art anJ> ^ones 



venson wreaking his frail life upon the 

 effort to touch the lucky nerve of fortune — 

 these and a hundred other examples are not 

 half so distressing to one's sympathies as 

 a case like that of Sidney Lanier or Henry 

 Timrod or Paul Hayne. There was, in 

 the fate of the three Southerners, a singu- 

 lar leer of the god we call 111 Fortune. 

 They were not money-artists; they 

 wrought in the old-fashioned high sin- 

 cerity, with but one aim, to give the great- 

 est beauty of form to the greatest beauty 

 of thought. They died penniless, but 

 with souls as white as snow. Every 

 thought they set to song was as pure as 

 distilled water; but they could get no 

 money. Perhaps the moral is — if there is 

 one — that a true poet should have had 

 better luck than being born poor in an age 

 when money is so necessary to that leisure 

 which alone insures great art. 



We are inclined to be jocund at the ex- 

 pense of the poets who try to boil their pots 

 over the heat of those little space- fillers 

 in the magazines. But, in fact, how piti- 

 ful ! " Still," says the up-to-date rhymester, 

 171 



