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.
HENRY JAMES, Jr.
Mr. Henry James, Jr., inherits from his father a diction so rich and pure, so fluent and copious, so finely shaded, yet capable of such varied service, that it is, in itself, a form of genius. Few men have ever been so brilliantly equipped for literary performance. Carefully trained taste, large acquirements of knowledge, experience of lands and races, and association with the best minds have combined to supply him with all the purely intellectual requisites which an author could desire.—Bayard Taylor.
As a story-teller, we know of no one who is entitled to rank higher, since Poe and Hawthorne are gone, than Mr. James. His style is pure and finished, and marked by the nicety of expression which is so noticeable among the best French writers of fiction.—Louisville Courier-Journal.
The “Portrait of a Lady” is a very clever book, and a book of very great interest. We do not know a living English novelist who could have written it.—Pall Mall Gazette.
Carlyle’s Letters to Emerson.
Carlyle takes his place among the first of English, among the very first of all letter-writers. All his great merits come out in this form of expression; and his defects are not felt as defects, but only as striking characteristics and as tones in the picture. Originality, nature, humor, imagination, freedom, the disposition to talk, the play of mood, the touch of confidence—these qualities, of which the letters are full, will with the aid of an inimitable use of language—a style which glances at nothing that it does not render grotesque—preserve their life for readers even further removed from the occasion than ourselves, and for whom possibly the vogue of Carlyle’s published writings in his day will be to a certain degree a subject of wonder.