There is still another issue on which comparison must be made. The
question of nationality will for some time to come be an interesting one
in any discussion of American authors. The American character is so
relative, that it is only by a long series of contrasts, a careful study
of the registering-plate of literature, that we shall come to the point
of defining it. American quality in literature is not like Greek,
German, French, English quality: those are each unified, and their
component elements stoutly enough welded together to make what may be
called a positive impression; but _our_ distinctions are relative.
The nearest and most important means that we have for measuring them is
that of comparison with England; and anything strikingly original in
American genius is found to be permanent in proportion as it maintains a
certain relation to English literature, not quite easy to define. It is
not one of hostility, for the best American minds thus far have had the
sincerest kindliness toward the mother country; it involves, however,
the claiming of separate standards of judgment. The primary division,
both in the case of the New England Pilgrims and in that of our
Revolutionary patriots, was based on clearer perceptions of certain
truths on the part of the cisatlantic English; and this claiming of
separate standards in literature is a continuation of that historic
attitude. We are making a perpetual minority report on the rest of the
world, sure that in time our voice will be an authoritative one.
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