What an
area and rounded field, upon the whole--the spirit, arrogance, grim
tenacity of the South--the long stretches of murky gloom--the general
National Will below and behind and comprehending all--not once really
wavering, not a day, not an hour--What could be, or even can be,
grander?
As in that war, its four years--as through the whole history and
development of the New World--these States through all trials,
processes, eruptions, deepest dilemmas, (often straining, tugging at
society's heart-strings, as if some divine curiosity would find out
how much this democracy could stand,) have so far finally and for more
than a century best justified themselves by the average impalpable
quality and personality of the bulk, the People _en masse_.... I am
not sure but my main and chief however indefinite claim for any page
of mine w'd be its derivation, or seeking to derive itself, f'm that
average quality of the American bulk, the people, and getting back to
it again.
LAST SAVED ITEMS
_I'm a vast batch left to oblivion_.
In its highest aspect, and striking its grandest average, essential
Poetry expresses and goes along with essential Religion--has been and
is more the adjunct, and more serviceable to that true religion (for
of course there is a false one and plenty of it) than all the priests
and creeds and churches that now exist or have ever existed--even
while the temporary prevalent theory and practice of poetry is merely
one-side and ornamental and dainty--a love-sigh, a bit of jewelry, a
feudal conceit, an ingenious tale or intellectual _finesse_, adjusted
to the low taste and calibre that will always sufficiently generally
prevail--(ranges of stairs necessary to ascend the higher.
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