American Fiction

It seems as if American readers must be tired by this time of the ordinary Euglish society novel, procurable in any quantity at a cheap rate. It lias to do with a form of social life more conventional tkan our om, with scenery less grand and attractive, with personalities more f eebly individualized, and with events and incidente as much less interesting than tliose of American life as the conditions of English life are moro artüicial than our. Men may talk as they clioose, or as they believe, abont age as being necessary to tlie ereation of an atmosphere of romance. We do not agree with them. A child's age of romance is its own chüdhood. Tho life it Uves, and the things it sees aboiit it, form its romantic realm ; and the childhood of a nation is peculiarly its romantic age, not only to the age which succeeds it, but to itaelf. Thora is nothing more intercsting to an American than a good story, either of his own time or of the time which has.hardly retired from his