But it is altogether a superfluous and futile anxiety which agitates these writers. A national literature the Americans will assuredly have, if they have a literature at all. It cannot fail to assume a certain national colour, although it would be impossible beforehand to fix and determine it. No effort could prevent this. And how egregious a mistake to imagine that they would hasten the advent of an American literature by discarding European models, and breaking from the influence of European modes of thought! It would be a sure expedient for becoming ignorant and barbarous. They cannot discard European models without an act of mental suicide; and who sees not that it is only by embracing all, appropriating all, competing with all, that the new and independent literature can be formed?
And, after, all, what is this great boast of nationality in literature? Whatever is most excellent in the literature of every country is precisely that which belongs to humanity, and not to the nation. What is dearest and most prized at home is exactly that which has a world-wide celebrity and a world-wide interest—that which touches the sympathies of all men. Are the highest truths national? Is there any trace of locality in the purest and noblest of sentiments? We invariably find that the same poets, and the same passages of their works, which are most extolled at home, are the most admired abroad. If there were any wondrous charm in this nationality it would be otherwise. The foreigner would fail to admire what is most delectable to the native. But the readers of all nations point at once, and applaud invariably, at the same passage. Who ever rose from the Inferno of Dante without looking back to the story of Ugolino and of Francesca? If a volume of choice extracts were to be culled from the works of Dante, Ariosto, Petrarch, an Englishman and an Italian would make no greater difference in their selection than would two Englishmen or two Italians.
Nationality one is sure to have, whether desirable or not, but the great writers of every people are unquestionably those who, without foregoing their national character, rise to be countrymen of the world. Mr Sims, instead of complaining that his fellow-countrymen are European, (may more of them become so!) should be assured of this, that it is only those who rise to European reputation that can be the founders of an American literature. The day that sees the American poet or philosopher taking his place in the high European diet of sages and of poets, is the day when the national literature has become confirmed and established.[13]
Mr Sims is, at all events, quite consistent
with himself in his wish to break loose from European literature—he who is disposed to break loose entirely from all the past. History with him, as history, is utterly worthless. It is absolutely of no value but as it affords a raw material for novels and romances. One would hardly credit that a man would utter such an absurdity. Here it is, however, formally divulged.
"The truth is—an important truth, which seems equally to have escaped," &c., &c., —"the truth is, the chief value of history consists in its proper employment for the purposes of art!—Consists in its proper employment, as so much raw material in the erection of noble fabrics and lovely forms, to which the fire of genius imparts soul, and which the smile of taste informs with beauty; and which, thus endowed and constituted, are so many temples of mind—so many shrines of purity—where the big, blind, struggling heart of the multitude may rush—in its vacancy, and be made to feel;—in its blindness, and be made to see;—in its fear, and find countenance;—in its weakness, and be rendered strong;—in the humility of its conscious baseness, and be lifted into gradual excellence and hope!"—(P. 24.)
Here is truth and eloquence, at one blow, enough to stagger the strongest of us. "It is the artist only who is the true historian," he again resolutely affirms. We should apprehend that, unless history were allowed to stand on a separate basis of its own, supported by its own peculiar testimony, it could be of little use even in enlarging the boundaries of art. History is said to enable the artist to transcend the limits which the modes of thought and feeling of his own day would else prescribe to him. But if the rules by which we judge of truth in history be no other than those by which we judge of truth or probability in works of fiction, (and to this the views of Mr Sims inevitably conduct us)—if history has not its own independent place and value—it can no longer lend this aid—no longer raise art above, or out of the circle in which existing opinions and sympathies would place her. Each generation of artists would not learn new truths from history, but history would be rewritten by each generation of artists. How, for example, could a Protestant of the nineteenth century, with whom religion and morality are inseparably combined—with whom conscience is always both moral and religious—how could he, guided only by his own experience, represent, or give credit to that entire separation of the two modes of feeling, moral and religious, which encounters us frequently in the middle ages, and constantly in the Pagan world? Surely a fact like this, learned from historical testimony, has a value of its own, other and greater than any fictitious representation which an artist might supply. But even this fictitious representation, as we have said, would grow null and void if not upheld by the independent testimony of history; the past would become the attendant shadow merely of the present.
We have the old predilection in favour of a true story, whenever it can be had. Mr Sims has written some tales under the title of "The Wigwam and the Cabin." They seem to be neither good nor bad;—it would be a waste of time to cast about for the exact epithet that should characterise them;—and in these tales we live much with the early settlers and the Red-skins. All his stories put together, had they twice their merit, are not equal in value to a few words he quotes from the brief authentic memoir of Daniel Boon. What were any picture from the hands of any artist whatever to the certainty we feel that this stout-hearted, fearless man did verily walk the untrodden forest alone, with as little disquiet as we parade the streets of a populous city? Can any paradoxical reasoning about eternal truths, and the universal reality of human sentiments, assimilate this history of Daniel Boon to the very best creation of the novelist? Here was the veritable hero who did exist. "You see," says Boon, "how little human nature requires. It is in our own hearts, rather than in the things around us, that we are to seek felicity. A man may be happy in any state. It only asks a perfect resignation to the will of Providence." Commonplace moralities enough, in the mouth of a commonplace person. Illustrated by the life of Boon, how they tell upon us! They are the words of the steadfast, solitary man, who could go forth single, amongst wild beasts and savages, braving all manner of dangers, and hardships, and deprivations. "I had plenty," he says, "in the midst of want; was happy though surrounded by dangers; how should I be melancholy? No populous city, with all its structures and all its commerce, could afford me so much pleasure as I found here."
Boon, though he never wrote so much as a single stanza about it, as we hear, added to his love of enterprise a sincere passion for the beauties of nature. No poet, therefore, could venture to draw upon his imagination for a bolder picture than we have here in the true story of Daniel Boon, breaking upon the sublime solitudes of nature, fearless and alone, and relying on his single manhood. The picture could gather nothing from invention. Shall any one pretend to say that it gathers nothing from being true?
Mr Sims is very indignant that Niebahr should rob him of many heroic and marvellous stories. How can Niebahr rob him of any thing—who looks not for truth in history, but for novel and romance? The great German critic will not interfere with his history—will leave him in undisturbed possession of all his novels and romances—all his noble fabrics—"temples of mind,"—"shrines of purity," &c. &c.—where he may walk as "big and as blind," as he pleases.