Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/49

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Nor swear you're right, if I believe you wrong;

I will not earn my dinner when I dine

By taking all your sentiments for mine;

Nor watch the guiding motions of your eye

Before I venture question or reply.

Yet, son of that dear mother could I meet—

But lo! the mansion,—'t is a fine old seat!'

To be observant of each other's part.

'Brother, I'm glad!' was all that George could say,

Then stretched his hand, and turned his head away;

Richard, meantime, made some attempt to speak,

Strong in his purpose, in his trial weak.

At length, affection, like a risen tide,

Stood still, and then seemed slowly to subside;

Each on the other's looks had power to dwell,

And brother brother greeted passing well."

These qualities of fine, true physical and mental vision are the essential qualities for valuable realistic work; if there be room for regret in Crabbe's share of them, it is because their range is contracted. The limitations of his physical vision have been mentioned; in respect to his mental vision Crabbe saw only a few and comparatively simple operations of human nature, the workings of country-bred minds, not finely or complexly organized, but slow-motioned, and perplexed, if perplexed at all, not from the difficulty of the problem, but from their own dullness. Yet within these limits his