Some of that sort of stuff has come from the American press of late years, more’s the pity, but it promises to be rather sporadic and accidental than a prominent feature of our literature. It resembles an outbreak of yellow fever in a Northern port--something which may get there by accident and do mischief for a little while, but which cannot effect a permanent lodgment. The mass of unclean stories which ventured into the daylight of print after the publication of Amelie Rives’ sensational novel is already beginning to disappear. When for a day or two a city chances to fall under mob law, the world seems turned upside down for the time being; but the better sense and strength of the community soon come to the rescue and the dangerous element is suppressed. A similar result is already being accomplished regarding pernicious fiction. Publishers who have hastily accepted stories which their professional readers pronounced “strong” are beginning to apologize for offering such stuff to the public. American literature will be marked by a hopeful, cheerful, clean, energetic spirit, and as such it will give our people what they cannot easily obtain from the presses of foreign countries. We have faults enough, of which mention has frequently been made in this book, but lack of respectability and of hopefulness are not among them. Our novels are cleaner than those of any other land; our history in the main is decidedly cheering and stimulating in its influence; our poetry, although perhaps not as elegant as that of Europe, has a great deal more of inspiration in it for readers, and our fiction is based upon the life of our own people, which is in the main respectable. Incidents and scenes as bad as any that the world can supply may of course be found in American life by those who choose to look for them, but they are not likely to be written up or read to any extent, except by the vulgar classes. Books about which intelligent and cultivated people on the continent will talk freely in social circles are scarcely tolerated here; some of them are reprinted, but the editions as a rule are very small. Translations of continental novels have generally failed dismally in a commercial sense in the United States. There are a few exceptions, but the rule is so distinct that no one of literary taste, ability and intelligence now wastes his time in translating foreign novels in the hope of securing American publishers. The native writer as a rule is not as skilful as his foreign brother, but he successfully tells our people of what they wish to know. He is in sympathy with their thoughts, tastes, customs and aspirations, so his stories and essays are found in all our weekly papers and magazines, while more skilful productions of foreign pens, which might be had for nothing, are generally excluded. There is no longer any question as to whether we shall have a literature of our own. We have it. It is increasing in volume more rapidly than our people can follow it.