novels; but its setting
narrowed this appeal, and Hawthorne's treatment of his theme, symbolical
rather than simple and concrete, narrowed it still further. Yet with all
that, it possesses that individual charm and subtlety which is apparent,
in greater or less degree, in all of his imaginative work.

Contemporary with Hawthorne, and surviving him by a few years, was
another novelist who had, in his day, a tremendous reputation, but who
is now almost forgotten, William Gilmore Simms. We shall consider
him--for he was also a maker of verse--in the next chapter, in
connection with his fellow-townsmen, Henry Timrod and Paul Hamilton
Hayne. So we pause here only to remark that the obscurity which enfolds
him is more dense than he deserves, and that anyone who likes frontier
fiction, somewhat in the manner of Cooper, will enjoy reading "The
Yemassee," the best of Simms's books.

Hawthorne stands so far above the novelists who come after him that one
rather hesitates to mention them at all. With one, or possibly two,
exceptions, the work of none of them gives promise of permanency--so far
as can be judged, at least, in looking at work so near that it has no
perspective. Prophesying has always been a risky business, and will not
be attempted here. But, whether immortal or not, there are some five or
six novelists whose work is in some degree significant, and who deserve
at least passing study.

Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of these. Born in 1811, the daughter of
Lyman Beecher, and perhaps the most brilliant member of a brilliant
family, beginning to write while still a child, and continuing to do so
until the end of her long life, Mrs. Stowe's name is nevertheless
connected in the public mind with a single book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a
book which has probably been read by more people than any other ever
written by an American author. Mrs. Stowe had lived for some years in
Cincinnati and had visited in Kentucky, so that she had some surface
knowledge of slavery; she was, of course, by birth and breeding, an
abolitionist, and so when, early in 1851, an anti-slavery paper called
the "National Era" was started at Washington, she agreed to furnish a
"continued story."

The first chapter appeared in April, and the story ran through the year,
attracting little attention. But its publication in book form marked the
beginning of an immense popularity and an influence probably greater
than that of any other novel ever written. It cr