HENRY B. FULLER’S SOCIAL AND ESTHETIC
COMMENTARY

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHEGAN STATE UNNERSEW
iEREMEAH L. METCHUM
1973

 

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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

Henry B. Fuller's
Social and Esthetic Commentary

presented by

Jeremiah L. Mitchum

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph .D. fiegree in English

 

 

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Major professor

 

Date July 25, 1973

 

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ABSTRACT

HENRY B. FULLER'S SOCIAL AND
ESTHETIC COMMENTARY

by

Jeremiah L. Mitchum

The varied writings of Henry B. Fuller suggest that
he was caught in a dilemma between his own artistic tempera-
ment and the framework of a commercialized Mid-Western
environment. His attempts at resolving this conflict and
the tensions which ensued, provide the essence of perceptive
and revealing commentary on a wide range of tOpics, expressed
in a variety of fictional and non—fictional works.

The articles which Fuller wrote for the Chicago

Evening Post between 1901 and 1903 are especially enlight-

 

ening as a storehouse of Fuller's observations on the
American cultural scene; they provide a wide range of
commentary on contemporary writers and trends in literary
tastes, as well as on related social issues of the day.
Paralleling and extending beyond these newspaper essays are
a number of articles on a variety of subjects appearing in
other periodicals, his published fiction and poetry, plus
unpublished works in the Henry B. Fuller Collection of the
Newberry Library.

This tOpical study reviews five areas of primary
concern to Fuller: his rationale of America as a conducive

environment for the dedicated writer, his attitudes toward

bwiness and
{a national

azational 1i

 

éemloping 1i
ferthe refi:
hcuses upon

beneen socie
fidemphasizc

midliterarv

 

Jeremiah L. Mitchum
business and industrial enterprise as formative influences on
the national character, his personal ideals for establishing
a national literature, his esthetic and ethical criteria for
developing literary artistry, and his innovative proposals
for the refinement of contemporary fiction and verse. It
focuses upon Fuller's understanding of the relationship
between society and the literature in which it is reflected,
and emphasizes his gradual acceptance of America's undevel-

oped literary possibilities.

 

inp

d

 

 

 

HENRY B. FULLER'S SOCIAL AND

ESTHETIC COMMENTARY

by

6.
\ I,

y
Jeremiah LS Mitchum

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

1973

Copyright by
JEREMIAH LEWIS MITCHUM

1973

    
  
 

The r-
agesent and ,
13 liSt form-
‘35 a task Su,_~
measurably l
CCXI‘ibUtions.
Pr3f€SSiOnal
3““ey 0f Duki
01'3“”)? B. 1:l
Chicago Libran

-~L_
no made mater

 

 

gati”rand Pr

Russel B. V»

J
critical judgm

.ae thesis.

9.

mm as this f

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The relatives, friends, and colleagues whose encour-
agement and support I want to acknowledge are too numerous
to list formally. They have shared with me the satisfaction
of a task successfully completed; to all of them I am
immeasurably grateful. Others who have made specific
contributions warrant special mention because of their
professional qualifications. They include Professor Bernard
Duffey of Duke University who introduced me to the writings
of Henry B. Fuller, Mrs. Pamela Mason of the University of
Chicago Library and Mrs. Amy Nyholm of the Newberry Library
who made materials available to me as I continued my investi-
gation, and Professors Sam 8. Baskett, C. David Mead, and
Russel B. Nye of Michigan State University whose advice and
critical judgment directed my thoughts during the writing of
the thesis. I extend my sincere appreciation to each of

them as this final phase of my research is completed.

ii

 

”—0
m
' (—1
C.)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

I. THE SOUTH SIDE OR THE LEFT BANK: FULLER'S
RATIONALE OF DEMOCRACY . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

II. "SUCCESS" AND LITERARY SURVIVAL: FULLER'S
ATTITUDE TOWARD MATERIALISTIC SOCIETY . 50

III. COMING OF AGE: FULLER'S ASPIRATIONS FOR A
NATIONAL LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

IV. THE AUTHOR AS CATALYST: FULLER'S LITERARY
TECHNIQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

V. OBSTACLES, PROPOSALS, AND PROJECTIONS:

FULLER'S ASSESSMENT OF AMERICAN LITERARY
DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
APPENDIX I A CHRONOLOGY OF HENRY BLAKE FULLER . . . 235

iii

Henry
deserves rec;
aczorded him
“Story. Hi:
adilemma be:
fraaework of
attempts at r
ezsued, Provi
“Plenary on

5f genres,

 

INTRODUCTION

Henry Blake Fuller (9 January 1857 — 28 July 1929),
deserves recognition beyond the footnote that has been
accorded him in the annals of turn-of—the-century literary
history. His varied writings suggest that he was caught in
a dilemma between his own artistic temperament and the
framework of a commercialized Mid-Western environment. His
attempts at resolving this conflict and the tensions which
ensued, provide the essence of a perceptive and revealing
commentary on a wide range of tOpics, expressed in a variety
of genres.

His published works are comprehensive in their range,
comprising hundreds of articles, essays, and literary
critiques; dozens of poems, short stories, and plays; two
operatic librettos; and nine novels. Many of these works
focus on timely topics, and others on subjects of lasting
significance.1 As editor of the book section of the pres-
tigious Chicago Evening Post from 1901 to 1903, Fuller
functioned as the presiding genius over the wide range of
literary and cultural judgments published there. In addi-

tion, his own weekly column in the Evening Post and his

 

1See Appendix I, "Henry B. Fuller: A Chronology."

1

occasional c
contained hi
civic respon
proposals, a:
democracy.
The E;
aSa storehor
cultural scei
contemPorary
as on SOC131
CCnsideI-able
secial and as
into his Pref
his fiction.
Paper eSSays
sub'ects pUbl

UHPUblished k"

Lieu.

"R CO
U1" ra h as te.
3 Phi

 

2
occasional contributions to local and national periodicals
contained his observations on issues as widely divergent as
civic reaponsibility, industrial progress, statutory
proposals, and the relationships between literature and
democracy.

The Evening Post articles are especially enlightening

 

as a storehouse of Fuller's observations on the American
cultural scene. They provide a wide range of commentary on
contemporary writers and trends in literary tastes, as well
as on social issues of the day. These articles assume
considerable importance in this examination of Fuller's
social and esthetic commentary by providing valuable insights
into his preferences which may not be readily perceptible in
his fiction. Paralleling and extending beyond these news-
paper essays are a number of articles on a variety of
subjects published in other periodicals of the day plus
unpublished works in the Newberry Library's Fuller Collec-
tion.

Previous studies of Fuller's life and writing have
been relatively few. Constance Griffin's pioneer work
appeared in 1939 and is still the only published biography.2

In addition, six unpublished dissertations have been written,

2Constance Griffin, Henry Blake Fuller: A Critical
Biography, Philadelphia, 1939.

 

Vith the pri
these Studie
exhetic COm
Ahh0ugh son
novels, they
known fictio
Euler wrote
them unpubli.
filamentary 0:
“1 his tOtal

This A
concern to F;
en“mnfilent
andindUStria
Rational cha

'-
A

national 1i tel
damping 11

3
Miler," Dissl
Di BernaL
.35. arvarc.
.071 paUl
.l‘ve S o
1950. f H81]
. Kenn
U1: 01d; A i
515s, n, O

lV. O

 

rric

U31 . Shic
"ii 13C
ler Carla I

3
with the primary focus on Fuller's Chicago novels.3 None of
these studies has developed fully the aspects of social and
esthetic commentary to be found in Fuller's total work.
Although some have dealt with these features in the Chicago
novels, they have made little, if any, mention of the lesser—
known fiction and the hundreds of articles and essays which
Fuller wrote throughout his career. These pieces, some of
them unpublished, contain the bulk of Fuller's most direct
commentary on issues of concern to him; they are significant

to his total literary achievement.

This topical study will review five areas of primary
concern to Fuller: his rationale of America as a conducive
environment for the writer, his attitudes toward business
and industrial enterprise as formative influences on the
national character, his personal ideals for establishing a
national literature, his esthetic and ethical criteria for

developing literary artistry, and his innovative formulas

3Georgia Gantt-Winn, "The Works of Henry Blake
Fuller," Diss. Univ. of Pittsburg 1938.

Bernard Bowron, "Henry B. Fuller: A Critical Study,"
Diss. Harvard University 1948.

Paul Rosenblatt, "The Image of Civilization in the
Novels of Henry Blake Fuller," Diss. Columbia University
1960.

Kenny Jackson, "An Evolution of the New Chicago from
the Old: A Study of Henry Blake Fuller's Chicago Novels,"
Diss. Univ. of Pennsylvania 1961.

Richard A. Pearce, "Chicago in the Fiction of the
1890's as Illustrated in the Novels of Henry B. Fuller and
Robert Herrick," Diss. Columbia University 1963.

William Robert Weiss, "The Shock of Experience: A
Group of Chicago's Writers Face the Twentieth Century," Diss.
Univ. of Wisconsin 1966. (Includes biographical studies of
Fuller, Garland, George Ade, and Robert Herrick.)

 

ferthe refil
hh basic a:
society, dra
fiuion for
Fulle
dhectly or
fldStrategi
pampective.
imn Era, th
fireand the

 

Cmaercial s

Hewas n0t on

thically a

4
for the refinement of fiction and verse. It will focus upon
his basic attitudes regarding these elements in American
society, drawing upon his fiction and especially his non-
fiction for evidence.

Fuller's observations, both esthetic and social, are
directly or indirectly the results of the remarkable period
and strategic locale in which he lived when viewed from his
perspective. His life spans the Civil War, the Reconstruc—
tion Era, the Spanish-American conflict, the First World
War, and the roaring Twenties; and Chicago, where he was
born and lived and died, was the natural center for sweeping
changes in the social, political, moral, cultural, and
commercial structure of the country. Fuller was not merely
an astute observer, but a prolific documentarian of events;
he was not only a recorder, but a commentator. His was an
excellent vantage point from which to note and examine

critically a vital and significant time in American life.

 

Henry

““681 and

 

tie busy 11f.
alternately t
and his rOmar
finally acce;
Friaary reSu:
allthliStic

crucial era

Sns

CHAPTER I

THE SOUTH SIDE OR THE LEFT BANK?: FULLER'S

RATIONALE OF DEMOCRARY

Henry Blake Fuller was a unique spokesman for a
genteel and refined culture who seemed an anachronism amid
the busy life of Chicago at the turn of the century. He was
alternately torn between his realistic affinity with America
and his romantic affection for Southern Europe before
finally accepting the conditions of his dilemma. Yet, as a
primary result of this tension, he articulated a responsible,
altruistic concern for the quality of American life during a
crucial era of esthetic and social development. Fuller was
sustained in his undertaking by a disciplined mind, a dedi-
cation to civilized writing, and an allegiance to cultural
betterment, each an inherent trait of his heritage.

Fuller's ancestry is fixed in durable, conservative
stock from well established New England families. His
maternal forebears, descendants of Norman adherents of
William the Conqueror, arrived in Boston from England in
1631; his father's family began in Massachusetts with Dr.

Samuel Fuller, a passenger on the Mayflower. Henry B.

 

Fuller's grandfather, Judge Henry Fuller (1805-1879), a

5

    
     
  

ccerter men:
Hergaret Pu;
leave New Er;
:erchant in
judge in Mic
Chicago, and
through the
acting as an
tiles of Cit
100d Fullel',
502thside Ra.
the Home Nat:

Henry

 

“Tree and M

filtago Janna

6

charter member of the Old Settler's Society1 and a cousin of
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), was the first of the family to
leave New England. He began as a tanner, then a dry-goods
merchant in Albion, New York,2 before he became a county
judge in Michigan. In 1840, he settled permanently in
Chicago, and there he accumulated a considerable fortune
through the supervision of railway construction and by
acting as an entrepreneur for the installation of forty
miles of city water pipes.3 The writer's father, George
Wood Fuller, the judge's sole son, was Secretary of the
Southside Railway Company, and afterwards Vice President of
the Home National Bank of Chicago.4

Henry Blake Fuller, first child and only son of
George and Mary Josephine Sanford Fuller, was born in

Chicago January 9, 1857. His only biographer refers to him

1Limited to families who had been residents of Cook
County prior to 1 January 1843, the Society was dedicated to
the collection and formulation of historic facts and color-
ful anecdotes relating to the growth of the city, which
otherwise would pass from remembrance and be lost. Judge
Fuller signed the Society's constitution as having arrived
in 1839; all later accounts place the date at 1840. Alfred
T. Andreas, History gf Chicago (Chicago, 1885), II, 517.

2Edmund Wilson, "Henry B. Fuller: The Art of Making
It Flat," The New Yorker, 23 May 1970, p. 112.

3Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago from Town

 

 

 

£2 City (New York, 1940), II, p. 326. JUdge Fuller was
considered "a most accomplished gentleman" and a fine
musician who was at ease in the realm of artistic apprecia-

tion. Andreas, History 3f Chicago, p. 587.

4Constance Griffin, Henry B; Fuller (Philadelphia,
1939), p. 3.

l

as "a 80111:.
I
devoted to 1'
person both
from her ch.
iaagined, 5;
Henry never
even to do:
NEarl
gleaned fro:-
Thfilr mothErl
EEtertain th
and Stories,
As far as is
ChildhOod.
At fi:
“3001 with

\L

Branch DiVis:

 

7
as "a solitary child, quiet, delicate in mind and body,"
devoted to books and music.5 Henry's mother was a weak
person both physically and emotionally, and isolated herself
from her children with complaints of illness, real or
imagined, spending most of her time alone in her room.
Henry never mentioned her, either before or after her death,
even to closest friends.

Nearly all that is known of his childhood must be
gleaned from the diary he began as early as age twelve.
Their mother's seclusion forced Fuller and his sister to
entertain themselves. This they did by writing plays, poems,
and stories, which they read or produced in their parlor.

As far as is known, his sister was his only companion in
childhood.

At fifteen, Henry was graduated from the Mosley
School with a First Medal for scholarship, and entered South
Branch Division High School in Chicago in 1872. In the fall
of 1873, he matriculated at the Allison Classical Academy, a
boarding school in 0conomowoc, Wisconsin, where his parents
often vacationed in summer. He not only kept records of the
days he spent there, but used them as the basis for a short
story.7 His year of absence from home was obviously a

5Constance Griffin, Fuller, p. 3. 6Ibid.

7Henry B. Fuller, "Private Diary," February - June,
1869; "Odds and Ends," 4 November 1871 - 4 November 1872; "A
Legacy to Posterity," 11 July 1874 - 24 June 1879; "Journal,

1876 ('78, '79)." These items are all in the Henry B.
Fuller Collection at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

  
   
  

telling exp:
school and
overcome the
from the en:
earlier dia_
they are als

1161-” activit 1

fiction of t

FUlle~

feaSOn that l

OVingtOn | S C

 

EQEOranda’ hf

here that he

Establishment

8
telling experience. The compatible environment of the
school and the friendliness of dormitory life enabled him to
overcome the loneliness and introspection that is evident
from the entirely different character of entries in his
earlier diaries. Not only are they brighter and more candid,
they are also less frequent. He became so involved in his
new activities and in his classwork that he had no need to
occupy himself with the impersonal pastime of writing it all
down. The short story survives as an autobiographical
fiction of those days.8 Apparently it is his first attempt
at self-realization in a developed literary form.

Fuller's schooling was interrupted in 1874 for a
reason that has not been explained. For a year he worked at
Ovington's Crockery in Chicago, where, according to journal
memoranda, he was often unwell and unhappy. Perhaps it is
here that he began to acquire his aversion to commercial
establishments that marked his thinking to the end of his
life, and which evidently influenced his perspective on
modern times in Chicago as well. At the completion of this
year of work, Henry returned to South Division High School,
starting classes in the fall of 1875, and the following June
was graduated with almost perfect academic averages for the

two semesters respectively-~99.7 and 99.8. When Commencement

8"A.C.A. Vol. I & II," composed between 28 February
1875, and 21 July 1876, is the basis for the unpublished
short story which Fuller titled "Edmund Dalrymple." Fuller's
journals and this short story are part of the Henry B. Fuller
Collection in the Newberry Library, Chicago.

arnved, he

Full
1H5. He e:
rteSunday
Waniage Q1

htmrs col;

 

unmusly, "A
Despi
eneently d:
allege. Th
ificussed.
@cmber, 187§
Fear. On 7 }.
EESS“1891‘ at
'33 transferr
Has an office
The b0

50». -
he lHCOnSpi

 

9
arrived, he wrote, "My school days probably over for aye."
Fuller first broke into print on 3 and 10 October
1875. He entered in his journal, "Last Sunday as well as
the Sunday before I had an article in the Tribune on the

'"10 The articles are actually part of a

'Marriage Question.
letters column and without literary value, signed pseudo-
nymously, "Aunt Martha," and "Queen Bess."

Despite Henry's scholastic prowess, the Fullers
evidently did not consider sending their gifted son to
college. There is no indication the matter was ever
discussed. Accordingly, he returned to Ovington's in
October, 1876, where he worked in the crockery for another
year. On 7 November 1877, Henry began his duties as a
messenger at the Bank of Illinois. The following June he
was transferred to the Home National Bank, where his father
was an officer.

The boy's mind, however, was occupied with daydreams
of Europe. During business hours, he secluded himself in
some inconspicuous spot whenever he had an opportunity to do
so, and drew up detailed itineraries. This was no idle
diversion. Already he was reading widely in European history
and art to prepare himself to benefit from a long-nurtured

ambition to visit the Old World. Within fourteen months,

his hopes were unexpectedly realized.

9"A.C.A., Vol. 11," entry for Commencement Day,
23 June 1876.

10"A.C.A., Vol. I 5 11," entry for 12 October 1875.

   

his grandfa
sail for Eu
Ccatinent h-
pilgrimage
:ire in vis
following h:

“{th hOurr

Queuted by t
50' the arc'r.
intErest to .

recorded the

He ha:

 

10
In August, 1879, possibly financed by a legacy from
his grandfather, the judge, who had just died,11 Henry set
sail for Europe. It was the first of six tours to the
Continent he would make during his lifetime. This initial
pilgrimage kept him abroad 3 year. In England he wasted no
time in visiting the most accessible museums and cathedrals,
following his carefully laid plans of the year before.
Within hours of landing, he was inspecting treasures in the
Liverpool Art Gallery. Avoiding stereotyped routes fre—
quented by tourists, Henry nearly always struck out alone
for the architectural, scenic, and historic sites of special
interest to him. He took copious notes and each night
recorded these visits in his voluminous journals.12
He had fixed notions of what the Continent would be

like, and the image conformed to a romantic ideal conjured
up in colorful novels. Naturally, he was not prepared for
some of the surprises that he met. In Rome, for example, he
wrote of St. Peter's Basilica:

Structurally, the only wholly admirable features of St.

Peter's are the dome and coffered ceiling of the nave,

though the great vestibule is not without its good

points. Aesthetically, St. Peter's is wholly pagan.

Morally, St. Peter's is a glorification of a dis—

Christianized Papacy. As a building, St. Peter's is
grandiose rather than grand; to call it a "beautiful

11Wilson, "Henry B. Fuller: The Art of Making It
Flat," p. 113.

12"A Year in Europe," Vol. I, 19 August 1879 - 6
December 1879; Vol. II, 7 December 1879 - 7 March 1880;
Vol. III, 8 March 1880 - September 1, 1880. In the Fuller
Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.

  
   
   
  

Christi
pronoun
absurd.
Henr

that is, of
enhances o
andstudied
fisapproves
Quest Has a.
“d its inha

at times: in

53"” PurpQSE

105e.I114 Su

li'v’Ely COmme.

 

ekes, but t7

3' c. H
“Rd,

oh: 1

clay in Paris

11
Christian temple of worship" is inadmissible; to
pronounce it "a triumph of Catholic faith" is rankly
absurd.

Henry's journey was a crusade of personal discovery,
that is, of self discovery. Throughout his diaries are
evidences of his critical observation, analytical thinking,
and studied comment. He understands, but frequently he
disapproves of foreign society in its present form. His
quest was avowedly to draw conclusions concerning the world
and its inhabitants, but he seemed capricious in his remarks
at times: "The average Italian comes to Mass for one of
four purposes--to pray, to beg, to spit, or to blow his
nose."14 Such piquant observations on the human scene are
lively commentaries on Fuller's reactions to mundane experi-
ences, but they are not altogether superficial from his
point of view. Rather, he thought profoundly about them and
mused, "Oh, this question that troubles me so much. What,
after all, is civilization?"15 This was written on his last
day in Paris, only three months following his departure from
the boisterous atmosphere of Chicago. His descriptions now
were developing into disquisitions:

The Chateau de Fontainebleau is a monument of a very
interesting period in French art,--one, too, somewhat

analagous to the present state of things aesthetic in
the United States. The French of that period seem to

13Fuller, "A Year in Europe," Vol. II, 12 December
1879.
14
Ibid., Vol. I, 13 November 1879.
15

Ibid., Vol. I, 6 November 1879.

  
 

have he
unable

resort:
3 witne
that we
senses,
gloriou
fancy,

 

Howe'
uterus dis;
""3 may hay.
f“ 389; but
CIiOUSly we

Conic, Of c

ES fie himsel

 

“1180 furt‘

mum is: ar

Jiozv
'~- now 0
C

16

l7
18
Ibi

12
have had a desire for beautiful things, but to have been
unable to compass their own self-gratification. They
resorted to Italy for artists, and Fontainebleau stands
a witness to the national condition of doublemindedness
that wanted art-work partly because it gratified the
senses, and partly because it ministered to vain-
gloriousness and luxury. A similar state of thiggs, I
fancy, exists in our own day and country. . . .

However, he expanded this judgment by remarking that
moderns display a facility in other equally important areas:
"We may have lost all delight in beauty and all reverence
for age; but how deftly we stick on labels, and how indus—
triously we compile catalogues!"17 This is intentionally
ironic, of course, and said in deprecation and not in praise,
as he himself explains it: "It is trite enough to say that
in matters of art the present age is not creative. One may
well go further and doubt if it be even appreciative. The
truth is, art has everywhere taken a back seat, and archae-
ology now occupies the chief place in the synagogue."18
Scientific progress indeed was superseding awed devotion to
cultural riches of the past throughout Europe, and society
was turning toward "progress" as a keynote of the new mode.
It was becoming increasingly fashionable to salute inven-
tions and advancements instead of the glories of departed

times, though Fuller noted it was not being done at the same

frenetic pace it had achieved in America.

16Fuller, "A Year in Europe," Vol. I, 6 November 1879.

17Ibid., Vol. II, 11 December 1879.

18Ibid.

 

   

environment
began to vi
culture, bu
E25m. as l
'f the Pen:

“Ch of con:

 

ifgrUdglng .
decried; in

Visit to Fau
Paragraph tu

Zla- ~

~°t1ng f0

13

A first-hand familiarity with contemporary Europe
caused him to speculate on comparative values between his
own and other civilizations, enabling him to take his
environment more seriously than before. As a result, he
began to view Midwest America not as the antithesis of
culture, but as a culture in the process of formation—-an
embryo, as it were.19 Apparently he also became conscious
of the political and economic instability characterizing
much of contemporary European life, leading him to a lasting
if grudging gratitude of the democratic institutions he had
decried; in this respect, he remarked in connection with his
visit to Faubourg St. Germain, "Why! will this rebellious
paragraph turn out wrong in spite of me? I shall soon be
clamoring for a return ticket to 'America' to join my cry to
that of our 'howling democracy.‘ In a moment more I shall
be declaring that the South Side is preferable to the Left
Bank, and that it is better to worry one's life out in
La Salle Street than to rust it out in the Rue de l'Univer-
site. Let me stop where I am.”20 Much of the significance
of this passage lies in Fuller's use of the term, Eugg. Its
implication is later substantiated in Fuller's essay,
"Howells or James?" (c. 1885). In that piece, he designates

the South Side as being preferable to the Left Bank for the

9Bernard Bowron, "Henry B. Fuller, A Critical Study,"
lliss. Harvard 1948, p. 81.

20Fuller, "A Year in Europe," Vol. I, 31 October 1879.

hwrican h.
mm's own
adds this .
stating the
redern life
Sulking Ove
Etiquated.
fiSillusion*
thePOtentir
pmnounced,
Y0ung

hue: he tur
St- Cath.
0f bet my
that an t
Study, _.

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IElatiVe

 

3-

1:15 and othei

.Lsenchanted
idECav. :
.lng 8r.

“'3' reinOI‘CL

21
Fulle

22
Ibid

 

14
American writer, and warns of the dangers of alienation from
one's own habitat. In addition, in his record of Europe, he
adds this comment on the pettiness of Continental ways,
stating they are "far removed from the swirling stream of
modern life, bound down by the traditions of the past, . . .
sulking over the present, uncertain of the future," and
antiquated.21 Without a doubt, such phrases voiced his
disillusionment. The decadence in EurOpe helped to place
the potential inherent in democratic institutions in more
pronounced, and more favorable relief.

Young Fuller also began to develop the wry, droll
humor he turned to telling effect in later years. This
representative passage can be cited:

Besides seeing the chapel that contained the head of
St. Catherine, I also visited the house where she was
born and in which she lived. When a girl has visions
of her marriage with the infant Savior, it seems to me
that an examination of her cranium would make a very
interesting study,--though not a more interesting
study, perhaps, than the head of a Pope who could be
influenced in important matters of state policy by the
crazy fancies of an hysterical young woman. . . . Am
I too "brutal" here--as Henry James would say? Perhaps,
after all, absolute reason shifts with the shifting
cycles, and "igianity," when all's said, is but a purely
relative word.
This and other similar passages indicate that Fuller was
disenchanted by what confronted him in Europe. Contrasts of
a decaying aristocracy there and a vigorous democracy at
home reinforced his reluctant if latent respect for the

21Fuller, "A Year in Europe," Vol. I, 31 October 1879.

22Ibid., Vol. I, 5 December 1879.

social and

  
  

he returned
rczantic co

Ihes
Europe in 1
primacy of
flat Such a
if: lu’hich the

reinforce th

 

travel journ
first nOvel :

Jesets dOWn

39 fully
the Pine
thrOUg‘n
'hiCh th
and eVen
worn VOID
[or the]
[hOVerin
0f some
Vis'itOr.

15

social and political institutions of the New World, so that
he returned to Chicago in the summer of 1880 with his
romantic concepts of the Continent dulled by doubts.

These doubts were reinforced during a second trip to
EurOpe in 1883. He felt that European culture rejected the
primacy of the individual and quality of opportunity, and
that such a stance was directly responsible for the squalor
in which the lower classes were trapped. Comments which
reinforce this conclusion frequently recur in entries in his
travel journals. His reactions are also incorporated in his

first novel, The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani (1890), in which

 

 

he sets down the feeling of the Chevalier relating to the
plight of peasants under a feudal system:

He fully perceived the emptiness of their future; and
the pinched form of blue-skinned want which showed out
through the garment of elaborate hospitality with

which they endeavored to cloak their life of privation
and even of suffering struck him with a chill: . . .
worn women, with an appealing hOpelessness in the eyes
[or the] aSpect of unshaven and shabby middle age
[hovering] about the doors of the caffé, . . . expectant
of some Eefreshment at the hands of the breakfasting
visitor. 3

Between 1880 and 1892, Fuller set forth his philOSOphy
of political ethics in four graphic literary productions that
demonstrate his sensitivity to what he had observed of
European society. The first of these is a long poem,

Pensieri Privati, evidently begun in the fall of 1880; a

 

23Fuller, The Chevalier gf_Pensieri-Vani (New York,
.1899), p. 137. See also the Boston edition (1890), pp. 121-
122.

 

 

  
 
   
  
  
    

Nifioue 0
between 18.
under his :1
Z§_Chatele
rive works
influenced r
Pelitical 0:

r“Malian

 

t0 adeSt hi.
desjtable in
unsion of e
data’ “ill 8
0f defilOcraCy
for the Valu

PlitiCal

l6
critique or essay entitled "Howells or James?" composed
between 1884 and 1885 and published posthumously;24 The

Chevalier g: Pensieri-Vani, begun in 1886 and issued in 1890

 

 

under his nom de plume, Stanton Page; and his second novel,

The Chatelaine of La Trinite (1892). It is in these forma-

 

tive works that Fuller reveals the extent to which he was
influenced by Continental culture, class structure, and
political organization; in these he also formulated his
reconciliation to democracy insofar as he found it necessary
to adjust his native political system to what he found
desirable in the operation of governments abroad. A dis—
cussion of each production, with pertinent biographical
data, will serve to show how Fuller developed his rationale
of democracy, and will put into perspective his appreciation
for the values he praised in the Old World's social and
political cultures.

Pensieri Privati is a long and rather bad unpublished

 

poem which Fuller evidently began writing in the fall of
1880 on returning from his maiden voyage to EurOpe; the

manuscript was inserted in the "Journal 1876 ('78, '79)"
1ater.25 He added sections to it periodically until the

spring of 1883, when he lived in Boston following his second

4Darrel Abel, ed., Modern Fiction Studies, 3 (Summer,
1957), 159-164.

 

5Bowron, "Henry Blake Fuller, A Critical Study,"

:isit abroad.
Scarcn in the
arrive at a ;
:Eere. Excer
:an's sense c
ticn in Chic
azc' "sis atte:
3e: life and
Citations arc
exists Only i
5491” in th,
35 Fuller's l
first L"with l
EI;I€SsiOn 01
critical age
nettle, and i

“ofs °f sal

\

 

17
visit abroad.26 Fuller remained in Shawmut (his name for
Boston in the poem) for a year after this trip, hOping to
arrive at a pragmatic blending of old and new world cultures

there. Excerpts from Pensieri Privati demonstrate the young

 

man's sense of emotional dejection and intellectual depriva-
tion in Chicago, his gradual acceptance of the status quo,
and his attempt to find an accommodating atmOSphere in his
new life and surroundings in Massachusetts. Extensive
citations are included here, partly because the selection
exists only in manuscript and is not available for reference
except in the original, and partly because it is indicative
of Fuller's thinking in a very complete way. As Fuller's
first major literary effort, it is important as an ingenuous
expression of those ambitions that motivated him at a
critical age. Fuller was twenty-three, was feeling his
mettle, and interpreted the stings of disillusionment as
proofs of sagacity, when in fact they were no more than the

beginning of wisdom.

Pensieri Privati

 

I write. And why? I write because I must.
I have to say, and none with whom to speak.
Son Solo--though I would companion seek--
In this poor town of crumbs,--not crumbs; no; crust!

 

6Bowron, "Henry Blake Fuller, A Critical Study,"
pp. 143-144.

 

 

 

 

 

You thi:
I an,
Crow
0n non-e
Yet not
Than
They
This das
They but
They
This
They nan
It Was p
0r Wu
The b
This dar
right
A (1 what
I have
I'd b1
ind I “01
I know 1
Here
Where
'ath nev
Ear?
POI. if V
And 1
That
0f 10W r
IWhovld
I who
27FUl
cfadEs late
1'8): "Y0
:dtarts an
gri‘QEUtal.

18

You think me then dissatisfied? And so

I am, I am. Pray where should discontent

Grow ranker than just here, 'mongst men intent
On non-essentials, empty, earth-bound, low.

Yet not to them; they have no other life

Than enters in this ganglion of trade.

They make it; aye, and they are by it made--
This dashing, slashing, flashing, crashing strife.

They buy and sell; with this you have it all,
They know but debit, credit, owe and owed.
This trading-point with goods all stuffed and stowed,

They name a "city,"--a "metropolis" call.

It was not meant that I should reach life's height,
Or why was I not elsewhere born and reared?
The high, the noble here is blurred and b1eared,--
This darkz distorting glass dims all, leaves nothing
right.

And what would I have done,--what yet would do?--
I have three longings; then, one greater still:
I'd build, or write, or souls with music thrill;
And I would know the Old World through and through.

I know it part1y--I have lived a year:
Here I'll exist for who can tell how long!--
Where beauty--art and poetry and song-—

Hath never Spoke. Why should she? Who would heed or
hear?

For if we build we're ugly, false and crude;
And if we read, we have but the lean press
That starves and stultifies; and in the mess

Of low resorts find music's noisy brood.

I who'ld cathedrals rear or palaces--
I who'ld pluck out the organ's mighty soul--

27Fuller's desperation was to be echoed several

(“acades later in Sherwood Anderson's Mid-American Chants
(1918): "You know my city--Chicago triumphant; factories
and marts and roar of machines-—horrible, terrible, ugly
and brutal. Can a singer arise and sing in this smoke and
grime? Can he keep his throat clear? Can his courage
suryive?"

 

I uh.
Host li‘

But let
Here
What

Can any

 

 

 

19

I who'ld in type find my ambition's goal--
Must live in dried-up deserts such as these.

But let me save my time, and head, and breath.
Here I've been put, and here I'm meant to stay.
What fair result would my endeavors pay?

Can any good come out of Nazareth?

Where would I dwe11?--In my own land at least.
I ask a change, but not a change too great.
'Tis Nazareth, not Columbia, I hate,--

From whose dead weight I ask to be released.

In my own country is there not some place
That both the old World and the new combines;
Unbends the formal and the crude refines;
Both in the novel and the fair delights;
To Europe's staid sobriety unites

The fresh impulse of a youthful race;-—

That forms a stepping-stone between the two;
Unites the better portion of them both-—
Fostering mutual and material growth;

And Western wand'rers from o'er Eastern seas,
Invites by traits and tokens such as these?—-
Allegiance, Shawmut, I give unto you.

'Tis here I fix my home,--a moment stay!
I must be upon the outskirts of the crowd.
A city's stirrings, and its tumult loud,
I've had--and need--but will not them alway.

On Shawmut's borders, then, I ask a place,
Where £22 and urbs, harmoniously blend;
Where art and nature to each other lend,

And urban manners rural life do grace.

28John 1:46. "And Nathanael said . . . Can there any
good thing come out of Nazareth?" Fuller frequently employs
Biblical allusions and even paraphrased scripture. However,
he never gives any definite statement of personal religious
faith.

My feat
My t
Six

Sere'd

   

Thou.
espressing,
revelation ,-
fton Chicag,
than a year.
tezained to
31215 to Eur
Visits to Se

1:. ‘
need, Yorke

 

SEVEri
fat

:te family

20
My featly [sic] I'll yet more partial make:
My time I'd pass half in, half out such bound--

Six months of home and six of travel take;
Here'd be my home no less, the whole year round.

Though technically defective and thematically
depressing, this poem is probably Fuller's most uninhibited
revelation of his artistic aspirations and his alienation
from Chicago. Still, his commitment to Boston lasted less
than a year. In 1884, he returned to Chicago. There he
remained to the end of his days except for four more short
trips to Europe in 1892, 1894, 1897, and 1924, and periodic
visits to New York in his old age. He was thus born, bred,
lived, worked, matured, and died in Chicago.

Several responsibilities kept him there, not the
least of which were domestic obligations. In 1885 his
father's death left him in charge of the administration of
the family property. His semi-invalid mother, with whom he
continued to live, required a great deal more of his atten-
tion following the marriage of his sister. Management of
the estate, consisting of small shops and tenements, imposed
a burden on him he did not find pleasing. Necessity
demanded that he act as a plumber, janitor, furnace custo-
dian, and agent for the properties. But, as Hamlin Garland
recalls, Fuller's "New England conscientiousness" kept him
faithful to these distasteful duties. Garland considers him
.an."unpaid drudge" during this time, for little income

remained from the deteriorating structures after operating

expenses we
1937, he wa
there he mi
Chicago and
place to st.
this matrix.

In at
philosophica
Extended vis
cation of Cu
to accept a
finding in t
sore favorab
local for hu:
TGX'Eloping
famously, F'
faults in th.
coral OPProb:
which a Priv;

respite with} I

I" 31 BOWL:

 

21
expenses were met.29 By the time of his mother's death in
1907, he was fifty, and though he was now free to decide
where he might like to settle, he was firmly established in
Chicago and decided that it would be the most convenient
place to stay. His entire career is accordingly fixed in
this matrix.

In addition to filial considerations, Fuller had
philosophical reasons for remaining in Chicago. During his
extended visits to Europe (1879-1880 and 1883), his obser—
vation of cultures so at variance with his own prompted him
to accept a new perspective that enhanced the values he was
finding in the American scene. He began to view Chicago
more favorably. It was no longer a contradiction of his
ideal for human society, but presented itself to him as a
developing civilization in the Chrysalis stage.30 Simul—
taneously, Fuller developed a keen awareness of the inherent
faults in the Continental system. His nature rejected the
moral opprobrium of a fixed stratification of society on
which a privileged class depended for its perquisites.
Despite withholding his approval, he had a strong inclination
to emulate habits of the leisure class, and he endorsed
their esthetic standards; on the other hand, Fuller could

not reconcile a social hierarchy which was indifferent to

29Hamlin Garland, "Roadside Meetings of a Literary
Bookman, 70 (February, 1930), 635.

30

Nomad,"

Bowron, "Henry Blake Fuller: A Critical Study,"
p. 81.

:he plight

 

equal oppor

 

nation.

It i
Fuller's se
his persona
1334 and 18
E'u'O'I'Ed purp

tative Write

{tashaping

 

Niimately t
ThOuQ

iEEIi 1
«ca 3 f0
realistic no

{ice

ur achie

22
the plight of its fellow men with his appreciation for the
equal opportunities for all that exist in a democratic
nation.
It is precisely such an outlook that is formulated in
Fuller's second literary expression of note that deals with
his personal, political, and artistic maturation. Between

1884 and 1885,31

Fuller wrote "Howells or James?" Its
avowed purpose is to establish "which of these two represen-
tative writers [should] be pronounced most instrumental in
the shaping of American fiction, and which of them will
ultimately come to be recognized as most firmly and com-
pletely a factor in an historical American literature."32

Though Howells had already acknowledged James as
America's foremost literary master in his treatment of the
realistic novel,33 Fuller was unwilling to accept this
magnanimous judgment as final, especially because of Howells'
recent achievements as both a writer and critic of materials
in which the element of realism was predominant,34 which
earned him the popular title of "The Dean of American

Letters," and, in fact, made Howells President of the

American Academy of Arts and Letters.

31Abel substantiates these dates: pp. 159 and 161,
notes 2 and 11.

32Ibid., p. 160.

33William Dean Howells, "Henry James, Jr.," Century,
25 (November, 1882), 28.

34Particularly in A Modern Instance and The Rise 2i
Silas Lapham.

 

 

Ful
first najC
Hterature
isessenti
Hatic ide.
Eccerning
avironnen:
mmnres th

COEtemporar

 

Names for
'u'ith a key
Uifical ap
”Praisal,

ideals.

Full

23
Fuller's essay, "Howells or James?" is notable as the
first major pronouncement from Fuller on the destiny of
11 terature in the United States,35 and a brief review of it

is essential to understand clearly Fuller's outlook on demo-

cratic ideals, since it contains his first formal statement
con cerning the functional role of the novelist in his social
environment. This piece has three principal thrusts: It
compares the two men as literary artists; it evaluates
contemporary standards for writing and projects their conse-
quences for the nation and for mankind; and it provides us
with a key to Fuller's goals for artistic identity. Its
critical approach, a blend of subjective and objective
appraisal, is remarkably thorough and echoes Aristotelian
1d6als -

Fuller was an early admirer of Howells, having

35The only previous indication of Fuller's profes-
Sional concern for the future of American fiction is the
Short article, "A Feast for the Gods," in the Chicago
\Tribune , 1 February 1876 (cf. "Legacy to Posterity" journal
entry for that date in the Henry B. Fuller Collection in the
eWbEI‘T-‘y Library, Chicago). The clipping is not available,
‘1': the manuscript, signed "Harry Fuller," is in the
ewberry Library's Collection. In this essay, Fuller is
.S: atiriz 1mg the formula for writing a successful romance,
those Sublime productions, which, through the columns of
E I?" New York Ledger and Saturday Night are sown broadcast
er the land." Fuller notes that of all ingredients the
authors might possibly utilize in creating a romance, the
1; e:fpe'31‘ators of these concoctions studiously avoid "the
t: E: of reality, of fidelity to nature, which is certain
Part to our dish a matter-of-fact smack."

ficlaIEd t
predispose
Easells' c
mzditions
unpatible
lnical st'
Easells ha.
litEIary pr

Full
i38betveen
Cf Each to“
AZErican ll
tion--and i

r“lities
D

 

Rich in the

24

declared that he had "discovered" him in 1880,36 so he was

predisposed to favoring him as a writer; in addition,
Howells' characteristic restraint and fidelity to actual
conditions in nineteenth century America were much more
compatible with Fuller's viewpoint than the obtuse psycho-
logical studies which were James' perennial delight.

Howells had also distinguished himself by current and viable

literary productions that enhanced his stature.37

Fuller declared the criterion by which he was decid—
ing between the works of Howells and James was "the attitude

of each toward life and society in general, and toward

"38

American life and society in particular. Fuller's deduc-

tion--and it is logical--is that while both men dealt in
realities, James' realism consists of "select actualities,"

which in their final form are idealistic. Howells, Fuller

36Letter from Fuller to Howells, 16 April 1909,

Howells Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fuller recalled his first
encounter with Howells: "He came along the sidewalk, in
the winter twilight, feeling for his latchkey, and favored
the young pilgrim loitering there [outside No. 4 Louisburg
Square, Boston] a bleak and forbidding frown that made some-
thing of an impression. All that, however, was several
years ago; there have been one or two smiles since."
Chicago Evenigg Post, 7 February 1903, p. 4.

37Howells had recently written in tribute to the
realistic nature of Howe's Story 2i 3 Country Town and
Bellamy's Miss Ludington's Sister in "Two Notable Novels,"
Century, 28 (August, 1884), 632-634. The review impressed
Fuller, who was also pleased by the first instalment of
Howells' latest novel, The Rise 3: Silas Lapham, in Century,
28 (November, 1884). See Abel, ed., "Howells or James?"
p. 161, notes 11 and 12.

38

 

 

 

 

 

Abel, ed., "Howells or James?" p. 161.

25

asserts, is in a worthier class because he demonstrates the

"a phase of humanity," and as a means

validity of realism as

of voicing a concern for broader aSpects of life in the

Certainly the essay initially seeks to present objec-

tive comparisons, but becomes increasingly preferential as

Fuller's obvious bias in favor of Howells surfaces in the

text. Howells, writes Fuller, views the panorama of life
' deals with it sympathetically, and surveys

"as a substance,‘

it as one might study a cross section of a Specimen in a
scientific laboratory; on the contrary, James "regards life
as a superficies," treats it objectively and merely reviews

it"wand thus is an observer rather than a student of the
"a healthy liking for

SUbject. Howells has the advantage of

the honest clay and gravel of the great middle stratum;"

James is "satisfied with the cultivation of the mere top-

dressing." Both men possess "a due liking for virtue,

truth, justice, and the rest," but it does not appear that

James Will invariably mine these qualities at their full

"when unlinked with fortunate circumstances and the

Value
"can

Culture of a refined society." Howells, in contrast,

interest himself sympathetically in all the qualities--not
t1hr. 800d, merely, but the doubtful and the bad as well--

whiCh may present themselves to him in his actual contact

Thus, to Fuller, Howells

with society in any of its forms."

is a reeclist and James an idealist.

The implications of such comparisons can be seen when

 

studied it;
portrayal
an aristoc
system. E
the essay :

I
"Howells o:
esPecially,
tions may t
in many of

Jazes’ fict

 

cratic prim

A sa
for-‘31 Stat
ePitome Of
that he ref
times. Th);
average cit

mate the ch

26
studied in the light of Fuller's own philosophy. His
portrayal of the two men is an image of his attitudes toward

an aristocratic society as balanced against a democratic

sys tem. Earlier students of Fuller's writing suggest that

"Howells or Fuller?" instead of

essay might be titled

the
39 . n .
In View of Fuller 8 first two novels,

"Howells or James'?"
especially, and their international themes, such observa-

tions may be justified. There is also an introspective tone

in many of Fuller's characterizations that reminds one of

JameS' fiction. Nevertheless, Fuller's allegiance to demo-

cratic principles determines his preference for Howells.

A salient consideration of this essay is Fuller's
formal statement in respect to the novelist's function as an
epitome of his environment-—socially and Politically-~30

that he reflects somehow the trend and the tenor of his

times - Through his writing, the novelist should enable the

average citizen to see himself in such a manner as to esti-

mate the character and nature of his era and his role in it

or rElationship to it. Realistic novelists may also utilize

themes and concepts in what were formerly non-literary areas,

Presenting entertaining stories grounded in such fields as

philosophy, art, religion, politics, science. 30(110108)’,

ethics 3 and other disciplines which are now adaptable to

Bowron, p. 173. Kenny Jackson, "An Evolution of

ct:he New Chicago from the 01d: A Study of Henry Fuller's
hicago Nove18," Diss. University of Pennsylvania 1961,
I) ' 68: also takes note of the similarities between Fuller

an (1 James

 

fictional
Ful

UICHOUUCEK.

 

undeniably
appear in j
formulati 0:

or the Cent

 

acre in acd

 

candid de li
cOEE’lemEnt

and Suppleu
cancern f0]
Behole. HT}

the 5pm

RUDE of thc

27
fictional treatment.

Fuller's pragmatic outlook reveals itself in his
pronouncement that "The stratification of our society has
undeniably begun, and symptoms of the movement are coming to
appear in print. . . . May we not reasonably look for the

formulation of American society in the pages of the Atlantic

 

or the Century?"40 To Fuller, the realistic novelist is

more in accord with the tenets of democracy, due to his more
candid delineation of the common man. Realism and democracy
complement each other; they are coincident and concomitant,
and supplement one another in their expression of mutual
concern for and dependence upon the social pattern as a
whole. "The advance of the one will doubtless be accompanied
by the spread of the other,"41 since they are the warp and
woof of the same fabric.

Finally, Fuller's choice of Howells over James indi-
cates Fuller's own allegiance to democratic society as an
ideal, for Fuller apparently finds it needful to justify his
native setting on esthetic grounds. This task seemed

unattainable when he wrote Pensieri Privati, but Howells'

 

esthetic position was one which Fuller could accept, and it
was natural that he should adopt it. In this connection, it
is notable that Howells, like Fuller, returned to America
following his travels abroad. On the other hand, James had

40Abel, ed., "Howells or James?" p. 163.

41Ibid., p. 162.

 

remained t
izplicatic'
should; he
involved.

sized the

net. Amour
institutior

of his com;

 

Cut Off tie
Part may ha
eSPecially
in the OPPC

EurOpe to

28

remained to become an expatriate. Perhaps to Fuller the
implication was that James had not acted as a moral citizen
should; he had abandoned his motherland. An ethic was
involved. More than this, Howells' literary output empha-
sized the domestic scene; just as emphatically, James' did
not. Among Howells' works are studies of American social
institutions and economic environments which won the praises
of his compatriots; James, however, snubbed Americana and
cut off ties with his homeland. Such an attitude on James'
part may have struck Fuller as a kind of literary treason,
especially since he himself was then undergoing a conversion
in the opposite direction--from an early preoccupation with
EurOpe to a concentration on Chicago. At any rate, the full
impact of Fuller's apparent choice of Howells would not be
evident for several years.

Fuller's third and most substantial composition with

socio-political overtones is The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani,

 

 

begun in 1886. As he later stated in regard to this work,

it was an "overflow" of his "study of things Italian"; more
specifically, it is an introspective examination of Fuller's
dilemma. Published in 1890 under the pseudonym Stanton

Page, it was Fuller's first full-length fiction. Its merits
were soon recognized, and in 1892, the Century Company of

New York marketed a second edition bearing Fuller's name, an
additional chapter, and an appreciative dedication to

Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard University. Fuller initiated

the composition of this work by making impulsive notes on an

old envelt
fl, 4-
Lélcago.
had broug'r.
friends ir.
through th
The
FOUflg man a

Protagonist

 

42
Fu

may, ‘iy
'Iltten 1n
Street was
SEILOUS 88p

29
old envelope fished from a wastebasket in his office in
Chicago.42 Norton had liked the original edition so well he
had brought it to the attention of some of his influential
friends in Boston, including James Russell Lowell, and
through their auspices, the novel was reissued by Century.

The Chevalier is a narrative of the itinerary of a

 

 

young man encountering Europe for the first time. The

protagonist is George Occident, twenty-two, from Shelbyville,

42Fuller describes its beginnings in an unpublished
essay, "My Early Books" (c. 1919): "'The Chevalier' was
written in a business-office on Lake Street, Chicago. The
street was given over to commerce in its heavier and more
serious aSpects. . . . The office was a small one, where
little business was done and where the personnel (myself
excepted) would often be absent. I had a desk beside the
manager's own. Mine was as large as his; my wastebasket
too. One day, when alone, I reached down into the waste-
basket, fished up a discarded envelope, and began: 'It was
the Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani who halted his traveling
carriage,'--if that be the way in which the book, the first
page of which I have not seen for years, really starts. The
Chevalier advanced toward me out of the supersaturated
atmosphere; confident, but a stranger. I had yet to learn
how far he would go, and what he would do. But he had begun
to travel, and he kept it up . . . he immediately ran over
on a second envelope, which I pasted to the first, and over
a third; and so on. He became a long, linked roll of old
envelopes; and presently he advanced to large sheets of
memorandum paper, in copying from which, later on, I made my
first experiments with a primitive typewriter.

"All these early first chapters or sections were
written merely for his pleasure or mine; or, rather, for his
necessity and mine: seemingly, they had to be. There was
no slightest thought of possible publication until the book
was three-quarters or four-fifths done. Progress was slow:
there was no date to meet, and no presumptuous ambition to
print. We mused and meditated and enjoyed as we went along,
and we recorded our advance, chapter by chapter, in a pocket
memorandum—book. Sometimes we silently mulled over our
progress, on evenings, in downtown restaurants or oyster
houses . . . "

  
 
   
 

an .inericr
anxious t,
culture win
sateriali:
journeys t
European 1:

ciating an

 

 

turiositie
life that

mereSts

30

an American industrial city in the Midwest. Occident is

anxious to know about Continental ways and to imbibe the

culture which he felt was unavailable to youth in the

materialistic environment of his native city. As he

journeys through Italy, George joins a compatible group of

European tourists who are devoted to the pastime of appre-

first editions, and

 

ciating and acquiring rare objets d'art,
they move

curiosities. As members of EurOpean aristocracy,

in a wealthy and leisurely if effete circle with views of
life that are circumscribed by narrow, personal, know-it-all

interests which exclude hoi polloi.

