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diff --git a/625-h/625-h.htm b/625-h/625-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cc2bf3 --- /dev/null +++ b/625-h/625-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4031 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ponkapog Papers, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify;} + p { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ponkapog Papers, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Ponkapog Papers</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August, 1996 [eBook #625]<br /> +[Most recently updated: July 27, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Judith Boss and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PONKAPOG PAPERS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + + <h1> + PONKAPOG PAPERS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Thomas Bailey Aldrich + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + TO FRANCIS BARTLETT + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + THESE miscellaneous notes and essays are called <i>Ponkapog Papers</i> not + simply because they chanced, for the most part, to be written within the + limits of the old Indian Reservation, but, rather, because there is + something typical of their unpretentiousness in the modesty with which + Ponkapog assumes to being even a village. The little Massachusetts + settlement, nestled under the wing of the Blue Hills, has no illusions + concerning itself, never mistakes the cackle of the bourg for the sound + that echoes round the world, and no more thinks of rivalling great centres + of human activity than these slight papers dream of inviting comparison + between themselves and important pieces of literature. Therefore there + seems something especially appropriate in the geographical title selected, + and if the author's choice of name need further excuse, it is to be found + in the alluring alliteration lying ready at his hand. + </p> + <p> + REDMAN FARM, <i>Ponkapog</i>, 1903. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> LEAVES FROM A NOTE BOOK </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> ASIDES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> TOM FOLIO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> FLEABODY AND OTHER QUEER NAMES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> A NOTE ON “L'AIGLON” </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> PLOT AND CHARACTER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE CRUELTY OF SCIENCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> LEIGH HUNT AND BARRY CORNWALL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> DECORATION DAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> WRITERS AND TALKERS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> ON EARLY RISING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> UN POETE MANQUE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE MALE COSTUME OF THE PERIOD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> ON A CERTAIN AFFECTATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> WISHMAKERS' TOWN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> HISTORICAL NOVELS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> POOR YORICK </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> THE AUTOGRAPH HUNTER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> ROBERT HERRICK </a> + </p> + + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + LEAVES FROM A NOTE BOOK + </h2> + <p> + IN his Memoirs, Kropotkin states the singular fact that the natives of the + Malayan Archipelago have an idea that something is extracted from them + when their likenesses are taken by photography. Here is the motive for a + fantastic short story, in which the hero—an author in vogue or a + popular actor—might be depicted as having all his good qualities + gradually photographed out of him. This could well be the result of too + prolonged indulgence in the effort to “look natural.” First the man loses + his charming simplicity; then he begins to pose in intellectual attitudes, + with finger on brow; then he becomes morbidly self-conscious, and finally + ends in an asylum for incurable egotists. His death might be brought about + by a cold caught in going out bareheaded, there being, for the moment, no + hat in the market of sufficient circumference to meet his enlarged + requirement. + </p> + <p> + THE evening we dropped anchor in the Bay of Yedo the moon was hanging + directly over Yokohama. It was a mother-of-pearl moon, and might have been + manufactured by any of the delicate artisans in the Hanchodori quarter. It + impressed one as being a very good imitation, but nothing more. Nammikawa, + the cloisonne-worker at Tokio, could have made a better moon. + </p> + <p> + I NOTICE the announcement of a new edition of “The Two First Centuries of + Florentine Literature,” by Professor Pasquale Villari. I am not acquainted + with the work in question, but I trust that Professor Villari makes it + plain to the reader how both centuries happened to be first. + </p> + <p> + THE walking delegates of a higher civilization, who have nothing to + divide, look upon the notion of property as a purely artificial creation + of human society. According to these advanced philosophers, the time will + come when no man shall be allowed to call anything his. The beneficent law + which takes away an author's rights in his own books just at the period + when old age is creeping upon him seems to me a handsome stride toward the + longed-for millennium. + </p> + <p> + SAVE US from our friends—our enemies we can guard against. The + well-meaning rector of the little parish of Woodgates, England, and + several of Robert Browning's local admirers have recently busied + themselves in erecting a tablet to the memory of “the first known + forefather of the poet.” This lately turned up ancestor, who does not date + very far back, was also named Robert Browning, and is described on the + mural marble as “formerly footman and butler to Sir John Bankes of Corfe + Castle.” Now, Robert Browning the poet had as good right as Abou Ben Adhem + himself to ask to be placed on the list of those who love their fellow + men; but if the poet could have been consulted in the matter he probably + would have preferred not to have that particular footman exhumed. However, + it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Sir John Bankes would scarcely + have been heard of in our young century if it had not been for his + footman. As Robert stood day by day, sleek and solemn, behind his master's + chair in Corfe Castle, how little it entered into the head of Sir John + that his highly respectable name would be served up to posterity—like + a cold relish—by his own butler! By Robert! + </p> + <p> + IN the east-side slums of New York, somewhere in the picturesque Bowery + district, stretches a malodorous little street wholly given over to + long-bearded, bird-beaked merchants of ready-made and second-hand + clothing. The contents of the dingy shops seem to have revolted, and + rushed pell-mell out of doors, and taken possession of the sidewalk. One + could fancy that the rebellion had been quelled at this point, and that + those ghastly rows of complete suits strung up on either side of the + doorways were the bodies of the seditious ringleaders. But as you approach + these limp figures, each dangling and gyrating on its cord in a most + suggestive fashion, you notice, pinned to the lapel of a coat here and + there, a strip of paper announcing the very low price at which you may + become the happy possessor. That dissipates the illusion. + </p> + <p> + POLONIUS, in the play, gets killed—and not any too soon. If it only + were practicable to kill him in real life! A story—to be called The + Passing of Polonius—in which a king issues a decree condemning to + death every long-winded, didactic person in the kingdom, irrespective of + rank, and is himself instantly arrested and decapitated. The man who + suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born. + </p> + <p> + WHENEVER I take up Emerson's poems I find myself turning automatically to + his Bacchus. Elsewhere, in detachable passages embedded in mediocre verse, + he rises for a moment to heights not reached by any other of our poets; + but Bacchus is in the grand style throughout. Its texture can bear + comparison with the world's best in this kind. In imaginative quality and + austere richness of diction what other verse of our period approaches it? + The day Emerson wrote Bacchus he had in him, as Michael Drayton said of + Marlowe, “those brave translunary things that the first poets had.” + </p> + <p> + IMAGINE all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one + man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him + on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing + a ring at the door-bell! + </p> + <p> + No man has ever yet succeeded in painting an honest portrait of himself in + an autobiography, however sedulously he may have set to work about it. In + spite of his candid purpose he omits necessary touches and adds + superfluous ones. At times he cannot help draping his thought, and the + least shred of drapery becomes a disguise. It is only the diarist who + accomplishes the feat of self-portraiture, and he, without any such end in + view, does it unconsciously. A man cannot keep a daily record of his + comings and goings and the little items that make up the sum of his life, + and not inadvertently betray himself at every turn. He lays bare his heart + with a candor not possible to the selfconsciousness that inevitably colors + premeditated revelation. While Pepys was filling those small octavo pages + with his perplexing cipher he never once suspected that he was adding a + photographic portrait of himself to the world's gallery of immortals. We + are more intimately acquainted with Mr. Samuel Pepys, the inner man—his + little meannesses and his large generosities—then we are with half + the persons we call our dear friends. + </p> + <p> + THE young girl in my story is to be as sensitive to praise as a prism is + to light. Whenever anybody praises her she breaks into colors. + </p> + <p> + IN the process of dusting my study, the other morning, the maid replaced + an engraving of Philip II. of Spain up-side down on the mantel-shelf, and + his majesty has remained in that undignified posture ever since. I have no + disposition to come to his aid. My abhorrence of the wretch is as hearty + as if he had not been dead and—otherwise provided for these last + three hundred years. Bloody Mary of England was nearly as merciless, but + she was sincere and uncompromising in her extirpation of heretics. + </p> + <p> + Philip II., whose one recorded hearty laugh was occasioned by the news of + the St. Bartholomew massacre, could mask his fanaticism or drop it for the + time being, when it seemed politic to do so. Queen Mary was a maniac; but + the successor of Torquemada was the incarnation of cruelty pure and + simple, and I have a mind to let my counterfeit presentment of him stand + on its head for the rest of its natural life. I cordially dislike several + persons, but I hate nobody, living or dead, excepting Philip II. of Spain. + He appears to give me as much trouble as Charles I. gave the amiable Mr. + Dick. + </p> + <p> + AMONG the delightful men and women whom you are certain to meet at an + English country house there is generally one guest who is supposed to be + preternaturally clever and amusing—“so very droll, don't you know.” + He recites things, tells stories in costermonger dialect, and mimics + public characters. He is a type of a class, and I take him to be one of + the elementary forms of animal life, like the acalephae. His presence is + capable of adding a gloom to an undertaker's establishment. The last time + I fell in with him was on a coaching trip through Devon, and in spite of + what I have said I must confess to receiving an instant of entertainment + at his hands. He was delivering a little dissertation on “the English and + American languages.” As there were two Americans on the back seat—it + seems we term ourselves “Amurricans”—his choice of subject was full + of tact. It was exhilarating to get a lesson in pronunciation from a + gentleman who said <i>boult</i> for bolt, called St. John <i>Sin' Jun</i>, + and did not know how to pronounce the beautiful name of his own college at + Oxford. Fancy a perfectly sober man saying <i>Maudlin</i> for Magdalen! + Perhaps the purest English spoken is that of the English folk who have + resided abroad ever since the Elizabethan period, or thereabouts. + </p> + <p> + EVERY one has a bookplate these days, and the collectors are after it. The + fool and his bookplate are soon parted. To distribute one's <i>ex libris</i> + is inanely to destroy the only significance it has, that of indicating the + past or present ownership of the volume in which it is placed. + </p> + <p> + WHEN an Englishman is not highly imaginative he is apt to be the most + matter-of-fact of mortals. He is rarely imaginative, and seldom has an + alert sense of humor. Yet England has produced the finest of humorists and + the greatest of poets. The humor and imagination which are diffused + through other peoples concentrate themselves from time to time in + individual Englishmen. + </p> + <p> + THIS is a page of autobiography, though not written in the first person: + Many years ago a noted Boston publisher used to keep a large + memorandum-book on a table in his personal office. The volume always lay + open, and was in no manner a private affair, being the receptacle of + nothing more important than hastily scrawled reminders to attend to this + thing or the other. It chanced one day that a very young, unfledged + author, passing through the city, looked in upon the publisher, who was + also the editor of a famous magazine. The unfledged had a copy of verses + secreted about his person. The publisher was absent, and young Milton, + feeling that “they also serve who only stand and wait,” sat down and + waited. Presently his eye fell upon the memorandum-book, lying there + spread out like a morning newspaper, and almost in spite of himself he + read: “Don't forget to see the binder,” “Don't forget to mail E——- + his contract,” “Don't forget H——-'s proofs,” etc. An + inspiration seized upon the youth; he took a pencil, and at the tail of + this long list of “don't forgets” he wrote: “Don't forget to accept A 's + poem.” He left his manuscript on the table and disappeared. That afternoon + when the publisher glanced over his memoranda, he was not a little + astonished at the last item; but his sense of humor was so strong that he + did accept the poem (it required a strong sense of humor to do that), and + sent the lad a check for it, though the verses remain to this day + unprinted. That kindly publisher was wise as well as kind. + </p> + <p> + FRENCH novels with metaphysical or psychological prefaces are always + certain to be particularly indecent. + </p> + <p> + I HAVE lately discovered that Master Harry Sandford of England, the + priggish little boy in the story of “Sandford and Merton,” has a worthy + American cousin in one Elsie Dinsmore, who sedately pirouettes through a + seemingly endless succession of girls' books. I came across a nest of + fifteen of them the other day. This impossible female is carried from + infancy up to grandmotherhood, and is, I believe, still leisurely pursuing + her way down to the tomb in an ecstatic state of uninterrupted + didacticism. There are twenty-five volumes of her and the granddaughter, + who is also christened Elsie, and is her grandmother's own child, with the + same precocious readiness to dispense ethical instruction to her elders. + An interesting instance of hereditary talent! + </p> + <p> + H——-'s intellect resembles a bamboo—slender, graceful, + and hollow. Personally, he is long and narrow, and looks as if he might + have been the product of a rope-walk. He is loosely put together, like an + ill-constructed sentence, and affects me like one. His figure is + ungrammatical. + </p> + <p> + AMERICAN humor is nearly as ephemeral as the flowers that bloom in the + spring. Each generation has its own crop, and, as a rule, insists on + cultivating a new kind. That of 1860, if it were to break into blossom at + the present moment, would probably be left to fade upon the stem. + </p> + <p> + Humor is a delicate shrub, with the passing hectic flush of its time. The + current-topic variety is especially subject to very early frosts, as is + also the dialectic species. Mark Twain's humor is not to be classed with + the fragile plants; it has a serious root striking deep down into rich + earth, and I think it will go on flowering indefinitely. + </p> + <p> + I HAVE been imagining an ideal critical journal, whose plan should involve + the discharge of the chief literary critic and the installment of a fresh + censor on the completion of each issue. To place a man in permanent + absolute control of a certain number of pages, in which to express his + opinions, is to place him in a position of great personal danger, It is + almost inevitable that he should come to overrate the importance of those + opinions, to take himself with far too much seriousness, and in the end + adopt the dogma of his own infallibility. The liberty to summon this or + that man-of-letters to a supposititious bar of justice is apt to beget in + the self-appointed judge an exaggerated sense of superiority. He becomes + impatient of any rulings not his, and says in effect, if not in so many + words: “I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.” When the + critic reaches this exalted frame of mind his slight usefulness is gone. + </p> + <p> + AFTER a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs + it with a rainbow. + </p> + <p> + I LIKE to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every + detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the + desire to use its own wings. The partly draped statue has a charm which + the nude lacks. Who would have those marble folds slip from the raised + knee of the Venus of Melos? Hawthorne knew how to make his lovely thought + lovelier by sometimes half veiling it. + </p> + <p> + I HAVE just tested the nib of a new pen on a slight fancy which Herrick + has handled twice in the “Hesperides.” The fancy, however, is not + Herrick's; it is as old as poetry and the exaggeration of lovers, and I + have the same privilege as another to try my fortune with it: + </p> + <p> + UP ROOS THE SONNE, AND UP ROOS EMELYE CHAUCER + </p> + <p> + When some hand has partly drawn The cloudy curtains of her bed, And my + lady's golden head Glimmers in the dusk like dawn, Then methinks is day + begun. Later, when her dream has ceased And she softly stirs and wakes, + Then it is as when the East A sudden rosy magic takes From the + cloud-enfolded sun, And full day breaks! + </p> + <p> + Shakespeare, who has done so much to discourage literature by anticipating + everybody, puts the whole matter into a nutshell: + </p> + <p> + But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and + Juliet is the sun. + </p> + <p> + THERE is a phrase spoken by Hamlet which I have seen quoted innumerable + times, and never once correctly. Hamlet, addressing Horatio, says: + </p> + <p> + Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my + heart's core, ay, in my <i>heart of heart</i>. + </p> + <p> + The words italicized are invariably written “heart of hearts”—as if + a person possessed that organ in duplicate. Perhaps no one living, with + the exception of Sir Henry Irving, is more familiar with the play of + Hamlet than my good friend Mr. Bram Stoker, who makes his heart plural on + two occasions in his recent novel, “The Mystery of the Sea.” Mrs. Humphry + Ward also twice misquotes the passage in “Lady Rose's Daughter.” + </p> + <p> + BOOKS that have become classics—books that ave had their day and now + get more praise than perusal—always remind me of venerable colonels + and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves + retired upon half pay. + </p> + <p> + WHETHER or not the fretful porcupine rolls itself into a ball is a subject + over which my friend John Burroughs and several brother naturalists have + lately become as heated as if the question involved points of theology. Up + among the Adirondacks, and in the very heart of the region of porcupines, + I happen to have a modest cottage. This retreat is called The Porcupine, + and I ought by good rights to know something about the habits of the small + animal from which it derives its name. Last winter my dog Buster used to + return home on an average of three times a month from an excursion up Mt. + Pisgah with his nose stuck full of quills, and <i>he</i> ought to have + some concrete ideas on the subject. We two, then, are prepared to testify + that the porcupine in its moments of relaxation occasionally contracts + itself into what might be taken for a ball by persons not too difficult to + please in the matter of spheres. But neither Buster nor I—being + unwilling to get into trouble—would like to assert that it is an + actual ball. That it is a shape with which one had better not + thoughtlessly meddle is a conviction that my friend Buster stands ready to + defend against all comers. + </p> + <p> + WORDSWORTH'S characterization of the woman in one of his poems as “a + creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food” has always + appeared to me too cannibalesque to be poetical. It directly sets one to + thinking of the South Sea islanders. + </p> + <p> + THOUGH Iago was not exactly the kind of person one would select as a + superintendent for a Sunday-school, his advice to young Roderigo was + wisdom itself—“Put money in thy purse.” Whoever disparages money + disparages every step in the progress of the human race. I listened the + other day to a sermon in which gold was personified as a sort of + glittering devil tempting mortals to their ruin. I had an instant of + natural hesitation when the contribution-plate was passed around + immediately afterward. Personally, I believe that the possession of gold + has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been + checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the + world will never know. “After the love of knowledge,” says Buckle, “there + is no one passion which has done so much good to mankind as the love of + money.” + </p> + <p> + DIALECT tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication + between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for + anything properly said. + </p> + <p> + DR. HOLMES had an odd liking for ingenious desk-accessories in the way of + pencil-sharpeners, paper-weights, penholders, etc. The