e possessor to
what we call immortality."
Besides the stories selected for abridgment in the volume there were
passages, from Tales not there included, which FitzGerald was never
weary of citing in his letters, to show his friends how true a poet was
lying neglected of men. One he specially loved is the description of an
autumn day in _The Maid's Story_:--
"There was a day, ere yet the autumn closed,
When, ere her wintry wars, the earth reposed;
When from the yellow weed the feathery crown,
Light as the curling smoke, fell slowly down;
When the winged insect settled in our sight,
And waited wind to recommence her flight;
When the wide river was a silver sheet,
And on the ocean slept th' unanchor'd fleet,
When from our garden, as we looked above,
There was no cloud, and nothing seemed to move."
Another passage, also in Crabbe's sweeter vein, forms the conclusion of
the whole poem. It is where the elder brother hands over to the younger
the country house that is to form the future home of his
wife and children:--
"It is thy wife's, and will thy children's be,
Earth, wood, and water! all for thine and thee.
* * * * *
There wilt thou soon thy own Matilda view,
She knows our deed, and she approves it too;
Before her all our views and plans were laid,
And Jacques was there to explain and to persuade.
Here on this lawn thy boys and girls shall run,
And play their gambols when their tasks are done,
There, from that window shall their mother view
The happy tribe, and smile at all they do;
While thou, more gravely, hiding thy delight
Shalt cry, 'O! childish!' and enjoy the sight."
FitzGerald's selections are made with the skill and judgment we should
expect from a critic of so fine a taste, but it may be doubted whether
any degree of skill could have quite atoned for one radical flaw in his
method. He seems to have had his own misgivings as to whether he was
not, by that method, giving up one real secret of Crabbe's power. After
quoting Sir Leslie Stephen's most true remark that "with all its
short-and long-comings Crabbe's better work leaves its mark on the
reader's mind and memory as only the work of genius can, while so many a
more splendid vision of the fancy slips away, leaving scarce a mark
behind." FitzGerald adds: "If this abiding impression result (as perhaps
in the case of Richardson or Wordsworth) from being, as it were, soak
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