Lord Tennyson's Mail

1895

Here is a curious freak of Lord Tennyson's imagination, based on fact: "Look at this pile, which, on my return from abroad, I find heaped on my table. I ought to have thanked you before for your generous lines, but look at the pile — some three feet high — and let that apologize for my silence — and believe me, tho' penny post maddened, yours ever, A. Tennyson." These words followed the drawing by Alfred Tennyson of a kind of pyramid in sections specifying the nature of the letters on his table: "Anonymous insolent letters," "letters from America, Australia, from monomaniacs, etc.," "letters asking explanation of particular passages," "begging letters of all kinds," "subscriptions asked for church building, schools, Baptist chapels, Wesleyans, etc.," "newspapers — gracious or malignant," "printed circulars of poems asked for subscription," "presentation copies of poems," "printed proof sheets of poems," "MS. poems," "letters for autographs," form the two sides of this curious and unique sketch.

People who pester a man of letters do not think of the vast aggregate made up of many single applications of various sorts. Each post used to bring to the house 50 or 60 letters. Mrs. Tennyson and Hallam Tennyson were far too much occupied with the task of wading through these piles of unsolicited correspondence. — Strand Magazine.

The Burials of Poe

1895

CONTRAST BETWEEN THE EXERCISES AT THE TWO CEREMONIES.

Mystery Veiling the Death of the Poet. The Latest Account Given by a Man Who Claims the Closest Personal Knowledge. Killed by a Drug.

In striking contrast were the first and last burials of Edgar A. Poe. On that dreary autumn afternoon in 1849, when the most original of American poets was laid to rest among his ancestors in Westminster churchyard, in Baltimore, only one carriage followed the body of the poet from the hospital where he died. The ceremony was scant, and the attendants scanter, for eight persons only were present. Poe had died under a cloud. His last hours were passed in the charity ward of a public hospital. He was buried in a poplar coffin, stained in imitation of walnut. It was a funeral such as a poor man, with few friends and relatives, might have had.

The mystery surrounding Poe's death has never been satisfactorily explained. The account given by Dr. John J. Moran, in his "Defense of Edgar A. Poe," is known to be incorrect and misleading. For instance, he gives the names of eight persons as present at the funeral, only two of whom were there. They were the Rev. W. T. D. Clemm and Henry Herring, both of whom were relatives of Poe. The other persons who attended the first burial were Z. Collins Lee, afterward judge of the superior court of Baltimore, who had been a classmate of Poe at the University of Virginia; Neilson Poe, afterward chief judge of the orphans' court of Baltimore; Edmund Smith, a well known schoolteacher in Baltimore 50 years ago, and his wife, who was a first cousin of the poet; Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, the last editor of the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, the paper from which Poe received the $100 prize offered for the best story.

Another of Dr. Moran's misstatements is that the body of the poet was laid in state in the large room in the rotunda of the college building adjoining the hospital; that hundreds of his friends and acquaintances came to see him; that at least 50 ladies received locks of his hair. Poe had few friends in Baltimore — not a dozen — and if "50 ladies received locks of his hair" they existed only in Dr. Moran's vivid imagination.

Poe was a mystery to the world during life, his death was mysterious, and, although he has been dead 45 years, he remains a mystery still. Nine lives of the poet have been written, but the time and place of his birth have been differently mentioned by different biographers. The place of his burial was long a disputed point; the cause of his death and the circumstances attending it have not yet been definitely settled.

An old resident of San Francisco, formerly of Baltimore, gives what he says is a true account of Poe's last days and death. His story is:

"I was an intimate associate of Edgar Allan Poe for years. Much that has been said and written about his death is false. His habitual resort in Baltimore was the Widow Meagher's, an oyster stand and liquor bar down on the wharf much frequented by journalists. It was a respectable place, where parties could enjoy a game of cards or engage in social conversation.

"Poe was a sort of pet of the old woman, and he had a favorite seat just behind the stand. He went by the name of 'The Bard,' and when parties came into the place it was 'Bard, come up and take a nip!' or 'Bard, come and take a hand in this game.'

"It was in the Widow Meagher's little shop that Poe's attention was called to an advertisement in a Philadelphia newspaper of a prize for the best original story, and it was there that he wrote his famous story, 'The Gold Bug,' which carried off the $100 prize. 'The Bard' had been shifting for several years between Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. He had not been in Baltimore for several months when he turned up one evening at the Widow Meagher's. I was there when he came in.

"He privately told me that he had been to Richmond and was on his way north to get ready for his wedding. It was the night before an election, and about 10 o'clock four of us, including Poe, started up town. We had not gone half a dozen squares when we were nabbed by a gang of men who were on the lookout for voters to 'coop.' It was the practice in those days to seize men, whether drunk or sober, lock them up until the polls were open, then march them around to every precinct, where they were made to vote the ticket of the party that controlled the 'coop.' Our 'coop' was in the rear of an engine house, either on North or Calvert street.

"It was part of the game to stupefy the prisoners with drugged liquor. Well, the next day we were voted at 31 different places and over and over again, it being as much as a man's life was worth to refuse. Poe was so badly drugged that after he was carried on two or three different rounds the leader of the gang said that it was no use to vote a dead man any longer, so they shoved him into a cab and sent him to a hospital to get him out of the way.

