To what extent homogeneous ?

A recognizable type.

Foreign

criticism.

ing the politics, manners, dress, art, and letters of the several European countries, and this, however distinct their nationalities, in proportion to the growth of travel and interculture. But the United States are homogeneous in what pertains to the language and methods of their master-race, and to this extent their homogeneity is definitely assured. Concerning the primal influences that affect the general tone of art and literature, mutual communication and understanding are so perfect that any changes or advances are almost simultaneous throughout our territory. This being the situation, foreign critics are not far wrong in requiring that our home-product shall differ from their own; that it shall be, at least, un-European, manifestly of the New World, and not of the Old. Return to a consideration of the family likeness, physical and mental, which instantly is apparent to others as we visit the mother-land. If we ourselves are unconscious of it, or wonted to it; if the air and fashion that we display seem to us imperceptible or of small account, they are not so regarded by our kinsmen, or by the guest who lands upon these shores. The stranger quickly perceives, and holds at its value, the general, the national, type. Material and psychological changes are correlative, and almost equally sure of external recognition.

So far, therefore, from demanding absolute novelty in structure, language, or theme, of our home-poet, it is the duty of the critic to value the Americanism which great and small have displayed in quality of tone, and in faithful expression of the dominant popular moods. Thus considered, it will be found they have not fallen short. Those arbiters of foreign taste who do not acknowledge this may be suspected of some unconscious insincerity. Not every mother as fair

LOCAL PRODUCTIONS.

and ripe as England, however affectionate, can look
with perfect complacence upon a daughter growing
to her own height and beauty before the world. To
her eyes the maiden is still a child, and she owns with
reluctance and very slowly that child's attractiveness
and the claims of her suitors. One by one the points
of youth and inferiority, brought against America, have
worn away, and now, when so many of us grant Eng-
land this last defence of her supremacy, it is with the
respect due a mother, and with a courtesy perchance
no less insincere than her avowal. The new Ameri-
canism is not so modest as to surrender any
to be unconscious of its smallest advantages.

freehold or

9

character

The less essential novelties of structure, theme, and Minor dialect already are discernible in the yield that rep-istics. resents our territorial subdivision. The local flavor of our genre and provincial literature has long been unquestioned, but our conceit was not overfed by an acknowledgment almost wholly due to grotesque and -humorous exploits, a welcome such as a prince in his breathing-hour might give to a new-found jester or clown. American poetry, however, has not represented the popular life of our continental slopes and corners merely in their coarser traits. These sections are not so isolated as the Scottish highlands, or as those mountain nooks in Italy, where peasant women contentedly whirl the spindle, and never visit the plains that glisten below; yet some of them are longsettled and have an abiding population, with habits more or less confirmed. Where there is the least of change and interruption, and the colonial blood is most unmixed, the national ennui does not prevail; the sentiment and instinct of the people, if limited, are clearly understood, and have been fairly expressed in poetry and prose romance.

The new Americanism.

Republi

canism in these re

In a certain sense, it is natural for the citizen of so vast and various a country to find his patriotism and his gift of expression respond most easily to the appeals of his own locality. There is still a lagging behind full nationality, just as Federal supremacy, in the hearts of a great multitude, gives precedence to "state rights." Yet there are signs of growth toward an imagination in keeping with our political enlargement. The new Americanism, with relation to literature and the arts of beauty and construction, is seen in the very search for it, in the closer inspection of our own ground, in our more realistic method, in the genuine quality of our modern poetry and creative. prose, so much more indigenous than the work of the Neo-Romantic English school, and presenting so fresh a contrast to the poetry and prose of our early periods; finally, in the greater value set upon our homeworkers, upon our ventures for ourselves. It is curious to note the minor symptoms of this change. As time has lessened our yearning for the mothercountry, native Americans less fondly cling to the old words and traditions. The landlords who cater to foreign or provincial guests still give English and French names to their hotels, and a fresh English colony, after the manner of our ancestors, calls its village Rugby; but the reproach of this barrenness of nomenclature is fast passing away, and the time has come when the declaration of our independence may be made to include the fields of literature and

art.

And indeed, if art, under the free system of a democracy, does not show in time as proud a result spects is on whether in the product of its disciples or in the wealth of its libraries and museums as in countries where it is fed by governmental patronage and sub

trial.

RESTRICTIONS OF OUR POETS.

sidies, then our republicanism, upon its æsthetic side, is itself a failure. So far as poetry is concerned, I see that we have already had the first period of what may be called, for want of a better term, a true American school. I see that this school was slow to rise, until suddenly a number of its leaders appeared at once; that its first tuneful season has been completed, so that, in the temporary pause, we now, for the first time, may honestly recount its triumphs. But that our lyrical product has not been so obvious as our material grandeur, that it has put on a national type less complete than the types of various sections, that it has been but a delightful promise of what a new song will create for us when poetry comes in vogue again throughout the world, — this, too, is not to be gainsaid. Before examining what we have done, let us see what we have not been able to do until recently, and what not at all. It is time to indicate the early and later restrictions that have hemmed in the poets, and limited the poetry, of the Western world.

II

III.

later Restrictions

American

poets.

THE poets themselves, naturally, would be slow to Early and perceive the causes of their difficulties. The brain is not always conscious of its own malaise. Never- of the theless, I think that to each true singer, as he arrived at a period when his intellectual faculty sought the rationale of his successes and failures, the facts have been more or less apparent. The idealism of this people was long retarded by certain interdicts, and at last forced its way to expression under very baffling and perplexing conditions, some of which are even now felt. So far as the embarrassments pecul

The first two hun

dred years.

iar to the new epoch are involved, it was a perception of these that led me to observe their bearing on the poets of England, before venturing to write upon our own. To these matters I shall again refer, after some mention of the absolute barriers which shut out the Muses from these shores until so late a time.

For two centuries, in truth, the situation here was so adverse to art, and especially to song, as to nullify even our complement to Taine's theory; to stifle, or to divert to other than ideal uses,' any exceptional genius that existed, and that would have made its way against restrictions not of themselves quite as exceptional. The modified results of this situation may still be observed. As a rider to all I have said of the essential superiority of art to its materials, we must not fail, also, to consider the repugnance of the general mind to disassociate things and ideas, — to separate the spirit of a work from what is used for its construction. There is a natural expectation that the art of a country will convey to us something of the national history, aspect, social law. On the whole, it has been the instinct of masters to avail themselves, so far as might be, in their plots, manners, and scenery, of the region nearest them; a wise instinct, through which they reach closely to nature, and are more sure to make their work of interest elsewhere and afterward. Shakespeare's men are apt to be Englishmen, though they may figure in Illyria

1 I am not considering the question whether a poet of the first rank may, or may not, find his natural vocation under the most adverse conditions, and overcome them; but am trying to see why a general poetic movement, embracing many true poets, was deferred until Longfellow, Poe, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Whitman, and others of their generation appeared almost simultaneously.