Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/126

126 she has exhausted her varieties of melancholy phrase, and, in sheer necessity, begins to think, that there are other things to be adorned besides the sepulchre. There are, indeed. The purposes of life remain while life remains to us—the memory of what has been already done by man, and the thought of 'all that yet remains for man to do,' towards the realization of the happiness of the world. It is surely better to inspire us with the hope and the gladness of these things, than to teach us how to realize a 'vale of tears,' by shedding them."

The reviewer proceeds, with great truth and justice, to say, "In the verses of Miss Landon, moreover, there is always something, cover it as she may with her sombre veil, more nearly akin to cheerfulness than to sorrow. She would seem to have taken to mourning, as the only relief from too great a capacity for enjoyment, and the melancholy that is born of this, perhaps contains 'a joy beyond joy.' It is quite certain, at all events, that the grief which pours itself forth, like the melodious melancholy of this young lady, in one rapt and perpetual note, has more in it of the imaginative than the real, of the luxuriating than the suffering. And after all, this is only teaching us how best to grieve, when we want to know what most to enjoy. We are grateful to her, therefore, for reconsidering that matter, and we would promise her a much loftier place in poetry than she occupies now, if we thought her courage equal to her genius; a far better name in the aftertime, if we thought she could teach herself to care less about the present. Fear, and doubt, and dependence, and carelessness, and (we must add) too great a passion for effect, still hang about her."

Even these latter failings diminished, however,