Rude and coarse nursing-beds, these; but only from such
beginnings and stocks, indigenous here, may haply arrive, be grafted,
and sprout, in time, flowers of genuine American aroma, and fruits
truly and fully our own.
I say it were a standing disgrace to these States--I say it were a
disgrace to any nation, distinguish'd above others by the variety and
vastness of its territories, its materials, its inventive activity,
and the splendid practicality of its people, not to rise and soar
above others also in its original styles in literature and art, and
its own supply of intellectual and esthetic masterpieces, archetypal,
and consistent with itself. I know not a land except ours that has
not, to some extent, however small, made its title clear. The Scotch
have their born ballads, subtly expressing their past and present, and
expressing character. The Irish have theirs. England, Italy, France,
Spain, theirs. What has America? With exhaustless mines of the richest
ore of epic, lyric, tale, tune, picture, etc., in the Four Years' War;
with, indeed, I sometimes think, the richest masses of material ever
afforded a nation, more variegated, and on a larger scale--the first
sign of proportionate, native, imaginative Soul, and first-class works
to match, is, (I cannot too often repeat,) so far wanting.
Long ere the second centennial arrives, there will be some forty to
fifty great States, among them Canada and Cuba. When the present
century closes, our population will be sixty or seventy millions.
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