The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1893-04-23
INTHELITERARY WORLD
FOUR OF TIRE GREAT EN0Lish
POETS OUT OF DOORS.
A Few Interesting Facts Concerning hus-
sian Libraries-Rev. A. v. hapine'
Holders Life Of Agassix.

Among the poets there Is no less variety
IN tho methods of looking at Nature and
the wild things OF the earth than III inc
methods of looking at men ana women
II ia certain. moreover, that every great
,,oo, has the out-of-door feeling on him
at times.
Wordsworth. howe, or, may fairly claim
10 be par excellence the Poet OF Nature
because all that is best in his work Is
more vitality dependent on his love Of
Nature than is that of any other poet OF
the first rank. His mind is the farthest
removed from that of the dramatst' 10
whom the central interest must always
be human passion, human loves anu
hotes: 10 whom the beauty OF the woilu
Is mainly setting for the men that live
and move in il. The dramatist dwells
among the haunts Of men. he derives his
inspiration from the ror gh-and-tumble
of every day life, however he may glorily
IT. Wordsworth, however, is at his hap
piest when the clamor of mems tongues
is hushed: when the voices Of the noun
tains are in his ears, and overhead the
broad open eye
OF the solitary sky.
A direct inspiration from Nature, a
habit not merely of feeling how she har-
monies with his graver moods. but of
fLding in her the actual sources OF his
higher emotions and richest thoughts, Is
what especially distinguishes Wordsworth
from others, even from Matthew Arnold,
who is of all poets most distinctly the
product Of Wordsworth. and evidently In
fuenced and moulded by his study OF the
master. The ''Thyrsis" Of Arnold is the
work of a man who loved the open air
and knew the countryside intimately
Who. If not I, for questing here hath
power?
know the wood which hides the dat-
fodil,
know the Fyfield tree.
/ know what white, what purple fritil-
laries
The grassy harvest OF the river fields
Above by Ensham, down by SANFORD,
yields.
And what sedged brooks are Thames
tributaries.
Yet. though Arnold has the feeling OF
the country, it is a secondary thing with
him; an accompaniment; the result less
Of instinct than OF cultivated taste. So
his SMILES or illustrations derived from
rural life appear with an air less OF
being the thing that was suggested TO
him by the circumstances than of being
the sort of thing which he thought would
probably have been suggested by similar
circumstances to Homer or Virgil. ! am
not sure that this manner has not a
charm of its own To The literary mind,
but It is not the living charm of green
turf and blue sky. Still less is ii the
"Presence that disturbs me with the JOY
of elevated thoughts" as Wordsworth
says One has a suspicion that when
Wordsworth went out on the hillside, Ar
mold may have done so, too; but he
went with Marcus AureIius in his pocket.
Now and then we have delicately touch
ed picture, as of
Thu mowers, who, as the tiny swell
OF or boat passing heaved the river
grass.
Stood with suspended scythe to see us
pass,
but the lierary flavor has a habit Of pre-
dominating.
Robert Browning is a poet to whom
nothing is of the same account as the
individual man. the development Of this
or that particular soul. This so out
weighs all else in his work that we are
apt to overlook the fact that he was
keen and delighted observer and recorder
of sights and sounds of Nature-of the
world in which men live, the concomi-
tants of human life. Certainly he never
wrote an ode to a skylark or "A daisy,
but he was very much, and Joyously,
aware Of them. as witness. let us say,
"Home thoughts from abroad" His de-
scription of the thrush is almost the
only really hackneyed thing he wrote
1t does duty annually in the newspaper
articles. His May morning when
Though the fields look rough with
hoary dew.
All will be gay when noontide wakes
anew
The buttercups, the little children's
dover,
is instinct with the very spirit OF spring.
Even in the 'Parlcyings" there IL a sun
rise, Enthusiastically different from
Wordsworth's, but throbbing with the
life of the new days dawn.
There is a rather curious difference
between Wordsworth and Browning which
IS worth noting-the former has a vivid
sense of what Mr.. Morley calls an ami
mated Presence in the mountains end
woods: but Browning has a way OF speak
ing of them as individually alive.
AS might be expected, Tennyson stands
somewhat as a link between Wordsworth
and Browning in his way of looking at
Nature. She is more intimately bound
up with his thoughts than with Brownings
but is less exclusively responsible for the
best of them than with Wordsworth.
lie presents her with an accuracy and an
unfailing felicity ef phrase unrivalled,
except by the universal rival Shakes
peare, and by Keats. He can be lavish
with gorgeous detail. as in "Enoch
Arden" but he can call up complete
picture in a couple of lines
What sound was dearest in his native
dells?
The mellow lln-lan-lone of evening bells,
Far-far-away.
There is a whole landscape In that.
or in such a phrase as "the long gray
fields at night" On the "May Queen.
Just as clear as Wordsworth gives us in
"Tintern Abbey" He has above all the
art of putting before you clearly the sa-
lient features which of themselves sug-
gest the background; the art of not say
Ing the superfuous thing so that in a
Few lines you have picture Of infinite
suggestiveness.
Russian Libraries.
Little is known of the old Russian
libraries beyond the fact that they con-