The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-06-30

by the school house, with here and there
dotted over the land noble institutions like
this, which have imbued the people with q
| sound morality and taught them a true
conception of an Almighty God If it
has loosened the bands of conservatism it
has also opened the mind to the reception
of truth, and bestowed the moral courage
needed to embrace it.
1t has permitted us to discard the
wooden plough, the heirloom of all the
ages, for the steel implement everywhere in
use throughout the land it has substituted
the modern reaping machine for the sickle,
the cotton gin for the ancient methods of
manipulation; the threshing machine for
the fail it has crowned us with the fame
of being the most fertile in. invention of
all the peoples of modern times and final
ly it has penetrated all ranks, and peering
through the trappings of wealth and posi-
ton, has discovered and declared that in
spite of poverty or humble birth, "a mans
man for a that.
A very distinguished modern critic has
remarked ''that literary work is not a
mere individual play of imagination, the
/ isolated caprice of an excited brain, but a
transcri pit of contemporary manners that
constitutions, codes of laws and creeds show
us the spirit roughly, without delicacy, but
a literature resembles those admirable ap-
paratus of extraordinary sensibility by
which physicians disentangle and measure
the most recondite and delicate changes of
the body. We cannot doubt the correct
ness of this statement. Through no other
medium can we mark so clearly minute
shades of national character. Compare,
for instance, the humor of Moliere or Ra-
cine with that of Sterne or Swift. They
differ as widely, and upon the same lines of
divergence as the national character of the
French does from that of the English.
The Cosette of Victor Hugo is as unlike
the Jennie Deans of Scott as Patagonian
is unlike a New Yorker. Cosette is the
typical Partisan maiden, while the heroine
of Scott is the very ideal of the Scotch
peasant. The genius of Thackeray can
endow his Colonel Newcome with human
nature so broad that all mankind may love
him as a brother, yet the setting of the
picture is as thoroughly characteristic of
the English as that great master of fc-
ton was himself. Literary character is
4 thus an exponent of national character. 1t
is bough which shoots out its leaves and
branches as luxuriantly and fantastically as
it NAV. but is nourished and sustained by
the same sap and root that feeds the parent
stem. But in spite of all this, it is not in
its literature that the distinctive character
eff people finds its first expression, nor,
on the other hand, can a new people in its
primitive essays in that field give it utter
ance Literature, not political, professional
or scientific, is the product of certain kind
of leisure, and America for long time was
too busy to stop to tell its story The
duties incident to Il new country and gov
ernment were too imperiOus to permit it to
turn aside from the practical affairs of every
day life to weave rOmances or sing songs.
If, in these early days, the literary genius
of people have melted a few of them to
ssvary from the kindly race of men, by
whom they were surrounded, and to dream
aloud, the product of these dreamings was
either soiled.by the uncultured rawness of
the wilderness, or marked by the unmis-
taxable influences of foreign models. DIR.
! Griswold himself, no mean figure in Amer
lean literature, not very many years age
wrote these words: :'The American prov
inces ouarrelled with England conquered
and became a separate nation, and we have
since had our own Presidents and Con-
crosses; but England has continued to do
the thinking of large class here. When
we have written instead of giving a free
voice to the spirit within us, we have en-
deavored to write after some foreign model.
We have been so fearful of nothing else as
of an Americanism in thought or express
sion" This criticism is probably too sweep
ing. We cannot adopt it without some
exception, for even in its early days Amer
lea has brought forth writer's whose pro-
ductions, full Of genius, have to some ex-
tent at least reflected the inspirations of its
people. But when the whole body of our
early literature is considered we cannot
doubt there is too much of truth in the re-
mark to wantonly reject it.
But as the wealth of the country in
creased the American character began to
be more and more impressed upon its lit
erature The energies of the people at one
time absorbed in the strife with material
and physical difficulties, were after while
somewhat released from the fetters which
| bound them, and turning into the paths of
history, biography, romance and song, be-
gan to express with freshness, breadth and
power the instincts of the masses. On this
branch of the subject [ cannot be more ex-
plicit Let it suffice to say, that the lu-
cidity which comes of thought untrameled
by precedent or authority, the freshness
which is born of new experiences, and
sometimes too, it must be admitted, the
grotesque vagary which is often the pro-
duct of unbribed liberty, have become
marked features of cur literature And if
on the one hand it has straycd into the
eccentric paths, along which Walt Whit
man, Mark Twain, or Artemus Ward
leads us, it has on the other furnished us
with authors who are not only stars in our
crown of honor, but, as was recently said
of Emerson, "nobly represent the Ameri-
can conflict with superstition, with servility
to inherited usage and opinion" Every
day our literature is becoming more and
more imbued with the characteristics of
our people, and we may well indulge the
hope that the period is not far distant when
it shall be as peculiarly and distinctively
American as our own native hills and val
leys.
But if literature is thus tardy in ex-
pressing the characteristics of people,
such is not the case in matters which are
directly controlled by the people at large.
Political tendencies force themselves into
prominence from the very start. An in
stinctive conception of right, an inborn
sentiment of liberty, Or a peculiar theory
of government will be asserted in any sys-
TEN of politics, which is the free express
sion of people. Our political history fur
nishes no exceptions to this statement.
American independence found thirteen
| states snarselv nominated stretched along a