Southern authors in poetry and prose

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES

SOUTHERN AUTHORS IN POETRY
AND PROSE

ED

liiil

SOUTHERN AUTHORS
IN POETRY AND PROSE

BY

KATE ALMA ORGAIN

NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY

1908

145827

COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY

TS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. SIDNEY LANIER 9

II. AUGUSTA J. EVANS 24

III. THEODORE O'HARA 33

IV. MRS. ROSA VERTNER JOHNSON (GRIF

FITH) 40

V. JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY ... 46

VI. MADAME OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT . 55

VII. PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE .... 63

VIII. WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS .... 74

IX. JAMES BARRON HOPE 84

X. JOHN ESTEN COOKE 96

XL MRS. MARY S. B. DANA-SHINDLER . 105

XII. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS no

XIII. MRS. VIRGINIA L. FRENCH . . . . 119

XIV. GRACE ELIZABETH KING .... 128
XV. FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR . . . . 132

XVI. ELISABETH WHITFIELD BELLAMY . . 141

XVII. JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON .... 146

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVIII. CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD . . . 153

XIX. IRWIN RUSSELL 160 <

XX. GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE . . . 168

XXI. HENRY TIMROD 175

XXII. MRS. MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE (MA
RION HARLAND) 186

XXIII. EDGAR ALLEN POE 194

XXIV. MARY NOAILLES MURFREE . . . . 214
XXV. MARIA J. MC!NTOSH 224

XXVI. THOMAS NELSON PAGE 228

SOUTHERN AUTHORS IN POETRY
AND PROSE

SIDNEY LANIER

1842—1881

THIS poet was born in Macon, Georgia, on the
third of February, 1842, and came from a long
line of fine ancestors. His father, Robert S. Lanier,
was a prominent lawyer, and his mother was Miss
Mary Anderson, a woman of remarkable gift in
music and poetry. A friend once remarked, " No
wonder Lanier is a poet and a genius. The blood
that flows through his veins has coursed in those
of artists, poets, musicians, and royal personages."

Very early in life Sidney Lanier showed a pas
sion for reading, a talent and fondness for music,
and when a mere lad he delighted in forming
amateur orchestras of children. Having a keen
sense of humor, he often kept the family amused
by his mimicry, and later he utilized this faculty
of observation in his poems.

At fifteen he was admitted into Oglethorpe Col
lege, near Milledgeville, Georgia, and was gradu
ated at the age of eighteen, and then was given a
position as tutor in that institution. At the break
ing out of the Civil War, Sidney and his brother,
Clifford, joined the volunteers at Macon, Georgia,

io SIDNEY LANIER

and, although several times offered promotion, the
brothers declined, because they did not wish to be
separated. They were in thej>et6nd Georgia Bat
talion of Infantry and were stationed at first
amongst the marshes of Sewells Point, opposite
Fortress Monroe. There the men all had much
sickness and they were ordered to Wilmington,
and in Wilmington, as Lanier says, " they had the
dry shakes of the Sand Hills." Their battalion
participated in the famous Seven Days' Battle
around Richmond, and later they were sent up to
Petersburg. Here Sidney and Clifford obtained
a transfer to Major Milligan's Signal Corps, and
finally they were attached to the staff of Major-
General French. In 1864 the brothers separated,
as Sidney was assigned to duty of signal officer
on a blockade runner. He was captured by the
Federals, and imprisoned for five months at Point
Lookout. During this imprisonment the seeds of
disease were sown which caused his death while
yet a young man. When he was exchanged he
came near dying on the voyage to City Point, and
when at last he reached home, footsore and ex
hausted, he was prostrated by sickness for many
weeks.

After the war, although his brain was teeming
with beautiful thoughts, Lanier was compelled to
bear the monotony and wear of teaching and such
uncongenial work as clerk in a hotel in Mont-

SIDNEY LANIER n

gomery. He found some time, however, in the
hard struggle for a living, to write his first book,
a volume of fiction called " Tiger Lilies," pub
lished in 1867. The book is now out of print.

It contains many fine passages like the following:

»

A man has seventy years in which to explain his life;
a book must accomplish its birth, and its excuse for birth,
at the same instant.

The hills sit here like old dethroned kings, met for
consultation ; they would be very garrulous, surely, but
the exquisite peace of the pastoral scene below them has
stilled their life; they have forgotten the ancient anarchy
which brought them forth; they dream and dream away,
without discussion or endeavor.

How long our arms are when we are young! Nothing
but the whole world will satisfy their clasp.

To him who has not loved some man with the ardor of
a friendship at first sight, one can only say, " Nature has
dealt hardly with you, sir."

Music is in common life what heat is in chemistry, an
all-pervading, ever-present, mysterious genius.

Late explorers say they have found some nations that
had no God, but I have not read of any that had no music.

One might as well be killed with a shower of hail
stones as of diamonds; it is but death after all.

" Sorrow makes poets," Memnon's statue sang when
the morning light struck it, but I think men and women
sing when the darkness draws on.

The great uncomplaining trees, whose life is surely the
finest of all lives, since it is nothing but the continual

12 SIDNEY LANIER

growing and being beautiful; the silent, mysterious trees,
most strong where most gnarled, and most touching when
wholly blasted.

In 1867 Sidney Lanier was married to Miss
Mary Day of Macon, Georgia. Through poverty
and sickness, in all changes and conditions she was
to him a loving, faithful wife, an inspiration and
a blessed comforter. Of her he wrote in his ex
quisite poem, " My Springs " :

0 Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,
My springs, from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet celestial streams

That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.

Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete —
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,

1 marvel that God made you mine,

For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!

Lanier's earliest passion was for music. He
learned almost by intuition to play on every kind
of instrument, — flute, banjo, organ, piano, violin
and guitar, devoting himself more especially to
the flute because his father was opposed to the
violin. He said of himself that his greatest talent
lay in music. His flute was his constant com
panion, and when he was captured during the war
he managed to hide his flute in his sleeve. When

SIDNEY LANIER 13

he went to Baltimore to live and work, William
Hayes Ward says, " He took his pen and flute, for
staff and sword, and turned his face northward."
In the winter of 1868 Sidney Lanier was seized
with his first hemorrhage, and for four following
years there was a steady decline in his health.
Hoping for some relief, in 1872 he left Georgia
and went to San Antonio, Texas, but even that
salubrious climate brought him no healing balm,
and " he was restless as a caged bird, for he
hungered and thirsted for time and health and
strength to express his soul in music and poetry."
In 1873 he gave up law, which he had studied
and undertaken in his father's office, and went to
Baltimore, where he was soon engaged as first
flute for the Peabody Concerts. " Music was to
him what it is to the birds, what it is to the brooks.
He played it technically as it was written, but he
added sunshine and spring air, or the laughter
and tears of joy and sorrow." Asgar Hamerick,
the musical director in the Peabody Symphony
Orchestra of Baltimore, says of Lanier: " I will
never forget the impression he made upon me
when he played the flute at a concert in 1878; his
tall, commanding, manly presence, his flute breath
ing noble sorrows, noble joys, the orchestra softly
responding. The audience was spellbound. Such
distinction, such refinement! He stood, the mas
ter, the genius." In 1879 he was appointed to a

i4 SIDNEY LANIER

lectureship in English Literature in the Johns Hop
kins University, and this meant a regular income.
What he might have accomplished with health
and strength back of his great genius who car
tell? As it was, often in intense pain and suffering,
he delivered his lectures on " Verse " and " The
Novel." " He was engaged in a three-fold strug
gle for health, for bread and for a literary career."
Although he spent most of the last years of his life
in Baltimore, yet he was compelled to go away
often in search of health. During severe illness
and in critical relapses, financial relief came from
his father and brother. How dark some of
Lanier's days seemed may be judged by his de
spairing lines in the poem " The Raven Days."

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,
Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks

Some sign out of the far land of To-morrow,

Some strip of sea-green dawn, some orange streaks.

Ye float in dusky files, forever croaking,

Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade.

Dumb in the dark, not even God invoking,
We lie in chains, too weak to be afraid.

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,

Will ever any warm light come again ?
Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow

Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain ?

SIDNEY LANIER 15

The works of Lanier abound in expressions of
deep and abiding faith in God. The poem, " The
Crystal," is a beautiful tribute to the perfect char
acter of Christ. The tenderest thing he ever
wrote about our Lord was his " A Ballad of
Trees and the Master," beginning:

Into the woods my Master went,

Clean forspent, forspent;

Into the woods my Master came,

Forspent with love and shame.

But the olives they were not blind to Him,

The little gray leaves were kind to Him,

The thorn-tree had a mind to Him,

When into the woods He came.

At the instigation of Bayard Taylor, Sidney
Lanier was complimented with the commission
to write the cantata for the opening of the Cen
tennial Exhibition in 1876.

Gradually overpowered by consuming fever, he
went, accompanied by his ever-devoted wife, to
West Chester, Pa., where his fourth child was
born. Unable to stand the climate, he soon re
turned to his home in Baltimore. At the end of
April, 1 88 1, he made his last visit to New York
to arrange about the publication of his " King
Arthur " series. In December of 1880, " when he
was too feeble to raise his food to his mouth, and
with fever at 104 degrees," writes William Hayes

16 SIDNEY LANIER

Ward, " he pencilled his last and greatest poem,
' Sunrise,' one of his projected series of the
' Hymns of the Marshes.' It seemed as if he
were in fear that he would die with it unuttered."
The doctors advised tent life, and with aid from
his brother Clifford, he and his family were ar
ranged in tents near Richmond Hill, three miles
from Asheville, N. C. But the passing time
brought no relief, and he began a journey in a car
riage across the mountains to Lynn, S. C. There
deadly sickness attacked him, and he died Septem
ber 7, 1881.

His wife and four children, Charles, Sidney,
Henry and Robert, were left to mourn his death.

He gave the memory of a spotless life of purity
as inheritance to his children, as well as his wealth
of poetry and prose. " Even to the end, words
of beauty and love and passion and melodious
meter poured from his brain, wanting only strength
to give them out to the needy world."

His body was taken to Baltimore. Services
were held in the church of St. Michael's, conducted
by the Rev. Dr. Wm. Kirlus. The poet's body
was buried in Green Mount Cemetery in a lot
owned by Mr. Lawrence Turnball.

The Rev. W. F. Tillett, of Vanderbilt Univer
sity, says: " Lanier was, like Wordsworth, a great
lover of Nature. Consider, for instance, that poem
which many critics have pronounced the finest he

SIDNEY LANIER 17

ever wrote, from an artistic point of view, ' The
Marshes of Glynn.' ' And again, " Lanier's
writings everywhere breathe the spirit of ethical
earnestness, and abound in allusions that reveal his
deep and abounding faith in God."

Thomas Nelson Page says : " Lanier died too
young, but not until he had proved that a great
poet could come from the South."

A bust of Sidney Lanier was presented to the
Johns Hopkins University by his kinsman, Charles
Lanier, of New York City. Sidney Lanier's prin
cipal works are : " Florida, Its Scenery, Cli
mate and History"; "Tiger Lilies," a novel;
"Poems," "The Boy's Froissart," "The Sci
ence of English Verse," " The Boy's King Ar
thur," "The Boy's Mabinogion," "The Boy's
Percy," " The English Novel and the Principles
of Its Development."

Among his musical works are " Choral Sym
phony," for chorus and orchestra; "Symphony
Life," in four movements, and " Symphony of the
Plantation."

From his last poem, " Sunrise," we quote these
lines :

Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves,
Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me
Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me, —
Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet

1 8 SIDNEY LANIER

That advise me of more than they bring, — repeat
Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath
From the heaven-side bank of the river of death, —
Teach me the terms of silence, — preach me
The passion of patience, — sift me, — impeach me, —

And there, oh there

As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air,
Pray me a myriad prayer.

THE MARSHES OF GYLNN *

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, —
Emerald twilights, —
Virginal shy lights,

Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colon
nades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,

Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn; —

Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, —
Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,
Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of
leaves, — •

* From poems of Sidney Lanier, copyrighted 1884, 1891, by
Mary D. Lanier; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

SIDNEY LANIER 19

Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that

grieves,
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the

wood,

Cool for the -dutiful weighing of ill with good ; —
Oh, braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the

vine,
While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did

shine

Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine ;
But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,
And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,
And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem
Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, —
Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of

the oak,
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome

sound of the stroke

Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I

know,
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass

within,
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the

marshes of Glynn
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me

of yore

When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bit
terness sore,
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable

pain
Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, —

20 SIDNEY LANIER

Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face

The vast sweet visage of space.

To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,
Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the

dawn,
For a mete and a mark

To the forest-dark: —

So:

Affable live-oak, leaning low, —
Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand,
(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!)
Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand
On the firm -packed sand,

Free
By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.

Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shim
mering band
Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to

the folds of the land.
Inward and outward to northward and southward the

beach-lines linger and curl
As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the

firm sweet limbs of a girl. f

Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,
Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping

of light.
And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods

stands high?
The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea

and the sky !

SIDNEY LANIER 21

A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad

in the blade,
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or

a shade,

Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,
To the terminal blue of the main.

Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?

Somehow my soul seems suddenly free
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the
marshes of Glynn.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withhold
ing and free

Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to
the sea!

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the
sun,

Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath
mightily won

God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain,

And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God ;
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and

the skies;

By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God;

22 SIDNEY LANIER

Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
And the sea lends large, as the marsh ; lo, out of his plenty

the sea

Pours fast : full soon the time of the flood-tide must be ;
Look how the grace of the sea doth go
About and about through the intricate channels that flow
Here and there,

Everywhere,
Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the

low-lying lanes,

And the marsh is meshed with a million veins,

That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow

In the rose-and-silver evening glow.

Farewell, my lord Sun!
The creeks overflow ; a thousand rivulets run
'Twixt the roots of the sod ; the blades of the marsh-grass

stir;

Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr ;
Passeth, and all is still ; and the currents cease to run ;
And the sea and the marsh are one.

How still the plains of the waters be !
The tide is in his ecstasy.
The tide is at his highest height:
And it is night.

And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of

sleep

Roll in on the souls of men,
But who will reveal to our waking ken

SIDNEY LANIER 23

The forms that swim and the shapes that creep

Under the waters of sleep ?
And I would I could know what swimmeth below when

the tide comes in
On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes

of Glynn.

AUGUSTA J. EVANS
1838

AUGUSTA J. EVANS, now Mrs. L. M. Wilson,
of Mobile, was born at Columbus, Georgia, in
1838. She had eight brothers and sisters, and she
is, on her mother's side, a descendant of the How
ards, one of the first families of Georgia.

When she was a mere child her father removed
with his family to Texas. They lived a while in
Galveston and Houston, and early in 1847 went
to the then frontier town of San Antonio.

Mrs. Wilson always retained vivid remem
brance of the life there, when the Mexican War
was at its height and San Antonio was the gather
ing place for United States troops sent to rein
force General Taylor, and when society there,
owing to the unsettled conditions, was thoroughly
disorganized. Her life necessarily was one of
much seclusion. There were no schools, and her
mother conducted her education at home. It was
during this life of isolation, when hours of
thought and reading were developing her mind
rapidly, that the idea of writing began to have at
tractions for the young girl.

24

AUGUSTA L EVANS 25

Early in her seventeenth year she wrote " Inez,"
in which she wished to embody the features of the
Texan war for independence and what she be
lieved to be a misuse of the Catholic religion. On
this account the book received much unfavorable
criticism, and her judgments were deemed imma
ture. Still, " Inez " received many favorable no
tices, considering the youth of the writer.

No one but her mother had known of her am
bitious undertaking, until one Christmas morning
Miss Evans placed her finished manuscript in her
father's hands. It was published in 1855, anony
mously.

Continuing a severe course of study Miss Evans
confined her writing to articles for Mobile papers,
and it was not till 1859 that " Beulah " appeared,
being published by Messrs. Derby and Jackson.
The book became very popular. The thread run
ning through the story is the baneful influence of
skepticism, and the author is very realistic in the
road over which she makes the heroine travel.
" She takes ' Beulah ' by the hand and goes over
the ground of unbelief with merciless fidelity; not
a doubt is left unassailed; every dragon of specu
lation is unearthed, and over and again is fought
the strong battle." Beulah Benton and Guy Hart
well make a grim pair of lovers with discussions
of " ontology," " psychology," and " eclecticisms ";
but they are strong, fine characters. Miss Evans

26 AUGUSTA J. EVANS

has no touch of anything impure or sensual in
any of her writings.

At the age of twenty-three, when " Beulah "
was written, the author had studied deeply into
metaphysics, her life and the habits of a recluse
having given her the opportunity. Of her mother
Miss Evans said: " She has been my Alma Mater,
to whom I owe everything, and whom I reverence
more than all else on earth." In her home at
Mobile Mrs. Wilson fills her days with steady ap
plication and those unobtrusive, kindly acts which
prove her to be a beautiful and noble woman.

Her other novels are: "St. Elmo," " Vashti,"
" Infelice," " At the Mercy of Tiberius," " Mi-
caria " and " The Speckled Bird."

After a silence of many years Miss Evans pro
duced her late work, " The Speckled Bird," which
was looked for with great eagerness. It has been
much criticised, both favorably and adversely.

" Whatever may be said of Miss Evans, she is
a writer of great strength, and while her style is
somewhat florid, she never sacrifices her meaning
by ambiguous words. She paints all her pictures
in brilliant colorings, but they are the kind that
only a true artist dare essay. She is skilled with her
palette of words, like the great artist that she is,
and if she paints a sunset, there is no doubt
that it is a realistic one in each instance. That she
uses the adjective, there is no doubt, but that she

AUGUST A J. EVANS 27

is injudicious, no one can say who will analyze
her motive. In other words, she is a most potent
user of our very elastic language, and gets the
best possible meaning out of it. Not a juggler
of words in any sense, she commands her tongue
to its fullest scope, and dares put colorings that
weaker thinkers would refrain from readily. It is
this very boldness of touch, stroke and tint that
gives glow and beauty to her thought and mode
of expression."

ST. ELMO

" He stood and measured the earth: and the everlasting
mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow."

These words of the prophet of Shigionoth were sung
by a sweet, happy, childish voice, and to a wild, anomalous
tune, solemn as the Hebrew chant of Deborah, and fully
as triumphant.

A slender girl of twelve years' growth steadied a pail
of water on her head, with both dimpled arms thrown up,
in ancient classic Caryatides attitude, and, pausing a mo
ment beside the spring, stood fronting the great golden
dawn", — watching for the first level ray of the coming sun,
and chanting the prayer of Habakkuk. Behind her in
silent grandeur towered the huge outline of Lookout
Mountain, shrouded at summit in gray mist, while centre
and base showed dense masses of foliage dim and purplish
in the distance, a stern, cowled monk of the Cumberland
brotherhood. Low hills clustered on either side, but im
mediately in front stretched a wooded plain, and across
this the child looked at the flushed sky, rapidly brightening

28 AUGUSTA J. EVANS

into fiery and blinding radiance, until her wild song
waked echoes among the far-off rocks. The holy hush
of early morning had rested like a benediction upon the
scene, as though nature had laid her broad finger over
her great lips, and waited in reverent silence the advent
of the sun. Morning among the mountains possessed
witcheries and glories which filled the heart of the girl
with adoration and called from her lips rude but exultant
anthems of praise. The young face, lifted toward the
cloudless east, might have served as a model for a pic
tured Syriac priestess, one of Baalbec's vestals ministering
in the olden time in that wondrous and grand temple at
Heliopolis.

