And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire, he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.”
The chief value of all patriotic songs and poems, like Mrs. Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or Mr. Stedman’s John Brown poem, or Randall’s “Maryland,” or Burns’s “Bannnockburn,” or Whitman’s “Beat! Beat! Drums,” is their impassioned eloquence. Patriotism, war, wrong, slavery, these are the inspirers of eloquence.
Of course no sharp line can be drawn between eloquence and poetry; they run together, they blend in all first-class poems; yet there is a wide difference between the two, and it is probably in the direction I have indicated. Power and mastery in either field are the most precious of human gifts.
IX
GILBERT WHITE AGAIN
ONE of the few books which I can return to and re-read every six or seven years is Gilbert White’s Selborne. It has a perennial charm. It is much like country things themselves. One does not read it with excitement or eager avidity; it is in a low key; it touches only upon minor matters; it is not eloquent, or witty, or profound; it has only now and then a twinkle of humor or a glint of fancy, and yet it has lived an hundred years and promises to live many hundreds of years more. So many learned and elaborate treatises have sunk beneath the waves upon which this cockle-shell of a book rides so safely and buoyantly! What is the secret of its longevity? One can do little more than name its qualities without tracing them to their sources. It is simple and wholesome, like bread, or meat, or milk. Perhaps it is just this same unstrained quality that keeps the book alive. Books that are piquant and exciting like condiments, or cloying like confectionery or pastry, it seems, have much less chance of survival. The secret of longevity of a man—what is it? Sanity, moderation, regularity, and that plus vitality, which is a gift. The book that lives has these things, and it has that same plus vitality, the secret of which cannot be explored. The sensational, intemperate books set the world on fire for a day, and then end in ashes and forgetfulness.