But here in the New
World, while _those_ we can never emulate, we have _more_ than those
to build, and far more greatly to build. (I am not sure but the day
for conventional monuments, statues, memorials, &c., has pass'd
away--and that they are henceforth superfluous and vulgar.) An
enlarg'd general superior humanity, (partly indeed resulting from
those,) we are to build. European, Asiatic greatness are in the past.
Vaster and subtler, America, combining, justifying the past, yet
works for a grander future, in living democratic forms. (Here too are
indicated the paths for our national bards.) Other times, other lands,
have had their missions--Art, War, Ecclesiasticism, Literature,
Discovery, Trade, Architecture, &c., &c.--but that grand future is the
enclosing purport of the United States.
LITTLE OR NOTHING NEW, AFTER ALL
How small were the best thoughts, poems, conclusions, except for a
certain invariable resemblance and uniform standard in the final
thoughts, theology, poems, &c., of all nations, all civilizations, all
centuries and times. Those precious legacies--accumulations! They come
to us from the far-off--from all eras, and all lands--from Egypt, and
India, and Greece, and Rome--and along through the middle and later
ages, in the grand monarchies of Europe--born under far different
institutes and conditions from ours--but out of the insight and
inspiration of the same old humanity--the same old heart and
brain--the same old countenance yearningly, pensively, looking forth.
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