About this book

Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920

Vernon Louis Parrington

_Political Justice_, 331, 335, 336, 409-410 _Political Science Quarterly, The_, 250 Pope, Alexander, 31, 104, 114, 289, 290, 452, 466 _Port Folio, The_, 187 _Prairie, The_, 232 Prescott, W. H., 367, 438 _Present Age, The_, 395 _Present Crisis, The_, 464, 464 n Prince, H. L., 154 _Professor at the Breakfast Table, The_, 455, 456 _Progress and Poverty_, 467 _Prometheus_, 463, 464, 464 n _Prometheus Bound_, 402 _Pro-Slavery Argument_, 102 _Pro-Slavery Propaganda in American Fiction in the Fifties_, 102 _Prose Sketches and Poems_, 162 Pufendorf, Baron von, 117 _Puritan and his Daughter, The_, 215, 216 Quesnay, François, 3, 10, 11 Quincy, Edmund, 314, 343, 345, 331, 359, 436 ----, Josiah, 276, 279, 329, 343, 368, 460, 462 Quinn, Arthur Hobson, 191 n _Quodlibet_, 37, 51, 55, 56, 177 Rabelais, 262, 265 _Raciad, The_, 114 Radcliffe, Mrs. Ann, 111 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 307 Randolph, John of Roanoke, 8, 9, 26, 30, 31, 35, 57 Ranke, Leopold von, 437 _Rawle on the Constitution_, 299 _Rebellion, The_, 468 n _Recollections of a Busy Life_, 249 _Recollections of the Last Ten Years, Passed in Occasional Residences and Journeyings in the Valley of the Mississippi_, 163 _Recorder, The_, 201 n _Red Book, The_, 48, 51 _Redskins, The_, 226 n, 229, 230, 231, 236 Reed, Amy Louise, 446, 448 _Religious History of New England: King’s Chapel Lectures_, 324 n, 327 _Rhymed Lesson, A_, 452 n Ricardo, David, 241 _Richard Hurdis_, 128, 130 Richter, Jean Paul, 430 _Rights of Man, The_, 12 _Rights of Woman_, 331 Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 199, 402 ----, George, 101, 108, 242, 347, 348, 349, 350 ----, Sophia, 349 _Rise of the Dutch Republic, The_, 438 Rittenhouse, David, 185 _Rob of the Bowl_, 51, 53, 54 Robespierre, 398 _Robinson Crusoe_, 163 Robinson, William A., 255 n Rogers, Dr., 199 _Romance of American History_, 140 n, 166 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 11, 22, 242, 261, 264, 284, 318, 331, 345, 366, 390, 402, 413, 420, 430, 433, 434, 466 _Ruling Passion, The_, 290 Rusk, Ralph Leslie, 164, 165 Ruskin, John, 101, 406, 407 _Saint’s Rest_, 371 _Salmagundi_, 200, 206, 213 Sampson, Abbot, 101 Sanborn, F. B., 314 Sand, Georges, 429 Sargent, John O., 453 _Satanstoe_, 235 Schlegel, August Wilhelm von, 58 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 382 Scollay, Priscilla, 260 Scott, Sir Walter, 28, 30, 47, 111, 120, 129, 171, 200, 216, 220, 371 _Scout, The_, 133 Scudder, H. E., 465 Sedgwick, Catherine M., 241 ----, Henry M., 241 ----, Theodore, Jr., 241 _Self-Portraiture in the Work of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 446, 448 _Seventh of March Speech, The_, 313, 314, 367, 368 Sewall, Jonathan, 351 ----, Joseph, 276 ----, Samuel, 364, 446 Seward, William Henry, 107 Shakespeare, 47, 129, 130 Shaw, Elizabeth, 259 Shays, Daniel, 276, 282, 284, 297, 340 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 111, 259, 381, 453 _Shooting Match, The_, 172 _Shoshonee Valley, The_, 163 Sibley, J. L., 467 Sidney, Algernon, 354, 420 “Sidney, Edward William,” 36 Simms, William Gilmore, ii, 37, 39, 47, 53, 54, 102, 110, 112, 125-136, 169, 190, 232, 474 _Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee_, 173, 175, 176, 177 _Skipper Ireson’s Ride_, 370 _Slavery_, 333, 335 _Slavery in Massachusetts_, 412 _Social Destiny of Mankind, The_, 251 Socrates, 427 Solomon, 264, 265 _Song, The_, 172 _Songs of Labor_, 370 Sotheran, Charles, 254 n _South Atlantic Quarterly, The_, 102 n _Southern Plantation, The_, 102 n _Southern Quarterly Review, The_, 39 _Southern Review, The_, 112, 114 Smith, Adam, vii, 