of
Europe; that class distinctions are less marked; and that the energies
of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian
objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and
evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally
interesting under whatever circumstances it may be placed. The vast
extent of American territory and the infinite variety of its
inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost
untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all,
the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of
thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The
visitor to Washington cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men
who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England
farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder
or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a
stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly
interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast
aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American
traditions and institutions, the extent and richness of its literary
material have been made manifest.

The earliest examples of fiction in the United States were tentative
and lacking in originality. At the close of the eighteenth century,
Charles Brockden Brown began the career of the first American novelist
with "Wieland." His pecuniary necessities and the slight encouragement
offered at that time to American authors made it impossible for him to
afford the time and care essential to artistic finish. His novels are
of an imaginative and psychological character, often interesting in
parts from the intense mental excitement which they describe. They were
much admired by the English novelist Godwin, whose works they resemble
in intensity of conception and faultiness of execution. A novel called
"Charlotte Temple," by Susanna Rowson, obtained a wide circulation in
the beginning of the present century, due much more to its foundation
on a notorious scandal than to its own literary merit. "Modern
Chivalry; or the Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O'Reagan,
his Servant"--a poor imitation of "Don Quixote"--as a satire directed
against the Democratic party by H.H. Brackenridge. R.H. Dana's "Tom
Thornton" and "Paul Felton" have little claim to attention beyond the
excitement of their rather sensa