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Kirkland (search for this): chapter 10
of Peter Parley (sometimes written by Hawthorne), gave a most vivid charm to the Western wilds and rivers. In The pioneers Cooper made us already conscious citizens of a great nation, and took our imagination as far as the Mississippi. Lewis and Clark carried us beyond the Mississippi (1814). About 1835 Oregon expeditions were forming, and I remember when boys in New England used to peep through barn doors to admire the great wagons in which the emigrants were to travel. Then came Mrs. Kirkland's A New home, Who'll follow? （1839). Besides this we had Irving's Tour of the prairies (1835) and his Astoria the following year. The West was still a word for vast expeditions, for the picturesqueness and the uncertainty of Indian life, and not for the amenities of a civilized condition. Aspirants for literary fame were not long lacking, to be sure, but as most of their work was based upon reading rather than experience, it had nothing characteristically Western about it. Most of the
Ichabod Crane (search for this): chapter 10
Chapter 9: the Western influence It is not a great many years since the mere suggestion of any Western achievement in literature would have called out such anecdotes as belonged to the time when Senator Blackburn and Colonel Pepper of whiskeymaking fame are said to have been talking about horses at Washington; and Representative Crane of Texas asked them, Why do you not talk of something else? Of literature, for instance, to improve your minds? I like poets, he said, especially Emerson and Longfellow. Longfellow? interrupted Colonel Pepper; oh, yes, I know Longfellow; he is the best horse ever raised in Kentucky. That was the point from which Western literature started; and its progress has been so recent that it is not possible, as it has been in our studies hitherto, to appeal to the verdict of time. Most of that progress, indeed, has been made during the past twenty years. First writers. Of the few voices which commanded marked attention before that time, Bret Ha
Pepper (search for this): chapter 10
Chapter 9: the Western influence It is not a great many years since the mere suggestion of any Western achievement in literature would have called out such anecdotes as belonged to the time when Senator Blackburn and Colonel Pepper of whiskeymaking fame are said to have been talking about horses at Washington; and Representative Crane of Texas asked them, Why do you not talk of something else? Of literature, for instance, to improve your minds? I like poets, he said, especially Emerson and Longfellow. Longfellow? interrupted Colonel Pepper; oh, yes, I know Longfellow; he is the best horse ever raised in Kentucky. That was the point from which Western literature started; and its progress has been so recent that it is not possible, as it has been in our studies hitherto, to appeal to the verdict of time. Most of that progress, indeed, has been made during the past twenty years. First writers. Of the few voices which commanded marked attention before that time, Bret Ha
Mark Twain (search for this): chapter 10
re he came East again and left American shores forever. Mark Twain and Mr. Howells were born east of the Missouri, which coto what had taken their place he replied, Bret Harte and Mark Twain. It is undoubtedly these two men rather than any othersolitan a man must be at home even in his own country. Mark Twain. Over-refinement is not the fault with which Mark TwaMark Twain can ever be accused; his reckless robustness, indeed, constitutes his main strength. I myself was first introduced to MMark Twain's books in 1872 by an unimpeachable English authority-on a somewhat different line from Mr. Clemens,--namely, Charles Darwin. What! he said to me, you have never read Mark Twain? I always keep his Jumping Frog on a chair by my bedside Englishmen have ever been very discriminating critics of Mark Twain. As they have never demanded of him high literary qualiy of the Mississippi under the name of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain did something toward laying the foundation of an origina
Sarah Orne Jewett (search for this): chapter 10
h more artificial society. It is as inevitable as the yearning of every clever amateur comedian to act Hamlet. Bret Harte and many of his successors handle admirably the types they knew in early life, but the moment they attempt to delineate a highly-bred woman the curtain rises on a creaking doll in starched petticoats. Few, indeed, of our early Western authors could venture to portray, what would seem not so impossible, an everyday gentleman or lady. For the East, on the other hand, Miss Jewett has been able to produce types of the old New England gentry, dwelling perhaps in the quietest of country towns, yet incapable of any act which is not dignified or gracious; and Miss Viola Roseboro has depicted such figures as that of the old Southern lady, living in a cheap New York boarding-house, toiling her life away to pay her brother's or her father's debts, and yet so exquisite in all her ways that the very page which describes her seems to exhale a delicate odor as of faded jasmin
