CHAPTER VI

AMERICAN FICTION SINCE 1860

The Rise of Realism.-In the foregoing pages three Ameri can masters of fiction have been mentioned who wrote for wider audiences and did what will probably be a more lasting work than any three to be mentioned in this chapter. These men, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, were all writers of romance who laid down their pens before the Civil War. With the new generation a new kind of fiction has come into vogue. Neither in choice of subject-matter nor in method of narration could this earlier trio be confused or identified with the leading story-tellers of the present day. It is perhaps more easy to feel this distinction than to define it; it is the difference between romance and realism. The former term has been expounded at length in connection with the great English poets and novelists of the opening nineteenth century; the latter is that kind of fiction which "does not shrink from the commonplace (although art dreads the commonplace) or from the unpleasant (although the aim of art is to give pleasure) in its effort to depict things as they are, life as it is." If this be a fair definition, it follows that the essential feature of realism is not so much the subject-matter as the way in which the subject-matter is presented; and that the most complete realist is he who has become most intimately familiar with a limited section of society.

Howells's Chosen Field.-William Dean Howells (1837-) is doubtless the man who would be most generally selected as the leader of the realistic school, both in workmanship and in resultant popularity. As in the case of Dickens, his experience in journalism, even before he had become of age, trained him as an observer and critic. Several years in the con

sular service in Italy were followed by his appointment to the assistant editorship of the Atlantic Monthly. Since then his life has been wholly spent in two strongholds of Eastern conservatism-Boston and New York. It is a natural result that his stories develop the point of view of the fortunate and cultured members of metropolitan society. In many of his books he is content to indulge in a pleasantly realistic portrayal of these people. In this special field the life that he deals with is a life of infinitely minute distinctions: the man who departs from the norm even a fraction of a degree becomes interesting under the microscopic lens of his keen observation.

Howells's Command of Detail. Thus, in the opening pages of Silas Lapham, the attention is called to a whole catalogue of social peccadilloes. As Bartley Hubbard enters the paint-manufacturer's office, Silas, without rising, gives him "his left hand for welcome," seals a letter and pounds it "with his great heavy fist," pushes the door to with a huge foot, and intersperses his conversation with little touches which show not actual vulgarity, but simply a lack of complete refinement in speech and manners. By innumerable little touches Silas Lapham is set apart from the group of Bostonians among whom he is trying to rise. Only in the hands of the most skilful could such a character be made interesting; but in Mr. Howells's hands the triumph is achieved.

Howells's Theory as to Plot.-It is not, however, only in the raw material of his craft that such a realist limits himself. As he constructs his novels, he writes in the belief that life cannot be separated into a series of stories which are wholly isolated from the events which precede and follow them. The writer of romance, starting from the traditional "once upon a time," lures the attention from point to point until he concludes with a wholly satisfactory "and so they lived happily ever after." To the realist this is much more pleasant than lifelike. Mr. Howells gives the impression sometimes of having told as much as he chose, and sometimes implies that a sequel to the story just completed might be more interesting than what he has related so far. Thus, on the concluding

page of April Hopes, the reader finds himself in a position hardly less baffling than that with which Stockton ends his famous story, The Lady or the Tiger. Throughout the book two young people have been progressing toward the wedding with which it ends. The lover has been irresolute at times, at times elusive and almost dishonest; the bride has not been without hours of jealousy and distrust. As they roll away to the station after the wedding-reception a brief dialogue for the last time reminds the reader of these sources of danger; and when Mr. Howells concludes with "This was the beginning of their married life," the reader is by no means as content with the prospects of the future as the "happyever-after" formula would leave him. The reason for his dissatisfaction is to be found at the very root of realism in the theory that no story ever comes to a complete stoppingpoint.

Howells's Interest in Socialism.-Mr. Howells has not been content merely with making pen-portraits of interesting individuals, for a group of his most important works are significant as increasingly definite criticisms of society. Long before there was any such thing as a Socialist party, or even a Socialist movement in America, A Hazard of New Fortunes and The World of Chance revealed a keen interest in the difference between democracy as it might be and democracy as it exists in America. The appearance of The Traveller from Altruria and The Eye of a Needle showed that this was no passing interest, but that Mr. Howells was deliberately using his story-telling skill to encourage clear thinking on one of the great problems of his time. To-day scores of other writers are doing, or attempting to do, the same thing.

