The National Period, 1815—

§ 47. Present Literary Activity

Since the war an enormous amount of printed matter has been produced. We can hardly be said to have a literary centre, for no sooner has one place begun to manifest its right to the title than, behold, some remarkably good work appears in quite another quarter. The whole country seems to have taken its pen in hand. Statesman, financier, farmer, general, lawyer, minister, actor, city girl, country girl, college boy,—everybody is writing. The result of this literary activity is entirely too near us for a final decision as to its merits, and any criticism pronounced upon it ought to have the foot-note, "At least, so it seems at present."

§ 48. Fiction

The lion's share of this printed matter, in bulk, at any rate, falls under the heading of fiction. Its distinguishing trait is realism, and the apostles of realism are William Dean Howells (1837–1920) and Henry James (1843–1916). What they write is not thrilling, but the way they write it has charmed thousands of readers. Wit, humor, and grace of style are the qualities of their productions that are seldom lacking. They write of commonplace people; but there is a certain restful charm in reading of the behavior of ordinary mortals under ordinary circumstances. Howells lays the scenes of most of his novels on this side of the ocean; James generally lays his scenes abroad. Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909) sometimes brings his characters into America, but the scenes of his best novels are laid elsewhere. Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) is such a master of realism that his Man without a Country  persuaded thousands that it was the chronicle of an actual and unjustifiable proceeding. And there is Frank Richard Stockton (1834–1902), whose realism-with-a-screw-loose has given us most inimitable absurdities. Our country is so large and manners of life vary so widely in its different regions that an American novel may have all the advantages of realism and yet be as truly romantic to three fourths of its readers as the wildest dreams of the romanticists. George Washington Cable (1844–1925) has painted in The Grandissimes  and other works a fascinating picture of Creole life in New Orleans. Richard Malcolm Johnston (1822–1898) tells us of the "Crackers" of Georgia; John Esten Cooke (1830–1866), most of whose work belongs to a somewhat earlier period, has written of the days when chivalry was in flower in the Old Dominion; Thomas Nelson Page (1853–1922) brings before us the negro slave of Virginia, with his picturesque dialect, his devotion to "the fambly," and his notions of things visible and invisible; Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908) has the honor of contributing a new character, Uncle Remus, to the world of literature; Mary Noailles Murfree (1850–1922), whose very publishers long believed her to be "Mr. Charles Egbert Craddock," has almost the literary monopoly of the mountainous regions of Tennessee. In this the regions are fortunate, for no gleam of beauty, no trait of character, escapes her keen eye. James Lane Allen (1850–1925) has taken as his field his own state of Kentucky. He is as realistic as Henry James, but his realism is softened and beautified by a delicate and poetic grace. Edward Eggleston's (1837–1902) Hoosier Schoolmaster  revealed the literary possibilities of southern Indiana in pioneer days. Several writers have pictured life in New England. Among them is John Townsend Trowbridge (1827–1916) with his Neighbor Jackwood  and other stories. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1862–1930) writes interesting stories, but almost invariably of the exceptional characters. Sarah Orne Jewett, (1849–1909), with rare grace and humor and finer delicacy of touch, has gone far beyond surface peculiarities, and has found in the most everyday people some gleam of poetry, some shadow of pathos. Alice Brown (1857–1948) writes frequently and charmingly of the unusual; but with her the unusual is the natural manifestation of some typical quality. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844–1911) in 1866 ventured to treat our notions of heaven in somewhat realistic fashion in Gates Ajar. She has proved in many volumes her knowledge of the New England woman. Some of her best later work has been in the line of the short story, as, for instance, her Jonathan and David. Rose Terry Cooke (1827–1892) has found the humor which is thinly veiled by the New England austerity. The stories of Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs (1857–1923) are marked by a keen sense of humor and sparkle with vivid bits of description. The early days of California have been pictured by Helen Hunt Jackson (1831–1885) in Ramona, a novel which voiced the author's righteous indignation at the harshness and injustice shown to the Indians by the United States government. Her earlier work was poetry; and in this, too, she has taken no humble place. Mary Hallock Foote (1847–1938) has sympathetically interpreted with both brush and pen the life of the mining camp of what used to be the "far West." Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) won her first popularity by That Lass o' Lowrie's, which pictures life in the Lancashire districts of England. During the last few years the popular favor has swung between the historical novel and the one-character tale; but the fiction, whether of the one class or the other, that has had the largest sale has laid its scenes in America and has been written by American authors.

