Nay, with
such consummate art does he manage the fiercest tempests of our being,
that in a healthy mind the witnessing of them is always attended with
an overbalance of pleasure. With the very whirlwinds of passion he so
blends the softening and alleviating influences of poetry, that they
relish of nothing but sweetness and health.... He is not wont to exhibit
either utterly worthless or utterly faultless monsters; persons too
good, or too bad, to exist; too high to be loved, or too low to be
pitied; even his worst characters (unless we should except Goneril and
Regan, and even their blood is red like ours) have some slight fragrance
of humanity about them, some indefinable touches, which redeem them from
utter hatred and execration, and keep them within the pale of human
sympathy, or at least of human pity.
* * * * *
=_Mary Henderson Eastman,[53]_= about =_1815-._=
From "The American Aboriginal Port Folio."
=_225._= Lake Itasca, the Source of the Mississippi.
There it lay--the beautiful lake--swaying its folds of crystal water
between the hills that guarded it from its birth. There it lay, placid
as a sleeping child, the tall pines on the surrounding summits standing
like so many motionless and watchful sentinels for its protection.
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