THE PRESENT FASHIONABLE LITERATURE IS UNWORTHY OF THIS GREAT NATION.
I say it again; were the people encouraged to look back to standards
of classical literature, so rich in all the languages of the old
continent, this glorious, ambitious country, soon would have her
Johnsons, her Rousseaus, her Dantes, her Machiavellis. But, the little
which the americans read now, are but light works from the english
press, here reprinted; contentions of parties, called politics; and
american periodicals, praising each other: and these periodicals,
having now the consideration of oracles in literature, keep under a
contemptible silence many american geniuses, who were too independent
to bend under the ruling will of any party. However, there are daily
papers, as well as periodicals of my highest esteem: I mean only to
say, here; monopoly can be found in every trade; and fashion, not only
ruins the feet of chinese, and the shape of american ladies; fashion
ruins also a National Literature.
There is, at present, in the United States of America, a fashionable,
unwholsome, immoral practice of writing, which, although the ancients
had not always been free of reproach, now a days, is rather too much
frequented. I mean a kind of personal ridiculing, and retaliating each
other’s national foible, unmercifully. If an english comes here, and
finds faults with us, as no nation can be yet without faults, it is our
duty to thank the writer, and correct ourselves. If the imputation is
false, truth speaks for itself. But, to go into England with a spirit
of revenge by retaliating with ostentation, pleasure, and self conceit,
the faults which we find among that nation, faults which we have not,
we must then have forgotten the very moral principle required to
literature. He, or she who does not know charity, the former would do
better to plant potatoes; and the latter to attend her family kitchen,
or darn her husband’s stockings. A writer should look with pain at the
faults of all nations; and could he have a little patriotic feeling
without prejudice, he would not tell to his children they are the
prettiest, because he finds others who are uglier. He should rather
feel displeased not to find, on earth, another nation from whom he
cannot learn how to become better.
That book which does not elevate the human mind to noble, generous
sentiments, is a dangerous book! He who ridicules others, should, in
his turn, be the only subject worthy of being ridiculed: but, the
innocent man who steps into a drawing room, laming as Byron with a
wish to imitate Byron, if, unfortunately, he falls on the carpet, or
cannot prevent his tumbler of lemonade from falling on a lady’s black
satin dress, not only we should indulge his weak side; but, if we wish
to be polite, we should turn our eyes from his uncomfortable position.
Though to ridicule another it is the same as to say: I am a perfect
being, I often found, that he who is fond of the fun, and laughs at his
neighbor, because this has no nose, he turns angry, when another laughs
at him, because he has only one eye: I mean to say, here; could we see
the soul of the individual, so fond of ridiculing his fellow beings,
such an exhibition would present a hideous grim face of envy without
heart, without any worthy feeling.
In writing against the present, fashionable style of ridiculing, I wish
to be well understood. I do not intend here, to dissuade writers from
exposing the ridicule of man in the abstract. On the contrary; I think,
for our improvements, nothing is more beneficial than the caricatures,
or the faults of real life, exposed in a ridiculous light, by which the
reader would correct his faults, if he has any like. But the writer
should give the caricatures with such modifications, or charged colors,
with which to avoid all personalities. And here, the writer, who must
pen from nature, may sometimes delineate a living character, whom he
had forgotten, or did never see: but, such a writer cannot be blamed
for all the faults of man; and as it is not a malicious composition,
he, who has like ridicules, has but to correct himself.
National faults also cannot be personalities. Besides, I may, for
instance, write, or speak of persons I met in a stage, in a private
house, theatre, or church, provided their names are not mentioned.
