CHAPTER XIV
THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION
I
To exclude the living, as we must, in an estimate of the American contribution to the development we have been tracing, is especially unjust. Yet the principle must be applied. The injustice lies in the fact that an important part of the contribution falls on the hither side of 1870 and has to do with authors still active. The modern realistic movement in English fiction has been affected to some degree by the work, has responded to the influence of the two Americans, Howells and James. What has been accomplished during the last forty years has been largely under their leadership. Mr. Howells, true to his own definition, has practised the more truthful handling of material in depicting chosen aspects of the native life. Mr. James, becoming more interested in British types, has, after a great deal of analysis of his own countrymen, passed by the bridge of the international Novel to a complete absorption in transatlantic studies, making his peculiar application of the realistic formula to the inner life of the spirit: a curious compound, a cosmopolitan Puritan, an urbane student of souls. His share in the British product is perhaps appreciable; but from the native point of view, at least, it would seem as if his earlier work were, and would remain, most representative both because of its motives and methods. Early or late, he has beyond question pointed out the way to many followers in the psychologic path: his influence, perhaps less obvious than Howells', is none the less undisputable. The development in the hands of writers younger than these veterans has been rich, varied, often noteworthy in quality. But of all this it is too soon to speak.
With regard to the fictional evolution on American soil, it is clear that four great writers, excluding the living, separate themselves from the crowd: Irving, Cooper, Poe and Hawthorne. Moreover, two of these, Irving and Poe, are not novelists at all, but masters of the sketch or short story. It will be best, however, for our purpose to give them all some attention, for whatever the form of fiction they used, they are all influential in the development of the Novel.
Other authors of single great books may occur to the student, perhaps clamoring for admission to a company so select. Yet he is likely always to come back and draw a dividing line here. Bret Harte, for instance, is dead, and in the short story of western flavor he was a pioneer of mark, the founder of a genre: probably no other writer is so significant in his field. But here again, although he essayed full-length fiction, it was not his forte. So, too, were it not that Mark Twain still cheers the land of the living with his wise fun, there would be for the critic the question, is he a novelist, humorist or essayist. Is "Roughing It" more typical of his genius than "Tom Sawyer" or "Huckleberry Finn"? How shall we characterize "Puddin' Head Wilson"? Under what category shall we place "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur" and "Joan of Arc"? The query reminds us once more that literature means personality as well as literary forms and that personality is more important than are they. And again we turn away regretfully (remembering that this is an attempt to study not fiction in all its manifestations, but the Novel) from the charming short stories—little classics in their kind—bequeathed by Aldrich, and are almost sorry that our judgment demands that we place him first as a poet. We think, too, of that book so unique in influence, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," nor forget that, besides producing it, Mrs. Stowe, in such a work as "Old Town Folks," started the long line of studies of New England rustic life which, not confined to that section, have become so welcome a phase of later American art in fiction. Among younger authors called untimely from their labors, it is hard to resist the temptation to linger over such a figure as that of Frank Norris, whose vital way of handling realistic material with epic breath in his unfinished trilogy, gave so great promise for his future.
It may be conceded that nothing is more worth mention in American fiction of the past generation than the extraordinary cultivation of the short-story, which Mr. Brander Matthews dignifies and unifies by a hyphen, in order to express his conviction that it is an essentially new art form, to study which is a fascinating quest, but aside from our main intention.
II
Having due regard then for perspective, and trying not to confuse historical importance with the more vital interest which implies permanent claims, it seems pretty safe to come back to Irving and Poe, to Cooper and Hawthorne. Even as in the sketch and tale Irving stands alone with such a masterpiece as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"; and Poe equally by himself with his tales of psychological horror and mystery, so in longer fiction, Cooper and Hawthorne have made as distinct contributions in the domain of Romance. Their service is as definite for the day of the Romantic spirit, as is that of Howells and James for the modern day of realism so-called. It is not hard to see that Irving even in his fiction is essentially an essayist; that with him story was not the main thing, but that atmosphere, character and style were,—the personal comment upon life. One reads a sketch like "The Stout Gentleman," in every way a typical work, for anything but incident or plot. The Hudson River idyls, it may be granted, have somewhat more of story interest, but Irving seized them, ready-made for his use, because of their value for the picturesque evocation of the Past. He always showed a keen sense of the pictorial and dramatic in legend and history, as the "Alhambra" witnesses quite as truly as the sketches. "Bracebridge Hall" and "The Sketch Book," whatever of the fictional they may contain, are the work of the essayist primarily, and Washington Irving will always, in a critical view, be described as a master of the English essay. No other maker of American literature affords so good an example of the inter-colation of essay and fiction: he recalls the organic relation between the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers and the eighteenth century Novel proper of a generation later.
His service to all later writers of fiction was large in that he taught them the use of promising native material that awaited the story-maker. His own use of it, the Hudson, the environs of Manhattan, was of course romantic, in the main. When in an occasional story he is unpleasant in detail or tragic in trend he seems less characteristic—so definitely was he a romanticist, seeking beauty and wishing to throw over life the kindly glamour of imaginative art. It is worth noting, however, that he looked forward rather than back, towards the coming realism, not to the incurable pseudo-romanticism of the late eighteenth century, in his instinct to base his happenings upon the bedrock of truth—the external truth of scene and character and the inner truth of human psychology.