The Nature Writers.—Professor Van Dyke’s “outdoor essays,” as they are sometimes called, carry us back to the earlier nature writers, for between him and Thoreau there is no wide hiatus. John Burroughs (born in 1837) has written a considerable number of books dealing with his observations out of doors, although he has by no means neglected the purely literary topic. The mention of his earlier works gives an adequate index of all his subject-matter. “Wake-Robin” appeared in 1870, “Birds and Poets” in 1875, and “Whitman, a Study” in 1896. To be closely associated with Mr. Burroughs is Bradford Torrey (born in 1843); his chief works are “Birds in the Bush” (1885), “The Footpath Way” (1892), and “A World of Green Hills” (1898). Nor can Olive Thorne Miller (born in 1831) be overlooked: she began to write studies of birds about 1880, and among other works, all of considerable interest, she has published “In Nesting Time” (1888), “A Bird-Lover in the West” (1894), and “Under the Tree-Tops” (1897). The writers just mentioned are not to be regarded, of course, as scientists or even as scientific writers in the commonly accepted sense of those terms. They look upon nature with the loving rather than the analytic eye, and register their appreciative feelings rather than their minute observations. They have much in common, therefore, with the purely literary essayists whose names are not far from legion. Although unable to mention all who have recently attracted attention, we must not forget William Winter (born in 1836), whose best prose works date back but a quarter of a century: he published “Shakespeare’s England” in 1888, “Gray Days and Gold” in 1891, and “The Life and Art of Edwin Booth” in 1894. Neither can we ignore Hamilton Wright Mabie (born in 1845), literary editor of The Outlook. His books are many and widely popular: probably the series of three volumes called “My Study Fire” (1890, 1894, and 1899) and “Shakespeare: Poet, Dramatist, and Man” (1900) are best known. Not less significant is Paul Elmer More (born in 1864) of the editorial staff of The Nation. In addition to translations from Sanskrit and from Greek, he has published five books all bearing the title “Shelburne Essays” (1904–1908).
Other Essayists.—Finally, so far as essayists are concerned, some rapid review must be made of the novelists and the later poets who have not restricted themselves to the fields of their chief labour. This takes us back as far as Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), whose “Our Old Home” (1863) is a collection of valuable essays on various English topics. The saying “Like father, like son” was exemplified when Julian Hawthorne (born in 1846) brought out “Saxon Studies” (1876), a book of like purport with his father’s. The mention of more than one writer in a family suggests the elder Henry James (1811–1882) and his two sons, William and Henry. The father is best remembered as a theological and philosophical writer through his “Moralism and Christianity” (1852) and “Lectures and Miscellanies” (1852). The elder son, William James (born in 1842), for many years professor of psychology in Harvard University, besides being the author of several technical works in the science to which he is devoted, has written “The Will to Believe, and Other Essays” (1897), “Is Life Worth Living?” (1898), and “Pragmatism” (1906). The younger Henry James (born in 1843), in addition to being a novelist, is also the author of “A Little Tour in France” (1884), “Partial Portraits” (1888), and “Essays in London and Elsewhere” (1893). For some reason not strongly apparent, William Dean Howells (born in 1837) is almost always associated in the minds of readers with Henry James the novelist. Editor for a time of The Atlantic Monthly, and later connected first with the staff of Harper’s Magazine, and afterwards with that of The Cosmopolitan, he has made many books of essays. The best are “Venetian Life” (1866), “Italian Journeys” (1867), and “Criticism and Fiction” (1895). Belonging by birth to a later decade, Francis Marion Crawford (born in 1854) is near to being America’s most prolific writer. His most important work, outside the domain of the novel, is a small volume connected in content with the art which he chiefly affects, “The Novel, What It Is” (1903). It attracted much attention upon its appearance, and is still often quoted. Mr. Crawford is also the author of “The Rulers of the South” (1900) and “Gleanings from Venetian History” (1905). The woman novelists cannot be ignored as writers of essays, for not only do they possess powers of penetration and insight, but two of them, at least, have swayed public opinion to no inappreciable extent. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) in addition to her many books of fiction wrote a very much discussed study entitled “Lady Byron Vindicated” (1870) and “The American Woman’s Home” (1869), at one time thought to be the final word upon domestic questions. A writer of hardly less importance was Helen Hunt Jackson (1831–1885), still popularly known by her pseudonym of “H. H.” Her most valuable study was “A Century of Dishonour” (1881), in which she laid bare the ill-treatment accorded the American Indians; she succeeded through its pages in doing much to ameliorate their unfortunate condition. Mrs. Jackson’s “Bits of Travel” (1873) and “Between Whiles” (1887) are interesting and readable.
