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# American literary masters ### By Vincent, Leon H. (Leon Henry)

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Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_; boldface text is enclosed in =equals signs=.

AMERICAN LITERARY MASTERS

BY LEON H. VINCENT

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge

_Published March 1906_

TO GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY

PREFACE

_The nineteen men of letters whose work is reviewed in this volume represent an important half-century of our national literary life. The starting-point is the year 1809, the date of “A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker.” No author is included whose reputation does not rest, in part, on some notable book published before 1860._

_Readers of modern French criticism will not need to be told that the plan of dividing the studies into short sections was taken from Faguet’s admirable “Dix-Septième Siècle.”_

_I am indebted for many helpful criticisms to Mr. James R. Joy, to Miss Mary Charlotte Priest, and especially to Mr. Lindsay Swift of the Boston Public Library._

_L. H. V._

_January 23, 1906._

_Contents_

WASHINGTON IRVING

I. _His Life_ 3

II. _His Character_ 10

III. _The Writer_ 13

IV. _Early Work: Knickerbocker’s History, Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller_ 14

V. _Historical Writings: Columbus, Conquest of Granada, Mahomet_ 20

VI. _Spanish Romance: The Alhambra, Legends of the Conquest of Spain_ 24

VII. _American History and Travel: A Tour on the Prairies, Astoria, Life of Washington_ 27

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

I. _His Life_ 35

II. _His Character_ 44

III. _The Literary Craftsman_ 46

IV. _The Poet_ 50

V. _Latest Poetical Work: The Iliad and the Odyssey_ 58

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

I. _His Life_ 65

II. _His Character_ 72

III. _The Writer_ 74

IV. _Romances of the American Revolution: The Spy, Lionel Lincoln_ 75

V. _The Leather-Stocking Tales and Other Indian Stories_ 77

VI. _The Sea Stories from The Pilot to Miles Wallingford_ 82

VII. _Old-World Romance and New-World Satire: The Bravo, The Heidenmauer, The Headsman, Homeward Bound, Home as Found_ 89