latest contrivances + in this fashion—probably dropped down to him by the inventor angling + for a nibble of commendation—were always making one another's + acquaintance on his study table. He once said to me: “I 'm waiting for + somebody to invent a mucilage-brush that you can't by any accident put + into your inkstand. It would save me frequent moments of humiliation.” + </p> + <p> + THE deceptive Mr. False and the volatile Mrs. Giddy, who figure in the + pages of seventeenth and eighteenth century fiction, are not tolerated in + modern novels and plays. Steal the burglar and Palette the artist have + ceased to be. A name indicating the quality or occupation of the bearer + strikes us as a too transparent device. Yet there are such names in + contemporary real life. That of our worthy Adjutant-General Drum may be + instanced. Neal and Pray are a pair of deacons who linger in the memory of + my boyhood. Sweet the confectioner and Lamb the butcher are individuals + with whom I have had dealings. The old-time sign of Ketchum & Cheetam, + Brokers, in Wall Street, New York, seems almost too good to be true. But + it was once, if it is not now, an actuality. + </p> + <p> + I HAVE observed that whenever a Boston author dies, New York immediately + becomes a great literary centre. + </p> + <p> + THE possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. + There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks. + </p> + <p> + EVERY living author has a projection of himself, a sort of eidolon, that + goes about in near and remote places making friends or enemies for him + among persons who never lay eyes upon the writer in the flesh. When he + dies, this phantasmal personality fades away, and the author lives only in + the impression created by his own literature. It is only then that the + world begins to perceive what manner of man the poet, the novelist, or the + historian really was. Not until he is dead, and perhaps some long time + dead, is it possible for the public to take his exact measure. Up to that + point contemporary criticism has either overrated him or underrated him, + or ignored him altogether, having been misled by the eidolon, which always + plays fantastic tricks with the writer temporarily under its dominion. It + invariably represents him as either a greater or a smaller personage than + he actually is. Presently the simulacrum works no more spells, good or + evil, and the deception is unveiled. The hitherto disregarded author is + recognized, and the idol of yesterday, which seemed so important, is taken + down from his too large pedestal and carted off to the dumping-ground of + inadequate things. To be sure, if he chances to have been not entirely + unworthy, and on cool examination is found to possess some appreciable + degree of merit, then he is set up on a new slab of appropriate + dimensions. The late colossal statue shrinks to a modest bas-relief. On + the other hand, some scarcely noticed bust may suddenly become a revered + full-length figure. Between the reputation of the author living and the + reputation of the same author dead there is ever a wide discrepancy. + </p> + <p> + A NOT too enchanting glimpse of Tennyson is incidentally given by Charles + Brookfield, the English actor, in his “Random Recollections.” Mr. + Brookfield's father was, on one occasion, dining at the Oxford and + Cambridge Club with George Venables, Frank Lushington, Alfred Tennyson, + and others. “After dinner,” relates the random recollector, “the poet + insisted upon putting his feet on the table, tilting back his chair <i>more + Americano</i>. There were strangers in the room, and he was expostulated + with for his uncouthness, but in vain. 'Do put down your feet!' pleaded + his host. 'Why should I?' retorted Tennyson. 'I 'm very comfortable as I + am.' 'Every one's staring at you,' said another. 'Let 'em stare,' replied + the poet, placidly. 'Alfred,' said my father, 'people will think you're + Longfellow.' Down went the feet.” That <i>more Americano</i> of Brookfield + the younger is delicious with its fine insular flavor, but the holding up + of Longfellow—the soul of gentleness, the prince of courtesy—as + a bugaboo of bad manners is simply inimitable. It will take England years + and years to detect the full unconscious humor of it. + </p> + <p> + GREAT orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct + historical shadows to the generations immediately following them. The + spell vanishes with the voice. A man's voice is almost the only part of + him entirely obliterated by death. The violet of his native land may be + made of his ashes, but nature in her economy seems to have taken no care + of his intonations, unless she perpetuates them in restless waves of air + surging about the poles. The well-graced actor who leaves no perceptible + record of his genius has a decided advantage over the mere orator. The + tradition of the player's method and presence is associated with works of + enduring beauty. Turning to the pages of the dramatist, we can picture to + ourselves the greatness of Garrick or Siddons in this or that scene, in + this or that character. It is not so easy to conjure up the impassioned + orator from the pages of a dry and possibly illogical argument in favor of + or against some long-ago-exploded measure of government. The laurels of an + orator who is not a master of literary art wither quickly. + </p> + <p> + ALL the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of + the hour-glass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, + would I? + </p> + <p> + SHAKESPEARE is forever coming into our affairs—putting in his oar, + so to speak—with some pat word or sentence. The conversation, the + other evening, had turned on the subject of watches, when one of the + gentlemen present, the manager of a large watch-making establishment, told + us a rather interesting fact. The component parts of a watch are produced + by different workmen, who have no concern with the complex piece of + mechanism as a whole, and possibly, as a rule, understand it imperfectly. + Each worker needs to be expert in only his own special branch. When the + watch has reached a certain advanced state, the work requires a touch as + delicate and firm as that of an oculist performing an operation. Here the + most skilled and trustworthy artisans are employed; they receive high + wages, and have the benefit of a singular indulgence. In case the workman, + through too continuous application, finds himself lacking the steadiness + of nerve demanded by his task, he is allowed without forfeiture of pay to + remain idle temporarily, in order that his hand may recover the requisite + precision of touch. As I listened, Hamlet's courtly criticism of the + grave-digger's want of sensibility came drifting into my memory. “The hand + of little employment hath the daintier sense,” says Shakespeare, who has + left nothing unsaid. + </p> + <p> + IT was a festival in honor of Dai Butsu or some one of the auxiliary + deities that preside over the destinies of Japland. For three days and + nights the streets of Tokio—where the squat little brown houses look + for all the world as if they were mimicking the favorite sitting posture + of the Japanese—were crowded with smiling holiday makers, and made + gay with devices of tinted tissue paper, dolphins, devils, dragons, and + mythical winged creatures which at night amiably turned themselves into + lanterns. Garlands of these, arranged close together, were stretched + across the streets from ridgepoles to ridgepole, and your jinrikisha + whisked you through interminable arbors of soft illumination. The + spectacle gave one an idea of fairyland, but then all Japan does that. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A land not like ours, that land of strange flowers, + Of daemons and spooks with mysterious powers— + Of gods who breathe ice, who cause peach-blooms and rice + And manage the moonshine and turn on the showers. + + Each day has its fair or its festival there, + And life seems immune to all trouble and care— + Perhaps only seems, in that island of dreams, + Sea-girdled and basking in magical air. + + They've streets of bazaars filled with lacquers and jars, + And silk stuffs, and sword-blades that tell of old wars; + They've Fuji's white cone looming up, bleak and lone, + As if it were trying to reach to the stars. + + They've temples and gongs, and grim Buddhas in throngs, + And pearl-powdered geisha with dances and songs: + Each girl at her back has an imp, brown or black, + And dresses her hair in remarkable prongs. + + On roadside and street toddling images meet, + And smirk and kotow in a way that is sweet; + Their obis are tied with particular pride, + Their silken kimonos hang scant to the feet. + + With purrs like a cat they all giggle and chat, + Now spreading their fans, and now holding them flat; + A fan by its play whispers, “Go now!” or “Stay!” + “I hate you!” “I love you!”—a fan can say that! + Beneath a dwarf tree, here and there, two or three + Squat coolies are sipping small cups of green tea; + They sputter, and leer, and cry out, and appear + Like bad little chessmen gone off on a spree. + + At night—ah, at night the long streets are a sight, + With garlands of soft-colored lanterns alight— + Blue, yellow, and red twinkling high overhead, + Like thousands of butterflies taking their flight. + + Somewhere in the gloom that no lanterns illume + Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom; + On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green, + They offer the midnight their cups of perfume. + + At times, sweet and clear from some tea-garden near, + A ripple of laughter steals out to your ear; + Anon the wind brings from a samisen's strings + The pathos that's born of a smile and a tear. +</pre> + <p> + THE difference between an English audience and a French audience at the + theatre is marked. The Frenchman brings down a witticism on the wing. The + Briton pauses for it to alight and give him reasonable time for deliberate + aim. In English playhouses an appreciable number of seconds usually + precede the smile or the ripple of laughter that follows a facetious turn + of the least fineness. I disclaim all responsibility for this statement of + my personal observation, since it has recently been indorsed by one of + London's most eminent actors. + </p> + <p> + AT the next table, taking his opal drops of absinthe, was a French + gentleman with the blase aspect of an empty champagne-bottle, which always + has the air of saying: “I have lived!” + </p> + <p> + WE often read of wonderful manifestations of memory, but they are always + instances of the faculty working in some special direction. It is memory + playing, like Paganini, on one string. No doubt the persons performing the + phenomenal feats ascribed to them have forgotten more than they remember. + To be able to repeat a hundred lines of verse after a single reading is no + proof of a retentive mind, excepting so far as the hundred lines go. A man + might easily fail under such a test, and yet have a good memory; by which + I mean a catholic one, and that I imagine to be nearly the rarest of + gifts. I have never met more than four or five persons possessing it. The + small boy who defined memory as “the thing you forget with” described the + faculty as it exists and works in the majority of men and women. + </p> + <p> + THE survival in publishers of the imitative instinct is a strong argument + in support of Mr. Darwin's theory of the descent of man. One publisher no + sooner brings out a new style of book-cover than half a dozen other + publishers fall to duplicating it. + </p> + <p> + THE cavalry sabre hung over the chimney-place with a knot of violets tied + to the dinted guard, there being no known grave to decorate. For many a + year, on each Decoration Day, a sorrowful woman had come and fastened + these flowers there. The first time she brought her offering she was a + slender girl, as fresh as her own violets. It is a slender figure still, + but there are threads of silver in the black hair. + </p> + <p> + FORTUNATE was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who in early youth was taught “to + abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing”—especially the + fine writing. Simplicity is art's last word. + </p> + <p> + The man is clearly an adventurer. In the seventeenth century he would have + worn huge flintlock pistols stuck into a wide leather belt, and been + something in the seafaring line. The fellow is always smartly dressed, but + where he lives and how he lives are as unknown as “what song the Sirens + sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.” He + is a man who apparently has no appointment with his breakfast and whose + dinner is a chance acquaintance. His probable banker is the next person. A + great city like this is the only geography for such a character. He would + be impossible in a small country town, where everybody knows everybody and + what everybody has for lunch. + </p> + <p> + I HAVE been seeking, thus far in vain, for the proprietor of the saying + that “Economy is second or third cousin to Avarice.” I went rather + confidently to Rochefoucauld, but it is not among that gentleman's light + luggage of cynical maxims. + </p> + <p> + THERE is a popular vague impression that butchers are not allowed to serve + as jurors on murder trials. This is not really the case, but it logically + might be. To a man daily familiar with the lurid incidents of the <i>abattoir</i>, + the summary extinction of a fellow creature (whether the victim or the + criminal) can scarcely seem a circumstance of so serious moment as to + another man engaged in less strenuous pursuits. WE do not, and cannot, + read many of the novels that most delighted our ancestors. Some of our + popular fiction is doubtless as poor, but poor with a difference. There is + always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least + cultivated taste has the largest appetite. There is ragtime literature as + well as ragtime music for the many. + </p> + <p> + G——- is a man who had rather fail in a great purpose than not + accomplish it in precisely his own way. He has the courage of his + conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death + penalty for murder, but he would willingly have any one electrocuted who + disagreed with him on the subject. + </p> + <p> + I HAVE thought of an essay to be called “On the Art of Short-Story + Writing,” but have given it up as smacking too much of the shop. It would + be too <i>intime</i>, since I should have to deal chiefly with my own + ways, and so give myself the false air of seeming to consider them of + importance. It would interest nobody to know that I always write the last + paragraph first, and then work directly up to that, avoiding all + digressions and side issues. Then who on earth would care to be told about + the trouble my characters cause me by talking too much? They will talk, + and I have to let them; but when the story is finished, I go over the + dialogue and strike out four fifths of the long speeches. I fancy that + makes my characters pretty mad. + </p> + <p> + THIS is the golden age of the inventor. He is no longer looked upon as a + madman or a wizard, incontinently to be made away with. Two or three + centuries ago Marconi would not have escaped a ropeless end with his + wireless telegraphy. Even so late as 1800, the friends of one Robert + Fulton seriously entertained the luminous idea of hustling the poor man + into an asylum for the unsound before he had a chance to fire up the + boiler of his tiny steamboat on the Hudson river. In olden times the + pillory and the whipping-post were among the gentler forms of + encouragement awaiting the inventor. If a man devised an especially + practical apple-peeler he was in imminent danger of being peeled with it + by an incensed populace. To-day we hail with enthusiasm a scientific or a + mechanical discovery, and stand ready to make a stock company of it. + </p> + <p> + A MAN is known by the company his mind keeps. To live continually with + noble books, with “high-erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy,” + teaches the soul good manners. + </p> + <p> + THE unconventional has ever a morbid attraction for a certain class of + mind. There is always a small coterie of highly intellectual men and women + eager to give welcome to whatever is eccentric, obscure, or chaotic. + Worshipers at the shrine of the Unpopular, they tingle with a sense of + tolerant superiority when they say: “Of course this is not the kind of + thing <i>you</i> would like.” Sometimes these impressionable souls almost + seem to make a sort of reputation for their fetish. + </p> + <p> + I HEAR that B——- directed to have himself buried on the edge + of the pond where his duckstand was located, in order that flocks of + migrating birds might fly over his grave every autumn. He did not have to + die, to become a dead shot. A comrade once said of him: “Yes, B——- + is a great sportsman. He has peppered everything from grouse in North + Dakota to his best friend in the Maine woods.” + </p> + <p> + WHEN the novelist introduces a bore into his novel he must not let him + bore the reader. The fellow must be made amusing, which he would not be in + real life. In nine cases out of ten an exact reproduction of real life + would prove tedious. Facts are not necessarily valuable, and frequently + they add nothing to fiction. The art of the realistic novelist sometimes + seems akin to that of the Chinese tailor who perpetuated the old patch on + the new trousers. True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a + verbatim translation. + </p> + <p> + THE last meeting I had with Lowell was in the north room of his house at + Elmwood, the sleeping-room I had occupied during a two years' tenancy of + the place in his absence abroad. He was lying half propped up in bed, + convalescing from one of the severe attacks that were ultimately to prove + fatal. Near the bed was a chair on which stood a marine picture in + aquarelle—a stretch of calm sea, a bit of rocky shore in the + foreground, if I remember, and a vessel at anchor. The afternoon sunlight, + falling through the window, cast a bloom over the picture, which was + turned toward Lowell. From time to time, as he spoke, his eyes rested + thoughtfully on the water-color. A friend, he said, had just sent it to + him. It seemed to me then, and the fancy has often haunted me since, that + that ship, in the golden haze, with topsails loosened, was waiting to bear + his spirit away. + </p> + <p> + CIVILIZATION is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades. If + somebody has already said that, I forgive him the mortification he causes + me. At the beginning of the twentieth century barbarism can throw off its + gentle disguise, and burn a man at the stake as complacently as in the + Middle Ages. + </p> + <p> + WHAT is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist + in the next. On the other hand, expressions that once were not considered + inelegant are looked at askance in the period following. The word “brass” + was formerly an accepted synonym for money; but at present, when it takes + on that significance, it is not admitted into genteel circles of language. + It may be said to have seen better days, like another word I have in mind—a + word that has become slang, employed in the sense which once did not + exclude it from very good society. A friend lately informed me that he had + “fired” his housekeeper—that is, dismissed her. He little dreamed + that he was speaking excellent Elizabethan. + </p> + <p> + THE “Journal des Goncourt” is crowded with beautiful and hideous things, + like a Japanese Museum. + </p> + <p> + “AND she shuddered as she sat, still silent, on her seat, and he saw that + she shuddered.” This is from Anthony Trollope's novel, “Can You Forgive + Her?” Can you forgive him? is the next question. + </p> + <p> + A LITTLE thing may be perfect, but perfection is not a little thing. + Possessing this quality, a trifle “no bigger than an agate-stone on the + forefinger of an alderman” shall outlast the Pyramids. The world will have + forgotten all the great masterpieces of literature when it forgets + Lovelace's three verses to Lucasta on his going to the wars. More durable + than marble or bronze are the words, “I could not love thee, deare, so + much, loved I not honor more.” + </p> + <p> + I CALLED on the dear old doctor this afternoon to say good-by. I shall + probably not find him here when I come back from the long voyage which I + have in front of me. He is very fragile, and looks as though a puff of + wind would blow him away. He said himself, with his old-time cheerfulness, + that he was attached to this earth by only a little piece of twine. He has + perceptibly failed since I saw him a month ago; but he was full of the + wise and radiant talk to which all the world has listened, and will miss. + I found him absorbed in a newly made card-catalogue of his library. “It + was absurd of me to have it done,” he remarked. “What I really require is + a little bookcase holding only two volumes; then I could go from one to + the other in alternation and always find each book as fresh as if I never + had read it.” This arraignment of his memory was in pure jest, for the + doctor's mind was to the end like an unclouded crystal. It was interesting + to note how he studied himself, taking his own pulse, as it were, and + diagnosing his own case in a sort of scientific, impersonal way, as if it + were somebody else's case and he were the consulting specialist. I + intended to spend a quarter of an hour with him, and he kept me three + hours. I went there rather depressed, but I returned home leavened with + his good spirits, which, I think, will never desert him, here or + hereafter. To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, + reverent—that is to triumph over old age. + </p> + <p> + THE thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The + thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is the + sincere thing. I am describing the impression left upon me by Mr. + Howells's blank-verse sketch called “Father and Mother: A Mystery”—a + strangely touching and imaginative piece of work, not unlike in effect to + some of Maeterlinck's psychical dramas. As I read on, I seemed to be + standing in a shadow cast by some half-remembered experience of my own in + a previous state of existence. When I went to bed that night I had to lie + awake and think it over as an event that had actually befallen me. I + should call the effect <i>weird</i>, if the word had not lately been + worked to death. The gloom of Poe and the spirituality of Hawthorne touch + cold finger-tips in those three or four pages. + </p> + <p> + FOR a character-study—a man made up entirely of limitations. His + conservatism and negative qualities to be represented as causing him to + attain success where men of conviction and real ability fail of it. + </p> + <p> + A DARK, saturnine man sat opposite me at table on board the steamer. + During the entire run from Sandy Hook to Fastnet Light he addressed no one + at meal-times excepting his table steward. Seated next to him, on the + right, was a vivacious gentleman, who, like Gratiano in the play, spoke + “an infinite deal of nothing.” He made persistent and pathetic attempts to + lure his silent neighbor (we had christened him “William the Silent”) into + conversation, but a monosyllable was always the poor result—until + one day. It was the last day of the voyage. We had stopped at the entrance + to Queenstown harbor to deliver the mails, and some fish had been brought + aboard. The vivacious gentleman was in a high state of excitement that + morning at table. “Fresh fish!” he exclaimed; “actually fresh! They seem + quite different from ours. Irish fish, of course. Can you tell me, sir,” + he inquired, turning to his gloomy shipmate, “what <i>kind</i> of fish + these are?” “Cork soles,” said the saturnine man, in a deep voice, and + then went on with his breakfast. + </p> + <p> + LOWELL used to find food for great mirth in General George P. Morris's + line, + </p> + <p> + “Her heart and morning broke together.” + </p> + <p> + Lowell's well-beloved Dr. Donne, however, had an attack of the same + platitude, and possibly inoculated poor Morris. Even literature seems to + have its mischief-making bacilli. The late “incomparable and ingenious + Dean of St. Paul's” says, + </p> + <p> + “The day breaks not, it is my heart.” + </p> + <p> + I think Dr. Donne's case rather worse than Morris's. Chaucer had the + malady in a milder form when he wrote: + </p> + <p> + “Up roos the sonne, and up roos Emelye.” + </p> + <p> + The charming naivete of it! + </p> + <p> + SITTING in Ellen Terry's dressing-room at the Lyceum Theatre one evening + during that lady's temporary absence on the stage, Sarah Bernhardt picked + up a crayon and wrote this pretty word on the mirror—<i>Dearling</i>, + mistaking it for the word darling. The French actress lighted by chance + upon a Spenserianism now become obsolete without good reason. It is a more + charming adjective than the one that has replaced it. + </p> + <p> + A DEAD author appears to be bereft of all earthly rights. He is scarcely + buried before old magazines and newspapers are ransacked in search of + matters which, for reasons sufficient to him, he had carefully excluded + from the definitive edition of his collected writings. