Text: W. A. Jones (signed “J”), American Prose Writers No. 3: R. H. Dana, Broadway Journal (New York), February 1, 1845, vol. 1, no. 5, p. ??

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AMERICAN PROSE WRITERS.

NO. 3.

R. H. DANA.

IF fancy (as we justly conceive the case to be) represent the leading traits in the intellectual constitution of Mr. Willis: sentiment, we apprehend, with no less characteristic force, forms the most prominent features in the genius and writings of Mr. Dana. No mere sentimentalist, our author is emphatically a man of sentiment: no hypocritical Joseph Surface, full of cant and moral pretensions, but a genuine man of feeling, unlike, or rather superior to, Mackenzie's hero, in being, in addition, a true philosophic observer of life and character, a stern self-student, and, a powerful painter, according to the stereotyped phrase, of men and manners.

This attribute of sentiment, in the instance of our author, is at one and the same time, a moral and an intellectual quality, religious, high-toned, upright, masculine, partaking of the softness of Mackenzie and the stern dignity of Wordsworth. Apart from this faculty, Mr. Dana is a writer of great purity and power, of much acuteness and elegance in other walks than in those of philosophic sentiment or of sentimental description; but in those he is a master, and ranks first among his contemporaries and countrymen. He has vast powers in depicting the struggles of the darker passions, jealousy, hatred, suspicion and remorse. Paul Felton has touches of Byronnic force, and discloses a similar vein to that so fully opened and with such popular effect in the works of Godwin and Chas. Brockden Brown.

This, however, is what one would call, perhaps, with a certain degree of innocence, the uncomfortable portion of Mr. Dana's genius, and of which the tendency is doubtful. It is an open literary question, as to the extent that such characters as that of Paul Felton should be taken, for the delineation of real characters. An idiot, a madman, a monomaniac, may be made very effective in vigorous description, but is not the simple-hearted Jonathan Fords, for example, [column 2:] a better character both for study and imitation? Doubtless more than one Paul Felton has birds, but we do not go to nature, in had extravagances or capricious words, for instruction or delight — else the records of a Prison or a Lunatic Asylum would form the truest volumes of history, instead of merely furnishing a few supplementary chapters of strange idiosyncrasies, or morbid developments. But, we have no idea of going into a deep question of psychological criticism at present; merely remarking that we have not the remotest idea of any, but the purest intention, in the mind of the creator of that wretched man, as he has himself called him, and yet from false sympathy or an unhappy bias, that way, the readers of that most terrible history may become unaware so strangely interested in the character and fate of the hero, as to feel the ill effects of such an unmanly weakness long after he had hurriedly perused the story — the wonderful truth and fidelity of the analysis of the heart, and the vivid description of the darkest passions, set off and release the hateful moral deformity of the diabolical passions, that festers and finally utterly corrupts the heart of their victim. Otherwise, as a picture of naked hideousness, the tale could be read only by the wisest and the weakest.

The sentiments of the writer even in the midst of these harrowing scenes, comes in as an angel during a whirlwind excited by the most malicious fiends in hell, spreading a heavenly calm, and casting a pure bright effulgence over an atmosphere of gloom and despair.

In Paul Felton, Mr. Dana has exhibited power in depicting passion. as well as sentiment: and the same criticism applies to his Thornton, though in a much inferior degree. Yet he is most at home in pictures of domestic life; in describing the charm of home scenes, in realizing the ideal of conjugal felicity. Strange, that the author, who as a man is so enthusiastic on such a theme, should, as a poet, (for he is one as much in Tom Thornton and Paul Felton, as in the Buccaneers,) delight in pictures, also, of gloom, of crime, of remorse.

Sentiment furnishes the key, also, to the criticisms of Dana. We noticed this in his lectures a few winters since on the poets and dramatists. He finds this, his favorite faculty, beautifully expressed by the ballad writers and the Shaksperian dramatists among the old writers; and by Wordsworth and Coleridge, among the new; and to them he has given his heart. The single critical paper in the volume of Dana's selected works, on the acting of Kean, is full of it, no less than of acuteness and deep insight into the mysteries of art, both of which indeed are colored and refined by it, to a point and degree that may be honestly declared as not being very far distant from perfection. The paper is almost equal in its way, to Elia's admirable miniature sketches: differing, as widely in spirit, as they resemble each other in execution.

