AMERICAN CRITICAL ATTITUDES TOWARD THE FICTION OF WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Carl Leroy Marshall, B.S. in Edu., M.A. The Ohio State University 195J+

Approved by:

7 '- I ~ v ' ' 1 - \ Adviser [I ti TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages

P r e f a c e ...... ii Chapter I. The First Phase: Non-Controversial Criticism ...... 1 Chapter II. Idealistic-Moralistic Criticism . 13 Charter III. Realistic Criticism ...... 101

Chapter IV. Iconoclastic Criticism...... llj.6

Chanter V. Sociological Criticism...... 169

Chap ter VI. Conventional Criticism...... 188 Chapter VII. Scholarly Criticism . 203

Chapter VIII. Conclusion...... 223 Works Cited ...... 2,37 li

PREPAGE

For almost eighty years literary critics and reviewers have disputed the quality, the meaning-, and the worth of

the novels of William Dean Howells. During that time they have reached a general accord on only one point: that he had a clear, supple prose style. Whether or not the critics have approved of Howells, they have been compelled to deal with him, not only because of the massiveness of his work

(and his eminence as an editor and a critic), but also be­ cause of its importance as an expression of realism. Their numerous and varied comments indicate several distinctive attitudes which seem to me to account in some measure for

the conflicting evaluations. I have sought to distinguish and identify those attitudes through.studying the American criticism published in books and in magazines of respectable literary standing. I have felt that these sources promised

serious, well-considered opinions that would represent most

adequately the major trends of critical thought.

I have attempted to display the body of criticism with as much objectivity as I could command, but of course I have proceeded on certain basic assumptions of my own which were not always to be concealed. My reading of Howells had proved to me that he was not as shallow as the critical

commonplaces indicate. I saw that he omitted some important iii aspects of reality, that ho was Indeed restrained and gentle,

that ha never quite achieved a compelling, fully satisfying presentation. And yet X was convinced that, with all of his faults, h© was a subtle, perceptive, humane writer who offered a mature criticism of life, even in the novels that seemed lightest. I felt also that he was a genuine democrat who employed his art as best he could to further the liberal

ideal. I wished to determine, then, what motivated the con­ flicting, often vehement, critical judgment that proclaimed him "a master of delicate cameo pieces,” ”a literary anar­ chist stressing the sordid and the commonplace," "a realist depicting humanity," "a timid spokesman of Victorian prudery,"

"a democrat critical of his times." Obviously he could not be all of these things. I concluded that tradition, preju­

dice and passion, iconoclasm and sociological determinism

frequently provided the key to these opinions. On those

grounds I approached my subject.

My procedure has been to present the views of each group

of critics In a separate chapter, rather than to follow a

purely chronological order. This method seemed to fit my

purpose best and to allow the most satisfactory revelation

of the critical positions. The writings of the critics are

extremely uneven in bulk and in the amount of detail involved.

The realistic criticism, for example, was always a minority

opinion. Although it paralleled the Idealistic-moralistic Iv criticism in point of time, It would bo submerged If con­

sidered simultaneously with the reviews of the predominant

group. Yet the small school of realists was important, for

it v/as victorious in its war with the idealists. Similarly,

the criticism of the Iconoclasts and the sociological writers

has been far more influential than its slight volume suggests.

I believe that my scheme clearly reveals the unity and the

effect of the major points of view and lessens the amount of

unavoidable repetition. In each chapter I have defined and

described one type of criticism and have indicated the amount

and the extent of that criticism. Then I have presented the

essence of the opinions and commented on the fidelity to

fact, the consistency, and the degree of recognition of

Howells1 intention and meaning.

My classification of critics eccording to their particular

"humor" is justifiable as a principle, I think, In most in­

stances. The amorphous groupings for which I could find no

better label than "Conventional" and "Scholarly" are perhaps

less defensible, but they have certain distinguishing marks.

The criticism labeled "Conventional" seems cautious and con­

servative, with something of the air of the textbook; It

regularly slights Howells’ social novels; it shows a want of

fresh Insight and originality. On the other hand, the

"Scholarly" criticism contains specific, knowing comment;

It shows a deep interest in the social significance of Howells; V it reveals insight, precision, and impersonality. No doubt there are individual writers whom I have classified rather arbitrarily, but I have been governed by what has seemed to me their dominant critical attitude and method.

I have made full use of the pertinent bibliographical aids, and I have located a number of reviews not listed in those sources. Although I do not claim that my study is exhaustive. I have . examined almost everything and have used most of what I have seen except when it was so brief or ■ trivial that it could carry no weight. In citing and sum­ marizing huge blocks of material I have found It necessary to use many omnibus notes. Normally, I have given the refer­ ences In order of citation; but where the footnote immedi­ ately follows a quotation, the first reference is to it.

Perhaps I should point out also that after a first complete citation, I have regularly used a brief form in later refer­ ences, except where additional information seemed necessary. Chapter I

THE PIHST PHASE: NON-CONTROVERSIAL CRITICISM

When William Dean Howells first began writing novels in 1872, realism had not yet become an issue in American literature. The unchallenged control of literary affairs rested securely in the hands of the "elegant,” conservative periodicals--the North American, the Atlantic, Harper 1 a, the Nation, Scribner1s--which by precept and practice exhib­ ited the moral and romantic attitudes and biases that prevailed during the time. Although no rules had been established for the criticism of the novels in general the editors and critics wanted fiction to meet the standards that had been set up for poetry. Somewhat vaguely, they expected the novel to present'moral Ideas in terms of beauty and truth; to express the imaginative Insight of the human soul; to preserve the traditional romantic idealism. And yet, for perhaps the very reason that dogmatism seemed unnecessary, literary criticism from 1872 to 1881 remained largely individual, expressive of the personal tastes and preferences of the writers. It treated the novels directly, honestly, and sympathetically, and set up no formal criteria or rigid pattern of group judgment.

Howells1 first seven novels made quite agreeable Impres sions on the periodical reviewers. These books found, and extended, an appreciative audience that had already been attracted by the quiet charm of his essays and travel books. Not only were they written in the clear, flexible style that readers had learned to expect from Howells, but they were preeminently moral, decorous, and witty. Their view of the world, or of that part of the world which they touched, was the accepted view of persons of culture and good taste.

The momentary instances when the author probed beneath the surface of society life and attitude tended to be harmless

little sallies demonstrating his Insight and humor. If he

sometimes made readers a little uncomfortable by dwelling on

their foibles, his unfailing good nature and his implication

that he understood and shared those faults had soothing effect.

Their Wedding Journey (1872) and A Chance Acquaintance

(1 8 7 3 ) seem to have ingratiated themselves through the pages of the Atlantic Monthly, and then in book form, without a great deal of fanfare, for only one substantial review appears. Writing on Their Wedding Journey, Henry Adams noted an "extreme and almost photographic truth to nature” presented with ”remarkable delicacy and lightness of touch.”

The novel touched no deep vein, he concluded, but It was

spun out with dexterity, tact, and wit. "Our descendants will find nowhere so faithful and so pleasing a picture of our American existence, and no writer is likely to rival

Mr. Howells in this idealization of the commonplace. Two brief notices of A Chance Acquaintance lauded the book for

its characterization of Kitty Ellison as a really charming human being. Both writers, however, objected to the figure 3 of Arbufcon, the Nat Ion reviewer declaring him ''rather the distorted version of the hated Bostonian as he appears to us outside barbarians, than an accurate representation of 2 even a very priggish man."

Later critics of Howells showed that they had given careful attention to his initial effort at sustained fiction.

Particularly did they quote, or refer to,* the author's aside in Their Wedding Journey--"Ah I poor Real Life, which I love, can I make others share the delight I find in thy foolish and insipid face?"^--either to deprecate it, with the com­ ment that Howells' practice was better than his theory," or to justify it. They commonly noted the sketch-like quality, the lack of a conventional plot, the generous supply of incidents, the delightful humor, and the tone of understand­ ing and sympathy.^-

A Chance Acquaintance elicited a larger number of retro­ spective remarks, since it contained a definite plot, love interest, and impressive characterization. In 1875 Henry

James wrote that the book was still referred to in social discourse. Critics more or less agreed that it was a very promising novel, if not an extremely good one. They found bases for comparing it with others: for example, A. Orr thought Howells 1 treatment of the class question superior to that found in the popular English novel of the time; T.S.

Perry thought the story more interesting than Doctor Breen* s

Practice (1881). Kitty Ellison was xvidely accepted as one of Howells* best studies of a young girl's character, and If consequently v/as often likened to such figures as Florida

Vervain, of A Foregone Conclusion (1875 )> and Grace Breen.

Adverse criticism of the work hinged on what was called the

"Inconclusive” ending and the improbability of Arbuton's actions

In general, nineteenth-century critics evaluated fairly

Howells' first two novels. They seemed aware of the tcnta- tlveness of the works, of the adaptation of the-travel book and the personal essay, of the groping for method and form.

They made no objection to the almost exclusive use of every­ day Incidents, experiences, and observations, for nothing inimical to their view of life appeared In these narratives.

Nor did their analyses of the qualities of this fiction differ materially, except for their fragmental treatment, from recent studies. One writer's discontent with what seems the only appropriate ending for A Chance Acquaintance surely stems from the conventional expectation of a com­ fortable resolution of every story. The quarrel with

Arbuton's conduct is an individual stand, based on the critics' ideal of the Boston gentleman. It refuses to recognize Howells' clear implication that in Arbuton the noble strain had crumbled; it discounts the foreshadowing effected when the Bostonian "cuts" Kitty while she talks with the English actors. In other respects, however, the thin little plots, the characterization, the sensitive per­ ception, the humor, the lucid style pleased the critics. Except for brief literary notices, the only reviews of

A Foregone Conclusion (1875) were written by Henry James for the North American Review and the Nation. James saw in the novel a continuation of the "cabinet-picture manner" char­ acteristic of A Chance Acquaintance, but v/ith broader touches.

Comparing Florida Vervain and Don Ippollto with Kitty and

Arbuton, he called Florida an original conception almost as good as Kitty, and Don Ippollto a vivid, complete, appealing creation far superior to his counterpart. James felt that the novel should have ended with the death of Ippollto, the hero, because after that event there was an awkward transi­ tion from the ideal to the real, to the vulgar; from "charm­ ing color to something which is not color." Also, for his sensitive taste, though Mrs. Vervain was amusing, she was sometimes "too shrilly loquacious"; and Ferris, in whom irony and acerbity were over-emphasized, was hardly successful.

Yet, the story was "singularly perfect":

At a time when the English novel has come in general to mean a ponderous, shapeless, dif­ fuse piece of machinery,... there may be pride as well as pleasure in reading this admirably- balanced and polished composition, with its distinct literary flavor, its grace and its humor, its delicate art and its perfume of poetry, Its extreme elaboration and yet Its studied compactness. 7

In i860 critics were still inclined to rank Don Ippollto with the best creations in Howells, or even In American fiction, but were less enthusiastic about the novel as a whole. W. C. Brownell seized on the lack of romantic Imagi­ nation as a limitation that restricted Perris to a bit of machinery^ that made Florida and her mother seem to be mere essays on a "sweet-tempered but peppery maiden" and a "color­

less peevish vfoman." Thomas Wentworth Higginson declared

A Foregone Conclusion Howells' most powerful yet least satis­ factory book, apparently because of a cynical flavor he

detected in it.^ Two years later, on the eve of the strife

over realism, T. S. Perry suggested that the part of the

story after Don Ippolito's death was perhaps a sacrifice to

conventionality. During the remainder of the period A Fore -

gone Conclusion drew little pointed comment except for

Maurice Thompson’s fulsome praise of its "delicate romancing"

and charm and Boyesen's equally biased laudation of its

disregard of romantic traditions.^

The fourth novel by Howells,*^ The Lady of the Aroostook

(1 8 7 9 )? seems to have inspired only one review, although it was spoken of in 1880 as being widely popular. The reviewer for Scribner's Monthly refuted an anonymous charge that

Howells' charm was all on the surface and his characters were not worth drawing. ITot only was Lydia Blood "a fine typ of maidenly character," a real heroine, but the minor char­ acters were drawn with skill. Staniford, however, was

"dangerously near a prig," and the "disagreeable fullness"

of the drunken talk of Hicks was "a bit of broad and quite unpleasant realism where all else wears an ideal touch." Also the story unfolded slowly and a little tediously; but there was a more serious matter. Inasmuch as there was an obvious contrast between the "purity and rectitude" of Lydia and the

"questionable" society of Venice, the critic wondered why the novelist showed an aversion to "the social condition of

American country towns." It seemed to the critic that

Howells* "grim" picture of village life was the result of a keen eye for the ludicrous, and a lack of "genial sympathy with the bright side of things.This rather testy review is a herald of the biased, restrictive criticism that was to become prevalent a few years later. It reflects a strong loyalty to the romantic ideal and a touchy sense of national pride that will permit no questioning of American life. From i860 on, the novel was often referred to In glowing terms.

Host of the critics agreed that it was an excellent story, distinguished both by the imaginative conception of Lydia

Blood and the convincing presentation of language and inci­ dent. They gave Lydia especial attention as a pure, lovely

American type, and roundly applauded the sympathy and Insight with which Howells portrayed the scene, the people, the atmoS' phere, and the language of New England rural life. Higginson prophetically summarized Howell3 1 accomplishments as follows:

"He has now allowed himself a bolder sweep of arm, a more generous handling of full-sized humanity; and with this work begins, we may fain believe, the maturity of his genius."

But two decades later, H. T. Peck could still call The Lady 8

of the Aroostook “the most perfect story that American

literature has yet produced.” Adverse remarks during the period concerned only Staniford, who seemed not quite true and compelling, and poor drunken Hicks, who, in Higginson's opinion, was “so realistic as to be out of place and over­ done . “ ^

For the most part, the critics accepted A Foregone

Gonelusion and The Lady of the Aroostook, which may be said

to end Howells' first phase as a novelist, with the same direct unprejudiced air that marked their notice of the first

two stories. They recognized in addition to the familiar

Howells traits the movement toward a broader canvas, the

appearance of more concretely developed characters, and closer attention to graphic dialogue and incident. Under­ standably, they interpreted the implicit assumptions of

American superiority and. unity as intimations of nationalism.

Their consideration of the idea led to comparisons of the

Italian and the American temperaments, the discerning of a pattern of “Europeanized Americans" versus “Americanized

Americans," and the observation (of a kind unusual in 1880)

that Lydia Blood's Inhibited personality and her aesthetic

starvation revealed Howells' sense of the cultural impover­

ishment that resulted from the broken relation with the Old

World. On the whole, the criticism remained individual and fairly motivated, except for Higginson's stab at realism and

Peck's reference to Lydia as “a second Marcia Hubbard, but with finer traits."^ 9

The record of The Undiscovered Country is unusual in

that the novel called forth three immediate reviews and a

survey of Howells* fiction, but after the year of publication

(l8Q0) it received sparse comment. There were perhaps two reasons for the neglect: the topical nature of the theme and

the rousing battle over the more controversial books which

shortly followed. For quite different reasons, two of the reviewers pronounced the novel superior to anything Howells had done before. To Brooks Adams it was an original, strong

treatment of serious questions, a landmark testifying that

American society and surroundings provided adequate material

for art and fiction. To Higginson it was an artistically handled work that revealed a strong feeling for external nature, that contained a profound, delicate love scene, and

that reached depths of character Howells had not touched previously. For Gelia Parker Woolley and W. C. Brownell, however, the introduction of the moral, didactic purpose

lessened the charm of a writer whose greatest attractions xvere his delicate grace and finish. In Brownell's words,

"We know the sustenance of meat and the stimulant of wine

in the provender of fiction, but the tea which Mr. Howells dispenses is of a delicious fragrance and refreshing to jaded l9 palates." ^ Objections to didacticism were unusual in 1880, for the novel generally was expected to teach as well as to

entertain. These comments demonstrate the individuality that 10 prevailed at the time and forecast the later development of Mrs. Woolley and Brownell. She was to become a perceptive realistic critic; he was to construct a notable conservative creed.

All the critics named Dr. Boynton the finest character in the book. They agreed further that Ford and Egeria, the hero and heroine, were somewhat shadowy or insubstantial.

Much more successful and memorable, in their opinion, were the Shakers— Ellhu, Humphrey, Frances--and the whimsical

Mrs. Perham. Finally, with the usual nod to Howells' style l6 and good taste, the writers (except Brownell) conveyed a decidedly good impression of Howells’ fifth novel. 17 Doctor Breen1s Practice (l88l) invited two rather flattering comparisons with James’s Portrait of a Lady.

Both reviews stated that the atmosphere of Howells1 book was brighter and more refreshing than the heavy, dense air in

Portrait of a Lady. The Dial accounted for the contrast in moral and didactic terms, declaring that although Grace Breen was as introspective as Isabel Archer, the result of her "| Q reflections was humility. But the Atlantic Monthly looked beyond the novels to the minds and temperaments of the authors. It concluded that the light, humorous, sympa­ thetic manner of Howells was exactly right for treating the effect of crude Hew England society on the spirit of Dr.

Breen. On the other hand, the refined, subtle workmanship of James was appropriate for showing the effect of the II

complex life of Europe upon Isabel Archer. Although the

texture of Howells’ story was perhaps less fine, there was

a corresponding gain in the naturalness and the healthful­

ness of its life.

Howells, continued the Atlantic, introduced characters who were immediately recognizable. ". . .We know them all

In the same way that we know the people whom we meet In

actual life." So It was with Barlow, Mrs. Maynard, and

Grace Breen herself. And finally, Howells had the "admi­ rable limitation" of regarding the affairs of his creatures IQ with a mind in common with that of his readers. 7 Howells'

interest in and knowledge of the psychology of women, later

a favorite topic of speculation, was noted by several writers

in 1882. According to one of them (who al3o had Marcia

Gaylord In mind), his women were always piquant, attractive,

affectionate, Inconsistent, incapable of reasoning. The problem of woman’s work and freedom interested others, who

drew various--sometImes confused--moral precepts from the

novel.

The lessons of the story are that woman, in the effort to strike out for herself, finds her dearest foes among her own sex; and that she who would struggle for equal rights with man must be either passionless or ugly.

A few years afterward, Anna L. Dawes described Doc tor Breen’s

Practice as an exposure of certain unnamed "faults of the PO social order." It is likely that Mrs. Dawes referred to

the problem of women’s rights, the antipathy in medicine 12 between allopaths and homeopaths, and the hardships suffered by the children of the mill workers.

The novels of 1880 and l88l seem to have given new zest to the critics of Howells, They were a departure from the first group in that their setting and characters were wholly

American and their subjects and themes were the stuff of local observable life. Hot only did they appeal subtly to national pride* but also they provided material for discus­ sion and debate. By early 1882 certain inchoate objections to details of the real, the commonplace, had begun to appear in the criticism of such persons as Brownell and Higginson.

These objections increased In direct proportion to the degree in which Howells brought his stories to rest on home soil.

Yet, these adverse comments were Incidental and individual, more the expression of sensitive personal reaction than the sign of a clear-cut attitude. On the whole, the criticism of Howells to this point was honest in dealing with his statements, fairly perceptive In recognizing his intention and meaning, consistent according to the Individual view­ point arid interest. 13

Chapter* II

IDEALISTIC-MORALISTIC CRITICISM

During the greater part of Howells' career as a novelist,

frota 1882 to approximately 1908, most of the reviews and

studies of his fiction exemplified "idealistic-moralistic" criticism. The desires and preferences that seem to have

been taken for granted previously were molded after 1882 into

a body of formal critical dogma. This criticism attempted

to differentiate art from reality "by emphasizing its charm

and graces and by establishing tradition as a test of its

quality." It canonised virtue, beauty and truth, insight

and conventionality; it sought to preserve "the pure, unal­

loyed ideals of humanity" by separating the universal moral principles from the actual facts of existence. The function

of the novel was to present an Idealized picture of life that would elevate the imagination and the spirit, lighten the

daily cares, teach a moral lesson, and last but not least,

entertain the reader. To that end, the story and plot of the

novel should be interesting and strong, the conclusion defi­

nite and happy. The good fictional characters, who were to be clearly distinguished from the bad, should be refined, pure, attractive, and noble. In addition, they should dis­ play self-reliance, will, and the ability to master circum-

stances--the traditional qualities of English heroism. Finally,

to insure the ideal Illusion, the novel should avoid the I lf gross, the vulgar, and the indecorous. Slight differences existed in the particular interests and attitudes of indi­ vidual critics, but these are the basic conceptions of the idealistic-moralistic position.

These conceptions had not been formalized during the first ten years of Howells’ career as a novelist, although they were implicit in the reviews of his books. It was simply that there had been no occasion for the critics to organize and promulgate their creed. But in A Modern In­ stance , in 1882, Howells presented a view of life that was destructive to the conventions and traditions of New England.

He ignored the established practices of po3.ite literature and he broke the romantic tradition; in fact, he challenged the soundness of the contemporary social structure. The reaction of the critics was immediate and hostile.

With the publication of A Modern Instance, both the volume and the temper of the critical reviews changed. The great majority of the writers expressed in severe terms their d is sat isf ac t ion with what was actually a nev/ note in the realism of Howells. In this novel he had followed neither the delicate tale of young love, which had pleased many of his critics, nor the prim story based on "serious American subjects," which had pleased others. Instead, he had dealt v/ith topics and characters and incidents which in their opin­ ions had best be let alone. The nineteenth-century reviewers 15 perceived as clearly as have modern critics that Howells' book was far better than anything he had done previously; but its superiority was not of the right sort to recommend it to them. They could point out its strong qualities, its excellences of treatment and style, even its ethical force; yet, they could not view the novel sympathetically or give it their unqualified approval. In their strictures on A

I.Iodern Instance begins the pattern of idealistic-moralistic criticism that was to wage deadly strife with realism.

Host of the critics agreed with II. E. Scudder that A

Hodern Instance showed an advance In the author's power and depth--in his very conception of life. Pew were prepared, however, to agree also that the book was a valid criticism of contemporary life. To Scudder it suggested, primarily through Bartley Hubbard, "a rotten social condition,” a state of society of which the divorce lav/s were the index. ^ A writer for Lippincott ' s iviagaz ine (XXX, 607) went even further, declaring that it dealt with the dangers which lay in a weak- ening of the New England conscience . & No other American novel, he felt, combined in the same degree fidelity to life and strong interest in story. Although his fellow reviewers conceded high moral purpose, accurate description, and a certain element of truth in the book, they entertained no such notion of its significance and effectiveness. They either interpreted the whole in a way uncomplimentary to

America, art, and Howells, or they concentrated on separate 1 6 aspects that, finally, were inadequate. Only Harry Thurston

Peck (who was not a typical "genteel critic"), near the end of the century, assigned the novel to a high place in

American literature.

In I897 Peck wrote that A Modern Instance v;as a great novel of Hew England, differing from the general run of

American novels In breadth and grasp, and in being free from a characteristic thinness.

American novels almost Invariably lack body and substance. They have a high, dry, rarified at­ mosphere which may be very clear, but in which it is very difficult to breathe for any length of time. They may possess more subtlety than one finds in an English novel, but t h e y ‘are af­ flicted with so advanced an anaemia that one al­ ways burns from them with a sense of relief to the strong, well-nourished work of the Englishman who shows us bones and muscle and flesh and blood in place of mere nerves, with plenty of good port- wine and roast beef instead of angel-food and ether. But A Mod ern Instance has body bo it, and color and movement and vitality. Nearly all of its characters are living human beings, and not mere psychological studies. 3

Howells having discarded his theory of the commonplace, there were "fine dramatic touches after the manner of the romanti­ cists": especially, the climax, In which Squire Gaylord pleaded in the courtroom for justice and vengeance. "And this is one of the things that make for genuine realism, because such striking scenes as these are not so rare in life as Mr. Howells sometimes appears to think." Peck's assertion that Howells had discarded "his pet theory" was wrong. Actually, Howells stresses the commonplace more con­ sistently in this novel than ever before. The outraged cries of the reviewers and their detailed complaints attest to the amount of prosaic material in the book (see page 1 9 )-

A Modern Instance bore the stamp of genius, Peck declared, and would live as long as anything in our literature; "for in it the writer stands aside and lets the acbion evolve

Itself before the reader's eye."

Howells' treatment of Hew England life and character received both praise and censure. Lippincott1s Magazine

(XXX, 6 0 6 ) stated that he revealed better than any other New

England novelist the beauty of common scenes and characters; and, at the same time, that he brought out tellingly the aridity, the gloom, and the "hard necessities" of village life. Century (XXV, I4.63 -I4.6 I4.) found his portrayal of Equity life admirable, but went on to testify that New England life had charms and attractions untouched in A Modern Instance--

"energetic merchants, upright statesmen, high-minded scholars, and so on. Other reviews were much less charitable. They declared that Howells not only lacked sympathy with village life, but studied character types that were not significant or representative— people chosen mainly from "the thin and irritating surface characters of village life," uninteresting even to "the better class rustic mind." Compared with The

Bjglow Papers, Snow-Bound, or The House of the Seven Gables,

A Modern Instance seemed "an artistic falsehood": even though its separate elements were true, its whole was misleading. Bartley Hubbard, Marcia, and Squire G-aylord were gener­ ally acknowledged to be strong and consistent, but attitudes toward them varied greatly. For most of the critics, Bartley was a living figure developed with considerable skill. For

G. H. Badger (who pursued the thesis of national character), he was even more--a vigorous, robust "positive personality" with purpose, ambition, enterprise, and shrewdness--the "best £ typo of American" Howells had yet produced. Adversely, sev­ eral critics noted that the enormity of Bartley's guilt was not made impressive; nearly all of them soundly berated the hero and the other characters as well for their unattractive- nos3 and vulgarity.

If we are to have a portraiture of moral baseness, we have a right to ask for some shadows so deep as to leave no doubt of their meaning, instead of a multitude of little spots of darkness, any one of which may be indicative of turpitude, but all of which taken together does not accumulate into anything more than a character which repels one by Its generally Ignoble quality. 7

Marcia Gaylord received a modicum of praise as an artistic, sustained portrait. In the view of H. B. Scudder, her jeal­ ousy— that "animalistic quality" so repulsive to readers— explained her life and actions. Marcia was out of place In society not because she was provincial, but because she had

"not yet emerged from the elemental condition of womanhood."

Howells saw her, like Bartley, created by the life out of which she grew. The writer for LippIncott1s appreciated the clever touch by which Marcia's grief made her "common." Sev­ eral critics thought Halleck’s relation to Marcia a strong 19 point*, for they saw in it "a high and saving moral standard.'1

On the other hand, Marcia lacked any noble or heroic graces

that would have mada her worthy of Halleck’s devotion. In­

deed, G-. H. Badger rejected her completely on the grounds

that she misrepresented American girls and constituted, with

her "servile" and "exotic” passion, a libel on girlhood and Q the whole social structure of America. °

One of the most widely expressed objections to A Modern

Instance (and one that became a stock phrase In idealistic-

moralistic criticism) was that it contained commonplace

persons, incidents, and motives. As H. E. Scudder reported

somewhat gingerly, the book suggested that Howells was "unnec­

essarily at pains In portraying the features of people whom

one doG3 not care to number among his. intimate associates."

Scudder, like several other reviewers, also disliked what he

felt were unnecessary details of the loggers* camp, the cheap

boarding houses and restaurants, and "the internal economy of

'a newspaper." They were harmful to the story as a work of

art:

The details are clever, and there are touches which make it unnecessary for writers on such matters hereafter to do anything but quote from this book; yet one becomes impatient of an art which employs so fine a pencil upon that which is Ignoble and that which has inherent dignity. If life be the sum of little things,--and there were no great outward events in this chronicle,-- It is yet the business of art, when portraying life, to choose that which is significant, not merely that which is characteristic. The 20 amusing scene, Tor instance, at the logging camp enjoys a ihtllness of treatment out of proportion to its importance In the novel. 9

Obviously trying to be fair, however, the critic admitted that acquaintance with various kinds of life and character was necessary for understanding Marcia and Bartley, and the social conditions which produced them.

In another vein, the Century reviewer, after acknowl­ edging Howells' Increased narrative power and "firmer hold on interior life," launched Into one of the earliest frontal assaults on realism:

But one quarrels with all the realistic novelists on just the ground which they, seem to think their strongest. They begin, like the scientists, with what they can see and test,-- what yields material results, and they end there. They give too little credit to what the mind, by its idealizing processes, adds to character. What a man would like to be is just as much a part of his real life as what he seems to be, and it is after all what he hopes and aspires to be, what in his heart he is in his best moments, that makes him a worthy object of contemplation. 10

It was depressing, continued the reviewer, to find the good and the bad alike going down to defeat. "To see Isabel, in

'The Portrait of a Lady,1 stranded on Osmond, . . . or Ben

Halleck's pitiful deformity covered with sackcloth and ashes,

--will it reform the bad or comfort the good?" The contem­ porary school of novelists, he concluded, gave too much of the "crabbed harshness of fruition," too little of the "sweet fragrance of blossom-time."

Among the other faults touched upon in various ways by the reviews of A Modern Instance was a weakness in imaginative 21 owv;option. I.-ipplncott ’ s MagazIno noted that the characters impressed one as real by their roe a mb I a nee to pier sons seen, rather than by "sheer force and vividness of their concep­ tion. " bach person war. an aggregate of particulars, not an abs olute ind ividuality.

The same thing is true of Mr. James’s charac­ ters, with this difference, that Mi*. James builds up his delicately-organ!zed men and • women by a molecular process in which art and intuition pi lay the- chief part, while those of hr. rlowo 1.!.s appear to be the- result of a mar­ vellously fine and active observation. (IhCf. 6 0 8 ) As a result of this fault, and the corresponding lack of charm--and Linnincott's felt charm to bo Howells' best quality

-- the bet ok was no I his best work in the sense of a summing up of his eve el fences. It had strength arid seriousness, but not bo charm and poetry of the earlier works. To several critics the novel was heavy, disagreeable reading that dealt reprohensibly with the weaknesses of American lifo instead of "those deeper and grander national forces." In the opinion of G-. H. Badger, ^ Howells had failed to break through to "the real springs of national character" or to catch the spirit of our civilization: consequently, ho was not yet a ’worthy interpreter of American life. Further­ more, the novel suffered because of its "melodramatic, un- n a t u ra1 o o I ncxdents " [sicj and its unresolved problem. The most cogent statement on the ending of the story was that a tragic conclusion would have been more forceful; yet, Howells had not begged the question with a conventional one. While 22 not going; so far as tragedy, he had ’’been content to make a set of prison-regulations take the place of an avenging fate."

Finally, as a kind of minority report, H. E. Scudder wrote in

108^ that —A Modern —Instance — ■ ■ had the same defect as The Rise *--- of Silas Lapham— one resulting from a "super-refinement" of art: Howells tended to give too much value to moral inten- 12 tion, too little to the overt act. Obviously the critics viewed the novel with a jaundiced eye. They disanproved of the "gloomy," "hard," "sordid" picture of life it presented; therefore they quarreled with

Howells for omitting the happy, beautiful aspects which they felt abounded in New England. They disliked the characters as well, believing that Bartley, Marcia, Squire Gaylord,

Iiinney, and others were not only' nonrepresentative and non­ significant, but also coarse-fibered and even vulgar. By implication, they wanted fictional characters to be refined, pure, attractive, and, if possible, heroic. It seems evident too that the reviewers preferred clear-cut marks of distinc­ tion between the good people and the bad: the former should be noble and strong, the latter unmistakably villainous-- but without "sordidness." To the reviewers, any portrayal of the barren, unpleasant, demoralizing aspects of American life was "sordid." The bad people were expected to be marked by serious defects of character; they were not to be Impelled toward evil by wretched, unjust social conditions. Even the sympathetic H. E. Scudder, notwithstanding his insight, 23

protested in his own way against the characters, the inci­

dents, and the details that Howells admitted into A Modern

Instance. The critics desired a careful selection and

arrangement of elements that would create and leave in the

minds of readers an illusion of the optimistic, the noble,

the ideal. Such a desire is ostensibly the real basis of

some of the miscellaneous defects pointed out: that Howells'

people were finely observed rather than imaginatively con­

ceived; that the book lacked charm; that it dealt with weak­

nesses instead of the brighter and more favorable side of

American life; that it ended unhappily and without a resolu­

tion of the problem. For one reason or another, practically

every critic found a source of dissatisfaction in A Modern

Instance.

Marly in 1883 the major arguments against realism were marshaled by Charles Dudley Warner in his essay "Modern

Fiction." ^ One of the worst characteristics of modern fiction, Warner began, was its so-called truth to nature.

Fiction was an art; and art was not photography, but selec­ tion and Idealization, "with a view to Impressing the mind with human, or even higher than human, sentiments and ideas."

The essential of fiction was not "diversity of social life," but artistic treatment of whatever was depicted--the idealiza­ tion of nature Into art. "The importation Into the novel of the vulgar, sordid, and ignoble in life is always unbearable, 2li.

unless gonius first fuses the raw material in its alembic."

I.iOdern fiction disregarded the higher lav/s of art and attempted

to give unidealized pictures of life.

The failure is not that vulgar themes are treated, but that the treatment is vulgar; not that common life is treated, but that the treatment is common; not that care is taken with details, but that no selection is made, and every tiling is photographed re­ gardless of its artistic value. (LI, ig 65)

darner singled out as the particular object of his dislike what he called the "inane domestic novel." This type was "in

a higher sense immoral": it tended to lower the moral tone

and the stamina of readers. Only genius could make artistic

use of ordinary conversation, petty domestic details, and

commonplace, vulgar phases of life. The dialogue in the do­

mestic novel of the day was not-worth writing or reading.

(Li, Lj.6 6 )

Although contemporary fiction was proclaimed to be

analytic and realistic, ‘.Varner continued, it exhibited noth­

ing more than a delight in representing the worst phases of

social life. It was to be censured for its extreme analysis

of persons and motives; its sacrifice of action to psycho­

logical study; its substitution of studies of character for

"anything like a story"; its notion that a definite conclu­

sion and a "happy" ending were not artistic and true to

nature; its despondent attitude toward politics, society, and

the whole drift of modern life. vVhen used by a "master of

dissection," the analytic method was interesting, but even 2-5

then it had the fatal defect of destroying illusion:

We want to think that the characters in a story are real persons. We cannot do this if we see the author set them up as if they were mario­ nettes, and take them to pieces every few pages, and show their interior structure, and the ma­ chinery by which they are moved. Hot only is the illusion gone, but the movement of the story, if there is a story, is retarded, till the reader loses all enjoyment in impatience and v/eariness. 1I4.

The propei’ end of fiction, Warner pointed out, was

quite otherwise.

. . . The main object of the novel is to enter­ tain, and the best entertainment is that which lifts the imagination and quickens the spirit; to lighten the burdens of life by taking us for a time out of our humdrum and perhaps sordid con­ ditions, so that we can see familiar life somewhat idealized, and probably see it all the more truly from an artistic point of view. . . Incidentally the novel may teach, encourage, refine, elevate. (LI, I4.69)

The drift of these animadversions on A Modern Instance and on realism, no less than the qualities that were praised, indicates the basic stand of Howells 1 early critics. They approved the evidence of his increased strength, vigor, and depth, but most of them were not prepared to accept, or even to remark, his tacit criticism of Hew England society. They admitted his high moral intention, but could not see that the novel produced any efficacious results. They noted accurate delineations of individual characters and scenes, but resented the characters and rejected many of the scenes.

They conceded a certain amount of truth in the details, but denied the validity of the work as an artistic whole. The majority of these critics expected the novel to exemplify virtue., and at the same time to lend moral sanction to the myth of the wholesome American community. By artistic selection and organization of worthy material it was to present an Idealized picture of life to the end of lifting the imagination and the spirit, lightening the daily cares, teaching, encouraging, elevating, entertaining. It should be conventional and orthodox In all matters concerning the total Institution of American society. Even though it criti­ cized convention, the novel should remain decorous and tra­ ditional ; It should not in any way question the fundamental rightness and soundness of the social structure. Moreover, the characters should have the ability, through the exercise of self-reliance, will, and faith, to master or circumvent any conflicts in which they became Involved. The novel should emphasize plot and story, relating events by the dramatic method; It should avoid psychological analysis just as it should avoid the commonplace, the indecent, and the vulgar. Finally, It should be a hopeful, happy narrative, romantic In Its overall Impression, and thus everything A

Modern Instance is not.

Although A Woman1s Reason, published In 1 8 8 3 , proved to be much less objectionable than A Modern Instance to the critic3 , their reviews of the novel were tinged with uncer­ tainty or misgiving. The story tells how spoiled but con­ scientious Helen Harkness struggles to support herself in Boston? after* being suddenly left alone and almost penniless.

Although generous friends abound, she attempts to make a genteel living in various v/ays, but she fails in all. Mean­ while, Navy Officer Robert Fenton, separated from Helen by a lovers' misunderstanding, is shipwrecked, marooned on an atoll, and reported dead. Having rejected two marriage offers and overcome several illnesses, Helen is preparing to begin another venture when Fenton returns and marries her. Along with the sentiment and the romantic devices in the novel, there are many lightly ironical comments on atti­ tudes, manners, and inequalities: the author seems never to be carried away or subjectively involved. Perhaps it was the sense of Howells1 fundamentally realistic point of view, beneath all the complex structure, that made the reviewers uneasy and distrustful, even though they found much to praise.

In A WomanT s Reason the critics found light, agreeable read­ ing and a stronger story element than usual. They admired

Helen Harkness as a likable, sympathetically portrayed char­ acter, though not wholly new, and found the minor figures wall drawn. They noted a fine quality of thought and style, a gentle satire, and sensible implications with regard to the training and the work of women. While all the reviewers liked the "graphic narrative" of Robert Fenton's adventure, the writer for the Dial declared It worthy of Defoe. Indeed, the book was the author's most ambitious one, and indicated

"a larger conception of the scope, opportunities, and re- 2 8 sources of his art.'1 Howells, ho decided, was apparently making more progress than his fellow novelists, Bret Harta and Henry James: Harte's current story, JEn the Carq.uinez

Woods T was in "lurid contrast" to A Woman's Reason because its characters were unreal and offensive; Dais;/ Miller was l6> a mistake for James because he lacked "dramatic instinct."

In the midst of his superlatives on Howells, the critic re­ marked that the work would receive the habitual criticisms,

"but at the same time it will be the most complete defence ho has ever made for pursuing the methods which he marked out for himself."

Actually, the unfavorable comments were rather subdued, almost perfunctory, and after I883 the novel was largely for­ gotten. H. L. Scudder thought that Howells’ new emphasis on

"story" might gain more readers without increasing the worth of his art. And though Helen Harkness had her attractive points, he looked for character "a little more enduring, a little more expressive of every-day capacity for greatness."

The reviewer for the Literary World hoped that Howells and

James would never lose sight of the truth that the artist should allow reality to suggest, but never to dictate. Only the writer for the Critic stated very plainly that he wished to be taken to the heights, not dragged through every-day experienc os:

If there are no crises and salient features in [Bolen’s] life, let us take her as a 29 subordinate character, an illustration, an at­ tendant in a more worthy action. Let us have power and movement, the clash of forcible ele- ments--a dramatic energy which kindles our better nature; and when we have repose, let it be restful and not irritating. (Ill, 5l8)

Howells' humorous, shrewd finished touches were all very well, but the critic wanted "closer dramatic intensity."

It Is not surprising that certain features of A Woman'3

Reason pleased the reviewers, for In cart it seems a conces­ sion to the popular taste. The episode of Robert Fenton's shipwreck and heroism was the first extended romantic action that Howells had employed. Together with the varied local situations that Helen found herself In, it obviously accounts for the claim of a larger conception and scope. nonetheless, two of the critics displayed their aversion to the detailed commonplaces---liov/evsr inoffensive morally. Lven If they could not complain here of unpleasant characters, motives, and Incidents, they could denounce the realistic method and selection of material. In tone and subject, A Woman's Reason is closer to the novels of the l870's than it is to AModern

Instance. Howells conceived much of the plot in 1 8 7 8 , as indicated by two of his letters, and It is not surprising that he included a few romantic incidents and devices similar to those in A Foregone Gonelusion (1875) and The Lady of the

Aroostook (1879)* But there is something paradoxical In con­ tinuing his earlier mode after he had written A Modern Instance.

In a letter to Roswell Smith, dated November 1 9 , 1882, Howells wrote: 30

I am glad that A Woman' s Reason pleases you, so far. I find it as I go on a most difficult and delicate thing to handle, but I hope to make it justify itself. I don’t expect everybody to agree with it, but I shall try to interest every­ body, and to give them something to think about. 17

Howells seems to have anticipated objections to his ironical criticism of Boston society and his reflections on the ine­ qualities and injustices of existence. The inference is that he employed his heterogeneous elements consciously in 1 8 8 2 , both to enaertain and stimulate varied readers and to com­ plete an old project. A V/oma n 1 s Reason, Ind ian Summe r (1886), and April Hopss (1888), which in consecutive order followed

A Hodern Instance, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1S85), and The

I.linister 1 s Charge (lS87)--all graver novels--suggest that

Howells was inclined to seek relief in lighter subject matter after dealing with sombre themes. He seldom mixed romance so freely with his realism after 1 8 8 3 * but evidently he had already lost the confidence and the sympathy of the critics.

The Rise of Silas Lapham, published In 1885, attracted the full attention of the critics again. Almost unanimously, they acknowledged the power and the vitality of the novel; yet, after describing those qualities which they found good, they attacked It even more sharply than they had attacked A

Modern Instance. Apparently they had been Inclined to look upon A Woman’s Reason, with its air of gentility and its ro­ mantic episode, as a kind of temporizing effort by Howells, 31 and so-had suspended final judgment of him. But the note

of disappointment and bitterness in their reviews of the new

book suggests that the critics had relinquished any hope of

altering the course of Howells 1 fiction. Therefore, they

denounced it.

According to the reviewers, The Rise of Silas Lapham

showed a stea.dy growth in the author's power. It dealt with

a subject that was real and significant, it treated problems

of character and social conditions comprehensively, it re­

vealed the "deep high seriousness" and the sensitivity of

the artist. Moreover, It displayed to good effect Howells'

cleverness, grace, and simple, direct style. These somewhat

vague remarks, phrased In terms no more precise or pointed

■j O than the ones used here, appeared in most of the criticism. 1

Otherwise, the favorable comments were few. Several writers

singled out Silas Lapham as a worthy, vivid creation, "a

character of his time and nation," but sometimes they pro­ ceeded to counterbalance this opinion. H. T. Peck alone con­

sidered Lapham the most remarkable portrait in Howells. Also, he praised the interview between Silas and Bartley Hubbard--

"a miracle of condensed pictorial power, in which each word

goes with swiftness and precision to the mark"— and evaluated 19 the book finally as nearly a great one. The Critic reviewer conceded openly that the book was fair and moral, "even If it does not touch the deepest springs or inspire the most lasting and enthusiastic appreciation"J The Catholic World declared, 32 with ominous overtones, that it was the "most scientifi­ cally realistic” novel ever written; II. T. Parker concluded his article rather apologetically with the observation that

in any case Howells1 work was of importance in the develop­ ment of ”a new era in Snglish fiction.” The most startling pronouncement was that of Maurice Thompson: ”ln !The Rise

of Silas Lapham,' he has tried to be purely and simply real­

istic, but in failing he has made his very strongest ro- pA inaneo.11 Thompson's view was that in spite of ”all the photographic detail" the book gave the "effect” of romance, but the critic did not explain the basis of that "effect.”

In the mass of adverse comments there was no lack of explicit detail or protracted explanation. The critics ob­

jected to what H. S. Scudder called the abnormality and exaggeration of the plot; they perceived only slight connec­ tion between the Laphams r relation with Rogers and their relation with the Coreys; they found Implausible the develop­ ments In the Irene-Penelope-Tom triangle. Some of them

expressed strong feelings with regard to defects in the char­ acters. According to one writer, Silas was first shown to be coarse and egotistical, and then In the crucial scenes was treated as a man of subtle thought and feeling. Others contended that the portrait of Silas was cold and unsympa-

thetic--a "literal, merciless representation" that awakened no pity or love In the readers. 33

There is no inspiration for any one in the character of Silas Lapham. It rouses no tender or elevating emotion, stirs no thrill of sym­ pathy, suggests no ideal of conduct, no notion that the world at large is or can be any less ugly than Lapham and his paint. 21

As for the feminine characters, the critics found them

equally distasteful. The Nation expressed the general

attitude towards them:

. . . The women, especially the young women, are deplorably unattractive, and, moreover, if they represent any truth, it is only half a truth, and the worst half at that. If the young women Introduced by Mr. Howells in the novels wherein he stands committed to Realism are representative, the 'Woman Movement' In New England should be towards reform of temper and restriction of the freedom of the tongue. 22

Irene Lapham was considered "a gross caricatupe" of the

Boston grammar-school girl; Penelope, Ma most unpleasant

and unnatural" person whom it was incredible that Tom Corey

should fall In love with.

