The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-31
DELIGHTFUL CHAT WITH
 MRS. HELEN HAY WHITNEY
BY ETHEL ARMIES.

L ARMESs
 who encouraged me to write seriously.
 He told me above all things to write re- | gularly, a little every day, and if I did
 not feel inspired to write verse. to write parodles-anything in fact. I loved 1t so have kept on.
 No, at school l never did so very much. I'm afraid l was lazy. Things came so easily that l never really/stud- jed except history of course, but not even rhetoric. But I have always loved poe try. l love shakespeare's sonnets more than anything, and then Browning-the little things of Browning. 1 never try to make out the long ones like Sordelloo and Paracelaus. Yes, l like Walt Whit man and Swinburne. Of the poets today ? That is a question. It seems to me one of the few is the Japanese poet, Tone Noguchi. l think he writes exquisitely. What charm In every poem of his and he is so wonderfully spiritual. That book of his, From the Eastern Sea-" 1t is like mythical ship from the Indies, golden sails and every deck aglow with jewels.
 Long ago. when I was Hitler Oh, I never liked respectable books-that Is Wide. Wide Worlds and things TOT girls. but 1 read my brothers books of ad- venture ana liulanS ana WAT. l fenem- Der, too, l was wildly enthusiastic over "She" when it first came out. No have never tried to write fiction or prose, would do 1t so badly. I might as well try to do only what I can do even if do that poorly.
 My poems-so sad7" Helen Whitney looked down a moment and the expres- sion on her face was that Of the fairest Madonna.
 "One learns so much merely from watching others" she said, gently. 'If one suffers oneself 1 do not see how one could write of it."
 There was silence for a moment then Mrs Whitney looked up brightly smiling at the interylewer's question.
 The old-age poems? Oh, they were written when I was very,very young One is so apt to think traglcally of old age then Everybody leases me about those,' she exclaimed, that is in the family. My sister used to often repeat dolefully that first verse of mine from Earth's Tears These slanting lines of hoary rain are as my grizzle hair But everyone has been so very kind in the criticism of my few little verses though, for which I am thankful"
 Mrs. Whitney was very beautiful as she sat there in the little reception room of her artistic home, a broad brimmed gar den hat crowned with autumn tinted leaves shawoding her dark expressive eyes; her gown simple and graceful of a gentle color, her sweet, rich colored face, and her voice, sympathetic and deep toned
 "The life of New York7 What doesn't one always say who knows New York at all? Still l am much attached to Wash ington. have always loved Washing ton. You see after having lived in Cleve- land and smoky oities-it was quite won- derful in Washington. My sister and l used to feel like we were among the oldest inhabitants for when first we went there we were quite little. We had the most beautiful garden there right across from an old time historic house called The Octagon House, just where the new Corcoran art gallery stands today.
 Tt had first been Japanese tea gar den, modelled precisely after those sweet places in Japan. It belonged to MT. Henry Adams, but after a furious hail storm which broke the glass windows of the green houses and tore up things general | ly, MT. Adams felt discouraged and he sold 1t t1 papa for us. It was beautiful there, camalia trees and tall roses and wonderful grasses-all like little fairy SloTy. AIu ny SlSleT ana l used 10 spend whole days there playing alone and the city beyond the fence was all so white and clean I remember I used to think it was opening It's big eyes at me and I would look back into it--feeling so strange and new"
 Note.-That Helen, elder daughter of the American secertary of state, John Hay, now the wife of Payne Whitney, one of the multi mlllionaires of New York, is one of the most talented of the younger American writers, Is fact per- haps somewhat surprising. Her first vol ume, little brown book entitled simply Verses" by Helen Hay was published about six years ago and attracted im- mediate attenetion because of the rare almost faultless execution of some of the poems, the natural, instinctive sense of correct form and rythm. and an exquisite lyric quality most surprising in one so young. She was then but 21 years old Her Romance of the South Seas, in blank verse, followed this and was illustrated by John LaFarge, and next appeared small volume of nursery songs. ''The Little Boy Blue Book" Mrs. Whitneys poems appear today from time to time in the leading American magazines and 1t will not be long before her fourth book Is ready for the publishers.
 ETHEL ARMIES.