In the course of their travels, the wayfarers expound

their views on a wide range of subjects from their philoso-

phy of government to opinions on the nature and substance of

Civili zation. The exchanges make the young American con-

Scious of the moral dichotomy of his indigenous democratic

Principles and the feudal notions entertained by the aristo-

Qrats .

The dilemma faced by Occident is that "birth and

habit drew him in one direction; culture and aSpiration, in

"43 convinced that he would not make a good

anothe r , and,

European, George retreats to Shelbyville. However, the

youth realizes at the same time that he cannot comfortably

add-01”: 0r adapt to, a society that is commercially oriented

and esthetically sterile. He seeks to escape this

43Fuller, The Chevalier, p. 161.

J

wrfronta
American 3.
I
dare, an:

No
compelling

tohonor ‘

cgfiViction

 

andrefine
mien of 0

"13h Full

31
confrontation by a compromise: he marries a pert young
American prima donna in Italy who has been studying music
there, and takes his "culture" home.

No doubt this resolution is satisfactory for several
compelling reasons. George Occident follows the inclination
to honor his political heritage, to accede to his social
convictions, and then acquire the amenities of good breeding
and refinement as well. His young spouse epitomizes the
union of Old World values with New World idealism, a fusion
which Fuller held in the highest esteem.

An incident in the book symbolizes Fuller's commit-
ment to a theme found frequently in his writing: the
conviction that modern modes are not as vital or efficient
as those of former times. In the initial chapter, the
Chevalier carries a golden crown he has secretly appropriated
from an ancient Etruscan tomb with the intention of returning
it after it had been admired by his friends and associates.
The spirit of the old Lucumo or warrior-priest whose
sanctuary had been desecrated by this intrusion was obviously
troubled and insulted; the carefully preserved body reacted
by simply crumbling into dust:

The stern old warrior-priest, who might have wakened to
a Nero, a Hildebrand, a Torquemada, a Napoleon, had been
invited to rest his blinking and startled gaze upon a
Garrison, a Howard, a Peabody. Slumbering through the
long ages wherein might made right, he had been called
back to light to participate in an epoch of invertebrate
sentimentalism. Drunk deep on draughts of blood and

iron, his reviver now sought to force him to munch the
dipped toast of a flabby humanitarianism and to sip the

 

weak .
lofti

  
 

Remarkable

Etruscan

NStEm tha

 

Wart had

Fiery ind

The ab
Percei
enjoym
Part t
civili
but af
to the
Shall
refer
hOuSes

In chaptel

32

weak tea of brothzzly love. This refreshment he had
loftily declined.

Remarkable imagery is utilized here. Fuller contrasts the
Etruscan Age with modern times; the iron character of the
warrior-priest is set against the sentimentalism of present-
day "brotherly love;" the "elitism" of the ancient caste
system that made the old soldier a person venerated and set
apart had "degenerated" to a loss of distinction in contem-
porary individualism and self—determination; intellectual
power was now superseded by an emphasis on moral tone:
The ability to perceive, to understand what one
perceives, to extract the full measure of profit and
enjoyment by so understanding,--this must be in great
part the wealth of a pilgrim in Italy. The Italian
civilization addresses itself primarily to the eye,
but after, with immense reaches of depth and breadth,
to the intellect. If you prefer a civilization that
shall address exclusively the "moral sense," I must
refer you to New England, with its clapboard school-
houses and its Cotton Mathers.
In chapter six, this sentience is demonstrated in Occident's

' compared to a rushing

comments on the American "moral sense,‘
river in contrast to the stateliness of the perennial flow
of aristocratic nationalism as it was manifested in Europe.
"Occident . . . saw a nation's life and Progress as the
hurrying onward of a vast stream;--much slime, doubtless, at
the bottom, and more or less foam on the top, but a great
volume of water sufficiently pure rolling orderly and power-
fully on between."46 Here, the Prorege disagrees. He

44Fuller, The Chevalier, p. 9.

451b1d., p. 43. 461b1d., p. 87.

 

:crtrays
European

'Etrength

 

 

excluded
ingloriou:
fivuse p;

function.

Thi

 

 

 

Ethical fa

The ed
consis
but me
recall
eQual
SUpers
the Qj
Scarce
Would
Carat,
Grand
and u.
GOVerr

v, ‘
“aintalni‘

L .

QdeouS

33
portrays the staid hereditary political grandeur of the
European states as the product of "noble art," blessed with

"strength and grace and grandeur" because it "utterly

excluded the idea of equality,‘ with glorious as well as

inglorious components, just as a building must be formed of

diverse parts in order that each may serve its separate
47

function. A connoisseur, he claims, will see that.

This is largely true because the intellectual and
ethical facets of the Continental and American modes reflect
entirely opposite spectra:

The edifice of a perfect ideal civilization, he declared,
consisted of two parts, foundation and superstructure;
but no civilization had ever existed, as far as he could
recall, which exhibited these two parts in full and

equal combination. The civilization of the South was a
superstructure on a wavering and insecure foundation;

the civilization of the North was a mere foundation with
scarcely any superstructure at all . . . which . .

would his young friend choose . . . the Opera, the
Carnival, the Academia, the Salon, the Concorso, the
Grand Prix de Rome . . . or would he accept Magna Charta,
and Habeas Corpus, and Trial by Juz§, and Representative
Government and the Clearing-House?

Maintaining "self government on any but a small scale and in
any but a young and simple society was a ludicrous and
hideous fallacy," the Prorege asserted, "No great city could
be self-governing; the first desideratum was a ruler, to

"49

save the people from itself. Likewise, he castigated the

destruction of natural scenery and the waste of the human
resources concomitant with industrial exploitation.

47Fuller, The Chevalier, pp. 87-88.

481b1d., pp. 89—90. 491bia., p. 151.

 

proving g
fuller's
gent Sphe
shy. At
Shelbyvill

05 Fuller'

 

 

 

PQUCil in
district.

F01
bolstered
Strared a
3 M
we“ anon

level w ri

, a

 

34

The Chevalier was thus a parade ground, if not a

 

proving ground, for the author's impressions--and confusions.
Fuller's characters seem specifically drawn to depict diver-
gent spheres of social, intellectual, and Political philoso-
phy. At least we may conclude that Occident's return to
Shelbyville with his artistic bride indicates the direction
of Fuller's thinking as he meditated with his notebook and
pencil in a secluded corner of Lake Street's business
district.

0
Fortunately, contemporary reviews of The Chevaliers

 

bolstered Fuller's confidence so that his next book demon-
strated a more mature orientation and a clearer perspective.

The Chatelaine of La'Trinite (1892) is the fourth and final

 

work among his formative early productions, and is a short
novel written in the form of a travelogue. Like its prede-

cessor, The Chatelaine is set in Europe and describes the

 

travels of an American tourist in the company of Continental
aristocrats engaged in displays of vanity and ostentation.
However, the new book is a refreshing change in several
respects from Fuller's first novel. It reflects the pro-
fessional skill and consistency of a more experienced
‘writer. Notably, Fuller moves from the introspective quest
for identity dominating his earlier productions to an

objective, critical outlook on a universal motif: the

50Among others, undated clippings in the Fuller
(kallection, Newberry Library, Chicago, from the Boston
Thranscript and the Chicago Post. James Russell Lowell
vrrote Fuller to congratulate him on his artistry.

 

reshaping
conformit

Th
I
inexorabL
the forms:
Europe fl.
Aurelia We
American t
a gentle,
are eventu

"v’lSitot fr

The

 

 

 

withdraw t}
Esthetic

tne culture

35
reshaping of civilization by the abrasive action of modern
conformity to progress.

The controlling idea of The Chatelaine is the
inexorable dominion of the new, mundane commercialism over
the former system based on the cherished traditions on which
Europe flourished. In The Chatelaine, the author reveals
Aurelia West to be an aggressive, shallow, materialistic
American traveler who gains the confidence of the Chatelaine,
a gentle, wholesome, refined European whose delicate ideals
are eventually tarnished by associations with her avaricious
visitor from the United States.

The Chatelaine's three suitors, dismayed at her
transformation from a generous soul to a graSping harridan,
withdraw their overtures of love; they symbolize the
esthetic aspirations of a new era seeking endorsement from
the cultural establishment represented by the Chatelaine.
Their names, in keeping with their literary functions, are
Zeitgeist (Spirit of the Times), Tempo Rubato (Freedom of
Time), and Fin—de-SiECIe (End of the Century)--German,
Italian, and French, respectively. When they find time
honored custom has suffered distortion from crass influences,
their goals and ideals are demolished.

At the conclusion of the story, Aurelia West's
influence reigns supreme: the stream flowing through the
village is being diverted by engineers who will install
:footings to support a great, grotesque iron trestle; from a

lieighboring valley, a shrill whistle of a steam engine

firet611:
fitting 1
Chatelair.
nsw in Pa

Be
:ultural I

Fuller's 1

 

 

presenting
Wary cu:
and Plot
fl.CtiOn .
{Efreshin
" 0
855131113

aChieVe d

36
foretells the "progress" that will transform the bucolic
setting into a rashly ravished industrial wasteland; and the
Chatelaine, "--her way prepared, her path made straight-—was
51

now in Paris."

Besides constituting a significant comment on current

cultural mores, The Chatelaine verifies the perfection of

 

Fuller's techniques as a literary artisan. His penchant for
presenting an effective, formulated commentary on contem-
porary culture through imaginative development of characters
and plot foretells his subsequent ventures into realistic
fiction. His own "twist of the wrist," as he afterwards
refreshingly referred to his procedure, is an involved
"assimilation of material" and "the transformation of matter
by manner" into a creative production. Fuller certainly
achieved this in sterling form when he composed Th3

Chatelaine.

 

As The Chevalier was a literary depiction of unre-

 

solved conflicts in Fuller's personal philosophy, so The

Chatelaine confirmed his advocacy of democratic and esthetic

 

ideals and his integrity as an author of high professional
standards. Together, these early works are a demarcation of
his personal allegiance to his native heritage and to his

aspirations for a political Utopia. They earned him acclaim

51Fuller, The Chatelaine, p. 176.

 

not only

 

hm stand
society c

5
critics.

 

self-imag-
IEflected
Presently
[FT-illet's

di"’er’fiion
dissatisf
lEgQ 0f 1
the Pond.

it) his 1c

37
52
not only in his time but more recently as well.
It is true that while Fuller made no concessions to
his standards, the stance he assumed as an overseer of his
society caused frustrations that have been noted by able
critics.53 By 1890, Fuller was finally settled in Chicago,
where he was, as Robert Morss Lovett describes him, "an

"54 His

example of incongruity between habit and habitat.
self-image at this particular time is at least partly
reflected in an unpublished allegory, "That Duck Once More"
(1886) which, although not one of the four compositions
presently under study, sheds a certain slant of light on
Fuller's attitude toward his choice. In this redaction and
diversion of the ugly duckling theme, a barnyard fowl,
dissatisfied with his lot, longed to be granted the privi—
lege of leaving the flock to establish a new residence by
the pond. However, the keeper wanted him to get acclimated
to his location with his feathered fellows and charged him
with trying to be better than his mates. "'Not better,'

returned the supplicant; 'I never claimed that. Not better--

only different. Let me try the pond, I beg you, if only for

52Edmund Wilson, "Henry B. Fuller, The Art of Making
It Flat," The New Yorker, 23 (May, 1970), 113, calls him "a
unique and distinguished writer. Van Wyck Brooks pays him
an outstanding tribute in The Writer in America (New York,
1968), p. 61.

53Elwood P. Lawrence, "Fuller of Chicago: A Study in
Frustration," American Quarterly, 6 (Summer, 1954), 137-146.

54Robert Morss Lovett, "Fuller of Chicago," The New
Republic, 60 (21 August 1929), 16.

 

 

 

a little
that he r
"A
smoot
Hel
along
and r
leiSu
Tht
back 1'
He
Billet thL
ment which
in future

 

Siecific t
Place in a
Settlers:
financial

Sllitary

survival

38
a little while,'" The keeper granted his plea on condition
that he return by sundown.

"Ah, how glorious it is!" he cried, as he glided
smoothly and joyously along; "I was made for this!"

He spent the day in swimming quietly and contentedly
along the shores of the pond among the reeds and flags
and rushes,--his sense of fitness and enjoyment and
leisurely repose growing with every moment--

Then at sundown he toiled laboriously up the hill,
back to the barnyardgg

He is there yet--

 

Fuller thus dramatized the dilemma of alienation and involve-
ment which he faced and which was to temper his perspective
in future years. Another observer of Chicago used more
specific terms: "As a natural aristocrat, Fuller was out of
place in a city that had little veneration for the 'old
settlers' and where social mobility depended only on
financial success. And as a delicate, meditative, and
solitary individual, Fuller was out of place in a city where
survival depended upon aggressiveness."56
Although Fuller's emotional reaction to his quandary
was withdrawal, his esthetic response was creativity; and
although he negotiated friendships according to his moods,
secluding himself for days in the musty recesses of Chicago

libraries, and lived alone after his mother's death in a

succession of obscure boarding houses, he was vitally

55Fuller, "That Duck Once More," autographed manu-
script, 2 pages, dated 17 May 1886, in the Fuller Collection,
Newberry Library, Chicago.

56Richard A. Pearce, "Chicago in the Fiction of the
1890's as Illustrated in the Novels of Henry B. Fuller and
Robert Herrick," Diss. Columbia 1963, p. 48.

attuned :
architect
important
interest

he follOV
developm€7
significa:
element b.

ad was aE

 

 

 

uve that

Ful
anobjecti
Itnurture
Mfred Ka:
Single fac
a5801'ptior

togather

39
attuned to the tenor of his times. He avidly pursued the
architectural plans and noted the dimensions of each new
important structure in Chicago, he studied with consuming
interest the expansion of the new suburban park system, and
he followed the vicissitudes and triumphs of real estate
developments with the practiced eye of a connoisseur. Most
significant of all is the fact that he understood the human
element behind the impersonal facade of the new metropolis
and was able to portray its inner nature in a unified narra-
tive that delineates his insight.

Fuller's unique alienation and involvement provided
an objectivity and understanding essential to a valid critic.
It nurtured the tensions from which his outlook developed.
Alfred Kazin characterizes that objectivity as "the greatest
single fact about our modern American writing-—our writers'
absorption in every last detail of the American world

"57 In

together with a deep and subtle alienation from it.
essence, that observation summarizes Fuller's nature and the
nature of his influence.

The four works by Fuller which have been discussed
were composed during his early productive years (1880-1892)
and are tangible evidences of his efforts to accept and

adjust to his social and political environment. During the

next five years (1893-1898), his writing would slowly come

S7Alfred Kazin, 92 Native Grounds (Garden City, New
York, 1956), p. ix.

 

   

to refle.
the pote:
be seen 1
example,

reports i

Library,5

Cultural {

Nut of EL

 

f' n
Calcago a

40
to reflect his uninhibited but pragmatic optimism regarding
the potential for the culture of Chicago. This attitude may
be seen in both non—fiction and fiction of the time. For
example, in the area of non-fiction, he wrote glowing
reports in 1893 of the World's Columbian Exposition in
Chicago, which he regarded as a special achievement for the
city.58 In 1894, he published an article on the Newberry
Library,59 an evidence of his special pride in the develoPing
cultural facilities of Chicago. In 1897, following his fifth

tour of Europe the previous year, "The Upward Movement in

Chicago" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; it was a major

 

essay on social and cultural progress in the city and listed
specific accomplishments of "those desirable, those indis-
pensable things, that older, more fortunate, more practiced
communities possess and enjoy as a matter of course. As a

community," he continued, "we are at school; we are trying

60
to solve for ourselves the problem of living together."

He called attention to "the higher and more hopeful life of

58Fuller, "Mural Paintings at the Fair," Chicago
Record, 25 May 1893; identical title, continued, 26 May 1893;
"Photographers at the Fair," Chicago Record, 10 August 1893;
"Photography at the Fair," Chicago Record, 11 August 1893.
The previous year, Fuller had written another two-part
article for the Record, "World's Fair Architecture," 16, 20
September 1892.

59Fuller, "Newberry Library,‘
December 1894), 1243-1244.

Harper's, 38 (29

60Fuller, "The Upward Movement in Chicago," Atlantic
Monthly, 80 (October, 1897), 534-547. See also Bernard
Duffey, The Chicago Renaissance in American Letters (East
Lansing, 1954), pp. 27-32.

 

 

theplacv

rush of :

 

hitherto

there may.
U98 pas:
, ' I
MIME): 3”
Since Ful

Personal \

 

fitter dax

 

Maj
fiis Chicag
film the 5
it deals r,
its technj
SWEIIS.
Ecwells as

:Iitical

41

the place,' and added with a signal note of optimism: "This
rush of momentum to make up lost time and to get over
hitherto untraversed ground justifies the surmise that the
goal may not only be reached, but overreached, and that
there may be a propulsion of the new and vigorous Western
type past the plane of mere acquired culture, on toward the
farther and higher plane of actual creative achievement."61
Since Fuller is not given to platitudes, we may conclude his
personal outlook for Chicago was a happy one and that he had
become not only reconciled, but cheered by its prospects for
better days.

Major fiction during this time includes the first of

his Chicago novels, The Cliffwaellers (1893). In harmony

 

with the stipulations in his own essay "Howells or James?"
it deals with the contemporary life of his native city, and
its technique was realism fashioned after the manner of

Howells. The Cliff-Dwellers, praised by William Dean

 

Howells as "a work of great power,"62 drew sour, hyper-

critical reviews63 for its candid portrayal of the harsh and

61Fuller, "The Upward Movement in Chicago," p. 534.

62William Dean Howells, "The Cliff-Dwellers,"
reviewed in Harper's Bazaar, 26 (28 October 1893), 883.

63See especially Mary Abbott, "Personal Evil in
Literature," Chicago Post, 31 October 1893: "Mr. Fuller
Seems not only to hate but to be ignorant of his people
[Whom he portrays as] all 'crude, brute, ugly.’ Chicago
,SOCiety is mostly crude, perhaps; it is certainly, as a
bOdy, neither brute nor ugly. I resent the premise and
the imputation."

 

42
often sordid conditions prevailing in the Chicago business
world, especially so because it appeared at such an inoppor-
tune time as the great commercial venture of the World's
Fair (Columbian Exposition), when Chicago was striving to
present itself to the nation in the most favorable light.

For all that, The Cliff-Dwellers is an undistorted view of

 

the sprawling megalopolis which is intended to be an
appraisal along constructive lines, and not destructive
criticism.

Two years later, also using a Chicago setting, With

the Procession (1895) appeared. It is Fuller's finest

 

realistic novel, taking its title from the metaphoric image
of the parade of aggressive social aspirants searching for
status and identity in the great city. It, too, drew
carping criticism from some of the professional reviewers,
although Howells praised it64 and included Mrs. Granger
Bates, its lionized matron of Chicago society, in his

literary compilation, Heroines 3: Fiction.65 In fact,

 

Howells was so impressed with Fuller's aptitude as a realis-

tic novelist that he later indicated a desire that Fuller

64Howells wrote Fuller: ”With the Procession

couldn't be bettered," and said he greeted it "with cries
Of delight."--William Dean Howells to Henry B. Fuller, 13
January 1895, Harvard University (Widener Library),
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

65William Dean Howells, Heroines 3: Fiction (New
York. 1901), 11, 246—253.

 

 

 

v u

Q-4

43

might become his literary successor.66

As we have seen, both his non-fiction and fiction
during these five years from 1893-1898 indicate Fuller's
optimistic assessment of the future of Chicago and reveal a
refreshing self-confidence, but these positive elements soon
diminished, never to regain their earlier force. For one
thing, his sensitive spirit was depressed by the Spanish—
American War. Hostilities in 1898 were a prelude to what
Fuller felt was McKinley's imperialistic commandeering of
the Philippine Islands in the aftermath of the war. His
initial horror and dismay soon accelerated into heated
anger. Feeling that democracy had betrayed its commitment
to his concept of the American ideal, he unleashed an ill-
advised and vitriolic volume of poems entitled The New Flag
(1899). In it, Fuller had the temerity to attack the

President outright in language which was certainly atrocious,
if not scurrilous:

Thou sweating chattel slave to swine!
Who dost befoul the holy shrine

Of liberty with murder!

What canting lies can save thee now,
Red handed as thou art, thy knife
Drinking the struggling patriot's life!
What shame can reach thy soddened heart
In shame, blood scarlet as thou art!

66William Dean Howells to Henry B. Fuller, 14 March
1909, in the Henry B. Fuller Collection, Iéwberry Library,
Chicago. This letter is quoted in Constance Griffin, Henry
2; Fuller, A Critical Biography, p. 46. Howells thought so
highly of Fuller that he offered to arrange publication of
a.nove1 he asked Fuller to write that would be suitable for
the London Times. Howells to Fuller, 12 May 1900, Harvard
IIniversity Library.

 

5“.

H :< (“2 ('5

Friends z
men, and

material ,

 

grinted a

44

Who for a coral bead or rattle

'Gainst unarmed babes doth march to battle!

Calling with sanctimonious face

On God to sanction thy disgrace.

May He inflict on thee again 67

The curse of thine own brother Cain!

Friends to whom he gave copies were fearful of harboring
them, and so destroyed them. No publisher would touch the
material, but such was Fuller's feeling that he had it
printed at his own expense.

Fuller's increasing alienation from his literary
constituency, which had its inception after the election of
1900, was intensified by McKinley's reinstatement as Chief
Executive; Fuller felt that America had at last repudiated

honest standards in democrary. He also ascribed poor sales

of his latest book, The Last Refuge (1900), to the same

 

perverse degeneracy. In an unusually extreme published
reaction to what Fuller felt had come to be personal
rebuffs, he said sourly:

To become the property of the world at any age is a
doubtful blessing. . . . Worst of all, there is no
going back. Once a celebrity always a celebrity--or

at least, a celebrity manque [sic]. True, we may drop
through the trap door, if we will, but there is no
retreat to the wings from which we first stepped out.
The house may like us, and then all is well. Also, it
may tire of us and yawn at us, may hoot at us, and then
it is very ill; but we have no choice save to continue
on our way across the boards towards the merciful
oblivion of the opposite side. The fickle public has
little enough notion of loyalty; the earlier we come on,
the earlier it expectzgus to go off; and there are the
empty decades beyond.

67Fuller, The New Flag (Chicago, 1899), pp. 9-10.

 

68Fuller, "Herbert Paul Waxes Enthusiastic with
bdatthew Arnold as Theme," Chicago Evening Post, 23 August
1902, p. 4.

 

(it 3

American'
of their

signalle'

    

veil as .
ture. T}

on Aneric

he ObSEI'r"

 

45

By the late nineties, Fuller was cognizant of
Americans' apathy toward potential threats to the validity
of their governmental ideals; he believed this decline was
signalled by willingness to accept mediocre statesmen as
well as by the plethora of inferior works of art and litera-
ture. Then, too, the burgeoning influence of popular tastes
on American culture became of growing concern to Fuller as
he observed its inevitably cheapening effect on the artists
and their art. His unwillingness or inability to bow to its
demands brought his effectiveness as a novelist to an end in
1895. His production was sharply reduced after 1903, and he
published no novel for fifteen years after that, so that his
reappearance in subsequent books (1918-1929) occasioned some
surprise. H. L. Mencken was among those who expressed

astonishment upon learning that Fuller was still writing and

alive.69
Two other explanations of Fuller's disappearance as a
realistic novelist have been made: Robert Morss Lovett

cites Fuller's involvement in the anti—imperialistic move-

ment, suggesting that Fuller "burned himself out" in writing

the vitriolic verse of The New Flag.7O Constance Griffin

 

asserts that Fuller was essentially an experimental writer

who, after he had mastered one technique, as he had done

9Penelope Redd, "Henry B. Fuller," The Scholastic,
6 (18 April 1925), 5. See also Van Wyck Brooks, The Writer
_13 America (New York, 1968), p. 61.

 

 

70Lovett, "Fuller of Chicago," p. 16.

  
   
  

with rea,
new and '
and comp.
filler, a

corelis t

 

to the be
then, was
a‘b‘are, we
fiCthnal
FEre livi
ePPIOach
i"‘El-Dro‘leme
Whose in‘.
the "58‘;

C

Q'MSee
T
‘UtiCago

“'as wide

46

with realism in With the Procession, was eager to move on to

 

new and untried forms of expression, such as verse narrative
and compact novels.71 It seems more likely, however, that
Fuller, at this point in his career, felt that his work as a
novelist had been ineffective and that a more direct approach
to the basic problems in American society, as he interpreted
them, was needed. Most of his readers, as he was fully
aware, were insensitive to the constructive intent of his
fictional treatment of the shallow society in which they
were living.72 Consequently, he would try a more direct
approach in an attempt to stimulate an interest in cultural
improvement. He would address his efforts directly to those
whose influence in such matters would be most productive,
the "saving remnant" of cultivated and knowledgeable

cognoscenti whose judgment he still trusted.73

 

The medium through which he would work was the

Chicago Post, after 1900, renamed the Evening Post, which

 

was widely acknowledged as having the most select group of

71Constance Griffin, Henry B; Fuller (Philadelphia,

1939), pp. 72-76.

72Fuller, "My Early Books," (c. 1919), p. 1, auto-
graphed manuscript in the Fuller Collection, Newberry
Library, Chicago.

73Fuller, "Development of Popular Literature,"
Chicago Evening Post, 31 May 1902, p. 9; "Literature and
the Market," Chicago Evening Post, 8 June 1901, p. 6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

regular
was a po
civic en
Chicago.
stocknar'.»
ciated it

advanced

 

 

 

47

regular readers of any paper in Chicago at the time.74 It
was a politically independent paper, supporting worthwhile
civic endeavors, such as the newly founded University of
Chicago.75 The city's businessmen read it for its complete
stockmarket and financial coverage, and their wives appre—
ciated its detailed attention to social events and its
advanced taste in cultural interests in Chicago. The first
Sunday edition of the paper had included Finley Peter Dunne's
"Frank's Visit to Grover," forecasting the famous Dooley
commentaries.76

This new undertaking provided Fuller with a weekly
audience of some of Chicago's leading citizens, many of them
potentially influential, both financially and culturally, in
the life of the city. It was an opportunity to pass on to
this group his ideas and his standards at a time when the
indirect influence of fiction seemed to have failed.

’Fuller apparently came by this new means of expression

indirectly: The Post welcomed freely submitted articles

from its readers on almost any subject; especially those

74Pierce, A History of Chicago, 11, 417-418. Dale

Kramer, Chicago REnaissance—(New York, 1966), p. 104. Floyd
Dell, in Homecoming: An Autobiography (New York, 1933), p.
188, refers to reading the Chicago Evening Post as "an

established habit among the best peOple."

 

 

 

 

75Thomas W. Goodspeed, Story 3: the University gf
Chicago: 1890-1925 (Chicago, 1925), pp. 72—73.

 

 

76Willis J. Abbott, "Chicago Newspapers and Their
Makers," Review gf Reviews, 11 (June, 1895), 646—665.

finse an
in keepi
articles
the Ital
essay cr
arts on

iron? to
apparent;
'I'l'iting,
articles

national

 

reEular S
editor 0f
:39 Sprin

icst 0f t.
three‘YEa
Drought t
{he EIOst

:1” that

r»;
ILQ

.‘n it S

48
whose authors were known to the city's inhibitants. In 1900,
in keeping with this policy, Fuller had written two such
articles: a review of Gabriele d'Annunzio's IlFuoco,77 by
the Italian dramatist whose work Fuller admired; and an
essay critical of the omission of a representative of the
arts on the newly established Civic Federation, an advisory
group to the city council in matters of civic policy.78 He
apparently found satisfaction in this type of free-lance
writing, for in 1901, he wrote twenty-six more unsolicited
articles for the same paper, all related to local and
national culture. In 1902, when the paper instituted a
regular Saturday literary page, Fuller was named the first
editor of the new venture, a position which he held until
the spring of 1903. In all, he wrote seventy—nine essays,
most of them two full-length newsprint columns, over the
three-year period.79 The intellectual tone which Fuller
brought to the weekly supplement caused it to become one of
the most highly respected columns in the Mid-West, a tradi-
tion that was carried on by Francis Hackett's Friday Review

when it succeeded Fuller's supplement in 1903.80 J. H.

 

77Fuller, "D'Annunzio's Cruel Perfidy," Chicago Post,
9 June 1900.

78Fuller, "The Civic Federation and Literature,"
Chicago Post, 14 July 1900.

79See Appendix I.

80The Friday Review continued to grow under the
successive editorships of Floyd Dell, Lucian Cary, and
Llewellyn Jones until 1932, when the Chicago Daily News
absorbed the old Evening Post and discontinued the feature.

 

 

 

Oppenhe:

 

that it
brown be
brow re;

literary

 

fact rem
these c0+
CitY'S Cl
303’ PIECE

fESpons i1:

 

thnS. 3':

49

Oppenheim, writing in The American Mercury in 1937, recalled

 

that it had been Fuller, "that little old gentleman with the

brown beard," who had established the Evening Post's high-

 

brow reputation that had stirred up the "intermittent
literary infectiousness" in Chicago.81

Although such a tribute may indeed be debated, the
fact remains that Fuller was able to Speak directly through
these columns to the peOple he considered important to the
city's cultural awareness. Fiction had apparently failed;
now precept took the reins. The outcome would be the
responsibility of those whom he might stimulate into action.
A sense of urgency and obligation permeate these communica-
tions. While a pervasive alienation from the philistinism
of his immediate environment serves as the fulcrum of his
continuing efforts toward cultural improvement, Fuller's
inherent discipline and dedication still provide the primary

source of leverage.

81J. H. Oppenheim, "Autopsy on Chicago," American

Mercury, 40 (April, 1937), 458-459. See also Lovett,
"Fuller of Chicago," p. 18.

He

influence

 

Opened th
Second Va
sidies fr
tiven We
lines alc
States he
Welopme
Strmath
5°:ia1 de
interim
ta buslr

:a'iPula.

CHAPTER II

"SUCCESS" AND LITERARY SURVIVAL: FULLER'S

ATTITUDE TOWARD MATERIALISTIC SOCIETY

Henry B. Fuller matured in times which were strongly
influenced by national economic expansion. The railroads
opened their first transcontinental route on 10 May 1869; a
second was inaugurated in 1881. There were enormous sub-
sidies from the federal government: by 1918, railroads were
given over 118,000,000 acres of public land, and Pacific
lines alone were financed by proceeds of grants from United
States bonds totaling $65,000,000.l These and similar
developments were followed by a corresponding rise in the
strength of organized labor, which was the most significant
social development of 1870-1900.2 A third important char-
acteristic of the time was the conflict between government

and business moguls. Widespread looting of corporations,

manipulation of stockholders by monopolistic consolidations,

1Morris Bien, United States Reclamation Service,

"Railroad and Other Land Grants," Encyclopedia Americana,
19530

 

2Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History gf the
Aggrican People (New York, 1965), p. 768.

 

 

50

and Gift

ledto

r1

lrust Ac

   

Anerican
ofgeogr
self-rel
fine ind_
Certainl;
Feonle ha
H 35 the
The Sanct
ElltiCal

aneqUita

 

Along wit

“tive c0]

Fu.
cf iutere
Eeriously
Equality,
he discij

51
and efforts to "corner" markets by individuals and cartels
led to the panic of 1873, and brought on the Sherman Anti-
Trust Act of 1890.

Henry Steele Commager, writing of this period in
American life, observed that among our citizens " . . . born
of geography, nourished by history, confirmed by philosophy,
self-reliance was elevated to a philosophical creed, and in
time individualism became synonymous with Americanism."3
Certainly solid values are significant features of that era.
People had great pride in the United States and pointed to
it as the epitome of the success of equalitarian democracy.
The sanctity of the individual was demanded from the social,
political, and the economic system as the only just basis of
an equitable society. The Horatio Alger legend flourished.
Along with these principles came a growing respect for
personal initiative, the Protestant work-ethic, and the

freedom of a laissez-faire democracy unhampered by authori-

 

tative controls.

Fuller was quite naturally drawn into this mainstream
of interest in the economic structure of society. Having
seriously accepted his patriotic heritage of democracy,
equality, and capitalistic optimism, be identified it with
the discipline of his youth, the standards of personal

achievements, and with the "Old Settler" traditions of his

3Henry Steele Commager, The American Mind (New Haven,
1950), p. 29.

 

a]
a e
w. k v a“
.9. 5

mu
.4

O

.H.»

r

2.

had

.rI.U

.1)
ls

52
background. He grew with it as Chicago grew. At the same
time, he nurtured his awareness of the defects of the order.
Commercial prosperity fostered materialistic values and
indifference to ethics. One illustration involves Washington
Gladden, a noted minister, Moderator of the National Council
of Congregational Churches, and hymn writer ("0 Master, Let
Me Walk with Thee"), who violently objected to a $100,000
gift offered by Standard Oil Company to the American Board
of Commissioners of the Congregational Church in 1905, and
was overruled by his Board. Muckraking exposures of
Standard Oil by Ida M. Tarbell in 1904, when she was editor
of McClure's, caused him to condemn the transaction as
"tainted money, unfit for Christian use," which would make
the church "a partner with plunderers."4 Such instances
were widely cited as examples of the gross degeneration
characteristic of the times.

Part of the reason for the unchecked enlargement of
unscrupulous interests lay in the fact that the nation had
not yet realized the value and extent of its untapped
resources. Henry Adams wrote that the year 1854, only three
years before Fuller's birth, was nearer to the year 1 in
concepts of science and technology than it was to the year

1900.5 Following the Civil War, undreamed-of potential was

4"Washington Gladden," Encyclopedia Americana. 1953;
see also H[arris] E[1wood] S[tarr], "Washington Gladden,"
DNB (1960).

 

5Henry Adams, The Education 3: Henry Adams (Boston,
1918), p. 53.

 

 

53
becoming evident. Rich stores of raw materials and new
methods of converting them into marketable products invited
rampant industrialism. The resulting commerce took prece—
dence over more esthetic goals which were important to
Fuller. His idealiSm and cultural sensibilities would have
been more at home in a world that looked up to men like
Emerson, Thoreau, and Channing; he was not comfortable in a
society whose heroes were such financial titans as the
Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, and Andrew Carnegie.

Fuller recorded his feelings graphically in poetry,
short stories, articles, plays, essays, and novels, which
will be studied in this chapter for their comment on this
issue, but as an introduction and a precis, it may be
emphatically said that he was nowhere portrayed his insight
into this subject more clearly than in a selection published

10 May 1902, in the Chicago Evening Post, where it ran

 

beneath a two-column headline, "Our National Literature
Suffers from Our National PrOSperity":

What if our prosperity, so excessive and extrava—
gant, had led us into a condition not remotely
resembling disease; and what if our ready and careless
acceptance of much that we now absorb under the name
of "literature" were but symptomatic of that state?

Now the effect of extreme prosperity on the
individual has been frequently noted-~and deplored.
Nor can the effect of prosperity on a people at large
be expected to operate in a manner essentially different
or to produce essentially different results. What
follows in one case follows in the other-~a certain
atrophy of the spiritual nature; a dulling of the
aesthetic perceptions; a tendency toward the develop-
ment of "fatwittedness" or of lightmindedness, along
with excessive self-satisfaction, and relaxation of
intellectual vigor, as shown in a disposition to
surrender one's self passively to mere amusement of
a none too worthy type.

cOn'
of
no
in

rotivat
E

dishear:

obstaclt

Standar;

dalizej
the Same
{ECG-€312
EhEir fi

Cut“and

 

 

 

did- Ed.
interests
lllance,

comeCtic
Edd Checl
Numbing,

L“. ,
«5 tlflel

FL

54
And in no part of the field of art are these dis-
couraging signs more observable than in the department
of literature--not even in that of the drama; and in
no section of literature are they morg observable than
in the section given over to fiction.

These remarks identify Fuller's protests against the
motivations in American life that seemed to him to be major
obstacles to national literary achievement. Sacrificing
standards to meet an "average" as evidenced in a democracy
disheartened him. He decried literary fads which commer-
cialized low tastes and disregarded artistic qualities; at
the same time, he predicted that the public w0uld come to
rec0gnize good writing and would eventually demand it in
their fiction. Business distractions would not crowd this
out--and Fuller knew business, as few writers of his period
did. Edmund Wilson wrote, "He knew everything about the
interests which he had to administer—-industry, real estate,
finance, and the legal procedures entailed by these. In
connection with the family properties, he collected rents
and checked on the buildings; he could even himself mend the
plumbing, and complained that this work took up too much of
"7

his time.

Fuller also drew on his observations of European

6Henry B. Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers
from Our National PrOSperity," Chicago Evening Post, 10 May
1902, II, p. 13.

 

7Edmund Wilson, "Henry B. Fuller, The Art of Making
It Flat," The New Yorker, 23 May 1970, p. 114. See also
Hamlin Garland, "Roadside Meetings of a Literary Nomad,"
Bookman, 70 (February, 1930), 635.

 

social
use of
The dis
enabled
human n

leading

H

D.

('D
_

 

55
social patterns as a means of objectifying the apparent mis-
use of human--and natural--resources within his own culture.
The distance he tried to maintain in his semi-seclusion
enabled him to see parallels between political systems and

human misery. In The Chevalier gf Pensieri-Vani (1890), a

 

 

leading character states:

The Prorege straightway declared that self-government
on any but a small scale, and in any but a young and
simple society, was a ludicrous and hideous fallacy,
and maintained that of all the perversions which the
workings of the human mind as applied to politics had
developed, none was more astoundingly illogical than
that which resulted in the conclusion that an aggrega-
tion of half a million human beings, crowding into the
space of a few square miles the extremes of wealth and
poverty, and all the possibilities of ambition and
villainy and ignorance and vice and misery and lgwless—
ness and seething discontent, could rule itself.

Thus in a single rolling sentence of more than a hundred
words, Fuller castigates the shortcomings of democracy
through a protagonist. It was the system that was at fault;
it abused people, the components of society. "A hundred
weavers in their own cottages meant peaceful industry and
home content; a hundred hundred, massed in one great factory,
meant vice and squalor and disorder. Society had never
courted failure or bid for misery more ardently than when it
had accepted an urban industrialism for a basis."9
The Prorege conceded that Italian civilization was

honeycombed by "financial incapacity,‘ while America had

8Fuller, The Chevalier g: Pensieri-Vani (New York,
1899), pp. 166—167.

9Ibid., pp. 167-168.

 

 

little
tural a
the Ace
10
Rose.
America;
chronon~
t0 the ;
the gar:
contra}-
in Place

Sations

arts. A

COrPorat

 

the Medi.
The? enjr
the P0 It;
“the Cit}
Surrouude

Fa
Eighty‘ t'w'
ildus trla

,(
'1 EIEedY

10
ll_
12

13

 

56
little to fear from a deficit; but he pointed out the cul-
tural advantages of their society--the Opera, the Carnival,
the Accademia, the Salon, the Concorso, the Grand Prix de
Rome.10 Something must also be said for the uses of time.
American enterprise makes "the rich man a slave to his

chronometer,’ and "the bare figure of leisure, when exposed

to the public gaze, was expected to be decorously draped in
the garment of strenuous endeavor."11 Latin society, on the
contrary, formulated an image of gracious and noble living
in place of such hectic, avaricious activity.12 Its compen-
sations were peace, serenity, and an appreciation of the
arts. Americans have the Stock Exchange, the U. S. Steel
Corporation, and a forest of skyscrapers; the Italians have
the Medici, Michelangelo, and Ghiberti's magnificent doors.
They enjoy the "tumultuous rapture" of the Via Flaminia and
the Porta del Popolo, and are the custodians of Viterbo,
"the city of handsome fountains and beautiful women,"
surrounded by romantic ruins.l3

Fuller's first trip to Europe in 1879, when he was
twenty-two deeply impressed him with the contrasts of an
industrial society which raped the landscape for the benefit
of greedy mercantile interests and the natural loveliness of

10Fuller, The Chevalier, pp. 104-105.

llIbid., p. 98.

12Ibid., p. 68.

13Ibid., p. 4.

 

57
an old world picture book country where scenery had been
treasured in its pristine state since antiquity. Fuller

vented these sentiments in a singularly vehement speech

 

which he has the Prorege say to himself in The Chevalier 2i

Pensieri-Vani. His character begins with a topical sentence

 

that is a rhetorical question:

Whose was the earth? our indignant prince would ask
himself when considerations of this kind rose up to
irritate him. Was it the exclusive possession of those
merely who were now living out their brief day upon it,
or was it something more-~the foothold and heritage of
generations yet to come? Who could make good to those
of the coming century the felled trees, the gashed and
leveled hills, the polluted ponds and choked-up trees
that signalized our present dealings with outraged and
suffering Mother Nature? Who was to render back to
them an earth as beautiful as that which we ourselves
received as our right,--an earth whose possession and
enjoyment is as much, inalienably, their right, as ours?
More; what power could save us--us, full of small
greeds and great irreverences--from the amaze and scozn
and contempt and indignation of millions yet unborn?l

It is significant that the prince lost his temper "for the
first and last time in his life" when expressing his views
on exploitation, since this underscores the importance it
had for Fuller. He writes, "If it were necessary, he
angrily declared, to discriminate between a man and a
machine, it was doubly, trebly necessary to discriminate
between a man and a mere money-making machine."15

While Fuller abhorred the onslaught of industrial

nuachanism that would destroy the organic integrity of our

l4Fuller, The Chevalier, pp. 163-164.

 

lsIbid., p. 169.

 

envircr
were to
pcintin
none at
paths 0

dranati

 

busines:

HUS C0]:

had achi

CUEPatri

58
environment, he believed the economic requirements of man
were compatible with esthetic demands. He said so plainly,
pointing out that it is a matter of scaling the values, and
none at all a case of insisting that America "forsake the

"16

paths of comfort and prosperity. In The Chevalier, he

 

dramatizes this idea when George Occident, the American
businessman, weds a signorina who is an accomplished artist.
Thus commercialism and culture join hands.

This is not to say that Fuller thought that Americans
had achieved such a union. On the contrary, he felt his
compatriots were prostituting the benefits of clean air and
green earth to an agonizing degree. He pursues this theme
in an essay, "Chicago's Book of Days." In this work, he
asserts that the city is positively polluted with the abuses
of commercialism; it is "the Great Horror show," and the
staging consists of a sprawling shambles comprised of

. . . raw huddles of workers' cottages, tangles of
telegraph-poles and of trolley wires that lead on the
eye toward ugly, shapeless hulks looming above the
dingy horizon--foundries, elevators, machine-shops,
breweries, factories, ice-houses--detached notes that
preclude the great discord to come. Then avenues of
tracks, shut in by the shameless backs of things and
spanned by grimy viaducts; arrays of mean streets
daggedly curtained against the sun and resolutely
fighting off the sweet country airs. The heart sinks,
the stomach revolts, as, through dirt, dust, grime,
soot, smoke and cinders, the trembling neophyte bumps
and jars along toward the besmirchef7shrine of the two-
faced goddess of Bustle and Slouch.

16Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers from Our
National Prosperity," p. 13.

17Fuller, "Chicago's Book of Days," The Outlook, 69
(5 October 1901), 291.

 

 

the 533

one of '

the fall

tr00p o:

 

tinde r5
C0aplexi

H23 and

 

59
He points out that the Chicago River was "an Open sewer,"
but has now been cleared. Nevertheless, the metropolis is
still "shabby, grim, and slovenly." It could be compared to
Dante's Inferno: "Noise, glare, smoke, darkness, envelop

the grande studio hurrying through this basso inferno, any

 

 

one of whom might well ask about the wayfaring stranger as
the fallen angels asked Virgil about Dante." A screeching
tr00p of sixteen hundred trains a day ravaged the Loop,
keeping it in a state of continual uproar.l8 Humans are
victimized by the foul atmosphere of smoke, grime, soot, and

cinders of modern conveniences that "play havoc with the
19

" and create a "great array of clay-faces."

complexion,

Man and nature are embattled. Their strife is punctuated
20

only by brief truces.

In another essay, "Art in America,‘ Fuller deplores
the sad state of culture in the nation. He writes, "Our

climate is against us. Ethnologists call our continent the
graveyard of nations; its air has stimulated race after race

' and we have set the stage for this

into their graves,’
catastrophe, since vested interests must have their way.

"Our business preoccupations are against us. The chances

for material success are still too many and too easily

18Fuller, "Chicago's Book of Days," pp. 294-296.
lglbid., p. 297.
20

Ibid., p. 299.

v I
taren.

The
ear
poe
tiv
pie
tou
nor
of

we 1
Spre
ancd

 

Years la
POt, bES
0‘“ Smel
"idely i
5? its H
Hunter's
Vird Set
Hiidle K

hold its

a
‘s

‘1.
\CS 80‘

60

taken."21 He decries what this does to our ecology:

The world is becoming horrible. Modern man marks the
earthzgith ruin in a thoroughgoing fashion that the
poet, who wrote before the invention of the locomo-
tive, could hardly have dreamed of. We take our
pleasures as brutally as we satisfy our needs; the
tourist-railways in the Tyrol speak almost the last
word in downright barbarism. The odious developments
of modern advertising need not be dwelt upon. Gains
involve losses; everything must be paid for; and here
we have the price exacted by a rising democracy, by a
spreading industrialism, and by the thickening 3%pli-
ances that the luxury of modern living demands.

Fuller was appalled at the defilement of our cities.
Years later he wrote in the New York Times: "The Melting
Pot, besides having its own color, begins to give out its
own smell. Its reek fills New York and floats out rather
widely in all directions. New York, which was once afflicted
by its Hunter Point, is itself close to becoming a sort of
Hunter's Point for the nation at large. In particular, the
wind sets in the direction of the reasonably uncontaminated
Middle West. Must our country open its windpipe only to
hold its nose?"24

Likewise, in an early novel, he condemned with
satiric savagery what man has done to the landscape:

21Fuller, "Art in America,"
1899), 221.

22

Bookman, 10 (November,

An obvious allusion to Lord Byron's "Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage," stanza 179, line 3: "Man marks the earth with
ruin,--his control/Stops with the shore."

2
3Fuller, "Art in America," p. 223.

24Fuller, "The Melting Pot Begins to Smell," New York
EEEEEE Book Review, 21 December 1924, p. 2.

be fes
fire-e
road,

fruit-

tnen .

natur
frequ
"Nave

bUrde

61

he festooned it with telegraph wires, and draped it with
fire-escapes, and girdled it with a stretch of elevated
road, and hung it with signboards, and hedged it in with
fruit-stands, and swathed it in clouds of coal smoke, and
then asked them to find it; that was the puzzle, he said."25

By contrast, Fuller loved to describe unblemished
nature as it was in an unspoiled country, like Italy, and
frequently such passages as these appear in his novels:
"Never had cypresses seemed deeper, denser, more heavily
burdened with the centuries. Never had closer shadows been
thrown; never had a white town, an azure lake, a purple
headland behind it, shone through aged trunks with a greater
intensity of charm."26 Even the cities were lovely: "We
took our early coffee, and then stepped out on the terrace
for one final look over the site of old Agrigentum, 'the

most beautiful city of mortals. The morning sun touched up

our fountain, our flower-pots, and our box-hedges, and drove

slantingly across the long, many-windowed front of the house

itself."27 Old world scenery was overpowering: " . . . a

wide and graceful expanse of orchard, vineyard, and forest,--

a tract luxuriant with the grape, the fig, and chestnut and

25Fuller, With the Procession, A Novel (New York,

1895), p. 299.
26
Fuller, Gardens 3: This World (New York, 1929),
PP . 151-152 .

27Fu11er, "The Greatest of These," from The Other
Side (Boston, 1898), pp. 67—68.

 

 

walnut t
churches

of porph

n untar
t0 Chang
the 'tas
ltlSa

eXpress

one thing
Mrtar~bc
lhEre is
being so;
SFlvan Vi
'35 factc

As
Of articl
[Ogjtry ,]
liar "a b

can expeC

62

walnut trees, sprinkled with numberless castles, villas,
churches, and villages, and inclosed by graceful mountains
of porphyry. . . ."28

Fuller stated his case strongly for all who cherish
an untarnished nature: "As soon request the Alps themselves
to change their robe of snow and pine-boughs according as
the 'taste for nature' might wax or wane or vacillate."29
It is a graphic illustration of what Fuller is seeking to
express in comparing Continental life with that in America:
" . . . a civilization which grew up out of the ground was
one thing, while a civilization fetched from afar on a
mortar-board and slapped on with a trowel was another."30
There is a difference between growing up with a land, and
being superimposed upon it. There is a difference between
sylvan vistas, and areas turned to a wasteland by foundries
and factories belching forth clouds of gas and grime.

Again and again he turned to this topic in his series

of articles in the Chicago Evening Post. In "Chicago as a

 

Country Town,’ Fuller says "the streets are filthy," but

that "a big city is a camp, not a picnic ground,‘ and one

can expect "billboards, rubbish, and garbage."31 He

28Fuller, The Chatelaine gi Lg Trinite (New York,
1892), p. 114.

29Ibid., p. 16.

30Ibid., p. 102.

 

31Fuller, "Chicago as a Country Town," The Chicago
Evening Post, 27 April 1901, p. 6.

 

 

 

erpostulz
the large
had to c
aillion
town has
guard or
other n1
Suypres
conscie
Wha
a C
all
ing
dis
Sh:
He-

th
to

“an.

63

expostulates, "Whether the natural man has a fair show in

the large, modern city is more than a question,’ since he

had to contend with his own pollution, and that of two

million others.32 In the proliferation of billboards, "the
town has become a horror. . . . We guard our noses; why not
guard our eyes? The billboard is an ocular stench; like any

other nuisance, addressed to any other sense, it should be

suppressed, and he fulminates against the "rapacity and

consciencelessness" of the commercial interests:

I have no dream of Chicago as a City Beautiful;
what I do want, and still hope for, is a City Decent,
a City Self-Respecting. At present, are we a city at
all? Are we not, rather, a Jay Town, painfully comb-
ing the seeds out of our hair?

Remove every billboard from the central downtown
district. This, the most civic part of the city,
should be under its own special dispensation anyway.
Here is the first bit of special, limited legislation
that the heart of the town requires. Many others might
follow.

