The Portland daily press., 1888-02-25
CONCERNING BOOKS.
BY e. cAvAzzA.

This column seems a not inappropriate
place to say that it is greatly desirable that
every effort Of the Longfellow Statue Asso-
citation be cordially seconded by all those
who admire the literary art of the poet, and
gratefully listen &c his verse as it interprets
and comforts the heart common to mankind.
Portland is TO be congratulated that it is her
right, her duty, her privilege to raise the
first statue to the man and poet whom the
world has delighted to honor. Our city can
reflect with pride that the ''long, long
thoughts" of his youth, the ambitions and
dreams-springtime flowers which ripened
into so rich fruitage of the poets art-were
nurtured with breath of her sea-breezes.
Whatever was added by study and by travel
to the power of Mr.. Longfellow's genius
itself was born with him in his Portland
home. And greatly he repaid the city of his
birth, in the best way given to man to honor
a parent-by his character and his work.
What an uplifting example for the youth
who may call themselves fellow townsmen
of Mr.. Longfellow is his life, of which the
Hottest poetry rose not higher than its source
in his daily action and thought 1t is indeed
this part Of all our citizens to contribute ac-
cording to their opportunities toward the
erection of the statue which will be the tam
gible expression of the love of Portland for
her poet; to interest themselves in some
way to participate in this act of homage to
his memory. Before the next summers TO-
lage be scattered from the boughs of Deer
ing's Oaks, may the statue of the poet stand
in its place. at once memorial and an in
spiration!
Mr.. Appleton Morgan, the President of the
New York Shakespeare Society, has lust pub
lished volume entitled Shakespeare in Fact
and in Criticism, which instantly commends
itself by its rational system of comment,
clear good sense and fresh and lively views
of the problems presented by the life and
works Of the great dramatist, Mr.. Morgan s
preface does the whole duty of a prologue:
it serves not merely to introduce the theme
and its treatment, put also to set the key
note of the entire work and to prepare and
stimulate the mind of the reader to state
of readiness to receive the arguments and
conclusions contained in its pages. Mr. Mol
gan's quarrel with the esthetic school of
Shakespeare comment is net so much that it
reads into the dramas as much as it reads
out of them, finding all manner Of subtleties
of which the poet probably never thought
but that this criticism insists on creating
figure of Shakespeare from shreds and patches
of non-conclusive evidence, which it claims
to extract from the plays Those who be-
lIeve in the ideals of art ana in its inspira-
ton will like Mr.. Morgan's admiring ques-
tons: "Why should not poets build better
than they know? What else is it that gives
what is called Immortality to human work."
Since there is spirit In man, it seems natu-
raj that it should receive direction and REIN
forcement from higher regions; that great
mind, ordained for the help of fellow-men,
should not find its influence limited by its
own time and the relative conditions. Dante
is not less the master-mind of Italy to-day,
when his dream Of ideal Ghibellinism is re-
allied, than when he stood alone in the
stormy confusion of his own century. And
Shakespeare is as quick mirror of humanity
now as in the days of Queen Elizabeth. But
because he was great dramatist is the pre-
else reason that it is impossible to construct
his biography from his writings. As Mr..
Morgan points out, il we are to admit one
passage as proof it is difficult to deny any;
and we shall have presently an image OF
Shakespeare numbering his brother-n-law
like Claudius; giving away his goods like
King Lear; a lover like Romeo and cynic
like Timon. 1t is no longer the question,
was Shakespeare himself or "the wisest,
greatest, meaDest of mankind" but whether
he was also the most miscellaneous, contra
dictory, numerous and impossible Mr.. Nor
gan believes Shakespeare to have been man
like another, influenced by his moods and his
surroundings; that "his works are for all
times that love him, but not for those that
do not; and that, great as he was and oceanic
as was his genius. we can read him all the
better because, after all, he was man."
rapid and magnificent summing up Of the
Shakspearian age is the picturefor which Mr..