ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an extract from an article published in Democratic Vistas New York, 1871. Dominion strong is the body’s; dominion stronger is the mind’s. The great poems, Shakespeare's included, are poisonous to the idea of pride and dignity of the common people, the life-blood of democracy. The models of our literature, as we get it from other lands, ultramarine, have had their birth in courts, and bask’d and grown in castle sunshine; all smells of princes’ favors. Democracy, in silence, biding its time, ponders its own ideals, not of literature and art only—not of men, only, but of women.
