Literature and Art in the Nineteenth Century.
[=The Literary Giants of Former Times=]
For ages the world has swarmed with writers. Almost since man first
began to think he has been actively engaged in literary labor; long,
indeed, before he had learned the art of writing, and when the work of
his mind could be preserved only in his memory and that of his fellows.
And the progress of man down the ages is starred with names that gleam
like suns in the firmament of thought, those of such great magicians of
the intellect as Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton,
and a host besides. In this field of human effort therefore, the
nineteenth century has nothing peculiar to show. Its finest labors are
surpassed by those of others who lived centuries or ages ago. Here,
almost alone in the circle of human labors, the century we deal with
stands on the level of many of its predecessors and below that of
others. Its single claim to distinction is an extraordinary activity in
literary production, and especially in the field of novelistic fiction,
which it may in great measure claim as its own. The novel before the
nineteenth century was a crude pioneer; within the century it has grown
into a product of the most advanced culture.
[=The Standing of the Fine Arts in the Past and the
Present=]
What has been said about literature may be repeated about art. That,
too, seemingly reached its culmination in the past, and the artists of
to-day can merely seek to emulate, they cannot hope to surpass, those
of former centuries. Sculpture, for instance, reached its highest stage
of perfection in Greece, and painting in mediæval Europe; and strive
as our artists may, they seem incapable of producing works of superior
beauty and charm to those of the long ago. The architecture of to-day
is largely a rescript of that of the past, the original ideas are few,
nobler and more beautiful conceptions are wanting. Of the remaining
fine arts, music and poetry--if we may class the latter in this
category--the work of former centuries remains unsurpassed, and the
best that can be done with the nineteenth century authors and artists
is to mention their works and speak of their styles: it is impossible
to place them on a pedestal overlooking that of their predecessors.
[=Early American Writers=]
Yet while what has been said is true as a whole, the literature of at
least one country is almost wholly a product of the nineteenth century.
This is the United States, which had writers, but little which fairly
deserves the name of literature, prior to 1800. Aside from the famous
papers of the _Federalist_, the work of the great statesmen of the
Constitutional Convention, the writings of one or two authors of the
Revolutionary period, and some of those of Benjamin Franklin, this
country possessed hardly any literature, truly so-called, before the
days of Washington Irving, whose polished "Sketch Book" essays, popular
histories of Columbus and Mahomet, and humorous "History of New York,"
first taught the English critics that Americans could write as well as
fight and work, and that a new world of thought was likely to arise
beyond the waters. Irving was not alone. Contemporary with him were a
number of graceful poets, chief among them being William Cullen Bryant,
whose "Thanatopsis," still an American classic, is perhaps unequalled
in depth of reflection and grandeur of thought by the work of any other
author of nineteen years of age.
[=The Poets of the United States=]
Bryant, however, did not rise above this early effort, but rather
declined, and he has been far surpassed in poetic fervor and richness
of diction and conception by a number of his successors, notably
Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell, men worthy to occupy a place beside
the famous English poets of the century. Of these, Longfellow has
gained the widest reputation, not, however, through force of superior
genius, but from the sweetness, grace and ease of his diction and
the popular character of his themes and handling, which have fitted
his verse to touch the heart of the people in all lands. Lowell was
not only a poet of rare depth of thought, but stands as the first of
American satirists, his "Biglow Papers" being among the keenest and
most humorous works of satire of the century, while they rank with the
most purely national of American works. Of other American poets, of
whom many of fine powers might be named, we shall mention only Edgar
Allan Poe, the most original in style and musical in tone of all our
writers of verse; the witty and genial Oliver Wendell Holmes; and Ralph
Waldo Emerson, whose verse, while lacking polish and smoothness, is
rich in poetic thought.
It was rather in his philosophy than in his poetry that the rich
imagination and fine powers of reflection of Emerson made themselves
manifest, and his essays stand prominent among the finest thought
products of the century. They are expressed in telling apothems, of
which many are little poems in themselves, while his works are instinct
with the finest spirit of altruism and optimism, taking the most
hopeful and cheerful views of the future of man and his institutions.
