The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-29

A writer in the London Mail thus dis
courses on poetry. taking for his text re-
cent essay by Mr.. Howells:
''Mr. W. ID. Howells discussing poetry in
his elaborate and intimate way in the pages
of 'Harper's,' comes to the conclusion that
the American is the most poetical of
peoples. Germans are sentimental, it ap-
pears, the English are romantic, the Latins
logical, but the Americans are poetical.
Mr.. Howells implores some one to discover
this fact, and utilize the fine poetic material
latent in the nation.
1--WE frankly confess that this distribution
of properties would not have occurred to
us. And. unhappily. Mr.. Howells's claim
must be somewhat shaken by the result of
a plebistic taken in the States by the
magazine as to whether poetry is read as
much as it used to be. Few answers were
received, and little interest was displayed;
while in the South was silence absolute. So
that the energetic American literary man
of the future will probably have to dig
very hard to get at the poetic senses of his
fellow-countrymen.
zone question. however, is interesting not
only in America, but in less poetical Eng
land. Is poetry less read than formerly :?
Statistics will hardly supply one with an
answer, for TO buy book is not necessarily
70 read It. and the sale of so many thou
sand copies of a pretty edition of Milton
or Keats may mean only that so many
Kind souls have made many kind birth
day presents 1t is impossible to get at the
degree or literary appreciation ruling In
nation by an appeal to market prices. And
that Shakspeare's First Folio fetches a
thousand pounds does not demonstrate any
love Of Shakespeare in the auction room.
hat iS hat ~
older poets wrote more profusely, and are
represented by vastly greater bulk of
work than the modernS Consider the VOL
ume of Wordsworth or Dryden and of their
contemporaries and contrast it with the
thin booklets put forth by poets of to-day
ton, which otherwise died with Tennyson
and Browning. But the work of the usual
poet or to-day may be garnered in one
octave volume.
Poets went in for being poets in those
days. They wrote verse as Novelist writes
prose, studiously, and a matter of course.
The modern waits for what he considers 10
be lyrical inspiration, and charges us a
crown for a tiny sheaf of poems. Is he read
as his predecessors were? One doubts, and
hesitates; but it Is probable that his pre-
decessors are now read more than they
were, and, the whole the poet has as
good chance Of appreciation and immor-
tally to-day as he had in the days of
Byron and Shelley.
But the professional poet Off we may call
him so) has gone from US. Tennyson is be-
lieved never to have written line of prose
for publication, and even answered his
critics in bitter verse. Browning wrote his
life and thoughts persistently into rhyme
and rhythm. The copiousness of the past
Is astonishing. Is Ii possible that moderns
make up for their slenderneSS OF volume by
quality? Meanwhile, Mr.. Kipling's new
book of verses is advertised as being In
it's thirty-sixth thousand
ApropoS OF poetry, we quote without
charge the following advertisement of a
volume Of Thomas Lake Harris, appearing
In a contemporary. The author is the
prophet Harris under whom Laurence Oil
plant made his odd experiment with a new
American religion in 1880. The book is
styled The Marriage of Heaven, and
Earth and is announced thus: These
lyrics. with their introductions, are in
tended TO declare some methods and pro-
cesses whereby the Divine One-Twain
Creator transposes the natural bodies of all
such receive and embody the Redemptive
Life of the Savior-Savioress, from the
separated sex-lines of the third dimension
| Of ever-dsSolving nature, to those of the
reunited twain-one of the fourth dimen-
| sion of eternal Arch-Nature, whereby Sin
| is abolished in the flesh, and its wages,
| Death, abolished in and for the body.
| There is nothing like explaining things
| properly.
IF poetry does not sell, it is certain
| that biography does. Two of the books
most in demand at present are Mr.. Morley's
| Gladstone and Sir +. G.. Burnand's
autobiography, which was reviewed in our
| columns the other day. There is no doubt
| that biography makes a personal appeal
| that even fiction lacks. Indeed, If fiction
/ Is the food of youth and woman biography
constitutes the fare of the grown man..