So long as the noble is noble and "_noblesse
oblige_," so long as Church and State are true to their guiding and
governing duties, the elevation of the base is the elevation of the
whole. If the standards of what is truly aristocratic in our language
are standards of nobility of thought, they will endure and draw up to
them, on to the episcopal thrones and into the Upper House of letters,
all that is most worthy. Whatever makes the nation's life will make its
speech. War was once the career of the Norman, and he set the seal of
its language upon poetry. Agriculture was the Saxon's calling, and he
made literature a mirror of the life he led. We in this new land are
born to new heritages, and the terms of our new life must be used to
tell our story. The Herald's College gives precedence to the
Patent-Office, and the shepherd's pipe to the steam-whistle. And since
all literature which can live stands only upon the national speech, we
must look for our hopes of coming epics and immortal dramas to the
language of the land, to its idioms, in which its present soul abides
and breathes, and not to its classicalities, which are the empty shells
upon its barren sea-shore.
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