Next is the Transient Literature, composed chiefly of speeches, orations, state papers, political and other occasional pamphlets, business reports, articles in the journals, and other productions designed to serve some present purpose. These are commonly the work of educated men, though not of such as make literature a profession. Taking this department as a whole, it differs much from the permanent literature; here is freshness of thought and newness of form. If American books are mainly an imitation of old models, it would be difficult to find the prototype of some American speeches. They "would have made Quintilian stare and gasp." Take the State Papers of the American government during the administration of Mr. Polk, the speeches made in Congress at the same time, the State Papers of the several States—you have a much better and more favorable idea of the vigor and originality of the American mind, than you would get from all the bound books printed in that period. The diplomatic writings of American politicians compare favorably with those of any nation in the world. In eloquence no modern nation is before us, perhaps none is our equal. Here you see the inborn strength and manly vigor of the American mind. You meet the same spirit which fells the forest, girdles the land with railroads, annexes Texas and covets Cuba, Nicaragua, all the world. You see that the authors of this literature are workers also. Others have read of wild beasts; here are the men that have seen the wolf.
A portion of this literature represents the past, and has the vices already named. It comes from human history and not human nature; as you read it, you think of the inertia and the cowardliness of mankind; nothing is progressive, nothing noble, generous or just, only respectable. The past is preferred before the present; money is put before men, a vested right before a natural right. Such literature appears in all countries. The ally of despotism, and the foe of mankind, it is yet a legitimate exponent of a large class of men. The leading journals of America, political and commercial, or literary, are poor and feeble; our reviews of books afford matter for grave consideration. You would often suppose them written by the same hand which manufactures the advertisements of the grand caravan, or some patent medicine; or when unfavorable, by some of the men who write defamatory articles on the eve of an election.
But a large part of this transient literature is very different in its character. Its authors have broken with the traditions of the past; they have new ideas, and plans for putting them in execution; they are full of hope; are national to the extreme, bragging and defiant. They put the majority before institutions; the rights of the majority before the privilege of a few; they represent the onward tendency and material prophecy of the nation. The new activity of the American mind here expresses its purpose and its prayer. Here is strength, hope, confidence, even audacity; all is American. But the great idea of the Absolute Right does not appear, all is more national than human; and in what concerns the nation, it is not justice, the point where all interests are balanced, and the welfare of each harmonizes with that of all, which is sought; but the "greatest good of the greatest number;" that is, only a privilege had at the cost of the smaller number. Here is little respect for universal humanity; little for the Eternal Laws of God which override all the traditions and contrivances of men; more reverence for a statute, or constitution, which is indeed the fundamental law of the political State, but is often only an attempt to compromise between the fleeting passions of the day and the Immutable Morality of God. Amid all the public documents of the nation and the several States, in the speeches and writings of favorite men, who represent and so control the public mind, for fifty years, there is little that "stirs the feelings infinite" within you; much to make us more American, not more manly. There is more head than heart; native intellect enough; culture that is competent, but little conscience, or real religion. How many newspapers, how many politicians in the land go at all beyond the whig idea of protecting the property now accumulated, or the democratic idea of ensuring the greatest material good of the greatest number? Where are we to look for the representative of justice, of the unalienable rights of all the people and all the nations? In the triple host of article-makers, speech-makers, lay and clerical, and makers of laws, you find but few who can be trusted to stand up for the unalienable rights of men; who will never write, speak, nor vote in the interests of a party, but always in the interest of mankind, and will represent the justice of God in the forum of the world.
This literature, like the other, fails of the high end of writing and of speech: with more vigor, more freedom, more breadth of vision, and an intense nationality, the authors thereof are just as far from representing the higher consciousness of mankind, just as vulgar as the tame and well-licked writers of the permanent literature. Here are the men who have cut their own way through the woods, men with more than the average intelligence, daring and strength, but with less than the average justice which is honesty in the abstract, less than the average honesty which is justice concentrated upon small particulars.
Examine both these portions of American literature, the permanent and the fleeting—you see their educated authors are no higher than the rest of men. They are the slaves of public opinion, as much as the gossip in her little village. It may not be the public opinion of a coterie of crones, but of a great party; that makes little odds, they are worshippers of the same rank, idolaters of the same wealth; the gossiping granny shows her littleness the size of life, while their deformity is magnified by the solar microscope of high office. Many a popular man exhibits his pigmy soul to the multitude of a whole continent, idly mistaking it for greatness. They are swayed by vulgar passions, seek vulgar ends, address vulgar motives, use vulgar means; they may command by their strength, they cannot refine by their beauty or instruct by their guidance, and still less inspire by any eminence of manhood which they were born to or have won. They build on the surface-sand for to-day, not on the rock of ages forever. With so little conscience, they heed not the solemn voice of history, and respect no more the prophetic instincts of mankind.
