NOTES which a later age would have considered austere. She went to public school with her brother and sister, and made a lifelong friend of Helen Hunt (Jackson); then at the age of seventeen she was sent to the South Hadley Female Seminary-"one of whose avowed objects was to provide mates for the missionaries sent out to the foreign field." She expressed her individuality in various harmless pranks, and appalled her teachers when she and her roommate proved to be the only girls out of three hundred who opposed observing Christmas as a day of fasting and solitary meditation! At the age of twenty-three she spent a winter in Washington and Philadelphia with her father (then a Congressman), and at that time had the experience which-though only enough is told of it to occupy one page in Mrs. Bianchi's biography-evidently blighted the rest of her life. Fundamentally moral, yet tempted as only a woman of temperament can be by the love of a man already married, she fled to her home, and forever barred the door to her importunate lover. "There is no doubt that two predestined souls were kept apart only by her high sense of duty, and the necessity for preserving love untarnished by the inevitable destruction of another woman's life." The effect of her renunciation was to send her lover to a city "a continent's width remote," and to make her unable either to forget her secret grief or to force herself from the seclusion of her home. For the remainder of her life she was a recluse-spiritual, affectionate, social within the large family circle, and endowed with a brilliant turn of phrase and a piquant way of expressing herself that was revealed in her letters as well as her conversation. It was known to Colonel Higginson and a few others that she wrote poetry for her own satisfaction; but for the most part her life after 1853 was spent within the four walls of her father's house, and to the public it was a closed book. At the time of her death, in 1886, people realized that Amherst had lost a woman of rare charm, but her poems were still in manuscript. Beginning with 1890, small collections were published at short intervals, and all her extant verse is now available in the Complete Poems issued in 1925. It would appear that the conscientious renunciation of her twenty-third year, with its inevitable sublimation of selfish impulses, had produced in her a compensating spiritual insight into life, a keener sense of its significance than is accorded to many writers of wider personal experience. Her poetry has a direct way of cutting to the heart of matters that is singularly modern. Its freedom from the paraphernalia of poetic ornament is likewise modern, yet its Puritanism is so strict, and at times so didactic, as to make it appear in some respects pre-nineteenthcentury. On close study her work proves to be in its modest way "not of an age but for all time"; the themes with which she deals in her characteristic subjective poems-love, self-sacrifice, time and eternity, religion and the feeling for immortality-are the everrecurring ones of human life. Her verses are brief, to be sure, but often almost oracular in their wisdom, and their lack of lyric sweetness is offset by a poignant intensity of feeling which women have seldom succeeded in conveying in poetry. It may be too high praise to equate her work with that of Mrs. Browning, and yet when Conrad Aiken called it "perhaps the finest by a woman in the English language," an English critic in the London Spectator added, "I quarrel only with his 'perhaps.'” BIBLIOGRAPHY All earlier editions have been entirely superseded by The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Boston, 1925. The one valuable source of biographical information is The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson, by Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Boston, 1924. CELIA THAXTER (1835-1894) Celia Thaxter was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1835. As a child of five she was taken to the Isles of Shoals, some ten miles off shore, where her father, Thomas B. Laighton, was keeper of the lighthouse, and where she spent the greater part of her life. Even after her marriage in 1851 to Levi Lincoln Thaxter, she usually lived for a part or all of each year at Appledore (the largest of the Isles), where she shared the beauties of her large flower garden and of the rugged island scenery with the many friends who came to visit her from the mainland. always kept her girlhood fondness for the romance and the majesty of the sea, as well as for the less a re-inspiring beauties of her favorite nooks along the shore. The scenery is admirably described in her prose volume Among the Isles of Shoals (1873). She Her career as a poetess began with the appearance of Land-Locked (above, p. 1015) in the Atlantic Monthly for March, 1861, and continued with such success as to warrant the publication of five volumes of verses: Poems (1872), Drift-weed (1879), Poems for Children (1884), The Cruise of the Mystery and other Poems (1886), and Verses (1891). She wrote for the most part what might be called a stock type of poem which begins by describing the beauties of the seacoast and commonly ends with some moral reflection of the sort that was popular in the midnineteenth century. The moralizing usually is as sweet and womanly in its sentiment as the flowers which she used to enclose in her letters. ("This pansy, with my dear love," happens to have survived in an