14. American History in Fiction
The use of history in fiction is at once an aid and a handicap to the writer. Where he is using historical persons, he may count upon a certain delight of recognition from some or all of his readers; offset by disappointment if the portrait doesn’t closely resemble a preconceived ideal. The use of an historical period is on the whole far more satisfactory, and an exact setting is the most satisfactory of all. For fiction is written to express a sense of meaning and to convey a feeling. Like all forms of faith, it creates its own facts. And, as in some other types of illumination, the most effective treatment of historical figures and occurrences by the fictioner is often—indirect lighting.
The three writers I am going to talk principally about in this chapter have certain resemblances and a marked divergence. Although two of them are no longer alive, their audiences were never greater than now. All three belong to the South and West, and two of them wrote novels which have been transformed into motion pictures of enormous influence and success. The third is usually spoken of as a writer for boys, although the boys who read him are, many of them, long past their teens. Both Emerson Hough and Thomas Dixon wrote books which are partly or mainly propaganda. Joseph A. Altsheler, avoiding any suggestion of such a thing, was remarkable for the accuracy of historical detail in his stories. Perhaps the most striking quality in common among these three writers—I won’t undertake to give it a name—is the fact that each, on more than one occasion, has had his huge audience waiting in line to get his book.