Chapter 11

THE EASTERN REALISTS

FROM ROMANTICISM TOWARD REALISM.--The enormous circulation of magazines in the United States has furnished a wide market for the writers of fiction. Magazines have especially stimulated the production of short stories, which show how much technique their authors have learned from Poe. The increased attention paid to fiction has led to a careful study of its guiding principles and to the formation of new rules for the practice of the art.

When we look back at the best work of earlier writers of American fiction, we shall find that it is nearly all romantic. In the eighteenth century, Charles Brockden Brown wrote in conformity to the principles of early romanticism, and combined the elements of strangeness and terror in his tales. The modified romanticism persisting through the greater part of the nineteenth century demanded that the _unusual_ should at least be retained in fiction as a dominating factor. Irving's _Rip Van Winkle_ has the older element of the impossible, and _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ shows fascinating combinations of the unusual. Cooper achieved his greatest success in presenting the Indians and the stalwart figure of the pioneer against the mysterious forest as a background. Hawthorne occasionally availed himself of the older romantic materials, as in _The Snow Image_, Rappaccini's Daughter_, and _Young Goodman Brown_, but he was more often attracted by the newer elements, the strange and the unusual, as in _The Scarlet Letter_ and _The House of the Seven Gables_. Poe followed with a combination of all the romantic materials,--the supernatural, the terrible, and the unusual. Bret Harte applied his magnifying glass to unusual crises in the strange lives of the western pioneers. By a skillful use of light and shadow, Mark Twain heightened the effect of the strange scenes through which he passed in his young days. Almost all the southern writers, from Simms to Cable and Harris, loved to throw strong lights on unusual characters and romantic situations.

The question which the romanticists, or idealists, as they were often called in later times, had accustomed themselves to ask, was, "Have these characters or incidents the unusual beauty or ugliness or goodness necessary to make an impression and to hold the attention?" The masters of the new eastern school of fiction took a different view, and asked, "Is our matter absolutely true to life?"

REALISM IN FICTION.--The two greatest representatives of the new school of realism in fiction are William D. Howells and Henry James. Both have set forth in special essays the realist's art of fiction. The growing interest in democracy was the moving force in realism. In that realist's textbook, Criticism and Fiction (1891), Howells says of the aristocratic spirit in literature:--

"It is averse to the mass of men; it consents to know them only in some conventionalized and artificial guise.... Democracy in literature is the reverse of all this. It wishes to know and to tell the truth, confident that consolation and delight are there; it does not care to paint the marvelous and impossible for the vulgar many, or to sentimentalize and falsify the actual for the vulgar few."

"Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material," says Howells. He sometimes insists on considering "honesty" and "realism" as synonymous terms. His primary object is not merely to amuse by a pleasant story or to startle by a horrible one. His object is to reflect life as he finds it, not only unusual or exceptional life. He believes that it is false to real life to overemphasize certain facts, to overlook the trivial, and to make all life dramatic. He says that the realist in fiction "cannot look upon human life and declare this thing or that thing unworthy of notice, any more than the scientist can declare a fact of the material world beneath the dignity of his inquiry."

Howells recognizes the great importance of the spirit of romanticism, and says that it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century

"... making the same fight against effete classicism which realism is making to-day against effete romanticism.... The romantic of that day and the real of this are in certain degree the same. Romanticism then sought, as realism seeks now, to widen the bounds of sympathy, to level every barrier against aesthetic freedom, to escape from the paralysis of tradition. It exhausted itself in this impulse; and it remained for realism to assert that fidelity to experience and probability of motive are essential conditions of a great imaginative literature."

Henry James in his essay, _The Art of Fiction_, denies that the novelist is less concerned than the historian about the quest for truth. He says, "The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it _does_ compete with life. When it ceases to compete as the canvas of the painter competes, it will have arrived at a very strange pass." To the intending novelist he says:--

"All life belongs to you, and don't listen either to those who would shut you up into corners of it and tell you that it is only here and there that art inhabits, or to those who would persuade you that this heavenly messenger wings her way outside of life altogether, breathing a superfine air and turning away her head from the truth of things."

It must not be supposed that Howells and James were the original founders of the realistic school, any more than Wordsworth, Coleridge, and their associates were the originators of the romantic school. History has not yet discovered the first realist or the first romanticist. Both schools have from time to time been needed to hold each other in check. Howells makes no claim to being considered the first realist. He distinctly says that Jane Austen (1775-1817) had treated material with entire truthfulness. Henry James might have discovered that Fielding had preceded him in writing, "It is our business to discharge the part of a faithful historian, and to describe human nature as it is, not as we would wish it to be."

An occasional revolt against extreme romanticism is needed to bring literature closer to everyday life. The tendency of the followers of any school is to push its conclusions to such an extreme that reaction necessarily sets in. Some turned to seek for the soul of reality in the uninteresting commonplace. Others learned from Shakespeare the necessity of looking at life from the combined point of view of the realist and the romanticist, and they discovered that the great dramatist's romantic pictures sometimes convey a truer idea of life than the most literal ones of the painstaking realist. Critics have pointed out that the original _History of Dr. Faustus_ furnished Marlowe with a realistic account of Helen of Troy's hair, eyes, "pleasant round face," lips, "neck, white like a swan," general figure, and purple velvet gown, but that his two romantic lines:--

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"

enable any imaginative person to realize her fascination better than pages of realistic description. But we must not forget that it was an achievement for the writers of this group to insist that truth must be the foundation for all pictures of life, to demonstrate that even the pillars of romanticism must rest on a firm basis in a world of reality, and to teach the philosophy of realism to a school of younger writers.

By no means all of the eastern fiction, however, is realistic. THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836-1907), for instance, wrote in a romantic vein _The Story of a Bad Boy_, which ranks among the best boys' stories produced in the last half of the nineteenth century. There were many other writers of romantic fiction, but the majority of them at least felt the restraining influence of the realistic school.

REALISM IN POETRY.--One eastern poet, Walt Whitman, took a step beyond any preceding American poet in endeavoring to paint with realistic touches the democracy of life. He defined the poet as the indicator of the path between reality and the soul. He thus proclaims his realistic creed:--

"I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may exalt or startle or fascinate or soothe, I will have purposes as health or heat or snow has and be as regardless of observation. You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me."

The subject of his verse is the realities of democracy. No other great American poet had indulged in realism as extreme as this:--

"The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down."

Whitman says boldly:--

"And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue."

He discarded ordinary poetic meter, because it seemed to lack the rhythm of nature. It is, however, very easy for a poet to cross the line between realism and idealism, and we sometimes find adherents of the two schools disagreeing whether Whitman was more realist or idealist in some of his work, for instance, in a line or verse unit, like this, when he says:--

"That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world."

The fact that not all the later eastern poets were realistic needs emphasis. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, perhaps the most noted successor of New England's famous group, was frequently an exquisite romantic artist, or painter in miniature, as these eight lines which constitute the whole of his poem, _Identity_, show:--

"Somewhere--in desolate wind-swept space-- In Twilight-land--in No-man's-land-- Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand.

"And who are you?' cried one, agape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. 'I know not,' said the second Shape, 'I only died last night!'"

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, 1837-1920

The foremost leader of realism in modern American fiction, the man who influenced more young writers than any other novelist of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was William Dean Howells, who was born in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, in 1837. He never went to college, but obtained valuable training as a printer and editor in various newspaper offices in Ohio. He was for many years editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_ and an editorial contributor to the _New York Nation_ and _Harper's Magazine_. In these capacities, as well as by his fiction, he reached a wide public. Later he turned his attention mainly to the writing of novels. So many of their scenes are laid in New England that he is often claimed as a New England writer.

His strongest novels are _A Modern Instance_ (1882), _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ (1885), _The Minister's Charge_ (1886), _Indian Summer_ (1886), and _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ (1889). These belong to the middle period of his career. Before this, his mastery of character portrayal had not culminated, and later, his power of artistic selection and repression was not so strictly exercised.

_The Rise of Silas Lapham_ is a story of the home life and business career of a self-made merchant, who has the customary braggadocio and lack of culture, but who possesses a substantial integrity at the root of his nature. The little shortcomings in social polish, so keenly felt by his wife and daughters, as they rise to a position due to great wealth, the small questions of decorum, and the details of business take up a large part of the reader's attention; but they are treated with such ease, naturalness, repressed humor, refinement of art, and truth in sketching provincial types of character, that the story is a triumph of realistic creation. _A Modern Instance_ is not so pleasant a book, but the attention is firmly held by the strong, realistic presentation of the jealousy, the boredom, the temptations, and the dishonesty exhibited in a household of a commonplace, ill-mated pair. _Indian Summer_ begins well, proceeds well, and ends well. It may be a trifle more conventional than the two other novels just mentioned, but it is altogether delightful. The conversations display keen insight into the heart of the young, imaginative girl and of the older woman and man. _The Minister's Charge_ is thoroughly individual. The young boy seems so close to his readers that every detail in his life becomes important. The other people are also full of real blood, while the background is skillfully arranged to heighten the effect of the characters. _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ would be decidedly improved if many pages were omitted, but it is full of lifelike characters, and it sometimes approaches the dramatic, in a way unusual with Howells.

In his effort to present life without any misleading ideas of heroism, beauty, or idyllic sweetness, Howells sometimes goes so far toward the opposite extreme as to write stories that seem to be filled with commonplace women, humdrum lives, and men like Northwick in _The Quality of Mercy_, of whom one of the characters says:--

"He was a mere creature of circumstances like the rest of us! His environment made him rich, and his environment made him a rogue. Sometimes I think there _was_ nothing to Northwick except what happened to him."

But in such work as the five novels enumerated, Howells shows decided ability in portraying attractive characters, in making their faults human and as interesting as their virtues, in causing ordinary life to yield variety of incident and amusing scenes, and, finally, in engaging his characters in homelike, natural, self-revealing conversations, which are often spiced with wit.

Howells does not always have a plot, that is, a beginning, a climax, and a solution of all the questions suggested. He has, of course, a story, but he does not find it necessary to present the entire life of his characters, if he can accurately portray them by one or more incidents. After that purpose is accomplished, the story often ceases before the reader feels that a real ending has been reached.

Howells rarely startles or thrills; he usually both interests and convinces his readers by a straightforward presentation of everyday, well-known scenes and people. The strongest point in his art is the easy, natural way in which he seems to be retailing faithfully the facts exactly as they happened, without any juggling or rearranging on his part. His characters are so clearly presented that they do not remain in dreary outline, but emerge fully in rounded form, as moving, speaking, feeling beings. His keen insight into human frailties, his delicate, pervading humor, his skill in handling conversations, and his delightfully clear, easy, natural, and familiar style make him a realist of high rank and a worthy teacher of young writers.

