[3] “Timid and awkward in his own cause,” says Meister elsewhere, “he was scarcely ever so in that of others.”
[4] “C’est le Bible, plus que tout autre livre,” a well-known French critic wrote, “qui a façonné le génie poétique de Heine, en lui donnant sa forme et sa couleur. Ses véritables maîtres, ses vrais inspirateurs sont les glorieux inconnus qui ont écrit l’Ecclesiaste et les Proverbes, le Cantique des cantiques, le livre de Job et ce chef-d’œuvre d’ironie discrète intitulé: le livre du prophète Jonas. Celui qui s’appelait un rossignol Allemand niché dans la perruque de Voltaire fut à la fois le moins évangélique des hommes et le plus vraiment biblique des poètes modernes.”
[5] The significance of Lowell, a great writer unquestionably, seems to be chiefly national.
[6] See an interesting paper of “Recollections of J. F. Millet” in the “Century,” May, 1889, to which I am indebted for several of the painter’s utterances here quoted.
[7] I think this defective scientific perception is perhaps as responsible as any failure of moral insight for the vigorous manner in which an element of “manly love” flourishes in “Calamus” and elsewhere. Whitman is hardy enough to assert that he expects it will to a large extent take the place of love between the sexes. “Manly love,” even in its extreme form, is certainly Greek, as is the degradation of women with which it is always correlated; yet the much slighter degradation of women in modern times Whitman sincerely laments.
[8] This island, I may note in passing, is the home of a black-haired race, very unlike the typical Norsemen, and which has been identified with those “black strangers” spoken of by the Irish chroniclers who described the Viking invasions.
[9] Many books and pamphlets dealing with his life and works have appeared in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The chief of these are Vasenius’s “Henrik Ibsen, ett Skaldeporträtt,” Stockholm, 1882; Passarge’s “Henrik Ibsen: Ein Beitrag zur neusten Geschichte der norwegischen Nationalliteratur,” Leipsic, 1883; and H. Jaeger’s “Henrik Ibsen, 1828-1888,” Copenhagen. The last-named, now translated, is by far the best.
[10] It may be noted that this was the first of Ibsen’s dramas to be translated into English, by Miss Catherine Ray, in 1876. To Mr. Gosse belongs the honour of having first introduced Ibsen to English readers, in an article in the “Fortnightly,” in 1874. The first of his social dramas to be translated into English was “The Doll’s House” (under the title of “Nora”), by Miss Frances Lord in 1882.
[11] I take this, and much of what follows, from N. Tsakni’s interesting book, “La Russie Sectaire.” It is scarcely necessary to refer the English reader to the valuable series of works in which Stepniak has set forth the condition of modern Russia.
[12] See the interesting paper, “A Visit to Count Tolstoi,” in “Century,” June, 1887.