A study of realism in the writings of Joel Chandler Harris

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Content A STUDY OF REALISM IN THE WRITINGS OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English The University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy t>7 Charles Arthur Ray June 1952 UMl Number: DP22998 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMl DP22998 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 (THCnrf i This dissertation, w ritte n by QMr.i©s...4 ?!^yr...R%j..................... under the guidance o f h.hB—F a cu lty Com m ittee on Studies, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the C ouncil on Graduate Study and Research, in p a rtia l f u l fillm e n t of requirements f o r the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Committee on Studies Chairman “ TY.. V i a?~ x . ^ il. > = , . O P^-0 E ' S 3 - , Qtiii h { . / n\c TABLE OP CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION....................... 1 II. HARRIS’S REPUTATION AS REALIST........ .. . 12 III. BACKGROUND FACTORS IN THE LIFE OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ............................ 28 IV. HARRIS AND THE FOUR CORNERSTONES OF AMERICAN REALISM................. 51 V. THE DISCUSSION OF REALISM IN THE LITERARY EDITORIALS OF THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION. 1879-1898 .................................. 69 VI. HARRIS’S LITERARY AIMS AND SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OF HIS APPROACH TO AN ESTHETIC OF REALISM . 102 VII. HARRIS’S PRACTICE OF REALISM AS SEEN IN HIS TREATMENT OF CHARACTER, PLOT, SETTING, AND STYLE ............................ 144 VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . ......................234 CHAPTER I / INTRODUCTION The purpose of this investigation is to study the literary realism in the writings of Joel Chandler Harris. Realism is a term that defies dogmatic definition. Harris himself recognized this when he spoke of the ". . . narrow but impassible gulf that lies between the realism of art and the realism of life. . . . "1 William Dean Howells and Henry James, two pioneer American realists, likewise recog nized the complexities and ambiguities of the term. Howells once remarked that the name "realism” was "... not 2 particularly good. . . ." James occasionally spoke of the ". . . so-called principles of realism. ..." Histori cally, the term realism seems to have been introduced into American literary criticism in the 1850’s.^ It was not until the 1880's, however, that realism began to denote the 5 literary temper which is the basis of the present 1 Joel Chandler Harris, "The American Type," Atlanta Constitution. November 25, 1885, p. 2. 2 Robert P. Falk, "The Rise of Realism, 1871-1891," p. 16. 5 5kid-> P* 17* 4 Ibid., p. 59. 5 Realism, as used in this study, is the literary temper implicit in Emerson’s 1837 declaration: ". . .1 ask not the great, the remote, the romantic. . . . I embrace the •common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. ..." "The American Scholar" in F. I. Carpenter, Emerson: Representative Selections. p. 67. 2 investigation. Q P or""Ihe—purpTTs-e^of^thirs—dis-eu-s-s-ion, realism® may be considered as that style of writing by which an author 7 attempts to represent the ’ ’truth” of ’ ’real” life. The author of realistic writings accomplishes his purpose through the selection of ordinary characters, with a preference for faithful character portrayal over plot; the avoidance of elaborate plot; the use of familiar settings which the realist himself has observed; the employ ment of a recent time within the author's memory; the revelation of an honest attitude that essays to interpret life in normal proportions, and which may be described as 6 See P. L. Pattee’s definition of realism as the term was used in the 80*s: ”. . . selected bits of nature pictorially presented, native stuff unidealized, ordinary folks,--never extraordinarily ideal or extraordinarily repulsive— in the ordinary sequences of life; no elaborate plots, no heroes, no heroines, no inflated diction.” The Development of the American Short Story, p. 268. 7 See Stuart P. Sherman, ’ ’The Barbaric Naturalism of Theodore Dreiser,” p. 88: ”. . . No one who is not drunken with the egotism of the hour, no one who has penetrated with sober senses into the spirit of any historical period anterior to his own, will fall into the indecency of declar ing his own age preeminent in the desire to see and tell the truth. The real distinction between one generation and another is in the thing which each takes for its master truth— is in the thing which each recognizes as the essential reality for it. ...” Note, however, Hawthorne's comment about the romance ^ in the preface to The House of the Seven Gables: ”. . . while as a work of art it. the romance must rigidly submit ( to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart— has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he ‘ thinks fit also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or to mellow the lights and deepen and en rich the shadows of the picture. . . . ” p. 13. representing the clear light of day as opposed to a • ’romantic" haze that would distort the true perspective. ) These are not inflexible criteria, and not every author adheres to all. However, to the extent that he observes 8 these criteria, to that extent may he be considered a realistic writer. The present investigation is based upon an exami nation of Harris's folklore, his prose fiction (including two novels, four novelettes, and eight volumes of short stories), his letters, prefaces, editorials, essays, and interviews. In addition to the above known works of Harris this investigation examines the literary editorials of the Atlanta Constitution for a period extending from 1879 9 through 1898, when the controversy over realism was at its height in America. Harris was chief editorial writer for the Constitution during this period. This investigation considers also some of the influential native and foreign forces in the development of realism as they affected 8 Cf. also the seven point criteria of Addison P. Hibbard in Writers of the Western World, pp. 889-898: (1) Realism seeks to present the Truthj (2) The Realist seeks his Truth through the faithful portrayal of character (3) The Realist looks at life objectively; (4) Realism interprets Life; (5) Realism writes of contemporary life; (6) The Narrative in realism moves slowly; (7) Realism relies greatly on sense impressions. 9 Pattee, o£. cit., p. 268. Cf. also Herbert Edwards, "Howells and the Controversy over Realism in American Fiction." American Literature, III, 1931, pp. 79- 82. For a recent discussion of the interrelationship of James and Howells in the controversy, see Falk, op. cit., pp. 35-44. 4 Harris's attitude toward fiction in his region and through out the country. As one of the representative writers of the South of his day, Harris demonstrates in his relation ship to realism the characteristic attitude of the New South group of writers toward postwar realism. ' To a limited extent, then, the investigation of Harris's realism becomes an investigation of realism in the South. To simplify the following discussion, it is desirable to clarify several terms which are often associated with realism: "romanticism, " "effectism," "veritism, " "local color," and "naturalism." First of all, it may be pointed out that "realism" and "romanticism" are not antithetical terms. As Professor Warm points out, "realism" and "romanticism" are . . . merely different manifestations of an interpretation of life that, in its emphasis upon the material, is in direct opposition to the "classical" view of life, that which disregards the external and the material in favor of the ideal, the inner reality. . . .10 10 Louis Wann, The Rise of Realism, 1860-1900, p. 3. Gordon S. Haight, in his chapter devoted to Howells in the Literary History of the United States, III, p. 878, asserts that the main difference between the realist and the romanticist or the local colorist writer "... lay less in their choice of material than in their intention. . . ." Haight maintains that the romanticist is as interested in plausible backgrounds as the realist, but he says the romanticist's main interest is in displaying the subjective passions, while the main aim of the realist is an ", . . accurate, objective production of scene and character for its own sake. . . As Haight recognizes, however, it is impossible to classify intention in many cases, and for this reason, it is inadvisable to classify a writer dogmatically as "realist" or "romanticist." "Realism” and "romanticism” became shibboleths of opposing literary camps in American literary criticism after Howells's review of James in the Century for November, 1882. The controversy over so-called realism thus precipitated had its origins in two divergent literary attitudes which had been apparent to critics for two centuries. The issue, as Professor Wann states, was . . between those who would Idealize the external world in one of its many aspects, and those who report the same external world in all its verity. . . ." The terms "veritism" and "effeetism," used by Hamlin Garland in Crumbling Idols (1893), suggest the underlying issues more accurately than the confusing terms "realism” and "romanticism.” "Strive for truth and leave the effect to take care of itself,” Garland advised.^ "Local color" is interested primarily in portraying the externals of typical scenery in which characters are placed, typical dialect, and typical 13 costumes. Realism, on the other hand, is interested in portraying with understanding the human nature underlying the characters that an author presents."Naturalism” is 15 "extreme realism that sets man in a mechanistic world." 11 Wann, loc. cit. 12 Loc. cit. 13 . pp* lo-n. 14 Loc. cit. 15 Vernon L. Farrington, The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America, p. 325. In general, critical discussions of realism have centered around three conceptions of the term: (1) copying of actual facts, (2) the deliberate choice of the common- 1 A place, and (3) the deliberate choice of the unpleasant. Perhaps the most popular of these ideas is the first— that realism is photographic in its accuracy and impartiality. This view holds that realism thus handled presents a "transcript” or "cross section" or "a slice of life." The analogy will not hold, however, because the literary artist can not achieve the absolute impartiality of the camera. Stuart Sherman points out the fallacy of this analogy: The only serious objection to this figurative explanation of the artistic process is the utter dissimilarity between the blank impartial photo graphic plate, commemorating everything that confronts it, and the crowded inveterately selec tive mind, which, like a magnet, snatches the facts of life that are subject to its influence out of their casual order and redisposes them in a pattern of its own. The deliberate choice of the commonplace and the deliberate choice of the unpleasant, the second and third interpretations of realism, are defined by selection of subject matter alone. Neither gives any thought to the method of the presentation of the material. The choice of the commonplace that Howells's early work epitomizes in American fiction, in Howells's insistence upon surrendering himself to the "atmosphere" of his subject, remains today a 16 Bliss Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction, p. 224. 17 Sherman, op. cit., p. 89. valid criterion of the author of realistic writing. For a long while it has been customary to deprecate Howells*s realism by recalling his preference in his fiction for ”the smiling aspects of life.” A recent writer, however, has suggested that Howells came much nearer the desideratum of the modern realist than is commonly supposed. The method of the realist recognizes the function of fiction to portray the normal and the abnormal in life like proportions. The realist recognizes that fiction must be selective, not photographic. His method includes the use of dialect and the use of sense impressions, for, as 19 Norman Foerster has remarked, the standards of science are fundamental to modern realism. A recent interpretation of realism is that of Mr. Robert P. Falk. Considering realism as an effort toward synthesis of nineteenth century literary principles and critical methods, Mr. Falk says: Against a background of controversy in philo sophical and religious circles, and one of growing eollectivist sentiment as opposed to the prevailing individualism of the American temper, intellectuals undertook to bring together in some kind of synthesis, the widely disparate elements of an age of conflict and change. Literary critics and novelists, sensitive to both the old and the new, moved slowly toward a new stabilization largely in terms of English and French fictional models and 18 Everett Carter, William Dean Howells 1s Theory of Realism in Fiction, p. 3. 19 Norman Foerster, The Reinterpretation of American Literature, pp. 34-35. 8 critical methods. Prom the artistic controversies over naturalism and realism in the paintings of Gustave Courbet, from the criticism of Taine and St. Beuve, from the English realism of George Eliot and Thackeray, and the French realistic naturalism of Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola— as well as, in term3 of American social, political and philosophical thought— literature and criticism in America sought a new basis and a new justification.20 Harris’s major work in fiction was done during the 1880’s when Howells’s "elaborate transcriptions of the 21 commonplace" represented the dominant emphasis in American realistic technique. However, Harris, like Howells, continued to write fiction through the middle nineties when Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Harold Frederic began 22 their "experiment in naturalism." Moreover, Harris was 20 Falk, o£. cit., p. 3. 21 Parrington, o£. cit., pp. 144-145. 22 Ibid., pp. 323-325. Naturalism, which originated in France with the publication of Zola’s Experimental Novel, is synonymous with the attributes of the experimental novelist, who, according to Zola: ". . . is the one who accepts proven facts, who points out in man and in society the mechanism of the phenomena over which science is mistress, and who does not interpose his personal senti ments, except in the phenomena whose determinism is not yet settled, and who tries to test, as much as he can this personal sentiment, this a priori, by observation and experi ment."; p. 53. See also Farrington, o£. cit., p. 325, who says: "Naturalism is a pessimistic realism with a philoso phy that sets man in a mechanical world and conceives of him as victimized by that world. ..." In a discussion of "Naturalism in American Fiction," Parrington lists six criteria of naturalism, which may be phrased as follows: (1) Scientific objectivity; (2) Frankness about the whole man, emphasizing hunger, fear, and sex; (3) Amorality; (4) A philosophy of determinism . . . the vital principle of naturalism, setting it off from realism; (5) A bias toward pessimism in selecting details; (6) Preference for three types of characters, physical brutes of strong desires, 9 heir to the Middle Georgia tradition of comieo-realism which in Augustus B. Longstreet bordered on an autochtho- 23 nous naturalism. Between Longstreet's Georgia Scenes of 1830 and Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road of 1930 we may observe a century of shifting literary trends which 24 climaxed in a revival of Southern Gothieism* In time, Harris stands midway between the two— Longstreet and Caldwell. His place as technician between the two groups becomes one of the major problems of this study. The final test of an author's realism depends upon his view of "reality.” For this reason, Haight comments, 25 ". . . Realism must always be a relative term. ..." To Stendhal, reality meant "the effort to state truly and precisely what men are in the world that is." To George Eliot, who reflected Wordsworth’s influence in Adam Bede, it meant emphasis upon homely subjects: "the faithful neurotics,and strong characters of broken wills. Ibid., pp. 323-334. Cf. also W. A. Hitze and E. P. Dargan, History of French Literature, p. 623, who say that natural ism ". . . magnifies a study of the industries, and seeks to apply to fiction the processes of the natural sciences; from these, taken in application to heredity and environ ment, it draws its conceptions of life— deterministic, fatalistic, and essentially pessimistic. . . ." 23 Shields Mcllwaine, The Southern Poor White from Lubberland to Tobacco Road, pp. 219-220. 24 Loc. cit. 25 Haight, op. cit., p. 378. 26 Loc. cit 10 27 representation of commonplace things.” To Harris, living in the South of the Reconstruction period, ’ ’reality” meant being . . true to truth and that larger truth my own 28 true self. ...” ’ ’Being true to self,” Hamlin Garland says in Main Travelled Roads, ’ ’the modern artist will find 29 that he loves realities that are near to him.” To discover the ”realities” that were near to Harris and to ascertain the author’s idea of ’ ’truth” are factors which can be determined only after a consideration of his repu tation as realist, the influential forces in his background that shaped his personality, and his literary aims and practices In relationship to his total writings. Following this introductory chapter, this investi gation analyzes Harris's reputation as realist. Chapter III considers Harris's background from his parentage and early years through his apprenticeship in journalism. The study of his background includes a discussion of the influential books in his life, his marriage to a young French-Canadian, and Harris's conversion to Catholicism in his final days. Chapter IV discusses Harris in relationship to the ’ ’four cornerstones” of American realism. These "cornerstones,” as they are called by Professor Wann in his The Rise of Realism, 1860-1900. are: Folk Literature, Frontier Humor, * 27 H&ight, loc. cit. 28 J. B. Hubbell, "Letters of TJnele Remus," p. 221. 29 Hamlin Garland, Main Travelled Roads, p. 251. 11 the Vogue of Local Color, and the Advance of Science. Chapter. V examines the literary editorials in the Atlanta Constitution during the time Harris was chief editorial writer, 1879-1899, a period that also witnessed the con flict in opinions over realism in American periodicals. Particular attention is paid to the discussions of realism. Chapter VI extracts and correlates Harris’s statements of his literary aims from the main body of his work. Prom these statements an attempt is made to deduce his theory of realism. Chapter VII analyzes Harris's realism in his most representative works and attempts to correlate Harris's realism in practice with his previous critical pronouncements on realism and literature in general. Chapter VIII summarizes the findings of this investigation. CHAPTER II HARRIS'S REPUTATION AS REALIST Harris’s reputation as author of the Uncle Remus volumes of folklore in Negro dialect has tended to obscure his reputation in other types of prose fiction.'*' He was the author of eight volumes of short stories, two novels, three novelettes, one biography, one anecdotal history of Georgia, and five volumes of stories designed for children known as "The Little Mr. Thimblefinger Series," and he collaborated with his wife in the translation of a volume of children's stories from the French of Frederic Ortoli. In addition, he contributed introductions to eight volumes of poems, songs, and reminiscences and edited a volume of children's stories for the Young Folks' Library and another volume in The World's Wit and Humor series. All of this work was done, as Harris points out with almost pathological consistency, in the midst of his work on a daily newspaper. He also contributed numerous editorials to newspapers and magazines, and at the time of his death in 1908, he was editing his own Uncle Remus »s Magazine. Recent commentators are taking increasing notice of Harris's versatility, as is 1 Carlos Baker, in The Literary History of the United States, II, p. 853, says of Harris's short story collections (Mingo, 1884 and Free Joe. 1887), ". , . Had he done nothing besides the stories in these and several later collections, Harris would still stand out as a minor master among the Southern genre writers." 13 evidenced in Gregory Paine’s appraisal of Harris in his study, Southern Prose Writers, in the American Writers Series; . . . Harris was a versatile writer of both romantic and realistic aspects of southern life, . . . he was a capable editorialist for the New South, and . . . he was a shrewd critic of literature and polities.2 This chapter proposes to analyze some of the representative criticisms of the ’ ’realistic" aspects of Harris’s writings. The critical discussions of Harris's realism may be considered according to the six categories into which he is put by various critics: (1) Naturalist, (2) Quasi-realistic writer, (3) Consistent Realist, (4) Critical Realist, (5) Realistic Social Historian, and (6) Romantic Realist. William Malone Baskerville said in 1896 that Harris, Richard Malcolm Johnston, and others of the Georgia group . are not realists at all in the modern sense; for nothing is further from their writing than sadness and pessimism." Asserting that "naturalism" describes the literary method of the Georgians, Baskerville says they "look frankly and hearken attentively;" although they may be behind Fielding and Shakespeare in holding "the mirror up to nature," they do have "coloring, tone, and substance," which they have reproduced "with absolute fidelity." Then, 2 Gregory Paine, Southern Prose Writers. p. 256. 3 Cited by Wallace P. Reed, Atlanta Constitution, May 23, 1896, p. 4. 4 Loc. cit. 14 commenting on the literary progress which accompanied the liberalizing of the Southern attitude after the Civil War, For Baskerville Harris possessed the qualities of what we may term the understanding realist. His use of the term ‘ 'naturalism” is encountered elsewhere in the criticism of the period, but it is the naturalism of “truth to nature" rather than that of the French realistic-naturalists. There are two contrasting attitudes toward Harris as quasi-realistic writer. The first is that of F. L. Pattee. Pattee's attitude is significant, for he apparently arrived at it after an examination of the two collections of short stories upon which Harris's reputation in this genre rests in considerable measure today. Selecting three stories from Free Joe and Mingo as among Harris’s best efforts in short prose fiction, Pattee observes; While such sketches as ’At Teague Poteet’s,’ ’Free Joe,’ and ’Trouble on Lost Mountain’ are not strictly realistic— they are chosen instances softened and idealized— they are as near to realism as the South has ever got.® ® F. L. Pattee, The Development of the American Short Story, pp. 282-283. Baskerville says of Harris . . . the most sympathetic, the most original the truest delineator of this larger life— its manners, customs, amusements, dialect, folklore, athos and character is Joel Chandler 5 Reed, loc. cit. 15 In The Cambridge History of American Literature, Pattee says in a discussion of the short story in the 'eighties that ". . • Realism, or more exactly perhaps, naturalism, 7 ruled the decade. . . .M Pattee also speaks of Harris as surpassing Miss Murfree's depiction of the mountain milieu and its inhabitants, and he asserts that Harris has caught the spirit of life itself in his portrayal. However, in speaking of the softening and idealizing in the ahove three sketches, Pattee clearly implies that Harris shirked from the depiction of the unvarnished truth. Implicit in Pattee's criticism also is the note that contemporary Southern mores possibly contributed to Harris's ’ 'softening1 1 and ’ ’idealizing.1 1 This latter attitude is explicit in Sterling Brown's study, The Negro in American Fiction. On the basis of his study of two of the short story collections, Sister Jane and On the Plantation, Brown says that Harris "... with all his value as a realist . . . never came fully to grips Q with the reality of the South or of Negro experience. . Harris was "a kindly man," Brown says, but he adds, ”, . • he was a Southerner living in vexatious times, and therefore his fiction most always glorified the faithful self-denying 7 F. L. Pattee, The Cambridge History of American Literature, II, pp. 388-389. 8 Sterling Brown, The Negro in American Fiction, p. 57. 16 slave of the Old South, for whom the old days of slavery 9 were the best. . . . ” Brown says Harris "came a good distance down the road toward fairness if compared with Thomas Nelson Page,” but the critic maintains that Harris, ’ ’compared with George Washington Cable and Mark Twain still lagged behind.” A similar criticism is voiced by Shields Mellwaine in his study, The Southern Poor White. Mellwaine attributes Harris’s shortcomings as artist to his zeal as a concili ator between the North and the South. Moreover, Harris’s ’ ’ humble origin and Southern emotional heritage” resulted in an over-sentimental portrait of the poor-white, according to Mellwaine.^ Thus, Brown and Mellwaine say that Harris’s Southern background and his sympathy for lower class whites and Negroes interfered with the honesty and relative objectivity of his delineation of the folk-personality of both classes. Nevertheless, both critics are willing to concede the outlines of realism in Harris’s fiction. Representatives of the second view of Harris as quasi-realistic writer are Professor Edwin Mims and G. H. Genzmer. Professor Mims, who says the Uncle Remus stories represent Harris's ’ ’surest chance for literary immortality,” 9 Ibid.. pp. 57-58. ^ koc. cit. 11 Mellwaine, oj>. cit., pp. 112-113. 17 thus appraises his realism. . . . As an offset to the sentimental portrait of Uncle Tom or the absurd parody of the minstrel show, he is a realistic portrayer of the old time negro.12 Genzmer, in the Dictionary of American Biography, says that in a number of stories Harris ’ ’depicted certain Georgia types with a tactful realism but honestly and out of pure knowledge. . . . ’ ’That he was always faithful to the 14 pattern of his original is hardly to be denied," Genzmer says. The view of Harris as "consistent realist" deals primarily with his Negro characterizations. John Herbert Nelson, in his study The Negro Character in American Fiction, states, ". . . In depicting the negro Harris was, in his 15 best work, a consistent realist." Nelson's concept of 16 realism appears to mean "true to life." Whereas Brown and Mellwaine attribute Harris’s shortcomings as realist to his Southern emotional heritage, Nelson contends that it was this very heritage, accentuated by his being "an illegiti- 17 mate child," "that enabled him to put himself into the 12 Edwin Mims, "Two Great Americans," p. 530. 13 G. H. Genzmer, Dictionary of American Biography. VIII, p. 313. 14 Loc. cit. 13 John H. Nelson, The Negro Character in American Fiction, p. 111. 16 Ibid., P. 106. 17 Ibid., p. 108. 18 place of his dusky friends, and share their feelings, their enthusiasms, their joys, their attitude toward a puzzling 18 world. . . . As a consistent realist, Harris, according to Nelson, ". . . looked at the old South as it actually was, or at most cast only a moderate amount of glamor over 19 its story. ..." Nelson, in absolving Thomas Nelson 20 Page of "fundamentally misrepresenting the negro," says, "Since the African is so patently a fun-loving, earthy, happy-go-lucky-type, the realist has usually succeeded best 21 with him. ..." Nelson intimates that in Uncle Remus's sketch, "Brother Mud Turtle's Trickery" ". . . the whole op range of negro character is revealed. ..." For another expression of this view, we may turn to Thomas Nelson Page's appraisal of Harris: No man who has ever written has known one-tenth the part about the Negro that Mr. Harris knows, and for those who hereafter shall wish to find not merely words, but the real language of the Negro of that section and the habit3 of all American Negroes of the old time, his works will be the best thesaurus.23 18 Ibid.. p. 109. 19 Ibid.. p. 111. 20 Ibid., p. 105. 21 Loc. cit. 22 Ibid., p. 118. See also pp. 116-118, and cf* Sterling Brown, "Negro Characters as Seen by White Authors," p. 180. 23 Ibid., p. 119. Cf. Life and Letters, pp. 164-165. 19 There are two views of Harris as realistic social historian. Nelson's view above is perhaps one of the most widely known. A closely related view that has also received considerable recognition credits Harris as a true chroni cler of plantation life. The opposite view holds that Harris was a propagandist in his folklore and fiction, trying to reconcile North and South. Francis P. Gaines says in his study, The Southern Plantation, that Harris's contribution to the plantation tradition ". . . is, in the main, a comprehensive and charming presentation of the 24 romantic elements." As far as the popular conception of the tradition is concerned, Gaines says, "Harris is most significant for the revelation of the plantation darkey . . . . Gaines adds: . . . Every trait of the African-temperament received at the hands of Harris the treatment at once most interesting and most convincing. . . .^6 Gaines regards Harris as the "literary historian of the plantation," who has reconstructed in his several stories ". . . with a completeness of understanding not reached by 27 any other writer . . . the entire institution." 24 Francis P. Gaines, The Southern Plantation, p. 76. 25 Loc. cit. 26 Loc. cit. 27 Ibid., p. 75. Among the features of plantation life that Gaines found treated in Harris’s works were gambling, p. 161; stubborn loyalty of the Negroes in the postwar period, 217-218; runaways, 220-221; holiday 20 Critics disagree on the extent that Harris’s literary works can be regarded as the products of a realistic social historian. In other words, there Is * doubt In the minds of some commentators whether Harris actually was a thoroughly "honest" chronicler of the Southern scene of his day. Was Harris a conscious propa gandist for the "thesis"*^® of the New South movement? Did he actually use his literary work to propagandize for the social and political objectives of the New South’s pQ philosophy? Edwin Mims attributes Harris’s stature in festivities, 163; second generation Southern cavaliers, 184; the plantation overseer, 188-189; the "naturalness of inter racial relations," 211-212; minority reports concerning slave happiness, 214; and faithfulness and self-sacrifices of Africans, 215-216. 28 John Donald Wade in "Profits and Losses in the Life of Joel Chandler Harris," p. 412, writes: "This thesis of the New South was a mixed one. . . . It was that Southern men before 1860 were the finest men ever seen any where, but -unfortunately quite wrong in all of their con ceptions except that of private virtue— which they really should not have worried about, since that, somehow, could be trusted to look out for itself. That was Its thesis. Its program was, while speaking reverently, always, of the past, to repudiate that past as rapidly as ever one might— with one exception— that the nigger be kept in his place. That was the rock that was to bottle many bays, but somehow the New Order planned to overleap it. The plan seemed logical and promised wealth and strength for the hallowed Southland. It met with response in places beyond Georgia’s borders, even in New York." 29 <jhe Atlanta Constitution, journalistic spokesman of the New South Movement, said editorially on May 13, 1890: "The New South stands today for the principles of the Constitution. It recognizes the fact that slavery and secession are issues of the past. It has discovered the evil effects of sectionalism in all phases, and, throwing the mantle of charity over the mistakes of both north and south, looks to the future for the solutions of all problems 21 American literature to the author's portrayal of "human * 2 nature in such a way as to make a universal appeal." By implication, at least, Mims denies the suggestion of propa ganda in the author's work. .This point of view has recently been reiterated by G. H. Qrians, who says, "no special pleading, no propaganda mars Harris's elear 31 analysis of contemporary social problems." John Donald Wade, however, who states that Harris "for all his talk of 32 realism," was "a romanticist," says Harris must have "worked consciously to make his Uncle Remus stories propa- 33 gandist in nature." Wade's- opinion, which is shared in 34 35 varying ways by Mellwaine, C. Van Woodward, S. Merton left it as a heritage. It is ready to stand for the right in the field and the forum for the good of the whole country." For a consideration of the writers of the New South group, see Paul Buck, The Road to Reunion, pp. 205 ff. Cf. Woodward, op. cit., pp. 142-174. 30 Mims, op. cit., p. 45. 31 G. H. Orians, A Short History of American Literature, p. 256. 32 John Donald Wade, "Profits and Losses in the Life of Joel Chandler Harris," p. 418.• 33 Ibid., p. 416. 34 ibid., pp. 112-116, passim. 33 c. Van Woodward, The North Carolina Historical Review, XVI, p. 33. See C. V. Woodward, Origins of the New South, p. 158. "... Joel Chandler Harris worked for Grady in the Atlanta Constitution's editorial hatchery with no consciousness of serving two masters. . . ." 22 36 37 Coulter, and Merle Curtl, epitomizes the view of those critics who hold ’ ’that much sectional rancour had dis- 38 appeared before that old man’s wit.” Of the propaganda content of the Uncle Remus stories, Wade observesr . . . These sketches had shown, by implication, the kindness that had existed in the ancient South between masters and slaves— and that is what in the North had been most seriously in doubt. . . .39 36 E. Merton Coulter, History of Georgia, 1933 edition, pp. 405-406. 37 Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought, p. 432. 38 Wade, o£. cit., p. 76. k°c> eit. Numerous commentators have remarked on the realism of Harris's characterization of the Negro in Uncle Remus. Paul Hamilton Hayne, the Southern poet, said in 1881 of Uncle Remus that ”. . . it is the perfect repre sentation of the rice plantation negro”; quoted in the Atlanta Constitution, September 29, 1881, p. 2, Hayne’s view is not far removed from that of Carlos Baker who credits Harris in The Literary History of the United States, II, with an accurate portrayal of the Georgia Negro of Harris’s time and place; p. 853. Sidney Lanier praised the old man’s characterization as ’ ’fiction so founded on fact and so like it as to have passed into true citizenship and authority along with Bottom and Autolycus. ...” See Sidney Lanier, Works, V, pp. 349-350. Lanier was also enthusiastic about Harris’s rendition of Negro dialect, which the poet described as ’ ’real Negro talk.” Mark Twain, who also praised the way Harris spelled the dialect, was likewise impressed with the "principle of life” that Harris captured in the Uncle Remus sketches. See Julia Collier Harris, Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris, p. 168. Ambrose Bierce’s attitude toward the Uncle Remus sketches seems to have changed after Harris’s death. In the nineties, Bierce dismissed Harris as the author of ’ ’impossible nigger lore” and the creator of ”a burnt cork Uncle Remus, an impossible old nigger fabulist no longer black.” Quoted by Harry L. Sheller, The Satire of Ambrose Bierce, pp. 197-198. After Harris’s death, Bierce, who continued to deny the validity of the folklore, nevertheless praised the "trueness with which he records the Negro dialect." Loc. cit. 23 Another aspect of this discussion relates to Harris's criticisms of contemporary abuses, which, accord ing to some writers, merits consideration for him as a critical realist. Hamlin Garland considered Harris a critical realist in his attitude toward the aristocracy of the Old South. Garland recorded in Roadside Meetings that t t 40 Harris ”... had few illusions about the South. . . ." Garland viewed the South of the 1880’s as ”. . .a region without mental stir, unkempt and unenterprising,” x and he says Harris shared these opinions. Harris, however, seemed more optimistic than Garland in his outlook. Of Harris's attitude toward the Old South's leaders., Garland writes; . . . He saw the aristocratic South from the angle of the poor-white farmer. He was not bitter but he was bluntly critical of the "old regime.”42 Garland’s attitude is shared by Harris's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Julia Gollier Harris. In a brief, but suggestive article entitled, "Joel Chandler Harris; Constructive If the realist is one who, as Howells observes in Their Wedding Journey, enters sincerely into the mood of the commonplace characters, Harris has qualified as realist according to Nelson; ”. . . To set the negro forth in his happy, his whimsical, his pathetic mood, convincingly, true to nature, alive and breathing— to have done this is much— is, perhaps, all of which any white author., great or small, would be capable." Nelson, ££. cit., p. 119. 40 Hamlin Garland, Roadside Meetings, pp. 351-352. 41 Loc. cit. 42 Loc. cit 24 Realist," Mrs. Harris writes: . . . Joel Chandler Harris's clear, shrewd in telligence enabled him to penetrate the shams, the injustices, and the intolerances of the life of which he was a part, and . . . in spite of his almost morbid modesty, . . . he had the courage at all times to raise his voice against social and political vices. 3 Numerous critics have observed in the Uncle Remus characterization a certain lack of sympathy with the white 44 man's ways. John Stafford's provocative study, "Patterns of Meaning in Nights with Uncle Remus 11 1 sees a type of critical realism in Harris's use of a Negro comic sub-plot to parody the class structure of the whites in the heroic 45 part of the main plot. Mxss Louise Dauner, commenting on the same book, observes an "undramatic realism in the fact Brer Rabbit consistently triumphs over the other animals." Miss Dauner says, "Such realism precludes any sentimen tality. In view of the conflicting opinions regarding the extent of Harris's realism and, indeed, its quality, we may turn to a group of critics who appear to regard the author 43 Julia Collier Harris, "Joel Chandler Harris: Constructive Realist," p. 163. 44 See Nelson, oj>. cit.. p. 11; Curti, og. cit. . pp. 432-433; see also the studies of John Stafford and Miss Louise Dauner described below. 45 John Stafford, "Patterns of Meaning in Nights with Uncle Remus," p. 97. Cf. also Ibid., pp. 98-99. 46 Louise Dauner, "Myth and Humor in the Uncle Remus Fables," p. 135. 47 Loc. cit.; cf. also Ibid.. pp. 142-143. 25 as a ’ ’romantic realist.” The term ’ ’romantic” in this case is inspired by Hawthorne's distinction between the novel and the romance in his preface to The House of Seven Gables. Harris displaye'd an early affinity for the term "romance” as we can see in his title of his early novelette, The Romance of Rockville (1878). Hawthorne was one of his favorite authors whose style proved influential in shaping Harris's artistry. A reviewer in the Hew York Hation in Hovember, 1896, spoke of Harris's two works, Daddy Jake, and The Story of Aaron, in connection with Mrs* Harriet Beecher Stowe's fiction in this manner: . . . They are both snatches of that "Life Among the Lowly" which Mrs. Stowe was not the first to depict under the veil of romance, and Mr. Harris will not be the last.48 Although the Hation insisted that The Story of Aaron was neither "as dramatic nor as pathetic” as Daddy Jake, the magazine reviewer continued, ”. . . its fidelity to the life is not inferior.” Robert Adamson, in one of the signed reviews of Harris’s work in the Constitution»s pages in the nineties, appraises the "romantic” realism of Harris’s novel Sister Jane (1896) in this manner: Mr. Harris does not seek to improve upon nature as he finds it, but to transcribe it, adding only the charm of style and rich flavor of the individu ality which characterizes all his writings. With wonderful simplicity and naturalness he has presented the simple scenes and characters of Georgia village 48 The Hation, November 5, 1896,“ p. 353. 26 and country life and the infinite tenderness and the gentle sympathy are not less notable than the more important features of his work.49 The Constitution’s reviews of Harris’s work display a marked sympathy with Harris’s attitude toward literature. The following review of Harris’s anecdotal History of Georgia continues the emphasis struck in the review above of the individuality of Harris's art, and by implication the reviewer calls attention also to Harris's "romantic” realism: Mr. Harris is not conventional. He does things in his own unique way and when he put his pen to his latest task, he invested the dry, dull story with the vitality of life and made a thrilling story which the youth of the state will read with the relish of a novel. He has, as he himself put it, clothed the dry bone, of fact with the flesh and blood of narrative, and he has given us stirring and vivid pictures of some of the people who figured first in our history. . . .50 Among the critics who have commented on Harris's art there is general agreement that a realistic temper is apparent in the author's writings. There is less agreement, however, on the kind and quality of this "realism.” Significantly, the critics do not refer to Harris's literary bent in the "naturalistic” sense which that term connotes in contemporary literary circles. Rather, the criticism of today suggests on the one hand that Harris's 49 Robert Adamson, "Review of Sister Jane,” the Atlanta Constitution, December 6, 1896, p. 27. 50 Loc. cit. realism was rooted in a serious attitude toward contem porary problems and that, on the other-hand, Harris’s realism was tempered with the kind of romance that would not make it inappropriate to refer to phases of the author’s work as ’ ’romantically realistic." In view, then, of the divergent opinions of Harris’s realism it becomes necessary to look into the author’s background to study those forces that contributed to the development of his literary art. The following chapter, therefore, will attempt to examine the background of Joel Chandler Harris. CHAPTER III BACKGROUND FACTORS IN THE LIFE OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS Among the background factors in the life of Joel Chandler Harris which this chapter proposes to discuss are the followingt his Middle Georgia milieu; his birth and parentage; his early education and reading; his relation ship with slavery; his apprenticeship in journalism; his marriage; and his conversion to Catholicism. Harris, who was one of several notable products of the Middle Georgia section of the United States during the past century, said on one occasion that this section was "the seat of Southern humor."'*’ On another occasion he remarked that the region was "... the center of the most unique— the most individual civilization the Republic has 2 produced. . . ." There were substantial reasons for the expression of such sentiments. At the time of his birth In the little town of Eatonton, Georgia, in 1848, the town was in the center of ah area that included within a fifty mile radius the birthplaces of other such famous Georgians as Henry W. Grady, Sidney Lanier, Richard Malcolm Johnston, 1 Jay B. Hubbell, editor, "Letters of Uncle Remus," p. 220. 2 Life and Letters, p. 317. 29 2 William Tappan Thompson, Jonce Hooper, and others. These men and hundreds of other Georgians represented descendants of families that had settled the area 115 years earlier with the Oglethorpe colony. Their numbers had been bolstered by several waves of migrations of newcomers from Virginia and the Carolinas. These rural Georgians of the 1840's and 1850's dotted the landscape with wealthy towns and large plantations* Of the town of Eatonton, R. L. Wiggins remarks: During the final decades of slavery ease and leisure were promoting the advance of culture, especially in Middle Georgia and herein lies the significance of the phrase "one of the good old towns" that is applied to Eatonton.4 Although he thought fondly of childhood in Eatonton until the end of his life in 1908, Harris was not from one of the town's first families. The fact that he was one of Eatonton's life-long boosters is a genuine tribute to the citizens who seem to have treated his family with consider ation and understanding during the first fourteen years of his life. Harris's birth in 1848 coincided with the discovery of gold in California, an event that marked the' beginning of the end of the nation's physical frontier. For Harris, however, the son of a Scotch mother and an Irish father 3 R. L. Wiggins, The Life of Joel Chandler Harris, p. 9. 4 Loc. cit. 30 5 "whose name ean not be found in print," the discovery of gold had far less significance than the events he later witnessed during and after the Civil War in his native state. Eatonton was to be-home for the future journalist and author for fourteen years as he busied himself with chores to help his mother and grandmother, both of whom encouraged him to develop a taste for books. It was in 6 Eatonton, too, that "cultured friends" aided Mary Harris n ("a woman of rare mental qualities" ) and her mother in their efforts to stimulate young Harris's interest in literature. One of Harris's classmates during this period recalls that Harris was especially interested in the works 8 of Scott, Smollett, and Lamb. He maintained a lasting interest in Scott and Lamb, but he appears to have lost interest in Smollett as he grew older. 5 Shields Mcllwaine, The Southern Poor White, p. 111. See also Wade, op. cit., p. 407: T Joel Chandler Harris was hard~Tavored . . . in circumstance. His mother was of good family (she was born Harris), and she proved to be an excellent woman, but in 1848, without conventional reasons she had left her home in a neighboring community and come, insolvent, to live in Eatonton. Her mother and her quite new son, Joel,— both emptyhanded— arrived that winter almost simultaneously to keep her company." Nelson, op. cit. p. 108, says: ". . . An illegitimate child, he was probably conscious of this misfortune when with people of his own race; at any rate, he frequently sought companionship among the black servants of the town and the neighboring planta tions, who were themselves lowly and unfortunate and who would naturally care nothing for his illegitimacy. . . *" 6 Ibid., p. 14. ^ Life &nd Letters, p. 7. 