The times., 1901-03-10

| laflty without permanence might have
| been expected for Longfelow The excel
Ience of his moral intentions was then
more obvious than the poetry in such
early pieces as Excelsior" and The
Psalm of Life" which Yield odd results
on analysis. But not much better can
be said for the Queen of the May" and
for parts of The MiTler's Daughter" In
these is marvellous dexterity in sinking
| But to sink and remain sunk, was as little
characteristic of Longfellow as of Ten
nysOn. He was true poet, in his lyrics,
even in his translations. well as in
Evangeline,' and that excellent expert
ment, 'Hiawatha,' was the measure of
the Finnish popular poems as applied TO
the not dssimilar legends of another
| woodland race. But Longfellow lacked
| that undehnabIe quality of the rare, the
strange, the hitherto unheard, yet de-
| Iightful note, which now and again is
heard in the verse of Edgar Poe He was
an Ishmaelite in literature, his hand
against every mans hand, and hence
| seems TO be less admired where he was
personally known than in France and
England. 1t is not the famous Raven,
but such pieces as ITO Helen, the Sleep
er." and at most a dozen others which
give Poe his high place in the judgment
Of his admirers Not his ideas but the
beauty of his haunting lines, confers on
him the laurel OF Bryant, as a rule,
and of Whittier almost always, the re-
verse is the truth. The acceptability of
their ideas, the refined simplicity, not the
natural magic, of their form, are their
claims to renown. Except in a few
places, as in such as his "COmmemora-
ton ode" Mr.. Lowell is better remen-
bered for the wit and vigor of his Biglow
poems than for his serious verse. at least
in England; while Emerson's prose has
precedence here over his poetry The
wisdom of the East and West blended
with his happy, courageous temper, made
Emerson a corrective Carlyle, while
Thoreau is the complement of Emerson.
Concerning the great Victorian novel
lists. Thackeray and Dickens, so much is
daily written that remark is superAuous.
A master of observation of all that had
rarely been observed a generous heart
an original and abundant humorist, the
greatest sources of mirth in our century
Dickens appears to wear less well than
his rival. The unapproached merits Of
Thackeray's style must preserve him in
literature; his pathos is rare and un-
forced his form of humor is as perma-
nent that of Fielding and as success
fully matched by his phrasing. Even his
verse, mirthful or melancholy, does not
fade, and has it's own place on the bor-
derland of poetry. George Eliots fame,
too must revive the success of her earlier
and more humorous novels, before she
became too fond of the Spencerian philos-
ophy and took herself too seriously, nat
ural result of adulation. Charlotte Bronte,
in the same way, has been, as it We're
rediscovered amidst a chorus of fresh ap-
pIauses and with perhaps rather too GU
rious Investigations. In America, after
Hawthorne, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes
and Mrs. Beecher Stowe were the novel
lists most generally admired in England
when Thackeray and Dickens were verg-
ing to their decline. 1t is, indeed, to be
regretted that Dr.. Holmes did not write
more fiction when in his prime. His ex-
cellent and original Elsie Venner' and
Guardian Angel" with their humorous
pictures of real life and their thread of
phantasy, half mystical half scientific,
border (as often in the Poet and Pro
fessor at the Breakfast Table'D on the
ground of ''psychical research DR..
Holmes was not merely, III verse and
prose, an exquisite wit, but a man Of
rare knowledge, a man of science, and a
sturdy defender of the purity of the Ian
guage. Mrs. Beecher Stowe. on the other
hand took the world by storm with
vivid tract in the form of fiction; book
now not easy to criticise, but which can
still move to laughter and tears. 1t is my
''insuar ignorance" which prevents me
from apprecating other American fic-
tions of that age, before the days of
writer's still happily living and working.
Mark Twain, Bret Harte, W. d. Howells,
Henry James, Stephen Crane, and scores
themselves, shall not be commented upon
in this place. With Mr.. Howells, as
critic, l have tried to break lances. while
ready to admit one of his main conten-
tions that the art of Scott Thackeray,
Dickens and others of our fathers would
have proffted much by being a finer art,
by condensation, by omission, by avoid
ance of the superhuous. But that our
modern fiction is a greater art, that ro-
nance and storytelling and adventure are
obsolete, or ought to be obsolete, that l
can never admit, while human nature is
human nature. Mankind will never be
content, in fiction, with tales of the psy-
chOlOSy of the ordinary person; ordinary
as we are, we desire to be, like Homer's
Heracles, cOnVersant with great adven
lures. Mr.. Howells perhaps may think
Aristotle a Greek snob when he maintains
that Tragedy must find its theme in the
sorrows of the god-descended Kings. Are
not the griefs of the poor or of the middle
classes as poignant? They are; but they
do not involve such heights and deeps Of
fortune. raising or wrecking whole States,
us do the woes ''of Thebes, or Atreus' line"
The fall of Prince Charles from an hour
even of shadowy royalty, from the leader
ship of an army. from the wondering ad-
miration of Europe and the applause of
Voltaire into the subject and dependent
sot is an example of modern historical
tragedy; in it's elevation and it's decline
more apt to move pity and terror than
the circumstance that a journalist has
taken to drink.
AS in the case of America. so in that of
England. | cannot enter into the merits
of living nOvelists in so wide a task thing
as the brief review OF a century. Mr..
Meredith, as a veteran of the sixties, has
shown, perhaps, fully what is the nature
of his achievement; he shines as a creator
of character 0he highest praise) and as a
writer with a thoroughly original view Of
the world. as a poet and as a wit. That
his manner is entirely fortunate. and not
rather tinged with willfui eccentricities
like those of Browning and Carlyle, can
scarcely be disputed An accomplished
young novelist has admitted to me that
his manner is catching" and that he has
to struggle against half-consciOus efforts
at imitation. Others do not struggle; and
most grow older before they are able to
write like themselves, with their own
voices Even Mr.. Stevenson was caught