The large black eyes held a singular fascination in their
mild sparkling depths, now full of tender loving light
and childish gladness, and the flexible red lips curved in
lines of orthodox Greek perfection, showing remarkable
versatility of expression; while the broad, full, polished
forehead, with its prominent, swelling brows, could not
fail to recall even to casual observers the calm, powerful
face of Lorenzo de Medici, which if once looked on, fas
tens itself upon heart and brain, to be forgotten no more.
Her hair, black, straight, waveless as an Indian's, hung
around her shoulders, and glistened, as the water from the
dripping bucket, through the wreath of purple morning
glories and scarlet cypress, which she had twined about her
head ere lifting the cedar pail to its resting place. She
wore a short-sleeved dress of yellow-striped home-spun,
which fell nearly to her ankles, and her little bare feet
gleamed pearly white on the green grass and rank dewy
creepers that clustered along the margin of the bubbling
spring. Her complexion was unusually transparent, and

AUGUSTA J. EVANS 29

early exercise and mountain air had rouged her cheeks
till they matched the brilliant hue of her scarlet crown.

A few steps in advance of her stood a large, fierce yel
low dog, with black scowling face, and ears cut close to
his head, a savage, repulsive creature, who looked as if
he rejoiced in an opportunity of making good his name,
" Grip." In the solemn beauty of that summer morning,
the girl seemed to have forgotten the mission upon which
she came, but, as she loitered, the sun flashed up, kindling
diamond fringes on every dew-beaded chestnut leaf and
oak bough, and silvering the misty mantle which envel
oped Lookout. A moment longer that pure-hearted Ten
nessee child stood watching the gorgeous spectacle, drinking
draughts of joy, which mingled no drop of sin or selfish
ness in its crystal waves, for she had grown up alone with
nature, — utterly ignorant of the roar and strife, the burn
ing hate, and cunning intrigue of the great world of men
and women, where " like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed
vipers, each struggles to get its head above the other." To
her, earth seemed very lovely, life stretched before her
like the sun's path in that clear sky, and, free from care
and foreboding as the fair June day, she walked on pre
ceded by her dog — and the chant burst once more from
her lips. " She stood and measured the earth ; and the
everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual

hills •" The sudden, almost simultaneous report of

two pistol shots rang out sharply on the cool calm air, and
startled the child so violently that she sprang forward and
dropped the bucket. The sound of voices reached her
from the thick wood bordering the path, and, without
reflection, she followed the dog, who bounded off toward
the point whence it issued. Upon the verge of the forest

30 AUGUSTA J. EVANS

she paused, and looking down a dewy glade where the
rising sun darted its earliest arrowy rays, beheld a spectacle
which burned itself upon her memory. A group of five
gentlemen stood beneath the dripping chestnut and sweet
gum arches; one leaned against the trunk of a tree, two
were conversing in undertones, and two faced each other
fifteen paces apart, with pistols in their hands. Ere she
could comprehend the scene the brief conference ended,
the seconds resumed their places to witness another fire,
and like the peal of a trumpet echoed the words: " Fire!
One — two — three ! "

The flash and ringing report mingled with the com
mand, and one of the principals threw up his arm and
fell. When with horror in her wide-strained eyes and
pallor on her lips, the child staggered to the spot, and
looked on the prostrate form, he was dead. The hazel
eyes stared blankly at the sky, and the hue of life and ex
uberant health still glowed on the full cheek, but the
ball had entered the heart, and the warm blood, bubbling
from his breast, dripped on the glistening grass. The
surgeon who knelt beside him took the pistol from his
clenched fingers, and gently pressed the lids over his glaz
ing eyes. Not a word was uttered, but while the seconds
sadly regarded the stiffening form, the surviving principal
coolly drew a cigar, lighted it, and placed it between his
lips. The child's eyes had wandered to the latter from the
pool of blood, and now in a shuddering cry she broke the
silence.

"Murderer!"

The party looked around instantly and for the first
time perceived her standing there in their midst, with
loathing and horror in the gaze she fixed on the perpe-

AUGUSTA J. EVANS 31

trator of the awful deed. In great surprise he drew back
a step or two and asked gruffly :

"Who are you? What business have you here?"

" Oh! how dared you murder him? Do you think God
will forgive you on the gallows? " «

He was a man probably twenty-seven years of age,
singularly fair, handsome, and hardened in iniquity, but
he cowered before the blanched and accusing face of the
child, and ere a reply could be framed, his friend came
close to him.

" Clinton, you had better be off. You have barely
time to catch the Knoxville train, which leaves Chatta
nooga in half an hour. I would advise you to make a long
stay down in New York, for there will be trouble when
Dent's brother hears of this morning's work."

"Aye! Take my word for that, and put the Atlantic
between you and Dick Dent," added the surgeon, smiling
grimly, as if the anticipation of retributive justice afforded
him pleasure.

" I will simply put this between lis," replied the homi
cide, fitting his pistol to the palm of his hand, and as he
did so a heavy antique diamond ring flashed on his little
ringer.

Without even glancing toward the body of his antago
nist, Clinton scowled at the child, and, turning away, was
soon out of sight.

" Oh, sir! " will you let him get away? Will you let
him go unpunished ? "

" He cannot be punished," answered the surgeon, look
ing at her with mingled curiosity and admiration.

" I thought men were hung for murder."

" Yes — but this is not murder."

32 AUGUSTA J. EVANS

" Not murder? He shot him dead! What is it? "

" He killed him in a duel, which is considered quite

right and altogether proper."

" A duel ? " She had never heard the word before.

" To take a man's life is murder."

THEODORE O'HARA

1820—1867

THIS soldier-poet was born in Danville, Ken
tucky, January n, 1820. His father, Keen
O'Hara, an Irish gentleman and scholar, came to
America during the revolutionary troubles in Ire
land. " Though belonging to the Irish gentry,
he had been an ardent rebel in the famous up
rising in 1798, which cost young Emmet his life.
Eluding the vigilance of the British officers, Keen
O'Hara was fortunate enough to escape to Amer
ica." He settled in Danville, Kentucky, where he
taught in the academy at that place, and later he
established a school in Jefferson County, where
among his pupils were Zachary Taylor, afterwards
President of the United States, and Colonel George
Grogham, known in history as the " hero of San-
dusky."

Inheriting his father's patriotic temperament,
Theodore O'Hara early gave evidence of an un
usually fine mentality, and all the enthusiasm and
ardor of an Irish temperament.

He was given the benefit of a thorough college
education in the Catholic schools of Kentucky,

33

34 THEODORE O'HARA

and soon became an accomplished scholar, espe
cially in ancient and modern languages. He was
admitted to the bar in 1842, but the practice of
law offered few attractions to his poetic mind, and
he went into journalistic work as editor of " The
Frankfort Yeoman," and later of " The Louis
ville Times."

From a letter of J. Stoddard Johnson, a life-long
friend, we have the following facts of his brilliant
career: "On the breaking out of the Mexican
War Theodore O'Hara was appointed captain
and assistant quartermaster of the volunteers. He
was brevetted for gallant and meritorious conduct
at the battle of Cherubusco, and honorably dis
charged October 15, 1848."

O'Hara now resumed the editorship of " The
Frankfort Yeoman." In 1850 he took part with
Lopez in the first Cuban Expedition with the rank
of colonel. At Cardenas, while making a success
ful charge on the Governor's palace, he was se
verely wounded, and was brought back to the
United States. Fortunately he was not sufficiently
recovered to return in the Second Expedition, and
thus escaped the fate of Lopez, Crittenden, and
others, who were captured and shot.

Subsequently O'Hara entered the regular army
and was made captain in the famous " Second
Cavalry," with whose fortunes have been associ
ated such men as Robert E. Lee, George H.

THEODORE O'HARA 35

Thomas, Albert Sidney Johnston, Kirby Smith,
and John B. Hood, each destined to achieve dis
tinction in the bloody conflict of the sixties.

At the breaking out of the Civil War O'Hara
was living in Mobile, where he had been connected
editorially with " The Mobile Register," but he
immediately enlisted in the Confederate Army, en
tering the Twelfth Alabama Infantry as lieu
tenant-colonel. A short time before the battle of
Shiloh he was invited by General Albert Sidney
Johnston to become a member of his personal staff,
and resigning his regimental position, O'Hara
accepted. At the battle of Shiloh he was near
the side of Johnston when the latter was mor
tally wounded, and accompanied the General's
remains to New Orleans. Colonel O'Hara then
became a member of the staff of General John C.
Breckinridge, as inspector-general, and at the
battle of Murfreesboro, December 31, 1862, and
for some time afterwards was acting chief-of-
staff. In the early summer of 1863 he retired
from active military service and made his home
in Columbus, Georgia, where, at the close of the
war, he engaged in the cotton business. In the
spring of 1867 he was living on the plantation of
a friend, Captain Grant, near Guerryton, Bullock
County, Alabama, where he died June 6, 1867.
In 1873, by resolution of the Legislature of Ken
tucky, Colonel O'Hara's remains were brought

36 THEODORE O'HARA

home to his native State and interred, after an
address delivered by General Wm. Preston, in the
presence of a large assembly of citizens. His body
rests in the State military department of the ceme
tery,

" And kindred eyes and hearts watch by the hero's
sepulcher."

Colonel O'Hara was never married. He was
a man of strikingly handsome person, and with
a fine intellectual countenance. To superior clas
sical attainments he added the qualities of a bril
liant orator and poet. No collection of either
his poems or orations having been made, his fame
as an orator lives only in tradition, while as a
poet, his merit now is attested by his widely quoted
poem " The Bivouac of the Dead." In regard to
the time of the production of this noble poem
there exists much error. It is generally said to
have been written on the occasion of the imposing
public funeral given by the Commonwealth of
Kentucky to her soldiers who had fallen in Mexico.
This event occurred July 20, 1847, at which time
Colonel O'Hara was in Mexico. The weight of
authority tends to show that the poem was not
written till 1850. It has been quoted everywhere
over our land, and lines from it are to be found in
a large number of the principal Federal ceme
teries.

THEODORE O'HARA 37

Another touching poem of this poet-soldier is
" The Old Pioneer." A handsome marble monu
ment in the cemetery at Frankfort is simply in
scribed with his name and date of his death. Mr.
George W. Ranch, in his little volume entitled
" The Bivouac of the Dead and Its Author," says
that he hopes some day this inscription may be
changed to read u Theodore O'Hara, Author of
' The Bivouac of the Dead,' " for he has given to
the world one of its most precious gems of mar
tial poetry.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on Life's parade shall meet

That brave and fallen few.

On Fame's eternal camping-ground

Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards, with solemn round,

The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance

Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts

Of loved ones left behind ;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms;

No braying horn, nor screaming fife

At dawn shall call to arms.

145827

38 THEODORE O'HARA

Their shivered swords are red with rust,

Their plumed heads are bowed ;

Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,

Is now their martial shroud —

And plenteous funeral tears have washed

The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed,

Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,

The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,

The din and shout, are past;

Nor War's wild note, nor Glory's peal,

Shall thrill with fierce delight

Those breasts that never more may feel

The rapture of the fight.

Full many a Norther's breath has swept

O'er Angostura's plain,

And long the pitying sky has wept

Above its moldering slain.

The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,

Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.

THEODORE O'HARA 39

Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from War his richest spoil —
The ashes of her brave.

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,

Far from the gory field ;

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast

On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky

Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by

The heroes' sepulcher.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave!
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave ;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone

In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished year hath flown,

The story how ye fell ;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor Winter's blight,

Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of holy light

That gilds your glorious tomb.

— Courtesy of J. Stoddard Johnson.

MRS. ROSA VERTNER JOHNSON (GRIF
FITH)

1828—1894

MRS. JOH.NSON was born in Natchez, Missis
sippi, in 1828, her maiden name being Griffith.
When she was nine years old her mother died, but
she found in her maternal aunt, Mrs. Vertner,
a second mother, from whom she received faith
ful love and fostering care. By adoption the
name of Vertner became hers, and later in life
she said, " I have never known the misery of being
motherless, as she [Mrs. Vertner] fulfilled most
tenderly and unceasingly a fond mother's duty
toward me."

Mary Forrest says the early childhood of Rosa
Vertner was passed at Burlington, a beautiful
country-seat near Port Gibson, Mississippi. Her
fondness for this place amounted almost to a pas
sion. " Here," said Rosa, " I learned to think
and feel," and here her poetical talent began to
express itself. She prattled in rhyme long before
she could write. The charms of " Burlington "
and its refined influences, and the constant sym
pathy and instruction of her poet-father rapidly

40

ROSA FERTNER JOHNSON 41

developed the mind and heart of this beautiful
girl.

For the sake of her education the family moved
when she was ten years of age to Kentucky, and
Rosa was placed in the noted seminary of Bishop
Smith, a school located in Lexington. At the age
of seventeen Miss Vertner married Claud M.
Johnson, a manly gentleman of considerable for
tune. Her life was then spent in a delightful
manner: in summer with her adopted mother in
Lexington, and in winter at her husband's planta
tion in Louisiana. She became the mother of six
children, two of whom died young.

The poem " Angel Watchers " beautifully ex
presses the mother pain of these separations. Mrs.
Johnson first became a contributor to " The Louis
ville Journal " under the name of " Rosa," and
the greater number of her poems were published
here, though she contributed also to the " Home
Journal " and many other magazines. The first
volume of her poems was published in 1857 in
Boston. Of this collection the editor of " The
Louisville Journal" said: " In the blooming field
of modern poetry we really know not where to
look for productions at once so full of merit and
so free from defect."

Mary Forrest says : " Subordinate to the literary
quality of her productions, but more striking to
the superficial eye, is the marvelous wealth and

42 ROSA VERTNER JOHNSON

delicacy of her fancy. The fertility of her con
ception seems positively inexhaustible."

In " The First Eclipse " and " The Frozen
Ship " she essayed the higher types of thought
and imagination, and here she met with great suc
cess. In " Women of the South " we find these
words concerning Mrs. Johnson, who, after the
death of her first husband, became Mrs. Jeffreys:
" In many of the works of this writer we see
glimpses of a substratum of passionate power,
which has never been stirred. A deep fountain
was troubled at the death of her children, but
troubled by an angel, and her songs grew only
more low and tender. ' Hasheesh Visions ' does
not lack impassioned element, but it has the crazy
play and prodigality of words evolved from the
heights of the brain and not from the depths of
feeling."

Her best production in fiction is " Woodburn,"
which appeared in 1864. There is not the least
effort in this book after what is called fine writing.
The whole tale of love and hate, of joy and woe,
is told with the simplicity and childlike earnestness
which seem to characterize the nature of little
" Amy Percy " herself, the youthful story-teller.
It is a description of social Southern life before
the war, and abounds in truthful pictures of the
happy, easy, care-free days of that favored and
prosperous time. The frank cordiality, the warm-

ROSA 7ERTNER JOHNSON 43

hearted hospitality, the gay rides and merry meet
ings of friends and neighbors, are all true delinea
tions of that happiest time among the dwellers
in the " Land of the Mocking-bird and Mag
nolia." Under the name of Mrs. Rosa Vertner
Jeffreys this writer was best known in the later
years of her life. She spent some time with her
adopted mother in New York City and died in
1894, beloved and admired by all who knew her.
" The Night Has Come " has been called one of
her poetical productions.

THE NIGHT HAS COME

The night has come when I may sleep,

To dream, perchance of thee —
And where art thou? Where south winds sweep

Along a southern sea.
Thy home a glorious tropic isle

On which the sun with pride
Doth smile as might a sultan smile

On his Circassian bride.

And where the south wind gently stirs

A chime of fragrant bells,
While come the waves as worshipers,

With rosary of shells
The altars on the shore to wreathe,

Where, in the twilight dim,
Like nuns, the foam-veiled breakers breathe

Their wild and gushing hymn.

44 ROSA FERTNER JOHNSON

The night has come, and I will glide

O'er sleep's hushed waves the while,
In dreams to wander by thy side

Through that enchanting isle.
For, in the dark, my fancy seems

As full of witching spells
As yon blue sky of starry beams

Or ocean-depths of shells.

Yet sometimes visions do becloud

My soul with such strange fears,
They wrap me like an icy shroud

And leave my soul in tears.
For once me thought thy hand did bind

Upon my brow a wreath
In which a viper was entwined

That stung me — unto death.

And once within a lotus cup,

Which thou to me didst bring,
A deadly vampire folded up

Its cold and murky wing;
And springing from that dewy nest,

It drained life's azure rills,
That wandered o'er my swelling breast,

Like brooks through snow-clad hills.

Yet seemed it sweeter thus to die

There, in thy very sight,
Than see thee 'neath that tropic sky,

As in my dreams last night.

ROSA VERTNER JOHNSON 45

For lo, within a palmy grove,

Unto an Eastern maid
I heard thee whispering vows of love

Beneath the feathery shade.

And stately as the palm was she,

Yet thrilled with thy wild words,
As its green crown might shaken be

By many bright-winged birds;
And 'neath thy smile, in her dark eye,

A rapturous light did spring,
As in a lake soft shadows lie,

Dropped from the rainbow's wing.

Some of her other works are " Poems by Rosa,"
and " The Crimson Hand and Marsh," a novel.

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

1795—1870

THE father of this noted writer was from the
north of Ireland. He settled in Baltimore and
became a successful merchant. He married Miss
Nancy Pendleton of Martinsburg, Virginia, in
1794, and the next year their son was born, John
Pendleton Kennedy. Even in boyhood he began
to show a strong tendency for literature, and at
school, though he studied all the various branches
taught, yet a miscellaneous kind of writing was
continually pursued by this ambitious boy.

In 1809 his father bought a cottage home in the
country called " Shrub-Hill," from which home
John Pendleton Kennedy rode daily to Baltimore
College. Later he studied law and was admitted
to the bar in 1816. However, the practice of law
was distasteful to him, although he had a great
admiration for lawyers. Baltimore was a city of
much culture, and the association with such men as
Pinckney, Hoffman, Poe, Pierpont and Sparks kept
alive his passion for literary work. He was a
friend also of Washington Irving, and together,
on horseback, they traveled over western New
York. He was elected to the Maryland Legisla-

46

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY 47

ture in 1820, and later, in 1838, to Congress. Dur
ing Mr. Fillmore's administration he was Secre
tary of the Navy, doing valuable service for the
government.

Mr. Kennedy married a daughter of Judge Ten-
nant, of Baltimore, but she died soon after, and
his second wife was a Miss Elizabeth Gray, with
whom he lived for forty-one very happy years. His
frequent visits to Virginia with his mother, which
were continued sometimes with his wife, and often
alone on horseback, gave him an intimate knowl
edge of the habits, life, hospitality, manners, plan
tations and romances of Virginia, the State
endeared to him by many ties.

When his story, " Swallow Barn," appeared,
there had been few really faithful pictures of
Southern life, and the book met with cordial re
ception both in the North and the South. Profes
sor Link says: " No historian can afford to neglect
the pages of ' Swallow Barn.' ' The demand for
this book has been so continued that G. P. Putnam
& Sons brought out a new edition in 1895.

Kennedy traveled in Europe and there became
acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray,
for whom it is said he wrote a chapter in " Vanity
Fair," the fourth chapter of the second volume.

When in America he traveled much on horse
back, which gave him opportunity to meet
many of the characters he afterward put in his

48 JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

novels. He was the true and tried friend of Edgar
Allan Poe, ever ready to help him and ever be
lieving in his genius. Kennedy's style of writing
follows closely that of his friend Irving.

His principal works are: "Swallow Barn,"
" Horse-Shoe Robinson," " Rob of the Bowl,"
" Red Book," an anonymous collection of prose
and verse; "Annals of Quodlibet," "Memoirs
of William Wirt," addresses, and other prose
writings.

In " Swallow Barn " we find exquisite descrip
tions of country life in Virginia " as it existed,"
Kennedy writes, " in the first quarter of the pres
ent century, the mellow, bland, and sunny luxu
riance of the old-time society — its good fellowship,
its hearty and constitutional companionableness,
the thriftless gayety of the people and that over
flowing hospitality which knew no ebb."

