Not
an original or cheerful note! 'Old Hundred' is joyful in comparison!"
"You shall not say that," I interrupted; "you shall not dare to say that
in my presence. It is sheer slander, that you have caught up from some
malignant British review, and, like all other serpents, you are venomous
in proportion to your blindness! I am vexed with you, that you will not
see with the clear, discerning eyes God gave you originally."
"But I do see with them, and very discerningly, notwithstanding your
comparison. Now there is that 'Skeleton in Armor,' his last effusion, I
believe, that you are all making such a work over--fine-sounding thing
enough, I grant you, ingenious rhyme, and all that. But I know where the
framework came from! Old Drayton furnished that in his 'Battle of
Agincourt.'" Then in a clear, sonorous voice, he gave some specimens of
each, so as to point the resemblance, real or imaginary.
"You are content with mere externs in finding your similitudes, Major
Favraud! In power of thought, beauty of expression, what comparison is
there? Drayton's verse is poor and vapid, even mean, beside
Longfellow's."
"I grant you that. I have never for one moment disputed the ability of
those Yankees. Their manufacturing talents are above all praise, but
when it comes to the 'God-fire,' as an old German teacher of mine used
to say, our simple Southern poets leave them all behind--'Beat them all
hollow,' would be their own expression.
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