AMERICANISM IN FICTION.
Contemporary criticism will have it that, in order to create an
American Literature, we must use American materials. The term
"Literature" has, no doubt, come to be employed in a loose sense. The
London _Saturday Review_ has (or used to have until lately) a monthly
two-column article devoted to what it called "American Literature,"
three-fourths of which were devoted to an examination of volumes of
State Histories, Statistical Digests, Records of the Census, and other
such works as were never, before or since, suspected of being
literature; while the remaining fourth mentioned the titles
(occasionally with a line of comment) of whatever productions were at
hand in the way of essays, novels, and poetry. This would seem to
indicate that we may have--nay, are already possessed of--an American
Literature, composed of American materials, provided only that we
consent to adopt the _Saturday Review's_ conception of what literature
is.
Many of us believe, however, that the essays, the novels, and the
poetry, as well as the statistical digests, ought to go to the making
up of a national literature. It has been discovered, however, that the
existence of the former does not depend, to the same extent as that of
the latter, upon the employment of exclusively American material. A
book about the census, if it be not American, is nothing; but a poem or
a romance, though written by a native-born American, who, perhaps, has
never crossed the Atlantic, not only may, but frequently does, have
nothing in it that can be called essentially American, except its
English and, occasionally, its ideas. And the question arises whether
such productions can justly be held to form component parts of what
shall hereafter be recognized as the literature of America.
How was it with the makers of English literature? Beginning with
Chaucer, his "Canterbury Pilgrims" is English, both in scene and
character; it is even mentioned of the Abbess that "Frenche of Paris
was to her unknowe"; but his "Legende of Goode Women" might, so far as
its subject-matter is concerned, have been written by a French, a
Spanish, or an Italian Chaucer, just as well as by the British Daniel.
Spenser's "Faërie Queene" numbers St. George and King Arthur among its
heroes; but its scene is laid in Faërie Lande, if it be laid anywhere,
and it is a barefaced moral allegory throughout. Shakespeare wrote
thirty-seven plays, the elimination of which from English literature
would undeniably be a serious loss to it; yet, of these plays
twenty-three have entirely foreign scenes and characters. Milton, as a
political writer, was English; but his "Paradise Lost and Regained,"
his "Samson," his "Ode on the Nativity," his "Comus," bear no reference
to the land of his birth. Dryden's best-known work to-day is his
"Alexander's Feast." Pope has come down to us as the translator of
Homer. Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne are the great quartet
of English novelists of the last century; but Smollett, in his preface
to "Roderick Random," after an admiring allusion to the "Gil Blas" of
Le Sage, goes on to say: "The following sheets I have modelled on his
plan"; and Sterne was always talking and thinking about Cervantes, and
comparing himself to the great Spaniard: "I think there is more
laughable humor, with an equal degree of Cervantic satire, if not more,
than in the last," he writes of one of his chapters, to "my witty
widow, Mrs. F." Many even of Walter Scott's romances are un-English in
their elements; and the fame of Shelley, Keats, and Byron rests
entirely upon their "foreign" work. Coleridge's poetry and philosophy
bear no technical stamp of nationality; and, to come down to later
times, Carlyle was profoundly imbued with Germanism, while the "Romola"
of George Eliot and the "Cloister and the Hearth" of Charles Reade are
by many considered to be the best of their works. In the above
enumeration innumerable instances in point are, of course, omitted; but
enough have been given, perhaps, to show that imaginative writers have
not generally been disowned by their country on the ground that they
have availed themselves, in their writings, of other scenes and
characters than those of their own immediate neighborhoods.
