By HAMILTON W. MABIE

Author and Critic

THE MENTOR

MAY 1, 1916 · DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE

The literatures of the great nations have begun with the childhood of those nations; that is to say, with fairy tales and legends and songs of heroism; with Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” the Song of Beowulf (bay´-o-wulf), to name a few among many of the great beginnings of writing. In this country the pioneer writers shared the conditions of the pioneer builders of homes and communities. They were not, however, a people in their intellectual infancy. The country was new; but the people were old. They had all left literature of a high order behind them. Many of them must have been familiar with poetry and prose in English, French, and German, to say nothing of the classic literature which the scholars knew; and there were many scholars, north and south, among the early settlers.

The exploration and settlement of the country was a great adventure, which involved not only peril, but very hard work. In every colony people had to begin at the beginning,—to get roofs over their heads to protect them from the climate, to raise the things they were to eat, to protect themselves from the Indians,—to do a thousand things of which people of our day are unconscious because they were done so long ago. The distances between the colonies were great, the means of communication were slow and infrequent, and the colonists knew very little of one another. They were isolated communities, not in any sense a nation. And so the early writing was the expression of the experiences and convictions of small communities. There cannot be a national literature until there is a national consciousness; and in the early days in America there was not even a sectional consciousness. There was only local consciousness.

The first book written on the continent was by that flamboyant, but very versatile Virginia colonist, Captain John Smith; a brave soldier, with a very warm and highly inventive imagination, whose habit of boasting has robbed him of a great deal of credit which really belonged to him. He wrote an account of adventures in Virginia, which may be taken as the beginning of American writing, and still has value. There was a long interval during which the writing of the colonists was devoted to theological discussion, or to accounts of the new world in which they were living.

A large part of the early writings of New England was more or less theological; but none of this writing rose to the rank of literature until Jonathan Edwards appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century.

JONATHAN EDWARDS

The son of a minister who was a lover of learning as well as of religion, like a great many other ministers of his time in New England, who prepared young men for college, and gave his daughters the same kind of instruction in the same subjects. Edwards was also the grandson of a minister on his mother’s side; and his ancestry, like his descendants, was notable for intellectual vigor. He graduated from Yale College at the age of thirteen,—not an uncommon happening in that day of few entrance requirements,—and the qualities of his mind and the direction of his taste are indicated by the fact that he was already making notes on the mind and on natural philosophy. He studied for the ministry, and when he was twenty-four years old settled at Northampton, Massachusetts, where he was fortunate enough to marry a woman as remarkable as himself, of whom he wrote a description which has become a classic in the literature of love. Edwards was pursued by a haunting sense of sinfulness, and the depravity of the world often weighed heavily upon him. Mrs. Edwards happily combined a piety equal to that of her husband with great cheerfulness of disposition.

EDWARDS AS AN AUTHOR

A man of his intensity was certain to come into collision with some of the ideas held by his contemporaries and with much of their practice; and Edwards finally antagonized his congregation to such a degree that at the age of fifty-six he preached his farewell sermon. Several avenues of work were open to him, for he had become a man of wide reputation; but he settled at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and wrote in the quiet of what was then a wilderness his famous treatise on “The Freedom of the Will,” which is probably the most important American contribution to philosophy. It is his sermons, however, rather than his treatises, which entitle his work to a place in the history of American literature. Between eleven and twelve hundred of these sermons are preserved in Yale University Library. They are characterized by great vigor of thought, intensity of feeling, and often impressive power of statement. One of them, more famous, though in some respects not so true a piece of literature as others, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” created great commotion in its time, and the glow of the fire which possessed the preacher has not yet wholly faded from its pages.

LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION

As the War of the Revolution approached the colonists began to have hopes and fears in common, and the war was preceded by a war of words. The grievances of the colonists were stated many times, sometimes with great force of reasoning and clearness; and a literature of discussion and debate, which reached the public largely through pamphlets, came into existence. Samuel Adams of Massachusetts wrote a stirring defense of the rights of the colonists. James Adams, James Otis, and Thomas Jefferson came to the front in this discussion; and their writing took on the dignity of literature.

