[21]
To the ostent of the senses and eyes, I know, the influences which
stamp the world's history are wars, uprisings or downfalls of
dynasties, changeful movements of trade, important inventions,
navigation, military or civil governments, advent of powerful
personalities, conquerors, etc.. These of course play their part; yet,
it may be, a single new thought, imagination, abstract principle,
even literary style, fit for the time, put in shape by some great
literatus, and projected among mankind, may duly cause changes,
growths, removals, greater than the longest and bloodiest war, or the
most stupendous merely political, dynastic, or commercial overturn.
In short, as, though it may not be realized, it is strictly true, that
a few first-class poets, philosophs, and authors, have substantially
settled and given status to the entire religion, education, law,
sociology, &c., of the hitherto civilized world, by tinging and often
creating the atmospheres out of which they have arisen, such also must
stamp, and more than ever stamp, the interior and real democratic
construction of this American continent, to-day, and days to come.
Remember also this fact of difference, that, while through the antique
and through the mediaeval ages, highest thoughts and ideals realized
themselves, and their expression made its way by other arts, as much
as, or even more than by, technical literature, (not open to the
mass of persons, or even to the majority of eminent persons,) such
literature in our day and for current purposes, is not only more
eligible than all the other arts put together, but has become the only
general means of morally influencing the world.
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