Los Angeles herald., 1891-08-15
THE DEATH OF LOWELL MARKS A SIG
NIFICANT CHANGE.

The death OF Lowell has accentuated
fact that is very gratifying to Ameri-
cans, perhaps, and that is that Ameri-
can literature has high standard in
England if it has not distinctive quail
ity. This fact was first made manifest
when Longfellow died. 1t was discov-
cred then that the author of Hiawatha
had more readers in England than in
America. 1t is about seventy years
since Sydney Smith asked sneeringly,
"Who reads an American book ?" Dur
ing the past quarter Of century the
reading OF American books has
become quite the vogue in intelli-
gent circles in England. The finished
work of Lowell, Bryant, Longfellow,
Emerson, Holmes, and others of our
more recent school of literature, has
been highly valued in England. There
are Englishmen without number who
are ready to place Washington Irving in
the same school as Addison, and to rank
Prescott, Motley and Bancroft very near
Macaulay, Hallam and Hume, but the
ing has been that the whole body of this
literature, excellent and valuable as it
unquestionably is, might have been
written by an Englishman as we'll as by
an American. Great eminence is
conceded to Bryant, Longfellow
Lowell, and others, as poets,
but it is claimed that there
is nothing as individual in their
works as contra distinguished from or
dinary English poetry as was the Lake
school of poetry established by Words
worth and his followers. Cooper's novels
have some smack of distinctively Amer
lean flavor; but, when we drop the
Last of the Mohicans and Leather
stockings, and get into those novels of
Cooper, like his Wing and Wing, for in
stance, which treat OF European scenes
and characters, the American writes
very much as an Englishman. might
have written, given the possession of
Cooper's exquisite endowments of i'm
agination and delightful diction.
Lowell has done some original work
which separates him from this category
of our poets and authors. So has Long
fellow. But probably the great secret
of the popularity of these admirable
writers in England is to be found in
their possession, to striking degree, of
what may be called the English cult
The United States has, of course, a
number of distinctive writers. When
Sir Edwin Arnold was in San Francisco
on his way to Japan he talked with an
appreciation of American men
of genius which showed that
at least in some circles of
England there is highly intelligent
estimate of what has been done in this
country. He paid warm tribute to
Hawthorne as a man of rare and ex-
quisite gifts, and praised his style as
something indescribably fine. Haw-
thorne's "Scarlet Letter. is in truth
one of the most powerful pictures ever
drawn. Yet when we come to his
"Marble Faun." we strike work which
might very we'll have been written by
an Englishman. There he was dealing
with European themes, and his inspira-
ton was exactly such as would be ex-
pected from a classically equipped
man who should be dropped
down into the midst of the in
tellectual suggestions OF Rome and
Italy. Sir Edwin avowed the most un-
stinted admiration for the unique
genius OF Edgar Allan Poe, and here, in
truth, we strike man of exceptional
originality. When we throw in Bret
Harte and Walt Whitman we are really
near the end OF our string. Pretty
much all our pretentious writer's might
have done their work as well in England
or Australia as in America.
Admitting this to be true, the fact
must never be forgotten that the work
itself is Of a remarkably fine order, ex-
cept when We come to the milk-and-
water and syllabub stuff OF such people
as Howells. Such work has the same
resemblance to true literature that the
Havana leaf transplanted to Connecti-
cut bears to the genuine principe cigar.
We have produced another breed OF
literati, if the word can be held to apply,
like Mark Twain, whose status no one is
cunning enough to define. The "Inno-
cents Abroad" is certainly as funny as
Pickwick, and the story of the "Jump-
ing Frog of Calaveras'' is more than a
match for Dickens's archaic "Bill
Stumps, His Mark" And then we have
our aliterati, represented by the many
murderous people who start out with the
praiseworthy purpose of making bad
spelling and slang take the place of wit
and inspiration. These curios we can
claim as our own special product, if any
body wished to claim them. They are a
WEAKNESS to the flesh, and it is devoutly
to be hoped that no sons of theirs Will
succeed them. They are to the body OF
American literature what maggots are to
a cheese, and their wriggling efforts are
not worthy of any attention whatsoever.
THE 6asco attending the efforts of Cal
ifornia to secure the headship OF the
horticultural department of the worlds
fair will always be a melancholy page