came to be known in time as the Transcendental 
 Club. Among those who took part in its meetings were 
 Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau, the Ripleys, the Channings, Theo 
 dore Parker, James Freeman Clarke, George Bancroft, Haw 
 thorne, Cranch, Jones Very, Margaret Fuller, Miss Elizabeth 
 and Miss Sophia Peabody. In 1840 The Dial, a quarterly 
 magazine, was established as the organ of the movement. 
 For the first number Emerson wrote the introductory words, 
 remarking upon what he called "the progress of a revolution" 
 in the society of New England, and dedicating the magazine 
 to all who were "united in a common love of truth and love 
 of its work," who had "given in their several adherence to a 
 new hope," and who had "signified a greater trust in the 
 nature and resources of man than the laws or the popular 
 opinions would well allow." The editorship was held by 
 Margaret Fuller for two years and then passed to Emerson 
 for two years more, when the paper died for lack of support. 
 The numbers were freely given away or destroyed, so that 
 today a complete file is exceedingly difficult to obtain. It 
 contained much literature of high quality, notably Emerson s 
 contributions, and also a great deal of mystical jargon. 
 
 Of the more practical outcomes of this new-world attempt 
 to bring philosophy down from the heavens to the earth, the 
 most famous was the Brook Farm experiment. In 1840 
 George Ripley, later known as a literary editor and critic, 
 resigned from the ministry and purchased a farm at West 
 Roxbury, Massachusetts, persuading a number of others to 
 co-operate with him in establishing there an agricultural 
 association. Their object was to see whether the brain and 
 the hand could not be made to work advantageously together; 
 whether the same individual might not be both thinker and 
 worker, and thus find for himself a simpler, freer, and happier 
 life. They proposed also to conduct for the younger mem- 
 
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN NEW ENGLAND 155 
 
 bers a school in accordance with these Arcadian principles. 
 The Transcendental Club had no direct part in Brook Farm; 
 most of the members of the club, indeed, were rather opposed 
 to it. But Bipley and his dozen or more associates (Haw 
 thorne, we have seen, was one, and Charles A. Dana, later 
 of the New York Sun, another) moved to the farm in the 
 spring of 1841 and set to work in high spirits. For several 
 years the enterprise was conducted with some measure of 
 success. Alcott, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, W. H. Channing, 
 Cranch, Horace Greeley, were all occasional visitors, inter 
 ested arid sometimes sympathetic ; Higginson and Lowell also 
 passed that way; George William Curtis was there as a 
 student. But the experiment changed form, and ended, 
 after a few more years, in failure. 
 
 Doubtless there were at this period, when reform was "in 
 the air," many reformers who expected too much of human 
 nature. They fancied that wonderful revolutions could be 
 brought about in a day, as if a man could, by taking thought, 
 add a cubit to his stature. And many of the methods pro 
 posed were extravagant in the extreme. Manual labor was 
 all very well; even a vegetarian diet might be tolerated; but 
 wherein lay the peculiar virtue of white garments, w T hich 
 Alcott insisted upon wearing? "Some," says Low r ell, in his 
 essay on Thoreau, "had assurance of instant millenium so 
 soon as hooks and eyes should be substituted for buttons." 
 But in spite of mistakes and extravagances, and a host of 
 beliefs and incidents that the pen of a Lowell could readily 
 turn to ridicule, there was in Transcendentalism so much 
 faith and nobility and unselfish endeavor, and New England 
 life was so much a gainer from it, that it is impossible to 
 regard it uncharitably. 
 
 The reformers spent their energies in various ways, as 
 Parker in the pulpit, Ripley on the farm, Greeley and Dana 
 through the press; but for the most part their individual influ- 
 
156 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 ences have long since been lost in the great current of human 
 endeavor. A few worked in letters to scarcely more enduring 
 fame. There was Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), the re 
 puted head of the movement, the originality of whose 
 methods of teaching earned for him the title of "the American 
 Pestalozzi," and who contributed to The Dial "Orphic 
 Sayings" of oracular sound and unfathomable meaning. 
 There was the ill-fated Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1810-1850), 
 friend of Emerson and editor of The Dial,, perhaps the one 
 American woman of her day fitted by intellect and training 
 to associate with the men of her set upon equal terms, but 
 who lost her life in a ship-wreck just when her powers, chiefly 
 critical, were fully ripened. There were poets, too William 
 Ellery Channing, the younger (1818-1901), of Concord, the 
 friend and elegiast of Thoreau, and Christopher Pearse 
 Cranch (1813-1892), a landscape painter of Cambridge, 
 translator of Vergil s Aeneid (1872), and author of the familiar 
 lines : 
 
 "Thought is deeper than all speech, 
 Feeling deeper than all thought." 
 
 Both of these were contributors to The Dial. Another poet, 
 somewhat further removed from the Concord circle, was 
 Jones Very, of Salem (1813-1880), a strange religious recluse 
 and mystic, who wrote many poems and sonnets of a merit 
 quite out of proportion to their slender fame. But these 
 names all pale before the name of him in whom for us Trans 
 cendentalism virtually has its beginning and end, and mainly 
 because of whom this history has been revived. 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1803-1882 
 
 Hawthorne inscribed on the walls of his tower-study at the 
 Wayside, "There is no joy but calm," and the motto would 
 have suited well most of that coterie of men whose dreams 
 were nurtured by the quiet Concord the old Grass-ground or 
 
EMERSON 157 
 
 Meadow River and in the Massachusetts town whose 
 name means peace. It would have suited none better than 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, placid in temperament even 
 beyond the others, lived always the simple life of the phil 
 osopher that he was. He was born at Boston, May 25, 1803. 
 The blood of seven generations of clergymen ran in his veins. 
 One of those clergymen, Peter Bulkeley, founded and named 
 the town of Concord; another, William Emerson, was the 
 builder of the Old Manse, and a patriot of the Revolution 
 who preached to the minute-men. All were in their way 
 heroic men. One prayed every night that no descendant 
 of his might ever be rich; one gave away his wife s only pair 
 of shoes to a woman who appeared at the door barefoot on a 
 frosty morning. 
 
 Ralph Waldo himself was reared hardily. His father 
 
 died when he was but eight years old, and his mother was 
 
 forced to take in boarders. An aunt was once 
 
 Youth. 
 
 overheard consoling the children for want of food 
 with "stories of heroic endurance." He and his brother had 
 but one overcoat between them, and hard lot for a New 
 England boy he never had a sled. Later in life he wrote 
 glowingly of "the Angels of Toil and Want," and extolled 
 "the iron band of poverty, the hoop that holds men staunch." 
 At school he was quiet and studious, taking little interest 
 in sports and making but moderate progress in his studies. 
 It has been said of him that "he never had any talent for 
 anything nothing but pure genius;" and the genius was 
 certainly slow to manifest itself. The hopes of the family 
 centred in a younger and more brilliant brother, whose mind 
 and body, however, broke early under their severer strain. 
 
 He entered Harvard, mostly working his way, and taking 
 his degree in 1821. For the next few years he taught, rather 
 indifferently. One of his pupils was young Dana, and 
 Emerson wrote afterwards of Two Years Before the Mast: 
 
158 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 "Have you seen young Dana s book? Good as Robinson 
 
 Crusoe, and all true. He was my scholar once, but he never 
 
 learned this of me, more s the pity." At this 
 
 At School* 
 
 stage Emerson was ambitious to become a pulpit 
 orator, but he was growing more and more dissatisfied with 
 himself, feeling that his abilities were in no direction adequate 
 to his ambitions. The reasoning faculty seemed to be denied 
 him, and its place was but ill supplied by imagination and a 
 keen relish for poetry. He called himself an intellectual 
 saunterer, "sinfully strolling from book to book, from care 
 to idleness." Fortunately, he was a stroller, too, in another 
 sense; he more than once declared that nothing yielded him 
 so much pleasure as to steal away over the meadows and 
 through the bushes, "picking blueberries and other trash of 
 the woods, far from fame behind the birch trees." And he 
 adds a strange commentary upon the attitude of his fellows 
 toward nature : "I do not think I know a creature who has 
 the same humor, or would think it respectable." He had to 
 "slink" away. One of his earliest poems, the familiar 
 "Good-bye, proud world! I m going home," was written 
 at the time when, toward the end of his school-teaching, he 
 went with his mother to her new home in the wooded seclu 
 sion of Canterbury Lane, where for a time he sought to put 
 himself "on a footing of old acquaintance with Nature, as a 
 poet should." 
 
 The teaching paved the way to a course in Divinity, which 
 followed. After several interruptions caused by a weak chest, 
 
 which drove him once to South Carolina and 
 Church. Florida, Emerson was licensed to preach, and in 
 
 1829 was ordained minister of the Second Church 
 of Boston, the old North Church of Cotton Mather. In the 
 same year he married, but his wife died within eighteen 
 months. His relations with the people of his church were 
 most cordial and his future looked bright, if not exactly 
 
EMERSON 159 
 
 brilliant. But certain conscientious scruples, which had all 
 along troubled him, would not let him rest. Even the slight 
 formalism of his church, already liberalized beyond Cotton 
 Mather s most uneasy dreams, he found too great. Forms 
 seemed to stand between him and pure religion. To admin 
 ister the Lord s Supper while regarding it as an obsolete rite, 
 perhaps worse than useless, seemed, to one of his sincere 
 mind, a kind of sacrilege. In 1832 he withdrew from his 
 charge. His friends feared that he was mentally deranged. 
 He was following an inner light that had not yet shone clearly 
 enough for them to see. Meanwhile, he went to Europe, not 
 for art or scenery, but to meet men, Coleridge, Landor, 
 Wordsworth, above all Carlyle, another man maturing slowly 
 and still misunderstood and almost unknown. He spent an 
 evening of quiet thought with Carlyle at his lonely Craigen- 
 puttock home, and the next morning Carlyle watched him 
 mount the hill and "vanish like an angel." Two obscure men 
 of genius had met and recognized each other. Several years 
 later Emerson introduced Carlyle s original and startling 
 Sartor Resartus, to American readers while English readers 
 were still looking askance. The two never afterward lost 
 touch, and their lifelong correspondence makes a book of 
 rare interest. 
 
 The year 1835 found Emerson living with his mother in 
 
 the Old Manse at Concord, meditating and writing, rather 
 
 aimlessly, as Hawthorne was doing at Salem. He 
 
 At Concord. . . , . 
 
 soon married again, and buying a house ot his 
 own, settled in Concord for the rest of his life. At the 
 second centennial anniversary of the town, in 1835, he deliv 
 ered an address, and on the anniversary of the battle of 
 Lexington, April 19, 1836, at the completion of the Battle 
 Monument, was sung his now famous hymn : 
 
 "By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
 Their flag to April s breeze unfurled, 
 
160 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood 
 
 And fired the shot heard round the world." , 
 
 His mornings were spent in the study, his afternoons in walk 
 ing or gardening. He did some lecturing at Boston and else 
 where. For the rest, his half idyllic life suited him, and he 
 indulged his rural fancy by buying several tracts of woodland 
 on the shores of Wai den Pond. 
 
 In the year and the month in which the Transcendental 
 Club came into being, September, 1836, Emerson published 
 his first book, the slow growth of three years or more. Nature, 
 he entitled it, showing already his liking for brief titles, which 
 allow the widest latitude of treatment. It was but a small 
 book, as space-measurements go eight short chapters, that 
 would have made one good lecture in all. But almost every 
 sentence had the weight of a lecture. " Nature always wears 
 the colors of the spirit." "The eye is the best of artists." 
 " Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue." " Every natural 
 action is graceful." " A work of art is an abstract or epitome 
 of the world." "All things are moral." " A man is a god in 
 ruins." " It is a sufficient account of that appearance we call 
 the world that God will [i. e., wills to] reach a human mind, 
 and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent 
 sensations, which we call sun and moon, man and woman, 
 house and trade." "Build, therefore, your own world." 
 It is readily seen that this was a declaration of the idealistic 
 philosophy, or rather faith. External nature is conceived of 
 as none other than God apparent, God making himself mani 
 fest. There is little philosophical reasoning, but mainly 
 broad, frank, confident statement. Whoever shall try to 
 analyze the book for logical coherence of thought will be 
 sadly puzzled. "I cannot argue," Emerson would say, 
 "I only know." He distrusted reasoning, and lived and 
 thought by his creed, "Revere your intuitions." And this, 
 as we have seen, is the substance of Transcendentalism. 
 
EMERSON 161 
 
 Nature, which joined to its mysticism genuine insight, was 
 the foremost document of the new movement, and though 
 the little tract did not circulate widely, it went deep. Those 
 who could not sympathize with its philosophy could at least 
 feel its poetic beauty: 
 
 "I see the spectacle of morning from the hilltop over against my 
 house from daybreak to sunrise, with emotions which an angel might 
 share. The long, slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of 
 crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into the silent 
 sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchant 
 ment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. 
 How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me 
 health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. 
 The dawn is my Assyria; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and 
 unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the 
 senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic 
 philosophy and dreams." 
 
 The next year, 1837, Emerson delivered before the Phi 
 Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, his address on The 
 A Lecturer American Scholar "an event," Lowell declared 
 in his essay on Thoreau, "without any former 
 parallel in our literary annals." To this high praise of 
 Lowell s may be added the testimony of Holmes, who called 
 the address "our intellectual Declaration of Independence." 
 Certainly, one who would know Emerson at his best can do no 
 better than turn to this second great confession of his faith 
 and read it through. Even extracts show its dominant note 
 to be inspiring individuality : 
 
 "Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning 
 of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are 
 rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign 
 harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing 
 themselves. Who can doubt that poetry will revive and lead in a new 
 age, as the star in the constellation Harp, which now flames in our 
 zenith, astronomers announce, shall one day be the pole-star for a 
 thousand years? . . . 
 
162 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 "The old fable concerns a doctrine ever new and sublime; that 
 there is One Man, present to all particular men only partially, or through 
 one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole 
 man. Man is riot a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is 
 all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and 
 soldier. In the divided or social state these functions are parcelled 
 out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint 
 work, whilst each other performs his. ... In this distribution 
 of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state 
 he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of 
 society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot 
 of other men s thinking. 
 
 "Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. 
 What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to 
 effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see 
 a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, 
 and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, 
 of value, is the active soul. ... In its essence it is progressive. 
 The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop 
 with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, let us 
 hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not 
 forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his fore 
 head, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. . . . Man 
 Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the 
 scholar s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too 
 precious to be wasted in other men s transcripts of their readings. 
 
 "In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the 
 scholar be, free and brave. . . . The man has never lived that 
 can feed us ever. The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person 
 who shall set a barrier on any side to this unbounded, unboundable 
 empire. It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of the lips of 
 JStna, lightens the Capes of Sicily, and now out of the throat of Vesu 
 vius, illuminates the towers and vineyards of Naples. It is one light 
 which beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates 
 all men." 
 
 An address, delivered the next year before the Divinity 
 class at Cambridge, helped to fix the impression that a new 
 leader had arisen, though even then few realized what a 
 revolution he was leading. Emerson s manner was ST quiet, 
 
EMERSON 163 
 
 his ideals were so lofty, and his faith was so serene, that he 
 won his way almost unopposed. Holmes said that he was 
 "an iconoclast without a hammer, who took down our idols 
 from their pedestals so tenderly that it seemed like an act of 
 worship." His first volume of Essays was published in 1841 ; 
 and today there are few readers who do not know something 
 of "History," "Self -Reliance," "Compensation," "Hero 
 ism," or "The Over-Soul." The second series, of a more 
 practical, less seer-like nature " Character," "Manners," 
 " Gifts," " Politics," followed in 1844. This was the period 
 of his editorship of The Dial Then came Poems, in 1847; 
 Representative Men (lectures delivered in 1845, a kind of 
 complement to Carlyle s Heroes), in 1850; English Traits, 
 1856; The Conduct of Life, 1860; May-Day and Other Pieces 
 (poems), 1867; Society and Solitude, 1870. Meanwhile, he 
 carried on his lecturing in the East, went to England and lec 
 tured in 1847, and between 1850 and 1870, during the flour 
 ishing period of the "Lyceum" or Lecture Bureau system, 
 made regular winter tours as far west as the Mississippi. In 
 deed, his early Boston lectures marked almost the beginning 
 of that system which grew in this country to such great pro 
 portions, carrying into nearly every village of the North the 
 best products of the country s culture through speakers of 
 such eminent worth as Emerson, Everett, Phillips, Gough, 
 Beecher, Holmes, Agassiz, Taylor, and Curtis. 
 
 By 1870 Emerson s work was nearly done. He was 
 accepted everywhere as one of those rare and essentially great 
 men who, by simply being themselves and utter 
 ing what they feel, show what a gulf of superiority 
 is fixed between them and all who strive and climb. He was 
 something more than lecturer, or essayist, or poet; he was the 
 "Sage of Concord," whom all delighted to honor. When his 
 house burned, in 1872, his friends sent him off to Europe 
 and Egypt and rebuilt the house. People would still insist 
 
164 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 upon hearing him speak, though he but repeated old speeches. 
 His mind was clear, but his memory and vitality were both 
 failing. "My memory hides itself," he would say. He 
 read as late as 1881 before the Concord School of Philosophy. 
 He attended Longfellow s funeral in March, 1882, but, it is 
 said, could not recall Longfellow s name. His own death 
 came a month later; and he was buried near Hawthorne and 
 Thoreau in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, on the pine ridge 
 where a piece of unhewn granite marks his grave. 
 
 It has been said that Emerson spent his life in teaching 
 
 one thing a statement, indeed, that will hold of most great 
 
 teachers, but of none more literally. In Emerson s 
 
 Philosophy. . J 
 
 doctrine of the transcendent value of the inner rev 
 elation is to be found the key to his life and thought. It 
 explains, for example his attitude toward science and 
 nature. Nature without is as nature within, and, in his 
 conception, is but an infinite variation of the lesson of beauty 
 and order that the Great Spirit will have us learn. He cared 
 nothing for details. Details, he said, are melancholy. The 
 large significance is the main thing. And the smallest life 
 includes all: understand one, you understand all. "Who 
 telleth one of my meanings," says the Sphinx, "is master of all 
 I am." Thus all things in life are unified, and everything, 
 down to the humblest organism and the humblest occupation, 
 is glorified. Hence, too, the doctrine of self-reliance, which 
 is only intuitionalism and individualism in other words. This 
 doctrine he carried so far that he distrusted all concerted 
 efforts for the betterment of society. He rejected Ripley s 
 invitation to join in the Brook Farm experiment. "At 
 the name of a society all my repulsions play, all my quills rise 
 and sharpen." What was the need of men standing together 
 when they could stand alone? He was stirring up a nation s 
 moral heroism by giving to each man the courage of his 
 opinion. . 
 
EMERSON 165 
 
 We talk of disciples of this man or that, but "a disciple of 
 Emerson" would be a contradiction of terms. For Emerson s 
 very teaching frees the pupil from allegiance. He never said, 
 "Follow me," but, in effect, "Follow the divinity within 
 yourself, rely on your part in the Over-Soul. Never mind 
 dogmas or other men s opinions; never mind appearances; 
 never mind the conclusions of logic; simply do what you feel 
 to be right. If you will accept the place that Providence has 
 given you, living your own life without envy or self-effacing 
 imitation, all will be well." A noble philosophy indeed for 
 the inherently noble, though one is often made to feel that 
 its serene assurance does not take a sufficient account of sin 
 and the weakness of unaided human nature. 
 
 The style in which Emerson wrote was of a piece with his 
 substance. It is best described as oracular. Its want of 
 m st le sequence, which puts it in strong contrast, for 
 example, to a style like De Quincey s or New 
 man s, arises naturally, since Emerson did not arrive at truth 
 by subtle reasoning but simply gave forth the ideas as they 
 came to him, in the tersest form. It is almost literally true 
 that some of his essays can be read backward as well as for 
 ward. The relation between two sentences may sometimes 
 be discovered by supplying the right connective, but more 
 often there is no close relation. If a paragraph or sentence 
 should fall out of one of his books, no one could tell where to 
 replace it. He was in the habit of selecting a subject for a 
 lecture and then throwing together from his note books all 
 the scraps he could find that bore on the subject. Thus the 
 relation of parts is not like that of the links of a chain, but 
 more like that of the spokes of a wheel, which radiate from a 
 central hub. Yet through all there is such a singleness of 
 manner and personality that we are scarcely aware, as in so 
 many writers of detached thoughts, of any lack of construc- 
 tiveness. The sentences are short and well turned, the 
 
166 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 words direct, strong, and often homely, the figures original 
 and quaint, with a play of humor always just beneath the 
 surface. He is the most quotable writer since Bacon. His 
 epigrams are a constant stimulus, his aphorisms a constant 
 satisfaction. He takes particular delight in the paradoxical, 
 often finding the greater truth in inversion. "Books are for 
 the scholar s idle times." "The highest price you can pay for 
 a thing is to ask it." "The borrower runs in his own debt." 
 "Our strength grows out of our weakness." "We are wiser 
 than we know." This is Poor Richard spiritualized at last. 
 
 We have said too little of Emerson s poetry. In essence a 
 poet, and in methods a seer, he should have spoken in the 
 language of seers. And at times he did so speak, 
 with rare effect. He was happier than Carlyle in 
 having some gift of song. But the gift was partial only. He 
 had a good ear for melody but not for the higher harmonies of 
 verse. In his poetry lame lines and imperfect rhymes are 
 frequent. Perhaps he followed too implicitly his own theory 
 that truth, uttered under conviction, would find its own per 
 fect form. He fell most naturally into the simplest of metres, 
 the four-foot couplet, and some of his best thoughts found 
 their final expression in this form. 
 
 There are two notable things in Emerson s poetry, the 
 half-mystical philosophy of which he oftentimes made it the 
 voice, and the love of nature which we have seen to be so inti 
 mate a part of the man. Among the poems embodying the 
 former quality, the best are The Sphinx, The Problem, Uriel, 
 Alphonzo of Castile, Merlin, Saadi, Brahma. But Philosophy 
 rarely makes so good poetry as do simple perception of beauty 
 and the emotions which beauty stirs. Emerson as a philoso 
 pher-poet must fall below Lucretius or even below old Omar 
 Khayyam, but Emerson as a poet of nature has not many 
 superiors. Take some of his most ragged lines the song of 
 the pine in Woodnotes: 
 
EMERSON 167 
 
 "Heed the old oracles, 
 
 Ponder my spells; 
 Song wakes in my pinnacles 
 
 When the wind swells. 
 Soundeth the prophetic wind, 
 The shadows shake on the rock behind, 
 And the countless leaves of the pine are strings 
 Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings. 
 
 Harken! Harken! 
 
 If thou wouldst know the mystic song 
 Chanted when the sphere was young." 
 
 This is pure lyric rapture, uncontainable melody, born of a 
 heart that beats in tune with the heart of mother Earth. And 
 there is much more as good, or better, in the joyful prelud- 
 ings of May -Day, or the proud boasts of Monadnoc, "moun 
 tain strong" and "grand affirmer of the present tense," 
 scorner of the little men who daily climb his side, yet patient 
 waiter for the poet who in large thoughts shall "string him 
 like a bead." Read also Each and All, Rhodora, The Humble- 
 Bee, The Snow-Storm, Days, The Titmouse, Two Rivers. The 
 poem of The Humble-Bee seems almost to shine, so saturated 
 is it with the heat and light of summer. But even in these 
 poems the philosopher is rarely out of sight. Behind the 
 phenomena of nature are always the deep meanings meant to 
 be revealed, "always," says Mr. Stedman, "the idea of Soul, 
 central and pervading, of which Nature s forms are but the 
 created symbols." 
 
 There is one poem, the Threnody, that is almost too sacred 
 to be handled critically, since grief has its own rhythm, and 
 broken utterance obeys a higher law than art s. Emerson s 
 boy Waldo, 
 
 "The hyacinthine boy, for whom 
 Morn well might break and April bloom," 
 
 died at the age of five. That memory at least never left the 
 man, who almost the last thing before he died, forty years,, 
 
168 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 afterward, said, "Oh, that beautiful boy!" The Threnody 
 croons through the first stages of sorrow, the sense of mere 
 loss and aching memories, 
 
 "The painted sled stands where it stood, 
 The kennel by the corded wood;" 
 
 bursts suddenly into passionate protest against Nature ; grows 
 calm again with consolation; and then rises to the highest note 
 of all the seer-like vision and the deep Heart s utterance : 
 
 " When frail Nature can no more, 
 Then the Spirit strikes the hour: 
 My servant Death, with solving rite, 
 Pours finite into infinite. 
 Wilt thou freeze love s tidal flow, 
 Whose streams through nature circling go? 
 Nail the wild star to its track 
 On the half -climbed zodiac? 
 Light is light which radiates, 
 Blood is blood which circulates, 
 Life is life which generates, 
 And many seeming life is one, 
 W T ilt thou transfix and make it none?" 
 
 Then comes the confident close, voicing the verdict of the 
 faith of centuries : 
 
 "What is excellent 
 As God lives, is permanent; 
 Hearts are dust, hearts loves remain; 
 Heart s love will meet thee again." 
 
 It is doubtful if there be a more exalted strain than this in 
 American poetry. 
 
 There have been several attempts of late to revalue Emer 
 son and his work, and the tendency is to abate much of the 
 former high estimate. It is a critical tendency, very natural 
 in a day when the philosophy of experience has the vogue. 
 But Emerson s books continue to sell, and there is little 
 reason to doubt that people are reading them with ever fresh 
 
EMERSON 169 
 
 delight and inspiration. By their unflinching optimism they 
 keep a strong hold. Emerson was a sage, but a sage for 
 
 youth. Youth is our perennial idealist, and young 
 his Fame?* readers find in his work precisely the f aith.and cheer 
 
 that keep courage and nobility alive in the world. 
 Besides, even if the time should come when Emerson shall be 
 no longer actually needed, it seems impossible that he should 
 be forgotten. His service to his own day was too great. By 
 his call to independence and intellectual honesty at a time 
 when Americans were intellectually subservient, he set New 
 England, and through New England, America, finally free. 
 He went himself straight to the fountain-heads of wisdom and 
 inspiration to Plato, Confucius, Christ; but even them he 
 treated as brothers, not as masters. For he was no more to 
 be intoxicated by the wine of other men s truth than he was to 
 be caught by the glitter of falsehood and sham. Calm, sane, 
 self-centred, undistempered by enthusiasms, on the one hand 
 bowing to no popular idol, on the other standing his grOfwia 
 with our common humanity when many apostles of the 
 Transcendental faith were swept off their feet, he was just 
 such a man as is needed in an age of shifting faith and widen 
 ing knowledge, a man to proclaim anew the sanctity of the 
 individual conscience and to declare that things are not in 
 the saddle, but that men are still masters of their fate. 
 
 HENRY DAVID THOREAU, 1817-1862 
 
 To call Thoreau a Transcendentalist would be somewhat 
 misleading. His place in this chapter is determined by the 
 fact that his lot was cast among the Concord thinkers he 
 was the only one of note born at Concord who made the 
 new philosophy such a potent factor in New England thought 
 and life. He came to manhood precisely at the time when 
 the doctrines were taking definite shape, and it was impos 
 sible that he should not come somewhat under their influence. 
 
170 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 His relations, too, with Emerson were very close; but he was 
 severely independent, both as man and as thinker, and, 
 apart from an occasional visit to the meetings of the Trans 
 cendental Club and a few contributions to The Dial., he was 
 scarcely to be regarded as one of the circle. He was, indeed 
 a philosopher after Emerson s own heart, living sturdily 
 the doctrine that Emerson preached, and going steadily 
 his self-appointed way. Often puzzling and sometimes 
 repelling, yet always fresh and stimulating, he is one of the 
 most interesting figures in our literary history. 
 
 On his mother s side Thoreau was of old New England 
 stock, and he is said to have drawn most of his traits from 
 
 that side. His name shows his French extraction. 
 
 His paternal grandfather came to America from 
 the island of Jersey just before the Revolutionary War. His 
 grandmother bore the good Scotch name of Burns. His 
 father was a pencilmaker, a small, plain, deaf, unobtrusive 
 man. Henry was born in 1817 (the year Emerson entered 
 college) and he spent at Concord nearly all of the forty-five 
 years of his life. As a boy he drove his mother s cow to pas 
 ture, as Emerson had done at Boston. He learned the family 
 trade of pencilmaking, but abandoned it when he became 
 proficient, not desiring to do again what he had done once. 
 We are reminded of Carlyle s undertaking law because of the 
 difficulty of succeeding in it, and then abandoning it because 
 it offered no reward but money. Later, however, Thoreau 
 did sometimes help his father in his business, which grew to be 
 mainly the preparation of plumbago for electrotyping. He 
 was graduated from Harvard at the age of twenty, accom 
 plished, as scholarship went, in rhetoric, Latin, Greek, and 
 mathematics. After graduation he was school-teacher, 
 lecturer, surveyor, pencilmaker, farmer, and recluse, by 
 turns. His biography from twenty to twenty-four he con 
 densed into the following notes: "Kept town school a 
 
THOREAU 171 
 
 fortnight; began the big Red Journal, October, 1837; found 
 my first arrow-head; wrote a lecture (my first) on Society, 
 March 14, 1838, and read it before the Lyceum; went to 
 Maine for a school in May, 1838; commenced school in the 
 Parkham house in the summer of that year; wrote an essay 
 on Sound and Silence, December, 1838; fall of 1839, up the 
 Merrimac to the White Mountains; the Red Journal, of 
 596 pages, ended June, 1840; Journal of 396 pages ended 
 January 31, 1841." 
 
 It was a life in which the picking up of an arrow-head or 
 the discovery of a richer blueberry patch were events, and the 
 election of a new President but an incident. He lived two or 
 three years in the house of Emerson as mechanic, gardener, 
 and companion of Emerson s children; spent six months at 
 Staten Island as tutor to the children of Emerson s brother 
 William; traversed the length of Cape Cod on foot; and made 
 various expeditions to the Maine woods and Canada. His 
 two years retreat at Walden, through which he became 
 famous, was only in keeping with the general tenor of his life. 
 The man, whose first lecture was upon the subject of "Soci 
 ety," always lived on the outskirts of society or avoided it 
 altogether. Walden Pond is a small lake in the Walden 
 woods, one mile south of Concord. There, in the spring of 
 1845, on a piece of Emerson s woodland, Thoreau built a 
 hut, cutting the timbers for it with an ax which he borrowed 
 from Mr. Alcott, and which he returned, he boasted, sharper 
 than he received it. This cabin he made his home for the 
 next two years. Brook Farm was a social experiment; 
 Thoreau s might be called an unsocial one. He was not, 
 however, turning his back on family and friends, whom he 
 often visited, but only gratifying his love of wild ways, and 
 putting into practice some of his ideas about economy and 
 simplicity of living. He says himself: "I went to the woods 
 because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the 
 
172 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had 
 to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not 
 lived." He found in this seclusion full opportunity to do the 
 two things he cared most about observe and enjoy nature, 
 and reflect upon the ways of men. The expenses of a year s 
 living of this sort he could meet by working about six weeks. 
 The rest of the time was free for rambling, studying, and 
 writing. In this manner he wrote the greater part of 
 Walden, which, however, he did not succeed in getting 
 published until 1854. Before that he published A Week on 
 the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (1849), the outcome of an 
 expedition made with his elder brother shortly after he left 
 college. The larger part of the edition some seven hundred 
 copies he had to store in his garret. These two were the 
 only books published during his lifetime. He returned to 
 civilization after his two years experiment, but continued 
 his explorations a-field, and died in 1862, in some measure 
 the victim of the hardships which his gypsy instincts were 
 constantly leading him to suffer. He died bravely, declaring, 
 as he had declared when he faced life at twenty-four, that he 
 "loved his fate to the very core and rind." His too early 
 loss was fittingly mourned in more than one tender lament 
 by his friend, Ellery Channing, like himself a passionate 
 nature-lover : : 
 
 "The swallow is flying over, 
 
 But he will not come to me; 
 He flits, my daring rover, 
 
 From land to land, from sea to sea; 
 Where hot Bermuda s reef 
 Its barrier lifts to fortify the shore, 
 Above the surf s wild roar 
 He darts as swiftly o er, 
 But he who heard his cry of spring 
 Hears that no more, heeds not his wing." 
 
THOREAU 173 
 
 Thoreau is scarcely to be estimated as other men, from 
 whom he stands so far apart in almost all respects. He 
 
 was a riddle even to those who knew him well. 
 
 Hawthorne wrote in his journal: "Mr. Thoreau 
 dined with us. He is a singular character a young man with 
 much of wild, original nature still remaining in him. He is 
 as ugly as sin long nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth 
 and somewhat rustic, though courteous manners. But his 
 ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes 
 him much better than beauty." Mrs. Hawthorne, after 
 hearing him lecture, wrote: "Mr. Thoreau has risen above all 
 his arrogance of manner, and is as gentle, simple, ruddy, and 
 meek as all geniuses should be; and now his great blue eyes 
 fairly outshine and put into shade a nose which I once thought 
 must make him uncomely forever." To Rose Hawthorne 
 Lathrop he seemed "sad as a pinetree," though to the few 
 friends to whom he warmed he was all sunshine, and he could 
 both sing and dance, and would play with kittens by the half 
 hour. His unbending nature brought him much criticism 
 which a little compliance or a little explanation might have 
 saved him. A schoolmate who knew him for a good whittler 
 once asked him to make a bow and arrow, but he refused with 
 out giving the reason that he had no knife. On another 
 occasion he was accused of stealing a knife. He could easily 
 have proved his absence at the time, but he preferred merely 
 to make denial, letting his companions suspect what they 
 pleased. It is hard to tell whether he simply disliked ordi 
 nary social intercourse or whether he feared it. The woods 
 meant to him freedom, and he was like the muskrat, which, 
 he said, "will gnaw its third leg off to be free." He was 
 constantly tempted to climb over a back fence and go across 
 lots rather than run the gantlet of the houses fronting each 
 other on the street. Men of convivial natures, like Lowell or 
 Stevenson, are repelled by such an ascetic spirit, and are 
 
174 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 likely to prove unsympathetic critics. It requires the 
 unruffled tolerance of an Emerson to see all of his good 
 points and none of his bad; and his habit of contradiction 
 made even Emerson say, "Thoreau is, with difficulty, 
 
 sweet." 
 
 But Emerson and a few others, like Ellery Channing, 
 learned to make the right allowances. Many of his declara 
 tions were only half-truth, and much of his profession was 
 bravado. " Blessed are they," he would say, "who never read 
 men s affairs, for they shall see nature, and, through her, 
 God." Yet he took a keen interest in society at large and 
 even in politics, and he could take an active part when he was 
 sufficiently aroused. He went to jail rather than pay his tax, 
 when he felt that the tax was supporting a government that 
 supported slavery. It was his way of protesting against a 
 great wrong; and when Emerson looked into his cell and said, 
 "Henry, why are you here?" his reply was, "Why are you 
 not here?" He met John Brown in 1857, and two years 
 later, after the capture of Brown and before his execution, he 
 spoke out boldly in his defence at Concord, Worcester, and 
 Boston. It is unfortunate that Lowell should have found in 
 such a man so much imitation, indolence, and selfishness, and 
 
 so little else. 
 
 Not many of us will care to accept the philosophy of 
 W olden, so extreme is it, and, on the outside, so bitter, though 
 with much sweetness at the core. Every thought- 
 Philosophy. f ^ ^^ must gee much in Qur c i v iii z ation to 
 
 deplore, but if he be right-minded he will give helpful and not 
 destructive criticism. We shall not remedy the faults by 
 going back to barbarism. It is easy to corner Thoreau in an 
 argument. He was always afraid he should die without 
 having lived; and, according to his own definition, that a man 
 is rich in proportion to the number of things he can get along 
 without, he certainly lived like a baron. But his method of 
 
THOREAU 175 
 
 living deep and "sucking out all the marrow of life" by going 
 back to nature and the barest terms of existence, involved as 
 much loss as gain. You can get along without a plow if you 
 recognize no social obligations and have no wife or children 
 to feed. You can get along without a hoe if you are willing 
 to live on cow-parsnips. But it is the better teaching of 
 civilization to get along with as many things as possible. 
 "Why newspapers, and post-offices, and railroads?" asks 
 Thoreau. But why, then, even an ax, since the beavers used 
 their teeth? The ax and the railroad alike represent expedi 
 tion and expediency. There is a poetic view, too. Thoreau 
 protested against so much hammering of stone, but Emerson 
 celebrated the beauty of man s achievements as being one 
 with the beauty of nature s : 
 
 "Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 
 As the best gem upon her zone, 
 And Morning opes with haste her lids 
 To gaze upon the pyramids." 
 
 But we soon learn that Thoreau is deliberately exagger 
 ating, partly for the love of it, though mostly to drive home a 
 truth. The thing for us to do is to read him intelligently, 
 with fair, open minds, not accepting everything, but picking 
 out the grains of truth, and taking innocent pleasure mean 
 while in watching the chaff of wit and cynicism fly. There is a 
 characteristic passage in Walden, for example, upon the 
 "sleepers" that support the rails in the bed of a railroad, each 
 one of which, Thoreau says, is a man an Irishman, or a 
 Yankee man. He is thinking of the workmen whose lives 
 have gone into such labor. "And when they run over a man 
 who is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the 
 wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the 
 cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an 
 exception." This is more clever than logical. The laborer s 
 life is not necessarily sacrificed to his labor. Action is 
 
176 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 the law of being, and a man lives the longer and the better for 
 working. Yet the general meaning of the passage is clear, 
 and also true, that excessive industrialism imperils both 
 body and spirit. Much, indeed, lies in knowing how to read 
 Thoreau. His philosophy is more of a curiosity than a creed 
 to be adopted; yet many of his ideas hold much truth, and 
 only need sensible modification to be applied to life. 
 
 Thus prepared, we can read safely and with amusement 
 the sharpest passages of Walden: 
 
 "I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for cur 
 tains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I 
 am willing that they should look in. The moon will not sour milk 
 not taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade 
 my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still 
 better economy to retreat behind some curtain nature has provided 
 than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping. A lady 
 once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, 
 noF time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, prefer 
 ring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid 
 the beginnings of evil. 
 
 "Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon s effects, 
 for his life had not been ineffectual: 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them. 
 
 As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumu 
 late in his father s day. Among the rest was a dried tape-worm. And 
 now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these 
 things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction 
 of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors 
 eagerly collected to view them, and carefully transported them to their 
 garrets and dust-holes, to lie there until their estates are settled, when 
 they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust." 
 
 What is all this but teaching in a quaint way what Lowell 
 taught in The Vision of Sir Launfal, that "bubbles we buy 
 with a whole soul s tasking" and forget that "heaven is given 
 away " ? Thoreau himself says : " Superfluous wealth can buy 
 superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one neces 
 sary of the soul." And the whole gospel of Walden might 
 
THOREAU 177 
 
 almost be reduced to the formula, Simplify your life and 
 elevate your thoughts; for everywhere, in one form or anoth 
 er, beneath all the eccentricity and exaggeration, that gospel 
 can be read. 
 
 The foregoing passage will serve also to illustrate Thor- 
 eau s style. We scarcely think of him as a humorist, yet 
 there is nearly always some humor lurking behind 
 his cynicism, scarcely the less enjoyable for the 
 tinge of bitterness. His best aphorisms are likely to have a 
 humorous twist: "Some circumstantial evidence is very 
 strong, as when you find a trout in milk." The force of the 
 style is also noteworthy; the paragraphs above end with an 
 almost startling abruptness. Indeed, few philosophers, if we 
 may dignify Thoreau with the term, have written more 
 forcibly with more terseness, directness, and concreteness of 
 imagery. He was a past master in the art of putting 
 things. Emerson praises him for a better rhetorician than 
 himself: "I find the same thoughts, the same spirit that is in 
 me, but he takes a step beyond and illustrates by excellent 
 images that which I should have conveyed in a sleepy general 
 ization." And so it is. "Trust thyself," says Emerson: 
 "every heart vibrates to that iron string." Says Thoreau: 
 "The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller s cap, and all 
 the monkeys in America do the same." Here is the same 
 thought, the same lesson, only Thoreau, instead of encourag 
 ing us to independence, ridicules our conformity, and does it 
 with a force and concreteness that go quite beyond Emer 
 son s. But of course the quiet strength of Emerson is more 
 effective in the end. 
 
 The parts of Thoreau s work upon which his fame rests 
 most securely today are his nature studies. He may have 
 boasted over-much of his love for nature and unduly taunted 
 other men for their indifference, but his own steadfast and 
 reverent love is beyond question. He was a veritable faun. 
 
178 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 sealed from birth of the most ancient order of Nature s wood 
 men. Cities he dreaded like a Bedouin s camel, and he was 
 
 nowhere so happy in Boston as at the railway 
 Naturalist." station waiting for the cars to take him away. 
 
 "There is in my nature, methinks, a singular 
 yearning toward all wildness." He was prouder to have a 
 sparrow alight on his shoulder than he would have been to 
 wear an epaulet. He prized much less his accomplishments 
 in Greek and Latin than his ability to find his way through 
 the woods in the darkest night, to take a fish from the water 
 with his hand, to eat a wild crab-apple without making a wry 
 face. Agassiz, for whom he made collections of fishes, 
 praised his sagacity. His attitude toward nature, however, 
 was the poet s rather than the naturalist s. He was lured 
 by the charm of her variety and mystery, and cared more to 
 feel than to know. And his wide reading of the best litera 
 ture only, his command of language, and his imagination, 
 gave him a power to interpret his feelings that is rare among 
 men of his stamp. It is interesting to note how inevitably 
 he passes from observation to sympathy : 
 
 "Shad are still taken in the basin of Concord River at Lowell, 
 where they are said to be a month earlier than the Merrimac shad, 
 on account of the warmth of the water. Still patiently, almost pa 
 thetically, with instinct not to be discouraged, not to be reasoned with, 
 revisiting their old haunts, as if their stern fates would relent, and still 
 met by the Corporation with its dam. Poor shad! where is thy re 
 dress? When Nature gave thee instinct, gave she thee the heart to 
 bear thy fate? Still wandering the sea in thy scaly armor to in 
 quire humbly at the mouths of rivers if man has perchance left them 
 free for thee to enter." 
 
 Poetry reveals itself every where, in his phrasing. The haze 
 is "the sun s dust of travel." The ice of the pond "whoops" 
 on a winter s night. Toadstools are "round- tables of the 
 swamp gods." Some taller mast of pine rises in the midst of 
 the woods "like a pagoda." The crowing of the wild Indian 
 
THOREAU 179 
 
 pheasant would "put nations on the alert." Moreover, there 
 are records of sounds and visions that none but a poet could 
 hear or see: 
 
 "The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep 
 over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial 
 parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, 
 the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear 
 it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere." 
 
 "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while 
 I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin 
 current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish 
 in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars." 
 
 Sometimes he runs into rhyme and becomes a poet con 
 fessed; and though his verse, as such, is very erratic, his 
 delicate lines on Smoke, 
 
 "Light winged smoke, Icarian bird! 
 Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, 
 Lark without song, and messenger of dawn," 
 
 are worth all the praise they have received. 
 
 In the four years immediately following Thoreau s death 
 five books were published from the mass of manuscript which 
 he left Excursions, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Letters, 
 and A Yankee in Canada. To these of late years have been 
 added five more Spring, Summer, etc. They give him a 
 very dignified place in the library and assure him of a perman 
 ence of which he little dreamed. In his own day, when the 
 polished N. P. Willis of New York was a favorite among the 
 younger writers, few knew his name and none would have 
 ventured to prophesy for him any place in American letters. 
 But time has slowly reversed the verdict. Willis s little 
 light is flickering, Thoreau s begins to burn with the steadi 
 ness of a fixed star. The day is past, too, for the criticism 
 that he was only a reflection of Emerson. Each owed 
 something to the other, and doubtless Thoreau s debt was the 
 
180 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 greater, for he was the younger man and his was the inferior 
 mind. But the difference between them was greater than the 
 likeness. Emerson s books belong on those shelves where we 
 put the philosophical works of Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Mon 
 taigne, and Bacon. Thoreau s belong- ^vith that group of 
 more modest classics of the forest and field that gather about 
 White s Selborne and Walton s Complete Angler. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE. LONGFELLOW, 
 WHITTIER, LOWELL, HOLMES, WHITMAN 
 
 Of the period of our literature now under consideration 
 the prolific middle of the nineteenth century four or five 
 major writers and countless minor ones still remain to be 
 treated. Placing them here in a single group is, perhaps, on 
 the ground of coherence, a course not entirely justifiable. 
 Yet to make any of the divisions that suggest themselves 
 would seem to be even less justifiable. A separation, for 
 instance, into poets and prose-writers is scarcely possible, 
 since many of the writers were both, and to divide along other 
 lines, as into Cambridge scholars, anti-slavery agitators, and 
 the like, would again be only to work confusion by making 
 divisions that seriously overlap. It seems better therefore 
 to keep the writers together, regarding them broadly as con 
 tributors, each in his way, to our national life and character 
 as co-workers toward the one end of upbuilding a modern 
 nation of political unity and of continuous moral and intel 
 lectual growth. It is true, the writers we have already 
 treated might be regarded in the same light, but there is at 
 least this difference, that they worked more specifically to 
 literary or personal ends, while the men whom we have now 
 to consider were in closer touch with our social organization, 
 and their writings and speeches largely grew out of, or con 
 tributed toward, the wide activities among which they moved. 
 
 ORATORY 
 
 Oratory in America, which has perhaps had a more contin 
 uous history than any other form of letters except theology, 
 reached its highest development between 1830 and 1860. This 
 
 181 
 
182 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 is, of course, only another manifestation of the great intel 
 lectual and artistic energy that attended the development and 
 fixing of our national character, the more direct stimulus in 
 this case being found in the political conditions in the diffi 
 cult adjustment of national principles, and especially in the 
 unsettled and continually vexing issue of slavery. But our 
 oratory scarcely rose to the level attained in other literary 
 forms. It was made illustrious by at least two eminently great 
 men Webster and Lincoln but it never united in one man 
 all the original genius and the eloquent and scholarly virtues 
 that have made the speeches of Demosthenes, Cicero, Bossuet, 
 and Burke, permanent classics in the world s literature. 
 
 Daniel Webster, we are still disposed to regard as our fore 
 most exponent of deliberative and forensic eloquence. He 
 
 t j had, to begin with, physical advantages that 
 
 Webster^ seemed to proclaim him an even greater man than 
 he was. Carry le, a master at portraiture, saw 
 him once and described him in a letter to Emerson: "The 
 tanned complexion; that amorphous, crag-like face; the dull 
 black eyes under their precipice of eyebrow, like dull anthra 
 cite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff mouth, 
 accurately closed. . . . He is a magnificent specimen; 
 you might say to all the world, This is your Yankee Eng 
 lishman, such limbs we make in Yankeeland. Born on a 
 backwoods farm in New Hampshire at the close of the 
 Revolutionary War, and graduated from Dartmouth in 1801, 
 Webster rapidly rose in the legal profession, until he was sent 
 to Congress in 1813. He shortly afterward took up his 
 residence at Boston, and from that time on, as representa 
 tive, senator, secretary of state, and Whig aspirant for the 
 Presidency, he was, as Carlyle put it, "the notablest of 
 our notabilities." His supremacy in American statesman 
 ship was somewhat comparable to that, in later years, of 
 Gladstone in English or of Bismarck in Prussian. 
 
ORATORY 183 
 
 Webster s great service was done in the stormy Congres 
 sional debates of 1830-1832, when he came forward in oppo 
 sition to the principle of state sovereignty, and helped to fix 
 finally the supreme power and authority of the federal 
 constitution. He made himself the champion of the national 
 idea, of complete union, and it is fitting that he should be 
 remembered by those famous words with which he closed the 
 speech in reply to Hayne: "Liberty and Union, now and 
 forever, one and inseparable." The great blemish upon his 
 career was his weakness in not facing squarely the question 
 of slave-holding when that issue was approaching a crisis. 
 By supporting the compromise measures of 1850 instead of 
 throwing his influence with the radical opponents of slavery, 
 he added to the confidence of the slave power and con 
 tributed much to the final disastrous results. Whittier, in 
 the poem Ichabod, lashed him severely for his defection. But 
 Webster suffered to the full for his weakness, and many years 
 after his death Whittier was glad to do his memory justice, 
 mourning, in The Lost Occasion, that Webster had not been 
 spared till the day of actual disunion, assured that no stronger 
 voice than his would have then 
 
 "Called out the utmost might of men, 
 To make the Union s charter free 
 And strengthen law by liberty." 
 
 The best examples of Webster s forensic pleading are to be 
 found in the argument on the Dartmouth College Case before 
 the United States Supreme Court in 1818 and in his speech at 
 the White murder trial at Salem in 1829. His great delib 
 erative speeches in the Senate have already been mentioned 
 the Reply to Hayne in 1830, and the "Seventh of March 
 Speech" in favor of compromise in 1850. His best public ad 
 dresses include one delivered at the anniversary at Plymouth 
 in 1820, one at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker 
 Hill Monument and another at its completion, and a eulogy 
 
184 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 on Adams and Jefferson. His oratory was mainly of the old 
 type, only a few degrees removed from the half-pedantic 
 classicism that was the ideal of the early academic orators. 
 Yet he was undeniably eloquent, both in the conventional 
 and in the real sense of the word clear in thought, strong and 
 pure and sonorous in diction, with a beauty of imagery and 
 an animation of style that have set his printed speeches 
 among the select examples of modern oratorical prose. What 
 those speeches must have been in utterance all the enthu 
 siastic accounts of their hearers will not suffice for us to 
 realize, since the force of the speaker s personality must have 
 counted for even more than his words, lending impressiveness 
 to his simplest and calmest statements, and enabling him, 
 when deeply stirred, to carry everything before him. 
 
 Henry Clay, who belonged to Virginia by birth and to 
 Kentucky by residence, came into public life somewhat before 
 Henry clay, Webster, and rose to be the recognized leader of 
 J 7 c 7 ."c 8 a 5 ihoun,the Whig party, and, with the exception of Web- 
 1782-1850. gter ^ ts f oremos t man> He was three times a 
 
 candidate for the Presidency, and once narrowly missed 
 election. Though opposed to slavery, he w T as not radical in 
 his views. As the chief promoter of the Missouri Compro 
 mise of 1820 and the author of the compromise measures of 
 1850, he earned the title of "the great pacificator." As an 
 orator he held and swayed audiences as effectually as ever 
 Webster did, though more exclusively by his personality and 
 his rhetorical gifts. He lacked the learning and depth of that 
 great stateman, and his orations are now little read. From 
 farther south, and with wholly southern views and doctrines, 
 came John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. It was he, then 
 president of the Senate, whom Webster was really attacking 
 in his famous Reply to Hayne in 1830, for Calhoun was an 
 ardent believer in States Rights and was the author of the 
 doctrine of Nullification. He was scarcely eloquent, as we 
 
ORATORY 185 
 
 ordinarily understand the term, but was a great thinker, and 
 the clearness of his logic was conspicuous in everything he 
 said. This, coupled with his earnestness and his candor, 
 gave him a clear title to his fame. 
 
