We see our land, America, her literature, esthetics, &c., as,
substantially, the getting in form, or effusement and statement, of
deepest basic elements and loftiest final meanings, of history and
man--and the portrayal, (under the eternal laws and conditions of
beauty,) of our own physiognomy, the subjective tie and expression of
the objective, as from our own combination, continuation, and points
of view--and the deposit and record of the national mentality,
character, appeals, heroism, wars, and even liberties--where these,
and all, culminate in native literary and artistic formulation, to be
perpetuated; and not having which native, first-class formulation,
she will flounder about, and her other, however imposing, eminent
greatness, prove merely a passing gleam; but truly having which, she
will understand herself, live nobly, nobly contribute, emanate, and,
swinging, poised safely on herself, illumin'd and illuming, become
a full-form'd world, and divine Mother not only of material but
spiritual worlds, in ceaseless succession through time--the main thing
being the average, the bodily, the concrete, the democratic, the
popular, on which all the superstructures of the future are to
permanently rest.
Notes:
[20] "From a territorial area of less than nine hundred thousand
square miles, the Union has expanded into over four millions and a
half--fifteen times larger than that of Great Britain and France
combined--with a shore-line, including Alaska, equal to the entire
circumference of the earth, and with a domain within these lines far
wider than that of the Romans in their proudest days of conquest and
renown.
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