VIII. _Travels, History, Political Writings, and Latest Novels_ 93

GEORGE BANCROFT

I. _His Life_ 101

II. _His Character_ 108

III. _The Writer_ 110

IV. _The History of the United States_ 113

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT

I. _His Life_ 123

II. _His Character_ 128

III. _The Writer_ 130

IV. _The Histories_ 132

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

I. _His Life_ 147

II. _His Character_ 157

III. _The Writer_ 159

IV. _Nature, Addresses, and Lectures_ 160

V. _The Essays, Representative Men, English Traits, Conduct of Life_ 166

VI. _The Poems_ 176

VII. _Latest Books_ 182

EDGAR ALLAN POE

I. _His Life_ 189

II. _His Character_ 198

III. _The Prose Writer_ 201

IV. _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_ 203

V. _The Critic_ 211

VI. _The Poet_ 215

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I. _His Life_ 221

II. _His Character_ 228

III. _The Poet_ 230

IV. _Outre-Mer, Hyperion, Kavanagh_ 233

V. _Voices of the Night, Ballads, Spanish Student, Belfry of Bruges, The Seaside and the Fireside_ 236

VI. _Evangeline, Hiawatha, Miles Standish, Tales of a Wayside Inn_ 240

VII. _Christus, Judas Maccabæus, Pandora, Michael Angelo_ 245

VIII. _Last Works_ 249

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

I. _His Life_ 255

II. _His Character_ 264

III. _The Poet_ 266

IV. _Narrative and Legendary Verse_ 269

V. _Voices of Freedom, Songs of Labor, In War Time_ 273

VI. _Snow-Bound, Tent on the Beach, Pennsylvania Pilgrim, Vision of Echard_ 277

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I. _His Life_ 287

II. _His Character_ 293

III. _The Writer_ 296

IV. _The Short Stories: Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse, The Snow-Image_ 298

V. _The Great Romances: Scarlet Letter, House of the Seven Gables, Blithedale Romance, Marble Faun_ 302

VI. _Latest and Posthumous Writings: Our Old Home, Note-Books, Dolliver Romance_ 314

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

I. _His Life_ 321

II. _His Character_ 325

III. _The Writer_ 327

IV. _The Books_ 328

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

I. _His Life_ 337

II. _The Man_ 341

III. _The Writer_ 344

IV. _The Autocrat and its Companions, Over the Teacups, Our Hundred Days in Europe_ 345

V. _The Poet_ 349

VI. _Fiction and Biography_ 352

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY

I. _His Life_ 359

II. _His Character_ 365

III. _The Writer_ 367

IV. _The Histories_ 369

FRANCIS PARKMAN

I. _His Life_ 379

II. _His Character_ 383

III. _The Writer_ 385

IV. _Early Work: Oregon Trail, Conspiracy of Pontiac, Vassall Morton_ 387

V. _France and England in North America_ 390

BAYARD TAYLOR

I. _His Life_ 401

II. _His Character_ 407

III. _The Artist_ 409

IV. _Poetical Works_ 410

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

I. _His Life_ 417

II. _The Man_ 423

III. _The Writer and the Orator_ 424

IV. _Nile Notes of a Howadji, Prue and I, Trumps_ 427

V. _The Easy Chair_ 430

VI. _Orations and Addresses_ 433

DONALD GRANT MITCHELL

I. _His Life_ 439

II. _The Author and the Man_ 442

III. _The Writings_ 444

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 451

I. _His Life_ 453

II. _Lowell’s Character_ 461

III. _Poet and Prose Writer_ 463

IV. _Poems, The Biglow Papers, Fable for Critics, Vision of Sir Launfal_ 465

V. _Under the Willows, The Cathedral, Commemoration Ode, Three Memorial Poems, Heartsease and Rue_ 469

VI. _Fireside Travels, My Study Windows, Among my Books, Latest Literary Essays_ 474

VII. _Political Addresses and Papers_ 479

WALT WHITMAN

I. _His Life_ 485

II. _The Growth of a Reputation_ 490

III. _The Writer_ 492

IV. _Leaves of Grass_ 494

V. _Specimen Days and Collect_ 503

VI. _Whitman’s Character_ 504

_Washington Irving_

REFERENCES:

[=E. A. Duyckinck=]: _Irvingiana, a Memorial of Washington Irving_, 1860.

=W. C. Bryant=: _A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Genius of Washington Irving_, 1860.

=Pierre M. Irving=: _The Life and Letters of Washington Irving_, 1862–64.

=C. D. Warner=: _The Work of Washington Irving_, 1893.

HIS LIFE

Scotch and English blood flowed in Washington Irving’s veins. His father, William Irving (whose ancestry has been traced by genealogical enthusiasts to De Irwyn, armor-bearer to Robert Bruce), was a native of Shapinsha, one of the Orkney Islands; his mother, Sarah (Sanders) Irving, came from Falmouth.

At the time of his marriage William Irving was a petty officer on an armed packet-ship plying between Falmouth and New York. Two years later (1763) he gave up seafaring, settled in New York, and started a mercantile business. He enjoyed a competency, but like other patriotic citizens suffered from the demoralization of trade during the Revolution. His character suggested that of the old Scotch covenanter. Though not without tenderness, he was in the main strict and puritanical.

Washington Irving was born in New York on April 3, 1783. He was the youngest of a family of eleven, five of whom died in childhood. Irving could perfectly remember the great patriot for whom he was named. He was much indebted to the good old Scotchwoman, his nurse, who, seeing Washington enter a shop on Broadway, darted in after him and presented her small charge with ‘Please your Excellency, here’s a bairn that’s called after ye!’ ‘General Washington,’ said Irving, recounting the incident in after years, ‘then turned his benevolent face full upon me, smiled, laid his hand on my head, and gave me his blessing.... I was but five years old, yet I can feel that hand upon my head even now.’

Up to the age of fifteen Irving attended such schools as New York afforded. He was not precocious. He came home from school one day (he was then about eight) and remarked to his mother: ‘The madame says I am a dunce; isn’t it a pity?’

Two of his brothers had been sent to Columbia College; that he was not, may be attributed partly to ill health, partly to an indolent waywardness of disposition and to the indulgence so often granted the youngest member of a large family. Always an inveterate reader, he contrived in time to educate himself by methods unapproved of pedagogical science. He decided on a legal career and entered the office of a well-known practitioner, Henry Masterton. During the two years he was there he acquired some law and attained ‘considerable proficiency in belles-lettres.’ He studied for a time with Brockholst Livingston (afterwards judge of the Supreme Court), and later with Josiah Ogden Hoffman.