HENRY JAMES, 1843-1916

The name most closely associated with Howells is that of Henry James, who was born in New York. William James (1842-1910) the noted psychologist, was an older brother. Henry James is called an "international novelist" because he lived mostly abroad and laid the scenes of his novels in both Europe and America. His sympathy with England in the European war caused him to become a British subject in 1915, eight months before his death in 1916.

Like Howells, James was a leader in modern realistic fiction. His work has been called the "quintessence of realism." But instead of selecting, as Howells does, the well-known types of the average people, James prefers to study the ordinary mind in extraordinary situations, surroundings, and combinations. For this reason, his characters, while realistically presented, rarely seem well-known and obvious types.

James was the first American to succeed in the realistic short story, that is, the story stripped of the supernatural and romantic elements used by Hawthorne and Poe. James selects neither a commonplace nor a dramatic situation, but chooses some difficult and out-of-the-way theme, and clears it up with his keen, subtle, impressionistic art. _A Passionate Pilgrim_, _The Madonna of the Future_, and _The Lesson of the Master_ are short stories that show his abstruse, unusual subject matter and his analytical methods.

He was a very prolific writer. He published as many as three volumes in twelve months. Year after year, with few exceptions, he brought out either a novel, a book of essays, or a volume of short stories. His most interesting novels are _Roderick Hudson_ (1875), _Daisy Miller: A Study_ (1878), _The Portrait of a Lady_ (1881), and _The Princess Casamassima_ (1886).

_Daisy Miller_ is a brilliant study of the Italian experiences of an American girl of the unconventionally independent type. She is beautiful, frank, original, but whimsical, shallow, and headstrong. One minute she attracts, the next moment she repels. One feels baffled and provoked, but is held to the book by the spell of a writer who is clever, intellectual, a master of style, and a skilled scientist in dissecting human character. In _Roderick Hudson_ and _The Portrait of a Lady_, the characters are much more interesting, the situations are larger, the human emotion deeper, and the books richer from every point of view. These novels also show Americans in European surroundings. Isabel Archer and Ralph Touchet in _The Portrait of a Lady_ have qualities that deeply stir the admiration and emotions. Every scene in which these characters appear adds to the pleasure in being able to know and love them, even though they are merely characters in a book.

Only a few such persons as these, so rich in the qualities of the heart, appear in James's novels. He has portrayed a greater variety of men and women than any other American writer, but they usually interest him for some other quality than their power to love and suffer. He is tempted to regard life from the intellectual viewpoint, as a problem, a game, and a panorama. He does not, like Hawthorne, enter into the sanctuary and become the hero, laying the lash of remorse upon his back. James stands off, a disinterested onlooker, and exhibits his characters critically, accurately, minutely, as they take their parts in the procession or game. Brilliant and faultless as the portraits are, they too frequently appear cold, pitiless renditions of life, often of life too trivial to seem worthy the searching study that he gives it. Ralph Touchet, Roderick Hudson, Isabel Archer, and Miss Light are sufficient to prove the tremendous power possessed by James to present the emotional side of life. Both in theory and practice, however, he usually prefers to remain the disinterested, impartial, detached spectator.

Like Howells, James does not depend upon a plot. There is little action in his works. The interest is psychological, and a chance word, an encounter on the street, even a look, may serve to change an attitude of mind and affect the outcome.

The popular impression that James is impossible to understand and that he uses words to obscure his meaning is, of course, false, although in his later novels his style is extremely involved and often difficult to follow. In such works as _The Wings of a Dove_ (1902) and _The Golden Bowl_ (1904), for example, there are long and intricate psychological explanations, which are most abstruse and confusing. It is this later work which has given rise to the common saying that William James wrote psychology like a novelist, and Henry James, novels like a psychologist.

Judged by his best work, however, such as _The Portrait of a Lady_ and _Roderick Hudson_, Henry James must be acknowledged a master of English style. His keen analytical mind is reflected in a brilliant, highly polished, and impressively incisive style. In a few perfectly selected words the subtlest thoughts are clearly revealed. In these masterpieces, the reader is constantly delighted by the artist's skill, which leads ever deeper into human motives after it would seem that the heart and mind could disclose no further secrets. Such skill shows a mastery of language rarely surpassed in fiction. At his best, James has a fineness and sureness of touch, and a command of perfectly fitting words, as well as elegance and grace in style.

MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN, 1862-

Mary Eleanor Wilkins (Mrs. Freeman), known for her realistic stories of the provincial New Englander, was born in Randolph, Massachusetts. With humor to see the little eccentricities of the people among whom she lived and a sympathetic understanding of their heroic qualities, she has created real men and women,--farmers, school teachers, prim spinsters, clergymen, stern Roman matrons,--all unmistakable types of New England village life. Her unfailing ability to transplant the reader into rock-ribbed, snow-clad New England, with its many fond associations for most Americans, is proof of her power as an artist. Her art is subtle, and it commands both attention and admiration, as she reveals every slight move in a simple plot and with extraordinary deftness of touch brings out the most delicate shadings that differentiate her characters.

Her style is easy and clear, and is pervaded by a fine sense of humor. Her short stories are her most artistic work, especially those in the two volumes, _A New England Nun_, and _Silence and Other Tales_; but she can also tell a long story well, as is shown in _Pembroke_, which combines at their best all her qualities as a novelist.

She is distinctly a realist of Howells's school, presenting the daily rounds of the life which she knew intimately, and making complete stories of such meager material as the subterfuges which two poor but proud sisters practiced in order to make one black silk dress, owned in partnership, appear as if each really possessed "a gala dress." She takes stolid, practical characters, who have seemingly nothing attractive in their composition, and by her sympathetic treatment causes them to appeal strongly to human hearts. She discovers heroic qualities in apparently commonplace homes and families, and finds humorous or pathetic possibilities in men and women whom most writers would consider very unpromising. Miss Wilkins knows that in rural New England romantic things do happen, tragedies do occur, and heroes and heroines do appear in unexpected quarters to meet emergencies, and she occasionally transfers such events to her pages, thereby enlivening them without sacrificing the reality of her pictures. But the triumph of her art consists in her facile handling of simple incidents and everyday men and women and her power to carry them without a hint of sentimentality to a natural, artistic, effective climax, heightened usually by a touch of either humor or pathos.

WALT WHITMAN, 1819-1892

Life.--Suffolk County, Long Island, in which is situated the village of West Hills, where Walt Whitman was born in 1819, was in some ways the most remarkable eastern county in the United States. Hemmed in on a narrow strip of land by the ocean on one side and Long Island Sound on the other, the inhabitants saw little of the world unless they led a seafaring life. Many of the well-to-do farmers, as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, never took a land journey of more than twenty miles from home. Because of such restricted environment, the people of Suffolk County were rather insular in early days, yet the average grade of intelligence was high, for some of England's most progressive blood had settled there in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Nowhere else in this country, not even at the West, was there a greater feeling of independence and a more complete exercise of individuality. There was a certainty about life and opinions, a feeling of relationship with everybody, a defiance of convention, that made Suffolk County the fit birthplace of a man who was destined to trample poetic conventions under his feet and to sing the song of democracy. In Walt Whitman's young days, all sorts and conditions of men on Long Island met familiarly on equal terms. The farmer, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the mason, the woodchopper, the sailor, the clergyman, the teacher, the young college student home on his vacation,--all mingled as naturally as members of a family. No human being felt himself inferior to any one else, so long as the moral proprieties were observed. Nowhere else did there exist a more perfect democracy of conscious equals. Although Whitman's family moved to Brooklyn before he was five years old, he returned to visit relatives, and later taught school at various places on Long Island and edited a paper at Huntington, near his birthplace. In various ways Suffolk County was responsible for the most vital part of his early training. In his poem, _There Was a Child Went Forth_, he tells how nature educated him in his island home. In his prose work, _Specimen Days and Collect_, which all who are interested in his autobiography should read, he says, "The successive growth stages of my infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood were all pass'd on Long Island, which I sometimes feel as if I had incorporated."

Like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman received from the schools only a common education but from life he had an uncommon training. His chief education came from associating with all sorts and conditions of people. In Brooklyn he worked as a printer, carpenter, and editor. His closest friends were the pilots and deck hands of ferry boats, the drivers of New York City omnibuses, factory hands, and sailors. After he had become well known, he was unconventional enough to sit with a street car driver in front of a grocery store in a crowded city and eat a watermelon. When people smiled, he said, "They can have the laugh--we have the melon."

His Suffolk County life might have left him democratic but insular; but he traveled widely and gained cosmopolitan experience. In 1848 he went leisurely to New Orleans, where he edited a newspaper, but in a short time he journeyed north along the Mississippi, traveled in Canada, and finally returned to New York, having completed a trip of eight thousand miles.

After his return, he seems to have worked with his father in Brooklyn for about three years, building and selling houses. He was then also engaged on a collection of poems, which, in 1855, he published under the title of _Leaves of Grass_. From this time he was known as an author.

In 1862 he went South to nurse his brother, who was wounded in the Civil War. For nearly three years, the poet served as a volunteer nurse in the army hospitals in Washington and its vicinity. Few good Samaritans have performed better service. He estimated that he attended on the field and in the hospital eighty thousand of the sick and wounded. In after days many a soldier testified that his recovery was aided by Whitman's kindly ministrations. Finally, however, his own iron constitution gave way under this strain.

When the war closed, he was given a government clerkship in Washington, but was dismissed in 1865, because of hostility aroused by his _Leaves of Grass_. He soon received another appointment, however, which he held until 1873, when a stroke of paralysis forced him to relinquish his position. He went to Camden, New Jersey, where he lived the life of a semi-invalid during the rest of his existence, writing as his health would permit. He died in 1892, and was buried in Harleigh Cemetery, near Camden.

POETRY.--Whitman gave to the world in 1855 the first edition of the poems, which he called _Leaves of Grass_. His favorite expression, "words simple as grass," and his line:--

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,"

give a clue to the idea which prompted the choice of such an unusual title. He continued to add to these poems during the rest of his life, and he published in 1892 the tenth edition of _Leaves of Grass_, in a volume containing four hundred and twenty-two closely printed octavo pages.

Whitman intended _Leaves of Grass_ to be a realistic epic of American democracy. He tried to sing this song as he heard it echoed in the life of man and man's companion, Nature. While many of Whitman's poems have the most dissimilar titles, and record experiences as unlike as his early life on Long Island, his dressing of wounds during the Civil War, his comradeship with the democratic mass, his almost Homeric communion with the sea, and his memories of Lincoln, yet according to his scheme, all of this verse was necessary to constitute a complete song of democracy. His poem, _I Hear America Singing_, shows the variety that he wished to give to his democratic songs:--

"I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else."