The statistics of the work of the foremost American writers could
easily be shown to be much more strongly imbued with the specific
flavor of their environment. Benjamin Franklin, though he was an author
before the United States existed, was American to the marrow. The
"Leather-Stocking Tales" of Cooper are the American epic. Irving's
"Knickerbocker" and his "Woolfert's Roost" will long outlast his other
productions. Poe's most popular tale, "The Gold-Bug," is American in
its scene, and so is "The Mystery of Marie Roget," in spite of its
French nomenclature; and all that he wrote is strongly tinged with the
native hue of his strange genius. Longfellow's "Evangeline" and
"Hiawatha" and "Miles Standish," and such poems as "The Skeleton in
Armor" and "The Building of the Ship," crowd out of sight his graceful
translations and adaptations. Emerson is the veritable American eagle
of our literature, so that to be Emersonian is to be American. Whittier
and Holmes have never looked beyond their native boundaries, and
Hawthorne has brought the stern gloom of the Puritan period and the
uneasy theorizings of the present day into harmony with the universal
and permanent elements of human nature. There was certainly nothing
European visible in the crude but vigorous stories of Theodore
Winthrop; and Bret Harte, the most brilliant figure among our later
men, is not only American, but Californian,--as is, likewise, the Poet
of the Sierras. It is not necessary to go any further. Mr. Henry James,
having enjoyed early and singular opportunities of studying the effects
of the recent annual influx of Americans, cultured and otherwise, into
England and the Continent, has very sensibly and effectively, and with
exquisite grace of style and pleasantness of thought, made the
phenomenon the theme of a remarkable series of stories. Hereupon the
cry of an "International School" has been raised, and critics profess
to be seriously alarmed lest we should ignore the signal advantages for
_mise-en-scène_ presented by this Western half of the planet, and
should enter into vain and unpatriotic competition with foreign writers
on their own ground. The truth is, meanwhile, that it would have been a
much surer sign of affectation in us to have abstained from literary
comment upon the patent and notable fact of this international
_rapprochement_,--which is just as characteristic an American trait as
the episode of the Argonauts of 1849,--and we have every reason to be
grateful to Mr. Henry James, and to his school, if he has any, for
having rescued us from the opprobrium of so foolish a piece of
know-nothingism. The phase is, of course, merely temporary; its
interest and significance will presently be exhausted; but, because we
are American, are we to import no French cakes and English ale? As a
matter of fact, we are too timid and self-conscious; and these
infirmities imply a much more serious obstacle to the formation of a
characteristic literature than does any amount of gadding abroad.
That must be a very shallow literature which depends for its national
flavor and character upon its topography and its dialect; and the
criticism which can conceive of no deeper Americanism than this is
shallower still. What is an American book? It is a book written by an
American, and by one who writes as an American; that is, unaffectedly.
So an English book is a book written by an unaffected Englishman. What
difference can it make what the subject of the writing is? Mr. Henry
James lately brought out a volume of essays on "French Poets and
Novelists." Mr. E. C. Stedman recently published a series of monographs
on "The Victorian Poets." Are these books French and English, or are
they nondescript, or are they American? Not only are they American, but
they are more essentially American than if they had been disquisitions
upon American literature. And the reason is, of course, that they
subject the things of the old world to the tests of the new, and
thereby vindicate and illustrate the characteristic mission of America
to mankind. We are here to hold up European conventionalisms and
prejudices in the light of the new day, and thus afford everybody the
opportunity, never heretofore enjoyed, of judging them by other
standards, and in other surroundings than those amidst which they came
into existence. In the same way, Emerson's "English Traits" is an
American thing, and it gives categorical reasons why American things
should be. And what is an American novel except a novel treating of
persons, places, and ideas from an American point of view? The point of
view is _the_ point, not the thing seen from it.
But it is said that "the great American novel," in order fully to
deserve its name, ought to have American scenery. Some thousands of
years ago, the Greeks had a novelist--Homer--who evolved the great
novel of that epoch; but the scenery of that novel was Trojan, not
Greek. The story is a criticism, from a Greek standpoint, of foreign
affairs, illustrated with practical examples; and, as regards
treatment, quite as much care is bestowed upon the delineation of
Hector, Priam, and Paris, as upon Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Achilles.
