Part 30

_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.

_The Restrained School._--Less noticeably imitative of foreign work, the whimsicalities of Oliver Wendell Holmes, of James Russell Lowell, and of Charles Dudley Warner have been deemed sufficiently important to make each the subject of a chapter in more than one English work vainly endeavouring to analyse and classify that subtle something which makes American humour funny. With apparent gravity Holmes could ask the startling question, “Why is an onion like a piano?” and in answer convulse his readers with the atrocious pun, “Because it smell odious!” His characterisation of an afternoon reception as “Giggle, gabble, gobble, git,” is worthy of frequent quotation; and one passage in his “Music Grinders” is of perennial value. Wearied by the discordant tunes issuing from a hurdy-gurdy, the distracted poet at last exclaims:

“But hark! the air again is still The music all is ground, And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound.”

The man who has had the experience here set down, appreciates both the pathos and the humour of a passage like that. Lowell’s humour is akin to that of Holmes. It breaks out in nearly every essay that he wrote, and almost runs riot in some of his poems. Speaking of the destruction of a certain hill that a city street might be improved, he remarked in “Cambridge Thirty Years Ago” (1854): “The landscape was carried away cart-load by cart-load, and, dumped down on the roads, forms a part of that unfathomable pudding which has, I fear, drawn many a teamster and pedestrian to the use of phrases not commonly found in English dictionaries.” There is much humour in Lowell, more stirring than this, but the quotation exhibits the readiness with which he would give an unexpected turn to a sentence, or throw in an unlooked-for reference or expression, too delicate to be shocking, too subtle to arouse loud laughter, but capable none the less of sending a ripple of amusement over the calmest gravity. For work professedly humorous throughout, we must turn to “A Fable for Critics” (1848) or to “The Biglow Papers” (1848). Both contain much good hard common sense, but the humour instead of being a mere accident of expression is the real reason for the existence of the greater part of each work. More closely allied to Lowell, perhaps, than to either Irving or Holmes, Warner produced no work exclusively funny. Still there is hardly a page of “My Summer in a Garden” (1870) or of “In the Wilderness” (1878) which does not have at least one laughable sentence. For this reason Warner defies quotation: his chapters must be read in their entirety rather than in chance snatches.

_The Professional Humourists._--Turning now from those writers of humour who have been looked upon by some critics as forming an “imitative school” and by others as constituting what they have more happily termed a “restrained school,” we come upon a widely extended group of writers who profess to have no higher calling than the awakening of mere laughter. If we call them collectively the “professional school of American humourists,” we need not feel ourselves debarred from regarding them as falling naturally into several classes, to each of which we may give some special name, such as “the milder school,” “the women humourists,” “the boisterous group,” and the like. We must not forget, however, that no hard and fast dividing lines can be drawn between the different classes, since the fact that a writer is a woman does not necessarily prevent her writing boisterous humour, or that a man who is generally almost clown-like may not sometimes produce a rare and refined piece of fun. Furthermore, it happens that the very naturalness with which the humourists fall into groups and classes prevents their being discussed in chronological order. The milder fun-makers have existed side by side with their hilarious brethren from the beginning, so that one must ignore, except in the slightest way, the order determined mainly by accidents of birth, or dates of publication.

_The Women Humourists._--Politeness demands that we speak of the women humourists first: in the fore-front of these we must place Mrs. Frances Miriam Whitcher (1811-1852). She made her first appearance as a writer in _Neal’s Saturday Gazette_ about 1845, and to that paper contributed a long series of articles purporting to come from the pen of “the Widow Bedott.” From the first she attracted attention, and interest in her work has never wholly ceased. Such was the demand for her writings that after her death two collections of articles from her pen were made and published as “The Widow Bedott Papers” (1855), and “Widow Sprigg, Mary Elmer, and Other Sketches” (1867).

