Should the opinions promulgated by our press at large be taken, in
their wonderful aggregate, as an evidence of what American
literature absolutely is (and it may be said that, in general, they
are really so taken), we shall find ourselves the most enviable set of
people upon the face of the earth. Our fine writers are legion. Our
very atmosphere is redolent of genius; and we, the nation, are a huge,
well-contented chameleon, grown pursy by inhaling it. We are teretes
et rotundi- enwrapped in excellence. All our poets are Milton
neither mute nor inglorious; all our poetesses are "American
Hemanses"; nor will it do to deny that all our novelists are Great
Knowns or Great Unknowns, and that everybody who writes, in every
possible and impossible department, is the Admirable Crichton, or,
at least, the Admirable Crichton's ghost. We are thus in a glorious
condition, and will remain so until forced to disgorge our ethereal
honours. In truth there is some danger that the jealousy of the Old
World will interfere. It cannot long submit to that outrageous
monopoly of "all the decency and all the talent," of which the
gentlemen of the press give such undoubted assurance of our being
the possessors.
But we feel angry with ourselves for the jesting tone of our
observations upon this topic. The prevalence of the spirit of
puffery is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust.
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