Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/180

 166 natures; those fiery enthusiasts who bore down all just opposition to their designs; those loyal servants who saw no right nor wrong save in the will of their sovereigns; those keen-eyed statesmen who served their countries with craft, and guile, and dissimulation; those light-hearted prodigals who flung away their lives with a smile;—are none of these to yield us either edification or delight? "Do great deeds, and they will sing themselves," says Emerson; but it must be confessed the songs are often of a very dismal and enervating character. Columbus did a great deed when he crossed the ocean and discovered the fair, unknown land of promise; yet many of the songs in which we sing his fame sound a good deal like pæans of reproach. The prevailing sentiment appears to be that a person so manifestly ignorant and improper should never have been permitted to discover America at all.

This sickly tone is mirrored in much of the depressing literature of our day. It finds amplest expression in such joyless books as "The Heavenly Twins," the heroine of which remarks with commendable self-confidence