Part 2
But the magazine publishers are largely responsible, as they set the pace in Anglo-mania in literature; and today about the only circumstance that is peculiarly American in American periodical literature is this: the copyright law obliges the publishers to have the typography and printing done in this country. The literature is all made in Great Britain, because there is nothing interesting to write about in America and God does not allow genius to sprout here!
But a stir is beginning to be felt among the younger people in every city and state of this country, and the Young Man and the Young Woman--as entirely distinct from “The Young Person”--of contemporary America, are beginning to want to see this life here at our doors put into literature, and to read poetry and romance through eyes in sympathy with modern life. It will, therefore, be one of the principal aims of the FLY LEAF to foster and encourage this new spirit of independence and self-reliance and faith in the common life and beauty of this country. There are men and women in America who have something to say, too.
We protest that the periodicals, ostensibly appealing to Americans, should deal with the life and interests here, and should mirror American literary life and thought. How else are we to foster a literature here? The periodical world is the trial arena for the men who may be the giants of thought and poetry in a few years. But no arena, no circus; no audience, no gladiators. Poets and romancers are not produced when public apathy drives all the writers into clerking, or advertisement-writing or journalism. America is filled with literary talent, and yet a birch broom is more to be depended upon than the pen for mere bread, for the American market is monopolized by aliens.
We are devoured by a plague of locusts.
THE JEALOUS GOD.
In the gloom of the sunless November afternoon the ordinary solemnity of the old church seemed palpably increased by an atmosphere of unusual peace and mystery that gave sorrow its solace in a sense of the latent and inevitable sadness of all mortal life.
From one or two of the confessional boxes there arose a confused murmur of voices, and under one of the galleries, where the great fantastic shadows were rather increased than diminished by a flare of gaslight, a nun was drilling a bevy of demure little maidens in their catechism. And every now and again the subdued chords of the organ rose into a joyous peal and thrilled and dominated the drowsy, monotonous sibilant murmur of prayer and clear treble responses of the children. Then in the hush the muffled sounds of praying and moving women seemed to intensify the stillness that filled the dome and nave, and a sense of isolation in the midst of life crept over the spirit of one touched with the human pathos of the scene.
Occasionally, however, one of the low, narrow doors of the main entrance was held open for a few moments, and the rumble of the traffic in the crowded streets without surged in with a music of its own, and the nearness of the whirlpool of human destiny swept through the minds of many who would fain put the world out of their thoughts and lives and find a refuge for all sorrow in the love of God. Unburdened hearts thus suddenly invaded by the chill mockery of reality sought to drown the reawakened memory of life’s human web of fate in a fresh abandonment to all their deepest sorrows and unutterable hopes in the silence of God’s House. Here they would forget the fierce turmoil of the world, and acknowledge to God all the anguish of thoughts and soul that none dare reveal to their fellows. But there is no sanctuary in the world for the soul of man so sacred that the irony of life cannot enter.
At the chancel steps the form of a woman was bent in an attitude of prostrate prayer--in an oblivious abandonment of everything but the passion in her soul, so entirely unusual in a conventional religious assembly in our time, that several eyes were directed toward her. A gray and venerable father who was passing through the church observed her, and hesitated for a moment whether he should go and say a word of comfort to her. But as a sob shook her frame he murmured to himself, “She is in the hands of God and He will restore,” and with a little sigh passed on. This was a very poor parish. The good father was used to pitiable scenes and the prayers of those whose only friend in all the world was God--and even so the priest had to admit that life was sad.
The woman was oblivious or indifferent to all that passed about her. Her face was buried in her hands, clenched together in anguish, and the sobs that rose and choked her utterance and swept conscious thought into paroxysms of inarticulate despair, showed how intensely she suffered and hoped and doubted. There was no serenity, no calm acquiescence in her prayer--it was all revolt and demand, and in the presence of the Host at God’s altar she doubted.
She had purposely withdrawn from the little groups of women gathered together in their devotions, and when the door opened and the noise of the street clashed for a moment with the harmony of prayer and the low tide of flutey music from the organ loft, she shrank closer to the altar railing. The stir of life without struck a chill into her heart, and all the fervor of her hopes died within her.
For a few moments her lips were compressed in the silent anguish that benumbs the mind and racks the body in every nerve and fibre. She almost collapsed inertly on the steps. Then the loathing of life that had possessed her as she had threaded her way through the narrow, sordid streets returned with all its dread insistence of inconquerable morbid thought. “So long as men are what they are,” she said under her breath, despairingly, “God cannot be good,” and she drew herself up with dry eyes and haggard face, and mechanically crossing herself as she gained her feet, she turned to leave the church without another word.
She tottered slowly and half blindly down the aisle and only reached the darkened vestibule with a great effort and several stops on the way. Putting her hand to the heavy, leathern door, she found herself too feeble to move it. She leaned wearily against the wainscot and waited. No one came. Then, moved with the petulance of passionate despair, she prayed in her heart, “Oh, God, let me out of thy House since thou wilt not answer my prayers.”