[=American Novelists=]
Among popular American novelists James Fenimore Cooper stands as the
pioneer, his tales of ocean and Indian life, while of no superior
merit as literature, holding a wide audience by their spirit of
adventure and careful elaboration. Most original of our writers is
Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose "Scarlet Letter," "Marble Faun," and other
novels stand in a field of their own among the productions of the
century, and take rank with the best of European productions. For the
sensational and lurid tale Poe stands first, and his genius in this
direction still brings him readers, despite the impossible incidents
of many of his plots. Of other novelists we may name Harriet Beecher
Stowe, with her famous "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" Howells, our leading
naturalistic novelist; Edward Everett Hale, made famous by his "Man
Without a Country;" Edward Eggleston, with the flavor of frontier life
in his "Hoosier Schoolmaster," Lew Wallace, who touched a deep vein of
popular approval in his "Ben Hur;" Henry James, too scholarly perhaps
to be highly popular, but of the finest literary skill; Helen Hunt
Jackson, whose "Ramona" depicts in thrilling idealism the wrongs of the
Indians; and--but we must stop here, for as we approach the present day
novelists of merit so throng the field of view that we cannot venture
even to name them.
[=Historians of the United States=]
Not the least notable field of American literature lies in the domain
of history, in which the authors of our country hold their own with the
best of those abroad. Irving's graceful, though not critical, works
of history we have mentioned. Greatest in this field stands Bancroft,
whose history of our country is a classic of world-wide fame. Close
beside him may be placed Prescott, with his glowing pictures of Spanish
and Spanish-American life; Motley, the skilled and popular historian
of the Netherlands; Parkman, who brilliantly pictures for us the
romance of French enterprise in America; McMaster, who may fairly pose
as the historian of the American people; and Parton, whose historical
biographies are among the most readable of American books of this
character.
[=American Orators=]
Our greatest orators, men whose speeches have become literature, hold
a place in the history of our country. The famous Webster and Clay
and Calhoun we have already described. Close after those come Sumner,
Seward and others who stood high in the stirring period of the Civil
War and of reconstruction. Aside from public speakers devoted to
statesmanship are many others of fame, including the eloquent Edward
Everett; the daring anti-slavery orator, Wendell Phillips; the earnest
platform apostle of temperance, John B. Gough; the greatest of our
pulpit orators, Henry Ward Beecher; the advocate of the "New South",
Henry W. Grady; the most amusing of our recent orators, Chauncey M.
Depew, and others of fine powers whom the need of brevity forbids
our naming. The mention of Depew's vein of humor calls to mind this
domain of literature, of which our country has had many popular
representatives, chief among whom stands the rollicking and favorite
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain).
It has not been proposed here to present more than a passing review of
the authors of the United States, or to attempt to name all those of
leading merit. We might have named in political economy Henry C. Carey;
in American history, John Fiske; in European church history, Henry C.
Lea; and, in addition, eminent authors in legal lore, in science, in
philosophy, in theology, and in other fields, all aiding to show the
vast advance our people have made in this important direction since
their feeble beginnings in the early days of the century.
[=The Poets of Great Britain=]
Unlike the United States, Great Britain came to the nineteenth century
with a great galaxy of famous writers, leading back through many
centuries. The eighteenth century is rich in great names, including
among its poets Pope, Burns, Cowper, Gray and Thompson; among its
essayists, Addison, Swift and Johnson; among its novelists, Richardson,
Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and Goldsmith; among its historians Gibbon,
Hume and Robertson. It crossed the portals of the nineteenth century
with a galaxy of poets more brilliant than has appeared in any equal
period of English literature, including the world-famous Byron,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Moore, Keats, Scott and Campbell, a
group of writers which, taken as a whole, it would be difficult to
match in any age. These sweet singers have been followed by others who
have kept up the standard of British poetry, including Tennyson, one of
the rarest of artists in words, the two Brownings, Matthew and Edwin
Arnold, William Morris, Swinburne, the Rossettis, and various others
of lesser note, among whom we must include Alfred Austin, the latest
though not the most admired poet-laureate. These are but the elder
flight of singing birds of the century, many younger ones being on the
wing, among whom at present Rudyard Kipling leads the way.
