WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS AND THE
ASHTABULA SENTINEL
By EDWIN HARRISON CADY
Few facts about the formative years of
William Dean How-
ells are known except what the author
himself left in the form of
personal reminiscence. Books such as A
Boy's Town, My Literary
Passions, My Year in a Log Cabin, and Years of My Youth are
mellow and interesting autobiography.
Mildred Howells' Life in
Letters of her father contains a few early letters and two
reveal-
ing photographs. The amount of objective
evidence, however,
concerning his all-important first
twenty-one years in Ohio is
slight, although the sources of his
literary enthusiasm and con-
cerns for realism, socialism and
gentility must be sought in the
years of his Ohio youth as much as in
the literary friends and
acquaintances of Cambridge and the crude
hazards of new fortunes
of the "Gilded Age." One
reservoir of intimate evidence has
hitherto been untapped. It is the
newspaper which the Howells
family owned and published in Jefferson,
Ohio, for more than
forty years, the Ashtabula Sentinel.1
The influence of this newspaper on young
Howells was im-
portant. From his fifteenth year to his
twentieth he worked on
it as a compositor and occasional
contributor. The office was his
daily environment, and it took the place
of formal schooling al-
most completely. There his early
attitudes and angles of vision
were determined. The impetus to write
and study literature was
quickened there daily as he heard the
printers recite and pun and
argue. The taste which appropriated
writings from other unpro-
tected publications informed and molded
his style, providing
models for him to imitate or shun. The
columns of the Ashta-
bula Sentinel mirror all these factors. They hold, too, many of
1 Bound files preserved in the Ashtabula
Public Library, Ashtabula, Ohio,
39
40 0HIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Howells' earliest writings. In short, an
examination of his father's
paper during the years when William Dean
Howells was an active
member of its staff sheds new and
important light on the devel-
opment of his literary interests and
abilities and on the forces
which shaped him.
The following statement of the Ashtabula
Sentinel's policy
appeared on January 8, 1853:
PROPOSALS
For Extending the Circulation of
THE ASHTABULA SENTINEL
The political character of the Sentinel
will remain unchanged, being
an organ of the Free Soil party. It will
therefore steadily advocate the True
Democratic doctrines set forth by the
Buffalo and Pittsburg Resolutions.
But while maintaining faithfully its
uniform Anti-Slavery position, it will
observe a courteous and liberal course
toward its opponents and will always
be open to a fair and candid discussion
of all questions of public interest.
It will also embrace such a general
variety of matter as will make it a use-
ful Family Newspaper, giving
miscellaneous selections of Tales, Poetry,
Foreign and Domestic News, Congressional
and Legislative Proceedings,
etc. . . . The editorial department will
be conducted by Wm. C. Howells
(who has been connected with the Sentinel
in that capacity since May
last) . . . .
J. L. Olivier & Co.
Jefferson, Ohio.
The date of January 1, 1854, saw
the name of J. L. Olivier
disappear from the mast-head and a
significant announcement
mark the beginning of the Howells'
regime. There was to be
reading matter and
"miscellaneous," which meant literature, on
every page. Literature came first in the
Howells' paper unless
public duty demanded that an issue be
devoted largely to an im-
portant speech or the publication of all
the laws passed by a ses-
sion of the legislature. Ordinarily
there was a literary selection
for each page, and the whole front page
was given over to it in-
stead of news which was buried in the
middle and back pages.
Since copyright protection was then weak
or nonexistent, most
of the popular authors of the day were
honored in the Sentinel's
columns. Poems of Byron, Freneau,
Bryant, Tennyson, Long-
fellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell and Poe
appeared beside the
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 41
prose of Dickens, Hawthorne, Poe,
Theodore Parker, Seba Smith
and others. Young "Will" heard
their productions discussed al-
most daily as they were selected by his
father, and he stored them
in his mind as he set them, letter by
letter, in type. He could
scarcely help having his taste sharpened
and his knowledge broad-
ened by them.
All the "literature" was not
so profitable for a rising author.
