Nathaniel Parker Willis, poet and essayist, born Portland, Me., 1806; died “Idlewild,” near Newburgh, N. Y., 1867. Won at Yale, where he was graduated, 1827, a prize for the best poem. His earliest verses appeared in the “Youth’s Companion” and “Boston Recorder,” both founded by his father. In 1829, he established the “American Monthly Magazine,” afterwards the “New York Mirror.” In 1831 he visited Europe and the East, contributing letters to the “Mirror.” A rebuke from Capt. Marryat in the “Metropolitan Magazine,” for reporting private interviews, led to a bloodless duel. In 1839 he published the “Corsair,” to which Thackeray contributed. In 1846 he founded, with G. P. Morris, the “Home Journal,” remaining associate editor till his death, at the estate on the Hudson which he purchased in 1846 and named “Idlewild.” Published “Poetical Scripture Sketches,” 1827; “Melanie, and Other Poems,” “Lady Jane, and Other Poems,” 1844; and many volumes of brilliant prose sketches, letters, travels, etc. A complete edition of his poems appeared in 1868.
Personal
Agreeable I found Mr. Willis, and kindly in his way, though flimsy in his acquirements and flashy in his manners—a thorough literary getter-on, but a better-natured one than many I have since known.
He makes invidious, uncharitable, and ill-natured remarks upon authors and their works; all of which he dispatches for the benefit of the reading public of America, and, at the same time that he has thus stabbed them behind their backs, he is requesting to be introduced to them—bowing, smiling, and simpering…. Although we are well acquainted with the birth, parentage, and history of Mr. Willis, previous to his making his continental tour, we will pass them over in silence; and we think that Mr. Willis will acknowledge that we are generous in so doing…. It is evident that Mr. Willis has never, till lately, been in good society, either in England or America.
I have just returned from bidding Willis farewell, and feel nearly as much regret as on leaving home; for I never met with one in my life who has won my regard and esteem in so short a time…. I will talk a little more about Willis. Griswold intended giving me a letter of introduction, but had no time. I called at his house, and on telling my name he knew me instantly. On apologizing for calling without a letter, he said it was unnecessary, as we knew each other already, and began conversing as familiarly as if we had been old friends…. I have been at his house three or four times, and when, this afternoon, he gave me his parting “God bless you,” I felt as if I had left a true friend. I have not time now to give you much of his conversation, but it is daguerreotyped on my memory. He looks very much like the portrait in “Graham’s Magazine,” but not quite so young, although at times, when he becomes animated, you would not take him to be more than twenty-four; dresses with neatness and the most perfect taste, and has the very beau idéal of a study,—you can conceive of nothing more elegant. In fact, his poetry is visible in everything around him.
He is yet young, and, without being handsome, in the ordinary sense, is a remarkably well-looking man. In height he is, perhaps, five feet eleven, and justly proportioned. His figure is put in the best light by the ease and assured grace of his carriage. His whole person and personal demeanor bear about them the traces of “good society.” His face is somewhat too full, or rather heavy, in its lower portions. Neither his nose nor his forehead can be defended; the latter would puzzle phrenology. His eyes are a dull bluish gray, and small. His hair is of a rich brown, curling naturally and luxuriantly. His mouth is well cut; the teeth fine; the expression of the smile intellectual and winning. He converses little, well rather than fluently, and in a subdued tone.
I lately made a day’s excursion up the Hudson, in company with Mr. and Mrs. M— G— and two or three others, to visit Willis in his poetical retreat of Idlewild. It is really a beautiful place, the site well chosen, commanding noble and romantic scenery; the house commodious and picturesque, and furnished with much taste. In a word, it is just such a retreat as a poet would desire. I never saw Willis to such advantage as on this occasion…. Willis talks and writes much about his ill-health, and is really troubled with an ugly cough; but I do not think his lungs are seriously affected, and I think it likely he will be like a cracked pitcher, which lasts the longer for having a flaw in it, being so much the more taken care of.
He is a tall, dashing looking fellow, dressed rather in the extreme of fashion, yet in good taste, and with an air of fashionable languor about him. Nodding familiarly to the General [Morris], who smilingly returns his salute, he drops into a chair, stretches out his well-shaped legs, and, coquetting with a cigar, appears to watch the circling blue rays of smoke that soar to the ceiling. The stranger might be called handsome; certainly he has been so, but time and the pen have left their traces on his face; evidently he cultivates the Graces, although the enemy has thinned his curling locks, which are jauntily disposed over a fine forehead. His eyes are blue, and have much vivacity in their expression, but at their outer angles are those unmistakable evidences of coming age—crows’-feet. The cheeks are not so plump and fresh-looking as they must have appeared ten years ago, and they have a yellowish tinge, which travel or good living might have caused. The nose is short and slightly retroussé, the mouth delicately curved and the chin systematically chiselled. The shape of the face is round, and when the “dew of youth” rested on it, it must have been intellectually handsome, despite the dash of effeminacy that characterises it.
I have simply stated the facts because, in the first place, I do not wish to be considered one of Mr. Willis’s friends; and, in the next, it may be useful, and conducive to justice, to show, by a practical instance, what Mr. Willis’s pretensions to intimacy are worth. His countrymen and countrywomen accept, in simplicity, his accounts of our aristocracy as from the pen of one of their own coterie; and they may as well have the opportunity of judging for themselves whether their “Penciller” is qualified to write of Scotch Dukes and English Marquises, and European celebrities of all kinds in the way he has done.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Willis on many occasions at Gore House, to which reference is made in the rather too celebrated “Pencilings by the Way,” and also at the soirées of the late Lady Charleville, in Cavendish Square. Mr. Willis was an extremely agreeable young man in society, somewhat overdressed, and a little too demonstrative, but abounding in good spirits, pleasing reminiscences of Eastern and Continental travel, and of his residence there for some time as attaché to a foreign legation. He was observant and communicative, lively and clever in conversation, having the peculiar art of making himself agreeable to ladies, old as well as young; degagé in his manner, and on exceedingly good terms with himself and with the élite of the best society wherever he went.
I knew Mr. Willis very well indeed, and have passed many delightful hours at his house, while he resided in New York. He had committed many errors in his life—as who has not? But, unlike some, age purified him. I recollect meeting him one day in Broadway, when his salutation to me was, “I am sixty years old to-day!” I first became acquainted with him in New Haven, when I was a mere boy, and he was at the zenith of his fame…. He was always an immense dandy, and there was a college tradition that while there he dressed in white broadcloth, which he had imported expressly for himself from England.
Procter could sometimes be prompted into describing that brilliant set of men and women who were in the habit of congregating at Lady Blessington’s, and I well recollect his description of young N. P. Willis as he first appeared in her salon. “The young traveler came among us,” said Procter, “enthusiastic, handsome, and good-natured, and took his place beside D’Orsay, Bulwer, Disraeli, and the other dandies as naturally as if he had been for years a London man about town. He was full of fresh talk concerning his own country, and we all admired his cleverness in compassing so aptly all the little newnesses of the situation. He was ready on all occasions, a little too ready, some of the habitués of the salon thought, and they could not understand his cool and quite-at-home manners. He became a favorite at first trial, and laid himself out determined to please and be pleased. His ever kind and thoughtful attention to others won him troops of friends, and I never can forget his unwearied goodness to a sick child of mine, with whom, night after night, he would sit by the bedside and watch, thus relieving the worn-out family in a way that was very tender and self-sacrificing.
Once in a while, a tall, slim-waisted, broad-shouldered young fellow of a little more than thirty [1840], with curling, light-brown hair, trained a little in the direction of ringlets, an affectation of foreign beard, and somewhat more of other affectation than boded well for his eventual reputation, dropped in on the circle. He had also an addiction to colored coats and D’Orsay neckties, and was named Nat Willis—Nathaniel P. Willis, as he should have written the name; N. Parker Willis as he did write it generally…. Englishmen, then, and even earlier, knew him far better than they knew any other American; and it is betraying no secret to say that they disliked him not a little because he observed too closely. A rather affected but very charming talker, whose affectations were smoothed if not hidden by his evident talent and coveted wide experience—undeniably handsome, and knowing the fact far too well—really warm-hearted, though many mistook the cold polish for the heart it covered—a wise fool, who had and has many brothers on the earth, not all of them with the same redeeming qualities—such was Nat Willis, whom Father Prout was already lampooning as “Nick Willis,” when the writer met him first in these reunions.