Closely related in form and content to “The Widow Bedott Papers” was a book published in 1873 with the title “My Opinions and Betsy Bobbet’s.” Although immediately popular, it was for many years supposed to be the work of its professed author, Samanthy Allen; but by the time “P. A. and P. I. or Samanthy at the Centennial” appeared, in 1876, the secret had leaked out that “Josiah Allen’s Wife” was the pseudonym of Marietta Holley (born in 1844), a native of Adams, New York. A contributor to _Peterson’s Magazine_, _The Christian Union_, _The Independent_, and other periodicals, and the author of numerous books, she has gained considerable renown. Her earlier works are her best; for as time went on she diluted her skill in fun-making by permitting her interest in the temperance question, the woman-suffrage movement, and negro education to interfere with the power of her wit. Miss Holley’s work has attracted some attention abroad, and has been translated into several foreign languages. Merely pausing to mention Mary Abigail Dodge (1830-1896), a native of Hamilton, Massachusetts, who, forming her pseudonym from a part of her own name and from that of her birthplace, made herself famous as “Gail Hamilton” in work both grave and gay; and stopping only to call attention to the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe in “Old Town Folks” (1869) gave us an unusually funny book, we may choose from the host of women who are moving us to laughter the most industrious of them all, Carolyn Wells. As a writer of the verse form called the _limerick_ she has more than once equalled Edward Lear, and as a parodist she shocks a reader to silence by her audacity.

_The Milder Humourists._--In what may be called the milder school of American humourists Seba Smith (1792-1868) was the leader in point of time. Graduated from Bowdoin College in 1818, Smith began almost immediately to contribute editorially to the papers of Portland, Maine. In addition to more serious works, he wrote, under the pen-name of “Major Jack Downing,” a series of political articles in New England dialect, thus anticipating Lowell’s “Biglow Papers” by several years. Smith was the author of a number of books, the best known of which are probably “Way Down East” (1853) and “My Thirty Years Out of the Senate” (1859), the latter a homely and vigorous parody of Senator T. H. Benton’s “Thirty Years’ View of the American Government.” Writing not long after Seba Smith, John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) early sprang into fame. The author of a considerable amount of prose, he attracted far wider attention by his verse. In the latter he showed the working of a strong English influence; indeed, it is not too much to say that had there been no Thomas Hood, there would have been no Saxe. Born at Highgate, Vermont, and graduated from Middlebury College in 1843, he soon became interested in both journalism and politics; but he is now best remembered by his work in verse. His “Humorous and Satirical Poems” (1850) fairly bristle with puns from beginning to end, and the surprising fact about them is that they are so good and so well set in their places that rarely does a reader feel inclined to accuse Saxe of overstraining his powers.

_Leland_, _Field_, _Riley_, _and Harris_.--Merely mentioning in passing the name of Saxe’s contemporary, Frederick Swartwout Cozzens (1818-1869), author of “The Sparrowgrass Papers” (1856), we call attention to Robert Henry Newell (1836-1901), whose “Orpheus C. Kerr Papers” in three volumes (1861-1869) contained presumably funny comments on the Civil War, and to David Ross Locke (1833-1888), who, writing under the pseudonym of “Petroleum Vesuvius Naseby,” wittily supported the administration of Lincoln, and attacked that of Johnson, in newspaper articles afterward collected into a book entitled “Divers Views, Opinions, and Prophecies of Yours Truly” (1865). These three men, although deserving mention on account of the position they once held, are now little read, but their contemporary Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903) seems to have established something like permanent renown for himself. Graduated from Princeton in 1846, he became prominent in various fields of journalism and authorship. His best-known work is “Hans Breitmann’s Ballads,” of which a collected edition appeared in 1895. These poems are written in the dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch, and relate the exploits of their clownish hero in various exigencies and circumstances. In this same school of mild humourists we may class also a number of writers most of whom are still in the prime of life. From the host we select three as typical. Eugene Field (1850-1895), whose untimely death cut short a career of promise already blossoming into fulfilment, may be mentioned first. In addition to much serious work, he published “The Tribune Primer” (1882), a mock imitation of a child’s first reading-book, and “Culture’s Garden” (1887), a series of clever skits directed against those who make a pretence of ultra-refinement. With Field for some reason James Whitcomb Riley (born in 1853) has always been popularly associated, possibly because both wrote poems having childhood as subject-matter. Mr. Riley’s humorous work is scattered through his several books, of which “Rhymes of Childhood” (1890) and “Home Folks” (1900) are typical, if not the best. An author of a series of books which appeal at once to students of popular tradition and to general readers whether young or old is found in Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908). Publishing a book in 1880 on Afro-American folk-lore under the title “Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings,” Mr. Harris found to his surprise that he had an audience who listened to him with mirth instead of gravity. It is improbable that more than a mere handful of his readers suspect for even a moment that the several stories put into the mouth of Uncle Remus are a real contribution to anthropological data. In his later years, Mr. Harris wisely threw all his reports into literary form, with the result that there was a steady rise in his popularity as he gave us successively “Nights with Uncle Remus” (1883), “Mingo, and Other Sketches” (1884), and “Daddy Jake, the Runaway” (1889).