The more important later poets who have contributed to essay literature are led by that erratic but remarkable genius, Walt Whitman (1819–1892). His collected “Prose Works,” published in the year of his death, contain much more true common sense than his writings are popularly assumed to show. The main titles included in the contents are those of small volumes printed at various intervals: “Specimen Days” (1882), “November Boughs” (1888), and “Good-Bye, My Fancy” (1891). Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) and Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907), who in their poetry followed the traditions established by Longfellow and Lowell, were the authors of not unimportant prose works. The former wrote three valuable books: “Victorian Poets” (1875), “Poets of America” (1885), and “The Nature and Elements of Poetry” (1892); the latter author produced two volumes of travel and reminiscence: “From Ponkapog to Pesth” (1883) and “An Old Town by the Sea” (1893). Possibly allied rather with Whitman than with the other poets just mentioned, Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) may justly stand at the close of our list of American critical writers. He subjected the methods of metrical composition to minute scrutiny, and published the results of his investigations as “The Science of English Verse” (1881). Turning then to a study of fiction, he wrote an important work entitled “The English Novel and Its Development” (1885). Since Lanier’s death, his executors have brought together many of his lectures and papers under the titles of “Music and Poetry” (1898), and “Shakspere and his Forerunners” (1902).
The Humourists.—It is a far cry from the serious thought of Sidney Lanier to the ludicrous perversities of Mark Twain; yet between these two lies an extensive territory freely admitted by foreign critics to be distinctly and perhaps typically American. The humour of this country is different from that found anywhere else in the world. At times, it is true, it exhibits the sparkling characteristics of the Irishman’s wit, at others the keen shrewdness of the Frenchman’s bon-mot; certainly it is never less sprightly than the work of the English joker, nor less spontaneous than that of the German jester. In fact it may savour of any one, or of all the qualities just mentioned, and even of many others. The truth of the matter is, composite as a nation, we preserve in our humour the best traits of the elements out of which we are formed, and pretty generally add to the mixture a flavour indigenous to the soil upon which we flourish.
Humour of the Colonial Period.—In the early periods of our history, conscious humour did not exist. The colonists were too intent upon subduing the wilderness and safeguarding their religion to spend time in making fun. Their steeple-crowned hats, their staid garb, and the severe simplicity of their speech and conduct may seem ridiculous to us now; but, depend upon it, these were very serious matters to the Puritans themselves. A sudden outbreak of frivolity, whether it showed in a departure from the accepted dress or in an unusual use of language, would have been looked upon as sufficient cause for an immediate ecclesiastical investigation and solemn condemnation. Surely a community that in all seriousness could pass a law making it a finable offence in a man to kiss his wife on Sunday, would have been horror-stricken at the irreverent flippancy of Eli Perkins and of George Ade, and would no doubt have called down anathema upon Bill Nye and possibly even upon Carolyn Wells.
Humour of the Revolutionary Period.—Nor did circumstances permit the rise of humour in the Revolutionary period. The great joke of that time was the struggle between the pigmy and the giant, ending in the discomfiture of the latter to the tune of
“Yankee Doodle came to town.”
A few grim remarks have come down to us, it must be admitted, remarks which amuse us now, but which could have been little provocative of laughter when they were uttered. Certainly we have no record of hilarious mirth filling the chamber when at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Franklin sharply replied to the remark, “Well, in this matter I suppose we must all hang together,” with the words, “Yes, or we shall all hang separately!” Life indeed was far too serious in both the earlier periods of American history and literature to be made a source of amusement. True, we have not a little work, satiric in tone, from such writers as the patriot, John Trumbull (1750–1831), and the Tory, Jonathan Odell (1737–1881), of whom the first in his “M’Fingal” (1775–1782) imitated Butler’s “Hudibras,” and the second in his “Word of Congress” (1779) and “The American Times” (1780) followed models set up by Dryden, Pope, and Churchill. Joel Barlow (1754–1812), too, deserves passing mention here for his mock-heroic poem, “The Hasty Pudding” (1793); and Philip Freneau (1752–1832) must be named on account of several briefer pieces of verse intended, no doubt, to be funny, but succeeding only in being abusive and vituperative of British leaders and British methods. On the whole, the efforts of all these writers, so far as humour is concerned, were little better than clumsy; and nowadays, if we bother with their works at all, we laugh at the authors rather than with them.
The Imitative School.—Conscious or deliberate American humour, then, can hardly be said to have shown itself before the early years of the nineteenth century. When it did appear, moreover, it was strongly imitative of English models and exhibited itself not as the most striking trait, but as only one of many qualities characterising an author’s style. Indeed, barring the work of a mere handful of writers, we find such American humour as is likely to live woven into books which endure for other reasons than because they awaken laughter. For the earliest instance of any importance, we may mention Washington Irving, a writer already discussed as an essayist. He exhibits in various parts of his work a sparkling effervescence which, if a little more spontaneous than that found in The Spectator, is none the less strongly suggestive, like his more serious work, of Addison and Steele, and perhaps also of Goldsmith and Swift.