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marked than nationality in thought Men are English, German, French, American as well in their books as in their speech. A space on the thermometer separates south from north, but a poem divides us accurately. This popular element, this influence of time and land, lives in all literature. Taine advises us to look behind the page at the writer. We must do more would we be justly appreciative readers, for behind the writer is the people. Fiction illustrates this admirably. One may write a history and get so wholly within the atmosphere of another age as in a measure to expatriate himself, or at best reflect the national temper only in his methods and prejudices. A poet may shut himself up so closely in his Spanish castle, looking at the world only in a mirror, like the people of the Indolent Land, fancying facts, dreaming realities, that the spirit of the time may reach him only in far-away music, a song of Lotus-eaters, "Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong." But the novelist must live in the present and work with realities;

must walk the streets, note-book in hand, as Balzac did; must be an observer of manners and a student of men, keen as Dickens, deep as Goethe, wise as Hawthorne; for not only does popular prejudice act on the novel, but popular pride, spirit, habit, the very life. Macaulay prefaced his travels with novels rather than guide-books, and studied the character of peoples by their images in fiction. The novelist is a reflected light. His place must regulate his genius. Set him down among the English poor and he will write you a history of "Alton Locke," a long hard fight against poverty and tyranny, stern in appeal, bitter in reproach; a dark, passionate, memory of English Chartism. Place him among the Black Forest peasants, and he will tell the gentle love tale of the Edelweiss," sweet and sad, a tender story of trouble ending gladly, every word as pure and simple as "Franz," the clock maker, every thought as bravely helpful as Pilgrim," the case-painter.

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The novelist is an amanuensis, keeping the people's journal. His office is the portrayal of human life, characters and manners, and he is consequently influenced to an unusual degree by the circumstances of life and manners surrounding him.

Foreigners recognize the American by his gait. He is a fast walker. And he is as quick of sight and nimble of tongue as he is rapid of step. His pulse throbs with the hurry of impatience. He occupies his beginnings with anticipation of endings. Said Longfellow: "Our national character wants the dignity of repose." Thackeray found the pace of London life "enormous." enormous." Put the adjective in capitals, and it expresses America.

A people who make haste all through life will not assist in developing the capacity for slow toil that the successful novelist requires. Hurry is a ready condenser, apt at abridgment, a lover of brevity. It is not lacking in dramatic brilliancy; and it carries with it an intensity of interest, a stir, and a magnetic thrill, which can be made of great effect. In fiction it is the charm of stories, and such is its place in our life and such its influence on our

writing that it has turned American novelists into storytellers. The story may be a work of genius, delicate and fragrant as the Bible tale of "Ruth." It may be highly artistic, fascinating, masterly, full of thought and incident. It has room for humor. Pathos may find a place in it. And of the good and sweet stories of the world not a few date from this side of the Atlantic. But the novelist sits far above the story-teller, as Homer above the minstrels who prepared his way. There are heights and depths of feeling which lie beyond the story, which only the firm far-reaching hand of the novelist can touch. Haste has brought another disadvantage in a spirit of unrest. French fiction has something of this restless element. But in France the popular energy goes into play; in America, into work. French excitement is of the gaming-table, intense, full of nervousness, emotional. American excitement, on the other hand, has a hum of machinery about it. It is ambitious, tireless in striving, physical. The restless element of the American novelist is a hurry of deeds. And the contrast of French with American life will go far to explain the real disadvantage of this unrest. A deed can stand, comparatively, alone. We can bound it with an ending and beginning. But thoughts are bound up together in a thousand delicate and difficult tanglings of association; emotions are things of slow growth and their roots intertwine. Thought life in fiction is the working of a problem, full of the keenest logic, a gradual but constant progress. So the French have written the best plots among novelists, Americans the worst. The restlessness of doing has made American novels, panoramas of adventure -full of bright life, health and activity, but lacking in logic. Many books which are not strong novels, have a kind of pleasant leisure, which more than balances the weakness of plot. They are good summer books, for shady places, for brook sides with chorus of bird songs. Their charm is their restfulness. Such books are sadly rare in American fiction. Take away Hawthorne-English in his quiet meditativeness, French in his studies of emotion, German in his simplicity and quaintness-leave out "Reveries of a

Bachelor" and "Dream Life," fancies not novels-"Hyperion" and "Kavanaugh”—a poet's note-books in novel corners and from Cooper to Howells how little can we show of genuine restfulness. Take out of the novel its resting-places of dreamy leisure, and half its grace and strength of beauty go with them.

American hurry, acting in this brevity of plot and unrest of movement, works strongest to the disadvantage of the novelist in its temptations to superficiality. Emerson who of all our thinkers gets deepest into the mysteries of the national heart, dwells often on this surface-loving phase of our people. We have seen our national haste making clumsy workmen, unskilled in the delicate art of building plots; we find it now, a teacher of carelessness, counseling roughness of finish, neglect of detail. It pushes our novelists past the necessarily slow process of tracing emotion, and of analyzing character; inciting them to narrative and description, to intensity of action, to writing diaries of deeds. Their work becomes fragmentary. They show us flashes of feeling, parts of lives. We demand a condensation of interest; and they extract for us the supreme moments of existence, neglect a scene of lesser hidden thoughts and words, forget the hundred delicate interactions of emotion and impulse, which stand in such brotherly closeness to these white-stone days. We understand another's life, much as we get the idea of phrase in Aeschylus. Read it by isolated parts, and every word may have a dozen significations. The swell of the rhythm is gone; the fine good sense is lacking; it is unintelligible. But grasp it as a whole; interpret parts by contexts; and a subtle association has magnetized a singleness of place and meaning into every word. Hawthorne almost alone. among American novelists has escaped this fatal superficialness of hurry. But Hawthorne put the thick hedges of the Old Manse between himself and the hurrying world. One of his wise lovers found in him a "physical affinity for solitude." This saved him, and he became our one great novelist, type of our best thinking, prophecy of glad future for American fiction.

Thus we find in hurry the central disadvantage of the American novelist. Many minor hindrances group themselves about it, and strongest among these is American practicality. Men respond "cui bono" to each new means of culture, and unless it can be turned to pecuniary account they dismiss it as unworthy of thought. America moves in an atmosphere of practicality-and an artist depends not a little on his atmosphere. A clear, pure, bracing, oxygenated air is as necessary in literature as in life. Hurry keeps us from elaboration of character; and the spirit of practicality comes in to eliminate the other element of artistic fiction, the delineation of emotion. Review the characters of American fiction-its heroes strong, self-contained, stout of nerve, not easily surprised into a passion, masters of face and heart. Its heroines, calm, well-poised, helpful, energetic, charming in talk, good calculaters, genuinely truthful. These people are piquant and interesting, brilliant conversationalists, good friends, but they lack earnestness. Their's are holiday loves and hates. We do not get into complete sympathy with them; for thoroughness of sympathy means trustful interchange of confidences, and they confide nothing to us of their deepest feelings. In practical America we take as our heroes beautiful statues, ingenuous automatons, curious machines. In emotional France they react the old Greek miracle. The statue lives, feels, pulses, thinks. But remember that it was not till Pygmalion fell in love with his marble that it became flesh. Had he lived in New England, been haunted by a memory of Blue Laws, breathed factory smoke, heard his music in the machine shop and his wisdom in the market, Galatea would never have stepped from the stone.

The advantages of the American novelist seldom enter very largely into a discussion of his merits. They are less obtrusive; show themselves less often in marked excellences; are crowded out by disadvantages. Their sphere is more properly the future. They live mostly in undeveloped resources, in hopes of better work; are rather suggestive than declarative, hints more than affirmations.