COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY NORMAN FOERSTER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Riverside Press PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 17867-3 810.9 F65425 Cop.2 Before we can have an American literature, we must have an American criticism. - LOWELL. The criticism which alone can much help us for the future ... is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result; and whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries out this programme. ARNOLD. Those precious legacies accumulations! They come to us from the far-off — from all eras, and all lands — from Egypt, and India, and Greece, and Rome and along through the middle and later ages, in the grand monarchies of Europe-born under far different institutes and conditions from ours - but out of the old insight and inspiration of the same old humanity the same old heart and brain the same old countenance yearningly, pensively, looking forth. What we have to do to-day is to receive them cheerfully, and to give them ensemble, and a modern American and democratic physiognomy. — WHITMAN. |