--A short but pleasant visit to Longfellow. I am not one of
the calling kind, but as the author of "Evangeline" kindly took the
trouble to come and see me three years ago in Camden, where I was ill,
I felt not only the impulse of my own pleasure on that occasion, but a
duty. He was the only particular eminence I called on in Boston, and
I shall not soon forget his lit-up face and glowing warmth and
courtesy, in the modes of what is called the old school.
And now just here I feel the impulse to interpolate something about
the mighty four who stamp this first American century with its
birthmarks of poetic literature. In a late magazine one of my
reviewers, who ought to know better, speaks of my "attitude of
contempt and scorn and intolerance" toward the leading poets--of my
"deriding" them, and preaching their "uselessness." If anybody cares
to know what I think--and have long thought and avow'd--about them,
I am entirely willing to propound. I can't imagine any better luck
befalling these States for a poetical beginning and initiation than
has come from Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. Emerson, to
me, stands unmistakably at the head, but for the others I am at a loss
where to give any precedence. Each illustrious, each rounded, each
distinctive. Emerson for his sweet, vital-tasting melody, rhym'd
philosophy, and poems as amber-clear as the honey of the wild bee
he loves to sing. Longfellow for rich color, graceful forms and
incidents--all that makes life beautiful and love refined--competing
with the singers of Europe on their own ground, and, with one
exception, better and finer work than that of any of them.
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