New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-02-03
AMERICAN LITERATURE.
THE sTEDMAN-HUTCHINsoN LIBRARY.

ENT TIME. Compiled and edited by Edmund
Clarence stedman ana Ellen nacha W, si" WIN ~
and X. New.York: Charles L. Webster a Co.
II is a great cairn that Mr.. Stedman and MISS
Hutchinson have compiled a very monument that
they have edited. With this difference from
most monuments, that the stone rejected py inc
builders incidentally exceeds in mass even the
great pyramid that rises before your eyes for a
treasure-house and an abiding-pace of the en-
balmed kings of letters. 1t must be remembered
that every one of these same blocks laid aside as
too large or too small too light or too heavy, or
in shape too odd for fitting into the Pile, has
had to be weighed, measured and handled at
least equally with the chosen. Then one may
begin yet only just begin, TO appreciate the mag
nitude of the task The reader may take up any
writer with whom he is on easy and familiar
terms: may glance first at the selections; then
consider the reflections; then multiply by the
number of authors in the volume before him,
and the volumes by eleven, and he will no longer
think the case overstatcd. Still TO be reckoned
with remain the scores and hundreds of writer's
whose works fill the libraries TO overflow, yet Tor
whom, for reason or another, no meme coulu
be allotted in the temple
In the earlier volumes, especially in the ear
lest, the main difficulty was evidently the oppo-
site of this. There the compilers had 10 con-
front not so much the embarrassment OF choice
as the labor of discovery. instead OF culiihg
from an overgrOwn and unfenced garden, mere
forced and there neglected, they had al iirst 10
delve in q random seedbed In search OF some
specimen that had continued to survive strange
soil and a hayward climate Accordingly, IN the
first volumes, theology. memoirs, diaries, CORE
spondence. official documents judicial: WRITINGS,
forensics and polemics arc largely represented
Gradually these grave and primitive forms dwln-
die and then disappear yielding place to the higher
and more modern forms; TO history, criticism ana
the flowing tide of the literature of the imagination
Rapidly as the Of the nation has extended It's
nonulation has increased even more rapidly, and
faSter still beyond anything before known In the
history of letters have grown the volume and
variety of its literature. Thus 1t is that as
this library" draws near completion we find the
pcriods of time covered by the successive volumes
growing shorter, the number of writers repre-
scnted always increasing, and the selections from
their writings becoming more and more brief
Unseen vet easily obvious to The slightest re-
Fiction the labor of rejection has grown heavier
while the difficulty Of rejection or of selection,
has. of course been daily increasing with the loss
of that sense Of perspective that nothing save
distance can give. Yet more remarkable than
all are the combined courage. skill fidelity ana
above all the delicate touch with which this
really stupendous work has been taken in hand
and mastered. This once seen-and the slightest
examination sufices TO disclose it-all question
as to the need use of the work is instantly
resolved. The wonder is how this was ever
for a moment doubted
The editors have not undertaken TO crltlcise
vet for the most part, their selections are III
themselves a sort of criticism and criticism OF
most useful sort, akin indeed to that process
of selection, rude seemingly, and hayward as the
wind wet more exact than the finest clockworK
ever made by the hand of man, whereby on all
the beaches of the sea the unerring sieve of
nature Sits the fine sand from the coarse, ana
separates as by hair lines the gravel from the
cobbles In the plan of the work. the editors
have clearly formed and kept in view the pur-
nose of giving us not merely the best selections
not representative fragments only, nor even those
hest representative of the writers and the itera-
ture of the several periods, but always the repre-
sentative best And this constitutes one of the chef
claims but not the greatest nor the only clalm
NJ their work to an assured and permanent sue
cess commensurate with the toll and care bestowed
on it,
The eighth volume covers the period from 1885
10 1861 when the nation had recovered from
the effects of the long season of exhaustion that
naturally followed the thrOes of independence and
the weary toll that attended the hard struggle
of youth. Volumes TX and begin with the
great War for the Union and bear witness Of its
results Colonial dependence has become his
torical stage: the chill and fervor of the forma-
tive period are outgrown, and American liter
AZURE, like America, stands alone lis own
ground equipped and ready for its own work. The
past is not forgotten, its influence is not lost,
its traces are not obliterated; but originality be-
gins to show itself, as in all art and all liter
allure it does and has DONE not by the desire,
still less by the effort, to be original, but by
working faithfully in it's own surroundings. That
these are now enough, the best selections album
dainty prove, just as the worst point clearly
the path through the low-lying quagmire that had
better be avoided.
Besides enabling one TO study and compare the
representative best of a host Of writer's in all
departments of American literature, these vol
umes perform another useful service, whose mod
esty at first blush avoids suggesting itself. This
is the preservation in permanent and accessible
form Of fugitive pieces of real value that might
otherwise perish. Chief of these-tO choose at
random-one might name Bronson Towards ad-
n.irable paper, read to the Shakespeare Club at
Harvard. on the Art of Dramatic Construction"
II may well be doubtful if anything more in
structive-in its kind-has been written since
Hamlet told what he thought to the Danish
players.
Another if lesser, point TO be admired in the
makeup of these volumes is seen in the titles
riven by the editors to their selections wherever,
from the nature of the case, the author has pro-
vided none, OF for some reason, such as duplca-
ton. the authors heading happened not to answer
Many Of these gems; some are deftly cut and
lovingly polished gems Often, too, they are
valuable as criticisms; Of a sub-acute sort IN
deed, but none the less to be valued for that
Finally. it may be said of the reader or stu
dent OF this Library" what the autocrat syly
observed of the talking friend whom he had cum
ningly detected in the act Of retailing assorted
information, under A TO Alp from a new encyco-