The Longfellow War — 1902 historical reading — reading text

wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason.” I have already agreed to believe implicitly everything asserted by the anonymous Outis, and am fully prepared to admit, even, his own contradictions, in one sentence, of what he has insisted upon in the sentence preceding. I shall assume it as indisputable, then, (since Nobody says it) that first, he has no acquaintance with myself and “some acquaintance with Mr. Longfellow,” and secondly, that he has “written what he has written from no personal motives whatever.” That he has been disgusted with “the mangling of victims without rhyme or reason,” is, to be sure, a little unaccountable, for the victims without rhyme or reason are precisely the victims that ought to be mangled; but that be has been disgusted “from his earliest reading” with critical notices and reviews, is credible enough if we but imagine his “earliest reading” and earliest writing to have taken place about the same epoch of time. But to be serious; if Outis has his own private reasons for being disgusted with what he terms the “wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason,” there is not a man living, of common sense and common honesty, who has not better reason (if possible) to be disgusted with the insufferable cant and shameless misrepresentation practised habitually by just such persons as Outis, with the view of decrying by sheer strength of lungs — of trampling down — of rioting down — of mobbing down any man with a soul that bids him come out from among the general corruption of our public press, and take his stand upon the open ground of rectitude and honor. The Outises who practise this species of bullyism are, as a matter of course, anonymous. They are either the “victims without rhyme or reason who have been mangled by wholesale,” or they are the relatives, or the relatives of the relatives of the “victims without rhyme or reason who have been mangled by wholesale.” Their watchwords are “carping littleness,” “envious malignity,” and “personal abuse.” Their low artifices are insinuated calumnies, and indefatigable whispers of regret, from post to pillar, that “Mr. So-and-So, or Mr. This-and-That will persist in rendering himself so dreadfully unpopular” — no one, in the meantime, being more thoroughly and painfully aware than these very Outises, that the unpopularity of the just critic who reasons his way, guiltless of dogmatism, is confined altogether within the limits of the influence of the victims without rhyme and reason who have been mangled by wholesale. Even the manifest injustice of a Gifford is, I grieve to say, an exceedingly popular thing; and there is no literary element of popularity more absolutely and more universally effective than the pungent impartiality of a Wilson or a Macaulay. In regard to my own course — without daring to arrogate to myself a single other quality of either of these eminent men than that pure contempt for mere prejudice and conventionality which actuated them all, I will now unscrupulously call the attention of the Outises to the fact, that it was during what they (the Outises) would insinuate to be the unpopularity of my “wholesale mangling of the victims without rhyme and reason” that, in one year, the circulation of the “Southern Messenger” (a five-dollar journal) extended itself from seven hundred to nearly five thousand, — and that, in little more than twice the same time, “Graham's Magazine” swelled its list from five to fifty-two thousand subscribers. I make no apology for these egotisms, and I proceed with them without hesitation — for, in myself, I am but defending a set of principles which no honest man need be ashamed of defending, and for whose defence no honest man will consider an apology required. The usual watchwords of the Outises, when repelling a criticism, — their customary charges, overt or insinuated, are (as I have already said) those of “personal abuse” and “wholesale (or indiscriminate) mangling.” In the present instance the latter solely is employed — for not even an Outis can abuse me, with even a decent show of verisimilitude, of having ever descended, in the most condemnatory of my reviews, to that personal abuse which, upon one or two occasions, has indeed been levelled at myself, in the spasmodic endeavours of aggrieved authors to rebut what I have ventured to demonstrate. I have then to refute only the accusation of mangling by wholesale — and I refute it by the simplest reference to fact. What I have written remains; and is readily accessible in any of our public libraries. I have had one or two impotent enemies, and a multitude of cherished friends — and both friends and enemies have been, for the most part, literary people; yet no man can point to a single critique, among the very numerous ones which I have written during the last ten years, which is either wholly fault-finding or wholly in approbation; nor is there an instance to be discovered, among all that I have published, of my having set forth, either in praise or censure, a single opinion upon any critical topic of moment, without attempting, at least, to give it authority by something that wore the semblance of a reason. Now, is there a writer in the land, who, having dealt in criticism even one-fourth as much as myself, can of his own criticisms, conscientiously say the same? The fact is, that very many of the most eminent men in America whom I am proud to number among the sincerest of my friends, have been rendered so solely by their approbation of my comments upon their own works — comments in great measure directed against themselves as authors — belonging altogether to that very class of criticism which it is the petty policy of the Outises to cry down, with their diminutive voices, as offensive on the score of wholesale vituperation and personal abuse. If, to be brief, in what I have put forth there has been a preponderance of censure