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July 28, 2011

" The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."

Of course, the soul often breaks down into disintegration, and you have lurid sin and Judith, imbecile innocence lusting, in Hetty, and bluster, bragging, and self-conscious strength, in Harry. But there are the disintegration products.

What true myth concerns itself with is not the disintegration product. True myth concerns itself centrally with the onward adventure of the integral soul. And this, for America, is Deerslayer. A man who turns his back on white society. A man who keeps his moral integrity hard and intact. An isolate, almost selfless, stoic, enduring man, who lives by death, by killing, but who is pure white.

This is the very intrinsic—most American. He is at the core of all the other flux and fluff. And when this man breaks from his static isolation, and makes a new move, then look out, something will be happening. --D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature/Chapter 5

Posted by Vanderleun at July 28, 2011 10:37 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

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Posted by: Gray at July 27, 2011 10:02 PM

Posted by: notquiteunBuckley at July 28, 2011 4:57 AM

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