Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-02-28
Misfellat1enus.
GOSSIP ABOUT POETS.

William Cullen Bryant recently ceIeora-
ted his eighty-second birthday, having
been born November 8. 1794, in Cunning
ton, Mass. He looks little over three
score and ten, having still an erect figure
and elastic step. He shows his vigor and
fondness for exercise by walking, as he
quantity puts it, "every morning down to
his Evening Post" The poets head aud
face are covered with liberal supply of
silvsry locks, and he rather takes pride
in seeing his classic and venerable self as
others see him, for there Is scarcely pho
tographer in town who has not fine por-
trait of Bryant. At public dinners he may
often be seen. and at speech-making he Is
not at all backward. Although he is ire
quently to be met in the streets ofthe city,
he rarely attends the opera or theatre.
Mr.. Bryant writes so little poetry now he
may be said to have laid down the Tyres
but of general literary and journalistic la
bor he still performs great deal of work.
Mr.. Tennyson, now sixty-six years old,
is still in his prime of thought and capac-
ity for work. The only i'll he's heir to is
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 it has not the rig
i'd mold and expression of the great
Florentine, and the nose is not so aquil-
inc. His hair is long and black, his COM
plexion olive. Once upon a time, in
speaking of Mr.. Tennyson's personal ap-
pearance, Buchanan Read called him "a
dilapdated jupiter a piece of descrip-
ton at once picturesque, acute and hu-
morous.
Whittier is sixty-eight years old. and .
most quaint, kindly and refined person,
using habitually the Quaker "thee" and
"thou."
Henry w. Longfellow is year older.
and wears we'll the dignity of the gentle-
man and the poet.
Lowell is fitty-seven, and has the look
of the critic rather than of the poet
Stoddard is fitty-six years old. about five
feet nine inches high, and wears a full
iron-gray beard. This author looks every
inch poet, and in conversation is bright
and witty. For fifteen years he "fed at
the public crib" in the Customs service;
but now his whole time Is occupied in
contributing to the magazines and news
papers. The right hand being paralized.
Mr.. Stoddard has learned to write with
his left. Stoddard's wife is writer of no
mean ability, and has made a reputation
tor herself in the literary world.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich. just forty years
Of age, was born in New Hampshire; laid
the foundation for his reputation in New
York; wrote ''Babie Belle" while he was
in his teens. and now resides in Boston.
Aldrch's reputation as poet and novelist
is increasing and improving, foreign crit
les OF high authority placing him among
the first American writers. He mas had
some experience as an editor and literary
critic, having commenced his career in the
office of the Home Journal. Aldrich has
a wife and several children.
William Morris. the poet. lives in a
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 bare room.
hung with Jumps of tobacco. and having
for writing purposes curious hacked ta-
/ BILE and an ancient ink horn. Herein the
Earthly Paradise was written. The
shaggy haired, kind-faced poet never
looks handsomer than when his little ones
are climbing over him.-Honae Journal.