_The Boisterous Humourists._--Turning now to the “boisterous school” of American humour, we may dwell for a time upon the chief characteristics exhibited by members of the group. In the first place, most of them have forgotten how to spell. There is something ludicrous in the appearance of the word “through” masquerading in the garb “thru,” whatever may be the plea of the society of spelling reformers to the contrary; and certainly no one, except a school-teacher, can be other than amused to see such common words as “laugh,” “feel,” “funny,” and the like making their bows as “laff,” “feal,” and “phuny.” Laughable as this may be, however, it is not too much to insist that, if the appeal is only to the eye, if the wit evaporates when the words are not seen but merely heard, then the humour is not of very high order. In the second place, most of the members of the boisterous school, along with their loss of power as spellers, have also forgotten how to tell the truth. “This inclination towards outrageous exaggeration,” said Lowell, “is a prime characteristic of American humour.” “There is,” he says elsewhere, “something irresistibly comic in the conception of a negro so black that charcoal made a white mark on him, or in the idea of a soil so fertile that a nail planted in it becomes a railroad spike before morning.” This example of untruthfulness might also be taken as an illustration of the third trait of the group now under discussion--that of producing the most absurd paradoxes and of bringing into juxtaposition the most diverse uses of the same word. This is more than mere word-play; it is rather what might be termed the apotheosis of the pun. It underlies the majority of jokes that are found in the American newspaper, and is at once the admiration and the despair of those who try to analyse or to imitate the subtlety of our humour.

_Josh Billings._--With these three characteristics in mind we may now give some brief attention to the humourists themselves. Of the “boisterous school” the earliest were Henry Wheeler Shaw, Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, and Charles Farrar Browne. If by chance these names seem quite unfamiliar, the strangeness will disappear when attention is called to the fact that the three men respectively wrote under the _noms de plume_ of “Josh Billings,” “Mrs. Partington,” and “Artemus Ward.” Shaw (1818-1885) was born in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, and died in Monterey, California. To complete his formal education he entered Hamilton College in Clinton, New York; but tiring of the life there, he went on to the West and spent a number of years undergoing the many experiences offered by frontier life. Returning East in 1858, he became an auctioneer in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he also began to contribute to various magazines and newspapers. He attracted little attention until he invented an amusing system of phonetic spelling supposed to represent his homely method of pronunciation. His chief works were his “Farmer’s Allminax” published annually between 1870 and 1880, “Every Boddy’s Friend” (1876), and “Josh Billings’ Spice Box” (1881). A quotation or two will exhibit both the thought and the form which characterise the contents of his several volumes of writing:

“Fallin’ in luv is like fallin’ in molases--sweet but drefful dobby.”

“Yu can’t tell what makes a kis taste so good eny more than you kin a peech. Eny man who kin set down wher it is cool and tell what a kis tastes like hain’t got eny more taste in his mouth than a knot-hol hez.”