I should have to think long if I were ask'd to
name the man who has done more, and in more valuable directions, for
America.
I doubt if there ever was before such a fine intuitive judge and
selecter of poems. His translations of many German and Scandinavian
pieces are said to be better than the vernaculars. He does not urge or
lash. His influence is like good drink or air. He is not tepid either,
but always vital, with flavor, motion, grace. He strikes a splendid
average, and does not sing exceptional passions, or humanity's jagged
escapades. He is not revolutionary, brings nothing offensive or new,
does not deal hard blows. On the contrary, his songs soothe and heal,
or if they excite, it is a healthy and agreeable excitement. His very
anger is gentle, is at second hand, (as in the "Quadroon Girl" and the
"Witnesses.")
There is no undue element of pensiveness in Longfellow's strains. Even
in the early translation, the Manrique, the movement is as of strong
and steady wind or tide, holding up and buoying. Death is not avoided
through his many themes, but there is something almost winning in his
original verses and renderings on that dread subject--as, closing "the
Happiest Land" dispute,
And then the landlord's daughter
Up to heaven rais'd her hand,
And said, "Ye may no more contend,
There lies the happiest land."
To the ungracious complaint-charge of his want of racy nativity and
special originality, I shall only say that America and the world may
well be reverently thankful--can never be thankful enough--for any
such singing-bird vouchsafed out of the centuries, without asking
that the notes be different from those of other songsters; adding what
I have heard Longfellow himself say, that ere the New World can be
worthily original, and announce herself and her own heroes, she must
be well saturated with the originality of others, and respectfully
consider the heroes that lived before Agamemnon.
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