ks 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
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 arriv