But such is not the
case. As men who have lived long in darkness become so accustomed to
the want of light as not to feel its absence, so the absoluteness of
the want of fine buildings in America prevents that want from being
generally felt. Heirs of the intellectual wealth of the past, we have
no inheritance of the great works of its hands. No material heirlooms
have been transmitted to us. We are cut off from any share in the
monuments on which the labor, the affection, and the possessions of
former generations were expended. The precious and enlarging
associations connected with such works, which bind successive
generations of men together with ties of memory and reverence,
stimulating the imagination to new conceptions, and nerving the will to
large efforts, have nothing to cling to here. The land is barren and
naked; and, moreover, no effort is made to relieve the future from the
want which the present feels so keenly. With wealth ample enough for
undertakings of any magnitude,--with intelligence, more boasted than
real, but still sufficient for the conception of improvement, we
exhibit in our civilization neither the taste nor the capacity for any
noble works of Art.
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