198 THROUGH THREEFOLD TENSION 



spite the lively resentment excited by the de 

 scriptions of Americans and their life in his 

 American Notes and Martin Chuzzlezvit. The 

 explanation lay in the social stratum in which 

 he almost exclusively found his inspiration, 

 The life, aspirations, pleasures, and pains of the 

 common people furnished all his material. These 

 things the American masses could understand. 

 From his stories they received a strong and 

 lasting impression of plain people like them 

 selves in England, living real and understand 

 able lives down beneath the glorious but misty 

 region where moved the lords and ladies, and 

 the magnates of philosophy, art, religion, and 

 politics, who were commonly the dramatis per 

 sona of other writers of English fiction. When 

 the Civil War in America brought tension of a 

 most threatening sort between the two nations, 

 the bonds of a common literature like this were 

 of the highest service in averting rupture. 



