Part 1

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LITERATURE IN THE MAKING BY SOME OF ITS MAKERS

PRESENTED BY JOYCE KILMER

HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON

Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published April, 1917

TO LOUIS BEVIER, PH.D., LITT.D. AND LOUIS BEVIER, JR.

CONTENTS

PAGE

_WAR STOPS LITERATURE_ 3

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

William Dean Howells, the foremost American novelist of his generation, was born at Martin's Ferry, Ohio, March 11, 1837. Most of his many novels have been realistic and sympathetic studies of contemporary American life. For some years he has written "The Editor's Easy Chair" in _Harper's Magazine_. He has received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Columbia, and in 1915 the National Institute of Arts and Letters awarded him its Gold Medal "For distinguished work in fiction." _The Daughter of the Storage_ and _Years of My Youth_ are his latest books.

_THE JOYS OF THE POOR_ 19

KATHLEEN NORRIS

Kathleen Norris was born in San Francisco, California, July 16, 1880. She is the wife of Charles Gilman Norris, himself a writer and the brother of the late Frank Norris. Among Mrs. Norris's best-known novels are _Mother_, _The Story of Julia Page_, and _The Heart of Rachel_.

_NATIONAL PROSPERITY AND ART_ 35

BOOTH TARKINGTON

Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, July 29, 1869. A prolific and brilliant writer, he has scored many successes of different types, being the author of the romantic drama _Monsieur Beaucaire_, and of many novels dealing with contemporary Middle-Western life. Recently he has, in _Seventeen_ and the "Penrod" stories, given his attention to the comedies and tragedies of American youth.

_ROMANTICISM AND AMERICAN HUMOR_ 45

MONTAGUE GLASS

Montague Glass was born at Manchester, England, July 23, 1877. Coming in his youth to the United States, he brought into American fiction a new type--that of the metropolitan Jewish-American business man. His _Potash and Perlmutter_ and _Abe and Mawruss_ have given him a European as well as an American reputation.

_THE "MOVIES" BENEFIT LITERATURE_ 63

REX BEACH

Rex Beach was born at Atwood, Michigan, September 1, 1877. His novels deal chiefly with the West and the North, and his favorite theme is adventurous life in the open. Among his best-known books are _The Spoilers_, _The Silver Horde_, and _Rainbow's End_.

_WHAT IS GENIUS?_ 75

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

Robert W. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York, May 26, 1865. One of the most widely read writers of his time, he has given his attention chiefly to English and American society, making it the theme of a large number of novels, among which may be mentioned _The Fighting Chance_, _Japonette_, and _Athalie_.

_DETERIORATION OF THE SHORT STORY_ 89

JAMES LANE ALLEN

James Lane Allen was born near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1849. In 1886 he gave up his profession of teaching to devote his attention to literature. Many of his novels deal with the South. Of them perhaps _The Kentucky Cardinal_ and _The Choir Invisible_ are best known.

_SOME HARMFUL INFLUENCES_ 101

HARRY LEON WILSON

Harry Leon Wilson was born in Oregon, Illinois, May 1, 1867. He was co-author with Booth Tarkington of _The Man from Home_, and his _Bunker Bean_ and _Ruggles of Red Gap_ have given him a great reputation for irresistible and peculiarly American humor.

_THE PASSING OF THE SNOB_ 119

EDWARD S. MARTIN

Edward Sandford Martin was born in Willowbrook, Owasco, New York, January 2, 1856. His keen yet sympathetic observation of modern life finds expression in essays, many of which have been used editorially in Life. Several volumes of his essays have been published, among which may be mentioned _The Luxury of Children, and Some Other Luxuries_ and _Reflections of a Beginning Husband_.

_COMMERCIALIZING THE SEX INSTINCT_ 131

ROBERT HERRICK

Robert Herrick was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 26, 1868. He has been until recently a professor at the University of Chicago. He is a critic and a writer of realistic novels. _The Web of Life_, _The Common Lot_, _Together_, and _Clark's Field_ are novels that show Mr. Herrick's questioning attitude toward some modern social institutions.

_SIXTEEN DON'TS FOR POETS_ 145

ARTHUR GUITERMAN

Arthur Guiterman was born of American parents in Vienna, Austria, November 28, 1871. He is a writer of deft and humorous light verse, of which a volume was recently published under the title _The Laughing Muse_. He contributes a weekly rhymed review to _Life_.

_MAGAZINES CHEAPEN FICTION_ 157

GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

George Barr McCutcheon was born on a farm in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, July 26, 1866. He is a short-story writer and novelist, devoting himself chiefly to tales of adventure. _Beverley of Graustark_ and the volumes that succeeded it have gained him many admirers among lovers of romance.