All the defects noted above (along with others merely

implied) were laid finally at the door of realism. In

language stronger than that directed against A Modern In­

stance the critics reinforced the earlier arguments with

fresh charges. H. W. Mabie, who used his review primarily

as a springboard for an assault on the genre, was most com­

prehensive. In his explanation of the faults of the people

3-n "Phe Rise of Silas Lapham he voiced the opinions of his

fellows:

Mr. Howells never identifies himself with his characters; never becomes one with them in the 3 k vital fellowship and communion cf the imagina­ tion; he constructs them with infinite patience and skill, but he never, for a moment, loses consciousness of his own individuality. He is cool and collected in all the emotional crises of his stories; indeed, it is often at such mo­ ments that one feels the presence of a diffused satire, as if the weakness of the men and women whom he is describing excited a little scorn in the critical mind of the novelist. The severest penalty of the persistent analytic mood is borne by the writer in the slight paralysis of feeling which comes upon him at the very moment when the pulse should beat a little faster of its own mo­ tion; in the subtle skepticism which pervades his work, unconsciously to himself, and like a slight frost takes the bloom off all fine emotions and actions. 23

To illustrate his point, Mabie compared Howells with Daudet

(this was a popular comparison during the period). He found

similarities in their methods of fiction and a resemblance

between The Rise of Silas Lapham and The Nabob. Both writers

practiced "the art of a refined realism"; but Daudet was

"false to his theory and true to his art." The manner in which he handled the Nabob, Mabie felt, should have suggested

a similar treatment of Silas Lapham. "The Nabob is always

touched by a soft light from the novelist's heart; poor Silas

Lapham shivers in a perpetual east wind." ^ Then, moving

towards a broader consideration of the problem, Mabie re­

peated the earlier objections to those figures that were

clearly outside the limits of polite society:

Realism is crowding the world of fiction with com­ monplace people; people whom one would positively avoid coming in contact with in real life; people without native sweetness or strength, without ac­ quired culture or accomplishment, without that touch of the ideal which makes the commonplace significant and worthy of study. (IV, Ip23) The most virulent denunciation of Howells and the analytic method appeared in the anonymous review "Novel-

Writing as a Science," in the November 1885 issue of the

Catholic World (XLII, 27^-280)« The critic declared that

Howells was really a skillful mechanic or anatomist who despised art and regarded novel-writing as a science* In

The Rise of Silas Laoham he had produced a finished "scien­ tifically realistic" treatise compared with which Zola's books were "as the awkward gropings of an amateur." It was

incorrect to equate Howells' "exact, minute realism" with photography, however, for photography aimed at the pictur- esque--at being as close to art as possible. In contrast,

the realism of Howells should be compared to a series of

scientific diagrams:

It is not Mr* Howells' details that offend the artistic eye; it Is the plans, the sections, the front elevations, the isometric projections he gives of his subjects. He studies men and women as a naturalist does insects. (XLII, 276-277)

Howells investigated and expounded with a soullessness and an absence of emotion that made Henry Jame3 appear senti­ mental; for James was capable of "receiving impressions" and"retaining some smack of art."

The critics extended their case by arguing that a realistic work like The Rise of Silas Lapham not only lacked beauty and Ideality but contained indecency, immorality, and godlessness. "Except in literary form," wrote the Nation 3 6 critic, "it has, of course, no beauty. And it is in this studied ignoring of beauty, this expenditure of power on the essentially unbeautiful, that the Realist of the passion- 25 less every-day falls short of high or good art'.1 In reveal­ ing his animus against scientific analysis, the writer for the Catholic World went further, making the extreme indiet- ment of Howells and his book:

Novels like Silas Lapham mark a descent, a degradation. Of course art is debased when it has fallen so low into realism. Art is ever pointing upward, and the Influence of true art upon man is to make him look upward, too, to that vast where his Ideal sits,

1— pinnacled In the lofty ether dim,1

where all Is beautiful, but where all is Immeasur­ able by him until he beholds It with his glorified intelligence. Science points downward, and when science Is unguided by religion, it leads Its fol­ lowers lower and lower Into the mud beneath their feet. And even as we see some scientists making a distinct progress' downward from the study of the higher to that of the lower forms of animal life, so in the novel-writing of Mr. Howells we can already mark this scientific decadence. (XLII, 278)

As an instance of that decadence, the critic noted the scene involving Zerrilla, her husband, her mother, and Silas--a scene which, "for hopeless depravity both In the author and subject, out-Zolas Zola." As a whole, the book was without heart or soul, religion or sympathy; its moral tone was un­ pleasantly, hopelessly bad; it was a descent to dirt (XLII,

278-279)» The final word to be added was that of II.W. Mabie, who in his more urbane general deliberations had arrived at 37 the same conclusions: "Modern realism is* in a word? prac­ tical atheism applied to art. It not only empties the world p/1 of the Ideal, but . . . it denies * the good God'. ..."

Although the theory and method of realism, as a causa­ tive force, received the brunt of their attack, the critics did not fail to revive previous judgments of Howells* personal limitations. His very employment of the mode, they decided, was evidence of his lack of insight and imagination and dramatic power. He substituted "patience for genius, observation for insight, analysis for synthesis of character"

He lacked the high faith and the sympathy essential for true art. He did not see into the "thoughts and feelings that live at the very basis of man's nature." Consequently, his work was deficient in that vitality and force which characterized the fiction of Turgenev or Bjornson or Balzac-- men who were "masters of realism and yet superior to it."

In Howells are the appearance and action of life, but not 27 the warmth, the "divine inbreathing," the "vital spark."

The idealistic-moralistic critics of Silas Lapham seem to have written with deliberate calculation. Almost Invari­ ably they neutralized any note of praise by their qualifying or adverse remarks. Hor did they concern themselves with fidelity to the facts in the novel or with fair Interpreta­ tion of Howells' intention and meaning. There is exaggeration, for example, in the statement that Silas was first shown tc be coarse and egotistical, and then treated as a man of subtlety and sensitivity. Although he was indisputably crude and boastful, he was also shrewd and imaginative, from beginning to end; his vulgarity was accidental rather than fundamental. That the portrait of Silas was cold and unsympathetic is also inconsistent with the truth: in the last part of the novel the almost tragic sympathy with him is perhaps too evident. Similarly, the widespread complaint that Howells lacked emotion and sympathy had no real founda­ tion in the book. The denunciation of his objectivity seems to be merely another way of attacking his realistic method-- his refusal to idealize and sentimentalize his characters.

Apparently the irony and gentle satire that had pleased the readers heretofore, even though it had dismayed them at times, had become scorching ridicule in their eyes. The old charges with regard to commonplace persons, the analytic method, the absence of the ideal, and the weakness of Insight and imagination were reiterated, and new ones were devised.

The accusation that Howells had succumbed to the analytic method to the extent of rejecting art and adopting the methods of the naturalist v/as obviously a desperate attempt to stop the growth of realism. The novelist was associated with science and, by implication, the theories and the practices of the evolutionists~-all the forces that seemed opposed to

Christian idealism. He was accused of Indecency, filth, and depravity, notwithstanding the fact that (1) the story con­ tains no pernicious events; (2) every unworthy character or 39 incident: is presented in the light of Howells' implicit criticism; a.nd (3) a highly moral act is the main theme of the book. Ironically., even the Zerrllla scene chosen to Illustrate baseness is one that Indicates Christian qualities in Silas--loyalty, trustworthiness, and the sense of individual responsibility. It is likely that what the critics actually resented was the delineation of a coarse, half-unscrupulous business man, the revelation of the cleavage In American social life, and the mildly derogatory treatment of the elite Coreys. In the heat of the denuncia­ tions Lapham's. final act of self-sacrifice was not mentioned.

Unnoticed also was the implication (hardly diverse from religious teachings) that wealth brought difficult problems to the Laphams. But the chief purpose of the critics was evidently to formulate lines of attack on Howells and his art. The devices used here were to be the main weapons of the foes of realism.

After the furor that attended The Rise of Silas Lapham,

Indian Summer (1886) was received with extraordinary calm.

This story of a middle-aged man's near-romance with a young girl and his final drifting Into a match with an old friend was of course unobjectionable on the usual grounds, because it dealt only with members of polite society; it revealed to best advantage Howellsf delicate, graceful artistry; and

It took Italy for Its setting. William M. Payne, writing in

"fck® described the novel as Interesting and artistic, and well within the range of the author’s limitations; but Payne was chiefly interested in discussing the conclu­ sion, which seemed "forced" and"hardly justified by the conditions." In a more notable revieiv, H. E. Scudder com­ mended the portraits of Colville, Mrs. Lina Bowen, and little

Effie, who he felt showed Howells’ "sympathetic, penetrating vision" at Its best. Imogene Graham seemed hardly success­ ful, her idealizing of Colville’s early love affair being

"too weak to sustain the whole structure." The Incidents of the plot were Insignificant too: "We are told rather how the several people behave than what they do." Howells was essentially undramatic, especially In the scene of the carriage accident: he did not make his readers aware of the progress of events or the importance of the action. Comment­ ing on Howells * methods, Scudder called him a naturalist who

"ordinarily depends upon his own highly developed organ of sight for a study of the habits and variation of a few species which have come to interest him." His difficulty, then, was that being a specialist limited the range of his sympathy.

Yet, both Scudder and Anna L. Dawes, in her essay of 1889, recognized the amount of Insight, of heart and mind, revealed « Q 8y Ind ian Summer.

It was Maurice Thompson who continued the onslaught on 29 realism in 1886. He distinguished Howells (and Daudet) from the other realists on the basis that Howells never com­ mitted the gravest sins or totally excluded the romantic 1{-1

element, as his best works--A Foregone Conelusion and The

Und iscovered Country--proved. "His realism is, to a large

degree, simulated. His analyses are Illusions with which he veils genuinely creative operations." With the other

authors of the group, however, Thompson was severe. He

maintained that there was no Instance of genius among the

realistic writers, no "imaginative lift" in their work.

"Realism Is essentially of today and for today, whilst the

ideal creations of genius are for all time." The realists were exponents of decadence who elevated style and humor

above creative force. They stressed man's foibles and vices

instead of

noble instances of self-sacrifice, of lofty as­ piration and of soul-stirring passion. They pre­ fer the commonplace beau to the hero, and nothing so delights them as the business of mildly defaming womankind under the pretense of analyzing unimpor­ tant motives and of drawing the frivolous details of feminine character. Another whim of the realists Is their aversion to having a fiction end pleas­ ingly. (IX, 20)

What Thompson added to the argument for romanticism was the

charge that realism libeled the American woman.

. With The Minis ter's Charge; or The Apprenticeship of

Lemuel Barker (1 8 8 7 ) Howells returned to the treatment of

everyday life in Hew England. The novel concerns an honest,

sensitive, but muddled, country youth who comes to Boston

with strong hopes of earning money and advancement. Befriended

only by the rather weak but well-meaning Rev. Mr. Sewell, whose inadvertent praise had inspired the move to the city,

Lemuel meets with every kind of humiliation, temptation, and adversity. Although he improves, the economic and social barriers are too much for him, and finally, injured physi­ cally and disappointed in love, he returns to the country.

For the first time in Howells 1 work the ugly aspects of

Boston existence are revealed plainly, along with a sense of the injustices and some definite social criticism. It is not one of Howellsr stronger novels, being weak in con­ ception and unity, but it succeeds In revealing a social structure that Is both unfair and, by Implication, unsound.

As might be expected, the reaction was decidedly unfavorable.

Reviewers for the Cr itic, the Hat ion, and the Literary

World analyzed Howells’ realism with varying degrees of censure. The Critic reviewer, by far the most lenient, stated that everything in the book was realistic. The first half, dealing with Lemuel's aspirations, delusions, and disappointments, was touched with sympathy and insight; but

In the last half, Howells' sympathy dropped away, and so did 10 the interest of the reader. The writer for the Hation declared that Howells and James had the "same facility and apparent delight” In baring the secret thoughts and satiriz­ ing the private sentiments of their characters: "For down­ right cruelty and cold-blood In the dissection of the meaner and shabbier part of every man, the one has often proved himself the equal of the other." Yet, James offered some k-3 measure of comfort in The Princess Casamassima, while Howells

"plunges us the more deeply in gloom." The reviewer cried out against realism, asking, Are trivial baseness and petty 31 viciousness the only truths? The Literary World critic had more to say about the difference in method between The

Princess Gasamassima and The Minister's Charge. Hemp/ James held himself above his characters: he analyzed psychological traits and studied "with the elaborate patience of scien­ tific research"; but he kept "an even balance of values" and gave to each person, motive, and action a "colloquial utterance" and a definitely assigned place. On the other hand, Howells

makes himself the companion and intimate of his characters; he sketches their habitat with piti­ less fidelity; he reproduces their speech with marvelous skill; and thus he succeeds in imparting to his pages an aspect of realism which is said to be the despair of his contemporaries. 32

Despite Howells’ "masterly" realism, the critics could find no interest or delight or significance in Lemuel Barker or any other character in the book. It seemed improbable, said the Nation reviewer, that the Rev. Mr. Sewell, "a strained and tiresome person," should feel a responsibility for Lemuel. As the writer for the Critic put it, no person’s whole life was ever altered by a single sentence. If Sewell had never existed, Lemuel "would have gone to town, and been disappointed in town, and sunk to his own level." Moreover, even though he perhaps would have turned out in real life as k h he did in the story, "he should not have been relegated to the domain of art unless the realistic author could

interest us in having him turn out as he did." The Literary World reviewer disposed of the characters in this manner:

Lemuel and TManda G-rier and Statira Dudley form an amusing trio, but it is a question whether there is not too much of them. In real life we do not find them such potent sources of delight, and even in Mr. Howells's hands they sometimes fail to awaken sympathetic emotions. . . . After all, in the passion for companionship with varied types of humanity, Is it not possible to get too near, and thus to lose almost entirely the sense of perspective? 33

The critics agreed that within the limitation of Howells 1 method and views, there were "certain good touches," a

"vitality and warmth of color," a degree of amusement, but they conceded nothing further.

The Literary World reviewer, as he warmed to his task, expressed forcefully and emphatically the basic attitude of his fellows. In his opinion, The Minister1s Charge not only lacked the strength and the high moral purpose of The Ri3e of Silas Lapham, i t also demonstrated "an almost fatal lack of perception of relative values." It was neither

"edifying" nor "stimulating," and would not bear a second reading. The critic would admit the "democratic principle in fiction" and would not restrict the subject, but he felt that it "should be considered in definite relation to some­ thing else." In this novel, however, Howells "is more than democratic--ho Is anarchical. He emphasizes the trivial at k s the expense of the Important." In the business of repre­ senting life as closely as possible, "everything depends on the visual range of the seer." If, then, Howells had become "deliberately myopic" in his study of life, he could not expect readers to attach the same value to his observa­ tions that they did to those of one "who looks upon life 35 from a more elevated position and sees more." To this strong statement of belief, the Hat ion critic added a foot­ note that affirmed the basic assumption of the reviewers and rejected summarily Howells* attempt at social criticism:

It Is a matter of history that we owe our na­ tional leaven of spirituality and intellectual­ ity to Hew England, and no one believes that the stream of ennobling influence has dried at its source. Therefore a series of novels delineating only people devoid of spirituality, and meagrely intellectual, is either a suppression of that part of the truth worth telling, or an indication of the author’s unfortunately contracted vision. (XLIV, 12l{.)

During the same year. In what purported to be a study

of Howells, Maurice Thompson stated merely that the infec­

tious but mild enthusiasm of the earlier stories was gone from The Minister * s Charge and April Hopes„ its successor:

"It is as If a master in watercolor sketching had thrown

all the tenderness out of his atmosphere and had taken to drawing copies of photographs." ^6 Later, a few critics saw

in the characterization of Lemuel, with his strength and weakness, an appealing figure. He illustrated brilliantly, wrote Cornelia A. Pratt in 1899* the acute sympathy and the if-6 deep understanding that made Howells an "apt historian 37 of puritan youth."

The attitude taken by these reviewers toward the

objective method is queerly ambivalent. In some instances

they seemed to prefer a close sympathetic interpretation of

a character; in others, they apparently wanted a cool, de­

tached presentation. The damning of Howells at one point

for being too cold and Impersonal and at another for being

too intimate and sympathetic suggests either a confused

notion of objectivity or a moral bias determined by the

type of character involved. What is clearly evident Is

that under no circumstances would Lemuel Barker have been

a satisfactory protagonist to the critics. He soars too

near the ground, he is too much affected by common aspira­

tions and vanities and weaknesses, he fails to master the

conflicts which face him. Whan the critics denied any sig­

nificance in Lemuel and any responsibility on the part of

Sewell, they denied both the importance of Lemuel's peers

and the responsibility of polite society for what might happen to them. They rejected Howells' study of lowly life as

a distorted view of reality; therefore they could dismiss his social criticism and his doctrine of complicity. The

reviewers were so Intent on condemning the story and its meaning that they made no effort to deal with form, although

there Is a real fault in the uncertain shifting of the

central consciousness back and forth between Lemuel and b-l Sewell, with certain passages presided over by the omnis­ cient author. It is not surprising that to critics who insisted on the goodness and the justice of American life and the ideal, moral office of fiction Howells would seem "anarchical" In this novel. No doubt they regretted that they had exhausted their superlatives of denunciation on The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Howells* next book, April Hopes (1888), drew the atten­ tion of reviewers who took opposing attitudes toward It. The novel Is essentially the love story of young, compromising,

eager-to-please Dan Mavering and idealistic, puritanical

Alice Pasraer. The basic conflict of their characters pro­ vokes a series of broken engagements before they marry, and provides situations that allow many perceptive, ironic com- ments--by Howells and the minor characters--on compromise, complicity, and the unreality of happiness. Again the set­ ting and the people are "genteel," but the author's view of love and marriage (quite apart from that of the lovers ) is far from being the accepted romantic one. The Literary

World (XIX, Jan. 21, 1888, 20) emphasized the light sure

touch, the humor, and the sympathy that, notwithstanding

the common scenes and incidents, resulted in a "subtle,

exquisite, refined interpretation. . . There are deeper things in life than Mr. Howells sees, but what he does see he reproduces with a poetical grace that Is inimitable." In contrast, the Nation was neither so gracious nor so super­ ficial. According to that organ, April Hopes could give pleasure only to the "literary sense," to the appreciation of irony and accurate expression. It lacked charm and sympathy, for Howells analyzed the characters unmercifully:

". . . He digs fathoms deep for them, he tosses them to and fro in broad daylight, he gives to the molehill of frailty the prominence of a mountain of depravity." Yet, rather

than any evil passion or sin, he exposed only the "tendency

to dry rot," with the "parasitical growth of censoriousness,

spite, double-dealing, hypocrisy, and affectation round the trunk of Puritan righteousness." The Nat ion reviewer then disclosed his real quarrel with the novel--Its lack of

id eality:

'April Hopes,' like all the author's works, is, in a conventional moral sense, above reproach; but its tendency to blight germs of spirituality is hardly less harmful to character than is the corrupting influence of novels which describe the base or vicious sides of life. No one is the bet­ ter of its trivial worldly wisdom, while the young and impressionable are apt to be the worse. 38

A third notice, in the Dial for March 1888, was sketchy, but even more bitter and uncompromising than the one just quoted

For lack of human interest of any attractive sort, this novel outdoes any of its predecessors, while its characters— of the class which Mr. Howells presumably Intonds to represent as refined--are distinguished above their earlier prototypes for vulgarity both of thought and expression. (VIII, 268)

The harshness of the Nat ion and the Dial is understandable, if not justifiable, for April Hopes was perhaps more damaging to romantic conceptions than an earthy story

like The Minister 1s Charge.

In 1889 Howells published Annie Kilburn, which also

Tailed to gain the approval of the critics. It is the story of a woman’s ineffectual attempt to carry out her vague philanthropic humanitarian ideas in a narrow Massachusetts

town. Largely through the words of Rev. Mr. Peck (a radical

zealot whose daughter Is named, symbol, ically, Idella), much

social criticism is expressed in the novel. The reviewers found only the characterization of Ralph Putney and Annie

Kilburn, lfthe best example of the Puritan type of today,"

and the treatment of Mrs. Hunger's theatricals to be worthy

of praise. (The Hation objected violently, however, to the

spectacle of the drunkard Putney, "an acknowledged aristocrat

. . . with a refined wife," talking like "a jocose and Illit­

erate ’drummer.’") They protested first of all that Howells was becoming tiresome:

The market Is falling, and Annie Kilburn does not arrest the decline. . . .A close, clever deli­ cate cabinet picture, microscopic in detail, in­ genious in its fidelity, very real, very true, very lifelike, but very thin and small, contract­ ing the mind instead of expanding it, and not leading particularly anywhere. 39

Instead of dealing with "the traditional Hew England spirit and intellect," declared the Nation, it dealt chiefly with

trivialities and "censorious tattle" about a "disagreeable community." The Literary World pursued the point further: 5 o

,fAnd after the readerTs enjoyment of the realism is overs his question is, what good has come of it?” Although the object to "discuss certain theories and methods of social amelioration’* was commendable, the book offered no cheerful solution. "In fact its atmosphere is on the whole sad and depressing. We should call it a painful rather than a pleasant personal history. 11 ko The complaint of boredom made here was a new accessory to the arguments for idealism and entertainment. Also, it seems probable that the mild­ ness of the criticism was due to HowellsT obvious intention of suggesting social reform (an effort not to be sneered at) as well as the critics1 wish to lend the impression of tediousness and unimportance.

A Hazard of Hew Fortunes, in 1 8 9 0 , received a greater response than any other novel by Howells since 1885. Every reviewer was impressed by the ’’wider outlook,” the "deeper insight,” the "expansion of sympathy,” the "sensitiveness to tragedy.” G. W. Curtis, writing in the "Editor's Easy

Chair" of Harper*s Monthly, called it a novel of New York life in a larger sense, ”a microcosm of America,” created with the earnestness, the force, and the humanity of sincere art. "It shows that New York supplies all the elements and conditions that creative fiction requires, and that their proper romantic effect demands the realism, as it Is called, which characterizes his genius.” ^ According to the Nation, the book was, like The Princess Casamassima» an "expression of observation of the multiform life of great cities* and of sufficient self-identification with it to produce a faithful and vivid picture." Just as Henry James had heard and under­ stood the cry of humanity in London, so Howell3 had compre­ hended New York: ". . . H e has caught its shrill notes, its weak notes, its false notes, and has recognized the unbroken undertone of tragedy and sorrow." The Nation re­ gretted the time spent on the "inconsequential prattle and finished irony of ladies and gentlemen from Boston, despite the amusement which they have afforded." H. E. Seudder also felt that the method and power evident in A Hazard of New

Fortunes would have given deeper truthfulness to the Boston novels. In his opinion, Howells'had come near to focusing in this book "the ethical and the aesthetic glasses v/Ith which he views life." ^

The reviewers described the characters of the novel as vivid and cleverly portrayed--especially Fulkerson, who was generally considered a masterpiece, Alma Leighton, Beaton, the Marches, and Dryfoos. H. E. Seudder saw a deeper meaning in Lindau and the Dryfoos family: "They ally themselves distinctly with greater problems, with deeper insight of life, and our confidence In Mr. Howells Is increased because of the wise reserve which he has used." Into them Howells had breathed the life of a profound Inspiration and had become an artist "who sees into his creations, and tells less than he knows to the reader." And Basil March was a sympathetic figure "who sees the injustice in which he bears an unwilling part, is opening his eyes gradually to the inconsistencies of modern civilization, yet is painfully aware of his helplessness, and knows enough only to do the nearest duty." Only the Catholic World reviewer, who con­ sidered Lindau the best male figure, spoke out in definite approval of Howells1 social criticism: "lhe evils deplored by Lindau, both in their immoral character and their enormous extent, are real. His indignation is natural and well justi­ fied." Whether or not Lindau’s socialism was a sufficient remedy seemed debatable, but he and his steadfast principles dwarfed "the conventional respectabilities and compromises of March and company into a commonplace and easy sort of virtue." ^ Adversely, the critics deprecated the "uncouth sounds" uttered by Miss Woodburn, the girl from Virginia.

As the austere Critic put it, "The author’s weakness in dia­ lect may yet stir up contention about his right to be called an American novelist." In addition, the magazine rejected

Christine and Mela Dryfoos, finding them "repellent in their savagery." ^ The Gritic reviewer seems to have objected to

Miss WoodburnTs speoch because it was crude, incompatible with the portrait of a lady, and because he felt that Howells did not handle dialect accurately. The reviewer implied that It was unnecessary for an author to represent phonetl- 53 cally all the variations of speech existing in America®

Evidently the use of standard English would have eliminated all the objections to the speech of the girl.

Although two writers commented on the dIsproportlonately slow beginning of the novel*-both of them confessed that they liked it. ^ But several other critics noted faults which they could not excuse. Except for the obvious wit and literary finish* declared the Critic. A Hazard of Hew Fortunes was like the newspapers, The bustle and ado before the founding of "Every Other Week," admirably pictured, suggested the scene from Thackeray's Pendennis in which Bungay, Pen, and

Warrington gathered around the bed in Fleet Prison and re­ ceived from Shandon the prospectus of the new "Pall Mail

Gazette." Yet, the latter episode was "warm and poignant."

In contrast, Howells’ scene, though written with masterly style and delicious humor, "neither lets one forget the rubs of his own individual lot, nor wakens enthusiasm of sympathy for those of his fellow man." ^ The Hation reviewer pointed out that the contrasted wealth and poverty of Haw York had opened Howells’ ears to the "voice of the Socialist," as could be seen through March's reflections and Fulkerson's sallies. However, despite the novelist’s dreams of the day when all would work for the common good, he "suggests no specific for wrongs or grievances." Il h'7 Seven years after­ wards, H. T. Peck attacked A Hazard of Heiv Fortunes along with The World of Chance (1 8 9 3 ). In these novels, wrote Sk- tho critic, there was no more of the unforced humor and the cheerful spontaneity of Howells1 earlier books. Evidently

Howells had become melancholy; ho had begun to feel that he had a "mission": ’’It was in Hew York, apparently, that Mr.

Howells made the discovery that while there are in the world oeople who have plenty of money, there are also people who haven’t any at all to speak of. . . " He had become aware of the existence of labor trouble, tenements, illness, and

t unhappiness !,with naive surprise." 11. . .And fully as pathetic also is the generous lr.it quite inartistic impulse that has led him to spoil his novels in order to impart to others some knowledge of his discovery. '* The literary quality of Howells 1 work had deteriorated:

Who can recall anything of the two books just named except squalor, and unhappiness, and cheap eating-houses, and commonplace characters of all grades of fatuity, and a general feeling that the author evidently thinks the times are out of joint? ip8

On the whole, the reception of A Hazard of Hew Fortunes was quite favorable. Perhaps the shift of the setting, as well as the grasp and the breadth of the novel, helped to gain a more impartial hearing. The familiar charge that

Howells lacked warmth and sympathy is refuted hero by more than one reviewer. The complaint that he offered no solution for tho poverty and wrongs he delineated hardly needs comment, li. T. Peck’s determined attack on tho book was ostensibly based on the theory that with the lato dawning of Howells 1 5 5 social consciousness he lost possession of his artistry., ids humor, his spontaneity. This judgment is sustained no 1 their* by the novol nor by the earlier works. To accuse

Howells of naivete as to the existence of unhappiness and injustices in 1890 is to ignore the testimony of every one of his preceding works« Probably the true causes of Peck's assault were Howells' cogent indictment of the system of competitive capitalism and his presentation of socialist arguments. In his comment on A Traveler from Altruria, Peck spoke bitterly of the "diluted slops of Socialism'1 (The

Personal equation, p. ij.l ) . Tt is noticeable that Lindau,

: expressed tho socialist view, was ra ther pointedly neg­ lect ad by all except Seudder and the Catholic »VorId reviewer.

The Implication is that tho cri tics feared and opposed what

Lindau represented and did not wish to draw attention to what they considered pernicious. Perhaps they felt that he was not the spokesman for Howells and therefore could be

Ignored .

In 1890 Howells also published a short novel called The

Shadow of a Pro am. It Is a psychological study, reminiscent of "The Turn of the Screw, 11 involving the effect of neurotic

Douglas Faulkner's recurring dream on his wife Hermia and his clerical friend Neville. After Faulkner's death tho haunting Influence of his dream keeps the sensitive Hermia and the conscientious Neville apart; and when Neville Is 56

seemingly moved to throw off the restraint, he is crushed to-u a train. The central characters and the actual situa- tion are soon and gradually realized only through the per­ ception and the insight of Basil March. Two reviewers

commended the story because it dealt with individual rela­

tions (quite different from Silas hapham or A Hazara of

Hew Fortunes) and because March displayed "more warmth" and

"sympathy" than usual. They regarded Basil and Isabel as a

kind of chorus expressing the reactions of sensible, dis­ criminating observers, and both admired their portraits.

The Hation critic thought Hermia vague and unsubstantial, disappointingly like other Howells women and not quite equal,

in performance, to the promise of her maturity and "adapt­

ability." The writer for the Critic found a parallel between

the "faithful description ol the death of Hermia’s lover"

and the "portrayal of Anna Karenina." ^ Being new, clever,

and exclusive of social criticism, the book evidently did

not offend the sensibilities of the reviev/ers.

The same periodicals reviewed somewhat lightly Howells’

novelette An Imperative Duty in 1 8 9 2 . It is the story of an

attractive girl v;ho, being seriously courted by a minister,

I3 suddenly told by her conscience-ridden aunt that she has

Negro blood. The problem of ethical behavior faced by Rhoda

Aldgate and the interested, sympathetic attending physician-

Olney (Rhode's aunt had shared the secret with him before telling Rhoda) is resolved for them by marriage and flight

to Italy. Such treatment of this subject in 1892 by a

major author shows considerable daring; it would seem to demonstrate that Howells did not lack courage. To the Nation

reviewer the solution seemed "natural and proper" In the

novel, but "doubtful for general application." He asked,

Would marriage have been commendable if Olney had known of

mixed blood from the beginning? The critic did not answer

his own question, but his implication Is that prior knowledge

of the fact, before Olney had developed an interest in the

girl, would have rendered such a union Immoral. ". . .It

is certain that such marriages increase the war between

temperament and character which Howells declares to be 'the

fruitful cause of misery In the world.-. .'" Also, the

writer thought it debatable whether or not Rhoda's aunt

should have allowed her "hypochondriacal conscience" to drive Cq her to wound other persons.-^ To the Critic reviewer, how­

ever, the book was simply a failure in an "attempt to handle

the race problem." Howells' Ineptness, he declared, was

probably due to his Ignorance of the subject; although he

liked the race "at a distance," the inference was that at

actual contact he would "dislike them cordially." The ques­

tion was far too serious to be treated flippantly, as Doctor

Olney and Howells treated it. ^ There Is no Indication in

An Imperative Duty that Howells was attempting to deal with 58

"the raco problem." The unusual circumstances of the heroine and Olney preclude such an aim. As was customary whenever a challenging subject was posed,this criticism is moral in purpose, general in expression. In any case, the daring of HowellsT enterprise seems to have diverted the concern over realism.

Howells' The Quality of Morey (1 8 9 2 ) is the psycho­ logical study of an embezzler who flees to Canada, leaving his daughters to bear the consequences of his actions. While shallow, weak Northwick alternately fears and hopes and rationalizes, Angeline and Suzette lose first his property and then, after reading his psychopathic public letter, their faith In him. Illness and strain having killed

Angelina, Horthwick finally decides to give himself up, but fall3 dead while an route home. Most of the critics greeted this novel with enthusiasm. The Dial stated triumphantly:

The author has so long sojourned In the strange tents of those realists who conceive themselves Impelled by duty to exercise their art upon the most uninteresting or even repulsive material obtainable, that we feared to have lost forever the old Mr. Howells of "Indian Summer" and "A Woman's Reason."

But Howells had come back with "a story of real human interest^

'fehrewder humor J,' "more deeply spiritualized insight" The book contained all that was best In him and avoided nearly all that was worst:"In Its ethical proportions and envisagement of life, it is as true as 'A Hazard of Hew Fortunes' is false." 59 Other writers approved tho timeliness of the subject matter, a "certain latent power" In its presentation, and strangely,

Howells' fidelity to his "method and aim." The Hat ion went so far as to declare that with the advance in the author's knowledge had come a modification of his former "hardness and coldness of touch"; and,'without a loss of brilliancy,

"his style has gained urbanity, even tenderness, and thus compels a personal affection."

All the reviews emphasized the great insight and anal­ ysis revealed by the portrait of Northwick. In general conception and in minute detail, according to the Critic,

Horthwick was a thoroughly consistent materialist:

The sophistries by which cumulative frauds are made to appear as altruistic sacrifices, the self- pity, the mechanical conscience about trifles In the face of stupendous wrong doing, the self- laudation based upon the fact that in spite of his frauds he was yet implicitly to be true ted -- in fine, all the complex traits and actions that go to make up a character most familiar In our day, are laid before us as it were quivering under the knife. (XX, 262)

To C. D. Warner, Northwick's flight through Canada was symbolic of man’s eternal flight: "The man Is fleeing from himself, and this double action, the reality of movement, with this dodging of a psychological spectre, rises Into the most pitiful tragedy." ^ As for the minor characters, who were generally described by the approving Dial as being

"carefully worked out," only Mrs. Hilary and the journalist

Pinney were noticed. The Nation reviewer somehow found , 55 "genial, light-hearted, yet unscrupulous" Pinney "inspiriting" 6o

In tho opinions of H. S. Seudder and the writer for

the Grl tic, however. The Quality of Mercy was not a marked

success. It was "unnecessarily tame"; it contained"no ele­

ment of entertainment." Although there were some witty

sayings in the earlier pages, uninteresting conversations

soon became dominant. Except for ITorthwick and Mrs. Hilary,

the characters seemed to Seudder too much taken for granted

- -".jrhaps because of Howells ’ familiaritywith thorn. Tho

boo'.'' was inferior to A Ha sard of Hew Fortunes In character-

. on and in tho ,fn 1 ay of worsens." Moreover, as indicated

by tho immod era to If thoughtful comments on embezzlement,

--OwalJs was in danger of over “doing the "essay element in

'’lotion," Seudder took issue also with the Dial 1 s optimis­

tic v 1ew of the future of the work: "» . .To doubt If a novel

jus t if led itself fully when its parsons facie in the mind

of the reader, and a few abstract principles remain as his

o ’ • 1 f p o s s o s 31o ns . " Tlie se adverse remarks are 1 e s s

interesting, less revealing, than the rather excessive praise

of the novel. The praise shows an inclination to accept

the methods and aims of realism so long as the subject

matter Is not commonplace or offensive. Howells’ study

of ITorthwick is as painstakingly detailed as that of any

of tils earlier characters who had been so much reviled; yet

in this case the portrait Is a "profound" and "masterly"

"psychological analysis." Over and beyond Its intrinsic

values, the book seems to have pleased the critics for two 6i ;>ons : it deals mainly with porsono.1 relations and does stir up embarrassing social questions; it fully satis- s the moral requirements of tha readers. It would appear b at least some of tho "genteel" criti.es were willing to oromise on certain external points provided their basic

■.eni;ions were not disturbed.

! 1shed in IS9 3 . It tells of the efforts of a sensitive

sol I--centered young writer, P. B, B. Kay. to make his and to publi sh his novel in New York. As suggested by

111 'i. o. tho impression loft by the random incidents J tho specific argument of one of the characters) is t eari’Ice or chance rules our lives and actions. The

1 and the Nation agreed that it was one of Nowells ’ st admirable books. It contained humor and wit: but hero inspired no affection, his struggles with editors -ui.bl is hors soon became dull, even though "saturated h the wisdom of experience," and the other characters o .largely queer and colorless, Tho Nat ion found an orbunity to deprecate the reforming spirit: "The sketcho; Ur* Hughes and his demented son-in-law, Denton, impress idly the power of constant eoutemplation of social in- tic os and evil to unhinge a very keen intellect and to vo a morbidly emotional man mud." The Dial quipped that y "may be Interesting types in Altruria, but they have 62 57 Tattle sano huma n interest. n In 189!;- Iienry C. Vedder also deprecated the novel and its unsuccessful social reformers, Denton and Hughes. But he lauded Peace Hughes

•y- ,fa genuine woman," drawn "with so much sympathy, so much fidelity, as to make her the strongest and best woman in all his fictions." ^ This criticism shows much the same attitude and bias as that shown toward The Quality of

Herey. In The World of Chance there was 110 crime, with expiation, to satisfy the thirst for the unusual and the morally satisfactory; instead, there was concern with, funda­ mental problems and an idea of life that conflicted sharply with the conception of moral order and progress. It Is probable that only the introduction of the literary world and the struggles of the writer. S. Ray, tempered the com­ ments of the reviewers.

In 1893 also, Howells published The Coast of Bohemia.

This novel is basically the love story of a young art student, who hovers on the fringe of the artistic world in New York, and the successful painter who had first encouraged her.

The critics for the Dial and the Nat Ion made opposing state- ments--all rather external and superficIal--about the novel.

According to one of them, Howells presented a "group of humanly interesting persons leading generally rational lives"

(unlike the "odd creatures" expected of him}; ho revealed his "best powers of serious analysis," relieved by "dry delightful humor"; and, though h© retained the manner of realism, he did not exclude the methods of art. The writer concluded smugly: "It is well that there should be searchings of the soul, but It is not well that they should rob stories

“-as Mr. Howells sometimes permits them to--of their legiti- go mate endings." y Conversely, the Hat ion critic perceived no worthy features In the book other than the clever picture of Gharmian, the "coarse sketch" of Dickerson, and some

"rather bright talk." He charged Howells with blundering as bo the facts of art-student life In New York. Not only did the "preposterously young" hero and heroine advance too fast, but also Howells disregarded the "rank-consciousness" among artists. "The book does not deal at all with the real life of the real art student,’ and the scene is either ’soci­ ety1 or the sham studio of a sham Bohemian who poses as an artist for her own amusement." These animadversions are as unbalanced as the empty praise of the first writer. With­ out seeming aware of the ambiguity of his position, the reviewer accuses Howells of not being genuinely realistic

In the details of the story and denounces him for not repro­ ducing the actual life of the typical art student— an aim denied by Howells at the outset. This criticism is oddly inconsistent \i\rith the idealistIc-moralistIc point of view.

A Traveler from Altruria C189^1-)» which was called a 6l "romance," according to Marrion Wilcox, because It dealt with types and not with characters, received two notable reviews. Both stated that although the description of

Altruria was vague Howells discussed the difference betv/een theory and practice in America with clarity, force, and vivacity. "It would be difficult, if not impossible," wrote

S. Kirk in the Atlantic Monthly, "to find elsewhere, in so short a space, so able and clear-sighted a report of the trend and status of our social life." Kirk thought that

Howells gave perhaps an exaggerated importance to the "intan­ gible questions of private and social Intercourse," putting them on a level with the "major problems" of economics, com­ petition, and labor; yet, in general, he found truth In the book. It presented a new synthesis of the theme treated by Carlyle In Past and Present. But whereas Carlyle attrib­ uted evil to the spread of democracy and the weakening of individual ties of responsibility and duty, Howells saw It as a departure from the democratic Ideal and a denial of the principle of equality. They would agree that extreme individual freedom was the dangerous element, and both would turn to love as a solution. But Carlyle mixed it with obedi­ ence and rightly exercised authority; Howells, with equality.

Showing a combination of "rapt conviction" and skillful argu­ ment, Howells appealed to "that Christian ideal of brotherly love which we outwardly profess, and to that democratic ideal of equality we openly despise." Also, Howells examined the 65 intellectual grounds on which, are based our theory of laissez falre and our habit of regarding the majority of our fellow-beings with "stereotyped contempt." The peculiar strength of HowellsT protest, the critic decided, lay in its attention to both the emotional and the intellectual sides. ^

While Kirk was sympathetic in his treatment of the book, the Nation reviewer was largely skeptical. Howells seemed to argue, he noted, that goodness existed only in the ’working man; there was no evidence that manual labor

•was necessarily "a purifier of the spirit." Furthermore, the author failed to explain how the ideal change in human nature ’would come about. The critic asked, V/hy had the prolotarians, who were obviously the voting majority, per­ sisted in electing corrupt, vicious men to control public affairs? And even if the literary class was meekly obeisant to wealth and fashion, "so arrant a snob and cad" as the host of the Altrurian would be hard to find® The reviewer con­ cluded that Howells had painted the details of his picture f T much ’worse than they actually were. ^ Throe years later, il, T. Peck scornfully attacked the whole conception of the book. Howells was not going to set the times right, if they wore "out of joint,"

by publishing vague pictures of Altruria, and asperging £sicj all of us with his diluted slops of Socialism. For everything will go on precisely as before; and all that he will have accomplished will be the transformation of a great literary artist into a gloomy and ineffectual Bellamy. 6if 66

Going beyond a healthy view of existing social conditions, the novelist had developed a "semi-pessimistic" theory of life. In the criticism of A Traveler from Altrurla, Kirk displayed an empathy that allowed him to consider Howells' ideas with imagination and understanding. On the other hand, the Nation critic and H. T. Peck expressed two kinds of conservative reaction that might be expected against a bool:; that criticizes so severely American values, principles, and practices. Both the practical objections of the one and the philosophical argument of the other are in the final analysis a materialistic resistance to any question or change of the status quo.

Although he Included no comment on A Traveler from

Altruria, Henry C. Vedder had a great deal to say about

Howells in American Writers of Today (I89I4-). Year after year, wrote Vedder, the novelist had shown an increase of power, more complete mastery of the resources of his art, a larger view, a more ample spirit. There was nothing "more romantic or Idyllic" In the Marches of Their V/edding Journey than in the Marches of A Hazard of Hew Fortunes. Any real change in his art, such as that indicated by The World of

Chance, was due to the pernicious influence of Tolstoy. For tho most part, Howells had remained a realist, following a well-defined aim to represent life. But art was naturally 67 a selective process. Throughout the years the choice of subjects* of materials* had been dictated mainly by their capacity to please* for in art the "chief function Is to please and ennoble*'1 The great artists had always appealed to the moral as well as the aesthetic faculties; they knew that trivial or vile subjects Inspired only ennui or disgust.

Of course, Howells had not chosen the vilo--"His one villain,

Bradley £sicj Hubbard, is so ill done, in comparison with his other work, as to suggest lack of knowledge of this fcypo"--nor had he ever* attempted to draw the bad woman.

"But the trivial, the commonplace, he has exhibited in sea­ son and out, especially In his representations of American women." Even though he had made "a faithful and lifelike picture of the thing chosen,"- one might quarrel with his choice: "one type of character and one sort of experienceV

In effect, Vedder restated in a moderate way tho basic reasons for the wide-spread dissatisfaction with Howells.

The next full-length novel by Howells, The Landlord at

Lion13 Head, was published in 1 8 9 7 * ^ It is the psychological study of the development of strong, animalistic, practical, amoral Jeff Durgin, who succeeds in spite of, or perhaps because of, his lack of a real conscience or an ethical char­ acter. After his meager beginnings In a mountain farmhouse

Jeff attends Harvard (where he remains a "Jay"), dangles on tho periphery of society, has experiences with several girls. visits Europe, marries, and attains his early desire

to bo the proprietor of the hotel at Lion's Head. The story

L, related objectively, largely through the revealing c on­ ce iousness of We stover, a sensitive painter who befriends, :«nd to some degree sponsors, tho Durr in family. In the .Lhur reviews of some merit the booh roeo 1 vud fine praise- writer for Harper ! s llagaz Inc d is II Iced the treatment of

:i.vrvard, on trie grounds that it was "too obvious and ox- .. but: John D. harry, in the Booh Buyer, expressed

an oppos 1 t o opinion: tha t Ilowells presented "an absolutely ye study of a phase of tho sue ia'l life at Harvard College .-.d.-u t vhich very .tittle is known by tho world in general V"5 ^

f■: j or I tics found insight, sympathy, and truth to reality

’ the novelist’s artistic handling of Nev.’ England life and

character. One of the writers, who was thankful .for the

a. be once of "soc iological theories," interpreted the bool: as "a putting of Providence on trial for creating a world in

which the Jeff Durgins are successful and happy men." All of them considered Jeff a vivid figure, strong and individ­ ual. Two critics praised V/hitwell: "There has not been

drawn anywhere in fiction recently a person so ‘convincing,’ no absolutely of the soil and the Isolated country life as

the rural philosopher Whitwell"; two especially admired the portrait of clever Bessie Lynde. who, according to the Grit ic reviewer, showed that Howells was capable of creating more than two typos of women--the nshaIlow-and-affable11 and the

"grim-and-consclent Ionsn; and J. D. Barry declared that

Cynthia Whitwell, because of her simplicity, her seriousness, 68 and her poise, was Howells’ most lovable feminine creation.

This criticism is kind and appreciative, and implies an ele­ ment of gratefulness on the part of the reviewers that

Howells avoided the social criticism and speculation that had been so prevalent since 1887 -

Howells’ little novel An Open-Kyed Conspiracy, published later in 1897* did not get such unanimity of opinion. It is a realistic sItuation-study centering on the efforts of

Basil and Isabel March, sojourning in Saratoga, to see that beautiful young Julia Sage has a good time. They enlist the aid of Kendrick {also of A Hazard of New Fortunes), who is fascinated by the girl, and gladly assists. Whan the young couple become engaged, Julia reveals a facet of her char­ acter In addition to her plain-mindedness--a strong will that subdues the objections of her ultra-materialistic father. The first-person account by March allows for a gradual revelation of Julia’s personality and a great deal of witty, ironic comment without the Intervention of the author. In the

Atlantic Monthly (Dec. 1097)* Harriet W. Preston welcomed the book with something like satisfaction:

Mr. Howells has been for a long period so anxiously and almost morbidly preoccupied with American types and social portents and problems 70

that it is a great pleasure to find him. in An Open-Eyed Conspiracy, dropping into something like the gay and engaging manner of former days. (LXXX, 8^9 )

This was a light story, Miss Preston continued, "a true

though slight product of the ’season of rest and mellow

fruitfulness.1" She joined the critic for the Book Buyer

in praising the "subtle humor" and the "vivid picture" of

Saratoga, done with "photographic precision" and "a disdain

of the methods of mere impressionism which warms one's

heart." Her only adverse remark was conceptual; that March

showed himself "too sensitive to material contrasts and

conditions." The Book Buyer critic found "brilliant char­

acterisation" in the "swift description" of Julia’s father

and in the dialogue between him and March. Prom the slight­

ness of the plot and the prosaic traits given to Julia,

the critic reasoned that Howells meant to show "the ridic­ ulous incongruity of so many American marriages.

