of them have only a local reputation, but all possess the common
characteristic of starting from fresh, original, and loving study
of local character and manners. You know what Miss Mary E.
Wilkins has done for New England, and you probably know, too,
that she was preceded in the same path by Miss Sarah Orne Jewett
and the late Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke. Mr. Harold Frederic is
performing much the same service for rural New York, Miss Murfree
(Charles Egbert Craddock) for the mountains of Tennessee, Mr.
James Lane Allen for Kentucky, Mr. Joel Chandler Harris for
Georgia, Mr. Cable for Louisiana, Miss French (Octave Thanet) for
Iowa, Mr. Hamlin Garland for the western prairies, and so forth.
Of course, one can trace the same tendency, more or less clearly,
in English fiction...."

And Mr. Matthews went on to instance several living novelists, Scotch,
Irish, and English to support this last remark.

The matter, however, is not in doubt. With Mr. Barrie in the North,
and Mr. Hardy in the South; with Mr. Hall Caine in the Isle of Man,
Mr. Crockett in Galloway, Miss Barlow in Lisconnell; with Mr. Gilbert
Parker in the territory of the H.B.C., and Mr. Hornung in Australia;
with Mr. Kipling scouring the wide world, but returning always to
India when the time comes to him to score yet another big artistic
success; it hardly needs elaborate proof to arrive at the conclusion
that 'locality' is playing a strong part in current fiction.

The thing may possibly be overdone. Looking at it from the artistic
point of view as dispassionately as I may, I think we are overdoing
it. But that, for the moment, is not the point of view I wish to take.
If for the moment we can detach ourselves from the prejudice of