As a boy Irving had always ‘scribbled’ more or less, and in 1802 he scribbled to some purpose, contributing the ‘Jonathan Oldstyle’ letters to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ a paper founded and edited by his brother Peter Irving. His ambitions seemed likely to be frustrated by poor health, and a trip abroad was advised. He went to the Mediterranean, visited Italy, and spent a little time in France and England. The journey was not without adventures. He saw Nelson’s fleet on its way to Trafalgar; his boat was overhauled by pirates near Elba; and in Rome he met Madame de Staël, who almost overpowered him by her amazing volubility and the pertinacity of her questioning.

On his return home Irving passed his examinations (November, 1806), and was admitted to the bar with but slender legal outfit, as he frankly confessed. He was enrolled among the counsel for the defence at the trial of Aaron Burr at Richmond. There was no thought of taxing his untried legal skill; he was to be useful to the cause as a writer in case his services were needed.

Law gave place to literature. Irving and J. K. Paulding projected a paper, _Salmagundi_, to be ‘mainly characterized by a spirit of fun and sarcastic drollery.’ William T. Irving joined in the venture. The first number appeared on January 24, 1807. The editors issued it when they were so minded, and after publishing twenty numbers, brought it to an almost unceremonious close.

The following year Peter and Washington Irving began writing a burlesque account of their native town, a parody on Mitchill’s _A Picture of New York_. Peter was called to Liverpool to take charge of the English interests of Irving and Smith, and it fell to Washington to recast the chapters already written and complete the narrative. The book outgrew the design (as is the tendency of parodies), and was published on December 6, 1809, as _A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker_. It was received by the New York Historical Society, to whom it was dedicated, with astonishment, and by the old Dutch families with mingled emotions, among which that of exuberant delight was not in every case the most prominent.

For two years Irving conducted the ‘Analectic Magazine,’ published in Philadelphia. During the exciting months which followed the British attack on Washington (August, 1814), he was military secretary to the governor of New York. Being of adventurous spirit, he welcomed with joy the prospect of accompanying his friend Stephen Decatur on the expedition to Algiers. Disappointed in this and unable to get the fever of travel out of his blood, he sailed for England (May, 1815), intending nothing more than a visit to his brother in Liverpool and to a married sister in Birmingham.

Peter Irving had been ill, and in consequence his affairs had fallen into disorder. Washington undertook to disentangle them. He was unsuccessful. To the intense mortification of the brothers they were compelled to go into bankruptcy (1818), and Washington began casting about for a way to supplement his slender income. He refused an advantageous offer at home, and determined to remain in England. A literary project had taken shape in his mind, and he proceeded to carry it out.

In May, 1819, Irving published the first part of _The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon_, containing five papers, one of which, ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ is a little masterpiece. The attitude of the public towards this venture convinced Irving that he might live by the profession of letters. _The Sketch Book_ was followed by _Bracebridge Hall, or the Humorists_ (1822), and by the _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824). This last date marks a period in Irving’s literary life.

The years which Irving spent abroad had their anxieties, their depressions, their dull days, their long periods of drudgery. It is a temptation to dwell on their pleasures and their triumphs. Irving was fortunate in his friendships. He knew Scott, Campbell, Moore, and Jeffrey, and had the amusement on one occasion of seeing his visiting list revised by Rogers. He met Mrs. Siddons, marvelled at Belzoni, was amused by the antics of Lady Caroline Lamb, breakfasted at Holland House, and visited Thomas Hope at his country seat. In Paris he was presented to Talma by John Howard Payne, ‘the young American Roscius of former days,’ who had now ‘outgrown all tragic symmetry.’ He became (in time) persona gratissima to John Murray, his English publisher; and to be dear to one’s publisher must always be accounted among the great rewards of literature.

At the instance of Alexander Everett, the American Minister to Spain, Irving, in February, 1826, went to Madrid to translate Navarrete’s forthcoming collection of documents relating to Columbus. He presently abandoned the plan for a more grateful task, the writing of an independent account of the discovery of America, based on Navarrete, and on ample materials supplied by the library of Rich, the American consul at Madrid. To this he devoted himself with immense energy. The work was published in 1828, and was soon followed by the _Conquest of Granada_ and _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_.