It was now twilight, and she recalled the flaunting horrors and misery of the squalid streets of the quarter, and a feeling of revulsion swept over her. After all, she and her husband had only God in all the world to look to for help and comfort under the burdens of life; for even the knowledge of misery and sorrow does not teach men love and pity. And in the cruel world she only dared to be human with God.
She steadied herself against the wall, her eyes dimmed with tears, and her soul filled with a great longing to pour out her repentance, and again ask the boon that haunted her troubled dreams as well as her waking thoughts.
She stumbled into one of the nearest pews, and falling upon her knees she repeated mentally, with her busy thoughts otherwhere, one of the prayers of the regular service, and then a great cry arose in her soul, and she wailed the prayer that monopolized her heart and mind day and night, and in or out of church was always being prayed in all her life.
“Oh, Lord God, we are utterly alone and bereft in the world, save as Thy presence is near to comfort us. I ask and pray for only one thing--for the life and strength of my poor husband, who is as Thou knowest wasting at death’s door, and in our misery I can do nothing to save him, nothing to alleviate his sufferings. Oh, God, I have given Thee this day, to make my special prayer--and a day is so much to the poor, whose bread must be won somehow every day. Oh, dear Lord, in mercy hear me. There is no pity, no mercy, no compassion among men, for they live only for gold though they bring their prayers to Thee. Only Thou, the living truth and God art left to our hope, and I am here at thy altar to claim the gift of life Thou hast promised in giving life. Abandoned and despised, denied and starved by men, I come to Thee, in our dire extremity, and ask this boon of life of Thy omnipotent arm.”
And so she prayed with all the fervor of her overwrought spirit, until the dusk reminded her of the many hours she had been absent from the sick man in the attic they called home.
As she was about to cross her own threshold, a hand was laid upon her shoulder in the darkness, and a voice filled with a love and tenderness she had never heard in any human speech, said, softly:
“What ails thee?”
She could see nothing, but her soul was grown desperate, and she answered, without fear, “I am troubled for my husband, for his life is ebbing away, and the miseries we suffer. I pray only for him, but God does not answer my prayers.”
“And do you pray only for your husband?”
“Yes, we are all alone in the world, and there are none who care for us, or do for us, or pity us. We have only God.”
“Then pray for all the world and all mankind, and perhaps God will hear your prayer.”
Then the sorrowing soul knew that she too was not without sin, and that out of the House of God she had met the angel of the Lord.
WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE.
BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.
Just received a book for review, an author’s complimentary copy, from one of my friends, one of the finest hearted, most beautiful natured men in the world. This is one of the saddest ironies of life. It is just such a book as I wish my enemy had written.
* * * * *
The New Woman, who is really new and not a mere simulacrum of the old fetish masquerading in borrowed plumage, carries a copy of the FLY LEAF in the pocket of her bloomers; for the editor of the FLY LEAF is a New Woman’s man, and distinctly prefers her to her grandmother.
* * * * *
This is worth the attention of young people just graduating from our schools and colleges and entering upon the sad and serious business of life, as it will put them in the path of success quicker than all the wisdom of Aristotle and Plato--and I say this, who spawned it. One can break all the ten commandments upon a technicality.
* * * * *
A wink is much more innocent than a blush.
* * * * *
One of the tragedies of old fogyism is the wit and wisdom of youth. But youth has its little ironies, and the longevity of old fogeyism is one of them.
* * * * *
The Humphrey Ward nightmare is stalking through the land again already. It is evident this female survival of the Inquisition has awakened to the glorious possibilities of the American market, and in future we may expect to meet Marcella and the whole string of British boobies that she has imported (they did not need creating) into fiction at every turn in our periodical literature. And we had hoped we had seen the last of the little snob Marcella and the rest of them for at least another year. But the world is pressing Mrs. Ward for the solution of the servant girl question and she is becoming more industrious than ever. Subtle studies of snobocracy seem out of place, though, in the periodicals of a democratic country.
* * * * *
I have just seen the latest portrait of Mrs. Humphrey Ward in the “Century.” It explains the aridity of the atrocious Robert Elsmere. Mrs. Ward’s physiognomy is severe. She is no hero to her maid servants and man servants, but a terror to evil doers. British superiority is in evidence; but the benignity of genius is not.
* * * * *
There are certain aspects of Stephen Crane’s literature that appeal to the risibilities of a man who is blessed or cursed with some humorous perception. His mystic, weird lines outrage all the laws of prosody, and can only stand as the audacious flings of a fantastic and untrammeled imagination, that is impatient of form and loves the hot splash of thought. But it must not be rashly judged that any fool can do this sort of thing. It demands a feeling for words and an abundant, bubbling imagination. Still, the grave critics who have seriously accepted Mr. Crane’s little book of verses as poetry and literature of a high order appear in a rather ludicrous light. It is an interesting freak of a quick fancy playing over life and thought and taking all that comes to the surface in all seriousness. It is, however, something new in print, for the unchastened whimsies of a perfervid imagination seldom get into print--except in a few periodicals where there is no one appointed to edit the editor.