The same story, told by a Trojan Homer, would doubtless have been very
different; but it is by no means certain that it would have been any
better told. It embodies, whether symbolically or literally matters
not, the triumph of Greek ideas and civilization. But, even so, the
sympathies of the reader are not always, or perhaps uniformly, on the
conquering side. Homer was doubtless a patriot, but he shows no signs
of having been a bigot. He described that great international episode
with singular impartiality; what chiefly interested him was the play of
human nature. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the Greeks were
backward in admitting his claims as their national poet; and we may
legitimately conclude that were an American Homer--whether in prose or
poetry--to appear among us, he might pitch his scene where he liked--in
Patagonia, or on the banks of the Zambezi--and we should accept the
situation with perfect equanimity. Only let him be a native of New
York, or Boston, or San Francisco, or Mullenville, and be inspired with
the American idea, and we ask no more. Whatever he writes will belong
to our literature, and add lustre to it.
One hears many complaints about the snobbishness of running after
things European. Go West, young man, these moralists say, or go down
Fifth Avenue, and investigate Chatham Street, and learn that all the
elements of romance, to him who has the seeing eye, lie around your own
front doorstep and back yard. But let not these persons forget that he
who fears Europe is a less respectable snob than he who studies it. Let
us welcome Europe in our books as freely as we do at Castle Garden; we
may do so safely. If our digestion be not strong enough to assimilate
her, and work up whatever is valuable in her into our own bone and
sinew, then America is not the thing we took her for. For what is
America? Is it simply a reproduction of one of these Eastern
nationalities, which we are so fond of alluding to as effete? Surely
not. It is a new departure in history; it is a new door opened to the
development of the human race, or, as I should prefer to say, of
humanity. We are misled by the chatter of politicians and the bombast
of Congress. In the course of ages, the time has at last arrived when
man, all over this planet, is entering upon a new career of moral,
intellectual, and political emancipation; and America is the concrete
expression and theatre of that great fact, as all spiritual truths find
their fitting and representative physical incarnation. But what would
this huge western continent be, if America--the real America of the
mind--had no existence? It would be a body without a soul, and would
better, therefore, not be at all. If America is to be a repetition of
Europe on a larger scale, it is not worth the pain of governing it.
Europe has shown what European ideas can accomplish; and whatever fresh
thought or impulse comes to birth in it can be nothing else than an
American thought and impulse, and must sooner or later find its way
here, and become naturalized with its brethren. Buds and blossoms of
America are sprouting forth all over the Old World, and we gather in
the fruit. They do not find themselves at home there, but they know
where their home is. The old country feels them like thorns in her old
flesh, and is gladly rid of them; but such prickings are the only
wholesome and hopeful symptoms she presents; if they ceased to trouble
her, she would be dead indeed. She has an uneasy experience before her,
for a time; but the time will come when she, too, will understand that
her ease is her disease, and then Castle Garden may close its doors,
for America will be everywhere.
If, then, America is something vastly more than has hitherto been
understood by the word nation, it is proper that we attach to that
other word, patriotism, a significance broader and loftier than has
been conceived till now. By so much as the idea that we represent is
great, by so much are we, in comparison with it, inevitably chargeable
with littleness and short-comings. For we are of the same flesh and
blood as our neighbors; it is only our opportunities and our
responsibilities that are fairer and weightier than theirs.
Circumstances afford every excuse to them, but none to us. "_E Pluribus
Unum_" is a frivolous motto; our true one should be, "_Noblesse
oblige_." But, with a strange perversity, in all matters of comparison
between ourselves and others, we display what we are pleased to call
our patriotism by an absurd touchiness as to points wherein Europe,
with its settled and polished civilization, must needs be our superior;
and are quite indifferent about those things by which our real strength
is constituted. Can we not be content to learn from Europe the graces,
the refinements, the amenities of life, so long as we are able to teach
her life itself? For my part, I never saw in England any appurtenance
of civilization, calculated to add to the convenience and
commodiousness of existence, that did not seem to me to surpass
anything of the kind that we have in this country. Notwithstanding
which--and I am far, indeed, from having any pretensions to
asceticism--I would have been fairly stifled at the idea of having to
spend my life there. No American can live in Europe, unless he means to
return home, or unless, at any rate, he returns here in mind, in hope,
in belief. For an American to accept England, or any other country, as
both a mental and physical finality, would, it seems to me, be
tantamount to renouncing his very life. To enjoy English comforts at
the cost of adopting English opinions, would be about as pleasant as to
have the privilege of retaining one's body on condition of surrendering
one's soul, and would, indeed, amount to just about the same thing.