I also remember two men who graduated in the class of 1827, that were frequently pointed out to me as its most conspicuous members. One was the son of a very prominent statesman, which, in fact, explained the notice he attracted; but there was enough of individuality about John Van Buren to command attention. He had already revealed the traits which distinguished him in after life,—easy and careless in manner, bold in character, and of an aggressive turn of mind. His rival in notoriety had no hereditary claims to support him, but he was gifted with a rare poetical talent that had already secured him distinction both in and out of college. His tone and bearing were aristocratic, not unmixed with hauteur, and though admired for his abilities he never commanded the sympathies of his comrades. Such was N. P. Willis, and such he remained to the end of his life.
Nathaniel Parker Willis was in full bloom when I opened my first Portfolio. He had made himself known by his religious poetry, published in his father’s paper, I think, and signed “Roy.” He had started the “American Magazine,” afterwards merged into the “New York Mirror.” He had then left off writing scripture pieces, and taken to lighter forms of verse. He had just written
| “I’m twenty-two, I’m twenty-two,— | |
| They idly give me joy, | |
| As if I should be glad to know | |
| That I was less a boy.” |
He never renounced definitely his Christian belief. He never became skeptical; was not at any time, in fact, a thinker on such themes and subject to the speculative doubts which beset the thinker. He remained through life easily impressible in his religious emotions.
A tall and elegant figure, with rosy cheeks and a luxuriance of clustering hair, which upwards of fifty winters had failed to whiten, enters with the easy grace of a man of the world, and we see before us our friend the master of the mansion.
Willis was a dandy of the first water, in manners, dress, and conversation, while he was also a hard worker, after his fashion of literary work, but he was not a student. Willis at this time [1827], drove a square-topped gig, being that two-wheeled vehicle known as a Boston “chaise,” but with a square instead of a bellows top, the leather sides of which were rolled up in fine weather, disclosing short green silk curtains on the inside. His horse, which he named Thalaba, was a tall, high-stepping bay, as showy as his master. His whip was the fashionable “bow whip” of the period, common enough now, to be sure, with a long lash, tapering down to a fine silk “snapper” on the end.
Next door to us lived a family in which were four daughters who grew up to be famous belles. It is said that when the poet N. P. Willis visited them, one of these young ladies, who was familiar with his works, was so overcome that she fainted. Forty years after Willis distinctly recalled the circumstance. Fainting was then fashionable.
Poetry
Mr. N. P. Willis enjoys, we believe, some reputation in his own country as a writer of verses. A volume of his rhymes was lately reprinted here, under the auspices of Mr. Barry Cornwall; but notwithstanding that editor’s authority, the contents seemed to us of very slender merit—much upon a par with the young ladies’ imitations of Wordsworth, Byron, and Moore, which crowd the gilded pages of our own Annuals.
Upon a general view of these poems, we think we are justified in pronouncing Mr. Willis a poet of great and varied powers. In some attributes of the poetic character, we should hardly know where to look for his superior. His sensibility to beauty, whether of external nature, or of the human form, is ever alive. He enjoys richly and freely the breath of heaven, the sunshine, and the splendor of the star-crowned night; earth and sky are perpetual ministers to his imagination. His language is almost always choice, and descriptive. By the power of finely selected words, he brings every variety of landscape before us; and the myriad voices of Nature seem to be uttered in his magical tones. Such is the richness, so captivating the sweetness of his verse, that many readers fail to discover the depth, variety, and power of his poetry. There is sometimes an over-daintiness of expression that naturally enough makes a fastidious delicacy, rather than strength, to be regarded as his leading characteristic…. The dramatic sketch of “Lord Ivon and his Daughter,” and the Scripture piece, “Hagar in the Wilderness,” show his power of entering into, and nobly expressing, the higher passions of human nature. Still it must be acknowledged, that Mr. Willis has too strong an inclination for finely turned lines, and repeats too often a few favorite expressions.
The prose and poetry of Mr. Willis are alike distinguished for exquisite finish and melody. His language is pure, varied, and rich; his imagination brilliant, and his wit of the finest quality. Many of his descriptions of natural scenery are written pictures; and no other author has represented with equal vivacity and truth the manners of the age. His dramatic poems have been the most successful works of their kind produced in America. They exhibit a deep acquaintance with the common sympathies and passions, and are as remarkable as his other writings for affluence of language and imagery, and descriptive power. His leading characteristics are essentially different from those of his contemporaries. Dana and Bryant are the teachers of a high, religious philosophy; Halleck and Holmes excel in humour and delicate satire; Longfellow has a fine imagination and is unequalled as an artist; but Willis is more than any other the poet of society.