"The commonly accepted story that Poe died from the effects of dissipation is all bosh. It was nothing of the kind. He died from laudanum or something of the kind that was forced upon him in the coupe. He was in a dying condition when he was being taken around the city. The story by Griswold of Poe having been on a week's spree and being picked up on the street is false. I saw him shoved into the cab myself, and he told me that he had just arrived in the city."

The above account of Poe's last hours agrees in several respects with the account which the late Chief Justice Neilson Poe gave to the present writer.

The second burial of Edgar A. Poe took place on Nov. 17, 1875. The occasion was interesting and remarkable. An immense assembly, representing the education and culture of Baltimore, was drawn together to do honor to an American poet whose fame had gone abroad and whose genius was a subject of native pride. The ceremonies took place in the large hall of the Western Female high school, in West Fayette street, adjoining Westminster church, in the graveyard of which the body of the poet had rested for 26 years without a stone to show that it was the grave of the most unique genius that America had given to the world. — New York Herald.


A Trait In Common

"My dear," said the man who had been waiting for his wife to get ready for the theater, "I'm inclined to believe that if you had been born a man you would have been a professional pugilist."
"Why?"
"Because it takes you so long to put on a pair of gloves." — Washington Star.

Niece of Poet Resigns Office

1916

Boston, Sept. 9. — Mrs. Marian Longfellow, a niece of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet, announced her resignation, last night, as vice-president of the International Longfellow Society of Portland, Me., explaining that she disapproved of the methods employed by that society.

"I am president of the Longfellow Birthplace Association of Boston. Both societies are trying to preserve the Longfellow birthplace in Portland, but while I am in full sympathy with the aims of the other society I simply cannot approve of its methods. For that reason I have come to the conclusion that I cannot continue my membership in it," said Mrs. Longfellow.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

Tennyson and Sightseers

1901

Tennyson's well known aversion to sightseers and their ways gave rise to many an odd experience. Once, it is said, he complained to Queen Victoria, saying that he could no longer stay in the Isle of Wight owing to the tourists who came to stare at him.

The queen, with a kindly irony, said that she herself did not suffer much from that grievance. But Tennyson, taking her literally, replied in the same strain.

"No, madam," said he, "and if I could clap a sentinel wherever I liked I should not be troubled either."

A Glimpse of Longfellow

1896

In "A Glimpse of Longfellow," published in one of the magazines, Rev. Minot J. Savage calls him "the most widely read poet of the English-speaking world." This is approximately true, observes the New York World, and the cause for it is found in the poet's universal sympathy with the literature of all times and countries.

He is the most widely read poet of America because of all American poets he read most widely. The extent of his studies is astonishing. In his youth he went deep into the early literature of England, and added to the usual college acquaintance with the classics a knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and literature which did much to insure his success. He went from Saxon to the Scandinavian languages and to old Norse; then to old High German and from that to Italian, making a translation of Dante, which if lacking in the high poetic art of the original verse will always be respectable.

As a result of wide literary sympathies, he was able to appeal to the universal human nature. If he had something of natural provincialism in his youth, his maturity knew no boundary of section or country. His works have been translated into all the principal languages of Europe because by long labor he learned to understand the common humanity that underlies all differences of Nationality.

The central fact of his career was his great capacity for work. It made him the greatest of New England poets and one of the most useful men of his century.

Longfellow's "Hiawatha"

1896

The Indian epic of "Hiawatha" took the world by surprise, writes Hezekiah Butterworth in an article "How Longfellow Wrote His Best-Known Poems" in Ladies' Home Journal.

Its form and its matter were for a long time mysteries. How could a Cambridge literary recluse produce such an epic? Certain critics claimed that the idea, form and magic treatment of the poem had been borrowed from a Scandinavian sage, and the implication greatly disturbed his publishers, and must have caused his sensitive spirit great pain. It partly eclipsed for a time the new star in the literary horizon on which all eyes were fixed.

The criticism was disarmed; the wonder grew; a fixed star had appeared. But the mystery of the poem is simply solved. Longfellow desired to produce an epic that should be in sympathy with all that was most beautiful and noble in the vanishing Indian race. Abraham Le Fort, an Onondaga chieftain, had furnished Schoolcraft, the historian, much Indian lore and many mystic traditions, with certain Indian vocabularies, in which the musical and unmusical sounds of many words indicated their meaning.

These traditions and vocabularies made the work of the poet easy. One only needs to read Schoolcraft, to whom the poet acknowledged his indebtedness, to see how this monument to the Indian race, their only great literary memorial, was builded.

Author of "Flying Machine" Poem Sees First Airplane

Author of "Darius Green and His Flying Machine"

1910

John Townsend Trowbridge Wrote the Poem 40 Years Ago, and the Whole Country Laughed

Boston. — Among the thousands of persons who witnessed the recent aviation meet at Boston there was no more interesting spectator than John Townsend Trowbridge, author of the poem, "Darius Green and his Flying Machine," which made the whole country laugh 40 years ago.

Despite his advanced age, 83, Mr. Trowbridge journeyed from his home in Arlington, Mass., to this city in order to take his first look at a machine which had been his dream from boyhood — a machine which would fly. He was introduced to several of the aviators, among them Glen Curtiss, Grahame White, Wilbur White and others, and the old gentleman was immensely pleased to meet them.

