racy in the literary sphere is exactly analogous to
its course in the political sphere. In both there is the same tendency
to go too far, to overturn the good and legitimate authority as well
as the bad and oppressive; both are apt, to use the homely German
proverb, "to throw the baby out of the bath along with the dirty
water." This lack of discrimination leads to the rushing in of fools
where angels might well fear to tread. All sorts of men try to write
books, and all sorts of men think they are able to judge them. The old
standard of authority is overthrown, and for a time no other takes its
place with the great mass of the reading public. This state of affairs
is, however, by no means one that need make us despair of the literary
future of America. It reminds me of the mental condition of a kindly
American tourist who once called at our office in Leipsic to give us
the benefit of the corrections he had made on "Baedeker's Handbooks"
during his peregrination of Europe. "Here," he said, "is one error
which I am absolutely sure of: you call this a statue of Minerva; but
I know that's wrong, because I saw _Pallas_ carved on the pedestal!"
When I told this tale to English friends, they saw in it nothing but a
proof of the colossal ignorance of the travelling American. To my
mind, however, it redounded more to the credit of America than to its
discredit. It showed that Americans of defective education felt the
need of culture and spared no pains to procure it. A London tradesman
with the education of my American friend would probably never extend
his ideas of travelling beyond Margate, or at most a week's excursion
to "Parry." But this indefatigable tourist had visited all the chief
galleries of Europe, and had doubtless greatly improved his taste in
art and educated his sense of the refined and beautiful, even though
his book-learning had not taught him that the same goddess might have
two different names.

The application of this anecdote to the present condition of American
literature is obvious. The great fact is that there is an enormous
crowd of readers, and the great hope is that they will eventually work
their way up through Miss Laura Jean Libbey to heights of purer air.
America has not so much degraded a previously existing literary palate
as given a taste of some sort to those who under old-world conditions
might never have come to it. In American literature as in American
life we find all the phenomena of a t