Then still the thought returns, (like the thread-passage in
overtures,) giving the key and echo to these pages. When I pass to and
fro, different latitudes, different seasons, beholding the crowds of
the great cities, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago,
St. Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans, Baltimore--when I mix with
these interminable swarms of alert, turbulent, good-natured,
independent citizens, mechanics, clerks, young persons--at the idea
of this mass of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so proud, a
singular awe falls upon me. I feel, with dejection and amazement, that
among our geniuses and talented writers or speakers, few or none have
yet really spoken to this people, created a single image-making work
for them, or absorb'd the central spirit and the idiosyncrasies which
are theirs--and which, thus, in highest ranges, so far remain entirely
uncelebrated, unexpress'd.
Dominion strong is the body's; dominion stronger is the mind's. What
has fill'd, and fills to-day our intellect, our fancy, furnishing
the standards therein, is yet foreign. The great poems, Shakspere
included, are poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of
the common people, the life-blood of democracy. The models of our
literature, as we get it from other lands, ultra-marine, have had
their birth in courts, and bask'd and grown in castle sunshine; all
smells of princes' favors. Of workers of a certain sort, we have,
indeed, plenty, contributing after their kind; many elegant, many
learn'd, all complacent.
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