The St. Joseph observer., 1917-02-17
THE WORLDS
MOST FAMOUS
QUOTABLE POEM

III lutSt OIlNtu
Of America are really Innovations
tho that may sound like q paradox.
We had our first 1 In 1879, when we
celebrated the end Of the Nations 1st
100 years, and occasionally we dig
up the memory of some of our great
ones who did something notable 100
years ago, and do q little celebrating
In his honor But over in England.
with its centuries of history and lit
erature to draw from, 1t is dull day
when they are not gathering around
the more or less festive board at some
club or another, to recall the fact that
100 Cor 200, or 900 or 400 or 500)
years ago, there was born on this
tight little island a man who" Cen
tenaries are institutions over there,
and the Englishman dearly loves his
institutions. Well, 1t is rather a stim-
ulating custom, for If the hero wor-
shippers did not gather together now
and then to burn centennial candle
or so in memory of those whose deeds
or thoughts gave pleasure or profit
| to the world, 1t is to be feared that
many a good man would be forgotten
in 100 years whose achievements en-
| titled him to be remembered while
! grass grows and water runs. There's
| Thomas Gray, for instance, whose BIZ
| centenary has just been commemor-
ated in London literary circles-who
would willingly forget Thomas Gray?
What? What did he do to be saved?
| We're surprised. He's the man who
wrote Gray's Elegy. Oh. you knew
that, but never knew what his 1st
name was. Was that all he did?
| Well-er-isn't that enuf? OF course
he wrote some other things-we don't
recall them just now. That Elegy
ought to be monument enuf for any
man. Didn't General Wolfe say that
/ he would rather have written that
poem than capture Quebec, Just the
night before he trod the path of glory
that led to his grave But, come to
think about it, we do know very lit
tie about the man, and what he did
and how he did It, Suppose, then,
we take advantage of the 200th an
niversary of his birth to rescue his
memory on this side of the water
from the shades of the illustrious OBJ
scure.
One of 12 Children.
To begin with Thomas Gray was
of a Rooseveltian family-his mother
| bore 2 children, of whom he was the
| 9th. He was born at Cornhill, Dec.
| 27, 1716. His father was a tippling
ne'er-do-well. whose only talent was
l for stirring up trouble in the do
nestle circle. Fortunately, he took
his place among the marrow cells
of the churchyard early and it was
the mothers influence to whom we
owe the development Of Gray's gem
ius. She made a good living for the
| family in the milliners trade. She
| had 2 brothers who were assistant
masters in Eton College, therefore,
| Gray was sent to Eton to be educated
under the direction of his uncles. At
| Eton he formed the acquaintance of
Horace Walpole, son of the then prime
minister, and Richard West, son of the
lord chancellor of ireland, an ac-
quaintance which ripened into a
friendship that inspired several of his
poetical compositions and some of his
most interesting letters. Later, in
1884, he entered Cambridge Univer-
sity; but its atmosphere, IT is related,
was never congenlal to his tastes.
Cambridge was strong for mathemat-
les, and mathematics was Grays alb
omination. 1T is very possible" he
wrote, that 9 and make 4, but l
would not give farthings to demon
strate this ever so clearly, and If
these be the profits Of life, give me the
amusements of IL. The people l be-
hold all around me know all this and
more and yet / do not know any of
! them who inspires me with any am
bition of being like him." So ne left
Cambridge finally without taking his
degree. After leaving Cambridge,
Gray and Walpole went on a tour of
the continent visiting france, Italy
and Switzerland and remaining abroad
about 2 years. This was probably the
greatest event In Gray's life, Return
ing to Cambridge, he went into resi-
dence" as a gentleman lodger at Pc
terhouse and resumed his studies.
graduating as an L. L. B. in 1744. For
the rest of his very uneventful life,
he made Cambridge his home, with
occasional visits to Stoke-Poges, where
his mother lived, and where his elegiac
churchyard was situated, and to Lon
don and to his few friends at the
country houses.
Years on the "Elegy."
To the dictum that "art is long"
Gray apparently very readily assented,
but he seemed to have no idea in con-
| UtCllOH tIlcIcWllh llldl llillt was
fleeting." He composed his poetry
slowly, laboriously, meticulously. His
muse was like the mills of the gods
she took her own time about her
work, but she ground it out with a
highly polished exactness. But Gray
was a true artist and one of the kind
that really worked solely for arts
sake. He never wrote with a view
to ultimate publication-he only re-
sorted to publication to thwart the
literary pirates OF his day. He tink-
cred at his famous Elegy for Z years
before it saw the light of print, and
then, 1t is mentioned as an ironical
Circumstance, his printer amended
his copy by dropping out a comma,
and really strengthened 1t. Gray had
written it as follows: THE curfew
tolls, the knell knell of parting day.
But the printer didn't like the sound
of It, some way, so he dropped the
comma, and posterity now has the
line, "The curfew tolls the knell OF
parting day" II Is very likely that
Gray saw the printsrs version was the
best, for he never had the comma put
back in its original place. His poeti-
cal output was meager mo poet