When he
awoke, he described an imaginary excursion of his own, following exactly
the course which the smoke had taken. This indirect contact might
furnish a partially true type of Hawthorne's mysterious intercourse with
the world through his books.
It would be a mistake, however, to attribute this difference to the
greater strength of Irving's humor,--a trait, always much lauded in him.
It is without doubt a good quality. This mild, sweet radiance of an
uncontaminated and well-bred spirit is not a common thing in literature.
But I cannot fall in with the judgment that calls it "freer and far more
joyous" than Addison's. Both in style and in humor Irving has caught
something of the grace of "The Spectator"; but as in the style he
frequently falls short, writing feeble or jarring sentences, so in humor
I cannot see how he is to be brought at all on a level with Addison, who
is primarily a grave, stately, scholarly mind, but all the deeper on
that account in the lustre of his humorous displays. Addison, too, had
somewhat of the poet in him, and was capable of tragedy as well as of
neat satire and compact characterization. But if we looked for a pithy
embodiment of the difference between Irving and Hawthorne, we might call
the former a "polite writer," and the latter a profound poet: as,
indeed, I have called him in this essay, though with no intent to
confuse the term with that given to poets who speak in verse. Pathos is
the great touchstone of humor, and Irving's pathos is always a
lamentable failure.
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