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From The Edinburgh Review.
AMERICAN SOCIETY IN AMERICAN

FICTION.*

stances grow rapidly into great cities; nor is there any surer road from competence to wealth than judicious investments in VERY naturally our American friends eligible building lots. While to more imare in the habit of boasting of the colos- petuous spirits who would hasten to be sal scale of everything in their magnifi- rich, or who care little for mere moneycent continent. Their lakes are seas, getting without excitement, the universal and their rivers are navigable for many epidemic of speculation offers endless and thousand miles above the mighty estua- inviting opportunities. The leading stock ries. The very "parks" which are locked markets in the east and west, with their away within the recesses of their grand rings and corners, syndicates and finanmountain ranges might pass for provinces cial combinations, are so many centres of or principalities in the cramped countries calculating gambling, where luck is largeof the Old World. Yet engineering sci- ly tempered by skill. The leviathans of ence, backed by unlimited capital, has the exchanges play very much on velvet, overcome those formidable obstacles and and if they lose heavily one day, they barriers, flinging bridges everywhere can afford, with their enormous resources, across the broad rivers and carrying rail- to wait patiently for their turn of revenge. ways by easy gradients through the passes In the States we see the remarkable phein the mountain chains. Everywhere nomenon of groops of busy citizens and they may point with legitimate pride to capitalists, enriched already beyond all the triumphs of mind and energy over the dreams of avarice, beyond the possimatter. Agriculture has kept pace with bilities and even the power of enjoyment, manufacturing industry, while it has far who seldom spare the time to spend a outstripped commerce. The boundless dollar on themselves, but give their prairies are being reclaimed by indefati- families unlimited credit with their bankgable labor, and the buffalo and the roving ers. In short, while the bulk of the savage have given place to herds of sleek population in other countries is content cattle with their stockmen. Mining has to exist, the Americans are essentially a made greater millionaires than manufac-money-accumulating nation, and every tures; discoveries of minerals and of min- man from a Vanderbilt to the rough eral oils have directed the rush of immi- Western pioneer is more or less eager to gration to the most savage districts of the better himself. The maxim of "Nothing continent, till from the Golden Gate of venture, nothing have" is very generally San Francisco to the quays of New in favor, and should a pushing individual York, and from the shores of Lake Su- "come to grief" while “making his pile," perior to the mouths of the Mississippi, to do his countrymen bare justice, they the States are being "settled up" by a are very ready to help him and by no community that is being steadily consoli- means disposed to be hard on his indisdated by the spread of a vast network of cretions. And the result is that their. railway lines. Clusters of wooden shan-life is real and earnest in another sense ties shoot up into towns; while towns from that intended by the poet they lost that are favored by situation or circum- the other day.

Such a society may assure for its members in general more than a sufficiency of material comforts, but it can hardly be favorable to the ideal forms of refinement, or even encourage what are called the learned professions. The fever of work possesses a community which can barely spare time for sleep and meals. Intellect is necessarily at a discount, save in so far as it can be turned to practical purposes, as when science becomes the

handmaid of the stock markets and pat- |fied by the laws of demand and supply.

The tastes may take vulgar or very commonplace forms, but all the same books of a kind are multiplied.

true that sundry centuries have elapsed since the Pilgrim Fathers landed in New England; and, as matter of fact, we find that the higher American culture has been mainly confined to the State of

