The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-25
| 4.
By
A
CLUB
WOMAN


should give IL in sums of five buna-...
thousand dollars to struggling NJ.
women or families, who needed ,ps, -.
tie start to make their own wa,- ,,n,r.-s At
IF they are any good. they can O.. :.
own start" Not SO. Some Of them 60. -. --.'f
others, handicapped by less nb,,ss.E,
strength or by an Invalid or little brotb.-.
and sisters to care for. cannot. Here
young man with really great invention :.
|. get the patent for which ne needs = ,,..,
money; here Is another who needs Ira.
start In business, or few hundreds ;.
stock farm and buy food until he "a.
raise 1t; here is young teacher OF b-ill,,,, i
gifts who needs a year or two ar SON.. /
teachers college, not more for the ins,,r.
tion than for the diploma. 10 double her -,
airy and her standing in life: here is an or,
bryo musician or artist, who might w,,
great name with little chance 10 lear,
should be deceived, and throw nv rno,o-
away on the spendthrift and the unwor,b,,.
Not often. should take those whom kno,
myself. or whom friends whose judgmen,
could trust, recommended and my forum.
would enrich the Nation indeed. FOR Z, !.
often the finest and most unselhsh sp-f,s
that fail for the want OF a little heir Al TIA
start.
Evaporation sat upon the Critical Ones
brow, and indignation flashed from he,
| eyes.
you've been reading something thar
vexed YOU" said the
Poetry and Young Mother.
other Things. ''Only the same old
stupidity that ought
| to be accustomed to by this time" replied
her friend. relaxing her frown; that same
old remark about Mrs. Brownings bad
| rhymes being excusable, because she had a
| defective ear. AS If a poet who wrote many
volumes of poetry and not an unmusical line
| I'm the lot. could have a defective ear! Those
bad rhymes are defects; she knew il better
| than anybody else, and deliberately left
them there rather than TO spoil the poetry
for the sake OF the rhyme. What form is
best for poemsT asks Aurora Leigh, and
answers her own question. Let me think
| less of forms and the externals.' You may
remember that she has no faulty rhythms.
| Rhythm is an essential part OF poetry. bu.
| rhyme is not Poetry written without inspi-
ration Is only disfigured prose, but inspira-
| ton is a fleeing thing. While thought and
| imagination were In full career, flashing
| along on the sweeping harmonies OF the
verse. she would not jerk them up and
| waste time and lose the inspired mood, hunt
| ing for a perfect rhyme. 1t may have been
mere assonance that came In its place but
such as it was, she let it pass, rather than
| to hesitate and boggle."
But 1 thought we were recommended to
work over poetry. that the more it is ham,
4 ND cd nd rlrad he 10
| is"
THAT is the theory of critics who never
| wrote any. 1t is all true as regards prose:
prose is like hammered brass. the more
work you put on it the finer you can make
it, If you are a real artist. But poetry is the
| molten bronze Of white-hot emotion poured
| into the mold of rhyme and rhythm. and you
| can't tinker with IT without spelling IL"
II remember reading that Pope was ac-
| customed to pour out great food of verses
which afterward, by meditation and labor.
he reduced to a very small quantity; and
that Tennyson wrote Come into the Gar
den, Maud over and over, one hundred
times
| Yes, and Pope is the most brilliant writer
of rhymed prose in English, and Tennyson 9
perfection is almost like Maud's,
| Faulty faultless
Icily regular, splendidly null
/ Come into the Garden, Maud, is the finest
bit of rocco in English verse. but it does
not go to the heart like the despairing cry
| of the four lines that came into the poet S
mind all at once, and were never tinkered al
all-the four lines which were the germ
from which the whole poem of Maud
| sprang.
| % that 'twere possible,
After long grief and pain.
To feel the arms of my true love
There was fad among editors and crit
les a few years ago, though / think IL Il
passing now" said the Botanical One, tic
permit only perfect rhymes. to rule out al
the allowable rhymes, like braid and head
they said IL you used such rhymes as those
| it showed you hadn't taken all the pain:
you could"
And. didn't you frequently come acros:
verses in the magazines, while that FAD
ragged, that it was impossible TO read?" said
| the Critical One, verses you couldn't get
through any more than If they had beer
| impossible quagmires? They had perfect
rhymes, and the poetry had all been worked
out of them in the process. The truth is
| English is comparatively rhymeles
tongue, owing to the remarkable lack o.
| uniformity in the formation of its words
also owing to the great number Of vOwe
| sounds. The latter is what throws out per
feet rhymes and spelling reform. In mos
| languages, a vowel has but two sounds. or
at the utmost, three; in English, it's pco
| vowel that doesn't have four sounds, ant
some have six or eight. You must US
rhymes without exact correspondence o
vowel sounds in such language as that
and you can't spell phoneticaliy--that is
you can't without a new alphabet OF som
forty-seven letters. Tennyson, the faultless
does not dream of discarding the ALLOWABLE
rhymes. Even Come into the Garden
Maud rhymes gone and stone and 'one.
in one stanza, and stood and blood in an
other. What is perfect enough for Tenny
son ought TO satisfy a magazine editor"
oh! well, poor things, I suppose they ha
to have something TO find fault with" sal
the Good Listener, placably.
That's no excuse" snapped the Critica
One. "fault-fnding is the easiest bushes
in the world; there are always plenty o
real reasons for it."
The Young Mothers eyes danced speak
ing of fault-finding." she said. "Tv
just been wondering what certain dali