While
admirable biographical and critical studies appear from time to
time, and here and there a whimsical or trenchant discursive
essay like those of Miss Repplier or Dr. Crothers, no one would
claim that we approach France or even England in the field of
criticism, literary history, memoirs, the bookish essay, and
biography. We may have race-memories of a pine-tree which help us
to write vigorously and poetically about it, but we write less
vitally as soon as we enter the library door. A Frenchman does
not, for he is better trained to perceive the continuity and
integrity of race-consciousness, in the whole field of its
manifestation. He does not feel, as many Americans do, that they
are turning their back on life when they turn to books.
Perhaps the truth is that although we are a reading people we are
not yet a book-loving people. The American newspaper and magazine
have been successful in making their readers fancy that newspaper
and magazine are an equivalent for books. Popular orators and
popular preachers confirm this impression, and colleges and
universities have often emphasized a vocational choice of
books--in other words, books that are not books at all, but
treatises.
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