ents lucrative inventions. Eminent firms of lawyers may enjoy incomes unknown in England, because their services are in request to negotiate business matters In America the conditions we have sug with the utmost economy of invaluable gested can scarcely be said to exist. It time; and fashionable physicians earn is a young and a rapidly rising country: fancy fees by ministering to overwrought society is continually in uneasy movebrains and soothing agitated nerves. ment, and has been shifting steadily westHere and there an eloquent and popular ward towards barbarous regions. It is divine, who has the art of addressing himself with irresistible force to the emotions, draws immense congregations; and it is alleged that in New York, in the gayest circles, a conspicuous pew in a fashionable place of worship is as indis- Massachusetts. But even in New Enpensable as an opera-box on the grand gland, what with the prolonged struggles tier. But literature, especially in its of the colonists, and the severe, Puritanilighter and more graceful form, inevitably cal spirit that cramped their intellectual goes to the wall. In the absence of an growth, culture had a slow and an unfaappreciative body of readers, there is vorable start. While elsewhere, all less no incitement to the nobler ambitions; pressing considerations have been sacriand looking at literature from the lower ficed to the unresting struggle to move, pecuniary standpoint, its returns are poor on and grow richer. Poor men, with their and more than problematic. Indeed, there way to make, are heavily handicapped, is perhaps nothing more extraordinary in and must strain every nerve to hold their the history of human culture, than the own. Even wealthy men think the time fact that a nation exercising vast political is wasted which holds back their sons power and priding itself on the boundless from entering on the battle of life, after resources of its civilization, should have they have been taught to read, to write, so little to boast of in the shape of books. and to calculate. The lucky oligarchy No doubt there are special reasons, in the that is born to riches labors either to incase of the United States, which go some crease or to squander them. The minds way to explain the phenomenon. A body of all are absorbed in the interests which of national literature is the growth of set their springs in motion, and lie neartime, of leisure, of venerable learned est to their hearts; and the only literature foundations, and, we may add, of a multi- that really excites them must be either plicity of easy fortunes transmitted by in-political, industrial, financial, sporting, or heritance, or independent of trade. Then ephemerally frivolous. So while innuyou have trained writers and readers. merable journals command a great circuThe successful author may aspire to a lation, there is no duller market than the position of his own, in great measure in-market for books; even ladies, who in dependent of his income. Men of let- England would be inveterate novel-readtered tastes in comfortable circumstances ers, seem in America to have no time for are tempted to indulge in a fascinating reading of any kind. pursuit which gives congenial occupation with the chance of celebrity. Poor men may reasonably betake themselves to a profession, which has occasionally valuable prizes and offers a fair hope of a competency. While many must fail or fall far beneath mediocrity, many succeed, to the encouragement of others; and thus the tastes are formed which must be grati

But besides all that, there are other causes which conspire to discourage American authorship. Publishers need never pay for native talent, so long as the whole range of English literature is within their reach, and while they can acquire a copy of any new and popular work for the mere cost of the carriage or postage. We find, in fact, that the most

f

distinguished American authors have | tive by an artist like Mr. James, who is
been almost invariably men of fortune more than a scene-painter; or by one of
and leisure, who chose to indulge the Mr. James's more capable disciples. As
bent of their genius. Moreover, and so a rule, the cultured Bostonian is intro-
far as our immediate subject is concerned, duced charily, and with an invariable
we suspect that American novelists would propriety of mind and demeanor; and
still be at a grave disadvantage, even were while he serves as a foil to the members.
Englishmen effectually protected by an of the giddy throng about him, he is
international copywright. We find, as made to figure in a ludicrous light. Bos-
we should expect, in the books which ton has its recognized place in the cos-
have come under our notice, that the au- mogony of the Union as the show capital
thors who lay their scenes at home are of culture. As it is literally shadowed
sadly at a loss for novelty in their sub-out in American fiction, it represents all
jects and are fettered by the monotony of that is "high-toned," respectable, and
their types. Society is cast in certain dull. The men have been educated at
stereotyped moulds, and the springs which Harvard, though they may sometimes
set its machinery in motion are patent to have neglected their advantages. But if
the most superficial observer. Cooper's they subsequently sow their wild oats,
Indian is extinct, or has been relegated they sow them in secret or abroad, and
to the "reserves; or he is a drunken have the grace to be ashamed of them-
vagabond loafing about the railway de- selves. If they mean to settle down
pôts and ready to carry a valise for a few among their own people, they are bound
cents. The sensationalism of the wild to reform early; and if wise, they will
West, with its roughs, revolvers, shooting atone for their indiscretions by a double
sheriffs, and Lynch law, is soon exhaust-
ed. It is not every day that a political
and philanthropical reaction against a
lucrative national "institution" gives an
opportunity to the author of an "Uncle
Tom's Cabin." The stories of quiet
rural life among the snug homesteads
and picturesque woodlands of the East-
ern States are studies of scenery and
manners rather than of characters and
motives; and in short, the novelist must
fall back upon the worlds of fashion or of
business. There is small scope for the
play of the imagination in ringing the
changes on flirtations, where nothing is
changed but the costumes, whether they
are carried on at New York, Newport, or
Saratoga there is no place for subtle
mental analysis in the scramble and glare
of the showy entertainments, where the
sensations are some grand coup in the
matrimonial market by a penniless for-
tune-hunter or a beauty on her promotion;
or the collapse of the sham capitalist who
figured yesterday as a Croesus.

