The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1901-03-06

ELLA WHEELER |
WlL(UN TIE Poete55 Of Passion !
CHILD, WOMAN, WIFE.
}, WOMAN, WIFE.

- ENDING n poet across the ocean
TO cable special correspondence IN
49, verse is a new achievement even
in American journalism. Yet this was
what q New York newspaper did in or
der that the gorgeous and solemn pag-
cant of Nictoria's funeral might be fit
ly painted. The poet the paper sent is
woman--Ella Wheeler Wilcox-and
even she has never written anything
finer than some OF this poetry made to
order and flashed under the sea. The
picture OF the modern worlds most inn
pressiye state funeral unrolling before
her in Grape and purple. in scarlet and
gold and steel, caught her imagination
I'm flash, and she wrote at her best.
Mrs Wilcox is now more than ever
in the eye of the public-her own pub
Iic-that holds TO her as she holds 10 IL.
One little stanza OF hers
Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone
For che sad old earth must borrow It's mrth;
II has trouble enough o. its 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;s
Our sincercst laughter
With some pain is fIaught.
The circumstances OF Ella Wheeler's
birth were romantic and perhaps ac-
count for the peculiarly unconvention-
al trend OF her earlier poetry. Her an
ccstors We're among the Wisconsin pio-
neers. and there in rural community.
into family quite ordinary, this poet
child 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
verted bowl OF the heavens. glittering
with star points. But the nature world
never seems to have impressed her
deeply. except so much of IL as can be
studied within the human heart.
While her childhood was not passed
iu abject poverty. IL lacked most OF the
things the ordinary growing girl Graves
gems and silken robes and rare and
dainty home surroundings. Ella Whee
Ter must have felt the lack, for she am
ply makes il up 10 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 Il. others wrote IL down as
improper but none the less IL attracted
powerfully and gave her a share of
fame. The current OF youth ran strong
within the country girl. but with II also
mingled the bright current of genius.
and these two impelled her to write the
Poems OF Passion" Crude as some Of
! these are, she has never done, never
will do anything stronger. for they
We're written before she became a city
dweIler-before she attempted to con-
fine herself within the stays and tie
backs OF literary and social conven-
tionality.
Later she became known as 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
eloauently recommends them TO walk
in the ways OF virtue If they would be
happy Here IL 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
new vein flowed in her musical num-
bers II is vein OF Emersonian phi
Iosophy run through the color yats OF
/ modern mysticism and mind cure.
/ When she went 60 live in New York.
Mrs. Wilcox, like many another artist
/ soul became fascinated with that pre-
/ vailing fad for occultism or mental or
/ spiritual research. however one may
1 call II. which really means so much
/ more than appears on the surface. II