[=British Novelists and Historians=]
In the second field of imaginative literature, that of the novel, the
British isles are abundantly represented, and by some of the most
famous names anywhere existing in this domain of intellectual activity.
The names alone of these writers form a catalogue rarely equalled in
the world's literature. It will suffice to name Scott, Thackeray,
Dickens, Bulwer, Charlotte Bronte and Marion Evans as the most
prominent among a multitude of able writers, containing many names
high in merit and rich in variety of style. At the end of the century
the field was crowded with writers of conspicuous skill.
[=Other British Writers=]
History has reached a high level in the hands of some of the ablest
writers in this field known in any age, including Macaulay, Freeman,
Froude, Grote, Thirwall, Hallam, Merivale, Buckle, Leckey, Carlyle
and Green. Two of these, Carlyle and Macaulay, have won as high a
place in the field of criticism and biography as in that of history.
In art criticism Ruskin occupies a unique position, while theological
subjects and religious thought are represented by such able exponents
as Cardinal Newman, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, Dean Farrar, Martineau,
Whately, Drummond, Spurgeon and many others. The great reviewers
include Jeffrey, Lydrely, Smith, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Foster; the wits
Sheridan, Hook, Jerrold, Smith and Hood; the philosophers Stewart,
Bentham, Brown, Hamilton, Spencer and Stuart Mill; and the scientists
Owen, Faraday, Murchison, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall and various others.
[=French Novelists and Historians=]
The above named are merely some of the best known English writers
of the century. If it were attempted to name all those of merit the
list would be wearisomely long. The same may be said of the literary
men of France, of whom many of world-wide fame flourished during the
nineteenth century. At the beginning of the new age appeared the
versatile Madame de Staël, and Chateaubriand with his famous "Genius
of Christianity." These ushered in a host of able writers, of whom the
leading lyric poets were Victor Hugo, Béranger, Lamartine and Alfred
de Musset, and the most prominent novelists Hugo, Dumas, Sue, Balzac,
Dudevant (George Sand), succeeded in later years by the younger Dumas,
Feuillet, Murger, Zola, About and a host besides. Dramatic writers have
been little less numerous, and essayists and literary critics of merit
might be named by the dozen, among them the well-known names of Renan,
St. Beuve, Gautier, Taine, Girardin and Rémusat.
Perhaps the most successful branch of recent French literature is
history, around which a brilliant galaxy of great names has gathered.
Prominent among these are Guizot, Thierry and Thiers, to whom may be
added, as able writers of the history of their country, Sismondi,
Michelet, Martin, Barante and Mignet. Other workers in this field are
Lamartine and Villemain, while in philosophy, sociology and the various
branches of science the writers have been numerous, and many of them of
high ability.
[=German Poets and Novelists=]
The writers of Germany have been as prolific as those of England and
France, though the greatest names of that country, such giants of
thought as Goethe, Schiller, and Kant, belong to the closing period
of the eighteenth century, and have found no equals in the nineteenth.
Kant was succeeded by three other great metaphysical philosophers,
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, the four forming a group nowhere matched
for depth of thought in any similar period of time. In poetry, Goethe
and Schiller were succeeded by the song writers Körner, Arndt, Rückert,
and Uhland, while of the poets of later date Heine undoubtedly ranks
first. Fiction was enormously developed during the century, Gustav
Freytag being one of the most eminent novelists, while others of note
were Hackländer, Spielhagen, Heyse, Ebers, Auerbach, and of women
writers Ida von Hahn-Hahn, Fanny Lewald, Schopenhauer, and Marlitt.