8 Wiggins, op. cit., p. 14. 31 In 1886 when Harris was 38, he wrote a brief auto biography for Lippincott *s Magazine. Speaking of the Eatonton period and his early bent toward literature, he stated: I was born in the little village of Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia, December 2, 1848, in the humblest sort of circumstances. My desire to write— to give expression to my thoughts— grew out of hearing my mother read the Vicar of Wakefield. I was too young to appreciate the story, but there was something in the style or something in the humor of that remarkable little book that caught my fancy, and I straightway fell to composing little tales9 in which the principal characters— whether hero or heroine— astonished and silenced the other characters by crying ’ ’ Fudge” at every possible opportunity.1® The people of Eatonton seem to have regarded the Harrisses with consideration and kindness for Harris was fond of remembering them in later years as ’ ’the most democratic people the world has ever seen. . . . Like many American authors of his generation, Harris owed less to formal training than to his apprenticeship on several newspapers. His formal education ended at twelve, when he left the Hillsborough Academy to help earn a livelihood for his mother and grandmother. During his brief stay at the local school he distinguished himself "as the . 9 See Life and Letters, pp. 36-53; cf. also Alvin F. Harlow, Joel Chandler HarrisT Plantation Story Teller, pp. 26-40. 10 Joel Chandler Harris, ’ ’ Autobiography,” Lippincott *s Magazine, April, 1886, p. 417. Hereafter, "Autobiography. 11 Life and Letters, p. 8. 32 12 best composition writer in his grade." In On the Plantation, his thinly disguised autobiography, he writes of Joe Maxwell, who is the fictionalized Joe Harris: It would not be fair to say that Joe was a studious lad. On the contrary he was of an adventurous turn of mind and he was. not at all fond of the books that were in his desk at the Hillsborough Academy. He was full of all sorts of pranks and capers, and there were plenty of people in the little town ready to declare that he would come to some bad end if he was not more frequently dosed with what the old folks used to call hickory oil.13 One of Harris's former teachers remembers him as ". • • ,,14 never much of a student but quick to learn.” For the rigidly formalized history courses which were popular in the schools of Eatonton, Harris developed a strong aversion. Later, with the memory of the dullness of such courses in his mind he was to write histories that would invest the "... dry, dull story with the vitality of 15 life." At the end of his Eatonton period, Harris had already come in contact with some of the influences which were later to be added to experiences with Joseph Addison Turner that would etch the deep impress of "the plantation 12 Wiggins, op. cit., p. 14. 13 Life and Letters, p. 13. 14 Ibid., p. 16. 15 See Robert Adamson's review of Harris's anecdotal history of his state, Stories of Georgia (1896) in the Atlanta Constitution, December 6, 1896, p. 27. 33 X6 mind upon his life and work.” Harris once referred to his four years with Turner on the Turnwold Plantation in Putnam County as a “liberal 17 education." Of those four eventful years, which marked the beginning of his, literary apprenticeship, Harris writes in his "Autobiography": In 1862 I saw an advertisement in a little paper, the Countryman, calling for an apprentice to learn the printing business. I responded to it and it was not long before I was installed in the office of the only genuine newspaper ever printed in this country. While setting type for the Countryman I contributed surreptitiously to the columns of that paper, and thus leaving no evidence of authorship I supposed that this was a huge joke, but as Mr. Turner read the proof of every line that went into the paper, it is probable that he understood the situation and abetted it. At any rate, he began to lend me books from his library, which comprised a collection of literature both large and choice. The books forming this library have since been dispersed, but there were at least five hundred volumes in the collection that modern book lovers would pay high prices for.18 Turner was a man of exceptionally wide learning. As Henry P. Miller says, "Pew literary men of the Old South have given posterity concrete evidence of their catholicity in reading comparable to that of Joseph Addison 16 v. L. Farrington, The Romantic Revolution in America, p. 99. 17 Life and Letters, p. 33. 18 Joel Chandler Harris, "Autobiography," p. 417. 34 Turner. . . The files of the Countryman reveal a surprising number of prose essays on such recondite authors as John Lydgate, Robert Henryson, John Skelton, Thomas Tusser, Samuel Daniel, and others. Turner, aptly named for the English essayist, Joseph Addison, admittedly modeled the Countryman on The Spectator, The Tatler, The Rambler, and The Be©. Harris's own love for the eighteenth century essayists was thus an early acquisition. The young man may well have inherited more than his reading affinities from Turner, for, as Miller points out, . . . plantation life in the Old South was, in many respects, a counterpart to the life of the landed gentry in eighteenth century England . . . Turner filled the Countryman with essays .on the art of living and like Gray and Goldsmith whom he worshipped, Turner was a proponent of the status quo and a denouncer of the rising tide of indus trialism. 20 Harris's early experiences on the Turner plantation pro vided him with much of the material which he later incorpor ated into fiction. Speaking of the backgrounds of Uncle Remus in his 1 1 Autobiography," Harris writes: 19 See Thomas H. English, editor, "The Autobiography of Joseph Addison Turner"; Henry P. Miller, editor, "The Old Plantation: A Poem by Joseph Addison Turner"; Paul M. Cousins, "The Debt of Joel Chandler Harris to Joseph Addison Turner," p. 8. See also the two articles of Cincinnatus in American Notes and Queries for November and December, 1945. The latter articles seek to rescue Turner from his traditional role as tutor to Harris and claim for him personal importance as publisher, planter, and countryman. 20 Henry P. Miller, editor, "The Old Plantation: A Poem by Joseph Addison Turner," p. 5. 35 . . . it was on this and neighboring plantations that I became familiar with the curious myths and animal stories that form the basis of the volumes attributed to Uncle Remus. I absorbed the stories, songs, and myths that I. heard, but had no idea of their literary value until, sometime in the 70's, Lippincott’s Magazine printed an article on the subject of negro folklore, containing rough out lines of some of the stories. This article gave me my cue and the legends told by Uncle Remus are the re suit. ^1 Harris's later fame as an interpreter of the American Negro of the period of Reconstruction was thus a direct outgrowth of his first-hand observations of Negro life on Turner’s plantation. The kind treatment which Turner’s slaves received from their owner convinced Harris that the system could be productive of ideal human relations if the owner were a humane and paternalistic man like Turner. Coupled with Turner’s interest in the physical welfare of his slaves was also an interest in the literary possibili ties of his black charges. Some of this latter interest may have been communicated to Harris. Harris was careful to point out in his own comments on the slavery system that he himself had not been among the owners of slaves. In his attitude toward slavery, Harris reflects.the view point of his friends and associates who were slaveholders. His story, ’ ’ Little Compton,” in Free Joe, highlights the central ’ ’reality" of the South of Harris’s day when Harris describes the "one question" "in regard to which there was 21 "Autobiography," p. 417. Cf. also Life and Letters, pp. 23-35. See also the fourteen sketches in Harris's semi-autobiographical On the Plantation (1892). 36 no discussion": . . . That question was slavery. It loomed up everywhere and in everything, and was the basis of all the arguments, and yet It was not discussed: there was no room for discussion. There was but one idea, and that was that slavery must be defended at all hazards, and against all enemies. That was the temper of the time, and Little Compton was not long in discovering that of all dangerous issues slavery was the most dangerous.22 23 Harris wrote in an editorial In the Constitution for November 3, 1879, that the South's traditional hostility to outside criticism was due to ". . . the social and politi cal isolation in which the South sought to preserve its peculiar property Investment. . . ." "It is natural," he added, "that such isolation should produce remarkable pride of opinion, and a belief that our civilization was perfect. . . ." Captain Jack Walthall in "Little Compton" is merely repeating another aspect of Harris's sentiments when he says of slavery: ". . . Maybe you don't understand it; maybe you don't feel as we do. . . . We are in a sort of corner and we are compelled to protect ourselves. Consciously or unconsciously, the South united to oppose all threats to the slave economy. That the literature of the 22 Joel Chandler Harris, Free Joe and the Rest of the World, pp. 42-43. 23 Atlanta Constitution, November 3, 1879, p. 2. 24 Joel Chandler Harris, Free Joe and the Rest of the World, pp. 58-59. See Editor and Essayist, Part II, pp. 95-167, "Joel Chandler Harris and the Negro Question" for a cross section of Harris's views on this subject. 37 time should have lent itself to propaganda to perpetuate the status quo was perhaps inevitable. Turner was unable’ to continue publishing the Countryman after the Northern Army invaded Georgia and Harris reluctantly left Turnwold in May, 1866. Following 25 his departure from Turnwold, Harris continued his literary apprenticeship on newspapers in Macon, New Orleans, Forsyth, and Savannah. He used every opportunity to broaden his reading in e.ach place, but when he left the Turner plantation, the influential books which determined his literary bent were in his past* What were some of the books which Harris regarded as influential in his career? William Wornum, whom Harris once described as "the other p£* fellow inside me," says in Sister Jane (1896), ". . * everything that is worth knowing . . . " could be found in 0*7 "The Bible, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Sir Thomas Browne." 25 Alvin F. Harlow, Joel Chandler Harrist p. 161. Harris printed the last number of the Countryman on May 9, 1866, and left Turnwold shortly thereafter. He was in Macon, employed as typesetter on the Telegraph for about six months before journeying to New Orleans to become secretary to William Evelyn, publisher of the New Orleans Crescent Monthly. By May, 1867, however, he was back home in Eatonton and perhaps in the same month joined the staff of the Monroe Advertiser, in Forsyth, Georgia. The Advertiser was pub lished by James P. Harrison, whose influence ranks close to that of J. A. Turner and W. T. Thompson in Harris's career* Cf. Life and Letters, pp. 54-68; W. S. Currell, "Joel Chandler Harris," I, p. 17, especially for the New Orleans interlude; R. L. Wiggins, The Life of Joel Chandler Harris, pp. 61-77; Alvin F. Harlow, Joel Chandler Harris, pp. 163- 183* 26 Life and Letters, p. 346. 27 Joel Chandler Harris, Sister Jane, p. 90. 38 In the earlier novelette, The Romance of Rockville (1878), Wornum was described as having a "humor'1 with "something C O of the flavor of Sir Thomas Browne." It is this same Wornum, who after recounting Mandy Satterlee’s experiences in Sister Jane, remarks: . . . It was so curious that I determined to make the matter a subject for an essay, written after the manner and in the style of those that still delight us in Mr. Addison’s little paper, "The Spectator."29 Harris’s preference for the essay is no mere coincidence. 30 He was not only early exposed to the essay during his early years with Turner, but he found in this genre a natural outlet for his own individualistic, whimsical 28 Joel Chandler Harris, The Romance of Rockville, cited by R. L. Wiggins, The Life of Joel Chandler Harris’, p. 306. 29 Joel Chandler Harris, Sister Jane, pp. 58-59. 30 See Editor and Essayist, p. 248s "At Turnwold, between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, Joel was steeping himself in the essays of Addison, Steele, Lamb, and Irving. These writers as well as Goldsmith, Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Macaulay, Burns, Shelley, and translations from the Latin and French, were among Mr. Turner’s books, and the young printer was not only given free access to all these writers, but was urged by his patron to read and study'them. A part of his daily work was to set up sapce-fillers from the classical writers, and, consequently, these models also were constantly under his eye. It was inevitable, therefore, that Joel’s style should have been colored by the works in this collection which appealed most strongly to his tastes." See also, Life and Letters, p. 138, for the comments of a reader in 1879 who praised some of Harris's "Lounger's" columns In the Weekly Gazette; "... There is about them something which reminds me of the best English writers of a generation ago. Indeed, they are strongly like the essays of Charles Lamb. . . ." 39 leanings. Shakespeare and the Bible were among his oft- 31 mentioned favorites. His admiration for Shakespeare 32 seems to have been general, although he was especially enthusiastic about the simplicity and vigor of Shakes peare's language. His favorite among Shakespeare's plays 33 was King Lear. Style was early and consistently one of Harris's major interests. He told Prank G. Carpenter in an inter view in 1896 that his style had ”. . . been cultivated through a study of the great English authors of his boyhood. . . ." ”As he talked thus of Chaucer and other writers,” Carpenter continues, °I wondered as to what books had most influenced him. . . Harris listed Sir Thomas Browne and Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, paying tribute to Turner's generosity in allowing him to borrow books from the plantation library. Harris says: . . . It is a strange thing that though this man had a library of perhaps 2,000 volumes, embrac ing the works of modern authors as well as the __ classics, I in most cases took to the classics. . • Harris seems to have preferred the novel next to the essay. He was especially fond of novels which excelled in 31 Prank G. Carpenter, MPrank G. Carpenter Visits Uncle Remus,” Atlanta Constitution, December 20, 1896, p. 27. 32 Editor and Essayist, pp. 366-373. kife and Letters, facing p. 568. 34 Atlanta Constitution, December 20, 1896, p. 27. 35 Loc. cit. 40 "genuineness," "simplicity," and which, were distinguished by the subtlety of their styles. Among the English novelists, Harris accorded high places to Thackeray and Sterne: The "Sentimental Journey" stands bravely by the work of the author of "Vanity Fair," and once a year or oftener, the "Journey" is taken from its place and read for the fiftieth time, not for the matter in it for that is slim enough, but for the nimbleness of the diction, and for the wonderful atmosphere which Sterne wraps around his writings; and for the skill with which he can write about nothing. So far as I have observed, Laurence Sterne is the only writer in our tongue who has shown that English can be handled with the extreme lightness and nimbleness which the best French writers bring to the use of their own flexible and fluent language.56 "All good books have interested me more or less," 37 Harris wrote to Baskerville on April 15, 1895. Yet, in his role as the Farmer of Snap Bean Farm (a take-off on Horace's Sabine Farm), Harris, writing in Uncle Remus's Magazine, in February, 1908, qualified his earlier state ment regarding his reading: The Farmer is not a great reader; the things that are old in literature— the books on which several generations have left their stamp of approval— are sufficient for him, though he is not averse to reading a modem rattling story as full of the sensational as it could be packed. He has read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina with some interest, but it is quite a task to go through a whole book in order to find out something interesting about one honest man; and he is not sure that Anna Karenina has not left a bad taste in his mouth. At any rate he could not be induced to give it 36 Life and Letters, p. 575. 37 jay B. Hubbell, "Letters of Uncle Remus," p. 220. 41 that decisive test of a second reading. He knows that Tolstoy has written a book called War and Peace, which Mr. Howells has declared is a wonderful achievement. Mr. Howells is a man of taste and feeling, and usually knows what he is talking about, but, in such matters of Russian literature, the Parmer would rather trust to the judgment of Mr. Howells than to read the books. . . .38 Although Harris fs reading interest included the French writers Dumas and Hugo, he demonstrated little interest in foreign literature generally. This seems explainable, in part, as a result of his lack of training in foreign language or travel abroad. Unlike Howells and James, who steeped themselves in contemporary European literature, Harris drew his intellectual sustenance primarily from English and American authors. In On the Wing of Occasions, Captain Flournoy reads a volume of 39 Virgil, but aside from this Harris makes a few allusions to foreign literature. However, he knew the Arabian Nights 40 ■in translation, as indeed he knew the French and Russian writers whom he mentions occasionally. He read Don Quixote 41 but he never became enthusiastic about it. Aside from a smattering of French, it is doubtful that he read any language other than English. 38 Editor and Essayist, p. 368. 39 Joel Ghandler Harris, On the Wing of Occasions, p. 40. 40 Editor and Essayist, pp. 164-165, 380. 41 Ibid., pp. 373-374. 42 In summing up the influence of some of the important books and authors in Harris's career, Mrs-. Julia Collier Harris says: . . . He delighted in the novels of Dumas because of their feeling for adventure and their rollicking love of life. He loved Dickens for his humanity and his gift for characterization. Cardinal Newman charmed him because of the urbanity and crystalline beauty of his style; he admired Stevenson for the same qualities, and Henry James in his earlier period. Of George Eliot he wrote in his young man hood, ‘ ’Middlemarch will become a monument to the grandeur and greatness of a woman's intellect*; and of W. S. Landor, 'Posterity will discover in him the genius of our own epoch.* As a creator of a literary era, he placed Swinburne along with Shakes peare, saying, ’No writer in our language has wrought such melodious effects and discovered such marvelous fluency in the English tongue.’ He disliked Zola and the French realists intensely, never being able to appreciate Zola’s epic quality, because of the mass of sordid details that obscure the basic grandeur of his social ideal. The essays of Sir Thomas Browne were his special delight, and he also found much to admire in the critical work of Matthew Arnold. Mark T w a i n 4 2 he enjoyed heartily and placed 42 Harris also admired Mark Twain’s satire and humor. Unc3-e Bemus ’s Magazine for February, 1908, Harris spoke of Twain as ”• 7 . not only our greatest humorist, but our greatest writer of fiction. . . •** (cited in Editor and Essayist, p. 375). Harris admired other American writers also. See the reprint of the above editorial for his attitude toward Hawthorne, Holme's, Whittier, Howells, Harte, and Lowell. Editor and Essayist, pp. 186-191, especially p. 191. He considered Hawthorne, along with Thackeray, as one of his favorite authors of prose. See Life and Letters, facing p. 568. Cf. Editor and Essayist, p. 254s ^Undoub- tedly the Vicar of Wakefield played an important part in the formation of his style, as did his study of the writings of Cardinal Newman, Matthew Arnold, Stevenson, and Hawthorne, to all of whom he refers many times not only in his early fugitive writings, but in his later essays and editorials. More than once he pointed out with admiration the urbanity of Newman, Henry James (in his earlier work), and Matthew Arnold, claiming always that urbanity was the quality most indispensable to style.” 43 him first amongst contemporary writers and Kipling’s ’Kim1 and the ’Jungle Book’ he read with keen interest. Of the poetry of Walt Whitman he once wrote a short criticism so eloquent and illuminating that Mr. Burroughs thought fit to quote it in its entirety in his essay ’The Flight of the Eagle. The above intellectual nourishment hardly comprises the fare on which sturdy American realists are made. Yet, the wide range of Harris’s early reading, augmented by his later admiration of Edgar Watson Howe’s Story of a Country Town, has caused Carlos Baker to remark of Harris's general approach to literature: . . . His characteristic approach lay somewhere between that represented by Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, his favorite novel, and the work that he regarded as the most characteristic American story thus far written, E. W. Howe’s The Story of a_ Country Town. . . .44 However, by the beginning of the ’ ’Gilded Age” decade, Harris was to enter upon the last phase of his literary apprentice ship with William Tappan Thompson, the humorist-successor to Longstreet as realistic depi'cter of the Southwestern Frontier. In the Fall of 1870, Harris became associate editor of the Savannah Morning News, having'been engaged, as he says ”. . .to write editorial paragraphs, supposedly 45 humorous. . . .” He remained with the News until 1876. ^ kif e and Letters, pp. 567-568. 44 Carlos Baker, Literary History of the United States, II, p. 852. 45 Life and Letters, p. 93. 44 The importance of this last phase of his apprenticeship is highlighted by the close association with Colonel Thompson, ". . . not only the dean of Georgia editors, but also the 46 leading humorist in the literature of the section. ...” Mrs. Joel Chandler Harris says Harris told her that Thompson had ". . . seemed to be as deeply interested in 47 the success of his work as his own kinsman.” Whether Harris was inspired to create a Negro character parallel to 48 Thompson's poor white, or whether he followed the advice 49 of Joseph Addison Turner and gave special and sympathetic attention to the delineation of the Negro character, are questions that need concern us here merely to point out that Harris may reasonably be considered the pioneer Southern author to treat Negro characters with consistent sympathy.®^ As he points out in his "Autobiography,” he had every opportunity for contact with Negroes under what he regarded as the most favorable circumstances under the slavery 46 H. L. Wiggins, Life of Joel Chandler Harris. p. 112. ^ k°c« cit. 48 see F. L. Pattee, The Development of the American Short Story, p. 278; Walter Blair, Native American Humor, pp. 65-67; Franklin J. Meine, "The Sage of Shady Dale,” pp. 218-227; and R. L. Wiggins, Life of Joel Chandler . Harris, p. 113. 49 See Thomas H. English, editor, The Autobiography of Joseph Addison Turner, pp. 6-7. 50 John H. Nelson, "Uncle Remus Arrives," pp. 107- 119. 45 regime at Turnwold* As a humane, intelligent man, Harris deplored the evils of slavery, but he was also a man-of his time and place. Harris had been a member of the Hews staff only three years when he was married to the Catholic daughter of a French-Canadian sea captain. What effect did this marriage have upon Harris’s literary career and upon his religious outlook? At the time of Harris’s marriage on April 21, 1873, to Miss Esther La Rose, Harris was twenty-four years old, Miss La Rose eighteen. Of the influence of Mrs. Joel Chandler Harris upon her husband, Mrs. Julia Collier Harris writes: . . . until the day of his death, she wished to encourage his belief in himself, to protect him from the inconsiderate intrusion of the thoughtless, to relieve him of the undue pressure of irritating daily routine, and to surround him with affection and cheer and sympathy that his sensitive nature so deeply craved. His Esther’s sprightliness acted as a curb to his more introspective tendencies; his timidity found relief in her self-possession; and her buoyancy and common sense helped him over many a crisis, both in his domestic and professional affairs."I Aside from the domestic happiness which Harris’s marriage seems to have brought him, it appears to have influenced his religious outlook and it also opened up to him two new literary avenues which otherwise he might have left unentered. His only venture into translation was a 51 Life and Letters. pp. 124-125. collaborative effort with Mrs. Harris, whose cooperation he generously acknowledges in the introduction to Evening Tales from the French of Frederic Ortoli. On some of Harris’s infrequent trips away from his beloved Middle Georgia he visited Mrs. Harris’s native Canada. His observation of the Canadian scene and his artistic sensitivity to the Canadian atmosphere prompted two short stories, "The Belle of St. Valerian" and "A Child of Christmas." The first sketch was included in the volume Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War and was dedicated to his daughter Lillian, ". . . who will know why I have included . . . the little 52 skit about our friends in St. Valerien." The reason was, as Harris wrote to Lillian in April, 1898, "... because your mother is French Canadienne and all your homefolks are 53 on that side." The second sketch, "A Child of Christmas," appeared in The Making of a Statesman (1900) and was later woven into his autobiographical novel, Gabriel Tolliver (1902). Although neither story propagandizes for the 54 Gatholie dogma, each is pervaded with the Catholic atmos phere of French Canada. The stories were written during the last decade of Harris’s life when he had begun seriously considering his change of faith. 52 Joel Chandler Harris, Dedication to Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War. 53 Life and Letters, p. 397. 54 W. V. Gavigan, "Two Gentlemen of Georgia," pp. 584-589. 47 There are two views on Harris's conversion to Catholicism in the last year of his life. The first is that of Mrs. Julia Collier Harris,W. V. Gavigan,56 and 57 Miss M. Whitcomb Hess. A summary of their view would CQ hold that Harris, always a religious-minded man, under the joint influences of his Catholic wife and children-, his close friend Richard Malcolm Johnston, and his reading of Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, became a Catholic virtually on his deathbed, after having procrastinated for ten years. According to this view, Harris's conversion was merely the culmination of plans which he had entertained for some ten years. This view takes no cognizance of the disillusionment which John Donald Wade believes that Harris experienced when the advance of science threatened the 55 Life~and Letters, p. 352. 56 Gavigan, o£. cit.. pp. 584-589. The other ’ ’gentleman” was Richard ^alcolm Johnston. 57 m . Whitcomb Hess, ’ ’The Man Who Knew Uncle Remus,” pp. 254-258. . Miss Hess emphasizes Harris's 'belief in 'God'» and in 'soul.' Speaking of his last editorial in the Constitution, Miss Hess says in it Harris 'expressed the hope that no materialist would ever destroy in the minds of children the budding faith of things unseen, the kindling belief in things beyond their knowledge.' p. 256. 58 of. Life and Letters, p. 352. Reared by a Methodist mother who read the Bible to him often, Harris, at the time of his marriage in 1873, seems to have had no strong sectarian leanings. In his reply to a question regarding religion, Harris once answered: ”... I hardly know myself. I can only say that I believe in all good men and all good women. I should not want to live if I had not faith in my fellow men.” Constitution, December 20, 1896, p. 27. 48 status quo in the social and economic structure of the 59 South through industrialism. Wade suggests that Harris’s change of faith, while naturally reflecting the strong influence of his Catholic wife and children, was at the same time indicative of Harris’s disillusionment with the growing commercialism of the period. The opportunity for Harris to become a part of the Mew South movement that paved the way to industrialize the South was provided in 1876 when he joined the staff of the Atlanta Constitution. His apprenticeship was virtually complete and he was to emerge as one of his section's out standing authors while in the Constitution1s employ. Henry W. Grady and the New South group associated on the staff of the Atlanta Constitution in the 1870's welcomed indus- 60 trialism to the South, thinking to find in it the means of rehabilitating the defeated South. Industrialism, which had been regarded as the New South's economic salvation, became in Harris's mind the instrument of the section's spiritual ruin. Instead of making men better, industrialism, with its concomitant emphasis upon materialism, was making men worse. As a disciple of Montaigne, Harris was inter ested in the art of living, and he had followed Montaigne's 59 John Donald Wade, "Profits and Losses in the Life of Joel Chandler Harris," pp. 414-418. 60 gee Paul Buck, The Road to Reunion, pp. 170-195, especially pp. 177-181 for an account of the early efforts to industrialize the South. advice in trying to know himself in order better to under stand his fellows. But industrialism, the rise of which was directly attributable to the advance of science, shifted the emphasis from self-knowledge to self-gain. In the wake of the rising tide of industrialism followed the so-called higher criticism of the Bible, a book which Harris seemingly had come to accept literally. The current of con tending forces disconcerted him temporarily, but he rallied and rose to the defense of the intellectual status quo with a series of editorial blasts at the popularizers of the new science. His bitterest shafts, however, were directed toward the attackers of the Bible. The opposition was strong and Harris singlehandedly could not turn back the tide. He seems to have realized this, for, as realistic- naturalism began its inroads, Harris sought new religious interests. His ehange of faith during this particular period strongly suggests the reaction of one aspect of the conservative Southern mind which viewed with alarm the intellectual challenges of the new order. We shall have occasion to examine Harris's attitude toward science in 61 Montrose J. Moses, in his study, Literature of the South, recognizing the "spiritual conservatism" of the South, writes: ". . . Science has not disturbed the bulwark, shift ing condition has not unsettled faith, commercial activity has not dulled the religious sentiment. . . , pp. 473-474. See also C. Van Woodward, Origins of the Hew South, 1877, 1915, for a discussion of "the exuberant religiosity of the Southern people," p. 448. See also Ibid., p. 449, and note especially citation from the Hew York Tribune for March 11, 1881: "All through the South . . . the ministers appear to view 'progress * with a degree of alarm, and certainly with decided reprobation. . . Ibid., p. 172. 50 detail later, but having brought him from his obscure beginnings in a small town in Middle Georgia to a position of national influence as associate editor of the New South*s powerful spokesman, the Atlanta Constitution, we may now direct our attention to Harris*s relationship to literary forces associated with the rise of realism. CHAPTER IV HARRIS AND THE FOUR CORNERSTONES OF AMERICAN REALISM "What might be called the four 'cornerstones' in the foundation of American realism,” writes Professor Louis Wann, "were Folk Literature, Frontier Humor, the Vogue of Local Color, and the Advance of Science.,!^ With the first three of these "cornerstones," Harris proved himself a skillful craftsman, but of the fourth, he was admittedly skeptical. His skepticism, in part at least, appears to be the result of an attitude toward life that characterized some phases of the ‘ ’Southern mind” of the nineteenth century. Inasmuch as It was in the South where Harris had his origin, it is primarily in this section that we must seek the factors that associate him with the realistic temper in American literature. The South was in comparative isolation from other parts of the country prior to the Civil War due, in large measure, to the section's insistence upon maintaining the institution of slavery. After the Civil War, however, political leaders and some intellectuals, North and South, sought to bring the nation closer together. An important result of this effort to unify the nation was the development of Southern literature that aspired to be 1 Louis Wann, The Rise of Realism, 1860-1900, p. 9. "national" in its interpretation of themes and characters. This emphasis upon nationalism paid rich dividends to Southern writers who followed the trend and it increased considerably the circulation of Northern magazines which printed the stories of Southern authors. Few men in the South were more actively preaching the gospel of national ism than Colonel Evan P. Howell and Henry W. Grady, owners of the influential Atlanta Constitution. In 1876 when Harris joined the newspaper’s staff, the policy of nationalism and reconciliation was firmly established. Harris himself was to contribute significantly, both as editorial spokesman, and literary craftsman, to the advancement of the ideals of the New South. As editor, Harris became a consistent advocate of depicting the ’ ’realities" of the South. As author, he 2 quickly won fame with his Uncle Remus tales of Negro life; however, recognition as a realistic depicter of lower class whites was slower in coming to him. Nevertheless, he proudly identified himself with the "Cracker" type as he 2 C..Alphonso Smith, in his chapter "Dialect Writers" in the Cambridge History of American Literature, II, says Harris’s Uncle Remus stories have a ". . . purely historical and ethnological value not possessed in equal degree by any other volume of American short stories. ..." Harris, Smith continues, ". . . has brought the folk tales of the Negro into literature and thus laid the foundation for the scientific study of Negro folk-lore. ..." pp. 347-366. See especially p. 347. However, Harris was likewise interested in the folklore of the poor-white. See At Teague Poteet’s, p. 164. 3 Shields Mcllwaine, The Southern Poor White, p. xiv. 53 proceeded in numerous sketches to distinguish the various 4 levels of lower class whites: Crackers, Tackies, Mountaineers, Dirt Eaters, and Sandhillers. Though admittedly realistic in intention in many instances, Harris’s literary method is sometimes such a complex maze of ’ ’romantic” and realistic elements as to defy dogmatic classification. But both the complexity of his method and the realism of his aims were heritages of the Southwestern Frontier, where a tradition of realism had been established for almost half a century. Historically, the sources of realism in the South may be traced to the Southwestern Frontier* In the nineteenth century, the pioneer regional humorists, 4 See Jay B. Hubbell, ’ ’Letters of Uncle Remus,” pp. 220-222. Harris wrote to W. M. Baskerville, the critic: "The Tackies are the poor whites— the ne’er do wells. They are what they were two hundred years ago. Whereas, the Crackers of Georgia and East Tennessee are the builders and proprietors of Atlanta.” The Crackers and Mountaineers differed "in their manners and speech being due to charac ter and individuality,” Harris added. The Tackies, Dirt Eaters, and Sandhillers were synonymous in Harris’s vocabu lary . See the Bishop and the Boogerman (1909), p. 49, for Harris’s description of the Tackies: w, . . They were so poor and improvident that the men went in rags and the women in tatters. ...” See also the short story ’ ’ Azalia” in Free Joe, p. 167: for Harris’s remark that the Tackies were ”. . . steeped in poverty of the most desolate description and living the narrowest lives possible in this great Republic. ...” Note, however, that Harris did not regard the "Cracker” as a strictly regional characterization. Cf. his ’ ’Observations from New England" which appeared in the Constitution in September, 1883, and whieh is reprinted in Editor and Essayist, q. v., pp. 159-163: "And yet, here they are--the Sandhillers, the Dirteaters, the Crablanders, the Tackies--as large as life and quite as natural. . . .” 54 Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (Georgia Scenes, 1835), Johnson J. Hooper, (Some Adventures of Simon Suggs. 1845), William Tappan Thompson, (Major Jones *s Courtship, 1844), and J. G. Baldwin, (Plush Times of Alabama and Mississippi. 1853), among others, perhaps gave a truer picture of the Old South than some of the earlier romancers. As J. L. King says in his study, Dr. George William Bagby: The romancers of the Old South wrote extrava gantly of the cavaliers, the chivalry, the noble lords and beautiful ladies of the past, but the humorists described lovingly the Jack-legged lawyer, the gambling lying renegade, the simple but shrewd backwoodsman and the unadorned, bashful country lass of the present. The humorists were the realists, and with all their exaggeration, probably drew a truer picture of the life than the romanticists.® Foremost among the humorists of the Old South was Longstreet, whose Georgia Scenes set a realistic vogue in the South which was not rivalled in coarseness and extreme realism until a century later when Tobacco Road and Ajs I Lay Dying 6 appeared. Speaking of the pioneer aspects of Longstreet!s realism, Franklin J. Meine writes: The Scenes were hearty humorous sketches, by a clever story teller— of rough backwoods Georgia life and manners. Longstreet did not gloss over the crudities of frontier life, nor did he burlesque them,; but with gentlemanly humor vividly described the comic, coarser aspects of the life he knew so well. The Scenes were consciously realistic; they showed red-necked Georgia crackers in eye-gouging, nose-biting fights, in coarse horse-trade wrangles, 5 Cited by Franklin J. Meine, Tall Tales of the Southwest, p. xxx. 6 Shields Mcllwaine, The Southern Poor White, pp. 218-240. 55 and in capers which even invaded funeral processions. So realistic were they in fact, that Longstreet, an ambitious young politician, published them anony mously fearing their effects, and later when he became an elderly and godly college president, vowed that he had never written them. 7 Longstreet’s work set.the pattern for a series of humorous and deliberately realistic portrayals of poor whites along the Southwestern Frontier. The frontier humor thus developed dealt with real incidents and real characters. Its characteristics were the tall tale, the use of dialect and grotesque dialogue, leisurely digressions, and surprising twists. Out of the works of Longstreet and Thompson there developed a clearly recognizable pattern of humor which was eventually to reach full fruition in the works of Mark Twain. Harris himself was aware of his heritage in 8 "Southern humor” as he demonstrates in his admitted familiarity with works of his predecessors among the humorists of his section. Miss Tandy, Professor Blair, and Mr. Meine have noted a similarity between Harris's tech niques of humor and the techniques of the earlier 9 humorists. Harris's adaptation of the Middle Georgia technique consisted in his individualizing the Negro 7 Meine, o£. cit., p. xviii. 8 Hubbell, op. cit.. pp. 220-222. 9 See Jeanette Tandy, Cracker Box Philosophers. p. 116; Walter Blair, Native American Humor, p. 138; and F. J. Meine, o£. cit., pp. 219, 221, 224, and 227. 56 character, whereas Negroes had been previously only typified at best, and of his treating the poor-white with sympathy, whereas previous authors had treated the poor- white with ridicule. Harris followed the tradition of his predecessors in his region further by enunciating an esthetic which leaves little doubt of his literary aims. The tradition of Southern humor, typified by 10 Longstreet and Thompson among the pioneers, and Harris and Bill Arp among later writers, followed a clearly recognized pattern that was devised by artists conscious of what they were about. A study of the prefaces of Longstreet and Thompson will reveal their intention of localized and realistic portrayal of the life they had observed firsthand. Longstreet's preface to Georgia Scenes emphasized that his scenes were ’ 'authentic” and that he was eager to present to his countrymen "a vivid account of an interesting phase of history. In his books he spoke about 10 See Harris's statements in Stories of Georgia regarding the region's traditions and resources in wit and humor: ”. . . the homogeneousness of the people, complete and thorough as it was, was not marked by any monotony. On the contrary, character and individuality ran riot, appear ing in such strange and attractive shapes as to puzzle and ’ bewilder those who were familiar with its queer manifes tations. Every settlement had its peculiarities, and every neighborhood boasted its humorist--its clown whose pranks and jests were limited by no license. Out of this has grown a literature which, in some of its characteristics, is not matched elsewhere on the globe, but that which is preserved by printing is not comparable either in volume or merit, with the great body of humor that has perished because of the lack of some one industrious enough to chronicle it.” Cited in Editor and Essayist, pp. 179-180. 57 "a Georgia language and Georgia humor. The stream of realism was diluted in the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction period with a sectional romanticism which was filled with sediments of a defensive political philosophy* The complex forces which contributed to the Old South’s rationalization of slavery X2 via the route of "Greek democracy" generated an apologetic literary esthetic which has not yet disappeared from the main channel of Southern thought. It is significant in the development of realism in the South, that the Old South's philosophers and pamphleteers, having "established" to X*^ their satisfaction the semi-humanity of the black man, did not deign to consider him or his problems as suitable 11 Walter Blair, Native American Humor, p. 65; see also John Donald Wade, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. pp. 169- 199. Moreover, according to Blair, Longstreet indicated the literary theory which emphasized his intent: "The preface similarly asserted that the sketches 'consist of nothing more than the fanciful combinations of real incidents and characters and throwing into those scenes . . . some personal incident or venture of my own, real or imaginary, as it would best suit my purpose; usually real but happen ing at different times and under different circumstances from those in which they are here represented. I have not always,' he continued, 'taken this liberty. Some of the scenes are as literal as the frailties of memory will allow them to be.1 Longstreet asserted to his friends that he hoped that through his writings 'we may be seen and heard by our posterity two hundred years hence just as we are.• Blair, o£. cit., pp. 65-67; cf. p. 158. See also Ibid., p. 66 for similar declaration from Colonel Thompson. 12 v. L. Parrington, The Romantic Revolution in America, pp. 99-108. IS Jeanette Tandy, Craekerbox Philosophers, pp. 65-66. 58 subjects for serious literary treatment. Thompson, Harris's early co-worker whose Major Jones's Courtship was still fresh in Harris's mind twenty-five years after he read the book, well typified the South's case in the following lament for free Negroes in the North; Pore, miserable, sickly lookin' creators I it was enuff to make a abolitionist's hart ake to see 'em crawlin' out of the damp straw of cellar-dores till they got able to start out to by or steal sumthing to eat . . . many of em was diseased and bloated up like frogs, and law sprawlin' about like so many eooters in a mud hole . . . like lizards in a pile of rotten logs. . . . This, thinks I, is nigger freedom; this is the condition to which the philanthropists of the North want to bring the happy black people of the South.'14 Thompson's attitude typifies the ingenious Southern argu ment in apology for slavery. In general, the argument held that the Negroes fared better under the paternalistic supervision of understanding Southern plantation owners than they fared among harsh and unfeeling Northerners. Another phase of the argument held that black slaves in the 15 South fared better than white wage slaves in the North. However, when slavery was abolished in the South, many Southerners were disfranchised. In some instances, Northerners and ex-slaves assumed control of the government in Southern states. The dilemma thus posed for the white middle and upper classes and the consequent implications for 14 Cited by Sterling Brown, The Negro Character in American Fiction, p. 21. 15 Farrington, oj>. eit., pp. 103-108. 59 the growth of realism in the post war South are thus summed up by Bernard Smith: How more than ever educated and well-to-do white men had to stick together to retain their position and their prestige; and they did this by throttling every lower class movement, violating the ambitions of the poor whites hardly less than those of Negroes. In thought and art this resulted in the perpetuation of all the feudal artifices, all the pseudo-romantic attitudes that had made Southern leaders seem backward to the point of childishness during New England’s "Golden Age." For now more than ever Southerners had to discourage the depiction of realities, both because of the social need to deny the truth and a psychological need to sustain and glorify their bleeding egos. A realist in the South would not have merely suffered ostracism for having wounded the self esteem of his neighbors, but violence for attempt ing to destroy the community. Force was unneces sary, however, for the racial pressures were apparently felt universally, molding the literate and upper class whites into a fairly homogeneous group with a common outlook. Not until the war generation had died out and new economic and social conditions prevailed did realism begin to appear in the South.1° The war generation had hardly died out by 1879, but in November of that year Harris, as associate editor in charge of literary matters for the Atlanta Constitution, journa listic spokesman of the New South Movement, wrote two editorials that sounded the death-knell of the literary 17 apologists of the Old Order. 