New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-08-14
YIRTNES OF TIE SOIL.

| Illuminating remnscence of Mr.. LowePs keen
discernment and true instinct as critic OF
literature. The older poet, interested in the
earliest verses of new writer had voluntarily
sought him out in order to encourage him to
oersevere in his wooinp Of the muses.. Mr..
Stedman had written some distnctively Amen-
can lyrics, and had coupled with them more
elaborate and labored pieces on classical themes.
Mr.. LOwell'S preference was Immediately shown
for the work that had the characteristic quail
tiles of American life. The ambitious antiques
he politely condemned with faint praise. do
you think you can do these things any better"
he asked, than they have been done by Keats,
TennySon and Lander? When you write Ameri-
can ballads you are on your own ground breath
ing your own air, and have touch OF your
own.o The validity of that criticism was at
tested by Mr.. LOwells own experience Ills
chief successes in literature had been achieved
on American ground as a poet of New-England
and representative of National thought and
feeling. At least twice during his arduOus lit
erary career he had the crowning distinction
of expressing in great National crises all that
was in the overweight hearts of his country
men. Once it was as a satirst when, in " JON
dtndn 10 JONI, ne TcDukcu oilcHSlfO
hostility to the cause of liberty and its mer-
cenary greed in supporting shareholders re-
bellion. Again it was as poet when, after the
close of the Civil War; he raised In his ma
jestc Commemoration Odep an imperiShable
monument. nober than stone or bronze, to
Abraham Lincoln, "one of Phrtarch's men,"
The truth, embodied not only in Mr.. LowelPS
keen comments on the work of a new and
promising writer, but also in his own literary
achievements, is one which is borne out by the
experience of all ages and races The great
poets and prose writers, indeed the great states
men and preachers as well are those who havo
expressed not merely the thought of their day,
but the aspirations and moral purposes of men
of their own country and race Homer, Dry
den and Goethe not only belonged 70 the liv-
ing, breathing world of their times, but each to
his own country. The touch Of life which
made their work immortal came from the soil.
Mr. Gladstone exercised a greater power over
English opinion than Lord Beaconsfield, be-
cause he was English in heart and mind, where
as his rival was always suspected of being
half-ASatic and essentially alien in instincts.
Mr.. Beecher was the greatest preacher of his
day because his genius was a characteristic
product of American soil. 1t seems to be the
natural law of the intellectual world that exOticS
languish and have to struggle for recognition
and existence, whereas what is indigenous -four
shes, has free growth and bears fruit album
dainty Certainly this is true of all that is best
in American literature Irving, Hawthorne,
Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes, Whit
tier and Lowell have all done their most en-
during work when on their own ground, in
stinct with American feeling and purpose, and
" breathing their own air.
Never was it more important for living au-
thols to recognize this universal law of intel
lectua production than at the prescnt time,
when nOveliSts are securing the ends of the
earth and ranging over past ages for novel
themes and fantastic characters and when the
rising poets count it but narrowness and pro-
vincialiSm to be patriotic and TO write about
their own country and their own people. Au-
thOrs are talking vaguely to-day about the re-
public of letters as if it were transcendental
realm in the air without any working relations
to any country or any living race. If they will
take counsel with the bengnant ghosts of their
library shelves they will learn the wholesome
lesson that the living writer must always be
the conduit of the freshest thought the deep
est feeling and the most intense moral c0nvic-
tions of his own country and race. lie must
not be ashamed of his own homely soil, for the
strongest qualities and most potent energies of
his growth will come from the closest contact
with it. "Romoa" was a splendid product Of
George EliCt's art but it was essentially an
exotic creation, and the manneriSms and an
alytic methods she acquired in writing it marred
and weakened all her subsequent work In
:" Clerical Tales "Adam Bede' and "Mll |
on the Floss" she was on her own ground and
her work had all the characteristics of English
life and thought. The living author is the last
man in the world who can afford to be with
out country. What was best in Mr. Lowell's |
work was what was dstnctvely American in |
thought and purpose. The CommemoIaton |
ODE marked the eliminating point of a long |
and productive career. 1t remains to this day |
the nobleSt poem in American literature be- |
cause the virtues of the soil are in it.