"The primal duties shine aloft, like stars:
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Lie scattered at the feet of man, like flowers."
But of all this he can, for some time, express nothing. He burns with convictions, but can testify them to others only by recognising the expression which others have obtained the power of affording. If he makes the attempt, he is either unintelligible or trite.
This appears to me to be the stage at which the mind of America has arrived. That the legislation of the country is, on the whole, so noble, is owing to the happy circumstance (a natural one in the order of Providence, by which great agents rise up when a great work has to be done) that accomplished individuals were standing ready to help the people to an expression of its first convictions. The earliest convictions of a nation so circumstanced are of their fundamental and common rights: and the expression must be legislation. This has been done so well by the Americans that there is every reason to anticipate that more will follow; since principles are so linked together that it is scarcely possible to grasp one without touching another. Accordingly, though there is no contribution yet to the Philosophy of Mind from America, many thinking men are feeling after its principles amidst the accumulations of the old world: though no light has been given to society from the American press on the principles of politics, Americans may be heard quoting Burke from end to end of the country, infallibly separating the democratic aspirations of his genius from the aristocratic perversions of his temper and education: though America has yet witnessed no creation, either in literature or the arts, and cannot even distinguish a creation from a combination, imitation, or delineation, yet the power of admiration which she shows in hailing that which is far inferior to what she needs,—the vigour with which, after incessant disappointment, she applies herself to the produce of her press, to find the imperishable in what is just as transient as all that has gone before,—is a prophecy that a creator will arise. The faith that America is to have an artist of some order is universal: and such a faith is a sufficient guarantee of the event. Every ephemeron of a tale-writer, a dramatist, novelist, lyrist, and sonnetteer, has been taken by one or another for the man. But he has not come out of his silence yet; and it is likely that it may still be long before he does. Every work of genius is, as has been said, a mystery till it appears. What its principles and elaboration may be, it is for one man only—its author—to conceive: but it is plain what it will not be. It will not be, more or less, a copy of anything now existing. It will not be a mere delineation of what passes before the bodily eye, unillumined and unvivified by the light and movement of principles, of which forms are but the exponents. It will not be an exhibition of the relations which conventionalisms mutually bear, however fine may be the perception, and however clever the presentation may be. Further than this American literature has, as yet, produced nothing.
There is another reason, besides those which have been mentioned, why it would be highly unjust and injurious to conclude that there is nothing more in the nation's heart and brain than has come out before the eye. The American nation is made up of contributions from almost all other civilised nations: and, though the primary truths of God, and the universal characteristics of Man are common to them all, there are infinite diversities to be blended into unity before a national character can arise; before a national mind can be seen to actuate the mass of society. It is probable that the first great work of genius that appears will be the most powerful instrument for effecting this blending and reconciling: but the appearance of such a work is doubtless retarded in proportion to the checks and repression of social sympathy, caused by the diversity of influences under which society proceeds. The tuning for the concert has begun; some captious persons are grumbling at the discord; some inexperienced expectants take a wail here, and a flourish there, to be music: but the hour has not struck. The leader has not yet come to his place, to play the chord which shall bring the choral response that must echo over the world.
I saw the house which Berkeley built in Rhode Island,—built in the particular spot where it is, that he might have to pass, in his rides, over the hill which lies between it and Newport, and feast himself with the tranquil beauty of the sea, the bay and the downs, as they appear from the ridge of the eminence. I saw the pile of rocks, with its ledges and recesses, where he is said to have meditated and composed his "Minute Philosopher." It was at first melancholy to visit these his retreats, and think how empty the land still is of the philosophy he loved. But the more one sees of the people, and the less of their books, the stronger grows the hope of the stranger. One finds the observation of many turned inwards. Fragments of spiritual visions occur to one and another. Though some dogmatise, and others wait for revelation, and none seem to remember the existence of the experimental method, still there is a reaching after the Philosophy of Mind. At Harvard University, the chair of Mental Philosophy has been vacant for above eight years: it having been the custom formerly to indoctrinate the students with a certain number of chapters of Locke; and no man being now found hardy enough to undertake to discharge the duty thus; and the way not being yet clear to any one who would lay open the whole field of this philosophy, and let the students gather what they could out of it. Such impediments do not exist beyond the walls; and many young minds are at work without guidance, to whom guidance, however acceptable, is not necessary. If the lectures which are given to young ladies, who are carefully misinformed from Reid and Stewart,—if the reviews and panegyrics of Dr. Brown, hazarded without the slightest conception of the nature and extent of his meaning, are likely to throw the observer into despair;—if he is amazed to see a coterie disputing upon the ultimate principles perceived by Pure Reason, while he finds within himself no evidence of the existence of this Pure Reason, and believes that if it did universally exist, ultimate principles could admit of no dispute,—he is yet cheered by finding, not only eagerness in the pursuit of the philosophical ideas of others, but traces of some originality of speculation. There is a little book, by a Swedenborgian, called "The Growth of the Mind," which is, I believe unquestionably, an original work. From its originality, and the beauty of some of its images, and yet more of its exhibition of certain relations, it is highly interesting, though it is not found to command that extensive assent, which is the only guarantee of the soundness of works on the Philosophy of Mind. Mankind may demur for ages to the earth being round, and to its moving through space; but where the primary appeal, as in the Philosophy of Mind, must be to consciousness, works which do not command assent to their fundamental positions are failures as philosophy, though they may have inferior merits and attractions.
The best productions of American literature are, in my opinion, the tales and sketches in which the habits and manners of the people of the country are delineated, with exactness, with impartiality of temper, and without much regard to the picturesque. Such are the tales of Judge Hall of Cincinnati. Such are the tales by the author of Swallow Barn; where, however, there is the addition of a good deal of humour, and a subtraction of some of the truth. Miss Sedgwick's tales are of the highest order of the three, from the moral beauty which they breathe. This moral beauty is of a much finer character than the bonhommie which is the charm of Irving's pictures of manners. She sympathises where he good-naturedly observes; she cheerily loves where he gently quizzes. Miss Sedgwick's novels have this moral beauty too; as has everything she touches: but they have great and irretrievable faults as works of art. Tale-writing is her forte: and in this vocation, no one who has observed her striking progression will venture to say what she may not achieve.
Among the host of tales which appear without the names of their authors are three, which strike me as excellent in their several ways: "Allen Prescott," containing the history of a New England boy, drawn to the life, and in a just and amiable spirit: "The New England Housekeeper," in which the ménage of a rising young lawyer, with its fresh joys and ludicrous perplexities, is humorously exhibited: and "Memoirs of a New England Village Choir," a sketch of even higher merit.
Irving's writings have had their meed. He has lived in the sunshine of fame for many years, and in the pleasant consciousness that he has been a benefactor to the present generation, by shedding some gentle, benignant, and beguiling influences on many intervals of their rough and busy lives. More than this he has probably not expected; and more than this he does not seem likely to achieve. If any of his works live, it will be his Columbus: and the later of his productions will be the first forgotten.