Stevenson approached close to the beau ideal of epistolary art. When we and our friends have achieved it, distance will be annihilated and there will be no such thing as separation. We shall draw from our little box a small white packet, and, though Nostradamus may offer us every secret of magician or alchemist in exchange for it, we shall refuse offhand. How shall he lure us with a shadow, a ghostly visitant, savoring of the pit and summoned only by the most marrow-freezing incantations? Here in our hand is a mysterious, more potent charm, bringing us the warm, human personality of the man. We are not spiritualists, yet here sealed in the white packet is an incorporal presence. Given but a mastery of the twenty-six signs and their combinations, and lo, the heart of our friend served up in Boston bond! Then, as for enditing of letters, we shall rise up and call them blessed who have made "much ado about a little matter."
Literary Monthly, 1901.
GREYLOCK
MAX EASTMAN '05
This whole, far-reaching host of ancient hills
That all thy kingdom's rugged boundary fills,
Yields thee unrivalled thy supremacy.
'Tis not by chance that they thus kneel to thee;
Those scars, that but increase thy grandeur, tell
Of battles thou hast fought—and hast fought well,
For, conquered at thy feet, two giants lie
Who once did dare their sovereign to defy.
When earth with sea, and earth with earth, and sea
With sea, all mingled, fought for mastery,
Then didst thou meet thy foes, and by thy might
Didst win, and since hath kept, thy regal right.
Literary Monthly, 1901.
TO SIDNEY LANIER
MAX EASTMAN '05
Thy name is not the highest in thy art,
Though music sweet thou singest in thy songs
That unto thee alone of all belongs,
Uplifting Love in every burdened heart;
Thou hast not left us perfect poetry;
But thou hast left by far a greater thing,
A poem such as man did never sing—
Thine own brave life, a lifelong victory.