AMERICA'S LITERATURE WITH SELECTIONS FROM COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY WRITERS BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN, PH. D. Formerly of the English Department, English High School, Worcester. COPYRIGHT, 1906 AND 1907, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED B6 The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S. A PREFACE We are so near to even the beginning of our American literature that to write its history is an especially difficult undertaking. Too little time has passed to trace influences and tendencies, perhaps even to estimate justly the value of the work whose strongest appeal is not to the present. During the last century, our world has moved so swiftly that the light has flashed now upon one writer, now upon another. Who can foretell upon which the noontide of to-morrow will shine most brilliantly? Who can say whether our realism will not seem unworthy triviality, whether the closely connected sentences of our best prose may not present the repellent formality of conscious art? In every decade many writers have come forward whose names it seems ungracious to omit. Wherever the lines are drawn, they will appear to some one an arbitrary and unreasonable barrier. A single slender volume can make no pretensions to completeness; but if this one only leads its readers to feel a friendship for the authors mentioned on its pages, and a wish to know more of them and their writings, its object will have been accomplished. A word must be said in regard to the second part of the book, the specimens of our earlier literature. Except to the fortunate student who is able to consult one of our larger historical libraries, most of these writings are inaccessible. Even if they are within reach for individual reading, it is seldom possible to put a copy of any specimen of an author's work into the hands of each pupil for class-room study and discussion. For this |