The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-03-10

l |
! works read lay boys. when Thackeray wa
a boy, and when was a boy. Never shall
his readers forget the Long Carabine,
to whom Thackeray was devoted anC
Cncas, and Chingachgook.
still We love the Delaware.
And still wel hate the Mingos,"
Doubtless Cooper's Indians are not
realistically treated. though there is in
hnitely more of truth in his dignifieC
hunters and warriors than people con
versant only with the red man of today
are ready 20 believe. But Cooper, prob
ably, does not live with the immortality
of his first renowned successor. Haw-
thorne, who, for secure perfection OF
form is to modern fiction what Keats is
to modern poetry. Like Scott, Hawthorne
Is the enforced fruit of his ancestry and
the society into which he was born-a
Puritan, not a Cavalier artist. with a
background OF austere faith and of old
superstition, differentiated from that of
the Covenanters by the shadow of deep
forests and of struggles with the Indians
| and the wild things of the woods. These
had passed into mellow memories, as, for
| Scott, had passed the age of witches,
fairies, reivers, and claymores. Entirely
| in the Scarlet Letter. as by way of
hereditary influence in the House of
Seven Cables, Hawthorne reproduced
what was old, making it POLITICALLY endur-
ing. His Moses from an Old Manse'
| and other brief tales set the fashion, ex-
cept by Poe, long unfollowed, of the
| conte. Neither author has been eXcelled
in his own portion of this field. Haw-
thorne's haunted consciences, Poe's treas
ure tale, his detective stories, and his
| .s11a of
SO profusely initiated. This epoch, say
from 1880 to 1865, was a kind of classical
| interspace in the literature of the CEN
tury. France, preoccupied by war in the
| first thirty years of the age, now awoke
| to her own famous romantic era, with
| Hugo. Dumas, Musset, Gautier, George
| Sand, Sainte Beuve, Merimee-names of
| the highest. Germany, to the non-Teu
| tonic world, is, in poetry, represented by
! Heine, and. in science, philosophy, philol-
ogy, and history by a galaxy of inno-
vators ingenious and industrious. America
saw Hawthorne, Poe, Lowell, Holmes,
Whittier. Ticknor, Prescott, Motley,
I.ongfellow, Bryant, Emerson, in their
prime; while England had Carlyle. Ten
nyson. Newman, Browning, the Brontes,
Kingsley, Thackeray Dickens, and Rus
kin, all recognized and fourishing.
We look around. and see, as Mr.. Stew
enson says in letter. that the suns
have set" while we are scarcely con-
scious of new dawns. Who can explain,
by circumstances of social evolution and
historical event the rising and the setting
of such consultations of genius? 1t is
not enough to speak of the democratic
demand, naturally Indifferent to style,
for never was style the object of such
In N.
OF euphuism. Encouragement is even
overabundant; masterpieces are an
nounced every week, and forgotten every
year. 1t may be the prejudice of hoary
ED, but i must confess that our new
literature does not seem to me to show
such promise of permanence as the litera-
tUre Of 1S31-1S60 gave, and, so far. has
fulfilled. Has fulfilled in spite of our
sneers at the early Victorian" which
was not socialistic, or evolutionist, and
Darwin-ridden. and was respectable"
and did avert its eyes from all that most
people in real life don't care to stare at.
This ''prudery was no new thing. The
Greeks, except some late decadents and
in the old comedy, have ''prudish'' lit
erature. The Latin classics are not in
the taste of N. lola. The age of Chaucer,
the age of Elizabeth, were grossly frank,
that of the Restoration was frankly
lewd. but we have sought out many in
ventions over which sedley and Roches-
ter would not have cared to linger Their |
grossness was gay; ours is morbidly |
squalid. Such things are absent from
the work of Hawthorne and Holmes, |
Long fellow, Dickens, Thackeray, and the |
rest. Such things we now treat of, great |
ly daring, and somehow our elders APP |
pear apt TO outlaugh and outlive us, as |
humorists, novelists, and poets. 1t is |
Into the merits of that remarkable early |
middle age of the century we cannot en-
ter in much detail. Tennyson holds I'M
imperiled the throne of the poet of the |
time. That his thought is not especially
whether he deals with the
intricacies of human character, or with
the problems of the universe. may be
readily admitted. But l am unaware that
any poet has Yet got the absolute into
a corner or solved the problems of the
universe. TennysOn, more than people |
suppose, was, personally. a mystic, with
his own mystic experiences; and his
philosophy was influenced by them. He
followed the Clean" Neither in the
Idylls of the King" nor in plays, was
dramatic rendering of character his forte
|
of nature. In these he is
he equal of the Mantuan, is the Virgil
IF the modern world, golden branch
among the shadows" Moreover he has
infinite variety from Mariana" to ''Fa-
ina and "Rizpah." from the Lotus
Caters" which adds a new charm" af-
er the Fairy Queen to the Northern !
farmer from Ulysses TO Crossing the |
Bar" The early "Morte d'Arthur'' is of
nobility and magic; the last
,oem, Crossing the Bar" is no less
're-eminent IL these qualities. Tennyson. |
n short, had genius; new, as all genius
s new and no occasional defects of taste |
II temper can impair the splendor and
ichness of his gift to the world, nor
he immortality of his fame.
His contemporary, Browning, had the
Misfortune to attract, by his faults, the
cople who wish to believe themselves
lever, because they labor at appreciat-
ne passages which the poet had made y
bscure Darkness is not depth, nor is !
bscurity a merit. From his letters it is S
lain that Mr.. Browning had not the O
lit of lucid expression; from his poems il o
manifest that he had not in a high v
egree, the gift of verbal music and of t
harms. His gift of the grotesque. very | b
aal and original, was also his snare In ! r
Christmas Eve and Easter Day. Il
18th Men and Women" we have the s
rue essence of Browning at his best; y
e have his dramatic lyrics, with their h
maZing abundance of character and va t
ETY. of measure. After the first fas- a
mating volume. THE King and the n
ook' became monotonous. One song in W
to myself, Seems worth all V
II, | =.