THOMAS PAINE

One of the most vigorous contributors to this discussion was Thomas Paine, an Englishman by birth, whose ability as a writer attracted the attention of Benjamin Franklin, then in London, at whose suggestion Paine came to America. He had already made himself somewhat noted as a radical critic of the English government and political system, and within a year of his arrival in this country became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. His “Common Sense,” a pamphlet published in 1776, was a very vigorous argument in favor of severing all ties with the mother country. The argument was put so strongly, and at the same time with such simplicity, that it made a great impression on all kinds of people, and the Pennsylvania legislature, in recognition of the services he had rendered to the American cause, made him a gift of five hundred pounds. This pamphlet was immediately translated into various European languages. His “Crisis,” which was published from time to time during the war, was also of great importance to the Americans, and the first number was read by order of Washington to every regiment in the colonial army. This was in the terrible winter of 1776, and the spirit and courage expressed in these papers did much to relieve the despondency of the time. The “Age of Reason,” an attack on the Bible, published in 1794, shocked the world, and so beclouded Paine’s reputation that his great service to the country has been largely overlooked.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

If one wanted to name three men who are in a supreme degree representative of three leading American types, he would not go far astray if he named Franklin, Emerson, and Lincoln. Several years before the Revolution Hume described Franklin as “The First and indeed the first great Man of Letters in America”; and Dr. Johnson, in that most delightful exploitation of ignorance and eloquence, “Taxation No Tyranny,” described him as “a master of mischief.” Franklin was then one of the foremost representatives of the colonists, and one of the most ardent advocates of their claims. For thirty years Europe knew more about him than any other man in America, not excepting Washington. He was a Bostonian by birth, the son of a tallow chandler. He had a casual contact with the Boston Latin School; but his formal education was finished in his eleventh year, when he began to work as a general utility boy in his father’s shop. He was fond of reading, and was fortunate enough to possess Bunyan’s works, and a little later he was reading Robinson Crusoe and other works by Defoe, who undoubtedly had great influence on his style. His love of books inclined him to the printer’s trade, and his self-education went on rapidly. Another piece of good fortune was finding a volume of the Spectator. He has given a very interesting account of his use of this classic of sound, clear English prose, and has described its influence on his language and style. Then he read Xenophon’s “Memorabilia,” which gave him a clear idea of the Socratic method of discussion. At the age of fifteen he was already writing for the colonial press, contributing essays notable for their very sensible moralizing and their practical wisdom; for Franklin was, and still is, the representative of American practical sagacity and commonsense.

POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC

Fame and fortune came to him with the publication of Poor Richard’s Almanac, which began in 1732 and was continued for a quarter of a century. These almanacs went into almost every house in America, and served not only as calendars, lists of events, warnings about the weather, with doggerel verses, but furnished proverbs of a very practical character, and also margins on which all sorts of notes could be written. “Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee,” is a good example of “Poor Richard’s” practical wisdom. His personal experience at home and abroad made Franklin in many ways the most conspicuous American of his time. His industry is shown by the fact that his work fills a hundred and seven volumes. In this mass of writing, of greatest importance is his Autobiography, which told the story of his life from his childhood to his arrival in London in 1757. It is a straight, clear, unpretentious piece of writing, and, all things considered, must be considered one of the most important original contributions to American literature.

JOHN WOOLMAN

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.

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.

