historical pictures, and will be honoured as the most useful
stuff of their kind in being."

Let me add that the movement has begun. These books are already
supplying the club-novelist with his open-air effects: and, therefore,
the club-novelist worships them. From them he gathers that "wild
apple-trees, too, are not uncommon in the hedges," and straightway he
informs the public of this wonder. But it is hard on the poor
countryman who, for the benefit of a street-bred reading public, must
cram his books with solemn recitals of his A, B, C, and impressive
announcements that two and two make four and a hedge-sparrow's egg is
blue.

* * * * *

Aug. 18, 1894. A Defence of "Local Fiction."

Under the title "Three Years of American Copyright" the _Daily
Chronicle_ last Tuesday published an account of an interview with Mr.
Brander Matthews, who holds (among many titles to distinction) the
Professorship of Literature in Columbia College, New York. Mr.
Matthews is always worth listening to, and has the knack of speaking
without offensiveness even when chastising us Britons for our national
peculiarities. His conversation with the _Daily Chronicle's_
interviewer contained a number of good things; but for the moment I am
occupied with his answer to the question "What form of literature
should you say is at present in the ascendant in the United States?"
"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Matthews, "what I may call local fiction."

"Every district of the country is finding its 'sacred poet.' Some