American Authorship—Hawthorne [pp. 486-508]

1853.] American Autltorsbzp. 4~3
first steps to this object; libraries, good schools, well conducted uni
versities, where mind, set apart for sacred offices, relieved of its dependence upon the popular voice, may rise into the consciousness of
authority, over the popular mood, and school its objects, and cornmand its sympathies and elevate its aims.
This is -a public duty. For the men of lefters, themselves, and of
their duties, apart horn such as belong to the public, we are to say
something. Contemplating the past and present of American letters,
we have not ventured to contemplate their destiny. This will dcpend upon such changes as we do not foresee, but whieh we are not
necessarily to suppose unlikely or impossible. We began by censa —
ring our existing authorship as a thing of too much trade; as that
which did not sufficiently look to the noble mission of the literary
man, and made itself quite subservient to the vulgar and inferior
aims of the ordinary citizen. We repeat the conviction, that but too
many of our authors look simply to the consummation of a hireling's task in what they write; and, without reflection, nay, it would
seem, even cheerfully sacrifice- their hopes of fame, to the attainment
of the easy object of pacifying the village critic, or pleasing the milliner's apprentice. There are othe~ who work more worthily, andwhose labours, if concentrated, and addressed to worthy ends, might
give reputation to themsel~es, and the most wholesome tone to our'
literature. But these again waste themselves in vehicles of publication
which are necessarily impermanent~gazettes and periodicals~poured
out to waste, like the waters of an Eastern river, running out and lost
in the sands. We are free to say, that much of the most genuine,
truthful and heartiest literature of the country is thus issued in vain.
It serves, no doubt, a useful present purpose; but what, if the writers were governed by motives which looked to a higher audience,
and one of longer duration? ~VouId it not be improved, and bettered as an inevitable consequence of the better aim g We think
so. We hold it to be matter o? serious i'egret that the d~mp and
dirty sheets of the transitory newspaper and periodical should absorb
so much of the best talent, taste and enthusiasm of American mind.
Were the vehicle of another form and character, how many glorious
and bright but fitful flashes of the national genius, might be concentrated into the broad, steady sun of literature, instead of glimm-ering
upon us, as they brighten, with the momentary fervour of the sum