The novelist in search of a subject seems to have an alternative to be sure, and that is the delineation of life in Boston or its environs. But life in Boston can only be made reasonably attrac

assumption of propriety. The atmo. sphere of society is scientific and æsthetic, and its leaders, although bound to be moderately well off, have, for the most part, made their mark by their brains. Hitherto at least, there has been always a certain number of celebrities of European reputation, who have attracted the visits of admiring foreign travellers, and of whom their fellow-citizens are at least as proud, as of the patriotic memories of Bunker's Hill. The ladies espouse talent when they can; and there is a considerable residuum of strong-minded maiden blue-stockings and spinster advocates of woman's rights. While those who have been linked by their fate to mere mon. eyed respectability are content to lead humdrum existences, enlivened by mildly intellectual festivities, and become irreproachable as wives, mothers, and housekeepers. Such are the impressions of Boston as we have gathered them from a perusal of American fiction passim; and it must be owned that any work of fiction founded on them must be wanting as much in relief as in the excitement that is derived from the analysis of our vices and foibles.

The best recent novel upon Boston

She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it Acton felt a more off as if she liked them.

All

society with which we are acquainted is | liberties. "I simply meant," said Felix, Mr. Henry James's "Europeans," which explaining away a misconception, “I simhe modestly terms a "sketch." Not that ply meant that you all don't amuse yourits being a sketch tells against the work- selves." The very notion of amusing manship, for in our opinion Mr. James is oneself strikes the elderly gentleman, who never so effective as when he dashes in has a youthful son and a pair of charming his figures in spirited outline. And the daughters, as at once novel and fantastic. acuteness of Mr. James's observation is "Amuse ourselves?" is the suggestive unimpeachable, while he is no mean stu- answer; "we are not children." And dent of the eccentricities of human nature, these are Mr. James's comments on the and can shrewdly contrast the complexi- creditable efforts of the sparkling Euroties of character. Few novelists are more pean young lady to make herself pleasant successful in the art of indicating an idio- and to find life in America agreeable. syncrasy with one or two pregnantly epigrammatic touches, or of making an indi vidual bare the mind for inspection by some slight but suggestive self-revelation. We are far from saying or believing that he takes no pride in the material triumphs that have made America a marvel of prosperity among the nations. That he can appreciate the seemingly hard and suc-downright need than he had ever felt before to cessful man of the world, when he feels tell her that he admired her, and that she indefinite yearnings after higher things; along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with struck him as a very superior woman. is shown in the delineation of his typical her; he had been cautious, observant, suspi "American." But his sympathies are all cious. But now a certain light tumult in his on the side of the refinement which has a blood seemed to intimate that a finer degree struggle to hold its own in the States, of confidence in this charming woman would and breathes more freely in the air of the be its own reward. "We don't detest you," older continents. He ought at all times he went on. "I don't know what you mean. to be a dispassionate judge of the attrac- At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know tions which Boston has to offer. But anything about the others. Very likely you even the patriotism of Mr. James shrinks lead. Really it would give me a sort of pleasdetest them for the dull life they make you from attempting to make a readable novel simply of the home-bred elements of society in Massachusetts. So he imports a Of course Mr. James, when he makes couple of vivacious Europeans, who give the baroness express herself so strongly, The is looking at the "dull" life through the strangers, who are themselves American lady's eyes; but Acton, who rebels equally by extraction, take kindly to their Ameri- against it, and who resents its restraints, can kinsfolk; but they very speedily get is a fellow-citizen of the Wentworths, and bored. Indeed, they have been conscious was to their manners born. He is the from the day of their arrival in Boston of reverse of dissipated; he is scarcely gay; an overpowering sense of depression. his home is brightened by an exceptionBeing Bohemians in their habits, they ally sprightly sister; but his ideas have may have been demoralized by unwhole- been expanded by travelling in Europe, some excitement; but then their unhealthy so that he has been altogether spoiled for cravings are counterbalanced in the States residence at home, and finds everything by freedom from pecuniary anxieties, and in Massachusetts flat and unprofitable. by the unfamiliar comforts with which But with such an author as Mr. James, they are surrounded. It would be natural the first sentences of the story are sure to enough, nevertheless, that they should give the keynote to its general tone, and murmur in the moments when the un- the opening scene is sufficiently sombre. eventful days will hang heavy on their Whether or no the visitor to the States hands; but Mr. James justifies their com- find his warmest welcome in their hotels, plaints, either when speaking in his own he has seldom to complain of lack of liveperson, or by the frank admissions of the liness in those showy and bustling caraBoston folks themselves. Felix Young vanserais. But it would seem that even is addressing his rich uncle, Mr. Went the hotels of Boston have a distinctive worth, who, half from old-fashioned cour- and subdued character of their own. tesy and half from his liking for the youth, lets his scapegrace nephew take unusual

his book the needful animation.

ure to hear you say so.'

A narrow graveyard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from the windows of a