]
The situation of American literature is anomalous. It has no centre, or,
if it have, it is like that of the sphere of Hermes. It is divided into
many systems, each revolving round its several sun, and often presenting
to the rest only the faint glimmer of a milk-and-water way. Our capital
city, unlike London or Paris, is not a great central heart, from which
life and vigor radiate to the extremities, but resembles more an
isolated umbilicus, stuck down as near as may be to the centre of the
land, and seeming rather to tell a legend of former usefulness than to
serve any present need. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, each has its
literature almost more distinct than those of the different dialects of
Germany; and the Young Queen of the West has also one of her own, of
which some articulate rumor barely has reached us dwellers by the
Atlantic.
Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism of
contemporary literature. It is even more grateful to give praise where
it is needed than where it is deserved, and friendship so often seduces
the iron stylus of justice into a vague flourish, that she writes what
seems rather like an epitaph than a criticism. Yet if praise be given as
an alms, we could not drop so poisonous a one into any man's hat. The
critic's ink may suffer equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls
or of sugar.
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