AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON [From Americanism in Literature, 1871.] It seems unspeakably important that all persons among us, and especially the student and the writer, should be pervaded with Americanism. Americanism includes the faith that national self-government is not a chimera, but that, with whatever inconsistencies and drawbacks, we are steadily establishing it here. It includes the faith that to this good thing all other good things must in time be added. When a man is heartily imbued with such a national sentiment as this, it is as marrow in his bones and blood in his veins. I affirm that democratic society, the society of the future, enriches and does not impoverish human life, and gives more, not less, material for literary art. Distributing culture through all classes, it diminishes class-distinction and develops individuality. Perhaps it is the best phenomenon of American life thus far, that the word "gentlemen," which in England still designates a social order, is here more apt to refer to personal character. When we describe a person as a gentleman, we usually refer to his manners, morals and education, not to his property or birth; and this change alone is worth the transplantation across the Atlantic. The use of the word "lady" is yet more comprehensive, and therefore more honorable still; we sometimes see, in a shopkeeper's advertisement, "saleslady wanted." No doubt the mere fashionable novelist loses terribly by the change: when all classes may wear the same dress-coat, what is left for him? But he who aims to depict passion and character gains in proportion; his material is increased tenfold. The living realities of American life ought to come in among the tiresome layfigures of average English fiction... and no longer turn on the vexed question whether the daughter of this or that matchmaker shall marry the bar onet. . . . The play of human emotion is a thing so absorbing that the petty distinctions of cottage and castle become as nothing in its presence. Why not waive these small matters in advance, then, and go straight to the real thing? The greatest transatlantic successes which American novelists have yet attained those won by Cooper and Mrs. Stowe have come through a daring Americanism of subject, which introduced in each case a new figure to the European world, first the Indian, then the negro. Whatever the merit of the work, it was plainly the theme which conquered. Such successes are not easily to be repeated, for they were based on temporary situations never to recur. But they prepare the way for higher triumphs to be won by a profounder treatment, — the introduction into literature not of new tribes alone, but of the American spirit. To analyze combinations of character that only our national life produces, to portray dramatic situations that belong to a clearer social atmosphere, — this is the higher Americanism. Of course, to cope with such themes in such a spirit is less easy than to describe a foray or a tournament, or to multiply indefinitely such still-life pictures as stereotyped English or French society affords; but the thing when once done is comparably nobler. It may be centuries before it is done; no matter. It will be done. . . . It is not important to know whether a man reads Homer, or Dante: the essential point is whether he believes the world to be young or old; whether he sees as much scope for his own inspiration as if never a book had appeared in the world. So long as he does this, he has the American spirit: no books, no travel, can overwhelm him, for these will only enlarge his thoughts and raise his standard of execution. When he loses his faith, he takes rank among the copyists and the secondary, and no accident can raise him to a place among the benefactors of mankind. He is like a man who is frightened in battle: you cannot exactly blame him, for it may be an affair of the temperament or of the digestion; but you are glad to let him drop to the rear, and to close up the ranks. Fields are won by those who believe in the winning. PERMANENT FAMILIES IN THE UNITED STATES CHARLES W. ELIOT [From a Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard, June 28, 1888, on "The Working of the American Democracy." Reprinted here by permission of the Century Company.] In the future there will undoubtedly be seen a great increase in the number of permanent families in the United States, — families in which honor, education, and property will be transmitted with reasonable certainty; and a fair beginning has already been made. On the quinquennial catalogue of Harvard University there are about five hundred and sixty family stocks, which have been represented by graduates at intervals for at least one hundred years. On the Yale catalogue there are about four hundred and twenty such family stocks; and it is probable that all other American colleges which have existed one hundred years or more show similar facts in proportion to their age and to the number of their graduates. There is nothing in American institutions to prevent this natural process from extending and continuing. The college graduate who does not send his son to college is a curious exception. American colleges are, indeed, chiefly recruited from the sons of men who were not college-bred themselves; for democratic society is mobile, and permits young men of ability to rise easily from the lower to the higher levels. But on the other hand nothing in the constitution of society forces men down who have once risen, or prevents their children and grandchildren from staying on the higher level if they have the virtue in them. . . . - edu Two things are necessary to family permanence, cation and bodily vigor, in every generation. 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I affirm that democratic society, the society of the future, enriches and does not impoverish human life, and gives more, not less, material for literary art. Distributing culture through all classes, it diminishes class-distinction and develops individuality. Perhaps it is the best phenomenon of American life thus far, that the word "gentlemen," which in England still designates a social order, is here more apt to refer to personal character. When we describe a person as a gentleman, we usually refer to his manners, morals and education, not to his property or birth; and this change alone is worth the transplantation across the Atlantic. The use of the word "lady" is yet more comprehensive, and therefore more honorable still; we sometimes see, in a shopkeeper's advertisement, "saleslady wanted." No doubt the mere fashionable novelist loses terribly by the change: when all classes may wear the same dress-coat, what is left for him? But he who aims to depict passion and character gains in proportion; his material is reased tenfold. The living realities of American life ought ome in among the tiresome layfigures of average English .. and no longer turn on the vexed question whether Mer of this or that matchmaker shall marry the bar |