There are some negative examples.
Coincidence-laden romances
such as "Lilly Bell," or
"Why Uncle Harry Was a Bachelor,"
and "Modern Aristocrats" were
carried side-by-side with material
now justly classic. They all followed
the same general formula.
Fortuitous events solved a weak plot and
reeking sentimentality
smoothed the way for a smug little
moral. There was a whole
series of weepy and didactic
"Stories with a Moral." The "Pas-
sionate Father," for instance,
counselled against impatience by tell-
ing how one papa's violent temper
mysteriously blasted the life
of his angelic little son. Howells'
dislike for the conventional
romance, which was already developing,
may have germinated in
a comparison of these tales with those
by the great writers. The
contrast between them was too great not
to be perceived and ap-
preciated by him. The keen
discrimination which was among his
greatest gifts was thus strengthened as
he worked on each Thurs-
day's issue.
The ease with which Howells later
adopted theoretical social-
ism is not surprising in view of another
of the Sentinel's policies.
The American revolutionary strain was
still strong in some reader-
contributors. From time to time poems
and little articles of the
most radical sort appeared. They
demanded revolt against all
oppression, reapportionment of property
and complete political
and economic liberty. One of the most
startling things about this
material is the casual way in which it
was treated. There is no
record of protest from the otherwise
easily roused readers, and
some of the most "radical"
poems were printed calmly as "Articles
on Agriculture."
Although W. D. Howells had long been
printing his own
sketches, studies and poems, setting
them in type as he thought of
42
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
them, nothing appeared in the Ashtabula
Sentinel under his name
until May 20, 1858, when he had left home to
work in Columbus,
Ohio. Whether modesty or family policy
kept the early works
unsigned cannot be told; but as a result
the identification of most
of them is impossible. Howells' poetry
is too little distinctive to
be culled out with any certainty from
the mass of anonymous
verse in the paper except as it survived
in the later verse vol-
umes. Unsigned stories are only slightly
less difficult. A series
of didactic sketches dealing in good
detail with typical local situ-
ations is logically suspect, but only a
very few items prior to 1858
can be assigned to him with reasonable
certitude. The proof that
they are his, beyond that they are
unsigned matter in his father's
paper, must depend upon subject-matter
and what external evi-
dence is available.
When something was lifted from another
publication it was
customary for the Sentinel to
credit the author if he or she were
prominent enough. Otherwise the other
organ was credited. It
seems safe, therefore, to assume that
matter headed "Original"
was acquired by the Sentinel at
first-hand. With a field as lim-
ited in acceptable authors as was
Jefferson and its environs, any
"Original" piece which gives
further and specific evidence of be-
longing to Howells may safely be called
his. The entries under
"Original Miscellany" in the
issue of June 7, 1855, may, for in-
stance, be reasonably so assigned. The
heading over them says:
"The following little piquant
sketches have been translated from
a Spanish paper for the Sentinel."
They are three finely idiomatic
and well-polished translations of the
satiric characterizations at
which Spanish writers excel. Howells
could, at that time, read
Spanish freely. "I had taught
myself to read Spanish, in my
passion for Don Quijote," he says.
"And I was now, at the age
of fifteen, intending to write a life of
Cervantes."2 Spanish
sketches would have been specially
translated for his father's pa-
per by no one else. The section of Lazarillo
de Tormes, specially
translated for the Sentinel, number
of November 15, 1855, must
be similarly credited. There are also a
number of translations
2 Years of My Youth (New York, 1917), 84.
WILLIAM
DEAN HOWELLS
43
from the German which, Howells says,
"presently replaced Spanish
in my affections through the witchery of
Heine."3 Renditions of
Heine stories by Jacobs and an original
biographical sketch of
Goethe were acceptable Cermanic items in
1855. Two years later
long serial versions of Zschokke appear.
In March appeared "A
Curious Circumstance," and in
August "Walpurgis-Night" and
"The Prince's Look."