I fail, therefore, to feel any apprehension as to our literature
becoming Europeanized, because whatever is American in it must lie
deeper than anything European can penetrate. More than that, I believe
and hope that our novelists will deal with Europe a great deal more,
and a great deal more intelligently, than they have done yet. It is a
true and healthy artistic instinct that leads them to do so.
Hawthorne--and no American writer had a better right than he to
contradict his own argument--says, in the preface to the "Marble Faun,"
in a passage that has been often quoted, but will bear repetition:--
"Italy, as the site of a romance, was chiefly valuable to him as <
affording a sort of poetic or fairy precinct, where actualities would
not be so terribly insisted on as they are, and must needs be, in
America. No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of
writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no
antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything
but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is
happily the case with my dear native land. It will be very long, I
trust, before romance writers may find congenial and easily handled
themes, either in the annals of our stalwart Republic, or in any
characteristic and probable events of our individual lives. Romance
and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers, need ruin to make them
grow."
Now, what is to be understood from this passage? It assumes, in the
first place, that a work of art, in order to be effective, must contain
profound contrasts of light and shadow; and then it points out that the
shadow, at least, is found ready to the hand in Europe. There is no
hint of patriotic scruples as to availing one's self of such a
"picturesque and gloomy" background; if it is to be had, then let it be
taken; the main object to be considered is the work of art. Europe, in
short, afforded an excellent quarry, from which, in Hawthorne's
opinion, the American novelist might obtain materials which are
conspicuously deficient in his own country, and which that country is
all the better for not possessing. In the "Marble Faun" the author had
conceived a certain idea, and he considered that he had been not
unsuccessful in realizing it. The subject was new, and full of especial
attractions to his genius, and it would manifestly have been impossible
to adapt it to an American setting. There was one drawback connected
with it, and this Hawthorne did not fail to recognize. He remarks in
the preface that he had "lived too long abroad not to be aware that a
foreigner seldom acquires that knowledge of a country at once flexible
and profound, which may justify him in endeavoring to idealize its
traits." But he was careful not to attempt "a portraiture of Italian
manners and character." He made use of the Italian scenery and
atmosphere just so far as was essential to the development of his idea,
and consistent with the extent of his Italian knowledge; and, for the
rest, fell back upon American characters and principles. The result has
been long enough before the world to have met with a proper
appreciation. I have heard regret expressed that the power employed by
the author in working out this story had not been applied to a romance
dealing with a purely American subject. But to analyze this objection
is to dispose of it. A man of genius is not, commonly, enfeebled by his
own productions; and, physical accidents aside, Hawthorne was just as
capable of writing another "Scarlet Letter" after the "Marble Faun" was
published, as he had been before. Meanwhile, few will deny that our
literature would be a loser had the "Marble Faun" never been written.
The drawback above alluded to is, however, not to be underrated. It may
operate in two ways. In the first place, the American's European
observations may be inaccurate. As a child, looking at a sphere, might
suppose it to be a flat disc, shaded at one side and lighted at the
other, so a sightseer in Europe may ascribe to what he beholds
qualities and a character quite at variance with what a more
fundamental knowledge would have enabled him to perceive. In the second
place, the stranger in a strange land, be he as accurate as he may,
will always tend to look at what is around him objectively, instead of
allowing it subjectively--or, as it were, unconsciously--to color his
narrative. He will be more apt directly to describe what he sees, than
to convey the feeling or aroma of it without description. It would
doubtless, for instance, be possible for Mr. Henry James to write an
"English" or even a "French" novel without falling into a single
technical error; but it is no less certain that a native writer, of
equal ability, would treat the same subject in a very different manner.
Mr. James's version might contain a great deal more of definite
information; but the native work would insinuate an impression which
both comes from and goes to a greater depth of apprehension.
