nineteenth century literature, most of the rising generation of
Americans know very little about and the great majority of them
completely ignore. It is for their critical and expository work in
introducing great foreign authors--really great poets--to the {454}
knowledge of their countrymen that both Longfellow and Lowell will
deserve the gratitude of all future generations and some of their work
in this regard will endure when their verse is forgotten. Longfellow's
edition of Dante was not only well worth all the time he gave to it
during thirty years, but represents a monument in American literature
that will be fondly looked back to by many a generation of
English-speaking people. Very probably of his work in verse the
"Golden Legend" will mean more to a future generation than almost
anything else that Longfellow has done. Above all, it was precious in
making Americans realize how profound and how beautiful had been the
work of the poets of Europe seven centuries ago.
In the light of this gradual reduction of the value of New England's
literature to its lowest terms it is extremely amusing to find
occasionally expressions of the value of the New England period in
English literature as expressed by enthusiastic New Englanders and,
above all, by ardent--what, for want of a better term we must
call--New Englanderesses. One of these, Miss Helen Winslow, has
recently and quite deservedly been made great fun of by Mr. H. W.
Horwin in an article in the _National Review_ (England), headed, "Are
Americans Provincial?" which brings home a few truths to us in what
concerns our complacent self-satisfaction with ourselves. Miss Winslow
declares that the {455} great Bostonian period was "a literary epoch,
the like of which has scarcely been known since the Elizabethan
period." She proclaims that "The Papyrus Club [of Boston] is known to
men of letters and attainments everywhere." She notes that "Scott,
Balzac and Thackeray received a legal training," just when she is
going to add that "Robert Grant is also a lawyer." She adds that
"young people everywhere adore the name of Sophie Sweet" (whoever she
may be). Is it any wonder that the ordinary non-New-England American
"gets hot under the collar" for his countrymen under such
circumstances?
Two really great masters of literature we had in America during the
nineteenth century, Poe and Hawthorne. Because of our New England
schoolmasters, as it seems to most of us, Poe has never come into his
own proper appreciation in this country. The French consider him the
great master of the short story, and that has come to occupy such a
prominent place in our so-called literature in America, that one might
look for an apotheosis of Poe. He is the one writer whose works in
both prose and verse have influenced deeply the literary men of other
countries besides our own. No other American writer has been given the
tribute of more than a perfunctory notice in the non-English-speaking
countries. In spite of this Poe's name was kept out of the Hall of
Fame at New York University, {456} which was meant to enshrine the
memory of our greatest thinkers and literary men, though we had
generally supposed that the national selection of the jury to decide
those whose names should be honored, would preclude all possibility of
any narrow sectional influence perverting the true purpose of the
institution. Poe has never been popular in New England, nor has he
been appreciated at his true worth by the literary circles of New
England. Their schoolmasterly influence has been pervasive enough to
keep from Poe his true meed of praise among our people generally,
though all our poets and literary men look up to him as our greatest
poetic genius.
As for Hawthorne, there is no doubt that he is our greatest American
writer in prose. He was the one man in New England with a great
message. His writings came from deep down in the human heart, from the
very wellsprings of human passion, and had their origin not far from
where soul touches body in this human compound. The English, usually
supposed to be slow of recognition for things American, acknowledged
his high worth almost at once. Some of us here in America, indeed,
have had the feeling that to a great extent our people have had to
learn the lesson of proper appreciation for Hawthorne from the
English-speaking people across the water. To Americans, for years, he
was little more than a story-writer, not so popular as {457} many
another writer of stories, and his really great qualities were to a
great extent ignored. Because Puritan New England was out of sympathy
with the mystical spirit of his writings only a late and quite
inadequate appreciation of the value of his work was formed by his
countrymen. Something of this unfortunate lack of appreciation crept
into the schoolmastering of the country, and Hawthorne is probably not
as highly valued in his native land as he is in England, though France
and Germany have learned to look up to him as our greatest of American
literary men--the one of our writers who, with Poe, attracts a world
audience.
