generation or two ... dropping off by degrees.
A superior breed shall take their place ... the gangs of kosmos and
prophets _en masse_ shall take their place. A new order shall arise
and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own
priest. The churches built under their umbrage shall be the churches
of men and women. Through the divinity of themselves shall the kosmos
and the new breed of poets be interpreters of men and women and of all
events and things. They shall find their inspiration in real objects
to-day, symptoms of the past and future.... They shall not deign to
defend immortality or God or the perfection of things or liberty or
the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul. They shall arise in
America and be responded to from the remainder of the earth.

The English language befriends the grand American expression ... it is
brawny enough and limber and full enough ... on the tough stock of a
race who through all change of circumstance was never without the
idea of political liberty, which is the animus of all liberty, it has
attracted the terms of daintier and gayer and subtler and more elegant
tongues. It is the powerful language of resistance ... it is the
dialect of common sense. It is the speech of the proud and melancholy
races and of all who aspire. It is the chosen tongue to express growth
faith self-esteem freedom justice equality friendliness amplitude
prudence decision and courage. It is the medium that shall well nigh
express the inexpressible.

No great literature nor any like style of behavior or oratory or
social intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions
or the treatment of bosses of employed people, nor executive detail
or detail of the army and navy, nor spirit of legislation or courts
or police or tuition or architecture or songs or amusements or the
costumes of young men, can long elude the jealous and passionate
instinct of American standards. Whether or no the sign appears from
the mouths of the people, it throbs a live interrogation in every
freeman's and freewoman's heart after that which passes by or this
built to remain. Is it uniform with my country? Are its disposals
without ignominious distinctions? Is it for the ever growing communes
of brothers and lovers, large, well-united, proud beyond the old
models, generous beyond all models? Is it something grown fresh out of
the fields or drawn from the sea for use to me today here? I know
that what