16 THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

is crude. The stories of Poe, Hawthorne, Howells, James, Aldrich, Bret Harte, are admirable in manner, but they are thin in substance, not of large vitality. On the other hand, some of the stronger American fictions fail in workmanship; for example, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which is still vivid and moving long after its tractarian interest has faded; the novels of Frank Norris, a man of great vision and high purpose, who attempted to put national economics into something like an epic of daily bread; and Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," a madly eloquent romance of the sea. A few American novelists have felt the meaning of the life they knew and have tried sincerely to set it down, but have for various reasons failed to make first-rate novels; for example, Edward Eggleston, whose stories of early Indiana have the breath of actuality in them; Mr. E. W. Howe, author of "The Story of a Country Town"; Harold Frederic, a man of great ability, whose work was growing deeper, more significant when he died; George W. Cable, whose novels are unsteady and sentimental, but who gives a genuine impression of having portrayed a city and its people; and Stephen Crane, who, dead at thirty, had given in "The Red Badge of Courage" and "Maggie" the promise of better work. Of good short stories America has been prolific. Mrs. Wilkins-Freeman, Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, Sarah Orne Jewett, Rowland Robinson, H. C. Bunner, Edward Everett Hale, Frank Stockton, Joel Chandler Harris, and "O. Henry" are some of those whose short stories are perfect in their several kinds. But the American novel, which multiplies past counting, remains an inferior production.

On a private shelf of contemporary fiction and drama in the English language are the works of ten British authors, Mr. Galsworthy, Mr. H. G. Wells, Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Eden Phillpotts, Mr. George Moore, Mr. Leonard Merrick, Mr. J. C. Snaith, Miss May Sinclair, Mr. William De Morgan, Mr. Maurice Hewlett, Mr. Joseph Conrad, Mr. Bernard Shaw, yes, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Beside them al I find but two Americans, Mrs. Edith Wharton and Mr. Theodore Dreiser. There may be others, for one cannot pretend to know all the living novelists and dramatists. Yet for every American that should be added, I would agree to add four to the British list. However, a contemporary literature that includes Mrs. Wharton's "Ethan Frome" and Mr. Dreiser's "Jennie Gerhardt" both published last year, is not to be despaired of.

In the course of a century a few Americans have said in memorable words what life meant to them. Their performance, put together, is considerable, if not imposing. Any sense of dissatisfaction that one feels in contemplating it is due to the disproportion between a limited expression and the multifarious immensity of the country. Our literature, judged by the great literatures contemporaneous with it, is insufficient to the opportunity and the need. The American Spirit may be figured as petitioning the Muses for twelve novelists, ten poets, and eight dramatists, to be delivered at the earliest possible moment.

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CHAPTER II

IRVING

"A FREE PEOPLE," says Irving, "are apt to be grave and thoughtful. They have high and important matters to occupy their minds. They feel that it is their right, their interest, and their duty, to mingle in public concerns, and to watch over the general welfare. The continual exercise of the mind on political topics gives intenser habits of thinking, and a more serious and earnest demeanour. A nation becomes less gay, but more intellectually active and vigorous. It evinces less play of the fancy, but more power of the imagination; less taste and elegance, but more grandeur of mind; less animated vivacity, but deeper enthusiasm.

"It is when men are shut out of the regions of manly thought, by a despotic government; when every grave and lofty theme is rendered perilous to discussion and almost to reflection; it is then that they turn to the safer occupations of taste and amusement; trifles rise to importance, and occupy the craving activity of intellect. No being is more void of care and reflection than the slave; none dances more gayly, in his intervals of labour; but make him free, give him rights and interests to guard, and he becomes thoughtful and laborious.”

Had the creator of Diedrich Knickerbocker, Ichabod Crane,

and Rip Van Winkle habitually dwelt in the sober mood of the foregoing passage, he would have been an obscure case in support of his own queer theory. Whether or not merriment and sweet fancy were oppressed by the spirit of liberty which dominated America a century ago, the genius of Irving refused to succumb. The piper of the mystic song of Liberty may have led the children under the mountain of Civil Rights; Irving is the boy who came back. “A grownup child," he calls himself, speaking in the person of Geoffrey Crayon. Through a long and peaceful life he remains impenitently gay. While Governor Clinton, "amid the acclamations of the multitude," symbolizes the completion of the Erie Canal by pouring two kegs of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic, Irving peoples the banks of the Hudson with elves and goblins. The railroad soon renders the Erie Canal as obsolete as any piece of Egyptian engineering; but Irving's creations are not displaced by successors; his fresh voice of laughter and romance still rings solitary along the Hudson palisades.

Irving was a child of fortune. His father was in comfortable circumstances, and the young man was able to indulge in three pleasures which cherished his talents: innocent idling among the people of New York, especially in the older parts of the town and along the water front; writing and publishing for the sport of it; and travelling in Europe. The delicate state of his health made it necessary, or advisable, that he should make sea voyages. Since his invalidity did not assume painful forms nor fetter his work either as man of letters or man of affairs, it may be regarded as fortunate, for

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it won him dispensations which his father would not perhaps have accorded to a robust young man. Irving's genius was not so powerful that it would have hewn works of art out of strife and poverty. His gentle fancy was nourished by wellbeing, by leisure to indulge his amiable indolence, to sit on the bank and watch life stream by, to catch a glimpse of a comic old face in the crowd or the fluttering ribbon on a girl's bonnet. Yet he was not an irresponsible idler who filled his knapsack from other peoples' larders and paid his debt to the heirs of the almoners in priceless books. He was a good business man and self-reliant. At the age of twentysix he proved his literary gifts and won flattering applause by his "Knickerbocker's History of New York"; but he rejected the alluring career of letters, went into partnership with his brother and for ten years devoted himself to trade. It was only when the business failed that he published his second volume, "The Sketch Book," which was so popular as to warrant, not only from an artistic but from a practical point of view, his committing himself to the literary

career.

He had justified his leisure and he continued to earn a right to it. When he loafed he invited his soul and not the censure of his family. His was a happy and normal life. He wandered through the woods communing with pixies and the ghosts of mythical Dutchmen; his fancy kept company with tatterdemalions and tap-room idlers; but he was a handsome, fashionable young bachelor, and he lived amid the conventional "best society." If the death of his sweetheart threw a cloud of melancholy over his life, the