What is the matter with American literature? There are many answers that
might be made to this often-asked question. "Nothing" might be one
answer. "Commercialism" might be another. But the answer given by Ellen
Glasgow, whose latest successful novel of American manners and morals is
_Life and Gabriella_, is "evasive idealism."
I found the young woman who has found in our Southern States themes for
sympathetic realism rather than picturesque romance temporarily
resident, inappropriately enough, in a hotel not far from Broadway and
Forty-second Street. And I found her to be a woman of many ideas and
strong convictions. One strongly felt and forcibly expressed conviction
was that the "evasive idealism" which is evident in so much of our
popular fiction is in reality the chief blemish on the American
character, manifesting its baleful influence in our political, social,
and economic life. Miss Glasgow first used the term "evasive idealism"
in an effort to explain why contemporary English novels are better than
contemporary American novels.
"Certainly," she said, "the novels written by John Galsworthy and the
other English novelists of the new generation are better than anything
that we are producing in the United States at the present time. And I
think that the reason for this is that in America we demand from our
writers, as we demand from our politicians, and in general from those
who theoretically are our men of light and leading, an evasive idealism
instead of a straightforward facing of realities. In England the demand
is for a direct and sincere interpretation of life, and that is what the
novelists of England, especially the younger novelists, are making. But
what the American public seems to desire is the cheapest sort of sham
optimism. And apparently our writers--a great many of them--are ready
and eager to meet this demand.
"You know the sort of book which takes best in this country. It is the
sort of book in which there is not from beginning to end a single
attempt to portray a genuine human being. Instead there are a number of
picturesque and attractive lay figures, and one of them is made to
develop a whimsical, sentimental, and maudlinly optimistic philosophy of
life.
"That is what the people want--a sugary philosophy, utterly without any
basis in logic or human experience. They want the cheapest sort of false
optimism, and they want it to be uttered by a picturesque, whimsical
character, in humorous dialect. Books made according to this receipt
sell by the hundreds of thousands.
"I don't know which is the more tragic, the fact that a desire for this
sort of literary pabulum exists, or the fact that there are so many
writers willing to satisfy that desire. But I do know that the
widespread enthusiasm for this sort of writing is the reason for the
inferiority of our novels to those of England. And, furthermore, I think
that this evasive idealism, this preference for a pretty sham instead of
the truth, is evident not only in literature, but in every phase of
American life.
"Look at our politics! We tolerate corruption; graft goes on
undisturbed, except for some sporadic attacks of conscience on the part
of various communities. The ugliness of sin is there, but we prefer not
to look at it. Instead of facing the evil and attacking it manfully we
go after any sort of a false god that will detract our attention from
our shame. Just as in literature we want the books which deal not with
life as it is, but with life as it might be imagined to be lived, so in
politics we want to face not hard and unpleasant facts, but agreeable
illusions.
"Nevertheless," said Miss Glasgow, "I think that in literature there are
signs of a movement away from this evasive idealism. It is much more
evident in England than in America, but I think that in the course of
time it will reach us, too. We shall cease to be 'slaves of words,' as
Sophocles said, and learn that the novelist's duty is to understand and
interpret life. And when our novelists and our readers of novels
appreciate the advisability of this attitude, then will the social and
political life of the United States be more wholesome than it has been
for many a year. The new movement in the novel is away from sentimental
optimism and toward an optimism that is genuine and robust."
"Then a novel may be at once optimistic and realistic?" I said. "That
is not in accord with the generally received ideas of realism."
"It is true of the work of the great realists," answered Miss Glasgow.
"True realism is optimistic, without being sentimental."
"What realists have been optimistic?" I asked.
"Well," said Miss Glasgow, "Henry Fielding, one of the first and
greatest of English realists, surely was an optimist. And there was
Charles Dickens--often, it is true, he was sentimental, but at his best
he was a robust optimist.
"But the greatest modern example of the robust optimistic realist,
absolutely free from sentimentality, is George Meredith. Galsworthy, who
surely is a realist, is optimistic in such works as _The Freelands_ and
_The Patricians_. And Meredith is always realistic and always
optimistic.
"The optimism I mean, the optimism which is a distinguishing
characteristic of George Meredith's works, does not come from an evasion
of facts, but from a recognition of them. The constructive novelist, the
novelist who really interprets life, never ignores any of the facts of
life. Instead, he accepts them and builds upon them. And he perceives
the power of the will to control destiny; he knows that life is not what
you get out of it, but what you put into it. This is what the younger
English novelists know and what our novelists must learn. And it is
their growing recognition of this spirit that makes me feel that the
tendency of modern literature is toward democracy."
