Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1901-07-20

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dard, the dean OF American
poets. celebrated his seven
~ ty-sixth birthday. The event
was a notable one, for Mr..
stoddard Is the last living member OF n
little group Of singers including Long
fellow Whittier, Bryant, Lowell, Em-
erson, Poe, Holmes, Wills, Halleck and
a few others, who wrote Americas first
poetry and whose places stu remain
vacant because no new singers OF
strength and sweetness have risen 10
take them.
The white haired yeteran-who was
the intimate friend Of Hawthorne,
Longfellow Bayard Taylor whittier
Holmes Whlpple, James Y Fields, ~.
j. Wills, Halleck and Alice and Phphe
Cary and the acquaintance Of Poe En-
erson and practically every literary
man or woman Of note who has either
resided In or visited this country dur
ing the past so years-is still as vigorous
mentally as ever, despite his threescore
and sixteen years and does a oredta-
Bile days work each day as literary ed
itor Of the New York Mail and Express.
His opinions concerning the merits OF
the new books of the day have great
weight, and an occasional poem In one
OF The great magazines demonstrates
that the veterans verse, like old wine,
improves with age,
The quaint little home Of Mr. stod-
dard near Stuyyesant park, New York,
is a yefitabe treasure house OF rare old
books mot 10 mention all the new ones),
interesting pictures, curios from al
over the world, bound manuscripts of
lannon's authors, autographs, old prints,
old china and colonial furniture, Eu
gene Field described II we'll In hs poem.
1.-THE Sioddards, the opening lines Of
which are
When ! am In New York, ] like 10 drop around At
night
To visit with my honest geoial friends, the stod.
dgds height
Their home in Fifteenth street IL ali so snug and
furnished so
That when once get planted there don't know
when 10 go
cory, cheerful refuge for the weary homssIak
guest,
Combining Yankee comforts with the freedom Of
the west
There seems to be bookcase in every
corner and along every wall.
Books-always books-are piled around, some
musty and all DID,
Tall, solemn iollos, such as Lamb declared he
loved TO bold;
Large paper copies with their virgin margins
white and vide
And presentation volumes with the authors comps
inside
break the tenth commandment with a wild, in.
passioned cry.
"oh, how came stoddari by these thingsf Why
Sioddafd and not ~"
to again quote Field and there among
his literary treasures old and new the
poet, critic and bibliophile does his
work, dispensing, with the aid OF his
wife, Elizabeth stoddard, the novelist,
warm hospitality TO such literary and
other friends as may call
The poets birthplace was bingham,
Mass, where the Stoddard family set
tied as early as 1888 The date Of his
birth was July 2, 1926 His ancestors
were seafarlng folk, and when the fu-
ture poet was but or 8 years old his
father, the young captain Of the brig
Royal Arch, was lost at sea, The wild
ow, being LEFT IN rather straitened cir
cumslances married again, and In 1895,
when her boz was but 10 years of ape
became resident Of New York city.
"fhe story Of my early life is a tale OF
mean streets the poet said recently,
FOR we were very poor, and our quar-
tiers IN New York were humble. As a
small boy spent little of my time In
school ana much Of It at work. ! sold
matches, was an office boy and earned
q little money in lawyers office.
What may be termed my want Of edu-