never visited Pittsburgh
and the author did not and does not know his name. "How about Boston?"
asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not now," he
answered. Then I, in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him why
he spoke thus of Pittsburgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from
Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual things has
come to me from that city than from any other place in America." But
that may have been his dinner or the cigar.

Literature I once attempted to define as the written record of thought
and action. If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers
have substantially enriched the field of literature in every department,
and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. As we begin our
survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production
is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let
Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty
air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the classic steed
with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal
paths. This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and it
would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task for me to appraise the
literary value of that work with any great degree of detail. The
occasion will hardly permit more than a list of names and titles; and
while pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is possible
that some books may have been overlooked, but truly by inadvertence
only.

VIII

Perhaps the most important piece of literature from a local pen is
Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of Napoleon." This is a painstaking
and authoritative record of the great Frenchman who conquered everybody
but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chancellor of the University
of Pittsburgh, now director of the Carnegie Museum, has given to the
field of popular science "The Butterfly Book"--an author who knows every
butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant
Democracy" presents masses of statistics with such lightness of touch as
to make them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An American
Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the World" present the vivid
impressions of a keen traveler. His "Life of James Watt" conveys a
sympathetic portraiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gospel
of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursiveness,