Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-12-01
WESTS.DE SHAKESPEARE CLUB

The West Side Shakespeare club met
last Tuesday evening with Mrs. Charles
Jackman, 935 West Copper street, the
attendance being unusually good. The
club devoted the evening to Whittier,
roll call, discussion and papers, nearly
all bearing on the New England poet.
IA short business session resulted in
the determination to buy q Shattuck
manual and the election Of two assoc
ciate members as active members. Miss
Kaufman and Mrs. a. ii. Whitcher.
Mrs. George Nuckolls was 10 have
given a recitation from Whittier. but
being absent, Mrs. George Berry filled
the vacancy, reciting The Huskers,'
viii it's rhythmic corn song. Mrs. Char
lotte Gossman read the familiar Maud
Muller Mrs. B. Winifred Dickson read
the old favorite, Barbara Freitchie."
Mrs. Gossman read a brief paper on
Whittier. Her opening paragraph, "To
enter into an exhaustive treatment of
Whittier, his life, his ambitions, his
struggles. his friends and enemies and
his final triumph, would be a pleasant
task, but one to which the time is now
inadequate" gave the reason for it's
briefness. Mrs. Gossman went on and
described his birth on the farm near
Haverhill, and the hard life of his boy
hood, when was laid the foundation for
the ill-health of later years; of the des-
perate struggle to earn money for at
least a little education.
OF the influence the poetry of Burns
had on Whittier, Mrs. Gossman said:
The muse seems to have been inspired
in him through reading "Bobbie Burns"
handed to him by his chool teacher,
and the first poetry read by him, for
all through his poetry we find a touch
Of the famous Burns, and in some of
his earlier verses a mention of that
poet. Whittier belongs to that class OF
poets who grow upon us. Not q ia
vorite with the young, unless, in rare
instances, to the mind Of the student
Of poetry his great worth, his rare abil-
ity, his wonderful powers of description,
become more and more patent.
THE great ambition of this mans life
was to hav his memory go down to
posterity as having been thoroughly and
lastingly identified with the a~nti-slavery
cause. My voice, though not the loud
est, has been heard whenever freedom
raised her cry Of pain Though pelted
at one time with rotten eggs; though
his printing Office was destroyed by
i Aiioc oliS " NloU5 II SHUT oul 1
the favor of booksellers anu magazine
editors. he made himself known and
his works famous. His anti-slavery
poems We're published in 1872
Mrs. Gossman gave the date of pub
l~ication of his first poems and his most
famous Ones, with a brief history of
each, closing with the sentence, Maud
Muller was one of his minor poems,
but has always been popular, and one
that expresses to each of us the text
we so often realize in our lives-'it
might lave been"
Mrs. Dickson read A. sketch of Whit
tier, detailing his connection with the
Quakers and the influence it had on
his lie and poetry; the simplicity and
quaintness it impaired to both. She
gave a description of his home, with
that crystal-clear rivulet ripping by on
its way to the sea. OF the way he
made acquaintance with the shy deni-
zens Of the forest. OF the sister, six
years older, who devoted her entire life
to him. She drew a picture of that
giftd boy With only thirty books in his
home, and these all dry treatises on
equally dry subjects. SO it happened
that the Bible became his solace and
his joy. She thought that first copy
Of Burns given to Whittier by his teach
CT had the same effect on him that
the famous copy of the Spectator had
on Franklin. She showed wherein
Franklin and Whittier were situated
alike, in that education was impossible
to either in early life and what little
they did get was only by arduous eff
forts. While the other poets had an
education such as they desired, an ad-
! va n a pa caI,aral did ,n, NJ.
Dickson thought Longfellow was the
most highly educated of American
poets and Whittier the most illiterate.
She gave his first poem:
Sand must I always swing the fail.
And help to fill the milking pail?
| want to go away to school,
do not wish to be a fool"
Then came the roll call and not a men,
Der present duplicated the quotation Of
another. The answers of members. every
one taken from sCme one of Whittier's
poems. were as follows:
MRS. BERRY.
".Alas for him. who never sees
The stars shine through the cypress
trees.
: Who hopeless lays his dead away
/ Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marble play.
Who has not learned in hours of faith.
The truth to sense and flesh unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death.
And love can never lose its own"
MISS IDA CROSSMAN.
The clouds, which rife with thunder,
Stake our thirsty souls with rain;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
From CT our limbs a chain.
And wrong OF man to man but make
The love of God more plain.