"Yes, that is true poetry, I acknowledge, Major Favraud," I exclaimed, not at all humbled by conviction, though a little annoyed at the pointed manner in which he gave (looking in my face as he did so) these concluding lines:
"Say from what fair and sunny shore, Fair wanderer, dost thou rove, Lest what I only should adore I heedless think to love?"
"The character of Pinckney's genius," I rejoined, "is, I think, essentially like that of Praed, the last literary phase with me--for I am geological in my poetry, and take it in strata. But I am more generous to your Southern bard than you are to our glorious Longfellow! I don't call that imitation, but coincidence, the oneness of genius! I do not even insinuate plagiarism." My manner, cool and careless, steadied his own.
"You are right: our 'Shortfellow' _was_ incapable of any thing of the sort. Peace be to his ashes! With all his nerve and _vim_, he died of melancholy, I believe. As good an end as any, however, and certainly highly respectable. But you know what Wordsworth says in his 'School-master'--
"'If there is one that may bemoan His kindred laid in earth, The household hearts that were his own, It is the man of mirth.'"
He sighed as he concluded his quotation--sighed, and slackened the pace of his flying steeds. "But give me something of Praed's in return," he said, rallying suddenly; "is there not a pretty little thing called 'How shall I woo her?'" glancing archly and somewhat impertinently at me, I thought--or, perhaps, what would simply have amused me in another man and mood shocked me in him, the recent widower--widowed, too, under such peculiar and awful circumstances! I did not reflect sufficiently, perhaps, on his ignorance of many of these last.
How I deplored his levity, which nothing could overcome or restrain; and yet beneath which I even then believed lay depths of anguish! How I wished that influence of mine could prevail to induce him to divide his dual nature, "To throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the better half!" But I could only show disapprobation by the gravity of my silence.
"So you will not give me 'How shall I woo her?' Miss Harz?" a little embarrassed, I perceived, by my manner. "I have a fancy for the title, nevertheless, not having heard any more, and should be glad to hear the whole poem. But you are prudish to-day, I fancy."