Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/274

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS order—is rhetorical, eloquent, gushing, anything but lyrical and poetic. Mrs. Browning's impulses led her continually on the same path; but noble imagination lifted her lightly above the wild-wood thicket in which she went astray, and her sacred fire seemed to consume the brambles clinging to her skirts. Mrs. Howe's genius is not sufficient to redeem her teacher's faults, and the latter she has copied to excess. She seems to write before her idea is thoroughly defined to herself. The result is a confused imagery, and language strangely involved. Her obscurity is not that of thought too elevated for expression in words, for clear thoughts find the highest and purest utterance. It is rather the outward symbol of imperfect inner sight, and leads her into bewildering inversions, ignoble conceits, inelegant and even ungrammatical forms. We cite a few instances of what we mean:

Lost on the turbid current of the street,

My pearl doth swim;

Oh, for the diver's cunning hands and feet

To come to him!

And only the sun's warm fire

Stirs softly their happy breast.

Ye harmless household drudges,

Your draggled daily wear,

And horny palms of labor,

A softer heart may bear:

Death's cold purity condense

Vaporous sin to soul's intense.

[260]