Transcendental Realism: The Thoreauvian Presence in Howells' A Modern Instance

TRANSCENDENTAL REALISM: THE THOREAUVIAN PRESENCE IN HOWELLS' A MODERN INSTANCE Susan M. Stone University of South Carolina Although William Dean Howells is most frequently credited with the advent of literary realism, the intricate ninth chapter of his wellknown 1882 novel, A Modern Instance,1 suggests that the "Dean of American Letters" also nostalgically embraced the lost ideals of Thoreauvian transcendentalism. For years, Howells' critics and biographers , such as Edwin Cady and Lewis P. Simpson, have noted the backwards-glancing sections ofHowells' Literary Friends andAcquaintance that link the realist to the introspective yet outward-looking transcendentalist . Yet with the exception of "The Place of Waiden in The Undiscovered Country," a two-page note by Rita K. Gollin, there have not appeared longer studies or books which trace the influence ofHenry David Thoreau upon the novels of William Dean Howells.2 In 1860, William Dean Howells met Henry David Thoreau and was rendered dumbstruck. Apparently, an overawed young Howells thought that he was going to meet, and have his budding career blessed by, a romantic dreamer—a sort of ethereal, living martyr. The twentythree -year-old could not have been more surprised by the actuality. John Brown's champion—the respected genius of Waiden himself— kept the fawning Howells at a sobering distance by motioning thejunior writer to a remote chair, one that, although "not quite so far off as Ohio,"3 effectively eliminated the potential for any sort ofcomfortable intimacy. Disconsolate and flustered by Thoreau's cool, even-tempered reception, Howells rapidly fell to small talk, forgetting to ask his longtime idol many ofthe pressing social questions that he had prepared for the interview. Indeed, nothing that Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was acting as both guide and character-witness for Howells on his first literary tour of Boston, had done prepared the starry-eyed Ohioan for a frustrating first encounter with his imagined "demigod."4 Fortunately for Howells' future readers, the Thoreau sitting across the room in 1 860 was both grounded and practical. The New Englander, who might perhaps even be characterized as bitterly but realistically negative about such crises as the John Brown incident and the slaveryenmeshed Mexican War, had particularly unromantic views about the 150Susan M. Stone responsibilities of an author with social vision, and he did not hesitate to burst young Howells' bubble about the supposed beauty of suffering . In short, Henry David Thoreau set the literary sycophant on his ear. Doing so—although unbeknownst to Howells at the time—was actually just the blessing that both the youth and his career needed. The unexpected conversation opened his eyes with respect to many things, including the relationships of both author and individual to the dangers of romancing a mass-market economy and mentality. In A Modern Instance Howells, who often manipulates characterization in order to mimic and mock contemporary cultural tension, presents two characters—Bartley Hubbard and Kinney—engaged in heated discourse about the implications of and relationships between emerging capitalism and vanishing rural simplicity. As the protagonists discuss issues such as clothing, shelter, newspapers, food, and philosophy, Kinney—Howells' log-chopping prophet—develops an uncanny likeness to Henry David Thoreau. Kinney is an honest, self-motivated philosopher -woodsman who symbolizes the pastoral beliefs of a bygone era; Hubbard, Howells' amoral and self-promoting newspaperman whose name recalls Hubbard's Hill, the last steep barrier that Thoreau had to climb in order to reach Waiden pond, embodies a sort of Emersonian "self-reliant" gone awry. Although these likenesses are perhaps coincidental, timing, history , and circumstance suggest otherwise. Howells himself notes both that he read Waiden in 1858 and that he longed to speak to Thoreau about it and John Brown.5 Although their 1860 meeting during Howells' first visit to Boston did not lead to a personal friendship, Thoreau continued to influence Howells' writing for several decades. While Howells seems never to have reviewed directly a book by Thoreau, his reflective comments in other works of non-fiction as well as his fictional characterizations and settings suggest that Howells did consider him significant. For instance, in Howells' 1880 Atlantic Monthly review of Henry James' book on Hawthorne, Howells chastises his contemporary for "dealing lightly with the memory of...