The New Provincialism

A CERTAIN provincialism has always been recognized as attaching to American history and life. It is a provincialism, as Lowell put it, more than thirty years ago, in A Great Public Character, due to the lack of “ any great and acknowledged centre of national life,” and hence to the lack of the varied stimulus, the inexorable criticism, the many-sided opportunity, of a great metropolis, the inspiring reinforcement of an undivided national consciousness.” Noting the persistence of American traditions and habits, the small and slow impressions of foreign contacts, Lowell surmises that “ we shall have to be content for a good while yet with our provincialism ; ” querying, still farther on, Is it “ in some great measure due to our absorption in the practical, as we politely call it, meaning the material ” ?

Thus far Lowell is discussing the long familiar notion of provincialism, — the notion associated with a rural habitat, as when Shakespeare describes " home-keeping youth ” as having “ homely wits,” or as when Professor Barrett Wendell detects a note of provincialism in Emerson, paradoxical as that may seem in a Transcendentalist. The notion is that of the “ narrowness or localism of thought or interest,” as the Century Dictionary defines it for us, “ characteristic of the inhabitants of a province as distinguished from the metropolis, or of the smaller cities and towns as distinguished from the larger.” So geographical is still this notion as to lend subtle point to-day to the excuse for failing to visit his mother given by the man of fashion in The Wanderer,. —— Madame d’Arblay’s forgotten story of perhaps a hundred years ago, — that it is “ so rustic to have a mother.” It remains true that demonstrative or conspicuous display of homely “ old-fashioned ” virtues, however spontaneous or natural, suggests provincialism and provokes a smile, even when one at heart shares the sympathetic popular approval, — this, whether it be the case of President Garfield, who, in the presence of the immense throng at his inauguration, kissed his mother before he took the oath of office, or of President Loubet, who, on the day he first entered his native town as chief magistrate of the republic, stopped the procession on chancing to see his mother, descended from the carriage of state, and tenderly saluted her. This still persisting tradition of provincialism, which associates it with the “ bringing up ” of the “ country boy ” who became the American President, or of the “ peasant boy ” who became the French President, may soon be forced to give place to a new conception, that of the provincialism distinguishing the life of the metropolis and city even more than of the country. This new provincialism is hinted at by Lowell, in the essay already quoted, when he notes that “ the stricter definition and consequent seclusion from each other of the different callings in modern times ” obviously tend toward narrowing “ the chance of developing and giving variety to character,” and toward lessening “ the interest in biography,” on another side, — the interest which the people of any one calling feel in those of other callings. The trend of modern life, by the pressure of competition demanding expert skill as the price of great success, is clearly away from mutuality of contact and interest. The pressure being strongest in the largest centre, it is in the metropolis or city that one is most struck by those conditions which constitute “ the social menace of specialism.”

