New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-07-10
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1t seemed but Just and fitting the other day,
that Prof. Longfelow, when giving the greet
ing of the old scholars to the young, as those
who were about to die saluted Caesar, should
have suddenly turned to his own gray headed
comrades and thrown the whole force and
meaning of his appeal into his words to them.
Youth could be trusted to be daring; it was
they who nearcd the close of the journey, who
saw the shades of night fall thick and fast,
who needed to cry Excelsior! to remember
that something yet remained for them to do and
dare. No man in American literature has better
earned the right to give such warning; for no
man has been a steadier, moro persistent
worker. Mr. LongfellOw is in fact an anomaly
among our literary men, in the accuracy with
which no measured his own ability. and in tho
skill and unfailing judgment with which he
has used it. However critics may differ as to
the quality of his genius, 10 one can deny
the integrity of his service with it; he has
faithfully brought from it the best work OF
which it was capable. and given that work to
the highest aims. young man, he sang the
Psalm of Life for young mcn-it has been tho
creed of youth for two generations. Now, no
can leave his own record to "remind them
"they can make their lives sublime" ard give
the strength of his appeal to men of his own
age, to make their last footsteps on the shores
of time enduring as the first.
Now, practical man will have doubt a.
to the practicability of this lesson. An Ameri-
can at eighty may hope to write odes, as did
the calm-eyed Greek, when he shall be born
with the nervous temperament and sound di-
gestive organs of the Greek, and receive tho
same slow, thorough physical training from tho
cradle up to middle age. The Canterbury
Tales with Chatcer Faust with Goethe, the
GdipIs with SOphOcles were the late fruit OF
long growth, the haven to which tho
whole current of thought had tended Tho
American scholar, or poet. as a rule, carries his
art i'm one hand and the necessity of earn
ing his bread in the other from his youth
up in fact, in most cases he earns his daily
loaf by his art, and when thrce-scOre years
and ten come, is worn out and ready TO de-
clare that both are but labor and sorrow.
Blame it on the climate, or our nervous sys-
tenn, or social life, as we please, it is fact
that large or weighty intellectual labor is to
be hoped for from aged men of American
descent for two generations only when their
lives, like that of Mr.. LongfellOw, have been
spent in shades of lettered ease and wisely
ruled both as to the uses of brain and body.
On the other hand, physical and nervous
power and what we call character seldom
reach their full development in an American
until middle age. The men who took the
Southern States out of the Union and the men
who brought them back were, with but few
exceptions, over fifty the best work of our
statesmen. scholars, authors in all but imag-
native literature has been delayed to that
age. Wherefore there is hope for the Amer
lean as well as the Jew of SolOmon's
time so long as he be alive. For
if the brain be, in the majority of cases.
ready for rest at the grand climacteric.
the old force of will and nervous vigor re-
main to achieve the something" which the
poet says is yet to be DONE That something
is often the clearing and altering of a mans
own character. The American too frequently
is thrown into the world at boyhood to mako
his living and his way, and until old age SEXES
him. has never a pause in which to consider
himself, to mold himself into the better man
he might be. 1t is never too late for this
achievement and surely at that evening hour
we might afford to give up the building OF
market places and the making of paths for
other men, and set our own house in order for
Him who comes in the night.