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Show L0N6FELL0WS FIH3T POETRY. Ho Was More Than TlUrty When His rlrri Volume Was Published. Toward the end of 1S36 ho took vf his abode iu Cambridge, where he was to reside for the rest of his life for 46 years. He was made to feel at homo in the society of thoholars who cluster ed about Harvard, 'Then almost the sol center of culture in the country. Hit work for the collego was not so exacting exact-ing that he had not time for literature The impulse to write poetry returned, yet tne nestl book he published was the prose "Hyperion," which appneared is 1889, and which, though it has tfttl? plot or action, may bo called a romanca The youthful and poetic hero, apassiop-ate apassiop-ate pilgrim in Europe, was, more os less, a reflection of Longfellow himself. A few months later in the Eamo yoai he published his first volnpe of poetry "Voices of the Night" in whioh he reprinted certain of his earlier verses, most of them written while he waB at Bowdoin. Some of these boyish verses chow the influence of Bryant, and others oth-ers reveal to us that the young poet had not yet looked at life for himself, but still saw it through the stained glass windows of European tradition. The same volume contained also some mors tecent poems "The Beleaguered City" nDd "The Reaper and tho Flowers" and tfie "Psalm of Life' perhaps the first of his poems to win a swift and abiding popularity. These lyrics testified that Longfellow was beginning to have a style of his own As Hawthorne wrote Jo him, "Nothvng oqual to them W'a ever written in this world this west-srn west-srn world, I moan." Certainly no American author ha yet written any poem of the kind sa good as the best of those in Longfellow's Longfel-low's volume of "Ballads," printed two years later. Better than any olne American poet Longfellow had mastered master-ed the difficulties of tho story in song, and he knew how to combine the swiftness swift-ness and the picturesqueness the ballad requires. His ballads have more of the old time magic, more of the early sim plicity, tLAn those of any other modern English author. Of its kind there is nothing better in tho language than "The Skeleton In Armor," with it splendid lyrio swing, and "Tho Village Blacksmith" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus" are almost as good in then humbler sphere. "Excelsior," in the game volume, voices tho noble nspira-tions nspira-tions of youth and has been taken tc heart by thousands of boys and girls.-' Professor Brandor Matthews in S Nicholas. Pair Flnj For I.ady Somerset. The Boston Transcript says editoriaj It stands to reason that newspapers tc whom "Gaiety Girls" are the true and only interesting type of womanhood ara finding tho amiable Lady Henry Somerset, Somer-set, brilliant as she is, something of an ogre and bore. It is a saddening tost of tho taste aud oharactei controlling American journalists today in our cities. Miss Willard Bays that the current paragraphs par-agraphs about this bravo and brilliant English woman's so called "crusade" in this country are very nearly cruel to a woman who came to this country avowedly avow-edly to study quietly our customs and politics, and with no intention to in-Btruct in-Btruct a whole country or to attack anything. any-thing. When tho New York reporters flocked about Lady Henry Somorsefc oi her arrival and quizzed her, she spoko of tho recent crusades in London against .iagrant indecencies in low class theaters, thea-ters, and expressed her hearty wish thai ail such evils might bo abated on both sides of tho sea. At onco it was said, and it has been ceaselessly repeated, that Lady Henry came here to organize a crusade, to cultivate a fad, and so forth Sho is certainly deeply and practically practical-ly interested in all that has any relation to highest cultivation and freedom of humanity, aud sho is daily found in good works, now at a convention, now at a meeting at Mrs. Bull's house, and sht speaks on suffrage whenever she can bs of ,$ervice to the cause that she and Miss Willard have at heart Titles are, however, how-ever, a sort of natural romantic bait to our democracy, and a fiercer light than ever beat upon a native born reformer like Miss Willard inevitably falls upon the lady who is associated with her. The American press has long ago accept-sd accept-sd and honored tho exceptional and in lellectual ability and rare devotion t publio ends of Miss Willard, and it i with pleasure that in her name wo asi of it fair play and gentler courtesy for that most interesting and admirable example ex-ample of tho "now woman, " in tho best sense of that abused term, L!dy Homy Somerset. Tho twenty-seventh annual conven tion of the National American Worn at Suffrage association will be hjld in Atlanta At-lanta in De Give's Opera House Jan. 81 to Feb. 6. The official call for the con mention says: The object of these conventions is tc educate women into a knowledge of thei' rights and duties as citizens of a repub lio, and through them to aronso the na tion to a Eenso of the national wrong perpetrated by the disfranchisement of half the people of the United States, in opposition to tho principles of govern ment declared by our laws andconstitn tions. While Colorado's full enfranchisement enfranchise-ment of women in 1893 is encouraging, the defeat of the suffrage amendments in New York and Kansas in 189-1 showa how largely men still fail when callod upon to put in practice tho principle they enunciate. Though 26 states havo granted some slight concetsions to women citizens, in bo states of tho Union, save Wyoming and Colorado, are women yet admittpc? to the dignity of equal rights in oitizor-Bhip. oitizor-Bhip. In only six states of the Union art mothers conceded to bo legal owners g their own children. Such being tho sad and shameful statf of affairs, it behooves all lovers of ins tice to rally at the call to speed the nex step in human progress the full de velopment of the mother of tho race, the greatest factor in tho coming civilization. |