Outlines of English and American Literature Part 54

A few other novels of the period are interesting as showing the sudden change from romance to realism, a change for which the war was partly responsible, and which will be examined more closely in the following chapter. John Esten Cooke (1830-1886) may serve as a concrete example of the two types of fiction. In his earlier romances, notably in _Leather Stocking and Silk_ and _The Virginia Comedians_ (1854), he aimed to do for the Cavalier society of the South what Hawthorne was doing for the old Puritan regime in New England; but his later stories, such as _Surrey of Eagle's Nest_, are chiefly notable for their realistic pictures of the great war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN ESTEN COOKE]

The change from romance to realism is more openly apparent in Theodore Winthrop and Edward Eggleston, whose novels deal frankly with pioneers of the Middle West; not such pioneers as Cooper had imagined in _The Prairie_, but such plain men and women as one might meet anywhere beyond the Alleghenies in 1850. Winthrop's _John Brent_ (1862) and Eggleston's _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ and _The Circuit Rider_ (1874) are so true to a real phase of American life that a thoughtful reader must wonder why they are not better known. They are certainly refres.h.i.+ng to one who tires of our present so-called realism with its abnormal or degenerate characters.

More widely read than any of the novelists just mentioned are certain others who appeared in answer to the increasing demand of young people for a good story. It is doubtful if any American writer great or small has given more pleasure to young readers than Louisa M. Alcott with her _Little Women_ (1868) and other stories for girls, or John T.

Trowbridge, author of _Cudjo's Cave_, _Jack Hazard_, _A Chance for Himself_ and several other juveniles that once numbered their boy readers by tens of thousands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOUISA M. ALCOTT]

Th.o.r.eAU. Among the many secondary writers of the period the most original and most neglected was Henry D. Th.o.r.eau (1817-1862), a man who differed greatly from other mortals in almost every respect, but chiefly in this, that he never was known to "go with the crowd," not even on the rare occasions when he believed the crowd to be right. He was one of the few persons who select their own way through life and follow it without the slightest regard for the world's opinion.

Numerous examples of Th.o.r.eau's oddity might be given, but we note here only his strange determination to view life with his own eyes. This may appear a simple matter until we reflect that most men measure life by what others have said or written concerning life's values. They accept the standards of their ancestors or their neighbors; they conform themselves to a world in which governments and other long-established inst.i.tutions claim their allegiance; they are trained to win success in such a world by doing one thing well, and to measure their success by the fame or money or office or social position which they achieve by a lifetime of labor and self-denial.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY D. Th.o.r.eAU]

[Sidenote: HIS ORIGINALITY]

Th.o.r.eau sharply challenged this whole conception of life, which, he said, was more a matter of habit than of reason or conviction. He saw in our social inst.i.tutions as much of harm as of benefit to the individual. He looked with distrust on all traditions, saying that he had listened for thirty years without hearing one word of sound advice from his elders. He was a good workman and learned to do several things pa.s.sing well; but he saw no reason why a free man should repeat himself daily in a world of infinite opportunities. Also he was a scholar, versed in cla.s.sical lore and widely read in oriental literature; but unlike his friend Emerson he seldom quoted the ancients, being more concerned with his own thoughts of life than by the words of philosophers, and more fascinated by the wild birds that ate crumbs from his table than by all the fabled G.o.ds of mythology. As for success, the fame or money for which other men toiled seemed to him but empty bubbles; the only wealth he prized was his soul's increase in love and understanding: "If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like sweet-scented herbs--is more elastic, starry and immortal--that is your success."