Speaking of the country homes in Virginia he
says: "You never know your friend so well or
enjoy him so heartily in the city as you may in one
of those large, bountiful mansions, whose horizon
is filled with green fields and woodland slopes and
broad blue heavens."

Frank Merriweth he describes: "A landed
proprietor, with a good house and a host of serv
ants, is naturally a hospitable man. A guest is
one of his daily wants."

The description of the dinner-table portrays to

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY 49

perfection the abundant supply that graced the
hospitable board.

The table was furnished with a profusion of the delica
cies afforded by the country; and, notwithstanding it was
much more ample than the accommodation of the guests
required, it seemed to be stored rather with a reference to
its own dimensions than to the number or wants of those
who were collected around it. At the head, immediately
under the eye of our hostess, in the customary pride of
place, was deposited a goodly ham of bacon, rich in its own
perfections, as well as in the endemic honors that belong
to it in the Old Dominion. According to a usage worthy
of imitation, it was clothed in its own dark skin, which
the imaginative mistress of the kitchen had embellished
by carving into some fanciful figures. The opposite end
of the table smoked with a huge roasted saddle of mutton,
which seemed, from its trim and spruce air, ready to gal
lop off the dish. Between these two extremes was scat
tered an enticing diversity of poultry, prepared with many
savory adjuncts, and especially that tropical luxury, which
yet so slowly finds its way northward, — fried chicken, —
sworn brother to the ham, and old Virginia's standard
dish. The intervening spaces displayed a profusion of the
products of the garden ; nor were oysters and crabs want
ing where room allowed ; and, where nothing else could
be deposited, as if scrupulous of showing a bare spot of
the table-cloth, the bountiful forethought of Mistress
Winkle had provided a choice selection of pickles of every
color and kind. From the whole array of the board it
was obvious that abundance and variety were deemed no

50 JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

less essential to the entertainment than the excellence of
the viands."

The story of old Lucy and her son Abe in
" Swallow Barn " is one of exquisite pathos.

Abe was the youngest son of old Lucy. He had noth
ing of the flat nose and broad hip of his tribe — 'but his face
was moulded with the prevailing characteristics of the
negroes of the West Indies. He had been trained to the
work of a blacksmith. But a habit of associating with the
most profligate menials belonging to the extensive commu
nity of Swallow Barn and the neighboring estates cor
rupted his character. Merriweth, the master, was strongly
imbued with repugnance against disposing of any of his
negroes, but finally Abe's transgressions became so numer
ous that to save him from a worse fate the master
determined to ship him for a while on one of the sailing
vessels that frequented the harbor. There never was a
more exemplary domestic than the mother. Abe had al
ways lived in her cabin. Although she was continually
tormented with his misdeeds and did not fail to reprove
him with habitual harshness, still her heart yearned se
cretly toward him.

It was very hard to convince the mind of a mother of
the justice of the sentence that deprives her of her child.
Lucy heard all of the arguments to justify the necessity
of sending Abe abroad, assented to it all, bowed her head,
as if entirely convinced — and thought it very hard. She
was told that it was the only expedient to save him from
prison. She admitted it, but it was a source of unuttera
ble anguish to her, which no kindness on the part of the

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY 51

family could mitigate, and old Lucy gave way to pas
sionate wailing of despair.

This burst of feeling had its expected effect upon Lucy.
She seemed to be suddenly relieved, and was able to ad
dress a few short words of parting to Abe; then taking
from the plaits of her bosom a small leather purse con
taining a scant stock of silver, — the hoard of past years, —
she put it into the unresisting hand of Abe. The boy
looked at the faded bag for a moment, and gathering up
something like a smile upon his face, he forced the money
back upon his mother, himself replacing it in the bosom
of her dress. " You don't think I am going to take your
money with me!" said he. "I never cared about the
best silver my master ever had: no, nor for freedom
neither. I thought I was always going to stay here on
the plantation. I would rather have the handkerchief you
wear around your neck than all the silver you ever
owned."

Lucy took the handkerchief from her shoulders, and
put it in his hand. Abe drew it into a loose knot about
his throat, then turned briskly round, shook hands with
the by-standers, and, shouldering his chest, moved with
the boatman at a rapid pace toward the beach.

In a few moments afterwards he was seen standing up
in the boat, as it shot out from beneath the bank, and
waving his hand to the dusky group he had just left.

Then Kennedy gives the account of the ship
wreck when all perished save one sailor, who told
the story of Abe's daring and heroism in trying
to save the crew and vessel.

52 JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

I might stop to compare this act of an humble and un
known negro, upon the Chesapeake, with the many similar
passages in the lives of heroes whose names have been
preserved fresh in the verdure of history, and who have
won their immortality upon less noble feats than this ; but
History is a step-mother, and gives the bauble fame to her
own children, with such favoritism as she lists, overlook
ing many a goodly portion of the family of her husband
Time. Still, it was a gallant thing, and worthy of a
better chronicler than I, to see this leader and his little
band — the children of a despised stock — swayed by a noble
emulation to relieve the distressed; and, what the fashion
of the world will deem a higher glory, impelled by that
love of daring which the romancers call chivalry — throw
ing themselves upon the unruly waves of winter, and fly
ing, on the wing of the storm, into the profound, dark
abyss of ocean, when all his terrors were gathering in
their most hideous forms; when the spirit of ill shrieked
in the blast, and thick night, dreary with unusual horrors,
was falling close around them; when old mariners grew
pale with the thought of the danger, and the wisest coun
selled the adventurers against the certain doom that hung
upon their path: — I say, it was a gallant sight to see such
heroism shining out in an humble slave of the Old
Dominion !

Under the terrible grief for loss of her son, the mind
of old Lucy gives way, and she continues to look for
Abe, saying always to her master, " I cannot give him up,
Massa Frank," and she looked continually for him to
return.

One dark and blustering night of winter, the third

JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY 53

anniversary of that on which Abe had sailed upon his
desperate voyage, — for Lucy had noted the date, although
others had not — near midnight, the inhabitants of the
Quarter were roused from their respective cabins by loud
knockings in succession at their doors ; and when each was
opened, there stood the decrepit figure of old Lucy, who
was thus making a circuit to invite her neighbors, as she
said, to her house.

" He has come back! " said Lucy to each one, as they
loosed their bolts; " he has come back! I always told you
he would come back upon this very night ! Come and see
him! Come and see him! Abe is waiting to see his
friends to-night."

Either awed by the superstitious feeling that a maniac
inspires in the breasts of the ignorant, or incited by curi
osity, most of the old negroes followed Lucy to her cabin.
As they approached it, the windows gleamed with a broad
light, and it was with some strange sensations of terror
that they assembled at her threshold, where she stood upon
the step, with her hand upon the latch. Before she opened
the door to admit her wondering guests, she applied her
mouth to the key-hole, and said in an audible whisper,
" Abe, the people are all ready to see you, honey! Don't
be frightened, — there's nobody will do you harm ! "

Then, turning toward her companions, she said, bow
ing her head, — •

" Come in, good folks! There's plenty for you all.
Come in and see how he is grown ! "

She now threw open the door, and, followed by the
rest, entered the room. There was a small table set out,
covered with a sheet; and upon it three or four candles
were placed in bottles for candlesticks. All the chairs she

54 JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY

had were ranged around this table, and a bright fire blazed
in the hearth.

" Speak to them, Abe!" said the old woman, with a
broad laugh. " This is Uncle Jeff, and here is Dinah, and
here is Ben," — and in this manner she ran over the names
of all present ; then continued :

Sit down, you negroes ! Have you no manners ? Sit
down and eat as much as you choose; there is plenty in
the house. Mammy Lucy knew Abe was coming; and
see what a fine feast she has made for him ! "

She now seated herself, and addressing an empty chair
beside her, as if someone occupied it, lavished upon the
imaginary Abe a thousand expressions of solicitude and
kindness. At length she said :

" The poor boy is tired, for he has not slept these many
long nights. You must leave him now — he will go to
bed. Get you gone! get you gone! you have all eaten
enough ! "

Dismayed and wrought upon by the unnatural aspect of
the scene, the party of visitors quitted the cabin almost
immediately upon the command, and the crazed old menial
was left alone to indulge her sad communion with the
vision of her fancy.

Permission of G. P. Putnam & Sons.

MADAME OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT

1810 — 1877

GEORGE WALTON, the grandfather of Madame
Le Vert, was a native of Prince Edward County,
Virginia, but removed at an early day to Georgia.
He was a member of the first Congress convened
at Philadelphia, was Governor of Georgia, and
Judge of the Supreme Court. He was also one
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Not long before the Revolution he married Miss
Camber, daughter of an English nobleman, to
whom the crown had given large possessions. Two
children, a girl and boy, blessed this union. The
son, George Walton, traveled much and held
many honorable positions in Georgia and also in
Florida. Octavia Walton, his daughter, was born
at Belle Vue, near Augusta, Georgia, in 1810, but
as her parents soon removed to Florida, her ear
liest memories are of its orange trees, its flowers,
and sunshine, of which she speaks in her own beau
tiful language. " The orange and live oak trees,
shading the broad veranda; the fragrant acacia,
oleander, and cape jasmine trees which filled the
parterre sloping along to the sea beach ; the merry

55

56 OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT

races with my brother along the white sands,
while the creamy waves broke at my feet, and the
delicious breeze from the gulf played in my hair;
rny pet mocking-birds in the giant oak by my win
dow, whose songs called me each morning from
dreamland."

Amid the glories of the warm Southland the
young girl absorbed the feelings, thoughts and
poetical tastes which are ever present in all her
writings.

Before she was twelve years of age she could
write and converse in three languages with facility.
It was a common thing for her father to receive
at his office letters in French and Spanish, which
she would interpret with surprising ease. While
Governor of Florida, her father located the seat
of government and at her desire named it " Talla
hassee."

A pleasing and never-to-be-forgotten pleasure
of her life was her meeting with Lafayette, who
had been the friend of her grandmother. He
folded the child to his heart, and called her " A
truly wonderful child." She had conversed with
him, with wonderful correctness, in his own lan
guage.

Octavia Walton was never placed at school
away from home; both her mother and grand
mother instructed her, and they were assisted by
private tutors. An old Scotchman, a classic scholar

OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT 57

and linguist, lived for years in their home, and
Octavia and her brother studied under him.

After the family moved to Mobile, Octavia,
in company with her mother and brother, made
an extended tour over the United States, where
she was everywhere crowned a reigning belle. She
met Washington Irving and began a friendship
which lasted during his life. He corresponded
with her, watched her literary course, and received
her joyfully at " Sunnyside." On the occasion
of her last visit, when she was leaving, Irving
said, tenderly : " I feel as if the sunshine was all
going away with you, my child." Henry Clay,
Calhoun, and Webster were all her personal
friends.

Growing up under such rare intellectual influ
ences, it is not surprising that Miss Walton de
veloped into a most charming young woman. In
1836 she married Dr. Henry Le Vert of Mobile,
a man of great moral worth and a noted physi
cian. His father had come to America with La
fayette as fleet surgeon under Rochambeau, and
was present at the taking of Yorktown. Dr. Le
Vert, the son of this noble ancestry, was in every
way worthy to be the husband of the attractive
woman he married, and in every way Madame Le
Vert, as she was now called, was the willing co-
worker with the good doctor in all of his unknown
charities and humane labors.

58 OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT

Great sorrow came to Madame Le Vert in the
death of her idolized brother and in that of her
two children. For several years prostrated in mind
and body, she lived in great seclusion. Then, in
1853, she accepted an invitation to visit the family
of the Duke of Rutland, and thus began the jour
neys through which the world is indebted for her
books, " Souvenirs of Travel." These books are
made up largely of letters to her mother, and be
sides the instructive and truthful descriptions, have
all the freshness, vivacity, imagery and genius of
the writer's mind expressed in exquisite English,
and likewise a simple-hearted, child-like " colour
de Rose," which creates a work fascinating to
read. " The Way over the Simplon," " The As
cent and Eruption of Vesuvius," " Moonlight in
Venice," " The Golden and the Silver Illumina
tions," are some of the many beautiful and graphic
descriptions.

Lamertine said to her after listening to her
brilliant description of a tour in Spain: " Ma
dame, you are a natural improvisatrice."

Her translation, printed in " The Mobile Regis
ter," of " The Pope and the Congress " was pro
nounced by French scholars to be a most admirable
rendering.

Among her literary works Madame Le Vert
found time to labor zealously in the cause of pre
serving Mount Vernon. She was one of the first

OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT 59

to advocate the project and was Vice-Regent of
the Association for Alabama.

Her home on Government Street in Mobile was
a plain, substantial mansion, combining taste, ele
gance, and comfort. She had an immense library
and rare works of art. She had remarkable con
versational powers, and that kindness of heart
which made her thoroughly democratic.

Between Madame Le Vert and Fredrika
Bremer there existed a pure and continued friend
ship. A gentleman friend paid her this greatest
of all compliments: "I defy anybody to spend
an hour in her company without being a wiser and
a better man."

Madame Le Vert died in 1877. Her books
are practically out of print, but those who possess
copies of them feel that they are treasures. From
the second volume of " Souvenirs of Travel," pub
lished by Derby & Jackson, New York, in 1859,
we take the following selections :

In describing her visit to St. Peter's, Madame
Le Vert says :

Driving rapidly to the hotel, we quickly dined, and re
turned to St. Peter's just at twilight. In the choral chapel
they were singing the Miserere. Seating ourselves by the
open door, a perfect flood of melody swept over us, swell
ing and seeming to linger long beneath the mighty dome
and around the lofty arches. When the music ceased, a
procession of cardinals, bishops, and priests moved slowly

60 OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT

up the aisle to the grand altar, which they washed with
wine, chanting in a solemn manner during the time. The
darkness was intense, save where the monks held lamps in
their hands. The crosses were all wrapped in black, the
pictures veiled. At intervals a wild and plaintive cry
would break the monotony of the chant, an£ increase the
strange and awe-inspiring mystery of the scene.

One by one the lamp-holders vanished, and the throng
departed, leaving only a few kneeling figures before the
great altar, who appeared earnestly and deeply absorbed in
their devotions.

It is impossible to describe the holy calm which fell
upon my soul as I sat within that dim and silent church.
The very air seemed filled with beautiful spirits, who were
weaving around me a spell of enchantment, and bearing
me far away from the present into a glorious world of the
future. I felt as though I had lost my own identity, when
hurried voices approached me. "Where have you been?
Where have you hidden yourself ? " were the eager words
addressed to me; and thus returning to the actualities of
life we left St. Peter's and drove to the Trinita dei Pelli-
grini to see the noble Roman ladies wash the feet of the
pilgrims and wait upon them at the table. The hospital
is divided into two departments. They not only wash their
feet, serve them with food at the table, but with their
own jeweled hands put the female pilgrims carefully into
comfortable beds, where they at least enjoy one night's
luxurious repose. Although it strikes one as an ostenta
tion of charity, or, rather, a parade of the virtue for public
admiration, still many miserable beings were made happy

OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT 61

by it, and cheered for a few hours of their weary pil
grimage.

FAREWELL TO VENICE

It was past ten o'clock. Still we lingered on the bal
cony, thinking, in truth, it was wronging such a night to
sleep. At length we called Antonio, our family gondolier,
and told him to bring out the gondola from its haven,
where it lay beneath the shadow of the ducal palace. In a
few moments it glided to the steps, the black cabin was
removed, so there was no covering between us and the
sky. We were soon floating along the broad laguna, lean
ing back upon the soft cushions and luxuriating in the
matchless beauty of the scene. Three wonderful pictures
have I seen in Italy, which will hang forever on the
" walls of memory." One was the illumination of St.
Peter's, another the Niagara-like cataract of fire pouring
from the crater of Vesuvius, and the third is moonlight in
Venice. There is a glory about the moonlight here never
attending it elsewhere; the smooth sheets of water receive
its beams as though they were immense mirrors, and thence
reflecting them upward, fill the atmosphere with a light
of such dazzling brightness we constantly exclaimed,
"This cannot be night!" It seemed a mingling of the
soft tints of the early morning with the tender radiance
of the twilight.

Along the piazza of San Marco were multitudes of
lamps, their rays piercing the still waters as though they
were arrows of light. Every object was softened and
rounded by the moonbeams, and its shadow singularly dis
tinct in the water below. Thus there appeared two cities,
one above and another below the Grand Canal, each with

62 OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT

its winged lion. From the open window of a palace
came the sound of merry dancing music, while beneath
another was a gondola with serenaders. We made the
entire voyage through the streets of Venice, passing under
the " Bridge of Sighs," which for a moment shut out
the moonlight completely, then we glided by the palace of
the Foscari, and did not wonder the sad Jacopo was will
ing to endure even torture that he might look upon it
again ; we lingered for a while beneath the marble-cased
arch of the Rialto, and saw the house of Shylock and the
home of Othello — thus, " slowly gliding over," we passed
all the landmarks of historic and poetic interest. '' To
morrow we part with Italy," I murmured, as we went
for the last time about the radiant and moon-lighted city,
and a deep regret welled up from the fountain of my
heart. One must be insensible to the glories of the past
and to the charms of the present not to love Italy.

Earth, sky and air possess here a beauty unknown to
other climes. Every city has some treasure of painting,
sculpture or science. Every river, vale and mountain has
its poetic or historic legend.

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

1830 — 1886

THIS " Poet Laureate of the South," as he is
called, was born January ist, 1830, in Charles
ton, South Carolina. Upon the death of his
father, Lieutenant P. H. Hayne, of the United
States Navy, Paul, at an early age, was placed un
der the loving care of his uncle, Robert Young
Hayne, who was at one time Governor of South
Carolina, and a friend of Daniel Webster.

The Hayne family was one of much culture
and refinement, and before the Civil War pos
sessed all the comforts wealth could give, and
so Paul enjoyed all the advantages accruing from
such conditions. He was educated at the Univer
sity of South Carolina, from which he was grad
uated at the age of twenty-two.

From his much-loved mother he inherited rare
taste for literary study, and also a poetical turn
of mind. These traits were early fostered by
reading Shakespeare and other great writers.

In 1853, from among a number of literary
gentlemen who often gathered at the dinners
given by William Gilmore Simms, young Hayne

63

64 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

was selected as editor of " Russell's Magazine,"
a literary enterprise fostered for some time by
many brilliant writers. Hayne was afterwards
connected with the " Charleston Literary Messen
ger," " The Southern Opinion," and several other
journals. But " poetry was his destiny," and be
fore 1860 he had published three volumes of
verse. He was married to Miss Mary Middleton
Michel of Charleston. It was the blessed fortune
of this poet, as it was the fortune of Lanier and of
Timrod, to find continual support and encourage
ment in his wife's appreciation. Margaret J.
Preston says: "No poet was more blessed in a
wife, who by self-renunciation, exquisite sympathy,
positive material help, and bright hopefulness,
made endurable the losses and trials that crowded
into the life of Paul Hamilton Hayne." In many
of his poems is this wife gratefully remembered,
especially in " The Bonny Brown Hand."

Oh, drearily, how drearily, the sombre eve comes down !
And wearily, how wearily, the seaward breezes blow!
But place your little hand in mine — so dainty, yet so

brown !

For household toil hath worn away its rosy tinted snow:
But I fold it, wife, the nearer,
And I feel, my love, 'tis dearer
Than all dear things of earth,
As I watch the pensive gloaming,
And my wild thoughts cease from roaming,

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 65

And bird-like furl their pinions close beside our peaceful
hearth :

Then rest your little hand in mine, while twilight shim
mers down, —

That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny
brown —

That hand that holds an honest heart and rules a happy
hearth.

