It is not generally known, or even suspected, in this land of guileless innocence, outside “the Trade” and journalism, that a good many British authors flourish in American literature as full fledged masters of the Yellow-jacket, who are very much more famous in this country than they are at home. In fact, a crowd of English mediocrities, of no more significance in their Grub-street than the most ordinary denizen of our own Grub Street is here, are received by our critics and public as writers of the first order of merit. They flood the American newspapers and magazines from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco, until there is actually no sort of opening left to the men and women who are trying, under the most discouraging circumstances, to produce an American literature.
This is due largely to the adroit exploitation of the literary syndicates, and partly due to the apathy and timorousness of the American reading public, that is almost afraid to recognize American authors without the endorsation of the London press. And the English critics damn all American writers on principle.
But the magazine publishers are largely responsible, as they set the pace in Anglo-mania in literature; and today about the only circumstance that is peculiarly American in American periodical literature is this: the copyright law obliges the publishers to have the typography and printing done in this country. The literature is all made in Great Britain, because there is nothing interesting to write about in America and God does not allow genius to sprout here!
But a stir is beginning to be felt among the younger people in every city and state of this country, and the Young Man and the Young Woman—as entirely distinct from “The Young Person”—of contemporary America, are beginning to want to see this life here at our doors put into literature, and to read poetry and romance through eyes in sympathy with modern life. It will, therefore, be one of the principal aims of the Fly Leaf to foster and encourage this new spirit of independence and self-reliance and faith in the common life and beauty of this country. There are men and women in America who have something to say, too.
We protest that the periodicals, ostensibly appealing to Americans, should deal with the life and interests here, and should mirror American literary life and thought. How else are we to foster a literature here? The periodical world is the trial arena for the men who may be the giants of thought and poetry in a few years. But no arena, no circus; no audience, no gladiators. Poets and romancers are not produced when public apathy drives all the writers into clerking, or advertisement-writing or journalism. America is filled with literary talent, and yet a birch broom is more to be depended upon than the pen for mere bread, for the American market is monopolized by aliens.
We are devoured by a plague of locusts.
THE JEALOUS GOD.
In the gloom of the sunless November afternoon the ordinary solemnity of the old church seemed palpably increased by an atmosphere of unusual peace and mystery that gave sorrow its solace in a sense of the latent and inevitable sadness of all mortal life.
From one or two of the confessional boxes there arose a confused murmur of voices, and under one of the galleries, where the great fantastic shadows were rather increased than diminished by a flare of gaslight, a nun was drilling a bevy of demure little maidens in their catechism. And every now and again the subdued chords of the organ rose into a joyous peal and thrilled and dominated the drowsy, monotonous sibilant murmur of prayer and clear treble responses of the children. Then in the hush the muffled sounds of praying and moving women seemed to intensify the stillness that filled the dome and nave, and a sense of isolation in the midst of life crept over the spirit of one touched with the human pathos of the scene.