Chapter VIII: Part 8

_Constance Fenimore Woolson._--A grandniece of Fenimore Cooper, Miss Woolson (1848-94) has taken a place among women novelists scarcely less honourable than that held by her kinsman among American novelists in general. Born at Claremont, New Hampshire, she was educated in Cleveland, Ohio, and at a French school in New York City. After her father’s death in 1869, she spent her summers at Cooperstown, New York, or on the Great Lakes, and her winters in the South. Her first literary effort, “The Happy Valley” (_Harper’s_, July, 1870) met with immediate approval. From then till her death, she contributed regularly to _Harper’s_. She published “The Old Stone House” (1873), “Castle Nowhere; Lake Country Sketches” (1875), “Rodman the Keeper; Southern Sketches” (1880), “Anne” (1882), “For the Major” (1883), “East Angels” (1886), her most elaborate and perhaps her best novel, dealing with ante-bellum Georgia coast life, “Jupiter Lights” (1889), and “Horace Chase” (1894), by many preferred to any of her other works. Possessing decided gifts as a novelist, she had a high standard of excellence. Some of her plots are intricate, but all are skilfully worked out. Charles Dudley Warner spoke of her as one of the first in America to bring the short story as a social study to its present degree of excellence. Her best work should have more than a merely ephemeral life.

_Henry James, Jr._--A subject of contention among critics, having an ardent if not a large following, but standing for something like caviare to the general public, Henry James is to-day one of the most striking figures among American novelists. He was born in New York, April 15, 1843, the son of Henry James the theologian, and a younger brother of William James the psychologist. His family was Irish on the father’s side and Scotch on the mother’s. He has told us of his early years and of how, while the other boys were at their games, he used to sit on the hearth-rug studying _Punch_ and learning about the life which John Leech’s pictures suggested to him. At eleven he was sent abroad and spent six years in England, France, and Switzerland, deeply interested in European culture, art, and social tradition. On his return, his family made their home at Newport, Rhode Island. In 1862 he entered the Harvard Law School, but found more pleasure in the lectures of James Russell Lowell on literature than in the reading of law. Soon after leaving Cambridge, having succeeded with some early ventures in _The Galaxy_ and other magazines, he began to devote himself wholly to literature. Since 1869 he has lived abroad, chiefly in Paris, London, and Italy. His life has been a quiet, uneventful study of men and women, of books, of places.

Mr. James has been a fairly prolific writer, of constantly increasing subtlety and attention to finish. His first stories, curiously enough, revealed a romantic, at times even sensational, bent, which he soon outgrew. His first novel, “Watch and Ward” (1871), was promising but not otherwise significant; “Roderick Hudson” (1875) was quite equal to the best of his later work, combining profound analysis of character with perhaps more sentiment than appears in his later works. It is a study of the artistic temperament in the person of a young American sculptor who is taken to Italy by a rich virtuoso. The story deals with two favourite studies of Mr. James: the contrast between Americans and the older races with which they come into contact in Europe, and the contrast between the artistic and the prosaic person. The first of these contrasts forms the subject of “A Passionate Pilgrim” (1875), including that exquisite story “The Madonna of the Future,” of “The American” (1877), and of “Daisy Miller, a Comedy” (1878), in which a burlesque element is noticeable. From the year 1875, then, may be said to date the “international novel” of comparison or contrast, which has become so immensely popular. In “The Europeans” (1878), the scene changes to Boston and the author shows how the life of the Puritans appears to foreign visitors. Other international studies are found in “An International Episode” (1879), “The Portrait of a Lady” (1881), one of his most popular longer novels, and “The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas, and The Point of View” (1883). In 1880 (dated 1881) appeared “Washington Square,” a quiet story laid in a formerly aristocratic quarter of New York; the tale has been called “a miracle in monotone.” Then came “The Bostonians” (1886), which Professor Richardson speaks of as typically “long, dull, and inconsequential, but mildly pleasing the reader, or at times quite delighting him, by a deliberate style which is enjoyable for its own sake, by a calm portraiture which represents the characters with silhouette clearness, and by some very faithful and delicately humorous pictures of the life and scenery of Eastern Massachusetts.” “The Princess Casamassima” (1886) continues the career of an American adventuress, Christina Light, who has figured in “Roderick Hudson,” to which it thus forms a kind of sequel. Less read than some others, it is one of the most remarkable of Mr. James’ stories. In 1888 appeared “The Aspern Papers, and Other Stories” and “The Reverberator,” a comedy of manners recalling “The American,” and dealing with the incompatibility between the cultivated and the vulgar relatives of two lovers and with the odious violation of private life by modern journalism. “The Tragic Muse” (1890), a study of a psychological problem of art and love, is complicated and difficult in the extreme; a friend expressed a sound view of it to Mr. James: “I will say it is your best novel if you promise never to do it again,” probably meaning that the extreme limit of elaboration had been reached. Three collections of stories, “The Lesson of the Master, and Other Stories” (1892), “The Real Thing, and Other Tales” (1893), and “Terminations” (1895), include various comic sketches, with some preciosities, and a well-told ghost-story, “Sir Edmund Orme,” the _motif_ of which was later repeated in “The Turn of the Screw” (1898), a horrible, nerve-racking tale. “The Other House” (1896) is a highly dramatic, even sensational, story of passion, culminating, strange to say, in a murder; yet Rose Armiger is Mr. James’ one supremely passionate woman. In 1897 were published “The Spoils of Poynton” and “What Maisie Knew,” the latter a rather unpleasant story of domestic unhappiness and sordid intrigue; Maisie being a little girl whose life was spent alternately in the company of divorced parents, equally guilty, each of whom had remarried. “In the Cage” (1898) is a tissue of shrewd guess-work woven by a lively telegraph girl who becomes interested in the love affair of two others. “The Two Magics” (1898) includes “The Turn of the Screw” and “Covering End,” a pleasant comedy about an English country house. “The Awkward Age” (1899) is a unique example of subtle, often elusive, analysis of character--of character which some might say was not worth analysis, with unimportant incidents and little action. “The Soft Side” (1900) is a collection of studies of abnormal character and curious psychical phenomena, in which the rhythm of the prose is at times remarkable for its suggestiveness. “The Sacred Fount” (1901) is a fanciful sketch dealing with the idea of youth as a rejuvenator of age. “The Wings of the Dove” (1902) has been called the most remarkable book that Mr. James has written. It is a long story of the old warfare between the flesh and the spirit, in which the unseen forces from another world play an unlooked-for part. Mr. James’ most recent stories are “The Better Sort” (1903), “The Ambassadors” (1904), and “The Golden Bowl” (1905).

