But I am more
generous to your Southern bard than you are to our glorious Longfellow!
I don't call that imitation, but coincidence, the oneness of genius! I
do not even insinuate plagiarism." My manner, cool and careless,
steadied his own.
"You are right: our 'Shortfellow' _was_ incapable of any thing of the
sort. Peace be to his ashes! With all his nerve and _vim_, he died of
melancholy, I believe. As good an end as any, however, and certainly
highly respectable. But you know what Wordsworth says in his
'School-master'--
"'If there is one that may bemoan
His kindred laid in earth,
The household hearts that were his own,
It is the man of mirth.'"
He sighed as he concluded his quotation--sighed, and slackened the pace
of his flying steeds. "But give me something of Praed's in return," he
said, rallying suddenly; "is there not a pretty little thing called 'How
shall I woo her?'" glancing archly and somewhat impertinently at me, I
thought--or, perhaps, what would simply have amused me in another man
and mood shocked me in him, the recent widower--widowed, too, under such
peculiar and awful circumstances! I did not reflect sufficiently,
perhaps, on his ignorance of many of these last.
How I deplored his levity, which nothing could overcome or restrain; and
yet beneath which I even then believed lay depths of anguish! How I
wished that influence of mine could prevail to induce him to divide his
dual nature, "To throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer
with the better half!" But I could only show disapprobation by the
gravity of my silence.
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