, I should say
they substantially adjust themselves to us, and, far off as they are,
accord curiously with our bed and board to-day, in New York,
Washington, Canada, Ohio, Texas, California--and with our notions,
both of seriousness and of fun, and our standards of heroism,
manliness, and even the democratic requirements--those requirements
are not only not fulfill'd in the Shaksperean productions, but are
insulted on every page.
I add that--while England is among the greatest of lands in political
freedom, or the idea of it, and in stalwart personal character,
&c.--the spirit of English literature is not great, at least is not
greatest--and its products are no models for us. With the exception of
Shakspere, there is no first-class genius in that literature--which,
with a truly vast amount of value, and of artificial beauty,
(largely from the classics,) is almost always material, sensual,
not spiritual--almost always congests, makes plethoric, not frees,
expands, dilates--is cold, anti-democratic, loves to be sluggish and
stately, and shows much of that characteristic of vulgar persons, the
dread of saying or doing something not at all improper in itself, but
unconventional, and that may be laugh'd at. In its best, the sombre
pervades it; it is moody, melancholy, and, to give it its due,
expresses, in characters and plots, those qualities, in an unrival'd
manner. Yet not as the black thunder-storms, and in great normal,
crashing passions, of the Greek dramatists--clearing the air,
refreshing afterward, bracing with power; but as in Hamlet, moping,
sick, uncertain, and leaving ever after a secret taste for the blues,
the morbid fascination, the luxury of wo.
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