It is difficult to sum up in a few words the leading traits of Mr. James. It is easy to speak of him as reeling off volumes of abstruseness in which the petty ambitions of worthless Americans are analysed with a minuteness like that in which the leisurely student of anatomy delights; but such innocuous “criticism” does not even touch Mr. James. Undoubtedly it has been increasingly hard of late years to follow him; his later stories, with their proneness to excessive psychological delving, have a certain analogy to Browning’s later poems, which became harder to follow. But judged by his best works, such as “Roderick Hudson,” “The Princess Casamassima,” and “The Other House,” he must be pronounced a great artist, a keen analyst of the small section of life and the few types of character which he has chosen to study (and if one does not care for the types, one may still recognise the art with which they are presented); and as always a loyal American. He is not a master of style; yet at his best he embodies certain qualities of supreme excellence in style--ease, intimacy, suggestiveness, lucidity, sincerity. He is never a preacher, nor is he ever the mere idler and _dilettante_. He is very much in earnest; and in consequence the moral effect of his exposition of life is wholesome. “Out of the corruption,” says Miss Cary,[16] “of a society which Mr. James depicts with unsparing detail and without satire or didactic comment, rises the flame of purity. Some one among his characters is sure to stand for invincible goodness.” If the language of his later books becomes unintelligible, it will of course be a pity; but it seems quite unlikely that the great works of his middle period will soon cease to have a large body of appreciative and delighted readers.

_Edward Eggleston._--The Hoosier life of southern Indiana has been described by Edward Eggleston (1837-1902). A native of Vevay, Indiana, he received only a brief school education, but taught himself several languages. He first became (1857) an itinerant Methodist minister in southern Indiana and then for nine years was a Bible Society agent in Minnesota. From 1866 till 1879, he was engaged partly in journalism and partly in a Brooklyn pastorate; then he retired to his country place on Lake George to devote himself entirely to literature.

His first book to win attention was “The Hoosier Schoolmaster” (1871), which first appeared as a serial in _Hearth and Home_. Having read Taine’s “Art in the Netherlands,” he says, he proceeded to apply Taine’s maxim, that an artist ought to paint what he has seen. The result was so faithful a picture that in spite of its faults it has a permanent value as a record of one phase of early Western life. Dr. Eggleston also wrote “The End of the World” (1872), which deals with the Millerites, who in 1842-3 proved by the Book of Daniel that the end of the world was at hand; “The Mystery of Metropolisville” (1873); “The Circuit Rider, a Tale of the Heroic Age” (1874), in which he drew on his own early experiences; “Roxy” (1878), a story of picturesque incident and character development laid in the time of the Tippecanoe campaign of 1840; “The Graysons, a Story of Illinois” (1888), a realistic picture of pioneer life in which Abraham Lincoln figures as a character; “The Faith Doctor” (1891), which deals with Christian Science and kindred phenomena in New York, and which shows the influence of Mr. Howells; and “Duffels” (1893), a collection of stories.

Dr. Eggleston himself spoke of his attitude in literature as a constant struggle “between the lover of literary art and the religionist, the reformer, the philanthropist, the man with a mission.” We are not of course surprised to find an editor of _The Sunday School Teacher_ making his moral too prominent. But while this mars much of his work, his novels may still be said to be fresh and genuine transcripts of life.

_Julian Hawthorne._--Julian Hawthorne (born in 1846) inherited literary ability from his father, the romancer. As an infant he was delicate; at seven his health was good, but having been kept out of school he could neither read nor write. Entering Harvard in 1863, he became known as an all-around athlete. After leaving Harvard without graduating, he lived in Dresden for some years, then returned to America and became a hydrographic engineer in New York. In 1871 he began to win attention to his short stories, and since 1872 has devoted himself to literature and journalism, living successively in Dresden, London, and New York. “Bressant,” his first novel, published in _Appleton’s Journal_ in 1872, is somewhat crude and not without sensational elements, but holds the interest. Then came “Idolatry” (1874), which, though rewritten in whole or in part seven times, is now unknown, “Garth” (1877), a long story of New Hampshire, the chief part being a painter’s love-story, “Sebastian Strome” (1880), a study of the chastening of a selfish character, strongly reminding us of “Adam Bede,” “Dust” (1883), a story of extreme self-sacrifice, “Fortune’s Fool” (1884), “Archibald Malmaison” (1884), a novelette, and “Beatrix Randolph” (1884). In general his stories are not pleasant reading. Impossible characters are not infrequent and there is a tendency toward the choice of morbid subjects. Many descriptive passages, however, are superbly done, and the general impression one gets is that of power, but of power unrestrained, a strong imagination capable of greater things than Mr. Hawthorne has done. Yet the qualities characteristic of his best books, like “Archibald Malmaison,” are such as led the late Richard Henry Stoddard, a man by no means deficient in judgment, and familiar with the best in modern literature, to pronounce Mr. Hawthorne “clearly and easily the first of living romancers.”

In recent years, Mr. Hawthorne has forsaken the paths of pure literature, with which he seems never to have been in love,[17] for those of journalism.