 Massachusetts produced the men who pressed Webster 
 most closely for oratorical honors of the academic kind 
 Rufus Rufus Choate, the lawyer, and Edward Everett, 
 
 1799-1859. the scholar, statesman, and diplomatist. Choate 
 Everet?, was never brought into the same great conflicts as 
 1794-1865. \Vebster, his eloquence being expended before 
 juries; but he had even more than Webster s scholarship 
 and refinement, and, with a fervid imagination and an inex 
 haustible flow of words, he exercised over emotional hearers 
 that "spell" which it was long thought to be an orator s high 
 est virtue to exercise. His oratory held much of the poetic 
 quality, and is seen at its best in his eulogies the eulogy, for 
 example, on Webster. Everett, who began life as an editor 
 and professor of Greek, held many high positions: he was 
 governor of Massachusetts, minister to Great Britain, presi 
 dent of Harvard College, Secretary of State, and United 
 States senator. His oratory also was of the finished and 
 scholarly type. It might even be called cold, for Everett 
 lacked the personal force which Choate and W T ebster pos 
 sessed. Yet by frequent lectures on the platform he came 
 into closer touch with the general public than most states 
 men of his day. Emerson testified to his great influence on 
 the youth of New England; and late in life he delivered his 
 famous eulogy on Washington one hundred and fifty times 
 in the interest of the Mount Vernon Association. His last 
 important oration was the one delivered at the dedication 
 of the national cemetery at Gettysburg in 1863 an occasion 
 made most memorable by another address, the unpreten 
 tiously noble speech of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Lincoln, almost the antithesis of the academic orators, 
 
18f> NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 was a potent influence upon what might be called the modern 
 
 school that school which discards pedantic phrases and 
 
 classical allusions, rather avoids rhetorical cli- 
 
 Abraham 
 
 Lincoln, maxes and other effects, and depends upon a less 
 impassioned, more conversational manner. Lin 
 coln s training was obtained in actual law-practice, where he 
 had to confront and handle real issues before audiences 
 immediately concerned. His audiences, too, w^ere of the 
 primitive West, more keen than cultured. He practiced at 
 the Illinois bar as early as 1837; and in 1858, when a candidate 
 for the United States senatorship from Illinois, he held in that 
 state the series of joint discussions with Stephen A. Douglas, 
 largely on the slavery question, which made him famous. 
 The schooling was precisely suited to the man, and it was a 
 wholly natural result that the more momentous addresses 
 which he was called upon later to deliver his two inaugural 
 addresses, for instance, or the Gettysburg address should 
 be models of simplicity, sincerity, directness, and force. 
 Whatever virtues lie in the Saxon character and may be 
 expressed in the Saxon tongue, these are summed up in the 
 unadorned eloquence of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The anti-slavery movement brought forth speakers of 
 many kinds in many places, but apart from Lincoln and 
 Charles Sum- Garrison (who was more of a journalist than a 
 Wendell Phi 7 i^" s P ea ker), the most conspicuous orators identified 
 Ii ps ,i8ii-i884. witn the direct issue of abolition were Charles 
 Sumner and Wendell Phillips, both of Boston, and both again 
 orators of the scholarly type. Sumner s work was done 
 chiefly in Congress, where he was recognized for years as 
 the great anti-slavery leader. Indeed, the history of Sum 
 ner is virtually the history of the anti-slavery conflict. His 
 speeches were marked by soundness of reason and stateli- 
 aess of style, and the fifteen published volumes of them make 
 an imposing addition to our literature. The speech on 
 
HISTORY AND CRITICISM 187 
 
 "The True Grandeur of Nations" is best remembered. 
 Wendell Phillips was a platform orator, who made public 
 speaking his life-work. His long service to the abolitionists 
 made his name, like Garrison s and Sumner s, almost syn 
 onymous with their cause. As an orator he added to the 
 learning, grace, and polish of Everett, something more of 
 personal force that grew out of real devotion, however mixed 
 its motives, to a great moral principle. After the war he 
 continued in the lecture field. His best-known addresses are 
 those on "Toussaint L Ouverture" and "The Lost Arts." 
 
 As a rule, the oratory of the pulpit leaves a less permanent 
 record than that of the platform, and there is practically 
 nothing to be added here to what was said on this subject in 
 the chapter on religion and philosophy in New England. In 
 that place were mentioned the Unitarian ministers, Channing 
 and others, and also the Congregationalists Bushnell of Hart 
 ford and Beecher of Brooklyn. Doubtless Beecher was, 
 though somewhat erratic, one of our most versatile and bril 
 liant preachers. But even though we extend our survey 
 beyond the time-limit of this chapter to the present day, we 
 can find no other to mention by the side of these, unless it be 
 Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), of the Protestant Episcopal 
 church at Boston. The oratory of the pulpit, as of the plat 
 form generally, has distinctly waned. 
 
 HISTORY AND CRITICISM 
 
 The historians, so-called, of the days of our earliest lit 
 erature were scarcely entitled to that name. Whatever his 
 tory they wrote was in the nature of chronicles or annals 
 dry, ill-connected, unexplained relations of occurrences, 
 without the insight, imagination, and mastery of expression 
 that were needed to make literature. On the other hand, 
 whatever literature they wrote was the narration of personal 
 experiences, useful and entertaining, but without the breadth 
 
188 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 of vision and critical spirit that would have made worthy 
 history. Our real historians men with a mastery of facts, 
 with a power of arranging and interpreting those facts, and 
 with a definite artistic purpose appeared only with the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 Irving s excellent work in this field has already been de 
 scribed. Passing over the names of the early and minor 
 Geor eBan wr ^ ers ^ tne century Sparks, the biographer, 
 isoo* 1891 w ^ a k* s wortn y li yes f Washington and Franklin ; 
 Hildreth, with his discriminating but uninterest 
 ing history of the United States; Palfrey, with his very able 
 but also unromantic history of New England; J. S. C. Abbott, 
 with biographies and a history of the Civil War; and James 
 Parton, a later biographer, with lives of Franklin, Voltaire, 
 and others, we come to the name of one who, although by 
 no means the greatest, was long the most conspicuous of our 
 historians George Bancroft. The publication of Bancroft s 
 History of the United States, in ten successive volumes, ex 
 tended from 1834 to 1874, with a revised edition in 1883. 
 How careful and exhaustive his researches were may be 
 inferred from this fact, and also from the fact that the portion 
 of our history covered by them extends only to 1789. It was 
 a huge undertaking, to which Bancroft brought all the re 
 sources of wealth, training, and social and political influence 
 everything, in short, but genius. He lived at Washington 
 where he had free access to the government archives, and he 
 collected besides an enormous private library of transcripts 
 of documents fr6m all parts of the world. Invaluable, how 
 ever, as his great work is, its over-patriotic and slightly 
 partisan bias prevents it from being accepted as a final 
 authority, while its want of picturesqueness in matter and 
 style makes it hard to read, and puts it quite without the pale 
 of literature. 
 
 Two of our historians were attracted, like Irving, to 
 
HISTORY AND CRITICISM 189 
 
 foreign themes. It was William Hickling Prescott in favor 
 of whom Irving gave up his long-cherished plan of writing a 
 w.H.Prescott.history of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Pres- 
 j ? L 6 ~Motiey, c tt, a native of Salem, and a graduate of Harvard, 
 1814-1877. devoted a life of scholarly leisure and partial blind 
 ness to that brilliant period of Spain s history when she was 
 extending her empire over the new world. The result was a 
 series of able and fascinating works: Ferdinand and Isabella 
 (1837), The Conquest of Mexico (1843), and The Conquest of 
 Peru (1847). The other of the two, John Lothrop Motley, 
 of Boston, after trying law and feeling his way toward 
 literature with several novels (Morton s Hope, 1839, and 
 Merry Mount, 1848), turned to history, and spent much 
 of his life abroad in the study of the heroic period of the 
 Netherlands in the days of William of Orange. He published 
 The Rise of the Dutch Republic in 1856. The romantic pict- 
 uresqueness of the periods treated by both these writers was 
 fairly equalled by the grace and animation of their style, and 
 they paralleled the triumph gained by Macaulay in England, 
 of having their works read like so much romance. Schoolboys 
 could turn from Irving and Cooper to Prescott and Motley 
 with scarcely any loss of interest. Prescott, however, was 
 somewhat deficient in critical insight; and Motley, though 
 possessed of ample powers and exercising more restraint in 
 his style than Prescott, treated his theme so narrowly that he 
 was "really not a historian, but a describer of mighty historic 
 deeds." Thus it has come about that the supremacy among 
 our historians, which was first awarded to one of these men 
 and then to the other, has been gradually transferred to a 
 successor of both. 
 
 Francis Parkman, also a Boston and a Harvard man, 
 resolved at the early age of eighteen upon the plan of the his 
 tory to which he devoted his mature years. He took an 
 American theme, the "Story of the Woods," the tripartite 
 
190 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 conflict that lasted for a century and a half between the 
 English, the French, and the Indians, on the frontiers of the 
 northern new world. In pursuit of his purpose he 
 undertook a journey to the Rocky Mountains, and 
 
 spent some time in a village of the Sioux Indians. 
 The hardships of the trip so impaired his already frail health 
 that his life-work was done with weak and sometimes almost 
 useless eyesight, and under painful nervous affliction. But 
 he knew his ground and his facts with a minute specialist s 
 knowledge; he had an intellect of philosophic breadth, acute- 
 ness, fairness, and accuracy; and he was gifted with a delight 
 ful style. Nor was his theme essentially less attractive than 
 those of his forerunners, while its nearness to the interests of 
 American readers gave it an enhanced national value. His 
 first printed work, The California and Oregon Trail (1849), 
 the record of his personal experiences, is read by boys as 
 eagerly as Dana s Two Years Before the Mast, and is one of 
 those real stories that are almost better than romances. It 
 is filled with the fragrance of woods and streams and the 
 fresh, free air of the plains and mountains. Parkman s series 
 of histories began with the one that is last in historical order 
 The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851). The publication of the 
 other seven extended from Pioneers of France in the New 
 World (1865) to A Half -Century of Conflict (1892). It is an 
 admirable series, worthy of its great theme, and it sets 
 Parkman, by common consent, among the historians of 
 
 genius. 
 
 Besides the formal historians there are certain other 
 workers in the broad field of scholarly research and criticism 
 who might justly claim a share of attention. There was 
 Professor Ticknor, the first incumbent of the chair of French 
 and Spanish which was founded at Harvard in 1817, and 
 which was held later by Longfellow and by Lowell. His 
 important work was a History of Spanish Literature (1849), 
 
LONGFELLOW 191 
 
 which was not only a pioneer in its field, but was so able 
 and sound that it remains still a standard authority. There 
 Geor e was a ^ so Edwin P erc y Whipple, a Boston lecturer 
 and critic, who in his books (Literature and Life, 
 
 1791-1871. 
 
 E.P. 
 
 1819 
 
 E.p.whjppie, 1849; Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 1869; etc.), 
 
 made some approach toward the kind of philo 
 sophical criticism that is now held in highest esteem. 
 Here, too, might be mentioned men like James T. Fields, the 
 veteran Boston publisher and editor, and writer of Yester 
 days with Authors; George P. Marsh, the Vermont philologist; 
 and Richard Grant White, of New York, variously known as a 
 Shakespearean scholar, a music and art critic, and a writer of 
 popular philology. But, though it would be easy to name 
 many more, and some much better scholars than these, the 
 number of men who have successfully combined sound 
 scholarship with literary gifts is not large. The leaders 
 among them were, of course, Longfellow, Low^ell, and Holmes, 
 and to these leaders must be accorded a treatment in pro 
 portion to their significance. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 1807-1882 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born at Portland, 
 Maine, February 27, 1807. The maternal line of the Wads- 
 Youth worths goes back to John Alden and Priscilla 
 Mullens, two passengers of the Mayflower who 
 have found a quiet fame in The Courtship of Miles Standish. 
 The Longfellows do not trace back quite so far on American 
 soil, but there was a goodly line of them in Massachusetts 
 and in Maine colonist, blacksmith, school teacher, judge, 
 and lawyer. Henry Wadsworth, so named for a maternal 
 uncle who had sacrificed his life before Tripoli in the war with 
 Algiers, was the lawyer s son. There was no promise of 
 poetry in his ancestry, perhaps, but some inspiration was to 
 be drawn from his surroundings. For the Portland of his 
 
192 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 birth was both a beautiful and a busy town a "Forest 
 City" with miles of sea beach, and a port where merchant 
 vessels from the West Indies exchanged sugar and rum for 
 the products of the forests and the fisheries of Maine; and 
 these scenes, or the memory of them, directly inspired two 
 or three of his best poems, notably My Lost Youth. 
 
 We are told that he was almost a model boy "true, high- 
 minded, and noble;" "remarkably solicitous always to do 
 right;" handsome, too; "sensitive, impressionable; active, 
 eager, impetuous, often impatient; quick-tempered, but as 
 quickly appeased; kind-hearted and affectionate, the sun 
 light of the house." His conduct at school was "very correct 
 and amiable." He read much, being always studious and 
 thoughtful, though never melancholy. The first book which 
 "fascinated his imagination" was Irving s Sketch-Book; and 
 it would be easy to point out more than superficial resem 
 blances between Longfellow s poetry and Irving s prose, just 
 as there are certain fundamental characteristics common to 
 Bryant s poetry and Cooper s prose. The resemblance goes 
 back to the character of the men. "The gentle Longfellow" 
 and "the gentle Irving" we say with equal readiness, nor 
 forget that gentleness implies gentility, inherent nobleness, 
 and manhood. Out of such characters grow naturally long 
 and unruffled lives, as out of such a character as Poe s grows 
 almost inevitably a short and tragic one. 
 
 Longfellow s education was obtained at the Portland 
 Academy and at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, where he had 
 for classmates several youths who were afterward to become 
 famous, two in the world of letters, J. S. C. Abbott and 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. He began to write poetry, melodious 
 little poems and to contribute both verse and prose to various 
 struggling magazines while still an undergraduate. He was 
 graduated in 1825. His father desired him to study law; he 
 himself spoke, though not very seriously, of turning farmer; 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 
 EDWARD EVERETT 
 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 
 FRANCIS PARKMAN 
 
LONGFELLOW 193 
 
 but a Chair of Modern Languages was about to be estab 
 lished at Bowdoin, and the trustees proposed that the young 
 graduate of scholarly and literary tastes should fit himself for 
 it. Three years were accordingly spent in delightful study 
 and travel in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, and the 
 foundations were laid, not only of his scholarship, but of that 
 passion for the romantic scenery and lore of the old world 
 which followed him, as it followed Irving, through life, and 
 gave color and direction to so much of his work. 
 
 He returned in 1829 to take the professorship at Bowdoin, 
 
 a very young man for so dignified a position. He married 
 
 in 1831, and though his domestic life was sad- 
 
 Professional . 
 
 dened by misfortunes, the beauty of it may be 
 judged from such poems as Footsteps of Angels and 
 The Children s Hour. A second residence in Europe prepared 
 the way for the Professorship of Romance Languages at 
 Harvard, where he took up his duties in 1836. He secured 
 rooms at the historic Craigie House overlooking the Charles 
 River, a house in which Washington had been quartered for 
 some months when he came to Cambridge in 1775 to take 
 command of the Continental forces. After his second 
 marriage (his first wife died during his second residence in 
 Europe) the house passed into his possession and became his 
 permanent home. He was thenceforth one of the most 
 prominent members the real centre, Mr. Higginson de 
 clares of that group of men, including Felton, Sumner, 
 Hawthorne, Agassiz, Lowell, and Holmes, t who gave dis 
 tinction to the Boston and Cambridge of earlier days. 
 
 He had already published, besides a translation of a 
 French Grammar and some translations from a Spanish poet, 
 a Sketch-Book-like series of effusions which he entitled Outre- 
 Mer; a Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea (1833, 1834). In 1839 he 
 published a second and more ambitious prose work, Hyperion^ 
 in which the experiences of his second journey to Europe were 
 
194 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 woven into a kind of romance. Inasmuch as the romance 
 itself was largely autobiographical, the publication was in 
 rather questionable taste. Besides, the book was sentimental 
 in tone and luxuriant in style, so much so, indeed, that it is 
 difficult to understand today how it could have been the 
 product of a man past thirty. But its translations and 
 criticisms of German literature, which was then little known 
 in America, were serviceable, and it can have done no harm 
 by setting hundreds of readers a-dreaming of pleasant 
 wanderings by the song-haunted German rivers." Ten years 
 later he ventured to add to his meagre list of prose writings 
 another romance, Kavanagh a New England tale somewhat 
 in the manner of Hawthorne but with little of Hawthorne s 
 charm of style or spiritual insight. Poetry was as clearly 
 Longfellow s proper medium as prose was Hawthorne s or 
 Cooper s, and to poetry the main energies of his life were 
 dedicated. 
 
 In the same year in which Hyperion was published, ap 
 peared also his first volume of poetry, Voices of the Night. 
 The Psalm of Life had been printed anonymously 
 the Night," the year before, in the Knickerbocker Magazine, 
 and had been circulated so widely that Longfellow 
 took this means of declaring his authorship. The volume 
 contained, in addition to a prelude and his translations, the 
 two collections of verse, of eight poems each, which are now 
 printed in his works under the general titles of "Voices of the 
 Night" and "Earlier Poems." In one way the publication 
 was as remarkable as the publication of Tennyson s early 
 volume in England nine years before; for at least six of the 
 eight poems for which the volume was named Hymn to the 
 Night, A Psalm of Life, The Reaper and the Flowers, Footsteps 
 of Angels, Flowers, Midnight Mass for the Dying Year made 
 ^their way instantly to a popularity that has scarcely dimin 
 ished in sixty years. This may have been partly due to the 
 
LONGFELLOW 195 
 
 dearth of good poetry in America; yet the poems deserved 
 their success, and they were received in England with equal 
 cordiality. True, it is easy to pick flaws in them. Critics 
 will continue to condemn the Psalm of Life for its preaching 
 tone, its incoherent structure, its commonplace ideas, its 
 trite phrases, hazy figures, and borrowed ornaments. But 
 without shutting our eyes to these defects, which really exist, 
 and without maintaining that the poem is of any high order 
 of greatness, it is still possible to enjoy it and to understand 
 why it has made such a wide and deep impression. It is 
 sound at heart. So simple and melodious as to sing itself 
 into the memory, it breathes at the same time an ardent 
 courage and a cheerful faith. Its theme is life, and it is alive 
 with Saxon energy and earnestness. It seems as useless to 
 test it, like a more ambitious poem, by the ordinary canons 
 of criticism as it would be to test thus a stray ballad or a 
 religious hymn that has fixed itself in the affections of a whole 
 people. 
 
 The same is true of most of these early poems. One or 
 two of them, perhaps, the Prelude, Hymn to the Night, Foot 
 steps of Angels, are good by the more formal tests. But the 
 primary reason of their success is plain. It lies in their 
 character their simple and sincere feeling and their sufficient 
 art. Longfellow was faithfully following the counsel of the 
 "distant voices" which Sir Philip Sidney heard three cen 
 turies ago 
 
 "Look, then, into thine heart, and write." 
 
 And in all but range, this early volume has remained fairly 
 representative of its author. It defined his position as the 
 household poet, the poet of the masses in their better moods, 
 when the common aspirations, joys, and even sorrows of 
 life, come to them as beautiful things to be treasured in 
 beautiful words. Longfellow exercised his powers in many 
 directions afterward, but he did not climb much higher. 
 
196 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 The next book of verse, the Ballads and Other Poems of 
 1841, shows one of the new directions his activity took. He 
 
 Ballads was to ^ e tne sm er f men an d deeds as well as of 
 musings and exhortations. The earlier tones 
 reappear in such a poem as Endymion, with its oft-quoted 
 lines 
 
 "No one is so accursed by fate, 
 No one so utterly desolate, 
 
 But some heart, though unknown, 
 Responds unto his own" 
 
 and in the even more familiar Rainy Day, Maidenhood, and 
 Excelsior; the new note is to be found particularly in The Vil 
 lage Blacksmith, like Burns s Cotter s Saturday Night an ex 
 altation of humble toil and reward, and in the two stirring 
 ballads of The Skeleton in Armor and The Wreck of the Hes 
 perus. The difference in manner is as marked as the differ 
 ence in substance : 
 
 "And as to catch the gale 
 Round veered the flapping sail, 
 Death! was the helmsman s hail, 
 
 Death without quarter! 
 Midships with iron keel 
 Struck we her ribs of steel; 
 Down her black hulk did reel 
 
 Through the black water!" 
 
 Here is the metre of Drayton s Agincourt, throbbing still with 
 the old martial passion and not greatly excelled by Tennyson 
 himself in the Charge of the Light Brigade. That Longfellow 
 should have shown himself such a good ballad writer was 
 scarcely to be expected when we consider the gentleness of 
 his nature and the even niceness of his technique. In fact, 
 he was not often successful in work that demanded intensity 
 of feeling. His Poems on Slavery (1842) were merely pretty 
 and polished when, to produce any effect worth producing, 
 they should have been strong even to ruggedness. But let 
 
LONGFELLOW 197 
 
 him be given a story to tell and he could tell it with both 
 grace and vigor. 
 
 It is impossible here to follow in detail the long list of vol 
 umes and separate poems which came from his pen in rapid 
 succession, many of which have become household names. 
 There were a few relative failures. The Spanish Student 
 (1842) showed the versatile author in the role of dramatist. 
 But American writers seemed still unequal to the feat of 
 writing successful drama; and this play of Longfellow s, 
 while it contains pretty lyrics and makes entertaining read 
 ing, has little dramatic power and has never been staged. 
 However, the poet s experiments continued, and in general 
 met with wide success. The dreamily beautiful and pathetic 
 
 idyl, Evangeline, appeared in 1847 and imme- 
 Hnef Ml^?. diately won its way to the hearts of a hundred 
 
 thousand readers. A few critics quarrelled with 
 the hexameter lines because they were not classical hex 
 ameters, but their objections were unheeded. The tale of 
 Acadie, of "the forest primeval" and 
 
 "the hearts that beneath it 
 
 Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woodland the 
 voice of the huntsman," 
 
 a tale not dark enough to suit the fancy of Hawthorne, to 
 whom it was first told by a friend of both writers, rightly 
 seemed to Longfellow to have in it precisely those human ele 
 ments of faith and devotion that make the widest appeal. He 
 accordingly took the story and retold it with picturesque 
 accessories of landscape and fireside and with a musical flow 
 of syllables that leave it little inferior to its great model, 
 Goethe s Hermann und Dorothea. It is something more, too, 
 than a piece of literature. One feels that there is always 
 hope for humanity so long as a great wrong like that done 
 to the innocent peasants of Acadie can inspire such a noble 
 protest as underlies the simple tale of Evangeline. 
 
198 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 The collection of poems entitled The Seaside and the Fire 
 side, which appeared in 1850, contained, besides Resignation 
 and other domestic and popular pieces, the poem of deep 
 patriotic feeling, the allegory of The Building of the Ship. 
 The lines of its closing apostrophe to the ship of state are 
 known to have brought tears of emotion to the eyes of Lin 
 coln during the anxious hours of his own pilotage : 
 
 "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great! . 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 Our faith triumphant o er our fears, 
 Are all with thee, are all with thee!" 
 
 Five years later came another long poem, this time almost 
 epic in character and scope. Longfellow was so much a lit 
 erary craftsman that the critic of his work is con- 
 i855 awatha " stantly tempted to put its form foremost, and 
 there can be no doubt that he sometimes selected 
 the form before the theme. In point of form The Song of 
 Hiawatha was an even bolder experiment than Evangeline. 
 The metre chosen was that of the Finnish Kalevala, a poem 
 then almost totally unknown to American readers. The 
 measure is characterized by a trochaic beat, and by short 
 (octosyllabic) unrhymed lines, constantly pausing, and over 
 lapping by repetition of phrases, so that the narrative pro 
 gresses slowly. It is peculiarly suited to the tales of a primi 
 tive people, being well adapted to memorizing, and gratifying 
 to the sense of rhythm so strong in children and the untu 
 tored. That Longfellow had again chosen wisely was shown 
 by his success. The noblest and most picturesque traditions 
 of the American Indians were woven into a connected story, 
 whose charm was greatly heightened by the novel melody of 
 the verse. The very names were as notes of music "from 
 
LONGFELLOW 199 
 
 the lips of Nawadaha, the musician, the sweet singer." 
 
 "In the vale of Tawasentha, 
 In the green and silent valley, 
 There he sang of Hiawatha, 
 Sang the Song of Hiawatha, 
 Sang his wondrous birth and being, 
 How he prayed and how he fasted, 
 How he lived, and toiled, and suffered. 
 That the tribes of men might prosper, 
 That he might advance his people!" 
 
 It was not long before the tales of Hiawatha s Fasting, of his 
 Wooing, of Blessing the Cornfields, of The Ghosts and The 
 Famine, were known practically wherever English poetry is 
 read. 
 
 It is wrong to claim for Hiawatha any special significance 
 as a poem with a native American theme, sprung from the 
 soil. Longfellow sang, in a purely literary and romantic 
 spirit, the traditions of a race that was to him alien and almost 
 unknown, as an Englishman might turn into poetry the leg 
 ends of the aborigines of Australia. He idealized, too, far 
 more than Cooper, and beyond all warrant. Local color and 
 local truth are not the strong points of the poem. It must 
 be accepted solely for the admirable work of art that is it. A 
 more strictly native theme was that of The Courtship of Miles 
 Standish, \vhich followed in three years; but the homely 
 Puritan tale, with its repetition of the manner of Evangeline, 
 did not afford the poet quite the right inspiration, and it 
 frequently lapses into mere prose. 
 
 In 1854, the year before the publication of Hiawatha, 
 
 Longfellow resigned his professorship at Harvard that he 
 
 might be free to pursue his more congenial, and 
 
 Later Years. 
 
 by that time more profitable, literary work. In 
 1861 the happiness of his home life was broken by a calami 
 tous accident. Mrs. Longfellow, while engaged in sealing up 
 for her little daughters some packages containing curls of their 
 
200 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 hair, set fire to her dress and was fatally burned. The 
 of Snow, a sonnet written eighteen years afterward, gives us 
 some hint of what Longfellow must have suffered. In the un 
 rest that followed this domestic affliction, further fed by the 
 anxieties of the Civil War, the poet turned for solace to the 
 semi-mechanical exercise of writing tales and making transla 
 tions. The Tales of a Wayside Inn (the inn really existed in 
 the town of Sudbury, and the characters introduced were 
 actual friends of Longfellow, in slight disguise) appeared in 
 1863. Seven years later he had completed and published a 
 work worthy at once of his scholarship and his genius, a 
 metrical yet extremely literal translation of Dante s Divina 
 Commedia. It fails, as perhaps all translations must fail, to 
 catch the burning intensity of the original, but all in all it is 
 the most satisfactory verse rendering we have in English of a 
 poem for which nothing but an absolutely literal translation 
 will ever suffice. About the same time, too, he completed 
 what he hoped would be his masterwork, the conception of 
 which had in a sense "dominated his literary life," namely, a 
 trilogy which aimed to set forth Christianity in its ancient, 
 mediaeval, and modern aspects, and which he entitled 
 Christus: a Mystery. But the task was beyond his powers. 
 The middle portion, "The Golden Legend," which had been 
 published twenty years before, was fairly successful, but the 
 other parts, "The Divine Tragedy" and "The New England 
 Tragedies," are so little read that they are not always 
 incorporated in his collected works. 
 
 After this Longfellow attempted no more poems of large 
 scope, though he continued to write many sonnets and minor 
 pieces, from The Hanging of the Crane and Morituri Salutamus 
 down to that lyric of serene faith, The Bells of San Bias, writ 
 ten but a few days before his death. He died on the twenty- 
 fourth of March, 1882, aged seventy-five. In 1884, a bust of 
 him was placed in the Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey, 
 
LONGFELLOW 201 
 
 near the tomb of Chaucer, England s gracious tribute to 
 the renown of America s best loved poet. 
 
 The parallel between Longfellow and Irving, which has 
 already been suggested, can be drawn further. Longfellow, 
 like Irving kept pretty carefully to the beaten track where all 
 
 could follow him. In the matter of form he knew 
 Summary. we U enough how to surprise his public, and he did so 
 
 again and again; but even these seeming novelties 
 always turned out to be something old and approved. 
 He preferred simple themes and simple language, refraining 
 from any innovations that might repel. Thus he established 
 himself securely in his readers affections, always meeting 
 their expectations and making his name in a sense synony 
 mous with American poetry, though not our greatest yet 
 our leading singer by virtue of his continuous, satisfying song. 
 The supreme poetic gift, imaginative insight, was not his 
 in any marked degree. Much broader than Bryant, his con 
 templations did not run so deep. Herein, too, he falls far be 
 low his English contemporary, Tennyson, of whom he was in 
 some other respects so nearly the peer. He had no large 
 visions, whether of the political destiny of America or of the 
 moral and social destiny of man. He had little compre 
 hension of the forces that were working such a change in his 
 own generation the ideas of liberty and equality, the new 
 science, and the new education, that were rapidly emanci 
 pating both body and mind. Farther yet from him was it to 
 see the images of beauty or terror which Poe saw beyond the 
 veil of life. He had no power of con jury over the spirit 
 world. Now and then he touched the heights, as in the vision 
 of the majestic Hymn to the Night: 
 
 "I heard the trailing garments of the Night 
 
 Sweep through her marble halls! 
 I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 
 From the celestial walls!" 
 
202 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 or in the figure inspired by the gun-barrels in the arsenal at 
 Springfield ranged and shining like the pipes of an organ: 
 
 "Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, 
 When the death-angel touches those swift keys!" 
 
 But these things are too infrequent to be considered charac 
 teristic: we do not recognize them as like Longfellow. He 
 was something more than a poet of fancy, but in the fields of 
 the imagination his range was in the lowlands. 
 
 His faculty is best described as one that was mainly 
 receptive and assimilative. He had a true instinct for beauty, 
 and he showed his appreciation of any beauty in another s 
 work by frankly borrowing it for his own. He never dis 
 graced it; usually, unless it came from a very high source, he 
 bettered it in the borrowing. If this was not genius, it was a 
 talent for detecting and advertising genius, for turning to 
 the best account the best that the world s literature could 
 afford. For example, Tennyson published Locksley Hall, and 
 immediately afterward Longfellow composed The Belfry of 
 Bruges in the same metre and with something of the same 
 phrasing. This practice, which came from his habit of com 
 posing in his study and relying on his books for inspiration, 
 naturally brought upon him charges of imitating. Wide 
 readers and critics, like Poe, knew the sources, and, as they 
 read his poems, could not help being reminded of them. The 
 nature of the imitation may be learned by comparing The 
 Building of the Ship or Keramos with Schiller s Song of the 
 Bell, or, for a minor instance, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp 
 with Moore s Ballad, "They made her a grave, too cold and 
 damp." But Longfellow never answered the charges, both 
 because they were in part true and because, as far as they 
 were true, there was nothing in them to cause him shame. He 
 was acting honorably; even when the imitation was most 
 obvious he added enough of his own to justify him, and 
 
LONGFELLOW 203 
 
 all right-minded readers were grateful to him for exercising 
 his faculty so happily. Besides, any doubt of his being a poet 
 in his own right could always be allayed by turning to such 
 songs of genuine, spontaneous utterance as The Bridge, or The 
 Day is Done, or My Lost Youth. 
 
 His versatility was greater than that of any other American 
 poet. Though most at ease in lyric poetry, he essayed also, 
 as we have seen, both epic and dramatic, with the minor 
 varieties of ballad and pastoral. As a story-teller in verse he 
 belongs to that band of English rhymers led by Chaucer and 
 Scott. He was almost as thorough a romanticist, too, as 
 Scott steeped in medievalism and Germanism. In form, 
 his range was as wide as in substance. He tried all forms, and 
 seemed to master one as easily as another, with the single 
 exception of heroic blank verse, which was too stately for his 
 agile Muse. But the mastership, which in blank verse he has 
 to yield to Bryant, he holds in an equally difficult form. As 
 a sonnet waiter he has had no rival in America. Indeed, one 
 might support the assertion that Longfellow wrote no greater 
 poetry than is to be found in some of his sonnets, as the 
 Divina Commedia series, Three Friends of Mine, Milton, or 
 Nature. 
 
 Through these things his simplicity, his breadth, his 
 receptive faculty, his versatility Longfellow became our 
 great teacher in verse. He was a scholar himself, to begin 
 with, one of America s earliest and best. He was the first 
 person on this side of the Atlantic to write upon Anglo- 
 Saxon. He led many a student to a knowledge of the modern 
 languages and literatures, and by his translations and 
 adaptations spread far and wide their benignant influence. 
 But most of all he assisted in the spread of culture through the 
 subtle influence of his art. He was an artist to the finger 
 tips. In this respect he far outran Bryant and was a revel 
 ation to a Puritan world. And mark how he reached that 
 
204 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 world. Poe could not do it, for pure art and imagination 
 would not avail. But Longfellow, though there were no 
 theologians among his ancestors, had the strong moral bias 
 of his New England environment; like Bryant, though in 
 less degree, he was given to meditating and moralizing; and 
 all the while his readers, who went to him for counsel and 
 cheer, were unconsciously succumbing to the witcheries of 
 song and learning to like the very things they had been 
 taught to fear or despise. It was but another step to the 
 drama, to music, to painting and sculpture. Thus it be 
 came Longfellow s mission to soften the asperities of a narrow 
 creed and life. Perhaps the slight sentimentalism that clings 
 to his work, as to Irving s, was a necessary part of this disci 
 plinary task. We can pardon his fondness for exclamation 
 points and pretty figures of speech when we contemplate the 
 large result. Nor if, after we have learned to like such things 
 as "footprints on the sands of time" and "forget-me-nots of 
 the angels," we find that our poetic education is not complete 
 until Tennyson and Shakespeare and Dante have taught us 
 to dislike them again, should we turn with ingratitude from 
 our first teacher, who made the second lesson possible. 
 
 Finally, and once more like Irving, Longfellow has a high 
 claim to our admiration in his fundamental, serene humanity. 
 Scholarly though he was, bookish and often getting his inspir 
 ation at second hand, he was never scholastic, technical, 
 obscure, or dry. Love is more than wisdom, and in every 
 line that Longfellow wrote there beats a kindly human heart. 
 Rarely does he count to us intellectually so much as emotion 
 ally. He fought shy of analysis, put quietly by the problems 
 and stress of his age, if indeed he felt them, remaining to the 
 end an ardent lover of beauty and peace; and over all his 
 poetry broods 
 
 " A Sabbath sound, as of doves 
 In quiet neighborhoods." 
 
WHITTIER 205 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 1807-1892 
 
 Another poet in whom love of human nature was a marked 
 trait was born north of Boston in the same year as Long 
 fellow John Greenleaf Whittier. Little of the 
 Boy? r " scholar, however, is to be found in this New Eng 
 
 land Quaker, whose lot it was to pass from the 
 plow to politics and from politics to literature. He was born 
 in 1807 in East Haverhill, a rugged, hilly section of Essex 
 County, in the extreme north-east corner of Massachusetts. 
 In the southern part of the same county lies Salem, the birth 
 place of Hawthorne. The home of Whittier was in a country 
 district; the town of Haverhill was three miles away, and to 
 this day no roof is in sight from the old homestead. The 
 house, considerably more than a hundred years old at the 
 poet s birth, was built by his great-great-grandfather. The 
 Whittiers were mostly stalwart men, six feet in height, who 
 lived out their three-score and ten years. The poet, though 
 his years were more than any of his immediate ancestors , fell 
 a little short of the family stature and was of slender frame. 
 He attributed his delicate health to the hard work and 
 exposure of his youth. He milked cows, "grubbed stumps," 
 built boulder fences, threshed grain with a flail, wore no flan 
 nels in the coldest weather, and woke often of winter morn 
 ings to find upon his coverlet sif tings of snow. Something of 
 this may be learned from Snow-Bound, which is a faithful 
 picture of the Whittier homestead and household as they were 
 ninety years ago. 
 
 It was a life utterly without luxury and with few means of 
 culture. The family, however, was one of the most respected 
 in the community, and could draw to its fireside intelligent 
 acquaintances, among them itinerant ministers of the Friends 
 to which sect it belonged. There were perhaps thirty books 
 in the house, largely Quaker tracts and journals. Of course, 
 there was the Bible, and through all his poetry Whittier 
 
206 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 reverts to the Bible for phrases and images as naturally as 
 Keats reverts to classical mythology or Longfellow to med 
 iaeval legend. Memorable were the evenings when the 
 school-teacher came and read to the family from books he 
 brought with him one most memorable when the book was a 
 copy of Burns. On Whittier s first visit to Boston, an occa 
 sion honored by his wearing "boughten buttons" on his 
 homespun coat and a broad-brim hat made by his aunt out 
 of pasteboard covered with drab velvet, he purchased a copy 
 of Shakespeare. One of the Waverley novels, its author as 
 yet unknown, fell into his hands and was read eagerly, 
 but the parents did not share in that reading. 
 
 He attended the district school a few weeks each winter; 
 the nature of his schooling may be judged from the poem 
 From To My Old Schoolmaster. When he was nineteen 
 
 joumluLn he completed his scanty education with a year at 
 and Politics. an aca( j em y i n Haverhill. From the time when 
 the reading of Burns woke the poet within him, he was con 
 stantly writing rhymes, covering his slate with them and 
 sometimes copying them out on foolscap. William Lloyd 
 Garrison, soon afterward to be the leader of the abolition 
 movement, had started his Free Press in a neighboring town. 
 Whittier*s father, interested in all philanthropic enterprises, 
 was a subscriber, and to it Whittier s sister sent, without his 
 knowledge, one of his poems. Thus began at once his literary 
 and his political career. Garrison became interested in his 
 new contributor, and the story has often been told of how 
 the smart young editor drove out to the country home and 
 Whittier was called in from the field to meet him. It is not 
 quite a parallel to the story of Cincinnatus, but important 
 things came of the meeting. Through the long anti-slavery 
 agitation that followed, Garrison and he were close friends, 
 often working side by side. Two years after the meeting, 
 Garrison, who was then editing a temperance paper in Boston, 
 
WHITTIER 207 
 
 secured for him the editorship of a political journal there and 
 he was soon in the thick of the tariff discussion, supporting 
 Clay against Jackson in the campaign of 1832. He wrote 
 in one of his letters, "I would rather have the memory of a 
 Howard, a Wilberforce, and a Clarkson than the undying 
 fame of Byron;" and though he was thinking of Byron s 
 spirit rather than of his poetry, the declaration shows clearly 
 that his interests lay less in literature than in political and 
 social reform. 
 
 The editorial work begun at Boston was continued at 
 
 Hartford, but proved too trying for his delicate health, and he 
 
 returned to the farm. When the farm was sold 
 
 Enlisted 
 
 against four years later, he removed with his mother and 
 
 Slavery. 
 
 sister to Amesbury. Meanwhile, he contributed 
 much verse to the newspapers. But his interest in politics 
 more and more overshadowed his other interests. "I have 
 knocked Pegasus on the head," he wrote, "as a tanner does 
 his bark-mill donkey when he is past service." He was 
 elected to the legislature of Massachusetts, and there were 
 excellent prospects of his being nominated for Congress. The 
 anti-slavery agitation, however, was growing, fostered 
 especially by Garrison s Liberator which was started in 1831, 
 and as Whittier was soon seen to be an ardent supporter of 
 the unpopular cause, his political prospects faded. No selfish 
 considerations could prevent a man of his character from 
 speaking out when he felt that the nation was guilty of har 
 boring a great wrong. Quaker though he was, the righting 
 spirit was strong in him. It could be read in his piercing, 
 deep-set eyes, and it can be read in his verse. During his 
 school days he had published anonymously a poem called 
 The Song of the Vermonters, 1779: 
 
 "Ho all to the borders! Vermonters, come down, 
 With your breeches of deerskin and jackets of brown; 
 With your red woolen caps, and your moccasins, come, 
 To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum," 
 
208 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 He disliked to acknowledge the authorship of so martial a 
 poem, perhaps because he realized that the spirit of it was 
 only too geniune. 
 
 He flung himself into the new cause, heart and soul. He 
 could not counsel taking up arms; actual war, indeed, was a 
 thing he dreaded. "For one, I thank God that he has given 
 me a deep and invincible horror of human butchery." But all 
 means short of war were to be tried. Both openly and pri 
 vately he helped with advice some of the great leaders of the 
 North Sumner, Seward, Gerrit Smith. Occasionally he 
 took part in public meetings. In 1837 he went to Philadel 
 phia to edit the Pennsylvania Freeman, and was .there when 
 Pennsylvania Hall was burnt by a mob in protest against an 
 anti-slavery convention. He was once pelted with eggs in 
 the streets of Concord, New Hampshire, and thirty years 
 afterward sent the coat which he had then worn, and which 
 had been kept as a relic, to the needy freedmen of the South. 
 But most of all he assisted the cause with his poetry, to which 
 he turned once more with the inspiration born of a noble 
 purpose. ^The bark-mill donkey was transformed into a 
 knight s charger, and not even the rider himself ever sneered 
 at it again. 
 
 Here was the real beginning of his career. Such poems as 
 he had already published Moll Pitcher, a poem of New Eng 
 land legendary life (1832), and the more ambitious 
 JfFretdom. te Mogg Megone (1836) were only conventional and 
 almost worthless exercises in rhyme. It was the 
 Ballads and the Anti-Slavery Poems of 1837 and 1838 that won 
 him a hearing and marked him as a poet with a mission the 
 accepted laureate of the Liberty party. Among the best of 
 these poems were Toussaint L Ouverture, The Slave-Ships, 
 Expostulation, The Hunters of Men, Stanzas for the Times, 
 Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother, The Pastoral Letter. The 
 last named was called forth by a letter written by the Con- 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
WHITTIER 209 
 
 gregational ministers of Massachusetts in which they pleaded 
 that the perplexed subject of abolition be not brought up for 
 debate in the churches. Whit tier s poem was a scathing 
 rebuke of what he conceived to be most unchristian conduct : 
 
 "For, if ye claim the pastoral right 
 
 To silence Freedom s voice of warning, 
 And from your precincts shut the light 
 Of Freedom s day around you dawning; 
 
 "If when an earthquake voice of power 
 
 And signs in heaven and earth are showing 
 That forth, in its appointed hour, 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord is going! 
 And, with that Spirit, Freedom s light 
 
 On kindred, tongue, and people breaking, 
 Whose slumbering millions, at the sight, 
 
 In glory and in strength are waking! 
 
 " What marvel, if the people learn 
 
 To claim the right of free opinion? 
 What marvel, if at times they spurn 
 
 The ancient yoke of your dominion?" 
 
 No stronger or clearer voice for freedom had been raised in 
 American letters since Tom Paine nerved the soldiers at Val 
 ley Forge and Philip Freneau hurled his hot verses at the 
 head of George the Third. 
 
 After 1844 Whittier gave up editorial duties altogether 
 and became an established literary worker in the quiet of his 
 Amesbury home. In 1847 he began to contribute regularly 
 to the National Era, a weekly organ of the Anti-Slavery 
 Society established at Washington, the paper, it may be 
 remembered, in which Mrs. Stowe s Uncle Tom s Cabin first 
 appeared. Through this medium many of his better poems 
 were published: Barclay of Ury, Angels of Buena Vista, Maud 
 Mutter, Bums, Mary Garvin, Ichabod the meaning of the 
 Hebrew name is "departed glory" shows well the intensity 
 
210 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 of the passions aroused by the burning controversies of the 
 time. The poem was published in 1850 shortly after 
 Webster s Seventh of March Speech in support of Clay s 
 compromise measures and the Fugitive Slave Law. In it 
 the great leader was mourned as one already dead, since his 
 weakness in that supreme moment Whittier could not but 
 regard as dishonor and moral death. At such a time, he 
 said, "If one spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of 
 stern and sorrowful rebuke." Out of the war and its issues 
 grew other strong poems, like the hymn Thy Will Be Done, or 
 the ballad of Barbara Frietchie, or the fervent and ecstatic 
 Lous Deo that burst from him when the bells rang out for the 
 passing of the constitutional amendment which abolished 
 
 slavery and made 
 
 "the cruel rod of war 
 Blossom white with righteous law." 
 
 But the voice that had grown to such strength and clarity 
 in the cause of liberty was returning again and again to 
 
 the more purely lyrical notes it had essayed in 
 Bl!i e a r d d s ary youth. Two things always appealed strongly to 
 
 Whittier s poetic imagination. One was the 
 slender body of legendary lore that has come down from the 
 colonial days of New England, including a few tales of the 
 trials and persecutions of the early Quakers. The Bridal of 
 Pennacook, Mary Garvin, The Ranger, Mabel Martin, Mar 
 guerite, Cassandra Southwick, Barclay of Ury, Skipper 
 Ireson s Ride and How the Women Went from Dover are all 
 ballads that have been thus inspired. They show a wide 
 range. There is the rude, saga-like vigor of Barclay of Ury 
 (a tale, however, not of New England, but of the Scotch 
 Quakers) ; and there is the homely picturesqueness of 
 
 "Old Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
 Torr d an futherr d an corr d in a corrt 
 By the women o Marble ead." 
 
WHITTIER 211 
 
 Mary Garvin and Mabel Martin touch tender chords of sym 
 pathy. Marguerite is as pathetic as any poem in our litera 
 ture, and The Ranger is almost as melodious as any. 
 
 The other favorite field of Whittier s imaginative exercise 
 was the humble rural life in which his private interests were 
 
 earliest centred. Lays of My Home, Songs of 
 idyl En8land Labor, Home Ballads, were the titles of some of his 
 
 successive volumes. He had himself learned the 
 shoemaker s craft, he had driven cattle, he had worked in the 
 cornfields, and he turned into brave-hearted song the duties 
 and joys of the shoemakers, the drovers, and the huskers. 
 He stands almost as a patron saint to that little man, the 
 "barefoot boy with cheek of tan." He felt, with the poor 
 voter on election day, the full meaning of republican equality : 
 
 "Up! clouted knee and ragged coat! 
 A man s a man today!" 
 
 If it was Robert Burns who woke the poet within him, it was 
 because his heart beat with kindred sympathies and ideals, 
 and the question which he asks when writing of Burns, 
 
 "Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 
 To love a tribute dearer?" 
 
 might almost be answered with his own name. Doubtless, 
 in the consideration of work of this nature, one is too easily 
 beguiled into praise and needs to remind himself of Matthew 
 Arnold s protest against the immoderate estimation of Burns. 
 But the critic might well forego his office for a moment in the 
 presence of these idyls of Whittier, in which the simple but 
 universal emotions of the natural man find such simple and 
 natural expression. Surely it seems that the lingering mem 
 ory of youth s shy romance could call forth no more ten 
 derly wistful cry than My Playmate, or that time can never 
 take the charm from A Sea Dream, or Maud Mutter, or Tell- 
 
212 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 ing the Bees, or that poem, In School-Days, which Dr. Holmes 
 cried over and Matthew Arnold himself praised as perfect. 
 Whittier never married. The little romances of his youth 
 slipped quietly into memories and imparted a finer tone to the 
 poetry of his mature years. The passions of his 
 manhood were expended in the cause for which 
 he labored, and his affections were given up to 
 his home, and to his mother and sister while they lived. But 
 there was a stronger strain than all these, the strain of 
 devotion to the simple religious faith he cherished and of love 
 for the Great Love which he saw ruling the destinies of men 
 and nations. We must therefore add to the three classes of 
 poems we have already described the poems of freedom, 
 the legendary ballads, and the New England idyls a fourth, 
 the religious poems and hymns. That Whittier knew some 
 thing of the trials of faith and the heart-shaking questions 
 that assailed the man in the land of Uz is shown by his 
 dramatic My Soul and I, and the yearning Questions of Life: 
 
 "I am: how little more I know! 
 Whence came I? Whither do I go? 
 A centred self, which feels and is; 
 A cry between the silences; 
 A shadow-birth of clouds as strife 
 With sunshine on the hills of life." 
 
 But these were passing moods. The full confession of his 
 faith a confession that leaves no place for doubt or despon 
 dency is rather to be sought in such later poems as My 
 Psalm, Trust, Revelation, The Over-Heart, The Eternal Good 
 ness. 
 
 It was after the war, and after the sad break in his domes 
 tic life caused by the death of his sister Elizabeth, that W T hit- 
 tier s mind set like an ebbing tide toward the sea of past mem 
 ories; and then came the composition of Snow-Bound, an 
 idyl of winter and of home-life in the Arcadian age of New 
 
WHITTIER 213 
 
 England. Even for a second generation of readers, descrip 
 
 tion or praise of it seems almost superfluous, so securely has 
 
 this poem, with its simple rustic pictures and its 
 
 Bound" 1866. deep religious faith, maintained itself in the popu- 
 
 "TheTenton 
 
 ] ar affection. It bids fair to take rank with such 
 
 classics as The Cotter s Saturday Night and The 
 Deserted Village; in America it is today more widely read 
 than either. The Tent on the Beach of the year following 
 was another large composition, but less coherent. It was 
 such a sheaf of stories as an aging poet likes to gather, and 
 makes a kind of companion piece to Longfellow s Tales of a 
 Wayside Inn. 
 
 For just a quarter of a century longer Whittier was spared, 
 to complete many other volumes and separate poems. He 
 
 would not venture to visit that "night-mare con- 
 Years. fusion of the world s curiosity shop," the Centen 
 
 nial Exposition of 1876 at Philadelphia, but he 
 wrote the stately hymn that was sung at its . opening. His 
 last years were spent quietly with his relatives at various 
 places in the Essex County neighborhood. He died at 
 Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892, in the 
 eighty-fifth year of his age; and Holmes was the only one of 
 the great New England group left to mourn his departure : 
 
 "Best loved and saintliest of our singing train, 
 
 Earth s noblest tributes to thy name belong. 
 A lifelong record closed without a stain, 
 
 A blameless memory shrined in deathless song." 
 
 Whittier s rise to national fame was comparatively slow. 
 
 He never obtruded himself as a poet, nor made bids for 
 
 critical appreciation. Those who were most 
 
 Bard and . . . . 
 
