The despotic objectivity of Asia--where
religion is submissiveness, and manhood is crushed by obedience--has
been partially withstood in Europe. The emancipation therefrom of the
Indo-Germanic race is completed in Anglo-America. Through this
manifold emancipation we are to be, in all the high departments of
human achievement, preeminently creative, because, while equipped with
the best of the past, we are at the same time preeminently subjective;
and, therefore, high literature will, with us, necessarily take the
lyrical, and especially the dramatic, form.
More than our European ancestors, we mold, each one of us, our
own destiny; we have a stronger inward sense of power to unfold and
elevate ourselves; we are more ready and more capable to withstand the
assaults of circumstance. Here is more thoroughly embodied the true
Christian principle, that out of himself is to come every man's
redemption; that the favor and help of God are only to be obtained
through resolute self-help, and honest, earnest struggle. In
Christendom we stand alone as having above us neither the objectivity
of politics nor that of the church. The light of the past we have,
without its darkness.
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