When there is question of anything else besides literature, of course,
New England has no claims at all to make, and she has stood for many
unfortunate austere tendencies in American life. For anything like
public spirit for art or music or aesthetics in any department the
Puritan soul had no use. Consequently our artistic development was
seriously delayed as a nation by the influence that New England had as
the schoolmaster of the country. The consequence was that our churches
were bare and ugly, our homes lacking in the spirit of beauty and our
municipalities mere places to live and make money in, but with no
provision for the enjoyment of life. It is in this that New England
has doubtless done us most harm and it is for this reason that many
people will re-echo that expression of a {458} descendant of the
Puritans who declares that it would have been "an awfully good thing
when the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock if only Plymouth Rock had
landed on the Puritans." It would have saved us an immense deal of
inhibition of all the art impulses of this country, which were almost
completely choked off for so long by the narrow Puritanism so rampant
in New England and so diffusively potent in our educational system.
In conclusion one feels like recalling once more Lowell's "Essay on a
Certain Condescension in Foreigners." Surely the daughter New England,
consciously or unconsciously, has treated the rest of the country very
much like Mother England used to treat nascent English America long
ago. There are many of us who in recent years have come to know New
Englandism and its proneness to be condescending, who have felt very
much like paraphrasing, with the addition of the adjective "new" here
and there, certain of Lowell's best-known sentences. The new version
will make quite as satisfactory a bit of satire on our Down East
compatriots as Lowell's hits on the mother country and our English
cousins across the water. Very probably there are more people who will
appreciate the satire in this new application of the great American
essayist's words than they did in its original form: "It will take
(New) England a great while to get over her airs of patronage toward
us, or even passably {459} to conceal them. She has a conviction that
whatever good there is in us is wholly (New) English, when the truth
is that we are worth nothing except so far as we have disinfected
ourselves of (Neo-) Anglicanism."
[Additional Material]
THE POPES AND SCIENCE--The story of the Papal Relations
to Science from the Middle Ages down to the Nineteenth
Century. By James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., LL. D. 440 pp.
Price. $2.00 net.
Prof. Pagel, Professor of History at the University of Berlin: "This
book represents the most serious contribution to the history of
medicine that has ever come out of America."
Sir Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Physic at the University
of Cambridge (England): "The book as a whole is a fair as well as a
scholarly argument."
_The Evening Post_ (New York) says: "However strong the reader's
prejudice * * * * he cannot lay down Prof. Walsh's volume without at
least conceding that the author has driven his pen hard and deep
into the 'academic superstition' about Papal Opposition to science."
In a previous issue it had said: "We venture to prophesy that all
who swear by Dr. Andrew D. White's History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology in Christendom will find their hands full, if they
attempt to answer Dr. James J. Walsh's The Popes and Science."
_The Literary Digest_ said: "The book is well worth reading for its
extensive learning and the vigor of its style."
_The Southern Messenger_ says: "Books like this make it clear that
it is ignorance alone that makes people, even supposedly educated
people, still cling to the old calumnies."
_The Nation_ (New York) says: "The learned Fordham Physician has at
command an enormous mass of facts, and he orders them with logic,
force and literary ease. Prof. Walsh convicts his opponents of hasty
generalizing if not anti-clerical zeal."
_The Pittsburg Post_ says: "With the fair attitude of mind and
influenced only by the student's desire to procure knowledge, this
book becomes at once something to fascinate. On every page
authoritative facts confute the stereotyped statement of the purely
theological publications."
Prof. Welch, of Johns Hopkins, quoting Martial, said: "It is
pleasant indeed to drink at the living fountain-heads of knowledge
after previously having had only the stagnant pools of second-hand
authority."
Prof. Piersol, Professor of Anatomy at the University of
Pennsylvania, said: "I have been reading the book with the keenest
interest, for it indeed presents many subjects in what to me at
least is a new light. Every man of science looks to the
beacon--truth--as his guiding mark, and every opportunity to
replace even time-honored misconceptions by what is really the truth
must be welcomed."
_The Independent_ (New York) said: "Dr. Walsh's books should be read
in connection with attacks upon the Popes in the matter of science
by those who want to get both sides."
MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY--By Brother Potamian, F. C. S., Sc. D. (London),
Professor of Physics in Manhattan College, and James J. Walsh, M. D..
Ph. D.. Litt. D.. Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of
Nervous Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine, New York.
Fordham University Press, 110 West 74th Street Illustrated. Price,
$2.00 net. Postage. 15 cents extra.
