THE LEATHER WOOD GOD |
FROM NARRATIVE TO NOVEL
by HASKELL S. SPRINGER
In 1916, at the age of seventy-nine, William Dean Howells published the last great novel of his long career. Less than four years later he was dead. In writing The Leatherwood God Howells was fulfilling a long-time inten- tion to make use of his enthusiasm for the history of his native Ohio, as well as -- in the way of an old man -- returning to the recollections of his boyhood.1 His source for the basic story of the book, as acknowledged in a "Publisher's Note," was an account in the Ohio Valley Historical Series by R. H. Taneyhill, published in 1871 and entitled The Leatherwood God:
NOTES ARE ON PAGE 212 |
192 OHIO HISTORY
An Account of the Appearance and
Pretensions of Joseph C. Dylks in
Eastern Ohio in 1828.
Basically, Judge Taneyhill's narrative
tells how, at an August 1828
camp meeting in the frontier community
of Leatherwood, Ohio, at a
particularly awesome, silent moment, the
tremendous shout "Salvation"
rang out, followed instantly by a snort
like that of a frightened horse. The
sound produced awe and fear in all who
were there. The man who thus
brought himself to the attention of the
congregation was dressed in
fine clothing and had long, flowing
black hair; he was a thoroughly im-
posing figure. Joseph C. Dylks here
began a career in which he successively
became exhorter, prophet, messiah, and
then God himself to a large part
of the church-going population of the
area.
The account details the growing Dylks
frenzy as well as the violent
opposition that spread as Dylks became
progressively bolder in his claims.
He said that he would make a seamless
garment, he promised to bring
down the New Jerusalem; he failed in
both undertakings. His enemies
chased and captured him, and brought him
before a local squire, who
pronounced him innocent of any
lawbreaking. Finally, he went off to
Philadelphia with three of his
"apostles," promising to send for the rest
of his flock after he had brought down
the New Jerusalem there. Taneyhill
admits knowing nothing certain of
Dylks's subsequent life, for no reliable
reports exist; moreover, he finds
several of Dylks's appearances and dis-
appearances while in the Leatherwood
area to be disturbingly inexplicable.
With perfect candor he concludes his
narrative by commenting on the
improbability of ever resolving the
strange uncertainties surrounding
Joseph Dylks.
Howells works from these basic
historical details, but his story is,
as the prefatory "Note"
emphasizes, "effectively fiction," for he makes
major modifications of his source in
turning narrative into novel. Essen-
tially, he establishes a defining point
of view, creates Dylks the human
being, delves into the psychology of
religion, makes all elements of the
story completely realistic, and affirms
the vital role of sex in human affairs.
At the very beginning he establishes the
central observer of the novel.
It is Squire Braile (suggested perhaps
by a Brill in the Taneyhill narra-
tive) who presents the authoritative
point of view, strengthening the tone
created by a sympathetic though
unobtrusive third-person omniscient nar-
rator. The book opens with Braile
sitting on his front porch, and ends
thirty years later with the squire's
words to a passing stranger curious
about the Dylks affair. As Edwin Cady
rightly points out, Matthew Braile
is the novel's "choral spokesman. .
. . His good-humored, democratic calm,
legality, skepticism, and responsibility
erect the exact standard by which to
measure the silly passions of his
townsmen."2 His sober comments re-
peatedly bring the scene into focus. For
example, speaking to one of the
group which, the day before, had kneeled
to Dylks and called him God, the
squire sarcastically wonders aloud why
some religious people are still
unbelievers: "Didn't Nixon or
Redfield or Hughey Blake say anything?
THE LEATHERWOOD GOD 193
Or did they just look ashamed of you,
down there on your knees before
a man that you worshiped for a God
because he snorted like a horse? . . .
Wasn't anybody ashamed of it all?
Weren't you ashamed yourself, Sally?"3
The squire is the only character in the
novel--aside from his wife, a
minor figure--who manages to act
dispassionately toward Joseph Dylks.
He scorns and pities the man, but does
not let his emotions preclude ra-
tional thinking and acting. Everyone
else is deeply involved with Dylks,
either as believer or opponent; but
Braile, as the local infidel, is disturbed
by no religious conflict. Typical is the
way he handles the mob which
has brought Dylks to him to be tried
before the law. From the group he
asks for an accusation on some legal
ground: "'Now, then, have you folks
got any other charge against him? Has he
stolen anything? Like a mule,
for instance? Has he robbed a hen-roost?
