mealy-mouthed and hypocritical; but it is a
ground of very solid satisfaction, be the cause what it may, that
recent American literature has been so free from the emasculate
_fin-de-siecle-ism_, the nauseating pseudo-realism, the epigrammatic
hysteria, that has of late been so rife in certain British circles.
Moreover, it is impossible to believe that any really strong talent
could have been stifled by the frown of the magazine editor. Walt
Whitman made his mark without that potentate's assistance; and if
America had produced a Zola, he would certainly have come to the
front, even if his genius had been hampered with a burden of more than
Zolaesque filth.

It is undoubtedly to the predominance of the magazine, among other
causes, that are due the prevalence and perfection of the American
short story. It has often been remarked that French literature alone
is superior in this _genre_; and many of the best American productions
of the kind can scarcely be called second even to the French in
daintiness of phrase, sureness of touch, sense of proportion, and
skilful condensation of interest. Excellent examples of the short
story have been common in American literature from the times of
Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe down to the present day. Mr. Henry James,
perhaps, stands at the head of living writers in this branch. Miss
Mary E. Wilkins is inimitable in her sketches of New England, the
pathos, as well as the humour of which she touches with a master hand.
It is interesting to note that, foreign as her subject would seem to
be to the French taste, her literary skill has been duly recognised by
the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Bret Harte and Frank Stockton are so
eminently short-story writers that the longer their stories become,
the nearer do they approach the brink of failure. Other names that
suggest themselves in a list that might be indefinitely extended are
those of Miss Jewett, Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps Ward, Mr. Richard Harding
Davis, Mr. T.B. Aldrich, Mr. Thos. Nelson Page, Mr. Owen Wister, Mr.
Hamlin Garland, Mr. G.W. Cable, and (in a lighter vein) Mr. H.C.
Bunner.

This chapter may fitly close with a straw of startling literary
contrast, that seems to me alone almost enough to bring American
literature under the rubric of this volume's title. If a critic
familiar only with the work chiefly associated with the author's name
were asked to indicate the source of the following quotations, I
should be surprised if he were to gu