_William Dean Howells._--The apostle of latter-day realism, and one of the most noted of our writers of fiction, is Mr. Howells. He has been prominent in literary circles for more than forty years. The son of a journalist and printer, Mr. Howells was born at Martin’s Ferry, Belmont County, Ohio, in 1837. His father had adopted Swedenborgian tenets and the boy was reared in this faith. His boyhood life has been admirably described in “A Boy’s Town.” The family lived successively at several places in Ohio, and young Howells was in turn compositor, correspondent, and news editor. In 1859 he began contributing to _The Atlantic Monthly_, his first poem, “Andenken,” appearing anonymously in January, 1860. Nearly every volume of _The Atlantic_ down to 1900 contains some of his work. A campaign “Life of Abraham Lincoln” (1860) netted him $160, and enabled him to make his first trip East and to meet Emerson, Lowell, and other New England writers; it also won for him the post of Consul at Venice, which he held from 1861 till 1865. The first fruits of his Italian residence were “Venetian Life” (1866) and “Italian Journeys” (1867), two descriptive works which revealed a truly poetic temperament and a refined taste. On his return to America, Mr. Howells became an editorial writer for the New York _Times_ and a contributor to _The Nation_. The next year (1866), removing to Boston, he became assistant editor of _The Atlantic_; in 1871 he became the editor and made the magazine a stronger force than ever in criticism. On resigning this post in 1880, he spent a year or two abroad; since 1888 he has lived in New York, engaged chiefly in literary work. From 1886 till 1891 he conducted the Editor’s Study in _Harper’s_.

While Mr. Howells has been prolific in criticism, description, narratives of travel, literary and personal reminiscences, and lighter essays, his most significant work has been done in his novels. His first appearance as a writer of fiction was in 1871, with “Their Wedding Journey,” a slight but delicately humorous tale of a Boston couple, the Marches, who go to Canada to spend their honeymoon. “A Chance Acquaintance” (1873) is a subtle study of incompatibility of temperament. “A Foregone Conclusion” (1875) transports us to Venice, where we watch the unhappy love story, dramatically told, of an agnostic priest and an American girl. “The Lady of the Aroostook” (1879) is an amusing, healthy story of New England provincial manners. The theme of “The Undiscovered Country” (1880) is spiritualism and mesmerism. “A Fearful Responsibility” (1881) is the story of an American professor in Venice whose charge, a young girl, is loved by an Austrian officer. In “Dr. Breen’s Practice” (1881) we have pictures of summer life in a small seaside village in Maine and a study of modern Puritanism. With “A Modern Instance” (1881) may be said to begin the extremely realistic stories in Mr. Howells’ later manner; others are: “A Woman’s Reason” (1883), “The Rise of Silas Lapham” (1885), “Indian Summer” (1886), “The Minister’s Charge, or The Apprenticeship of Lemuel Barker” (1887), “April Hopes” (1887), “Annie Kilburn” (1888), “A Hazard of New Fortunes” (1890), in which the Marches have characteristic experiences in New York, “The Quality of Mercy” (1892), a painful but well told story, “The Coast of Bohemia” (1893), “An Open-Eyed Conspiracy” (1897), “Ragged Lady” (1899), “The Flight of Pony Baker” (1902), a captivating boys’ story, belonging with “A Boy’s Town,” “The Kentons” (1903), and “The Son of Royal Langbrith” (1905). From these novels, after the manner of Tolstoi, the romantic and even the ideal are rigorously excluded; we are treated to exhaustive, minutely detailed accounts of the daily lives of ordinary, generally commonplace people. Plot and incident are of secondary importance, although some chapters fairly bristle with incident; Mr. Howells holds that any transcript of real life, even though made at random, if skilfully handled, is of sufficient interest to form a good story. Naturally this view of the novel has found many opponents, and Mr. Howells’ books have been somewhat less popular of late years than they were in the eighties. After all, the hunger for the ideal cannot be wholly appeased by disagreeable actualities; and there are people whom we know all too well in the flesh to care to see them, in all their pettiness and meanness and duplicity, in the pages of fiction. Mr. Howells’ followers, however,--and there are many of them--contend that nothing is so interesting as real, actual, present life; that no detail of our daily round is without its significance; that the slightest act or omission of an act may affect our destiny. After all, the realists and the romanticists we have always with us; the former are just now in the majority; but the reaction is just as inevitable as the return of the pendulum.

In some of his later stories, as “The Traveller from Altruria” (1894) and “Through the Eye of the Needle” (1907), Mr. Howells has shown an increasing interest in the more serious problems of society--poverty, strikes, the causes of crime, “the tyranny of individualism,” and the conditions that hinder the spread of sympathy and human brotherhood. The effect of this increased ethical and human interest has probably not been to enhance the artistic value of his work; and some deplore his lapse from the high ideal of art for art’s sake. Others see in Mr. Howells’ recent works a greater attention to substance, a firmer tissue, a broader humanity. And always, be it said, in reading Mr. Howells, one is conscious of that fine and careful workmanship, that care for correct and proper form, that artistic conscience, without which, whatever his literary creed, Mr. Howells could never have become the foremost and representative American novelist of his time.

_Frances Hodgson Burnett._--Frances H. Burnett was born in Manchester, England, in 1849, but came to America with her parents in 1865 and lived for eight years, until her marriage, in New Market and Knoxville, Tennessee. Since then she has lived in Washington and in Kent, England. She first gained notice with “Surly Tim’s Trouble” (_Scribner’s Monthly_, June, 1872), a story of Lancashire, as were also “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s” (1877), “Dolly” (1877, republished in 1883 as “Vagabondia”), and “Haworth’s” (1879) said to be a favourite with its author. With “Louisiana” (1880) she turned to America for material, describing life in the mountains of North Carolina. “Through One Administration” (1883) is a pathetic and powerful story of social and political life in Washington. “Little Lord Fauntleroy” (1886), the Anglo-American story of a seven-year-old hero, has become a children’s classic; similar but less known are the tales in “Sara Crewe, and Other Stories” (1888), and “The Captain’s Youngest, Piccino, and Other Stories” (1894). In “The Pretty Sister of José” (1889), Mrs. Burnett deals with picturesque and striking Spanish characters and scenes. “A Lady of Quality” (1896) and its sequel, “His Grace of Osmonde” (1897), are melodramatic stories of English aristocrats in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. “In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim” (1899) deals with country life in Tennessee in the early sixties. Her latest stories are “The Dawn of a To-Morrow” (1906) and “The Shuttle” (1907), the latter a fascinating international novel. She has thoroughly demonstrated her power to delineate character as moulded by passion.

