this Western half of the planet, and should enter into vain and
unpatriotic competition with foreign writers on their own ground. The
truth is, meanwhile, that it would have been a much surer sign of
affectation in us to have abstained from literary comment upon the patent
and notable fact of this international _rapprochement_,--which is just as
characteristic an American trait as the episode of the Argonauts of 1849,
--and we have every reason to be grateful to Mr. Henry James, and to his
school, if he has any, for having rescued us from the opprobrium of so
foolish a piece of know-nothingism. The phase is, of course, merely
temporary; its interest and significance will presently be exhausted; but,
because we are American, are we to import no French cakes and English ale?
As a matter of fact, we are too timid and self-conscious; and these
infirmities imply a much more serious obstacle to the formation of a
characteristic literature than does any amount of gadding abroad.

That must be a very shallow literature which depends for its national
flavor and character upon its topography and its dialect; and the
criticism which can conceive of no deeper Americanism than this is
shallower still. What is an American book? It is a book written by an
American, and by one who writes as an American; that is, unaffectedly. So
an English book is a book written by an unaffected Englishman. What
difference can it make what the subject of the writing is? Mr. Henry James
lately brought out a volume of essays on "French Poets and Novelists." Mr.
E. C. Stedman recently published a series of monographs on "The Victorian
Poets." Are these books French and English, or are they nondescript, or
are they American? Not only are they American, but they are more
essentially American than if they had been disquisitions upon American
literature. And the reason is, of course, that they subject the things of
the old world to the tests of the new, and thereby vindicate and
illustrate the characteristic mission of America to mankind. We are here