old unpub EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN The Life and Letters of Edmund Clarence Stedman (2 vols., 1910) sets forth with delightful intimacy what can only be hinted at here: among other things, his gay days at Yale (ending in expulsion), his vigorous romantic youth, his successful courtship of Laura Woodworth, his brilliant career as a war correspondent for the World, his long and varied business activities as a member of the New York Stock Exchange, and the futile struggle to make success in business compatible with great accomplishment in poetry. Although born in Hartford, he lived so long in New York City that he is to be regarded as a member of the metropolitan group, along with his friends Stoddard and Taylor. Like them he wrote readable lyrics for the most part so lacking in vitality as to hold little interest for the succeeding generation; but during the War he was some times roused, as in Old Brown (p. 1023) and Wanted-a Man (p. 1025), to express himself with greater passion. Once at least he drew from his business experience material for an exquisite poem, and the result, Pan in Wall Street (p. 1026) is probably his best known piece. It was Stedman's aim to attain through his activities in Wall Street a financial independence sufficient to allow him full liberty to devote himself to literary work. But though he occasionally made considerable sums of money, the turns of the market often went against him, the public lost interest in the type of poetry he wrote, and he is remembered now less as financier and poet than as anthologist and critic. His love of poetry, his prose style, and his indefatigable zeal in editorial matters combined to make his most valuable contribution to poetry the anthologies and books of criticism which from time to time he edited. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, New Household Edition, Boston, 1908, is the best one-volume collected edition of his verse. For biographical information one turns to The Life and Letters of Edmund Clarence Stedman, by Laura Stedman and George M. Gould, N. Y., 1910, 2 vols. Stedman's work as editor and critic is well represented by Victorian Poets, Boston, 1876; Poets of America, Boston, 1885; A Library of American Literature, N. Y. 1889, 11 vols.; An American Anthology, Boston, 1900. NOTES HOW OLD BROWN TOOK HARPER'S FERRY 1023. This poem, dated November, 1859, was greatly admired by Emerson; it combines indignation and sympathy in such proportions as to throw a most favorable light on the life of one of the most fanatical of the abolitionists. WANTED A MAN 1025. Dated September 8, 1862, when the lack of generalship among the Union forces was notorious. At that time the Confederate troops under General Bragg had started the invasion of Kentucky which resulted in the capture of Richmond, Lexington, Munfordsville, and Frankfort. In the east the Confederate leaders, Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet, were proving more than a match for McClellan, who on November 7th was superseded by Burnside. Burnside in turn gave way to "Fighting Joe" Hooker. (See Lincoln's letter to Hooker, p. 787, above.) Not till Grant was finally commissioned lieutenant-general and given supreme com mand of all the military forces of the United States, was the "man" finally discovered. "THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY" 1027. The title is from Hamlet's phrase, "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns." "JOAQUIN" MILLER (1841-1913) According to his own romantic story, which is not to be trusted as regards details, Cincinnatus Hiner Miller had for his cradle "a covered wagon, pointed west." It is beyond dispute, however, that in the west he spent the years of his adventurous youth, and of the west he wrote his best poetry. As a young man he happened to write a public letter in defense of the much-abused Mexicans just at the time when Joaquin Murietta, a Mexican bandit, had been killed; and by a queer train of circumstances the bandit's name of Joaquin became attached to the author (as set forth by him in Lippincott's Magazine for July, 1886). Miller had little recognition as a poet until the early seventies, when the publication in London, at his own expense, of his Songs of the Sierras brought him high praises from Browning, Rossetti, and the reviewers of the English press. This dramatic rise from obscure poverty to sudden fame in literary London may be understood by reference to the Introduction and the notes-many of which are little autobiographical essays of the six-volume Bear Edition of the Poems (1909), and especially to the Fragments from the English Press (I, 119 ff.). But the promise of development and of improved technique which the critics saw in the Songs of the Sierras was never realized, despite the fact that Miller kept on writing verse as well as prose to the end of his life. When he brought the real west into English poetry, he went up to fame like a skyrocket; he came down, not like a rocket-stick, but slowly, like a balloon no longer able to hold its cargo aloft. Once the vivid narrative and accurate imagery of his western poems had lost their novelty, his later work was-or seemed as a rule to beinferior. Notable exceptions to this rule, however, are The Passing of Tennyson (1892) and Columbus (1896); in the latter he showed in the spirit of Columbus the same steadfastness of purpose which had driven the American pioneers, including Miller