Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-08-04

One man amidst thousand who defed him
On man from whom his awful strength had fedl
lou brought him out to lash him with your ven
geance,
Ten thousand curses on one hoary head,
You think his eyes are closed and blind forever,
Because you scared them to this mortal day:
Yo1 drawa longer breath of exultation,
Because your conqueror's power has passed
away.
., tools his arms are round your temple pillars
U, blind! his strength in wine begins to awake
Harkl the great theatre trembles from its centres
Hark! how the rafters bend and swerve and
shaAe
Rose Terry Cooke, known as poet and
a writer of New England stories, died at
her home In Pittsf9ld, Mass, July Is, in
her 66th year Mrs. Cooke was one OF
the best Of the sympathetic dellneators OF
Yankee life and character, of whom Mrs
Stowe is chief; writers who have presented
the peculiarities of old New England peo-
pie, in custom, dialect and ways OF
thought, without caricature, but with full
appreciation and portrayal of the humor,
the pathos, the principal and the hardness
the occasional deep sweetness and the mar
row conditions of those people, whose
types are now growing fewer ana farther
retired. She began to write when she
was a girl, am verses of hers appeared In
Horace Greeley's New York Tribune,
known to the readers of the Hart
ford Courant and The Republican in
years before the war One of
her stories of that day published in
the coIumes of The Republican, entitled
Three of Us, fingers in the memory yet as
touching, tragic episode. Her first
do n~ Al
dramas, and some things contributed to
local papers, was The Mormon's Wife,
which appeared when she was Is years
old In the celebrated Graham's Magazine,
of Philadelphia, in Edgar A. Poe's time;
and she and Mrs. Stowe were the mo- able
band Of first contributors to the Atlantic
Monthly. Mrs. Cooke furnishing the
leading story in the first number of tina
magazine. Her long stories are of excel
lieut. quality, but undoubtedly her strength
was shown in the short story, form quite
as valuable and quite as decisive of the
novel. The novel Mrs. Cooke could not
short story she was, at her be t, unsurpass-
powerful story of Freedom Wheeler's Con-
here, it is a masterpiece OF tragic conflict,
which ranks in that respect with Haw,
thorne's Scarlet Letter. Literary
quality Mrs. Cooke possessed in
positive degree. though she has no
most deeply, and wrought her theme in
earnest head, as in several tales of this
+y4oo oh ~ &c c.
expression. We have regarded her
sketch Of The Deacon's Week, (which,
appearing IN religious weekly, made
such an Impression that it was issued as
tract one of the most suggestive
treatises on applied everyday Christian
ity that was ever written. As poet Mrs
Cooke has written many lyrics accepted
by the public, end many that are charm
ing. The Two Villages Chose Of the liv-
ing and the dead) is a poem that's wholly
familiar
Mrs. Cook was the daughter of Henry
Wadsworth Terry and Anne WRIGHT
Hurlburt On both sides her an
cestry was the old New England
stock. The Terrys are an cid Connect
cut family, aud Lee fathers middle name
points to a share in The ancestry of
Henry Wadsworth LongfaiIow. while her
mothers father. John Huiburt, is spoken
Of as the first New England ship-master
who sailed around the world-and, wheth-
er this were SO Or not, he and his fathers
before him were sea captains. M. Terry
was a prominent man IL Hartford. and his
daughter Rose was born at West IL .rtford,
Fsbuary Is, 1897, ON a farm whence her
father aud mother moved to the city when
she was a child She had a common
school and seminary education; and at 16
she was graduated from the seminary.
She became contri butor to the Atlantic,
Harpers's and other magazines. Stead
fast, a novel-her latest work, won wide
recognition, aud was com plimented by Mr.
Gladstone on its appearance in England.
Whittier has said of her taat she was ''the
best writer of the New England dialect
stories" Her tract The Deacon's WeeR
has been translated into many languages
Miss Terry was married al New Haven
April II, 1873, to Rollin Fl. Cooke, al
iron manufacturer at Winsted, Ct, where
her home was for several years thereafter,
and un'ii her husband removed to Pitts
field in 1887. The next spring they occu-
pipd house on East street. OHing to
Mrs. Cookies Ill health, following an at
tack Of pneumonia, the pleasant home WAS
broken up and she went to Boston, where
she spent the winter of 1889, and was at
tackled by the epidemic influenza, which
SO undermined FER strength that on / her
return spent two months In the House Of
Mercy. After this time with her husband
she took rooms with Mrs. G. A Rob5 on
the corner of Wendali avenue and East
Housatonic street She never recovered
from a severe bronchial cough, and suf-
fered three other attacks Of the grip, each
of which left her in still more critical
state of health. A short time before her
death she asked to be moved into chair
tn at she might die more easily and soon
after relapsing into s,upor, her end was
as painless as it was unexpected.