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + He gave the people of his best; + His worst he kept, his best he gave. +</pre> + <p> + One can imagine a poet tempted to address some such appeal as this to any + possible future publisher of his poems: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Take what thou wilt, a lyric or a line, + Take all, take nothing—and God send thee cheer! + But my anathema on thee and thine + If thou add'st aught to what is printed here. +</pre> + <p> + THE claim of this country to call itself “The Land of the Free” must be + held in abeyance until every man in it, whether he belongs or does not + belong to a labor organization, shall have the right to work for his daily + bread. + </p> + <p> + THERE is a strain of primitive poetry running through the entire Irish + race, a fleeting lyrical emotion which expresses itself in a flash, + usually in connection with love of country and kindred across the sea. I + had a touching illustration of it the other morning. The despot who reigns + over our kitchen was gathering a mess of dandelions on the rear lawn. It + was one of those blue and gold days which seem especially to belong New + England. “It's in County Westmeath I 'd be this day,” she said, looking up + at me. <i>“I'd go cool my hands in the grass on my ould mother's grave in + the bit of churchyard foreninst the priest's house at Mullingar.”</i> I + have seen poorer poetry than that in the magazines. + </p> + <p> + SPEAKING of the late Major Pond, the well-known director of a lecture + bureau, an old client of his remarked: “He was a most capable manager, but + it always made me a little sore to have him deduct twenty-five per cent. + commission.” “Pond's Extract,” murmured one of the gentlemen present. + </p> + <p> + EACH of our great towns has its “Little Italy,” with shops where nothing + is spoken but Italian and streets in which the alien pedestrian had better + not linger after nightfall. The chief industry of these exotic communities + seems to be spaghetti and stilettos. What with our Little Italys and + Chinatowns, and the like, an American need not cross the ocean in order to + visit foreign lands and enjoy the benefits of older civilizations. + </p> + <p> + POETS are made as well as born, the proverb notwithstanding. They are made + possible by the general love of poetry and the consequent imperious demand + for it. When this is nonexistent, poets become mute, the atmosphere + stifles them. There would have been no Shakespeare had there been no + Elizabethan audience. That was an age when, as Emerson finely puts it, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Men became + Poets, for the air was fame. +</pre> + <p> + THE stolid gentleman in livery who has his carriage-stand at the corner + opposite my house is constantly touching on the extremes of human + experience, with probably not the remotest perception of the fact. Now he + takes a pair of lovers out for an airing, and now he drives the absconding + bank-teller to the railway-station. Excepting as question of distance, the + man has positively no choice between a theatre and a graveyard. I met him + this morning dashing up to the portals of Trinity Church with a bridal + party, and this afternoon, as I was crossing Cambridge Bridge, I saw him + creeping along next to the hearse, on his way to Mount Auburn. The wedding + afforded him no pleasure, and the funeral gave him no grief; yet he was a + factor in both. It is his odd destiny to be wholly detached from the vital + part of his own acts. If the carriage itself could speak! The + autobiography of a public hack written without reservation would be + dramatic reading. + </p> + <p> + IN this blotted memorandum-book are a score or two of suggestions for + essays, sketches, and poems, which I have not written, and never shall + write. The instant I jot down an idea the desire to utilize it leaves me, + and I turn away to do something unpremeditated. The shabby volume has + become a sort of Potter's Field where I bury my literary intentions, good + and bad, without any belief in their final resurrection. + </p> + <p> + A STAGE DIRECTION: <i>exit time; enter Eternity—with a soliloquy.</i> + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ASIDES + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TOM FOLIO + </h2> + <p> + IN my early Boston days a gentle soul was often to be met with about town, + furtively haunting old book-shops and dusty editorial rooms, a man of + ingratiating simplicity of manner, who always spoke in a low, hesitating + voice, with a note of refinement in it. He was a devout worshiper of Elia, + and wrote pleasant discursive essays smacking somewhat of his master's + flavor—suggesting rather than imitating it—which he signed + “Tom Folio.” I forget how he glided into my acquaintanceship; doubtless in + some way too shy and elusive for remembrance. I never knew him intimately, + perhaps no one did, but the intercourse between us was most cordial, and + our chance meetings and bookish chats extended over a space of a dozen + years. + </p> + <p> + Tom Folio—I cling to the winning pseudonym—was sparely built + and under medium height, or maybe a slight droop of the shoulders made it + seem so, with a fragile look about him and an aspect of youth that was not + his. Encountering him casually on a street corner, you would, at the first + glance, have taken him for a youngish man, but the second glance left you + doubtful. It was a figure that struck a note of singularity and would have + attracted your attention even in a crowd. + </p> + <p> + During the first four or five years of our acquaintance, meeting him only + out of doors or in shops, I had never happened to see him with his hat + off. One day he recklessly removed it, and in the twinkling of an eye he + became an elderly bald-headed man. The Tom Folio I once knew had virtually + vanished. An instant earlier he was a familiar shape; an instant later, an + almost unrecognizable individual. A narrow fringe of light-colored hair, + extending from ear to ear under the rear brim of his hat, had perpetrated + an unintentional deception by leading one to suppose a head profusely + covered with curly locks. “Tom Folio,” I said, “put on your hat and come + back!” But after that day he never seemed young to me. + </p> + <p> + I had few or no inklings of his life disconnected with the streets and the + book-stalls, chiefly those on Cornhill or in the vicinity. It is possible + I am wrong in inferring that he occupied a room somewhere at the South End + or in South Boston, and lived entirely alone, heating his coffee and + boiling his egg over an alcohol lamp. I got from him one or two fortuitous + hints of quaint housekeeping. Every winter, it appeared, some relative, + far or near, sent him a large batch of mince pies, twenty or thirty at + least. He once spoke to me of having laid in his winter pie, just as + another might speak of laying in his winter coal. The only fireside + companion Tom Folio ever alluded to in my presence was a Maltese cat, + whose poor health seriously disturbed him from time to time. I suspected + those mince pies. The cat, I recollect, was named Miss Mowcher. + </p> + <p> + If he had any immediate family ties beyond this I was unaware of them, and + not curious to be enlightened on the subject. He was more picturesque + solitary. I preferred him to remain so. Other figures introduced into the + background of the canvas would have spoiled the artistic effect. + </p> + <p> + Tom Folio was a cheerful, lonely man—a recluse even when he allowed + himself to be jostled and hurried along on the turbulent stream of + humanity sweeping in opposite directions through Washington Street and its + busy estuaries. He was in the crowd, but not of it. I had so little real + knowledge of him that I was obliged to imagine his more intimate + environments. However wide of the mark my conjectures may have fallen, + they were as satisfying to me as facts would have been. His secluded room + I could picture to myself with a sense of certainty—the couch (a + sofa by day), the cupboard, the writing-table with its student lamp, the + litter of pamphlets and old quartos and octavos in tattered bindings, + among which were scarce reprints of his beloved Charles Lamb, and perhaps—nay, + surely—an <i>editio princeps</i> of the “Essays.” + </p> + <p> + The gentle Elia never had a gentler follower or a more loving disciple + than Tom Folio. He moved and had much of his being in the early part of + the last century. To him the South-Sea House was the most important + edifice on the globe, remaining the same venerable pile it used to be, in + spite of all the changes that had befallen it. It was there Charles Lamb + passed the novitiate of his long years of clerkship in the East India + Company. In Tom Folio's fancy a slender, boyish figure was still seated, + quill in hand, behind those stately porticoes looking upon Threadneedle + Street and Bishopsgate. That famous first paper in the “Essays,” + describing the South-Sea House and the group of human oddities which + occupied desks within its gloomy chambers, had left an indelible + impression upon the dreamer. Every line traced by the “lean annuitant” was + as familiar to Tom Folio as if he had written it himself. Stray scraps, + which had escaped the vigilance of able editors, were known to him, and it + was his to unearth amid a heap of mouldy, worm-eaten magazines, a handful + of leaves hitherto forgotten of all men. Trifles, yes—but Charles + Lamb's! “The king's chaff is as good as other people's corn,” says Tom + Folio. + </p> + <p> + Often his talk was sweet and racy with old-fashioned phrases; the talk of + a man who loved books and drew habitual breath in an atmosphere of fine + thought. Next to Charles Lamb, but at a convenable distance, Izaak Walton + was Tom Folio's favorite. His poet was Alexander Pope, though he thought + Mr. Addison's tragedy of “Cato” contained some proper good lines. Our + friend was a wide reader in English classics, greatly preferring the + literature of the earlier periods to that of the Victorian age. His + smiling, tenderly expressed disapprobation of various modern authors was + enchanting. John Keats's verses were monstrous pretty, but + over-ornamented. A little too much lucent syrup tinct with cinnamon, don't + you think? The poetry of Shelley might have been composed in the moon by a + slightly deranged, well-meaning person. If you wanted a sound mind in a + sound metrical body, why there was Mr. Pope's “Essay on Man.” There was + something winsome and by-gone in the general make-up of Tom Folio. No man + living in the world ever seemed to me to live so much out of it, or to + live more comfortably. + </p> + <p> + At times I half suspected him of a convalescent amatory disappointment. + Perhaps long before I knew him he had taken a little sentimental journey, + the unsuccessful end of which had touched him with a gentle sadness. It + was something far off and softened by memory. If Tom Folio had any + love-affair on hand in my day, it must have been of an airy, platonic sort—a + chaste secret passion for Mistress Peg Woffington or Nell Gwyn, or + possibly Mr. Waller's Saccharissa. + </p> + <p> + Although Tom Folio was not a collector—that means dividends and bank + balances—he had a passion for the Past and all its belongings, with + a virtuoso's knowledge of them. A fan painted by Vanloo, a bit of rare + Nankin (he had caught from Charles Lamb the love of old china), or an + undoctored stipple of Bartolozzi, gave him delight in the handling, though + he might not aspire to ownership. I believe he would willingly have drunk + any horrible decoction from a silver teapot of Queen Anne's time. These + things were not for him in a coarse, materialistic sense; in a spiritual + sense he held possession of them in fee-simple. I learned thus much of his + tastes one day during an hour we spent together in the rear showroom of a + dealer in antiquities. + </p> + <p> + I have spoken of Tom Folio as lonely, but I am inclined to think that I + mis-stated it. He had hosts of friends who used to climb the rather steep + staircase leading to that modest third-story front room which I have + imagined for him—a room with Turkey-red curtains, I like to believe, + and a rare engraving of a scene from Mr. Hogarth's excellent moral of “The + Industrious and Idle Apprentices” pinned against the chimney breast. Young + Chatterton, who was not always the best of company, dropped in at + intervals. There Mr. Samuel Pepys had a special chair reserved for him by + the window, where he could catch a glimpse of the pretty housemaid over + the way, chatting with the policeman at the area railing. Dr. Johnson and + the unworldly author of “The Deserted Village” were frequent visitors, + sometimes appearing together arm-in-arm, with James Boswell, Esq., of + Auchinleck, following obsequiously behind. Not that Tom Folio did not have + callers vastly more aristocratic, though he could have had none pleasanter + or wholesomer. Sir Philip Sidney (who must have given Folio that copy of + the “Arcadia”), the Viscount St. Albans, and even two or three others + before whom either of these might have doffed his bonnet, did not disdain + to gather round that hearthstone. Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Defoe, Dick + Steele, Dean Swift—there was no end to them! On certain nights, when + all the stolid neighborhood was lapped in slumber, the narrow street + stretching beneath Tom Folio's windows must have been blocked with + invisible coaches and sedan-chairs, and illuminated by the visionary glare + of torches borne by shadowy linkboys hurrying hither and thither. A man so + sought after and companioned cannot be described as lonely. + </p> + <p> + My memory here recalls the fact that he had a few friends less + insubstantial—that quaint anatomy perched on the top of a + hand-organ, to whom Tom Folio was wont to give a bite of his apple; and + the brown-legged little Neapolitan who was always nearly certain of a + copper when this multi-millionaire strolled through the slums on a + Saturday afternoon—Saturday probably being the essayist's pay-day. + The withered woman of the peanut-stand on the corner over against Faneuil + Hall Market knew him for a friend, as did also the blind lead-pencil + merchant, whom Tom Folio, on occasions, safely piloted across the stormy + traffic of Dock Square. <i>Noblesse oblige!</i> He was no stranger in + those purlieus. Without designing to confuse small things with great, I + may say that a certain strip of pavement in North Street could be pointed + out as Tom Folio's Walk, just as Addison's Walk is pointed out on the + banks of the Cherwell at Oxford. + </p> + <p> + I used to observe that when Tom Folio was not in quest of a print or a + pamphlet or some such urgent thing, but was walking for mere recreation, + he instinctively avoided respectable latitudes. He liked best the squalid, + ill-kept thoroughfares shadowed by tall, smudgy tenement-houses and + teeming with unprosperous, noisy life. Perhaps he had, half consciously, a + sense of subtle kinship to the unsuccess and cheerful resignation of it + all. + </p> + <p> + Returning home from abroad one October morning several years ago, I was + told that that simple spirit had passed on. His death had been little + heeded; but in him had passed away an intangible genuine bit of Old Boston—as + genuine a bit, in its kind, as the Autocrat himself—a personality + not to be restored or replaced. Tom Folio could never happen again! + </p> + <p> + Strolling to-day through the streets of the older section of the town, I + miss many a venerable landmark submerged in the rising tide of change, but + I miss nothing quite so much as I do the sight of Tom Folio entering the + doorway of the Old Corner Bookstore, or carefully taking down a musty + volume from its shelf at some melancholy old book-stall on Cornhill. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FLEABODY AND OTHER QUEER NAMES + </h2> + <p> + WHEN an English novelist does us the honor to introduce any of our + countrymen into his fiction, he generally displays a commendable desire to + present something typical in the way of names for his adopted characters—to + give a dash of local color, as it were, with his nomenclature. His success + is seldom commensurate to the desire. He falls into the error of appealing + to his invention, instead of consulting some city directory, in which he + would find more material than he could exhaust in ten centuries. Charles + Reade might have secured in the pages of such a compendium a happier title + than Fullalove for his Yankee sea-captain; though I doubt, on the whole, + if Anthony Trollope could have discovered anything better than Olivia Q. + Fleabody for the young woman from “the States” in his novel called “Is He + Popenjoy?” + </p> + <p> + To christen a sprightly young female advocate of woman's rights Olivia Q. + Fleabody was very happy indeed; to be candid, it was much better than was + usual with Mr. Trollope, whose understanding of American life and manners + was not enlarged by extensive travel in this country. An English tourist's + preconceived idea of us is a thing he brings over with him on the steamer + and carries home again intact; it is as much a part of his indispensable + impedimenta as his hatbox. But Fleabody is excellent; it was probably + suggested by Peabody, which may have struck Mr. Trollope as comical (just + as Trollope strikes <i>us</i> as comical), or, at least, as not serious. + What a capital name Veronica Trollope would be for a hoydenish young woman + in a society novel! I fancy that all foreign names are odd to the alien. I + remember that the signs above shop-doors in England and on the Continent + used to amuse me often enough, when I was over there. It is a notable + circumstance that extraordinary names never seem extraordinary to the + persons bearing them. If a fellow-creature were branded Ebenezer + Cuttlefish he would remain to the end of his days quite unconscious of + anything out of the common. + </p> + <p> + I am aware that many of our American names are sufficiently queer; but + English writers make merry over them, as if our most eccentric were not + thrown into the shade by some of their own. No American, living or dead, + can surpass the verbal infelicity of Knatchbull-Hugessen, for example—if + the gentleman will forgive me for conscripting him. Quite as remarkable, + in a grimly significant way, is the appellation of a British officer who + was fighting the Boers in the Transvaal in the year of blessed memory + 1899. This young soldier, who highly distinguished himself on the field, + was known to his brothers-in-arms as Major Pine Coffin. I trust that the + gallant major became a colonel later and is still alive. It would eclipse + the gayety of nations to lose a man with a name like that. + </p> + <p> + Several years ago I read in the sober police reports of “The Pall Mall + Gazette” an account of a young man named George F. Onions, who was + arrested (it ought to have been by “a peeler”) for purloining money from + his employers, Messrs. Joseph Pickles & Son, stuff merchants, of + Bradford—<i>des noms bien idylliques!</i> What mortal could have a + more ludicrous name than Onions, unless it were Pickles, or Pickled + Onions? And then for Onions to rob Pickles! Could there be a more + incredible coincidence? As a coincidence it is nearly sublime. No + story-writer would dare to present that fact or those names in his + fiction; neither would be accepted as possible. Meanwhile Olivia Q. + Fleabody is <i>ben trovato</i>. