have extended to the extremities of their empire those long artificial
roads which are called Roman roads. These things are at once the
splendid memorials of their ignorance and of their greatness. A people
which should leave no other vestige of its track than a few leaden pipes
in the earth and a few iron rods upon its surface, might have been more
the master of nature than the Romans.




Chapter XIII: Literary Characteristics Of Democratic Ages

When a traveller goes into a bookseller's shop in the United States,
and examines the American books upon the shelves, the number of works
appears extremely great; whilst that of known authors appears, on the
contrary, to be extremely small. He will first meet with a number
of elementary treatises, destined to teach the rudiments of human
knowledge. Most of these books are written in Europe; the Americans
reprint them, adapting them to their own country. Next comes an enormous
quantity of religious works, Bibles, sermons, edifying anecdotes,
controversial divinity, and reports of charitable societies; lastly,
appears the long catalogue of political pamphlets. In America, parties
do not write books to combat each others' opinions, but pamphlets which
are circulated for a day with incredible rapidity, and then expire. In
the midst of all these obscure productions of the human brain are to be
found the more remarkable works of that small number of authors, whose
names are, or ought to be, known to Europeans.

Although America is perhaps in our days the civilized country in
which literature is least attended to, a large number of persons are