Remove every billboard that faces on any boulevard
or is visible from any park. The presence of such
defacements defeats th§4objects for which the citizens
have taxed themselves.

Finally, he praised those who devoted their efforts
to creating public parks that would tender "an increased
measure of healthfulness and beauty in the lives of the

dwellers in our large, growing cities, often too ugly and

32Fuller, "Municipal Art Substitute," Chicago Evening
Post, 11 May 1901, p. 6.

33Fuller, "Billboards and the Remedy," Chicago
Evening Post, 27 July 1901, p. 6.

34Ibid.

 

 

neglected
called at
wrb sucl
was a fe

on which

ately ft
the encr
regular
influen
theta C0

cratic

‘t‘Or
.

.
.tq

\ti‘

64

neglected."35

In these and numerous other writings, he
called attention to the need for social action that would

curb such conditions, but at the roots of such observations

was a festering distrust of the principle of laissez faire

 

on which much of the business community flourished.

Fuller was convinced that American business deliber-
ately fostered an image of "success" that was inimical to
the encouragement of cultural accomplishment. Certainly he
regularly castigated what he conceived to be detrimental
influences, expressing several recurring themes. One of
them concerned the final consequences attendant on the demo-
cratic principles on which the American social and economic
system was founded. To him, the implications for the artist
were not esthetically sound. Majority rule tends to efface
traditional standards, he believed, and substitutes a common
denominator or an "average" acceptable measure of achieve-
ment. To his mind such a situation discourages the most
accomplished artists. Instead, it encourages proliferation
of the uninformed opinions and transient diversions of the
populace, whose cultural insights are not of the necessary
calibre to insure judgments of quality in what constitutes
great art. At the least, it is a situation which cannot
foster enduring concepts of artistic advancement.

A second weakness of a genuine democrary from an

35Fuller, "Work of the 'Landscape Architect' and His
Opportunities East and West," Chicago Evenigg Post Book
Section, 26 July 1902, p. 4.

 

artist's
initiativ
of an ent
good for
for persc
valid pl.
aere fad
when Suc
than mat
This can
thorough
Passing
The arti
the arts
Hare luc

Calied I

65
artist's point of view is that the stress on personal
initiative and rank individualism can distort the standards
of an entire nation. Each man, deciding for himself what is
good for him politically, naturally transfers this penchant
for personal authority to the realm of art, where it has no
valid place. Popular acclaim may unworthily be given to
mere fads, garnishing them with the laurels of "success,"
when such mass judgments are based on current fancy rather
than mature experience and a seasoned knowledge of the past.
This can only lead to assessments that are not based on a
thorough acquaintance with the development of art, but on
passing whim. A lowering of standards inevitably results.
The artist quickly learns he may not thrive on devotion to
the arts; he may do better by prostituting his ideals to the
more lucrative clamor of public demand. In brief, he is
called upon to auction himself off.

While Fuller accepted the moral principles inherent
in democracy as a system and the rights guaranteed by it, he
was quick to perceive its shortcomings when its effects on
the social, esthetic, and cultural tone of the nation are
considered. He was troubled by the materialism dominating
the low fare that quenched the public's thirst for adventure
and diversion-~the "best seller" complex, the obsessive
commercialism, the deceptive glitter that infected every
phase of literature.

These ills, he felt, could be attributed directly to

the competitive structure basic to the industrial society

that th?
uhat got
persists
"success
stressed
the bles
Connell

nation,

thousand
Success :
ingenuom
30th Conn
fileared
5”” its

Strengthe

“Id Over

66
that thrived in America. False pictures were painted of
what good and true standards should be. One of the most
persistent types nourished by this philoSOphy was the great
"success story" and the formula on which it thrived. It
stressed the sanctity of wealth, the divinity of prosperity,
the blessings of those who "had arrived." In 1887, Russell
Conwell loosed his lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," on the
nation, and before he was through, he had delivered it five
thousand times. Horatio Alger flooded the country with
success stories of Tattered Tom and Ragged Dick, whose
ingenuous industry won them the hand of the boss's daughter.
Both Conwell and Alger happened to be clergymen, so it
appeared that Christianity, via the Protestant work ethic,
gave its approval to affluence, almost giving a doctrinal
cast to these ideas. Andrew Carnegie's Gospel gi Wealth

(1889) and Orison S. Marden's Pushing £2 the Front (1894)

 

strengthened materialism as an American achievement. Marden
sold over three million of his publications, not including
his magazine, Success, which had a host of readers coast to

coast. Frank C. Haddock's Power 9; Will (1907) is another

 

production in this genre.

Fuller dramatized the effects of such materialistic
images of success on the human condition through portrayals
both in his fiction and non-fiction. Typical of these is a
long poem, "The Arid Life of John B. Hill, A Tale in Free

Verse,‘ of an American businessman who "lived . . . and

died for The Merchants' National Tax-Title and Trust Co.,"

shere he
day and
doaestic
church,
paraphra;
gain the
Fl
in anothe
Piece an
in his ef
resorts t
SUPPOrt h
POSitlon.
talent, a
Nth the
Prove sup.
engated i]
being "a :
ElS energ:
:lEa he Wt

67

where he was "perfect, prized, well-paid." He worked all
day and all night for years to reach the top. "Thus
domesticity slid by the board;/And so did civics, art,
church, charity,/And all the rest."36 The poem literally
paraphrases Jesus, "For what is a man profited, if he shall
gain the whole world, and lose his soul?"37

Fuller lampoons the same spiritual shortsightedness

"38 In this

in another narrative poem, "The 'Art of Life'.
piece an aspiring young writer, Horace Tripp, disappointed
in his efforts to get his book into print, temporarily
resorts to proofreading for a publishing firm so as to
support his family. His industry soon earns him an editing
position. At first, he was confident of his personal
talent, and disdainfully went about his workaday occupation
with the thought in mind that his creative potential would
prove superior to the trivial and routine work which he was
engaged in during office hours. However, the demands of
being "a salaried cog in a big and busy machine" consumed
his energy and paid him well. He gradually adjusted to the

idea he would never get around to writing. He learned his

employer had had aspirations, too; he had begun as a

36Fuller, "The Arid Life of John B. Hill," Current
Qilifliflfl: 61 (July, 1916), 58. Republished as "Aridity" in
£233 Long and Short (Boston, 1917), pp. 21-26.

37M

 

t. 16:26, Mk. 8:36, Lk 9:25.

38Fuller, "The 'Art of Life'," in Lines Long and
Sho rt, pp. 111-117.

 

publis
before
profit
busine:
acumen.
as 3 hi
Artist,
Such a
"UVErly
Dus eff
if thei

Profit

fL’l a C!
fl indu.
5? hand
The lad;

Criginal

68
publisher of wallpaper, then as a printer of stationery,
before he began to deal in books and started earning a
profit of 18.75 per cent. Horace now conceived of "the
business" as a nonpareil accomplishment of imagination,
acumen, and economic techniques, and looked upon his boss
as a highly creative Spirit, finally proclaiming him "an
Artist." At length, as the close associate and assistant of
such a man, Horace frowns upon the idealistic attempts of
"overly-artistic" young authors as ill-advised and impecuni-
ous efforts of people without any business gumption. Even
if their writing can be sold, the publisher is sure to
profit by it; he is the only one who cannot lose.

In "A Study in Clay,"39 Fuller demonstrates how fear-
ful a cost is levied on individualism by the ravaging ogre
of industrial capitalism. George Russell makes fine pottery
by hand in a small shop he has set up in his mother's home.
The ladies of West Milford admire his pieces for their
originality and craftsmanship and keep him busily producing.
When representatives of a large pottery manufacturer buy him
out, he declines their offer to be foreman in their expand-
ing empire and takes a nondescript job as an office clerk in
the city rather than see his art "ground to nothingness
between the upper and nether millstones of capital and

labor." A year later, the West Milford Art Potteries have

39Fuller, Unpublished manuscript in the Fuller

collection in the Newberry Library, Chicago, 18 pages,
undated.

establis

elm, of

down.
to be be
tion, Cc
the minr

in the 1

Just pre
Siallow

Heamhil
Mnor ty
in the e:

a

10599,

Ms Ultir
bandage (
widely ar
”EpaniOE

hat" 1

1:011, is

:PIEad me

.
1~'
‘o

“6‘ Th
“alvidua
hr

\- “Ce ‘1‘

0i

Pmtected

In

69
eStablished a new plant on the site of the old home. The
8131’ of which George had nostalgic memories, has been cut
donna. Though the new firm does not know it yet, it is about
to 138 bought out and superseded by a still larger corpora-
tiorx, Consolidated Potteries: "Yes, the perch has swallowed
the Ininnow; but this by no means represents the final stage
ha tlie industrial progress of West Milford. That stage is
just: preparing; for presently the pike will come along and
swallJow the perch. . . . Capitalism is under way. . . ."
Meanvflnile, George Russell, "who disdained the sway of a
minor' tyrant [the West Milford Art Potteries] may succumb,
in tlre end, to the sway of a major one. Life, he may come
to 863e, is a strife; and tyranny, in one kind or another,
its tiltimate form. A tyranny that holds but few serfs in
bondage of but narrow range is intolerable; one that spreads
widelgy and comprehends thousands and tens of thousands in a
comPanionable coercion, may seem to him an easier yoke to
bear." This "companionable coercion," in Fuller's estima-
tion, is a real but subtle danger concomitant with the wide-
Spread mercenary tendencies rampant in American business
life. Through this involuntary regimentation of the
indiVi-dual, humans lost their personal dignity and indepen-
dence ‘Vhile all the time being told these were being
protected.

In "The Man with the Pen" Fuller lashed out at this

tyrann}
singula
His tiI
the Hoe
enslave
sensibi

the cog

conditic

'hrt in

I
0f o
arti
alit
Proc
desi
This
tr8n

F.
PIOpq
or tc

70

40
Atyznanny of commercial society. He regarded it to be a
singularly conspicuous ailment of the democratic system.
His title, a paraphrase of Edwin Markham's "The Man with
the: Hoe," is Fuller's intercession for the urban clerks
ensluaved by office routines which dull and mechanize their

senenibilities and reduce them to the role of mere robots in

the «zogwheel procedures of "the system."
Fuller stigmatized other aspects of this tragic

condiqtion and its effects on character in his major essay,

"Art :in America," writing:

The acute national ambition to exploit the efforts
C>f others is against us. But the hall-mark of the
airtist absolute is his wish, as an individual person-
zality, to do and be the thing in its entirety--to
I’roceed regardless of organisation, of cooperation; he
deesires neither to direct nor to be directed in turn.
11113 feeling is, of course, in opposition to the whole

tcrend of modern American civilisation.
Furthermore, there exists among us an incorrigible

Ptropensity to live life rather than to represent it,

crr'to discuss it, or to Speculate upon it.
But more and more our intellectual living goes on

Inearely from hand to mouth, and this is the most serious
01? all our obstaclzi. Sufficient unto the day is the

newspaper thereof.
Fuller's conclusion was that the entire social fabric

in the: nation at the turn of the century was undergoing "a

PIOCESES of democratization--of vulgarization, some would

40Fuller, Unpublished manuscript, 4 pages, attributed
by Griffin to the period 1894-1907, and housed in the Fuller

COllectxion in the Newberry Library, Chicago.

41Fuller, "Art in America," p. 221.

say.
cann ‘
day.
appeal
accept
qualit
being
of att
Briefl‘
the 'c‘
twenty

crity c

Eateria
Period,

DHEny,

FH'

'wlcago

All
Doi
COn
I'Oa
903
It

bea
fro

71

n42 . .
say. In literature, in religion, drama, mu81c, and
manners "the doctrine of the majority" was the rule of the
day. Whatever succeeded in achieving the most widespread
appeal in any of these areas became the praiseworthy and
acceptable mode. As a result, standards depreciated,
quality broke down, and both succumbed to the pressures of
being "average." Depth of meaning was nullified by latitude
of attraction until no asPect of modern life was unaffected.
Briefly put, "The 'masses' have gained the upper hand over
the 'classes' . . . all in the short space of fifteen or
twenty years."43 Excellence was giving over to the medio-
crity of the mean.

Fuller is not alone in pointing out the ravages of
materialism on the American character, particularly at this
period, and especially as applied to Chicago. Bernard
Duffey, in an early study of Fuller, has this to say of the
Chicago of that era:

All the world, it felt, now knew it to be the busiest,
noisiest, dirtiest, and most expansive city on the
continent; the seething and polyglot market of rail-
roads, grain, meat, timber, and machinery; and just
possibly the wickedest city of the new world as well.
It had little to recommend it except wealth; little

beauty, little culture, no tradition, no variety apart
from that of its despised but numerous immigrant

42Fuller, "Development of Popular Literature through
Present Deluge of Booksfl Chicago Evening Post, 31 May 1902,
p. 9.

 

43Ibid. He adds that syntax itself has become mere

convention, and that "orthography is a social Shibboleth,"
or straitjacket.

P0.
[16!

tees b)
vivid e
I P.
not
wan
get
int
it
do
can

5"0 answ

Materia;
tion of
behind I
CVEavOrJ
'Eianded
'3 frang
dollar c

c‘cllars

72

nationalities. But these things, it felt, came second.
Possess the wealth, and you could buy what e122 you
needed. And, by 1890, the money was on hand.

Money was just the trouble. It comprised its devo-
tees by stifling all other motivations. Duffey cites a
vivid example, Philip D. Armour, who said of himself,

I have no other interest in life but my business. I do
not want any more money; as you say, I have more than I
want. I do not love the money. What I do love is the
getting of it. All these years of my life I have put
into this work, and now it is my life and I cannot give
it up. What other interest can you suggest to me? I
do not read. I do not take any part in politics. What
can I do?

No answer to this is recorded.45

Fuller too felt Chicago was wicked, and said so.
Material prOSperity would be no boon without "the extirpa-
tion of the moral and civic evil that has reared itself

behind the back of a resolute but too preoccupied en—

deavor."46 City payrolls had been falsified and offenders

remanded to the penitentiary; there was "iniquitous dealing"
in franchises on the part of aldermen; however, "a dirty

dollar contains as many cents as a clean one, and the dirty

dollars are in the large majority, besides."47

44Bernard Duffey, "Henry Fuller," The Chicago
Renaissance in American Letters, 3 Critical History (East
Lansing, 1954), p. 27.

45Duffey, p. 32, citing Wayne Andrews, Battle for
Chicago (New York, 1946), p. 95.

 

 

 

 

 

46Henry B. Fuller, "The Upward Movement in Chicago,"
Atlantic Monthly, 80 (October, 1897), 547.

471b1d., pp. 535, 545.

attack,
1:81! 1
tions c
exhibit

the far

avarici

As
the
ope;
hee.
Ple,
had
had
Once
thrc
Vit'r
br0u

Sand
that
matt
Urge
old

8851
Pani

JIashly

fl

dbIai

hatiCio
rePUtEdl
T‘ate v
farkes,
"3o.

73
This grasping "image of success" is infectious; it
attacks women also, and they become notorious Hetty Greens.
Their complicity--and duplicity--in the financial manipula-
tions of their men is registered by the interest they
exhibit in following fiscal chicanery, and how business in
the fanuily ebbs and flows. Thus, Fuller's protagonist in

With‘the Procession, Jane Marshall, falls victim to this

 

avaricious attitude:

As a matter of fact, Jane was uncomfortably mindful
that more than once within the past month she had
opened the paper to Building Notes before giving due
heed to Insurance News. She had been distinctly
pleased to read that the Bingham Construction Company
had just got one big building ready for tenancy, or
had just been awarded the contract for another; and
once, for a week, she had followed the head of it
through a particularly stubborn bricklayers' strike
with the most avid interest. Indeed, she had been
brought back to herself by a fire which had damaged
one of Brower's companies to the extent of five thou-
sand dollars and another to the extent of ten. After
that she chained her wandering attention to such
matters as short rates and unearned premiums, the
Organization of new companies and the bankruptcies of
old ones, the upward climbing of sub-solicitors and
assistant managers, the losses suffered by the com-
Panies. . . .

Success was affluence. Jane herself announced this
brashly to her father: "There, now, you've seen what money

and brains can do. Well, haven't we ot mone ? Haven't we
__ 8 y ___

48Henrietta (Hetty) Green (1835-1916), a legendary,
aVaricious Wall Street financier who was for many years
rePl-ltedly the richest woman in the United States, left an
estate valued at $100,000,000. See S. T. Moore and B.

igggges, Hetty Green: A Woman Who Loved Money (New York,

49Fuller, With the Procession, p. 252.

 

 

 

 

 

got b
and l
:rote
acter:
accide
much u
that t

the re

should
in the
the UTE
Sacral
istic s
heCame
'EbIEn
is: in
umbina
'PECUh

74
got brains? Is there any reason why we shouldn't be known,
and looked up to, and respected?"50 As William Dean Howells

wrote in reviewing Fuller's The Cliff-Dwellers, the char-

 

acters' "relation to one another is mainly through this
accident [of wealth], but accident in our economic life, so
much more than will or conscience, is the determining force,
that the conception of the story fully justifies itself to
the reader's intelligence."51
It seemed only natural that new social standards
should gain prominence. Americans generally were involved
in the new industrial society which was coming to dominate
the urban areas where increasing numbers of them lived.
Social and ethical problems fostered by an acutely material-
istic system superseded earlier standards, and many observers
became critical of these changes. Writers like Thorstein
Veblen attacked the structure of nineteenth century capital-
ism in violent terms.52 He felt the corporate and syndicate
combinations, if unrestricted, would give rise at length to
a pecuniary orientation which would spawn disastrous

business cycles.

50Fuller, With the Procession, p. 197.

51William Dean Howells, review of "The Cliff-
DWfiLlers," Harper's Bazaar, 26 (28 October 1893), 883.
Intended for Harper's Weekly, the review was mistakenly
Pablished in Harper's Bazaar.
the 52His most significant books include The Theory 3:
§~— ILS§isure Class, his first work (1899); The Theory of
eEELELSEEE Enterprise; The Instinct of Workmanship, and The

2515524§1 Interests and the State of the Industrial Arts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gould

Cornel
iew Yo
street
Gilded
brass.
'hOarsc
tion w,-
and his
and on

Preside
ainorit
the man

0f the

75

Industrial success in this area was Jim Fisk and Jay
Gould looting the Erie Railroad by stock-watering, or
Cornelius Vanderbilt doing the same, more genteelly, to the
New York Central.‘ Peter Widener bribed aldermen to get
street railway franchises. Well did Mark Twain call it the
Gilded Age, for when the gilt wore off, one found only
brass. Even Longfellow wrote in 1872 that the country had a
"hoarse Death-rattle in its throat." The political situa-
tion was rotten, too. During the early 1870's, "Boss" Tweed
and his gang looted New York City of more than $100,000,000,
and on 2 March 1877, the Electoral Commission awarded the
Presidency of the United States to a candidate with a
minority of the national ballots to his credit, perverting
the mandate of the Electoral College by outright violation
of the XV Amendment.

Fuller pictured this state of affairs in a variety of
WOrks throughout his career. Most notable, perhaps are his
characterizations in The Cliff-Dwellers. Howells speaks
Plainly of it in his review of the book: "There is very
little that is fine in any of the people, and the women, if
POSSible, are a little more odious than the men. But they
are Such as human nature abandoned to mere business, and
having no ideal but commercial success and social success,
must be. In this they are of New York as much as they are
Of Chicago; perhaps nine-tenths of the whole city life of

America can find itself glassed in this unflattering

rirror.
of inte
and est

lead tc

rateria
that it
that wo
Shallow
Forks.5

the Chi

gov.
and
rat}
to l
and
Sat:
89m
PIE:
fig;
am ]
hoi]

hanc

0ft
tUre

|
1 h

HarCh

76
o "53 O

mirror. The logical outcome, Fuller asserted, was a loss
of integrity, of standards, and of preference for the moral
and esthetic ideal. Concessions to the "average" could only
lead to mass intellect and mass taste.

One of Fuller's major concerns was not merely that
materialism was detrimental to the national character, but

that it demoralized the arts.. An emerging elite class, the

nouveaux riches, sought for literary and artistic fashions

 

that would dignify their new status. A culture of fads and
shallow escape literature weakened the sale of serious
works.54 Fuller poses this issue directly in a column in

the Chicago Evening Post:

 

The peculiar and none too creditable conditions that
govern novel writing just at present bring the serious
and conscientious fiction-maker face to face with a
rather portentous question. How, he asks himself, am I
to meet the demands made by a demoralized public taste
and at the same time save my self-respect; how am I to
satisfy the clamor for swift action, bold adventure and
general violence and heroics and yet through all this
preserve a temperate regard for my own material and a
rigid observance of my own principles--how, in short,
am I to keep the pot boiling without quite letting it
boil over?

[It can only be done] under the fine restraint of a
hand that scorns the cheap and irresponsible procedure
of the averagg maker of the mere "romance of adven-
ture" . . . . 5

Philosophically speaking, Fuller's approach was

53Howells, review of The Cliff-Dwellers.

54Discussed at length in Dixon Wecter, The Sage f

American Society (New York, 1937), pp. 143-148. _—

55Fuller, "Review of New Books,‘
29 March 1902, p. 11.

 

 

 

Chicago Evening Post,

 

pragn;
sensi?
cultu
motiv.
--the
its c1
rate a
critiq

rank 3

had mo-
ate in:
EEthEr

b'hich h
'Ehe fe
that mo
(0r dOu
But 31a
'ithOut
rge C
Euller

{Crld 0

(n

Lie.
c'trary

P.

h:

”‘81
o

77

pragmatic. He intended to direct the still-plastic esthetic
sensibilities of the monied elite into channels that would
culturally benefit the whole of society. The basis of this
motivation was his conviction that the possessors of wealth
--the accepted symbol of power-~u1timately would determine
its cultural tone. "A small number of people make the ulti-
mate appraisement; . . . that the ultimate tribunal of
critique is lodged in the mass, is to be dominated by the
rank and file . . . is . . . far from true."

Unfortunately, however, as Fuller well knew, many who
had money, and little else, had an increasingly proportion-
ate influence on culture, and this influence was not alto-

gether good. A leading character in Not on the Screen,

 

which he wrote during his last year, reveals this situation:
"She felt confident that manners would accompany money, and
that most of the people who had paid their twenty dollars
(or double that, in some cases) would behave with propriety.
But alas, there are those who can command plenty of money
without commanding any manners at all. They pullulate in

"57

large cities, and they congregate on such occasions. But

Fuller had recognized all along that the glittering social

world of those who enjoyed business success was often cruel

S6Fuller, "Frank Norris and Jack London on the
Literary Art," Chicago Evening Post, 6 September 1902,
Section II, p. 9.

57

 

 

Fuller, Not on the Screen (New York, 1930), pp.
80-81.

78

to legitimate artists, who were out of their element there

and not received as equals in such company: ". . . a sense

of general negligibility that rocks all but the firmest
natures to their base. Sometimes a young poet, already
celebrated through the literary world, yet quite unknown by
corporate society, may suffer one indignant heart-throb the

."58 The arts were insulted. At an opera, the

more. . .
performance might receive only token attention in the press,
while "space a-plenty would be given to the women's costumes"
of affluent patrons.

Such forceful and unchecked appeals had a leveling
effect on the American character. Fuller expressed it this
way: " . . . town and country tend more and more to act
alike; the same clothes, the same furnishings, the same ways
and manners, and the same dance steps. Perhaps these latter,
too, come out of the mail—order catalogue, with novel steps
for every season. Certain it is that dancing, like every-
thing else in these days, is taught by letter (with disks
to aid). The post-office makes anything possible."60
Mediocrity was thus raised to the pinnacle of an ideal.

Fuller set it down in these terms in a short story appro—

priately titled "Striking an Average”:

58Fuller, Not 93 the Screen, p. 96.

59Ibid., p. 103.

60Ibid., p. 108.

79

"It's the easiest proposition going," Jameson
explained to his mother, as he deftly struck the tip
off his egg. "Nine-tenths of it is in temperament,
and the other tenth is in conforming--or in seeming
to conform--to the general average of thought and
manners. In other words, be a man first and a gentle—
man afterward. And a jollier always."

"But our standard of -- " his mother began.

"Democracy has no use for a standard. The 'standard'
is replaced by the 'average.'"

. . . "I don't think I'm over fastidious, Jimmy, but
that last meeting of yours seemed to me to be very
cheap and nasty."

"Dear ma, the world itself is rather cheap and nasty.
Haven't you found that out yet?"

"No, my boy; and I don't like to hear you say that
ygu have."

"I don't quite mean that, of course. But if a man's
going to help it along a bit--"

"That's just what your father and I want you to do."

"--he must do it, sometimgi, in its own cheap way
and on its own cheap terms."

In short, any attempt to "get on" is certain to
demean a person. Fuller built strongly on this theme in The

Cliff-Dwellers, where the idea is dwelt on as reviewed by

 

William Dean Howells: "The men are mostly bent selfishly
and dishonestly upon success in business; the women are bent
recklessly and senselessly upon success in society. The
situation abounds in what is crude, brute, ugly; and the
artist who deals with this material does not pretend to like
it; . . . you will find it moralizing itself to you."62
Commercial success is often marked by a lack of

discrimination as to what is beautiful and esthetically

uplifting. In Not on the Screen, characters converse about

 

61Fuller, "Striking an Average," The Saturday Evening
Post, 173 (25 May 1901), 14.

62Howells, review of The Cliff-Dwellers.

 

bonds,

in chic
'hather
are the
iaporta
tapestr
undersc

“buying

IEt

Yea
khi
swo
nee
tit

mus
Pra
CE:
hei
HES
thi

61

80
bonds, interest, investments, and banks in the same exchange
in which they discuss tapestries, and "twisted columns" that
"rather overpower,"63 revealing how inappropriate and garish
are their artistic gratifications. It is profits that are

important because "These are the things that help buy

tapestries,‘ and Fuller's novel continues in this vein to

underscore the crass independence that money enjoys in

"buying" culture, and even science:
"Those look 'cultured,' too," observed Evelyn,
returning to the series [of tapestries] on the walls.

"Don't believe it. Pride. Ostentation. I've spent
years among our forceful illiterates. How well the old
knights did without reading or writing! They had their
swords and shields, and their caparisons. If they had
need of 'clerks,' they could get them, just as our
titans can hire men of science at will."

"Yes, caparisons are right," said Evelyn.

"Their office-furniture and their private cars!"
mused Mr. Janes, whose own quarters, where he had once
practised law and where he now meditated on the con-
cerns of two or three large corporations, were the
height—-or the depth--of old-fashioned unpretentious—
ness. "32 be loaded down with the pomp of mere
things."

Certainly exploitation lay at the heart of what

Fuller meant when he wrote, "The canny dozen, and the less

"65

canny half million. These were the devotees of "The

great god, Business,’ who sat smoking their cigarettes

 

"under the scintillating rose globes overhead . . . in the
over-upholstered arm-chairs."66 Their coarseness was
63
Fuller, Not on the Screen, p. 128.
64Ibid., pp. 129-130. 65Ibid., p. 168.
66

Ibid., p. 176.

 

 

veneer

prosti

aodit;
Vrote

thing,
Fuller
iritir
Cliff-
~——__
treats
V0rd.

UHhOl;
girl's
Bore t

EIfEQt

compli

.;iv

Er.

81
veneered by pseudo—sophisticated tastes that were themselves
prostituted to money.

Fuller felt that propriety itself was a scarce com-
modity on the American scene, even among the literati. He
wrote his close friend William Dean Howells, "The decorous
thing, decorously done, is rare and becoming rarer."67

Fuller may have sought to be overly proper himself. In

writing to Howells of Abbie Brainard, a character in The

 

Cliff-Dwellers, he stated, "I myself was afraid of having

 

treated her rather cursorily, even eliptically--to make a
word. But psychology has always seemed to me to be a rather

unholy thing; it seems so unpleasant to rummage in a nice

girl's mind."68 Howells, however, was sure that Fuller was

more than frank in his pessimistic diatribe against the bad
effect business tycoons were having on decent society, and

complimented his book: "Chicago will hate you, because you

n69

are under her skin. He wanted Fuller to be equally hard

on New York: "Don't forget this old Harlot-by-the-Sea in

your virgin metropolis of the prairies!"70 Fuller replied,

"Really, I write about this town neither because I like it

67Fuller to Howells, 27 February 1907, Harvard

University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.
68Fuller to Howells, 3 November 1893, Harvard
University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

69Howells to Fuller, 13 January 1894, Harvard
University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

7OHowells to Fuller, 8 January 1895, Harvard
University (Widener LibrarY), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

or ha:
so asi
nuckhc
"dirt
earn

prosa

no tir
newsp
Since
Fulle'
COEpe]
autho‘
halte.
him 01
Query
'Gikir
peCon;
iEPor-
Yet dc
E'efltr
5' the

this r

ididEn

dEn

82
or hate it, but because I can't escape it and because I am
so ashamed of it. If you were condemned to residence on a
muckheap wouldn't you try to edit it?"--and he called it a

"71

"dirt pile. He attacked the materialistic propensity to

earn cash which purloined Chicago's best literary talent for

prosaic but well—paid hack work, and slashed at George Ade,

. . . who is, essentially, our chief talent," but who had

no time for serious productive writing: " . . . not many

newspaper men are prepared to let go their weekly salary--"
since it was the basis for their survival personally.
Fuller had definite ideas about what "appropriate" kinds of

compensations for writers were. If these were ignored, an

author debauched his talent. Thus, he wrote Howells: "Mr.

Walter Damrosch proposed to me to make an opera libretto for

him out of Cyrano . . . he likes the thing so far . .
Query: shall I go on? There is the ignominy of publicly

working on other people's ideas. . . . When a man's

pecuniary profits are trifling, reputation is more than ever

important. . . . Mr. D. offers to pay me a lump sum (not
yet determined) or a percentage (not yet determined) on his

eventual royalties. I presume the latter arrangement would

be the more dignified. If you consider that I could go into

this without detriment, would you be able . . . to give me

71Fuller to Howells, 3 June 1895, Harvard University

(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.
72

(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Fuller to Howells, 28 July 1898, Harvard University

72

‘t"

 

 

some

gizes
Hone]
C0uln
"Cyr
thro
that
dEna
deli

303's

Etc

V.“
«*1

(J
I fl

‘L

Sit

83
some practical suggestions ($) of this sort?" and he apolo-
gizes to Howells for even mentioning business in a letter.73
Howells' blunt response was that Fuller ought to take all he
could get, cash down, and to do so in spite of the fact that
"Cyrano [is] a heap of gilded rubbish, absolutely false

throughout."74

Thus, even Howells considers it justifiable
that, under the circumstances, art should "sell out" to
demands of mass taste and the common intellect, and the
delicacies of "artistic dignity" should go by the board.
However, both agreed that current literature was at low tide
and possibly little further damage could be done. Howells
wrote, "What a frightful lot of carrion the press is pouring

,"75 while Fuller called it "--a tidal wave of bilgewater,

"76

out
and no Ararat in sight.
Fuller spoke strongly against literary ability being
auctioned off to popular taste, and in a letter to Charles
Eliot Norton, Professor of Fine Arts at Harvard,77 said this

of his own production:

73Fuller to Howells, 23 March 1899, Harvard Univer-

sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

74Howells to Fuller, 26 March 1899, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

75Howells to Fuller, 10 November 1901, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

76Fuller to Howells, 6 October 1903, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

77From 1897 on, Norton was Professor Emeritus.

 

 

 

vati
audi
larg

I
Lad

84

How can a man give himself to the public and hold
himself back at the same time? How can he endure to
walk barefooted over the rocky road of the everyday
world? . . . How far can he trust himself even to his
friends, and what are the rights in this matter, of
his own sense of modesty?

For myself, I acknowledge that I am not giving out
the best I could, but only the best that I feel able
to trust people with. On the other hand, I do take
some pride in making more or less of a stand against
some of the prevalent influences of the day; and as
for anything like a "market," I claim flatly that no
thought of that has the slightest ggfect upon me.
Witness my publishers' statements!

In another letter to Norton, Fuller remarked that his obser-
vations on the subject of art in America79 "before a private
audience" caused him to be "mauled--Heaven knows why--by a
large section of the daily press, East and West;--not that I
gggd any of their observations!"80 He spoke later of bending
to editorial wishes by making his magazine submissions con-
form to what the periodicals wanted, "as a magazine contribu-
tor cannot always be just what he would wish to be,"81 but a
few years later he became intractable on this point, refusing

to write anything unless it seems to fit my hand--

and my mood; for I've got to the point where I enjoy doing

78Fuller to Norton, 6 April 1898, Harvard University
(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

79Fuller is referring to the article, "Art in
America," appearing shortly afterward over his byline in
Bookman, 10 (November, 1899), 218-224.

80Fuller to Norton, 8 September 1899, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

81Fuller to Norton, 14 September 1907, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

as I c

the ar
so st:
with 1
time i
Chicag
UOrk j

built

YOrk,

litera
aSSert
COHCEr
until

SPOHSQ
'Ygani
'9 me
eitlud
{Ontri
CultUr
signal

EStYOr

livers

fillet!

85

as I dam [sic] please."82
Fuller was definitely disenchanted of any idea that

the arts could survive without affluent patronage. He felt
so strongly about this that he would not associate himself
with The Cliff-Dweller's Club, founded in 1907 by his long-
time friend Hamlin Garland and still active today in
Chicago.83 It was a society of those devoted to producing
work in the fine arts, and occupied a penthouse specially
built for its meetings atop Orchestra Hall near Grant Park
and Lake Michigan. Patterned after The Players' Club of New
York, it soon became a rallying place for artists and
literati. Fuller's refusal to join was consistent with his
assertion that society must be permeated with a genuine
concern for cultural achievement, which would not follow
until a cultivated leisure class was established which would
sponsor and develop these interests. In his thinking, such
organizations of artists and writers, even if they could pay
the membership fees, formed to further their own objectives,
excluding the participation of this leisure class, could not
contribute to the successful endeavors necessary for such a
culture. It was his opinion they became bound by profes-

sional codes or commercial aspirations, which he thOught

destroyed the very essence of artistic creativity. That is,

82Fuller to Harriet Monroe, 2 December 1915, The
University of Chicago Library, Chicago, Illinois.

83Duffey, Chicago Renaissance, p. 88, discusses
Fuller's response to membership in the Cliff-Dweller's Club.

 

 

 

they W.
and wir
art, sc

breedir

members
inform;
Profess
Sively

a nenbe
lGlSure

84

ture.

Filler

86
they were oriented on the issue of how to make more money
and win wide acceptability, not on how to produce a great
art, so the groups were self-defeating and prone to in-
breeding.

Fuller much preferred his association with the
members of the Little Room, a culturally-oriented and
informal social group which consisted of a variety of
professional Chicagoans, including writers, but not exclu-
sively literary. Its weekly meetings were usually held in
a member's studio or home, and its activities fostered a
leisurely but refined interest in art, music, and litera-
ture.84

Despite this esthetically stimulating association,
Fuller was well aware of the difficulties of a writer living
with no subsidy and no inclination to cater to the popular
taste. He wrote, in one of his frequent notes to Harriet
Monroe, "How . . . would I advise a young chap of American
stock if he came to me for advise [sic] in regard to a life-
work in literature. 'Do you feel you can last?' I should

85 Realistically, the crucial issue involved the

[ask] him."
extent to which the writer should go in satisfying public

demands, and the degree to which he should expect readers to

measure up to his standards. He had posed the question

84See Chapter IV, below, for a more detailed descrip-
tion of the Little Room.

85Fuller to Harriet Monroe, 4 February 1916, Univer-
sity of Chicago Library, Chicago, Illinois.

tain tr
Fuller,
appropr
to lite
Vriting
"the ner

and Styl

 

i'Orthy
PIOducti

Howe
SEQH
A fe
r011
the
firn
Th8}
Will
3 SE
FIOu
a fe
of E
like
SChc
that
heat

87

earlier in an Evening Post article this way: "Is the writer

 

. . . a Mohammed who should go to the mountain, or a moun-

tain to which Mohammed himself may properly come?"86 To

Fuller, the realistic technique of Howells seemed to offer
appropriate answers. It did not bow to commercial cadres,
to literary mercantilism, or low standards imposed by
writing for the "average mentality," but it supplemented
"the new age" with a genre maintained in an esthetic form
and style that was distinctly American, and provided a
worthy example for modern novelists to pattern their
productions after. Thus, Howells, in Fuller's estimate, was
an acceptable ideal:

Howells, in fine, has come to the mountain: James
seems to expect that he can bring the mountain to him.
A few loose stones and boulders, it is true, have
rolled his way; but the general form and outline of
the mountain have not been materially changed, and its
firm base is probably as immovable as it ever was.
There is a strong probability that Mr. James . . .
will sometimes come to find himself a "thing apart" in
a sense and to an extent that he does not now foresee.
From his isolated position he may come to regard, with
a feeling approximating envy, the comfortable position
of a competitor who, believing that there's no place
like home, has made himself the leader and centre of a
school whose members . . . have an aim and a method
that should render them worthy of an appreciative87
hearing and the objects of an affectionate pride.

However, Fuller soon observed that not many modern

novelists followed Howells' lead, nor would they respect the

86Fuller, "Mediocrity in Literature,"

Post, 10 August 1901, p. 6.

87Fuller, "Howells or James?" ed. Darrel Abel, Modern
Fiction Studies, 3 (Summer, 1957), 164.

Chicago Evening

limits

Editor‘

houses

then by

 

scorn 1
lhirtee
"0f the
“and t
bowed,

a'l'ay . " 8

 

venting
SLISpecté
izage by
lists, u
the "DOC
PeiforcE
ChiCaHer
T
" indel
in the l
readErs

" Easte

88

limits which he prescribed for conceding to public taste.
Editorial competition would demand that fiction conform to
the "average" reader's range of interest. The publishing
houses not only appealed to these interests, but helped mold
them by clever promotions. Such calculated methods drew
scorn late in life from Fuller in his short story "The
Thirteenth Goddess," in which he stigmatized their effects:
"Of the Greater Gods there are twelve. I am the thirteenth
--and the greatest of all. I am Publicity. You may bow. I
bowed. We all do. But I cringed, and I almost shrank
away."88 Such openly-expressed contempt was obviously the
venting of long-held opinions. As early as 1902 he had
suspected some publishing houses of falsely enhancing their
image by keeping several quality writers' works on their
lists, whether they sold or not, in order to give "tone" to
the "poor, common things from which the real profits
perforce must come," and accused the publishers of this
chicanery in a newspaper article.89

The growing influences of commercialism naturally had
an indelible effect on the reading tastes of those caught up
in the literary market at any level. Typical Chicago
readers were limited to morning and evening papers, a couple

of Eastern magazines, and perhaps four Paris novels a month,

88Fuller, "The Thirteenth Goddess," Harper's, 148
(December, 1923), 127.

89Fuller, "Varying Aspect of Parody,'
Post, 11 October 1902, p. 9.

Chicago Evening

89
according to one survey90--not really edifying fare; and
there was an obvious absence of American literature in the
tally. The lack of variety in reading fare is apparent, the
emphasis on newspapers and journals indicates a dominant
interest in business news and topical issues, and a slight
interest in recreational literature is evident. The few
books which were being read were of foreign origin——obviously
"escape" material to help readers forget the bustle of the
commercial world around them.

Despite the general nature of such a survey, and its
questionable validity, the point remains that Chicago
readers were typical of readers across the country at that
time. High quality writing was obviously having little
impact on the popular market, not to mention its effect on
the popular taste or intellect. Fuller did not relent,
however, in his efforts to cultivate the kind of reading he
considered appropriate for this society. He continued to
proclaim his conviction that the literature of a democratic
nation should espouse the newly-aroused interest of the
people in themselves, in their institutions and processes,
and in their future, and that it should explore and expound
on their increased response to sociological and ethical

deve10pments pertinent to their lives.

OStanley Waterloo, "Who Reads a Chicago Book?" Dial,
l3 (1 October 1892), 206-207.

Project
obsessi(
express]
conformi

and to

 

contiUEn
fixation
fouldati
assiSted
the bala
" could
American

T'
M]

ler a.

"5 natu‘

CHAPTER III

COMING OF AGE: FULLER'S ASPIRATIONS

FOR A NATIONAL LITERATURE

Initially, Fuller's hopes for American culture were
projections of his enchantment with European modes. This
obsession recurs in his writings like a leit motif,
expressing "a gallant desire to bring American life into
conformity with the best models exhibited by the Old World,
and to cast glamour upon the simple civility of a virgin
continent."l Gradually, however, he recognized that his
fixation on European standards was built upon a crumbling
foundation. His continued exposure to American life
assisted him in making an adjustment which eventually tipped
the balance in the opposite direction, so that by the 1920's
he could positively affirm his confidence in the future of
American literature.

This transition did not occur suddenly, nor was
Fuller always consistent with its implications. Hints as to

its nature are evident from time to time in his Evening Post

 

1Henry B. Fuller, "For the Faith," in Waldo Trench and

 

Others (New York, 1908), p. 191.

90

column
he imp
roseat
the 01
he vie:
changes
the tir
seeming

lltEIar

 

EurOpe

Duffey 1
Pmper 4
conveht:
things i
greate:

'adrid .

91

columns and in other essays from 1901 to 1917. It was as if
he impulsively switched the lenses in his g1asses--from the
roseate shades of romantic fascination with the allure of
the Old World, to the clear, sharp magnification with which
he viewed the New. Nevertheless, as time brought its
changes, Fuller's critical attitude mellowed, and he laid
the tinted view aside for increasingly longer periods,
seeming to recognize with growing intensity the potential
literary development of his surroundings.

Even as a young tourist, Fuller had not always seen
Europe as the epitome of cultural achievement. Bernard
Duffey puts Fuller's outlook on European standards in its
proper context when he writes, "He was by no means the

conventional American arriviste, rushing out to embrace all

 

things European because of an assumption of their necessarily

greater elegance. Rather, he visited Europe as a critic and

connoisseur whose taste was competent to sorting out the

good from the bad among what it had to offer him. . .

[He] was fully up to taking Europe without obeisance or

prostration before its wonders."2
Neither did he respond uniformly to all European

countries. He wrote to his Harvard correspondent from

Madrid on May 11, 1892, "I am halfway through my Spanish

2Bernard Duffey, "Henry Fuller,' in The Chicago
Renaissance 13 American Letters (East Lansing, 1954), pp.
36-370

 

 

 

Alma—J

 

care tr

3 heroi
bull-f:
3t the
Afldalus
fied, w,

 

exclusi\
Culed En
Shob 1U,

thfiir he

QED ll7

antiQUit

Place f0

‘ ’ I
Jliersi

"ideher

"ty (hr

‘e
I

92
tour and am getting along quite satisfactorily,"3 as if he
did not find it sufficiently engaging for further comment.
Some two months later, his opinion of Spain was more
definite: "the same time might be spent to better advantage
elsewhere. 'No--o; I am not sorry I came; but—~I shouldn't

4
care to come again.'"

Still, he contemplated a novel with

a heroine who would go to Spain: "I would force her to a
bull-fight and show her on the last pages as dancing publicly
at the Fiera of Seville in accordance with the custom of the
Andalusian ladies. I feel that such a theme would be digni-
fied, would present many opportunities, and could be treated

5 While Vienna's "real and

with a real Spanish gravity."
exclusive aristocracy" inspired his rapture,6 Fuller ridi—
culed England's nobility as a social system in which "the

snob luxuriates,"

where frenzied adherents may even have
their heraldry "branded . . . upon their butlers and foot-
men."7 To Fuller, British gentry was a relic of outmoded

antiquity, and the Welsh coast was not a really inspiring

place for scenery. In France, Fuller was inclined to "pass

3Fuller to Charles Eliot Norton, 11 May 1892, Harvard
University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Fuller to Norton, 8 July 1892, Harvard University
(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

5Fuller to Norton, 12 November 1892, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

6Fuller, The Last Refuge (Boston, 1900), p. 45.

 

7Fuller, "The Pilgrim Sons," in From the Other Side,
Stories 3; Transatlantic Travel (Boston, 1898), pp. 196,200.

 

 

 

sympat

travel
vonder
with t}
anothe:

and des

SQVEral
thrice-
509 can

gate of

 

de“can

 

'°“Victi
telx the
not Sur;
Stones

h an I

 

93

over Paris,"

although he urges a visit to Amiens and Rheims,
and in Provence he was content to dwell only on his "immense
sympathy" for the Albigenses.8 He postulates that all
travelers to Greece are pilgrims who are conveying the
wonders of the old world to America: " . . . runners fired
with the ambition to hand on the torch, by one means or
another, to the newer land where illumination is so needed
and desired."9
For Italy, however, Fuller has glowing tributes in

several of his short stories: "And now about Italy, the

thrice-blessed. O . . . how can I begin? And if I begin,

how can I ever end?"10 With these words, he opens a flood-
gate of eloquent praise of the Italians and their " . . .
dedication, earnestness . . . seriousness and sanctity

conviction; . . . Milan, Bergamo, Verona, Padua--they all

"11 It is

tell the same tale of firm and triumphant belief.
not surprising that the plot of one of his major short

stories turns on the protagonist's captivation by a painting
of an Italian landscape.12

Fuller loved the flavor of things European so well

that from time to time, he gave a special preference to them

8Fuller, "For the Faith," p. 171.

91bid., p. 194 loIbid., p. 172.

llIbid.

12Fuller, "Eliza Hepburn's Deliverance," in Waldo
Trench and Others (New York, 1908), pp. 204-205.

in his

them h

field

   

and 0p;
Anybody
froth th
Standin
racial

Still b

LEgend,

Man How

 

‘y

~ A .

'J'M
H,

94

 

in his Chicago Evening Post reviews. He observes in one of
them how " . . . certain sorts of books about European life
. . still enjoy currency, and certain writers in this
field who happen to possess particular qualities, abilities
and opportunities may yet hope to secure attention and favor.
Anybody who is able to present the current life of the day
from the inside, or to exhibit a subtle sympathetic under-
standing with the historical past, or to offer a typical
racial character study at first hand and at close range, is
still beyond the risk of being counted out of court. . . .
Legend, myth, anecdote, classical, mediaeval, and modern."13
Contrasting the distasteful task of writing about
Chicago with that of eulogizing Italy, Fuller wrote William

Dean Howells: "Who wants to read about this repellent town?

The Independent, a few months ago, put the whole matter in a

 

word. Expressing its dissatisfaction with those Americans
in Italy who form the warp and woof of my new Scribner book,
'Waldo Trench,‘ it pleasantly hoped that I would leave such
things behind and would come back to the United States, 3133
if I were to write about Chicago! There you have the
attitude of the country toward my allotted field, and there

you glimpse the chiefest lion in my way. So that of my nine

13Fuller, "Three Glimpses Across Seas,‘ Chicago

Evening Post, 4 May 1901, p. 6.

 

hooks

tion,

In plv

FUIIE:

Years
th
If
pr
rh
Wa
at
ac
ti,
It,
f0:

mir

at:
0f

beealiSe
appears
of his

( 1d8ne]
"t? (hi

(.1:
"‘deher

95

books, but three deal with home matters--too small a propor—

tion, doubtless."14

Again and again he turns to his chief love--Ita1y.

To please Dr. Norton, to whom he dedicated his first book,

Fuller revised a chapter with a new setting in Siena.15

Years later, he was still on this theme:

Last week I sent East a long short story which has
the prosaic title of "Eliza Hepburn's Deliverance."

If it comes to your notice (how or when, I cannot
prophesy), you will see that it is a sort of Italian
rhapsody, and deals with an elderly person whose youth
was spent in Florence.

During the past year I have also been giving some
attention to the modern Italian short story, hoping to
accumulate enough of these to form a volume of transla-
tions. But it is slow work. Most of the contemporary
Italians seem trivial in substance and deficient in
form,--to follow Verga, indeed, is but to pass from one
miniature chaos to another. Then there is Castelnuovo,
a kind of Venetian Howells, and Fogazzaro, a somewhat
attenuated idealigt, though one of the redeeming figures
of modern Italy.

Previously, Fuller had translated an Italian work, but
because of a falling out with the publisher, it never
appeared.17 He continued to work in the language to the end
of his life, however. Late in 1926 he translated correspon-

dence for Harriet Monroe, the editor of Poetry, from Italian

14Fuller to Howells, 4 March 1909, Harvard University
(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

15Fuller to Norton, 10 December 1891, Harvard Univer—

sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

16Fuller to Norton, 7 September 1899, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

17Fuller to Norton, 7 March 1898, Harvard University
(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

distor

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exalts

 

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96
to English, and drafted the reply in Italian for her, noting
that he used no grammars or dictionaries.18 He even
harbored an ambition to write a history of Italy, but the

" . . . history turned into a short story--a rapid review of

the Italic civilization."l9

Fuller's romantic exuberance over Europe tended to
distort his realistic assessment of both Europe and America.
On the surface, most of his fiction with EurOpean setting
exalts the appeal of the past, the novelty of the new vista,
and the charm of the strange. Ultimately, however, he would
admit that much of Europe's attraction is a mirage, and that
the indigenous setting holds, for the realistic American,
more than the foreign scene. Still, he urged other
Americans to visit Europe, if only to gain a similar dimen-
sion of perspective.

Throughout his short stories, especially, are
evidences of the wide range of benefits available from such
a journey. They are of uncommon interest because they
reveal how extensively his mind played on this subject, and
how preoccupied his writing is with it. Paramount, of
course, is the charismatic appeal of antiquity. It deeply

affected him. By contrast, America lacks the patina of

18Fuller to Harriet Monroe, 13 November 1926, Fuller
C011ection, The University of Chicago Library.

19Fuller to Norton, 14 September 1907, Harvard Uni-
versity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here
Fuller is referring to "Waldo Trench Regains His Youth,"
Scribner's Magazine, 40 (August, 1907), 231-248.

host

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C011egE
visitoI
America
underSt
their 0

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world! (

flax-.1124

[-9. o
a“"'encar.