Henry James.-Henry James (1843-), a man slightly younger than W. D. Howells, is so severely realistic in his method that he has been the subject of much lively discussion. Mr. Howells has declared him the most distinguished author now writing English, and, naturally, Robert Louis Stevenson, as a champion of romance, assailed him with a fervor which verged on bitterness. An idea of the nature of his subject-matter can be gained from almost any of his books, for he has been consistent from Daisy Miller to The Golden

Bowl. His backgrounds are almost always intercontinental or European; his characters belong to the leisure class. His episodes, when there are any, are adventures of the mind; his most abundant source of excitement, duels of repartee. His narrative method is unmistakably his own. In his plots. there is an absence of finality, though this is sometimes wrongly adduced as demonstrating that his stories lack structure. To be sure, his way is "startling when contrasted with the usual methods of solution by rewards and punishments, by crowned love, by fortune, by a broken leg or a sudden death." The usual demand of mankind-to be set at rest is never met by one of the James novels. They end as episodes in life end, with the sense of life still going on. In detail his analytical habits of mind lead him to a refinement of accumulated detail which is interesting or fatiguing according to the temperament of the reader. As for his attitude toward life, he pays attention to little but the beau monde. It is not to be desired that he should take a trip into the slums or indulge in one digression on the masses versus the classes in each book, but the fact is worth noting that he never does those things. On the whole, there is a distinct absence of "problems" or discussion of human institutions. He restricts himself to a treatment of human nature in the narrow field of polite society.

The Realism of the West.-From the realism of metropolitan society to the romantic realism of the Far West, there is a long step. Just after the war time, Mark Twain and Bret Harte were both of them citizens of the Pacific coast. The society in which they found themselves was as ungoverned as the society of the frontier must always be. It was made up of a composite group of members in whom the only common feature was their restlessness. They were for the most part men who had failed to "get on" at home or who rebelled at "getting on" in the manner of a conventional society which restricted their goings in and comings out and limited their language to the yea and nay of the Sermon on the Mount. So they chose to try their fortunes anew in a freer atmosphere. Here all was yet to be done, and here the capacity to do was at a higher premium than the

capacity to conform. The popular idea, however, that San Francisco was full of thugs and bandits is as false as that early Virginia was populated only by the off-scourings of London society. In both communities there were men of sound character and high ideals, and in the Californian community the opportunity to write of both good and bad, and the range of really romantic possibilities which a keen observer could find in an account of actual conditions, made an opening for something which is true realism though as far from the work of Howells and James as the East is from the West.

The

Bret Harte (1839-1902).—It is interesting and amusing to read Bret Harte's introductory statement concerning his first success, "The Luck of Roaring Camp." While the San Franciscans and the Californians were not discontented with existing conditions which prevailed among them, they had a lingering sense of the proprieties of the conventional East, and a keen distaste for the inevitable amusement which a true account of themselves was sure to stimulate. first opposition to his story which Harte encountered was from a decorous young woman on the Overland Monthly, of which she was proofreader at the time. She could not be a partner to the publication of a story which mentioned with perfect frankness characters and events which are not discussed in the drawing-rooms of Beacon Street and Fifth Avenue. From her the contagion spread to the proprietors of the Monthly, and when, by somewhat heroic means, Harte succeeded in overruling them both, the publication of an account of the native heroism and devotion of a Western mining-camp was pounced upon by illustrious defenders of California as an outrage. The significant fact is that the first genuine endorsement of this scandalous production came from the magazine of all magazines which stands for New England conservatism-the Atlantic Monthly. As quickly as the slow methods of communication of a half century ago could reach the West, came a congratulatory letter from its publishers, offering what was then almost magnificent pay for as many stories of the same outrageous sort as the author would supply.