Famous authors who have dealt with the mysterious agencies of nature
are De la Motte Fouque, the author of the charming "Undine," Chamisso,
with his fantastic "Peter Schlenühl," and Hoffmann, whose tales of
wonder and fantasy are of the first merit. Best known among fantastic
and imaginative writers is Jean Paul Richter, whose satirical and
humorous novels had a striking effect upon German thought at the
beginning of the century. Of German humorists, Fritz Reuter occupies
perhaps the highest rank.
[=German Scientists and Historians=]
In the field of science and exploration the literature of Germany is
rich. Scientific travel was given a great impetus by the famous works
of Alexander von Humboldt,--"Cosmos," "Views of Nature," etc.,--and his
example has been abundantly followed. Among his more famous successors
are Martins, the learned traveler in Brazil; Tschudi, in Peru;
Lepsius and Brugsch, in Egypt; Gützlaff, in China; Barth, Vogel, and
Schweinfurth, in Africa; and Leichhardt, in Australia.
In scientific literature of high value Germany is strong, its writers
including Bessel, Encke, Mädler, and Struve, in astronomy; Müller,
Ehrenberg, Liebig, Virchow, Vogel, Helmholtz, Haeckel, Kirchhoff,
von Baer, and many others in natural science. The historians are of
unsurpassed critical excellence, and embrace Von Ranke, Curtius,
Mommsen, von Müller, Heeren, Niebuhr, Neander, Menzel, and many more.
In philology and critical study may be named Wolf, Hermann, the
brothers Grimm, Bopp, Benecke, and Haupt. Critical essayists include
the two Schlegels, von Hardenberg (Novalis), Tieck, Schelling, and
Wilhelm von Humboldt.
[=The Literature of Russia=]
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the prominent German authors
of the nineteenth century, and we must deal still more briefly with
the other nations of Europe. Russia may fairly be ranked with the
United States, as being, in a literary sense, largely confined to the
nineteenth century. It had some writers of merit of earlier date,
largely poets and fabulists, but the first prose writer of excellence
of style was Nicholas Karamzin, whose famous "History of the Russian
Empire" began to appear in 1815. Poetry also became more meritorious in
this period, Alexander Pushkin, the greatest of Russian poets, giving
to the world some charming narratives in verse. Ivan Kriloff won fame
as a writer of fables, while other poets of merit appeared, among them
Koltsov, the writer of Russian national songs.
In the field of fiction the first of special merit was Nicholai Gogol,
one of the most powerful of Russian novelists; but the first to gain
a European fame was Ivan Turgeneff. Greatest among his successors is
Count Leo Tolstoi, who entered this field with "War and Peace," the
record of his experience in the Crimean war. His radical studies of the
problems of social life have since led to a number of works of striking
character, which have won him a world-wide fame. In romantic fiction
Russian writers have gained much celebrity, and they include able
authors in history, science and other fields.
[=The Authors of Sweden=]
The three Scandinavian nations, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, have been
active in literary production, and possess many authors of national
fame, and several who are read and admired throughout the world. Of
high standing among the poets of Sweden is the popular poet Runeberg,
born in Finland in 1804, who possessed a poetic genius of the highest
quality. But the most celebrated poet of Sweden is Esaias Tegnér,
whose "Frithiof's Saga" has won him a world-wide fame, it having been
translated into the principal modern languages, though with great loss
of the beauty of the original. Almquist, a man of fine genius and wide
knowledge, was a poet and novelist of the romantic school, his novels
including "Book of the Rose," "The Palace," etc. Stagnelius, another
poet of eminence, obtained fame by his epic of "Wladimir the Great."
The novelists include several well-known women writers, the productions
of Fredrika Bremer and Emilie Carlén having gained popularity in
English translations. Fredrika Runeberg, wife of the poet, was also
a popular novelist, while favorite male writers of historical novels
include Mellin, Sparre, Topelius, and Rydberg, the last also a popular
poet. Wetterbergh (Uncle Adam) gained reputation by his humorous tales
of Swedish home life.
