The Mask of the Red Death - Graham's Magazine, May 1842 — reading text

all day long the child sung. She was our mother’s favorite chilld, We have no home—we have no friends Who loved her for her eyes of blue, They said our home no more was ours— And she is delieate and mild, Our cottage where the ash-tree bends, She cannot do what I can do. The garden we had filled with flowers. She never met her father’s eyes, The sounding shells our tather brought, ~GSR oTES aN s Although they were so like her own; That we might hear the sea at home; In some far distant sea he lies, Our bees, that in the summer wrought A father to his child nnknown. The winter’s golden honeycomb. tea aienat igialesAiterwanssanoceteae tape ia SNEeR EN NRT The first time that she lisped his name, We wandered forth mid wind and rain, A little playful thing was she; No shelter from the open sky; How proud we were,—yet that night came I only wish to see again ; paieememnen The tale how he had sunk at sea, My mother’s grave and rest and die, My mother never raised her head; Alas, it is a weary thing How strange how white how cold she grew! To sing our ballads o’er and o’er: It was a broken heart they said— The songs we used at home to sing— I wish our hearts were broken too. Alas we have a home no more! ; i i } penne ae OS SPT PO OP ES yor: REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. Twice-Told Tales. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Two Vol- But it is of his tales that we desire principally to speak. umes. Boston: James Munroe and Co: The tale proper, in our opinion, affords unquestionably the fairest field for the exercise of the loftiest talent, which can We said a few hurried words about Mr. Hawthorne in be afforded by the wide domains of mere prose. Were we our last number, with the design of speaking more fully in bidden to say how the highest genius could be most advan- the present. We are still, however, pressed for room, and tageously employed for the best display of its own powers, must necessarily discuss his volumes more briefly and we should answer, without hesitation—in the composition more at random than their high merits deserve. : of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be The book professes to be a collection of tales, yet is, in perused in an hour. Within this limit alone can the high- two respects, misnamed. These pieces are now in their est order of true poetry exist. We need only here say, third republication, and, of course, are thrice-told. More- upon this topic, that, in almost all classes of composition, over, they are by no means all tales, either in the ordinary the unityof effect or impression is a point of the greatest or in the legitimate understanding of the term. Many of importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot them are pure essays; for example, ‘Sights from a be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal can- Steeple,’ ‘*Sunday at Home,” ‘‘ Little Annie’s Ramble,” not be completed at one sitting. We may continue the “A Rill from the Town-Pump,” ‘The Toll-Gatherer’s reading of a prose composition, from the very nature of Day,’”’ ‘*The Haunted Mind,” ‘The Sister Years,” prose itself, much longer than we can persevere, to any “ Snow-Flakes,” ‘“‘ Night Sketches,’ and ‘ Foot-Prints on good purpose, in the perusal of a poem. This latter, if the Sea-Shore.”» We mention these matters chiefly on truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces account of their discrepancy with that marked precision an exaltation of the soul which cannot be long sustained. and finish by which the body of the work is distinguished. All high excitements are necessarily transient. Thus a Of the Essays just named, we must be content to speak long poem isa paradox. And, without unity of impression, in brief. They are each and all beautiful, without being the deepest effects cannot be brought about. Epics were characterised by the polish and adaptation so visible in the the offspring of an imperfect sense of Art, and their reign is tales proper. A painter would at once note their leading no more. <A poem too brief may produce a vivid, but never or predominant feature, and style it repose. There is no an intense or enduring impression. Without a certain attempt at effect. All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued. Yet continuity of effort—without a certain duration or repeti- this repose may exist simultaneously with high originality tion of purpose—the soul is never deeply moved. There of thought ; and Mr. Hawthorne has demonstrated the fact. must be the dropping of the water upon the rock. De At every turn we meet with novel combinations; yet these Béranger has wrought brilliant things—pungent and spirit- combinations never surpass the limits of the quiet. We stirring—but, like all immassive bodies, they lack momen- are soothed as we read; and withal is a calm astonishment tum, and thus fail to satisfy the Poetic Sentiment. They that ideas so apparently obvious have never occurred or sparkle and excite, but, from want of continuity, fail deeply been presented to us before. Herein our author differs to impress, Extreme brevity will degenerate into epigram- materially from Lamb or Hunt or Hazlitt—who, with vivid matism ; but the sin of extreme length is even more unpar- originality of manner and expression, have less of the donable. In medio tutissimus ibis. true novelty of thought than is generally supposed, and Were we called upon however to designate that class of whose originality, at best, has an uneasy and meretricious composition which, next to such a poem as we have sug- quaintness, replete with startling effects unfounded in gested, should best fulfil the demands of high genius— nature, and inducing trains of reflection which lead to no should offer it the most advantageous field of exertion—we satisfactory result. The Essays of Hawthorne have much should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr. Haw- of the character of Irving, with more of originality, and thorne has here exemplified it. We allude to the short less of finish; while, compared with the Spectator, they prose narrative, requiring froma half-hour to one or two have a vast superiority at all points. The Spectator, Mr. hours in its perusal. The ordinary novel is objectionable, Irving, and Mr. Hawthorne have in common that tranquil from its length, for reasons already stated in substance. and subdued manner which we have chosen to denominate As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of repose; but, in the case of the two former, this repose is course, of the immense force derivable from totality. attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or of Worldly interests intervening during the pauses of perusal, originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the modify, annul, or counteract, in a greater or less degree, calm, quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace the impressions of the book. But simple cessation in read- thoughts, in an unambitious unadulterated Saxon. In ing would, of itself, be sufficient to destroy the true unity. them, by strong effort, we are made to conceive the absence In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry of all. In the essays before us the absenee of effort is too out the fulness of his intention, be it what it may. During obvious to be mistaken, and a strong under-eurrent of sug- the hour of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer’s gestion runs continuously beneath the upper stream of the control. There are no external or extrinsic influences— tranquil thesis. In short, these effusions of Mr. Hawthorne resulting from weariness or interruption. are the product of a truly imaginative intellect, restrained, A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise,