, 1884-02-29
AN ENGLISH
A Tired and slightly Cynical Poet
Who Would Put an -R7 Before
eEyoIutIon.v

VINO would tut an Before
Evolution
NV. A Croffut in Boston Global
Tuesday evening, at the annual Sorosis
dinner at Delmonico's, 1 sat opposite a
stranger whose appearance strongly inter
ested me. wondered If he were a Scotch
man Understood he was, slight-looking, a
Keen flashing blue eye, grayish mostache,
brown chin whiskers, delicate mouth, a shock
of brown hair drawn straight over backward
from his forehead without a sign of parting
l thought l had seen the very same face
somewhere a generation ago. And l had.
For presently Felix Moschells, the English
portrait painter, came along and addressed
him as Mr.. Massey. and presented me. Then
l knew where l had seen him. Twenty-seven
years ago, when l raftod down the narrow,
crooked, noisy little Platte river In Mime
sofa, my guide and friend Elwell sang with
roaring voice some Of the labor lyrics of one
Gerald Massey. They were wonderfully
spirited, and the one whose refrain is:
Millions of hands want acres
And millions of acres want hands,
took a strong hold on my fancy. When 1
got back to Minneapolis 1 bought the volume
OF Gerald hassey's poems, and afterwards
1 Uni to memory Babe Christabel"
and parts of ICraigrook Castle" The front
ispiecs was q portrait Of Gerald Massey,
scarcely n year younger than he looked last
night SO l was not surprised that a lady,
when he was presented to her, asked him
most unaffectedly, @Are you a son of the old
Gerald MasseyFi
NO. be answered with a sad smile, al am
the old man himself
After the dinner and the speeches, 1 had a
talk with the poet He impresses me as be-
ing a disappointed man. He looks tired and
anaakE vyaariIy Hfa nf+o- .fsuuu. IN. .-Is-A
should have boon bright and breezy, was
anguid, slightly cynical and with a my-doll-
Observation-Disclosures undertone. He lect-
ures in Brooklyn next week, he says; where
he goes next or whether he will go any fur
ther he does not know. | have always had
keen sympathy for this English Burns, who
never had any help, who never went to school
a day, who ran away from the looms slavery
10 London when he was Is, and earned his
trst pennies as an GRAND boy, and hence
forth fought his way, drawing strength from
pr1Vation and beauty from poverty. The
trouble with Massey is that he has the frenzy
OF a %reforlner. He wants to reconstruct the
human race at once, right of, quick.
DE wants to equalize the wealth OF the
world, but it is a big job. He wants
to put an "r' before evolution
and make it spin Ho wants to Danish su-
Persttion, but religious progress, though
sure, is as slow as the procession OF the equi-
noxes- Possibly he expected too much when
he crossed the Atlantic. He had golden
visions of Cortez, Jenny Lind and Oscar
Wilde before him Arriving just as Matthew
Arnold made his first fasco, on account of
not speaking loud enough, he advertised his
own tirst lecture as "by Gerald Massey, an
Englishman who can be heard in all parts of
the ball" Alasl Let him that boasteth
IL - -. l. E Va
The hall was closed. and Mr.. Massey's agent
stood pathetically on the steps and announced
that thore would be 40 lecture because the
lecturer has had q sudden attack of nervous
prostration, and canuo speak a loud word. "
The awful irony OF oratoryl