3, 121, 241, 242, 243, 308, 400 ----, Gerrit, 351, 359, 365 Smollett, Tobias, 128 _Snowbound_, 370 Sparks, Rev. Jared, 330, 367, 437 _Spectator, The_, 31 _Speech on the Compromise Measures_, 313 _Speech at New Haven_, 154 _Speech at Springfield_, 157, 159 _Speech in Wall Street_, 309 n Spinoza, 264 _Spirit of the Sub-Treasury_, 122 Spotswood, Governor Alexander, 7, 45 Staël, Madame de, 381 Stansbury, Joseph, 186 Stanton, Theodore, 438 n _State Rights Sentinel, The_, 171 Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 200, 238 Stephen, Leslie, 461, 469 Stephens, Alexander H., 39, 56, 62, 64, 65, 69, 82-93, 94, 167, 302, 473 Sterne, Lawrence, 31, 33, 35 Stiles, Rev. Ezra, 199 Stoddard, Richard Henry, 200, 238 Story, Joseph, 83, 88, 93, 117, 197, 260, 297, 300-303, 304, 311 ----, W. W., 301 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 107, 314, 371-378, 428 _Stranger in America, The_, 95 Strauss, David Friedrich, 417 Stuart, Moses, 367 _Studies in Psychology_, 446 _Sullivan’s Island_, 114 Sumner, Charles, 106, 351 _Swallow Barn_, 28, 41, 50, 51, 52, 172, 377 Swift, Jonathan, 228, 453 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 436, 466 Swinton, Mary, 115 Taine, Hippolyte, 466 Tandy, Jeannette Reid, 102 Tappan, Arthur, 351 ----, Lewis, 351, 362 _Tariff, The_, 308 n Taylor, John of Caroline, ii, 14-19, 20, 21, 29, 61, 90, 122, 123, 150, 153, 170, 217, 277, 299, 336 ----, Zachary, 71 _Tempora Mutantur_, 470 _Tent on the Beach, The_, 369 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 47, 54 _Thanatopsis_, 239 _Thirty Years’ View_, 14, 151 _Thomas Carlyle and his Works_, 413 Thoreau, Henry David, 156, 258, 264, 266, 314, 319, 367, 389, 394, 400-413, 426, 433, 440, 449, 451, 458, 460 Thornton, W. T., 241 Ticknor, George, 116, 367, 437 _Timothy Flint, Pioneer, Missionary, Author, Editor_, 140, 141 Toombs, Robert, 39, 62, 86, 91 Tocqueville, Alexis de, vi _Tour of the Prairies, A_, 211 _Transcendentalism in New England_, 348, 379, 380, 381 _Transcendentalist, The_, 384, 385 _Transient and Permanent in Christianity, On the_, 338 _Treatise on True Virtue, A_, 372 Trent, Professor William Peterfield, 39, 131 _Tribune, The_, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253, 254, 255 _Tristram Shandy_, 31, 47 Trollope, Mrs., 215 Tucker, Henry St. George, 299 ----, Nathaniel Beverley, ii, 35-40, 41, 42, 47, 57, 119 Tuckerman, Henry T., 48, 238 Turner, J. M. W., 407 ----, Nat, 355 Twain, Mark, 159, 172, 259, 366 Tweed, “Boss,” 471 Tyler, President John, 8, 116 _Typee_, 261 Ulpian, 117 _Uncle Robin in his Cabin in Virginia and Tom without one in Boston_, 102 _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, 102, 376, 377, 441 _Unitarian Christianity most Favorable to Piety_, 330-331 Van Buren, Martin, 36, 55, 197, 203, 207, 217, 246 Vanderbilt, Commodore, 231, 474 Van Doren, Carl, 133 Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 194, 195, 231 Vattel, Emrich von, 117 _Virginians, The_, 54 Voet, 117 Voltaire, 382 _Vote Yourself a Farm_, 254 Waddell, Dr. Moses, 168 Wade, John Donald, 169, 170, 177 n _Walden_, 400, 403, 405, 406, 407, 408, 413 Walker, Nathaniel, 327 ----, Williston, 324, 324 n Ware, Norman, 141 Washington, George, 7-8, 21, 48, 159, 194, 211, 265, 291, 292, 300, 301, 356, 437 _Waverley Novels_, 216 Weaver, Raymond, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265 _Webster Address_, 424 Webster, Daniel, 37, 67, 69, 88, 90, 94, 116, 122, 144, 159, 177, 207 n, 227, 242, 246, 252, 278, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304-316, 317, 330, 335, 359, 367, 368, 387, 397, 398, 399, 412, 424, 458 Weed, Thurlow, 197 _Week, The_, 404, 406 Weems, “Parson,” 437 Weiss, John, 347, 412, 417 n, 422 n Weld, Isaac, 215 Welles, Gideon, 64 Wendell, Barrett, 416 n, 427 Wertenbaker, Thomas J., 7, 8 _Western Monthly Magazine, The_, 164 _Western Souvenir, The; A Christmas and New Year’s Gift for 1829_, 164 _Westward Ho!