himself, "on! and on!" BIBLIOGRAPHY Miller's Collected Poems, San Francisco, 1919, 6 vols., contain virtually everything that he wrote. Stuart P. Sherman's Selected Poems of Joaquin Miller, N. Y., 1923, omits the large amount of trivial verse, and presents the best of Miller in convenient form. Mr. Sherman's introductory essay is a sane estimate of Miller's accomplishment and significance. No biography of an adequate sort exists; Fred L. Pattee's American Literature since 1870 discusses Miller in chapter VI. NOTES KIT CARSON'S RIDE 1027. During his stay in London 1870-71, Miller asked Browning if he might "borrow the measure and spirit" of How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix "for a prairie fire on the plains, driving buffalo and all other life before it into a river." The English poet acquiesced modestly by referring to Vergil as the source from which he himself had borrowed. As Kit Carson's Ride was originally published, the Indian bride was overwhelmed like Revels, in the fire, and the concluding lines were these: "Sell Pache! You buy him! A bag You show him! Tell of him the tale Why, he bore me through fire, and is ried, and soon settled down for life to the exacting duties of a journalist. He distinguished himself especially by his contributions to the Denver Tribune, and subsequently made "Sharps and Flats," his column on the Chicago Record (now the Daily News), famous the country over. With the publication of his best pieces in book forma venture which began modestly with The Tribune Primer in 1882 and was continued with such well-known volumes as A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), and A Little Book of Profitable Tales (1890)-Field took a conspicuous place among contemporary humorists and writers of familiar verse. Since his death in 1895, he has been popularly classed with Riley, but there is a great difference in their literary range. A clue to understanding this difference is the fact, pointed out by Wordsworth, that of two equally well executed compositions, one in verse and the other in prose, the former will be read a hundred times as often as the latter. Riley was a poet; Field was primarily a prose humorist who could fill his column day after day with such satire as this: Blue Cut, Tenn., May 2, 1885.-The second section of the train bearing the Illinois Legislature to New Orleans was stopped near this station by bandits last night. After relieving the bandits of their watches and money, the excursionists proceeded on their journey with increased enthusiasm. But Field was also a poet, and already his prose is largely forgotten, while his verse, especially that dealing with childhood, has survived. The imitations and adaptations of Horace, Echoes from the Sabine Farm (1891), written in collaboration with his brother, Roswell M. Field, are unique and may perhaps be read longer than anything else he ever wrote. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Writings in Prose and Verse of Eugene Field, N. Y., 1896-1900, 12 vols., is the standard edition. The poems are available by themselves in a complete edition, N. Y., 1910. A memoir of the poet by his brother, R. M. Field, is part of the twelve volume edition. Slason Thompson's Eugene Field: A Study in Heredity and Contradiction, N. Y., 1901, 2 vols., is the most exhaustive biographical and critical study. JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY (1849-1916) Riley was born in 1849 in Greenfield, Indiana. His father, a lawyer, looked with but little favor on the boy's interest in poetry, dramatics, and music; and as a preliminary to the grind of studying law, he gave his son two summers of hard work painting signs on fences and barns. To this the boy submitted cheerfully, but once he came into actual contact with Blackstone, he ran away and joined the troupe of a travelling quack doctor. After such a display of independence the youth was allowed to make his own way by his pen, writing verses now for one paper, now for another, and eventually establishing a permanent connection with the Indianapolis Journal. From the first publication of The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems in 1883 the poet's vogue increased with amazing rapidity. He poured forth dialect poems by the hundred, and toured the country in company with celebrities like Mark Twain, Robert J. Burdette, and Bill Nye, reciting his own verses with such universal success that he was acclaimed "the people's laureate." A selection of his poems published in England under the title of Old Fashioned Roses (1888) considerably enhanced his international reputation; and after the turn of the century such universities as Yale, Pennsylvania, and Indiana vied with each other in conferring on him honorary degrees. Before his death in 1916 "Riley Day" had been celebrated in public schools throughout the country at the suggestion of the Secretary of the Interior, and at his funeral thirty-five thousand people gathered to do honor to his memory. Riley had something of Burns's power to "touch the heart" by suggesting the pathos and the sweetness of home life in "the good old days"; as might be expected, his favorite authors were Burns and Dickens. But he frankly estimated the value of his poems by their respective power to grip an audience when recited by himself. Such a standard assured simplicity, directness, and emotional appeal-nothing more; it was at once his strength and his weakness. Of passion or depth