Perhaps the first conspicuous reference in current comment to the new provincialism is to be found in the lament of a leading Boston paper over the decline in the art of club dining as practiced in that city, — an editorial jeremiad published some years ago. The critic describes these club dinners as functions “ highly formal in character,” given up to “speeches and oratorical efforts,” and lacking all “ originality and spontaneity.” On account of their “ sameness and tameness,” their survival can only be attributed to those “ gregarious feelings which so many men entertain, and which induce them to put themselves out, as cattle will, for the pleasure merely of rubbing their noses against each other.” The attraction secured for these dinners is almost exclusively “ exotic talent,” for “few, if any, of the members have anything to impart; or if they have, their associates have no desire to hear it.” While most careful observers of urban social life would hardly risk going the length of this Boston editor in severe and sweeping arraignment, all would doubtless testify to a like general indifference to what concerns a calling not one’s own. Even eminence in one calling may fail of recognition among educated men of other callings. And this is one of the more hopeless aspects of the situation. The broadening influence of a higher education seems so often lost after but a few years of absorption in some special career, more particularly in a large city; the once intelligent interest in other kinds of careers having suffered apparent atrophy. The average college man of business or the money-getting profession—some professions are still left to us where money-getting is counted as secondary — is so close a copy of any other business or professional man that, in talk and point of view, a stranger would never guess his “ superior education ” but for a chance allusion. Take, for illustration, a university club in a large city, — perhaps it would not be unfair to take the largest city, New York, from its size and opportunity drawing to it men of brains and ambition from every section and of every calling, thus “ setting the pace ” for, and in a growing sense representative of, American metropolitan and city life, — and do we find there evidence of that acquaintance with the best thinking of the day which, by Matthew Arnold’s standard, should mark a club of cultured men ? Is it not often true that the one obvious distinguishing mark is the comparative emptiness of the really attractive club library? Is it not also often true that one may there encounter the most surprising ignorance of names which the magazine editor would call “ household words ” ? It was at a dinner party at the University Club of New York, to cite a personal experience, that some one passed on a good story (“ good ” because of the person whom it concerned) of a well-known man of letters, a constant contributor to the magazines, one who has been talked of for the presidency of more than one leading university in the East, only to have the question asked, after the acquiescently j)olite laugh had subsided, “ And who is Mr. Blank ? ” The man who had passed on the story had himself to give the answer, after a short but hopeless pause, — a case of humiliation in a way like explaining the point of one’s joke. It was on a “ Story-Tellers’ Night ” at the same club, when one of the best known writers in New York itself arose to speak, — a man known also for his practical services in reforming tenement house life, — that a little group of two lawyers, a doctor, and a business man leaned forward to whisper, in uncertainty : “ He’s written some book, has n’t he ? What is it ? ”

So far as these incidents are typical, — and they are easy to be matched by any critical observer of life in New York or our other largest cities, — they illustrate the absence of just what one would with reason expect to find in a club whose members are university men, that wideness of interest which a liberal education is supposed to give. That the same spirit of absorption in one’s own calling should invade and obsess such a club, no less than the ordinary club, reveals the extent of “ that narrowness or localism of thought or interest” which was once the mark of rural provincialism, but is now even more the mark of metropolitan provincialism. The evidence, on entering the club, to one who knows the members, is a visual demonstration. It is like a scene on the stock exchange. As brokers gather about the posts of the various stocks, so here are groups of lawyers, doctors, business men, and perhaps, in a smaller corner, men of art and letters ; those of each group talking “the shop ” of their own calling. It is the law of natural selection, applied where the fittest feel most strenuously the struggle for survival, so that even in moments of relaxation they miss the contacts which it should be the peculiar mission of the place to give. If too much emphasis seems to have been placed on the club as a type, it is simply that the club images, as does no other institution, the social side of the city man’s life. The place in it filled by the man of letters or art as such (that is, the man without special social connections or advantages) is brought home by the inconspicuous notice of his existence in the occasional newspaper item, —at a time when personalities of various sorts press for prominence in journalism, — or by the list of his associates, should he venture out of obscurity. Once, and not very long ago, it was different. In Trollope’s day there was a London, of which, as Professor Peck notes, he was a part, including “ all that was best of English intellect and English bonhomie.” There he numbered among his friends the Earl of Derby, Lord Ripon, Lord Kimberley, Sir William Vernon - Harcourt, Lord Beaconsfield, and George Bentinck, no less than his fellow craftsmen, Thackeray, Dickens, Charles Reade, Lewes, and Wilkie Collins. Is there such a New York today ? At a recent large dinner given there to an eminent man of letters, in recognition of an honor conferred upon him by a university, the list of some twenty of the more noteworthy names of those present, printed in the only paper that mentioned the dinner at all, included those of one doctor, one lawyer, and one bank president. The rest, as mentioned, were simply “ distinguished writers.” Yet that man is counted exceptional among his fellows for the closeness of his association with men of affairs.