But, on the other hand, it is not contended that any American should
write an "English" or anything but an "American" novel. The contention
is, simply, that he should not refrain from using foreign material,
when it happens to suit his exigencies, merely because it is foreign.
Objective writing may be quite as good reading as subjective writing,
in its proper place and function. In fiction, no more than elsewhere,
may a writer pretend to be what he is not, or to know what he knows
not. When he finds himself abroad, he must frankly admit his situation;
and more will not then be required of him than he is fairly competent
to afford. It will seldom happen, as Hawthorne intimates, that he can
successfully reproduce the inner workings and philosophy of European
social and political customs and peculiarities; but he can give a
picture of the scenery as vivid as can the aborigine, or more so; he
can make an accurate study of personal native character; and, finally,
and most important of all, he can make use of the conditions of
European civilization in events, incidents, and situations which would
be impossible on this side of the water. The restrictions, the
traditions, the law, and the license of those old countries are full of
suggestions to the student of character and circumstances, and supply
him with colors and effects that he would else search for in vain. For
the truth may as well be admitted; we are at a distinct disadvantage,
in America, in respect of the materials of romance. Not that vigorous,
pathetic, striking stories may not be constructed here; and there is
humor enough, the humor of dialect, of incongruity of character; but,
so far as the story depends for its effect, not upon psychical and
personal, but upon physical and general events and situations, we soon
feel the limit of our resources. An analysis of the human soul, such as
may be found in the "House of the Seven Gables," for instance, is
absolute in its interest, apart from outward conditions. But such an
analysis cannot be carried on, so to say, _in vacuo_. You must have
solid ground to stand on; you must have fitting circumstances,
background, and perspective. The ruin of a soul, the tragedy of a
heart, demand, as a necessity of harmony and picturesque effect, a
corresponding and conspiring environment and stage--just as, in music,
the air in the treble is supported and reverberated by the bass
accompaniment. The immediate, contemporary act or predicament loses
more than half its meaning and impressiveness if it be re-echoed from
no sounding-board in the past--its notes, however sweetly and truly
touched, fall flatly on the ear. The deeper we attempt to pitch the key
of an American story, therefore, the more difficulty shall we find in
providing a congruous setting for it; and it is interesting to note how
the masters of the craft have met the difficulty. In the "Seven
Gables"--and I take leave to say that if I draw illustrations from this
particular writer, it is for no other reason than that he presents,
more forcibly than most, a method of dealing with the special problem
we are considering--Hawthorne, with the intuitive skill of genius,
evolves a background, and produces a reverberation, from materials
which he may be said to have created almost as much as discovered. The
idea of a house, founded two hundred years ago upon a crime, remaining
ever since in possession of its original owners, and becoming the
theatre, at last, of the judgment upon that crime, is a thoroughly
picturesque idea, but it is thoroughly un-American. Such a thing might
conceivably occur, but nothing in this country could well be more
unlikely. No one before Hawthorne had ever thought of attempting such a
thing; at all events, no one else, before or since, has accomplished
it. The preface to the romance in question reveals the principle upon
which its author worked, and incidentally gives a new definition of the
term "romance,"--a definition of which, thus far, no one but its
propounder has known how to avail himself. It amounts, in fact, to an
acknowledgment that it is impossible to write a "novel" of American
life that shall be at once artistic, realistic, and profound. A novel,
he says, aims at a "very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible,
but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience." A
romance, on the other hand, "while, as a work of art, it must rigidly
subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may
swerve aside from the truth of the human heart, has fairly a right to
present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the
writer's own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so
manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out and mellow the lights,
and deepen and enrich the shadows, of the picture." This is good
advice, no doubt, but not easy to follow. We can all understand,
however, that the difficulties would be greatly lessened could we but
command backgrounds of the European order. Thackeray, the Brontës,
George Eliot, and others have written great stories, which did not have
to be romances, because the literal conditions of life in England have
a picturesqueness and a depth which correspond well enough with
whatever moral and mental scenery we may project upon them. Hawthorne
was forced to use the scenery and capabilities of his native town of
Salem. He saw that he could not present these in a realistic light, and
his artistic instinct showed him that he must modify or veil the
realism of his figures in the same degree and manner as that of his
accessories. No doubt, his peculiar genius and temperament eminently
qualified him to produce this magical change; it was a remarkable
instance of the spontaneous marriage, so to speak, of the means to the
end; and even when, in Italy, he had an opportunity to write a story
which should be accurate in fact, as well as faithful to "the truth of
the human heart," he still preferred a subject which bore to the
Italian environment the same relation that the "House of the Seven
Gables" and the "Scarlet Letter" do to the American one; in other
words, the conception of Donatello is removed as much further than
Clifford or Hester Prynne from literal realism as the inherent romance
of the Italian setting is above that of New England. The whole thing is
advanced a step further towards pure idealism, the relative proportions
being maintained.
