It has been
assumed in the preceding chapters that American literature is
something different from English literature written in America.
Canadian and Australian literatures have indigenous qualities of
their own, but typically they belong to the colonial literature
of Great Britain. This can scarcely be said of the writings of
Franklin and Jefferson, and it certainly cannot be said of the
writings of Cooper, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Lowell,
Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Mr. Howells. In the pages of these men
and of hundreds of others less distinguished, there is a
revelation of a new national type. That the full energies of this
nation have been back of our books, giving them a range and
vitality and unity commensurate with the national existence, no
one would claim. There are other spheres of effort in which
American character has been more adequately expressed than in
words. Nevertheless the books are here, in spite of every defect
in national discipline, every flaw in national character; and
they deserve the closest attention from all those who are trying
to understand the American mind.
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