* * * * *
The article of Jonathan Penn in this number seems to raise an uncomfortable theory that this sort of inspiration is infectious, and that a million new poets may spring up any morning. But Mr. Penn is really only surprised at his own versatility, which does not surprise us in the least, for he is one of the most imaginative and brilliant prose writers in contemporary journalism. It is a pity that his necessities and the conditions governing the literary market in America compel him to write advertisements for his living. But if Mr. Crane and others can only manage to put into their serious efforts such fine limpid prose and such delicious fancies and quirks of humor as Mr. Penn puts into his alluring advertisements, a great future awaits them in prose literature.
* * * * *
In the death of Eugene Field, American literature has sustained a loss that will not be readily forgotten, for this whimsical poet of genius won a place for himself in the hearts of thousands. His “Sharps and Flats” in the _Chicago Record_ also gained him a national reputation, but it is the fate of all journalists who succeed in winning such a place as he held in daily journalism to waste in the eternal ferment of the short-lived daily newspaper the fine talents of imagination and wit, that put into the permanent form of literature, would give them a place among the famous wits and humorists of the world. Luckily Eugene Field was a poet as well as a wit and droll, and the publisher of the _Record_ was appreciative and catholic enough to open his columns to his poetry.
If other American newspapers would allow their cleverest writers the same latitude of doing signed work in poetry and prose, we should soon have a very encouraging group of distinctive and virile American writers. Eugene Field was, perhaps, the only American man of letters using the term in its broad sense, and not restricting it especially to the writer of merely funny or political work, who has won fame in literature through the medium of a newspaper. This is high praise for the _Record_ as well as a monument of achievement for Field, which only those in the harassing harness of journalism can properly appreciate. At the close of his career, of course, Field was published in books and magazines, but he won his reputation in the _Record_.
Why do not some other proprietors of large newspapers give other young American writers of originality and talent a show, instead of giving the public nothing in the way of literature but syndicate matter by English writers who crop up everywhere? If the newspaper publishers and editors took to producing literary men of their own, and were not content to get out a newspaper that tallies with every other in every town from Maine to Frisco, we should soon find that a rich streak of spontaneous, fresh talent would be struck in this country.
* * * * *
Those early “Plain Tales from the Hills” were fine, and “The Light that Failed,” and the rest showed that in Kipling we had a man of virile force, great observation and picturesque power. But it seems to one who looks for the sense of permanence in an artist’s choice of subjects and style of treatment that the furore over the “Jungle Stories” is simply the exaggeration that is meted out to every established literary favorite in a mere strain for novelty. There is nothing really permanent about this literary twist of investing the wild beasts with human traits and speech, and although it is doubtless well done, it does not support the contention of some critics that Kipling is the most significant and robust writer in English today. This is not denying Kipling’s universally acknowledged abilities, it is merely pointing out that he is striving more for immediate effect than for the substantial art that would insure his place in the great body of standard English literature.
A Good Cause
Needs a good writer to support and advocate and present it.
A Bad Cause
Needs a better writer to make it appear as good as the best.
A writer of experience, ability and versatility is desirous of finding employment in some journalistic capacity. He prefers to advocate a damnably bad cause for good wages than a good one for bad. Address,
HARDUP, care FLY LEAF.
Meditations in Motley.
By WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE.
I have met with no volume of essays from America since Miss Agnes Repplier’s so good as his “Meditations in Motley.”--Richard Le Gallienne, in the London “Realm.”
Mr. Harte is a litterateur of the light and humorous sort, with a keen eye for observation, and an extremely facile pen. His style is quaint and interesting. He has original ideas and always an original way of putting things. The writer if not quite a genius, is very closely related to one. There is a sly and quiet humor everywhere present. We hope that the author will soon sharpen his quill for more work of the same kind.--New York “Herald.”
“Meditations in Motley” reveals a new American essayist, honest and whimsical, with a good deal of decorative plain speaking.--I. Zangwill, in “The Pall Mall Magazine” for April, 1895.
The reader gets out of this book a good deal of the satisfaction which he finds in the essay-writing of the good old days of the English essayists. He will be reminded in many ways of that happy time, for he will gain the sense of leisure, independence of democratic opinion, a willingness to be odd if one’s oddity is attractive, a touch of the whimsical, and a good deal of straight-forward and earnest thinking. One is often reminded in reading these pages of Hazlitt. Mr. Harte understands the art of essay-writing.--“The Outlook,” New York.
“Meditations in Motley,” which has stirred up thinking people wherever it has entered their circles, is one of the lately built pieces of literary masonry that is strong enough to last.--“The Examiner,” San Francisco, Cal.
Price in Handsome Cloth, $1.25.
_FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS._
_Or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the Publishers_,
The Arena Publishing Co., Copley Square, Boston, Mass.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.