Excerpt from Half-Hours With the Best American Authors, Vol. 1
There is no occasion that we should here enter into any argument as to the value or the comparative position of American literature. The time has gone by in which a defensive attitude was necessary. This literature today stands fairly parallel with the best of that of other nations, and we need but to point to the selections in the following pages in evidence of this assertion. In fact, it will suffice to say that a literature which possesses such names as those of Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, and Motley in history, Emerson and Edwards in philosophy, Hawthorne, Cooper, Holmes, and James in fiction, Bryant, Longfellow, Poe, Lowell, and Whittier in poetry, and others of no less merit in other branches of authorship, needs no advocate, but may be left to speak for itself.
Yet the development of this literature has taken place in the face of discouraging obstacles, which fully account for the slowness of its progress, and which have not yet quite passed away. Of these obstacles we may briefly speak. From the first settlement of this country until well within the present century the colonists of America were actively engaged in an absorbing labor, that of sub-duing a savage country and its equally savage inhabitants to the conditions and the influences of civilization. Ere this contest with nature was ended, an equally severe one with European civilization began, - a mortal struggle against the cupidity, arrogance, and tyranny which the Middle Ages had left as a heritage to Europe, and which sought, like a giant foot, to crush down the eager young vitality of the Western world.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Half-Hours With the Best American Authors, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint) (Charles Morris)