Of the modern tendencies which affect literature, not commerce, the most conspicuous is the tendency to decentralise. Every province has its coterie, every county its school The whole continent is pegged out in well-acknowledged claims. Boston cultivates one style, Chicago another. Each corner makes the most of its own material, and cheerfully discovers to the other States its character and temperament. The result is of great and varied interest. The social history of America is being written piecemeal, and written often with a skill and sincerity which merit the highest praise. And not merely has each province found its chronicler, but the immigrants, also, are intent upon self-expression. The little masterpieces of Abraham Cahan are an earnest of what the Ghetto can achieve, and whether the Jews are faithful to Yiddish, or, like Cahan, acquire the language of their adopted country, there is no reason why they should not atone in a free land for centuries of silence. To enumerate the manifold achievements of the States is impossible. One example will suffice, and no city will better suit my purpose than Chicago. That admirable literature should come from Chicago is of itself a paradox. It is still more surprising that the best writers of Chicago should display the qualities of tranquillity and reticence, which you would expect least of all to find in that monstrous city. Yet it is characteristic of Miss Edith Wyatt and Mr H. B. Fuller, who have painted the manners of Chicago with the greatest skill, that they never force the note. They look upon their fellow-citizens with an amiable sympathy; they describe them with a quiet humour. It is true that they have an excellent opportunity. It is true also that they rise to their occasion. Within the limits of Chicago are met the most diverse of men. On the one hand are the captains of industry, intent to amass a fortune at all costs; on the other are the sorry prigs who haunt Ibsen clubs and chatter of Browning. Miss Wyatt, with an exquisite irony, makes clear her preference. In her eyes the square-dealing and innocent boodler is a far better man than the sophisticated apostle of culture, and this truth she illustrates with a modesty and restraint which are rarely met with in modern fiction. She never insists; she never says a word too much. With exquisite concision she sets her carefully selected facts and types before you, and being the antithesis of priggishness in a priggish city, she glorifies "the common growth of Mother Earth," and compels your agreement. Her collection of stories—'Every One His Own Way'—as free from pretence as from exaggeration, paints the citizens of Chicago with the subtlest fancy and the simplest truthfulness.
Mr H. B. Fuller employs an ampler canvas. His intention is the same. He also discards the artifice of exaggeration. He attempts to harrow your feelings as little as to advertise himself. He displays not the sæva indignatio, which won another novelist of Chicago so indiscreet a fame. He is for gentler methods and plainer judgments. In 'The Cliff Dwellers' he has given us a picture of the tribe inhabiting the Clifton, a monstrous sky-scraper full eighteen stories tall, whose "hundreds of windows," he tells you, "glitter with multitudinous letterings in gold and in silver, and on summer afternoons its awnings flutter score on score in the tepid breezes that sometimes come up from Indiana." His picture is never overcharged; his draughtsmanship is always sincere. He knows the tribe with an easy familiarity, and he bears witness to their good and their evil with perfect impartiality. He is never a partisan. His portraits are just, and he leaves his reader to sum up the qualities of each. At his hands Chicago suffers no injury. She does not return his generosity. A prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and when I asked for his books at the biggest bookshop in Chicago, I was met with a stare of ignorance.
And what you find in Chicago you may find in New England, in Kentucky, in California, everywhere. The curiosity of this vast continent tempts its writers to explore. Their material varies with the locality of their choice. Their skill is a common inheritance. They cultivate the graces as carefully as did their predecessors. Their artistic conscience is no less acute. Above all, they have brought the short story to a point of singular perfection. If Edgar Poe showed them the way, they have proved themselves apter disciples than any save the most skilful of Frenchmen.
It is, indeed, impossible to look forward to the future of American literature without hopefulness. In that half-discovered country style and invention go hand in hand. The land of Mr Howells and Frank Norris, of Mrs Atherton and Mrs Wharton, of Stephen Crane and Harold Frederic, has accomplished so much that we may look confidently for the master, who in his single achievement will knit up its many diverse qualities and speak to the world with the voice of America.
THE UNDERWORLD.
Nowhere and at no time, save in the England of the eighteenth century, was the underworld so populous or so popular as in the America of to-day. In life, as in letters, crime and criminals hold there a lofty place. They are the romance of the street and the tenement-house. In their adventure and ferocity there is a democratic touch, which endears them to a free people. Nor are they so far remote from the world of prosperity and respect in the cities of the United States as elsewhere. The police is a firm and constant link between criminal and politician. Wherever the safe-blowers and burglars are, there you will find stool-pigeons and squealers, {*} ready to sell their comrades for liberty and dollars. And if the policeman is the intimate of the grafter, he is the client also of the boss who graciously bestowed his uniform upon him. At chowder parties and picnics thief, policeman, and boss meet on the terms of equality imposed upon its members by the greatest of all philanthropic institutions—Tammany Hall. If you would get a glimpse into this strange state within a state, you have but to read the evidence given before the Lexow Committee {**} in 1894. It would be difficult to match the cynicism and brutality there disclosed.
* A stool-pigeon is a thief in the pay of the police; a
squealer is a grafter who betrays his brother.
** This strange collection of documents, a whole literature
in itself, bears the prosaic title, "Investigations of the
Police Department of the City of New York."
In every line of this amazing testimony you may detect a contempt of human life and justice, an indifference to suffering, an eager lust after unearned dollars, which are without parallel. The persons who play their part in this austere, begrimed tragi-comedy, come for the most part from oversea, and have but a halting knowledge of the language spoken by judges and senators. Yet their very ignorance stamps their speech with authenticity, and enhances its effect. The quick dialogue is packed with life and slang. Never were seen men and women so strange as flit across this stage. Crook and guy, steerer and turner, keepers of gambling-hells and shy saloons, dealers in green-goods, {*} come forward with their eager stories of what seems to them oppression and wrong.
* Forged dollar-notes.