The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1883-11-06
intellectual Deoadenoe or Olties.

Boston Is not alon6 in suffering q
downfall from its intellectual suprem.
acy. The day Is past for provincial
centres OF national Intelligence. Edin.
/ Ourgtl has been deposed like Boston
from a rank yet more exalted. Wei.
laar has sunk to be u petty residence
town. Geneva has gone into trade aud
politics. Florence is no more an in
tellectual centre. Oxford and Cam
bridge retain no dictatorship in letters.
lC may seem to be only u transfer Of
the intellectual hoaIship from one To-
cality to another. The change NAV be
supposed to be nothing but an Instance
or the common law OF the rise and do.
cline OF local greatness. London may
10 deemed simply to have taken pre.o-
delce OF Edinburgh, and New York OF
Boston. The process is no such mere
process OF local substitution. The in.
tellectual eXaltation Of Euinburpl, had
much more in it OF Edinburgh than
tho intellectual dominion OF London
can over have in it Of London. The
character OF Boston tingou tho literary
influence OF Harvard moro docpy than
New York will be traceablo in tho H.
terature which may there plant It's To-
Cal residence. intellectual autocracy
When it shifts it's quarters to il conLro
like London or Now York, migrate,
that it may be indepen,lonJ OF ", TO-
caliCy. The intellectual sue;,Lro is in
course OF depar ure from Boston be-
cause literary uccrves dated from Bos.
ton could not but s,tyor Of BosUol.
America desires that its literature
should appertalm to America aL llrgs.
New York has 10 power to pass through
amy medium it can provide American
literature and intelligence, alLilu,ltn
they happen to be lodged within it. "A
metropolis which has become IL metro.
polls from tho spontaneous tendency Of
the national forces and enoryioS To
breathe and circulate through it, at
tracts national intelligence by it's very
inability to reflect anything more MIR
rowly local than the nation itself. Not
Il little is lost when IL town like Boston
slips from its literary supremacy,
Whether held in commission Dy Il scur.
OF cities from Now York and Boston
TO Chicago and st. Louis and San Fran
cisco, Or engrossed by Now \ ork alone,
tllo charm OF American literary society
gathered about Harvard cannot be re-.
produced. 1t will soon be IL memory.
like the tradition Of the society of Edin.
burgh Of the age Of jeffrey and Scott
and Wilson. They who witnessed and
partO0k of it rs it was when Longfellow
and Lowell and Holmes discourseI on
poetics, and Emerson on humanity and
Carlyle, should congratulate themselves
ON All experience Wnich clnnoL DO re-
peated.
Yet the literary deca,lencc Of Boston
may mark for America tho close of IL
period Of intellectual pupilage. Crude
and rough as is much Of American i'll
cellectual activity, the dissemination of
intellectual activity everywhere is in
disputable. Literary experiments of
magnitude obtain publishers and red
derS III other towns than Boston. Ella
Dorate researches are conducted in more
than one American city. Dean Liddeli
and Dean Scott acknowledge their OBJ
legations to America for ripe Greek
scholars reared elsewhere than at Har-
ward. 10 Boston itself dethronement
OF mediatizaCiOu Will not be an un-
mixed atlliction. Uneasy lies tho head
Chat wears a crown, especially a liter
ary crown. The. .brows Of many worthy
citizens OF Boston must frequently have
acl.ed under the duty, IMPOSED by che
worlds Identification of them with
their refined t0Wnsmen Oh tho Common
or transcental neighbors at Cambridge,
to speculate more beyond their depth
| IMAM the most Intricate transactions in
Spermacetl Oil or tanieries would ever
have required. The whispers Of the
oaks Of Dodona must at times have
troubled prosaic Eplrotes with II sense
| OF the burden Of maintaining an air of
SOlomnity in DrODor dramatic accord.
ance with the genius of their locality.
Now that tho literary fellowship of
Cambridge has closed its list Of mem-
bers, and other American universities
are grown as learned AZ Harvard, and
other American publishers as entor-
prising, the average New Englanler is
not bound to be thoughtful in excess of
his nat IrAl gifts. I1e can always re-
mind New Yolkers that tho press of
Boston is as classical, at any rate, as
that OF New York, and that Boston
devours more literature.