97

time--it simply is not venerable enough to inspire awe.20
Most notable by their absence are the stately, ancient
buildings of Europe. Naturally, Fuller's enchantment with
architecture leads him to encourage others to enjoy it where
its development over the centuries can be traced in a single
setting, scene, or city. Rome alone is a "book of novelties
and wonders," which "by some magic process of rejuvenation"
holds its "pristine freshness unimpaired."21

Furthermore, Fuller believed that the continent had
the propensity to "civilize" people, to expand their cultural
horizons,22 even to the extent of being a substitute for a
college education.23 In Europe, traditions enriched a
visitor's experience wherever he might turn. More directly,
Americans should go abroad if they wish to appreciate and
understand immortal literature, reliving the classics in
their original settings. Thus Waldo Trench declares, "I
consider [Dante's] Beatrice to be the central woman of the
world, and I must understand the conditions that produced

"24

her. In a more practical vein, Fuller maintains that

Americans will overrun the Continent when they discover it

OFuller, "Waldo Trench," in Waldo Trench and Others,

21Fuller, The Last Refuge, p. 2.

22Fuller, "Eliza Hepburn's Deliverance," in Waldo
Trench and Others, p. 73.

23Fuller, 92 the Stairs, p. 67.

 

24Fuller, "Waldo Trench," p. 25.

 

t0 Eur

as by
ideal .

enCOun:

 

hO'n'EVQT

'5FS of

lavishl

late , ll

,3. 313.

”3%

98
is basic to their cultural heritage. We copy Europe's
symbolism and the messages of its past, not only in litera-
ture and art and music, but even on our money.25 Whether
one wants to trace the family tree,26 find self-reliance
through traveling alone,27 or exercise his eccentricities,28
a tour abroad seems to be the answer.

Perhaps the most revealing of Fuller's reasons for
traveling to Europe, however, is the desire to get away from
it all. His own letters and journals attest that his trips
to Europe were motivated as much by a need to escape Chicago
as by his love of the Continent. To Fuller, Europe was the
ideal sanctuary for Americans who are in "no mood to
encounter the Anglo-Saxon world wholesale."29 The problem,
however, is that all Americans are not compatible with the
ways of the nations they visit.

He spoke often of the coarse and discourteous deport-
ment of Americans overseas. The American style was to spend

lavishly, to earn the label of being "high society incar-

 

nate,’ traveling with showy, "artificial and insolent
25 H H
Fuller, Waldo Trench, p. 32.
26Fuller, "The House-Cat," in Waldo Trench and Others,
p. 313.

27Fuller, "Addolorata's Intervention," in Waldo
Trench and Others, p. 265.

28

 

Fuller, "Waldo Trench," p. 46.

29Fuller, "Addolorata's Intervention," p. 268. See
also Chapter I.

are Of

 

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3fld ti
dngus
climbe

dESe r1;

 

 

Enalts.
exPoses

EStabI:

caniZe
“Dem
that Ar
sell-is]

CitiZeI

Q, 41

99

standards of value."30 This backfired in creating rising

costs for visitors from the States.31 It also painted an
ugly image of the visitors. Fuller's United States million-
aire, Leander M. Coggswell, is "cruel and selfish and
ravenous as you may call him, and insolently defiant of law

and right."32

Such Americans, passengers on luxury liners,
are on a "floating pilgrimage of pomp and luxury, of low
ideals and foolish ambitions, and general wrong-headedness,"
and their "unchastened luxuriousness is little short of
disgusting."33 Equally reprehensible are the social
climbers imposing themselves on genteel Europeans who
deserve better. Rich American travelers will not permit
English aristocracy to overlook them;34 Fuller openly
exposes the motives of Americans who go to Britain to
establish genealogical connections.35

Sadly, Fuller also comments that attempts to Ameri-
canize Europe only serve to destroy its charm. From
experience and observation, Europeans have come to believe
that Americans are by nature a rough lot of ruthless, bluff,

selfish business tycoons who roll like a juggernaut over the

citizenry. This is the entire theme and thrust of "New

30Fuller, "For the Faith," pp. 156-157.

31Ibid., p. 155. 32Ibid., p. 160.
331b1d., pp. 159-160, 162. 341bid., p. 159.
35

Fuller, "The Pilgrim Sons," in From the Other Side,
pp. 413-427.

 

100
Wine," Fuller's story of an American-born Italian who
returns to his parents' homeland to win a bride. The
grasping girl and her family demand that he conform to their
Stereotype for an American. He must exploit, modernize,
hunflaug, and plunder,36 show himself to be a "condottiere of
finance,"37 and finagle various enterprises such as intro—
duc:Lrng electricity and a tramway that will radically change
the *villagers' life style and rob them systematically while
doin g it. Even a railway will not be too much.38 Ruggiero
deg]. :1 Stellini cannot meet the requirements of such an
exal ted image, and has no desire to do so. On realizing
ttlawt. not only his intended, but all other native young women
have no interest in him romantically unless he transforms
himself into a mogul,39 he vindicates his stateside heritage,
reIllazins a wholesome all-American boy, decides to find
SuC—cess back in America, and passes the word to his
irléinnorata: "I fear I have no more time for you, even now.

"40

GoOd—day. Good-by. With this adieu, Ruggiero returns

home .
Fuller uses the moral to justify his claim that the

American "social invasion" of Europe had harmful aspects.

0t 36Henry B. Fuller, "New Wine," in Waldo Trench and
‘-#§LSEJEE, p. 81.
37Ibid., p. 74.

38Ibid., pp. 64-67, 77-80, 89.

391b1a., pp. 70, 83-84, 88.

401b1d., p. 94.

 

It u
want
on a
their
socia

must I

touri
of hi
PerSp,
testi;
home,
than 3
Stays

in EUr

UPPBr

1902,

 

101

It was "aggressive, militant, and ruthless. . . . When we

want to impose our shoes, our typewriters, our locomotives,

on a reluctant and shrinking Old World, we do not adopt

their-methods, but bring along our own. The same with

socxial forms and usages. Trembling and disgruntled Europe
41

muszt: submit to social renovation with what grace she may."

Although the concessions of the typical American

tornzrzist in Europe are slight in comparison to those required

of 11 is host, he does encounter certain hazards involving his

Pers pective. Drawing on first-hand experience, Fuller

tGBS‘t:ifies to the likelihood that an American, on returning

liomnea , will find his "native city more uncouth and unkempt

t11£1I1 ever."43 A diametrically opposite danger is that if he

Stays abroad too long, he will arrive at a "lessened interest

3111 Iiurope," and "diminished deference for it.""4

Fuller had for many years been aware that European

‘JF’I>€3r class society was in decay and in need of reform. In

1902 , he openly reported that it was riddled with "fat old

wC’nlléa‘n with epilepsy and gouty old men with scrofula, repre-

senting the aristocracy at its best."45 For this reason, he

"Studies of English High Society Made by

41Fuller,
" Chicago Evening Post, 3 May 1902,

:11 o nymous Aristocrats ,

2
4 Fuller, Journal, "A Year in Europe," I, 31 October

1
879 - See also Boern, p. 81.

43Fuller, 0g the Stairs, p. 102.

44Ibid., p. 141.

45"Studies of English High Society," p. 9.

102
admits that America's condition may be more favorable than
we have realized, and praises "domesticity, pure and simple,"
telling us we should be "not too much concerned with the
muddy and violent currents of the 'world movement,'" and
that our middle class has advantages over the bon bourgeois,

as he styles them.46 America may be more glamorous than we

 

thought. He strikes this note in 93 the Stairs: "To-day

 

Europe seems not at all what we once found it; and we, on
the other hand, have come to be more than some of us at
least once figured ourselves. We are beginning to have
glamours and importances of our own."47 Thus, by 1918, he
asks us merely to enjoy nostalgia for the Continent by
preserving ourselves from the harsh realities of a visit.
Life in Paris will not do at home.48

Such an idea, although fictional, denotes an
increasing awareness in Fuller's writings of the potential
merits of a truly American literature. Vacillating as it
is, this rec0gnition nevertheless indicates a growing
acceptance of the intrinsic characteristics of American
life. Fuller had previously rejected the "left bank" in

favor of the "south side" on political and social grounds;

now he indicates an approval of the American scene as a

46Fuller, "W. D. Howells's Return to Fiction,"
Chicago Evening Post, 26 April 1902, p. 9.

4793 the Stairs, pp. 100-101.

48Ibid., p. 63.

 

 

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leas
in h;

alwa)

regul
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tende
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tion c
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Early
that W
esthet
lovelt

the ce

 

articl
aliSm ‘
Statem1
five m
COerOI

a lack

Cation;
'13.

103
fertile esthetic background for a national literature, at
least the concept finds expression with increasing frequency
in his observations. This in itself is notable; it had not
always been the case.

Throughout his years as an active fictionist and
regular columnist just before and after the turn of the
century, Fuller had maintained a strict surveillance over
the home scene and called attention, as always, to dangerous
tendencies in literary production. His greatest apprehen-
sion relating to the developing esthetic awareness in
America as its people "came of age" concerned undue adula-
tion of youthful zeal, untested originality, and temporary
brilliance, all of which he had warned against, even in the
early years of his career. He had consistently maintained
that America, as a growing nation, must discipline its
esthetic standards of acceptance, remaining aware that the
novelty of the day is not necessarily the enduring art of

the century. Likewise, in several of his Evenigg Post

 

articles he warned against the effects of unchecked materi-
alism on the nation's cultural growth.49 These and other
statements in his weekly commentary, essentially construc-
tive and critical precepts related to cultural uplift,
confronted his Chicago readers with the dangers inherent in

a lack of public concern over the quality of American

49Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers from Our
National Prosperity," Chicago Evening Post, 10 May 1902,
p. 13. See also Chapter II footnotes 42, 55, 86, 89.

 

 

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lite:
clime
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liter
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felt,
anale

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tee ave

 

104
literature.

Perhaps the single most detrimental influence on
literary development in America, he maintained, was the
climate of economic survival based on free enterprise.
Isolated within the business community, it contributed to
the nation's wealth and welfare, but, extended into the
literary segment, it undermined the cultural potential of
the populace. Thousands who might have been inspired to do
something for themselves and for the edification of mankind
were being almost force-fed with futile, pointless, flabby
concoctions produced by clever amateurs who wrote for the
market. Standards naturally broke down. The efforts of
dedicated artists, unable to attract public acclaim, were
choked out.50 In addition, the situation took its toll in
terms of depriving the nation of enlightenment that could
improve cultural literacy if refined writers, artists,
musicians, editors, and educators were given opportunities
to be widely heard. By failing these spokesmen, Fuller
felt, society was doing itself a real disservice.51 His
analysis brought him to the conclusion that the real fault
was in the inability of the masses to select what is best;

the average person could only comprehend what was average.

0Henry B. Fuller, "Reflections on Comic Opera,"
Chicago Evening Post, 6 July 1901, and "Varying Aspects of
Parody Displayed in Recent work by Harte and Seaman,"
Chicago Evening Post, 11 October 1902, p. 9.

 

 

1Henry B. Fuller, "The Civic Federation and Litera-
ture," Chicago Evening Post, 14 July 1900.

 

105
These circumstances could only foster mediocrity, he
insisted.

Chicago itself was to Fuller an epitome of this
condition. Free as it was from traditional restraints, it
was subject to each new influence, and was erratic like a
weathervane rather than stable like a compass.52 "Anything
like a standard, a criterion, disappears; what results is an
average, a blend, a roaring mean. The city stands a jumble
of incongruities and contradictions. It is at once smart
and shabby, trim and slovenly. The permanent and the
temporary stand face to face; the massive and the flimsy
exist side by side; the grandiloquent future elbows the
discredited past; the high and the low are met together in a
union aggressively, vociferously, repellently picturesque."53
In later years, with equally bitter acerbity, he tells
Harriet Monroe the press is interested only in lurid news,
not uplifting literature: ”Perhaps, if you had been the
common—law wife of a successful bootlegger, I might have
caught your name in the newspaper; but being merely the head
and front of our chief cultural publication--we11, it does
make a difference, doesn't it?"54 Under existing conditions,
Fuller saw no remedy for this flaw.

2
5 Fuller, "Chicago's Book of Days,"

(5 October 1901), 293.

53Ib1d., p. 294.

54
Fuller to Harriet Monroe, 20 November 1924, Univer-

Sity of Chicago Library, Fuller Collection.

The Outlook, 69

 

Ham!
0
f
”I
e
c
t
l

106
With equal irritation, he decried the fact that the
chance for sale of well-written literature was disappearing:

I ought to have given you a tip about the Century. For
the past year or so they have been sending back every-
thing with "amazing promptness." They are "full up,"
and they seem to be accepting, nowadays, only a £33
occasional things that appeal to them with peculiar
force. What are we going to do about the editors?
Those who used to welcome us ten years ago are becoming
elderly and fussy and difficult; and those of the newer
crop are just brisk young literary drummers. Well,
there is always carbolic acid, and that good capacious
lake.55

Fuller deplored the indiscriminate practices of popular

writers who had lowered literary standards that others had
struggled to achieve. "Time was when deep called to deep,"
he wrote, but "Today cheap calls to cheap. . . . Sincerity
gives way before mechanism; calculation takes the place of

conviction."56 For diversion of hoi polloi, respect was

 

lost for the ideal, and cultural values were destroyed by an

injudicious and untrained public which financed tawdry work

that passed for "art." It has been said by a talented

musician that pe0p1e will claim they "know what they like,"

while the truth is that they like what they know, but will

never admit it. This was the thrust of Fuller's contention.
Few readers are, indeed, prepared to be discrimi—

nating. In their singleminded drive for material prosperity,

55Fuller to Harriet Monroe, Wednesday, 11 December
(no year given), University of Chicago Library, Fuller
Collection.

56Fuller, "Mediocrity in Literature,‘
Post, 10 August 1901, p. 6.

Chicago Evening

107
the public became proportionately sensitive to interests
based on mundane affairs rather than on cultural outlooks.
Few were inclined to note whether writers had found new
ideas or forms, and fewer still were equipped to appraise
any such technicalities such as originality of method, which
is essential if art is to be "the pushing, growing, vital

"57 The public's

thing it needs to be to exist at all.
traditional response to an artist is in the imperative and
declarative context of: "Make me laugh, . . . make me cry;
make me thrill, make me shudder, and all the rest. Seldom
do they request what the artist is most capable of doing—-
making a beautiful thing in accordance with his own nature
and his own talents."58 Artists do not receive rewards like
performers; they collect admirers——"the art-life, I say,
would be much more comfortable without them," if the artist
could have money instead--coin of the realm,59 and Fuller
believes artists ought to have it. In this reSpect they are
atypical Americans. Typically, an American is "ruthlessly
acquisitive . . . [and] in an early dotage after a lifelong

"60

harnessing to the stock ticker. Fuller actually indicated

7Henry B. Fuller, "Our 'Young Lady Novelist,'"
Chicago Evening Post, 1 June 1901, p. 6.

 

58Henry B. Fuller, "Shakespeare's Debt to Voltaire,"
Chicago Evening Post, 11 October 1902, p. 9.

 

9Henry B. Fuller, "Addolorata's Intervention," in
Waldo Trench and Others, p. 271.

60Fuller, 93 the Stairs, p. 220.

 

 

 

["1

di

at.

108

that industrialism and mercantilism ought to be done away
with: "Business once more! It ought to be barred. [It is
the bane of] a worried and incompetent man half way through
his fifties."61

Fuller was too realistic to believe the public's
defalcation in the area of artistic sense could be rectified.
He did feel it could be understood, and that this would

foster sympathetic toleration. In an essay in the Chicago

Evening Post, he stated that literature of the immediate

 

future in America when objectively produced would result
from strictly commercial motivations--to "please the people."
While one may abhor the consequences, Fuller reasons that
this transition must not be viewed as an unusual phenomenon.
Popular literature is the fruit of an evolving tendency of
the arts during the past four centuries to inoculate them
with ingredients that will win ever-widening audiences: In
the Renaissance, scholars wrote for kings and popes; Racine.
and Moliére addressed their work to royalty and the court;
later, the intended viewers widened, and included the noble-
man, the patron, and the aristocracy at large. In more
recent times, the tastes of the gentry and university-bred
determined the level of artistic expression. Finally, the
upper middle class and those with professional training were
added. Now it is the general public, not those with

academic or cultural discipline, which challenge the

61Fuller, 92 the Stairs, p. 233.

 

109

purveyor of entertainment in any form, whether it be the
drama, literature, music, painting, sculpture, or the
graphic arts. "On this basis," Fuller wrote, "we may be
able to understand the situation-—and maybe even become
reconciled to it."62

When it came to catering to anything he did not
approve of or making concessions to the public taste,
Fuller staunchly supported his literary convictions even
when it hurt his own pocketbook. In 1901 he became
embroiled with the editor of Lippincott's over "Little
O'Grady Vs. the Grindstone." The editor, H. S. Morris,
wanted Fuller's story for his publication, but he would
accept it only if Fuller consented to reduce it consider-
ably. Fuller objected that the story's "architectural
structure" would be destroyed if his narrative should be
condensed. In an exchange of letters over the matter,
Morris' stated editorial excuse was that he knew his
readers--"a public that snatches up the magazine on a rail-

63 Fuller disdainfully

way stand and runs while reading."
cited the "runs while reading" phrase in his curt reply to
Morris, only to receive another rationalization in the

editor's next response: "We put out a certain kind of maga-

zine to suit certain people. I wouldn't serve beefsteak and

62Fuller, "Development of Popular Literature,"
Chicago Evening Post, 31 May 1902, p. 9.

63H. S. Morris to Fuller, 3 July 1901, Newberry
Library, Chicago, Fuller Collection.

 

110
onions at Bar Harbor. You are out of that odorous class—-

too good for it fig hinc illae. Pictures we bring the people

 

to; magazines we take to the people. That's the difference.
Do send 'The Grindstone.'"64 Fuller kept the story and had
high contempt for the editor's attitude. Such blatant
disregard for any effort at responsible literary editing was
directly contrary to his hOpes for an enlightened and
discriminating public. It cheapened the editorial profession
by subjecting it to the whims of public taste, and also
showed a disreSpect for the reader's ability to recognize
and appreciate more refined standards by anticipating the
limitations which may be imposed by those whims. Fuller
felt it was the editors, not always the readers, who ought
to be the arbiters of taste. The commercial factor ought to
be viewed in a different perspective. Fuller proposed: "If
one man in ten reads good books, let us not complain when
the other nine read books not quite so good--since the vital
interests of literature are fully conserved, and the place
of the high-grade writer is secure, and the conquest of the
raw new field is so much clear gain."65 In another article
on this topic he optimistically stated that he hoped a "bad"

novel would not sell more than fifty thousand copies and

that "good" ones would command a market of ten thousand

6"Morris to Fuller, 22 August 1901, Newberry Library,

Chicago, Fuller Collection.

65Fuller, "Literature and Democracy,‘
Em, 31 August 1901, p. 6.

Chicago Evening

111
copies.66 Within either ratio, fine work would have its own
level of acceptance and not be entirely shut out by crass
commercialism and chicanery among publishers.
With Fuller, it was the existence of the "saving

remnant" which would ultimately count; the judgment of the

literary cognoscenti would be the final, redeeming factor in

 

determining the immortality of literary achievements.
Regardless of the size of this group, he insisted, its needs
should be nourished. Several months later, the same senti-
ments were echoed by Jack London, who viewed a small group
of people as pacesetters and worthy critics, willing to "say
the good word for the worthy thing, and damn balderdash."
London asserted this group "stands upon the head and
shoulders of the rest; from this position they continue to
praise the worthy thing and to condemn the unworthy until
combined authority and reiteration have crystallized current
opinion into a standard view."67 However, London himself
was to later succumb to the forces mentioned. Fuller char-
acterizes this group as "the few, the best--the guardians

of the tradition, the keepers of the records, the arbiters

of taste, the oligarchy of those who know;' they stand

"above the mass, above the average . . . and probably their

66Fuller, "Literature and the Market," Chicago
Evening Post, 8 June 1901, p. 6.

. 67Jack London, "Again the Literary Aspirant," The
mg, 41 (September, 1902), 217-220. “

112
Opinion will prevail in the future as it has in the past."68
This note of optimism that runs throughout Fuller's
commentary should not be drowned out by the sometimes harsh
criticism of contemporary conditions. One of the advanta-
geous effects of his involvement with a weekly column the
Evening Post was the necessity of an objective consideration
of topical issues; he could not completely overlook the need
for positive appraisals from time to time. In fact, he was
driven to such assessments, it seems, when he could see no
alternative but hope for a promising outcome of the literary
conditions in America. In 1902 he reviewed the contemporary
scene in the country as follows:
Literary America is at present simply running scales--
limbering up its fingers and strengthening its wrists;
in due time the concerto may follow. . . . We are
learning how to express ourselves, and in the due
course of events our experiences as a world power, with
all the sweet and the bitter involved in so ambitious a
role, will probably provide us with something to express
that the world may well be willing to listen to. We
have lately changed our position on the edge of things
for a more promigsnt and responsible position in the
midst of things.
The new national stance which he describes could well be a
description of Fuller's own growing prominence as an advocate
of a worthy national literature. In his newly acquired role

as spokesman for "the arbiters of taste" whose presence he

valued so highly, Fuller had, in a sense, grown up--come of

68Fuller, "Development of Popular Literature,"
Chicago Evening Post, 31 May 1902, p. 13.

69Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers," Chicago
.EZEE}2g_Post, 10 May 1902, p. 13.

 

113

age--and had assumed a new emphasis in his commentary on the
encouragement of promising trends and innovations in writing.

This attitude was not always dominant in Fuller's
observations, but it did serve to temper his tendency toward
unnecessarily caustic remarks. When it did surface, and
when Fuller felt that a worthy accomplishment deserved
recognition, it was expressed in carefully considered terms
and with genuinely honest sincerity. The most impressive
example appeared in 1925 near the end of his career, when he
took great pleasure in announcing, 113 the New York Times
Book Review, that literature in America had "come of age."70

His initial assertion in this article is that "many
of our finer spirits have 'had Europe' and are now recovering
from it." He proclaims that Europe's "graces and grandeurs
have somehow lessened, and contemporaneousness is now func-
tioning more vitally and engagingly at home. In subject-
matter we are now prepared for the exploitation of the
indigenous, with certainty of a sympathetic response."71
America's "colonial period" was over, he states.

Among the factors which he describes as having led to
this new maturity are the international political and

\

military involvements of World War 1, resulting in a decrease

of European esteem in the eyes of American youth and an

7OFuller, "America's Coming of Age," New York Times
Book Review, 3 May 1925, p. 2.

71Ibid.

114
increase of American influence throughout EurOpe. The
resulting self-confidence of Americans in the conduct of
these practical affairs "may be succeeded by self-confidence
in matters of the mind and of taste," all of which may be

"--in our own fashion."

well-expressed through the arts
Furthermore, he asserts, "we can tell the expatriates of
Paris, with more confidence than before, that they would do
well to back-trail home and draw artistic sustenance from
their native soil and air."72
The article also reflects his gradual development of
a positive attitude toward increased use of native elements
in fiction. "The fabric of a national art cannot long be
woven out of distastes and protests. . . . A nation's art
centres on a nation's life. If that life, in some of its
aspects, is raw and repellent, the challenge is all the

greater;"

and again he verifies his critical philosophy, the
foundation of his artistic technique: "the crude can be
outweighed by the authentic. Manner may redeem matter as
with certain fiction which paradoxically offers an absorbing,
compelling interest in persons and conditions that, in real
life, would repel and disgust in no time. Mark Twain and
Walt Whitman, he suggests, are embodiments of this particular
talent: "Such is our debt to robust and careless provin-

cials."73 Then he adds that it is not always the field

72Fuller, "America's Coming of Age," p. 2.

73Ibid.

115
itself, but the workman in it that determines the product.
"Technique, in a word. Form and handling are cardinal
points, and due heed to them should carry our liberated art
far, and give it the structure and finish that art, by any
standard, requires." Finally, he admonishes the reading
public to develop a sensitivity to offensive sprawl and
formlessness in fiction. "This is a drawback specially felt
in a young country, where new types are rising and shaping
and where, consequently, interest . . . tends [to disregard]

"74

the niceties of construction and proportion. Such were
the hopes of an elderly artist, observing from the sidelines

in his last years, whose interest in and concern for his

nation's cultural welfare had remained vital.

74Fuller, "America's Coming of Age," p. 2.

CHAPTER IV

THE AUTHOR AS CATALYST: FULLER'S

LITERARY TECHNIQUE

Henry Blake Fuller's preoccupation with art and
architecture is evident throughout his life. Both his
published work and his informal observations reveal that he
was a student of culture and the beaux arts, and that he
viewed his writing as an art rather than a skill. This
viewpoint is underscored in one of his earliest works, in
which he classes writing with architecture and music, naming
them among his principal ambitions.l His deep devotion to
fine art is shown in a major essay2 and in his editorials3

on the subject, in addition to the frequent references to it

1Henry B. Fuller, "Pensieri Privati" (1880), an unpub-
lished poetry manuscript in the Newberry Library, Chicago,
stanza 8, line 3: "I'd build, or write, or souls with music

thrill."

2Fuller, "Art in America,‘ Bookman, 10 (November,

1899), 218-224.

3Including "Municipal Art Substitute," Chicago Evening
Post, 11 May 1901, p. 6; "An Artistic Round Robin," Chicago
Exelligg Post, 16 June 1901, p. 6; "Society and the Arts,"
Chixzago Evening Post, 29 June 1901, p. 6; "Travelers with
Pen and Camera," Chicago Evening Post Book Section, II,
4 Octtober 1902, p. 9; and "Mural Paintings at the Fair,"
Chiceago News Record, 25 and 26 May 1893, in two parts.

 

 

 

116

117
throughout his poetry,4 fiction,5 and essays.6 Architecture
also had a peculiar fascination for him as a creative
activity involving imaginative treatment of concrete forms,
and his secret yearning to be a builder7 is reflected in
treatises about architects and architecture.8 In addition,
his membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters

provided contacts with creative influences in a variety of

media.9

4"Postponement-~The Sketch of a Man Who Waited Too
Long," "Aridity," "Interlude," "Toward Childhood," "The Art
of Life," and other poems in the volume Lines Long and Short
(Boston, 1917).

5"Striking an Average," The Saturday Evening Post, 178
(25 May 1901), 3-14. "The Pilgrim Sons," Cosmopolitan, 29
(August, 1895), 413-427; The Chevalier 2f Pensieri-Vani (New
York, 1892); The Chatelaine 2f Lg Trinite (New York, 1892),
see especially Chapter 5, devoted to Mozart's music and titled
"Salzburg: Mephisto Among the Manuscripts," 80-98; With Egg
Procession (New York, 1895), contains numerous allusions to
art treasures in Chicago's galleries and fashionable homes.

 

6"The Upward Movement in Chicago," Atlantic Monthly,
80 (October, 1897), 534-547; "The Civic Federation and Litera-
ture," Chicago Post, 14 July 1900; "Chicago," The Century
Magazine, 84 (May, 1912), 25-33; "The Growth of Education,
Art, and Letters," The Centennial History 2: Illinois, V
(Chicago, 1923), 30-55; "Newberry Library," Hagper's Weekly,
38 (29 December 1894), 1243-1244.

 

7See footnote 1, above.

8"World's Fair Architecture," in two parts, Chicago
News-Record, 16 and 20 September 1892; "Westminster Abbey,"
Cerztury, 45 (March, 1893), 700-718; "Planner of Cities,"
lflua Nation, 114 (February, 1922), 166, a review of Charles
Dkn>re's biography of David H. Burnham, the noted architect;
'Whirly American Architecture," The Freeman, 8 (16 January
1924), 453-454.

 

 

9He resigned 24 February 1909 in a typically modest
act <3f withdrawal from the public view. See letter in the
Newbterry Library's Fuller Collection.

118
Fuller was interested by art in all its forms. In
the Journal of his EurOpean tour, he wrote:

If I might make a humble suggestion to the Ministre des
Beaux Arts, I would say: Sir, discourage for a term of
years all work of the brush and chisel except in immedi-
ate connection with architecture, and divert the swollen
stream of art into some such channels as these: let
your artists devote themselves to domestic architecture
and interior furnishings . . . do anything, in fact,
that shall bring the beautiful intimately into the daily
life of the people, and show that they are more desirous
of ho$8ring their art, than of having their art honor
them. '

Of Fontainebleau, he remarked:

The Chateau de Fountainebleau [sic] is a monument of a
very interesting period in French art,--one, too, some-
what analagous to the present state of things aesthetic
in the United States. The French of that period seem
to have had a desire for beautiful things, but to have
been unable to compass their own self-gratification.
They resorted to Italy for artists, and Fountainebleau
[sic] stands a witness to the national condition of
double-mindedness that wanted art-work partly because
it gratified the senses, and pafily because it ministered
to vaingloriousness and luxury.

He paid tribute to the dramatic arts with an entry about the
Passion Play at Oberammergau, where he saw the 1880 perfor-
mance:
Their art, in its broadness, simplicity, and sincerity,
it pleases me to fancy as resembling the art of the

Elizabethan drama; both from and of the peeple, the

race,--twined with their life and their life with it.12

That Fuller's absorption with art dated from his

early life is readily evident in these Journal entries; it

101333331, "A Year in Europe," I, 28 October 1879.
11Ibid., 6 November 1879.
12

Ibid., 20 June 1880.

119
can also be easily detected in his initial ventures into
published fiction. In the novel of his Italian experiences,

The Chevalier gf Pensieri-Vani, he praises the exquisite

 

 

"sculptures and bronzes and vast sheeted spread of richly
glittering mosaics" in the Cathedral at Orvieto,l3 to men-
tion only one of the many examples of appreciative descrip-
tion in his first novel. His first published short story,
"Pasquale's Picture," reveals even more dramatically Fuller's
concern with art as its theme magnifies the despair and
hopelessness of aesthetics in a world enmeshed in a net of
commercial enterprise.14 It has been observed in one of the
most comprehensive studies of Fuller's life and work that
Fuller certainly thought of the creation and apprecia-
tion of art as a chief end of civilization. . . . The
Prorege [in The Chevalier g; Pensieri-Vani] . . . demon—
strates how difficult it is . . . not to confuse art as
an end with art as a mere adornment. Fuller of himself
can often enough be taxed with such a confusion. But

of course he did not intend it. Art possessed for him
a prime value in its own right.

 

 

 

Fuller's artistic temperament has a dual significance.
Not only has it affected the treatment and subject matter of
his work, but it also reflects, in part, his heritage and
his milieu. Every writer is essentially--and not peripher-
ally--a product of his surroundings. Ludwig Lewisohn offers

13The Chevalier, p. 58.

 

14Fuller, "Pasquale's Picture," Current, 4 (11 July
1885), 82. It was later published in Fuller's volume of
short stories, From the Other Side (1898).

 

 

SBernard Bowron, "Henry Blake Fuller: A Critical
Study," Diss. Harvard 1948, p. 232.

120
a firm statement of this position:
The environment, age, country, culture, climate, has
everything to do with determining the existence and the
entire character of the work of both the bard and, above
all, the artificer. . . . Hence the genesis of art, of
all inevitable expgession, is in the poet's saul, age
country, fortune.
Fuller is distinctly a Chicagoan of the turn of the century;
indeed, a large proportion of his work concerns that metropo-
113,17 and all of his practical efforts toward cultural
enrichment were addressed to his native city.

In this context it should be mentioned that Fuller
was a member of the fellowship known as The Little Room,
originally an informal group of Chicago artists, writers,
musicians, and patrons of the fine arts which met periodi-
cally in studios of members. The Friday afternoon gatherings
were often held by candlelight, and tea was served from an
antique samovar. Chicago's elite were prominent members.
Fuller himself addressed the club on occasion and was always
warmly received. Many of the details of The Little Room's

mannerly atmosphere are described in Fuller's short novel

"The Downfall of Abner Joyce"18 which deals indirectly with

6Ludwig Lewisohn, The Stogy gf American Literature
(New York, 1939), pp. 155-156.

17Notably his novels The Cliff Dwellers (New York,
1893), and With the Procession (New York, 1895). Both are
set in Chicago.

18Included in Under the Skylights (1901). The story
relzates the facts concerning Hamlin Garland's conversion
fronl austere idealism to a less rigid compromise with the
Pleatsantries of living. The Little Room is also described
inHobart C. Chatfield-Taylor's Cities 3: Many M33, pp. 281-
283. See also Bernard Duffey, The Chicago Renaissance £3
Aggrfiican Letters (East Lansing, 1954), pp. 51-56.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

121
the artist's stance in late nineteenth century America.

In a comprehensive but caustic essay titled "Art in
America" Fuller sets forth his philosophy of art and reiter-
ates in other terms the attitude expressed by Lewisohn
quoted above: Can we really expect to have an art for our-
selves and our country? There are reasons for saying no.
What of heredity? What of our environment? What of the
spirit of our age?"19 This essay is one of the essential
documents in an interpretation of Fuller's theories of art
and judgment of literature.

The artistic idealism characterizing Fuller's adjust-
ment to America as his native land and Chicago as his native
city directly influenced his assessment of contemporary
literature and his theory of literary excellence. He was
deeply concerned over the expansion of artistic literacy.

In "The Upward Movement in Chicago," he hails the advent of
"the city's intellectual and social annexation to the world
at large,"20 and appropriately salutes every cultural aspect
of the local Renaissance, making particular mention of the
"lectures, recitals, readings, conferences and receptions"
at Hull House, featuring "literary courses . . . in Emerson,

2
Browning, George Eliot, and . . . Shakespeare and Dante." 1

19"Art in America," p. 218.

20Fuller, "The Upward Movement in Chicago," Atlantic
EEEELQLZ, 80 (October, 1897), 534. “__-

211bid., p. 538.

122
One section of the essay is devoted to the four great public
libraries: the Chicago Public Library, the Newberry Library,
the Library of the University of Chicago, and the Crerar,
dedicated to science.

With his customary initiative and optimism, he estab-
lished a lifelong mission to win recognition for his artistic
principles. American literature at the turn of the century,
at any rate in its popular aspects, was parroting the crass
materialism and commercialism engulfing much of the country.
Fuller held that literature was regressing because it
adhered to stereotyped formulas, to dated techniques, and to
editorial dictates that stifled original competition,
hampered artistic expression, and pandered to the frivolous,
the uninspiring and the commonplace.23 Naturally, every
writer utilizes the ingredients of material and method which
form the basis for any composition. However, Fuller's
contention was that an accomplished author would be moti-
vated by a sincere concern to contribute to an understanding

of life by portraying it sympathetically, and as esthetically

pleasing.24

His own work reveals a conscious dedication to this

ideal. That it was not widely recognized during his lifetime

22Fuller, "The Upward Movement in Chicago," pp. 538-

539.

23Fuller, "Our 'Young Lady Novelist,'" Chicago

Everling Post, 1 June 1901, p. 6.

24Fuller, "Gissing's 'By the Ionian Sea,'" Chicago
m Log. 24 August 1901; 2 August 1902; 1 November 1902.

123
and is not recognized now, is no reflection on his effort to
attain it. In Fuller's judgment, the novel of first rank is
one written from immediate experience with its subject
matter without distortions and other deviations from reality.

In this regard, Fuller was particularly annoyed to
see that many American writers were sullying the freshness
of local color by merely using little-known regions for
ready-made setting of stale and standardized plots. In his
estimation, their work was not any improvement whatever on
that of the purveyor of contrived fiction who was bent on
catering to the cash that beckons hack authors. With a vast
array of new ideas becoming available for thematic treatment
in fiction, the possibilities of new plots and fresh char—
acterizations were almost endlessly available; there was no
excuse, Fuller maintained, for monotonous reworking of
mediocre situations, especially at the expense of localities
as yet unexplored by writers. His own city, of course, was
such a setting.

Chicago during the decades before and after the turn
of the century was a perfect backdrop for what Fuller sought
to teach, for it was a veritable Showplace of contemporary
literary publications in which his principles could be
indirectly aired by those who read his works and his

cerebrations in the Evening Post. One such periodical, The

 

Lakeside Monthly, founded and edited by Francis Fisher

 

Browne, was a genteel attempt to draw readers with literary

tastes superior to those of the rank and file. Formerly a

124

New England lawyer, Browne worked first for the Western
Monthly (founded 1869), which he changed to the Lakeside
Monthly and edited until 1874. In 1880 he became editor of
$22 2131, which be improved until it ranked with the best
English periodicals of that genre.25 Issued by A. C.
McClurg and Company as its house organ, it reviewed new
books, poetry, and novels; and it was concretely conserva-
tive, intelligent, and independent. Browne's philosophy of
literature is briefly expressed in his letter to Hamlin
Garland:

Shall criticism be geographical? . . . We must show

that we are willing to have [western literature] tried

by the standards of western literaturg6 rather than by

the standards of the back settlement.
While such objectivity and reliance upon absolutes was
typical of the genre exemplified by THE 2131, it is signifi-

cant that these sentiments took root in Chicago.

In addition to spawning the Lakeside Monthly and The

 

Dial, Chicago was the home of the Chap-Book, issued

 

originally as the house publication of Stone and Kimball.
It developed into an important literary venture under
Herbert Stone, assisted by Harrison Rhodes and Bliss Carman

(The Poet Laureate of Canada), and flourished four years

25W.P.A. Federal Writers' Project, Illinois (Chicago,
1939), p. 118. Browne wrote a life of Lincoln (1886) and
ec1:1.ted anthologies of poetry.

6Francis Fisher Browne to Hamlin Garland (1893), in
t17-‘53 Francis Fisher Browne Collection of the Newberry Library,
6'11 :1. cago.

125

(1894-1898) before it was absorbed by The Dial. It strove

 

for sophistication, was printed on special papers, and was
illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. Among its contributors
were Max Beerbohm, George Bernard Shaw, Paul Verlaine,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Henry James, Stephen Mallarme, Thomas
Hardy, and William Butler Yeats.27

The traditionally high quality of these periodicals

was continued following the turn of the century by the

Little Review, begun by Margaret Anderson in 1914, and

 

Poetry: A Magazine gf Verse, founded by Harriet Monroe in

 

1912. The Little Review, characterized by its editor as "a

 

magazine written for intelligent people who can feel; whose
philosophy is applied anarchism; whose policy is a will to

splendor of life,"28

dabbled with the experimentalists.
Readers found in its pages Baudelaire, Huysmans, Mallarme,
Rimbaud, and Wilde, with Nietzsche and Emma Goldman as minor
deities. Although it perished in 1929, the magazine
achieved lasting fame by publishing a blank page issue in
September, 1916, to indicate that nothing worthy of accep-
tance to the avant-garde had been submitted. Poetry intro-
duced to American readers the works of new and unknown poets

including T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Carl Sandburg,

among others. Still a respected literary periodical, it

27Hamlin Garland, "Roadside Meetings of a Literary

Nomad," Bookman, 70 (February, 1930), 270.

8Margaret Anderson, "Preface,' Little Review, March

 

1914.

126
benefited by the discriminating recommendations of the
expatriate poet Ezra Pound. It is worth noting at this
point that Fuller served on the three-member advisory
council of Poetry from the magazine's founding in 1912 until
his death in 1929. His contributions were recognized by
Miss Monroe in a tribute published in Poetry following his
death.29 Direct and indirect contacts with these ventures
sustained Fuller's own artistic standards and provided the
encouragement he needed.

Fuller had distinctive notions of what art generally
and literary art specifically should be. While some of them
were voiced in the contemporary magazines of his native city,
he presented elsewhere as well his point of view regarding
the relationship of literature and art: in an essay, "Art
in America"; in two novelettes, "Dr. Gowdy and the Squash"
and "Little O'Grady Vs. the Grindstone"; in an article on
Lorado Taft; and in reviews he wrote for the book section of

the Chicago Evening Post.30

 

In "Art in America" Fuller states, "The [traditional]

novel is usually too deficient in sense of form to pass

29Harriet Monroe, "A Tribute to Henry B. Fuller,"
Poetry, 35 (October, 1929), 34-41.

30J. H. Oppenheim, "Autopsy on Chicago, American
Mercury, 40 (April, 1937), 458-459, recalls that it was
F111.1er, "that little old gentleman with the brown beard,"
wfzca established the Evening Post's highbrow reputation and
artijl‘rred up the "intermittent literary infectiousness" in
6'12 31'— Cago. See also Robert Morss Lovett, "Fuller of Chicago,"
’£ZZ;§E; New Republic, 60 (21 August 1929), 18.

 

 

127

seriously as a work of art, however magnificent a depository

"31

it be of documents on human nature. In these words, he

opened a frontal attack on the entrenched forces of the
literary enclave. The basic points he makes may be summa-
rized as follows:

1. The artist's first function is not to hold the
mirror up to nature, rather his allegiance is to
his own conception.

2. The artist should found his work on ideas which
are to be illustrated and enforced by facts.

3. It is an error to confound the representation of
nature with art; the Japanese should have made
this plain to us. Fidelity to nature is
unnecessary.

4. Our climate is harmful. It pollutes us and
destroys our nervous stability.

5. Mediocrity is commercialized and has ruined the
market for quality writing.

6. Exploitation has destroyed the unique value of an
individual.

7. Social inhibitions restrict artistic expression;
we are slaves of taboos.

8. Common schooling makes semi-experts of us all and
we no longer naively accept, but set up an
unutterably independent, unqualified judgment.

9. Art properly belongs to the youthful days of any
particular race, and America is aging.

10. As we pollute the ecology, we also pollute souls,
and deprivgzthe race of the capacity to appre-
ciate art.

In conclusion, Fuller offers his judgment that

31"Art in America," p. 219.

321bid., pp. 219-223.

128

Art, today, is a poor creature who finds herself in a
position sadly false; the circumstances of the case
make it inevitable that she should cause trouble for
herself and for everybody else. . . . Let her, then,
retire for a few ages, yielding place to the other
concerns and interests so much nearer to our hearts 33
and so much more in consonance with our requirements.

That is, "Art, with us, meets no real internal require-
ments."34
It should be noted that "Art in America" was composed

soon after Fuller's diatribe against American imperialism in

The New Flag. Coming as it did so closely upon that injudi-

 

cious volume of poems, the essay is as pessimistic as the
verse, perhaps because it partook of a time in the life of
Fuller that was marred by a depressed outlook. Furthermore,
it may easily be an exaggeration of Fuller's normally
optimistic views for the artistic development of the
country's future. This much is evident: he at least
demonstrates considerable bouyancy and restraint as he
begins writing three fictional works the following year
which satirize the subject, two of them being the novelettes
which will next be discussed, when previously his tone
managed to be less than subdued.

Fuller's observations of the direction art production
in America was likely to take in the absence of an influen-
tial and cultivated leisure class are set forth in the short

satiric novels "Dr. Gowdy and the Squash" and "Little

33"Art in America," p. 223.

341b1d., p. 220.

129
O'Grady Vs. the Grindstone." Along with "The Downfall of

Abner Joyce,"

these pieces comprise the volume entitled
Under the Skylights (1901). They ridicule the lengths to
which art may be prostituted in satisfying the unrefined
tastes of a vulgar industrialized society.

"Dr. Gowdy and the Squash" was Fuller's response to
many of the "Letters to the Editor" that had flooded papers
carrying extracts of his caustic "Art in America." He
attempts to demonstrate in this satire how some advocates of
American art were succumbing to fads which defied the
genuine esthetic inclinations of average Americans. The
condemnation of this erosion is the prime thrust of Fuller's
message in the novelette.

The story concerns Jared Stiles, an ignorant and

rather bumptious young farmer who accidentally acquires a

copy of Onward and Upward, a volume of inspirational homilies

 

by Dr. William S. Gowdy, a clergyman in Chicago, whose
sermons were run in the Monday papers and who was an active
member of the Art Academy. The cleric voiced the opinion
that the human race was ennobled and refined by contemplating
works of art. It is natural that his book of essays should
review his ideas on art.

Jared passed lightly over the Doctor's platitudes on
perseverance, honesty, and the like, having met them else-
where; but the banal remarks on art arrested him. Deciding
that he would like to be "ennobled" in some more appealing

way, he registered in a female seminary art class on his

130
next trip to town. He had no difficulty in selecting a sub—
ject to paint, for the Western Art Circuit, founded by
artists and writers, believed it to be the goal of art to
redeem the rural regions by displaying the work of back
country artists, dealing, of course, with farm scenes.
Their thesis was that art should reproduce nature. The
exhibition was glutted with views of corn fields, still life
studies of home-canned peaches, and haystacks as seen in
various stages of shadow during seventeen periods of the
day.

After many attempts, Jared captured a squash on
canvas. With it, he included a suitable display of farm and
gardening implements, and he framed the picture with sections
from an authentic, weatherbeaten rail fence. So intrigued
was Jared with his project that he experimented with a
number of different groupings, such as one with the squash
dismembered and its seeds spilled on the ground. For effect,
he glued actual seeds on the frame.

Mr. Stiles managed to get his work diSplayed in a
prominent hotel where nostalgic travelers doted on it. Word
spread, and Jared got lucrative commissions to do squash
paintings for other hostelries. During a Trade Fair, the
still life caught the attention of a certain Mr. Van Horn,
partner in the Mayer, Van Horn & Company department store,

Chicago's leading retail merchandiser.35

35

Schlesinger and Mayer became Carson, Pirie and
Scott.

131
The upshot of this encounter was Jared's "ten thou-
sand dollar painting" of oversized squash which alone
occupied the department store's largest front window and
which Jared had supplied at a confidential price of only
five hundred dollars. The news media, deploring "the vain
imaginings of so-called idealists," hailed the enormous
canvas as "A New Idea in American Art" and praised the
"sturdy, wholesome truthfulness" of Jared's talent. The
store capitalized on the display, and lucky Jared, now a
celebrity, earned three hundred a week demonstrating his
technique at the Gayety Theater before spellbound audiences.
Fuller thus satirized the current trend to promote

native artists and their devotees who were enthralled with
reproductions of nature-—one of his points of attack in "Art
in America." In addition, he is ridiculing that segment of
the populace that is carried away by publicity fostered by
and in the interests of the business community. He strikes
at the department store, which in the novelette is an image
of the industrial complex:

Except the street railway company, [department stores]

were the greatest influence of the town. They paved

the thoroughfares around their premises to suit them-

selves; they threw out show-windows and bridged alleys

in complete disregard of the city ordinances; they

advertised so extensively that they dictated tgg make-

up of the newspapers, and almost their policy.

What Fuller deplored even more than the exploitation

36Under the Skylights, p. 351. "They sold shoes
. soap, and soda water, pulled your teeth and took your
picture."

 

132

of the citizens was the perversion of art and beauty with
disregard for their significance. He pursued this theme in
"Little O'Grady Vs. the Grindstone." The Board of Directors
of the Grindstone National Bank are selecting some appro-
priate decorations for their new edifice. Murals, statuary,
and has relief sculpture have been allotted twenty thousand
dollars in the budget. "What we want is to make a show and
advertise our business," decreed Andrew P. Hill, the Presi-
dent of Grindstone and its largest stockholder. The
interior--as well as the exterior-—of the structure would be
overpoweringly classical:

There was to be a sort of arched and columned court

under a vast prismatic skylight; lunettes, Spandrels,

friezes and the like were to abound; and the oppor—

tunities £35 interior decoration were to be lavish,

limitless.

Outside, a grandiose facade would include "a long

colonnade of polished blue granite pillars, a pompous attic

story above, and a wide flight of marble steps below-- just
the sort of building to impress the populace. Various
artists were to submit plans for the interior decor, but
none of their pr0posals proved acceptable to Grindstone's
Board. Little O'Grady, a has relief designer in a neigh-
boring studio, has become enchanted with the work of a new
arrival from the Continent, named Ignace Prochnow. He
introduces Prochnow to the Board, but is met with an angry
rebuff from one of the bank directors: "To hell with art!

37Under the Skylights, p. 147.

 

 

133
What I want to do is to advertise my business!"38 However,
the directors change their tune when Prochnow proves to be a
desirable aspirant for committing matrimony with daughters
of two different members of the Board. Nevertheless,
Prochnow is not given a free hand. The directors turn the
building into a grotesque sprawl of spires and columns.
Little O'Grady is furious. Instead of becoming patrons of
art, the business interests have debauched it. Typically,
the institution meets with the disaster Little O'Grady
predicts for it, and in keeping with its inherent tendency
to put up a flashy false front to cover its shaky fiscal
condition, it goes bankrupt while promoting a program for
expansion.

Intricately woven into Fuller's narrative is the
message that artists hOping for success in America must
enslave themselves to the yoke of the "gentle patronage of
the luminaries of society."39 The fact that these "lumi-
naries" have little or no comprehension of what artistic
skills are, becomes the chief lesson in the book. Grind-
stone's bankruptcy underscores Fuller's intent. Commercial-
ism that profanes art is as destructive of the patron as it
is of the protege.

Fuller's advice to aspiring writers is to devote
themselves to their craft and not to subordinate it to

38Under the Skylights, p. 150.

391b1d., p. 273.

 

134

dollar interests:
Feed yourself on the life that lies about you, and
cultivate your twist of the wrist. Technique, in a
word. Form and handling are cardinal points, and due
heed to them should carry our liberated art far, and
give to it the strugEure and finish that art, by any
standard, requires.

Another major source of information about Fuller's
views on art as it might influence literature is his article
on the noted sculptor Lorado Taft.41 Taft personified
Fuller's concept of the ideal artist. This may be attributed
to their kindred nature and to the similarities which are
evident in their experiences with Chicago. Their backgrounds
were in many ways remarkably parallel. Like Fuller, Taft
was born in Illinois of New England stock. His father, a
professor at the University of Illinois, instilled in him
the same upper middle class virtues that Fuller received
from his bank president father. Like Fuller, Taft studied
abroad, but in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts instead of
in Italy. On his return to America, Taft became a recog-
nized spokesman for artistic creativity and popular appre-
ciation of art in the United States.

Having begun teaching at the newly opened Art Insti—
tute, Taft displayed an indefatigable enthusiasm for his

subject. He gave his famous "Clay Talk," during which he

m01ded a lump into various shapes while lecturing on the

0"America's Coming of Age," p. 2.

alFuller, "Notes on Lorado Taft," Century, 76 (August,
1908) , 618-621.

