Quiet and fair in tone; condensed to the last point, and still
perfectly clear; written in such pure English that the youngest
reader can understand, yet free from an affectation of baby talk,
which is often considered indispensable in children’s books—the
“Young Folks’ History of the United States” makes a refreshing
contrast to the kind of school book with which Abbott and Loomis,
and men of their stamp have inundated the country. Not that these
latter, in spite of bombast and dryness, may not have served a
purpose in their day and generation, no better men having come
forward heretofore, but that a more thoughtful and scientific age
demands better work.—_Scribner’s Monthly._
Criticism on “Back-Log Studies.”
In “Back-Log Studies” there are, no doubt, some essentially inartistic
things—some long episodes; for example, such as the “New Vision of Sin”
and the “Uncle in India,” which are clearly inferior in texture to the
rest, and not quite worth the space they occupy; but, as a whole, the
book is certainly a most agreeable contribution to the literature of the
Meditative school. And it is saying a great deal to say this. To make
such an attempt successful there must be a lightness of touch sustained
through everything; there must be a predominant sweetness of flavor,
and that air of joyous ease which is often the final triumph of labor.
There must also be a power of analysis, always subtle, never prolonged;
there must be description, minute enough to be graphic, yet never carried
to the borders of fatigue; there must also be glimpses of restrained
passion, and of earnestness kept in reserve. All these are essential,
and all these the “Back-Log Studies” show. If other resources were
added—as depth of thought, or powerful imagination, or wide learning, or
constructive power—they would only carry the book beyond the proper ranks
of the Meditative school, and place it in that higher grade of literature
to which Holmes’ “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” belongs. Yet it may be
better not to insist on this distinction, for it is Mr. Warner himself
who wisely reminds us that “the most unprofitable and unsatisfactory
criticism is that of comparison.”
It is as true in literature as in painting that “it is in the perfection
and precision of the instantaneous line that the claim to immortality
is made.” The first and simplest test of good writing is in the fresh
and incisive phrases it yields; and in this respect “Back-Log Studies”
is strong. The author has not only the courage of his opinions, but he
has the courage of his phrases, which is quite as essential. What an
admirable touch, for instance, is that where Mr. Warner says that a
great wood-fire in a wide kitchen chimney, with all the pots and kettles
boiling and bubbling, and a roasting spit turning in front of it, “makes
a person as hungry as one of Scott’s novels!” Fancy the bewilderment of
some slow and well-meaning man upon encountering that stroke of fancy;
his going over it slowly from beginning to end, and then again backward
from end to beginning, studying it with microscopic eye, to find where
the resemblance comes in, until at last it occurs to him that possibly
there may be a typographical error somewhere, and that, with a little
revision, the sentence might become intelligible! He does not know that
in literature, as in life, nothing venture, nothing have; and that it
often requires precisely such an audacious stroke as this to capture the
most telling analogies.
There occurs just after this, in “Back-Log Studies,” a sentence which
has long since found its way to the universal heart, and which is worth
citing, as an example of the delicate rhetorical art of under-statement.
To construct a climax is within the reach of every one; there is not a
Fourth-of-July orator who can not erect for himself a heaven-scaling
ladder of that description, climb its successive steps, and then tumble
from the top. But to let your climax swell beneath you like a wave of the
sea, and then let it subside under you so gently that your hearer shall
find himself more stirred by your moderation than by your impulse; this
is a triumph of style. Thus our author paints a day of winter storm; for
instance, the wild snow-drifts beating against the cottage window, and
the boy in the chimney-corner reading about General Burgoyne and the
Indian wars. “I should like to know what heroism a boy in an old New
England farm-house, rough-nursed by nature, and fed on the traditions
of the old wars, did not aspire to—‘John,’ says the mother, ‘you’ll
burn your head to a crisp in that heat.’ But John does not hear; he is
storming the Plains of Abraham just now. ‘Johnny, dear, bring in a stick
of wood.’ How can Johnny bring in wood when he is in that defile with
Braddock, and the Indians are popping at him from behind every tree?
There is something about a boy that I like, after all.”
I defy any one who has a heart for children to resist that last sentence.
Considered critically, it is the very triumph of under-statement—of
delicious, provoking, perfectly unexpected, moderation. It is a
refreshing dash of cool water just as we were beginning to grow heated.
Like that, it calls our latent heat to the surface by a kindly reaction;
the writer surprises us by claiming so little that we concede everything;
we at once compensate by our own enthusiasm for this inexplicable
lowering of the demand. Like him! of course we like him—that curly-pated,
rosy-cheeked boy, with his story books and his Indians! But if we had
been called upon to adore him, it is very doubtful whether we should
have liked him at all. And this preference for effects secured by quiet
methods—for producing emphasis without the use of italics, and arresting
attention without resorting to exclamation points—is the crowning merit
of the later style of Mr. Warner.
HENRY JAMES, Jr.
