They are perfect Chinese for ingenuity and imitation, and the
resemblance to the real Simon-pure is very perfect--externally. But when
it comes to grating the nut for negus, we miss the aroma!"
"Do you pretend that Bryant is not a poet in the grain, and that the
wondrous boy, Willis, was not also 'to the manner born?' Read
'Thanatopsis,' or are you acquainted with it already? I hardly think you
can be. Read those scriptural poems."
"A very smooth school-exercise the first, no more. There is not a
heart-beat in the whole grind. As to Willis--he failed egregiously, when
he attempted to 'gild refined gold and paint the lily,' as he did in his
so-called 'Sacred Poems.' He can spin a yarn pretty well, and coin a new
word for a make-shift, amusingly, but save me from the foil-glitter of
his poetry." [2]
"This is surprising! You upset all precedent. I really wish you had not
said these things. I now begin to see the truth of what my copy-book
told me long ago, that 'evil association corrupts good manners,' or I
will vary it and substitute 'opinions.' I must eschew your society, in a
literary way, I must indeed, Major Favraud."
"Now comes along this strolling Longfellow minstrel," he continued,
ignoring or not hearing my remark, "with _his_ dreary hurdy-gurdy to cap
the climax. Heavens! what a nasal twang the whole thing has to me.
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