The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1920-12-19

- Is each of these and all Of him is
= in each. For nearly forty years he
has been writing prose and verse. And now
his works are to be issued in complete edi-
ton. The first three volumes have come
from the press. To the original four essays.
printed twenty years ago rs Heart OF
Man, have been added "The Praise of Eng
lsh Books" prepared for the Grolier Club
Historical and Aesthetic Criticism; auo
Wendell Phillips, the Faith of an American.
These make up the first volume.
Woodbury. is to-day the most distin-
guished of living American authors In him
lives the great tradition of Lowell and Long
fellow. His verse is Of a different strain
from either. But like them, he TRANSMITS
to younger generations the treasure of older
cultures--hands on, In his own favorite fig
ure, the torch.
The poetic achievement, fine as ii is In
quality, has no concentration In such easily
appreciated figures as Hosea Biglow. Evan
geline and Hiawatha. In any case, it Is too
soon to attempt a valuation there. But it
is not too soon to proclaim him the greatest
critic and teacher of literature America has
produced or that the English speaking world
now possesses.
In the last five years men have awakened
slowly and half incredulousy to the dawn
ing of world period Twenty years ago. in
erature-and life as a whole-from the
world viewpoint. In him the consciousness
of race unity finds complete expression,
while remaining at the same time charac-
teristically American.
In the first volume is an essay called "a
New Defence of Poetry" It Is not we'll
named. For it is really statement of the
laws of art and Of all creative action In the
mind This is one of the most useful pieces
Of writing printed in any American book.
Here the teacher has condensed the years
course in criticism which he used to give
in Columbia. Taken with the later essays
on criticism in the same volume, it forms
an Incompatible guide to the development
Of power in the inner life. To one who has
any philosophic faculty the reading of It
affords both a discipline and a delight.
The basis of all Woodberry's teaching Is
the reality Of the inner life, the necessity
of giving that the first place. mo actual
world" he declares. "is large enough for
man to live in; at the lowest. there is some
tradition of the past, some expectation Of
the future; and, though training in the
senses is an important part of early life yet
the greater part of education consists in
putting the young in possession Of an I'M
seen world"
He makes the giants of genius our
wants. He recognizes no greatness which
cannot transform itself into the experience
OF lesser men. Like the ocean, the UNIVERSAL
inspiration of the poet, painter or composer
flows into all the little indentations of the
race mind taking the form of each mans
experience as the water takes the form Of
The bay.
whence arises this paradox. so common
in art, of infinite diversity in identity? 1t
comes from the fact that, so far from real
ling the image as it was in the artists mind
and receiving it, charged with his person
atty merely, II is we ourselves who create
the image by charging II with our own per-
sonaty. In this creation we do not simply
repeat in ourselves his state of mind, and
become, as It were, ghosts of him who is
dead; but we originate something new. liv-
ing and our own. There is no other way
for US to appropriate his work, to interpret
il and understand it,
These printed books offer the extension
to a classroom without walls of unique
personal power. But this was never a matter
, of passing magnetism" It wrought rather
upon the mind and spirit.
o master-pupil in the schools of Time.
That nobly learning still dost nobly teach
And heavenly music in our common speech,
Plato gave wisdom. Shelley song to thee
Beauty and Justice law and the lyric word.
Through thy clear eyes we looked mystery
And in thy voice the great world-voices
heard.