In 1829 Irving became Secretary of the American Legation in London. The Royal Society of Literature voted him one of their fifty guinea gold medals, in recognition of his services to the study of history. The honor, distinguished in itself, became doubly so to the recipient because the other of the two awards for that year was bestowed on Hallam. In June, 1830, the University of Oxford conferred on Irving the degree of LL. D. In April, 1832, he sailed for America. He had been absent seventeen years.

After travels in various parts of the United States, including a long journey to the far West with the commissioner to the Indian tribes, Irving settled near Tarrytown. His home was a little Dutch cottage ‘all made up of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat.’ Familiarly called ‘The Roost’ by its inmates, this ‘doughty and valorous little pile’ is known to the world as ‘Sunnyside.’ With the exception of the four years (1842–46) he passed in Spain as Minister Plenipotentiary, ‘Sunnyside’ was Irving’s abiding-place until his death.

His later writings are: _The Alhambra_, 1832; _The Crayon Miscellany_ (comprising _A Tour on the Prairies_, _Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, and _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_), 1835; _Astoria_ (with Pierre M. Irving), 1836; _Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A._ (edited), 1837; _Life of Goldsmith_, 1849; _Mahomet and his Successors_, 1849–50; _The Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost_, 1855; _The Life of Washington_, 1855–59.

Attempts were made to draw Irving into political life. He was offered a nomination for Congress; Tammany Hall ‘unanimously and vociferously’ declared him its candidate for mayor of New York; and President Van Buren would have made him Secretary of the Navy. All these honors he felt himself obliged to refuse. He accepted the Spanish mission (offered by President Tyler at the instance of his Secretary of State, Daniel Webster), because he believed himself not wholly unfitted for the charge, and because it honored in him the profession of letters.

Irving’s intellectual powers were at perfect command up to the beginning of the last year of his life. Then his health began to fail markedly, and the final volume of his _Washington_ cost him effort he could ill afford. He died suddenly on November 28, 1859, and was buried in the cemetery at Sleepy Hollow.

IRVING’S CHARACTER

Irving was broad-minded, tolerant, amiable, incapable of envy, quick to forget an affront, and always willing to think the best of humanity. His tactfulness was due in part to his large experience of life, but more to the possession of a nature that was sweet, serene, frank, and unsophisticated. For Irving was no courtier; he could as little flatter as practise the more odious forms of deceit. His gifts of irony and ridicule, supplemented with an extraordinary power of humorous delineation, were never abused. It might be said of him, as of another great satirist, that ‘he never inflicted a wound.’

His modesty was excessive. It is impossible to find in his writings or his correspondence any hint that he was inclined to put unusual value on his work. Grateful as he was for praise, it would never have occurred to him that he had a right to it. With all his knowledge of the world he was singularly diffident. Moore hit off this trait when he said that Geoffrey Crayon was ‘not strong as a lion, but delightful as a domestic animal.’

Not his least admirable virtue was a spirit of helpfulness where his brother authors were concerned. Irving was ‘officious’ in the good old sense of the word, glad to be of service to his fellows, untiring in efforts to promote their welfare. He could praise their work, too, without disheartening qualifications. The good he enjoyed, the bad he put to one side. And he never forgot a kindness. A publisher who had once befriended him, though fallen on evil days, found himself still able to command some of Irving’s best manuscripts.

Criticism never angered Irving. Personal attacks (of which he had his share) were suffered with quiet dignity. He rarely defended himself, and then only when the attack was outrageous. He could speak pointedly if the need were. His reply to William Leggett, who accused him in ‘The Plain Dealer’ of ‘literary pusillanimity’ and double dealing, is a model of effectiveness. One paragraph will show its quality. Imputing no malevolence to Leggett, who doubtless acted from honest feelings hastily excited by a misapprehension of the facts, Irving says: ‘You have been a little too eager to give an instance of that “plain dealing” which you have recently adopted as your war-cry. Plain dealing, sir, is a great merit when accompanied by magnanimity, and exercised with a just and generous spirit; but if pushed too far, and made the excuse for indulging every impulse of passion or prejudice, it may render a man, especially in your situation, a very offensive, if not a very mischievous member of the community.’

