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George Washington Cable GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE A Study of His Early Life and Work INAUGURAL DISSERTATION By KJELL EKSTROM Pil. lie., SmSl. DUE PERMISSION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL FACULTY OF THE Un iv e r s it y o f u p s a l a t o b e p u b l ic l y d is c u s s e d i n E n g l is h LECTJJRE r o o m IV, o n DECEMBER 14, 1950, AT 10 O’CLOCK A.M., FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY LUND 1950 CARL BLOMS BOKTRYCKERI A.-B. T h e Am e r ic a n I n s t it u t e in t h e U n iv e r s it y o f U psa l a ESSAYS AND STUDIES ON AMERICAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Edited by S. B. LILJEGREN /n Cooperation with O. S. Arngart, Frank Behhe, and Eilebt Eew all X GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE A Study of His Early Life and Work By KJELL EKSTR UPSALA 1950 KRAUS REPRINT Nehdcln/Lieditenstein 1 9 7 3 : MS Reprinted by permission of Professor LILJEGREN, Drottningholm/Sw^en KRAUS REPRINT A Division of KRAUS-THOMSON ORGANIZATION LIMITED Nendeln/Liechtenstem 1 9 7 3 Printed in Germany To my Wife PREFACE Although seven decades have elapsed since George Washing­ ton Cable published his most significant books, and twenty-five years since his death, scholarly works on him are compara­ tively few. Three years after his death in 1925, his daughter, Mrs Lucy Cable Bikle, published a biography of him, entitled George W. Cable, His Life and Letters. This volume gives an interesting selection of Cable’s letters and seems to be, on the whole, reliable as to facts. Being first and foremost a collection of letters, it does not, however, enter into a dis­ cussion of the various problems connected with Cable’s work, his attitude towards the Creoles, the reaction of the Creoles to his books etc. And it is only natural that Mrs Bikle’s selection of letters and facts should be somewhat influenced by family considerations. Certain aspects of Cable’s life and work have been treated in magazine articles, of which may be mentioned George S. Wykoff’s “The Cable Family in Indiana”, Arlin Turner’s “George Washington Cable’s Literary Apprenticeship”, “Whittier Calls on George W. Cable”, and “George W. Cable, Novelist and Reformer”, and Edward L. Tinker’s “Cable and the Creoles”. There are also a number of unpublished disser­ tations on Cable, most of which bear witness to a prejudiced attitude towards him. Only Arnaud’s Master’s Thesis on the French element in Cable’s work is worthy of being mentioned, and even that thesis is unscholarly in many respects. Some years ago Mrs Bikle handed over to the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library of Tulane University, New Orleans, a large collection of Cable’s correspondence, manuscripts and other material connected with her father, thus making it available for scholarly research. A thorough examination of the whole VI of this collection is the primary basis of the present work, which, it is hoped, will in due time be.followed by another volume dealing with Cable’s later life and work. Here I wish to stress the fact that my research does not cover the field of literary sources. Chapter IX is intended only as a preliminary study of that subject. In view of the fact that some authorities maintain that Cable had not read any fictira at all when he set out to tell his Creole stories, it has seemed to me that my findings with regard to Cable’s reading habits are so interesting as to justify publication. Important: In quotations in the present work, additions have been put within square brackets, while omissions have been indicated by three asterisks; asterisks have not been used for any other purpose in this work. The system used in numbering the footnotes will, in a few cases, put the reader to the inconvenience of looking one or several pages back to find the footnote; it is hoped that he, or she, will easily get used to the system. I am greatly indebted to my teacher. Professor S. B. Lilje- gren. University of Upsala, who, in the summer of 1948, suggested this study. He has followed the progress of my work with unfailing interest, constantly giving me criticism, advice, and encouragement. It is hard to acknowledge adequately the debt I owe to him. I take pleasure in acknowledging a scholarship granted me by Tulane University, New Orleans, vsithout which I could hardly have completed my research in New Orleans. My thanks are due to Professor R. P. McCutcheon, Dean of the Graduate School of Tulane University, for valuable assistance and for his great hospitality in letting me and my wife live in his home during four summer months in 1949; the comforts of his house made it easier for us to stand the tropical heat of the long Louisiana summer. I should also like to express my gratitude to Dr Garland Taylor, Librarian of the