_Philander Deming._--Philander Deming (born in Carlisle, New York, in 1829), a lawyer by profession, in 1873 began publishing in _The Atlantic Monthly_ stories and sketches the scene of which is laid in the Adirondack region of northern New York. Devoid of sensationalism, these stories portray simply and effectively the rude but sound life of plain country folk. Mr. Deming has published in book form “Adirondack Stories” (1880), “Tompkins and Other Folks” (1885), and “The Story of a Pathfinder” (1907).

_Lew Wallace._--General Lewis Wallace (1827-1905), an Indiana lawyer and soldier in the Mexican and Civil Wars, was the author of three novels, “The Fair God” (1873), “Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ” (1880), and “The Prince of India” (1893), which deserve mention chiefly because of their popularity. The second, especially, in this respect, ranks close to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Written in a spirit of deep reverence for the traditional view of Jesus of Nazareth, and making small demands upon the imagination, it could hardly fail to make a strong appeal to a large body of readers. As literature, however, Wallace’s books are of only transient importance.

_Charles Dudley Warner._--Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) belongs mainly with the essayists, but wrote a few novels that deserve to live. With Mark Twain he wrote “The Gilded Age” (1873). “Their Pilgrimage” (1887) has a slight plot, but gives minute and accurate descriptions of Southern watering-places. “A Little Journey in the World” (1889) and its sequel, “The Golden House” (1895), are vivid pictures of decadent New York society. “That Fortune” (1899) is a picture, drawn from expert knowledge, of the New York financial world.

_Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen._--Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (1848-95) realised the dream of many in successfully combining the careers of authorship and teaching. Born at Frederiksvärn, Norway, and educated at Christiania, he came to America in 1869. He first became editor of a Scandinavian journal in Chicago. Then he studied philology at Leipsic for two years (1872-74). From 1874 till 1880 he was professor of German at Cornell University, and from 1881 till his death he filled a similar chair at Columbia University. Besides some poetry and essays, he wrote “Gunnar, a Norse Romance” (1874), his one effort in romance, “Tales from Two Hemispheres” (1876), “Falconberg” (1879), “Ilka on the Hilltop” (1881), a collection of short stories, “Queen Titania” (1881), “A Daughter of the Philistines” (1883), “Social Strugglers” (1893), “The Mammon of Unrighteousness” (1891), and “The Golden Calf” (1892). His later stories were realistic novels concerned with vital problems, such as the conflict between wealth and essential culture. Their vogue was not great, but their workmanship was genuine.

_Blanche Willis Howard._--Blanche Willis Howard (1847-98) was born in Bangor, Maine, was educated in New York, and in 1878 went to Stuttgart, Germany, to engage in teaching and writing. In 1890 she was married to Baron von Teuffel, a physician. She wrote a number of novels, of which “One Summer” (1875), “Aunt Serena” (1880), “Guenn” (1882), “Aulnay Tower” (1886), “The Open Door” (1889), “No Heroes” (1893), a boys’ story, and “Seven on the Highway” (1897), a collection of short stories, may be mentioned. In collaboration with William Sharp she wrote “A Fellowe and His Wife” (1892), in which a comic atmosphere prevails. Perhaps “Guenn,” the pathetic story of a Breton maiden’s hopeless love, is the book by which she will be longest remembered.

_Edgar Fawcett._--Edgar Fawcett (1847-1904) was in his day a prominent and popular poet, dramatist, and novelist. Born and reared in New York, and at twenty graduated from Columbia College, he early saw the rich possibilities of the life around him, and confined himself to the delineation of New York people. The best of his novels are “Rutherford” (written in 1876, but not published in book form till 1884), “A Hopeless Case” (1880), “A Gentleman of Leisure” (1881), “An Ambitious Woman” (1883), “The House at High Bridge” (1886), perhaps his best story, “Fair Fame” (1894), “Outrageous Fortune” (1894), and “The Ghost of Guy Thyrle” (1897). He was fond of attacking the petty conventions of social life and his satire was not ineffective. Partly because of this unpleasant realism his books have already ceased to be much read.

_Edwin Lassetter Bynner._--Edwin L. Bynner (1842-93), a New England lawyer and journalist, for a time librarian of the Boston Law Library, achieved success in the field of the historical romance. Beginning with “Nimport” (1877), he produced a large number of novels and short stories, of which the best are “Penelope’s Suitors” (_The Atlantic_, December, 1884), “Agnes Surriage” (1887), “The Begum’s Daughter” (1889), a story of New Amsterdam in 1689, and “Zachary Phips” (1892), which introduces the mysterious Western expedition of Aaron Burr. Accurate on the historical side, his works are not distinguished artistic successes; yet they make the past live again.

_Sarah Orne Jewett._--Sarah Orne Jewett (born in 1849) has written some interesting and even powerful stories of the coast of New England. She was reared at South Berwick, near the Maine coast. While accompanying her father, a physician, on his rounds, she heard from him many local and family histories and traditions. Her first story was “Deephaven” (1877); and she has since written, among others, “Country By-Ways” (1881), eight sketches; “The Mate of the _Daylight_, and Friends Ashore” (1884), short stories and sketches; “A Country Doctor” (1884), “A Marsh Island” (1885), and “A White Heron” (1886), three stories of rural New England; “Strangers and Wayfarers” (1890); “A Native of Winby, and Other Tales” (1893); “The Country of the Pointed Firs” (1896), which contains her most successful character studies; “The Queen’s Twin, and Other Stories” (1899); “The Tory Lover” (1901), a love-story of the Revolution, introducing John Paul Jones, which cannot be pronounced successful. Miss Jewett is at her best in her kindly humorous and sympathetic interpretations of humble but self-respecting New Englanders of the present day. Her humour is healthy and contagious and her style is for the most part simple, clear, and vigorous.