In direct contrast to these writers, the reviewer for

the Literary World saw no value in the novel. It was "a

far cry" from Howells' early work, he pronounced, and was

to be let alone If one wished to preserve " a n y still linger­

ing taste for his stories." "The scene of this colorless work Is laid in Saratoga, but It might as well have been

laid in a railroad station for all the dreary waste spread before the reader." In fact, the critic did compare the

story with the meeting of Anna Karenina in the railroad sta­

tion, and felt 71

the difference between the man of imagination and the man whose mind dwells on commonplace and sordid Images. There is little or no plot to Mr. Howells’s story, and the character draw­ ing is v/eak and purposeless. 70

In spite of the different positions taken here, this criti­

cism remains within the idealistic-moralistic pattern. And

yet It shows a rift In the fabric. The more liberal critics were pleased by the light, genial early manner of Howells,

the absence of any profound implications or character

studies, and the accurate description, which they apparently had come to prefer to the more recent Innovation of impres­

sionism. They disclose more rigid ’’genteel*' attitudes, how­

ever, In insisting on a didactic meaning of the story and

in chiding Basil March for being too conscious of social

ancl economic differences. On- the other hand, the Literary

Tor Id reviewer displayed the unregenerato point of view of

the true conservative: he would not accept artistry, grace­ ful style, and light tone as reparation for the lack of the

idealistic and the romantic. The traditional structure appeared to be weakening, but it was still operative.

The Story of a Play {IQ9 8 ) concerns largely the domestic relations of Srice Maxwell and his new wife, Louise Hilary

(both from The Quality of Mercy), as he struggles to finish his play and get it produced successfully. The problems of the dramatist, the complex psychology of Louise, and the eccentric actor Launcelot Godolphin are, in perhaps that 7<’2 opder, the notable features of the bool:. Of the two rev lev/s of any substance, one was flattering, the other, condescend­ ing. In the Book Buyer, G. 1,1. Hyde wrote that this novel had more repose, more detachment, and more humor than A Hodorn Instance. He detected In it a "strain of romance” that lent "piquancy, " and "shop-tall:" that was both true and "delicately satirical." The Dial reviewer described t he b o o k a s a. p 1 e asing add it io n to "flic c ha inn i ng t r i v i a 1 - it i e s to vfnich Hr. Howells has chiefly devoted himself of

1 ate years*" He noted that Howells’ usual procedure was bo choose "some closely circumscribed chase of experience," to make it the subject of "the most searching and minute obser­ vation," and to develop Its "utmost possibilities." If, however, the result might be compared to the "carving of cherry-stones," the carving was neatly done. Hyde approved

the characterization of Godolphin and Louise, even though she was the "usual" Howells woman--"timorous, affectionate, petulant, repentant, idealistic, Inconsistent." Yet he deprecated as "bad fashion" the "connubial silliness"; . .Some of the. . .cuddling and tickling scenes are dis­ tasteful to a mere man." On the other hand, the Dial re­

viewer showed a definite aversion to Louise, who was another woman drawn to prove "so exasperating" to feminine readers:

"lb is all very well by way of semi-satIrical pastime, but women are sometimes rational beings.. . . " more severe was the. writer of a brief notice in the Literary World „ who struck hard against the "jealous, illogical, touchy, pro- 71 voicing. . -female monster" in the book. For a novel based so largely on ordinary domestic relations and sprinkled freely with disenchanting comments on love and marriage, Hyde gave some undeserved praise, while the othe ir.Yo writers seem to have overlooked what is of value in the book. The novel is definitely realistic, despite the amusing coincidence that brings the Maxwells into the anartment building of Mrs. Harley, the actress; and it gives insight into the aims, the problems, and the dilemma

’ t l 13 dramat i s t. Since 11 con ta ined no broad, dir ec t

• ‘ ol criticism, the reviewers apparently could ignore the iconoclastic note and regard the book as romantic, skillfully detailed work. They showed little interest in

Howells’ views of the theater, but they did not fail to protest volubly against the "libel on American women."

In The Personal Equation (1 8 9 8 ), H. T. Peck expressed a view of Howells that was to be widely adopted by later critics. Howells was to be considered as one who had "set before himself the task of picturing the life of his own age and of analyzing its spirit and Its tendencies," By the circumstances of training, experience, and exceptional gifts he "ought to grapple successfully with the difficul­ ties that have proved Insurmountable to so many others." 7b But two limitations prevented his male in *3 a supreme success:

Ills lon^ residence In Boston and his subsequent Identifica­ tion with New York. In the critic’s opinion, Boston had strengthened Howells’ already excessive repression and subjectivity:

That Mr. Howells, with New England traits already so sharply accentuated, should have been definitely and Irrevocably stamped with the New England In­ fluence, must therefore be regarded as a distinct misfortune to American literature; for It has nar­ rowed his marvellous gifts of delineation to a single sphere and made him the novelist of a sec- t ion, when his genius might otherwise have become broadly national. 72

'71th ’’th e stronger and stronger spell of Boston," there was leer and loss of the ’’comparative freedom and spaciousness" apparent in The Lady of the Aroostook, A Modern Instance, and The Rise of Silas Lapham,' Paradoxically, the critic followed these statements with denunciations typical of thru Idealistic-moralistic creed. Howells became Individ­ ualistic; he abused his gift of observation by accumulating a multiplicity of trivial details; he let "microscopic fidelity" replace his broader sympathy. Even though his people were individually realistic, in combination they were often unre a 1, s Lowing no life, movement, or spontaneity:

"One is reminded of a painting in which every figure is admirably finished, but in which, nevertheless, the effect 73 of the whole 13 stiff and wooden." This criticism is a cllx* miiC ture of res.listic elements and conservative romantic ism. 75

Tho next book by Howells,, Rapped Lady (l899)>^ Is

somewhat different from the kind of novel he had been writ­

ing since A Foregone Conclusion. Although it includes many realistic details, there is a romantic air about it-~partly because it is a Cinderella story. Born to a crude rural

life, Clementina Claxon has such charm, dignity, and poise,

along with her beauty, that Mrs. Landa, a rich widow, takes hor as a companion to New York and Italy. Clementina enjoys male attention and a considerable social whirl, but she

never entirely loses her sense of basic values. During all

this time Mrs. Landa has recurring illnesses that lead,

finally, to her death. Clementina discovers that nothing remains of Mrs. Landa's fortune except small bequests to relatives. The girl returns to America and marries a man who lives only a few years; at the close of the book she

is on the verge of a second marriage. The three Interested reviewers wore pleased with the novel, seeing It as a ro­ mance "pure and simple," full of the "familiar mannerisms

and individualities,'1 the "peculiar charm," of Howells' early work. Clementina stood out as an old-fashioned heroine, refreshing for her sweetness, simplicity, and poise; the delicately portrayed minor figures commanded interest. In

spite of her appealing qualities, Clementina seemed a trifle

"anemic" and "often overly conscientious" to the Dial re­ viewer . To the critic for the Literary World, however, the novel was "'marred only by the tiresome, phonetic spelling of the New England dialect."^ T h a t the reviewers should so applaud one of Howells’ weakest novels indicates how strong the old preferences were, There is little unity in the story; some of the events seem implausible; and the characters, even Clementina, are not bodied forth convinc­ ingly, except in the early portraits of the Landas. But fire critics were not concerned with those aspects; they

W'_; I corned the mood of the fairy tale, the element of enter­ tainment, the foreign scenes. No doubt the idea of an

American girl from an ordinary poor family exciting the

interest and the admiration of sophisticated society in

Europe was also attractive. Beyond the fine scruples of

Clementina, they objected only to the representation of dialact--an old bone of contention to the traditionalists, but in the late l8 9 0 Ts considered boring and out of fashion.

During 1 3 9 9 also, Howells published the two-volume

Trieir Silver Wedding Journey, which received scanty but

■wholly approving notice. The work is a sequel to The ir

V/edding Journey, Howells’ first novel. This time Basil and

Isabel March, advancing to old age, go to Europe and travel through Germany- Through their softened pei’spective char­ acters and scenes and episodes, including the customary love affair, are quietly revealed. The reviewer for the

Independent jubilantly declared that Howells "for a happy 77 s'jason breaks away from his paralyzing adoration" of Tolstoy and "returns to his natural, sweet self." Here in his old climate, Howells was at his best, with his gentle humor, his genial irony, his fine sympathy, and "ripened and mel­ lowed" matter and style. In the opinion of the reviewer,

Howells was "a romancer by Instinct, . . .a realist by the skin of his teeth." ^6 Writing in the Book Buyer, Edward

3. Martin described the novel as restful, leisurely, inter­ esting; and he found a special significance in the characters of Staller and General Triscoe:

Staller, the ignorant man whose life's one aim has been money-making, and who has no breadth of perception and no mental resource except work, and Triscoe, a man of cultivation, who has stood aside for thirty years, eaten unearned bread and watched, without sharing, the struggle for exis­ tence, are both excellent types of wrong-headed Americans which it is good for us to know and recognize. 77

The kind of realism presented In this book, enlivened by the setting and softened by reflection and sentiment, obviously was not offensive to the reviewers. But it was merely the revival of an old form, with little that was new or provoca­ tive, and it followed most of Howells' best novels. The spare amount of attention given the work suggests that it was viewed with little interest by most of the critics.

With The Kentons, in 1 9 0 2 , Howells again became an

Important figure of literary discussion. The subject of the novel is a middle-class American family--elderly parents, 73 daughters Ellen and Lottie, and growing son Boyne--who leave their home at Tuskingum, Ohio, for New York and .Later go to Europe in order to bring Ellen to forget the rascally

Bittridge, with whom she had become Infatuated. The elder

Kentons, having met the young Rev. Mr. Breclcon aboard ship, alternately hope and fear as they watch the erratic progress of the friendship between Ellen and Breckon, ever determined no I; to Interfere with what Ellen w ants . After some perilous moments, the affair ends happily, and the Kentons gain a sense of peace once more. This story is a genial treatment of ordinary events and characters, the good and the bad, the

trong and the weak qualities of all being impartially presented. For the most part It is a quiet narrative of human relations, somewhat weakened by a kind of "grab-bag"

C' nclu3ion; but occasionally there are moments of intensity a:.id perception. Most of the reviewers concurred with Frank

J. Mather’s statement, In the Forum, that The Kentons "not only exemplifies Mr. Howells1 familiar qualities at their best, but is as well a most keen and kindly satire of American society. ” They appreciated the "delicate art," the "delight­ ful" style, the "sly humor." When Howells wrote on the social aspects of American life, said the critic for Harper’s

•Voekly, he " w a s writing at the top for thinking men and women," and no better criticism of the phase of life mirrored in Howells' novels existed anywhere In fiction. The Kentons was praised at home and abroad, but in the opinion of the 7 9 critic it deserved to be placed no higher than other irmas terlyterry works" I-Iowells had oroducod, The reviewers com­ wonted on the "peculiarly American hesitancy" to exercise authority in matters involving the emotions; and the HatIon critic stressed also the interesting point that culture

Tailed to improve character. Among the fictional portraits in the book. Boyne and Lottie received special attention, but all wore generally described as "familiar types" drawn with "a skill and charm of divination," sympathy, and under­ standing. Sneaking of Howells’ total presentation of normal .uu’mon life, the reviewer for Harper; s W eekly declared that tb.; novelist1:: "robus t literary pa brio k:i sm" oxemnlifiod the b-v;e spirit of democracy: ", » . IJo interprets, in the

r—> O b ' ghost sense. the American i'dea. . . ." In contrast to such sympathetic views, two cr'tics saw The Hentons in an entirely different light. To the ji blant Ic monthlyT s Harriet 7/* Preston it was, despite the personal charm of the novelist, a "plodding narrative," thin and pointless, "describing with tedious particularity the languid Interaction of a half dozen . . .utterly Insig­ nificant puppets. 11 The Kenton household, continued Miss Preston, "cannot matter either to morals or art," Her judg­ ment coincided exactly with the more succinct criticism of the Literary World rev lower.79 Ej.len Kenton seemed 'shad owy, weak, and foolish; hoi1 relatives were "futile" and wholly

"without backbone"; the adolescent Boyne was the best of 80 the poor lot . In Miss Preston's opinion, types like "the clerical buffoon," Trannel, and Bittridge should not bo put

Into print at all: they were not normal and complete human

ing s. but rather the "scum and spawn of a yeasty deep." Looking backward over the succession of novels by Howells and James, Miss Preston concluded that the two authors reached their highest achievement in the IQ7 0 ’s, with A foregone Conelus ion and Roderick Hudson. Thereafter, with the adoption of "the new method of realism," both were disap- ■ointments, as demonstrated by their latest works, The Kentons and The Wings of the Dove. Their failure, explained the critic, hinged mainly on their inability to create what they had tried for--the novel of manners. America lacked the unquestioned social creed and hierarchy that were basic for the novel of manners; consequently, any attempt to portray them could result only in something "vaporous and shapeless." That disposed of Howells* efforts. Nor had James been very successful in the novel of English manners. Mistaken in ins judgment and his observations, he had become "complex, Introspective, fastidious," and though he had made a genuine attempt In The Wings of the Dove, "clouds of verbiage" smothered the plot. As Miss Preston made out the cases, the slight advantage lay with Howells: We owe Mr. Howells a grudge for having made us know the Kentons, but those guileless Middle- Western folk have not, after all, so much to say for themselves, nor he for them, but we can 01

hear it all with tolerable patience, and even a kind of exasperated Interest. But it seems un­ likely that the most conscientious reader will over go entirely through the seven hundred odd pages which Mr. James takes to explain, in his own suave and studied diction, the very peculiar relations of his characters. 80 The specific criticism of the first group of writers ■"us reasonable and fairly just. If It tended to praise .retain features too highly or to Ignore the deeper ironies J.n the book, at least It assessed the obvious qualities w.t thout undue prejudice. Since Howells' satire is individual a.h moral, rather than social and economic, it proved accept­ able. The method of dealing realistically with ordinary

Aweiw can characters seems to have won recognition In the minds of the reviewers as an ostablIshed procedure in fiction. Bwnlcyed gently in this novel, it even had an appeal to

American democratic pride. But the i?iinority opinion was based clearly on a lasting repugnance to "the now method of realism." Instead of mere human beings with palpable weaknesses and inconsistencies, tills criticism demanded noble, heroic characters engaged in some ideal romantic action. For so late a year as 19°3 it Is an extreme example of the most rabid moralistic-idealistic criticism, as further demonstrated by the absurd praise of A Foregone Conclusion and the singular discussion of tho failures of Howells and

Jarae s . 82

Letters Home (1903) demonstrated Howells' ability to handle the epistolary form with considerable ease and skill* It is the story of a love affair that developed in Nov/ York

City between two young people who had known each other in Iowa. While Wallace Ardith, a sensitive writer, and America

kelson, the daughter of a trust executive, respond to the

excitement and the allure of the city, they awaken to a

growing interest in each other, A conflict arises when young lissie Baysiay, whom Ardith has thoughtlessly caressed, tacitly offers herself to him; but the complication Is

removed finally through the common sense of Lssie's stable mother. The novel reveals effectively the character and

the attitude of each of the major letter writers. The

reviewers of the book were greatly pleased, one of them

suggesting that it was "the most generally interesting" of Howells' three latest works, They considered It simply a

romance. The Nation reviewer explained the novel and the author In this way: In popular opinion Howells stood for the enemy of romance and the apostle of the commonplace.

Actually, he had never had an ill-feeling for romance, "but has long pursued romantic nonsense with a sacred rage." All

the critics remarked the skillful artistry with which Howells managed the epistolary form and revealed the individuality of each writer without confusion of point of view or style. The entertainment provided by the differing and sometimes

opposite conclusions of the witnesses prompted the Critic 63 reviewer to call the work an "up-1o-date 'Ring and the book.,u He mentioned also the "delicate art," the under­ lying humor," and the "human Interest In the plot." The re- vlower for the Literary World was enthusiastic about the

"novel manner" In which New York life was described. In

the opinion of the Nat ion reviewer, Howells came fairly close to perfection In his representation of "the perpetual o, olju and rio[wj of life" in the novel. Obviously the critics were impressed by Howells’ artistic use of the letter form and delighted by the sentiment displayed. They

Ignored the fact that the details and incidents are realistic

and are buttressed by occasional references to actual Inter­ ests and events of the period represented. The book does have a slightly romantic flavor, imparted mainly by the exclusive principle of IIowolls ’ selectioii of material; yet, hue epistolary form, the personality of the characters, and the conventions of letter writing seem to warrant the

avoidance of ugly facts.

The last novel to arouse the full critical attention of the reviewers was The Son of Royal Langbri bh, In lyolj.. It tells how the past career of long-deceased Royal Langbrith, a man widely revered as a public benefactor but secretly

detested as a scoundrel, influences those whom ho touched.

Imperious young James Langbrith, reared in Ignorance of

Royal’s evil acts, Idolizes his father’s memory and domineers G[l- ovar his soft • weak mother* to such an extent that she is afraid to marry her old friend Dr. Anther (one of the few

’.vho know the truth about Royal) . When James proposes to erect a statue of his father before the public library, friends prevail on Dr. Anther to remain silent, and the plan is accomplished. Then James becomes engaged to Hope

Hawberk, the daughter of the man whom Royal had cheated, blackmailed, and ruined. Emily Langbrith agrees to marry

Anther, but at her son's horrified reaction she supinely gives up the notion. James goes to France. while rehabili­ tating the opium-diseased Hawberk, Anther gains new per­ spective on life, and relinquishes the idea of Emily and love. Shortly afterwards, both Anther and Hawberk die, and Emily summons James. En route to Saxmllls, James meets his uncle, John Langbrith, who angrily blurts out the facts of Royal’s bigamy, brutality, and treachery. Humiliated and crushed, James seeks to release Hope and to announce the truth publicly, but he is persuaded not to. At last, a chastened James Langbrith marries Hope Hawberk. Although the reviewers did not always agree in their interpretations of the meaning of the book or in their analyses of it, all but one of them proclaimed it Howells’ finest work of recent years. T,One of the best American novels of our time,*' treating a moral problem "subtly and judiciously," stated the Dial reviewer. To Mary Moss, writ­ ing in the Bookman, the novel illustrated Howells’ continued development: . . He surmounts those limitations of sympathy and Invention, , .which bring about tli© downfall of many an established reputation.” The reviewer for the

Literary V/ orid noted the "perfection of finish., ” the "sure­ ness of technique," the realism ("in its true sense") of Howells at his best; and in addition, greater strength, ko. ner Interest, and a larger attempt to show the more Q p emotional and vital side of life. In the Crit 1c, ~ Chariot

'•Larwood praised especially the "charming style" and the

"perfect picture of New Bngland life In minute details."

Also, she spoke for most of her fellows when she declared that each character was in its way perfect. Particularly

•’II the reviewers mention Dr. Anther and hmily Langbrith*--

"u o 7. ightful, pa the t ic , lovab Xe charac t ers "wor thy, almos b t o 1m op c omp any w 11h Sir Au s 11 n Pevere I. and* Lad y Blandish, the finest couple in all fiction." The Nation reviewer considored John Langbrith "a conspicuous addition to Howell g::,7 lory of typical Americansthere was no one like Howell "for ruthless fidelity in his national touch." The central moral problem In the book reminded two reviewers of Ibsen's "diiosts," except that, as the Literary World critic pointed out, here the young man turned out wall and there was a haony ending, Instead of the "sickening horror" of Ibsen’s play. The writer for the Review of Reviews emphasised the dramatic portrayal of "the weakness of a good woman." On 86 the othor hand; to S. S, Chambe.rlayne the novel 7/as not > ■ nrinarlly a story of the evil influence of tho past, and whether or not the truth should be concealed, but a tragedy

"as truly stated in this prosaic, middle-aged jXnther/ with hi a love for a weak and simple woman as in any dramatic rhilosopher or poet of the past.” The deepest problem was what attitude Anther should take towards the forces that 81 thwarted his will. Like the critic for the Llterar;/ for Id

Chamber1ayne felt that the novelist was touched by "the

e n I. ty and tolerance of ago"; but it was Hov/ell s * art is tic ’ather than his "sane, kind" philosophy, that made stronger appeal. The younger generation, Chamberlayne 1, made "rather free" with Howells and recognized "cer­ tain infelicities" in his woi*k. Yet, the critic was positive that Howells suited their temper too, "els.e he could not have had so large. . .a share in forming i t . " ^ Nation reviewer saw important defects in The Son

of Royal Langbrith. Although he admired the portraits of a

few minor characters and the descriptions of "occasional scenes," he missed the assurance of Howells1 mastery of the whole subject. Not only did the principal characters fall in energy, but the situation was improbable; consequently, interest in the story was never high. Jarnes Langbrith was not developed with Howells* "usual precision," and was "side­ tracked" as the central figure for Dr. Anther. In the opinion of the writer, Anther and I.lrs* Langbrith were not 87 effective. Charlotte Ilarv/ood, the Critic reviewer, also stated an ob jection— a traditional one--to the novel; Howells had permittod his love of realistic detail to mar "some passages" of the work. Notwithstanding the last comment, these reviews demonstrate how far realism had been accepted by 1 9 0 I4- as a regular method in fiction. It evidently pro­ vided as much satisfaction, in The Con of Royal Langbrith, as the sober treatment of the moral problems and the Involved oersona! relationships. I-To doubt the avoidance of any felt social criticism in the book was likewise a point In Howells’ favor. But the critics perceived also, and liked, what is jf/iously a deeper note than usual In the novels, at least since 1897: a sense of profound implications, a sense of t'iie mystery of life. In the'light of their perception, It Is interesting to note that the most striking and terrible scone in the novel (perhaps in all of Howells) received no attention whatsoever. Shortly after Emily Langbrith has slumped again Into her customary submissive state, she re­ ceives a visit from Dr. Anther. Fearing that Iiawberk1 s recovery might result in James’s learning the truth, for a moment Emily is dangerously near the abyss of hoping or suggesting that Anther’s patient will die. She drew a long breath. "I don’t know as I should like that," she said, piteously, and her voice trembled. "It would get to James, and-- and--I don’t know as I want h© should ever know, now. " 88 Thay looked at each other, he searchingly, she beseechingly. He wondered, “What Is she asking me?" and a pit. on the edge of which she seemed to tremble, opened to his conjecture. His gaze hardened, and hers sank under it. “I’ve nothing to do with that," ha said to her falling face. "My business is to cure Hawberk, if I can, at any risk, and with any consequence." She returned wildly, as if in terror of some­ thing she had barely escaped. "Yes, yes ! You must ! And, oh, I hope you can do it I I can't help what he says about Mr. Langbrith; I don't care who knows the truth. Only cure him I Why do you look at me so, Dr. Anther, as if you blamed me? Well, I am to blame. I did--" "Hush, Amelia I I d o n ’t blame you. I understand you . . ." 86 Very likely those critics who felt the impact of this scene ignored it as a shocking view of such a respectable, if neurotic, character as Emily Langbrith. In I90J4. moral con­ ventionality in literature, at least among the members of oolite society, was still an-unwritten lav/.

Howells' next story was a light, humorous social comedy,

Hiss Ballard's Inspiration (19^5) • Lillias Bellard, a college lecturer and "Hew Woman," becomes happily engaged to Edmund Craybourne, an admirably good young man. Then, the spectacle of the incompatible, quarreling Mevisons perturbs Lillias to 3uch an extent that she breaks her

engagement, feeling that a happy marriage would be impossible for her and Edmund. He persists, however; and the news that

the MavIsons are divorcing seems to complicate matters so much that Lillias (like a Howells woman of old) decides to leave the problem to Edmund. The reviewers agreed that "do Lieata satire, " liumor, and charming s byle were important > yuailties of the novel, but they valued it differently. In llaroer1 s Weekly Lee P. Hartman called it "a minor master- 8v •iIjco, ,f oppress inn the view of several other critics; 1 hary Moss described the performance (in the Atlantic Monthly) in this pert fashion: "Ilr. Eowalls’s whole ability. . .is called forth to show three hapless men in three stages of engulfment by affectionate boa-cons tr ictorsan anonymous v.-r it or in the Bookman cons idered it of t r a n s i t o r y Interest; Brederic T. Cooper, in the same periodical, read Into the r . :• vel an attempt at a serious theme but an evasion of serious discussion; while the Critic 1 a Charlotte Ilarwood found humor

■and charm the only attractions in the boo!-:. She disapproved of the "commonplace characters and actions," the "thin plot," and the "ineffective," "exterior" detail. Cooper also made somo adverse, and conventional, judgments. Howells f current books showed subtle understanding, but not tho real sympathy of his earlier ones, His Interest in human nature was now like that of tho entomologist "examining a new spec Les of beetle through his lens"; he studied queorness with amused tolerance, not with contagious sympathy. "His pose has something of the superiority of the mature mind In the presence of the follies of childhood. . .Hr. Howells is like an artist who, in picturing a cyclone or a thunderstorm, has chosen bo work in pastels Instead of oils." 88 u Tho statements of the last two critics seem prompted by the old 90 moral and romantic biases. Nothing in tlie book Indicates ^ • that Howe11s intended anything more than diverting comedy; tin tone Is consistently light and humorous, the treatment

is notably objective. To charge Howells with being unsym­ pathetic and aloof and superficial in this story Is to quarrel with its very conception. The complaint that the

characters and incidents are commonplace is even less valid, Cor however unsatisfactory they may be, they arc hardly

ordinary. Probably these two critics objected to the imper- u’sality and the unresolved nature of the satire on marriage

and a11 itudos tov/ard 11.

Through the Eye of the Needle (1907), which was a to A Traveler from Altruria. received a mixed resnonso from the reviewers. The scene of this "romance11 shifts from Now York City, where Aristides Homos tries to show the falsity and the barrenness of American life, to Altruria,

whore liio American wife Eveloth describes scanes and inci­

dents In Howells ’ ideal state. A. Sc hade van Westrum, writing In the Bookman, declared that this dream of the

realisation of peace on earth was that of a Plato, a More,

a Morris,, and far beyond "the crass materialism of a Bellamy or the sobor Slavic vision of the world-wide mlr of a Tol­

stoy." In the iTo.rbh American Revlew, Royal CortIssos de­ scribed tho novel as a "cane and plausible11 conception "of goodness and common sense all compact." It had two merits 91 uncommon in utopian works: it stressed the virtues of a state

> C mind ra ther than those of a detailed physical system; and j t v/as written with tac t and sv/eetness of stylo through­

out . The reviewer for the Literary Digest, devoting himself to the novelist1 s manner v/ith s ingle-minded excess, c allocl it ’'an example of Ur. Howe 1I s 1 s style arrived at its per i-

; ! ton, " His "de tic abe and wholly unassuming” 1 nnguago was

: .:11 v : 1 from "the purest sources of Anglian"; ya t in; retained

" :' ; lull 1 [:: ' m l ty . M Both fort is s.:o' anti too _Ouf-

re v 1 owe r pro. is of Lowells too for his “wonG er.f ul char -

•. ! , - . ( V - - It ...... • .... - . •. i- • . ! * • • • - / ’ V J J . ‘ ■ U a. .. U, .1^ ;(n.j i UU . . P : .l U o, • : ! 1 . f.Ui! 1/ co.':. Lies admitted that the indictment of our city life was just. Van V/e strum felt that Homos ' s views of our social system would have been modified if he had visited "real American country” instead of New York alone; yet. the Aitrurion was more interesting, helpful, and suggestive than Bveleth, for her praise of the ideal state was unqualified. Greater dissatisfaction was expressed by the Ha11on reviewer: "...Tho whole nicturo again enforces the trite observation that it Is simpler to destroy than to create. ..." It seemed odd that, with his deep love of humanity as he found it, Howells "should carc to spend (almost waste ) his precious gifts upon such a toy of the imagination as the island of Altruria" In the opinion of the Independent reviewer, the work was not Howells' best: it lacked his usual "lambent humor," and It brought no conviction of any possible realization. Hot 92 only did he fail to reckon with "the erase for luxury or % • .hr complexity of life'1 which had seized all classes, hut also ho' attempted no answers except the suggestions of abandoning personal service and sharing the drudgery. This reviewer would have agreed with van V/estrum* s ironical corn- e-oh that "more sober idealists have busied themselves making sandals for the dream." On a different level, the

Putnam reviewer s i m p l y stated that Through the Dye of the

Peedle left the reader not so kindly disposed to w ard his fellow man nor so ready to work for amelioration as "Lemuel Banker or Silas Lapham, 11 ^ The critics seem to have liked Powells' ideal, and no doubt they were pleased by his avoid­ ance of socialistic dogma.. But there is a notable absence of comment, oven among the most enthusiastic admirers, on iris underlying principle of economic and social equality. It must have been taken as far too radical for any world except an imaginary ono. As always, the more practical- :alrded critics saw the defects in the picture and demanded more specific and constructive indications of how to work toward the goal. There Is no denying that the vague, sentimental, dreamlike descriptions of Altruria leave no compelling impressions on the mind.

In the slight Fennel and Rue (1908}, usually dismissed even now as "unimportant" and "unpleasant," Howells returned to the kind of psychological realism that characterizes 93 ?he ShadoTz of a Dream. V/hon conscientious but egoistic Philip Verrian, a newly successful writer, finds that a sioving plea for the last installments of his novel is spuri­ ous, ho reacts with tho most stinging letter he can manage* Lator, at a house party, he meets attractive, fragile Miss Shirley, and becomes increasingly interested in her, even though she is not of the social group. Just before the party onus, Miss Shirley discloses that she was the chief perpe­ trator of the hoax and that she has suffered mentally and ' fays ic ally because of her actions. Verrian recoils some­ what . but doesn't forget nor. After a lapse of time they vuo b acc identally; and oven as his pulse quickens she tells Lin of her engagement to young Bushwick. When her fiance suddenly appears, she reveals to him the whole story of the fraud, and Bushwick responds by snubbing Vorrian. Nearly all the reviewers praised Howells* artistry, manner, and style, but few of thorn considered the story of any value. Tho most distinctive favorable view was that of the Hat ion critic, who found 1fat least two refreshing elements" in the book: a novel situation, and "excessive morality" instead of "unpleasant immoralities." This "history of a virulent case of New England conscience in a Southern breast" depicted the 'Excesses to which continual brooding over a trifle ■may lead those who have no sense of humor." The slender plot, continued the writer, was well developed, although "embedded in a good many pages of banal, but exceedingly 9k life-Tike conversation, uttered by desperately unintoresting 'i and real people.'' Less grudging but more generalized a ■> n’oval v;as given by the reviewers for Putnam1 s Monthly and the Out look; but the Outlook writer differed in seeing "ttie way priggish Verrian treats the wound to his dignity" as the crux of the story. 91 Other critics were inclined to agree with the reviewer for book Hews Monthly, who felt that Howells ’ manner - - "suave. beautiful, painstakingly de tailed"--was tho most cons idor- 1 aspect of tho novel. It was "a bit of art wort:, polished ■. n refined to the nth degree," but otherwise negligible* "a spun-out trifling incident," not seriously interesting; "a -'uroly literary gymnastic," lacking life and "oe se • ■ t ia! a hi cl ic human movement. To A. S. van Y/estrum, vriu >-| rr In tie Boolnnan, it suggested material d iscarded from broader studles--a "by-product" in which the author returned to the "minute analytic method" of his middle period, Y.rhether or not "this instance of youthful conscience" merited "dissec­ tion" seemed questionable. I.loro specific objections were voiced by the critic for the Review of Reviews, to whom verrian, "a failure in his own life," was "not an altogether satisfactory creation"; and the Independent reviewer, who could not forgive " Howells 1 assumption that Miss Shirley Is an adorable young woman. ...That a man should see a pathetic loveliness in the liar who manages to lie grace- fully, that Is not to be palliated or condoned." ^ y 2 Although 9 ^ he misstated the caso, the Independent critic seems to have cum closest to recognising v;hat Ilov/elis actually does in the novel--placing complex Miss Shirley in a series of equivocal situations as they are comprehended by impression­ able , conceited Verrian. Apparently the charming manner and artistry which the reviewers so much admired in their own preoccupation with moral virtue blinded them to the indefinite quality in the story or led them to reject it as a fault. but■Howells knew what he was doing: the girl is not clearly

either a conscientious sufferer or a facile liar. The prig- gery of Verrian and the ambiguities that involve Miss Shirley at every appearance tend to preclude an absolute judgment of hot’* At the conclusion, one fuels strongly that she is subtle,

indirect, opportunistic; beyond that he can hardly go with oailhty. The general effect on the reviewers was that of uncertainty and unpleasantness; they did not like the sug­

gestions of moral obliquity in the heroine and the lack of

manliness in the hero.

The next novel by Howells, Hew Leaf Mills (1913), is the imaginative development of a Howells family story. The

sense of reminiscence is strong in the account of how Owen Powell, idealist and optimistic dreamer, settles with his

family in a rude cabin in the hope of founding a communal settlement. They pass a hard winter successfully, but mis­

fortune dogs them, so that finally they must return to the 9 6 c ‘ t'j and come to terms with the economics of the ir times, ■\ ■ '.Vithout exception the reviewers called the book charming, sympathetic, interesting, and commented on the goodness, 03 courage, and optimistic faith of Owen Powell. Prom this tino on, t h e y were incl ined to treat Howells 1 current novels ki ad ly and appreciatively, as the familiar contributions of an old friend. Ho longer did they exhibit the critical,

hblcial air that was common In earlior criticism.

ne boatherwood God (1916) deals with the phenomenon of a. re i. igious Imposter, Joseph by Iks, and his effect on

fe community of Loa thorwood, Ohio. lie Inspires a fanati­ cism that no cone" to adopt himself and that unsettles the lives of believers and unbelievers alike. Throughout it all, skeptical old Matt View liraile observes, comments, and main­ tains a rational but humane attitude. In general, the re­ view )ry praised the truth, the skill, the character drawing, and the sympathy evident in the novel. The most distinctive article, in the North American Review, emphasized Howells 1 inclination to express the ’’feeling that we are futile except when wo are simply kind." In the writer’s opinion trie "too human” element was strongest in this novel, and yet the story V-^ £1 o timulating and not depressing; It is as simple and powerful as If Mark Twain had written it, and at the same time it shows a characteristic vein of tenderness which Is unlike the tenderness of Mark Twain, and which is, one is temp tod to say, a finer product. 9 7 The book revealed a "humor almost Rabelaisian in bigness," but within the bounds of tasto; a masterly Irony that "some­ how exalts rather- than belittles human nature, while It shows };ov/ near the heart the greatest folly really lies." Although

1 . II. Boynton, in the Bookman, considered the nove 1 romantic, the Catholic- World reviewer felt that the them© was urworthy of Howells, all the critics found the book interest-

1-i Tlie Vacation of the KeIwyns (1920) ,9-* Howells returns to rural How Angiand. The story deals with the conflicts

that arise when Sociology Professor Kelwyn and his v/ife engage iff.o Kite family to tend the Shaker house and farm they have rented. Upset by the poor cooking and housekeeping of the

’.Toman and the surly rudeness of the man, the KoIwyns find some relief in their cousin Parthenon© Brook, who suddenly visits them, and good young Emeranco, a former teacher seek­ ing work and lodging. After a period of varying relations with the Kites, the KeIwyns take steps to oust them, but finally reverse their decision and move out themselves.

I.Ieanwhile, a love affair develops happily between Par the nope and Buie ranee. With some circumspoction three reviewers com­ mented briefly on the novel, two of them finding it real­

istic and "finely wrought," and "not boring." Carl Van Doren wrote that it oletured "gentcol Now Kngland" menaced by 9 8 O (' ucuooracy . v J Apparently the critics sensed the a.r.ib:lva 1 once > • in Howells * attitude., but wore not deeply interested or e a i ic e r ne d .

The year after Howells’ death, the novel which had appeared in the At1ant 1c Monthly in 1875-76 as "Private Theatricalsu was published in book form as I.Irs. Farrell

(1"-.21) . It tells liov;, at the Woodward 13 rural summer board­ ing house, a beaut j f ul young widow, a constitutional flirt, 0. . - 1 y <3 he r w ile 3 v; i t h d e v a s t a t :i n a a f i‘ o c t, Ap p a r a u 11 y w i t a - out really malicious intent, she wins the love of susceptible young hasten, destroys his friendship with Gilbert, and I:,;'! fascinates the not.: so susceptible Gilbert. But her conduct redounds on her when' Gilbert brealis her reins, and

-J;ouon (finding himself unloved) ends their engagement. In our last view of Rosabel Farrell, her effort to dramatize

Ljrsolf on the stage has boon a partial, failure, A striking ecu tras t is revealed between the critical view of the i8 6 0 1 a, after the first appearance of the story, and the view expressed in 1921. In i860 T, f . Higgins on declared that 1-Jrs, i’arrell v s I: o o a 1 j a 11 ow a nd v 1t 1 g a r a f 1 1 r t t o b o r e a 11 y i nt e r o sting, ilowol.1 y could not create here a world where artistry was all- important, "and the moral less, than nothing," nor could he make a novel attractive "without nutting a single agreeable

•\ cue tor into it," ' 1 In 1921, however, H. V7, Boynton j;n v' I.Irs e i’ar r o 1 1 or- warm, alluring, con vino:* ng, and ^ • f 1 srger mold than Howells f later hcroinor;, while the

it look reviewer compared the book .favorably with most of O Q Is 1 works in humor, ease, and characterization. /U Wha

•noyed and jarred the sensibilities forty years before ao\se d on 1 y mild apprecia I;ion.

After IQOo few critical writings on Howells belong

'• iroly to the ideal is t ic-moral is tie category. Old forces r.d now vnr

1 taring the crib or is. that had predominated for so long,

oo.-’s is tent practice ... f Howells. the local color writers nd other realists had establj shed theIr method as a fact o meric an literature that could no longer be Honied , l.loro-

or - younger Americans like Crane, Horr is, and nrcioer bad us hod beyond the quiet realism of Howells to the concept f naturalism, a position which was far more detrimental

o the Idealistic-moralistic tradition. Too notion that

an is bound by natural and economic forces over which he

as no control made Howells 1 concept of "the truthful treat

art of materialM seem mild and innocuous. There was also

personal factor Involved: Howells' pre-eminence as travel v 1 t e r, e d 11 o r > a nd no v e 1 1 st for s om e forty y oars la ad gaine

or him a personal admiration and respect In addition to

Is literary fame. Prom 1 9 0 8 until his death, laudatory 100 little o scays , eome t imes partly c r J. t ?! cal f more often bio- ■» • .rank .teal ani rem 1 n 1 3 aont« mere numerous . Ills elect ion as

:■ eld out of the Amo.v*.i can Ac ad emy of Arts and Letters; In

~ '' 1 1 . -»nd lij rostra .1nod qualities of t!.o last throe novel s ho v/.rote — New Leaf 1,1.111 n (1 0 1 3 ), The Leathoryjood God (1 0 1 6 ),

: The Vacation of the He Iwyns ( 1 9 2 0 }--served to increase

a ial cone idora t ion ho roc -.'.ved as the "jlvan o f Azner ioan

it ior • t' -■ that vooit'Oioci lfeeivto ol1T literary

the ■ , .■ .or k i. '— t aru.:.aisu.n .reputation of Luror-uin

< .as 7,01:1 e eh Tol" toy; the Oi.-volops.ont lovuuefu

and a e s th e tic c ritic is e :, as aio,to o .i ry he.ha.

-V ■ ■ ■ . • d .vol -1 ■: h-' ,

its r is-Mi tv, to odaoiit so if

-1 4 y n- an ideal.’;:, of •is lure of life: noble.

io '.'harao to rs ; bo pry , op if : "ir i io rb i ;-a.1 s1 , o ^ as onus a

v".. is h: IV. i \ - " ' 4 * he., 0 f ty i - 3. X o c;L'- ^ ■ ■ ' 51 - H C o U L\ . ; ■' O * ■' LJ - f of }j,. 1

!Oo:o,'ho'us kind of criticism that is perhaps most suitably

rib ml o;': o n nv c nt i o n al , There- is enough of this c on ven­

al cri tic isir., v; hitch corf :Lnu>r:- to, the present da7f, to

separate treatment in a later chapter. 101

Chapter III

REALISTIC CRITICISM

Even as the Ideal Is tic-moral la tic majority’s In opposi­ tion to A Modern Instance, gave decisive and cohesive expres­ sion of their conservative viewpoint in 1 8 8 2 , a slender body of realistic criticism began to develop In defense of

Howells and his method. In his very first novel, Their

17add:lng Journey, Howells had expressed his intention of dealing with "some ordinary traits of American life." By lQ8l he had fulfilled that Intention to the degree that a few scattered protests had been made against elements of the real and the commonplace In The Undiscovered Country and

Doctor Breen 1s Fractice. But with the sterner, more pro­ found themes of A Modern Instance, Howells awakened full- scale opposition to realism and at the same time began to attract a few supporters, notably T. S. Perry and Henry

James. In an essay on James, in 1882, Howells revealed his own sense cf the mode. The new school of fiction, exem­ plified chiefly by James, studied human nature In Its ordi­ nary aspects, Howells wrote, and found Its ethical and dramatic examples in the lighter but not less vital motive.

It avoided "the moving accident and the dire catastrophe."

It sought to disclose what the novelist thought about persons and situations, for all the stories were told long ago.^ This distinct antithesis to romantic fiction was the original 102 basis of Howells’ realism. It was the aim to give a scien- -> • tlfic representation of recognizable normal life as it is experienced. It warred on the conventionality that required

important fictional characters to be refined and socially proper; it rejected abstract types, romantic devices, and

sentimentalism. Realistic criticism emphasized truth of

character, motive, and action; sincerity, sympathy, and

respect for American life; the comprehension of phases of

life not presented elsewhere,

Howells' concept of realism developed further as he

worked at it In theory and In practice. His reading of

Tolstoy and the soul-shaking effect of the Haymarket inci­

dent In 1887 led him to believe that the arts must become

democratic, convey truth as -the artist knew it, and "tend to

make the race better and kinder." In 18 QQ he wrote that

realistic fiction must achieve Its goals of amelioration by

painting the victims of society in their true colors, and

not in the "sentimental pastels" of the romantics. Later,

he described the kind of fiction he sought in terms that aptly

define what V. L. Parrington was to name "critical realism."

It should "give us the ’truth about ourselves, hard and dry

indeed, but immensely wholesome and sanative.'" It should

have " 1 the power of dispersing the conventional acceptations

by which men live on easy terms with themselves, and oblig­

ing them to examine the grounds of their social and moral

opinions.'" ^ This view of realism was adopted by Hamlin 103

Garland, II. H. Boyeaen, and other defenders of Howells •\ during the last decade of the nineteenth century. These realists could not accept Howells1 leaning toward social­ ism; when he wrote his utopian books, they remained con­ spicuously silent. But they supported the major development that characterized him and the realism of his era.

In his essay "William Dean Howells," printed in the

Century for March 1882 (XXIII, £600/-685)* T. S. Perry obviously intended to present a sympathetic view of the novelist and his art. According to the critic, Howells had the power to make his readers see things in a new light.

He pointed out "the beauty hidden in simple actions, the pathos lurking beneath seemingly indifferent words,--in short, the humanity of life." In defying the tradition of abstract romantic types and in revealing "the emptiness of conventional courtship," he had shown the true national spirit. His calm clear-eyed presentation of his characters, without Ill-nature, but also without exaggeration of their

Importance, attested to the dignity of native worth. "His country-people are simple, shrewd, unimpassloned rustics; they are neither pastoral shepherds nor boors--they are human beings." Employing his art with an air of sincerity, sympathy, and respect, Howells had taught the American novel gracefulness and compactness, and had given It a high place In literature. As long as realism avoided didacticism, XOij.

Perry felt, it had the charm of novelty, and would 3urely A ' lead to the downfall of conventionality:

Just as the scientific spirit digs the ground from beneath superstition, so does its fellow- ivorker, realism, tend to prick the bubble of abstract types. Realism is the tool of the democratic spirit, the modern spirit by means of which the truth is elicited, and Mr. Howells's realism is untiring. (XXIII, 6 8 3 )

Perry expressed his liking for Howells* "uncontaminated

souls," from Kitty Ellison to Dr. Breen, and showed a prefer­

ence for Florida Vervain and A Foregone Conclusion, "perhaps

the most poetic of Howells13 novels." Although Perry wrote warmly in behalf of realism, he displayed a somewhat pro­

visional attitude himself in stressing the importance of

selecting and arranging material and in specifying that A

Foregone Conelus ion and A Chance Ac qua intanc e were thus more

Interesting than Doc tor Breen1s Practice. The latter Is

noticeably more earthy than the other two novels; also, It

discusses the rights of women and satirizes the practice of

medicine. It would appear that the more optimistic and

hopeful themes were the more desirable mediums for treating

the everyday world.

The next article to approve Howells1 method of fiction

was a review of The Rise of Silas Lapham in the Literary

World, September f?, l88i? (XVI, 299) • In the opinion of the

reviewer, the new book had "the fresh, unsparing, almost

pitiless realism" of A Modern Instance, but it touched a

higher plane morally and artistically. Silas Lapham was a definite creation, "a specialized example of a widely N existent type," drawn with keen insight and "uncompromising fidelity," and yet with the true sympathy of genius. In and about the revelation of Lapham*s motives, hesitations, struggles, and determinations, there was a glow of humor—

"that grim, fatalistic humor latent In every Yankee, but which no other novelist has ever succeeded In transferring to his pages undimmed." Silas was the protagonist in "a moral drama as impressively inevitable as a Greek tragedy."

In this lay the strength of the book: "It discerns and empha­ sises the moral element which exists in every phase of poor humanity." Some of the characters, especially the women, seemed to the reviewer to be imperfectly presented; yet, the perspective was maintained, allowing Silas the fore­ ground. And if Penelope, Mrs. Corey, and Zerrllla were disappointing, Irene and her mother were consistently por­ trayed, while Bromfleld Corey, like Silas, was "a fine syn­ thesis." The moral bias of these comments Is undoubtedly the strongest note; but the moral concern was to be implicit in the writing of even the most ardent realists. This re­ viewer did accept and approve Howells' subject and treatment in a novel that was elsewhere cruelly censured.

In 1 8 8 6 Henry James set himself against the high tide of "genteel" criticism in an essay on Howells printed in

Harper's Weekly.^ He noted that the feeling of life was strong in all of Howells' stories; they gave the sense of an io6

impression at .first hand, of patient definite notation.

And the novelist's quiet, steady improvement and enlarging

scope had resulted in an admirable quality of vision in A

Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham* These books revealed perfectly Howells* "vivifying faith" in the real,

the natural, the colloquial, the moderate, the domestic,

the democratic. His representations were so vivid that

they were accepted "as one accepts the mystery of fate."

