The stabbing of a mass of public opinion into some
consciousness of its active torpor, particularly when many particles of
the mass are actively torpid because of admirable patriotic
intentions,--that is a job which needs sharp weapons, intense personal
devotion, and a positive indifference to consequences.
Yet if the American national Promise is ever to be fulfilled, a more
congenial and a more interesting task will also await the
critic--meaning by the word "critic" the voice of the specific
intellectual interest, the lover of wisdom, the seeker of the truth.
Every important human enterprise has its meaning, even though the
conduct of the affair demands more than anything else a hard and
inextinguishable faith. Such a faith will imply a creed; and its
realizations will go astray unless the faithful are made conscious of
the meaning of their performances or failures. The most essential and
edifying business of the critic will always consist in building up "a
pile of better thoughts," based for the most part upon the truth
resident in the lives of their predecessors and contemporaries, but not
without its outlook toward an immediate and even remote future.
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