American fiction has become especially strong in the short story; not merely the story which is short, but the story which differs from the tale in somewhat the same way as the farce differs from the play, namely, that its interest centres in the situation rather than in a series of incidents which usually develop a plot. Cranford, for instance, is a tale. It pictures the life of a whole village, and is full of incidents. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger  is a short story; it gives no incidents, and no more detail than is necessary to explain the peculiar situation of the princess. It is a single series of links picked out of a broad network. A tale is a field; a short story is a narrow path running through the field. The short story, with its single aim, its determination to make every word count toward that aim, its rigid economy of materials, its sure and rapid progress, has proved most acceptable to our time-saving and swiftly-moving nation.

§ 49. Poetry

The writers of the last fifty years have had an immense advantage in the existence of the four monthlies, The Atlantic, Harper's, Scribner's, and The Century, for these magazines have provided what was so needed in earlier days,—a generous opportunity to find one's audience. They have been of special value to the poets, and the last half-century has given us much poetry. Not all of it is of the kind that makes its author's name immortal; but it would not be difficult to count at least a score of Americans who in these latter days have written poems that are of real merit. So far as a poetic centre now exists, New York, with its many publishing houses and its favorable geographical position, holds the honor.

§ 50. Bayard Taylor, 1825–1878

Eight years after Bryant published Thanatopsis, two of these later poets, Taylor and Stoddard, were born. Bayard Taylor began life as a country boy who wanted to travel. He wandered over Europe, paying his way sometimes by a letter to some New York paper, sometimes by a morning in the hayfield. His account of these wanderings, Views Afoot, was so boyish, so honest, enthusiastic, and appreciative, that it was a delight to look at the world through his eyes; and the young man of twenty-one found that he had secured his audience. He continued to wander and to write about his wanderings. He wrote novels also; but, save for the money that this work brought him, he put little value upon it. Poetic fame was his ambition, and he won it in generous measure. His Poems of the Orient is wonderfully fervid and intense. Some of these poems contain lines that are as haunting as Poe's. Such is the refrain to his Bedouin Song:—

From the desert I come to thee On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire. Under thy window I stand, And the midnight hears my cry: I love thee, I love but thee, With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

Another favorite is his Song of the Camp, with its famous lines,—

Each heart recalled a different name, But all sang "Annie Laurie."

He wrote Home Pastorals (1875), ballads of home life in Pennsylvania; several dramatic poems; and a most valuable translation of Faust (1870–1871). Bayard Taylor seems likely to attain his dearest wish,—to be remembered by his poetry rather than his prose.

§ 51. Richard Henry Stoddard, 1826–1903

One of Taylor's oldest and best beloved friends was Richard Henry Stoddard, a young ironworker. He had hard labor and long hours; but he managed to do a vast amount of reading and thinking, and he had much to contribute to this friendship. He held no college degree, but he knew the best English poetry and was an excellent critic. He, too, was a poet. In a few years he published a volume of poems; but poetry brought little gold, and by Hawthorne's aid he secured a position in the Custom House. He did much reviewing and editing; but poetry was nearest to his heart. There is a certain simplicity and finish about his poems that is most winning. The following is a special favorite:—

The sky is a drinking cup, That was overturned of old; And it pours in the eyes of men Its wine of airy gold. We drink that wine all day, Till the last drop is drained up, And are lighted off to bed By the jewels in the cup!

§ 52. Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1833–1908

Another poet and critic is Edmund Clarence Stedman. He reversed the usual order, and, instead of going from business to poetry, he went from poetry to business, and became a broker. When he had won success in Wall Street, he returned to poetry with an easy mind. He has a wide knowledge of literature, and is a keen and appreciative critic. Moreover, he can criticise his own work as well as that of other people. He has written many New England idylls, many war lyrics, and many occasional poems. Everything is well proportioned and exquisitely finished, but sometimes we miss warmth and fire. It is like being struck by a cool wind to come from Taylor's Bedouin Song  to Stedman's Song from a Drama:—

Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word; Close, close in my arms thou art clinging; Alone for my ear thou art singing A song which no stranger has heard: But afar from me yet, like a bird, Thy soul, in some region unstirred, On its mystical circuit is winging.

