The trouble will therefore be with yourself,
and not with conditions, if you remain an underling in this great
profession.
Take literature--take imaginative literature. More can be said on its
possibilities than on those of the law--and I enlarged upon the
unexplored fields of the law merely to outline the immensity of the
great things yet to be done in the law's domain. Is it not plain that
the great novel of modern society is yet to be written? The contest
between human nature and the complex machinery of our industrial
system, and the mastery of human nature over the latter, present a
theme such as Homer, or Vergil, or Dante never had.
The world awaits this genius! If you are not he, but talented in that
direction, there are a thousand phases of American life that are of
permanent historic value, which are rapidly passing away forever, and
need to be perpetuated by literature and art.
In poetry, the master singer of modern days has not yet appeared.
There have been faint signs of him, a suggestion of him, an indistinct
prophecy of him, in nearly all of the world's singers for a hundred
years. Some day he will come. It may be soon, and then he will sound
that note which shall again thrill the hearts and again turn
heavenward the eyes of men all round the world.
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