It is, of course, true that incidents, illustrations, and the peculiar features of certain clubs cannot of themselves settle a question of status. The relation of the representatives of art and letters to the social life of our largest cities, under modern conditions, is obviously so much a matter of individual aptitude, disposition, and income that generalization is dangerous. With the fullest recognition of this, and making all possible allowance for it, these incidents, illustrations, and club peculiarities do, nevertheless, have great significance, because they are being constantly repeated here, and, as those who are most in touch with foreign life assure us, abroad as well. They point to a certain well-defined drift away from interest of contact so long as others are not “ playing the same game ” as ourselves. That is a happy phrase — was it not Mark Twain who first used it ? — to describe the kind of absorbing activity characteristic of modern individualized life. It is a phrase in a certain sense absolving the individual’s absorption from the charge of social obliquity, and saving this little study from being a preachment. What true golfer is expected to take great interest in a chess contest, if by chance he encounters a chess devotee ? That is not the human nature of it. The fascination of the much - reprobated “ game of money-making ” as a game is something that even so acute an observer as Lord Rosebery seems to have missed. He charged that American millionaires go on accumulating when accumulation means added burdens, as if this were something both ignoble and foolish. If one is playing the “ game ” of finance, having, like Mr. Morgan, all that money by the millions can buy, is there not something new in the game, quite as a matter of sport, if one chooses to put it that way, in changing the cards from railroads to steel, and in seeing what can be done by so manœuvring them as to create and set going a colossal trust ? The extra money thus made, almost regardless of the amount, may be simply an incident. The unfortunate thing, of course, is that one form or another of the money-getting game claims so overwhelming a majority of the players that fewer are left all the time to appreciate the kind of prizes for which the other games are played ; literature and art, for example. Mention is perhaps made to a Croesus of a certain successful young author or painter, whose books or pictures find a modest market and appreciative criticism. “And what does the young man make?” Crœsus is most likely to ask. “ Three thousand a year,” is a probable teply. “ Why, I pay my confidential shorthand man as much as that,” has been the comment of Crœsus on more than one such occasion. Crœsus does not mean this for contempt, however contemptuous the sound. It is really a case of surprise. How can there be “ success ” in a game where the winnings are so insignificant? From the point of view of Crœsus no game of that sort can be “ worth while.” The fun the author or artist gets out of playing it passes the comprehension of Crœsus. He is too provincial to understand it, or to try to. So with the game of pretentious society, as it is played by the richest people in our largest cities. Such society is not of deliberate knowledge and malice aforethought contemptuous of literature, art, and music. Representatives of the arts are not purposely excluded. They do not know how to play the game; or, if they do, do not care for it.

The attitude of pretentious society, as a whole, toward the higher things, though one more of indifferent ignorance than of studied contempt, is by no means without its importance. The constant pose of this class before the public eye, through the exaggerated photography of the press, popularizes its Philistinism. This maybe as grievous in London as in New York, —the late Dr. Creighton, the accomplished Bishop of London, held that the English have a positive contempt for knowledge of itself without practical results,— but in London Philistinism is restrained by institutions and conventions. There is in New York, for example, no club corresponding to the Athenæum Club of London ; one that can confer the same prestige on a member, that can so determine his status. In New York, one of the great private balls of last winter was given on a “first night ” at the Academy, — illustrating how little of an event a representative “picture show” was counted. In London, the convention of seeming to care for pictures is not to be disregarded, and the ball would have been given on some other night. In music, New York “ society ” can plead an apparent exception to this social indifference. But it is open to question whether, if music did not include grand opera, with its spectacular effects and its chances for display, it would not be in the same category with literature and art.

As one reckons up these and numerous other characteristics of modern life in our largest cities, one is impressed by the wide departure from its traditional meaning of the word “ urbanity.” It has come to denote something wholly different from what it once did. “ Urbanity ” was the distinguishing mark of Cardinal Newman in the view of Matthew Arnold, who explains : “ In the bulk of the intellectual work of a nation which has no centre, no intellectual metropolis like an academy, . . . there is a note of provinciality,” — something one never detects in Newman. The phrase fits the reverse perversity of our growth. Our cities grow huger and huger, but the “intellectual metropolis ” is still at a diminishing distance. Energized with an unequaled and astonishing activity of brain, the life of the modern non-intellectual metropolis divides itself more and more into separate callings and careers, each in turn narrowing still further as it is further defined and specialized. The result of this new provincialism is summed up in a pregnant phrase of Matthew Arnold’s, his final word on America : “ What really dissatisfies in American civilization is the want of the interesting,” — a charm that no individual or civilization can have without a widening appreciation of all that is interesting.

Arthur Reed Kimball.