[Sidenote: WALDEN]

There are other interesting matters in Th.o.r.eau's philosophy, but these will appear plainly enough to one who reads his own record. His best-known work is _Walden_ (1854), a journal in which he recorded what he saw or thought or felt during the two years when he abandoned society to live in a hut on the sh.o.r.e of Walden Pond, near his native village of Concord. If there be any definite lesson in the book, it is the proof of Th.o.r.eau's theory that simplicity is needed for happiness, that men would be better off with fewer possessions, and that earning one's living should be a matter of pleasure rather than of endless toil and anxiety. What makes _Walden_ valuable, however, is not its theories but its revelation of an original mind fronting the facts of life, its gleams of poetry and philosophy, its startling paradoxes, its first-hand impressions of the world, its nuggets of sense or humor, and especially its intimate observation of the little wild neighbors in feathers or fur who shared Th.o.r.eau's solitude. It is one of the few books in American literature that successive generations have read with profit to themselves and with increasing respect for the original genius who wrote it.

THE HISTORIANS. The honored names of Bancroft, Sparks, Prescott, Motley and Parkman are indicative of the importance attached to history-writing in America ever since Colonial days, and of the remarkably fine and sometimes heroic quality of American historians. Another matter suggested by these names is the changing standard or ideal of historical writing. In an earlier time history was a dry chronicle of important events, or of such events as seemed important to the chronicler; at the present day it threatens to degenerate into an equally dry chronicle of economic forces; and between these thirsty extremes are various highly colored records glorifying kings or conquerors or political parties as the chief things of history.

[Sidenote: THE EPIC OF HISTORY]

These American historians had a different standard. They first consulted all available records to be sure of the facts or events. Then they closely examined the scene in which the event had come to pa.s.s, knowing that environment is always a factor in human history. Finally they studied historical personages, not as others had described them but as they revealed themselves in letters, diaries, speeches,--personal records revealing human motives that all men understand, because man is everywhere the same. From such a combination of event, scene and characters our historians wrote a dramatic narrative, giving it the heroic cast without which history, the prose epic of liberty, is little better than a dull catalogue. Another very important matter was that they cultivated their style as well as their knowledge; they were literary men no less than historians, and in the conviction that the first object of literature is to give pleasure they produced works that have charmed as well as instructed a mult.i.tude of readers. There are chapters in Prescott's _Conquest of Mexico_ and _Conquest of Peru_ over which one must sit up late, as over a novel of Scott; in Motley's _Rise of the Dutch Republic_ and _History of the United Netherlands_ there are scores of glowing pa.s.sages dealing with great characters or great events which stir the reader like a tale of gallant adventure.

Prescott deals with force in action, and the action at times seems to be an exaltation of violence and cruelty. Motley also delights in action; but he is at heart an apostle of liberty, or perhaps we should say, of the American ideal of liberty, and his narrative often a.s.sumes the character of a partisan chant of freedom.

[Sidenote: PARKMAN]

To the native, at least, Francis Parkman (1823-1893) is probably the most interesting of our historians, partly because of his lucid style and partly because of his American theme. Early in life he selected his subject (the Old French Wars) and spent the best part of forty years in making himself familiar not only with what occurred during the struggle between France and England for possession of the New World, but also with the primeval scene and all the motley characters of the fateful drama. It is doubtful if any other historian ever had a more minute knowledge of his subject; and the astonis.h.i.+ng, the heroic part of the matter is that he attained this vast knowledge in spite of the handicap of almost constant suffering and blindness. In a dozen volumes he tells his story, volumes crowded with action or adventure, and written in such a vividly convincing style that one has the impression that Parkman must have been an eye-witness of the events which he describes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS PARKMAN]

Among these volumes the second part of _Pioneers of France in the New World_ and _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_ are recommended to the beginner. The former deals with the career of Champlain, who opened the way for future settlements in the North; the latter with one of the most adventurous, lion-hearted men that ever cheerfully faced toil and endless danger. Standing apart from Parkman's main theme is a single volume, _The California and Oregon Trail_ (1849), which recounts the picturesque incidents of the author's trip through the Northwest, then an unknown country, with a tribe of unspoiled Indians. Those who like a tale of adventure need not go to fiction to find it, for it is here in Parkman's narrative,--a tale of care-free wandering amid plains or mountains and, what is historically more important, a picture of a vanished life that will never be seen here again.

