No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of
writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no
antiquity, n mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything
but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is
happily the case with my dear native land. It will be very long, I
trust, before romance writers may find congenial and easily handled
themes, either in the annals of our stalwart Republic, or in any
characteristic and probable events of our individual lives. Romance
and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers, need ruin to make them
grow."
Now, what is to be understood from this passage? It assumes, in the first
place, that a work of art, in order to be effective, must contain profound
contrasts of light and shadow; and then it points out that the shadow, at
least, is found ready to the hand in Europe. There is no hint of patriotic
scruples as to availing one's self of such a "picturesque and gloomy"
background; if it is to be had, then let it be taken; the main object to
be considered is the work of art. Europe, in short, afforded an excellent
quarry, from which, in Hawthorne's opinion, the American novelist might
obtain materials which are conspicuously deficient in his own country, and
which that country is all the better for not possessing.
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