War stops literature. This is the belief of a man who for more than a
quarter of a century has been in the front rank of the world's
novelists, who wrote _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ and _A Modern Instance_
and nearly a hundred other sympathetic interpretations of American life.
Mr. William Dean Howells was the third writer to whom was put the
question, "What effect will the Great War have on literature?" And he
was the first to give a direct answer.
A famous French dramatist replied: "I am not a prophet. I have enough to
do to understand the present and the past; I cannot concern myself with
the future." A famous English short-story writer said, "The war has
already inspired some splendid poetry; it may also inspire great plays
and novels, but, of course, we cannot tell as yet."
But Mr. Howells said, quite simply, "War stops literature." He said it
as unemotionally as if he were stating a familiar axiom.
He does not consider it an axiom, however, for he supplied proof.
"I have never believed," he said, "that great events produced great
literature. They seldom call forth the great creative powers of man. In
poetry it is not the poems of occasion that endure, but the poems that
have come into being independently, not as the result of momentous
happenings.
"This war does not furnish the poet, the novelist, and the dramatist
with the material of literature. For instance, the Germans, as every one
will admit, have shown extraordinary valor. But we do not think of
celebrating that valor in poetry; it does not thrill the modern writers
as such valor thrilled the writers of bygone centuries. When we think of
the valor of the Germans, our emotion is not admiration but pity.
"And the reason for this is that fighting is no longer our ideal.
Fighting was not a great ideal, and therefore it is no longer our ideal.
All that old material of literature--the clashing of swords, the thunder
of shot and shell, the great clouds of smoke, the blood and fury--all
this has gone out from literature. It is an anachronism."
"But the American Civil War produced literature, did it not?" I asked.
"What great literature did it produce?" asked Mr. Howells in turn. "As I
look back over my life and recall to mind the great number of books that
the Civil War inspired I find that I am thinking of things that the
American people have forgotten. They did not become literature, these
poems and stories that came in such quantities and seemed so important
in the sixties.
"There were the novels of J. W. De Forest, for instance. They were well
written, they were interesting, they described some phases of the Civil
War truthfully and vividly. We read them when they were written--but you
probably have never heard of them. No one reads them now. They were
literature, but that about which they were written has ceased to be of
literary interest.
"Of course, the Civil War, because of its peculiar nature, was followed
by an expansion, intellectual as well as social and economic. And this
expansion undoubtedly had its beneficial effect on literature. But the
Civil War itself did not have, could not have, literary expression.
"Of all the writings which the Civil War directly inspired I can think
of only one that has endured to be called literature. That is Lowell's
'Commemoration Ode.'
"War stops literature. It is an upheaval of civilization, a return to
barbarism; it means death to all the arts. Even the preparation for war
stops literature. It stopped it in Germany years ago. A little anecdote
is significant.
"I was in Florence about 1883, long after the Franco-Prussian War, and
there I met the editor of a great German literary weekly--I will not
tell you its name or his. He was a man of refinement and education, and
I have not forgotten his great kindness to my own fiction. One day I
asked him about the German novelists of the day.
"He said: 'There are no longer any German novelists worthy of the name.
Our new ideal has stopped all that. Militarism is our new ideal--the
ideal of Duty--and it has killed our imagination. So the German novel is
dead.'"
"Why is it, then," I asked, "that Russia, a nation of militaristic
ideals, has produced so many great novels during the past century?"
"Russia is not Germany," answered the man who taught Americans to read
Turgenieff. "The people of Russia are not militaristic as the people of
Germany are militaristic. In Germany war has for a generation been the
chief idea of every one. The nation has had a militaristic obsession.
And this, naturally, has stifled the imagination.
"But in Russia nothing of the sort has happened. Whatever the designs of
the ruling classes may be, the people of Russia keep their simplicity,
their large intellectuality and spirituality. And, therefore, their
imagination and other great intellectual and spiritual gifts find
expression in their great novels and plays.
"I well remember how the Russian novelists impressed me when I was a
young man. They opened to me what seemed to be a new world--and it was
only the real world. There is Tcheckoff--have you read his _Orchard_?
What life, what color, what beauty of truth are in that book!
"Then there is Turgenieff--how grateful I am for his books! It must be
thirty years since I first read him. Thomas Sargent Perry, of Boston, a
man of the greatest culture, was almost the first American to read
Turgenieff. Stedman read Turgenieff in those days, too. Soon all of the
younger writers were reading him.
"I remember very well a dinner at Whitelaw Reid's house in Lexington
Avenue, when some of us young men were enthusiastic over the Russian
novel, and the author we mentioned most frequently was Turgenieff.
