This book is not properly titled. It should not have been called “The
Bookman Anthology of Essays.” This is not a collection of essays;
but of sketches, of discussions, of literary jottings, miscellaneous
pieces that have been published in +The Bookman+ during the past two
years. My excuse for collecting them is that for the most part they
are worth while in themselves, and, as a whole, seem to me to show the
present-day literary attitude in America.
For a true anthology of essays one would be obliged to secure the work
of English writers such as Chesterton, Lucas and Belloc, American
writers such as Agnes Repplier, Samuel Crothers and Gamaliel Bradford.
Perhaps some day it will be my good fortune to prepare such a volume;
but for the present, I have attempted to give you an informal survey
of the way those who write our books and our magazines are thinking
to-day. These pieces of prose are not from the pens of members of any
single school or group of writers. Personally, I am one of those who
believe that such schools or groups do not exist in the United States.
At any rate, here are varying shades of opinion, varying methods of
writing, varying moods. A Negro discusses the position of his race
among American writers; one dramatic critic recounts anecdotes of O.
Henry, another, memories of Sarah Bernhardt; Heywood Broun describes
the reading of a great prizefighter; Hugh Walpole chides the volatile
Mr. Mencken, and Mr. Mencken replies. Charles Henry Meltzer was a
dramatic critic in New York many years ago, Alexander Woollcott now
serves in that capacity. Both of them are represented here. Arthur
Bostwick is a famous librarian, William McFee, a ship’s engineer who
writes novels. William Lyon Phelps is a critic of enthusiasm and of
experience. Burton Rascoe is a young man with a biting tongue and a
fresh standard. Here they speak for themselves. My attempt has been, as
you see, to present contrasts, and to present them without prejudice.
The only Englishmen included here are William McFee and Hugh Walpole,
both of whom have such definite connections with America that they seem
a part of our literary scene. McFee has made New York his home port
for many years and is about to become a naturalized American. Walpole
went to school in New York when he was a boy, has lectured here with
success, and, to my mind, understands and seems to like the United
States, better than any other of the procession of visiting English
novelists.
To understand current literary tendencies in America would be a
Herculean task. To sympathize with such tendencies after they were
understood would, I fancy, require the ability of a chameleon. To study
them, however, is fascinating. As a public we are yet so young and
so impressionable that we veer to the right and to the left with the
slightest inflation of our sails; and following in the footsteps of
Mr. Barnum, our mentors are peculiarly adept at furnishing the wind of
publicity. This keeps our literary study clubs, our college curricula
and our literary magazines and newspaper supplements in such a state
of flux that analysis of a year’s opinions issuing from the same
fountain-head would be sure to uncover mirth-provoking inconstancy.
In spite of all this, we are gradually developing a national taste in
reading and a national interest in things cultural. I want you to note
the curious and constant use by my contributors of the name of Harold
Bell Wright as a symbol of American taste.
I hope that in the following pages you will find a key which is not
too heavy, which will unlock one door, at least, of the fortress of
American opinion. As in “The Bookman Anthology of Verse” I hoped that
you would read casually at first, here, too, I should be pleased if
you would skim the volume rapidly, gaining from it, if my attempt has
been successful, an informal, gay and yet real panorama of the world
of letters in America to-day. When you return to your individual
favorites, when you look, perhaps, further than this volume for more
of their work, I hope you will find that writing in America, while it
is formative, often crude, and occasionally ill-mannered, is gaining
a vitality of expression and viewpoint which the literature of more
polished countries is losing, or has lost.