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A NOTE ON “L'AIGLON” + </h2> + <p> + THE night-scene on the battlefield of Wagram in “L'Aiglon”—an + episode whose sharp pathos pierces the heart and the imagination like the + point of a rapier—bears a striking resemblance to a picturesque + passage in Victor Hugo's “Les Miserables.” It is the one intense great + moment in the play, and has been widely discussed, but so far as I am + aware none of M. Rostand's innumerable critics has touched on the + resemblance mentioned. In the master's romance it is not the field of + Wagram, but the field of Waterloo, that is magically repeopled with + contending armies of spooks, to use the grim old Dutch word, and made + vivid to the mind's eye. The passage occurs at the end of the sixteenth + chapter in the second part of “Les Miserables” (Cosette), and runs as + follows: + </p> + <p> + Le champ de Waterloo aujourd'hui a le calme qui appartient a la terre, + support impassible de l'homme, et il resemble a toutes les plaines. La + nuit pourtant une espece de brume visionnaire s'en degage, et si quelque + voyageur s'y promene, s'il regarde, s'il ecoute, s'il reve comme Virgile + dans les funestes plaines de Philippes, l'hallucination de la catastrophe + le saisit. L'effrayant 18 juin revit; la fausse colline-monument s'efface, + ce lion quelconque se dissipe, le champ de bataille reprend sa realite; + des lignes d'infanterie ondulent dans la plaine, des galops furieux + traversent l'horizon; le songeur effare voit l'eclair des sabres, + l'etincelle des bayonnettes, le flamboiement des bombes, + l'entre-croisement monstrueux des tonnerres; il entend, comme un rale au + fond d'une tombe, la clameur vague de la bataille-fantome; ces ombres, ce + sont les grenadiers; ces lueurs, ce sont les cuirassiers; . . . tout cela + n'est plus et se heurte et combat encore; et les ravins s'empourprent, et + les arbres frissonnent, et il y a de la furie jusque dans les nuees, et, + dans les tenebres, toutes ces hauteurs farouches, Mont-Saint Jean, + Hougomont, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, apparaissent confusement + couronnees de tourbillons de spectres s'exterminant. (1) + </p> + <p> + Here is the whole battle scene in “L'Aiglon,” with scarcely a gruesome + detail omitted. The vast plain glimmering in phantasmal light; the ghostly + squadrons hurling themselves against one another (seen only through the + eyes of the poor little Duke of Reichstadt); the mangled shapes lying + motionless in various postures of death upon the blood-stained sward; the + moans of the wounded rising up and sweeping by like vague wailings of the + wind—all this might be taken for an artful appropriation of Victor + Hugo's text; but I do not think it was, though it is possible that a faint + reflection of a brilliant page, read in early youth, still lingered on the + retina of M. Rostand's memory. If such were the case, it does not + necessarily detract from the integrity of the conception or the + playwright's presentment of it. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (1) The field of Waterloo has to-day the peacefulness which + belongs to earth, the impassive support of man, and is like + all other plains. At night, however, a kind of visionary + mist is exhaled, and if any traveler walks there, and + watches and listens, and dreams like Virgil on the sorrowful + plains of Philippi, the hallucination of the catastrophe + takes possession of him. The terrible June 18 relives; the + artificial commemorative mound effaces itself, the lion + disappears, the field of battle assumes its reality; lines + of infantry waver on the plain, the horizon is broken by + furious charges of cavalry; the alarmed dreamer sees the + gleam of sabres, the glimmer of bayonets, the lurid glare of + bursting shells, the clashing of mighty thunderbolts; the + muffled clamor of the phantom conflict comes to him like + dying moans from the tomb; these shadows are grenadiers, + these lights are cuirassiers . . . all this does not really + exist, yet the combat goes on; the ravines are stained with + purple, the trees tremble, there is fury even in the clouds, + and in the obscurity the sombre heights—Mont Saint-Jean, + Hougomont, Frischemont, Papelotte, and Plancenoit—ap-pear + dimly crowned with throngs of apparitions annihilating one + another. +</pre> + <p> + The idea of repeopling old battlefields with the shades of vanished hosts + is not novel. In such tragic spots the twilight always lays a dark hand on + the imagination, and prompts one to invoke the unappeased spirit of the + past that haunts the place. One summer evening long ago, as I was standing + alone by the ruined walls of Hougomont, with that sense of not being alone + which is sometimes so strangely stirred by solitude, I had a sudden vision + of that desperate last charge of Napoleon's Old Guard. Marshal Ney rose + from the grave and again shouted those heroic words to Drouet d'Erlon: + “Are you not going to get yourself killed?” For an instant a thousand + sabres flashed in the air. The deathly silence that accompanied the + ghostly onset was an added poignancy to the short-lived dream. A moment + later I beheld a hunched little figure mounted on a white horse with + housings of purple velvet. The reins lay slack in the rider's hand; his + three-cornered hat was slouched over his brows, and his chin rested on the + breast of his great-coat. Thus he slowly rode away through the twilight, + and nobody cried, <i>Vive l'Empereur!</i> + </p> + <p> + The ground on which a famous battle has been fought casts a spell upon + every man's mind; and the impression made upon two men of poetic genius, + like Victor Hugo and Edmond Rostand, might well be nearly identical. This + sufficiently explains the likeness between the fantastic silhouette in + “Les Miserables” and the battle of the ghosts in “L'Aiglon.” A muse so + rich in the improbable as M. Rostand's need not borrow a piece of + supernaturalness from anybody. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PLOT AND CHARACTER + </h2> + <p> + HENRY JAMES, in his paper on Anthony Trollope, says that if Trollope “had + taken sides on the rather superficial opposition between novels of + character and novels of plot, I can imagine him to have said (except that + he never expressed himself in epigram) that he preferred the former class, + inasmuch as character in itself is plot, while plot is by no means + character.” So neat an antithesis would surely never have found itself + between Mr. Trollope's lips if Mr. James had not cunningly lent it to him. + Whatever theory of novel-writing Mr. Trollope may have preached, his + almost invariable practice was to have a plot. He always had a <i>story</i> + to tell, and a story involves beginning, middle, and end—in short, a + framework of some description. + </p> + <p> + There have been delightful books filled wholly with character-drawing; but + they have not been great novels. The great novel deals with human action + as well as with mental portraiture and analysis. That “character in itself + is plot” is true only in a limited sense. A plan, a motive with a logical + conclusion, is as necessary to a novel or a romance as it is to a drama. A + group of skillfully made-up men and women lounging in the green-room or at + the wings is not the play. It is not enough to say that this is Romeo and + that Lady Macbeth. It is not enough to inform us that certain passions are + supposed to be embodied in such and such persons: these persons should be + placed in situations developing those passions. A series of unrelated + scenes and dialogues leading to nothing is inadequate. + </p> + <p> + Mr. James's engaging epigram seems to me vulnerable at both ends—unlike + Achilles. “Plot is by no means character.” Strictly speaking, it is not. + It appears to me, however, that plot approaches nearer to being character + than character does to being plot. Plot necessitates action, and it is + impossible to describe a man's actions' under whatever conditions, without + revealing something of his character, his way of looking at things, his + moral and mental pose. What a hero of fiction <i>does</i> paints him + better than what he <i>says</i>, and vastly better than anything his + creator may say of him. Mr. James asserts that “we care what happens to + people only in proportion as we know what people are.” I think we care + very little what people are (in fiction) when we do not know what happens + to them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CRUELTY OF SCIENCE + </h2> + <p> + IN the process of their experiments upon the bodies of living animals some + anatomists do not, I fear, sufficiently realize that + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The poor beetle, that we tread upon, + In corporal sufferance, finds a pang as great + As when a giant dies. +</pre> + <p> + I am not for a moment challenging the necessity of vivisection, though + distinguished surgeons have themselves challenged it; I merely contend + that science is apt to be cold-hearted, and does not seem always to take + into consideration the tortures she inflicts in her search for knowledge. + </p> + <p> + Just now, in turning over the leaves of an old number of the “London + Lancet,” I came upon the report of a lecture on experimental physiology + delivered by Professor William Rutherford before a learned association in + London. Though the type had become antiquated and the paper yellowed in + the lapse of years, the pathos of those pages was alive and palpitating. + </p> + <p> + The following passages from the report will illustrate not unfairly the + point I am making. In the course of his remarks the lecturer exhibited + certain interesting experiments on living frogs. Intellectually I go very + strongly for Professor Rutherford, but I am bound to confess that the + weight of my sympathy rests with the frogs. + </p> + <p> + Observe this frog [said the professor], it is regarding our manoeuvres + with a somewhat lively air. Now and then it gives a jump. What the precise + object of its leaps may be I dare not pretend to say; but probably it + regards us with some apprehension, and desires to escape. + </p> + <p> + To be perfectly impartial, it must be admitted that the frog had some + slight reason for apprehension. The lecturer proceeded: + </p> + <p> + I touch one of its toes, and you see it resents the molestation in a very + decided manner. Why does it so struggle to get away when I pinch its toes? + Doubtless, you will say, because it feels the pinch and would rather not + have it repeated. I now behead the animal with the aid of a sharp chisel. + . . . The headless trunk lies as though it were dead. The spinal cord + seems to be suffering from shock. Probably, however, it will soon recover + from this. . . . Observe that the animal has now <i>spontaneously</i> + drawn up its legs and arms, and it is sitting with its neck erect just as + if it had not lost its head at all. I pinch its toes, and you see the leg + is at once thrust out as if to spurn away the offending instrument. Does + it still feel? and is the motion still the result of the volition? + </p> + <p> + That the frog did feel, and delicately hinted at the circumstance, there + seems to be no room to doubt, for Professor Rutherford related that having + once decapitated a frog, the animal suddenly bounded from the table, a + movement that presumably indicated a kind of consciousness. He then + returned to the subject immediately under observation, pinched its foot + again, the frog again “resenting the stimulation.” He then thrust a needle + down the spinal cord. “The limbs are now flaccid,” observed the + experimenter; “we may wait as long as we please, but a pinch of the toes + will never again cause the limbs of this animal to move.” Here is where + congratulations can come in for <i>la grenouille</i>. That frog being + concluded, the lecturer continued: + </p> + <p> + I take another frog. In this case I open the cranium and remove the brain + and medulla oblongata. . . . I thrust a pin through the nose and hang the + animal thereby to a support, so that it can move its pendent legs without + any difficulty. . . . I gently pinch the toes. . . . The leg of the same + side is pulled up. . . . I pinch the same more severely. . . . Both legs + are thrown into motion. + </p> + <p> + Having thus satisfactorily proved that the wretched creature could still + suffer acutely, the professor resumed: + </p> + <p> + The cutaneous nerves of the frog are extremely sensitive to acids; so I + put a drop of acetic acid on the outside of one knee. This, you see, gives + rise to most violent movements both of arms and legs, and notice + particularly that the animal is using the toes of the leg on the same side + for the purpose of rubbing the irritated spot. I dip the whole animal into + water in order to wash away the acid, and now it is all at rest again. . . + . I put a drop of acid on the skin over the lumbar region of the spine. . + . . Both feet are instantly raised to the irritated spot. The animal is + able to localize the seat of irritation. . . . I wash the acid from the + back, and I amputate one of the feet at the ankle. . . . I apply a drop of + acid over the knee of the footless leg. . . . Again, the animal turns the + leg towards the knee, as if to reach the irritated spot with the toes; + these, however, are not now available. But watch the other foot. The <i>foot + of the other leg</i> is now being used to rub away the acid. The animal, + finding that the object is not accomplished with the foot of the same + side, uses the other one. + </p> + <p> + I think that at least one thing will be patent to every unprejudiced + reader of these excerpts, namely—that any frog (with its head on or + its head off) which happened to make the personal acquaintance of + Professor Rutherford must have found him poor company. What benefit + science may have derived from such association I am not qualified to + pronounce upon. The lecturer showed conclusively that the frog is a + peculiarly sensitive and intelligent little batrachian. I hope that the + genial professor, in the years which followed, did not frequently consider + it necessary to demonstrate the fact. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LEIGH HUNT AND BARRY CORNWALL + </h2> + <p> + IT has recently become the fashion to speak disparagingly of Leigh Hunt as + a poet, to class him as a sort of pursuivant or shield-bearer to + Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Truth to tell, Hunt was not a Keats nor a + Shelley nor a Coleridge, but he was a most excellent Hunt. He was a + delightful essayist—quite unsurpassed, indeed, in his blithe, + optimistic way—and as a poet deserves to rank high among the lesser + singers of his time. I should place him far above Barry Cornwall, who has + not half the freshness, variety, and originality of his compeer. + </p> + <p> + I instance Barry Cornwall because there has seemed a disposition since his + death to praise him unduly. Barry Cornwall has always struck me as + extremely artificial, especially in his dramatic sketches. His verses in + this line are mostly soft Elizabethan echoes. Of course a dramatist may + find it to his profit to go out of his own age and atmosphere for + inspiration; but in order successfully to do so he must be a dramatist. + Barry Cornwall fell short of filling the role; he got no further than the + composing of brief disconnected scenes and scraps of soliloquies, and a + tragedy entitled Mirandola, for which the stage had no use. His chief + claim to recognition lies in his lyrics. Here, as in the dramatic studies, + his attitude is nearly always affected. He studiously strives to reproduce + the form and spirit of the early poets. Being a Londoner, he naturally + sings much of rural English life, but his England is the England of two or + three centuries ago. He has a great deal to say about the “falcon,” but + the poor bird has the air of beating fatigued wings against the + bookshelves of a well-furnished library! This well-furnished library was—if + I may be pardoned a mixed image—the rock on which Barry Cornwall + split. He did not look into his own heart, and write: he looked into his + books. + </p> + <p> + A poet need not confine himself to his individual experiences; the world + is all before him where to choose; but there are subjects which he had + better not handle unless he have some personal knowledge of them. The sea + is one of these. The man who sang, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The sea! the sea! the open sea! + The blue, the fresh, <i>the ever free!</i> +</pre> + <p> + (a couplet which the Gifted Hopkins might have penned), should never have + permitted himself to sing of the ocean. I am quoting from one of Barry + Cornwall's most popular lyrics. When I first read this singularly vapid + poem years ago, in mid-Atlantic, I wondered if the author had ever laid + eyes on any piece of water wider than the Thames at Greenwich, and in + looking over Barry Cornwall's “Life and Letters” I am not so much + surprised as amused to learn that he was never out of sight of land in the + whole course of his existence. It is to be said of him more positively + than the captain of the Pinafore said it of himself, that he was hardly + ever sick at sea. + </p> + <p> + Imagine Byron or Shelley, who knew the ocean in all its protean moods, + piping such thin feebleness as + </p> + <p> + “The blue, the fresh, the ever free!” + </p> + <p> + To do that required a man whose acquaintance with the deep was limited to + a view of it from an upper window at Margate or Scarborough. Even frequent + dinners of turbot and whitebait at the sign of The Ship and Turtle will + not enable one to write sea poetry. + </p> + <p> + Considering the actual facts, there is something weird in the statement, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I 'm on the sea! I 'm on the sea! + I am where I would ever be. +</pre> + <p> + The words, to be sure, are placed in the mouth of an imagined sailor, but + they are none the less diverting. The stanza containing the distich ends + with a striking piece of realism: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + If a storm should come and awake the deep, + What matter? I shall ride and sleep. +</pre> + <p> + This is the course of action usually pursued by sailors during a gale. The + first or second mate goes around and tucks them up comfortably, each in + his hammock, and serves them out an extra ration of grog after the storm + is over. + </p> + <p> + Barry Cornwall must have had an exceptionally winning personality, for he + drew to him the friendship of men as differently constituted as Thackeray, + Carlyle, Browning, and Forster. He was liked by the best of his time, from + Charles Lamb down to Algernon Swinburne, who caught a glimpse of the aged + poet in his vanishing. The personal magnetism of an author does not extend + far beyond the orbit of his contemporaries. It is of the lyrist and not of + the man I am speaking here. One could wish he had written more prose like + his admirable “Recollections of Elia.” + </p> + <p> + Barry Cornwall seldom sounds a natural note, but when he does it is + extremely sweet. That little ballad in the minor key beginning, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Touch us gently, Time! + Let us glide adown thy stream, +was written in one of his rare moments. Leigh Hunt, though not without +questionable mannerisms, was rich in the inspiration that came but +infrequently to his friend. Hunt's verse is full of natural felicities. +He also was a bookman, but, unlike Barry Cornwall, he generally knew how +to mint his gathered gold, and to stamp the coinage with his own head. +In “Hero and Leander” there is one line which, at my valuing, is worth +any twenty stanzas that Barry Cornwall has written: + + So might they now have lived, and so have died; + <i>The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side</i>. +</pre> + <p> + Hunt's fortunate verse about the kiss Jane Carlyle gave him lingers on + everybody's lip. That and the rhyme of “Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel” are + spice enough to embalm a man's memory. After all, it takes only a handful. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DECORATION DAY + </h2> + <p> + HOW quickly Nature takes possession of a deserted battlefield, and goes to + work repairing the ravages of man! With invisible magic hand she smooths + the rough earthworks, fills the rifle-pits with delicate flowers, and + wraps the splintered tree-trunks with her fluent drapery of tendrils. Soon + the whole sharp outline of the spot is lost in unremembering grass. Where + the deadly rifle-ball whistled through the foliage, the robin or the + thrush pipes its tremulous note; and where the menacing shell described + its curve through the air, a harmless crow flies in circles. Season after + season the gentle work goes on, healing the wounds and rents made by the + merciless enginery of war, until at last the once hotly contested + battleground differs from none of its quiet surroundings, except, perhaps, + that here the flowers take a richer tint and the grasses a deeper emerald. + </p> + <p> + It is thus the battle lines may be obliterated by Time, but there are left + other and more lasting relics of the struggle. That dinted army sabre, + with a bit of faded crepe knotted at its hilt, which hangs over the + mantel-piece of the “best room” of many a town and country house in these + States, is one; and the graven headstone of the fallen hero is another. + The old swords will be treasured and handed down from generation to + generation as priceless heirlooms, and with them, let us trust, will be + cherished the custom of dressing with annual flowers the resting-places of + those who fell during the Civil War. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + With the tears a Land hath shed + Their graves should ever be green. + + Ever their fair, true glory + Fondly should fame rehearse— + Light of legend and story, + Flower of marble and verse. +</pre> + <p> + The impulse which led us to set apart a day for decorating the graves of + our soldiers sprung from the grieved heart of the nation, and in our own + time there is little chance of the rite being neglected. But the + generations that come after us should not allow the observance to fall + into disuse. What with us is an expression of fresh love and sorrow, + should be with them an acknowledgment of an incalculable debt. + </p> + <p> + Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays. How + different from those sullen batteries which used to go rumbling through + our streets are the crowds of light carriages, laden with flowers and + greenery, wending their way to the neighboring cemeteries! The grim cannon + have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach + blooms. There is no hint of war in these gay baggage trains, except the + presence of men in undress uniform, and perhaps here and there an empty + sleeve to remind one of what has been. Year by year that empty sleeve is + less in evidence. + </p> + <p> + The observance of Decoration Day is unmarked by that disorder and + confusion common enough with our people in their holiday moods. The + earlier sorrow has faded out of the hour, leaving a softened solemnity. It + quickly ceased to be simply a local commemoration. While the sequestered + country churchyards and burial-places near our great northern cities were + being hung with May garlands, the thought could not but come to us that + there were graves lying southward above which bent a grief as tender and + sacred as our own. Invisibly we dropped unseen flowers upon those mounds. + There is a beautiful significance in the fact that, two years after the + close of the war, the women of Columbus, Mississippi, laid their offerings + alike on Northern and Southern graves. When all is said, the great Nation + has but one heart. