Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-08-28

Mrs. Helen Hunt jackson, better known
as Helen Hunt, and by the talismanic in
italS III. II, died in san Francisco on
the evening of Aug. II after II lingering
illness of many weeks. Mrs. Jackson was
the daughter of Prof y. w. Fiske of Am
herst college, and was born at Amherst,
Mass, in 1880. When about p years of
age she married Captain Edward b. Hunt,
who was in the engineer service IN the
United States Army. Captain Hunt rose
to the rank of major, and was Killed by
the premature explosion of Il torpedo that
he had himself invented, Her only child,
son died when about eight years old, and i'll
the loneliness of her double bereavement
she was first led to literary expression.
Her gift had hitherto been an unconscious
one She had been occupied with life it.
self, not with its description or analysis.
She had, apparently, little of the intro
! spectivc faculty. She was Il keen observ-
er of men and affairs, and she had an al
/ most passionate love OF nature but 1t was
/ the love of the artist, not OF the scientist,
and it has been noted as an anomaly that
/ one who has written so much and so ac-
curately of the flora of the West knew
nothing of the botanical names or proper
ties of flowers. Her gift for observation,
united with this natural fluency of expires
sion, at once established her success from
the moment she made her first venture i'll
authorship. a series of letters from Cali
fornia to the New York Mdepcndcnt was
almost, if not quite, her first essay into the
literary field. Later she established her
self at the Brevoort house in New York,
and passed several years there, with inter
ludes of travel-years which were rich III
productive work. Somewhere about 1870
her first volume of poetry, VERSES, by ii
H., was published by Messrs. j. X. Os
good x Co 1t struck II note of success
1t was poetry for the poets. Recognition
enthusiastic while finely discriminative
came to her. Emerson sad OF them 'Ihe
poems of lady who contents herself with
the initials IL. IL. have rare merit OF
thought and expression. She has beel
called our finest woman poet. The woman
might well be omitted" In 1873 Messrs
Roberts Brothers bought from the Osgoot
house these plates, and with ~ pages o.
new poems added by the writer, brought
out new and enlarged edition of thes'
; "Nerses." The poems are work of eN
traordinary originality and power. They
bear no trace OF the subjective ana emo
tional cast that has come to be almost al
unfailing characteristic of women 5 poetry
and to which IL. II, and Edith Thorn
us furnish marked exceptions. a
i subtlety of thought and true spiritual in
sight, rather than merely aesthetic feeling
e inform the VERSES" of IL. II. to y degree
= that nsures them poetic immortality. Tn
t publication of her "Resurgam" alone as
y sured her the title of poet. Ia 1t thes
e lines occur.
: The fool asks, with what flesh in joy or pa n
l Helped or unhclpcd and lovely or again
S Surrounded 10y our earthly fricndsF
+ know not Il and glory that do
- Not know that for cternity's great ends
q God counted me rs worthy of such trust
), | That need not be told.
/. hold
i That if il be
q Less than enough for any soul To know
l. Itself immortal, immortality
n In all its bOundless spaces Will not hnd
A place designed
So small, so low,
That to lifting home such soul can GO
out to the eurthward brink
d OF that great tidcleSs sea,
, Light from Christ's garments streams
n joy not that ask or choose,
n But simply that must.
love and fear not, ANA cannot lose
One instant this great certainty OF peace.