We think highly of the drama [“Tortesa”] as a whole, and have little hesitation in ranking it before most of the dramas of Sheridan Knowles. Its leading faults are those of the modern drama generally—they are not peculiar to itself—while its great merits are.
Mr. Willis first became popular with a class on account of his sacred poems. These are still much admired. Our first impression was with his admirers, but our more matured judgment is bound to state that they lack the very soul of sacred poetry, simplicity and earnestness. They are too elegant to be sublime, and breathe more of the perfumer’s shop than the fragrant incense of the altar.
Though Mr. Willis’s prose writings are full of beauty and wit, of rich paintings of natural scenery, and delicate and humorous touches of the various phases of social life, it is by his poetry, especially by his sacked poetry, that he will be chiefly known and prized by posterity. There is a tenderness, a pathos, and a richness of description in it which give him a rank among the first of American poets.
There was that in his Scripture poems that suited the popular taste, which was caught by their melodious versification and their picturesque description. That they were precisely what they should not have been,—were artificial when they should have been simple, and pretty when they should have been severe,—in other words, that they violated the spirit of the old Biblical narratives of which they were a recension,—was of no consequence, since their admirers were not critical. He wrote finer poems in “Saturday Afternoon,” in “The Annoyer,” and his lines “To a Belfry Pigeon,” but they were less highly thought of. Young as he was when these compositions flowed from his pen, he was better equipped for the literary profession than any of his contemporaries. He knew enough to serve the purpose he had in view,—had an instinctive tact that supplied his lack of experience, insight that divined what would be acceptable, and capacity to create it if it did not exist, cleverness, adroitness, versatility.
General
In Mr. Willis’s case, the result has been, that while visiting about in London and in our provinces as a young American sonneteer of the most ultra-sentimental delicacy, he was all the time the regular paid correspondent of a New-York journal, in which, week after week, appeared his prose reports of what he saw and heard in British society—these same fifty letters which now lie collected on our table, and which, we greatly fear, will tend to throw obstacles in the path of any American traveller who may happen to honour England with his presence during the next season or two. Mr. Willis’s prose is, we willingly admit, better than his verse: it has many obvious faults, especially those of exaggeration and affectation; but it is decidedly clever, and the elements of what might be trained into a really good style are perceptible. He has depicted some of our northern “scenes” in a not unpleasing manner; and his descriptions of “customs and manners” are often amusing—bearing the impress of shrewdness and sagacity, but deriving their power of entertainment chiefly from the lights which they reflect on the customs and manners of the author’s own country.
“Pencillings by the Way” is a very spirited book. The letters, out of which it is constructed, were written originally for the New York “Mirror,” and were not intended for distinct publication. From this circumstance, the author indulged in a freedom of personal detail, which we must say is wholly unjustifiable, and we have no wish to defend it. This book does not pretend to contain any profound observations or discussions on national character, political condition, literature, or even art. It would be obviously impossible to carry any one of these topics thoroughly out, without spending vastly more time and labor upon it, than a rambling poet is likely to have the inclination to do…. There are passages in it of graphic eloquence, which it would be difficult to surpass from the writings of any other tourist whatever. The topics our author selects, are, as has been already stated, not those which require long and careful study to appreciate and discuss; they are such as the poetic eye would naturally dwell upon, and a poetic hand rapidly delineate, in a cursory survey of foreign lands. Occasionally, we think, Mr. Willis enters too minutely into the details of the horrible. Some of his descriptions of the cholera, and the pictures he gives us of the catacombs of the dead, are ghastly. But the manners of society he draws with admirable tact; and personal peculiarities of distinguished men, he renders with a most life-like vivacity.