His ambition was to put human life in America "freely, fully, and truly on record."

His longest and one of his most typical poems in this collection is called _Song of Myself_, in which he paints himself as a representative member of the democratic mass. He says:--

"Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person, My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe. * * * * * Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced."

In these four lines, he states simply what must be the moving impulse of a democratic government if it is to survive. Here is the spirit that is to-day growing among us, the spirit that forbids child labor, cares for orphans, enacts model tenement laws, strives to regenerate the slum districts, and is increasing the altruistic activities of clubs and churches throughout the country. But these verses will not submit to iambic or trochaic scansion, and their form is as strange as a democratic government was a century and a half ago to the monarchies of Europe. Place these lines beside the following couplet from Pope:--

"Self-love and Reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, Pleasure their desire."

Here the scansion is regular, the verse polished, the thought undemocratic. The world had long been used to such regular poetry. The form of Whitman's verse came as a distinct shock to the majority.

Sometimes what he said was a greater shock, as, for instance, the line:--

"I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

For a considerable time many people knew Whitman by this one line alone. They concluded that he was a barbarian and that all that he said was "yawp." Although much of his work certainly deserved this characterization, yet those who persisted in reading him soon discovered that their condemnation was too sweeping, as most were willing to admit after they had read, for instance, _When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd_, a poem that Swinburne called "the most sonorous nocturn yet chanted in the church of the world." The three _motifs_ of this song are the lilac, the evening star, and the hermit thrush:--

"Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim."

In the same class we may place such poems as _Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_, where we listen to a song as if from

"Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle."

Whitman also wrote in almost regular meter his dirge on Lincoln, the greatest dirge of the Civil War:--

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting."

In 1888 Whitman wrote that "from a worldly and business point of view, _Leaves of Grass_ has been worse than a failure--that public criticism on the book and myself as author of it yet shows mark'd anger and contempt more than anything else." But he says that he had comfort in "a small band of the dearest friends and upholders ever vouchsafed to man or cause." He was also well received in England. He met with cordial appreciation from Tennyson. John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), a graduate of Oxford and an authority on Greek poetry and the Renaissance, wrote, "_Leaves of Grass_, which I first read at the age of twenty-five, influenced me more, perhaps, than any other book has done except the _Bible_; more than Plato, more than Goethe." Had Whitman lived until 1908, he would probably have been satisfied with the following statement from his biographer, Bliss Perry, formerly professor of English at Princeton, "These primal and ultimate things Whitman felt as few men have ever felt them, and he expressed them, at his best, with a nobility and beauty such as only the world's very greatest poets have surpassed."

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. His most pronounced single characteristic is his presentation of democracy:--

"Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine."

He said emphatically, "Without yielding an inch, the working man and working woman were to be in my pages from first to last." He is the only American poet of his rank who remained through life the close companion of day laborers. Yet, although he is the poet of democracy, his poetry is too difficult to be read by the masses, who are for the most part ignorant of the fact that he is their greatest representative poet.

He not only preached democracy, but he also showed in practical ways his intense feeling of comradeship and his sympathy with all. One of his favorite verses was

"And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud."

His Civil War experiences still further intensified this feeling. He looked on the lifeless face of a son of the South, and wrote:--

"... my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead."

Like Thoreau, Whitman welcomed the return to nature. He says:--

"I am enamour'd of growing out-doors, Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods."

He is the poet of nature as well as of man. He tells us how nature educated him:--

"The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird, And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf."

He delights us

"... with meadows, rippling tides and trees and flowers and grass, And the low hum of living breeze--and in the midst God's beautiful eternal right hand."

No American poet was more fond of the ocean. Its aspect and music, more than any other object of nature, influenced his verse. He addresses the sea in lines like these:--

"With husky-haughty lips, O sea! Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore, Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions, (I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here,) Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal, Thy ample, smiling face, dash'd with the sparkling dimples of the sun."

He especially loves motion in nature. His poetry abounds in the so-called motor images. [Footnote: For a discussion of the various types of images of the different poets, see the author's _Education of the Central Nervous System_, Chaps. VII., VIII., IX., X.] He takes pleasure in picturing a scene

"Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,"

or in watching

"The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing."

While his verse is fortunately not without idealistic touches, his poetic theory is uncompromisingly realistic, as may be seen in his critical prose essays, some of which deserve to rank only a little below those of Lowell and Poe. Whitman says:--

"For grounds for _Leaves of Grass_, as a poem, I abandoned the conventional themes, which do not appear in it: none of the stock ornamentation, or choice plots of love or war, or high exceptional personages of Old-World song; nothing, as I may say, for beauty's sake--no legend or myth or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme."

His unbalanced desire for realism led him into two mistakes. In the first place, his determination to avoid ornamentation often caused him to insert in his poems mere catalogues of names, which are not bound together by a particle of poetic cement. The following from his _Song of Myself_ is an instance:--

"Land of coal and iron! land of gold! land of cotton, sugar, rice! Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of the apple and the grape!"

In the second place, he thought that genuine realism forbade his being selective and commanded him to put everything in his verse. He accordingly included some offensive material which was outside the pale of poetic treatment. Had he followed the same rule with his cooking, his chickens would have been served to him without removing the feathers. His refusal to eliminate unpoetic material from his verse has cost him very many readers.

He further concluded that it was unfitting for a democratic poet to be hampered by the verse forms of the Old World. He discarded rhyme almost entirely, but he did employ rhythm, which is determined by the tone of the ideas, not by the number of syllables. This rhythm is often not evident in a single line, but usually becomes manifest as the thought is developed. His verse was intended to be read aloud or chanted. He himself says that his verse construction is "apparently lawless at first perusal, although on closer examination a certain regularity appears, like the recurrence of lesser and larger waves on the seashore, rolling in without intermission, and fitfully rising and falling." There is little doubt that he carried in his ear the music of the waves and endeavored to make his verse in some measure conform to that. He says specifically that while he was listening to the call of a seabird

"... on Paumanok's [Footnote: The Indian name for Long Island.] gray beach, With the thousand responsive songs at random, My own songs awaked from that hour, And with them the key, the word up from the waves."

In ideals he is most like Emerson. Critics have called Whitman a concrete translation of Emerson, and have noticed that he practiced the independence which Emerson preached in the famous lecture on _The American Scholar_ (p. 185). In 1855 Emerson wrote to Whitman: "I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of _Leaves of Grass_. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed."

Whitman is America's strangest compound of unfiltered realism, alloyed with rich veins of noble idealism. No students of American democracy, its ideals and social spirit, can afford to leave him unread. He sings, "unwarped by any influence save democracy,"

"Of Life, immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine."

Intelligent sympathy with the humblest, the power to see himself "in prison shaped like another man and feel the dull unintermitted pain," prompts him to exclaim:--

"I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will."

An elemental poet of democracy, embodying its faults as well as its virtues, Whitman is noteworthy for voicing the new social spirit on which the twentieth century is relying for the regeneration of the masses.

SUMMARY

American fiction had for the most part been romantic from its beginning until the last part of the nineteenth century. Charles Brockden Brown, Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Poe, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain were all tinged with romanticism. In the latter part of the last century, there arose a school of realists who insisted that life should be painted as it is, without any addition to or subtraction from reality. This school did not ask, "Is the matter interesting or exciting?" but, "Is it true to life?"

Howells and James were the leaders of the realists. Howells uses everyday incidents and conversations. James not infrequently takes unusual situations, so long as they conform to reality, and subjects them to the most searching psychological analysis. Mary Wilkins Freeman, a pupil of Howells, shows exceptional skill in depicting with realistic interest the humble life of provincial New England. While this school did not turn all writers into extreme realists, its influence was felt on the mass of contemporary fiction.

Walt Whitman brings excessive realism into the form and matter of verse. For fear of using stock poetic ornaments, he sometimes introduces mere catalogues of names, uninvested with a single poetic touch. He is America's greatest poet of democracy. His work is characterized by altruism, by all-embracing sympathy, by emphasis on the social side of democracy, and by love of nature and the sea.

REFERENCES

Stanton's _A Manual of American Literature._

Alden's _Magazine Writing and the New Literature._

Perry's _A Study of Prose Fiction_, Chap. IX., _Realism_.

Howells's _Criticism and Fiction_.

Burt and Howells's _The Howells Story Book_. (Contains biographical matter.)

Henry James's _The Art of Fiction_.

Phelps's _William Dean Howells_, in _Essays on Modern Novelists_.

Brownell's _Henry James_, in _American Prose Masters_.

Canby's _The Short Story in English_. (James.)

Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ (1897), 446 pp. (Contains all of his poems, the publication of which was authorized by himself.)

Triggs's _Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman_. (The best for general readers.)

Perry's _Walt Whitman, his Life, and Work_. (Excellent.)

G. R. Carpenter's _Walt Whitman_.

Platt's _Walt Whitman_. (_Beacon Biographies_)

Noyes's _An Approach to Walt Whitman_. (Excellent.)

Bucke's _Walt Whitman_. (A biography by one of his executors.)

_In Re Walt Whitman_, edited by his literary executors. (Supplements Bucke.)

Burroughs's _Whitman: A Study_.

Symonds's _Walt Whitman: A Study_.

Dowden's _The Poetry of Democracy_, in _Studies in Literature_.

Stevenson's _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_. (Whitman.)

Whitman's _Works_, edited by Triggs. (Putnam Subscription Edition.) Vol. X. contains a bibliography and reference list of 98 pp.

SUGGESTED READINGS

THE PROSE REALISTS.--Sections II., XV., and XXVIII., from Howells's _Criticism and Fiction_. _Silas Lapham_ is the best of his novels. Those who desire to read more should consult the list on p. 373 of this book.

In Henry James, read either _The Portrait of a Lady_ or _Roderick Hudson_. _A Passionate Pilgrim_, and _The Madonna of the Future_ are two of his best short stories.

Read any or all of these short stories by Mary Wilkins Freeman: _A New England Nun,_ _A Gala Dress_, in the volume, _A New England Nun and Other Stories_, _Evelina's Garden_, in the volume, _Silence and Other Stories_. Her best long novel is _Pembroke_.

WALT WHITMAN.--While the majority of his poems should be left for mature years, the following, carefully edited by Triggs in his volume of _Selections_, need not be deferred:--

_Song of Myself_, Triggs, pp. 105-120. (Begin with the line on p. 105, "A child said, _What is the Grass?_"), _Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_, pp. 154-160, _I Hear America Singing_, p. 100, _Reconciliation_ p. 175, _O Captain! My Captain_, p. 184, _When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed_, pp. 176-184, _Patrolling Barnegat_, p. 163, _With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!_ p. 232.

