Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/35

 writings. Her prefatory remark to "The Zenana," will equally apply to all her poems: "While I have adhered as accurately as possible to character, costume and scenery, it is on the expression of universal feelings that I rely for sympathy."

Miss Landon's works, as tales, will probably disappoint the reader; for in almost every instance the narrative is subordinate to the sentiments; it is like a silver thread, almost hidden by the rich pearls strung thereon. This is true also in a great measure of her prose works. Her style is very episodical; hence the beautiful lyrics interspersing her longer poems, and the truthful and brilliant isolated passages so often introduced among her tales; so that what is defective in the story, as such, is compensated by development of character, by richness of description, by the portraits and pictures that surround us with living beauty, by the thoughts that are bright with immortal truth. That most essential and remarkable characteristic of genius, the powerful life-giving imagination by which, at will, the poet identifies himself with his creations, no writer, perhaps, has more displayed than L. E. L. Whatever circumstance or scene she wishes to evoke is called up before her mind and that of her reader; not by a mere laboured description, but by a vivid representation, as if she were an actual spectator, and wished you to become one also. This is the case throughout her works. Take up "The Improvvisatrice," and, in its opening burst of genuine poetic inspiration, you can scarcely withhold the conviction that the poet is speaking of herself:—

I am the daughter of that land, Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand Are most divine; where the earth and sky Are picture both and poetry."