To most men the approbation of their fellows, is one of the most desirable things. This approbation appears in the various forms of admiration, respect, esteem, confidence, veneration and love. The great man obtains this after a time, and in its highest forms, without seeking it, simply by faithfulness to his nature. He gets it, by rising and doing his work, in the course of nature, as easily and as irresistibly as the sun gathers to the clouds the evaporation of land and sea, and like the sun to shed it down in blessings on mankind. Little men seek this, consciously or not knowing it, by stooping, cringing, flattering the pride, the passion, or the prejudice of others. So they get the approbation of men, but never of Man. Sometimes this is sought for by the attainment of some accidental quality, which low-minded men hold in more honor than the genius of sage or poet, or the brave manhood of some great hero of the soul. In England though money is power, it is patrician birth which is nobility, and valued most; and there, accordingly, birth takes precedence of all, of genius and even of gold. Men seek the companionship or the patronage of titled lords, and social rank depends upon nobility of blood. The few bishops in the upper house do more to give conventional respectability to the clerical profession there, than all the solid intellect of Hooker, Barrow, and of South, the varied and exact learning of philosophic Cudworth, the eloquence and affluent piety of Taylor, and Butler's vast and manly mind. In America social rank depends substantially on wealth, an accident as much as noble birth, but movable. Here gold takes precedence of all,—of genius, and even of noble birth.
"Though your sire
Had royal blood within him, and though you
Possess the intellect of angels too,
'Tis all in vain;—the world will ne'er inquire
On such a score:—Why should it take the pains?
'Tis easier to weigh purses, sure, than brains."
Wealth is sought, not merely as a means of power but of nobility. When obtained, it has the power of nobility: so poor men of superior intellect and education, powerful by nature, not by position, fear to disturb the opinion of wealthy men, to instruct their ignorance or rebuke their sin. Hence the aristocracy of wealth, illiterate and vulgar, goes unrebuked, and debases the natural aristocracy of mind and culture which bows down to it. The artist prostitutes his pencil and his skill, and takes his law of beauty from the fat clown, whose barns and pigs and wife he paints for daily bread. The preacher does the same; and though the stench of the rum-shop infests the pulpit, and death hews down the leaders of his flock, the preacher must cry "Peace, peace," or else be still, for rum is power! But this power of wealth has its antagonistic force—the power of numbers. Much depends on the dollar. Nine tenths of the property is owned by one tenth of all these men—but much also on the votes of the million. The few are strong by money, the many by their votes. Each is worshipped by its votaries, and its approbation sought. He that can get the men controls the money too. So while one portion of educated men bows to the rich, and consecrates their passion and their prejudice, another portion bows, equally prostrate, to the passions of the multitude of men. The many and the rich have each a public opinion of their own, and both are tyrants. Here the tyranny of public opinion is not absolutely greater than in England, Germany or France, but is far greater in comparison with other modes of oppression. It seems inherent in a republic; it is not in a republic of noble men. But here this sirocco blows flat to the ground full many an aspiring blade. Wealth can establish banks, or factories; votes can lift the meanest man into the highest political place, can dignify any passion with the name and force of human law; so it is thought by the worshippers of both, seeking the approbation of the two, that public opinion can make truth of lies, and right even out of foulest wrong. Politicians begin to say, There is no law of God above the ephemeral laws of men.
There are few American works of literature which appeal to what is best in men; few that one could wish should go abroad and live. America has grown beyond hope in population, the free and bond, in riches, in land, in public material prosperity, but in a literature that represents the higher elements of manliness far less than wise men thought. They looked for the fresh new child; it is born with wrinkles and dreadfully like his grandmother, only looking older and more effete. Our muse does not come down from an American Parnassus, with a new heaven in her eye, men not daring to look on the face of anointed beauty, coming to tell of noble thought, to kindle godlike feelings with her celestial spark, and stir mankind to noble deeds. She finds Parnassus steep and high and hard to climb; the air austere and cold, the light severe, too stern for her effeminate nerves. So she has a little dwelling in the flat and close-pent town, hard by the public street; breathes its B[oe]otian breath; walks with the money-lenders at high change; has her account at the bank, her pew in the most fashionable church and least austere; she gets approving nods in the street, flattery in the penny-prints, sweetmeats and sparkling wine in the proper places. What were the inspirations of all God's truth to her? He "taunts the lofty land with little men."