Artemus Ward (search for this): chapter 10
the quality of the American joke. Artemus War. So far as pure humor is concerned, there has never been a distinct boundary line between England and America. Nor can we say that what is called American humor belongs distinctively to the West. The early humorists were mostly of Eastern origin, though bred and emancipated in the Westthus Artemus Ward was from Maine, Josh Billings from Massachusetts, and Orpheus C. Kerr and Eli Perkins from New York. The prince among these jokers was Artemus Ward, who as a lecturer glided noiselessly upon the stage as if dressed for Hamlet, and looked as surprised as Hamlet if the audience laughed. The stage was dark, and the performance was interrupted by himself at intervals, to look for an imaginary pianist and singer who never came, but who became as real to the audience as Jefferson's imaginary dog Schneider in Rip Van Winkle, for whom he was always vainly whistling. This unseen singer, we were told, would thrill every heart with his song,
James Fenimore Cooper (search for this): chapter 10
positively that this nation could never have a great literature because no people had ever possessed one unless living within easy reach of the ocean. Time has shown that a vast inland country has also its resources and its stimulus; as, indeed, Cooper long ago indicated by naming one of his earliest novels The Prairie. Such a field must of course develop physically before it develops intellectually; and commonly artistic development comes later still. Only a century ago three fourths of the lso who wrote from Cincinnati to the London Athenaeum and had his books translated into French. These books, with those of Peter Parley (sometimes written by Hawthorne), gave a most vivid charm to the Western wilds and rivers. In The pioneers Cooper made us already conscious citizens of a great nation, and took our imagination as far as the Mississippi. Lewis and Clark carried us beyond the Mississippi (1814). About 1835 Oregon expeditions were forming, and I remember when boys in New Engl
Timothy Flint (search for this): chapter 10
the vast energy hitherto employed in the task of opening the West will presently be spared from the toil of practical life, to give a good account of itself in literature. Early writers about the West. The first authors who came from the West to delight our young people at the East were. Audubon, the ornithologist, who had a way of interspersing between his bird sketches certain intermediate chapters called Episodes, usually personal narratives in the woods, beginning in 1831--and Timothy Flint, who wrote Ten years in the Valley of the Mississippi (1826), and also who wrote from Cincinnati to the London Athenaeum and had his books translated into French. These books, with those of Peter Parley (sometimes written by Hawthorne), gave a most vivid charm to the Western wilds and rivers. In The pioneers Cooper made us already conscious citizens of a great nation, and took our imagination as far as the Mississippi. Lewis and Clark carried us beyond the Mississippi (1814). About
Simon Kenton (search for this): chapter 10
cky forests with only his rifle for company. He could not take even a dog for fear of the Indians; and once he had to travel a hundred miles on a single meal. There were springs in the Licking Valley where twenty thousand buffaloes came and went, and whole Indian tribes followed their tracks. The Indians never once even saw Boone, for they did not suspect that any white man could be there; and he avoided their tracks and never saw them. After a while, there was another white explorer, Simon Kenton, whose coming into that region was unknown to Boone. They had approached the valley from opposite directions; each recognized by signs that there was a human being somewhere near, but. out of sight. Then began long hours of noiseless manceuvres on each side, spying, evading, listening, concealing, climbing, burrowing, each trying to find out without self-betrayal who or of what race this stranger was; and such was their skill in concealment that it was fortyeight hours before either of
Jumping Frog (search for this): chapter 10
its limitations; to be truly cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country. Mark Twain. Over-refinement is not the fault with which Mark Twain can ever be accused; his reckless robustness, indeed, constitutes his main strength. I myself was first introduced to Mark Twain's books in 1872 by an unimpeachable English authority-on a somewhat different line from Mr. Clemens,--namely, Charles Darwin. What! he said to me, you have never read Mark Twain? I always keep his Jumping Frog on a chair by my bedside that I may turn to it in case of sleeplessness! and however doubtful this form of compliment may appear, it was certainly something that it cheered the wakeful hours of so great a brain. It is not to be admitted, however, that Englishmen have ever been very discriminating critics of Mark Twain. As they have never demanded of him high literary qualities, they have never felt his occasional want of them nor been especially interested when he developed them. He h
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