Chapter Poetry, South and North of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

Every Saturday. In 1881, he succeeded Mr. Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly, retaining this position until 1890.

The Poems.

Meanwhile Aldrich's poems had been appearing in successive volumes: Cloth of Gold (1874), filled with the rich color of oriental fantasy, Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book (1881). In the long narrative poem Wyndham Towers (1889) the poet's work does not appear to such advantage as in the dainty lyrics of sentiment and romance which were the fruit of earlier years. No American poet has written with a more delicate or graceful touch. His technique is faultless in such brilliant pieces as When the Sultan goes to Ispahan, The Lunch, Nocturne, Identity, and Baby Bell, the tender pathos of which still retains its grasp on the emotions of its readers. Aldrich was his own severest critic, and his lines were frequently revised. Nothing short of perfection satisfied his keen sense of artistic expression. It is his own ideal that is embodied in this splendid sonnet: --

"Enamored architect of airy rhyme,
Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says.
Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways,
Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;
Others, beholding how thy turrets climb
'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all their days;
But most beware of those who come to praise.
O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime
And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all;
Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,
Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given:
Then, if at last the airy structure fall,
Dissolve, and vanish -- take thyself no shame.
They fail, and they alone, who have not striven."

The Sisters' Tragedy (1891) and Unguarded Gates (1895) were the titles of the volumes which contained his later verse.

Prose Works.

Like his poems, Aldrich's prose works are characterized by the qualities of vivacity, brilliance, and delicate workmanship. Nothing pleases him better than to surprise his reader by some unexpected turn. This is the case in his first successful story, -- in some respects his best, -- Marjorie Daw (1873), and in some of his later tales. The novels Prudence Palfrey (1874) and The Queen of Sheba (1877) were followed, in 1880, by an admirable detective story, The Stillwater Tragedy. It is, however, in the field of the short story that we most clearly recognize Aldrich's power as a writer of fiction, -- a field for which his art was exceedingly apt.

Dramas.

Mercedes, a drama (1883), and Judith of Bethulîa, prepared for the stage in 1905, have not proved dramatically successful. It is upon the best of his short stories and his earlier lyrics, with their exquisite technique, that Aldrich's literary fame must rest.¹

E. C. Stedman, 1833-1908.

Edmund Clarence Stedman was born at Hartford, Connecticut, October 8, 1833. His mother, Elizabeth Dodge Stedman, was a writer of verse, published several volumes of poems, and, through a long residence in Italy, was an intimate friend of the Brownings. During his undergraduate course at Yale, young Stedman received a first prize for a poem on Westminster Abbey. In 1855, he entered the journalistic profession in New York and was one of the many talented men who became at various times protégés of Horace Greeley, upon the staff of the Tribune. It was at this period that Stedman was thrown into intimate association with Stoddard, Taylor, and Aldrich. The first literary success came with the publication of The Diamond Wedding, a satirical poem, inspired by a real incident in fashionable New York society. His Poems, Lyric and Idyllic, were published in 1860; and in that year the poet went to the front as a war-correspondent for the World.