ee, he seems most certain of a lasting
reputation.

Others of less importance have made some special corner of the country
theirs, and possess a sort of squatter-right over it. To Bret Harte
belongs mid-century California; to Mary Noailles Murfree, the Tennessee
mountains; to James Lane Allen and John Fox, present-day Kentucky; to
Mary Johnston, colonial Virginia; to Ellen Glasgow, present-day
Virginia; to Stewart Edward White, the great northwest. Others cultivate
a field peculiar to themselves. Frank R. Stockton is whimsically
humorous, Edith Wharton cynically dissective; Mary Wilkins Freeman is
most at home with rural New England character; and Thomas Nelson Page
has done his best work in the South of reconstruction days.

But of the great mass of fiction being written in America to-day, little
is of value as literature. It is designed for the most part as an
amusing occupation for idle hours. Read some of it, by all means, if you
enjoy it, since "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"; but
remember that it is only the sweetmeat that comes at the end of the
meal, and for sustenance, for the bread and butter of the literary diet,
you must read the older books that are worth while.

* * * * *

It may be questioned whether America has produced any poet or novelist
or essayist of the very first rank, but, in another branch of letters,
four names appear, which stand as high as any on the scroll. The writing
of history is not, of course, pure literature; it is semi-creative
rather than creative; and yet, at its best, it demands a high degree of
imaginative insight. It appears at its best in the works of Prescott,
Motley, Bancroft and Parkman.

George Bancroft was, of this quartette, the most widely known half a
century ago, because he chose as his theme the history of America, and
because he was himself for many years prominent in the political life of
the country. Born in Massachusetts in 1800, graduating from Harvard,
and, after a course of study in Germany, resolving to be a historian, he
returned to America and began work on his history, the first volume of
which appeared in 1834. Three years later, came the second volume, and
in 1840, the third.

Glowing with national spirit as they did, they attracted public
attention to him, and he was soon drawn into politics. During the next
twelve years he held several government positions, among them Secretary
of the Navy and Minister t