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Bayard Taylor (search for this): chapter 1
least in our larger cities. These are gains, to be balanced by a few losses. For instance, an institution which was once more potent than all of these for the intellectual training of the adult American has almost ceased to exist in its original form. The engrossing excitement of public affairs has nearly abolished the old Lyceum, and put a political orator in the lecturer's place. Science and art have long ceased to be the most available subjects for a popular lecture. Agassiz and Bayard Taylor, by dint of exceedingly rapid and continuous travelling, can still find a few regions which Americans will consent to hear described, outside of America; and a few wandering lecturers on geology still haunt the field, their discourses being almost coeval with their specimens. Emerson still makes his stately tour, through wondering Western towns, where an enterprising public spirit sometimes, it is said, plans a dance for the same evening in the same hall,--Tickets to lecture and ball on
Herder (search for this): chapter 1
istribution of elementary knowledge, but upon the high-water mark of its educated mind. Before the permanent tribunal, copyists and popularizers count for nothing, and even the statistics of common schools are of secondary value. So long as the sources of art and science are mainly Transatlantic, we are still a province, not a nation. For these are the highest pursuits of man, -higher than trades or professions, higher than statesmanship, far higher than war. Jean Paul said: Schiller and Herder were both destined for physicians, but Providence said, No, there are deeper wounds than those of the body,--and so they both became authors. It is observable that in English books and magazines everything seems written for some limited circle,--tales for those who can use French phrases, essays for those who can understand a Latin quotation. But every American writer must address himself to a vast audience, possessing the greatest quickness and common-sense, with but little culture; and
De Tocqueville (search for this): chapter 1
ning. A man of healthy nature can, indeed, find a certain tonic in this cool atmosphere; it is only a question whether more perfect works of art may not one day be produced, amid more genial surroundings. Firm must be the will, patient the heart, passionate the aspiration, to secure the fulfilment of some high and lonely purpose, when revery spreads always its beds of roses on the one side, and practical work summons to its treadmill on the other. Whatever may have been the case in De Tocqueville's day,--and his report of us, thirty-five years old, seems to be almost the latest intelligence that has reached Europe,--there is certainly now no danger that public life will not have sufficient attractions for cultivated Americans. There is more danger that it will absorb them too much. Why should we insist, like Nick Bottom the weaver, on playing all the parts? The proper paths of the statesman and the artist may often touch, but will rarely coincide. It is not that politics are
Ruskin (search for this): chapter 1
se who give their lives to the intellectual service of America, but there is no cause for fear. If we can only avoid incorporating superficiality into our institutions, literature will come when all is ready, and when it comes will be of the best. It is not enough to make England or France our standard. There is something in the present atmosphere of England which seems fatal to purely literary genius: its fruits do not mature and mellow, but grow more and more acid until they drop. Give Ruskin space enough, and he grows frantic and beats the air like Carlyle. Thackeray was tinged with the same bitterness, but he was the last Englishman who could be said, in any artistic sense, to have a style; as Heine was the last German. The French seems the only prose literature of the present day in which the element of form has any prominent place; and literature in France is after all but a favored slave. This surely leaves a clear field for America. But it is peculiarly important for
Schiller (search for this): chapter 1
n upon the distribution of elementary knowledge, but upon the high-water mark of its educated mind. Before the permanent tribunal, copyists and popularizers count for nothing, and even the statistics of common schools are of secondary value. So long as the sources of art and science are mainly Transatlantic, we are still a province, not a nation. For these are the highest pursuits of man, -higher than trades or professions, higher than statesmanship, far higher than war. Jean Paul said: Schiller and Herder were both destined for physicians, but Providence said, No, there are deeper wounds than those of the body,--and so they both became authors. It is observable that in English books and magazines everything seems written for some limited circle,--tales for those who can use French phrases, essays for those who can understand a Latin quotation. But every American writer must address himself to a vast audience, possessing the greatest quickness and common-sense, with but little
Sparks (search for this): chapter 1
