Our taste is too delicate and particular. It
says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope. It
invites him to adorn his deformities, and not to cast them off by
expansion, as the tree its bark. We are a people who live in a
bright light, in houses of pearl and porcelain, and drink only
light wines, whose teeth are easily set on edge by the least
natural sour. If we had been consulted, the backbone of the
earth would have been made, not of granite, but of Bristol spar.
A modern author would have died in infancy in a ruder age. But
the poet is something more than a scald, "a smoother and polisher
of language"; he is a Cincinnatus in literature, and occupies no
west end of the world. Like the sun, he will indifferently
select his rhymes, and with a liberal taste weave into his verse
the planet and the stubble.
In these old books the stucco has long since crumbled away, and
we read what was sculptured in the granite. They are rude and
massive in their proportions, rather than smooth and delicate in
their finish.
Pages:
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567