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, w