Oh, merrily, how merrily, our children's voices rise!
And cheerily, how cheerily, their tiny footsteps fall !
But, hand, you must not stir awhile, for there our nes
tling lies,

Snug in the cradle at your side, the loveliest far of all ;
And she looks so arch and airy,
So softly pure a fairy, —
She scarce seems bound to earth ;
And her dimple mouth keeps smiling,
As at some child fay's beguiling,
Who flies from Ariel realms to light her slumbers on the

hearth.
Ha, little hand, you yearn to move, and smooth the bright

locks down !
But, little hand, — but, trembling hand, — but, hand of

bonny brown,
Stay, stay with me ! — she will not flee, our birdling on the

hearth.

Oh, flittingly, how flittingly, the parlor shadows thrill,
As wittingly, half wittingly, they seem to pulse and pass!
And solemn sounds are on the wind that sweeps the
haunted hill,

66 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

And murmurs of a ghostly breath from out the grave

yard grass.

Let me feel your glowing fingers
In a clasp that warms and lingers
With the full, fond lover of earth,
Till the joy of love's completeness
In this flush of fireside sweetness,
Shall brim our hearts with spirit-wine, outpoured beside

the hearth.
So steal your little hand in mine, while twilight falters

down, — '
That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny

brown, —
The hand which points the path to heaven, yet makes a

heaven of earth.

Life did not always run in pleasant lines for
Paul Hamilton Hayne. During the Civil War
his beautiful home in Charleston, his library and
nearly all the heirlooms of his family were de
stroyed when that city was bombarded.

Mrs. Preston says : " Even the few valuables,
such as old silver, which he rescued from the
flames and had placed in a bank in Columbus for
safekeeping, were swept away in the famous
' March to the Sea,' and nothing was left the
homeless, ruined man, after the war, but exile
among the ' Pine Barrens ' of Georgia. There he
established himself, in utter seclusion, in a veri
table cottage, or rather shanty, designated at first

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 67

as ' Hayne's Roost,' behind whose screen of vines,
among peaches and melons, and strawberries of
his own raising, he fought the fight of life with
uncomplaining bravery, and persisted in being
happy."

Maurice Thompson says: "The poet, Hayne,
secured eighteen acres of poor pine land a few
miles from Augusta, Georgia. There he built of
upright boards, a story and a half cottage, rough,
poorly jointed and roofed with clapboards. It
was just such a house as one sees occupied by
trackmen's families along the railroad. Here, at
' Copse Hill,' as this home was afterwards called,
upon a desk fashioned out of a rude bench left
by the carpenters, Hayne wrote all his most nota
ble poems. He never gave up his love for poesy
and song, and fought poverty alone with his facile
pen. . . . Hayne is, perhaps, the only poet
in America who ever dared to depend solely upon
poetry for his income, and no right-minded man
can go to that lonely cottage on the poor brush-
covered hill in Georgia and fail to feel how much
courage it required to live there as Hayne lived."

Paul Hamilton Hayne loved the forest tree,
especially the Southern pine, which he has immor
talized in verse. " He made the melancholy
meanings of the Georgia pine sob through his
poems," as, for example, " The Voice of the
Pines," " Aspect of the Pine," " The Dryad of the

68 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

Pines," and " In the Pine Barrens." " Under the
Pine " was written about a pine tree at whose base
Henry Timrod, the South Carolina poet, sat and
rested often during the last visit he made to
Hayne, a short time before Timrod's death. The
two poets had been schoolmates in youth, and life
long friends, and each had generously appreciated
the other's poetical genius. One of the finest bio
graphical sketches written is the one Hayne wrote
for the published edition of Timrod's poems.

When Hayne was editor of " Russell's Maga
zine," one of its staunch supporters and welcome
contributors was Henry Timrod. In loving mem
ory of this friend, Hayne wrote the beautiful
verses " Under the Pine."

O Tree! hast thou no memory at thy core

Of one who comes no more?

No yearning memory of those scenes that were

So richly calm and fair,

When the last rays of sunset shimmering down,

Flashed like a royal crown ?

O Tree ! against thy mighty trunk he laid

His weary head ; thy shade

Stole o'er him like the first cool spell of sleep.

Professor Link says of Hayne : " If Bryant
sometimes served at the altar of Nature, Hayne
was her high priest, who ever dwelt amid her
glories. Bryant was the pioneer of New Eng-

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 69

land poets. He was the leader of an association
of wits such as Dana, Halleck and others. Even
Longfellow followed him at first. So Paul Ham
ilton Hayne was long the literary high priest of
the South. Lanier, Timrod and others came
about him for guidance and encouragement."

Again Professor Link writes: "With little
market for his wares up North, and with the South
too poor to buy, and with friends urging him to
turn his efforts to something else, Hayne held to
his first love, poesy, with the devotion of a Milton
dictating ' Paradise Lost ' ; few men in America
have been so completely and fully a poet as
Hayne. Longfellow was for a time professor in
a college, Bryant was a newspaper man, and
others, temporarily at least, have trained Pegasus
along the paths of different professions. Except
ing a few prose sketches, almost poetry, and the
biography of Timrod, nothing baser than fine-
beaten gold of poesy came from his work shop."

William Hayne, son of the poet, has inherited
much of the father's genius. Between father and
son was always a sweet companionship, and in
the exquisite poem, " Will and I," Hayne tells
how like two boys together they filled their souls
with love for Nature.

We roam the hills together,
In the golden summer weather,
Will and I;

70 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

And the glowing sunbeams bless us,
And the winds of heaven caress us,
As we wander hand in hand
Through the blissful summer land,
Will and I.

Where the tinkling brooklet passes
Through the heart of dewy grasses,

Will and I

Have heard the mock-bird singing,
And the field-lark seen upspringing
In his happy flight afar,
Like a tiny winged star,

Will and I.

Amid cool forest closes

We have plucked the wild-wood roses,

Will and I,

And have twined, with tender duty,
Sweet wreaths to crown the beauty
Of the purest brows that shine
With a mother-love divine,

Will and I.

Ah! thus we roam together
Through the golden summer weather,

Will and I;

While the glowing sunbeams bless us,
And the winds of heaven caress us —
As we wander hand in hand
O'er the blissful summer land,

Will and I.

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 71

Mrs. Preston says of Hayne : " He had the
(advantage of quite a distinguished appearance,
was slightly built, and of medium height, with a
lithe, graceful figure, a fine, oval face, with starry,
magnificent eyes that glowed with responsive sym
pathy. He had abundant dark hair thrown back
from a high forehead, and his manner was urbane
and courteous to a high degree."

The poet had never, even in younger days, been
strong physically, and gradually, as he toiled at
Copse Hill, he became fully aware that the end
was drawing near. Like the swan in her dying
song, some of Hayne's most beautiful verses were
his late ones, when he felt the hand of Death close
by, and even to the end love for Nature throbbed
in every line.

I pray you when the shadow of death comes down,

Oh ! lay me close to Nature's pulses deep,

Whether her breast with autumn's tints be brown,

Or bright with summer, or hale winter's crown

Press on her brows in sleep;

Lo, nigh the dawn of some new marvelous birth,

I'd look to heaven, still clasped in arms of earth.

Of death Hayne could say in his last poem:

But I, earth's madness above,
In a kingdom of stormless breath —
I gaze on the glory of love
In the unveiled face of Death.

72 PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

Hayne passed away early in July, 1886, hon
ored and beloved for the nobility and the purity
of his character, as well as for his splendid genius.
For a while his wife and son Will " kept vigil at
Copse Hill," then the poet's wife joined her be
loved husband.

Among the published works of Hayne are
" Sonnets," " Avolio," " Lyrics," " Mountain
Lovers," " Life of Robert T. Hayne," also of
Hugh Swinton Legare, and Henry Timrod.

THE VOICE IN THE PINES

The morn is softly beautiful and still,
Its light fair clouds in pencilled gold and gray
Pause motionless above the pine-grown hill,
Where the pines, tranced as by a wizard's will,
Uprise as mute and motionless as they!

Yea! mute and moveless; not one flickering spray
Flashed into sunlight, not a gaunt bough stirred ;
Yet, if wooed hence beneath those pines to stray,
We catch a faint, thin murmur far away,
A bodiless voice, by grosser ears unheard.

I

What voice is this? what low and solemn tone,
Which, though all wings of all the winds seem furled,
Nor even the zephyr's fairy flute is blown,
Makes thus forever its mysterious moan
From out the whispering pine-tops' shadowy world?

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 73

Ah! can it be the antique tales are true?
Doth some lone Dryad haunt the breezeless air,
Fronting yon bright immitigable blue,
And wildly breathing all her wild soul through
That strange unearthly music of despair?

Or can it be that ages since, storm-tossed,

And driven far inland from the roaring lea,

Some baffled ocean spirit, worn and lost,

Here, through dry summer's dearth and winter's frost,

Yearns for the sharp, sweet kisses of the sea?

Whate'er the spell, I hearken and am dumb,
Dream-touched, and musing in the tranquil morn ;
All woodland sounds — the pheasant's gusty drum,
The mock-bird's fugue, the droning insects hum —
Scarce heard for that strange sorrowful voice forlorn !

Beneath the drowsed sense, from deep to deep
Of spiritual life its mournful minor flows,
Streamlike, with pensive tide, whose currents keep
Low murmuring 'twixt the bounds of grief and sleep,
Yet locked for aye, from sleep's divine repose.

By permission of Lothrop Pub. Co., Boston.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
1806 — 1870

THE early life of this writer was handicapped
by the loss of his mother, and he was reared and
cared for by his grandmother. He was born in
Charleston, South Carolina, and at eight years of
age began writing verses, which his practical
grandmother committed to the flames. Her de
sire was that he should study medicine, and, as
soon as he was old enough, the boy was placed as
clerk in a drug-store. But he detested the idea of
medicine, and even the smell of drugs was odious
to him. In his heart he longed for study, and he
said: " I had rather make an absolute failure in
literature than a success in something else."/
Nevertheless, obedient to his grandmother's
wishes, he remained as clerk in the drug-store,
finally gaining her consent to study law, in which
he was much hindered by his lack of education.
However, he read good literature, pursued the
study of law, and while still a clerk wrote poetry.
Rich stores of learning were amassed in passing
years, yet Simms always regretted that he had not,
in youth, been able to receive the culture and polish

74

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 75

which the study of Latin and Gree^is believed
to give the mind.

For over forty years this writer devoted himself
exclusively to literature. He labored assiduously
and threw off from year to year, sometimes from
month to month, his rapid series of fiction, now
dealing with the rugged, original and aboriginal
character of early American life; now depicting
the heroic achievements of the knights of elder
Spain and the crafty Saracen; now amid the tropic
bloom of Florida; now in the abandon of South
western life; now on the Dark and Bloody Ground,
covering the whole range of Southern and South
western life. He was, however, most at home in
the Revolutionary period when war, and craft, and
treachery, and love and death ruled the hour; or
in the older and pre-Revolutionary period, when
the stalwart and sturdy Indian yet struggled with
bloody hand for his erstwhile dominions, and yet
hoped to wrest his lands from the pale-face.

Before 1860 this voluminous writer had pub
lished eighteen volumes of verse; he also wrote
more than sixty other bound volumes of biog
raphy, romance, and history.

As an historian and critic he excels. Edgar
Allan Poe says of him : " He has more vigor,
more imagination, more movement, and more gen
eral capacity than all other novelists except
Cooper."

76 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

Professor James Wood Davidson, a later critic,
writing in 1869 declares: " In the wielding of
events, in that sacrificing of character to situation
he stands unsurpassed." He further says: "In
his day and time some critics declared Simms'
novels too full of realism; yet to-day people ad
mire without protest the rough realism that satu
rates the ' Barrack Room Ballads ' of Kipling."
Ten of his novels have received German transla
tion, and his life of Francis Marion is as attractive
as fiction; also the lives of John Smith, Chevalier
Bayard and General Greene. Simms did for South
Carolina what Sir Walter Scott did for his coun
try and Fenimore Cooper did for New England.
His novels are almost entirely Southern, and
Southern life has been faithfully reproduced. He
owned a fine plantation near Midway, South Caro
lina, called " Woodlands." A bronze bust of him
was unveiled at Pine Garden, Charleston, in 1879,
and his memory is cherished tenderly in his birth
place.

William Gilmore Simms had little love for the
profession of law; his heart was in literature.
When he abandoned his practice, he began the
editorship of " The Tablet, or Southern Monthly
Literary Gazette," a sixty-four-page magazine.
It proved to be an unprofitable enterprise and ran
only about a year. He then undertook the " City
Gazette." He opposed with all his personal cour
age and mental powers the nullification movement.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 77

The death of his first wife, who was a Miss
Giles, of Charleston, the burning of his house,
the failure of his literary ventures, the death of
his father and grandmother, all came with crush
ing force, and a weaker man would have been
utterly disheartened; but William Gilmore Simms
had the true every-day courage of a soldier and
nothing overcame it. Later he was happily mar
ried to Miss Chavilette Roach, the daughter of
a well-to-do planter, and one of his earliest
novels, " Guy Rivers," passed through several
editions and was reprinted in London. With
great rapidity he now published volume after vol
ume of fiction, among them being " The Par
tisan," " The Yemassee," " Mellichampe," " Bor
der Beagles," " Katharine Walton," and " The
Scout," which were much admired and read. It
is said, by those who wish to criticise adversely,
that Simms is quite forgotten and his books are
now unread. Prof essor Trent says : " One might
perhaps say the same of Sir Walter Scott's novels,
and it is certain that Cooper holds little of the
kingdom in which he once reigned supreme. Tales
of adventure with historical basis have given way,
for the time, to novels of passion." So rapidly
did Simms cover the romance, the history, the tra
ditions of the South with his fiction that " about
fifty volumes," says Professor Trent, " would
hardly contain all he wrote, and while much of
this work must have been done hurriedly, the

78 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

South cannot afford to be indifferent to the great
value of his books, and his name will always stand
high on the list of pioneer American writers."

The plantation home of this writer, " Wood
lands," was noted for its hospitality and many
distinguished guests were entertained there. Scott
wrote of and immortalized the heather and Whit-
tier the native scenery of New England; so Simms
loved his home and made beautiful its swamps and
forests.

Paul Hamilton Hayne says: " Simms was a
typical Southerner of the ante-bellum period."
The first time he saw Simms was in 1847, 'n
Charleston, at a lecture, when Simms was called
out by the audience for a talk. " I had," says
Hayne, " already read some of his novels and I
had long desired to see the author. He now came
forward, a man in the prime of life, tall, vigorous
and symmetrically formed. Under strangely mo
bile eyebrows flashed a pair of bluish-gray eyes,
keen and bright as steel. His mouth, slightly
prominent, especially in the upper lip, was a won
derfully firm one; the massive jaw and chin might
have been moulded out of iron."

Simms was an ardent Secessionist, and at the
close of the war he found himself, like all Southern
men, ruined financially. The death of his beloved
wife in 1863 left him prostrated with grief; his
fine beard was gray and his noble forehead marked

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 79

with care and sorrow. He died, beloved by his
children and his large circle of acquaintances, June
1 1, 1870. He died as he had lived, a noble Chris
tian man, one of the band of Southern authors
the South must ever admire and whose memory
must be perpetuated from generation to genera
tion by those who truly love their native land.
With much justice, Simms has been called the
" Cooper of the South."

The following list comprises most of his pub
lished works:

" ^artin," " Faber," " Book of My Lady,"
"Guy Rivers," "The Yemassee," "Partisan,"
" Mellichampe," "Richard Hurdis," " Palayo,"
" Carl Werner and other Tales," " Border
Beagles," " Confession, or the Blind Heart,"
" Beauchampe (sequel to Charlemont) ," "Helen
Halsey," "Castle Dismal," "Count Julian,"
" Wigwam and Cabin," " Katharine Walton,"
" Golden Christmas," " Foragers," " Maroon, and
other Tales," " Utah," " Woodcraft," " Marie de
Berniere," " Father Abbott," " Scout " (first called
" Kinsman "), " Charlemont," " Cassique of Kia-
wah," and " Vasconselas (tale of De Soto)."

POEMS (2 vplumes)

"Atalantis," " Grouped Thoughts and Scattered
Fancies," " Lays of the Palmetto," " Southern

8o WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

Passages and Pictures," " Areytos," " Songs and
Ballads of the South."

DRAMAS

" Norman Maurice," " Michael Bonham, or
Fall of the Alamo."

BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY, ETC.

" Life of General Francis Marion," " Life of
Captain John Smith," " Life of Chevalier Bay
ard," " Geography of South Carolina," " Reviews
in Periodicals" (2 Vols.), "Life of General
Nathanael Greene," " History of South Carolina,"
" South Carolina in the Revolution," " War
Poetry of the South," and " Seven Dramas of
Shakespeare."

The following extract has been taken from
" The Yemassee," a story of the South Carolina
Indians :

The district of Beaufort, lying along the Atlantic coast
in the State of South Carolina, is especially commended
to the regards of the antiquarian as the region first dis
tinguished in the history of the United States by an
European settlement. (We are speaking now of au
thentic history only. We are not ignorant of the claim
on behalf of the Northmen to discovery along the very
same region fully five hundred years before this period —

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 81

an assertion which brings us back to tradition of Madoc
and his Welshmen; the report of the Northmen adding
further, that the language spoken was cognate with that
of the Irish, with which they were familiar. For this
curious history see the recently published " Antiquities
American," under the editorship of Professor Raf of
Copenhagen.)

Here a colony of French Huguenots was established in
1562 under the auspices of the celebrated Gaspard de
Cologni, Admiral of France, who in the reign of Charles
IX. conceived the necessity of such a settlement, with
the hope of securing a sanctuary for French Protestants,
when they should be compelled, as he foresaw they soon
would, by the anti-religious persecutions of the time, to
fly from their native into foreign regions. This settle
ment, however, proved unsuccessful; and the events
which history records of the subsequent effort of the
French to establish colonies in the same neighborhood,
while of unquestionable authority, have all the charm
of the most delightful romance.

It was not till an hundred years after, that the same
spot was temporarily settled by the English under Sayle,
who became the first governor, as he was the first perma
nent founder, of the settlement. The situation was ex
posed, however, to the incursions of the Spaniards, who,
in the meantime, had possessed themselves of Florida,
and for a long time after continued to harass and prevent
colonization in this quarter. But perseverance at length
triumphed over all these difficulties, and though Sayle, for
further security, in the infancy of this settlement, had
removed to the banks of the Ashley, other adventurers,
little by little, contrived to occupy the ground he had

82 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

left, and in the year seventeen hundred, the birth of a
white native child is recorded.

From the earliest period of our acquaintance with the
country of which we speak, it was in the possession of
a powerful and gallant race, and their tributary tribes,
known by the general name of Yemassees. Not so numer
ous, perhaps as many of the neighboring nations, they
nevertheless commanded the respectful consideration of
all. In valor they made up for any deficiencies of number,
and proved themselves not only sufficiently strong to hold
out defiance to invasion, but were always ready to an
ticipate assault. Their promptness and valor in the field
furnished their best securities against attack, while their
forward courage, elastic temper, and excellent skill in the
rude condition of their warfare, enabled them to subject
to their dominion most of the tribes around them, many
of which were equally numerous with their own. Like
the Romans, in this way they strengthened their own
powers by a wise incorporation of the conquered with the
conquerors; and under the several names of Huspahs,
Coosaws, Comhahees, Stowoces, and Sewees, the greater
strength of the Yemassees contrived to command so many
dependents, prompted by their movements, and almost en
tirely under their dictation. Thus strengthened, the re
cognition of their power extended into the remote in
terior, and they formed one of the twenty-eight aboriginal
nations among which, at its first settlement by the English,
the province of Carolina was divided.

