AIMBOTLIAO His cutting is vigorous and incisive - his tale is made to live. Yet another, and a graceful American Indian paints upon a buffalo-skin the pictograph, which represents the war-trail or the chase. We next glance into the dim scriptorium where the monastic scribe patiently illuminates his manuscript; and as the final evolution, Gutenberg eagerly scans the proof that has just come from the printingpress his gift to the world. So from prehistoric age to twentieth century, leaf, cairn and altar, oral tradition, hieroglyphic and pictograph, waxed tablet, illuminated manuscript and printing-press - have all had part in leading up to the book-the ultimate triumph of modern thought. And the book is the vehicle of literature; and the literature that it holds is the reflection and reproduction alike of the intellect and deed of the people. Honest John Morley says: Poets, dramatists, humorists, satirists, historians, masters of fiction, great preachers, character-writers, political orators, maxim-writers - all are literature." The story of literature is a curious and varied one that has unravelled century by century as Egypt, Assyria, Persia, China and India, Greece and Rome, and the more modern countries, have in turn added their records. Our subject is American literature. This, however, being but a branch of English literature, we join in the ranks and inspiration of that long and splendid procession, which, for twelve hundred years, has been marching along. Our environment, it is true, has been different: another land and climate and social organisation, with democratic political problems to solve; but all the same, we, too, claim ancestral right in Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare and Milton- and English literature is indeed our glorious heritage. And as we consider the work of our up-to-date author, seated in his library-running his fingers lightly over the keys of his typewriter - let us not forget the gratitude due to that primitive savage, who, in the fragrant woodland, traced his inspiration upon the leaf of a tree, and thus took the first step in the evolution of the book. AMERICAN II BEGINNINGS OF THE STORY literature literature where does it begin? Surely not among the prehistoric mound-builders whose instruments and ornaments are unearthed today. They builded their homes, tilled their soil, and worked their mines, but thus their record sadly ends: "They had no poet and they died." Next, in historic sequence, we glance at the Indian, who is becoming to-day more and more to the American author a theme of romance. What was his contribution to the literature of an aboriginal age? It was scanty indeed - but it formed a beginning; for his speech and songs of magic and love displayed bold courage and an eloquent symbolism that we may not overlook. The following, taken from Dr. Schoolcraft's "Indian Tribes" is an expressive illustration: "My love is tall and graceful as the young pine waving on the hill, and as swift in his course as the noble, stately deer; his hair is flowing and dark, as the blackbird that floats through the air, and his eyes like the eagle's, both piercing and bright; his heart, it is fearless and great, and his arm, it is strong in the fight, as this bow made of iron wood which he easily bends. His aim is as sure in the fight and chase as the hawk which ne'er misses its prey. |