American literature (using the term in its broadest sense) in the past
forty years is greater than could have been expected in a nation which
had its ground to clear, its wealth to win, and its new governmental
experiment to adjust; if we confine our view to the last twenty years,
the national production is vast in amount and encouraging in quality.
It suffices to say of it here, in a general way, that the most vigorous
activity has been in the departments of history, of applied science, and
the discussion of social and economic problems. Although pure literature
has made considerable gains, the main achievement has been in other
directions. The audience of the literary artist has been less than that
of the reporter of affairs and discoveries and the special correspondent.
The age is too busy, too harassed, to have time for literature; and
enjoyment of writings like those of Irving depends upon leisure of mind.
The mass of readers have cared less for form than for novelty and news
and the satisfying of a recently awakened curiosity. This was inevitable
in an era of journalism, one marked by the marvelous results attained in
the fields of religion, science, and art, by the adoption of the
comparative method. Perhaps there is no better illustration of the vigor
and intellectual activity of the age than a living English writer, who
has traversed and illuminated almost every province of modern thought,
controversy, and scholarship; but who supposes that Mr. Gladstone has
added anything to permanent literature? He has been an immense force in
his own time, and his influence the next generation will still feel and
acknowledge, while it reads, not the writings of Mr. Gladstone, but,
maybe, those of the author of "Henry Esmond" and the biographer of "Rab
and His Friends." De Quincey divides literature into two sorts, the
literature of power and the literature of knowledge. The latter is of
necessity for to-day only, and must be revised to-morrow. The definition
has scarcely De Quincey's usual verbal felicity, but we can apprehend the
distinction he intended to make.