No,--no,--no!I want to see the young people in our schools and academies and colleges,and the graduates of these institutions,lifted up out of the little Dismal Swamp of self-contemplating and self-indulging and self-commiserating emotionalism which is surfeiting the land with those literary sandwiches,--thin slices of tinkling sentimentality between two covers looking like hard-baked gilt gingerbread.But what faces these young folks make up at my good advice!They get tipsy on their rhymes.Nothing intoxicates one like his--or her--own verses,and they hold on to their metre-ballad-mongering as the fellows that inhale nitrous oxide hold on to the gas-bag."We laughed over this essay of the old Professor;though it hit us pretty hard.The best part of the joke is that the old man himself published a thin volume of poems when he was young,which there is good reason to think he is not very proud of,as they say he buys up all the copies he can find in the shops.No matter what they say,Ican't help agreeing with him about this great flood of "poetry,"as it calls itself,and looking at the rhyming mania much as he does.
How I do love real poetry!That is the reason hate rhymes which have not a particle of it in them.The foolish scribblers that deal in them are like bad workmen in a carpenter's shop.They not only turn out bad jobs of work,but they spoil the tools for better workmen.
There is hardly a pair of rhymes in the English language that is not so dulled and hacked and gapped by these 'prentice hands that a master of the craft hates to touch them,and yet he cannot very well do without them.I have not been besieged as the old Professor has been with such multitudes of would-be-poetical aspirants that he could not even read their manuscripts,but I have had a good many letters containing verses,and I have warned the writers of the delusion under which they were laboring.
You may like to know that I have just been translating some extracts from the Greek Anthology.I send you a few specimens of my work,with a Dedication to the Shade of Sappho.I hope you will find something of the Greek rhythm in my versions,and that I have caught a spark of inspiration from the impassioned Lesbian.I have found great delight in this work,at any rate,and am never so happy as when I read from my manuscript or repeat from memory the lines into which I have transferred the thought of the men and women of two thousand years ago,or given rhythmical expression to my own rapturous feelings with regard to them.I must read you my Dedication to the Shade of Sappho.I cannot help thinking that you will like it better than either of my last two,The Song of the Roses,or The Wail of the Weeds.
How I do miss you,dearest!I want you:I want you to listen to what I have written;I want you to hear all about my plans for the future;I want to look at you,and think how grand it must be to feel one's self to be such a noble and beautiful-creature;I want to wander in the woods with you,to float on the lake,to share your life and talk over every day's doings with you.Alas!I feel that we have parted as two friends part at a port of embarkation:they embrace,they kiss each other's cheeks,they cover their faces and weep,they try to speak good-by to each other,they watch from the pier and from the deck;the two forms grow less and less,fainter and fainter in the distance,two white handkerchiefs flutter once and again,and yet once more,and the last visible link of the chain which binds them has parted.Dear,dear,dearest Euthymia,my eyes are running over with tears when I think that we may never,never meet again.
Don't you want some more items of village news?We are threatened with an influx of stylish people:"Buttons"to answer the door-bell,in place of the chamber-maid;"butler,"in place of the "hired man;"footman in top-boots and breeches,cockade on hat,arms folded a la Napoleon;tandems,"drags,"dogcarts,and go-carts of all sorts.It is rather amusing to look at their ambitious displays,but it takes away the good old country flavor of the place.
I don't believe you mean to try to astonish us when you come back to spend your summers here.I suppose you must have a large house,and I am sure you will have a beautiful one.I suppose you will have some fine horses,and who would n't be glad to?But I do not believe you will try to make your old Arrowhead Village friends stare their eyes out of their heads with a display meant to outshine everybody else that comes here.You can have a yacht on the lake,if you like,but I hope you will pull a pair of oars in our old boat once in a while,with me to steer you.I know you will be just the same dear-Euthymia you always were and always must be.How happy you must make such a man as Maurice Kirkwood!And how happy you ought to be with him!--a man who knows what is in books,and who has seen for himself,what is in men.If he has not seen so much of women,where could he study all that is best in womanhood as he can in his own wife?Only one thing that dear Euthymia lacks.She is not quite pronounced enough in her views as to the rights and the wrongs of the sex.When I visit you,as you say I shall,I mean to indoctrinate Maurice with sound views on that subject.I have written an essay for the Society,which I hope will go a good way towards answering all the objections to female suffrage.I mean to read it to your husband,if you will let me,as I know you will,and perhaps you would like to hear it,--only you know my thoughts on the subject pretty well already.
With all sorts of kind messages to your dear husband,and love to your precious self,I am ever your LURIDA.
DR.BUTTS TO MRS.EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD.
MY DEAR EUTHYMIA,--My pen refuses to call you by any other name.
