Language Conference.
At the Language Conference last Thursday, Miss Humphrey discussed Irving's Women in a lively and entertaining paper. It is difficult to understand why Irving's books show such inadequate treatment of womankind, while their author himself professed in his works, and illustrated by his life, a chivalrous and even romantic consideration for the sex. The women in most of his books not only fail to illustrate a high ideal, but they are not even true to life. They are, almost without exception, "weak, vain and susceptible."
The short romance of Irving's life is well known. In his younger days of poutery and uncertain prospects, he formed an attachment for Miss Matilda Hoffman, but before he had acquired the modest fortune which might justify him in marrying, the object of his attachment died, at the early age of eighteen Irving's grief over his loss was too deep to admit of speech. He never in later years mentioned so much as the name of the loved one.
Although Irving never married, he was a man of many friendships and some of his friendships were with women. From his letters to Miss Mary Fairlie we may learn the qualities which seemed to him most attractive in women. A woman should possess a pretty face and no understanding; her mission in life is to love and be loved, and her main business is to marry with all convenient speed. Women are, in his opinion, frivolous and greedy for conquest. They are capable, however, of the softer virtues, sympathy, constancy, and patience in the presence of misfortune. It is this conventional type of soft and clinging woman kind that Irving has illustrated in the women of Bracebridge Hall. For-saken damsels abound in his pages, and these either decorously break their hearts or lose what is really of less consequence, their minds. The best pictures of feminine life which Irving has drawn are to be found in the Sketch Book. The frivolous and capricious Katrina Van Tassel is a study from life. Poor Rip Van Winkle's scolding wife is true to a type of which all have heard although few, it is to be hoped, have gained their knowledge at first hand. But in such beautiful sketches as these, Irving has laid his less conventional model.
It is gratifying to be able to mark the development of woman in fiction. In the novels of our day women are no longer mere showy ornaments; they possess intellect and depth of character, in both of which points most of Irving's women are sadly lacking.
Mr. Jones discussed Tennyson's attitude toward nature as displayed in "In Memoriam." In Memoriam is the experience of a soul which has passed from the joyous days of congenial and helpful friendship, through long sad years of bereavement into the sunlight of a new hope and a nobler life. The poet's grief, at first pognant out wholly selfish, becomes atlast the sign of brotherhood with all who suffer. With sympathy he gains courage, and rises to the height of the hope which can sing of the "one far off divine event to which the whole creation moves."
toum moves.
The poet's attitude toward nature shows a parallel development. In the first bitterness of his grief, nature seems to him a mighty but indifferent force, careless of the good or ill her laws may bring on man. The yew tree near the grave of his lost friend seemed to him the type of this sinful and hopeless indifference. As his heart slowly recovers from the blow it has received his attitude changes in the direction of that more sentimental attitude which feels in nature a sympathy for human grief. He hears the tone responsive to his own but deems it a delusive echo born of his own longing. The "pathetic fallacy" appears at first a mere suggestion. After a fruitless quest for his lost friend in the house dear through his memory, and dark through his loss, his mood settles into the calmness of despair. Returning spring brings with it indeed the suggestion of hope, the budding yew tree; but as yet "gloom is (but) kindled at the tips, and passes into gloom again."
and passes into groun again.
The anniversary of Arthur Hallam's
death "lifts burdened brows" and "drenches with quick rain" the flowers. It must hasten to hide its shame beneath the ground. Yet from this date gentler influences bear sway. The third anniversary of his grief gives rise to the stanzas in which for the last time, nature is pictured as intimately connected with the observer's mood. In these verses the key note of sympathy is struck and the chord of simple and personal grief trembles and passes out of sight.
The historic interest in the nature poetry of In Memoriam centers of course in the places where the two friends were wont to meet. There are other ways in which Tennyson treated nature even in this poem, but it is worthy of remark that nowhere in In Memoriam does he attain the highest form of nature poetry, that which sees in nature, the symbol of a higher world. He finds indeed some ground for hope, but it is not through nature, but rather in spite of nature that he reaches the conviction that "good shall be the final goal of all."
suit be the final goal of Miss Barkley, in "A Study of Whittier's Purpose Before and After the War" endeavors to discover whether the ground for such a distinction exists. In her opinion no such ground can be found. Not love of opinion, nor even love of freedom in the abstract was Whittier's guiding principle, but love for humanity and abiding belief in the brotherhood of man. His opposition to slavery sprang from this tap root, which did not wither when the tempest of war had passed, but put forth continually new branches. Whittier is always larger than his verses; when we analyze his verses we find our selves dealing, not with the study of literary art, but with the workings of a human soul. "His piety is elemental and his faith universal." In Whittier we have to deal with three poets, the fiery reformer of anti-slavery days whose poems, meant for the crisis of an hour, may die with the hour which called them forth; the poet of New England, the true singer of our homestead and heartstone; and lastly the poet of religious trust. "We honor him for the anti-slavery work, are charmed by his New England pictures, but we love him for poems of religion." There is but one purpose throughout the literary works of Whittier and that is the moral one. Before the war he worked for the freedom of the slave because he felt that slavery was a moral evil; after the war he worked for the uplifting and humanizing of all mankind.
EDITH MANLEY
Reportor
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