Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/173

 1830-40.] JAMES H. TERKINS. 157 For neai'ly twenty years Mr. Perkins had been subject to a sudden rush of blood to the head, which produced distressing vertigo, at times impairing his sight and pro- ducing the deepest despondency ; and within five or six years previous to his decease, he had suifered so severely from palpitation of the heart, that in consequence of this accumulation of ills, his reason had occasionally been wandering for short periods. On the day of his death, a paroxysm of this kind was produced by the supposed loss of his two boys, one nine, the other seven years of age, who had gone from their home on Walnut Hills, to Cincinnati. After a most fatiguing and anxious search, that was finally rehnquished in despair, Mr. Perkins walked (four miles) to AValnut Hills, and arrived at his house, which his children had reached before him, in a state of intense excitement and complete exhaustion. He was restless and nervous to a degree never before witnessed by his family, and near evening he remarked that he would take a walk to calm his nerves, but would not be gone long. He was never seen again, by either his family or friends. About six o'clock P. M., as was afterward ascertained, he went on board the Jamestown* ferry-boat, with arms folded and eyes downcast. He was not seen to leave the boat, and it is supposed that, when not observed, threw him- self overboard and was drowned. This distressing event cast the deepest gloom over the city of his adoption. Notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts were made for the recovery of the remains of the deceased, they were never discovered. I saw Mr. Perkins, at the corner of Fourth and Sycamore streets, Cincinnati, when he was in quest of his children. The painful, despairing look he gave an omnibus conductor, of whom he inquired in vain for tidings, I can never forget. Mr. Channing has said truly of Mr. Perkins : Faultless, or wholly freed from the evils of temperament, training, caprice, indulgence, habit, Mr. Perkins confessedly was not ; but progressive, aspiring, humble, honest, centrally disinterested, he untleuiably was. The utmost impulse of his will was right. His eye was single. He had chosen the good as his law. His life was to seek the inspiration of Divine Love, and to make his thoughts and acts a fitting medium for its transmission. . . . With unconscious ease, from ))oy- hood upward, he had poured forth verses ; but the true poet was to him in so sublime a sense a prophet, that he was never willing to class himself among that chosen band. In a lecture on Polite Literature, in 1840, he asks, "What is it that makes a work poetical ? I answer, it is that in it which awakens the sense of the divine — appealing to the heart through some form of sublim- ity, or beauty — some holy emotion — some association of heavenly ati'octions with common experi- ence. The poetic element is that which lifts us to the spiritual world. It is a divine essence, that makes human speech poetry. The two grand powers of the poet are, first, that of perceiving what awakens a sense of the divine ; and second, that of exi^ressiug what is poetical in such words and by such style as to give its true impression. These two powers may exist apart. A critic may feel when the sense of the divine is awakened, but he cannot be a poet without the inventive imagina- tion that can give to it a local embodiment and a name. Poetry is not rhyme or verse merely ; but it is that chord in the human heart which sends forth harmony when struck by the hand of nature, that essential spirit of beauty which speaks from the soul, in the highest works of sculpture or painting, which gives eloquence to the orator, and is heard as the voice of God." It was in his eloquence as an orator, that his own poetic genius most appeared.
 * A village ou the Ohio River, three miles above Cincinnati.