“Felicia Hemans was an American, born ‘down East’ somewhere; I think in the same section Nora Perry hails from,” was the startling announcement uttered in my hearing, by a “sweet girl graduate” of so short time ago as June, 1892.
“Pardon contradiction,” I called from my end of the library, “but Felicia Hemans was an Englishwoman, and her birthplace was Liverpool.”
The surprise the above incident created caused my own thought to revert to the honored and beloved poets who have so lately left us, as well as to the mighty revered army, from Chaucer down, who have more or less an abiding-place in our hearts.
And then followed another thought,—would it not be a wise use of time for some of us to study the lives and works of these poets, the minor as well as the more prominent ones, and so save ourselves from similar ludicrous blunders as the one above given?
And particularly do I appeal to the young girls just out; but even the busy schoolgirl would have the opportunity if she would only systematically arrange her work. Afternoon classes might be formed, or evening ones if preferred; the latter would have the advantages, as then the big brothers might come. Simple refreshments, too, would not jar on harmony, but rather tend to sociability. These could be provided by the hostess, for the girls should take turns in having the class meet at each house. It would also be found to be a benefit to have a president and secretary for such a class, or, if an old person could be gotten, popular and wise enough to take charge, that would prove still more satisfactory.
It is quite the fashion now to be a member of a dancing class, why not be a member of a poets’ class, and so take care of your head as well as your heels? Indeed, classes are the “order of the day,” for language, music, riding, cooking, wood-carving, needlework, indeed everything, and the young girls or boys who may read this sketch certainly want to be into things as well as their fellows.
In these hours with the poets, take a different poet for each time the class meets. Before the close of one meeting decide on who will be the next one taken up. For example, will it be Keats, Saxe, Bayard Taylor, or Jean Ingelow? That settled, name who will be the one to give a biographical sketch of the poet. This may be in the form of an original paper, or read directly from an encyclopedia. Also name two or more members to read or recite poems from the poet under consideration. Discussion and criticism should be freely allowed, and unanswerable questions should be always answered at the next meeting before entering on the new poet. It would save time to have the hostess answer the questions left from the week before, as she could have numerous books at hand, and of necessity would be present.
Do not say this is too difficult a task. Nothing is too difficult for those who try.
And do not think such study and hours are unnecessary. If you do, find out how many of your classmates can at once answer whom Ben Jonson adopted as his poetical son? He was a pastoral lyrist, and left behind him thirteen hundred poems. He was a bachelor, though he lived to be eighty-four years of age. He was born at Cheapside, London, in 1591, and died in 1674, at Dean Prior, which living was presented to him, for at times he was very poor. His name was Robert Herrick.
Or does my reader know that Thomas Gray was a close student of Dryden, or that the author of the first important body of English sonnets was the romantic hero, Sir Philip Sidney, and that he died when but thirty-two years of age, having been conspicuous at the court of Elizabeth, was a soldier of great promise, a leading statesman, and has a prominent place in history?