16 Bernard Smith, Forces in American Criticism, pp. 142-143. See the Atlanta Constitution, "As to Southern Literature," November 3, 1879, p. 2; ^Literature in the South," November 30, 1879, p. 2; and "Provinciality in Literature— A Defense of Boston," January 25, 1880, p. 2. See also Editor and Essayist, pp. 44-45, and Ibid., pp. 186- 60 Harris’s literary opinions which he voiced in significant editorials in 1879 reflect a realistic apprai sal of the status of Southern literature. Harris deplored the conditions in the South which would not tolerate a ’ ’Southern Thackeray's” applying the lash to sectional short comings. Moreover, Harris pointed out the folly of emphasizing a ’ ’ Southern,” rather than an "American” liter- 18 ature. Literary nationalism became one of the Consti tution 's battle cries. Thus, the Constitution's program which advocated an unbiased presentation of Southern literary themes encouraged Southern writers to depict con temporary "realities" without sectional apologetics. The cause of realism was considerably advanced by interests North and South that stimulated the growth of literary nationalism. Literary nationalism was advanced by two divergent forces: (1) through influences emanating .from the Philadelphia Centennial^"® in 1876, and (2) through the activities of Northern publishers of books and magazines^® " ' 18 For an extended discussion of Southern nationalism, see Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought, p. 441 ff. Curti attributes the rise of Southern nationalism to a regional defense against the threat of "the amazing growth of industry in the North and the equally amazing expansion of a free labor society in the West." See also J. B. Hubbell, "Literary Nationalism in the Old South.” 19 Curti, op. cit., p. 486. 20 Frank L* Mott, History of American Magazines. pp. 47-49. See also Ibid., pp. 228, 347, 465, 548, find 558. 61 in the seventies. The Centennial provided a patriotic stimulus for rallying citizens from all sections of the country to the full potentialities of a united nation. Scribner1s Monthly Magazine sent Edward- King on a 25,000 mile trip through the South in 1873-1874, and, following the publication of King's graphic descriptions of the section in his The Great South, the vogue of Southern themes was inaugurated. In a spirit which was later to be modified and taken up by the journals of the New South, Northern publications voiced a policy of broad nationalism which made it a point to be especially conciliatory to the South. The major magazines, Scribner's, Harper'3, the Atlantic, and the Century all welcomed Southern writers to their pages and, indeed, vied with each other in obtaining their services. The Atlantic, founded in 1857 by James Russell Lowell, was especially interested in realistic stories of native American life. Professor Harry Hayden Clark, who sees in Lowell's editorial activities the hand of one of the native architects of American realism, sayst If, after Lowell, American taste turned with Mark Twain and Howells, toward realism and racy indigenousness, we must remember that it was Lowell himself whose vast popularity as the author of the Biglow Papers and the founder of the Atlantic Monthly (in 1857), did much to initiate this realis tic tendency and to give it the sanction of high professional authority. He eagerly sought for the Atlantic realistic stories, and he discovered and published pioneers of realism as Rose Terry Cooke and Rebecca Harding Davis, whose "Life in the Iron Mills" seems ultra-realistic even to an age accustomed to Sherwood Anderson and Dreiser.21 Coinciding with the realistic tastes that were being fostered by the magazines and book publishers were trans formations which were occurring in the temperament of the authors of the new postwar generation. Harris is typical of the new school, which included Howells, Mark Twain, and others whose backgrounds had been newspapers and the colleges of life, rather than the academic atmosphere of universities and libraries. As Palk writes: If Harte and Twain, Eggleston and Joaquin Miller opened up the West for realistic portrayal, they were matched by Cable and Harris and Page in the South, and by Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Aldrich and Howells in New England. . . .22 These writers were heirs to a literary tradition of romanticism which made a sudden break with the r , genteel t tradition'* difficult, if not impossible. As Professor Wann says : • . . But the demands of the frontier, the crisis of the Civil War, and the rise of the new industri alism put an end to romanticism, not all at once, but step by step. The transition was to be, from a literary point of view, through the middle ground of ’ ’local color.” From a romantic interest in a wholly foreign or vaguely realized American scene, even though presented with sentimentality and exaggerated emphasis upon character, demanding a veritable portrayal of both the scene and the actors upon the scene— this is the manner in which romanticism gradually changed its character. . . .23 21 Harry Hayden Clark, "Lowell,” pp. 414-415. 22 Robert P. Falk, "The Rise of Realism, 1871-1891,” p. 26. 23 Louis Wann, The Rise of Realism, 1860-1900, p. 3. 63 This is an accurate description of the advance of realism in the South, for, it was in this section during the eighties that local color, deriving much of its emphasis from Bret Harte in the West, made its bid for literary favor. Van Doren says vaguely that the local color period contributed something to the development of realism in the 24 South. But the flame of romanticism never died out completely in the South. Harris's major work in fiction was produced in the eighties when realism was getting a foothold throughout the country. Following the local color eighties, no less an exponent of American realism than William Dean Howells himself had begun to look with critical favor upon the literary trends south of the Mason and Dixon line. 24 Carl Van Doren, The American Hovel, p. 127. However, the flame of romanticism never died out completely in the South. Historically, "realism" has developed along with serious Southern literary efforts. As Parrington remarks about William J. Grayson's r , The Hireling and the Slave," much of the literature coming from south of the Mason and Dixon line in the last half of the past century "reveals in its sharp contrast of realism and romanticism the common Southern temper." The Romantic Revolution in America, p. 103. See Parrington' s~7rhe Beginnings of Criti cal Realism in America, pp. 125-126, for the contributions of William G. Simms, ". . . a realist hampered by current romanticism. . . ."to the rise of Southern realism in his "low life characters." Sidney Lanier's "acid realism" has been observed by G. H. Orians in A Short.History of American Literature, p. 176. Robert P. FaXk sees in Lanier's criti- cism of the novel evidences of Lanier's contribution to the development of realism. The Rise of Realism, pp. 27-28. Floyd Stovall says that Tiger Lilies, Lanier's novel, mingles "romantic idealism in the heroes and heroines with realism in the minor characters." The Decline of Romantic Idealism in America, p. 3. 64 In 1894 Howells observed that the New South’s writers had begun to discard the "ideals and usages of Sir Walter Scott” and had begun to look to the "commonplace” 25 facts of their daily life. Continuing his appraisal of the New South's realism, Howells says: . . . the writers of the New South have given the world sketches and studies and portraits of the persons and conditions of their peculiar civiliza tion which the Russians themselves have not excelled in honesty, and hardly in simplicity. To be sure this development was on the lines of those early humorists who antedated the romantic fietionists, and, who were often in their humor so rank, so wild, so savage, so cruel, but the modern realism has refined both upon their matter and their manner. One finds in the Southern stories careful and conscientious character, rich local color, and effective grouping and at the same time one finds genuine pathos, true humor, noble feeling, generous sympathy.26 This might well characterize Harris’s writings of the eighties and nineties. As conscious literary craftsman, he sought to interpret the characters of Negroes and poor whites in a manner that would put the folk personality of both groups in sympathetic relief; he was a conscious humorist who used traditional comic techniques and who humanized his Negro narrators, while, at the same time, interpreting his poor white narrators with unprecedented sympathy; he looked around him in his immediate environment for the "realities" that he knew and loved, and he wrote 25 William Dean Howells, Introduction to Southern Lights and Shadows, p. v. 26 Loc. cit. 65 literature often considered first rate local color material, but literature nevertheless heavily tinged with realism. Having examined thus far Harris ’s relationship to the first three cornerstones of realism and having noted the development of realism up to the period of the Hew South’s writers, we may now turn to examine Harris’s relationship to the fourth cornerstone, the advance of science. The fourth f l corners tone” posed two very disturbing problems for Harris. First, industrial progress threatened his dream of returning to the idyllic rural life he had known as a boy in Middle Georgia. Second, and perhaps most important, the advance of science was accompanied by the ’ ’higher criticism” of the Bible which shook Harris’s fundamentalist religious convictions to their roots. Harris was frankly skeptical of the possibilities of the new science of his day. His skepticism is apparent in his editorials, in which he criticizes the ’ ’so-called scien tists” whom he sometimes distinguished from the ’ ’real 27 scientists.” Much of his criticism was directed against the popularizers of science who flourished shortly after the 28 discoveries of Darwin and Wallace. However, on May 1, 2Q 1898, he referred to Spencer as ’ ’that able heathen.” But, 27 Editor and Essayist, p. 258. 28 Ibid., p. 259. 29 Life and Letters, p. 394. in spite of his denial, "we do not disparage science at all,” he says "on the other hand we do not take science too seriously." "Science," he continues, "must have its working theories even if it has to invent them; and its disciples are sometimes inclined to gallop too fast, as in 30 the matter of evolution." His attitude toward science is characteristic of the informal essayist, rather than of 31 the exact scientist or the systematic philosopher. Harris seems to have been a genuinely religious man who did not overlook many opportunities to stand up for the status quo of religion as he understood it. In some of his editorials as well as in some of his fiction, he occasion ally gives the impression that he is himself in the pulpit warning men against losing their faith. One explanation of this viewpoint may be found in his conception of the task of an editor. Early in his career as journalist, he observed that an editor with a purpose could "sweep away all false conditions in society and politics and bring his fellows back to the sweet simplicity of the ancient rzp days. . . ." This comment, written in 1879, is as characteristic of Harris as his equally idealistic view Editor and Essayist, pp. 259-260. 31 Ibid., p. 262. Mrs. Julia Collier Harris remarks that Harris had no training in science and "did no serious or systematic reading along scientific lines. His mind was not in that direction* ..." 32 Ibid., pp. 37-38. 67 expressed in Gabriel Tolliver in 1902: It has been demonstrated recently on some very wide fields of action that the atmosphere of com mercialism is unfavorable to the growth of senti ments of an ideal character. That is why wise men • who believe in the finer issues of life are inclined to be suspicious of what is loosely called civili zation and progress, and doubtful of the theories of those who clothe themselves in the mantle of science.33 Harris *s skepticism about science is demonstrated in his attacks on those who sought to popularize the ’ ’scientific criticism" of the Bible. In an editorial in the Saturday Evening Post, July 21, 1900, entitled "Cheap Criticisms of Dear Beliefs," Harris stated: . . . In the name of "scientific criticism" . . . the Bible has been demolished. Men who are promi nent in the pulpit have submitted both their faith and their reason to the conclusions of this "higher criticism"--conclusions which are based on suppo sitions, theories, suggestions and deductions.34 Thoughtful people would not be misled, Harris continued, . .by the labels which the real scientists of the age-- the men who know enough to be able to approach the un- knowable with real humility— would repudiate with scorn. ■Thus, Harris rejected the fourth cornerstone of realism. Polk Literature, Frontier Humor, and the Vogue of Local Color were congenial tools for Harris's masonry of realism. He discarded the Advance of Science as inimical 33 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, pp. 110 111. Cf. ante, p. 49. 34 Editor and Essayist, ‘p. 261. 35 Ibid., p. 262. to the development of "sentiments of an ideal character." As editor, indeed as man and author, he showed himself in complete sympathy.with that aspect of the Southern mind which mingled realism and "romanticism" in sharp contrasts. This contrast is exhibited in the editorial columns of the Atlanta Constitution in whose pages are mirrored the reflections of the transition of the Southern literary temper from local color to realism. CHAPTER V THE DISCUSSION OF REALISM IN THE LITERARY EDITORIALS OF THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 1879-1898 The Atlanta Constitution has long been recognized to have been the spokesman of the New South Movement in economics and politics,'*' but it has received scant attention for its part in purveying literary opinions* However, the decade between 1880 and 1890, which produced 2 more good novels than any other American decade, found the Constitution serving as the New South’s literary sounding board. In its editorial columns for this period and after wards can be found the Constitution1s distaste for the excesses of realistic naturalism of the school of Zola and Russian writers. At the same time, the Constitution dis played a hearty antagonism to what the newspaper regarded as the excesses in the methods of realism as practiced by Howells and James* To offset the so-called shortcomings of the extreme realists, the Constitution propounded a set of literary principles which in their totality may be regarded as the Constitution’s aesthetic of realism. Its most noted 1 E. Merton Coulter, History of Georgia, p. 406, statess 11. . . The Constitution came to speak the point of view to a great extent of the whole region. . . .” Cf. also C. V. Woodward, The Origin of the New South, pp. 145-147. 2 Carl Van Doren, cited by G. H. Orians, A Short History of American Literature, p. 231. 70 exemplar, in the Constitution’s view, was Mark Twain, the Htrue" American artist who excelled in depicting native scenes and character. A consideration of the development of the Constitution to a position of leadership and influence shows that while the newspaper’s interest in literature was genuine, it was an interest that also harmonized closely with the paper’s policy of economic and political nationalism. The Constitution was founded in 1868 by Carey W. Styles for the express purpose of providing more vigorous journalistic leadership in Georgia's fight against Radical rule. The paper got its name from a suggestion of President Andrew Johnson, who told Styles that prior to the Civil War there was a Democratic daily in Washington named the Constitution. Since Styles's paper was to dedicate itself to restoring constitutional rule in Georgia, President Johnson suggested he name the Atlanta paper after 3 its Washington predecessor. In 1876, Captain Evan P. Howells, a noted Atlanta lawyer and businessman who had served in the Confederate Army, obtained the controlling interest in the newspaper.4 After announcing his intention of providing the Constitution f f with the best staff of any 3 Raymond B. Nixon, Henry W. Gradyt Spokesman of the New South, p. 64. 4 Ibid., p. 128. newspaper in the South,1 * Howells hired Henry W. Grady, a brilliant young editor who enjoyed a fine reputation as a writer. Grady, in turn, recommended the employment of Joel Chandler Harris. Grady was hired in October, 1876, and Harris became a permanent employee in November of the same year. Thus began the notable association of Grady, Howells, and Harris that was to continue unbroken ■until Grady's 6 death in 1889. Howells, eleven years Grady's senior, was a clever politician and a shrewd businessman. Grady, who later displayed considerable business acumen on his own, has been described by a contemporary as "a genius bora for an era— a marvel of inspiration to every faltering 7 industry." C. Van Woodward says Grady "came by his business man's philosophy honestly, for he sprang not from planter stoek, but from antebellum tradesmen, promoters, and gold prospectors, and he married into a pioneer eotton 8 manufacturing family." After three failures of newspaper ventures in a five months period prior to 1876, Grady, by ^1880, was sagacious and influential enough to obtain a loan of $20,000 from Cyrus W. Field to buy a fourth interest in 5 Nixon, loc. cit. 6 Ibid., pp. 128-129. ^ Walter G. Cooper in The Piedmont Region, as eited by C. V. Woodward, The Origins of the Few South, p. 146. 8 Woodward, op. cit., p. 146. 72 Q the Constitution. Harris, shy and retiring, but a brilliant and witty "paragrapher," was employed originally at $25 weekly as telegraph editor. Harris later became, associate editor and chief editorial writer. However, by 1879, before the promotions that saw Howells, the editor- in-chief, name Grady as managing editor, and Harris as associate editor, the Constitution could boast editorially of being both "chronicler and commentatdr" whose "editorial opinions" and "humorous and satirical paragraphs" were "copied from one end of the state to the other#By 1880, the Constitution had nearly realized its aim of being the "best Southern newspaper." "It would have been diffi cult to find three men whose talents were more complemen- tary," says Nixon^ of Grady, Harris, and Howells. Speaking of the early careers of Grady and Harris with Howells on the Constitution, Mrs. Julia Collier Harris says: The combined work of Harris and Grady, under their liberal and able editor in chief, Eyan P. Howells, brought national prestige to the Consti tution at a crucial period in the South’s history. Fortunately these men had the vision to realize what a powerful and honorable part might be played in the upbuilding of the South by a newspaper of intelligence, courage and genuine patriotism. Without exaggeration it might be said that from the beginning of their association on the C.onsti- tution, Joel Harris and Henry Grady were as one in their ideal of honest, fearless, peace-promoting 9 Nixon, jop. cit., p. 128. 10 Atlanta Constitution, November 15, 1879, p. 2. 11 Nixon, op, cit., p. 128. 73 service to their section, following the turbulent bitter, unsettled period which was the sequel of reconstruction in the South.12 Grady, who was two years Harris's junior, seems to have crystallized many of his views on the South’s role in the nation by 1880 when he became the Constitution*s managing editor. Nixon says Grady became ’ ’convinced that economic 13 betterment was the key to the South’s problem.” To bring about improved economic conditions, however, it was neces sary to allay sectionalism, and this Grady proceeded to do— at first through his editorials and later through speeches in key cities in the North. The promotion of ’ ’material progress”^ later became Grady's chief aim. To a large extent, this also became the Constitution’s aim. . As directing editor of the newspaper, Grady was responsible only to Howells, the chief editor and principal stockholder. The warm friendships and common interests among the editors and stockholders apparently resulted in policies for the Constitution that were congenial to all. Of Harris’s relationship to the policy-making conferences that were usually held daily in the newspaper's editorial rooms, his daughter-in-law comments: . . . If a "policy” was outlined by the direc torate of the paper father listened attentively and 12 Julia Collier Harris, Editor and Essayist, pp. 35-36. Cf. also Ibid., p. 43. 13 Nixon, op. cit., p. 166. 14 L og. cit. went about his work unhampered by explicit directions, for his colleagues knew his temperament and were satisfied that no mistakes would be made in the execution of their suggestions•IS The Constitution’s development was a tribute to Grady’s direction.' According to Tom Reed, a reporter bn the Constitution during the time of Grady and Harris, Grady’s success was due to his ability as an organizer: He first determined in his own mind just what he wanted his paper to accomplish* Then he picked out with unerring judgment the men who could best carry out his plans, and he looked after each worker as he proceeded with his task. . . Grady personally seems to have written very few of the Constitution’s literary editorials, for, as Harris says: He rarely undertook to write what might be termed a literary essay; the affairs of life— the demands of the hour--the pressure of events pre cluded this. To whom, then, was the task of writing the literary editor ials assigned? Perhaps the best approach to an answer of this question lies in an investigation of the editorial writers^ on the Constitution during the controversy over 15 Julia Collier Harris, The Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris, p. 175. Cf. also Nixon, ojd. cit., p. 20FI "Even though Grady owned only a minority of the Cons titution’s stock, there seems to have been little con- flict betweenhis ideas on public questions and those of Howells, the editor-in-chief and principal stockholder. The two men were warm personal friends and usually saw eye-to- eye on matters of policy. ..." 16 T. W. Reed, Henry W. Grady, p. 12, as cited by Nixon, 0£. cit., p. 15. 17 Joel Chandler Harris, Life of Henry W. Grady, p. 45. 75 realism in American periodicals. In the early eighties the Constitution’s editorials were written chiefly by Nathaniel P. Finch and Joel Chandler Harris. Finch retired in 1885, and after that time the editorials were written largely by Harris and his assistant, Wallace P. Reed. Finch has been identified as a specialist Min national and international 1_8 affairs." Reed has been described as an accomplished and versatile writer, but he has not been identified with 19 literary editorials. R. L. Wiggins, Harris’s first biographer, says the Cons titution, "... always concerned in the interests of literature significantly intrusted" to Harris "its reviews of magazines and new books and other literary discussions 20 . . . ." Whether Harris or Grady, who was also con siderably interested in literature, or some of the other editors wrote the literary editorials, the editorials themselves may be considered as expressing the viewpoint of the Constitution. 18 Nixon, oj3. cit., p. 202. Cf. I. W. Avery, History of Georgia, p. 814. 19 Ibid., p. 236. ". . • Most of the Constitution’s editorials in the eighties.were written by two full-time editorial writers--first by Finch and Harris, and then, after Finch's retirement in December, 1885, by Harris and Wallace P. Reed. Grady wrote editorials when the occasion demanded, but he enjoyed most of all the activity and excitement associated with the covering of a big news story. ..." Loc. cit. 20 r , . l . Wiggins, The Life of Joel Chandler Harris, p. 120. . 76 The close personal friendship of Grady and Harris was strengthened by their congenial literary tastes, which are reflected in the Constitution *s literary editorials. I. W. Avery, former chief editor of the Constitution, and W. A. Hemphill, former business manager of the newspaper, say that Grady and Harris stimulated each other by their 21 "wit and brightness.” The two men, of course, were both natives of Middle Georgia, and in general, some of the same cultural influences had been mutually operative upon them. Avery reports a similarity between Harris and Grady in ”their delicate blending of humor and sentiment and subtle 22 fidelity of humorous portraiture.” The relationship between Harris and Grady seems to have been less a matter of one man's influencing another than of Harris, the friendly subordinate, putting into effect the congenial task of carrying out his managing editor's desire to put a mutual literary viewpoint before the reading public. Grady highly respected Harris's capabilities as an author. 21 I. W. Avery, History of Georgia, in Atlanta Constitution, October 21, 1891, p. 5. 22 Loc. cit. 23 Uixon, op. cit., p. 155. Grady's respect for Harris's ability as author antedated their employment on the Constitution in 1876. By 1878, Grady's respect for Harris caused him to remark that "Jake” Harris was "the most promising young writer in Georgia.” Moreover, Grady added, "through his jagged and crude work of daily journalism there shines the divine light of true genius." Cf. Wiggins, op. cit., p. 121. On another occasion, Grady said Harris's humor "gentle, tender, and sportive” was equal to the best of . . . Lamb." 77 Harris, on his part, spoke of Grady as ”, . . the very 24 embodiment of the spirit . . . of the Hew South. . . • Of the bond of uncommon understanding between the two men, we have new evidence in an unpublished letter from Harris to Thomas Kelson Page on December 3, 1885. The letter shows the close personal relationship between Grady and Harris in literary matters relating to the Old Order which passed with the emancipation of Negro slaves. Regretfully disavowing authorship of a complimentary notice of Page's "Unc Edinburg's Drowndin'" which the Richmond States had attributed to Harris himself, Harris explains that the sketch referred to was "written by Mr. Henry W. Grady, the managing editor of the Constitution . . . : . . . It is true that we had discussed Unc Edinburg together and agreed that his relation, embodies the most notable and sympathetic descrip tion of the old times that has yet been printed, but the opportunity of putting this opinion in type came to Mr. Grady first and he was quick to take advantage of it, leaving me to regret that I did not write it myself. And yet I hardly know why I.should regret it since I could not hope to give my opinions such felicitous expression. More over, I am indebted to Mr. Grady for a great deal of substantial encouragement in my own humble ventures. His appreciation and kindness have been a great help to me and I feel that I am entitled to share with him the opinion that he has expressed of your remarkable sketch . . . We are each equally interested in these things. • . 24 Joel Chandler Harris, Life of Henry W. Grady, p. 59. 25 Unpublished letter in Thomas Nelson Page Collec tion, Duke University Library, Joel Chandler Harris to Thomas Nelson Page, December 3, 1885. The ”things'* in which Grady and Harris were "equally interested" were apparently "the sympathetic description of the old times.” Editorially, the Constitution from 1876 onward came to advocate a policy of broad nationalism in economic, political, and literary matters. However, this advocacy in belles lettres of a native American literature reveals a curious dichotomy between the newspaper’s literary esthetic, on the one hand, and its preoccupation with the advancement of Southern social and political interests, on the other. To weave the strands of these two divergent interests together thus became one of the major concerns of Grady and his associate editors, chief among whom was Joel Chandler Harris. In the seventies the rural economy in the South had already begun to show -unmistakable signs of disinte- 2 6 gration. Realizing this, Grady, a leader among the spokesmen of the New South, turned hopefully to the indus trialized North and welcomed industrialism to the South. For the Atlanta Constitution this new shift to industrialism represented the policy of the management, whose chief 27 concerns were economic and political. Cultural consider ations, however, were high on Grady’s list of concerns. He 26 Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought, pp. 448, ff. 27 Atlanta Constitution, June 16, 1898, p. 16. Cf. also Ibid., May 15, 189G, p. 2. Cf. Nixon, op. cit., pp. 166-T67. 79 emphasized in frequent conferences with his associate edi tors his belief that the South's literary men should emulate New England's example in projecting a literary esthetic, which, while interpretative of regional life, should be at the same time "truly American." Speaking of Grady's literary ideas, which Harris himself shared, and which became the underlying tenets in the Constitution's literary editorials, Harris, in his Life of Henry W. Grady, writes: . . . He thought that the literature of the South ought to be developed, not merely in the interest of belles lettres, but in the interest of American history. He regarded it as in some sort a weapon of defense, and he used to refer in terms of the warmest admiration to the oftentimes unconscious but terribly certain and effective manner in which New England had fortified herself against the literary genius of her sons and daughters. He perceived too that all the talk about a distinctive Southern literature was silly in the extreme. He desired it to be provincial in a large way, for in this country, provinciality is only another name for the patriotism that has taken root in the rural regions, but his dearest wish was that it should be purely and truly American in its aim and in its tendency. It was for this reason that he was willing to welcome any effort of a Southern writer that showed a spark of promise. For such he was always ready with words of praise.®® 28 Joel Chandler Harris, Life of Henry W. Grady, pp. 44-45. This might well pass for Harris's own literary credo. Note Mrs. Julia Collier Harris's comment on Harris's editorials on literature and sectionalism: "In line with this attempt to overcome a narrowly provincial viewpoint, as well as to subdue the overwrought sensitiveness which was the logical result of reconstruction, oppression, and injus tice, Joel Harris frequently editorialized oh the opportuni ties in literature, always drawing a clear and forcible dis tinction between a desirable provinciality and a petty and sterile sectionalism in letters. . . ." Cited in Editor and Essayist, pp. 43-47. Cf. also Harris's editorials” "As to Southern Literature," Constitution, November 3, 1879, p. 2, and "Literature in the South," November 30, 1879, p. 2. Cf. Ibid., pp. 186-191 for Harris's editorial of January 25, 1880, "Provinciality in Literature--A Defense of Boston I" 80 The discussions of literary realism in the Constitution during the period 1879-1898 reveal the follow ing trendst (1) Aversion for the realistic-naturalism of Zola, Tolstoy, and.the American writer, Edgar Saltus; (2) Aversion for the excesses in the realistic methods of Howells and James; (3) Advocacy of a compromise esthetic as a means of solving the conflict between ’ ’realists and analysts”; (4) Advocacy of an autochthonous American liter ature. Basic in the Constitution's aversion to the realistic-naturalism of Zola, Tolstoy, and Saltus was the newspaper’s strong moral leaning in its editorial discussions. The literary editorials in the Constitution indicate that the editors believed it to be the business of litera ture to delight and to instruct. In a typical statement of its position on March 16, 1889, the Constitution, operating upon the premise that fiction is one of civilization’s positive forces which should set examples for youth of all ages, declared that intelligent parental control should be imposed to keep salacious literature away from the youth. ”Xt is stark idiocy," the newspaper stated, "to encourage the relaxing of immoral rot by saying that to the pure all 29 things are pure.” "Likewise,” the newspaper continued, ’ It is useless to dodge the question with a lot of fancy talk 29 Atlanta Constitution. March 16, 1889, p. 2. 81 30 about the importance of realism.” Ten years earlier, in November, 1879, the Constitu tion had seen in the realistic-naturalism of Zola’s novels an immoral .influence which-the newspaper promptly denounced. While the Constitution' was far from alone among American periodicals in decrying Zola’s ’ ’ naturalisms” in the seventies, the Constitution, unlike some of the Northern publications, did not accept Zola’s techniques as valid 31 means of accomplishing his social ideal* Zola was truly the , ! bete noire” of the Constitution*s editors. In a series of editorial attacks throughout the eighties, the 32 Constitution branded Zola ”a filthy reporter” and one of the ’ ’unclean beasts” who ’ ’should be cast out of the ' Z republic of letters.” In its denunciation of the immoral tendencies of realistic-naturalism, the Constitution included, along with Zola, Balzac, Tolstoy, and Saltus. The Atlanta newspaper’s editors indicted Balzac through Saltus, who, the Constitution alleged, . . had been led 30 Constitution, loc. cit. 31 Herbert Edwards, ’ ’Zola and American Critics,” pp. 114-129. 32 Atlanta Cons titution, April 21, 1880, p. 2. 33 Ibid., April 26, 1886, p. 2. See also Ibid., December lT^ X879, p. 2; August 10, 1880, p. 2; November 27, 1880, p. 2; January 14, 1883, p. 2j July 17, 1887, p. 14j December 15, 1887, p. 4 } August 25, 1888, p. 4j and, significantly, November 18, 1888, in which a paragrapher warns that Zola, in his private life, ’ ’ must not be judged by his novels,” p. 15. 82 to believe that he resembles the great Frenchman. ...” and who used this as an ”. . . excuse for turning himself 34 into a public sewer.” Then the Cons titution condemned the revolting aspects of realistic-naturalism: . . . The new Balzac has no desire to utilize the best as well as the worst elements in human nature— the worst will serve his p u r p o s e .35 In the previous year, the Constitution had remarked of Saltus fs novel, The Truth About Tristen Variok, that while it was ”... original and powerful . . ,” it nevertheless tempted the reviewer to pronounce it "worse than Zola's 3 6 worst,” The Cons titution elaborated: . . . We do not mean to say that Saltu3 Is another Zola. He lacks the Frenchman's coarseness. He never calls a spade a spade. When he has some thing utterly vile to bring before his readers he does not say a word about itj he simply portrays a certain set of circumstances, and leaves the readers to draw their own conclusions. It takes Zola's superior to do this.37 The Constitution»s aversion for the method of realistic-naturalism as seen in the work of Balzac's disciple, Saltus, was extended to include Tolstoy. The Constitution condemned Tolstoy through Howells, the -critic, who proclaimed the Russian's merits throughout the eighties. In July, 1887, the Constitution found new reason to quarrel 34 Ibid., January 30, 1889, p. 4. 35 Log, cit. 36 Ibid., March 7, 1888, p. 2. 37 Loe. cit. 83 with Howells. Howells granted during June or July, 1887, t an interview to a representative of the New York Tribune in which he espoused continental realism, saying in summary: . . . A true arrangement of the literature in which realism has attained the supremacy over romance would place the Bussians first; the French, by virtue of Zola’s strength, second; the Spanish, next; the Norwegian, fourth; the Italian, fifth; and the English l a s t .38 In a bristling reply to Howells's espousal of French and Russian realistic-naturalism, the Constitution stated: This is very interesting indeed. The Russians are great— the very greatest. Tolstoy stands at the head of all fiction, and the dirty Zola stands not far behind. But there is not a word about Thackeray. Really, it is time to inquire if Mr. Howells is competent to criticize those who have proved themselves to be masters in his chosen profession. The one redeeming feature of Tolstoy's works so far as we have the patience to examine them is a certain spiritual quality which is not to be found in Zola nor in Mr. Howells, if we may be permitted to tie two naturalists on the same string. But this spiritual quality in Tolstoy Is far from atoning for the material in which he works both character and incident.39 Concluding, the Constitution denounces French and Russian "nastiness,” excepts the "best of Tourgenieff1s stories," and castigates Zola, Tolstoy, and Howells, the critic: In other words, not to make too much of a seriously important fact, all the Russian fiction 38 Ibid., July 17, 1887, p. 2. 39 The hostility to Tolstoy parallels Harris's attitude toward the Russian whose works he declined to give the test of a second reading, because they left a bad taste in his mouth. In February, 1908, Harris would rather trust the judgment of Mr. Howells, "a man of taste and feeling" than to read Tolstoy's books. See Editor and Essayist, . ‘ pp. 368-369. See also Atlanta Constitution, July 17, 1887, p, 2. 84 with which we are acquainted, with the exception of the best of Tourgenieff»s stories, is coarse, crude, brutal, and immoral. It is nasty and therefore demoralizing. In this respect, it is not better than Zola’s fiction. Such is the kinship of filth that Russian nastiness is as nasty as French nasti ness, and each is too nasty to deserve the name of literature. Nastiness seems to please Mr. Howells as a critic, but not as a worker. Where Zola, Tolstoy and the rest are coarse and nasty, Mr. Howells is merely finicky and t r i v i a l . 4 0 William Dean Howells, who was the leading spokesman for American realism in the eighties, became the center of a literary controversy in November, 1882, when he espoused 41 the new realism in a critical essay on Henry James. 40 Atlanta Constitution, July 17, 1887, p. 2. 41 Howells's statement that a new literary method in fiction deriving from Hawthorne and George Eliot had replaced the effectiveness of the methods of Dickens and Thackeray, was the occasion for numerous comments in the Constitution during the 80’s. Early in his essay, Howells said: r r T I . No other novelist except George Eliot has dealt so largely in analysis of motive, has so fully explained and commented upon the springs of action in the persons of the drama, Portrait of a Lady, both before and after the facts. These novelists are more alike than any others in their process, but with George Eliot an ethical purpose is dominant, and with Mr. James an artistic purpose.” Century Magazine, November 1882, p. 26. Howellsfs attack on Dickens and Thackeray, favorites of Grady and Harris, caused many retaliatory editorials in the Atlanta newspaper. Howells stated: ”... The art of fiction has, in fact, become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens and Thackeray. We could not suffer the confidential attitude of the latter now, nor the mannerism of the former, anymore than we could endure the prolixity of Richardson or the coarseness of Fielding. These men are of the past— they and their methods and Interests. . . . The new school derives from Hawthorne and George Eliot rather than any others; but it studies human nature much more in its wonted aspects, and finds its ethical and dramatic examples in the operation of lighter but not really vital motives. The moving accident is certainly not its trade; and it prefers to avoid all manner of dire Howells ’s novels did not escape criticism, but as far as the Constitution was concerned, Howells offended chiefly in his criticism. As interpreted by the Constitution, the chief shortcomings of Howells*s theory of realism was its deemphasis of literary style, and its subordination of the emotions and heroisms of romance. Usually judicious in its appraisal of Northern realism, which Howells typified, the Constitution declared in June, 1886: It is to be borne in mind that Mr. Howells has invited hostile criticism, not as novelist, but as a critie. His literary theories appear to be objectionable and they have brought down on him the protests of a great many thundering editorial writers. The point to note, however, is that Mr. Howells*s work is distinctly superior to his theories* One of his theories, for example, is that style doesn’t matter much, and yet his books show that no writer is at more points to clothe his ideas in a more felicitous style.42 Then, the Constitution suggests that notwithstanding the critic’s preoccupation with the new method of realism, the artist, as novelist, almost -unconsciously clings to the catastrophes. It is largely influenced by French fiction in form; but it is the realism of Daudet rather than the realism of Zola that prevails with it, and it has a soul of its own which is above the business of recording the rather brutish.pursuit of a woman by a man, which seems to be the chief end of the French novelist.M Ibid., p. 28. "In one manner or another," Howells concludecT| "the stories were all told long ago; and now we want merely to know what the novelist thinks about persons and situations. . . ." Ibid., p. 29. 42 Atlanta Constitution, June 21, 1886, p. 4. Cf. Harris’s letter of June 1, 1900, to Howells apparently in reply to a request for one of Harris’s short stories: ". . . You know, of course, that as far as literary art is concerned, I am poverty stricken; and you know too, that my style and methods will cause you to pull your hair. . . ." Life and Letters, p. 453. 86 trappings of romance: Another of his theories is that literature has no room for the emotions and the heroisms that are dear to the reader of romance. This is true in one sense but in another sense it is not true. "Silas Lapham," for instance, strikes us as a very heroic figure, in spite of the patronizing airs with which Mr. Howells pursues him. The instinct of the novelist, in this instance, is finer and surer than the poor little theories of the would-be critics. In "The Undiscovered Country" we have both heroism and romance, but they are modified by the spirit of our times; by the affair that calls itself civili zation; by the weakness that calls itself culture, and by the entanglements that are known as progress The Constitution accused Howells and his school of exces sively rendering the nonessentials of character portrayal, while failing to delineate adequately the basic human nature underlying the characters. Deprecating Howells's realistic technique in the creation of the character Marcia Hubbard in A Modern Instance, the Constitution states: . . . when a character such as this is drawn with photographic nicety and put in a book there are those among the critics who protest that art has been trifled with if not sacrificed. A story writer, they say, has no business to make a heroine out of a creature so hopelessly human.44 In 1887, the Constitution had become even more impatient with Howells' s practice as novelist and sharply condemned The Minister *s Charge in this manner: 43 Atlanta Constitution, June 21, 1886, p. 4. Cf. Gabriel Tolliver, pp. 110-111 and see also Harris's letter to Baskerville in Hubbell, op. cit., p. 219 for Harris's similar expressions of "civilization," "culture," and "progress." 44 Atlanta Constitution, April 23, 1883, p. 2 . . . It is realistic to and beyond the point of insipity. Page after page of the dullest and most trivial conversation between the female characters is spread out before the amazed reader, who is con scious after it is done, that he has been enjoying the companionship and conversation of the most imbecile creatures to be found outside the walls of an asylum for idiots. All this is certainly the anti-climax of healthy human nature.45 Although the Constitution held Henry James in the same qualified esteem in which it held Howells, the news paper's editors revealed no hesitation in condemning James's realistic techniques for reasons similar to those which had been applied to Howells. Obviously taking exception to what was generally regarded as realism's antipathy for imagination, the Constitution thus appraises James: There are those among the critics who declare that his methods lack the bloom and freshness that characterize those of the novelists who depended upon their imaginations to give life and vitality to their creations. Of what importance to nature or to art, they ask, is this interminable analysis of emotion, this endless description of,, trifling details? Give us, they cry, the flavor of life, something vigorous and rounded and vital. Let art join incident, opportunity and circumstance go together in a novel which shall satisfy the cravings of the human heart for the loftiest ideals.4® 45 Ibid., July 19, 1887, p. 2. Cf. also February 19, 1887, p. 2. 46 ibid., December 28, 1885, p. 2. Like Grady, Harris appreciated James's Portrait of A Lady. However,- he condemned James's criticism of Hawthorne, and, in 1880, he was unsympathetic with James's "literary form and initiated intellect." Editor and Essayist, p. 190. In 1898, Harris found James's style in "The Turn of the Screw" consisting of'horrifying elements," characterized by ". . . labored, panting diction, the painful effort to find the right word, The editorial emphasizes the weakness of the Howells-James school of realists by citing the author’s failure to portray human nature in a way to ”evoke tears and genuine human sympathy” in a manner comparable to Dickens and Thackeray: Perhaps Dickens’s humor is coarse and his senti ment somewhat sickening; perhaps poor dear Thackeray was on terms of too great confidence with his readers. Admit all this, and then it is worth while to inquire whether any of the moderns have afforded us as much amusement, or given us truer pictures of human nature or caused us to shed more tears of genuine human sympathy. It is true that we might have cried a little over poor little Ralph Toutchitt— we trust we spell the name correctly— had we not been restrained by Mr. James’s overwhelming sense of propriety. It is true, moreover, that we might have sympathized with the manliness of Silas Lapham had not Mr. Howells taught us to have a contempt for his boorishness; but, apart from this, we know of nothing the realistic school has produced that appeals to human sympathy.47 the right phrase, the fitting paragraph. . . See Life and Letters, pp. 405-404. By 1908, James ’s ’ ’diction” was still ’ gainful” to Harris, but after expressing regret that James had abandoned the earlier method of Portrait of A Lady, Harris concluded that James’s style ’ ’suits his method of analysis, his descriptions of emotions, and his explor ation of the mind. ...” Ibid., p. 595. 