The excellent journalism of Argentina has not, as yet, developed into literature of a class correspondingly high. Those who deal with the literature of a new country usually strike an apologetic note, and their main stumbling-block is the absence of originality, for it has to be admitted that the poets and romancers of the young nations are too often mere craftsmen imitating old European models. This admission has to be made in the case of Argentina, but in other respects her literature may well stand forth on its own merits; the artists are not imported but American-born, and though they may not have produced an indigenous literature, yet their creations are European with a difference. They are Spanish American, not Spanish, and those of Argentina are quite distinct in tone from those of their kinsmen on the same continent. A foreigner has considerable difficulty in dealing with the literature of a country whose publications are little studied in Europe, and apparently little information can be gathered except from the actual writers. It is, therefore, necessary to begin with Dr. Ernesto Quesada, whose _Reseñas y Criticas_ (Buenos Aires, 1893) is a mine of information. He remarks in the Preface: "In Europe the creations of the mind are kept, polished, revised, accomplished, and completed for publication very slowly and with tender care: in America we look upon writing as a mere incident, and though we may as far as possible do it with the long study and the great love of which the poet spoke, we do not boast ourselves of it, or, perhaps, keep a record. Our life draws us to action and into such strange vicissitudes that it is not possible to see what to-morrow will bring." There is, then, an amateurish air about Argentine literature; it has at present more grace than strength. The writer has been before the public for more than thirty years. "Un Invierno en Russia," a book of travel, was published in 1888, and long before that he produced a youthful work on Juvenal and Persius--an unusual subject, for Latin Americans usually look upon the study of Latin and Greek as waste of time. Dr. Quesada has also written on political and ecclesiastical subjects. In the first-mentioned book of essays he deals with the poetry, history, and jurisprudence of his native land, as well as the Latin-American Congress, the Argentine Universities, the intellectual movement in Argentina, and a number of other subjects which are exactly those upon which a thoughtful observer of a foreign country desires information.