135
principles of form, more than 1,500 times after its initial
presentation in Scranton in 1891. Like Fuller, Taft pro-
claimed that the arts were the hallmark of a healthy and
worthy civilization and that cultural advancement should pace
material prosperity if the national life were to endure in
any meaningful way. "Through poetry and painting and sculp-

ture, life begins to explain itself . . . [they] help us to

realize the infinite sequence of life."42 Also like Fuller,

Taft stigmatized the poverty of American life in its cultural
aspects as unfavorable to the development of a master artist:

It is simply out of the question that a towering master
should appear in our midst under present conditions.
How do they come? Always uplifted by a group of
colleagues. . . . To have art in this country, there
must be an artistic atmosphere; there must be thousands
of skillful hands--thousands of craftsmen who are able
to recognize and appreciate triumphs of arzastry. .
Great art demands passionate appreciation.

Taft's artistic talent and warm personality engendered
appreciation for esthetic values wherever he lectured.
Hamlin Garland44 asserted that no one has done more to
instruct the Midwest in the fundamentals of painting and

sculpture than Lorado Taft.45 He spoke to literary clubs,

42Lorado Taft, quoted in Francis J. McConnel, et al.,

The Creative Intelligence and Modern Life (Boulder, Colorado,
1928), p. 109.

43
Lorado Taft, Appreciation 2i Sculpture (Chicago,
1927), p. 16.

44
Garland.
4S

 

 

 

 

 

Lorado Taft's sister Zuleine was married to Hamlin

Garland, "Roadside Meetings," p. 265.

136
school assemblies, and city councils. Fuller characterizes
him as patient and encouraging with the public and a skilled
pedagogue.46 Naturally, he concurred heartily in what Taft
had to say about the influence of art on good citizenship:
In learning to enjoy good art, we are actually making
ourselves better citizens and contributing to the
welfare and advancement of the land that we love. And
then when unusual talent appears unheralded, we shall
be able to recOgnize and ngtect it--perhaps the
greatest privilege of all.

Both Fuller and Taft agreed that the modern artist
must take the situation as he finds it, building his concept
of ideal art on conditions that prevail at the time, and
adapting his principles to existing circumstances without
compromising them in fact. Each had aSpirations for improve-
ment of the cultural atmosPhere within which his specialty
might flourish, though each was pragmatic enough to realize
that the only progress in this area would have to come from
an enlightened public. Fuller believed that new forms would
have to be developed to win this following. If a serious
writer could satisfy the modern appetite without sacrificing
his integrity, the end would more than justify the means.
Quality literature would be available, and the demands of
the readers would be satisfied.48 As his biographer has
observed, Fuller did not "twang away on the same string

46Fuller, "Notes on Lorado Taft," p. 621.

47Taft, Apggeciation gf Sculpture, p. 20.

 

 

48Fuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," Dial, 61 (14
December 1916) , 516 .

137
until the tune [was] firmly established"; consequently both
the tune and Composer were forgotten by all but a select
circle; nevertheless, be held to high standards of literary
excellence and made unending efforts to raise the quality of
his craft.49 At times, these efforts assumed the caustic
tones of impatient condemnation, especially when he viewed
the direction of American tastes.

Fuller's basic attitude toward the development of a
national propensity for artistic expression was caustic at
best. His acidulous remarks on this subject are found in
both his fiction and non-fiction; he even calls apparent
advancements in culture "a propaganda of music, art, and
literature,"50 and slashes at the public school system.

Education, education, and again education. Is education
the safeguard of the res publica? Then perhaps we are

safe. Is character? Then perhaps we are not. Instrug—
tion is booming. Principle is hardly holding its own. 1

 

The fault, however, lay not in the potential, but in
the character of American society. He felt Americans were
culturally lazy, since they were unwilling to put forth the
exertion necessary to appreciate artistry; neither will they

exert themselves in this direction as long as materialistic

49Constance Griffin, Henry B; Fuller (Philadelphia,
1939), pp. 72-76. This is the only published biography of
Fuller.

50Fuller, "The Upward Movement in Chicago," Atlantic
Monthly, 80 (October, 1897), 546.

Sllbid.

138
. 52
gain is their dominant motivation. Further, Americans are
unwilling to give the necessary attention, recognition, and
respect to art that are necessary if it is to flourish in
the country.53
Fuller felt architecture as well as art in his day

had deteriorated in catering to cheap substitutes. Typical
of his attacks is his censure of the construction at the
Columbian Exposition. After describing the classical
designs of the edifices, he wrote disparagingly of the
"staff," a composite hemp fibre and plaster of paris sheath
for the buildings. This staff, after being moulded into
sheets of suitable sizes and shaped as required, was nailed
to wooden frameworks and fitted to the exteriors, then
whitewashed to simulate gleaming marble.

From all this the real nature of the Columbian buildings

will readily be apprehended. Most of them are not

really buildings, but only models of buildings-—

simulacra of buildings. They make a dream, beautiful

while it lasts, but only a dream.

He was still criticizing them nearly thirty years later:

Their sanctions were all exterior and they drew little
nor nothing from the indwelling actualities of the

52Fuller, "Shakespeare's Debt to Voltaire for Conti-
nental Recognition," Chicago Evening Post, 25 October 1902,
P. 9.

 

53Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers from Our
National Prosperity," Chicago Evenigg Post, 10 May 1902,
P. 13.

 

54Fuller, "Architecture Triumphant in Many and Varied
Forms, from Glimpses of Coming Glories," undated clipping
frofll the Boston Evening Transcript in the Newberry Library's
Full er Collection .

 

139

national life. They represented merely a short, cer-
tain, and respectable form cut to a decorative result.
. . . The most hopeful buildings at the Fair were
those in which certain Western architects, working
outside the central theme, indulged their fancy and
originality.

However, the fourth centennial of Columbus's voyage of
discovery, in Fuller's view, was an appropriate celebration
with lasting values:

The centennial first brought art to the general notice
of the American people. It gave, too, useful indica-
tions of cultural cooperation in a broad fashion. It
stimulated our historic consciousness. It taught the
country, the Middle West included, something about the
value of artistic taste as applied to our rising manu-
factures. It introduced ngg elements into home life
and into household ideals.

This growing public awareness of cultural influences
heartened him. Still, the prOSpeCtS were not encouraging.
Americans, he believed, lacked a national social spirit that

gave them solidarity; they also had no sense of form, so

essential to artistic appreciation.57 These deficiencies

Fuller attributed to the free play between classes. Motility
and mobility prevent art from taking hold. "We fail in many

forms of art from the undue preponderance of the individual,

and from the ease and freedom of private initiative."58

55Fuller, "Planner of Cities," The Nation, 114 (8
February 1922), 166-167.

56Fuller, "Development of Arts and Letters," Chapter
IX of The Centennial Histogy gf Illinois (Chicago, 1920),
IV, 1990

57Fuller, "Art in America," p. 218.

58Ibid.

 

140

This is a striking statement; it may well be unique. Cer-
tainly it indicates a keen insight and deserves considera-
tion both from artists and from social philosophers. If our
art characterizes our culture, we might take sober note of
it.

Further, Americans possess a kind of vulgar indepen-
dence from the rest of the human race as far as their
culture heritage goes:

We see ourselves--whether too flatteringly or not--as a
race of rulers and administrators, the Romans of the
modern world. Our place is on the dais or under the
canopy; and art, as practiced by other--and inferior--
races, may amuse our leisure and adorn our festivities.
The Greeks were privileged to do as much for the Romans
of the Empire; let the Frengg, the Germans and the
Italians do as much for us.

Thus, the young American artist has enthusiasm and

some academic training, but soon runs dry because he has "no

springs in the national life to feed his reservoir."60 The

markets call for trashy music and painting and fiction,61

and our callous pollution of our environment is a parody of
what an artistic temperament should be:

There can be but slight hOpe for art among a people who
have so little concern for externals, for the appearance
of things, or who have so willing an aptitudgzas we for
disfiguring and defiling the face of nature.

59Fuller, "Art in America," p. 218.

60Ibid., p. 220. This allusion is to Little Dombey
in Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son, one of Fuller's favorite
Characters. See Constance Griffin, in Fuller's biography,

pp. 17’ 42.
61

 

"Art in America," p. 221. 62Ibid., p. 223.

141

Part of the remedy Fuller proposed for this situation
was to make the city aware of and more conducive to the
influence of beauty, and to include art in the daily life by
inculcating a sense of order and charm in the man on the
street by improving his surroundings.63 Strong feelings on
this subject were voiced in other reviews, articles, and
editorials. Fuller felt that American society did not look
upon art or the contribution of its artists as important.64
Artists themselves prostituted their calling for material-
istic gain.65 However, civic betterment might come from a
middle class aristocracy devoted to the public welfare; such
an element is vital, he insisted, as a leavening agent in
any civilization, especially ours, as it is directed toward
the mundane.66

Fuller looked upon writing as an art, and expressly
defended this idea:

The word "literature" has been tending more and more

of late years to mean prose fiction, just as the word
"art" has been tending more and more to mean painting

63Fuller, "Municipal Art Substitute," Chicago Evening
Post, 11 May 1901, p. 6.

64Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers,‘
Evenigg Post, 10 May 1902, p. 13.

65Fuller, "Shakespeare's Debt to Voltaire," Chicago
Evening Post, 25 October 1902, p. 9.

66Fuller, "Development of Popular Literature,’ Chicago
Evening Post, 31 May 1902, p. 9. Fuller stated that he
believed leadership in civic improvement was a reSponsi-
bility of the leisure class, since they alone had the influ-
ence, knowledge, and means to promote causes.

Chicago

 

 

142
--a misuse of language calculated to sadden Mr. Taft
and infggiate Mr. Rice. 1 protest, too, against both
usages.

As an art form, literature should be patronized and
subsidized as a fine art. Such patronage was rare in his
time. A dedicated, well—trained artist could not promote
his technique or philosophy without money, and the class of
people who bought his productions were frequently not
sophisticated enough to appreciate them. Some other menac-
ing aspects of this situation were the general public
indifference to contemporary art and the lack of any estab-
lished government subsidies. Fuller proposed a surprising,
if not startling solution to this dilemma in a satirical
short story, "Silence."68

In the story, Horatio Vincent, a sculptor apparently
characterized in part from Lorado Taft, has finished a major
work entitled "Silence." The larger-than-life-size figure
is shrouded in a full length blanket which covers all but
the eyes and the nose. Symbolically, it represents the
secrets known only to the dead, a meaning which makes it
eminently suitable for a memorial statue. Now Vincent need
wait only for some wealthy prospect to die, leaving adequate

means to erect this monument over his remains. Finally,

Such a fortuitous event occurs. A rich Kentucky horse

67The Chicago Public Library, 1873-1923 (Chicago,
1924), pp. 83-84.

68Fuller, "Silence," Scribner's Magazine, 48 (October,
1910), 430-441.

143
fancier named McEntee succumbs from apoplexy, and attorneys
for the estate study Vincent's "Silence" to mark his grave,
in accordance with provisions in his will.

Being suitably impressed, and eager to have done with
their task, the delegates approve the monument. A few days
afterward, McEntee's former housekeeper arrives at Vincent's
studio to express her disapproval of the price the attorneys
have promised, and after that, McEntee's son makes an entry
to state his dissatisfaction with the choice, with the
interference of the housekeeper, and with Vincent's own
cavalier reaction to the family's involved private life.
Through an informed correspondent in Kentucky, the Fourth
Estate learned of the situation and sent a skilled reporter
to interview Vincent.

Reluctantly, he relates the few facts he knew, only
to read in the next edition a full and sordid account,
attributed in entirety to himself, of McEntee's private life,
of his estranged wife and son, his common law wife (the
housekeeper), and a host of other gross canards about McEntee
and his family that Vincent had never even heard. This
account occupied three full columns and included a picture
of "Silence" in the page center.

As Vincent prepared for his weekly studio reception
the following weekend, it was too much to expect that the
subject of the McEntee article and concomitant scandal would
not arise. He braced himself for the worst. But to his

surprise, he sold more statuary and was solicited by more

144
prospective patrons than at any time in his professional
career. Now that he had become a celebrity-~"a name"-—it
meant something for a person to possess "a Vincent,"
especially because of his connection with the unsavory
details overshadowing the McEntee family.

The irony of this situation was that Vincent's long-
sought fame as a sculptor was not the result of his European
grooming or his long years of practice. His recognition was
the outgrowth of a chance association with a family of
sullied reputation and with an exaggerated squabble over a
race horse breeder's estate that appealed to the public's
interest in the lurid.

In "Silence," as in "Dr. Gowdy and the Squash" and
"Little O'Grady Vs. the Grindstone," we see Fuller's satiric
treatment of the "successful, worldly" artist's means of
achieving fame and recognition. The first two stories
satirize the public's primary interest in an artist's
personality rather than in his achievements or his skill.
The third, which points to the social and commercial demands
placed upon a competent and earnest artist, illustrates what
is likely to happen when he refuses to conform to these
demands: he loses the commission, but in doing so, reveals
the basic human weaknesses and artistic defects of his
WOuld-be-patrons.

As literature, these stories exemplify Fuller's
Principles regarding writing, and at the same time dramatize

earlier statements set forth in "Art in America." In brief,

145

they demonstrate that American soil is not a good place to
nurture art; that no class of American society provides a
satisfactory artistic atmosphere; that Americans are too
concerned with their materialistic pursuits to give prece—
dence to art 233 fig; and that it would be better if Americans
halted their current "mistaken endeavor" and "misapplied
energy" in the realm of art than to debase it in these ways.

Fuller's artistic and literary principles were homoge-
nized in still another work. In 1925, a decade after
composing "Silence," he examined again the general status of
the arts in America in an essay whose title is indicative of
a more favorable and optimistic outlook on future cultural

development, "America's Coming of Age"69

emphasizes the
increased maturity of the nation's artistic and literary
standards as they developed in the face of the challenges
presented by a "raw and repellent" national life. America,
he wrote, has at last shaken off the bonds of its cultural
colonialism which had for so long kept in check a confident
development of her own standards. The second-rate "popular"
art which satisfied the need for mere diversion and ornamen-
tation at the turn of the century had, at last, given room
to a more substantial expression of a genuinely unique

American artistic impulse.

Certain the case was not that the second-rate had

69Fu11er, "America's Coming of Age," The New York
Ifiimes Book Review, 3 May 1925, p. 2.

 

 

146
disappeared, but that the broadened scope of national life
in general had provided new self-confidence in matters of
taste, Fuller reminded his contemporaries of the "slop and
disorder" of those earlier years with their transient and
shallow process of supply and demand. He called for a more
substantial criterion. It was a bold proposal, and woven of
tough moral fibre.

In literature, specifically, Fuller observed that
this transition was evident in recent years. The artistic
verity basic to Fuller's personal theory of composition--
that manner may redeem matter--could be seen at work in the
writing of Mark Twain, the "river pilot," and Walt Whitman,
Lincoln's eulogist. Both are prime examples of the prin—
ciple that a viable national art should center on national
life. The "crude" in their skilled hands was edified by the
"authenticity" of its matrix. Persons, situations, and
conditions that in reality would repel a reader became
transposed by their artistry into fascinating portraits of
American life. To Fuller, the ever-widening appeal of such
writing was evidence that a discriminating and mature
national taste was developing which would benefit the
painters, novelists, poets, and architects of posterity.

It is they we must look to for the assimilation and trans-
formation of the raw materials of existence into a dynamic
amalgam. In conclusion, Fuller declared, "The moral seems

to be, feed yourself on the life that lies about you, and

147
cultivate indefatigably your twist of the wrist."70

In Fuller's theory of composition, selection involves
much more than choice of setting and theme. It concerns
itself with careful screening of details related to the
setting and the utilization of the most apprOpriate of these
items in attaining the author's objective. Screening, in
his view, should confirm that the details included in the
fiction convey symbolically as well as realistically the
setting's true significance. To Fuller, realistic detail
was the essence of esthetic communication. A carefully
composed delineation of reality should contrive to convey an
insight into life situations with implications extending far
beyond the picture itself.

That, in brief, is his philosophy of literary art,

and his own writing illustrates this principle. In The

 

Cliff Dwellers Walworth Floyd is the manager of the Midwest

 

branch of the Massachusetts Brass Company whose home office
is in Boston. In a passage designed to convey the ostenta-
tion of the Chicago business community, Fuller notes that
Floyd's shoes were polished at the toe, to the neglect of
the heel.71 While no commentary accompanies the mere state-
ment that this is so, to the perceptive reader this singular
observation carries more significance in emphasizing the
facade of prosperity in booming Chicago than a whole page of

70Fuller, "America's Coming of Age," p. 2.

71Fuller, The Cliff Dwellers (New York, 1893), p. 235.

 

148
obfuscations that might attempt to clarify it. The real
significance of this observation lies in its apparent
insignificance. Such a realistic detail conveys much more
than it might in less capable hands.

Another example from The Cliff Dwellers involves the

 

young banker George Ogden, the hero of the novel, whose
activities and circle of friends have kept him relatively
sheltered from close contact with the masses of his fellow
Chicagoans. Unexpectedly caught in a heavy rain, he seeks
shelter inside the public library, along with many others
from the street, including a number of foreigners. In one
imaginatively constructed statement, Fuller reveals a moment
of vivid awareness in George Ogden's day: "The downpour
without seemed but a trifle compared with the confused
cataract of conflicting nationalities within, and the fumes
of incense that the united throng caused to rise upon the
altar of learning stunned him with a sudden and sickening

72

surprise." Another character in The Cliff Dwellers is the

 

object of a similar vignette. He is Erasmus Brainerd, owner
of the Underground National Bank, whose entire existence is
oriented to business. Fuller captures a facet of his
exclusive preoccupation in this statement: "He wrote about
nothing but business--his nearest relative was never more
than 'dear sir,'--he himself was never otherwise than
'yours truly,‘ and he wrote on business letter-heads even to

72Fuller, The Cliff Dwellers, p. 54.

 

149

his family."73

Surely Fuller's principle of selectivity is
vividly displayed in these portraits with a minimum of
elaboration their uppermost feature.

In the same vein, the description of the Marshall

family carry-all early in With the Procession reveals more

 

about its conservative, well-bred owners than pages of
detail: "It is not new, it is not precisely in the mode;
but it shows material and workmanship of the best grade, and
it is washed, oiled, polished with scrupulous care. It
advances with some deliberation. . . ."74
Within a later section of the same novel is another
sample of astute selection of detail artistically treated:
before appearing as a guest at a prominent social gathering,
Theodore Brower, painfully self-conscious of his newly
conferred status as a member of Chicago's elite, is unable
to decide where to affix his boutonniere. He is aware that
one man wears it in the left lapel, and another puts it in
his right. Confused and fearful of committing a social fggg
Egg, he simply does not wear the flower at all.75 The inci-
dent receives little emphasis and no comment, yet it conveys
the malaise of the social system of Fuller's time in a
perceptive way--the do nothing, know nothing, and be nothing
of American mankind. It is an epitome of Fuller's capability

73Fuller, The Cliff Dwellers, p. 44.

74Fuller, With the Procession (New York, 1895), p. 3.

751b1d., p. 174.

 

 

150

to "let the little represent much,‘ and to let graphic
detail do its artistry.

Character development, to Fuller, meant that char—
acters should be so presented as to emphasize selected
qualities rather than individualism. They should typify
what the author wishes to present onstage. He believed the
idea represented by a character was more essential than the
specifics of personality unrelated to such an integrating
idea.76

Fuller felt the psychological novel was too personal;
he preferred a bas relief method to treatment in the round.77
The former permits the character to appear in relation to
his general background and to illumine therefrom the condi-
tions of life of which he is a part, while the latter will
tend to probe too deeply into an isolated personality.

Fuller advocated the use of characters who are individualized
representatives rather than those who happen to be represen—
tative.78

To illustrate how he put his own theory to work in

this respect, we may note Cornelia McNabb, perhaps the most

fully realized character in The Cliff Dwellers. She is

 

definitely individualized and vividly portrayed. The reader

76Fuller, The Last Refuge (Boston, 1900), p. 21.

 

77Fuller, "Marion Crawford's Latest Novel Deals with

 

Modern Roman Society," Chicago Evening Post, 1 November
1902, p. 9.
78

Ibid.

151

follows her victorious rise in Chicago society from a wait-
ress at a lunch counter to stenographer to the wife of the
bank president's son, and finally to potential rivalry with
the legendary Cecilia Ingles as the polestar of the fashion-
able set. Yet her individuality never outshines her primary
function as a minor character who represents the material-
istic standards assuming the dominant role in the city's
mainstream of activity. She embodies social aspiration.

Her success is a satiric contrast to the tragic failure of
Jessie Bradley, the idealist, whose life is made unhappy.79

Likewise, in With the Procession, Mrs. Granger Bates

 

is a thorough portrait of an individual whose principal aim
in life is to attain wealth and social prominence. Yet,
Fuller's artistic deployment of her role in this novel is to
have her exemplify the social process of which she is
together both the agent and the victim. In her as well as
through her, the author is expounding the theme of social
rivalry featured by the narrative.80 In the same work, we
may point to David Marshall, an affluent, conservative
father of two aspirants to social acclaim. Marshall's death
in his opulent but unfinished new residence provides Fuller
with the incident that pictures the condition of an entire
generation: the old way of life was passing away within the
edifice of the new, which is still under construction as it

79The Cliff Dwellers, pp. 60-72.

 

80With the Procession, pp. 66-84.

 

152

were; the formerly revered principles of "old settlers"
based on hard work and initiative provide a skeleton frame-
work for the new order, but they cannot continue to exist
since they are not fleshed out.81

Certainly in these instances and in others in Fuller's
works, we find characters both delineating and defining the
society they represent. Fuller convinces us with a relaxed,
well ordered style, based on his understanding of observed
realities. At heart, he is an empiricist. He approaches
every narrative problem pragmatically, but he avoids the
stultifying effect which surfaces in the work of many contem-
porary realists in the form of massive detail that chokes
out the message. Such tedious documentation appeared to
Fuller to be a confession of artistic failure.82 In con-
trast with Dreiser or Zola, Fuller proposed that careful
selection rather than unlimited inclusion was the hallmark
of fidelity to literary art.

Fuller's realization that quality literature had its
genesis in first hand observation led him to use documenta-
tion when carefully controlled.8? Although recognizing his

intellectual aSpirations, Fuller believed that man was at

heart an essentially emotional animal who needs the

81With the Procession, pp. 320 ff.

 

82Fuller, "The Vitality of Romanticism," Chicago
Evening Post, 21 September 1901, p. 6.

83Fuller, "Our 'Young Lady Novelist,‘
£g§53 1 June 1901, p. 6.

 

Chicago $222123

153

stimulation of adventure, even if acquired vicariously.84
At the same time, he was sure that these elements had gone
to intolerable extremes in contemporary literature; the
realists wearied their followers with minutiae and stifled
them with the literary body odors of unsavory characters and
locales as they abandoned the panorama for the alley,
exploring narrow segments of coarser kinds of human exis—
tence.85 The romanticists, in contrast, nullified their
claims of historical accuracy by concocting fantasies imple-
mented by stock characters and anachronistic settings.86 In
each instance, the novel tended to develop into a stylized
commodity formulated according to traditional procedures.

Fuller believed the writer was not only a catalyst,
but a "vehicle, a medium," and that be effected a transfor-
mation of the materials from an "assimilation" of observed
data. In Fuller's opinion, this metempsychosis should

revitalize the materials into a pleasing depiction of life.

The result should be a recreation, fresh and vivid and

84Fuller, "New and Representative Type of American
Fiction Developing," Chicago Evening Post, 24 May 1902,
pt. II, p. 1.

85Fuller, "Dear Old Eighteenth Century," Freeman, 4
(4 January 1922), 404. See also Fuller, Chicago Evening
Post, 24 May 1902, pt. 11, p. l.

86Fuller, "Our 'Young Lady Novelist,‘ Chicago Evening
Post, 1 June 1901, p. 6. See also Fuller's essay, "A Feast
for the Gods" (1876) contained in a clipping and manuscript
in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library, Chicago.

 

154

authentic and definitely individualized.87 No literary
artist could expect to achieve "real romanticism" without
blending objective observation with intelligent imagination.
"Real romanticism," in fact, was the result of this process,
"fed . . . on the good meat, bread, and wine of reality,"
offering the reader a representation to gratify the "appetite
of the senses" that showed readers how they might participate
as well as observe.88

Technique to Fuller was something else: it requires
achieving both symmetry and balance. These might not be
apparent to an ordinary reader, writes Fuller, but their
presence is essential. Technique naturally includes the
mechanics of written expression--impeccable diction, organi-
zation, clarity, orthography, a rich vocabulary range,
rhythm, and balance, but it can be overdone to the point it
hampers the free flow of ideas. Further, esthetic qualities
count in writing, too, for, as Fuller states, skill alone is
insufficient if there is not coherence, and a pleasing

89

style. It ought to be remembered that highly technical

matters are secondary:

87Fuller, "New and Representative Type of American
Fiction Developing," Chicago Evening Post, 24 May 1902, II,
p. 13.

 

88Fuller, "The Vitality of Romanticism," Chicago
Evening Post, 21 September 1901, p. 6.

89Fuller, "Three Glimpses Across Seas,‘
Evening Post, 4 May 1901, p. 6.

 

Chicago

 

155

There is probably no narrower and no more exacting
egoist than the writer turned technician, and none
more prone to forget that while he himself is an
acute specialist in form and style, most of his
readers . . . are, in his par§$cular department of
human endeavor, but amateurs.

A true endeavor to develop worthwhile techniques, says

Fuller, is directly proportioned to the author's sensitivity

to his environment and his audience. He is put to the test.
What is his work is their play. . . . And if he finds
them liking some third-rate thing better than his own
first-rate thing, let him cease his plaint and search
his heart and overhaul his practice; for ten to one his
narrow pursuit of his specialtyluuslost him his own 91

rightful part of . . . broad general human interest.

In a specific reference to Henry James's The Wings 3:

 

the Dove, Fuller proclaimed his impatience with professional

 

writers who are much too technical, refining their material
"until the delicate has become the impalpable, the elusive

the intangible, and the exquisite the all but impercep-

"92

tible. Fuller stigmatized these practices as the extreme

limits of attempts to "compass the absolute,‘ when the

approximate suffices.93 He emphasized the desirability of a
certain flexibility in technique, to give the reader more

freedom. He felt this contributed to the artistic process

90Fuller, "Preoccupation of the Specialist Kg. the
Broader Interests of the Laity," Chicago Evening Post, 15
November 1902, p. 9.

91Ibid.

 

92Fuller, "Latest Novel of Henry James is a Typical
Example of His Art," Chicago Evening Post, 30 August 1902,
p. 4.

 

93Ibid.

156

and to the esthetic experience.94

An excess of finish in a painting, an excess of exact-
ness in a building, leaves too little for the eye to
do; and the eye incessantly, though perhaps uncon-
sciously, demands the opportunity to assist and to
adjust. In the same way, a book that "fits" too
closely takes from its reader more than it gives him.
Let there be margin for the adjustment of the mind;

it is good that there should be a certain amount of
"give" or "play," or slack. Not slacgness; we have
plenty of that in our doings already. 5

For his own part, Fuller preferred the plain, clean-
cut pieces by Amy Lowell and Robert Frost96 to what he
regarded as the sententious intricacies of Henry James, and
James's pedantry may in some measure be responsible for
Fuller's choosing Howells over James.

Modern America was smaller to Fuller than Switzerland
in terms of the rate at which ideas and artistic sensations
moved along the nation's nerve.97 In addition, Americans
were bumpkins, speaking literarily, for their "manners and
usages are widely vulgarized--or rapidly becoming so."98

Yet in no way would he discourage the rustic. "The time is

coming," Fuller predicted, "when to be national will be to

94Fuller, "Is Great Literature of the Future to Come

from American Continent?" Chicago Evening Post, 14 June
1902, p. 9.

95Ibid.

 

96Fuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," Dial, 61 (14
December 1916), 516.

 

97Fuller, "Erroneous Ideas About Prospects for the
'Great American Nove1,'" Chicago Evening Post, 17 May 1902,
p. 9.

98

Ibid.

157
be provincial."99 This is because "Europe may be indiffer-
ent to a new type of clothes wringer, but will never close
her ears to a Whitman."100
In order to produce great literature, America must

first produce a great man, Fuller wrote.101 According to
Fuller, he will be a "monolith," who will have his day when
materialism subsides and the country seeks for intangible
esthetic values which all men are capable of achieving.102
This "monolith" will doubtless face life as Fuller did,
instead of running from it as Henry James did; and it seems

certain that he will need to devote himself to actively

promoting artistry on a variety of levels of society, as did

 

Fuller.

99Fuller, "Weakening of National Spirit Under Inter-
national Influence," Chicago Evening Post, 7 June 1902, pt.
II, p. 1.

100Ibid.

101

Fuller, "Erroneous Ideas About Prospects for the
'Great American Nove1,'" Chicago Evening Post, 17 May 1902,
p. 9.

 

102Ibid.

CHAPTER V

OBSTACLES, PROPOSALS, AND PROJECTIONS: FULLER'S

ASSESSMENT OF AMERICAN LITERARY DEVELOPMENT

Within the context of early twentieth century American
life, Fuller's adjustment to the nation's cultural develop-
ment proves to be surprisingly constructive. His Evening
Pg§£_articles provided a weekly forum for his observations
and satisfied his need to be involved; in addition, his
occasional contributions to a variety of other literary
periodicals stimulated his sense of participation in literary
improvement. As a member of the advisory board for Harriet
Monroe's Poetry magazine, he devoted great blocks of time
and intense effort to one of the most positive cultural
ventures of the new century, not to mention the specific
instances in which he gave private advice and encouragement
to aspiring young writers who had come to Chicago in search
of literary fame.

Underlying this positive involvement and its satis-
fying effect, however, was the persistent sensitivity to the
obvious mediocrity of popular literature and the daily
awareness of the social and economic obstacles against which
the literary artist in America had to strive. Fuller

158

159

lamented that the publishing atmosphere was inimical to the
dedicated writer in this country as evidenced by authors who
are driven to satisfy the demand for tawdry productions
because the public is not conditioned to respond to anything
better. "We are articulate to a surprising and even a
distressing degree [but] the mediocrity that attends on mere
material prosperity has seriously qualified the value of our
utterance."1

In his fiction as well as in his non-fiction, Fuller
identified numerous manifestations of the relationship
between the emphasis on prosperity and its inevitable result
of literary mediocrity. Basically, Fuller considered
America to be a nation having little esthetic interest and
doing very little toward offering encouragement to citizens

engaged in creating or purveying culture, either formally or

informally. His novel, Bertram Cope's Year (1919) is built

 

entirely on this theme. COpe was a young English instructor
in a leading university where he received such poor pay that
he was led from humiliation to humiliation. In one scene,
he attended a social function where he miserably "hoped
nobody would notice his shoes had been half-soled."2 Cope

n

envisioned . . . nothing ahead for years, even in the most

favorable of circumstances, save an assistant professorship,

1Henry B. Fuller, "Our National Literature Suffers
from our National Prosperity," Chicago Evening Post, 10 May
1902, p. 13.

 

2Fuller, Bertram Cope's Year (Chicago, 1919), p. 122.

 

160
with its inconceivably modest emoluments."3 As a guest in a
magnificent home in the town where he taught, he noticed
"Everything here was rich and handsome; he should not know
how to select such things--still less how to pay for them.
He felt dashed; he felt depressed; once more the wonder of
people's 'having things.'"4 He wondered at length: "How
furnish a house, how clothe and feed a wife?--at least until
his thesis should be written, and a place, with a real
salary, found in the academic world. How, even, buy an
engagement ring--that costly superfluity?"5 Because
American society apparently disdained university teachers of
English literature, keeping them at a bare subsistence
level6 while it preferred to obtain its enlightenment from
"the glitter of many saloons, and an occasional glare from
the front of a moving picture theatre,"7 Cope was resigned

H

to being . . . nothing but a poor underpaid professor all
his life."8 The book ends on a frustrating note with C0pe
remaining single, sharing quarters and expenses with another
poorly paid instructor, and wondering to himself how good
literature will ever compete with the popular appeal of

entertainment garnished with bright lights. Fuller's hero

was trapped by a disregardful society.

3Fuller, Bertram Cope's Year, p. 126.

 

4Ibid., pp. 170-171. 5Ibid., pp. 188-189.
61bid., p. 56. 71bid., p. 107.
8

Ibid., p. 224.

161

Another enemy of good literature in America is the
coarse tastes of the public. "The Enemy . . . sometimes
takes the form of a rich, bizarre young man with a penchant
for publishing a '1iterary' newspaper, who leads the
necessitous novelist to traffickings in fires, murders, and
suicides."9 The modern writer is handicapped because there
is no substance to his audience. Earlier, in a letter to
Norton, Fuller had observed that the reading public is
infected with " . . . the artificiality of today. There
seems to be a third and still less favorable stage, that of
tomorrow; and at present I feel myself facing this stage,
with my toe over the line, and uncertain whether to go back-

ward or forward."10 Poignantly he laments, "Who wants to be

famous in evil times?"11
In addition, Fuller believed the American imagination
to be virtually moribund, due in part to the rapacity of

business interests which shut out all the charms of life in

12 "
favor of economics; an American tycoon was a mere

9Fuller, "Billboards and the Remedy," Chicago
Evening Post, 27 July 1901, p. 6.

10Fuller to Charles Eliot Norton, 12 November 1892,
Harvard University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachu-
setts.

 

11Fuller to William Dean Howells, 4 March 1909,
Harvard University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachu-
setts.

12Fuller, "Why the American Public Neglects Drama,"
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 24 January 1903, Part 2,
p. 4. See also Fuller, "For the Faith," in Waldo Trench and
Others, p. 176.

 

162
buccaneer of business . . . in the modern warfare known as

'trade.'"13

The environment itself was enough to drive any-
one out of his senses: "There are times when the roar of
the metropolis becomes too strong for the most accustomed
ears, and when a step aside from the tumult of Broadway
seems necessary if the human mechanism is to endure any
longer."14 Ultimately, literary creativity demands bold-
ness; it cannot flourish in an affluent society, since
"wealth breeds caution."15 Commercial prosperity is the
seedbed of undesirable literary trends as well, for materi—
alistic influence is the bane of all esthetic forces:
"Naturalism was born of materialism and is the artistic form

of it."16

Writers and students were finding that their
callings were ill-paid, so "Almost everybody was leaving the
gravel walks of Probity to take a short cut across the fair
lawns of Success."17 Therefore, Fuller observed, standards
would have to be revised, and goals would need to be reas-

sessed for their potential monetary rewards.

Still another of the roadblocks to successful

13Fuller, "For the Faith," p. 190.

14Fuller, "Waldo Trench Regains His Youth," in Waldo
Trench and Others, p. 4.

15Fuller, "A Coal from the Embers," in Waldo Trench
and Others, p. 106.

l6Fuller, "The Novels of Matilda Serao," Chicago
Evenigg Post, 14 September 1901, p. 6.

l7

 

 

 

 

Fuller, 93 the Stairs (Boston, 1918), p. 8.

 

163

authorship in America according to Fuller's criteria, was
the diminishing respect given to the writer. For one thing,
the demise of the patron in this country increasingly left
the unestablished writer in unsteady straits. In a 1903
column, Fuller points out that the "bacillus dedicatory" was
still epidemic in Europe but had died out in America.18 He
lamented that the author in this country not only lacks the
financial help, but also fails to receive a moral under-
pinning that comes from endorsing or being endorsed by those
who are established and successful. Instead, he must face
the critics on his own, a waif in the arena. Another
symptom of disrespect for the writer in America is the
laxity with which the International Copyright Law is
enforced. Even Sousa complained bitterly that his music was
being pirated all over England. Nothing was done about it,
and Hamlin Garland and William Dean Howells were threatening
to give up writing until their works were protected.19

Fuller devoted an entire column to still another
deterrent to American writers, entitling it "Are Publishers

Unjust to Young and Unknown Authors?"20 In it, he stigma-

tizes some publishers as dull-witted and dilatory and

l8Fuller, "Part Played by Book Dedications Among
Writers at Home and Abroad," Chicago Evening Post, 14
February 1903, p. 4.

19Ibid.

 

20Fuller, "Are Publishers Unjust to Young and Unknown
Authors?" Chicago Evening Post, 7 February 1903, p. 4.

 

164
untrustworthy. "The newcomer . . . is often enough treated
by 'the trade,' as every writer is sufficiently aware, to a
succession of minor barbarities that, taken cumulatively,
might well reduce him to serious thought of self-destruction."
Fuller notes the cruel and racking injustice of delays,

indifference, and "rogueries" which plague the novice and

make him the victim of schemes.

 

Then, too, Fuller reminds us, the aspiring author
discovers that he is landlocked by conventions. To be
successful, he must strive to satisfy the average man, which
leads to his writing an impression of society rather than an
expression of his original ideas.

Briefly, you, as a writer, are starting out to pro-
duce an impression, so your first study must be that of
the mind--the collective mind--upon which the impression
is to be produced. The implications conveyed by this
. . . are deep and wide, and they contain a measure of
cold truth, which, whether agreeable or no, should
receive the best 'hope' from that novelist who may be
hoping for popularity and success.

In short, the writer of novels is coming to occupy
a position similar to that held by the builder of plays.
The clamps are placed upon him; the strait-jacket will
soon be his only wear.

Up to to-day the novelist has enjoyed a certain
artistic freedom. He has been at liberty to found his
work, if able to, on the great abstract principles upon
which all good art rests, and to stand out against the
power of those current and ephemeral conviitions by
which the drama is so tyrannically ruled.

Now, however, the writer is coming to be restricted by

stereotypes. He cannot achieve the skillful manipulation

21Fuller, "Maker of Popular Fiction Finds Conventions
Closing in Upon Him," Chicago Evening Post, 21 February 1903,
p. 4.

 

165

needed for his effects when he is hidebound by rules and

regulations that force him to follow a "water-worn channel.'

He is also hamstrung by conditions which prevent his use of
audacity and finesse so essential to capturing and holding
an audience. Worse than that, it causes a maladjustment in
the writer's ability to reveal things as they are, since
"convention outranks reality"22 and puts it down.

American writers are further prevented from high
accomplishments by the passing of patriotic fervor. Nation—
alism, declares Fuller, was fading and cosmopolitanism was
advancing, for the world was thriving, at least in the area
of the arts, on interchanges on an unprecedented scale, so
that "The man who would jealously guard his native quality
must become a hermit."23 By its official motto, 24 this
country is committed to including everything and everybody,
as opposed to the doctrine of most foreign nations to
exclude everything and everybody. Our heritage is growing
less striking, less unique and less pungent. In literature
as in national life, America is becoming a grab-bag. We
cannot dominate by amalgamating: "The world--the intellec-
tual 'Western' world--is rapidly blending, despite all its

differences, into one body; from now on nationalism in art

 

 

22Fuller, Gardens gf This World (New York, 1929),
p. 190.

23Fuller, "Weakening of National Spirit under Inter—
national Influences," Chicago Evening Post, 7 June 1902,
p. 13.

24

E Pluribus Unum.

 

166

and literature will become an increasingly difficult pose.
All large relations tend more and more to be reciprocal, and
to produce a composite, a conglomerate."25 Both the apposi-
tion of internal and external influences were tending to a
general fusion of what formerly were distinctive elements in
the national character.

In summary, the country was in the throes of cultural
disorderliness. Little respect existed for the ideal or its
attainment; this was accompanied by indifference, and
finally with impatience for the practitioner who insists
upon the ideal. Fuller felt that those who wrote for the
purely commercial rewards were compromising the sincere and
legitimate aims of dedicated authors. Esthetic standards
were distorted. Writers pandered to diversion, not to
serious subjects. Readers were not invited to participate
or even to react; literature did not involve them. It was
becoming a spectator activity. The machinery of publicity
operated to make a book a best-seller before it so much as
reached the bookstore. Serious artists must conform to what
the publishers demanded. The methods must be honored at
whatever cost to improvement or professional refinement.
From the publisher's outlook, literature was merely merchan-
dise to be marketed. From Fuller's point of view, it was a

heritage to be protected. For him, we might coin the term

25Fuller, "Weakening of National Spirit under Inter—
national Influences."

167

"literary ecologist,’ for he actually put his crusade in
ecological terms: "However firm the ground we stand on,
what counts most in the end is the air we breathe. That air
is a complex of ideas and impressions. A young, eager,
ambitious, receptive people, newly stirred to an interest in
music, art, and literature, opens wide its mouth and deeply
expands its chest to take in--what? Products [that are]
even libidinous."26
Twenty years before articulating this graphic
condemnation of mediocrity and commercialization, Fuller had
assessed the problem and had begun seeking remedies. Again
and again, he turned to the subject of a new literature
which might be developed in America, but some of these
projections seem more valid in theory than in practice. It
must be noted, however, that in each new proposal, Fuller's
ultimate concern is the improvement of existing forms so
that they might appeal to a much broader segment of the
population and still retain artistic merit. The end result
would thus be the replacement of shallow, static popular
literature by attractive, stimulating new forms. In addi-
tion, he took every available opportunity to evaluate other

writers' worthy interests in the same line. At least five

of his columns in the Chicago Evenigg Post are given over to

 

these observations on new literary forms.

26Fuller, "The Melting Pot Begins to Smell," New York
Times Book Review, 21 December 1924, p. 2.

168
In his first regular weekly column for the paper,
Fuller lends his endorsement to Howells' criticism of a
Harvard professor's "priggish and supercilious" history of
literature. Fuller cheers Howells on, especially when the
professor castigates young writers. In another column,
Fuller reviews new novels dealing with business and

political life.28 He cites The Minority by Frederick Trevor

 

Hill, Margaret Bowlby by Edgar L. Vincent, and Morchester by

 

 

Charles Datchet, as being the most recent of this genre.
While pleased to recognize "a new type in fiction that is
much more representative of our own day and our own land"
than the historical novel and the romance of adventure,
Fuller foresees the eventual stereotyping of this form
unless they are depicted in a style more imaginative and
more stimulating than "plain, straightaway realism." He
uses the occasion to promote his own principle of transmuta-
tion: "The artist is a vehicle, a medium. His material
must enter into him in one form and leave him in another.
He must transfuse it, transmute it." Another column is
titled, "Development of Popular Literature through Present

29

Deluge of Books," and speaks of the "evolutionary" nature

27Fuller, "Howells Flays Professor Wendell,’
Evening Post, 6 April 1901, p. 13.

28

Chicago

 

Fuller, "New and Representative Type of American

 

Fiction Developing," Chicago Evenigg Post, 24 May 1902, pt.
2, p. 13.
29

Fuller, "Development of Popular Literature through
Present Deluge of Books," Chicago Evening Post, 31 May 1902,
p. 9.

 

169
of the literature on the contemporary market. Paramount in
this process is the "vulgarization" and "democratization" of
literature which is upsetting established norms. Fuller
does not wholly approve of it, however: "As for the new
school of manners-~that you encounter everywhere. We are
all as ashamed of courtesy as of sentiment. In the combina—
tion of the brusque and the 'funny'--find there the perfect
man." In the same piece, he once more castigates "the
doctrine of the majority." His next column on innovations
in writing, headlined, "New Form of Fiction by the Talented
Author of 'In Tuscany,'"30 is a review of Montgomery

Carmichal's The Life 3f John William Walshe. He concludes,

 

 

 

"The psychological novel has long stood in the line of
succession, and the biographical novel, in one form or
another, has been a good second. Perhaps the field of the
immediate future is for the latter. Perhaps, again, the new
fiction will be a combination of both." He adds, "The inti-
mate experiences of a single person, recorded faithfully and

completely, would surpass in interest and in value any novel

ever written. 'The Life of John William Walshe' is a step
in this direction." Still another column headed "Increase

in American Fiction of Aristocratic Social Ideals, takes

30Fuller, "New Form of Fiction by the Talented Author
of 'In Tuscany,'" Chicago Evening Post, 21 June 1902, p. 5.

 

31Fuller, "Increase in American Fiction of Aristo—
cratic Social Ideals," Chicago Evening Post, 8 November 1902,

pt. 2, p. 9.

170
up a new trend in novels--that of heroes and heroines of
high gentility. Booth Tarkington had just come out with The

Two Vanrevels, and full of "roseate and refined" characters

 

as it is, Fuller declares it has called forth "many critical
protests" that the Wabash Valley was nothing like this in
the 1840's. George Barr McCutcheon wrote a strong defense
of Tarkington's book which fuller cites at length. Never-
theless, he declares

But what I prOpose is a little look at the whole
subject of gentility as associated with literature--
or, more specifically, some consideration of the rela-
tion between the aristocratic Spirit and American
fiction.

A democracy resents, inevitably and perhaps justi-
fiably, any assumption of superiority--most of all
when that superiority takes the form of personal
distinction.

But, paradoxically enough, while this is coming to
be more and more the case in our actual life, it is
becoming less and less the case in our portrayal of
life, our fiction. With increasing warmth do we wel-
come heroes and heroines of distinguished lineage and
of aristocratic circumstances. Blood and culture--in
books at least--are simply sweeping the country.

Fuller does not comment further on the irony of this situa-
tion; instead, he concludes the article with a typically
pointed observation, carefully worded, which states ironi-
cally his personal impression of Chicago's lack of both
"blood and culture": "The proper regimen for Chicago [is] a
veritistic presentation of things as they are."32

This sample of five columns on innovations in the

recent writing of the day touches at least indirectly on

32Fuller, "Increase in American Fiction of Aristo-
cratic Social Ideals," p. 9.

171
Fuller's impatience with American literary development, an
obviously persistent attitude of his. More significantly,
however, it brings to mind Fuller's own efforts toward
advancing literary quality through inventive formal concepts
in fiction and poetry. Practice of his own "twist of the

wrist,"

as he put it, had resulted in carefully considered
modifications of traditional literary forms; with their
anticipated acceptance, Fuller maintained, they would offer
an esthetically satisfying alternative to the current rash
of shallow, stereotyped popular literature. In addition,
they would conform to the reading public's demand for
shorter, concentrated narratives in the hurried pace of city
life.

One of his major pronouncements on changes in American
writing traditions is "New Fields for Free Verse,"33 in
which he proposes using a "four or five" page free verse
narrative as a replacement for the conventional short story.
The term "free verse" tends to mislead the critic in this
regard, he warns, because of its emphasis on the poetic form
involved in this modification of prose fiction. The
composition "balances on the fence between poetry and prose,
and dips beak or tail toward either at will." However that
may be, the new form has the advantages of poetry--"the

packed thought, the winged epithet, the concentrated

33Fuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," The Dial, 61
(14 December 1916), 515-517.

 

 

172

expression. The 'bright story of five thousand words' may
be told--with all the superfluities discarded," in seven or
eight hundred words, while avoiding the ingredients that
"overload" the short story. The free verse story could thus
economize the demands on the reader and achieve "brevity,
concision, intensity, and heightened sense of form."34 The
needs of the times, Fuller observes, call for brevity.
Urban readers are overdriven with the sheer bulk of long
novels, and they are not attracted by traditional verse.
Although free verse fiction has the advantage of brevity,
Fuller disapproved of "the terrible, air-cleaving rapidity
of the Spoon Rover tombstones; indeed, these must generously
be half-forgotten," adding a reminder of his dislike for the
"trebly compressed, quintessentialized pungency" of Masters'
epitaphs.35

An example of the kind of free verse fiction that
Fuller advocated may be found among the twenty-five selec-

tions in Lines Long and Short (1917).36 One of these is a

 

typically subjective account of an aSpiring poet whose "vein
pinched out" before he was twenty-four. "Alonzo Grout"
tells of the poet's childhood creative efforts in commemo-
rating occasions such as a golden wedding anniversary and

the installation of the town's foremost matron as

34Fuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," p. 516.

35Ibid.

36Fuller, Lines Logg and Short (Boston, 1917)

173

vice-president of the Colonial Dames. "'He will go far!‘
breathed the dry spinster/Who ruled the public library's
twelve hundred books." As he grew "in the universe of
nature and of art," he gained "in knack and subjectivity"
and "The Baptist minister laid his hand/Upon our hero's
shoulder;/But as concerned the men and boys in general--/
Well, never mind." But then the fateful time approached
when Alonzo could no longer summon his Muse. He consulted a
fellow poet, a foreigner whose output in a variety of
languages Alonzo had admired, in hopes of gaining a suitable
explanation and perhaps a cure. The foreigner rose from his
desk and looked at Alonzo:

"Are you American?" he asked.

"On both sides, yes," Alonzo proudly said--

"For generations."

The sage and genius sadly shook his head.

"My boy,

I fear your case is hopeless.

Like others of your blood,

You have mistaken:

You thought yourself a Spring, when but a tank.

You've dipped yourself quite empty,

And there's no source"--

He gave the word a Gallic twist--

"To feed you and replenish."
Unable to leave the literary life, Alonzo resorts to print—
ing, taking great pleasure in setting the type of poems, and
to proof-reading, finding "vicarious raptures" in each line,

And scarce suspecting

Behind the future's veil
The sad, repellent days

37Fuller, Lines Long and Short, p. 89.

 

174

That were to bring
(And bring fig soon)
Vers libre.

 

Within this ironic ending, Fuller implies the potential
dearth of esthetic charm in free verse. Yet, he advocates
its use in narrative literature as a means of attracting the
readers whose busy schedules prevented them from reading a
full length story. In capable hands, he asserts, it can
become satisfying literature. He notes the categories in
which it has already been utilized, biographical, episodical,
semi-lyrical; and he cites Amy Lowell and Robert Frost as
examples of poets who employ it to best advantage.39

As to the format for free verse, Fuller presents a
formula couched in original terms. This description focuses
on determining factors involved in the length of lines and
size of stanza or strOphe, both of which directly involve
"the exercise of an original architectonic consciousness,
either active or latent." More specifically, the line
length depends on "the advantage of the pause at the end,

whether to aid the rhythm or the emphasis,‘ all perfectly
legitimate, he adds. Great care, he insists, must be given
to the shape, incidence, and distribution of the words on
the page, with careful balancing of the "filled and void"
spaces. Overall, the success of the new venture depends
upon the writer's having a "ponderable theme, a straightway

38Fuller, Lines Long and Short, p. 91.

 

39Fuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," p. 516.

