Those who happen to turn back to the number of the “Atlantic Monthly” for January, 1898, will read with peculiar interest a remarkable paper entitled “Our Two Most Honored Poets.” It bears no author’s name, even in the Index, but is what we may venture to call, after ten years, a singularly penetrating analysis of both Aldrich and Stedman. Of the latter it is said: “His rhythmic sense is subtle, and he often attains an aerial waywardness of melody which is of the very essence of the lyric gift.” It also remarks most truly and sadly of Stedman that he “is of those who have suffered the stress of the day.” The critic adds: “Just now we felt grateful to Mr. Aldrich for putting all this [that is, life’s tragedies] away in order that the clarity and sweetness of his art might not suffer; now we feel something like reverence for the man [Mr. Stedman] who, in conditions which make for contentment and acquiescence, has not been able to escape these large afflictions.” But these two gifted men have since passed away, Aldrich from a career of singular contentment, Stedman after ten years of almost constant business failure and a series of calamities relating to those nearest and dearest. One of the most prominent men in the New York literary organizations, and one who knew Stedman intimately, writes me thus in regard to the last years of his life: “As you probably know, Stedman died poor. Only a few days ago he told me that after paying all the debts hanging over him for years from the business losses caused by ⸺’s mismanagement, he had not enough to live on, and must keep on with his literary work. For this he had various plans, of which our conversations developed only a possible rearrangement of his past writings; an article now and then for the magazines (one, I am told, he left completed); and reminiscences of his old friends among men of letters—for which last he had, during eight months past, been overhauling letters and papers, but had written nothing. He was ailing, he said—had a serious heart affection which troubled him for years, and he found it a daily struggle to keep up with the daily claims on his time. You know what he was, in respect of letters,—and letters. He could always say ‘No’ with animation; but in the case of claims on his time by poets and other of the writing class, he never could do the negative. He both liked the claims and didn’t. The men who claimed were dear to him, partly because he knew them, partly because he was glad to know them. He wore himself quite out. His heart was exhausted by his brain. It was a genuine case of heart-failure to do what the head required.”