DEMOCRATIC ART 259 



Since you cannot cultivate the primeval forests, and so 

 forth, you must study and assimilate them. Since the people 

 do not need to be refined in taste, but to be braced in charac- 

 ter, you must penetrate their character and reproduce it in 

 ideal conceptions. The right formative influences for modern 

 literature and art have therefore to be sought in the people 

 themselves ; in the principles of independence and equality, 

 of freedom, brotherhood, and comradeship, which are inherent 

 in Democracy, and by right of which Democracy enfolds a 

 religious ideal comparable to the spiritual liberty of the 

 Gospel. 



Did you, too, friend, suppose Democracy was only for elections, 

 for politics, or for a party name ? I say Democracy is only of use there 

 that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in manners, in 

 the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs in 

 Religion, Literature, colleges, and schools Democracy in all public and 

 private life, and in the Army and Navy. I have intimated that, as a 

 paramount scheme, it has yet few or no full realisers and believers. I 

 do not see, either, that it owes any serious thanks to noted propagand- 

 ists or champions, or has been essentially helped, though often harmed 

 by them. ... It is not yet, there or anywhere, the fully received, the 

 fervid, the absolute faith. I submit, therefore, that the fruition of 

 Democracy on aught like a grand scale, resides altogether in the future. 



Meanwhile, for those who believe that national greatness 

 can only be tested by the spirit which a people manifests, 

 it remains to fix attention firmly on the permanent and 

 indestructible significance of arts and letters : 



The literature, songs, aesthetics, etc., of a country are of importance 

 principally because they furnish the materials and suggestions of per- 

 sonality for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a 

 thousand effective ways. 



But what has culture, as yet, done to strengthen the 

 personality of the millions of America ? 



When I mix with these interminable swarms of alert turbulent 

 good-natured, independent citizens, mechanics, clerks, young persons 

 at the idea of this mass of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so 

 proud, a singular awe falls upon me. I feel, with dejection and amaze- 

 ment, that among our geniuses and talented writers or speakers, few or 



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