He wrote with temperateness, and in
pitying love of human nature, in the instinctive hope of helping it to
know and redeem itself. His quality was philosophy, his style
forgiveness. And for this temperate and logical and laconic
work--giving nothing to the world for its mere enjoyment, but going
beyond all that to ennoble each reader by his perfect renunciation of
artistic claptrap and artistic license--for this aim he needed a
mental method that could entirely command itself, and, when necessary,
weigh and gauge with the laborious fidelity of a coal-surveyor, before
the account was rendered with pen and ink upon paper. When he brought
within his art the personality of a human devil, he honored its
humanity, and proved that the real devil is quite another thing. In
fact, perhaps he would not have permitted the above epithet. In one of
her letters my mother remarks, "I think no sort of man can be called a
devil, unless it be a slanderer."
Though he dealt with romance he never gave the advantage of an inch to
the wiles of bizarre witchery, the grotesque masks of wanton caprice
in imagination--those elements which exhibit the intoxication of
talent. His terrors were those of our own hearts; his playfulness had
the merit of the sunlight. In short, he was artistically con-.
secrated, guiding the forces he used with the reins of truth; and he
could do this unbrokenly because he governed his character by
Christian fellowship. If he shrank from unnecessary interruptions,
which jarred the harmony of his artistic life, he nevertheless met
courteously any that were to him inevitable.
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