Speaking of the writing of this poem, Mr. Markham said that he sketched
the outline of it fourteen years ago, upon seeing a photograph of
Millet’s famous painting, “The Man with the Hoe.” When he saw the
picture itself four years afterward, he further elaborated the idea,
but did not write it out in complete form until Christmas week,
1900. He then spent three or four days on it, and sent it to the San
Francisco Examiner, where it was published for the first time on the
eighth of January 1901.
Within a few months, the volume, “The Man with the Hoe and other
Poems,” was issued by Doubleday and McClure, of New York, and met with
so large a sale that it was soon in its fifth edition. It has been very
favorably received.
Mr. Markham paid his way through the state normal school at San Jose,
and afterward through Christian college at Santa Rosa, California. He
has done important educational work in that state as a superintendent
and principal of schools in various places, and is now head master of
the Tompkins observation school in Oakland. Inducements have been
offered him to deliver a series of lectures throughout the country, and
he has received many requests for literary work, with some of which he
will comply.
The world is well lost when the world is wrong,
No matter how men deride you;
For if you are patient and firm and strong,
You will find in time, though the time be long,
That the world wheels round beside you.
—ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.