These translations show interesting
facts about the adoles-
cent Howells. He had a thorough literary
appreciation of two
languages other than his own and was
well on the way to becom-
ing a literary cosmopolite. He was able
to put the sense of a good
piece of foreign writing into smooth,
well-knit and idiomatic Eng-
lish prose. He could read appreciatively
and write skilfully.
The identification of the most
revelatory work of Howells'
youth is made possible, oddly enough,
because it was a painful
fiasco. Speaking of the period when it
was written, Howells says:
I began to write a story in the Ik
Marvel manner, or rather to com-
pose it in type at the case, for that
was what I did; and it was not all imi-
tated from Ik Marvel, either, for I drew
upon the easier art of Dickens at
times, and helped myself out with bold
parodies of Bleak House in many
places. It was all very well at the
beginning, but I had not reckoned with
the future sufficiently to have started
with any clear ending in my mind,
and as I went on I began to find myself
more and more in doubt about it.
My material gave out; incidents failed
me; the characters wavered and
threatened to perish on my hands. To
crown my misery there grew up an
impatience with the story among its
readers, and this found its way to me
one day when I heard an old farmer who
came in for his paper says that
lie did not think that story amounted to
much. I did not think so either,
but it was deadly to have it put into
words, and how I escaped the mortal
effect of the stroke I do not know.
Somehow I managed to bring the
wretched thing to a close, and live it
slowly into the past .... But that
experience was really terrible. It was
like some dreadful dream one has
of finding one's self in battle without
the courage needed to carry one credit-
ably through the action, or on the stage
unprepared by study of the part
one is to appear in. I have never looked
at that story since, so great was
the shame and anguish that I suffered
from it ....4
Careful search of the volumes of the Ashtabula
Sentinel of
3 Ibid., 100.
4 My Literary Passions (New York, 1896), 86.
44
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the years of Howells' residence in
Jefferson shows only one
"Original," unsigned story
which would answer the description
given above and reiterated in Years
of My Youth. That story is
"The Independent Candidate,"
which began in Volume XXIII,
no. 46, on November 23, 1854, and ran
through to Volume XXIV,
no. 2, on January II, 1855, skipping
Volume XXIII, no. 49, on
December 14, 1854. In every issue it was
given the place of
honor and prominence in the first
columns of the front page.
The plot of the tale is too complex and
cumbersome for its
strength. In the first chapter, Walter
Larrie arrives in sleepy
little Beauville to campaign for his
friend, George Berson, who
has bolted the Whig party and become an
Independent. He meets
the local political boss and
saloon-keeper, Trooze, whose family
and heelers, "a sorry pack of
yahoos," are caricatured after the
manner of Dickens. Chapter II describes,
with great sentimen-
tality, the start of Walter's romance
with Merla Cuffins. Chapter
III presents George Berson, a solid
citizen, affable, but without
proper honor. His hiring of Gilky, a
weak-kneed male Malaprop,
to campaign for him is seen as evidence
of the fundamental in-
stability of his character! The
installment and chapter end on a
proper note of suspense as Berson is
confronted in his darkened
office by a drunken intruder, but the
action halts in Chapter IV
for a brief critical digression, and
Chapter V shows Cuffins, the
"dolt and bore," who is the
regular candidate, revealing to Mr.
Doan, the editor who supports him for
the sake of party unity,
that Berson is liable to hereditary
insanity. The high-minded
editor, however, refuses to start a
"smear" campaign. Since
Merla's surname is also Cuffins, one
senses a coming conflict for
Larrie.
Chapter VI returns to the tense
situation in George Berson's
office. The tramp is Robert, wicked
husband of George's dead
sister, who has returned for Clara, his
little daughter, whom
George dearly loves. Berson threatens
him but gives him money.
Walter and Merla next reappear in
Chapter VII. She has become,
strangely or through oversight, Merla
Carmin, thus removing the
possible conflict between Walter's
political and romantic loyalties.
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 45
This chapter is the best of all,
enlivened by scenes of printing
office repartee and tender romancing.
