"I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning, neither are yet softened by the shadows of evening. Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed. Climbing the dusty hill, some fair effigies that once stood for human destiny have been broken. Yet enough is left to point distinctly to the glories of that destiny."
Margaret gives us, as the end of the whole matter, this sentence:--
"Always the soul says to us all, Cherish your best hopes as a faith, and abide by them in action.... Such shall be the effectual fervent means to their fulfilment."
In this sunny noon of life things new and strange were awaiting Margaret. Her days among kindred and country-people were nearly ended. The last volume given by her to the American public was entitled "Papers on Art and Literature." Of these, a number had already appeared in print. In her preface she mentions the essay on "American Literature" as one now published for the first time, and also as "a very imperfect sketch," which she hopes to complete by some later utterance. She commends it to us, however, as "written with sincere and earnest feelings, and from a mind that cares for nothing but what is permanent and essential." She thinks it should, therefore, have "some merit, if only in the power of suggestion." It has for us the great interest of making known Margaret's opinion of her compeers in literature, and with her appreciation of these, not always just or adequate, her views of the noble national life to which American literature, in its maturer growth, should give expression.
Margaret says, at the outset, that "some thinkers" may accuse her of writing about a thing that does not exist. "For," says she, "it does not follow, because many books are written by persons born in America, that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation, and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores."
In reviewing these first sentences, we are led to say that they partly commend themselves to our judgment, and partly do not. Here, as in much that Margaret has written, a solid truth is found side by side with an illusion. The statement that an American idea should lie at the foundation of our national life and its expression is a truth too often lost sight of by those to whom it most imports. On the other hand, the great body of the world's literature is like an ocean in whose waves and tides there is a continuity which sets at naught the imposition of definite limits. Literature is first of all human; and American books, which express human thought, feeling, and experience, are American literature, even if they show no distinctive national feature.