And every motion is a grace,
Each word a melody!'"

"Yes, that is true poetry, I acknowledge, Major Favraud," I exclaimed,
not at all humbled by conviction, though a little annoyed at the pointed
manner in which he gave (looking in my face as he did so) these
concluding lines:

"Say from what fair and sunny shore,
Fair wanderer, dost thou rove,
Lest what I only should adore
I heedless think to love?"

"The character of Pinckney's genius," I rejoined, "is, I think,
essentially like that of Praed, the last literary phase with me--for I
am geological in my poetry, and take it in strata. But I am more
generous to your Southern bard than you are to our glorious Longfellow!
I don't call that imitation, but coincidence, the oneness of genius! I
do not even insinuate plagiarism." My manner, cool and careless,
steadied his own.

"You are right: our 'Shortfellow' _was_ incapable of any thing of the
sort. Peace be to his ashes! With all his nerve and _vim_, he died of
melancholy, I believe. As good an end as any, however, and certainly
highly respectable. But you know what Wordsworth says in his
'School-master'--

"'If there is one that may bemoan
His kindred laid in earth,
The household hearts that were his own,