175

continuity of thought, and a sense of form that takes heed

of beginning, middle, and end."40

Another article on the same subject, "New Forms of

"41

Short Fiction, is less positive in tone, at least until

the last two paragraphs. The bulk of the content is a

review of the varied forms of popular magazine and newspaper

fiction of the day; at the end of the article, Fuller

suggests his free verse story as a possible means of raising

the literary standard of such fiction. Writing in an ironic

tone, Fuller does manage to objectify the problem on one or
two occasions: "One must write for the public that exists
in one's own day. If that public is long on heedlessness
and short on taste . . . "42——and he leaves it at that.
Free verse stories, he repeats, have "a contemporaneity and

an actuality that should not fail with a public whose chief

reading is in the daily press, and yet possess qualities

that make them acceptable on a different and higher plane."
Fuller's prevailing negative opinion of mass intelligence
cannot be disguised for long, however: "to the masses, the

second-rate is often more acceptable than the first-rate,

and the further fact that, with minds of a certain calibre,

finish abashes rather than gratifies. Of mass taste and

4OFuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," p. 517.

41Henry B. Fuller, "New Forms of Short Fiction," The
Dial, 62 (8 March 1917), 167-169.

42

 

Ibid., p. 168. 43Ibid., p. 169.

44Ibid.

43

176

literary form in general, be observed, "if a new day is
going to express itself to advantage, it must make its new
moulds as well as find its new material. The later vintage,

crude and homely though it may be, deserves its own

bottles."45

Fuller demonstrated a similar attitude toward longer

fiction a few months later. "A Plea for Shorter Novels"46

is an assault on "the conventional paraphernalia of novel-
mongering when employed by second-rate hands," and opens
with remarks which condense what he has to say on this sub-
ject:

Construction, in a novel, is not the art of exciting by
means of the connection of incident with incident: it
is the art of leaving out, without incoherence, all that
does not interest the writer and of putting in all that
does. Dostoevsky expressed nothing but his own intense
interests; Jane Austen saw that a plot should be to the
novelist a means of expressing his own interests, not

of trying to interest his readers. Stiff doctrine, this,
and unpalatable to the arriviste; yet the intending
novelist is urged to learn from such authors, so actu-
ated, rather than from the competent hacks whose works,
by the time they age ten years old, seem but a mass of
stale contrivance.

 

Concerning style, Fuller approves any except those
that may lead to ennui. Even rapid and brilliant writing
may become tiresome if repetitious or needlessly long.

Fuller feels that a 75,000 word novel is the acceptable

45Fuller, "New Fields for Free Verse," p. 517.

46Fuller, "A Plea for Shorter Novels," The Dial, 63
(30 August 1917), 139-141.

47Ibid., p. 139.

177

minimum, that those of 90,000 are of moderate length, and
that those of 150,000 or more are "gross." Underscoring
brevity, he writes, "Compressed form is itself one of the
manifestations of force--an evidence of vigor." Then he
adds that a 50,000 word novel is certainly not an unduly
short narrative if its message truly illumines the page.48
It seems significant that Fuller was at this time either

planning or actually writing a novel which conformed to the

minimum length. 93 the Stairs, published in March 1918,

 

contains slightly over 45,000 words and includes an
"Author's Note" which reads as follows: "This volume may
seem less a Novel than a Sketch of a Novel or a Study for a
Novel.. It might easily be amplified; but, like other
recent work of mine, it was written in the conviction that

story-telling, whatever form it takes, can be done within

limits narrower than those now generally employed."49 The

principal point at issue is that writers must determine to

eliminate conventional material, to avoid verbosity.50

48Fuller, "A Plea for Shorter Novels," p. 140. See
also Thomas H. Uzzell, The Technique 33 the Novel (Philadel-
phia, 1947), in a study of 75 famous novels, notes the
following range of lengths by word-count:
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (Alice H. Rice) 18,000

 

 

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder) 40,000
The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane) 58,000
Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) 130,000
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronté) 170,000
Crime and Punishment (Feodor Dostoevsky) 215,000
Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackary) 435,000
Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell) 500,000
49

Fuller, 93 the Stairs (Boston, 1918), n. pg.

 

50Fuller, "A Plea for Shorter Novels," p. 140.

178

As to the problem of content, Fuller mentions the
"botherations" of "reluctant love passages, repellent sex
discussions, scenes of violence and bloodshed, indelicate
'close-ups' beyond the bounds of decorum, and such like."
Art demands form, organism, definition, boundaries. There-
fore it is disciplined by the dictates of unified impres-
sion.51 This emphasis on controlled structure brings to
mind Fuller's description of himself as a novelist in a
letter to Howells: "There is an unfortunate type of chap
that cares less, after all, for individuals than for general
social relations and finds less interest in characterization
than in construction."52

Regarding his new "shorter novel," Fuller certainly
would not have looked upon his innovation as "unfortunate."
His confidence in the venture must have been increased
considerably when the respected French journal 33 Revue
noticed 93 the Stairs and described it as a turning point in

modern American fiction.53 It was gratifying for such a

 

tribute to come from France, Fuller's symbol of order and

lucidity.54

51Fuller, "A Plea for Shorter Novels," p. 141.

52Fuller to Howells, 16 April 1909, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

5333 Revue, 125 (15 August 1918), 320. Fuller kept a
typed copy of the review, in Fuller Collection, Newberry
Library, Chicago.

"Bernard Bowron, "Henry B. Fuller: A Critical
Study," Diss. Harvard University 1948, pp. 448-449.

179

Regardless of his acclaim, or lack of it, from what-
ever quarter, Fuller adhered to his long-held literary
standards throughout his career as a writer and commentator.
In two relatively extensive reviews of Chicago novelists and
poets in 1921 and 1922, seven years before his death, he
asserted his critical judgment as an outspoken advocate of
literary artistry.55 Disregarding the risk of being branded
as a "moss back" or a "has been," he flatly rejected those
writers and styles that were, in his Opinion, inferior. In

a comment on Ben Hecht's Erik Dorn, he stated, "I resent the

 

absence of taste and discipline," and of Sherwood Anderson's
early novels, Windy McPherson's Son and Marching Men, he
asked, "Where is the 'twist of the wrist' that should in
itself charm and interest from paragraph to paragraph and
from page to page?" He labeled the two books "apples of
gold, perhaps-—but in pictures of lead, rather than of
silver," and attributed the deficiency to "[Anderson's]
devotion to the succinct and the cursory: he gives too
often the effect of mere resume. . . . Nevertheless,
Anderson stands, at present, the chief of our hopes."56

In poetry, Fuller visualized new trends. In his

review of Chicago poets, he states that the new modes are

SSFuller, "Chicago Poets," New York Evening Post
Literary Review, 10 December 1921, pp. 249-250; "Chicago
Novelists," New York Evening Post Literary Review, 18 March
1922, pp. 501-502.

56

 

Fuller, "Chicago Novelists," p. 502.

180
very essential to literary health, that they have a crying
need for being, and that they are bold, rigorous portents of
even greater things to come. Man and his destiny is the
true stuff for the subject matter of poetry, Fuller feels,
and what is salient in the life of the nation should be
expressed in the estheticism of verse. America itself
should be a topic, both as to the individual and the mass.57
In this review, Fuller lingers over Mark Turbyfill because
the young man's poetry is preoccupied with form, pattern,
and design-~with the mobility of structure, and emphasis
upon physical form which Fuller refers to as "plastic and
sculptural." It is set "absolutely apart from all human or
practical relationships," yet delights in the "reality of

"58 After favorable assessments of

the thing in itself.
selections by Yvor Winters, Glenway Wescott, Carl Sandburg,
and Oscar Williams, Fuller's principal salute to the new
poetry in Chicago is that it is setting conventions aside
and shows no inclination to create other stereotypes to
supersede them. All of this is in keeping with Fuller's own
view of art as an independent, individualistic thing. The
same might well be said of his critical stance and his
literary preferences. By the 1920's, his critical perSpec-
tive was still as clear as ever as he admitted with cer—
tainty, "I have seen too much of the general strain in the

57Fuller, "Chicago Poets," p. 250.

58Ibid.

181

Middle West to be swirled about unduly by mere ephemeral
eddies, and nothing shall drive me to factitious sympathy or
to false appreciation."59

Fuller was indeed his own man. Throughout his career
he considered himself a literary romanticist devoted to the
tenets of realism. Seemingly paradoxical, his position is
easily resolved if understood on his own terms. To Fuller,
the "real romanticism" was entirely divorced from the fairy-
tale formula which popularized Zenda and Graustark.60 It
was, instead, "an assimilation and transmutation" of the
probable and observable events of real life by the catalytic
effect of the literary artist. He occupied a middle ground
between the extremes of melodramatic extravaganzas based on
fanciful situations, and the coarse, stark slices of life.

His ideal among the realists was William Dean Howells, whose

The Rise 33 Silas Lapham particularly pleased Fuller because

 

 

it was realism in the "true romantic" tradition. Among the
romanticists, Dumas exemplified the kind of realism Fuller
believed in: "Dumas, surely, had the appetite of the senses,
and fed it--not on the dry husks of others' learning, but on
the good meat, bread and wine of reality."

5 9 ll ' ll
Fuller, Chicago Novelists, p. 502.

60The Prisoner 33 Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope
Hawkins and Graustark (1901) by George Barr McCutcheon, deal
with intrigue and adventure in small, mythical European
monarchies. They set a trend in best-seller novels for some

two decades.

61Fuller, "The Vitality of Romanticism," Chicago
Eveninngost, 21 September 1901, p. 6.

 

 

 

 

182

In Fuller's estimate, realism suffers from an inade-
quate method and insufficient materials; but romanticism
provides an indulgence in spontaneity, a free-hand inventive-
ness, which can be "independent of the tyranny of facts."

At its best, [realism] presented more conscientiousness
than charm--a fault in method. At its worst, it contra-
vened man's ineradicable tendency toward optimism by
undue dwelling upon the baser and more sordid phases of
human nature and of human circumstance--a grievous fault
in its choice of material. . . . Realism presented a
report; romanticism offers a lyric. Realism gives us a
representation; romanticism invites us to participation.
The one puts a spectacle before us; the other incor-
porates us in it. The one says: "This is your place--
section so-and-so, seat such-a-one; keep it." The other
beckons us over the footlights and enrolls us among the
dramatis personae. Who would remain objective when the
chance to be63ubjective is just as easy and twice as
interesting?
Namely, a touch of romanticism is the magic ingredient. A
happy realist, he concludes, will be a "strayed reveler" who
has moved beyond the humdrum facts of daily existence into
the conceptions that are emotionally valid because they
express the yearnings and aspirations that make that exis—
tence tolerable. That, he says, is the stuff of which the
finest and most marvelous stories are comprised, but balance,
structure, and originality must remain the dominant princi-
ples.

In this realm of artistic composition Fuller recog—
nized the inadequacies of the "pseudo-romanticists" of his
day. They imitate each other, and their novels become "a
matter of molds, of patterns, of blocks" piled up in outworn

62Fuller, "The Vitality of Romanticism," p. 6.

183
arrangements. "The artist must co-ordinate his forces, and
establish a wide and general harmony of functioning. The
real romanticist never failed here--his blood, his senses,
his members all played their part in the great accord. It

is the pseudo-romanticist of today in whom we find the great

lack."63
On the other hand, Fuller insists that realism must
be based on life experiences. "What most of us learn," he

declared, "we snatch from the passing moment; and the curb-
stone is often eloquent where the library would be dumb."64
He consistently maintains, however, that life is not the end
product in the sense of a journalistic or reportorial style:
"life is the material, literature the finished product.

Life is simply incidental; literature is the real and

"65 In other words, life is the essential and

serious end.
original stimulus, but not the sole content of literature;

it is the raw material which undergoes a change--an "assimi-
1ation"--resu1ting in an unfolding of experience tempered by
the skill of the author. Furthermore, realism must reflect

the tangible experience, not the obscure speculation.

Fuller's position was in support of "a plain, straightforward

63Fuller, "The Vitality of Romanticism," p. 6.

64Fuller, "Processions and Pantheons,"
Evening Post, 28 September 1901, p. 6.

65Fuller, "William Dean Howells on Literature and
‘gif€=a" Chicago Evening Post, 29 November 1902, pt. 2, sec.
. F’o 6.

Chicago

 

 

184
realism . . . practiced by the spokesmen of a self-controlled
and self-respecting democracy."66 On this point, Fuller
specifically castigated Henry James,67 who had turned away
from the common cause of literary art among the "plain
people." In short, the realistic writer must reflect the
tangible experience in his creation, not the obscure Specu-
lation; and he must be committed to his depiction: "It is
not enough to manipulate; one must believe as well, and,
besides believing, the author must communicate the impact of
68

his beliefs to his readers."

In The Chatelaine 33 33 Trinite, Fuller vividly

 

presents his literary preferences, particularly his concept
of the coalescence of realism and romanticism, in precise
terms through the ideas of the Governor:

So he was accordingly disposed to be severe on something,
even if that something were only a theory of fiction.

It seemed to him--and he spoke with the slow laborious-
ness of one suddenly called upon to formulate the uncon-
scious assumptions of a lifetime--that the great thing

in life was not to know, nor even to feel, but to divine.
Observation was good, assuredly; sympathy was better,
even indispensable; but what, after all, was to be

placed before the exercise of the constructive imagina-
tion freely working its own way on to its own end?--an

66Fuller, "Studies of Darker ASpects of Life in

Russian Steppe," Chicago Evening Post, 21 March 1903, pt. 2,
p. 1. See also "Frank Norris and Jack London on Literary
Art and the Multitudes," Chicago Evening Post, 6 September
1902, pt. 2, p. 9.

67Fuller, "Latest Novel of Henry James is a Typical
Example of His Art," Chicago Evening Post, 30 August 1902,
p. 4.

 

 

 

68Fuller, "Marion Crawford's Latest Novel Deals with
Modern Roman Society," Chicago Evening Post, 1 November
1902, p. 9.

 

185

imagination that seized on a word, a gesture, a flower,
a flash of color, a simple succession of sounds, and by
means of a few humble, external facts called out from
within such a multiplicity of correlated fancies as
resulted at last in a drama, a fresco, a symphony, a
cathedral. The genesis of a work of art was the genesis
of the echo; one word is spoken and twenty are evoked in
reply--only no reverberations were to be looked for from
empty nothingness. Or, if fiction must be scientific,
let it look to the method of the naturalist, who from a
single bone reconstructs and vivifies a complete animal.
It was well enough to hold the mirror up to nature; but
let it be a compound mirror--one that reflects, and re-
reflects, and reflects again till the prosaic outlines
of the original subject are increased, strengthened,
multiplied, surrounded by the glamour of new presenta-
tions and new combinations, and the bare simplicity of
the primary image loses its poor identégy in the fused
intricacies of a thousand secondaries.

Finally, in a synthesis of realism and romanticism, Fuller
strongly advocates a literature that "offers a reflection of
real life or contains much in the way of reflection on real
life. As the actualities are not secured by observation or
by experience or by the higher intuition, no means is pre-

"70 His most

sented for profitable consideration upon them.
thorough commitment is to romanticism, but in advocating it,
he does not abandon realism; he enlarges its application and
field of force.

How, then, should the writer with such a philosoPhy

relate to his audiences? Fuller declared, "Life itself

69Fuller, The Chatelaine 33 33 Trinite (New York,

1892), pp. 65-66.

70Fuller, "The Vitality of Romanticism," Chicago
Evening Post, 21 September 1901, p. 6.

 

186

presents its problems with terrible directness,"71 and the
literary artist is faced with his professional dilemma in
terms of equally uncompromising questions. Should he stand
aloof from the public and demand to be met on his own terms,
and hold to his uncompromising ideals, or should he turn
journalist and pander to public tastes? If he indeed does
the latter, he is likely to "yield everything," to "make

I

things easy,' and be content to "amuse and excite us with

one acute eye forever fixed upon our line of least resis-
tance;" but the fault is not wholly his--rather, it should
be ascribed to "the growing indisposition or inability of
the modern reader . . . to place himself at his author's

point of view and frankly to accept his author's condi-

"72

tions. In failing to do so, readers deprive literary

artists of the conditions which are essential for artistic
creation.

Fuller frequently underscores this sentiment. In his
major essay, "The Theory of Fiction" (1919), he states:

It may be all one can say is this: that the more
restricted the work of art the greater the chance that
its form, construction, and technique may be satis-
factorily apprehended by the laity. . . .

If novel-writing . . . is a responsible social
function, novel-reading has its obligations too. A
cultivation of the sense of form and proportion ought

J

71Fuller, "In Newly Issued Batch of Letters, Steven-
son Figures as Advisor of Youth," Chicago Evening Post, 17
January 1903, p. 4.

72Fuller, "Shakespeare's Debt to Voltaire for Conti-
nental Recognition," Chicago Evening Post, 25 October, 1902,
P- 9.

 

 

187

to add to the reader's pleasure, and even to discipline
him, in a measure, for the general 93nduct of life. A
burden shared becomes less onerous.

Yet Fuller does not solicit the readers to accept extremes
in reaching accord with the artist. On the contrary, he
discouraged exaggerations of style and reported that "the

worst excesses of cynicism have begun to disappear along

"74

with the worst excesses of realism and naturalism. There

was still the technical perfectionist, however, who must be
guarded against; Fuller cautions the reader to beware of the
"realist" who would be ultra-real, the expert in minutiae:

On the one hand, then, there is the acute, intense
preoccupation of the professional, the technician, the
man who knows, and knows almost too intimately,--his
own particular corner of the general field. On the
other hand, there is the loose, vague, tolerant interest
of the heedless public, which can have no deep sympathy
with the preoccupations of the specialist, and which
finds his protests over the lack of appreciation for
the finer issues unintelligible sometimes, and some-
times amusing.

This is a good point for the herald at arms to keep
in mind, and the lawyer, and the machinist, and, above
all, the literary artist--the more so if he happens to
run to "technique." There is probably no narrower and
more exacting egoist than the writer turned technician,
and none more prone to forget that while he is an acute
Specialist in form and style, his readers (who may
indeed be keener specialists in other varying fields)
are, in his particular7§epartment of human endeavor,
but amateurs--or less.

73Fuller, "The Theory of Fiction," The Dial, 66 (22
February 1919), p. 194.

74Fuller, "Capus, Clyde Fitch of Paris," Chicago
Eyeninngost, 25 May 1901, p. 6.

75Fuller, "Preoccupations of the Specialist Vs. the
Broader Interests of the Laity," Chicago Evening Post, 15
November 1902, Part 2, p. 9.

 

 

188

Fuller Stresses that to write well is not to follow a
copy-book of systematic rules, but "to discover the nature
of your own interest in life, to ascertain what you know

about human beings, and to express that in the form of a

"76

story--such is the task of the novelist. He continues,

"Interest yourself; express your interest. All amateurs do
so; and that, finally, iS why amateurs have had such aston-
ishing success with the novel . . . it might be maintained
that novelists are amateurs."77 However, he did not appre-
ciate poor taste in any guise, especially when it paraded as
"realism."

Those who have wanted to sip the Refined have looked to
the East, and those who have wanted to gulp the really
raw have preferred to go further West--until within the
past year or two . . . a blend of the frontier and the
middle ages, coupled with the commonplace. A few
continued to write about it, but only a few cared to
read about it--until within the past year or two. Then,
when everybody suddenly began to demand great draughts
of the Raw, from whatever source, the fictionists began
to Show themselves content with the normal man--or with
the subnormal man, or with the abnormal man; the
jugglers witgsmillions were superseded by the jugglers
with morals.

The attraction of profit and the demands of the
popular market distorted values; Fuller felt that money was
surely at the root of this evil, and he said of himself,

"But the question of royalties is not the first question

76Fuller, "A Plea for Shorter Novels," The Dial, 63
(30 August 1917). P. 139.

77Ibid.

 

78Fuller, "Chicago Novelists," New York Eveni3g Post
Literary Review, 18 March 1922, p. 502.

 

189

with me. I get most of my satisfaction from the comments on
my work which reach me--part1y from the better class of
press notices . . . but principally from letters."79
Realism, he was convinced, had been warped by public demands
and had gone too far. Writers and publishers simply lost
their perspective when confronted by buyers caring for
carnage, not culture, and crying, "Give me adventure and
excitement. Curdle my blood; stand my hair on end. Never
mind study, nor thought, nor discrimination, nor diction,
nor even punctuation. Give me gore and self-forgetful-
ness."80
One answer to distorted values might be, suggested
Fuller, a school to inculcate correct perspectives. He
wrote that there is a "need in this novel-writing age for a

81 He felt that an "inborn aptitude"

university of fiction."
was insufficient preparation for a writing career. Instruc-
tion in fiction writing would improve standards, but it need
not devote itself to a dabbling with small details. "It

would have been better if Flaubert had not urged on

Maupassant to find the one exact word to fit the description

79Fuller to Charles Eliot Norton, 12 November 1892,
Harvard University (Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachu-
setts.

80Fuller, "An Artistic Round Robin," Chicago Evening
Post, 15 June 1901, p. 6.

81Fuller, "Need in This Novel-Writing Age for a Uni-
versity of Fiction," Chicago Evening Post, 3 January 1903,
p. 5.

 

190

of the wearied cab horse, for there are far larger questions

than questions of mere verbalism."82 Still, writers might

learn from writers, and it is significant that he suggests

as a teacher the man he considered to be the modern master

of the realists--William Dean Howells. "This, substantially,
is the task that the young writer has set for himself. He
has a dictionary, a desk, and a pad of paper, and he can go
to a library and look at books; but suppose that Mr. Howells,
for example, should take the time to instruct him, would he

not learn in a year--what otherwise he might not in a life-

time--the principles of his art, the technique?"83

In this context, Fuller makes a projection so impor-
tant to his basic philosophy of the "new literature" he
hopes for, that it is best to quote it fully:

The new imaginative spirit will find its data for
beyond the confines of the domain of realism, and
these data will not be greatly derived from the re-
pository of mere fact. The new method will be much
broader in scope than the old and more comprehensive
in synthesis. The new man, let us hope, will no
longer plod; he will move ahead by bounds, under the
double advantage of increased freedom and of abundant
momentum. His world may not be greatly better than
ours, but he will think it so, and as a man thinks,
so he is. He will take from out our sky much of the
grayness that came in with the "dismal science"; and
he will be much more likely than any of our day can
be to mistake his blood for the "celestial ichor" of
Thackeray's ballad. This will mark the extreme of
his reaction from the position we of the present so
grumpily hold. As he feels, so will he write more
richly, freely, spontaneously, than the manacled

82Fuller, "Need in This Novel-Writing Age for a Uni-

versity of Fiction," p. 5.

83Ibid.

191
practitioners of these times of ours; with more color,
more momentum, more human completeness. Yes, there
will be fireworks in a generation orBZwo. But not
many of us will be here to see them.
In this Whitmanesque prophecy, Fuller emerges at his best:
optimistic, forthright, and positive of the evolutionary
fulfillment of American literary excellence.

The germ of this assurance, it would appear, had been
present, although overshadowed by more visible confusions,
over a period of many years--even as far back as 1888, when
Fuller was suffering most obviously from the personal and
esthetic dilemma posed by his affinity for America and his
affection for Europe. At that time, Fuller stated in an
unpublished essay, "The American School of Fiction,"85 that
the fiction of truly exceptional merit is precisely that
which is able "to grasp the full significance and feel the
proper relations and relative importance of things, people
and actions around us, 33 us, immediately concerning us."86
The problem then, for Fuller at least, was that he did not

consider the local scene adequate in "background,' experi-

ence, or texture sufficient to his needs as a writer; but

the principle was nevertheless intact.

84Fuller, "Prospects for a Radical Change in the
General Nature of Fiction," Chicago Evening Post, 27
December 1902, p. 5.

85Fuller, "The American School of Fiction," pencilled
manuscript, c. 1888, 16 pp., in the Fuller Collection,
NeWberry Library, Chicago.

86Ibid., p. 6.

192

Following the success of The Cliff-Dwellers and With

 

the Procession in the 1890's, Fuller still disliked Chicago,

 

but he was reconciled to writing about it. Howells had
urged him to "write of Chicago, whether you like it or not,"
reminding him of Norton's praise of the novels.87 In 1900,
Howells reiterated his appeal, promising Fuller that a third
Chicago novel would be published in a joint enterprise with
distinguished authors including himself, George Washington
88
Cable, and Mark Twain.

Although Fuller did not care for nor enter into the
arrangement, he adhered to his conviction, at least in
theory, that American themes possessed a special distinction
for the American-born writer which deserved applause and not
apology. By 1902, he could assert that "the great American
novel" could and would be written, and in a column he put
forth his rebuttal to claims that American society was too
complex to be typed in a representative work, or that such a
novel would have to be regional in genre:

The real trouble with American life, from the novel-
ist's point of view, is that it is not complex and
varied enough. From the old world standpoint, the
organism of American life is as simple as that of a
polyp; it possesses an extraordinary homogeneity of
ideals; manners and usages are widely regularized--or

are rapidly becoming so; ideas run through the body
social with the rapidity of quick-Silver.

87Howells to Fuller, 27 October 1893, Harvard Univer-
sity (Widener Library), Cambridge, MasSachusettS.

88Howells to Fuller, 13 May 1900, Harvard University
(Widener Library), Cambridge, Massachusetts.

193
I resent, too, the implications that the great
novel is to be local . . . that it is to deal neces—
sarily with contemporaneous matters, and that its
value is to depend largely, even exclusively, upon
"fidelity" to the observed fact. Not one of Shake-
speare's major tragedies--the "great novels" of the
time--dealt with matter that was circumscribed by the
Spirit of localism, or matter that was necessarily
contemporaneous, or matter that derived its point and
value from accord with mere fact . . . yet what are
they if not English, and Elizabethan English at that?
. . . The great desideratum is not fidggity to one's
facts, but allegiance to one's ideals.
In this defense of a hypothetical national novel, Fuller
placed emphasis on the elements he considered fundamental
to good national literature: the raw material of American
society and the assimilation of that material by a literary
artist dedicated to high standards. Once again, Fuller
emphasizes the importance of "manner over matter" and the
artist's unique "twist of the wrist."

In conclusion, Fuller's assessment of cultural pro-
gress in America is based upon his recognition of the
obstacles to be overcome in terms of the uncongenial matrix
of American society, the possibility, if not the necessity,
of innovative forms for short fiction and verse, and the
gradual realization of his ideals for the eventual fruition
of literary excellence. Toward the end of his life he began

to foresee the germination of some of his hOpes for the

culture which was his by birth and which he had learned to

89Fuller, "Erroneous Ideas about PrOSpects for 'The
Great American Nove1,'" Chicago Evening Post, 17 May 1902,
p. 6.

 

194
view less as a "muckheap" than as a fertile, virgin land in
which the seeds of a genuine national literature might

eventually grow.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

 

Abbott, Mary. Review of The Cliff-Dwellers, by Henry Blake Fuller. Chi-
cago Post, 23 September 1893.

 

. “Personal Evil in Literature.” Chicago Post, 31 October 1893.

Adams, Henry. The Education _o_f Henry Adams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1918.

 

Anderson, Margaret. “ The New Ideal in American Fiction.” Dial, 23
(16 November 1897), 269-270.

Andreas, A. T. Histom 33 Chic3go. 3 vols. Chicago: A. T. Andreas Co.,
1885.

Banks, Nancy Huston. “Henry Blake Fuller.” Bookman, 2 (August 1895),
15-170

Bell, Lillian. Review of With t_h_e_ Procession, by Henry B. Fuller. Chap
Book, 3 (1 June 1895), 72-77.

 

Bible, The Holy. The King James is cited, the oldest in English still in use.

Bien, Morris. “Railroad and Other Land Grants.” Encyclopedia Americana,
1953. Vol. 23, 136-137.

 

Bowron, Bernard. “Henry B. Fuller, A Critical Study.” Unpublished Ph. D.
dissertation, Harvard University, 1948.

Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth. Review of The Cliff-Dwellers, by Henry B. Fuller.
Cosmopolitan, 16 (January 1894), 373-374.

 

Brooks, Van Wyck. The Writer '2 America. New York: E. P. Dutton and
Company, 1953.

 

196

197

Chatfield-Taylor, Hobart C. Cities 33 Magy Men. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1953.

 

Commager, Henry Steele. The American Mind. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1950.

Dana, Margaret W. “To Henry B. Fuller.” Chicago Evening Post, 29
January 1902, p. 5.

Dell, Floyd. “Chicago in Fiction.” Bookman, 38 (November 1913), 275-
277.

. Homecoming: 3A3 Autobiography. New York: 1933.

 

 

Dictionary o_f American Biography. Ed. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960.

 

 

Duffey, Bernard. “Henry Fuller,” The Chicago Renaissance i_n_ American
Letters, 3 Critical History. East Lansing: The Michigan State College
Press, 1954.

 

 

Duncan, Hugh Dalyril. The Rise 33 Chicago a_s 3 Literagy Center from 1885
33 1920. Totowa, N. J .: The Bedminster Press, 1964.

 

 

Dupee, F. W. Henry James. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc.,
1956.

 

Farrar, John. “Literary Spotlight.” Bookman, 57 (February 1924).

Fuller, Henry B. “A. C. A.” Chronology of Fuller’s sojourn at Allison
Classical Academy, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Vol. 1: 28 February-—
22 August 1875. Vol. 2: 29 September 1875-21 July 1876.

. Addendum to The Shadow World, by Hamlin Garland. New York:
1908.

 

“Addolorata’s Intervention.” Scribner’s Magazine, 40 (December
1906), 715-729.

 

“Age of Chaucer, The.” Review of Chaucer and His England, by
G. G. Coulton. Freeman, 6 (4 October 1922), 93-94.

. Review of The American Image, by Jean Catel. Poegy, 15 (March
1920), 327-331.

198

Fuller, Henry B. “Americanization of EurOpe’s Youth.” New York Times
Magazine, 25 January 1925, p. 15.

“American Manners Do Not Exist, Says Critic of Contemporary
Period.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 10 January 1903, p. 5.

 

“American Poet and Editor, An.” Review of The Letters 91'
Richard Watson Gilder. Dial, 61 (30 November 1916), 455-456.

 

 

“America’s Coming of Age.” New York Times Book Review, 3
May 1925, p. 2.

“Antarctic Research.” Autograph manuscript, 8—1/2 pages, 30
November 1884, in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. Review of Anton Chekhov, A Critical Study, by William Gerhardi.
New Republic, 38 (26 March 1924), 129-130.

 

 

 

. “Architecture in America.” Autograph manuscript, 3-1/2 pages,
undated (probably late 1880’s ), in the Fuller Collection, the Newberry
Library.

. “Architecture Triumphant in Many and Varied Forms, from
Glimpses of Coming Glories.” Boston Transcript, undated clipping in
the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

 

. “Are Publishers Unjust to Young and Unknown Authors ? ” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 7 February 1903, p. 4.

 

“Arid Life of John B. Hill, The.” Current Opinion, 61 (July
1916), 58.

“Aridity.” The New Republic, 7 (6 May 1916), 17-18. This is
also in Current Opinion, 61 (July 1916), 58.

“Arndolfi’s Novel.” Translation of ll Romanzo, by Carlo Placci.
Autograph manuscript, 27 pages, in the Fuller Collection, the Newberry
Library.

. “Art in America.” BOOkman, 10 (November 1899), 218—224.

. “Artistic Round Robin, An.” Chicago Evening Post, 15 June 1901,
p. 6.

199

Fuller, Henry B. “Art of Fiction Writing, The.” Review of The Craft 9_f_
Fiction, by Percy Lubbock. Freeman, 5 (3 May 1922), 189-190.

 

. “Art of Life, The.” The New Republic, 7 (10 June 1916), 148-
149.

 

. Review of Aspgcts 9; Q3 Italian Renaissance, by Rachel Annand
Taylor. Freeman, 7 (11 July 1923), 428-429.

 

. “As to ‘Best Selling’ Novels.” Chicago Evenin Post 13 April
4 4
1901, p. 13.

. “Autobiography of a Perfect Gentleman. ” Review of The Auto-
bioggaphy 9: L Jefferson Coolidge. New York Times Book Review,
16 December 1923, p. 8.

 

“Bad Play, The.” Autograph manuscript, 5 pages, undated, but
circa 1897, in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “Ballade of the Bank-Teller, The.” Autograph manuscript, dated
by a letter of rejection from Puck (10 June 1884). The Ranney papers.

. “Ballade of the Touriste, The.” Autograph manuscript, dated
by a letter of rejection from Puck (10 June 1884). The Ranny papers.

“Bashkirtsev of Our Day, A.” Review of the Journal _o_f Marie
Lenéru, with an introduction by Francois de Curel ). Freeman, 8
(19 December 1923), 356-357.

“Before the Radio and Movie Came.” Review of Our Times, The
United States, 1900-1925; 1, “The Turn of the Century,” by Mark

Sullivan. Literary Dig-_est International Book Review, 4 (July 1926 ),
502.

. “Bernhardt a Great-Grandmother.” Chicago Record-Herald, 31
July 1910°

Bertram Cope’s Year. Chicago: The Alderbrink Press, 1919.

. “Best Girl, The.” Chicago Record-Herald, 1 May 1910, p. 4.

 

“Big Show at Canberra, The.” Undated typescript rejected by
Freeman, 20 December 1921, in the Newberry Library.

200

Fuller, Henry B. “Billboards and the Remedy.” Chicago Evening Post, 27
July 1901, p. 6.

 

“Biographer of a Rake, The.” Review of the Life 3f Anthony
Hamilton, by Ruth Clark. Freeman, 4 (5 October 1921), 90-91.

. “Bromfield Saga, The.” Bookman, 65 (April 1927 ), 200-203.

“Brooke Letters, The. Review of Letters from America, by
Rupert Brooke. Poetry, 8 (June 1916), 155—157.

 

. Review of Byr_on E England: His Fame and After-Fame, by
Samuel C. Chew; The Political Career o_f Lord Byron, by Dora Neill
Raymond. New York Herald-Tribune Books, 4 May 1924, p. 23.

 

 

 

 

. Review of The Cgtain _o_f the Gray-Horse Troop, by Hamlin
Garland. Chicago Evening Post, 29 March 1902, p. 11.

 

 

 

. “Capus, Clyde Fitch of Paris.” Chicago Evening Post, 25 May
1901, p. 6.

 

. “Carl Carlsen’s Progress.” Story first published by Fuller’s
biographer, Constance Griffin, in Henri Blake Fuller, Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939, pages 87-91. The manuscript
is undated, and is in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

 

 

. Translation of “Cavaliers of the ‘Immacolata,’ The,” I Cava-
lieri dell’ Immacolata, by Enrico Castelnuovo. Autograph manuscript
of 85 pages in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

 

“ Centenary of Alexandre Dumas Turns Thought Toward His Works
and Ways.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 19 July 1902, p. 4.

 

. Review of Charles Dickens and Other Victorians, by Sir Arthur
Quiller—Couch. New York Times Book Review, 30 August 1925, p. 4.

 

 

. Chatelaine 9f L_a_ Trinite, 'th. New York: The Century Company,
1892.

. Chevalier _o_f Pensieri—Vani, The. New York: The Century 00.,
1892.

 

. “Chicago.” Cenm, 84 (May 1912), 25-33.

201

Fuller, Henry B. “Chicago as a Country Town.” Chicago Evening Post,
27 April 1901, p. 6.

__ “Chicago Novelists.” New York Evening Post Literary Review,
2 (18 March 1922), 501-502.

. “Chicago Poets.” New York Evening Post Literary Review, 2
(10 December 1921), 249-250.

 

“Chicago’s Book of Days.” Outlook, 69 (5 October 1901), 288-
299.

“Chicago’s Small Parks.” Autograph manuscript of 18 pages,
undated, probably written in 1910. Housed in the Fuller Collection
in the Newberry Library.

. “Chicago’s Varied Population Made Subject of Linguistic Study.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 7 March 1903, Part 2, page 9.

 

. “China’s New Navy.” Chicago Record-Herald, 2 October 1910.

. “Civic Federation and Literature, The.” Chicago Post, 14 July
1900.

. Review of The Claims 9f E 99% Generation, essays arranged
by Sir James Marchant. New Republic, 38 (14 May 1924), 317-318.

 

 

. “Classical Stage of Japan, The.” Review of “Nob,” 31; Accom-
plishment, by E. Fenellosa and Ezra Pound. Dial, 63 (13 September
1917, 209-210.

“Cliff-Dwellers, The.” Harper’s Weekly 37 (3 June-19 August
1883 ). The story appeared serially.

 

. Cliff-Dwellers, The. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893.

. “Close—Ups.” Review of Some Victorian Men, by Harry Furniss.
New York Herald—Tribune, 1 February 1925, p. 8.

 

 

“Coleridge and Wordsworth.” Review of Biographia Literaria, by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with Preface and “Essays on Poetry” by
William Wordsworth. Ed. George Sampson. Poet_ry, 18 (June 1921),
167-1680

 

202

Fuller, Henry B. Review of The Color _of a Great City, by Theodore Dreiser.
New Republic, 37 (30 January 1924), 263-264.

 

. “ Contemporaries.” Review of James Branch Cabell, by Carl Van
Doren; Theodore Dreiser, by Burton Rascoe. New Republic, 44 (16
September 1925), 104.

 

 

. Review of Contemporary American Novelists, by Carl Van Doren. ,‘
Nation, 113 (21 December 1921), 730.

. Review of Contemporary French Literature, by René Lalou. New
Republic, 41 (18 February 1925), 346-347.

. Correspondence.

— Fuller’s family letters and letters to Fuller are among the
Ranney papers

— Letters to Fuller are housed in the Fuller Collection in the
Newberry Library

— Fuller’s exchanges with William Dean Howells are situated
in the William Dean Howells Collection in the Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

—— Fuller’s exchanges with Harriet Monroe are in the Harriet
Monroe Collection in the University of Chicago Library

——Fuller’s exchanges with Anna Morgan, A. B. and I. K. Pond
are in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library

— Fuller’s exchanges with Charles Eliot Norton are located in
the Charles Eliot Norton Collection housed in Houghton
Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

— Fuller’s exchanges with William F. Poole are in the William
F. Poole Collection in the Newberry Library

— Fuller’s exchanges with Frederick Richardson are included
in part in Henry E Fuller, ed. Anna Morgan

— Fuller’s exchanges with Lorado Taft (his brother—in—law)
are in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Roy B. Dickey, Chi-
cago, in the form of typed excerpts

. “Covered Pushcart.” Hafler’s, 149 (June 1924), 130-132.

. “Creator of Figaro, The.” Review of Figaro: The Life 3f Beau-
marchais, by John Rivers. Freeman, 7 (9 May 1923), 209-211.

. “Crepitant Fantasy.” Review of Firecrackers, by Carl Van Vech—
ten. Saturday Review o_f Literature, 2 (15 August 1925), 39.

 

 

 

203

Fuller, Henry B. “Crocean Dante, The.” Review of The Poetry 3f Dante,
by Benedetto Croce. Freeman, 5 (31 May 1922), 282-284.

 

. “Currency Reform.” Chicago Record-Herald, 3 July 1910.

 

. “Cyrano.” Translation of (_Jflano _d_e Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand.
Autograph manuscript of 94 pages, adapted by Fuller as a libretto for
an Operetta. Housed in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. Review of Daniel I_i_. Burnham, Architect, Planner pf Cities, by
Charles Moore. Nation, 114 (8 February 1922), 166-167.

 

. “D’Annunzio’s Cruel Perfidy.” Review of ll Fuoco, by Gabriele
D’Annunzio. Chicago Post, 9 June 1900.

“D’Annunzio in a New Phase.” Chicago Evening Post, 18 May
1901, p. 6.

 

“D’Annunzio’s Dramatic Masterpiece Blends Archaeology and
Passion.” Chicago Evegg‘ Post Book Section, 9 August 1902, p. 4.

“Dante in English Verse.” Review of The Divine Comedy pf
Dante Alighieri, translated by Melville Best Anderson. Poetry, 20
(May 1922), 165-168.

 

. “Dear Old Eighteenth Century.” Review of the Memoirs 9f
William Hickey, 1749—1782, by Alfred Spencer. Freeman, 4 (4 Jan-
uary, 1922), 402-404.

 

“Demolishing the Britannica.” Review of Misinforming a Nation,
by W. H. Wright. Dial, 62 (31 May 1917), 477-478.

 

. “Development of Arts and Letters. ” Centennial History o_f
Illinois, 4, “The Industrial State, 1870-1893,” ed. by Bogart and
Thompson. Springfield, Illinois, 1920, Chapter 9, 188-216.

 

. “Development of Popular Literature through Present Deluge of
Books.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 31 May 1902, p. 9.

 

. “Dialogues and Spotlights.” Review of Distressing Dialogues, by
Nancy Boyd; The Literary Spotlight, ed. John Farrar. New Republic,
41 (7 January 1925), 180-181.

 

204

Fuller, Henry B. Diary and Schedule for the 1876 trip to the Philadelphia
Centennial Exhibition. Original in the Fuller Collection, the Newberry
Library.

. Diary for 1883 European trip, 1 April 1883—1 September 1883.
. Diary for 1892 European trip, 31 December 1891 —29 June 1892.

. “Diminuendo.” Autograph manuscript, undated, but written 1915
to 1920, and housed in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

“Divine Comedy, The.” Freeman, 4 (12 October 1921), 104-
106.

Review of the Divine Comedy o_f Dante Alighieri, translated by
Henry Johnson. Poetry, 9 (November 1916), 104—105.

 

. “Dombey and Son.” Autograph manuscript, 9 pages, undated,
but it can be assigned to the late seventies. The original is in the
Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “Domenico’s Duel.” Translation of Stonella Vecchia, by Gerv-
lamo Rovetta. Autograph manuscript of 59 pages; Fuller Collection,
Newberry Library.

 

. “Dr. Eliot Examines the World.” Review of A Late Harvest, by
Charles W. Eliot. New York Times Book Review, 30 March 1924, p. 1.

 

. “Dr. Gowdy and the Squash.” HarEr’s, 102 (January 1901),
262-282.

. “Dr. More among the Classics.” Review of Hellenistic Philos-
Ophies, by Paul Elmer More; Greek Religion and is Survivals, by
Walter Woodburn Hyde; The Poetics pf Aristotle — Its Meaning and
Influence, by Lane Cooper. New York Times Book Review, 20 Jan—
uary 1924, p. 9.

 

 

 

“Duchess Visits Her Home Town, The.” Bookman, 60 (Decem-
ber 1924), 413-416.

. “Dumas’s Latest Biographer Defends His Methods and Morals.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 22 November 1902, p. 9.

205

Fuller, Henry B. “Early American Architecture.” Review of Domestic
Architecture o_f the American Colonies and 9_f the Early Republic, by
Fiske Kimball. Freeman, 8 (16 January 1924), 453-454.

 

 

 

. “Easter in Florence.” The Parish Messenger, May 1897. PP-
12-13.

 

“Edith Wharton and American Literary Taste.” Chicago Evegng’
Post Book Section, 19 April 1902, p. 9.

“Edith Wharton’s ‘Valley of Decision.”’ Chicago Evening Post,
5 March 1902, p. 6.

 

. “Edmund Dalrymple.” Autograph manuscript, undated, 125 pp.,
unpublished, in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. Review of The Eight Paradises: Travel Pictures g Persia, Asia
Minor, and ConstantinOple, by Princess G. V. Bibesco. New Republic,
40 (1 October 1924), 12.

 

 

“Eliza Hepburn’s Deliverance.” Century Magazine, 59 (February
and March, 1900), serially.

 

. “Embracing the Realities.” Review of Twilignt in Italy and The
Prussian Officer, by D. H. Lawrence. Dial, 62 ( 22 March 1917),
237-238.

 

. “Eminent Victoria, The.” Review of Queen Victoria, by Lytton
Strachey. Freeman, 4 (31 August 1921), 594-595.

 

. Review of English Literature i_n Itn Foreign Relations, by Laurie
Magnus. New York Times Book Review, 8 April 1928, p. 2.

 

 

. Review of Episodes before Thnjy’ , by Algernon Blackwood. New
Repnblic, 38 (19 March 1924), 104.

 

. Review of Erasmus: A Study _o_f His Life, Ideals, and Place i_n
Histony, by Preserved Smith. Freeman, 8 (21 November 1923 ),
259-2610

 

. “Errol’s Voice.” Centuny Magazine, 108 (August 1924), 527-
535.

 

206

Fuller, Henry B. “Erroneous Ideas about Prospects for the ‘Great Amer-
ican Novel.’” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 17 May 1902, p. 9.

 

“Establishing the Established.” Review of Some Modern Novel-
ists, by Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett. Dial, 64 (14 March
1918), 233-234.

 

. Review of Eggene Field’s Creative Years, by Charles H. Dennis.
Nation, 119 (10 December 1924), 650—652. This review also appears
in the New Remblic, 42 (20 May 1925), 352.

 

 

“Europe after Thirty Years.” New York Times Book Review,
25 January 1925, p.15.

. “Expansion of America’s Domain Brings Harvest of History and
Travel.” Chicago Eyeing Post Book Section, 28 March 1903, p. 9.

“ Fairy in the Mirror, The.” Translation of A Folletto nello
Specchio, by Antonio Fogazzaro. Autograph manuscript, 12 pages, in
the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

 

“Feast for the Gods, A.” Chicago Tribune, 1 February, 1876.
While the clipping has not been located, it exists in an autograph
manuscript of ten pages in the Fuller Collection, the Newberry Library.
Fuller mentions it in his manuscript journal, “Legacy to Posterity,”
in the entry for 1 February 1876, where he dates it, stating it ran in
the local paper.

“Few Days of Little Fiji, The.” Chicago Tribune Sunday Maga-
zine, 21 May 1922, p. 2.

“First Complete Life of Mazzini, the Great Italian Republican.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 14 March 1903, Part 2, page 9.

 

. “First Modern, The.” Review of Some Love Songs g Petrarch,
translated by William Dudley Foulke. Poetry, 7 (January 1916), pp.
207-209.

 

Review of Fogazzano, The Visit from His Majesty (translation).
The World Review, 1 (27 July 1901), 607-609.

 

“For an Endowed Vaudeville.” Chicago Evening Post, 22 June
1901, p. 6.

 

207

Fuller, Henry B. “For the Faith.” Scribner’s Magazine, 42 (October 1907),
433-446.

 

“For Revival of the ‘Patron. ’” Chicago Evening Post, 3 August
1901, p. 6.

 

. Foreword in The So-Called Human Race, by Bert Leston Taylor.
New York, 1922, pp. vii-ix.

 

. “ Frank Norris and Jack London on Literary Art and the Multi-
tude.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 6 September 1902, Part 2,
p. 9.

 

. “French Controversy, A.” Saturday Review _oI Literature, 4 ( 21
July 1928), 1053.

 

. “From A to Z.” Review of More Authors and I, by C. Lewis
Hind. Freeman, 6 (20 December 1922), 357-358.

 

. From the Other Side. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1898.

 

. “Fuller on Italian Fiction.” The Critic, 30 (29 May 1897), 365-
366.

 

. Gardens pf this World. New York: Alfred A. KnOpf, 1929.

. Review of Genius pf Style, The, by W. C. Brownell, New Republic,
42 (1 April 1925), 162.

 

 

. “Georges-Jacques Danton.” Review of Danton, by Louis Madelin.
Freeman, 5 (5 April 1922), 90-91.

. Review of Germinie Lacerteaux, by E. and J. de Goncourt. Free-
man, 6 (7 February 1923), 526.

 

“Getting Americanized.” Chicago Record—Herald, 16 October
1910, p. 4.

 

. “Gissing’s ‘By the Ionian Sea. ’” Chicago Evening Post, 24 Aug.
1901, p. 6.

 

“Good Old Ways, The.” Review of Pencraft, by William Watson.
Dial, 62 (8 February 1917).

208

Fuller, Henry B. “Grandmother’s Gossip.” Translation of E Chiacchiere
della Nonna, by Enrico Castelnuovo. Autograph manuscript of 35 pp.,
housed in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

 

 

. “Greatest of These.” Atlantic Monthly, 80 (December 1897),
762-783.

 

“Great Italian Novelist.” Chicago Evening Post, 17 August 1901,

 

p. 6.

“Growth of Education, Art, and Letters, The,” in the Centennial
HistoI'y g Illinois, 5, “The Modern Commonwealth, 1893—1918.” Ed.
Bogart and Mathews. Springfield, Illinois, 1920, Chapter 2.

 

. “Hamlin Garland’s ‘The Captain of the Gray—Horse Troop, W
Chicago Evening Post, 29 March 1902, p. 11.

 

“ Harbinger of Abdications, A. ” Review of Some Revolutions and
Other Diplomatic Elmeriences, by Sir Henry G. Elliot. Freeman, 6
(28 February 1923), 596-597.

 

 

“Henry Holt Has a Good Talk.” Review of The Garrulities o_f an
Octogenarian Editor, by Henry Holt. New York Times Book Review,
23 December 1923, pp. 1, 27.

 

 

. “ Herbert Paul Waxes Enthusiastic with Matthew Arnold as Theme.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 23 August 1902, p. 4.

 

. Review of Heroes pf Q2 Puppet Stage, by Madge Anderson.
Freeman, 8 (19 December 1923), 359.

 

. “Her Second String.” Autograph manuscript of 11 pp., undated,
which can be ascribed to 1885-1887. Unpublished. Housed inthe Fuller
Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “His Little Life.” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, 1 January
1922, p. 7.

. “Historian in the Making, An.” Review of Supers and Supermen,
by Philip Guedalla. New York Herald-Trilnme Books, 21 September
1924, p. 12.

 

209

Fuller, Henry B. Review of A Histopy pf Art_, 1, by H. B. Cotterill. Freeman,
7 (8 August 1923), 523-524.

“Holy Week in Seville. ” Contributor’s Magazine, 1 (22 April 1893 ),
2‘70

 

“Howells Flays Professor Wendell.” Chicago Evening Post, 6 April
1901, p. 13.

 

. “Howells or James ?” Autograph manuscript, 8 pages, undated, but
almost certainly written in 1884. Original in the Fuller Collection, the
Newberry Library. Published in Modern Fiction Studies, 3. Ed. Darrel
Abel, 1957, pp. 159-164.

 

. “ How Shall the Author and His Book Be Treated by the Modern
Publisher?” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 28 June 1902, p. 4.

 

. “How to Make Good Aldermen.” Saturday Evening Post, 172 (14
April 1900), 950.

 

. “Idol of the Parnassians, An.” Review of Edgar Allan Poe, by
Hans H. Ewers. Dial, 62 (14 May 1917), 433-434.