 Phiian- deeply interested in the abolition of slavery and 
 
 who came to know him early and well, scarcely 
 
 thought of him as a poet, but. rather as a rhyming champion 
 
 of the cause they had at heart. But he gradually endeared 
 
214 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 himself to the hundreds who read poetry for its own sake, and 
 by almost imperceptible degrees, and especially after the 
 establishment of the Atlantic Monthly and his contributions 
 to it, he came to be generally recognized as a worthy member 
 of the New England group who already counted him one of 
 themselves. Finally, the publication of Snow-Bound with its 
 sustained beauty and intense human quality set him quite out 
 of the ranks of occasional singers and left no doubt of his place. 
 
 His reputation has grown steadily ever since; and it seems 
 likely to endure, for it rests upon a genuineness that is above 
 all suspicion. However much we may talk of the genuine 
 ness of Bryant or Longfellow or Low r ell, that of Whittier is 
 seen to be of a still finer strain. It was equalled only by 
 Emerson s. And Whittier got closer to the hearts of the 
 people by being free from Emerson s skyey philosophy. If 
 Longfellow was a poet for the people, Whittier was a poet 
 of the people. He was content to use the very dialect of the 
 people he knew and loved, and protested to his publisher that 
 in that dialect war and law, Martha and swarthy, pasture and 
 faster, were good rhymes. Uncultured he might be called; 
 he did not care. He looked at life through no medium of 
 tradition or false education. Standing in what Carlyle would 
 call a close first relation to men and things, his were the ideal 
 conditions of a bard. 
 
 Moreover, he brought to those conditions the sufficient 
 gifts, first, the native impulse, and second, the power of song. 
 He was a poet, not by choice and cultivation, as Longfellow, 
 nor by fitful inspiration, as Bryant, Emerson, and Lowell, but 
 always and uncontrollably, by high compulsion. His num 
 bers were never studied. Like Emerson, he sang instinct 
 ively in the primitive four-beat measure; only, rhythmical 
 and musical language came to him far more easily than to 
 Emerson. He who idealized humble life and toil like Burns, 
 sang with the lyric ease of Burns. 
 
LOWELL 215 
 
 The slight valuation he set upon his gifts must itself go to 
 his credit. Bard though he was, he refused to regard himself 
 as such, steadfastly putting life first and poetry second. Thus 
 he came, in mature manhood, to devote his whole energy 
 to the eradication of our national crime. It was poetry s 
 loss, possibly, and may account for the fact that we have 
 scarcely any single work of magnitude from his pen; for the 
 fruit of this productive period of his life is to be sought in our 
 social and not in our literary history. The literature that he 
 produced then we must today account of minor value: no 
 number of Ichabods or of Pastoral Letters can outweigh one 
 Marguerite or one Sea-Dream. Yet Whittier himself would 
 have been the last to deplore the loss. That his poetry 
 written with a purpose was of less literary value than his pro 
 ducts of calmer art he would acknowledge, rejoicing still that 
 his life had come to be dominated by such a noble purpose. 
 We have only to read his Proem to discover the modesty of 
 his own claims so far as rank in literature is concerned. He 
 was satisfied if he could be written down as one who loved his 
 fellow-men, one who, in the words of the prelude of Among 
 the Hills, gave his prayers and strength to lift manhood up 
 
 "Through broader culture, finer manners, love, 
 And reverence, to the level of the hills." 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 1819-1891 
 
 Of the writers of first importance whom we have thus far 
 treated, only Thoreau was born later than 1809. With James 
 Russell Lowell, whose birth fell on the twenty-second of 
 February, 1819, we are carried forward a full decade. But 
 Lowell began his work so early and was so closely associated 
 with the other great New England writers that he must be 
 regarded as virtually their contemporary, a junior member of 
 the. group. One part of his fame, and in all probability the 
 most enduring part, belongs to the ante-bellum period. 
 
216 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 The early surroundings of Whittier and of Lowell present 
 nearly as striking a contrast as the conditions of New England 
 life could afford. The two men were alike in being 
 Fnfluences. descended from families of sterling worth, but in 
 other respects Lowell was far more favored, having 
 all the means and incentives to culture which Whittier 
 lacked. The Lowell family, in its several branches, has 
 long been prominent in Massachusetts. The city of Lowell 
 was named in honor of Francis Cabot Lowell, an uncle 
 of the poet, who introduced cotton manufacturing into the 
 United States; the Lowell Institute at Boston, with its free 
 lectures on religion, science, and art, was the gift of Fran 
 cis Cabot s son; the poet s grandfather drafted the anti- 
 slavery clause in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights; his father, 
 the Reverend Charles Lowell, was for more than fifty years 
 a minister of Boston; his elder brother, Robert Traill Spence 
 Lowell, and his sister, Mrs. Putnam, both became writers of 
 some note. 
 
 James Russell, the youngest son of the family, was born 
 at Cambridge, in the beautiful home known as Elmwooo., and 
 lived and died there. In this he was more fortunate than most 
 Americans, who, said Holmes, are "all cuckoos -we make our 
 homes in the nests of other birds." The house at Elmwood 
 was, like Craigie House, an historic place of Revolution 
 ary memories; and the secluded, ample grounds made a fine 
 rural refuge for a youth of poetic fancies To understand 
 fully what this home meant to the poet, both in youth and in 
 maturity, one should read his Indian Summer Reverie and 
 Under the Willows. Nor was there only wealth for the nature- 
 lover out of doors; there were also treasures for the lover of 
 books within. The Lowell library was the accumulation of 
 several generations of scholarly men, and Lowell, familiar 
 almost from infancy with books that Whittier even in the 
 studious leisure of his old age never looked into, used to fall 
 
LOWELL 217 
 
 asleep to the reading of Spenser and the old English drama 
 tists. 
 
 Possibly these advantages carried with them disadvan 
 tages. Lowell in his youth was shy, over-sensitive, and per 
 haps over-proud. Certainly it is hard to discover in his early 
 letters the manliness and simplicity into which he finally 
 matured. He was sent to Harvard as a matter of course 
 was a sophomore there in 1836, when Longfellow succeeded 
 Ticknor as Professor of Romance Languages, and heard 
 Emerson s address on The American Scholar in the fall of 1837. 
 In the last year of his residence he was one of the editors of 
 the college magazine, Harvardiana. He was elected class 
 poet; but for some delinquency or offence, about which 
 mystery seems still to hang, he was "rusticated" by the 
 Faculty. That meant that he was banished to Concord to 
 finish his studies privately, and that he could not be present 
 on Class Day, or read his poem, though he was allowed to 
 return on Commencement Day and take his degree. Nat 
 urally he conceived a boyish dislike for Concord and for the 
 Transcendentalism with which he came into some contact 
 there. Emerson he regarded as "a good-natured man in spite 
 of his doctrines." 
 
 At the time of his graduation he was quite as undecided 
 upon a "career" as Longfellow had been, and was apparently 
 without Longfellow s bias toward scholarship and literature. 
 He actually thought of all the professions in turn and also of 
 mercantile life. He studied law, and indulged for a while in 
 the delight of paying office-rent, but never really practiced. 
 He did a little aimless contributing to magazines, and he 
 published an unimportant volume of poems, A Year s Life, 
 in 1841. The real turning-point of his life seems to have been 
 his marriage to Maria White in 1844. She was a woman of 
 beauty and of culture, and was possessed moreover of a 
 sensitively humane spirit. The anti-slavery movement, 
 
218 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 which was just then making rapid headway, engaged her 
 sympathies, and, possibly through hers, Lowell s. The man 
 who in his class poem had ridiculed the abolitionists, was soon 
 found writing on their side; and the history of Lowell from 
 this time on is the history of an earnest, large-hearted, broad- 
 minded man a poet, a scholar, a statesman, and a patriot. 
 The four years from 184^ to 1848 were among the most 
 productive and happy in Lowell s life. In the first of these 
 years he published a second volume of poems, this 
 Literary time attracting some favorable attention. Then, 
 
 Period. 
 
 under the influence of the public excitement 
 aroused by the admission of Texas into the Union, a move 
 ment generally regarded as aiming at the extension of slave 
 territory, he wrote The Present Crisis., revealing at once both 
 the moral earnestness and the poetic fire that were latent with 
 in him: 
 
 "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side." 
 
 It was indeed a "dolorous and jarring blast," so charged 
 with indignation as to arouse the most apathetic reader in its 
 own day and so informed with the spirit of righteousness that 
 its echoes ring yet : 
 
 "Truth forever on the^ scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own." 
 
 The two great products of these years, however, were 
 The Biglow Papers and The Vision of Sir Launfal. The 
 
 Mexican War followed upon the annexation of 
 Papr^ low Texas, and those who shared Lowell s political 
 
 sentiments were more indignant than ever. In 
 the summer of 1846 a regiment was raised in Boston, and 
 Lowell was moved by the sight of a recruiting officer on the 
 
LOWELL 219 
 
 streets to write what he called "a squib" and send it to the 
 Boston Courier: 
 
 "Thrash away, you ll hev to rattle 
 
 On them kittle-drums o yourn, 
 Taint a knowin kind o cattle 
 
 Thet is ketched with mouldy corn." 
 
 In keeping with its Yankee dialect, it was signed "Hosea 
 Biglow." Other poems of a similar character followed, and 
 they proved so popular that in 1848 Lowell issued the series 
 in a volume, with numerous interesting prefaces and letters 
 purporting to come from one "Parson Wilbur," who played 
 the role of friend and adviser to the young rustic poet, Hosea. 
 The third number, "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," which 
 grew out of a little passage in local politics, had, upon its 
 first appearance, run like wildfire over the reading public of 
 America, and, we are told, of England. Everywhere could 
 be heard the refrain 
 
 "But John P. 
 
 Robinson he . 
 Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B." 
 
 Another happy hit was "The Pious Editor s Creed," with its 
 declaration 
 
 "I don t believe in princerple, 
 But oh, I du in interest." 
 
 But the hardest knocks were reserved for the war and slav 
 ery. Lowell s quick native sense of humor for these papers 
 belong also very distinctly to the literature of humor did 
 him double service. It afforded an outlet for his feelings, 
 leaving him personally even-tempered and happy in most 
 trying times; and it enabled him to reach an audience that 
 remained unmoved by the sober appeals of men like Garrison, 
 Phillips, and Whittier. People who, with no particular 
 sympathy for his sentiments, read the Biglow Papers for the 
 
220 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 wit and humor that were in them, came often upon passages 
 that compelled them to stop and think : 
 
 "Ef you take a sword an dror it, 
 
 An go stick a feller thru, 
 Guv ment aint to answer for it, 
 God 11 send the bill to you." 
 
 Such doctrine was sometimes called unpatriotic, but Lowell 
 scarcely needed to answer that charge. Hosea Biglow was 
 thoroughly loyal; as Parson Wilbur jestingly put it, "In the 
 plowing season, no one has a deeper share in the well-being of 
 the country than he." It was patriotism with conscience 
 added. The conscience of Puritan New England was speak 
 ing out, just as it had always spoken, and it was indisputably 
 making itself heard. A second series of the papers was 
 written during the Civil War, and contained, along with much 
 of the same piercing satire as marked the first series, the 
 beautiful "Suthin in the Pastoral Line." Among the prefa 
 tory matter there was published with both series (revised in 
 the second) that unique picture of Yankee life known as The 
 Courting which an Edinburgh critic has called "one of the 
 freshest bits of pastoral in the language." 
 
 From The Biglow Papers to The Vision of Sir Launfal is a 
 far cry. But Lowell, like Whittier, could turn from the heat 
 and strife of public affairs to the solace of pure poetry, and 
 "build a bridge from Dreamland for his lay." One of the 
 most spiritually significant of the legends that have come 
 
 down from the early days of Christianity, namely, 
 of sir * the quest of the Holy Grail, the cup of emerald 
 
 from which Christ drank at the last supper, gave 
 Lowell an inspiration, and within forty-eight hours, so we are 
 told, the poem of knightly aspiration and brotherly love was 
 written . The sub j ec t was handled freely ; there was not much 
 attempt to preserve the legendary atmosphere. Holmes 
 found fault with the dandelions and the Baltimore oriole 
 
LOWELL 221 
 
 "in the tableau of the old feudal castle." But the freshness, 
 vigor, and beauty of the poem have been universally praised. 
 It makes one think of the rapturous song of Shelley s skylark 
 that "from heaven or near it" pours his full heart 
 
 "In profuse strains of unpremeditated art." 
 
 Holmes might well forget, as many years later he declared he 
 forgot, that Lowell was "a wit and a humorist, a critic and an 
 essayist," in the presence of such buoyant, palpitating poetry. 
 A third work, published in this same year 1848, but of a 
 much lower order of merit, was A Fable for Critics. It was a 
 long criticism in rhyme of the American writers 
 for critics." wno were then prominent, and it was so penetrat 
 ing, so illuminating, and so witty, that it is con 
 stantly quoted still. To say that it was always temperate or 
 just would be going too far, and we should be on our guard 
 against giving too much weight to its criticisms. We must 
 remember that Lowell was still a young man under thirty, 
 writing in this case anonymously, with every temptation to be 
 witty and satirical. He over-praised Willis, as did almost 
 everybody else; he could not fairly estimate men without 
 humor, like Bryant and Cooper; he said altogether too little 
 of Poe, and altogether too much of Margaret Fuller ("Mi 
 randa"), whom he scored unmercifully. But his appre 
 ciation of Hawthorne before Hawthorne s greatest work was 
 done was much to his credit, and many of his happily- 
 phrased estimates, like that of Emerson as "a Greek head on 
 right Yankee shoulders," deserve to be long remembered. 
 
 Lowell s wife died in 1853 and he married again in 1857. 
 
 In the meantime he had made several trips to Europe, and 
 
 upon his return from the second trip he entered 
 
 Literary upon what might be called the second fruitful 
 
 period of his life. He was appointed to the 
 
 Smith Professorship of Romance Languages at Harvard upon 
 
222 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 Longfellow s resignation, and assumed his duties there, 
 which extended over a period of twenty years, in 1856. In 
 the spring of 1857 he attended a memorable dinner-party 
 given by the publisher, Mr. Moses D. Phillips, and his 
 "literary man," Francis H. Underwood, who were proposing 
 to establish a literary magazine. The arrangement of the 
 table at that party was as follows : 
 
 Phillips 
 
 Emerson Longfellow 
 
 Holmes Motley 
 
 Lowell Cabot 
 
 Underwood 
 
 The next autumn the magazine was duly launched the third 
 important enterprise of this kind in the annals of Boston pub 
 lishing. The North American Review, it will be remembered, 
 was established there in 1815, and the short-lived Dial in 
 1840. The neV magazine was named, at the suggestion of 
 Dr. Holmes, The Atlantic Monthly; Lowell was given the 
 editorship; and within six months it was declared on high 
 authority, to be at that time, "unquestionably the best maga 
 zine in the English language." It represented far more 
 than talent it represented the best literary genius that 
 the Atlantic states could boast, and that means the high 
 est literary genius that America has yet produced. After 
 four years Lowell resigned his editorship to James T. Fields, 
 and a little later became joint editor with Charles Eliot 
 Norton of The North American Review; but he continued to 
 make contributions to the Atlantic, both in verse and in prose. 
 At the beginning of the war his touching Washers of the Shroud 
 appeared in it, and the second series of The Biglow Papers 
 was published in its pages. The interest with which he fol 
 lowed the events of those terrible years was deepened and 
 saddened by the loss of three nephews who fought on the side 
 
LOWELL 223 
 
 of the Union. There are pathetic references to them, both 
 in The Biglow Papers and in the introduction of his essay 
 On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners. At the close of 
 the war, Lowell composed, in another white heat of poetic 
 ardor, and recited at the Harvard Commemoration, his 
 uneven but lofty Commemoration Ode, with its noble tribute 
 to Abraham Lincoln, Our Martyr-Chief," and its fervent, 
 benediction-like close, beginning 
 
 "Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release!" 
 
 But the chief product of this second period of Lowell s 
 activity is to be sought in his prose essays. Late in life he 
 was ripening into that scholarship of which he had 
 seemed so careless in youth but for which his youth 
 had been such an excellent preparation. In 1864 he pub 
 lished Fireside Travels; in 1870 and 1876 the two series of 
 Among My Books; and in 1871 My Study Windows, so 
 named (the name was given by the publishers) perhaps 
 because the study windows look not only in upon books, but 
 also out upon the garden and the busy world beyond. Most 
 of the essays are critical and find their themes in English and 
 foreign literature Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Carlyle, 
 Emerson. But there is a considerable range outside cf 
 literature, and the ordinary reader is likely to care more for 
 the discursive essays on general themes, such as My Garden 
 Acquaintance, A Good Word for Winter, and Cambridge 
 Thirty Years Ago. It would be impossible to select from 
 them any single passage that would give a fair idea of either 
 their substance or their manner, so diversified is the one and 
 so mutable the other. But to those who would know Lowell 
 at his most centralized and best, Lowell the man rather than 
 Lowell the scholar, the opening of the essay On a Certain 
 Condescension in Foreigners may be commende.d as revealing 
 something of the interior charm to which occasionally, 
 
224 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 thrusting aside more showy qualities, he ventured to give 
 expression. 
 
 The field of Lowell s usefulness was to widen still further. 
 As poet, as essayist, and as editor, he had served the cause 
 both of American nationality and of American 
 Period. literature, and he was called upon to continue this 
 
 double service in another capacity. In 1877 he 
 was appointed Minister to Spain, where Irving had been sent 
 more than thirty years before; and in 1880 he was transfer 
 red to the court of St. James. There he distinguished him 
 self by tact, courtesy, and wisdom, and won the admiration 
 of the English people. The disinterested character of their 
 admiration was shown by their hearty applause of an act 
 that called for no little courage from him the delivery at 
 Birmingham of an address on Democracy. Critics there 
 had been, on this side of the water, outspoken in their censure 
 of Lowell s friendliness for the English aristocracy, but they 
 were silenced by this address. It was the mature declaration 
 of his political faith, breathing the purest Americanism, and 
 it constituted a fitting culmination to a life of consistent 
 loyalty. 
 
 Returning to America in 1885, Lowell continued to deliver 
 addresses, both at the Lowell Institute, and on public occa 
 sions at various places when his strength would permit. He 
 wrote poems, too, and published in 1888 Heartsease and Rue, a 
 final volume. He died in 1891, at the age of seventy-two. 
 On the publication of his letters by Professor C. E. Norton 
 two years later the most charming letters that American 
 literature can yet show something of the Lowell that was 
 known to his friends and companions was revealed to the 
 wider public, to whom his name was already as familiar as 
 Longfellow s and Emerson s. 
 
 In quantity, Lowell s poetry compares pretty evenly with 
 Whittier s, considerably exceeding the meagre product of 
 
LOWELL 225 
 
 Bryant or Poe, but falling short of the fecundity of Long 
 fellow. In character, too, it occupies a place between the nar 
 row, exalted verse of the tw r o former poets, and the 
 Poltry. eas y charm and universal popularity of the latter s. 
 
 Lowell was widely popular, almost from the 
 first. The magazines were quite as eager to publish his work 
 as they were to publish Longfellow s. But that he satisfied 
 some temporary craving of the people rather than any per 
 ennial hunger is shown by the fact that his collected and 
 reprinted works never sold so widely. Longfellow s books 
 lay on every family table, and the family, moreover, was 
 familiar with their contents. Lowell s name was rather 
 better known than his books; and though readers of dis 
 cernment were inevitably attracted to him, he never made 
 upon them quite the same depth and intensity of impression 
 that was made by Bryant, Poe, or Whittier. It is only by 
 the help of his prose that his name stands so securely by 
 theirs. 
 
 Yet if, as just intimated, few of Lowell s poems have fixed 
 themselves indelibly in the minds of readers, all will concede 
 to them sterling qualities the devout worship of nature, for 
 instance, that informs such poems as To the Dandelion and 
 Pictures from Appledore, the human tenderness and pathos 
 of The First Snow-Fall and After the Burial, the Greek 
 beauty of Rhcecus, or the equally compelling if more modern 
 charm of a poem like Hebe: 
 
 "I saw the twinkle of white feet, 
 I saw the flash of robes descending; 
 Before her ran an influence fleet 
 That bowed my heart like barley bending." 
 
 Doubtless Lowell s pure poetry and by this is meant poetry 
 written for poetry s sake is found at its best in the longer 
 Vision of Sir Launfal. It is a poem such as a man must write 
 in youth or not at all a poem of boundless faith and high 
 
226 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 ideals, and all-including worship of beauty and purity. And 
 the poem is for youth: teachers know that it is a positive 
 moral force in our schools today. We are scarcely willing 
 to accept it, however, as a product of high poetic genius. It 
 is conceived so much in the artistic spirit, makes so much of 
 form, that we cannot, as in the case of Emerson s Threnody, 
 waive the tests of art; and yet it is defective in art. It is 
 marred by haste and carelessness, it has faulty figures and 
 discordant lines. It was not to be expected, perhaps, that 
 Dr. Holmes should take kindly to its metre the "rattlety 
 bang sort of verse," he called it, that was revived in Cole 
 ridge s ChristabeL But Christabel is everywhere musical; 
 it contains no such lines as 
 
 "Hang my idle armor up on the wall," 
 
 "And through the dark arch a charger sprang," 
 
 " And the wanderer is welcome to the hall." 
 
 This last line may be read in three; five, or six feet, but scarce 
 ly in four, the number it should have. Even the first four 
 lines of the famous description of June, which as a whole is 
 scarcely to be surpassed for poetic rapture, are confusing in 
 imagery and unsatisfying in rhythm. Fine as the poem is, 
 it is not quite fine enough. It needed, in addition to its 
 genuine inspiration, the perfect art of a Tennyson, and it 
 lacks that art. Lowell was confessedly indolent in such 
 matters, but it seems more than likely that the defect was an 
 inherent one; he never acquired the perfect art. Late in life 
 he wrote his longest and most ambitious poem, The Cathe 
 dral. It was as distinctive as a poem could well be 
 brilliant, profound, stimulating; but it was overweighted with 
 thought, and the adornments of wit were made to supply the 
 place of the adornments of art. Besides, the early spon 
 taneity was missing. At its best the poem was sensuous 
 and even passionate, but it was almost never fresh or simple. 
 Emerson, who was asked to review it, refused, seeing too 
 
LOWELL 227 
 
 clearly that the Muses well had ceased to flow and that the 
 poet "had to pump." 
 
 Greatest after all are his occasional poems The Biglow 
 Papers and the Commemoration Ode. Lowell had a rare 
 knack of penetrating to the heart of men and events. He saw 
 the universal beneath the local, the eternal beneath the tem 
 poral. And so out of a country courtship he made a national 
 poem, and created lasting types of character out of an 
 unscrupulous politician, a cowardly Congressman, a fawning 
 candidate, a time-serving editor. In spite of the fact that he 
 was a scholar he almost paralleled the achievement of Burns 
 and became the mouth-piece of a clan. The Biglow Papers 
 are Yankee to the core, perpetuating the dialect with its 
 racy idiom, and the character with its shrewd wit and homely 
 wisdom. As satire they rank with the best in literature, and 
 they rise above most satire in the manliness of their tone and 
 the sacredness of their cause. The Commemoration Ode, too, 
 though marred by some of the same defects as The Vision 
 of Sir Launfal, is the best poem evoked by the Civil War and 
 its consequences. It is Northern, yet national, patriotic 
 with a patriotism chastened by sorrow into something 
 inexpressibly noble. 
 
 Lowell s abundant wit and his broad, even if not remark 
 ably deep or sound, scholarship, show to best advantage in 
 his prose. He read much and remembered all, 
 >S6 and could marshal his knowledge at any moment 
 to serve his immediate ends. The richness of his prose, both 
 in substance and style is amazing. The variety of 
 knowledges he lays under contribution for the illustration and 
 adornment of his ideas exceeds, one is almost tempted to say, 
 that of Macaulay and Carlyle combined. There is one sen 
 tence in his essay on Swinburne s Tragedies that draws on 
 Greek, Latin, philology, psychology, optics, inebriation, and 
 Mississippi steamboat navigation. The sentence just before 
 
228 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 it has a technical term from metrics, the sentence before that 
 a figure from free-masonry, and the sentence before that a 
 technical term from the Old French law. Every one who 
 knows Lowell s prose knows, too, that this is scarcely an 
 extreme instance. The allusions are often so profuse as to 
 discourage all but very well-informed readers, while for those 
 who can understand and enjoy them the reading is turned 
 into a kind of intellectual debauch. Allusion is packed within 
 allusion, metaphor within metaphor, like a Chinese wooden- 
 egg. Or, to change the figure, his fancies loom up one behind 
 the other like the roofs, towers, and steeples of a distant 
 city. You never know when you have found all that is 
 hidden in one of Lowell s pages. 
 
 Again, his style is a style of infinite paraphrase. The 
 commonest ideas take on most fanciful disguises and seldom 
 does anything reappear without changing its form. Holland 
 gin becomes a "Batavian elixir," a negro minstrel an "Ethi 
 opian serenader;" a coat of whitewash is a "candent bap 
 tism;" a lying tramp is a "beggar," a "vagrant," a "heroic 
 man on an imaginary journey," a "seeker of the unattain 
 able," an "abridged edition of the Wandering Jew;" the 
 barber who makes a slip of the shears "oversteps the boun 
 daries of strict tonsorial prescription and makes a notch 
 through which the phrenological developments can be 
 distinctly seen!" Moreover, Lowell sees the humorous side 
 of everything, and wit sparkles everywhere sometimes 
 indeed to the offence of good taste. He is an inveterate 
 punster. It would be difficult to find anywhere else in the 
 same space as large a number of good puns as may be found 
 in his published letters. But when we find the same sort of 
 thing in serious essays, we cannot approve. Wit is for the 
 passing moment and looks ghastly graven on a monument. 
 
 True, these are lordly, generous qualities, and they have 
 the additional grace of coming unsought; for Lowell does not 
 
LOWELL 229 
 
 strive to be affluent he cannot avoid being so. .Mr. Stedman 
 has somewhere said, speaking of poetry, that "Lowell has 
 sprinkled the whole subject with diamond dust." So he has 
 sprinkled everything: to be spendthrift is his function. But 
 while we envy him his brilliant gifts we cannot help wishing 
 that he had learned and exercised greater restraint, or that he 
 had cultivated more sedulously certain finer qualities. Now 
 and then he curbs his high spirits and tempers his exuberance 
 with a quiet, pensive strain. But in general the temptations 
 to adornment and to mirth are too strong for him. The result 
 shows in that want of fine texture and harmonious tone for 
 which his work is often criticised. Nothing, for example, 
 could well be better than the first paragraph of the essay 
 On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners; and, so far as a 
 sense for harmony of style is concerned, few things could be 
 worse than the fourteenth paragraph of the same essay. The 
 balances of dignity, refinement, grace, pathos, and all the 
 qualities that make for beauty and elevation, are too often 
 wanting. In these things the great English humorists of his 
 century, Lamb and De Quincey, are both his superiors. 
 
 Somewhat similar defects attach to the substance of his 
 essays. The discursive essays, those that pretend to little 
 beyond entertainment, make some of the most delightful 
 reading in modern letters. It is impossible to resist their 
 varied charms, all going back to the author s magnetic 
 personality. And much the same is true of the more serious 
 essays. But these latter suffer in their lack of centrality, 
 of a guiding principle and a definite purpose. Lowell s best 
 poetry came of profound convictions; but when later in life 
 he turned to the writing of prose, he was not inspired by the 
 same sort of convictions he wrote as a professional journalist 
 rather because he found that he could than because he felt 
 that he must. Only perhaps, in one or two addresses of his 
 last years, like Democracy, is it possible to discern behind the 
 
230 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 written or spoken utterance the kind of concentration that 
 has lifted into such clear light the names of Carlyle, Emerson, 
 Ruskin, and Arnold. His criticism at its best is constantly in 
 danger of degenerating into witticism; at its worst it is- un 
 sympathetic and unsound, as when it confronts certain pet 
 aversions like Petrarch, Swinburne, or Thoreau. 
 
 To quarrel with the method, however, is not to condemn 
 the man. Lowell rarely professes to set up standards he 
 will not sink the poet in the critic. If we will accept him 
 for what he is, a kind of eighteenth century critic fortified 
 with nineteenth century learning, browsing in the fields of 
 literature when and where he pleases, resolved to like with a 
 zest and to dislike with a zest, and even to trample under foot 
 what is not to his taste, we shall get our profit from him. His 
 insight always keeps pace with his sympathy. A late writer 
 on style, Mr. Walter Raleigh, has said: "The main business 
 of criticism, after all, is not to legislate, but to raise the dead." 
 Just so far as this is true, Lowell is a great critic. The writers 
 whom he loves he makes live again. Taken all in all, there 
 fore, as critic and as poet, we know pretty clearly how to esti 
 mate him, not, perhaps, as our greatest scholar, certainly 
 not as our greatest man of letters, but as our best example of 
 the two combined. Or if Longfellow and Holmes be allowed 
 to share in this pre-eminence, we may yet add to Lowell s 
 credit a devotion to national and moral principles like that of 
 Whittier, which joins to the breadth of his character a depth 
 they can scarcely claim. 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 1809-1894 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes was another native of Cambridge, 
 
 who, however, opened his eyes upon the beauty of its elms 
 
 nearly ten years before Lowell. He was born in 
 
 the prolific first decade of the century, in the 
 
 year 1809, made memorable on both sides of the Atlantic by 
 
HOLMES 231 
 
 the births of Lincoln, Poe, Tennyson, Darwin, and Gladstone. 
 His grandfather was a captain in the "Old French War" and 
 a surgeon in the Revolutionary army. His father, Abiel 
 Holmes, was a Congregational minister at Cambridge and an 
 author in a modest way. On his mother s side the Wendells 
 he was of Dutch descent. On this side, too, he counted 
 among his ancestors that "tenth Muse" who sprang up in 
 America nearly two centuries before, Mistress Anne Brad- 
 street; but as she was only one of his sixty-four great-great- 
 great-great-grandparents, the Bradstreet poetry that flowed 
 in his veins, thin to begin with, must have been but the 
 weakest trace a homeopathic high-dilution that the Doctor, 
 with all his faith in heredity, would probably have laughed 
 to scorn. 
 
 There is almost nothing of note to be recorded of his boy 
 hood, nor indeed of any period of his life. He was brought 
 up very simply in the old gambrel-roofed house, half parson 
 age, half farmhouse, described in The Poet at the 
 Manh^d.* 1 Breakfast Table; heard the rustic Yankee dialect 
 used by the hired "help" of the family "nater" 
 for nature, "haowsen" for houses, and "musicianers" for 
 musicians; read the New England Primer, Pilgrim s Progress, 
 Pope s Homer, and such poems of Gray, Cowper, Bryant, 
 Drake, etc., as were to be found in school books; showed 
 some ingenuity in working with tools; went to a "dame s 
 school" first, and then to Phillips Academy at Andover 
 (see The School-Boy), whence he should have become a 
 minister like his father but did not; and finally to Harvard, 
 where he was undecided whether to look toward "law or 
 physick," but very decided that authorship was not suited to 
 that particular meridian. The class of 29, in which he 
 graduated, while not to be compared for literary genius with 
 the Bowdoin class of 25, was one of Harvard s most famous 
 classes. James Freeman Clarke, over whom Holmes was 
 
232 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 chosen class poet, was one of its members, and the future 
 author of America was another the youngster whom "fate 
 tried to conceal by naming him Smith." The class not long 
 after began to hold annual dinners, and Holmes was regularly 
 called upon to furnish an ode for the occasion. It was on the 
 thirtieth anniversary that he wrote and recited the familiar 
 poem, "Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys." 
 After graduation he studied law for a while and then turned 
 to medicine and surgery a choice which made it advisable 
 for him to spend some time in the hospitals of Europe. He 
 accordingly passed two years in study at Paris, travelling a 
 little about Europe during vacations. The year 1836 
 found him equipped with his doctor s degree and established 
 in an office at Boston. Two years later he received an 
 appointment to the Professorship of Anatomy at Dartmouth 
 College, and he lectured there for several terms. In 1840 he 
 married. In 1847 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy 
 and Physiology in the Harvard Medical School, and he re 
 mained on the Harvard Faculty for thirty-five years. As he 
 gave instruction also in microscopy and psychology he used 
 to say that he occupied, not a professor s chair, but a whole 
 settee. In these duties he found his life work, less as a 
 practitioner than as an investigator, teacher, and writer in 
 his chosen profession. Some of his contributions to medical 
 science were of the highest value, one in particular establish 
 ing the contagious character of a certain fever. 
 
 Until the launching of the Atlantic Monthly, well after 
 the middle of the century, literature played but a minor 
 Earl verse part * n Holmes s life. He delivered a course of 
 lectures on the English poets before the Lowell 
 Institute, and he also went out occasionally, like Emerson and 
 Lowell, on the Lyceum platform. In his college days he had 
 written verses for girls albums, and he had been class poet; 
 but it was only in the year after his graduation, when he was 
 
HOLMES 233 
 
 asked by the undergraduates to contribute to a college paper, 
 that his verses went into type, and then, he says, he had his 
 first attack of "lead-poisoning." It was in September of that 
 year, 1830, that he chanced to read in a newspaper of the 
 proposal of the Navy Department to dismantle the frigate 
 Constitution, which had done such good service in 1812, 
 but which was then lying, old and unseaworthy, in the navy 
 yard at Charleston. He wrote at once with a lead-pencil on 
 a scrap of paper the stirring and indignant stanzas, Old 
 Ironsides, and sent them to the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 They were copied in all the papers of the country, and the 
 feeling aroused was so strong that the Secretary of the Navy, 
 who of course had been guilty of nothing but a want of senti 
 ment, allowed the "tattered ensign" to remain and the frig 
 ate was converted into a school-ship. And thus Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, a meek-minded, modest-mannered, under 
 sized law student just turned twenty-one, became measurably 
 noted as a poet. Six years later, when he began his medical 
 practice in Boston, he published a small volume of verse, 
 containing of course Old Ironsides, together with a few such 
 ever-delightful poems as The Dilemma and My Aunt, and best 
 of all, The Last Leaf. This was the year of Emerson s Nature, 
 the year before Hawthorne s Twice-Told Tales, and three 
 years before Longfellow s Voices of the Night. From this 
 time on the poetic record was a slight but steady one. Every 
 year brought its occasions and inspiration for verse, and 
 every decade, more or less, found the verse gathered into a 
 volume, which was treasured by the Doctor s many friends 
 and plundered freely by school-readers for the sake of de 
 claiming school children all over the land. If this was fame, 
 the name of Holmes already belonged on the roll of American 
 men of letters. 
 
 But Holmes, while he had a genuine gift of song, was no 
 such persistent singer as Longfellow and no such poet by 
 
234 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 native compulsion as Bryant, Poe, and Whittier, and so he 
 reached almost the age of fifty without feeling that he had 
 "The any particular claim on the reading public, or the 
 
 ?ab a ie f slries " reading P ublic on nim - Then, in 1857, came 
 the publisher s dinner described some pages 
 back, and the resulting Atlantic Monthly, which he had the 
 good fortune to name. Lowell would accept the editorship of 
 the magazine only on condition that Holmes would contribute 
 and the result was The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table papers 
 
 papers that did more than any other one thing to establish 
 
 the high character of the magazine and to assure its success. 
 He was before the public in a new r6le, and one in which he 
 never afterward lost favor, no matter how often he assumed 
 it. It is rarely that talk, of the breakfast table or whatever 
 kind, looks well on paper. Many an eloquent speaker, and 
 many a brilliant converser, has taken up the pen in vain. 
 Dr. Holmes was a really brilliant and witty talker. He was a 
 member of the famous Saturday Club, which still exists, and 
 which whether it grew out of that publisher s dinner or 
 whether it originated with Emerson and several admirers 
 who occasionally dined together at the Parker House, 
 became a fixed feature of Boston literary life in the early 
 days of the Atlantic and gathered into its coterie almost the 
 whole galaxy of New England wit, learning, and genius. 
 Of this galaxy the bright particular stars were Lowell and 
 Holmes, and Holmes doubtless shone w r ith the rarer lustre. 
 The club became the centre of his social existence, one of the 
 fixed joys of his life, and without him it would have been 
 deprived of one of its best excuses for being. Now, the 
 kind of talk in which he delighted there and of which he 
 showed himself so easily master, he succeeded in transfer 
 ring, almost without loss, to paper. To be admitted to the 
 presence of such a talker as he was, was the chance of a 
 lifetime, and readers of the Autocrat became suddenly 
 
HOLMES 235 
 
 aware that this chance had come, as it were, to their doors. 
 
 "Don t I read up various matters to talk about at this table or 
 elsewhere? No, that is the last thing I would do. I will tell you my 
 rule. Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and 
 listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but re 
 cently. Knowledge and timber shouldn t be much used till they are 
 seasoned. 
 
 "What do I mean by the real talkers? Why, the people with 
 fresh ideas, of course, and plenty of good warm words to dress them 
 in. Facts always yield the place of honor, in conversation, to thoughts 
 about facts; but if a false note is uttered, down comes the finger on the 
 key and the man of facts asserts his true dignity. I have known three 
 of these men of facts, at least, who were always formidable, and one 
 of them was tyrannical. 
 
 "Yes, a man sometimes makes a grand appearance on a particular 
 occasion, but these men knew something about almost everything, 
 and never made mistakes. He? Veneers in first-rate style. The 
 mahogany scales off now and then in spots, and then you see the cheap 
 
 light stuff. I found very fine in conversational information, the 
 
 other day, when we were in company. The talk ran upon mountains. 
 He was wonderfully well acquainted with the leading facts about the 
 Andes, the Apennines, and the Appalachians; he had nothing in particu 
 lar to say about Ararat, Ben Nevis, and various other mountains that 
 were mentioned. By and by some Revolutionary anecdote came up, 
 and he showed singular familiarity w r ith the lives of the Adamses, and 
 gave many details relating to Major Andre. A point of Natural 
 History being suggested, he gave an excellent account of the air-bladder 
 of fishes. He was very full upon the subject of agriculture, but retired 
 from the conversation when horticulture was introduced in the dis 
 cussion. So he seemed well acquainted with the geology of anthracite, 
 but did not pretend to know anything of other kinds of coal. There 
 was something so odd about the extent and limitations of his knowledge, 
 that I suspected all at once what might be the meaning of it, and waited 
 till I got an opportunity. Have you seen the New American Cyclo 
 paedia? said I. I have, he replied; I received an early copy. How 
 far does it go? He turned red, and answered, To Araguay. Oh, said 
 I to myself, not quite so far as Ararat;; that is the reason he knew 
 nothing about it; but he must have read all the rest straight through, 
 and, if he can remember what is in this volume until he has read all those 
 that are to come, he will know more than I ever thought he would." 
 
236 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 But here, too, as in the case of Lowell s essays, it is prac 
 tically impossible to give by quotation any fair idea of the 
 work. It is not simply that there is an embarrassment of 
 riches, tempting one to quote from whatever page he may 
 open, but that a good part of the charm lies in the endless 
 variety of the matter, a quality which cannot be exhibited in 
 an extract. The author turns lightly from subject to sub 
 ject, always suggesting something new or illuminating 
 something old, and touching each as he passes with his 
 humor or his pathos. Perhaps George William Curtis has 
 best described it "the restless hovering of that brilliant 
 talk over every topic, fancy, feeling, fact; a humming-bird 
 sipping the one honeyed drop from every flower." The 
 humor is as unfailing as Lowell s and is generally of a finer 
 quality. Poetry, too, was not barred from his scheme, and 
 many of his best poems are to be found interspersed among the 
 pages of The Autocrat. One is The Deacon s Masterpiece, the 
 tale of the wonderful "one-hoss shay;" another is the allegory 
 of The Chambered Nautilus, which was Dr. Holmes s own 
 favorite among his poems a notable poem, indeed, in every 
 respect, in beauty of imagery, in construction, and in the lyric 
 sweep and lofty aspiration of its often quoted final stanza, 
 
 "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll! 
 
 Leave thy low- vaulted past! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life s unresting sea!" 
 
 The Autocrat had once declared that he thought himself 
 "fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor for inti 
 mates;" and in good time the Poet and the Professor were 
 allowed to appear. The Professor at the Breakfast Table 
 began quaintly enough: "The question is whether there is 
 
HOLMES 237 
 
 anything left for me, the Professor, to suck out of creation, 
 after my lively friend (the Autocrat) has had his straw in the 
 bung-hole of the universe." But creation is pretty extensive, 
 and so seemed to be Dr. Holmes s ability to draw on its stores. 
 This was in 1859. Thirteen years later the Poet took his seat 
 at the breakfast table, and still the universe showed no signs 
 of being sucked dry. The second and third tappings lacked a 
 little of the pristine flavor, that was all. The Professor, for 
 example, was a trifle grave and over-given to theological 
 discussions ; yet the pathetic death-scene of the Little Gentle 
 man in that series is one of Holmes s finest passages. 
 
 Running through the Autocrat papers was a very slender 
 thread of romance which bound them into a kind of unity. 
 
 Romances ^ was natura ^ tnen tnat Holmes, having discov 
 ered his power and facility in prose, should enter 
 the field of romance proper. Elsie Venner was published 
 in 1861, The Guardian Angel in 1867, and A Mortal Antip 
 athy in 1885. These stories are commonly called novels 
 but notwithstanding their elaborate character studies and 
 their realistic details they contain so much of mystery 
 approaching the supernatural that they are rather to be 
 classified as romances. Dr. Holmes had a deep interest in 
 the problems of inherited characteristics an interest which 
 sometimes came out in his poems, as in the dainty Dorothy 
 Q. and he made this largely the foundation of his romances. 
 But the scientist s, and, it should be added, the moralist s 
 interest in the analysis of problems interfered sadly with the 
 romancer s art. Yet books that are so filled with Dr. 
 Holmes s personality, no one can call failures. The Guardian 
 Angel, indeed, is one of the books that no one who begins will 
 lay aside, and it is not unlikely to be taken up for a second 
 reading. Elsie Venner, the story of the girl of the serpent 
 charms, cannot be accounted so successful, though it has a pro 
 found spiritual significance and it has been more widely read. 
 
238 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 Holmes s intellect remained bright and his pen was kept 
 active into extreme old age. He wrote memoirs of Motley 
 
 and of Emerson, medical essays, literary essays, 
 Years. an d poems. He made a second visit to Europe, 
 
 with his daughter, in 1886, when he was honored 
 with a doctor s degree by the universities of Oxford, Cam 
 bridge, and Edinburgh. The story of the visit was written 
 out in Our Hundred Days in Europe. In 1890 he published 
 his last volume, Over the Tea-Cups, another work somewhat 
 in the vein of the Breakfast Table Series. In the meantime 
 he had continued to write those poems which, from 1851 
 onward, he had written every year for the meeting of the 
 class of 29. Toward the end, as the circle became smaller 
 and smaller, the poems and even their titles grew most 
 pathetic: Before the Curfew (1882), A Loving-Cup Song 
 (1883), The Girdle of Friendship (1884), The Lyre of Ana- 
 creon (1885), The Old Tune, Thirty-sixth Variation (1886), 
 The Broken Circle (1887), The Angel Thief (1888), After the 
 Curfew (1889). "After the Curfew" wrote Samuel May to 
 F. J. Garrison, "was positively the last. Farewell! I let 
 the curtain fall. The curtain never rose again for 29. 
 We met once more a year later at Parker s. But three 
 were present, Smith, Holmes, and myself. No poem 
 very quiet something very like. tears. The following meet 
 ingsall at Dr. H. s hous^-were quiet, social, talking meet 
 ings. ... At one of these meetings four were present, 
 all the survivors but one; and there was more general talk. 
 But never another Class Poem." The class-mates were 
 nearly all gone. Gone, too, were his literary co-workers, 
 Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, and Whittier. Holmes had 
 actually lived to be 
 
 "The last leaf upon the tree." 
 
 He died October the seventh, 1894. 
 
HOLMES 239 
 
 "Rhymes of an Hour" is the title Dr. Holmes once gave to 
 a little group of his poems. The title was not given with any 
 A writer of false assumption of modesty : it was a real charac- 
 and^lumor- terization of what he knew to be trivial and transi- 
 ous verse. torv verse Q n everv public or semi-public 
 
 occasion which could be enlivened or dignified by a special 
 poem, and there were very many such in and about Boston, 
 Dr. Holmes was likely to be asked to furnish the poem. Such 
 a position is a trying one at best, but one, fortunately, to 
 which only men with some sense of humor are often called. 
 Holmes rarely refused to respond; so that nearly one-half of 
 his verse is of this occasional character. He knew very well 
 that the verse was not "booked for immortality." He allowed 
 it to stand in his collected works along with a good deal of 
 youthful nonsense, like The Spectre Pig, which a poet who 
 took himself more seriously would, out of jealousy for his 
 fame, have suppressed. Yet to be able to write good 
 occasional verse is a rare accomplishment, even if not a very 
 high one. Our poets w T ho have tried to write odes for great 
 and serious occasions, centennial and the like, have seldom 
 succeeded, the chief exceptions being Emerson s Concord 
 Hymn, which was modestly meant, and Lowell s Commem 
 oration Ode, behind which there was deep personal feeling. 
 In general, Holmes wrote for much lighter occasions, and it 
 must be said that he succeeded. Whether it was Bryant s 
 seventieth birthday, or Longfellow s departure for Europe, or 
 a dinner to General Grant, or the dedication of a monument, 
 or the founding of a hospital, the poem was freely given and 
 was sure to be worthy of the occasion. Sometimes it rose to 
 real distinction. The series of over forty poems written for 
 the reunions of his class becomes impressive in its length and 
 modulation one song, as it w^ere, in many keys. At the 
 Saturday Club gives us the finest pictures we shall ever get 
 of the real Longfellow, Agassiz, Hawthorne, and Emerson, 
 
240 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 as they were among their associates. Horace wrote oc 
 casional poems that are immortal: Holmes, once or twice, 
 came near it. 
 
 Light verse was clearly his forte. His frankly humorous 
 poems, like The Deacon s Masterpiece, Parson TurelVs Legacy, 
 and How the Old Horse Won the Bet, have always held a high 
 place. In the so-called society verse, that professedly trivial 
 verse on trivial subjects, which demands such a light touch 
 and which yet runs often close to seriousness, he has had no 
 competitor in America unless it be Mr. Aldrich, and only one 
 forerunner the almost forgotten Philip Freneau. Poems of 
 this class are The First Fan, La Grisette, Our Yankee Girls, 
 The Dilemma, My Aunt, and that playfully reverent poem 
 on an old portrait of one of his Quincy ancestors in her girl 
 hood Dorothy Q. 
 
 A poet s final place, however, is most likely to be deter 
 mined by his serious work. Holmes s entirely serious work 
 is not large in amount, and it includes no long 
 LySs ume poems. There are a few patriotic poems, but he 
 left nothing better in this kind than the declama 
 tory Old Ironsides. He struck a surer note in the tender 
 themes of Under the Violets and The Voiceless; the latter, 
 indeed, has attained almost as wide a familiarity as any of 
 Longfellow s lyrics: 
 
 "We count the broken lyres that rest 
 
 Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, 
 But o er their silent sister s breast 
 
 The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? 
 A few can touch the magic string, 
 
 And noisy Fame is proud to win them: 
 Alas for those that never sing, 
 
 But die with all their music in them!" 
 
HOLMES 241 
 
 But surest of all in their hold on the future are The Last Leaf 
 and The Chambered Nautilus. Which is the greater, it 
 is idle to ask. This distinction may be noted. The Cham 
 bered Nautilus, with all its lofty reach and perfect finish, is a 
 meditative poem not materially different in character from 
 half a hundred other famous lyrics in our language. On the 
 other hand, The Last Leaf is like an instantaneous photograph 
 that has caught something never to be caught again. We 
 prize it because it is a unique addition to literature, unlike 
 anything save its imitations : 
 
 "I saw him once before, 
 As he passed by the door, 
 
 And again 
 
 The pavement stones resound, 
 As he totters o er the ground 
 
 With his cane." 
 
 It is a picture only, a "silhouette" Mr. Stedman has happily 
 called it, but the quaint staccato movement throws the 
 picture into such sharp relief that it takes on the very attri 
 butes of life. 
 
 Of his prose perhaps enough has been said. It was the 
 prose that made Holmes distinctly a man of letters ; it was the 
 A Ph i prose that absorbed the best literary energies of 
 
 ^ s mature years and possibly kept him from 
 producing any poetic masterpiece such as Whittier 
 wrote in Snow-Bound. But The Autocrat is masterpiece 
 enough. At one time or another Holmes has been compared 
 to most of the great writers of discursive prose in modern 
 literature, and there is probably some measure of truth in 
 each comparison. He remains peculiarly our own, almost 
 to provincialism; concentrated New Englandism, with only 
 the Puritan element subtracted, is Dr. Holmes. But he be 
 longs to a company that is of many nationalities, a company 
 of sage philosophers and shrewd humorists, who, under cover 
 
242 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 of giving amusement, afford unsuspected intellectual stim 
 ulus and add to the practical wisdom of their generation. 
 
 MINOR POETRY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 
 
 As we approach our own time the distinction between 
 major and minor men becomes more and more difficult to 
 draw. The next generation may overturn our judgments. 
 Even now, as we look back upon the nineteenth century, w T e 
 seem to see Bryant, for instance, receding from the eminence 
 which he once held into a position of chiefly historical im 
 portance. And we see Thoreau, for another instance, coming 
 gradually into a wider acceptance, though still very far 
 from holding a secure place among writers of the first order. 
 Even more doubtful is the position of one for whom a special 
 criticism must yet be reserved in these pages Walt Whit 
 man. But if names like these can be advanced to a con 
 spicuous position only with caution, it seems pretty clear 
 that such a position cannot be conceded to any of the many 
 yet unnamed. At the same time it is to be remembered that 
 a few, as Bayard Taylor in poetry and Hale and Curtis in 
 prose, have done work that is not far below the enduring 
 kind. It is these and their fellow craftsmen that we must 
 now endeavor to view in such perspective as the criticism 
 of forty years or less enables us to obtain. 
 
 Among the poets of New England, as it happens, the dis 
 tinction between major and minor is sharply enough drawn, 
 w. w. story, The men of real talent but of relatively weak 
 T.V. Parsons,P e tic impulse seem to have been willing to resign 
 c 81 E." Norton, the office of singing to Emerson and Whittier and 
 >08 " the Cambridge group, pursuing for the most part 
 other occupations. William Wetmore Story and Thomas 
 William Parsons, both of whom were born in the same year as 
 Lowell, were examples of such men. They at least did their 
 share toward sustaining the reputation which Boston has 
 
MINOR POETRY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 243 
 
 held since the time of Washington Allston, as a centre of 
 literary scholarship and art. Story, a native of Salem and a 
 graduate of Harvard, spent only his early manhood at Bos 
 ton; the latter half of his life was passed at Rome, where he 
 devoted himself chiefly to sculpture. Among his works in 
 sculpture are a statue of his father, Judge Story, and a bust 
 of his friend, Lowell. Several of Lowell s early essays 
 were written in the form of letters addressed to "My Dear 
 Storg" (i.e., Story). His writings include poems, a drama, a 
 novel, and miscellaneous prose. Parsons was born at Boston 
 and spent most of his life there. A period of travel and 
 study in Italy resulted in his admirable rhymed translation 
 (1843, extended in 1867) of some cantos of Dante s Divine 
 Comedy. His original poetry is grave and noble, and his 
 Lines on a Bust of Dante take rank, with scholars at least, as 
 an American classic. Professor Charles Eliot Norton, of Har 
 vard, though not a poet, may also be mentioned here as an 
 associate of the Cambridge poets and himself a scholar and 
 translator of Dante and an authority on art. 
 
