The San Francisco call., 1899-08-13
EDITORIAL VARIATIONS.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BY JOHN McNHUGHT.


vouches for this story, I accept it as 1t
stands and with alacrity pass it along:
A committee of the Selectmen of Tyngs-
boro, Mass, appointed to inquire into
the cause of a somewhat mysterious
fire in the town, found reason for be-
lieving it was caused by lightning. 1t
is not the custom in Massachusetts to
let disasters pass as accidental nor to
excuse offenders however high their
| station, so the committee reported that
| this particular fire was due to ''the
| carelessness of the Lord
When Boswell in his Life Of Samuel
Johnson" set the fashion of searching
out everything that can be learned of
the doings of a famous man and pub
fishing it, he was said by a wit of the
time to have added a new terror to
death. DR.. Johnson himself felt the
terror, for he once said: IF 1 knew
Boswell intends to write my life I'd
take his"
Colonel Ingersoll is the latest sufferer
from the practice, and it is safe to say
if he had known what his fool friends
were going to do after his death he
would have killed them before he died.
Some of them have actually sought out
from old newspapers the verses written
in early manhood by the gifted orator
and republished them as evidence that
he might have been a poet if he hadn't
preferred to be something else.
In doing this Ingersoll's friends have
given Moses a means of attaining a
sweet revenge should he happen to meet
his lampooner in the Elysian fields.
You were very merry on earth over
my mistakes" Moses will say, blandly.
but you must concede I never made
the mistake of writing such poetry as
you have done, nor Of making such
| friends"
The written oratory of Ingersol1 at
| tests his ability to infuse prose with
harmonies of rhythm almost equal to
| the perfection of music, and to make
the sound of his sentences accord so
fully with the sentiment expressed In
them that whether grave or gay, lively
or severe, the melody of the cadences
added to the impressiveness of the
| thought 1t is strange, therefore, that
| in undertaking poetry he failed utterly.
Such, however, was the fact. The mo-
ment he placed his free-fiowing words
under the restrictions Of verse he lost
his cunning and his grace, and he who
in prose moved so swimmingly along no
sooner ventured upon poetry than he
waddled like a duck out Of water.
It is not worth while to quote the
whole Of one of Ingersolls poems to
show what doggerel they are. A few
verses will suffice. Here are some from
a poem published years ago in the
Greenville Qn) Journal and entitled:
THE wAvY WEST.
Bright wavy, flow'ry lake,
Where grassy waves in stiffness ride.
A wild unbounded, living tide,
When breezes softly wake
Where dark haired Indian girls.
Reclining on thy dewy breast.
In morning dew and sunlight dressed,
Adorned with dewy pearls,
First felt the tender flame
Saw lovers lips in rapture move;
And felt the trembling beat Of love
Thrill wildly Ger their frame
See the flower in beauty's ray,
Ger its native sweets eXuting;
But the blast in wildness sweeping,
Bears it's native sweets away
See it lone and bleeding lay,
And Ger its petals softly weep,
Till death comes er like gentle sleep;
Thus those lovers passed away.
Lest 1t be thought unfair to cite In
gerson's youthful indiscretions in verse
as conclusive proof he could not
write verse at all, 1 submit two verses
from his latest poem, written shortly
before his death, and entitled "Yhe De-
claration of the Free" One stanza runs
thus:
We have no faIsehoods to defend
We want the facts;
Our force, our thought, we 90 not speho
In vain attacks.
And we will never meanly try
To save some fair and pleasing lie
That may be accounted pretty fair
Jingle by those who want the facts"
and Ingersoll was always in want Of
facts; but it is not poetry nor within
measurable distance of poetry.
Here's another burst, or bust" from
the same screed:
We will not willingly be fooled
BY fables nursed:
And we can stand erect and dare
All things, all facts that really are
With blank verse, being freed from
the necessity of rhyme, and freeing
himself from the metrical laws Of po-
etry. Ingersoll was more successful
than with other verse, but not much.
We have a specimen of it in lines writ
ten upon the back of a photograph
given to his daughter, and which are
| believed to be the last words he wrote:
Immortality,
| with it's countless hopes and fears beating
| against the shores of time and faith
| Was not born of any book, nor OF any creed,
nor of any religion.
! It was born of human affection. and IL Will
|
| Beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and
| darkness as long love kisses the lips OF
death.
It is the rainbow hope. shining on the tears of
grief.
| OF such character are the poetic re-
mains of Robert Ingersoll, and as they
are doomed to die anyhow the true
! friends of his fame will wish these re-
mains had been incinerated with all the
rest of him that was mortal.
It is surely unnecessary to quote any
specimen of Ingersoll's prose to show
how widely it's ripping or laundering
cadences, rolling along In untrammeled
hic