Harper’s was a nature quick to respond to the beautiful and true wherever found, whether in prose or verse, in music or painting, or in the actions of daily life. He was, moreover, intensely sympathetic, and what he read or saw always impressed, and sometimes affected, him deeply. He would often rise from the reading of a beautiful poem, or the story of some heroic human effort, with eyes filled and voice completely overcome, and then, as a means of gaining relief, and at the same time of giving expression to his feelings, would pen in a single sentence or two the thought that was most in his mind at the time.
Such little entries as the following are a characteristic feature of his diary, and reveal his sympathetic appreciation of what he read, and of the subject treated:
“To-night I read the sad story of Keats’ life. How sad it is to see so promising a man pass so soon! How admirably he declared a great truth when he said,
| “‘“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’” |
“To-night I read over again Lanier’s A Ballad of Trees and the Master, which, I think, most beautiful. The poem appealed to me strongly as illustrating the subduing calm of the woods. Before going to bed I read Ward’s biography of Lanier, a story of the heroic struggle of a soul steeped in music and high purpose.”
“In the afternoon I read Matthew Arnold’s Essay on Shelley, whose life was a strange mixture of genius and weakness. But for his poetry his weakness would have made him detestable. But for his weakness his poetical genius might have made him one of the most beautiful of all our authors. As he is, he is one of those strange paradoxes who give rise to speculation as to the necessary qualities of genius. Much can be forgiven in one who has created the ode, To a Skylark and The Sensitive Plant.”
“Matthew Arnold seems to me above all a critic, clear, impartial, appreciative, kindly, bravely severe, when this is necessary to do justice. In what he says in these Essays on Criticism, one feels how sad it is that noble work is marred by a something wanting; half results because of the want of something,—‘many are called, few chosen.’”