"
"Ah! and what would be my hope, my safety, in communities which
tolerate these things; in which the number of just and sensible
people is so small that they dare not speak, or can not influence
those who have better courage? Where would be my triumphs? I, who
would no more subscribe to the petty tyranny of conventional law,
than to that baser despotism which is wielded by a mercenary editor,
in the absence of a stern justice in the popular mind. Here I may
pine to death--there, my heart would burst with its own convulsions."
"No! Margaret, no! It is because they have not the genius,
that such small birds are let to sing. Let them but hear the true
minstrel--let them but know that there is a muse, and how soon
would the senseless twitter which they now tolerate be hushed
in undisturbing silence. In the absence of better birds they bear
with what they have. In the absence of the true muse they build no
temple--they throng not to hear. Nay, even now, already, they look
to the west for the minstrel and the muse--to these very woods.
There is a tacit and universal feeling in the Atlantic country,
that leads them to look with expectation to the Great West, for the
genius whose song is to give us fame.
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