A feeble colony of adventurers from a distant world
had taken up its abode alongside of them. The weak
nesses of the intruder were, at first, his only but sufficient
protection with the unsophisticated savage. The white

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS 83

man had his lands assigned him, and he trenched his fur
rows to receive the grain on the banks of Indian waters.
The wild man looked on the humiliating labor, wondering
as he did so, but without fear and never dreaming for
a moment of his own approaching subjection. Meanwhile
the adventurers grew daily more numerous, for their
friends and relatives soon followed them across the ocean.
They, too, had lands assigned them in turn by the im
provident savage, until, at length, we behold the log
house of the white man, rising up amid the thinned clump
of woodland foliage, within hailing distance of the squat,
clay hovel of the savage.

The Yemassees were politic and brave . . . They
looked with a feeling of aversion which they yet strove to
conceal upon the approach of the white man on every side.
The thick groves disappeared, the clear skies grew turbid
with the dense smokes rolling up in the solid masses from
the burning herbage.

Hamlets grew into existence, as it were, by magic under
their own very eyes, and in sight of their own town, for
the shelter of a different people, and at length, a common
sentiment, not even yet embodied perhaps by its open ex
pression, even among themselves, prompted the Yemassees
in a desire to arrest the progress of a race with which they
could never hope to acquire any real or lasting affinity.
Permission M. A. Donahue, Chicago.

JAMES BARRON HOPE
1829—1887

JAMES BARRON HOPE has been called the poet
laureate of Virginia. He was born at the resi
dence of his grandfather, near Norfolk. His
father, Wilton Hope, of Bethel, Elizabeth City
County, was a handsome, gifted man, a landed
proprietor, whose broad acres bordered on the
waters of the Hampton River. The poet's life
long devotion to his native State came from the
maternal side, from the Barrons, those " Virginia
Vikings," as they were called. Jane Barron, his
mother, was daughter of Commodore Barron, who
commanded the Gosport Navy-Yard at the time
of the birth of his son James. James Barron
Hope gained his early education at Germantown.
Later he became a student of Colonel Cary, in the
noted Hampton Academy, and here began a
friendship between the distinguished educator and
young Hope, a friendship which lasted long in
life.

In 1847 ne was graduated from William and
Mary College, then becoming secretary to his
uncle, Captain Samuel Barron, and in 1853 he

JAMES BARRON HOPE 85

made a cruise to the West Indies. His beautiful
poem " Cuba," sent at this time to his mother for
criticism, now seems almost a prophecy.

In 1856 Hope was elected attorney for old
Hampton, then the center of a charming and cul
tivated society. Here he was honored as a bard,
for, under the name of " Henry Ellen," he had
contributed to various Southern publications, and
his poems in the " Southern Literary Messenger "
had attracted much gratifying attention. His
friendship for John Reuben Thompson, then
editor of this magazine, lasted and deepened as
the years rolled by.

In 1857 J. B. Lippincott brought out " Leoni
di Monota and Other Poems." The volume was
cordially received and much praise was given to
"The Charge at Balaklava," which G. P. R.
James and other critics have declared equal to
Tennyson's " Charge of the Light Brigade."

Upon the I3th of May, 1857, James Barren
Hope was chosen the poet for the 25Oth anniver
sary of the English settlement of Jamestown. His
poem for this occasion is full of grandeur and
imagery.

Here the red Canute on this spot, sat down,
His splendid forehead stormy with a frown,
To quell, with the wild lightning of his glance
The swift encroachment of the wave's advance ;

86 JAMES BARRON HOPE

To meet and check the ruthless tide which rose,

Crest after crest of energetic foes.

While high and strong poured on each cruel wave,

Until they left his royalty in a grave;

But o'er this wild tumultuous deluge glows

A vision fair as Heaven to saint e'er shows;

A dove of mercy o'er the billows dark

Fluttered awhile, then fled within God's ark.

Had I the power, I'd reverently describe

That peerless maid — the " pearl of all her tribe " ;

As evening fair, when coming night and day

Contend together which shall wield its sway;

But, here abashed, my paltry fancy stays;

For her, too humble its most stately lays

A shade of twilight's softest, sweetest gloom —

The dusk of morning — found a splendid tomb

In England's glare; so strange, so vast, so bright

The dusk of morning burst in splendid light,

Which falleth through the Past's cathedral aisles,

Till sculptured Mercy like a seraph smiles.

Sad is the story of that maiden's race,

Long driven from each legendary place

All their expansive hunting-grounds are now

Torn by the iron of Saxon's plow,

Which turns up skulls and arrow-heads, and bones —

Their places nameless and unmarked by stones.

At the anniversary of the " Battle of the
Crater " Hope recited his metrical address " Ma-
hone's Brigade," beginning:

JAMES BARRON HOPE 87

Your arms are stacked, your splendid colors furled,
Your drums are still, aside your trumpets laid,
But your dumb muskets once spoke to the world —
And the world listened to Mahone's Brigade.

Like waving plume upon Bellona's crest,
Or comet in red majesty arrayed,
Or Persia's- flame transported to the West,
Shall shine the glory of Mahone's Brigade.

Not once, in all those years so dark and grim,

Your columns from the path of duty strayed ;

No craven act made your escutcheon dim —

'Twas burnished with your blood, Mahone's Brigade.

In 1857 Hope married Miss Annie Beverly
Whiting of Hampton, a woman of lovely person,
beautiful character, and great strength of pur
pose.

In 1 88 1 Congress chose him as poet for the
Yorktown Centennial, and this address, " Arms
and the Man," with other sonnets, was published
the next year.

Again Hope was called upon to deliver a poem
at the laying of the cornerstone of the monument
erected in Richmond to General Robert E. Lee.
The cornerstone was laid in October, 1887, but
the poet's voice had been stilled forever, and the
poem was read by William Gordon McCabe.
This poem, " Memoriae Sacrum," has been pro
nounced by many to be Hope's masterpiece.

88 JAMES BARRON HOPE

In his " Washington Memorial Ode," written
for the unveiling of Crawford's statue of Wash
ington, occur the following fine lines:

O proud old Commonwealth! thy sacred name
Makes frequent music on the life of Fame!
And as the Nation, in its onward march,
Thunders beneath the Union's mighty arch,
Thine the bold front which every7 patriot sees
The stateliest figure on its massive frieze.
O proud old State! well may thy form be grand,
'Twas thine to give a Saviour to the land.

Besides poetry James Barron Hope published
"Little Stories for Little People"; a novel,
"Madelon"; many masterly addresses; "Vir
ginia, Her Past, Present and Future," and " The
Press and the Printer's Devil."

During the late years of his life he suffered
from illness, but none save those nearest to him
knew of it. He was among the first to join the
Confederate Army and came out of the war with
broken health and ruined fortune.

Hope was a little under six feet in height,
slender, graceful and finely proportioned, with
hands and feet of distinctive beauty. In his own
home he was always at his best, for he touched
with poetry the daily prose of living. A hand
some monument, fashioned from the stones of
the State he loved so well, has been erected to his

JAMES BARRON HOPE 89

memory in Elmwood Cemetery, Norfolk, inscribed
to the " Poet, Patriot, Scholar, Journalist, and
Kingly Virginia Gentleman."

BALAKLAVA*

Spurring onward, Captain Nolan!

Spurring furiously is seen —
And although the road meanders —

His no heavy steed of Flanders,
But one fit for the commanders

Of her majesty the Queen.

Nolan halted where the squadrons

Stood impatient of delay,
Out he drew his brief dispatches,

Which their leader quickly snatches.
At a glance their meaning catches —

They are ordered to the fray!

All that morning they had waited,

As their frowning faces showed ;
Horses stamping, riders fretting,

And their teeth together setting;
Not a single sword-blade wetting

As the battle ebbed and flowed.

Now the fevered spell is broken,
Every man feels twice as large,
Every heart is fiercely leaping,

From copy in possession of Capt. M. B. Davis, of Waco.
Printed in a Virginia paper in 1861.

90 JAMES BARRON HOPE

As a lion roused from sleeping,
For they know they will be sweeping
In a moment to the charge !

Brightly gleam six hundred sabres,
And the brazen trumpets ring;

Steeds are gathered, spurs are driven,
And the heavens widely riven

With a mad shout upward given,
Scaring vultures on the wing.

Stern its meaning! was not Gallia
Looking down on Albion's sons?

In each mind this thought implanted,
Undismayed and all undaunted,

By the battle-fields enchanted,
They ride down upon the guns.

Onward ! On ! the chargers trample ;

Quicker falls each iron heel !
And the headlong pace grows faster;

Noble steed and noble master,
Rushing on to red disaster,

Where the heavy cannons peal!

In the van rides Captain Nolan ;

Soldier stout he was and brave!
And his shining sabre flashes,

As upon the foe he dashes;
God ! his face turns white as ashes,

He has ridden to his grave!

JAMES BARRON HOPE 91

Down he fell, prone from his saddle,
Without motion, without breath,

Never more a triumph to waken.
He, the very first one taken,

From the bough so sorely shaken,
In that vintage-time of Death.

In a moment, in a twinkling,

He was gathered to his rest!
In the time for which he'd waited,

With his gallant heart elated,
Down went Nolan, decorated

With a death wound on the breast.

Comrades still are onward charging,

He is lying on the sod:
Onward still their steeds are rushing

Where the shot and shell are crushing;
From his corpse the blood is gushing,

And his soul is with his God.

As they spur on, what strange visions

Flit across each rider's brain !
Thought of maidens fair, of mothers;

Friends and sisters, wives and brothers,
Blent with images of others,

Whom they ne'er shall see again.

Onward, on the squadrons thunder —

Knightly hearts were theirs and brave, —
Men and horses without number

92 JAMES BARRON HOPE

All the furrowed ground encumber, —
Falling fast to their last slumber, —
Bloody slumber! bloody graves!

Of that charge at Balaklava —

In its chivalry sublime —
Vivid, grand, historic pages

Shall descend to future ages;
Poets, painters, hoary sages

Shall record it for all time.

Telling how those English horsemen
Rode the Russian gunners down ;

How with ranks all thinned and shattered ;
How with helmets hacked and battered;

How with sword arms blood-bespattered;
They won honor and renown.

'Twas " not war," but it was splendid,
As a dream of old romance —

Thinking which their Gallic neighbors
Thrilled to watch them at their labors,

Hewing red graves with their sabres,
In that wonderful advance.

.Down went many a gallant soldier,
Down went many a stout dragoon;

Lying grim, and stark, and gory,
On that crimson field of glory,

Leaving us a noble story

And their white-cliffed home a boon.

JAMES BARRON HOPE 93

Full of hopes and aspirations

Were their hearts at dawn of day;

Now, with forms all rent and broken,
Bearing each some frightful token

Of a scene ne'er to be spoken,
In their silent sleep they lay.

Here a noble charger stiffens ;

There his rider grasps the hilt
Of his sabre lying bloody,

By his side, upon the muddy,
Trampled ground, which darkly ruddy

Shows the blood that he has spilt.

And to-night the moon shall shudder
As she looks down on the moor,

Where the dead of hostile races

Slumber, slaughtered in their places;

All their rigid ghastly faces

Spattered hideously with gore.

And the sleepers! ah, the sleepers
Make a Westminster that day ;

'Mid the seething battle's lava!

And each man who fell shall have a

Proud inscription — Balaklava —
Which shall never fade away.

94 JAMES BARRON HOPE

CUBA

O'er thy purple hills, O Cuba!
Through thy valleys of romance,
All thy glorious dreams of freedom
Are but dreamt as in a trance.

Mountain pass and fruitful valley,
Mural town and spreading plain
Show the footstep of the Spaniard,
In his burning lust for gain.

Since the caravel of Colon
Grated first upon thy strand,
Everything about thee, Cuba,
Shews the iron Spanish hand.

Hear that crash of martial music!
From the plaza how it swells !
How it trembles with the meaning
Of the story that it tells !

Turn thy steps up to Altares —
There was done a deed of shame!
Hapless men were coldly butchered, —
'Tis a part of Spanish fame !

Wander now down to the Punta,
Lay thy hand upon thy throat —
Thou wilt see a Spanish emblem
In the dark and grim garrote.

In the Morro, in the market,
In the shadow, in the sun,

JAMES BARRON HOPE 95

Thou wilt see the bearded Spaniard
Where a gold piece may be won.

And they fatten on thee, Cuba!
Gay soldado — cunning priest!
How these vultures flock and hover
On thy tortured breast to feast.

Thou Prometheus of the ocean !

Bound down, — not for what thou'st done,

But for fear thy social stature

Should start living in the sun !

And we give thee tears, O Cuba!
And our prayers to God uplift,
That at last the flame celestial
May come down to thee — a gift!

JOHN ESTEN COOKE

183

886

THIS most popular author was born in Win
chester, Virginia, and his father was John Rogers
Cooke, an eminent lawyer of Richmond. John
Esten Cooke left school at sixteen. Then he
studied law, practicing with his father for about
four years, after which he devoted himself to lit
erary work. Here he followed three lines, biog
raphy, fiction and poetry, and he classes well with
the novelists of our country. His writings are not
so voluminous as Cooper's and Simms', but he
ranks with them.

In the beginning of the Civil War Cooke en
listed and served first as a private in the artillery
and was in almost all the battles in Virginia, most
of the time serving as a member of General J. E.
B. Stuart's staff. At General Lee's surrender he
was inspector-general of the horse artillery of
the Army of Northern Virginia.

From his experience it is only natural that
Cooke's stories should relate almost entirely to
Virginia, its life, its romance, its manners and
customs.

At the close of the Civil War Cooke returned
96

JOHN ESTEN COOKE 97

to his home at " Eagle's Nest " where, in quiet
and peace, with his children and wife, he pursued
his writings, producing volume after volume of
intense and dramatic romance. He was cousin of
John Pendleton Kennedy of Baltimore, and was
married to Miss Mary Page, one of that distin
guished family in Virginia.

His home was beautifully located, and his
neighbors were the Nelsons, the Pages, the Ran
dolphs and other well-known families.

John Esten Cooke is pre-eminently the Southern
novelist of the Civil War, and his literary work
was done purely for love of the work and not for
remuneration.

The one of his novels which had the largest
sale was entitled " Surry of Eagle's Nest." It is
a striking portrayal of life in the Old Dominion,
and, as with all Cooke's fiction, it holds the
interest of the reader to the very end. The skill
with which all the scenes and events are pictured
is truly wonderful, and the pen portraits of such
men as " Jeb " Stuart," " Stonewall " Jackson
and others are truthful and convincing.

" Mohun " is a sequel to " Surry of Eagle's
Nest." It is a magnificent drama, opening with
a cavalry review in June, 1863, on the plains of
Culpeper, and the story ends in 1865, when with
his pass the paroled prisoner went slowly across
Virginia to his home.

98 JOHN ESTEN COOKE

But all was not taken. Honor was left us, and the
angels at home. Hearts beat fast as gray uniforms were
clasped in long embrace. Those angels at home loved the
poor prisoners better in their dark days than in their
bright ones.

" Hilt to Hilt " is a novel in which one learns
to appreciate the poetry and valor of 1864, the
deeds of bravery, the tremendous sacrifice of prop
erty and blood, and the destruction of social life
in the South, such as the author saw with his own
eyes.

" Fairfax " is a love story, the scene of which
is located in the Blue Ridge and the valley of the
historic Shenandoah River. Many pages are full
of pathos, simple as a child's life, yet deeply
touching, as where the child Connie dies, and the
boy sings:

Oh! she was an angel,

Last year she died,

Toll the bell, a funeral knell

For my young Virginia bride.

All the novels of Cooke are replete with South
ern history and the life of the old South, and they
should be preserved and read for generations.

Mr. Cooke was a man of attractive personal
appearance, medium height, well formed, with fine
eyes and the courtly manner of a Southern gentle
man. He preferred a literary career to all others,
and while he was an ardent Southerner, he wrote

JOHN ESTEN COOKE 99

without bitterness. His " History of Virginia "
is one of the most delightful of the " Common
wealth Series," and is itself like a beautiful ro
mance.

Many of Cooke's writings are scattered among
various papers and magazines and have never
been collected and put in book form, but his pub
lished books are:

" The Virginia Comedians," " Leather Stock
ing and Silk," " Surry of Eagle's Nest," " The
Youth of Jefferson," "Wearing the Gray," " My
Lady Pocahontas," " Henry St. John, or Bonnybel
Vane," " Mohun, or Last Days of Lee and his
Paladins," " Her Majesty the Queen," " Pretty
Mrs. Gaston," " Stories of the Old Dominion,"
"The Maurice Mystery," "The Grantley's
Idea," " Professor Pressensee," " Virginia Bo
hemians," " Hammer and Rapier," " Hilt to
Hilt," " Life of General Lee," " Stonewall Jack
son," " A Biography of Virginia, a History of the
People."

MISS BONNYBEL

Vanely was one of those old mansions whose walls still
stand in Virginia, the eloquent memorials of other times,
and the good old race who filled the past days with so
many festivals, and such high revelry.

The first brick of the edifice had been laid upon the lap
of a baby, afterwards known as Colonel Vane, and passed
through his baby fingers. The life of the mansion and the
owner thus commenced together. It was a broad, ram-

ioo JOHN ESTEN COOKE

bling old house, perched on a sort of upland which com
manded a noble landscape of field and river; and in front
of the portal, two great oaks stretched out their gigantic
arms, gnarled and ancient, like guardians of the edifice.
In these as in the hundred others, scattered over the un
dulating lawn, and crowning every knoll, a thousand
birds were carroling, and a swarm of swallows darted
backward and forward, circling around the stacks of chim
neys, and making the air vocal with their merriment.

There was about the odd old mansion an indefinable air
of comfort and repose, and, within, these characteristics
were equally discernible. The old portraits ranged along
the hall in oaken frames, looked serenely down upon the
beholder, and with powdered heads, and lace ruffs, and
carefully arranged drapery, seemed to extend a stately and
impressive welcome. Sir Arthur Vane, who fought for a
much less worthy man at Marston Moor, was there, with
his flowing locks and peaked head, and wide collar of rich
Venice lace, covering his broad shoulders; and Miss Ma
ria Vane, with towering curls, and jewel-decorated fin
gers, playing with her lap-dog, smiling meanwhile with
that winning grace which made her a toast in the days of
her kinsman Bolingbroke, and Mr. Addison; and more
than one tender and delicate child, like violets or snow
drops, in the midst of these sturdy family trunks, or
blooming roses, added a finishing grace to the old walls —
that grace which nothing but the forms of children ever
give. Deer antlers, guns, an old sword or two, and a
dozen London prints of famous race horses completed the
adornment of the hall ; and from this wide space, the plain
oaken stairway ran up, and the various doors opened to
the apartments on the ground floor of the mansion.

JOHN ESTEN COOKE 101

On the May morning we have spoken of, the old house
was in its glory; for the trees were covering themselves
densely with fresh green foliage, and the grounds were
carpeted with emerald grass, studded with flowers, wav
ing their delicate heads, and murmuring gently in the
soft spring breeze and the golden sunshine. The oriole
swung from the top-most boughs, and poured his flood of
song upon the air; the woodpecker's bright wings flapped
from tree to tree; and a multitude of swamp-sparrows
flashed in and out of the foliage and fruit blossoms, or
circled joyously around the snowy fringe-trees sparkling
in the sunshine. From the distant fields and forests the
monotonous caw of the crows, winging their slow way
through the blue sky, indicated even on the part of these
ancient enemies of the corn field, joyous satisfaction at
the incoming of the warm season after the long winter;
and a thousand merry robins flew about, with red breasts
shaken by melodious chirpings, and brilliant plumage bur
nished by sunlight.

