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THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE -
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE - BLISS PERRY CONTENTS
I. THE PIONEERS
II. THE FIRST COLONIAL LITERATURE
III. THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION
IV. THE REVOLUTION
V. THE KNICKERBOCKER GROUP
VI. THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
VII. ROMANCE POETRY AND HISTORY
VIII. POE AND WHITMAN
IX. UNION AND LIBERTY
X. A NEW NATION
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE
CHAPTER I. THE PIONEERS
The United States of America has been from the beginning in a
perpetual change. The physical and mental restlessness of the
American and the temporary nature of many of his arrangements
are largely due to the experimental character of the exploration
and development of this continent. The new energies released by
the settlement of the colonies were indeed guided by stern
determination wise forethought and inventive skill; but no one
has ever really known the outcome of the experiment. It is a
story of faith of
Effort and expectation and desire
And something evermore about to be.
An Alexander Hamilton may urge with passionate force the adoption
of the Constitution without any firm conviction as to its
permanence. The most clear-sighted American of the Civil War
period recognized this element of uncertainty in our American
adventure when he declared: "We are now testing whether this
nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long
endure." More than fifty years have passed since that war rearmed
the binding force of the Constitution and apparently sealed the
perpetuity of the Union. Yet the gigantic economic and social
changes now in progress are serving to show that the United
States has its full share of the anxieties which beset all human
institutions in this daily altering world.
"We are but strangers in an inn but passengers in a ship" said
Roger Williams. This sense of the transiency of human effort the
perishable nature of human institutions was quick in the
consciousness of the gentleman adventurers and sober Puritan
citizens who emigrated from England to the New World. It had been
a familiar note in the poetry of that Elizabethan period which
had followed with such breathless interest the exploration of
America. It was a conception which could be shared alike by a
saint like John Cotton or a soldier of fortune like John Smith.
Men are tent-dwellers. Today they settle here and tomorrow they
have struck camp and are gone. We are strangers and sojourners
as all our fathers were.
This instinct of the camper has stamped itself upon American life
and thought. Venturesomeness physical and moral daring
resourcefulness in emergencies indifference to negligible
details wastefulness of materials boundless hope and confidence
in the morrow are characteristics of the American. It is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that the "good American" has been
he who has most resembled a good camper. He has had robust
health--unless or until he has abused it--a tolerant
disposition and an ability to apply his fingers or his brain to
many unrelated and unexpected tasks. He is disposed to blaze his
own trail. He has a touch of prodigality and withal a knack of
keeping his tent or his affairs in better order than they seem.
Above all he has been ever ready to break camp when he feels the
impulse to wander. He likes to be "foot-loose." If he does not
build his roads as solidly as the Roman roads were built nor his
houses like the English houses it is because he feels that he is
here today and gone tomorrow. If he has squandered the physical
resources of his neighborhood cutting the forests recklessly
exhausting the soil surrendering water power and minerals into a
few far-clutching fingers he has done it because he expects
like Voltaire's Signor Pococurante "to have a new garden
tomorrow built on a nobler plan." When New York State grew too
crowded for Cooper's Leather-Stocking he shouldered his pack
whistled to his dog glanced at the sun and struck a bee-line
for the Mississippi. Nothing could be more typical of the first
three hundred years of American history.
The traits of the pioneer have thus been the characteristic
traits of the American in action. The memories of successive
generations have tended to stress these qualities to the neglect
of others. Everyone who has enjoyed the free life of the woods
will confess that his own judgment upon his casual summer
associates turns quite naturally and almost exclusively upon
their characteristics as woodsmen. Out of the woods these
gentlemen may be more or less admirable divines pedants men of
affairs; but the verdict of their companions in the forest is
based chiefly upon the single question of their adaptability to
the environment of the camp. Are they quick of eye and foot
skillful with rod and gun cheerful on rainy days ready to do a
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