"Ode on a Grecian Urn." We think a little already, but not in those terms. Our imagination is beginning to stir; but we are still, as an East Indian visitor lately reminded us, "the flattest-minded people on the face of the earth."
In general, our Middle Western situation fairly represents our national situation. There are little glens of Eden along the eastern coast, there is a narrow strip of Paradise along the western coast, where nature encourages the poetic faculties of men by lavish displays of her own poetic powers. But for thousands of miles between these two oases, through monotonous wildernesses of corn, through wide wastes of grey sage-bush and sand, through ghastly white reaches of salt, one hears only the lowlands murmuring heavily, "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," and the barren deserts replying, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." Through these deserts and lowlands runs the Lincoln Highway, more popularly known as Main Street. If the pursuit of letters is to be justified to Main Street, it must be justified with reference to a standard that Main Street understands.
That is one-half the problem, but only one-half. If you are going, as the vile phrase is, "to sell" great literature to Main Street, you have got to believe in it yourself. There is the