_Mrs. Ellen Olney Kirk._--Ellen Olney Kirk (“Henry Hayes,” born in Connecticut in 1842) has been popular as a novelist. She received her education at Stratford, Conn., and was married to John Foster Kirk, the historian, in 1879. Her stories include “Love in Idleness” (1877), “A Lesson in Love” (1883), a study in character, “A Midsummer Madness” (1885), “The Story of Margaret Kent” (1886), “Queen Money” (1888), “The Story of Lawrence Garth” (1894), her best book, in which the difficult character of an adventuress is well drawn, “The Revolt of a Daughter” (1898), “Dorothy Deane” (1899), “Our Lady Vanity” (1901), “The Apology of Ayliffe” (1904), and “Marcia” (1907). The moral in her stories is generally not obtrusive and the humour is genial.

_Edward Bellamy._--Edward Bellamy (1850-98), a native of Massachusetts, studied at Union College and in Germany, and in 1871 was admitted to the bar, but devoted his life to journalism and literature. After a year in the Sandwich Islands, in 1878 he published his first novel, “A Nantucket Idyl,” which was followed by “Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process” (1880), in its own way a supremely effective romance, and “Miss Ludington’s Sister, a Romance of Immortality” (1884), none of them very successful with the public. His best known work, “Looking Backward, or 2000-1887” (1888), a Utopian romance, was unexpectedly received as a gospel of socialism; it was widely read and translated into many languages. Much inferior artistically was its sequel, “Equality” (1897). In his best work Bellamy showed a rare gift of romantic portraiture of average types “in the village environment by which he interpreted the heart of the American nation.”

_Mrs. Burton N. Harrison._--Mrs. Burton Harrison (born Constance Cary, at Vaucluse, Virginia, in 1846) has written interesting and highly realistic novels of New York City life, full of local colour and effective in background; and some novels of Virginia life. Mr. Harrison, to whom she was married in 1867, had been private secretary to President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy. The couple soon removed to New York, which has since been their permanent home. Mrs. Harrison’s first venture in literature was “A Little Centennial Lady” (_Scribner’s Monthly_, July, 1876), a sprightly historical sketch. Her novels dealing with Northern society are “Golden Rod” (1878), “Helen Troy” (1881), “The Anglomaniacs” (1890), “Sweet Bells out of Tune” (1893), “A Bachelor Maid” (1894), “An Errant Wooing” (1895), “Good Americans” (1897), “A Triple Entanglement” (1897), “The Carcelline Emerald” (1899), and “The Circle of a Century.” Perhaps the chief excellence of these stories is the dialogue, in the management of which Mrs. Harrison shows great skill. Although the attitude of the author is that of a satirist, her laughter at the foibles of society is not unkindly. Of Virginia she has written “Crow’s Nest and Bellhaven Tales” (1892) and “A Son of the Old Dominion” (1897), which deals with pre-Revolutionary times. “A Daughter of the South” (1892) is an exquisitely told story of New Orleans Creole life thrown into the environment of Paris under the Second Empire.

_Charles Egbert Craddock._--Charles Egbert Craddock is the pen name of Mary Noailles Murfree (born in 1850), who contributed to _The Atlantic_ for several years before it was suspected that her stories were written by a woman. She is the daughter of a once prominent lawyer of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who in 1883 removed to St. Louis. Because of an accident, Miss Murfree was for several years unable to walk. She was a diligent student and somehow gained an intimate knowledge of the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee, who figure in all of her stories. Her first story of any importance was “The Dancin’ Party at Harrison’s Cove” (_The Atlantic_, May, 1878). It was largely due to Mr. Aldrich’s urgent representations that her first collection of stories, “In the Tennessee Mountains,” found a publisher (1884). Of this a writer in _The Nation_ said, with justice: “We have not only one mountain valley, but a whole country of hills--not a man and a woman here and there, but the people of a whole district--not merely a day of winter or of summer, but all the year--not lives, but life.” This is substantially true of all her works, in which she described prosaic and pathetic mountaineer life, being always inspired, however, by the solitude and grandeur of the Great Smoky Mountains. The list of her works is a long one: “Where the Battle was Fought” (1884); “Down the Ravine” (1885); “The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains” (1885), which recounts the history of “a Bunyan worsted by his doubts”; “In the Clouds” (1887), a tragic story likewise dealing with religious experiences; “The Story of Keedon Bluffs” (1887); “The Despot of Broomsedge Cove” (1889), the plot of which hinges on a mysterious murder; “In the Stranger People’s Country” (1891); “His Vanished Star” (1894); “The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories” (1895); “The Juggler” (1897); “The Young Mountaineers” (1897), short stories; “The Champion” (1902); “A Spectre of Power” (1903), which is laid in the year 1763 and is full of Indian love; “The Frontiersmen” (1904); and “The Storm Centre” (1905). Her later work suffers from repetition of certain mannerisms and from excessive attention to description; possibly also from too rapid production. On the whole, however, in her ability to present the pathos and tragedy of simple lives, Miss Murfree has a place of honour among present-day writers.

_Anna Katharine Green._--Through the publication, in 1878, of “The Leavenworth Case,” a clever detective story, this author, then a girl of nineteen, was brought into immediate notice on both sides of the Atlantic. “The Leavenworth Case” was followed in successive years by “A Strange Disappearance,” “The Sword of Damocles,” “Hand and Ring,” “Behind Closed Doors,” “Marked ‘Personal,’” “That Affair Next Door,” “Lost Man’s Lane,” “One of My Sons,” and other volumes. Some critics have spoken of Miss Green (who is now Mrs. Charles Rohlfs) as the “Wilkie Collins of America.” Nearly all of her books have appeared in transatlantic editions. Mrs. Rohlfs is also responsible for two volumes of poems, “The Defence of the Bride” (1882) and “Risifi’s Daughter” (1886).

