The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-03-11

aroused to quick sympathy with little
Greece at the outbreak of the recent
war with Turkey, and that interest
was due in large part to the fact that,
for more than twenty centuries, the
guiding minds of Europe had been
nurtured upon the poems of Homer.
when Americans go to London they
do not pay the earliest visit to palaces
of royalty or the nobility, but to the
poets corner of Westminster Abbey,
that great temple as Macaulay
called it, of silence and reconciliation
They go first to see the hallowed
ground upon which Shakespeares
statue broOds over :he graves and
cenotaphs of the wise and just, the
whether obscure or eminent in life,
have, through their writings. deeply
touched the conscience and spiritual
life of the world.
I'm the schoolhouses of the United
States, upon which so much thought
and treasure have been freely lavished,
are not seen pictures of great generals
preachers, inventors, miliionaires, or
men of science: but on the walls of
every schoolroOm we find the portrait
of Whittier, the Quaker shoemaker, of
LongfelloW, Bryant, Emerson and Lo-
Well-of those who, with the poets I'M
err1ng instinct, saw that the greatness
ana permanence OF states depend on
the spiritual life of men and women 1t
IS owing to this attitude of mind that
people are interested in even the slight
est personal gossip concerning the
poets of our own time"
The lecturer then gave an animated
and picturesque description of his visit
to Thomas Carlyle. at whose home he
met Browning. Lecky, Tyndall ana
Froude He dwelt in detail upon the
n0at'S efforts tn ha
and fretful temper of the Chelsea Sage.
Carlyle was smoking long clay pipe
known as the church warden'-and
walked around the table, growing his
dissatisfaction with "the whole bus,-
ness Of life" and Wishing it were all
over. Mr.. Browning tried to comfort
him by saying that the assembled
friends had called on this occasion to
thank Carlyle for the invaluable i'm
pulses he had given to their lives. After
some time Carlyle relented and, hay-
ing smoked his pipe, turned jocularly
upon Browning with some criticism of
his new volume of poems.
Never mind, Browning" he added.
you have done one good thing for the
World-you have taught all of us
'pOOnctuation.'
Whereupon the company laughed
heartily. and the old man chuckled
himself into good humor.
After telling about the variety of Mr.
Brownings table talk. and of another
meeting with him at the house OF
George Eliot. the lecturer passed on to
Tennyson, whom he met for the first
time in village grocery in the Isle of
Wight. The laureate was eating ap-
pies which he extracted-one at time
from a half-opened barrel. Through
mere accident, Mr.. Latchford-who was
waiting In the village for letters of in
PRODUCTION to the poet-got into a con-
versation that ended in acquaintance.
During walk along the high road
Tennyson spoke freely, and at a later
meeting expressed with emphasis his
views upon the great subjects consid-
cred in the I'm Memoriam."
While residing on the Island of Guern-
sey, Mr. Latchford became intimate
with Victor Hugo, and the description
or the French poets daily life, family
and surroundings. formed a most
agreeable feature of an address packed
with wit, wisdom and incident. The
lecture was altogether admirable in it's
expression of serious thought and deep
feeling, through the medium of a most
entertaining series of word pictures.