To an American reader, who, by the advantage of his position, can
see over that strip of Atlantic coast to Asia and the Pacific,
who, as it were, sees the shore slope upward over the Alps to the
Himmaleh Mountains, the comparatively recent literature of Europe
often appears partial and clannish, and, notwithstanding the
limited range of his own sympathies and studies, the European
writer who presumes that he is speaking for the world, is
perceived by him to speak only for that corner of it which he
inhabits. One of the rarest of England's scholars and critics,
in his classification of the worthies of the world, betrays the
narrowness of his European culture and the exclusiveness of his
reading. None of her children has done justice to the poets and
philosophers of Persia or of India. They have even been better
known to her merchant scholars than to her poets and thinkers by
profession. You may look in vain through English poetry for a
single memorable verse inspired by these themes. Nor is Germany
to be excepted, though her philological industry is indirectly
serving the cause of philosophy and poetry.
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