 

. Review of Imaginany Lives, by Marcel Schwob. New Republic, 41
(18 February 1925), 349.

 

 

“Imagists, The.” Review of Some Imagist Poets. Ed. Amy Lowell.
Dial, 63 (27 September 1917), 271—272.

 

“Increase in American Fiction of Aristocratic Social Ideals.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 8 November 1902, Part 2, p. 9.

 

. “Industrial Utopia, An.” Hargr’s Weekly, 51 (12 October 1907),

. “Influence of the Crusades, The.” Autograph manuscript, 4 pages,
dated March 187 6, probably a rewrite of a paper done at the Allison
Classical Academy in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in the spring of 1874.
The original is in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “In Newly Issued Batch of Letters Stevenson Figures as Advisor
of Youth.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 17 January 1903, p. 4.

 

210

Fuller, Henry B. “Interlude.” Chicago Tribune, 4 June 1916. Also included
in Lines Long and Short. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 97-104.

 

. Review of Intimate Letters o_f James Gibbon Huneker, The. Ed.
Josephine Huneker. New York Times Book Review, 4 January 1925, p. 3.

 

 

. “Invasion of the Literary Field by Clever People of the Stage.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 13 September 1902, p. 9.

. “In Winter Weather.” Autograph manuscript of 34 pages. While
it is not dated, it can be assigned to before 1900, the date of a story,
“ The Downfall of Abner Joyce,” which is mentioned in it. Housed in
the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

“Is Genius a Sign of Disease? No, Says a New Italian Author.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 18 October 1902, p. 9.

. “Is Great Literature of Future to Come from American Continent? ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 14 June 1902, p. 9.

. “Is there a South Pole ? ” Autograph manuscript, 9 pages, undated.
It is evidently written in 1898, since Fuller mentions in it “the recent
departure ” of the Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink South Polar Expedition,
which sailed from London in 1898. The original manuscript is housed
in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

“Italian Fiction.” Critic, 30 o. s. (29 May 1897), 365-366.

. “I Would Kill Him Again!” Translation of the story by Vittorio
Bers ezio. Autograph manuscript in the Fuller Collection, the Newberry
Library. This item is undated and has 43 pages.

. “Japan to the Rescue. ” Autograph manuscript of 9 pages, undated,
probably written in the late 1880’s. The original is housed in the Fuller
Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “Journal 1876 (’78, ’79),” 25 August 1876—February 1879, with
irregular entries. Not a diary, Fuller explains, but a “mental record.”
This notebook contains the post—1880 poem, “Pensieri Privati.” The
original journal is in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

“ Kipling’s Tasteless, Ill—Considered Employment of the Keats
Legend.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 16 August 1902, p. 4.

211

Fuller, Henry B. Review of The Knowledge _oI English, by George Philip Krapp,
and A Comprehensive Guide t_o_ Good English, by George Philip Krapp.
New York Times Book Review, 25 December 1927, p. 2.

 

 

 

. “Lady of Quality, A.” Living Age, 228 (2 February 1901), 328—
330.

 

. ‘“ Lady Rose’s Daughter’ Displays Mrs. Ward’s Genius in Maturity.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 28 February 1903, p. 4.

 

. Last Refuge, The. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1900.

 

“Latest Novel of Henry James is a Typical Example of His Art.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 30 August 1902, p. 4.

 

“ Law Against Spies, A.” Chicago Record-Herald, 23 January 1911.

 

“Legacy to Posterity, A.” A diary with irregular entries dated
from 11 July 1874 to 24 June 1879. The original is in the Newberry
Library in the Fuller Collection.

. Review of Letters and Religion, by John Jay Chapman. New Republic,
39 (30 July 1924), 280.

 

. Review of Letters from 2 Distance, by Gilbert Cannan. New Republic,
40 (15 October 1924), 184-185.

 

. Library Address (4 January 1923) in The Chicago Public Librany,
1873-1923. Fiftieth Anniversary. Chicago: 1923, pp. 83-86.

“Life Tale of Pearl McRoy, The.” Everybody’s Magazine, 23
(September 1910), 380-389. This story is also in The Scholastic, 2 (18
April 1925), 3-4, 30-32.

 

. Lines Long and Short. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917.

. “Lisa’s Watch.” Translation of L’Orologio dI Lisa, by Antonio
Fogazzaro. Autograph manuscript, 34 pages, in the Fuller Collection in
the Newberry Library, Chicago.

 

. “Literature and Democracy.” Chicago Evening Post, 31 August
1901, p. 6.

 

212

Fuller, Henry B. “Literature and the Market.” Chicago Evening Post, 8
June 1901, p. 6.

 

. “Little Cakes of St. Saleratus, The.” Autograph manuscript, 11
pages, undated, with evidence it was written about 1924. The original
is in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “Long and the Short of It, The.” Life, 3 (26 June 1884), 355—
357.

. “Long-Forgotten Romance by John Milton is Brought to Light.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 31 Jamlary 1903, p. 4.

 

. “Looking Backward.” Review of Memories o_f the Future: Being
Memories pf the Years 1915—1972. Written In th _Y_ea_r o_f Grace 1988
by Opal, Lady Porstock. Ed. Ronald A. Knox. Freeman, 8 (12 Decem-
ber 1923), 331.

 

 

 

. “Lucky Thirteen, A.” Review of The Grim Thirteen. Ed. F. S.
Greene. Dial, 64 (17 January 1918), 70-71.

. “Madame Curie’s Tribute.” Review of Pierre Curie, by Marie
Curie. New York Herald-Tribune Books, 11 November 1923, p. 14.

 

 

. Review of Madame _dg Pompadour, by Maurice Tinayre. Common-
weal, 28 July 1926, 310-311.

 

. “Maker of America, A.” Review of A Life o_f George Westing-
house, by Henry C. Prout. Freeman, 5 (7 June 1922), 308.

 

. “ Maker of Popular Fiction Finds Conventions Closing in Upon
Him.” Chicago Evening Post, 21 February 1903, p. 4.

 

. “Make Way for the Young.” Scribner’s Magazine, 66 (November
1909), 625-633.

 

. Review of Man and Mystery _in Asia, by Ferdinand Ossendowski.
New Republic, 38 (5 March 1924), 51-52.

 

 

. Review of Manin and the Venetian Revolution, 1848, by George
Macauley Trevelyn. New Republic, 40 (27 August 1924), 396-397.

 

213

Fuller, Henry B. “Man with the Pen, The.” Autograph manuscript of four
pages, undated, written circa 1900. The original is housed in the Newberry
Library in the Fuller Collection.

. Review of Marcel Proust: An English Tribute, collected by C. E.
Scott Moncrief. New Republic, 38 (27 February 1924), 22.

 

“Marie Corelli Writes of Kings in Her Novel, ‘Temporal Power.’”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 20 September 1902, p. 9.

. “ Marion Crawford’s Latest Novel Deals with Modern Roman
Society.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 1 November 1902, p. 9.

 

. “Mariquita.” Autograph manuscript of an Operetta score, and a
typescript cOpy of the libretto (score: 107 pp., libretto, 69 pp.), which
is in three acts. It is undated.

“Marriage Question, The.” Chicago Tribune, 3 and 10 October,
1875.

. “Masters of the Modern Short Story.” Review of AsEcts pf pkg
Modern Short Story, Enfish and American, by Alfred C. Ward. New
York Times Book Review, 28 June 1925, p. 16.

“Matrimonial Joke, A.” Translation of Una Celia, by Carlo Placci.
Autograph manuscript, 38 pages, in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry
Library.

 

. Review of The Medici, by Colonel G. F. Young. Freeman, 8 (5
December 1924), 310-311.

 

. “Mediocrity in Literature.” Chicago Evening Post, 10 August
1901, p. 6.

 

. “Melting Pot Begins to Smell, The.” New York Times Book
Review, 21 December 1924, p. 2.

. “Memories of Travel.” Review of Memories o_f Travel, by Vis-
count Bryce. Freeman, 7 (4 July 1923), 407.

. “ Middle Aged Romance, A. ” Undated, unidentifiable clipping of
a newspaper of 1884 in the Fuller Collection, the Newberry Library.

214

Fuller, Henry B. “Milk.” Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine Section, 27
November 1921, p. 7.

“Miranda Harlow’s Mortgage. ” Atlantic Monthly, 86 (November
1900), 671-675.

. Miscellaneous Papers. These are housed in the Fuller Collection
in the Newberry Library, Chicago, and consist of a great variety of
items including:

— School report cards

— Language exercises

—— Notes

— Jottings on scraps of paper

—— Library slips

— Press clippings of reviews

—— Clippings of published stories

—— Essays and Reviews
Press clippings of reviews of The Chevalier o_f Pensieri—Vani have
been pasted into Fuller’s c0py of the Cupples edition. This book is
among the Ranney papers.

 

 

“Modern Man and Nature, The.” Saturday Eveni_ng Post, 172 (20
January 1900), 638.

. “Moliere and His Times.” Review of Moliere, by Arthur Tilley.
Freeman, 5 ( 29 March 1922), 66-67.

. “Monologue, A.” A ten-page typescript, undated, but probably
written during the 1920’s. The original is in the Fuller Collection in
the Newberry Library.

. “Mother and Son.” Review of The Dominant Blood, by Robert H.
McClure. New York Herald-Tribune Books, 25 Jamary 1925, page 3.

 

“Mr. Brooks on the Thwarted Career of Henry James.” Review
of The Pilgrimage n Henry James, by Van Wyck Brooks. New York
Times Book Review, 19 April 1925, p. 4.

 

 

. “Mr. Egan’s Best.” Review of Recollections _o_f a; Happy Life,
by Maurice Francis Egan. Nation, 120, 24 June 1925, 722.

. “Mr. Ellis’s Parting Shots.” Review of Impressions and Comments,
Third and Final Series, by Havelock Ellis. Bookman, 60 (February,
1925), 771-772.

 

215

Fuller, Henry B. “Mr. Hamilton Cleans House to Advantage.” Review of
Wanderings, by Clayton Hamilton. Literary Digest International Book
Review, 4 (December 1925), 13.

 

 

. Review of Mrs. Meynell and Her Literary Generation, by Anne
Kimball Tuell. New Repnblic, 43 (27 May 1925), 26.

 

 

 

“Mrs. Ward’s Genius in Maturity.” Chicago Evening Post, 28
February 1903, p. 4.

 

“Mr. Wells Insists on Making the World Over.” Review of The
World 9_t_‘ William Clissold, by H. G. Wells. Literary Digest Interna—
tional Book Review, 4 (November 1926), 755.

 

 

Municipal Art’ Substitute.” Chicago Evening Post: 11 May
1901, p. 6.

 

“Mural Paintings at the Fair.” First paper, The Chicago Record,
25 May 1893; Second paper, The Chicago Record, 26 May 1893.

“My Early Books.” Undated autograph manuscript, composed in
1915-1919 when Fuller lived at 5412 Blackstone Avenue; it might have
been written earlier. The original is in the papers owned by Fuller’s
nieces, Helen and Josephine Ranney, though that is a typescript copy,
made by the Ranneys, of the autograph copy, which has been mislaid,
or has disappeared.

“Mystery, The.” Translation of A Mistero, by Giovanni Verga.
Autograph manuscript of 19 pages in the Fuller Collection, in the New-
berry Library.

. Review of anoleon and His Court, by C. S. Forester; Napoleon
and Josephine: The Rise _o_f Qt: Empire, by Walter Geer. New York
Times Book Review, 5 October 1924, pp. 3, 6.

 

. Review of Napoleon and Marie-Louise: The Fall pf the Empire,
by Walter Geer; Josephine, Napoleon’s Empress, by C. S. Forester.
New York Times Book Review, 3 January 1926, p. 21.

. “National Park at Lake Itaska, A.” Saturday Evening Post, 172
(21 April 1900), 974.

216

Fuller, Henry B. “Near the Bright Lights.” Typescript of 41 pages in the
Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library. According to the biography
of Fuller (Henry Blake Fuller, 1939), p. 107, it is a revision of a 1919
autograph manuscript.

. “Need in this Novel Writing Age for a University of Fiction.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 3 January 1903, p. 5.

 

“New Airship Service, A.” Chicago Record-Herald, 4 December
1910, p. 2.

 

. “New and Representative Type of American Fiction Developing.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 24 May 1902, Part 2, p. 13.

. “Newberry Library.” Harper’s, 38 (29 December 1894), 1243-
1244.

. Review of New England In £113 Repnblic, 1776—1850, by James
Truslow Adams. Commonweal, 21 July 1926, p. 290.

 

. “New Field for Free Verse, A.” Dial, 61 (14 December 1916),
515—517.

. New Flag, The. Chicago: 1899. This scurrilous collection of
poems in free verse, consisting of political attacks on McKinley, was
privately issued by Fuller since no publisher would touch it. Many of
Fuller’s friends destroyed their copies since they considered it to be
injudicious if not dangerous to possess one.

 

. “New Form of Fiction by the Talented Author of ‘In Tuscany. ’”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 21 June 1902, p. 5.

 

“New Forms of Short Fiction.” Dial, 62 (8 March 1917), 167—
169.

“New Study for the Clubs.” Chicago Evening Post, 13 July 1901,
p. 6.

 

Review of New Study _o_f English Poetry, A, by Henry Newbolt;
Formative Types _in English Poetry, by George Herbert Palmer.
Poetry, 16 (August 1920), 288-289.

 

 

. “New York in Twelve Hours.” Undated 17—page typescript in the
Ranney papers.

217

Fuller, Henry B. “Notes on Lorado Taft.” Century, 54 (October 1908),
618-619.

. Not pn the Screen. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. This
book was published posthumously.

 

 

. “Novels of Matilde Serao, The.” Chicago Evening Post, 14 Sep-
tember 1901, p. 6.

 

. “Odds and Ends.” Diary with entries dated from 4 November
1871 to 4 November 1872. Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “Old Order, The.” Review of The Red Riders, by Thomas Nelson
Page. Saturday Review o_f Literature, 1 (4 October 1924), page 10.

 

 

 

. “On an Endowed Vaudeville.” Chicago Evening Post, 22 June 1901,
p. 6.

 

. “One on a Tower.” Review of Figlnes pf Earth, by James Branch
Cabell. Freeman, 3 (4 May 1921), 186—187.

_O_n Q3 Stairs. Boston: Houghton Mifan Company, 1918.

. Review of The Opinions _oI Anatole France, by Paul Gsell. Free-
man, 5 (16 August 1922), 546-547.

 

. “Opposition to the Honor System.” Chicago Record—Herald, 24
January 1911, p. 8.

 

“0 That Way Madness Lies.” The Chap Book, 1 December 1895,
pp. 71-80.

 

. Review of Our American Theatre, by Oliver M. Sayler. The New
Remlblic, 37 (22 Jamlary 1924), 235-236.

. “Our English Friends Abroad in France, Italy, and Persia.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 5 July 1902, p. 4.

 

“Our Lady of Light.” Autograph manuscript, 29 pages, which is
dated 28 October 1892. It is an unfinished chapter of a projected book.

. “Our National Literature Suffers from Our National Prosperity.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 10 May 1902, p. 13.

 

218

Fuller, Henry B. “Om' Transplanted English.” Review of The English Lan-
glIagp in America, by George Philip Krapp. New York Times Book
Review, 7 February 1926, p. 2.

 

“Our ‘Young Lady Novelist.”’ Chicago Evening Post, 1 June
1901, p. 6.

 

. Review of The Outline o_f Science, 1 and 2, ed. J. Arthur Thomp-
son. Nation, 115 (19 July 1922), 72-73.

 

. “Panic, A,” or “The Story of a Panic.” Autograph manuscript
of 11 pages, undated, with the address 2831 Prairie Avenue, which is
Fuller’s residence 1894-1907. Constance Griffin (Henny Blake Fuller,
1939, p. 108) dates it as the revision of a manuscript of 1885—1888 or
earlier.

 

. “Paris, Milan, and Genoa.” Autograph manuscript of 38 pages
which is undated, but from handwriting evidence may be allocated to
the early 1880’s.

“Parodist, A.” Review of —— and Other Poets, by Louis
Untermeyer. Poetry, 8 (September 1916), 321-322.

 

. “ Part Played by Book Dedications among Writers at Home and
Abroad.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 14 February 1903, p. 4.

 

“Pasquale’s Picture.” Current, 4 (11 July 1885), 82.

. “ Pensieri Privati.” Unpublished autograph manuscript housed in
the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

“Photographers at the Fair.” First Paper, Chicago Record, 10
August 1892. Second Paper, Chicago Record, 11 August 1892.

“Pilgrim Sons, The.” Cosmopolitan, 19 (August 1895), 413-427.

 

. “Pipistrello.” Autograph manuscript of an operetta score, with
115 pages; the accompanying libretto has 60 pages. It is dated 1887,
and it is in three acts.

“Place Held by the Finished Novelist between the Advocates of
Aristocratic and Democratic Ideals in Literature, The.” Chicago
Evening Post, 26 April 1902, p. 9.

219

Fuller, Henry B. “Planner of Cities.” The Nation, 114 (8 February 1922),
166-167.

 

__ “Plea for Shorter Novels, A.” Dial, 62 (30 August 1917), 139—
141.

. Review of Points In View, by Stuart P. Sherman. New Republic,
41 (14 January 1925), 204—205.

 

. “Popular Science.” Review of The Outline 9: Science, 3 and 4,
ed. J. Arthur Thompson. Nation, 115 (27 December 1922), 720-721.

 

. “Postponement — The Sketch of a Man Who Waited Too Long.”
Current Opinion, 60 (April 1916), 285. Poegy, 7 (Feb. 1916), 240-245.

 

“Preoccupation of the Specialist yg. the Broader Interests of the
Laity.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 15 November 1902, Part
2, p. 9.

 

“Preservation of Scenic Beauty, The.” Chicago Record-Herald,
9 October 1910, p. 4.

 

“Prince of the Church, A.” Review of Henry Edward Manning:
His Life and Labors, by Shane Leslie. Freeman, 4 (16 November
1921, 233-235.

 

 

. “Private Diary.” Autograph daily record, February—June, 1869.

. Review of The Problem o_f §§yle, by J. Middleton Murray. New
Remblic, 31 (19 July 1922), 221-222.

 

. “Processions and Pantheons.” Chicago Evening Post, 28 September
1901, p. 6.

 

. “Professor Pupin Becomes an American.” Review of From Immi-
g_r_ant Q Inventor, by Michael Pupin. New York Times Book Review,
14 October 1923, pp. 2, 12.

 

. “Prospects for a Radical Change in the General Nature of Fiction.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 27 December 1902, p. 5.

 

. Puppet Booth, The. New York: The Century Company, 1896.

 

22()

Fuller, Henry B. “Quartette, The.” Harper’s Monthly, 121 (November 1910),

 

. “Ready for Rest.” Autograph manuscript, 11 pages, and undated.
It probably should be assigned to 1920.

. Review of The Real Sarah Bernhardt, by Mme. Pierre Berton and
Basil Wood. New Republic, 38 (7 May 1924), 290-291.

 

“Rebecca West—Novelist.” Review of The Retm'n o_f the Soldier,
by Rebecca West. Dial, 64 (28 March 1918), 299-300.

 

 

. “Red Carpet, The.” Written 26 April 1896, but not published until
it was reproduced in Constance Griffin’s Henry Blake Fuller (1939).

 

. “Reflections on Comic Opera.” Chicago Evening Post, 6 July 1901,
p. 6.

 

. Review of Reflections pn t_hn Napoleonic Legend, by Albert Leon
Guerard. New York Times Book Review, 7 February 1924, p. 1.

 

. “Rented Madonna, The.” Autograph manuscript, 38 pages, undated
but with Fuller’s address shown as 5428 Washington Street, his home in
1912, though Constance Griffin (Henry Blake Fuller, p. 108) believes it
was written as much as seven years earlier.

 

. “Responsibility.” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, 19 March
1922, p. 5.

. Review of The Road t_q Xanadu, by John Livingston Lowes. Poegy,
30 (August 1927), 283-285.

 

Review of The Romantic Nineties, by Richard Le Gallienne. New
York Times Book Review, 20 December 1925, p. 12.

 

“Rome: A Day on the Aventine.” Autograph manuscript, 18 pages,
undated. Fuller’s address on the manuscript is 2426 Michigan Avenue,
where he resided 1885-1888.

. “Roosevelt as Champion of the American Multitude.” Review of
Theodore Roosevelt, by Lord Charnwood. New York Times Book Re-
view, 28 October 1923, p. 3.

 

221

Fuller, Henry B. “Russian Novelist Deals Vividly with the Italian Renais-
sance.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 2 August 1902, p. 4.

 

. “Sardinian Days.” Review of Sea and Sardinia, by D. H. Law-
rence. Freeman, 4 (1 March 1922), 595-596.

. “Seeing or Reading.” Review of Since Cezanne, by Clive Bell.
Nation, 115 (6 September 1922), 234-235.

 

“Self—Supporting Poet, The. ” Four-page typescript accompanied
by a rejection slip from Bookman dated 16 October 1923.

Review of Senescence: The Last Half 3f Life, by G. Stanley Hall.
Nation, 115 (9 August 1922 ), 150-151.

 

. Review of Shadow o_f _tl_1_e_ Gloomy East, by Ferdinand Ossendowski.
New Republic, 42 (6 May 1925), 299.

 

 

. Addendum to The Shadow World, by Hamlin Garland. New York:
1908 .

 

“Shakespeare’s Debt to Voltaire for Continental Recognition.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 25 October 1902, p. 9.

 

. “Sharps and Flats.” Review of The Life at: Engene Field, by
Slason Thompson. New York Herald-Tribune Books, 30 January 1927,
p. 3.

 

 

“Signora Cherubino and Her ‘Democracy. ’” Translation of _IE
Democrazia della Signora Cherubino, by Enrico Castelnuovo. Auto—
graph manuscript of 24 pages in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry
Library.

 

“Silence.” Scribner’s Magazine, 148 (October 1910), 430-431.

 

. Review of The Smiths, by Janet A. Fairbank. Literary Dngest
International Book Review, 3 (September 1925), 663.

 

 

“‘Society’ and the Arts.” Chicago Evening Post, 29 June 1901,
p. 6.

 

“Some Day (Revised Edition).” Signed “B. F.” Life 3:65 (27
March 1884), 173.

222

Fuller, Henry B. Review of _S__onnets _o_f Shakespeare, The Variorum Edition,
ed. Raymond M. Alden; Th_e So o_ng of R_o____land, translated by Leonard
Bacon. Poetr tr,y 9 (December 1916), 159.156-

“Stone Walls” (or, “Full Circle or some other title”), 13—page
typescript, undated, with Fuller’s address as 71 E. 92nd Street, New
York City, which would date it 1922-1926, when Fuller spent summers
in New York.

“Story from Greece, A.” Translation of Novella Greca, written
by Matilde Serao. Autograph manuscript, 20 pages, which is housed in
the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library, Chicago.

 

. Review of The Story _oI _My Life, by Sir Harry H. Johnston. New
York Herald-Tribune Books, 18 November 1923, p. 4.

 

“Story of Naphtha, The, A Tale of Culture, Fashion, and Duplicity,
by Elizabeth Hodgson Phelps and Frances Stuart Burnett.” Signed “Blake
Fuller.” Life 3:66 (3 April 1884), 187-189. Life 3:67 (10 April 1884),
201-203.

. Review of Straws and Prayer-Books, by James Branch Cabell. New
Remblic, 61 (31 December 1924), 151—152.

. “Striking an Average.” Saturday Evening Post, 172 (25 May 1901),
14. Also in Great Modern American Short Stories, ed. William Dean
Howells. New York: Liveright, 1920, pp. 267-287.

 

. Review of Studies from Ten Literatures, by Ernest Boyd. The New
Re ublic, 44 (7 October 1925), 183-184.

. “Studies in Religious Faith.” Medieval Heresy and _th_e_ Inquisition,
by A. S. Turberville; The Jesuits, by Thomas J. Campbell. Freeman, 5
(19 April 1922), 138—140.

 

 

 

“Studies of Darker Aspects of Life in Russian Steppe and British
Capital.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 21 March 1903, Part 2,
p. 1.

 

. “Studies of English High Society Made by Anonymous Aristocrats.”
Chicago Evegg' Post Book Section, 3 May 1902, p. 9.

223

Fuller, Henry B. “Study in Clay, A.” Autograph manuscript, 18 pages. It
is undated, but can be assigned to 1894-1907, when Fuller was living
at 2831 Prairie Avenue.

. “Suggestions to Literati.” Chicago Evening Post, 20 July 1901,
p. 6.

. Review of Suspended Judgments, by John Cowper Powys. Free-
man, 7 (5 September 1923), 623.

 

. “Syntax Comic Relief.” Review of A Dictionany pf Modern Eng-
lish Usage, by H. W. Fowler; History in Eninsh Words, by Owen Bar-
field. New York Times Book Review, 2 January 1927, p. 2.

 

 

 

. Review of Taboo, by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Literary Digest Inter-
national Book Review, 3 (November 1925), 818—819.

 

. “Taft’s ‘Solitude of the Soul. ’” Chicago Evening Post, 20 April
1901, p. 6.

 

. “Ten Centuries o_f Russian Literature Reviewed Q Wiener’s
“Anthology.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 12 July 1902, p. 4.

 

 

 

. Review of Tendencies _in Modern American Poetry, by Amy Lowell.
Dial, 63 (8 November 1917), 444-445.

 

 

. “That Duck Once More.” Autograph manuscript, two pages, with
the date 17 May 1886.

. “Theory of Fiction, The.” Review of The Modern Novel, by Wil-
son Follett; A Manual of the Art of Fiction, by Clayton Hamilton. Dial,

66 ( 22 February 1919), 193-194.

 

. “These Bodies of Ours.” Autograph manuscript, 11 pages. Not
dated.

“These Twain.” Review of Wanderings, by Robert Herrick. New
Republic, 44 (21 October 1925), 236-237.

 

“Thirteenth Goddess, The.” Harper’s Monthly, 148 (December
1923), 125-127.

 

1224

Fuller, Henry B. “Thistles and Grapes in Professor Sherman’s Garden.”
Review of On Contemporary Literature, by Stuart P. Sherman. Dial,
64 (31 January 1918), 105-106.

 

. Review of Thomas Nelson Page, by Roswell Page. Freeman, 7
(18 July 1923), 450-452.

. “Thoughts of Escape.” Autograph manuscript, 11 pages, dated
27 January 1920.

. “Three Generations.” Review of Danghter o_f the Middle Border,
by Hamlin Garland. Freeman, 4 (9 November 1921), 210-211.

 

. “Three Glimpses Across Seas.” Chicago Evening Post, 4 May
1901, p. 6.

 

Review of Through Thirty Years, by Wickham Steed. The New
Republic, 42 (25 March 1925), 136-137.

“Thwarted Cosmopolite, A.” Review of Life and Literature, by
Lafcadio Hearn. Dial, 64 (17 January 1918 ), 68-69.

 

. Review of Tocsin 5n Revolt and Other Essays, The, by Brander
Matthews. Freeman, 6 (21 February 1923), 574.

 

. “Tolstoy as Man and Artist Weighed by Dmitri Merejowski.”
Chicago EvenIng' Post Book Section, 6 December 1902, p. 13.

“Toward Childhood.” Poetry, 9 (January 1917), 189-194.

“ Toymaker, The.” Translation of t_Jn Inventore, by Matilde Serao.
Autograph manuscript of 22 pages in the Fuller Collection in the New—
berry Library.

. “Toy Village Theatricals.” Autograph manuscript, 11 pp., undated,
but written sometime during the 1880’s.

. “Transcontinental Episode, A, or Metamorphoses at Muggins’ Mis-
ery: A Co-Operative Novel by Bret James and Henry Harte.” Signed “B.
F.” Life 3:56 (24 January 1884), 47; Life 3:57 (31 January 1884), 62.

. “Travelers with Pen and Camera Depict Life the Whole World Over.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 4 October 1902, Part 2, p. 9.

 

225

Fuller, Henry B. “Treaty Revision with Japan.” Chicago Record-Herald,
24 April 1910, p. 4.

“Troubles of the Short Story.” Chicago Evening Post, 7 September
1901, p. 6.

. “True Arnold Bennett, The.” Review of Elsie 11g _tne Child, by
Arnold Bennett. Saturday Review pf Literature, 1 (29 November 1924),
319.

 

 

. “Turlington’s Victory.” Autograph manuscript, 39 pages, which is
dated as composed on November 27 and November 29, 1909; and copied
and revised on November 30.

. “Turn and Turn About.” Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine, 22
June 1924, Part 5, p. 8.

“Two Celtic Biographies.” Review of Memories and Adventure,
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; The London Adventure, by Arthur Machen.
New Republic, 40 (12 November 1924), 279.

. “Types and Personalities.” Review of Portraits, Real and Imag-
inary, by Ernest Boyd. New Republic, 41 ( 21 Jamlary 1925), 236-237.

 

“Under the Crest of Shishaldin.” Everybody’s Magazine, 16 (June
1907), 809-815.

 

. Under the Skylights. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1901.

 

“Unquenchable Fires.” Review of I, Mary MacLane, by Mary
MacLane. Dial, 62 (3 May 1917), 400-401.

. Review of Untiring Anti-Imperialist (Secret History o_f the British
Occupation 9_f M), by Wilfred Scawen Blunt. Freeman, 6 (3 Jan-
uary 1923), 403.

 

 

. Untitled Manuscripts .

-— Essay on “The American School of Fiction,” autograph
manuscript, 15-1/4 pages, undated (probably 1888).

— Article on Chicago, typescript, 8-1/2 pages, not dated,
but written at the home where Fuller lived from 1927—1929.

226

Fuller, Henry B. Untitled Manuscripts.

— Article on Joseph Hergesheimer. Typescript, 11-1/2 pp.
Letter of rejection attached from Van Wyck Brooks, of
the Freeman, dated 8 March 1921.

— Essay on Japan. Autograph manuscript, 10-1/2 pages.
Dated 12 January 1888.

— Study of Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street. Undated typescript
of 6-1/2 pages, almost certainly composed in 1920.

 

— Fragments of work in progress on a projected new novel to
be completed in 1929. Autograph manuscript, plus 8 pages
of typescript dated 20 March 1929.

—— Unfinished story, beginning “An unremarkable man. . .
Autograph manuscript, 13— /2 pages, dated 11 March 1919.

— Untitled article on Thornton Wilder, 5 pages of typescript
dated by a rejection slip from J. Donald Adams of the
New York Times Book Review, 30 May 1928.

— Small notebook of sketches dated 13 November 1877 , and
containing elevations of Canterbury, Gloucester, and
Worcester Cathedrals. In the Fuller Collection, housed
in the Newberry Library.

— Notebook of sketches made during Fuller’s 1879-1880
trip to Europe. This is among the Ranney papers.

—— Notebook of sketches which Fuller made during his trip
to Europe in 1883. This is among the Ranney papers.

. “ Upward Movement in Chicago, The. ” Atlantic Montth, 80 (Octo-
ber 1897), 534-547.

 

“Valentino. ” Autograph manuscript, 12 pages, undated, probably
written in 1922.

“Varied Harvest, A.” Review of _P___ebbles o_n t_h__e S_h___ore, by “Alpha
of the Plough; ” asy Out, by Elisabeth Woodbridge; Shandygaff, by
ChristOpher Morley. Dial, 64 (6 June 1918), 539- 540.

 

227

Fuller, Henry B. “Variorum and Definitive Edition of the Works of Edward
Fitzgerald.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 13 December 1902, p.
9.

 

. “Varying Aspects of Parody Displayed in Recent Work by Harte
and Seaman.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 11 October 1902,
p. 9.

 

. “ Verbal Inspiration.” Review of The Making 91 the English New
Testament, by Edgar J. Goodspeed. New Republic, 43 (19 August
1925), p. 353.

 

 

. “Vitality of Romanticism, The.” Chicago Evening Post Book
Section, 21 September 1901, p. 6.

 

. Waldo Trench and Others. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1908.

 

. “Waldo Trench Regains His Youth.” Scribner’s Magazine, 42
(August 1907), 231-248.

 

. “Way through the World, The. ” Undated autograph manuscript,
written between 1894 and 1907.

. “W. D. Howells’ Return to Fiction in His New Novel, ‘The
Kentons.’” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 26 April 1902, p. 9.

 

. “ Weakening of National Spirit under International Influences. ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 7 June 1902, p. 13.

 

“Westminister Abbey.” Centur , 45 (March 1893), 700—718.
“Who Reads a Chicago Book?” Dial, 13 (1 September 1892 ), 131.

. “Why the American Reading Public Neglects the Printed Drama.”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 24 Jamlary 1903, Part 2, page 4.

 

. “Wide Variety of Books of Travel About the Old World and the
New.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 20 December 1902, page 9.

 

. “William Dean Howells on ‘Literature and Life.’” Chicago Eve-
m _P_o_s_t Book Section, 29 November 1902, Part 2, Section 3, page 6.

228

Fuller, Henry B. Review o_f William Wetmore Story and His Friends, by
Henry James. Interior, 3 December 1903, 1600.

 

. With The Procession. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1895.

 

. Review of Words and Idioms, by Logan Pearsall Smith. New
York Times Book Review, 13 September 1925, p. 2.

“Work of the ‘Landscape Architect’ and His Opportunities East
and West.” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 26 July 1902, p. 4.

 

. Review of Works 31: Robert Louis Stevenson, The: The South Seas
Edition. New York Times Book Review, 29 November 1925, p. 1.

 

“World’s Fair Architecture.” First Paper, Chicago Record, no
date; Second Paper, Chicago Record, 16 August 1892; Third Paper,
Chicago Record, 20 September 1892.

. “World Stage Viewed from a Front-Row Seat, The.” Review of
From Pinafores t_o_ Politics, by Mrs. J. Borden Harriman. New York
Times Book Review, 25 November 1923, p. 3.

 

“Year inEurope, A.” V011: 19 August 1879-6 December 1879;
Vol. 2: 7 December 1879-7 March 1880; Vol. 3: March 1880-1 Sep—
tember 1880. Diaries in the Fuller Collection in the Newberry Library.

. “Youth of Anatole France, The.” Review of The Bloom if Life,
by Anatole France. Freeman, 7 (13 June 1923), 330-331.

 

. “Youth of Sudermann, The.” Review of The Book o_f1\_/Iy Youth,
by Herman Sudermann. Freeman, 7 (25 July 1923), 475-476.

Garland, Hamlin. Afternoon Neighbors. New York: Macmillan, 1934.

 

. Companions o_n 9:2 Trail. New York: Macmillan, 1931.

 

. A Dangnter pf the Middle Border. New York: Macmillan, 1922.

. “The Late Henry Fuller.” New York Times, 1 August 1929,
p. 26, col. 6.

My Friendly Contemporaries. New York: Macmillan, 1932.

 

229

Garland, Hamlin. Roadside Meeting. New York: Macmillan, 1930.

 

. “Roadside Meetings of a Literary Nomad.” Bookman, 70 (Feb-
ruary 1930), 633—637.

Gautt-Winn, Georgia. “The Works of Henry Blake Fuller.” An unpublished
Ph. D. dissertation, The University of Pittsburg, 1938.

Goodspeed, Thomas W. The Story pf The University 9_f Chicngn, 1890-1925.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1925.

 

Griffin, Constance. Henry Blake Fuller, A Critical Biognaphy. Philadelphia:
The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939.

 

 

Harrington, Fred H. “Literary Aspects of Anti-Imperialism, 1898-1902.” New
England Quarterly, 10 (December 1937), 650-657.

 

Harris, Mark. “Fuller and the American Procession,” introduction to With
the Procession, by Henry B. Fuller. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1965.

Hart, James D. The Popular Book, A History o_f American Literary Taste.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1950.

 

 

Heap, Jane. “Lost: A Renaissance.” Little Review (March 1914).

 

Housman, A. E. A ShrOpshire Lad. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1896.

 

Howells, William Dean. “Certain of the Chicago School of Fiction.” North
American Review, 176 (May 1903), 734-746.

. Review of The Cliff—Dwellers. Harper’s Bazar [sic ] , 26 (28
October 1893), 883.

. Heroines o_f Fiction. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1901, Vol.
2, p. 246.

. “Chicago in Fiction.” Literature, 2 (2 July 1898), 758—759.

 

. “Henry James, Jr.” Century, 25 (November 1882), 28.

. “Literature and Life.” Chicago Evening Post, 29 November 1902,
Part 2, Sec. 3, p. 6.

 

230

Howells, William Dean. Review of With the Procession. Harper’s Weekly,
39 (1 June 1895), 508.

 

 

Huneker, James Gibbons. “Criticism of Our Neglect of a Great American
Masterpiece, The Chevalier o_f Pensieri—Vani.” Current Opinion, 60
(January 1916), 52.

 

 

. Letters pf James Gibbons Huneker. Ed. Josephine Huneker. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922.

 

Intimate Letters pf James Gibbons Huneker. Ed. Josephine Huneker. New
York: Boni and Liveright, 1924. Letter for 11 May 1902.

 

 

Jackson, Kenny. “An Evolution of the New Chicago from the Old: A Study
of Henry Fuller’s Chicago Novels.” Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation,
University of Pennsylvania, 1961.

Jones, Llewellyn. “Chicago——— Our Literary Crater.” Bookman, 60 (Jan-
uary 1925), 565-567.

Kazin, Alfred. 9n Native Grounds. Garden City, New York: 1956.

 

Lawrence, Elwood P. “Fuller of Chicago: A Study in Frustration.” Amer-
ican QuarterIy, 6 (Summer 1954), 137-146.

 

Lewisohn, Ludwig. The Stony _cn American Literature. New York: Random
House, 1939.

 

“Literary Tributes to the World’s Fair.” Dial, 15 (1 October 1893), 176-
178.

“Literary West, The.” Dial, 15 (1 October 1893), 173—175.

London, Jack. “Again the Literary Aspirant.” The Critic, 41 (September
1902), 217-220.

 

Lovett, Robert Morss. “Fuller of Chicago.” New Republic, 60 (21 August
1929), 16—18.

 

Mabbott, T. 0. “Henry Blake Fuller: His Pseudonym.” Notes and Queries,
163 (31 December 1932), 477.

 

231

McConnell, Francis J ., et. al. The Creative Intelligence and Modern Life.
Boulder: The University of Colorado, 1928.

 

Mencken, H. L. “Civilized Chicago.” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 28 October
1917.

. Letters of H. L. Mencken. Selected and Annotated by Guy L.

Forgue. New York: Alfred A. KnOpf, 1961.

Modern Fiction Studies 3 (Summer 1957). Ed. Darrel Abel. “Howells or
James?” by Henry B. Fuller, pp. 159-164.

 

Monroe, Harriet. “A Tribute to Henry B. Fuller.” Poet_ry, 35 (October
1929), 34-41.

Moore, S. T., and Sparkes, B. Hetty Green, A Woman Who Loved Money.
New York: 1930.

 

 

Morgan, Anna. 1\_/Iy Chicago. Chicago: R. F. Seymour, 1918, pp. 158-160.

Morrison, Samuel Eliot. The Oxford History pf the American People. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

 

 

Murray, Donald M. “Henry B. Fuller, Friend of Howells.” South Atlantic
My, 52 (July 1953), 431-444.

 

 

Norton, Charles Eliot. Letters 5n Charles Eliot Norton. Ed. Sara Norton
and M. A. DeWolfe Howe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913.

Oppenheim, J. H. “Autopsy on Chicago.” The American Mercury, 40
(April 1937), 454-461.

 

Ossoli, Sarah Margaret (Fuller). _At Home and Abroad. Ed. Arthur B.
Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard & Chase, 1860.

 

 

. Summer pn tfi Lakes _in 1843. Boston: Brown, Taggard 8:
Chase, 1844.

 

Overton, Grant. “The Conservative Literary Anarchist.” Bookman, 60
(December 1924), 441-445.

Payne, William Morton. Review of The Chatelaine pf Iin Trinite, by Henry
B. Fuller. The Dial, 14 (1 January 1893), 22.

232

Payne, William Morton. Review of The Cliff-Dwellers, by Henry B. Fuller.
The Dial, 15 (16 October 1893), 227-228.

. “Literary Chicago.” New England Magazine, 8 (February 1893),
683-700.

. Review of Under the Skylights, by Henry B. Fuller. The Dial, 32
(1 February 1902), 89-90.

. Review of With Q3 Procession, by Henry B. Fuller. The Dial, 19
(1 July 1895), 18—19.

 

Peattie, Donald Culross. “Henry Blake Fuller.” Reading and Collecting,
2 (January 1938), 19-20.

Peattie, Elia. “The Artistic Side of Chicago.” Atlantic Monthly, 84 (Dec-
ember 1899), 828—834.

Pierce, Bessie L. A_s_ Others See Chicag). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1933.

A History 3f Chicngo, 2, “From Town to City.” New York: 1940.

Poole, Ernest. Giants Gone, Men Who Made Chicago. New York: McGraw-
Hill Book Company, Inc., 1943.

Putnam, Samuel. “Chicago: An Obituary.” American Mercury, 8 (August
1926), 417-425.

Reader’s Encyclopedia, The. Ed. William Rose Bene't. New York: Thomas
Y. Crowell Company, 1965.

 

Redd, Pene10pe. “Henry B. Fuller.” Scholastic, 6 (18 April 1925), 5.

Reid, Mary J. “A Glance at Recent Western Literature.” Midland Monthly,
5 (May 1896), 412-425.

____ “Among the Chicago Writers.” Midland Monthly, 4 (December
1895), 491-504.

. “Henry Blake Fuller.” Book Bnyer, 12 (January 1896), 821-822.

Riordan, Roger. “Henry B. Fuller.” The Critic, 30 (27 March 1897), 211-
212.

 

 

233

Scudder, Horace E. Review of The Cliff—Dwellers, by Henry B. Fuller.
Atlantic Monthly, 73 (April 1894), 555-557.

 

 

. Review of With t_h_e Procession, by Henry B. Fuller. Atlantic
Monthly, 76 (October 1895), 555-556.

 

Shultz, Victor. “Henry Blake Fuller: Civilized Chicagoan.” Bookman,
70 (September 1929), 34-38.

Smith, Alson J. Chicago’s Left Bank. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company,
1953.

Spencer, Gwladys. The Chicago Public Library. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1943.

Starr, Harris Elwood. “Washington Gladden.” Americana Encyclopedia,
1953, 12:676.

 

Stone, Melville. “Higher Life in Chicago.” OllthOlj, 53 (22 February
1896), 326-331.

Taft, Ada B. Lorado Taft, Sculptor and Citizen. Greensboro: Published
by Mary Taft Smith, 1946.

Taft, Lorado. The Appreciation 3f Sculptur . Chicago: The American
Library Association, 1927.

“Art and Modern Life, ” in The Creative Intelligence and Modern
Life. Francis J. McConnell, et al. Boulder: University of Colorado,
1928, pp. 107—137.

 

. Modern Tendencies in Sculptur . Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1921.

 

Tallmadge, Thomas E. Architecture Q Old Chicago. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1941.

 

 

Uzzell, Thomas H. The Technirnle 3f Q3 Novel. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin-
cott Co., 1947.

 

Vanderbilt, Kermit. Charles Eliot Norton, Apostle of Culture in a Democ-

ra y. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.

234

Van Doren, Carl. The American Novel, 1789-1939. New York: Macmillan,
1940.

 

Van Vechten, Carl. Excavations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.

 

. “Henry Blake Fuller.” Double Dealer, 3 (June 1922), 289-299.

 

. Henry Blake Fuller. Chicago: 1929.

 

Walcutt, Charles C. “Naturalism in the American Novel.” Unpublished
Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1937.

Waterloo, Stanley. “Who Reads a Chicago Book?” Dial, 13 (1 October
1892), 206-207.

Wecter, Dixon. The Snge _oI American Society. New York: Scribner’s,
1937.

 

Wilson, Edmund. “Henry Blake Fuller: The Art of Making It Flat.” The
New Yorker, 23 May 1970 , 112.

 

W. P. A. Writer’s Project, Illinois. Chicago: 1939.

 

APPENDIX I

 

 

 

A CHRONOLOGY OF HENRY BLAKE FULLER

1857

1869

1871

18 72

1873

1874

 

APPENDIX I

 

 

 

A CHRONOLOGY OF HENRY BLAKE FULLER

January 9. Born in Chicago. The Fuller home was on the site of the
present La Salle Street Station (in downtown Chicago on South La Salle
Street, between West Harrison and West Van Buren). He was the first
child and only son of George Wood Fuller and Mary Josephine Sanford
Fuller.

“Private Diary,” February-June 1869. The Henry B. Fuller Collection,
The Newberry Library, Chicago.

“Odds and Ends,” various memoranda, 4 November 1871—4 November
1872. The Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

June: Received the First Medal upon his graduation from the Mosley
School.

September: Entered the South Branch Division High School, Chicago,
after one week in Chicago High School.

Fall: Entered Allison Classical Academy, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. It
was Fuller’s experiences here that formed the basis for his journals,
“A.C.A. I and II,” written in 1875, and for raw material for a short
story, “Edmund Dalrymple,” 125 pp. unfinished autog‘aph manuscript,
all of which are in the Henry B. Fuller Collection, in The Newberry
Library, Chicago. His stay at Allison also furnished basic background
materials for his novel, Bertram Cope’s Year (1919).

 

“A Legacy to Posterity,” a journal with irregular entries, was begun
on 11 July 1874, and terminates 24 June 1879. It is in the Henry B.
Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

September: Began work for Ovington’s; diary entry for 21 September

236

1875

1876

237

1874 reads: “The Business of Life formally inaugurated. Ovington’s
Crockery—122 State Street.” This was a large establishment which
was engaged in manufacturing ceramic ware in downtown Chicago.

“A.C.A.” (Allison Classical Academy, memoirs), Volume 1, written
28 February 1875—22 August 1875; Volume II written 29 September
1875—21 July 1876. These works are a retrospective record of his
sojourn at the Academy in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, and contain an
“Allisonian Chronology” of the events and personalities there.

September: Fuller returned to South Division High School in Chicago.

3 and 10 October: First appearance in print. His letters appeared
in a correspondence column of the Chicago Tribune, concerned with
“The Marriage Question,” and were signed pseudonymously, “Aunt
Martha” and “Queen Bess.” In his diary for 12 October, he states,
“Last Sunday, as well as the Sunday before, I had an article in the
Tribune on the ‘Marriage Question. ’”

“A Feast for the Gods,” undated autograph manuscript of ten pages.
In his journal, “A Legacy to Posterity,” 1 February 1876, Fuller’s
entry reads: “Today, I made my second public appearance in ‘A
Feast for the Gods.’” No printed record of its publication has yet
been found.

March: “The Influence of the Crusades,” an autograph manuscript
of four pages, possibly a revision of an article he wrote for A.C.A.
“Literary Society” in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in the spring of 1874.

23 June: Graduated from South Division High School, Chicago. Diary
entry for 23 June 1876 states: “My school days probably over for

aye.” He maintained academic averages of 99.7 and 99.8 during the

two terms.

July: A diary and schedule of his trip to the Philadelphia Centennial
Exhibition, which was opened by President Grant.

August: “Journal 1876 (’78, ’79),” begun 25 August 1876, terminated
in February of 1879. Fuller explains that this is “not a diary, but a
mental record.” This notebook also contains his poem, “ Pensieri
Privati,” written subsequent to 1880. This item is in the Henry B.
Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

1876

1877

1878

1879

1880

18 83

238

October: Fuller returned to work at Ovington’s Crockery in Chicago.
7 November: He became a messenger at the Bank of Illinois, Chicago.

13 November: He prepared a small notebook containing details of the
elevations of Canterbury, Gloucester, and Worcester Cathedrals, with
several aphorisms on art and architecture. This is in the Henry B.
Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

June: Transferred to the Home National Bank, Chicago, where Fuller’s
father was an officer. During idle moments at work, Fuller prepared
detailed itineraries for a trip he hoped to make to Europe.

“Dombey and Son,” autographed manuscript, nine pages. Undated, but
his handwriting indicates it was composed in the late 1870’s, and it is
so listed in Bowron’s dissertation (Harvard University, 1948), p. 476.
It is in the Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Judge Henry Fuller, grandfather of Henry B. Fuller, dies.
19 August: Fuller embarked for Europe on the Royal Mail SS Scmia.

“A Year in Europe,” Vol. I, 19 August 1879—6 December 1879, in the
Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Notebook of sketches made during his European tom‘, 1879-1880, that
is among the Ranney papers.

“A Year in Europe,” Vol. II, 7 December 1879—7 March 1880, in the
Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

“A Year in Europe,” Vol. III, 8 March 1880—1 September 1880, in the
Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

1 August: Sails for home aboard the SS City 3: Richmond, embarking
from Liverpool. Arrives in Chicago less than two weeks afterward.

“Pensieri Privati,” written some time after his return from Europe.
A long poem, badly composed, it compares American and European
cultures. This is an unpublished manuscript in the Henry B. Fuller
Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Diary of his second European trip, 1 April 1883—12 September 1883.

18 84

239

In the Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Notebook of sketches made during the 1883 European itinerary. This
notebook is among the Ranney papers.

September: Upon debarking, Fuller remained in Boston. While there,
he wrote a number of undated ballades, bearing the address he used
in Boston (51 Hancock Street).

“Paris, Milan, and Genoa,” undated autograph manuscript, 38 pages,
probably written in the early 1880’s from handwriting evidence, and
so ascribed by Bowr0n (Harvard Ph. D. dissertation, 1948, p. 484).

“A Panic,” undated autograph manuscript, 11 pages, assigned to the
year 1884 by both Constance Griffin (Fuller’s only biographer: page
108), and Bernard Bowron (Harvard Ph. D. dissertation, 1948, p. 484).

“Rome: A Day on the Aventine,” autograph mamlscript, undated, but
carrying Fuller’s address as 2426 Michigan Avenue, which dates it
possibly in 1884, when he returned to that address in Chicago, after
residing a number of months in Boston.

“A Middle Aged Romance,” unidentifiable clipping from a newspaper
of 1884 in the Henry B. Fuller Collection, in The Newberry Library,
Chicago, with the byline of Henry B. Fuller.