Mr. Henry James, Jr., inherits from his father a diction so rich
and pure, so fluent and copious, so finely shaded, yet capable
of such varied service, that it is, in itself, a form of genius.
Few men have ever been so brilliantly equipped for literary
performance. Carefully trained taste, large acquirements of
knowledge, experience of lands and races, and association with
the best minds have combined to supply him with all the purely
intellectual requisites which an author could desire.—_Bayard
Taylor._
As a story-teller, we know of no one who is entitled to rank
higher, since Poe and Hawthorne are gone, than Mr. James.
His style is pure and finished, and marked by the nicety of
expression which is so noticeable among the best French writers
of fiction.—_Louisville Courier-Journal._
The “Portrait of a Lady” is a very clever book, and a book of
very great interest. We do not know a living English novelist who
could have written it.—_Pall Mall Gazette._
Carlyle’s Letters to Emerson.
Carlyle takes his place among the first of English, among the very first
of all letter-writers. All his great merits come out in this form of
expression; and his defects are not felt as defects, but only as striking
characteristics and as tones in the picture. Originality, nature, humor,
imagination, freedom, the disposition to talk, the play of mood, the
touch of confidence—these qualities, of which the letters are full, will
with the aid of an inimitable use of language—a style which glances at
nothing that it does not render grotesque—preserve their life for readers
even further removed from the occasion than ourselves, and for whom
possibly the vogue of Carlyle’s published writings in his day will be to
a certain degree a subject of wonder.
Carlyle is here in intercourse with a friend for whom, almost alone among
the persons with whom he had dealings, he appears to have entertained a
sentiment of respect—a constancy of affection untinged by that humorous
contempt in which (in most cases) he indulges when he wishes to be kind,
and which was the best refuge open to him from his other alternative of
absolutely savage mockery.
It is singular, indeed, that throughout his intercourse with Emerson he
never appears to have known the satiric fury which he directed at so
many other objects, accepting his friend _en bloc_, once for all, with
reservations and protests so light that, as addressed to Emerson’s own
character, they are only a finer form of consideration.… Other persons
have enjoyed life as little as Carlyle; other men have been pessimists
and cynics; but few men have rioted so in their disenchantments, or
thumped so perpetually upon the hollowness of things with the idea of
making it resound. Pessimism, cynicism, usually imply a certain amount of
indifference and resignation; but in Carlyle these forces were nothing if
not querulous and vocal. It must be remembered that he had an imagination
which made acquiescence difficult—an imagination haunted with theological
and apocalyptic visions. We have no occasion here to attempt to estimate
his position in literature, but we may be permitted to say that it is
mainly to this splendid imagination that he owes it. Both the moral and
the physical world were full of pictures for him, and it would seem to be
by his great pictorial energy that he will live.
Anthony Trollope.
His great, his inestimable merit was a complete appreciation of reality.
This gift is not rare in the annals of English fiction; it would
naturally be found in a walk of literature in which the feminine mind has
labored so fruitfully. Women are delicate and patient observers; they
hold their noses close, as it were, to the texture of life. They feel
and perceive the real (as well as the desirable), and their observations
are recorded in a thousand delightful volumes. Trollope therefore, with
his eyes comfortably fixed on the familiar, the actual, was far from
having invented a _genre_, as the French say; his great distinction is
that, in resting there, his vision took in so much of the field. And then
he _felt_ all common, human things as well as saw them; felt them in a
simple, direct, salubrious way, with their sadness, their gladness, their
charm, their comicality, all their obvious and measurable meanings.
Du Maurier.
He is predominantly a painter of social, as distinguished from popular
life, and when the other day he collected some of his drawings into a
volume, he found it natural to give them the title of “English Society
at Home.” He looks at the “accomplished” classes more than at the
people, though he by no means ignores the humors of humble life. His
consideration of the peculiarities of costermongers and “cadgers” is
comparatively perfunctory, as he is too fond of civilization and of the
higher refinements of the grotesque. His colleague, the frank and as the
metaphysicians say, objective, Keene, has a more natural familiarity with
the British populace. There is a whole side of English life, at which du
Maurier scarcely glances—the great sporting element, which supplies half
of their gayety and all their conversation to millions of her Majesty’s
subjects. He is shy of the turf and of the cricket field; he only touches
here and there upon the river. But he has made “society” completely his
own—he has sounded its depths, explored its mysteries, discovered and
divulged its secrets. His observation of these things is extraordinarily
acute, and his illustrations, taken together, form a complete comedy of
manners, in which the same personages constantly re-appear, so that we
have the sense, indispensable to keenness of interest, of tracing their
adventures to a climax. So many of the conditions of English life are
picturesque (and, to American eyes, even romantic), that du Maurier has
never been at a loss for subjects. We mean that he is never at a loss for
pictures. English society makes pictures all round him, and he has only
to look to see the most charming things, which at the same time have the
merit that you can always take the satirical view of them.