The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-10-23
WAKEMAN'SW
AT TIE SHRINE AND HAUNTS OF
THE POET GRAY.

Ancient ManOr-Sy4Vau SCSu9S Win
Splendid Historic Environment.
(CopVriOht3
STOKE PoGEs, ENGLAND, Oct. 10.-I
once knew little old book worm who
haunted the New York libraries and whose
manner, ways and character bore most
striking resemblance to that poet who wrote
the most perfect elegy in the English
tongue, Thomas Gray.
He was little, dainty man, with silvered
hair and rounded paunch-his most strik-
ing physical characteristic if his fine, pen
sive blue eyes were not 5eaming upon you.
His clothing was faultless. His manners
were oourtly. His very pensiveness was
benignant and restful. He seemed to exhale
an aroma of musk and mignonette; and, as
used to look at him for an eighteenth
century reminder, the grotesqus notion al
ways came that his melancholy signs of
pleasure or disapproval, as he fed upon the
musty tones before him, could they be
given physical aspect, would conform to
the psarly lavender of his ample stock and
spotless trousers.
BY and by 1 missed him. His little paunch
bad gone riot and overcome his stomach
with govt or something, and the dainty nd
learned little old boOkworm had turned
from the tones Of the Astor and Mercantile
20 the endless tome Of eternity. l was sure
that here was another Gray. Yes, he had
been, found, supported in academy, COL
lege. university and in travel by the thrift
and trade Of two women, who blindly be-
lieved that in time he would
astonish the world with the
product Of his genius. Like Gray, he
never earned penny; his unconscious win
sOmeness conquered all; his learning was
vast; and his incidence was astounding.
He had spent a lifetime in exhausting the
historic, scientific and philosophio researches
and product of others. He left tons of be-
ginnings OF great endeavors. If he had
been forced into country environment, as
was Gray at Stoke Poges, he might have
given the world an idyl or an elegy, and
then the likeness would have been COM
plete.
The very accident of rural retiraoy COM
PEELED or induced Thomas Gray TO create
the one bit of verse which gave him place
among the immortals. From 1927 at the
age of 10. when his mother put him in Eton,
and where, tradition has it, he at once be-
gan to versify, until he expired of inertia
and govt in the arms OF DR.. James Brown,
master Of picturesque old, Pembroke College,
Cambridge, on July 30, III,
period Of forty-five years, he was
as continuously in an atmos-
phere Of books as any man who ever lived.
For his day and time he was the most vari-
Ously and penetratingly learned man in
Europe.
He was practically mad for and from
book knowledge. His devotion to research
seemed an endless intoxioation of acquire
ment for the thing or fact encompessed,
rather than that healthful acquisition Of
knOvuIa5era for tho m, yyhi 10
wisely put.
Precisely as with thousands of so-called
scholars in our own time, he allowed study
and lea-ning-getting to become a disease,
instead of making it subgervient to wise
living and noble accomplishment. You
could fill score Of volumes with his erudite
notes, his wonderful induces, his exact and
beautiful commentaries upon the works of
others less learned and consequently
more creative minds, fragments
of stately tragedies, dissertations
upon art and painting, Alcaic fragments,
Latin Zines" Greek, epigrams, Pinderio
odes, brilliant dead age Limitations and
finished whatnots. But you could not
make one thin little volume of 100 pages
comfortably filed with what Thomas
Gray's great genius left TO posterity for its
own monument. The thlrty-two stance
of the "Elegy," che brief Morse poem called
THE Fatal Sisters" THE Bard" ION
Distant Prospect of Elton College, and per-
haps a halt dozen sonnets altogether not
1000 lines, comprise all that would have
ever interested the world at large which
after all is the final arbiter Of either
true poetry or prose, except for Gray's
iovable, interesting, erratic and often
curious personality.
1t is no doubt also true that had he not
written the "Elegy" his place in the biogra-
phes would have bean no more than
Thomas Gray, erudite annotator, accom-
pushed translator and sometime companion
OF Horace Walpole." Because his surpass-
ing genius, through the blessed incident Of
rural inspiration, for once burst the letters
OF sodden bookish enslavement and its con-
sequent physical Incidence, he attained fame
and left US our most perfect revelation of
tenderest emotions and introspections to the
human heart The tnalignancy Of Johnson
Is quite forgotten in the one honest sentence
he ever wrote about Gray: Had Gray
written often thus said the cantanRerous
master Of words, sit had been vain to
blame and useless TO praise him"
For these and other reasons the one place
In all the world, Stoke Poges, which
prompteda single incompatible example
OF what Gray might have been TO
literature had he been shut away from
the deadening influence of Cambridge
DOCKS, and perhaps compelled to earn his
besides, the poet resided here for frequent
intervals from l742 to 1859. His grave is
here. A stupendous monument stands al
most within sight of his old home. The
very church In which he worsbiped and the
enurchyard rendered dear to the hearts Of
all men by his melodious, mournful elegy,
remain to-day just as he saw and knew
taem In life The place, too, has some his
torlc importance; and the manor Of Stoke
park was once the home Of the descendants
VI William Penn, many of whom are buried
IA the family vault in the nave of the messy
Old church
But better than all else. you will find the
pace marvellous revelation Of the elegy,
as YOU have already felt tne elegY to be per-
tsct Interpretation of those exquisite emoS
H'ns which only the rarest scene and asso-
Catlve condition can impart. Our new
world affections cling very tenderly to cers
taln old world shrines. They fold about
.nem filmy glamor of loving ideality, and
cradle them in the soft and misty corries of
Tue heart. / can recall but few which are
not better for the distant, sightless lullaby;
and this is one.
=, Stoke Poges is a thinly settled village or a
Lthlckly settled sylvan parish Of BucStng-
uatnshlre, not over twenty-five miles west
VI London, and about two miles north of
zoe railway station OF Slough, which is in
TURN the same distance north Of Windsor
aud Castle. It derives its unpoetio name
from Amioia de Stoke, who brought the
manor In marriage to a certain Robert
toges, knight Of the shire in the twelfth