One of his poems that no one who has read it can forget is The Discoverer;  graceful, tender, with somewhat of Matthew Arnold's Greek restraint, and so carefully polished that it seems simple and natural. This begins:—

I have a little kinsman Whose earthly summers are but three, And yet a voyager is he Greater than Drake or Frobisher, Than all their peers together! He is a brave discoverer, And, far beyond the tether Of them who seek the frozen Pole, Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll. Ay, he has travelled whither A winged pilot steered his bark Through the portals of the dark, Past hoary Mimir's well and tree, Across the unknown sea.

§ 53. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836–1907

Thomas Bailey Aldrich is counted with the New York group of poets by virtue of his fifteen years' residence in the metropolis. His tender little poem on the death of a child, Baby Bell, beginning,—

Have you not heard the poets tell How came the dainty Baby Bell Into this world of ours?

touched the sympathetic American heart and won him the name of poet. If he had been a sculptor, he would have engraved cameos, so exquisitely finished is everything that he touches. The thought that some writers would expand into a volume of philosophy or a romance of mysticism, he is satisfied to condense into a lyric, as in his Identity:—

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space— In Twilight-land—in No-man's-land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. "And who are you?" cried one a-gape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. "I know not," said the second Shape, "I only died last night!"

In 1870 Aldrich returned to Boston. He then edited Every Saturday, and later The Atlantic Monthly. He published several volumes of poems and some charming stories. The most original of the latter is the delicious Marjorie Daw, which won such popularity as to verify the favorite dictum of Barnum, "People like to be humbugged." This story is marked by the same artistic workmanship and nicety of finish that beautifies whatever Aldrich touches. One cannot imagine him allowing a line to go into print that is in any degree less perfect than he can make it.

§ 54. Francis Bret Harte, 1839–1902

In 1868 a new voice came from the Pacific coast. The Overland Monthly  had been founded, and Francis Bret Harte had become its editor. He had gone from Albany to California, had tried teaching and mining, had written a few poems, and also Condensed Novels, an irreverent and wisely critical parody on the works of various authors whom he had been taught to admire. In his second month of office he published The Luck of Roaring Camp. This was followed by other stories and poems, and in a twinkling he was a famous man. The flush of novelty has passed, and he is no longer hailed as the American laureate; but no one can help seeing that within his own limits he is a master. When he takes his pen, the life of the mining camp stands before us in bold outline. He is a very missionary of light to those who think there is no goodness beyond their own little circle. In How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar, for instance, the dirty little boy with "fevier. And childblains. And roomatiz," gets out of bed to show to the rough men who are his visitors a hospitality which is genuine if somewhat soiled; and the roughest of them all gallops away on a dare-devil ride over ragged mountains and through swollen rivers to find a city and a toyshop, because he has overheard the sick child asking his father what "Chrismiss" is, and the question has touched some childhood memories of his own. Harte's one text in both prose and poetry is that in every child there is some bit of simple faith, and that in the wildest, roughest, most desperate of men there is some good. Several of his poems are exceedingly beautiful lyrics; those that are called "characteristic," because written in the line wherein he made his first fame, are vivid pictures of the mining camp,—coarse, but hardly vulgar, and with a never-failing touch of human sympathy and warm confidence in human nature.

§ 55. Walt Whitman, 1819–1892

A few years ago, an old man with long white hair and beard, gray vest, gray coat, and a broad white collar well opened in front, walked slowly and with some difficulty to an armchair that stood on a lecture platform in Camden, New Jersey. He spoke of Lincoln, and at the end of the address he said half shyly: "My hour is nearly gone, but I frequently close such remarks by reading a little piece I have written—a little piece, it takes only two or three minutes—it is a little poem, 'O Captain! My Captain!' " This is what he read:—

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! But O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores acrowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

This speaker was Walt Whitman. In 1855 he brought out his first volume of poems, Leaves of Grass. Seven years later he became the good angel of the army hospitals, writing a letter for one sufferer, cheering another by a hearty greeting, leaving an orange or a piece of bright new scrip or a package of candy at bed after bed. Northerner or Southerner, it was the same to him as he went around, carrying out the little wishes that are so great in a sick man's eyes. A few years later he suffered from a partial paralysis. His last days were spent in a simple home near the Delaware, in Camden.

