Introduction—The Spirit of our First Literature") ?>

"The which I shall endevor to manefest in a plaine stile, with singuler regard unto ye simple trueth in all things."

Of Plimoth Plantation ") ?>

Long ago, so the legend runs, a little ship without a name came sailing into the harbor of our ancestors. The deck was covered with gold and jewels, with swords and battle-axes and coats of mail; and in the midst of these warlike things was a baby sleeping. No man ever sailed that ship; she came of herself, bringing the child whose name was Scyld. So appeared among men the hero and father of the race of heroes. Many years did he rule them, leading them to victory in war and to prosperity in peace, but always reminding them that he must some day return to the deep whence he came. Then Scyld being mortal died, and lo! the same mysterious ship appeared silently in the harbor. With sad hearts they carried the hero aboard and laid him by the mast, a ring of weapons around him, a hoard of jewels on his breast, and a great golden banner streaming to the wind over his head. Then the sails filled, the helm answered an unseen hand, and the ship put out to sea.

Such is the old story, found in shining fragments, like a broken mirror, among the earliest records of the English race.

Centuries later, and bringing leaders of a mighty nation, another little ship came sailing into another harbor. There were children aboard this ship also, and in the wild scene of ocean and forest and winter sky they seemed as sadly out of place as the little Scyld, asleep among the swords and battle-axes. But these little ones were not alone; mothers held them close, and near at hand stood the fathers,—brave, resolute men, who loved freedom as their old Saxon ancestors loved it, and who were determined to have it at any cost. No friendly eyes watched the coming of this little ship; no friendly voices hailed her from the shore. As the record says:


"They had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weatherbeaten bodys, no houses much less townes to repaire to, to seeke for succoure. . . And for the season, it was winter, and they that know the winters of that countrie know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce stormes. Besides what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? And what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view from this wilderness a more goodly countrie to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respecte of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face; and the whole countrie, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage view."


Those who have ever sailed into a northern harbor in midwinter will understand the "weatherbeaten face" that looked sternly upon the strangers. Yet they went ashore, men, women and little children; and their first act was to kneel and give thanks to God, who had brought them over the winter sea to offer the freedom of His great wilderness.

The bitter winter dragged slowly along, and every day death came out of the woods and beckoned them to follow, some by hunger, some by disease, some by wasting loneliness that knew no remedy. Soon half their number were sleeping in "God's Acre" under the pines; but not one of the little company faltered or turned back from the work to which he had set his hand. When spring came the "weatherbeaten face" looked more kindly. They planted corn; laid out a town, with its streets, dwellings, church and schoolhouse; elected their own leader, and called a town meeting "to frame just and equal laws for themselves and their descendants." Then the ship sailed away, and left them alone to build a nation in the wilderness.

Such is the story of the second little ship, sailing with the Pilgrim Fathers on one of the world's momentous voyages. It is recorded with noble simplicity in the earliest authentic history of the American people. Of Plimoth Plantation . The quotation is abridged from chap. ix, and the spelling is slightly modernized.") ?>

These two ships, one built of seasoned oak, the other of pure fancy, may serve to suggest the contrast between our earliest literature and that of England, or Greece, or any other nation. These older literatures begin, as children's stories do, with the free play of imagination, with legends of gods and heroes, of magic and dragons and fairy ships. Generations of unlettered men repeat and enlarge these stories, until some great poet appears and weaves the scattered threads of legend into an epic, like Beowulf  or the Odyssey , which becomes a standard of heroism. So do most national literatures begin, and they still appeal powerfully to the imagination in two ways; they recall the recent wonder of our own childhood, and they suggest the far-off childhood of the race of men to which we belong.

Our American literature has a very different story to tell. Its poverty is that it has no past, no golden age of dreams and magic. It must begin all over again, like Robinson Crusoe on his island, not with fancy but with fact, not as a child but as a man full-grown. For our ancestors were writing a new page in the world's history. Isolated as they seemed, shut in by sea and wilderness and forgotten by the nations, they had the most compelling of all motives, a call from God; and deep in their souls was the unalterable purpose to found a new society based upon the Puritan ideals of democracy and righteousness. Hence in their literature there are no myths or legends, no heroes or dragons or fairy ships, but careful historical records written, as Bradford says, "in a plain style, with singular regard unto the simple truth in all things."

We shall better appreciate the spirit of Colonial literature if we compare Bradford's story with that of Captain John Smith, who sojourned here for a time, but whose work belongs to England rather than to America. Both men were born in the most splendid period of English letters; but while Smith writes as an Elizabethan, showing on every page the romantic enthusiasm and exaggeration of the age, Bradford avoids all ornaments of style and regards exaggeration as unworthy of himself or his subject. "Heaven and earth," writes Smith, "never agreed better to frame a place for a man's habitation." And then, as if the work of heaven and earth were not enough, he bedecks the same with flowers of his own imagination, like a true Elizabethan. Moreover, he has always a double motive: to glorify his own adventures, and to induce emigrants to settle the colony in which he has an interest; and knowing that greed of gain is a powerful motive, he speaks artfully of the pearls found in the mussels, and of the "rocks interlaced with veins of glittering spangles."

