Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/20

 XIV IDEALS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE must be a sacred care for children and a respect for women which has in it a true spiritual romanticism. Whittier's "Snowbound" is as much a classic of American home life as Burns' "Cotter's Saturday Night" is a classic of Scotch home life. In that simple, tender record of a New England home the play of the highest motives, the definition of the purest character, are thrown into striking relief by the very bareness of the background. It is a record of that deep- going idealism which lacks the joy of art but has the reality of high thoughts and deep affections translated into obscure hourly service. The refinement of habit, the purity of feeling, the whiteness of soul of the best New England women have found a record as delicate, as pure, as gentle in Miss Jewett 's stories. The high-mindedness, the spirited loyalty, the passion for self-surrender of the best Southern women have been vitally portrayed by Mr. Allen, Mr. Page, Mr. Cable, Col. Johnston, Mr. Harris and other writers of fiction in the South. American literature in every section bears witness to the idealistic feeling for women in this country, to the romantic regard in which they are held by men immersed in affairs and absorbed in what is called "business;" a vast mass of activities of many kinds but with one end in view, the attainment of personal independence by the possession of adequate means. This idealism in all relations with women does not pass away with marriage, when the serious work of living together begins; on the contrary, it expresses itself in many cases in slavish devotion to affairs in order that the wife may miss nothing of the opportunities and gifts of life. If the United States has gained an unhappy prominence in the matter of easy divorce it is able to offset against this shameful cheapening of marriage in many States a respect for women, a watchfulness over them and a devoted care for their ease and growth which reveal the latent idealism of the American temper. The universal interest in original characters, in men of vigorous personality, of adventurous life, of native audacity and force, which has fostered, stimulated and given wide popularity to novels of a