The place of Walt Whitman as a poet is in dispute. Some look upon him as a "literary freak;" others as the mightiest poetical genius of America. He is capable of writing such a gem as O Captain! my Captain!  and also of foisting upon us such stuff as the following and calling it poetry:—

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues.

Whitman believed that a poet might write on all subjects, and that poetic form and rhythm should be avoided. Unfortunately for his theories, when he has most of real poetic passion, he is most inclined to use poetic rhythm. He writes some lists of details that are no more poetic than the catalogue of an auctioneer; but he is capable of painting a vivid picture with the same despised tools, as in his Cavalry Crossing a Ford:—

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands, They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun,—hark to the musical clank, Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink, Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person, a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles, Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford—while Scarlet and blue and snowy white, The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

This is hardly more than an enumeration of details; but he has chosen and arranged them so well that he brings the moving picture before us better than even paint and canvas could do. When he persists in telling us uninteresting facts that we do not care to be told, he is a writer of prose printed somewhat like poetry; but when he allows a poetic thought to sweep him onward to a glory of poetic expression, he is a poet, and a poet of lofty rank.

§ 56. Minor Poets

It is especially difficult to select a few names from the long list of our minor poets, for the work of almost every one of them is marked by some appealing excellence of subject or of treatment. Celia Thaxter (1835–1894) is ever associated with the Isles of Shoals, and, as Stedman says, "Her sprayey stanzas give us the dip of the sea-bird's wing, the foam and tangle of ocean." Lucy Larcom (1826–1893), too, was one of those who love the sea. The one of her poems that has perhaps touched the greatest number of hearts is Hannah Binding Shoes, that glimpse into the life of the lonely woman of Marblehead with her pathetic question:—

Is there from the fishers any news?

John Hay (1838–1905) forsook literature for the triumphs of a noble diplomacy, but not until he had shown his ability as biographer and as poet. The first readers of his Pike County Ballads  were not quite certain that he was not a bit irreverent; but they soon recognized the manliness of his sentiment, however audacious its expression might appear. Jones Very (1813–1880) is still winning an increasing number of friends by his graceful, delicate thought and crystalline clearness of expression. Edward Rowland Sill (1841–1887), though with few years of life and scanty leisure, made himself such an one as the king's son of his own Opportunity, who with the broken sword

Saved a great cause that heroic day.

His poems are marked by the insight which sees the difficulties of life and also the simple faith which bestows the courage to meet them and to look beyond them. Richard Watson Gilder (1844–1909), greatest of the New York group, ever charms us by the delicate music of his verse. His finish is so artistic, so flawless, that sometimes the first reading of one of his poems does not reveal to us the strength of feeling half hidden by the bewitching gleams of its beauty. Although we can boast of no poet of the first rank among these later writers, yet poetic ability is so widely distributed among American authors and so much of its product is of excellence that we certainly have reason to expect a rapid progress to some worthy manifestation before many years of the twentieth century shall have passed.