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WRITERS AND TALKERS + </h2> + <p> + AS a class, literary men do not shine in conversation. The scintillating + and playful essayist whom you pictured to yourself as the most genial and + entertaining of companions, turns out to be a shy and untalkable + individual, who chills you with his reticence when you chance to meet him. + The poet whose fascinating volume you always drop into your gripsack on + your summer vacation—the poet whom you have so long desired to know + personally—is a moody and abstracted middle-aged gentleman, who + fails to catch your name on introduction, and seems the avatar of the + commonplace. The witty and ferocious critic whom your fancy had painted as + a literary cannibal with a morbid appetite for tender young poets—the + writer of those caustic and scholarly reviews which you never neglect to + read—destroys the un-lifelike portrait you had drawn by appearing + before you as a personage of slender limb and deprecating glance, who + stammers and makes a painful spectacle of himself when you ask him his + opinion of “The Glees of the Gulches,” by Popocatepetl Jones. The slender, + dark-haired novelist of your imagination, with epigrammatic points to his + mustache, suddenly takes the shape of a short, smoothly-shaven blond man, + whose conversation does not sparkle at all, and you were on the lookout + for the most brilliant of verbal fireworks. Perhaps it is a dramatist you + have idealized. Fresh from witnessing his delightful comedy of manners, + you meet him face to face only to discover that his own manners are + anything but delightful. The play and the playwright are two very distinct + entities. You grow skeptical touching the truth of Buffon's assertion that + the style is the man himself. Who that has encountered his favorite author + in the flesh has not sometimes been a little, if not wholly, disappointed? + </p> + <p> + After all, is it not expecting too much to expect a novelist to talk as + cleverly as the clever characters in his novels? Must a dramatist + necessarily go about armed to the teeth with crisp dialogue? May not a + poet be allowed to lay aside his singing-robes and put on a conventional + dress-suit when he dines out? Why is it not permissible in him to be as + prosaic and tiresome as the rest of the company? He usually is. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ON EARLY RISING + </h2> + <p> + A CERTAIN scientific gentleman of my acquaintance, who has devoted years + to investigating the subject, states that he has never come across a case + of remarkable longevity unaccompanied by the habit of early rising; from + which testimony it might be inferred that they die early who lie abed + late. But this would be getting out at the wrong station. That the + majority of elderly persons are early risers is due to the simple fact + that they cannot sleep mornings. After a man passes his fiftieth milestone + he usually awakens at dawn, and his wakefulness is no credit to him. As + the theorist confined his observations to the aged, he easily reached the + conclusion that men live to be old because they do not sleep late, instead + of perceiving that men do not sleep late because they are old. He moreover + failed to take into account the numberless young lives that have been + shortened by matutinal habits. + </p> + <p> + The intelligent reader, and no other is supposable, need not be told that + the early bird aphorism is a warning and not an incentive. The fate of the + worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb, which assumes + to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does so by showing how + extremely dangerous it is. I have no patience with the worm, and when I + rise with the lark I am always careful to select a lark that has overslept + himself. + </p> + <p> + The example set by this mythical bird, a mythical bird so far as New + England is concerned, has wrought wide-spread mischief and discomfort. It + is worth noting that his method of accomplishing these ends is directly + the reverse of that of the Caribbean insect mentioned by Lafcadio Hearn in + his enchanting “Two Years in the French West Indies”—a species of + colossal cricket called the wood-kid; in the creole tongue, <i>cabritt-bois</i>. + This ingenious pest works a soothing, sleep-compelling chant from sundown + until precisely half past four in the morning, when it suddenly stops and + by its silence awakens everybody it has lulled into slumber with its + insidious croon. Mr. Hearn, with strange obtuseness to the enormity of the + thing, blandly remarks: “For thousands of early risers too poor to own a + clock, the cessation of its song is the signal to get up.” I devoutly + trust that none of the West India islands furnishing such satanic + entomological specimens will ever be annexed to the United States. Some of + our extreme advocates of territorial expansion might spend a profitable + few weeks on one of those favored isles. A brief association with that <i>cabritt-bois</i> + would be likely to cool the enthusiasm of the most ardent imperialist. + </p> + <p> + An incalculable amount of specious sentiment has been lavished upon + daybreak, chiefly by poets who breakfasted, when they did breakfast, at + mid-day. It is charitably to be said that their practice was better than + their precept—or their poetry. Thomson, the author of “The Castle of + Indolence,” who gave birth to the depraved apostrophe, + </p> + <p> + “Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,” + </p> + <p> + was one of the laziest men of his century. He customarily lay in bed until + noon meditating pentameters on sunrise. This creature used to be seen in + his garden of an afternoon, with both hands in his waistcoat pockets, + eating peaches from a pendent bough. Nearly all the English poets who at + that epoch celebrated what they called “the effulgent orb of day” were + denizens of London, where pure sunshine is unknown eleven months out of + the twelve. + </p> + <p> + In a great city there are few incentives to early rising. What charm is + there in roof-tops and chimney-stacks to induce one to escape even from a + nightmare? What is more depressing than a city street before the + shop-windows have lifted an eyelid, when “the very houses seem asleep,” as + Wordsworth says, and nobody is astir but the belated burglar or the + milk-and-water man or Mary washing off the front steps? Daybreak at the + seaside or up among the mountains is sometimes worth while, though + familiarity with it breeds indifference. The man forced by restlessness or + occupation to drink the first vintage of the morning every day of his life + has no right appreciation of the beverage, however much he may profess to + relish it. It is only your habitual late riser who takes in the full + flavor of Nature at those rare intervals when he gets up to go a-fishing. + He brings virginal emotions and unsatiated eyes to the sparkling freshness + of earth and stream and sky. For him—a momentary Adam—the + world is newly created. It is Eden come again, with Eve in the similitude + of a three-pound trout. + </p> + <p> + In the country, then, it is well enough occasionally to dress by + candle-light and assist at the ceremony of dawn; it is well if for no + other purpose than to disarm the intolerance of the professional early + riser who, were he in a state of perfect health, would not be the + wandering victim of insomnia, and boast of it. There are few small things + more exasperating than this early bird with the worm of his conceit in his + bill. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + UN POETE MANQUE + </h2> + <p> + IN the first volume of Miss Dickinson's poetical melange is a little poem + which needs only a slight revision of the initial stanza to entitle it to + rank with some of the swallow-flights in Heine's lyrical intermezzo. I + have tentatively tucked a rhyme into that opening stanza: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I taste a liquor never brewed + In vats upon the Rhine; + No tankard ever held a draught + Of alcohol like mine. + + Inebriate of air am I, + And debauchee of dew, + Reeling, through endless summer days, + From inns of molten blue. + + When landlords turn the drunken bee + Out of the Foxglove's door, + When butterflies renounce their drams, + I shall but drink the more! + Till seraphs swing their snowy caps + And saints to windows run, + To see the little tippler + Leaning against the sun! +</pre> + <p> + Those inns of molten blue, and the disreputable honey-gatherer who gets + himself turned out-of-doors at the sign of the Foxglove, are very taking + matters. I know of more important things that interest me vastly less. + This is one of the ten or twelve brief pieces so nearly perfect in + structure as almost to warrant the reader in suspecting that Miss + Dickinson's general disregard of form was a deliberate affectation. The + artistic finish of the following sunset-piece makes her usual quatrains + unforgivable: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + This is the land the sunset washes, + These are the banks of the Yellow Sea; + Where it rose, or whither it rushes, + These are the western mystery! + + Night after night her purple traffic + Strews the landing with opal bales; + Merchantmen poise upon horizons, + Dip, and vanish with fairy sails. +</pre> + <p> + The little picture has all the opaline atmosphere of a Claude Lorraine. + One instantly frames it in one's memory. Several such bits of + impressionist landscape may be found in the portfolio. + </p> + <p> + It is to be said, in passing, that there are few things in Miss + Dickinson's poetry so felicitous as Mr. Higginson's characterization of it + in his preface to the volume: “In many cases these verses will seem to the + reader <i>like poetry pulled up by the roots</i>, with rain and dew and + earth clinging to them.” Possibly it might be objected that this is not + the best way to gather either flowers or poetry. + </p> + <p> + Miss Dickinson possessed an extremely unconventional and bizarre mind. She + was deeply tinged by the mysticism of Blake, and strongly influenced by + the mannerism of Emerson. The very gesture with which she tied her + bonnet-strings, preparatory to one of her nun-like walks in her garden at + Amherst, must have had something dreamy and Emersonian in it. She had much + fancy of a quaint kind, but only, as it appears to me, intermittent + flashes of imagination. + </p> + <p> + That Miss Dickinson's memoranda have a certain something which, for want + of a more precise name, we term <i>quality</i>, is not to be denied. But + the incoherence and shapelessness of the greater part of her verse are + fatal. On nearly every page one lights upon an unsupported exquisite line + or a lonely happy epithet; but a single happy epithet or an isolated + exquisite line does not constitute a poem. What Lowell says of Dr. Donne + applies in a manner to Miss Dickinson: “Donne is full of salient verses + that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with their beauty, of + thoughts that first tease us like charades and then delight us with the + felicity of their solution; but these have not saved him. He is exiled to + the limbo of the formless and the fragmentary.” + </p> + <p> + Touching this question of mere technique Mr. Ruskin has a word to say (it + appears that he said it “in his earlier and better days”), and Mr. + Higginson quotes it: “No weight, nor mass, nor beauty of execution can + outweigh one grain or fragment of thought.” This is a proposition to which + one would cordially subscribe if it were not so intemperately stated. A + suggestive commentary on Mr. Ruskin's impressive dictum is furnished by + his own volume of verse. The substance of it is weighty enough, but the + workmanship lacks just that touch which distinguishes the artist from the + bungler—the touch which Mr. Ruskin, except when writing prose, + appears not much to have regarded either in his later or “in his earlier + and better days.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Dickinson's stanzas, with their impossible rhyme, their involved + significance, their interrupted flute-note of birds that have no + continuous music, seem to have caught the ear of a group of eager + listeners. A shy New England bluebird, shifting its light load of song, + has for the moment been mistaken for a stray nightingale. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE MALE COSTUME OF THE PERIOD + </h2> + <p> + I WENT to see a play the other night, one of those good old-fashioned + English comedies that are in five acts and seem to be in fifteen. The + piece with its wrinkled conventionality, its archaic stiffness, and + obsolete code of morals, was devoid of interest excepting as a collection + of dramatic curios. Still I managed to sit it through. The one thing in it + that held me a pleased spectator was the graceful costume of a certain + player who looked like a fine old portrait—by Vandyke or Velasquez, + let us say—that had come to life and kicked off its tarnished frame. + </p> + <p> + I do not know at what epoch of the world's history the scene of the play + was laid; possibly the author originally knew, but it was evident that the + actors did not, for their make-ups represented quite antagonistic periods. + This circumstance, however, detracted only slightly from the special + pleasure I took in the young person called Delorme. He was not in himself + interesting; he was like that Major Waters in “Pepys's Diary”—“a + most amorous melancholy gentleman who is under a despayr in love, which + makes him bad company;” it was entirely Delorme's dress. + </p> + <p> + I never saw mortal man in a dress more sensible and becoming. The material + was according to Polonius's dictum, rich but not gaudy, of some dark + cherry-colored stuff with trimmings of a deeper shade. My idea of a + doublet is so misty that I shall not venture to affirm that the gentleman + wore a doublet. It was a loose coat of some description hanging + negligently from the shoulders and looped at the throat, showing a + tasteful arrangement of lacework below and at the wrists. Full trousers + reaching to the tops of buckskin boots, and a low-crowned soft hat—not + a Puritan's sugar-loaf, but a picturesque shapeless head-gear, one side + jauntily fastened up with a jewel—completed the essential portions + of our friend's attire. It was a costume to walk in, to ride in, to sit + in. The wearer of it could not be awkward if he tried, and I will do + Delorme the justice to say that he put his dress to some severe tests. But + he was graceful all the while, and made me wish that my countrymen would + throw aside their present hideous habiliments and hasten to the + measuring-room of Delorme's tailor. + </p> + <p> + In looking over the plates of an old book of fashions we smile at the + monstrous attire in which our worthy great-grandsires saw fit to deck + themselves. Presently it will be the turn of posterity to smile at us, for + in our own way we are no less ridiculous than were our ancestors in their + knee-breeches, pig-tail and <i>chapeau de bras</i>. In fact we are really + more absurd. If a fashionably dressed man of to-day could catch a single + glimpse of himself through the eyes of his descendants four or five + generations removed, he would have a strong impression of being something + that had escaped from somewhere. + </p> + <p> + Whatever strides we may have made in arts and sciences, we have made no + advance in the matter of costume. That Americans do not tattoo themselves, + and do go fully clad—I am speaking exclusively of my own sex—is + about all that can be said in favor of our present fashions. I wish I had + the vocabulary of Herr Teufelsdrockh with which to inveigh against the + dress-coat of our evening parties, the angular swallow-tailed coat that + makes a man look like a poor species of bird and gets him mistaken for the + waiter. “As long as a man wears the modern coat,” says Leigh Hunt, “he has + no right to despise any dress. What snips at the collar and lapels! What a + mechanical and ridiculous cut about the flaps! What buttons in front that + are never meant to button, and yet are no ornament! And what an + exquisitely absurd pair of buttons at the back! gravely regarded, + nevertheless, and thought as indispensably necessary to every + well-conditioned coat, as other bits of metal or bone are to the bodies of + savages whom we laugh at. There is absolutely not one iota of sense, + grace, or even economy in the modern coat.” + </p> + <p> + Still more deplorable is the ceremonial hat of the period. That a + Christian can go about unabashed with a shiny black cylinder on his head + shows what civilization has done for us in the way of taste in personal + decoration. The scalplock of an Apache brave has more style. When an + Indian squaw comes into a frontier settlement the first “marked-down” + article she purchases is a section of stove-pipe. Her instinct as to the + eternal fitness of things tells her that its proper place is on the skull + of a barbarian. + </p> + <p> + It was while revolving these pleasing reflections in my mind, that our + friend Delorme walked across the stage in the fourth act, and though there + was nothing in the situation nor in the text of the play to warrant it, I + broke into tremendous applause, from which I desisted only at the scowl of + an usher—an object in a celluloid collar and a claw-hammer coat. My + solitary ovation to Master Delorme was an involuntary and, I think, + pardonable protest against the male costume of our own time. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ON A CERTAIN AFFECTATION + </h2> + <p> + EXCEPTING on the ground that youth is the age of vain fantasy, there is no + accounting for the fact that young men and young women of poetical + temperament should so frequently assume to look upon an early demise for + themselves as the most desirable thing in the world. Though one may + incidentally be tempted to agree with them in the abstract, one cannot + help wondering. That persons who are exceptionally fortunate in their + environment, and in private do not pretend to be otherwise, should openly + announce their intention of retiring at once into the family tomb, is a + problem not easily solved. The public has so long listened to these + funereal solos that if a few of the poets thus impatient to be gone were + to go, their departure would perhaps be attended by that resigned speeding + which the proverb invokes on behalf of the parting guest. + </p> + <p> + The existence of at least one magazine editor would, I know, have a shadow + lifted from it. At this writing, in a small mortuary basket under his desk + are seven or eight poems of so gloomy a nature that he would not be able + to remain in the same room with them if he did not suspect the integrity + of their pessimism. The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than + that of a rhyme setting forth a simulated sorrow. + </p> + <p> + The Miss Gladys who sends a poem entitled “Forsaken,” in which she + addresses death as her only friend, makes pictures in the editor's eyes. + He sees, among other dissolving views, a little hoyden in magnificent + spirits, perhaps one of this season's social buds, with half a score of + lovers ready to pluck her from the family stem—a rose whose + countless petals are coupons. A caramel has disagreed with her, or she + would not have written in this despondent vein. The young man who seeks to + inform the world in eleven anaemic stanzas of <i>terze rime</i> that the + cup of happiness has been forever dashed from his lip (he appears to have + but one) and darkly intimates that the end is “nigh” (rhyming affably with + “sigh”), will probably be engaged a quarter of a century from now in + making similar declarations. He is simply echoing some dysthymic poet of + the past—reaching out with some other man's hat for the stray nickel + of your sympathy. + </p> + <p> + This morbidness seldom accompanies genuine poetic gifts. The case of David + Gray, the young Scottish poet who died in 1861, is an instance to the + contrary. His lot was exceedingly sad, and the failure of health just as + he was on the verge of achieving something like success justified his + profound melancholy; but that he tuned this melancholy and played upon it, + as if it were a musical instrument, is plainly seen in one of his sonnets. + </p> + <p> + In Monckton Milnes's (Lord Houghton's) “Life and Letters of John Keats” it + is related that Keats, one day, on finding a stain of blood upon his lips + after coughing, said to his friend Charles Brown: “I know the color of + that blood; it is arterial blood; I cannot be deceived. That drop is my + death-warrant. I must die.” Who that ever read the passage could forget + it? David Gray did not, for he versified the incident as happening to + himself and appropriated, as his own, Keats's comment: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Last night, on coughing slightly with sharp pain, + There came arterial blood, and with a sigh + Of absolute grief I cried in bitter vein, + That drop is my death-warrant; I must die. +</pre> + <p> + The incident was likely enough a personal experience, but the comment + should have been placed in quotation marks. I know of few stranger things + in literature than this poet's dramatization of another man's pathos. Even + Keats's epitaph—<i>Here lies one whose name</i> <i>was writ in water</i>—finds + an echo in David Gray's <i>Below lies one whose name was traced in sand</i>. + Poor Gray was at least the better prophet. