Evening journal., 1911-12-11
NEW NEWS OF YESTERDAY
A Strange Literary COinCi-
denCe
BY Holland

The late William Allen Butler. in
his day the greatest Of admiralty law
yers at the American bar, and one of
the leaders in the profession Of the
law in the United States, would an
doubtedly have found that his fame
was entertained exclusively by mem
bers Of his profession had ne NOT gain
ed a national reputation by a poem
still remembered as one of the finest
pieces of satire ever written. it was
entitled Flora McFlimsy, or Nothing
TO Wear
This poem, which was written in
spirit Of fun by Mr.. Butler in 1857,
with no thought of publishing it, but
simply for the amusement of his
family, was sent to Harper's by "a
friend who insisted that IL was too
good not 10 pass into general circnla-
tion. For it MIR. Butler received fifty
dollars. Had he copyrighted it, his re-
ceipts might have been many thous-
ands of dollars, for il was published
States and in Great Britain. Recently,
volume of memoirs written by Mr..
Butler, but unfortunately closing in
the year 1865, although he was thirty
years longer in active practice, Las
been published.
I'm that volume Mr.. Butler speaks of
the somewhat annoying experience
which he had shortly after the Moth
ing to Wear" poem was published. He
says that a young woman, claimed to
have written the poem, or partly writ
ten IL. AS il had been published anony-
mously, he felt called upon TO an
nounce that he was the author of tho
poem. Then began a controversy which
was perhaps the most exciting ever
maintained i'm the United States over a
literary dispute No one who knew Mr.
Butler had the slightest doubt that his
claim as to the authorship Of the poem
was justified I'm every respect And yet
this refernce in Mr.. Buffers memoirs
to the incident brought vividly to my
mind conversation which | had in
1894 with the late Rev. b. NJ. Yarring-
ton, who was for nearly sixty years i'm
continual service as the rector Of
Christ Church, Greenwich, Conn Mr..
Warrington at one time had as mem
bers Of his church, Edwin Booth. the
late II. o. Havemeyer, whom he mar
ried, and the family of William NJ
Tweed, who were devoted members of
the church.
81 think that the most curious, in
eXplicable literary incident which has
ever come to my notice was one asso-
ciated with the poem Nothing to
Wear said Mr.. Warrington to me.
MY family was on terms of init
mate personal friendship with a New
York family, one member of which
was a girl of, I should say, seventeen
years of age in 1857. She was, | think,
the brightest young woman whom |
ever met. She had great gifts OF liter
airy composition. / discovered in her
real poetic power. She was as frank,
honest lovable as it is possible for
any one to be.
One evening, when visiting our
family, she told us that she had Just
begun a poem and said that she would
like to read the opening stanzas Of it
to us. We were, of course. glad to
have her do so and we were so charm
ed and amused by what she had writ
ten that we urged her TO complete the
poem. It is my recollection that she
said she had completed a draft of the
first part Of it and was working on
the draft of the last part
'As l recall il, this poem described
with great humor the embarrass-
ments and misfortunes of a young wo-
man who. though she had dozens of
dresses and every kind of wearing ap-
parel and jewelry, nevertheless in
sisted that she had nothing to wear
The name of this unfortunate young
woman selected by our young friend
was Miss Florentinc Flimsy
mot long after that she told us that
she had met with a misfortune, having
lost her draft of the poem while riding
in a New York city horse car. We
urged her to rewrite It from memory,
and she said she would try. A few
weeks later the poem, Miss Flora Nc
Flimy, or Nothing to Wear appeared
in one of Harper's publications. No
name was attached to it, Our young
friend came to us Immediately and
asked us II We remembered tho poem
which she had read to us. She was GER
tain that her lost manuscript had
been found by somebody who had uti-
lized the idea and almost the phrase
ology Of so much Of her poem as had
been completed, but had changed he
name a little.
I'VE were at first inclined to agree
with her, but when VIC learned that
-the poem had been written by William
Allen Butler. We assured her that Mr..
Butler was a man of such high char
acter that il would have been impos-
sible for him even to have contem-
plated the purloining of literary
idea. And told her, furthermore, that
II was undoubtedly one of those
strange literary condolences which
have sometimes occurred, the idea Of
the poem and even the name of the
character, having been suggested to
her and Mr.. Butler, each unacQudintsd
with the other at the same time"
Copyright, 1911, by e. j. Edwards.
All rights reserved)
Tomorrow Mr.. Edwards will fell Oe