aspen-leaf"!

It would be hardly safe to illustrate what has been said by any
multiplication of examples from our own literature. Yet perhaps there
will be no danger in saying that America has as yet produced but two
authors of whom we may claim that their style is in all respects
adequate to their wants, and the perfect vehicle of their thought. It is
not always the greatest writers of whom this is true, for one's demands
upon the vehicle of thought are in proportion to his thoughts, and great
ideas strain language more than small ones. We cannot say of either
Emerson or Thoreau, for instance, that his style is adequate to his
needs, because the needs are immense, and Thoreau, at least, sometimes
disdains effort. But the only American authors, perhaps, whose style is
an elastic garment that fits all the uses of the body, are Irving and
Hawthorne.

This has no reference to the quality of their thought, as to which in
Irving we feel a slight mediocrity; no matter, there is the agreeable
style, and it does him all the service he needs. By its aid he reached
his limit of execution, and we can hardly imagine him, with his
organization, as accomplishing more. But in Hawthorne we see astonishing
power, always answered by the style, and capable of indefinite expansion
within certain lateral limits. His early solitude narrowed his
affinities, and gave a kind of bloodlessness to his style; clear in hue,
fine in texture, it is apt to want the mellow tinge which indicates a
robust and copious life. Even such a criticism seems daring, in respect
to anything so beautiful; and I can conceive of no other defect in the
style of Hawthorne.

Perhaps the conclusion of the whole matter may seem to be that literary
art is so lofty a thing as to be beyond the reach of any of us; as the
sage in Rasselas, discoursing on poetry, only convinces his hearers that
no one ever can be a poet. After so much in the way of discouragement,
it should be added,--what the most limited experience may teach us
all,--that there is no other pursuit so unceasingly delightful. As some
one said of love, "all other pleasures are not worth its pains." But the
literary man must love his art, as the painter must love painting, out
of all proportion to its rewards; or rather, the delight of the work
must be its own reward. Any praise or guerdon hurts him, if it bring any
other pleasure to eclipse this. The reward of a good sentence is to have
written it; if it brin