Sea and Shore

It is a romance book. All this is overwhelming, I grant, bowing deferentially. 'But I return to my first idea, that Puritan blood was not exactly fit to engender genius; and that in the rich, careless Southern nature there lurks a vein of undeveloped song that shall yet exonerate America from the charge of poverty of genius, brought by the haughty Briton! Yes, we will sing yet a mightier strain than has ever been poured since the time of Shakespeare! and in that good time coming weave a grander heroic poem than any since the days of Homer! Then men's souls shall have been tried in the furnace of affliction, and Greek meets not Greek, but Yankee. For we Southerners only bide our time!' And he cut his spirited lead-horse, until it leaped forward suddenly, as though to vent his excitement, and, setting his email white teeth sternly, with an eye like a burning coal, looked forward into space, his whole face contracting.