literature—­the noblest monument of our common civilization—­that the writer objected to as a standard of our performances.  The standard objected to is the narrow insular one (the term “insular” is used purely as a geographical one) that measures life, social conditions, feeling, temperament, and national idiosyncrasies expressed in our literature by certain fixed notions prevalent in England.  Probably also the expression of national peculiarities would diverge somewhat from the “old standards.”  All we thought of asking was that allowance should be made for this expression and these peculiarities, as it would be made in case of other literatures and peoples.  It might have occurred to our critics, we used to think, to ask themselves whether the English literature is not elastic enough to permit the play of forces in it which are foreign to their experience.  Genuine literature is the expression, we take it, of life-and truth to that is the standard of its success.  Reference was intended to this, and not to the common canons of literary art.  But we have given up the expectation that the English critic “of a certain school” will take this view of it, and this is the plain reason—­not intended to be offensive—­why much of the English criticism has ceased to be highly valued in this country, and why it has ceased to annoy.  At the same time, it ought to be added, English opinion, when it is seen to be based upon knowledge, is as highly respected as ever.  And nobody in America, so far as we know, entertains, or ever entertained, the idea of setting aside as standards the master-minds in British literature.  In regard to the “inability to understand,” we can, perhaps, make ourselves more clearly understood, for the Blackwood’s reviewer has kindly furnished us an illustration in this very paper, when he passes in patronizing review the novels of Mr. Howells.  In discussing the character of Lydia Blood, in “The Lady of the Aroostook,” he is exceedingly puzzled by the fact that a girl from rural New England, brought up amid surroundings homely in the extreme, should have been considered a lady.  He says: 

“The really ‘American thing’ in it is, we think, quite undiscovered either by the author or his heroes, and that is the curious confusion of classes which attributes to a girl brought up on the humblest level all the prejudices and necessities of the highest society.  Granting that there was anything dreadful in it, the daughter of a homely small farmer in England is not guarded and accompanied like a young lady on her journeys from one place to another.  Probably her mother at home would be disturbed, like Lydia’s aunt, at the thought that there was no woman on board, in case her child should be ill or lonely; but, as for any impropriety, would never think twice on that subject.  The difference is that the English girl would not be a young lady.  She would find her sweetheart among the sailors, and would have nothing to say to the gentlemen.  This difference