Has he assaulted anybody, or
set a tobacco-shed on fire? Some one
must make a charge; I don't much
care what it is.' . . . The unbelievers
applauded his humor with friendly
laughter, and a kindlier spirit spread
through them; they were beginning
to see Dylks as a joke" (p. 149).4
Most disturbing to Braile are the
dissension and violence that Dylks's
pretensions have aroused. He fully
realizes the potential danger in the
wrought-up mob, and so, after finding
that the prisoner stands acquitted,
he makes it possible for Dylks to
escape. (In the Taneyhill account Dylks
gets away on his own.) The squire's
final words to the "Little Flock"
and the "Herd of the Lost," as
believers and scoffers were called, are
characteristic:
"If the law could have held your
god, he'd have been on his way to
the county jail by this time. Now, you
fellows, both sides, go home,
and look after your corn and tobacco;
and you women, you go and
get breakfast for them, and wash up your
children and leave the
Kingdom of Heaven alone for a while. . .
. And you," the Squire
turned to [the unbelievers], "you
let these folks worship any stock
or stone they're a mind to; and you find
out the true God if you can,
and stick to Him, and don't bother the
idolators. I reckon He can
take care of Himself. I command you all
to disperse. Go home! Get
out! Put!" (pp. 152-153)
Similarly throughout the book Braile's
eminently sensible comments put
the pro and anti-Dylks frenzy into
perspective. And all such comments
are completely Howells' own.
Most important of the many figures whom
Howells creates without
suggestion from the Taneyhill account is
Nancy Billings, a "window on
the inward drama of the story."5
Formerly married to Dylks and deserted
by him after the birth of their son, she
had heard that he was dead,
and consequently had remarried. Now she
must command her present
husband, whom she loves, to leave her,
for her brother David has convinced
her that not to do so would be mortal
sin. Dylks prevents Nancy and
David from exposing his past by
threatening to reveal that Nancy is
|
legally guilty of bigamy, even though shame alone is sufficient to insure the silence of both brother and sister. In developing this situation Howells seems to have depended on well- known historical details directly related to a significant episode in the history of Ohio. Joseph Smith, after seven years residence, left the town of Kirtland, Ohio, in 1837, the year of Howells' birth. Opposition to the Mormons arose wherever they attempted to settle, and Ohio had been no exception. "Polygamy," said the most persistent anti-Mormon rumor, alive as early as 1834; and the word was directly associated with Kirtland, Ohio.6 The rumors were, of course, exaggerated; there is little doubt that the official denials of plural marriage by the elders of the church were sincere, and that the great majority of Mormons at the time thought of polygamy as a revolting, sinful concept. But there is reason to believe that rumors about the polygamous and extramarital relationships of Joseph Smith during his Kirtland residence did have some validity.7 |
|
Smith met strong opposition from Mormons to whom he finally broached his "revelation" on plural marriage, and one of his major concerns became keeping secret the revolutionary doctrine that could alienate his adherents and perhaps destroy the Mormon faith. The Prophet resorted to many stratagems in order to keep his secret, but perhaps the most well-known was that exposed in 1842 by an excommunicated Saint. According to this unreliable but widely accepted account, Smith went to a married Mormon woman whom he coveted, and tried to persuade her to become his wife--in terms exaggeratedly echoed by Joseph Dylks in his attempt to convince Nancy Billings to leave her husband, Laban, and to come with him. When Mrs. Pratt indignantly refused Joseph Smith--so the story goes--he insured her silence by threatening to destroy her reputa- tion should she spread the tale.8 Various late nineteenth-century exposes of Mormonism exaggerated this and other aspects of Smith's amatory activities, while as late as 1916 |
196 OHIO HISTORY
anti-Mormon propaganda was still common,
and Howells could expect
his audience to be familiar enough with
the notorious Joseph Smith to
recognize similarities to him in the
obscure Joseph Dylks. Moreover,
Howells' implied comparison between the
two is literalized at the very
end of the novel where Braile and the
visiting stranger compare Dylks
to Smith in a conversation in which the
Mormon Joseph is agreed to
have been the superior scoundrel.
