lyrics and society verse.

No American poet has wrought his stanzas with greater faithfulness to an
exacting standard of craftsmanship than Mr. Aldrich, or has known better
when to leave a line loosely cast, and when to reinforce it with
correction or with a syllable that might seem, to an ear less true,
redundant. This gives to his most carefully chiseled productions an air
of spontaneous ease, and has made him eminent as a sonneteer. His sonnet
on 'Sleep' is one of the finest in the language. The conciseness and
concentrated aptness of his expression also--together with a faculty of
bringing into conjunction subtly contrasted thoughts, images, or
feelings--has issued happily in short, concentrated pieces like 'An
Untimely Thought,' 'Destiny,' and 'Identity,' and in a number of pointed
and effective quatrains. Without overmastering purpose outside of art
itself, his is the poetry of luxury rather than of deep passion or
conviction; yet, with the freshness of bud and tint in springtime, it
still always relates itself effectively to human experience. The
author's specially American quality, also, though not dominant, comes
out clearly in 'Unguarded Gates,' and with a differing tone in the
plaintive Indian legend of 'Miantowona.'

If we perceive in his verse a kinship with the dainty ideals of
Theophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset, this does not obscure his
originality or his individual charm; and the same thing may be said with
regard to his prose. The first of his short fictions that made a decided
mark was 'Marjorie Daw.' The fame which it gained, in its separate
field, was as swift and widespread as that of Hawthorne's 'The Gentle
Boy' or Bret Harte's 'Luck of Roaring Camp.' It is a bright and
half-pathetic little parody on human life and affection; or perhaps we
should call it a parable symbolizing the power which imagination wields
over real life, even in supposedly unimaginative people. The covert
smile which it involves, at the importance of human emotions, may be
traced to a certain extent in some of Mr. Aldrich's longer and more
serious works of fiction: his three novels, 'Prudence Palfrey,' 'The
Queen of Sheba,' and 'The Stillwater Tragedy.' 'The Story of a Bad Boy,'
frankly but quietly humorous in its record of the pranks and
vicissitudes of a healthy average lad (with the scene of the story
localized at old Portsmouth, under the name of Rivermouth), a less
ambitious work, still holds a secure place in the a