As We Go

C >> Charles Dudley Warner >> As We Go


One of the Biminis that have always been looked for is an American
Literature. There was an impression that there must be such a thing
somewhere on a continent that has everything else. We gave the world
tobacco and the potato, perhaps the most important contributions to the
content and the fatness of the world made by any new country, and it was
a noble ambition to give it new styles of art and literature also. There
seems to have been an impression that a literature was something
indigenous or ready-made, like any other purely native product, not
needing any special period of cultivation or development, and that a
nation would be in a mortifying position without one, even before it
staked out its cities or built any roads. Captain John Smith, if he had
ever settled here and spread himself over the continent, as he was
capable of doing, might have taken the contract to furnish one, and we
may be sure that he would have left us nothing to desire in that
direction. But the vein of romance he opened was not followed up. Other
prospectings were made. Holes, so to speak, were dug in New England, and
in the middle South, and along the frontier, and such leads were found
that again and again the certainty arose that at last the real American
ore had been discovered. Meantime a certain process called civilization
went on, and certain ideas of breadth entered into our conceptions, and
ideas also of the historical development of the expression of thought in
the world, and with these a comprehension of what American really is, and
the difficulty of putting the contents of a bushel measure into a pint
cup. So, while we have been expecting the American Literature to come out
from some locality, neat and clean, like a nugget, or, to change the
figure, to bloom any day like a century-plant, in one striking, fragrant
expression of American life, behold something else has been preparing and
maturing, larger and more promising than our early anticipations. In
history, in biography, in science, in the essay, in the novel and story,
there are coming forth a hundred expressions of the hundred aspects of
American life; and they are also sung by the poets in notes as varied as
the migrating birds. The birds perhaps have the best of it thus far, but
the bird is limited to a small range of performances while he shifts his
singing-boughs through the climates of the continent, whereas the poet,
though a little inclined to mistake aspiration for inspiration, and
vagueness of longing for subtlety, is experimenting in a most hopeful
manner. And all these writers, while perhaps not consciously American or
consciously seeking to do more than their best in their several ways, are
animated by the free spirit of inquiry and expression that belongs to an
independent nation, and so our literature is coming to have a stamp of
its own that is unlike any other national stamp. And it will have this
stamp more authentically and be clearer and stronger as we drop the
self-consciousness of the necessity of being American.




JUNE

Here is June again! It never was more welcome in these Northern
latitudes. It seems a pity that such a month cannot be twice as long. It
has been the pet of the poets, but it is not spoiled, and is just as full
of enchantment as ever. The secret of this is that it is the month of
both hope and fruition. It is the girl of eighteen, standing with all her
charms on the eve of womanhood, in the dress and temperament of spring.
And the beauty of it is that almost every woman is young, if ever she
were young, in June. For her the roses bloom, and the red clover. It is a
pity the month is so short. It is as full of vigor as of beauty. The
energy of the year is not yet spent; indeed, the world is opening on all
sides; the school-girl is about to graduate into liberty; and the young
man is panting to kick or row his way into female adoration and general
notoriety. The young men have made no mistake about the kind of education
that is popular with women. The women like prowess and the manly virtues
of pluck and endurance. The world has not changed in this respect. It was
so with the Greeks; it was so when youth rode in tournaments and unhorsed
each other for the love of a lady. June is the knightly month. On many a
field of gold and green the heroes will kick their way into fame; and
bands of young women, in white, with their diplomas in their hands,
star-eyed mathematicians and linguists, will come out to smile upon the
victors in that exhibition of strength that women most admire. No, the
world is not decaying or losing its juvenility. The motto still is,
"Love, and may the best man win!" How jocund and immortal is woman! Now,
in a hundred schools and colleges, will stand up the solemn,
well-intentioned man before a row of pretty girls, and tell them about
Womanhood and its Duties, and they will listen just as shyly as if they
were getting news, and needed to be instructed by a man on a subject
which has engaged their entire attention since they were five years old.
In the light of science and experience the conceit of men is something
curious. And in June! the most blossoming, riant, feminine time of the
year. The month itself is a liberal education to him who is not
insensible to beauty and the strong sweet promise of life. The streams
run clear then, as they do not in April; the sky is high and transparent;
the world seems so large and fresh and inviting. Our houses, which six
months in the year in these latitudes are fortifications of defense, are
open now, and the breath of life flows through them. Even over the city
the sky is benign, and all the country is a heavenly exhibition. May was
sweet and capricious. This is the maidenhood deliciousness of the year.
If you were to bisect the heart of a true poet, you would find written
therein JUNE.