Bradford holds steadily to a single motive; he is beginning a new nation of freemen, and only the truth will serve for a foundation. What he writes, therefore, is as rugged as the coast where the Mayflower  found her anchorage. One might say, in explanation, that Smith landed in Virginia in the glory of the Southern spring, while Bradford's eyes rested first on the bleak New England coast in midwinter; but the difference between the two men is radical and fundamental. Looking upon the same object and describing it, one will entertain us, and the other tell us the truth. Thus, Bradford makes fishing for cod a part of the day's work, done to support the colony; Smith revels in the æsthetic pleasure and financial profit of angling, and so tickles at once our sporting instinct and our cupidity:


And is it not pretty sport, to pull up two pence, six pence, twelve pence, as fast as you can hale and veare a line? . . And what sport doth yeelde a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hooke, and crossing the sweet ayre from ile to ile over the silent streames of a calm sea? A Description of New England  (1616).") ?>


Again, both writers were in frequent contact with the Indians; but Smith alone uses his imagination to embroider the handiwork of God. He pictures the savages as gigantic, impressive creatures, "the calves of their legs being three-quarters of a yard aboute." Instead of greasy chiefs, overworked squaws, and the general squalor of an Indian camp, he gives us emperors, queens, courtiers; and to show that love is love and hearts are hearts the world over, he records the romantic story of the "princess" Pocahontas, "the numparell of Virginia," "the emperour's dearest and well-beloved daughter."


"At last they brought him [Smith] to Werowocomoco, where was Powhattan their Emperour. Here more than two hundred grim Courtiers stood wondering at him, as he had beene a monster; till Powhattan and his train had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire, upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a great robe made of Rawocun skins, and all the tayles hanging by. . . At [Smith's] entrance before the King, all the people gave a great shout. The Queene of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him water to wash his hands, and another brought him a bunch of feathers instead of a towel, to dry them. Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner, a long consultation was held; but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhattan. Then as many as could laid hands upon him, dragged him to the stones and thereon laid his head. And being ready with their clubs to beate out his braines, Pocahontas the King's dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperour was contented he should live." General History of Virginia  (1623). This doubtful story is not mentioned in his earlier record, A True Relation  (1608). Some historians accept the story as true. See Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors , I, 103–112.") ?>


Bradford's record of the Indians is altogether different. He tells us simply of an alarm at dawn, of a large band of savages who yelled fiendishly while they discharged their arrows, but who fled into the woods at the charge of a few determined men,—men who had said their prayers and who could not be stampeded by any brave yelling. He shows us how Samoset came with open palm, in sign of peace; how they fed him and sent him back for the chief of the tribe; and how they made a fair treaty, giving the exact obligations of both parties. He takes us through the terrible Pequot uprising, but without drum or trumpet or any of the sham heroism which fills our minds and newspapers whenever the bugles blow for war. He shows the war just as it was, a dirty and unpardonable business, brought on, as usual, by greed and evil passion, and utterly lacking in the glory which imaginative historians have woven into it. He takes us among the wretched wigwams, where scores of savages are dying of smallpox and neglect. In a few tense lines he draws an appalling picture of this loathsome disease; and then:


"The condition of this people was so lamentable, and they fell down so generally of this disease, as they were not able to help one another; no, not to make a fire, nor to fetch a little water to drinke, nor any to bury the dead; but would strive as long as they could, and when they could procure no other means to make a fire, they would burn the wooden trayes and dishes, and their very bowes and arrowes. And some would crawle out on all fours to gett a little water, and sometimes die by the way, and not be able to gett in againe. But those of the English house, though at first they were afraid of the infection, yet seeing their woeful condition and hearing their pitiful cries, had compassion on them, and dayly fetched them wood and water, and made them fires; gott them victuals whilst they lived, and buried them when they died. . . . And this mercie which they shewed them was kindly taken, and thankfully acknowledged of all the Indians that knew or heard of the same." Of Plimoth Plantation , record of year 1635.") ?>


Here, in the plain facts, is something better than war or romance to stir the heart of a young Galahad. Occasionally the record grows grimly humorous, as when some pious people in England got rid of their "crackbrained" minister by sending him over to edify the Colonists; or tense with restrained emotion, as in the Pilgrim's departure from home; or exquisitely tender, as in the account of Brewster's noble life and service; but there is no attempt at effect, no conscious appeal to the imagination. Our interest is held partly by the plain humanity of the story, and partly by the absolute sincerity, which shines steadily, like a subdued light, behind every page of Bradford's writing. In a plain style, with an eye single to the truth in all things,—the spirit of America is reflected in that first paragraph of our first national record.

