Complete Prose Works
Few are aware how the great literature penetrates all, gives hue to
all, shapes aggregates and individuals, and, after subtle ways, with
irresistible power, constructs, sustains, demolishes at will. Why tower,
in reminiscence, above all the nations of the earth, two special lands,
petty in themselves, yet inexpressibly gigantic, beautiful, columnar?
Immortal Judah lives, and Greece immortal lives, in a couple of poems.
Nearer than this. It is not generally realized, but it is true, as
the genius of Greece, and all the sociology, personality, politics
and religion of those wonderful states, resided in their literature
or esthetics, that what was afterwards the main support of European
chivalry, the feudal, ecclesiastical, dynastic world over there--forming
its osseous structure, holding it together for hundreds, thousands
of years, preserving its flesh and bloom, giving it form, decision,
rounding it out, and so saturating it in the conscious and unconscious
blood, breed, belief, and intuitions of men, that it still prevails
powerful to this day, in defiance of the mighty changes of time--was its
literature, permeating to the very marrow, especially that major part,
its enchanting songs, ballads, and poems.[21]
To the ostent of the senses and eyes, I know, the influences which
stamp the world's history are wars, uprisings or downfalls of dynasties,
changeful movements of trade, important inventions, navigation, military
or civil governments, advent of powerful personalities, conquerors,
etc.. These of course play their part; yet, it may be, a single new
thought, imagination, abstract principle, even literary style, fit for
the time, put in shape by some great literatus, and projected among
mankind, may duly cause changes, growths, removals, greater than the
longest and bloodiest war, or the most stupendous merely political,
dynastic, or commercial overturn.
In short, as, though it may not be realized, it is strictly true, that
a few first-class poets, philosophs, and authors, have substantially
settled and given status to the entire religion, education, law,
sociology, &c., of the hitherto civilized world, by tinging and often
creating the atmospheres out of which they have arisen, such also
must stamp, and more than ever stamp, the interior and real democratic
construction of this American continent, to-day, and days to come.
Remember also this fact of difference, that, while through the antique
and through the mediaeval ages, highest thoughts and ideals realized
themselves, and their expression made its way by other arts, as much
as, or even more than by, technical literature, (not open to the mass of
persons, or even to the majority of eminent persons,) such literature in
our day and for current purposes, is not only more eligible than all
the other arts put together, but has become the only general means of
morally influencing the world. Painting, sculpture, and the dramatic
theatre, it would seem, no longer play an indispensable or even
important part in the workings and mediumship of intellect, utility, or
even high esthetics. Architecture remains, doubtless with capacities,
and a real future. Then music, the combiner, nothing more spiritual,
nothing more sensuous, a god, yet completely human, advances, prevails,
holds highest place; supplying in certain wants and quarters what
nothing else could supply. Yet in the civilization of to-day it is
undeniable that, over all the arts, literature dominates, serves beyond
all--shapes the character of church and school--or, at any rate, is
capable of doing so. Including the literature of science, its scope is
indeed unparallel'd.
Before proceeding further, it were perhaps well to discriminate on
certain points. Literature tills its crops in many fields, and some
may flourish, while others lag. What I say in these Vistas has its main
bearing on imaginative literature, especially poetry, the stock of all.
In the department of science, and the specialty of journalism, there
appear, in these States, promises, perhaps fulfilments, of highest
earnestness, reality, and life, These, of course, are modern. But in
the region of imaginative, spinal and essential attributes, something
equivalent to creation is, for our age and lands, imperatively demanded.
For not only is it not enough that the new blood, new frame of
democracy shall be vivified and held together merely by political means,
superficial suffrage, legislation, &c., but it is clear to me that,
unless it goes deeper, gets at least as firm and as warm a hold in
men's hearts, emotions and belief, as, in their days, feudalism or
ecclesiasticism, and inaugurates its own perennial sources, welling from
the centre forever, its strength will be defective, its growth doubtful,
and its main charm wanting. I suggest, therefore, the possibility,
should some two or three really original American poets, (perhaps
artists or lecturers,) arise, mounting the horizon like planets, stars
of the first magnitude, that, from their eminence, fusing contributions,
races, far localities, &c., together, they would give more compaction
and more moral identity, (the quality to-day most needed,) to these
States, than all its Constitutions, legislative and judicial ties, and
all its hitherto political, warlike, or materialistic experiences. As,
for instance, there could hardly happen anything that would more serve
the States, with all their variety of origins, their diverse climes,
cities, standards, &c., than possessing an aggregate of heroes,
characters, exploits, sufferings, prosperity or misfortune, glory or
disgrace, common to all, typical of all--no less, but even greater would
it be to possess the aggregation of a cluster of mighty poets, artists,
teachers, fit for us, national expressers, comprehending and effusing
for the men and women of the States, what is universal, native, common
to all, inland and seaboard, northern and southern. The historians say
of ancient Greece, with her ever-jealous autonomies, cities, and states,
that the only positive unity she ever own'd or receiv'd, was the sad
unity of a common subjection, at the last, to foreign conquerors.