_Frank R. Stockton._--The unique and kindly humour of Mr. Stockton’s books attracted many readers. He was born in Philadelphia in 1834 and was the son of William S. Stockton, an ardent temperance reformer, abolitionist, and Methodist layman who helped to establish the Methodist Protestant Church. Educated in the schools of Philadelphia, young Stockton first tried the study of medicine, then worked as a wood-engraver for some years, devoting his leisure time to prose and verse writing. In 1872, he gave up wood-engraving to join the staff of the Philadelphia _Morning Post_, and for the next ten years was engaged in editorial and journalistic work on _Scribner’s Monthly_, _St. Nicholas_, _Hearth and Home_, etc. From 1882 until his death in 1902, Mr. Stockton was independently engaged in literary work, producing a large number of delightfully humorous stories and novels. The tale which made him famous was “Rudder Grange” (1879), which recounts the experiences of a young married couple who begin housekeeping in a castaway barge with an absurd handmaid named Pomona. “The Lady or the Tiger? and Other Stories” appeared in 1884; the title story is the best known of Stockton’s works. Other stories are “The Late Mrs. Null” (1886); “The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine” (1886), a Crusoe-like narrative, a sequel to which is “The Dusantes” (1888); “The Hundredth Man” (1887); “The Merry Chanter” (1890); “The Squirrel Inn” (1891); “Pomona’s Travels” (1894), which narrates the wedding journey of the amusing Pomona through England and Scotland; “The Adventures of Captain Horn” (1895) and its sequel, “Mrs. Cliff’s Yacht” (1896), which deal with adventures in quest of the treasure of the Incas of Peru; “A Bicycle of Cathay” (1900); and “Afield and Afloat” (1901), a collection of short stories. While his style is remarkably simple and free from mannerisms, “the art that conceals art, until it can pass for nature itself,” his method of handling plot and character is distinctively his own. His reasoning is always logical, but he contrives that it shall bring about the most amusing absurdities conceivable. If, as one writer alleges, “his whimsicality played on the surface of men and things,” one may reply that that is precisely where it should play. His stories are none the less wholesome, even though he rarely or never touches on the pathetic. He was equally at home with the novel and the short story; but probably it is by his short stories that he will be longest known.

_George Washington Cable._--George W. Cable (born in 1844) has immortalised the picturesque Creole life of Louisiana in the nineteenth century. Born in New Orleans of Virginian and New England stock, he had little school training and early became a clerk. At nineteen he entered the Confederate Army, serving till the close of the war. Then he became in succession a civil engineer and an accountant, contributing meanwhile to the New Orleans _Picayune_. Seven of his stories were collected and published in 1879 as “Old Creole Days.” “The Grandissimes” (1880), which remains his best work, is a graphic and faithful picture of New Orleans life of a century ago, embodying romance and realism. “Madame Delphine” (1881) is a touching story of a heroic old quadroon woman. In “Dr. Sevier” (1884), Cable has studied in romantic vein an exceptional type of character, though not with marked success. “Bonaventure, a Prose Pastoral of Arcadian Louisiana” (1888), a better book, is a chapter of ethical history. “Strange True Stories of Louisiana” appeared in 1889. Less interesting as fiction, but valuable as a social study, is “John March, Southerner” (1894), a story of Southern Reconstruction. “The Cavalier” (1901) goes back to the Civil War, but subordinates interest in the conflict to interest in character; while “Bylow Hill” (1902) is a tragic story of insane jealousy, the scene being New England. Since 1885, Mr. Cable has lived at Northampton, Massachusetts. His later work, like that of many another, has probably suffered from a natural tendency to subordinate the artistic to the ethical. But in the province which he has made his own, the pioneer remains supreme. “Few recent American novelists,” Professor Richardson justly remarks, “have shown so uniform an average of attainment in thought and art, or have thrown upon the quaintly real such new tints of ideal light.”

_Albion Winegar Tourgee._--Albion W. Tourgee (1838-1905), an Ohioan, studied (1858-61) at the University of Rochester, saw service in the Union Army, and afterward became an editor and lawyer at Greensboro, North Carolina. Most of his novels deal with phases of the Reconstruction Period in the South. The best of these were: “A Fool’s Errand, by One of the Fools” (1879), doubtless his best known work, “Bricks Without Straw” (1880), and “The Invisible Empire” (1883). “Figs and Thistles” (1879) is a realistic story of early Ohio, in which the career of President Garfield is introduced; “Pactolus Prime” (1890) is the story of a Washington bootblack who has views on the negro problem. A man of strong opinions, Judge Tourgee could not write a novel which did not provoke thought; and he was by no means devoid of the true story-teller’s cunning.

=The Eighties.=--The decade of 1880-90 beheld the growth of realism to vigorous maturity. Romances not a few were written, to be sure, such as the “Ramona” (1884) of Mrs. Helen Fiske Jackson (“H. H.,” 1831-85), in which a romantic narrative clothes a strong plea for more humane treatment of the Indians, and the two Italian romances of William Waldorf Astor (born in 1848), “Valentino” (1885) and “Sforza, a Story of Milan” (1889). But these can hardly be called representative stories in a decade which saw the best work of Howells, James, Craddock, Fawcett, Bunner, Cable, and many others who wrote of the life they had seen and were content to employ present-day settings.

A few writers may here be grouped together for convenience. To the decade in question belong the best stories of George Parsons Lathrop (1851-98), the son-in-law of Hawthorne: “In the Distance” (1882), “An Echo of Passion” (1882), and “Would You Kill Him?” (1889), which amounts to a plea against capital punishment; and most of the fiction of Professor Arlo Bates (born in 1850): “The Pagans” (1884) and its sequel “The Philistines” (1889), “A Lad’s Love” (1887), though “The Puritans” dates from 1898. Fine pictures of Italian life have been drawn by Julia Constance Fletcher (“George Fleming,” born in 1853) in “Vestigia” (1882) and “Andromeda” (1885), the latter a story of high ideals and noble self-sacrifice. Illinois life in the unattractive baldness of pioneer days is portrayed by Major Joseph Kirkland (1830-94) in “Zury, the Meanest Man in Spring County” (1887) and “The McVeys, an Episode” (1888), in which Lincoln again figures as in Eggleston’s “Graysons.”

