present volume are, of course, well in evidence in the American press.
Not only are there many papers which are eminently unobnoxious to the
charges brought against the American press generally, but different
parts of the same paper often seem as if they were products of totally
different spheres (or, at any rate, hemispheres). The "editorials," or
leaders, are sometimes couched in a form of which the scholarly
restraint, chasteness of style, moral dignity, and intellectual force
would do honour to the best possible of papers in the best possible of
worlds, while several columns on the front page of the same issue are
occupied by an illustrated account of a prize-fight, in which the most
pointless and disgusting slang, such as "tapping his claret" and
"bunging his peepers," is used with blood-curdling frequency.
In a paper that lies before me as I write, something like a dozen
columns are devoted to a detailed account of the great contest between
John L. Sullivan and Jim Corbett (Sept. 7, 1892), while the principal
place on the editorial page (but only _one_ column) is occupied by a
well-written and most appreciative article on the Quaker poet
Whittier, who had gone to his long home just about the time the
pugilists were battering each other at New Orleans.[19]
It would give a false impression of American journalism as a whole if
we left the question here. While American newspapers certainly
exemplify many of the worst sides of democracy and much of the rawness
of a new country, it would be folly to deny that they also participate
in the attendant virtues of both the one and the other. The same
inspiring sense of largeness and freedom that we meet in other
American institutions is also represented in the press: the same
absence of slavish deference to effete authority, the same openness of
opportunity, the same freshness of outlook, the same spontaneity of
expression, the same readiness in windbag-piercing, the same
admiration for talent in whatever field displayed. The time-honoured
alliance of dulness and respectability has had its decree _nisi_ from
the American press. Several of our own journalists have had the wit to
see and the energy to adopt the best feature of the American style;
and the result has been a distinct advance in the raciness and
readableness of some of our best-known journals. The "Americanisation
of the British press" is no bugbear to stand in awe of, if only it be
carried on with good sense and discrimination. We can most
advantageously exchange lessons of sobriety and restraint for
suggestions of candour, humour, and point; and America's share in the
form of the ideal English reading journal of the future will possibly
not be the smaller.
The _Nation_, a political and literary weekly, and the religious or
semi-religious weekly journals like the _Outlook_ and the
_Independent_, are superior to anything we have in the same _genre_;
and the high-water mark even of the daily political press, though not
very often attained, is perhaps almost on a level with the best in
Europe. Richard Grant White found a richness in the English papers,
due to the far-reaching interests of the British empire, which made
all other journalism seem tame and narrow; but perhaps he would
now-a-days hesitate to attach this stigma to the best journals of New
York. And, in conclusion, we must not forget that American papers have
often lent all their energies to the championship of noble causes,
ranging from the enthusiastic anti-slavery agitation of the New York
_Tribune_, under Horace Greeley, down to the crusade against
body-snatching, successfully carried on by the _Press_ of
Philadelphia, and to the agitation in favour of the horses of the
Fifth-avenue stages so pertinaciously fomented by the humorous journal
_Life_.
