The way for a government to get the iron in is not by saying "No." It is not American in a government to keep saying "No." The best way for our government in America to say "No" to a man, is to let him stand by and watch us saying "Yes" to some one else.
Then he will ask why.
Then he will stand face to face with America.
CHAPTER XI
NEWS-BOOKS
The most practical thing that could happen now in the economic world in America would be a sudden, a great national, contemporary literature.
America, unlike England, has no recognized cultured class, and has no aristocracy, so called, with which to keep mere rich men suitably miserable—at least a little humble and wistful. Our greatest need for a long time has been some big serene, easy way, without half trying, of snubbing rich men in America. All these overgrown, naughty fellows one sees everywhere like street boys on the corners or on the curbstones of society, calling society names and taking liberties with it, tripping people up; hoodlums with dollars, all these micks of money!—O, that society had some big, calm, serene way like some huge hearty London policeman, of taking hold of them—taking hold of them by the seats of their little trousers if need be, and taking them home to Mother—some way of setting them down hard in their chairs and making them thoughtful! Nothing but a national literature will do this. "Life," (which is, with one exception, perhaps, the only religious weekly we have left in America) succeeds a little and has some spiritual value because it succeeds in making American millionaires look funny, and in making them want to get away and live in Europe. But "Life" is not enough; it merely hitches us along from day to day and keeps our courage up. We want in America a literature, we want the thing done thoroughly and forever and once for all. We want an Aristophanes, a master who shall go gloriously laughing through our world, through our chimneys and blind machines, pot-bellied fortunes, empty successes, all these tiny, queer little men of wind and bladder, until we have a nation filled with a divine laughter, with strong, manful, happy visions of what men are for.
All we have to do is to have a News-book—a bookful of the kind of rich men we want, then we will have them. We will see men piling over each other all day to be them. Men have wanted to make money because making money has been supposed to mean certain things about a man. The moment it ceases to mean them, they will want to make other things.
Where is the news about what we really want?