Most of the novelists of our time write good stories. They are ingenious, the characters are well drawn, but they lack life, energy. They do not appear to act for themselves, impelled by inner force. They seem to be pushed and pulled. The same may be said of the poets. Tennyson belongs to the latter half of our century. He was undoubtedly a great writer. He had no flame or storm, no tidal wave, nothing volcanic. He never overflowed the banks. He wrote nothing as intense, as noble and pathetic as the "Prisoner of Chillon;" nothing as purely poetic as "The Skylark;" nothing as perfect as the "Grecian Urn," and yet he was one of the greatest of poets. Viewed from all sides he was far greater than Shelley, far nobler than Keats. In a few poems Shelley reached almost the perfect, but many are weak, feeble, fragmentary, almost meaningless. So Keats in three poems reached a great height—in "St. Agnes' Eve," "The Grecian Urn," and "The Nightingale"—but most of his poetry is insipid, without thought, beauty or sincerity.
We have had some poets ourselves. Emerson wrote many poetic and philosophic lines. He never violated any rule. He kept his passions under control and generally "kept off the grass." But he uttered some great and splendid truths and sowed countless seeds of suggestion. When we remember that he came of a line of New England preachers we are amazed at the breadth, the depth and the freedom of his thought.
Walt Whitman wrote a few great poems, elemental, natural—poems that seem to be a part of nature, ample as the sky, having the rhythm of the tides, the swing of a planet.
Whitcomb Riley has written poems of hearth and home, of love and labor worthy of Robert Burns. He is the sweetest, strongest singer in our country and I do not know his equal in any land.
But when we compare the literature of the first half of this century with that of the last, we are compelled to say that the last, taken as a whole, is best. Think of the volumes that science has given to the world. In the first half of this century, sermons, orthodox sermons, were published and read. Now reading sermons is one of the lost habits. Taken as a whole, the literature of the latter half of our century is better than the first. I like the essays of Prof. Clifford. They are so clear, so logical that they are poetic. Herbert Spencer is not simply instructive, he is charming. He is full of true imagination. He is not the slave of imagination. Imagination is his servant. Huxley wrote like a trained swordsman. His thrusts were never parried. He had superb courage. He never apologized for having an opinion. There was never on his soul the stain of evasion. He was as candid as the truth. Haeckel is a great writer because he reveres a fact, and would not for his life deny or misinterpret one. He tells what he knows with the candor of a child and defends his conclusions like a scientist, a philosopher. He stands next to Darwin.
Coming back to fiction and poetry, I have great admiration for Edgar Fawcett. There is in his poetry thought, beauty and philosophy. He has the courage of his thought. He knows our language, the energy of verbs, the color of adjectives. He is in the highest sense an artist.
Question. What do you think of Hall Caine's recent efforts to bring about a closer union between the stage and pulpit?
Answer. Of course, I am not certain as to the intentions of Mr. Caine. I saw "The Christian," and it did not seem to me that the author was trying to catch the clergy.
There is certainly nothing in the play calculated to please the pulpit. There is a clergyman who is pious and heartless. John Storm is the only Christian, and he is crazy. When Glory accepts him at last, you not only feel, but you know she has acted the fool. The lord in the piece is a dog, and the real gentleman is the chap that runs the music hall. How the play can please the pulpit I do not see. Storm's whole career is a failure. His followers turn on him like wild beasts. His religion is a divine and diabolical dream. With him murder is one of the means of salvation. Mr. Caine has struck Christianity a stinging blow between the eyes. He has put two preachers on the stage, one a heartless hypocrite and the other a madman. Certainly I am not prejudiced in favor of Christianity, and yet I enjoyed the play. If Mr. Caine says he is trying to bring the stage and the pulpit together, then he is a humorist, with the humor of Rabelais.
Question. What do recent exhibitions in this city, of scenes from the life of Christ, indicate with regard to the tendencies of modern art?