If the historical fact happened, only, with the person introduced in
the tale, nobody knows of whom the writer is speaking, or writing;
if it happened before other persons, the truth of the fact prevents,
rather, those fond of making false stories from the smallest event; the
truth cannot offend either of the parties. Besides, men would conduct
themselves better, were they afraid of being exposed: and if we have
committed an offence towards an innocent person, we should listen,
and do better for the time to come. I mean only to say here, were all
writers, who can wield a pen, permitted to book all the characters they
meet with, writers should be avoided as cholera: and though in this,
and many other countries libeling did turn fashionable, I understood
that such writers are not the most welcome, among those who do not
like to see their private characters heralded; and that America can
not be offended in finding american families heralded, because lords,
and ladies of England are heralded also, it is the same as to wish
here, the same faults, permitted in that country, for no other reason,
because the lords of England cannot prevent an english editor from
prying into their private houses. If I preach morals, and at the same
time I act immorally, not only I wrong myself in exposing my hypocrisy;
but, I turn literature into an infamous art. I repeat it again, good
or bad characters may be blended in a novel, comedy, or tragedy, where
the characters, though taken from nature, cannot offend any private
individual; but, the names, or exact characters, should not be exposed
by writers, unless the individuals are notorious, or had already become
a part of history.
Like immoral writers have, now a days, become so fashionable for which,
loosing all respect which man ought to have for man, we see dandies
ridiculing not only private characters; they write of nations, as if
their cat-like brain could judge that of an elephant. That part, or
that half of a man, whose life was spent in setting his cravat without
a fault, as soon as he visits a strange country, where the cravat is
tied _à la sans façon_, such a half man calls all those people a set
of fools. He who did never live in the luxury of a palace, finds that
his two story house, built without knowledge of architecture, is by far
more comfortable than the palace built by Michæl Angelo. The protestant
finds nothing reasonable in a catholic country; and the catholic
nothing reasonable in a protestant one. He whose life was spent in
contending parties, cannot understand how the citizens of another
country go so quietly to their own private business, without meddling
with the ruling power. The subject of England calls the americans free
fools; and the turk calls barbarous those nations condeming a man to a
forced labor for bigamy, or polygamy. These, while they do not permit
divorce, connive at a man living with another woman, as far as he does
not marry in church the second, as he did the former still living.
Because that country educates, and brings them up, all the children
from poor parents, this other traveler, who had never read the laws
of Sparta, blames all poor, who marry in his country, because his
legislators did no more provide for them, than they had for the flies
which pester his luxurious table.
I might blend here, and multiply the prejudices as well as the good
reasons of travelers to infinity, almost: but, unless the dandy ceases
from being a dandy; the religious from being a superstitious man; I
mean, as far as the writer does not look at things with a charitable,
and unprejudiced eye, the too many writers of our day, not only injure
our literature; they degrade it. And why, instead of cavils, frivolous
misrepresentations of persons and nations, writers do not place
themselves as citizens of the world, correcting national faults, as
a father would his beloved children? The greatest man, and the most
nigh to perfection, could not, would not, should not boast of his fine
qualities. If an Aristides is rare, very rare among us, how can a
nation boast supremacy over another? From my own experience I always
found the best the modest; and he who has no merit boasting merit. It
is a pity in seeing writers finding fault with nations, because these
eat with a knife and fork, or because they do not eat three eggs in
a tumbler. Knifes and forks are convenient, when the meat is hot;
and I, who am fond of eggs, like to crack four eggs in a tumbler,
provided the present sensible american does not care of the puerile
english observation. Besides, if I am pleased in looking at the fine
architecture of an italian palace, I am pleased also in seeing that
the small, modest, and nearly uniform houses of the United States of
North America, have the blessed appearance of a nation, whose richest
citizens do not outshine the poor.
What right has he, the man of talent, or the handsome man to ridicule
he who has no talent, or he who is deformed? He who ridicules a nation
shows his perfect ignorance of nations. Can we find a nation without
faults? When the egyptians were the most civilized, all the other
nations were either savage or barbarous. The egyptians went down,
and the greeks rose: the old age of these, reached them too, and the
romans shot forth. These, also, had their days as the formers; and
civilization went progressively around the world with such propagating
means, and discoveries, that the citizen of any nation now, who
undertakes to ridicule an ancient nation, he is nothing else but like
that bad son of Noah, who saw the nakedness of his father, and told his
two brethren without.