Does Howells matter, except as a piece of American history? It is my aim to show that he does. Howells not only described, he philosophized the American scene as he knew it: the knowledge may have been limited, but the comments are valuable. They reflect his unassuming integrity, in which—despite all the differences—he is like Chekhov.
The Russian comes to mind for a variety of reasons. He no less than Howells testifies to the better conscience of the late 19th Century—the conscience that was roused, among other things, to vindicate Dreyfus. In their beliefs both Howells and Chekhov were simple men: humane in the first place, sensitive to pain and injury, angered by social wrong; they were moralists, whose sympathetic manner should not mask from us their underlying severity; they were unpretentious, and hostile to dogmatism. Both are the harder to judge because of the personal loyalties which as men they are likely to inspire in the reader. They represent all that is most appealing in the democratic spirit, which need not always be loudly assertive, in the manner of a Whitman or a Mayakovsky, but has also its quieter spokesmen, who are indeed more observers than prophets.
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