| Show according to paul shorey lu III the atlantic we ne stand today to day at the close of 0 oue one of the most notable periods in the history of the hie human spiritual development this century of literary pro lu tion whose end is sign signaled aleJ by tit tin g n 1 ans 1 I hence of such as tennyson bronn broil nili bilk and matthew arnold in ili Eng lami of 0 victor hugo and tiline iu it franco france and of oliver wendell wondell the last survivor of our own ovi bright galaxy of poets and essayists in amer sea ica is one of the richest in the lue annals of 0 of the three other coher great rant ages to which it may faioli fairl be compared pared the reri clean augustan August nn all aal elizabethan it is inferior says alof shorey only to the firs ferit well what next is the query Is tin tile present only the tomp temporary lull such as is necessary lu in any continuous development a period of quiet like that NIll which ci divided keats shelley Sli elley byron scott wordsworth and lamb from ca carl aln le ie thackeray dickens Dic kons Terl tennyson Dyson brownen Brow darwin spencer and Rus kint kii or Is it really tile the close of a secular era and tor for the next generation must we wander lu in a wilderness of teu tentative efross afro ls and inchoate expression until altera ture finds new worlds of thought to lo conquer and a fresh creative crea tiro genius arises to reinvigorate prose a aar din poetry these past great epochs have been separated by long dark period or of spiritual reaction ind and eclipse but lint I 1 sortie some violent interruption to our civilization should again occur sweep ilig away all the present structures turea which shelter thought seems tit nt pc pre put very improbable it Is therefore impossible to forecast the future from the lie past certain it to la that literature Is at present sleeping the heavy sleep of tion which may lend lead to a 1 vigorous awakening or to a still deeper slumber equally certain Is it that neither kipling lang hardy meredith iloween james nor even garland and the little boy from central N now ew york state shall arouse her from this lethargy these writers ably express their own day and generation but there Is locking lacking in them all that expression of the kinship of all ages which N aich Is needful to give permanence to a literature |
