ed
pleasures, and Stevenson would have his fellowmen enjoy them in
innocence, in kindness and good cheer. In fine, as a thinker he
was a modernized Calvinist; as an artist he saw life in terms of
action and pleasure, and by perfecting himself in the art of
communicating his view of life, he was able, in a term of years
all too short, to leave a series of books which, as we settle
down to them in the twentieth century, and try to judge them as
literature, have all the semblance of fine art. In any case,
they will have been influential in the shaping of English
fiction and will be referred to with respect by future
historians of literature. It is hard to believe that the
desiccation of Time will so dry them that they will not always
exhale a rich fragrance of personality, and tremble with a
convincing movement of life.

CHAPTER XIV

THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION

I

To exclude the living, as we must, in an estimate of the
American contribution to the development we have been tracing,
is especially unjust. Yet the principle must be applied. The
injustice lies in the fact that an important part of the
contribution falls on the hither side of 1870 and has to do with
authors still active. The modern realistic movement in English
fiction has been affected to some degree by the work, has
responded to the influence of the two Americans, Howells and
James. What has been accomplished during the last forty years
has been largely under their leadership. Mr. Howells, true to
his own definition, has practised the more truthful handling of
material in depicting chosen aspects of the native life. Mr.
James, becoming more interested in British types, has, after a
great deal of analysis of his own countrymen, passed by the
bridge of the international Novel to a complete absorption in
transatlantic studies, making his peculiar application of the
realistic formula to the inner life of the spirit: a curious
compound, a cosmopolitan Puritan, an urbane student of souls.
His share in the British product is perhaps appreciable; but
from the native point of view, at least, it would seem as if his
earlier work were, and would remain, most representative both
because of its motives and methods. Early or late, he has beyond
question pointed out the way to many followers in the
psychologic path: his influence, perhaps less obvious than
Howells', is none the less undisputable. The development in the
hands of writers younger than these