Richard Le Gallienne, who has a personality which accords with that of the traditional poet, is an Irishman by birth. In spite of his critics, his place in the world of letters is assured, mainly by reason of his poems, of which he has issued three volumes. Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy, is one of the best known of Mr. Le Gallienne’s works, and ranks among the classic elegies of the English language. It is not too much to say that it compares favorably with Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Swinburne’s Ave Et Vale, and Morris’ Wordsworth’s Grave. In Mr. Le Gallienne’s verses, love, romance and dainty imagery are effectively mingled, and, as a rule, the results appeal to both heart and ear. His more ambitious works are those that have to do with literary criticism. He has also written books on Kipling and Meredith, which for vivid, close-range studies of the lives and purposes of two writers whose ideals are diametrically opposed, have rarely been equalled. The output of so-called literary criticism is so voluminous that it “tires by vastness,” yet the demand for the product of Mr. Le Gallienne’s pen still exists. He is also the author of a number of novels. That he is of industrious habits is proven by the fact that, while only thirty-six years of age, he has produced thirty works, the last being an English rendition of the odes of the Persian poet, Hafiz. Mr. Le Gallienne is an example of the possibilities that are inherent in every man, who, having determined on a given line of work, proceeds to follow it to success. He has never been to college, but has educated himself and so possesses all that belongs to a college curriculum. He has undergone the disappointments, deferred hopes, and all the rest of the unpleasant things that belong to the struggling literary man, and has conquered. The moral is obvious.
Robert Mackay.
Robert Mackay, who is one of the youngest, but none the less promising of America’s poets, was born in Virginia City, Nevada, 1871. His father, who is among the oldest of the living “Comstockers,” settled in Nevada over fifty years ago, when the state was practically unknown to white men. The subject of this sketch began his literary work when a mere boy as a reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle. Subsequently he was editor and assistant editor of several papers on the Pacific coast. In 1895 he determined to travel over the world. The trip occupied the greater portion of five years, during which period he visited lands where white men were seldom seen. Naturally he gathered many experiences, and much valuable data. While Mr. Mackay has written a great many poems he has never compiled them in book form. He has a theory that too many young writers throw themselves on the mercy of a public which do not know them and necessarily do not care for their callow wares. He therefore proposes to mature his work until he is satisfied that it has a fighting chance for public favor. Nevertheless he is by no means a stranger to the public. Those poems of his that have appeared in a number of periodicals have made him many friends. Mr. Mackay’s verses are finely fibered. Technically correct, they are acceptable to those critics who place mechanism on the same plane with motive. But they are more than finished specimens of the verse-maker’s art. With deft and tender fingers he plays upon the heart chords of humanity, and these ring responsive to his sympathetic touch. His themes are those that are as old as the race, and as imperishable. Mother love, wedded love, patriotism, the eternal yearning for the higher life, the eternal problem of the hereafter—such they are—and they are treated by him with a facile sincerity that marks him as a true poet—one who writes not for the sake of writing, but because of inner spiritual promptings that will not be denied.
Cincinnatus Heine Miller.
The personality of Cincinnatus Heine Miller, better known as “Joaquin” Miller, is as picturesque as has been his career. In turn a miner, lawyer, express rider, editor, poet and newspaper man, Mr. Miller has amassed a fund of experiences such as rarely falls to the lot of the ordinary individual. That his literary gifts enable him to reproduce in vivid fashion many of these same happenings is a matter for self-congratulation on the part of the reading public. What is yet more fortunate is that he preserves in his poems the breath of the prairie, the air of the mountains and the “tang” of that west that is rapidly passing into nothingness. The poet was born in the Wabash district of Indiana, November 10, 1841. In 1850 his parents removed to Oregon, and there is but little doubt that the wild and beautiful scenery amid which he spent his childhood had had much to do with fostering his then undeveloped poetical instincts. When the famous rush of gold seekers to the Pacific coast took place in 1859, young Miller was among the Argonauts. He does not appear to have been particularly successful in his hunt for gold, and returned to Oregon in 1860. Then he began to study law, supporting himself in the meantime by acting as express rider in Idaho. In 1863 he started the Eugene (Ore.) Democratic Register, which, however, had a brief existence. Later he opened a law office in Canon City, and in 1866 went to London, where he remained until 1870. It was in that city that he published his first book of poems. It received a most favorable reception, and established him as a poet of a unique type and quality. Returning to this country, he did some years of newspaper work in Washington, D. C., but finally drifted back to the Pacific coast, and devoted himself entirely to literature. In 1897, acting as correspondent for the New York newspaper, he visited the Klondike to compare modern miners with those of ’59. Some of his best known books of poems are Songs of the Sierras, Pacific Palms, The One Fair Woman, Songs of the Sunland, etc. He is also a playwright. One of the most important and successful of his dramas is The Danites. He lives in a picturesque home, known as the Heights, at Oakland, California.
Henry Van Dyke.
“Life is an arrow; therefore you must know
What mark to aim at and how to use the bow,
Then draw it to the head and let it go.”
These words, as well as the career of the well-known author and clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke, emphasize the fact that he has successfully pursued his all-absorbing ideal. He was born at Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 10, 1852, his father being the Rev. Henry Jackson Van Dyke, who is of Dutch colonial blood. At the age of sixteen, and after graduating from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, young Van Dyke entered Princeton college and received the degree of A.B., with highest honors, in 1873. While an undergraduate he was awarded the junior oration prize and senior prize in English literature. He was also reception orator on class day, and on commencement delivered the salutatory and belles lettres. Upon graduating in the theological course from Princeton seminary, in 1876, he delivered the master oration. Later he went to Germany to pursue his studies in divinity at the University of Berlin, and, in 1878, returned to the United States, becoming pastor of the United Congregational church, Newport, Rhode Island, and remained there for four years. In 1882 he accepted a call to the Old Brick Presbyterian church, Fifth avenue and Thirty-seventh street, New York, which was founded in 1767. At that time the church membership was small and its financial condition far from satisfactory. But, thanks to the untiring efforts of the new pastor, it became one of importance, spiritually and in other ways. Since 1900 he has been professor in English literature at Princeton university. He is the author of numerous books of wide circulation.