10 REV. JONES VERY, IN MEMORIAM ; 



erature. Now Very in his fine way comes as near to this 

 as anybody. It is but a note, a very little note, but it is 

 a note contributed to English literature. 



Our poets bear the same relation to universal literature 

 that English art bears to universal art. We need not be 

 startled therefore ; all English art is not equal to one old 

 master, in painting or in music. They are absolutely 

 without great genius in music and painting. Why these 

 gifts are given to nations who shall explain ? Why the 

 Spaniards alone are like the English for underived genius, 

 — Don Quixote, the ballads, Calderon? 



Our poets never strike the note of passion, of fire, ex- 

 cept rhetorically, they have enough of that. It is soph- 

 omoric. The class books were full of it when I was a 

 boy, and how we tore the passion to tatters and empha- 

 sized it ! Rhetoric is a stage as natural as measles. 

 The West is grossly afflicted this way. We are saved by 

 comparative old age. The American eagle has a bold 

 flight, but is a vapid bird. How we delighted in this : 



" There's a fierce gray bird with a bending beak, 

 And an angry eye, and a startling shriek." 



Or in this : 



Still better : 



At midnight in his guarded tent 



The Turk was dreaming of the hour." 



Aye, tear her tattered ensign down 

 Lons has it waved on high." 



This is rhetorical inspiration, not poetic passion. It is 

 as different from poetic passion as the singing voice from 

 the natural. Natural feeling we have enough of, no race 

 has more or so much. In no race is there such humanity. 

 The American is the sweetest man in the world through 

 the influence of woman, the family relations, which lie at 

 the root of character. The English are brutal, the French 