When Mr. Trowbridge wrote about Darius Green, 40 years ago, no one of that time expected to see a flying machine that would fly. There were lots of machines that wouldn't, but the idea of usurping the realm of the birds carried something uncanny with it. The baleful results of experiments of those times were always looked upon, more or less, as deserved.

Speaking of the days of Darius Green, the poet says: "I never dreamed when I wrote that poem that such a thing as a flying machine was possible in my time. I never had the thought of actually seeing one. While I have never attempted to build one, I have followed the aeroplane development from the first, and it has always seemed to me that the greatest factor and the hardest to overcome would be the motive force.

"I have never known that there were such powerful motors, and motors so light, as they are now using. They were a revelation to me. I don't care to make any prophecies as to the future, but it seems to me that the large machine for carrying passengers is possible, and only a matter of time."

Mrs. Humphrey's Strong Feelings About Fashion

1911

Editorial Zingers

The truth is that the love of dress is, next after drink and gambling, one of the curses of our country. -- Mrs. Humphrey.

The Boston young woman who worked eight years on her trousseau must have had unusual, though not well founded, faith in the stability of the styles.

A Montreal doctor recently contributed a pint of his own blood to save the life of a patient. Some doctors seem to be actuated by a sincere desire to cure.

The autocrats of fashion may succeed in making women wear the ugly Turkish "harem" stress, but no autocrat now living will ever succeed in shutting women up.

"I know not where I am," cried a poetess in one of the magazines. English critics of American literature will wonder why she did not say: "I know not where I am at."

An English paper announces that Americans lack the sense of humor. That sounds like the argument of the man who satisfies himself by exclaiming: "You're another!"

A Canadian highbrow tells us that the temperature seven and a half miles above the earth is 90 degrees below zero. Let this be a warning to builders of skyscrapers.

Petrarch's Tomb Opened

1874

A singular ceremony lately took place at Arqua, in North Italy, where Petrarch lies buried. The tomb of the poet was opened in the presence of the municipal officers of the town and a few invited spectators that the remains had been inclosed in an imperfectly-made coffin, and that the bones, thus exposed to the effects to the atmosphere, were discolored and moist.

The skull, of medium size, was entire, the development of the forehead being yet perceptible. Several of the teeth were well preserved, and the bones of the body were but little decayed. From the size of the skeleton it was easy to infer that Petrarch must have been a large, robust man.

Permission to examine these honored remains had been given by the authorities to certain students of anthropology, and it was to aid in their researches that the coffin was opened. These gentlemen took accurate measurements of the remains, which were then carefully placed in a new coffin.

The brief exposure to the air, however, had its effect, and the skull partially fell in, while some of the bones were resolved into dust before the eyes of the spectators of this curious exhibition of mortality.

Overshadowed Poet Whittier's Fame

1910

Thrifty Fellow-Citizen of Whittier Pointed Out Blot on His Memory

Will Carleton, in a speech before the Writer's club, related the following reminiscence of a visit to the poet Whittier's old home:

"I was billed to lecture one evening at the town which had been for long years the home of the Good Quaker poet. Just before I went over to the hall, a thrifty-looking citizen accosted me.

"Will you probably say anything in praise of Mr. Whittler, tonight?" he asked, after a few general remarks.

"Why, yes," I replied, "I had thought of referring to him, and in a very complimentary way. I have read, admired, and revered him, all my life, and it will he a privilege, here in his own town, to add my humble tribute to that of the world at large."

"Well, that's all right," responded the thrifty-looking citizen," and we've no objection in particular, to your doing so; but you mustn't be disappointed if you don't get any applause with it."

"Why?" I inquired. "Was he not idolized here — is not his memory held in veneration? Has he not advertised this town all over the world?"

"Well, perhaps so," was the reply, "but after he died, we found out that he wasn't paying taxes enough on what property he owned, and, don't you see, it has kind of made him unpopular."

The Beauty of the Feet and Dancing

New York, July 1914

Feet Underestimated, Says Mrs. Vlissengen, Patron of Dancing

"God made feet as well as hands, the devil had nothing to do with them," declared Mrs. Jean Vlissengen, who arrived yesterday from Chicago.

Mrs. Vlissengen put on the pageant which was intended as the culmination of the recent Federation of Women's Clubs in Chicago, but which ended in an investigation by the Chicago police. She indignantly denies, however that the girls were required to wear tights, only the Apollo's costume — or lack of it — was criticized.

"The foot is just as expressive as the hand," she continued. "The Greeks understood this, but we have allowed ourselves to be deprived of its beauty through silly conventions."

Two of the girls who took part in the Chicago pageant, Misses Patsy Shelley said to be a descendant of the poet, and Roschen Turck-Baker, the niece of a well-known Chicago physician will arrive later and do ballroom dancing. Both are 16 years old, and have received all their training from Mrs. Vlissengen. They do no modern dances.

"I have never received any money for my work with these girls," she said. "I wish merely to raise dancing to its proper place among the arts. So I take two or three promising girls a year and train them. I gave Isadora Duncan all her training." — New York Sun.