As a writer of sentiment, love, in its forms both of sentiment and passion, (for it varies in different natures, and is the offspring of the temperaments of the affections and of the fancy, according to the individual constitution, mental or moral, or sensitive of the recipient and cherishes of it,) constitutes the staple of Dana's inventions and speculations — of love in all of its degrees, he is a delicate limner or a vigorous painter, according as the subject is a delicate woman or a manly man: a quiet, retired, meditative nature, or a stirring, active, ambitious character. The female character has full justice done it, by the writer of Edward and Mary. Judging from his writings on this subject, Mr. Dana has been a happy man. Yet he can paint a weak credulous mother, or a dashing, heartless woman of fashion (see Tom Thornton) with as subtle shill as he can delineate the fond, confiding heart, the clear and wise judgment, the gentle and amiable tastes, of a true woman and a good wife.

We have other points to speak of, than that only of our author's sentiments, however, and must not dwell too long on that.

Mr. Dana has been connected in ties of literature and family connection, with the first artist and finest poet of our country. Allston and Dana married sisters, and remained to the last intimate associates. We have heard Mr. D. speak of his works out at Cambridgeport (we think where Allston resided) and his conversations there with the Poet Painter, as among his richest pleasures, nor should we forget that Bryant was the early associate, as he remains the oldest friend of our author. Some of Dana's finest portrait contributions, were included in Bryant's New York Review. The father, too, is happy in a son who has written one of the best books [page 70:] of its class since the world renowned fiction of De Foe. With these connections to boast of, the nobility of genius has had to contend with comparative neglect and poverty: sure ever of a high place in the esteem and admiration of good critics, honest readers and worthy men, whose applause constitutes his fame, but who have little else to give beyond sympathy and respect.

The late reviews of American novelists, in the Quarterly, just and fair in the main, was yet guilty of omissions that should have been noticed at the time, and filled up by a competent critic. It is not our purpose, at present, to occupy the whole ground, nor fill the entire vacancy — that is to be ‘left to the writer, who can honestly appraise the merits of the authors less unnoticed, in a sort of article supplementary. Three comic writers, at least as worthy of notice as Miss Leslie, — Neale, Matthews, and the author of Harry Franco, our best comic satirists since Paulding's Salmagundi, have escaped notice entirely; while two serious writers, of unquestionable excellence, Allston in his Monaldi, and Dana, in certain prose dramas, among prose fictions, what the masterpieces of Heywood or Middleton would prove by the side of the Shaksperian drama, have been passed by without ever attracting a casual remark.

This neglect may furnish some excuse for the foregoing remarks and the critical observations that may follow, albeit, we had hoped the task might have been committed to other hands. Nor shall we attempt to disentangle the meshes of the tales themselves; skilful unwinding of the thread of a narrative, or the decomposition of a plot, or an analysis of the conduct of the incidents, ranking in our opinion, when well done, almost with the original poem that gave birth to the fiction. And as we do not write tales, but merely criticisms upon them, we shall speak of the qualities displayed in the construction of these narratives, rather than the incidents or the characters they contain. Another and an equally good reason, as it appears to us, for the present sketch, may be found in the fact, that our authors had been gradually lost sight of by the generation of readers that have risen since he wrote. To a large number, we fear, nothing of Dana is known beyond his name; with whom, too, his name is getting to be matter of tradition. It is now nearly a quarter of a century, since we have seen anything in print by the author of the Idle Man. During which period so many candidates for public honor and claimants for a niche in the temple of fame have been pouring in, that the public eye is well nigh clouded by the sparkling ephemerida, and the public ear confounded by loud clamors and noisy appeals. In the midst of this hubbub, the silent speculative genius of Dana, and the power, the purity, and the classic genius of Dana's writings, have passed almost unregarded. — Among the thousands who devour James, the tens who study Dana may be easily enumerated; the lovers of historical melo-drama, see nothing in simple, undisguised, unaffected, yet most real and vigorous, true dramatic painting. Perhaps the American is too much of a philosopher for those readers, who are captivated by detailed narrative and circumstantial description; though, as a mere writer of tales full of striking characters, closely crowded with stirring incidents, set in a frame of poetic description, and enshrined within a halo of imagination, Dana is in the first rank of novelists. It is wrong to speak of him as a mere tale writer: for his tales are not only as long as certain short novels (as long and longer than Rasselas, Zadig, Candide, the Man of Feeling, or the admirable fictions of Richter, Zschokke, and other German novelists) but they are as closely woven, that they read sometimes like abstracts of longer works. There is nothing to be spared; the utmost economy is observed, consistent with real richness and vigor. Yet, as we said, the evident philosophic character of the author, the basis, indeed, of his portrait character, as well; the love of speculating upon character, the motives to action, the principles of conduct, may deter the mere readers for amusement, since Dana is manifestly a teacher of men, and is to be estimated rightly only in that character. He had selected prose fiction, we imagine, only as a vehicle for conveying certain pictures of life, portraits of individuals, certain wholesome moral satire, an ideal of contented private enjoyments, and of a life of action, enlightened duty. His invention is probably, therefore, voluntary, and the offspring of ready impulse. Hence a want of the popular manner and of the “taking” style. He is not a popular writer, and has, rightly, not aimed at popularity. This he confesses, and justifies with sense and honesty. His real mind — the cast if a writer's mind must be popular, to render his writings such, yet there is no element of that kind in our author's intellectual constitution. He is too honest to disguise his defects to individuals; too sincere to please the literary mob. He is sure of the aristocracy of genius and scholarship and true worth; the class composed of the wisest and best — the true aristocracy. To take an elevated example, he, like Milton, will always be read by the choice few, while, like him, he must remain caviere to the mass of readers.

