The imperfect poems, the unfinished poems, the sheaves unharvested, not like Coleridge's for lack of will, but for lack of time, are suggestive of one of the finest aspects of romantic art. "I would rather fail at some things I wot of than succeed at others," said Lanier. There are moods when the imperfection of Lanier pleases more than the perfection of Poe — even from the artistic standpoint. What he aspired to be enters into one's whole thought about his life and his art. The vista of his grave opens up into the unseen world.

On earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

But the time comes when none of these considerations — neither admiration for the man, nor speculations as to what he might have done under different circumstances, nor thoughts as to what he may be doing in larger, other worlds than ours — should interfere with a judicial estimate of what he really achieved. It would have been the miracle of history if with all his obstacles he had not had limitations as a writer; and yet many who have insisted most on his sufferings, have resented any criticism passed upon his work. One has the authority of Lanier's writings about other men and his letters about his own poems for judging him only by the highest standards. Did he in aiming at a million miss a unit? Was he blinded by the very excess of light? How will he fare in that race with time of which a contemporary essayist has written? "When the admiration of his friends no longer counts, when his friends and admirers are themselves gathered to the same silent throng," will there be enough inherent worth in his work to keep his fame alive? These are questions that one has a right to ask.

And, first, as to Lanier's prose work. He has suffered from the fact that so many of his unrevised works have been published; these have their excuse for being in the light they throw on his life; but otherwise some of them are disappointing. If, instead of ten volumes of prose, there could be selected his best work from all of them, there would still be a residue of writing that would establish Lanier's place among the prose writers of America. There is no better illustration of his development than that seen in comparing his early prose — the war letters and "Tiger Lilies", for instance, or such essays as "Retrospects and Prospects" — with that of his maturer years. I doubt if justice has been done to Lanier's best style, its clearness, fluency, and eloquence. It may be claimed without dispute that he was a rare good letter-writer; perhaps only Lowell's letters are more interesting. The faults of his poetry are not always seen in his best letters. In them there is a playfulness, a richness of humor, an exuberance of spirits, animated talk about himself and his work, and withal a distinct style, that ought to keep them alive. There might be selected, too, a volume of essays, including "From Bacon to Beethoven", "The Orchestra of To-Day", "San Antonio de Bexar", "The Confederate Memorial Address", "The New South", and others.

A volume of American Criticism, edited by Mr. William Morton Payne, includes Lanier among the dozen best American critics, giving a selection from the "English Novel" as a typical passage. Has he a right to be in such a book? His work as a scholar has been discussed in a previous chapter; his rank as a critic is a very different matter. It goes without saying that Lanier was not a great critic. He did not have the learning requisite for one. One might turn the words of his criticism of Poe and say that he needed to know more. He knew but little of the classics beyond what he studied in college; while he read French and German literature to some extent, he did not go into them as Lowell did. Homer, Dante, and Goethe were but little more than names to him. Furthermore, his criticism is often marked by a tendency to indulge in hasty generalizations, due to the fact that he had not sufficient facts to draw upon. An illustration is his preference of the Elizabethan sonnets to the English sonnets written on the Italian model, or his discussion of personality as found in the Greek drama. His generalizations are often either patently obvious or far-fetched. He was too eager to "bring together people and books that never dreamed of being side by side." His tendency to fancy, so marked in his poetry, is seen also in his criticism, as for instance, his comparison of a sonnet to a little drama, or his statement that every poem has a plot, a crisis, and a hero. He had De Quincey's habit of digressing from the main theme, — what he himself called in speaking of an Elizabethan poet, the "constant temptation, to the vigorous and springy mind of the poet, to bound off wherever his momentary fancy may lead him." This is especially seen in his lectures on the English Novel, where he is often carried far afield from the general theme. In his lectures on "Shakspere and His Forerunners", he was so often troubled with an embarrassment of riches that he did not endeavor to follow a rigidly formed plan.

A more serious defect, however, was his lack of catholicity of judgment. He had all of Carlyle's distaste for the eighteenth century; his dislike of Pope was often expressed, and he went so far as to wish that the novels of Fielding and Richardson might be "blotted from the face of the earth." His characterization of Thackeray as a "low-pitched artist" is wide of the mark. As Lanier had his dislikes in literature and expressed them vigorously, so he over-praised many men. When he says, for instance, that Bartholomew Griffin "will yet obtain a high and immortal place in English literature," or that William Drummond of Hawthornden is one of "the chief glories of the English tongue," or that Gavin Douglas is "one of the greatest poets of our language," one wonders to what extent the "pleasant peril of enthusiasm" will carry a man. One may be an admirer of George Eliot and yet feel that Lanier has overstated her merits as compared with other English novelists, and that his praise of "Daniel Deronda" is excessive.

Such defects as are here suggested should not, however, blind the reader to some of Lanier's better work. The history of criticism, especially of romantic criticism, is full of just such unbalanced judgments. It is often true in criticism that a man "should like what he does like; and his likings are facts in criticism for him." Without very great learning and with strong prejudices in some directions, Lanier yet had remarkable insight into literature. Lowell's saying that he was "a man of genius with a rare gift for the happy word" is especially true of some of his critical writing. Examples are his well-known characterizations of great men in "The Crystal": —

Buddha, beautiful! I pardon thee
That all the All thou hadst for needy man
Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was
But not to be.

. . . . .

Langley, that with but a touch
Of art had sung Piers Plowman to the top
Of English song, whereof 't is dearest, now
And most adorable.