The activities of Joseph Smith, then,
were well-known; but not even
Howells knew certain aspects of Dylks's
life, for he received Joseph Dylks
from the hands of Taneyhill shrouded in
mystery. Although the imagina-
tively conceived relationships with
Braile and Nancy are made to explain
enigmas and inconsistencies recorded in
Howells' source, a further, con-
tinuous attempt to realistically portray
those details of the story which
his source treated as inexplicable can
be observed. For example, Taney-
hill noted that at Dylks's initial
appearance no one had seen him come into
the congregation: "The most
searching inquiries were made, but no
witness ever appeared to verify the
manner of his coming. He was there,
but that is all we will ever know about
it."9 Howells passes lightly over the
circumstance, presenting it from the
mouth of an easily swayed witness
of weak intellect who says that
"nobody suspicioned [he] was there till
they hearn him give that kind of
snort" (p. 10).
At another point, when Dylks was in
hiding and sought by his enemies,
his retreat was discovered by three of
them. "They all had a plain sight
of him, but he escaped in a manner
unknown and mysterious," says Taney-
hill (p. 41). Howells omits the entire
incident. In a third scene Dylks is
cornered. Taneyhill describes how the
searchers surrounded the thicket
concealing the fugitive, and then
entered in strength. "They found no
Dylks. He had vanished from their
grasp" (p. 42). The Howells version
removes all mystery by making Dylks's
escape the fault of a single sleeping
guard.
Further, on the trip to Philadelphia,
how did Dylks and his apostles
sustain themselves? Taneyhill admits,
"How they managed to obtain
food and lodging remains a secret to
this moment" (p. 46). But from
Howells we know that Dylks had been to
Philadelphia before and so is
familiar with the road. In addition,
when Joey (Dylks's son who went
along for adventure) returns from
Philadelphia he tells his mother, "Mr.
Enraghty he said it was a miracle if
[Dylks] always knowed the best
places to sleep, and the kindest women
to ast for victuals." "He might
have been there before," answers
Nancy, knowing that he definitely had
been (p. 216).
The result of this de-mystifying process
is to purge the story of even
the slightest suggestion of supernatural
agency in connection with Dylks.
The drama of the book is worked out in
completely human detail; every
incident having "mysterious"
possibilities is dealt with realistically and
explained in mundane terms. Although
Taneyhill does call Dylks an
"impostor" a number of times,
adhering to his own sources he has to
THE LEATHERWOOD GOD 197
record several unresolved mysteries. One
of Howells' important achieve-
ments in The Leatherwood God is
his realistic handling of material that
suggests the exotic or weird, that might
have tempted a lesser artist to
capitalize on the Strange but True
happenings in Leatherwood, producing
an inconsequential romance. In contrast,
Howells suggests that the King-
dom of Heaven is in fact as earthly as
the people who strive toward it.
Howells' well-known deprecation of
various forms of religion should
not be taken as an indication of a lack
of personal religious concern.
Although he was never a Christian in any
ordinary sense of the word, and
perhaps even remained a thorough
agnostic, he found basic Christianity
as embodied in the life of Jesus to be a
valuable guide and measure for
human action.10 In addition, he most
likely inherited from, and shared
with his father an ethical vision
derived in large part from Swedenbor-
gian teaching.11 In 1844 William Cooper
Howells wrote:
If man directs his love wholly to
himself he immediately demands
the love and submission of others to
him; and seeks to render them
subservient to his wishes and
gratifications. To this we know there
is no bounds, and from it must grow
contentions, oppositions, wars
and fightings of every kind; in short,
from this rock of self-love
springs all moral evil. . . . It is man,
then, that introduces evil, by
the abuse of the freedom that is given
him in order that he may enjoy
heaven.12
The words seem to be an explicit
commentary on The Leatherwood God.