47 Atlanta Constitution. December 28, 1885, p. 2. Among the literary preferences which Grady and Harris shared were the English novelists, Dickens, Goldsmith, and Thackeray; the French novelist, Victor Hugo, whose Jan Valjean in Les Miserables was their favorite character; and to some extent, Henry James’s Portrait of A Lady. Grady and Harris viewed with suspicion many aspects of ’ ’the modem novel” as Harris ’s comment about some of his friend's literary interests suggests: ”. . . the average modern novel made no impression on him. He enjoyed it to some extent, and was amazed as well as amused by the immense amount of labor expanded on the trivial affairs of life by writers who call themselves realists.” See Joel Chandler Harris, Life of Henry W. Grady, p. 43. 89 Even this is qualified praise of Howells and James I The Constitution does not condemn the two for an extreme realism. On the other hand, the newspaper's strictures are the result of the alleged failure of the realists to give us ’ ’truer pictures of human nature.” The Constitution indicated editorially as early as 48 1883 an awareness of the literary controversy between the ’ ’realists” and ’ ’idealists.” Again, in March, 1887, the Constitution reminded its readers of the controversy which . • has been going on for some time among those who call themselves ’ ’realists” and those who believe that a novel or a story should be something more than the analysis of the emotions of uninteresting people.The Constitu tion declared that Howells and his school . . . are of the opinion that all the stories were written long ago, and that what people want now is a series of finical histories of the thoughts of people who are not only commonplace but trivial.50 However, in speaking of the controversy as between "romanticists” and "realists” the newspaper appeared to regard realism as the antithesis of romance. By July 5, the Constitution had seemingly cleared up this apparent confusion, for, on this date, a reprint of an article in the New York Post made a distinction between "pseudo- 48 Atlanta Constitution. October 23, 1883, p. 2. 49 Atlanta Constitution, March 20, 1887, p. 2. 50 Loc. cit. 90 romanticism” and "pseudo-realism.” Entitled nThe Material at Hand for Young Writers of the South,” the Post article considered three problems of paramount concern to southern authors: content, form, and method: . . . it is this last particular that has again brought southern literature within reach of northern influence. For the realistic method in American fiction was first applied at the North. There today are the most authoritative exemplars of its use, or its abuse, according as one may be pleased to think; and in the nature of things it would be idle to maintain that all imaginative prose writers in this country who are worth the name, have not been affected one way or another by their theories, and the direct outcome of these in the form of realistic works. Southern realism, unlike Northern realism, the Post pointed out, was neither "cold,” "analytical,” nor "trivial.By not adhering to the limitations imposed by Northern realism, Southern realism was demonstrating ”... the most hopeful c augury of the new literature yet to ,be. ..." Warning the creators of Southern literature to beware of the two methods "that are essentially false,” the Post concluded: . . • they are the pseudo realistic and the pseudo-romantie• An imaginative prose work that claims to be true to human nature, but is false to human life— that work is pseudo-realistic. An imaginative prose work that claims to be true simply to those laws of imaginative art that are involved in its creation, 51 Atlanta Constitution. July 5, 1887, p. 2. 52 Loc. cit. 53 Loc. cit. 91 but is false in any wise to them— that work is pseudo-romantic. Thus what realism should wage war on is not romance, but pseudo-realism, which is the base and counterfeit presentment of itself. Komance should assail pseudo-romanee.54 The New York Post and the Atlanta Constitution were thus in substantial agreement on the basic weaknesses of Northern realism. It was excessively "trivial," "analytical," and "cold." On October 23, 1887, the Constitution again took notice of the controversy in one of its leading editorials. This time, however, the controversy was regarded as "between the realists and the idealists.” Differentiating the .two, the Constitution stated: . . . The realists insist that life is life, whether it be coarse or trivial, or noble and exalted; the idealists maintain, on the other hand, that it is not necessary to the furtherance of art to depict either the coarse or the trivial.55 The real difference between these two schools, it is suggested, is the difference between imagi nation and invention. Whether or not this is to be considered a fine distinction depends upon the point of view. Shakespeare had little or no invention. He stole his plots bodily, and devoted himself almost exclusively to creating character. This, it seems, is the real business of those who write for posterity as well as for their next door neighbors. It is in this direction that the imagination frets and roars and thunders. The inventor, with his little plots, is nowhere in com parison. Character, in literature, Is life, but life is not always character. Talent Is invention* 54 Constitution, loc. cit. 55 Ibid.. October 23, 1887, p. 2. 92 5 6 Genius is imagination. Characteristically, however, the editorial concludes with an appeal for a compromise between the two warring schools. But after all, why pester ourselves with these things? Why not accept what is good in both and devote ourselves to the perpetual enjoyment thereof?^? In the four years since October, 1883, when the editors had regarded the critical controversy as between ‘ ’idealists1 1 and "analysts,” the Constitution had advanced to an under standing of the basic issues in the controversy. In 1887, as in 1883, the newspaper had applied its policy of compro mise. Its statements in 1883, however, had a prophetical tone, for in that year the Constitution ventured to hope for a synthesis of the literary methods of the two groups; It is true that the discussion is intermittent . . . that neither side understands precisely what it would be atj but the controversy is not the less interesting on that account. In one way or another, it will accomplish a great deal, for taking it for granted that the analysts will not become idealists or the idealists will not become analysts, the public will understand why it is delighted by one method and charmed by the otherj and perhaps the result will be that the American novel of the future— the American novel for which we are all looking and hoping— will unite vigor and freedom of movement with all that is artistic in the portrayal and analysis of the emotions.58 56 Constitution, loc. cit. Cf. Harris’s views in "Shakespeare of Modern Business, f in Editor and Essayist, pp. 382-383. 57 Atlanta Constitution, Oetober 23, 1887, p. 2. 58 ibid., October 23, 1883, p. 2. 95 The Constitution, then, did not oppose artistic "portrayal and analysis of the emotions" when it was combined with "vigor and freedom of movement." For the most part, the Constitution did not believe that the realism of Howells and James successfully accomplished this synthesis. Their preoccupation with style and their subordination of the imagination in their overwrought psychological portraits were shortcomings which the Atlanta newspaper found it impossible to overlook. The "nationalist" program of the New South's editorial spokesmen made it mandatory to encourage American writers to exploit the native atmosphere in scene and character. In May, 1889, the Atlanta newspaper deplored the worship of foreign authors and critics among native writers who, the newspaper maintained, were neglecting the materials around them: The trouble with most American writers is their tame imitation of foreign models. Enslaved by the critics of the old world, they have learned to despise the material around them; they have been ashamed of a very original idea, and have considered it beneath them to write of American things, as sensible, independent Americans would of them.59 Like Emerson, whose "American Scholar" essay had apparently contributed to the C ons ti tut ionf s editorial policy in literary matters, the newspaper recommended an autochthonous American literature: 59 Ibid., May 27, 1889, p. 2. 94 The thoughtful observer who follows Emerson's advice and lives in the streets will find interes ting types of characters besides the negroes, mountaineers and crackers, and when he comes to write what is in his mind he will write American literature.®® The emphasis upon a democratic literature in America had been continued with rare eloquence by Whitman in Democratic 61 Vistas (1871). Thus, the Constitution reflected the prevailing literary trend in emphasizing native subjects and themes, with emphasis upon their commonplace character istics. In its advocacy of literary nationalism, the Cons titution led the way in the post-bellum South for the re-emphasis upon realism in the section. The Constitution, unlike the Richmond, Virginia, Times was unwilling to make literature a handmaiden to sectionalism. The Georgia newspaper pursued its plea for an American literature which should faithfully reflect American life with stubborn persistency. As the newspaper had argued in 1879, so it continued to argue in 1891 against the trend to encourage special pleading for Southern literature. Moreover, the Constitution continued to point out that no compromise could be effected between the creative faculty and the literature of special interest. In August, 1891, the Constitution strongly criticized the Richmond Times, which ®® Constitution, loc. cit. 61 Louis Warm, The Rise of Realism, 1860-1900, p. 5. 95 had proposed a preferential literary standard for Southerners. The Constitution declared: . . . The creative faculty refuses to run on all fo-ur’s with the fleeting and temporary preju dices of the hour; it refuses to be hampered by the spirit of sectionalism that grows out of political differences and social misconceptions. The business of literary art is with life itself, and, in considering the problems and the compli cations that are the result of fate or circumstance, it views with stern and impassioned eye all that is fleeting and transitory. The moment the literary worker becomes a partisan or a dissembler he lays aside the functions of his art, and his productions lose their importance; they lose all importance, in fact, for verity is the essential element of every literary effort that is effective or that approaches permanence.®® The Constitution concluded: . . . Let our literature be as provincial as it may, the enduring literature of the world is shot through and through with provincial flavor; but by all means let our people free themselves from the provinciality which resents the results of literary art and flinches in public whenever a critic lifts his finger. . . . Literary genius must be permitted to follow its own bent. Its instincts are infallible. It must be permitted to create character and re produce life from its own points of view. It can have but one purpose and that is to be true to truth and faithful to life.®3 The Constitution followed up its attack on the position of the Richmond Times on September 2, 1891. With its familiar reiteration of the idea that the business of literature is 62 Atlanta Cons titution, August 16, 1891, p. 12. See the following for similar views of Harris: Editor and Essayist, p. 43; Life of Henry W. Grady, pp. 45-46; Life and Letters, p. 571. Cf. also "^ConstitutionalsM for November 25, 1885. 65 Constitution, loc. cit. Cf. Editor and Essayist, pp. 46-47 and Hubbell, op. cit., pp. 219-220. 96 with human nature, the Constitution declared: However it may be modified by circumstances and conditions, human nature is pretty much the same the world over--the same in its variety, its complexities and its mysteries.64 The best indication of an author's understanding of human nature is to be found in his delineation of character, rather than in his style. Character portrayal alone gives vitality to fiction. In an exceptionally comprehensive editorial for July 15, 1893, the Constitution elaborated these views and contrasted Howells and James with Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray, while praising Lowell. Deprecating the efforts of James and his followers to elevate style above character in fiction, the Constitution said: The one test of greatness in fiction— the one secret of permanency--is the creation of character. And it is an amazing fact that the overwhelming majority of literary performers of the present generation turn away from character and devote themselves exclusively to the carpentry work of producing mannerisms which they dignify by the name style; but which do not even constitute pleasing diction. It used to be that literary art stood for the delineation of life— the reproduction and creation of character, but now it stands for an effort to -master the secrets of the jargon which the followers of Mr. Henry James, Jr., call style and which bears no resemblance to style. . . As an offset to the excessive preoccupation with style which the Constitution believed had come to undermine Northern literature, the newspaper stated: 64 Atlanta Constitution, September 2, 1891, p. 2. 65 Ibid., July 15, 1893, p. 4. Cf. Editor and Essayist, pp. 186-191; Life and Letters, p. 570. 97 We advise our literary experimenters, therefore, especially those who breathe the southern atmos phere, to cease reaching out for style, and to bring all their energies to bear on the creation of character. 6*5 The newspaper's primary interest was in the "character1 1 of the common people whose representative the newspaper purported to be. On the occasion of its thirtieth anniversary, the Constitution reiterated its credo: . . . The Constitution stands today and will stand in the future as it has in the past, the representative of the great mass of common people-- with those through whose toil and perseverance the fields have given. . . • One thing may be set down now as certain, that come events as they will, the Constitution will always and at all times, be the champion of the people, standing in the front ranks battling for their rights. The people, synonymous in the terminology of Constitution's editors' literary statements with "country people," could be best portrayed in literature through speaking their "natural language" and "acting out their little tragedies A Q and comedies according to the prompting of their natures." Thus was explained the use of the vernacular, or dialect. The Constitution maintained that the most effective way to delineate American character was through a faithful employment of the American language. On May 7, 1886, the ®® Atlanta Constitution, July 15, 1893, p. 4 67 rbid*» - Jxin® 1 7 > 1Q97, p. 4. ®8 Ibid., December 12, 1897, p. 4. Constitution announced that it was a part of the news paper's policy to ". . . foster a reasonable use of the 69 choice Georgia dialect.” The newspaper's interest in dialect was apparent even earlier in the work of Samuel W. Small, whose n01d Si” was the forerunner of Harris's Uncle Remus. Small's work was appearing in the Constitution from 70 as early as 1876. Harris's early dialect work began on 71 January 18, 1877. In 1883 the Constitution said the differences in the language of northerners and Southerners had been "... grossly exaggerated by romancers on both 72 sides.',’ In April, 1887, the reviewer of the monthly magazines in the Constitution remarked that Sarah Orne Jewett's short story, "The Courtship of Sister Wisby" showed ". . . that the difference between the Hew England and the 73 Southern white dialect is merely climatic." Later in an August 14, 1888, editorial, which was entitled "Dialect in Fiction," the Constitution commented at length on the role of dialect, stressing its function as a device in character portrayal. Mindful of the fact that the vogue of local color had resulted in a "burst of dialect," the Constitution asserted there could be "no such thing as a dialect story": 69 Ibid.. May 7, 1886, p. 2. 70 Life and Letters, p. 143. 71 Ibid., p. 144. 72 Atlanta Constitution, August 7, 1883, p. 2. 73 Ibid., April 24, 1887, p. 2. 99 Dialect is simply a part and parcel of charac ter, and the writer who is developing or depicting character has no more thought of merely writing dialect than the artist who is compelled to paint a wart, on a man’s nose, has of painting bunions. If there is such a thing as dialect stories, the wart painter follows as a matter of course, and Sir Joshua Reynolds was not only a wart painter but a painter of moles.74 The Constitution argued that the "real" character of Americans could be most effectively portrayed in their speech: The truth is that there is no character in the mere jargon of dialect writing, but the speech of the common people is indispensable to the presen tation of their character; and their character, properly presented, is worth more than all the so- called culture to be found in the country.75 One writer who depicted American character in a satisfactory manner for the Constitution was Mark Twain. Mark Twain, whom Harris regarded not only "as our greatest rj g humorist, but our greatest writer of fiction," was also the native author who, the Constitution felt, came nearest to being the great American novelist. Significantly, the qualities admired in Mark Twain are analogous to the quali ties which Harris obviously admired in Thackeray in his 77 November, 1879, editorials. The following appraisal of Mark Twain’s Following the Equator indicates the esteem in which the Constitution held the humorist: 74 Constitution, loc. cit. 75 Ibid., August 14, 1888, p. 2. 76 Editor and Essayist, p. 375. 77 Ibid., pp. 43-45. 100 Prom beginning to end it is all Mark Twain. Whatever he invents is his, and whatever he seizes upon becomes his by right of fresh and original treatment. He throws, as it were, a new light upon it, views it from a new standpoint. This is the result of his strong individuality, and when individuality is strong enough to be diffused throughout seven hundred pages, it becomes style— the style that is not diction, though critics to the north of us are trying hard to confound the two. One may obtain a very complete impression of Mr. Clemens by reading this book. The atmosphere of his personality is never absent a moment. As he is a very human man, a fierce hater of shams and hypocrisies of every kind and character, the effect of his hatred is indeed pleasing. It is good to be with such a man even in a book.'8 Mark Twain, like Harris and Grady, was a product of the Southwestern Frontier. Thus, the Constitution’s editors could applaud Twain’s satiric denunciations of the extrava gancies of the Gilded Age, even if they themselves lacked the temperament and the insight to emulate him. As a purveyor of literary opinions, however, and as a consciously influential journal of the New South, the Constitution could defend Twain against all detractors and, at the same time, point to the failure to appreciate the author as a deplorable cultural lag. In an unusually heated editorial of May 26, 1885, the Constitution charged that the Concord public library had, falsely, given the impression that Huckleberry Finn was ”... gratuitously coarse, its humor 79 unnecessarily broad, and its purpose crude and inartistic.” *78 Atlanta Constitution, June 27, 1898, p. 4. 79 Ibid., May 26, 1885, p. 2 101 Then, proceeding to censure the imitative American leisure class in a manner which probably would have pleased Mark Twain, the Constitution averred: The American leisure elass--the class that might be expected to patronize good literature and to create a demand for good sound criticism— is not only fond of horses but decidedly horsey. It has no taste in either literature or art. It reads few books and buys its pictures in Europe by the yard. ^ Thus the Constitution formulated Its own principles for a native American literature. It would be without the nastiness of French and Russian realistic naturalism. It would avoid the excesses in the stylistic methods of James and Howells— excesses which tended to make fiction over trivial, analytical, and cold. It would emphasize a dis creet amount of pathos and it would contain a similar amount of humor. Finally, it would use the language of the rural folk to depict character and the human nature which under lies all character. In these ways, the Constitution argued, Americans might well hasten the coming of the great American novel. The most notable exemplar of this ideal American writer of fiction'at that time, however, according to the Constitution, was Mark Twain. The next chapter turns to a study of Harris's writings for an investigation of his literary aims and some indication of his opinions about realism. 80 Constitution, loc. cit. See Henry S. Canby, Turn West, Turn East: Henry James and Mark Twain, pp. 139-140, ^ T . the Concord, Massachusetts, library added to Concord's other fames by banning Twain's book. . . .1 1 U n i v e r s i t y o f Southern California Uhm»r CHAPTER VI * HARRIS »S LITERARY AIMS AND SOME ILLUSTRATIONS OP HIS APPROACH TO AN ESTHETIC OP REALISM During the years between 1879 and 1899 when the controversy over realism was raging in the pages of the Atlanta Constitution and other American newspapers and periodicals, Harris, the Constitution's chief editorial writer, was busily serving two masters. He spent his days in the offices of the Constitution, grinding out his editorial ’ •specialties11" * ' in the amount of two columns daily. He spent his nights at home writing sketches and articles for Northern magazines and publishers. To a great extent his was a divided career during these years. These were important years for Harris and for American literature. For Harris the years marked a growing recognition of his artistic powers and an appreciation of both his literary and editorial work in advancing the South's efforts to re-establish itself in the union. For American literature these were important years that witnessed the development of local color, the rise of realism, and the beginning of naturalism. Harris commented on these literary trends in many of his unsigned editorials in the Constitution, but it 1 Unpublished letter of Joel Chandler Harris to Stillson Hutchins, April 2, 1880, Thomas Nelson Page Collection, Duke University Library. 103 is to his signed and identifiable literary comments scattered throughout his writings that we may now turn for the views which constitute his clearly defined principles of literary realism. "My whole aim has been at life and character,n Harris wrote to E. L. Burlingame in 1894, and he added, g "I have purposely left the style to take care of itself.” Harris's preoccupation with representing "life” and "character" was accompanied by a skepticism of the term ’ ’realism." Prom Harris's point of view, there was . .a narrow but impassable gulf between the realism of art and 3 the realism of life. . . ." (He admitted himself that this was "clumsy phraseology" trying to describe "an important fact.") He indicated in his Life of Henry W. Grady his own as well as Grady's "amusement" and "amazement" at "writers who call themselves realists." However, he said several years later that he could "enjoy what was best in the realists." Like Hamlin Garland, Harris's basic attitude toward "realism" seems to have been that the artist must ". . . consciously stand alone before Nature ^ Life and Letters, p. 340. 3 Joel Chandler Harris, "The American Type," the Atlanta Constitution, May 25, 1885, p. 2. 4 joel Chandler Harris, Life of Henry W. Grady, pp. 43-46. 5 W. M. Baskerville, Southern Writers. I, p. 54. 104 and before Life. . . . As we follow Harris’s statements of his literary aims, we may note his adherence to several of the prin ciples which are characteristic of writers of realism. However, the highly individualistic nature of Harris’s artistry is as characteristic in his departure from the standard tenets of realism as it is in his adherence to these tenets. Unlike the Northern or Western realist, Harris was not free, as Southerner, to let his art stand or fall on its merits alone. The specters of slavery and war lay heavily over the Southern scene. In one form or another, they were to haunt Harris’s writings throughout his career. On November 3, 1879, Harris, in his capacity as editorial writer for the Atlanta Constitution, deplored the conditions in the South that discouraged native authors from depicting the ' ’realities*' of the South: . . • when the Southern novelist comes to depict life in the South as it really was and is, his work if he be a genuine artist, will be too impartial to 6 Cf. Hamlin Garland, Crumbling Idols, as cited by P. L. Pattee, Development of the American Short Story, p. 315: "Veritism puts aside all models, even living writers. Whatever he may do unconsciously, the artist must consciously stand alone before Nature and before Life. . . . I do not advocate an exchange of masters, but freedom from masters. Life, Nature--these should be our teachers. . . . Art is not necessarily a thing far away, and select, and very civilized. . . . I believe in the mighty pivotal present. . . . In all that I have written upon local literature, I have told the truth as I saw it.” 105 suit the ideas of those who have grown fat feeding upon the romantic idea that no additional polish could be put upon our perfections.7 Harris voiced similar opinions in another editorial on 8 June 29, 1881, when he derided as "preposterous” the claims of some Southern authors who charged that Northern publishers were discriminating against their works because they were Southerners. Such "tendencies of romanticism," Harris awserted, "are not only preposterous in themselves but deadly in their effects upon literary art. ..." He proceeded to denounce sectionalism in literary matters in a manner that became characteristic of the Constitution after 1876 j . . . When Southern writers divest themselves thoroughly of every trace of sectionalism and view all things from the artistic standpoint, they will find no difficulty in making their way. In fact, they will find less difficulty than the writers of any other section. Circumstances have invested everything in the life and literature of the South with profound interest, and the writer who shall truthfully present and reproduce the characters and conditions by which he has been surrounded, however narrow and provincial they may be, is sure of fame. This is true of any and all sections, but the circumstances to which we have alluded have made it particularly true of the South.® Harris reiterated his critical position again in 1908 in Uncle Remus *s Magazine in an appraisal of G. W. Cablefs Grandissimes. Harris said that the Southern writer who 7 Atlanta Constitution, November 3, 1879, p. 2. 8 Ibid., June 29, 1881, p. 2. Cf. also Editor and Essayist, p. 47. 9 Editor and Essayist, loc. eft. 106 achieved success would be the one who most faithfully reflected the environment which he knew best. But the same kind of criticism and ostracism which confronted Cable awaited other aspiring writers, Harris said. He continued; . . . What great writers we should have in the Southern States if only we could make our traditions and our environments contributory to our fictive art! But it seems there are things we can not deal with familiarly--things that we cannot touch with our finger tips without drawing a blood-blister on the unseemly forehead of politics, and when our writers take their pens in hand, and begin to set forth in fiction the things with which they are familiar, and about which they have first-hand knowledge, they unconsciously feel they are under some sort of pledge not to offend the abnormal sensitiveness of their neighbors. . • . This has been so and it is so, and we shall never have any great novel from the South until our writers shake off this Old Man of the Sea, and free themselves from the imaginary pressure under which they labor. Harris's pronouncements in 1879 apparently reflected the influence of the New South's policy of literary nationalism which as a young editorial writer he seems to have been called upon to support. However, the reiteration of these • views in 1908 in a magazine that depended upon the goodwill of the public for its survival and success, suggests that Harris was genuinely opposed to the social reasons for ’ ’the hot ostracism and social criticism” which had been meted out to Cable. From the viewpoint of critic, Harris, as a Southerner, demonstrated considerable insight in taking such a stand. To what extent, as author, did he himself IQ Julia Collier Harris, Life and Letters of Joel Chandler Harris, p. 571. 107 exemplify his ideal of a ’ ’Southern Thackeray”"^ who dared to satirize his contemporaries? To be specific, could Harris, as a white Southerner, in the Georgia of the Reconstruction period, view Negroes 12 and the slavery issue objectively? The answer to this 11 Harris’s ideal for the Southern realist in 1879 was Thackeray, who, he said ’ ’satirized the society in which he moved and held up to ridicule the hollow hypocrisies of his neighbors. He took liberties with the people of his own blood and time that would have led him hurriedly in the direction of bodily discomfort if he had lived in the South.” Cf. Atlanta Constitution, November 3, 1879, and Editor and Essayist, p. 44. It is doubtful, however, whether Harris himself was temperamentally qualified to be an effective satirist. Note, for example, his ’ ’disrelish” of Cervantes’ Don Quixote which left him ”a little short of disgust” after repeated readings. Speaking of himself as ”the Parmer” Harris says: ”He has never been and probably never will be able to relish and digest any form of humor that has for its basis the ridicule of the afflictions of mankind. The spectacle of the poor demented creature, whose ideas of chivalry and knighthood had been of the highest, parading forth as the butt of another’s ridicule, has ever been too much for him.” Cf. Editor and Essayist, p. 373. 12 Harris’s attempts to present the ’ ’truth” as he interpreted it during his lifetime seems always to have been colored by his sensitivity to the effects of slavery upon his beloved South. Although he was not personally a slave holder, he demonstrates in his attitude such sympathies toward ’ ’kind and humane” slaveholders that he was at least vicariously involved in slavery. Professor C. Mildred Thompson has suggested some of the emotional difficulties that characterized the Georgia of Harris's time: . . While the white man was master of the slave, slavery was master of the white man. Abolition freed the white as well as the black. But still the race problem and the cry of Negroi NegroJ--the slogan of political demagogues, who magnify and distort a very real difficulty in playing upon the passions of the less educated whites— rise to curtail freedom of thought and act. . . . If the revolution of Civil War and Reconstruction wrought anything of enduring value, it was in the advance toward greater social democracy. Since the transaction was a forced sale and the price extorted, not paid willingly, it was not with Georgia to 108 question is not simple. Harris's comments about his aims’ in the Uncle Remus stories may provide some clues. What were Harris’s literary aims in the Uncle Remus stories? He said it was his intention to project the stories . . upon the background and to give them surroundings which they 13 had in the old days which are no more.” He hoped also, he added, "to give in their recital a glimpse of plantation 14 life in the South before the war.” Explicitly, then, Harris stated his intentions in these stories, and the intentions appear to be realistic. However, Harris, a shrewd critic and commentator on literature, described his 15 method as "picturesque verity.” His claims for "verity” in the stories could be justified by what he called ”... fair knowledge of the negro character, and long familiarity 1 6 with the manifold peculiarities of the negro temperament.” His intention of adding "picturesque” portraits along with his veracious accounts of plantation life, however, would be puzzling if it were not for his explanation of what he regarded as "the realities” of slavery. In commenting on reason whether or not the product of Reconstruction was worth the cost." C. Mildred Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 401. 13 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Song3 and His Sayings, p. xxxvi. 14 Loc. cit. Ibid., pp. xvi-xvii. 16 Joel Chandler Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus, p. xiv. 109 Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harris stated: The real moral that Mrs. Stowe's book teaches is that the possibilities of slavery anywhere and everywhere are shocking to the imagination, while the realities, under the best and happiest con ditions, possess a romantic beauty and a tenderness all their own; and it has so happened in the course of time that this romantic feature, so beautifully brought out in a volume that was for a long time taboo in the South, has become the essence, and almost the substance, of the old plantation as we remember it. We live and move in a harsh and unfeeling world; it is so hard and cold and practical that we dare not give an inkling of our real thoughts and feel ings to our nextdoor neighbor, lest we become victims of his derision; but this hard world that lies about us is ready to turn aside from the business of the moment, and melt and grow warm with tenderness, when it is confronted with romance that is based on human relations. And if there were ever human relations that were romantic and pictur esque they were to be found on the old plantation in the days of slavery. The flight of time has mellowed and hallowed the memory of those days, and all that was beautiful in the life then existing has become a part of the pleasant dreams of those who came in contact with the old order that passed away more than a generation ago.I1 ? Here surely we have romantic escape! On the other hand, we have Harris's views of the "selected” realities of slavery. Fortunately, however, as Harris recognized, this picture of romantic and picturesque human relations of slavery was not the complete picture. Working, however, within the frame work of the romancer, he often used an autobiographical approach which is as distinctive in its limited area as the approach of Whitman or Mark Twain in theirs. In his I? Editor and Essayist, pp. 118-119 110 Introductory note to On the Plantation, he indicated the complexities of his literary method when he came to invest the "... commonplace character and adventures of Joe 1 ft Maxwell with the vitality that belongs to fiction. . . . . Speaking further of his fictional alter ego and his adventures in his early autobiographical novelette, Harris said: . . . That which is fiction pure and simple in these pages bears to me the stamp of truth, and that which is true reads like clumsy inven tion. . . • 19 Harris concluded that it was not his part to ". . • prompt the reader. He must sift the fact from the fiction and O f ) label it to suit himself." Such an attitude makes it necessary to investigate Harris's attitude toward truth. What was Harris's idea of truth? His letters to the critic, W. M. Baskerville, in March and April, 1895, suggest an answer to this question. Harris's short story, "Little Compton," pointed to the author's view of slavery 18 Joel Chandler Harris, On the Plantation, "Intro ductory Note," p. vii. 19 Loc. cit. This apparent perversity on Harris's part may be due in some measure to the influence of Charles Lamb. Cf. Lamb's essay "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" in which Lamb says, in part: "... Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for true records. They are, in truth, but shadows of facts— verisimilitudes, not verities--or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of history. ..." See Alfred Ainger, The Essays of Elia, p. 129. OR ^he Plantation, loc. cit. Ill 21 as reflecting the "temper of the times.” In a comment on the historical novel Harris emphasized the necessity of go fiction’s supplying us "veracious reports" of the conditions of the people during the time treated in the story. These two factors' take on significant meaning when we consider Harris’s intentions in his "tract," Free Joe. In a letter to Baskerville on April 15, 1895, Harris writes: By the way, did you ever read the tract which I have labeled "Free Joe?" Did you ever try to read between the lines? That is the trouble. Some writer in the Nashville American a year or so ago catalogued me with those Southern writers who tried to cater to Northern sentiment. I think you ought to light the funeral pile to that sort of idea. What does it matter whether I am Northern or Southern if I am true to truth, and true to that larger truth, my own true self? My idea is that truth is more important than sectionalism--and that literature that can be labeled Northern, Southern, Western, or Eastern, is not worth labeling at all. . . .23 To what extent are his literary pronouncements in general revealing of ". . . that larger truth, my own true self? . . . ." In delving into the factors which made up Harris’s own "true self," we must depend in large measure upon his letters and comments scattered throughout his prose. On March 18, 1895, he told Baskerville he had tried to keep 21 Joel Chandler Harris, Free Joe, pp. 58-59. ^ and Letters, pp. 566-567. 23 j. b. Hubbell, "Letters of Uncle Remus," p. 221. 112 himself out of his writings as much as possible. He added that his work had been neither for personal glory, nor for 24 financial gain. But, in the same letter, he also said contradictorily: . . . And yet the man is there--standing for lack of cultivation, lack of literary art, and lack of all the graces that make life worth living to those who affect culture, but I hope hone sty sincerity, simplicity are not lacking. . . .25 His espousal of "honesty,” "sincerity,” and "simplicity" denote the primary desiderata of the realist. They were desiderata which the individualistic Harris would cast in moulds of his own design. Harris's commentaries on his novel Gabriel Tolliver, (1902), disclose the author's individualistic, non conformist attitude toward his art. He says, "I have put myself into it in the most -unreserved way • . . without 26 regard to models, standards or formalism of any kind. . ." Then he adds: 24 "Letters of Uncle Remus," p. 219. See also Harris's letter to his daughter Tommie of March 19, 1898, Life and Letters, pp. 384-386, in which he says, in part: Now, my "other fellow" I am convinced, would do some damage if I didn't give him an opportunity to work off his energy in the way he delights. I say to him, "Now, here's an editor who says he will pay well for a short story. He wants it at once. . . . Then I forget all about the matter . . . and presently "my.other fellow" says sourly: "What about that story?" Then when night comes, I take up my pen, surrender unconditionally to my "other fellow," and out comes the story. ..." 25 "Letters of Uncle Remus," p. 219. 26 Life and.Letters, pp. 454-455 113 . • . I determined to write something to please myself. The result is what you have. It is mine; I do not say this on account of any pride I have in the work; it is, perhaps, faulty, but even the faults are mine. . . .27 That his intentions were no less realistic than Howells.'s 28 in Their Wedding Journey becomes apparent in Harris *s own avowal: . . . I surrendered myself wholly to the story and its characters, and the idea of art simply never occurred to me till the thing was complete. The prelude to Gabriel Tolliver clearly reveals Harris as part romancer and part realist. In the role of Cephas, who at the Instigation of his wife is about to put in his book " . . . characters such as you find in Shady Dale," Harris writes: 27 Life and Letters, loc. cit. 28 One of Howells's characteristic approaches to realism Is revealed in the following passages from his novel, Their Wedding Journey: 1 l As in literature the true artist will shun t!he use even of real events if they are of an improbable character, so the sincere observer of man will not desire to look upon his heroic or occasional phases, but will seek his habitual moods of vacancy and tiresomeness. To me, at any rate, he is at such times very precious; and I never perceive him to be so much a man and a brother as when I feel the pressure of his vast, natural, unaffected dullness. Then I am able to enter confidently into his life and inhabit there, to think his shallow and feeble thoughts, to be moved by his dumb, stupid desires to be dimly Illumined by his stinted inspirations, to share his foolish prejudices, to practice his obtuse selfishness." (Pp. 86-87} Again he says, "I shall have nothing to do but to talk of some ordinary traits of American life as these appeared to them, to speak a little of well-known and easily accessible places, to present now a bit of landscape, and now a sketch of character." (P. 2.) Cf. Life and Letters, p. 219. 29 Life and Letters, pp. 454-455. 114 The suggestion was a fertile one; It had In It the aetive principle of a germ; and It was not long before the ferment began to make itself felt. The past began to renew itself; the sun shone on the old days and gave them an illumination which they lacked when they were new. Time's perspectives gave them a mellower tone, and they possessed, at least for me, that element of mystery which seems to attach to whatever is venerable* It was as if the place, the people, and the scenes had taken the shape of a huge picture, with just such a lack of harmony and unity as we find in real life.30 Harris, the romancer, admits to "mellowing1 1 the lights, but Harris, the realist, concentrates on ". . .a huge picture, with just such a lack of harmony as we find in real life." In elaborating on his aims further, he reveals the influence of the Middle Georgia school of Longstreet and Thompson, who aimed at writing social history through a realistic recording of their times. Like his predecessors too, Harris surrendered himself to the atmosphere of his period, and we have a picture of small-town life in Middle Georgia during the period of Reconstruction, which seems nonetheless true because of the idyllic qualities Harris has ascribed to it. In this novel, as indeed throughout his work, Harris was self-conscious artist and critic. That he regarded character portrayal as the surest gateway to literary immortality is apparent in this excerpt from Uncle Remus »s Magazine in 1907; Can a writer properly portray the mental emotions, the aspirations as well as the inner habits of thought of aliens and strangers of whom he has only 30 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 6 115 a surface knowledge? . . . This is a question that goes to the very heart of successful fiction. A writer must not only have the knowledge of them, but he must know them to the very root of their being. Only in this way can character be created, and the creation of character is the chief end and aim of those who set themselves to prodouce master pieces of fiction.31 Elaborating further on the supremacy of character portrayal, Harris demonstrates a striking similarity to the character istic principle of realism which Howells enunciated in Their Wedding Journey. As interpreted by Harris, the artist's surrendering himself to the atmosphere of his subject and faithfully portraying the atmosphere around his subject would result in literary immortality. Harris writes: Wherever, or whenever, you find in a book the apt and happy- portrayal of human nature, its con tests with its own emotions and temptations, its striving toward the highest ideals, its passions, its platitudes, its meanness, its native longing for what is true and wholesome, its struggles with circumstances, its surrenders and its victories, and, above all, its humor there you will find the passport and credentials that will commend it to readers yet u n b o r n .32 The human nature which Harris found most appealing was that of the common people, whom he and the Constitution regarded as synonymous with the country people. As Carlos Baker says: . . . Harris shared the opinion (however one may disagree with it) which underlay all the best genre writing of the period: nHo novel or story can be genuinely American unless it deals with 31 Life and Letters, p. 570. 32 Loc. cit. 116 33 the common people, that is country people. . . ." Likewise, in common with realistic practice in the 1880's, Harris favored an extensive delineation of "commonplace” characters. Harris's views of the superiority of the rural type were strongly expressed in a discussion of Howe's novel, Story of A Country Town. In his discussion of the rural type as representatively American, Harris advocates an "adequate representation of human nature" that will leave "vivid and lasting impressions" upon the reader as the author attempts to "cross the narrow but impassable gulf that lies between the realism of life and the realism of 34 art. ..." Elaborating these views, Harris writes: The American type is seen and known at its best in the rural regions; but it is a fatal weakness of American literature that our novelists and story writers can perceive only the comic side of what they are pleased to term "provincial life;" for it is always a fatal weakness to see what is not to be seen. It is a remarkable fact that the most charac teristic American story that has ever been written should approach rural life on the tragic side. This is the Story of A Country Town by Edgar Watson Howe. Those who are searching for American types will find them in Mr. Howe's book, where they are set forth with conscientious grimness. In the Story of A Country Town, there is no hesitation displayed when human nature is to be uncovered; consequently the impression that the book makes is vivid and lasting. The impressions made by the adequate interpretation of human nature are always vivid and lasting. They are vivid and lasting wjien they are the result of an attempt to cros.s the narrow but impassable gulf 33 Carlos Baker, Literary History of the United States, III, p. 852. Cf. Life and Letters, p. 204. 