"The Blithedale Romance" is only another instance in point, and here,
as before, we find the principle admirably stated in the preface. "In
the old countries," says Hawthorne, "a novelist's work is not put
exactly side by side with nature; and he is allowed a license with
regard to everyday probability, in view of the improved effects he is
bound to produce thereby. Among ourselves, on the contrary, there is as
yet no Faëry Land, so like the real world that, in a suitable
remoteness, we cannot well tell the difference, but with an atmosphere
of strange enchantment, beheld through which the inhabitants have a
propriety of their own. This atmosphere is what the American romancer
needs. In its absence, the beings of his imagination are compelled to
show themselves in the same category as actually living mortals; a
necessity that renders the paint and pasteboard of their composition
but too painfully discernible." Accordingly, Hawthorne selects the
Brook Farm episode (or a reflection of it) as affording his drama "a
theatre, a little removed from the highway of ordinary travel, where
the creatures of his brain may play their phantasmagorical antics,
without exposing them to too close a comparison with the actual events
of real lives." In this case, therefore, an exceptional circumstance is
made to answer the same purpose that was attained by different means in
the other romances.
But in what manner have our other writers of fiction treated the
difficulties that were thus dealt with by Hawthorne?--Herman Melville
cannot be instanced here; for his only novel or romance, whichever it
be, was also the most impossible of all his books, and really a
terrible example of the enormities which a man of genius may perpetrate
when working in a direction unsuited to him. I refer, of course, to
"Pierre, or the Ambiguities." Oliver Wendell Holmes's two delightful
stories are as favorable examples of what can be done, in the way of an
American novel, by a wise, witty, and learned gentleman, as we are
likely to see. Nevertheless, one cannot avoid the feeling that they are
the work of a man who has achieved success and found recognition in
other ways than by stories, or even poems and essays. The interest, in
either book, centres round one of those physiological phenomena which
impinge so strangely upon the domain of the soul; for the rest, they
are simply accurate and humorous portraitures of local dialects and
peculiarities, and thus afford little assistance in the search for a
universally applicable rule of guidance. Doctor Holmes, I believe,
objects to having the term "medicated" applied to his tales; but surely
the adjective is not reproachful; it indicates one of the most charming
and also, alas! inimitable features of his work.
Bret Harte is probably as valuable a witness as could be summoned in
this case. His touch is realistic, and yet his imagination is poetic
and romantic. He has discovered something. He has done something both
new and good. Within the space of some fifty pages, he has painted a
series of pictures which will last as long as anything in the fifty
thousand pages of Dickens. Taking "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" as
perhaps the most nearly perfect of the tales, as well as the most truly
representative of the writer's powers, let us try to guess its secret.
In the first place, it is very short,--a single episode, succinctly and
eloquently told. The descriptions of scenery and persons are masterly
and memorable. The characters of these persons, their actions, and the
circumstances of their lives, are as rugged, as grotesque, as terrible,
and also as beautiful, as the scenery. Thus an artistic harmony is
established,--the thing which is lacking in so much of our literature.