We insinuate nothing, by way of comparison between the two; for Milton is first among the greatest, while Dana would be too wise to accept of a place among the greatest at all. He is first among the lesser lights, the Dii Minores of our literary firmament.

The facts of Mr. Dana's literary career arc known to few. Beside the history of his literary connexions, mentioned before, we have heard of little else. We once heard Mr, D. speak of his life as passed in his room. He has been much of an invalid, and has led, we understand, a retired life. The only account the public at large, even here, at home, have of one of the first men we can point to, is to be found in Blackwood's Magazine for 1824 or 5. It occurs in a paragraph, in a series of papers on American writers, ascribed to John Neal, and evidently from his pen. It is instinct with the shrewdness and sense of that very clever man, and dashed off in his slashing off-hand style. Without a number of the Magazine by us, we must quote from memory. Neal complains of Dana's indolence and careful polish; though he gives high and just praise for soundness, purity, and true genius, he adds certain censure on his excessive care, somewhat after this manner. Dance (a misprint) is pure, sound, full of genius, but timid, where he has a fair chance, shuts the wrong eye and is apt to miss. Fond of carving heads, or cherry stones with his friend Bryant; but the public care nothing for the otto of prose. Neal says, that he almost ruined himself and damned the North American Review, by an article on Hazlitt's Poets — an exaggerated sentence in the true John Neal style. When or how long Dana edited the North American Review, we cannot exactly discern. Two only of his reviews have attracted much attention — on Moore and on Hazlitt's lectures — the latter harsh, and we think, unjust. Mr. Dana thinks (or did think) Hazlitt very much inferior to the notion his admirers entertain of him. The paper on Moore is just, manly, and creditable to the critic's heart, as well as his taste. Much excellent matter is doubtless buried under a heap of quarterly rubbish. Neal, in a concluding sentence, reproves our author for his silence and indolence, stating that Dana had done in several years as much as he (Neal) could have done in as many weeks or months. Very likely, but with a difference; with a different quality, we make bold to think, however, and hardly destined to survive its year or deeds. Neal, with great cleverness, and wit, and industry, has furnished hardly anything, except a few critical sketches and moral essays, with a few brilliant tales, that show how much more might have been accomplished. Neal could have been the first magazine writer of his day; but he could never equal Dana, lacking, as he does, the profound and subtle genius of the latter.

In a general survey of the genius of Dana, we may remark his defect of wit and humor. He sometimes indulges in playful sarcasm, as in the letters from town (would he had given us more), which are models of their kind — elegant, familiar, and Addisonian, in the best sense — the natural union of sense and gaiety, of reflection and feeling.

Dana is a master of characters: his observation is keen and benevolent, and can at the same time grapple with vigorous and strongly-marked characters. He has painted a character in the First Letter, which somewhat resembles his own; and which, together with the character of Edward, and a few touches (of the maiden kind) in the youthful character of Paul Felton, go to make up a pretty fair and just idea of the author.

Dana has more imagination than fancy, and which gives his fictions the air of reality. He is too habitually serious to be fanciful or fantastic. His imagination delights in tragic situations, and dark characters, and terrible deeds, that carry a fearful moral with them. His style is admirable; close, clear, precise, final. He is equally powerful in his critical capacity, as he is an original writer. His essays are musings, the finest reflections of a scholar, and many given to reverie and sentimental disquisition. The man, too, is but the natural [page 71:] converse of the author — kind, sincere, honorable; without a meanness, without a flaw — such is Richard H. Dana, one of our very best writers; one of our very best men. J