Selections from his prose, including _Specimen Days_, _Memoranda of the War_, and his theories of art and poetry, may be found in Triggs, pp. 3-95.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

THE PROSE REALISTS.--To what school did the best writers in American fiction belong, prior to the last quarter of the nineteenth century? What was the subject of each? What is the realistic theory advanced by Howells? In what respects does this differ from the practice of the romantic school?

Take any chapter of _Silas Lapham_ and of either _The Portrait of a Lady_, or of _Roderick Hudson_, and show how Howells and James differ from the romanticists. What difference do you notice in the realistic method and in the style of Howells and of James?

What special qualities characterize the work of Mary Wilkins Freeman? What is the secret of her success in so employing a little realistic incident as to hold the reader's attention? Compare the two short stories, _The Madonna of the Future_ (James) and _A New England Nun_ (Wilkins Freeman) and show how James's interest lies in the subtle psychological problem, while Mrs. Freeman's depends on the unfolding of simple emotions. It will also be found interesting to compare the method of that early English realist Jane Austen, _e.g._ in her novel _Emma_, with the work of the American realists.

In general, do you think that the romantic or the realistic school has the truer conception of the mission and art of fiction? Why is it desirable that each school should hold the other in check?

WALT WHITMAN.--How did his early life prepare him to be the poet of democracy? To what voices does he specially listen in his poem, _I Hear America Singing_? In his _Song of Myself_, point out some passages that show the modern spirit of altruism. In _Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking_, what lines best show his lyric gift? What individual objects stand out most strongly and poetically? Could this poem have been written by one reared in the middle West? Why does he select the lilacs, evening star, and hermit thrush, as the _motifs_ of the poem, _When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd?_ In _Patrolling Barnegat_, do you notice any resemblance to Anglo-Saxon poetry of the sea, _e.g._ to _Beowulf_ or _The Seafarer?_ In _With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!_ what touches are unlike those of Anglo-Saxon poets? (See the author's _History of English Literature_, pp. 21, 25, 33, 35, 37.) Which of Whitman's references to nature do you consider the most poetic? How does _O Captain! My Captain!_ differ in form from the other poems indicated for reading? What qualities in his verse impress you most?

A GLANCE BACKWARD

Lack of originality is a frequent charge against young literatures, but the best foreign critics have testified to the originality of the Knickerbocker Legend, of Leatherstocking, of the great Puritan romances, in which the Ten Commandments are the supreme law, of the work of that southern wizard who has taught a great part of the world the art of the modern short story and who has charmed the ear of death with his melodies, of America's unique humor, so conspicuous in the service of reform and in rendering the New World philosophy doubly impressive.

American literature has not only produced original work, but it has also delivered a worthy message to humanity. Franklin has voiced an unsurpassed philosophy of the practical. Emerson is a great apostle of the ideal, an unexcelled preacher of New World self-reliance. His teachings, which have become almost as widely diffused as the air we breathe, have added a cubit to the stature of unnumbered pupils. We still respond to the half Celtic, half Saxon, song of one of these:--

"Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, Soon come the darkness and the cold."

American poets and prose writers have disclosed the glory of a new companionship with nature and have shown how we,

"... pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth."

After association with them, we also feel like exclaiming:--

"Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! ... rich apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes."

No other literature has so forcibly expressed such an inspiring belief in individuality, the aim to have each human being realize that this plastic world expects to find in him an individual hero. Emerson emphasized "the new importance given to the single person." No philosophy of individuality could be more explicit than Walt Whitman's:--

"The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual,--namely to You."

This emphasis on individuality is an added incentive to try "to yield that particular fruit which each was created to bear." We feel that the universe is our property and that we shall not stop until we have a clear title to that part which we desire. As we study this literature, the moral greatness of the race seems to course afresh through our veins, and our individual strength becomes the strength of ten.

No other nation could have sung America's song of democracy:--

"Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine."

The East and the West have vied in singing the song of a new social democracy, in holding up as an ideal a

"... love that lives On the errors it forgives,"

in teaching each mother to sing to her child:--

"Thou art one with the world--though I love thee the best, And to save thee from pain, I must save all the rest. Thou wilt weep; and thy mother must dry The tears of the world, lest her darling should cry."

True poets, like the great physicians, minister to life by awakening faith. The singers of New England have made us feel that the Divine Presence stands behind the darkest shadow, that the feeble hands groping blindly in the darkness will touch God's strengthening right hand. Amid the snows of his Northland, Whittier wrote:--

"I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond his love and care."

Lanier calls from the southern marshes, fringed with the live oaks "and woven shades of the vine":--

"I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies: By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God."

The impressive moral lesson taught by American literature is a presence not to be put by. Lowell's utterance is typical of our greatest authors:--

"Not failure, but low aim, is crime."

Hawthorne wrote his great masterpiece to express this central truth:--

"To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,--it is impalpable,-- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp."

Finally, American literature has striven to impress the truth voiced in these lines:--

"As children of the Infinite Soul Our Birthright is the boundless whole....

"High truths which have not yet been dreamed, Realities of all that seemed....

"No fate can rob the earnest soul Of his great Birthright in the boundless whole!"

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS

[Footnote: For a complete record of the work of contemporary authors, consult _Who's Who in America_.]

EASTERN AUTHORS

ABBOTT, JACOB (1803-1879), b. Hallowell, Maine. One of America's most voluminous writers on all classes of popular subjects. He wrote one hundred and eighty volumes and aided in the preparation of thirty-one more. _Illustrated Histories_, _The Rollo Books_.

ADAMS, HENRY (1838- ), b. Boston, Mass. Historian. _History of the United States_ from 1801 to 1817, that is, under Jefferson's and Madison's administrations. 9 vols. Excellent for this important period.

ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY (1832-1888), b. Germantown, Pa. Daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. Writer of wholesome, humorous, and interesting stories for young people. _Little Women_, _An Old-Fashioned Girl_, _Eight Cousins_, _Rose in Bloom_.

ALLSTON, WASHINGTON (1779-1843), b. Waccamaw, S. C. Moved to New England and graduated at Harvard in 1800. Artist; early poet of Wordsworthian school. _The Sylphs of the Seasons, and Other Poems_.

AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), b. Dedham, Mass. Orator, statesman. Best speech, _On the British Treaty_ (1796).

AUSTIN, JANE G. (1831-1894), b. Worcester, Mass. Novelist of early colonial New England. _Standish of Standish_, _Betty Alden_, _Dr. Le Baron and his Daughters_, _A Nameless Nobleman_, _David Alden's Daughter, and Other Stories of Colonial Times_.

BACHELLER, IRVING (1859- ), b. Pierrepont, N. Y. Novelist. _Eben Holden_, _D'ri and I_, _Darrel of the Blessed Isles_.

BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800-1891), b. Worcester, Mass. Historian, diplomatist. _History of the United States, from the Discovery of the Continent to the Establishment of the Constitution in 1789_, 6 vols. _History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States_, 2 vols. Covers the period to the inauguration of Washington. The volumes on the Revolutionary War and the formation of the Constitution are the best part of the work. While Bancroft's improved methods of research among original authorities almost entitle him to be called the founder of the new American school of historical writing, yet the best critics do not to-day consider his work scientific. They regard it more as an apotheosis of democracy, written by a man who loved truth intensely, who shirked no drudgery in original investigations, but who shows the strong bias of the days of Andrew Jackson in the tendency to believe that what democracy does is almost necessarily right.

BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK (1862- ), b. Yonkers, N. Y. Humorist. _House-Boat on the Styx_, _The Idiot at Home_, _A Rebellious Heroine._

BARR, AMELIA E. (1831- ), b. Ulverston, Lancashire, Eng. Anglo-American novelist. _A Bow of Orange Ribbon_, _Jan Vedder's Wife_, _A Daughter of Fife_, and _Between Two Loves_.

BATES, ARLO (1850- ), b. East Machias, Me. Educator, author. _Under the Beech Tree_ (poems), _Talks on the Study of Literature_.

BEDOTT, WIDOW. See WHITCHER, FRANCES.

BEECHER, HENRY WARD (1813-1887), b. Litchfield, Conn. Congregational clergyman, widely popular as a preacher and lecturer. Delivered noted anti-slavery lectures in England. Some of his published works are _Eyes and Ears_, _Life Thoughts_, _Star Papers_, _Yale Lectures on Preaching_.

"BILLINGS, JOSH." See SHAW, HENRY WHEELER.

BOKER, GEO. H. (1823-1890), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Dramatist, poet, diplomat. _Francesca da Rimini_, _Dirge for a Soldier_.

"BREITMANN, HANS." See LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY.

BROOKS, PHILLIPS (1835-1893), b. Boston, Mass. Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. One of the foremost preachers of his day. Wrote many works on religious subjects, also _Essays and Addresses_, _Letters of Travel._

BROWN, ALICE (1857- ), b. Hampton Falls, N. H. Novelist, _The Story of Thyrza, John Winterburn's Family, Country Neighbors, Tiverton Tales, The Mannerings._

BROWNE, CHARLES F. ("Artemus Ward") (1834-1867), b. Waterford, Maine. Newspaper writer and lecturer. Famous humorist of the middle of the nineteenth century. _Artemus Ward: His Book_, _Artemus Ward: His Travels_, _Artemus Ward in London._

BROWNSON, ORESTES A. (1803-1876), b. Stockbridge, Vt. Clergyman, journalist, Christian socialist. Brownson's _Quarterly Review_ (1844-1875), _New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church._

BUNNER, HENRY CUYLER (1855-1896), b. Oswego, N. Y. Editor of _Puck_ for many years. A clever and successful short-story writer. _Short Sixes_, _Love in Old Cloathes_, _Zadoc Pine and Other Stories._

BURROUGHS, JOHN (1837- ), b. Roxbury, N. Y. An exact observer of life in the woods and one of the most conservative and entertaining writers on nature. He tells only what he sees and does not draw on his fancy to endow animals with man's power to reason. Some of his nature books are: _Wake-Robin, Signs and Seasons, Pepacton, Riverby, Locusts and Wild Honey, Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers. Indoor Studies_ and _Whitman, A Study_, show keen critical powers and genuine literary appreciation. Burroughs reminds the reader of Thoreau in closeness of observation and honesty of expression, but Burroughs is less of a philosopher and poet and more of a scientist.

CARY, ALICE (1820-1871) and her sister Phoebe Gary (1824-1871), b. Miami Valley, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Moved to New York, N. Y. Poets. _Poems_ by Alice and Phoebe Cary.

