Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 3, March 1847Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 3, March 1847
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
We have engaged the services of Mr. Bird, the author of “Nick of the
Woods,” “Calavar,” etc., to furnish us a series of articles upon the
Indians of America; a writer whose intimate acquaintance with the
subject promises articles of great interest to our readers. We present
our subscribers this month with an admirably drawn and engraved plate of
Saukie and Fox Indians “on the look out.” Also, a beautiful view of a
Waterfall in Georgia.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Ch. Bodmer pinx. ad. nat. Eng^{d} by Rawdon,
Wright & Hatch
Saukie and Fox Indians]
* * * * *
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_Poems. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1
vol. 12mo._
We cannot do justice either to the faults or merits of this singular
volume, in a brief notice. The author has one of the most peculiar and
original minds of which we have any record in literature, and a thorough
analysis of his powers, even if successful, would occupy a large space.
No reader of Mr. Emerson’s works need be informed that the poems are
full of imagination, fancy, and feeling, and display a great command of
expression. For our own part we prefer those poems in the volume which
are least connected with the author’s system of ethics and metaphysics,
such as “Each and All,” “The Forerunners,” “The Humble Bee,” and “The
Problem.” In many of the others there is an evident attempt at
versifying opinions; and the opinions are generally of that kind which
readers will either pronounce unintelligible, or false and pernicious.
“The Sphinx,” “Woodnotes,” “Merlin,” “Initial, Demoniac, and Celestial
Love,” “Blight,” “Threnody,” and many other pieces, though containing
many deep and delicate imaginations, are chiefly remarkable as embodying
a theory of life, and system of religion, whose peculiarity consists in
inverting the common beliefs and feelings of mankind. Here and there we
perceive traces of the leading idea contained in that aggregation of
fancy, sensibility, blasphemy, licentiousness, plagiarism, and noble
sentiments, going under the name of “Vestus,”—we mean the idea that
there is no essential difference between evil and good. Thus, in the
“pure realm” to which celestial love mounts, in Mr. Emerson’s theory of
love,
“Good and ill,
And joy and moan,
Melt into one.”
Perhaps this opinion is a necessary result of the principles of
pantheism, but it makes as bad poetry as false philosophy. Indeed, Mr.
Emerson’s poems expressive of opinions, are the harshest in metre, and
least poetical in feeling, which the volume contains; and cannot be
compared, in respect to artistical merit, with the prose statements of
the same, or similar doctrines, in his “Essays.”
* * * * *
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