_, 162, 163, 217, 220 Wette, Wilhelm Martin de, 417 Wharton, Edith, 435 _White Jacket_, 262 White, Maria, 351, 463, 465 Whitman, Walt, 127, 183, 222, 244, 264, 265, 366, 367 Whittier, John G., 244, 314, 315, 319, 351, 352, 359, 361-370, 377 ----, Robert, 364 _Wieland_, 190 _Wilderness and the War-Path, The_, 165 Willard, President, 292 William IV, King, 452 _William Ellery Channing_, 330, 338 _William Gilmore Simms, Life of_, 39 Williams, Roger, 97, 327, 345, 379, 399 Willing, Mrs., 207 n Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 200, 202, 238 Wilson, Henry, 469 _Windsor Forest_, 114 Winthrop, John, 124 ----, Robert C., 47, 49 Wirt, William, 29, 30-35, 47, 48, 49, 56, 169 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 188, 189, 242, 331, 430, 432 _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_, 432 _Woodcraft_, 131, 134 Woods, Leonard, 367 Woolsey, Theodore, 94 Wordsworth, William, 111, 381, 389, 453, 466 _Working Man’s Advocate, The_, 254 _World’s Fair, The_, 470 Wright, Fannie, 242, 244, 428 ----, Henry C., 343, 358 _Wyandotté_, 235 Wythe, George, 25, 29, 142, 143 Yates, Robert, 72 _Yemassee, The_, 134, 135 Young, Edward, 31, 111, 254 The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America [Volume Three] Vernon Louis Parrington The sudden death of Professor Vernon Louis Parrington in England, June 16, 1929, cut tragically short his labors on the last volume of _Main Currents in American Thought_. Of this third volume approximately the first half had been completed, which, together with the outline of the work and some scattered essays in sections otherwise undeveloped, constitutes all that the author left. Unfinished it is, yet no completion by another can be justified. That anyone could duplicate his felicity of style, so unobtrusively individual, so sensitively adjusted to the freighted thought, is hardly to be hoped for; and more important, that another scholar could accurately reproduce his interpretation is an assumption not to be warranted. The decision to publish the author’s incomplete work is a tribute to his brilliance. Nevertheless it is possible to know Professor Parrington’s chief intentions, particularly when one understands, as his associates did, his principles for organizing materials and his standards of value. Students as well as associates first of all noticed beneath the richness and complexity of his thought a constancy of purpose as clear as the treatment of mass in a Gothic cathedral. Indeed it was through a delight in architecture pursued as a hobby for many years that Parrington expressed this desire for a unity, balanced, harmonious, and properly proportioned. This architectonic feeling, abundantly illustrated in his writing habits, was carried over not only into his classroom procedure and conversation, but also into his varied interests. Painting as well as architecture had long intrigued him. Though few people knew it, he wrote poetry distinguished for restraint in expression and clarity of form; while in conversation he persistently sought the appropriate phrase, spiced it with wit, salted it with homely realism; for no gentleman of the eighteenth century was more conscious of the charms of good discourse. Professor Parrington’s classroom procedure had a reputation that attracted students not much interested in literature and which appealed to all ranges of intellect. The source of that popularity was the personality of the teacher, together with his gift for presenting