SUMMARY. The period of conflict has no definite limits on either side, but for convenience we may think of it as included between the years 1840 and 1876. Its earlier years were filled with an ever-increasing agitation of the questions of slavery and state rights; its center was the Civil War; its close was the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, which we have selected as an outward symbol of a reunited country.

The most noticeable feature of the age, apart from the great war, was its ceaseless political turmoil. Of deeper significance to the student of literature was the profound mental unrest which showed itself in reform movements, in various communistic societies like Brook Farm, in an eager interest in the poetry of other nations, in the establishment of college professors.h.i.+ps of foreign literatures, in the philosophical doctrine of transcendentalism, and in many other efforts of mid-century Americans to enlarge their mental horizon.

A host of minor writings of the period reflect the sectional pa.s.sions or interests that stirred our people deeply at the time, but that are now almost forgotten. The comparatively small body of major literature was concerned with the permanent ideals of America or with the simple human feelings that have no age or nationality.

In general, it was a time of poetry rather than of prose, being distinguished above all other periods of American literature by the number and quality of its poets.

Our detailed study of the age includes: (1) The major or so-called elder poets, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Lanier and Whitman. (2) The life and work of Emerson, who was both poet and prose writer. (3) The career of Hawthorne, the novelist of Puritanism, who is commonly ranked at the head of American fiction-writers. (4) A brief review of the secondary writers of prose and verse. (5) An examination of the work of Th.o.r.eau, the most individualistic writer in an age of individualism, and of Parkman, whom we have selected as representative of the American historians.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections from minor writers of the period in Calhoun and MacAlarney, Readings from American Literature; Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature, and various other collections. Important works of all major writers are published in inexpensive editions for school use, a few of which are named below. Longfellow's short poems, Evangeline, parts of Hiawatha and of Tales of a Wayside Inn, in Riverside Literature; selections from the narrative poems in Lake English Cla.s.sics; selected poems in various other school series.

Whittier's Snow Bound and selected short poems, in Riverside Literature, Maynard's English Cla.s.sics, etc.

Lowell's Sir Launfal, selected short poems and selected essays, in Riverside Literature, Maynard's English Cla.s.sics.

Holmes's poems, selected, in Maynard's English Cla.s.sics; The Autocrat, in Everyman's Library; selected prose and verse, in Riverside Literature.

Lanier's poems, with selections from Timrod and Hayne, in Pocket Cla.s.sics, Maynard's English Cla.s.sics, etc.

Whitman's poems, brief selections, in Maynard's English Cla.s.sics; Triggs, Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman.

Emerson's poems, in Riverside Literature; Representative Men and selected essays, in Pocket Cla.s.sics; Nature and various essays, in Everyman's Library.

Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and selected short stories, in Pocket Cla.s.sics; Twice-Told Tales and other selections, in Riverside Literature.

Th.o.r.eau's Walden, in Everyman's Library; Walden and selections from other works, in Riverside Literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. For extended works covering the field of American history and literature see the General Bibliography. The following works are useful in a special study of the period of conflict.

_HISTORY_. Rhodes, History of the United States 1850-1877, 7 vols.; Wilson, Division and Reunion; Stephens, War between the States; Paxson, the Civil War; Rhodes, Lectures on the Civil War; Hart, Romance of the Civil War (supplementary reading for young people). Lives of notable characters in American Statesmen, Great Commanders and other series. Grant, Personal Memoirs; Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War; Alexander Stephens, Recollections; h.o.a.r, Autobiography; Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress; Greeley, Recollections; Booker Was.h.i.+ngton, Up from Slavery.

_LITERATURE,_. The great period of American letters is still awaiting its historian. Brief chapters are found in Richardson, Trent, Cairns, Wendell and other general histories of our literature. Good essays on individual authors of the period in Stedman, Poets of America; Brownell, American Prose Masters; Erskine, Leading American Novelists; Vincent, American Literary Masters; Burton, Literary Leaders of America.

