Daily Kennebec journal., 1903-08-22


literature, there seems to be room for
the work eprspared by, Professor Will
lam p. frsH .of Columbia University
upon that sabjeSassSIt is published by
ID. Appleton e Company, and is the
latest in their series of short Histories
of the Iiteratures of the World edited
by Edmund Gosse. Unlike Moses Colt
Tyler, Charles f. Richardson and
Barrett WendelI,--his predecessors in
the same line-Professor Trent is con-
tent to make his history merely an out
line account of literature in America,
from the year 1907 to the year 1865. and
he succeeds very we'll in presenting the
checkered course of American author
ship through two centuries and "A half
of its existence. In common with his
predecessors, he divides his work into
Il series CT more or less artificial epochs
beginning with the Colonial period, and
coming down to the sectional period of
1S30-1S65, through the Revolutionary
and formative periods. AS is custom
ary with historians of American liter
ature, Professor Trent is persistently
apologetc in his attitude, never hesi-
tating wherever opportunity offers to
proclaim his opinion that American
authorship has attained but meagre re-
suits, and making an especial point
that the writer's of the North have from
the very beginning, been given a great
er prominence than is their just dessert.
In view of the fact that Professor
Trent is a native of Virginia, this atti-
tude is easily eXplainable. Holmes
and Lowell" he says, 'are no filter
subject for the historian and critic as
opposed to the appreciation than Tenny-
son and Browning are. Yet, as every
one knows the task Of assigning the
British poets their relatively proper
places in their country's literature, is
| one that must in the main be left to
| later generations. Nearly half the
| present volume, then, is not and cannot
| be a history of literature in the strict
est sense Of the term. | must of course,
ask the readers kind indulgence for the
whole undertaking, as amy man must,
| do W no tries to compress into Il volume
the story of even a young nations
| literary achievements; but | must ask
| his special indulgence for those pages
dealing with those writer's, who but the
| day. We're receiving in the II, Sh our love
| and praise
| AS. might be expected, Professor
| Trent has not 4 little TO say concerning
| the literary, theological ana social as
poets Of New England life comprised in
| the Unitarian and trHnscendental
| movements. To these subjects he de
votes over sixty pages of his work, dis
cussng them all from a point of View
I
| passionate. "Ncw England was essen
| TALLY conservative" he says, las she
| proved by adhcring to The Federulsts
| under Hamilton and by looking upon
| he defeat of John Adams by jefferson
| as Il second Fall of Man. In matters OF
| Church and State, of socia! classes, of
| in lustries and modes of life, the erst-
while Puritan commemorative were
| English in their warp and WOof. They
! formed an outlying section, and at
| tractcd few immigrants in comparison
, With the immigrants they sent out. Al
though JefferSuuian Democracy made
some neadWaY among them, the New
EnGlanders Wcrr in the main, cut off
from political power during the admin
, istration Of the Nirgimian Presidents.
At the inception of the period to which
we are now come. the effort to cstab-
lish II genuine creative literature unites
with certain cOtItcmporAneouS efforts to
Spiritualize and libcralize still further
an already liberal theology, and we
have as results the greatest spiritual
movement and the greatest body of
literature yet produced in American
history These, il is almost needless tD
say. are the So-called transcendcntaI
movement, synchronous with and
finally merging into the political move
ment for the abolition of slavery. and
what may perhaps be most adequately
termed the Literature of the New Eng
of this movement or of this
literature need be expected until
the lapse of at least two ad-
ditional generations affords the want
age ground necessary for impartial
study; yet to deal with the chief New
England writer's without inquiring at
some length into the conditions under
which they did their work would be
manifestiy futile"
Lillian Bells new book, like her
earlier story of '"rhc EXpatriates," car
rieS a large sized chip ON it's shoulder,
only in THIS case the challenge is ex-
tended not to the French but to the