* * * * *
I cannot resist the temptation of printing part of a notice of
"Baedeker's Handbook to the United States," which will show the almost
incredible lengths to which the less cultured scribes of the American
press carry their "spread-eagleism" even now. It is from a journal
published in a city of nearly 100,000 inhabitants, the capital (though
not the largest city) of one of the most important States in the
Union. It is headed "A Blind Guide:"
It is simply incomprehensible that an author of so much literary
merit in his preparation of guides to European countries should
make the absolute failure that he has in the building of a guide
to the United States intended for European travellers. As a
guide, it is a monstrosity, fully as deceptive and misleading in
its aims as it is ridiculous and unworthy in its criticisms of
our people, our customs and habitations. It is not a guide in any
sense, but a general tirade of abuse of Americans and their
country; a compilation of mean, unfair statements; of presumed
facts that are a tissue of transparent falsehoods; of comparisons
with Europe and Europeans that are odius (_sic_). Baedeker sees
very little to commend in America, but a great deal to criticise,
and warns Europeans coming to this country that they must use
discretion if they expect to escape the machinations of our
people and the snares with which they will be surrounded. Any
person who has ever travelled in Europe and America will concede
that in the United States the tourist enjoys better advantages in
every way than he can in Europe. Our hotels possess by far better
accommodations, and none of that "flunkeyism" which causes
Americans to smile as they witness it on arrival. Our railway
service is superior in every respect to that of Europe. As
regards civility to strangers the Americans are unequalled on the
face of the globe. In antiquity Europe excels; but in natural
picturesque scenery the majestic grandeur of our West is so far
ahead of anything to be seen in Europe, even in beautiful
Switzerland, that the alien beholder cannot but express wonder
and admiration. Baedeker has made a mistake in his attempt to
underrate America and Americans, its institutions and their
customs. True, our nation is in a crude state as compared with
the old monarchies of Europe, but in enterprise, business
qualifications, politeness, literary and scientific attainments,
and in fact all the essential qualities that tend to constitute a
people and a country, America is away in the advance of staid,
old foggy (_sic_) Europe, and Baedeker will find much difficulty
to eradicate that all-important fact.
I hasten to assure my English readers that this is no fair sample of
transatlantic journalism, and that nine out of ten of my American
acquaintances would deem it as unique a literary specimen as they
would. At the same time I may remind my American readers that the
scutcheon of American journalism is not so bright as it might be while
blots of this kind occur on it, and that it is the blatancy of
Americans of this type that tends to give currency to the distorted
opinion of Uncle Sam that prevails so widely in Europe.
Perhaps I shall not be misunderstood if I say that this review is by
no means typical of the notice taken by American journals of
"Baedeker's Handbook to the United States." Whatever other defects
were found in it, reviewers were almost unanimous in pronouncing it
fair and free from prejudice. Indeed, the reception of the Handbook by
the American press was so much more friendly than I had any right to
expect that it has made me feel some qualms in writing this chapter of
criticism, while it must certainly relieve me of any possible charge
of a wish to retaliate.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Writing of theatrical managers, the _Century_ (November, 1895)
says: "One of the greatest obstacles in the way of reform is the
inability of these same men to discern the trend of intelligent, to
say nothing of cultivated, public opinion, or to inform themselves of
the existence of the widespread craving for higher and better
entertainment."
[18] The so-called "Yellow Press" has reached such an extreme of
extravagance during the progress of the Spanish-American war that it
may be hoped that it has at last dug its own grave. On the other hand,
many journals were perceptibly steadied by having so vital an issue to
occupy their columns, and the tone of a large section of the press was
distinctly creditable.
[19] It may be doubted, however, whether any American author of
similar standing would devote a chapter to the loathsome details of
the prize-ring, as Mr. George Meredith does in his novel "The Amazing
Marriage."
X
Some Literary Straws
By far the most popular novel of the London season of 1894 was "The
Manxman," by Mr. Hall Caine. Its sale is said to have reached a
fabulous number of thousands of copies, and the testimony of the
public press and the circulating library is unanimous as to the
supremacy of its vogue. In the United States the favourite book of the
year was Mr. George Du Maurier's "Trilby." To the practical and
prosaic evidence of the eager purchase of half a million copies we
have to add the more romantic homage of the new Western towns
(Trilbyville!) and patent bug exterminators named after the heroine.
It may, possibly, be worth while examining the predominant qualities
of the two books with a view to ascertain what light their
similarities and differences may throw upon the respective literary
tastes of the Englishman and the American.
There has, I believe, been no important critical denial of the right
of "The Manxman" to rank as a "strong" book. The plot is drawn with
consummate skill--not in the sense of a Gaborian-like unravelment of
mystery, but in its organic, natural, inevitable development, and in
the abiding interest of its evolution. The details are worked in with
the most scrupulous care. Rarely, in modern fiction, have certain
elemental features of the human being been displayed with more
determination and pathos.