[=Literature of Sweden and Norway=]
Most famous of the poets of Norway is Wergeland, the Schiller of his
country, his works including tragedies, poems and satires. Various
later writers followed in his line, including Moe, Jensen, Kjerulf
and Thomsen. Chief among Norwegian novelists is Björnson, the author
of a series of charming studies of the peasant life of his country,
all which are popular in English speaking countries. Others who have
wrought in the same field are Thoresen and Lie. But most famous of the
recent writers of Norway is the dramatist Ibsen, a thorough playwright
on historical and romantic themes, and on social problems. It is the
striking and radical character of his productions in the last named
field, including "A Doll's House" and various others, to which he owes
his widespread fame, and the severe criticism with which his works have
been assailed.
The Danish literature of the nineteenth century opened with Jens
Baggesen, whose lyrics, mock-heroic poems, and "Comic Tales" are much
admired. The great poet of Denmark, however, is Oehlenschläger, who
produced tragedies of the highest merit, while his splendid epic poem,
"The Gods of the North," is one of the noblest modern works of this
character. Of the many other Danish writers of the century we shall
name only the famous Hans Christian Andersen, whose folk-tales are
household words throughout the world.
[=Writers of Italy=]
The literary fame of Spain rests with its authors of the past, there
being few of notable merit of recent date. Much the same must be said
in regard to Italy, the latest of its great poets and dramatists,
Alfieri, dying in 1803. One of its most famous nineteenth century
writers was Ugo Foscolo, whose political romance, "Letters of Jacopo
Ortis," published about 1800, became immensely popular. His finest work
is considered to be "The Monuments," an admirable lyric poem. Count
Leopardi also attained to high eminence as a poet, and Manzoni as a
novelist and dramatist, his "Betrothed Lovers" ("I Promessi Sposi"),
having a wide reputation as a vivid picture of Italian society of the
seventeenth century. We shall speak of only one other, Silvio Pellico,
whose work, "My Prisons," descriptive of his own sufferings in Austrian
prisons, is a classic of its kind and has been widely translated.
[=Other Celebrated Authors=]
This rapid review by no means exhausts the meritorious nineteenth
century authors of Europe, whose smaller countries possess their
writers of fame. Hungary, for instance, presents to us the prolific
novelist Jokai, whose works are read in all civilized lands. Poland,
no longer a country, merely a people, has its famous novelists, chief
among them being H. Sienkiewicz, author of the popular "Quo Vadis." The
same may be said of the Netherlands and of Switzerland, to the latter
of which the United States was indebted for one of its most eloquent
scientific writers, the celebrated Louis Agassiz. Of course, the
literature of merit in the nineteenth century has not been confined to
Europe and the United States. Canada, for instance, has produced able
writers, and the same may be said of the British colonies of Australia
and South Africa, while the nations of Spanish-America have also
produced noted authors.
[=Merit of the Literature of the Past=]
[=Scientific and Historical Literature=]
We have said in the beginning of this chapter that literature has made
no recent advance, writers of conspicuous merit reaching far back
into the past. The "Iliad" of Homer, for example, dates back some
three thousand years, and Dante belongs to an early era of mediæval
Europe. Yet this assertion is true only in a general sense, that of the
comparative merit of authors in style and depth of thought, without
regard to the character of their works. In a more special sense,
that of the distinctive varieties of literature, we may credit the
nineteenth century with several marked steps of progress. The most
meritorious works of the past ages were in the fields of poetry, drama,
philosophy, oratory, and other branches of imaginative and metaphysical
thought. The practice of accurate observation and the literature
arising from it are very largely of nineteenth century development.
The literature of travel, for instance, is confined in great measure
to the past century, and the same may be said of that of science,
the comparatively few scientific treatises of the past having been
replaced by a vast multitude of scientific works. These are in great
measure confined to records of scientific observation and discovery.
