They were Puritans writing for Puritans, and all they could
see in Cowperwood was an anti-Puritan, and in his creator another. It
will remain for Europeans, I daresay, to discover the true stature of
"The Titan," as it remained for Europeans to discover the true stature
of "Sister Carrie."
Just how deeply this corrective knife has cut you may find plainly
displayed in Dr. Kellner's little book. He sees the throttling influence
of an ever alert and bellicose Puritanism, not only in our grand
literature, but also in our petit literature, our minor poetry, even in
our humour. The Puritan's utter lack of aesthetic sense, his distrust of
all romantic emotion, his unmatchable intolerance of opposition, his
unbreakable belief in his own bleak and narrow views, his savage
cruelty of attack, his lust for relentless and barbarous
persecution--these things have put an almost unbearable burden upon the
exchange of ideas in the United States, and particularly upon that form
of it which involves playing with them for the mere game's sake. On the
one hand, the writer who would deal seriously and honestly with the
larger problems of life, particularly in the rigidly-partitioned ethical
field, is restrained by laws that would have kept a Balzac or a Zola in
prison from year's end to year's end; and on the other hand the writer
who would proceed against the reigning superstitions by mockery has been
silenced by taboos that are quite as stringent, and by an indifference
that is even worse.
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