over commendation, — is there not to be imagined for this preponderance a more charitable motive than any which the Outises have been magnanimous enough to assign me — is not this preponderance, in a word, the natural and inevitable tendency of all criticism worth the name in this age of so universal an authorship, that no man in his senses will pretend to deny the vast predominance of good writers over bad? And now, says Outis, for the matter of Longfellow's imitations — in what do they consist? The critic is not very specific in this charge. Of what kind are they? Are they imitations of thought? Why not call them plagiarisms then, and show them up? Or are they only verbal imitations of style? Perhaps this is one of them, in his poem on the “Sea Weed,” ——— drifting, drifting, drifting, On the shifting Currents of the restless main. resembling in form and collocation only, a line in a beautiful and very powerful poem of MR. EDGAR A. POE. (Write it rather EDGAR, a Poet, and then it is right to a T.) I have not the poem before me, and have forgotten its title. But he is describing a magnificent intellect in ruins, if I remember rightly — and, speaking of the eloquence of its better days, represents it as ——— flowing, flowing, flowing, Like a river. Is this what the critic means? Is it such imitations as this that he alludes to? If not, I am at fault, either in my reading of Longfellow, or in my general familiarity with the American Poets. If this be the kind of imitation referred to, permit me to say, the charge is too paltry for any man, who valued his reputation either as a gentleman or a scholar. Elsewhere he says: — Moreover, this poem contains an example of that kind of repetition which I have supposed the critic meant to charge upon Longfellow as one of his imitations Away — away — away — &c. I might pursue it farther, but I will not. Such criticisms only make the author of them contemptible, without soiling a plume in the cap of his victim. The first point to be here observed is the complacency with which Outis supposes me to make a certain charge and then vituperates me for his own absurd supposition. Were I, or any man, to accuse Mr. Longfellow of imitation on the score of thrice employing a word in consecutive connexion, then I (or any man) would only be guilty of as great a sotticism as was Outis in accusing me of imitation on the score of the refrain. The repetition in question is assuredly not claimed by myself as original — I should therefore be wary how I charged Mr. Longfellow with imitating it from myself. It is, in fact, a musical effect, which is the common property of all mankind, and has been their common property for ages. Nevertheless the quotation of this — drifting, drifting, drifting, is, on the part of Outis, a little unfortunate. Most certainly the supposed imitation had never been observed by me — nor even had I observed it, should I have considered it individually, as a point of any moment; — but all will admit, (since Outis himself has noticed the parallel,) that, were a second parallel of any obviousness to be established from the same brief poem, “The Sea-Weed,” this second would come in very strong corroboration of the first. Now, the sixth stanza of this very “Sea-Weed” (which was first published in “Graham's Magazine” for January 1845) commences with From the far off isles enchanted; and in a little poem of my own, addressed “To Mary,” and first published at page 636 of the first volume of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” will be found the lines: And thus thy memory is to me Like some enchanted far off isle In some tumultuous sea.” But to show, in general, what I mean by accusing Mr. Longfellow of imitation, I collate his “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” with “The Death of the Old Year” of Tennyson. MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE DYING YEAR. Yes, the Year is growing old, And his eye is pale and bleared, Death, with frosty hand and cold, Plucks the old man by the beard, Sorely, — sorely! The leaves are falling, falling, Solemnly and slow; Caw, caw, the rooks are calling; It is a sound of woe, A sound of woe! Through woods and mountain-passes The winds, like anthems, roll; They are chanting solemn masses, Singing, Pray for this poor soul, Pray, — pray! And the hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain, And patter their doleful prayers; But their prayers are all in vain, All in vain! There he stands in the foul weather, The foolish, fond Old Year, Crowned with wild flowers and with heather, Like weak, despiséd Lear, A king, — a king! Then comes the summer-like day, Bids the old man rejoice! His joy! his last! O, the old man gray, Loveth her ever soft voice Gentle and low. To the crimson woods he saith — To the voice gentle and low, Of the soft air like a daughter's breath, Pray do not mock me so! Do not laugh at me! And now the sweet day is dead; Cold in his arms it lies; No stain from its breath is spread Over the glassy skies, No mist nor stain! Then, too, the Old Year dieth, And the forests utter a moan, Like the voice of one who crieth In the wilderness alone, Vex not his ghost! Then comes, with an awful roar, Gathering and sounding, on, The storm-wind from Labrador, The wind Euroclydon, The storm-wind! Howl! howl! and from the forest Sweep the red leaves away! Would, the sins that thou abhorest, O soul! could thus decay, And be swept away! For there shall come a mightier blast There shall be a darker day; And the stars, from heaven down-cast, Like red leaves be swept away! Kyrie Eleyson! Christie Eleyson! THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing; Toll ye the church-bell sad and low, And tread softly, and speak low, For the old year lies a dying. Old Year, you must not die, You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old Year, you shall not die. He lieth still: he doth not move; He will not see the dawn of day; He hath no other life