Everything was bright with the youthful joy of spring,
and as Mr. St. John and his friend dismounted before the
old mansion, the very walls upon which the waving
shadows of a thousand leaves were thrown seemed smiling,
and prepared to greet them; the open portal held imagi
nary arms to welcome them.

Before this portal stood, — its old form basking pleas
antly in the sunshine, — the roomy, low-swung family
chariot, with its four long-tailed grays, as ancient, very
nearly, as its self, and showing by their well-conditioned
forms and glossy manes the result of tranquil, easy living.
By their side stood the old white-haired negro driver, time
out of mind the family coachman of the Vanes; and in

102 JOHN ESTEN CO ORE

person of this worthy African gentleman a similar mode
of living was unmistakably indicated. Old Cato had
evidently little desire to be a censor ; sure of his own high
position, and quite easy on the subject of the purity of
the family blood, he was plainly satisfied with his lot,
and had no desire to change the order of things. In his
own opinion he was himself one of the family — a portion
of the manor, a character of respectability and importance.
Old Cato greeted the young gentlemen with familiar but
respectful courtesy, and received their cordial shakes of
the hand with evident pleasure. The horses even seemed
to look for personal greeting, and when the young man
passed his hand over their necks, they turned their intelli
gent heads and whinnied gently in token of recognition.
Mr. St. John patted their coats familiarly, calling them
by name, and looking up to the old man said, smiling :

" Welcome, Vanely. The month I've been away seems
a whole century. After all, the town is nothing like the
country, and no other part of it's like Vanely."

" Suppose you look a minute at the original," said a
voice at his elbow. St. John turns quickly and sees the
vivacious Miss Bonnybel, decked out for the evening, at
his side. " But if I prefer the portrait? " he replies; " it
reminds me of old times."

" When I was a child, I suppose, sir! "
"Yes; and when you loved me more than now."
"Who said I did not love you now?" asked the girl
with coquettish glance.
"Do you?"

" Certainly. I love you dearly — you and all my
cousins."

JOHN ESTEN COOKE 103

St. John sighed, and then laughed ; but said nothing,
and offering his arm, led the girl into the sitting-room.

The young girls, whilst awaiting the appearance of
Caesar, the violin player, from the " quarters," amused
themselves writing their names, after a fashion very preva
lent in Virginia, upon the panes of the windows. For
this purpose they made use of diamond rings, or, better
still, the long sharp pointed crystals known as " Virginia
diamonds."

With these the gallants found no difficulty in inscrib
ing the names of their sweet-hearts, with all the flourishes
of a writing-master, on the glass, and very soon the glit
tering tablets were scrawled over with Lucies and Fan
nies, and a brilliant genius of the party even executed some
fine profile portraits.

Those names have remained there for nearly a century,
and when, afterwards, the persons who traced them
looked with age-dimmed eyes upon the lines, the dead day
rose again before them, and its forms appeared once more,
laughing and joyous, as at Vanely that evening. And
not here only may these memorials of another age be
found ; in a hundred Virginia houses they speak of the
past.

Yes, yes, those names on the panes of Vanely are a
spell! They sound like a strange music, a bright wonder
in the ears of their descendants! Frail chronicle! How
you bring up the brilliant eyes again, the jest and the
glance, the joy and the laughter, the splendor and beauty
which flashed onward, under other skies, in old Virginia,
dead to us so long! As I gaze on your surface, bright
panes of Vanely, I fancy with what sparkling eyes the
names were traced. I see in a dream, as it were, the soft

104 JOHN ESTEN COOKE

white hand which laid its cushioned palm on this glitter
ing tablet; I see the rich dresses, the bending necks, the
fingers gracefully inclined as the maidens leaned over
to write " Lucy," and " Fanny," and " Nelly," " Frances,"
and " Kate " ; I see the curls and the powder, the fur
belows and flounces, the ring on the finger, the lace on
the arm, — lace that was yellow indeed by the snow it
enveloped ! I see no less clearly, the forms of the gallants,
those worthy young fellows in ruffles and fairtops; I see
all the smiles, and the laughter, and love. Oh beautiful
figures of a dead generation! You are only phantoms.
You are all gone, and your laces have faded or are moth-
eaten; you are silent now, and still, and the minuet bows
no more, you are dimly remembered, the heroines of a
tale that is told, you live on a window pane only! Old
panes! it is the human story that I read in you, — the legend
of a generation, and of all generations! For what are the
records of earth and its actors but frost work on a pane,
or those scratches of a diamond which a blow shatters. A
trifle may shiver the tablet and strew it in the dust.
There is only one record, one tablet, where the name
which is written lives for ever; it is not in this world,
'tis beyond the stars.

"Oh, there's Uncle Caesar!" cries Bonnybel, "and
we'll have a dance " ;

We pause a moment to look on the minuet, to listen to
old Uncle Caesar fiddle, to hear the long-drawn music
wind its liquid cadences through mellow variations, and
to see the forms and faces of the young men and the
maidens.

By permission of G, W . Dillingham Co., New York
City.

MRS. MARY S. B. DANA-SHINDLER

1810—1883

BEAUFORT, South Carolina, was the birth-place
of Mary Stanly Bunce Palmer, but while she was
very young her father, the Rev. B. M. Palmer, re
moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and in that
city, little Mary, the child of sweet songs, was
educated at the seminary of the Ramsey sisters,
daughters of the historian, Dr. David Ramsey.

On account of her delicate health Miss Palmer
finished her studies in the North, and while in
school she became noted for her poetic genius.
Her graceful manners and sprightly conversa
tion made her at all times a desirable companion;
while her ready sympathy and thorough apprecia
tion of the feelings of others rendered her a
warmly cherished friend. After leaving school
she returned to Charleston and became a contribu
tor to different periodicals. In 1835 she married
Mr. Charles E. Dana of New York City, where
they resided for three years. Then Bloomington,
Iowa, became her home, but she had not lived in
that city long until death took from her, in two
short days, her husband and their only child. Thus

105

io6 MARY S. B. DANA-SHINDLER

bereft, it was only natural that she should again
return to Charleston, her childhood home.

44 From early youth she had written for amuse
ment, occasionally contributing to various publica
tions, but now she devoted her fine talents to the
task as a regular occupation, and, in 1841, pub
lished that happy combination of music and poetry,
4 The Southern Harp.' A similar volume soon
followed under the title of ' The Northern
Harp.' Both of these books received a hearty
welcome, and the combination of her own pure
thoughts with the secular music familiar at that
time proved a happy and popular union."

44 The Parted Family and Other Poems " was
published in 1842, and contained such songs as
" Pass Under the Rod," " Come Sing to Me of
Heaven," "A Pilgrim and a Stranger," "Shed
Not a Tear," and many other beautiful verses.
About the year 1844 Mrs. Dana wrote "The
Temperance Lyre " and published a number of
short stories. She wrote several prose works,
including " Forecastle Tom," " The Young
Sailor," and " Charles Martin, or the Young Pa
triot," but her largest and best-known prose work
is entitled " Letters to Relatives and Friends,",
and was published in both the United States and
in England.

A great sorrow again filled the heart of Mrs.
Dana. In 1847 death robbed her of the sweet

MARY S. B. DANA-SHINDLER 107

companionship of her loving parents. In 1848
she became the wife of the Rev. Robert D. Shin-
dler, an Episcopal clergyman. In 1868 the fam
ily moved to Nacogdoches, Texas, where both
Mr. and Mrs. Shindler died, leaving an only
child, Mr. Robert C. Shindler, who still survives
them and lives in that city.

PASS UNDER THE ROD

It was the custom of the Jews to select the tenth of
their sheep after this manner: The lambs were separated
from their dams, and enclosed in a sheep-cote, with only
the narrow way out ; the lambs were at the entrance. On
opening the gate, the lambs hastened to join their dams,
and a man placed at the entrance, with a rod dipped in
ochre, touched every tenth lamb, and so marked it with
his rod, saying, " Let this be holy." — Union Bible Dic
tionary. ..." And I will cause you to pass under the
rod and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant."
— Ezekiel.

I saw the young bride, in her beauty and pride,

Bedecked in her snowy array,
And the bright flush of joy mantled high on her cheek

And the future looked blooming and gay;
And with woman's devotion she laid her fond heart

At the shrine of idolatrous love,
And she anchored her hopes to this perishing earth,

By the chain which her tenderness wove.
But I saw when those heart-strings were bleeding and
torn,

And the chain had been severed in two,

io8 MARY S. B. DANA-SHINDLER

She had changed her white robes for the sables of grief,

And her bloom for the paleness of woe !
But the Healer was there, pouring balm on her heart

And wiping the tears from her eyes,
And He strengthened the chain He had broken in twain,

And fastened it firm to the skies:
There had whispered a voice, 'twas the voice of her God,

" I love thee, I love thee! PASS UNDER THE ROD! "

I saw a young mother in tenderness bend

O'er the couch of her slumbering boy,
And she kissed the soft lips, as they murmured her name,

While the dreamer lay smiling in joy.
Oh ! sweet as a rose-bud encircled with dew,

When its fragrance is flung on the air,
So fresh and so bright to the mother he seemed,

As he lay in his innocence there!
But I saw when she gazed on the same lovely form,

Pale as marble, and silent, and cold,
But paler and colder her beautiful boy,

And the tale of her sorrow was told ;
But the Healer was there, who had smitten her heart

And taken her treasure away,
To allure her to Heaven, He has placed it on high,

And the mourner will sweetly obey.
There had whispered a voice, 'twas the voice of her God,

" I love thee, I love thee ! PASS UNDER THE ROD ! "

I saw when a father and mother had leaned

On the arm of a dear cherished son,
And the star in the future grew bright to their gaze,

As they saw the proud place he had won ;

MARY S. B. DANA-SHINDLER 109

And the fast-coming evening of life promised fair,

And its pathway grew smooth to their feet,
And the star-light of love glimmered bright at the end,

And the whispers of fancy were sweet;
But I saw when they stood bending low o'er the grave,

Where their heart's dearest hope had been laid,
And the star had gone down in the darkness of night,

And the joy from their bosoms had fled ;
But the Healer was there, and His arms were around

And He led them with tenderest care,
And He showed them a star in the bright upper world,

'Twas their star shining brilliantly there.
They had each heard a voice, 'twas the voice of their God,

" I love thee, I love thee ! PASS UNDER THE ROD ! "

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

1848 — 1908

MIDDLE Georgia has contributed much of the
brightest and most original humor of the South.
Here native material for fiction was early used
by writers who saw the quaint habits and heard
the dialect of plantation life. " No one of the
group of original and fascinating writers of the
South has been truer in delineation of character
or more keenly alive to the folk-lore, the pathos,
the human life of the simple, hearty, independent,
homogeneous people of middle Georgia than Joel
Chandler Harris, who was born in Putnam
County, Georgia."

Poverty was the first gift presented to the boy
hood of Joel Chandler Harris, but he was eager,
alive and watchful for opportunities. A Mr.
Turner, living near, on a large plantation, began
the publication of a small local paper called " The
Countryman," a weekly sheet somewhat after the
order of " The Rambler." In looking over the
first issue, young Harris saw an advertisement for
a boy to work in the editor's office and to learn
the printing business. An application was quickly

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS in

made for the place, and here was the lad's oppor
tunity, for Mr. Turner was wealthy, had a large
plantation, and better still, about three thousand
well-selected books, of which young Harris be
came a constant reader. This was good soil in
which his genius could grow. From among these
books, it is said that the first story he read was
" The Vicar of Wakefield," the simple charm of
which never was forgotten by him, even after he
became, himself, a writer of beautiful fiction.

Mr. Harris says he likes stories that portray
" human nature, humble, fascinating, plain, com
mon human nature."

During his life on the plantation, teeming with
slaves, and other interesting characters, this young
man Harris absorbed every phase of passing
events, and " his keen observation and boundless
sympathies put i him in touch with every dog,
horse, black runaway and white deserter, master
and slave."

It is not strange that, under the influence of this
library, and surrounded by the romance, the
pathos and beauty of the old Southern plantation
life, Joel Chandler Harris began to write. At
first his extreme modesty induced him to publish
his work under a nom de plume, but later
kindly notice and the encouraging reception of
his articles induced him to write regularly, using
his own name. This pleasant existence ended, for,

ii2 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

during the Civil war, after Sherman's march
through Georgia, there was nothing left on the
plantation, and Harris went to Macon, where he
found work on " The Daily Telegraph " of that
city, and finally became owner of " The Forsyth
Advertiser." One night he wrote the first sketch,
in " Legends of the Plantation," which was the
beginning of " Uncle Remus " and the " Little
Boy." Fame came to him at once. The true
secret of the real value of Uncle Remus' tales is
found in the fact that Mr. Harris " had the rare
ability to seize the heart of a suggestion, and make
a section famous with a legend." It seems almost
impossible for late song writers, novelists, or his
torians to appreciate the nature or understand the
conditions of the plantation negro, but " there is
no misrepresentation in the writings of Joel Chan
dler Harris, not a word strikes a false accent, not
a scene or incident is out of keeping with the life
he knew so thoroughly."

Quoting from Julian W. Abernethy: "The
strenuous work of reconstruction called him, and
he entered actively into the reviving journalism
of the South, finally becoming associated with the
" Atlanta Constitution," as editor, which place he
filled for twenty-five years. Having retired from
active journalism, he now devoted his time entirely
to literature. His published writings are:

" Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings,"

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS 113

" Nights with Uncle Remus," " Uncle Remus and
His Friends," "Max Mingo," "Mr. Little
Thimblefinger," " On the Plantation," " Daddy
Jake, the Runaway," " Balaam and His Master,"
" Mr. Rabbit at Home," " The Story of
Aaron," " Sister Jane," " Free Joe," " Stories of
Georgia," " Aaron in the Wild Woods," " Tales
of the Home Folks," " Georgia, from the Invasion
of De Soto to Recent Times," " Evening Tales,"
" Stories of Home Folks," " Chronicles of Aunt
Minerva Ann," " On the Wings of Occasion,"
" The Making of a Statesman."

The following extract from the " Old Bascom
Place," shows the peculiar love of the planter of
the Old South for his country home and how diffi
cult it was for the aged Southern man to adjust
himself to the new conditions.

The crash came when General Sherman went marching
through Hillsborough. The Bascom Place, being the
largest and the richest plantation in that neighborhood,
suffered the worst. Every horse, every mule, every living
thing with hide and hoof, was driven off by the Federals,
and a majority of the negroes went along with the army.
It was often said of Judge Bascom that he had so many
negroes he didn't know them when he met them in the
big road, and this was probably true. His negroes knew
him, and knew that he was a kind master in many re
spects, but they had no personal affection for him. They
were such strangers to the Judge that they never felt

ii4 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

justified in complaining to him even when the overseers
ill-treated them.

Consequently, when Sherman went marching along, the
great majority of them bundled up their little effects and
followed after the army. They had nothing to bind them
to the old place. The house servants and a few negroes, in
whom the Judge took a personal interest, remained, but
all the rest went away.

Then, in a few months, came the news of the surren
der, bringing with it a species of paralysis or stupefaction
from which the people were long in recovering — so long,
indeed, that some of them died in despair, while others
lingered on the stage, watching, with dim eyes and trem
bling limbs, half-hopefully and half-fretfully, the repre
sentatives of a new generation trying to build up the waste
places. There was nothing left for Judge Bascom to do
but to take his place among the spectators

Briefly, the world had drifted past him and his con
temporaries and left them stranded. Under the circum
stances, what was he to do? It is true he had a magnifi
cent plantation, but this merely added to his poverty.
Negro labor was demoralized, and the overseer class had
practically disappeared. He would have sold a part of
his landed estate; indeed, so pressing were his needs that
he would have sold everything except the house which his
father had built and where he himself was born, — that he
would not have parted with for all the riches in the
world — but there was nobody to buy. The Judge's neigh
bors and his friends, with the exception of those who had
accustomed themselves to seizing all contingencies by the
throat and wrestling tribute from them, were in as severe
a strait as he was ; and to make matters worse, the political

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS 115

affairs of the State were in the most appalling condition.
It was the period of reconstruction. Finally time brought
a purchaser, and the old place became owned by a North
ern stranger.

When Colonel Bascom and daughter walk
round their loved home the following conversa
tion occurs:

The old gentleman and the young lady walked slowly
along the hedge of Cherokee roses that ran around the
old Bascom Place, while the negro followed at a respect
ful distance. Once they pause, and the old gentleman
rubbed his eyes with a hand that trembled a little.

"Why, darling!" he exclaimed in a tone of mingled
grief and astonishment, " they have cut it down."

" Cut what down, father? "

" Why, the weeping-willow. Don't you remember it,
daughter? It stood in the middle of the field yonder. It
was a noble tree. Well, well, well! What next, I
wonder? "

" I do not remember it, father; I have so much
. »

" Yes, yes," the old gentleman interrupted. " Of course
you couldn't remember. The place has been changed so
that I have forgotten it myself. It has been turned topsy
turvy — ruined — ruined!" He leaned on his cane, and
with quivering lips and moist eyes looked through the
green perspective of the park and over the fertile fields
and meadows.

" Ruined ! " exclaimed the young lady, " how can you
say so, father? I never saw a more beautiful place. It
would make a lovely picture."

n6 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

" And they have changed the house, too. The whole
roof has been changed." The old man pulled down his
hat over his eyes, his hand trembling more than ever.
" Let us turn back, Mildred," he said after a while. " The
sight of all this frets and worries me more than I thought
it would."

" They say," said the daughter, " that the gentleman
who owns the place has made a good deal of money."

" Yes," replied the father, " I suppose so — I suppose
so. So I have heard. A great many people are making
money now who never made it before — a great many."

" I wish they would tell us the secret," said the young
lady, laughing a little.

" There is no secret about it," said the old gentleman,
" none whatever. To make money you must be mean and
niggardly yourself and then employ others to be mean and
niggardly for you."

" Oh, it is not always so, father," the young girl ex
claimed.

" It was not always so, my daughter. There was a
time when one could make money and remain a gentle
man; but that was many years ago."

Once while the Judge and his daughter were passing
by the old Bascom Place they met Prince, the mastiff, in
the road. The great dog looked at the young lady with
kindly eyes and expressed his approval by wagging his
tail. At the gate he stopped and turned around, and
seeing the fair lady and old gentleman were going by, he
dropped his bulky body on the ground in a disconsolate
way and watched them as they passed down the street.

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS 117

The next afternoon Prince made it a point to watch
for the young lady; and when she and her father ap
peared in sight he ran to meet them and cut up such
unusual capers, barking and running around, that the
master went down the avenue to see what the trouble was.
Mr. Underwood (the new owner of the Bascom Place)
took off his hat as Judge Bascom and his daughter drew
near.

" This is Judge Bascom, I presume," he said. " My
name is Underwood ; I am glad to meet you."

" This is my daughter, Mr. Underwood," said the
Judge, bowing with great dignity.

" My dog has paid you a great compliment, Miss Bas
com," said Francis Underwood. " He makes few friends,
and I have never before seen him sacrifice his dignity,
through his enthusiasm."

" I feel highly flattered by his attentions," said Mildred,
laughing. " I have read somewhere, or heard it said, that
the instinct of a little child and a dog are unerring."

" I imagine," said the Judge, in his dignified way, " that
instinct has little to do with the matter. I prefer to be
lieve " — He paused a moment, looked at Underwood, and
laid his hand on the young man's stalwart shoulder. " Did
you know, sir," he went on, " that this place, all these
lands, once belonged to me? " His dignity had vanished,
his whole attitude changed. The pathos in his voice,
which was suggested rather than expressed, swept away
whatever astonishment Francis Underwood might have
felt. The young man looked at the Judge's daughter and
their eyes met. In that one glance, transitory though it
was, he found his cue; in lustrous eyes, proud yet appeal
ing, he read a history of trouble and sacrifice.

n8 JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

" Yes," Underwood replied, in a matter-of-fact way.
" We still call it the Bascom Place, you know."

