If this is true of society and manners, it is still truer of literature. What can be less profitable than all this talk about a literary centre, this foolish struggle between rival cities? What we want is a literature; given that, and the centre will take care of itself. It is not even important that there should be a centre; a hundred nodal points, each sending forth its germinating and vital influence, will do just as well, and will be more befitting for a nation that includes the breadth of a continent, and may yet include its length also. What we need is to produce good books; this once done, it makes no more difference in what part of the country they are produced than in what part of a man's farm — the northeast or south-west corner-he raises those fine apples. Where there is a good author, there is the beginning of a literary centre; where MacGregor sits, there is the head of the table. We are all enriched when Miss Murfree suddenly reveals to us a new literary centre in Tennessee, or Miss Edith Thomas in Ohio, or Hubert Bancroft in San Francisco. The concentration
