none. We have not wished to depreciate these writings below their current value, more than truth absolutely demands. We have not forgotten that, if a man cannot himself sit at the feet of the muse, it is much if he prizes those who may; it makes him a teacher to the people. Neither have we forgotten that Mr. Longfellow has a genuine respect for his pen, never writes carelessly, nor when he does not wish to, nor for money alone. Nor are we intolerant to those who prize hot-house bouquets beyond all the free beauty of nature; that helps the gardener and has its uses. But still let us not forget — ‘Excelsior’!!”[1]
This is, no doubt, overstated, but who will now deny that there was a certain force in it? As Longfellow underwent deeper experiences and mellowed into his beautiful old age, this criticism seemed plainly inadequate; and Margaret Fuller herself, had she lived, would have been the first to recognize the deepening Americanism of his tone — this being what she chiefly demanded of him. The poems that she had singled out for praise in his early volumes were those like “The Village Blacksmith” and “The Driving Cloud,” which had a flavor of the soil; and as he grew older, this quality became unmistakable. But hers was at any rate legitimate literary criticism, and would perhaps have left no sting behind but for the single fact that she compared the weak portrait of him, prefaced to the first illustrated edition of his poems (Philadelphia, 1835), to “a dandy Pindar.”
- ↑ Papers on Literature and Art, pp. 330-335.
