The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-19
POETS AND POETRY,
Writers for Money and Writers for the Love
of 1.-THE True Poet and His Reward.
ten for the Indianapolis Jonrnal.

winged god because that region is not favored
with auriferous deposits, for the better "pay
dirt of regions of dubious wit, recently re-
marked of poetry that
"Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long"
with what those who deal in philological
gymnastics call double entendre" on the
word long" If, however, D. P should
turn his attention to the Indiana newspa-
pers for awhile he will doubtless reform his
opinion. Just now the Indiana man seems
to long for poetry worse than he
does for prohibitory liquor
law, and the Indiana critic, in the goodness
of his big heart, finds more real, genuine,
simon-pure poets running loose on the ma
tive soil OF the Astounding and fragrant paw
paw than there used to be pickaninnies at a
Southern cotton picking in the day of the
oligarchs.
The Millions of the Hoosier State do not
seem to be mute, nor do their friends, the
critics who speak through the State press,
intend that they shall remain inglorious.
We have had at least dozen of them writ
ten up recently as "heirs to immortal fame"
and all that sort of thing and the list of the
great names grows longer and the praise in
creases, always falling upon some new candi-
date for honors, until the first of the Hoosier
baras made immortal by the process is for
gotten, and the reader wonders when it is all
going to end, and whether there is Eet more
fancy than fact in all that has been said, any
how.
1t is not the purpose of this paper to make
light of the productions of genius, nor to
undervalue the hard-wrought verses of even
/ the mediocre rhymster. But there is such
a disposition among men and women to fat
ter and patronize the budding poet that the
head of the singer begins usually to be very
much streaked over by the frosts of time be-
fore he learns how easy much of this smooth
language of oily praise comes, and how shall
low are the fountains from which it flows.
1t Is only when this praise induces the poet
TO launch his rythmic arks upon those
| troubled waters where success means re-
muneration and real honor, and failure
means the blighting of fond hopes,
the destruction of gilded air castles
and temples of fame in wonder
! land, that be finds how much of snare and
wrought encomiums and gilded prophesies
| of those whose best aim was to please him
and crafty his vanity. Those who are
| waited to easy fame and substantial success
in that way are as few as the number of
those who, protesting sanctification, live up
! to the standard of a very ordinary Chris
| tianity. 1t is not to be denied that in &C.
casional candid review of the work of an
| author written by a hand that is friendly
| enough not to be unfair, may be of value to
| him, not in the way of creating fame for
him, but of introducing him to Others
who may find something TO appreciate and
enjoy in his writings. But even then the
revulsion of feeling that is likely to be pro-
duced by the favorable words upon those
| who have little or nothing in common with
the author whose praises are sounded is al
| ways certain to work him more or less harm.
| The production Of poetry does not pay in
| the sense of pecuniary advancement.
Longfellow and Tennyson are poets of our
own day, who, it is true, have won reasona-
bic fortunes by their metrical labors. But
| suppose these great talents had
| been turned to the law, to
| medicine or politics, is it not fair
to presume, knowing the great gains made in
those professions by men of inferior mental
WORTH that they would have been much
more largely successful-as the world counts
success-in their day and generation2 1t is
all right and a very creditable thing for a
young man or woman to write poetry. 1t
fosters in the mind love for the true and
beautiful, and the early practice of the art
has given the direction that led many men
and women to greatness in fields that are not
usually regarded as even dependencies of
poetry. Michael Angelo, Sir Will
liam Blackstone, Lamartine, Victor
Hugo, Hon. w. E. Gladstone, Edward
Everett, John Quincy Adams, Salmon ?.
Chase, James A. Garfield, Charles Hammond
| NJ
other careers who, in their youth-and sew
eral of them during their whole lives
c0urted the crowned and sandaled goddess
of song. When one looks over the history
of the past and counts the long line of men
whom the world has called great lie is sur
prised to find among those who bear the
deathless names, such large per cent. of
those who loved poetry and practiced the
poets art. and this without reference to those
whose songs. forever echoing down 1.-THE cor
ridors of time" wed their names to the per-
petual melody that flowed from their souls
But with all this, the ordinary poet falls SO
far below them, his voice is such a cricket's
cry in comparison with the roar of Niagara
such an unmusical cackle when the night
IDgales are singing, that the very fact that he
does attempt poetry at all makes the solid
level-headed men and women of culture dis
trust him, while the more real genius he ex-
hibits the less is he thought of by the mere
money-getters and food-consumers Not
one out of every hundred poets
who can with truth be said to possess ge-
MUS. ever attain success. Women find their
genius more readily accepted for what it is
worth than men do. Because men control
most of the newspapers, magazines and pub
fishing houses, without whose concourage-
ment success is very difficult to attain in any
field of letters; and men are quicker to dis
Germ and reader to acknowledge merit in a
lady candidate for literary favor than in q
man.
Indiana has to-day perhaps, two dozen poets,
of whom occasionally produces good thing
that floats about through the press But how
many of these get pay for what they
producer The writer of this cannot answer
his own question, but he presumes that few
OF the lady writer's do; that Maurice Thomp.
SON / w Rilav and Rem ID Hnnen nn,nnn