This is the sum of a criticism so strongly felt that it raises a
barrier to appreciation, almost a gate shut against knowledge
between the good American readers and the progressives in our
literature. Sandburg and Lindsay between them will cause more
acrimony in a gathering of English teachers than even Harold Bell
Wright. Miss Lowell carries controversy with her, triumphantly
riding upon it. Their critics wish form as they have known form,
want beauty such as they possess in riper literatures, want
maturity, richness, suavity, grace, and the lift of noble
thinking, nobly expressed. It may be remarked, in passing, that
they also would like to live in English manors in gardened
landscapes and have French cathedrals rise above their perfect
towns!
It ought to be clear that we shall never get beauty of this kind,
or of any absolute kind, in American writing until there is more
beauty in American life. Amidst the vulgarities of signboards,
cries of cheap newspapers, noisy hustle of trivial commercialism,
and the flatness of standardized living, it is hard to feel
spiritual qualities higher than optimism and reform. In general,
wherever we have touched America we have made it uglier, as a
necessary preliminary perhaps to making it anything at all, but
uglier nevertheless.
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