_Oct. 17, '79_.--To-day one of the newspapers of St. Louis prints the
following informal remarks of mine on American, especially Western
literature: "We called on Mr. Whitman yesterday and after a somewhat
desultory conversation abruptly asked him: 'Do you think we are to have
a distinctively American literature?' 'It seems to me,' said he,'that
our work at present is to lay the foundations of a great nation
in products, in agriculture, in commerce, in networks of
intercommunication, and in all that relates to the comforts of vast
masses of men and families, with freedom of speech, ecclesiasticism, &c.
These we have founded and are carrying out on a grander scale than ever
hitherto, and Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado,
seem to me to be the seat and field of these very facts and ideas.
Materialistic prosperity in all its varied forms, with those other
points that I mentioned, intercommunication and freedom, are first to
be attended to. When those have their results and get settled, then
a literature worthy of us will begin to be defined. Our American
superiority and vitality are in the bulk of our people, not in a gentry
like the old world. The greatness of our army during the secession war,
was in the rank and file, and so with the nation. Other lands have their
vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of the people.
Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the
average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think
in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way
our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals
or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.'"