The writing of any people divides itself into two classes, known as primitive or folklore literature and the literature of culture. The first consists of the songs and legends—mostly of great age, and by unknown authors—associated with the early history of the race; the second of the poems, dramas, essays and novels produced by the two forces of nationality and civilization. For the former, popular myths and traditions are essential; but before these can appear, generations of men must live and die in a land; the mighty deeds of the pioneers must be told over and over again, growing the while like snowballs rolled by children, until by the play of imagination the deed and the doer become symbols of an heroic age. Moreover, men learn to love their native rivers and hills, not for their natural beauty, but largely for their historic and romantic associations,—golden memories, which link the past to the present and make us all one family, children of the one loved mother. So it was in Greece and Rome, so in every nation that cherishes an epic of its golden age of childhood. But our American ancestors, beginning life and literature in a new land, a place not a country, without traditions or legendary heroes like Arthur and Achilles, could not possibly have produced a folklore. Such literature is never "created"; it grows from generation to generation.

The greater literature of culture was also denied the Colonists. To produce such a literature peace, leisure, an ideal rather than a practical view of life, and a strong, centralized government are all essential. Such blessings were far removed from the pioneers. They were compassed by perils and hardships; their hands were busy subduing the wilderness, their minds occupied with problems of free government and religious toleration. Here, for instance, is a handful of people landing in Virginia. They have left behind all that men commonly hold dear; they face a wilderness full of difficulties and appalling dangers. In a surprisingly short time they solve the problem of making the wilderness support them; they start a profitable commerce with Europe; they lay the foundations of representative government in the prophetic Assembly which gathers in the little church at Jamestown. Within four years these amazing men have organized a democracy and virtually issued their declaration of independence.

Again, in 1645, only fifteen years after the landing of the Puritans, Governor Winthrop declares: "The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people." History of New England, from 1630 to 1649 , 11, 279 ff. (Savage's edition, 1853). The whole speech is well worth reading, as it contains the first (American) definition of liberty.") ?> Great questions indeed! The "authority of the magistrates" had troubled England from the time King John met his scowling barons at Runnymede until that fateful day when King Charles lost his head; and "the liberty of the people" had been a trouble, vague yet terrible, like the first rumble of an earthquake, which Europe had for centuries feared either to meet or to avoid. Yet these quiet, straight-thinking Puritans grappled the problem in their first General Court, and rested not till they had mastered it.

Here, then, is our first suggestion: the Colonists produced few great books because they were too busy with great deeds, too intent on solving the great problems of humanity. The man who makes history seldom writes it; the Beowulf who fights a dragon bare-handed does not turn gleeman to sing his own heroism. And never was history better made, never was more heroic work done for man than by these silent Colonists. They fashioned no sonnets because they were absorbed in the higher art of forming free states.

Another reason for the scarcity of Colonial literature was the lack of nationality. For it is the experience of all nations that letters flourish at a time when, as in the Age of Pericles or Elizabeth, all classes of people are bound together by patriotic enthusiasm, and by devotion to one leader who typifies the whole nation's welfare and greatness. At such a time men's hearts expand with emotion, and the emotion finds expression in good books. But the Colonies were not in any sense a nation. Each was isolate and self-dependent; separated from its neighbors by vast stretches of wilderness; separated also from England, which men still regarded as their country. There was little in Colonial life or thought to indicate an independent America, little to suggest a thrilling national anthem, and nothing whatever to create a national enthusiasm which should be reflected in a national literature. So two hundred years passed; the battles of the Revolution were fought and won, and the Constitution adopted, before America announced her destiny and became a nation among the nations. And then, like a herald proclaiming his mission, the new national spirit suddenly announced its quality in the poetry of Bryant and in the prose of Irving and Cooper.

One who looks merely for entertainment will doubtless be disappointed in Colonial literature; but if one is interested in human life, and in records which reflect and interpret that life, then he shall find good reading. Only yesterday a traveler in Rome rested a moment beneath a crumbling archway, amid the ruins of the Colosseum. At his feet lay a brick, one of unnumbered thousands, hidden in the dust of centuries. A mark, a mere scratch, called attention to it; and then a story was revealed which touched the heart with something of the old sorrow and yearning of humanity. While the brick was yet soft a sparrow had lit upon it and left the faint outlines of his feet, which soon hardened into imperishable records. And then a man, seeing the record, had taken a flint and graved in rude letters beneath the sparrow's tracks: Regulus the slave wrote this . The sparrow was a passing accident; but the slave with his bit of stone, toiling obscurely amid a multitude of his fellows, was one of those very human beings, like ourselves, who desired to be known and remembered. And the brick was no longer a dull thing of water and clay, but a living voice, telling a story of a bird that was alert and inquisitive, and of a man who strove for immortality.

Even so, these neglected records of the Colonists may become living voices from the past, and every voice has a story to tell, not of poor slaves but of free, indomitable spirits who conquered the wilderness, to whose heroism we owe the glorious land which we now call home and which stirs the heart to noble emotion whenever we sing "My Country." The object of all literature is to make us acquainted with humanity; and we shall never know our own forebears until we forget what others have written about them, in the histories, and learn from their own pages what they thought and felt, what they dreamed and dared, what they adored in God and honored in their fellow man. We shall study Colonial literature with this single object: to know the men and women who founded this nation, and who are bound to us across the centuries by the ties of a common hope and a common fatherland.