Before the totally self-centered Joseph
Dylks came to the Leatherwood
area, the local sects all shared one
"Temple," and as Matthew Braile says
in his half-joking way, "for such a
religious community Leatherwood
Creek used to be a very decent place to
live in. . . . That Temple of theirs
kept [the different sects] together, and
they didn't quarrel much about
doctrine" (p. 81). But now with the
Dylksites in strength, strife is the
order of the day. Judge Taneyhill, of
course, reported the sometimes violent
clashes between the supporters and
opponents of the local Jehovah, but
Howells emphasizes the discord caused by
Dylks that reaches into families
and alienates their members from one
another. He invents a scene on the
night of Dylks's capture by the Herd of
the Lost in which one after
another of those whose most intimate
relationships have been disrupted
accuse and revile him:
"My wife left me and my own brother
won't speak to me because
I wouldn't say he was my Savior and my
God."
"I'm an old woman, and I lived with
my son, but my son has quit
me to starve, for all he cares, because
I believe in the God of Jacob
and he believes in this snorting,
two-legged horse."
"My sister won't live with me,
because I won't fall down and worship
her Golden Calf."
198 OHIO HISTORY
A woman stole under the guard of his
keepers, and struck him a
savage blow on the cheeks, first one and
then the other. "Now you can
see how it feels to have your own
husband slap you because you won't
say you believe in such a God as you
are, you heathen pest!" (p. 143)
Not only does Howells make Dylks the
cause of mental anguish, but
in at least one case he emphasizes the
serious physical hardship created
by Dylks's pretensions. Taneyhill had
reported the attempted performance
of a miracle: Dylks promised to make a
seamless garment if someone
would provide the cloth. A woman
believer offered the cloth she had
woven for her family's winter clothing,
but her God never showed up
and the miracle was not performed.
Howells transforms the event into
an effective dramatic scene in which the
emotions of the mixed crowd
are vividly portrayed. The incident ends
on a note of personal tragedy,
comparable to nothing in his source:
Suddenly the bolt of stuff which Murray
had conditionally yielded
was twitched from Redfield in boisterous
fun, and then in the frenzy
more of mischief than malice it was
seized by the Hounds, and torn
into shreds. "Find the seamless
raiment!" they yelled to one another.
The unbelievers stood aside; the
believers did nothing, in a palzy of
amaze; the poor woman, to whom her toil
and pride in it had hallowed
the stuff, sank down staying herself on
her hands from the floor, in
hapless despair. Her moaning and sobbing
filled the place after the
tumult of destruction had been stricken
silent. "Oh, I don't care for
the miracle," she kept lamenting,
"but what are my children going
to wear this winter? Oh, what will he
say to me!" It was her husband
she meant. (p. 132)
This Joseph Dylks who caused so much
anguish, who convinced the
majority of an Ohio community that he
was God, presented problems
of portrayal to Howells the realist.
Taneyhill provided little concrete in-
formation beyond physical appearance,
several brief pulpit speeches and
some other public words, and a comment
on Dylks's cowardice. Taking
Taneyhill's "Dylks was naturally a
coward" (p. 42), Howells makes
him into even more of one than his
source suggested. For example, at
one point in Taneyhill's account,
fruitlessly trying to escape his enemies,
Dylks "slipped into the kitchen and
hid himself in a corner by the
chimney" (p. 35). In Howells,
"A yell arose from them when they found
Dylks half way up the chimney of the
kitchen" (p. 138). Cowardice,
however, is a relatively minor aspect of
the character that Howells creates.
Dylks's motives and his thinking are
revealed to the reader mainly in two
conversations, the first with his
"wife," Nancy, and the second with Squire
Braile. At these times he tries to hide
nothing, because with Nancy he
has nothing to fear, and when he speaks
to Braile, hunger, fatigue, and
pain preclude any attempt at subterfuge.
Although Braile, at the end of
the novel, states that "he was a
fool, but he wasn't a crazy fool" (p. 232),
THE LEATHERWOOD GOD 199
the reader must feel that Howells
portrays Dylks as being close to insanity
at times. His delusions, though, are closely
bound up with a simple-minded
illogicality. He says to Nancy:
"If God lets a man say and do what
the man pleases--and He has
to do it every now and then according to
what the Book tells--why
ain't the man equal with God? You
believe, maybe, that you would be
struck dead if you said the things that
I do; but why ain't I struck
dead? Why, either because it ain't so,
at all, or because I'm God. It
stands to reason, don't it?" (p.
95)
And then comes an interesting twist;
"May be you think it would be worse
if you said I was God. Lots
have said it. Last night all Leatherwood
was hanging to my arms and
legs down there in the Temple worshiping
me. If I hadn't been God
it would have made me sick! No mere man
could stand the praising
God gets in the churches all the time.