Theoretical science, while very active in the past century, has yielded
no works of higher merit than those of such older writers as Aristotle,
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and others of the older worthies.
But the gathering of facts has been enormous, and great libraries of
works of science to-day replace the scanty volumes of a century ago.
A second field of nineteenth century advance is in the domain of
history. The history of the past is largely the annals of kings and
the story of wars. Thucydides, the philosophical historian of Greece,
had few successors before the century in question, within which
written history has greatly broadened its scope, reaching to heights
and descending to depths unattempted before. Histories of the people
have for the first time been written, and the outreach of historical
research has been made to cover institutions, manners and customs,
morals and superstitions, and a thousand things neglected by older
authors. History, in short, has at once become philosophical and
scientific, efforts being made in the latter direction to sweep into
its net everything relating to man, and in the former to discover the
forces underlying the downward flow through time of the human race, and
to trace the influences which have given rise to the political, social
and other institutions of mankind.
[=The Novel and Its Development=]
A still more special field of nineteenth century literary development
is that of the novel. Imaginative thought has existed for long
ages, and fictitious tales are as old as civilization, but in the
ancient world these were couched in the form of poetic and dramatic
literature, of fable, fairy tale, and the like. The first steps of
approach towards the modern novel began in late Greek times, and the
development of the tale continued through the Middle Ages, though it
failed to reach the level of what may be distinctively called the novel
until the middle of the eighteenth century. The novel, specially so
called, is the character tale, the development of human personality
under the guise of fiction. This was scarcely attempted in the prose
works of the past, character drawing being then confined to the drama.
Abundant works of romance and adventure were written, but it was left
to Richardson, Fielding, and the contemporary French authors to produce
character novels, works of fiction peopled by individual men and women,
instead of by speaking puppets, shows of man in the abstract, as in
earlier years.
The novel attained some promising development in the latter part of
the eighteenth century, but was still in a crude state at the opening
of the nineteenth, when it was taken up by the powerful hand of
Scott, whose remarkable works first fairly opened this new domain of
intellectual enjoyment to mankind. Since his time the literature of
the novel has grown stupendous in quantity and remarkable in quality,
reaching from the most worthless and degraded forms of literary
production to the highest regions of human thought. The novel, as now
developed, covers almost the entire domain of intellectual production,
embracing works of adventure, romance, literal and ideal pictures of
life, humor, philosophy, religion, science,--forming indeed a great
drag-net that sweeps up everything that comes in its way.
[=The Text-Book and Progress in Education=]
There is another field of literary production, more humble but not less
useful than those named, which has had an immense development in the
past century, that of the school text-book. The text-books of earlier
periods were of the crudest and most imperfect character as compared
with the multitude of works, admirably designed to smooth the pathway
to knowledge, which now crowd our schools. In connection with these
may be named the great development in methods of education, and the
spread of educational facilities, whose effect has been such that,
whereas a century ago education was confined to the few, it now belongs
to the many, and ignorance is being almost driven beyond the borders
of civilized nations. Those who cannot read and write are becoming
a degraded minority, while a multitude of colleges and universities
are yielding the advantages of the higher education to a constantly
increasing multitude.
[=Vast Increase in Books and Newspapers=]
By no means the least among the triumphs of the nineteenth century
has been the enormous development of book-making. The wide-spread
education of the people in recent times has created an extraordinary
demand for books, there being a thousand readers now to the one of a
century or two ago. This demand has given rise to as extraordinary a
supply, which is not offered in books alone, but in periodicals of the
most varied character and scope, including a multitude of newspapers
almost beyond comprehension. The United States alone, in addition to
its numerous magazines, issues more than twenty thousand different
newspapers, of which the aggregate circulation reaches daily far up
into the millions.