The Poetic Form — Why Less Poetry Today Than in the Past?

1919

The Poetic Form

Perhaps it is but the child of fancy temporarily coupled with pessimism, but it does seem as though there was little poetry being written nowadays that can compare with the stately and heart-searching work of the old masters. Yet there never was a time when those who use the rhythmic method of expression had a greater and more expert mastery of form, and when there was so large a number of men of education from whose ranks great poets might be expected to rise.

Almost any one can reel off the names of the great poets of the past, but who knows the names of the great poets of today? Isn't the dearth of them explained by the fact that the poetic form of expression belongs not at all in a day when business is the god of men. The poetic form is graceful and pretty and thrilling, when linked with a great theme, but the rules governing its use tend toward indirection of statement and confusion of thought. Or at least, as compared with the possibilities of the prose form the poetic form lacks practicability. And this is a practical age.

The fact that poetry depends for its charm largely on the rhythm and similarly-sounding line endings makes it a poor rival with prose in the minds of the average man of business; and the fact that prose does not bar a poetical expression of thought tends to further confirmation in practical minds that they haven't time to bother with trying to find out what the poet is trying to say.

—The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, NE, Feb. 7, 1919, p. 8.

Now a Museum, Where Keats and Shelley Lived in Rome

1909

Opened As Museum

House Where Keats and Shelley Lived in Rome

Flowers and Vines Make Enchanting Bower of Little Gallery Where One Can Fancy Two Famous Poets Chatted Together

Rome. — Early in April, in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel III, of Italy, the Keats-Shelley memorial house in Rome was opened and consecrated as a museum in memory of the two English poets who were friends. Henceforth this house, situated on the right hand side of the old Spanish stairs, in the Piazza di Spagna, will be a new resort for English-speaking tourists and lovers of these poets when in the Eternal city. The house has been bought by English and American lovers of poesy. It cost $60,000. It is a modest house, which in Keats' and Shelley's day was a pension, or boarding house.

There is a quiet seriousness about the premises, as if the shadow still lingered where young Keats breathed his last sigh. In the little entrance hang some old engravings, which give one an idea of the Piazza di Spagna before the Spanish stairs were built and after their construction. The house has been renovated. The central room has been transformed into a reading room. Around the walls run the book shelves made of dark walnut, the floor is covered by thick Turkish rugs. Sir Moses Ezekiel's bust of Shelley holds a prominent place in this room, as well as that made of Shelley by Severn. It is rather hard to put oneself in touch with the two poetic spirits who lived in this house, amid the babble of the tourists, and the questions with which they ply the civil Italian gentleman who acts as curator. I am quite sure he must be almost distracted after his morning's work, for the house is only open every day to the public from ten o'clock until one p. m. One of the little rooms leads out on the dearest little terrazionoo, which in these lovely spring days is a display of beautiful flowers and creeping vines. Here one can easily fancy Keats and Shelley resting and chatting together. In another room the book shelves hold 200 editions of Keats' and Shelley's works. Most of these being recent editions, they have little value except as evidence of the continuing fame of the poets — but is not that worth while to show In this way?

By far the most interesting room is the little bedchamber in which Keats died, with its two windows, one of which looks out over the Piazza di Spagna and the other on the picturesque stairs leading up to the Church delta Trinita de Monte. From that window one can gaze down on the loveliest flower market to the world all the year round, and watch the ever passing throng going up and down the Spanish steps. Many of the artists' models group themselves about, or drop off for their open air siestas in the most natural of poses.

In this small bedroom Keats died in the arms of his faithful friend, Severn The ceiling and the little fireplace have been left just as when Keats lived in the room. In this little sanctuary is the death mask of Keats, and a small lock of his chestnut brown hair. In a sealed vase is a little bone which Trelawney kept from the heart — "cer cordium" — when the flames reduced all that was once Percy Bysshe Shelley's frame to a handful of clean ashes.

This little house where the two poets stayed in Rome puts us in touch with them on different lines from their graves, in the beautiful little English cemetery, under the shadow of the pyramid of Calus Cestius, and the walls of old Rome. There are several autograph letters of Keats and Shelley carefully treasured in the little museum, as well as their songs set to music. It is pleasant to feel that these poetic friends — such lovers of Italy — lived and enjoyed all Italy had to offer them in the fullness of her wondrous beauty, art and history, and when life's fitful fever ended for them, they rest in her loving bosom.

A Poet's Treasures – What Was Found in Eugene Field's Room

1896

A Poet's Treasures

Eugene Field's Queer Room and Its Strange Contents

Before we go upstairs to Eugene Field's room, the one which holds his choicest treasures, it is necessary to remind you again that he has a child's love of grotesque toys and of barbaric colors and effects. He was especially fond of red. The room in which he died is papered with a fantastic, swirling pattern on a red ground, which is absolutely exasperating to those people who prefer soft browns and dull reds. Few persons understand what his idea was in selecting this red paper with its grotesque yet conventional swirl. In Henry B. Fuller's "With the Procession" that author tells about a Chicago woman named Susan Bates, who furnished her whole house magnificently except one little room.

