Book Reviews [pp. 324-336]

Book Reviews.
BOOK REVIEWS.
Recent Verse.
No name has more rapidly taken possession of a
prominent place in the most fastidious magazine company in the country than that of Edith M. Thomas.
It was even striking to see, at one time, how frequently recurred the signature. It is noticeable, however, that all this has not made Miss Thomas, to any
extent, a well-known poet. There is something
worthy of note here. The relation of poetry to the
magazines is really a very curious literary phenomenon of the present time, and worth a more careful
consideration than we can now give it. The magazines have become, practically, the sole court of judgment upon the poetry of the country. Publishers refuse to undertake the publication of poems, unless
the author has become known as a poet of the magazines. The half-dozen volumes of verse from those who
are outside of this circle are paid for by the authors,
and reveal at once to the critic the almost invariable
justice of the magazine standard of exclusion or admission. It is probably safe to say, too, that they
never pay for the cost of publication —which in some
sort expresses the acquiescence of the public also in
the judgment of the magazine censors. Yet instances are not wanting in which poems that are of
much more than average quality, and that are welladapted, too, to go to the heart of " the people," fail
to reach the knowledge of readers or the attention of
reviewers, simply for lack of this same magazine introduction, and the hopeful support of publishers
which is in this way alone to be had. As to such poetry
it is only a question of time: the world does not let
die any really excellent work, unless it has been sunk
in absolutely unknown and ephemeral prints. Fifty
years after the author is dead, the forgotten volume
that fell dead from some local press is exhumed from
the corner of a library by some one who knows poetry, and has the world's ear; then there is an article
in a leading review on "A Forgotten Poet," a reprint by a leading publishing house, a scattering fire
of reviews, a new name added to the lists in every
manual or "Index of Authors," a permanent place
on the rolls, large or small, in very fair proportion to
desert. It is probable that absolute greatness could
not remain obscured for lack of magazine introduction even this long: the great poem would shine out
from the corner of the country newspaper, and catch
some appreciative eye soon. Sl, too, a remarkably happy hit in the way of "popularity "-not
merely a good one, but an eminently striking onewould be copied and recopied, and get as wide and
1 A New Year Masque, and other poems. By Edith
M. Thomas. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. x885.
For sale in San Francisco by Chilion Beach.
as long life as it was entitled to. But in so vast a
majority of cases that the exceptions are not of any
practical consequence, the magazines are the only
road to reputation in poetry. How singular it is, then,
turning to the converse of the phenomenon, to see
that while they can prevent a poet from being known,
they cannot really make him known! More than once
or twice they have "taken up" a poet —made his the
most often-recurring name in the table of contents —
and left him with his name sounding a little familiar
to constant readers, and with some estimate of him
formed in the minds of the critical few —and not a
line of his adopted into permanent literature or into
people's memories.
None of these poets thus "taken up "have really
possessed the qualities of Miss Thomas; and yet she
belongs to the class of those whom the freedom of
the magazines will probably fail to make "wellknown." She has great (though not invariable) dignity of expression, and a very distinct echo of Milton,
and the Elizabethan poets, and the classics, which is
refreshing nowadays-refreshing in that it is not an
affectation, nor exactly an imitation, but a frank
echo; for somewhat rococo imitations of Elizabethan
verse are common enough. But she rarely catches
the heart or the memory. Even the descriptions
of Nature, good as they are, fail to hold or satisfy.
There is something beyond, always, that she has not
caught; a chord untouched that far cruder bards
sometimes strike unerringly. Many of the poems in
the pretty volumei (perhaps rather too pretty) just
published, prove, upon reading over again to see
why the dignified lines should have left so little memory in the mind, to be at bottom the merest platitude —surface thoughts, very trifles of poetic situation. Perhaps the following is as good an instance
as it is possible to quote without being too long:
A4 Parallel.
A grape seed, in the new red wine afloat,
Put endless pause to blithe Anacreon's note;
Thus antic Death, with light and sportive hand,
The pampered life from out its flower-nook fanned.
But tragic Otway, stung by hunger's thrust,
In breaking fast was choked upon a crust.
Still antic Death! to make the prop of life
Serve the same end with fatal cord or knife!
The thing said was not worth the saying, and especially the saying with so much state and respect.
The merest trifle of thought may be tossed off in a
poem and seem worth the trouble, if it is done in a
casual, off-hand manner, indicating that it is not regarded by the author as anything of importance. But
whetherher metrebelight or stately, Miss Thomasnever quite seems to make it unpretending enough for the
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