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Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 2 (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.) 160 0 Browse Search
Bliss Perry, The American spirit in lierature: a chronicle of great interpreters 88 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature 76 0 Browse Search
The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 9: Poetry and Eloquence. (ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller) 26 0 Browse Search
The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Index (ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller) 16 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises 12 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays 12 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book 10 0 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Greenleaf Whittier 10 0 Browse Search
Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life 8 0 Browse Search
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Browsing named entities in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays. You can also browse the collection for Walt Whitman or search for Walt Whitman in all documents.

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, Literature as an art. (search)
ted taste. The standard of good art is always much the same; modifications are trifling. Otherwise we could not enjoy any foreign literature. A fine phrase in Aeschylus or Dante affects us as if we had read it in Emerson. A structural completeness in a work of art seems the same in the Oedipus Tyrannus as in The scarlet letter. Art has therefore its law; and eccentricity, though often promising as a mere trait of youth, is only a disfigurement to maturer years. It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards and reserve himself for something better. A young writer must commonly plough in his first crop, as the farmer does, to enrich the soil. Is it luxuriant, astonishing, the wonder of the neighborhood; so much the better,--in let it go! Sydney Smith said, in 1818, There does not appear to be in America, at this moment, one man of any considerable talents. Though this might not now be said, we still stand before the