[=Wide-Spread Use of Books=]
The demand for reading matter could not have been a tenth part
supplied with the facilities of a century ago, but man's powers in
this direction have steadily increased. From the intellectual side,
the advance in education has provided a great number of men competent
to cater to the multitude of readers, as authors in various fields,
editors, reporters, etc., an army of able men and women being enlisted
in this work., From the mechanical side, invention has served a similar
purpose; the paper-making machinery, with the use of wood as raw
material, the mechanical type-setters, the rapid printing-presses,
and other inventions having not only enormously increased the ability
to produce books and newspapers, but cheapened them to such an extent
that they are now within the reach of the poorest. A century ago such
a thing as an one-cent newspaper was not known. Now a daily that
sells for more than a cent is growing rare. A century ago only a few
dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other works of reference were in
existence, and those were within the reach only of the well-to-do.
Now works of this kind are very numerous, and they are being sold so
cheaply and on such easy terms of payment, that they are widely spread
through the families of artisans and farmers.
In truth, the number of books possessed by wage-earners and
agriculturists to-day is very much greater than those classes could
possess a century ago, and the character of these works has improved so
greatly that they serve a highly useful purpose in the advancement of
popular education. In addition to the actual ownership of books, there
has been so great an increase in libraries, and such an improvement in
methods of distribution, that books of all kinds are within the reach
of the poorest of city people, and measures are being taken to place
them at the disposal of country people as well.
[=The Development of Libraries=]
At the opening of the century the free library was almost unknown.
At its close there was not a large city in the United States without
its free library, and many small ones were similarly provided. In
truth, the great library development in this country has been within
the latter half of the century. In 1850 there were only eighty-one
libraries in the United States that contained over 5,000 volumes, and
the total number of books in them was less than a million, a much
smaller number than could be found in the libraries of Paris alone. No
single American library at that date contained over 75,000 volumes.
In 1900 there were more than a dozen with over 100,000 volumes each,
some of these possessing considerably over half a million books. Thus
the Boston Public Library contained over 600,000 volumes, while a
still larger number was housed within the Congressional Library at
Washington, in what is the finest and most magnificently decorated
library building in the world, with room to accommodate as many as
4,000,000 volumes. The great libraries of the United States are far
surpassed in number of books by those of the leading capitals of
Europe, and particularly by that of Paris, which contains the enormous
number of more than 2,500,000 volumes.
[=Art in Past Centuries=]
What has been said about literature can scarcely be repeated about
art. The nineteenth century has developed no new species of fine art,
and in its productions in sculpture, painting, architecture and music
has given us no works superior to those of the earlier centuries.
Many names of artists of genius in this century could be given, if
necessary, but as these names indicate nothing original in style or
superior in merit there is no call to present them. The advance of the
nineteenth century has been rather in the cheap production and wide
dissemination of works of art than in any originality of conception.
[=Great Progress in Pictorial Art=]
In this direction the greatest advance has been made in pictorial
art. Methods of engraving have been very greatly cheapened, and the
photograph has supplied the world with an enormous multitude of
faithful counterparts of nature. Among the many ways in which this
form of art has been applied, one of the most useful is that of book
illustration. The ordinary "picture-book" of the beginning of the
century was an eye-sore of frightful character, its only alleviation
being that the cost of illustrations prevented many of them being
given. The "half-tone" method of reproduction of photographs has made
a wonderful development in this direction, pictures that faithfully
reproduce in black and white scenes of nature or works of art being now
made with such cheapness that book illustrations of superior character
have grown very abundant, and it has become possible to illustrate
effectively the daily newspaper, laying before us in pictorial form the
scenes of events that happened only a few hours before.
[Illustration: COUNT LYOF TOLSTOI IN HIS LIBRARY
Russia came late into the field of modern literature,
yet it has produced a fair number of writers who have
gained a high position in the temple of fame. Chief
among these is Count Lyof Tolstoi, born in 1828,
and to-day the most famous of Russian novelists and
moralists. He is still better known for his ultra
socialistic ideas, he believing it the duty of the
highest to place himself on a level in toil with the
lowest. This theory he has carried out in his life,
working like a common laborer on his estate.]
[Illustration: THE NEW CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C.]