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- 1421
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- old, and perhaps older than Asia, only those sagacious philosophers,
the common sailors, had never seen it before, swearing it was all water
and moonshine there.
Now I do not say that Nathaniel of Salem is a greater man than William
of Avon, or as great. But the difference between the two men is by no
means immeasurable. Not a very great deal more, and Nathaniel were
verily William.
This, too, I mean, that if Shakspeare has not been equalled, give the
world time, and he is sure to be surpassed in one hemisphere or the
other. Nor will it at all do to say that the world is getting grey and
grizzled now, and has lost that fresh charm which she wore of old, and
by virtue of which the great poets of past times made themselves what
we esteem them to be. Not so. The world is as young to-day as when it
was created; and this Vermont morning dew is as wet to my feet, as
Eden's dew to Adam's. Nor has nature been all over ransacked by our
progenitors, so that no new charms and mysteries remain for this latter
generation to find. Far from it. The trillionth part has not yet been
said; and all that has been said, but multiplies the avenues to what
remains to be said. It is not so much paucity as superabundance of
material that seems to incapacitate modern authors.
Let America, then, prize and cherish her writers; yea, let her glorify
them. They are not so many in number as to exhaust her goodwill. And
while she has good kith and kin of her own, to take to her bosom, let
her not lavish her embraces upon the household of an alien. For believe
it or not, England after all, is in many things an alien to us. China
has more bonds of real love for us than she. But even were there no
strong literary individualities among us, as there are some dozens
at least, nevertheless, let America first praise mediocrity even,
in her children, before she praises (for everywhere, merit demands
acknowledgment from every one) the best excellence in the children
of any other land. Let her own authors, I say, have the priority of
appreciation. I was much pleased with a hot-headed Carolina cousin of
mine, who once said,--"If there were no other American to stand by, in
literature, why, then, I would stand by Pop Emmons and his _Fredoniad_,
and till a better epic came along, swear it was not very far behind the
_Iliad_." Take away the words, and in spirit he was sound.
Not that American genius needs patronage in order to expand. For that
explosive sort of stuff will expand though screwed up in a vice, and
burst it, though it were triple steel. It is for the nation's sake,
and not for her authors' sake, that I would have America be heedful of
the increasing greatness among her writers. For how great the shame,
if other nations should be before her, in crowning her heroes of the
pen! But this is almost the case now. American authors have received
more just and discriminating praise (however loftily and ridiculously
given, in certain cases) even from some Englishmen, than from their own
countrymen. There are hardly five critics in America; and several of
them are asleep. As for patronage, it is the American author who now
patronizes his country, and not his country him. And if at times some
among them appeal to the people for more recognition, it is not always
with selfish motives, but patriotic ones.
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