_BUSINESS INCOMPATIBLE WITH ART_ 169

FRANK H. SPEARMAN

Frank H. Spearman was born at Buffalo, New York, September 6, 1859. He is known both as a short-story writer and a writer of articles on economic topics. His novels are founded chiefly on themes dealing with the great industrial enterprises of the West, especially the railroads. The best known of these are _The Daughter of a Magnate_ and _The Strategy of Great Railroads_.

_THE NOVEL MUST GO_ 187

WILL N. HARBEN

Will N. Harben, who was born in Dalton, Georgia, July 5, 1858, began his career in business in the South. His entrance into literature began with the assistant editorship of the _Youth's Companion_. He had gained a distinctive place as an interpreter of phases of Southern life in the company which includes Cable, Harris, and Johnston. His novels include _Pole Baker_, _Ann Boyd_, _Second Choice_, and many others.

_LITERATURE IN THE COLLEGES_ 199

JOHN ERSKINE

John Erskine was born in New York City, October 5, 1879. He is Adjunct Professor of English at Columbia University, the author of many text-books and critical works, of _Actaeon and Other Poems_ and of _The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent and Other Essays_.

_CITY LIFE VERSUS LITERATURE_ 213

JOHN BURROUGHS

John Burroughs was born in Roxbury, New York, April 3, 1837. He taught school in his early years, and held for a time a clerkship in the United States Treasury. Since 1874 he has devoted himself to literature and fruit culture. Among his well-known "Nature" books may be noted _Wake Robin_, _Bird and Bough_, and _Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt_.

_"EVASIVE IDEALISM" IN LITERATURE_ 229

ELLEN GLASGOW

Ellen Glasgow was born in Richmond, Virginia, April 22, 1874. Her novels, among which may be mentioned _The Voice of the People_, _The Romance of a Plain Man_, and _Life and Gabriella_, deal chiefly with social and psychological problems, and their scenes are for the most part in the southern part of the United States.

_"CHOCOLATE FUDGE" IN THE MAGAZINE_ 241

FANNIE HURST

Fannie Hurst was born in St. Louis, October 19, 1889. She has served as a saleswoman and as a waitress and crossed the Atlantic in the steerage to get material for her short stories of the life of the working-woman, selections of which have been published with the titles _Just Around the Corner_ and _Every Soul Hath Its Song_.

_THE NEW SPIRIT IN POETRY_ 253

AMY LOWELL

Amy Lowell was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, February 9, 1874. She is prominently identified with _vers libre_, _imagisme_, and other ultra-modern poetic tendencies. She has published a volume of essays on modern French poetry and three books of poems, of which _Men, Women, and Ghosts_ is the most recent.

_A NEW DEFINITION OF POETRY_ 265

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in Head Tide, Maine, December 22, 1869. He has written plays, but is chiefly known for his poems, most of them studies of character. His most recent volume is _Merlin: A Poem_.

_LET POETRY BE FREE_ 277

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

Josephine Preston Peabody was born in New York City. She won the Stratford-on-Avon Prize for her poetic drama _The Piper_. She has published many books of verse, one of which, called _Harvest Moon_, deals chiefly with woman's tragic share in the Great War. She is the wife of Prof. Lionel Simeon Marks of Harvard.

_THE HERESY OF SUPERMANISM_ 289

CHARLES RANN KENNEDY

Charles Rann Kennedy was born at Derby, England, February 14, 1871. His plays, dealing with social and religious questions, include _The Servant in the House_, _The Terrible Meek_, _The Idol-Breakers_, and _The Rib of the Man_, his latest work.

_THE MASQUE AND DEMOCRACY_ 305

PERCY MACKAYE

Percy MacKaye was born in New York City, March 16, 1875. He has written many poems and plays, and has been especially identified with the production of community pageants and masques, having written and directed the St. Louis Civic Masque in 1914, and the Shakespeare Masque in New York City in 1916. Among his published works may be mentioned _The Scarecrow_, _Jeanne d'Arc_, _Sappho and Phaon_ and _Anti-Matrimony_ (plays) and _Uriel and Other Poems_.

INTRODUCTION

This book is an effort to bridge the gulf between literary theory and literary practice. In these days of specialization it is more than ever true that the man who lectures and writes about the craft of writing seldom has the time or the inclination to show, by actual work, that he can apply his principles. On the other hand, the successful novelist, poet, or playwright devotes himself to his craft and seldom attempts to analyze and display the methods by which he obtains his effect, or even to state his opinion on matters intellectual and aesthetic.

Now, the professor of English and the literary critic are valuable members of society, and the development of literature owes much to their counsel and guardianship. But there is a special significance in the opinion which the writer holds concerning his own trade, in the advice which he bases upon his own experience, in the theory of life and art which he has formulated for himself.