Now chapter distinctions
cease. Walter speaks in Beauville and is
mobbed for his pains.
In mid-October the unscrupulous
Independents are, however,
forging ahead. The only cloud on
Berson's horizon is the sudden
illness of little Clara, but his
spinster sister, Annie, provides the
best of care. Election night, Annie sits
up till twelve beside the
sleeping Clara until George comes in to
say that he has probably
won. He is terribly excited, and worry
over Clara intensifies his
condition until he goes quietly mad. At
that moment, Larrie leads
in a group of noisy celebrants to give
him the final and favorable
results. Clara wakes, screams with
fright and faints. In his
unbalance George thinks her dead. He
springs to his feet, shout-
ing and tries to throttle Larrie,
whereupon he is put away in the
barred room long reserved for members of
his family.
In a final scene, two years later, the
shattered Berson regains
his first glimmerings of intelligence.
Quite recovered, he asks
the faithful Annie for Clara, who is
playing happily about. Que-
ries about Walter Larrie and Robert
reveal that, while the latter
is dead, the former is being married to
Merla that very day.
Evidence that "The Independent
Candidate" is the story
mentioned by Howells--his first
published work of fiction now
identifiable, seems convincing. It was
"Original," and timed at
just the age when he would have been
likely to write such com-
positions. The internal break-down
described by Howells as so
humiliating may readily be detected. The
young author got him-
self out too deep from the beginning by
bringing new characters
and pertinent material into each of the
first six chapters. The
result was that out of a welter of
people and situations sufficient
to supply a Dickens novel he was able to
bring nothing to a
plausible, rounded conclusion and was
forced to abandon much.
Trooze and his family, Mr. and Mrs.
Gilky, and Robert are pre-
sented and left without meaning or
action thereafter except as
Gilky shares incidentally in Larrie's
disaster at Beauville. Mr.
Cuffins and Walter's possible conflict
with him are deserted igno-
miniously with the change of Merla's
surname. After sharing
46
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
their romance for one glowing evening,
the reader finds Merla
and "Wat" estranged by his
neglect of her for the campaign, and
sees nothing of her again until, two
years later, when their wed-
ding is briefly announced. Desperation
is betrayed by the aban-
donment of all structural design with
the forsaking of chapter
divisions and the swift descent into a
huddled close. One can
well understand how the ambitious young
craftsman must have
been crushed by his inability to bring
his plot through when it
looked so easy in Dickens and Thackeray.
After the gap at no.
49, the story never recovers. Whether
the old farmer's devastat-
ing comment was made in this interval or
inspiration merely
flagged, the promising start of the
first three numbers is lost.
The unusual method of writing--setting
type as he thought
--is sometimes given away by a bad
sentence. The following is
one example of the wandering of young
Howell's mind, uncor-
rected by rereading of material already
set for the press: "At
market, the Umbrella invaded
egg-baskets, and spilled measures
of apple-butter over white napkins, and
angered the dame, who
uttered them."
A series of autobiographical hints also
suggest Howell's au-
thorship. The weather and seasons and
settings of "The Inde-
pendent Candidate" are undeniably
those of small Jefferson, Ohio,
in the Western Reserve of that time. The
passage quoted below,
as a stylistic example, illustrates
that. Then, too, the most inti-
mate and sympathetic of all the scenes
are those of the printing-
office. The editor and his staff are the
most natural and likeable
folk in the story, and the "shrewd
little chap behind the press"
of one scene was probably young Will
Howells.
The principal remaining piece of
evidence is the digressive
Chapter IV. As noted above, Spanish in
the Ashtabula Sentinel is
prima facie evidence of the work of Howells. Chapter IV opens
with a direct quotation from the
well-loved Don Quixote and in-
cludes, later on, a quotation from the
poet Iriarte. Howells' as-
sertion of later years that he had been
influenced in this work by
Dickens and Thackeray is borne out by
the following excerpt from
Chapter IV:
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 47
I shall . . . content myself with
following at goodly distance, the less
dazzling authors of Pendennis and
Bleak House.