Something may be known of a man by observing his attitude at the approach of old age. Irving’s beautiful serenity was characteristic. People were kind to him, but he thought their kindness extraordinary. He wondered whether old gentlemen were becoming fashionable.

III

THE WRITER

Irving’s prose is distinguished for grace and sweetness. It is unostentatious, natural, easy. At its best it comes near to being a model of good prose. The most striking effects are produced by the simplest means. Never does the writer appear to be searching for an out-of-the-way term. He accepts what lies at hand. The word in question is almost obvious and often conventional, but invariably apt.

For a writer who produced so much the style is remarkably homogeneous. It is an exaggeration to speak of it as overcharged with color. There are passages of much splendor, but Irving’s taste was too refined to admit of his indulging in rhetorical excesses. Nor is the style quite so mellifluous as it seemed to J. W. Croker, who said: ‘I can no more go on all day with one of his [Irving’s] books than I could go on all day sucking a sugar-plum.’ The truth is that Irving is one of the most human and companionable of writers, and his English is just the sort to prompt one to go on all day with him.

Yet there is a want of ruggedness, the style is almost too perfectly controlled. It lacks the strength and energy born of deep thought and passionate conviction, and it must be praised (as it may be without reserve) for urbanity and masculine grace.

EARLY WORK

_KNICKERBOCKER’S HISTORY_, _SKETCH BOOK_, _BRACEBRIDGE HALL_, _TALES OF A TRAVELLER_

The dignified appearance of Diedrich Knickerbocker’s learned work, the quiet simplicity of the principal title, and the sober dedication gave no hint to the serious-minded that they were buying one of the most extraordinary books of humor in the English language. The deception could not last long, but it is to be hoped that on the day of publication some honest seeker after knowledge took a copy home with the intent to profit at once by its stores of erudition.

On a basis of historical truth Irving reared a delightfully grotesque historical edifice. The method is analogous to that children employ when they put a candle on the floor that they may laugh at the odd shadows of themselves cast on wall and ceiling. The figures are monstrous, distorted, yet always resembling. Nothing could be at once more lifelike and more unreal than Irving’s account of New Amsterdam and its people under the three Dutch governors.

Here is a world of amusement to be had for the asking. One reader will enjoy the ironical philosophy, another the sly thrusts at current politics, a third the boisterous fun of certain episodes, such as the fight between stout Risingh and Peter Stuyvesant, the hint of which may have been caught from Fielding’s account of how Molly Seagrim valorously put her enemies to flight. But the book will always be most cherished for its quaint pictures of snug and drowsy comfort, for its world of broad-bottomed burghers, amphibious housewives, and demure Dutch damsels wooed by inarticulate lovers smoking long pipes, and for the rich Indian summer atmosphere with which the poet-humorist invested the scenes of a not wholly idyllic past.

_The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon_ is in one respect well named; it has the heterogeneous character that we associate with an artist’s portfolio. Notes of travel, stories, meditations, and portraits are thrown together in pleasant disorder. A paper on ‘Roscoe’ is followed by the sketch entitled ‘The Wife,’ and the history of ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is succeeded by an essay on the attitude of English writers towards America. In another sense the volume is not a mere sketch-book, for each sketch is a highly finished picture. Here is often a self-consciousness radically unlike the abandon of the _History of New York_. At times Irving falls quite into the ‘Keepsake’ manner. A faint aroma as of withered rose leaves steals from the pages, a languid atmosphere of sweet melancholy dear to the early Nineteenth Century.

Other pages are breezy enough. The five chapters on Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, the essay on ‘Little Britain,’ on the ‘Mutability of Literature,’ and that on ‘John Bull’ are emphatically not in the ‘Keepsake’ vein. Of themselves they would have sufficed to redeem _The Sketch Book_ from the worst charge that can be brought against a piece of literature,--the charge of being merely fashionable. But the extraordinary vitality which this book has enjoyed for eighty-five years it owes in the main to ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’ Written in small form, embodying simple incidents, saturated with humor, classic in their conciseness of style, these stories are faultless examples of Irving’s art.