The central _motif_ of the story--the corrosion of a predominantly
righteous soul by a repented but hidden sin culminating in an
overwhelming necessity of confession--is so powerfully presented to us
that we forget all question of originality until our memory of the
fascinating pages has cooled down. Then we may recall the resemblance
of theme in the recent novel entitled "The Silence of Dean Maitland,"
while we find the prototype of both these books in "The Scarlet
Letter" of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has handled the problem with a
subtlety and haunting weirdness to which neither of the English works
can lay any claim. As our first interest in the story farther cools,
it may occur to us that the very perfection of plot in "The Manxman"
gives it the effect of a "set piece;" its association with Mr. Wilson
Barrett and the boards seems foreordained. It may seem to us that
there is a little forcing of the pathos, that a certain artificiality
pervades the scene. In a word, we may set down "The Manxman" as
melodrama--melodrama at its best, but still melodrama. Its effects are
vivid, positive, sensational; its analysis of character is keen, but
hardly subtle; it appeals to the British public's love of the obvious,
the full-blooded, the thorough-going; it runs on well-tried lines; it
is admirable, but it is not new.
"Trilby" is a very different book, and it would be a catholic palate
indeed that would relish equally the story of the Paris grisette and
the story of the Manx deemster. In "Trilby" the blending of the novel
and the romance, of the real and the fantastic, is as much of a
stumbling-block to John Bull as it is, for example, in Ibsen's "Lady
from the Sea." "The central idea," he might exclaim, "is utterly
extravagant; the transformation by hypnotism of the absolutely
tone-deaf girl into the unutterably peerless singer is unthinkable and
absurd." The admirers of "Trilby" may very well grant this, and yet
feel that their withers are unwrung. It is not in the hypnotic device
and its working out that they find the charm of the story; it is not
the plot that they are mainly interested in; it is not even the
slightly sentimental love-story of Trilby and Little Billee. They are
willing to let the whole framework, as it were, of the book go by the
board; it is not the thread of the narrative, but the sketches and
incidents strung on it, that appeals to them. They revel in the
fascinating novelty and ingenuousness of the Du Maurier vein, the art
that is superficially so artless, the exquisitely simple delicacy of
touch, the inimitable fineness of characterisation, the constant
suggestion of the tender and true, the keen sense of the pathetic in
life and the humour that makes it tolerable, the lovable drollery that
corrects the tendency to the sentimental, the subtle blending of the
strength of a man with the _naïveté_ of the child, the ambidextrous
familiarity with English and French life, the kindliness of the
satire, the absence of all straining for effect, the deep humanity
that pervades the book from cover to cover.
If, therefore, we take "The Manxman" and "Trilby" as types of what
specially appeals to the reading public of England and America, we
should conclude that the Englishman calls for strength and directness,
the American for delicacy and suggestiveness. The former does not
insist so much on originality of theme, if the handling be but new and
clever; there are certain elementary passions and dramatic situations
of which the British public never wearies. The American does not
clamour for telling "curtains," if the character-drawing be keen, the
conversations fresh, sparkling, and humorous. John Bull likes
vividness and solidity of impasto; Jonathan's eye is often more
pleasantly affected by a delicate gradation of half-tones. The one
desires the downright, the concrete, the real; the other is titillated
by the subtle, the allusive, the half-spoken. The antithesis is
between _force_ and _finesse_, between the palpable and the
impalpable.[20]
If anybody but George Du Maurier could have written "Trilby," it seems
to me it would have been an American rather than a full-blooded
Englishman. The keenness of the American appreciation of the book
corresponds to elements in the American nature. The Anglo-French blend
of Mr. Du Maurier's literary genius finds nearer analogues in American
literature than in either English or French.
