The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1893-06-15
LITERATURE THE EXPONENT or
THOUGHT AND CHARACTER.


the Roman poet they may sing o
earns and men," but the verse mus
be heroic and the dictioD pure ant
chaste, else no glory attaches to 1T
warriors nor does its literature elevate
and ennoble a nation and send it
traditions sour ding down the CORR
doris OF time. The sweet strains o
| Virgil immOrtaliZed it's armies ahC
canoniZed it's poets. The rugged
vigor and awful significance of .ht
| Greek drama was but the outward
| demonstration of Grecian thought aud
character, and the narrative style OF
XenOphen has marked for ages the
distinctive features of history, The
vel 50 of the modern Italian, while
partaking of the purity and pathos
Of the ancient heroic age, has lost its
vigor and dribbles out in pathetic
meter that may excite tears and pity,
out that mingled with contempt. No
events in history are more illustra-
tive of the fact that nations lilera-
ture is the exponent of its thought
and character than the cOntrasj be-
tween the ancient and mod
ern Roman. Italy under the
former rule, was the land of angelic
song, the nightingale of Europe" but
under the latter learning is confined
to the monastic cell and ecclesiastical
policy has smitten the land with sta
pidity and ignorance, and now she
stands ian empty urn within her
wjthered hands"
The ancient and modern Greek tells
the same story. There is no marble
in the celebrated pass leading from
Thessaly into Locris to commemorate
the 9eds of Leonidas and his devoted
three hundred. The Acropolis no
longer rears its noble front on Mars
hill at Athens and the Parthenon is
a ruin.
THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece,
Where burning Sappbo loved and sung,
Where Delas rose and Phoebus sprung
Eternal summer gjlds them yet
But all except their sun is set"
The decay of nations literature
marks the degeneracy of it's sons, but
the converse of that is also true, the
growth and development of literature
into high order of merit ia an evil
dence of a nations growth and devel-
1pment. We are hardly old enough as
4 nation to have developed the high.
est standard of literature, but we
must not forget in glorying upon our
rapid progress in literature and the
arts and sciences that we are indebted |
10 au inheritance of generations from
to Macauley and from Macau-
ey to Tennyson. 1T is in the latter
period of English history that we
broke from the parent stem and en-
grated upon our literature fresh
ness and vigor that was becoming so
Drosaic in our foster mother that Car.
yle, with his sturdy independence
and quaint Scotch dialect, attempted |
N vain to remodel it upon style to
which he was indebted to his personal
peculiarities. Nothing but praise can |
be said of the vigor of English |
thought, and though, unlike England,
we have no Westminster mecca and |
literary traditions, it has arrived at
time when we can modestly claim to
stand side by side with that people
in our hands and
to the world a
literature purely American, dis
tinct with our own fresh and strong
republican thought Illustrative and
the exponent of our national charac-
ters. 1t is true that our verse has not
the sonorous strength of the old Eng
fish poets, neither have her modem
poets the same strength, but in
euphony, melody and meter, We sue
cessfully rival her modern muse
Neither III delineation of any phase
of character can our novelists COM
pare with Dickens, for he had field
peculiarly his own in the slums
London, but yet how true to life are
some of our quaint characters drawn
by the American novelists, and how
touchingly pathetic and ennobling
the lessons taught by the portrayal
of the feeling and homely lives of our
mountaineers, or the border rider ofour
western plains. A picture of perfect
repose may be charming, but pic
ture where every figure is in action
is inspiriting. American literature,
both in prose and poetry, is full of
action and keeps pace with the rapid
growth and development of new
country like ours, while English lit
erature is engaged more with tradi-
tons and philosophical dissertations.
All we claim is that we have litera.
ture peculiarly our own and true ex-
ponent of our thought and character