The central observation is that as soon as America furnished readers enough a proper American literature followed the demand. As soon as the system of the country made possible first-rate printing offices in rivalry with the best printing houses in England, the American de mand for American books could be answered at home. In naming Cooper and Irving we have named the two writers distinctly American whose published work was first everywhere known. Other authors printed their books which were forgotten. There was perhaps something ludicrous in the effort to create aboriginal en thusiasms which did not exist. For instance, any early copy of the North American Review will show the standing advertisement on the cover that the publishers had a of the kept constantly on hand?) The was a poem on a supposed hero or heroine of Algonquin origin named the But the publishers spoke of the volume as a commission house might speak of so many bushels of wheat or barley. Books or essays of purely American type struggled into existence and some of them are still remem bered. Edgar Allan Poe was born in the year 1809 and died in the year 1849. Warren Bur ton's School,) Mrs. Gilman's England Housekeeper,) some of James K. Paulding's sketches and essays were distinctly American. Mrs. Sedgwick and Miss Sedgwick wrote admirable and unaffected books. Ed ward Everett and Alexander H. Everett with all the advantages of early European training were .thoroughly American in their orations and in the work which they did in the North American Review, That publication it self while it imitated aspects of the English quarterlies always carried an American chip on the shoulder and defied all foreign travelers or foreign critics who did not find perfection in everything American. A story of pure Amer ican life, most instructive to the student of that older time, is Sylvester Judd's story of garet, a Tale of the Real and Ideal, Blight and Judd was a poet, but this prose novel has proved his best work.
The exquisite genius of Nathaniel Haw thorne would have worked its way through any difficulties. In his own nation his favorite earlier subjects, drawn so largely from the tra ditions of the early centuries, undoubtedly had their share in introducing him to the great body of readers. So soon as he traveled abroad, he showed that he could handle any traditions and was at home in any atmosphere. As in all work of men of genius his temperament and, as he says, the traditions of his life, governed to a certain extent his choice of subject. But al ways it is Hawthorne who is the master and fascinates the reader; and there is no other Hawthorne. In other instances perhaps a cer tain charm is given in English circles to the naivete of what one may call the frontier habit of the American writer. Walt Whitman had an affection of expressing a disgust, which he did not really feel, with all the conventionalities and institutions which did not smell of the pine knot or of kerosine. He is said to be better known in England than in America. This is somewhat as it has happened with an American preacher like Moody and others who could be named. who has won attention even by the accent of his voice. After he had won attention abroad he needed nothing more. We may say again that this is no place to enter into an analysis or other _discussion of the work of different American authors and of their hold upon the national life. When one remembers that no prose writer of our country is more likely to be generally read three centuries hence than the despatches of Ulysses Simpson Grant, he hesi tates before he shall say who are the literary men. Give time enough and Washington be comes a literary man, and Judge Marshall. But this may be said, that of the heroes in the New York Hall of Fame, Thomas Jefferson, James Kent, Joseph Story, Asa Gray, Jonathan Edwards, William Ellery Channing, Horace Mann, Henry Ward Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wads worth Longfellow and Washington Irving, would not have been named among the most distinguished Americans except for their work with the pen. Franklin might be numbered as
a naturalist, Washington or Grant as soldiers; but the 12 who have been named won their place simply as authors. And every one who is in any way familiar with their work under stands that this work is distinctly American. You could not mistake it. If you read 25 pages from any of these authors, you would know that he was brought up under the institutions of a republic and that the width of horizon, may one say, comes in as a part of the atmos phere to which in the omnipotence of God the American is accustomed. In naming those to whom the country owes the growth of its liter ary taste, the charm of great travelers and great historians should be added to the great statesmen. But the list as far as it goes is not useless, for it shows what is the current of average feeling of the people of America The people of America is sovereign of America and as everywhere the sovereign is the fountain of honor. We could choose no better instance of the encouragement given by the people to the author of first-rate genius and ability than is found in the literary career of John Fiske. Fiske owed none of his success to official posi tion. No distinguished review called attention to the way a young man needed encouragement, but simply Fiske had a great deal to say and he said it. And by the time he said it there was a nation of people who had been educated to appreciate and enjoy what he said. He used to say that even in his young life he was look ing forward to history as the study which he was to pursue through his life. The oppor tunity came for the gratification of this passion. He seized upon the opportunity, and the American people .recognized the hand of a master. But Fiske was not to be shut up within any narrow range of study or of authorship. He had his own views of life and duty, of ethics and of destiny, and he wrote them down. He said what he wanted to say in a form which won the sympathy of all thoughtful people, and there were enough readers trained to careful thought to welcome the gifts which in such service he made to the nation. Perhaps in speaking of this instance we are speaking simply of the step forward which the con science and heart of the whole nation made in obedience to the word of Ralph Waldo Emer son, who gained a welcome in all quarters,— in the miner's cabin or in the sanctum of kiln dried seminaries. It has been said that of the early volumes of Emerson's
It has also been curiously true that more than one English reputation has been first ma'' in America. Carlyle's first books were known here before the critics of Englar_ honored them with their approval. The Eta: lish writers whined a good deal so long they had no protection at American law fr their copyrights. This nation was creating a reading class at an expense such as monarch never dreamed of such as England has nets i thought of, and it was the fashion to cliz Americans because at the outset they did lx throw open the market thus created to t: writers of a nation where there was not one reader for a hundred in America. The Intr. national Copyright Act has remedied this grin- ance. But it has not proved that either th• English or American author has gained by any of the accidents of publication. TL: rule holds which Abraham Lincoln laid dowr so well that the people who like that sort cc thing will read that sort of thing. But so fa. as statistics of the trade in books go, it is ell dent that the rank and file of American are interested in American subjects treated t.! writers who feel the American impulse an?. were early baptized in the ways of democrao For the work of individual writers see the fc1 lowing article and the separate biographies this Encyclopedia.