TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN
It is no wonder that Mr. Longfellow should be the most popular of
American, we might say, of contemporary poets. The fine humanity of his
nature, the wise simplicity of his thought, the picturesqueness of his
images, and the deliciously limpid flow of his style, entirely justify
the public verdict, and give assurance that his present reputation will
settle into fame. That he has not _this_ of Tennyson, nor _that_ of
Browning, may be cheerfully admitted, while he has so many other things
that are his own. There may be none of those flashes of lightning in his
verse that make day for a moment in this dim cavern of consciousness
where we grope; but there is an equable sunshine that touches the
landscape of life with a new charm, and lures us out into healthier air.
If he fall short of the highest reaches of imagination, he is none the
less a master within his own sphere--all the more so, indeed, that he is
conscious of his own limitations, and wastes no strength in striving to
be other than himself. Genial, natural, and original, as much as in
these latter days it is given to be, he holds a place among our poets
like that of Irving among our prose-writers. Make whatever deductions
and qualifications, and they still keep their place in the hearts and
minds of men. In point of time he is our Chaucer--the first who imported
a finer foreign culture into our poetry.
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