New-York tribune., 1881-03-27
An ENGLISH VIEW or AMERICAN LITERA
TURE
r.o.,, IN. g .Inu.s,. nn..ti.

From The S. Jqmess Gazette.
The German professor in Mr.. Henry Jamess last
batch Of nOyelettes Passes criticism upon literary
Boston which admirably sums up its present curious
final phase Of complete decadence. He prononnces
upon il IN the particular embodiment OF Mr. Louis
Leverett having reached the period of culture in
which the faculty of appreciation prspOnderates
over the faculty OF creation In this judgment,
which its brilliant author carefully places in the
mouth OF specially unpleasant character-in order
doubtless to blunt the edge of its sting for his fell
low citizens IN the hub Of .he universe-Mr. James
has put his finger with his usual analytic subtlety
on the exact weak point of Boston dettantism.
Quite recently the novelist's brother. DR.. William
James-whO displays as metaphysician and psyche
ogst all the acuteness, originality and yiger which
are hereditary in his fathers family with all the
undercurrento of mysticism as wel-has pointed cut
in the atlantic Monthly that the intellect Of Boston
~ now fast ripeniDg to decay. There are ne says
Just many able and telgent men in the city as
ever: there is just as much culture, Just az much
literary ferment, just a. much philosophical lean
ing; but there Is no prodnctveness. Nothing comes
In Eng and, people generally imagine that Ameri-
can literature and Boston literature one and the
same thing. Not that many people would con CON
sciously assert anything of the sort, because when
they hear Of American writer they never think OF
inquiring whether he is Bostonian or not;
but il they were asked to mention the chief
American authors they would at mention such
names as Longfellow. HawthOrns, Prescott Motley
and Lowell-New-E nRlanders all OF them-with per-
haps Washington Irving. who was Bostonesque
New. Yorker. To the average English mind the
BostOn Iitterateurs form the acknowledged speci.
mems Of the American author. inst as the cultivated
New Er rgander of the old Puritan families is uniVer-
sally figured In ENGLAND as The best type OF Ameri-
can Eegtlrmau." Both arc IN TACT very much what
we are accustomed to at bome and both are equally
alien 10 the general tone O thOuRht ana Ieehng IN
America as whole.
The trath is Boston culture has always been an
exotic on American soil. 1t went over TO New-Eng-
land with such theological thinkers as the Mathers
aud Winthrops whose whole feelings and interests
were those Of an old civilization and somewhat
pedantic style Of learning. IL lived on and lived
doun fhP natural imUulapR OF new country only
by the aid Of that stern theocracy which the I'm
ported Puritan spirit kept alive in the GoVernment
OF Massachusetts, for hundred and nifty years. AZ
Presbyieriansm passed into Untarianlsm II woke
up at the beginning OF the present century, into
first flush Of literary activity. Bnt bosion nad All
along been in snch close connection with English
thought and English culture that this activity was
wholly OF the initiative SORT All that was written
there was inst an outlying par' Ur EseS% 20
Tennyson and Froude-a great deal more English
than Swinburne Carlyle Hawthorne has a
strong and subtle originaty but 1t Is an originality
purely personal, further removed in many points
from tho ordinary feelings OF America than
from the ordinary feelings OF Engiand; most Oh
these men find their themes In the Old World, or 10
that historical and colonial NewcEngand which
was only a single element OF the Old World trans
planted with all its beliefs and prejudces into the
midst OF the new Miles Stsndsh in Puritan hassa-
chusctts Eyangeline in old French Acadia. the
Cinguo Ports, the Rhine CASTLES, the Flemish towns
these are LOngfellow's pet themes. The Scarlet
Letter Shows the same turning to the essentially
English past in Hawthorne. Many OF the English
American writers were European in all their tastes
and habits. Washing on irving xed II SpaiIl' t. ana NO
Alhambra. Motley took his subject from the iiol-
land where he spent the best years Of his life Haw
thOrne was American ConseI q. LreIpoo,
European Snch literaturos based upon the Dest
msdels" end without any national root OF sehtmeht
or feeling always die down at last INTO an era OI
Cloud,ans SO the Boston movement has died down
in it's turn into mere universal dtuslOn Ot teraTy
and phiosOphic TASTE mlxed WIN genera ulsspO-
sition to crticse everything intelligently ana 10
rest satisfied for the most part with negative results
The crude hut pregnant suggestiVeness OF EMERSON
has naturally given place to habit OK nuhlg Eeadhng
Hartmann and Schopenhauer, Renan ana HerDeft
Spencer and deciding that there IL great Dsa 10
be said against every point OF view. vi tne purey
objective critical and analytic STANDPOINT thus pIo
duccd MIR. Henry James ls nimseh e'uS""i'J
favorable outcome. u pu. D..
But behind and beyond this wholly English Bos-
onian literature, there has always Oeen nltle SUIT
faceseothing here and there of native literature
racy of the soil, which Is purely tehtatVe as yes'
and mostly very formless but when truly repre-
sonts some tendencies at ieast OF the ~ ~AtuerlcSn
mind or course this underlying and nascenL
American literature Is anything Dnb cultureu,
though sometimes, as in the case oI iof, nanes ns
great preteuces TO extraordinary erudition-a com-
mon trick of balf-educated cleVerness, III whony
despises precedent and artistic rules. IL Is aemo-
cratic rude but truly patlye toroht ~ dsrican NJ mind
Among the New-EnRlanders, Lowell ana hswtnorne e
have, each in different ways. some small toncnSs w., u
the real American spirit tnOuen o ~ Il most 10 strongly
IL comes out in Marx Twain on one side, and
struggles through Bret pathos on & he
Ielond there ia sii moro in the queer rubbish OF
the Josh Billings order. which somehow strlkes 81
chord in the American heart wholly wanting IN he the
ail IN the rhapsodiss of Walt Whitman, in whose
best work one cannot help fading sort OF rough 81;
6ewn elementary poetry without form and VOTE Ss yet
sghast At the utter wordiness and meanngness OF
the mans chaotic conCatenatlons Now that s1ls nS
protoplasmlc cheol has orept even INTO nosson an1
rmv estabished itsef there one feels that perhaps
real American literature may be actually prepar-
ing itsef to begin to be-" Il is still in the Jelly
sIimv AZ times: but II Is the starting-pont for Q
possible fresh evoution-not mere pretty echo OF
alien Europe.