The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-11-08
LonesEtLoW,s FIRST POETRY.
ae Was More Than Thirty When His Firs
Volume Was Published.


60 reside for the rest of his life-for 4e
years. He was made to feel at home il
the society Of the SCHOLARS who cluster
ed about Harvard, Chen almost the sol%
center of culture in the country. His
work for the college was not so exacs
ing that ne had not time for literature
The impulse to write poetry returned,
yet the neSe book he published was the
prose Hyperion, which appeared IL
1889, and which, though it has little
plot or action, may be called romance.
The youthful and poetic hero, O passion
ate pilgrim in Europe, was, more OF
less, a reflection of Longfellow himself.
A few months later in the same yea1
ne published his first volume of poetry
-''Voices of the Night'-in which he
reprin ted certain of his earlier verses.
most of them written while he was at
BoWdoin Some of these boyish verses
show the influence of Bryant, and 9TH
ers reveal to as that the young poet had
not yet looked at life for himself, but
still saw it through the stained glass
windows of European tradition. The
same volume contained also some more
tecent poems-"The Beleaguered City"
spd ''The Reaper and the Flowers" and
the psalm of Life perhaps the first
of his poems to win swift and abiding
popularity. These lyrics testified that
Longfellow was beginning to have a
style of his own As Hawthorne wrNta
50 him, Nothing equal TO them was
ever written in this world-this west
arr world, l mean. %
Certainly no American author haf
yet written any poem Of the kind SC
good as the best Of those in Longfel.
lows volume of Ballads" printed
two years later. Better than any othe
American poet Lopgfellow bad master
ed the difficulties Of the story in song,
and he knew how to combine the swits.
aess and the picturesqueness the ballad
requires. His ballads have more of the
old time magic, more of the early sim
piicity, tLan those of any other modern
English author. Of its kind there ia
Aothing better in the language than
1.-THE Skeleton In Armor," with it
splendid lyric swing, and 1.-THE Village
Blacksmith" and ''The Wreck of the
Resperus" are almost as good in THEN
humber sphere. Excelsior, in the
same volume, voices the noble aspira.
lions of youth and has been taken tc
heart by thousands of boys and girls.--
Professor Brander Matthews in 81
Nicholas
Fair Play For Lady Somerset.
The Boston Transcript says editorial
":
It stands to reason that newspapers to
whom "Gaiety Girls" are the true and
only interesting type of womanhood ars
finding the amiable Lady Henry Somer.
set, brilliant as she is, something of an
ogre and bore 1t is saddening test Of
the taste and character controlling
American journalists today in our cities.
Miss Willard says that the current par
| agraphs about this brave and brilliant
English woman so called crusade" in
this country are very nearly cruel to
woman who came to this country avow'
edly to study quietly our customs and
politics, and with no intention to in.
struct whole country or to attack any
thing When the New York reporters
focked about Lady Henry Somerset Oh
her arrival and quizzed her, she spoke
of the recent crusades in London against
iagrant indecencies in low class thea.
kars, and expressed her hearty wish THAI
All such evils might be abated on both
sides of the sea. At once it was said,
and it has been ceaselessly repeated, that
Lady Henry came here to organize
crusade, to cultivate a fad, and SO forth
She is certainly deeply and practical
" interested III all that has any relation
to highest cultivation and freedom OF
humanity, and she is daily found in good
works, now at a convention, now at
meeting at Mrs. Bulls house, and she
speaks on suffrage whenever she can be
of service to the cause that she and Miss
Willard have at heart. Titles are, how.
ever, a sort Of natural romantic bait to
our democracy, and fiercer light than
ever beat upon a native born reformer
like Miss Willard inevitably falls upon
the lady who is associated with her.
The American press has long ago accept
sd and honored the exceptional and in.
sellectual ability and rare devotion to
public ends of Miss Willard, and it IL
with pleasure that in her name we ash
of it fair play and gentler courtesy fo1
that most interesting and admirable ex-
ample of the new woman, in the best
sense of that abused term. Lady Henry
Somerset
The twenty seventh annual oonveo
don of the National American Woman
Suffrage association will be held in At
Ianta in De Gives Opera House Jan. ST.
TO Feb. g. The official call for the con
vention says:
The object of these conventions is 70
educate women into knowledge of their
rights and duties as citizens of repub
lie, and through them 70 arouse the ma
sion to a sense Of the national wrong |
perpetrated by the Acknowledgement Of
half the people of the United States in
opposition to the principles of govern
ment declared by our laws and constita
lions
While Colorado's full entranchise
ment Of women in 1898 is encouraging.
The defeat of the suffrage amendments
In New York and Kansas in 1894 shows
how largely men still fail when called
upon to put in practice the principles
they enunoiate.
Though 90 states have granted some
slight concessions to women citizens, in
no states of the Union, save Wyoming
and Colorado. are women yet admitted
TO the dignity of equal rights in citizen.
ship. In only six states of the Union are
mothers conceded to be legal owners q
sheir own children.
Such being the sad and shameful state