Upon this room she spent a great deal of money, and visited many old-fashioned stores, in order to furnish it like a primitive one she had occupied when a girl in her father's house. Now this was partly Eugene Field's idea in furnishing his own room. He was fond of grotesque effects, he loved red passionately, and he wanted a reminder of the furnishings of a century ago. Where he found that gorgeous red paper, or the old-fashioned calico for the red curtain, would be difficult to tell, but he had a knack for discovering quaint things which other people pass by without notice. When it is added that the rugs on the floor are also red, perhaps it may be imagined that this room in hideous. But it is not. The long bookcase on one side, the white column in the middle around which are arranged shelves holding Mr. Field's treasures, and a gray screen repeating with a slight variation the same singular swirl that is upon the walls relieve the eye to such an extent that the effect is harmonious.

As you enter the room, you are confronted with two hideous figures. An outlandish Japanese figure is suspended from the wall by one arm. In the other it holds three Japanese gongs fastened together so as to make a loud sound when struck with the red stick. The other is the face of a hobgoblin attached to the headboard of his bedstead. Field pretended that he bought it to frighten away his babies when they insisted upon interrupting him while he was writing; but, like their father, they were so fond of the ludicrous that the strange faces the monster would make when certain strings were pulled only made them laugh; so the intended bugaboo but added to the attractions of the room.

On the shelves one may find a strange collection of quaint bottles of every conceivable shape and size, and Mr. Field hunted many shops for those candelabra which our grandmothers loved — those with glass pendants through which a child may distinguish the seven colors of the rainbow. He also had a queer collection of canes, candlesticks and baby shoes. Not alone the first shows of his own babies wore, with the toes and heels worn out, but wood shoes, and even glass shoes, reminding one of Cinderella's glass slipper. There are also two strange wooden horses, one used by Mr. Toole, the English actor, when he played "The Cricket on the Hearth," and the other, daubed with a few spots of paint, used by Mr. Jefferson in the same play. Neither must one forget Mrs. Hawthorne's ginger-jar, nor the ax Mr. Gladstone gave Eugene Field. The ax is suspended above the window. — St. Nicholas.

The Poet Robert Southey — A Look At His Character

1874

Character of Southey

Southey went rarely into society; scarcely knew by sight any of the country-people living near him; never rode on horseback; took no outdoor exercise save that of walking, and this often from a mere sense of duty, and with a book in his hand; and, although living in one of the loveliest spots in England, and not insensible to charms, preferred the shelves of his library to the finest prospect in the world. He found his relaxation where he found his daily labor, within the walls of his study. "I can't afford," wrote, "to do one thing at a time; no, nor two neither; and it is only by doing many things that I contrive to do much; for I cannot work long at any thing without hurting myself, and I do every thing by heats; then, by the time I am tired of one, my inclination for another is at hand."

Southey was an affectionate husband and a fond father; and whenever, in his correspondence, he alludes to his home happiness, it is with a tenderness and warmth of feeling that are eminently beautiful. Moreover, he was a constant, and, at all times, noble friend, ready even when in straits himself to help with money or with his pen those who were more straitened. No one ever acted better the part of the good Samaritan, and while he never forgot a benefit received, it would seem as if his own magnanimous charity had no place in his memory. The story of his life abounds in instances of the most generous self-denial, and of a steadfast goodness of heart which never shrunk from the demands made upon it. Heavily burdened as he was with work, he was continually accepting fresh literary labor in order to benefit others; nor was this all, for he received, under his own roof, his wife's widowed sister, Mrs. Lovell; and when Coleridge, in that strange waywardness of mood which his vice of opium-eating can alone explain, deserted his wife and children, it was with Southey that they found home. There is a beautiful anecdote given by Lockhart of a poor music-master offering Scott all his savings in the hour of his adversity; a similar story may be told of Southey, who, when his friend May, an early benefactor of the poet, fell into difficulties, sent him more than six hundred pounds, which was all the money he possessed.

If the poet had strong and generous affections he was also a good hater, but this feeling was shown to principles rather than to persons, and if, which was not seldom, political animosity led him to write bitterly against his antagonists, there was not one of them for whom, after the moment of writing, he retained an unkindly feeling. It is said that he seldom spoke harshly of any man with whom he had once conversed; he had too large a heart for petty animosities, and he was wholly free from envy. At the time when a whole year's sale of a ponderous epic failed to produce the poet five pounds, Scott was gaining his thousands, but not a word of bitterness falls from Southey on this score; and the praise he bestowed on his contemporaries, a few of them more distinguished than himself, but the larger number men of far inferior power, is frequently more generous than just.

Although not, as we have said, a sociable man, he had the good fortune to know intimately most of the illustrious authors who made the early part of this century so famous, and, long before Wordsworth had received the public recognition which was his due as the greatest poet of the age, Southey, like Coleridge, expressed his admiration of his friend and neighbor in no niggard terms. This noble triumvirate, by-the-way, reminds us that probably not since Shakespeare's day have three men of equal mark lived together on terms of intimacy and affection. Landor called them "three towers of one castle," and, as all the world knows, they have been absurdly classed together as forming a school of poetry.

