Though I should be exaggerating if I said that there was anything
approaching dislike of America or Americans, there were certain
intellectual people in England who were apt to parade a kind of
conscious and supercilious patronage of the wilder products of American
life and literature. I heard exaggerated stories about Americans, and
especially about the Americans of the Far West,--heard them, that is,
represented as semi-barbarians, coarse, rash, and boastful, with bad
manners and no feeling for the reticences of life. Such legends
exasperated me beyond words. I felt as did the author of _Ionica_
on re-reading the play of Ajax.
The world may like, for all I care,
The gentler voice, the cooler head,
That bows a rival to despair,
And cheaply compliments the dead.
That smiles at all that's coarse and rash,
Yet wins the trophies of the fight,
Unscathed in honour's wreck and crash,
Heartless, but always in the right.
* * * * *
There were my superior persons drawn to the life!
When the complaisant judge would not acknowledge the rights of the noble
Ajax, but gave to another what was due to him, the poet touched me even
more nearly:--
Thanked, and self-pleased: ay, let him wear
What to that noble breast was due;
And I, dear passionate Teucer, dare
Go through the homeless world with you.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25