§ 57. Humorous Writings

There is no lack of humor in the writings of Americans. Indeed, we are a little inclined to look askance at an author who manifests no sense of the humorous, and to feel that something is lacking in his mental make-up. The works of Irving, Holmes, Lowell, the charming essays of Warner, Mitchell, and Curtis, and the stories of Frank Stockton and others, are lighted up by humor on every page, sometimes keen and swift, sometimes graceful and poetic. These are humorists that make us smile. There are lesser humorists who make us laugh. Such was Charles Farrar Browne (1834–1867), "Artemus Ward," who wrote over his show, "You cannot expect to go in without paying your money, but you can pay your money without going in." Such was Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814–1890), "Mrs. Partington," who "could desecrate a turkey better" if she "understood its anathema," and who thought "Men ought not to go to war, but admit their disputes to agitation." His fun depended almost entirely upon the misuse of words, Sheridan's old device in "Mrs. Malaprop" of The Rivals. Such was David Ross Locke (1833–1888), "Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby," who was a political power in the years immediately following the Civil War. Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818–1885), "Josh Billings," gave plenty of good, substantial advice. "Blessed is he who kan pocket abuse, and feel that it iz no disgrace tew be bit bi a dog."—"Most everyone seems tew be willing to be a phool himself, but he cant bear to have enny boddy else one."—"It is better to kno less, than to kno so mutch that ain't so." These are bits of the philosopher's wisdom. He, as well as Browne and Locke, depended in part upon absurdities of spelling to attract attention, a questionable resort save where, as in the Biglow Papers, it helps to bring a character before us. American humor is accused, and sometimes with justice, of depending upon exaggeration and irreverence. This humor has, nevertheless, a solid basis of shrewdness and good sense; and, however crooked its spelling may be, it always goes straight to the point. Another characteristic quality is that in the "good stories" that are copied from one end of the land to the other, the hero does not get the better of the "other man" because the other man is a fool, but because he himself is bright.

Our most famous humorist is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or "Mark Twain." He was born in Missouri, and became printer, pilot, miner, reporter, editor, lecturer, and author. His Innocents Abroad, the record of his first European trip, set the whole country laughing. The "Innocents" wander through Europe. They distress guides and cicerones by refusing to make the ecstatic responses to which these tyrants are accustomed. When they are led to the bust of Columbus, they inquire with mock eagerness, "Is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust?" The one place where they deign to show "tumultuous emotion" is at the tomb of Adam, whom they call tearfully a "blood relation," "a distant one, but still a relation." The book is a witty satire on sham enthusiasm; but it is more than a satire, for Mark Twain is not only a wit but a literary man. He can describe a scene like a poet if he chooses; he can paint a picture and he can make a character live. Among his many books are two that show close historical study, The Personal Memoirs of Joan of Arc, and his ever delightful The Prince and the Pauper. The latter is a tale for children, wherein the prince exchanges clothes with the pauper, is put out of the palace grounds, and has many troubles before he comes to his own again. Mark Twain abominates shams of all sorts and looks upon them as proper targets for his artillery. His reputation as a humorist does not depend upon vagaries in spelling, or amusing deportment on the lecture platform. He is a clear-sighted, original, honest man, and his fun has a solid foundation of good sense.

§ 58. History and Biography

Our later historians have found their field in American chronicles. John Fiske (1842–1901) has made scholarly interpretations of our colonial records. Henry Adams (1838–1918), James Schouler (1839–1920), Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911), Justin Winsor (1831–1897), Edward Eggleston, and others have written of various periods in the history of our country. John Bach McMaster's (1852–1932) work is so full of vivid details that any stray paragraph is interesting reading. Hubert Howe Bancroft's (1832–1918) History of the Pacific Coast  is a monumental work. Besides histories, we have many volumes of reminiscences, and biographies without number. Surely, the future student of American life and manners will not be without plentiful material. Among the biographers, James Parton (1822–1891) and Horace Elisha Scudder (1838–1902) are of specially high rank. Scudder and Higginson deserve lasting gratitude, not only for the quality of their own work, but for their resolute opposition to all that is not of the best. The biography of the beasts and birds has not been forgotten. Many writers on nature are following in the footsteps of John Burroughs (1837–1921), a worthy disciple of Thoreau, who sees nature like a camera and describes her like a poet. Among these writers is Olive Thorne Miller (1831–1918), whose tender friendliness for animals is shown even in the titles of her books, Little Brothers of the Air  and Little Folks in Feathers and Fur.

§ 59. The Magazine Article

In American prose there has been of late a somewhat remarkable development of the magazine article, which is in many respects the successor of the lecture platform of some years ago. Its aim is to present information. The subject may be an invention, a discovery, literary criticism, reminiscence, biography, a study of nature, an account of a war,—what you will; but it must give information. It must be brief and readable. Technicalities must be translated into common terms, and necessarily it must be the work of an expert. Written with care and signed with the name of the author, these articles become a progressive encyclopædia of the advancement and thought of the age.

