The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1897-11-19
GENTLE JEAN INGELOW.
Her Life of Modcsty, Contentment.
and Tranquil Resignation.


and Tranquil Resignation.
Jean Ingelow, who died recently in
London, seemed curiously out of place
in the literary life of the day when any
writer who has done anything to at
tract attention lives so much in the pub
lie eye. Jean Ingelow's career was
quiet and gentle in its course. The
greater part of her work, however. was
done at period previous to that in
which the public interest in celebrities
was as fully gratified as it is to-day.
For nearly a quarter of a century she
had been neglected by the world in
spite of the great popularity that her
earlier writings had won. But it is
certainly notable that a writer who was
esteemed the most popular woman poet
of her day, whose books in her country
ran through 30 editions and in the
United States were sold to the number
of 100000, should never have been inter-
viewed. But this was one of Miss In
gelow's distinctions.
Probably this resulted from the hor-
ror of publicity which had always pre-
vented her from appearing in gather
ings of notable persons. 1t is said that
she would not even accept invitations
to dinners at which the company was
likely to be made up too much of we'll
known persons. There was one series
of entertainments in which she in
dulged herself for many years. Three
times a week she invited to dinner at
her house the poor people lately dis
oh ln hoe fol ~, ha o;r ri,
borhood, and it is said that in her own
view of the world the dinner table was
place much more adapted to such prac-
teal charity than to poetry. Her ac-
quaintance was not limited, however,
to persons so distant from her own
sphere. Many eminent literary men
of the time were among her intimate
friends. Ruskin was one of these
and he is said to have taken particular
pleasure in her society-Lord Tennyson
was another, and her personal set had
included Dante Gabriel Rosetti, James
Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
and many others of almost equal fame.
Miss Ingelow was born in a small
town in Lincolnshire, where her father
was a banker, and, although she had
lived for many years previous to her
death in Kensington, it is said that her
shy, modest manners never lost the
quality that her carly life in the coun
try had given them. She was never
beauty, although her face was Won
derfully attractive in it's sweetness and
variability of expression to the persons
who knew her. Although as child of
five she had shown a wonderful SEN
sitiveness to rhythm, her first poems
were not published until she was 43
years old The book was published
anonymously at her own expense.
When the small edition was exhausted
her publisher advised her that it would
not be wise to attempt the experiment
of another issue. But the great popu-
larity that her work suddenly achieved
proved the fallacy of that counsel. She
became suddenly famous, and it was
not long before all the eminent writers
of the day had made her acquaintance.
She and her mother had moved to Ken
sington, and this sudden extension Of
her acquaintance was not without it's
embarrassment to woman whose pre-
vious life had been so quiet
She had not read great deal before
she began her career as poet, and she
attributed much of the freshness of her
verse to this circumstance. The sue
cess of her first volume was never re-
peated. The public would never be at
tracted to her succeeding works as it
had been to the verses that made their
appearance so modestly in 1868. For
many years before her death she had
known nothing of the delights that the
golden years of her fame-years limited
to little more than decade-had
brought so unexpectedly to her. But
it is said that her gentle, optimistic
nature never showed any resentment
at the Indifference of the public. She
was eminently hopeful. contented, and
determined to take the sunniest view of
life. Her natural disposition luckily
made this attitude the easiest for her.
So she was never heard to complain of
the ficlsleness of the public taste, which
for many years had left her quite out
of it's thoughts.-N. Y. Sun.