On the other hand, it seemed to the critic that Howells had

small perception of evil. His women, particularly, were

of the best:

Purity of life, fineness of conscience, benevo­ lence of motive, decency of speech, good-nature, kindness, charity, tolerance. . .govern all the scene; the only immoralities are aberrations of thought, like that of Silas Lapham, or excesses of beer, like that of Bartley Hubbard. (XXX, 39^)

None the less, Silas Lapham was "magnificent," and Mrs.

Lapham and Mrs. Sewell were good; in fact, everything in

Silas Lapham was superior. And "Lemuel Barker," then appear­

ing in serial form, promised to be equally great.

Conversely, James detected certain faults in Howells’ manner and technique. The "verbal drollery" of many of the author’s people was a limitation; for example, the sallies of the irrepressible Theodore Colville, in Indian Summer. gave a sense of prompting, of manipulation. A graver error was Howells’ periodic statement that the style of fiction mattered less and less all the while: "The style of a novel

Is a part of the execution of a work of art; the execution 107 of a work of art is a part of its very essence. . . . "

James noticed an increasing tendency to tell the story alto- gether in dialogue. Although the dialogue was admittedly

too good to be suppressed, the critic felt that it should be interspaced with narrative and pictorial matter. Howells

sometimes forgot to paint, to evoke conditions and appear­

ances graphically, to "build in" the subject. Probably

Howells was afraid of being excessive, but the critic liked

the "full pictorial touch." In this essay James vindicated,

with certain reservations, Howells ' method of fiction and

praised his achievement, finding that he succeeded in creat­

ing the "illusion of life" essential in the novel. James's

belief that the artist should have the freedom to select

his subject and impose upon It the form of his Imaginative

sensibility is evident. What interested James, though, was

the quality of the Impression of life and the effectiveness

of the execution. Unlike the idealistic-moralistic critics,

he found in. Howells a tendency to ignore evil— one of the

major failings attributed to Howells yet today. James’s

discriminating comments on technique, paralleling his essay

"The Art of Fiction," show his concern for craftsmanship.

In his letters to Howells, James revealed more of his

personal attitudes toward his friend’s work in certain

interesting, characteristic sentences A On February 21,

1881}., he wrote: "I d on’t think you go far enough, and you

are haunted with romantic phantoms and a tendency to factitious glosses; but you aro in the right path* and I v/i3h you repeated triumphs there. . . . " (I, 10ji>) He praised

A Hazard of New Fortunes rather fully (except for the title)

as a triumph of communication in a letter dated May 17, 18 9 0 *

and at the same time showed his recognition of Howells'

limited range. ". . .There's a whole quarter of the heaven

upon which, in the matter of composition, you seem con­

sciously— _is it consciously?— to have turned your back... . "

(I, 165) James was enthusiastic about The Kentons; "You

have done nothing more true and complete, more thoroughly

homogeneous and hanging-together, without the faintest ghost

of a false note or a weak touch. ..." (Sept. 12, 1902,

I, 398) And in the postscript of a letter dated August 17,

1908, he called Fennel and Rue charmingly fresh and miracu­

lous: "There are places in it in which you recover, abso­

lutely, your first fine rapture." (II, 1 OJLp) He seemed to

think that Howells was often skillful in presenting his

impression of life, but James was constantly urging him to

broaden and deepen his view.

Another advocate of realism, Hjalmer HJorth Boyesen,

entered the lists in 1889 with an article entitled "The

Hero in Fiction.”"’ Boyesen's thesis was that our national

comedy and tragedy was the struggle of the Poor Boy (who

corresponded to the Norwegian hero "Ashiepattle") to win

the Princess and half of the kingdom. It would not do, then,

to cheat the American hero out of the fruit of his labor, as in Howells' The Minister's Charge and James's The American, or to develop weaknesses in him which make him unworthy of success, as in A Modern Instance and Roderick Hudson. In order to achieve the highest kind of realism, American novel­ ists "must acquire the art of converting the national indus­ tries into literary material." Silas Lapham was the result of such artistic creation. Being as vivid a reality "as any of his counterparts around the corner," he enabled us to know them better and "to judge them more justly." Bartley

Hubbard was perhaps not strikingly typical as a journalist; the critic observed that newspaper men were Inclined to resent the portrait In A Modern Instance♦ Nevertheless,

Hubbard embodied "a very prevalent type in our National lif©"--an unscrupulously smart young man with a kind of superficial cleverness, but no moral sense* "There Is not another American novelist who has apprehended so deeply and portrayed so faithfully two such types of our National life as Silas Lapham and Bartley Hubbard." Henry James did not know the country well enough to achieve such American por­ traiture; each new book of his showed further alienation from his American nationality. Christopher Newman and 'Roder­ ick Rowland" [sic] were admirable, but they lacked the strong flavor of the soil that characterized Bartley and Silas.

While Mr. Howells appears to be getting a stronger grip on reality, as it fashions itself on this side of the Atlantic, Mr. James soars, like a high-bred and cynical eagle, In the upper air of the best British society, and looks down upon his former country with a sad, critical disapproval. 6 110

Yet these two novelists, "within their spheres and limita- > ■ tions," represented the latest evolution of realistic fiction.

Since their "unheroic heroes" were usually social types,

Howells and James might leave behind "a national portrait-

gallery" that would be fruitful for the historian. This is

an extension of the philosophy of the local-color school*

Boyesen conceived of realism here as properly the expression

of nationalism--of what he took to be the national ideals

and pursuits and traits of Americans. His idea of the

American hero is decidedly romantic, but it is linkdd with

the myth of the corporeal, robust folk hero, and somehow

different from the generalized ideal of the heroic. Silas

Lapham exemplified Boyesen’3 notion, while to the "genteel"

reviewers Silas had been anathema. At the same time, Boyesen

insisted on those qualities that would lead to success in

terms of an American Ashiepattla. Apparently he wanted the

more optimistic themes used to demonstrate the individual’s

ability to rise above his station. Tt is in keeping with

Boyesen's feeling for his adopted country that he should

value Howells over the expatriate James. But the critic

did not for that reason discount the realism of Henry James.

In I89O Hamlin Garland wrote a long essay dealing with

the growth of Howells and attempting to justify the method

of realism. ^ Looking back over the years, the critic re­

called that Howells had been favorably received fifteen years

previously for his charming, graceful stories, his "summer Ill reading.” A Hazard of Hew Fortunes 3howed that the novelist had gained deeper insight and a broader sense of humanity, that his style had become secondary to his utterance. The change had begun in A Woman1s Reason, "a satire on the false and incomplete education of women." In A Modern Instance Q Howells had revealed new and surprising scope, Bartley

Hubbard being unsurpassed In American literature as a study of moral decay in "a young brilliant man." The Rise of Silas

Lapham, which followed, was truly the epic of the American business man, but it had aroused opposition:

The treatment of the figures in this book, and the dealing with ’vulgar and common people, 1 aroused the first mutterings of discontent, which grew louder as Lemuel Barker fought his way through Boston, from workhouse to the home of Bromfield Cory [sicj »-that most delightful of cynics. 9

In The Minister1s Charge Howells was "reaching out after all

types of characters and phases of life." The minor characters flitting across the background kept the reader aware of the moving tides of city life. And Lemuel Barker’s failure,

representative of the failure of the great mass of young adventurers in the city, was as certain as his struggle was heroic. The most pathetic and moving figure In the book,

though, was Lemuel's mother, who suffered the "character­

istically American tragedy" of separation from her son.

Annie Kilburn probed deeper into the discussion of social problems than had any of its forerunners, for Howells was moving in sympathy with the rising wave of purely democratic

feeling: 112

It' v/as an absorbing and artistic delineation of the changes which a generation has wrought in the life of a Nov/ England town--the changes in trade, in social distinctions, and in living, that make the thoughtful man pause and wonder.

Although "a bit of preaching” might have given wider appeal,

In Garland 1s opinion, Howells had simply stated the problem

and allowed his strongly individual characters to express

themselves freely. He had observed the truism that the

novelist should teach, but by concrete, objective illustra­

tion, not by sermonizing. As a result, "our greatest novel­

ist” had treated !,a present living problem" in a book more purposeful and artistic than any other previous American writing. In the characterization of Annie Kllburn, Gerrish,

and Putney--one of his most human, "sorrowfully humorous,"

and lovable people-«-IIowells had been true to "the dramatic

prmc iples.4 t nlO

But Annie Kilburn was only prefatory to A Hazard of

Hew Fortunes, which revealed Howells 1 greatest breadth and

deepest research: "To me the book appears the most impressive

and the sanest study of a city ever made, and it Is as much

a product of the times as the electric car." Here the

novelist showed not the city of the humorist or the satirist

or the romanticist, but the city of reality. It appeared

to the critic that the elaborate, Impartial study of the

contemporary reform spirit would "undoubtedly alienate

[HowellsJ completely from the ultra conservative class"; 113

the regard of that class could b© won, however, with sym- > - pa thy and perception. Again Howells spoke through his

characters; he treated the dramatic episodes "with perfect

freedom from 1 effectism1 h© employed a "corrective humor";

and yet he expressed "unswerving criticism of thing3 as they

are." The heart of the book, as Garland saw it, was the

transformation of Jacob Dryfoos from a plain hard-working

farmer to the hard, suspicious possessor of "unearned millions"

Containing as it did some of Howells’ most penetrating char­

acter studies, this was among the great novels of the world.

Then Garland launched into a spirited defense of the genre.

Any comparison of Howells with other writers was invalid, he declared; the comparison of his works with life was the

only legitimate method: "Art, in its progress, refuses to be held accountable to the past. It claims for itself the right

to depict in its own way, its own time, just as Its prede­ cessors did." Realism was actually a condition of mind, a

genuine love for reality:

Realism has been dragged in the mire, has been taken to mean tanks and fire-engines on the stage, and filth and fury In the novel; but the feeling that underlies the realism of Tolstoi, Valdes, and Howells has nothing in common with this sensationalism. It aims at embodying in art the common landscapes, common figures, and common hopes and loves and ambitions of our com­ mon life. It loves normal people, unarranged landscapes, and colors that are not ’harmonized. 1 It believes in the physiological rather than the pathological, In the sane and sunny rather than In the abnormal and monstrous. . Ilk.

The realist of the stamp of Valdes and Howall3 was actually > ■ a mystic:

Ha reaches at last the mysticism of the philoso­ pher, to whom matter is as mysterious as spirit; of Whitman, who says that 'every cubic Inch of space is a miracle.' 'In nature,’ says Valdes, 'there Is nothing great or small; nothing Is trivial absolutely. All depends upon the mind perceiving; and values are relative in art as in all else.’ 11

The ideas Garland expresses in these passages are not greatly different from those of the idealistic-moralistic critics.

They indicate that Garland himself was beginning to turn conservative, to resent any further extension of the realistic scope. In conclusion, Garland quoted Grant Allen to the effect that the comparative critics must recognise the actual development of the literature of their time and understand the change of Ideal3 in order to Interpret justly the young writers led by Howells.

Garland's essay epitomizes the extension of realistic thinking into the realm of social criticism. It stipulates that fiction should reveal hard sanative truth about life as It is experienced, to the end that readers will be forced to examine anew the bases of their attitudes toward life and their fellow men. Ultimately it urge3 what Garland so strongly praised in Annie Kilburn— social regeneration. In Howells the Idea was clearly implicit as early as 1886, In The

Minister1 a Charge, and he formulated his views In his criti­ cism shortly thereafter. But Garland made critical realism the complete motivation of his judgment* so that he ignored the novels before 1882 as well as two works written after­ wards* Indian Summer and April Hopes. The implication is that those works are unimportant because they fail to present a sharply defined criticism of contemporary life* This assump­ tion is as biased, and as unfounded, as the strictures of

the most reactionary idealistic-moralistic writers* More­ over, it led Garland to interpret those works he treated

solely as expressions of critical realism. A Woman’s Reason, for example, Is certainly more than a satire on feminine

education. Although Howells treats Helen Harkness gently,

even lovingly, he satirizes her also a3 representative of a

type whose precious Idealism and notions of gentility incapac­

itate them for survival in the world of reality. Garland

slighted too the perceptive views of Hew England society In

A Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham. His comments

on the later novels show that his Interest was in the explicit presentation of social problems and the plight of the under­

dog. Apparently Garland disliked Impressionism, which seems

to be what he referred to as "effectism,,f and he insisted

on the importance of objectivity In the novel. But his

emphasis on the democratic spirit, impelled by his strong

sense of the injustices In American life, is the passionate

note in Garland’s essay.

H. H. Boyesen wrote on Howells again in an article 12 printed in the Cosmopolitan, early in 1 8 9 2 . As he saw it, llo

the novelist had shown distinct growth and broadening of •N sympathy in each new book. In his first full-grown novel,

A Foregone Conelusion, he had discarded romantic traditions, presented original character types from reality, and developed his story with a strict regard for probability and the inevi­

tability of life. The critics had been shocked by the

Americanism of Howells* characters, and with the publication

°- A' Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham they com­ plained of the lack of ideality. The women critics especially

deplored Howells' ignoring of f,the grand heroic traits of

American womanhood" and his insistence upon the whimsicali­

ties, the inconsequentiality, and "the caprice due to dis­

ordered nerves." But what Howells gave seemed to Boyesen

true and genuine. The realist sought the common and the

typical. Yet he might be inclined, in his disgust at spur­

ious romanticism, to go to the other extreme — to be suspicious

of all above the ordinary level of thought and action, to

over-amphaslze trifles because they are true, to crowd his

canvas with small insubordinate details. Howells possessed

some characteristic American qualities: an amiable disrespect

towards the past, a tolerance of shams, and sympathy and

kindliness. Even when he was most savagely critical, he

v/rote without hate or spite, and in characters like Silas

Lapham and Lydia Blood he aroused "the pleasure of recogni­

tion." The omission of any reference to A Hazard of New

Fortunes in a defense of realism as late as 1892 is at once 117 noticeable. Boyesen did support Howells* but ho intimated a kind of nostalgic preference for the early novels. A

Foregone Conclusion is hardly outstanding for its stark realism or its logical sequence of events, particularly in

its forced conclusion. The critic showed also his disin­ clination toward an unrelieved plane of commonplace thought and action. A realist by avowed preference and democratic belief, Boyesen was at heart romantic.

In a careful little study called "Howells 1s Boston,"

in 1 8 93 , ^ Sylvester Baxter interpreted the novelist and

his works in a manner entirely favorable. From 1866 to

1893, declared the critic, Howells had portrayed Boston with

fidelity. Through his characterization, scenery, color,

c Olivers at ion, and movement, 'he had pictured the various

stratifications of society, from the exalted to the humble.

Howells had first gained esteem as an artist, Baxter observed.

When ha passed then into "the domain of subject,” many

admirers turned away, "not desiring introduction to char­

acters who moved in quite different circles." But the

realists, the modernists, the veritists, caring all for

vital substance, hailed him. In Baxter’s opinion, the true

elements of creative art are to be found in the intelligent

multitude, not in "the dilettanti bound by rules and form­

ulas, " Yet the average literary critic belonged to the

latter group, which controlled most of the avenues for the

expression of opinion. The typical literary critic had a 118 classical education and a correct though narrow taste for artistic beauty* formed on traditional models® To the dilettante freedom in the use of ever-accumulating material was temerity® The common multitude* unaware of the newer unconventional forms* was led astray by critical pronounce­ ments* and conceived of realism as something 3trange and incomprehensible; at first* the people avoided it® But nthe verity and the vitality" of Howells* later works had attracted a greater audience« People had come to realise that his presentation of the familiar and the commonplace frequently had deep significance and broad interest. In Howells’ cos­ mopolitan method* Boston was the microcosm in which he re­ flect od the common traits of mankind, although they were robed in delicately and accurately distinct details of locale.

His style was unlike that of Dickens, but Howells was to

Boston what Dickens was to London.

According to the critic, Howells maintained In the novels of his first period (1872 to i860) a sportive light­ ness of style that was like Heine's style In charm, but without Heine's bitterness or sting® His future strength, earnestness, and capacity for sounding depths of human nature were foreshadowed here only In the tenderly sympathetic quality of humor and the sensitive responsiveness of his perceptions. His powers ripened in The Undiscovered Country and The Lady of the Aroostook, which for many admirers was his artistic climax. In A Modern Instance, though, Howells 119 entered "the deep waters of real lire”; his style acquired •% compactness, directness, and vigor. While revealing here the many-sidedness of Boston for the first time, h© pictured the upper circles of society with completeness.

But the fact that they should be placed in such juxtaposition with 5commoner' forms of existence, and that the latter should be given equal atten­ tion and regarded as of equal importance, appears to be the main cause of the resentment shown for the author in certain quarters. 15

The Laphams and the Coreys, in The Rise of Silas Lapham, were almost as much a part of Boston as the State House and the Common. Rich in contrasting Boston scenes and certain contrasting aspects of Boston life, The Minister1s Charge was "perhaps the richest of al 1 the stories in this respect.M

An Imperative Duty gave an impression of ,!the proletarian type of the crowds on the Common and in the Public Garden of a Sunday afternoon,u and touched upon "a population ele­ ment little evident in earlier stories.” Baxter's direct

Immediate analysis of the changes in Howells and the reac­ tions of the critics is sensible and sound, as far as it goes. Instead of theorizing, he pointed to discernible causes, results, and facts. His article Is of course a specialized one and not very critical of the novels, but he leaves no doubt of his satisfaction In the realistic art and the broad sociological approach of Howells.

During the same year, 1893* Celia Parker Woolley wrote ■j ^ a serious, perceptive essay on Howells. Examining the hostile criticism of the novelist, she found that it was 120 frequently honest, but often coarse, flippant, undi3cerning.

It was motivated chiefly by suspicion and dislike of th© principle of realism in art. To th© average literary critic and tho popular literary mind, realism had only a negative meaning: it ignored or denied all that pertained to the

ideal. This confusion of ideas was the result of misusing

terms that belonged to both philosophy and art. In art, realism was a method of representation; in philosophy, it was the mode of sense-perception. The antithesis of realism

in art was romanticism, not idealism. The artistic realist

took experience for his guide, but experience was not limited

to knowledge acquired by the senses. It included the entire

realm of human consciousness, ©motional and imaginative as

well as practical. Thus the imagination of the realist was

founded on true understanding and sympathy. With regard

to Howells 1 development it was hard to detect the point,

according to the critic, when he had ceased to be a mere

artist and had become a conscious moralist. And though he

was obviously a moralist at present, the moralists joined

the romanticists against him. They Insisted that his writ­

ings lacked worthy motives and ware essentially superficial

and commonplace. Probably the absence of the heroic con­

demned him in the eyes of the moralists, while tho lack of

the startling and the unusual condemned him in the eyes of

the romanticists. 121

The ethical intention In Howells,, continued Mrs.

Woolley* was as plain as that In George Eliot* with whom he was unfavorably compared by her admirers. But he did not reveal his ethical Intent in exact statement'or through a too tragic, too melancholy plot:

As a conscientious observer of things as they are, Mr. Howells knows that the tragedy of modern life is inward, not outward. The present problems of life spring from its infinite complexity far more than from external conditions. 17

Howells’ insight was shown In the denouement of April Hopes,

In the self“estimate of Silas Lapham, in the description of Atherton's perplexity (in A Modern Instance) as to how to advise Ben Halleck. Howells’ sympathy, which was as broad as Eliot's, if not as fervent, appeared in his true, skill­ ful character portrayal. The full merit of each novel was often overlooked because of his self-restraint and his avoidance of exaggeration of statement or effect. Some­ times he carried his habit of self-restraint too far, Mrs.

Woolley felt, so that he lost In strength and spontaneity; at times, also, he was too mindful of technique. Yet he avoided the faults of the sentimentalist and the dogmatist.

The distinct note of human faith and sympathy, v/hich was present In all of his books, had grown deeper and richer through the years. Now he pictured earnest men and women as well as the inconsequential creatures that, although true likenesses, had disappointed many readers. And in all of his later works Howells spoke out in open, fearless treat- 122 mont of the living problems of the hour: "Underlying each

is the thought of a perfected human brotherhood." The sadness

that seemed to qualify his moral faith did not indicate hopelessness* according to the critic* but hope deferred.

Like Tolstoy and Ibsen, Howells was "a lover of his kind,

a hater of shams, a passionate believer In justice." Mrs.

IVoolley's essay is a notable attempt to melt the opposition

to Hov;ell3 and realism by a favorable Interpretation of his

ideas and aims. While presenting the usual realistic view

of his development, it neglected the artistic element and

emphasised strongly the moral and humanitarian implications

of his work. Although the critic probably erred In finding

the novelist "a mere artist" during any period of his career,

she revealed a keen understanding of Howells1 deepest inten­

tions and effects.

Two critical articles by Marrion Wile ox--an l89lj- review

of A Traveler from Altruria and a brief estimate of Howells’ 19 value, in 1896 --gave further exposition of the realistic

point of view. The first piece is negligible except for one

or two points. Wilcox noted that Howells distinguished his

book as a romance, with types and not individualized char­

acters. Also, the reviewer carefully mentioned that the

reforms Indicated were to be sought by lawful means and In

a reasonable spirit. Such a demonstration as Coxey’s march,

for Instance, Howells considered unreasonable. In his look

at the novelist’s career, Wilcox stressed the appreciation of American life that had made native subjects most attrac­ tive and worthy to Howells, and the fine courage which had enabled him to shape his method to his convictions* The romanticists looked for "literary" ingredients, and, when they did not find them, Invented substitutes* In contrast,

Howells made, especially In April Hopes (the critic felt that this was the first novel to betray the distinct self- consciousness of the realist), an extremely close study of people: of details of manner, dress, expression, gesture; of motive; of environment. IIowolls had no quarrel with romance; he merely wanted a sharp distinction kept between novel and romance* In Wilcox's opinion, Howells' works provided a valuable source of information on characteristics of American life. They were not an entirely complete pic­ ture; they contained no social impurity, no Immorality.

Yet, the critic wondered whether or not there would be any comparable works in 1900--any as faithful and as revealing of so many social phases. Since Howells' self-consciousness as a realist is evident in Their Wedding Journey, his first novel, the critic's emphasis on April Hopes seems odd. But these two articles show a matter-of-fact approval of a writer v/ho believed in the soundness of a realistic treatment of the facts in the good American life.

In 1898 Henry James and John D. Barry reviewed The

Story of a Play on two quite different levels of realistic 20 thinking. Barry presented a fantastic dialogue between 12lt- the aged “Spirit of Romance" and a young modern man# who thrashed out the difference in their modes. The adherents of romance believed that fiction should be irrational, exag­ gerated, more interesting than everyday life. But the realists thought that nothing was more interesting than ordinary life; they made romance rational. The Story of a

PI(xj had little plot, for Howells, like all realists, was interested not in story-telling but in “the reproduction of character." He succeeded admirably in the dramatist's wife,

Mrs. Harley, and Godolphin. The novel gave the "pleasure of verification" in the accurately delineated semi-literary, semi-theatrical life. Moreover, there was "perfect balance,"

"even skillful movement,” and "adequate English." Confronted by such a prospect, the "Spirit of Romance" despaired and wearily fell asleep. In contrast to Barry, the discriminat­ ing Henry James observed wryly that the novel might have been called "The Story of a Wife." The revelation of the dramatist's experiences and feeling was not quite so deep

"as the intensity of the experience. . .might have made possible"; It was limited to the part shared In by the wife.

Like all of Howells' pictures, this one gave a "final sense of the predestined beauty of behaviour on the part of every one concerned-~kindness, patience, submission to boredom and general innocent humanity." At worst, James reflected, It was a world

lubricated with good nature and the tone of pleas­ antry. . . .Life, In his pages, is never too hard, 125

too ugly* passions and perversities never too sharp* ' not to allow* on the part of his people, of such an exercise of friendly wit about each other as may well, when one considers it, minimize shocks and strains. So it muffles and softens, all round, the edges of ’The Story of a Play. 1 The mutual indulgences effect an air like a romantic one.

Considering Howells* theory of the novel, James concluded, this was ”an odd consummation." Undoubtedly Barry's article was designed to urge the cause of realism (a course of action that was still necessary in America) as well as to examine

Kowells* book. The critic was pleased then to find char- actera and incidents and actions that were verifiable in ordinary life. But for James realism needed no special pleading; he was interested in the value of the experience and the manner of its presentation. His comments on the

circumscribed nature of the’ characters and the tameness of

the life are well taken, but one suspects that his acidity was due to what he considered an insufficiently serious and profound treatment of the artistic theme.

Hamlin G-arland returned to the support of Howells and

realism in '’Sanity in Fiction,1’ printed in the North American

Review for March, 19°3 (CLXXVI, [336J- 3I1-8 ). In the opinion

of the critic, the development of Howells' art had demon­

strated that a public existed for a ’’sane and wholesome

novel" and had revealed the broadening scope of our litera-

ture--lts ’’humanity" and its "altruism. " Howells stood

for sound workmanship and for the permanent rather than the

ephemeral. In his novels probable characters pursued every- 1 2 6 day lives without the accompaniment of moralizing and impertinent comment: "Save in th© best of Hanry James, no such rigidly artistic restraint in fiction has appeared in America." The conventional novel, Garland continued, with

Its typed hero, villain, and heroine, was contrary to real life, for men and women were mixtures of good and evil

Impulses. The probable had become the basis of art. Howells' characters-— Bartley Hubbard, Silas Lapham, Jeff Durgin— were healthy and true to their time and place. His realism was unlike Zola's naturalism, for Zola treated the abnormally developed, the criminal, phenomenal cases. "Decorum, de­ cency, and humor are the characteristics of the average

American as Whitman observed him, and these qualities are in every line written by the author of 'Silas Lapham.'"

Not only was Howells "as sane as Whitman," but he had a distinctive humor that the poet lacked. Also, the realist was more sunny and normal than Poe and Hawthorne, who were gloomy and fantastic.

According to the critic, Howells' analysis and presenta­ tion of women was significant. "Ours is the golden age of women. Our literature not only deals with women--lt is addressed to them." Thus Howells' realistic treatment was

Important,

for the Influence of fiction upon feminine char­ acter is very great. Girls get their knowledge of the world In large measure from novels, and it is of the utmost importance that their Ideas 127 of courtship should b© sane and wholesome at 'least. . . .The humorous exposition of feminine as wall as male excesses and follies is likely to have a beneficent influence on the nation’s life, by giving comparative ideas of life and love to ’the mothers of m e n .1 21

In Howells, physical beauty was seldom insisted upon,

Garland noted. The charm of his women lay In their candor,

insight, and understanding. The common criticism that they were all alike, without dignity or charm, was mistaken.

Such characters as Lydia Blood, Marcia Gaylord, Olive Halleck,

Irene Lapham, ’Stira Dudley, and Isabel March, among others, were real Individual modern women. Of course, Howells never rhapsodized over them, but he was kind, manly, and "correct

in humor." He was interested In the silent heroines--In

their quiet sacrifices, their everyday lives, their calm moments. His love stories, "pure, sane, and self-contained’*

included no erotic maniacs. Howells’ audience was narrowed,

the critic felt, by his appeal to the Intellect and by his avoidance of the exciting and the harrowing. To some readers, who missed the fine English, the humor, and the altruism, he was dull and slow. Garland admitted that In the use of particulars the democratic novelist, rebounding from the vague and the gene >.1 in "feudal literature," was apt to go too far. Yet he believed that the totality of Howells' work would present a study unequalled by any other writer on American society. Perhaps the contemporary age was one not of colossal personalities but of high average personality. 128

In any case Howells was th© most American; th© most sym- pp pathetic, th© truest writer in American fiction. Garland*s chaotic essay suggests that it was an attempt to keep Howells and moderate realism in a high secure place while pricking

the bubble of historical romanticism on the one hand and warding off the growth of naturalism on the other. In addi­ tion to presenting the usual arguments for realism, Garland appealed with all the fervor of a "genteel" critic to the

ideals of 3anity, wholesomeness, and the didactic intent of

the novel. He urged belief in "the smiling aspects" of

American life with far more naivete than Howells had been guilty of. Also, the critic's remarks on women indicate that he nourished deep Inside him the old chivalrlc notion of them. While the essay constitutes a stout defense of

Howells' art, It makes every appeal to the idealistic and moral beliefs and prejudices of American readers. It reveals that Garland, the realist and veritist, was, like Boyesen, a romantic at heart.

In an article entitled "Certain Overlooked Phases of

American Life" (1 9 0 3 , Mary Heaton Vorse^ emphasized several distinctive features of Howells1 fiction. Howells was almost alone, wrote the critic, In understanding certain odd social conditions and the peculiar American characteristics which resulted from them. As a whole, he had given an adequate representation of American life, not by picturing out-of-the- way corners, but by using material so obvious that no on© 129

else happened to see it. He had recognized, for instance,

the relations of American children to their parents; the

"hands off" policy that prevailed. Bromfield Corey discussed

the subject in The Rise of Silas Lapham; and in The Kentons

tho most important theme was the helplessness of American

narents--their timidity, the grotesque situations that devel­

oped, "the beauty of the self-ignoring attitude." Howells

had perceived "our national meekness" and had exemplified it

in Judge Kenton. In the figure of Bartley Hubbard h© had

accurately delineated American "flipness." Yet, Howells

sought truth rather than tho picturesque; he had not slighted

"the well-known national virtues." Mrs. Vorse appealed to

the sense of nationalism and valued the novelist as a social

historian.

Mark Twain’s much-noted essay on Howells first appeared

Harper' a Monthly for July 1 9 0 6 . ^ Twain praised at some length what he called the sustained groat qualities of

Howells' style: clearness, compression, verbal exactness,

"unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing."

Moreover, there was an easy flow of language, a cadanced undulating rhythm. According to Twain, these qualities (and ho cited passages from the early travel books) had been apparent for forty years. Howells' pictures seemed to the critic to be photographs with feeling and sentiment in them.

His humor was unobtrusive, quiet, well-conducted. As for his "stage directions," his speech tags and his handling of 130

dialogue, Twain felt that they were don© with competent,

discriminating art, especially S3 demonstrated in Th© Undis-

covered Country. They evoked fully the scone and its condi­

tions. Twain discussed here a few actual technical char­

acteristics of his friend*s art with evident sincerity and

admiration. It is noticeable, however, that his illustrations

are taken from the earlier work of Howells. A natural infer­

ence is that the critic did not know or did not approve of

the later novels or that the earlier work seemed to provide

the best examples to cite, notwithstanding tho statement to

the contrary. During the next eleven years there v/ere no

distinctly realistic appraisals of Howells. Instead, there

were "appreciations” and reminiscent articles written In

honor of his birthdays or his election as president of the

American Academy of Art3 and -Letters. He had little more to

contribute as a novelist; his moderate realism had largely

won acceptance In American literature; and the virulent

attacks of the Iconoclasts had not yet been launched. But

after 1915 Howells was again In need of defense.

A strong affirmation of Howells and his art was made by

Helen T. and Wilson Pollett in their 1917 study of the novel- 25 1st. ^ To these critics, Howells’ work was the "most soundly

representative expression" of America as a spirit and as a civilization.

In a score of ways the America of 1675 was at the crossroads. And William Dean Howells was the man who was there with her to see everything. 131

He saw--and he understood. All these tendencies and forces. . .are charted in the fiction of Mr. Howells, with an amplitude and a fidelity applied elsewhere, as in the novels of Trollope, to much narrower sec­ tors of life, but never before in English to all the important phases in the life of a whole nation.

He touched village and town, farm and city, New England and the Middle West, factory and lumber camp, artisan and idler, minister, teacher, scientist, journalist, salesman, country squire, doctor, lawyer, the nouveaux riches♦ He missed nothing of "'the real, the natural, the colloquial, the moderate, the optimistic, the domestic, and the democratic.1"

The Else of Silas Lapham, "our first and best analysis" of the self-made man and tho social implications of his money, p / reached nearly the whole of "self-made America." Actually,

Howells had set out to write the moral history of America.

The critics felt that the resemblance between Howells and James was superficial; the similarities were most impor­ tant where each was writing on the New England he knew.

After l895» however, Howells’ style showed the "unconscious infiltration of the abused 'third manner' of James." Also, the "high comedy" Mias Bellard’s Inspiration included some persiflage "of the James idiom." But while James withdrew into the world of self-conscious art, Howells remained objective, attentive to the life about him, as little self- conscious as possible. His style was finer, on the whole, than that of Thomas Hardy: It was "just as objective, just as clear, much more full of high lights and undertones, and 132

less metallically cold." In neither the stylo nor the struc­

ture of his novels did Howells "suiffer the logical conse­

quences of what Is narrowly provincial In his theory.11 His

novels did suffer, though, from the "enormous excess of

conversation over everything else." He was at his best when

treating a subject "wrapped In Interpretation of character

and manners."

In the opinion of tho Folletts, Howells 1 realism was

more vital than that of most novelists because of the Intensity

and consistency of his love of reality. He saw in life all

the forces that were necessary to a great society and a great

art. "He is a generation further along In the chronology

of art than such a realist as Gissing, with whom reality was

a distressing makeshift for lost faith." The Leatherwood

God expressed clearly Howells’ contempt of the faith that

demanded a sign. The characterization of Squire Matthew

Braile, who was a striking, sympathetic individual as well

as the spokesman of the Intellectual point of view, seemed

to Imply that Christianity Is an unchangeable rule of life.

In any case, it was apparent that Howells1 faith In the realities of life brought him peace and serenity. His "equa­ bleness" was not languor or Ignorance, but a state in which

’’dynamic elements" were brought under the control of knowl­

edge and faith. With the observation that 1917 was the year

of Howells’ eightieth birthday and the centenary of Jane

Austen's death, the critics made one last comparison: "She 133 too loved reality and made successful war, from her provincial citadel, on superstition, on mawkish sensibility, and on the 27 tinsel romanticism of the fashion then current." In this essay the Folletts seem to have been affected neither by the bolder group of fiction writers nor by the revolutionary detractors of Howells and nineteenth-century literature* They wanted fiction to represent the actual quality of American life as they saw it, to interpret and to provide inspiration for "a great society." Apparently Howells satisfied both their demand for national literature and their desire for faith.

Another tribute to Howells’ realism and the democratic point of view was Henry B. Schwarts’s "The Americanism of

William Dean Howells," printed In the Methodist Rovie?/ for

March, 1918 (Cl, 226-232). It seemed to Schwartz that the search for the great American novel and novelist had failed because "the fundamental qualities of our American life" had been overlooked, and emphasis had been put on the peculiar, the eccentric, the flamboyant. But Howells was a great

American novelist, and he had written many great American novels. Produced by the social forces which had produced

Grant, Sherman, and Garfield, he was fitted by birth and training to understand American life. He had perfected the technique of the writer’s trade! he had acquired (in Venice) a detached view of American life; and he had in addition to his wide experiences "a peculiar power of combination and 13^ comparison." Thor© was no lack of critical appreciation of his style* Schwarts noted. The dissent arose over the world and the life he portrayed. Critics labeled him the

"'portrayer of the ordinary* the novelist of the commonplace 1 ,f

In Schwarts’s opinion* Howells had perceived beauty in the commonplace and had found Inspiration In It. To young people he might seem commonplace because his novels shov;ed that

the most important things happen after marriage* as in actual life. If his view of fictional morality was old-fashioned*

it was ’’still the accepted view In American life." Howells remained true to his ideals. As for his breadth and grasp* ho included almost every type of man east of the Mississippi.

But Howells' work was more than character studies:

What gives distinction to his work is that he sees men In their social relations. It is this aspect of his novels that gives them their highest value and will make them source books for the study of American life in the generations to come. 28

Howells was "so exactly contemporaneous," continued the critic, that his pictures of Boston In the horse-car era seemed remote* but they were "none the less true pictures of

America in the last quarter of the nineteenth century." In the emphasis on the revelation of characters in their social relations* this essay looks forward to sociological or activist criticism.

Francis Hackett included in his book Horizons (1919)^ a perceptive little article on Howells and his current status 1 3 5 in the literary world. According to Hackett, the novelist was circulated, eulogized, and honored, but he was not treated as a positive living force. Hackett declared that Alexander 30 Harvey, in his recent study of Howells, had been oracular and discursive instead of attentive:

Like a caged canary that catches a sound only to burst into his own song, Mr, Harvey listens to Howells only to break forth about the Philistinism of Boston, the frustration of Charles Francis Adams, the erotic symbolism of Edgar Allan Poe. 31

But Howells required careful examination. In The Rise of

Silas Lapham, for example, he "drives us to realize the inexorable necessity and the equally inexorable cruelty of exclusiveness, social and sexual.’1 The deceptive simplicity and artlessness of Howells might lead astray those with no particular feeling for literary art* In Howells1 early work, there was a certain deference, "particularly to stuffy

Bostonians." Yet he never forgot "the undemocratic irony of poverty," nor was he deferential about war. His "subtle­ ties of national circumspection" called for "keen and close and sympathetic InterpretatIon"--& task that had not been accomplished. In the critic^ opinion, there were treasures of national consciousness in Howells that would gain in value as time went o n . ^ Amid all the fury of the icono­ clastic writing of Van Wyck Brooks, Mencken, and Harvey, the critic perceived deeper values that had not yet been recog­ nized in Howells, as realist and as literary artist. At

Howells1 death In 1920, a number of resumes and appreciations 136 were published, but none of thorn possess a strong realistic bent. For the most part they fellow tradition, reciting

tho highlights of his career, naming his most popular books, and closing with a fond estimate of the man. They are appreciative rather than critical.

Oscar V/. Firkin's 192JL^. study of Howells"^ is allied with

the realistic group chiefly because of the critic's preoc­ cupation with artistry and form. To a larger extent even

than Henry James, as far as Howells was concerned, Firkins dealt with structure, plot, and style in the novels. Although he did not urge realism, he explained it with understanding, and from a point of view that was neither idealistic-moralistic nor purely conventional. Firkins studied th© novels (almost

in vacuo) from the standpoint of a sensitive, discriminating, widely-read individual. According to the critic, Howells

illustrated and advanced the ideas of confining literature

to experience and converting experience to literature. His method led to "very curious limitations" in his themes:

In these forty volumes, adultery is never pic­ tured; seduction never, divorce once and spar­ ingly. . marriage discordant to the point of cleavage, only once. . crime only once with any fullness. . politics never; religion passingly and superficially; science only In crepuscular psychology; mechanics, athletics, bodily exploits or collisions, very rarely. (pp.61p -65)

There remained, however, the passion of love, Interest In travel and foreign sojourn, literature and art, ethics, psychology, and social problems. In a real though peculiar 137

sense, the critic felt, Howells' books were novels of society:

The centre, the 'Golden Milestone* as it were, in Mr. Howells's world is a cultivated, intellectual, privileged society, to which somehow, whether as appeal or menace or reproach or spectacle or even diversion, it i3 the business of the proletariat to relate itself. The proletariat exists in that relation. (pp* 6 6 -6 7 )

Howells was most original in the simple, linear form of his first five novels, where he presented a few characters strongly segregated. But whenever he attempted stories of any com­ plexity, they were likely to run adrift or aground in the last third or quarter of the book. "In no case whatever has he been wholly fortunate in the conduct of a double or multiple plot.” The momentum of A Modern Instance, for example, was checked by structural irrelevances in the plot,

incidents that did not affect the process of alienation between Bartley and Marcia Hubbard; In The Rise of Silas hapham. the plot of the love affair did not dovetail with the plot of bankruptcy. Only Indlan Summer showed Howells’ aptness for form in a long novel, (pp. 6 9 -7 2 , 75>-8 5 )

In his painstaking examination of the individual works,

Firkins made many perceptive comments, some of which were distinctive contributions. The first cf the novels he con­ sidered Important was A Modern Instance (1882). It was char­ acterized by the "relatively coarse fibre" of the main figures, an abundance of clear, crisp incident, and "a rare momentum" that Howells never quite recaptured. The style recoded somewhat, but the story-telling excelled; and Bartley

Hubbard was the best character to date for "curious and various particularity." The book was "a turn that looked toward passion and power." Structurally, Silas Lapham (l88£) v/as perhaps the shapeliest of the more complex novels, although the story was seized with a kind of paralysis in the last chapters. The critic felt that Lapham somehow- lacked body; yet, he wa3 an excellent character, ranking behind only Fulkerson and Jeff Durgin in the Howells collec­ tion. One of the most flawless and winning books was Indian

Summer ( 1 8 8 6 which, was comparable with the short novels in point of structure. To Firkins, A Hazard of New Fortunes

(I89O) was ruined by incongruities of form and tone as well as the demoralizing effect of the Dryfooses. Of the latter he wrote; "They are drawn with a skill that we half resent, and with a knowledge that chills our optimism." But the masterly thing in the novel was Fulkerson— a simple man with humor, one of "the great group of sincere and spontaneous humbugs." The Shadow of a. Dream (1 8 9 0 ) was short of greatnes but it revealed power, and gave definite proof of Howells'

"versatile capacity." In the Shakespearean title, part of the setting, some of the incidents, much of the atmosphere, and the names of the characters, there was a noticeable approach to picturesque, romantic tragedy. Yet, the imper­ fect conception and development of the main characters, the slightness of the action, and the excessive prominence of 139 the Marches spoiled the Illusion. In the opinion of the critic, The Story of a Play (1 8 9 8 ) was "a penetrating and skillful novel" in which Louise Maxwell was "a creature hardly to be matched outside of Howells." The "most robust of all the novels" was The Landlord at Lion1s Head (l897)> which was basically the study of Jeff Durgin. Jeff, "carved

'in the round,'" was worthy of his preeminence. "The por­ trayal of Jeff, who stands as firmly on his feet as Rawdon

Crawley, should end the notion. . .that Mr. Howells is a mere cabinet-maker or silversmith in the guild of novel­ ists." As Firkins viewed it, The Son of Royal Langbrith

(190)4.), although less remarkable, was also characterised by power and difference. "The terror of living, the gayety that both alleviates and aggravates that terror, are caught with a mixture of insight and tenderness which I should find it hard to match In literature." (pp. 101-19)4-)

Several characteristics of Howells received the marked attention of the critic. Ha felt that Howells "possessed the tragic sense in a quite unusual degree, though he could not dramatize his tragedy." Also, there was an Increasing sense in tho novelist of the blending and blurring of right and wrong. Howells' "endless probing" of cast© differences suggested to Firkins "a final subterfuge of the aristocratic

Impulse." Yet, in his Altrurian books he was "a convinced, an aggressive, an uncompromising democrat. His ideal Is the absolute and final removal of all the man-made differences lk.0 between men.11 The sources of this Ideal seemed to be Howells’

innate sens© and training., the impact of realism--which was

unmistakably related to democracy— and the influence of

Tolstoy.

To sum up the case, Mr. Howells is a democrat by origin9 an aristocrat by aesthetic taste and acquired habit, and a democrat, last of all and most of all, by reasoned conviction and spiritual bent.

Howells' fiction was superficially cheerful, but there was

always a suggestion, visible rather than prominent in the

earlier novels, of the "dull, smouldering, irremovable, and

patient malady" of life; of "its certainty, its contumacy,

its obduracy to the old romantic charms and sedatives." On

the other hand, humor was an important element in Howells’

estimate of the world. He employed courtly humor, a "tender

whimsicality," and a bolder, freer American humor with re­

markable ease and skill. Xet all served, according to Firkins,

as "the rebate on the heavy liability known as life." Howells

was inclined to rely too heavily on coincidence, especially

in The Story of a Play and The Quality of Mercy; and ho

tended to make the intelligence and the conversation of his

people too bright. Moreover, at times he raised the intel­

lectual level of certain characters "without warrant or

prologue," thus contravening art and realism alike. Certain

other points of the author's realism seemed to the critic to

be novel, independent, and true. Howells had an eye for those

"vividly irrelevant perceptions" which sometimes impress man llj.1 when he is engrossed with other things. He reproduced ’’the fact that conversation is a shifting game." He maintained in his fiction the uncertainty, the reticence, of life*

Because he preserved a high respect for ’’the bare human fact','

Howells was one of the few novelists who were ’’capable of the strictly realistic point of view.” It had been said,

Firkins observed, that nothing happened in Howells. On the contrary, everything happened; for everything--a smile, a glance, a turn, a word, even a silence--tended to become an

Incident, to produce or invite a mental readjustment. His quiet drama sufficed "for the qualified andpreadjusted roader.” (pp. 136-212, 2 1 6 -2 3 3 )

With regard to style, Howells did not always choose the

"right word,” in Firkins’ opinion, but he had a large vocab­ ulary- And though he had a marked tendency to be a word- raaker, his coinages were often "liabilities.” Provincialism and vulgarisms were rarest, however, In hi3 personal or expository English. He was extremely sensitive to languages, dialects, pronunciations, and intonations. Howells’ grammar, delicate without being Impeccable, "would satisfy the educated man; it might sometimes amuse or trouble a scholar;

It might enrage a pedant.” The critic discerned three periods of the novelist’s stylo. The first, clear, artistic, serene, possessed "form with incipient point," as In Their

Wedding Journey. In the second period the style was firmer, both form and point being eminent in An Imperative Duty. Th© third waa clear and vigorous, having point but decadent form, as in The Son of Royal Langbrith. Howells "came more and more to depreciate style in the traditional sense, and

to advocate an uncompromising and undeviating directness and honesty of expression." To Firkins, this view was unfortunate

The passion for form is ineradicable, and the fewer depredations that the pursuit of truth can make on things which the race cherishes so earn­ estly as art and style, the better not only for art and style, but for the pursuit of truth likewise.

In Howells as in James, the "delicate exactness of contour" and fine "reserve of tone" of his composition underwent,

in his later life, a marked disintegration. His style in

its ripe excellence was no trick or separable accomplish­ ment; it had a preexistence in his psychology. It was char­ acterized by "a rare ease and quietness in the setting forth

of delicately intricate relations." (pp. [_30h~J -3 1 6 , 3 1 9 -3 2 0 )

According to the critic, there were three great elements

in Howells* fiction: its vitality, the distinctness and variety of its characterization, and "its firm grasp of some of the rarer and more elusive aspects of everyday reality."

