Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1901-03-02

@ ENDING a poet across the ocean
to cable special correspondence in
~ verse Is new achievement even
In American journalism. Yet this was
what New York newspaper did In or
der that the gorgeous and solemn pag-
cant Of VictOrla's funeral might be fit
ly painted, The poet the paper sent IL
a woman-Ella Wheeler Wilcox--and
even she has never written anything
finer than some of this poetry made TO
order ana flashed under the sea, The
picture Of the modern worlds most I'M
pressiye state funeral unrolling before
her In Grape and purple, In scarlet and
gold and steel, caught her imagination
in flash, and she wrote at her best
Mrs Wilcox is now more than ever
in the eye of the public-her own pub
lic-that holds to her as she holds to 1t.
One little stanza Of hers
Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone,
For the sad old earth must borrow It's mirth;
II has trouble enough Of It's own
has been quoted as often as have been
the exquisite lines from shelley's Sky
lark"
We look before and after
And pine for what is not;
Our sinoercst laughter
With some pain is Taught
The circumstances of Ella Wheeler's
birth were romantic and perhaps ac-
count for the peculiarly unconventlon-
al fpapl ~ ayii
cestors were among the Wisconsin pio-
neers and there in rural community,
into a family quite ordinary, this poet
chile was born. Her childhood was
spent among the trees and under the
open sky, where the girl might look up
at night and view the whole vast In
yerted bowl Of the heavens glitterlng
with star points. But the nature world
never seems TO have impressed her
deeply, except so much Of it as can be
studied within the human heart,
While her childhood was not passed
in AFFECT poverty 1t lacked most of the
things the ordinary growing girl Graves
gems and silken robes and rare and
dainty home surroundings Ella Vince
Ter must have felt the lack for she am
ply makes It up to herself now in the
way of good living and handsome en-
vironments She is fond Of aesthetic ef.
fects and good clothes Well, she has
earned them and Is entitled to them.
Her first book that impressed the
public was Poems Of Passion Some
ridiculed 1t, others wrote It down as
improper, but none the less 1t attracted |
powerfully and gave her a share of |
fame, The current of youth ran strong
within the country girl, but with It also
mingled the bright current Of genius,
and these two impelcd her to write the
Poems of Passion" Crude as some Of |
these are, she has never done, never +.
will do, anything stronger, for they
were written before she became a city |
dweller-before she attempted to con-
fine herself within the stays and tie
backs Of literary and social conven.
tionalty.
Later she became known az a writer
Of newspaper prose and now divides her .
work about equally between prose and |
verse for the paper which employs her. !
OF this journal she may be called the |
love editor. Correspondents write to her
Of their sentimental woes and heart
breaks or married folk ask her advice
concerning the much more serious mat.
ter Of marital disagreements, and she
eloquently recommends them to walk
in the ways OF virtue IL they would be
happy, Here Is one of her sayings.
Divorce is the fire escape from domes-
tic hell"
Those who have followed her career
from the beginning note two periods in
her poetry. As TO the woman herself
there are three distinct Ella Wheelers.
The earlier poet was the gifted passion.
ate country girl who poured out verse
as the birds sing. The passion verse
period died a natural death or was vol.
unfairly suppressed by the poet be-
cause she no longer approved Of II, and
a new vein flowed in her musical num-
bers. 1t is a vein Of Emersonian phi
losophy run through the color watts Of
modern mysticism and mind cure
When she went to live in New York,
Mrs. Wilcox, like many another artist
soul, became fascinated with that pre-
vaiing fad for occultism or mental or /
spiritual research, however one may
call It, which really means so much
more than appears on the surface. Il