sympathy with nature.
As regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend
the hill of life naturally looks backward as well as forward, and we
must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has
witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future
times as a splendid literary age. The elder among us have lived in the
lifetime of many great men who have passed to their rest--the younger
have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their
hands as I trust they will continue to be in the hands of all
generations. I am afraid we can not hope for literature--it would be
contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it
should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which
belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of
1815. That was a great period--a great period in England, a great period
in Germany, a great period in France, and a great period, too, in Italy.
As I have said, I think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a
perfect level at so high an elevation. Undoubtedly the cultivation of
literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must
remember what is literature and what is not. In the first place we
should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature. The business of
bookmaking I have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a
constantly extending scale from year to year. But that we may put aside.
For my own part if I am to look a little forward, what I anticipate for
the remainder of the century is an age not so much of literature
proper--not so much of great, permanent and splendid additions to those
works in which beauty is embodied as an essential condition of
production, but rather look forward to an age of research. This is an
age of great research--of great research in science, great research in
history--an age of research in all the branches of inquiry that throw
light upon the former condition whether of our race, or of the world
which it inhabits; and it may be hoped that, even if the remaining years
of the century be not so brilliant as some of its former periods, in the
production of works great in themselves, and immortal,--still they may
add largely to the knowledge of mankind; and if they make such additions
to the knowledge of mankind, they will be preparing the materials of a
new tone and of new splendors in the realm of litera
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