Southey had but little ear for harmony, and it was therefore all the more unfortunate for his fame that he elected to write his "Thalaba" in a novel metre, which is without the dignity of heroic blank verse, or the soothing, satisfying charm of rhyme. Landor saw his friend's mistake in this respect, and observed, very justly: "Are we not a little too fond of novelty and experiment, and is it not reasonable to prefer those kinds of versification which the best poets have adopted and the best judges have cherished for the longest time?" But Southey, on the contrary, was well pleased with his experiment, thinking that, while it gave the poet a wider range of expression, it satisfied the ear of the reader. So far is this from being the case, that no one familiar with the lovely harmony of Shelley's verse, or with the delicate music of Coleridge, to say nothing of earlier and later poets, is likely to gain delight from the strange and fitful, and sometimes jarring notes of Southey. But there is strength in his verse, if not harmony, and "Thalaba," while it has its wildernesses and arid deserts, can also boast, as indeed all Southey's epics may, many a fair scene of richness and beauty. Splendor of diction and felicity of description occur frequently, but frequently also the action halts, the verse drags, and the reader feels inclined to resign himself to slumber. On the whole, perhaps, the erudition lavished on the poem is more striking than its poetical wealth, and it is sometimes a relief to turn aside from the text to the curious and highly-entertaining notes which serve to illustrate it.

Southey himself judged "Roderick" to be the finest of all his poems, and Landor, in writing to him, said: "There is no poem in existence that I shall read so often." Charles Lamb, however, an admirable judge, and Wordsworth also, preferred "The Curse of Kehama," and, without endeavoring to compare the value of the two works, there can be no doubt that they are the poet's greatest and least wearisome efforts. It is singular that in none of Southey's epics are there passages which lay hold of the memory, and become, as it were, a part of one's life. No doubt, the first consideration of the poet should be to have a worthy action, and the more he strives after this object, the less will he concern himself with the beauty of particular passages, but the lack of what may be called "beauties" in Southey's poetry is due, we think, less to the severity of his taste than to the diffusiveness of his style, which has, as it were, no points for the memory to lay hold of. With all their deficiencies, however, the student of English poetry can never pass by with indifference these elaborate productions but he is not likely to agree with Macaulay that Southey's poems, taken in the mass, rank far higher than his prose works. — Cornhill Magazine.

A Literary Curiosity — 38 Lines, Different Poets, One Poem

1878

A Literary Curiosity

A lady occupied a whole year in searching for and fitting the following thirty-eight lines from English and American poems. The whole reads almost as if it had been written at one time and by one author:

LIFE

Why all this toil for the triumphs of an hour? —Young.
Life's short summer — man is but a flower; —Dr. Johnson.
By turns we catch the fatal breath and die —Pope.
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh. —Prior.
To be is better far than not to be. —Sewell.
Though all man's life may seem a tragedy; —Spencer.
But light cares speak when mighty grief is dumb— —Daniel.
The bottom is but shallow whence they come. —St. Walter Ralph.
Your fate is but the common fate of all; —Longfellow.
Unmingled joys here no man befall. —Southwell.
Nature to each allots his proper sphere. —Congreve.
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care; —Churchill.
Custom does often reason overrule, —Rochester.
And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool. —Armstrong.
Live well — how long or short permit to heaven —Milton.
Those who forgive most shall be most forgiven. —Bailey.
Since may be clasped so close we cannot see its face— —French.
Vile intercourse where virtue has not place. —Somerville.
Then keep each passion however dear, —Thompson.
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear; —Byron.
Her sensual shares let faithless pleasure lay, —Smollet.
With craft and skill to ruin and betray. —Crabbe.
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise; —Massinger.
We masters grow of all that we despise. —Crowley.
Oh, then, renounce that impious self-esteem; —Beattie.
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream. —Cowper.
Think not ambition wise because 'tis brave. —Sir Wm. Davenaut.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. —Gray.
What is ambition? 'Tis but a glorious cheat. —Willis.
Only destructive to the brave and great. —Addison.
What's all the gaudy glitter of a crown? —Dryden.
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down. —Francis Quaries.
How long we live, not years but actions tell; —Watkins.
That man lives twice who lives the first life well. —Herrick.
Make, then, while yet ye may, your God your friend. —Wm. Mason.
Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend. —Hill.
The trust that's given guard, and to yourself be just; —Dana.
For live we how we may, yet die we must. —Shakespeare.

—Daily Star, Marion, OH, April 1, 1878, p. 2.

This Is Dorothy Parker!

1929

This Is Dorothy!

Milwaukee Journal: When we saw Dorothy Parker at her East Sixty-third street apartment She had just returned from Hollywood, where she had gone to write a series of conversations for the talkies. She was passionate in the expression of her antipathy toward Hollywood and movie folk. She vows that she will never go there again. The Dorothy Parker of her two volumes of verse, "Enough Hope" and "Sunset Gun," is not the Dorothy Parker of real life. It is apparently her idea that life has pulled some sort of dirty trick her and she contemplates establishing a colony for "frustrates" somewhere along the coast of France. "But it all comes around to the fact that I don't like work," she confesses. "And — well, people must live."

Dorothy Parker claims that she is one of those rare creatures in New York — a born New Yorker. "Or I would have been," she amends her statement, "if my parents hadn't gone to New Jersey for the summer." She is short, dark and slender, and not nearly so full of Dorothy Parkerisms as one might be led to suspect from her verse.

