The Writings Of Our Colonial Era Have A Much Greater Importance As
History Than As Literature. It Would Be Unfair To Judge Of The
Intellectual Vigor Of The English Colonists In America By The Books
That They Wrote; Those "Stern Men With Empires In Their Brains" Had
More Pressing Work To Do Than The Making Of Books. The First Settlers,
Indeed, Were Brought Face To Face With Strange And Exciting
Conditions--The Sea, The Wilderness, The Indians, The Flora And Fauna
Of A New World--Things Which Seem Stimulating To The Imagination, And
Incidents And Experiences Which Might Have Lent Themselves Easily To
Poetry Or Romance. Of All These They Wrote Back To England Reports
Which Were Faithful And Sometimes Vivid, But Which, Upon The Whole,
Hardly Rise Into The Region Of Literature.
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