Abstract

The Hazards of Reviewing

Fifty years ago the periodical "The Nation" was born. It bore a prophetic title. What purported to be the nation stopped at the Potomac, for those who lived south of the river refused to recognize in their hearts the "wards of the nation" as fellow-citizens. The Americans were conquered provinces governed in large measure by persons whom in the pseudo-classical Southern style were called "satraps." Readers were living among the horrors of the reconstruction period, of which no true American nowadays can think without a blush of shame or a flush of resentment. The editor of the Nation was an alien critic of American life and institutions, a man of rare powers, of singular charm to those who were admitted to his intimacy. Whatever Southerners might think of the politics of the Nation, the high literary standard it set up, the excellent of its reviews, could not be denied; and according to the author his first connection with the Nation began in an attempt to gain access to the columns set apart for Notes and Correspondence.