that, while the leaders of public affairs in America are usually what are called self-made men, this is not the case with our literary leaders. Among first-class American writers, culture is usually in the second generation; they have usually tumbled about in a library, as Holmes says, in childhood; at all events, they are usually college-bred men. It has been remarked, for instance, that our eight foremost historians — assuming that this list comprises Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Hildreth, Sparks, Ticknor, Palfrey, Parkman — were all college graduates, and indeed graduated at a single college. The choice of names may be open to question, but the general fact is undoubted. Now if it be true that there are fewer among us who rise from the ranks in literature than in politics, it seems not merely to indicate that literature, as being a finer product than statesmanship, implies more elaborate training; but also that our institutions guarantee such training in the one case, and not in
Heine (search for this): chapter 1
hen it comes will be of the best. It is not enough to make England or France our standard. There is something in the present atmosphere of England which seems fatal to purely literary genius: its fruits do not mature and mellow, but grow more and more acid until they drop. Give Ruskin space enough, and he grows frantic and beats the air like Carlyle. Thackeray was tinged with the same bitterness, but he was the last Englishman who could be said, in any artistic sense, to have a style; as Heine was the last German. The French seems the only prose literature of the present day in which the element of form has any prominent place; and literature in France is after all but a favored slave. This surely leaves a clear field for America. But it is peculiarly important for us to remember that we can make no progress through affectation or spasm, but only by accepting the essential laws of art, which are the same for the whole human race. Any misconceived patronage — to call anything
Parkman (search for this): chapter 1
public affairs in America are usually what are called self-made men, this is not the case with our literary leaders. Among first-class American writers, culture is usually in the second generation; they have usually tumbled about in a library, as Holmes says, in childhood; at all events, they are usually college-bred men. It has been remarked, for instance, that our eight foremost historians — assuming that this list comprises Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Hildreth, Sparks, Ticknor, Palfrey, Parkman — were all college graduates, and indeed graduated at a single college. The choice of names may be open to question, but the general fact is undoubted. Now if it be true that there are fewer among us who rise from the ranks in literature than in politics, it seems not merely to indicate that literature, as being a finer product than statesmanship, implies more elaborate training; but also that our institutions guarantee such training in the one case, and not in the other. Every America
Aeschylus (search for this): chapter 1
t it was, but how harmlessly and how happily! What pure delight, what freedom from perturbation and care, when a dictionary and a dozen books furnished luxury for a lifetime! What were wealth and fame, peerages and palaces, to him who had all Aeschylus for a winter residence, and Homer for the seaside! And a culture which seems remotest from practical ends may not only thus furnish exhaustless intellectual enjoyment, but may educate one's aesthetic perceptions to the very highest point. Bsmall comrades disapproved his political sentiments. For higher intellectual pursuits there are not only no such penalties among us, but there are no such opportunities. Yet in Athens — with its twenty thousand statues, with the tragedies of Aeschylus performed for civic prizes, and the histories of Herodotus read at the public games — a boy could no more grow up ignorant of art than he could here remain untrained in politics. When we are once convinced that this higher training is desira
Sophocles (search for this): chapter 1
iting this, I am thinking less of Plato than of Homer, and not more of Homer than of the dramatic and lyric poets. So far from the knowledge of other literatures tending to depreciate the Greek, it seems to me that no one can adequately value this who has not come back to it after long study of the others. Ampere, that master of French prose, has hardly overstated the truth when he says that the man best versed in all other books must say, after all, in returning to a volume of Homer or Sophocles,--Here is beauty, true and sovereign; its like was never written among men,--Voila la beaute veritable et souveraine; jamais il ne s'est écrit rien de pareil chez les hommes. I do not see how there could possibly be a list of the dozen masterpieces of the world's literature, of which at least one half should not be Greek. And, indeed, when one considers the mere vehicle, the language itself, one must remember that there is no more possibility of arbitrary choice in languages than in stone
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