34 Joel Chandler Harris, "The American Type," Atlanta Constitution, November 25, 1885, p. 2. 117 that lies between the realism of life and the realism of art— if one may be allowed to employ a clumsy expression to suggest an important fact. Harris here displays a consistent critical preoccupation with the novelist’s responsibility to produce life-like types of human nature: . . . If our novelists are to search for types, by all means let the search be for types of human nature. To say that the business of the novel is with the individual is merely a simpler form of saying that his business is with life--simpler because the mystery of the individual seems to be less mysterious than the complexity of life in the larger sense, though it is not so in fact. In fiction the individual is more important in the aggregate, the prime object being to show the effect of circumstance on human nature.36 We may turn now to a discussion of Harris’s critical attitudes toward the historical novel, local color, and photographic realism. Harris demonstrated in his discus sion of the American type his belief that the business of the novelist is with life itself. To what extent is this attitude reflected in his opinions of the historical novel, local color, and photographic realism? In considering the historical novel, Harris thought in terms of Howells, Hawthorne, and Mark Twain, as well as of Scott and Dumas. Moreover, Harris, who considered "every successful novel in a sense historical," declared: 35 Constitution, loc. cit. 36 Loc. cit. 118 . . . It must deal with, a certain period of time and must give us veracious reports of tlie character and habits of the people who lived in that period.37 He said further; . . . Today is as much a part of history as yesterday, and the writer who embodies its atmos phere and action in a story of character will produce a historical novel. . . .38 Fiction, he continued, must not content itself with merely giving us "veracious reports" of "atmosphere and action in 39 a story of character." Harris subscribed to the position of Hibbard who says facts in themselves are of no value unless they are good for something.His attitude toward the historical novel reveals its affinity for the methods of the romancers Scott and Dumas; . . . a novelist who undertakes to reproduce history is certain to have a fall unless he belongs to that class of Scott and Dumas— men who were able to twist history about to suit their purposes.^1 Harris reiterates this idea in Little Mr. Thimblefinger i (1894) when he explains the artist's license to mellow the lights in modifying facts for artistic purposes; . . . if stories have little fibs in 'em that don’t do anybody any harm, they just keep them in there.. If they didn't the story wouldn't be true.^ ^ Life and Letters, p. 566. ' 38 Loc. cit. 39 Loc. cit. 40 Addison Hibbard, Writers of the Western World, p. 895. ^ Life and Letters, p. 567. 42 Joel Chandler Harris, Little Mr. Thimblefinger, pp. 128-129. 119 Thus, as critic, Harris, like Hawthorne, advocated a limited modification of the truth of real life in faithfully por traying the atmosphere of character and setting. To what extent, then, should the artist employ local color? As critic, Harris regarded the method of local color as too restricted for an effective delineation of real-life situations. He explicitly says in Plantation Pageants (1899) that a faithful rendition of atmosphere must be sought in techniques other than those of local colors . . . When you are writing about a certain period, you want to have something more than local color; you want to get at the temper, the attitude, the disposition of the people you are writing about.43 Nor did he regard photographic realism as any more effective than local color as a technique for the depiction of the subleties and overtones of life itself. Photo graphic realism, which Harris regarded as a more intense local color, would make for popularity, but its fruits would not withstand the test of permanence, Harris said. Clarifying this view, Harris said in his discussion of "the American type”; It is true that much that is interesting in modern fiction is in the direction of photographing various phases of existence, and very superficial phases at that; but the art that limits itself to such efforts must be content with popularity instead of permanence. It is well-enough to know the manners, customs, and dialects of classes and com munities, but transcriptions and descriptions of 43 joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Pageants. p. 19. 120 these things give neither value nor permanence to fiction. . . . It is true that various story writers, more or less successful, are bringing forward numerous social and climatic variations which they are anxious shall be recognized as American types; but the discussion eovers only the American type. . . . No matter what phase of American life the novelist may choose to depict, he can not fail to reproduce the true American type if he but faith fully portray the human nature that -underlies all types of life. . . .44 As critic, Harris rejected realistic-naturalism, local color, and photographic realism. In suggesting that portrayals of the true American type are synonymous with the faithful portrayal of the human nature which underlies all types of life, Harris demonstrates a critical appreci ation of the qualities which distinguish the finderstanding / realist. ' ' We may now turn our attention to Harris’s dis quisitions on the function.of plot, style, and dialect in the repertory of the American author. Harris’s critical preoccupation with simulating real-life situations in his plot construction, which he regarded as subordinate in his 45 case to the portrayal of character, is suggested in his 44 Joel Chandler Harris, "The American Type,” Atlanta Constitution, November 25, 1885, p. 2. Cf. Pattee, op. cit. , pT 268s ’ ’The ’eighties in the history of, the American short story were ruled by the "local colorists.” It was the period of dialect stories, of small peculiar groups isolated and analyzed, of unique "local characters” presented pri marily for exhibition. The short-story writer now thought first of materials, often only of materials. . . .” 45 See Harris's letter to James Whitcomb Riley, September 30, 1901, ”. . . I have a sneaking notion thatit comment to the Century editor, Richard Watson Gilder in 1882. Referring to his mountaineer novelette, At_ Teague Poteet *s, A Story of the Hog Mountain Range, Harris writest Enclosed you will find a sort of whatshisname. I’m afraid it’s too episodical to suit serial publication— but after all, life itself is a series of episodes. . . .46 The episode thus became the focal point upon which Harris’s modest pretensions to plot-construction centers. He believed that the episode best represented the ’ ’lack of ,,47 harmony and unity as we find in real life. . . ." Harris’s critical and practical belief in the efficacy of the episode was shown as early as 1880 when he stated his opinion about the short story which, he said, should progress ”... from a beginning to a well-defined con clusion . . . full of striking episodes that suggest the culmination. . . . On December 20, 1886, he referred to his use of the episode in another letter to Gilder. As in the previous letter, Harris suggested his interest in maintaining a real-life atmosphere in his work. At the same time, Harris tacitly admits his shortcomings as an 49 inventive author. The event referred to below is the is better to be able to draw a character than to construct a story. . .. ” Life and Letters t p. 460. 46 Life and Letters, p. 201. 47 Cf. Gabriel- Tolliver, p. 6. 48 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, p. xiv. 49 See Atlanta Constitution, . July29, 1888, p. 12. 122 episode in his story, ’ ’ Azalia.” An old woman, who was too poor to purchase any kind of memorial for her dead son, built a fence around one of the son’s footprints imbedded in the soft earth near their humble cabin. Harris writes: . . . With respect to the footprint episode: It was given to me by Mrs. Crawford, of Columbia County, who gave me leave to use it. I felt free to do this because it is beyond the invention of any man. It is a touch of nature that no imagi nation would have ventured to think of. Where Mrs. C. got it, I don't know, but the impression she left on me was that it was told by her husband, who carried some of those piney-woods tackeys to war. However, I'm not afraid to use it, nor any other similar episode that may fall in my way. When human nature goes to invention, her inventions are the property of the first to use them. That is my feeling about it. I may be wrong but I think not.SO On December 24, 1886, Harris again wrote Gilder, expanding the above views. He said the "footprint business was beyond invention. ..." and, indeed, "belonged to human nature. ..." "It is mine," he continued, "if I re-create 51 characters that would be apt to employ it. ..." Then he gives his test for the reality of an episode: . . . Do I make it natural— obvious. If so, it is mine. I shall never hesitate to draw on the oral stories I know for incidents. The thing is, do I make my poor characters conform to the require ments of human nature?§2 Harris says, "... The greatest literary men, if you will 53 remember, were poor inventors. . . ." In Harris's view, 50 Life and Letters» pp. 225-224. 51 Ibid., p. 225. 52 Ibid., p. 226. 53 Loc. cit. 123 plot, which was subordinate to character portrayal, should emulate the episodic structure of real life. What, then, was the function of style? Although Harris was early and consistently concerned with the subleties of style, and himself strove to develop and encourage a style of the greatest simplicity, he believed, in general, that style, like plot, should be subordinated to the creation of character. Some of Harris's most typical views on style were communicated to his 54 daughter, Lillian, in a letter of May 1, 1898. Harris 's opinion about style draws a distinction between diction and style. Diction, he said, could be ’ ’acquired . . . by those who have a knack or gift of expression.” Diction and style come together only in the greatest writers such as Hawthorne 55 and Newman, with Newman receiving first preference. In spite of the rare fusion of the two, Harris contended, ”. . . style is one thing and diction is another. . . . . . . Diction is the body— the flesh and the bone— and style is the spirit. . . . A person who has the gift must acquire the art, and that is to be done only by long practice. . . .56 Much of Harris fs attitude toward style was colored by his own predilection for ’ ’simplicity” and also by his passionate * belief in the strength and vigor of American institutions. 54 Ibid., pp. 393-395. koc. cit. 56 Loc. cit. Cf. also Editor and Essayist, p. 254. 124 This was brought out early in 1880 in Harris's editorial in the Constitution, ’ ’Provinciality in Literature: A Defense 57 of Boston.” After criticizing Henry James for his con descending attitude toward Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harris says: Why should there not be an American culture as distinctive in its way as the culture that is English? Why should American strive to be anything else than American? Why not insist that the pro vinciality of American literature is the essential quality of all literature--the one quality that gives distinctiveness to literary efforts?58 Then, speaking of Henry James's literary method, Harris writes: . . . Mr. James can describe the furniture of a room— nay he can arrange it in a most orderly not to say artistic manner— but he can neither manu facture the furniture nor people the room with human beings. He has entered Hawthorne's literary dwelling and wandered through it, and he tells us in a most delightful way of the coloring and texture of the wall-paper. . . . By a nice arrangement of words, a most judicious use of epithet, a methodical employ ment of satire, and a moderate display of humor, Mr. James has managed to write an exceedingly clever essay. . . .59 Harris again praised James's ’ ’literary form” and "initiated intellect," but he also says: . . .it does seem . . . that the provinciality whiGh gives us Hawthorne, Holmes, Whittier, Howells, Harte, and Lowell ought to be as well worth nurturing and cultivating as the exquisite culture which has given us (and the rest of the universe) Mr. James. . .60 57 The original editorial appeared in the Constitu tion for January 25, 1880, p. 2. The citations here are to Editor and Essayist, where it is reprinted in full. pp. 186- 191. 58 Ibid., p. 189. 59 Ibid., p. 190 60 Ibid., p. 191 125 Howells, Harris said, .". . . was somewhat freer in his methods and deals more urgently with the various phases of American human nature. ..." than James. Harris seems to have respected those aspects of Howells's criticisms which were not offensive to the literary views of the Hew South. Moreover, he highly respected the "provinciality" of Howells, as he indicates in his essay on James. However, neither Howells nor James received Harris's un qualified admiration. Their realistic method, somehow, left something to be desired. If Harris rejected successively realistic- naturalism, local color, photographic realism, and the excesses of realism of Howells and James, what kind of realism did he espouse? To a considerable extent, he espoused the.realism of the commonplace, but he was indi vidualistic in his espousal, as we shall observe. Harris's individualistic approach to realism emphasizes these features; (1) Simulation of an oral quality through the tall-tale techniquej (2) striving for graphic effects through the use of typographical and illustrative devices; (3) employment of a "phonetically genuine dialect" as a device for portraying honestly the characters of poor whites, mountaineers, and Negroes. The predominantly oral quality of Harris's work has 61 Joel Chandler Harris, "The American Type," the Atlanta Constitution. November 25, 1885, p. 2. 126 62 recently been reemphasized by Franklin J. Meine, who traces its sources to the realistic humor of the South western Frontier, and especially to Thompson and Longstreet. Harris’s modification of the tall-tale technique, which was formulated originally in the Georgia backwoods, becomes in Uncle Remus and Uncle Billy Saunders, Harris's shrewd and humorous poor white, a two-dimensional device combining technique with characterization. As Miss Tandy has pointed out, Uncle Remus, whom Harris regarded as his greatest achievement in characterization, is likewise a 63 story-telling device. Harris himself was aware of this technique which he describes in a footnote to the story of "Brother Rabbit and the Mosquitoes" in Nights with Uncle Remus (1892): This story, the funniest and most characteristic of all the negro legends, can not be satisfactorily told on paper. It is full of action and all of the interest centres in the gestures and grimaces that must accompany an explanation of Brother Rabbit's method of disposing of the mosquitoes. 62 Franklin J. Meine, "The Sage of Shady Dale," p. 222. 63 Jeanette Tandy, Crackerbox Philosophers, p. 95. Miss Tandy, who says "Mark Twain’s indebtedness to South western humor has never been fully acknowledged," (p. 94) says the mass of material In the Old South's humor ". . • evolved no newly refined narrative technique. Its free and easy movement is followed by Mark Twain. Its convention of a framework which introduces the rustic narrator in person was adopted by Joel Chandler Harris in his presentation of Uncle Remus. ..." P. 95. 64 Joel Chandler Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus, footnote, p. 227. See Harris's introduction to his first volume in the Uncle Remus series, Uncle Remus: His Songs and 127 Harris frequently employs devices in his fiction which impress upon the reader the dramatic aspects of the charac ters themselves. The reader often is easily persuaded that he is listening to the typical Harris narrator. An integral part of Harris’s success in simulating the narrator’s oral art is accomplished through the device of author intrusion. He projects himself into The Bishop and the Boogerman to apologize for the dullness of the narrative with the remark: ”. . . if you were sitting where you could see my motions and gestures, you’d laugh until you cried. . . . In his Tackey story, "Azalia," the typical Negro narrator, Prince, recounts the burial of a Northern soldier alongside the Southern scion of Prince's family. It was a "stirring recital," Harris tells us, and to be sure that we understand and appreciate, he adds: His Sayings: ^If the reader not familiar with plantation life will imagine that the myth stories of Uncle Remus are told night after night to a little boy by an old negro who appears to be venerable enough to have lived during the period which he describes— who has nothing but pleasant memories of the discipline.of slavery— and who has all the prejudices of caste and pride of family that were the natural results of the system; if the reader can imagine all this, he will find little difficulty in appreciating and sympathizing with the air of affectionate superiority which Uncle Remus assumes as he proceeds to unfold the mysteries of plantation lore to a little child who is the product of that practical reconstruction which has been going on to some extent since the war in spite of politicians. Uncle Remus describes that reconstruction in his Story of the War, and I may as well add here for the benefit of the curious that that story is almost literally true." 65 Joel Chandler Harris, The Bishop and the Boogerman, p. 18. 128 . . . Perhaps it is not so stirring when it is transferred to paper. The earnestness, the simplicity, the awkward fervor, the dramatic gestures, the unique individuality of Uncle Prince are not to be reproduced. . . .66 The technique was applicable with black and white narrators. Uncle Billy Saunders, Harris's poor white alter ego, well illustrates the technique: One peculiarity of Mr. Saunders’s humor was that it could not be imitated with any degree of success. His raciest anecdote lost a large part of its flavor when repeated by someone else. It was the way he told it, a cut of the eye, a lift of the eyebrow, a movement of the hand, a sudden air of solemnity— these were the accessories that gave point and charm to his humor.67 Mrs. Meadows, a shadowy human figure in the part-mythical Mr. Rabbit at Home, says: . . . a great deal more depends on the time, place, and company than on the stories that are told. I've heard a great many In my day, but the trouble is to pick out them that don’t depend on a wink of the eye and a wave of the hand. . . .68 There is an incongruous aspect of much of Harris's realis tic technique in his animal stories. Mr. Rabbit, however, as a typical Harris narrator, reveals no awareness of incon gruity when he remarks solemnly on the story teller’s craft, "There are some things that are funny when you hear them, 69 but not funny at all when you come to tell about them." 66 Joel Chandler Harris, "Azalia" in Free Joe, p. 297. 67 Joel Chandler Harris, G-abriel Tolliver, p. 113. 68 Joel Chandler Harris, Mr. Rabbit at Home, pp. 252- 253. See also Aaron in the Wildwoods, p. 144; On the Wing of Occasions, p. 87; and The Bishop and the Boogerman, p. 18. 69 Joel Chandler Harris, Little Mr. Thimblefinger, p. 124. — 129 Harris's belief that literature should delight and instruct his readers is reflected in some of his fantasies as well as in some of the comments about them. Much of his work was designed for children, but he himself hoped that adults who had not forgotten how to be children would constitute a substantial proportion of his readers. Young people, he felt, should be encouraged to read stories of fancy for recreation. ’ ’There ought to be recreation in literature as in life; we are not all studying to be 70 critics, I hope,” Harris once said. In 1907, the year before his death, Harris appears to cast some of his fundamentalist religious leanings Into his fairy and ’ ’creetur” stories. Speaking of his attitude toward fairies and belief, Harris wrote to Dorothy Loye on April 27, 1907: . . . The only way that I can keep young is to believe in fairies--really and truly. That's the prescription I give you, so that you may always be young. When people tell you that there's no such thing as fairies, just ask them how the idea of fairies could have got in anybody's mind if there are no fairies. And if they answer that it is all imagination, just ask them how anyone could think things that never had any existence. The only way they can answer this is to mumble and grumble, and when you hear grown people mumbling and grumbling, you may know they're at the end of their row.’ ''I ^ Life and Letters, p. 482. 71 Ibid., p. .552. As an artist, Harris sums up his attitude toward "belief” and the "creetur” stories in the words of Aunt Minervy Ann, his.consummate delineation of the "dusky mammy": "... You want me ter tell one er'dem ar creetur tales. But I kin tell you mo» tales 'bout folks dan what I kin 'bout creeturs. I b'lieve de creetur tales, tooby shoj I dunner how anybody kin he'p b'lievin' urn, but 130 This appears representative of* Harris’s attitude when realistic-naturalism had gained a foothold from abroad. The moral conservatism of his Southern intellectual heri tage caused him to shy away from the literary implications of the scientific advance. However, if he turned to the Little Mr. Thimblefinger series to buttress the minds of the nation's children against the disrupting influences of the advance of science, we must remember that, in one way or another, he had emphasized the necessity of his readers's ’ 'belief'’ by cooperating imaginatively with his 72 typical narrator since the early Uncle Remus volume. Closely allied to the oral quality of Harris's technique of the tall tale is his appeal for the reader to use his imagination. His emphatic and repeated insistence upon the supreme import since of imagination in fiction strongly suggests his opposition to that phase of realistic theory in the eighties which subordinated imagination to stylistic innovations. Harris's conscious artistry in dey all tell 'bout de time when de creeturs wuz kinder up ‘ in de worl* like folks is now. But sence den, look like dey been takin' de wrong kinder doctor truck, bekaze deyer done swunk up so dey hatter hide out. Dey ain't quit talkin', kaze I kin hear um say dat A*on an' you all know how to hoi' confabs wid um. But dey ain't nigh what dey useter be. Folks done come in an' tuck der place. I dunno dat anybody er anything is been bettered by de change; but dar dey is, an' here we is, an' we-all an' dem will hatter scuffle 'roun an' do de best we kin. Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Pageants, p. 228. 72 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus; His Songs and Hi3 Sayings, p. xvii. 131 employing the tall tale technique is apparent in his comment that Nan Dorrington and her companions in Gabriel Tolliver furnished Uncle Plato, a Remus-like Negro narrator, 11. . . with what all story tellers have desired since hairy man began to shave himself with a pumice stone . . . a 73 faithful and believing audience. ...” Commenting on the artistry of Uncle Plato, Harris says: . . . Uncle Aesop, it may be, cared less for his audience than for the opportunity of lugging in a dismal and perfunctory moral. Uncle Plato, like Uncle Remus, concealed his behind a text and adven ture, conveying it none the less completely on that account. Not one of his vagaries was too wild for the acceptance of his small audience. . . .74 The device of reader-cooperation in supplying an imaginative quality which Harris, as author, says is lacking in his work, is a part of his episodic technique in plot construction. Near the close of Chapter IX in Sister Jane, Harris writes: Let me say- here, while the opportunity is ripe, that this and other episodes to be told of are not to be judged by the narrative alone. There are gaps and lapses the reader must fill out for himself. The knack of narration belongs to the gifted few, who need neither art nor practice to fit them for the work. With me, all is lacking. When the impressive moment arrives the apt and trenchant word eludes me. The sparkling phrase, the vivid grouping, and the illumination that flashes the whole scene upon the mind, are wanting. I have tried to give the crude outline only, leaving the imagination of the reader to inject into it the elements necessary to impart a pleasure and a satisfaction that my poor gifts could never c o n v e y . ^ 73 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p* 21. 74 Loc. cit. 75 Joel Chandler Harris, Sister Jane, pp. 128-129. 132 Qo-brlel Tolliver, he asks for the reader to use M. . • an effort of the mind. . . ." to put himself imaginatively in the period which witnessed the events in the novel: All that has been set down thus far, you will say, is trifling, unimportant and wearisome. Your decision is not to be disputed; but if, by an effort of the mind, you could throw yourself back to those dread days, you would understand what a diversion these trifling events and episodes created for the heart-stricken and soul-weary people of the region. . . .76 Elfin-like Little Mr. Thimblefinger makes this plea for the reader’s cooperation: My mother knew all the facts in the case and I’ve heard her tell it many times. I may have left out some of the happenings, but these and many others you can supply for yourself.77 Harris had a keenly graphic sense, and in his fiction he sometimes uses the language of painting. In Gabriel 78 Tolliver, he speaks of the panorama as a "picture0 with just such lack of harmony as one finds in real life. His keen pictorial sense is evident in his relationships with the illustrators of his writing. The original Uncle Remus illustrations for Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings apparently were far less pleasing to Harris than the illus trations of the distinguished American artist, Albert B. Frost, for, when the 1895 edition of the volume was issued with the Frost illustrations, Harris wrote to Frost 76 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 109. 77 Joel Chandler Harris. Little Mr. Thimblefinger, p. 154. ----------------------- -- 78 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 6. 133 enthusiastically in the dedication: . . • it would be no mystery at all if this new edition were to be more popular than the old one. Do you know why? Because you have taken it under your hand and made it yours. Because you have breathed the breath of life into those amiable brethern of wood and field. Because, by a stroke here and a touch there, you have conveyed into their quaint antics the illumination of your own inimitable humor, which is as true to our sun and soil as it is to the spirit and essence of the matter set forth.^9 Preoccupied with the faithful delineation of the backgrounds of the old plantation as found in Middle Georgia, Harris once indicated his concept of the vigor of plantation stories when contrasted with the "tame" qualities of similar stories from India. The latter stories, he said, lacked . . both the humor and the picturesque verity 80 . . . of plantation stories with which I am familiar. . ." 79 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, p. v. Likewise, in 1903, when he was finish- ing Wally Walderoon, Harris wrote his friend, James Whit comb Riley” on July 11, that S. S. McClure, the publisher, had secured an illustrator for his 11. . • commonplace but whimsical. . . ." stuff ff. . . who enters fully into the spirit of the text, and has made some very fetching pictures. . .. ." Life and Letters t p. 482. However, Karl Moseley, the Illustrator of Wally Walderoon, does not seem to have achieved the success of either Frost or Edward Windsor Kemble, the artist responsible for the drawings in the first edition of Huckleberry Finn, who was assigned to illustrate Harris’s short story, *'Azalia." Assuring the Century editor, Richard W. Gilder, that Kemble “suited” him, Harris, in a letter of May 26, 1887, to his editor states: 11. . . Pray ask him to treat my decent people decently, and with some refinement. But he can’t make the Tackies too forlorn. Beg him also to give the old negro man some dignity, and to remember the distinction between the Guinea negro— as he is in New Orleans— and the Virginia negro as he is in Georgia. Ibid., p. 228. 80 Joel Chandler Harris, "Mr. Watkins of Georgia," in Tales of the Home Folks in Peaee and War, p. 102. 134 Scattered throughout his writings are indications of his desire to convey a graphic picture of real-life to his readers. Among Harris's favorite graphic devices employed to enhance realistic effects are: quotations from newspapers; allusions to fictional narrators; illustrations; typo graphical devices, including italicized words and phrases and onomatopoetic words. Among his short stories using 81 quotations from newspapers are ’ ’ Azalia," ’ ’The Old Bascom Place, ’ ’Balaam and His Master,"®^ and "The Story of Mary Q A Ellen.” Typical of his use of the fictional narrator is On the Plantation, which uses Joe Maxwell throughout* Maxwell figures also in Plantation Pageants. Of Harris's fictional alter ego, he says: It is a pity that Joe Maxwell who is responsible for these details did not take the trouble to write the language of the raccoon down from Buster John's recipe. But he put it off from day to day and now there is nothing left but the rough notes of these stories and some scattered fragments of explanation, one of which is presented above.85 81 Joel Chandler Harris, ’ ’ Azalia,” in Free Joe, p. 236. 82 Joel Chandler Harris, "The Old Bascom Place," in Balaam and His *Master, p. 29. 83 Joel Chandler Harris, "Baalam and His Master,” in Balaam and His Master, p* 27. 84 Joel Chandler Harris, , ! The Case of Mary Ellen,” in Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann, p. 210. 85 Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Pageants, p. 195. 135 Harris frequently uses typographical innovations to illustrate and to enhance the meaning of his words* In Plantation Pageants, for example, he supplies a diagram which shows the path taken by Old Grizzly, the Pox, in his efforts to elude Joe Maxwell's fox hounds and the dogs of the other hunters. Explaining Old Grizzly's familiar ruse, Harris writes: . . . He had one scheme which when he was not feeling well, he was in the habit of working on his pursuers. It may be called the triple loops, each loop being a mile or a half mile in circum ference, the extent depending on circumstances. Here is a diagram of the movement. Imagine the loops to cover a half-mile each, and the difficulty which a dog would have in untangling them with his nose, and that, too, while he is trying to go at full speed will be easily per ceived. . . .86 In Daddy Jake (1889), Harris makes frequent use of typo graphical devices to enhance his meaning and to simulate the sounds of animals and people. In the sketch, "How the Birds Talk,” the author says: . . . The italicized words will give a faint idea of this intonation. Den Uncle Remus went on, "Ole Tommy Long Wing he'd wake up en holler back: Who, who dat a callin Who, who,dat a callin Bill, Billy Big-Eye Bill, Billy, Big-Eye 86 Ibid.. p. 124 ff. 87 Joel Chandler Harris, Daddy Jake, p. 158. Later in the same volume Uncle Remus is pictured as emphasizing certain words ". . . so as to give a laughably 88 accurate imitation of a cackling hen. . . .1 1 It was this ' ‘shading in meaning" that dialect gives which caused Harris to espouse the speech of the common folk as a realistic device in portraying the American character which he con sidered a part of the pattern of universal human nature. Harris's- use of dialect, which he identifies with the American vernacular, represented for him one of the most effective devices for character portrayal. His vigorous championing of American speech, and, indeed, his admiration of the language of Shakespeare and Chaucer, indicate that through the characteristic shading of language, he hoped to portray faithfully the human nature which underlies American life. Just as in his character izations, he demonstrates a predilection for humbler, commonplace people, so in his language he leans heavily toward the speech of the common people, whom he regarded synonymously with the rural folk. Moreover, he had learned from firsthand observation the picturesque speech of the Negro slaves on the Turner plantation. Inasmuch as he Is best known for his so-called Uncle Remus dialect, we may consider briefly what his aims and objects were In using it In Harris's first volume of folklore, Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings (1880), he is, as usual, careful Q8 Ibid., p. 163. 137 to define his relationship to his material and to state his purpose in using dialect. Of his purpose in this first Uncle Remus book, Harris says it was . . . to preserve the legends themselves in their original simplicity, and to wed them per manently to that quaint dialect— if— indeed it can be called dialect. . . He then reminded his reader that his over-all aim was to give n. . . to the whole a genuine flavor of the old plantation. . . . ” He termed this dialect variously ’ ’plantation dialect” and ”what is called negro dialect” and 90 was hecessary, he insisted, to give the legends ’ ’vitality.” In the preface to Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), Harris sounded a similar note, anticipating a legitimate criticism against unskilled users of dialect who tend to distort the language unintelligibly. Dialect became ’ ’ painful,” Harris said, only ”... when the form of the lingo trails on the earth and the thought flits in the 91 sky. . . . ” It was the ’ ’essence” of the dialect rather than the ’ ’form” which Harris sought to reproduce. He speaks of his realistic aims in the portrayal of Uncle 89 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, p. vii. Cf. Harris’s letter to E. L. Burlingame, February 10, 1898, in which he wrote in part: ’ ’The difference between real dialect and lingo is that the first is preservative, while the latter is destructive of language. Judged by this standard the negro dialect is as perfect as any the world ever saw.” Life and Letters» p. 401. 90 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, pp. vii-viii. 91 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus and His Friends, p. viii. 138 Remus in a manner which is analogous to his aims in using dialect among all his rustic charactersx . . . Nevertheless if the language of Uncle Remus fails to give vivid hints of the really poetic imagination of the negro; if it fails to embody the quaint and homely humor which was his most prominent characteristic; if it does not suggest a certain picturesque sensitiveness--a curious exaltation of mind and temperament not to be defined by words--then I have reproduced the form of the dialect merely, and not the essence, and may be accounted a dialect, which suggested qualities ”... not to be defined by words. ...” was not the sole possession of Remus-like Negroes. Inasmuch as . . old man Chaucer was one of the dialect writers,” he states in the preface to Uncle Remus and His Friends, the student of English might well profit by studying the plantation dialect for its relationship to early English. The student, Harris contended . . . if he be willing to search so near the ground, will find matter to interest him In the homely dialect of Uncle Remus, and if his Intentions run towards philological investigation, he will pause before he has gone far and ask himself whether this negro dialect is what It purports to be, or whether it is not simply the language of the white people of three hundred years ago twisted and modi fied a little to fit the lingual peculiarities of the negro. . . .93 Although Uncle Remus is perhaps the best known of the dialect characterizations, there are also Aunt Minervy Ann, failure. . However, as Harris recognized, the ’ ’vitality” of 92 Ibid., p. ix.. 93 Ibid., pp. ix-x 139 who is his outstanding Negro woman characterization, and among the poor whites, the fierce Mrs. Peratia Bivins and garrulous Uncle Billy Saunders. In addition, there are numerous other Negro and white narrators who thoroughly reveal themselves through homespun speech into which Harris seems to infuse ' ’the breath of life." Harris favored the use of dialect in considerable measure because of its distinctively American qualities. His characters in this medium became alive to him. Writing to E. W. Burlingame, a Scribner's editor, on November 14, 1898, of Aunt Minervy Ann, he said at times, ". . .1 could hear her voice as plainly as I now hear the youngsters QA talking in the sitting room. ..." Of her dialect, which is typical of the Middle Georgia dialect of Harris’s time, he says: . . . I am very fond of writing this dialect. It has a fluency all its own; it gives a new coloring to statement, and allows a swift shading in narra tive that can be reached in literary English only in the most painful and roundabout w a y .95 Six years later in his introduction to The World *s Wit and 96 Humor, he pointed to the essentially oral qualities of American humor and indicated that it could not be repro duced in standard English. As indication of his belief in the cultural and intellectual independence of American 94 Life and Letters, pp* 403-404. 95 Loc. cit. 96 Cited in Editor and Essayist, p. 184* 140 authors, he said such authors erred in trying to conform to the standards of written English in form and expression that are to be found in the British classics. Such forms and methods, he continued, r ’. . . give rise to a certain degree of artificiality when an effort is made to fit American humor to their measure," As an offset to this incongruity, Harris proposed a discriminating use of the American vernacular: . . . the vernacular as distinct from literary form and finish, is the natural vehicle of the most persistent and the most popular variety of American humor; hence the frequent employment of what is called dialect.S'? Harris was, of course, a life-long admirer of Lowell's Hosea Biglow, and he believed that dialectal differences 98 among Americans of various sections were climatic, rather than philological. Harris believed that the supreme test of greatness in fiction was through character portrayal. For the American artist, who, in Harris's generation had not yet become independent of the intellec tual influences of the Old World, he stressed the value of the provincial in character delineation. Harris's emphasis upon an indigenous American literature seems to associate him not only with Lowell, whom he openly admired, but, likewise, in varying degrees with Emerson and Whitman. Harris's appraisal of what he regarded as Whitman's artless 97 Editor and Essayistt loc. cit. 98 > p- 67* 141 art reveals Harris's appreciation for the individual American artist who embarked on a quest for some of the basic "realities" of American life. John Burroughs sums up Harris's estimate of Whitman with this comment: "No man has ever spoken more to the 99 point upon Walt Whitman." Harris's admiration of Whitman is an index to Harris's personality as well as his attitude toward literature. It is a tribute to his judgment, like wise, that he was not diverted by Whitman's tendency toward frankness about the whole man. If Zola was repugnant to Harris, it was because in Harris's opinion, Zola's purpose was simply to pile up filth before the unsuspecting reader. Presumably, the all-inclusiveness of realistic-naturalism was distasteful to him, because it was not only based upon deterministic ends, but also because it failed to lead man to a better life. It is significant, therefore, that in beginning his appraisal of Whitman, he should pointedly call attention to Whitman's purpose: "In order to apprec iate Whitman's poetry and his purpose," he began: . . . it is necessary to possess the intuition that enables the mind to grasp in instant and express admiration the vast group of facts that make man— that make liberty,--that make America. There is no poetry in the details; it is all in the broad sweeping, comprehensive assimilation of the mighty forces behind them— the inevitable, unaccoun table, irrestible forward movement of man in the John Burroughs, Works, Wake-Robin edition XVIII, pp. 266-267. 142 making of this republic. Notwithstanding his Southern emotional heritage and the predominantly "plantation-mind" cast of much of his thinking, Harris had equalitarian leanings• Like every thing else about Harris, of course, they are individual istic, as he indicates in concluding his appraisal of Whitman: Those who approach Walt Whitman’s poetry from the literary side are sure to be disappointed. Whatever else it is, it is not literary. Its art is its own, and the melody of it must be sought in other suggestions than those of metre. . . . Those who are merely literary will find little substance in the great drama of Democracy which is outlined by Walt Whitman in his writings,— it Is no distinc tion to call them poems. But those who know nature at first hand, who know man, who see in this Republic something more than a political government-- will find therein the thrill and glow of poetry and the essence of melody. Not the melody that capers in verse and metre, but those rarer intimations and suggestions that are born in primeval solitudes, or come whirling from the vast funnel of the storm.102 A thoroughgoing Georgia democrat in the old Greek sense, Harris was surprisingly broadminded for his time and 100 Joel Chandler Harris, "Whitman” in John Burroughs, Works, XVIII, pp. 266-67. 101 These equalitarian leanings, however, were more spiritual than temporal. Harris answered an inquiry about his religion In the Constitution for December 20, 1896, as follows; "... I can only say that I believe in all good men and all good women. I should not want to live if I had not faith in my fellow men." P. 27. One of the juvenile characters in Wally Walderoon remarks to a little colored girl: "The painter that painted you painted us all. . . ." P. 102 Joel Chandler Harris, "Whitman," 0£. cit.t pp. 266-267. 143 place. His views were encouraged by the New South’s philosophy of reconciliation of the two sections. Likewise, Harris shared the view of his friend, Henry W. Grady, that in the New South's literary esthetic there was no place for any type of sectionalism— in life or in literature. Harris's critical pronouncements follow consistently the New South line which he disseminated but in his own work he does not seem to have been able to write impartially of the departed days which he had known and loved. If Harris's works do not always measure up to the full-fledged formal creed of the realist, we must remember that he prided himself on not following formal creeds— literary or otherwise. Finally, however, it must be said that working within the framework of his own Middle Georgia, he directed his attention to the realities which he knew and loved. He interpreted those realities in the light of his background and his reading. He clearly saw the direction in which realism must move, and more than many writers of his time, he made his contributions--both critical and creative. With those aspects of human nature which appealed to him in his time and place he has given us an intimate glance into that twilight zone between local color and photographic realism. CHAPTER VII HARRIS’S PRACTICE OF REALISM AS SEEN IN HIS TREATMENT OF CHARACTER, PLOT, SETTING, AND STYLE This chapter seeks to study Harris’s practice of realism as seen in his treatment of character, plot, setting, and style. To accomplish this purpose we shall concentrate on these approaches: (1) A study of the short stories "Free Joe” and "Blue Dave" as representative of Harris’s general approach to fiction and (2) a study of selected, representative works for their emphases upon character, plot, setting, and style* We may base our .consideration of "Free Joe" mainly upon the fact that it is Harris’s own refutation of the accusation that he was a "pro-slavery" author, "catering to Northern sentiment." We may examine "Blue Dave" primarily as an example of Harris's own favorite story.^ What does Free Joe reveal of Harris’s "own true self" which, he held, aspired to transcend the narrow limitations of sectional literature and to soar in the regions of higher truth? In 1883, Harris could thus write of the central character in the title story In his collection, Free Joe and the Rest of the World: The name of Free Joe strikes humorously upon the ear of memory. It is impossible to say why, for he 1 Jay B. Hubbell, "Letters of Uncle Remus"; here after, Hubbell, p. 219. 145 was the humblest, the simplest, and the most serious of all God’s living creatures, sadly lacking in all those elements that suggest the humorous. It is certain, moreover, that in 1850 the sober-minded citizens of the little village of Hillsborough were not inclined to take a humorous view of Free Joe, and neither his name nor his presence provoked a smile. He was a black atom, drifting hither and thither without an owner, blown about by all the winds of circumstances, and given over to shift- lessness.^ ^En a manner characteristic of Longstreet and William Tappan Thompson, predecessors in Middle Georgia humor and realism, Harris wrote in the rambling and leisurely fashion of the Addisonian sketch^ He used a serious literary style with jnterapextfLpd passages of choice Georgia dialect. Like comments, which were sometimes combined with passages of interpolated moralizingst The problems of one generation are the paradoxes of a succeeding one, particularly if war, or some such incident, intervenes to clarify the atmosphere and strengthen the understanding. Thus, in 1850, Free Joe represented not only a problem of large concern, but, in the watchful eyes of Hillsborough, he was the embodiment of that vague and mysterious danger that seemed to be forever lurking on the outskirts of slavery, ready to sound a shrill and ghostly signal in the impenetrable swamps and steal forth under the midnight stars to murder, rapine, and pillage--a danger always threatening, and yet never assuming shapej intangible, and yet real; impossible and yet not improbable. Across the serene and smiling front of safety, the pale outlines of the awful shadow of insurrection sometimes fell. With this invisible panorama as a background, it was natural that the figure of Free Joe, simple and humble as it was, should assume undue proportions. Go where he would, do what he might, he could not escape the 2 Joel Chandler Harris, Free Joe and the Rest of the World, p. 3. 