"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man; and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London, because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were alive." "That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park to-morrow." "To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in America may get a chance." "But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was sitting near me. "All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women, have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the power God has given them--worked it out, too, with not half the recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea." "Why, Phœmie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know that you are talking like a book?" "It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it," says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and we mean to keep so." "Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors who have been living over his plays years and years--Booth, Wallack, Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.