. American lands and letters. man who wrote Margaret, aboutwhich book I wish to say one word before closingthis chapter of talk. Darley, the artist, did someoutline illustrations for the tale of Margaret,which are admirable, and known to many notfamiliar with the story. The book has its circumlocutions. Words areoft-times piled in heaps ; some we do not know —perhaps a scholarly theft from Chaucer, or fromLydgate ; perhaps a bit of smart provincialism—unfamiliar but racy — smacking of the real — aquaver of stirring life in them all. So full ofwordy instincts that he tries—with too manifesta qu
. American lands and letters. man who wrote Margaret, aboutwhich book I wish to say one word before closingthis chapter of talk. Darley, the artist, did someoutline illustrations for the tale of Margaret,which are admirable, and known to many notfamiliar with the story. The book has its circumlocutions. Words areoft-times piled in heaps ; some we do not know —perhaps a scholarly theft from Chaucer, or fromLydgate ; perhaps a bit of smart provincialism—unfamiliar but racy — smacking of the real — aquaver of stirring life in them all. So full ofwordy instincts that he tries—with too manifesta quest—to catch all the sounds of all the birds,and of all his four-footed friends of the w^oods, inhis Onamatopoetic nets : too much of this, perhaps;and throughout, too much of the clangor of an 328 AMERICAN LANDS &- LETTERS. ambitious vocabulary. There are curious down-East characters—driving oxen with quaint objur-gatory phrase, or with knotted goad — putting intheir gees and haws with unctuous nasality;. Reduced Fac-simile of a Drawing by Darley in Sylvester Judds Margaret. trousers and boots, and all nether accoutrements,scenting through and through of the , there is a curious old Master, of teach-ing arts — perhaps least real of all — a needed lay-figure on which the author hangs the tags of ex-ploited faiths and exploded doctrines, which he MARGARET. 329 wants to present in parenthesis; yet the figurefills quaintly and ingeniously certain gaps whichthe motherhood and sisterhood of the narrativecould not bridge across. I said there were redundancies ; perhaps onemay count such tlie minute and faithful re-peats of vulgar domestic broils which have swayin so many isolated households. These come tothe fore in his many unshrinking ganglions ofdescriptive talk, with all the imbruted obstinaciesand the yieldings—that are not yieldings—keepingup their welter, while bursts of fatherly and filialfeeling here and there break through in regalingr
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