The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-01-11
WOMAN WRITERS.
Some With Genius, But No Morals
Sad Lives and Sad Deaths.

! Some With Genius, But No Morals
Sad Lives and Sad Deaths.
Since Miss Austin and Miss Edge
worth's time the. number of women
writer's has steadily increased. We have
! too many of -unfortunately-too
many who have sacrificed all that best
becomes a woman for the sake of sem
sationalism and money getting. But
| if we have Ouida, 1.-THE Duchess Ella
! Wheeler Wilcox, and the vulgarest of
them all-Amelia Rives on one side,
We have Adelaide Proctor, Christian
Reid, Eleanor Donnelly, Lady Geor-
giana Fullerton, Mrs. Craven-who,
however, had an unhappy habit of
making cousins marry at the end of
her stories-on the other George Sand,
woman who tried to be man, had
genius, but no morals. George Eliot,
another great woman writer, had gem
ius. but no religion. Their lives were
sad and their deaths sad. They are
warnings to women that even genius
and success cannot compensate for
| their unseXing themselves. A woman
is admirable in proportion to her wom-
anliness, And a poet who wrote in
prose has said that a woman without
religion is like rose without perfume.
Among the women of the last century
there is one English woman poet who
towers above the rest-a woman who
expressed great. thoughts; who, aside
from her philosophy and her italian
politics, deserves a high place in that
private literary oratory which each of
| us should erect. l write of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning. If ever any poet
stood in. the white light of beauty
which we call beauty it was Mrs.
Browning. Her thoughts were as fire
and her words were as fire. You re-
member the majestic opening of her
Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus"
1t was suggested by Millions
But see the Virgin blest
Has laid her Babe to rest"
Mrs. Browning's prelude runs thus:
sleep sleep, mine Holy One!
My flesh, my Lordi-what name? I do
not know,
A name that seemeth not too high or low.
Too far from me or Heaven.
My Jesus, that is best! that word being
given
BY the majestic angel whose command
Was softly as a mans beseeching said
When | and all the earth appeared to
stand
In the great overflow
OF light celestial from his wings and
Sleep, sleep, my Saving One"
In lesser poet, Mrs. Browning's
fault of art would not be tolerated
She made herself a scholar, it is true;
she was Influenced by Theocritus, as
Tennyson was; but not so much by
the perfect symmetry of the Greeks as
by their thoughts. 1 regret that most
women poets are careless just where
one would expect to find them careful
in mo- oF I-4-
ing rhythm and rhmye are sometimes
so bad as to put the critical reader or
the musical reader out of patience.
Ii must be said, too, that Mrs. Brown
lng's characters in her long poems,
Aurora Leigh and Lady Geraldine's
Courtship, are unreal. They are imag-
ination at white heat" Lady Geral-
dine is an unwomanly woman; and
Romney Leigh is a very weak-minded
fool. Nevertheless, looked at as a poet,
not as a story-teller or an artist-in
the sense that Tennyson is an artist
Mrs. Browning is the greatest of the
women poets. Mrs. Browning, when
criticised for her bad rhymes, replied
that poetry with her was not ''reverie,
but art" If this be true, we can only
conclude that she had very poor ear
for sound.
/ am anxious to call your attention
TO TWO writer's who you know and love
already, Adelaide Proctor and Lady
Georgiana Fullerton. There are two
poets whom the high literary sect pro-
TESS to underrate-Longfell and Ade-
laide Proctor. Longfellow has no SUI
perior among our modern poets; and if
Adelaide Proctor is a lesser light than
Elizabeth Browning, it is only in the
degree that the flame of a prairie fire
iC CT q Tr1i 10 ~Iz
wood in the CRATE at home The splen-
did spectacle entrances for time; but
we are never weary of the steady glow
of the fire on the hearth If l were
asked to name two models 1 should
name Adelaide Proctor and Lady
Georgiana Fullerton.
l presume you all know some of Ade-
laide Proctor's poems by heart. THE
Lost Chord" has been sung even. to
quote Tom Moore, "along the streets of
Ispahan." You know the last stanza
of "Maximus":
Blessed are those who die for God,
And learn the Martyr crown of light;
Yet he who lives for God may be
A greater ConqueFOr in His light -
THE Storm is famous. "A Parting"
has found its each in many an ago
nized but resigned heart.
The name of Lady Georgiana Fuller
ton recalls Lady Bird" and "Grantly
Manor''-novels in their day as widely
read as any of the popular stories one
sees advertised now in THE public
prints. Her reputation rests on her
later works. Lady Georgiana, though
she wrote poems, was not a poet. We
know her by her prose works. But L
ought first TO speak of another poet.
Mrs. Meynell owed her introduction
to the public to Mr.. Ruskin's kindness,
whose choice of poets is somewhat err
ratio. 1t is strange that an autocrat
who generally chooses to praise weak
verse should have selected the sweet
est and most artistic, if not the great
est of all the women poets. The ia
nous art critic wrote of Mrs. Meynells
poetry:
THE last verse of that perfectly
heavenly Letter From the Girl to Her
Old Age the whole of San Lorenzo's