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Mr. Allan. The remainder of Poe's life was one of poverty and struggle, despite his possession of literary and editorial gifts that should have insured him success. His first poems appeared in 1827, and other volumes were published in 1829 and 1831. In consequence of the reputation gained by these poems, he was appointed editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, published at Richmond; later he edited periodicals in Philadelphia and New York. He desired most of all to found a literary magazine in the South and went back to Richmond to start the project. For this he had been prepared by his reputation not only as a poet but as the greatest writer of short stories America had produced; he was also a literary critic whose work, though not large in amount, was of high quality. The project, however, was not destined to come to reality, on account of his untimely death. Collections of his prose tales appeared in 1839 and 1845, and his last volume of poems in 1845. Poetry he defined as "the rhythmical creation of beauty"; he preferred the lyric to other forms of poetry, because he held that a true poem represents a moment of intense emotional experience. The same idea runs through much of his comment on the meaning and art of the short story, which he preferred to the novel because of greater compactness and unity. Further details on some points connected with the life and work of Poe will be found on page 76.

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858-1919), twentysixth President of the United States, was born in the city of New York. He was graduated from Harvard University and soon afterwards was elected to the legislature of New York. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy by President McKinley, a position which he resigned to enter the Spanish-American War. In 1898 he was elected Governor of New York and in 1900 Vice-President of the United States. Upon the death of McKinley, Roosevelt became President. He was a vigorous American, basing his theory of politics on honesty, courage, hard work, and fair play. His writings cover a wide range, but particularly helpful are those dealing with the ideals of citizenship.

SCHERER, JAMES A. B. (1870- ), was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, and was educated at Roanoke College, Virginia. He has written a number of books on Japan, having spent several years in that country. Mr. Scherer has been President of Newberry College (South Carolina) and of Throop College of Technology at Pasadena, California. He was made a member of the California Council of Defense and also of the Council of National Defense.

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SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE (1792-1822). Born in Sussex, England, in a wealthy family, Shelley did not have the heart-breaking struggle with poverty that was the fate of many other young men who desired to enter a literary career. Before he was ten years old he wrote a play, and as a student at Eton, one of the great English preparatory schools, he wrote a novel and sold it to a publisher for forty pounds. He was a lover of science, especially chemistry, and his room at Oxford was filled with all kinds of material used in his experiments. He was forced to leave Oxford without completing his course, had a quarrel with his father, and for a time lived only on the small sums his sisters gave him. After a time he was reconciled to his father, and went on with various schemes for reform. He hated tyranny of every sort, and many of his best poems are devoted to the praise of liberty. He was a great student of philosophy, of ancient literature, and of the Italian poets. In 1818 he went to Italy, where he passed the remainder of his life. While he wrote several dramas and some narrative poems, Shelley's genius was chiefly lyrical. He could not tell a story well because he was often so carried away by some vision of beauty, some scene that he wished to describe, or by intense emotion, that the thread of the story is lost. But his songs, his poems of Nature description (such, for example, as "The Cloud," "The Skylark," "The West Wind") and such philosophical poems as "Prometheus Unbound" and the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," are among the finest in English literature. Perhaps the greatest of all his poems is “Adonais," a lament for Keats.

SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND (1841-1887), was born at Windsor, Connecticut. He was graduated from Yale and lived most of his life in California, being for some years professor of English language and literature at the State University. Sill was a true poet, but the whole of his literary output is contained in two slender volumes. His poems are noted for their compressed thought. The selection here given shows this quality.

SOUTHEY, ROBERT (1774-1843). Before he left school Southey had planned to portray "all the more prominent and poetical forms of mythology which have at any time obtained among mankind, by making each the groundwork of an heroic poem." He did not live up to these ambitious ideals, but the number of

his works is very great, and most of his poems are very long. His first epic was devoted to Joan of Arc, as with Coleridge and Wordsworth he was an enthusiastic admirer of France. A long series of metrical romances deal with oriental subjects, and he also wrote many ballads. His verse-narratives preceded those of Scott, and were well received, though Southey did not attain the enormous popularity afterwards won by Scott. Southey translated romances from the Spanish, and was a scholar of distinction. His prose includes histories, notably a history of Brazil, and a series of excellent biographies, of which the life of Nelson is the most famous. In 1813 he became poet laureate.

SPENCER, WILLIAM ROBERT (1769-1834), English poet and wit, was educated at Harrow and Oxford, and was commissioner of stamps from 1797 to 1826. His wit and accomplishments made him very popular in London society, but natural indolence prevented his winning prominence in public life. His works include a translation of Bürger's Leonore, Urania, a Burlesque, and Poems. Owing to financial embarrassment he withdrew to Paris in 1825, and remained there until his death.

