Evening star., 1909-05-07

barren of these finer grcwths of poetry.
Ripeness of knowledge and tenderness
and sensitiveness Of imagination gave
him the power of rendering the past in
terms which conveyed its human quality,
and his bust in the poets corner belongs
there by right of companionship in the
poets work CT making all men kin.
Beauty His Ideal.
"From the beginning beauty found in
him a gentle and winning loyalty. We
have but one life here on earth. he wrote
in his diary; we must make that beauti-
full, and to do this health and elasticity
are needful: and whatever endangers or
impedes these must be avoided Happy
cooperation of gifts. temperament and
occupation gave Longfellow's work. as it
gave his body and his life. rare har-
mony; that poise of conditions that on
perfect days in May or October conveys
sense of inaudible music. This stable
repose, which is not born of mood. but
to Longfelow's simplicity. There was no
moral confusion In his life, no collision
of genius and temperament In his work.
In these later years OF Voc1ferous indi-
vidualism. with it's highly sophisticated
temper. his work seems almost abnor-
mally serene and untroubled; it was his
golden fortune to ripen slowly on the
sunny reaches of the garden In the wide
leisure of quiet days. His simplicity and
the beautiful genius of sympathy which
goes with it when it is of the imagina-
ton, made him In a special way the cele-
brant in the sacred place OF childhood.
and has given him distinction denied
to many of the greatest singers-the chill
his work down to the future. and in the
their morning joy of discovery his fame
will be born again in many generations,
Come to me. ye chidren
For hear you at your play
'Ye open the eastern windows,
That look toward the sun.
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks Of morning run.
1.-The simplicity of nature and of art
which lies on the further side of culture
and is its ultimate grace, the divination
of sympathy which is a prime quality of
genius, and the singing gift which be-
guiles children until they seem to be
listening to one another concerning the
mystery of their own wonderful world
lying SO far, alas! from ours that only
Longfelow or a Stevenson passes from
one to the other-these reveal the charm
window Of childhood with thronging faces
smiling on him, and these are high quail
ties of poetry.
Romance of the New World.
Sensitive to the romance of the old
world, Longfellow felt also the romance
of the new. Reknitting. like Irving, the
ties of sentiment and renewing the sense
of fellowship with the accumulated riches
of Europe, Longfellow, like Irving, felt
the appeal of the unused wealth Of story
and incident in his own country The
charming essayist gave us not only West
minister Abbey and Stratford. but The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van
Winkle'; the poet gave US not only 'Nu-
remberg' and The Golden Legend but
two legends which have their roots In our
soil and ripened In the air Of our world.
Criticisms of the verse forms of these
poetical stories are largely expressions Of
differences Of taste: the fact remains that
both are national property in the sense in
which no national hymn is American
property. and that, with The Building of
the Ship, they reveal Longfellow's Amer
icanism even to those who recognize that
quality only when 1t is labeled like
specimen in a museum.
Those distinctive marks Of race which
make Homer a typical Greek. Dante q
representative Italian and Shakespeare
the spokesman of England. are on Long
a conscious and intentional exponent of
a social and political order. nor was he.
like Emerson, an interpreter of people
spirit to its intelligence. If his themes
be forgotten that Whitman's primary
thought came from the far east and that
his form recalls the rhapsodies of the
bards, and that. il Emerson was a man
of New England. he was a citizen of the
world. and laid it's wealth Of history un-
der contribution for example and illus
tration. Longfellows work is saturated
with the quality of his people In their
new field of expansion. His freedom from
the sophistication of more experienced
country: his simplicity. due in large meas
ure to the absence of social self-con-
sciousness; his tranquil and deep-seated
optimism which is the effiuence of an un-
exhausted soil; his happy and confident
expectation, born of a sense of tremen-
dous national vitality; his love of simple
things in normal relations to worldwide
interests of the mind: his courage In in
terpreting those deeper experiences which
craftsmen who know art but do not know
life call cOmmOnplaces; the unaffected
and beautiful democracy of his spirit
these are the delicate flowers of our new
world and as much part of 1t as its
stretches of wilderness and the continen-
taJ roll of its rivers. Longfellows Amer
lea nism resides In quality. not in magni-
tude: In the spirit. not In the speech.
His Deep Sympathy With Men.
'If he touched now and again the
notes Of simple appeal to noble action
If now and again he spoke a word Of
cheer to common folk under the burdens
OF life. it was a generous gift from his
deep sympathy with men. Excelsior