She is at work on a play which has been contracted for by a Broadway producer. "But I don't know anything about the technique of writing plays," she says. "For instance, I don't know how to get an actor gracefully off or on the stage. The most obvious thing to me for an actor to do is to enter casually and say, 'Well, there seems to be a second act going on here.'" And she is soon to write a book in collaboration with Donald Ogden Stewart — "just as soon as Stewart gets through with the part he is playing in Philip Barry's comedy, 'Holiday.'" The book will be made up of a series of love letters and ought to create a riot — if we know anything about the origins of riots.

--(reprinted 3-25-1929, Evening Tribune, Albert Lea, MN, p 2.)

Unity Club Discusses Six Poets, Studying "Cranks" Next Week

Newport, Rhode Island, 1896

Unity Club.

The miscellaneous literary evening last Tuesday proved to be a very pleasant one, at which the six New England poets, now dead, were discussed. Miss Emily B. Chace read a short paper on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Miss Maude Harrington on John G. Whittier, Miss Emily Bradley on H. W. Longfellow, Miss Ada Crandall on James Russell Lowell, and Miss Grace Brazier on William Cullen Bryant. Extracts were read from their most celebrated poems. Miss Maude Harrington displayed considerable elocutionary power in her reading of Whittier's soul stirring poem entitled "Barbara Frietchie." The idea of having one evening devoted to the study of six New England poets was an excellent and very successful one. The next study evening is on the 5th of March and the two subjects to be treated on will be "Galileo" and "Cranks."

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 2, 1895, page 1.




A. O'D. Taylor's Paper On "Cranks," at Unity Club, March 5, 1895

Newport, Rhode Island, 1895.

On "Cranks."

At a Study meeting of the Unity Club held on Tuesday evening the 5th instant, Mr. A. O'D. Taylor read a short essay on "Cranks," of which we have the pleasure in giving a summary. He treated the subject in a thoroughly original way, and it created considerable merriment amongst his audience.

He began by saying that the oft-quoted recipe of Mrs. Glasse for making hare soup, "First catch your hare!" might well be quoted as an introduction. That saying was really one of the humorous Tom Hood's brilliancies, and originally ran "Ahem! Hare! First catch your hare then do him till he's done." Mr. Taylor went on to remark, I would therefore say "Crank! Ahem, first catch your crank, then do him till he's done." With this view, I invited three specimens here tonight, in an apparently guileless way, but they all refused to come, having evidently some furtive idea that they were wanted for illustrations. We must, therefore, do without them. It is all well enough to begin in this jocular way, but before we are "done" you will probably feel uncomfortably warm, and say this essay is no laughable matter at all.

What is a "crank?" He then explained the mechanical crank, the bit of machinery; then the application of the idea of a twist therein involved, to topography, to speech, and to the mind. But, like all words which first have an objective and clearly defined meaning of some material thing the word "crank" has, by colloquial use, come to be applied to human character, to individuals, and in the sense of meaning a person given to impracticable schemes, one who has a twist in his mental perceptions, one whose judgment is perverted on some one particular subject. The use of the word as a noun in this sense is much more general in the United States than in Great Britain and Ireland. Yet it is not what is sometimes called an Americanism, except in the usage of being applied to people. As a word applied to caprice, whim or crotchet, or even a fit of temper, it is a provincial and truly English word — while its application to a human being is American, and apparently originated in New England. May there not be a good side as well as a bad one, in cranks? May not the crank of 1605 become the sage of 1845? We are censorious. There is no harm in forming a judgment; that arises automatically by the exercise of our reason, but the golden rule "Judge not that ye be not judged" means, and would be better translated "Condemn not, that ye be not condemned." He then spoke of the murderous crank like Guiteau, the economic crank like the absurd Coxey — the religious crank, the political crank, the domestic crank, the literary crank, and the scientific crank. Or it might actually be some Unity Club crank, who tells you that he has long noticed with alarm the steadily increasing influx of female members into the club, and that, if the men do not stand shoulder to shoulder, every office of honor, those of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer &c., will be snatched from them by triumphant women, and that the only evening on which men will be allowed to open their mouths, will be on a "Miscellaneous Literary Evening." Then, perhaps half a dozen of the tamest and best behaved males will be allowed to read extracts from the works of approved and strictly moral authors selected for them by the female directorate.

Mr. Taylor then outlined the characteristics of enthusiasts, oddities, devotees, visionaries and fanatics. Without enthusiasts the world would stand still. Fanatics are not mere cranks; they are more dangerous, more united in action, less individual — a herd of wild animals instead of one. He then discussed psychologically the boundary lines between sanity and insanity showing how feelings can arise outside the sphere of sensation. It is when emotions are not controlled by the will, but are allowed to develop into passions, that the process of mental disintegration begins, that the bounds of sanity are overstepped. But in the good natured sense of the word "crank" we often include all those who differ a little bit from the ordinary hum-drum people of the world. We have a sort of affection for such "cranks," in fact nearly every family will privately confess to you that it has one in its own domestic fold, quietly packed away, either sitting reading in the parlor, or just gone to bed.