_The Scientific American:_ "One will find in this book very good
sketches of the lives of the great pioneers in Electricity, with a
clear presentation of how it was that these men came to make their
fundamental experiments, and how we now reach conclusions in Science
that would have been impossible until their work of revealing was
done. The biographies are those of Peregrinus, Columbus, Norman and
Gilbert, Franklin and some contemporaries, Galvini, Volta, Coulomb,
Oersted, Ampere, Ohm, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Kelvin."
_The Boston Globe:_ "The book is of surpassing interest"
_The New York Sun:_ "The researches of Brother Potamian among the
pioneers in antiquity and the Middle Ages are perhaps more
interesting than Dr. Walsh's admirable summaries of the
accomplishment of the heroes of modern science. The book testifies
to the excellence of Catholic scholarship."
_The Evening Post:_ "It is a matter of importance that the work and
lives of men like Gilbert, Franklin, Galvini, Volta, Ampere and
others should be made known to the students of Electricity, and this
office has been well fulfilled by the present authors. The book is
no mere compilation, but brings out many interesting and obscure
facts, especially about the earlier men."
_The Philadelphia Record:_ "It is a glance at the whole field of
Electricity by men who are noted for the thoroughness of their
research, and it should be made accessible to every reader capable
of taking a serious interest in the wonderful phenomena of nature."
_Electrical World:_ "Aside from the intrinsic interest of its
matter, the book is delightful to read owing to the graceful
literary style common to both authors. One not having the slightest
acquaintance with electrical science will find the book of absorbing
interest as treating in a human way and with literary art the life
work of some of the greatest men of modern times; and, moreover, in
the course of his reading he will incidentally obtain a sound
knowledge of the main principles upon which almost all present-day
electrical development is based. It is a shining example of how
science can be popularized without the slightest twisting of facts
or distortion of perspective. Electrical readers will find the book
also a scholarly treatise on the evolution of electrical science,
and a most refreshing change from the 'engineering English' of the
typical technical writer."
CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS SERIES
The highest value attaches to historical research on the lines you so
ably indicate, especially at the present time, when the enemies of
Holy Church are making renewed efforts to show her antagonism to
science and human progress generally. I shall have much pleasure in
perusing your work entitled "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries."
Wishing you every blessing, I am, Yours sincerely in Xt.,
R. Card. Merry Del Val.
Rome, January 18th, 1908.
Jas. J. Walsh, Esq., New York.
THE THIRTEENTH GREATEST OF CENTURIES
--By James J. Walsh. M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D.. Dean and Professor of
Nervous Diseases and of the History of Medicine at Fordham University
School of Medicine; Professor of Physiological Psychology at Cathedral
College, New York. Catholic Summer School Press. 110 West 74th Street,
N. T., Georgetown University Edition. Over 100 additional
illustrations and twenty-six chapters that might have been, nearly 600
pages. Price, $3.50, post free.
Prof. William Osler, of Oxford, delivering the Linacre Lecture
before the University of Cambridge, said: "That good son of the
Church and of the profession, Dr. James J. Walsh, has recently
published a charming book on The Thirteenth as the Greatest of
Centuries. He makes a very good case for what is called the First
Renaissance."
_The Saturday Review_ (of London): "The volume contains a mass of
interesting facts that will start a train of profitable thought in
many readers' minds."
_The Educational Review_ said: "The title of Dr. Walsh's book, The
Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, will startle many readers, but we
respectfully commend to the open-minded his presentation of that
great epoch. A century that witnessed such extraordinary
achievements in architecture, in arts and crafts, in education, and
in literature and law, as did the Thirteenth, is not to be lightly
dismissed or unfavorably compared with periods nearer our own."
_The Pittsburg Post_ said: "Dr. Walsh writes infused with all the
learning of the past, enthusiastic in modern research, and
sympathetic, in true scholarly style, with investigation in every
line. One need only run over a few of the topical headings to feel
how plausible the thesis is. The assemblage of the facts and the
elucidation of their mutual relations by Dr. Walsh shows the
master's skill. The work bristles on every page with facts that may
be familiar to many, but which were never before so arranged in just
perspective with their convincing force so clearly shown."
Cardinal Moran, of Sydney, Australia: "Just the sort of literature
we want for English readers at the present day."
End of Project Gutenberg's Education: How Old The New, by James J. Walsh