The story moves swiftly on, through humor, pathos, and tragedy, to its
dramatic close. It is given with perfect literary taste, and naught in
its phases of human nature is either extenuated or set down in malice.
The little narrative can be read in a few minutes, and can never be
forgotten. But it is only an episode; and it is an episode of an
episode,--that of the Californian gold-fever. The story of the
Argonauts is only one story, after all, and these tales of Harte's are
but so many facets of the same gem. They are not, however, like
chapters in a romance; there is no such vital connection between them
as develops a cumulative force. We are no more impressed after reading
half a dozen of them than after the first; they are variations of the
same theme. They discover to us no new truth about human nature; they
only show us certain human beings so placed as to act out their naked
selves,--to be neither influenced nor protected by the rewards and
screens of conventional civilization. The affectation and insincerity
of our daily life make such a spectacle fresh and pleasing to us. But
we enjoy it because of its unexpectedness, its separateness, its
unlikeness to the ordinary course of existence. It is like a huge,
strange, gorgeous flower, an exaggeration and intensification of such
flowers as we know; but a flower without roots, unique, never to be
reproduced. It is fitting that its portrait should be painted; but,
once done, it is done with; we cannot fill our picture-gallery with it.
Carlyle wrote the History of the French Revolution, and Bret Harte has
written the History of the Argonauts; but it is absurd to suppose that
a national literature could be founded on either episode.
But though Mr. Harte has not left his fellow-craftsmen anything to
gather from the lode which he opened and exhausted, we may still learn
something from his method. He took things as he found them, and he
found them disinclined to weave themselves into an elaborate and
balanced narrative. He recognized the deficiency of historical
perspective, but he saw that what was lost in slowly growing,
culminating power was gained in vivid, instant force. The deeds of his
character could not be represented as the final result of
long-inherited proclivities; but they could appear between their motive
and their consequence, like the draw--aim--fire! of the Western
desperado,--as short, sharp, and conclusive. In other words, the
conditions of American life, as he saw it, justified a short story, or
any number of them, but not a novel; and the fact that he did
afterwards attempt a novel only served to confirm his original
position. I think that the limitation that he discovered is of much
wider application than we are prone to realize. American life has been,
as yet, nothing but a series of episodes, of experiments. There has
been no such thing as a fixed and settled condition of society, not
subject to change itself, and therefore affording a foundation and
contrast to minor or individual vicissitudes. We cannot write
American-grown novels, because a novel is not an episode, nor an
aggregation of episodes; we cannot write romances in the Hawthorne
sense, because, as yet, we do not seem to be clever enough. Several
courses are, however, open to us, and we are pursuing them all. First,
we are writing "short stories," accounts of episodes needing no
historical perspective, and not caring for any; and, so far as one may
judge, we write the best short stories in the world. Secondly, we may
spin out our short stories into long-short stories, just as we may
imagine a baby six feet high; it takes up more room, but is just as
much a baby as one of twelve inches. Thirdly, we may graft our flower
of romance on a European stem, and enjoy ourselves as much as the
European novelists do, and with as clear a conscience. We are stealing
that which enriches us and does not impoverish them. It is silly and
childish to make the boundaries of the America of the mind coincide
with those of the United States. We need not dispute about free trade
and protection here; literature is not commerce, nor is it politics.
America is not a petty nationality, like France, England, and Germany;
but whatever in such nationalities tends toward enlightenment and
freedom is American. Let us not, therefore, confirm ourselves in a
false and ignoble conception of our meaning and mission in the world.
Let us not carry into the temple of the Muse the jealousies, the
prejudice, the ignorance, the selfishness of our "Senate" and
"Representatives," strangely so called! Let us not refuse to breathe
the air of Heaven, lest there be something European or Asian in it. If
we cannot have a national literature in the narrow, geographical sense
of the phrase, it is because our inheritance transcends all
geographical definitions. The great American novel may not be written
this year, or even in this century. Meanwhile, let us not fear to ride,
and ride to death, whatever species of Pegasus we can catch. It can do
us no harm, and it may help us to acquire a firmer seat against the
time when our own, our very own winged steed makes his appearance.