Howard- Tilton Memorial Library, New Orleans, who gave me access' to the whole of the George Washington Cable Collection of that library; to the staff of the Howard-Tilton Memorial VII Library, -who endeavoured, in every way, to facilitate my studies; to Mrs Kinne Cable Oechsner and Mrs Parkinson Keyes, of New Orleans, for their interest in my work; to Professor Arlin Turner, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, for interesting discussions; to Professor Helge Kokeritz and Professor Stanley Williams, Yale University, New Haven, for hospitality and assistance; to Professor Paul Spencer Wood and Mr Philip Butcher, Columbia University, New York, for discussions of my work. I am faced with the impossibility of acknowledging specifically my indebtedness to the many persons, university teachers, students, and others, who, during my stay in the South, made me realize that Southern hospitality is not an empty phrase. For permission to quote from the letters in the Cable Collec­ tion of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library my thanks are due to Mrs Lucy Cable Bikle and Mrs Louise Cable Chard; I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mrs Bikle’s George W. Cable, His Life and Letters. For permission to quote extracts from that work my thanks are due to its publishers, Charles Scribner s Sons, New York. Finally I am indebted to my mother, Mrs Eva Ekstrom, of Malm5, to my brother, Mr John Ekstrom, of Stocksund, for assistance in connection with my journey to New Orleans, and to my wife, Mrs Siri Ekstrom, who accompanied me to the United States and without whose assistance my work in New Orleans could not have, been brought to completion in the comparatively short time at my disposal. Malmo, October, 1950. KJELL EKSTROM. CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................ V INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 I PARENTAGE ................................................................................................ 3 II BOYHOOD .................................................................................................. 10 III THE W A R ...................................................................................................... 20 IV AFTER THE WAR: OFFICE WORK, SURVEYING AND JOUR­ NALISM ........................................................................................................ 3 0 V OLD CREOLE DAYS, THE GBANDISSIMES, MADAME DEL- PHINE ........................................................................................................... 45 VI IN THE HOUSE IN EIGHTH STREET ............................................. 65 VII FIRST VISITS TO THE NORTH ........................................................... 72 VIII THE CREOLES OF LOUISIANA AND DR. S E V IE R ........................ 8 2 IX POSSIBLE LITERARY INFLUENCES ON OLD CREOLE DAYS AND THE GBANDISSIMES ................................................................... 91 X NON-LITERARY SOURCES OF OLD CREOLE DAYS, THE GRANDISSIMES AND DB. SEVIER ................................................... 9 9 XI CABLE’S TREATMENT OF THE CREOLES IN HIS EARLY FICTION ........................................................................................................ I l l XII CABLE’S TBEATMENT OF THE CBEOLES IN HIS HISTORI­ CAL W O R K .................................................................................................. 143 XIII THE RECEPTION OF CABLE’S EARLY WORK: THE REAC­ TION OF THE C R E O L E S ........................................................................ 153 XIV CABLE AND THE CREOLES: SOME ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM .................................................................................................. 172 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 183 BIBLIOGBAPHY .................................................................................................. 185 INDEX ..................................................................................................................... 194 INTRODUCTION ‘ Literature is at a standstill in America, paralysed by the Civil War,” wrote Stedman in 1864. But not many years after that war, there came a stream of new life into American letters. All of a sudden, writers in widely scattered parts of the United States became aware of the literary possibilities of their own surroundings, and this phenomenon took such proportions that one is justified in speaking of a second discovery of America and of the 1870’s as the decade of the local colourists.* This development has been explained as a result of the Civil War, which brought millions of men into contact with far- off sections of their country, thus increasing their conscious­ ness of sectional differences.^ It may, however, also
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