SUNNYSIDE, IRVING’S HOME NEAR TARRYTOWN, N. Y.
TABLET BY V. D. BRENNER, ON WASHINGTON IRVING HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY
If John Woolman’s work had borne any resemblance to that of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Lamb would never have said of it, “Learn Woolman’s work by heart.” It was as far as possible removed from the Dantesque vigor of the Puritan preacher. Woolman was a Quaker, born in New Jersey, with very few educational opportunities, but of a naturally religious nature, and seemed early, though in a perfectly normal way, to have thought of the world as the creation of a great and benignant God. Like many other naturally serious youths of his time, as of Bunyan’s time, he was sorely beset by a consciousness of sinfulness, which he expressed in terms that today seem morbid in their intensity. He accused himself of offenses of which it is quite certain that he was innocent; but he began very early to understand the gospel of love and to desire above everything else to live in complete harmony with the will of God. He was not satisfied, however, to do this by simply obeying the law of righteousness or acquiescing in a will which he could not oppose. He was eager to make his obedience positive and active; so he became one of the earliest antislavery men in the country, and one of the most ardent. His genius saved him from fanaticism; while his simple earnestness and his effective appeal to the higher ideals of his auditors made him a persuasive speaker. He hated slavery; but he never attacked the slaveholder. His nature was one of singular purity and harmony; and as he had no self-consciousness and no ambition, and writing was simply a means of expression, his nature got into his style. Although an illiterate Quaker, an English critic declared that “He writes in a style of the most exquisite purity and grace.” His Journal, which is considered one of the classics of early American literature, is an unaffected and intimate record of his thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It was begun in his thirty-seventh year. It is not in any sense great literature; but it is real literature, and as contrasted with all the colonial writing, save that of Edwards and Franklin, it stands out by reason of the purity of its style and the beauty of its feeling and thought.
JAMES K. PAULDING, by Jarvis
The note of mystery was struck early in American writing, “Peter Rugg,” by William Austin, appearing in the New England Galaxy in 1824-1826.
CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN
Charles Brockden Brown’s stories were published still earlier; and he is often spoken of as the predecessor of Hawthorne. Like Francis Hopkinson, he was a Philadelphian, who studied law and made literature his profession. His first novel, “Wieland, or The Transformation,” was a story of ventriloquism, very artificial, but skilful and interesting. This was followed by a much more striking tale, “Edgar Huntley,” a tale of terror, which seemed to predict Poe, and this in turn by three or four other novels. Brown was an industrious man, and his activity extended into other fields. He published a number of pamphlets and semiscientific treatises. His work had little permanent value. It was sentimental and unreal, and lacked art; but its morbid psychology and a certain kind of intensity gave it popularity at the time.
