The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844

‘There is one that you have failed to detect; namely, a faint whiff of barn-yards, owing I presume to the strong prevalence of farmers and other rustics from the surrounding country.’ Seatsfield smiled at this, and acknowledged, in a laughing way, an occasional intimation of manure. ‘Graffenburg,’ I observed, ‘is remarkably free from all strong odors; it is a very clean village.’

Seatsfield: ‘That, Sir, is owing to the water: depend upon it, wherever water prevails neatness will ensue. Temperance and cleanliness go hand in hand. The ancients were a filthy race, and they were great wine-bibbers. What a condition of personal and mental nastiness is divulged by Horace in his ‘Iter ad Brundusium;’ yet Horace was a choice specimen of a Roman gentleman.’

‘Have you had any poets among you here? or is the hydropathic system too repugnant to their art?’

Seatsfield: ‘Our countryman, Longfellow, was here not long since. I sat at table with him frequently; but never introduced myself to him.’

‘Do you think highly of his powers?’

Seatsfield: ‘As a prolific generator of novel life-images, no; but as a vivid delineator of the inner-thought principle, as an artistical displayer of the higher subjective mood, he is of the very first class. I honor Longfellow.’

‘He is perhaps our smoothest versifier, next to Halleck.’

Seatsfield: ‘Nay, he is the only one among us who can combine extreme polish and the utmost facility of flow with deep-seated reflection.’ Seatsfield then quoted, with a sublime energy, from the celebrated ‘Psalm of Life:’

‘‘Not enjoyment and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way,
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

‘In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb driven cattle,
Be a hero in the strife.

‘Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant,
Let the dead Past, bury its dead;
Act, act in the glorious Present,
Heart within and God o’er head.’’

‘You give the poet a great advantage,’ I said, ‘in quoting his very finest production, and picking out the choicest stanzas. Beside, his theme here is one of so general a nature, and so familiar to philosophy, that it would be hard for any one to moralize upon it in verse without accidentally hitting upon some sublimity. The commonest intellect has lofty and awful thoughts whenever it gives way to serious meditation upon our mortality.’

Seatsfield: ‘That is partly true; but Longfellow is not only great upon that ground. His realm is very extensive. No man has the power (had he only the will) of depicting the simplicity of every-day life and objects with more grace or comprehensiveness. There are some touches in his ‘Village Blacksmith’ inexpressibly beautiful, and worthy of Burns’ ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night:’

‘His hair is crisp and black and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate’er he can,’ etc.

And then again:

‘He goes on Sunday to the Church,
And sits among the boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice
Singing in the gallery,
And it makes his heart rejoice.’

Seatsfield repeated these verses with much emotion; and I observed that a tear stood upon his lids. I therefore turned the conversation upon hydropathy, and introduced a quotation from Pindar: αρὶστον μὲν ὕδωρ, etc.

Seatsfield: ‘Pindar, Sir, has expressed a great truth; but I think that Pierpont has expressed it better. In his exquisite ‘Ode on the Opening of the Marlborough Temperance-House’ how beautifully he says, after speaking in regard to the virtues of cold water:

‘Oh! had Eve’s hair
Been dressed in gin,
Would she have been
Reflected fair?’

‘And then, after describing the beauty of Eden, with its rills and pellucid brooks bubbling through the fresh meads, he goes on:

‘Are not pure springs
And chrystal wells
The very things
For our Hotels?’

‘That, Sir, is excellent, and the somewhat homely imagery only enhances in my mind the truth of the sentiment. Pierpont, Sir, is a very great man.’

‘As great as Longfellow?’

Seatsfield: ‘No, Sir, perhaps not; there is a considerable difference of calibre between them. I should say now that Longfellow was a first-rate artist with a second-rate imagination, and that Pierpont was only a second-rate artist with a first-rate fancy. There is no mistake in Pierpont.’

I smiled at Seatsfield’s affectation of Americanisms, as if out of compliment to myself, or in honor of the day; and I rejoined: ‘There may be no mistake in Pierpont, but there is one or two in Longfellow.’

Seatsfield: ‘Grammatical or prosodiacal?’

‘Neither; but in the beginning of his ‘Psalm of Life,’ he says:

‘Tell me not in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.’

‘Here he evidently meant things are what they seem; for in the next stanza he goes on to say:

‘Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal;
‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest,’
Was not written of the soul.’

Consequently, if life is real and earnest, and the soul is incapable of mortality, things must be what they seem, and the soul cannot be dead that slumbers. And if the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not really what they seem to be, life is indeed an empty dream.’ Seatsfield looked puzzled at this.

Seatsfield: ‘You are somewhat hypercritical. Great thoughts must not be trimmed to the exact dialect of business-men. Longfellow reveals important truths; he utters what is pent within him from the impulse of utterance: he tells us that ‘Art is long and Time is fleeting;’ now some arts are not long, and time often drags heavily. It will not do to be too precise in poetry.’

‘But is that sentiment original? Does not one of the ancients say, ‘Ars longa, vita brevis?’ and does not that come pretty near to Longfellow’s idea?’

Seatsfield: ‘Yes, Sir, but that is a little criticism which picks out words. Longfellow, or yourself, or any other man, would have arrived at the same conclusion, even had the ancient author never written it.’

‘We were here interrupted by a call to luncheon; and I take advantage of the break in my journal, to bring this article to a close. More of the Seatsfieldiana I reserve for another number, provided the public are not already glutted.’