The American Mind
The E. T. Earl Lectures
1912
By the Same Author
- The American Mind
- Park-Street Papers
- John Greenleaf Whittier: A Memoir
- Walt Whitman
- The Amateur Spirit
- A Study of Prose Fiction
- The Powers at Play
- The Plated City
- Salem Kittredge and Other Stories
- The Broughton House
The American Mind
By Bliss Perry
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY BLISS PERRY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October 1912
TO
WALTER MORRIS HART
Preface
The material for this book was delivered asthe E. T. Earl Lectures for 1912 at the PacificTheological Seminary, Berkeley, California, andI wish to take this opportunity to express to thePresident and Faculty of that institution my appreciationof their generous hospitality.
The lectures were also given at the LowellInstitute, Boston, the Brooklyn Institute, andelsewhere, under the title "American Traits inAmerican Literature." In revising them for publicationa briefer title has seemed desirable, andI have therefore availed myself of Jefferson'sphrase "The American Mind," as suggesting,more accurately perhaps than the original title,the real theme of discussion.
Cambridge, 1912.
Contents
- Race, Nation, and Book 3
- The American Mind 47
- American Idealism 86
- Romance and Reaction 128
- Humor and Satire 166
- Individualism and Fellowship 209
THE AMERICAN MIND
I
Race, Nation, and Book
Many years ago, as a student in a foreign university,I remember attacking, with the complacencyof youth, a German history of theEnglish drama, in six volumes. I lost couragelong before the author reached the age of Elizabeth,but I still recall the subject of the openingchapter: it was devoted to the physical geographyof Great Britain. Writing, as the good Germanprofessor did, in the triumphant hour of Taine'stheory as to the significance of place, period,and environment in determining the characterof any literary pro