STEINER, EDWARD A. (1866- ), was born in Vienna, Austria, and was graduated from the University of Heidelberg. Himself an immigrant, later a naturalized citizen of America, he has been active in Americanization work in the United States, both through his lectures and his writings. Among his bestknown works are From Alien to Citizen, from which "America" is taken; On the Trail of the Immigrant; Nationalizing America; and The Immigrant Tide.

STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (1850-1894). For biography see pages 79-84.

), author

TARBELL, IDA MINERVA (1857and magazine writer, was born in Pennsylvania. After being graduated from Allegheny College she studied in Paris. Some of her best-known works are: Life of Abraham Lincoln; Short Life of Napoleon Bonaparte; He Knew Lincoln; History of the Standard Oil Company; New Ideals in Business.

THOMAS, LETTA EULALIA, one of the younger group of writers of the Middle West, lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Much of her lyric verse has been given musical setting and has been produced in the larger cities of the United States. Her poem, "What America Means to Me," was awarded the Theodosia Garrison Poetry Prize at the Biennial Convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs in

1920, in a contest open to all members of women's clubs of the United States.

THOREAU, HENRY DAVID (1817-1862). Born at Concord, Massachusetts; his father, a pencil maker; educated at Harvard, where he began his practice of keeping a journal. All his writings, covering thirty manuscript volumes, were in this form, and most of his books have been made up after his death by selecting passages from different places in these journals. As a whole, they show the great amount of interesting material that may be gathered by one who keeps his eyes open to things that surround him every day. Most of Thoreau's life was devoted to "endless walks and miscellaneous studies." In 1845 he built for himself a hut on the shore of Walden Pond, a small lake near Concord, where he lived for two years a life of meditation, study, and simple work. He says his total expense for the two years was seventy dollars. He kept a record of his observations "on man, on Nature, and on human life" that was published under the title of Walden in 1854. This is his most widely known book. It is filled with minute observations on insects, birds, the waters of the pond, the weather, and many similar subjects. Besides these observations of Nature, there are many comments on life and politics, on literature and various philosophical subjects, but it is as a book about Nature that Walden will live. It is marked by the simplicity and sincerity that characterized the man.

TIMROD, HENRY (1829-1867), was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He was educated at the University of Georgia. His father was the author of a volume of verse, and the son became a contributor to Russell's Magazine and The Southern Literary Messenger. He was engaged in journalism as correspondent and editor of South Carolina newspapers during the war. His poems were published in 1859; they were edited in 1873 by his friend, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and later, by J. P. Kennedy Bryan.

TWAIN, MARK (SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, 18351910), was born in Missouri and passed his boyhood in the river town of Hannibal, where he learned much about the sort of life that he depicts in several of his best-known books. He was of a roving disposition. At twelve he was apprenticed to a printer; later he went East and worked at his trade in New York and Philadelphia. In 1856 he secured work on the Mississippi River and in two years was a licensed steamboat pilot. His experiences here he used in his book entitled Life on the Mississippi (1883). With his brother he went to Nevada, worked at mining and lumbering, and finally edited a paper at Virginia City.

After a short experience here he went to San Francisco and secured a position on a daily paper, which he soon gave up in order to travel in the Sandwich Islands. In 1867 his story about the "Celebrated Jumping Frog," published in a New York paper, attracted attention, and a series of letters written while on a trip to Europe and Palestine was published under the title of Innocents Abroad in 1869. On his return he did editorial work on a paper in Buffalo, and in 1871 moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Most of his later life was spent in Connecticut and New York, but his most distinctive literary work is identified with the West, which he knew thoroughly. His fame rests on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1885). For additional details about these books see page 16.

WHITE, GILBERT (1720-1793), English writer on natural history, was born in Selborne, England. He was educated at Oxford and in 1747 was ordained to the ministry. He spent most of his life in or near the little Hampshire village of Selborne. His daily life was unbroken by great changes or incidents and left him free to indulge his strong naturalist tendencies. The Natural History of Selborne, from which "The Tortoise" is taken, has been said to be the first book which raised natural history into the region of literature.

WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF (1807-1892). Born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in a family of Quaker farmers; the house in which he was born had been occupied by the Whittier family since 1688. His boyhood was passed in work on the farm and in short terms of study in the country school. At fourteen he came upon a volume of poems by Burns and these inspired him to try his hand at writing poetry. A little later he was able to attend Haverhill Academy for two winters, earning his expenses by shoemaking. In 1828 he edited a Boston paper for a short time and later on was connected with weekly papers at Haverhill and at Hartford, Connecticut. In 1836 he moved to Amesbury, which became his home for the remainder of his life. He published a collection of poems in 1837, and other volumes appeared at frequent intervals throughout his life. "Snow-Bound," the best-known of his longer poems, appeared in 1866. This poem is often compared with "The Cotter's Saturday Night" because of its pictures of life in a rural community. Whittier wrote many ballads and lyrics; it is chiefly as a lyric and descriptive poet that he is remembered. His subjects were drawn from early New England history, Indian legends, and

Nature and life in rural Massachusetts. He is remembered also as a writer of hymns and other poems of religious faith. Books had little influence on him; he sang of the dignity of labor and of simple faith.

WILSON, WOODROW (1856- ), twentyeighth President of the United States, is a native of Virginia. He was educated at Princeton University, and later became president of that institution. He has written many books on history and government, which are models of good English. In 1911 he became Governor of New Jersey, and in 1913 he entered upon his duties as President of the United States, serving throughout the difficult period of the World War.

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM (1770-1850). Born in Cumberland, England; his boyhood passed amid scenes of great natural beauty, which had a deeper influence on him than the formal education he received in school and at Cambridge University. While a college student he went on a walking tour on the Continent and was powerfully impressed by the revolutionary movements then going on. For a time he was an ardent sympathizer with the Revolution in France; after his return, however, he settled down to a life of study and meditation, broken only now and then by foreign travel. His friendship for Coleridge led to the publication in 1798 of a small volume written by the two men and named Lyrical Ballads. To this Wordsworth contributed a number of poems about Nature in which he sought to show the beauty and mystery in common scenes. His poetry, like that of Coleridge, was very different from what was then regarded in England as true poetry; it used only simple words, preferred simple themes, and found in ordinary aspects of Nature and life abundant material for expressing emotion and interpreting beauty. Because of the difference in subject and form from the standards of the time, this poetry was not at first well received. Later in his life, however, Wordsworth was widely recognized as one of the greatest of English poets. His poems, which are very numerous, are on a great variety of subjects: stories, Nature poems, and poems giving his ideas on many aspects of life and thought.

WYATT, EDITH FRANKLIN (1873- ), was born in Wisconsin and educated in Chicago and at Bryn Mawr College. Among her writings are Everyone His Own Way, True Love, Making Both Ends Meet, Great Companions, and The Wind in the Corn, from which "On the Great Plateau" is taken. Her home is in Chicago.

INDEX OF TOPICS AND SPECIAL TERMS

Accent (stress), 290, 300. In general, emphasis on a syllable or a word. In prose, these stresses come at irregular intervals, just as the words of the sentence happen to be ar'ranged. Test this with the sentence you have just read, marking each stress with an "x." In most verse, the words and syllables are so arranged as to bring the accented syllables at regular intervals, thus producing that regularity of sound and movement which we call meter. Note that words of one syllable, if important, may receive stress in poetry. See Rhythm, Meter, Iambic, etc.

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Drama, 211-214, 381-382, 436-437, 441. comedy, 382.

heroic, 214, 441. tragedy, 382.

Epic, 212, 215-218, 236, 238, 290, 441. folk, 212.

Essay, 22.

Figure of speech, 300. Any use of words that is not literal, but which suggests comparison or picture. See Simile, Metaphor, etc.

Gloss, 270.

Iambic Tetrameter, 300. Verse in which four accents occur in a line, each accented or stressed syllable being preceded by an unstressed syllable. An iambus is composed of an unstressed syllable followed by one that is stressed, as in the word compel.

Imagery, 528. The work of the imagination or fancy in decorating or making vivid oral or written composition; the use of images or figures of speech in composition. See Figure of Speech.

Incremental repetition, 239. A technical term used to describe a method of repetition of words or phrases, especially in ballad poetry, in which a small increment or addition is made to the story with each repetition.

Letters, 379.

Literature, definition of, 5, 9, 442, 512, 515-516. standards of taste for, 10.

test of interest, 9.

types of, 211, 214.

Lyric poetry, 237.

Measure, 284. The way in which syllables are arranged in verse, as iambic measures, referring to verse in which the unit of measurement is the iambus. See Meter.

Metaphor, see Simile. Meter, 245, 290, 300. Regular or fixed recurrence of accent or stress. The unit of measurement is the foot, as iambus, trochee, dactyl, etc.

Novel, 211.

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