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that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"

"Good-afternoon!"

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"

"Good-afternoon!"

18. "I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So a merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good-afternoon!"

"And a happy New Year!" "Good-afternoon!"

DICKENS'S "Christmas Carol."

9. DEFENSE OF POETRY.

1. We believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from deprèssing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity; that is, to spìritualize our nature.

2. Trúe, póetry has been made the instrument of více, the pander of bad pássions; but when genius thus stóops, it dims its fires, and parts with much of its power; and even when Poetry is enslaved to licentiousness and misanthropy, she can not wholly forget her trúe vocation. Strains of púre féeling, touches of tenderness, images of innocent happiness, sympathies with what is good in our náture, bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our mòral nature, often escape in an immóral work, and

show us how hard it is for a gifted spírit to divorce itself wholly from what is good.

3. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affèctions. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of òutward náture and of the soul. It indeed portrays with terrible energy the excèsses of the pássions, but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep though shuddering sympathy.

4. Its great téndency and púrpose is to carry the mind beyond and above the béaten, dústy, wéary walks of ordinary life; to lift it into a pùrer élement, and to breathe into it more profound and génerous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human náture by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life.

5. We are aware that it is objected to póetry that it gives wrong views and excites fálse expectations of life, peoples the mind with shadows and illusions, and builds up imagination on the ruins of wisdom. That there is a wisdom against which poetry wárs-the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of lifewe do not deny; nor do we deem it the lêast sérvice which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems them from the thralldom of this earth-born prùdence.

6. But, passing over this topic, we would observe that the complaint against poetry, as abounding in illúsion and decéption, is, in the main, groundless. In many poems there is more of truth than in many histories and

philosophic theories. The fictions of génius are often the véhicles of the sublímest vèrities, and its fláshes often open new regions of thought, and throw new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, when the letter is falsehood, the spirit is often profoundest wisdom.

7. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more may it be expected in his delineations of life; for the présent life, which is the first stage · of the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the high office of the bard to detect this divine element among the grosser labors and pleasures of our earthly being. The présent life is not wholly prosáic, precíse, táme, and fínite. To the gifted eye it abounds in the poêtic.

8. The affèctions, which spread beyond ourselves and stretch far into futúrity; the workings of mighty pássions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman énergy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and búoyancy, and dazzling hópes of youth; the throbbings of the heart, when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beaúty, and gráce, and géntleness, and fullness of féeling, and depth of afféction, and blushes of púrity, and the tónes and lóoks which only a móther's heart can inspire-these are all poetical.

9. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it wére, life's ethereal èssence, arrésts and condénses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys. And in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratificátions, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being.

CHANNING.

10. FALSTAFF.

[This extract affords an example of "humorous style," with prevail ing circumflex inflections.]

1. There is something cordial iň a fất mán. Everybody likes him, and he likes everybody. Food does a fát man good; it clings to him; it frùctifies upon him; he swells nóbly out, and fills a génerous space in life. A fat man, therefore, almost in virtue of being a fat mán, is, per sé, a popular màn; and he commonly deserves his popularity.

2. A fat man feels his position sólid in the world; he knows that his being is cognizable; he knows that he has a márked place in the úniverse, and that he need take no extraordinary pains to advertise mankind that he is among them; he knows that he is in no danger of being overlooked.

3. A fat man is the nearest to that most perfect of figures, a mathematical sphere; a thin man, to that most limited of conceivable dimensions, a simple line. A făt man is a being of harmónious volume, and holds relations to the material universe in êvery direction; a thin man has nothing but length; a thin man, in fact, is but the continuation of a point.

4. Well then might Falstaff exult in his size; well might he mock at the prince, and his other léan contèmporaries; and, accordingly, when he would address the prince in terms the most degráding, he heaps èpithet upon èpithet, each expressive of the utmost leanness. "Away, you stárveling," he exclaims; "you êel-skin; you dried neat's-tongue; you stôck-fish. O for breath to utter what is like thee!"

5. Falstaff was an epicure, but no glutton. He was not a great eater, for his bill contained a halfpennyworth of bread to an intolerable quantity of sack. And although Falstaff was a large drinker, he was no inebriate.

And here we conceive a consummate àrt in Shakespeare,
who sustains Falstaff throughout in our intellectual
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6. As to lies, they were in the way of his vocation. The highest stretch of imagination could not even suspect him of veracity; and if he had any dúpes, they were strongly in love with decèption. His lies, too, were the lies of a professed and known wit; they were designed only for lúdicrous effect, and generally were little more than cómic exaggerations. In the events at Gad's hill, and those that immediately follow them, there is an epitome of the whole character of Falstaff; but there ís, at the same time, an evident design on the part of the poet, to bring out his peculiarities with grotésque extràvagance, and to produce the broadest and the most cómic result.

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7. Falstaff has both wit and humor; but more of wit, I think, than humor. Between wit and humor there is an evident distinction, but to submit the distinction to minute criticism would require more time than we cån spàre; and, after all, it is more easy to feel than to explain it. Wit implies thought; húmor, sensibility. Wit deals with ideas; humor, with actions and with mânners. Wit may be a thing of pure imagination; húmor involves séntiment and character. Wit is an éssence; humor, an incarnation.

8. Wit and humor, however, have some qualities in common. Both develop unexpected anàlogies; both include the principles of contrast and assimilation; both detect inward resemblances amidst éxternal differences, and the result of both is pleasurable surprise; the surprise from wit excites admirátion, the surprise from húmor stimulates mérriment, and produces laughtective 9. Falstaff's wit is rich as his imaginátion; as prolific as it is felicitous. It is pùngent, còpious, brilliant in expréssion, and decisive in effect. It never falls short of

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