The grandmother who is "crank" enough to tell Carrie that it would be better for her to be mending her little brother's stockings, than sitting up past midnight in a twilight room with her lover Harry — is probably both a sensible and loveable old lady, despite her alleged "crankiness." The father who is so "cranky" as positively to prevent his growing son from joining some young men's club where billiards and cards are played every evening, and where just a glass of beer or a little claret and water, can be had by any one who is thirsty — may be regarded by his young hopeful as a "crank" about drink, but the boy will probably live to bless the day, when his old "dad" showed that cranky turn. And our young lady — who sulked when advised to mend the stockings — will probably, when a grown-up woman feel that her dear old "crank" of a grandmother had given her an excellent lesson in pointing out that domestic duty ranged above a personal gratification.

In the working world of men, we all know some other wise good fellow, who is simply a terror on a committee. A man whom no argument can convince, who is as set in his opinion and hard as a rock, when he has taken up some position opposed to the majority. He is a "crank" for the time being, of the first rank; for he has espoused some crotchet which all his peers agree to be impracticable, yet he holds on to it like a bulldog. Yet may it not be that such men — in the first place — are sent as a sort of test of our good temper, as a trial for our forbearance? and in the second place, is it not possible, that as this whirligig of time goes on, we are amazed to discover that the one obstinate man, the so-called "crank" on the jury was right — and that the other eleven men in the box were wrong?

This has many a time happened; and the lesson I draw from it is this. There is a good side to the apparent "crank." As I said in the early part of this paper the supposed "crank" of today, may be the admitted sage of tomorrow.

The records of science and literature bear ample testimony to this view, Galileo furnishes a notable instance. Socrates was regarded as a dangerous "crank" — and had to die – why? because he was the noblest and best man of his age.

Cornelius Agrippa, a philosopher and chemist, was regarded by the people as an object of horror, and sometimes found the streets empty at his approach, why? Because he had displayed a few philosophical experiments which any school boy can now perform but which was then supposed to be magical. He was a terrible "crank."

Roger Bacon, said to have been the inventor of gunpowder was equally hated as a "crank" and worse, because he knew more about the constituents of matter, and what their combinations effected than his neighbors did.

Petrarch the poet, was supposed to hold counsel with some demon, as the inspirer of his poems; and Descartes the materialistic philosopher, was horribly persecuted in Holland for his opinions on scientific subjects. There is no doubt that the idea which we now associate with the word "crank" was in some degree applied in those bygone days to the famous men whom I mention.

Religious, political, social erudities — novelties whose superstructure attracts, but which have no real foundation — are pre-eminently the hobbies of "cranks." Let us bear in mind that present conditions have grown, by the unfaltering process of evolution, out of the past; and that all innovations are very far from being reforms. A new thing is not necessary a true thing, and this is what the dangerous "crank" cannot be made to believe. As a rule when a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it, the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. As Edmund Burke wrote when treating of the French Revolution — "Every fear, every hope, will forward any mighty change and then, they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men."

Strange it is, yet true, that those who are quick to perceive faults and defects, do not make the best reformers. "By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little." So it is in certain well-meant efforts to set wrong habits right. The measures adopted omit human nature. And, as regards theories of government, we will find, in looking quietly round, that much as we have been led to believe that fanaticism about some dogma in religion is the worst sort of fanaticism — fanaticism about some form of government really excites men as much, and that political fanaticism is nearly as bad as religious rancor. In these two great regions the "crank" is always pre-eminent. Of late years the economic "crank" is also becoming dangerous, with all sorts of absurd nostrums for reforming the social fabric, ignoring the human texture of which that fabric is made.

What, finally, is the outcome of all these random reflections which I have jotted down?

It seems as if what the old divine, Bishop Hall, wrote, nearly 260 years ago, strikes the true key for us in our investigation. "Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."

Even though enthusiasts on any subject, we can be moderate with those who differ from us. We can avoid ever being "cranks." Each of us can so control his will, so weigh his conclusions, as not to be betrayed into morbid habits of thought or act, can so guide himself, by nurturing a regard for others and the feelings of others, as never to become an abnormal excrescence on society — never be a "crank." Each of us should study to be

"Rich in saving common sense,
And — as the greatest only are —
In his simplicity, sublime."

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 9, 1895, page 1.


In our issue of today we give our readers a tolerably full report of a paper read this week before the Unity Club on "Cranks," by a well-known literary gentleman of our city, who is the president and managing director of the Newport Herald. As it is an unusually interesting paper, and as neither the Herald nor the Daily News published any outline of it, we feel glad in being enabled to furnish our readers and the public with a summary. "Cranks" can be found even in Newport.

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 9, 1895, page 4, editorial page.

Ben Jonson — Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes

1903

Little is known of the early history of "Rare Ben Johnson," so-called on his tomb in Westminster Abbey.

He was a prolific writer of plays and poems, and ranks next to Shakespeare in early English dramatic history. Dryden calls him the "Virgil of dramatic poets."

He was born June 11, 1574, and in 1798 his play of "Every Man In His Humor" brought him into public notice. In 1619 King James I created him poet laureate, with an annual pension of $500 and a tierce of Spanish wine. He died Aug. 6, 1637.

His plays are rarely acted or even read, except by scholars, but some of his poems are still very popular. The song quoted is from the play of "The Forest," a translation from the Greek poet, Philostratus. The air by which it is sung is from Mozart.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee!