the quotation. You know the subject is not elevated. The story of a bankrupt, retail dry-goods merchant is not a poetical theme. But the motto is the very opposite of such a story, and therein lies the wit.
“‘A fairy vision
Of some gay creatures of the elements,
That in the colors of the rainbow live,
And play in the pligited clouds.
Notwithstanding Halleck’s reticence in regard to his own poems, he always delighted to talk of the poetry of other authors. He had committed to memory many of Campbell’s poems, and his comments upon certain passages that he quoted were wonderfully acute and elucidative. Hohenlinden was one of his favorites.
“‘On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.’
“There,” he would say, “I defy any painter to paint that landscape! The poet in one word, bloodless, anticipates the coming struggle, the clash of men and arms, the blood-stained field that is to be, the trampled snow,—and in his prophetic vision he paints it all in a word.
“And now see how the armies are marshalled!—Not by generals and adjutants, but by a supernatural drum at midnight! An inferior poet would have put all the officers in,—pioneers and all—aids and orderlies, to summon the armies to battle,—but Campbell only uses a drum!
“‘But Linden saw another sight,
'When the drum beat at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of the scenery!’
