Mr. James was a student of men and women in society, using that
word in its narrower sense; Mr. Howells, who is also a keen
observer, has dealt with less sophisticated men and women, and has
given us American types unmodified by other influences. A man of
deep sympathy with his fellows and sharing in his heart the sorrow
and pain of the common lot, a lover of Tolstoi and a professed
realist, with a strong leaning toward constructive socialism, Mr.
Howells has kept his fiction free from any kind of preaching. He
has understood his vocation as an artist, and has not made his
novels serve his social and political doctrines. Although a man of
strong convictions, he is a writer whose touch is notably light,
and whose humor is delightfully unforced and happy.
[Illustration: W. D. HOWELLS IN HIS LIBRARY]
Born in the Central West, Mr. Howells has kept its democracy of
spirit and reinforced it by familiarity with modern languages and
literature. In his lighter work he has made studies of the whims
and foibles of certain feminine types in this country, of such
fidelity that they have disturbed those who believe that Americans
should tell the truth about themselves only to themselves, and that
to take Europe into the national confidence is a kind of petty
treason. But if Mr. Howells has seemed sometimes to draw American
women with too light a hand, no one so well as he has conveyed a
sense of the purity of American women, and the wholesome tone
of American social life outside the very limited circle of what
is known as the “Fast Set,”--a group of men and women who are
representative not of a nation, but of the attitude toward life so
strikingly defined in “The House of Mirth.” In his graver mood Mr.
Howells has given us “The Rise of Silas Lapham,” one of the lasting
achievements of American fiction, and “A Hazard of New Fortunes,”
both original studies of American life during the age of great
fortune-making. The charm of Mr. Howells’ art and the refinement of
his humor have not given him the popularity of the more dramatic
novelists; but he has made a place of high importance for himself
in American literature, and in the hearts of a host of readers who
have discerned in him a singularly pure and lovable nature.