The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-02-09

single bound, and become poetic philosophers
at an age when other poets are in the sensuous
stage of imaginative development. 1t estimat-
ing the claim of Bryant to be ranked as the
foremost of American poets, it may be said
that he opened a rich and deep, if somewhat
narrow, vein, which he has worked with mar
velous skill, and that he has obtained more
pure gold from his mine than many others who
have sunk shafts here and there into more
promising deposits of the precious metal. He
is, perhaps, unequaled among our American
poets in his grasp of the elemental life of ma
ture. His descriptions of natural scenery al
ways imply that nature, in every aspect it
turns to the poetic eye, is thoroughly alive.
NOBODY can read he poerhs called THE Eve
ming Wind" Green River" "The Death of
the Flowers, the invocation ITO Water
fowl, An Evening Reverie,' ITO the
without feeling that this poet has explored
the Utmost secrets of nature, and has shown
how natural objects can be welded to the hu-
man mind in Glove and holy passion" In the
abstract Imagination which celebrates the fun
damental idea and ideal of our American life,
what can excel his noble verses on ''The An
tiquity of Freedom?' "The Land of Dreams
is perhaps the: most exquisite of Bryant's po-
ems, as in it thought, sentiment, and imagna-
tlOu are uOT6 COmptlely ulSSOlyeu III Htiuuy
tina n in any other of his poems. In criticism
of the range of Bryapt's mind it must be re-
membered that his poety is only one expression
OF it. His life has been generally passed IN
political struggles which have called forth all
his powers of statement and reasoning, based
on patient study of the phenomena presented
by our social and political life. AS the editor
of the New York Evening Post, he has shown
himself an able publicst an intelligent econo.
mist, and resolute party champion. And at
inH Of xph r,ona tr,,o s,s&;E Cd; -,
resting from their labors, he undertook the gil
gantic task of translating into blank verse such
as few but he can give, the whole of the Had
and the Odyssey.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Emerson's peculiar sphere was psychology
By certain felicity of his nature he was nom
combatant; indifferent to logic, he suppressed
all the processes of his thinking, and an
nounced its results in affirmatiops: and none
of the asperities which commonly afflict the
apostles of dissent ever ruf1ed the serene spir-
it of this universal dissenter. He could never
be seduced into controversy. He was assailed
both as an atheist and as pantheist; as writ
er SO obscure that nobody could understand
what he meant, and also as a mere verbal
trickster, whose only talent consisted in vivify-
ing commonplace, or in converting, by inver-
sion, stale trusms into brilliant paradoxes; and
all these varying charges had only the effect Of
lighting up his face with that queer, quizzical,
inscrutable smile, that amused surprise at the
misconceptions of the people who attacked him
which is noticeable in all portraits and photo
graphs of his somewhat enigmatcal counte-
nance. His method was very simple and very
hard. 1t consisted in growing up to level
with the spiritual objects he perceived, and his
elevation of thought was thus the sign and ac-
compartment of corresponding elevation of
character In his case, as in the case of Chan
ming, there was an unconscious return to Jona-
than Edwards, and to all the great divlnes
whose souls had sight" of eternal verities.
What the orthodox saints called the Holy
Ghost, he, without eneowing it with personal,
with them that in God we live and
move and have our being; that only by COM
municating with this Being can we have any
individuality; and that the record of q COM
munication with Him or 1t was the most val
liable of all contributions to literature, whether
theological or human. The noblest passages
in his writings are those in which he celebrates
this august and gracious communion of the
Spirit OF God with the soul Of man; and they
are the most serious, solemn and uplifting pas
sages which can perhaps be found in our litera-
ture. Here was man who had earned the
right to utter these noble truths by patient
meditation and clear insight. Carlyle ex-
claimed in preface to an English edition of
one OF Emerson's later volumes: Here comes
our brave Emerson, with neaos from the empy-
rean!' That phrase exactly hits Emerson as
transcendental thinker. His insights were,
in some sense, revelations; he could gossip
on the eternal politics." and just at the time
when science, relieved from the pressure of
theology, announced materialistic hypothesis
with more than the confidence with which the
bgots of theological creeds had heretofore an
nounced their dogmas this serene American
thinker had won his way into all the centres
of European intelligence, and delivered his
quiet protest against every hypothesis which
put in peril the spiritual interests of humanity