er number contained some papers that
seem to have been irritating. In one of them Mr. Howells let fall some
chance remarks on the tendency of modern fiction, without adequately
developing his theory, which were largely dissented from in this country,
and were like the uncorking of six vials in England. The other was an
essay on England, dictated by admiration for the achievements of the
foremost nation of our time, which, from the awkwardness of the eulogist,
was unfortunately the uncorking of the seventh vial--an uncorking which,
as we happen to know, so prostrated the writer that he resolved never to
attempt to praise England again. His panic was somewhat allayed by the
soothing remark in a kindly paper in Blackwood's Magazine for January,
that the writer had discussed his theme "by no means unfairly or
disrespectfully." But with a shudder he recognized what a peril he had
escaped. Great Scott!--the reference is to a local American deity who is
invoked in war, and not to the Biblical commentator--what would have
happened to him if he had spoken of England "disrespectfully"!

We gratefully acknowledge also the remark of the Blackwood writer in
regard-to the claims of America in literature. "These claims," he says,
"we have hitherto been very charitable to." How our life depends upon a
continual exhibition by the critics of this divine attribute of charity
it would perhaps be unwise in us to confess. We can at least take
courage that it exists--who does not need it in this world of
misunderstandings?--since we know that charity is not puffed up, vaunteth
not itself, hopeth all things, endureth all things, is not easily
provoked; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be
knowledge, it shall vanish; but charity never faileth. And when all our
"dialects" on both sides of the water shall vanish, and we shall speak no
more Yorkshire or Cape Cod, or London cockney or "Pike" or "Cracker"
vowel flatness, nor write them any more, but all use the noble simplicity
of the ideal English, and not indulge in such odd-sounding phrases as
this of our critic that "the combatants on both sides were by way of
detesting each other," though we speak with the tongues of men and of
angels--we shall still need charity.

It will occur to the charitable that the Americans are at a disadvantage
in this little international "tiff." For while the offenders have
inconsiderately written over their own names, the others preserve a
p