The New York herald., 1922-10-22
A Child's Story of American Literature

periods as had this aristocratic young gen.
tleman who was so soon to sign the Dec
laration of independence.
Naturally, we think of our Colonial
period as far away and brief Yet as gen.
erations go. it was only five yesterdays
back, and it was quarter century longer
than the years our national existence have
already counted. 1t is because so much
has happened since and our literature
has now taken it's place in world litera-
ture that we think of the Colonial period
as short. Nor may we estimate our Pur-
itan ancestors by the little amount Of
literature they produced in so long time
They had very great intellectual energy,
perhaps greater than ours but it did
not express itself in what we are most
likely to call literature to-day. 1t ex-
pressed itself chiefly in sermons and in
arguing about theology. and sometimes in
putting their arguments into very stiff
poetry.
But even if they had set out to write
what we to-day call literature, it would
not have been good. For some reason
that people may guess at but cannot quite
understand, there is something about the
itSi dtuiC VI COlOuy WHICH keeps II
poor and initiative. 1t seems always tied
to its mothers apron strings and toddling
after her. You may notice this in the
case of England's two great colonies to-
day, Canada and Australia They are in
| every other respect advanced and inde-
pendent countries but they have not yet
produced a literature of their own. Had
the Puritans tried to write more imagina-
tive and inventive books, we can be GER
tain that they would only have initiated
English fashions and novels which were
already old when they reached New Eng
land. The first copy of Shakespeare even
was 100 years behind time in getting to
America, and it was not for thirteen
years that another copy was brought over
Some people in New York and Philadel-
phia, when at last they tried to write
books for their own sake rather than
the sake of something else. succeeded
only in doing very poorly what Eng
lish writers they admired were doing
better. The books that they wrote had
nothing in them which resembled Ameri-
can life American ideas or even Ameri-
can scenery. And if you could have found
such a book anywhere it would have been
in New York or Philadelphia, for neither
of them was under the iron rule of a
Puritan creed.
Indeed, they We're comparatively free
from feeling that they had to preach
a sermon or make long argument about
theology every time they wrote book
New York had been founded purely as a
business enterprise by Dutch traders, and
after business hours people there did not
think it sin to try to amuse themselves
And Philadelphia had begun as city of
brotherly love and not brotherly dis
sension. Though like New England it
intended to bring about better social and
religious conditions than existed else
where, it was very unlike New England
in its desire to be refuge for the per-
secuted of every sect
For this reason Pennsylvania had not
only many different creeds instead of one.
but it had also many races and languages
But for all that. the Pennsylvanians scarce
ly differed more among themselves than
the colonies all differed from each other
only were they far apart, little centers
of life amid the urfhewn forest, but they
were unsympathetic and even unfriendly.
Each was a jealous little nation to itself,
working out its own destiny in it's own
way. 1t is for this reason that what
proved to be the chief contribution of the
Colonial period to the American literature