_Henry Adams and John Hay._--“Democracy” (1880), an anonymous novel the authorship of which has hitherto baffled the critics, and which the present writer can now announce definitely to have been the work of the historian Henry Adams, is a keen and incisive study of political society in Washington, vividly portraying the corruption which perhaps inevitably attends the growth of the people’s power, but concerning which the author is all too pessimistic. The bribery case which aids Mrs. Lee in unmasking the real character of Silas P. Ratcliffe finds a parallel in our contemporary history; and several of the characters are thought to have been drawn from real life. Happily, whatever may have been the state of affairs in Washington in 1880, the story would be very far from a true picture of the Washington of to-day. John Hay (1838-1905), lawyer, journalist, diplomatist, and statesman, was the author of a single novel, and his connection with that has been, up to the appearance of the present volume, only a conjecture. Prudence, however, obviously, required that “The Bread-Winners” (1883) should appear anonymously. As a politician, and as acting editor of _The Tribune_, Mr. Hay did not then wish to avow himself the author of a “frivolous novel”; besides, in the story he had spoken rather plainly about strikes and labour troubles. The story itself is well written, natural, and for the most part true to life. Of the two love scenes, the proposal of Maud Matchin is more convincing than is Farnham’s to Alice Belding. The plot is well worked out; our interest in the story for itself almost never flags.

_Joel Chandler Harris._--Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) used to describe himself as a journalist who became a literary man by accident. Few accidents have been luckier. He was born at Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia. At fourteen he began to set type in a country newspaper office, contributing surreptitiously to its columns, setting his articles from the case instead of committing them to paper. Then he studied law and practised for a time at Forsyth, Georgia, at the same time doing literary work. In 1876, he joined the staff of the Atlanta _Constitution_, of which he became editor in 1890. To this paper he contributed the beast stories collected in 1881 under the title of “Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings,” which have ever since been immensely popular. Uncle Remus, a shrewd and witty old negro, has an inexhaustible supply of stories of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and the other creatures; these “the little boy” and the rest of us never tire of hearing. The stories themselves, brought from Africa by the negroes, are interesting variant forms of the great beast epic, the classic example of which is “Reynard the Fox.”[18] They celebrate the victory of craft over strength, of brain over brawn. Two other series afterward appeared, “Nights with Uncle Remus” (1883) and “Uncle Remus and His Friends” (1892); and now there is an _Uncle Remus’ Magazine_. Mr. Harris’ other books have helped to complete an admirably faithful picture of Middle Georgia rural life before, during, and after the Civil War. They include “At Teague Poteet’s” (published in 1883 in _The Century_), “Mingo, and Other Sketches in Black and White” (1884), “Free Joe” (1887), “Balaam and His Master, and Other Sketches and Stories” (1891), in which melancholy and pathos predominate, “Aaron in the Wildwoods” (1897), “Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War” (1898), “The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann” (1899), “On the Wing of Occasions” (1900). With the single exception of “Gabriel Tolliver” (1902), which was not successful, Mr. Harris’ constant work in journalism prevented him from undertaking any long novel of plantation life; shorter flights were better suited to his ability.

_Maurice Thompson._--Maurice Thompson (1844-1901), of Indiana, wrote several romances. The first three, dealing with Southern life, “A Tallahassee Girl” (1882), “His Second Campaign” (1883), and “At Love’s Extremes” (1885), were not very successful. In “A Banker of Bankersville” (1886) he succeeded better, giving a true and fresh picture of life in Indiana. The novel by which he is best known is “Alice of Old Vincennes” (1901), a stirring tale of French Indiana and the War of Independence. “Sweetheart Manette” (1901) gives an agreeable sketch of life in a Creole town on the Gulf Coast.

_Francis Marion Crawford._--“The most versatile and various of modern novelists,” if Mr. Andrew Lang’s opinion is to be accepted, is Mr. F. Marion Crawford. Not only has he been prolific in a high degree, having written over thirty novels, but his scenes and characters have a wide range both in time and in place. He was born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy, in 1854, the son of Thomas Crawford the sculptor (who was of Scotch-Irish parentage) and Louisa Ward Crawford, a sister of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Prepared for college at St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, he entered Harvard, but remained there only a short time. He spent the years 1870-74 mainly at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1874-76 at Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, and 1877-78 at the University of Rome, where he studied Sanskrit. In 1879 he went to India and for two years was connected with the Allahabad _Indian Herald_. Returning to America, he spent two years in New York and Boston, continuing his Sanskrit and Zend studies under Professor Lanman of Harvard. No other American novelist save Mr. James has had so cosmopolitan a training. Relating a story of a Persian jewel merchant’s adventure in India to his uncle, Samuel Ward, he was advised to make a novel of it; the result was the fascinating “Mr. Isaacs” (1882). Soon afterward Mr. Crawford returned to Italy, where, near Sorrento, he has since lived.

