I know of few things better calculated to extinguish the poetic fire than this. I regret to be obliged to say that Halicarnassus, by his persistent hostility,--I believe I may say, persecution,--has disseminated his plebeian prejudices over a very large portion of our joint community, and my muse consequently is held in the smallest esteem. Not but that whenever there is a church to be dedicated, or a centennial to be celebrated, or a picnic to be sung, or a fair to be closed, I am called on to furnish the poetry, which, with that sweetness of disposition which forms a rare but fitting background to poetic genius, I invariably do, to be praised and thanked for a week, and then to be again as before told, upon the slightest provocation, "You better not meddle with verses." "You stick to prose." "Verses are not your forte.""You can't begin to come up with ----, and ----, and ----."On that auroral night, crowned with the splendors of the wild mystery of the North, I am sure that the muse awoke and stirred in the depths of my soul, and needed but a word of recognition and encouragement to put on her garland and singing robes, and pour forth a strain which the world would not have willingly let die, and which I would have transferred to these pages. But that word was not spoken. Scorn and sarcasm usurped the throne of gentle cherishing, and the golden moment passed away forever. It is as well. Perhaps it is better; for on second thought, I recollect that the absurd prejudice I have mentioned has extended itself to the editor of this Magazine,[*] who jerks me down with a pitiless pull whenever I would soar into the empyrean,--ruling out with a rod of iron every shred of poetry from my pages, till I am reduced to the necessity of smuggling it in by writing it in the same form as the rest when, as he tells poetry only by the capitals and exclamation-points, he thinks it is prose, and lets it go.
[* The Atlantic Monthly]
Here, if I may be allowed, I should like to make a digression.
In an early stage of my journeying, I spoke of the pleasure Ihad taken in reading "The Betrothal" and "The Espousals." Icannot suppose that it is of any consequence to the world whether I think well or ill of a poem, but the only way in which the world will ever come out right is by everyone's putting himself right; and I don't wish even my influence to seem to be thrown in favor of so objectionable a book as "Faithful Forever," a continuation of the former poems by the same author. Coventry Patmore's books generally are made up of poetry and prattle, but the poetry makes you forgive the prattle. The tender, strong, wholesome truths they contain steady the frail bark through dangerous waters; but "Faithful Forever" is wrong, false, and pernicious, root and branch, and a thorough misnomer besides. Frederic loves Honoria, who loves and marries Arthur, leaving Frederic out in the cold; whereupon Frederic turns round and marries Jane, knowing all the while that he does not love her and does love Honoria. What kind of a Faithful Forever is this? A man cannot love two women simultaneously, whatever he may do consecutively. If he ceases to love the first, he is surely not faithful forever. If he does not cease to love her, he is false forever to the second,--and worse than false. Marrying from pique or indifference or disappointment is one of the greatest crimes that can be committed, as well as one of the greatest blunders that can he made. The man who can do such a thing is a liar and a perjurer. I can understand that people should give up the people they love, but there is no possible shadow of excuse for their taking people whom they don't love. It is no matter how inferior Jane may be to Frederic. A woman can feel a good many things that she cannot analyze or understand, and there never yet was a woman so stupid that she did not know whether or not her husband loved her, and was not either stricken or savage to find that he did not. No woman ever was born with a heart so small that anything less than the whole of her husband's heart could fill it.
Moreover, apart from unhappy consequences, there is a right and a wrong about it. How dare a man stand up solemnly before God and his fellows with a lie in his right hand? and if he does do it, how dare a poet or a novelist step up and glorify him in it? The man who commits a crime does not do so much mischief as the man who turns the criminal into a hero.
Frederic Graham did a weak, wicked, mean, and cowardly deed, not being in his general nature weak, wicked, mean, or cowardly, and was allowed to blunder on to a tolerable sort of something like happiness in the end. No one has a right to complain, for all of us get a great deal more and better than we deserve. We have no right to complain of Providence, but we have a right to complain of the poet who comes up and says not a word in reprobation of the meanness and cowardice, not a word of the cruelty inflicted upon Jane, nor the wrong done to his own soul;but veils the wickedness, excites our sympathy and pity, and in fact makes Frederic out to be a sort of sublime and suffering martyr. He was no martyr at all. Nobody is a martyr, if he cannot help himself. If Frederic had the least spirit of martyrdom, he would have breasted his sorrow manfully and alone.
Instead of which, he shuffled himself and his misery upon poor simple Jane, getting all the solace he could from her, and leading her a wretched, almost hopeless life for years. This is what we are to admire! This is the knight without reproach!
This is to be Faithful Forever! I suppose Coventry Patmore thinks Frederic is to be commended because he did not break into Honoria's house and run away with her. That is the only thing he could have done worse than he did do, and that I have no doubt he would have done if he could. I have no faith in the honor or the virtue of men or women who will marry where they do not love.
I think it is just as sinful--and a thousand times as vile--to marry unlovingly, as to love unlawfully.[*]
