THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
Quiet and fair in tone; condensed to the last point, and still perfectly clear; written in such pure English that the youngest reader can understand, yet free from an affectation of baby talk, which is often considered indispensable in children’s books—the “Young Folks’ History of the United States” makes a refreshing contrast to the kind of school book with which Abbott and Loomis, and men of their stamp have inundated the country. Not that these latter, in spite of bombast and dryness, may not have served a purpose in their day and generation, no better men having come forward heretofore, but that a more thoughtful and scientific age demands better work.—Scribner’s Monthly.
Criticism on “Back-Log Studies.”
In “Back-Log Studies” there are, no doubt, some essentially inartistic things—some long episodes; for example, such as the “New Vision of Sin” and the “Uncle in India,” which are clearly inferior in texture to the rest, and not quite worth the space they occupy; but, as a whole, the book is certainly a most agreeable contribution to the literature of the Meditative school. And it is saying a great deal to say this. To make such an attempt successful there must be a lightness of touch sustained through everything; there must be a predominant sweetness of flavor, and that air of joyous ease which is often the final triumph of labor. There must also be a power of analysis, always subtle, never prolonged; there must be description, minute enough to be graphic, yet never carried to the borders of fatigue; there must also be glimpses of restrained passion, and of earnestness kept in reserve. All these are essential, and all these the “Back-Log Studies” show. If other resources were added—as depth of thought, or powerful imagination, or wide learning, or constructive power—they would only carry the book beyond the proper ranks of the Meditative school, and place it in that higher grade of literature to which Holmes’ “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” belongs. Yet it may be better not to insist on this distinction, for it is Mr. Warner himself who wisely reminds us that “the most unprofitable and unsatisfactory criticism is that of comparison.”
It is as true in literature as in painting that “it is in the perfection and precision of the instantaneous line that the claim to immortality is made.” The first and simplest test of good writing is in the fresh and incisive phrases it yields; and in this respect “Back-Log Studies” is strong. The author has not only the courage of his opinions, but he has the courage of his phrases, which is quite as essential. What an admirable touch, for instance, is that where Mr. Warner says that a great wood-fire in a wide kitchen chimney, with all the pots and kettles boiling and bubbling, and a roasting spit turning in front of it, “makes a person as hungry as one of Scott’s novels!” Fancy the bewilderment of some slow and well-meaning man upon encountering that stroke of fancy; his going over it slowly from beginning to end, and then again backward from end to beginning, studying it with microscopic eye, to find where the resemblance comes in, until at last it occurs to him that possibly there may be a typographical error somewhere, and that, with a little revision, the sentence might become intelligible! He does not know that in literature, as in life, nothing venture, nothing have; and that it often requires precisely such an audacious stroke as this to capture the most telling analogies.
There occurs just after this, in “Back-Log Studies,” a sentence which has long since found its way to the universal heart, and which is worth citing, as an example of the delicate rhetorical art of under-statement. To construct a climax is within the reach of every one; there is not a Fourth-of-July orator who can not erect for himself a heaven-scaling ladder of that description, climb its successive steps, and then tumble from the top. But to let your climax swell beneath you like a wave of the sea, and then let it subside under you so gently that your hearer shall find himself more stirred by your moderation than by your impulse; this is a triumph of style. Thus our author paints a day of winter storm; for instance, the wild snow-drifts beating against the cottage window, and the boy in the chimney-corner reading about General Burgoyne and the Indian wars. “I should like to know what heroism a boy in an old New England farm-house, rough-nursed by nature, and fed on the traditions of the old wars, did not aspire to—‘John,’ says the mother, ‘you’ll burn your head to a crisp in that heat.’ But John does not hear; he is storming the Plains of Abraham just now. ‘Johnny, dear, bring in a stick of wood.’ How can Johnny bring in wood when he is in that defile with Braddock, and the Indians are popping at him from behind every tree? There is something about a boy that I like, after all.”
I defy any one who has a heart for children to resist that last sentence. Considered critically, it is the very triumph of under-statement—of delicious, provoking, perfectly unexpected, moderation. It is a refreshing dash of cool water just as we were beginning to grow heated. Like that, it calls our latent heat to the surface by a kindly reaction; the writer surprises us by claiming so little that we concede everything; we at once compensate by our own enthusiasm for this inexplicable lowering of the demand. Like him! of course we like him—that curly-pated, rosy-cheeked boy, with his story books and his Indians! But if we had been called upon to adore him, it is very doubtful whether we should have liked him at all. And this preference for effects secured by quiet methods—for producing emphasis without the use of italics, and arresting attention without resorting to exclamation points—is the crowning merit of the later style of Mr. Warner.