 To these may be added several writers of occasional 
 poems. As far back as 1832, Samuel Francis Smith, a Bos 
 ton clergyman and a classmate of Holmes, wrote 
 1808-1895. America ("My Country, tis of Thee"), in which 
 
 Julia Ward ... 
 
 Howe, patriotic and religious sentiments combine to 
 
 1819-l910 i i "XT i i * 
 
 make a worthy national hymn. Nearly thirty 
 years later another hymn that has risen to the distinction of 
 being called national was written by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. 
 She was a native of New York who at the time of her marriage 
 took up her residence in Boston and wrote as a journalist 
 there in the interest of the abolition of slavery and other 
 reforms. Her Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861) was 
 inspired by seeing the troops in the camps near Washington 
 marching to the song of John Brown s Body. Other poets 
 who might here be mentioned John G. Saxe, for instance, 
 
244 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 the Vermont lawyer and humorist, or Lucy Larcom, the 
 the Massachusetts mill-girl and writer for young people are 
 fast being forgotten. 
 
 Of the New England writers of prose, two or three who 
 outlived the century and with it most of their early asso 
 ciates, are still rather to be regarded as belonging 
 
 K. Jl/. 
 
 2 ^ to the old sch o1 - One is Edward Everett Hale, 
 
 Tw 
 
 fcsin- 
 3- 
 
 son, 1823- who, in his long career as a Boston clergyman, 
 
 
 managed not only to identify himself with many 
 
 . 
 
 philanthropic projects but also to produce a 
 large amount of miscellaneous writing historical, fictitious, 
 moral, and discursive. His widely known patriotic tale, The 
 Man Without a Country, was published in the Atlantic 
 Monthly in 1863. Another is Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
 son, who also, in his early life was a Massachusetts clergyman. 
 He was an ardent opponent of slavery and served in the war 
 as colonel of the first colored regiment. His works comprise 
 essays, biographies, histories, poems, and romances. Yet a 
 third is Donald Grant Mitchell, of Connecticut, who, under 
 the name of "Ik Marvel," published Reveries of a Bachelor 
 (1850) and Dream Life (1851). These "contemplative views 
 of life from the slippered ease of the chimney-corner" were 
 among the most popular books of the middle of the century, 
 but their tender vein of sentiment finds little place in an age 
 of the scientific passion and "the strenuous life." All three 
 of these men published personal reminiscences Dr. Hale in 
 James Russell Lowell and His Friends, Colonel Higginson in 
 Old Cambridge, and Mr. Mitchell in American Lands and 
 Letters volumes that are peculiarly rich in anecdotes and 
 other helps to the understanding of literary life and character 
 in the East before and during the war. 
 
 Comparable in many ways to this secondary New Eng 
 land group was a group of poets and prose writers whose 
 work was done in the region that centres in New York and 
 
MINOR POETRY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 245 
 
 Philadelphia. There, however, the poets that followed 
 immediately in the wake of the "Knickerbockers" mentioned 
 in an earlier chapter rose to rather more prominence than the 
 secondary poets of New England, for in this region there was 
 no such overshadowing by great names, Poe having passed 
 early from the stage and Bryant never having cultivated very 
 actively his poetic gift. Four of these poets, of nearly the 
 same age, were closely associated Thomas Buchanan Read, 
 George Henry Boker, Bayard Taylor, and Richard Henry 
 Stoddard. 
 
 Read and Boker were chiefly identified with Philadelphia. 
 The former was a painter of some note, and among his paint 
 ings are a portrait of Sheridan and his horse, and one of 
 T.B.Read, Longfellow s children. He published, from 1847 
 ^H/loker, onward, various volumes of poems, such as The 
 1823-1890. pj ew p as i ora l^ sketches of emigrant life from mid 
 dle Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, and The Wagoner of the 
 Alleghanies, a poem of Revolutionary days. He is best known 
 however, by the short poems, Sheridan s Ride, and Drifting 
 ("My soul today Is far away"). Boker was a dramatist, 
 and, until very lately, virtually the only American writer of 
 plays that have met with favor both as literature and on the 
 stage. His Calaynos (1848) and Francesca da Rimini (1856) 
 are blank verse tragedies of a very respectable kind. Among 
 his minor poems are The Ballad of Sir John Franklin, The 
 Black Regiment, and Dirge for a Soldier ("Close his eyes; his 
 work is done!"). 
 
 Easily chief of this group and demanding therefore a more 
 extended consideration was Bayard Taylor, who has some 
 times indeed been classed with our poets of the 
 Tlyfor, first order. He, too, was a Pennsylvanian, though 
 
 1825-1878. .. . , , . 
 
 most of his journalistic work was done in connec 
 tion with the papers of New York. He began life as a prin 
 ter s apprentice with two ambitions to travel and ta become 
 
246 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 a poet. His first volume of poems appeared when he was 
 but nineteen; and in the same year (1844) he began his travels 
 through Germany and other countries of Europe on foot, 
 partly because he had not the means to go otherwise. His 
 Views Afoot, a prose record of his experiences, published in 
 1846 with a preface by Willis, fixed his reputation and entirely 
 cleared his way to the desired life of travel and letters. He 
 was among the gold diggings of California as corresponding 
 editor of the New York Tribune, in 1849; returned through 
 Mexico in 1850; and in 1851 went again to Europe, pene 
 trating thence south to Sudan and the White Nile and east to 
 India, China, and Japan. Several years later he travelled 
 through the north of Europe. During the Civil War he was 
 made secretary of the legation to Russia. He afterward 
 visited Iceland and many out-of-the-way places in Europe. 
 In 1878 he was appointed United States Minister to Germany 
 and died there in the same year. "He travelled pen in his 
 hand," said his friend Boker; "he delivered course after 
 course of lectures in the brief nightly pauses of his long winter 
 journeys; he wrote novels, he wrote editorials, criticisms, 
 letters, and miscellaneous articles for the magazines and the 
 newspapers; he toiled as few men have toiled at any profession 
 or for any end, and he wore himself out and perished pre 
 maturely of hard and sometimes bitter work." That, with 
 all his accomplishment, he quite realized his literary ambition, 
 would be too much to say. He had an exalted conception of 
 the office of poet, believing that poetry, or pure imaginative 
 creation, was the highest goal toward which a man could 
 strive, and he strove toward it with a heroism that compels 
 admiration. Hence, perhaps, the fervent encomiums of his 
 many friends. But his friends must often have felt, as he 
 doubtless in time came to feel himself, that his work was 
 without that final something imparted only by the genius 
 which stands above both consecrated endeavor and noble 
 
MINOR POETRY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 247 
 
 ideals. If men like Emerson have had the blissful uncon 
 sciousness of genius, men like Taylor have had the bitter 
 consciousness of a want of genius. Yet Taylor became a poet 
 and a writer of note; in the days of his productiveness he had 
 the warm admiration of many critical readers; and he left 
 to his credit a body of work of wide range and superior 
 quality. His prose sketches go to swell the English litera 
 ture of travel that has been accumulating since the days of 
 Sir John Mandeville. His dramas, written in his later years, 
 The Masque of the Gods, The Prophet, and Prince Deukalion, 
 are among the best specimens of the closet drama that 
 America has produced. Poems like Lars, a Pastoral of 
 Norway, the Gettysburg Ode, and the National Ode (read at the 
 Centennial Exposition on Independence Day), are worthy 
 achievements. And there are two or three short poems 
 which have won a wide popular approval, such as the Be 
 douin Song, or the Song of the Camp with its familiar close, 
 "The bravest are the tenderest, 
 The loving are the daring." 
 
 Taylor, moreover, was one of that remarkable group of Amer 
 ican translators Bryant, Longfellow, Taylor, Cranch, 
 Parsons, and Norton who between 1867 and 1872 gave us 
 translations of the great poems of Homer, Vergil, Dante, and 
 Goethe. Taylor s version of the two parts of Goethe s 
 Faust, in the metres of the original, was published in 1871-72. 
 It is perhaps enough to say of this that it is the standard 
 English translation of Faust, and it seems likely that Taylor s 
 fame in the future will rest more securely upon it than upon 
 his original work. 
 
 The fourth of this group of poets was Richard Henry 
 Stoddard. He was born in Massachusetts, but went to 
 New York in boyhood, where he got his education in the pub 
 lic schools, and, in the intervals of work in an iron foundry, 
 read poetry with avidity. Later in life he became an editor, 
 
248 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 and worked in more or less intimacy with Read, Boker, and 
 Taylor, and the somewhat younger Edmund Clarence 
 R H stod Stedman. His earliest poems were published in 
 i!!^ 3 1849 ; volumes of more note were Songs of Summer, 
 
 1856, The King s Bell, 1862, and The Book of the 
 East, 1871. The last is rich in oriental coloring. Stoddard 
 was never a "popular" poet, but he was known to all critical 
 lovers of poetry as a writer whose calling was high and whose 
 instincts were sure. Like the English Landor, he united 
 in his touch rare delicacy and strength. The former quality 
 is most apparent in such a work, very Greek in spirit, as The 
 Fisher and Charon, and in many a dainty lyric like The Divan 
 and the imaginative Persian Songs and Tartar Songs; the 
 latter, in his stately hymns and odes Abraham Lincoln, 
 Hymn to the Sea, and The Dead Master, The last poem, 
 written in memory of Bryant, whom Stoddard greatly ad 
 mired, contains much of the severe majesty of Bryant s best 
 blank verse. 
 
 New York had still her song writers, too, though none 
 quite to equal the earlier Payne, Wood worth, and Morris. 
 
 The Gary sisters, originally from Ohio, published 
 aSd%wigs ers various volumes of verse marked by grace, melody, 
 
 and religious sentiment. Alice (1820-1871) was 
 the more prolific writer; Phcebe (1824-1871) was the author 
 of the widely known hymn Nearer Home. Stephen Collins 
 Foster (1826-1864), who was born at Pittsburg, was a music 
 composer and the author of a large number of idealized negro 
 melodies. His Old Folks at Home ("The Suwanee River"), 
 My Old Kentucky Home, Nellie Was a Lady, Massa s in the 
 Cold Ground, etc., have passed into universal currency and 
 almost take rank with folk-songs.* Minor balladists else 
 where were Thomas Dunn English (1819-1902) of Philadel- 
 
 * The authorship of the genuine negro folk-songs and hymns, like Roll, Jordan, Roll, and 
 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, is of course untraceable. Dixie was composed in 1859 by Daniel 
 D. Emmett, who was born in Ohio (1814) of Southern parents. 
 
MINOR POETRY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 249 
 
 phia, author of Ben Bolt, and Coates Kinney (1826-1904) of 
 Cincinnati, author of The Rain upon the Roof. 
 
 Prose writers who managed to struggle clear of the dis 
 tractions that beset a commercial and cosmopolitan commun 
 ity, are not easy to find in New York and vicinity after the 
 early part of the century. Irving and Cooper had no worthy 
 successors. Even the poets, from Bryant and Poe down to 
 Willis and Taylor, suffered from the strenuous journalism, 
 political and other, into which they found themselves 
 plunged; and into this journalism the writers of prose were 
 one and all lured, so that the history of the prose of New York 
 is mostly the history of her Danas and Ripleys and Greeleys. 
 These were able and even scholarly men, but their work 
 passed, usually with the day s paper for which it was done. 
 A little more enduring is the work of those who had the larger 
 leisure of the weekly or monthly magazine. But the very 
 best of the New York magazines, though they have contrib 
 uted much to science, art, and general culture, have never 
 represented quite the same high literary standard as the 
 Atlantic Monthly. And among their editors and contrib 
 utors there was no Lowell or Holmes, but only a Holland, a 
 Curtis, and a Warner. Even these three, it must be noted, 
 like Dana, Ripley, Greeley, and Bryant himself, were natives 
 of New England and did much of their best literary work 
 there. 
 
 Josiah Gilbert Holland, after trying both teaching and 
 medicine, set out upon a literary career at Springfield, Massa 
 chusetts, where he joined the staff of the Spring- 
 I8i9-i88i. an field Republican. He won his early fame there 
 through his "Timothy Titcomb" Letters to Young 
 People (collected in 1858) wholesome social essays of the 
 sermonizing type, very popular in their day, and always 
 worth reading, though never quite demanding to be read. 
 He followed up this popularity with an equally popular poem, 
 
250 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 Bitter-Sweet (1858). The poem contained some pleasant 
 pictures of New England life a Thanksgiving festival and 
 the like that anticipated the finer work of Whittier s Snow- 
 Bound, but it won its vogue, like the later Kathrina (1867), 
 chiefly by its sentimental and rather melodramatic story. 
 Dr. Holland was the author, too, of some little lyrics of a wide 
 currency Babyhood, for instance, and Gradatim ("Heaven 
 is not reached at a single bound"). In 1870 at New York 
 he assisted in establishing Scribner s Monthly, now The Cen 
 tury, and he was the efficient editor of that magazine until 
 his death. He had written a Life of Lincoln in 1865; and in 
 the latter portion of his career he essayed virtually the only 
 form of literary composition he had left untried and produced 
 several novels. Arthur Bonnicastle (1873), Sevenoaks (1875), 
 etc., are good, readable stories of Yankee life, but they cannot 
 be ranked with the similar novels of Mrs. Stowe or Dr. 
 Holmes. 
 
 If Holland in some ways suggests Whittier and Holmes, 
 George William Curtis suggests quite as readily Lowell. 
 
 Curtis was not a poet, but he was a foremost 
 i82^i892 rtls representative of that class of industrious literary 
 
 journalists who combine private study with 
 public service and who have done so much to mould the char 
 acter of our later national life. He was a native of Provi 
 dence, Rhode Island, and was a student at Brook Farm at 
 eighteen. A journey through Europe, Egypt, and the Holy 
 Land, resulted in several highly colored volumes of travel 
 the Nile Notes of a Howadji (1851), etc. His life thereafter 
 was spent in journalism at New York. He conducted for a 
 long time the "Easy Chair" of Harper s Magazine and was 
 editor of Harper s Weekly at the time of his death. He was 
 interested in all wise reforms, took part in the abolition 
 movement, and later attained national fame for his resolute 
 support of the cause of civil service reform. As a platform 
 
MINOR POETRY AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE 251 
 
 orator, he rose almost to the rank of Everett and Phillips, and 
 he stands to us today more for his character as a man and an 
 influential public citizen than as a writer. Yet his name is 
 associated with some well-remembered books. The literary 
 flavor is most apparent in his early work the volumes of 
 travel noted above, certain essays of social satire, like The 
 Potiphar Papers (1853), and the little sketch of Prue and I 
 (1856), which, with its delicate sentiment and slender 
 romance, has charmed two generations of readers. His later 
 works were more directly the result of his contact with public 
 life and public men. His addresses include, besides those like 
 Party and Patronage on civil service reform, eulogies on Bry 
 ant, Phillips, and Lowell. 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner remained more persistently in 
 
 New England than Holland or Curtis, but his name was so 
 
 long associated with the editorial department of 
 
 C.D.Warner, rj > n* ,11 n^ 
 
 1829-1900. Harper s Monthly Magazine that he seems to be 
 legitimately of the New York group. Born at 
 Plainfield, Massachusetts, he went to Chicago before the war, 
 practicing law there for a time, and then settled down to an 
 editorial career at Hartford, Connecticut. He did much 
 "hack work" of the better kind. "The American Men of 
 Letters Series," to which he contributed the biography of 
 Irving, was prepared under his supervision, as was also a 
 " Library of the World s Best Literature." He wrote several 
 novels, and several books of travel not unlike Curtis s My 
 Winter on the Nile (1876), etc. But his most characteristic 
 work is to be sought in his collections of essays, such as My 
 Summer in a Garden (1870) and Backlog Studies (1872). 
 These have abundant humor and that indefinable charm of 
 personality by which, with very little in the way of substance 
 besides a mild social philosophy, some writers succeed in win 
 ning the affections of a large audience. Clean, gentle, and 
 whole-souled, are the words to apply to Warner; and it seems 
 
252 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 eminently fitting that we should close this review of later New 
 York prose with one who was, in his modest way, not unlike 
 him with whom our study of the earlier prose began Wash 
 ington Irving. 
 
 The affiliations of Curtis and Warner, as of Hale and Hig- 
 ginson, were distinctly enough with the old school to justify 
 the classification of them that is here made, but it is to be 
 noted that the date of W T arner brings us fairly into the con 
 temporary period. And it would be easy in this place to 
 make the transition to that group of writers, led by Stedman, 
 Aldrich, and Howells, who have maintained the literary 
 traditions of the East since the Civil War. But one con 
 siderable figure remains; and it is through Walt Whitman 
 after all, perhaps, that the transition to our later literature 
 in its broadest and most characteristic aspects can best be 
 made. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN, 1819-1892 
 
 It has been customary to regard W 7 alt Whitman, the start 
 ling innovator and scorner of traditions, as belonging to the 
 younger school of American writers, and any de- 
 CharaSS-. parture from that custom is not likely to pass un 
 challenged. Without troubling ourselves about 
 his relation to culture, which, whatever Mr. Burroughs* may 
 contend, is not very obvious, we may yet feel that he is, in 
 manifold ways, sufficiently representative of the American 
 national spirit to give him a place in this chapter. It is true, 
 the uniqueness of the man puts him apart from the other wri 
 ters, and would so put him wherever he were placed. He 
 seems to defy classification. The public has not yet made up 
 its mind whether he was a poet or a prose writer, a philoso 
 pher or an ignoramus, a genius or a charlatan. But his 
 position is becoming each day more clearly defined; and the 
 
 * Whitman: A Study. By John Burroughs. 
 
WHITMAN 253 
 
 undeniable conspicuousness, not to say eminence, of that 
 position, together with the nature of his message, which after 
 all was not new but was only a more emphatic declaration of 
 what was already in the prose of Emerson and the verse of 
 Whittier and Lowell, gives ample warrant for putting him 
 with the men of that elder period. Besides, there is a chro 
 nological warrant in the date of his birth, which is the same as 
 that of Lowell s; and though he was much later than Lowell 
 in coming to assured fame, his work was well begun before 
 the war. 
 
 The details of Whitman s life are of peculiar importance 
 for the understanding of the man and his work. He was born 
 
 May 31, 1819, at West Hills, thirty miles from 
 Jf h Life h0 New York City, on "the fish-shaped" Long Island 
 
 which he loved to call by its Indian name of 
 "Paumanok." His ancestors were English and Dutch yeo 
 men, with a slight Quaker strain; three centuries of them, he 
 tells us, concentrate on one sterile acre, the burial hill of the 
 Whitmans. His grandfather had farmed his lands after the 
 manner of Southern planters, with the assistance of a dozen 
 slaves. His father was a carpenter and builder. His 
 mother "my dearest mother," "a perfect mother," was 
 Louise Van Velsor, in her youth a healthy Dutch-American 
 lass and a horseback rider only less daring than his paternal 
 grandmother who had smoked a pipe and acted as overseer of 
 the slaves. His formal schooling, which was elementary 
 only, was obtained rather irregularly. Many days of his 
 youth he spent in roaming over Long Island, lounging with 
 the fishermen on the beach, talking to the salt-hay cutters in 
 the meadows or the herdsmen in the hills, clam-digging in 
 summer, hauling fat eels through the ice in winter. Later, 
 when his father moved to Brooklyn, he often stole back to 
 declaim Homer or Shakespeare to the sea-gulls and the surf. 
 In Brooklyn he became a typesetter in a printing-office, 
 
254 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 reading between whiles the Arabian Nights and the Waverley 
 Novels later, too, Ossian, yEschylus, and Dante. He was 
 particularly impressed with the busy tides of life surging 
 between New York and Brooklyn, through the city streets 
 and up and down the Sound. He had a passion for crowds, 
 for haunting the ferries, the omnibuses, and the theatres. 
 Thus he got to see most of the celebrated men and women 
 of the time Jackson, Webster, Clay, Lafayette, Kossuth, 
 Fanny Kemble, Halleck, Cooper, Bryant, Poe. For com 
 panions, apparently, he sought out the deck-hands and pilots 
 on the boats, or the omnibus drivers, "Broadway Jack," 
 "Balky Bill," "Pop Rice," and the rest, by whose side he 
 would ride, listening to their yarns, or declaiming into the 
 street-traffic some passage, it might be, from Julius Caesar. 
 In due time, after various experiences in carpentering 
 and school-teaching, he became an editor. Then, in his 
 thirtieth year, he set off with his brother on a long 
 
 Journalism . in i i 
 
 and expedition through the middle states and down 
 
 Literature. ,,".... , . 
 
 the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, bringing up at 
 New Orleans, where he remained for a time in newspaper 
 work. Thence he worked his way back, up the Mississippi, 
 by the Great Lakes and Canada, and down the Hudson, 
 travelling in all eight thousand miles, much of it afoot. Up 
 to this time his journalistic and literary work was of the 
 ordinary type and had attracted no attention. He had 
 begun to write at twelve years of age, and some of his pieces 
 had appeared in Morris s Mirror. His chief editing was done 
 for the Brooklyn Eagle. But after thirty he became con 
 scious of a great desire growing within him, and to accom 
 plish this desire he resolved to put aside, if need be, the ordi 
 nary pursuits of life and forego the ordinary rewards. So 
 well as he could formulate it to himself, it was a desire to put 
 on record in some literary form an entire personality, a man 
 with all his characteristics, sensual and spiritual, with his 
 
WHITMAN 255 
 
 bodily sensations and appetites, and his mental and moral 
 struggles, hopes, and dreams. Moreover, that personality 
 was to be portrayed in the midst of the tumultuous, free, 
 expansive, democratic American life of the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century. Long consideration convinced him that 
 the only way in which he could do this successfully would be 
 by portraying his own personality, which alone he knew, and. 
 which, from its environment and experiences, might fairly 
 be regarded as the personality of an American schooled in 
 the world both of nature and of men, robust, energetic, free, 
 alert, tolerant, kind. 
 
 In accordance with this design, which he seemed to regard 
 as novel, he sought some new form of expression. He dis 
 carded both metre and rhyme, and, after much dif- 
 ficulty, all stock poetic phrases, preserving still a 
 poetic semblance by writing in long, uneven lines 
 marked with a rude rhythm. He abandoned the name 
 Walter for Walt, and "stood" for his picture with his hat on 
 one side of his head, beard rough, blouse open at the throat, 
 one hand on his hip and one in his trousers pocket. Yet the 
 picture, as it may be seen in his volume, is not defiant, is even 
 winningly modest in facial expression, betokening a char 
 acter of frankness and simplicity; and Whitman exemplified 
 his democratic simplicity by setting up the type for the first 
 edition of his poems (1855) with his own hands. Leaves of 
 Grass he named the volume, perhaps in symbol of the lowly, 
 teeming, equality-loving democracy which it was his purpose 
 to sing. 
 
 "One s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, 
 Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. 
 
 "Of physiology from top to toe I sing, 
 Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for 
 the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, 
 The Female equally with the Male I sing. 
 
256 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 "Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, 
 Cheerful, for freest action form d under the laws divine, 
 The Modern Man I sing." 
 
 The audacity of the thing challenged attention, but it was 
 not likely to win impartial criticism. The hedge-hog public 
 played its spines, as usual, in the face of such unconvention- 
 ality, and the author became notorious if not yet famous. 
 The book was condemned by general readers, and by many 
 critics. And more than thirty years afterward, Whitman, 
 within four years of death, could still complain that from a 
 worldly point of view his book had been worse than a failure, 
 that he had not gained the acceptance of his time, and that 
 public criticism still showed "marked anger and contempt 
 more than anything else." Abuse, however, is a better stim 
 ulus than neglect ; there must have been something to create 
 such a stir. Besides, Whitman had, from the first, some 
 loyal defenders. Emerson did not reject him, nor Carlyle. 
 There were successive editions and enlargements of his work, 
 and in 1868 a volume of selections from his poems was edited 
 by W. M. Rossetti in England, where the author was readily 
 accepted by men like Swinburne, Dowden, and Symonds. 
 
 The remainder of Whitman s life contains an important 
 
 episode. At the close of 1862 he learned that his brother 
 
 George, an officer in the army, had been wounded. 
 
 WarExperi- _ T . . . _ 
 
 encesand He went to Virginia and became an army nurse, 
 
 Later Life. , 
 
 and from then till after the close ol the war 
 served faithfully in that capacity in the camps and hospitals 
 about Washington. It was a fit heroic accompaniment to his 
 heroic song, and it is almost incredible that he should have 
 been dismissed shortly afterward from the Interior Depart 
 ment because an "official" disapproved of his Leaves of Grass. 
 A vindication by an admirer, published under the title of 
 "The Good Gray Poet," gave him an enduring sobriquet; and 
 he was soon appointed to another clerkship. His literary 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR 
 SIDNEY LANIER 
 
WHITMAN 257 
 
 work was not intermitted ; the war experiences furnished him 
 with some of the noblest passages of his poems as they now 
 stand the Drum-Taps and the Memories of President 
 Lincoln; and he published his prose Democratic Vistas in 1870. 
 .After a stroke of paralysis in 1873 the culmination of phy 
 sical ills brought on by his hospital service he retired to 
 Camden, New Jersey, where he lived thenceforth, partly 
 upon the generosity of his friends. His home became the 
 resort of many visitors, who were always welcomed. He 
 lectured occasionally, and he took a jaunt westward to the 
 Rocky Mountains in the fall of 1879, but, like Thoreau and 
 Whittier, never went abroad. He added several slender 
 supplementary volumes of both prose and poetry November 
 Boughs, 1888, and Good Bye, My Fancy, 1891. He designed 
 and built his own tomb at Camden, where he died, March 
 26, 1892. 
 
 It is still too early to calculate the orbit of an eccentric 
 luminary like Whitman. But one thing w T e are certain of, 
 that he fills a large place in the hearts of many 
 lovers of English poetry, and that he cannot be 
 omitted from any final summary of American literature. To 
 lose from our records such a virile, stimulating personality 
 would be to suffer irremediable loss. Our estimation of the 
 value of his work must grow with our closer acquaintance 
 with it. It has been said that his prose is of little value, but 
 though written, unfortunately, without any sense of style, 
 it is of much value. The hospital scenes in his Specimen 
 Days are among the strongest documents left by the Civil 
 War. Whitman continually declared that the real war would 
 never get into the books; but one aspect of it, with all its 
 horror and pathos and heroism, has fairly gotten into his 
 book. It is an aspect, too, that most needs to get into the 
 books in the interest of universal peace. His Democratic 
 Vistas and his Backward Glance o er Travelled Roads are 
 
258 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 supplementary to his poems and almost indispensable to a 
 right understanding of them. From these we learn that his 
 poems, often seemingly incoherent cries a "barbaric yawp" 
 he called them, and the critics found it a good catchword, 
 had a definite purpose and were constructed on a carefully 
 conceived plan; that, as stated above, they aimed to set forth 
 the democracy of this new world and nation, with all its 
 virtues and vices, its meanness and grandeur, and through 
 it all, profiting by its very effacement of false distinctions, 
 the sure evolution of the individual, the realization of the 
 divine personality, call it soul or what you will, that every 
 man feels within him. 
 
 Of course his poems, or chants, are the basis of his reputa 
 tion. In Leaves of Grass he left, as he quaintly expressed it, 
 The Poet n * s carie ~de-visite to posterity. Nothing is easier 
 and its than to pick flaws in the book. In the eyes of 
 
 Defects. . t J 
 
 some it is one great flaw, a standing offense to the 
 aesthetic sense. It is uncouth. It deliberately violates the 
 rules of art, and unless we admit that our rules are idle we 
 must admit its defects. We are struck by the strange vocab 
 ulary, the hybrid and foreign words that start up every 
 where imperiurbe, aplomb, habitan, Americanos, though 
 now and then a humorous intent saves the phrase, as when 
 we read: "No dainty dolce affettuoso I." Even more strik 
 ing is the peculiar, lawless rhythmic movement, not the 
 easy rhythm of prose nor the regular metre of verse, but 
 something between the two. It is true, we have been accus 
 tomed to the same thing in the lyric passages of the Old 
 Testament and in Ossian. But the preference of the ear 
 for the regular harmonies of verse is shown by the fondness 
 with which readers cling to one of the two or three metrical 
 and rhymed poems in the book, Captain! My Captain! 
 Indeed, it is not likely that symmetry of form, which has 
 marked great poems from before the days of the Iliad, will 
 
WHITMAN 259 
 
 ever be generally abandoned. Whitman chose to abandon 
 it because he fancied that a greater freedom of form accorded 
 with his theme. That Whitman would not have succeeded 
 better with conventional forms is extremely probable, but the 
 conviction remains that the final poem even of Democracy, 
 if such ever comes, will be a product of higher art than his. 
 A more serious defect of Leaves of Grass inheres in its 
 substance and method. It is diffuse, prolix. This, too, 
 Whitman would say, is in accordance with the subject. 
 Democracy is all-inclusive. American life is a great welter 
 and chaos, and all this must go into the poem. But even 
 chaos might be suggested without enumerating its particu 
 lars. The cunning painter knows how to put vast crowds 
 into his canvas without painting all the individuals. Whit 
 man insists on the particulars and makes no attempt at con 
 centration. He complained of Emerson s books being all 
 good sugar and butter. For himself, he gives us plenty of 
 coarse bread and even unmilled grain in the straw. 
 
 "Land of coal and iron! land of gold! land of cotton, sugar, rice! 
 Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of the apple 
 and the grape!" 
 
 "I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, 
 
 clack of sticks cooking my meals, 
 
 The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking 
 engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color d 
 lights." 
 
 There are many pages of this, poetic and prose phrases 
 jostling each other in hopeless confusion. Doubtless the 
 impression made is that of ceaseless movement and end 
 less diversity, of tumultuousness and multitudinousness. 
 But it is made at a great cost of time and nerves to the reader 
 and with little cost to the writer. Much of what we are 
 obliged to read is but the raw material of poetry which the 
 
260 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 writer has flung down before us without taking the pains to 
 exercise his art upon it. 
 
 Finally, the gravest charge against Leaves of Grass touches 
 its frequent coarseness of theme and expression. Whitman 
 would conceal nothing, and naturally, in his conscious revolt 
 against a society that timidly conceals too much, he grew a 
 little defiant in his plain-spokenness. This is perhaps the 
 most that can be charged he was needlessly gross. There 
 was nothing morbid or vicious about it. His conception of 
 society and the plan of his poem were in part his defence; be 
 sides, he was so constituted that he could accept all levels 
 and conditions of life on equal terms and feel no repulsion; 
 nor could he understand why others should feel any. He 
 could associate with the tramp, with the Indian, with the 
 butcher boy in the shambles. He was "no sentimentalist, 
 no stander above men and women." "I think I could turn 
 and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain d." 
 He is the Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln type still 
 further materialized; and inasmuch as we have admired the 
 type and even proclaimed it to the world as American, we 
 should do ill to repudiate Whitman. At the same time we 
 may well remind ourselves that we have another type, one of 
 refinement and spirituality, to set over against it our 
 Longfellows, Whittiers, Hawthornes, and Emersons. 
 
 When we turn to praise of Whitman, our task seems 
 equally easy. The charge of egotism (except in the tech 
 nical, philosophical sense of the word) may be 
 ms Aims. dismissed. We have seen how he came to put 
 himself so conspicuously into his poems. It was 
 not to parade himself as an exceptional being but rather as an 
 "average man" to hold the mirror up to other men and 
 declare his kinship with them. There is no self-conceit about 
 that. Moreover, looking back upon his work in his old age, 
 Whitman was disposed to regard it very modestly and to 
 
WHITMAN 261 
 
 admit frankly some of its shortcomings. He admitted that 
 in pictorial and dramatic talent and in verbal melody not 
 only the great masters of poetry but many besides had trans 
 cended all that he had done or could do. In his youth he 
 had accepted the challenge of science and democracy to 
 idealize them; in his age he saw the magnitude of the attempt 
 and wondered at his audacity. The whole thing was experi 
 mental, and the probabilities were that it was largely a 
 failure. He had honestly tried to give this new America a 
 new poem, worthy of its new ideals; granted that he had 
 failed, it was something that he had gained a hearing and 
 perhaps pointed the way for a future and more able bard. 
 The projected song of the soul, to supplement his song of the 
 body, he had not sung, or had sung only in hints and frag 
 ments. That greater task he was willing to leave for the 
 future bard. Even what he had done was rough and in 
 choate. "I round and finish little, if anything." "The 
 word I myself put primarily is the word Suggestiveness. . . . 
 Another impetus-word is Comradeship. . . Other word- 
 signs would be Good Cheer, Content, and Hope." 
 
 Because Whitman as an artist did not always distinguish 
 between good and bad, pursuing a theory with the usual fatal 
 results, is not sufficient reason for rejecting him. 
 ^y e ^ not re j ec t Wordsworth. We can pass by 
 the bad and dwell upon the good. Taking Whit 
 man simply at his own final valuation, we get much. The joys 
 of free fellowship, the love of comrades, none has sung more 
 heartily, none perhaps better. And his courage and opti 
 mism are as deep as Emerson s. To the very last, beneath 
 life s setting sun, he warbled (it is his own word) " unmitigated 
 adoration." No one rises from his pages despondent. 
 They breathe of life and health and boundless spaces out of 
 doors. They quicken the pulse and enlarge the vision. He 
 may have lacked the art of suggestion, the art which draws 
 
262 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 a portrait at a stroke, but there is no denying his claim to a 
 profound suggestiveness. He throws out hints and clews 
 which the reader must follow for himself. His poems open 
 upon vistas. Read When I Heard the Learn d Astronomer, 
 or As I Ebb d with the Ocean of Life, or Tears, or With Husky- 
 Haughty Lips, Sea. Perhaps still better examples are to be 
 found in his Passage to India or his Whispers of Heavenly Death, 
 those later and lofty chants in which he was feeling his way 
 toward the nobler, unwritten poem of man s immortal part. 
 There may be doubt whether Whitman has given us any 
 adequate song of democracy. He stands for the American 
 spirit, but not as does Franklin, Lincoln, or Lowell. If we 
 think of all that these men did and then of what Whitman 
 did, the difference is manifest. His office was somewhat like 
 that of one who stands by and cheers while the procession 
 goes on. It is true, he took a noble part through the Civil 
 War none nobler. But it was a humble part; he did not 
 sit in the seats of the mighty. He saw democracy from below 
 only, whereas Franklin and the others saw it from both below 
 and above. Yet one positive accomplishment must be set to 
 his credit. He became the truest laureate of the War, and of 
 Lincoln, the idol of the people. His Drum-Taps give us the 
 poetry of the great conflict, as his camp and hospital sketches 
 give us the prose. Beat! Beat! Drums! and Song of the 
 Banner at Daybreak are true poems in every sense of the word. 
 The Memories of President Lincoln are as exalted as an elegy 
 with such a great theme should be, yet as tender as the 
 sincerest threnody born of personal grief. When Lilacs Last 
 in the Dooryard Bloom d and Captain! My Captain! must 
 endure with the fame of the "martyr-chief." 
 
 "O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, 
 The ship has weather d every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
 
WHITMAN 263 
 
 But O heart! heart! heart! 
 
 O the bleeding drops of red, 
 Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
 
 Fallen cold and dead." 
 
 Whitman s own opinion of the verbal melody of his poems 
 (the regularity of the one just quoted is altogether excep 
 tional) has already been cited. It must not be lightly 
 assumed, however, that there is no music in his verse. We 
 are inclined to complain when a poem like The Vision of 
 Sir Launfal yields less melody than its form promises ; on the 
 other hand, we are delighted to find many of Whitman s 
 poems yielding more melody than they promise. When his 
 theme rises and his imagination and feeling rise with it, the 
 words flow musically enough and the rhythm answers to the 
 emotion. Listen to the bird song in Out of the Cradle End 
 lessly Rocking 
 
 " Winds blow south, or winds blow north, 
 Day come white, or night come black, 
 Home, or rivers and mountains from home, 
 Singing all time, minding no time, 
 While we two keep together." 
 
 Not to feel the simple melody "of this, or the larger harmony 
 the soothing, wave-like lapse of other passages in the same 
 poem, the ample sweep of the Song of the Redwood Tree, the 
 majestic march of Pioneers! Pioneer s,,the passionate pulse 
 of Beat! Beat! Drums! Blow! Bugles! Blow! would argue one 
 dull of sense indeed. 
 
 But music and form are the last things Whitman would 
 desire to have himself gauged by. He stands at the farthest 
 remove from artist-poets like Poe, Longfellow, and Tennyson. 
 He is more akin to Carlyle and Emerson men of poetic 
 insight careless about some of the minor poetic gifts. He did 
 not write to please, but to arouse and uplift. "The true 
 question to ask respecting a book, is, has it helped any human 
 
264 NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 soul?" He explicitly declared that no one would get at his 
 verses by viewing them as a literary performance or as aim 
 ing mainly toward art or sestheticism. 
 
 "Camerado, this is no book, 
 Who touches this touches a man." 
 
 As such, therefore, the book must go down to posterity, not a 
 perfect song, rounded, complete, and detached, but a cry, 
 sometimes clear and strong, sometimes husky and broken, 
 but always vibrant with the feeling of the man who uttered it. 
 Here it seems well to mark the conclusion of the first 
 national period the creative period of our literature, 
 though of course literature, like history itself, is continuous, 
 and can have no real conclusion short of national extinction. 
 From Brown and Irving to Lowell and Whitman the compass 
 has travelled a pretty wide arc. At first timid in spirit, and 
 bound more or less consciously to conventional, old-world 
 forms, our literature gradually shook itself free and stood 
 forth a native product, willing to be gauged by its inherent 
 vitality and its unborrowed charms. It began to register 
 faithfully, too, the various steps in our national progress 
 the merely material subjugation of the wilderness, the 
 declaration of moral and intellectual independence that fol 
 lowed upon the declaration of political independence, the 
 development of a worthy cis-Atlantic scholarship, the 
 encouragement of science and the scientific spirit, and the 
 final establishment of the great modern principle of human 
 equality. The progress was one that looked always toward 
 making "the bounds of freedom wider yet." And with Lin 
 coln s emancipation proclamation on the political side, and, 
 on the literary side, the vindication by Emerson, Whitman, 
 and others of the inviolate rights of the individual, America s 
 part in the foremost mission of the nineteenth century seems 
 to have been accomplished and the way cleared for new effort. 
 
PART III 
 
 LATER ACTIVITY 
 
 FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC 
 1860-1900 
 
 265 
 
LATER ACTIVITY 
 
 Continuous though our literature was and is, a very per 
 ceptible change came over the character of it in the seventh 
 decade of the nineteenth century. The Civil War troubled 
 and retarded the current. The elder writers continued in 
 their calling, but, except in the cases of two or three Lowell, 
 rather younger than the rest, and Holmes, to whom was given 
 a second youth, there was naturally a falling off in the 
 quality of their product, or they turned their attention to 
 translation and other less original work. And the younger 
 generation was slow to take their places. 
 
 Of two reasons that may be assigned for this phenomenon, 
 one has just been mentioned. The civil conflict, so long 
 averted, but coming finally with such terrible and prolonged 
 results, absorbed the best energies and blood of the youth of 
 the nation. Even the masses of the people who took no 
 direct part in it were necessarily distracted by it, and the 
 conditions of life were made harder. There was no leisure 
 for art, and no demand for it no surplus of wealth to support 
 it. The latest birth-year of our great writers was that of 
 Lowell and Whitman, 1819, or, if we include Parkman, 
 Curtis, and Taylor, that of Taylor, 1825. Manifestly, those 
 born later had not time to get fully settled in the literary way 
 of life before the great struggle came; and the prohibitive 
 conditions which it brought remained operative for many 
 years. 
 
 The other reason is scarcely a reason, it is rather an ob 
 served fact. Literature, like other phenomena, seems to fol 
 low some law of rhythm. Great writers appear in groups and 
 a period of great achievement is followed by a period of lesser 
 achievement or even barrenness. It was perhaps inevitable 
 
 267 
 
268 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 that the end of the nineteenth century should show no such 
 literary record as the middle. The drift of the age, too, away 
 from idealistic philosophy, toward a materialistic science and 
 industrialism and commercialism, tended to check artistic 
 creation and assist this rhythmic ebb. Possibly we are 
 wrong in fancying that there is any antagonism between 
 science and poetry, and possibly we fail to estimate rightly 
 the artistic product of our times; but the fact remains that, 
 in our present judgment, not more than one poet arose in the 
 closing decades of the century who could compare with the 
 seven who filled the preceding decades with song; nor was 
 there any writer of imaginative prose to compare with Poe 
 and Hawthorne, nor any orator like Webster, nor any sage 
 like Emerson. 
 
 But the period has been far from barren. Criticism is ran 
 sacking all the records of the past ; science is making new rec 
 ords; and journalism grows apace. Pens were never busier 
 than now, and ephemeral as their product for the most part 
 seems, the future will doubtless find in it something worthy to 
 be preserved. Meanwhile we observe that new notes have 
 been sounded, both in verse and in prose, and though our 
 judgment must be still cautious and apologetic, we feel 
 assured that our literature is daily growing, if not deeper, yet 
 broader and richer. We observe too, the wide geographical 
 distribution of this later product. New England and the 
 Middle Atlantic States no longer hold a monopoly. The 
 South was gathering strength in letters even at the outbreak 
 of the war; and since then, literature, after taking one great 
 leap with the leap of settlement to the Pacific coast, has 
 gradually spread over the country until now there is scarcely 
 a considerable valley, plain, or mountain-side, south, west, 
 north, or east, that has not its local writers and even its local 
 tone. Indeed, among the new notes of our literature, this 
 vogue of the provincial, this strong and endlessly varied local 
 
LATER ACTIVITY 269 
 
 color, is so marked that it might almost give its name to the 
 period. 
 
 In grouping the writers of this period, therefore, a geo 
 graphical division is desirable. Except, too, for the motley 
 later fiction, often too narrowly local to be thus classified, such 
 a division will be found both easy and logical, since the writ 
 ers of each large section of the country, with all their minor 
 differences, betray common characteristics and tendencies. 
 No classification, however, can be perfect; and especially 
 in such a diverse and restless population as ours, one must be 
 prepared to find writers who constantly overstep the bounds 
 of their section and class. Walt Whitman, for instance, 
 who might well have been the spokesman of a less aristo 
 cratic community, was of the East ; and naturally a few types 
 of all sections may be seen meeting on the common new 
 ground of the West. But on the whole these sections, as 
 reflected in literature, have kept remarkably distinct. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 POETRY IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Before 1860, no literary impulse manifesting itself in work 
 of high order was felt farther south than Richmond. The 
 name of Poe, which Richmond may claim, is of course nation 
 al, and more. But the names of Wilde of Georgia and Simms 
 of South Carolina are considerably less. Such other names 
 as might be mentioned are, properly, almost wholly forgotten. 
 About 1860, however, there were signs of an awakened 
 activity, and though it was checked and thwarted by the 
 disasters that speedily followed, it was never entirely 
 repressed, and it finally resulted in a literature that no longer 
 compared unfavorably with the contemporaneous literature 
 of the North. 
 
 So far as the South is concerned, the period from 1860 to 
 1900 falls sharply into two parts. The first half was marked 
 by poetic activity, but apparently brought forth not a single 
 important work of prose. During the second half the activity 
 in prose fiction was marked, while the period was singularly 
 barren of poetry. All of the literature was in some sense 
 retrospective. At least it kept rather closely to the tra 
 ditions of an earlier time. The poetry was but a second 
 flowering of that exuberant lyricism which distinguished the 
 earlier writers from Wilde to Poe, while the prose fiction, 
 often poetic in coloring, but half adopted the methods of the 
 later realists, reverting by choice to the old South, and keep 
 ing mostly on the side of chivalry and romance. 
 
 Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry Timrod, the first in 
 time of the later poets, are properly remembered together. 
 They were born at Charleston, South Carolina, with but 
 three weeks difference in their ages. They sat together at 
 
 270 
 
HAYNE AND TIMROD 271 
 
 school, and remained lifelong friends. Both had the friendly 
 encouragement of the novelist Simms. Both served in the 
 Paul H. Confederate army, Hayne as a colonel, Timrod 
 i83oi886. as a private and a war correspondent. Both 
 ThSSd, suffered wreck of health and home in the devas- 
 1829-1867. tating conflict, and both wrung from its turmoil 
 inspiration to song. Hayne, who was a member of an old 
 and wealthy Carolina family a nephew of the Senator 
 Hayne made famous by the great debate with Webster was 
 the more fortunate of the two in worldly circumstances and 
 length of life. The war, however, left him in poverty, and 
 he retired in his later years to the pine barrens near Augusta, 
 Georgia, pursuing his chosen profession of writing as a means 
 of support. He had published a volume of poems as early 
 as 1855, and he was long regarded as the representative poet 
 of the South, though both Timrod and Lanier have since 
 come to share his honors. With much of the artist in his 
 temperament, he excelled in sonnets, and in quiet land 
 scape poems picturing the warmth and softness of southern 
 scenery. He wrote war lyrics and ballads Beyond the Po 
 tomac, Vicksburg, In Harbor, etc. but they breathe little 
 more of the Tyrtsean spirit than do Longfellow s. They are 
 distinctly inferior to the stirring war ballads of several other 
 wise minor poets Forceythe Willson, for example, by resi 
 dence of Kentucky, or Dr. Francis O. Ticknor of Georgia, 
 whose poems Hayne edited, and who was the author of the 
 striking Little Giffen of Tennessee. 
 
 Timrod, perhaps, of all these writers, felt most keenly the 
 blow that so injured the rising literature of the South. He 
 published a volume of poems in 1860, which was well received; 
 but the war, beginning shortly afterward, interfered with any 
 continuous effort and left him in the end to carry on a losing 
 fight against poverty and consumption. The death of a child 
 added to the bitterness of his last desolate years. He died 
 
272 POETRY IN THE SOUTH 
 
 in 1867. His poems, numbering about eighty in all, were 
 gathered and published in 1873, with a memoir by his friend 
 Hayne, and there was a re-issue a memorial edition in 
 1899. Timrod was a more serious and spontaneous singer 
 than Hayne, and somewhat less finished, though still of a fine 
 artistic sense. Katie is an exquisite little idyl, with pictures 
 like paintings on porcelain. Better known and more dis 
 tinctly southern is The Cotton Boll, a poem veritably aglow 
 with the dazzling sunshine that lies over the snowy cotton 
 fields, and sounding, in its deeper passages, a note of prayer 
 ful patriotism half Miltonic in fervor. His poems written 
 in war time, few, but strong, passionate, and sincere, mark 
 him as the real laureate of the Confederacy. Carolina and 
 Ethnogenesis ( the birth of a nation ) are the utterances of a 
 noble and fiery heart. Yet the word "peace" was always 
 on his lips, and there is scarcely a poem that does not end 
 with a peaceful vision or prayer, which makes the tragedy 
 of his life one of the inscrutable ironies of fate. 
 
 Sidney Lanier, who began his work just about the time of 
 Timrod s premature death, is the foremost singer that the 
 
 South has given us since Poe; some critics, indeed, 
 Lanier, notably Mr. Stedman, have been disposed to put 
 
 him almost on a level with our great poets. His 
 life, also, was broken and brief. Born at Macon, Georgia, 
 of Huguenot and Scotch ancestry, he was graduated from a 
 Georgia college at the age of eighteen, and in the year follow 
 ing, on the outbreak of the war, enlisted in the Confederate 
 army. He was in the battle of Seven Pines and in the Seven 
 Days Battle about Richmond, and spent five months in 
 captivity in Point Lookout prison. Some of his war exper 
 iences went into his first book, Tiger Lilies, a hastily written 
 novel published in 1867. After the war, with little but a 
 brave wife and a brave heart, he began his fifteen years strug 
 gle with consumption. When his health permitted, he taught 
 
LANIER 273 
 
 or played the flute in an orchestra at Baltimore. So passion 
 ately fond of music was he that he could scarcely decide 
 between that and poetry in his choice of a profession, though 
 the needs of his life were such as to leave little to the prefer 
 ences of his taste. He did some irregular literary work of 
 whatever nature came to hand. Through the influence of 
 Bayard Taylor, whose acquaintance he had made and who 
 was one of the first to appreciate his powers, he was brought 
 into public notice by being chosen to write the Cantata for 
 the opening of the Centennial Exposition in 1876. In 1879 
 he was appointed a lecturer on English literature at the Johns 
 Hopkins University, Baltimore, and his prospects for leisure 
 and a competence were at last brightening. Two years later 
 he died. 
 
 Lanier s prose includes, besides the youthful novel already 
 mentioned, some working over of old chronicles and legends 
 for juvenile readers The Boy s Froissart, The Boy s King Ar 
 thur, etc., and two series of university lectures, The Sci 
 ence of English Verse, and The English Novel. The latter are 
 valuable as stimulative pieces of criticism, but Lanier s prose 
 would not alone make good his literary claims. These rest 
 upon his poetry, of which a volume was published in 1876, 
 and a complete volume posthumously. The bulk of it is not 
 much greater than Timrod s, but it is in every w T ay larger in 
 conception and more finished in form. Lanier had definite 
 and positive views of the relation of art to life it might al 
 most be said that to him art was life. He invested it with the 
 sacredness of religion, and everywhere through his verse may 
 be seen an exaltation of the creative gift and a protest against 
 the commercialism and materialism, the greed and insincerity 
 that seemed to him to be the curses of our modern civilization 
 and to put poetry, music, and all the means of aesthetic and 
 spiritual enjoyment beyond our reach. These views, how 
 ever, are not didactically set forth. On the contrary, there 
 
274 POETRY IN THE SOUTH 
 
 is little American verse more refined and airily imaginative 
 than Lanier s, and none, except Poe s, more melodious. 
 His poems are gospels even more in their form than in their 
 substance. The Symphony is not only a glorification of art; 
 it is itself a glorified example of art, in which the violins and 
 the flute and the clarionet are made to speak almost in their 
 own tones, complaining of the deadly blight of Trade, and 
 singing the praises of the music-master, unselfish Love. Corn 
 is the hymn of the higher life of culture. The Ballad of the 
 Trees and the Master and The Marshes of Glynn are religion 
 set to music. 
 
