far as he is revolting, let him die. Many things in the world seem ugly
and purposeless; but to a deeper intelligence than ours, they are a part
of beauty and design. What is ugly and irrelevant, can never enter, as
such, into a work of art; because the artist is bound, by a sacred
obligation, to show us the complete curve only,--never the undeveloped
fragments.

But were the firmament of England still illuminated with her Dickenses,
her Thackerays, and her Brontes, I should still hold our state to be
fuller of promise than hers. It may be admitted that almost everything was
against our producing anything good in literature. Our men, in the first
place, had to write for nothing; because the publisher, who can steal a
readable English novel, will not pay for an American novel, for the mere
patriotic gratification of enabling its American author to write it. In
the second place, they had nothing to write about, for the national life
was too crude and heterogeneous for ordinary artistic purposes. Thirdly,
they had no one to write for: because, although, in one sense, there might
be readers enough, in a higher sense there were scarcely any,--that is to
say, there was no organized critical body of literary opinion, from which
an author could confidently look to receive his just meed of encouragement
and praise. Yet, in spite of all this, and not to mention honored names
that have ceased or are ceasing to cast their living weight into the
scale, we are contributing much that is fresh and original, and something,
it may be, that is of permanent value, to literature. We have accepted the
situation; and, since no straw has been vouchsafed us to make our bricks
with, we are trying manfully to make them without.

It will not be necessary, however, to call the roll of all the able and
popular gentlemen who are contending in the forlorn hope against
disheartening odds; and as for the ladies who have honored our literature