Latest / Short History of Pittsburgh / 028 - Intellectual - Chapter 7

Transcript

028 - Intellectual - Chapter 7 · Short History of Pittsburgh

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section twenty seven of Short History of Pittsburgh by Samuel
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: harden Church. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Read by Tatiana Chichilla, Section twenty seven intellectual, Chapter seven,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and how about letters? Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: clouds of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of braun,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: those men of energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Can these produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yet hold Only the other day on the train, a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: man who has been a resident of New York for
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: thirty five years remarked in this author's presence that Pittsburgh
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is the most intellectual city in America. He had never
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: visited Pittsburgh, and the author did not and does not
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: know his name. How about Boston, asked another traveler. Boston
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: used to be, but is not now? He answered. Then, I,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: why he spoke thus of Pittsburgh, Because, said he, distant
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: as I am from Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: intellectual things has come to me from that city than
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: from any other place in America. But that may have
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: been his dinner or the cigar. Literature I once attempted
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to define as the written record of thought and action.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers have
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: substantially enriched the field of literature in every department, and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: given our city permanent fame as a place of letters.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: As we begin our survey of the local field, the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: wonder grows that the literary production is so large, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that the character of much of it is so very high.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Let Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: beat his hoof upon the empty air. Pittsburgh men and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh women have written the classic Steed with grace and skill,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: through all the flowered deviations of his bridal paths. This
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: it would be an ungraci and a presumptuous task for
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: me to appraise the literary value of that work with
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: any great degree of detail. The occasion will hardly permit
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: more than a list of names and titles, And while
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: pains have been taken to make this list complete, it
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: is possible that some books may have been overlooked, but
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: truly by inadvertence. Only end of Section twenty seven