CHAMBERS, ROBERT W. (1865- ), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Author of exciting romances. _The Red Republic_, _A King and a Few Dukes_, _The Conspirators._

CHARMING, WILLIAM ELLERY (1780-1842), b. Newport, R. I. Great Unitarian preacher and reformer. _Spiritual Freedom_, _Evidences of Christianity and of Revealed Religion_, _Self-Culture_, _Slavery._

CHILD, LYDIA MARIA (1802-1880), b. Medford, Mass. Novelist, editor. Hobomok, a story of life in colonial Salem; _The Rebels,_ a tale of the Revolution, introduces James Otis, Governor Hutchinson, and the Boston Massacre; _Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans._

CHURCHILL, WINSTON (1871- ), b. St. Louis, Mo. Home in Cornish, N. H. Novelist. _Richard Carvel, The Crisis,_ and _The Crossing_ are interesting novels of American historical events. _Mr. Crewe's Career._

CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN (1810-1888), b. Hanover, N. H. Noted Unitarian clergyman. _Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors_, _Ten Great Religions_, _Self-Culture._

CONE, HELEN GRAY (1859- ), b. New York, N. Y. Poet. _Oberon and Puck_, _The Ride to the Lady_, _Verses Grave and Gay._

COOKE, ROSE TERRY (1827-1892), b. West Hartford, Conn. Poet and short-story writer. _The Two Villages_ is her best-known poem, and _The Deacon's Week_ one of her best stories.

CRAIGIE, PEARL MARY TERESA ("John Oliver Hobbes") (1867-1906), b. Boston, Mass. Novelist. _School for Saints_, _The Herb Moon_, _The Flute of Pan_, _The Tales of John Oliver Hobbes._

CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER PEARSE (1813-1892), b. Alexandria, Va. Educated in Massachusetts. Artist, transcendental poet, and contributor to _The Dial_. Best poems, _Gnosis, I in Thee._

CRANE, STEPHEN (1870-1900), b. Newark, N. J. Novelist. _The Red Badge of Courage_ is a remarkable romance of the American Civil War.

CRAWFORD, FRANCIS MARION (1854-1909), b. Bagni di Lucca, Italy. Voluminous writer of novels and romances. Some are historical, and the scenes of the best of them are laid in Italy. He wrote his _Zoroaster_ and _Marzio's Crucifix_ in both English and French, and received a reward of one thousand francs from the French Academy. _Saracinesca_, _Sant' Ilario_, and _Don Orsino_, a trio of novels about one Roman family, and _Katherine Lauderdale_ and its sequel, _The Ralstons_, are among his best works.

CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM (1824-1892), b. Providence, R. I. Literary and political essayist, civil service reformer, and critic. Was a resident in his youth at Brook Farm. Spent four years of his early life in foreign travel. _Nile Notes of a Howadji_ and _The Howadji in Syria_ are poetic descriptions of his trip. His masterpiece is _Prue and I_, a prose idyl of simple, contented, humble life. The largest part of his work was done as editor. He was editor of _Putnam's Magazine_ at the time of its failure in 1857, and undertook to pay up every creditor, a task which consumed sixteen years. He wrote the _Easy Chair_ papers in _Harper's Monthly_. A volume of these essays contains some of his easiest, most urbane, and humorous writings. They are light and in the vein of Addison's _Spectator_. In _Orations and Addresses_ are to be found some of his strongest and most polished speeches on moral, historical, and political subjects.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, SR. (1787-1879), b. Cambridge, Mass. Author, diplomat, judge. Co-editor _North American Review_ when it published Bryant's _Thanatopsis_. Champion of the romantic school of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Dana's best known poem, _The Buccaneer_, shows the influence of this school.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, JR. (1815-1882), b. Cambridge, Mass. Lawyer, statesman, author. His _Two Years before the Mast_ keeps, its place among the best books written for boys during the nineteenth century. The British admiralty officially adopted this book for circulation in the navy.

DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING (1864-1916), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Journalist, playwright, novelist. Best works are short stones of New York life, such as _Van Bibber and Others_, _Gallegher and Other Stories_. _The Bar Sinister_, which holds boys spellbound, is an excellent story of a dog.

DELAND, MARGARETTA WADE (1857- ), b. Allegheny, Pa. Voluminous writer of stories. _Old Chester Tales_, _Dr. Lavendar's People_, _John Ward_, _Preacher._

DICKINSON, EMILY (1830-1886), b. Amherst, Mass. Author of unique short lyrics. _Poems_.

DICKINSON, JOHN (1732-1808), b. Crosia, Md. Statesman. _The Farmer's Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies_.

DODGE, MARY MAPES (1838-1905), b. New York, N. Y. Editor of _Saint Nicholas Magazine_. Among her juvenile books may be mentioned _Hans Brinker_, _Donald and Dorothy_, _The Land of Pluck_.

DORR, JULIA C. R. (1825- ), b. Charleston, S. C. Moved to Vermont. Poet, novelist. _Poems_, _In Kings' Houses_, _Farmingdale_.

DWIGHT, JOHN S. (1813-1893), b. Boston, Mass. Musician, transcendentalist. Best poem, _Rest_, appeared in first number of _The Dial_.

EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS (1852- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Diplomat, poet, essayist, novelist. _Preludes_, _Songs and Sonnets_, _Lectures on English Literature_, _The Ghost of Hamlet_.

EVERETT, EDWARD (1794-1865), b. Dorchester, Mass. Orator, statesman. _Orations and Speeches_.

FIELDS, JAMES T. (1817-1881), b. Portsmouth, N. H. Editor _Atlantic Monthly_ and publisher. _Yesterdays with Authors_.

FISKE, JOHN (1842-1901), b. Hartford, Conn. Scientist and historian. His histories are both philosophical and interesting. _The Critical Period of American History_, _The Beginnings of New England_, _The American Revolution_, _The Discovery of America_.

FORD, PAUL LEICESTER (1865-1902), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Novelist, historian. _The Honorable Peter Stirling_, _Janice Meredith_.

FOSTER, STEPHEN COLLINS (1826-1864), b. Pittsburgh, Pa. Writer of some of the most widely known songs of the nineteenth century. _Old Folks at Home_ ("Down on the Suwanee River"), _My Old Kentucky Home_, _Nellie was a Lady_.

FREDERIC, HAROLD (1856-1898), b. Utica, N.Y. Novelist, journalist. _The Damnation of Theron Ware_, _Gloria Mundi_.

GILDER, RICHARD WATSON (1844-1909), b. Bordentown, N. J. Editor and poet. Editor of _Century Magazine_ until his death. Poems: _The New Day_, _Five Books of Song_, _For the Country_.

GOODWIN, MAUD WILDER (1856- ), b. Ballston Spa, N. Y. Writer of romances, chiefly historical. _The Colonial Cavalier_, _or Southern Life before the Revolution_, _Four Roads to Paradise_.

GRANT, ROBERT (1852- ), b. Boston, Mass. Novelist, essayist, jurist. _Confessions of a Frivolous Girl_, _An Average Man_, _The Art of Living_.

GREELEY, HORACE (1811-1872), b. Amherst, N. H. Founder and editor of The Tribune, New York, N. Y. Exerted strong influence on the thought of his time. _Recollections of a Busy Life_.

GREEN, ANNA KATHARINE (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs) (1846- ), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Voluminous writer of interesting detective stories, of which _The Leavenworth Case_ is the most noted.

GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN (1861- ), b. Boston, Mass. Poet, essayist. _The White Sail and Other Poems_, _A Roadside Harp_, _The Martyr's Idyl and Shorter Poems_.

HALE, EDWARD EVERETT (1822-1909), b. Boston, Mass. Unitarian divine, author, philanthropist. Best known story, _The Man without a Country_. Wrote many miscellaneous essays.

HARDY, ARTHUR S. (1847- ), b. Andover, Mass. Educator, novelist, diplomat. _But Yet a Woman_, _Wind of Destiny_, _Passe Rose_.

HARLAND, HENRY ("Sidney Luska") (1861-1905), b. Petrograd, Russia. Novelist. _The Cardinal's Snuff-Box_, _My Friend Prospero_, _The Lady Paramount_.

HAWTHORNE, JULIAN (1846- ), b. Boston, Mass., son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Novelist, essayist. Deserves to be called his father's Boswell for the excellent and sympathetic two volumes, entitled _Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_.

HEDGE, FREDERICK H. (1805-1890), b. Cambridge, Mass. Clergyman, transcendentalist. Best poem, _Questionings_, appeared in _The Dial_.

HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH (1823- ), b. Cambridge, Mass. Unitarian minister, prominent anti-slavery agitator, author. _Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli_, _Cheerful Yesterdays_, _Contemporaries_, _Old Cambridge_.

"HOBBES, JOHN OLIVER," See CRAIGIE, PEARL MARY TERESA.

HOLLAND, J. G. (1819-1881), b. Belchertown, Mass. Editor of the first series of _Scribner's Monthly_, wrote several poems, of which _Bitter-Sweet_ was the most popular, and several novels, the best of which is _Arthur Bonnicastle_.

HOLLEY, MARIETTA (1850- ), b. Ellisburg, N. Y. Humorist, Author of _Josiah Allen's Wife_, _My Opinions and Betsey Bobbet's_, _Sweet Cicely_, _Samantha at Saratoga_, and _Poems_.

HOWARD, BLANCHE WILLIS (1847-1898), b. Bangor, Maine. Novelist. _Guenn_ is an unusually strong novel. _One Summer_, _Aunt Serena_, and _The Open Door_ are wholesome, pleasing stories.

HOWE, JULIA WARD (1819-1910), b. New York, N. Y. Philanthropist, author of the famous _Battle Hymn of the Republic_.

HUTCHINSON, THOMAS (1711-1780), b. Boston, Mass. America's greatest historical writer before the nineteenth century. His great work is _The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay_.

IRELAND, JOHN (1838- ), b. Ireland. Roman Catholic archbishop. _The Church and Modern Society_.

JANVIER, THOMAS ALLIBONE (1849-1913), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Journalist and author. _Color Studies_, _Stories of Old New Spain_, _An Embassy to Provence_, _The Passing of Thomas_.

JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1849-1909), b. South Berwick, Maine. Artistic novelist of old New England villages. _Deephaven_, _The Country of the Pointed Firs_, _The Tory Lover_. She shows a more genial side of New England life than Miss Wilkins gives.

KING, CHARLES (1844- ), b. Albany, N. Y. Soldier, novelist. _A War-Time Wooing_, _The Colonel's Daughter_, _The Deserter_, _The General's Double_.

KIRK, ELLEN OLNEY (1842- ), b. Southington, Conn. Novelist. _Through Winding Ways_, _A Midsummer Madness_, _The Story of Margaret Kent_, _Marcia_.

LARCOM, LUCY (1826-1893), b. Beverly Farms, Mass. A factory hand in Lowell, encouraged by Whittier to write. _Poems; A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory_.

