He is the most objective of the American
poets. Bryant has a superb propriety of feeling, has plainly always
been in good society, but his sweet oaten pipe discourses only
pastoral music. Dana has the most established religion, more
sentiment, more reverence, more of England; whilst Mr. Percival is an
upright, soldierly, free-spoken man, very much of a patriot, hates
cant, and does his best.
_The Tragic_
He has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the
House of Pain. As the salt sea covers more than two thirds of the
surface of the globe, so sorrow encroaches in man on felicity. The
conversation of men is a mixture of regrets and apprehensions. I do
not know but the prevalent hue of things to the eye of leisure is
melancholy. In the dark hours, our existence seems to be a defensive
war, a struggle against the encroaching All, which threatens surely
to engulf us soon, and is impatient of our short reprieve. How
slender the possession that yet remains to us; how faint the
animation! how the spirit seems already to contract its domain,
retiring within narrower walls by the loss of memory, leaving its
planted fields to erasure and annihilation.
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