America abounds in the material of poetry. Its history, its scenery, the
structure of its social life, the thoughts which pervade its political
forms, the meaning which underlies its hot contests, are all capable
of being exhibited in a poetical aspect. Carlyle, in speaking of the
settlement of Plymouth by the Pilgrims, remarks that, if we had the open
sense of the Greeks, we should have “found a poem here; one of nature’s
own poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great continents.” If
we have a literature, it should be a national literature; no feeble or
sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially American in its tone
and object. No matter how meritorious a composition may be, as long as
any foreign nation can say that it has done the same thing better, so
long shall we be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of impertinent
patronage. We begin to sicken of the custom, now so common, of presenting
even our best poems to the attention of foreigners with a deprecating,
apologetic air; as if their acceptance of the offering, with a few soft
and silky compliments, would be an act of kindness demanding our warmest
acknowledgements. If the _Quarterly Review_ or _Blackwood’s Magazine_
speaks well of an American production, we think that we can praise it
ourselves, without incurring the reproach of bad taste. The folly we
yearly practice, of flying into a passion with some inferior English
writer, who caricatures our faults, and tells dull jokes about his tour
through the land, has only the effect to exalt an insignificant scribbler
into notoriety, and give a nominal value to his recorded impertinence. If
the mind and heart of the country had its due expression, if its life had
taken form in a literature worthy of itself, we should pay little regard
to the childish tattling of a pert coxcomb, who was discontented with our
taverns, or the execrations of some bluff sea-captain, who was shocked
with our manners. The uneasy sense we have of something in our national
existence which has not yet been fitly expressed, gives poignancy to
the least ridicule launched at faults and follies which lie on the
superficies of our life. Every person feels that a book which condemns
the country for its peculiarities of manners and customs does not pierce
into the heart of the matter, and is essentially worthless. If Bishop
Berkeley, when he visited Malebranche, had paid exclusive attention
to the habitation, raiment, and manners of the man, and neglected the
conversation of the metaphysician, and, when he returned to England, had
entertained Pope, Swift, Gay, and Arbuthnot, with satirical descriptions
of the “complement extern” of his eccentric host, he would have acted
just as wisely as many an English tourist, with whose malicious
pleasantry on our habits of chewing, spitting, and eating, we are silly
enough to quarrel. To the United States, in reference to the pop-gun
shots of foreign tourists, might be addressed the warning which Peter
Plymley thundered against Bonaparte, in reference to the Anti-Jacobin
jests of Canning: Tremble, oh thou land of many spitters and voters, “for
a _pleasant_ man has come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by
a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk to thee, and thou
shalt be no more!”
In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth of
nations, a literature is needed which shall be the exponent of its
higher life. We live in times of turbulence and change. There is a
general dissatisfaction, manifesting itself often in rude contests and
ruder speech, with the gulf which separates principles from actions.
Men are struggling to realize dim ideals of right and truth, and each
failure adds to the desperate earnestness of their efforts. Beneath
all the shrewdness and selfishness of the American character, there
is a smouldering enthusiasm which flames out at the first touch of
fire,—sometimes at the hot and hasty words of party, and sometimes at
the bidding of great thoughts and unselfish principles. The heart of
the nation is easily stirred to its depths; but those who rouse its
fiery impulses into action are often men compounded of ignorance and
wickedness, and wholly unfit to guide the passions which they are able to
excite. There is no country in the world which has nobler ideas embodied
in more worthless shapes. All our factions, fanaticisms, reforms,
parties, creeds, ridiculous or dangerous though they often appear, are
founded on some aspiration or reality which deserves a better form and
expression. There is a mighty power in great speech. If the sources of
what we call our fooleries and faults were rightly addressed, they would
echo more majestic and kindling truths. We want a poetry which shall
speak in clear, loud tones to the people; a poetry which shall make us
more in love with our native land, by converting its ennobling scenery
into the images of lofty thought; which shall give visible form and life
to the abstract ideas of our written constitutions; which shall confer
upon virtue all the strength of principle, and all the energy of passion;
which shall disentangle freedom from cant and senseless hyperbole, and
render it a thing of such loveliness and grandeur as to justify all
self-sacrifice; which shall make us love man by the new consecrations
it sheds on his life and destiny; which shall force through the thin
partitions of conventionalism and expediency; vindicate the majesty of
reason; give new power to the voice of conscience, and new vitality to
human affection; soften and elevate passion; guide enthusiasm in a right
direction, and speak out in the high language of men to a nation of
men.—_E. P. Whipple._