The Heiress of Abbotsford [pp. 151-152]

emotions are the links of association by which their ideas, both' The American, of British, German, Italian, or French, desensuous and spiritual, are connected together." scent, inherits the constitution and the tendencies which cen But this definition requires to be supplemented by an exact turies of European culture have impressed upon the European
understanding of what poetry itself is. Ebenezer Elliot, the races. It is not a crude, but a highly-civilized, human nature
" Corn-Law Rhymer," said, "Poetry is impassioned truth; " that has been transplanted to this country-a nature that conand a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, quoted by Mr. Mill, stantly develops the noblest germs, that has ideals of character?
defines poetry to be "man's thoughts tinged by his feelings." that possesses artistic possibilities. By nature the AmericanThese definitions are approximately correct. It is true that born European does not lack the ideal tendency. But the
every thought may become poetry when shown through any finer nature of the artist cannot as yet be fully developed in
impassioned medium, " when moistened with the coloring of America. To pursue the figure of the plant-growth, the Amerijoy or grief, or pity, or affection, or admiration, or reverence, or can soil is not rich enough to grow a luxuriant plant. Poetic
awe, or even hatred or terror; and, unless it is so colored, and artistic natures in America resemble choice seedlings transnothing, be it interesting as it may, is poetry." planted to a nursery where the soil is poor, the sunlight or the
These definitions, however, fail to discriminate between rain insufficient. In seeing the promise and the failure of so
poetry and eloquence. Eloquence, as well as poetry, is impas- many young writers, one is reminded of the parable concerning
sioned truth; it, too, is thoughts colored by the feelings. Yet the seed that fell upon stony places; "as soon as it was sprung
there is an evident distinction between the two. There is much up it withered away, because it lacked moisture." That thorthat every one would call eloquence, which no one would think ough culture, that general and pervasive atmosphere of intelof classing as poetry. What, then, is the distinction between lect, has not yet been developed, in this new civilization, which
poetry and eloquence? is to the growing artist-nature what the deep soil and the
"To us," says Mr. Mill, in the same essay from which I moist airs are to the growing plant. On the contrary, there is
have quoted, "the distinction between poetry and eloquence a positive retrogression in this country,in respect to the conappears to be equally fundamental with the distinction between ditions of a highly-intellectual and msthetic life. The vital
poetry and narrative, or between poetry and description. All forces of American growth do not tend, as yet, in the direcpoetry is of the nature of soliloquy. Poetry and eloquence tion of culture; nor is it well that they should. We have first
are both alike the expression or utterance of feeling. But, if to complete our triumphs over the material. Poetry, like the
we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence serene glories of the dawn and of the sunsetting, appears at the
is heard, poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience; beginning or at the completion of an era; it is not an affair of
but the peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet's the heat and turmoil of the noonday.
utter unconsciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling confessing Herbert Spencer once said to the writer, " It is possible to
itself to itself, in moments of solitude, and embodying itself in have too many educated men in a country." It is certainly
symbols which are the nearest possible representations of the true that the man of high culture, whether as essayist, edifeeling in the exact shape in which it exists in the poet's mind. tor, orator, or poet, does not generally find his largest audiEloquence is feeling, pouring itself out to other minds, courting ence in America. And to attain the highest msthetic growth
their sympathy, or endeavoring to influence their belief, or move without sympathetic circumstances is more than difficult-it
them to passion or action.....Poetry, accordingly, is the is impossible. The poets that are born among us cannot be
natural fruit of solitude and meditation; eloquence, of inter- brought to their full development, to tlie stature and measure
course with the world. The persons who have most feeling of of the artist-man, until more favorable conditions have been
their own, if intellectual culture has given them a language in evolved around themn. But their own efforts, aspirations, sucwhich to express it, have the highest faculty of poetry; those cesses, and failures, contribute to this evolution, as successive
who best understand the feelings of others are the most elo- generations of plants spring up and decay upon a barren soil,
quent" (pp. 71, 72). until, after the lapse of ages, it becomes deep and fertile, and
Such, in brief, are the essential points of Mr. Mill's view, as fitted to produce the most delicate blooms and the mightiest
laid down in the essay from which I quote, of the characteris- growths.
tic(s of poetry and of the poet. Let us now consider these princi- It is, indeed, by this process alone that we are ever to reach
pies as related to the conditions of poetical art in this country. a high result in artistic production of whatever sort. That we
Nascitur poeta is an aphorism which, like many others, have not yet done so is neither surprisingnordiscreditable; it is
is the terse expression of a half-truth. In the fine language of simply a matter of fate and of necessity. The evolution of
Mr. Mill, " This aphorism, born in the infancy of psychology, great artistic results is not a thing that can be hastened by dewill perhaps be found, now when that science is in its adoles- siring it, hardly by seeking it, or striving for it; it is a secular
cence, to be as true as an epigram ever is-that is, to contain process, a growth independent of any individual effort.
some truth; truth, however, which has been so compressed and Slow Nature has her way in this as in other things; she crebent out of shape, in order to tie it up into so small a knot of ates and devours a thousand generations to perfect her tilth,
only two words, that it requires almost an infinite amount of and lo! from the ashes of all these fertilizing lives springs an
unrolling and laying straight, before it will resume its just pro- Elizabethan era, a great scientific discovery, an impulse of
portions." Yet the disentanglement may be largely made in progress. Nature's methods are~!nethods of immense deliberathe following statement: tion; and we can do no better than to contribute ourselves to
The poet must be both born and made. In other words, her slow experiment, and look for results in the future.
two conditions are requisite for high poetical development in
the individual. (1) He must possess the originally poetic nature
as above defined —a nature in which emotion infuses and connects all the thoughts; but, in addition to this, (2) the poetic
nature must be placed in the proper environment. The case is, c;THEN one remember the herculean toils of Walter
indeed, the precise analogue of the growth of a tree. For the V ~ Scott to purchase and adorn Abbotsford, as the fu development of a choice fruit there must be, in the first place, ture home of his family for many generations, it is melancholy
a choice seed; and, in the second place, that seed must be to reflect that his family is entirely extinct, and the place fast
planted in a favorable soil and climate. going to decay."
Now, the conditions of poetic and of fine art in general, in As the above paragraph is now going the rounds of the pa America, are the following: There is an abundance of supe- pers, and has found its way into the columns of several usually
rior germs; but the soil to favor their growth is wanting. well-informed journals, we think it time to correct its mis
1869.]
-LITER A ATUtRE, SCIE-YCE, A-YID A-RE
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