It has been the fate of this gentleman to be alternately condemned ad infinitum and lauded ad nauseam, a fact which speaks much in his praise. We know of no American writer who has evinced greater versatility of talent, that is to say, of high talent, often amounting to genius, and we know of none who has more narrowly missed placing himself at the head of our letters.
| There is Willis, so natty and jaunty and gay, | |
| Who says his best things in so foppish a way, | |
| With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o’erlaying ’em, | |
| That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying ’em; | |
| Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose, | |
| Just conceive of a muse with a ring in her nose! | |
| His prose had a natural grace of its own, | |
| And enough of it, too, if he’d let it alone; | |
| But he twitches and jerks so, one fairly gets tired, | |
| And is forced to forgive where he might have admired; | |
| Yet whenever it slips away free and unlaced, | |
| It runs like a stream with a musical waste, | |
| And gurgles along with the liquidest sweep;— | |
| ’Tis not deep as a river, but who’d have it deep? |
There is a want of naturalness in Mr. Willis’s writings which will inevitably affect their continuance, and we have doubts whether any of his numerous prose works will remain permanent portions of Literature.
| I almost passed by Willis—“ah, miboy! | |
| Foine morning! da-da!” Faith I wish him joy— | |
| He’s forty-three years old—in good condition— | |
| And, positively, he has gained “position.” | |
| Gad! what a polish “upper-ten-dom” gives | |
| This executioner of adjectives; | |
| This man who strangles English worse than Thuggists, | |
| And turns “the trade” to trunk-makers or druggists; | |
| Labors on tragic plays that draw no tears— | |
| Writes under bridges, and tells tales of peers; | |
| His subjects whey—his language sugared curds; | |
| Gods! What a dose!—had he to “eat his words!” | |
| His “Sacred Poems,” like a rogue’s confessions, | |
| Gain him indulgence for his worst transgressions: | |
| His “Fugitive Attempts” will doubtless live— | |
| Oh! that more works of his were fugitive! | |
| Fate to his fame a ticklish place has given, | |
| Like Mahomet’s coffin, ’twixt the earth and heaven; | |
| But be it as it will—let come what may— | |
| Nat is a star, his works—the Milky Way! |
Beyond most writers of our country, he adorns whatever he touches; that without claiming to fathom the depths of philosophy, or yielding often to the tide of passion, he possesses a certain subtle alchemy of genius, resting on a basis of acute and just observation, which transmutes the most commonplace topic, and invests it with grace and beauty.
The tales and prose sketches of N. P. Willis are characterized by genial wit, and a delicate rather than a powerful imagination, while beneath his brilliant audacities of phrase there is a current of original thought and genuine feeling. Commanding all the resources of passion, while he is at the same time master of all the effects of manner, in the power of ingenious and subtle comment on passing events, of sketching the lights and shadows which flit over the surface of society, or playful and felicitous portraiture of individual traits, and of investing his descriptions with the glow of vitality, this writer is unsurpassed.
It [“Letters from Under a Bridge”] showed all his graceful ease, with something nearer to thought than he elsewhere gave his readers.
We can imagine no good to come from “attaining” a style by studying other men, except, perhaps, to cover up the literary coxcombry of such writers as Willis.
Though marred by occasional affectation, the sketches of Willis are light, graceful compositions.
His early Scripture sketches, written when he was a student of Yale, gave him the reputation of a promising genius; and though the genius did not afterward take the direction to which its first successes pointed, it gained in strength and breadth with the writer’s advancing years. In his best poems he displayed energy both of thought and imagination; but his predominant characteristics were keenness of observation, fertility of fancy, quickness of wit, shrewdness of understanding, a fine perception of beauty, a remarkable felicity in the choice of words, and a subtle sense of harmony in their arrangement, whether his purpose was to produce melodious verse or musical prose. But he doubtless squandered his powers in the attempt to turn them into commodities.
Laying aside all question of appeal to that formidable tribunal, posterity, the many contemporaries who have owed hours of refined enjoyment to his graceful talent will join heartily with Thackeray in his assertion: “It is comfortable that there should have been a Willis.”
In the library catalogues we find a long list of works attributed to his pen. Most of these are volumes made up from his ceaseless contributions to magazines and to his own journal. Of these, the “Pencillings by the Way” have still an interest for us; and they may, perhaps, be read by posterity. The volume of his poems, and that alone, enjoys considerable popularity. For the benefit of young writers, I may add that Mr. Willis never slighted his work, but bestowed upon every thing he did, even upon slight and transient paragraphs, the most careful labor, making endless erasures and emendations. On an average, he erased one line out of every three that he wrote; and, on one page of his editorial writing, there were but three lines left unaltered. He wrote very legibly, too, and gave no printer cause to complain of him. Even his erasures were made with a certain wavy elegance, and done so effectually that one could make out what had been written.
