AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS 



[42 



caused fewer potential men of letters to devote themselves 

 to authorship had an especially strong effect on men of ex- 

 ceptional ability. It is apparently reasonable to assume that 

 men of genius are more dependent upon their environment 

 than are others, for, as Cooley remarks : " being thinner- 

 skinned, they are more suggestible, more perturbable, and 



TABLE III 

 AMERICAN LITERATI CLASSIFIED BY SEX AND BY RANK, BY PERIOD OF BIRTH 



peculiarly in need of the right sort of surroundings to keep 

 their delicate machinery in fruitful action ". 2 Presumably 

 the best potential American authors, those endowed with 

 the finest sensibilities, were the persons whose sensitive 

 minds were most ready to give up the pursuit of letters 

 when conditions became unfavorable. Thus the fact that 

 the relative number of literati of talent began to decline 



1 For method of assignment of an individual to the rank, talent or 

 merit, see p. 31. 



2 Cooley, op. cit., p. 165. 



