of this book are wholly of his own choosing, and I do not know how much
or little he may have preferred the poems in literary English. Some of
these I thought very good, and even more than very good, but not
distinctively his contribution to the body of American poetry. What I
mean is that several people might have written them; but I do not know
any one else at present who could quite have written the dialect pieces.
These are divinations and reports of what passes in the hearts and minds
of a lowly people whose poetry had hitherto been inarticulately
expressed in music, but now finds, for the first time in our tongue,
literary interpretation of a very artistic completeness.

I say the event is interesting, but how important it shall be can be
determined only by Mr. Dunbar's future performance. I cannot undertake
to prophesy concerning this; but if he should do nothing more than he
has done, I should feel that he had made the strongest claim for the
negro in English literature that the negro has yet made. He has at
least produced something that, however we may critically disagree about
it, we cannot well refuse to enjoy; in more than one piece he has
produced a work of art.

W. D. HOWELLS.




INDEX OF TITLES


ABSENCE 93
ACCOUNTABILITY 5