Ancients believed) that great length of time must always mature it. But
the small volume of Heredia's legacy to European letters does argue this
at least in the poet, that he passionately loved perfection and that,
finding himself able to achieve it (for perfection can be achieved) but
now and then, he chose only to be remembered by the contentment which,
now and then, his own genius had given him.

He worked upon verse as men work upon the harder metals; all that he did
was chiselled very finely, then sawn to an exact configuration and at
last inlaid, for when he published his completed volume it is true to
say that every piece fitted in with the sound of one before and of one
after. He was careful in the heroic degree.

His blood and descent are worthy of notice. He was a Spaniard,
inheriting from the first Conquerors of the New World, nor was it
remarkable to those who have received a proper enthusiasm for the
classical spirit that the energy and even the violence natural to such a
lineage should express themselves in the coldest and the most exalted
form when, for the second time, a member of the family attempted verse.
It is in the essence of that spirit that it alone can dare to be
disciplined. It never doubts the motive power that will impel it; it is
afraid, if anything, of an excess of power, and consciously imposes upon
itself the limits which give it form.

Heredia in his person expressed the activity which impelled him, for he
was strong, brown, erect, a rapid walker, and a man whose voice was
perpetually modulated in resonant and powerful tones. In his last years
during his administration of the Library at the Arsenal this vitality of
his took on an aspect of good nature very charming and very fruitful.
His organization of the place was thorough, his knowledge of the readers