" I should think so ! " exclaimed the Judge, bridling up
a little ; " I should think so ! Pray what else could it be
called?"

" Well, it might have been called Grassland, you know,
or The Poplars, but somehow the old name seemed to
suit it best. I like to think of it as the old Bascom Place.
Won't you go in, sir, and look at the old house? "

The Judge turned his pale and wrinkled face toward
his old home.

" No," he said, " not now. I thank you very much.
I — somehow — no, sir, I cannot go now."

His hand shook as he raised it to his face, and his lips
trembled as he spoke. " Let us go away, daughter," he
said after a while. " We have walked far enough."

By permission of the Century Company, Publishers,
New York.

MRS. VIRGINIA L. FRENCH
1830—1881

VIRGINIA SMITH (Mrs. Virginia L. French)
had many advantages of birth and education. Born
on the fair shores of Virginia, at the country seat
of her maternal grandfather, Captain Thomas
Parker, an officer in the Revolutionary War, edu
cated in Pennsylvania and married in Tennessee,
her life has been like herself, varied and cosmo
politan. She is, nevertheless, a true daughter of
the Old Dominion; a fair representative of its gay
grace, its cordial hospitality, its love of luxury,
and its indomitable pride.

" The personal appearance of Mrs. French was
highly prepossessing, and her manner so gifted
with repose as to be unusually tranquilizing in its
social influence. Possessed of a keen insight, she
could see at a moment's glance the poetical in a
scene or situation, and with her heart on fire with
poetic zeal she made of her prose passages poetic
jewels."

Mrs. French at an early age was left an orphan.
At eighteen she had finished her education, and the
same year went to Memphis, Tennessee, to teach

119

120 VIRGINIA L. FRENCH

school. She was a successful teacher for several
years, but gradually turned her attention to liter
ary pursuits, occasionally contributing articles to
the journals and magazines under the name of
" L'Inconnue." In 1852 she became associate
editor of " The Southern Ladies' Book," published
in New Orleans.

She wrote under the nom de plume of " L'In
connue," and her poem, " The Lost Louisiana,"
in quite a romantic way brought about a meeting
with Mr. John H. French, whom she married in
1853. A newsboy in New Orleans selling a morn
ing paper spoke of a late poem on " The Lost
Louisiana," written in commemoration of a col
lision which had just occurred between the " Lou
isiana " and the " Belle of Clarksville," two Mis
sissippi steamers. It so happened that Mr. French
had been a passenger on the " Belle of Clarks
ville," and had lost much valuable cargo, barely
escaping with his life. Interested thus in the disas
ter, he read the poem many times, and kept it
carefully in his pocket-book. Not long after he
took steamer passage up the Mississippi, and dur
ing the detention at Memphis he went into a book
store to buy some reading matter to relieve the
hours of travel up the river. His attention was
arrested by seeing the name of " L'Inconnue " and
was told to look at the writer, as she was just then
passing the book shop. He gave one look into

VIRGINIA L. FRENCH 121

the blue eyes that met his like the eyes of Fate.
An introduction was effected, the steamer went on
its way without Mr. French, and the result was
marriage with the fair " L'Inconnue " and a long
residence in McMinnville, Tennessee. Here Mrs.
French's home, called " Forest Home," became
noted for beautiful scenery, its comfort, its taste
ful arrangement, and here this writer led a retired,
studious, and happy life.

In 1856 Mrs. French published a collection of
her poems under the title of " Wind Whispers."
Her " Legends of the South " are finely imagina
tive and graphic. " Iztalilxo, the Lady of Tala,"
is a tragedy in five acts and contains passages of
great beauty and force. Mrs. French's prose
writings were instinct with poetical expression, and
her review of Madame Le Vert's " Souvenirs of
Travel " was copied into the best papers here and
in Europe.

" The Legend of the Infernal Pass " was in
spired by the story of the famous gorge some fif
teen miles long, called " El Canon Inferno,"
where rise stupendous masses of rock piled upon
rock, until the traveler sees at the top but a narrow
strip of sky. The white steed alluded to in the
tradition is still said to be seen at intervals by the
warriors of the Comanches. He is represented as
of exceeding beauty and vigor, but of such swift
ness that, notwithstanding the most daring efforts

122 VIRGINIA L. FRENCH

to capture him, he has never been brought within
range of the lariat.

His neigh to the wind rose wild and high,

(Thou rider bold, take heed,)
With the stag's fleet foot he bounded by,

That beautiful demon-steed!
But the glare of his eye the soul had shook,

With its terrible human look!

The versatility of this gifted poet has caused her
critics to take different views of her work. One
says : " As a journalist she was par excellence."
Another one says: "Poetry was her strong
point," and for the poem " Shermanized " claims
that: " Never sprang cooler and keener sarcasm
from more tranquil lips. It is the flash of the
' yataghan ' from a velvet sheath — the cold, clear
gleam of the sword from a silver scabbard." Still
another critic takes another view and says: " Mrs.
French writes the best prose, with the strongest
sense in it, of any Southern writer."

Among Mrs. French's poems are : " The Elo
quence of Ruins," " Mammy," " Sherman
ized," "The Auctioneer," "The Broken Sen
tence." Her other works are : " Wind Whis
pers," "Legends of the South," " Iztalilxo,"
a Tragedy; and " My Roses, The Romance of a
June Day."

VIRGINIA L. FRENCH 123

She has written one poem which many regarded
as unequaled in its line by any writer. It is a mas
terpiece of the highest type and deservedly ranks
with the greatest efforts of American poets.

THE LEGEND OF THE LOST SOUL

Ha! what a frenzied cry
Up the lone forest-aisles conies sadly wailing,
Now quick and sharp, now choked with agony,
As sight and sense were failing.

The far stars coldly smiled
Down through the arches of the twilight wood,
Where sire and mother sought their child,
In the dark solitude.

And low the phantom wind
Came stealing o'er the hills with ghostly feet,
But paused not in its flight to bear one kind,
Soft echo, shrill and sweet.

O'er them the giant trees,

All proudly waving, tossed their arms on high,
Yet no loved baby-voice from 'midst of these
Answered their broken cry.

But one sad piping note,
That strangely syllabled a blended name,
As seemed its cadences to fall or float
From boughs above them came.

124 VIRGINIA L. FRENCH

The mother started wild,

As that strange sound the forest foliage stirred,
Then hastened to the sire; she knew her child,
In that lone spirit-bird.

No word the father spake ;
His face was ghastly, and its haggard lines
Lay stern and rigid, like some frozen lake
O'ershadowed by its pines.

Shuddering she strove to speak,
Once more in nature's strong appealing tones,
To supplicate her child — there came a shriek
That died in heavy moans.

The night came down; afar
Was heard the hoarse, deep baying of the storm,
And thunder clouds around each captive star
In black battalions form.

Now, all the mighty wood
Has voices like the sullen sounding sea,
While onward rolls the deep majestic flood
His surges solemnly.

The massy foliage rocks,
Slow swaying to the wind, and failing fast
Embattled oaks, that braved a thousand shocks,
Are bending to the blast.

And crimson tropic bloom
Lies heaped upon the sward, as though a wave
Of summer sunset streams within the gloom
Had found a verdant grave.

VIRGINIA L. FRENCH 125

Down came the rushing rain,
But far, perchance, where thunders never roll,
The bird had flown, the parents called in vain,
Upon the wandering soul.

Then feeble 'mid the maze
Of 'wildering storm, their feet the cabin sought,
Oft turning back to search, with blinded gaze,
For that which now was not.

True, true — the tale is old,
And full of sorrow the tradition hoary,
Yet, daily life's unwritten annals hold
A sterner, sadder story.

Oh ! hear ye not the cry,

That every hour sends up where thick life presses,
That shrieks from lowest depths to God on high
From life's great wilderness?

It is the cry of Woman,
And hers the really lost and wandering soul,
Seeking, amid the godlike, yet the human,
To find her destined goal.

Like glacier of the North,
Her pure and shining spirit braves the sea
Of Life and Action, drifting, drifting forth
On waves of destiny.

" Deep calling unto deep,"
How raves the ocean by the tempest tossed !
Perchance her onward course the soul may keep,
Perchance 'tis wrecked, or lost.

i26 VIRGINIA L. FRENCH

Perchance some other heart,
In pride of Being, standing firm and free,
May call, " Oh, seeker of the better part,
Come, wanderer, to me ! "

Alas! that dulcet tone

Is but the hollow music of a shell

That mocks the ocean ; yet, the pilgrim lone

It wins as by a spell.

The dream, the dream is past —
Perchance some careless word, some fancied wrong,
The soul is driven forth — Oh! woe the last,
The weaker by the strong.

From her closed lips a moan
Goes up — yet seems it her unspoken prayer
Falls back again upon her heart alone
To sink and perish there.

And then her spirit pants
Beneath the heat and burden of the day,
Still struggling on amid the vulture wants
That make her heart their prey.

Still, in its source of pain
Clinging most fondly ; and, in holy trust,
Pouring its worship in a worse than vain
Idolatry of dust.

Like the great organ rocks

That rise on Orinoco's distant shore,

She sends rich music o'er the wave that mocks,

Yet answers her no more !

VIRGINIA L. FRENCH 127

From the still firmament

A star drops, sparkles, and almost before

The eye can note, is gone — with chaos blent — ,

Its brilliancy is o'er.

And thus with thee, — unknown,
Unrecognized, and lost in earthly clime,
Thy 'wildered soul may wander, and alone
Go from the shores of time.

Yet, far in yon blue dome,
Where dwell the spirits of the dead departed,
There thou art known ; and they will welcome home
An angel, — broken-hearted.

Then courage, weary one!

Work while thou may'st, — for though thy spirit,

riven,

Is fading like a fountain in the sun,
Exhaled, it reaches heaven !

GRACE ELIZABETH KING

1852—

STILL living in the old homestead in the city of
New Orleans, where she was born, Grace King
continues her literary work, which was begun
many years ago. Her excellent stories are still
being published in " The Century Magazine."
She is the daughter of a prominent native Lou
isiana family.

Possibly her strongest work is entitled " Earth-
lings." In it are pictured with intense reality the
possibilities of those who can be conscientiously
called " Earthlings." It is a story full of fire and
pathos from beginning to end. Indeed, as has
been aptly said: " One closes the cover of the book
with a heartfelt sigh that it is over, this dream
through which you have been carried, so beauti
ful and yet so true."

It is probable that her greatest reputation has
been achieved on what is known as her " Balcony
Stories," for it is these that she devoted largely
to pictures of Creole beauties. A passage taken
from one of them will be sufficient to show how
minutely she enters into detail, and yet with what

128

GRACE ELIZABETH KING 129

tact and ability she manages to hold the reader's
interest, all the while showing all the follies and
foibles, as well as the virtues, of the heroine.

LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE

That was what she was called by everybody as soon as
she was seen or described. Her name, besides baptismal
titles, was Idalie Sante Foy Mortemart des Islets. When
she came into society, in the brilliant world of New Or
leans, it was the event of the season, and after she came
in, whatever she did became also events. Whether she
went, or did not go; what she said, or did not say; what
she wore, and did not wear, all these became important
matters of discussion, quoted as much or more than what
the President said, or the Governor thought, and in those
days, the days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now,
a one-heiress place, but it may be said that one could find
heiresses then as one finds typewriting girls now.

Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth and what educa
tion she had on her parents' plantation, the famed old
Reine Sainte Foy place, and it is no secret that, like the
ancient Kings of France, her birth exceeded her education.

It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness
and luxury of which are really well described in those
perfervid pictures of tropical life, at one time the passion
of philanthropic imaginations, excited and exciting over
the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were then
often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem
now to fall short of, instead of surpassing the truth.
Stately walls, acres of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured
fields of cane, colossal sugar house, — they were all there,

i3o GRACE ELIZABETH KING

and all the rest of it with the slaves, slaves, slaves, every
where, whole villages of negro cabins, and there were
also, — most noticeable to the natural as well as the vis
ionary eye — there were the ease, idleness, extravagance,
self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short, the
whole enumeration, the moral sine qua non, as some people
considered it, of the wealthy slave-holder of aristocratic
descent and estates.

What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied,
what she did not she ignored; and she followed the same
simple rule untrammeled in her eating, drinking, dressing,
and comportment generally; and whatever discipline may
have been exercised on the place, either in fact or fiction,
most assuredly none of it, even so much as in a threat,
ever attained her sacred person. When she was just
turned sixteen Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to
go into society. Whether she was beautiful or not, it is
hard to say. It is almost impossible to appreciate properly
the beauty of the rich, the very rich. The unfettered
development, the limitless choice of accessories, the confi
dence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the sim
plicity of purpose, the ease of execution, all these produce
a certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot
get to be sure of the length of the nose, or brilliancy of the
eye. This much can be said: there was nothing in her
that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty on
her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was
very tall and very thin, with a small head, long neck,
black eyes, and abundant straight black hair, — for which
her hair dresser deserved more praise than she, — good
teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, talked
nothing but commands; that is about all she had en fait

GRACE ELIZABETH KING 131

d'ornements, as the modistes say. It may be added that
she walked as if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation ex
tended over the whole earth, and the soil of it were too
vile for her tread.

Other books by this author are:

" Monsieur Motte," " Tales of Time and
Place," "The Place and the People," "Jean
Baptiste Lemoine, Founder of New Orleans " ;
" De Soto and His Men in the Land of Florida."

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR

1822 — 1874

THIS writer was a physician by profession, and
wrote poetry only when the spirit moved. His
birthplace was in Baldwin County, near Colum
bus, Georgia.

In the introductory remarks by Paul Hamilton
Hayne for the edition of Dr. Ticknor's volume of
poetry, published in 1879, he says of Ticknor:
" He combined in his mental and moral constitu
tion many of the best qualities of the North and
South. His father was a New Jerseyman, a phy
sician of great energy, who married into a dis
tinguished family of Savannah, and settled in that
city. This father dying early in life left his widow
with three small children to support. She re
moved to Columbus, in Georgia, and succeeded in
giving her sons excellent educations. Frank Tick
nor studied medicine in New York and Philadel
phia, and soon after graduation married Miss
Rosalie Nelson, daughter of Major F. M. Nelson,
a distinguished soldier of the war of 1812, and
later a prominent member of Congress. A few
years afterwards Dr. Frank O.Ticknor purchased

132

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR 135

a farm not far from Columbus, situated on the
summit of a high hill, and celebrated by tradition
as the scene where a desperate Indian battle had
been fought by torch-light. For this reason the
place was called ' Torch Hill.' The new home was
beautifully situated, overlooking for miles the
Chattahoochee River. Here in this beautiful
plare Dr. Ticknor lived for nearly a quarter of a
century, and he surrounded the home with fruits
and flowers till it was called ' a perfect Eden of
Roses.' "

" Art opened to his soul," says Hayne, " not one
alone, but several of her fairest domains. He was
a gifted musician, playing exquisitely on the flute,
and was a draughtsman of readiest skill and taste.
No more experienced doctor or successful scientist
could be found in the country, the scene of his la
bors. Everybody loved him, especially the suffer
ing poor. Far and wide, among the ' Sand Bar
rens,' or in the neighboring farm houses, the good
and wise physician was known and welcomed. His
gleeful smile, his spontaneous witticisms (for his
mind actually bubbled over with innocent humors)
cheered up many a despondent invalid."

Again, Paul Hamilton Hayne says of Ticknor's
work : " Brief swallow flights of song only were
possible to a man whose days and nights were so
occupied."

When the great Civil War began, Ticknor had

134 FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR

just reached the verge of middle age. His in
tellectual forces were in their fullest bloom; and
so it is not surprising that many of his ablest songs
belong to this period.

" One lyric, associated with the war," Hayne
says, " must appeal to many thousands still living
with a pathos not to be resisted is ' Unknown.' '

The prints of feet are worn away,
No more the mourners come;
The voice of wail is mute to-day
As his whose life is dumb.

The world is bright with other bloom ;
Shall the sweet summer shed
Its living radiance o'er the tomb
That shrouds the doubly dead?

Unknown ! Beneath our Father's face
The starlit hillocks lie ;
Another rosebud! lest His grace
Forget us when we die !

Dr. Ticknor's poems have had countless ad
mirers among those who have never heard of Dr.
Ticknor himself, and the verses are often treas
ured, either in memory or in scrap-books, simply as
anonymous gems which have come from some un
known author. " Frequently his poems have been
copied into newspapers and periodicals without any
credit marks whatever, and often public speakers,

FR4NCIS ORRERY TICKNOR 135

in appropriate connections, have quoted favorite
lines and stanzas from his splendid lyrics without
being able to tell who wrote them. To cite an
illustration, no poem is more frequently quoted or
more warmly admired for its rhythmic beauty and
exquisite sentiment than ' The Virginians of the
Valley,' and yet not one person out of ten knows
that the poem is from the pen of Dr. Ticknor."

When General Spotswood and his band of fol
lowers rode over the mountains of the Blue Ridge
and opened the beautiful valley beyond to the set
tlement of the white man, the horses of the com
pany had to be shod for the first time after leaving
the soft soil of the coast. Upon returning from
this expedition, which was considered quite a brave
one, the House of Burgesses presented these men
small golden horseshoes. Those receiving this
honor were considered as knighted, and in this
poem of " Virginians of the Valley," the poet re
fers to these " Golden Horseshoe Knights."

This favorite gem was inspired by the gallantry
of the Virginia soldiers who participated with
Stonewall Jackson in the valley campaigns.

THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY

The knightliest of the knightly race

That, since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry

Alight in hearts of gold ;

136 FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR

The kindliest of the kindly band

That, rarely hating ease,
Yet rode with Spotswood round the land,

And Raleigh round the seas;

Who climbed the blue Virginian hills

Against embattled foes,
And planted there, in valleys fair,

The lily and the rose!
Whose fragrance lives in many lands,

Whose beauty stars the earth,
And lights the hearths of happy homes

With loveliness and worth.

We thought they slept ! — the sons who kept

The names of noble sires, —
And slumbered while the darkness crept

Around their vigil fires;
But, aye, the " Golden Horseshoe Knights "

Their Old Dominion keep,
Whose foes have found enchanted ground

But not a knight asleep ! "

This poet wrote under the inspiration of other
sentiments than those of chivalry, as is shown by
such poems as " Home."

Bless that dear old Anglo-Saxon
For the sounds he formed so well;
Little word, the nectar-waxen
Harvest of a honey cell,

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR 137

Sealing all a summer's sweetness
In a single syllable!
For, of all his quaint word-building,
The queen-cell of all the comb
Is that grand old Saxon mouthful,
Dear old Saxon heart-ful Home.

Another poem whose admirers are found on
both sides of Mason and Dixon's line, which
has often been read with tearful emotions by the
veterans of the blue, as well as of the gray, is
" Little Giffen of Tennessee." This poem com
petent critics have pronounced one of the finest
productions of the war period of American
literature.

Dr. Ticknor's poems of the Civil War were the
most popular of any written, largely because of
their beauty and pathos, and absence of bitterness,
for they appeal to the human heart. " With a
heart as broad as humanity itself, and a poetic
ability surpassed by few, Francis Orrery Ticknor
has left one poem, a monument that will last when
monuments of stone and clay have passed away
and been forgotten. ' Little Giffen ' is a mas
terpiece of pathos. Its perusal always touches the
heart of the sympathetic reader. Its historical
value is great, too, because it pictures so typically
the condition of the South, and its fighting heroes
— so many of whom were boys."

