SOURCE: "Roosevelt as Man of Letters," in Four Americans: Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman, Yale University Press, 1919, pp. 7-31.

In the following essay, Beers praises Roosevelt for his ability to translate his experiences as a man of action into a body of literary works.

In a club corner, just after Roosevelt's death, the question was asked whether his memory would not fade away, when the living man, with his vivid personality, had gone. But no: that personality had stamped itself too deeply on the mind of his generation to be forgotten. Too many observers have recorded their impressions; and already a dozen biographies and memoirs have appeared. Besides, he is his own recorder. He published twenty-six books, a catalogue of which any professional author might be proud; and a really wonderful feat when it is remembered that he wrote them in the intervals of an active public career as...