I wish some eminent psychologist and impartial student of ineradicable racial traits would calmly investigate the popular myth of an “American” literature. I valiantly insist upon the existence of literature in America, but do not see much prospect for an “American” literature. I wonder if the critics who are optimistic about an “American” literature ever stop to consider the fact that two-thirds of the people who live in this country are of different stock than ours, and different racial traditions and language. Then they are from the depth of savagery. They are illiterate and brutal, and possessed of an unconquerable phlegm that cannot tolerate such trivial, foolish things as the arts and literature. Moreover, they are utterly out of sympathy with the ideals of our race. We often speak of Europe as the home of the arts and their uplifting influences. It is true enough, of course, but here is one of the ironies of that old cradle of misery. This is only the gloss of barbarism. How many Americans remember Europe is also the home of the illiterate and utterly incurable mob of low and bestial intelligences? How many Americans, in thinking of the low ebb of intellectual life here, ever consider that a great deal of intellectual and aesthetic interest and activity in this country, among Americans of English descent, is smothered and strangled by the popular pandering to the appetites of an unassimilated mass of low intelligences, only to be reached by coarse sensationalism and vulgar prints? We are recommended to go to Europe for aesthetic training. We could get along much better with a sturdy stock of native observers, if we could only keep out the hordes of ignorant and degraded savages that flock here from every hell-hole in Europe, and then spread like a great itch throughout the country. When one looks at the great blotches of ignorant and inferior races which dot the map of the United States in different industrial sections, one wonders where and when an “American” literature or “American” anything will come in. Emigration is all right when it comes from the right quarters, but the recent social history of this country shows how it is absorbing the barbaric scum of Europe. JONATHAN PENN. DEPENDENCE. SHE. Since thou hast come, dear heart, I live no more Save in the hours when thou art by. Thy grave, Full penetrating voice and speech I crave, And all thy cares.... I wonder how before This satisfied companionship I bore The old dull days, for thou with marriage gave So much! And yet,--bear with me, dear!--My brave Heart seems defenceless now! Those days of yore Full of ambitious dreams, beyond my reach Have vanished far. O love me! since the whole Of life is narrowed down to this! and teach Me willing subjugation, as years roll,-- Be more than lost ambitions I beseech,-- My lord and husband, since thou hast my soul! HE.