 Lanier was a constant experimenter, and though he was 
 permitted to accomplish little, he essayed much. The Revenge 
 ofHamish, in which he went outside of America for a subject, 
 as Timrod did in Katie, is a narrative poem in long swinging 
 lines a powerful, almost tear-compelling ballad. The Psalm 
 of the West is an ambitious song of the New World and the 
 American Republic, from the voyage of Columbus to the re 
 union of North and South. There are several good poems in 
 the negro dialect; and there are some exquisite lyrics, of 
 which perhaps the best are The Song of the Chattahoochee and 
 Evening Song. But the incomplete Hymns of the Marshes, 
 upon which he worked feverishly almost to the hour of his 
 death, indubitably reveal the poet at his highest and best. 
 The pictures of the live oaks with their " little green leaves," 
 of the glimmering marsh, "a limpid labyrinth of dreams," of 
 the rising sun and the flooding sea, are all drawn by the hand 
 of a master. It must be admitted, too, that even after Poe 
 and Tennyson and Swinburne he has wrested new melodies 
 from words. Yet we are often made to feel that in applying 
 so cunningly his theories of "tone-color" and harmony he has 
 been led too far from spontaneity and has substituted arti 
 ficial conceits for the fresh imagery of inspiration. In his 
 devotion to the two arts of music and verse, he has lost sight 
 
LANIER 275 
 
 of the boundaries of each, and has tried to secure, with 
 language, effects which should be attempted with music 
 only. In spite, however, of partial and perhaps inevitable 
 failure, we shall long remember him for his high ideals, for the 
 religious and even heroic consecration of his life to art under 
 most discouraging conditions, and for the undeniable beauty 
 of much that he left behind. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 Literature in the West between the Ohio River, let us say, 
 and the Pacific Ocean has not followed the same course of 
 development as in the South. It scarcely made a beginning 
 until well after the Civil War; perhaps no book published in 
 this region before 1867 is worth recording today. Moreover, 
 it is different in character. Prose and poetry have from the 
 outset existed side by side, with a perceptible leaning toward 
 prose as the more natural form of expression. The prose 
 which we shall find supplanting the poetry of the South is 
 still in a measure poetic; the poetry of the West often tends 
 to employ the free and homely idioms of prose. The western 
 literature in its entirety is a novel product, quite without 
 traditions, as new as the surroundings and the society which 
 it reflects. That which Walt Whitman expressly stood for 
 sheer democracy, the leveling of class distinctions and the 
 uncompromising assertion of the individual finds here a 
 natural emphasis. College men are very decidedly in the 
 minority. Farming, mining, lumbering, trapping, scouting, 
 at the highest journalism and local law or politics, furnished 
 the education of the western pioneer. Many a western 
 "man of letters" has ploughed corn, "punched" cattle, 
 sluiced gold, or travelled about the country with a peddler s 
 cart. Men of culture from the East found their way to the 
 West, but not in sufficient numbers to change materially the 
 character of its early literature. Prestige was from the first 
 disregarded, culture often held in scorn. It is manifest that 
 a literature of this type must be gauged by somewhat altered 
 standards. Yet it seems not unlikely that it is precisely 
 this which the future will select as the most vital and char- 
 
 276 
 
CLEMENS 277 
 
 acteristic literary product of the close of the nineteenth 
 century in the United States. 
 
 One of the writers of this western school, who, though 
 long famous, was rather slowly conceded the dignified posi 
 tion due him was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 
 i835-i9i<K ens universally known as "Mark Twain." He was 
 born in Missouri in 1835. Avoiding with con 
 siderable success even a common school education, he got his 
 first literary training, like Franklin, Taylor, Whitman, and 
 Howells, at the printer s case. For a while he was a tramp 
 printer and for a while a pilot on the Mississippi. In 1861 
 he went to Nevada, where he became an editor of the Vir 
 ginia City Enterprise. He engaged in mining, too; and push 
 ing still farther west, pursued both mining and newspaper 
 work in California. In 1866 he visited the Hawaiian Islands, 
 and finding upon his return that his humorous sketches in the 
 San Francisco newspapers had given him a local fame, he 
 began lecturing. In 1867 he went east, published The Jump 
 ing Frog and Other Sketches, and then made the European 
 tour which resulted in the book that won him a national 
 fame, Innocents Abroad (1869). After that he pursued a 
 steady literary career, and the names of his many books are 
 so familiar as scarcely to require recording. He also travelled 
 and lectured extensively, especially in his later years, success 
 fully laboring with a heroism that reminds one of Sir Walter 
 Scott, to remove a debt incurred by the failure of a publishing 
 house which he founded. 
 
 Clemens s best works connect themselves directly with 
 his early experiences in the West. Roughing It (1872), for 
 example, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and Life on 
 the Mississippi (1883), are chapters out of the very heart of 
 that life to which he had lived as close as a man may live. 
 This is their first claim to excellence. Their second claim lies 
 in the emphasis which they lay upon one of the most charac- 
 
278 PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 teristic phases of that life, namely, its rough humor. Mark 
 Twain, indeed, will always be known as a humorist. A single 
 serious work, like his Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, 
 cannot make against this estimate. He, more than any other 
 one person, has given late American humor the distinctive 
 name it enjoys. Unfortunately, this very quality, which 
 insured his popularity, brought also for a time the severest 
 criticism. The humor is a little coarse for the readers of an 
 age that shrinks from Rabelais and Swift. It might have 
 passed in the days of Irving; it was pretty sure to be chal 
 lenged after the delicate wit of Lowell and Holmes. More 
 over, it possesses some unpleasant American characteristics. 
 Innocents Abroad, for example, has in it not a little of that 
 irreverence which Americans often betray in the presence of 
 sacred old world scenes and institutions. But there is always 
 one thing in its favor. There is little torturing of the fancy, 
 as in some of our minor humorists, to make every sentence 
 yield a laugh. The humor is of the most genuine kind 
 spontaneous and irresistible. A man could not stand before 
 the public so many years as Mark Twain did, bearing the 
 most difficult of reputations to sustain, if humor were not 
 of his very essence. Besides, his humor has mostly a purpose 
 beyond the flash of wit. Pure drollery carried Artemus 
 Ward into a deserved reputation. But Twain goes beyond 
 pure fooling. .Even Innocents Abroad, by no means his best 
 book, has served a good end by turning to ridicule the sham 
 enthusiasm of the routine tourist and the innocence of the 
 over-gullible. It is true, Twain liked to disclaim any such 
 object. "Anybody who seeks a moral in this story," he said 
 of Huckleberry Finn, "will be shot." Nor are his stories ever 
 very coherent, for constructiveness is not among his gifts. 
 But in general they have a perceptible drift, and the fun that 
 enters into them is there not wholly for its own sake, but 
 because it is an organic part of the conception : it often sinks 
 
HARTE 279 
 
 to a subordinate element or even disappears in the presence 
 of a higher purpose, and the writer becomes in turn a story 
 teller, a satirist, or a moralist. 
 
 Finally and it is perhaps on this that Twain s claim to 
 serious consideration is best founded he was a genuine 
 creator of character. A national literature can scarcely 
 deserve the name until it has created characters which are 
 seen to typify in the largest and best sense national traits. 
 American literature has nothing to compare with the Greek 
 Ulysses. Our national traits may be too many and diverse 
 to be comprehended in one person, and we may have to be 
 content with here and there a Long Tom Coffin, a Hosea 
 Biglow, a Jack Hamlin, a Silas Lapham, a Colonel Carter. 
 Even thus, our literature seems poor in real characters. But 
 among the most satisfying are to be reckoned those two 
 incarnations of "Young America" on the frontier, those 
 heroes of the "Odyssey of the Mississippi," Tom Sawyer 
 and Huckleberry Finn. 
 
 The story of Francis Bret Harte is somewhat similar in its 
 
 main features to that of Mark Twain. Born at Albany, New 
 
 York, in 1836, Harte went early to California, 
 
 Francis 111 
 
 ?8?6 So2 e wnere ne became successively engaged in teaching, 
 mining, and writing. His Condensed Novels (1867) 
 were first published in The Calif ornian, of which journal he 
 was editor. In 1868 he became editor of the newly founded 
 Overland Monthly, and in it were published his famous story, 
 The Luck of Roaring Camp, and several years later his equally 
 famous poem, Plain Language from Truthful James (otherwise 
 known as The Heathen Chinee) . Then, like Mark Twain, he 
 followed his fame east, and after spending some years in the 
 consular service in Germany and Scotland, writing steadily in 
 the meantime, he finally settled down at London, where he 
 continued to write tales of the days of California before 
 the Pacific Railway. East and West Poems (1871), Tales of 
 
280 PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 the Argonauts (1875), Gabriel Conroy (1876), Snow-Bound at 
 Eagle s (1886), and Colonel Starbottle s Client (1892), are a 
 few of his more than forty published volumes. 
 
 Harte has commonly been classed with the poets, and 
 the striking originality and occasional beauty of his poems 
 give him a deserved place in that category. But it is doubtful 
 whether any but the one poem mentioned above will live as 
 long as will his prose idyls of that wild western life, all of 
 which he knew and a part of which he was. It cannot be said 
 that his later work sustained his early reputation; that was 
 scarcely to be expected, since the novelty wore off and the 
 writer s memory grew dimmed by time and distance. But 
 his early reputation was well won. He was our real pioneer 
 in the field of the short story the story of strong realism 
 reinforced by local color and piquant dialect; and the best 
 writers in this kind at the present day, among them Mr. Kip 
 ling, are deeply indebted to him. Certain things can easily be 
 charged against his work. Dickens thought it subtle in char- 
 acter delineation, but Dickens himself was scarcely subtle, 
 and Harte s method was not unlike Dickens s in its tendency 
 toward grotesqueness. Moreover, there is in Harte an appar 
 ent distortion of moral perspective, an exaggeration of the 
 value of two or three virtues, such as courage, sympathy, and 
 sincerity, to the complete ignoring of others. But the por 
 trayal is essentially true to the life portrayed the mixed 
 society of adventurers, gamblers, desperadoes, and "rough 
 but honest" men and women. One feels as he reads that it 
 was thus that John Oakhurst and Jack Hamlin and Miggles 
 lived and thought. Harte, like Twain, declared that he 
 abstained from any positive moral. He gave the bad with 
 the good, though with the natural result that the good gains 
 immensely by the juxtaposition. Indeed, one secret of his 
 charm is the way in which his vivid pictures of vileness, disso 
 luteness, squalor, and misery are illuminated by deeds of the 
 
MILLER 281 
 
 tenderest charity and the highest heroism. The Outcasts of 
 Poker Flat, How Santa Clous Came to Simpson s Bar, Tennes 
 see s Partner, and a dozen more, bear testimony to this. 
 The stories are related, too, with dramatic skill, and with full 
 appreciation of their romantic and poetic setting. It is hard 
 to review these scenes and characters of a bygone era, still so 
 fresh and full of life, and not feel that Harte has done some 
 what more than merely gather the materials, as he modestly 
 put it, "for an Iliad yet to be sung." The Argonauts of 
 forty-nine have had their bard. 
 
 Aside from Bret Harte, whose fame, as just stated, is more 
 likely to rest upon his prose than upon his verse, Joaquin Mil 
 ler, "the poet of the Sierras," stands out as the 
 
 Joaquin 
 
 M 4i le i9i3 P oet most characteristic of the far West. His par 
 ents named him Cincinnatus Heine Miller, but he 
 preferred to rechristen himself with the name of a Mexi 
 can bandit, Joaquin Murietta, the subject of one of his poems. 
 He lived to the full the life of an adventurer and pioneer. 
 He went from Indiana to Oregon when he was thirteen, 
 worked in the California gold mines, and spent some time 
 with an Indian tribe. Later he studied law and became a 
 judge in eastern Oregon. In 1870 he went to England, where 
 he was warmly received as a new and picturesque poet out of 
 the West. He published Songs of the Sierras in 1871, Songs 
 of the Sunlands in 1873, and other volumes in subsequent 
 years. The D unites in the Sierras, a novel, has been success 
 fully dramatized. Returning to the West, he continued his 
 adventurous career. In 1898 he went to the Klondike, not 
 for gold, for which he always professed a fine contempt, but 
 to be again with the vanguard of pioneers. The trouble in 
 China in 1900 also found him at the scene of activity as a 
 newspaper correspondent. But while Miller maintained a 
 certain prominence in the ranks of journalism, he scarcely 
 made good his early claim to serious consideration as a poet. 
 
282 PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 Too many allowances must be made for his poetry. Lyrical 
 before all else, it is exasperatingly careless unsymmetrical 
 and diffuse. It is overwrought in imagery, and makes use 
 of all the Swinburnian devices of assonance and alliteration 
 without showing Swinburne s fine instinct for harmony. 
 The most that can be said in praise of it is that it has glimpses 
 of wild beauty with here and there a passage that is genuinely 
 melodious, as in Sunrise in Venice and The Rhyme of the 
 Great River, and that it breathes a spirit of rude chivalry, 
 espousing with proud indiscrimination the cause of all the 
 poor, the outcast, and the oppressed. 
 
 Two writers, who, though brought up in New England and 
 showing the strongest affiliations with the eastern school, are 
 
 yet commonly classed with the writers of the West 
 ?8<X- 18*87. because their most significant work was done there 
 
 are Edward Rowland Sill and Helen Fiske Jack 
 son. Sill was a native of Connecticut and a graduate of 
 Yale who went to California by sea in 1862, and remained 
 there, with the exception of four years spent in journalism 
 and teaching in New York and Ohio, until 1883. He held 
 for some years the chair of English literature in the University 
 of California. Four years after his second return to the East 
 he died, at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Three slender collections 
 of his poems have been published one in 1868, one in the 
 year of his death, and one in 1899. There is also a posthu 
 mous volume of prose, containing essays on nature, litera 
 ture, psychology, etc. Sill is readily seen to have been a true 
 singer, though of the minor choir. He did nothing of large 
 scope. His longest poem, The Hermitage, is rather a series 
 of short poems. The Venus of Milo is about twice as long as 
 Thanatopsis. The other poems do not commonly exceed 
 half a dozen stanzas. Seldom, too, is the lyric quality 
 striking. It is their compressed thought that gives the poems 
 distinction. There is neither mediocrity of substance nor 
 
SILL, HELEN F. JACKSON 283 
 
 diffuseness of expression. Here and there is a note that is 
 strongly Emersonian. The most characteristic thing, how 
 ever, is a quality not Emersonian, a haunting sense of 
 the tragi-comedy of human life, a restlessness in the pres 
 ence of its mysteries, and even a tendency to brood upon 
 the major mystery of death. At one time, with a cheery 
 recall to the primitive simplicities, 
 
 "Life is a game the soul can play 
 With fewer pieces than men say," 
 
 but at another, "Life is a blindfold game." Thus one cannot 
 safely go to these poems for rest. But Life, The Fool s 
 Prayer, Opportunity, The Invisible, Two Views of It, Strange, 
 Truth at Last, and many more, show that Sill had some 
 glimpses behind the curtain which he is willing to share with 
 those who are prepared for either chance to shudder or to 
 smile. 
 
 Mrs. Helen Fiske Jackson, long known as Helen Hunt or 
 "H. H.," at one time wife of Captain Hunt of the United 
 States Army and later of Mr. Jackson, a banker of 
 Jackson, Colorado Springs, was born at Amherst, Massa 
 chusetts, and spent only the last years of her life 
 in the West. The earlier part of her life, and especially the 
 sorrows with which it was clouded, found expression in 
 poetry. She published a volume of verse in 1870; and it 
 seems not too much to say of such of her poems as Spinning, 
 Coronation, or the sonnets Morn and Thought, that they 
 evince a higher imagination than those of any other American 
 woman poet except her fellow townswoman, fimily Dickin 
 son. But she lived to write a novel that set her name, 
 with the multitude at least, in a higher place, and her fame 
 will henceforth be most closely associated with that. After 
 her removal to Colorado she became interested in the con 
 dition of the American Indians and their ill treatment by 
 
284 PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 government agents, and in 1881 published a protest in their 
 behalf (A Century of Dishonor), which led to her appoint 
 ment as special examiner to the mission Indians of Cali 
 fornia. The final outcome was the composition and publi 
 cation of her novel, Ramona, in 1884. Ramona scarcely 
 needs description, any more than Uncle Tom s Cabin. It was 
 written in the same sincere philanthropic spirit, and although, 
 like Mrs. Stowe s book, or Cooper s novels, it idealizes 
 somewhat the objects of its defence, such idealization is 
 surely pardonable. Artistically considered, it is one of the 
 finest creations of our fiction a romance so infused with 
 tropic warmth and glow, and so permeated with human 
 sympathy, that its pictures of Arcadian life in old California 
 and the gentle figures of Ramona, Alessandro, and Father 
 Salvierderra will not easily fade. 
 
 The Middle West, in its entire expanse from the Ohio Val 
 ley to the Rocky Mountains, was rather slower than the 
 Pacific Slope to bring forth either prose or poetry. 
 ?8 U 5o!?8 e 95! eld But with men like Mark Twain, already men 
 tioned, and the late William Vaughn Moody, it 
 has fairly equalled the score. Two other writers, moreover, 
 though inferior to these, have produced work of a distinctive 
 character. One was Eugene Field, who was born at St. Louis 
 and who, during his too short life, was a hard-working 
 journalist in various cities of the west from Denver to 
 Chicago. He did his latest and best work at Chicago. He 
 had a scholarly mind, which revealed itself in his most 
 trifling hack work; and he made some delightful free trans 
 lations and paraphrases of Horace (Echoes from the Sabine 
 Farm, with R. M. Field, 1893). A true bibliophile, he wrote 
 much upon the love of books. But the love of children 
 called forth his best work, and his poems thus inspired, easily 
 comparable to Stevenson s in their mingled quaintness, 
 humor, and pathos, are scarcely second to any in the Ian- 
 
FIELD 2So 
 
 guage. Little Boy Blue, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, and half 
 a dozen others have already become classics. 
 
 The name to be linked with Field s is that of James 
 
 W],iitcomb Riley, of Indiana, another typical rover and 
 
 journalist. He was born in a small country 
 
 James Whit- J .11 
 
 comb Riley, town and received only a common school educa 
 tion. He once served as drummer in the concert- 
 wagon of an itinerant patent-medicine seller. At the age of 
 twenty he began printing verses in the newspapers, which in 
 time brought him both fame and what, no doubt, he prized 
 far more, a very warm place in the hearts of a multitude of 
 readers. For his poetry sprang from his simple rustic life 
 and reflected it faithfully, not only in its outward features of 
 blading corn and showering blossoms, but also in its intimate 
 joys and sorrows. He often adopted the homely Hoosier 
 dialect as a medium, and though, as he employs it, it is not 
 without a suspicion of artificiality and mannerism, the 
 genuineness of the underlying sentiments cannot be doubted, 
 and poems like Nothin to Say, and Knee-Deep in June go 
 straight as an arrow to their mark. His first volume was 
 The Old Swimmin Hole and Leven More Poems (1883), 
 followed by fully a score of similar nature. As with all 
 successful poets of the people, humor and pathos enter 
 largely into the substance of Riley s verse. He partakes, 
 moreover, of that fundamental optimism that seems to be 
 almost a birthright of the American people, and expresses it 
 time and again nowhere, perhaps, more tersely and sponta 
 neously than in A Life Lesson, " There, little girl don t cry ! " 
 In William Vaughn Moody, also of Indiana, America 
 seemed to find once more a poet endowed with the greater 
 gifts. Moody received his education at Harvard, and was a 
 teacher of English literature at the University of Chicago 
 until a short time before his death. His published volumes 
 consisted of two lyrical dramas, The Masque of Judgment 
 
286 PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 (1900) and The Fire Bringer (1904), Poems, (1901), and two 
 prose plays, The Great Divide (1907) and The Faith-Healer 
 William (1909). His work often betrays somewhat ob- 
 MocSiy? viously its models, for he was naturally familiar 
 >10 with the greatest English verse and deeply im 
 mersed in its traditions ; especially did the poets of the nine 
 teenth century leave their mark upon him. Nowhere, however, 
 is there weak imitation in the high quality of his gifts he 
 belongs to their company; and it may even be set to his 
 credit that he did not seek after novelty of expression, but 
 was content to cast his matter in classic molds. His imag 
 ination never deserts him. He listens, for instance, to the 
 voice of an Italian street-singer, and is straightway carried 
 to the land of the singer s and the poet s love : 
 
 "Up stairways blue with flowering weed 
 I climb to hill-hung Bergamo; 
 All day I watch the thunder breed 
 Golden above the springs of Po, 
 Till the voice makes sure its wavering lure, 
 And by Assisi s portals pure 
 I stand, with heart bent low." 
 
 This, however, is but a modest flight; for the full sweep of his 
 imagination and its power to reach the hidden recesses of the 
 human spirit, one should turn to the lyrical dramas, or to 
 such poems as Gloucester Moors and An Ode in the Time of 
 Hesitation. The latter, which is easily to be compared with 
 Lowell s Commemoration Ode, is the best poem called forth 
 by the Spanish-American war and the occupation of the 
 Philippines. Some of its lines glow with all the descriptive 
 beauty of Shelley, and others ring with the moral indignation 
 of Milton. By his lyrical dramas, too, and The Great Divide, 
 which has been successfully acted, Moody did much to give 
 weight and dignity to a species of literature in which America 
 still compares very unfavorably with the Old World. 
 
M OOD Y 287 
 
 Other writers of the Middle and Far West come readily to 
 mind. There is Edwin Markham, of Oregon and California, 
 who sprang into fame with his over-praised poem, The Man 
 with the Hoe, but who, before that, was the author of many a 
 genuine lyric unf retted with sense of social wrong. And to 
 go back almost to an earlier generation there are, or were, 
 John Hay, the Piatts, Richard Realf, and more. But here 
 it is safest to pause. The anthologies will winnow out such 
 productions of these as have any permanent significance. 
 The later novelists remain, and in them, possibly, the hope 
 of the coming literature of this section now lies ; but none of 
 them as yet call for special treatment and the mention of 
 whatever promise they reveal will be reserved for another 
 place. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 POETRY AND CRITICISM IN THE EAST 
 
 The later literature of the north and middle Atlantic states 
 stands forth in no such clear outlines as that of either the 
 South or the West. In this eastern region, of course, the suc 
 cession was never entirely broken, and it is not easy to sepa 
 rate later writers from earlier, especially since the later largely 
 uphold familiar traditions, standing for the inherited ideals of 
 dignity, scholarship, refinement, taste, and finish. But a dif 
 ference in quality may be detected, possibly because the later 
 writers have suffered from the very fact of having clung to 
 their inheritance. The old veins were worked out and new 
 ones were not found. The earlier writers, too, many of 
 whom lived on into an active old age, overshadowing their 
 natural successors, were natively superior in all points of 
 genius. In the field of poetry in particular, the very best of 
 the later writers have been the readiest to recognize the easy 
 pre-eminence of the elder group; so that, feeling no insistent 
 voice within and finding no encouraging demand from with 
 out, they have produced sparingly and are even disposed, as 
 the years go by, to reduce the bulk of their acknowledged 
 product. Another restraining factor which must doubtless 
 be taken into account is the gradual encroachment of the 
 virile and picturesque literature of the South and the West, 
 which the East itself has been prone to treat lightly, but 
 which has sometimes penetrated more readily into the 
 centres of European culture than anything the conservative 
 East has produced. 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich was one of the first of the eastern 
 succession to publish, and pursued his career with singular 
 devotion. He was born in New Hampshire, passed a part 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE 
 FRANCIS BRET HARTE 
 
 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 
 SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS 
 
ALDRICH 289 
 
 of his youth in Louisiana, and, foregoing a college education, 
 at the age of seventeen entered journalism at New York, 
 where he won the friendship of Willis and became 
 associated with Taylor, Stoddard, and Stedman. 
 There, before he was twenty, he wrote the pathe 
 tic Ballad of Babie Bell, and also published his first volume of 
 verse, The Bells (1854). A few years later he removed to 
 Boston and became an integral part of the literary life of New 
 England. Lowell, the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 
 had welcomed his contributions to that magazine, and in 
 1881 Aldrich found himself in the editor s chair with Lowell as 
 his contributor. He remained editor of the Atlantic for nine 
 years, and his contributions to it number over a hundred. 
 His poems have appeared in many successive volumes and 
 editions. 
 
 Though Aldrich worked with comparative ease in a 
 variety of forms, from the sonnet to dramatic blank verse, 
 he was at his best in lyrics of sentiment and fancy and the 
 polished trifles that go to make up "society verse." One 
 critic has ventured to say that he recalls the English Herrick. 
 He has some characteristics in common with Longfellow. 
 But Longfellow s simplicity is often replaced in Aldrich by a 
 greater subtlety of thought and overlaid with a more elabo 
 rate art. His romantic fancy, too, has more of the far East 
 in it than Longfellow s. Like Stoddard, he fell under the 
 influence of Taylor s travel-enriched fancy, and he affects 
 strains that are "blent with odors from the Orient." His 
 Dressing the Bride and When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan are 
 replete with color and all sensuous appeals. He is better 
 known, however, by such simpler lyrics as Babie Bell, Before 
 the Rain, and The Face Against the Pane. 
 
 Nor is it to be forgotten that Aldrich immensely widened 
 his audience by those prose tales with which, in middle life, he 
 began to vary the product of his pen, and which are marked 
 
290 POETRY AND CRITICISM IN THE EAST 
 
 by the same daintiness and artistic charm as his poetry, sup 
 plemented with a rare quality of humor. The Story of a Bad 
 Boy (1870), Marjorie Daw (1873), and Two Bites at a Cherry 
 (1893) are all well known. The first, largely drawn from 
 memories of Portsmouth, the city of his birth, has become a 
 classic "juvenile;" it was a forerunner of various books in a 
 similar vein, notably Warner s Being a Boy and Howells s A 
 Boy s Town. The second, Marjorie Daw, ranks among the 
 very best short stories written by American authors. 
 
 Classification and comparison, in the case of a poet like 
 
 Emily Dickinson, avail nothing. She was modern; beyond 
 
 that the chances of time and place do not signify; 
 
 Dickinson, her life and her poetry were equally remote from 
 
 1830-1886o PI TT 
 
 the ways 01 others. H er years were passed in 
 seclusion at Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father was 
 treasurer of Amherst College. Her scanty verses, a kind of 
 soul s diary, written with no thought of publication, becahie 
 known to a few friends, and after much persuasion she allowed 
 two or three to be published during her life- time. A volume 
 was published only after her death, in 1890. The poems 
 baffle description. They seldom have titles, and sometimes 
 no more words than poets three centuries ago put into their 
 titles, for she pours her words as a chemist his tinctures, 
 fearful of a drop too much. Two stanzas, of four lines each, 
 imperfectly rhymed, and with about four words to the line, 
 are her favorite form. A fourteen-line sonnet is spacious by 
 the side of such poems. Yet few sonnets have ever com 
 pressed so much within their bounds. To read one is to be 
 given a pause that will outlast the reading of many sonnets; 
 for they come with revelation, like a flash of lightning that 
 illuminates a landscape by night and startles with glimpses 
 into an unimagined world. They bear witness in every word 
 to their high inspiration. But stamped though they be with 
 the celestial signature, they are but fragments, and in the 
 
EMILY DICKINSON, STEDMAN 291 
 
 temple of art, which keeps its niches for the perfect statue, 
 they must shine obscurely. 
 
 Turning to New York, we are met at once by a well- 
 known writer already several times named in this history 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman, the poet-critic, and 
 man, friend of nearly all the literary men of New York 
 
 in his time. He was slightly the senior of Aldrich, 
 whom he knew before Aldrich went to Boston, and slightly 
 the junior of the New York and Philadelphia group of poet- 
 journalists Taylor, Stoddard, Boker, etc. He was born 
 at Hartford, Connecticut, and his brief college course of two 
 years was taken at Yale. His newspaper life in New York 
 began in 1855, and for several years during the Civil War he 
 was war correspondent of the New York World, gaining 
 experience which he subsequently turned to good account in 
 his verse. His later life was spent mainly on the Stock 
 Exchange, a career in which he managed to find leisure for 
 his seldom interrupted literary pursuits. His poems com 
 prise Poems Lyric and Idyllic (I860), Alice of Monmouth (1863), 
 The Blameless Prince (1869), Hawthorne, and Other Poems 
 (1877), and later lyrics and idyls. 
 
 Stedman, like most of his associates, is to be classed with 
 the poets of the artist type the poets whose creative impulse 
 is never so strong as to make them forget the requirements of 
 technical perfection. But Stedman chooses his themes rather 
 nearer to the ordinary interests of life than, for instance, Aid- 
 rich: he likes narrative and dramatic as well as lyric themes. 
 By virtue of How Old Brown Took Harper s Ferry, Alice of 
 Monmouth, Wanted A Man, and Gettysburg, he became one 
 more of our laureates of the great war. Yet he is never a 
 passionate singer. Even heroic deeds are likely to receive at 
 his hands the highly artistic treatment which results in the 
 idyl, and this, as his titles show, is one of his favorite forms 
 of poetry. At times, his fancy played with lighter occa- 
 
292 POETRY AND CRITICISM IN THE EAST 
 
 sional and bohemian verse. The city found him a sympathetic 
 bard, and a wandering organ-grinder called forth a unique 
 poem of genuine inspiration Pan in Wall Street. 
 
 Stedman s later energies were mostly given over to crit 
 ical work, and he published Victorian Poets (1875), Poets 
 of America (1885), and The Nature and Elements of Poetry 
 (1892), with their accompanying Anthologies. By these 
 works, with their poetic sympathy and insight, sane judg 
 ment, luminous style, and kindly, sometimes over-kindly, 
 temper, he placed himself foremost among our literary 
 critics after Lowell. His service, indeed was peculiarly 
 great. He did one thing that Lowell was not fitted to do. 
 He helped to put criticism on a fairly definite basis without 
 removing it from the realm of personal taste and appre 
 ciation. Scholars are under obligations to him for the meas 
 ure of order which he introduced into the chaos of minor 
 contemporary poetry, while many a young student owes him 
 a debt for being set in the way to a love of the best that liter 
 ature can afford. 
 
 Among writers of the Middle East whose work has been 
 done outside of the cities, perhaps the most prominent is 
 John Burroughs, who was born in the Catskill 
 Burroughs, region of New York in 1837. Apart from a few 
 years spent in teaching and as a Treasury clerk 
 at Washington, Burroughs remained devoted to the country 
 life in which he received his earliest training. His writings, 
 largely the fruits of his studies of nature, whether of the 
 habits of birds or of the habits of berries, which he loves to 
 cultivate, inevitably remind us of those of Thoreau, of 
 whom in his naturalist s ardor he is fully the equal. But he 
 is quite without Thoreau s eccentricity of temper. As befits 
 a writer of the later time, he carries with him more of the 
 scientist s spirit, and he is never obtrusive with his moraliz 
 ing. One gets from him undiluted sunshine and field-odor 
 
BURROUGHS 293 
 
 and bird-song. Wake-Robin (1871), Winter Sunshine (1875), 
 Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), 
 Fresh Fields (1884), reveal in their titles not a little of their 
 character. Burroughs must also be classed as a literary 
 critic of fine perceptions and poetic sympathies, as his Indoor 
 Studies (1889) shows. He was one of the earliest defenders 
 of Walt Whitman, and has published several appreciative 
 essays upon Whitman s work. Light of Day (1900) is a vol 
 ume of religious discussions. To the general public, however, 
 he remains the naturalist, and he has been a potent influence, 
 after Thoreau, upon the large body of writers upon outdoor 
 subjects who at present enjoy such popularity. 
 
 Here might follow the names of many who have made 
 later New York, even more conspicuously than later Boston, a 
 centre of literary activity. There are some, like Richard 
 Watson Gilder, poet, and sometime editor of the Century, 
 who long ago won their circle of admirers. There are others, 
 like Bliss Carman, poet of " Vagabondia," or George Edward 
 Woodberry, alternately poet and critic, or Hamilton Wright 
 Mabie, critic and engaging essayist, who have yearly streng 
 thened their claims to admiration. And there is, or rather 
 was, one in particular, who drifted from the West into the 
 eastern metropolis, whom it is difficult not to praise at length, 
 half in confidence that the future will sustain the praise. 
 But though Richard Hovey (1864-1900) easily surpassed all 
 the younger singers of New York in the native gift of poetry, 
 his work scarcely bears the stamp of the great poet; his grasp 
 upon life was not secure enough and his exuberant fancy 
 nearly always fell short of the true shaping imagination, 
 dallying with mere prettiness or wandering into regions of 
 obscurity and mysticism, so that it is doubtful whether any 
 further exercise of his powers would have made him more 
 than death has now left him, a minor singer. Poetry and 
 criticism, it would seem, simply hold their own in the East, 
 
294 POETRY AND CRITICISM IN THE EAST 
 
 keeping still at the lower level where they were left by the 
 death of Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes. There, as else 
 where, fiction now affords the preferred outlet of creative 
 activity. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 The change that came over American literature in the 
 latter part of the nineteenth century is most perceptible in 
 the method and spirit of its fiction. It must be evident to 
 the most casual observer that fiction has developed out of all 
 proportion to other literary forms, until now the novel 
 furnishes the staple leisure-reading of nearly all classes. So 
 rapid, however, has been this development, and so multi 
 form are its products, which change form almost from day to 
 day, that anything like a history of the movement is at this 
 stage impossible. The most that can be done is to indicate 
 a few of the major tendencies and to put on record a few of 
 the more important names. 
 
 Foremost among the changes to be noted has been the rise 
 of what is commonly known as realism. This has been pro 
 fessedly an attempt to draw nearer to the conditions of real 
 life. Vagueness of scene, abnormal characters, mysterious 
 and impossible happenings, have been abandoned in favor of 
 familiar and even commonplace scenes and events. The in 
 terest of plot, with its elements of surprise and terror, has 
 been subordinated to the interest attaching to the develop 
 ment of character in the midst of the actual problems of 
 existence. In short, romanticism, or the unrestrained play of 
 fancy, has given way to simple fidelity to truth, and we no 
 longer call our works of fiction romances, but novels. In this 
 matter America has been a close follower in the footsteps of 
 Great Britain. The change from Brown, Cooper, and Poe 
 through Hawthorne, Mrs. Stowe, and Holmes, to Bret Harte, 
 Howells, James, and Mrs. Wharton, may be likened (though 
 the individual comparisons will not hold) to the change from 
 
 295 
 
296 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 Scott and Bulwer, through Charlotte Bronte and Dickens 
 to Thackeray, George Eliot, and Meredith. 
 
 Concomitant with this development of the novel of char 
 acter, of social problems, and of realistic scenes, there has been 
 a marked tendency to specialize or localize. Every profession 
 and occupation, from the priest s to the ward politician s, 
 from the banker s to the burglar s, has been thoroughly ex 
 ploited by the industrious novelist. Every section of the coun 
 try, too, from the lakes and pine forests of northern Maine 
 to the deserts and orange orchards of southern California, 
 has found or seems destined to find, its local historian in the 
 guise of a writer of fiction. This has gradually led to a more 
 and more lavish use of "local color" that is, technicalities of 
 profession or trade, details of local scenery, and above all, 
 provincial dialect, to secure which the novelist often goes 
 deliberately into a course of training. Fiction almost ceases 
 to be fiction in its photographic reproduction of unselected 
 and unarranged facts. It is clear that this is a natural but 
 extreme outgrowth of the realistic method. There is, of 
 course, virtue in- local color, and the greatest artist need not, 
 perhaps henceforth may not, dispense with it. But it cannot 
 alone carry a piece of fiction beyond the temporary popu 
 larity which waits on novelty. The great work of art must 
 portray, under whatever local and temporary guises, univer 
 sal and eternal verities. 
 
 Turning from the character of this late fiction to its form, 
 we note, in addition to the novel of standard length, the ex 
 tremely popular "short story." The main characteristics 
 of the short story are the same as those of the novel, except 
 that, instead of a long series of incidents, but a single situation 
 is presented, or at the most two or three, with the connecting 
 incidents omitted. The form has doubtless grown out of 
 the tendency toward compression which marks the continued 
 development of an art, and is fostered by the spirit of an age 
 
THE SHORT STORY 297 
 
 that is restless even in its leisure. It has been further 
 encouraged by the rise in America of the popular monthly 
 magazine, which depends quite as much upon the sale of 
 single numbers as upon annual subscriptions. It is not to 
 be forgotten, however, that the short story had an early par 
 allel in the romantic tale, which bore about the same relation 
 to the fully developed romance as the short story bears to the 
 novel; and the tale, as perfected by Poe and Hawthorne, is 
 one of the signal achievements of American letters. It was 
 therefore natural that the short story should attain in Ameri 
 ca a high development, and certainly it is to be regarded, in 
 its form if not in its substance, as American (and French) 
 rather than as British. Great Britain has now several 
 masters of the kind in the persons of Thomas Hardy, Hud- 
 yard Kipling, and a few writers of the Scotch school, but a 
 good many years before their triumphs the form was being 
 perfected in the far West of America by Bret Harte, to say 
 nothing of such less frequent but successful eastern experi 
 menters as Hale and Aldrich. 
 
 These things are already sufficiently matters of history, 
 but beyond these it would be difficult to go. The minor 
 tendencies in fiction of the present time, not a few of which 
 are easily to be detected, lack as yet the steadiness of a dis 
 tinct drift and they must await the future chronicler. It 
 remains for us only to consider a few of the late novelists who 
 have won national recognition. Nor can there be anything 
 like a careful classification of these. Many, indeed, who 
 might well be in the company, have already been considered. 
 Holmes himself was a late novelist, but other considerations 
 have relegated him to another time and place. So with 
 Hale, Higginson, Holland, and Warner. So with Aldrich, a* 
 later and real contemporary. So even with Clemens, Mrs. 
 Jackson, and Bret Harte. Clemens came to fame as a 
 humorist; Mrs. Jackson was a poet, and her one novel bears 
 
298 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 no direct relation to the other fiction of the time; and Bret 
 Harte himself not only was half a poet, but he worked so 
 early and remained so aloof, that there can be little impro 
 priety in having removed him from this group, though his 
 great importance as a forerunner and as a really genetic 
 influence must always be kept in mind. 
 
 The position of precedence here very properly falls to Wil 
 liam Dean Howells, who, though born in Ohio, has been 
 closely associated through a long literary career 
 wjxHoweiis, witn the wr i ters an j magaz i nes o f tne Atlantic 
 
 cities, and who, by energy, industry, and sound 
 craftsmanship, has won his way to a position of leadership 
 there among the later novelists and miscellaneous writers 
 similar to that occupied by Mr. Aldrich among poets and Mr. 
 Stedman among critics. Mr. Howells, like Bayard Taylor, 
 had always literary proclivities. His early training was 
 received in a country printing-office, and before he made, at 
 the age of twenty-two, his first pilgrimage to Boston and 
 New York, he had become acquainted with Spanish, Italian, 
 and German literature. He was already contributing to 
 magazines, and he published in 1860, with John J. Piatt, 
 Poems of Two Friends. During the Civil War he was abroad 
 as United States consul at Venice, and the delightful Venetian 
 Life and Italian Journeys, which were published as the 
 immediate result of this formative period of his literary life, 
 fixed his reputation. He was editor of the Atlantic Monthly 
 from 1871 to 1881, when he was succeeded by Mr. Aldrich, 
 and he has been connected in various capacities with The 
 Nation, Harper s Magazine, The Cosmopolitan, and other 
 journals. His literary product has been large and varied. 
 There have been several volumes of poems, not only early 
 in his life, but one Stops of Various Quills as late as 1895. 
 There are prose volumes of travel, biography, and criticism; 
 light parfor comedies and farces, such as The Parlor Car and 
 
HO WELLS 299 
 
 The Mousetrap; disguised studies in sociology, such as A 
 Traveller from Altruria (1894); and volumes of reminiscence, 
 more or less autobiographical, including A Boy s Town 
 (1890), My Literary Passions (1895), and Literary Friends 
 and Acquaintance (1900). Outweighing all these, however, 
 in bulk and importance are his novels, beginning with Their 
 Wedding Journey in 1871 and including among the best A 
 Foregone Conclusion (1874), The Lady of the Aroostook (1879), 
 A Modern Instance (1882), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), 
 The Minister s Charge (1886), and A Hazard of New For 
 tunes (1889). 
 
 Mr. Howells has long been conceded to be a leader, if not 
 indeed the founder, of the later school of American fiction. It 
 is the school of realism already described, and its great repre 
 sentatives in other countries have always been admired and 
 defended by Mr. Howells the French Flaubert, for instance, 
 the Russian Turgenieff and Tolstoi, and the Norwegian Ibsen. 
 The realist (or "veritist," or "naturalist," as he variously 
 prefers to be called) seeks his material in what he can observe 
 and is opposed to altering it very much by either selection or 
 rejection. His art, in the words of Mr. Howells, must be 
 "true to the motives, the influences, the principles that shape 
 the life of actual men and women." Sometimes, particularly 
 with the French school, it leads him to the portrayal of all 
 that is coarse, criminal, and revolting in life, so that the word 
 realism has been often improperly narrowed to this. Mr. 
 Howells, however, with most American writers, has avoided 
 the worst phases of life. Indeed, he would regard such real 
 ism as a kind of untruth, scarcely less false in its emphasis 
 than the romanticism which confined itself to the rose-colored 
 existence and the impossible deeds of princes, knights, and 
 ladies. He seeks to portray the average man and woman 
 under average circumstances, Silas Lapham, an enriched 
 plebeian struggling for place and honor, Lemuel Barker, a 
 
300 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 country youth pushing his way to fortune in the city, Marcia 
 Gaylord, an irresponsible young woman going through the 
 disillusioning experience of a loveless marriage, all with 
 painstaking portrayal of the minutest incidents in the life of 
 the characters, and an unshrinking exposition of their un 
 lovely traits of mind and heart, as well as of their better 
 thoughts and aspirations. It may, indeed, be doubted 
 whether such situations and such a method can bring out 
 real character and show what humanity is capable of, whether 
 they can better fortify us for enduring the trials of our own 
 existence, whether, in short, there is any profit for us in an 
 art that reveals little but w T hat we can all see around us. But 
 these are questions which each reader will answer according 
 to his temperament. Some need the incitement of a glori 
 fied vision of life as it might be; some, over-imaginative, 
 need the wholesome corrective of life as it is. As for Mr. 
 Howells, though his novels may at times be found tedious in 
 incident and unsatisfying in conclusion, all readers must 
 grant to him a deep insight into character, a power of excep 
 tionally accurate and vivid portraiture, both of people and of 
 scenes, and a never failing humor and charm of style. 
 
 Henry James, whose name has long been coupled with that 
 of Mr. Howells as a writer of the same school, was born at 
 New York and educated partly in France and 
 ?8! yJames> Switzerland. Since 1869 he has lived so con 
 stantly in England that his title to be regarded as 
 an American author is rather slight. Besides various sketches 
 and essays in travel, biography, and criticism, his numerous 
 novels include The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), 
 Daisy Miller: A Study (1878; later also Daisy Miller: A 
 Comedy), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians 
 (1886), and The Princess Casamassima (1886). Mr. James, 
 with his knowledge of American character and also of Euro 
 pean life and society, has largely occupied himself with por- 
 
JAMES; MARY E. WILKINS 301 
 
 traying Americans in a European environment, so that the 
 name "international" is sometimes applied to his novels. But 
 Americans, it must be said, have often resented his portrayals 
 as inaccurate or at least as unfair to the truest types of Ameri 
 can manhood and womanhood. Naturally, others cannot be 
 expected to see Americans as they see themselves, and Mr. 
 James almost belongs among the "others." In his realistic 
 method he has gone a step beyond Mr. Howells, being utterly 
 tireless in reporting trivial conversations and depicting the 
 minutiae of actions and manners. This kind of analysis, 
 purposely subordinating dramatic effects and leaving the 
 characters to be deduced as from a photograph, results, in 
 the eyes of Mr. James s hostile critics, only in analysing the 
 heart out of his characters; he seems too clever to be strong 
 and human. His style, however, like that of Mr. Howells, is 
 polished, witty, in a way brilliant. And though there are 
 many readers who cannot like his novels, there are others 
 who find in them the perfection of the novelist s art and have 
 made of their admiration almost a cult. 
 
 Of the younger realists, who have so increasingly confined 
 their attention to the provincial, or local, novel, Mary E. 
 Ma Wilkins (Mrs. Freeman) is perhaps the foremost 
 wnkins, representative. She is of New England, and 
 though that section of the country would seem 
 to hold small promise for a writer of her kind, she has found 
 there, in the farms and villages that have been least touched 
 by the spirit of modern progress, material which to most 
 readers is sufficiently novel and which she has succeeded in 
 investing with not a little charm. The stories by which she 
 established her reputation were collected under the titles of 
 A Humble Romance, and Other Stories (1887) and A New 
 England Nun (1891). Those who are well-read in fiction will 
 perceive that Miss Wilkins s work does not differ radically 
 from that of a dozen predecessors; the kind, indeed, can 
 
302 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 be easily traced back through writers like Margaret Deland, 
 Sarah Orne Jewett, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, and 
 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
 But, as intimated above, Miss Wilkins has brought into 
 combination more of the methods of the later writers. Work 
 ing best with the short story, she has not hesitated to apply 
 to it all the arts of the more elaborate realists. She has the 
 primary requisites of her school intimate knowledge of her 
 environment, powers of patient and acute observation, 
 lively sympathy, and abundant humor. She presents unmis 
 takably real people and scenes farmers, peddlers, district 
 school teachers, afternoon teas, quilting-bees, New England 
 door-yards with cinnamon rose-bushes, cemeteries with 
 evergreen fences and weeping- willows. But she does not 
 content herself with description and with conversation in 
 rustic dialect. She never forgets that it is her business to tell 
 a story; and just when the reader begins to feel stifled by the 
 narrowness and dreariness of this homely life to grow weary 
 of the eternal old ladies knitting or demure young women in 
 old-fashioned muslin gowns she heightens the tale with a 
 touch of the dramatic or throws in a sudden glint of romance. 
 Human hearts are shown beating in the humblest of bosoms, 
 and heroism itself is allowed not to be incompatible with 
 life s daily round. This is doubtless the highest triumph of 
 realism, and there are few of Miss Wilkins s stories that do 
 not leave one with a sense of "more than meets the eye." 
 Frank R. Stockton, of Philadelphia, won a unique place 
 among the late writers of fiction by combining the methods 
 of the romancer and the novelist to humorous ends. His 
 early work was done as a journalist. For a time 
 he was assistant editor of St. Nicholas and he 
 wrote some popular j u venile stories . With Rudder 
 Grange, in 1879, he attracted the attention of older readers as 
 a humorous writer of unusual gifts, and the short story of 
 
STOCKTON 303 
 
 The Lady or the Tiger, published in 1884, fixed his repu 
 tation. Stockton s romancing is of the wildest and most 
 whimsical kind and has in it much of *the mock-heroic. The 
 foundation of his humor is the incongruous. He delights in 
 getting his characters, in themselves essentially modern and 
 commonplace, into the most absurdly impossible situations, 
 treating them all the time with an assumption of the utmost 
 gravity. This fantastic humor of situation, for which there 
 seems to be no adequate description but the word "Stock- 
 tonian," may be found in almost all of his novels and short 
 stories The Late Mrs. Null, The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks 
 and Mrs. Aleshine, The Hundredth Man, Afloat and Ashore, 
 etc. His short stories are usually his best. 
 
 As was pointed out in the chapter on southern poetry, 
 there was in the South, after the middle of the century, a 
 marked intermission in the production of prose fiction. 
 Simms s romances stopped with the war, and there were only 
 a few such scarcely significant writers as John Esten Cooke, 
 Mary Virginia Terhune, and Augusta J. Evans to carry on 
 the work. Not until about 1880 did the new South give 
 evidence of a new school of fiction. To be sure, a somewhat 
 noteworthy contribution to the fiction of local scenes, charac 
 ter, and dialect, was made in the later sixties by Colonel 
 R. M. Johnston, with his genial and humorous sketches of 
 life among the Georgia "crackers," but even these were not 
 published in a collective edition until the interest in prose 
 had revived. Now, however, that the energies of southern 
 writers have been turned once more to ward fiction, the product 
 is rapidly becoming both large in quantity and high in quality. 
 In general character and method it allies itself readily enough 
 with all the later fiction of the country ; but the picturesque 
 nature of the scenes portrayed, together, perhaps, with a 
 more tropical imagination on the part of the writers, has 
 served to throw about it much more of romantic glamour. 
 
304 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 Prominent among these writers are to be named Joel Chand 
 ler Harris, of Georgia, who, in his creation of Uncle Remus, 
 has given the plantation negro a permanent place in fiction; 
 Thomas Nelson Page, of Virginia, who has reflected through 
 the negro character, and with a faithful record of the negro 
 dialect of the peculiar Virginian variety, the aristocratic 
 society of the Old Dominion; and Miss Mary N. Murfree 
 ("Charles Egbert Craddock"), of Tennessee, a writer of the 
 descriptive or landscape school, who has wrought into the 
 tapestry of her work the endless panorama of the hours and the 
 seasons in the Great Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee. 
 But the leading spirit of this later activity, especially in 
 its more romantic aspects, is to be sought still farther south. 
 For many years George Washington Cable has 
 G^W. Cable, j^j^ tne p OS ftj on o f one o f America s most dis 
 tinctive novelists. He was born in New Orleans 
 in 1844. After a short service in early manhood as a cavalry 
 man in the Confederate army, he entered upon a struggling 
 career in his native city, at one time as a clerk in a cotton 
 factor s office and again as a reporter on the New Orleans 
 Picayune. He thus obtained a close knowledge of the life 
 and character of the Louisiana Creoles, both in the city and 
 among the bayous of the lower Mississippi, and this know 
 ledge he made the foundation of his earliest essays in litera 
 ture. His sketches, which appeared first in Scribner s Mag 
 azine and which were collected in 1879 under the title of Old 
 Creole Days., attracted much attention and were rapidly 
 followed by more elaborate romances The Grandissimes 
 (1880); Madame Delphine (1881); Dr. Sevier (1884); Bona- 
 venture (1888) ; etc. In later years he removed to the North, 
 where he became interested in several philanthropic projects, 
 and did not a little, both through his novels and through 
 readings and lectures, to bring the South and the North into 
 closer sympathy. Of real service in this direction, for 
 
CABLE; ALLEN 305 
 
 example, is his John March, Southerner (1894), a novel of the 
 reconstruction period. But his best work is to be found in 
 his early romantic, almost poetic, stories of that quaint, 
 remote life of the southern Creoles, which seems so detached 
 from all that we commonly think of as American. He had 
 precisely the qualifications that were needed for such work 
 a strong imagination, quick sensibilities, an equal command 
 of humor and of pathos, and a picturesque style; and he suc 
 ceeded in enriching southern literature as no prose writer 
 before him had done. 
 
