I know of a man who can answer your questions if you know the answers
yourself, even without reading them or hearing you ask them. He once
read a chemical formula for Edison which nobody but Edison had ever
seen. I am glad that such things are possible. They confirm our faith
in the reality of the unseen. They show us in what a world of occult
laws and influences we live, but they tell us nothing of any other
world.
METEORIC MEN AND PLANETARY MEN
There are meteoric men and there are planetary men. The men who now
and then flash across our intellectual heavens, drawing all eyes for
the moment, these I call meteoric men. What a contrast they present to
the planetary men, who are slow to attract our attention, but who
abide, and do not grow dim! Poets like Emerson, Whitman, and
Wordsworth were slow to gain recognition, but the radiance of their
names grows. I call such a poet as Swinburne meteoric, a poet of a
certain kind of brilliant power, but who reads him now? Stephen
Phillips with his "Marpessa" had a brief vogue, and then disappeared
in the darkness. When I was a young man, I remember, a Scottish poet,
Alexander Smith, published a "Life Drama," which dazzled the literary
world for a brief period, but it is forgotten now. What attention
Kidd's "Social Evolution" attracted a generation or more ago! But it
is now quite neglected. It was not sound. When he died a few years ago
there was barely an allusion to it in the public press. The same fate
befell that talented man, Buckle, with his "Civilization in England."
Delia Bacon held the ear of the public for a time with the
Bacon-Shakespeare theory. Pulpit men like Joseph Cook and Adirondack
Murray blazed out, and then were gone. Half a century ago or more an
Englishman by the name of M. F. Tupper published a book called
"Proverbial Philosophy" which had a brief season of popularity, and
then went out like a rush-light, or a blaze of tissue paper. Novels
like Miss Sprague's "Earnest Trifler," Du Maurier's "Trilby," and
Wallace's "Ben Hur" have had their little day, and been forgotten. In
the art world the Cubists' crazy work drew the attention of the public
long enough for it to be seen how spurious and absurd it was.
Brownell's war poems turned out to be little more than brief
fireworks. Joaquin Miller, where is he? Fifty years ago Gail Hamilton
was much in the public eye, and Grace Greenwood, and Fanny Fern; and
in Bohemian circles, there were Agnes Franz and Ada Clare, but they
are all quite forgotten now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account