A glance at the foregoing quotation from
My Literary Pas-
sions will show that many years after trying to forget his
tale he
remembered, without checking it, that Bleak
House had been a
source of inspiration. Ik Marvel is not
mentioned anywhere,
possibly because his young imitator did
not wish to give so inti-
mate a clue to the nature of his
endeavor. Given all the foregoing
evidence, it may fairly be concluded
that "The Independent Can-
didate" was written by William Dean
Howells when he was only
seventeen and is, therefore, acceptable
as indicative of the extent
of his ability and the nature of his
attitudes at that time. The
sources of some of his mature abilities
and attitudes are made
clear.
At seventeen Howells could write. The
arduous training he
had given himself paid dividends in a
smooth, colorful style whose
only general fault was a tendency toward
lushness. Whether he
used it to record sharply observed and
richly felt scenes around
him or to imitate one of his many
"passions," it would carry him
through. He had a good sense of form in
the short sketch, the
single incident, but lacked powers of
larger comprehensiveness and
continuity. The opening lines of Chapter
III are perhaps the best
example of his early style:
An after-supper listlessness pervades
the whole village. The heat and
bustle of the day are over, and Oldsbury
gives itself up to the enjoyment of
twilight. Little boys, in scattered
groups, are launching dust rockets into
the air, and assailing the buggies as
they rattle to and fro along the streets.
Here and there an easy smoker may be
seen sauntering toward his evening
haunt in the post-office, or pausing to
hold a moment's chat with a friend on
the queer turn politics have taken. On
the tavern stoop several urchins just
verging into loaf-hood, are seated in
the chairs which are always filled, an
hour later by a choice coterie of
thorough-bred loungers.--A bevy of serene
office holders linger about the
court-house steps, and talk together in idle
clumps: and laugh uproariously at jokes
which reach the sidewalk only in
hoarse, indistinct whispers. It is yet
too early for moon lighting, and no
merry two and two strollers are abroad
to crowd one from the pave. Quiet
home folk, standing near front gates,
gaze and guess at passersby; and
some, whose indoor toil ended at five,
are refreshing themselves with hoe
and spade among the thrifty garden beds
which flank the white houses.
48
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Twilight is to day and night what those
weeks of mellow sunniness
which hale the going-out of October are
to fall and winter. The garish
beauty of summer day melts into the more
loveliness of evening, and
night with dreamy stealth dusks the
valley and the hill, and seems half-
mournfully to hover near the little
realm of light on the plain; the rich sea-
son of red and yellow fields and woods
fades slowly away behind soft veils
of purple and amethyst, and winter calms
his blustering gales until she
breathes her last amid the bliss and
plenty she has strewn around. In the
gentle musings with which they fill the
year, the Twilight and Indian Sum-
mer have kin as well. The same quiet
blending of light and shade, and the
same muffling of sound with melancholy
stillness, invite to revelry in both:
and the forgetfulness of earth-life that
one tastes in the twilight of the day,
is drunken with a sweeter and deeper
draught in the twilight of the year.
If angels ever journey on errands of
peace and mercy to this world, they fly
nearest at such times.
Humor was Howell's much-used solace for
hardship all his
life. Two different types of it appear
in "The Independent Can-
didate." The first is a pun-fest
among the printers, the sort of
literary humor at which Howells was
always best. The second
was the type which is thought of as
western, or as belonging par-
ticularly to Mark Twain. Later, in genteel Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts, Howells gave that up; but it
was strong in him when he
wrote of Walter Larrie's disastrous
attempt to brow-beat a Whig.
I must have been half-crazy, or I would
have seen that I was on dan-
gerous ground. But while the butcher
waxed redder and angrier, I only
attacked him with renewed gust. At last
he burst into tears, and dashed to-
ward me ... There was a pitcher of water
before me, and I let the butcher
have that, at once. I also bestowed two
candles and sticks upon him and the
Sacred Songster which lay within reach.
