The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1074]
Adown the visionary stairs of Time,
Like supernatural thunders — far yet near,
Sowing their fiery echoes through the hills!
Now here, saying nothing of the affectation in “adown;” not alluding to the insoluble paradox of “far yet near;” not mentioning the inconsistent metaphor involved in sowing of fiery echoes; adverting but slightly to the misusage of “like” in place of “as;” and to the impropriety of making anything fall like thunder, which has never been known to fall at all; merely hinting, too, at the misapplication of “steep” to the “generations” instead of to the “stairs” — (a perversion in no degree justified by the fact that so preposterous a figure as synecdoche exists in the school-books:) — letting these things pass, we shall still find it difficult to understand how Mrs. Browning should have been led to think the principal idea itself — the abstract idea — the idea of tumbling down stairs, in any shape, or under any circumstance — either a poetical or a decorous conception. And yet Mr. Whipple speaks of it as “sublime.” That the lines narrowly missed sublimity, I grant: — that they came within a step of it, I admit: but, unhappily, the step is that one step which, time out of mind, has intervened between the sublime and the ridiculous. So true is this that any person — that even I — with a very partial modification of the imagery — a modification that shall not interfere with its richly spiritual tone — may elevate the passage into unexceptionally. For example:
Hear the far generations — how they crash
From crag to crag down the precipitous Time,
In multitudinous thunders that upstartle
Aghast, the echoes from their cavernous lairs
In the visionary hills!
No doubt my version has its faults; but it has at least the merit of consistency. Not only is a mountain more poetical than a pair of stairs, but echoes are more appropriately typified as wild beasts than as seeds; and echoes and wild beasts agree better with a mountain than does a pair of stairs with the sowing of seeds — even admitting that these seeds be seeds of fire, and be sown broadcast “among the hills” by a steep generation while in in [[sic]] the act of tumbling down the stairs — that is to say, of coming down the stairs in too great a hurry to be capable of sowing the seeds as accurately as all seeds should be sown: — nor is the matter rendered any better for Mrs. Browning, even if the construction of her sentence be understood as implying that the fiery seeds were sown, not immediately by the steep generations that tumbled down the stairs, but mediately, through the intervention of “supernatural thunders” that were occasioned by the steep generations that were so unlucky as to tumble down the stairs.
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
“WYANDOTTTE, or The Hutted Knoll” is, in its general features, precisely similar to the novels enumerated in the title. It is a forest subject; and, when we say this, we give assurance that the story is a good one; for Mr. Cooper has never been known to fail, either in the forest or upon the sea. The interest, as usual, has no reference to plot, of which, indeed, our novelist seems altogether regardless, or incapable, but depends, first, upon the nature of the theme; secondly, upon a Robinson-Crusoe-like detail in its management; and thirdly, upon the frequently repeated portraiture of the half-civilized Indian. In saying that the interest depends, first, upon the nature of the theme, we mean to suggest that this theme — life in the Wilderness — is one of intrinsic and universal interest, appealing to the heart of man in all phases; a theme, like that of life upon the ocean, so unfailingly omni-prevalent in its power of arresting and absorbing attention, that while success or popularity is, with such a subject, expected as a matter of course, a failure might be properly regarded as conclusive evidence of imbecility on the part of the author. The two theses in question have been handled usque ad nauseam — and this through the instinctive perception of the universal interest which appertains