146 finger of observation and the kindling eye of suspicion. His lightest words were noted, his slightest actions marked.3 Here, surely, we have the realist’s efforts to give a pictorial effect. Moreover, we have Harris's own major tenet of realism in practice, namely the effort to recreate the "temper of the times." As we shall see later, Harris tries to give a truthful account of the customs, manners, and speech of the people against their contemporary background. Harris contrasts the hapless lot of this poor ". . . black atom, drifting hither and thither without an owner. ..." with that of the "happy slaves": . . . The slaves laughed loudly day by day, but Free Joe rarely laughed. The slaves sang at their work and danced at their frolics, but no one ever heard Free Joe sing or saw him dance. There was something painfully plaintive and appealing in his attitude, something touching in his anxiety to please. He was of the friendliest nature, and seemed to be delighted when he eould amuse the little children who had made a playground of the public square. At times he would please them by making his little dog Dan perform all sorts of curious tricks, or he would tell them quaint stories of the beasts of the fields and birds of the airj and frequently he was*-coaxed into relating the story of his own freedom. That story was brief but tragical.4 True to Harris's belief that fiction should be full of striking episodes, he interrupts temporarily his chronicle of "Free Joe" to give us in a flashback the history of Free 3 Ibid., pp. 4-5. 4 Ibid., p. 5 147 Joe’s residence in Hillsborough. Free Joe’s association with the village of Hillsborough started in 1840 when Major Frampton, ”a negro speculator of a sportive turn of mind'1 travelling to Mississippi .’ ’ with a caravan of likely negroes of both sexes,” stopped to entertain the natives with games of chance and peach brandy of mellow pungency. After setting the ’ ’atmosphere” for the town of Hillsborough, Harris returns to his characterization of Free Joe, who, while previously described as ’ ’lowly,” ’ ’serious,” and one of the simplest of God's creatures, nevertheless was both shiftless and melancholy. His melancholy was accentuated by his status as a free black man, for, ’ ’ having no master, every man was his master.” Joe was not alone in the world, for he had a wife, Lucindy, who was a slave, and who, for a while, was in comfortable circumstances. Free Joe’s character is revealed at these levels: (1) from the viewpoint of Harris as omniscient author, in our first glimpse of him as a far from humorous figure; (2) from the viewpoint of the white community, as the potential threat of insurrection which the slaveholder’ s conscience seems to have kept alive; (3) in the relation ship between Free Joe and appropriately named ’ ’Spite” Calderwood, an unidealized slaveholder; (4) in the relation ship between Free Joe and his little dog, Dan, whose "insignificance” is contrasted with that of his master; (5) in his relationship with the poor white couple, Becky 148 and Micajah Staley; and (6) in his relationship with his enslaved wife, Lucindy. At each of these levels, Harris appears to reproduce an accurate picture of human relations in Middle Georgia in the 1850’s. (Harris aptly catches the temper of the times in "Free Joe” in his account of the relationship between Free Joe and Micajah and Becky Staley. As a slave Joe would have "scorned these representatives of a elass known as poor white trash, but now he found them sympathetic and helpful in various ways." The dull-witted Micajah views Joe with disdain, but his sharp-tongued sister,(reminiscent of Sister Jane and most of Harris’s women characters^ is sympathetic and charitable. Harris’s oGBgaen-pla-Q^e tech nique^ of realism aSae apparent in his description of Joe’s efforts to obtain information about his wife Lucindy who has been removed from her slave quarters. Knowing the woman’s reputation as a fortune teller, Joe asks her about his wife’s whereabouts: ’ ’ Well, the Lord he’p the nigger I” exclaimed Miss Becky, in a tone that seemed to reproduce, by some curious agreement of sight with sound, her general aspect of peakedness. ’ ’ Well, the Lord he'p the nigger! hain’t you been a-seein’ her all this blessed time?// Joe explained that he had not seen Lucinda for the past month. ’ ’ Well, it hain’t a-gwine to hurt you," said Miss Becky somewhat sharply. "In my day and time it wuz 5 Ibid., p. 14 149 • allers took to be a bad sign when niggers got to honeyin' 'roun an' gwine on."® Joe, however, had long since learned that an easy agreement to almost any statement was one method of adjust ment to the complex and unfriendly world of which he found himself all too helplessly a part. His love for Lucinda had been neither haphazard, nor promiscuous; nor was it shortlived. As he explains: "Yessum," said Free Joe, cheerfully assenting to the proposition— "yessum, dat's so, but me and my ole 'oman, we 'uz raise terge'er, en dey ain't bin many days w'en we 'uz 'way frum one ne'er like we is now."^ Micajah Staley suggests that Lucinda might have "... took up wi' some un else. You know what the sayin' is: 'New master, new nigger.'" Joe replies: "Dat's so, dat's de sayin', but tain't wid my ole 'oman like this wid yuther niggers. Me en her wuz raise up terge'er. Dey's lot likelier niggers dan w'at I is," said Free Joe, viewing his sh'abbi- ness with a critical eye, "but I knows Lucindy mos' good ez I does little Dan dar— dat I does*"® Joe's desperation is apparent in this remark to Miss Staley: "Miss Becky, I wish you please, ma'am, take en run yo' kyards en see sump'n n'er 'bout Lucindy; kaze if she siek, I'm gwine dar. Dey ken take en take me up en gimme a stropping, but I'm gwine dar." / Subtly employing a blend of faithful dialect and realistic setting, Harris succeeds in vividly illuminating 6 Ibid.. p. 17. 7 Loc. cit. 8 Ibid., pp. 18-19. 9 Ibid., p. 19. 150- the commonplace personalities and backgrounds of the characters in ’ ’ Free Joe.” Harris f roquen^t-fey demonstrates the realist’s impressions in his descriptions of cabin scenes. Becky Staley, at Joe’s request, gave the cards a shuffle and revealed Lucinda as the ’ ’Queen of Spades.” The old woman’s prophecy was given in an atmosphere surcharged with weird symbols. Describing minutely the woman's actions with the cards, Harris reveals her picturesquely against a background of lighted pine knots: . . . the piece of pine in the fireplace had wrapped itself inamantle of flame, illuminating the cabin, and throwing into strange relief the figure of Miss Becky as she sat studying the cards . . . she dropped her hands in her lap and gazed once more into the fire. Her shadow danced and capered on the wall and floor behind her, as if, looking over her shoulder into the future, it could behold a rare spectacle. After a while she picked up the cup that had been turned on the hearth. The coffee grounds, shaken around, pre sented what seemed to be a most intricate map.10 Harris's reliance upon the episode in the development of his realistic plots is well illustrated in the author's use of the little dog, Dan, in ’ ’ Free Joe.” The following incident is typical of Harris’s method, because it shows him as omniscient author commenting on the development of the story in ordinary English. Later, he effectively advances the action to a point at which Lucinda takes over. When she becomes the point of interest, the reader has 10 Ibid., p. 22 151 already made an effortless transition to accept the situ ation in Lucinda's graphic account in commonplace dialect. The scene following occurred after Dan had located Lucinda . while Joe had been sleeping. Lucindy said: I ’uz settin’ down 'front er de fireplace . . . cookin' me some meat, w ’en all of a sudden I year sumpin at de do'— scratch, scratch. 1 tuck’n tu'n de meat over, en make out I ain't year it. Bimeby it come dar 'gin— scratch, scratch. I up en open de do', I did, en, bless de LordI dar wuz little Dan, en it look like ter me dat his ribs done grow terge'r. I gin »im some bread, en den, w'en he start out, I tuck'n foiler 'im, kaze, I say ter myse'f, maybe my nigger man mought be som'rs 'roun'. Dat ar little dog got sense, mon.H ^The scrupulous attention to detail is characteristic of Harris's realistic method.) Harris, however, never becomes so preoccupied with setting that he forgets his major interest— characterization. 6 In strokes of unusual subtlety! Harris illuminates Joe's character in contrasting the attitudes of the poor white brother and sister toward him. Micajah Staley, who con sistently typifies the predominant "poor white" attitude toward Negroes, says: "Look at that nigger; look at 'im. He’s pine- blank as happy now as a kildee by a mill-race. You can't faze 'em. I'd in-about give up my t'other hand ef I could stan' flat-footed, an' grin at trouble like that there nigger."!* Staley's sister, Becky, woman-like perhaps, has sharper and more penetrating insight than her brothers 11 Ibid., p. 15. 12 Ibid., p. 27. 152 "Niggers is niggers," said Miss Becky smiling grimly, "an1 you can’t rub it out; yit I lay I’ve seed a heap of white people lots meaner’n Free Joe. He grins--an' that’s nigger— but I’ve ketched his under jaw a-tremblin' when Lucindy’s name ’uz brung up."IS Harris the short story should contain elements of the pathetic blended with the humorous,^are also usually typically Harrisian in their Irony^ Following Free Joe’s visit to the Staley home the previous night, Micajah Staley, early next morning, started out and saw the Negro sitting at the foot of the poplar: "Grit up from there," he cried, "an' go an' arn your livin’. A mighty purty pass it’s come to, when great big buck niggers can lie a-snorin In the woods all day, when t’other folks is got to be up an’ a-gwine. Git up from there!" Receiving no response, Mr. Staley went to Free Joe, and shook him by the shoulder; but the negro made no response. He was dead. His hat was off, his head was bent, and a smile was on his face. It was as if he .had bowed and smiled when death stood before him, humble to the last. His clothes were ragged; his hands were rough and callous % his shoes were liter ally tied together with strings; he was shabby in the extreme. A passer-by, glancing at him, could have no idea that such a humble creature had been summoned as a witness before the Lord God of Hosts. The tragedy which pervades the pathetic climax of Free Joe is mitigated in part by the suggestion that despite his color and his humble status, Free Joe has been summoned as witness before the Lord God of Hosts. After having wrestled with the moral and religious implications of 13 Free Joe, loc. cit. ’ -s-rrtinwttres, that 14 Ibid., p. 28. 153 slavery, Harris appears to offer in "Free Joe" his own belief of the equality of all men before God. ^Harris grappled seriously with the ethical aspects of slavery. The seeming contradictions of his attitude may be explained by the conflicts which resulted from his Southern emotional heritage with his strong religious convictions. With this complex problem and the dilemma which it aroused in Harris's 15 mind, he developed a multi-dimensional approach which enabled him to present with comparative objectivity, and with considerable conviction, the conflicting attitudes and reactions of Negroes and whites in the South's "peculiar institution.1 1 If Harris considered Free Joe his answer to the charge of pandering to Northern sentiment, he reserved for Blue Dave his choice encomium, "... I like Blue Dave better than all the rest which is another way of saying *1 & that it is far from the best. . . .r f His protagonist is a fugitive slave. Dave is among the pioneers in a group of giant but gentle Negroes who were destined to people the pages of Harris's prose fiction for many years. Dave had fled to the woods because of the unkind treatment meted out to him by a cruel slave holder. The action in this sketch moves rapidly and it is suggestiVe of the action in Thomas : 15 see p. 24 for the studies of Miss Dauner and Stafford. 16 Hubbell, op. cit., p. 221. 154 17 Nelson Page's story, "Unc Edinburg’s Drowndin1•" Dave, like Uncle Edinburg, is a fugitive version of the faithful black retainer. Whereas Unc Edinburg is rescued in Page’s story, Blue Dave is the rescuer in Harris’s sketch. X8 Grandsirs Brannum and Roach are typical of the segment of society which Harris knew best— the substantial middleelass— and their traits are deftly handled. The aristocrats on both sides in the romance interspersed in the story are types. Nor does Blue Dave rise to the high level of characterization which the author had achieved in Free Joe. Dave is represented primarily as a bluff, good- natured, herculean Negro, who refused to be abused by a cruel master, but who would gladly endure the economic security of slavery with a kind master. As a runaway Dave had achieved the reputation of a black will-o’the wisp at whose door was laid the blame for many of the unsolved mysteries and much of the mischief in the vicinity. Harris continues to demonstrate in ’ ’Blue Dave" his skill in por traying the nuances of the reaction of selected Negroes and whites under the slavery system. In the following initial encounter of Miss Kitty Kendrick with Blue Dave, Harris reveals what he was pleased to consider Dave’s ’ ’real1 1 character: 17 Thomas Nelson Page, _In Ole Virginia, pp. 59-77. 18 Joel Chandler Harris, "Blue Dave," pp. 178-188. 155 ’ ’Please ma’am, don’t be skeer’d er me, Miss Kitty. De Lord years me w ’en I say it, dey ain’t a ha’r er yo’ head dat I'd hurt, dat dey ain’t. I ain’t bad like dey make out I is, Miss Kitty. Dey tells some mighty big tales, but dey makes um up dey se’f. Manys en manys de time is I seed you w'en you gwine atter sweet gum en w'en you huntin’ flowers, eh I allers say ter myse’f I did, ’Nobody better not pester Miss Kitty w'iles Blue Dave anywhar 'roun. Miss Kitty, I clar' fo’ de Lord I ain't no bad nigger,” Blue Dave continued in a tone of the most emphatic entreaty. "You des ax yo’ little br’er. Little Mars. Felix, he knows I ain't no bad nigger.”19 The formative years spent at Turnwold, the Putnam County plantation of Joseph Addison Turner, had equipped Harris with an understanding of white and black human nature which contributes significantly to his ability to put himself into the situations of his characters. Without using the detailed analyses of Howells or James, Harris manages to convey a realistic impression of the happenings in ’ ’Blue Dave” both in standard English and in dialect. Kitty Kendrick emerges from the story less distinctly as a type of the Georgia aristocracy than as a romantic young woman who met in a forthright and practical manner one of the many inconsistencies fostered by the institution of slavery. She was aware of the law which made it illegal to aid runaway Negroes* Yet, in appreciation for Dave’s rescue of her fiance, George Denham, she carried a basket of food for Dave to the cabin of old Uncle Manuel, a venerable slave who had grown past the age for active 19 Joel Chandler Harris, Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White, pp. 198 ff. 156 service. Uncle Manuel had grown too old to expect physical emancipation; therefore, he had turned to patiently praying, preparatory to a greater emancipation. Harris represents him as both shrewd and good. He is loyal to the Kendricks who, as kind slaveholders, had permitted him to retire in peace and comfort, but he was wary of the young woman who sought to elicit information about Blue Dave. Harris skillfully portrays the interplay of attitudes between the young white woman and the old Negro. The following picture of the old Negrofs bestowing his prayerful benedictions upon the young white woman was in keeping with Harris’s belief that religion, as he knew it, offered the only solution to the problems of Southerners, black or white. This was an unquestionable . "reality" from Harris fs point of view. Uncle Manuel’s voice was husky with suppressed emotion. With his hands still stretched toward the skies, and the tears still running down his face, he fell upon his knees and exclaimed,— "Saviour en Marster er de worl*i draw nigh dis night en look down into dis ole nigger’s heart; lissen ter de humblest er de humble. Blessed Marstert some run wild en some go stray, some go hether and some go yan’; but all un um mus’ go befo' dy mercy-seat in de ’een.’ Some’11 fetch great deeds, but po’ ole Manuel won’t fetch nothin but one weak, sinful heart. Dear, blessed MarsterJ look in dat heart en see w ’at in dar. De sin dat's dar, Lord, blot it out wid dy wounded han'. Dear Marster, bless my little Mistiss. Her comin’s en her gwines is des like one er dy angels er mercy; she scatters bread en meat 'mongs dem w ’at runs up en down in de middle er big tribalation. Saviour.1 MarsterI look down 'pon my little Mistiss; gedder her ’nead dy hev'mly wings. Ef trouble mus' come, 157 let it come 'pon me. I'm ole, but I'm tough; I'm ole, but I got de strenk. Lord let de troubles en de trials come 'pon de ole nigger w'at kin stan' tun, en save my little Mistiss fum sheddin' one tear. En den at de las' fetch us all home ter hev'm, whar dey's res' fer de Wary. Amen."20 At the time of the Mingo volume which included "Blue Dave" in 1884, Harris seems to have accepted the equality of slaves before God--if not before and among men. In addition to revealing his characters through their speech, Harris also shows us in this sketch his artistry in creating believable settings for his stories. Again his experiences as a youth in Middle Georgia served him well ip his descriptions of swollen rivers. In the following passage his vivid sense impressions considerably enhance the over-all effectiveness of his story: Young Denham slapped the animal with the reins, without taking note of his surroundings. Thus reassured, the horse went on; but the water grew deeper and deeper, and presently the creature stopped again. This time it smelt of the water and emitted the low, deeply drawn snort by which horses betray their uneasiness; and when George Denham would have urged It forward, it struck the water impatiently with Its forefoot. Aroused by this, the young man looked around; but there was nothing to warn him of- his danger. The fence that other wise, would have been a landmark, was gone. There was no loud and angry roaring of the floods. Behind him the shifting clouds, the shining stars, and the blue patches of sky mirrored themselves duskily and vaguely in the slow creeping waters; before him the shadows of the trees that clustered somewhere near the banks of the creek were so deep and heavy that they seemed to merge the dark waters of the flood into the gloom of night. When the horse was quiet, peering ahead, with its sharp little ears pointed forward, there was no sound 20 Ibid., p. 218. 158 save the vague sighing of the wind through the tops of the scrub pines and the gentle ripple of the waters.21 In the light of the foregoing discussion of Harris’s "tract," "Free Joe," and his favorite story, "Blue Dave," what may we conclude about the author's realistic practice? We may conclude that these two sketches are consistent with Harris's views of realism. From Harris's point of view, slavery . . . in some of its aspects . . . was far more beautiful and inspiring than any of the relations that we have between employed and employers in this day and time.22 Harris thus becomes in "Blue Dave" and "Free Joe" an author who uses a realistic method to portray essentially "romantic" themes. Is this practice inconsistent for the American realist? If we concede that the realist is free to depict "reality" as he sees it, we must ask, first of all, what is reality to the author? We have Harris's word for it, that, artistically, it is his purpose to be "true to truth and 0 3 that larger truth my own true self." Commenting along a similar line, Hamlin Garland, the pioneer American realist, said "being true to self, the modern artist will find that 21 Ibid.. p. 208. 22 Julia Collier Harris, Joel Chandler Harris t Editor and Essayist, p. 129. 23 Hubbell, op. cit., p. 221. 159 24 he loves realities that are near to him.” The ’ ’realities” which were near to Harris were those aspects of Middle Georgia life in the middle of the past century which he knew and loved* The realities centered around the insti tution of slavery, poor whites, and mountaineers. On December 24, 1886, Harris wrote to R. W. Gilder that he had ”no situations to invent, and if I should 25 invent one, it would probably be weak and ineffectual.” This statement is disconcertingly true, as we shall see when we note the fresh and original treatment which Harris presents in a limited number of stock situations. This is also true in his handling of characters. He concentrated only on a small number of characters and these sometimes are hardly more than types which are carried over from book to book. What were the types of characters which Harris delighted in portraying? Among the Negroes Harris concentrated upon the "dusky mammy" and the faithful black retainer who invariably preferred the comparative security of slavery to the uncertainties and insecurities of freedom. There were also occasional free Negro men and women, as well as an occasional Negro man or woman who defied exact classifi cation, but whose presence in the Harris panorama con tributed to rounding out the black part of the Harris world 24 Hamlin Garland, Main Travelled Roads. p. 251. ^ an<^ Letters, p. 225. 160 of fiction. Among the Negroes also may be listed, along with the slaves and the free blacks, the tragic mulattos. The author's white characters ran the gamut from the children in the folktales and fantasies through elderly aristocrats who revelled in the glories of the time "befo de wah." In between these two groups, Harris sprinkled his prose with numerous young and innocent heroines who were gulled by villainous ne'er do wells among his borderline aristocratic men. There were also the poor whites, the Tackies, and the mountaineers, the occasional abolitionist, the cruel overseer, the Negro hunters, and some real personages from contemporary life. What were the principal character types which Harris used among his Negro fictional creations? As representa tive as "Blue Dave" and "Free Joe" are of Harris’s realistic techniques in character, plot, setting, and style, these two sketches do not contain portraits of the dusky mammy, the old time family servant (man), or the mountaineer types. Of these three characters, the dearest to Harris's heart was the "dusky mammy." Does she emerge as a "real" person in Harris’s fiction? From Aunt Patsy^® in The Romance of Rockville (1876) 26 Joel Chandler Harris, "The Romance of Rockville," in L* S. Wiggins, The Life of Joel Chandler Harris t p. 406. Hereafter, "Romance of Rockville." "She fairly worshipped her young master and made a great pretense of perpetual gruffness in her dealings with him. ..." 161 to Mammy Kitty in Shadow Between His Shoulder Blades (1909), the mammies have an aura of realism which is hardly dispelled by the fact that all are cut from the same pattern* Aunt Tempy in Nights with Uncle Remus is repre sentative of the mammy who has come to typify this character in Southern literature. Harris describes Aunt Tempy as "a woman of large authority who stood next to 27 Uncle Remus in the confidence of her mistress. . . ." Harris's description of Tempy represented for him the composite plantation mammy: Aunt Tempy was a fat middle aged-woman, who always wore a head-handkerchief, and kept her sleeves rolled up, displaying her plump black arms, winter and summer. She never hesitated to use her authority, and the younger negroes on the place regarded her as a tyrant; but in spite of her loud voice and brusque manners, she was thoroughly goo.d natured, usually good-humored, and always trust worthy. Aunt Tempy and Uncle Remus were secretly jealous of each other, but they were eareful never to come in conflict, and, to all appearances, the most cordial relations existed between them.2S The author's fiction contains several Aunt Tempy types. Rhody, housekeeper for Silas Tomlin in Gabriel Tolliver, is typical of Harris's "mammy1 1 characterizations. She emerges also as one of his most completely drawn Negro 27 Joel Chandler Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus, p. 48. 28 Ibid., pp. 149-150. Variations of the Aunt-Tempy- like "mammy1 1 1 can be seen in Aunt Fountain (pp. 104, 107, 113-114, 124; cf. also "Miss Puss's Parasol," Making of a Statesman, p. 219), Mammy Rhody in Gabriel Tolliver (pp."217- 219, 227-236), Lucindy in Bishop and the Boogerman, Mammy Kitty in Shadow Between his Shoulder Blades (pp. 60-64). 162 women. Like her sisters in Harris’s fiction, Rhody was ever on the alert to defend the young white members of the family. Racial antagonisms did not then abolish strong personal loyalties in Georgia of the Reconstruction period. Nor do they now. Rhody, however, had been exposed to Abolitionist propaganda. Without elaborating the point, Harris indicates that she desired freedom for herself and for her people. She is not represented as an indiscrimin ate lover of all white people. For Paul Tomlin, however, whom she had nursed as a child, she had an understandable love and loyalty. Indifferent to the fate of Silas Tomlin, Paul’s father, in the event of a Negro uprising, she was fearful for Paul's safetyr . . . she was willing to see murder done if whites were to be the victims; but Paul, well, according to her view, Paul was one of a thousand. She had given him suck and she had fretted and worried about him for twenty years; and she couldn’t break off all her old habits all at once. She had listened to and indorsed the incendiary doctrines of the radical emissary who pretended to be representing the govern ment; and she had wept and shouted over the strenuous pleadings of the Reverend Jeremiah; but all these things were wholly apart from Paul. And if she had had the remotest idea that they affected his interests or his future, she would have risen in the church and denounced the carpet-bagger and his scalawag associ ates, and likewise the Reverend Jeremiah.29 Harris lived in vexatious times and he never seems to have adjusted himself thoroughly to the new order which was beginning in the South as he reached maturity. He con stantly looked back to the old days before the emancipation 29 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, pp. 227- 228. -------- of slaves, before the partial industrialization of the South, and before the reflection in fiction of the natural istic distrust of laissez faire in life and literature. Harris, the "romancer," never tires of mellowing the lights on his favorite plantation types. Although he loved the „ memory of ". . . the old time darky and confidential family servant. . . ," Harris says that if it were a choice between him and his female counterpart, ". . .1 think— indeed, I am pretty sure--that my choice would fall on the *ZQ black mammy. . . . His first-hand knowledge of household kitchens embraced to a considerable extent a first-hand knowledge of cooks and their problems. Negro women cooks in Harris ’s fiction invariably dominate their households and rule their husbands. The domination of women is not confined to Harris's Negro stories. Gabriel Tolliver and Sister Jane both demonstrate the supremacy of the women characters in Harris’s fiction. To balance the character of Rhody with a rebellious Negro woman, Harris introduces Mrs. Patsy "Pidgin" Tomlin, wife of the Reverend Jeremiah Tomlin./ the Negro leader: . . .She was a tall, thin woman, some years older than her husband, and she ruled him with a rod of iron. The new conditions, combined with the insidious flattery of the white radicals, had made her vicious against the whites. . . .31 30 Editor and Essayist, p. 128. 31 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 235. 164 Harris's own enthusiasm for the dusky mammies is reflected in the viewpoints of his characters who were ardently loved by these women. Mammy Kitty in Shadow Between His Shoulder Blades gave her bad-tempered young charge, Wemberly Driscoll, a "dressing down" when the youth insisted on following a band of Confederate troops on a reconnoitering mission. As Billy Sanders, Harris's alter ego says: . . . she preached his funeral and she preached it at the top of her voice. Ef one of you Northern fellers could a' heern 'er, you'd got a bran' new idee in regards to the oppressed colored people • • • • Driscoll, according to Billy Sanders, had about "... the wust temper you ever saw in a white man," but he was unmoved by the old woman's fury except when she said some thing "he know'd was the whole truth." On those occasions, he would say: I reckon . . . she's en about the only livin* human bein' in this worl' that really loves me. You know, . . . the kinder love that makes anybody mad wi» you one minnit, an' cry for you the next, is the only sort that's wuth havin'. . . .^3 Lucindy, in Bishop and the Boogerman (1909), is cast from the same mould as Mammy Kitty. Unlike Tempy, Rhody, Kitty, and Minervy Ann, however, Lueindy demonstrates a love for her own black brood which Harris skillfully 32 Joel Chandler Harris, Shadow Between His Shoulder Blades, pp. 12-13. 33 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 165 interweaves with her maternal affections for the children of her employer. Presumably, the other women were child less. Mother love, white and black, is a sacred theme with Harris, and he usually handles it with dignity and tenderness. With Lucindy, as with Minervy Ann, Harris makes a genuine attempt to delineate her character against the complex background which formed the panorama of his contemporary setting. The Bishop and the Boogerman is laid in the Reconstruction period when relations between whites and Negroes were severely strained. Lucindy, however, was one of the loyal Negroes, as we see in Judge Tidwell’s statement to Mr. Billy Sanders; You don’t need to be told that nearly all of the negroes have fallen out of sympathy .with the whites; but there are a few we can still trust and have a genuine friendship for--and Lucindy is one of them.^ Aunt Minervy Ann, in common with several others of her type, was a sharp-tongued, big-hearted woman, who had unusual gifts as a narrator. She was one of Harris’s favorite characters. Harris wrote to Charles Scribner in January, 1899; I hope you’ll like my Aunt Minervy Ann. She’s a more complicated character than Uncle Remus, but that is because she is a woman. She appears in several of Harris’s books. One of her outstanding charqcteristics in Plantation Pageants is her 34 Joel Chandler Harris, The Bishop and the Boogerman, p. 106. 35 Life and Letters, p. 405. 166 » ! . u H 3 6 "earnestness." Another aspect of Minervy's character is illumined in Harris's short story, "Miss Puss's Parasol." Major Perdue in the story is the familiar proud Southerner, now fallen from his estate of pre-war days, but he still maintains what Harris viewed as one of the important characteristics of the old days: He belongs to and was brought up in an emotional generation which was not ashamed of its feelings, and made no sort of effort to hide its loves, its hates, and the sentiments that are natural to a high-strung race. . . .37 Nor did Aunt Minervy Ann escape the influence of this environment: . . . Aunt Minervy Ann was brought up in this atmosphere, and her nature responds like an echo to whatever is emotional.38 Thus far the Negro characters, and particularly the women in Harris's fiction, have been viewed as only mildly critical of some aspects of the slavery regime. Harris's intelligence and aspirations toward realism would not allow him to leave only this partial portrait. We may now turn to some of the Negro women who were more critical of the South and its "peculiar institution" of slavery. Mom Bi is another of Harris's paradoxical presentations of a complex 36 Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Pageants, p. 214. 37 Joel Chandler Harris, The Making of a Statesman, p. 219. 38 Loc. cit. 167 figure whose emotions were divided during the struggle toward freedom of the enslaved Negro people. Mom Bi is a slight variation of the typical Harris ’ ’ mammy." • Her characterization reveals additional indi cation of Harris's grasp of the complex emotional attitudes which underlay the institution of slavery. Harris says Mom Bi was "a queer combination of tyrant and servant, of 3Q virago and mammy." The author, in what seems to be an attempt to soften the rancor of Mom Bi's remarks, warns the reader at the outset that everything the old woman says is to be taken in a "Pickwickian sense."40 Mom Bi says some harsh things about the poor whites, or "sand-hillers," and she is an outspoken foe of slavery. Mom Bi’s character is revealed further in her aversion for the poor white "sandhillers." "Wey dem san’ hillers bin gone at? Wey de country what dee fight fer?" 41 she asks? The old woman is particularly resentful that young Waynescroft should be expected to fight alongside ". . . dem trash . . . dem whut de Lord done forsooken dis 42 long time." She can not understand why the poor whites should fight in the interest of Negroes when they had never 39 Joel Chandler Harris, "Mom Bi," in Balaam and His Master, p. 174. 40 ibid., p. 175. 41 Ib'ld. . P. 179. 42 Ibid., p. 180 168 owned any*slaves. ". . . Dee ain’t bin liad no nigger; dee ain't bin had no money; dee ain't bin had no lan'; dee ain't bin had no nuttin' 't all. . . ,"43 Mom Bi, who had forgiven the Waynescrofts more readily for selling her own daughter, Maria, than she had for permitting the family to send their son off to his death in the war, left the family's home in Fairleigh to seek her daughter, Maria, who was then living in Savannah. However, a yellow fever epidemic had claimed the lives of Maria and her entire family in Savannah. Harris's graphic descriptions of epidemic-plagued Savannah suggests that he was recording some of the vivid scenes which he and his family probably witnessed there before they migrated to Atlanta in 1876. Without detailing the method of Mom Bi's return to Fairleigh, Harris shows the old woman in a last pathetic scene in the home of the Waynescrofts: . . . Old age had overtaken her in Savannah. Her eyes were hollow, her face was pinched and shrunken, the flesh on her bones had shrivelled, and her limbs shook as with the palsy. When she was helped into the house that had so long been her home she looked around at the furniture and the walls. Finally her eyes rested on the por trait of Gabriel Waynescroft. She smiled a little and then said feebly: "I done bin come back. I done bin come back fer stay; but I free dough!" In a little while she was freer still. She had passed beyond the reach of mortal care or pain; and, as in the old days, she went without bidding her friends good b y e .44 43 "Mom Bi,” loc. cit 44 Ibid., p: 191. 169 Thus, like Free Joe, Mom Bi found the freedom in death which she had been denied completely in life in the South. Hers was not a simple character. Mom Bi found freedom in death, as we have seen, but neither she nor many of Harris's other Negro characters ever seem to have found peace, security, or complete freedom in life. Mom Bi, then, advances the case for Harris as delineator of the complete plantation panorama. He does not in this story shy away completely, however, from the "plantation mind." In some of the volumes in "The Little Mr. Thimblefinger" series, however, the author has presented brief episodes of the unlovelier aspects of slave life which suggest that he had within him the potentiali ties of the Southern realist which as critic he seems to have felt desirable for a truly representative American writer. Crazy Sue and Big Sal are two characters who extend the Mom Bi pattern which Harris could have treated more extensively for a better rounded picture of the complete story of slavery. Of a different stamp from the fat, good-natured, gruff but kind-hearted cooks are Big Sal and Crazy Sue, two slave women who, in a qualified way, enunciate Harris's awareness of some of the unlovely aspects of slavery. Big Sal is an important minor character in Aaron in the Wildwoods (1897) and Plantation Pageants (1899). In Plantation Pageants, she had the reputation of being sullen, 170 but she was, In reality, "very sensitive and tender-hearted 45 and always famishing for some one to love. . . More over, her humanity is highlighted further by Harris's comment, "For a woman of sixty years, who had known hard 46 work and trouble with it, she was well preserved." Her character is revealed in a series of episodic flashes. However, not even in the case of Big Sal whom Harris uses to dramatize the plight of the lonely heart does he fail to, mellow the tones. In Aaron in the Wildwoods she had found 47 in Little Crotchett a sympathetic soul who had dispelled some of her own loneliness. Overcome by the attention which she received from the crippled youngster, Sal had reacted In a burst of tears. She had been unable to explain her reasons for crying. But, as Harris says, "The 48 lonely heart had been touched without knowing why." Her relationship to Harris 1 s Negroes, however, can be seen in her attitude when emancipation came to the slaves: . . . Dem what went away wuz big fools, an* dem what stayed may be bigger ones fer all I know. I'd a been gone myse'f, but I went roun' yonder in de grave yard, whar dey put dat cripple child and sump'n heIt me. I couldn't go way and leave »im. 45 Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Pageants, pp. 4-5. 46 Ibid., p. 5. 47 Joel Chandler Harris, Aaron in the Wildwoods, pp. 28-29. This little crippled youngster is an important character in the "Little Mr. Thimblefinger" series. He has an understanding and sympathy for the world's lowly which is far beyond his years. 48 Ibid., p. 29. 49 Joel Chandler Harris, Plantation Pageants, p. 6. 171 Thus the insecurities of freedom were no incentive to Big Sal whose tender memories of the little crippled son of her former master could be renewed by periodic visits to Little Crotchett's grave. Could Northern readers doubt that some kindness had existed under slavery? In Crazy Sue, Harris deals slavery its hardest blow. Characteristically, however, it is restrained. Crazy Sue is seen briefly in an episode in Daddy Jake. The episode is all too brief, and the reader can hardly regret that Harris failed to use the pathetic possi bilities to delineate a full-length portrait of the despondent slave mother. The mellowing accomplished in the portrait of Sue is suggestive of Harris's general technique. If he does not close his eyes to the evils of slavery, he attempts to counterbalance the evil with a mitigating influence which softens the harsh impact of the idea of slavery In many minds. Sue's character is revealed through one of Harris's children. Harris's children are all drawn with loving care. Like his narrators, however, the children are also integral parts of his plots. These plots, it will be recalled, depend upon a story teller within a framework with a recep tive audience. Thus, the children perform valuable artistic service. Harris understood the child mind, and he used'children often to put his adult characters into clearer focus. Lucien in Daddy Jake is devoted to the old 172 Negro and himself becomes a runaway in an effort to persuade the old man to return home. Our insight into Crazy Sue is obtained through Lucien. Harris's indictment in his account of Crazy Sue is less a denunciation of slavery as an institution than it is an attack on the "cruel slaveholder." Notwithstanding the implied defense of kind slaveholders, the portrait of Crazy Sue in the brief episode with the youthful Lucien shows a side of Harris's artistry that gives additional indication of his potentialities as a realist who might have shown no hesitation in presenting some of the grimmer sides of slavery. The following is a typical Harris story setting; Lucien and Crazy Sue are the principal members in the cast: "What made you run away?" Lucien asked with some curios ity. "Well, you know, honey," said Crazy Sue after a pause, "my marster ain't nigh ez good ter his niggers ez yo' pa is ter hisn'. Tain't dat my marster is any mo' strick, but look like hit fret 'im ef he see one er his niggers settin' down anywheres. Well, one time, long time ago, 1 had two babies, an' de wuz twins, and dey wuz des 'bout ez likely little niggers ez you ever did see. De w'ite folks had me at de house doin' de washin so I kin be where I kin nurse de babies. One time I wuz settin in my house nursin' un um, an' while I settin' dar I went fast ter sleep. How long I sot dar sleep de Lord only knows, but w'en I woked up, Marster wuz stan' in de do', watchin' me. He ain't say nothin', yit I knowed dat man wuz mad. He des turn on his heel and walk' away. I let you know I put dem babies down an' hustled out er dat house mighty quick.50 50 Joel Chandler Harris, Daddy Jake the Runaway, and Short Stories Told After Dark, p. 62. 173 As Crazy Sue continues her narrative, the reader seems almost as much under her spell as little Lucien. Harris’s deft portrait of Crazy Sue Is filled with a kind of pathos which he never saw fit to treat again in his comments on slavery: ’ ’ Well, sir, dat night de foreman come 'roun’ an’ tole me dat I mus' go ter de fiel' de nex ' mornin'• Soon ez he say dat, I up and went ter de big house and ax Marster w ’at I gwine do wid de babies ef I went ter de fiel'. He stood an' look at me, he did, an' den he writ a note out er his pocket-book, an' tol' me ter han' it ter de overseer. Dat w'at I done dat ve'y night, an' den he up an* say dat I mus' go wid de hoe-han's, way over ter de two-mile place. ”1 went, kaze I bleeze ter go; yit all day long, whiles I wuz hoein' I kin hear dem babies cryin’. Look like sometimes dey wuz right at me, an' den ag'in look like dey wuz way off yander. I kep on a-goin' an' I kep» on a-famishin. Dey des fade away, an' bimeby dey died, bofe un urn on the same day. On dat day I had a fit an' fell in de fier, an' dat how come I burnt up so. ’ ’Look like,” said the woman, marking on the ground with her bony forefinger— "look like I kin year dem babies cryin' yot, an' dat de reason folks call me Crazy Sue, kaze I kin year urn cryin' and yuther folks can't. I'm mighty glad de can't, kaze it'ud break der heart.’ ’^! Childlike, Lucien thought Crazy Sue should have sought his father's assistance. In sentiments that belie her nickname, however, Crazy Sue says: ”Ah, Lord, honey I . . . yo' pa is a mighty good man, an' a mighty good doctor, but he ain't got no medicine w'at could a kyored me an' my marster.”52 51 Ibid., p. 65. 52 Ibid., p. 66. 174 Crazy Sue, however, while fully illustrating some of the evils of slavery, is herself mindful of the existence of kind-hearted slave owners. In thus having Crazy Sue, who has been sorely injured by a cruel overseer, suggest that islavery had its concomitant good effects, Harris once more assumes the role of apologist for slavery, whether for artistic purposes, or as a matter of personal conviction. Harris’s fiction ran the gamut in its presentation of Negro women characters from the "plantation mammy'’ through the free and enslaved mulatto women during and after the slavery period. His portrayal of mulattos offers another view of his realistic technique. In his treatment of mulatto women Harris employs many of the same patterns which characterize his treatment of the cooks and mammies. His handling of three of these characters, Edie Varner, in Gabriel Tolliver; Mary Ellen, in the short story, "The Story of Mary Ellen," from The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann; and Giles Featherstone's housekeeper in "Where’s Duncan?" suggest more than they actually accomplish. Edie Varner was the wife of Ike Varner whom the author terms a 53 "fairly intelligent negro." Ike’s wife is described as "young and bright and handsome and almost white and her face reminded you somehow of the old paintings of the Magdalene 54 with her large eyes and the melancholy droop of her mouth." . 53 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 297. 54 Loc. cit. 175 This flattering account of the physical woman is but the prelude to less flattering intimations of her . . wild 55 and untamed passions. . . .." Varner, the jealous husband, established a home on the outskirts of town for his beautiful bride. Harris says slyly that whether she pined or was lonely ". . . this chronicler is not called on to discuss." Edie Varner’s character is developed against a background of abolitionist intrigue. Hotchkiss, the Abolitionist in Gabriel Tolliver, unwittingly became the object of Edie Varner’s infatuation. However, a careful reading of Gabriel Tolliver will reveal that Harris was far more critical of Southern white manhood than seems to be generally believed. The point is important not only because of its contribution to a delineation of Edie Varner’s character, but also because of its additional indication of Harris’s understanding of the complex society of which he was a part. Harris identifies Edie as the aggressor in pursuit of Hotchkiss’s affections, but the 55 Ibid., p. 295. 56 Ibid., p. 294. See Thomas Nelson Page, Red Rock, pp. 291-292. See especially Page's description of the Negro, Dr. Moses, p. 292. See also pp. 357 and 364. Unlike Page, who in Red Rock represents a Negro man as planning the seduction of a white woman, Harris, in Gabriel Tolliver, portrays Edie Varner as planning the seduction of a white man. Harris reveals himself as the more skillful of the two authors in characterization, for whereas Page succeeds only in creating an exaggerated and revolting impression, Harris employs a complex interplay of motives which far surpasses Page’s Negrophobia. 