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WISHMAKERS' TOWN + </h2> + <p> + A LIMITED edition of this little volume of verse, which seems to me in + many respects unique, was issued in 1885, and has long been out of print. + The reissue of the book is in response to the desire off certain readers + who have not forgotten the charm which William Young's poem exercised upon + them years ago, and, finding the charm still potent, would have others + share it. + </p> + <p> + The scheme of the poem, for it is a poem and not simply a series of + unrelated lyrics, is ingenious and original, and unfolds itself in + measures at once strong and delicate. The mood of the poet and the method + of the playwright are obvious throughout. Wishmakers' Town—a little + town situated in the no-man's-land of “The Tempest” and “A Midsummer + Night's Dream”—is shown to us as it awakens, touched by the dawn. + The clangor of bells far and near calls the townfolk to their various + avocations, the toiler to his toil, the idler to his idleness, the miser + to his gold. In swift and picturesque sequence the personages of the + Masque pass before us. Merchants, hucksters, players, lovers, gossips, + soldiers, vagabonds, and princes crowd the scene, and have in turn their + word of poignant speech. We mingle with the throng in the streets; we hear + the whir of looms and the din of foundries, the blare of trumpets, the + whisper of lovers, the scandals of the market-place, and, in brief, are + let into all the secrets of the busy microcosm. A contracted stage, + indeed, yet large enough for the play of many passions, as the narrowest + hearthstone may be. With the sounding of the curfew, the town is hushed to + sleep again, and the curtain falls on this mimic drama of life. + </p> + <p> + The charm of it all is not easily to be defined. Perhaps if one could name + it, the spell were broken. Above the changing rhythms hangs an atmosphere + too evasive for measurement—an atmosphere that stipulates an + imaginative mood on the part of the reader. The quality which pleases in + certain of the lyrical episodes is less intangible. One readily explains + one's liking for so gracious a lyric as The Flower-Seller, to select an + example at random. Next to the pleasure that lies in the writing of such + exquisite verse is the pleasure of quoting it. I copy the stanzas partly + for my own gratification, and partly to win the reader to “Wishmakers' + Town,” not knowing better how to do it. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Myrtle, and eglantine, + For the old love and the new! + And the columbine, + With its cap and bells, for folly! + And the daffodil, for the hopes of youth! and the rue, + For melancholy! + But of all the blossoms that blow, + Fair gallants all, I charge you to win, if ye may, + This gentle guest, + Who dreams apart, in her wimple of purple and gray, + Like the blessed Virgin, with meek head bending low + Upon her breast. + For the orange flower + Ye may buy as ye will: but the violet of the wood + Is the love of maidenhood; + And he that hath worn it but once, though but for an hour, + He shall never again, though he wander by many a stream, + No, never again shall he meet with a dower that shall seem + So sweet and pure; and forever, in after years, + At the thought of its bloom, or the fragrance of its breath, + The past shall arise, + And his eyes shall be dim with tears, + And his soul shall be far in the gardens of Paradise + Though he stand in the Shambles of death. +In a different tone, but displaying the same sureness of execution, is +the cry of the lowly folk, the wretched pawns in the great game of life: + + Prince, and Bishop, and Knight, and Dame, + Plot, and plunder, and disagree! + O but the game is a royal game! + O but your tourneys are fair to see! + + None too hopeful we found our lives; + Sore was labor from day to day; + Still we strove for our babes and wives— + Now, to the trumpet, we march away! + + “Why?”—For some one hath will'd it so! + Nothing we know of the why or the where— + To swamp, or jungle, or wastes of snow— + Nothing we know, and little we care. + + Give us to kill!—since this is the end + Of love and labor in Nature's plan; + Give us to kill and ravish and rend, + Yea, since this is the end of man. + + States shall perish, and states be born: + Leaders, out of the throng, shall press; + Some to honor, and some to scorn: + We, that are little, shall yet be less. + + Over our lines shall the vultures soar; + Hard on our flanks shall the jackals cry; + And the dead shall be as the sands of the shore; + And daily the living shall pray to die. + + Nay, what matter!—When all is said, + Prince and Bishop will plunder still: + Lord and Lady must dance and wed. + Pity us, pray for us, ye that will! +</pre> + <p> + It is only the fear of impinging on Mr. Young's copyright that prevents me + reprinting the graphic ballad of The Wanderer and the prologue of The + Strollers, which reads like a page from the prelude to some Old-World + miracle play. The setting of these things is frequently antique, but the + thought is the thought of today. I think there is a new generation of + readers for such poetry as Mr. Young's. I venture the prophecy that it + will not lack for them later when the time comes for the inevitable + rearrangement of present poetic values. + </p> + <p> + The author of “Wishmakers' Town” is the child of his period, and has not + escaped the <i>maladie du siecle</i>. The doubt and pessimism that marked + the end of the nineteenth century find a voice in the bell-like strophes + with which the volume closes. It is the dramatist rather than the poet who + speaks here. The real message of the poet to mankind is ever one of hope. + Amid the problems that perplex and discourage, it is for him to sing + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Of what the world shall be + When the years have died away. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HISTORICAL NOVELS + </h2> + <p> + IN default of such an admirable piece of work as Dr. Weir Mitchell's “Hugh + Wynne,” I like best those fictions which deal with kingdoms and + principalities that exist only in the mind's eye. One's knowledge of + actual events and real personages runs no serious risk of receiving shocks + in this no-man's-land. Everything that happens in an imaginary realm—in + the realm of Ruritania, for illustration—has an air of possibility, + at least a shadowy vraisemblance. The atmosphere and local color, having + an authenticity of their own, are not to be challenged. You cannot charge + the writer with ignorance of the period in which his narrative is laid, + since the period is as vague as the geography. He walks on safe ground, + eluding many of the perils that beset the story-teller who ventures to + stray beyond the bounds of the make-believe. One peril he cannot escape—that + of misrepresenting human nature. + </p> + <p> + The anachronisms of the average historical novel, pretending to reflect + history, are among its minor defects. It is a thing altogether wonderfully + and fearfully made—the imbecile intrigue, the cast-iron characters, + the plumed and armored dialogue with its lance of gory rhetoric forever at + charge. The stage at its worst moments is not so unreal. Here art has + broken into smithereens the mirror which she is supposed to hold up to + nature. + </p> + <p> + In this romance-world somebody is always somebody's unsuspected father, + mother, or child, deceiving every one excepting the reader. Usually the + anonymous person is the hero, to whom it is mere recreation to hold twenty + swordsmen at bay on a staircase, killing ten or twelve of them before he + escapes through a door that ever providentially opens directly behind him. + How tired one gets of that door! The “caitiff” in these chronicles of when + knighthood was in flower is invariably hanged from “the highest + battlement”—the second highest would not do at all; or else he is + thrown into “the deepest dungeon of the castle”—the second deepest + dungeon was never known to be used on these occasions. The hero habitually + “cleaves” his foeman “to the midriff,” the “midriff” being what the + properly brought up hero always has in view. A certain fictional historian + of my acquaintance makes his swashbuckler exclaim: “My sword will [shall] + kiss his midriff;” but that is an exceptionally lofty flight of diction. + My friend's heroine dresses as a page, and in the course of long + interviews with her lover remains unrecognized—a diaphanous literary + invention that must have been old when the Pyramids were young. The + heroine's small brother, with playful archaicism called “a springald,” + puts on her skirts and things and passes himself off for his sister or + anybody else he pleases. In brief, there is no puerility that is not at + home in this sphere of misbegotten effort. Listen—a priest, a + princess, and a young man in woman's clothes are on the scene: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + \ The princess rose to her feet and + approached the priest. + \ “Father,” she said swiftly, “this + is not the Lady Joan, my brother's + wife, but a youth marvelously like + her, who hath offered himself in + her place that she might escape. . . . + He is the Count von Loen, a lord + of Kernsburg. And I love him. We + want you to marry us now, dear + Father—now, without a moment's + delay; for if you do not they will + kill him, and I shall have to marry + Prince Wasp!” + </pre> + <p> + This is from “Joan of the Sword Hand,” and if ever I read a more silly + performance I have forgotten it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + POOR YORICK + </h2> + <p> + THERE is extant in the city of New York an odd piece of bric-a-brac which + I am sometimes tempted to wish was in my own possession. On a bracket in + Edwin Booth's bedroom at The Players—the apartment remains as he + left it that solemn June day ten years ago—stands a sadly + dilapidated skull which the elder Booth, and afterward his son Edwin, used + to soliloquize over in the graveyard at Elsinore in the fifth act of + “Hamlet.” + </p> + <p> + A skull is an object that always invokes interest more or less poignant; + it always has its pathetic story, whether told or untold; but this skull + is especially a skull “with a past.” + </p> + <p> + In the early forties, while playing an engagement somewhere in the wild + West, Junius Brutus Booth did a series of kindnesses to a particularly + undeserving fellow, the name of him unknown to us. The man, as it seemed, + was a combination of gambler, horse-stealer, and highwayman—in + brief, a miscellaneous desperado, and precisely the melodramatic sort of + person likely to touch the sympathies of the half-mad player. In the + course of nature or the law, presumably the law, the adventurer bodily + disappeared one day, and soon ceased to exist even as a reminiscence in + the florid mind of his sometime benefactor. + </p> + <p> + As the elder Booth was seated at breakfast one morning in a hotel in + Louisville, Kentucky, a negro boy entered the room bearing a small osier + basket neatly covered with a snowy napkin. It had the general appearance + of a basket of fruit or flowers sent by some admirer, and as such it + figured for a moment in Mr. Booth's conjecture. On lifting the cloth the + actor started from the chair with a genuine expression on his features of + that terror which he was used so marvelously to simulate as Richard III. + in the midnight tent-scene or as Macbeth when the ghost of Banquo usurped + his seat at table. + </p> + <p> + In the pretty willow-woven basket lay the head of Booth's old pensioner, + which head the old pensioner had bequeathed in due legal form to the + tragedian, begging him henceforth to adopt it as one of the necessary + stage properties in the fifth act of Mr. Shakespeare's tragedy of + “Hamlet.” “Take it away, you black imp!” thundered the actor to the + equally aghast negro boy, whose curiosity had happily not prompted him to + investigate the dark nature of his burden. + </p> + <p> + Shortly afterward, however, the horse-stealer's residuary legatee, + recovering from the first shock of his surprise, fell into the grim humor + of the situation, and proceeded to carry out to the letter the testator's + whimsical request. Thus it was that the skull came to secure an engagement + to play the role of poor Yorick in J. B. Booth's company of strolling + players, and to continue a while longer to glimmer behind the footlights + in the hands of his famous son. + </p> + <p> + Observing that the grave-digger in his too eager realism was damaging the + thing—the marks of his pick and spade are visible on the cranium—Edwin + Booth presently replaced it with a papier-mache counterfeit manufactured + in the property-room of the theatre. During his subsequent wanderings in + Australia and California, he carefully preserved the relic, which finally + found repose on the bracket in question. + </p> + <p> + How often have I sat, of an afternoon, in that front room on the fourth + floor of the clubhouse in Gramercy Park, watching the winter or summer + twilight gradually softening and blurring the sharp outline of the skull + until it vanished uncannily into the gloom! Edwin Booth had forgotten, if + ever he knew, the name of the man; but I had no need of it in order to + establish acquaintance with poor Yorick. In this association I was + conscious of a deep tinge of sentiment on my own part, a circumstance not + without its queerness, considering how very distant the acquaintance + really was. + </p> + <p> + Possibly he was a fellow of infinite jest in his day; he was sober enough + now, and in no way disposed to indulge in those flashes of merriment “that + were wont to set the table on a roar.” But I did not regret his evaporated + hilarity; I liked his more befitting genial silence, and had learned to + look upon his rather open countenance with the same friendliness as that + with which I regarded the faces of less phantasmal members of the club. He + had become to me a dramatic personality as distinct as that of any of the + Thespians I met in the grillroom or the library. + </p> + <p> + Yorick's feeling in regard to me was a subject upon which I frequently + speculated. There was at intervals an alert gleam of intelligence in those + cavernous eye-sockets, as if the sudden remembrance of some old experience + had illumined them. He had been a great traveler, and had known strange + vicissitudes in life; his stage career had brought him into contact with a + varied assortment of men and women, and extended his horizon. His more + peaceful profession of holding up mail-coaches on lonely roads had surely + not been without incident. It was inconceivable that all this had left no + impressions. He must have had at least a faint recollection of the + tempestuous Junius Brutus Booth. That Yorick had formed his estimate of + me, and probably not a flattering one, is something of which I am strongly + convinced. + </p> + <p> + At the death of Edwin Booth, poor Yorick passed out of my personal + cognizance, and now lingers an incongruous shadow amid the memories of the + precious things I lost then. + </p> + <p> + The suite of apartments formerly occupied by Edwin Booth at The Players + has been, as I have said, kept unchanged—a shrine to which from time + to time some loving heart makes silent pilgrimage. On a table in the + centre of his bedroom lies the book just where he laid it down, an ivory + paper-cutter marking the page his eyes last rested upon; and in this + chamber, with its familiar pictures, pipes, and ornaments, the skull finds + its proper sanctuary. If at odd moments I wish that by chance poor Yorick + had fallen to my care, the wish is only halfhearted, though had that + happened, I would have given him welcome to the choicest corner in my + study and tenderly cherished him for the sake of one who comes no more. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE AUTOGRAPH HUNTER + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + One that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! + —<i>King Lear.</i> +</pre> + <p> + THE material for this paper on the autograph hunter, his ways and his + manners, has been drawn chiefly from experiences not my own. My personal + relations with him have been comparatively restricted, a circumstance to + which I owe the privilege of treating the subject with a freedom that + might otherwise not seem becoming. + </p> + <p> + No author is insensible to the compliment involved in a request for his + autograph, assuming the request to come from some sincere lover of books + and bookmen. It is an affair of different complection when he is + importuned to give time and attention to the innumerable unknown who + “collect” autographs as they would collect postage stamps, with no + interest in the matter beyond the desire to accumulate as many as + possible. The average autograph hunter, with his purposeless insistence, + reminds one of the queen in Stockton's story whose fad was “the + buttonholes of all nations.” + </p> + <p> + In our population of eighty millions and upward there are probably two + hundred thousand persons interested more or less in what is termed the + literary world. This estimate is absurdly low, but it serves to cast a + sufficient side-light upon the situation. Now, any unit of these two + hundred thousand is likely at any moment to indite a letter to some + favorite novelist, historian, poet, or what not. It will be seen, then, + that the autograph hunter is no inconsiderable person. He has made it + embarrassing work for the author fortunate or unfortunate enough to be + regarded as worth while. Every mail adds to his reproachful pile of + unanswered letters. If he have a conscience, and no amanuensis, he quickly + finds himself tangled in the meshes of endless and futile correspondence. + Through policy, good nature, or vanity he is apt to become facile prey. + </p> + <p> + A certain literary collector once confessed in print that he always + studied the idiosyncrasies of his “subject” as carefully as another sort + of collector studies the plan of the house to which he meditates a + midnight visit. We were assured that with skillful preparation and adroit + approach an autograph could be extracted from anybody. According to the + revelations of the writer, Bismarck, Queen Victoria, and Mr. Gladstone had + their respective point of easy access—their one unfastened door or + window, metaphorically speaking. The strongest man has his weak side. + </p> + <p> + Dr. Holmes's affability in replying to every one who wrote to him was + perhaps not a trait characteristic of the elder group. Mr. Lowell, for + instance, was harder-hearted and rather difficult to reach. I recall one + day in the library at Elmwood. As I was taking down a volume from the + shelf a sealed letter escaped from the pages and fluttered to my feet. I + handed it to Mr. Lowell, who glanced incuriously at the superscription. + “Oh, yes,” he said, smiling, “I know 'em by instinct.” Relieved of its + envelope, the missive turned out to be eighteen months old, and began with + the usual amusing solecism: “As one of the most famous of American authors + I would like to possess your autograph.” + </p> + <p> + Each recipient of such requests has of course his own way of responding. + Mr. Whittier used to be obliging; Mr. Longfellow politic; Mr. Emerson, + always philosophical, dreamily confiscated the postage stamps. + </p> + <p> + Time was when the collector contented himself with a signature on a card; + but that, I am told, no longer satisfies. He must have a letter addressed + to him personally—“on any subject you please,” as an immature scribe + lately suggested to an acquaintance of mine. The ingenuous youth purposed + to flourish a letter in the faces of his less fortunate competitors, in + order to show them that he was on familiar terms with the celebrated + So-and-So. This or a kindred motive is the spur to many a collector. The + stratagems he employs to compass his end are inexhaustible. He drops you + an off-hand note to inquire in what year you first published your + beautiful poem entitled “A Psalm of Life.” If you are a simple soul, you + hasten to assure him that you are not the author of that poem, which he + must have confused with your “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—and there + you are. Another expedient is to ask if your father's middle name was not + Hierophilus. Now, your father has probably been dead many years, and as + perhaps he was not a public man in his day, you are naturally touched that + any one should have interest in him after this long flight of time. In the + innocence of your heart you reply by the next mail that your father's + middle name was not Hierophilus, but Epaminondas—and there you are + again. It is humiliating to be caught swinging, like a simian ancestor, on + a branch of one's genealogical tree. + </p> + <p> + Some morning you find beside your plate at breakfast an imposing parchment + with a great gold seal in the upper left-hand corner. This document—I + am relating an actual occurrence—announces with a flourish that you + have unanimously been elected an honorary member of The Kalamazoo + International Literary Association. Possibly the honor does not take away + your respiration; but you are bound by courtesy to make an acknowledgment, + and you express your insincere thanks to the obliging secretary of a + literary organization which does not exist anywhere on earth. + </p> + <p> + A scheme of lighter creative touch is that of the correspondent who + advises you that he is replenishing his library and desires a detailed + list of your works, with the respective dates of their first issue, price, + style of binding, etc. A bibliophile, you say to yourself. These + interrogations should of course have been addressed to your publisher; but + they are addressed to you, with the stereotyped “thanks in advance.” The + natural inference is that the correspondent, who writes in a brisk + commercial vein, wishes to fill out his collection of your books, or, + possibly, to treat himself to a complete set in full crushed Levant. Eight + or ten months later this individual, having forgotten (or hoping you will + not remember) that he has already demanded a chronological list of your + writings, forwards another application couched in the self-same words. The + length of time it takes him to “replenish” his library (with your books) + strikes you as pathetic. You cannot control your emotions sufficiently to + pen a reply. From a purely literary point of view this gentleman cares + nothing whatever for your holograph; from a mercantile point of view he + cares greatly and likes to obtain duplicate specimens, which he disposes + of to dealers in such frail merchandise. + </p> + <p> + The pseudo-journalist who is engaged in preparing a critical and + biographical sketch of you, and wants to incorporate, if possible, some + slight hitherto unnoted event in your life—a signed photograph and a + copy of your bookplate are here in order—is also a character which + periodically appears upon the scene. In this little Comedy of Deceptions + there are as many players as men have fancies. + </p> + <p> + A brother slave-of-the-lamp permits me to transfer this leaf from the book + of his experience: “Not long ago the postman brought me a letter of a + rather touching kind. The unknown writer, lately a widow, and plainly a + woman of refinement, had just suffered a new affliction in the loss of her + little girl. My correspondent asked me to copy for her ten or a dozen + lines from a poem which I had written years before on the death of a + child. The request was so shrinkingly put, with such an appealing air of + doubt as to its being heeded, that I immediately transcribed the entire + poem, a matter of a hundred lines or so, and sent it to her. I am unable + to this day to decide whether I was wholly hurt or wholly amused when, two + months afterward, I stumbled over my manuscript, with a neat price + attached to it, in a second-hand bookshop.” + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most distressing feature of the whole business is the very + poor health which seems to prevail among autograph hunters. No other class + of persons in the community shows so large a percentage of confirmed + invalids. There certainly is some mysterious connection between incipient + spinal trouble and the collecting of autographs. Which superinduces the + other is a question for pathology. It is a fact that one out of every + eight applicants for a specimen of penmanship bases his or her claim upon + the possession of some vertebral disability which leaves him or her + incapable of doing anything but write to authors for their autograph. Why + this particular diversion should be the sole resource remains undisclosed. + But so it appears to be, and the appeal to one's sympathy is most direct + and persuasive. Personally, however, I have my suspicions, suspicions that + are shared by several men of letters, who have come to regard this plea of + invalidism, in the majority of cases, as simply the variation of a very + old and familiar tune. I firmly believe that the health of autograph + hunters, as a class, is excellent. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ROBERT HERRICK + </h2> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <p> + A LITTLE over three hundred years ago England had given to her a poet of + the very rarest lyrical quality, but she did not discover the fact for + more than a hundred and fifty years afterward. The poet himself was aware + of the fact at once, and stated it, perhaps not too modestly, in countless + quatrains and couplets, which were not read, or, if read, were not much + regarded at the moment. It has always been an incredulous world in this + matter. So many poets have announced their arrival, and not arrived! + </p> + <p> + Robert Herrick was descended in a direct line from an ancient family in + Lincolnshire, the Eyricks, a mentionable representative of which was John + Eyrick of Leicester, the poet's grandfather, admitted freeman in 1535, and + afterward twice made mayor of the town. John Eyrick or Heyricke—he + spelled his name recklessly—had five sons, the second of which + sought a career in London, where he became a goldsmith, and in December, + 1582, married Julian Stone, spinster, of Bedfordshire, a sister to Anne, + Lady Soame, the wife of Sir Stephen Soame. One of the many children of + this marriage was Robert Herrick. + </p> + <p> + It is the common misfortune of the poet's biographers, though it was the + poet's own great good fortune, that the personal interviewer was an + unknown quantity at the period when Herrick played his part on the stage + of life. Of that performance, in its intimate aspects, we have only the + slightest record. + </p> + <p> + Robert Herrick was born in Wood street, Cheapside, London, in 1591, and + baptized at St. Vedast's, Foster Lane, on August 24 of that year. He had + several brothers and sisters, with whom we shall not concern ourselves. It + would be idle to add the little we know about these persons to the little + we know about Herrick himself. He is a sufficient problem without dragging + in the rest of the family. + </p> + <p> + When the future lyrist was fifteen months old his father, Nicholas + Herrick, made his will, and immediately fell out of an upper window. + Whether or not this fall was an intended sequence to the will, the high + almoner, Dr. Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, promptly put in his claim to the + estate, “all goods and chattels of suicides” becoming his by law. The + circumstances were suspicious, though not conclusive, and the good bishop, + after long litigation, consented to refer the case to arbitrators, who + awarded him two hundred and twenty pounds, thus leaving the question at + issue—whether or not Herrick's death had been his own premeditated + act—still wrapped in its original mystery. This singular law, which + had the possible effect of inducing high almoners to encourage suicide + among well-to-do persons of the lower and middle classes, was afterward + rescinded. + </p> + <p> + Nicholas Herrick did not leave his household destitute, for his estate + amounted to five thousand pounds, that is to say, twenty-five thousand + pounds in to-day's money; but there were many mouths to feed. The poet's + two uncles, Robert Herrick and William Herrick of Beaumanor, the latter + subsequently knighted (1) for his usefulness as jeweller and money-lender + to James I., were appointed guardians to the children. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (1) Dr. Grosart, in his interesting and valuable Memorial + Introduction to Herrick's poems, quotes this curious item + from Win-wood's <i>Manorials of Affairs of State</i>: “On Easter + Tuesday 1605, one Mr. William Herrick, a goldsmith in + Cheapside, was Knighted for making a Hole in the great + Diamond the King cloth wear. The party little expected the + honour, but he did his work so well as won the King to an + extraordinary liking of it.” + </pre> + <p> + Young Robert appears to have attended school in Westminster until his + fifteenth year, when he was apprenticed to Sir William, who had learned + the gentle art of goldsmith from his nephew's father. Though Robert's + indentures bound him for ten years, Sir William is supposed to have + offered no remonstrance when he was asked, long before that term expired, + to cancel the engagement and allow Robert to enter Cambridge, which he did + as fellow-commoner at St. John's College. At the end of two years he + transferred himself to Trinity Hall, with a view to economy and the + pursuit of the law—the two frequently go together. He received his + degree of B. A. in 1617, and his M. A. in 1620, having relinquished the + law for the arts. + </p> + <p> + During this time he was assumed to be in receipt of a quarterly allowance + of ten pounds—a not illiberal provision, the pound being then five + times its present value; but as the payments were eccentric, the master of + arts was in recurrent distress. If this money came from his own share of + his father's estate, as seems likely, Herrick had cause for complaint; if + otherwise, the pith is taken out of his grievance. + </p> + <p> + The Iliad of his financial woes at this juncture is told in a few + chance-preserved letters written to his “most careful uncle,” as he calls + that evidently thrifty person. In one of these monotonous and dreary + epistles, which are signed “R. Hearick,” the writer says: “The essence of + my writing is (as heretofore) to entreat you to paye for my use to Mr. + Arthour Johnson, bookseller, in Paule's Churchyarde, the ordinarie sume of + tenn pounds, and that with as much sceleritie as you maye.” He also + indulges in the natural wish that his college bills “had leaden wings and + tortice feet.” This was in 1617. The young man's patrimony, whatever it + may have been, had dwindled, and he confesses to “many a throe and pinches + of the purse.” For the moment, at least, his prospects were not + flattering. + </p> + <p> + Robert Herrick's means of livelihood, when in 1620 he quitted the + university and went up to London, are conjectural. It is clear that he was + not without some resources, since he did not starve to death on his wits + before he discovered a patron in the Earl of Pembroke. In the court circle + Herrick also unearthed humbler, but perhaps not less useful, allies in the + persons of Edward Norgate, clerk of the signet, and Master John Crofts, + cup-bearer to the king. Through the two New Year anthems, honored by the + music of Henry Lawes, his Majesty's organist at Westminster, it is more + than possible that Herrick was brought to the personal notice of Charles + and Henrietta Maria. All this was a promise of success, but not success + itself. It has been thought probable that Herrick may have secured some + minor office in the chapel at Whitehall. That would accord with his + subsequent appointment (September, 1627,) as chaplain to the Duke of + Buckingham's unfortunate expedition of the Isle of Rhe. + </p> + <p> + Precisely when Herrick was invested with holy orders is not ascertainable. + If one may draw an inference from his poems, the life he led meanwhile was + not such as his “most careful uncle” would have warmly approved. The + literary clubs and coffee-houses of the day were open to a free-lance like + young Herrick, some of whose blithe measures, passing in manuscript from + hand to hand, had brought him faintly to light as a poet. The Dog and the + Triple Tun were not places devoted to worship, unless it were to the + worship of “rare Ben Jonson,” at whose feet Herrick now sat, with the + other blossoming young poets of the season. He was a faithful disciple to + the end, and addressed many loving lyrics to the master, of which not the + least graceful is His Prayer to Ben Jonson: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When I a verse shall make, + Know I have praid thee + For old religion's sake, + Saint Ben, to aide me. + + Make the way smooth for me, + When I, thy Herrick, + Honouring thee, on my knee + Offer my lyric. + + Candles I'll give to thee, + And a new altar; + And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be + Writ in my Psalter. +</pre> + <p> + On September 30, 1629, Charles I., at the recommending of the Earl of + Exeter, presented Herrick with the vicarage of Dean Prior, near Totnes, in + Devonshire. Here he was destined to pass the next nineteen years of his + life among surroundings not congenial. For Herrick to be a mile away from + London stone was for Herrick to be in exile. Even with railway and + telegraphic interruptions from the outside world, the dullness of a + provincial English town of today is something formidable. The dullness of + a sequestered English hamlet in the early part of the seventeenth century + must have been appalling. One is dimly conscious of a belated throb of + sympathy for Robert Herrick. Yet, however discontented or unhappy he may + have been at first in that lonely vicarage, the world may congratulate + itself on the circumstances that stranded him there, far from the + distractions of the town, and with no other solace than his Muse, for + there it was he wrote the greater number of the poems which were to make + his fame. It is to this accidental banishment to Devon that we owe the + cluster of exquisite pieces descriptive of obsolete rural manners and + customs—the Christmas masks, the Twelfth-night mummeries, the + morris-dances, and the May-day festivals. + </p> + <p> + The November following Herrick's appointment to the benefice was marked by + the death of his mother, who left him no heavier legacy than “a ringe of + twenty shillings.” Perhaps this was an understood arrangement between + them; but it is to be observed that, though Herrick was a spendthrift in + epitaphs, he wasted no funeral lines on Julian Herrick. In the matter of + verse he dealt generously with his family down to the latest nephew. One + of his most charming and touching poems is entitled To His Dying Brother, + Master William Herrick, a posthumous son. There appear to have been two + brothers named William. The younger, who died early, is supposed to be + referred to here. + </p> + <p> + The story of Herrick's existence at Dean Prior is as vague and bare of + detail as the rest of the narrative. His parochial duties must have been + irksome to him, and it is to be imagined that he wore his cassock lightly. + As a preparation for ecclesiastical life he forswore sack and poetry; but + presently he was with the Muse again, and his farewell to sack was in a + strictly Pickwickian sense. Herrick had probably accepted the vicarship as + he would have accepted a lieutenancy in a troop of horse—with an eye + to present emolument and future promotion. The promotion never came, and + the emolument was nearly as scant as that of Goldsmith's parson, who + considered himself “passing rich with forty pounds a year”—a height + of optimism beyond the reach of Herrick, with his expensive town wants and + habits. But fifty pounds—the salary of his benefice—and + possible perquisites in the way of marriage and burial fees would enable + him to live for the time being. It was better than a possible nothing a + year in London. + </p> + <p> + Herrick's religious convictions were assuredly not deeper than those of + the average layman. Various writers have taken a different view of the + subject; but it is inconceivable that a clergyman with a fitting sense of + his function could have written certain of the poems which Herrick + afterward gave to the world—those astonishing epigrams upon his + rustic enemies, and those habitual bridal compliments which, among his + personal friends, must have added a terror to matrimony. Had he written + only in that vein, the posterity which he so often invoked with pathetic + confidence would not have greatly troubled itself about him. + </p> + <p> + It cannot positively be asserted that all the verses in question relate to + the period of his incumbency, for none of his verse is dated, with the + exception of the Dialogue betwixt Horace and Lydia. The date of some of + the compositions may be arrived at by induction. The religious pieces + grouped under the title of Noble Numbers distinctly associate themselves + with Dean Prior, and have little other interest. Very few of them are + “born of the royal blood.” They lack the inspiration and magic of his + secular poetry, and are frequently so fantastical and grotesque as to stir + a suspicion touching the absolute soundness of Herrick's mind at all + times. The lines in which the Supreme Being is assured that he may read + Herrick's poems without taking any tincture from their sinfulness might + have been written in a retreat for the unbalanced. “For unconscious + impiety,” remarks Mr. Edmund Gosse, (1) “this rivals the famous passage in + which Robert Montgomery exhorted God to 'pause and think.'” Elsewhere, in + an apostrophe to “Heaven,” Herrick says: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Let mercy be + So kind to set me free, + And I will straight + Come in, or force the gate. +</pre> + <p> + In any event, the poet did not purpose to be left out! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (1) In <i>Seventeenth-Century Studies</i>. and the general + absence of arrangement in the “Hesperides,” Dr. Grosart + advances the theory that the printers exercised arbitrary + authority on these points. Dr. Grosart assumes that Herrick + kept the epigrams and personal tributes in manuscript books + separate from the rest of the work, which would have made a + too slender volume by itself, and on the plea of this + slender-ness was induced to trust the two collections to the + publisher, “whereupon he or some un-skilled subordinate + proceeded to intermix these additions with the others. That + the poet him-self had nothing to do with the arrangement or + disarrangement lies on the surface.” This is an amiable + supposition, but merely a supposition. +</pre> + <p> + Relative to the inclusion of unworthy pieces, Herrick personally placed + the “copy” in the hands of John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, and if he + were over-persuaded to allow them to print unfit verses, and to observe no + method whatever in the contents of the book, the discredit is none the + less his. It is charitable to believe that Herrick's coarseness was not + the coarseness of the man, but of the time, and that he followed the + fashion <i>malgre lui</i>. With regard to the fairy poems, they certainly + should have been given in sequence; but if there are careless printers, + there are also authors who are careless in the arrangement of their + manuscript, a kind of task, moreover, in which Herrick was wholly + unpractised, and might easily have made mistakes. The “Hesperides” was his + sole publication. + </p> + <p> + Herrick was now thirty-eight years of age. Of his personal appearance at + this time we have no description. The portrait of him prefixed to the + original edition of his works belongs to a much later moment. Whether or + not the bovine features in Marshall's engraving are a libel on the poet, + it is to be regretted that oblivion has not laid its erasing finger on + that singularly unpleasant counterfeit presentment. It is interesting to + note that this same Marshall engraved the head of Milton for the first + collection of his miscellaneous poems—the precious 1645 volume + containing Il Penseroso, Lycidas, Comus, etc. The plate gave great offense + to the serious-minded young Milton, not only because it represented him as + an elderly person, but because of certain minute figures of peasant lads + and lassies who are very indistinctly seen dancing frivolously under the + trees in the background. Herrick had more reason to protest. The + aggressive face bestowed upon him by the artist lends a tone of veracity + to the tradition that the vicar occasionally hurled the manuscript of his + sermon at the heads of his drowsy parishioners, accompanying the missive + with pregnant remarks. He has the aspect of one meditating assault and + battery. + </p> + <p> + To offset the picture there is much indirect testimony to the amiability + of the man, aside from the evidence furnished by his own writings. He + exhibits a fine trait in the poem on the Bishop of Lincoln's imprisonment—a + poem full of deference and tenderness for a person who had evidently + injured the writer, probably by opposing him in some affair of church + preferment. Anthony Wood says that Herrick “became much beloved by the + gentry in these parts for his florid and witty (wise) discourses.” It + appears that he was fond of animals, and had a pet spaniel called Tracy, + which did not get away without a couplet attached to him: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see + For shape and service spaniell like to thee. +</pre> + <p> + Among the exile's chance acquaintances was a sparrow, whose elegy he also + sings, comparing the bird to Lesbia's sparrow, much to the latter's + disadvantage. All of Herrick's geese were swans. On the authority of + Dorothy King, the daughter of a woman who served Herrick's successor at + Dean Prior in 1674, we are told that the poet kept a pig, which he had + taught to drink out of a tankard—a kind of instruction he was + admirably qualified to impart. Dorothy was in her ninety-ninth year when + she communicated this fact to Mr. Barron Field, the author of the paper on + Herrick published in the “Quarterly Review” for August, 1810, and in the + Boston edition (1) of the “Hesperides” attributed to Southey. