Diversities of American Life | Page 7

Pope and Dryden, and the classics were
pursued in the spirit of Oxford and Cambridge in the time of Johnson.
It was little disturbed by the intellectual and ethical agitation of modern
England or of modern New England. During this period, while the
South excelled in the production of statesmen, orators, trained
politicians, great judges, and brilliant lawyers, it produced almost no
literature, that is, no indigenous literature, except a few poems and--a
few humorous character-sketches; its general writing was ornately
classic, and its fiction romantic on the lines of the foreign romances.
From this isolation one thing was developed, and another thing might
in due time be expected. The thing developed was a social life, in the
favored class, which has an almost unique charm, a power of being
agreeable, a sympathetic cordiality, an impulsive warmth, a frankness
in the expression of emotion, and that delightful quality of manner
which puts the world at ease and makes life pleasant. The Southerners
are no more sincere than the Northerners, but they have less reserve,
and in the social traits that charm all who come in contact with them,
they have an element of immense value in the variety of American life.
The thing that might have been expected in due time, and when the call
came--and it is curious to note that the call and cause of any
renaissance are always from the outside--was a literary expression fresh

and indigenous. This expectation, in a brief period since the war, has
been realized by a remarkable performance and is now stimulated by a
remarkable promise. The acclaim with which the Southern literature
has been received is partly due to its novelty, the new life it exhibited,
but more to the recognition in it of a fresh flavor, a literary quality
distinctly original and of permanent importance. This production, the
first fruits of which are so engaging in quality, cannot grow and
broaden into a stable, varied literature without scholarship and hard
work, and without a sympathetic local audience. But the momentary
concern is that it should develop on its own lines and in its own spirit,
and not under the influence of London or Boston or New York. I do not
mean by this that it should continue to attract attention by peculiarities
of dialect- which is only an incidental, temporary phenomenon, that
speedily becomes wearisome, whether "cracker" or negro or
Yankee--but by being true to the essential spirit and temperament of
Southern life.
During this period there was at the North, and especially in the East,
great intellectual activity and agitation, and agitation ethical and moral
as well as intellectual. There was awakening, investigation, questioning,
doubt. There was a great deal of froth thrown to the surface. In the free
action of individual thought and expression grew eccentricities of belief
and of practice, and a crop of so-called "isms," more or less temporary,
unprofitable, and pernicious. Public opinion attained an astonishing
degree of freedom,--I never heard of any community that was
altogether free of its tyranny. At least extraordinary latitude was
permitted in the development of extreme ideas, new, fantastic, radical,
or conservative. For instance, slavery was attacked and slavery was
defended on the same platform, with almost equal freedom. Indeed, for
many years, if there was any exception to the general toleration it was
in the social ostracism of those who held and expressed extreme
opinions in regard to immediate emancipation, and were stigmatized as
abolitionists. There was a general ferment of new ideas, not always
fruitful in the direction taken, but hopeful in view of the fact that
growth and movement are better than stagnation and decay. You can do
something with a ship that has headway; it will drift upon the rocks if it
has not. With much foam and froth, sure to attend agitation, there was
immense vital energy, intense life.

Out of this stir and agitation came the aggressive, conquering spirit that
carried civilization straight across the continent, that built up cities and
States, that developed wealth, and by invention, ingenuity, and energy
performed miracles in the way of the subjugation of nature and the
assimilation of societies. Out of this free agitation sprang a literary
product, great in quantity and to some degree distinguished in quality,
groups of historians, poets, novelists, essayists, biographers, scientific
writers. A conspicuous agency of the period was the lecture platform,
which did something in the spread and popularization of information,
but much more in the stimulation of independent thought and the
awakening of the mind to use its own powers.
Along with this and out of this went on the movement of popular
education and of the high and specialized education. More remarkable
than the achievements of the common schools has been the
development of the colleges, both in the departments