Therefore I have spent considerable time in talking with some of the most widely read authors of our day, and in obtaining from them frank and informal statements of their points of view. I have purposely refrained from confining myself to writers of any one school or type of mind--the dean of American letters and the most advanced of our newest poetical anarchists alike are represented in these pages. The authors have talked freely, realizing that this was an opportunity to set forth their views definitely and comprehensively. They have not the time to write or lecture about their art, but they are willing to talk about it.

They knew that through me they spoke, in the first place, to the great army of readers of their books who have a natural and pleasing curiosity concerning the personality of the men and women who devote their lives to providing them with entertainment, and, in some cases, instruction. They knew that through me they spoke, in the second place, to all the literary apprentices of the country, who look eagerly for precept and example to those who have won fame by the delightful labor of writing. They knew that through me they spoke, in the third place, to critics and students of literature of our own generation and, perhaps, of those that shall come after us. How eagerly would we read, for instance, an interview with Francis Bacon on the question of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, or an interview with Oliver Goldsmith in which he gave his real opinion of Dr. Johnson, Garrick, and Boswell! A century or so from now, some of the writers who in this book talk to the world may be the objects of curiosity as great.

The writers who have talked with me received me with courtesy, gave me freely of their time and thought, and showed a sincere desire for the furtherance of the purpose of this book. To them, accordingly, I tender my gratitude for anything in these pages which the reader may find of interest or of value. Their explanations of their literary creeds and practices were furnished in the first instance for the _New York Times_, to which I desire to express my acknowledgments.

JOYCE KILMER.

LITERATURE IN THE MAKING

_WAR STOPS LITERATURE_

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

War stops literature. This is the belief of a man who for more than a quarter of a century has been in the front rank of the world's novelists, who wrote _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ and _A Modern Instance_ and nearly a hundred other sympathetic interpretations of American life.

Mr. William Dean Howells was the third writer to whom was put the question, "What effect will the Great War have on literature?" And he was the first to give a direct answer.

A famous French dramatist replied: "I am not a prophet. I have enough to do to understand the present and the past; I cannot concern myself with the future." A famous English short-story writer said, "The war has already inspired some splendid poetry; it may also inspire great plays and novels, but, of course, we cannot tell as yet."

But Mr. Howells said, quite simply, "War stops literature." He said it as unemotionally as if he were stating a familiar axiom.

He does not consider it an axiom, however, for he supplied proof.

"I have never believed," he said, "that great events produced great literature. They seldom call forth the great creative powers of man. In poetry it is not the poems of occasion that endure, but the poems that have come into being independently, not as the result of momentous happenings.

"This war does not furnish the poet, the novelist, and the dramatist with the material of literature. For instance, the Germans, as every one will admit, have shown extraordinary valor. But we do not think of celebrating that valor in poetry; it does not thrill the modern writers as such valor thrilled the writers of bygone centuries. When we think of the valor of the Germans, our emotion is not admiration but pity.

"And the reason for this is that fighting is no longer our ideal. Fighting was not a great ideal, and therefore it is no longer our ideal. All that old material of literature--the clashing of swords, the thunder of shot and shell, the great clouds of smoke, the blood and fury--all this has gone out from literature. It is an anachronism."

"But the American Civil War produced literature, did it not?" I asked.

"What great literature did it produce?" asked Mr. Howells in turn. "As I look back over my life and recall to mind the great number of books that the Civil War inspired I find that I am thinking of things that the American people have forgotten. They did not become literature, these poems and stories that came in such quantities and seemed so important in the sixties.

"There were the novels of J. W. De Forest, for instance. They were well written, they were interesting, they described some phases of the Civil War truthfully and vividly. We read them when they were written--but you probably have never heard of them. No one reads them now. They were literature, but that about which they were written has ceased to be of literary interest.

"Of course, the Civil War, because of its peculiar nature, was followed by an expansion, intellectual as well as social and economic. And this expansion undoubtedly had its beneficial effect on literature. But the Civil War itself did not have, could not have, literary expression.

"Of all the writings which the Civil War directly inspired I can think of only one that has endured to be called literature. That is Lowell's 'Commemoration Ode.'

"War stops literature. It is an upheaval of civilization, a return to barbarism; it means death to all the arts. Even the preparation for war stops literature. It stopped it in Germany years ago. A little anecdote is significant.

"I was in Florence about 1883, long after the Franco-Prussian War, and there I met the editor of a great German literary weekly--I will not tell you its name or his. He was a man of refinement and education, and I have not forgotten his great kindness to my own fiction. One day I asked him about the German novelists of the day.

