The San Francisco call., 1897-07-18
Mr.. HOWELLS AS AN OPTINlsT.

All those reviewers who have cavled at the
persistent pessimism m' in Mr.. Howeils' later
work, particularly in his essays. should be con-
ironted with his able and telling article in tn e
July Harpers. "The Modern American Mood
Mr.. Howells calls his mastery analysis of our
attitude toward ourselves and the rest OF the
world. He shows how the results OF the Civil
War and the sudden upspriuging OF our glgan-
tic comm ercial Interests combined to make US
believe until comparatively recently that call
that was ours was good; if not apparently
good, then really good
at is easy to say how our vainglory began,
but it is not SO easy to say how it began to
vanish, or why. But whatever Europe may
think TO the contrary, we ere now really a
modest people. The National attitude is self
critical, and ii the standards by which we try
ourselves are not those OF Europe. but are
largely derived from within ourselves, they
are none the less severe and none the less
Just.
In fact. our present danger is not that we
shall praise ourselves too much, but that we
shall accuse ourselves too much, and blame
ourselves for effects from conditions that are
the conditions OF the whole world. But if this
is better than to rest content with our condi-
tions because they seem to be ours alone, if it
is some times 6 good thing TO recognize that
we are socially and economically sick. It is
also good thing to know that We have in our
own political system the power OF recupera.
lion against the universal disorder.
"No one really doubts the adequacy of the
Republic to any imaginable emergency; or If
there is here and there one whose heart mis-
gives him, he has nothing to sugge in place
OF it. In completer sense than we alway S
realize. it is the Republic or nothing tor us. In
the same completer sense there is no pas for
US; there is only future Something that is
still untrIed may serge our turn, but nothing
that has been tried and failed will serve our
turn.
I'VE may not think the Republic is the best
thing that can ever be, but feel that it is
the best we can have for tie present and that
any thing better must be something more
rather than something less OF il.
cit is in no oyerweenlng mood of optimism
thatwe trust the Republic to save itself. There
are almost as few mere opimists as mere pessf-
mists among u.s. Question those who seem TO
be the one or the other and you fl nd that at
the bottom of their hearts they have the same
doubts, the same hopes. The blandest apii,-
mist does not deny that there are good many
screws loose; the bleakest pessimist does not
affirm that there is no means within our
democracy of tightening them agsin, or that
there is any means outside OF democracy.
ave trust the Republic with itself-that is,
u
other the most i'm plicitly when we affirm the
most clamorously, one half OF US, thatthe other
half is plunging the whole OF US in irreparable
ruin. That is merely our way of calling all to
the duty we owe to each. 1t is not q very dig
fed WY. but the entire Nation is in the jokt, ,
and it is not SO mischievous as it might seem.
and BIZ, probably, we shall change it. We
should certainly change it in the presence OF
any vital danger; for one reason, because we
should then be all of one mind in devotion to
the Republic
1t is very clear and vigorous note that Mr.
Howells strikes in the following:
ION the threshold of new century, the Ior-
tai OF the future, we see more clearly than
ever that America is the home of work, of en-
deavor, of The busy effort in which man loses
the heavy sense OF self he can in no pleas
ure, and tastes the happiness of doing some
thing, making something, creating some
Thing. Our problem is how to keep the chance
OF this free to all; how 10 find work for ali !;
how to render drones impossible, either rich
drones or poor drones, voluntary or involun-
tor