The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-12-06
r. MARION CRAWFORD.


with certainty of one thing we can be
sure-as we stand on the Threshold pelore
the opening doors Of coming age, out of
this greatest of all weddings something Is
coming which is to be not only strong, but
beautiful and noble; something of which
we are already more than half conscious;
something which even in its DIM dream
state is already our greatest and most just
pride / mean civilization, "a literature,
an art not only in form, but broader In
purpose and deeper in meaning than all
that has gone before.
"As the whole is greater than any OF Its
parts, so may we hope to surpass and TO
outdo each part of ourselves in the amalga'
nation of our all We feel that, we hope
that and at that we aim, and though We
the beginners, may fail in the full accom-
plishment of our high reaching purpose,
vet our part will have been better ana
drawer than that played by those who say
that the past alone is perfect; that our III
erature is but garbled version of worn
out inheritance of letters; that our art Is
but poor copy of something bygone ana
once beautiful, and that this great age IN
which we live is dead before 1t is nan
grown.
"Such ideas show little faith In the pres
ent and less hope in the future, and YET
they are so widely spread among the pessi
mists of our own time that 1t Is Impossible
to speak of literature, art or science III
any company of men without being met
with some such chilling theories.
81 read the other day an article IN one
of our most serious magazines In winch
certain writer tells us that the only lesson
which America is now teaching the worlo
in the ideal realm is that the literature o'
the future is to be the farce when tht
business man goes to see of an evening Oy
way of recreation.
s'I do not wish to do the writer inJus
tice, but he produces the impression o
looking upon our literature as tending 10
ward a farce In the name OF all thos'
who have spent and are spending tnei
lives in sincere effort 10 produce goou III
erature in America protest against suc'
criticism or comment or opinion III 'hel'
were n word of truth in such Judgment
the end of culture and of literature ana
art In America could not be far OH.
"It is easy to be pessimistic when OPP
timism means hard work. 1t Is easy "
stand aside and say of this runner that IN
limns and of that one that his stride U
unpainly and that no race can DE wo'
with such running. IL Is quite ano'ne
thing TO be in line with the rest running
like the rest, toiling with the rest strain
ing every faculty Of strength to WIN .n
goal. However success and deveiopinen
are TO come, they will not come out o
idle waiting nor by lamenting over .n
impossibility of doing anything gooa. :.
s'I say again If there were anythine :,
suoh prophecies the end would be at hand
and we should be justified in going on
step further than the prophets; we ooul'
saw with certainty that hundred year
hence the best of our living writersIper
haps the best of our dead ones--w .,s" o. .
spoken of by unborn historians as the nv
mi and uncertain lights that illuminate'
the brief, sad day Of American civl''ss
ton Happily for u.s. the pessimis,s aH
but a minority, while We the worH
the believers the doors, are sns '"sAs