"He said: 'There are no longer any German novelists worthy of the name. Our new ideal has stopped all that. Militarism is our new ideal--the ideal of Duty--and it has killed our imagination. So the German novel is dead.'"

"Why is it, then," I asked, "that Russia, a nation of militaristic ideals, has produced so many great novels during the past century?"

"Russia is not Germany," answered the man who taught Americans to read Turgenieff. "The people of Russia are not militaristic as the people of Germany are militaristic. In Germany war has for a generation been the chief idea of every one. The nation has had a militaristic obsession. And this, naturally, has stifled the imagination.

"But in Russia nothing of the sort has happened. Whatever the designs of the ruling classes may be, the people of Russia keep their simplicity, their large intellectuality and spirituality. And, therefore, their imagination and other great intellectual and spiritual gifts find expression in their great novels and plays.

"I well remember how the Russian novelists impressed me when I was a young man. They opened to me what seemed to be a new world--and it was only the real world. There is Tcheckoff--have you read his _Orchard_? What life, what color, what beauty of truth are in that book!

"Then there is Turgenieff--how grateful I am for his books! It must be thirty years since I first read him. Thomas Sargent Perry, of Boston, a man of the greatest culture, was almost the first American to read Turgenieff. Stedman read Turgenieff in those days, too. Soon all of the younger writers were reading him.

"I remember very well a dinner at Whitelaw Reid's house in Lexington Avenue, when some of us young men were enthusiastic over the Russian novel, and the author we mentioned most frequently was Turgenieff.

"Dr. J. G. Holland, the poet who edited _The Century_, lived across the street from Mr. Reid, and during the evening he came over and joined us. He listened to us for a long time in silence, hardly speaking a word. When he rose to go, he said: 'I have been listening to the conversation of these young men for over an hour. They have been talking about books. And I have never before heard the names of any of the authors they have mentioned.'"

"Were those the days," I asked, "in which you first read Tolstoy?"

"That was long before the time," answered Mr. Howells. "Tolstoy afterward meant everything to me--his philosophy as well as his art--far more than Turgenieff. Tolstoy did not love all his writing. He loved the thing that he wrote about, the thing that he lived and taught--equality. And equality is the best thing in the world. It is the thing for which the Best of Men lived and died.

"I never met Tolstoy," said Mr. Howells. "But I once sent him a message of appreciation after he had sent a message to me. Tolstoy was great in the way he wrote as well as in what he wrote. Tolstoy's force is a moral force. His great art is as simple as nature."

"Do you think that the Russian novelists have influenced your work?" I asked.

"I think," Mr. Howells replied, "that I had determined what I was to do before I read any Russian novels. I first thought that it was necessary to write only about things that I knew had already been written about. Certain things had already been in books; therefore, I thought, they legitimately were literary subjects and I might write about them.

"But soon I knew that this idea was wrong, that I must get my material, not out of books, but out of life. And I also knew that it was not necessary for me to look at life through English spectacles. Most of our writers had been looking at life through English spectacles; they had been closely following in the footsteps of English novelists. I saw that around me were the materials for my work. I saw around me life--wholesome, natural, human.

"I saw a young, free, energetic society. I saw a society in which love--the greatest and most beautiful thing in the world--was innocent; a society in which the relation between man and woman was simple and pure. Here, I thought, are the materials for novels. Why should I go back to the people of bygone ages and of lands not my own?"

"Do you think," I asked, "that romanticism has lost its hold on the novelists?"

Mr. Howells smiled. "When realism," he said, "is once in a novelist's blood he never can degenerate into romanticism. Romanticism is no longer a literary force among English-speaking authors. Romanticism belongs to the days in which war was an aim, an ideal, instead of a tragic accident. It is something foreign to us. And literature must be native to the soil, affected, of course, by the culture of other lands and ages, but essentially of the people of the land and time in which it is produced. Realism is the material of democracy. And no great literature or art can arise outside of the democracy."

Tolstoy was mentioned again, and Mr. Howells was asked if he did not think that the Russian novelist's custom of devoting a part of every day to work that was not literary showed that all writers would be better off if they were obliged to make a living in some other way than by writing. Mr. Howells gave his answer with considerable vigor. His calm, blue eyes lost something of their kindliness, and his lips were compressed into a straight, thin line before he said:

"I certainly do not think so. The artist in letters or in lines should have leisure in which to perform his valuable service to society. The history of literature is full of heartbreaking instances of writers whose productive careers were retarded by their inability to earn a living at their chosen profession. The belief that poverty helps a writer is stupid and wrong. Necessity is not and never has been an incentive. Poverty is not and never has been an incentive. Writers and other creative artists are hindered, not helped, by lack of leisure.