The best writing of our American cousins has, of course, much that it
shares with our own, much that is purely English in source and
inspiration. Longfellow, for instance, might almost have been an
Englishman, and his great popularity in England probably owed nothing
to the attraction exercised by the unfamiliar. The English traits,
moreover, are often readily discernible even in those works that smack
most of the soil. When, however, we seek the differentiating marks of
American literature, we find that many of them are also
characteristics of the writings of Mr. Du Maurier, while they are much
less conspicuous in those of Mr. Hall Caine. Among such marks are its
freshness and spontaneity, untrammelled by authority or tradition; its
courage in tackling problems elsewhere tabooed; its breezy
intrepidity, rooted half in conscious will and half in _naïve_
ignorance. Besides these, we find features that we should hardly have
expected on _a priori_ grounds. A wideness of sweep and elemental
greatness in proportion to the natural majesty of the huge new
continent are hardly present; Walt Whitman remains an isolated
phenomenon. Instead, we meet in the best American literature an almost
aristocratic daintiness and feeling for the refined and select. As
compared with the British school, the leading American school is
marked by an increased delicacy of _finesse_, a tendency to refine and
refine, a perhaps exaggerated dread of the platitude and the
commonplace, a fondness for analysis, a preference for character over
event, an avoidance of absolutely untempered seriousness and solidity.
Mr. Bryce notes that the verdicts of the best literary circles of the
United States often seem to "proceed from a more delicate and
sympathetic insight" than ours.
This fastidiousness of the best writers and critics of America is by
no means inconsistent with the existence of an enormous class of
half-educated readers, who devour the kind of "literature" provided
for them, and batten in their various degrees on the productions of
Mr. E.P. Roe, Miss Laura Jean Libbey, or the _Sunday War-Whoop_. The
evolution of democracy in the literary sphere is exactly analogous to
its course in the political sphere. In both there is the same tendency
to go too far, to overturn the good and legitimate authority as well
as the bad and oppressive; both are apt, to use the homely German
proverb, "to throw the baby out of the bath along with the dirty
water." This lack of discrimination leads to the rushing in of fools
where angels might well fear to tread. All sorts of men try to write
books, and all sorts of men think they are able to judge them. The old
standard of authority is overthrown, and for a time no other takes its
place with the great mass of the reading public. This state of affairs
is, however, by no means one that need make us despair of the literary
future of America. It reminds me of the mental condition of a kindly
American tourist who once called at our office in Leipsic to give us
the benefit of the corrections he had made on "Baedeker's Handbooks"
during his peregrination of Europe. "Here," he said, "is one error
which I am absolutely sure of: you call this a statue of Minerva; but
I know that's wrong, because I saw _Pallas_ carved on the pedestal!"
When I told this tale to English friends, they saw in it nothing but a
proof of the colossal ignorance of the travelling American. To my
mind, however, it redounded more to the credit of America than to its
discredit. It showed that Americans of defective education felt the
need of culture and spared no pains to procure it. A London tradesman
with the education of my American friend would probably never extend
his ideas of travelling beyond Margate, or at most a week's excursion
to "Parry." But this indefatigable tourist had visited all the chief
galleries of Europe, and had doubtless greatly improved his taste in
art and educated his sense of the refined and beautiful, even though
his book-learning had not taught him that the same goddess might have
two different names.
The application of this anecdote to the present condition of American
literature is obvious. The great fact is that there is an enormous
crowd of readers, and the great hope is that they will eventually work
their way up through Miss Laura Jean Libbey to heights of purer air.