I was about to launch Webster's
"Unabridged," when my
antagonist closed upon me. Somebody got awfully
thrashed. I could not tell who, exactly,
but I do not think it was the
butcher.
Meanwhile, the fellows near the door
kept up a deafening yell, and
discharged volleys of eggs at the
speaker. . . . Bareheaded and reeking, I
made for an opening in that accursed
room. But there was none to be
found. Utterly bewildered, I ran hither and
thither. At length I caught a
glimmer of the night without and dashed
in that direction. It was the door.
--A great ruffian was stationed on the
thresh-hold after the manner of
the Colossus of Rhodes. I ran between
his legs and upset the monster.
Howells' concept of the gentleman was an
important deter-
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 49
minant of his life and art, and it has
been fashionable to say that
Cambridge and Boston gave it to him.
From his own record of
his family life and early experiences,
however, it has seemed
rather, that he had all the essential
attitudes of his life-long
gentility before he left Jefferson. The
following section of "The
Independent Candidate" goes far to
substantiate such a conten-
tion. It illustrates, in part, the
social ideal of the gentleman held
by Howells as a youth:
But a gentleman, in any walk of life, is
known and respected the mo-
ment he is seen. His unaffected pride of
self, when tempered with courtesy
to those about him, never meets a sneer.
His foibles are forgiven, his little
ways are fallen in with, and if he
chooses to frequent the office, he is
always welcome.--If he is a wit, he will
not find any who have a finer sense
of mirth than printers; and he is at
once loved and carressed by the whole
office.
Howells' ideal of realism was his most
important contribution
to American letters. It opened the gate
and pointed the way for
much twentieth century writing. However much he may have
contravened his critical theories in
practice, they were the ex-
plosive which broke the literary log-jam
of sentimentality and
pretense in Victorian America. Tolstoi,
Turgeniev, Zola and
Valdes were the Europeans who lighted
him to a complete and
philosophical acceptance of literary
realism, but his feeling for it
was innate. His independent study of literature brought him to
a groping assertion of it in his first
considerable story. The di-
gressive and "Rather
Didactical" Chapter IV contains that asser-
tion. The chapter opens with a quotation
from the prologue to
Don Quixote which Howells used as a sort of springboard into
his text. He continued:
... I would like to make the most
beautiful, lively and discreet story
that was ever penned. If I do not, he
(the reader) will please remember
that my failure was not from lack of
willingness to do better. Let him
remember, moreover, that I have not the
high-topping quaintness of Lip-
.pard, not the gory skill of Emerson
Bennett, nor Lieut. Murray, and that I
shall not even attempt to imitate these
masters; but shall content myself
with the following, at goodly distance,
the less dazzling authors of Pendennis
and Bleak House. Let him, I say,
who is wont to regale himself with the
literary blood-puddings of the great
western novelist, or to gloat over the
50
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
faithful pictures of sea-life which the
man of pen and sword has furnished
us, remember that I can offer him
nothing of the kind. Unfortunately, I
have neither Indians nor Pirates to deal
with, and it is such a very serious
thing to kill off a Christian, that I
cannot find it in my heart to slaughter
so much as a single character, as yet.
It is true that I might have Merla
fall sick of ague, or have Walter hang
him with his neckcloth; I could make
an end of Mr. Gilky by means of delirium
tremens, or could drown the heir
of the house of Trooze in a tub of
rainwater with a mere stroke of the pen;
but I fain would have these children of
thought play at foot-ball with chance
for a while; and I cannot but think some
kind heart would be pained to
see them brought low.
A playful conversation with "Old
Smith" follows in which
the author refuses to indulge sanguinary
tastes by killing even a
postmaster--evidently some sort of
parody. The chapter then
closes with an expression of misgiving
by the author as to his
story's success. The important thing,
however, is the expression
of realism. It was not the doctrinaire
philosophy of later days.
