The mission of all the great New England writers of this age was to make
individuals freer, more cultivated, more self-reliant, more kindly, more
spiritual. Puritan energy and spirituality spoke through them all. Nearly
all could trace their descent from the early Puritans. It is not an
infusion of new blood that has given America her greatest writers, but an
infusion of new ideals. Some of these ideals were illusions, but a noble
illusion has frequently led humanity upward. The transcendentalists could
not fathom the unknowable, but their attempts in this direction enabled
them to penetrate deeper into spiritual realities.
The New Englander demanded a cultivated intellect as the servant of the
spirit. He still looked at the world from the moral point of view. For the
most part he did not aim to produce a literature of pleasure, but of
spiritual power, which he knew would incidentally bring pleasure of the
highest type. Even Holmes, the genial humorist, wished to be known to
posterity by his trumpet call to the soul to build itself more stately
mansions.
THE INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY.--The question of human slavery profoundly
modified the thought and literature of the nation.
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