Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/145

130 scourge she somewhat exercises upon writers who " did not write because they felt obliged to relieve themselves of the swelling thought within, but as an elegant exercise which may win them rank and reputation above the crowd. Their lamp is not lit by the sacred an.) inevitable lightning from above, but carefully fed by their own will to be seen men."

These metaphors no longer express the most accepted view of poetical composition. It has been found that those who write chiefly to relieve themselves are very apt to do so at the expense of the reading public. The “ inevitable lightning," with which some are stricken, does not lead to such good work as does the " lamp carefully fed” by a steadfast will, whose tenor need not be summarily judged.

These strictures are intended to apply to versifiers in England as well as in America.

“Yet," she says, "there is a middle class, composed of men of little original poetic power, but of much poetic taste and sensibility, whom we would not wish to have silenced. They do no harm, but much good (if only their minds are not confounded with those of a higher class), by educating in others the faculties dominant in themselves.' In this class she places Longfellow, towards whom she confesses "a coolness, in consequence of the exaggerated praises that have been bestowed upon him." Perhaps the best thing she says about him is that "nature with him, whether human or external, is always seen through the windows of literature.”

Longfellow did, indeed, dwell in the beautiful house of culture, but with a heart deeply sensitive to the touch of the humanity that lay encamped around it. In the “Psalm of Life," his banner, blood-red with