176 Northerner, who was engrossed in Abolitionism, was not interested in Edie’s charms. Ike Varner was aware of Edie's designs on Hotchkiss, but he was relatively helpless to take any steps to protect his pride or his honor. As Harris says: . . . The negro was compelled to judge Hotchkiss by the standards of the most of the white men he knew. He was well aware of Edie’s purposes, and he judged that Hotchkiss would presently find them agreeable.57 Here Harris implies a great deal more about black and white sexual relations in the South of the Reconstruction period than Southern writers of his time were in the habit of implying. His treatment of the subject at all, however, is an indication of his comprehension of some of the less publicized ’ ’realities” of his section. He treated the miscegenation theme in various guises likewise in "The Story of Mary Ellen” and in “Where’s Duncan.” Our last picture of Edie is of a frightened woman bemoaning the death of 58 Hotchkiss whom she described as ”sech a good man.” Her character is that of the tainted mulatto common to the fiction of the period.^ 57 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 295. Cf. "Where’s Duncan?" pp. 154 f. The mulatto housekeeper of Giles Peatherstone in "Where’s Duncan?" says, Feather- stone "sold my onliest boy." 58 Joel Chandler Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 299. 59 See Sterling Brown, "Negro Characters as Treated by White Authors,” pp. 194-196. 177 In Mary Ellen, the focal character in the short story, ’ ’The Story of Mary Ellen,” the author treats a different phase of mulatto character. Mary Ellen was a type of the ’ ’tragic mulatto” who represents one of Harris’s' most notable concessions to the potentialities of the Negro in his fiction. The sketch itself is an interesting study of Harris’s general technique of realism. It may well merit comparison with William Dean Howells’s novelette, An Imperative Duty. Mary Ellen is the mulatto offspring of a white plantation owner and his Negro housekeeper. As a child, the fair-skinned Mary Ellen plays with the aristo cratic little Sally Blasengame until, the caste-conscious Bolivar Blasengame forbids his child’s associating with Mary Ellen. The years pass swiftly. Sally Blasengame, who loved Mary Ellen like a sister, bitterly denounced her parent’s intolerance. Mary Ellen is sent North by Fed Tatum, her mother’s employer, to continue her training as an artist. In the meanwhile Sally Blasengame dies. The story centers around an episode that involves Mary Ellen’s dilemma over welcoming a young white classmate to her mother’s squalid quarters. (Fed Tatum died and left Mary Ellen's mother the humble cabin which was their home.) Mary Ellen revealed her problems to Minervy Ann, who readily understood the situation which had developed as a result of Mary Ellen's ’ ’passing” for white. Minervy Ann puts the problem squarely up to the Blasengames, who come to Mary 178 Ellen’s rescue by putting their home and services at her disposal during the visit of Mary Ellen's friend. A comparison of Harris’s story with Howells’s novelette reveals the technical variations in realism on both sides of the Mason and Dixon line. Harris’s intimate knowledge of the South and of the Southern racial relations picture enables him to present a realism of situation which may be contrasted with Howells's psychological realism. GO Boldly for a Southern writer of his time, Harris raises _ the miscegenation issue without advancing a solution for its problems. His methods, which are thoroughly character istic of his technique in general, appear to be designed to forestall possible criticism by his sensitive fellow Southerners— white or black. He presents his story through fil Minervy Ann, "Affikin1 fum way back" and a Black Aryan in psychology and social consciousness. Howells’s concern with holding up to ridicule those aspects of Puritan civilization which carried the "cult of 62 the personal conscience into mere dutiolatry” was hardly less great than Harris's concern with ridiculing stereotype Northern concepts about the inflexible behavior patterns of white Southerners in their relationship with Negroes. The 60 Hugh Gloster, Negro Voices in American Fiction, pp. 14-15. 61 Joel Chandler Harris, "The Story of Mary Ellen,” in The Chronicles of Minervy Ann, p. 202. 62 Gloster, op. cit., p. 16. 179 South, as typified in the Blasengame family, not only received Mary Ellen's guest, but extended to Mary Ellen herself the temporary role of an ’ ’equal.” Minervy, the old Negro woman, aware of the unorthodoxy of this experi ment in social equality, was curious about the white man's reactions when his fellow citizens heard the news of his actions. However, Blasengame himself went through the town spreading news of his handling of Mary Ellen's case. As Minervy Ann says: . . . an de las' man in town vow'd 'twuz de ve*y thing ter do. An' dat ain't all, ma'am. De folks dar raise a lot er money fer Mary Ellen 63 • • • • Harris builds swiftly to his climax. His climax is con sistent with his aims, which had been, in part at least, to illuminate the gracious part of Southern character which all too^often, he felt, had been maligned in the North. Thus, in the role of his narrator, Minervy Ann, Harris says : Dat's de way 'tis, ma'am; ketch um in de humor an’ ev'bodys good; ketch um out’n de humor en' dey er all mean— I know dat by my own feelin's. Ef a fly had lit on Marse Bolivar's face dat day, Mary Ellen would 'a' had ter face 'er trouble by 'er own lone self. Ef some sour-minded man had gone up town and told how Marse Bolivar was entertaining nigger gals an' a Yankee 'oman in his parlor, dey'd all ben down on 'im. . . .64- Whereas Howells permits Rhoda Aldgate to marry the white 63 Joel Chandler Harris, "The Story of Mary Ellen,” p. 203. 64 Ibid., pp. 203-204. . 180 0 § Dr. Olney, whose love transcended racial prejudice, Harris makes little effort to speculate on Mary Ellen’s future after the Blasengames helped her to maintain her status with her schoolmate. Significantly, however, whereas Harris shows no inclination to account for Mary Ellen's later p’ ersonal affairs, he is careful to attribute to her an artistic excellence which eventually won fame for her abroad. After that, however, he closes the episode by remarking, ,!. . .So far as we provincials are concerned, f s f \ she has disappeared utterly from the face of the earth." Harris’s commonplace realism is abundantly demon strated throughout the story, particularly in the gestures and style of Minervy Ann, the narrator. Minervy is the familiar Harris narrative device doubling also as a character in the sketch. An essential and fundamental 65 William Dean Howells, An Imperative Duty, pp. 44- 45, 133, and 139-150. This novel did not meet with enthusi astic critical acclaim upon its publication. A reviewer in "kk0 Critic, January 16, 1892, said that in the novel Howells had "obviously attempted to show himself a master of psychology.” Moreover, the reviewer continued, Howells was a "bold man" who had "bitten off more than he could masti cate." The reviewer was inclined to discredit Howells's work,largely because, the reviewer continued, Howells had had no actual experience with the problem. Or, the reviewer says, "he would not write of it as he does.” In conclusion the reviewer says, "that the hero should allow nothing to come between him and the woman he loves is well enough; but the question involved is too serious to be treated flip pantly.” Howells's treatment of the miscegenation theme is significant to those critics who hold that his "smiling aspects of life" statement is alone characteristic of his realistic creed. 66 Joel Chandler Harris, "The Story of Mary Ellen,” p. 210. 1 8 1 difference between the realism of Harris in "The Story of Mary Ellen" and the realism of Howells in An Imperative Duty is that the focal character in Harris’s story is over shadowed by the narrator, while in Howells's novelette, the author takes us into the mind of Hhoda Aldgate for a sustained view of her emotional reactions when she learns 67 that she has Negro blood. If "Where’s Duncan?" fails to live up to its opening promise to present an aspect of Southern life described in none of the antebell-um Southern books, it nevertheless manages to handle in detached manner the touchy problem of miscegenation. In spite of some of the fanciful elements in the plot, this story seems to be Harris’s nearest approach to the kind of conscientious and unhesitating grimness which he admired in Edgar Watson Howe’s Story of A Country Town. Like Howe, he shows no hesitation in revealing the human nature of Giles Feather- stone, a wealthy miser; his mulatto housekeeper, the mother of his son, Willis; and Willis himself, who turns up at the end of the story to taunt his mother ("I never had much of / * p a mother" ) Into killing the father who had earlier in a 6Q fit of rage sold the son to "a nigger speculator." True 67 Howells, op. cit., pp. 83-98. 68 Joel Chandler Harris, "Vi?here’s Duncan?" in Balaam and His Master, p. 160. 69 Ibid., p. 115. 182 to Harris's belief that rural life was most effectively rendered in a tragic mood, "Where’s Duncan?" ends with the three principals destroyed in the flaming wreckage of the Featherstone plantation. In this story, Harris leaves.the impression that the tragedy of mixed blood is all-consuming. This point of view is, of course, in sharp contrast to 70 Howells's moral in An Imperative Duty. To move from Minervy Ann to Uncle Remus is to move from Harris's favorite Negro woman character to the male prototype of Harris's best-known creation. Uncle Remus, as a type of the ante-bellum Negro, has won the hearts of millions of people throughout the world. The essential simplicity of the old man's characterization, his quaint dialect, his wisdom and humor, have become a part of the world's lore. Yet, of the old man himself, Harris has given us comparatively little information. Indeed, as Dr. 71 English has pointed out, there are at least two Uncle Remuses, the old man who tells the little boy his stories on the plantation, and the old man who haunts the offices of the Atlanta Constitution. But for a character who is *72 admittedly a "human syndicate," Remus has come to typify for many people "a real" Negro of the slavery period. 70 Ibid., pp. 168-169. At the end of the tragedy, Harris described the fiery death which pigeons flying into the flames met, and he concludes: ". . .1 observed this and other commonplace things with unusual interest. ..." 71 Thomas H. English, "In Memory of Uncle Remus," p. 12. 72 Life and Letters» p. 146. 183 In common with, a long line of Harris’s Negro characters, Remus was an apologist for the status quo. He could dismiss the poor white Favers family from consider ation both on the grounds that they were morally unaccep table, and also because of their hatred for Negroes; ". . . Dey allers did hate niggers kaze dey ain't had none, 73 en dey hates um down ter dis day." A semblance of com plexity infuses the Remus characterization which causes the old man to dismiss the poor whites in the same breath with which he speaks with inferential pride of his own racial origins. The little boy, under no conditions should model after the Faverses, whose pedigree the old man said he knew 74 from ". . . de fus ter de las. . . ." He added, with the degree of race pride which Harris’s most life-like Negroes often echo, ". . . en w'en I gits my Affikin up, dey ain’t nobody, ’less it’s Miss Sally, *erse’f, w'at kin keep me 75 down." Yet despise the Faverses as he might, he was nevertheless far too practical to pass up any help from them. At eighty, Remus bragged he had used little orthodox medicine in his life-time, ". . . ceppin' it’s dish yer flas' er poke-root w ’at ole Miss Favers fix up fer de 76 stiffness in my j’ints. ..." 73 Joel Chandler Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus , pp. 16-17. 74 Ibid.. p. 17. 75 Loe. cit. 76 Ibid., p. 84. 184 As the prototype of the old plantation man servant, Remus was the idealized composite of many Negroes whom Harris had known. However, his conception of Remus grew from his early portrait in the ’ ’picturesque verity” tradition to a commentator and philosopher who made famous the first notable Negro narrator-type. The following portrait is in line with Harris’s ’ ’picturesque verity” theory: The figure of the old man, as he stood smiling upon the crowd of negroes, was picturesque in the extreme. He seemed to be taller than all the restj and, notwithstanding his venerable appearance, he moved and spoke with all the vigor of youth. He had always exercised authority over his fellow servants. He had been the captain of the eorn-pile, the stoutest at the log-rolling, the swiftest with the hoe, the neatest with the plough, and the plantation hands still looked upon him as their leader.77 By 1895, however, Harris’s conception of Uncle Remus had grown beyond the merely ’ ’picturesque.” As Harris says: Uncle Remus is a composite character. He plays many parts. But in my mind as he appears to the inner eye--he is more surely an individual than many of the people I meet. All my other characters are delineations— types--suggestions--experiments— but Uncle Remus alone is a development.78 The most typical of Harris’s narrators, Remus was also an integral part of the structure of the Harris narrative. Of the old man’s special technique, Harris says: 77 Ibid.t p. 412. 78 Hubbell, op. cit., p. 222. For Harris's most complete explanation of Remus’s status on the plantation, see D&cld-y Jake, pp. 152-153. 185 He liked to be asked for a story so that he might have an opportunity of indulging in a friendly dispute, a wrangle of words, and then suddenly end it all by telling the tale that happened to be on his mind at the moment. In short, he delighted to whet the expectation of the youngster, and arouse his enthusiasm.79 Hemus'a qualities as narrator are qualities similar to those of the narrators in Harris!s sketches of white and Negro life. An early forerunner of Uncle Remus was Ben in The Romance of Rockville, Harris’s serialized novelette of the year 1876. Harris Ts conception of Negro men of his time can be traced back to the experimental Romance of Rockville. Uncle Ben in the early novelette was the forerunner of a long line of Negroes of whom Free Joe, Ananias, Mingo, Jess, Prince, and the other black men in the short stories are but minor variations. Of his favorite Negro type Harris writes in the Romance of Rockville; . . . Uncle Ben was quite a character in his way and quite a favorite with the young men who enjoyed his odd sayings and admired his politeness, which would have done honor to one of the old Virginia barons. He was also a famous hunter of the raccoon and the opossum, and there are few who lived in Rockville even as late as 1858 who do not have a lively recollection of Uncle Ben's "possum suppers. Like Mingo, the title character in Harris's volume of short stories, Uncle Ben was adept at preparing raccoon suppers 79 Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus Returns, p. 79. See Stella Brewer Brookes, Joel Chandler Harris-Folklorist, pp. 47-53, for a more extensive discussion of Uncle Remus's character. 80 The Romance of Rockville, pp. 308-309. 186 and in cooking opossums of unusual delicacy and taste. In his delineation of Mingo's character, the author comes to grips with the slavery issue in what in all likelihood he regarded as an objective manner. He says of Mingo, for 4 example: Both his manners and his dress retained the flavor of a social system the exceptional features of which were too often, by friend and foe, made to stand for the system itself.81 In Randall of The Bishop and the Boogerman (1909), Ike Varner, Uncle Plato, and the Rev. Jeremiah Tomlin of Gabriel Tolliver, Harris achieves his nearest approaches to life-like Negro character. Each portrait reveals, however, the shortcomings of Harris as artist and as Southerner. Harris allowed Randall one demonstration of manhood by permitting him to strike the overbearing Tuttle. This was due in part to Randall's "seeing red," but like the typical Harris Negro, Randall immediately became penitent and resolved not to lose his temper again. Billy Sanders, a sworn enemy of the overseer, asked Randall’s price to strike Tuttle again: No, suh, Mr. Sanders! Not me I I ain’t never lost my senses since that day in the cotton-patch; no matter what you do, I’ll never see red anymore; I’ve tried myse’f and know. No more red for me— not in dis world 1^2 81 Joel Chandler Harris, Mingo and Other Stories in Black and White, pp. 8-9. 82 Joel Chandler Harris, The Bishop and the Booger man, p. 76. 187 Randall is eventually cleared of the charges, and settles down in his home town to a very fruitful life. As Harris portrays his later fortunes, Randall becomes thrifty and a model citizen to the black and white people of his town. To the end, however, his former employer remains his most trusted advisor. Thus Randall achieves both a measure of self-respect and independence. He became, in short, what in the South today continues to be termed ”a highly respected Negro.” Ike Varner was equally independent, and he becomes, in a measure, an even more life-like person than Randall. Although less is said of Varner than of Randall, Varner achieves an even more realistic effect. We see in him a practical man, who realized the odds that a Negro in his time and place faced, and he was slow to be diverted from a safe, conservative path by a scheming, socially ambitious wife. Unlike Howells or James, Harris does not take us into Varner’s mind to detail the various psychological cross-currents which led to Varner’s murder of Hotchkiss, 83 the abolitionist. Harris's technique is more direct, less subtle, but he gives us in rapid, bold strokes the actual scene of the killing. After this point in the story Harris's skill diminishes, and the sustained realism which had been carefully nurtured up to the murder is channelled off into tributaries which give us fleeting glimpses of the 83 Joel Chandler Harris, G-abriel Tolliver, p. 292. See also Ibid., pp. 293-295 ff. 188 life in Middle Georgia with, which we are already familiar. In spite of his jealousy as a husband, Varner does not deviate too far from the familiar pattern which is repre sented in Uncle Plato. Uncle Plato and the Rev. Jeremiah Tomlin.are perfect foils for each other. They are, moreover, suggestive again of Harris's -understanding of opposing views among Negroes in the Reconstruction period. Uncle Plato is the ever- loyal, upright "respected” Negro who is faithful to his 84 Southern friends who had treated him kindly as a slave. Tomlin, on the other hand, is the dupe of the radical abo litionist, Hotchkiss, and he is also hen-pecked by his wife. He is illiterate, but he has a penchant for high-sounding words. At the same time, he is crafty and seemingly obsequious. The Abolitionist had selected Tomlin to organize a branch of the Union League to foster unity among the Negroes. Plato, in contrast to the vainglorious Tomlin, presented ”. . .a striking figure. He was taller than the average Negro, and there was a simple dignity— an air of 85 serene dignity and affability in his attitude and bearing." 84 Ibid., pp. 292-295. The Plato type of Negro, the faithful black retainer, has been immortalized by Harris and Page. Significantly, both authors thought they saw in Booker T. Washington the ideals and characteristics which had been fostered in the plantation tradition. After detailing Uncle Plato's opposition to the so-called radical doctrines of the Abolitionists, Harris says that if Washing ton had been living during Uncle Plato's time "he would have been denounced . . . as a traitor to his race, and an enemy of the Government, just as they the Negroes denounced and despised such Negroes as Uncle Plato." 85 Ibid., p. 171. 189 At the close of an organizational meeting of the Union League, Plato, who opposed the League's purposes, left the meeting, ". . . with a bow that Chesterfield might have Q £ * envied." Here, surely, from Harris's point of view, was the Georgia gentleman of the old black stock. If Harris's kindly Negroes compare favorably with Page's and reflect the author's pro-slavery sentiments we may see in their delineation of anti-slavery Negroes a marked difference in their technique of realism and in their social philosophy. Page portrays Negroes who sought freedom as primarily vicious and licentious. Harris's portrayals, while philosophically as unsympathetic as Page's, are at the same time, more objectively presented. Where Page caricatures, Harris gives us a convincing picture. The contrast can be clearly seen in Jeremiah Tomlin and in Page's "Dr." Ash.®^ It is a tribute to Harris's artistry and to his conscience that in the midst of intolerance, he could rise as author above the prejudices of his time and regard the rebel Negro preacher, Tomlin, as an individuals . . .-.He was not a vicious Negro. In common with the great majority of his race--in common, perhaps, with the men of all races— he was eaten up by a desire to become prominent, to make himself conspicu ous. Generations of civilization (as it is called) 86 Gabriel Tolliver, loc. cit. 87 cf. Page's description of Dr. Moses in Red Rock, pp. 291-292, 357-364. 190 have gone Tar to tone down this desire in the whites, and they manage to control it to some extent, though now and then we see it crop up in individuals. But there had been no toning down in the Bev. Jeremiah Tomlin’s egotism; on the contrary, it had been Ted by the flattery of his congregation until it was gross and rank.88 Harris’s moral conscience consistently reminded him of the basic kinship of black and white men. His teachings and his environment, however, impressed upon him the conviction that, notwithstanding the potentialities of black men, they had not exhibited the restraint which he believed gener ations of "civilizing" experiences had bred into the whites. To a greater degree than Page, however, Harris was willing to concede the Negro’s basic humanity. His portrait of Tomlin, therefore, becomes the study of a particular Negro who was representative of large numbers of his class. Thus in an environment in which slaves sometimes were treated like animals, Harris could portray the feelings of a particular ex-slave with understanding and comparative detachment. In the light of ; these combinations at work, Harris could well say; It was natural, therefore, under all the circum stances that the Bev. Jeremiah should become the willing tool of the'politicians and adventurers who had accepted the implied invitation of the radical leaders of the Bepublican Party to assist in the spoilation of the South.89 Harris illuminates and complicates Tomlin’s character 88 Joel Chandier Harris, Gabriel Tolliver, p. 163 89 Loc. cit. 191 further by a subtle treatment of his relationship with the * Union League and with its abolitionist sponsors. The author, however, was far too humane and too discerning to say he was writing with complete disinterestedness, although such seems to have been his goal. Thus, he is himself apparently sincere when he attributes to the Abolitionist, Hotchkiss, a passionate sincerity which was thoroughly representative of the man’s convictions. In the role of Gabriel Tolliver, Harris remarks: . . . Gabriel does not know to this day whether this ill-informed emissary of race hatred and sectional prejudice really believed all he said. Who shall judge? Certainly not those who remember the temper of those times, the revengeful attitude of the radical leaders at the North and the distorted fears of those who suddenly found them selves surrounded by a horde of ignorant voters, pliant tools in the hands of unscrupulous carpet baggers.90 By declining to pass absolute judgment upon the temper of the times, Harris gives additional indication of his affinity with the realist’s aim to present objectively and in pictorial manner the scenes and people familiar to a place which he had known at firsthand. It is probable that Harris .drew a relatively unfavorable portrait of Hotchkiss to counterbalance an earlier, favorable portrait he had drawn of another abo litionist, Richard Hudspeth. Hudspeth’s character is delineated through several volumes and, in its totality, his 90 Ibid., p. 176. 192 character becomes at once more realistic and more sympa thetically drawn than Hotchkiss's. With great attention to detail and with considerable skill, Harris presents Hudspeth first as a young Northern teacher living on the Abercrombie plantation in Georgia. During the war he was elected to Congress. Later, because of his love of the Abercrombie plantation, he intervened to protect the plantation from possible harm by Northern troops. Through a realism of situation, given us in a series of episodes loosely but intricately related to the main plot, Harris presents in Hudspeth a composite picture of a Northerner who in later years came to view American slavery as a great civilizing influence upon Negroes. After the war, Harris quotes Congressman Hudspeth's saying, in part, to a large audience; Looking back on the history of the human race, let us hasten to acknowledge . . . that two hundred and odd years of slavery, as it existed in the American public, is a small price to pay for par ticipation in the inestimable blessings and benefits of American freedom and American citizenship.®! The Middle Georgia which Harris knew and loved was not peopled entirely by plantation owning whites and Negroes. There were also the great masses of whites of the middle and lower classes whose habitats ranged from the mountains to the sea. Harris's predominant attitudes toward these 91 Joel Chandler Harris, Aaron in the Wildwoods. pp. 153 ff. See also Ibid., pp. 138-159, especially pp. 145-156. 193 groups were compounded of love, sympathy, and charity. The crackers are scattered throughout Harris Ts fiction. The Tackies figure primarily in ’ ’Mom Bi," ’ ’Azalia, ” and in parts of The Bishop and the Boogerman. The mountaineers -are treated at considerable length in the novelettes, At Teague Poteet *3; A Sketch of the Hog Mountain Range and in Trouble on Lost Mountain. Shields Mcllwaine considers Mrs. Peratia Bivins in ’ ’Mingo” as ’ ’the nearest approach before the twentieth QQ century to the tragic poor white.” Mrs. Feratia Bivins, like Harris's other major characters, achieves in her person the composite qualities of the homespun humorist, the homely character, the sentimental rustic, and the dramatic narrator. Characteristically, Harris speaks of her in this manner: I cannot hope to give even a faint intimation of the remarkable dramatic fervor and earnestness of this recital, nor shall I attempt to describe the rude eloquence of attitude and expression; but they seemed to represent the real or fancied wrongs of a class, and to spring from the pent-up rage of a century.^3 Of Mrs. Bivins's physical traits, Harris says: It would be impossible to convey an idea of the emphasis which Mrs. Bivins imposed upon her conver sation. She talked rapidly, and yet with a certain deliberation of manner which gave a quaint interest to everything she said. She had thin, gray hair, a 92 shields Mcllwaine, The Southern Poor White from Lubberland to Tobaeco Road, p. 119. 93 Joel Chandler Harris, Mingo, pp. 12-13. 194 prominent nose, firm thin lips, and eyes that gave a keen and sparkling individuality to sharp and homely features. She had evidently seen sorrow and defied it. . . .94 Harris skillfully balances the aggressive rural pride of Mrs. Bivins’s cracker family with the family pride of the "quality1 * Wornums whose daughter, Cordelia, had married Mrs. Bivins's son, Clay. The outraged Wornums had disowned Cordelia, who had come to live with the Bivinses. Clay Bivins was killed in the war, his wife later died, and the couple’s daughter, Frudhon, remained with Mrs. Bivins whose humble home had witnessed another social dislocation, which is a popular theme with Harris. It is Harris the realist who makes full use of dialect, pictorial effects, episodes, and dramatic action to vitalize the scene between aristocratic Emily Wornum and cracker Feratia Bivins when t the two grandmothers come face to face in the Bivins home. After the death of Cordelia Wornum Bivins, the girl's mother came to pay a belated visit to Feratia Bivins. This is Mrs. Bivins's account; "An' then I taken a cheer an' sot down by the winder. D'reckly in come Emily Wornum, an' I wish I may die if I'd 'a know'd 'er if I'd saw ’er any wheres else on the face er the yeth. She had this ere kinder dazzled look what wimmen has airter they bin baptized in the water. I helt my head high, but I kep' my eye on the battlin'-stick, an' if she'd 'a made fight, I'd be boun' they'd 'a' bin some ole sco'es settled then and thar if ole sco'es ken be settled by a frailin'. But bless your heart, they wa’nt never no cammer 'oman than what Emily Wornum was; an' if you'd a know'd 'er, and Mingo wa'nt 94 Mingo, loc. cit 195 here to ba'r me out, I wish I may die if I wouldn't be afeared to tell you how cam and subjued that 'oman was, which in her young days she was a tarrifi e r . ^ 5 The infuriated Mrs. Bivins answers coldly when Mrs. Wornum inquires for hers . . . Yessuml An* what's more, Mizzers Bivins is come to that time er life when she's mighty proud to git calls from the big bugs. If I had as much perliteness, ma'am, as I is cheers, I'd ast you to set down, says I.®® When Mrs. Wornum saw her daughter's picture as a child, . . • bless your soul, she thes sunk right down on the floor, an' clincht 'er han's, and brung a gasp what looked like it might er bin the last, an* d'reckly she ast, in a whisper, says she,-- "Was this my dear daughter's room? Maybe you think, said Mrs. Bivins, regarding me coldly and critically, and pressing her thin lips more firmly together, if that could be,— maybe you think I oughter wrung my han's, and pities that 'oman kneelin' thar in that room whar all my troubles was born and bred. Some folks would 'a» flopped down by 'er, an' pitied that 'oman kneelin' thar in that room whar all my trouble was born and bred and I won't deny but what hit come over me; but the nex mirmit hit flashed acrost me as quick an' hot as powder how she'd a bin a-houndin airter me an' my son, an* a» treatin us like we'd »a' bin the offscourin's er creation, an' how she cast off her own daughter, which Deely was as good a gal as ever draw'd the breath er life,--when.all this come over me . . . an ef hit hand't but 'a bin for her, Emily Wornum, . . . I'd 'a' strangled the life out'n you, time yer shadder darkened my door. . . .97 Fearing the aristocratic Mrs. Wornum might want to take her 95 Ibid.. p. 20. 96 Loc. cit. 97 Ibid.. pp. 22-24 196 grandchild away, Mrs. Bivins threatens that if she "thes so much as lay the weight er your little finger on 'er . . • Q Q and I'll grab you by the goozle and t'ar your haslet out." Mcllwaine says that Harris never quite succeeded in portraying real tragedy, because "he bogged down in the 99 pathetic." This same critic adds later, however, that Harris nevertheless succeeded in his aim of winning sympathy for the Georgia poor whites in his literary por trayals. Mcllwaine puts it this way: Because of his role as conciliator, his great sympathy for the poor, and his weakness for senti ment, Harris claimed the trashy Crackers for pity .... To him, the Georgia pineywoodsers . . . were the unfortunates of his state, not a class to be ridiculed but human beings to be pitied. . . .100 Both the pride of family and the commonplace dialect characteristic of Harris's rustic characters are illus trated in the personality of Mrs. Hightower in the novelette, At Teague Poteet1s: In about the las' word pore maw spoke on 'er dyin' bed, she call me to 'er an* sez, se' she, 98 Ibid., p. 24. 99 Mcllwaine, op. cit., p. 112. 100 Ibid., pp. 115-116. Mcllwaine goes on to say that between 1882 and 1892 Harris made four contributions to the literature of the Southern poor whites: . . . (1) he added to the gallery of Southern poor whites three memorable characters; (2) in Emma Jane and her half-witted son, Bud, he introduced the pathetic or sentimental poor white, (3) he came nearer the tragic conception of the tacky in Mrs. Feratia Bivins than any other writer of the nineteenth century, and (4) incidentally he made comments which con stitute a sort of chronicle of the type as well as a re definition of his lot. P."116. 197 'Purithy Emma, se' she, ’you hoi’ your head high;' don't you bat your eyes to please none of 'em, se' she.101 It was pride, likewise, that caused the enigmatic Teague Poteet himself to say of his daughter, "Sis hain’t no dirt 102 eater." These mountain folk were dear to Harris's heart. As he once remarked to Hamlin Garland, Harris 103 himself was of mountain stock. Was he able to portray the mountaineers realistically? A series of editorials in the Constitution from 1879 through 1883 found Harris advancing the thesis that typical regional types were 104 mostly popular illusions. In one of Harris's earliest editorial pronouncements on the subject, he asserted that there were "remarkable points of resemblance between the typical down easter and the typical Georgia Cracker"; . . . Major Jones is Brother Jonathan thinly disguised in a suit of Georgia linsey wolsey. Stand them up alongside Hosea Biglow . . . and the parallel is complete. Bring Hosea Biglow to Georgia,' turn him loose in a pine thicket, show him a bunch of dogwood blossoms . . . give him a suit of jeans . . . then, you have your Major Joseph Jones of Pineville, who is "yours till death."105 101 Joel Chandler Harris, At Teague Poteet's; A Story of the Hog Mountain Range, in Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches, p. 84. See also Mingo, pp. 13-14. 102 Loc. cit. 103 Hamlin Garland, Roadside Meetings, pp. 351-352. 104 Mcllwaine, op. cit., pp. 113-114. 105 Editor and Mssayist, p. 67. See editorials in the Constitution, January 24, 1882, p. 2; September 28, 1882, p. 2; and October 5, 1879. See also Mcllwaine, oj>. cit., p. 115; On the Wing of Occasions, pp. 66 and 148. 198 In spite of Garland's statement that Harris was "bluntly critical” of the old aristocratic regime in the South, one will find few evidences of such criticism in Harris's fiction.106 A considerable amount of what Harris wrote in his poor white stories was concerned with giving that group 107 "the poor man's chance” as he called it* Holding such a view, Harris could hardly be expected to follow to the letter his enthusiasm for the "grimness" of The Story of A Country Town. Yet, his own fiction by trying to give a panoramic picture of small town life occasionally skirts the "grim” aspects of that life. To examine Harris's attitude toward the broader aspects of life among his poor white characters, we may begin with his attitude toward the Southern aristocracy. One of Harris's best known portraits of an aristocrat of the old order is Colonel Benjamin Flewellen in the short story "Ananias." Seemingly drawn from a portrait of Joseph Addison Turner, Colonel Flewellen is represented as a fine 108 gentleman "with a taste for literature." In the Colonel's portrait, Harris follows a device which he employed often; namely, he presents one view of the aristo crat in this sketch, while reserving for a later sketch 106 Garland, o£. cit., pp. 351-352. 107 Mcllwaine, op* cit., p. 111. 108 Joel Chandler Harris, "Ananias," pp. 124-125. 199 another view of the same type of character. We may see in Judge Bascom of ' ’The Old Bascom Place," for example, another phase of the fallen aristocrat. Colonel Flewellen was fifty-one before he came face to face with the real problems of life. Having left the management of his plantation to an overseer, he was faced with the loss of the plantation to the scheming overseer. Harris describes the colonel’s dilemmai Just at this point the colonel first began to face the real problems of life, and he found them to be very knotty ones. He must live— but how. He knew no law, and was acquainted with no business. He was a gentleman and a scholar, but these accom plishments would not serve him; indeed, they stood in his way. He had been brought up to no business, and it was a little late in life— the colonel was fifty or more— to begin to learn. He might have entered upon a political career and this would have been greatly, to his taste, but all the lo-cal offices were filled by competent men, and just at that time a Southerner to the manner born had little chance to gain admission to Congress* The Republican "reconstructionists," headed by Thaddeus Stevens- barred the way. The outlook was gloomy indeed.109 Ironically, Harris permits the haughty and proud colonel and his daughter to be rescued from social and economic ruin by the ingenuity of Ananias, the Flewellen!s mean-looking former slave. The colonel did not fully appreciate Ananias's value until the Negro was tried in court for stealing from the overseer who had taken over Flewellen's land. As Ananias’s story unfolded before the court and he was later exonerated, Colonel Benjamin Flewellen's true 109 Ibid., p. 129 200 character is revealed; His clothes were a trifle shabby, but he had the air of a prince of the blood. His long white hair fell on his shoulders, and his movements were as precise as those of a grenadier. The spectators made way for him. Those nearest noticed that his eyes were moist, and that his nether lip was a tremble, but no one made any remark. Colonel Flewellen pressed forward until he reached Ananias, who, scarcely comprehending the situation, was sitting with his hands folded and his head bent down. The Colonel placed his hand on the negro's shoulder. "Come boy," he said, "let's go home." "Me, Marster? said the negro, looking up with a dazed expression. It was the tone and not the words that Ananias heard. "Yes, old fellow, your Miss Nelly will be waiting for us. "HO Both the Negro and the master had been misunderstood during the story, but in the end, Harris effects a reconciliation between them that still keeps the colonel's character in high relief. He may be shabby outwardly, but he has never theless managed to come through with his pride -unsullied by his frank recognition of the true worth of the Negro. It Is the aristocracy of virtue, not wealth which in the final analysis distinguishes the eolonel. Harris treated another type of the aristocrat's personality in "The Old Bascom Place." The central charac ter here is an old Southern gentleman who accepted political office under the Republicans rather than face starvation; 11° Ibid.. pp. 147 ff 201 . . . Politically speaking lie had committed the unpardonable sin when he accepted office under what was known as the carpetbag government* It was an easy matter--thus the argument ran--to forgive and forget an enemy, but it was hardly possible to forgive a man who had played false to his people and all their traditions— who had, in fact, ' ’sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. "HI The story is notable likewise for a thin romance between the judge's daughter and a young enterprising Northerner, who had been able to win the love of the judge's daughter and to restore the family's ancestral lands* This part of the story further demonstrates Harris's zeal as conciliator between the North and the South. Harris had been relatively objective in depicting the vicissitudes of the judge's fortunes, but near the end, he can hardly resist demon strating his sympathy for the old gentleman and his lost cause. The physician attending the judge speaks thus of Southern loyalty: "He went wrong, badly wrong; but he is a Southerner, sir, to the very core, and in the South, we are in the habit of looking after our own. We may differ sir, but when the pinch comes, you'll find us together."112 Prom an examination of two of Harris's most com pletely drawn aristocrats, Judge Bascom, and Colonel .Flewellen, we may conclude that Harris treated them with understanding and sympathy which was not unmixed with a kind of qualified detachment. Harris shows no hesitation in permitting the reader to view the men in their inability 111 Joel Chandler Harris, "The Old Bascom Place,” p. 224. 112 Ibid., p. 271. 202 to adjust to the conditions which the Reconstruction political and economic changes wrought in their lives. However, as if in anticipation of the charge that this was not the complete picture of the typical aristocrat, Harris has also given us another portrait of the aristocrat in Berrien Cozart of ’ ’Balaam and His Master." Balaam is the typical Harris Negro who has been assigned the duty of protecting his young master, Berrien Cozart, "... the i n % handsomest man in the world and probably the worst. . Harris early set the stage for the tone of the narrative in a preface which pictured "Tragedy" dragging "comedy across the stage," while "hard upon the heels of the hero tread 114 the heavy villain and the painted clown." At an early age, Berrien displayed a "temper of extreme violence and an obstinacy that knew no bounds," while Balaam, on his part, had an "independence and fearlessness rare among slaves." Berrien's career was one of progressive moral disinte gration: . . . As his character unfolded Itself the fact became more and more manifest that he had an unsavory career before him. . . . Sensual, cruel, impetuous, and implacable, he was the wonder of the mild-mannered people of the country, and a terror to the God-fearing. . . . He was an aggressor in innumerable broils, he fought a duel in the suburbs of Athens, and he ended his college career by insulting the chancellor in the lecture room.115 113 Joel Chandler Harris, Balaam and His Master, p. 12. 114 Loc. cit. 115 Ibid., pp. 15-16. 203 With, all of his shortcomings, however, ’ ’dissipation was not one of his vices and he returned home with the bloom of youth on his cheek and the flowing fires of health in his H6 sparkling eyes. ..." After several hair-breadth escapades, Berrien came to the_end of his lawless career. A final crime, the murder of a high sheriff, led to Berrien’s incarceration in a jail within a mile of his home. The jailer was lax and one night left his charge alone. On his return he and a crowd of curious spectators witnessed this scene: On the floor lay Berrien Cozart dead, and crouched beside him was Balaam. How the negro had been able to make his way through the masonry of the dungeon without discovery is still one of the mysteries of Billville. But, prompt as he was, he was too late. His master had escaped through a wider door. He had made his way to a higher court. Death, coming to him in that dark dungeon, must have visited him in the similitude of a happy dream, for there -under the light of the lanterns he lay smiling sweetly as a little child that nestles on its mother's breast; and on the floor near him, where it had dropped from his nerveless hand, was a golden locket, from which smiled the lovely face of Sally Carter. As a corrective for the comparatively roseate pictures of Harris's aristocrats in some of the short stories and in his longer prose works, Berrien Cozart is a relatively effective antidote. However, as an objective treatment of the seamy side of the character of a contemporary aristocrat, the portrait of Berrien falls short because of its 116 Ibid., p. 17. 117 Ibid., pp. 40 ff.* 204 IT 8 excessively sentimental delineation. In none of the three examples which we have examined thus far of the Harris aristocrat— Judge Bascom, Colonel Flewellen, or Berrien Cozart, has Harris demonstrated the capacity of complete detachment* At the same time, however, he had gone as far toward realism as he could go. In turning to Harris fs stories of mountaineer life, we find that he becomes more critical of his aristocratic characters. Harris's most outspoken criticism of the aristocrats is voieed In his novelette, At Teague Poteet's; A Story of the Hog Mountain Range* The story is typical of Harris's technique and general approach to literature* Like most of his other fiction, this novelette is episodic in structure, and it contains the kind of realistic dialect which thoroughly reveals the characters of the homespun mountain folk who are the principals. The main plot treats primarily of the romance of Sis Poteet, the mountaineer's daughter, and Phillip Woodward, a youthful United States- Deputy Marshal, who Is sent into the mountains to trap the makers of illicit liquor. Woodward falls in love with Sis, for whose education Teague Poteet has resumed the manufacture of ’ ’ mountain dew.” Woodward reveals the true nature of his mission to Sis. A break ensues in their courtship. Woodward resigns his position and returns to Atlanta. A mountain youth is killed by a 118 Mcllwaine, 0£. eft., p. 112. 205 quick-triggered deputy in a fruitless raid upon the moonshiners1 haven. Sis Poteet becomes lovesick about the absent Woodward. Teague Poteet misconstrues the symptoms and goes to Atlanta with a pistol to avenge the wrong which he believes Woodward has done to Sis. Teague, however, learns that Woodward is interested in marrying Sis, and the two men return to the mountains to prepare for the wedding. There are several other episodes which highlight the quaint aspects of mountaineer character through the use of faithful dialect. Naturally a skeptical class, the mountaineers are especially suspicious of the aristocrats as we learn in the ensuing dialogue between Teague Poteet and his mountaineer friends. Harris explains that Sis was born on the day the Civil War was declared. The aversion of the mountaineers for the slave-owning aristocrats is apparent in the following dialogue in typical mountaineer fashion* ’ ’Hello, Poteet!” "Ah-yi!” ’ ’ You hearn the racket?" ”My gal baby keeps up sich a hollerin’ I can’t hear my own years•” "Oh.” "You better b ’lieve! Nine hours ole, an' mighty peart. What’s them Restercrats in the valley cuttin’ up the'r scollops fer?" "Whoopin' up sesaysioun. Sou’ Ca'liny done plum gone out, an' Georgy a-gwine." 