Atlantic Essays
By . Boston : James R. Osgood & Co.
OF the twelve papers here reprinted, the seven more strictly literary essays are in the interest of that self-respectful demeanor, high purpose, and honest art in literature which Mr. Higginson has always enforced by example in his own work, and which he has never ceased to advocate in a literary generation much abandoned to pyrotechnics, with an incredible deal of stick to a very little rocket. We do not know but the example in these matters is better than the precept, yet we do not complain of the precept, since it cannot fail of the grace of example. There could not be more sensible or wittier advice than Mr. Higginson gives in “A Letter to a Young Contributor,” but to our sad, certain knowledge the young contributor remains all that he was there deplored as being so long ago as 1862. Still, though these things cannot teach those to whom reading and writing have not come by nature the virtues that they praise, they ought to have a tonic and heartening effect upon others, and keep them from yielding to the temptations of a public that buys and pays trash as if it loved it. “ A Plea for Culture,” “ Literature as an Art,” “ Americanism in Literature,” and “ On an Old Latin Text-Book,” are papers that may be read with singular refreshment by all lovers of good literature, be they lay or cleric, and so we commend them.
We have always a feeling, however, that if Mr. Higginson were less conscious of a purpose to serve culture, he might serve himself and literature more. We like him best when he makes some study in the past or present of life that has no immediate relation to culture, and in this book we have had most pleasure in “A Charge with Prince Rupert,” Mademoiselle’s Campaigns,” “The Puritan Minister,” and “ Fayal and the Portuguese.” The last is a charming record of sojourn and observation among a people of curious interest, and abounds in sketches so skilfully touched and delicately colored, that we feel the loss of an admirable traveller in the fact that the author has not voyaged more. The other papers named seem to us quite as perfect in their presentation of the past. It is an art, this picturesque-historical essay (as we must unsatisfactorily call it) in which so many fail, that we shall sufficiently distinguish Mr. Higginson’s success by saying that he succeeds. It borders upon historical romance ; and it can be even more delusive. Vulgarly managed, it is intolerable ; it is delightful when well done. If you would see how bad it can be, how false, read Dixon’s “Tower of London,” and for all its excellences turn to these papers of Mr. Higginson.
The “Atlantic Essays” were all first printed in our pages, and they range in date from the first to the present year of the magazine’s existence. In that period we have offered the public of the best that has been produced in American literature; but, in their way, nothing better than these essays. The “constant reader” will think it very unnecessary to say this; and in fact it is somewhat late to praise Mr. Higginson for an elegance of style, a grace of humor and feeling, and an elevation of thought, which are matters of established fame.