{"product_id":"2940013673649","title":"The American Spirit In Literature, A Chronicle Of Great Interpreters","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     I. THE PIONEERS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     II. THE FIRST COLONIAL LITERATURE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     III. THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     IV. THE REVOLUTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     V. THE KNICKERBOCKER GROUP\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     VI. THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     VII. ROMANCE, POETRY, AND HISTORY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     VIII. POE AND WHITMAN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     IX. UNION AND LIBERTY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     X. A NEW NATION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I. THE PIONEERS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe United States of America has been from the beginning in a perpetual\u003cbr\u003echange. The physical and mental restlessness of the American and the\u003cbr\u003etemporary nature of many of his arrangements are largely due to the\u003cbr\u003eexperimental character of the exploration and development of this\u003cbr\u003econtinent. The new energies released by the settlement of the colonies\u003cbr\u003ewere indeed guided by stern determination, wise forethought, and\u003cbr\u003einventive skill; but no one has ever really known the outcome of the\u003cbr\u003eexperiment. It is a story of faith, of\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Effort, and expectation, and desire,\u003cbr\u003e   And something evermore about to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Alexander Hamilton may urge with passionate force the adoption of the\u003cbr\u003eConstitution, without any firm conviction as to its permanence. The most\u003cbr\u003eclear-sighted American of the Civil War period recognized this element\u003cbr\u003eof uncertainty in our American adventure when he declared: \"We are\u003cbr\u003enow testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so\u003cbr\u003ededicated, can long endure.\" More than fifty years have passed since\u003cbr\u003ethat war rearmed the binding force of the Constitution and apparently\u003cbr\u003esealed the perpetuity of the Union. Yet the gigantic economic and social\u003cbr\u003echanges now in progress are serving to show that the United States has\u003cbr\u003eits full share of the anxieties which beset all human institutions in\u003cbr\u003ethis daily altering world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We are but strangers in an inn, but passengers in a ship,\" said Roger\u003cbr\u003eWilliams. This sense of the transiency of human effort, the perishable\u003cbr\u003enature of human institutions, was quick in the consciousness of the\u003cbr\u003egentleman adventurers and sober Puritan citizens who emigrated from\u003cbr\u003eEngland to the New World. It had been a familiar note in the poetry of\u003cbr\u003ethat Elizabethan period which had followed with such breathless interest\u003cbr\u003ethe exploration of America. It was a conception which could be shared\u003cbr\u003ealike by a saint like John Cotton or a soldier of fortune like John\u003cbr\u003eSmith. Men are tent-dwellers. Today they settle here, and tomorrow they\u003cbr\u003ehave struck camp and are gone. We are strangers and sojourners, as all\u003cbr\u003eour fathers were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis instinct of the camper has stamped itself upon American life and\u003cbr\u003ethought. Venturesomeness, physical and moral daring, resourcefulness\u003cbr\u003ein emergencies, indifference to negligible details, wastefulness\u003cbr\u003eof materials, boundless hope and confidence in the morrow, are\u003cbr\u003echaracteristics of the American. It is scarcely an exaggeration to\u003cbr\u003esay that the \"good American\" has been he who has most resembled a good\u003cbr\u003ecamper. He has had robust health--unless or until he has abused it,--a\u003cbr\u003etolerant disposition, and an ability to apply his fingers or his brain\u003cbr\u003eto many unrelated and unexpected tasks. He is disposed to blaze his own\u003cbr\u003etrail. He has a touch of prodigality, and, withal, a knack of keeping\u003cbr\u003ehis tent or his affairs in better order than they seem. Above all, he\u003cbr\u003ehas been ever ready to break camp when he feels the impulse to wander.\u003cbr\u003eHe likes to be \"foot-loose.\" If he does not build his roads as solidly\u003cbr\u003eas the Roman roads were built, nor his houses like the English houses,\u003cbr\u003eit is because he feels that he is here today and gone tomorrow. If he\u003cbr\u003ehas squandered the physical resources of his neighborhood, cutting the\u003cbr\u003eforests recklessly, exhausting the soil, surrendering water power and\u003cbr\u003eminerals into a few far-clutching fingers, he has done it because he\u003cbr\u003eexpects, like Voltaire's Signor Pococurante, \"to have a new garden\u003cbr\u003etomorrow, built on a nobler plan.\" When New York State grew too crowded\u003cbr\u003efor Cooper's Leather-Stocking, he shouldered his pack, whistled to his\u003cbr\u003edog, glanced at the sun, and struck a bee-line for the Mississippi.\u003cbr\u003eNothing could be more typical of the first three hundred years of\u003cbr\u003eAmerican history.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070174183664,"sku":"2940013673649","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013673649_p0.jpg?v=1763584310","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013673649","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}