The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-01-20

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Home Journal, recently celebrated his
eighty-second birthday, having been
born November 3, 1874, in Cumington,
Massachusetts. He looks little over
three score and ten, having still an elias
tic figure and quick step. He shows
his vigor and fondness of exercies by
walking, as he quantity puts it. ''every
morning down to his Ereaing Post"
The poets head and face are covered
with q liberal supply of silvery locks,
and he rather takes pride in seeing
his classic and venerable self as others
see him, for there is scarcely photo
grapher in town who has not fine por-
trait of Bryant. At public dinners he
may often be seen, and at speech-mak-
ing he is not at all backward. Although
he is frequently to be met in the streets
of the city he rarely attends the opera
or theater. Mr.. Bryant writes so little
poetry now he may be said to have laid
down the Tyre; but of general literature
and journalistic labor he still performs
q great deal of work.
Mr.. Tennyson, now sixty-six years
old, is still in his prime of thought and
capacity of work. The only i'll he is
heir too is an annual hay fever. He is
six feet high, broad shouldered and
large. boned, but not stout. His hands
and feet are large. His face is long,
and somewhat resembles that of Dante,
save that he has not the rigid mould
and expression of the great Florentine,
and the nose is not so aquiline. His
hair is long and black, his complexion
olive. .
Whittier is sixty-eight years old, and
q most quaint, kindly and refined per-
son, using habitually the Quaker
s'thee" and Chou"
Henry w. Longfellow is a year older,
and wears we'll the dignity of the gen.
tleman and the poet.
Lowell is fifty seven, and has the look
of the critic rather than of the poet.
Stoddard is fifty-six years old, about
five feet nine inches high, and wears
full iron-gray beard. This author looks
every inch q poet, and in conversation
is bright and witty. For fifteen years
he sled at the public crib" in the Gus
toms service; but now his whole time is
occupied in contributing to the maya
zines and newspapers. The right hand
being paralized, Mr.. Stoddard has learn
ell to write with his left. Stoddard's
wife is writer of no mean ability, and
has made reputation for herself in the
literary world
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, just forty
years of age, was born in New Hamp-
shire; laid the foundation for his repu-
tation in New York; wrote ''Babie Bel
le" while he was in his teens, and now
resides in Boston. Aldrichs reputa-
ton as q poet and novelist is increasing
and improving, foreign critics of high
authority placing him among the first
American writer's. He has hal some
experience as an editor and literary
critic, having commenced his career in
the office of the Home Journal. Aldrich
has wife and several children.
William Morris, the poet, lives in q
charming house in London. frightened
by the presence of beautiful wife and
three pretty children. His study is
reached by three flights of stairs, and is
a bare room. hung with Jumps of to-
bacco, and having for writing purposes
a curious hacked table and an ancient
ink horn. Herein the " Earthly Par
adise" was written. The shaggy haired,
kind-faced poet never looked hand.
somer than when his little ones are
dancing about him and climbing over
him.
Or the stars " hich have been studied,
we know the distance of 20. Among
these we may signalize Sirius, q sun
2,68S times larger than our own, sur
rounded by system of heavenly bodies,
several Of which are already known,
and distance from us $4,000, 000. ! OO, 900
miles; the Polar star, which is q double
star, distance 292, OO0, OOO, O0O. 900 miles,
and Capella, distance 425, 600, 600. 0OO-
OO0-a space which is traversed by light
in II years and eight months, so that
the luminous ray which reaches us from
this fine star in 1876, must have started
out in 1905. Capella might have been