"Dr. J. G. Holland, the poet who edited _The Century_, lived across the
street from Mr. Reid, and during the evening he came over and joined us.
He listened to us for a long time in silence, hardly speaking a word.
When he rose to go, he said: 'I have been listening to the conversation
of these young men for over an hour. They have been talking about books.
And I have never before heard the names of any of the authors they have
mentioned.'"
"Were those the days," I asked, "in which you first read Tolstoy?"
"That was long before the time," answered Mr. Howells. "Tolstoy
afterward meant everything to me--his philosophy as well as his
art--far more than Turgenieff. Tolstoy did not love all his writing.
He loved the thing that he wrote about, the thing that he lived and
taught--equality. And equality is the best thing in the world. It
is the thing for which the Best of Men lived and died.
"I never met Tolstoy," said Mr. Howells. "But I once sent him a message
of appreciation after he had sent a message to me. Tolstoy was great in
the way he wrote as well as in what he wrote. Tolstoy's force is a moral
force. His great art is as simple as nature."
"Do you think that the Russian novelists have influenced your work?" I
asked.
"I think," Mr. Howells replied, "that I had determined what I was to do
before I read any Russian novels. I first thought that it was necessary
to write only about things that I knew had already been written about.
Certain things had already been in books; therefore, I thought, they
legitimately were literary subjects and I might write about them.
"But soon I knew that this idea was wrong, that I must get my material,
not out of books, but out of life. And I also knew that it was not
necessary for me to look at life through English spectacles. Most of our
writers had been looking at life through English spectacles; they had
been closely following in the footsteps of English novelists. I saw
that around me were the materials for my work. I saw around me
life--wholesome, natural, human.
"I saw a young, free, energetic society. I saw a society in which
love--the greatest and most beautiful thing in the world--was innocent;
a society in which the relation between man and woman was simple and
pure. Here, I thought, are the materials for novels. Why should I go
back to the people of bygone ages and of lands not my own?"
"Do you think," I asked, "that romanticism has lost its hold on the
novelists?"
Mr. Howells smiled. "When realism," he said, "is once in a novelist's
blood he never can degenerate into romanticism. Romanticism is no longer
a literary force among English-speaking authors. Romanticism belongs to
the days in which war was an aim, an ideal, instead of a tragic
accident. It is something foreign to us. And literature must be native
to the soil, affected, of course, by the culture of other lands and
ages, but essentially of the people of the land and time in which it is
produced. Realism is the material of democracy. And no great literature
or art can arise outside of the democracy."
Tolstoy was mentioned again, and Mr. Howells was asked if he did not
think that the Russian novelist's custom of devoting a part of every day
to work that was not literary showed that all writers would be better
off if they were obliged to make a living in some other way than by
writing. Mr. Howells gave his answer with considerable vigor. His calm,
blue eyes lost something of their kindliness, and his lips were
compressed into a straight, thin line before he said:
"I certainly do not think so. The artist in letters or in lines should
have leisure in which to perform his valuable service to society. The
history of literature is full of heartbreaking instances of writers
whose productive careers were retarded by their inability to earn a
living at their chosen profession. The belief that poverty helps a
writer is stupid and wrong. Necessity is not and never has been an
incentive. Poverty is not and never has been an incentive. Writers and
other creative artists are hindered, not helped, by lack of leisure.
"I remember my own early experiences, and I know that my writing
suffered very much because I could not devote all my time to it. I had
to spend ten hours in drudgery for every two that I spent on my real
work. The fact that authors who have given the world things that it
treasures are forced to live in a state of anxiety over their finances
is lamentable. This anxiety cannot but have a restrictive influence on
literature. It is not want, but the fear of want, that kills."
"Still, in spite of their precarious financial condition, modern authors
are doing good work, are they not?" I asked.
"Certainly they are," answered Mr. Howells, "the novelists especially.
There is Robert Herrick, for example. His novels are interesting
stories, and they also are faithful reflections of American life. Will
Harben's work is admirable. It has splendid realism and fine humor.
Perhaps one thing that has kept it, so far, from an appreciation so
general as it will one day receive, is the fact that it deals, for the
most part, with one special locality, a certain part of Georgia.
"And in Spain--what excellent novelists they have there and have had for
a long time! The realistic movement reached Spain long before it reached
England and the United States. In fact, English-speaking countries were
the last to accept it. I have taken great pleasure in the works of
Armando Valdes. Then there are Perez Galdos and Emilia Pardo Bazian, and
that priest who wrote a realistic novel about Madrid society. All these
novelists are realists, and realists of power.
"Then there are the great Scandinavians. I hope that I may some time
attempt to express a little of my gratitude for the pleasure that
Bjoernson's works have given me."