She did not sit near me during the tea, which was quite lively. Mrs. Laurence was brilliant as usual and moved about a good deal, particularly after Mr. Rolfs “dropped in” unexpectedly and some of his admirers showed a disposition to hang upon the words which a large piece of cake made even more weighty. Finally he did talk—to make her more jealous, I think—and gave them quite a lecture on celestial botany, as it were. Mrs. Laurence could only get the better of him by capping his melodious paragraphs with scintillating epigrams, which annoyed him excessively. I sincerely wish they would murder each other. Finally I became so bored that I wandered down to the edge of the lake, and in a moment Miss Shephard joined me.
“Like all great writers,” she said apologetically, “he puts his best in his books, and sometimes lacks magnetism and fresh thought in talking.”
For some reason Miss S. antagonises me. Perhaps it is a certain air of omniscience, the result of being a factor in the destinies of so many great and brilliant authors. So I answered with some pleasure:
“I think Mr. Rolfs’ books as dull as his speech. He has his points, but he is not a born author, therefore you see the little glittering implements and smell the oil all the time, and of course his stories do not go.”
“There is some truth in what you say,” she answered sweetly, “but then don’t you think that a man with so great and beautiful a mind should be above being a good story-teller?”
“Shakespeare was not.”
“True, dear Lady Helen, but I need not remind you that we are in neither the times nor the country of Shakespeare. Have you observed how non-imitative, how independent we are? There was a time, of course, when American writers slavishly imitated, and in consequence burlesqued, English literature; the only exceptions were Hawthorne and Poe, and, later, Mark Twain and Bret Harte; but the literature of the last twenty years, which includes so many illustrious names—surely there never has been anything like it in the world.”
“There never has! I suppose I am old-fashioned but it wearies and irritates me—I do not wish to be rude—but—really—I like to read about men and women with human passions.”
“Oh, a discussion without frankness is a poor affair. I am sure that yours is merely a first impression and that our literature will fascinate you in time. Will you permit me a brief explanation? It is our object to produce a literature which shall demonstrate in what ways we are different from all other nations—those differences, peculiarities and so forth which our new and in all things unique country has evolved. Why should we demonstrate—and encourage—the worn out passions that are common to all countries? The refined of ours prefer to forget that such things exist. All well-brought up American girls are taught to ignore this lamentable side of human nature, and never voluntarily to think of it. Without boasting I think I can say that this is the most refined country the world has ever known, and that our literature proves it.”
“But occasionally you develop an author of irrepressible virility who gives the world to understand that a certain percentage at least of the United States are very much like the old accepted idea of human nature.”