The mature critic found Dickens and
Thackeray only less sorry
models than the
"Blood-pudding" group. It did not take arms
against the coincidence-laden,
saccharine or blood-curdling ro-
mances which inundated the country, but
it did assert the young
writer's self-taught conviction that
material treated simply and
honestly made better fiction than that
ephemerally inflated with
the hot-air of romance.
Study of volumes XXI to XXXVIII of the Ashtabula
Senti-
nel, covering the years during and soon after William Dean
How-
ells' active work on it, reveals much
about the forces which shaped
him. The flavor of the paper is at once
liberal and genteel. Its
sincere espousal of the revolutionary
doctrines of abolition and
complete democracy must have aided his
later acceptance of
socialism and realism. Yet its earnest
propagation of Victorian
morals and personal gentility were
indelibly imprinted on his
mind. The intentionally
"literary" quality of the Sentinel clears
the mystery of his education as much as
his own records of it.
Contrasted with contemporary political
sheets, the enterprise
seems cultured, if not high-brow.
Howells' own work shows the progress of
his self education
and development. He was studying good
authors in three lan-
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 51
guages. He translated and imitated
literary masters, improving
his prose steadily and founding his
style on intensive study and
appreciation. His first published story
shows how thoroughly he
could absorb the objects of his
"literary passions." Gilky and
Trooze with his "yahoos" show
the caricaturing inspiration of
Dickens, and Thackeray's influence is
particularly strong in George
Berson's cool political dishonesty and
its punishment, and in the
critical digression which seems to mark
the permanent ebb of cre-
ative energy for the abortive novel. Ik
Marvel's sentimentality
is echoed in the portrayal of
self-sacrificing, sweet spinster Annie,
though the influence of his ad
hominem style is pervasive. Young
Howells was already rising above mere
imitation. The nascent
realism of the critical chapter is
bodied forth in descriptions of
well-loved village life, and it appears
that a temperamental affinity
for realism foreran his later
intellectual and esthetic acceptance of
it from the Europeans by many years. If
timidity and inexperi-
ence lead to the collapse of the plot,
single incidents and scenes
are excellently handled, and the style
is often distinct and good.
At any rate, with the publication of
"The Independent Candi-
date," one more eminent American
literary career was launched.
The four most important elements in that
career, literary zeal and
power, realism, gentility and
political-social free thought, are shown
by the content of the Ashtabula
Sentinel to have had their be-
ginnings, at least, in the years of
William Dean Howells' youth in
Ohio.
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS AND THE
ASHTABULA SENTINEL
By EDWIN HARRISON CADY
Few facts about the formative years of
William Dean How-
ells are known except what the author
himself left in the form of
personal reminiscence. Books such as A
Boy's Town, My Literary
Passions, My Year in a Log Cabin, and Years of My Youth are
mellow and interesting autobiography.
Mildred Howells' Life in
Letters of her father contains a few early letters and two
reveal-
ing photographs. The amount of objective
evidence, however,
concerning his all-important first
twenty-one years in Ohio is
slight, although the sources of his
literary enthusiasm and con-
cerns for realism, socialism and
gentility must be sought in the
years of his Ohio youth as much as in
the literary friends and
acquaintances of Cambridge and the crude
hazards of new fortunes
of the "Gilded Age." One
reservoir of intimate evidence has
hitherto been untapped. It is the
newspaper which the Howells
family owned and published in Jefferson,
Ohio, for more than
forty years, the Ashtabula Sentinel.1
The influence of this newspaper on young
Howells was im-
portant. From his fifteenth year to his
twentieth he worked on
it as a compositor and occasional
contributor. The office was his
daily environment, and it took the place
of formal schooling al-
most completely. There his early
attitudes and angles of vision
were determined. The impetus to write
and study literature was
quickened there daily as he heard the
printers recite and pun and
argue. The taste which appropriated
writings from other unpro-
tected publications informed and molded
his style, providing
models for him to imitate or shun. The
columns of the Ashta-
bula Sentinel mirror all these factors. They hold, too, many of
1 Bound files preserved in the Ashtabula
Public Library, Ashtabula, Ohio,
39