Subjection, aggregation of that sort, is impossible to America; but
the fear of conflicting and irreconcilable interiors, and the lack of
a common skeleton, knitting all close, continually haunts me. Or, if it
does not, nothing is plainer than the need, a long period to come, of
a fusion of the States into the only reliable identity, the moral
and artistic one. For, I say, the true nationality of the States, the
genuine union, when we come to a moral crisis, is, and is to be, after
all, neither the written law, nor, (as is generally supposed,) either
self-interest, or common pecuniary or material objects--but the fervid
and tremendous IDEA, melting everything else with resistless heat,
and solving all lesser and definite distinctions in vast, indefinite,
spiritual, emotional power.
It may be claim'd, (and I admit the weight of the claim,) that common
and general worldly prosperity, and a populace well-to-do, and with all
life's material comforts, is the main thing, and is enough. It may be
argued that our republic is, in performance, really enacting to-day the
grandest arts, poems, &c., by beating up the wilderness into fertile
farms, and in her railroads, ships, machinery, &c. And it may be ask'd,
Are these not better, indeed, for America, than any utterances even of
greatest rhapsode, artist, or literatus?
I too hail those achievements with pride and joy: then answer that
the soul of man will not with such only--nay, not with such at all--be
finally satisfied; but needs what, (standing on these and on all things,
as the feet stand on the ground,) is address'd to the loftiest, to
itself alone.
Out of such considerations, such truths, arises for treatment in
these Vistas the important question of character, of an American
stock-personality, with literatures and arts for outlets and
return-expressions, and, of course, to correspond, within outlines
common to all. To these, the main affair, the thinkers of the United
States, in general so acute, have either given feeblest attention, or
have remain'd, and remain, in a state of somnolence.
For my part, I would alarm and caution even the political and business
reader, and to the utmost extent, against the prevailing delusion
that the establishment of free political institutions, and plentiful
intellectual smartness, with general good order, physical plenty,
industry, &c., (desirable and precious advantages as they all are,) do,
of themselves, determine and yield to our experiment of democracy the
fruitage of success. With such advantages at present fully, or almost
fully, possess'd--the Union just issued, victorious, from the struggle
with the only foes it need ever fear, (namely, those within itself,
the interior ones,) and with unprecedented materialistic
advancement--society, in these States, is canker'd, crude,
superstitious, and rotten. Political, or law-made society is, and
private, or voluntary society, is also. In any vigor, the element of
the moral conscience, the most important, the verteber to State or man,
seems to me either entirely lacking, or seriously enfeebled or ungrown.
I say we had best look our times and lands searchingly in the face, like
a physician diagnosing some deep disease. Never was there, perhaps,
more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States.
Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying principles of the
States are not honestly believ'd in, (for all this hectic glow, and
these melo-dramatic screamings,) nor is humanity itself believ'd in.
What penetrating eye does not everywhere see through the mask? The
spectacle is appaling. We live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy throughout.
The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men. A scornful
superciliousness rules in literature. The aim of all the _littérateurs_
is to find something to make fun of. A lot of churches, sects, &c., the
most dismal phantasms I know, usurp the name of religion. Conversation
is a mass of badinage. From deceit in the spirit, the mother of all
false deeds, the offspring is already incalculable. An acute and candid
person, in the revenue department in Washington, who is led by the
course of his employment to regularly visit the cities, north, south
and west, to investigate frauds, has talk'd much with me about his
discoveries. The depravity of the business classes of our country is
not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater. The official
services of America, national, state, and municipal, in all their
branches and departments, except the judiciary, are saturated in
corruption, bribery, falsehood, mal-administration; and the judiciary
is tainted. The great cities reek with respectable as much as
non-respectable robbery and scoundrelism. In fashionable life,
flippancy, tepid amours, weak infidelism, small aims, or no aims at
all, only to kill time. In business, (this all-devouring modern word,
business,) the one sole object is, by any means, pecuniary gain. The
magician's serpent in the fable ate up all the other serpents; and
money-making is our magician's serpent, remaining today sole master of
the field. The best class we show, is but a mob of fashionably dress'd
speculators and vulgarians. True, indeed, behind this fantastic farce,
enacted on the visible stage of society, solid things and stupendous
labors are to be discover'd, existing crudely and going on in the
background, to advance and tell themselves in time. Yet the truths are
none the less terrible. I say that our New World democracy, however
great a success in uplifting the masses out of their sloughs, in
materialistic development, products, and in a certain highly-deceptive