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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men 20 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book 12 0 Browse Search
Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 3 (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.) 6 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature 4 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises 4 0 Browse Search
Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 2 2 0 Browse Search
Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life 2 0 Browse Search
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Browsing named entities in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature. You can also browse the collection for Jane Austen or search for Jane Austen in all documents.

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature, Chapter 9: the Western influence (search)
, when we are listening to conversation, a musical voice gratifies us almost more than wit or wisdom. Mr. Howells is without an equal among his English-speaking contemporaries as to some of the most attractive literary graces. Unless it be in Mr. James, he has no rival for half-tints, for modulations, forsubtile phrases that touch the edge of an assertion and yet stop short of it. He is like a skater who executes a hundred graceful curves within the limits of a pool a few yards square. Miss Austen, the novelist, once described her art as a little bit of ivory, on which she produced small effect after much labor. She underrated her own skill, as the comparison in some respects underrates that of Howells; but his field is the little bit of ivory. This is attributing to him only what he has been careful to claim for himself. He describes his methods very frankly, and his first literary principle has been to look away from great passions, and to elevate the commonplace instead by
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature, Chapter 10: forecast (search)
ries before it is done. No matter; it will be done. It is a satisfaction to observe that the instinctive movement which is establishing American fiction, not in one locality alone, but on a field broad as the continent, unconsciously recognizes this one principle,--the essential dignity and worth of the individual man. This is what enables it to dispense with the mechanism of separate classes, and to reach human nature itself. When we look at the masters of English fiction, Scott and Jane Austen, we notice that in scarcely one of their novels does one person ever swerve on the closing page from the precise social position he has held from the beginning. Society in their hands is fixed, not fluid. Of course, there are a few concealed heirs, a few revealed strawberry leaves, but never any essential change. I can recall no real social promotion in all the Waverley novels except where Halbert Glendenning weds the maid of Avenel, and there the tutelary genius disappears singing,--