 Another southern writer of this semi-romantic type an 
 other projector, that is to say, of very real characters against 
 
 a romantic background is James Lane Allen. 
 i849- AUen Mr. Allen, who came into prominence in the last 
 
 decade of the century, has made himself known as 
 the novelist of Kentucky, and in so far he is a writer of the 
 "local" school. As such, however, he depends more on the 
 charms of nature and landscape than on dialect, breathing 
 the freshness of spring into his A Kentucky Cardinal and 
 Aftermath, or saturating his A Summer in Arcady with south 
 ern warmth and sunshine. But it would be a mistake to 
 regard Mr. Allen as merely a local novelist. The characters 
 which he portrays and the problems of life amidst which 
 they are compelled to work out their destinies are not to be 
 circumscribed by state boundary lines. His writings thus 
 challenge comparison with the highest in fiction; and indeed 
 The Choir Invisible (1897), in its slightness of plot, its search 
 ing analysis, and its intense realization of inner experiences, 
 suggests Hawthorne. It is when confronted by work like 
 this that we are led to the judgment that the strength of 
 American literature at the present time lies in its fiction. 
 
 Since Mark Twain and Bret Harte left the Middle and the 
 Far West, scarcely a novelist of first importance has arisen in 
 that territory. One, contemporary with these, Edward 
 
306 LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 Eggleston, of Indiana, was a popular historian of log cabin 
 life of the raw civilization that was found among the early 
 settlers of the Mississippi valley; another, Constance Feni- 
 more Woolson, exploited the region from the shores of Lake 
 Superior to the Gulf; and not a few later writers Mrs. Cath- 
 erwood, Miss Foote, Miss French, Henry B. Fuller, Hamlin 
 Garland, Robert Herrick, Frank Norris, Jack London have 
 presented one type or another of its motley population, from 
 the French explorers of the Old Northwest to the "cliff- 
 dwellers" of modern Chicago, and from the claim-holders of 
 Dakota to the gamblers and "high-binders "of San Francisco s 
 Chinatown. But while one of these writers has fancy, and 
 another technique, and another strength, and another 
 humor, it is too early to say that any of them have brought 
 the right combination of powers to their task, and the scenes 
 and characters which they have more or less faithfully por 
 trayed still await the final delineator. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 Our review of the later American writers has kept pretty 
 carefully within the field of legitimate letters. Did we care to 
 extend the survey to the borders of that field where knowledge 
 counts for more than imagination, we should be met at once 
 by an army of industrious authors, including some, indeed, 
 who might well find a place in this record. Oratory would 
 offer no names, for the pulpit, the halls of legislature, and the 
 public platform alike, reveal no speaker of importance since 
 Curtis. Journalism, however, history, and the various de 
 partments of science, are fields of intense activity. In his 
 torical writing a prodigious amount of work has been done, 
 and of such a sound quality that it threatens to make obso 
 lete most of the work of the past. The names are many 
 in the field of American history, Goldwin Smith, Charles 
 Francis Adams, Henry Adams, Von Hoist, Fiske, Eggleston, 
 Winsor, Schouler, Rhodes, McMaster, Woodrow Wilson; 
 in American history and literature, Moses Coit Tyler, and 
 Barrett Wendell; in ecclesiastical history, Henry C. Lea; 
 in British naval history, Captain Mahan. Of these names 
 (Goldwin Smith, as an English Canadian, scarcely comes 
 within our purview), perhaps three stand out conspicuously 
 Henry Adams, Hermann von Hoist, and John Fiske ; though 
 it is probable that only Fiske touched on such subjects and 
 employed such a method and style as to reach many readers 
 whose interests lie outside of special historical lines. The 
 methods of the later historians have not tended to make 
 general literature of their work; and the same thing is true 
 in all branches of scholarship. It is, indeed, difficult to 
 resist including here the names of many specialists, such 
 as Francis A. Walker and Richard T. Ely in social and 
 
 307 
 
308 CONCLUSION 
 
 political science, E. L. Godkin in government, William 
 James and Josiah Royce in philosophy, Simon Newcomb and 
 N. S. Shaler in science, Francis J. Child and H. H. Furness 
 in English language and literature, Drs. Eliot, Thwing, and 
 Butler in education. But our definition of literature, as some 
 thing that, even while it instructs, entertains by its appeal to 
 the imagination, must often exclude greater names in favor of 
 lesser. 
 
 The conditions now obtaining in pure literature have 
 already been somewhat specifically set forth. Much poetry 
 is being written, and some of it is read. There are hundreds 
 of versifiers who have a mastery of technique and enough of 
 the poetic spirit to keep them safely above the prose level, 
 but who still fall short of real genius. Perhaps the highest 
 promise of American poetry just now is to be found in Canada, 
 where men like Charles G. D. Roberts, William Wilfred 
 Campbell, and Bliss Carman (some of them now drifted 
 across the border) are putting the wild beauty and romantic 
 color of their native north into such intensely lyrical verse 
 that American literature will speedily have to reckon with 
 them. But in general our contemporary poetry commands 
 nothing more than a passing admiration; it plays no such 
 part in our spiritual life as the earlier poetry played and still 
 plays. 
 
 Literary drama has much less to its credit. Here 
 and there a man like Bronson How^ard, the author of Sara 
 toga and Shenandoah, has cultivated play-writing with prac 
 tical success, and the lyrical dramas of Moody have been 
 mentioned as possessing real distinction. There is mani 
 festly, however, a wide and growing interest in the drama, 
 and we may confidently look for increasingly better work. 
 
 What the novel has developed into, we have seen. The 
 interest in the local or special novel is by no means abating. 
 New fields are being ransacked the Bowery, the tenement 
 
CONCLUSION 309 
 
 house, the club, the college, the corporation. The gold- 
 hunters of the Klondike have brought back thrilling stories, 
 and Cuba and the Philippines have made their contribution. 
 There has also been a marked revival of historical fiction. 
 Tales of the colonial and revolutionary days have multiplied, 
 and some writers are even seeking far-away foreign and 
 mediaeval themes, often with little historical or antiquarian 
 knowledge upon which to base their fancies. This is perhaps a 
 natural outcome of the revived taste, largely fostered by Robert 
 Louis Stevenson, for the story of incident and adventure. 
 
 Lastly, there is the essay critical, social, religious, dis 
 cursive, perhaps the highest literary outcome of journalism. 
 The frequency with which volumes of collected essays make 
 their appearance would seem to indicate a peculiarly flourish 
 ing condition of the type. Certainly the type is popular and 
 many essayists may be readily named Mr. Woodberry, 
 Mr. Mabie, Dr. Van Dyke, Mr. Paul Elmer More, Professor 
 Irving Babbitt, Dr. Samuel M. Crothers, several of whom 
 have already been discussed. But distinctive work in this 
 kind is rare; scarcely one essayist in a century attains great 
 ness, and scarcely two in a generation are read into the next. 
 The work of a hundred present day essayists is likely to be 
 summed up and surpassed by some great social philosopher 
 of the future. Meanwhile, one aspect of the contemporan 
 eous essay deserves attention. Since the day of Emerson 
 and Thoreau the charm of out-door life the lure of nature, 
 tame or wild has never quite lost its hold upon us. Today 
 we have, for strong witness to this fact, the writings of John 
 Burroughs, John Muir, Ernest E. Thompson Seton, Stewart 
 Edward White, and a large body of less known votaries. And 
 we are bound to feel that this wide and healthy outlook of our 
 present literature upon nature and humanity alike, is in reas 
 suring contrast to the narrow, sombre, and introspective 
 character of so much of the literature of two hundred years ago. 
 
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A CLASSIFIED LIST OF LATE AND CONTEMPORARY 
 WRITERS* 
 
 POETS 
 
 THE EAST 
 See text for STODDARD, STEDMAN, and ALDRICH. 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 1844-1909. Journalist and reformer. 
 Associate editor and later editor-in-chief of Scribner s Monthly (now 
 The Century). "The New Day," 1875;" "Lyrics, and Other Poems," 
 1885; "Two Worlds," 1891; "The Great Remembrance," 1893; etc. 
 
 JOHN BOYLE O REILLY, b. Ireland, 1844; d. Hull, Mass., 1890. 
 An Irish revolutionist, transported to Australia, whence he escaped 
 to the United States, 1869. Edited the Boston Pilot. Published 
 "Songs of the Southern Seas," 1873, and other poems and sketches. 
 
 LLOYD MIFFLIN, b. Columbia, Pa., 1846. Painter and poet. A 
 studious cultivator of the sonnet. "The Hills," 1895; "At the Gates 
 of Song," 1897; "The Fields of Dawn," 1900; "Collected Sonnets," 
 1905; etc. 
 
 GEORGE EDWARD W T OODBERRY, b. Beverly, Mass., 1855. "The 
 North Shore Watch (a threnody, 1883), and Other Poems," 1890; 
 "Wild Eden," 1899. Essays: "Heart of Man," 1899; "Makers of 
 Literature," 1900; "The Appreciation of Literature," 1907. 
 
 HENRY CUYLER BUNNER, 1855-1896. Editor of Puck. Author of 
 "Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere, * 1884; "Rowen," 1892; also several 
 volumes of fiction: "The Story of a New York House," 1887; "Zadoc 
 Pine and Other Stories," 1891. 
 
 CLINTON SCOLLARD, b. Clinton, N. Y., 1860. Professor of English 
 Literature at Hamilton College. "With Reed and Lyre," 1886; 
 "The Hills of Song," 1895; "Odes and Elegies," 1905; etc. 
 
 GEORGE SANTAYANA, b. Madrid, Spain, 1863. Professor of Philoso- 
 
 * The principle of classification adopted here is for the most part apparent. Poets and 
 novelists are subdivided geographically, the miscellaneous writers are not. Further, the men 
 are separated from the women. Lastly, in each small group the order is chronological, except 
 that in the case of the novelists, because of the rapid changes in the character of fiction, the 
 writers born before 1860, both men and women, are separated from those born since. A few 
 slight departures from exact chronology, made to secure better classification, may be noted, 
 especially among the miscellaneous writers. 
 
 313 
 
314 APPENDIX 
 
 phy at Harvard. "Sonnets and Other Poems," 1894; "Lucifer, a 
 Theological Tragedy," 1899; "Interpretations of Poetry and Religion" 
 (essays), 1899; "The Life of Reason," 1905. 
 
 RICHARD HOVEY, b. Normal, 111., 1864; d. N. Y., 1900. Graduate 
 of Dartmouth. Journalist, actor, dramatist, lecturer on English at 
 New York, poet. "Seaward" (elegy upon the death of Thomas 
 William Parsons), 1893; "Songs from Vagabondia" (with Bliss Carman), 
 1893; "Launcelot and Guenevere," a poem in dramas, 1891-98; "Along 
 the Trail," 1898; "Taliesin: a Masque," 1899. 
 
 LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON, 1835-1908. Author of various 
 volumes of poems, stories, and essays, from "This, That, and the Other," 
 1854, to "At the Wind s Will," 1900. 
 
 CELIA THAXTER, 1836-1894. Artist-author of poems and sketches 
 of the north-east coast and the Isles of Shoals, where her father was a 
 lighthouse keeper. "Among the Isles of Shoals" (papers), 1873; 
 "Poems," 1874; " Drift- Weed," 1878; "Poems for Children," 1883. 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS, 1849-1887. A Jewess of New York, who wrote in 
 protest against the persecutions of her race. Author of "The Spa- 
 gnoletto," a tragedy, 1876, and various poems and translations. 
 
 EDITH M. THOMAS, b. O., 1854. A writer of New York City. 
 "Lyrics and Sonnets," 1887; "The Inverted Torch," 1890; and other 
 volumes of verse and prose. 
 
 LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY, b. Boston, 1861. "Songs at the Start," 
 1884, "The White Sail," 1887, and other poems and essays. 
 
 THE SOUTH 
 
 See text for HAYNE, TIMROD, and LANIER. 
 
 ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN, "Father Ryan," 1839-1886. A Catholic 
 priest, chaplain in Confederate army, and editor of religious periodicals. 
 "The Conquered Banner, and Other Poems," 1880. 
 
 JOHN BANNISTER TABB, 1845-1909. A Catholic priest, and Pro 
 fessor of English Literature at St. Charles College, Md. Served in 
 Civil War. "Poems," 1894; "Lyrics," 1897; "Child Verse," 1900. 
 
 IRWIN RUSSELL, 1853-1879. Poems in negro dialect. ("Christ 
 mas Night in the Quarters," etc., collected 1888.) 
 
 SAMUEL MINTURN PECK, b. 1854. " Cap and Bells," 1886; "Rhymes 
 and Roses," 1895; "Alabama Sketches" (prose), 1902. 
 
POETS 315 
 
 FRANK LEBBY STANTON, b. Charleston, S. C., 1857. On the staff of 
 the Atlanta Constitution. Author of popular verse, often in dialect. 
 "Songs of the Soil," 1894; "Songs from Dixie Land," 1900, etc. 
 
 MADISON CAWEIN, b. Ky., 1865. "The Blooms of the Berry," 
 1887; "Imitations of the Beautiful," 1894, etc., collected works, 1907. 
 
 THE WEST 
 
 See text for HARTE, MILLER, SILL, FIELD, RILEY, and MOODY. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TAYLOR, 1819-1887. War Correspondent for 
 Chicago Journal; writer of poems and travel sketches. "Pictures of 
 Life in Camp and Field." 1871; "Songs of Yesterday," (including 
 "Isle of the Long Ago"), 1877; etc. 
 
 RICHARD REALF, b. Sussex, England, 1834; d. Oakland, Cal., 1878. 
 Steward of Lady Byron; emigrant to Kansas, 1854; follower of John 
 Brown; soldier in Union army. Scattering poems, "The Children," 
 "Indirection," etc., were collected posthumously, 1899. 
 
 JOHN JAMES PIATT, b. Ind., 1835. Served in several official capac 
 ities at Washington, and as U. S. consul at Cork, Ireland. Published 
 at Columbus, Ohio, with W. D. Howells, "Poems of Two Friends," 
 1860; also several volumes with his wife, and a number independently 
 "Western Windows, and Other Poems," 1869; "Idyls and Lyrics of 
 the Ohio Valley," 1884; etc. "The Mower in Ohio" is a touching idyl 
 worthy of Whittier. 
 
 JOHN HAY, 1838-1905. Early years spent in Illinois. A private 
 secretary of Lincoln; major and brevet colonel in the Civil War; editor 
 and diplomat; Ambassador to Great Britain, 1897; Secretary of State, 
 1898. "Pike County Ballads," ("Little Breeches," "Jim Bludso," etc.), 
 1871 ;"Poems,"1890;"LifeofAbrahamLincoln"(withJ.G.Nicolay), 1887. 
 
 WILL CARLETON, 1845-1912. Journalist and lecturer. His poems 
 are largely in dialect. "Poems," 1871; "Farm Ballads," 1873; "Farm 
 Legends," 1875; "City Ballads," 1885; etc. 
 
 CHARLES WARREN STODDARD, 1843-1909. Resident for a time in 
 the Hawaiian Islands. Lecturer on English Literature at Notre 
 Dame College, Ind., and at the Catholic University, Washington, 
 D. C. "Poems," 1867; "South Sea Idyls" (romantic prose), 1873. 
 
 JOHN VANCE CHENEY, b. Groveland, N. Y., 1848. Librarian at 
 San Francisco and Chicago. "Thistle-Drift, 1887; "Wood-Blooms," 
 1888; "Out of the Silence," 1897; etc. 
 
316 APPENDIX 
 
 EDWIN MARKHAM, b. Oregon City, Ore., 1852. Teacher in the Cal 
 ifornia schools; resident of Brooklyn since 1899. "The Man with 
 the Hoe (1899) and Other Poems," 1900; "Lincoln, and Other Poems," 
 1900. 
 
 PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR, 1872-1906. Of African race. Journalist 
 and Librarian. "Lyrics of Lowly Life," 1896; "Lyrics of the Hearth- 
 side," 1899; "Folk from Dixie" (prose), 1897. 
 
 SARAH MORGAN PIATT (Sallie Bryan), b. Lexington, Ky., 1836. 
 Wife of J. J. Piatt. "A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles," 1874; "An 
 Irish Garland," 1884; "Child- World Ballads," 1887; etc. 
 
 INA DONNA COOLBRITH, b. Illinois. Resident of Los Angeles and 
 of San Francisco, and Librarian at Oakland, Cal. "A Perfect Day, 
 and Other Poems," 1881; "Songs of the Golden Gate," 1895. 
 
 ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, b. Wisconsin. "Drops of Water," 1872; 
 "Poems of Passion," 1883; "Poems of Pleasure," 1888; etc. 
 
 CANADA 
 
 CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, b. New Brunswick, 1860. Journalist at 
 Toronto and New York; Professor of Literature at King s College, 
 Windsor, N. S. "Orion and Other Poems," 1880; "In Divers Tones," 
 1887; "The Heart of the Ancient Wood" (a novel), 1900. 
 
 ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN, 1861-1899. Educated at Toronto; held a 
 position in the Civil Service at Ottawa. "Among the Millet and 
 Other Poems," 1888. 
 
 BLISS CARMAN, b. New Brunswick, 1861. Journalist, long resident 
 of New York. "Low Tide on Grand Pre," 1893; "Songs from Vaga- 
 bondia" (with Richard Hovey), 1894, 1896; "Pipes of Pan," 1902-1905. 
 
 WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL, b. Western Ontario, 1861. In the 
 government service at Ottawa. "Lake Lyrics," 1899; "Mordred, a 
 Tragedy" and "Hildebrand" (dramas in blank verse), 1895; "Beyond 
 the Hills of Dream," 1899. 
 
 NOVELISTS 
 
 THE EAST 
 
 See text for HOWELLS, JAMES, ALDRICH, and Miss WILKINS. 
 
 THEODORE WINTHROP, b. New Haven, Conn., 1828; killed at Big 
 Bethel, Va., 1861. Traveller, and author of analytical tales. "Cecil 
 Dreeme," 1861; "John Brent," "Edwin Brothertoft," "The Canoe 
 and the Saddle," "Life in the Open Air," 1862. 
 
POETS 317 
 
 FITZ-JAMES O BRIEN, b. Ireland, 1828; went to New York, 1852; d. 
 Md., 1862, from wounds received in the Civil War. Author of "The 
 Diamond Lens" (in Atlantic Monthly, 1858) and other tales and poems. 
 
 SILAS WEIR MITCHELL, b. Phila., 1829. Physiologist and physician. 
 "Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker," 1897; "The Adventures of Francois," 
 1898; "Dr. North and His Friends," 1900; also poems and essays. 
 
 JULIAN HAWTHORNE, b. Boston, 1846. Son of Nathaniel Haw 
 thorne. Journalist and foreign corresponden . Author of romantic 
 tales. "Bressant," 1873; "Archibald Malm, son," 1879; "Sinfire," 
 1887; also long novels: "Garth," 1877; "Sebastian Strome," 1880; etc. 
 
 ARTHUR SHERBURNE HARDY, b. Boston, 1847. Graduate of West 
 Point; Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College; in the U. S. 
 diplomatic service. "But Yet a Woman," 1883; "The \Vind of 
 Destiny," 1886; "Passe Rose," 1889. 
 
 HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN, b. Norway, 1848; d. New York, 1895. 
 Editor, and Professor of Germanic Languages at Cornell and Columbia. 
 "Gunnar, a Norse Romance," 1874; "Ilka on the Hill-Top, and Other 
 Stories," 1881; poems, essays, stories for boys, etc. 
 
 THOMAS A. JANVIER, b. Philadelphia, 1849. Editor; traveller 
 through Mexico and the south-west; later, resident in France and 
 England. "Colour Studies," "Stories of Old New Spain," etc. "The 
 Aztec Treasure House" and "In the Sargasso Sea" (1898) are stories of 
 adventure for boys. 
 
 ROBERT GRANT, Judge, b. Boston, 1852. "An Average Man," 
 1884; "Unleavened Bread," 1900; "The Chippendales," 1909. Also 
 essays: "The Reflections of a Married Man," 1892; etc. 
 
 BRANDER MATTHEWS, b. New Orleans, 1852. Professor of Literature 
 at Columbia. "His Father s Son," 1895; "A Confident To-morrow," 
 1899; and many sketches of New York life, essays in dramatic and 
 literary criticism, etc. 
 
 FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD, b. Italy, 1854, d. 1909. Traveller, and 
 author of nearly two score novels. "Mr. Isaacs," 1882; "A Roman 
 Singer," 1884; "Saracinesca," 1887; etc. Also historical works: "Ave 
 Roma Immortalis," 1898; "The Rulers of the South," 1900. 
 
 HAROLD FREDERIC,, 1856-1898. Journalist of New York State, 
 and correspondent abroad. Novels chiefly of American rural life. 
 "Seth s Brother s Wife," 1887; "In the Valley," 1889; "The Lawton 
 Girl," 1890; "The Copperhead," 1894; etc. 
 
318 APPENDIX 
 
 RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, b. Philadelphia, 1864. Journalist and 
 foreign correspondent. Writer of short stories. "Gallegher and 
 Other Stories," 1891; "Van Bibber and Others," 1892; "The Princess 
 Aline," 1895; "Soldiers of Fortune," 1897: "With Both Armies in South 
 Africa," 1900; etc. 
 
 PAUL LEICESTER FORD, 1865-1902. Traveller, and writer in 
 the field of history and historical fiction. "The Honorable Peter 
 Stirling," 1894; "The P*ory of an Untold Love," 1897; "Janice Mere 
 dith," 1899. 
 
 ROBERT W. CHAMBERS, b. Brooklyn, 1865. "The King in Yellow," 
 1895; "The Maid-at-Arms," 1902; etc. 
 
 ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY, 1824-1906. Author of novels and 
 children s stories. "Faith Gartney s Girlhood," 1863; "We Girls," 
 1870; etc. 
 
 ROSE TERRY COOKE, 1827-1892. Novels of New England life, and 
 poems. "Somebody s Neighbors," 1881; "Steadfast," 1889; etc. 
 
 JANE G. AUSTIN, 1831-1894; of Massachusetts. Stories of early 
 colonial days. "Outpost," 1866; "Cipher," 1869; "Standish of 
 Standish;" "Betty Alden;" "A Nameless Nobleman," 1881; etc. 
 
 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 1832-1888. Daughter of Amos Bronson 
 Alcott. Writer of stories for children. "Little Women," 1868, 69; 
 "An Old-Fashioned Girl," 1870; "Little Men," 1871; "Eight Cousins," 
 1875; "Jo s Boys," 1886; etc. 
 
 HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD, b. Me., 1835. Romantic tales and 
 poems. "Sir Rohan s Ghost," 1859; "The Amber Gods, and Other 
 Stories," 1863; "Azarian," 1864; "New England Legends," 1871. 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD, 1844-1911. "The Gates Ajar," 
 1868; "Beyond the Gates," 1883; "The Madonna of the Tubs," 1886; 
 "A Singular Life," 1895; "Within the Gates," 1900; and many other 
 moral and religious novels. 
 
 SARAH ORNE JEWETT, 1849-1909. Stories of the northeast coast. 
 "Deephaven," 1877; "A Country Doctor," 1884; "A Marsh Island," 
 1885; "The Country of the Pointed Firs," 1896; etc. 
 
 MARGARET DELANO, b. Pa., 1857. Resident of Boston. "John 
 Ward, Preacher," 1888; "Old Chester Tales," 1898; "Dr. Lavendar s 
 People," 1904; "The Awakening of Helen Richie," 1906. 
 
NOVELISTS 319 
 
 ALICE BROWN, b. N. H., 1857. Short Stories: "Meadow-Grass," 
 1895; "Tiverton Tales," 1899; "The Country Road," 1906; "Country 
 Neighbors," 1910; etc. 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN (Mrs. Riggs), b. Philadelphia, 1859. Inter 
 ested in Kindergarten work. "The Bird s Christmas Carol," 1888; 
 "Timothy s Quest," 1890; "Penelope s English Experiences," 1893; 
 "Penelope s Progress," 1897; etc. 
 
 EDITH WHARTON, b. New York. Several volumes of short stories. 
 "The Greater Inclination," 1899; "The Touchstone," 1900; etc. 
 Novels: "The House of Mirth," 1905; "Ethan Frome," 1911. 
 
 THE SOUTH 
 
 See text for CABLE and ALLEN. 
 
 RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON, 1822-1898. Lawyer; teacher in 
 Georgia and Maryland. "Dukesborough Tales" (originally contributed 
 to the Southern Magazine), 1883; "Old Mark Langston," 1884; "Two 
 Gray Tourists," 1885; etc. 
 
 JOHN ESTEN COOKE, 1830-1886; of Virginia. Lawyer, soldier, poet, 
 and romance writer. "The Virginia Comedians," 1854; "Fairfax," 
 1868; etc. 
 
 ALBION W. TOURGEE, 1838-1905. Officer in the Union army, jurist, 
 editor, lecturer, U. S. consul. Lived in North Carolina, 1865-1881. 
 Legal works and semi-political novels relating to the South. "Figs 
 and Thistles," 1879; "A Fool s Errand," 1879; "Bricks Without Straw, 
 1880; "An Appeal to Caesar," 1884. 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKINSON SMITH, b. Baltimore, 1838. Mechanical en 
 gineer; landscape painter; illustrator. Stories, essays, and character 
 sketches. "Colonel Carter of Cartersville," 1891; "A Gentleman 
 Vagabond and Others," 1895; "Tom Grogan," 1896; "Caleb West, 
 Master Diver," 1898. 
 
 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, 1848-1908. Editor of Atlanta Constitution, 
 "Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings," 1880; "Daddy Jake ths 
 Runaway"; "Mr. Rabbit at Home"; "Tales of the Home Folks"; etc c 
 
 THOMAS NELSON PAGE, b. Va., 1853. Lawyer and Lecturer. "In 
 Ole Virginia" (short stories "Marse Chan," "Meh Lady," etc. ;, 
 1887; "Red Rock" (a novel of the reconstruction period), 1899; et fc 
 
320 APPENDIX 
 
 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT, b. England, 1849. Removed to Ten 
 nessee, 1865; now resident of Washington, D. C. "That Lass o 
 Lowrie s" (Lancashire), 1876; "Louisiana," 1880; "Through One 
 Administration," 1882; "Little Lord Fauntleroy," 1886. 
 
 MARY NOAILLES MURFREE ("Charles Egbert Craddock"), b. Tenn., 
 1850. "In the Tennessee Mountains" (eight sketches), 1884; "The 
 Prophet of the Great .Smoky Mountains," 1885; "The Despot of 
 Broomsedge Cove," 1888; etc. 
 
 GRACE KING, b. La., 1852. Stories of Creole life. "Monsieur 
 Motte," 1888; "Tales of Time and Place," 1892; "Balcony Stories," 
 1893; etc. 
 
 RUTH McENERY STUART, b. La., 1856. Writer of short stories. "A 
 Golden Wedding," 1893; "Carlotta s Intended," 1894; "The Story of 
 Babette, a Little Creole Girl," 1894; "Sonny," (the story of an Arkansas 
 boy), 1896; etc. 
 
 AMELIE RIVES (Princess Troubetskoy), b. Richmond, Va., 1863. 
 "A Brother to Dragons, and Other Old-Time Tales," 1888; "The 
 Quick or the Dead," 1888; "Virginia of Virginia"; "Barbara Der- 
 ing"; etc. 
 
 MARY JOHNSTON, b Va., 1870. Tales of Colonial Virginia. "Pris 
 oners of Hope," 1898; "To Have and to Hold," 1899; "Audrey," 1901; 
 "The Long Roll," 1911. 
 
 SYDNEY PORTER, ("O. Henry"), 1867-1910. Short Stories: "Cab 
 bages and Kings," 1905; "The Four Million," 1906; "Options," 1909; 
 etc. 
 
 JOHN Fox, Jr., b. Ky. "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," 
 1903; "Trail of the Lonesome Pine," 1908; etc. 
 
 WINSTON CHURCHILL, b. St. Louis, 1871. Graduate of U. S. Naval 
 Academy at Annapolis, Md. "The Celebrity," a society sketch, 
 1898; "Richard Carvel," a story of Maryland before the Revolution, 
 1899; "The Crisis," 1901; "The Crossing," 1904; "Coniston," 1906; 
 "Mr. Crewe s Career," 1908. 
 
 THE WEST 
 
 See text for HARTE and MRS. JACKSON. 
 
 LEWIS WALLACE, 1827-1905. Lawyer; lieutenant in Mexican 
 War; major-general in Civil W T ar; governor of New Mexico; U. S. 
 minister to Turkey. "The Fair God," an Aztec story, 1873; "Ben 
 Hur, a Tale of the Christ," 1880; "The Prince of India," 1893. 
 
NOVELISTS 321 
 
 EDWARD EGGLESTON, 1837-1902. Methodist minister ("circuit- 
 rider") in Indiana and Minnesota; editor at Chicago and New York; 
 pastor at Brooklyn. "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," 1871; "The Cir 
 cuit Rider," 1874; "The Faith Doctor," 1891; etc. Also several 
 school histories. 
 
 AMBROSE BIERCE, b. Ohio, 1842. Brevetted major in the Civil War. 
 Journalist, resident in California. "Tales of Soldiers and Civilians" 
 (later title, "In the Midst of Life"), 1892; "Black Beetles in Amber" 
 (satires in verse), 1892; "Shapes of Clay," 1903. 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, b. Albany, N. Y., 1844. Served with the 
 army in the west; brigadier-general in the war against Spain; served 
 in the Philippines. Numerous military novels. "The Deserter," 
 1887; "Dunraven Ranch," 1888; "The Colonel s Daughter," etc. 
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN W T HITE, b. Kans., 1868. "The Count of Boyville," 
 1899; "In Our Town," 1906; etc. 
 
 BOOTH TARKINGTON, b. Indianapolis, 1869. "The Gentleman from 
 Indiana," 1899; "Monsieur Beaucaire," 1900; etc. 
 
 CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON, 1810-1894. Spent the summers 
 of her girlhood on the island of Mackinac and the shores of Lake 
 Superior. "Castle Nowhere" (sketches of the Lake region), 1875; 
 "Rodman the Keeper" (southern), 1880; "Anne," 1882; "East 
 Angels," 1886; "Jupiter Lights," 1889. 
 
 MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD, 1847-1902. Resident of Illinois. 
 Historical romances of the old North- West. " Craque-o -Doom," 
 1881; "The Romance of Dollard," 1889; "Old Kaskaskia," 1893; 
 "The White Islander," 1893; etc. 
 
 MARY HALLOCK FOOTE, b. N. Y., 1847. Artist. Resident of Colo 
 rado, California, and Idaho. "The Led Horse Claim," 1883; "John 
 Bodewin s Testimony," 1886; "The Chosen Valley," 1892; "In Exile, 
 and Other Stories," 1894; "Coeur d Alene," 1894. 
 
 ALICE FRENCH ("Octave Thanet"), b. Mass., 1850. Resident of 
 Arkansas and Iowa. Trans-Mississippi stories. "Knitters in the 
 Sun," 1887; "Expiation," 1890; "Stories of a Western Town," 1893. 
 
 HENRY BLAKE FULLER, b. Chicago, 1857. Novels, chiefly of Chi 
 cago life. "The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani," 1890; "The Cliff-Dwel 
 lers," 1893; "With the Procession," 1895. 
 
322 APPENDIX 
 
 HAMLIN GARLAND, b. Wisconsin, 1860. Educated in Iowa; taught 
 in Illinois; farmed in Dakota; lectured in the East. "Main-Travelled 
 Roads" (short stories), 1891; "Rose of Dutcher s Cooley," 1895; 
 "The Eagle s Heart," 1900. Also "Prairie Songs," 1893, and "The 
 Trail of the Gold-Seekers" (prose and verse), 1899. 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK, b. Mass., 1868. Professor in the University 
 of Chicago; writer of short stories and novels. "Love s Dilemma," 
 1898; "The Web of Life," 1900; "The Real World," 1901; "The Com 
 mon Lot," 1904; "Together," 1908. 
 
 FRANK NORRIS, 1870-1902. California Stories: "McTeague," 1899; 
 "The Octopus," 1901; "The Pit," 1902. 
 
 JACK LONDON, b. San Francisco, 1876. "The Son of the Wolf: 
 Tales of the Far North," 1900; "The Call of the Wild," 1903; "The 
 Sea Wolf," 1904; etc. 
 
 CANADA 
 
 SIR GILBERT PARKER, b. Canada, 1860. Lecturer in English Litera 
 ture at Toronto; journalist in the South Seas; later resident in England; 
 contributor to American magazines. "Pierre and His People," 1892; 
 "When Valmond Came to Pontiac," 1895; "The Seats of the Mighty," 
 1896; "The Battle of the Strong," 1898; "The Right of W T ay," 1901; 
 "The Weavers," 1907. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS 
 
 HISTORIANS 
 
 See text for PARKMAN and predecessors. 
 
 HENRY CHARLES LEA, 1825-1909. Publisher. "Superstition and 
 Force," 1866; "Studies in Church History," 1869; "History of the 
 Inquisition of the Middle Ages," 1887-88. 
 
 GOLDWIN SMITH, b. England, 1823, d. 1910. Professor of Modern 
 History at Oxford, 1858-66; at Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N. Y., 1868-71; 
 later resident at Toronto. "Irish History and Irish Character," 1861; 
 "Civil War in America," 1866; "Relations Between America and 
 England," 1869; "History of the United States," 1893. 
 
 JUSTIN WINSOR, 1831-1897. Librarian at Boston and Harvard. 
 Editor of "Memorial History of Boston," 1880-81; "Narrative and 
 Critical History of America" (8 vols.), 1885-89; "Christopher Colum 
 bus," 1891. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS 323 
 
 ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, b. N. Y., 1832. Professor of History; 
 President of Cornell University; U. S. Ambassador to Germany. 
 "Warfare of Science," 1876; "The New Germany," 1882; "Autobiog 
 raphy," 1905. 
 
 HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT, b. O., 1832. Resident of California. 
 Gathered materials for and edited "History of the Pacific States," in 
 39 volumes, 1882-90. 
 
 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR., b. Boston, 1835. Lawyer and poli 
 tician. "Three Episodes of Massachusetts History," 1892; "Massa 
 chusetts: Its Historians and its History," 1893. 
 
 HENRY ADAMS, b. Boston, 1838. Professor and editor. "John 
 Randolph" 1882; "History of the United States" (9 vols.), 1889-91. 
 
 JAMES SCHOULER, b. Mass., 1839. Historian and legal writer and 
 lecturer. "History of the United States Under the Constitution" 
 (6 vols.), 1880-1899. 
 
 ALFRED T. MAHAN, b. West Point, N. Y., 1840. Captain in the 
 navy since 1885. "Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783," 
 1890; "Life of Farragut;" "Life of Nelson," etc. 
 
 JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, 1841-1900. Professor and editor. "Popu 
 lar History of the United States," "Cyclopedia of Universal History," 
 "Great Races of Mankind" (1894), Lives of Garfield, Blaine, Gladstone, 
 etc. 
 
 HERMANN EDUARD VON HOLST, b. Russia, 1841, d. 1904. Professor 
 in Germany and at the University of Chicago. "Constitutional and 
 Political History of the United States" (8 vols.), 1876-1892. 
 
 JOHN FISKE, 1842-1901. Lecturer on Philosophy, Assistant Li 
 brarian, and member of the Board of Overseers at Harvard. Historian, 
 philosopher, and evolutionist. "Myths and Myth-Makers," 1872; 
 "Darwinism," 1879; "The Destiny of Man," 1884; "The Beginnings of 
 New England," 1889; etc., etc. 
 
 JAMES FORD RHODES, b. Cleveland, 1848. "History of the United 
 States from the Compromise of 1850," (8 vols., 1893-1912). 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE, b. Boston, 1850. Lawyer and senator. 
 "Short History of the English Colonies in America," 1881; "The 
 Story of the American Revolution," "Alexander Hamilton," etc. 
 
324 APPENDIX 
 
 JOHN BACH McMASTER, b. Brooklyn, 1852. Civil engineer; Pro 
 fessor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. "A History of 
 the People of the United States" (8 vols., 1883-1912). 
 
 WOODROW WILSON, b. Va., 1856. Lecturer; Professor of Jurispru 
 dence and Politics at Princeton; governor of New Jersey; President of 
 the United States. "Congressional Government," 1885; "The State," 
 "Elements of Historical and Practical Politics," 1889; "A History of the 
 American People," 1902; etc. 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, b. N. Y., 1858. Adventurer in the west; 
 colonel in the war with Spain; governor of New York; President of the 
 U. S. "The Naval War of 1812," 1882; "Essays on Practical Politics," 
 1888; "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail," 1888; "The Winning of the 
 West," 1889; "Oliver Cromwell," 1900; "The Strenuous Life" (essays 
 and addresses), 1900; etc. 
 
 LITERARY HISTORIANS 
 
 MOSES COIT TYLER, 1835-1900. Professor of American History at 
 Cornell. "History of American Literature from 1607-1765," 1878; 
 "The Literary History of the American Revolution," 1897. 
 
 THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, b. N. Y., 1838. Professor of English at 
 Yale. "History of the English Language," 1879; "James Fenimore 
 Cooper," 1882; "Studies in Chaucer," 1891; "Shakespeare as a 
 Dramatic Artist," 1901. 
 
 CHARLES FRANCIS RICHARDSON, b. Maine, 1851. Professor of Eng 
 lish Literature at Dartmouth College. "A Primer of American Lit 
 erature," 1878; "American Literature, 1607-1885," 1890. 
 
 BARRETT WENDELL, b. Boston, 1855. Professor of English at Har 
 vard. "Life of Cotton Mather," 1891; "Stelligeri, and Other Essays," 
 1893; "Literary History of America," 1900. 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS, SOCIOLOGISTS, ETC. 
 
 ELISHA MULFORD, 1833-1885. Episcopal clergyman and philo 
 sophical writer. "The Nation," 1870; "The Republic of God," 1881. 
 
 MONCURE D. CONWAY, 1832-1907. Methodist, later Unitarian, 
 clergyman. "The Rejected Stone," 1861; "The Eastward Pilgrim 
 age," 1870; "Christianity," 1876; "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1878. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS 325 
 
 WILLIAM TORREY HARRIS, 1835-1909. Lecturer at Concord School 
 cf Philosophy; U. S. Commissioner of Education. "Introduction to 
 the Study of Philosophy," 1889; "Hegel s Logic," 1890; "Psychologic 
 Foundations of Education;" etc. 
 
 EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN, b. Ireland, 1831, d. 1902. Journalist 
 and lawyer. Established The Nation; edited The Nation and the New 
 York Evening Post. "Government" (in the American Science Series); 
 "Problems of Democracy;" "Unforseen Tendencies of Democracy" 
 1898; etc. 
 
 HENRY GEORGE, 1839-1896. Political economist. "Progress and 
 Poverty," 1879; "The Land Question," 1883; "Social Problems," 1884; 
 
 etc. 
 
 ^ FRANCIS A. WALKER, 1840-1897. Brevetted brigadier-general in 
 Civil War; commissioner of Indian affairs; professor at Yale; presi 
 dent of Mass. Inst. of Technology. "The Indian Question," 1874; 
 ^"The Wages Question," 1876; "Money, Trade, and Industry," 1879; 
 "Land and Its Rent," 1883; "Political Economy," 1883; etc. 
 
 SCIENTISTS, NATURALISTS, AND TRAVELLERS 
 
 See text for BURROUGHS. 
 
 JOHN MUIR, b. Scotland, 1838. Explorer; discoverer of the Muir 
 Glacier, Alaska; Avriter on the natural history of the Pacific Coast. 
 "The Mountains of California," 1894. 
 
 MAURICE THOMPSON, b. Ind., 1844; d. 1901. Civil engineer, lawyer, 
 state geologist, journalist. "By- Ways and Bird Notes," 1885; "Sylvan 
 Secrets in Bird-Song and Books," 1887; "My Winter Garden," 1900; 
 etc. Also poems, and several novels: "A Tallahassee Girl," 1882; 
 "Alice of Old Vincennes," 1900. 
 
 LAFCADIO HEARN, b. Ionian Islands, 1850; d. 1904. Of Irish and 
 Greek parentage. Resident of New Orleans, New York, and Japan. 
 Essays chiefly remarkable for novelty of subject and poetic style. 
 "Stray Leaves from Strange Literature," 1885; "Glimpses of Unfam 
 iliar Japan," 1894; "Out of the East," 1895; etc. Also several stories: 
 "Chita," 1889; "Youma, the Story of a West Indian Slave," 1890; etc. 
 
 DAVID STARR JORDAN, b. N. Y., 1851. President of the Leland 
 Stanford Jr. University. "Science Sketches," 1888; "The Care and 
 Culture of Men," 1896; "Matka and Kotik, a Tale of the Mist-Islands," 
 
326 APPENDIX 
 
 1897; "Footnotes to Evolution." Also poems, and numerous works 
 in science. "The Blood of the Nation," 1902; "The Human Harvest," 
 1907. 
 
 ERNEST EVAN THOMPSON SETON, b. England, 1860. Lived in back 
 woods of Canada, 1866-70; on western plains, 1882-87. Animal painter 
 and illustrator; naturalist to the government of Manitoba; art student 
 at Paris; resident of New York. "Wild Animals I Have Known," 
 1898; "The Biography of a Grizzly," 1899; "Lives of the Hunted," 
 1901; etc. 
 
 STEWART EDWARD WHITE, b. Mich., 1873. "The Blazed Trail," 
 1902; "The Silent Places," 1904; "The Mountains," 1904; "Arizona 
 Nights," 1907; etc. 
 
 CRITICAL AND DISCURSIVE ESSAYISTS 
 
 See text for WHIPPLE, HOLLAND, MITCHELL, HALE, HIGGINSON, CURTIS, NORTON, 
 WARNER, and STEDMAN. 
 
 WILLIAM WINTER, b. Mass., 1836. Journalist, orator, poet, and 
 critic. Essays, chiefly in dramatic criticism and upon English scenes 
 and life. Poetry: "The Convent," 1854; "The Queen s Domain," 1858; 
 "Thistledown," 1878; etc. Prose: "English Rambles," 1883; "Henry 
 Irving," 1885; "Shakespeare s England," 1886; "Gray Days and Gold," 
 1891; "The Life and Art of Edwin Booth," 1894; etc. 
 
 LAURENCE HUTTON, 1843-1904. Merchant, journalist, lecturer, 
 dramatic and art critic. "Plays and Players," 1875; "Literary Land 
 marks of London," 1885; "Curiosities of the American Stage," 1890; etc. 
 
 HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, b. N. Y., 1845. Associate editor of The 
 Outlook. "My Study Fire," 1890 (second series, 1894); "Essays in 
 Literary Interpretation," 1892; "Essays on Nature and Culture," 
 1896; "Essays on Books and Culture," 1896; "William Shakespeare, 
 Poet, Dramatist, and Man," 1900; etc. 
 
 WILLIAM CRARY BROWNELL, b. N. Y., 1851. Editor. "French 
 Traits," 1889; "Victorian Prose Masters," 1901; etc. 
 
 SAMUEL McCnoRD CROTHERS, b. 111., 1857. Unitarian minister 
 at Cambridge, Mass. "The Gentle Reader," 1903; Humanly Speak 
 ing," 1912; etc. 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE, b. Pa., 1852. Clergyman; Professor of English 
 Literature at Princeton. "The Reality of Religion," 1884; "The 
 
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS 327 
 
 Poetry of Tennyson," 1890; "The Gospel for a World of Sin," 1899; 
 "Fisherman s Luck, and Other Uncertain Things," 1899. Also poems 
 and stories. 
 
 JOHN JAY CHAPMAN, b. New York, 1862. Lawyer. "Emerson, and 
 Other Essays," 1897; "Causes and Consequences" (political essays), 
 1898; "Practical Agitation," 1900. 
 
 AGNES REPPLIER, b. Philadelphia, 1859. "Books and Men," 1888; 
 "Points of View," 1891; "Essays in Idleness," 1893; etc. 
 
 PAUL ELMER MORE b. St. Louis, 1864. Editor. "Shelburne 
 Essays," 1904-1909. 
 
 IRVING BABBITT, b. Ohio, 1865. Professor of French at Harvard. 
 "Literature and the American College," 1908; "The New Laokoon," 
 1911; "Masters of Modern French Criticism," 1912. 
 
 HUMORISTS 
 
 See text for MARK TWAIN and STOCKTON. 
 
 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, 1824-1903. Journalist, industrial 
 educator. "Hans Breitmann s Ballads" (in Pennsylvania Dutch 
 dialect), 1868, and many books on gypsy lore, etc. 
 
 DAVID Ross LOCKE ("Petroleum V. Nasby"), 1833-1888. Satirical 
 letters from the "Confedrit X Roads," of political influence during 
 and after the Civil War. "The Nasby Papers," 1864; "Swingin 
 Round the Cirkle," 1866; "Ekkoes from Kentucky," 1868; "Nasby 
 in Exile," 1882; etc. 
 
 CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE ("Artemus Ward"), b. Me., 1834; d. 
 England, 1867. Printer; lecturer in America and England. "Artemus 
 Ward: His Book," 1862; "His Travels," 1865; "In London," 1867; 
 "His Panorama," 1869. 
 
 FINLEY PETER DUNNE, b. Chicago, 1867. "Mr. Dooley in Peace 
 and War," 1898; "Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of his Countrymen," 
 1899; etc. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE 1 
 
 
 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1607 
 
 Landing at James 
 
 Smith s True Rela 
 
 James I. reigns, 1603-1625 
 
 to 
 
 town, 1607 
 
 tion, 1608 
 
 Milton born, 1608 
 
 1700 
 
 Dutch trading-post 
 
 Strachey s True 
 
 King James version of 
 
 
 on Manhattan 
 
 Repertory, 1610 
 
 Bible completed, 1611 
 
 
 Island, 1613 
 
 Bradford and Win- 
 
 Shakespeare died, 1616 
 
 
 Landing at Ply- 
 
 slow s Diary, 1622 
 
 Bacon s Essays, 1625 
 
 
 mouth Rock, 
 
 The Bay Psalm 
 
 Milton s L Allegro, 1632 
 
 
 1620 
 
 Book, 1640 
 
 The Commonwealth, 1649 
 
 
 Harvard College 
 
 Ward s Simple Cob 
 
 Walton s Complete Ang 
 
 
 founded, 1636 
 
 bler, 1647 
 
 ler, 1653 
 
 
 First printing press 
 
 Anne Bradstreet s 
 
 The Restoration, 1660 
 
 
 in America, 1639 
 
 Tenth Muse, 1650 
 
 Milton s Paradise Lost, 
 
 
 King Philip s War, 
 
 Eliot s Algonkin 
 
 1667 
 
 
 1675 
 Salem witchcraft 
 
 Bible, 1661-63 
 Wi ggl es worth s 
 
 Dry den poet laureate, 1670 
 Bunyan s Pilgrim s Prog 
 
 
 trials, 1692 
 
 Day of Doom, 
 
 ress, 1678-84 
 
 
 The incipient re 
 
 1662 
 
 William and Mary reign, 
 
 
 volt against An- 
 
 Mather s Wonders 
 
 1689 
 
 
 dros, 1689 
 
 of the Invisible 
 
 Locke s On Human Un 
 
 
 
 World, 1693 
 
 derstanding, 1690 
 
 1700 
 
 Franklin originat 
 
 Mather s Magnalia, 
 
 Queen Anne reigns, 1702- 
 
 to 
 
 ed the Library 
 
 1702 
 
 1714 
 
 1765 
 
 Company of Phil 
 adelphia, 1731 
 
 The Boston News 
 Letter estab 
 
 Swift s Battle of the 
 Books, 1704 
 
 
 Washington born, 
 1732 
 
 lished, 1704 
 Sewall s Diary, 
 
 The Spectator, 1711 
 Pope s Windsor Forest, 
 
 
 Braddock s defeat, 
 
 1652-1730 
 
 1713 
 
 
 1755 
 
 Poor Richard s Al 
 
 Defoe s Robinson Cru 
 
 
 Stamp Act, 1765 
 
 manac, 1732-? 
 
 soe, 1719 
 
 
 
 Edwards s Freedom 
 
 Swift s Gulliver s Trav 
 
 
 
 of the Will, 1754 
 
 els, 1726 
 
 
 
 Godfrey s The 
 
 Richardson s Clarissa 
 
 
 
 Prince of Par- 
 
 Harlowe, 1748 
 
 
 
 thia, 1758 (writ 
 
 Fielding s Tom Jones, 
 
 
 
 ten) 
 
 1749 
 
 
 
 
 Gray s Elegy, 1751 
 
 
 
 
 Johnson s Dictionary, 
 
 
 
 
 1755 
 
 * This outline is much condensed, (the English part disproportionately so). Only such 
 ly or important works of a writer are recorded as will suffice to indicate the period of his 
 ivitv and influence. Minor events in history are occasionally admitted when they have 
 
 early 
 
 activity 
 
 some bearing on literature. 
 
 ^ for instance, the opening of a university in the South or the West 
 
 may have a significance that the opening of a similar institution in the East does not. No 
 
 class of events is recorded with completeness. 
 
 528 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE 
 
 
 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1765 
 
 The Stamp Act Re 
 
 The Orators Otis, 
 
 George III. reigns, 1760- 
 
 to 
 
 pealed, 1766 
 
 etc. 
 
