Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature

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[266] not really suffer, though endangered. Meantime every nation must try the experiment in its own way and under its own conditions; some of the minor nations of the world have tried their hands at authorship during the past few years, while their more powerful neighbors have been making money; and presently England and Germany and America may take their turn again at the gray goose quill now turned into a golden pen.

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Three dangers.

So far as the collective future of American literature is concerned, it may be said, that there are three leading obstacles commonly alleged, which it must overcome. These are :

1. The alleged influence of the so-called Puritan tradition.

2. The alleged materialism of the age.

3. The mainly scientific tendency of education and thought.

Let us consider these in order:

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The alleged obstacle of Puritanism.

1. It was Matthew Arnold who maintained that the Puritan spirit in America was utterly hostile to literature and art. As to the Puritan period, it is needless to say that the forest pioneer did not compose orchestral symphonies or the founders of a nation carve