"But a young school will spring up, some of whom may take their places,"
said Tolstoy.
"It has already sprung up," I said, "and is well on the way to manhood.
One great drawback, however, I find in mentioning the names of all of them to a European, or even to an Englishman, is the fact that so many of our characteristic American authors write in a dialect which is all that we Americans can do to understand. For instance, take the negro stories, which to me are like my mother tongue, brought up as I was in the South. Thousands of Northern people who have never been South are unable to read it, and to them it holds no humour and no pathos. To the ordinary Englishman, it is like so much Greek, and to the continental English-speaking person it is like Sanskrit. In the same way the New England stories, which are written in Yankee dialect, cannot be understood by people in the South who have never been North. How then can we expect Europeans to manage them?"
"How extraordinary," said Tolstoy. "And both are equally typical, I suppose?"
"Equally so," I replied.
"The reason she understands them both," broke in Jimmie, "is because her mother comes from the northernmost part of the northernmost State in the Union, and her father from a point almost equally in the South.
There is but one State between his birthplace and the Gulf of Mexico."
"About the same distance," said Tolstoy, "as if your mother came from Petersburg and your father from Odessa."
"But there are others who write English which is not distorted in its spelling. James Lane Alien and Henry B. Fuller are particularly noted for their lucid English and literary style; Cable writes Creole stories of Louisiana; Mary Hartwell Catherwood, stories of French Canadians and the early French settlers in America; Bret Harte, stories of California mining camps; Mary Hallock Foote, civil engineering stories around the Rocky Mountains; Weir Mitch.e.l.l, Quaker stories of Pennsylvania; and Charles Egbert Craddock lays her plots in the Tennessee mountains. Of all these authors, each has written at least two books along the lines I have indicated, and I mention them, thinking they would be particularly interesting to you as descriptive of portions of the United States."
"All these," said Tolstoy, meditatively, "in one country."
"Not only that," I said, "but no two alike, and most of them as widely different as if one wrote in French and the other in German."
"A wonderful country," murmured Tolstoy again. "I have often thought of going there, but now I am too old."
"There is no one in the world," I answered him, "in the realm of letters or social economics, whom the people of America would rather see than you."
He bowed gracefully, and only answered again:
"No, I am too old now. I wish I had gone there when I could. But tell me," he added, "have you no authors who write universally?"
"Universally," I repeated. "That is a large word. Yes, we have Mark Twain. He is our most eminent literary figure at present."
"Ah! Mark Twain," repeated Tolstoy. "I have heard of him."
"Have you indeed? I thought no one was known in Europe, except Fenimore Cooper. He is supposed to have written universally of America, because he never wrote anything but Indian stories! In France, they know of Poe, and like him because they tell me that he was like themselves."
"He was insane, was he not?" said Tolstoy, innocently.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, for Tolstoy had not perpetrated that as a jest.
"But many of our most whimsical and most delicious authors could not be appreciated by Europe in general, because Europeans are all so ignorant of us. There is Frank Stockton, whose humour continentals would be sure to take seriously, and then Thomas Nelson Page writes most effectively when he uses negro dialect. His story "Ma.r.s.e Chan," which made him famous, I consider the best short story ever written in America.
Hopkinson Smith, too, has written a book which deserves to live for ever, depicting as it does a phase of the reconstruction period, when Southern gentlemen of the old school came into contact with the Northern business methods. Books like these would seem trivial to a European, because they represent but a single step in our curious history."
"I understand," said Tolstoy, sympathetically. "Of course it is difficult for us to realise that America is not one nation, but an amalgamation of all nations. To the casual thinker, America is an off-shoot of England."
"Perfectly true," said Jimmie, "and that barring the fact that we speak a language which is, in some respects, similar to the English, no nations are more foreign to each other than the United States and England. It would be better for the English if they had a few more Bryces among them."
"If it weren"t for the dialects," said Tolstoy, "I think more Europeans would be interested in American literature."
"That is true," I said, "and yet, without dialects, you wouldn"t get the United States as it really is. There are heaps and heaps of Americans who won"t read dialect themselves, but they miss a great deal. Take, for instance, James Whitcomb Riley, a poet who, to my mind, possesses absolute genius,--the genius of the commonplace. His best things are all in dialect, which a great many find difficult, and yet, when he gives public readings from his own poems, he draws audiences which test the capacity of the largest halls. I myself have seen him recalled nineteen times."
"America and Russia are growing closer together every day," said Tolstoy. "Every year we use more of your American machinery; your plows, and threshers, and mowing-machines, and all agricultural implements are coming into use here. Every year some Americans settle in Russia from business interests, and we are rapidly becoming dependent on you for our coal. If you had a larger merchant marine, it would benefit our mutual interests wonderfully. Is your country as much interested in Russia as we are in you?"
"Equally so," I said. "Russian literature is very well understood in America. We read all your books. We know Pushkin and Tourguenieff. Your Russian music is played by our orchestras, and your Russian painter, Verestchagin, exhibited his paintings in all the large cities, and made us familiar with his genius."
"All art, all music has a moral effect upon the soul. Verestchagin paints war--hideous war! Moral questions should be talked about and discussed, and a remedy found for them. In America you will not discuss many questions. Even in the translations of my books, parts which seem important to me are left out. Why is that? It limits you, does it not?"
"I suppose the demand creates the supply," I ventured. "We may be prudish, but as yet the moral questions you speak of have not such a hold on our young republic that they need drastic measures. When we become more civilised, and society more cancerous, doubtless the public mind will permit these questions to be discussed."
"The time for repentance is in advance of the crime," said Tolstoy.
"American prudery is narrowing in its effect on our art," I ventured, timidly.
"Is that the reason for many of your artists and authors living abroad?"
"It may be. We certainly are not encouraged in America to depict life as it is. That is one reason I think why foreign authors sell their books by the thousands in America, and by the hundreds in their own country."
"Then the taste is there, is it?" asked Tolstoy.
"The common sense is there," I said, bluntly,--"the common sense to know that our authors are limited to depicting a phase instead of the whole life, and then, if you are going to get the whole life, you must read foreign authors. It"s just as if a sculptor should confine himself to shaping fingers, and toes, and noses, and ears because the public refuses to take a finished study."
"But why, why is it?" said Tolstoy, with a touch of impatience. "If you will read the whole thing when written by foreign authors, why do you not encourage your own?"
"I am sure I don"t know," I said, "unless it is on the simple principle that many men enjoy the ballet scene in opera, while they would not permit their wives and daughters to take part in it."
"America is the protector of the family," said Jimmie, regarding me with a hostile eye.
Tolstoy tactfully changed the subject out of deference to Jimmie"s displeasure.
"Do many Russians visit America?" asked Tolstoy.
"Oh, yes, quite a number, and they are among our most agreeable visitors. Prince Serge Wolkonsky travelled so much and made so many addresses that he made Russia more popular than ever."
"Do you know how popular you are in America?" said Jimmie, blushing at his own temerity.
"I know how many of my books are sold there, and I get many kind letters from Americans."
"Isn"t he considered the greatest living man of letters in America?"
said Jimmie, appealingly to me boyishly.
"Undoubtedly," I replied, smiling, because Tolstoy smiled.
"Whom do you consider the greatest living author?" asked Jimmie.
"Mrs. Humphrey Ward," said Tolstoy, decisively.
This was a thunderbolt which stopped the conversation of the other members of the party.
"And one of your greatest Americans," went on Tolstoy, "was Henry George."
"From a literary point of view, or--"