LATHROP, GEORGE P. (1851-1898), b. Oahu, Hawaii. Son-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, editor, author. _A Study of Hawthorne_, _Spanish Vistas_, _Newport_.

LAZARUS, EMMA (1849-1887), b. New York, N. Y. Poet, translator, essayist. _Admetus_, _Songs of a Semite_, _Poems_.

LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY ("Hans Breitmann") (1824-1903), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Humorist. _Hans Breitmann's Ballads_, written in what is known as Pennsylvania Dutch dialect.

LOCKE, DAVID ROSS ("Petroleum V. Nasby") (1833-1888), b. Vestal, N. Y. Political satirist. _Nasby Letters_.

LODGE, HENRY CABOT (1850- ), b. Boston, Mass. Statesman, historian, essayist. _A Short History of the English Colonies in America, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Webster, Studies in History, Hero Tales from American History_ (with Theodore Roosevelt).

"LUSKA, SIDNEY." See HARLAND, HENRY.

MABIE, HAMILTON W. (1846-1916), b. Cold Spring, N. Y. Editor, essayist. _My Study Fire, William Shakespeare: Poet, Dramatist, and Man, Essays on Books and Culture_.

MACKAYE, PERCY WALLACE (1875- ), b. New York, N. Y. Dramatist. _Jeanne d'Arc_, _Sappho and Phaon_, _The Canterbury Pilgrims_, _Ticonderoga and Other Poems_.

MCMASTER, JOHN BACH (1852- ), b. Brooklyn, N. Y. Historian and professor of American history. _A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War_. 7 vols. An entertaining history, sometimes suggestive of Macaulay.

MARKS, MRS. LIONEL. See PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON.

"MARVEL, IK." See MITCHELL, DONALD G.

MELVILLE, HERMAN (1819-1891), b. New York, N. Y. Novelist. _Typee Omoo_, _Mardi_, _White Jacket or the World in a Man of War_, _Moby Dick or the White Whale_ contain interesting accounts of his wide travels.

MITCHELL, DONALD GRANT ("Ik Marvel") (1822-1908), b. Norwich, Conn. Essayist. _Reveries of a Bachelor_, _Dream Life_.

MITCHELL, S. WEIR (1829- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Physician, novelist, and poet. _Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker_; _The Adventures of Francois_; _Dr. North and his Friends_; and _Constance Trescot_.

MOORE, CLEMENT CLARKE (1779-1863), b. New York, N. Y. Oriental scholar and poet. Known to children to-day for his poem, _'Twas the Night before Christmas_.

MOULTON, ELLEN LOUISE CHANDLER (1835-1908), b. Pomfret, Conn. Story writer, poet, correspondent. _Some Women's Hearts_, _Swallow Flights and Other Poems_, _In Childhood's Country_.

"NASBY, PETROLEUM V." See LOCKE, DAVID ROSS.

ODELL, JONATHAN (1737-1818), b. Newark, N.J. Clergyman, greatest anti-Revolution poetic satirist. Shows influence of Dryden and Pope. _The American Congress_, _The American Times_.

O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE (1844-1890), b. Ireland. Journalist, poet. _Songs, Legends and Ballads_; _Moondyne_; _Songs from the Southern Seas_.

"PARTINGTON, MRS." See SHILLABER, BENJAMIN P.

PAULDING, JAMES KIRKE (1779-1860), b. Pleasant Valley, N.Y. Satirical humorist and descriptive writer. _The Dutchman's Fireside._ Assisted Irving in the _Salmagundi_ papers.

PAYNE, JOHN HOWARD (1792-1852), b. New York, N.Y. Dramatist. Author of the song, _Home, Sweet Home_.

PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON (Mrs. Lionel Marks) (1874- ), b. New York, N.Y. Poet, dramatist. _The Singing Leaves_, _Fortune and Men's Eyes_, _Marlowe_, _The Piper_ (Stratford-on-Avon prize drama). Author of excellent poems for children.

PERRY, BLISS (1860- ), b. Williamstown, Mass. Educator, editor, author. _Walt Whitman_, _A Study of Prose Fiction_, _John Greenleaf Whittier_.

READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN (1822-1872), b. Chester Co., Pa. Poet and painter. _The New Pastoral_, _Sheridan's Ride_.

REPPLIER, AGNES (1857- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Witty essayist. _Books and Men_, _Points of View_, _Essays in Idleness_.

RIGGS, MRS. See WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS.

ROE, EDWARD PAYSON (1838-1888), b. New Windsor, N.Y. Clergyman, novelist. _Barriers Burned Away_, _Opening a Chestnut Burr_, _Nature's Serial Story_.

ROHLFS, MRS. CHARLES. See GREEN, ANNA KATHERINE.

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858-1919), b. New York, N. Y. Ex-President of the United States. Lived for awhile on a western ranch and amassed material for some of his most popular works. _Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail_, _The Winning of the West_, _The Rough Riders_. He has written also on civil, economic, and ethical subjects with great vigor and incisive clearness. His _African Game Trails_ is the record of his trip to Africa.

SANGSTER, MARGARET (1838- ), b. New Rochelle, N. Y. Editor, writer of stories and poems. _Poems of the Household_, _Home Fairies and Heart Flowers_.

SAXE, JOHN GODFREY (1816-1887), b. Highgate, Vt. Journalist, writer of humorous verse. _Humorous and Satirical Poems_, _The Money King and Other Poems_.

SCHOULER, JAMES (1839- ), b. Arlington, Mass. Lawyer, historian. _A History of the United States under the Constitution_. 6 vols.

SCOLLARD, CLINTON (1860- ), b. Clinton, N. Y. Educator, poet. _With Reed and Lyre_, _The Hills of Song_, _Voices and Visions_.

SEDGWICK, CATHERINE M. (1789-1867), b. Stockbridge, Mass. Novelist. Her best stories are those of simple New England country life. _Redwood_, _Clarence_, _A New England Tale_.

SHAW, HENRY WHEELER (Josh Billings) (1818-1885), b. Lanesborough, Mass. Humorist. _Farmers' Allminax_, _Every Boddy's Friend_, _Josh Billings' Spice Box_.

SHEA, JOHN DAWSON GILMARY (1824-1892), b. New York, N. Y. Editor, historian. _Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley_, _History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States_, _History of the Catholic Church in the United States_, and many other historical and religious studies.

SHERMAN, FRANK DEMPSTER (1860-1916), b. Peekskill, N.Y. Professor of architecture, poet. _Madrigals and Catches_, _Lyrics for a Lute_, _Lyrics of Joy_.

SHILLABER, BENJAMIN P. ("Mrs. Partington") (1814-1890), b. Portsmouth, N. H. Humorist of Mrs. Malaprop's style, mistaking words of similar sounds but dissimilar sense. _Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington_, _Partingtonian Patchwork_, _Ike and his Friend_.

SMITH, SAMUEL F. (1808-1895), b. Boston, Mass. Clergyman. Author of our national poem, _America_. Of him, Holmes wrote, "Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith."

SPARKS, JARED (1789-1866), b. Willington, Conn. Unitarian minister and historian. _Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution_, _The Writings of George Washington_, _The Works of Benjamin Franklin_.

SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT (1835- ), b. Calais, Maine. Novelist, poet. _The Amber Gods and Other Stories_, _New England Legends_, _Poems_.

STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE (1833-1908), b. Hartford, Conn. Poet, critic. One of America's fairest critics. Did valuable work in compiling and criticizing modern English and American literature. _A Victorian Anthology_, _An American Anthology_, _Victorian Poets_, _Poets of America_. Co-editor of _Library of American Literature_ in eleven large octavo volumes.

STOCKTON, FRANK R. (1834-1902), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Novelist and humorist. His novels have a farcical humor, due to ridiculous situations and absurdities, treated in a mock-serious vein. _The Lady or the Tiger?_ _The Late Mrs. Null_, _The Casting away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine_, _The Hundredth Man_.

STODDARD, CHARLES WARREN (1843-1909), b. Rochester, N.Y. Author, educator, traveler. _South Sea Idyls_, _Lepers of Molokai_, _Poems_.

STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY (1825-1903), b. Hingham, Mass. Journalist, editor, poet. _Songs of Summer_, _Abraham Lincoln: a Horatian Ode_, _The Lion's Cub_.

STORY, WILLIAM WETMORE (1819-1895), b. Salem, Mass. Sculptor, author. _Roba di Roma_, or _Walks and Talks about Rome_, _Poems_, _Conversations in a Studio_, _Excursions in Art and Letters_.

SUMNER, CHAS. (1811-1874), b. Boston, Mass. Noted anti-slavery statesman. His published speeches and orations fill fifteen volumes.

TAYLOR, BAYARD (1825-1878), b. Kennett Square, Chester Co., Pa. Extensive traveler, wrote twelve different volumes of travels, the first being _Views Afoot, or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff_ (1846). He wrote also much poetry. Among the best of his shorter poems are _The Bedouin Song_, _Nubia_, and _The Song of the Camp. Lars: a Pastoral of Norway_ is his best long poem. The work by which he will probably remain longest known in literature is his excellent translation of Goethe's _Faust_.

THAXTER, CELIA LAIGHTON (1836-1894), b. Portsmouth, N.H. Spent most of life upon Isles of Shoals. Artist, author. _Poems_ (Appledore Edition, 1896). Best single poem, _The Sandpiper_.

THOMAS, EDITH MATILDA (1854- ), b. Chatham, Ohio. Poet. _A New Year's Masque, A Winter Swallow, and Other Verse, Fair Shadow Land, Lyrics and Sonnets_.

TICKNOR, GEORGE (1791-1871), b. Boston, Mass. _A History of Spanish Literature_.

TORREY, BRADFORD (1843-1912), b. Weymouth, Mass. Nature writer. _Birds in the Bush_, _The Footpath Way_, _Footing it in Franconia_. Editor of Thoreau's _Journal_.

TOURGEE, ALBION W. (1838-1905), b. Williamsfield, Ohio. Educated in New York. Soldier, judge, novelist of the reconstruction period. _A Fool's Errand_, _Bricks without Straw_.

TROWBRIDGE, JOHN TOWNSEND (1827-1916), b. Ogden, N.Y. Editor, novelist, poet, juvenile writer. _My Own Story_ (biography) Among his stories for young people are _The Drummer Boy_, _The Prize Cup_, _The Tide-Mill Stories._ Best known poem, _The Vagabonds_.

VAN DYKE, HENRY (1852- ), b. Germantown, Pa. Clergyman, professor, essayist, poet. _The Builders and Other Poems_, _Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things_, _The Story of the Other Wise Man_. An interesting, optimistic philosopher, and lover of nature, whose works deserve the widest reading.

