ABSTRACT
Literature is frequently taken by modern writers in the sense of polite literature, or what the French call Belles-lettres. A literature which is simply copied or imitated from a foreign model is no literature at all, in its artistic sense. American literature wants, generally speaking, originality, freedom, and freshness. It lacks spontaneity, is imitative, and, for the most part, imitative of the English. The most unhappy marriages are usually sentimental marriages, and some people have never heard of a love-match that was not an unhappy match. The error of supposing love as a sentiment suffices for the basis of a happy marriage is productive of much misery in own modern society. Marriage based on this love is sacred, holy, and can never, whatever the imperfections of the spouses, be utterly miserable, because it can never leave the mind utterly empty, and the soul to devour herself.