Frothingham's Transcendentalism in New England will throw light on the so-called Concord school. Howells's Literary Friends and Acquaintance is a fine appreciation of the Cambridge writers.

Wauchope's Writers of South Carolina contains excellent studies of Timrod, Hayne, Simms and other writers of the Palmetto state.

Moses' Literature of the South and Henneman's Literary and Intellectual Life of the South are among the best works devoted to southern authors exclusively.

_Longfellow._ Life, by Higginson, in American Men of Letters; by Carpenter (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Robertson, in Great Writers; by S. Longfellow, 3 vols. (the standard biography). Essays by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Mrs. Fields, in Authors and Friends; by Curtis, in Literary and Social Essays; by Higginson, in Old Cambridge; by Howells, in Literary Friends and Acquaintance.

_Whittier._ Life, by Pickard, 2 vols.; by Carpenter, in American Men of Letters; by Higginson, in English Men of Letters; by Burton (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Perry, by Underwood.

Mrs. Claflin, Personal Recollections of Whittier; Hawkins, the Mind of Whittier; Fowler, Whittier: Prophet, Seer and Man; Pickard, Whittier Land. Essays, by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Higginson, in Contemporaries; by Hazeltine, in Chats about Books; by Mrs. Fields, in Authors and Friends.

_Lowell._ Life, by Greenslet; by Scudder, 2 vols.; by Hale (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Underwood. Edward Everett Hale, James Russell Lowell and his Friends. Essays, by Higginson, in Old Cambridge; by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Stedman, in Poets of America.

_Holmes._ Life, by Morse, 2 vols.; by Crothers, in American Men of Letters. Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Haweis, in American Humorists; by n.o.ble, in Impressions and Memories; by Stearns, in Cambridge Sketches; by L. Stephen, in Studies of a Biographer.

_Lanier._ Life, by Mims, in American Men of Letters; by West; by Ward, in Preface to Lanier's Poems (1884). Essays, by Baskerville, in Southern Writers; by Higginson, in Contemporaries; by Gilman, in South Atlantic Quarterly (1905); by Ward, in Century Magazine (1888); by Northrup, in Lippincott's (1905).

_Whitman._ Life, by Perry; by Carpenter, in English Men of Letters; by Platt (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Binns, by Bucke. Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Stevenson, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books; by Dowden, in Studies in Literature; by Santayana, in Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.

_Emerson._ Life, by Woodberry; by Cabot (Memoir of Emerson, 2 vols.); by O. W. Holmes, in American Men of Letters; by Garnett, in Great Writers; by Sanborn (brief), in Beacon Biographies. E. W.

Emerson, Emerson in Concord; Conway, Emerson at Home. Essays, by Stedman, in Poets of America; by Mrs. Fields, in Authors and Friends; by Lowell, in Literary Essays; by Stearns, in Sketches from Concord and Appledore; by Everett, in Essays Theological and Literary; by Beers, in Points at Issue; by Chapman, in Emerson and Other Essays.

_Hawthorne._ Life, by Woodberry, in American Men of Letters; by Henry James, in English Men of Letters; by Fields (brief), in Beacon Biographies; by Conway, in Great Writers. A more intimate but doubtful biography is Julian Hawthorne's Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife. Bridge, Personal Recollections of Hawthorne. Essays, by Brownell, in American Prose Masters; by Perry, in A Study of Prose Fiction; by Gates, in Studies and Appreciations; by L.

Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Higginson, in Short Studies of American Authors.

_Th.o.r.eau_. Life, by Salt, in Great Writers; by Sanborn, in American Men of Letters. Page, Th.o.r.eau: his Life and Aims. Essays by Higginson, in Short Studies of American Authors; by Stevenson, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books; by Lowell, in Literary Essays.