Longfellow, Mr. Whittier. They
are names which are well known--almost as well known and as much
honor'd in England as in America; and yet what must we say in the end?
The American people outside this assemblage of writers is something
vaster and greater than they, singly or together, can comprehend. It
cannot be said of any or all of them that they can speak for their
nation. We who look on at this distance are able perhaps on that
account to see the more clearly that there are qualities of the
American people which find no representation, no voice, among these
their spokesmen. And what is true of them is true of the English class
of whom Mr. Froude may be said to be the ambassador. Mr. Froude is
master of a charming style. He has the gift of grace and the gift of
sympathy. Taking any single character as the subject of his study, he
may succeed after a very short time in so comprehending its workings
as to be able to present a living figure to the intelligence and
memory of his readers. But the movements of a nation, the, _voiceless
purpose of a people which cannot put its own thoughts into words, yet
acts upon them in each successive generation_--these things do not lie
within his grasp.... The functions of literature such as he represents
are limited in their action; the influence he can wield is artificial
and restricted, and, while he and his hearers please and are pleas'd
with pleasant periods, his great mass of national life will flow
around them unmov'd in its tides by action as powerless as that of the
dwellers by the shore to direct the currents of the ocean.
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