Countess of Morley, Lady Charlotte Bury, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Gore, Lady
Blessington.]



VI.

James Fenimore Cooper said in regard to the materials for American
fiction: "There is a familiarity of the subject, a scarcity of events,
and a poverty in the accompaniments that drive an author from the
undertaking in despair." But the truth of this statement has been
greatly modified, if not quite refuted, by the work of that great
novelist and of several others who have succeeded him. It is true that
American life presents less salient characteristics than that of
Europe; that class distinctions are less marked; and that the energies
of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian
objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and
evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally
interesting under whatever circumstances it may be placed. The vast
extent of American territory and the infinite variety of its
inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost
untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all,
the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of
thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The
visitor to Washington cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men
who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England
farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder
or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a
stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly
interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast