But with what a deeply reminiscent smile Miss Glasgow must view the statement that in 1925 realism crossed the Potomac. With what amusement she must regard my apparent derivation of her Dorinda's tune from the tune of Mr. Lewis's Carol. Miss Glasgow is only a young woman of fifty. She has the keenest interest in young people who are "running toward life." But so far as her main literary ideas are concerned, I suppose she has not been influenced by Mr. Lewis much more than General Robert E. Lee was influenced by General Pershing. She was a realist when some of our popular exponents of realism were in the cradle. She preceded into the field Mrs. Wharton, who is twelve years older, and Mr. Dreiser, who is three years older. Her first novel, "The Descendant," was published in 1897, and there have been fifteen since. Her democratic fighting realism is already incarnate in the little red-haired hero of "The Voice of the People," 1900. Realism crossed the Potomac twenty-five years ago, going north!
Presently I hope we shall have a collected edition of Miss Glasgow's work, not monumental, for filling proud, idle, decorative bookshelves, but an edition supple and gracious to the hand, for reading—something in the style, perhaps, of those affable blue leather volumes in which her publishers used to give us Joseph Conrad. For this edition I would humbly petition the author to attempt a revision looking toward a twenty per cent. reduction in bulk, out of a tender regard for the brevity of man's life and the artistic satisfaction of going through some passages of it swiftly—indicating rather than exhausting their interest. But, revised or unrevised, I should welcome such an edition, and whenever any Anglomaniac challenged me to