WARD, ARTEMUS. See BROWNE, CHARLES F.

WARD, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS (1844-1911), b. Boston, Mass. Novelist. _The Gates Ajar_, _The Story of Avis_, _A Singular Life_.

WARNER, CHARLES DUDLEY (1829-1900), b. Plainfield, Mass. Traveler, journalist, essayist. Wrote the _Editor's Drawer_ and _Editor's Study of Harper's Magazine. My Summer in a Garden_ and _Backlog Studies_ are delightful for their subtle humor and style. He wrote many entertaining books of travel, such as _Saunerings_, _In the Levant_, _My Winter on the Nile_, _Baddeck and that Sort of Thing._ He wrote _The Gilded Age_ in collaboration with Mark Twain.

WEBSTER, NOAH (1758-1843), b. Hartford, Conn. Philologist. Published in 1783 his famous _Speller_, which superseded _The New England Primer_, and which almost deserves to be called "literature by reason of its admirable fables." More than sixty million copies of this _Speller_ have been sold.

WESTCOTT, EDWARD NOYES (1847-1898), b. Syracuse, N. Y. Banker, author of one remarkable novel which was published posthumously, _David Harum_, a story of central New York.

WHARTON, EDITH (1862- ), b. New York, N. Y. Essayist, novelist. Her fiction deals largely with modern society problems. She treats subtle psychological questions with especial skill in the short story. _The Valley of Decision_, _Crucial Instances_, _The House of Mirth_, _The Fruit of the Tree_, _Italian Backgrounds._

WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY (1819-1886), b. Gloucester, Mass. Critic, essayist. _Essays and Reviews_, _American Literature and Other Papers_, _Recollections of Eminent Men._

WHITCHER, FRANCES ("Widow Bedott") (1811-1852), b. Whitestown, N. Y. Humorist. _The Widow Bedott Papers._

WHITNEY, ADELINE BUTTON TRAIN (1824-1906), b. Boston, Mass. Poet, novelist, and writer of juvenile stories. _Faith Gartney's Girlhood, We Girls, Boys at Chequasset, Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life, Poems._

WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS (Mrs. Riggs) (1857- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Novelist and writer on kindergarten subjects. Author of _The Bird's Christmas Carol, Timothy's Quest, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Penelope's Progress, A Cathedral Courtship._ Pathos, humor, and sympathy for the poor, the weak, and the helpless are characteristic qualities of her work. There are few better children's stories than the first two mentioned.

WILLIAMS, ROGER (1604?-1683), b. probably in London. Founder of Rhode Island. The first great preacher of "soul liberty" in America. _The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed_, _The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody_.

WILLIS, N.P. (1806-1867), b. Portland, Maine. Traveler, prose writer, poet, editor. While his work has proved ephemeral, he taught many writers of his day the necessity of artistic finish in their prose. His prose _Letters from under a Bridge_, and his poems, _Parrhasius_ and _Unseen Spirits_, may be mentioned.

WINSOR, JUSTIN (1831-1897), b. Boston, Mass. Librarian at Harvard, historian, editor of _Narrative and Critical History of America_. Author of _The Mississippi Basin: the Struggle in America between England and France, 1697-1763_; _The Westward Movement, 1763-1798_; _Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution_, _Christopher Columbus_.

WINTER, WILLIAM (1836- ), b. Gloucester, Mass. Dramatic editor of the New York _Tribune_ from 1865 to 1909. Edited numbers of plays. Author of _Shakespeare's England_, _Gray Days and Gold_, _Life and Art of Edwin Booth_, _Wanderers_ (poems).

WINTHROP, THEODORE (1828-1861), b. New Haven, Conn. Novelist. His best story, _John Brent_, contains some of his western experiences.

WISTER, OWEN (1860- ), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Lawyer and novelist. Gives realistic pictures of the middle West. _New Swiss Family Robinson, The Dragon of Wantley, Red Men and White, Lin McLean, Lady Baltimore_, and _The Virginian_.

WOODBERRY, GEO. E. (1855- ), b. Beverly, Mass. Educator, author of excellent biographies of Poe, Hawthorne, and Emerson. _America in Literature_, _Poems_.

WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE (1848-1894), b. Claremont, N. H. Novelist. Best novel, _Horace Chase_. Some of her other novels are _Castle Nowhere, Anne, East Angels, Jupiter Lights, The Old Stone House_.

SOUTHERN AUTHORS

ALSOP, GEORGE (1638-?), b. England. Published in 1666 an entertaining volume, _A Character of the Province of Maryland_.

AUDUBON, JOHN J. (1780-1851), b. near New Orleans, La. Noted ornithologist and painter of birds. Published _Birds of America_ at one thousand dollars a copy and _Ornithological Biography_ in 5 vols.

AZARIAS, BROTHER. See MULLANY, P. F.

BURNETT, FRANCES HODGSON (1849- ), b. Manchester, Eng. Anglo-American novelist. _Little Lord Fauntleroy_, _That Lass o' Lowrie's_, _Haworth's_, _A Fair Barbarian_, _A Lady of Quality_.

CALHOUN, JOHN C. (1782-1850), b. Abbeville District, S.C. Statesman, orator. Best work, _Disquisition on Government and Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States_. Best speech, _Nullification and the Force Bill_ (1833).

CLAY, HENRY (1777-1852), b. near Richmond, Va. Orator, statesman. Best speeches: _On the War of 1812_ (1813), _The Seminole War_ (1819), _The American System_ (1832).

COOKE, JOHN ESTEN (1830-1886), b. Winchester, Va. Colonial and military story writer. Best romance, _The Virginia Comedians_.

DIXON, THOMAS (1864- ), b. Shelby, N. C. Clergyman, novelist. _The Leopard's Spots_, _The One Woman_, _The Clansman_.

EVANS, AUGUSTA. See WILSON, AUGUSTA EVANS.

FOX, JOHN JR. (1863- ), b. in Bourbon Co., Kentucky. Novelist of life in the Kentucky mountains. _The Kentuckians_, _A Mountain Europa_, _A Cumberland Vendetta_, _The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come_, _The Trail of the Lonesome Pine_.

GAYARRE, CHARLES E. A. (1805-1895), b. New Orleans, La. Jurist, historian. _History of Louisiana_.

GIBBONS, JAMES (1834- ), b. Baltimore, Md. Roman Catholic cardinal. _The Faith of Our Fathers_, _The Ambassador of Christ_.

GLASGOW, ELLEN ANDERSON GHOLSON (1874- ), b. Richmond, Va. Novelist. _The Descendant_, _The Voice of the People_, _The Deliverance_.

GRADY, HENRY W. (1851-1889), b. Athens, Ga. Editor, orator. Best oration, _The New South_.

HEARN, LAFCADIO (1850-1904), b. in Ionian Islands of Irish and Greek parentage. Journalist, author. Lived many years in New Orleans, went thence to New York, and still later to Japan. Author of _Stray Leaves from Strange Literature_, _Two Years in the French West Indies_, _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan_, _Out of the East_. Shows marked descriptive ability.

HEGAN, ALICE. See RICE, ALICE HEGAN.

"HENRY, O." See PORTER, SIDNEY.

JOHNSTON, MARY (1870- ), b. Buchanan, Va. Writer of vigorous, well-handled romances of Virginia history. _Prisoners of Hope_, _To Have and to Hold_, _Audrey_, _Lewis Rand_.

JOHNSTON, RICHARD MALCOLM (1822-1898), b. Hancock Co., Ga. Lawyer, professor of English. Writer of Georgia stories. _Dukesborough Tales_.

KENNEDY, J. P. (1795-1870), b. Baltimore, Md. Wrote three works of fiction, _Swallow Barn_, a picture of the manners and customs of Virginia at the end of the eighteenth century, _Horse-Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendency_, _Rob of the Bowl_, a story of colonial Maryland.

KEY, FRANCIS SCOTT (1780-1843), b. Frederick Co., Md. _The Star-Spangled Banner_.

KING, GRACE E. (1852- ), b. New Orleans, La. Novels of Creole life and historical works on De Soto and New Orleans: _Monsieur Motte_, _Tales of Time and Place_, _Balcony Stones_.

LONGSTREET, AUGUSTUS B. (1790-1870), b. Augusta, Ga. Judge, and (later) a Methodist minister. His _Georgia Scenes_ is one of the liveliest pictures of provincial Georgia life.

MARSHALL, JOHN (1755-1835), b. Germantown, Va. Great Chief Justice of U. S. _The Life of George Washington_.

MARTIN, GEORGE MADDEN (1866- ), b. Louisville, Ky. Novelist. _Emmy Lou--Her Book and Heart_.

MATTHEWS, JAMES BRANDER (1852- ), b. New Orleans, La. Lecturer on literature at Columbia College. Critic and story writer. _French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century_, _Margery's Lovers, A Secret of the Sea and Other Stories, The Story of a Story, The Historical Novel, Study of the Drama, The Short Story._

MULLANY, P. F. (Brother Azarias) (1847-1893), b. Ireland. Educator, essayist. _The Development of Old English Thought_, _Phases of Thought and Criticism._

O'HARA, THEODORE (1820-1867), b. Danville, Ky. Poet. _The Bivouac of the Dead._

PECK, SAMUEL MINTURN (1854- ), b. Tuscaloosa, Ala. Poet and novelist. _Caps and Bells_, _Rhymes and Roses._

PIKE, ALBERT (1809-1891), b. Boston, Mass. Moved to Arkansas. Teacher, editor, lawyer. Wrote the popular song, _Dixie_, and _To the Mocking Bird._

PINKNEY, EDWARD COATE (1802-1828), b. London, Eng. Poet. Best lyrics, _A Serenade_, _A Health_, _Songs_, _The Indian's Bride._

PORTER, SYDNEY ("O. Henry") (1867-1910), b. Greensboro, N. C. Edited newspapers in Texas. Successful short-story writer. _The Four Million, The Heart of the West, The Gentle Grafter, Roads of Destiny, Options, The Voice of the City._

PRENTICE, GEO. D. (1802-1870), b. Preston, Conn. Editor Louisville _Journal_, poet. _Poems._ Best poem, _The Closing Year._

PRESTON, MARGARET JUNKIN (1825-1897), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Moved to Lexington, Va. Representative woman poet of the Confederacy. _Cartoons, For Love's Sake, Colonial Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verse._

RANDALL, JAMES RYDER (1839-1908), b. Baltimore, Md. Teacher, poet. _Maryland, My Maryland_ (song).

REID, CHRISTIAN. See TIERNAN, FRANCES F.

RICE (Alice Hegan) (1870- ), b. Shelbyville, Ky. A widely popular story writer of humble folk, a humorist of rare power, a cheery, breezy philosopher, and a sympathetic interpreter of the simple heart of the brave poor. _Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Lovey Mary, Captain June, Sandy, Mr. Opp._

RICE, CALE YOUNG (1872- ), b. Dixon, Ky. Author of exquisite lyrics. One of the greatest of the younger poetic dramatists whose plays have acting qualities. Poems: _From Dusk to Dusk, _With Omar_, _Song-Surf_, _Nirvana Days_. Plays: _Charles di Tocca_, _David_, _Yolanda of Cyprus_, _A Night in Avignon_.

RIVES, AMELIE (PRINCESS TROUBETSKOY) (1863- ), b. Richmond, Va. Novelist. _The Quick or the Dead_, _Virginia of Virginia_.

RUSSELL, IRWIN (1853-1879), b. Port Gibson, Miss. Caricaturist, musician, poet. He was among the first to see the possibilities of the negro dialect in verse. _Poems_.

SEAWELL, MOLLY ELLIOT (1860-1916), b. Gloucester Co., Va. Novelist. _Little Jarvis_ (awarded a $500 prize), _Sprightly Romance of Marsac_ (awarded a $3000 prize), _Throckmorton_.

SMITH, F. HOPKINSON (1838-1915), b. Baltimore, Md. Artist, author, engineer. _Colonel Carter of Cartersville_ is his most enduring work. The Colonel is a remarkable portrait. _A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others_, _Caleb West: Master Diver_, _A Day at Laguerre's and Other Days_, _The Fortunes of Oliver Horn_.

STITH, WILLIAM (1689-1755), b. Virginia. Scholarly historian who was so painstaking and detailed in his accounts that he was almost neglected until the present time. _History of Virginia from the First Discovery to the Dissolution of the London Company_.

STUART, RUTH MCENERY (1856- ), b. in parish of Avoyelles, La. Specially liked for her humorous negro and plantation stories. _A Golden Wedding and Other Tales_, _Sonny_, _Holly and Pizen_.

THOMPSON, WILLIAM TAPPAN (1812-1882), b. Ravenna, Ohio. Georgia journalist and humorist. _Major Jones's Courtship_.

TIERNAN, FRANCES F. ("Christian Reid") (1846- ), b. Salisbury, N. C. Novelist. _Child of Mary_, _Heart of Steel_.

TROUBETSKOY, PRINCESS. See RIVES, AMELIE.

WEEMS, MASON LOCKE (1760-1825), b. Dumfries, Va. Clergyman, biographer. _Life of Washington_.

WILSON, AUGUSTA EVANS (1835-1909), b. Columbus, Ga. Prolific novelist. Best novel, _Saint Elmo_.

WILSON, WOODROW (1856- ), b. Staunton, Va. Educator, historian, statesman. _A History of the American People_.

WIRT, WILLIAM (1772-1834), b. Bladensburg, Md. Lawyer. _Life and Character of Patrick Henry_, _Letters of the British Spy_.

WESTERN AUTHORS

ATHERTON, GERTRUDE FRANKLIN (1859- ), b. San Francisco, Calif. Novelist. _The Doomswoman_, _The Aristocrats_, _The Conqueror._

BALDWIN, JAMES (1841- ), b. Westfield, Ind. Writer of excellent stories for children. _The Story of Siegfried, Old Greek Stories', Stories of the King, Discovery of the Old Northwest, The Book Lover._

BIERCE, AMBROSE (1842- ), b. Ohio. For many years a San Francisco journalist. _Can Such Things Be? In the Midst of Life_ (tales of soldiers and civilians).

BURDETTE, ROBERT JONES (1844-1914), b. Greensboro, Pa. Journalist on Burlington (Iowa) _Hawkeye_ and other papers, lecturer, humorist, clergyman. _The Rise and Fall of the Moustache_, _Hawkeyetems_, _Life of William Penn._

BURNHAM, CLARA LOUISE (1854- ) b. Newton, Mass. Moved to Chicago. Novelist. _Dr. Latimer_, _The Wise Woman._

CARLETON, WILL (1845-1912), b. Hudson, Mich. Poet, editor, lecturer. _Farm Ballads_, _Farm Legends_, _Farm Festivals_, _City Ballads_. _Over the Hills to the Poor House,_ best known single poem.

CATHERWOOD, MARY HARTWELL (1847-1902), b. Luray, Ohio. Writer of historical tales of Canada and the Northwest. _A Woman in Armour, The Lady of Fort St. John, The Romance of Dollard, The White Islander, a Story of Mackinac, Lazarre._

CHENEY, JOHN VANCE (1848- ), b. Groveland, N.Y. Moved to the West. Poet and critic. _Thistle-Drift, Wood-Blooms, Queen Helen and Other Poems._ Critical Works: _That Dome in Air_ and _The Golden Guess._

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE (1872-1906), b. Dayton, Ohio. African descent. Journalist, poet. Wrote many fine lyrics. _Oak and Ivy_, _Lyrics of Lowly Life_, _Lyrics of the Hearthside._

DUNNE, FINLEY PETER (1867- ), b. Chicago, Ill. Humorist, journalist. _Mr. Dooley's Philosophy._

EGGLESTON, EDWARD (1837-1902), b. Vevay, Ind. Novelist of the early life of southern Indiana. _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, _The Hoosier Schoolboy_, _Roxy_, _The Graysons._

FOOTE, MARY HALLOCK (1847- ), b. Milton, N. Y. Her novels give vivid representations of western life. _The Led Horse Claim_, _The Chosen Valley_, _Coeur d'Alene_.

FRENCH, ALICE ("Octave Thanet") (1850- ), b. Andover, Mass. Novelist. _Knitters in the Sun_, _Stories of a Western Town_, _A Book of True Lovers_, _The Man of the Hour_.

GARLAND, HAMLIN (1860- ), b. West Salem, Wis. Presents graphic pictures of the middle West in such stories as _Main-Traveled Roads_, _Prairie Folks_, _Rose of Dutcher's Coolly_, _Boy Life on the Prairie_.

HAY, JOHN (1838-1905), b. Salem, Ind. Private secretary to President Lincoln. Lawyer, journalist, diplomatist, and statesman. _Pike County Ballads_. Joint author with J. G. Nicolay of _Abraham Lincoln: A History_, 9 vols.

HERRICK, ROBERT (1868- ), b. Cambridge, Mass. Professor (University of Chicago), novelist. _The Web of Life_, _The Common Lot_, _The Master of the Inn_.

HOVEY, RICHARD (1864-1900), b. Normal, Ill. Poet, dramatist. _Songs from Vagabondia_, _The Marriage of Guenevere_, _Taliesin: A Masque_.

JACKSON, HELEN HUNT (1831-1885), b. Amherst, Mass. Novelist, poet. Her great western novel, _Ramona_, stands in the same relation to the Indian as _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ to the negro. Her _Century of Dishonor_ shows the wrongs done to the Indian race. _Poems_.

LONDON, JACK (1876-1916), b. San Francisco, Calif. Novelist of adventure. _The Call of the Wild_, _The Children of the Frost_, _The Sea Wolf_, _The Game_.

LUMMIS, CHARLES F. (1859- ), b. Lynn, Mass. Traveler, librarian, writer. _The Spanish Pioneers_, _The Man Who Married the Moon_, _The Enchanted Burn_.

MCCUTCHEON, GEO. BARR (1866- ), b. Tippecanoe Co., Ind. Novelist. _Castle Craneycrow_, _Brewster's Millions_, _Beverly of Graustark_.

MARKHAM, EDWIN (1852- ), b. Oregon City, Oregon. Poet. _The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems_.

MILLER, CINCINNATUS HEINE (Joaquin Miller) (1841-1913), b. Wabash District, Ind. Lived in the far West, about which he writes in his poetry. _Songs of the Sierras_, _Songs of the Sunlands_, _Songs of the Desert_.

MOODY, WILLIAM VAUGHAN (1869-1910), b. Spencer, Ind. Poet, dramatist. _The Masque of Judgment_, _The Fire Bringer_, _The Great Divide_ (play).

NICHOLSON, MEREDITH (1866- ), b. Crawforusville, Ind. Novelist. _The House of a Thousand Candles_, _The Port of Missing Men_, _The Hoosiers_ (in _National Studies in American Letters_).

NORRIS, FRANK (1870-1902), b. Chicago, Ill. Realistic novel writer. _McTeague_, _The Octopus_, _The Pit_.

PHILLIPS, DAVID GRAHAM (1867-1911), b. Madison, Ind. Novelist. _The Social Secretary_, _The Second Generation_, _The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig_.

PIATT, JOHN JAMES (1835- ), b. James Mills, Ind. Poet. _Western Windows_, _Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley_, _Poems of Two Friends_ (with W. D. Howells).

RHODES, JAMES FORD (1848- ), b. Cleveland, Ohio. Historian. _History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850_, 7 vols. The seventh volume ends with 1877.

SETON, ERNEST THOMPSON (1860- ), b. South Shields, Eng. Painter, naturalist. _Wild Animals I Have Known, Lives of the Hunted, Natural History of the Ten Commandments, The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, The Biography of a Grizzly_.

SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND (1841-1887), b. Windsor, Conn. Professor in University of California. Transcendental poet. Some fine verse may be found in his volumes, _Hermione and Other Poems_ and _The Hermitage and Later Poems_.

SPALDING, JOHN L. (1840- ), b. Lebanon, Ky. Roman Catholic archbishop. _Education and the Higher Life_, _Things of the Mind_, _Socialism and Labor_

TARKINGTON, NEWTON BOOTH (1869- ), b. Indianapolis, Ind. Novelist. _The Gentleman from Indiana, Monsieur Beaucaire, The Two Vanrevels, Cherry, The Conquest of Canaan._

"THANET, OCTAVE." See FRENCH, ALICE.

THOMPSON, MAURICE (1844-1901), b. Fairfield, Ind. Novelist, naturalist, poet. Best known works, _By-Ways and Bird Notes_, _My Winter Garden_, _Alice of Old Vincennes_.

WALLACE, LEW (1827-1905), b. Brookville, Ind. Lawyer, diplomat, author. _Ben Hur_, a tale of remarkable power; _The Fair God_, _The Prince of India_.

WHITE, STEWART EDWARD (1873- ) b. Grand Rapids, Mich. Writer of vigorous stories of western mountain life. _The Blazed Trail_, _The Silent Places_, _The Claim Jumpers_, _The Riverman_.

WILCOX, ELLA WHEELER (1855- ), b. Johnstown Center, Wis. Journalist and poet. _Poems of Passion_, _Poems of Pleasure_, _Poems of Power_, _Poems of Sentiment_.