JULIA WARD HOWE
before the close that he begins to ask himself whether anti-climax is not her favorite figure of speech.
If these shortcomings arise from constitutional disability—from natural lack of power to express—they present serious arguments against a verdict that Mrs. Howe is a poet. She may be full of poetic feeling, appreciative and reflective, may possess the undoubted poetical temperament; but poetical power consists in the faculty of utterance, and the poet is not only a seer, but a "maker"—a revealer of what he sees. If they come from impatience of revision, or too great devotion to that social life in which Mrs. Howe cannot fail to be an honor and a charm, they may and will be amended, if she will be conscientious and true to her art-career. If they are due to the ready praises of undiscriminating friends, we would rather not rank among the number of those who thus take away from a gifted aspirant more than they can possibly bestow. What we have thought is written in a sincere and, we trust, not ungenerous spirit. And if Mrs. Howe will study more closely those masters of English song whose manner is furthest removed from that which has hitherto most guided her; if she will add to the fire and humanity of her lyrics the harmonies of order, the grace of completeness, and the strength of repose, our voice shall be among the foremost to claim for her the Sapphic crown.
[263]
