The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1907-05-09

poet ana writer, lett his family has
opened the eyes of people to the fact
that poet may not be such a bad busi-
ness man after all. While the fouada-
ton of MIR. Aldrich's fortune is said to
have been very nice little sum Of
money bequeathed him by an &dmiring
friend many years ago, yet his wise
handling of the earnings from his lit
erary work showed that he possest ex-
cellent business ability. when one looks
over the field of American poets the
conclusion must he reached that from
a purely money point of view writing
poetry pays very we'll if the poet pos
sesSeS a fair amount of what we call
common sense. OF all our poets only
Poe was really poor. and his weli-known
weakness, intemperance, was supposed
to be largely the cause of his needy
condition. Lowell, Whittier and Emer-
son made very good incomes from their
poetry, and each LETT a comfortable for
tune at death. In England ShakSpere
was exceedingly well to do. and Tenny-
son quite able to keep up the position
of a Lord Sir Walter Scott would have
left a handsome fortune but for his I'M
fortunate speculations. Byron and
Wadsworth both inherited money. but
Moore and many others got such good
enabled to live in perfect comfort al
ways.
Apropos of poets, and of Whittier in
particular, a pretty little story is told
of that early love affair whose course
ran SO roughly that he remained in con-
sequence a bachelor to the day of his
death. At 20 Whittier fell in love with
a sweet girl of 16, gentle Evelyn Bray,
the daughter of a successful shipmaster.
n m
the fancies of the young ever turn to
thoughts of love, the two met, and a
mutual attachment Immediately Sprang
up between them. Evelyn was as sweet
ly pretty as the wild flowers she loved
to wear in her sunny hair, and the poet
heart of young Whittier reveled in her
gentle charms of mind and person. But,
alas, their happiness was but short
lived, for the shipmaster was worldly
minded, and his favorite pastime was
to sit in his big armchair, after the la
bors of the day were over, and listen to
his daughter play on the piano and sing
the sweet songs of that period. Young
Whittier's parents, on the contrary, were
of the severest sect of Quakers. and
looked upon music as an invention of
the evil one, and when they heard that
Evelyn Bray played on the piano that
was enough for them. Poor Whittier
met with such opposition to his mar
riage with Evelyn that the only thing
in his mind for them to do was to de-
liberately sacrifice their love on the
altar of filial duty. So poor Whittier,
the boy poet, and his gentle sweetheart
Evelyn wept and kist and parted, meet
ing but twice in the following 50 years.
On the occasion of class reunion of
the Haverhill Academy in 1885, the two
met for the last time on earth. The
rose had faded from Evelyn's cheek.
and Time had left his marks on both
in whitening hair and wrinkled face,
but their eyes told the story of that i'm
mortal love which had never changed or
grown old. Going back to his home.
Whittier who knew he would never see
Evelyn again, wrote these lines:
Look forth once more thru space and
time,
And let thy sweet shade fall
In tenderest grace of soul and form
On MemOry's frescoed wall
A shadow, and yet all
The Kansas courts have decided that
in the case of a baby whose career in
life is started in an incubator. the child
belongs legally to the mother and not to
the owner of machine. The particular
case which brought forth this decision
was that of mother who, being told
the tiny bit of humanity to which she
had given birth was dead, consented to
sign away her right to it, The woman
who thus became legally pOssest of the
child started the breath of life in it by
putting it in an incubator, and exhibited
it at the st. Louis Exposition, where it
proved to be most profitable invest
ment. The baby thrived in its little
glass-covered home, and its new owner
became very much attached to it, but
when its real mother learned the true
state of affairs she naturally wanted
the baby. too. and she brought suit TO
recover her child. The lower courts
decided that the baby belonged to the
owner of the incubator, but after a fight
of two years the highest legal authority
decided in favor of flesh and blood
against that of glass and warm water,
and the true mother got her baby.
The residents of Brantford, Conn.,,
where 1t is said the telephone was de-
veloped. have raised $4,000 for the
erection of a monument to Alexander
Graham Bell, the inventor of that mod
ern assistant in the strenuous life. A
large part of the money was raised By
private subscription, and the erection of
the monument will prove that men great
in science do not always have to wait
until they are dead before they are
honored.
In Canada the large brick ovens such
as were so common in New England in
the days of our grandmothers are still
used by the French settlers. AS children
many of the present generation remem-
Der perfectly the brick oven at grand
fathers where much of the baking was
done even after the advent of the stove
The delicious pumpkin. apple and minee
pies, the creamy Indian pudding. the
beans baked in deep crock with the
generous piece of pork, as sweet as nuts
on top, which grandmother herself had
cured, were intrusted for the baking al
ways to the great brick oven. The
Thanksgiving turkey was roasted there
invariably, and well do the grandmoth-
ers of the present day remember how
that turkey tasted. The most perfect
range ever invented and the most fin
ished French chef never turned out
anything which tasted half so good as
that savOry, golden-brown turkey. those
those great pots of baked beans with
the crispy pork on the outside, from
which had flowed that stream of OLE
aginous sweetness which tenderly en-
braced each bean and finally took pos
session of it, or those great loaves of
fragrant smelling bread, each loaf a
very poem in perfect size and color. In
my minds eye, Horatio, l see and smell
them yet.
The fashionable world OF America,
the supposed home of democracy, is
thrilled to hear that she who was Miss
May Goelet, of New York, now the
~ 10, ,,.vixr ol',