The Republican journal., 1908-11-19
AN EVENING WITH ALDRICH.

slet is not book to be hurriedly SKIM
med over. It is both biography and an
autobiography and in the compilation
and arrangement of the letters OF the
dead poet Mr. Greenslet has shown ex-
cellent Judgment. 1t is altogether fas-
cinating volume, particularly SO to the
writer, who has been reader OF Aldrlch
for more than so years, or since his poems
first began to appear in print. One OF
his slim early volumes, "The Ballad OF
Babe Bell and Other Poems, published
by Rudd & Carleton, New York in 1859,
had an honored place in modest library
which in the temporary absence OF the
owner became scattered, and although in
part recovered, this particular book is still
missing. In collecting his poems for
publication in his later years many OF the
earlier ones were omitted or rewritten.
But, as his biographer says: IF they
suggest the diamond in their exquisite
cutting. their delicate fire and rainbow
lights, their imperishability, it IS always
diamond warm from the breast OF
beauty" Yet these earlier poems won
for Aldrich his increasing number OF ad-
mirers and placed him where he could
exercise his maturer judgment and liter
airy skill in recasting them In more per-
feet form. Some of these early verses
linger in memory yet, and one, we
Knew it Would RAIN" has been retain
ed in the later collections.
Of course everyone knows that Aldrich
was born and spent his boyhood in Ports
mouth, New Hampshire, and this is the
scene Ct much of his poetry and prose.
''The Story of Bad Boy" one of his
most successful prose works, is said to
be largely photographed, and cleverly
depicts the boy life in his native town.
/ Aldrich began his literary career In New
York, going there in 1852 to enter the
counting room of an uncle. The literary
/ lights of Gotham at that time were Bry-
ant. Halleck, N. P. Willis and George T.
Morris, with younger group of Bone
! hemians with whom young &idrich soon
came in touch He spent three years IN
the counting-roc1..; ~ leGgers and day
books and bills OF lading did rot engross
all his attention and he wrote many poems
that We're published in the papers Of that
! dav. When he told his uncle that DR.. Guern-
sey of "Harpers' had just accepted
poem and paid him fifteen dollars Tor 1t,
the uncle said: "Why don't you SEND the
id fool one every day." In 1855, at
the age of nineteen, he published his first
volume of verse, (''The Bells'') wrote
poem which gained almost at once ma
tional celebrity and resigned his post IN
his uncle's counting-rooll to follow with
single heart the life of letters. He did
not have to live on poetry alone, but
served for time as junior literary critic
of the Evening Mirror, then owned by
Willis & Morris, and later as s1b-editor
of the Home Journal, with the same pro-
prietors and with N. P. Willis as editor.
This position enlarged his circle and
placed him on terms Of comradeship with
Bayard Taylor, the Stoddards, Stedman,
William Winter, Edwin Booth, Launt
Thompson, the sculptor, and group OF
journalists and magazine writers of great
repute in their own day, but as remote as
Prester John to ours-Henry Clapp, Jr.,
Ada Clare, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, George
Arnold and Fitz James Obrien. These
oil 70 tho yxrifar In
1858 Clapp started paper called the
Saturday Press, of which Aldrich, Obrien
and Winter were associate editors. 1t
had a brief but brilliant career. Those
concerned in its publication, and their
friends, used to frequent basement
beer saloon, Pfaff's, on Broadway, and
here, too, came Artemus Ward, and on
one occasion William Dean Howells, who
did not take kindly to these Bohemians,
nor they to him, as Mr.. Winter has re-
Gently told in his published "reminiscences.
Fitz James 'Brien, native of Ireland,
after running through fortune at home,
came to New York to make living by
his pen. He wrote one poem, easter
Eggs" which until very recently made
it's appearance in the newspapers all over
the country every Easter, and his story
of ''The Diamond Lens published in
the first volume of the Atlantic Monthly,
still ranks among the best of American
short stories. Obrien enlisted as an Of
ficer in the Union army at the outbreak
of the war and was killed in skirmish
in 1862. Ada Clare, known as the ''Queen
of Bohemia beautiful and talented
girl, was in real life Jane Mckinney.
She was contributor to the Saturday
Press, and published novel, "Only a
Woman's Heart" Fitz Hugh Ludlow
made success with his weird 'Confes-
sions of Hasheesh Eater" George Ar
nold's verse was collected after his death
by Mr.. Winter. Of the better known
friends and associates of Aldrich in New
York it is not necessary to speak. Those
mentioned have long been lost to sight
save by the few whose memory takes
them back to those days, who had read
the Saturday Press and later the old
Knickerbocker Magazine, which was too
pood +o die TT was memories of these