 1820 
 
 1800 
 
 Battles of Lexing 
 
 Woolman s Jour 
 
 Goldsmith s Deserted Vil 
 
 
 ton and Bunker 
 
 nal, 1774 
 
 lage, 1770 
 
 
 Hill, 1775 
 
 Trumbull s M Fin- 
 
 Burke s Speech on Amer 
 
 
 Declaration of In 
 
 gal, 1775 
 
 ican Taxation, 1774 
 
 
 dependence, 1776 
 
 Paine s Crisis, 1776- 
 
 Gibbon s Decline and 
 
 
 Articles of Confed 
 
 83 
 
 Fall of the Roman Em 
 
 
 eration, 1777-81 
 
 Freneau s Poems, 
 
 pire, 1776 
 
 
 The Constitution 
 
 1786; 1795 
 
 Cowper s Task, 1785 
 
 
 formed, 1787 
 
 The Federalist, 1788 
 
 White s Selborne, 1789 
 
 
 Capital at New 
 
 Franklin s Autobi 
 
 Boswell s Johnson, 1791 
 
 
 York, 1789; at 
 
 ography, 1789 
 
 Burns s Poems, 1793 
 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 
 Washington s Fare 
 
 Lyrical Ballads, by Words 
 
 
 1790; at Wash 
 
 well Address, 
 
 worth and Coleridge, 
 
 
 ington, 1800 
 
 1796 
 
 1798 
 
 
 Vermont, Ken 
 
 Hopkinson s Hail 
 
 
 
 tucky, and Ten 
 
 Columbia, 1798 
 
 
 
 nessee admitted 
 
 
 
 
 to the Union 
 
 
 
 1800 
 
 Population, 5,000,- 
 
 Brown s Romances 
 
 Edinburgh Review estab 
 
 to 
 
 000 
 
 1798-1801 
 
 lished, 1802 
 
 1830 
 
 Louisiana pur 
 
 Barlow s Columbi- 
 
 Scott s Last Minstrel, 
 
 
 chase, 1803 
 
 ad, 1807 
 
 1805; Lady of the Lake, 
 
 
 Fulton s steamer, 
 
 Irving s Knicker 
 
 1810; Waverley Novels, 
 
 
 1807 
 
 bocker, 1809; 
 
 1814-31 
 
 
 The Embargo Act, 
 
 Sketch-book,1819; 
 
 Byron s Childe Harold, 
 
 
 1807 
 
 Columbus, 1828 
 
 1812-18 
 
 
 War with England, 
 
 Bryant s Thana- 
 
 Battle of Waterloo, 1815 
 
 
 1812-15 
 
 topsis,1817;Poems 
 
 Moore s Lalla Rookh, 
 
 
 Florida purchased, 
 
 1821 
 
 1817 
 
 
 1819 
 
 Halleck and 
 
 Keats s Poems, 1817 
 
 
 Missouri Compro 
 
 Drake s Croaker 
 
 Shelley s Prometheus Un 
 
 
 mise, 1820 
 
 Poems, 1819 
 
 bound, 1820 
 
 
 "Monroe Doc 
 
 Cooper s Precau- 
 
 DeQuincey s Confessions, 
 
 
 trine," 1823 
 
 tion,1820;TheSpy, 
 
 1821 
 
 
 University of Vir- 
 
 1821;ThePioneers, 
 
 Lamb s Essays of Elia, 
 
 
 giniaopened, 1825 
 
 1823; The Last of 
 
 1822-24 
 
 
 Ohio, Louisiana, In 
 
 theMohicans,1826 
 
 
 
 diana, Mississip 
 
 Novels of Neal, 
 
 
 
 pi, Illinois, Ala 
 
 Sedgwick, and 
 
 
 
 bama, Maine, and 
 
 Paulding 
 
 
 
 Missouri admit 
 
 Dana s Buccaneer, 
 
 
 
 ted 
 
 1827 
 
 
 
 
 Poe s Tamerlane, 
 
 
 
 
 1827 
 
 
 
 
 Webster s Diction 
 
 
 
 
 
 ary, 1828 
 
 
330 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1830 
 
 to 
 1840 
 
 Population, 13,- 
 000,000 
 
 The American Anti- 
 Slavery Society 
 formed, 1831 
 
 Nullification Act of 
 South Carolina, 
 1832 
 
 Texas a Republic, 
 1836 
 
 Arkansas and 
 Michigan ad 
 mitted 
 
 Webster s Reply to 
 Hayne, 1830 
 
 Channing s Dis 
 courses, 1830 
 
 Kennedy s Swal 
 low Barn, 1832 
 
 Bryant s Poems, 
 1833 
 
 Irving s Alhambra, 
 1833 
 
 Poe s MS. Found in 
 a Bottle, 1833 
 
 Longfellow s Ou- 
 tre-Mer, 1833; 
 Voices of the 
 Night, 1839 
 
 Simms s The Yem- 
 assee, 1835 
 
 Willis s Pencillings 
 by the Way, 1835 
 
 Emerson s Nature, 
 1836 
 
 Holmes s Poems, 
 1836 
 
 Hawthorne s 
 Twice-Told Tales 
 1837 
 
 Whittier s Poems, 
 1837; Ballads and 
 Anti-Slavery, 
 Poems, 1838 
 
 Tennyson s early poems, 
 1830 
 
 Reform Bill, 1832 
 
 Carlyle s Sartor Resartus, 
 1833; French Revolu 
 tion, 1837 
 
 Dickens s Pickwick Pa 
 pers, 1836-37 
 
 Victoria Queen, 1837 
 
 Electric Telegraph, 1837 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE 
 
 331 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1840 
 
 to 
 1850 
 
 Population, 17,- 
 000,000 
 
 Independent Treas 
 ury Act, 1840 
 
 Univ. of Michigan 
 opened, 1841 
 
 Morse Telegraph in 
 the U. S., 1844 
 
 War with Mexico, 
 1845-48 
 
 Smithsonian Insti 
 tution organized, 
 1846. 
 
 Gold discovered in 
 California, 1848 
 
 Florida, Texas, 
 
 Iowa, and Wis 
 consin admitted 
 
 Cooper s Pathfind 
 er, 1840; Deer- 
 slayer, 1841 
 
 Dana s Two Years 
 Before the Mast, 
 1840 
 
 Emerson s Essays, 
 1841-44; Poems, 
 1847 
 
 Lowell s A Year s 
 Life, 1841; Big- 
 low Papers (first 
 series), Fable for 
 Critics, and Sir 
 Launfal, 1848 
 
 Longfellow s Bal 
 lads, 1841;Evan- 
 geline, 1847 
 
 Prescott s Conquest 
 of Mexico, 1843 
 
 Margaret Fuller s 
 Woman in the 
 Nineteenth Cen 
 tury, 1844 
 
 Poe s Raven, 1845 
 
 Hawthorne s Moss 
 es from an Old 
 Manse, 1846 
 
 Taylor s Views 
 
 Afoot, 1846 
 
 Parkman s Cali 
 fornia and Ore 
 gon Trail, 1849 
 
 Thoreau s Week, 
 1849 
 
 Ticknor s Spanish 
 Literature, 1849 
 
 Poe died, 1849 
 
 Browning s Sordello, 1840 
 
 Carlyle s Hero- Worship, 
 1841 
 
 Wordsworth poet laure 
 ate, 1843 
 
 Macaulay s Essays, 1843; 
 History of England, 
 1848-60 
 
 Ruskin s Modern Paint 
 ers, 1843-60 
 
 Repeal of Corn Laws, 
 1846 
 
 Thackeray s Vanity Fair, 
 1847-48 
 
 Mill s Political Economy, 
 1848 
 
332 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 185 
 
 to 
 
 186( 
 
 Population, 23 
 
 000,000 
 
 The Omnibus Bil 
 
 (including th 
 
 Fugitive Slav 
 
 Law), 1850 
 
 Kansas - Nebrask 
 
 Bill, 1854 
 Astor Library (N 
 Y. City) and Bos 
 ton Public Libra 
 ry opened, 1854 
 Dred Scott Decis 
 
 ion, 1857 
 Lincoln - Dougla 
 
 debate, 1858 
 John Brown s raid 
 
 1859 
 
 California, Minne 
 sota, and Oregon 
 admitted 
 
 Webster s Seventl 
 of March Speech 
 1850 
 
 Hawthorne s Scar 
 let Letter, 1850 
 House of the Sev 
 en Gables, 1851 
 Blithedale Ro 
 mance, 1852 
 
 Emerson s Repre 
 sentative Men 
 1850 
 
 Mitchell s Reveries 
 of a Bachelor. 
 1850 
 
 Stowe sUncleTom s 
 Cabin, 1852 
 
 Choate s Eulogy on 
 Webster, 1853 
 
 Thoreau s Walden, 
 1854 
 
 Hayne s Poems, 
 1855 
 
 Irving s Washing 
 ton, 1855-59 
 
 Longfellow s Hia 
 watha, 1855 
 
 Whitman s Leaves 
 of Grass, 1855 
 
 Curtis s Prue and 
 I, 1856 
 
 Motley s Dutch Re 
 public, 1856 
 Holland s Titcomb 
 Letters, 1858 
 
 lolmes s Autocrat 
 
 , 1858 
 
 Cooper, Webster, 
 
 Irving, Prescott 
 
 died. 
 
 Wordsworth died, Ten 
 nyson poet laureate, 
 1850; In Memoriam, 
 1850 
 
 Crimean War, 1854-56 
 
 Matthew Arnold s Poems, 
 1855 
 
 Mrs. Browning s Aurora 
 Leigh, 1856 
 
 George Eliot s Clerical 
 Life, 1858; Adam Bede, 
 1859 
 
 Darwin s Origin of Spe 
 cies, 1859 
 
 Macaulay, De Quincey 
 died, 1859 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE 
 
 333 
 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1860 
 
 Population, 31,- 
 
 Hawthorne s Mar 
 
 George . Eliot s Silas 
 
 to 
 
 000,000; number 
 
 ble Faun, 1860 
 
 Marner, 1861; Romola, 
 
 1870 
 
 of slaves, 4,000,- 
 
 Emerson s Conduct 
 
 1863 
 
 
 000 
 
 of Life, 1860; May 
 
 Spencer s First Princi 
 
 
 Secession of South 
 
 Day, 1867 
 
 ples, 1862 
 
 
 Carolina, 1860 
 
 Tirnrod s Poems, 
 
 Huxley s Man s Place in 
 
 
 Civil War, 1861-65 
 
 1860 
 
 Nature, 1863 
 
 
 Emancipation 
 
 Holmes s Elsie Ven- 
 
 Newman s Apologia, 1864 
 
 
 Proclamation, 
 
 ner, 1861 
 
 Arnold s Essays in Crit 
 
 
 1863 
 
 Julia Ward Howe s 
 
 icism, 1865-88 
 
 
 Assassination of 
 
 Battle Hymn of 
 
 Dickens s Our Mutual 
 
 
 Lincoln, 1865 
 
 the Republic, 
 
 Friend, 1865 
 
 
 Thirteenth Consti 
 
 1861 
 
 Swinburne s Poems and 
 
 
 tutional Amend 
 
 Winthrop s Cecil 
 
 Ballads, 1866 
 
 
 ment, 1865 
 
 Dreeme, 1861 
 
 Parliamentary Reform 
 
 
 Vassar College 
 
 Longfellow s Tales 
 
 Bill, 1867 
 
 
 opened, 1865 
 
 of a Wayside Inn, 
 
 Browning s Ring and the 
 
 
 Atlantic cable per 
 
 1863 
 
 Book, 1868 
 
 
 manently laid, 
 
 Lowell s Commem 
 
 Morris s Earthly Para 
 
 
 1866 
 
 oration Ode, 1865 
 
 dise, 1868 
 
 
 Purchase of Alas 
 
 Whitman s Drum 
 
 Gladstone Prime Minis 
 
 
 ka, 1867 
 
 Taps, 1865 
 
 ter, 1868 
 
 
 University of the 
 
 \Vhittier s Snow- 
 
 Mrs. Browning, Thack 
 
 
 South opened, 
 
 Bound, 1866 
 
 eray, Landor died 
 
 
 1868 
 
 Bret Harte s Con 
 
 
 
 First Pacific rail 
 
 densed Novels, 
 
 
 
 road, 1869 
 
 1867 
 
 
 
 Kansas, West Vir 
 
 Longfellow s Trans 
 
 
 
 ginia, Nevada, 
 
 lation of the Di- 
 
 
 
 and Nebraska ad 
 
 vina Commedia, 
 
 
 
 mitted 
 
 1867 
 
 
 
 
 Sill s Hermitage, 
 
 
 
 
 1867 
 
 
 
 
 Miss Alcott s Little 
 
 
 
 
 Women, 1868 
 
 
 
 
 Kale s Man With 
 
 
 
 
 out a Country, 
 
 
 
 
 1868 
 
 
 
 
 Aldrich s Story of 
 
 
 
 
 a Bad Boy, 1869 
 
 
 
 
 Mark Twain s In 
 
 
 
 
 nocents Abroad, 
 
 
 
 
 1869 
 
 
 
 
 Winthrop, Thor- 
 
 
 
 
 eau, Everett died 
 
 
334 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1870 
 
 to 
 1880 
 
 Population, 39,- 
 000,000 
 
 Reconstruction 
 completed, 1870 
 
 University of Mich 
 igan opened to 
 women, 1870 
 
 Civil Service Re 
 form Act, 1871 
 
 Chicago fire, 1871 
 
 Financial crisis, 
 1873 
 
 Centennial Exposi 
 tion at Philadel 
 phia, 1876 
 
 Railroad riots, 1877 
 
 Yellow fever epi 
 demic, 1878 
 
 Resumption of spe- 
 ciepayment, 1879 
 
 Colorado admitted 
 
 Bryant s transla 
 tion of the Iliad, 
 1870; of the 
 Odyssey, 1871-72 
 
 Bret Harte s Luck 
 of Roaring Camp, 
 1870 
 
 Lowell s Among 
 My Books, 1870 
 
 Taylor s transla 
 tion of first part 
 of Faust, 1870 
 
 Eggleston s Hoos- 
 ier Schoolmas 
 ter, 1871 
 
 Burroughs s Wake- 
 Robin, 1871 
 
 Miller s Songs of 
 the Sierras, 1871 
 
 Howells s Their 
 Wedding Jour 
 ney, 1871 
 
 Fiske s Myths and 
 Myth Makers, 
 1872 
 
 Aldrich s Marjorie 
 Daw, 1873 
 
 Stedman s Victori 
 an Poets, 1875 
 
 Mark Twain s Tom 
 Sawyer, 1876 
 
 Lanier s Poems, 
 1876 
 
 White s Warfare of 
 Science, 1876 
 
 James s Daisy Mil 
 ler, 1878 
 
 Cable s Old Creole 
 Days, 1879 
 
 Stockton s Rudder 
 Grange, 1879 
 
 Simms, Motley, 
 Bryant, Taylor 
 died 
 
 Rossetti s Poems, 1870 
 Huxley s Lay Sermons, 
 
 1870 
 Darwin s Descent of Man, 
 
 1871 
 Dobson s Vignettes in 
 
 Rhyme, 1873 
 Pater s Studies in the 
 
 Renaissance, 1873 
 Stephen s Hours in a Li 
 brary, 1874 
 Froude s Julius Caesar, 
 
 1876 
 Hardy s Return of the 
 
 Native, 1877 
 Meredith s The Egoist, 
 
 1879 
 
 Anti-rent agitation, 1879 
 Dickens, Kingsley died 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE 
 
 335 
 
 
 AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 1880 
 
 Population, 50,- 
 
 Cable s The Grand- 
 
 Lang s Ballades in Blue 
 
 to 
 
 000,000, growing 
 
 issimes, 1880 
 
 China, 1880 
 
 1900 
 
 to 76,000,000 
 Civil Service Re 
 
 George s Progress 
 andPoverty,1880 
 
 Stevenson s Virginibus 
 Puerisque, 1881; Treas 
 
 
 form Bill, 1883 
 
 Harris s Uncle Re 
 
 ure Island, 1883 
 
 
 Inter-State Com 
 
 mus, 1880 
 
 Tennyson s Locksley Hall 
 
 
 merce Act, 1887 
 
 Howells s A Mod 
 
 Sixty Years After, 1888 
 
 
 Catholic Universi 
 
 ern Instance, 
 
 Bryce s American Com 
 
 
 ty, Washington, 
 
 1882; Rise of Silas 
 
 monwealth, 1888 
 
 
 opened, 1890 
 International Copy 
 
 Lapham, 1885 
 Helen Fiske Jack 
 
 Kipling s Plain Tales from 
 the Hills, 1888; Ballads, 
 
 
 right Act, 1891 
 
 son s Ramona, 
 
 1892 
 
 
 World s Fair at 
 
 1884 
 
 Watson s W r ordsworth s 
 
 
 Chicago, 1893 
 
 MarkTwain sHuck- 
 
 Grave, 1890 
 
 
 Klondike Excite 
 
 leberry Finn, 1884 
 
 Barrie s Little Minister, 
 
 
 ment, 1897 
 
 Parkman s Mont- 
 
 1891 
 
 
 Spanish - American 
 
 calm and Wolfe, 
 
 Austin poet laureate, 1895 
 
 
 War, and acqui 
 
 1884 
 
 War in South Africa, 1899 
 
 
 sition of Porto 
 
 Stedman s Poets of 
 
 Queen Victoria died, 1901 
 
 
 Rico and the 
 
 America, 1885 
 
 George Eliot, Carlyle, Dar 
 
 
 Philippines, 1898 
 
 Lowell s Democra 
 
 win, Rossetti, Arnold, 
 
 
 Annexation of Ha 
 
 cy, 1886 
 
 Browning died, (1880- 
 
 
 waii, 1898 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins s 
 
 89) 
 
 
 Troubles in China, 
 
 Humble Ro 
 
 Newman, Tennyson, 
 
 
 1900 
 
 mance, 1887 
 
 Froude, Pater, Steven 
 
 
 
 Whitman s Novem 
 
 son, Morris, Ruskin 
 
 
 
 ber Boughs, 1888 
 
 died, (1890-1900) 
 
 
 
 Fiske s Beginnings 
 
 
 
 
 of New England, 
 
 
 
 
 1889 
 
 
 
 
 Field s Little Book 
 
 
 
 
 of Western Verse, 
 
 
 
 
 1890 
 
 
 
 
 Holmes s Over the 
 
 
 
 
 Tea-cups, 1890 
 
 
 
 
 Curtis s Orations 
 
 
 
 
 and Addresses, 
 
 
 
 
 1893-94 
 
 
 
 
 Lowell s Letters, 
 
 
 
 
 1893 
 
 
 
 
 Holland, Lanier, 
 
 
 
 
 Emerson, Long 
 
 
 
 
 fellow, Mrs. Jack 
 
 
 
 
 son, Sill, Lowell, 
 
 
 
 
 Curtis, Whittier, 
 
 
 
 
 Whitman, Park- 
 
 
 
 
 man, Holmes, 
 
 
 
 
 Mrs. Stowe died 
 
 
REFERENCES 
 
 HISTORY AND CRITICISM 
 
 A Literary History of America. Barrett WendelL A complete sur 
 vey, biographical and critical, exclusive of writers still living in 1900. 
 (Scribner.) 
 
 American Literature: 1607-1885. Charles F. Richardson. Critical 
 only. Inclusive of living writers. (Putnam.) 
 
 A History of American Literature During the Colonial Time, 1607- 
 1765. Moses Coit Tyler. Biographical and critical, with liberal extracts. 
 Exhaustive and indispensable for the careful study of the early period. 
 (Putnam.) 
 
 The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783. Moses 
 Coit Tyler. A continuation of the above. (Putnam.) 
 
 Poets of America. Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1885. Critical, with 
 special chapters on Bryant, Whittier, Emerson, Longfellow, Poe, 
 Holmes, Lowell, Whitman, and Taylor. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 
 
 History of American Verse. James L. Onderdonk, 1901. A History 
 of Southern Literature. Carl Holliday, 1905. The Literature of the 
 South. Montrose J. Moses, 1909. 
 
 National Studies in American Letters. Edited by G. E. Woodberry 
 A series of volumes treating American authors in groups: "Old 
 Cambridge," T. W. Higginson; "Brook Farm," Lindsay Swift; "The 
 Clergy in American Life and Letters," D. D. Addison; "The Hoosiers," 
 M. Nicholson. Others in preparation: "The Knickerbockers," 
 H. van Dyke; "The American Historical Novel," P. L. Ford; "Southern 
 Humorists," J. K. Bangs; "Flower of Essex," G. E. Woodberry. 
 
 SELECTIONS 
 
 Library of American Literature. Stedman and Hutchinson. In 
 eleven volumes; both poetry and prose, of all periods; the only easily 
 accessible collection of specimens from the early period. Contains 
 also, in the last volume, brief biographical notices. 
 
 336 
 
REFERENCES 337 
 
 An American Anthology. Edmund C. Stedman. Specimens of 
 American poetry from 1787 to 1900. Intended to accompany the 
 critical volume, "Poets of America." The minor poets are freely 
 represented, about six hundred names being included. Contains 
 also brief biographical notices. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 
 
 American Prose. Edited by G. R. Carpenter. Selections from 
 twenty-five representative authors from Cotton Mather to Parkman 
 (living authors not included), with critical introductions by various 
 writers. (Macmillan.) 
 
 Cyclopedia of American Literature. E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck. 
 Two large volumes; revised edition, 1875. Extended personal and 
 critical notices, with liberal selections. Criticism somewhat anti 
 quated. Most useful for biographies and selections from the works of 
 early or less important and even quite forgotten writers. 
 
 Library of Poetry and Song. William Cullen Bryant. Selections 
 from British and American poets; also translations. Published 1870. 
 
 Selections and sometimes entire works of standard authors may be 
 found in inexpensive form in the "Lake English Classics;" "River 
 side Literature Series;" and "Cassell s National Library" (paper). 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 There are standard and authorized biographies of the following 
 writers : 
 
 Alcott, Louisa M. Life, Letters, and Journals, by Mrs. E. D. Cheney. 
 
 Bryant. By Parke Godwin, 2 vols. 
 
 Channing, Dr. Wm. E. By W. H. Channing. 
 
 Clemens. Mark Twain: A Biography, by A. B. Paine, 1912. 
 
 Dana, R. H., Jr. By C. F. Adams. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan. By A. V. G. Allen, in American Religious 
 Leaders series. 
 
 Emerson. Memoir, by J. E. Cabot, 2 vols. Emerson in Concord, 
 by E. W. Emerson. 
 
 Franklin. Life, by Jared Sparks, 1844; by James Parton, 1864. 
 
 Hallcck. Life and Letters, by J. G. Wilson. 
 
 Harte. Life, by H. C. Merwin, 1911. Also Life and Biography, 
 by T. E. Pemberton. 1903. 
 
 Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, by Julian Haw 
 thorne, 2 vols. 
 
 Holmes. Life and Letters, by J. T. Morse, Jr., 2 vols. 
 
338 APPENDIX 
 
 Irving. By Pierre M. Irving, 3 vols. 
 
 Lanier. Life, by Edward Mims. 
 
 Longfellow. By Samuel Longfellow, 3 vols. 
 
 Lowell. Letters, edited by C. E. Norton, 2 vols. 
 
 Mather, Cotton. By Barrett Wendell. 
 
 Motley. Correspondence, edited by G. W. Curtis. 
 
 Ossoli, Margaret Fuller. Memoirs, by Emerson, Channing, and 
 Clarke. 
 
 Parkman. By C. H. Farnham. 
 
 Paulding. Literary Life, by W. I. Paulding. 
 
 Payne, John Howard. Life and Writings, by Gabriel Harrison. 
 
 Prescott. By George Ticknor. 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher. By C. E. Stowe. 
 
 Taylor. Life and Letters, by Marie Hansen Taylor and H. E. 
 Scudder, 2 vols. 
 
 Thoreau. By W. E. Channing. 
 
 Whitman. By R. M. Bucke. 
 
 Whittier. Life and Letters, by S. T. Pickard, 2 vols. 
 
 Special series of biographies are as follows: 
 
 American Men of Letters. Edited by C. D. Warner. Biographies 
 of Bryant, Cooper, Curtis, Emerson, Franklin, Hawthorne (in prep 
 aration), Irving, Longfellow (in preparation), Margaret Fuller Ossoli, 
 Poe, Prescott (in preparation), Ripley, Simms, Taylor, Thoreau, Noah 
 Webster, Whittier (in preparation), Willis. 
 
 Great Writers Series. Somewhat shorter biographies than the above, 
 mostly by British authors, and containing extensive bibliographies. 
 The series includes Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Thoreau, 
 Whittier. Of Hawthorne there is a biography also in the English 
 Men of Letters Series. 
 
 Beacon Biographies. Very brief lives of eminent men, among them 
 the following American authors: Agassiz, Phillips Brooks, Cooper, 
 Emerson, Grant, Hawthorne, Jefferson, Lowell, Thomas Paine, 
 Daniel Webster, and W T hittier. 
 
 GENERAL REFERENCE 
 
 Appleton s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 6 vols. Concise 
 accounts of all Americans of note, living or dead. 
 
 Allibone s Dictionary of Authors. A complete list of authors, titles, 
 and dates of publications. The supplement is brought up to 1891. 
 
REFERENCES 339 
 
 Adams (0. F.) Dictionary of American Authors. Very brief sketches 
 of 6000 American authors. Names, dates, and titles of chief books 
 (without dates). Recent. 
 
 Who s Who in America. Edited by A. N. Marquis, bi-annually. 
 Brief sketches of living Americans. Useful especially for the latest 
 writers. 
 
 Whitcomb s Chronological Outlines of American Literature. A care 
 fully arranged table of important authors, books, and dates, up to 
 1894. 
 
 Further references will be found in the following study lists and 
 exercises. In these lists the general histories will be referred to by 
 the names of their authors Wendell, Richardson, Tyler, and Duyc- 
 kinck (1875 edition). Other abbreviations are: 
 
 L. A. L. Stedman and Hutchinson s "Library of American Liter 
 ature. 
 
 A. A. Stedman s "American Anthology." 
 
 L. P. S. Bryant s "Library of Poetry and Song." 
 
 A. P. Carpenter s "American Prose." 
 
 A. M. L. "American Men of Letters Series." 
 
 G. W. S. "Great Writers Series." 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 
 
 I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 
 
 For the history of the period consult Lodge s "English Colonies in 
 America" and Fiske s "Beginnings of New England." For a brief 
 survey of the literature, see chapter xxi, of G. P. Fisher s "Colonial 
 Era," in the American History Series. Read Tyler, chapter i.; Rich 
 ardson, pp. 16-23; Wendell, 26-34. A graceful sketch of the period, 
 with interesting engravings, may be found in D. G. Mitchell s 
 "American Lands and Letters," chapters i. and ii. 
 
 Captain John Smith. The best edition of Smith s works is in 
 "Arber s English Scholar s Library." Life, by C. D. Warner. Criti 
 cism: Jameson s "Historical Writing in America," pp. 4-13; Tyler; 
 Richardson. 
 
 Read "The General History of Virginia," Book III., chapter ii. 
 ("Arber," II., 391-403); or the following selections: "L. A. L.," I., 
 3-6, 10-17; Tyler, chapter ii. Collateral reading: "To have and to 
 Hold," by Mary Johnston (Atlantic Monthly, 1899-1900). 
 
 William Bradford, Samuel Sewall, etc. Bradford s "History of Ply 
 mouth Plantation" and Sewall s "Diary" are both published in 
 the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Criticism: 
 C. F. Adams s "Massachusetts: Its Historians and Its History." 
 
 Read the following selections: "L. A. L.," L, 93-94, 291, 300-301; 
 II., 189, 192-194, 248-254. Collateral reading: Mrs. Hemans s "Land 
 ing of the Pilgri,ms;" Longfellow s "Courtship of Miles Standish;" 
 Mrs. Stowe s "The Mayflower;" Mrs. J. G. Austin s historical novels, 
 "Standish of Standish," "Betty Alden," etc.; Hawthorne s "Grand 
 father s Chair," part I., chapters ii., iii., vi., viii.; Whittier s "Prophecy 
 of Samuel Sewall;" Lowell s essay, "New England Two Centuries 
 Ago." 
 
 Poetry. Read "L. A. L.," I. 314-315, II., 495; Wendell, 38-41; 
 "Lovewell s Fight," Duyckinck, L, 444. 
 
 Theology., etc. Read "L. A. L.," L, 192-195, 251-253, 276-278. 
 
 340 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 341 
 
 Cotton Mather. Life, by Barrett Wendell, in "Makers of America 
 Series." Criticism: Barrett Wendell s "Stelligeri," 114-118; Jame 
 son s "Historical Writing in America," 46-60. 
 
 Read selections in "L. A. L.," II., 140-142; or in "A. P." Collat 
 eral reading: Hawthorne s "Grandfather s Chair," II., iv., v.; W T hit- 
 tier s "The Garrison of Cape Ann;" Longfellow s "The Phantom 
 Ship" (cp. Mather s account, "A. P.," p. 6). 
 
 Jonathan Edwards. Life, by A. V. G. Allen, in "American Re 
 ligious Leaders Series." 
 
 Read "L. A. L.," II., 373-375; or "A. P.," 16-18. Collateral read 
 ing: Holmes s "Pages from an Old Volume of Life," chap. xi. 
 
 John Woolman. W T oolman s "Journal," edited by Whittier. 
 Read Whittier s Introduction, pp. 1-4, and chapter i. See Lamb s 
 "A Quaker s Meeting," in "Essays of Elia." 
 
 Find, in any of these early writers, an eloquent passage, a bit of 
 imaginative description, a flash of wit, or a line of real poetry. Who 
 were the great English poets between 1650 and 1750? English essay 
 writers? What famous religious allegory was written in England in 
 this period? What famous book for boys? 
 
 II. TRANSITION: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 The fullest biography of Franklin is that by James Parton, in two 
 volumes; others are by McMaster, in "A. M. L.," by Morse, in 
 "American Statesmen Series," and by P. L. Ford "The Many-Sided 
 Franklin," first printed serially in The Century" 1898-99. The best 
 edition of the "Autobiography" is that edited by Bigelow, in 3 vols., 
 1868 (with additional matter, 1874). Inexpensive reprints of earlier 
 editions may be found in the "Lake English Classics," Cassell s 
 "National Library," etc. "Poor Richard s Almanac" is printed in 
 the "Thumb-Nail Series." 
 
 Read Parton s "Life," II., viii., 647-655. Read "L. A. L.," III., 
 15, 17-21, 26-29; or "A. P.," 36-47. The whole of the "Autobiog 
 raphy" should, if possible, be read. Study chapter two (or chapters 
 one and two) for revelations of Franklin s ready helpfulness, his 
 practical turn of mind, his willingness to experiment, his inclina 
 tion to moralize, and other traits of character. Was he brave? W T as 
 he modest? Was he honest? Was he too frugal to be generous, or 
 too generous to be frugal? What did he read? Examine the chapter 
 
342 APPENDIX 
 
 also for examples of homely Saxon language, and for words used in 
 an old or strange sense. Gather a number of Poor Richard s maxims 
 and commit a few to memory. See the poem by Franklin in "L. P. S." 
 
 III. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
 
 Read Tyler s "Literary History of the American Revolution," Vol. 
 I., pp. 1-12; Richardson, pp. .36-53; Wendell, II., vii. and viii. For 
 special authors, see Tyler s "Three Men of Letters" (Berkeley, 
 Trumbull, and Barlow); Mitchell s "American Lands and Letters." 
 History: John Fiske s "American Revolution," 2 vols.; A. B. Hart s 
 "Formation of the Union" (Epochs of American History); Lives 
 of Hamilton, Jefferson, etc. Selections: "L. A. L.;" "A. P." (from 
 Washington, Paine, and Jefferson); Duyckinck; D. J. Brewer s 
 "World s Best Orations," 10 vols.; F. Moore s "American Elo 
 quence," 2 vols.; F. Moore s "Songs and Ballads of the American 
 Revolution" (1856); Eggleston s "American War Ballads and Lyrics." 
 Collateral reading: Pierpont s "Warren s Address;" Longfellow s 
 "Paul Revere s Ride;" Emerson s "Concord Hymn;" Cooper s 
 "Spy," Dr. S. W. Mitchell s "Hugh Wynne;" Winston Churchill s 
 "Richard Carvel." 
 
 Prose. Compare the language of the Declaration of Independence 
 or of the Federalist papers with that of Paine s "The Crisis" 
 ("A. P.," 70) or of Franklin s "Autobiography." Read Washington s 
 "Farewell Address," paragraphs 1-14, ("L. A. L.," III., 162; 
 "World s Best Orations," X., 3740); Jefferson s "Letters," "L. A. 
 L.," III., 274, etc. Also Crevecoeur s "Letters from an American 
 Farmer," Duyckinck, L, 185; "L. A. L.," III., 138. 
 
 Poetry, Philip Freneau. Read "The Yankee s Return from Camp" 
 and "The Ballad of Nathan Hale," Duyckinck, L, 480, "L. A. L.," 
 III., 338, 347; Hopkinson s "Battle of the Kegs," Duyckinck, L, 
 228, "L. A. L.," III., 244; Freneau s "Eutaw Springs," "The W T ild 
 Honeysuckle," and "To a Honey Bee," Duyckinck, I., 355, 360, 
 "L. A. L.," III., 448, 453, 456. 
 
 IV. THE NEW ENVIRONMENT 
 
 Charles Brockdcn Brown. Read Warner s "Irving," chapter i., 
 "A. M. L.;" also the article on Brown in the "Encyc. Britannica." 
 There is a life of Brown by Prescott in Sparks s "American Biog- 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 343 
 
 raphy;" also a memoir prefixed to "Wieland" (Brown s" Works,** 
 6 vols., Philadelphia), and an essay on Brown in Prescott s "Miscel 
 lanies." 
 
 Read the selections in "A. P.," 89-100 (or "L. A. L.," Vol. IV.), 
 and note that the author, in spite of his involved way of thinking 
 and his inflated language, has yet a directness and even swiftness of 
 manner that compels attention and at times fascinates. 
 
 Irving. There are many editions of Irving s works. One of the 
 best is the Geoffrey Crayon edition in 27 volumes, containing the 
 biography by Pierre M. Irving in 3 volumes (Putnam). The 
 "Knickerbocker History" may be had in Cassell s National Library, 
 2 vols. See also the "Lake English Classics;" Life, by C. D. Warner, 
 in "A. M. L." Criticism: Eulogy, by W. C. Bryant, in Bryant s 
 "Prose Works;" "A Fable for Critics," by Lowell. 
 
 Read "Knickerbocker History," Book III., chapter i.; "Sketch- 
 Book"- -"The Author s Account of Himself," "Rip Van Winkle," 
 "The Christmas Dinner," "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; * 
 " Alhambra"- -" The Court of Lions." Illustrate, from Irving and 
 Franklin, the difference between humor and wit. What qualities are 
 seen in Irving that were lacking in the Puritans? How wide-em 
 bracing is his love of beauty? What directions does his interest in 
 English literature take? Does his style seem antiquated? How does 
 the ordinary modern novel differ from one of Irving s sketches? 
 
 Collateral reading: Longfellow s poem, "In the Churchyard at 
 Tarrytown." 
 
 Cooper. Household edition of Cooper s works, with introductions 
 by Susan F. Cooper, 32 vols. (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.) "The 
 Last of the Mohicans" ("Lake English Classics," Scott, Foresman 
 and Co.) Life, by T. R. Loundsbury, in "A. M. L." "A Glance 
 Backward," by Susan F. Cooper, Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1887. 
 "Chronicle and Comment," The Bookman, Oct. 1899. 
 
 Read "The Pioneers," chapters iii. and xxviii.; "The Deerslayer," 
 chapter xvi.; "The Pilot," chapters i. to iv.; or better, "The Last of 
 the Mohicans" entire. Compare Cooper with Scott and determine 
 from your own point of view whether American or European themes 
 yield the greater interest. Estimate the relative proportions of 
 description, narration, and dialogue, in each writer. Find examples of 
 Cooper s moralizing. Does Cooper mean to present Natty Bumppo 
 
344 APPENDIX 
 
 as an ideal character? Test for yourself the charge that Cooper s 
 style is hasty and faulty. 
 
 Allston, Drake, Halleck, Willis, etc. "Life and Letters of Halleck," 
 by James G. Wilson. Life of Willis, by Beers, in "A. M. L." 
 
 Most of the poems named in the text may be found in Duyckinck, 
 "L. A. L.," "A. A.," or "L. P. S." Read Drake s "Culprit Fay." 
 Do you find anything in it derived from the poet s observation any 
 thing that could not have been learned from other poetry? How 
 does it compare in metre, music, and imagery with Lowell s "Vision 
 of Sir Launfal?" Do you find in any of Willis s poetry a genuine 
 love of nature? 
 
 Collateral reading: Lowell s "Cambridge Thirty Years Ago" 
 (Prose Works, Riverside ed., Vol. L, 72-76, on Allston) ; Lowell s 
 "Fable for Critics" and Poe s "Literati" (on Halleck and Willis); 
 Whittier s poem, "Fitz-Greene Halleck." 
 
 Bryant. Bryant s works are published by D. Appleton and Co., 
 of New York (poems, 2 vols., prose, 2 vols.; Household edition of 
 poems, 1 vol.). Life, by Parke Godwin, 2 vols.; by Bigelow, in "A. 
 M. L." "Bryant and his Friends," by James G. Wilson. Criticism: 
 Stedman s "Poets of America;" J. Alden s "Studies in Bryant," in 
 Literature Primer Series; Whipple s "Literature and Life;" Lowell s 
 "Fable for Critics." 
 
 Select three poems in blank verse, and three in rhyme, for study. 
 Contrast "Thanatopsis" with the opening pages of Keats s "Endy- 
 mion," written about the same time. Which seems the more youthful? 
 Which has the more color and melody? Which, if either, is the more 
 devout? W T hat examples do you find in the former of conventional 
 poetic diction? Does Bryant s poetry in general show clearly the 
 inspiration of a new land? Is it equally clear that the new land is 
 America and no other? Could "Thanatopsis" have been written in 
 Australia? In England? In London? Trace any similarities be 
 tween Bryant and Cooper. Read "My Tribute to Four Poets" in 
 Walt Whitman s "Specimen Days." 
 
 V. ROMANCE 
 
 Poe. Stedman and Woodberry s critical edition of Poe s works, 
 10 vols. Selections from "Poe s Tales" in the "Lake English 
 Classics"; Life, by G. E. Woodberry, in "A. M. L." Criticism: 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 345 
 
 Stedman s "Poets of America;" "Foe s Place in American Litera 
 ture," by H. W. Mabie, in Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1899. 
 
 Read "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Ligeia," "The Masque 
 of the Red Death," "The Gold-Bug," and "A Descent into the 
 Maelstrom;" also the important poems as indicated in the text. Can 
 a moral purpose be detected in any of these tales? What is their 
 source of interest? Is conversation much used, or naturally used? 
 Is any character or any act viewed in the light of right or wrong? 
 Compare Poe with Cooper in this respect. Select a passage particu 
 larly beautiful for the scene described or for the language used. Com 
 pare the metre of "The Raven" with that of Mrs. Browning s 
 "Lady Geraldine s Courtship" (1844) and Tennyson s "Locksley 
 Hall" (1842) (read Poe s essay, "The Philosophy of Composition"). 
 What other American poet employed refrains effectively? In what 
 other familiar .poem is a trochaic measure used? Find among Poe s 
 poetry a light-hearted poem; a poem without the first personal pro 
 noun. Find a line that can be aptly quoted apart from its context. 
 
 Collateral reading: "Poe s Cottage at Fordham," by J. H. Boner, 
 and Sonnets by Sarah Helen Whitman, in "A. A." 
 
 From South to North. "Life of Simms," by W. P. Trent, in "A 
 M. L." (see also "Southern Literature," by Louise Manly). "Life 
 of R. H. Dana, Jr.," by C. F. Adams. 
 
 Read "Two Years Before the Mast" (or at least chapters iv., v., 
 xiii., xiv.). Selections also from Simms, Melville, and Judd may 
 be read; they can be found in Duyckinck or "L. A. L." 
 
 Hawthorne. Works, Riverside edition, 13 vols. Separate volumes 
 and selections in convenient form in the "Lake English Classics," 
 "Riverside Literature Series," etc. Life, by James, in "A. M. 
 L.;" by Conway, in "G. W. S.;" by Annie Fields, in "Beacon Biog 
 raphies." "Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife," by Julian 
 Hawthorne. "Memories of Hawthorne," by Rose Hawthorne 
 Lathrop. Criticism: "Yesterdays with Authors," J. T. Fields; 
 "Essays Theological and Literary," R. H. Hutton; "A Study of 
 Hawthorne," G. P. Lathrop;" "The New England Poets," W. C. 
 Lawton. 
 
 Read "The Snow Image" (and the preface to that volume). Read 
 "Ethan Brand," and trace some of the sources of the tale in the 
 "American Note-Books" for 1838, July 26 to September 7. Read 
 
346 APPENDIX 
 
 "The Old Manse." From what does "The Celestial Railroad" 
 derive its form? What in the religious tendency of the times in 
 spired Hawthorne to write it? Is it seriously meant? Find other 
 allegories in Hawthorne. What are the best characters in "The 
 House of the Seven Gables"? What is the climax of that story? 
 Read "The Custom House" (introduction to "The Scarlet Letter"). 
 Was Hawthorne s experience of life either broader or deeper than 
 Poe s? Did he turn it to better account in his work? 
 
 Collateral reading: Longfellow s poem, "Hawthorne;" Alcott s 
 sonnet, "Hawthorne," in "A. A." 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe. Life, by Mrs. James T. Fields. 
 Read "Uncle Tom s Cabin" in part or entire. In what ways did 
 the institution of slave-holding hinder or help literature. 
 
 VI. THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT 
 
 Religion and Philosophy in New England. Read Wendell, Book V., 
 Chapters iv. and v. References: "Our Liberal Movement in The 
 ology," by J. H. Allen. "Life of Dr. Channing," by W. H.Channing. 
 "Transcendentalism in New England," by O. B. Frothingham. Essays 
 on "Transcendentalism" by E. Dowden ("Studies in Literature") and 
 R. W. Emerson ("Nature, Addresses, and Lectures"). Frothingham s 
 "Life of Ripley," in "A. M. L." "Brook Farm," by Lindsay Swift 
 (National Studies in American Letters). "Brook Farm," by J. T. 
 Codman. "Life of Margaret Fuller," by T. W. Higginson, in "A. 
 M. L." "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," by Emerson and 
 others. 
 
 On Margaret Fuller (" Miranda") and Alcott, see Lowell s "Fable for 
 Critics." Read the first part of Lowell s essay on "Thoreau." 
 Poems of Channing, Very, and Cranch may be found in "L. A. L.," 
 "A. A.," and "L. P. S." Very s complete "Poems" have been 
 edited by J. F. Clarke. Collateral reading: Hawthorne s "Blithe- 
 dale Romance;" Emerson s Address on "Theodore Parker;" Whit- 
 tier s poem on "Channing;" Lowell s "Elegy on the Death of Dr. 
 Channing;" Alcott s sonnets on "Channing" and "Margaret Ful 
 ler" (in "A. A."). 
 
 Emerson. Works, Riverside edition, 12 vols. "A Memoir of 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson," by J. E. Cabot. "Emerson in Concord," 
 by E. W. Emerson. "Ralph W T aldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 347 
 
 and Philosophy," by G. W. Cooke. Biography of Emerson, by 
 O. W. Holmes, in "A. M. L.;" by Richard Garnett, in "G. W. 
 S." Essays by Matthew Arnold ("Discourses in America"), J. J. 
 Chapman ("Emerson, and Other Essays"), E. C. Stedman ("Poets 
 of America"). 
 
 The best essays of Emerson to begin with are "The American 
 Scholar," "Self-Reliance," "Compensation," and some of the simpler 
 essays like "Manners" and "Gifts." For the poetry, begin with 
 the poems of nature "May-Day," "Woodnotes," "The Titmouse," 
 etc. Are the truths in "The American Scholar" applicable to all 
 scholars? Why are they .addressed to American scholars? Do Amer 
 icans particularly need encouragement to self-reliance? Distinguish 
 between self-reliance and self-assurance. Is the doctrine of compen 
 sation likely to make men inactive and indifferent to success or prog 
 ress? What do you understand by the Over-Soul? Do you judge 
 Emerson s reading to have been wide? What writers does he refer 
 to most frequently? Compare his list of Representative Men with 
 Carlyle s Heroes ("Heroes and Hero Worship"). Compare one of 
 his paragraphs with one of Bacon s, and note similarities and differ 
 ences of style. Commit to memory several of his aphorisms. Com 
 pare his "Threnody" with Pierpont s "My Child" ("A. A."). 
 What truths do you find in "Each and All"? What is the central 
 truth? What qualities appear in Emerson s poetry that were not in 
 Bryant s? 
 
 Collateral reading: "Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson;" 
 Lowell s essay, "Emerson the Lecturer;" "Homes and Haunts of 
 Emerson," by Sanborn, in Scribners, Feb., 1879; "Birds and Poets," 
 by John Burroughs; "The Great Stone Face," by Hawthorne 
 ("Twice Told Tales"); "A Visit to R. W. Emerson," and "By 
 Emerson s Grave," in Walt Whitman s "Specimen Days." 
 
 Thoreau. Works, Riverside edition, 11 vols. Life, by F. B. San- 
 born, in "A. M. L." "Familiar Letters of Thoreau," edited by F. 
 B. Sanborn. "Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist," by William Ellery 
 Channing. "Thoreau, His Life and Aims," by H. A. Page. Essays 
 on Thoreau by Emerson ("Lectures and Biographical Sketches"), 
 Lowell ("Among My Books"), T. W. Higginson ("Short Studies of 
 American Authors"), John Burroughs ("Indoor Studies"), R. L. 
 Stevenson ("Familiar Studies of Men and Books"). 
 
 Read W olden, chapters on "Economy" and "Sounds." A variety 
 
348 APPENDIX 
 
 of selections may be found in "A. P." What traits of the Puritan 
 do you find in Thoreau? Discuss Stevenson s statement that " Thoreau 
 was a skulker." Discuss Burroughs s declaration that Thoreau s 
 humpr "had worked a little was not quite sweet." What of his 
 resourcefulness? His acuteness and accuracy as an observer? His 
 acuteness and soundness as a reasoner? Why is he more widely 
 read today than he was fifty years ago? 
 
 Collateral reading: Miss Alcott s poem, "Thoreau s Flute," and 
 Channing s "Tears in Spring," in "A. A." (The description of the 
 "forest seer" in Emerson s "Woodnotes" fits Thoreau admirably, 
 but it was written before Emerson knew Thoreau and therefore 
 could not have been intended, as commonly supposed, to describe 
 him.) 
 
 VII. NATIONAL LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 Oratory. "Life of Webster," by G. T. Curtis. Lives of Webster, 
 Clay, Lincoln, etc., in the "American Statesmen Series." Specimen 
 orations in F. Moore s "American Eloquence," 2 vols.; D. J. 
 Brewer s "The World s Best Orations," 10 vols. Criticism: Whip- 
 pie s "Character and Characteristic Men;" Emerson s "Life and 
 Letters in New England;" Wendell s "Literary History of America." 
 
 Read the first three extracts from Webster s speeches and the three 
 addresses of Lincoln in "A. P.," comparing them carefully in matter 
 and style. 
 
 Collateral reading: Higginson s "Cheerful Yesterdays;" Choate s 
 "Eulogy on Webster;" Hawthorne s "Great Stone Face" ("Old 
 Stony Phiz"); Whittier s "Ichabod," "The Lost Occasion," and 
 "Summer;" Longfellow s "Charles Sumner," and "Three Friends of 
 Mine" (Felton, Agassiz, and Sumner); Lowell s sonnet on "Wendell 
 Phillips;" Alcott s sonnet on the same (in "A. A."). 
 
 History and Criticism. " Life of Prescott," by Geo. Ticknor. " Mem 
 oir of Motley," by O. W. Holmes. "Motley s Correspondence," ed 
 ited by G. W. Curtis. "Life of Parkman," by C. H. Farnham. The 
 last named is of especial value. Criticism: Whipple s "Essays and 
 Reviews" and "Recollections of Eminent Men;" Jameson s "His 
 tory of Historical Writing in America." 
 
 Read Parkman s "California and Oregon Trail," chapters xiv.-xvii.; 
 or the selections from Prescott, Motley, and Parkman in "A. P." 
 Collateral reading: Mrs. Catherwood s romances. 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 3-13 
 
 Longfellow. Works, Riverside edition, 11 vols. Cambridge edition 
 of poems, with notes, 1 vol. Life, by Samuel Longfellow, 3 vols; by 
 Robertson, in "G. W. S." Criticism: "Longfellow," by G. W. Cur 
 tis, Harper s Magazine, June, 1882; "The Art of Longfellow," by H 
 E. Scudder, "Men and Letters;" Stedman s "Poets of America." 
 
 Special reading in Longfellow scarcely needs to be indicated; select 
 ed poems may be found in the "Riverside Literature Series" and 
 elsewhere. Poems contributing to his own biography are: "Footsteps 
 of Angels," "The Old Clock on the Stairs," "To the River Charles," 
 "The Two Angels," "My Lost Youth," "The Children s Hour," 
 "Three Friends of Mine," "Morituri Salutamus," Arrange Long 
 fellow s important poems under three heads: dramatic, narrative, 
 and lyric. How wide is the scope of the lyric poems? Could any 
 be readily set to music ? ( Find a poem of nature with no moral 
 in it; a poem of human life with no touch of outdoor nature in 
 it; a sad poem; a poem for scholars; an allegory. What is dac 
 tylic hexameter verse? What is a sonnet? Does Longfellow reflect 
 clearly his New England environment? How does his Americanism 
 compare with Irving s? W T ith Bryant s? With Emerson s? In what 
 respects is he superior, and in what inferior, to Bryant and to Poe? 
 
 In connection with "Evangeline," read Hawthorne s "Grand 
 father s Chair," II., viii. Read the "Death of Longfellow," in Walt 
 Whitman s "Specimen Days." 
 
 Whittier. Works, Riverside edition, 7 vols. Cambridge edition of 
 poems, with notes, 1 vol. Life and Letters, by S. T. Pickard, 2 vols. 
 Biography, by F. H. Underwood. Criticism: George Woodberry, in 
 the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1892; "Stelligeri," by Barrett Wen 
 dell; Stedman s "Poets of America;" Lowell s "Fable for Critics." 
 
 Select for study one of Whittier s best narrative poems or ballads, 
 one poem on freedom, one on nature, and one religious. Contrast, 
 as idyls, "Snow-Bound" and "Evangeline" (noting construction, 
 spontaneity, truth of delineation, etc.). Compare "The Tent on the 
 Beach" with Longfellow s "Tales of a Wayside Inn." What New 
 England poet does Whittier most resemble in simplicity of thought? 
 What one in simplicity of form? On what ground, if any, could he 
 be called the national poet of America? What serious objections are 
 there to this use of the title? In what vital point does the resem 
 blance between Whittier and Burns fail? 
 
 Collateral reading: Poems by Holmes and Elizabeth Stuart 
 
350 APPENDIX 
 
 Phelps in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1892; Longfellow s "The 
 Three Silences of Molinos;" Holmes s two poems "On Whittier s 
 Birthday;" the dedication of Bayard Taylor s "Lars." 
 
 Lowell. Works, Riverside edition, 12 vols. Cambridge edition of 
 poems, 1 vol. Selections in "Lake English Classics," Riverside 
 Literature Series, "A. P.," etc. Biographical sketch, by F. H. 
 Underwood (a full biography is in preparation by H. E. Scudder). 
 "Letters," edited by C. E. Norton, 2 vols. Criticism: Stedman s 
 "Poets of America;" William W atson s "Excursions in Criticism" 
 ("Lowell as a Critic"); Whipple s "Outlooks on Society." 
 