America has not so much degraded a previously existing literary palate
as given a taste of some sort to those who under old-world conditions
might never have come to it. In American literature as in American
life we find all the phenomena of a transition period--all the
symptoms that might be expected from the extraordinary mixture of the
old and the new, the childlike and the knowing, the past and the
present, in this Land of Contrasts. The startling difference between
the best and the worst writers is often reflected in different works
by the same author; or a real and strong natural talent for writing
will be found conjoined with an extraordinary lack of education and
training. An excellent piece of English--pithy, forcible, and even
elegant--will often shatter on some simple grammatical reef, such as
the use of "as" for "that" ("he did not know as he could"), or of the
plural for the singular ("a long ways off"). Mr. James Lane Allen, the
author of a series of refined and delicately worded romances, can
write such phrases as "In a voice neither could scarce hear" and
"Shake hands with me and _tell_ me good-by." ("The Choir Invisible,"
pp. 222, 297.)
I know not whether the phrase "was graduated," applied not to a
vernier, but to a student, be legitimate or not; it is certainly so
used by the best American writers. Another common American idiom that
sounds queer to British ears is, "The minutes were ordered printed"
(for "to be printed"). Misquotations and misuse of foreign phrases are
terribly rife; and even so spirited and entertaining a writer as Miss
F.C. Baylor will write: "This Jenny, with the _esprit de l'escalier_
of her sex, had at once divined and resented" ("On Both Sides," p.
26). In the same way one is constantly appalled in conversation by
hearing college graduates say "acrost" for "across" and making other
"bad breaks" which in England could not be conjoined with an equal
amount of culture and education.
The extreme fastidiousness and delicacy of the leading American
writers, as above referred to, may be to a large extent accounted for
by an inevitable reaction against the general tendency to the careless
and the slipshod, and is thus in its way as significant and natural a
result of existing conditions as any other feature of American
literature. Perhaps a secondary cause of this type of writing may be
looked for in the fact that so far the spirit of New England has
dominated American literature. Even those writers of the South and
West who are freshest in their material and vehicle are still
permeated by the tone, the temper, the method, the ideals, of the New
England school. And certainly Allibone's dictionary of authors shows
that an enormous proportion of American writers are to this day of New
England origin or descent.
Among living American writers the two whose names occur most
spontaneously to the mind as typical examples are, perhaps, Henry
James and W.D. Howells. Of these the former has identified himself so
much with European life and has devoted himself so largely to European
subjects that we, perhaps, miss to some extent the American atmosphere
in his works, though he undoubtedly possesses the American quality of
workmanship in a very high degree. Or, to put it in another way, his
touch is indisputably American, while his accessories, his _staffage_,
are cosmopolitan. His American hand has become dyed to that it works
in. This, however, is more true of his later than of his earlier
works. That imperishable little classic "Daisy Miller" is a very
exquisite and typical specimen of the American suggestiveness of
style; indeed, as I have hinted (Chapter IV.), its suggestiveness
almost overshot the mark and required the explanation of a dramatic
key. His dislike of the obvious and the commonplace sometimes leads
Mr. James to become artificial and even obscure,[21] but at its best
his style is as perspicuous as it is distinguished, dainty, and
subtle; there is, perhaps, no other living artist in words who can
give his admirers so rare a literary pleasure in mere exquisiteness of
workmanship.
Mr. Howells, unlike Mr. James, is purely and exclusively American, in
his style as in his subject, in his main themes as in his incidental
illustrations, in his spirit, his temperament, his point of view. No
one has written more pleasantly of Venice; but just as surely there is
a something in his Venetian sketches which no one but an American
could have put there. Mr. James may be as patriotic a citizen of the
Great Republic, but there is not so much tangible evidence of the fact
in his writings; Mr. Howells may be as cosmopolitan in his sympathies
as Mr. James, but his writings alone would hardly justify the
inference. Mr. Howells also possesses a _bonhomie_, a geniality, a
good-nature veiled by a slight mask of cynicism, that may be personal,
but which strikes one as also a characteristic American trait. Mr.
James is not, I hasten to say, the reverse of this, but he shows a
coolness in his treatment, a lordly indifference to the fate of his
creations, an almost pitiless keenness of analysis, which savour a
little more of an end-of-the-century European than of a young and
genial democracy.