or profound thought, his verse has but little; of maudlin sentiment, all too much. It aspires to reach the intellectual level of an average American audience gathered for amusement-and it seldom reaches higher. BIBLIOGRAPHY Riley's work is available in many editions, best of which is the Biographical, Indianapolis, 1916, 10 vols. The critical apparatus in this edition is adequate for an understanding of Riley's life. There is an appreciative essay by Meredith Nicholson in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1916. EDWARD ROWLAND SILL (1841-1887) Sill has been aptly compared to Emily Dickinson in spiritual isolation from his contemporaries. Frail in health and doubtful as to the choice of a profession on his graduation as class poet at Yale in 1861, he went to the Pacific Coast via Cape Horn; then, after various failures to find a congenial occupation in the west, he returned to the east with the idea of becoming a minister. His religious doubts, however, always kept him out of the ministry, and the messages that might have found expression in sermons were compressed into poems. He eventually settled down in California to the life of a teacher and poet, occupying positions in different schools and in the state university. Several volumes of his poetry were published during his lifetime, and there has been a quiet but persistent continuation of interest in his work manifested since his death in 1887. Sill himself in his Principles of Criticism (quoted in the C. H. A. L., III, p. 57) sets forth his view that a poem should "be full of lovely images" and should bring us "troops of high and pure associations, the very words so chosen that they come 'trailing clouds of glory' in their suggestiveness." Much of his work is frankly didactic, but fresh and spontaneous. In his youth, when he wrote Morning (p. 1035), he was already breathing the rarefied air of the spirit which is the essence of his best-loved poems. Of these The Fool's Prayer (p. 1036) has already taken its place among the American classics. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Household Edition of Sill's poems, Boston, 1906, is a satisfactory one-volume collection of virtually all his work. W. B. Parker's Edward Rowland Sill, His Life and Work, Boston, 1915, is the best source of biographical information. KATHERINE LEE BATES (1859 Miss Bates was born at Falmouth, Massachusetts, in 1859, and attended Wellesley, Middlebury, and Oberlin Colleges. As Professor of English at Wellesley for over twenty years, she has exerted a considerable influence on the writing and the appreciation of poetry, while her own poetical work has appeared from time to time in such volumes as America the Beautiful and Other Poems (1911), The Retinue and Other Poems (1918), and Yellow Clover (1922). NOTES AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL 1037. Miss Bates's best known poem was written in the summer of 1893 while she was making her first trip west, the opening lines coming into her mind as she looked out over the sea-like expanse of country visible from the top of Pike's Peak. The original four stanzas were written shortly afterwards and were first published in The Congregationalist July 4, 1895. The poem was at once set to music by Silas G. Pratt, and subsequently by some sixty other composers. In 1904 Miss Bates re-wrote the poem, making the phraseology more simple and direct, and printed the new version in the Boston Evening Transcript November 19, 1904. Her final arrangement is that printed in this volume. (-Condensed from the author's own statement.) EDWIN MARKHAM (1852-) Edwin Markham was born in Oregon City, Oregon, in 1852, and spent his boyhood in California. After an extensive school and university training he took up educational work in the state of his adoption, but since the publication of The Man with the Hoe in 1899 he has been best known as a poet. The extravagant praise which Mr. Markham's most famous poem aroused gave him a skyrocket reputation which, except for his Lincoln, the Man of the People, he has hardly sustained. After publishing The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899) and Lincoln and Other Poems (1901), Mr. Markham moved to the east and subsequently has lived in or near New York City. Among his more recent volumes are The Shoes of Happiness (1914) and The Gates of Paradise (1920). NOTES THE MAN WITH THE HOE 1037. This poem, first published in the San Francisco Examiner January 15, 1899, met with immediate popularity and was quoted and reprinted throughout the English-speaking world. It voiced so vigorous a protest against the unprincipled exploitation of the laboring man, that it was hailed as "the battlecry of the next thousand years." LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 1038. Published in 1901 and subsequently revised. The version here printed was selected out of two hundred and fifty Lincoln poems, and read in 1922 before an audience of a hundred thousand at the dedication of the great Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. RICHARD HOVEY (1864-1900) Richard Hovey was born in Normal, Illinois, in 1864, and spent his boyhood in Washington, D. C. After his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1885, he studied theology for a while and then shifted from one occupation to another with Bohemian independence. He was journalist, actor, and professor of English at Barnard College, but above all he was a poet. He planned, and in |