His novels would be "perennially valuable to scholarship," but never attractive to "Philistine middle-class humanity."

As realism dealing profoundly with some Important aspects of life they should be read, but Firkins v/as not hopeful for them. In illustration, he would advise a cultivated new­ comer to the nation to got his elementary schooling in 143 American life from some inferior writer. "A very consider­ able part of Mr. Howells's fiction deals with a highly specialised variety of Americans." Not that Howells was eccentric; on the contrary, after one had grasped him, ho was simple. "But his simplicity is ultimate, not obvious; and it requires a dash of subtlety in the reader to grasp the fact of his normality." Furthermore, the public, "im­ patient of the slightest transcendence of its own limitations, puts him by for the sake of novelists who offer, not only fewer benefits, but fewer pleasures." (pp. [332J-3 3 4 )

Insofar as the criticism of Firkins does not reflect the personal tastes and reactions of an erudite man. It is based upon assured standards of symmetrical form and plot, and a high ideal of refined, artistic style. A3 a reviewer of the book ha3 pointed out,^ Firkins tended to impose on the novel "the artificial technique of the drama." Conse­ quently, he found weaknesses of structure everywhere, but particularly In A Hazard of New Fortunes. His preoccupation with traditional form limited his judgment; he seemed to make no allowance for organic form or any possible experiment or variation. A Hazard of New Fortunes is certainly not a shapely novel, but it has a recognizable unity, a wholeness, of its own. It does not deserve to be summarily dismissed, even by a stylist. Firkins neglected altogether the social criticism and the implications that are so vital In the work.

Even in his reading of the utopian romances, he managed to 11+1*. reduce all of Howells1 social criticism to a plea for social equality. Firkins Himself could yield only the statement that there was need of a more comprehensive order in American life* The Inference Is that he was at heart conservative and aristocratic; he did not take kindly to criticism of the existing social order. His primary view of the novel as a work of art was narrow and provincial, compared to the atti­ tude of Henry James. Yet Firkins was not averse to realism, and he brought to light subtle points of artistry and reality in Howells' fiction.

With Firkins' study the realistic criticism of Howells

(In the sense in which I have used the term) came to a halt.

The philosophy of realism that had been so radical In the i8 6 0 rs had gradually become a conservative attitude, in spite of the developments which marked It. Almost from the beginning, American realism had been carefully differentiated from the method of Zola and other European realists. It had clung to the native morality and optimism; it had ob­ served the restrictions erected by the myth of the "Young

G-irl"; it had avoided, in a large measure, the tendencies toward naturalism in our literature. By 1900, younger, more daring novelists had gone much further than the older genera­ tion of realists; they had dealt frankly with uglier realities and what they conceived as more vital ones. Shortly after­ ward3 , the muckrakors had employed the novel as a medium of propaganda to expose in detail various wrongs and evils in

our 3ociety. Moreover, the revolutionary or iconoclastic

critics had established by 1920 the fashion of devaluating

if not entirely rejecting Howells and his moderate realism.

Under these circumstances the old type of realistic criticism was submerged. Throughout the second and third decades most of the criticism of Howells was either conventional

or slanted in knowing generalities -toward the view of the

Menckenites. The remnants of the line of critical realism

survived perhaps in the activist or sociological criticism

that was developed largely after 1 9 3 0 * Chapter IV

ICONOCLASTIC CRITICISM

By the second decade of the twentieth century, the conflict over Howells1 brand of realism had subsided. Ideal

1stic-moralistic criticism had conceded so much to the opposition that it was no longer a vital force In American letters* Realistic criticism had become static and con­ servative, tending to hold the barriers against the less restrained modes of depicting life* Then in 1913 John Macy sounded the first major note of a criticism, more social

than literary, that rebelled against tradition, convention­ ality, moral judgments, and puritan views.^ Tending to b© lai’gely negative in effect, it was a "debunking" or devaluat

ing of all American writers who did not picture life with the easy individual freedom that the critics admired. It was characterized by glib generalizations, startling com­ parisons, and bold exaggerations, all expressed in eye­ catching journalistic phrases. For this type of criticism,

Howells was an obvious target. The honored, respected "Dean had been praised excessively in numerous "appreciations" since approximately 1 9 0 8 ; no doubt he appeared to be a symbol of Victorian conventionality. For over twenty years successive writers labeled Howells a victim of tradition, of Europe and Boston? a man who knew nothing of life? a mere "contriver of pretty things," a stylist? a member of llj-7 the bourgeoisie, blood-brother to Andrew Carnegie; a pre­ tender who lacked a sense of values. Frequently these indictments were not supported by references to the novels; when quotations were cited* they were often misinterpreted* misread, or distorted. Also, most of this writing gives small indication of historical perspective. As literary criticism, little of it has value, but the arresting quality of the "smart” phrases and the brutality of the image-break­ ing has had considerable influence on many readers since

1913 • Iconoclastic criticism flourished until about 193^4-* whon new Interests and developments seem to have diverted the writers.

The Spirit of American Literature (hew York, [1313 j ), by John Albert Ivlacy, was the first important document of the revolutionary criticism. It was an attempt, from a point of view almost directly opposed to the conventional one, to re-evaluate American letters. Howells, announced the critic, was "stricken by the Dead Hand In Literature."

"He became the Dean of American Letters, and there was no one else on the Faculty." Very early ho had fallen under the influence of Europe and Boston, and his Ohio outlook on life had become "dimmed by the fogs of tradition." Like

Henry James, Howe.lls had accepted the self-imposed limita­ tions of realism, but not lij-8

Its profound privilege of telling the truth. . . .To take the method of realism without its substance, without its integrity to the bolder passions, results In a work precise In form and excellently finished, but narrow In outlook and shallow. (p. 2 8 2 )

Howells left the great things out, stripping life "not only of its false romance but of its true romance." A Modern

Instance was a failure because Howells did not know people and "their day's work," or because he was imaginatively unable to graSp "those big moments In the soul." Nor did he understand social problems. "A Traveler from Altruria seems like the sentimentalism of a benevolent man." In Annie

Kilburn Howells did not portray the people Annie wished to help: "He sees things from a distance; he is a sketcher; a very delicate farceur, .a war correspondent who has never been In range of bullets." Within his limits, Macy conceded,

Howe113 was a perfect artist. "He never wrote a bad page, never wrote a sentence that any one else could make better.

. . .As a writer of superficial, delicate comedy he is unsur­ passed." The Lady of the Aroostook, for Instance, was

"faultless"; and yet it was all surface. There was more of New England life in one of Mary E. W. Freeman's short stories than in any one of Howells' novels. He employed his fine, precise, narrow gift with unflagging conscience and industry, and sometimes created admirable pictures-- especially the ball scene In April Hopes and a few scenes

^ke Kentons. But in the final analysis, Howells was like ll+9 Addison, Hawthorne, and Pater--"secondary writers who have no influence on our thinking, whose wisdom is not profound, 2 whose ideas we do not vividly recall.”

The bias, the superficiality, and the inconsistency of

this criticism are self-evident. Obviously intending to discredit Howalls, to demonstrate that he had written "only pretty things, nicely unimportant," Macy overstated half-

truths, selected his references arbitrarily, and made un­ founded assumptions. His thesis of the vitiating effect of Boston probably was derived from H. T. Peck's The Personal

Equation (1 8 9 8 ), as was his notion of the perfection of

The Lady of the Aroostook. It Is singular that from his vantage point of 1913 Macy omitted any comment on four of

Howells' most vital books. Even more singular Is the fact

that after stressing the lack of the deeper passions In the novels, the critic chose as his favorites scenes of rela­

tively placid social comedy. The Hi3e of Silas Lapham,

A Hazard of Hew Fortunes, The Landlord at Lionfs Head, and

The Son of Royal Langbrith should have been evidence that

Howells knew a great deal about people, their work, and their life. Furthermore, his economic novels show a sound understanding of social problems and the underlying causes of those problems. It seems evident that Macy deliberately selected books and scenes to bolster his preconceived thesis. In Literature and Insurgency (191^)* John Gurtia Under­ wood^ accepted the view that "Boston plus Tolstoi" was the dominant influence on Howells, and declared that the novelist remained "from start to finish Incurably a sentimentalist."

As a result of his "temperamental softness," Howells had a tendency to believe everybody and everything better than they were; he refused to look life squarely in the face; he drugged himself with shadowy dreams and Illusive hopes of a hereafter. Ho had misread and misinterpreted the meaning and tho purpose of history, evolution, civilization, democracy, and science. According to the critic, science as "an inspir­ ing, informing factor of American life," particularly the lay/s of evolution, was a "sealed book" to Howells. His pessimism was an outgrowth of the New England conscience added to sentimentality. The more immediate causes, it seemed to Underwood, were his realization that it was diffi­ cult to be "a big fish In a big pond"; the obvious social and economic inequalities that existed; the narrowness of his Intellectual and professional circle; and the influence of Tolstoy1s "questionable social philosophy." In many of his books Howells was "lovable," despite all his faults, but he was not an accurate critic of life, democracy, and America.

A Hazard of New Fortunes revealed "no masterly handling in his tentative analysis of social discontent," not a single practical remedy, no "inspiringly and unsparingly noble" tragedy, no Joy or urge to joy--only a dreary, futile life. i5i

As for his Altrurian notions, Howells lacked the knowledge and experience necessary for an Ideal treatment; yet, within limits, he conveyed nmch that was shrewd, suggestive, and

inspiring. The critic was most grateful, though, for the charm of his earlier books. In dealing with the problems of

the day, Howells fell short of an adequate and just estimate.

Underwood’s criticism features the large assumption, based on rather small evidence; certainly it does not indicate a close perceptive reading of Howells' best work. The charge

that Howells was unacquainted with the principles and implica­

tions of evolution has been disproved by the recent study of darry Hayden Clark. At this distance, moreover, Underwood's apparent belief in science as a panacea for our problems seems pathetic. It is a little difficult also to reconcile

"noble tragedy" with survival of the fittest. This criti­ cism is confused, unsubstantial, and to a large extent unliterary.

Fred L. Pattee’s A History of American Literature Since

1870 (New York, 1915) revealed some very pecuLiar attitudes toward Howells. In the opinion of the critic, Howells was a man of talent of the Pope-Macaulay order that considered literature "a profession to be learned as one learns the pipe organ after years of practice." During the three periods of his career he was first poetic and spontaneous, then deliberate and artistic, and finally scientific and l£2

ethical. tf. . .The later manner was an artificial acquire­ ment like the taste for olives." Howells was bold in theory but timid in application. Realism should flout convention­ alities, declared the critic; but the ending of An Imperative

Duty was a concession:

It would have been stronger art to have made fRhoda] rise superior to her selfishness, the soul triumphant over the flesh, and refuse to marry the man, and to do It for the sole compelling reason that she loved him. (page 2 0 8 )

Howells' novels, like those of Jane Austen, were valuable as historical documents: they dealt with every phase of

Boston’s external life. Yet, Howells’ point of view was that of an outsider. He never treated the Hew England con­ science with the sympathy of comprehension, as Hawthorne did; he treated It only as added detail— as a "’humor.’"

In Annie Kilburn and the works that followed, analysis and scientific purpose replaced story. There were no love- making, no marriage, no passion, no crime, no violence, no mystery, no climax in the later fiction. "Everywhere new problems--moral, social, psychological--problems discussed by means of endless dialogue." At the very beginning Howells approached Boston with too much reverence, bringing nothing of Western audacity and newness. He felt and yielded to the realistic reaction sweeping Europe and America, but to a modified realism, timid and refined. He recorded scarcely a crime: 1 5 3 . . „He has not in his voluminous gallery a woman who ever broke a law more serious than indiscretions at an afternoon tea. As a result there is no remorse, no problems of life in the face of broken lav/, no decisions that involve life and death and the agony that is sharper than death. In his pages life is an endless comedy where highly conventional and very refined people meet day after day and talk, and dream of Europe, and make love in the leisurely, old-fashioned way, and marry happily in the end the lover of their choice. 5

Kis realism was of the eighteenth-century type, having

affinity with Richardson rather than with Zola. Howells

was as tedious as Richardson, the critic felt, and at times

nearly as voluminous* He made "a mountain out of a mole­

hill" because he believed his readers expected him to do it.

Like Richardson, Howells centered his work about women, with

the result that a single woman--the "Howells type"--emerged;

and she was scarcely a figure "of whom her sex may be proud."

His art was essentially of the prosent world: it contained

nothing of the soul and the higher life of dreams and aspira­

tions. "Lightly he skims over the surface of material

things, noting the set of a garment or the shade of a cravat,

recording rather than creating, interested in life only as

It Is affected by manners." This was work for a feminine hand, "no work Indeed for a great novelist at the dawn of a

new period in a new land." Amid the herculean stir and

struggles about him, "Howells, like Clarissa Harlowe, is

Interested 'in her ruffles, in her gloves, her samplers, her

aunts and uncles.'” 1514- On the other hand, Howells differed from Richardson

in that he was also a satirist of manners, a critic, and

e He became critical, according to Pattee, "after his first av/e of New England had subsided." One could smile at his work (but seldom laugh); admire his skill; take a certain pleasure in the cold lifelikeness of his characters.

But the supreme object of art was not cold likenesses, manners,, or behavior; rather, it was "laying hold of the reader's heart and walking with him in sympathy and convic­

tion. " Howells had made the new realism respectable, and he might have been a real leader if he had been less timid and fastidious. Of course he had a finished art, perfect

English, brilliant expression. "His beautiful style dis- 6 armed criticism and concealed the leanness of his output."

The concept of realism advanced here is patently of romantic origin. The kind of sacrifice demanded by the critic in An Imperative Duty belongs to the old tradition' of noble self-denial. He wanted exciting dramatic action, heart-rending emotional conflicts, and inspiring characters.

Whatever their faults, Howells' women are not all alike, nor are his stories mere surface sketches. The "beautiful style"of Howells appears to have concealed too the keenness of his perceptions and the bite of his satire and irony.

Just as his predecessors had done, Pattee largely ignored the later books and gave scant consideration to the novelist's / social criticism. None the less, his quotable phrases of disparagement and his verdict that Howells was timid and fastidious added materially to the iconoclastic view.

One of the most unbalanced and inaccurate works on

Howells was a full-length study by Alexander Harvey published 7 in 1917* It abounds with extreme, almost vehement comments, many of which lack order and sense. According to the critic,

Howells had subtlety, artistry of style, a mastery of narra­ tive art. His novels were characteristically American--in portraiture, dialogue, incident, scene, and humor. Yet, as a whole, his fiction was "the most effective indictment” of native American society ever framed. It pictured a world of the trivial and the inconsequential, a world of infinite physical comfort, childish and feminized. In this world ideas were emasculated, ’’like the men the heroines marry.”

Even the characters from the most humble home showed ’’all that Instinct for caste and that dread of equality which are the Anglo-Saxon's birthright.” Howells was the greatest of

"the American victims of the British literary superstition.”

He was at the head of "the 3 issy school of American literature which tended to subordinate the masculine to the feminine.

". . .The realism he champions amounts to nothing more than a feminine attitude to life on the part of the novelist, an attitude of receptivity, passivity, the woman attitude."

His novels were surface studies that never led to the depths of anything; and in the light of Freudian psychology, the whole fabric of his criticism collapsed and disintegrated.

Because his influence had "sacrificed the vigor of our literature to mere prettiness," Howells had done "an enormous amount of damage to American literature." Howells’ trouble, in the opinion of the critic, was his ignorance of the nature of literature in relation to life. "No man ever wrote out of his own vacuity with more beauty of manner." He did not get below the physical manifestations of life "to the life itself, the essence, the soul." He was great when dealing with the trivial, trivial when encountering the great. His later studies of New York were "parlor Soc.ialism of a femi­ nine kind"--"a display of ineffectuality." Howells’ art wa,r3 great, but it was barren, Harvey declared; it was art and nothing more.^

This professed study of Howells is marked by numerous contradictions, repetitions, statements of impossible praise, and statements of equally impossible censure. It appears' to be a hodgepodge of unreconciled borrowings commented on from the viewpoint of a romanticist, an Anglophobe, and a

Freudian convert. The first seven chapters contain excessive praise of Howells ("the greatest living artist in the field of fiction who uses the English language") and much dis­ paragement of English literary art and criticism. In the following chapters, Howells' realism is censured: "hi3 world" never combined "psychological insight. . .with imagination and fancy"; he was "objective" and "not in the least subjective l£7 Finally, Harvoy accuses Howells of being unaware of the subconscious mind, and of never once suspecting that death is a symbol of sex. Harvey's final effect is clearly deroga­ tory, but there is little insight or value in his digressive, confused book.

A much more plausible and rational view of Howells was presented by Van Wyck Brooks in his Letters and Leadership 9 (1918)* According to the critic, Howells had given us the

"comsdie humaine of our post-bellum society." He had falsi­ fied his vision of reality in the interests of popular enter­ tainment far less than any other novelist 1 of his time. But his remark that "'the more smiling aspects of life* are Tthe more American1" and his insistence on the American novel­ ist’s being true only to' our "’well-to-do actualities’" were essentially "a declaration of artistic bankruptcy." "It

Identifies the reality of the artist’s vision with what is accepted as reality in the world about him." The duty of the artist, as Brooks saw it, was to penetrate beneath society; to float the invisible world "on the sea of his imagination" and measure it not according to its own scale of values "but according to the values that he has himself derived from his descent Into the abysses of life." But

Howells, fully under the sway of Boston, "never felt the necessity" of exploring beneath the surface of cultivated

Now England life. Thus, A Modern Instance was viewed by

Howells not from the angle of an experience that was wider 158 and deeper,, but from the angle of Ben Halleck, "the epitome of Boston's best public opinion."

This is one of the first instances of the use of the

"smiling aspects of life" phrase to damn Howells as a super­ ficial optimist and conformist. As Edwin H. Cady has pointed 10 out, the bulk of Howells' fiction shows a quiet disillu­ sion rather than optimism; and in his use of the quoted phrase Howells was contrasting the comparatively good life of America with the decadence and corruption in Russia. A 3 a matter of fact, Howells had used the phrase in just such a context in his first novel, Their Wedding Journey. ^ Brooks missed also the skeptical note in Howells, and questionably identified Ban Halleck as his spokesman. It is true that

Halleck and, more particularly, Atherton express the code of the day in reasoning against Halleck*s marriage to Marcia; but it is not certain that Howells approves of that code.

In his novels there Is a tremendous amount of indirection that makes It risky to take the attitudes of "the best society" as a reflection of his own thinking. On the other hand, until the final six chapters the story points toward a mar­ riage; Halleck is deeply Involved, almost committed, before he becomes aware of his fine scruples. Perhaps something happened to make Howells change his mind and decide that

Marcia should not be allowed to remarry. Yet in The Rise of

Silas Lapham (1885) he was able, through the Rev. Mr. Sewell, 159 to defend remarriage after divorce. Brooks utterly ignored the novels after l8 82--the very novels that contain a frank, strong criticism of society.

Probably the master exponent of abuse and ridicule was 12 H. L. Mencken. In his book Prejudices: First Series (1919) he expressed the radical attitude toward Howells in pungent fashion. "For twenty years past his successive books have not been criticized, nor oven adequately reviewed; they have been merely fawned over. . . ." (Of course this is an exag­ geration, and yet there is some truth in it.) Howells was

"a first-rate journeyman, a contriver’ of pretty things, a clever stylist," with a long list of "uninspired hollow books." He lacked life, passion, and tragedy. He had charm,

Mencken conceded, but nothing to say: his psychology was superficial; his irony was only polite and facetious; his characters did not live. He was unequal to the task of creating the "race-spirit11 and revealing the conflict of forces. The Leatherwood God offered no revelation of Dylks1 psychological processes; It was merely a piling up of words, an "accumulation of nothings," an anecdote without point or interest. "Somehow, he seems blissfully ignorant that life is a serious business, and full of mystery; . . .he is an

Agnes Repplier In pantaloons." In Hew Leaf Mills there was only "a sniff of the universal mystery." Howoll3 never gripped the emotions; he never left the reader with the sense 1 6 0

of something experienced (as E. W. Howe did in The Story of a Country Town). The critic suspected that Howells did not really feel or see. Only his style remained: "He achieved, for all his triviality, for all his narrowness of vision, a pungent and admirable style. ,*13

The critic made little attempt in thLs essay to sub­

stantiate his charges; he merely uttered them in his glib, oracular way* Notwithstanding his praise of Howells’ style,

Mencken seems to have objected in part to the novelist’s manner of expression--hi3 urbanity, politeness, calmness, habit of circumlocution. By inference, he wanted direct, crude treatment of simple clear-cut subjects, and themes such as he himself would select. H© paid no attention to Howells' social criticism, mentioned none of his stronger novels, and made unreasonable demands on those he cited. Mencken exceeds a critic’s province in requiring Howells to con­ centrate on Dylks’ psychological development or to reveal in

Now Leaf Mills "the universal mystery." Although his own criticism was superficial, Mencken helped convince others of Howells’ superficiality.

In 1923 Howard M. Jones and Carl Van Doren published articles**^ expressing in the more sedate language of the academic world the severe appraisal of Howells. It was ironical, Jones remarked, that Howells himself had become a classic: "Indeed, it is curious and sad that, whereas l6i

Howells's coatanean, Thomas Hardy, is still our contemporary, most of the novels by the American have the quaint flavor of

old fashion-plate3 ." As the critic saw it, Howells’ way of

employing excessive conversation on literary topics, with tho

pretense that the characters were not in a novel at all, was

a stock trait of romanticism. The author was not a realist,

but "a Victorian who convinced himself that he was a realist.

. . .The tragedy of Howells is that he toiled to suppress

the best thing about him, which was himself...." In the

second article, Van Eoren announced that realism displayed

its "most typical American aspect" only in the work of the

muekrakors. The American realist faced one specific obstacle:

"He has to overcome the amazing lead of Howells, who wrote

3ome forty novels in a dialect of innocence- never equalled

by any other novelist of his rank." The realist must look

for and bring to light what lay beneath "the current dreams."

Jones’s contrast of Howells and Hardy has point. No doubt

Howells’ moderate, restrained novel of manners seemed espe­

cially dated In a period of cynicism and revolt, while Hardy's

depiction of Individuals confronting eternal problems and

forces had a definite appeal. These essays added nothing new

but the temperance of their language In condensing what was

to become the conventional opinion of Howells.

After the publication of 0. W. Firkins' study of Howells

(19214-), two more critics voiced distinctly unfavorable views. 162

In an article called "The Style of Howells," printed in the

Nation for June 17, 1925 (CXX, 6914.), Llewelyn Powys declared

that Howells owed his reputation to the fact that he had expressed for fifty years in a "pseudo-literary manner" the

thoughts and feelings of his "well-to-do" countrymen. Not only had the novelist avoided tragic situations, but he had failed signally in his style aid his expression of humor.

During the same year Ernest Boyd wrote in the Independent 15 that no great work of fiction "was ever born of such shel­ tered and cloistered virtue" as the limited themes employed by Howells. Those limitations ruled him "out of the litera­

ture In which the world in this year of grace 1925 is Inter­ ested." When Howells wrote his "smiling aspects" phrase, he dug his own grave.

Both of these articles are trivial. Obviously the critics based their comments mainly on someone else's criti­ cism of Howells, But in disparaging his style and insisting on his limitations (which for Boyd were demonstrated so adequately by Firkins’ list of themes— see page 1 3 6 ) these writers contributed to the devaluation of the novelist.

Ten years after Howells' death, G. Hartley Grattan printed a most damaging estimate of the novelist. 17 Howells was Intrinsically unimportant, stated the critic, for his work was "simply a reflection of his own temperamental limita­ tions and of the literary prejudices of his environment." Instead of trying to infuse some new vitality, "he accepted the New England environment at Boston's evaluation and took

Boston's judgments as his own." Since he had no understand­ ing of American society, ho was limited as a social novelist, and his socialism amounted to nothing. . .His view of

America Is scarcely distinguishable from Andrew Carnegie's, whose attitude was that of the triumphant bourgeoisie.

Howells was their novelist." In A Modern Instance there was no probing of .human life or character, only a measuring of both by social prejudices and conventions. A Hazard of New

Fortunes contained his best pictures of industrial conflict and showed sympathy with the workers, but it revealed also his lack of a fundamental conception of social revolt. The

Altrurian books were "anemic" and "ladylike-." In Grattan's opinion, Howells was "at his trivial best" in the "light, fluffy" novel, The Kentons. As for his feminine characters, which were compounded from the American myth about women, he rarely gave more than a superficial view of them. Howells error was to assume that tea-table situations ruled the world at-large: "No novelist ever more completely lacked a sense of relative values." Although his style was a perfect vehicle for faint emotions and "notions," it was linear and not organic, thin and not robust; it was alacritous and super­ ficial. "It i3 the style of a consummate craftsman rather than of a true artist." Except for his service to taste— turning American fiction toward realism— Howells * Influence l6!p was largely baleful. Ho never cut through the surface to

become a true portrayer of human life as it appeared in the

United States. "In the end he can only stand forth as the

perfect exponent of the late Nineteenth Century bourgeois

spirit in American Literature." Grattan's essay shows that

he viewed Howells and his age without understanding, insight,

or sympathy. A critic who could imagine that Howells looks

with complete approval on Silas Lapham, the merchant Gerrish,

Dryfoor., and Northwick ("triumphant bourgeoisie”), or miss

his undeniable criticism of social figures and conventions

throughout his novels, practically disqualified himself

from judging Howells. He could not possibly discern how

profoundly the novelist was interested in human values.

The essay is manifestly' the expression ofsmart new era

that brashly finds nothing pertinent or worthwhile in the

life and literature of the past.

On the occasion of his receiving the Nobel Prize,

Sinclair Lewis somewhat gratuitously ridiculed Howells in an

address printed as "The American Fear of Literature.

He noted that "something like a standard," a very bad one,

had first emerged v/ith Howells, whose influence had not

yet died in 1 9 3 0 .

Mr. Howells was one of the gentlest, sweetest, and most honest of men, but he had the code of a pious old maid whose greatest delight was to have tea at the vicarage. He abhorred not only profanity and obscenity but all of what H. G. Wells has called 'the jolly coarseness of life.' l6£

In 19.30 also, Matthew Josephson added his fillip in Portrait ig of the Art ist as American. As revealed by his letters,

Howells seemed to the critic "the most bewildered, the most disabused, the most pathetic, of by-standera." He was in lifelong subjection to Henry James, and for years'he bowed before the cultivated upper class.

An essayist by nature and self-culture,...Howells really went astray in the novel... .His realism consisted merely of an avoidance of arbitrary or improbable episode, of a duplication of the exact length, propriety, and dullness of middle-class American conversation.

His novels lacked "intensity or precipitation"; his social protests were tempered and apologetic, for he wrote from no

Heoth of conviction. These shallow comments suggest that the writers were unfamiliar with the novels as well as the period in which they were written.

In The Foreground of American Fiction (1934- )> which 20 was a manifesto of naturalism, Harry Hartwlck made full use of all the adverse criticism of Howells. "Sweetness and Light" represented Hartwlck*s view of the novels: For the most part, they resembled "cheerful little plays" fattened with scraps of description and exposition and composed largely of dry dialogues on drawing-room questions of the day. There v;as a more significant theme, however, in A Hazard of Hew

Fortunes and The Rise of Silas Lapham:

Together they represent an impeachment of materi­ alism in American life, and embody Howells* be­ l66

lief that while our crude nouveau riche [sic? may possess money, they very often lack the manners of the truo aristocrat. Breeding is breeding, Howells seems to aver, and wealth is wealth; and rarely the two shall meet. (pp. 3 2 2 -3 2 3 )

Hartwick quoted extensively from 0. W. Firkins and F. L.

Fattee on Howells' limitations, and disagreed with Carl Van

Doren's, statement that Howells had produced the " ’most con­ siderable transcript of American life. 111 According to

Hartwick, the novelist barred pessimism and clung to a happy ending in all but one or two novels. His work had wisdom, charm, grace of execution; but it lacked vitality and a contagious effect; it had only n,a blameless middlingness.'"

Howells was perhaps liberal only in his social consciousness, which dated from his reading of Tolstoy. Although he expressed the idea that competitive capitalism was no longer satis­ factory, he was still conservative; he saw a permanent hiatus between the upper and lower classes. In the last analysis

Howells returned to " ’ the Inner check. He had suffered an eclipse, therefore, because "humanism has been replaced as our philosophy of life by naturalism, and. . .Boston Is no longer America."

Hartwlck seems to have studied the criticism of Howells, particularly that of the Iconoclasts, more conscientiously than he examined the novels. Disillusion is central in

Howells, and at least ten of his novels have unhappy endings.

It is hard to understand also how his realisation (certainly not his approval) of the gap between the classes branded 167 him a conservative. The critic accepted without reserva- 21 tion the "smiling aspects" view of Howells.

Fundamentally, the iconoclasts aimed to devaluate

Puritan morality, tradition, dogmatism, authoritarian judg- mants--all the influences which seemed to have curbed or frustrated the healthy growth of American literature. They contributed a vigorous, personal, uninhibited criticism, and they helped to open new areas of subject matter that might be treated with candor and audacity. But the icono­ clasts were a liability as well as an asset. In the fury of their assault they minimized some aspects of Howells and ignored others. Their estimates, many of them general, either make Howells soerii all of a piece, or appear to judge his whole career from a few works chosen to bolster a thesis.

The iconoclasts showed a want of balance. After 193^1 there was little of the more caustic and insensitive criticism of

Howells. Nearly all the possible indictments had been made so blatantly and excessively that many of them had come to be adopted into the popular conventional view of the novelist.

They no longer had the startling, "original" appeal of muck­ raking. Also the rebellious lawlessness that had been so strong since the first World War had begun to subside. Socio­ logical critics had begun to reexamine the American past In the hop© of finding sanctions for their Ideas, and in their 168 new appraisals of literary men on the basis of their attitude toward the extension of democracy found new and unsuspected values in Howells and others. Perhaps mo3 t important, how­ ever, was the rapid increase of scholarly research in American literature, 169

Chapter V

SOCIOLOGICAL CRITICISM

After Howells' death, a few critics saw in his novels, particularly those written between 1887 and 1894-* a percep­ tion of issues that were vital to the development of democ­ racy. In their concern for improving the basis and the conditions of society In America, these writers took a fresh look at the literature and thought of the past and tried to revitalize those elements that seemed meaningful- To them, the fiction of Howells acquired new value because he was one of the earliest American novelists to play a self-con­ scious part In furthering the cause of liberalism. They reexamined.the period of his social criticism; they studied anew the books, culminating in A Traveler from Altruria, that expressed a sense of the Injustices resulting from a competitive industrial system and urged, Implicitly or explicitly, some efforts toward economic and social reform.

Since a social thesis or system was paramount in their minds, they tended to appraise Howells strictly In the light of their own experience, knowledge, formulas, and perceptions as fourth decade social critics. They sometimes remained conscious of the exigencies of art, but always they sought

’’usable" social values. 170

One of the first studies to emphasize Howells’ inter­ est in social problems was an article called "The Social

Consciousness of William Dean Howells," by Altha Leah Bass.'*'

According to Miss Bass, there were two periods in Howells1 fictional works: from the beginning until 1 8 8 6 ; and from

1887 until his death. His style and method remained the same; but in the first period he delineated people, places, and ways of living as he observed them, whereas in the last period he depicted characters meeting certain conditions and responsibilities. In the earlier phase he had moved from

the "pleasing externalities" of Their VVedding Journey to the serious moral problems and responsibilities of The Rise of

Silas Lapham, but the responsibilities were related to the

individual, and not to society. Then Howells acquired from

Tolstoy "a 3ense of the larger social values and of the

importance of social movements." The best expression of his mature social consciousness was A Hazard of Hew Fortunes, which presented problems without sacrificing art:

In the sense that it involves the great issues of the day without at the same time becoming social propaganda at any point In Its progress, It may be judged a finer work than The Rise of Silas Lapham. . . . (p. 193)

Using the same restraint that characterized his realism and his moral seriousness, Howells never allowed his social con­ sciousness to obtrude. Whenever there was no justification for the treatment of social problems, he made no direct 171 reference to them. His criticism in A Traveler from

Altruria and Through the Eye of the Needle was pointed out and unsparing, Miss Bass felt, but it was not bitter; in fact, his mild humor and close observation gave these works the charm of a "series of closely related familiar essays."

Only an artist could have put so much radical thought into a form so moderate and pleasing.

It is this moderation in the treatment of social problems, keeping them always within the realm of art, that will make Howells's novels live when many of the novels dealing more pointedly but less artistically with the same problems, will have had their day and ceased to be. (p. 199-)

Miss Bass seems to have been less Interested in Howells *

Ideas than in his keen awareness of social problems and his success In incorporating them in his novels with artistry and restraint. These points are fairly simple, but they were not always recognized at the time; artistry and re­ straint were not much admired in 1 9 2 1 .

A more potent and impressive examination of Howells 2 was that of Vernon Louis Parrington in 1930. Parrington took the stand that despite Howells f reticences, obtrusive morality, optimism, and dislike of looking ugly facts in the face, for twenty years "he was a prophet of realism to his generation." Howells was indeed an American Victorian, kindly, urbane, tolerant, democratic; but ha was also an intellectual, alert and sensitive to changing currents of 172

thought. Certainly he was not of nthe Gilded Age*11 Tor he was unspoiled by its vulgarity and unconcerned with its

ambitions. Nor was he, at heart, a child of the Brahmin culture; his drift toward realism was a negation of that

influence. Although his long residence in the Cambridge atmosphere ^postponed the day of his intellectual release,"

in applying the scientific spirit to fiction and in espous­

ing objective realism, he broke with the Brahmin tradition.

Especially did I-Iowells exhibit his independence in A Hazard

of New Fortunes« which dramatized skillfully his current doubts and hesitations, and A Traveler from Altruria. which

scored many shrewd thrusts at capitalism. There was irony,

the critic felt, in his attack on the professional groups for their quick defense'of the exploiting classes. Howells' realism was a native growth, an unfolding of temperament

through the reading of English classics. His dislike of

inadequately and partially conceived romanticism came from his instinctive feelings and convictions: his deep love of truth, his sympathy with the homely phases of life, his loyalty to the American fact, and his distrust of the aris­

tocratic spirit.

According to Parrington, there was justice in the criti­ cism often made of Howells--that in minimizing plot and rejecting the unusual and the heroic he reduced his stories to a boring, drab level and evaded the deeper, more tragic realities. Howells did not probe the depths of emotional experience* neither the life of the spirit nor the passions of the flesh. By environment* he became almost perforce

"a specialist in women's nerves, an analyst of the tenuous

Nov/ England conscience* a master of Boston small-talk. ”

There was a persistent note of the neurotic in his fiction:

’'There are more scruples to a page of Howells than in any other writer except Henry James— for the most part filmy cobwebs invisible to the coarser vision of a later generation

The fault could be traced to Howells' deep reverence for

New England, to the inferiority complex he suffered from in Boston. To justify his acceptance in the Brahmin world* he "sloughed off his western heritage* perverted his genius* and shaped his realism to the slender materials discovered

in Back Bay drawing-rooms." In the end* his realism became little more than technique. Perhaps he was true to what he saw* but style* humor* and fidelity "do not compensate for the slightness of his materials." Even A Hazard of New

Fortunes was "entangled in a mass of minute detail," the real issue of social injustice being "obscured in a welter of asides." Howells was more effective when dwelling "fondly on the infinitely eloquent trivialities of young love-making"

His real gifts— refinement* humor, sympathy, fidelity, skill and artistry--were not enough* Parrington concluded, to make Howells a great realist. "He belonged to the Age of Innocence and with its passing his works have been laid away." By temperament he was an eighteenth-century essayist, 17^ a ’'subtler Goldsmith"— not a novelist. Yet, Howells was the reporter of his generation; he marked the transition between the earlier idealism and the later naturalism.

Parrington thus reiterated many of the earlier charges against Howells, but ha differed from the iconoclasts in being keenly aware of the drift of social and economic forces in

America. Since he was interested in that literature which furthered the cause of democracy, he recognized the books that clearly showed Howells1 concern for freedom and justice.

Thus he was able to refute the notion that Howells was merely a .spokesman for the smug, respectable, conservative element of Victorianism. On the other hand, Parrington emphasized strongly the debilitating effect of the Boston influence, adopting the theory advanced by Peck, Maey, and others.

Like his predecessors, Parrington ignored both the native tendencies in Howells and the subtly critical overtones of the Boston novels. In his desire for those observations and realities which he considered vital, Parrington discounted any lesser realities, and denied the freedom of choice that

Henry James insisted on as the privilege of the novelist.

The charge that Howells often narrated on a boring, drab level is of course less answerable. In his final evaluation and in his description of Howells as a transitional figure,

Parrington expressed a view that is generally accepted today. 1 7 5

In The Liberation of American Literature, published in 1932, V. G. Calvorton^ presented a more narro\7ly socio­ logical appraisal of Howells. In Calverton’s opinion, the novelist was marked by the unresolved conflict of Western and Eastern forces within him. Howells showed his social pessimism (under the influence of Bellamy, Tolstoy, and th© disturbances of the 1 8 8 0 ’s ) and described industrial con­ flicts in Annie Kilburn, A Hazard of New Fortunes, The Quality of Mercy, and The World of Chance. "All In all, Howells was more alive to the social issues of the day than was any other

American novelist, and. . .he was able to see more of the underlying implications. ..." His realism, an outgrowth of the frontier force, was Intended as an attack upon Boston respectability. His own fiction "never achieved the realistic intensity and revelation which characterized the realism of the later twentieth-century school," but his Influence prepared the way for it. Howells’ realism was "caught up by the same contradictions which marred his social perspec­ tive." It pictured a world of democratic vision together with "a world of genteel decorum and Brahmlnical dignity."

While he was far in advance of his literary asso­ ciates in accepting radical prepositions that they violently repudiated, he almost Invariably expressed his radicalism in such a way that it became Innocuous. (p. 379)

In literature and In politics Howells was a "parlor sanscu­ lotte": "He never carried his realism beyond the point of

’reticence1 nor his radicalism very far beyond the point 176

of propriety.” Fever deviating from the bourgeois moral

code or admitting the presence of the sexual factor in life,

Howells did not treat the sexual impulse realistically. He

v/as concerned only with the realism of exterior things--

middle-class compunctions and petty bourgeois ideology.

He appealed to the public for justice, Calverton noted,

instead of appealing to the proletariat. He believed in a

solution by ballot and did not realize "that a ruling class

would never surrender its power and property except by

force. "

In his efforts to find native support for the Marxist

position Calverton studied Howells with enough perception to

recognise the underlying pessimism and the extent of the

criticism In the novels. But the critic's bias led him to

view Howells entirely in terms of twentieth-century revolu­

tionary thought. The artistry and restraint of Howells»

fiction appear to have been of no value, except perhaps a

negative one. The judgment that Howells' realism was intended

as an attack upon Boston respectability is as indefensible as

the comparison of his kind of realism with that of the 1 9 2 0 's.

The first attributes an unworthy, shallow motive to Howells;

the second ignores the vast changes that had taken place by

1930 in American life, outlook, knowledge, and language--

it discards historical perspective. Ironically, Calverton was 30 enwrapped in urging class conflict that he seems to have overlooked Howells' equally radical Insistence on social 177 equality as a necessary adjunct to political and economic

equality. Howells 1 avoidance of sex was to be much examined

by later critics.

Ludwig Le\visohn’s Expression in America,^ published

during the same year as Calverton's book, presents a view of

Howells that is both liberal and highly individual. Lewisohn

classed Howells and James as the first Americans to survey

man and society as they actually are in the land and age

of the novelist. More Indebted to Russian and French influ­

ences than to English, these novelists added concern for form

to scrupulous observation; they regarded observation as a

valid, important kind of experience; they sought to reduce

form to the Inherent function of rendering substance. Also,

they set aside the outer provincial and merely conventional

limitations. But there remained "the paralyzing limitations”

of their own natures. Currently, Howells was almost unread,

and James had ”but a small circle of readers among the elderly and determinedly refined.” Yet, the critic prophesied that revolutions of time and taste would restore both novelists to an honorable place in the history of American civilization and that "small and rigid selections of their works" would come to "constitute a permanent element of the American mind." Like Calverton, Lewisohn saw Howells mixing Boston niceties with the humble truth of life and a sincere passion for the economic amelioration of society. Howells was blighted by tho grave defects of the Victorian age: sex- consclousness and vulgarity. The age was "pure" because it was sex-conscious; the age was afraid of vulgarity because it was vulgar. James was not unaware of "the quality of the situation," but Howells was, and "yielded without so much as an inner protest to Boston and this pusillanimity of his is the worm that may hollow out the otherwise extraor­ dinarily fine structure of his b©3t work." In his treatment of tho major emotions he maintained "a shocking and con­ temptible moderation"; in his base attitude to marriage,

"revolting to every generous instinct," he displayed "an unbearable stuffiness and creeping prose." Only the moral

Influence of women was "a sincere part" of a creed that eliminated gallantry, delight, courtesy, and delicacy.

Howells ? total Image of married life was "of men grossly henpecked by women who were stripped on principle of m y of the attractions that alone can make female tyranny endur­ able." His tendency to regard love as trivial was "a crushing handicap." Howells was no timid thinker, but he "assumed the limitations of his experience and his observation to be the limitations of truth itself," thus reconciling his contempo­ raries to him. He took refuge in the "smiling aspects" attitude. His critical theory was a rationalization of his practice, which was the expression of his nature. Therefore his theory had no critical objective value. Like his age,

Howells was acutely and negatively sex-conscious. 179 On the positive side, Lewisohn granted that every story

by Howells included several characters who were presented

with insight and precision, "smooth periphery" and "unob­

trusive structural felicity." His keen observations and

the perceptions of his characters constituted a "valid and

generous criticism of institutions," even though the cumula­

tive effect, with some exceptions, was one of tameness. His

delineations of minor characters and the surface of American

life, manners, and scenes made Howells the incomparable historian of the manners of the age, if not of the ideas

and passions. Howells "must stand or fall" on the products

of his "golden time" of 1882 to 1886--A Modern Instance,

The Rise of Silas Lapham, and Ind ian Surnrnor--with the possible

addition of A Hazard of Hew Fortunes, The Kentons, and Mis s

Bellard ' s Inspiration. In A Modern Instance he struck his deepest, most impassioned note, but the "inhuman priggishness" of the conclusion prevented the novel from being great.

Predatory and possessive Marcia, drawn with energy and skill, could spring only from experience, Lawisohn felt; Bartley

Hubbard's "essential honesty of purpose in the crucial situa­ tion" gave Howells away, showing that he failed to convince himself of Bartley's rascality. For ardor of expression and truth of characterization the novel stood alone among

Howells1 works: it was "creative speaking out"— it was art.

Silas Lapham, the typical Howells novel at its best, was nearly a masterpiece of its kind--of manners. If Trollope's 180

Barchester novels could return to enlightened favor* Le¥/isohn

asked, why not Howells? The story included some arbitrary

incidents and presented a limited view of American life, but the action was vigorous and the characters lived. For

the realities of Indian Summer Howells was "hopelessly ill-

equipped." A Hazard of Nov; Fortunes, which was not far below

Silas Lapham, was less adequate and satisfying artistically:

Howells could not grasp or master the social forces he dealt with there. The Kentons was felicitous for manners, and

In Miss Bellard1s Inspiration, Mrs. Mevison was an older,

subtler Marcia Gaylord on a higher level, now "frankly

acknowledged and rendered for what she is."

LowIsohn perceived and expressed very neatly the general

contributions of Howells (and James) to the art of fiction

in America. He seems to have been emancipated from all of

the biases except that of the sex motive; In Expression of

America he attacked the Puritan tradition from the point of view of Freudian psychology, and In his own novels, notably

In The Case of M r . Crump (1 9 2 6 ), he was much preoccupied with

the subconscious. Ha looked upon sex-consciousness as the

sole cause of Howells' reticence, moderation, and circum­ scribed themes. It Is somewhat illogical to say that Howells was unaware of the "quality of the situation" and to add In the same breath that he yielded without a protest. But probably the critic did not believe that Howells was blind to the facts. Lewisohn'3 queer Indignation over Howells1 treat- 1 8 1 mont of love and marriage suggests a degree of romantic idealization within the critic. No less odd is his enthusi­ asm over the slight caricature of Mrs. Mavison, in Miss

Be Ha r d 1 s Inspiration. It seems likely that he was unfamiliar with the portrait of Mrs. Farrell. His assertion that Howells

was not a timid thinker opposed the verdict of earlier critics and suggested a new approach in evaluating the novel­ ist.

In The Great Trad ition, Granville Hicks used to his advantage the Insights of critics who had preceded him. He noted that Howells was limited by his experience, his inter­ ests, and the literary standards of the day. The novelist shrank from the Implications of his study of the millionaire,

In Silas Lapham; yet he was the first to attempt such a portrait. Unlike Gould, Drew, Cooke, and men of their ilk,

Silas belonged, in methods, outlook, and Ideals, to the pre­ war generation. None the less many readers had considered the novel too bold and searching. Howells wrote about more aspects and more important aspects of life in the United

States than either his contemporaries or his predecessors.

Hicks praised especially the study of New -England character in the last chapter of The Lady of the Aroostook, the impact of summer visitors in Annie Kilburn and A Traveler from

Altruria. the effect of the city on country character In A

Modern Instance and The Minister1s Charge, and village 182

radicals and eccentrics in Squire Gaylord and Ralph Putney.

Howells understood the society of declining Boston; in his

Boston characters he saw their virtues and limitations, the

bias in their thought, and their relations to the larger

compact society. In A Hazard of Hew Fortunes, the Marches' wandering about and observing New York was as good as any­

thing else in the book. No other American novel was comparable

in scope, the critic felt, except possibly The Gilded Age.

And yet, there was the sense that Howells "has not

quite forced his way through to the center of the situation ho lias chosen to deal with. " He either asked the wrong

questions or gave the wrong answers. In The Quality of Mercy ho asked whether the defaulter should repent, not why he was

false to his trust. In Annie Kllburn he wondered how the

rich could help the poor, not how they arrived at their

relative stations. A Mod ern Instance, concerned with divorce,

’’fails to state the problem in Its most representative terms,

and, by turning Bartley Hubbard from a likable poseur to a

contemptible rascal, distracts attention from the major

issue." Although the material in Silas Lapham was typically

American, the emphasis fell on elements of experience not quite corresponding to the major post-Civil War movements

in the life of the nation. Also A Hazard of New Fortunes gave the feeling that something important was being neglectedf and aroused the reader's Impatience with the time given to

the progress of the magazine, the home life of the Woodfourns, 183

an8 the various love stories® Such novels as April Hope s ,

T1 lq Coast of Bohemia, The Story of a Play, and The Vacation

of the Kelwyns, good enough in their way, "never once suggest

a valid reason for Howells 1 having chosen to write them."

He spent much time in posing problems of established society

and the traditional culture of Europe--problems which Henry

James handled much better. Howells failed to master American

civilisation to the extent of dealing incisively even with

minor issues.

Howells' aims were right, said Hicks, but he failed in

achievement. Marked by prudishness, limited by experience

and ,fa certain deliberate unwillingness to look about him, 11

and exposed to the confusions of his age, he accepted "the

genteel conception of literary life.” Like his characters

-*-n A Hazard of New Fortunes, Howells did not understand the

commercial spirit. In his position as editor he was protected

from contacts with "the rough realities of politics and

business." His method of realism, based on observation,

discouraged the exercise of will and imagination. His theory was "a necessary compromise between the demands of literary

integrity and the difficulties of his era” : he had to cling

to Isolated observation because he could perceive no all-

embracing pattern. If Howells had been aware of "the funda­ mental unity in American life," If he had possessed an ade­ quate social philosophy and real vision, observation would have fallen into its "properly subordinate place." After the l8i].

Civil War, Howells supposed that all problems had been

settled. "He lived in comfort and peace, and he assumed that

other people did the same." He was not disturbed by the

injustices of the social system until he encountered the

Haymarket Riot and the writings of Toi.stoy. His utopian

books had little to do with the realities of the American

problem. Being concerned with ends rather than means, he

gao/e little attention to methods of amelioration. He elimi-

nated the problem of industria3.ism, assuming that social

stability depends on spiritual attitude rather than on a

concrete program of production and distribution. Only on

the point of domestic servants could Howells relate Altrurian

life to his own experience. Tragically, he could not

free himself enough from the habits and preju­ dices of his upbringing and his manner of life to see the problem clearly. . . .Howells' so­ cialism was at best the vague reaction of a well- intentioned, sensitive man to the contemporary spectacle of misery and greed. (p. 9 8 )

IBecause he did not understand the economic forces, Howells

could not strike to the center of American life. The issues

in his books were never clear; the persons and events seemed

to Hicks not perfectly realized. Yet Howells tried, and

though he was wrong on many issues and weak at many points,

he Impelled American literature in the right direction.

G-ranville Hicks's criticism is broader in scope and more perceptive and knowing than that of Calverton, but the

activist bias leads finally to a slanted interpretation. 185

His questions were not accurately put or answered; Hicks wished to impose on the novels his ovm conception of causa­ tion and to have particular sociological problems worked out dispassionately to their logical conclusions. But Howells never wrote a ’’problem" novel in the sense of the muckrakers

or later novelists. He saw too many sides of a problem; lie was too much interested in his characters and the changes

In their minds and hearts to write a fictiona.1 sociological

treatise. Hot only did Hicks distort in th© interests of his own preoccupations the meaning of the novels containing problems, but also he questioned the very existence of the books that did not touch on issues he considered important.

The notion that Howells lived quietly immune from the world of politics and business appears to be unsound. Louis J.

Budd has shown recently that Howells worked in the tradi­ tion of active partisan journalism, first in Ohio, and later in Boston as assistant editor and editor of the Atlantic

Monthly. Howells’ early novels show that he was not obliv­ ious of the injustices of the social system, even before his reading of Tolstoy. It Is of course understandable that his Altrurian efforts would be unsatisfactory to an acute social critic of 1 9 3 3 •

Although Bernard Smith was chiefly interested in Howells ’ literary criticism, he expressed a very definite opinion of the novels. In "Howells: The Genteel Radical," printed in 186 7 the Saturday Rev lev; of Literature for August 11 , 193^1->

Smith declared that Howells was ultra-genteel about sex and

squeamish when faced with dirt, pain, crime, bestiality--

all ingredients of a large part of life. To that extent his fiction was weak and false as realism. Avon though his

novels possessed virtues of construction, style, urbanity, humanity, and dissent from the ideals and practices of the commercial world, they were dull and poor. The evasion of realities took the starch out of them. The characters were unnatural in moments of strongest passion; the greatest conflicts were dissipated in feeble unconvincing solutions,

"imposed according to the amenities of Boston." Even Howells’ style seemed inappropriate to the novel: it was too urbane, too finely ironical and reflective. Bernard Smith leaves the distinct impression that his opinions were derived from the criticism of criticism of Howells' fiction. He over­ simplified the case and said at once too much and too little

(he made no effort to substantiate his sweeping generalisations) to add anything worthwhile to the evaluation of Howells' novels.

After 1939 the strong sociological bias of Parrington and those who followed in his path no longer appeared in the criticism of Howells. It is probable that for liberal thinkers of tho Parrington school, America's turn toward a planned economy and a partial recovery of Individual oppor­ tunity helped to restore faith in tho possibilities of the 1 8 7 democratic system. Also, the examples of the socialistic dogma in practice were hardly likely to inspire satisfaction and belief. Calverton, Hicks, and Smith, who earlier followed hno Marxist party line, seemed to have been disillusioned by the results of the Spanish War, the Moscow Trials, and the

Bor1 in-Moscow pact. Those who clung fast to the Marxist theory must have found Howells too moderate, too idealistic, too humane, and therefore too inadequate a subject for use in sanctioning their argument. The sociological critics neg­ lected aesthetic values; they largely ignored technique, except in speaking of plausibility or squeamishness; and they tended to view works of art primarily as documents. But these writers called attention to some elements in Howells that had been long forgotten or subordinated. Their influ­ ence may be seen in the careful attention that more recent critics have given to the social significance of the novels, oven if they discount Howells’ version of socialism. 188

Chapter VI

CONVENTIONAL CRITICISM

Shortly after the beginning of tho twentieth century there emerged a colorless, flexible attitude toward Howells that has grown to be the predominant conventional historical view. At first It was a mixture of the more tenable ideas of the idealistic-moralistic criticism and the accepted linos of American realism. Later It was influenced strongly

’ey the scathing remarks of the Mencken group. Later yet it absorbed the demonstrable judgments of the sociological critics'. The conventional criticism is not a body of work

Inspired by the same thesis or bias, as were the views de­ scribed earlier; yet it has certain characteristics that seem to relate the pertinent writings of men as different as

F. 0. Matthlassen and A. H. Quinn. It is cautious and con­ servative criticism, retaining something of the air of text­ book discussion. The more comprehensive writings, often textbooks, tend to reflect impartially, or even Indifferently, almost the entire range of well-known comments. But the criticism as a whole offers little fresh Insight or incisive observation; if It is academic, it Is not scholarly. Finally, it consistently slights Howells' social novels. It is a kind of middle-of-the-road criticism that stresses the kindly personality of Howells; his command of a lucid, flexible style; his highly moral attitude and Intentions; the charactoristi- 189

cally American features of the persons and the events in his

best-known books. It mentions his limited realism of the

commonplace that did not allow him to perceive evil, and his

timidity or reticence that constrained him from dealing with

sex or the rougher aspects of American life. Ordinarily,

it dwells fondly on The Rise of_ Silas Lap ham; discusses A

Modern Instanco and perhaps Indian Summer; repeats the usual

notes on Tolstoyfs influence, the move to New York, and

A Hazard of New Fortunes; admits that several later books,

seldom described, have the fine artistic qualities of the

early ones. The usual conclusion is that Howells wrote well about what he knew; that he was surpassed after 1900 by younger writers who dealt more vigorously and profoundly with life; but that Howells provided perhaps the best source for manners and social history of the nineteenth century.

During the first three decades of the twentieth century the conventional critics paid considerable attention to

Howells’ influence on American letters. Until about 1922 they stressed the large part he had played in the formation and the inspiration of literary production. Typical of this emphasis were the repetitious effusions of Hamlin Garland, who as late as 1931 was still saying that for forty year3

Howells "remained the master spirit In our literature.”

Other critics, dealing more directly with the novels, remarked that Howells was not a "best seller," but that for fifty 190 years he was followed by the "best-reading class." In 1919

Percy H. Boynton noted perceptively that no novelist of the 1 newer generation was unconscious of Howells' work. Un­ doubtedly these writers, aware that Howells’ reputation was declining, were championing him as a bulwark against th© harsher force of naturalism* In the third decade, however, when the iconoclastic view was In the ascendancy, the dying away of his fame was openly acknowledged and discussed.

F. 0. Matthiessen was able to declare in 1929 that even the 2 names of most of Howells' books were then forgotten.

The aims and methods of Howells were accepted as a matter of course, being urged with particular zest in the flood of appreciations written between I9 0 Q (the date of a special "Howells" number of Book Hows Monthly) and the year after his death. Commonly it was admitted that Howells was more than a good-natured observer: he had theories and purposes, something to protest against and something to assert. He described life on the middle plane with discrimi­ nation and genuine democratic feeling, aiming to set right bho moral concepts of his readers. A passage from H. V/.

Mabie (1 9 0 8 ), who In l88£ had denounced Howells and realism bitterly, is representative comment on the subject:

In season and out of season he was told the truth as he saw it, with a quiet and winning persuasiveness which has humanized our noisy activities. He has never hesitated to character­ ize American vanity, vulgarity, and greed with entire frankness; but in fundamental conceptions 191 of society his Americanism is of the most radical kind. His hatred of oppression in all forms has a passionate intensity, and his sympathy is a deep and beautiful brotherliness. 3 That the essentially conservative Mabie should embrace Howells 1

brand of realism is indicative of the shift in attitude that

had taken place among the idealists since the publication of Rise of Silas Lap ham. The earlier writers noted the

increased amount of social criticism/ in the novels after Howells moved to New York, but they tended to make little

of it. Even D. G-. Cooke, in his 1922 study of Howells,

subordinated the social implications. One interesting remark

by Carl Van Doren, who in 1917 had not yet fallen under the

sway of the Menckenites, was that Howells was not "timid*1

in his social criticism., but was "habitually kind."

After 1935 many writers gave more serious attention to

the purpose and the effect of the novels. Men like Van

Wyck Brooks and Carl Van Doren, who had formerly been disparag­

ing of Howells, treated him more sympathetically. It was conceded that Howells' realism was respectable even before

1889; that he perceived and did not blink many of the Imper­ fections of his society; that his very theory and practice in the novel were not "thoroughly conventional," but unusual

"to the point of radicalism." While he presented an unequalled picture of middle-class life, Howells was seen to have struck at the weaknesses, self-deceptions, and compromises of his contemporaries. He displayed an unabashed attitude toward 192 tho patrician classes, and ho aimed "to reconcile sections and classes in a broadly democratic feeling for life.” His theory and method of art not only contributed to democracy but "raised appreciably the American understanding of the novel as an art form.These comments indicate the recent drift toward a comprehensive revaluation of Howells.

The majority of critics have followed popular opinion in agreeing that The Ri3e of Silas Lapham is Howells' best and most represantative novel. Seldom have they offered any new insights, being content for the most part to relate the story, to explain the qualities of self-made Lapham, and to dwell on the skillful presentation of the well-known scones: the interview between Silas and Bartley Hubbard, the dinner, the conflict between Irene and Penelope. Ranking close behind this novel in critical acclaim are A Modern

Instance and A Hazard of New Fortunes; on a slightly lower plane are Ind ian Summer, The Kentons» The Landlord at Lion*s

Hoad, and The Son of Royal Langbrith. A Modern Instance has often been called the most powerful, or, as George Snell put it somewhat offensively, Howells1 "furthest advance into a timid naturalism." William Lyon Phelps compared It favorably with George EliotTs Romola, but other critics have voiced the old objections to the "monotonous11 quality, the "divided plot," and the "unnatural" ending. It is Inter­ esting to note that A Hazard of New Fortunes was rated higher before 1922 than it was afterwards. Except for Carl Van 193 Doren, the conventional critics have been inclined to give the novel scant attentions although they dutifully include it in the "best11 category. Perhaps the harsh Indictments of competitive capitalism and the revolutionary implications of the book have given them pause. Indian Summer and, to a slighter extent, The Kentons have been honored for their technical excellence, while The Landlord at Lion1s Head and Tho Son of Royal Langbrlth have been placed high, by a few knowing critics, for their powerful criticism of life.

Howells 1 skill in characterization has generally been conceded from the beginning, although adverse remarks have not been lacking. The critics have said that he portrayed his people faithfully and well, especially the males; some writers have found the range of his women quite varied and satisfactory. But early in the century he was criticized for the "aggravated niceness" and the "tremulous propriety" of his people. D. G. Cooke later attributed the lack of aggressiveness and initiative in the heroes of the novels to Howells1 intense dislike of "freshnbss" and brashness cf in young men." Among the figures in Howells' portrait gallery, Jeff Durgin, Silas Lapham, Bartley Hubbard, Fulker­ son, Basil and Isabel March, Marcia Gaylord, Squire Gaylord, and old Dryfoos are the ones most frequently discussed.

Jeff is sometimes described as the closest approach to a real man in Howells, and also his supreme artistic creation. 194 Lapham, Fulkerson, and Dryfoos are diff©rent typ©3 of busi­ ness men; Bartley, Marcia, and Squire Gaylord are memorable, convincing individuals; and the Marches are said to be splendid examples of a trifle dull but high average of

American humanity.

One of the few subjects on which critics of Howells have nearly always agreed is his style. Ho had indeed a

"peculiar charm" which seems to have had its effect "in disarming criticism"-and in deceiving criticism as well.

In their 1903 Reader1s Hi3 tory of American Literature

Higginson and Boynton wrote that except perhaps for Henry

James, Howells had no rival "for half-tint3 , for modulations, for subtle phrases that touch the edge of an assertion and yet stop short of it." Sixteen years later, Percy H. Boyn­ ton felt it significant that Howells’ Altrurian novels had attracted so little opposition:

Never was an iconoclast received with such un­ intelligent tolerance. 'Phe suavity of his man­ ner, . . .the recurrence of his old type of work . . .and the humorous presentation of his favor­ ite characters. . .beguile his readers into a blind and bland assumption of Mr* Howells1s harmlessnoss. 6

In any case, the lucid, restrained, graceful, forceful, sustained qualities of his style have been widely commented on, as has been his mastery of dialogue. The tendency toward excessive praise in some of the earlier appreciations was partially balanced by the discovery of faults in his stylo. W. C. Wilkinson and D. G. Goolce, in particular, observed (as more unfriendly critics have done) that Howells did not always choose the right word ("vulgar vigor"), that there were examples of unhappy coinages and pedantry ("table- clothy," "veridical"), that occasionally his cleverness 7 was a bit distracting ("March conspired and perspired").

Recent critics have displayed general approval of Howells’ stvla, but less interest in it.

Because of their close relationship, their support of realism, and similarities in their thought and style, Howell and James have frequently been compared. A commonplace of

Howells criticism had always been that he was interested primarily in comparing Americans with one another, usually the West versus the East, while James compared the American civilization with the European. The conventional critics showed a variety of attitudes toward the two novelists, but there were precedents for all of them. Some critics pointed out the difference in the material employed by Howells and

Jame3 . One view was that James’s range was wider than that of Howells, but no deeper; an opposing view was that Howells was less profound, less patient and probing, than James.

In 1922 a writer using the pseudonym of John Ayscough made a detailed comparison of the two. James was a more meticulou craftsman than Howells, Ayscough stated, but he tended toward

"the undesirable climax of containing hardly anything but 196 craftsmanship." Howells wrote with care and a certain trim neatness; he was not slovenly or hasty. Neither author was "conslatently equal’7: James was at his best when his novel was biggest; Howells wrote best when his work was least protracted. Both became less interesting as they gained in experience. Howells was not on the same level as Jamas, but he had certain advantages: he seemed to have more vigor; he was easier to read, more humorous, more unrestrained; he could be acute with less trouble, epigram­ matic with less obvious Intention; • and he v/as "loss toilsome" in analysis, although he was often more tedious. An extremely harsh opinion, expressed by P. H. Boynton, v/as that the two novelists measured American charactar by what they knew of

Europe, but that Howells was more of the "humble pilgrim going to the shrine of culture. He has no wish to criti­ cize, but only to admire. His early books are nice stories 0 for nice people, particularly nice Boston people." Another writer looked upon Howells as the connecting link between

Henry James, the "aristocratic" genius, and Mark Twain, who represented "primitive force." W. L. Phelps declared in

I92J4- that there was no true resemblance amdng the five

American novelists of international distinction: Cooper,

Hawthorne, Twain, James, and Howells. In contrast, D. G.

Cooke found the realism of Howells and James distinguished by its emphasis on "the interior states" of the characters: 197 To both of these writers the beautiful motive is more significant than the beautiful deed, the vicious motive more terrifying than crime. The lesson they have to teach in common is that what people do is of infinitely less importance than what they are.

In 19^4-0 Wyck Brooks connected Howells and James somewhat vaguely by writing that they transcended other New England writers ’’because of their centrality of vision, the unity of their style and tone and their all-American subject matter.”9

Two foreign novelists commonly linked with Howells during the first quarter of the twentieth century were

Tolstoy and George Eliot. Generally the opinion was that

Howells wa3 not comparable with Tolstoy in breadth of canvas, in number and variety

Instance, which v/as considered a novel of moral degeneration comparable to Romola. The conventional critics regarded

Howells as a kind of American successor to George Eliot, on a lower flight. For the most part, there has been little disagreement

on the faults and weaknesses attributed to Howells, but the faults have been explained in various ways. The mo3t persist

ent complaint has been that he often narrated on a drab, flat, boring level, offering no surprise, no thrill, no shock, no inspired moments. He limited himself exclusively

to the depiction of "a tepid middle-class world.11 Hot only did he omit'the great world, the world of tradition and inherited culture, but also he avoided basic psychological

facts, and the rough details of life. A rather contradictory

observation was recorded in the otherwise conventional study by G. S. Haight in the Literary History of the United States.

According to Haight, the works of Howells abound in strange

coincidences and dire catastrophes: they include train wrecks fires; deaths by brain fever, poison, and locomotives; injury

by horsecar; and wound by bullet. But to Haight intention and method determine realism more than choice of material does. In the Cambridge History of American Literature, Carl

Van Doren wrote that Howells was limited as to subject and treatment by his own temperament and the restrictions of his tlme3. Not long afterwards, critics began to repeat the

iconoclastic view that Howells was timid and provincial, full of bourgeois proprieties, attentive to "the smiling aspects of life"the most pathetic figure" in the generation after

the Civil War. More recently, students of Howells have again 199 found the source of his limitations in his own nature-™ in the hydrophobia and neurosis from which he suffered, in a native squeamishness, in a talent that was never robust— 1? and in the circumstances under which he wrote. Another major defect in Howells stressed by the critics was the lack of intensity. As J. W. Beach put it in a review of Cooke's Howells, it was a question of the degree of artistic distinction and aesthetic significance with which the novelist invested his material. In emphasis and concen­ tration, In imaginative Interpretation and aesthetic inten­ sity, a number of critics found Howells wanting. Lewis

Humf ord wr o t e: . . .His figures all lack that imaginative dis­ tortion which takes place when a deep emotion or a strong feeling plays upon some actuality, like a blow-torch on metal, and enables the mind to twist the thing before it into a new shape. Several writers commented that Howells lacked the "sympathetic detachment" necessary for a profound understanding and pres­ entation of character. Stanley T. Williams, delving further into the subject, felt that Howells had sympathy--the sym­ pathy of artistic comprehension, "not of deep feeling before the paradoxes of life. Other writers declared that even within his chosen field Howells was sometimes narrow and shallow. He made too much of trifles, he observed super­ ficially, he maintained a "cheery optimism," he shrank from concrete suffering and evil. 200

lie clung to the day as Hawthorne to the night. Like t'merson, Howells closed his eyes to evil and its innumerable traces. His America, tran­ scribed so fully as it is, is still an America of the smooth surfaces. Through either an absence of the deepest moral earnestness, as surmised by the earlier critics, or an excess of gentle­ ness and prudery, Howells failed to give a convincing picture of reality: he was "a realist of the drawing room." George 1 summarised the unfavorable view concretely by remark­ ing that although Howells’ own grasshopper "had the outward appearance of the real thing, it was only a stuffed speci- mon, without ins ides.

Despite Howells’ defects and limitations, most of the conventional critics, in making a final estimate, perceived genuine merit in his work. A number of writers would have agreed in substance with a few statements in Henry James’s carefully phrased essay on the occasion of Howells’ seventy- fifth birthday. According to James, Howells’ studies of American life were acute, direct, disinterested, "preoccupied with the fine truth of the case," and their cumulative docu­ mentary effect was unapproached in value end amplitude. Some critics valued Howells’ moderation as a laudable quality; they declared that he was interested in the "inner fact" as well as surface realism; and they saw in him an "unfalter­ ing recognition of fundamental values both in life and literature." Herbert J. Muller, who was far from being a 201

Howells enthusiast, averred that in spite of his faults,

Howells ’ soul was right:

It appears that he was closer to the truth than the crusaders of the ’twenties who prided them­ selves uj^on its discovery. His voice was deeper, for example, than the very loud voice of H. L. Mencken. (Modern Fiction, N.Y. , 1937? P* 199)

Conversely, a few individuals concluded that conservatism

and feeble insight in Howells prevented his telling the

entire truth. He was no realist because he did not deal boldly and scientifically with human facts. In the end, he offered little more than the "ideal of truth for truth's

sake." But in the view of an anonymous critic for the

3aturday Review of Literature, both the charges that Howells was "timid, timeserving, superficial" and the enthusiasm

for his part In the struggle for liberalism were unrealistic

judgments. Howells was historically Important primarily

as a technician. It v/as he who had been mostly responsible

for giving the American novel form and teaching American authors to write simply, clearly, and straightforwardly.

He mapped the area for fiction to explore and gave it instru- monta of precision. i5

As a whole, this body of criticism reflects to a greater

or lesser degree all the biases of the groups examined previously, but It is not marked so strongly as to be domi- 1 ^ nated entirely by one of the overriding theses. It remains 202 a kind of amorphous material, pulled this way and that, but tending to keep to an intermediate course. Although much of it is sound in part, it is weakened by some of the untenable judgments and errors of fact which it accepted uncritically from writers with a thesis. As late as 194-7, for example, George Snell could write seriously: 11. . .The timid realism Howells preached could hardly have been unacceptable to even the genteel morality of the post-bellum nineteenth century" (Shapers of American Fiction, p. 199)-

V.rlth some individuals, special interests and preferences have led to a fragmentary or a telescoped view that has little present value. There are occasional indications here, as elsewhere, that the writers were not very familiar with the work they were criticizing. Even at its best, the conventional criticism of Plowells lacks insight, perspec­ tive, objectivity, and originality. 203

Chapter VII

SCHOLARLY CRITICISM

During the first part of the twentieth century, there were a few scholarly articles which involved incidental treatment of Howells and his fiction. But it v/as approxi­ mately 1930, the year after American Literature ?/as founded, before serious attempts were made to clarify certain facts about Howells and to revaluate in a disinterested way his novels and his significance. Since that time, many aspects of his life, thought, and work, as journalist, editor, and novelist, have received close study.^ Some of these critical writings possess qualities that distinguish them from the unexceptional work described In the preceding chapter. It is not that they represent a unified point of view, for some of them are relatively conservative, and some of them are

.moderately liberal. But this criticism Is marked by incisive, specific, knowing comment; It reveals fresh insight into the novels and superior command of historical facts and develop­ ments. It exhibits a deep Interest in the social signifi­ cance of Howells! fiction--not from the activist view of the social function of literature, but from the critical standpoint: It seeks to Interpret meaning and relevance for

Howells1 time and our own. At Its best, it exemplifies scholarly care, precision, and Impersonality. Stimulated by the extreme verdicts of the radical groups and the vacil- 2014- lafcions of the conservatives, scholarly criticism takes Into

account Howells T nature and the social milieu of his age, reads the texts of his novels scrupulously and sensitively, and evaluates them (or particular features of them) dispas­

sionately .

Several critics have noted that some of the earlier

writers carried the devaluation of Howells and the Victorian

Era too far. Hov/ells worked within the range of the taste and tolerance of his readers, like other nineteenth century

authors. Sister Carrie would have been impossible during

his formative career; and yet he presented passages and characters that foretell Dreiser. As it was, Howells shocked

and disgusted much of the reading public with his brand of

realism and his criticism of the social order. By present

standards he was reticent, but he was no hypocrite, no

ignoramus, no abnormal prude. In contradiction to this view, Edv/in H. Cady has admitted Howells* prudery and has explained

it in terms of the psychological breakdown and the hydro­ phobia that Howells suffered in his youth. This neurosis, he feels, was the source of his inability to deal with 2 squalidness, evil, and sex. But in the opinion of other critics, Howells faced the life of his own time and dealt with all the problems which interested him as a novelist. It Is not clear either that the "G-ilded Age" was destructive to artistic genius. Amidst all the coarse materialism and 2 0 5 shallow optimism, there were-men like Henry James, Lowell, Roswell Smith, Higginson, and Brooks Adams who encouraged

Howells in the development of his social c r i t i c i s m . ^ The

Boston environment then was not wholly inimical to his growth or responsible for his limitations.

Recent criticism has attempted to define clearly Howells’ basic concepts and aims as a novelist. In the view of W.P.

Taylor, Howells "sought to lay out the patterns of life by a kind of heightened common sense." He assumed the deistic concept of a universal scheme of benevolent order, whose norm was to be approximated, 3lowly, by human society. His

realism of the average was a matter of deepest conviction;

the commonplace was meaningful because life was meaningful. He sought democratic simplicity, naturalness, truthfulness,

ethical balance, and sane Americanism, which for him meant the happy, wholesome side of life and the inner facts of character as well. These realities were essential to the controlled orderly life, rich In the experience of knowledge h and beauty, that Howells desired. He aimed for his novels

to represent ordinary, normal, typical life as he saw It; therefore his plots were meant to be "cuttings from life."

In the opinion of one critic, Howells never decided how far the novel was to be a formal artistic creation and how far it was to be a slice of life "buttered with the author’s inter­ pretation." But Howells had the Idea that truth In art must 206 relate to truth at large— that ethic and aesthetic are one.

He played an important part in the development of realism and the aesthetic of fiction.

Although Howells was philosophically hopeful, the hulk of his work, as E . H. Cady and others have pointed out, showed quiet disillusion more than optimism. He was fully aware of what was happening in American life, and v/as not superficially cheerful. Even the early novels were "hardly gay or RotarIan in mood"; the later books were full of mis­ giving and quiet heartbreak. In a sense, Howells presented his stories as parables and homilies, according to Alfred Kuzin. He brooded over his characters as they brooded over society, with the aim to mediate between moral men and immoral society. Howells * novels were considered to be on a high level; few of them were bad or poor and the three most popular ones were not greatly superior intrinsically to certain others. "In short, his novels constitute a circular chain made of links for the most part of equal strength and lustre." The plots were seldom original, but they were reasonably well constructed. Generally, the critics chose the following novels as Howells’ best work: The Rise of Silas hapham, A Hazard of New Fortunes, The Landlord at

Lion * s Head. The Son of Royal Langbrith, A Modern Instance, 6 Indlan Summer, and The Kentons. But they displayed greater 20? interest in th© economic novels and the later work than previous critics had shown, less interest in A Modern Instance.

Silas Lapham the scholarly critics have perceived that Howells was critical of both the social distinctions and the modern industrial and financial order. H e .showed clearly that Lapham, the old-fashioned business man, no longer set the pace in the business world. At least one critic has defended the form of the novel, brushing aside the usual comments on the love plot versus the business plot and the shift in tone from comic to tragic. To P. J. Hoffman, the structure was masterful--simply designed in terms of supple­ mentary points of view regarding a central problem. A

Hazard of New Fortunes, much neglected by the conservatives, has received a great deal of careful attention. It was seen to contain some of Howells1 most effective social criticism

(a subject to be dealt with later) and to express much of the plight of modern man— tho irrationality of earning and the subsequent folly of living: n 1. . .And so we go on trembling before Dryfooses, and living in gimcrackeries.’”

(II, 25^}-) George Arms remarked that the novel dealt with economic and social problems in an unprecedented fashion

In a comedy of manners. Alexander Cowie stressed the picture of humanity:

If this book again proves Howells' inability to subdue disparate plot materials to a common pur­ pose, It yet shows him at the height of his power to describe real people engaged in everyday af- 208

fairs no more loosely connected than average man's experience. Only churlishness could insist on a perfected 'plot' amid such abundance of lifo and art.

According to Lionel Trilling, it v/as probably the first treatment in the American novel of the theme of an intel­ lectual risking his position by opposing the prejudices of his class. P. J. Hoffman declared that the concluding scenes in A Hazard of New Fortunes led to the direct unin­ hibited social uses of the novelist's art in Fuller's

G11 ff“Dive 11 ers (1893) and Iierrick's The Common Lot (I90l[.).^

Several critics called The Landlord at Lion13 Head one of Howells' best works. They noted especially the

"complex conventional-unconventional conflicts" that involved

Jeff Durgin, the decayed Boston gentility, and the pluto­ cratic nouveaux riches. Lloyd Morris felt that Jeff's psy­ chology v/as intended to be that of a Carnegie, a Hill, or a

Schwab. The same writer saw in The Son of Royal Langbr1th a revelation of the philanthropic reputations of the "robber ■ barons," and the conflict renewed between the egocentricity of the financiers and the traditional culture of their off­ spring. The subject and method, probing the effect of evil upon innocent characters, reminded Alexander Cowie of Haw­ thorne, Melville, and Henry James. Indian Summer was labeled

"a minor masterpiece" by more than one critic, while The

Kentons was placed a little below it because Howells "some­ how fails to universalize the experience." The comments on 209 the other novels v/ore commonplace, except those relating

Miss Ballard * a Inspirat ion and Fennel and R u e . To Lloyd

Morris, these books seemed to show new perception of tho complexities of life; they treated the darker side of love, f] possessiveness, cruelty, ambivalence.

The great scope of Howells1 "artistically usable experi­ ence" v/as most convincingly shown, according to the critics, in his presentation of character. For the portraits in his gallery of human beings were "packed with low-pitched meaning"

Howellsr characters were bad when they surrendered to self­ ishness, passion, and snobbery, and became forces for dis­ order and destruction; they were good when they practiced rational self-government and tended toward the equable and the harmonious; they were best when they were creative of finer values of beauty, knowledge, and friendship. Million­ aires, minor social figures, ordinary normal p0 opl©--Howolls made them all interesting; and he had the ability to make vivid and keep distinct, with comparatively few words, a number of persons gathered together. Conversely, F. J. Hoffman observed that Howells 1 characters were judged "from the out­ side"; they suffered a loss of value and integrity "because their author has larger and more external purposes to which they must, he feels, be put."^ Individually, certain charac­ ters were viewed with fresh insight or placed in new rela­ tionships. Perhaps most notably, Lydia Blood, the heroine 210 of The Lady of the Aroostook, was paired with James's Daisy

Miller as an "archetype of innocence.” Miss Annette Kar con­ sidered them functional counterparts that stood for "Invi­ olable innocence compounded with Instinctive moral judgment"

--a concept that was peculiarly American. Bartley Hubbard v/as seen to possess an "untidy morality" that revealed the defects threatening the moral structure of American economy.

But Lionel Trilling deemed Hubbard worthy to stand beside

Dickens' Bradley Headstone, James's Basil Ransom, and Dos­

toievsky's Smerdyakov "as one of a class of fictional char­ acters who envisage a largo social actuality in the future."

Also, Bartloy seemed to J. G. Harrison "the most life-like newspaper man in nineteenth-century American fiction." Silas

Lapham was much praised, but one critic noted that ho was not as complex, despite his solid bulk, as ho might have been. Amanda Grier and Statira Dudley (In The Minister's

seemed to W. P. Taylor the only convincing figures from the proletariat in all of Howells. Receiving particular notice were the characters who showed that Howells had cast out tho "old Jacksonian and romantic illusions," and faced the implications of business as the national ideal. Cowper- wood and Babbitt were partly possible because of Howells' portraits of typical money-makers— Dryfoos, Northwick, and

C-orrish— who antedated the former creations by some years.

In these statements the critics acknowledge, with qualifies- 211 tions, the depth and the scope of Howells' vision and point up the subtle manner in which he interpreted, judged, and presented his world. They Imply that he v/as an important forerunner of Dreiser and Lewis and the freer portrayal of reality which those novelists wore to achieve.

One of the qualities In Howells that had been largely ignored or depreciated previously, his satire, v/as examined by a few interested critics. Howells was described as a master of subtle, rich satire that was usually incidental and humorous, and almost always interv/oven artistically with his narrative. He made satirical references to artificial social distinctions and snobbery In such novels as Silas

Lapham, April Hopes and A Hazard of New Fortunes. In The

Quality of Mercy he employed more bitter Ironies, and in his Altrurian novels he hit hard and direct. Among the limited comments on Howells1 style, one fresh note was that the novelist reproduced the typical speech idioms of the middle class, the well-educated, and the ,funder-educat ed, 11 but not those of the least literate class. Edward Wagen- knecht pointed out that Howells waa a deceptively simple writer; he v/as not brilliant, but he did with ease what might seem easy to do* Yet all his secrets were not always gained at the first reading.^

Howells' social criticism is the subject that has most intrigued the scholarly critics. A number of them have 212 reviewed carefully the seven books which may be called "social novels" (The Minister’s Charge, Annie Kilburn, A Hazard of

New Fortunes , The World of Chance, The Quality of Mercy, A

Traveler from Altruria, Through the Bye of the Needle) and have studied the influences that affected the author. These critics felt that Howells1 early environment and training had

implanted in him a native belief in humanity, democratic

equality, and simple justice. Even In his early love novels,

there were intimations of more tragic tones. Then, by his own admission, in 1886 he began reading Tolstoy: The Cos sacks,

Anna Karenina, War and Peace; later, he read What to Do, My

Confession, My Religion. Tolstoy’s effect on Howells has been described as that of a "catalytic agent"--an intensifying of his personality, an enlarging awareness of life, and a renewed consciousness of Christian ethics. In 1887 the

Haymarket incident shocked Howells profoundly and stirred him to challenge public opinion. From that time on, he showed the Impact of the social Ideas of Henry George, Edward

Bellamy, and William Morris. But the great bulk of his economic and social doctrines seem to have been derived from

Laurence Gronlund’s "diluted" and "nationalistic" version 12 of Marxism in The Cooperative Commonwealth (1881}.). The great Influence of Tolstoy and Marxism on Howalls was mainly ethical and philosophical, not aesthetic or artistic.

According to several critics, Howells v/as the first

American novelist to touch the fundamental causes of social 213 unrest and to call into question the individualistic basis

of American economy. Very early he saw that business

economy was establishing inequality; he saw the clash between

freedom to exploit and true equality. He perceived and

represented in his novels the fact that mere political

equality was ,fa tricky, superficial thing"; that freedom

was only occasionally political, while it was constantly

social and economic; that liberty and poverty were incom­

patible. Moreover, Howells saw that rich personal develop­

ment was often frustrated by the egotism and self-interest

that were the ruling motives in an industrial society.

(Some of these themes had been touched upon in Henry Adams'

novel Democracy in 1880 . ) These were not commonplaces in

Howells’ time. It was his Altrurian character Homes, and

not some later critic, who, describing the Americans of

the turn of the century, noted "’their warped and stunted

and perverted lives. ’ " Howells delineated "the new America,

of industrial capitalism with a felicity, a precision of

intention, and a power of mental suggestion that some of

his more robust disciples could not match." He dramatized

in varied and striking situations the widening cleavages between the rich and the poor. He attacked the fetishes of

respectability, social advancement, work, success; he ridi­

culed specious optimism, the fear of paternalistic government policies, the acceptance of luxury as a final value. Ho 2 lip

touched upon technological unemployment and showed a sense

of the intendependenco of the cogs of the social machine.

It was conceded that Howells wrote the most thoroughly de­

structive criticism of industrialism that appeared in 13 American literature before 1900. -

But Howells also presented in his seven books a system

of economic thought that was more complex, more systematic,

and better integrated than that of any contemporary save

Bdward Bellamy. He voiced !,a definite, tangible program for the reform of capitalistic industrialism." Howells' a ci.a it ion v/as that the system of competitive capitalism was

no longer satisfactory: it had produced a struggle for

survival, governed largely by chance, in which no life was

fn.-ouro, in which even invention only added to the misery

of the unemployed; it had produced insuperable class dis­

tinctions between rich and poor. Therefore, capitalism should be replaced by a socially controlled monopoly in which

the machinery of government should be employed to control production in the interests of all, instead of the exploiting

few. This socialism should represent the will of the majority, peaceably expressed by suffrage. Furthermore, Howells demon­

strated his radicalism by insisting on an equality that was almost absolute: he sought a community of universal fellow­ ship in which no man would be given a sense of inferiority by exclusion.^ Despite his strong feeling, Howells in­ corporated his social criticism in his novels with skill 2X5 and a high order of craftsmanship. He worked v/ith objec­ tivity, never obtruding his own opinions and rarely inter­ rupting the narrative. "Chorus characters" sometimes expressed his views, notably the Rev. Mr. Peck in Annie

Kilburn, Basil March in A Hazard of New Fortunes, and David

Hughes in The World of Chance. Much of his criticism v/as implicit in his characterization of restless, ill-occupied, discontented, self-seeking persons. Never in his social novels did he sacrifice literary merit to the needs of his economic discussion.^

Although the critics considered Howells1 social criticism a distinctive achievement, they noted certain vitiating weaknesses. Howells could portray only the middle and upper classes: "the real victim of industrial oppression— the blacklisted miner or the immigrant laborer in the sweatshop

--is never presented in his pages." In his expression of the sense of personal Isolation, of the tragic failure in communication betv/een human beings, the poignancy of the isolation was often missed, because Howells, overly mild and restrained, refused to dramatize the tragedy. Also, his use of a spokesman In his novels to reach out for an understanding of the protagonist seemed to W. F. Ekstrom to present the narrative "at an ©motional remove." There was always the impression that the communication, the revelation, was not quite successful or complete. Another point, a 2 1 6 quarrel with Howells 1 ideology, was voiced most effectively by F. J. Hoffman. While treating a world breaking away from

such limited moral judgment as that made by Silas Lapham,

Howells "could not either attach an unequivocal socialist blame to the new World nor merely document it and explain

it in naturalist terms." In the opinion of W. F. Taylor,

Howells erred in thinking that man was primarily rather

than secondarily rational, and in underestimating the power

of the more disruptive, violent, sub-intelligent phases of human nature. He was wrong too in the assumption that

American voters at the polls "can normally be trusted to make jL G an Intelligent choice of economic policies."

These statements are in sharp contrast to the criticism

of the sociological group discussed in Chapter Five. Parring-

ton and his followers had noted and approved Howells1 aims, but had been inclined to accept the Iconoclastic view of his subservience to Boston society and literary tradition.

The Marxist writers had objected that Howells did not under­

stand economic problems; what they meant was that he did not understand the Marxist attitude or present the Marxist solu­

tion. On the other hand, the scholarly writers pursue no narrow thesis and achieve a sounder, more balanced criticism.

They point out the specific faults that limit the persua­

siveness of his view, but they perceive also its truly radical Import. The conclusion that Howells thought too 217 highly of man and did not recognize the potency of the irrational, disorderly elements in him seems to be true.

Cur present knowledge of human nature indicates that Howells 1

Altruria is an impossibility.

The more general faults and weaknesses of Howells were noted rather precisely. First of all, he was too reticent and fastidious, whether because of his nature, his neurosis, or the restrictions of his times. As E. H. Cady pertinently expressed it, Howells seldom could face the indecencies of

" 'uncivilization.1” He hinted at them, described them abstractly, condemned them; but he denied them access to his creative imagination and the vital life of his novels.

An equally serious fault was his deficiency of plain, simple emotional power--!ta lack of passion in something more than sexual matters." It was this defect that prevented Howells 1 achieving the supreme and final touch; he missed "perception at the pitch of passion." On these points the scholarly critics agreed, but other comments were advanced by individ­ uals. E. H. Cady charged Howells with a failure of method, of Individual form, because of the unassimilated people and actions and the huddled or abstracted close in some of his novels. Alexander Cowle, noting that Howells’ settings fade quickly from the memory, felt that the novelist was not highly gifted in the art of sensory detail. In the view of 218

E . W. Parks, Howells’ practice of intruding his exegesis often caused his novels to lose their organic wholeness: they became illustrations of actual life instead of embodiments of created life. Parks demonstrated at least that exegesis is present in the earlier novels, but he did not examine the stories after 1 8 8 5 , nor did he prove the destruction of unity or illusion. Only one critic, Lionel Trilling, cited the much-discussed qualities that Henry James and others had touched on as early as 1886: Howells' love of the common and immediate, his distaste for "story,” and his small per- 17 eeption of evil. The avoidance of these commonplaces suggests that most contemporary critics no longer consider them major limitations, or else, as with James's comment 18 on the problem of evil, they consider it invalid.

To the scholarly critics, Howells stands higher as a novelist than as a critic. Although his critical essays played an important role in the development of realism, his theory was "rather inadequate." But in practice he created the broadest and finest portrait of America ever done, and added richly to the domain of American fiction.

Howells v/as, said Newton Arvin, the first novelist to com­ prehend

what v/as happening to the form and quality of American life as it moved away from the simplic­ ity, the social fluidity, the relative freedoms, of the midcentury toward the ugly disharmonies of monopolism and empire. 219

He was the author of the first realistic novels of stature

representing the effects of that development dramatically with any fullness or clarity. For rich fullness of charac­

ter, abundance of appropriate, concrete detail, and range

of setting, his novels were excellent. He succeeded in what

he attempted— an "unheightened and unsentImentalized" picture

of life as he saw it. If he omitted much, wrote George Arms,

ho also faced much:

not the sexual act, but every Victorian display resulting from it; not crime, but the dishonesty that the respectable practice daily; not politi­ cal eiectioneering, but the political economy of industrialism; not pure religion, but religion offering a social gospel or providing a social scope; not science or the theory of mechanics, but their fruits in natural gas and ’L 1 trains.

ITo one else, the critics felt, has touched national life 19 at points more numerous, significant, and varied.

Howells had no genius comparable to that of Mark Twain

or Henry James, the critics agreed, but he was closer to

the novelistic main stream. He had an acute awareness of

life, a deep love of humanity, a fine sense of proportion,

a rare insight into character, a high degree of artistic

competence. His sensitive, urbane representations of the

subtleties and nuances of the way ordinary life is lived proved him to be one of the most civilized of American writers. In the words of V/. B. Cairns:

It would b© fortunate for international under­ standing if America had been known to Europe from the works of Howells rather than from more 2 2 0

striking portrayals of the Wild West and other unusual scenes. He gives us few imaginary virtues, but he pictures us as actual human beings.

Howells failed of ultimate greatness, but he was none the

less memorable, enduring, meaningful. He made a deep, steady

criticism of life. His achievement was that of the creative

artist who synthesizes disparate facts of life, lending

them beauty, significance, continuity; ho was an order- 20 prooucmg personality.

To a few critics, Howells seemed to have a special

relevance for modern times. In the opinion of Arnold B.

Fox, Howells 1 work became Increasingly modern and signifi­

cant as he developed the idea that environmental forces

determine to a large extent what potentialities in each

individual will be realized. Two other writers emphasized

that Howells expressed the doubts of a middle-class liberal.

He spoke from an anxiety much like our own, and the problems which troubled him have not been solved yet. Another view was that Howells' "tender-minded11 leaning toward Christian

socialism contributed Importantly "In awakening awareness

of the continuing problems and in helping to shape some of

the more relevant solutions." In a recent study of how

science affected the novelist's thought, Harry H. Clark

stated that Howells was somewhat distinctively "In pioneer

accord with the way the United States actually has in the 2 2 1 twentieth century managed, gradually and without internal violence* to supplement competition with cooperation and 21 some degree of governmental regulation for the good of all.”

An entirely different attitude was revealed by Lionel

Trilling in his essay "W. D. Howells and the Roots of Modern

Taste" (Partisan Review, XVIII, 1951* [5l6]”536). In a broad consideration of the novelist’s contemporary reputa­ tion, Trilling predicted that Howells’ stock was as high as

It would go. He felt that the present Indifference to

Howells probably was based on his interest In the common­ place, his distaste for "story," and his small perception of evil. Yet there wa 3 something indomitable about Howells; he had fine, sound qualities and real litorary value. In resisting him we resisted more than literary talent, tem­ perament, and method:

There Is in Howells. . .an odd kind of muted, stubborn passion which we have to take account of, and respect, and recognize for what it Is, the sign of a commitment, of an Involvement in very great matters— we are required to see that in making our judgment of him we are involved in considerations of way of life, of quality of being. (XVIII, 523)

But v/e consent to the commonplace, according to Trilling, only as it verges upon and becomes the rare and the strange.

Howells’ kind of commonness suggested nothing of this; for him "the center of reality was the family life of the middle class." But at present, with the 7/ide-spread dislike of the conditioned, the idea of family life was part of the "Inade- 2 2 2 quafco bourgeois reality." The modern judgment of Howells as lifeless, bloodless, meaningless, unreal might be the result of a universal attitude that very little In life has life, blood, meaning, reality. In our pursuit of the rare and the strange, of meaningfulness, v/e tended to deval­ uate all moderate sentiments. And the devaluation of moderate sentiments brought concomitant devaluation of extreme passions. lIThe extreme has become the commonplace of our day." It seemed to Trilling that in the present temper we were perhaps disqualified from making a proper judgment of Howells, who was pre-eminently a man of moderate sentiments.

The scholarly criticism of Howells has been by far the most acute and sensitive and fair. It has of course the advantage of being able to use whatever insights, discoveries, judgments, or even errors, the earlier criticism has pro­ duced. In a few Instances the writers seem to have been preoccupied with a thesis or somewhat hasty in forming broad judgments on insufficient evidence. But on the whole, this criticism is largely Impersonal and scholarly, impelled by intellectual curiosity and the desire to understand Howells and his work. 223

Chapter VIII

CONCLUSION

During the first ten years of Howells' career as a

novelist, from 1872 to l88l, the critics had no major quarrel with him. His novels were distinctly "literary," designed

for the middle-class reading audience that had enjoyed his

travel books. They possessed the virtues of morality,

decorum, charm, and lucid, graceful style. His emphasis on

the "ordinary traits of American life," especially in Their

■Vedd ing Journey and A Chance Acquaintance, was relieved by humor, kindliness, and the consistent point of view of an urbane, sophisticated member of polite society. More­ over, his extensive use of the travel element provided

interesting foreign settings and fresh areas of thought;

It suggested favorable comparisons between American and

European character and life. When Howells left behind the travel formula in The Undiscovered Country (1 8 8 0 ) and Doc tor

Breen1s Practice (l88 l), he made an additional appeal to critics who were intent on finding expressions of national feeling. On the other hand, a few writers were less than pleased with his American subjects on the grounds that they were not sufficiently important or representative. None the less, the Idealistic point of view remained in the ascend­ ancy, and at the close of l88l most American critics had considerable esteem for the novelist. But Howells consciously had been working closer to

the life around him, and in A Modern Ins tance he dealt with

that life more vigorously, more profoundly, and more criti­

cally than he had ever done before. In effect, he challenged

the authority of the "genteel" conception of literature.

The immediate antagonistic reaction signaled the beginning

of the war over realism that was to continue for some twenty

years. The idealistic-moralistic critics were opposed to

Howells1 new mode of fiction as they would have been opposed

to gross infractions of the moral and social codes. Probably

they were Incensed all the more because of his established

position and reputation in the Boston literary world. They

wore not unaware of the increased power and skill demonstrated

in the novel, but they realized that his view of life was

destructive to the prevailing customs in literature and

society. Howells had stepped outside the conventions of

polite literature and he had violated the romantic tradition.

Hot only did he elevate commonplace persons, incidents, and motives to a level of primary Importance, but also he depicted unpleasant, pessimistic aspects of New England life--hQ

suggested that there was a growing tendency toward decadence.

These aberrations were fundamental; they posed a threat to

the supremacy of the middle classes In matters Intellectual and social. To offset that danger, the critical majority attacked Howells vigorously and made explicit their Idealistic- moralistic creed. 2 2 5

But Howells had his defend©rs--men who believed as

he did that romanticism had outlived its usefulness and

that a broad truthfulness of presentation was the appropriate

mode of the American author. Romanticism, they felt, v/as

essentially aristocratic and false. It insisted on well-born

heroes and heroines who were impossibly good, noble, and

courageous; it stressed ridiculous extremes of sacrifice and

sentimentalism; it indulged in unusual, exciting episodes

that were entirely foreign to the experiences of the average

parson; finally, it boro no apparent relation to the life

t h e y knew. Conversely, realism was singularly appropriate

to a democracy, in which literature, like all the good products

of civilization, was meant for the people. Realism meant

"the truthful treatment of material" — the natural, the normal,

the colloquial, the democratic. It meant the presentation

of average human beings engaged In the pursuits of ordinary

life as It is experienced. On these grounds the realists

defended the novelist.

When Howells published The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885),

the idealists were confirmed in their suspicions, and they

intensified their attack on him. Then In 1887* stimulated

by Tolstoy's books and the Ilaymarket riot, Howells formed

an explicit conception of "critical realism" and began to

reveal more pointedly the ills and injustices of the world he saw. His first novel of social criticism, The Minister's 226

Charge, evidently appalled the critical ranks, for several magazines ignored it,.and these that reviewed it were bitter.

With the appearance of Annie Kilburn (1 8 8 9 )* which was not

liable to the same objections, the idealistic critics employed

a new device: they complained that Howells was becoming tire­

some and boring. Yet, in 1890 they showed a surprising

amount of favor toward A Hazard of Hew Fortunes, suggesting

that his achievement and his consistent practice were begin­ ning to win their grudging respect. They were much impressed by the scope and the characterization, aid many of them did

not seem entirely aware of the devastating social criticism

in the novel. Some of the reviewers ignored or minimized

the socialist argument; but others were more alarmed than over, and renewed their fierce onslaught against Howells' mode of fiction. Of course the defenders of Howells praised

the novel highly, and as a result the conflict over realism waxed hot.

During the following years there was a resurgence of romanticism, chiefly in the form of highly popular historical romances. Spurred 011 by this fresh vogue of anti-realistic stories and Howells' continued treatment of disturbing social themes--none of which were so successfully presented as those in A Hazard of Hew Fortunes--the idealistic critics maintained their derogatory attitude toward the novelist. But after

1895, the year in which he abandoned for a time his more direct social criticism, there was a noticeable slackening 2 2 7

of antagonism. By 1902, the development of the strain of

naturalism in works by Crane, Norris, and Dreiser seems to have led man?/ reviewers to conclude that Howells' braid of realism was decidedly preferable to a method that entertained

Ideas of natural determinism and portrayed the actualities

of life in an unprecedented way. As soon as the majority

of critics acknowledged the propriety of treating average,

normal contemporary life realistically infiction, the system

of Idealistic-moralistic criticism became inoperative. Thus

tno strong doctrine that had prevailed in American literature

for almost half a century degenerated into "conventional"

criticism--a colorless, formless mixture somewhat vaguely

nu.Ldod by morality and decency. By the early twentieth century also, the position of the realistic critics, who formerly had been the liberals, became conservative as the naturalists posed new and more difficult problems. With,

thoir cause practically won, most realists had no desire to

extend further the scope of literature.

Inevitably there was a revolt against what probably seemed a conspiracy to impose restrictions and taboos on

American fiction. An early expression of resentment in

19Oil v/as merely the preface to a burgeoning revolutionary criticism that John Macy Introduced forcefully in 1913* The

iconoclasts put American literature under the scalpel and attacked every Idea, custom, and practice which appeared to 228 have limited, inhibited, or thwarted the free individual development of creative genius. They attacked Puritan morality and its concomitants of prudery, decorum, and polite­ ness; they attacked tradition and convention; they attacked dogmatism and authoritarian judgments of any kind. In their revaluations of American authors on such bases, the icono­ clasts depreciated almost every figure of the past. On the other hand, they helped to free literature from the "dead hand of tradition" and forced a revaluation of reputations and critical principles.

Since Howells really belonged to the past, yet remained in the limelight, praised excessively by the conservative critics--idealists and realists alike--he was an obvious target of the Iconoclasts, who considered him the epitome oC Victorian "genteelism." They established the fashion of denouncing him for prudery, the avoidance of ugly or brutal details, emphasis on "the smiling aspects" of life, and bis failure to deal with material in the manner of a Dreiser.

These animadversions have had great influence op. estimates of Howells since 1920. The old vein of realistic criticism bad run its course and died out, like idealism a victim of the changing times. The conventional criticism followed no consistent pattern, but absorbed the most Impressive sn d lasting comments produced by more emphatic points of view.

It accepted much of the adverse criticism of the iconoclasts, 2 2 9 and by 1930 the critical reputation of Howells had reached

11 s lowest p o int.

But in the same year a countertendency developed, as a few sociologically-minded critics reviewed the culture of the past in the hope of finding values that would affirm

their own theories. These writers were limited in their interests and their method: they considered literature either from the standpoint of economic determinism or on the basis of farxist dogma. They allowed their thesis to govern their selection, interpretation, and judgment of literary works.

A1so, they were inclined to repeat uncritically much of the o miment of the iconoclasts. Yet, within their limits they had a positive approach, and their findings were to have a stimulating effect on American criticism. Perceiving in

Howells a concern for issues that were vital to the growth of democracy, the sociological critics rescued him from the limbo to which he had bean assigned. They re-examined the period of his social novels and took cognisance of his criticism of society. They emphasized that he was one of the earliest American novelists to play a self-conscious part in the furthering of liberalism. In their view Howells was prudish and superficial, too submissive to the Boston social world, largely ignorant of basic social and economic forces; but he was alert to the changes taking place in his society and aware of most of the underlying implications. If his 230 methods of reform were not quit© satisfying to a twentieth- century Marxist, at least his aims wore right.

The sociological comments on Howells have affected both the conventional view and the more recently developed scholarly attitude, but in different ways. The conventional critics have been inclined to add the more plausible remarks of the activists to their own surveys, without any Indication of further investigation. In contrast, the scholarly critics have been inspired to revaluat© Howells' fiction carefully

In an effort to determine what relevance he might have for his day and for our own. Their Interest In his social aignificanco does not differ greatly from that of the activist critics, but they follow no narrow thesis, and their criticism is more balanced and impartial. In the scholarly view,

Howells was indeed too reticent and fastidious, and he was deficient In passion and power. But to the critics, these qualities are relative, and only prevented his achieving a supreme success. Otherwise, h© was a sensitive, highly civilized artist who perceived the fundamental defects In his society and presented a valid social criticism skill­ fully incorporated in his novels. Moreover, he increasingly devoted himself to promoting the democratic ideal.

The results of scholarly research and criticism have effected a decided improvement in Howells' critical reputa­ tion since 1 9 3 7 * The number of studies dealing with him and the Increased respect he now receives In conventional criticism provide evidence of this. But his final status* even among literary critics, i3 quite uncertain at this time.

Howells had been devaluated to such a degree that the mere revelation of distorted facts and the piercing of accumulated myths is a herculean task. Once the scholars' penchant for solving riddles and correcting errors Is satisfied, lie may again relapse into the category of the forgotten. Yet it aooears certain that under the present conditions of life ho will not descend to the depths of 1930. As long as criti­ cism Is scholarly, liberal, and free, It can never discount altogether a massive body of fiction thab is competently written, thoroughly American, and Indisputably democratic. Chapter I

1 North American Rev. , CXIV (Apr. 1872), [44-.

2 Nation, XVI (June 12, 1873), 4-°5; Harper's Map;., XLVII (Aug7~l873),

3 (Boston, 1895; 1st e d . 1 8 7 2 ), p. 81.

4 Minnie B. Phelps, "A Modern Author," Californian, I (Jan. 1880), 4.3-44; "The Earlier and Later Work of Mr. Howells," Lipp incot t 1 s M ag . , XXX (Dec. 1882), 6o4-; [T. S. PerryJ, "William Dean Howells," Century, XXIII (Mar. 1882), 68l, *684; Maurice Thompson, "Studies of Prominent Novelists, Book News. VI (Nov. 1887). fQ31 ; H. H. Boyesan, "Mi'. Howells and His Work, 11 Cosmopolitan, XII (Feb. 1892), UpOZI •

5 [Henry JamesJ , rev. of A Foregone Conclusion, North American Rev., CXX (Jan. 1875), 20*8; idem, Nation, XX ("Jan. 7 , TE75T, 12; A. Orr, "International Novelists and Mr. Howells," Con­ temporary Rev. , XXXVII (May 1880 ), 74-7; [PerryJ , Century, XI III", 80J4.; Brooks Adams, rev. of The Und is covered Country, International Rev. , IX (Aug. 1880), 152-153; J-W. CT Brownell/ , "The Novels of Mr. Howells," Nation, XXXI (July 15, 1880), 50; Boyesen, Cosmopolitan, XIlJ 5"02 ; G. H. Badger, "Howells as an Interpreter of American Life," International Rev., XIV (May-June 1 8 8 3 ), 3 8 2 .

6 North American Rev. , CXX, 207-214.; Nation, XX, 3 2-13*

7 Nation, XX, 1 3 .

8 Orr, Contemporary Rev. , XXXVII, 764-765; [Brownell] , Nation, XXXI", 50; Higgxnson, "Howells," In Short Studies of American Authors (Boston, 1880), p. 39; idem, rev. of The Und iscovered Country, Scribner’s Monthly, XX (Sept. 1880), 233

9 [Perry] , Century, XXIII, 6 8 3 ; [Thompson}, "The Analysts Analysed," Critic , IX (July 10, 1886), 22; Boyesen, Cosmo- nol. It an, XII, 1^02] .

10 "Private Theatricals," which appeared in Atlantic Monthly in 1875-76 (vols. XXXVI, XXXVII) was not reviewed, and re­ ceived but fleeting comment during the century. A writer who signed himself "Ricus" reported in 1910 ("A Suppressed Kovel of Mr. Howells," Bookman, XXXII, Oct. 1910, [201] -203) that c.-rtain Inhabitants of Mountain Farm, "Woodwards," recognized themselves in Howells 1 story and compelled him not to publish ;t in book form. Some copies were published in Edinburgh, according to "Ricus, 11 but that edition was also suppressed. I shall deal with the novel in the order of its official publication as Mrs. Farrell (1921).

II Scribner 1 s Monthly, XVIII (May 1079), 150-l5l •

17 Huminaon, Short Stud ies, p. 39 i Peck, The Personal Ecu at ion (N.Y' , 1 8 9 8 ), p. 26".

13 Higginson, Short Stud ies , pp. 39> 35-3^; Pock, pp. 27-29* See also [BrownellJ , Hation, XXXI, 50; Higginson, ScribnerT s, IX, 79f; Orr, Contemporary R e v . , XXXVII, 7^5, 759"7^05 Sa.rah IE Bolton, "William Dean Howells," in Famous American Authors (1887), rev. ed. (N.Y. , [19^0]), pp. 2W~297; rev. of Annie Kllburn, Critic, XIV (Feb. 9 , 1 8 8 9 ), 6 3 .

lij- Such a comparison is unjust, since Lydia has faith, self- control, strength, and reserves of character wholly foreign to Marcia Hubbard.

15 [Brownell] , Nation, XXXI, 50; Adams, International Rev., IX, 150; Higginson, Scribner * s, XX, 793* 795; Woolley, Dial, I (July i8 6 0 ), 53*

l6 Brownell found slight interest in the material and objected to the "artificialIty" of the tramp incident. See Nation, XXXI, 5l*

17 The thin novelette A Fearful Responsibility, published during the same year, was described by two reviewers as an 23k- artistic piece of work revealing wit, humor, and pathos, but one with even less body than was common in Howells. Moreover, in dialogue, act, and character it suggested that the author was repeating himself. See the Dial, II (Aug. l88l), 85; and [T. B. AldrichJ , Atlantic Monthly, X.LVIII (Sept. l88l), lj.02. The comments on this rarely mentioned story appear to be sound.

18 H. A. Huntington, Dial, II (Jan. 1882), 2l5*

10 Qi. E. Scudde^, Atlantic Monthly, XLIX (Jan. 1882), 129- 130.

20 Huntington, Dial, II, 21^-216; Clarence L. Dean, "Mr. Howells’s Female Characters," Dial, III (Oct. 1882), 107; Anri a Laurens Dawes, "The Moral Purpose in Howells'3 Hovels," Andover Rev., XI (Jan. 1 8 8 9 ), 28-29*

Chapter II

1 Atlant ic Monthly, L (Nov. 1882), 710, 712; Lippincott’3 Mne., XXX, 6oBu 6 0 B; rev. of A Woman ’ s Reason, Literary World , XIV (Oct. 20, 1 8 8 3 ), 3^0; Century, XXV (Jan. 1BB3 ), Badger, International Rev. , XIV, 38I1; H. T. Parker, "Mr. Howells and the Realistic Movement," Harvard Monthly, V (Jan. 1888), 1Ij-6-1Il8; Charles F. Richardson, American Literature (N.Y. , I8 8 9 ), II, I4.3 8 ; Peck, The Personal Equa­ tion, p. 2 2 .

2 The critic also posed the question of what future course Puritanism would take: Would there be a general relaxation of the rigid, inhibiting moral code? Would Puritanism develop into a larger and more intellectual religion? or Would there be a return to the old bondage of Calvinism?

3 "William Dean Howells," in The Personal Equation, pp. 22- 23; first printed in Bookman, IV (Feb. 1 8 9 7 ) I 529-5I|-1.

I). Page 2l}.. Peck's criticism of A Modern Instance and The Rise of Silas Lapham was written during the later years of 235

the battle over realism. It emphasises a lustiness of motive and action and a criterion of objectivity that were not characteristic of idealistic-moralistic criticism. But his extreme praise of The Lady of the Aroostook, his attitude toward realism, and his strictures on later novels by Howells show that he was more nearly related to the Scudder-Mabie- Warner school than to any other group concerned with prose fIc t ion.

5 Critic, III, 5l8; Dean, Dial, III, 107; Badger, Interna- tional Rev., XIV, 385; Richardson, American Literature, II,

55B: “

6 Linpincott's Mag., XXX, 606, 6o8; Literary World, XIV, 350; £Scudc1erj , Atlantic Monthly, L, 711-712; Peck, The Personal Equation, pp. 22-23; Badger, International m . , x i v , " 3 5 3 *

7 [il. E. Scudded, rev. of The Rise of Silas Lapham, Atlantic Monthly, LVI (Oct. 1885), 55F; ibid., L, 71l7‘‘Dean, Dial, III, 107; Critic, III, 5l8; James Herbert Morse, "The Native Element in American Fiction," Century, XXVI (July 1883),37^4-*

8 jScudderJ , Atlantic Monthly, L, 711-712; Lippincott1 s Mag. , XXX, 6 0 6 ; Morse, Century, XXVI, 374^ Century. XXV, Badger, International Rev., XIV, 385*

9 Atlant ic Monthly, L, 710.

1° Century Mag. , XXV, [|_6i(-*

11 International Rev*, XIV, 386, 385; Century, XXV, i|65; Literary World, XIV, 380.

12 Lippincott1s Mag., XXX, 607; Dean, Dial, III, 107; Atlantic Monthly, LVI, 555-556.

13 Atlantic Monthly, LI (April 1883), ij-64-J4-7i[-• Although Warner does not refer specifically to A Modern Instance, it is probable that Hov/ells ’ novel, and possibly E. W. Howe1 s The Story of a Country Town (Published in 1 8 8 3 ), inspired his article. 236

14 Atlant ic Monthly , LI, 467* The same argument appears continually In later criticism of A Modern Instance and Its successors. See especially H. T. Parker, Harvard Monthly, V, (Jan. 1868), lij-S-l^?.

15> Two letters discovered by Goorge^Arms show that Howells sought information in 1878 for use in this novel. The implication is that the Fenton-Hong Kong parts were in out­ line form at that time ("A Novel and Two Letters," Rutgers Univ. Lib. Jour. , VIII, 1944* [97-13)* fiHt the early plans were delayed, for Howells stated on September 10, 1882, that he had written 100 pages of A Woman * s R eason; on November 19, 1882, he wrote that he hoped to finish the novel In January, [hife in Letters, ed. Mildred Howells, N.Y., 1928 , I, 319* 3'29') .

l6 James B. Runion, "Howells~-Harte--James," Dial, IV (Oct. 1383), 126-129; Critic, III (Dec. 22, 1 8 8 3 ), 5l8; Literary World, XIV (Oct. 20, I8 8 3 ), 350; [H. E, ScudderJ? , "The East and the West in Recent Fiction," Atlant ic Monthly, LII (Nov. 1333), 70I4.-7 0 6 .

17 Life in Letters, I, 329* See also George Arms, Rutgers Univ. Lib. Jour., VIII, [9J-13*

18 Hamilton Wright Mabie, "A Typical Novel," Andover Rev., IV (Nov. 1385), i4-17 “[j-2 0 ; [H. E. ScudderJ, Atlantic Monthly, LVI (Oct. 1885), 554-* 556; Maurice Thompson^ ,rStud ies of Prominent Novelists," Book News, VI (Nov. 1 8 8 7 ), II. T. Parker, Harvard Monthly, V (Jan. 1888), 14 5 -14-6 ; Peck, The Personal Equation, pp. 25-26.

19 Nat ion, XLI (Oct. 22, 1885), 347; [ScudderJ, Atlantic Monthly, LVI, 555-556; Peck, pp. 25-26.

20 Thompson, Book News, VI, [9 3}; Critic, VII (Sept. 12, 1885), 122; "Novel-Writing a3 a Science," Ciatholic World, XLII (Nov. 1885), 2 7 6 ; Parker, Harvard Monthly, V~ l49«

21 Nation, XLI, 347; |ScudderJ , Atlantic Monthly, LVI, 556; Critic, VII, 122; J. E. Sinnott, "The Nabob and Silas Laphamy Harvard Monthly, I (Jan. 1 8 8 6 ), l65-l66. 237

22 Nation, XLI, 3^1-7~3^4-S5 Critic, VII, 122; {ScudderJ , Atlantic Monthly, LVI, 556.

23 Andover R e v . , IV, [{.20. See also Critic, VII, 122; Nation. XLI, 3I4.7 j Sinnott, Harvard Monthly, 1^ 1 6 7 ; Parker, Harvard Monthly, V , lij.7 •

2t- Andover R a v ., IV (1885)* ij-21. Cf. Sinnott, Harvard Monthly, I (1886), 16I4.-I6 8 ; Thompson, Book News, VI 6 1 8 8 7 ), [93j “94-; Parker, Harvard Monthly, V (1868 ), lJLj_7 •

25 Nab ion, XLI, 3^7*

26 Andover Rev . , IV, 1|,26 .

27 Mabie, Andover Rev. , IV, ifl8 , lj.22, Ij-20; Parker, Harvard Monthly, V,~TLj-7“l58; Nation, XLI, 34-7; Catholic World, XLII, 277 • 28 Payne, Dial, VI, (Mar. 1886), 303; /Scuddery , "James, Crawford, and Howells," Atlant ic Monthly, LVII (June 1 8 8 6 ), 8p6 , 855; Anna L. Dawes, "The” Moral Purpose in Howells’s Novels," Andover Rev., XI (Jan. 1 8 8 9 ), 33-

29 "The Analysts Analyzed," Critic, IX (July 10, 1886), 19-2 2 .

30 Critic, X (Feb. 5* 1 8 8 7 ), 6 3 .

31 Nation. XLIV (Feb. 10, 1 8 8 7 ), 12lp.

32 Literary World, XVIII (Jan. 8 , 1 8 8 7 ), 4-*

33 Literary World, XVIII, 5; Nation, XLIV, 12lp; Critic, X, 63.

34- The Literary World review of The Rise of Silas Lap ham is notably realistic in tone. It serves, as a matter of fact, as a defense of realism; it will be considered in Chapter III. 238

3.3 Literary World, XVIII, 5*

36 Book Newa, VI (1 8 8 7 )# [93] • April Hopea appeared In serial form In Harper13 Monthly, February-Novomher, 1 8 8 7 .

3 ? "William Dean Howells," Critic, XXXV (Nov. 1 8 9 9 ), 1023; Anna L. Dawes, Andover Rev., XI C1 8 8 9 ), 31; Peck, The Personal Hq.ua t ion, p. 3 2 *

38 Na t i o n , XLVI (Feb. l6 , 1888), lip2.

Literary World, XX (Feb. 2, I8O9 ), 35; Critic, XIV (Feb. 5, I809T, 83; Nation, XLVIII (Feb. 21, 1889TTTE5.

IlC Literary World, XX, 35; Nat ion, XLVIII, 1 6 6 .

H a m e r 1 s Monthly, LXXX (Jan. 1 8 9 0 ), 3l4» [IScuddorJ , Atlant ic Monthly, IXV (Apr. 1 8 9 O), 563, 567; Critic , XVI (Jan. 11, 16 9*0"), 13; Literary World, XXI (Jan5 lBp I89O ), 20, 21; Nat ion, L (June 55 1896 ), 45lr; Catholic World, LI (Apr. 189^), 120. lj.2 Atlant ic Monthly, LXV, 563-56ip; Nat ion, L, 454 •

L3 Catholic World, LI, 120-122; [Scuddaij1, Atlantic Monthly, LXV, 5657 567; Critic, XVI, 1I4.; Literary World, XXI, 20-21.

54 Critic, XVI, 1.4; Nation, L, 14-54; Atlantic Monthly, LXV, 50 6 ; Catholic World, LI, ll'9>*

45 Harper1s Monthly , LXXX, 314; Atlantic Monthly, LXV, 565*

5-6 Critic, XVI, 1 4 .

47 Nation. L, 4 55 239

48 The Personal liquation, p p . if-O-ij-l

49 Critic. XVII (July 2b, I8 9 0 ), 44; Nation. LI (Sept. 25, 1890‘), 253.

50 Nation. LIV (Feb. 25, 1892), l54*

51 Critic. XX (Jan. 1 6 , 1 8 9 2 ), 34“35*

52 Dial, XIII (Aug. 1892), 102.

53 Nation. LV (July l4, 1 8 9 2 ), 34; Critic, XX (May 7, 1 8 9 2 ), 262; [ii3 E. Scudder] , Atlantic Monthly, LXIX (May 1892), 703; [C. D. WarnerJ , "Editor's Study, tr Harper r 3 Monthly, LXXXV (July 1892), 316-317.

54 Harper's Monthly, LXXXV, 317*

55 Nat ion, LV, 3k; Dial, XIII, 102; [ScudderJ , Atlantic Monthly, LXIX, 703*

56 Atlantic Monthly, LXIX, 703-704; Critic, XX, 262; Dial, XIII, 102.

57 Dial, XIV (June 1, 1 8 9 3 ), 339,* Nation, LVII (July 13, 1 8 9 3 ), 31• A Traveler from Altruria appeared in serial form in Cosmopolitan, Nov. I892 - Sept. 1893*

58 American Writers of Today (Boston), pp. 5l, 59*

59 Dial, XV (Dec. 1, I8 9 3 ), 341* A fev/ months later, S. Kirk briefly commended the novel In more precise terms. See "America, Altruria, and The Coast of Bohemia," Atlantic Monthly, LXXIV (Nov. 1894), 704-

60 Nation, LVII (Nov. 23, 1 8 9 3 ), 395, 394* 214-0

6l MW . D. Howells's First Romance,11 Harper1 s Bazar, XXVII (June l6 , 18914-)> k75. This is a realistic appraisal of the b o o lr..

62 "America, Altruria, and The Coast of Bohemia," Atlantic Monthly, LXXIV (Nov. I89I4.), 702-703.

63 Nation, LIX (Aug. 9,. 189k), 107.

6')- The Personal Equation, p. i|J-•

American Writers of Today, pp. 50-55

66 The slight novelette The Day of Their Wedd ing (1 8 9 6 ) was reviewed appreciatively by Helena J. Albro in the Bookman, II]: (May 1 8 9 6 ), 258-260, and by an anonymous critic in the Dial, XX (June 1, 1 8 9 6 }, 335- This delicate story of the venture of a young Shaker couple Into the "world-outside" is notable chiefly for the author's objectivity. The view­ points and perceptions are those of Lorenzo and Althea.

67 Book Buyer, XIV (July I8 9 7 ), 599; Harper1s Mag., XCV (ITov” 1 8 9 7 7 6 962.

60 Critic, XXX (June 1 9 , 1897), lj-20; Book Buyer, XIV, 600, 598; Harper's Mag., XCV, 96l-962| Nation, LXV (July 1, 1897), 16.

69 Book Buyer, XV (Nov. 1897), 36.k-365; Atlantic Monthly, LXXX, 859 •

70 Literary World, XXVIII (Oct. 16. 1 8 9 7 ), 355-

71 Literary World, XXIX (Aug. 6 , 1 8 9 8 ), 2k3; Dial. XXV (July 1, 1698"), 21-22; Hyde, Book Buyer, XVII (Sept. 1 8 9 8 ), Ik6~lk7. 72 Peck, The Personal Equation, pp. 5, 13-20, 21-22. 73 Peck, The Personal Equation; pp. 29-31 -

7JLp According to Stephen Crane’s report of an interview, Howells had planned as early as 1894- to create a character who sprang from lowly circumstances but who had an unusual instinct for manner, dress, and good taste; he intended to call his story "The Ragged Lady." See George Arms and William M. Gibson, edd., Five Interviews with William Dean Howells, rpt. from Americana, XXXVTI [Apr. 1943), 257-2957

75 Literary World, XXX (Apr. 29, 1 8 9 9 ), 131; Dial, XXVII . (July I, I899T 7 21* Cornelia Atwood Pratt, "William Dean Howells: Some Aspects of His Realistic Novels," Critic, XXXV (Nov. 1899), 102lj-.

6 Independent, LII (Jan. 25, 1900), 257*

77 Book Buyer e XIX (Dec. 1899), [378J-381.

7o Harper’s Weekly, XLVI (July 19» 1902), 947; Mather, Forum, XXXIV (Oct.“1902),221-223; Dial, XXXII (June 1, 1902), 3^7“ 388; Nation, LXXIV (June 12, 1902), 470.

79 Literary World, XXXIII (June 1, 1902), 84; Preston, "The Latest Novels of Howells and James," Atlantic Monthly, XCI (Jan. 1903), 78-79*

80 Atlantic Monthly, XCI, 82, 79-81-

81 Nation. LXXVII (Dec. 24, 1903), 507-508; Dial, XXXV (Oct. 18, 1903), 263-264; Critic, XLIII (Dec. 1 9 0 3 ), 578; Literary World, XXXIV (Nov. 1 9 0 3 ), 307*

82 Critic, XLVI (Feb. 1905), iQlpi Dial, XXXVII (Nov. l6 , 190l{J, 311; Bookman, XX (Dec. 1904), 373; Literary W orld, XXXV (Dec. 1 9 0 4 )', 3 7 8 .

83 Chamberlayne, Poet Lore, XVI (Autumn 1905), l47; Dial, XXXVII, 3 1 1 ; Literary World. XXXV, 3 7 8 ; Nation, LXXIX"TNov. 2 if, 190)4.), 4 1 9 ; Rev, of Reviews, XXXI (Jan. 1905), ll6 . 21*2

81{. Chamberlayne, Poet Lore, XVI* llj-9, l5l; Literary World, XXXV, 3 7 8 .

85 Harv/ood, Critic, XLVI, 181^.; Nat ion, LXXIX, I4.I9 -

86 Ihe Son of Loyal Langbrith (N.Y., I90J4,), PP. 2 6 8 -2 6 9 .

37 Hartman, Harper’s Weekly, XLIX (June 17, 1905), 871; Dial, XXXIX (Sept. 1, 190517 115; Outlook, LXXX (July 8 , 1905), 61^3; Literary Digest, XXXI (Aug. 5, 1905), 1 8 7 .

08 Cooper, Bookman, XXI (Aug. 1905), 6l0-6l2; Ibid. , 566- 367; Moss, Atlantic Monthly, XCV II (Jan. 1906), 5l I Harwood, Critic, XLVII (Nov. 1905 ), 552.

89 Van Wo strum, Bookman, XXV (June 1 9 0 7 ), Ip.35; Gortissoz, North American Rev., CLXXXVI (1907), 128-130; Literary Digest. XXXIV (June 1 , 1907), 885-886; Outlook, LXXXVI~JJnne 15. 1 9 0 7 ), 339-

90 Putnam's Monthly, II (Aug. 1907), 619; Nation, LXXXIV (May 9 , 1907 ),' i.j-39-“5 3 5 ; Independent, LXII (May 23, 1907), 1207-08; van Westrum, Bookman, XXV, 1^35*

91 Nation, LXXXVI (Anr. 2, 1908), 309; Putnam's Monthly, IV (Aug. 1908), 618-619; Outlook, LXXXVIII (Apr. 11, 1908), 8 3 8 .

92 Independent, LXIV (Apr. 23, 1908), 925; Book News Monthly, XXVI (June 1 9 0 8 ), 785; Dial, XLIV (June 1, 1908T," 35o-35l; Review of Reviews, XXXVTl (June 1 9 0 8 ), [7o0] ; van Westrum, Bookman. XXVII (May 1 9 0 8 ), 281-282.

93 Brander Matthews, Munsey's Mag., XLIX (Aug. 1913), 796“ 797; Atlantic Monthly, '~~GXII U 9 1 3 ) , 701; Dial. LIV (June 1, 1913), A-63; Independent, LXXIV (June 5, 1913), 1302-03; Literary Digest, XLVI (Apr. 5, 1913), 782; Nation, XCVI TApr. 2 7 / 1 9 1 3 7 , 5l 5 “it(-l6; Outlook, G U I (Mar. 2 9 , 1 9 1 3 ),73i^. 2k3

9J4. North American Rev. , CCIV (1 9 1 6 ), [93®J~939; H* H. Boyn- ton, Bookman, XLIV "('Ja n . 1917)# 9501±] ; H. V/. Boynton, Nation, G U I (Nov. TO, 191b), 507; Catholic World, CIV (Dec. 1916'/,"" 307; Independent, LXXXVIII (Dec. 25, 1 9 1 6 ), 550; Literary Digest', LIV (Jan. 13, 1917), 82.

95 The novel was written in 191°, but publication was deferred because some of the portraits so closely resembled the origi­ nals. See Alexander Cowie, The Rise of the American Novel (N.Y., [19^-8]) , p. d9°; and Carl VarT’Doren, rev, of The Ke lwyns, Nation, CXI (Nov. 3, 1920), 510.

96 Van Doren, Nation, CXI, 5l0-5ll; F. E. H., Freeman, II (Jan. 26, 1 9 2 1 ), J+787 Outlook, CXXVI (Oct. 20, 1920), 333*

97 Short Studies, pp. 37-38. Similar disapproval was expressed brie fly in Nation, XXXI (i860), 50; and Lippincott'a Mag., XXX (1882), 6o57

98 Boynton, Independent, CVII (0ct« 1, 1921), 18-19; Outlook, G XXIX (Oct.'5 , 1 9 2 1 ), 1 8 6 .

Chapter III

1 '‘He n r y James, Jr., 11 Century, XXV (Nov. 1882), 28-29*

2 Bverett Carter, "William Dean Howells' Theory of Critical Realism, " ELH, XVI (19^.9 ), l5l-l61f.

3 "William Dean Howells," Harper1s Weekly, XXX (June 19, 1886), 39^-395* if Letters (N.Y., 1920), 2 vols.

5 North American Rev. , CXLVIII (May), [$<)IQ~£>01.

6 Boyesen, North American Rev., CXLVIII, 597# 600, 601. 2 4 4

7 "Mr. Howells's Latest Kovels, " New England Map;. , n.s., 11 (May ), [2l\.3] -2$0.

0 Garland erroneously dated A Woman1s Reason before A Modern Instance. He displays elsewhere a tendency to make the facts fit his theory.

9 New England Map;., n.s., II, lP-k-3] ~ 2i|4.

10 New England Mag., n.s., II, 2 4 5 - 2 4 6 .

1 New England Map n.s., II, 247 - 25 0.

12 "Mr. Howells and His Work," Cosmopolitan, XII (Feb. 1 8 9 2 ), [5027-503.

13 Now England Map., n.s., IX (Oct. 1 8 9 3 ), 129-152. l!|. New England Mag. , n.3 ., IX, 131-135. l£ New England Mag* , n.s., IX, llpO-152.

16 "Mr. Howells Again," New England Mag., n.s., IX (Dec. 18 9 3 ), 4 o8-lf.Il.

17 New England Mag., n.s., IX, 4o8-4lO*

18 New England Mag. , n.s., IX, If-lO-lf-ll.

19 "W. D. Howells 's First Romance," Harper' s Bazar, XXVII (June 16, 1894 )j 475; "Works of William Dean Howells (I8 6 O-9 6 )," Harper's Weekly, XL (July 4> 1 8 9 6 ), 6 5 5 - 6 5 6 .

20 James, "American Letter," Literature, III (July 9> 1 8 9 8 ), 18; Barry, Bookman, VII (Aug. 1 8 9 6 '), 5 T 5 - 5 1 7 *

21 North American Rev., CLXXVI, 337-343* 3 4 4 * 22 North American Hev„ , CLXXVI, 3^~3^4-8»

23 Critic, XLIII (July 1903), 83-8%

2Ji. "William Dean Howells," CXIII, [221] -225; reprinted in What Is Man and Other .65says (N.Y., [1917J )» PP • 228-239*

25 "Contemporary Novelists: William Dean Howells," Atlantic Monthly, CXIX (Mar* 1917), 382-372; reprinted in Some Modern Novelists (N.Y., 1918), pp. 99-123*

28 Atlant ic Monthly, CXIX, 3 6 2 -3 6 3 •

27 Atlantic Monthly, CXIX, 36I4., 3 6 6 , 369-372.

28 Methodist Rev,, Cl, 226-230, 231.

20 (N.Y.), pp. 21-30; essay first printed in New Republic, X. suppl. (Apr. 21, '1917), 3 - 5 *

30 William Dean Howells, A Study of the Achievement of a Literary Art ist (N.Y., I91YT-

31 Hackett, pp. 21, 22.

32 Hackett, pp. 2ip-25, 28-3 0 .

33 William Dean Howells: A Study (Cambridge, Mass.)

3l|- Firkins suggests (pp. 123-129_) that the novel provided Howells an "asylum" from The Minister1s Charge, which was of graver purpose. But Indian Summer was written first.

35 Delmar Gross Cooke, JEGP, XXIV (July 1925), 1^3- 2I4.G

Chapter IV

1 Gertrude Atherton's "Why is American Literature Bourgeois" In the North American Rev lev; for May 1 9 ° 4 (CLXXVIII, (7717 - 7 8 1 ) v/as the expression of an early minor revolt against the decorum and the taboos that seemed to prevail In our litera­ ture .

2 Macy, The Spirit of American Literature, pp. 281-291.

3 (N.Y.), pp. 87-129. ij. "The Role of Science in the Thought of W. D. Howells," Trans, of Wise. Acad, of Sciences, Arts and Letters, XLII 7X 9 5 3 ), 2 6 3 -3 0 3 .

3 Pattee, History, pp. 201-212.

6 Pattee, History, pp. 213-217•

7 'William Dean Howells : A Study of the Achievement of a Literary Art 1st (N. Y ).

8 Harvey, pp. 16-218. The portion of the book after page 2X8 is a weird rhapsody on Poe, eroticism, death, and Freudianism; it is irrelevant and pointless.

9 (N.Y.), pp. 39-43-

10 "A Note on Howells and ’The Smiling Aspects of Life,1" AL, XVII (May 1 9 4 5 ) , 175-178.

11 Basil March, watching an Imagined friendless German Immigrant boy in New York, exclaimed: "What a smiling aspect life In the New World must wear to his young eyes, and how his heart must leap within himi " p . 3 8 .

12 (N.Y.), pp. 5 2 - 5 8 . 234-7

13 In his more disinterested study American Language, [[.th ed . (N.Y. , 1938), p. l6 8 n, Mencken noted that Howells, like Mark Twain, was acutely conscious of the changes occur- ying in our language.

lk Jones, “A Study of Howells," Freeman, VII (Apr. 25, 1923 )> 163; V'an Doren, "American RealIsnyP^New Repub 1 ic , XXXIV (Mar. 21, 1923 ), [1077-109*

15 "Readers and Writers," CXIV (Jan. 3* 1925 )j 20.

l6 A foreign stud 7/, Regis Michaud's The American Novel Today (Boston, 1928 and 1 9 3 1 ), also promoted the adverse view of Howells. According to Michaud, Howells "adopted Babbittry"; expurgated politics, religion, and science "in order not to disturb" the genteel; established virtue as the exclusive monopoly of the well-to-do; exhibited a diseased conscience; and took the side of hypocrisy against truth "at any cost." Pp. 6 1-70*

77 "Howells: Ten Years After," American Mercury, XX (May 1 9 3 0 ), ij.2 -5 0 .

18 The Man from Main Street. ed. Harry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane (N.Y. , [1953J )» PP • l5-l6.

19 (N.Y.), pp. l6 l-l6 6 .

20 (N.Y. ), pp. 315-34-°•

21 In an essav entitled "The National Idea," In the Palhou3 ie Review for 193n-“35 (XIV, 1I4I4.), B-, K. Brown emphasized Howells' conformism and accused him of advancing a Babbitt's dream of paradise: "No man of good conscience has done more to vulgar­ ize the national idea." Chapter V

1 Nsv/ Repub 1 ic, XXVI (Apim 13, 1921), 192-.194-*

2 The Beginnings of Critical Real ism in America (N.Y.), pp. 24a2253.

3 (N.Y.), PP* 375-382.

),l (N.Y., 1932), p p . 236-255.

3 (N.Y., 1933), pp. 74.-78, 85-99-

"Howells ' 'Blistering and Cauterizing,m Ohio State Arch. and Mist. Q.uar., LXII (Oct. 1953), 334-“ 34-7 ;~~f,Howe 11s, the Atlantic Monthly, and Republicanism, fl AL. XXIV (May 1952), Y39]-T5^.

7 XI, [4-lj~4-2. Smith briefly echoed the same view of Howells f ive years later In Foree3 in Amer lean Cri tic i3m (N.Y., £1939.7 ), pp. 158-159, 170.

Chapter VI

1 Boynton, A History of American Literature (Boston),p -4-22; Garland, "William Dean Howells, Piaster Craftsman," Art World, I (Mar. 1917), 4-11; Perriton Maxwell, "Howells the Ed it or , " Book News Monthly, XXVI (June 1908), 737; William Lyon Phelps, Essays on Modern Novel is ts (N.Y., 1921; 1st ed. 1910), p.59; Booth larkington, "Mr. Howells," Harper13 Mag., CXLI (Aug. 1920), 34.7- 34.8 .

2 Matthiessen, "A Monument to Howells," New Republic, LVIII (Apr. 24-, 1929), 33; Brander Matthews, rev,, of Cooke's Howells, Literary Dlgest Internalional Book Rev., I (Dec. 192271 33; Edward Wagenknecht, rev. of PirkinsT Howells, Virglnia Q u a r . R e v . , I (Oct. 1925), 9-53-554*; Hamlin G-ai’land, 2^9

"Roadside Meetings of a Literary Nomad," Bookman, LXX (Nov. 1929), 2/4.6 ; Idem, "Howells," in American Writers on American Literature, ed. John i.Iacy (N.Y., 1931 )~» PP~* 288, 299- • The only new element in Garland’s autobiographical writings is a /^rowing conservatism.

3 "The Story of Mr. Howells’ Career," Book News Monthly, .XIVI (June 1908), 734* Similar statements appear in Eliza- both Luther Cary, "William Dean Howells," Lamp, XXIX (Jan. 1905 )j 598-6014-; Henry Mills Alden, "William Dean Howells," book Nev/s Monthly, XXVI, 731; W. de Wagstaffe, "The Person­ al ify of Mr* Howells," Book News Monthly, XXVI, 7^4-1? Tark- ington, Harper 1 s Mar. , CXLI," 38-9-35ol "William Dean Howells, " New Fveoubl ic, XXII "TMay 26, 1920), 39^-395; P e r c y h . Boynton, 91 story, pp. I4.I8-I4.2O; Delmar Gross Cooke, Will lam Dean iIov.rolis (K.Y., [1922J ), pp. 115, 218; Edward S. Martin, •577“ D . Howe 11s, "’ Harper ’ s Mag . , CXLI (July 1920), £26 5j - 266 .

7 V/a Iter Fuller Taylor, A His tor:/- of Amer ic an Letters (N.Y. , [1936j ), pp. 301-393; Percy H. Boynton, Literature and American Life (Boston, [19367 ), pp. 74-5-74®; Arthur Hobson Ruinn, Amerlean Fiction (N.Y., [1936J ), pp. 273-276; Herbert J. Muller, Modern Fic t ion (N.Y., 1937)» p . 200; Tan ;Vyck Brooks, New England : Ind lan Summer, 1865-1915 (H.Y., lOij-O), pp. 217-222; Carl Van Doren, The American Novel, rev. ed. (N.Y., 1949)? p . 130; Grant C. Knight, The 0r11ica1 Perlod in American Literature (Durham, [l95lj ), p. To; Henry Steele Commager, "Return to Howells," Spec tator, C LXXX (May 28, 194-8) , 64-2-64-3; idem, Intro, to Selected Writings (N.Y., [.19503), pp. ix-x.

5 Cooke, Howells, pp. Il4-, 159? F • M. Colby, "The Casual Reader," Bookman, XXVIII (Oct. I9 O 8 ), 125; William Cleaver Wilkinson, Some New Literary Valuations (N.Y., 1 9 0 9 )? pp. 2lt-26; Henry A. Lapp in, "The Passing of W. D. Howells," Pathol ic World, CXI (July 1920), 4-51; May Tomlinson, "Fiction and Mr. Howells," S A Q . XX (1921), 365-366; Garland, "Howells," in American Writers on American Literature, p. 288; Quinn, American Fic t ion, p. 2761 Phelps, ,TAn Appreciation," North American Rev., CCXII (July 1920), 19*

6 P. H. Boynton, History, p. 4-22; T. W. Higgins on and II. A. Boynton, A Reader 1 s History (Boston, [19^3] ), p. 24-9- 25>0

7 Wilkinson, Some New Valuations, pp. 12-lij.; Cooke, Howells, pp. l50-l5l; Van Wyck Brooks, iTMr. Howells at Work," World 1 s Work, XVIII (May 1909), 11547; idem, New England: Indian Summer, p. 216; Arthur Hobson Quinn, "The Art of William Dean Howells," Century, C (Sept. 1920), 68l; idem, American Fiction, p. 2 7 6 ; Tarkington, Harper1s Mag., CXLI, 34^1 William Lyon Phelps, '"William Dean Howells,"~Yale Rev., n.s., X (1921), IO3 -IOI4.; idem, Howells, James, Bryant and Other Essays (N.Y., I92IJ. i, l56>7 166* J 70 .

8 Percy H. Boynton, The Challenge of Modern Crit ic ism (Chicago,- 1931)* P* 6 9 ; Higginson and H. A. Boynton, A Deaderfs History, p. 250; Cary, Lamp, XXIX, 598; LappIn, Catholic World, CXI, 452; Quinn, Century, C, 6 7 9 ; Ayscough, "Of Some Americans," Catholic World, CXVI (Oct. 1922), 52- 35j Grant C. Knight, The Novel in English (N.Y., 1931 )> p. 270 .

9 Brooks, New England: Indian Summer, p. 243; Cooke, Howell pp. 97“98> "The Safe and Sane Genius of William Dean Howells, Current Opinion, LXIX (July 1920), 9 8 ; Phelps, Howells, Jam.es , p . l5~87

10 In "Howells and Trollope," printed in the Living Age in 1921 (CCCVIII, 304-309), James F. Muirhead found Howells and Trollope essentially alike in their intentnoss on depict­ ing simply, directly, and accurately the everyday lives of their countrymen. Howells was more intellectually refined, Trollope more socially refined. Howells was the better literary craftsman and stylist, but there were perhaps some higher peaks in Trollope.

11 Wilkinson, Some New Valuations, p. 66; Phelps, North American Rev., CCXII, 19; James Main Dixon, "The Ideals of William Dean Howells," Personalist, II (Jan. 1921), 44; Van Dyke, "A Traveler from Altruria," Works (N.Y., 1924 )» XVI, 3 0 8 ; Cooke, Howells, p. 102; Ayscough, Catholic World, CXVI, 55. 251

12 Brooks, World * s Work, XVIII, 11577~7®; Idem, New England, pp. 212-215; John Erskina, "William Dean Howells," Bookman, LI (June 1920), 386, 3 8 8 ; Quinn, Century, C, 680; "The Sale and Sane Genius," Current Opinion, LXIX, 93; Van Doren, ORAL (N.Y., 1921) , III, 8 5 ; idem, The American Novel (I9I4.O), pp. 127? 1 3 6 ; Phelps, Howells, James, p7 1787 Alexander Black, American Husband's ( Ind ianapo 1 is , [19253 )? pp. 176- l8l; Wagenknecht, Va. Quar. Rev., I, 755; Joseph Warren Beach, "An American Master,¥ Yale Rev., n.s., XV (Jan. 1 9 2 6 ), IlOI; Lewis Mumford, The Golden Day Tn7y. , 192o}, p. 167; Knight, The Novel in English, pp. 272, 276; Haight, LHUS, II, 8 8 0 -8 9 8 ; P. H. Boynton, Literature and American Life, pp. 773-777; Taylor, History of American Letters, p. 301; Muller, Modern F'iction, p. 200; Edwin H. Cady, "The Neuro­ tic Ism of William Dean Howells," PMLA, LXI (Mar. 197-6) j. 229- 238 .

13 Mumford, p. 170; Van Doren, "William Dean Howells," In WarnerT s Library (N.Y., 1917), XIII, 7o55d; May Tomlinson, SAQ, XX, 300; Beach, JEGP, XXII (July 1923)? 773-9-57; Williams, "Literature of the New America," In The American Spirit in Intiers (New Haven, 1926 ), p. 260; Matthiessen, New Renublic, IVIII , 285; A. Ii. Quinn, et a l . , The Literature of the American People (N.Y., [195lj T7 P*- 679; Brooks, New England , o. 223; Russell Blankenship, American Literature, rev. ed. ‘(N.Y. , [1979] ), 7 8 7 .

lJ|. Snell, p. 211; Wilkinson, p. 6 l: Dixon, Personalist, II, 75-76; Van Doren, The American Novel (N.Y., 1921), p p . 1 3 8 - 139; idem, The American Novel (19767, p. 1 3 6 ; Cooke, Howells, pp. 228-232; Taylor, History of American Letters, p. 301; Brooks, New England, p . 397; Vernon Louis Farrington, Jr., American Dreams (Providence, 1977)? pp. 170-1?7*

15 Henry James, "A Letter to Mr. Howells," North American Rev., CXCV (Apr. 1912), 560-56l; Van Doren, Warner1s Library, XIII, 7655c; Cooke, Howells, p. 115; Black, p7 182; Beach, Yale Rev., n.s., XV, 76l"; Mumford, p. 168; Williams, The American Spirit in Letters, p. 259; idem, American Literature, p. 137; Matthiessen^ p7 285; Quinn, American Fic tlorm pp.265? 278; Muller, p. 199; "William Dean HowellaV1' S R L , XV (Mar. 13? 1937)? 8; Owen WIster, "William Dean Howells," Atlantic Monthly, CLX (Dec. 1937)? 713; Brooks, New England, p. 216; Snell, ~pp* 202, 211; Knight, The Critical Period, pp. 1 7 1 ,1 7 7 . 252

l6 The idealistic bias may be seen most noticeably in A. H. ^uinn (American Fiction, pp. 266-267* 2 6 9 ) and Owen V/Jster (Atlantic Monthly, CLX, 712); the iconoclastic view in George Snell (Shaper3 of American Fiction, pp. 199-211 ) and V. F. Farrington, Jr. (American Dreams, pp. 170-175); the sociological attitude in H. S. Gommager (The American G , P P • 25 0 - 258- • )

Chapter VII

i Aoproxinia tely 20 dissertations and 75 books and articles i\ a a •; been written on Howells during the past 25 years. Man;/ of the latter may be termed "scholarly. 11

0 "The Neurotic ism of Gilliam Dean Howells," PMLA, LXI (Var. 19*4-6}, 22 9-23)4.. In 1099 b'aldon Fawcett had called at tention to the case of hydrophobia in "William Doan Howells and His Brother," Critic, XXXV (Nov.), 1026-28.

3 William B. Cairns,‘A History of American Literature, rev. ed, (N.Y., 193 0)j PP • Ig71 -ii-72; Edward V/agenknecht, Cavalcade of the American Novel (N.Y., [,1952]), pp. 132-138-4 Walter f. Tay 1 or, "That Gilded Ago," Sewanee R e v . , XLV (1937), 8-2- ;s3; Goorge Arms, "The Literary Background' of Howells’s Social Criticism," AL, XIV (198-2), 257-270; Everett S. Carter, "The Palpitating Divan," Engl ish Journal, XXXIX (May 1950), 237-28-2.

'g Taylor, The Economic Novel in Arner 1 ca (Chapel Hill, 198-2), pp. 228, 28-7“2i4-H; i'd eng "^William Dean Howells: Artist and American," Sewanee Rev., XLVI (1938), 300; Alfred Kazin, On Nat ive Ground s (TlTy. , [JL98-2J ), p. 8 ; Clifton Malone, "The Realism of William Dean Howells," Quar■ Bull, of Oklahoma Baptist Univ. , Faculty Studies No. 2, XXXIV (Feb, 198-9"), , , 10-12; Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, p. 132; Alexander Cowie, The Rise of the American NoveI TN.Y., £198-8] ), PP • 698-“ 695-

5 Cairns, History, pp. 8-69-8-70; Royal A. Gettmann. "Turgenev in England and America," Univ, of IIlino is Stud ies In Language and Lit eratur e , XXVII (1981)8 62; Edd 'Winfield Parks, ^ Howe 11 s and the Gentle Reader," SAQ., L (Apr. 1951), 28-1; Edwin II. Cady, 'Armando Palacio Valdes Writes to William Dean- Howells," Sym­ posium, II (May 198-8), 31* 2 5 3

6 Kaxin, _0n Nat ive Grounds, pp. i^O-ipl; Edwin H. Cady, "A Note on Howells and 'The Smiling Asnecta of Life,'" A L . XVII (May 1945), 176; Idem, "Hov/ells in 194-8," UKCR, XV (Winter, 194-6), Qlp; Cowie, American Kovel, pp. 6'59, 700; V!ag a n k n e c h t , Cavalcade , p . TIj'l .

7 Rebecca W. Smith, "Portrait of an American: The National Character in Fiction," Southwest Rev., XXI (Apr. 1936), 255; George Arthur Dunlap, The C1ty in the American Novel, 1 7 S9 - 1900 (Fhila., 193J.|-), p. 110; Nev/ton Arvin, ""The Usableness of Howells," New Repub1ic, XCI (June 30, 1937), 227; Cowle, Amer 1 can Novel, pp. 6 7 1 , 6 7 8 -6 7 9 , George Arms, introd .^*The Rise of Silas Lanha.m, Rinehart ed . (N.Y., £l94-9j ) > PP • vii-x; id_em, "Howells ' s New York Novel: Comedy and Belief," NEQ, XXI (Sept. 194-8), 317, 323; Frederick J. Hoffman, The Modern Novel in America, 1900-1950 (Chi., 1951), PP • 8 , 26 ' ; ' Lionel Trilling, l,W. D. Howells and the Roots of Modern Taste," Partisan R e v ., XVIII (1951), 519-

8 Cowle, American Novel, pp. 667-673, 687-693; Edwin Cady, The Gentleman in America (Syracuse, [194-9] )> PP • 192-193; Morris, "Conscience in the Parlor: William Dean Howells," Amer lean Scholar, XVIII (Autumn, 194-9), 4-12-4-14-j Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, pp. lL}-l-l4-3; James L. Woodross, Jr., Howells and Italy (Durham, 1952), p. 184-; Taylor, Economic Nov el, p. 24-3; Dunlap, The C ity, p. 80; John K. Reeves, "^The Way of a Realist: A Study of Howells' Use of the Saratoga Scene," PULA, LXV (Dec. 1950), 10lp3, 1052; Arnold B. Fox, "Howells as a Religious Critic," NEQ, XXV (June 1952), 20o.

9 Taylor, Economic Novel, p. 277; idem, Sewanee Rev., XLVI, 302; Cady, UKCR, XV, 90; Cowie, American Novel, p. 700; A Schade van Westrum, "Mr. Hov/ells and American Aristocracies," Bookman, XXV (Mar. 1907), 72-73; Cairns, His torv, p. 4-71; Hoffman, Modern Novel, p. 23*

10 Annette Kar, "Archetypes of American Innocence: Lydia Blood and Daisy Miller," AQ, V (Spring, 1953), 31-38; Hoffman, Modern Novel, pp. 22-23; Trilling, Partisan Rev., XVIII, 520; James G. Harrison, "Nineteenth-Century American Novels on American Journalism," Journal ism Quar . , XXII (Sept.-Dec ., 194-5 ), 251}-

3ij-3; Arms, Silas Lap ham (Rinehart), p. vC j J. o. ylor, Economic Nov el, pp. 2lj.i-{. - 2)4.5 ; id e m, Sewanee Rev., XLV, I4.6 ; Arvin, Now Reoublic, XCI, 227; Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, pp. 132-1.314.*

11 Ernest Jackson Hall, The Satirical Element in the American Novel (Phi la. , 1922), pp.T^-77; Dunlap, The City, pp. 110- 113; Kazin, On Native Grounds, p. 1}_3; Cady, UKCR, XV, 90; Cowie, American Novel, pp. 659» 700-701; Wagenknecht, Caval­ cade , p. II4.2 .

12 Taylor, Economic Nove1, pp. 229-235; idem, "On the Origin of Howells’ Interest in Economic Reform,” AL, II (Mar. 1930), 5, 10-13; Cowie, American Nove1 , pp. 6 7 6 -6 7 7 ; Louis J. Budd, "William Dean Howells' Debt to Tolstoy,” American Slavic and East European Rev., IX (1950), 292-301; Hannah Oraham Belcher, "Howells’s Opinions on the Religious Conflicts of His Age,” A L , XV (Nov. 19)f3) > 271-278; Malone, Q u a r . B u l l . of Okla. Baptist Univ., XXXIV, 10-12; Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, p. 137; Harry Iiayden Clark, "The Role of Science in the Thought of W. D. Howells," Trans. of Wisconsin Acad. of Sc iences, Arts and Letters, XLI1 (1953T7 288-2BQ; Cady, The Gentleman, p. 200; Arvin, New Republic XCI, 227; Jacob Warren Getzels, "William Dean Howells and Socialism,” Sc ience and Society, II (Summer, 1938), 38)4-; George Warren Arms, ^Further Inquiry Into H owel lsTs Socialism,” Sc ience and Soc iety, III (Spring, 1939)* 2I4.6 -2/4-8 ; idem, "The Literary Background of Howells’s Social Criticism, ” AL, XIV (19)4.2 ), 262; Cohrad Wright, "The Sources of Mr. Howells 1s Socialism," Sc ience and Society, II (Fall, 1938), 5l6.

13 Taylor, AL, IV, 107-108; idem, Economic Novel, pp. 255- 2o0; Getzels, Sc ience and Society, II, 379~3^5>! Lucy L. Adams, "Howells a Hundred Years Later," Mills Quar., XX (Feb. 1938), 170-171; Arvin, New Republic, XCI, 227-228; Kazin, On Native Grounds, p. 3 8 ; Ima Honaker Herron, The Small Town in American Literature (Durham, 1 9 3 9 P* 127; William F. EkstrorrT/ "The Equalitarian Principle In the Fiction of William Dean Howells," AL, XXIV (Mar. 1952), /4_l-)j-5; Arnold B. Fox, "Howells’ Doctrine of Complicity,” MLQ,, XIII (Mar. 1952) 56-60; Claude R. Flory, Economic Critic ism in American Fic tion (Philao, 1 9 3 6 ), p. 2 1 8 . 255

llj. Taylor, AL, IV, 112-1131 idem, Economic NovejL, pp. 2l[-7, 2oip, 275; Arvin, New Republic, XCI, 277-28 6 ; Cady, The G-entle- m a n , p. 205; Clark, Trans._of W i s e . A c a d . of Sciences, Arts and Le tters, XLII, 296-301; Ekstrom, AL, XXIV~ ZpT^FT Cowie, American Novel, p. 6* QL|_.

15 Cowie, American Nove 1 , p. 6 9 O; Taylor, AL, IV, 10l).-108; Clark, Trans. of Wise. Acad. of Sc iences, Arts and Letters, XLII, 279; Kazin, On Nat ive Grounds, p. I4.I; Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, p.. 135*

l6 Taylor, AL, IV, 106; idem. Economic Novel, pp. 273-27^-; Ekstrom, AL, XXIV, lj.5-lj-7; Hoffman, Modern Novel, p. 2i\-.

17 Cady, U K C R , XV, 8 7 , 9 1 ; idem, PMLA, LXI, 229, 233-23^; Arvin, New Republic, XCI, 22*8*; Lucy Adams, Mills Quar., XX, 1 6 9 ; Kazin, Ch Native Ground 3 , pp. 7? 5ol Taylor, Econo­ mic Novel, pp. 217* 279; Ekstrom, AL, XXIV, n 8 ; Constance Rourke, Amer ican Humor (N.Y. , [1931] )* PP • 2oi|.“265; Wagen­ knecht, Cavalcade, pp'. 13^-135; Cowie, American Novel, p. 679; Paries, SAQ, L, 2lpl — 2lp7; Trilling, Partisan Rev., XVIII,

18 A few other statements on Howells seem unimportant or based on questionable judgment. The most destructive, and unwarranted, criticism Is E. W. Parks 1s conclusion that in life and in fiction Howells preferred a half-truth to the whole truth. Parks bases that statement on two premises: first, Howells himself did not collect the facts for his biography of Lincoln; second, he remained on the sidelines of the war "until he escaped to Europe" ("A Realist Avoids Reality," SAQ, LII, Jan. 1953* 93 -97). In the view of . Lloyd Mori-is (American Scholar, XVIII, ip08), Silas Lap ham shows that Howells at first did not distrust the industrial system; on the contrary, the novel definitely suggests a new unpleasant order. E. S. Morby calls the structure of Lapham picaresque, but he does not argue his view convincingly ("William Dean Howells and Spain," Hispanic Rev., XIV, July I9I4-6 , 191-192). Lionel Trilling's statement that Hoxvells was "only Intermittently courageous" in expressing his discontent with what was happening in American life (Partisan Rev., XVIII, 519) Is hardly justifiable In view of Howells' steady criticism of his society. 256

19 Taylor, Economic Novol, pp* 278, 280; Idem, Sewanee Rev., XLVI, 296-297; Arvin, New Republic, XCI, 227-228; Cowie, American Novel, pp. 700-701; Ima Herron, The Small 'Town, p. 123; Oady, U K C R , XV, 8J4.; idem, The G-entleman, p. 202; Malone, Quar. Bull. of Oklahoma Baptist Univ., XXXIV, 22; Clara Marburg Kirk and Rudolph Kirk, edd. , William Dean Howells (N. Y. , [1950J ), p. xv; Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, p. 130; van Westrum, Bookman, XXV, 72; Cairns, History, p. Ij-72; Constance Rourke, American Humor » p. 26l|_; Lucy Adams, Mills guar., XX, l6 8 ; Arms, NEQ,, XXI, 321}.; Hoffman, Modern Novel, p. 21.

20 Wagenknecht, Cavalcade, pp. 127, 1J4J+; Taylor, Sewanee R e v ., XLVI, 303; idem, Ec gnomic Nov el , pp. 278, 280; Cady, UKCR , XV, 8 6 , 89-91; Oscar W. Firkins, ’’Last of the Mountain- oors," in Selected Essays (Minneapolis, £19337 )> PP • 95-99; Cairns, History, p . ['£73 -

21 Clark, Trans. of Wiscons In Acad. of Sciences, Art; and Letters, XLII, 302-303; Arms, NEQ, XXI, 325; Cady, The Gentleman, p. 205? Morris, American Scholar, XVIII, i|.l6 ; Fox, MLQ, XIII, 56-60. ~ .X WORKS CITED

J o v k s by Iiowolls

iunnif. Kilburr. (N.Y. , 1889). /.ni1 L iio D £3 (N.Y. , 1888 ) .

h .nee A cquaintance (Boston, 1 8 7 3 ) •

The Boast of B mo mi a (i-I. Y . , 1093)*

Ji’l t 22313 .89*2 ^'xftt'ion (N.Y. , 1891 ) - The . Y; of Tholr ReddIry; (N.Y. , 1896 ),

Doc t a? B 'eon's Prnr.tise (Bos bon, l88l ) .

A t'e; rfu] Lie ss u o n •-:< I b 1111 y and Other t tortes 1 ) .

Pontvd and Rue (N.Y, , U08).

a o:oc no Bone jus Ion (Boston, Io8!{.)

:Ja -;ard of 'lew Tor tuno? ! FT . , ISQO)

'H,; »y James , Jr. , ;f Century, AXV (Nov

an x nos r a 11 v . buty (11.Y . , I892 ) .

Ind i m Sun no: (Bo s ton, 19 -lit) * ^' ~r ■=* i; le Bentons N.Y., 1902)* The Lady he Aroostook (Boston,

The Land lord nt Lion1 3 Head (N.Y'., 1397 )

The Leathorw od God (N.Y. , 19X3).

Lofc t ers Hcne (N.Y., 1903)* f 1928), ? vola. Lift in Lett' T* k.2^ p ! d , Mi .1 d r e d H ow a 1 i. (lj' r -.

The Min i s ter 3_ Charge (Boston,, lVlit) . f edition IB8 7 .

Tiim- Bollard 3 Insui m t i o n (N.Y. . 1 tqf . A Mn3 ern Insl j.neo (Boston, l'JIO; . Rif '■ ,J tion 1682.

// An Open-Eyed Conspiracy (N.Y., 1897)*

The Quality of Mercy (N.Y., 1892 ) .

Raffled Lady (N.Y., 1899)*

The Rise o_f Silas Lapham (Boston, 1912). First edition 1885

The Shadow of a Dream (N.Y., 1 8 9 0 ).

The Son of Royal Langbrith (N.Y., I90J4.).

The Story of a Play (N.Y., 1 8 9 8 ).

The ir Silver Vi/edd ing Journey (N.Y. , I8 9 9 ) > 2 vols.

Th3 ir We d d inp Journey (Boston, 1895)* First edition I8 7 2 .

Through the Eye of the Needle (N.Y., 19C7)*

A Traveler from A 1 truria (N.Y., 189^4-) *

The Und iscovered Country (Boston, i860 ) .

The Vacation of the Kelv/yns (N.Y., 1920).

A WomanT s Reason (Boston, 1911 ) • First edition 1 8 8 3 .

The World of Chance (N.Y., 1893)*

II. Critical Writings

Adams, Lucy L,, "Howells a Hundred Years Later," Mills Quar. XX (Feb. 1938), 167-172.

Arms, George, and William M. Gibson, e d d ., Five Intervieivs with William Dean Howells, rptd. from Americana, XXXVII (Apr. 1 9 A 3 ).

----- "'Silas Lapham,' ’Daisy Miller,' and the Jews," NEQ, XVI (Mar. 19J+3 ), 118-122. 2 5 ‘. Arms, George Warren, "Further Inquiry into Howells's Socialism," Science and Society, III (Spring, 1939). 2^5-214.8. ~

----- "Howells fs Hew York Hovel; Comedy and Belief," NEQ,, XXI (Sept. 19)4-8 ;, 313-325.

...---- "Howells ’ s Unpublished Prefaces," NEQ,, XVII (Dec. 19444 580-591.

----- Intro, to The Rise of Silas Lapham, Rinehart ed. (N.Y. , [19)4.9} ), po. v-xvl.

----- "The Literary Background of Howells’s Social Criti­ cism," AL, xiv (199.2 ), [260] -2 7 6 .

------Noveland Two Letters," Rutgers Univ. Lib. Jour.,. VIII (1 9 4 4 ), L9J-13.

Arvin, Nev/ton, "The Usableness of Howells," Hew Republ ic, XCI (June JO, 1937), 227-228.

Atherton, Gertrude, "winy Is American Literature Bourgeois?" North American Rev. , CLXXVIII (May 1904 ), [771/-781.

Avscough, John (pseud.), "Of Some Americans," Catholic World, CXVI (Oct. 1922), 52-55.

Badger, G. H., "Howells as an Interpreter of American Life," International Rev., XIV (May-June, 1883), 3 8 O-3 8 6 . Bass, Altha Leah, "The Social Consciousness of William Dean Howells," New Republic, XXVI (Apr. 13, 1921), 192-194*

Baxter, Sylvester,; "Howells’s Boston," New England Mag., n.s., IX (Oct. I8 9 3 ), 129-152. Beach, Joseph Warren, "An American Master," Yale Rev., n.s., XV (Jan. 1926), 399-401.

----- Rev. of Cooke’s Howells, JEGP, XXII (July 1923 ), 4 5 1 - 4 5 4 . Belcher, Hannah Graham, "Howells’s Opinions on the Religious Conflicts of His Age," AL, XV (Nov. 1943)* 262-278.

Black, Alexander, "The Xing in White," In American Husbands (Indianapol i3 , £l925J ), pp. 173-182.

Blankenship, Russell, American Literature As an Expression of the National Mind, revT ecH Cn "."Y. , [1949.7 ) * 26 0

Bolton* Sarah K., Famous American Authors* rev. ed. (F.Y. , 19U.0). Boyd* Ernestj "Readers and Writers," Independent, GXIV (Jan. 3, 1925), 20.

Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth, "The Hero in Fiction," Forth American Rev., CXLVIII (May IS89 ), [59ig -601.

•----- "Mr. Howells and His Work," Cosmopolitan, XII (Feb. 1 8 9 2 ), g02j-503. Boynton, Percy Holmes, The Challenge of Modern Criticism (Chi., 1 9 3 1 ).

----- A History of American Literature (Boston, £l919j )*

------Literature and Amer lean Life (Bos ton, [l936J ').

-- "William Bean Howells," Few Republic, XXXIII (Jan. 31, 1923), 256-257.

Brooks, Van Wyck, Letters and Leadership (N.Y., 1 9 1 8 ).

---- "Mr. Howells at ’Work at Seventy-two," World ’ s Work. XVIII (May -1909), Il5k-7~$k9^

Few England: Indian Summer, 1865-1915 (N.Y., 19IJ-O).

Brovm, E. K., "The Fational Idea in American Criticism," Dalhousie Rev., XIV (193l|--35), [133J-llf-7.

Brown, Herbert R., "The Great American Novel," AL, VII (Mar. 1935), [1] -lit-

(Brownell, W.C.J . "The Novels of Mr. Howells," Nation, XXXI (July 15, 1 8 8 0 ), i4.9»5l.

Budd, Louis J., "Howells, The Atlantic Monthly, and Repub­ licanism," AL, XXIV (May“ 9 F 2 T 7 T l .

----- "Howells' ‘Blistering and Cauterizing,’" Ohio State A r c h , a n d His t . Quar., LXII (Oct. 1 9 5 3 )> 33k-~3k-7 *

----- "William Dean Howells’ Debt to Tolstoy," American Slavic and East European R e v ., IX (1950)# 292-301.

Cady, Edwin Ii. , "Armando Palacio Valdes Writes to 7/llliam Dean Howells," Sym, II (May I9I4-8 )# 19“37* 26 l

Cady, The Gentleman in America (Syracuse, £l949j )*

’’Howells in I9I18," UKCR, XV (Winter, 1948 ), [83J -91.

“The Neuroticism of William Dean Howells," FMLA, LXI (Mar. 19)4-6 ), 229-238.

Note on Howells and ’The Smiling Aspects of Life,’" . AL, XVII (May 1945), 175-178.

"William Dean Howells and the Ashtabula Sentinel," Ohio State Arch, and His t. Quar. , LIII (19444,39-51.

Cairns, William B., A History of American Literature, rev. ed. (N.Y., 193014

Calverton, V. P.. The Liberation of American Literature (N.Y. , 1 9 3 2 1 T "

Carpenter, Frederic I., "The Genteel Tradition; A Re-Inter- protation, " NEQ, XV (Sept. 191*2), 1*27-414-3 •

Carter. Everett S., "The Palpitating Divan," EJ, XXXIX (May 1950), 237-21*2.

----- "William Dean Howells’ Theory of Critical Realism," E L K , XVI (1949), 151-166.

Cary, Elisabeth Luther, "William Dean Howells: A Point of View," Lamp, XXIX (Jan. 1905), [597] -6 0 4 . ‘

Clark, Harry Hayden, "The Role of Science In the Thought of W. D. Howells," Trans, of Wise. Acad, of Sciences, Arts and Letters, XLII T l 9 5 D 7 263-303*

Commager, Henry Steele, The American Mind (New Haven, 1950).

"Return to Howells," Spectator, CLXXX (May 28, 194®)> 6 42 -643•

Intro, to Selected Writings of William Dean Howells (N.Y., [ 1 9 5 0 J T

Cooke, Delmar Gross, "The Humanity of William Dean Howells," Texas R e v .. VI (1920), 6-25.

R e v . 0 f Firkins' Howells, JEGP, XXIV (July 1925), 4 4 2 - 4 4 4 .

William Dean Howells: A Critical Study (N.Y.,/1922J ). 262

Cooper, John A., "Bellamy and Howells," Canadian Mag., IX (Aug- 1 8 9 7 ), 34 4 - 3 4 6 *

Cowie, Alexander, The Rise of the American Hovel (N.Y. ,£L948j ) *

Dawes, Anna Laurens, "The Moral Purpose in Howells!s Novels," Andover Rev., XI (Jan. 1 8 8 9 ), 23-36.

Dean, Clarence L. , "Mr. Howellsfs Female Characters," Dial, III (Oct. 1882), 106-107.

De Mille, George E., Literary Criticism In America (N.Y., 1931). Dixon, James Main, "The Ideals of William Dean Howells," Personalist, II (Jan. 1921), 33-46.

Dunlap, George Arthur, The City in the American Novel, 1 78 9- 1900 (Phila o, 19347 .

"The Earlier and Later Work of Mr. Howells," Lippincott's M a g . , XXX (Dec. 1882), 6olj_-6o8.

Edwards , Herbert, "Howells and the -.Controversy over Realism in American Fiction," AL, III (Nov. 1931) » [23 7j - 2 4 8 .

.Ekstrom, William F., "The Equalitarian Principle in the Fiction of William Dean Howells," AL, XXIV (Mar. 1952), ft.oj-5 0 .

Erskine,John, "William Dean Howells," Bookman, LI (June 1 9 2 0 ), 385-389.

Fawcett, Waldon, "William Dean Howells and His Brother," Critic, XXXV (Nov. 1 8 9 9 ), 1026-28.

Firkins, Oscar W., "Last of the Mountaineers," In Selected Essays (Minneapolis, Jl933] )> PP* 9 4 “ 308.

---- William Dean Howells: A Study (Cambridge, Mass., 192i|_ )•

Flske, Horace Spencer, Provincial Types in American Fiction (Chautauqua, N.Y.j 1 9 0 7 )”. Flory, Claude Reherd, Economic Criticism in American Fiction, 1792 to 1900 (Phila., 1936).

Follett, Helen Thomas and Wilson, "Contemporary Novelists: William Dean Howells," Atlantic Monthly, CXIX (Mar. 1917), 362-372. Follett, Helen Thomas and Wilson, Some Modern Novelists (N.Y., 1918).

Pox, Arnold B., "Rowells as a Religious Critic," NEQ, XXV (June 1952), 199-216.

----- "Howells1 Doctrine of Complicity," MLQ, XII (Mar. 1952), 56-60.

French, John C., rev. of Firkins' Howells, M L N , XL (June 1925), 375-377.

Gaines, Clarence H., rev. of Fii’kins' Howells, North Ameri­ can R e v ., CCXXI (Mar. 1925), 570-573*

Garland, Hamlin, "Howells," in American Writers on Amer ic an Literature, ed. John Macy ( N . Y . 1931),_PP * 285-297•

----- "Meetings with Howells," Bookman, XLV (Mar. 1917), [1J-7. ----- "Mr. Howe11s's Latest Novels," New England Mag., n.s II (May I89O), [2I1.3J-250.

----- "Roadside Meetings of a Literary Nomad," Bookman, LXX (Nov. 1929), 2if6-250.

----- "Sanity in Fiction," North American Rev., CLXXVI (Mar. 1903), f 3 3 6 J -3^8. ----- "William Dean Howells, Master Craftsman," Art World, I (Mar. 1917), lp.1-^12.

Gettmann, Royal A., "Turgenev in England and America," Univ of 111. Studies In Language and Literature, XXVII

T i u p r y , 5 1 ^ 53: “

Getzels, Jacob Warren, "William Dean Howells and Socialism, Sc ience and Society, II (Summer, 1938), 3 7 6-3 8 6 .

Gibson, William M., "Mark Twain and Howells, Anti-Imperial­ ists," NEQ, XX (Dec. 199-7), i4-3 5 -J-l7 0 -

----- "Materials and Form in Howells's First Novels," AL, XIX (May 199-7 ), [158]- l 66 .

Grattan, C. Hartley, "Howells, Ten Years After," American Mercury, XX (May 1930), 9-2-50.

Hackett, Francis, "William Dean Howells," in Horizons (N.Y. 1919), pp. 21-30. {Haight, G-. S j , ’’Realism Defined: William Dean Howells,” in LHUS (N.Y., 19^8), II, 885-8 9 8 .

Hall, Hrnest Jackson, The Satirical Element in the American Hovel (Phila-, 1922).

Harrison, James G-., ”Uineteenth-Century American Hovels on American Journal ism, 11 Journalism Quar. , XXII (Sept Dec., 19^5), 2l5-22lp, 335:r3£ 5 T

Hartwick, Harry, The foreground of American Fiction (H.Y., £l93kJ ) • Harvey, Alexander, William Dean Howells: A Study of the Achievement of a Literary Art is t (N.Y., 1917)*

Herrick, Robert, "Mr. Firkins on Howells,” New Reoublic, XLII (Mar. l\.t 1925), i|-7-l|-8.

Herron, Ima Honaker, The Small Town in American Literature (Durham, N. Gar., 19397-

Hicks, Granville, The Great Trad itIon (N.Y., 1933)*

HIgglnson, Thomas Wentworth, and Henry Alcott Boynton, A Reader’s History of American Literature (Boston, [1903] t : ‘

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, Short Studies of American Authors (Boston, i8 6 0 ).

Hoffman, Frederick J., The Modern Novel in America, 1900- 1 9 5 0 (Chi., 195177“

James, Henry, "A Letter to Mr. Howells,” North American Rev. GXGV (Apr. 1912), 558- 5 6 2 .

----- Letters (N.Y., 1920), 2 vols.

"William Dean Howells," Harper1s Weekly, XXX (June 1 9 , 1 8 8 6 ), 39^ - 3 9 5 .

Jones, Howard Mumford, "A Study of Howells," Freeman, VII (Apr. 25, 1923), 163.

Josephson, Matthew, "Those Who Stayed," in Portrait of the Artist as, American (N.Y. , £19397 ^ PP*" 161-l66.

Kar, Annette, "Archetypes of American Innocence: Lydia Blood and Daisy Miller," AQ, V (Spring, 1953)? 31-38. 2 6 5

Kasln, Alfred, ''Howells: A Late Portrait,-" Ant ioch Rev., I (19^.1), 216-2 3 3 .

On Native Grounds (N.Y. , [1942] ).

Kirk, Clara Marburg, and Rudolph Kirk, William Lean Howells (N.Y. , [1950J ).

Knight, Grant C., American Literature and Culture (N.Y.,1932).

----- The Critical Period in American Literature (Chapel Hill, LI951] ).

----- The Novel in English (N.Y., 1931)*

Lapoin, Henry A., "The Passing of W. D. Howells," Catholic World, CXI (July 1920), [445] -453 •

Lewis, Sinclair, The Man from Main Street, ed. Iiarry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane (N.Y. , [1953])•

Lav;isohn, Ludwig, Expression In America (N.Y. , 1932).

Lutwack, Leonard, "The Dynamics of Conservative Criticism," Unpublished Ohio State Univ. DIss., 1950.

----- "William Lean Howells and the 'Editor's Study,1" AL, XXIV (May 1952 ), [195] -20? . Mabie, Hamilton Wright, "The Story of Mr. Howells-’ Career," Book News Monthly, XXVI (June 1908), [733]-734*

Macy, John Albert, The Spirit of American Literature (N.Y., [1913J ).

Malone, Clifton, "The Realism of William Leas Howells," Quar. Bull, of Okla. Baptist Univ. (Faculty Studies No. 2T T X X X I V (Feb. 1949), 3-22.

Martin, Edward S., "W. D. Howells," Harper's Mag., CXLI (July 1920), [265J-266.

Matthews, Brander, Rev. of Cooke's Howells,Literary Digest International Book Rev., I (Dec. 1922), 33-34*

Matthiessen, F. 0., "A Monument to Howells," New Republic, LVIII (Apr. 24, 1929), 284-285*

Maxwell, Perriton, "Howells the Editor," Book News Monthly, XXVI (June 1 9 0 8 ), 735-738. McCabe, L. R., "Literary and Social Recollections of W.D. Howells," Llppincott1 s Map;., XL (Oct. 1887), 5*4-7-5 5 2 .

McMahon, Helen, Critic ism of F iction in the ’Atlantic Monthly l8g7-98 (N.y :, [19^2JT.

Mencken, H. L. , American Language, i|. th ed. (N.Y., 1938).

Lre.judices : First Series (N.Y.,£1919])•

Michaud, Regis, The American Novel Today (Boston, 1931)*

Moorhead, Ruth, "The Social Philosophy of William Lean Howells," Univ. of Pittsburgh Bull., XXXIV (Oct. 1937), kLCT£l9 .

Morby, Edwin S., "William Dean Howells and Spain," Hispanic Rev., XIV (July 19*1-6), 187-212.

Morris, Lloyd, "Conscience in the Parlor: William Lean Howells," American Scholar, XVIII (Autumn, 19*4-9)* Il.07-i4.l6 . ------

Morse, James Herbert, "The Native Element In Amer1c m Fiction Century, XXVI (July 18 8 3 ), [362J-375*

Muirhead, James F., "Howells and Trollope," Living Age, c c c v m (1921), 30*4.-309.

Muller, Herbert J., Modern Fiction: A Study of Values (N.Y., 1937).

Mumford, Lewis, The Golden Lay (N.Y., 1926).

O ’Connor, William Van. An Age of Crit ic ism, 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 9 0 (Chi., 19^ 2 ).

Orr, A.,£Mrs. Sutherlandj , "International Novelists and Mr. Howells," Contemporary Rev., XXXVII (May 1880), [ 7 W -76S. Parker, H. T., "Mr. Howells and. the Realistic Movement," Harvard Monthly, V (Jan. 1888), ll}.5-l*4-9*

Parks, Edd Winfield, "Howells and the Gentle Reader," SAQ, L (Apr. 1951), £239J-2i}-7*

----- *«A Realist Avoids Reality: W. D. Howells and the Civil War Years," SAQ,, LII (Jan. 1953 ) * [93J-97 * 2 6 ?

Farrington, Vernon Louis, The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America (N.Y., 1930)*

Parrington, Vernon Louis (Jr.), American Dreams (Providence, 19*1-7)- Pattea, Fred L. , A History of American Literature Since 1870 (N.Y. , 1913b*

Peck, Harry Thurston, ’’William Dean Howells," in The Personal Equation (N.Y., 1 8 9 8 ), pp. [3]-l|-9*

[Perry, T. S.] , "William D©an Howells," Century, XXIII (Mar. 1 8 8 2 ), [680J-685-

Phelps, Minnie Booth, "A Modern Author— WIlliam D. Howells," CalIfornian, I (Jan. i860), I4-2 -I4.6 .

Phelps, William Lyon, "An Appreciation," North American Rev., CCXIJ (July 1920), £17J-20.

----- Essays on Modern Novelists (N.Y., 1921).

Howells, James, Bryant and Other Essays (N.Y., 192I4.).

"William Dean Howells," Yale Rev., n.s., X (1921), [99J -109.

Powys, Llewelyn, "The Style of Howells,” Nation, CXX (June 17, 1925), 6914- Prat t, Cornelia Atwood, "William Dean Howells: Some Aspects of His Realistic Novels^" Critic, XXXV (Nov. 1899)j 1021-25.

Preston, Harriet Waters, "The Latest Novels of Howells and James," Atlantic Monthly, XCI (Jan. 19^3)» 77-82.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson, American Piction (N.Y.,£l936J ).

"The Art of William Dean Howells," Century, C (Sept. 1920), 675-681.

The Literature of the Amerlean People (N.Y.,[1951J )•

Reeves, John K., "The ’Way of a Realist: A Study of Howells' Use of the Saratoga Scene," PMLA, LXV (Dec. 1950), 1035-52.

Richardson, Charles F., American Literature (N.Y., 1 8 8 9 ), vol. II. 268

"Ricus,” "A Suppressed Novel of Mr. Howells, " Bookman XXXII (Oct. 1910), [201] -203.

Rourke, Constance, American Humor (N.Y.,£l93lj )•

Santayana, G-. , '‘Tradition in American Philosophy,” In Winds of Doctrine (N.Y. , £1913]'), PP • 186-215.

Schwarts, Henry B., “The Americanism of William Dean Howells,” Method ist Rev., Cl (Mar. 1918), 226-232.

Smith, Bernard, Forces in Amerlean Critic ism (N.Y., £l939J )*

"Howells: The Genteel Radical,” SRL, XI (Aug. 11, 193^), [ W -4 2 . Smith, Rebecca W., "Portrait of an American: The National Character in Fiction," SWR, XXI (Apr. 1936 ), £2l]J? J-26o.

Snell, George, The Shapers of American Fiction (N.Y., 19^4-?)*

Spencer, Benjamin Townley, "The Smiling Aspects of Life and a National American Literature,” English Institute Essays, 19I4.9 (N.Y. , 1950), pp. Lll‘7J

Stewart, Randall,' "The Social School of American Criticism." SAQ, XLII I (I9J.[4), [22J-26.

Tarkington, Booth, "Mr. Howells," Harper1s M a g ., CXLI (Aug. 1 9 2 0 ), [3^ 6J - 350.

Taylor, Houghton W., "Some Nineteenth Century Critics of Realism," Univ. of Texas Studies in English, VIII (1 9 2 8 ), [110J -1 2 8 .

Taylor, Walter Fuller, The Economic Novel in America (Chapel Hill, 19^1-2).

----- A History of American Letters (N.Y., [1936J ).

----- "On the Origin of Howells' Interest- in Economic Reform" AL, II (Mar, 1930),[Ij-1^.

"That Gilded Age," Sewanee Rev., XLV (1937 ) >

"William Dean Howells and the Economic Novel," AL, IV (May 1932), [103J-113.

----- "William Dean Howells: Artist and American,” Sewanee Rev. , XLVI (1938), [288j-303. 269

Thomas, Edith M., "Mi*. Hov/ells ! s Way of Saying Things," Putnam’s Monthly, IV (July 1 9 0 8 ),

[Thomoson, Maurice], "The Analysts Analyzed," Critic, IX (July 1 0 , 1*8 8 6 ), 19-22.

"Studies of Prominent Novelists. No. 3--William Dean Howells," Book News, VI (Nov. 1 8 8 7 ), [93J-99-*

Tomlinson, May, "Fiction and Mrs. Howells," SAQ, XX (1921), £36(3-367. Tooker, L. Frank, "As I Saw It from an Editor’s Desk," Century, CVIII (June 192^), 260-271.

Towne, Charles Hanson, "The Kindly Howells," Touchstone, VII (July 1 9 2 0 ), 280-282.

Trilling, Lionel, "W, D. Howells and the Roots of Modern Taste," Partisan Rev., XVIII (1951), [5l6]-536.

Trites, W. B., "’William Bean Howells," Forum, XLIX (Feb. 1 9 1 3 ), 217~2lf.O,.

Twain, Mark, "William Dean Howells," Harper ’ s Ms.0’,, CXIII (July 1906), £221j-225.

Underwood, John Curtis, Literature and Insurgency (N.Y. , 19ll|-).

Van Doren, Carl, The American Novel (N.Y., 1921).

The American Novel, 1789-1939* rev. e d . (N.Y., I9I4-O).

--- "American Realism, 11 New Republic, XXXIV (Mar. 21,1923), [107J-109.

---- "Howells: May 1920," in The Roving Critic (N.Y.,1 9 2 3 ), pp. 6 9 -8O.

--- "The Later Novel: Howells,” in CHAL (N.Y., 1921), III, 77-85.

"'William Dean Howells, " in 'Warner * s Library (N.Y., 1 9 1 7 ), XIII, 7653-56.

Van Dyke, Henry, Works (N.Y., 192I4.), XVI, 303-3 1 2 . van Westrum, A. Schade, "Mr. Howells and American Aristoc­ racies," Bookman, XXV (Mar. 1 9 0 7 ), [67J -73 • 270

Vedder, Henry C., American Writers of Today (Boston, [189I4J )*

Vorse, Mary Heaton, "Certain Overlooked Phases of American Life, 11 Critic, XLIII (July 1 9 0 3 ), 83-8I|_.

Wagenknecht, Edward, Cavalcade of the American Hovel (N.Y., [1952J ). "Of Henry James and Howells, 1925*" Va. Q.uar. Rev., I (Oct. 1925), ii-53-i{-60.

Wagstaffe, W. de, uThe Personality of Mr. Howells," Book News Monthly, XXV (June 1 9 0 8 ), £739J “7^1 •

Warner, Charles Dudley, "Modern Fiction," Atlantic Monthly, LI (Apr. 1883), i4.6if-J4.7i4-.

Wilcox, Marrion, "Works of William Dean Howells (1860-9 6 )," Harper 1 s W e e kly, XL (July if, 1896 ), 655-656.

Wilkinson, William Cleaver, Some New Literary Valuations (N.Y., 1909).

"William Dean Howells," Hew Republic, XXII (May 25, 1920}, 393-395.

."WilliaiTi Dean Howells," SRL, XV (Mar. 13* 1937)* 8 .

Williams, Stanley T., American Literature (Phila., 1933)-

Williams, Stanley T., "Literature of the New America," in The American Spirit in Letters, vol. XI of The Pageant of America (New Haven, 1^26), pp. 257-260,

Wist8r, Owen, "William Dean Howells," Atlantic Monthly, CLX (Dec, 1937), 7014-713.

Woodress, James L., Jr., Howells and Italy (Durham, N. Car., 1952).

Woolley, Celia Parker, "Mr. Howells Again," New England Mag.. n. s., IX (Dec. 1893 ), i4 O 8 -i4.ll.

Wright, Conrad, "The Sources of Mr. Howells's Socialism," Science and Society, II (Fall, 1938), 51*4-517.

Wyatt, Edith, Great Companions (N.Y., 1 9 1 7 ). III. Magazine Criticism

I have used the reviews of Howells1 novels contained the following magazines:

Andover Review Atlantic Monthly

Book Buyer Bookman Century

Contemporary Review Critic

Current Literature Current Opinion

Dial

Forum Freeman Harp er r s Monthly

Independent

International Review Literary Digest Literary World

Munsey1s Magazine Nation New Fngland Magaz ine

North American Review

Outlook Poet Lore 272

Publisher 's Weekly

Putnam's Monthly

Review of Reviews

Scribner 1s Monthly

In m y use of the magazines listed below, I have been limited to the volumes indicated:

Book Hews Monthly, VI, 1 8 8 ?; XXVI, 1908.

Catholic World, XLII, 188£; LI, I89O; CIV, 1 9 1 6 ; CXI, 1920; cxvi, 1922.

HarperT s Bazar, XXVII, I89J4-.

Harper's Weekly, XXX, 1886; XL, 1 8 9 6 ; XLVI, 1902; X L I X , 1905.

Harvard Monthly, I, 1886; V, 1888.

Llppincott1s Magazine, XL, 1 8 8 7 .

Literature, III,'*1 8 9 8 .

Methodist Review, Cl, 1 9 1 8 . 273

Autob1ography

I, Carl Leroy Marshall, was born In Dayton, Ohio,

August 23, 19lI}.o I received my secondary school education

In the public schools of Springfield, Ohio. My undergrad­ uate training was obtained at Wilberforce University, from which I received the degree Bachelor of Science in Education

in 1935* I received the degree Master of Arts from The

Ohio State University In 19^7* From 19^-7 until 1951' I was the acting head of the English Department at the* Agricultural,

Mechanical and Normal College at Pine Bluff, Arkansas. While completing requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University, I served as Graduate Assistant

in the Department of English from 1951 to 1953? and as

Assistant Instructor from 1953 to 195Jp.