realism is softened and beautified by a delicate and poetic grace. Edward Eggleston's (1837-1902) Hoosier Schoolmaster revealed the literary possibilities of southern Indiana in pioneer days. Several writers have pictured life in New England. Among them is John Townsend Trowbridge (1827- ) with his Neighbor Fackwood and other stories. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1862- ) writes interesting stories, but almost invariably of the exceptional characters. Sarah Orne Jewett, (1849-1909), with rare grace and humor and finer delicacy of touch, has gone far beyond surface peculiarities, Women story and has found in the most everyday people some gleam of poetry, some shadow of pathos. writers. Alice Brown (1857- ) writes frequently and charmingly of the unusual; but with her the unusual is the natural manifestation of some typical quality. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844- ) in 1866 ventured to treat our notions of heaven in somewhat realistic fashion in Gates Ajar. She has proved in many volumes her knowledge of the New England woman. Some of her best later work has been in the line of the short story, as, for instance, her Jonathan and David. Rose Terry Cooke (1827-1892) has found the humor which is thinly veiled by the New England austerity. The stories of Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs (1857- ) are marked by a keen sense of humor and sparkle with vivid bits of description. The early days of California have been. pictured by Helen Hunt Jackson (1831-1885) in Ramona, a novel which voiced the author's righteous indignation at the harshness and injustice shown to the Indians by the United States government. Her earlier work was poetry; and in this, too, she has taken no humble place. Mary Hallock Foote (1847- ) has sympathetically interpreted with both brush and pen the life of the mining camp of what used to be the "far West." Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849- ) won her first popularity by That Lass o' Lowrie's, which pictures life in the Lancashire districts of England. During the last few years the popular favor has swung between the historical novel and the one-character tale; but the fiction, whether of the one class or the other, that has had the largest sale has laid its scenes in America and has been written by American authors. story. American fiction has become especially strong in the short story; not merely the story which is short, but The short the story which differs from the tale in somewhat the same way as the farce differs from the play, namely, that its interest centres in the situation rather than in a series of incidents which usually develop a plot. Cranford, for instance, is a tale. It pictures the life of a whole village, and is full of incidents. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger is a short story; it gives no incidents, and no more detail than is necessary to explain the peculiar situation of the princess. It is a single series of links picked out of a broad network. A tale is a field; a short story is a narrow path running through the field. The short story, with its single aim, its determination to make every word count toward that aim, its rigid economy of materials, its sure and rapid progress, has proved most acceptable to our time-saving and swiftly-moving nation. 49. Poetry. The writers of the last fifty years have had an immense advantage in the existence of the four monthlies, The Atlantic, Harper's, Scribner's, and The Century, for these magazines have provided what was so needed in earlier days, a generous opportunity to find one's audience. They have been of special value to the poets, and the last half-century has given us much poetry. Not all of it is of the kind that makes its author's name immortal; but it would not be difficult to count at least a score of Americans who in these latter days have written poems that are of real merit. So far as a poetic centre now exists, New York, with its many publishing houses and its favorable geographical position, holds the honor. 50. Bayard Taylor, 1825-1878. Eight years after Bryant published Thanatopsis, two of these later poets, Taylor and Stoddard, were born. Bayard Taylor began life as a country boy who wanted to travel. He wandered over Europe, paying his way sometimes by a letter to some New York paper, sometimes by a morning in the hayfield. His account of these wanderings, Views Views Afoot, was so boyish, so honest, enthu- Afoot, siastic, and appreciative, that it was a delight 1846. to look at the world through his eyes; and the young man of twenty-one found that he had secured his audience. He continued to wander and to write about his wanderings. He wrote novels also; but, save for the money that this work brought him, he put little value upon it. Poetic fame was his ambition, and he won it in generous measure. His Poems of the the Orient, Orient is wonderfully fervid and intense. Some of these poems contain lines that are as haunting as Poe's. Such is the refrain to his Bedouin Song: From the desert I come to thee On a stallion shod with fire; And the midnight hears my cry: I love thee, I love but thee, Till the sun grows cold, Poems of 1854. And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Another favorite is his Song of the Camp, with its famous lines, Each heart recalled a different name, But all sang "Annie Laurie." and a most valuBayard Taylor to be remem He wrote Home Pastorals (1875), ballads of home life in Pennsylvania; several dramatic poems; able translation of Faust (1870-1871). seems likely to attain his dearest wish, bered by his poetry rather than his prose. One of 51. Richard Henry Stoddard, 1825-1903. Taylor's oldest and best beloved friends was Richard Henry Stoddard, a young ironworker. He had hard labor and long hours; but he managed to do a vast amount of reading and thinking, and he had much to contribute to this friendship. He held no college degree, but he knew the best English poetry and was an excellent critic. He, too, was a poet. In a few years he published a volume of poems; but poetry brought little gold, and by Hawthorne's aid he secured a position in the Custom House. He did much reviewing and editing; but poetry was nearest to his heart. There is a certain simplicity and finish about his poems that is most winning. The following is a special favorite :— The sky is a drinking cup, That was overturned of old; We drink that wine all day, Till the last drop is drained up, And are lighted off to bed By the jewels in the cup! |