"What is the connection between democracy and the tendency you have
described?" I asked.
"To me," Miss Glasgow answered, "true democracy consists chiefly in the
general recognition of the truth that will create destiny. Democracy
does not consist in the belief that all men are born free and equal or
in the desire that they shall be born free and equal. It consists in the
knowledge that all people should possess an opportunity to use their
will to control--to create--destiny, and that they should know that they
have this opportunity. They must be educated to the use of the will, and
they must be taught that character can create destiny.
"Of course, environment inevitably has its effect on the character, and,
therefore, on will, and, therefore, on destiny. You can so oppress and
depress the body that the will has no chance. True democracy provides
for all equal opportunities for the exercise of will. If you hang a
man, you can't ask him to exercise his will. But if you give him a
chance to live--which is the democratic thing to do--then you put before
him an opportunity to exercise his will."
"But what are the manifestations of this new democratic spirit?" I
asked. "Is not the war, which is surely the greatest event of our time,
an anti-democratic thing?"
"The war is not anti-democratic," Miss Glasgow replied, "any more than
it is anti-autocratic. Or rather, I may say it is both anti-democratic
and anti-autocratic. It is a conflict of principles, a deadly struggle
between democracy and imperialism. It is a fight for the new spirit of
democracy against the old evil order of things.
"Of course, I do not mean that the democracy of France and England is
perfect. But with all its imperfections it is nearer true democracy than
is the spirit of Germany. We should not expect the democracy of our
country to be perfect. The time has not come for that. 'Man is not man
as yet,' as Browning said in _Paracelsus_.
"The war is turning people away from the false standards in art and
letters which they served so long. The highly artificial romantic novel
and drama are impossible in Europe to-day. The war has made that sort
of thing absolutely absurd. And America must be affected by this just as
every other nation in the world is affected. To our novelists and to all
of us must come a sense of the serious importance of actual life,
instead of a sense of the beauty of romantic illusions. There are many
indications of this tendency in our contemporary literature. For
instance, in poetry we have the Spoon River Anthology--surely a sign of
the return of the poet to real life. But the greatest poets, like the
greatest novelists, have always been passionately interested in real
life. Walt Whitman and Robert Browning always were realists and always
were optimistic. Whitman was a most exultant optimist; he was optimistic
even about dying.
"Among recent books of verse I have been much impressed by Masefield's
_Good Friday_. There is a work which is both august and sympathetic; Mr.
Masefield's treatment of his theme is realistic, yet thoroughly
reverent. There is one line in it which I think I never shall forget. It
is, 'The men who suffer most endure the least.'
"_Good Friday_ is a sign of literature's strong tendency toward reality.
It seems to me to be a phase of the general breaking down of the
barriers between the nations, the classes, and the sexes. But this
breaking down of barriers is something that most of our novelists have
been ignoring. Mary Watts has recognized it, but she is one of the very
few American novelists to do so."
"But this sort of consciousness is not generally considered to be a
characteristic of the realistic novelist," I said. And I mentioned to
Miss Glasgow a certain conspicuous American novelist whose books are
very long, very dull, and distinguished only by their author's obsession
with sex. He, I said, was the man of whom most people would think first
when the word realist was spoken.
"Of course," said Miss Glasgow, "we must distinguish between a realist
and a vulgarian, and I do not see how a writer who is absolutely without
humor can justly be called a realist. Consider the great realists--Jane
Austen, Henry Fielding, Anthony Trollope, George Meredith--they all had
humor. What our novelists need chiefly are more humor and a more serious
attitude toward life. If our novelists are titanic enough, they will
have a serious attitude toward life, and if they stand far enough off
they will have humor.
"I hope," Miss Glasgow added, "that America will produce better
literature after the war. I hope that a change for the better will be
evident in all branches of literary endeavor. We have to-day many
novelists who start out with the serious purpose of interpreting life.
But they don't interpret it. They find that it is easier to give the
people what they want than to interpret life. Therefore this change in
the character of our novels must come after the people themselves are
awakened to a sense of the importance of real life, instead of life
sentimentally and deceptively portrayed.
"I think that our novels to-day are better than they were twenty-five
years ago. Of course, we have no Hawthorne to-day, but the general
average of stories is better than it was. We have so many accomplished
writers of short stories. There is Katharine Fullerton Gerould. What an
admirable artist she is! Mary E. Wilkins has written some splendid
interpretations of New England life, and Miss Jewett reflected the mind
and soul of a part of our country."
_"CHOCOLATE FUDGE" IN THE MAGAZINES_