Another type of magazine article is that written by Agnes Repplier, Samuel McChord Crothers, and others, which does not apparently aim at giving information but seems rather to be the familiar, half-confidential talk of a widely read person with a gift for delightful monologue.

The scope of our magazine articles suggests the breadth and diversity of pure scholarship in America. Among our best-known scholars are Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908), biographer and translator of Dante as well as critic of art; Francis James Child (1825–1896), editor of English and Scottish Ballads; Francis Andrew March (1825–1911), our greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar; Felix Emanuel Schelling (1858–1945), our best authority on the literature of the Elizabethan Age; Horace Howard Furness (1833–1912), the Shakespeare scholar; and Cornelius Felton (1807–1862), president of Harvard College, with his profound knowledge of Greek and the Greeks.

§ 60. Juvenile Literature

Books for children have been published in enormous numbers. Even in the thirties they came out by scores in half a dozen cities of New England, in Cooperstown, Baltimore, New York, and elsewhere. In 1833 there was a "Juvenile Book-Store" in New York city. Many authors, Hawthorne, Mrs. Ward, Mark Twain, Trowbridge, and others have written books for children, but few have written for children alone. Among these latter, the principal ones are Jacob Abbott and Louisa May Alcott. More than two hundred books came from Abbott's pen,—the Rollo Books, the Lucy Books, and scores of simple histories and biographies. He is always interesting, for he always makes us want to know what is coming next. When, for instance, Rollo and Jennie and the kitten in the cage are left by mistake to cross the ocean by themselves, even a grown-up will turn the page with considerable interest to see how they manage matters. Abbott never "writes down" to children. Even when he is giving them substantial moral advice, he writes as if he were talking with equals; and few childish readers of his books ever skip the little lectures.

Louisa May Alcott was a Philadelphia girl who grew up in Concord. She wrote for twenty years without any special success. Then she published Little Women, and this proved to be exactly what the young folk wanted. It is a clean, fresh, "homey" book about young people who are not too good or too bright to be possible. They are not so angelic as Mrs. Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy; but they are lovable and thoroughly human. A number of other books followed Little Women, all about sensible, healthy-minded boys and girls. Within the last fifty years or more many papers and magazines have been published for young people; such as Merry's Museum, Our Young Folks, Wide Awake, and St. Nicholas. The patriarch of them all is The Youth's Companion, whose rather priggish name suggests its antiquity. It was founded in 1827 by the father of N. P. Willis. In its fourscore years of life it has kept so perfectly in touch with the spirit of the age that to read its files is an interesting literary study. It seems a long way back from its realistic stories of to-day to the times when, for instance, a beggar—in a book—petitioned some children, "Please to bestow your charity on a poor blind man, who has no other means of subsistence but from your beneficence." The Youth's Companion  has followed literary fashions; but throughout its long career its aim to be clean, wholesome, and interesting has never varied.

§ 61. Literary Progress

Counting from the very beginning, our literature is not yet three hundred years old. The American colonists landed on the shores of a new country. They had famine and sickness to endure, the savages and the wilderness to subdue. It is little wonder that for many decades the pen was rarely taken in hand save for what was regarded as necessity. What literary progress has been made may be seen by comparing Anne Bradstreet with Longfellow and Lanier, Cotton Mather with Parkman and Fiske, the New England Primer with the best of the scores of books for children that flood the market every autumn. We have little drama, but in fiction, poetry, humorous writings, essays, biography, history, and juvenile books, we produce an immense amount of composition. The pessimist wails that the motto of this composition is the old cry, "Bread and the games!"—that we demand only what will give us a working knowledge of a subject, or something that will amuse us. The optimist points to the high average of this writing, and to the fact that everybody reads. Many influences are at work; who shall say what their resultant will be? One thing, however, is certain,—he who reads second-rate books is helping to lower the literary standard of his country, while he who lays down a poor book to read a good one is not only doing a thing that is for his own advantage, but is increasing the demand for good literature that almost invariably results in its production.