Mr. Crawford has a gift of rapid composition, sometimes completing a novel in less than a month; but his work as a whole is markedly free from slovenliness or signs of undue haste. His stories can be only briefly described: “Dr. Claudius” (1883), a highly romantic old-fashioned love-story of a learned Heidelberg Ph.D.; “To Leeward” (1883), a clever story of a wife’s infidelity and of Roman society; “A Roman Singer” (1884), the story of an Italian peasant boy who became a great tenor and married a German countess; “An American Politician” (1885), which deals, in the style of Henry James, and with indifferent success, with the corruption in American politics; “Zoroaster” (1885), a strong romance written also in French, and brilliantly treating of the court of King Darius and the prophet Daniel; “A Tale of a Lonely Parish” (1886), a quiet and charming story of English rural life; “Paul Patoff” (1887), “a tale and nothing else,” the scene of which is laid in modern Constantinople; “Marzio’s Crucifix” (1887, written also in French), which is exceptional among his works in that it portrays Italian lower- and middle-class life, and which is considered by many his best work; “Saracinesca” (1887), “Sant’ Ilario” (1889), “Don Orsino” (1892), and “Corleone” (1898), four novels forming a sequence and presenting on a broad canvas a remarkable picture of Roman society in the last third of the nineteenth century; “Greifenstein” (1889), a tragedy of the Black Forest, “a true story,” containing accurate descriptions of German student life; “A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance” (1890), a perfectly constructed romantic and absorbing story of Russian and Polish people living in Munich; “Khaled, a Romance of Arabia” (1891), of which a genie is the hero; “The Witch of Prague” (1891), which deals with hypnotism, a theme difficult to handle in fiction; “The Three Fates” (1892), a realistic story of New York society life and the best of Mr. Crawford’s American studies; “Marion Darche” (1893), another story of New York and of the devotion of a forger’s wife; “The Children of the King” (1893), a melodramatic story of Calabrian peasant life; “Pietro Ghisleri” (1893), in which both romantic and realistic elements are found and which pictures the gay society of Rome; “Katharine Lauderdale” and its sequel “The Ralstons” (1894), chronicles of a New York family; “Casa Braccio” (1895), a melodrama of passion; “Taquisara” (1896), an unpleasant story of the last representative of a great Saracen family and a princess of Acireale; “Via Crucis” (1899), a historical romance of the Second Crusade; “In the Palace of the King” (1900), a tale of passion, the hero of which is Don John of Austria, and the scene of which is the court of Philip II. of Spain; “Marietta, a Maid of Venice” (1901), a fifteenth-century story; “The Heart of Rome” (1903), the _motif_ of which is modern Rome’s treatment of its artistic heritage; “Fair Margaret” (1905), published in London as “Soprano, a Portrait,” recounting the fascinating career of Margaret Donne, who becomes a successful opera singer; “Whosoever Shall Offend” (1905), an effective story of crime; and “A Lady of Rome” (1906), a study of character moulded by strong religious belief.

Of this remarkable series, the most noteworthy, though probably not the most popular, are those dealing with Italian life. Mr. Crawford has been markedly successful in his portraiture of Italian middle-class life, and only a little less so in writing of the aristocracy. He excels in representing agreeable, well-bred men and women; under his touch they are natural, human, lifelike. He is fertile in invention and lavish of characters and plot-incident, using in quite a subordinate connection materials which other novelists would reserve for the main plots of future novels. In general, his plots are skilfully constructed; occasionally, as in “Taquisara” (which is almost two separate stories), he fails to weld his material insolubly together. He has a remarkably bold and vigorous imagination, and does not hesitate to introduce daring conceptions and incidents; a romantic cast of mind is necessary if one would fully enjoy him. A Roman Catholic himself, he has had the amplest opportunity for studying the Catholic temperament and point of view, which he interprets admirably; it is natural that he should be weakest in portraying the characters of unbelievers or heretics. He is always dispassionate, calm, never losing himself in any storm of passion. His fiction as a whole is remarkably even, and it cannot be affirmed that his latest work shows deterioration. For the skill with which he has utilised vast stores of learning, for the effective though restrained use of a virile and picturesque imagination, for “astonishing literary tact” and breadth of view, Mr. Crawford has not his equal among living American writers, and his place is among the writers who only just miss the first rank.

_Frederic Jesup Stimson._--Frederic J. Stimson, a native of Dedham, Massachusetts (born in 1855), has led a busy life as lawyer, legal writer, Harvard professor, and novelist. His earlier novels were published over the pen name of “J. S. of Dale.” He has written, among others, “Guerndale” (1882), “The Crime of Henry Vane” (1884), the plot of which is unconvincing, “First Harvests” (1888), “Mrs. Knollys and Other Stories” (1894), “Pirate Gold” (1896), “King Noanett” (1896), carefully worked out, an exciting story of mystery and adventure, “Jethro Bacon of Sandwich” (1902), and “In Cure of Her Soul” (1906). Mr. Stimson has not taken high rank as a novelist, but his stories are generally interesting and the later ones may be commended to those who are fond of good romances. “The Weaker Sex” (_The Atlantic_, April, 1901) is a powerful short story.

_Henry Cuyler Bunner._--Henry C. Bunner (1855-96), for many years the editor of _Puck_, wrote many short stories and some good novels. He was a native of Oswego, New York, and received his literary training in the school of journalism, being connected first with _The Sun_ and then with _The Arcadian_, a literary weekly. “A Woman of Honor” (1883) gave some promise in plot and incident. “Love in Old Cloathes” (_The Century_, September, 1883) brought him a reputation as a clever story-teller. His next novel, “The Midge,” an ingenious story of the New York French quarter, appeared in 1886; it was followed by “The Story of a New York House” (1887), the somewhat melancholy history of a house, typifying the family which occupies it. “Natural Selection” appeared serially in _Scribner’s_ (1888). “Zadoc Pine, and Other Stories” (1891) are tales the skilful construction of which shows how carefully Bunner studied Boccaccio; while in “Short Sixes” (1891), his most popular stories, he avowed his discipleship to Maupassant. He was more successful in his short stories than in his novels.

_Arthur Sherburne Hardy._--Arthur S. Hardy (born in 1847 at Andover, Mass.), in 1902-6 United States Minister Plenipotentiary at Madrid, has had a varied career. Graduating at West Point in 1869, he served for a year in the Third United States Artillery, then became in succession professor of civil engineering, first at Iowa College, later at Dartmouth, professor of mathematics at Dartmouth, editor of _The Cosmopolitan_, and United States Minister to Persia, to Greece, Roumania, and Servia, and to Switzerland. Well known for several mathematical publications, he is the author of three novels, two of which are distinguished for happy description, graceful diction, and profound reflection rather than for individuality of plot or able development of character. “But Yet a Woman” (1883) is a story, somewhat deficient in local colour, of the coming of love to a French maiden destined for the convent. “The Wind of Destiny” (1886) is a story of a weak woman and two men which, though it lacks dramatic interest, offers some compensation in “the peculiarly noble air which pervades it, the extreme beauty of many of its passages, the revelation of life flashed occasionally as from a diamond of light, and perhaps more than all for the very subtle charm which hangs over the whole movement of the story.”[19] “Passe Rose” (1889) is a charming poetical romance of Provence in the stirring times of Charles the Great, and is decidedly Mr. Hardy’s most successful novel. His latest story is “His Daughter First” (1903). With rare sympathy, which he makes no attempt to conceal, he has interpreted several diverse types, and his men and women are alive.