ransition period--all the
symptoms that might be expected from the extraordinary mixture of the
old and the new, the childlike and the knowing, the past and the
present, in this Land of Contrasts. The startling difference between
the best and the worst writers is often reflected in different works
by the same author; or a real and strong natural talent for writing
will be found conjoined with an extraordinary lack of education and
training. An excellent piece of English--pithy, forcible, and even
elegant--will often shatter on some simple grammatical reef, such as
the use of "as" for "that" ("he did not know as he could"), or of the
plural for the singular ("a long ways off"). Mr. James Lane Allen, the
author of a series of refined and delicately worded romances, can
write such phrases as "In a voice neither could scarce hear" and
"Shake hands with me and _tell_ me good-by." ("The Choir Invisible,"
pp. 222, 297.)

I know not whether the phrase "was graduated," applied not to a
vernier, but to a student, be legitimate or not; it is certainly so
used by the best American writers. Another common American idiom that
sounds queer to British ears is, "The minutes were ordered printed"
(for "to be printed"). Misquotations and misuse of foreign phrases are
terribly rife; and even so spirited and entertaining a writer as Miss
F.C. Baylor will write: "This Jenny, with the _esprit de l'escalier_
of her sex, had at once divined and resented" ("On Both Sides," p.
26). In the same way one is constantly appalled in conversation by
hearing college graduates say "acrost" for "across" and making other
"bad breaks" which in England could not be conjoined with an equal
amount of culture and education.

The extreme fastidiousness and delicacy of the leading American
writers, as above referred to, may be to a large extent accounted for
by an inevitable reaction against the general tendency to the careless
and the slipshod, and is thus in its way as significant and natural a
result of existing conditions as any other feature of American
literature. Perhaps a secondary cause of this type of writing may be
looked for in the fact that so far the spirit of New England has
dominated American literature. Even those writers of the South and
West who are freshest in their material and vehicle are still
permeated by the tone, the temper, the method, the ideals, of the New
England school. And certainly Allibone's dictionary of authors shows
that an