We still respond to the half Celtic,
half Saxon, song of one of these:--
"Luck hates the slow and loves the bold,
Soon come the darkness and the cold."
American poets and prose writers have disclosed the glory of a new
companionship with nature and have shown how we,
"... pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth."
After association with them, we also feel like exclaiming:--
"Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
... rich apple-blossom'd earth!
Smile, for your lover comes."
No other literature has so forcibly expressed such an inspiring belief in
individuality, the aim to have each human being realize that this plastic
world expects to find in him an individual hero. Emerson emphasized "the
new importance given to the single person." No philosophy of individuality
could be more explicit than Walt Whitman's:--
"The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one
single individual,--namely to You."
This emphasis on individuality is an added incentive to try "to yield that
particular fruit which each was created to bear." We feel that the universe
is our property and that we shall not stop until we have a clear title to
that part which we desire.
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