“Howells or James ? ” is an undated autograph manuscript, certainly
written in 18 84 ascertained by internal evidence (reference to “the
fall announcements of the publishers ” concerning Howells’ Th__3 Ri__s_e
9_f Silas Lapham); 8 pages. Previously unpublished, it was edited by
Darrel Abel and included in Modern Fiction mdies, 3 (Summer 1957),
pp. 159-164.

 

“A Transcontinental Episode, or Metamorphoses at Muggins’ Misery:
A Co-operative Novel by Bret James and Henry Harte,” signed B.F.

Life 3:56, 24 January 1884, 47; Life 3:57, 31 January 1884, 62.

“Some Day (Revised Edition),” signed B. F. Life 3:65, 27 March
1884, 173.

“The Story of Naphtha, A Tale of Culture, Fashion, and Duplicity, by
Elizabeth Hodgson Phelps and Frances Stuart Bln'nett,” signed Blake
Fuller. Life 3:66, 3 April 1884, 187-189; Life 3:67, 10 April 1884, 201-
203.

18 85

18 86

1887

1888

240

During the summer of 1884, Fuller returned to Chicago from Boston.

“Ballade of the Touriste,” lmdated autograph manuscript in verse. It
is attached to a letter of rejection from Puck dated 10 June 1884, and
is a comic ballade of the predicament of an American tourist abroad.

“Ballade of the Bank Teller,” undated autograph manuscript, in verse.
It is attached to a letter of rejection from Puch dated 10 June 1884.
It is a humorous ballade on the lordly position that a teller occupies.

“The Long and Short of It,” Life 3:78, 26 June 1884, 355—357. The
original manuscript is stored in the Henry B. Fuller Collection in The
Newberry Library, Chicago.

“Antarctic Research,” autograph manuscript of 8-1/2 pages, which is
dated 30 November 1884. It has not been published. It is kept in the
Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Fuller’s father dies. The full responsibility for the care of the real
estate, finances, and his mother devolves upon Fuller.

“Her Second String,” an undated autograph manuscript of 11 pages,
is identified by Constance Griffin in the only Fuller biography as a
rewrite of “Culture and Cookery,” circa 1885 or earlier, and which
is so dated in Bowron (Harvard Ph. D. dissertation, 1948, page 477 ).

“Pasquale’s Picture,” Current 4, 11 July 1885, 82, is a short story.

“That Duck Once More,” autograph manuscript dated 17 May 1886,
which comprises a two-page allegory comparing Chicago with Europe.

During 1886 and 1887, Fuller was engaged in writing his first novel,
The Chevalier Sn Pensieri-Vani, first published in 1890 (q.v.).

 

 

“Pipistrello,” an autograph manuscript of an Operetta. The score is
115 pages long, and the libretto is 60 pages. It is in three acts.

“Toy Village Theatricals,” undated autograph manuscript, 11 pages,
allotted by Bowron to the eighties (Harvard Ph. D. dissertation, 1948,

page 490).

Untitled essay on Japan, 10-1/2 pages, autograph manuscript which is
dated 12 January 1888.

1889

18 90

1891

18 92

18 93

241

“Japan to the Rescue,” undated autograph manuscript, 9 pages, which
is assigned to the late 1880’s from handwriting evidence and because
of internal evidence. The original is in the Henry B. Fuller Collection
in The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Untitled essay on “The American School of Fiction,” autograph manu-
script, 15-1/4 pages, undated, written in the same notebook, and in the
same handwriting style, as the untitled essay on Japan which is dated
12 January 1888. The original is kept in the Henry B. Fuller Collection
in The Newberry Library, Chicago.

“Architecture in America,” undated autograph manuscript, 3-1/2 pages,
with handwriting similar to that used by Fuller in the late 1880’s, and
early 1890’s. So assigned by Bowron (Harvard Ph. D. dissertation, 1948,
pages 472—473).

The Chevalier 3f Pensieri-Vani, Fuller’s first novel, is brought out by
a Boston subsidy publisher, J. G. Cupples, under Fuller’s pseudonym,
Stanton Page. The book is based on Fuller’s Italian travels.

 

 

Fuller returned to Europe. The diary of his trip, 31 December 1891-
29 June 1892, is in the Henry B. Fuller Collection in The Newberry
Library, Chicago.

Fuller’s third tour of Europe covered the period 5 January 1892 to 18
June 1892.

The Chatelaine _o_f E Trinite, Fuller’s second novel, appears in serial
form from June to October in C_en_tury, and is published in book form
by The Century Company, New York. It describes his Alpine travels.

 

“World’s Fair Architecture,” Chicago News-Record, 16 September 1892.
Part One of a series.

“World’s Fair Architecture,” Chicago News-Record, 20 September 1892.
Part Two of a series.

 

“Our Lady of Light,” autographed manuscript, 29 pages, dated (on the
earlier of two revisions, on page one) 28 October 1892. Not finished.

“Westminster Abbey,” Century, 45 (March 1893), 700—718.

“Holy Week in Seville,” Contributor’s Magazine, 1 (22 April 1893), 2-7.

 

18 94

1895

1896

242

“Mural Paintings at the Fair,” Chicago News-Record, 25 May 1893.
Part One of a series. '

 

“Mural Paintings at the Fair,” Chicago News-Record, 26 May 1893.
Part Two of a series.

The Cliff-Dwellers, Fuller’s third novel, appears in Harper’s Weekly,

 

 

37, from 3 June to 19 August, and is published by Harper & Brothers
in book form in New York. It is a story of contemporary Chicago in
its business and social aspects.

“Photographers at the Fair,” Chicago News—Record, 10 August 1893.
Part One of a series.

 

“Photographers at the Fair,” Chicago News-Record, 11 August 1893.
Part Two of a series.

 

Fuller makes his fourth trip to Europe, May through October 1894.

“Newberry Library,” Harper’s Weekly, 38 (29 December 1894),
1243-1244.

 

With the Procession, Fuller’s fourth novel, is published by Harper &

 

Brothers in New York. It deals with the stratification of the social,
cultural, and business life of contemporary Chicago, and is rated by
many to be his best book.

“The Pilgrim Sons,” CosmOpolitan, 19 (August 1895), 413-427, is a
short story later included in his book, From Q3 Other Side (18 98 ).

 

 

“O That Way Madness Lies,” The Chap Book, 1 December 1895, pp.
71-80, was composed in November 1895.

 

During November and December, Fuller composed twelve plays for
his book, The Puppet Booth, which was published in 1896.

 

The Puppet Booth, Fuller’s fifth book, was published in New York by
The Century Company. It is a collection of his dramatic sketches.

 

“The Red Carpet,” Fuller’s short story which was unpublished until
it appeared in Constance Griffin’s biography, Henny Blake Fuller, in
1939, was written 26 April 1896.

 

18 97

1898

18 99

243

Fuller takes his fifth trip to Europe, 5 December 1896 to June 1897.

“The ‘Bad’ Play,” undated autograph manuscript, 5 pages, assigned
to 1897 by B. Bowron (Harvard Ph.D. dissertation, 1948, page 473).

“Easter in Florence,” The Parish Messenger, May 1897, pp. 12—13.

“Fuller on Italian Fiction,” The Critic, 30 (29 May 1897), 365-366.

 

In June, Fuller returned to Chicago fi'om his fifth European journey.

“The Upward Movement in Chicago,” Atlantic Monthly, 80 (October
1897), 534—547.

 

“The Greatest of These,” Atlantic Monthly, 80 (December 1897 ), 762-
783.

 

“Is There a South Pole? ” is an undated autograph manuscript of nine
pages in the Henry B. Fuller Collection, The Newberry Library. It is
dated from internal evidence from mention of the Antarctic expedition
of Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink, which sailed from London that year.

“A Study in Clay,” undated autograph manuscript of 18 pages, written
while Fuller resided at 2831 Prairie Avenue, which dates it between
1894 and 1907. It is arbitrarily listed here.

“ The Way through the World,” lmdated autograph manuscript, 14 pages,
written when Fuller lived at 2831 Prairie Avenue, which dates it between
1894 and 1907. It is arbitrarily listed here.

From the Other Side, Fuller’s sixth book, is published in Boston by
Houghton Mifflin & Co. It is a collection of short stories based on
his European travels.

 

“ In Winter Weather, ” undated autograph manuscript of 34 pages that
was written before 1900, since it mentions Fuller’s story titled “The
Downfall of Abner Joyce,” which he composed in 1900. Accordingly,
“In Winter Weather” is arbitrarily listed here.

The New Flag, which Fuller published at his own expense, contains a
caustic collection of poetry. Some of it consisted of scurrilous verse
which personally attacked President McKinley. Friends of Fuller had
qualms about owning copies, and destroyed them.

 

1900

19 01

244

“Art in America,” Bookman, 10 (November 1899), 218-224.

“The Modern Man and Nature,” Saturday Evening Post, 182 (20 Jan-
uary 1900), 638.

 

“ Eliza Hepburn’s Deliverance,” Centln‘y Magazine, 59 (February-March
1900), a short story which also appears in Waldo Trench and Others
(1908), q.v.

 

 

“How to Make Good Aldermen,” Saturdny Evening Post, 182 (14 April
1900), 950.

 

“A National Park at Lake Itasca,” Saturday Evening Post, 182 (21 April
1900), 974.

 

“D’Annunzio’s Cruel Perfidy,” Chicago Post, 9 June 1900.

The Last Refugn, A Sicilian Romance, Fuller’s seventh book, appears,
published by Houghton Mifflin & Company, Boston.

“The Civic Federation and Literature,” Chicago Post, 14 July 1900.

“Miranda Harlow’s Mortgage,” Atlantic Monthly, 86 (November 1900),
671-675.

 

“The Man with the Pen,” undated, unpublished autograph manuscript,
written after 1899, and carrying Fuller’s address at 2831 Prairie
Avenue, which dates it before or by 1907. It is arbitrarily put here.

“Dr. Gowdy and the Squash,” Harper’s, 102 (January 1901), 262-282.
This short story is also included in Under the fliylights (1901).

 

Under the Skylights, Fuller’s eighth book, is published by D. Appleton
& Company in New York. It is an anthology of short stories.

 

“A Lady of Quality,” Living Age, 228 (2 February 1901), 328—330.

 

“Howells Flays Professor Wendell,” Chicago Evening Post, 6 April
1901, p. 13.

 

“As to ‘Best Selling’ Novels,” Chicago Evening Post, 13 April 1901,
p. 13.

 

245

“Taft’s ‘Solitude of the Soul,”’ Chicago Evening Post, 20 April 1901,
p. 6.

 

“Chicago as a Country Town,” Chicago Evening Post, 27 April 1901,
p. 6.

“Three Glimpses across Seas,” Chicago Evening Post, 4 May 1901,
p. 6.

 

“Municipal Art Substitute,” Chicago ENening Post, 11 May 1901, p. 6.

 

“D’Annunzio in a New Phase,” Chicago Evening Post, 18 May 1901,
p. 6.

 

“Capus, Clyde Fitch of Paris,” Chicago Evening Post, 25 May 1901,
p. 6

 

“Striking an Average,” Saturday Evening Post, 182 (25 May 1901),
3—14. This short story is also reproduced in Great Modern American
Short Stories, ed. William Dean Howells (New York: Liveright, 1920),
pp. 267—287.

 

 

 

“Our ‘Young Lady Novelist,’” Chicago Evening Post, 1 June 1901,
p. 6.

 

“Literature and the Market,” Chicago Evening Post, 8 June 1901,
p. 6.

 

“An Artistic Round Robin,” Chicago Evening Post, 15 June 1901, p. 6.

 

“For an Endowed Vaudeville,” Chicago Evening Post, 22 June 1901,
p. 6.

 

“‘Society’ and the Arts,” Chicago Evening Post, 29 June 1901, p. 6.

 

“Reflections on Comic Opera,” Chicago Evening Post, 6 July 1901,
p. 6.

 

“New Study for the Clubs,” Chicago Evening Post, 13 July 1901, p. 6.

 

“Suggestions to Literati,” Chicago Evening Post, 20 July 1901, p. 6.

 

“Billboards and the Remedy,” Chicago Evening Post, 27 July 1901,
p. 6.

 

19 02

246

“For the Revival of the ‘Patron, ”’ Chicago Evening Post, 3 August
1901, p. 6.

 

“Mediocrity in Literature,” Chicago Evening Post, 10 August 1901,
p. 6.

 

“Great Italian Novelist,” Chicago Evening Post, 17 August 1901, p. 6.

 

“Gissing’s ‘By the Ionian Sea, ”’ Chicago Evening Post, 24 August
1901, p. 6.

 

“Literature and Democracy,” Chicago Evening Post, 31 August 1901,
p. 6.

 

“ Troubles of the Short Story,” Chicago Evening Post, 7 September
1901, p. 6.

 

“The Novels of Matilde Serao,” Chicago Evening Post, 14 September
1901, p. 6.

 

“The Vitality of Romanticism,” Chicago Evening Post, 21 September
1901, p. 6.

 

“Processions and Pantheons,” Chicago Evening Post, 28 September
1901, p. 6.

 

“Chicago’s Book of Days,” The Outlook, 69 (5 October 1901), 288-
299.

 

“Review of New Books: Edith Wharton’s ‘Valley of Decision, ”’ Chi-
cago Evening Post, 5 March 1902, p. 5.

 

“Review of New Books: Hamlin Garland’s ‘The Captain of the Gray—
Horse Troop, ”’ Chicago Evening Post, 29 March 1902, p. 11.

 

“Edith Wharton and American Literary Taste, ” Chicago Evening Post
Book Section, 19 April 1902, p. 9.

 

“W. D. Howells’ Return to Fiction in His New Novel, ‘The Kentons,”’
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 26 April 1902, p. 9.

 

“The Place Held by the Finished Novelist between the Advocates of
Aristocratic and Democratic Ideals in Literature,” Chicago Evegg’

247

Post, 26 April 1902, p. 9.

“Studies of English High Society Made by Anonymous Aristocrats,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 3 May 1902, p. 9.

 

“Our National Literature Suffers from Our National Prosperity,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 10 May 1902, p. 9.

 

“Erroneous Ideas About Prospects for the ‘Great American Novel,”’
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 17 May 1902, p. 9.

 

“New and Representative Type of American Fiction Developing,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 24 May 1902, Part 2, page 13.

 

“Development of P0pular Literature through Present Deluge of Books, ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 31 May 1902, p. 9.

 

“Weakening of National Spirit under International Influence, ” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 7 June 1902, p. 13.

 

“Is Great Literature of the Future to Come from American Continent? ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 14 June 1902, p. 9.

 

“New Form of Fiction by the Talented Author of ‘In Tuscany, ”’
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 21 June 1902, p. 5.

 

“ How Shall the Author and His Books Be Treated by the Modern
Publisher? ” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 28 June 1902, p. 4.

 

“Our English Friends Abroad, in France, Italy and Persia,” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 5 July 1902, p. 4.

 

“ Ten Centuries of Russian Literature Reviewed in Wiener’s ‘Anthology, ”’
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 12 July 1902, p. 4.

 

“ Centenary of Alexandre Dumas Turns Thought toward His Works and
Ways,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 19 July 1902, p. 4.

 

“Work of the ‘ Landscape Architect ’ and His Opportunities East and
West,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 26 July 1902, p. 4.

 

“Russian Novelist Deals Vividly with the Italian Renaissance, ” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 2 August 1902, p. 4.

248

“D’Annunzio’s Dramatic Masterpiece Blends Archaeology and Passion,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 9 August 1902, p. 4.

 

“Kipling’s Tasteless, Ill-Considered Employment of the Keats Legend,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 16 August 1902, p. 4.

 

“Herbert Paul Waxes Enthusiastic with Matthew Arnold as Theme,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 23 August 1902, p. 4.

 

“Latest Novel of Henry James Is a Typical Example of His Art,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 30 August 1902, p. 4.

 

“ Frank Norris and Jack London on Literary Art and the Multitude, ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 6 September 1902, Part 2, p. 9.

 

“Invasion of Literary World by Clever People of the Stage,” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 13 September 1902, p. 9.

 

“Marie Corelli Writes of Kings in Her Novel, ‘Temporal Power, ”’
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 20 September 1902, p. 9.

 

“ Travelers with Pen and Camera Depict Life the Whole World Over,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 4 October 1902, Part 2, page 9.

 

“Varying Aspect of Parody Displayed in Recent Work by Harte and
Seaman,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 11 October 1902, p. 9.

 

“Is Genius a Sign of Disease? No, Says a New Italian Author,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 18 October 1902, p. 9.

 

“Shakespeare’s Debt to Voltaire for Continental Recognition,” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 25 October 1902, p. 9.

 

“Marion Crawford’s Latest Novel Deals with Modern Roman Society,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 1 November 1902, p. 9.

 

“Increase in American Fiction of Aristocratic Social Ideals,” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 8 November 1902, Part 2, p. 9.

 

“ Preoccupation of the Specialist E. the Broader Interests of the Laity,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 15 November 1902, Part 2, p. 9.

 

 

19 03

249

“Dumas’s Latest Biographer Defends His Methods and Morals,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 22 November 1902, p. 9.

 

“William Dean Howells on ‘Literature and Life,”’ Chicago Evegg‘
Post Book Section, 29 November 1902, Part 2, Section 3, page 6.

“ Tolstoy as Man and Artist Weighed by Dmitri Merejowski,” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 6 December 1902, p. 13.

 

“Variorum and Definitive Edition of the Works of Edward Fitzgerald, ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 13 December 1902, p. 9.

 

“Wide Variety of Books of Travel about the Old World and the New, ”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 20 December 1902, p. 9.

 

“Prospects for aRadical Change in the General Nature of Fiction,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 27 December 1902, p. 5.

 

“Need in this Novel Writing Age for a University of Fiction,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 3 January 1903, p. 5.

 

“American Manners Do Not Exist, Says Critic of Contemporary Novel,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 10 January 1903, p. 5.

 

“In Newly Issued Batch of Letters Stevenson Figures as Advisor of
Youth,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 17 January 1903, p. 4.

 

“Why the American Reading Public Neglects the Printed Drama,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 24 January 1903, Part 2, p. 4.

 

“Long Forgotten Romance by John Milton Is Brought to Light,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 31 January 1903, p. 4.

 

“ Are Publishers Unjust to Young and Unknown Authors ? ” Chicago
Evening Post Book Section, 7 February 1903, p. 4.

 

“ Part Played by Book Dedications among Writers at Home and
Abroad,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 14 February 1903, p. 4.

 

“ Maker of Popular Fiction Finds Conventions Closing in upon Him,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 21 February 1903, p. 4.

 

 

1906

19 07

1908

250

‘“ Lady Rose’s Daughter’ Displays Mrs. Ward’s Genius in Maturity,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 28 February 1903, p. 4.

 

“Chicago’s Varied Population Made Subject of Linguistic Study,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 7 March 1903, Part 2, page 9.

 

“First Complete Life of Mazzini, the Great Italian Republican,”
Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 14 March 1903, Part 2, p. 9.

 

“Studies of Darker Aspects of Life in Russian Steppe and British
Capital,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 21 March 1903, Part
2.1» 1.

 

“Expansion of America’s Domain Brings Harvest of History and
Travel,” Chicago Evening Post Book Section, 29 March 1903, p. 9.

 

“William Wetmore Story and His Friends, by Henry James,” The

 

Interior, 3 December 1903, p. 1600.

“Addolorata’s Intervention, ” Scribner’s Magazine, 40 (December
1906), 715—729. This story is also in Waldo Trench and Others
(1908), an anthology of Fuller’s stories.

 

Fuller’s mother passes away after a long illness. Henry has been
attending her, which covered a span of years.

“Under the Crest of Shishaldin,” Everybody’s Magazine, 16 (June
1907), 809—815.

“Waldo Trench Regains His Youth,” Scribner’s Magazine, 42 (August
1907), 231—248. This story also appears in Waldo Trench and Others
(1908).

 

“Industrial Utopia,” Harper’s Weekly, 51 (12 October 1907), 1482-
1483.

“For the Faith,” Scribner’s Magazine, 42 (October 1907), 433-446.
This story also appears in Waldo Trench and Others (1908).

 

Waldo Trench and Others, Stories 3f Italian Travel, an anthology of
Fuller’s tales, is published in book form by Charles Scribner’s Sons,
New York.

 

1909

1910

251

Fuller wrote the Addendum to The Shadow World, by Hamlin Garland.

 

“Notes on Lorado Taft,” The Centuny Magazine, 76 (August 1908),
618-6210

“Make Way for the Young,” Scribner’s Magazine, 66 (November 1909 ),
625-633.

 

“ Turlington’s Victory,” autog‘aph manuscript written November 27 and
November 29, 1909, and c0pied and revised November 30; 39 pages.

“Chicago’s Small Parks,” undated autograph manuscript, 18 pages. It
is assigned to 1910 from its reference to a report published in 1905,
as having been made “four or five years ago.”

“Treaty Revision with Japan,” Chicago Record-Herald, 24 April 1910,
p. 4.

 

“The ‘Best Girl,”’ Chicago Record-Herald, 1 May 1910, p. 4.

 

“Currency Reform,” Chicago Record-Herald, 3 July 1910.

 

“Bernhardt a Great-Grandmother,” Chicago Record—Herald, 31 July
1910.

 

“The Life-Tale of Pearl McRoy,” Everybody’s Magazine, 23 (Septem-
ber 1910), 380—389. Also in The Scholastic, 2 (18 April 1925), 3—4,
30.32.

 

 

“China’s New Navy,” Chicago Record-Herald, 2 October 1910.

 

“The Preservation of Scenic Beauty,” Chicago Record-Herald, 9
October 1910, p. 4.

 

“Getting Americanized,” Chicago Record-Herald, 16 October 1910, p. 4.

 

“Silence,” Scribner’s Magazine, 48 (October 1910), 430-431.

 

“Quartette,” Harper’s Monthly, 121 (November 1910), 934-938.

 

“A New Airship Service,” Chicago Record-Herald, 4 December 1910,
p. 2.

 

1911

1912

1915

1916

252

“A Law Against Spies,” Chicago Record—Herald, 23 January 1911.

 

“Opposition to the Honor System, ” Chicago Record-Herald, 24 January
1911.

 

“The Rented Madonna,” an undated autograph manuscript, 38 pages,
that bears Fuller’s address at 5428 Washington Street, where he lived
about 1912. However, Constance Griffin (Henry Blake Fuller, p. 108),
believes this may have been written as many as seven years earlier.

“Chicago,” Century Magazine, 84 (May 1912).

 

The first issue of Poetry, founded by Harriet Monroe, was issued in
October 1912. Fuller was on the three-man advisory board, and he
remained active with the publication until his death in 1929.

“Diminuendo, ” unpublished, undated autograph manuscript, written in
the period 1915-1920, when Fuller began producing free verse. This
manuscript is in free verse, and deals with a female Walter Mitty.

“The First Modern” (Some Love Songs o_f Petrarch, translated by
William Dudley Foulke), Poetry, 7 (January 1916), 207—209.

 

“Postponement,” ery, 7 (February 1916), 240—245. This poem is
also in current Opinion, 60 (April 1916), 285.

 

“Aridity,” The New Regublic, 7 (6 May 1916), 17-18. The poem is
included in Fuller’s anthology, Lines Long and Short (1917), pp. 21-
27, and in Current Opinion, 61 (July 1916), 58.

 

 

 

“Interlude,” Chicago Tribune, 4 June 1916. This poetry is included
in Fuller’s anthology, Lines Long and Short (1917), pp. 97—104.

 

“The Brooke Letters ” (Letters from America, by Rupert Brooke),
Poetry, 8 (June 1916), 155—157.

 

“The Art of Life,” The New Republic, 7 (10 June 1916), 148-149.
This poetry is in Fuller’s anthology, Lines Long and Short (1917),
pp. 111—118.

“A Parodist” (— and Other Poets, by Louis Untermeyer), Poet_ry,
8 (September 1916), 321—322.

 

 

1917

253

(The Divine Comedy _o_f Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Johnson),
Per, 9 (November 1916), 104-105.

 

“An American Poet and Editor” (The Letters 3f Richard Watson
Gilder), Dial, 61 (30 November 1916), 455-456.

 

 

(The Sonnets o_f Shakespeare, Variorum Edition, ed. Raymond M. Alden;
The Song o_f Roland, translated by Leonard Bacon), Poetry, 9 (December
1916), 156-159.

 

“A New Field for Free Verse,” Dial, 61 (14 December 1916), 515-517.
“Toward Childhood,” Poetry, 9 (January 1917), 189-194.

“The Good Old Ways” (Pencraft, by William Watson), Dial, 62 (8
February 1917), 95-96.

“New Forms of Short Fiction,” Dial, 62 (8 March 1917), 167-169.

“Embracing the Realities” (Twiltgn‘ t i_n Italy and The Prussian Officer,
by D. H. Lawrence), Dial, 62 (22 March 1917), 237-238.

 

“Unquenchable Fires” (I, Mary MacLane, by Mary MacLane), Dial,
62 (3 May 1917), 400-401.

 

“An Idol of the Parnassians” (Edgar Allan Poe, by Hans H. Ewers),
Dial, 62 (14 May 1917), 433-434.

 

“Demolishing the Britannica” (Misinforming 3 Nation, by W. H. Wright),
Dial, 62 (31 May 1917), 477-478.

 

“A Plea for Shorter Novels,” Dial, 63 (30 August 1917), 139-141.

“The Classical Stage of Japan” (“Noh” 93 Accomplishment, by E.
Fenellosa and Ezra Pound), Dial, 63 (13 September 1917), 209-210.

 

Lines Long and Short, published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston;
an anthology of Fuller’s poetry.

 

“The Imagists” (Some Imagist Poets, ed. Amy Lowell), Dial, 63 (27
September 1917), 271-272.

 

 

1918

1919

254

(Tendencies In Modern Poetry, by Amy Lowell), Dial, 63 (8 November
1917), 444-445.

 

 

“A Lucky Thirteen” (The Grim Thirteen, ed. F. S. Greene), Dial,
64 (17 January 1918), 70-71.

 

“A Thwarted Cosmopolite” (Life and Literature, by Lafcadio Hearn),
Dial, 64 (17 January 1918), 68-69.

 

.ri'l

“Thistles and Grapes in Professor Sherman’s Garden” (9n Contempo-
rary Literature, by Stuart P. Sherman), Dial, 64 (31 January 1918),
105-106.

 

 

“Establishing the Established” (Some Modern Novelists, by Helen
Thomas Follett and Wilson Follett), Dial, 64 (14 March 1918), 233—
234.

 

“Rebecca West—Novelist” (The Return 3f the Soldier, by Rebecca
West), Dial, 64 (28 March 1918), 299—300.

 

 

“A Varied Harvest” (Pebbles o_n Q3 Sh_3_re, by “Alpha of the Plough; ”
Dasy Ou___t, by Elisabeth Woodbridge; Shandygaff, by Christopher Morley),
Dial, 64 (6 June 1918), 539- 540.

 

(_)n Q3 Stairs, a novel of the business world by Fuller, is published by

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. It has a Chicago setting.

“My Early Books,” undated autograph manuscript with Fuller’s home
listed as 5412 Blackstone Avenue, where he resided 1915—1919. There
is a copy typed by Fuller’s nieces among the Ranney papers that is
dated 1919 by Constance Griffin (Henry Blake Fuller, p. 107), 8 pp.

 

“Near the Bright Lights,” a typescript of 41 pages, which, according
to Constance Griffin (Henry Blake Fuller, p. 107), is a revision of an
autograph manuscript written in 1919.

 

“ The Theory of Fiction” (The Modern Novel, by Wilson Follett; A
Manual of the Art of Ficti___o_n, by Clayton Hamilton), I)_ial, 64 (22

February 1919), 193-194.

 

“An unremarkable man . . . ” untitled, unfinished story beginning, “An
unremarkable man . . . ” which is an autograph manuscript dated March
1919, 13-1/2 pages.

255

1920 “Ready for Rest,” undated autograph manuscript in free verse which

1921

was written 1915-1920, the period of Fuller’s interest in “free verse
biographical sketches.” It has 11 pages, and ascribed by Bowron in
his Ph. D. dissertation (Harvard, 1948, p. 485) to 1920.

“Thoughts of Escape,” autograph manuscript of free verse dated 27
January 1920; 11 pages.

“ Toward the New World,” autograph manuscript of free verse, dated
1920; 11 pages.

Typescript on Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, untitled article, not dated,
6-1/2 pages; almost certainly written in 1920, since Fuller mentions
having just read Main Street.

 

 

“Deve10pment of Arts and Letters,” in Centennial History 3f Illinois,
4, “The Industrial State, 1870-1893,” ed. Bogart and Thompson, and

published in Springfield, Illinois, in 1920. Fuller’s work is in Chapter
9, 188-216.

 

“Growth of Education, Arts and Letters,” in Centennial History o_f
Illinois, 5, “The Modern Commonwealth, 1893-1918,” ed. Bogart and
Mathews, published in Springfield, Illinois, 1920. Fuller’s work is in
Chapter 2.

 

(The American Image, by Jean Catel), Pery, 15 (March 1920),
327-331.

 

(A New Study o_f English Poetry, by Henry Newbolt; Formative Iypes
In English Poetry, by George Herbert Palmer), Poetry, 16 (August
1920), 288—289.

 

 

 

 

Untitled typescript article on Joseph Hergesheimer, 11-1/2 pages, with
a letter of rejection from Freeman dated 8 March 1921.

“One on a Tower (Figyes 3t Earth, by James Branch Cabell), Free-
man, 3 (4 May 1921), 186-187.

“ Coleridge and Wordsworth ” (Biographia Literaria, by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, with Preface and “Essays on Poetry” by William Words-
worth, ed. George Sampson), Poetry, 18 (June 1921), 167-168.

 

19 22

256

“The Eminent Victoria” (Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey), Free-
man, 4 (31 August 1921), 594-595.

 

“The Biographer of a Rake” (The Life 31‘ Anthony Hamilton, by Ruth
Clark), Freeman, 4 (5 October 1921), 90—91.

 

“The Divine Comedy,” Freeman, 4 (12 October 1921), 104—106.

“Three Generations” (Daughter 3f the Middle Border, by Hamlin
Garland), Freeman, 4 (9 November 1921), 210-211.

“A Prince of the Church” (Henry Edward Manning His Life and
Labors, by Shane Leslie), Freeman, 4 (16 November 1921), 233-
235.

 

“Milk,” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, 1 January 1922, p. 7.

“Chicago Poets,” New York Evening Post Literary Review, 2 (10
December 1921), 249-250.

 

“The Big Show at Canberra,” undated 15-page typescript, rejected
20 December 1921 by Freeman.

(Contemporary American Novelists, by Carl Van Doren), Nation,
113 (21 December 1921), 730.

 

“A Monologue,” undated 10-page typescript probably written in the
1920’s according to Bowron (Harvard Ph. D. dissertation, 1948, p.
481), when Fuller copied most of his manuscripts in typescript.

“His Little Life,” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, 1 January 1922,
p. 7.

“Valentino,” undated autograph manuscript, 12 pages, probably written
in 1922, since Fuller discusses only two of the three films in which
Valentino appeared in 1922: “Blood and Sand,” and “The Young Rajah,”
and Fuller would almost certainly have mentioned the third, “Moran

of the Lady Letty,” a transcription of serious American fiction.

Foreword in The So-Called Human Race, by Bert Leston Taylor, New
York, 1922, pp. vii-x.

 

 

257

“Dear Old Eighteenth Century” (Memoirs 9_f William Hickey, 1749-
1782, ed. Alfred Spencer), Freeman, 4 (4 January 1922), 402-404.

(Daniel IIIBurnham, Architect, Planner o_f Cities, by Charles Moore),
Nation, 114 (8 February 1922), 166-167.

“Sardinian Days” (Sea and Sardinia, by D. H. Lawrence), Freeman,
4 (1 March 1922), 595-596. f

 

“ Chicago Novelists,” New York Evening Post Literary Review, 2 (18
March 1922), 501-502.

 

“Responsibility,” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, 19 March 1922,
p. 5.

“Moliere and His Times” (Moliére, by Arthur Tilley), Freeman, 5,
(29 March 1922), 66-67.

“Georges—Jacques Danton” (Danton, by Louis Madelin), Freeman, 5,
(5 April 1922), 90-91.

“Studies in Religious Faith” (Medieval Heresy and the Inguisition),
by A. S. Turberville; The Jesuits, by Thomas J. Campbell, Freeman,
5 (19 April 1922), 138-140.

 

“Dante in English Verse” (The Divine Comedy 3f Dante Alighieri,
translated by Melville Best Anderson), Poetry, 20 (May 1922), 165-
168.

 

 

 

“The Art of Fiction-Writing” (The Craft o_f Fiction, by Percy Lub-
bock), Freeman, 5 (3 May 1922), 189-190.

“The Few Days of Little Fiji,” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, 21
May 1922, p. 2.

“The Crocean Dante” (The Poetry 3f Dante, by Benedetto Croce),
Freeman, 5 (31 May 1922), 282-284.

 

“A Maker of America” (A Life 3_f George Westinghouse, by Henry C.
Prout), Freeman, 5 (7 June 1922), 308.

 

(The Outline 3f Science, I and 3, ed. J. Arthur Thompson), Nation,
115 (19 July 1922), 72-73.

 

19 23

258

(The Problem 3f Style, by J. Middleton Murray), New Republic, 31
(19 July 1922), 221-222.

 

(Senescence: The Last Half 3f Life, by G. Stanley Hall), Nation, 115
(9 August 1922), 150-151.

 

(The Opinions _cn’ Anatole France, by Paul Gsell), Freeman, 5 (16
August 1922), 546-547.

 

 

“Seeing or Reading” (Since Cezanue, by Clive Bell), Nation, 115 (6
September 1922), 234—235.

 

“ The Age of Chaucer” (Chaucer and His England, by G. G. Coulton),
Freeman, 6 (4 October 1922), 93-94.

 

“From A to Z” (More Authors and _I_, by C. Lewis Hind), Freeman,
6 (20 December 1922), 357-358.

 

“Popular Science” (The Outline _(3 Science, 3 and 4, ed. J. Arthur
Thompson), Nation, 115 (27 December 1922), 720-721.

 

“Stone Walls” (or, “‘Full Circle’ or some other title”), typescript
of 13 pages, undated. Fuller’s address is listed as 71 East 92nd
Street, New York City, which would date this 1922-1926. It is included
here by arbitrary assignment.

“An Untiring Anti-Imperialist” (Secret History o_f QAe British Occnpa-
tion Sn Egypp, by Wilfred Scawen Blunt), Freeman, 6 (3 January 1923),
p. 403.

 

Library Address, The Chicago Public Library 1873-1923, The Fiftieth
Anniversary, Chicago, 4 January 1923, pp. 83-86.

 

(Germinie Lacerteaux, by E. and J. de Goncourt), Freeman, 6 (7
February 1923), 526.

 

(The Tocsin 3f Revolt and Other Essays, by Brander Matthews), Free-
man, 6 (21 February 1923), 574.

 

“A Harbinger of Abdications ” (Some Revolutions and Other Diplomatic
Experiences, by Sir Henry G. Elliot), Freeman, 6 (28 February 1923),
596-597.

 

259

“The Creator of Figaro” (Figaro: The Life 3_f Beaumarchais, by John
Rivers), Freeman, 7 (9 May 1923), 209-211.

 

“The Youth of Anatole France” (The Bloom o_f Life, by Anatole France),
Freeman, 7 (13 June 1923), 330-331.

 

(Memories 3f Travel, by Viscount Bryce), Freeman, 7 (4 July 1923),
407.

(AsEcts 3t Q3 Italian Renaissance, by Rachel Annand Taylor), Free—
man, 7 (11 July 1923), 428-429.

 

(Thomas Nelson Page, by Roswell Page), Freeman, 7 (18 July 1923),
450-452.

 

“The Youth of Sudermann” (The Book o_f l\_/Iy Youth, by Herman Suder-
mann), Freeman, 7 (25 July 1923), 475-476.

(A History nI‘ AI't_, 1, by H. B. Cotterill), Freeman, 7 (8 August 1923),
523-5240

(Suspended Judgments, by John Cowper Powys), Freeman, 7 (5 Sep—
tember 1923), 623.

 

“Professor Pupin Becomes an American” (From Immigrant Q Inven-
tpn, by Michael Pupin), New York Times Book Review, 14 October
1923, p. 2, p. 12.

 

“The Self-Supporting Poet,” typescript manuscript of 4 pages, which
is accompanied by a letter of rejection from Bookman that is dated
16 October 1923.

“Roosevelt as Champion of the American Multitude ” (Theodore Roose-
velt, by Lord Charnwood), New York Times Book Review, 28 October
1923, p. 3.

 

“Madame Curie’s Tribute” (Pierre Curie, by Marie Curie), New York
Herald-Tribune Books, 11 November 1923, p. 14.

 

 

(The Story 31‘ My Life, by Sir Harry H. Johnston), New York Herald-
Tribune Books, 18 November 1923, p. 4.

 

1924

260

 

(Erasmus: A Study 3f His Life, Ideals, and Place Q Histony, by Pre-
served Smith), Freeman, 8 (21 November 1923), 259-261.

“The World Stage Viewed from a Front-Row Seat” (From Pinafores
t_o Politics, by Mrs. J. Borden Harriman), New York Times Book
Review, 25 November 1923, p. 3.

 

“Looking Backward” (Memories o_f Q3 Future: Being Memoirs o_f _t_h_e
Years 1915-1972. Written in Q3 Year —3_f Grace 1988 _y Opal, Lady
Porstock, ed. Ronald A. Knox), Freeman, 8 (12 December 1923), 331

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Autobiography of a Perfect Gentleman” (The Autobiography o_f E,
Jefferson Coolidge), New York Times Book Review, 16 December
1923, p. 8.

 

 

“Bashkirtsev of Our Day” (Journal 3f Marie Lenéru, with an Intro-
duction by Francois de Curel), Freeman, 8 ( 19 December 1923),
356-357.

 

(Heroes o_f the Puppet Stage, by Madge Anderson), Freeman, 8 (19
December 1923), 359.

 

“Henry Holt Has a Good Talk” (Garrulities 3: 3n Octogenarian Editor,
by Henry Holt), New York Times Book Review, 23 December 1923, pp.
1, 27 .

 

 

“Midwestern Culture” (Midwest Portraits, by Harry Hansen), New
York Evening Post Literary Review, 5 January 1924, p. 420.

“Early American Architecture ” (Domestic Architecture 53' the American
Colonies and o_f Q3 Early Republic, by Fiske Kimball), Freeman, 8
(16 January 1924), 453-454.

 

 

 

 

“Dr. More among the Classics” (Hellenistic Philosophies, by Paul
Elmer More; Greek Religion and IQ Survivals, by Walter Woodburn
Hyde; The Poetics 3: Aristotle— I_tn Meaning and Influence, by Lane
Cooper), New York Times Book Review, 20 January 1924, p. 9.

 

 

 

 

 

(Our American Theatre, by Oliver M. Sayler), New Republic, 37 (22
January 1924), 235-236.

 

(The Color tn 3 Great City, by Theodore Dreiser), New Republic, 37
(30 January 1924), 263-264.

 

 

261

(Reflections Q1 the Napoleonic Legend, by Albert Leon Guerard), New
York Times Book Review, 17 February 1924, p. 1.

 

 

(Marcel Proust: An English Tribute, collected by C. E. Scott Moncrief ),
New R3public, 38 (27 February 1924), 22.

 

 

(Man and Mgstery In Asia, by Ferdinand Ossendowski), New Republic,
38 (5 March 1924), 51-52.

 

 

(Episodes before Thirty, by Algernon Blackwood), New Republic, 38
(19 March 1924), 104.

 

 

(Anton Chekhov, 3 Critical Study, by William Gerhardi ), New Republic,
38 (26 March 1924), 129-130.

 

 

 

“Dr. Eliot Examines the World” (A Late Harvest, by Charles W. Eliot),
New York Times Book Review, 30 March 1924, p. 1.

 

(Bynon i_n England: His Fame and After—Fame, by Samuel C. Chew;
The Political Career 3: Lord Byron, by Dora Neill Raymond), New
York Herald-Tribune Books, 4 May 1924, p. 23.

 

 

 

(The Real Sarah Bernhardt, by Mme. Pierre Berton and Basil Wood),
New Republic, 38 (7 May 1924), 290-291.

 

 

(The Claims o_f E Coming Generation, essays arranged by Sir James
Marchant), New Republic, 38 (14 May 1924), 317-318.

 

 

 

“Turn and Turn About, or More Informally, Being the Other Fellow,”
Chicago Sunday Tribune, 22 June 1924, Part 5, p. 8.

“Covered Pushcart,” Harper’s, 149 (June 1924), 130-132.

(Letters and Religion, by John Jay Chapman), New Republic, 39 (30
July 1924), 280.

 

 

 

“Errol’s Voice,” Century Magazine, 108 (August 1924), 527-535.

 

(Manin and the Venetian Revolution, 1848, by George Macauley Trevelyn),
New Republic, 40 (27 August 1924), 396-397.

 

“An Historian in the Making ” (Snpers and Supermen, by Philip Guedalla ),
New York Herald-Tribune Books, 21 September 1924, p. 12.

 

 

 

I“

.III. Div-Ir 1'

 

1925

262

(The Eight Paradises: Travel Pictures in Persia, Asia Minor and Con-
stantinogle, by Princess G. V. Bibesco), New Republic, 40 (1 October
1924), p. 12.

 

“The Old Order” (The Red Riders, by Thomas Nelson Page), Saturday
Review 3: Literature, 1 (4 October 1924), 10.

 

 

(Napoleon and His Court, by C. S. Forester; Napoleon and Josephine:
The Rise 3f the Empire, by Walter Geer ), New York Times Book 1.1“"
Review, 5 October 1924, pp. 3, 6.

 

 

(Letters from 3 Distance, by Gilbert Cannan), New Republic, 40 (15
October 1924), 184-185.

 

 

“Two Celtic Biographies” (Memories and Adventure, by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle; The London Adventure, by Arthur Machen), New Republic,
40 (12 November 1924), 279.

 

“The True Arnold Bennett” (Elsie and the Child, by Arnold Bennett),
Saturdny Review o_f Literature, 1 (29 November 1924), 319.

 

“The Duchess Visits Her Home Town,” Bookman, 60 (December 1924),
413-4160

(The Medigi, by Colonel G. F. Young), Freeman, 8 (5 December 1924),
310-311.

 

“The Melting Pot Begins to Smell,” New York Times Book Review, 21
December 1924, p. 2.

(Straws and Prayer-Books, by James Branch Cabell), New Republic,
61 (31 December 1924), 151-152.

 

 

(Intimate Letters 3t: James Gibbon Huneker, ed. Josephine Huneker ),
New York Times Book Review, 4 January 1925, p. 3.

 

“Dialogues and Spotlights” (Distressing Dialogues, by Nancy Boyd;
The Literany 3potlight, ed. John Farrar), New Republic, 41 (7 Jan-
uary 1925), 180-181.

 

(Points o_f View, by Stuart P. Sherman), New Republic, 41 (14 Jan-
uary 1925), 204-205.

263

“Types and Personalities” (Portraits: Real and Imaginary, by Ernest
Boyd), New Republic, 41 (21 January 1925), 236-237.

 

 

“Americanization of Eln0pe’s Youth,” New York Times Magazine, 25
January 1925, p. 15.

“Europe after Thirty Years,” New York Times Book Review, 25 Jan-
uary 1925, p. 15.

“Mother and Son” (The Dominant Blood, by Robert E. McClure), New
York Herald-Tribune Books, 25 January 1925, p. 3.

 

 

“Mr. Ellis’s Parting Shots” (IInpressions and Comments, Third and
Final Series, by Havelock Ellis), Bookman, 60 (February 1925), 771-
772.

“Close-Ups” (Some Victorian Men, by Harry Furniss), New York
Herald-Tribune, 1 February 1925, p. 8.

 

 

(Contemporary French Literature, by René Lalou), New Republic, 41
(18 February 1925), 346-347.

 

 

(Imaginary Lives, by Marcel Schwob), New Republic, 41 (18 February
1925), 349.

 

 

(Througn Thirty Years, by Wickham Steed), New Republic, 42 ( 25
March 1925), 136-137.

 

 

(The Genius 3: lee, by W. C. Brownell), New Republic, 42 (1 April
1925), 162.

 

 

“Mr. Brooks on the Thwarted Career of Henry James” (The Pilgrim-
3g3 53' Henry James, by Van Wyck Brooks), New York Times Book
Review, 19 April 1925, p. 4.

 

 

“America’s Coming of Age,” New York Times Book Review, 3 May
1925, p. 2.

(The Shadow 3: Q3 Gloomy East, by Ferdinand Ossendowski), New
Republic, 42 (6 May 1925), 299.

 

 

(Eugene Field’s Creative Years, by Charles H. Dennis), Nation, 119
(10 December 1924), 650-652; this also appears in the New Republic,
42 (20 May 1925), 352.

 

 

 

264

(Mrs. Meynell and Her Literary Generation, by Anne Kimball Tuell ),
New Republic, 43 (27 May 1925), 26.

 

 

“ Mr. Egan’s Best” (Recollections 3: 3 gnppy Life, by Maurice Francis
Egan), Nation 120 (24 June 1925), 722.

 

“Masters of the Modern Short Story” (Asp_ects 5! Q3 Modern Short
Story, English and American, by Alfred C. Ward), New York Times
Book Review, 28 June 1925, 16.

 

 

“Crepitant Fantasy” (Firecrackers, by Carl Van Vechten), Saturday
Review _o_f_ Literature, 2 (15 August 1925), 39.

 

 

“Verbal Inspiration” (The Making _cn Q3 English New Testament, by
Edgar J. Goodspeed), New Republic, 43 (19 August 1925), 353.

 

 

(Charles Dickens and Other Victorians, by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch),
New York Times Book Review, 30 August 1925, p. 4.

 

(Words and Idioms, by Logan Pearsall Smith), New York Times Book
Review, 13 September 1925, p. 2.

 

“Contemporaries” (James Branch Cabell, by Carl Van Doren; Theo-
dore Dreiser, by Burton Rascoe), New Republic, 44 (16 September
1925), 104.

 

 

 

(The Smiths, by Janet A. Fairbank), Literary Digest International
Book Review, 3 (September 1925), 663.

 

 

 

(Studies from Ten Literatures, by Ernest Boyd), New Republic, 44
(7 October 1925), 183-184.

 

 

“These Twain” (Wanderings, by Robert Herrick), New Republic, 44
( 21 October 1925), 236-237.

 

 

(Taboo, by Wilbur Daniel Steele), Literary Digest International Book
Review, 3 (November 1925), 818-819.

 

(Works o_f Robert Louis Stevenson: South Seas Edition), New York
Times Book Review, 29 November 1925, p. 1.

(The Romantic ’90’s, by Richard Le Gallienne), New York Times
Book Review, 20 December 1925, p. 12.

 

19 26

1927

265

“ Mr. Hamilton Cleans House to Advantage” (Wanderings, by Clayton
Hamilton), Literary Digest International Book Review, 4 (December
1925 ), 13.

 

 

“New York in Twelve Hours,” undated 17-page typescript, listing the
address where Fuller resided about 1926 (5220 Dorchester Avenue).
This manuscript is among the Ranney papers.

(Napoleon and Marie-Louise: The Fall 3f_ Q3 Empire, by Walter Geer;
Josephine, Napoleon’s Empress, by C. S. Forester), New York Times
Book Review, 3 January 1926, p. 21.

 

“Our Transplanted English ” (The English Langlage i_n America, by
George Philip Krapp), New York Times Book Review, 7 February
1926, p. 2.

 

“Before the Radio and Movie Came” (Our Times: The United States,
1900-1925: I, “The Turn of the Century,” by Mark Sullivan), Literary
Digest International Book Review, 4 (July 1926), p. 502.

 

 

(New England _in the Republic, 1776-1850, by James Truslow Adams),
Commonweal, 21 July 1926, 290.

 

 

 

(Madame g3 Pompadour, by Maurice Tinayre), Commonweal, 28 July
1926, 310-311.

 

“Mr. Wells Insists on Making the World Over” (The World 3f William

Clissold, by H. G. Wells), Literary Digest International Book Review,

4 (November 1926), 755.

“Syntax— Comic Relief” (A DictioEy o_f Modern English Usage, by
H. W. Fowler; History in English Words, by Owen Barfield), New York
Times Book Review, 2 January 1927, p. 2

 

 

“Sharps and Flats ” (The Life 3f Eugene Field, by Slason Thompson),
New York Herald-Tribune Books, 30 January 1927, p. 3.

 

 

“The Bromfield Saga,” Bookman, 65 (April 1927), 200-203.

(The Road Q Xanadu, by John Livingston Lowes), Poet_ny, 30 (August
1927), 283-285.

1928

1929

1930

1939

266

(The Knowledge 3I English, by George Philip Krapp: A Comprehensive
Guide I3 Good English, by George Philip Krapp), New York Times
Book Review, 25 December 1927, p. 2.

 

Untitled, undated article on Chicago, 8-1/2 pages of typescript, which
lists Fuller’s address as 5411 Harper Avenue, where he lived 1927-
1929.

(English Literature _in I33 Foreign Relations, by Laurie Magnus), New
York Times Book Review, 8 April 1928, p. 2.

 

 

Untitled, undated article on Thornton Wilder, a typescript of 5 pages,
with a rejection slip attached dated 30 May 1928 from the New York
Times Book Review.

“A French Controversy,” Saturday Review 3f Literature, 4 (21 July
1928), 1053.

 

 

Untitled fragments of work in progress on a novel which Fuller had
projected for 1929. It is an original autograph manuscript, together
with 9 pages of typescript, dated 20 March 1929.

Henry Blake Fuller dies, 29 July 1929, alone in a boarding house in
Chicago.

“The Late Henry Fuller” is the title of a letter published in the New
York Times, 1 August 1929, p. 26, column 6, signed “Hamlin Garland.”

Gardens 3_f this World, Fuller’s novel, is published posthumously, by
Alfred A. KnOpf, New York.

 

N33 3n Q3 Screen, Fuller’s last completed novel, is published in New
York by Alfred A. KnOpf.

“Carl Carlsen’s Progress,” published by Constance Griffin (Ii_3n_ry
Blake Fuller, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939 ,

pp. 87-91, and no date for the manuscript is available).

 

   

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