Why that proves I'm what I say
I am, if nothing else does. I saw it
from the first; I felt it; I knew it."
He ended with his laugh. (p. 96)
It is sometimes difficult for the reader
to separate in Dylks the schemer
from the self-deluded antinomian; and
the bond of the two is intentional on
Howells' part. Dylks proposes to Nancy
that she come with him as half
of "the perfect Godhead, male and
female," telling her that every Christian
woman should be insulted because
Christianity has only one, male God.13
"Everywhere the people are waiting
for a sign," he says, "and we would
come with a sign--plenty of signs"
(p. 99). He tells her not to worry,
because it will be easy--they'll take
her on his word. Then too, he
actually believes that he can produce a
seamless garment by the touch
of his hand; he invites Nancy to witness
the miracle. At this point in the
story the reader can only conclude that
Dylks himself is unable to separate
his trickery from his belief in his
divinity.
Dylks's terribly confused and tortured
thinking is detailed even more
clearly in his confession to Squire
Braile, in the course of which Howells'
understanding of religious impulse is
also plainly revealed:
"No, no! You don't begin to
see, Squire Braile." Dylks burst out
sobbing, and uttering what he said
between his sobs. "Nobody can
understand it that hasn't been through
it! How you are tempted on,
step by step, all so easy, till you
can't go back, you can't stop. You're
tempted by what's the best thing in you,
by the hunger and thirst to
know what's going to be after you die;
to get near to the God that
you've always heard about and read
about; near Him in the flesh,
and see Him and hear Him and touch Him.
That's what does it with
them, and that's what does it in you. It's something, a kind
of longing,
that's always been in the world, and you
know it's in others because
200 OHIO HISTORY
you know it's in you, in your own heart,
your own soul. When you
begin to try for it, to give out that
you're a prophet, an apostle,
you don't have to argue, to persuade
anybody, or convince anybody.
They're only too glad to believe what
you say from the first word; and
if you tell them you're Christ, didn't
He always say He would come
back, and how do they know but what it's
now and you?"
. . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
"You think I had to lie to them, to
deceive them, to bewitch
them. I didn't have to do anything of
the kind. They did the lying and
deceiving and bewitching themselves, and
when they done it ... they
had me fast, faster than I had
them."
. . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
"The worst of it is, and the
dreadfulest is, that you begin to
believe it yourself. . . . Their faith
puts faith into you. If they believe
what you say, you say to yourself that
there must be some truth in
it. If you keep telling them you're
Jesus Christ, there's nothing to
prove you ain't, and if you tell them
you're God, who ever saw God,
and who can deny it? You can't deny it
yourself--" (pp. 172-173)
At this point Braile asks the questions
that lead Dylks into the quicksand:
"And you have to promise them a sign; you have to be fool
enough
to do that, though you know well enough
you can't work the miracle."
"You ain't sure you can't. You
think maybe --"
"Then, why," the Squire
shouted at him, "why in the devil's name,
didn't you work the miracle at Hingston's mill that night? Why
didn't
you turn that poor fool woman's bolt of
linsey-woolsey into seamless
raiment?"
Dylks did not answer.
"Why didn't you do it? Heigh?"
"I thought maybe--I didn't know but
I did do it. . . . I had prayed
so hard for help to do it that I thought
it must be."
"You prayed? To whom?"
"To--God."
"To yourself?"
Dylks was silent again in the silence of
a self-convicted criminal.
He did not move. (pp. 174-175)
Howells' indictment is of those who are
easily swayed. Yet it is an
indictment strongly tempered by
understanding and pity. He understands
"how these things could be,"
and Dylks's deluding of the people is clearly
seen to be in large part a matter of
self-delusion. A human yearning
fostered by ignorance and blind zeal is
discovered in both Dylks and his
flock, and Howells investigates the
psychic forces with sympathy as well
as scorn.
A final distinction between Howells'
treatment and Taneyhill's reveals
Howells' strength as a realistic
novelist. He suggests in definite terms that
the real power of the Leatherwood
God--responsible in large part for
THE LEATHERWOOD GOD 201
both Dylks's temporary success and his
downfall--is sex appeal.14 Again
and again he refers to Dylks's
"wild brutish snort," and his flowing
"mane" of
hair--characteristics clearly invested with male, animal power.
