Richard Watson
Gilder was another admirably fine figure, poet, editor, and
leader of public opinion in many a noble cause. His "Letters,"
likewise, give an intimate picture of literary New York from the
seventies to the present. Through his editorship of "Scribner's
Monthly" and "The Century Magazine" his sound influence made
itself felt upon writers in every section. His own lyric vein had
an opaline intensity of fire, but in spite of its glow his verse
sometimes refused to sing.
The most perfect poetic craftsman of the period--and, many think,
our one faultless worker in verse--was Thomas Bailey Aldrich. His
first volume of juvenile verse had appeared in 1855, the year of
Whittier's "Barefoot Boy" and Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." By
1865 his poems were printed in the then well-known Blue and Gold
edition, by Ticknor and Fields. In 1881 he succeeded Howells in
the editorship of the "Atlantic." Aldrich had a versatile talent
that turned easily to adroit prose tales, but his heart was in
the filing of his verses. Nothing so daintily perfect as his
lighter pieces has been produced on this side of the Atlantic,
and the deeper notes and occasional darker questionings of his
later verse are embodied in lines of impeccable workmanship.
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