 Read the following poems: "Sir Launfal," "She Came and 
 Went," "To the Dandelion," "Under the Willows," "The Present 
 Crisis," parts of the "Biglow Papers," and "Commemoration Ode." 
 Of the prose, read: "My Garden Acquaintance" and "On a Certain 
 Condescension in Foreigners" (the critical prose and "Democracy" 
 are better postponed). Compare "The Courtin " with Fessenden s 
 "Country Courtship" in Duyckinck. Compare "After the Burial" 
 with Emerson s "Threnody." Point out unevenness of execution 
 in "The Commemoration Ode." What is an ode? Compare with 
 the odes of the English Cowley. Read a page of Lowell s prose three 
 or four times and see if you cannot discover something ne\y a refer 
 ence, an idea, a twist of thought or phrase, each time. Can Lowell 
 be called a lover of the media? val, like Irving and Longfellow? Do 
 his European culture and his American common sense mix well? 
 (Compare Emerson.) Trace the compliments to Lowell in Holmes s 
 poem, "To James Russell Lowell." Discuss the justice of the estimate 
 in Whittier s lines, "James Russell Lowell." 
 
 Collateral reading: "James Russell Lowell and His Friends," by E. 
 E. Hale; "A Personal Retrospect," by W. D. Howells, Scribner s Mag 
 azine, September, 1900; Longfellow s "The Herons of Elmwood." 
 
 Holmes. Works, Riverside edition, 13 vols. Cambridge edition of 
 poems, 1 vol. Selections in Modern Classics, Riverside Literature 
 Series, etc. Life and Letters, by John T. Morse, Jr., 2 vols. Criti 
 cism: Stedman s "Poets of America;" Curtis s "Literary and Social 
 Essays;" Haweis s "American Humorists;" Lawton s "Poets of New 
 England." 
 
 Read "The Last Leaf," "Dorothy Q.," "The Deacon s Master 
 piece," and "The Chambered Nautilus." Read the introduction to 
 the collected poems, "To my Readers." Does Holmes s sentiment 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 351 
 
 often take on a melancholy cast? Does it ever degenerate into senti- 
 mentalism? Is he a conservative, or a radical, in thought? In form, 
 which is he? Read the following autobiographical passages: "The 
 Poet at the Breakfast Table," pp. 10-32 (Riverside ed.); "A Mortal 
 Antipathy," pp. 1-32;" Pages from an Old Volume of Life," pp. 239-259; 
 Introductions to "The Autocrat" and "Over the Tea-Cups." Is "The 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" well named? Does it contain any 
 real conversation? In which does the humor most approach wit, 
 Lamb or Holmes? Whose humor is of the higher order, Lowell s 
 or Holmes s? Which personality is the more pleasing? 
 
 Collateral reading: "Old Cambridge," by T. W. Higginson; 
 "James Russell Lowell and His Friends," by E. E. Hale. Specimens 
 of English "society verse" may be found in Locker-Lampson s "Lyra 
 Elegantiarum." 
 
 Minor Poetry and Miscellaneous Prose. Hale s works, Library 
 edition, 10 vols. Higginson s works, Riverside edition, 7 vols. 
 Taylor s Poems, 1 vol., Dramatic Works, 1 vol. (Houghton, Mifflin 
 and Co.); Novels and Travels, 16 vols. (Putnam). "Life and Letters 
 of Bayard Taylor," by Marie Hansen-Taylor and H. E. Scudder, 2 
 vols. "Life of Taylor," by Smyth, in "A. M. L." Criticism: 
 Stedman s "Poets of America." "Life of Curtis," by Gary, in "A. 
 M. L." Curtis s "Orations and Addresses," ed. by C. E. Norton. 
 
 Read Read s "Drifting;" Boker s "Dirge for a Soldier;" Taylor s 
 "Bedouin Song;" Holland s "Babyhood" (all in "L. P. S." and "A. 
 A."). Compare "The Voyage" (chapter i.) in Taylor s "Views 
 Afoot" with "The Voyage" in Irving s "Sketch-Book." Read the 
 selections in "A. P." from Curtis s "Duty of the American Scholar." 
 Collateral reading: Longfellow s poem, "Bayard Taylor;" Sidney 
 Lanier s poem, "To Bayard Taylor." 
 
 Walt Whitman. "Leaves of Grass" (poems complete), 1 vol. 
 "Prose Works," 1 vol. "Selections from the Poems of Walt Whit 
 man," by Arthur Stedman. (All published by David McKay, Phila 
 delphia.) Biography and Criticism: "Life," by W T illiam Clarke 
 (London); by R. M. Burke. "Whitman: A Study," by John Bur 
 roughs. "Walt Whitman the Man," by Thomas Donaldson. 
 Essays by J. A. Symonds, in "Essays Speculative and Sugges 
 tive," and Edward Dowden, in "Studies in Literature." 
 
 In "Specimen Days," read "Paumanok," "Printing Office," 
 "Broadway Sights," "Opening of the Secession War," "Battle of 
 
352 APPENDIX 
 
 Bull Run" (compare Irving Bacheller s "Eben Holden," chap, xxxix.), 
 "The Oaks and I," "Nature and Democracy." What other American 
 writers never married and never went abroad? Has the latter fact 
 affected their "Americanism"? Read "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," 
 "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "Beat! Beat! Drums!" 
 "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom d," "O Captain, My Cap 
 tain," "Whispers of Heavenly Death," "The Mystic Trumpeter," 
 "Joy, Shipmate, Joy." Compare "The First Dandelion" with 
 Lowell s "To the Dandelion." Which poem says most or suggests 
 most? Which is the more natural, simple, spontaneous? For 
 imagination and lyric rapture, compare "To the Man-of- War-Bird" 
 with Bryant s "To a Waterfowl" and Shelley s "Skylark." Com 
 pare "When I Heard the Learn d Astronomer" with Clough s "In a 
 Lecture Room." Find, in Whitman s poems, metrical lines, espec 
 ially dactylic hexameters. Is his "Spirit That Formed This Scene" 
 a satisfactory answer to the charge that his poems lack art? Can 
 Whitman be said to be preaching the same fundamental doctrine as 
 Emerson? 
 
 VIII. POETRY IN THE SOUTH 
 
 Read Richardson, Vol. I., 58-60; Wendell, VI. iii. 
 
 Hayne s Complete Poems, with life, 1882. Timrod s Poems, Memo 
 rial edition, 1899. Lanier s Poems, with memorial by William Hayes 
 Ward, 1892. "Select Poems of Sidney Lanier," by Morgan Callaway. 
 "Selections from the Southern Poets," by W. L. Weber, Macmillan s 
 Pocket English Classics. "Bugle Echoes," ed. by F. F. Browne, 1886. 
 "Southern Literature," by Louise Manly. "Pioneers of Southern 
 Literature" (Ticknor, Timrod, Hayne), by S. A. Link. Stedman s 
 "Poets of America." 
 
 Read the poems indicated in the text, or the selections to be found 
 in "L. P. S." or "A. A." In particular, Lanier s "Hymns of the 
 Marshes/ "Corn," and "The Symphony" should be read. See also 
 "June Dreams in January." Compare Lanier s "Song of the Chat- 
 tahoochee" with Tennyson s The "Brook." Study the landscape and 
 music effects in "The Marshes of Glynn." What is the faith formu 
 lated in "Acknowledgment"? 
 
 IX. PROSE AND POETRY IN THE WEST 
 
 For selections, see "L. A. L." and "A. A." Biographical and 
 critical helps to the study of living writers are necessarily scant. A 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING AND STUDY 353 
 
 variety of articles, though little that is final, may be found in the 
 files of magazines through Poole s Index. A few of the letters of E. 
 R. Sill have been published in the volume of his prose. See "The 
 Literary Emancipation of the West," The Forum, XVI., 156; also 
 "Mississippi Valley Literature," in Walt Whitman s "Specimen 
 Days;" "The Hoosiers," by M. Nicholson, in "National Studies in 
 American Letters." 
 
 Suggestions for discussion: The humor of Bret Harte; the serious 
 ness of Mark Twain; Huckleberry Finn s ideas of honor. How far 
 does romantic idealism, as found in "Ramona," enter into Harte s 
 stories? Does it enter into Mark Twain s at all? Discuss Eugene 
 Field as a poet of childhood and as a poet for children. 
 
 X. POETRY AND CRITICISM IN THE EAST 
 
 For selections, see "L. A. L." and "A. A." The letters of Emily 
 Dickinson have been published, and they are quite as original and 
 suggestive as her poems. Mr. Stedman s critical work should be 
 already familiar. The introduction to his "American Anthology" 
 may be profitably read in this connection. 
 
 Suggestions for discussion: The American boy in literature (see 
 Aldrich, Twain, Warner, Howells); the best books for children (Miss 
 Alcott, Mrs. Burnett, Jacob Abbott, etc.). Consider late writers upon 
 outdoor subjects and the varying degree of human interest in their 
 writings. Has New York overtaken New England in literary pro 
 ductivity? (Consider writers, magazines, publishing houses, univer 
 sities, libraries, etc.) May differences in the quality of product still 
 be observed? Has journalism worked to the detriment of scholar 
 ship? 
 
 XI. LATE MOVEMENTS IN FICTION 
 
 For selections from the elder writers, see "L. A. L." Consult 
 W. D. Howell s "Criticism and Fiction," Marion Crawford s "The 
 Novel: What It Is," and Hamlin Garland s "Crumbling Idols;" also 
 "Two Principles in Recent American Fiction," by James Lane 
 Allen, Atlantic Monthly, October, 1897. 
 
 The short stories of Bret Harte may be contrasted with Poe s tales, 
 or the stories of Miss Wilkins with Hawthorne s tales, to bring out 
 the difference between the romantic and the realistic methods. An 
 attempt might profitably be made to classify the most popular novels 
 
354 APPENDIX 
 
 of the last few years according as they are realistic or romantic in 
 their tendency; according as they are delineations of past life (his 
 torical), of present life (realistic again, or "local"), or of purely im 
 aginary scenes; and according as they are novels of plot and incident 
 (in the short story, situation), novels of character, or novels of pur 
 pose, (moral, didactic, "problem" novels). This will at least serve 
 to bring out the nature and extent of the present activities in the 
 field of fiction. Further discussion might turn upon the best short 
 stories, the long novels most likely to live, and the characters in 
 American fiction that are sufficiently well known to permit of refer 
 ence to them without explanation. 
 
INDEX 
 
 NOTE The number of the page on which the author or subject is especially treated 
 is in each case given first; passing references follow. Names of American authors are 
 printed in small capitals. Names of foreign authors are printed in ordinary lower case, 
 and have dates attached. British authors are distinguished from other foreign authors by 
 the addition of first names. All titles are printed in italics. Only the more important 
 titles are indexed. 
 
 ABBOTT, JACOB F., 147. 
 ABBOTT, JOHN S. C., 188, 192. 
 ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, JR., 
 
 323, 328, 307. 
 ADAMS, HENRY, 323, 307. 
 ADAMS, JOHN, 40. 
 Addison, Joseph (1672-1719), 17, 
 
 36, 77. 
 
 Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 277. 
 ^schylus (B. c. 525-456), 254. 
 AGASSIZ, JEAN Louis (ag a see), 
 
 136, 163, 178, 193, 240. 
 ALCOTT, AMOS BRONSON (awl cut), 
 
 156, 135, 154, 155, 171. 
 ALCOTT, LOUISA M., 318. 
 ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (awl - 
 
 drich), 288-290, 240, 252, 291, 
 
 297, 298. 
 
 Alhambra, The, 70, 71, 73. 
 ALLEN, JAMES LANE, 305. 
 ALLSTON, WASHINGTON, 94, 97, 
 
 243. 
 
 America, 232, 243. 
 American Flag, The, 95. 
 American Scholar, The, 161, 217. 
 Among My Books, 223, 227-229. 
 Among the Hills, 215. 
 Arabian Nights, 354. 
 Ariosto (1474-1533), 141. 
 Arnold, Matthew(1822-1888), 124, 
 
 211, 212, 230. 
 Arsenal at Springfield, 201. 
 Arthur Mervyn, 57, 59. 
 Atlantic Monthly, 221, 214, 222 
 
 232-234, 249, 289, 298. 
 AUSTIN, JAXE, G., 318. 
 Autobiography of Benjamin Frank 
 lin, 35, 30, 32, 104. 
 
 Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 
 234-237, 241. 
 
 BABBITT, IRVING, 327. 
 
 Backlog Studies, 251. 
 
 Bacon, Francis (1561-1626), 17, 
 
 126, 165, 180. 
 
 Balzac (1799-1850), 87, 90, 145. 
 BANCROFT, GEORGE, 188, 134, 154. 
 BANCROFT, HUBERT PI., 323. 
 Barclay of Ury, 209, 210. 
 BARLOW, JOEL, 44, 45. 
 Battle Hymn of the Republic, 243. 
 Battle of the Kegs, 44. 
 Bay Psalm Book, 18, 22. 
 BEECHER, HENRY WARD, 151, 163, 
 
 187. 
 
 Ben Bolt, 249. 
 
 Bible, The, 101, 205, 258, 25. 
 BIERCE, AMBROSE, 321. 
 Biglow Papers, 218, 219, 222, 227. 
 BIRD, ROBERT M., 127. 
 Bismarck (1815-1893), 182. 
 Bitter-Sweet, 250. 
 Black Cat, The, 121. 
 Blair, Robert (1699-1746), 102. 
 Blithedale Romance, 134, 135, 139. 
 Boccaccio (1313-1375), 60. 
 BOKER, GEORGE HENRY, 245, 246, 
 
 247, 248, 291. 
 Bossuet (1627-1704), 182. 
 Boston News Letter, 19. 
 BOYESEN, H. H., 317. 
 Bracebridge Hall, 70. 
 BRADFORD, WILLIAM, 22. 
 BRADSTREET, ANNE, 23, 231. 
 Bronte,Charlotte(1816-1855), 296. 
 BROOKS, MARIA 7 GowEN, 99, 111. 
 
 355 
 
356 
 
 INDEX 
 
 BROOKS, PHILLIPS, 187. 
 
 BROWNE, ALICE, 319. 
 
 BROWN, CHARLES BROCKDEN, 55- 
 
 61, 53, 54, 77, 78, 111, 126, 141, 
 
 142, 264, 295. 
 BROWNE, CHARLES FARRAR, 327, 
 
 278. 
 
 BROWNELL, W. C., 326. 
 Browning, Mrs. E. B. (1806-1861), 
 
 99. 
 
 Browning, Robert (1812-1889), 106. 
 BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, 100- 
 
 110, 54, 55, 84, 87, 94, 97, 98, 
 
 192, 201, 203, 204, 214, 221, 225, 
 
 231, 234, 239, 242, 245, 247-249, 
 
 251, 254. 
 
 Buccaneers, The, 97, 129. 
 Building of the Ship, 198, 202. 
 Bulwer, Edward (Lord Lytton, 
 
 1803-1873), 118, 296. 
 BUNNER, HENRY C., 313. 
 Bunyan, John (1628-1688), 33, 231. 
 Burke, Edmund (1729-1797), 40, 
 
 41, 182. 
 
 BURNETT, FRANCES HODGSON, 320. 
 Burns, Robert (1759-1796), 97, 
 
 196,206,211,212,214,226. 
 Burns, 211. 
 BURROUGHS, JOHN, 291, 293, 252, 
 
 309. 
 
 BUSHNELL, HORACE, 151, 187 V 
 BUTLER, NICHOLAS M., 308. 
 Butler, Samuel (1612-1680), 43. 
 Byron, Lord (1788-1824), 70, 71, 
 
 97, 113, 207. 
 
 CABLE, GEORGE W., 304, 305. 
 
 CALHOUN, JOHN C., 184-5. 
 
 California and Oregon Trail, 190. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas (1777-1844), 
 47, 97. 
 
 CAMPBELL, WILLIAM W., 316, 308. 
 
 CARLETON, WILL, 315. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881), 
 152, 159, 163, 165, 170, 182, 
 214, 223, 227, 229, 230, 256, 263. 
 
 CARMAN, BLISS, 316, 293, 308. 
 
 Carolina, 272. 
 
 CARPENTER, G. R., 337 
 
 CARY, ALICE, 248. 
 
 GARY, PHCEBE, 248. 
 
 Cathedral, The, 226. 
 CATHERWOOD, MARY H., 321, 306. 
 CAWEIN, MADISON, 315. 
 Century, The, 250, 293. 
 Cervantes (1547-1616), 141. 
 Chambered Nautilus, The, 236, 240. 
 CHAMBERS, ROBERT W., 318. 
 CHANNING, DR. WILLIAM ELLERY, 
 
 151, 154, 187. 
 CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY, 156, 
 
 154, 172, 174. 
 CHANNING, WILLIAM HENRY, 154, 
 
 155. 
 
 CHAPMAN, JOHN, J., 327. 
 Charlotte Temple, 56. 
 Chateaubriand (1768-1848), 18,87. 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey (? 1340-1400), 
 
 64, 201, 203, 223. 
 CHENEY, JOHN VANCE, 315. 
 CHILD, FRANCIS J., 308. 
 CHIVERS. THOMAS HOLLY, 117. 
 CHOATE, RUFUS, 185. 
 Choir Invisible, The, 305. 
 CHURCHILL, WINSTON, 320. 
 Cicero (B. c. 106-43), 40, 182. 
 CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN, 151, 
 
 154, 231. 
 
 CLAY, HENRY, 184, 207, 210, 254. 
 CLEMENS, SAMUEL L., 277-279, 90, 
 
 280, 284, 297, 305. 
 CLIFTON, W T ILLIAM, 49. 
 Coleridge, Samuel T. (1772-1834), 
 
 94, 96, 97. 126, 141. 152, 159, 226. 
 Collins, W r ilkie (1824-1889), 119. 
 Columbiad, The, 45. 
 Commemoration Ode, 223, 227, 239, 
 
 286. 
 
 Common Sense, 41, 42. 
 Concord Hymn, 158, 239. 
 Condensed Novels, 279. 
 Confucius (B. c. 550-478), 169. 
 Conquest of Granada, 70, 71. 
 CONWAY, MONCURE D., 324. 
 COOKE, JOHN ESTEN, 319, 303. 
 COOKE, ROSE TERRY, 318. 
 COOLBRITH, INA D., 316. 
 COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE, 77-93, 
 
 54, 60, 61, 62, 63, 96, 100, 108, 
 
 109, 111, 127, 128, 129, 189, 192, 
 
 194, 199, 221, 249, 254, 284, 295. 
 Cosmopolitan, The, 298. 
 
INDEX 
 
 357 
 
 COTTON, Jotix, 26, 27. 
 
 Cotton Boll, The, 272. 
 
 Courtship of Miles Standish, 191, 
 
 199. 
 
 Cowper, William (1731-1800), 231. 
 "CRADDOCK, CHARLES EGBERT," 
 
 see MURFREE. 
 CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P., 156, 
 
 154, 155, 247. 
 
 CRAWFORD, F. MARION, 317. 
 Crisis, The, 42. 
 
 CROTHERS, SAMUEL M., 326, 309. 
 Culprit Fay, The, 96. 
 CUMMINS, MARIA S., 147. 
 CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM, 250-51. 
 
 155, 163, 236, 242, 249, 267. 
 
 DANA. CHARLES A., 155, 249. 
 DANA, RICHARD HENRY, 97, 94, 
 
 111, 249. 
 DANA, RICHARD HENRY, JR., 129, 
 
 157, 190, 337. 
 Dante (1265-1321), 109, 200, 204, 
 
 223, 243, 247, 254. 
 Darwin, Charles R. (1809-1882), 
 
 231. 
 
 DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING, 318. 
 Day of Doom, 23. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 40, 39. 
 Deer slayer, 86, 84. 
 Defoe, Daniel (1661-1731), 60, 
 
 118, 157. 
 
 DELANO, MARGARET, 318, 302. 
 Democracy, 224, 229. 
 Democratic Vistas, 257. 
 Demosthenes (u. c. 384-322), 40, 
 
 182. 
 De Quineey, Thomas (1785-1859) 
 
 165, 229. 
 
 Descent into the Maelstrom, 119. 
 Dial, The, 154, 156, 163, 170, 222. 
 Dickens, Charles (1812-1870), 89 
 
 122, 144, 280, 296. 
 DICKINSON, EMILY, 290, 291 283 
 Dixie, 248. 
 Dorothy Q., 237, 240. 
 
 Dowden, Edward (1843 ), 256. 
 
 Doyle, Arthur Conan (1859 ) 
 
 119. 
 DRAKE, JOSEPH RODMAN, 95, 96 
 
 54, 97, 98, 111, 231. 
 
 Drayton,Michael(1563-1631), 196. 
 Dream Life, 244. 
 Drum- Taps, 257, 262. 
 Dryden, John (1631-1700), 17. 
 DUNBAR, PAUL, L., 316. 
 DUNNE, FINLEY P., 327. 
 Dutchman s Fireside, The, 62. 
 Duyckinck, E. A. (di kink), 337. 
 Duyckinck, G. L., 337. 
 DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, 43, 44, 45. 
 
 Ebers, (1837-1898), 129. 
 
 EDWARDS, JONATHAN, 29, 30 32 
 37, 38, 61, 337. 
 
 EGGLESTON, EDWARD, 321,306, 307. 
 
 Eleanor a, 114. 
 
 ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM, 30, 308. 
 
 Eliot, George (1819-1880), 296. 
 
 ELIOT, JOHN, 19. 
 
 Elsie Venner, 237. 
 
 ELY, RICHARD T., 307. 
 
 EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, 156- 
 168, 54, 109, 126, 131, 134, 136, 
 146, 154-155, 170, 171, 174, 175, 
 177, 180, 182, 185, 214, 217, 221, 
 223, 226, 229, 232-234, 238-240, 
 242,247, 253, 256, 259, 260, 261, 
 263, 264, 268, 283, 309, 337 
 
 EMMETT, DANIEL D., 248. 
 
 Endymion, 196. 
 
 ENGLISH, THOMAS D., 248. 
 
 Essays of Emerson, 163-166. 
 
 EVANS, AUGUSTA J., 303. 
 
 Evangeline (e van je lin), 197. 
 
 EVERETT, EDWARD, 185, 73, 163 
 187, 251. 
 
 Fable for Critics, 221, 130. 
 Fall of the House of Usher, 122. 
 Farewell Address of Washington, 
 
 40. 
 
 Federalist, The, 42. 
 FELTON, CORNELIUS C., 193. 
 FIELD, EUGENE, 284, 285. 
 FIELDS, JAMES T., 191, 222. 
 Fire-Bringer, The, 286. 
 Fireside Travels, 223, 229. 
 FISKE, JOHN, 323, 307. 
 Flaubert (1821-1880), 299. 
 Flood of Years, The, 110. 
 Fool s Prayer, The, 283. 
 
358 
 
 INDEX 
 
 FOOTE, MARY HALLOCK, 321, 306. 
 FOED, PAUL L., 318. 
 FOSTER, STEPHEN C., 248. 
 Fox, JOHN, JR., 320. 
 FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, 32-37, 30, 
 
 39, 53, 104, 165, 188, 260, 262, 
 
 277, 337. 
 
 FREDERIC, HAROLD, 317. 
 Freedom of the Will, 30, 38. 
 FREEMAN, MRS., see WILKINS. 
 Freeman s Oath, The, 18. 
 FRENCH, ALICE, 321, 306. 
 FRENEAU, PHILIP (fre no ), 45-49, 
 
 94, 209, 240. 
 
 FULLER, HENRY B., 322, 306. 
 FULLER, MARGARET, see OSSOLI. 
 FURNESS, HORACE HOWARD, 308. 
 
 GARLAND, HAMLIN, 321, 306. 
 GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD, 186, 
 
 187, 206, 219. 
 
 General History of Virginia, 20. 
 Gentleman s Magazine, 114. 
 GEORGE, HENRY, 325. 
 Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794), 101. 
 GILDER, RICHARD WATSON, 313, 
 
 293. 
 Gladstone, William E. (1809- 
 
 1898), 182, 231. 
 GODFREY, THOMAS, 24. 
 GODKIN, EDWIN L., 325, 308. 
 Godwin, William (1756-1836), 58, 
 
 118, 126. 
 
 Goethe (1749-1832), 197, 247. 
 Gold Bug, The, 119. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver (1728-1774) 
 
 75, 77, 108, 212. 
 GOUGH, JOHN B. (gof), 163. 
 Graham s Magazine, 114. 
 GRANT, ROBERT, 317. 
 Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), 231. 
 Great Divide, The, 286. 
 GREELEY, HORACE, 155, 249. 
 GRISWOLD, RUFUS WILMOT, 115. 
 Guardian Angel, The, 237. 
 GUINEY, LOUISE I. (gi nee), 314. 
 
 Hail Columbia, 43, 44. 
 
 HALE, EDWARD EVERETT, 244, 
 
 242, 252, 297, 296. 
 Hale in the Bush, 43. 
 
 HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE, 95-97, 
 
 54, 98, 254, 337. 
 HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, 42. 
 HARDY, ARTHUR SHERBURNE, 317. 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, (1840 ), 297. 
 
 "HARLAND, MARION," see TER- 
 
 HUNE. 
 
 Harper s Magazine, 250, 251, 298. 
 HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER, 319, 
 
 304. 
 
 HARRIS, WILLIAM T., 325. 
 HARTE, FRANCIS BRET, 279-281, 
 
 295, 297, 305, 337. 
 Hasty Pudding, 44. 
 HAWTHORNE, JULIAN, 317, 135. 
 HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL, 130-147, 
 
 39, 54, 60, 61, 64, 84, 111, 117, 
 
 126, 154-156, 159, 164, 173, 192, 
 
 193, 194, 196, 205, 221, 233, 240, 
 
 260, 268, 295, 297, 305. 
 HAY, JOHN, 315, 287. 
 HAYNE, PAUL H., 270-272. 
 HEARN, LAFCADIO, 325. 
 Hebe, 225. 
 
 "HENRY, O.," see PORTER. 
 HENRY, PATRICK, 39, 40. 
 Herrick, Robert (1591-1674), 289. 
 HERRICK, ROBERT, 322, 306. 
 
 Hewlett, Maurice (1861 ), 143. 
 
 Hiawatha (he a wah tha), 198, 199, 
 
 146. 
 HIGGINSON, THOMAS W., 244, 
 
 155, 193, 252, 297, 302. 
 HILDRETH, RICHARD, 188. 
 Hoffman (1776-1822), 118. 
 HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT, 249- 
 
 50, 251, 297. 
 HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, 230- 
 
 242, 54, 131, 136, 161, 163, 191, 
 193, 212, 213, 216, 220, 222, 225, 
 
 243, 249, 250, 267 r 278, 294, 295, 
 297. 
 
 Homer (B. c. about 1000), 40, 45, 
 54, 90, 93, 105, 231, 247, 253, 
 258, 279. 
 
 HOPKINSON, FRANCIS, 44. 
 
 HOPKINSON, JOSEPH, 43. 
 
 Horace (B. c. 65-8), 240, 284. 
 
 House of the Seven Gables, 131, 135, 
 139, 145. 
 
 HOVEY, RICHARD (huv y), 314, 293. 
 
INDEX 
 
 359 
 
 HOWARD, BRONSON, 308. 
 HOWE, JULIA WARD, 243. 
 HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN, 298- 
 
 300, 252, 277, 290, 295, 301. 
 Huckleberry Finn, 278. 
 Humble Romance, A, 301. 
 HUTCHINSON, ELLEN M., 336. 
 HUTTON, LAURENCE, 326. 
 Hymn to the Night, 201. 
 Hymns of the Marshes, 274. 
 Hyperion, 193 
 
 Ibsen (1828-1906), 299. 
 
 Ichabod (ik a bod), 209, 183, 215. 
 
 Idle Man, The, 97. 
 
 Indian Burying Ground, The, 47. 
 
 Innocents Abroad, 277, 278. 
 
 Inscription for the Entrance to a 
 Wood, 107. 
 
 IRVING, WASHINGTON, 64-77, 54, 
 55, 61, 62-63, 85, 98, 100, 108, 
 111, 141, 188, 189, 192, 201, 204, 
 223, 249, 251, 264, 278, 338. 
 
 Israfel, 113, 124,126. 
 
 JACKSON, HELEN FISKE, 282-284, 
 
 297. 
 
 JAMES, HENRY, 300, 301, 295. 
 JAMES, WILLIAM, 308. 
 JANVIER, THOMAS, 317. 
 JAY, JOHN, 42. 
 JEFFERSON, THOMAS, 40, 41, 42, 
 
 102, 184. 
 
 Jeffrey, Richard (1773-1850), 70. 
 JEWETT, SARAH ORNE, 318, 302. 
 John March, Southerner, 305. 
 Johnson, Samuel, (1709-1784), 40, 
 
 101. 
 
 JOHNSTON, MARY, 320. 
 JOHNSTON,RlCHARDMALCOLM,319, 
 
 303. 
 
 JORDAN, DAVID STARR, 325. 
 JUDD, SYLVESTER, 129. 
 
 Kalevala, The, 198. 
 
 Kant (1724-1804), 152. 
 
 Keats, John (1795-1821), 106, 206. 
 
 KENNEDY, JOHN P., 63, 84, 114, 
 
 118, 127. 
 
 Kentucky Cardinal, A, 305. 
 KEY, FRANCIS, SCOTT, 99. 
 
 KING, CAPTAIN CHARLES, 321. 
 
 KING, GRACE, 320. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles (1819-1875), 129. 
 
 KlNNEY, COATES, 249. 
 
 Kipling. Rudyard (1865 ), 119, 
 
 280, 297. 
 Knickerbocker History, 66, 67, 69, 
 
 54, 75. 
 Knickerbocker Magazine, 99, 194. 
 
 Lady or the Tiger, The, 303. 
 
 Lamb, Charles (1775-1834), 19, 
 30, 229. 
 
 Lamplighter, The, 147. 
 
 LAMPMAN, ARCHIBALD,. 316. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage (1775- 
 1864), 159, 248. 
 
 LANIER, SIDNEY (la neer ), 272- 
 275, 271, 338. 
 
 LARCOM, LUCY, 244. 
 
 Last Leaf, The, 233, 238, 241. 
 
 Last of the Mohicans, 82, 86, 91. 
 
 LATHROP, ROSE HAWTHORNE, 135, 
 173. 
 
 Laus Deo, 210. 
 
 LAZARUS, EMMA, 314. 
 
 LEA, HENRY CHARLES, 322. 307. 
 
 Leather Stocking Tales, 85, 89. 
 
 Leaves of Grass, 255, 258-264. 
 
 LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY, 327 
 
 Liberator, The, 207. 
 
 Life of Columbus, 70. 
 
 Life of Washington, 74, 75. 
 
 Ligeia, 122. 
 
 LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, 185-6, 182, 
 197, 223, 231, 248, 250, 260, 262, 
 264. 
 
 Lines on a Bust of Dante, 243. 
 
 Little Beach Bird, The, 98. 
 
 Little Boy Blue, 285. 
 
 Little Giffin of Tennessee, 271. 
 
 LOCKE, DAVID Ross, 327. 
 
 LODGE, HENRY CABOT, 323. 
 
 LONDON, JACK, 322, 306, 321, 304. 
 
 LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADS- 
 WORTH, 191-204, 28, 54, 117, 
 126, 131, 132, 133, 136, 141, 146, 
 164, 205, 213-214, 216, 217, 222, 
 224, 225, 230, 233, 238, 239, 240 
 245, 247, 260, 263, 271, 289, 294. 
 
 Lost Occasion, The, 183. 
 
360 
 
 INDEX 
 
 LOUNDSBURY, THOMAS R., 324. 
 
 Lovewell s Fight, 43. 
 
 LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 215-230, 
 54, 83, 130, 131, 132, 136, 155, 
 161, 174, 176, 190, 191, 193, 214, 
 232-239, 243, 249-251, 253, 262, 
 264, 267, 278, 289, 292, 294. 
 
 Luck of Roaring Camp, 279. 
 
 Lucretius (B. c. 95-52), 166. 
 
 MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT, 326, 
 293, 309. 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas B., (1800- 
 1859), 117, 189, 227. 
 
 M Fingal, 43. 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831), 
 58. 
 
 MCMASTER, JOHN BACH, 324, 307, 
 
 MADISON, JAMES, 42. 
 
 Magnolia Christi Americana, 27. 
 
 MAHAN, CAPTAIN ALFRED T., 323, 
 307. 
 
 Mandeville, Sir John (14th cen 
 tury), 249. 
 
 Man Without a Country, The, 
 244. 
 
 Man With the Hoe, The, 287. 
 
 Manzoni (1785-1873), 60. 
 
 Marble Faun, The, 136, 139, 145. 
 
 Marco Bozzaris, 97. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius (121-180), 180. 
 
 Margaret, 129. 
 
 Marguerite, 210, 215. 
 
 Marjorie Daw, 290. 
 
 MARKHAM, EDWIN.. 316, 287. 
 
 MARSH, GEO. P., 191. 
 
 "MARVEL, IK." See D. G. MIT 
 CHELL. 
 
 Masque of the Red Death, 122. 
 
 Masque of Judgment, The, 286. 
 
 MATHER, COTTON, 27-29, 37, 55, 
 158, 159, 338. 
 
 MATHER, INCREASE, 27, 28. 
 
 MATHER, RICHARD, 27. 
 
 MATTHEWS, BRANDER, 317. 
 
 MAYO, WILLIAM STARBUCK, 128. 
 
 MELVILLE, HERMAN, 128. 
 
 Memories of President Lincoln, 257, 
 262. 
 
 Mc-cdith, George (1828-1909), 
 COG. 
 
 MIFFLIN, LLOYD, 313. 
 
 MILLER, CINCINNATUS H. ("JoA- 
 
 QUIN") (wa-ken ), 281, 282. 
 Milton, John (1708-1674), 17, 23, 
 
 203. 
 
 MITCHELL, DONALD GRANT, 244. 
 MITCHELL, SILAS WEIR, 317. 
 MITCHELL, SAMUEL LATHAM, 66. 
 Moby Dick, 128. 
 Modern Instance, A, 299. 
 Montaigne (1533-1592), 180. 
 MOODY, WILLIAM VAUGHN, 285-7, 
 
 308, 7. 
 
 MOORE, CLEMENT C., 100. 
 Moore, Thomas (1779-1852), 70, 
 
 96, 202. 
 
 MORE, PAUL E., 327, 309. 
 MORRIS, GEORGE P., 100, 98, 248, 
 
 254. 
 Mosses From an Old Manse, 134 
 
 137, 143. 
 MOTLEY, JOHN LOTHROP, 189, 222, 
 
 238. 
 
 MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER, 314. 
 MS. Found in a Bottle, 114, 119. 
 MUIR, JOHN, 325, 309. 
 MULFORD, ELISHA, 324. 
 MURFREE, MARY N., 320, 304. 
 MURRAY, LINDLEY, 53. 
 My Life is Like the Summer Rose, 
 
 100. 
 
 My Lost Youth, 192, 203. 
 My Study Windows , 223, 227-229. 
 
 "NASBY, PETROLEUM V." See 
 LOCKE. 
 
 Nation, The, 298. 
 
 National Era, 148, 209. 
 
 Nature, 160, 233. 
 
 NEAL, JOHN, 61. 
 
 Nearer Home, 248. 
 
 Negro Melodies, 248. 
 
 NEWCOMB, SIMON, 308. 
 
 New England Nun, A, 301. 
 
 New England Primer, 19, 25, 231. 
 
 Newman, John Henry (1801-1890) 
 
 165. 
 
 New York Evening Post, 105. 
 New York Home Journal, 98. 
 New York Mirror, 98, 124, 254. 
 Nicolay, J. G., 315. 
 
INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 NORRIS, FRANK, 322, 306. 
 North American Review, 93, 103, 
 
 222. 
 NORTOX, CHARLES ELIOT, 242-3, 
 
 222, 224, 247. 
 
 O BRIEX, FITZ-JAMES, 317. 
 
 Captain, My Captain, 258, 262. 
 
 Old Creole Days, 304. 
 
 Old Folks at Home, 248. 
 
 Old Ironsides, 233, 240. 
 
 Old Oaken Bucket, 100. 
 
 Omar Khayyam (d. 1123), 166. 
 
 Omoo, 128. 
 
 On a Certain Condescension in 
 Foreigners, 223, 229. 
 
 ONDERDOXK, JAMES L., 336 
 
 O REILLY, JOHX BOYLE, 313. 
 
 Ossian (about 3d century), 254, 
 258. 
 
 OSSOLI, MARGARET FULLER (os so 
 li), 156, 134, 154, 155, 221, 338. 
 
 OTIS, JAMES, 39, 40. 
 
 Outcasts of Poker Flat, 281. 
 
 Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rock 
 ing, 263. 
 
 Overland Monthly, 279. 
 
 PAGE, THOMAS NELSOX, 319, 304. 
 PAIXE, THOMAS, 41, 209. 
 PALFREY, JOHX G. (pawl fri), 188. 
 Pan in Wall Street, 292. 
 PARKER, GILBERT, 322. 
 PARKER, THEODORE, 151, 153-155. 
 PARKMAX, FRAXCIS, 189-90, 267, 
 
 338. 
 
 PARSOXS, THOMAS W., 242-3, 247. 
 PARTOX, JAMES, 188. 
 Party and Patronage, 251. 
 Pastoral Letter, The, 208, 215. 
 Pater, Walter (1839-1894), 126. 
 Pathfinder, The, 84, 86. 
 PAULDIXG, JAMES K., 62, 54, 63, 
 
 65, 78, 98, 338. 
 PAYXE, JOHX HOWARD, 99, 248, 
 
 338. 
 
 PECK, SAMUEL MIXTURX, 314. 
 PERCIVAL, JAMES G., 99. 
 Petrarch (1304-1374), 76, 230. 
 PHELPS, ELIZABETH STUART, see 
 
 WARD. 
 
 PHILLIPS, WEXDELL, 186-7, 163, 
 
 219, 251. 
 PIATT, JOHN JAMES, 315, 287, 
 
 298. 
 
 PIATT, SARAH M. B., 316, 287. 
 Pierce s Almanack, 18. 
 PIERPOXT, JOHX, 94. 
 Pilot The, 87, 81. 
 PIXKXEY, EDWARD C., 100. 
 Pioneers, The, 78, 81, 86, 87. 
 Plain Language from Truthful 
 
 James, 279. 
 Plato (B. c. 429-347), 54, 89, 152, 
 
 169, 180. 
 
 Plutarch (50-120?), 101. 
 POE, EDGAR ALLAX, 112-127, 47, 
 
 54, 60, 64, 98, 111, 130, 132, 141, 
 
 142, 143, 191, 201, 202, 203, 221, 
 
 225, 231, 234, 245, 249, 254, 263, 
 
 268, 270, 272, 274, 297. 
 Poet at the Breakfast Table, 231, 
 
 236. 
 
 Poets of America, 292, 6. 
 Poor Richard s Almanac, 33. 
 Poor Voter on Election Day, 210. 
 Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), 17, 
 
 231. 
 
 PORTER, SIDXEY, 320. 
 Prairie, The, 86, 87. 
 Precaution, 80. 
 PRESCOTT, WILLIAM HICKLIXG, 
 
 189, 71, 74. 127, 338. 
 Present Crisis, The, 218. 
 PRIXCE, THOMAS, 22. 
 Prince of Parthia, 24. 
 Professor at the Breakfast Table, 
 
 236. 
 
 Prophecy, A, 46. 
 Prueandl, 251. 
 Psalm of Life, 194, 195. 
 Purloined Letter, The, 119. 
 
 Questions of Life, 212. 
 
 Rabelais (1483-1553), 278. 
 Radcliffe, Ann (1764-1823), 58. 
 Rain Upon the Roof, The, 249. 
 Raleigh, Walter (of University of 
 
 Glasgow), 230. 
 Ramona, 284. 
 Raven. The. 115. 118. 124. 125. 
 
362 
 
 INDEX 
 
 READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN, 245, 
 
 248. 
 
 REALF, RicHARD(Ralph), 315, 287. 
 Reply to Hayne, 183. 
 REPPLIER, AGNES, 327. 
 Reveries of a Bachelor, 244. 
 RHODES, JAMES FORD, 323, 307. 
 RICHARDSON, CHARLES F., 324, 6, 
 
 336. 
 
 RIDPATH, JOHN CLARK, 323. 
 RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB, 285, 7. 
 RIPLEY, GEORGE, 154-5, 134, 164, 
 
 249. 
 
 Rise of Silas Lapham, 299. 
 RIVES, AMELIE (reevz), see 
 
 TROUBETSKOY. 
 ROBERTS, CHARLES G. D., 316, 
 
 308. 
 
 Rollo Books, 147. 
 ROOSEVELT, THEODORE, 324. 
 Rossetti, William M. (1829 ), 256. 
 ROWSON, SUSANNA, 56, 61. 
 ROYCE, JOSIAH, 308. 
 Rudder Grange, 302. 
 Ruskin, John (1819-1900), 230. 
 RUSSELL, IRWIN, 314. 
 RYAN, ABRAM J., 314. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), 37. 
 
 Salmagundi Papers, 65, 62 63. 
 
 SANTAYANA, GEORGE, 313. 
 
 Saturday Visiter, 113. 
 
 SAXE, JOHN G., 243. 
 
 Scarlet Letter, The, 135, 138, 143, 
 
 145. 
 
 Schiller (1759-1805), 202. 
 SCHOULER, JAMES (skoo ler), 323, 
 
 307. 
 
 SCOLLARD, CLINTON, 313. 
 Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832), 47, 
 60-71 passim, 86-96 passim, 108, 
 203, 205, 253, 277, 296. 
 Scribner s Monthly, 250. 
 SEDGWICK, CATHERINE M., 61, 78. 
 Seton, Ernest E. Thompson, 326, 
 
 309. 
 
 Seventh of March Speech, 183, 210. 
 SEWALL, SAMUEL, 22. 
 Shakespeare, William (1564-1616), 
 21, 24, 54, 101, 204, 206, 2*23, 
 253, 254. 
 
 SHALER, NATHANIEL S., 308. 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe(1793-1822) 
 
 56, 58, 106, 221. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1586), 17, 
 
 195. 
 
 SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND, 282, 283. 
 SIMMS, WILLIAM GILMORE, 127, 
 
 84, 270, 271, 303. 
 Simple Cobbler of Agawam, 26. 
 Sketch Book, The, 69, 54 70 71 
 
 74, 75, 77, 192. 
 S kipper Ireson s Ride, 210. 
 SMITH, F. HOPKINSON, 319. 
 SMITH, GOLDWIN, 322, 307. 
 SMITH, CAPTAIN JOHN, 19-21, 111. 
 SMITH, SAMUEL F., 243, 232, 238 
 Smoke, 179. 
 Smollett, Tobias George (1721- 
 
 1771), 87. 
 Snow-Bound, 205, 212, 214 241 
 
 250. 
 
 Snow Image, The, 132, 135, 142. 
 Song of the Camp, 247. 
 Songs of the Sierras, 281. 
 Southern Literary Messenger, 114. 
 Southey, Robert (1774-1843), 99, 
 
 102. 
 
 Spanish Student, The, 197. 
 SPARKS, JARED, 188. 
 Specimen Days, 257. 
 Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599), 17 
 
 105, 117, 141, 217. 
 SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT, 
 
 318. 
 
 Spy, The, 84, 54, 81, 83. 
 STANTON, FRANK L., 315. 
 Star-Spangled Banner, 99. 
 STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE, 
 291, 292, 6, 126, 167, 229, 241, 
 248, 252, 272, 289, 298, 336, 337. 
 Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768), 68. 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850- 
 
 1894), 93, 121, 173, 309. 
 STOCKTON, FRANK R., 302, 303. 
 STODDARD, CHARLES W., 315. 
 STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY, 
 
 247-8, 99, 109, 244, 291. 
 STORY, WILLIAM W., 242. 
 Story of a Bad Boy, 290. 
 STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER, 147- 
 148, 209, 250, 284, 295, 302.~ 
 
INDEX 
 
 363 
 
 STRACHEY, WILLIAM, 21. 
 STUART, RUTH MCENERY, 320. 
 SUMNER, CHARLES, 186-7, 193, 208. 
 Swallow Barn, 63. 
 Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745), 68, 
 
 278. 
 Swinburne, Algernon C. (1837- 
 
 -1909), 227, 230, 256, 274, 282. 
 Symonds, John Addington (1840- 
 
 1893), 256. 
 Symphony, The, 274. 
 
 TABB, JOHN B., 314. 
 
 Tales of a Traveller, 70. 
 Tales of a Wayside Inn, 200. 
 Tales of the Grotesque and Ara 
 besque, 115. 
 
 TARKINGTON, BOOTH, 321. 
 TAYLOR, BAYARD, 245-247, 6, 99. 
 
 163, 242, 244, 249, 267, 273, 277, 
 
 289, 291, 295. 
 
 TAYLOR, BENJAMIN F., 313. 
 TENNEY, TABITHA, 56, 61. 
 Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892) 105, 
 
 106, 117, 201, 202, 204, 226, 231, 
 
 263, 274. 
 
 Tenth Muse, The, 23, 231. 
 Tent on the Beach, 213. 
 TERHUNE, MARY VIRGINIA, 303. 
 Thackeray, William M. (1811- 
 
 1863), 63, 89, 90, 92, 296. 
 Thanatopsis, 102, 54, 94, 104, 107, 
 
 110,282. 
 
 "THANET, OCTAVE," see FRENCH. 
 THAXTER, CELIA, 314. 
 THOMAS, EDITH M., 314. 
 THOMPSON, DANIEL PIERCE, 84. 
 THOMPSON, MAURICE, 325. 
 THOREAU, HENRY DAVID (tho ro), 
 
 169-180, 131, 134, 154-156, 164, 
 
 215, 230, 242, 257, 292, 309. 
 Threnody, 167, 226. 
 THWING, CHARLES FRANKLIN, 
 
 308. 
 
 TICKXOR, FRANCIS O., 271. 
 TICKNOR, GEORGE, 190-191, 217. 
 Timothy Titcomb Letters, 249. 
 TIMROD, HENRY, 270-272,273,274. 
 To a Honeybee, 48. 
 To a Waterfowl, 104, 107. 
 Tolstoi (1828-1911), 299. 
 
 TOURGEE, ALBION W. (toor zhay ), 
 
 319. 
 TROUBETSKOY, PRINCESS AMELIE, 
 
 320. 
 
 TRUMBULL, JOHN, 43, 44. 
 Turgenieff (1818-1883), 299. 
 "TWAIN, MARK," see CLEMENS. 
 Twice- Told Tales, 133, 134, 137, 
 
 233. 
 Two Years Before the Mast, 129, 
 
 157, 190. 
 TYLER, MOSES COIT, 324, 6, 40, 
 
 307. 
 
 TYLER, ROYALL, 25. 
 Typee, 128. 
 
 Ulalume, 115, 126. 
 Uncle Remus, 304. 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin, 147, 284. 
 
 VAN DYKE, HENRY, 326, 309. 
 
 Venus of Milo, The, 282. 
 
 Vergil (B. c. 70-19), 45, 93, 156, 
 
 247. 
 
 Verne (1828-1905), 119. 
 VERY, JONES, 156, 154. 
 Victorian Poets, 292. 
 Views Afoot, 246. 
 Village Blacksmith, The, 196. 
 Vision of Sir Launfal, The, 220. 
 
 221, 225, 176, 263. 
 Voiceless, The, 240. 
 Voices of the Night, 194, 233. 
 Voltaire (1694-1778), 37, 188. 
 Volunteer Boys, The, 49. 
 VON HOLST, HERMAN E., 323, 307. 
 
 Waiting by the Gate, 106. 
 Walden, 172, 174-176, 178. 
 WALKER, FRANCIS A., 325, 307. 
 WALLACE, LEWIS, 320. 
 Walpole Horace (1717-1797), 58. 
 Walton, Izaak (1593-1683), 180. 
 "WARD, ARTEMUS," see BROWNE. 
 WARD, ELIZABETH STUART 
 
 PHELPS, 318, 302. 
 WARD, NATHANIEL, 261. 
 WARE, WILLIAM, 129. 
 WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY, 251, 
 
 249, 252, 290, 297. 
 WASHINGTON, GEORGE, 40, 32, 188. 
 
364 
 
 INDEX 
 
 WEBSTER, DANIEL, 182-184, 40, 
 84, 131, 185, 210, 254, 268, 271. 
 WEBSTER, NOAH, 53, 56. 
 Week on the Coivsord and Merri- 
 
 mac Rivers, 172, 177. 
 WENDELL, BARRETT, 324, 6, 7, 220, 
 
 307, 336. 
 
 WHARTON, EDITH, 319, 295. 
 WHIPPLE, EDWIN P., 191. 
 WHITE, ANDREW DICKSON, 323. 
 White, Gilbert (1720-1793), 180. 
 White, Henry Kirke (1785-1806), 
 
 102. 
 
 WHITE, RICHARD GRANT, 191. 
 WHITE, STEWART E., 326, 309. 
 WHITE, WM. ALLEN, 321. 
 Whitefield, George(1714-1770),30. 
 WHITMAN, WALT, 252-264, 109, 
 
 242, 267, 269, 276, 277, 293, 338. 
 WHITNEY, MRS. A. D. T., 318. 
 WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF, 205- 
 
 214, 22, 54, 79, 131, 136, 183, 
 
 216, 219, 224, 225, 230, 234, 238, 
 
 241, 242, 250, 253, 257, 260, 338. 
 Wieland, 57, 59. 
 WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS, 319. 
 
 WlGGLESWORTH, MlCHAEL, 23. 
 
 WILCOX, ELLA WHEELER, 316. 
 
 WILDE, RICHARD HENRY. 100 
 
 270. 
 
 Wild Honeysuckle, The, 47, 94. 
 WILKINS, MARY E., 301, 302. 
 WILLIAMS, ROGER, 25, 26. 
 William Wilson, 121, 112. 
 WILLIS, NATHANIEL P., 98, 124 
 
 179, 221, 246, 249, 289. 
 
 WlLLSON, FORCEYTHE, 271. 
 
 WILSON, WOODROW, 324, 307. 
 WINSOR, JUSTIN, 322, 307. 
 WINTER. WILLIAM, 326. 
 WINTHROP, THEODORE, 316, 84. 
 
 WOODBERRY, GEORGE E., 313, 113, 
 
 293, 309, 336. 
 Woodnotes, 166. 
 
 WOODWORTH, SAMUEL, 100, 248. 
 WOOLMAN, JOHN, 30. 
 WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE, 
 
 321, 306. 
 Wordsworth, William (1770* 
 
 1850), 101, 102, 108, 159, 261. 
 Wreck of the Hesperus, 196. 
 
 Yankee Doodle, 42. 
 Yemassee, The, 128. 
 Youth s Companion, 98. 
 
 Zenobia, 129. 
 
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