WASHINGTON IRVING

American literature in the strictest sense of the word really began in the city of New York with the publication of Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker History of New York. New York was then the most cosmopolitan of all cities of the New World, as it was the largest. It was a pleasant town of twenty-five thousand people, and it had picturesque traditions; for it was first settled by the Dutch, who had, in a way, taken possession of the Hudson River. They were followed in turn by the English, and still later there was a large influx of French Huguenots. When the Revolution broke out eighteen languages were already spoken in the city of New York. It was natural, therefore, that the literature of imagination, of humor, and of sentiment should find a soil in the cosmopolitan society of the town; and Irving, who was born in the year in which the British troops embarked for England, who declined to go to college, as his brothers had gone, but read law and, probably with greater avidity, books of general literature, and was a lover of nature, had both the temperament and the taste to write gentle satire. He was a born observer and loiterer, a man who saw and felt and meditated. He had the high spirit of youth, and when he returned in 1806 from Europe he was still a young man, and there were some other gifted young men in New York to keep him company. They published anonymously a series of semi-humorous, satirical comments on men, women, and things social, dramatic, and literary, under the title “Salmagundi,” and in these papers Irving’s humor, sentiment, and delightful style were conspicuous. They were followed by the Knickerbocker History of New York, in which the audacious young man broadly burlesqued the ancestors of some of the foremost people in New York. It was good-natured; but it gave great offense. It was, however, the first book of quality and feeling written by an American. In 1815 Irving went to Europe a second time, and did not return until 1832. During that interval he published two books, which made a reputation for him on both sides of the Atlantic, “Bracebridge Hall” and “The Sketch-Book.” These books made the colonists, irritated by their long discussion with England, more tolerant of the mother country, because they recalled places and customs that had been dear to their ancestors, or to their own youth. Thackeray called Irving “the first ambassador whom the new world of letters sent to the old.”

JAMES K. PAULDING

One of the most prominent members of the little company of young men subsequently known as the Knickerbocker writers, who were all friends of Irving, was James K. Paulding, whose youth fell in the period of the Revolutionary War. In consequence he received very little education, but had great vigor of mind and energy of character. He early became acquainted with Washington Irving, and a strong friendship grew up between them. Paulding was one of the contributors to the Salmagundi papers, and began early to write for various periodicals. His diverting history of “John Bull and Brother Jonathan” passed through many editions, and his satirical tendency made him popular at a time when the feeling in this country against Great Britain was very strong. A pamphlet entitled “The United States and England,” which appeared in 1814, secured political preferment for Paulding, and he was made secretary to the first board of navy commissioners. A story published in 1831, “The Dutchman’s Fireside,” founded on an earlier description of the manners of the early Dutch settlers, was his most successful production, passing through six editions in a year, and being republished abroad and translated into several languages. Paulding’s talent, although genuine, was not distinctive enough to secure his permanent reputation; but he remains a very interesting figure in a group of delightful writers, and his early skits, if they may be so called, were very keen satirical comments on some offensive British traits and qualities.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

Cooper, who was also a New Yorker, published “The Spy” in 1821. “Precaution,” his first effort in fiction, which had already appeared, was a study of English society life, about which Cooper knew very little, and it was a failure. In “The Spy,” Cooper knew his ground and his people. He had spent much of his boyhood at Cooperstown, in central New York, near the scene of much of the Indian fighting. He had heard stories of adventure from Indian fighters and trappers. Many of the men who had fought in the American ranks during the War of the Revolution were still living. “The Spy” was instantly popular, because it was the first really American novel written by an American. It dealt with a very interesting character, Harvey Birch; and it appealed alike to the men who knew of the war from experience, and to those who had been brought up to revere the veterans of the Revolution. Europe, too, was intensely curious about the Indian, and the stories that followed, especially those in the Leather Stocking Tales, were translated into almost every European tongue, and are still read in all parts of the Old World. Boys in remote German villages are still playing Cooper’s Indians.

Cooper was a very uneven writer, careless, and indifferent about artistic effects. He was often diffuse and often commonplace, and he had not much skill in drawing portraits of men and women; but he could tell a story rapidly and dramatically. He knew how to keep his readers in suspense, and he knew nature, both on land and at sea.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LITERATURE	By Henry S. Pancoast
BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE	By W. P. Trent
An excellent treatment of the subject in brief.
A STUDY OF PROSE FICTION	By Bliss Perry
A scholarly work by a distinguished critical writer.
ASPECTS OF FICTION	By Brander Matthews
An informing and also a charming literary study by a recognized authority.
LITERARY HISTORY OF AMERICA	By Prof. Barrett Wendell
HISTORY OF LITERATURE IN AMERICA	By Prof. Barrett Wendell and C. N. Greenough
A condensed survey of the subject.
MATERIALS AND METHODS OF FICTION	By Clayton Hamilton
A simple, interesting, practical book.
AMERICAN LANDS AND LETTERS	By Donald G. Mitchell (Ik Marvel)
A most attractive work, valuable in its informing qualities, and written in most delightful style by the author of “Reveries of a Bachelor.”

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