Our critics have justly complained, however, of the limited range of our novelists. They are timid. They are content to paint a small canvas. They do not rise to great conceptions. They do not probe life to its depths; neither do they rise to the height of all its grandeur. This is, of course, only another way of saying that we have no supremely great novelists. But doubtless the mediocrity of our fiction is partly due to the disastrous effect of commercialism and professionalism on the novelist’s trade; though Mr. Whibley’s account of this (_Blackwood’s_, March, 1908) is exaggerated. Certainly our writers must be less eager for immediate and substantial rewards. _Poeta nascitur, non fit_; too many “made” writers are pouring out fiction to-day. Our fiction possesses one characteristic which has often been commented upon--a general excellence of moral atmosphere. There is little American fiction that must be kept from the curious Young Person. Some critics allege that the obligation to write what anyone may be permitted to read has prevented American novelists from discussing those darker problems of sex-relations which confront us, and which should find expression in a literature adequately reflecting our intellectual and moral life; that missing any rigorous attack on these problems they find our fiction tame, insipid, wanting in vitality. But such an opinion carries with it its own condemnation. If our fiction lacks vitality, it is probably from other causes; at any rate Americans are generally content to leave matters of moral pathology to their moral surgeons, whose diagnoses and discussions are not expected to circulate promiscuously; and it is not likely that our novelists will consent to defile their pages for the sake of securing comprehensiveness in their pictures of life. The short story has been brought by American writers to a high degree of perfection. Irving was its American father; and in the hands of Hawthorne, Poe, Fitz-James O’Brien, Edward Everett Hale, Miss Woolson, Brander Matthews, Miss Jewett, Stockton, Page, Mark Twain, Mrs. Freeman, and many others, it has become a highly flexible instrument, capable of subtle adaptations. The limitations of range and environment have made for great delicacy and precision in the minute portraits and the _genres_ to be found in large numbers throughout our short stories. Yet notwithstanding the increase in the number and the advance in quality of our short stories, the novel continues as popular as ever. The immense vogue of the novel in America has been commented upon many times. The “best sellers” are almost always novels; and so many novels of more than average excellence are produced every year that many really superior stories do not get the immediate hearing, at least, which they deserve. That this demand for novels will continue unabated for some time is altogether likely. That another form of literature will soon take its place is quite improbable.