What an eye that man had for colour, and what an ear for music!
Even the fop of American letters, shallow, frivolous, clever Willis, always wrote smoothly and with an air of good breeding.
Nathaniel P. Willis, with his smooth and shallow versifications of Scripture, his animated, amiable letters, held a large and edified audience.
For our own generation it cannot be said that Willis himself has any vital importance, yet he cut a prodigious figure in his own time…. The contrast between Willis and Poe, in the nature of the men and of their work, is sufficiently striking; yet Willis in many ways is separated as distinctly from the two men whose names are always linked together in American literary annals, Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake. Willis does not seem to have felt that it was better to live by one poem than to die with many books; at least he did not proceed upon such a theory, and to-day there is not one thing he wrote which is even as well known as his name.
Much of his work was brilliant persiflage; it shrunk under critical touch. Nor was it easy to sketch knowingly this poet’s contacts with social life, and his ambitions and triumphs there, and at the same time weigh understandingly his higher tastes and accomplishments. Those accomplishments were indeed very real, though of a special quality. It might almost be said that his accomplishments undid him. In his latter years—for the behest of admiring readers—he was over-fond of always putting his thought (or rather his observations and suggestions) into a finical millinery of language; charging and fatiguing himself, to avoid plainness of speech—as much as ever an accredited modiste (who has studied colors all her life) wearies and worries herself to kill simplicities by the aggregation of her tints and furbelows.
Satirists ridiculed his foppery, but he outlived the satirists. No American writer was more eagerly sought by the editors or more eagerly read by the public. His unfortunate choice of subjects, his diffusiveness, his flippancy, and what some regarded as his snobbishness, were matters with which the public concerned itself but little. He wrote to please, and succeeded. He struck a comparatively new vein in American poetry, and worked it to the utmost advantage. Whatever his faults, hypocrisy was not one of them. He detested the hard, barren realism of rural life, and refused to join the general chorus that was forever chanting the beauties of rustic simplicity…. He possessed no broad, general culture, indeed slight intellectual force, and still slighter poetic imagination. But he gave us much of the best in his time. Many of his lines have become household phrases, and he unquestionably enriched our literature by contributing some of its best lighter lyrics.
He was a man of far wider social experience than Bryant or Cooper, probably indeed than Irving himself; and those who personally knew him remember him, as Dr. Holmes did, pleasantly and kindly. Yet, after all, one feels in him rather the quality of a dashing adventurer, of an amiably honourable Bohemian, than such secure sense of personal distinction as marked Bryant and Irving and their contemporaries in New England. A school of letters in which a man of Willis’s quality could attain the eminence which for years made him conspicuous was certainly declining.
Typical of the fate of the most brilliant of ephemeral writers is the fate that has overwhelmed Nathaniel Parker Willis. It has been the fashion of a generation to speak slightingly of him and of his work, and that fashion has been revived whenever his writings have been called to public attention. If the remoteness of Willis from our times has served somewhat to soften the terms in which judgement was formerly passed, the essential verdict remains what it was thirty or forty years ago. If ever a man of letters was a writer for his own day and for no other day, it was Willis. Not only his topics and his personality, but his peculiar mental constitution, seem to have been such as made it impossible he should do anything entitled to survive even for fifty years. If he had any of the qualities of genius, it was capacity for work, which indeed he had in considerable abundance, and yet what he did appears always to have been done with so much ease that one is tempted to qualify the importance even of this quality…. The writings of Willis have fallen into neglect; that was predestined from the nature of them, and in the main this was quite deserved. His prose writings are, I believe, out of print, though his poems still have some sale—about two hundred copies annually…. If Willis chose to write what he could sell at good price, than write what he believed would live,—in other words, if he preferred Willis’s way to Hawthorne’s way,—perhaps it is only the stern moralist who would condemn him. He at any rate had small literary ambition, and scarcely pretended to be more than he was, for which some credit is due to him. He was no rival of the men who have survived him. But surely this was not the fault of Willis; he was incapable of becoming their rival. He had talents, but lacked noble ambition. Therein lies the pathos of his life.
