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Nathalia can explain practically every line she has ever written; I have heard her uncertain treble clarify passages that have puzzled erudite authors. No poet that ever lived delighted in amassing such curious, half-forgotten sounds; not even Francis Thompson had so great a vocabulary of rare and archaic terms. . . Nathalia collects words the way a boy of her age collects postage stamps; she had thumbed Noah Webster's work (in various editions) and made a glossary of her own. The dictionary is her playbox and she knows exactly where every odd toy is concealed.
--
Louis Untermeyer as quoted in TIME magazine (23 November 1925)

 

Nathalia Crane

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A year ago, to a startled public, was revealed the most extraordinary prodigy of them all — Nathalia Crane, 11-year-old poet, "The Baby Browning of Brooklyn," whose first volume of verse, The Janitor's Boy, was heralded by critics to be a work of genius.
Such words as "blastoderm", "sindoc," "peris," "parasang," "sarcenet," "teazel," "nullah," "cantatrice," "barracan," "sistrum," writhed and hissed in her verses. One poem began with the nebular hypothesis and ended with prohibition; others cantered with a Eugene Fieldian humor; still others coldly glowed with the passion-weary detachment of a woman who has had her fill of life and its motley follies. Critic-Poet Louis Untermeyer chortled with elation. Poet William Rose Benét wrote a preface. The English Society of Authors and Playwrights (of which Thomas Hardy is President) asked Nathalia Crane to join them.

 

Nathalia Crane

 

I actually think it will be interesting to listen to the President tonight. What I'd like him to do is report on his promises but there are forgotten promises and forgotten people. Over the last four years, the President has said that he was going to create jobs for the American people and that hasn't happened. He said he would cut the deficit in half and that hasn't happened. He said that incomes would rise and instead incomes have gone down. And I think this is a time not for him not to start restating new promises but to report on the promises he made. I think he wants a promises reset. We want a report on the promises he made. And that means let's hear some numbers. Let's hear 16. Sixteen trillion dollars of debt. This is very different than the promise he made. Let's hear the number 47. 47 million people in this country on food stamps. When he took office, 33 million people were on food stamps. Let's understand why it was he's been unsuccessful in helping alleviate poverty in this country. Why so many people have fallen from the middle class into poverty under this president. Let's have him explain to the American people the 50% number. Why 50% of college graduates can't find work or work that is consistent with their college degree. The President needs to report tonight on his promises rather than try and reset a whole series of new promises that he also won't be able to keep.

 

Mitt Romney

 

He tells a story with the narrative power of a master of that art. His prose style has the rare combination of rhythm and smoothness together with a great deal of force... A quality not so much of style as of the writer's personality is his quiet, dry, and cutting humor. It crops out everywhere in his work... In the matter of his use of words, McFee seems to be going through some evolution. In Casuals of the Sea, he employs a number of words that necessitate more than an occasional reference to a good dictionary; however, in his later work, he has rid himself of this fault to a great degree, although a use of apt, but unusual, words may be said to be characteristic of his prose.

 

William McFee

 

There are seven causes of inconsistencies and contradictions to be met with in a literary work. The first cause arises from the fact that the author collects the opinions of various men, each differing from the other, but neglects to mention the name of the author of any particular opinion. In such a work contradictions or inconsistencies must occur, since any two statements may belong to two different authors. Second cause: The author holds at first one opinion which he subsequently rejects: in his work., however, both his original and altered views are retained. Third cause: The passages in question are not all to be taken literally: some only are to be understood in their literal sense, while in others figurative language is employed, which includes another meaning besides the literal one: or, in the apparently inconsistent passages, figurative language is employed which, if taken literally, would seem to be contradictories or contraries. Fourth cause: The premises are not identical in both statements, but for certain reasons they are not fully stated in these passages: or two propositions with different subjects which are expressed by the same term without having the difference in meaning pointed out, occur in two passages. The contradiction is therefore only apparent, but there is no contradiction in reality. The fifth cause is traceable to the use of a certain method adopted in teaching and expounding profound problems. Namely, a difficult and obscure theorem must sometimes be mentioned and assumed as known, for the illustration of some elementary and intelligible subject which must be taught beforehand the commencement being always made with the easier thing. The teacher must therefore facilitate, in any manner which he can devise, the explanation of those theorems, which have to be assumed as known, and he must content himself with giving a general though somewhat inaccurate notion on the subject. It is, for the present, explained according to the capacity of the students, that they may comprehend it as far as they are required to understand the subject. Later on, the same subject is thoroughly treated and fully developed in its right place. Sixth cause: The contradiction is not apparent, and only becomes evident through a series of premises. The larger the number of premises necessary to prove the contradiction between the two conclusions, the greater is the chance that it will escape detection, and that the author will not perceive his own inconsistency. Only when from each conclusion, by means of suitable premises, an inference is made, and from the enunciation thus inferred, by means of proper arguments, other conclusions are formed, and after that process has been repeated many times, then it becomes clear that the original conclusions are contradictories or contraries. Even able writers are liable to overlook such inconsistencies. If, however, the contradiction between the original statements can at once be discovered, and the author, while writing the second, does not think of the first, he evinces a greater deficiency, and his words deserve no notice whatever. Seventh cause: Itis sometimes necessary to introduce such metaphysical matter as may partly be disclosed, but must partly be concealed: while, therefore, on one occasion the object which the author has in view may demand that the metaphysical problem be treated as solved in one way, it may be convenient on another occasion to treat it as solved in the opposite way. The author must endeavour, by concealing the fact as much as possible, to prevent the uneducated reader from perceiving the contradiction.

 

Maimonides

 

It is ordinarily only a single work, or a single suite of works, which stamps the individual artist as a classic poet, artist, and so on. The same individual may have produces a great many different things, none of which stands in any relation to the classic. Homer has, for example, written a Batrachomyomachia, but this poem has not made him classic or immortal. To say that this is due to the insignificance of the subject is foolish, since the classic depends on perfect balance. If everything that determines a production as classic were to be found solely in the creative artist, then everything produced by him would have to be a classic, in a since similar to, though higher than, that in which bees always produce uniform kind of cells. To explain this by saying that he was more successful on the one case than the other, would be to explain exactly nothing. For, partly, it would be only a pretentious tautology, which only too often in life enjoys the honor of being regarded as an answer; partly, considered as an answer, it lies in another relativity than the one concerning which our question was asked. For it tells us nothing about the relation between form and content, and at best could be taken into account in connection with an inquiry into the formative activity alone.

 

Homer