Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-02
CLASSIC L0kCFELL0W
Centenary of the Poet Arouses
Critical Inquiry.
IA SINGER FOR CHILDREN
Considered the Laureate of the Com
mon Human Heart.
PEER OF BEST SONNET WRITERS
Public Librarian Bowerman Regards
"Hiawatha" as the Poets Most
Original and Artistic Poem.

Mr.. George F. Bowerman, the librarian
Of the Public Library, in a recent address
at q celebration of the Longfellow GEN.
tenary under the auspices of the Unitarian
Club spoke Of the great poet as q classic.
He said:
1.-THE opening chapter of Thomas Went
worth Higginsons biography of Longfellow
in the American Men Of Letters series bears
the same title as the one have chosen
for center about which to group my
thoughts on the American poet whose CEN
tenary we are celebrating this evening.
1.-THE word classic Is one which Is fire.
quently on the lips Of many of US; but II we
stop to consider, 1t is doubtful II 1t repre-
sents q perfectly clear and definite idea to
most Of those who use it. 1t might seem
that to some a classic is merely a dead
author, somewhat as, according to we'll
known epigram, statesman Is dead
politician" And just as the statesman is
usually enshrined in oil and in marble while
man who is doing things, so a classic, con-
sidered In this sense, is an author to be
kept on the shelf and a top shelf at that.
The term classic is one of those terms
that criticism has failed to furnish us a
universally accepted opinion on the sub
ject. For example. We have no such
aphoristic definition Of classic as Mat
Poetry is a criticism Of life" Perhaps
Lowell has expressed as well as any critic
the essential qualities which must inhere
in a classic. In his essay on Spenser in the
second series of Among My Books, he says:
"a classic Is properly a book which
maintains itself by virtue of that happy
coalescence Of matter and style, that innate
and exquisite sympathy between the
consents to every mood Of grace and dig
nifty, which can be simple without being
vulgar, elevated without being distant, and
which is something neither ancient nor
ing old. - If poems die, 1t is because
there was never true life in them-that is,
that true poetic vitality which no depth of
thought, no airiness of fancy, no sincerity
which leaps throbbing at touch Of that
shaping faculty, the imagination
The Quality Of Life.
1T is the quality Of life, then, which
makes classic; an indefnable quality,
but one which every one Of US can feel and
recognize even though unable to analyze
and explain 1t. In what way do the poems
Of Longfellow possess life? How and to
what extent are they classic? In life
itself there is infinite variety. So in classics
festations of life. The life in Tennyson's
lyrics and idylls. the life in Browning's
profoundly analytical and dramatic POEMS
the life in Matthew Arnold's calm. and
lofty poetry Of the intellect Is not the life
that throbs in Longfellow's Voices Of the
Night and in Seaside and Fireside Poems
Longfellow Is not the poet Of unrest; there
Is no Intellectual struggle in his poems
such as we find in those Of Browning; nor
do we feel that there has been any soul
af a G w n n In
the case of Matthew Arnold. Neither Is
Longfellow a revolutionary poet; he does
not rebel against the social and ethical
order of things as do Byron and Shelley.
his nature. He was placid and self-con-
tanned and he seems never to have made
his verse the vehicle for self-revelation or
even for purely personal expression. These
negative qualities, the separating him from
the company of those poets who have
sounded the depth Of life's experiences,
have brought him closer to universal hui
mainly.
Not an Egotist.
Longfellow was not an egotist,' Will
liam Winter says. He thought of others,
and the permanent value of his writings
consists in this-that he helped to utter the
emotions of the universal human heart It
IL when a writer speaks for US what were
else unspoken-setting our minds free and
life and the hour of death-that he first
becomes a real value. Longfellow has
done this for thousands Of human beings,
and has done 1t in that language Of perfect
simplicity-never bald, never insipid, never
failing to exalt the subject-which Is at
once the most beautiful and the most
difficult of all the elements of literature
There is often tragedy in Longfellow's
poems and sorrow Is not absent. but 1t is
the common sorrow, not the specialized
sorrow of the unusual soul.
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.'
Zone who is inclined to think that Long
fellow represented only the bright side of
life has but to recall such poems as 'Resig-
nation The Goblet of Life the beautiful
ballad The Bridge and the whole group
Of poems on slavery to recognize that his
theless. his poetic message seems to have
been In the main one of cheerfulness and
beauty. Longfellow himself said:
ut Is the prerogative of the poet to
give pleasure, but it is the critics province
to give pain This creed he seems to
have followed throughout his career and
1t Is probable that there Is no other poet
Of any nationality who has given and con-
tinues to give more pleasure to larger
number of people than Longfellow.
1.-The time allotted to me is not sufficient
to apply rigidly to the work of Longfellow
Were able. time would fail also to set
forth a. detailed critical estimate of Long
fellows writings shall, therefore. mem
ton and comment upon only few of the
more salient strong and weak points of his
work.
Modern Criticism CT the Poet.
THE ago that has produced and given
honor to Browning. Tolstoi. Ibsen. Walt
Whitman, MaeterIinck, Hauptman, suder-
mann and Bernard Shaw is inclined to
scon at Longfellow. The arbiters of liter
arv opinion the criticn enamored Of