The Green Forest tribune., 1916-09-08

 be his soul by certain shifting and staring of his eyes he is ptied as one whose mental gearing has sand in it.
 Bliss Carman, former editor of the Independent and poet of note, was one of James Whitcomb Riley's closest friends. After the Indiana songster's death on July 9. Carman told much about Riley to Mir. Joyce Ktlmer of the New York Times Magazine and Mir. Kilmer in turn told it to the public
 Some 30 years ago Carman was introduced to the already famous Hoosier. Riley's keen bird like eyes surveyed the tall frame of the new and young acquaintance; Gosh you're a stalwart, ain't ye?" he remarked grinning q guess your parents must have trained you on a trellis" Then, as reported by MT. Kilmer, Carman went on to say:
 "The next time I saw Riley was in Philadelphia. went to read before the Browning society, and ] don't mind telling you that I was scared to death. When got out all alone the stage and saw thousand people staring up at me I felt more like running away than doing anything else But when l Riley down in the audience looking at me in his quaint, friendly way, then felt all right. l wasn't afraid to read my poetry to Riley.
 aelar z-sz---s. z- .4ys-tssnrr~ssx .-,-. ,,;, 4,, After the reading over nTt.tzz 5t5S-e F' under his arm and said: Now, let's get around to the hotel and we'll take off shoes and get chew of tobacco and be comfortable You know, such remarks as this were all the piquant because Riley was so very pune dlous and scrupuous in all his personal habits. He always immediately dressed. l never knew him to make much of a conces- sion to comfort as to put q smoking jacket or lounge coat. But he liked to go to his room and stretch himself on his bed and talk And he never talked about anything but literature. chiefly poetry.
 Riley had great fund of knowledge of poetry and knew lots of out-of= =the-way h0mely verse. He delighted particularly in ridicuously bad newspaper verse.
 Riley liked to read poetry aloud When went to his house of an evening ne generally was watt ing for me with some favorite book ready to read aloud"
 What sort of poetry did he prefer?a
 His tastes covered wide range. Two poets to whom he was especially devoted were Long fellow and Swinburne.
 Riley liked Longfeowas direetness and sim pcity. The things that pleased him in Swin- bulneis work were the music and the delft crafts manship.
 After Riley had received his degrees from some of the colleges, he seemed to feel that he ought to be known as poet, rather than as 2 humorist and writer of dialect verse He tried hard to live up to the name of poet and wanted his nonsense rhymes of his vagabondage foreof- ten. Yet his vernacuar verse, or. as he called f. his dialect verse, was his chief contribution to literature
 1'iiSy "dS Just q poet That all he ever cared 70 be. He not interested in anything but poetry. He knew nothing of poIitics-be had not voted for 30 years. And as for philosophy he had nothing but contempt for the modern thinkers.
 There was something very pathetic and charm Ing about Riley's tenacity in holding the serious poet pose. His nonsense was just one of his v-3vs of writing which happened to prove popular; when he got chance to write in another way how eagerly he seized It, and how persistentIv ho elung to if
 His last years were the happiest of his life think He had his own car and rode aronnd Indianapolis and its suburbs every day, generally taking with him some friend He was bonorad and loved. and think he felt that life had baon good to him. '9''i
 Kileys father was a lawyer. His grandfa+bar came 10 Indiana from Pennsylvania His grand. mother on his mothers side was PennsvIvania Dutch. His father was Irish
 Riley had many pretudices He dsIi,sod poo very much He disliked Poe's character SD nucb that he could hardly read his poetry. Of coIrsa he must have liked Poe's music and snIan5ts metrical effects. p'Au'O
 "of course you know the story of Rilav,s f nous imitation of Poe? He had taken nostio, on the staff of an Anderson, Ind. paper and tbo editor Of rival paper kept ridculing him RiIov ~>>>>~N|-oOeo~o~~~~"o-~0~~~~o~~