William Dean Howells 'Short Story Editha'

William Dean Howells' short story "Editha" reveals his practice to judge human ethics and conduct logically. Editha also expose his trend to logically judge human behavior and values. This short story also fits philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce’s categorization of a person who believes out of persistence. These people believe what is straightforward, uncomplicated, and emotionally satisfying. They are hardly ever shaken in their beliefs. They will also reiterate their beliefs to themselves and look for supporting evidence – they will refuse and disapprove any facts which contradict their so called evidence.
Editha holds stubbornly to her idea that war can be a romantic occasion for her lover to do something splendid to win her heart. She is satisfied emotionally because she pictures herself as the conqueror of a romance. She is so entangled with her own ideas that she ignored her mother's warning to not encourage George to go to war. Her love for George was greatly overshadowed by her passion for war. She told George that he will have to enlistment if he wants to marry her one day. She went so far as to write a letter tied with red, white, and blue ribbon, in which she declared that the man she would marry one day. must be faithful to his country first.
His attitude is "I've no business to think so, unless I act so, too." Editha's falsity lies in her desire to pretend that things are real. She not only clings tenaciously to a false belief about war, but also to a false belief about the human response to reality. She clung tenaciously to her version of a romantic concept because it satisfied her sense of her own role in the romance. Her version avoided the genuinely difficult inquiry for a true belief in relation to the war. Despite the fact that Editha’s false believe is obvious to the reader, her mother and to George, she still decides to ignore the