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (1) The Biographical Notice prefacing this volume of The + British Poets is a remarkable production, grammatically and + chronologi-cally. On page 7 the writer speaks of Herrick as + living “in habits of intimacy” with Ben Jonson in 1648. If + that was the case, Her-rick must have taken up his quarters + in Westminster Abbey, for Jonson had been dead eleven years. +</pre> + <p> + What else do we know of the vicar? A very favorite theme with Herrick was + Herrick. Scattered through his book are no fewer than twenty-five pieces + entitled On Himself, not to mention numberless autobiographical hints + under other captions. They are merely hints, throwing casual side-lights + on his likes and dislikes, and illuminating his vanity. A whimsical + personage without any very definite outlines might be evolved from these + fragments. I picture him as a sort of Samuel Pepys, with perhaps less + quaintness, and the poetical temperament added. Like the prince of + gossips, too, he somehow gets at your affections. In one place Herrick + laments the threatened failure of his eyesight (quite in what would have + been Pepys's manner had Pepys written verse), and in another place he + tells us of the loss of a finger. The quatrain treating of this latter + catastrophe is as fantastic as some of Dr. Donne's <i>concetti</i>: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + One of the five straight branches of my hand + Is lopt already, and the rest but stand + Expecting when to fall, which soon will be: + First dies the leafe, the bough next, next the tree. +</pre> + <p> + With all his great show of candor Herrick really reveals as little of + himself as ever poet did. One thing, however, is manifest—he + understood and loved music. None but a lover could have said: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The mellow touch of musick most doth wound + The soule when it doth rather sigh than sound. +</pre> + <p> + Or this to Julia: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + So smooth, so sweet, so silvery is thy voice, + As could they hear, the damn'd would make no noise, + But listen to thee walking in thy chamber + Melting melodious words to lutes of amber. + + . . . Then let me lye + Entranc'd, and lost confusedly; + And by thy musick stricken mute, + Die, and be turn'd into a lute. +</pre> + <p> + Herrick never married. His modest Devonshire establishment was managed by + a maidservant named Prudence Baldwin. “Fate likes fine names,” says + Lowell. That of Herrick's maid-of-all-work was certainly a happy meeting + of gentle vowels and consonants, and has had the good fortune to be + embalmed in the amber of what may be called a joyous little threnody: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In this little urne is laid + Prewdence Baldwin, once my maid; + From whose happy spark here let + Spring the purple violet. +</pre> + <p> + Herrick addressed a number of poems to her before her death, which seems + to have deeply touched him in his loneliness. We shall not allow a + pleasing illusion to be disturbed by the flippancy of an old writer who + says that “Prue was but indifferently qualified to be a tenth muse.” She + was a faithful handmaid, and had the merit of causing Herrick in this + octave to strike a note of sincerity not usual with him: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + These summer birds did with thy master stay + The times of warmth, but then they flew away, + Leaving their poet, being now grown old, + Expos'd to all the coming winter's cold. + But thou, kind Prew, didst with my fates abide + As well the winter's as the summer's tide: + For which thy love, live with thy master here + Not two, but all the seasons of the year. +</pre> + <p> + Thus much have I done for thy memory, Mistress Prew! + </p> + <p> + In spite of Herrick's disparagement of Deanbourn, which he calls “a rude + river,” and his characterization of Devon folk as “a people currish, + churlish as the seas,” the fullest and pleasantest days of his life were + probably spent at Dean Prior. He was not unmindful meanwhile of the + gathering political storm that was to shake England to its foundations. + How anxiously, in his solitude, he watched the course of events, is + attested by many of his poems. This solitude was not without its + compensation. “I confess,” he says, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I ne'er invented such + Ennobled numbers for the presse + Than where I loath'd so much. +</pre> + <p> + A man is never wholly unhappy when he is writing verses. Herrick was + firmly convinced that each new lyric was a stone added to the pillar of + his fame, and perhaps his sense of relief was tinged with indefinable + regret when he found himself suddenly deprived of his benefice. The + integrity of some of his royalistic poems is doubtful; but he was not + given the benefit of the doubt by the Long Parliament, which ejected the + panegyrist of young Prince Charles from the vicarage of Dean Prior, and + installed in his place the venerable John Syms, a gentleman with + pronounced Cromwellian views. + </p> + <p> + Herrick metaphorically snapped his fingers at the Puritans, discarded his + clerical habiliments, and hastened to London to pick up such as were left + of the gay-colored threads of his old experience there. Once more he would + drink sack at the Triple Tun, once more he would breathe the air breathed + by such poets and wits as Cotton, Denham, Shirley, Selden, and the rest. + “Yes, by Saint Anne! and ginger shall be hot I' the mouth too.” In the + gladness of getting back “from the dull confines of the drooping west,” he + writes a glowing apostrophe to London—that “stony stepmother to + poets.” He claims to be a free-born Roman, and is proud to find himself a + citizen again. According to his earlier biographers, Herrick had much ado + not to starve in that same longed-for London, and fell into great misery; + but Dr. Grosart disputes this, arguing, with justness, that Herrick's + family, which was wealthy and influential, would not have allowed him to + come to abject want. With his royalistic tendencies he may not have + breathed quite freely in the atmosphere of the Commonwealth, and no doubt + many tribulations fell to his lot, but among them was not poverty. + </p> + <p> + The poet was now engaged in preparing his works for the press, and a few + weeks following his return to London they were issued in a single volume + with the title “Hesperides; or, The Works both Humane and Divine of Robert + Herrick, Esq.” + </p> + <p> + The time was not ready for him. A new era had dawned—the era of the + commonplace. The interval was come when Shakespeare himself was to lie in + a kind of twilight. Herrick was in spirit an Elizabethan, and had strayed + by chance into an artificial and prosaic age—a sylvan singing + creature alighting on an alien planet. “He was too natural,” says Mr. + Palgrave in his Chrysomela, “too purely poetical; he had not the learned + polish, the political allusion, the tone of the city, the didactic turn, + which were then and onward demanded from poetry.” Yet it is strange that a + public which had a relish for Edmund Waller should neglect a poet who was + fifty times finer than Waller in his own specialty. What poet then, or in + the half-century that followed the Restoration, could have written + Corinna's Going a-Maying, or approached in kind the ineffable grace and + perfection to be found in a score of Herrick's lyrics? + </p> + <p> + The “Hesperides” was received with chilling indifference. None of + Herrick's great contemporaries has left a consecrating word concerning it. + The book was not reprinted during the author's lifetime, and for more than + a century after his death Herrick was virtually unread. In 1796 the + “Gentleman's Magazine” copied a few of the poems, and two years later Dr. + Nathan Drake published in his “Literary Hours” three critical papers on + the poet, with specimens of his writings. Dr. Johnson omitted him from the + “Lives of the Poets,” though space was found for half a score of + poetasters whose names are to be found nowhere else. In 1810 Dr. Nott, a + physician of Bristol, issued a small volume of selections. It was not + until 1823 that Herrick was reprinted in full. It remained for the taste + of our own day to multiply editions of him. + </p> + <p> + In order to set the seal to Herrick's fame, it is now only needful that + some wiseacre should attribute the authorship of the poems to some man who + could not possibly have written a line of them. The opportunity presents + attractions that ought to be irresistible. Excepting a handful of + Herrick's college letters there is no scrap of his manuscript extant; the + men who drank and jested with the poet at the Dog or the Triple Tun make + no reference to him; (1) and in the wide parenthesis formed by his birth + and death we find as little tangible incident as is discoverable in the + briefer span of Shakespeare's fifty-two years. Here is material for + profundity and ciphers! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (1) With the single exception of the writer of some verses + in the <i>Musarum Deliciae</i> (1656) who mentions + + That old sack + Young Herrick took to entertain + The Muses in a sprightly vein. +</pre> + <p> + Herrick's second sojourn in London covered the period between 1648 and + 1662, curing which interim he fades from sight, excepting for the instant + when he is publishing his book. If he engaged in further literary work + there are no evidences of it beyond one contribution to the “Lacrymae + Musarum” in 1649. + </p> + <p> + He seems to have had lodgings, for a while at least, in St. Anne's, + Westminster. With the court in exile and the grim Roundheads seated in the + seats of the mighty, it was no longer the merry London of his early + manhood. Time and war had thinned the ranks of friends; in the old haunts + the old familiar faces were wanting. Ben Jonson was dead, Waller banished, + and many another comrade “in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes.” As + Herrick walked through crowded Cheapside or along the dingy river-bank in + those years, his thought must have turned more than once to the little + vicarage in Devonshire, and lingered tenderly. + </p> + <p> + On the accession of Charles II. a favorable change of wind wafted Herrick + back to his former moorings at Dean Prior, the obnoxious Syms having been + turned adrift. This occurred on August 24, 1662, the seventy-first + anniversary of the poet's baptism. Of Herrick's movements after that, + tradition does not furnish even the shadow of an outline. The only notable + event concerning him is recorded twelve years later in the parish + register: “Robert Herrick, vicker, was buried ye 15th day October, 1674.” + He was eighty-three years old. The location of his grave is unknown. In + 1857 a monument to his memory was erected in Dean Church. And this is all. + </p> + <p> + II + </p> + <p> + THE details that have come down to us touching Herrick's private life are + as meagre as if he had been a Marlowe or a Shakespeare. But were they as + ample as could be desired they would still be unimportant compared with + the single fact that in 1648 he gave to the world his “Hesperides.” The + environments of the man were accidental and transitory. The significant + part of him we have, and that is enduring so long as wit, fancy, and + melodious numbers hold a charm for mankind. + </p> + <p> + A fine thing incomparably said instantly becomes familiar, and has + henceforth a sort of dateless excellence. Though it may have been said + three hundred years ago, it is as modern as yesterday; though it may have + been said yesterday, it has the trick of seeming to have been always in + our keeping. This quality of remoteness and nearness belongs, in a + striking degree, to Herrick's poems. They are as novel to-day as they were + on the lips of a choice few of his contemporaries, who, in reading them in + their freshness, must surely have been aware here and there of the ageless + grace of old idyllic poets dead and gone. + </p> + <p> + Herrick was the bearer of no heavy message to the world, and such message + as he had he was apparently in no hurry to deliver. On this point he + somewhere says: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Let others to the printing presse run fast; + Since after death comes glory, I 'll not haste. +</pre> + <p> + He had need of his patience, for he was long detained on the road by many + of those obstacles that waylay poets on their journeys to the printer. + </p> + <p> + Herrick was nearly sixty years old when he published the “Hesperides.” It + was, I repeat, no heavy message, and the bearer was left an unconscionable + time to cool his heels in the antechamber. Though his pieces had been set + to music by such composers as Lawes, Ramsay, and Laniers, and his court + poems had naturally won favor with the Cavalier party, Herrick cut but a + small figure at the side of several of his rhyming contemporaries who are + now forgotten. It sometimes happens that the light love-song, reaching few + or no ears at its first singing, outlasts the seemingly more prosperous + ode which, dealing with some passing phase of thought, social or + political, gains the instant applause of the multitude. In most cases the + timely ode is somehow apt to fade with the circumstance that inspired it, + and becomes the yesterday's editorial of literature. Oblivion likes + especially to get hold of occasional poems. That makes it hard for feeble + poets laureate. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Henry James once characterized Alphonse Daudet as “a great little + novelist.” Robert Herrick is a great little poet. The brevity of his + poems, for he wrote nothing <i>de longue haleine</i>, would place him + among the minor singers; his workmanship places him among the masters. The + Herricks were not a family of goldsmiths and lapidaries for nothing. The + accurate touch of the artificer in jewels and costly metals was one of the + gifts transmitted to Robert Herrick. Much of his work is as exquisite and + precise as the chasing on a dagger-hilt by Cellini; the line has nearly + always that vine-like fluency which seems impromptu, and is never the + result of anything but austere labor. The critic who, borrowing Milton's + words, described these carefully wrought poems as “wood-notes wild” showed + a singular lapse of penetration. They are full of subtle simplicity. Here + we come across a stanza as severely cut as an antique cameo—the + stanza, for instance, in which the poet speaks of his lady-love's “winter + face”—and there a couplet that breaks into unfading daffodils and + violets. The art, though invisible, is always there. His amatory songs and + catches are such poetry as Orlando would have liked to hang on the boughs + in the forest of Arden. None of the work is hastily done, not even that + portion of it we could wish had not been done at all. Be the motive grave + or gay, it is given that faultlessness of form which distinguishes + everything in literature that has survived its own period. There is no + such thing as “form” alone; it is only the close-grained material that + takes the highest finish. The structure of Herrick's verse, like that of + Blake, is simple to the verge of innocence. Such rhythmic intricacies as + those of Shelley, Tennyson, and Swinburne he never dreamed of. But his + manner has this perfection: it fits his matter as the cup of the acorn + fits its meat. + </p> + <p> + Of passion, in the deeper sense, Herrick has little or none. Here are no + “tears from the depth of some divine despair,” no probings into the tragic + heart of man, no insight that goes much farther than the pathos of a + cowslip on a maiden's grave. The tendrils of his verse reach up to the + light, and love the warmer side of the garden wall. But the reader who + does not detect the seriousness under the lightness misreads Herrick. + Nearly all true poets have been wholesome and joyous singers. A + pessimistic poet, like the poisonous ivy, is one of nature's sarcasms. In + his own bright pastoral way Herrick must always remain unexcelled. His + limitations are certainly narrow, but they leave him in the sunshine. + Neither in his thought nor in his utterance is there any complexity; both + are as pellucid as a woodland pond, content to duplicate the osiers and + ferns, and, by chance, the face of a girl straying near its crystal. His + is no troubled stream in which large trout are caught. He must be accepted + on his own terms. + </p> + <p> + The greatest poets have, with rare exceptions, been the most indebted to + their predecessors or to their contemporaries. It has wittily been + remarked that only mediocrity is ever wholly original. Impressionability + is one of the conditions of the creative faculty: the sensitive mind is + the only mind that invents. What the poet reads, sees, and feels, goes + into his blood, and becomes an ingredient of his originality. The color of + his thought instinctively blends itself with the color of its affinities. + A writer's style, if it have distinction, is the outcome of a hundred + styles. + </p> + <p> + Though a generous borrower of the ancients, Herrick appears to have been + exceptionally free from the influence of contemporary minds. Here and + there in his work are traces of his beloved Ben Jonson, or fleeting + impressions of Fletcher, and in one instance a direct infringement on + Suckling; but the sum of Herrick's obligations of this sort is + inconsiderable. + </p> + <p> + This indifference to other writers of his time, this insularity, was + doubtless his loss. The more exalted imagination of Vaughan or Marvell or + Herbert might have taught him a deeper note than he sounded in his purely + devotional poems. Milton, of course, moved in a sphere apart. Shakespeare, + whose personality still haunted the clubs and taverns which Herrick + frequented on his first going up to London, failed to lay any appreciable + spell upon him. That great name, moreover, is a jewel which finds no + setting in Herrick's rhyme. His general reticence relative to brother + poets is extremely curious when we reflect on his penchant for addressing + four-line epics to this or that individual. They were, in the main, + obscure individuals, whose identity is scarcely worth establishing. His + London life, at two different periods, brought him into contact with many + of the celebrities of the day; but his verse has helped to confer + immortality on very few of them. That his verse had the secret of + conferring immortality was one of his unshaken convictions. Shakespeare + had not a finer confidence when he wrote, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Not marble nor the gilded monuments + Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, +</pre> + <p> + than has Herrick whenever he speaks of his own poetry, and he is not by + any means backward in speaking of it. It was the breath of his nostrils. + Without his Muse those nineteen years in that dull, secluded Devonshire + village would have been unendurable. + </p> + <p> + His poetry has the value and the defect of that seclusion. In spite, + however, of his contracted horizon there is great variety in Herrick's + themes. Their scope cannot be stated so happily as he has stated it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, + Of April, May, of June, and July flowers; + I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, + Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes; + I write of Youth, of Love, and have access + By these to sing of cleanly wantonness; + I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece + Of balm, of oil, of spice and ambergris; + I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write + How roses first came red and lilies white; + I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing + The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King; + I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall) + Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all. +</pre> + <p> + Never was there so pretty a table of contents! When you open his book the + breath of the English rural year fans your cheek; the pages seem to exhale + wildwood and meadow smells, as if sprigs of tansy and lavender had been + shut up in the volume and forgotten. One has a sense of hawthorn hedges + and wide-spreading oaks, of open lead-set lattices half hidden with + honeysuckle; and distant voices of the haymakers, returning home in the + rosy afterglow, fall dreamily on one's ear, as sounds should fall when + fancy listens. There is no English poet so thoroughly English as Herrick. + He painted the country life of his own time as no other has painted it at + any time. + </p> + <p> + It is to be remarked that the majority of English poets regarded as + national have sought their chief inspiration in almost every land and + period excepting their own. Shakespeare went to Italy, Denmark, Greece, + Egypt, and to many a hitherto unfooted region of the imagination, for plot + and character. It was not Whitehall Garden, but the Garden of Eden and the + celestial spaces, that lured Milton. It is the Ode on a Grecian Urn, The + Eve of St. Agnes, and the noble fragment of Hyperion that have given Keats + his spacious niche in the gallery of England's poets. Shelley's two + masterpieces, Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, belong respectively to + Greece and Italy. Browning's The Ring and the Book is Italian; Tennyson + wandered to the land of myth for the Idylls of the King, and Matthew + Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum—a narrative poem second in dignity to + none produced in the nineteenth century—is a Persian story. But + Herrick's “golden apples” sprang from the soil in his own day, and + reddened in the mist and sunshine of his native island. + </p> + <p> + Even the fairy poems, which must be classed by themselves, are not wanting + in local flavor. Herrick's fairy world is an immeasurable distance from + that of “A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Puck and Titania are of finer breath + than Herrick's little folk, who may be said to have Devonshire manners and + to live in a miniature England of their own. Like the magician who summons + them from nowhere, they are fond of color and perfume and substantial + feasts, and indulge in heavy draughts—from the cups of + morning-glories. In the tiny sphere they inhabit everything is marvelously + adapted to their requirement; nothing is out of proportion or out of + perspective. The elves are a strictly religious people in their winsome + way, “part pagan, part papistical;” they have their pardons and + indulgences, their psalters and chapels, and + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + An apple's-core is hung up dried, + With rattling kernels, which is rung + To call to Morn and Even-song; +</pre> + <p> + and very conveniently, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Hard by, I' th' shell of half a nut, + The Holy-water there is put. +</pre> + <p> + It is all delightfully naive and fanciful, this elfin-world, where the + impossible does not strike one as incongruous, and the England of 1648 + seems never very far away. + </p> + <p> + It is only among the apparently unpremeditated lyrical flights of the + Elizabethan dramatists that one meets with anything like the lilt and + liquid flow of Herrick's songs. While in no degree Shakespearian echoes, + there are epithalamia and dirges of his that might properly have fallen + from the lips of Posthumus in “Cymbeline.” This delicate epicede would + have fitted Imogen: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Here a solemne fast we keepe + While all beauty lyes asleepe; + Husht be all things; no noyse here + But the toning of a teare, + Or a sigh of such as bring + Cowslips for her covering. +</pre> + <p> + Many of the pieces are purely dramatic in essence; the Mad Maid's Song, + for example. The lyrist may speak in character, like the dramatist. A + poet's lyrics may be, as most of Browning's are, just so many <i>dramatis + personae</i>. “Enter a Song singing” is the stage-direction in a + seventeenth-century play whose name escapes me. The sentiment dramatized + in a lyric is not necessarily a personal expression. In one of his + couplets Herrick neatly denies that his more mercurial utterances are + intended presentations of himself: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + To his Book's end this last line he'd have placed— + Jocund his Muse was, but his Life was chaste. +</pre> + <p> + In point of fact he was a whole group of imaginary lovers in one. Silvia, + Anthea, Electra, Perilla, Perenna, and the rest of those lively ladies + ending in <i>a</i>, were doubtless, for the most part, but airy phantoms + dancing—as they should not have danced—through the brain of a + sentimental old bachelor who happened to be a vicar of the Church of + England. Even with his overplus of heart it would have been quite + impossible for him to have had enough to go round had there been so + numerous actual demands upon it. + </p> + <p> + Thus much may be conceded to Herrick's verse: at its best it has wings + that carry it nearly as close to heaven's gate as any of Shakespeare's + lark-like interludes. The brevity of the poems and their uniform + smoothness sometimes produce the effect of monotony. The crowded richness + of the line advises a desultory reading. But one must go back to them + again and again. They bewitch the memory, having once caught it, and + insist on saying themselves over and over. Among the poets of England the + author of the “Hesperides” remains, and is likely to remain, unique. As + Shakespeare stands alone in his vast domain, so Herrick stands alone in + his scanty plot of ground. + </p> + <p> + “Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content.” + </p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PONKAPOG PAPERS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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