It is impossible to improve on the Cowboy's comment on these lines in Mr. Wister's Virginian; after Molly has read them aloud to the convalescing male, he remarks softly, "That is very, very true." Molly does not see why the Virginian admires these verses so much more than the others. "I could scarcely explain," says he, "but that man does know something." Molly wants to know if the lovers had quarrelled. "Oh, no! he will come back after he has played some more of the game." "The game?" "Life, ma'am. Whatever he was adoin' in the world of men. That's a bed-rock piece, ma'am."
The Virginian is much happier in his literary criticism of this lyric than he is of the Good News or of the Incident of the French Camp; in the latter instance, he misses the point altogether. The boy was not a poseur. The boy was so happy to think he had actually given his life for his master that he smilingly corrected Napoleon's cry "You're wounded!" It is as though one should congratulate an athletic contestant, and say "My felicitations! you won the second prize!" "No, indeed: I won the First."
Night and Morning suggests so many thoughts that we could continue our comments indefinitely; but time suffices for only one more. The nature picture of the dawn is absolutely perfect.
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea.
He does not say that finally the cape became visible, but that the sea suddenly came round the cape. Any one who has stood on the ocean-shore before dawn, and gazed along the indented coast in the grey light, has observed the precise effect mentioned in these words. At first one sees only the blur of land where the cape is, and nothing beyond it; suddenly the light increases, and the sea actually appears to come around the point.
MEETING AT NIGHT
1845
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!