Moreover, Dylks is good-looking:
"Oh, I don't say you wasn't handsome,"
says Nancy to him, "that was what
done it for me when I made you my
God; but I won't make you my God now,
though you're as handsome as
ever you was; handsomer, if that's any
comfort to you" (pp. 99-100).
"He's handsome enough for
Satan," says her husband, Laban.15
To emphasize Dylks's sexual
attractiveness, Howells alters Taneyhill's
report of him as "between forty-five
and fifty years of age." Taneyhill
calls him "the old man," but
Howells never mentions Dylks's age, and
confronts the "old man" idea
humorously and uniquely by presenting
from the mouth of a simple-minded
believer the problem of what to call
God when he is someone whom you can meet
on the street. The dilemma is
resolved by referring to Dylks as
"the Good Old Man," a phrase in no
way suggesting actual age. In addition,
Howells reports that "young girls,
and wives and mothers joined in hailing
Dylks as their Creator and Savior,
and besought him to bless and keep
them" (pp. 75-76), a detail given
significance by Squire Braile's
observation that "this god of theirs is a
handsome devil, and some poor fool of a
girl, or some bigger fool of a
married woman, is going to fall in love
with him, and then--" "Did
you just think of that?" his wife
responds knowingly (p. 82).
Dylks's male opponents, too, have a
sense of his sexuality; it is one
reason for their violent opposition to
him. David Gillespie (Nancy's
brother) lashes out at him early in the
book: "You turkey cock, you
stallion! But you can't prance me
down, or snort me down" (pp. 35-36).
And then, just below, we are told that
"long before [David] slept he
heard the man's powerful breathing like
that of some strong animal in
its sleep; an ox lying in the field, or
a horse standing in its stall" (p. 36).
David is particularly sensitive to
Dylks's animal power because his
daughter Jane, a passionate, willful
girl with flaming red hair, has fallen
victim to it. "Why can't you let
Jane alone?" asks Nancy of Dylks. "He
gave his equine snort, as if the sense
of his power could best vent itself
so. 'Why can't she let me alone?
That girl bothers me worse than all the
other women in Leatherwood put together.
She won't let me let her alone'"
(p. 101). Jane, fitly enough, finally
marries handsome Jim Redfield, who
has wrenched out a lock of Dylks's
"mane" in order to persuade her that
her God is merely a poor charlatan. The
last we hear of her she is the
mother of many children.
In a subtle fashion, then, Howells
manages to hint so strongly as to
leave no doubt about the powerful
undercurrent of sexual force playing
its important part in the drama swirling
around Joseph Dylks.16 The
critical saw about Howells'
squeamishness in sexual matters just does
not apply to this novel.
In his version of the advent of the
temporary God of Leatherwood, Ohio,
Howells was working from a source whose
story illustrated the principles
202 OHIO HISTORY
voiced by his father more than seventy
years earlier. Sometimes developing
suggestions in his source, but more
often imaginatively recreating the
scene by means of psychological insight
bolstered by youthful memories,
he demonstrates the validity of a
philosophical, moral principle in local
application. The book's thematic unity,
its discovery and compassionate
indictment of the forces involved in a
community's seeking of the Kingdom
of Heaven, leave no doubt as to the
author's essential position, be it phrased
in secular or religious terms. God's
seat is in man, says The Leatherwood
God; and the novel demonstrates the complex meanings of that
insight.
THE AUTHOR: Haskell S. Springer is
a member of the English department at
Indiana University.
THE LEATHER WOOD GOD |
FROM NARRATIVE TO NOVEL
by HASKELL S. SPRINGER
In 1916, at the age of seventy-nine, William Dean Howells published the last great novel of his long career. Less than four years later he was dead. In writing The Leatherwood God Howells was fulfilling a long-time inten- tion to make use of his enthusiasm for the history of his native Ohio, as well as -- in the way of an old man -- returning to the recollections of his boyhood.1 His source for the basic story of the book, as acknowledged in a "Publisher's Note," was an account in the Ohio Valley Historical Series by R. H. Taneyhill, published in 1871 and entitled The Leatherwood God:
NOTES ARE ON PAGE 212 |