'Go on,' said the other, smiling as if he knew what stuck in Martin's
throat.
'Especially,' pursued Martin, 'as I can already understand that it may
have required great courage, even in his time, to write freely on any
question which was not a party one in this very free country.'
'Some courage, no doubt,' returned his new friend. 'Do you think it
would require any to do so, now?'
'Indeed I think it would; and not a little,' said Martin.
'You are right. So very right, that I believe no satirist could breathe
this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us to-morrow,
he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature,
and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has
anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and
who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate
hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears,
believe me. In some cases I could name to you, where a native writer
has ventured on the most harmless and good-humoured illustrations of
our vices or defects, it has been found necessary to announce, that in
a second edition the passage has been expunged, or altered, or explained
away, or patched into praise.
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