206 Teague Poteet blew a long thin cloud of home-made tobacco smoke heavenward, leaned back heavily in his chair and replied,— "Them air Restercrats kin go whe'r they dang please; I 'ia a-gwine to stay right slam-bang in the Nunited States.” The man on horseback rode on across the mountain to his home. Another mountaineer, seeing the rockets and hearing the sound of the cannon, came down to Poteet’s for information. He leaned over the brush fence. ’ ’ What 's up down yan?” "Them dad-blasted Restercrats a-secedin’ out'n the Nunited States.” ’ ’They say they er aurter savin' of the »r niggers,” said the man at the fence. ’ ’ Well, I hain't got none, and I hain't a wantin- none and it hain't been ten minnits sense I ups an' says to Dave Hightower, 's' I, the Nunited States is big enough for me.”119 On another occasion Harris explains the terms upon which the mountaineer families of the Poteets, the Pringles, and the Hightowers would remain in the Union; ”If nobody 120 pestered them, they pestered nobody.” Harris was adept at the kinds of digressions and surprising twists which are familiar patterns in the techniques of the humorist and informal essayist. The techniques are illustrated in the following passage which explains Teague Poteet's decision to return to illegal whiskey making to provide educational opportunity in the 119 Joel Chandler Harris, At Teague Poteet's, pp. 77-78. 120 Ibid., p. 52. 207 city for his daughter Sis: It was a case of civilization or no civilization, and there is nothing more notorious in history, nothing more mysterious, than the fact that civili zation is not over-nice in the choice of her hand maidens. One day it is war, another it is slavery. Every step in the advancement of the human race has a paradox of some kind. In the case of Sis Poteet it was whiskey.121 While Harris retains the familiar device of develop ing his plots in a series of episodes, he gains new depths in his characterizations through the medium of the mountain dialect with which he had life-long familiarity. He achieves this through his mountaineer narrators who bring a dramatic oral quality to their speech that is filled with racy indigenousness. The role of Jake Norris, Ma chunk of 1 PP a white man with a whole heart,1 1 is an important one in the story, for, notwithstanding his constant tippling, he also serves as part of the narrative technique. It is Uncle Jake who relates the "murder1 1 of Jackson Ricks, the moonshiner: "I uv seed sights! Yo all know the divers besettings whar'by Jackson Ricks wuz took off this season gone,--murdered, I may say, in the teeth of the law an* good government. Sirs! I sot by and seed his besetters go scotchfree.1 1 "Ah.” The exclamation came from Teague Poteet. Yes, sirs, yes, my friends, continued Uncle Jake closing his eyes and tilting his chair back. "Even so. Nuther does I boast ez becometh the fibble- minded. They hurried and skurried me forth an' hence, 121 Ibid*> P* 5S* 122 Ibid.. p. 77. 208 to mount upon the witness stan' an' relate the deed. No deniance did I make. Ez St. Paul says, sin, takin' occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of conspicuessence. I told ’em what these ’ere eyes had seed. They errayed me before jedge and jury, Uncle Jake went on, patting the jug affectionately, ’an I bowed my howdies. Gentermun friends, ’s' I, 'foller me. dost, bekaze I’m a-givin’ you but the truth, stupendous though it be. Ef you these but name the word s’I, 'I'll take an' lay my han' upon the men that done this unrighteousness, for they stan no furder’n yon piller, ’s' I. 'Them mens, s'I, ’surroundered the house of Jackson Ricks, gentermun friends, he bein' a member of Friendship Church, an' called 'im forth wi' the ashorence of Satan an' the intents of evil, S'l; an' ole en decrippled ez he wuz, they shot 'im down,--them men at yon piller, 's 'I, 'ere he could but raise his tremblin’ han' in supplication; an' the boldest of 'em dast not to face me here an' say nay, s'l. , ! An they uv cler'd the men what kilt pore Jackson Ricks,” said Teague rubbing his grizzled chin. "Ez clean an' ez cle'r ez the pa'm er my han',” replied Uncle Jake with e m p h a s i s . 123 The similarity between the dialect of poor whites in his novel Sister Jane and in that of Teague Poteet can be seen in Harris's shrewd depiction of the women characters in each work. In both works, Harris presents the women in pairs. Mesdames Roby and Flewellen are commenting with interest on some of the "commonplace remarks" of the Rev. Mr. Danielly in the following passage: "I declare er, Sister Roby!" exclaimed Mrs. Flewellen, "I'm er all but pairlized. Er did you er ever hear such talk in all your er born days? It's a scandal and I er don't care who hears me er say it. Who er was he a-hittin' at, do you er 123 Ibid., p. 78. 209 reckon? And er what is at the er bottom of it? Why, the er bare idee that anything can er happen in this town an er me not know nothin' 'tall about itJ Er Brother Danielly is a good man--there er ain't no manner of er doubt about that; er he's a godly man; but er somebody has played on her his mind. But er wouldn't it be er the wonder of the world if er there was something or other er brewing?"1^4 Harris's favorite device of revealing character through dialect is illustrated similarly in the conversation of those two peerless mountaineer women, Mrs. Sue Parmalee and Mrs. Puritha Hightower. The ladies are explaining the reasons for their visit to Mrs. Poteet: "Don't lay the blame of it onter me Puss, exclaimed Mrs. Hightower,— her shrill thin voice in queer con trast with her fat and jovial appearance; don't you lay the blame onter me. Dave, he's a been a-complainin1 bekaze they wa'nt no salsody in the house, an' I rid over to Sue's to borrow some. After I got thar, Sue sez, sez she: Yess us pick up an' go an' light in on Puss 'se she and fine out sump'n buther that's gwine on 'mongst folks, 'se' she. Yes lay it all onto me said Mrs. Parmalee, looking over her spectacles at Mrs. Poteet, I sez to Purithy sez I, Purithy Yess go down and see Puss, 's' I; maybe we'll git a glimpse er that air new chap with the slick ha'r. Sid'11 be a peggin' out airter awhile, s' I and ef the new chap's ez purtv ez I hear tell, maybe I'll set my cap fer 'm, s' j.125 Harris does not rely exclusively upon the interpre tation of his mountaineers through dialect characteri zations. He makes constant use of sense impressions. His 124 Joel Chandler Harris, Sister Jane, pp. 243-244. 125 Joel Chandler Harris, At Teague Poteet's, pp. 82-83. See Mingo, pp. 178-183, for an account of the Middle Georgia pair, Grandsirs Bannurn and Roach. 210 rendering of the sound effects of the warning horn which Sis blew to warn the blockaders of the impending raid is a ease in point. Three short blasts were repeated at intervals: Up, up the mountain the signal climbed; now faltering, now falling, but always climbing; sending echoes before it, and leaving echoes behind it, but climbing, climbing, now fainting and dying away, but climbing, climbing until it reached Pulliam’s Summit, the smallest thread of sound. . . . Faint and far but clear and strenuous came the signal. . . . The leaves of the tall chestnut whipped each other gently; and the breeze .that had borne the signal seemed to stay in the tops of the mountain pines as if awaiting further orders. . . .126 The realistic effects are further enhanced through Harris’s use of descriptive language which successfully portrays the characters in almost still-life relief: . . . Teague Poteet . . . paused and listened and smiled. Uncle Jake Norris who had come to have his jug filled, was in the act of taking a dram, but he waited, balancing the tin cup in the palm of his hand. Tip Watson was telling one of his stories to the two little boys who accompanied Uncle Jake, but it was never ended. . . . . . • Tip Watson appeared to be so overjoyed that he went through all the forms of a cotillon dance, imitating a fiddle, calling the figures,,and giving his hand to imaginary partners. The boys fairly screamed with laughter at this exhibition, and Uncle Jake was so overcome that he felt called upon to take another dram,— a contingency that was renewed when Tip swung from the measure of the cotillon to that of a breakdown, singing,-- ”1 hain't bin a-wantin’ no mo’ wines— mo' wines— sence daddy got drunk on low wines--low wines.”127 126 Joel Chandler Harris, At Teague Poteet’s, pp. 99-100. 127 Ibid., pp. 102-103. 211 Just as Harris did not completely escape the current appeal for sentimentality which was a part of the Zeitgeist, so, in a lesser,-degree, perhaps, may it be said that he did not completely escape some of the outermost fringes of the naturalistic experiment which began during his day in American letters. We have noted his remarks concerning Mrs. Feratia Bivins and Mrs. Puss Pringle Poteet who were described as representatives of generations which, presumably, had determined their lot in life as well as their heredity. Mcllwaine's assertion that "Harris shied at sex and the sordid details inherent in the poor white as tragedy""^® is largely true, but it fails completely to take account of the instances in which Harris touches with more than elementary subtlety on the problems of illegitimacy and miscegenation. While it is true, of course, that Harris presents none of his characters who revel in sex in the manner of Caldwell's Ty Ty Walden in God1s Little Acre or Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road, he nevertheless does portray in unmistakable fashion the heart-rending thoughts of Teague Poteet who imagines that his Sis has been betrayed by young Woodward. He turned it round in his mind and brooded over it. Woodward was a man of fine appearance and winning manners, and Sis, with all the advantages — comparative advantages, merely— that the Guiletsville Academy had given her, was only a Mountain girl after 128 Mcllwaine, op. cit., p. 124. 212 all. What if--Teague turned away from the suspicion with terror. It was a horrible one; but as often as he put it aside, so often he returned to it. It haunted him. Turn where he might, go where he would, it pursued him night and day.129 The picture which we have of Teague is a graphic one, and if it is presented with a technique which is a far cry from present day naturalistic practice, it is at the same time suggestive of the change in naturalistic tastes between Colonel Byrd in the eighteenth century, and our moderns, Caldwell and Faulkner. A careful study of Harris's Romance of Rockvillet At Teague Poteet !st and Shadow Between His Shoulder Blades, suggests a need for a modifi cation of Mcllwaine's view that the "local color period was so prudish that prolific trash became sexless and largely X remained so until the twentieth century." One of the differences between Harris’s method and that of the extreme realists who came before and after his time is that, unlike those realists, Harris concentrated less upon the act of procreation itself than upon the social implications which the act had for the young mothers who are 131 consistently represented as dupes of villainous seducers. 129 Joel Chandler Harris, At Teague Poteet's t p. 136. 130 Mcllwaine, op. cit.. pp. 222-223. 131 in Harris's early novelette, The Romance of Rock ville (1878) Cindy Ashfield says of her child whose father is never identified, "I did have a little baby* It was born mine and it stayed mine. . . .” p. 428 as cited in L. S. Wiggins, The Life of Joel Chandler Harris. Mandy Satter- lee, in Harris's novel, Sister Jane, is also represented as 213 Bushrod Claiborne in Shadow Betnveen His Shoulder Blades shows that Harris was as occupied with the problem of seduction at the end of his career as he was at the time he 132 published the Romance of Rockville in 1878. But Harris, who had risen to new realistic heights in At Teague Poteet1s interspersed several more episodes, and later built steadily toward his climax after pushing his story ahead to quote an old woman who had seen the having a little child whose paternity remains a matter of mystery. P. 58. Harris attributes her status to "a social dislocation** associated with the unsettled temper of the times* The theme is hinted in At Teague Poteet *3. another novelette in which Harris describes vividly the emotions of the mountaineer father who suspects that his daughter has been betrayed by a fast-talking young man from Atlanta. Pp. 136-140. In Shadow Between the Shoulder Blades, Harris gives his best full length portrait of the seducer of a country girl. Bushrod Claiborne is a villain whose crimes have run the gamut from unlawful seduction to treason. A variation of the theme of the deserted father is his short story, "A Child of Christmas," in The Making of a Statesman (1900). This episode becomes a part of the autobiographical novel, Gabriel Tolliver (1902). 132 Joel Chandler Harris, Shadow Between His Shoulder Blades, p. 100. Claiborne, who "had the slick look you sometimes see in preachers," had seduced a farmer's daughter and quietly faded away. Asked if he was acquainted with Claiborne, Farmer Mooneyham could only reply: "Well, I reckon we know 'im. You see that young 'un out there? Well, that's how well we know him. ..." Ibid., pp. 36-37. All of this may be suggestive of a cautious and indirect approach on Harris's part. ' He becomes more direct in his discussion when he brings Mr. Billy Sanders into the picture. Sanders, who says the "whole sorry tale had been laid out cle'r to our understandin' as a big map of the world," later related to the disguised Claiborne himself the story of ". . .a man named Mooneyham . . . runnin* up and down the big road down yander wi• gun and knife, a-huntin» for a man that ought to be his daughter's husband. ..." Ibid., p. 105. 214 happily married Sis at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta. The anti-climax reverts to the sentimental tone which characteristically intruded into Harris’s prose fiction: And then the old woman fell to crying softly at the remembrance of it, and those who had listened to her story cried with her.*-And narrow as their lives were, the memory of the girl seemed to sweeten and inspire all who sat around the v<ride hearth that night at Teague Poteet*s.133 The plot of "Azalia," another of the mountaineer stories, is typical of the reconciliation themes which Harris and other Southern authors treated during the Reconstruction period. A young Northern woman, the daughter of an Abolitionist, came South for her health. A romance bloomed with a young officer recently of the Confederate Army. Around this central situation Harris successfully weaves his familiar pattern of episodes. At the same time he manages to introduce some of his familiar characters--complete with representative poor whites and Negroes. Outstanding in the narrative is the portrait of small-town life. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of "Azalia" is the advance seen in Harris's realistic technique. This can be seen in the author’s treatment of the Tackies in the story. Harris’s handling of the Tackies in "Azalia" is additional evidence of "a stiffening of the conscience" 133 Joel Chandler Harris, At Teague Poteet’s, pp. 166-167. 215 . which characterized some of the naturalists, those ". . • 134 polemic haters of the national optimism." Harris remarked that the Tackies "unchanged and unchangeable" were "steeped in poverty of the most desolate description and living the narrowest.lives possible. His affinity for the realistic temper is suggested in his description of Emma Jane Stucky, his consummate Tackey to whom everything in the town of Azalia was 135 "commonplace." If he had skirted the outer fringes of naturalism in Peratia Bivins and Puss Poteet, Harris progressed a step further in Emma Jane Stucky. Harris ’s portrait of Emma Jane is not unmixed with diluting ingredients. He allows Miss Helen Osborne Eustis, the young Northerner who is in Azalia for her health, to perceive in Emma Jane "Misery, hopeless but unabashed . . . 1 i? with a significance at once pathetic and appalling." Emma Jane Stucky, who was "thes natally made out'n i'on," was one of hundreds of piney-woods Tackies who lived near the town of Azalia. Mrs. Haley, the innkeeper, gives the following picture of Emma Jane: Emma Jane Stucky is like one of them there dead pines out there in the clearin’. If you had a stack of almanacs as high as a hoss rack, you couldn’t pick out the year she was young and sappy. She must 'a started out as a light’d knot, an' she's been 134 Carl Van Doren, The American Novel, p. 92. 135 joel Chandler Harris, "Azalia," p. 182. 136 Ibid., p. 177. 216 a-gittin' tougher year in and year out, 'till now she's tougher'n the toughest. . . • There's a hundred in this settlement jest like her, and ther' must be more'n that, old and young, 'cause the children look to be as old as the'r grannies. . . . ^7 Harris attributes a weird and commonplace drabness to Mrs. Stucky which is relieved only by her affection for her dull-witted son, Bud, Bud Studky is portrayed as a gentle idiot who is easily moved by listening to beautiful music and looking at beautiful girls. Although we are given only a preliminary exploration of Bud's mind, we see far enough into him to recognize that his humble passion for beauty is a new and promising facet of the barren Tackey mentality. Harris1 s Tackey portraits are steps in the direction of the kind of realism which was to become domestic naturalism in the works of Caldwell and Faulkner nearly a half century later. If Harris had been able to concentrate his atten tion on Bud, the individual, rather than Bud, the emotion alized idealization of his class, he would have given us a more objective delineation of Bud's character. Harris's sympathy, however, interferes with his representation of Bud's character as we see in his reaction to the beautiful organ music which was played by Miss Eustis: . . . he continued to stare at the organist. It was a gaze at once mournful and appealing,— not different in that respect from the gaze of any one of the queer people around him, but it affected Miss Eustis strangely. To her quick imagination, 157 Ibid., p. 180. 217 it suggested loneliness, despair, that was the more tragic because of its isolation. It seemed to embody the mute, pent-up distress of whole gener ations. . . ,138 Again in Bud’s character, as in the case of Peratia Bivins, Puss Pringle Poteet, and Emma Jane Stucky, Harris touched upon some of the grimmer aspects of human nature. It is true that in each instance he sentimentalizes his characters— thus shutting himself off from the sharp objec tivity of the author who thrusts his characters on a stage to function according to their deterministic mechanisms. With Harris, however, the intrusion of the sentiment does not completely negate his realism. His point of view is primarily honest. His setting and his general tone are authentic. His dialect is faithful to his models. But Harris apparently was determined not to wade out far into the deep waters of the growing stream of pessimism which started during his lifetime. Harris’s paramount interest in ’ ’ Azalia” Is aptly suggested in a headline which he quotes from a Hew England newspaper which chronicled the wedding of Miss Helen Eustis of Boston and General Garwood of Azalia: ’ ’Practical Reconstruction.” If Harris had been less interested In'the reconstruction angle, and more interested in the episodes dealing with the Tackies, the cause of realism in the South would have been considerably advanced. But Harris elected 158 Ibid., p. 201. 218 to dismiss his Tackies with the pathetic passing of Bud Stucky who died of a fever* Never over-adept in giving us psychological analyses of his characters, Harris succeeded .with a few carefully chosen words in plumbing the depths of pathos in describing Bud’s dying moments: "Oh, I’m so tired'. I'm all ready, an' she won't let me go. A long time ago when I us' ter ax 'er, she'd let me do 'most anything, an' now she won't let me go. Oh, Lordyl I'm so tired er waitin'! Please, ma'am, ax 'er let me go."^°® The young Northern woman who had brought food for the Tackey family was deeply moved at Bud's passing* From Emma Jane, however, came the following reaction to Helen Eustis rs "gentle weeping": "Whatter you cryin' fer now?" she asked with unmistakable bitterness. "You wouldn't a-wiped your feet on 'im* Ef you wuz gwine ter cry, whyn’t you let him see you do it 'fore he died? What good do it do 'im now? He wan't made out'n i'on like me."140 Later, however, when Helen Eustis came to say farewell to Emma Jane, she found the old Tackey a changed woman. Her sorrow for Bud had ravaged her old body as the vicissitudes i of her life had not succeeded in doing. Before -saying farewell to his Tackey heroine, Harris allowed Emma Jane one last pathetic fade-out: . » . Near the pine-pole gate was a little con trivance of boards that looked like a bird-trap. Mrs. Stucky went to this, and lifted it. 139 ibid., pp. 201-202 140 Loc. cit. 219 "Come yer, honey," she cried, "yer’3 somepin’ I wanter show you." Looking closely, Helen saw moulded in the soil the semblance of a footprint. "Look at it, honey, look at it," said Mrs. Stuckyj "that’s his darlin’ precious track."141 In the pathetic picture of Mrs. Stucky’s humble memorial to her dead son, Harris moves a long way toward realistic depiction of the Tackey way of life. The author presents convincing demonstration of his possibilities with the tragic mood. In his mountaineer novelette, Trouble on Lost Mountain, Harris approached tragedy in the Shakespearean manner. Trouble on Lost Mountain is written with a sureness of touch that one does not find in equal proportions in "Azalia" or At_ Teague Poteet’s. The simple dignity of Harris’s prose is admirably adjusted to his tragic tale which unfolds amidst the splendor and grandeur of his native Georgia mountains. An author less skillful than Harris would have produced an incongruous effect in attempting to portray the tragedy of Miss Babe. Hightower, the unsophisti cated mountain beauty, against the backdrop of a mystical mountain setting. The plot centers around Babe, the untutored daughter of Abraham Hightower, who was murdered by her mountaineer lover, Tuck Peevy, in a case of mistaken identity. Tuck aimed his rifle at a hat which he thought occupied the head of a young surveyor who Tuck wrongly believed had alienated his Babe’s affections. 141 Ibid., p. 235. 220 Killed off in the bloom of youth, Babe nevertheless lives on in the mind of her demented father whose nervous system proved unable to withstand the shock of his daughter’s 142 murder* One critic has seen a kind of Lear-like tragedy in the climax which presents the father holding his slain daughter in his arms, as he exclaimss "Why, great God A'mighty, gentermen, don't go on that away! They hain’t no harm done* Thes let us alone. Me an’ Babe’s all right. She’s bin a-playin’ this away ev’ry sence she wuz a little bit of a gal. Don’t less make her mad, gentermen, bekaze ef we do she'11 take plum tell day atter tomorrer for to come roun’ right."143 In partial atonement for the great loss which he had inflicted upon the Hightowers, Tuck Peevy assumed responsi bility for the management of their farm. In later years the strong upright youth of the mountains became a "gaunt and shrunken figure": . . . Sometimes when the day’s work is over and Peevy sits at the fireside saying nothing, Abe Hightower will raise a paralytic hand, and cry out as loud as he can that it’s almost time for Babe to quit playin’ 'possum. At such times we may be sure that, so far as Peevy is concerned there is still trouble on Lost Mountain.144 Trouble on Lost Mountain is not one long tragic outburst. On the contrary, there is a realistic comic undertone which is provided by Old Grandsir Hightower who was obsessed with 142 F. L. Pattee, The Development of the American Short Story, p. 283. 143 Joel Chandler Harris, "Trouble on Lost Mountain," in Free Joe, p. 136. 144 Loc. cit. 221 anti-Peevy prejudices. The old man's aversion to the healthy appetite of Tuck Peevy was based on Peevy's "mighty bad eye," and also on the belief that Peevy's 145 appetite was "wuss'n his eye." Harris's realism in Trouble on Lost Mountain con tinues to gain from his skillful employment of realistic atmosphere of tone and setting. He rhapsodizes on the beauty of the mountain scenery in a series of well- modulated sense impressions. Thus he writes of that particular part of the mountain scenery in which Miss Babe Hightower was placed in almost picture-frame-like beauty of precision and detail: . . • Away above her the summit of the mountain was bathed in sunlight, while in the valley below the shadows of dawn were still hovering,— a slow moving sea of transparent gray, touched here and there with silvery reflections of light. Across the face of the mountain that lifted itself to the skies, a belated cloud trailed its wet skirts, revealing as it flew westward, a panorama of exquisite loveliness. The fresh tender foliage of the young pines, massed here and there against the mountain side, moved and swayed in the morning breeze until it seemed to be a part of the atmos phere, a pale green mist that would presently mount into the upper air and melt away. . . .146 Lest the reader become so fascinated with his nature reverie that he forget Harris's chronicle, the author skill fully links the natural beauty with the fresh and untutored loveliness of Babe Hightower. Harris humorously lets the 145 Ibid., pp. 161-162. 146 Ibid., p. 99. 222 reader gently down with an unexpected surprise ending in the following passage: . . . she did not step out on the porch to worship at the shrine of the mountain, or to enjoy the marvelous picture that nature presented to the eyes. She went out in obedience to the shrilly uttered command of her mother.147 The earthiness of the last sentence is a reminder of the clear vision which characterized Harris as author and critic. As critic, however, he was more successful in setting forth the desiderata of the Southern realist than he was in following through in his own artistic practice with his literary precepts. Although Harris's literary treatment of theme and character is unusually comprehensive, it is a treatment which is occasionally superficial and hardly ever con scientiously or consistently grim. Withal, however, Harris is an important transitional precursor of the twentieth 148 century Southern naturalists. As critic and author he 147 lkid*> PP* 156-137. 148 Mcllwaine, op, cit., p. 219. Shields Mcllwaine, speaking primarily of the naturalistic manner of Caldwell and Faulkner, credits these two authors with bringing about five culminations in the history of fiction about the poor whites; °(1) the frank and full representation of the sordid elements in these people, (2) the emphasis upon sex, especially in comedy, (3) exploration of stupid poor white minds, (4) the tragic concept of the poor white, and (5) the complete studies of poor white men to match those of women by Miss (Elizabeth Madox) Roberts and Miss (Edith S.) Kelley." Mcllwaine is careful to point out that what he calls "contemporary Southern naturalism" differs in some respects from the older method of Zola, Dreiser, and Norris. There appears little of the deterministic in Faulkner's 223 paved the way for a broader interpretation of the charac ters of the poor whites and Negroes in his beloved South. He stands in technique, as indeed he stands in time, midway between Longstreet and Thompson of the nineteenth century and Caldwell and Faulkner of the twentieth century. ' As I Lay Dying, which meets most of the other rules for naturalism which were laid down by Parrington. Moreover, the work of neither Caldwell nor Faulkner is characterized by -any sustained pessimism. Mcllwaine proceeds to argue a place for the two as naturalists "as much by virtue of their emphasis on the so-called animal instincts, particu larly sex, as by their conventional lapses from the naturalistic formula.’ 1 Ibid., p. 218. As Mcllwaine indicates, however,, the matter of ’ ’literary intention” remains the determining criterion for an author’s literary temper. CHAPTER VIII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Harris*s relationship to the realistic temper in American literature of the 1880*s and thereafter is as significant for its adherence to some of the standard criteria of realism, as it is for Harris's individualistic variations from these criteria. Harris made extensive use of commonplace materials and characters. He used times which were within his own life span, for the most part, and he featured settings which he had known virtually all of his life as a native of Middle Georgia, or which he had observed carefully on brief visits to French Canada. He devoted himself almost exclusively to characterization at the expense of plot construction. Indeed, much of his attitude toward the realistic temper is apparent in his statement: ”My whole aim has been at life and character." Such an aim would appear to mark him as a theoretical "veritist." His belief that it is better to portray character than to develop plots is additional indication of his affinity for realism. Again, however, when he speaks of representing "life" as "a series of episodes,” he is speaking of a technique with which he was especially competent, and he was again reminding us of his interest in representing human nature without any adornments. He was troubled by an apparent critical dichotomy that would 225 establish separate criteria for "the realism of life” and "the realism of art.” He did not like the term "realism,” because apparently the term did not adequately describe the goal which he sought to achieve in fietion. To represent "life and character,” the American artist, in Harris’s opinion, could not limit himself to local color or photo graphic realism. Nor did Harris approve of realistic naturalism with its philosophy of pessimistic determinism. What kind of realism, then, did Harris espouse? A study of Harris's reputation as a "realist” reveals almost unanimous agreement on some kind of "realism” in Harris's works. The consensus of estimates, however, emphasizes the "tactful" and "moderate” qualities of Harris's "realism.” His realism, in general, is attribu table to his faithful representation of dialect, manners, habits, and customs of the Georgians whom Harris has described in his fiction. But this reputation as a "moder ate realist” does not tell the full story of Harris's aspirations as critic of literature. His criticism reveals him as an advocate of an "impartial" portrayal of the Southern literary scene of his day. He maintained that such a portrayal which would adequately present "human nature" would make for "vivid and lasting impressions,” which, he said, always resulted when an artist was successful in bridging the "narrow but impassable gulf that lies between the realism of life and the realism of art." In addition to this highly individualistic approach to realism, Harris’ s most characteristic approach gave him the privilege as artist of interpreting "truth” in the light of that "larger truth, my own true self." His individualism, however, was rooted in the Middle Georgia milieu in which he spent his impressionable years as well as in the rich treasure houses of the eighteenth century essayists, particularly Addison, Goldsmith, and Lamb, who shaped his literary style. Harris's individualistic approach to literature success fully blends the "cornerstones" of folk literature, frontier humor, and local color. These three "cornerstones" were indispensable.elements in the early realism which developed along the Southwestern Frontier. Two of the frontier’s distinguished humorists— Longstreet and Thompson— set the vogue for a consciously realistic approach to literature. Longstreet and Thompson wrote prefaces which emphasized their intention of writing about "real" people and "real" incidents which they had experienced firsthand. The two writers were in substantial agreement- in Longstreet's plan to use "Georgia language and Georgia humor." Harris followed a similar tradition. Perhaps the chief distinction between Harris’s two predecessors and Harris lies in the comparatively sympathetic treatment which Harris brought to his interpretations of poor whites and Negroes— particularly Negroes. Thompson and Longstreet exploited the poor white in humor, dialect, and local color. 227 They did not consider the Negro a worthy literary subject. This was due in part to the Negro’s status under the South’s system, of slavery. Literature and politics became so intermixed in the South during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War that realism was nearly drowned out. It became neces sary for the South's writers to lend their pens to bolstering the egos of the Southern people and to throttl ing lower class movements among whites and Negroes alike. Realism could hardly flourish in such an atmosphere. Yet, by 1879 Harris in two notable November editorials in the Atlanta Constitution, attacked the notion of coddling Southern writers and censuring them for depicting con temporary realities. In following this course, Harris was putting himself and his newspaper squarely in line with the new policy of nationalism which the owners of the newspaper had adopted for the Constitution. Harris was to follow up his critical pronouncements advocating a national rather than a sectional literature for the remainder of his life. He thus early demonstrated his critical conviction of the efficacy of a truly national literature. The program of literary nationalism was later to receive impetus from other sources as well. At the time of the Constitution’s plea for the South to develop a more nationalistic outlook, the Philadelphia Centennial had called a similar view to the attention of 228 the entire country. Northern publishers of books and magazines were quick to realize the exploitation value of such an emphasis. There developed what amounted to a rediscovery of the South. Southern themes became the rage and Southern authors were in unprecedented demand. The trend spread to other sections of the country, giving rise in part to what later became known as the vogue of local color. A direct outgrowth of the local color movement was the rise of realism. Harris, like realism, was a tran sitional force in the change. Unlike some of the other writers who created local color studies, Harris, as critic and creator, consciously sought to bridge the gap between the realism of life and the realism of art. There was precedent in the South for this search to depict the realities of the section. William Gilmore Simms and Sidney Lanier had earlier produced realistic literary works. As with Harris's work, the work of Simms and Lanier was a fusion of idealistic and realistic elements. Like Harris, too, these earlier authors had concentrated upon realism of the "commonplace." The advance in realism which the writers of the New South made over their Old South models was recognized by no less an authority than William Lean Howells. Howells credited the later writers with "refining" both the matter and the manner of the earlier realistic writers* With Harris this refinement was demonstrated not only in broader sympathy 229 but perhaps in a more critical appreciation of the demands of the new day, Harris thus skillfully blended folk literature, frontier humor, and local color. He shied away from the implications of the advance of science, Harris's distrust of science suggests one aspect of the conservative Southern mind which was steadfastly opposed to change--in literature or life. Lacking training in either science or systematic philosophy, Harris lashed out at the "higher criticism" of the Bible and the "so-called scientists." His anti-scientific bent is apparent in his editorials and in his prose fiction. Harris shared the essayist's interest in the joys of living and he viewed with alarm the challenges which he thought that he saw in industrialism. Change to him meant the destruction of the old way of life. It is significant that at a time when naturalism was making its first inroads Harris should have turned his back on the challenges of the new day. But he made up his mind that the new science offered him no opportunities for new truths about human nature— including the human nature underlying Joel Chandler Harris. His conversion to Catholicism strongly suggests his last desperate bid for the peace and contentment which he believed was the goal of living. His shift in religious viewpoint underlies another aspect of his character. As critic he boldly called for a Southern literature that would not shirk at an unvarnished presentation of the 230 starkest realities of the Southern region* As creator of prose fiction rooted in his region, he nevertheless could not bring himself to adopt the literary policy which he preached as critic. The cold objectivity of the scientist somehow eluded him. The editorials in the Atlanta Constitution for the period 1879-1898 bear remarkable resemblances to his known views. He was the newspaper’s chief editorial writer during this period and he is traditionally regarded as the writer who was responsible for the newspaper's literary editorials. These are among the highlights in the Constitution’s discussion of realism in the eighties and nineties; (1) aversion for the realistic naturalism of Zola, Tolstoy, and the American author, Edgar Saltus; (2) aversion for the excesses in the realistic methods of Howells and James; (3) advocacy of a compromise esthetic which would synthesize the best features in the methods of the realists and the idealists; and (4) advocacy of an autochthonous American literature. In general, Harris subscribed to all of these views• Harris and the Constitution were particularly agreed on the desiderata of the new American literature. It would extol the virtues of provinciality, which with Harris and the Constitution, was synonymous with patriotism among rural folk. Author and newspaper were also agreed that the most successful device in character portrayal was choice Georgia 231 dialect. This view was also extended to assert that the American vernacular, common alike to New England and the South, was the surest instrument to gauge the American character. Moreover, it would emphasize in a discrimin ating manner elements of humor and pathos in order to set nhuman nature” in clearer perspective. At a time that witnessed a nationwide search for the great American novelist, Harris and his newspaper agreed that the author who most nearly met the qualifications for this novelist was Mark Twain. Mark Twain, significantly, represented for the newspaper and its chief editorial writer, the best example of the American author who combined in his person the satiric qualities and manly sentiments of the great English author, W. M. Thackeray. Both authors, it was said, combined a generous disregard for sham and pretence with a genuine love of sympathy and charity. Like many other literary figures, Joel Chandler Harris was a paradox. He seems to have realized this himself, for he speaks of his ”dual personality.”^ Moreover, he attributes much of his literary work to "the other fellow” within him. The other fellow, Harris once wrote to his daughter "Tommie” "is simply a spectator of my ! folly until I seize a pen and then he comes forward and takes charge." Harris further contrasted the "other fellow" 1 Julia Collier Harris, Life and Letters, pp. 384-386. 232 to himself by remarking of the "other fellow" that he was "sour" and "surly." Of himself, however, Harris said he was "jolly, good natured, and entirely harmless." The author’s fondness for the "other fellow" mechanism would seem to explain the practice which Harris follows in realistically balancing his characters. This is a part of his multi-dimensional approach which critics 3 like Stafford, Miss Dauner, and B. Wolfe are coming increasingly to view in the Uncle Remus stories. It is a technique which was illustrated likewise in "Free Joe" and ^ - n Gabriel Tolliver when Harris, using techniques remi niscent of George Eliot in Middlemarch, gives us realistic portraits of rural life and character. As much as Harris desired to propagate a truly national literature, he himself must ever be regarded as a depicter of the Southern region. Specifically, he must be regarded as the chronicler of life in Middle Georgia in the period following the Civil War. There within his limited sphere he wrought colorful and appealing characters amidst authentic settings using the "real" language of "real" people. Harris perhaps was not a major writer, but he was an unusually versatile one. His "picturesque verity" in his Life and Letters. ioc. cit. 3 B. Wolfe, "Uncle Remus," Commentary, 8:31-41, July, 1949. 233 Negro folklore and his eclectic realism in his short stories of poor whites and mountaineers mark him as an important figure in the transition of local color to realism. To a greater extent than many writers of his time, Harris appears to have been consciously aware of the change which was coming over American letters in the latter part of the nineteenth century. His rejection of French realism, and, in a qualified way, his rejection likewise of local color and photographic realism, reveal his sincere desire to bridge the "narrow but impassable gulf between the realism of art.and the realism of life.” Temperamentally, Harris was a far cry from the later American naturalists of the school of Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser. His is a closer, though withal a different kinship, with the Southern realists— Caldwell and Faulkner. In time and temper, he stands between Longstreet and Thompson, on the one hand, and Caldwell and Faulkner, on the other. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY A. PRIMARY SOURCES Atlanta Constitution, 1879-1898. Harris, Joel Chandler, Aaron in the Wildwoods. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1897. , "Autobiography#" Lippincott’s Magazine, 37:417, April, 1886. _______ , Balaam and His Master, and Other Sketches and Stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1891. _______ , Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899. _______ , Daddy Jake the Runaway, and Short Stories Told After Dark. New York: Century Company, 1889. _______ , Free Joe, and Other Georgian Sketches. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887. _______ , Gabriel Tolliver, A Story of Reconstruction. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1902. _______ , "Letters of Uncle Remus." J. B. Hubbell, editor, Southwest Review, 23:216-23, January, 1938. _______ , editor, Life of Henry W. Grady. New York: Cassell and Company, 1890. ______Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country; What the Children Saw and Heard There. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1894. _______, Little Union Scout. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1904. _______ , Making of a Statesman and Other Stories. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1902. _______ , editor, Merrymaker. Third edition; Vol. II, Young Folks’ Library. Boston: Hall, Locke and Company, 1901. _______ , Mingo and Other Sketches in Black and White. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1884. 236 , Mr* Rabbit at Home (A Sequel to Little Mr* Thimblefinger). Boston; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1895. , Nights with Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old plantation. Boston; James R. Osgood and Company, 1883. , On the Plantation: A Story of a Georgia Boy1s Adventures During the War. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1892. , On the Wing of Occasions; Being the Authorized Version of Certain Curious Episodes of the Late Civil War, including the Hitherto Suppressed Narrative of the Kidnapping of President Lincoln. New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1900. , Plantation Pageants. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1899. , Shadow Between His Shoulder Blades. Boston: Small, Maynard, and Company, 1909. , Sister Jane, Her Friends and Acquaintances; A Narrative of Certain Events and Episodes Transcribed from the Papers of the Late William Wornum. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1896. , Stories of Georgia. New York: American Book Company, 1896. , Story of Aaron (so named), the Son of Ben Ali, Told by His Friends and Acquaintances. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1896. , Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War. Boston; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1898. , Tar-Baby, and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904. , The Bishop and the Boogerman. New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1909. , Told by Uncle Remus: New Stories of the Old Plantation. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, , Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1906. 237 _______ , Uncle Remus and His Friends: Old Plantation Stories, Songs and Ballads, with Sketches of Negro Character. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1892. _______ , Uncle Remus and the Little Boy. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1910. _______ , Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1880. _______ , Uncle Remus Returns. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. _______, Unpublished letter of Joel Chandler Harris to Stillson Hutchins, April 2, 1880. Durham, North Carolina: The Thomas Nelson Page Collection, Duke University Library. _______ , Unpublished letter of Joel Chandler Harris to Thomas Nelson Page, December 3, 1885. Durham, North Carolina: The Thomas Nelson Page Collection, Duke University Library. _______ , Wally Walderoon and His Story-Telling Machine. New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1903. _______ , editor, World * s Wit and Humor. New York: Doubleday Page and Company, 1904. 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New York: Harper and Brothers, 1930. 240 _______ , Roadside Meetings. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Gavigan, W. V., ’ ’Two Gentlemen of Georgia,” Catholic World, 145:584-89, August, 1937. Genzmer, G. H., ’ ’Joel Chandler Harris,” in Dictionary of American Biography. 8:312-14. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932. Gloster, Hugh, Negro Voices in American Fiction. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1949. Haight, Gordon, ’ ’ William Dean Howells,” in Literary History of the United States. Vol. III. New York: Macmillan Company, 1948. Harlow, Alvin F., Joel Chandler Harris: Plantation Story Teller. New York: J. Messner, 1941. Harris, Julia Collier, Joel Chandler Harris: Editor and Essayist. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1931. _______ , ’ ’Joel Chandler Harris: Constructive Realist,” in Odum, Howard, Southern Pioneers in Social Interpre tation. 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