138 FR4NCIS ORRERY TICKNOR

The story of " Little GiffenTof Tennessee " was
a true one. Isaac Giffen went into the Southern
army a mere boy; he was terribly wounded and
taken to the hospital at Columbus, Georgia. Here
good Dr. Ticknor found him and took him to
his own home, where Mrs. Ticknor's careful nurs
ing and the Doctor's medical skill saved him from
death. The boy was the son of a blacksmith and
had received no education. During convalescence
he learned to read and write. He was anxious to
return to the army, and was killed in some battle
around Atlanta.

Maurice Thompson says : " If there is a finer
lyric than this in the whole realm of poetry, I
should be glad to read it."

LITTLE GIFFEN

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle and he sixteen!)
Spectre, such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee.

" Take him and welcome! " the surgeon said;
" Little the doctor can help the dead ! "
So we took him and brought him where
The balm was sweet in our summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed —
Utter Lazarus, heel to head !

FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR 139

And we watched the war with abated breath, —
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death!
Months of torture, how many such !
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch ;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die.

And didn't. Nay, more! in death's respite
The cripple skeleton learned to write.
" Dear mother " at first, of course, and then,
" Dear Captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer: " Of eighty and five,
Giffen and I are left alive."

Word of gloom from the war, one day,

Johnston pressed at the front, they say.

Little Giffen was up and away;

A tear — his first — as he bade good-bye, —

Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.

" I'll write, if spared ! " There was news of the fight,

But none of Giffen — he did not write.

I sometimes fancy that, were I king

Of the princely Knights of the Golden Ring,

With the song of the minstrel in mine ear

And the tender legend that trembles here,

I'd give the best on his bended knee,

The whitest soul of my chivalry,

For " Little Giffen," of Tennessee.

Referring to this poem Hayne says: "The
opening stanza is a bold swell of music, something

1 40 FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR

clarion like. The identical rhyme of the last
couplet, of the first verse, one loses sight of in the
exceeding terseness of the language, the outright
vigor of the rhetorical stroke. Most poets dally
with their conceptions. But this one seizes his
idea at once, thrusts it into position of strong re
lief, fastens it there, and is done. Technically
speaking, his style is dynamic."

Of the whole poem he says: " Here there is no
straining after effect, no floundering to get up a
foam; but that sturdy art which is the spirit of a
genuine popular ballad."

Of another poem, " Loyal," Hayne says: " It is
an absolutely perfect ballad. Was ever the his
torical incident it commemorates more feelingly
and vividly described? "

Some of Ticknor's war poems in addition to
those previously mentioned are as follows : "The
Sword of Raphael Semmes," "Loyal," "Albert
Sidney Johnston," " Virginia," " Georgia and
Lee." Among other poems are " Lady Alice,"
" Rosalie," and " Mary." His poems were col
lected and published by Miss Kate Mason Roland,
of Richmond, in 1879.

ELISABETH WHITFIELD BELLAMY
1838 — 1900

MRS. BELLAMY belonged to the Croon family
of North Carolina, and before the war she married
her cousin, Dr. Charles Bellamy. She was edu
cated in Philadelphia at Pelham Priory, was a fine
musician and linguist and a most excellent English
scholar. She lost husband and children in the Civil
War and was compelled to write for a living. She
wrote for " Appleton's Magazine " and was a con
tributor of short stories for " The Cycle," pub
lished in Mobile. She also gave private lessons in
English and other languages. Amelie Rives, the
novelist, was one of her pupils. Mrs. Bellamy
first wrote under the nom de plume of " Kamba
Thorpe." Among her works are " Four Oaks,"
" Little Johanna," and a dialect story, " Old Man
Gilbert."

OLD MAN GILBERT

Colonel Thorpe was in his office, as a separate small
building was called in which he transacted all kinds of
business. Apparently he was unoccupied when old Gil
bert entered, for he sat in his leather-covered armchair

141

i42 ELISABETH WHITFIELD BELLAMY

stroking his beard and staring at the fire. But he thrust
aside his musings when he heard old Gilbert's familiar
salutation, and said with an effort at gayety:

" Well, old man, what foolishness are you up to now? "

" Hit's business, Mawster, if you please, suh, dis time,"
old Gilbert made answer, twirling his hat, by way of re
lief to his embarrassment. " Ise been studyin' on a trade
ef you'd gib yo' cawnsent, suh."

"Well?"

" Dot ole white mule, Zip, suh. I wuz studyin' det
you mought be minded to tak sixty dollars fur him, he is
a old mule."

"What! have you saved up sixty dollars?" exclaimed
the Colonel. " And you want to buy old Zip and then
feed him on my corn and fodder, eh ? "

"You wouldn't miss what he'd eat, suh, nur nary
nuther mule," old Gilbert said, deprecatingly, uncon
scious of the comparison he had made, but which the
Colonel perceived and smiled at grimly.

" I don't see what you want with the mule ! " he said.
" Old Brandy and the ox-cart about belong to you now."

" Ole Brandy an' de yox-cart ain't so servisable fur
plowin'," Gilbert explained.

" I don't want your money," said the Colonel shortly.
" You can take the mule any time you may need him,"
the Colonel added, and he repeated: " I don't want your
money."

" Tankee, tankee, Mawster, tankee, suh," old Gilbert
responded, but there was disappointment in his tone. He
lingered an instant, as if he meant to say more, then
turned and went his shambling way out of the office.
When he had gone down the steps he looked back to say :

ELISABETH WHITFIELD BELLAMY 143

" Ain't I heard you tell de oberseer that Zip is wuth
'bout sixty dollars?"

" I suppose he may be worth about that," the Colonel
answered absently.

It wanted now but a few days of Christmas, which the
Colonel desired to celebrate just as usual. The turkeys
long had been fattening, the beef was killed, the bonfires
piled ready for lighting. If his son Nicolas's absence was
felt, no one alluded to it.

On Christmas morning the Hill resounded with pop
ping of fire crackers, the shooting of Christmas guns, and
repeated shouts in every variety of tone. " Christmas gif,
Mawster; Christmas gif, Missie Virey, Christmas gif,
Missie."

In the afternoon of the second day Glory Ann took
occasion to ask:

" Missie Virey, is you sont ole man Gilbert off any
whey."

" Where should I be sending him? " said Miss Elvira.

" Dun-no me," Glory Ann answered with mystery.
" Maybe hit's Mawster is sont 'im."

Old Gilbert had been absent since the morning after
Christmas. His cabin was locked, and there was no
smoke in his chimney.

When the matter was investigated farther, it was
found that the old white mule, Zip, was missing likewise.
The Colonel received this information with a stare at
first, and then burst out laughing, though no one knew
why he laughed.

The Colonel going into his office one morning was sur-

144 ELISABETH WHITFIELD BELLAMY

prised to find on his table an uncouth package wrapped in
a piece of cloth, and tied with a length of twine multi-
tudinously knotted. When this was opened, there revealed
a quantity of coin to the amount of sixty dollars! The
Colonel's stern features relaxed into a pathetic smile. This
was the price of the old white mule, but how it came there
on his table was a problem he made no attempt to solve.
Carefully he tied the money up again, and locked it away
in a drawer of his big mahogany secretary against a day
of reckoning, a day more distant than he dreamed.

Farther on in this beautiful plantation story we
learn that old Gilbert, with noble purpose, had
stolen away on old Zip, and that after much effort
and many dangers the faithful slave, with that
wonderful devotion, the offspring of slavery, had
found and brought back to the plantation the lost
and erring boy — and that the Colonel was most
deeply touched by this devotion, and still could
not suppress a tender smile as he handed back to
old Gilbert his sixty dollars carefully tied up in the
same piece of cotton cloth.

The following beautiful description is from
" Four Oaks " :

There is an old tomb in the garden where Anthony
Fletcher lies buried, but his name is otherwise perpetuated
in Netherford by the great bell of St. Botolf's, which was
his gift. The sexton of St. Botolf's was once gardener of
Four Oaks, and from him the bell received the name of

ELISABETH WHITFIELD BELLAMY 145

Lonely Tony, a quaint tribute to its old master. Super-
stitution had infested Four Oaks with ghostly terrors, and
the children of Netherford have a fancy that Lonely Tony
is a prisoner in the church tower, living on the pigeons
that build in the belfry, and suffering untold torture at
the hands of the sexton. Fanning avenue begins at the
corner where stands the church, and leads between over
arching trees to a stately edifice fronting the south. Here
in days gone by lived Jacob Fanning. He it was who
planted the trees which shade the avenue, and he it was
who raised the sidewalk of his avenue in imitation of the
terraces on the main way.

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON
1823—1873

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON was born in Rich
mond October 23, 1823, and died in New York
April 30, 1873, and was buried in Hollywood
Cemetery, Richmond. After a course of training
in his native city, and another at a preparatory
school in East Haven, Conn., he entered the
academic department of the University of Vir
ginia, graduating in its law school in 1844. So
decided was his leaning toward letters that even
during his two years' practice of law he contributed
both prose and verse to Northern and Southern
periodicals, and in 1847 closed with an offer of the
editorship of " The Southern Literary Mes
senger," a journal published in Richmond, and the
South to-day owes a debt of gratitude to John R.
Thompson. Nor is the North free of some in
debtedness, for " The Reveries of a Bachelor "
first appeared in the pages of the " Messenger."
Many of the poems of Poe and his " Critical
Essays " were published here, and Park Benjamin,
Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Osgood, J. M. Legare, R. H.
Stoddard, Paul H. Hayne, Margaret Junkin

146

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON 147

Preston, Lieutenant Maury and many other excel
lent writers contributed to this old Southern maga
zine.

In 1854 Thompson made his first trip abroad,
expanding his own mind by contact with the mas
ter minds of England, and forming what proved
to be lasting friendships with Dickens, Bulwer,
Macaulay, the Brownings, Thackeray, Tennyson
and Carlyle. A series of sketches of foreign travel
that gave new zest to the pages of the " Messen
ger " was one of the outcomes of this sojourn.

These sketches, with revisions and additions,
were collected in a volume entitled " Across the
Atlantic." It had been consigned to the binders in
the publishing house of Derby & Jackson, New
York, when the building took fire and the edition
was destroyed.

Upon his return to America, resuming control
of the " Messenger," Thompson contributed to
Northern magazines, recited original poems be
fore literary societies and delivered a series of
lectures in the principal cities of the South, notable
among which lectures were those upon " European
Journalism " and the " Life and Genius of Poe."

In 1860 he resigned his position upon the
" Messenger " to accept the more remunerative
one of editor of the " Southern Field and Fire
side," published in Augusta, Georgia.

A year later the war recalled him to Virginia,

148 JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON

and debarred by a constitutional malady from en
listing in her defense, his loyalty expressed itself
writing patriotic verse, and in prose works. He
wrote unremittingly for the daily and weekly press,
his patriotism inspiring those poems, " Coercion,"
" On to Richmond," " England's Neutrality," " A
Word to the West," " Ashby," " The Burial of
Latane," and the " Death of Stuart," praise of
which echoed across the Atlantic.

Meanwhile his fatal disease made rapid prog
ress, and in 1864, when he went to England for
his health, he was carried in the arms of friends on
board the blockade runner which conveyed him.
It was feared that he might not live to reach his
destination, but the sea air revived him, and he im
proved sufficiently to take a position on the edi
torial staff of " The Index," the official organ of
the Confederacy in London. He also sent weekly
letters to the " Louisville Courier-Journal," and
wrote leaders every week for the " London Stand
ard," a connection with which, as its American
correspondent, he maintained until his death.

He contributed, too, to the " New Orleans
Picayune " and " Crescent." He made flying trips
to Scotland even after the fall of the Confederacy,
which ended for the time his regular newspaper
connections, but he continued eighteen months in
London, preparing for " Blackwood's," from Von
Borcke's notes, an account of that officer's experi-

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON 149

ence as chief of the cavalry corps of the Army of
Northern Virginia.

Upon his return to America, in 1866, he settled
in New York, where he was briefly associated with
William Young, formerly editor of the " Albion,"
in the publication of " Every Afternoon."

While Thompson published no books, yet his
writings were widely known and exerted great in
fluence on the literature of the South. Few poems
have been more widely read since the Civil War
than:

" MUSIC IN CAMP "

Two armies covered hill and plain,

Where Rappahannock's waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain

Of battles' recent slaughters.

The summer clouds lay pitched like tents

In meads of heavenly azure,
And each dread gun of the elements

Slept in its hid embrasure.

The breeze so softly blew, it made

No forest leaf to quiver,
And the smoke of the random cannonade

Rolled slowly from the river.

And now, where circling hills looked down,

With cannon grimly planted,
O'er listless camp and silent town

The golden sunset slanted.

150 JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON

When on the fervid air there came
A strain, now rich, now tender;

The music seemed itself aflame
With day's departing splendor.

A Federal band, which eve and morn
Played measures brave and nimble,

Had just struck up, with flute and horn,
And lively clash of cymbal.

Down flocked the soldiers to the banks,

Till, margined by its pebbles,
One wooded shore was blue with " Yanks,"

And one was gray with " Rebels."

Then all was still, and then the band,
With movement light and tricksy,

Made stream and forest, hill and strand,
Reverberate with " Dixie."

The conscious stream with burnished glow
Went proudly o'er its pebbles,

But thrilled throughout its deepest flow
With yelling of the " Rebels."

Again a pause, and then again
The trumpets pealed sonorous,

And " Yankee Doodle " was the strain
To which the shore gave chorus.

The laughing ripple shoreward flew,

To kiss the shining pebbles;
Loud shrieked the swarming "Boys in Blue "

Defiance to the " Rebels."

JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON 151

And yet once more the bugle sang

Above the stormy riot;
No shout upon the evening rang —

There reigned a holy quiet.

The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood
Poured o'er the glistening pebbles;

All silent now the " Yankees " stood,
And silent stood the " Rebels."

No unresponsive soul had heard

That plaintive note's appealing,
So deeply " Home, Sweet Home " had stirred

The hidden founts of feeling.

Or Blue, or Gray, the soldier sees

As by the wand of fairy,
The cottage 'neath the live-oak trees,

The cabin by the prairie.

Or cold, or warm, his native skies

Bend in their beauty o'er him ;
Seen through the tear-mist in his eyes,

His loved ones stand before him.

As fades the iris after rain

In April's tearful weather,
The vision vanished, as the strain

And daylight died together.

But memory, waked by music's art,

Expressed in simplest numbers,
Subdued the sternest " Yankee's " heart,

Made light the " Rebel's " slumbers.

152 JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON

And fair the form of music shines,
That bright celestial creature,

Who still, 'mid war's embattled lines,
Gave this one touch of Nature.

CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD
1816—1887

THIS gifted lady was the daughter of Major
Nathaniel A. Ware of Natchez, at one time Secre
tary of State of Mississippi. His wife was grand
daughter of Captain Charles Percy, of the British
Navy, who settled finally on a grant of land con
ferred upon him. His estate lay near Fort
Adams. He was widely known and left valuable
possessions to his family.

After his marriage Major Ware resided at their
country seat near Natchez. They had two chil
dren, the elder, Catherine, being born in 1816. In
order the better to conduct the education of his
children Major Ware, after the death of his wife,
sold his plantation and moved to Philadelphia.
Constant companionship with her father, a man
of trained intellect, developed in Catherine poetic
fancy and turned her mind into the channel of
authorship.

Early in life she married Elisha Warfield of
Lexington, Kentucky, a gentleman of fine family.
In 1857 they moved to a country home near Louis
ville, Kentucky. About her earliest attempt at

153

154 CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD

authorship was a book written by herself and sis
ter, called " The Wife of Leon and Other
Stories." In 1846 they published a new collection
of pieces entitled " The Indian Chamber and
Other Poems." Both these books show strong
powers in embryo, and one sees progress soon in
depth, range and construction.

Later, as the years passed, the younger sister
died and Mrs. Warfield pursued her literary work
alone. A number of poems, " The Romance of
Beauseincourt," and several other novels came
from her pen, one among the most noted being
" The Household of Bouverie." " It was consid
ered a novel great in conception and masterly
in execution. The story is bold, sharp, live, mag
netic. Several scenes in the mysterious cham
ber, the interviews between Lilian and Erastus
Bouverie, with their pungent pre-Raphaelite de
tails, are pictures which, having once burned their
way into the brain, can never be forgotten. The
quaintness and originality remind one of Haw
thorne."

THE HOUSE OF BOUVERIE

My grandfather's spacious bedroom, ending in a half-
octagon, formed a central projection from the rear of
the building. Three doors opened into this apartment
from the sides that joined the house, and presented a
stiff array, separated as they were by wide panels lined

CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD 155

with windows. The central door opened with leaves into
a square or, rather, oblong hall; the others, narrowed,
and of simpler construction, gave into three rooms, evi
dently partitioned from the hall for convenience rather
than symmetry, since the effect to the eye must have
been far more liberal when the passage swept across the
house, as I knew afterward it had originally done. One
of these chambers, some twelve feet square only, yet
lofty and well-ventilated, had been fitted up for me with
a care and taste that left nothing to regret, even when I
compared it with the comfort and luxury of my former
home. That which I supposed to correspond with it on
the other side was kept strictly locked ; and at first I con
ceived it to be my grandmother's oratory — recalling that
of the mistress of Taunton Tower — or study, perhaps,
where books and paintings, sacred to her eye alone, were
cautiously concealed, as I had heard was the custom
among the authors and artists of the world.

But my grandmother, I soon discovered, was neither
the one nor the other; and when I found how simple and
even homely were the details of her everyday life, I de
scended from my pedestal of fancy, and determined that
this " Blue-Beard chamber," so mysterious and inaccessible
to me, was nothing more than a shy woman's dressing
room. A deep reticence of nature seemed to underlie, in a
very remarkable degree, the sparkling cordiality of my
grandmother's manner. You stumbled on this constitu
tional or habitual reserve, accidentally sometimes, as you
might do on a stone hid in a bed of flowers, and with
something of the same sharp, sudden anguish ; but I am
digressing to speak of this now. I wish to give at once,
for reasons that will be plainer hereafter, as correct an

156 CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD

idea as I know how to convey by words of the construc
tion of the house of Bouverie.

• • • • •

I understood later how it was that after her husband's
death — one of violence and horror, it was whispered —
my grandmother had cut off all communication with those
upper rooms which he had chiefly inhabited, associated in
her mind as they were with bloodshed and self-slaughter,
and how, as the dark legend crept stealthily around, that
night after night he might still be heard walking their
floors, and had even been seen descending the spiral stairs
that linked one circular hall with the other, while the
moon shone down through the great skylight, revealing
to the startled watchers his ghastly lineaments and spec
tral form — she had in the desperation of her fear and
agony, sealed up forever those haunted and accursed cham
bers. For this purpose the stairway had been removed,
and the space between the two halls floored and sealed.
This was done with an expedition that made food for
conjecture in the neighborhood, having its origin, doubt
less, in the almost frenzied terror of her own sensations,
that caused her to spare neither expense nor urgency to
have her alterations executed with dispatch. The work
men who performed the task were summoned from a dis
tant town, and spoke a foreign tongue. They came and
went like shadows; and in this manner she evaded, as
much as possible, the neighborhood gossip and espionage
which must otherwise have so annoyed her in her crushed
condition. For, at the time all this was done, my grand
father's fearful death was recent; and the same artisans
who removed the staircase, sealed away from sight and
access those abhorred upper apartments, placed the sim-

CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD 157

pie marble obelisk which bore his name above his grave
in the cedar grove. " Not one article was touched or
brought away, Miss Lilian, that ever belonged to him,"
added my informant in low, whispered tones, the old,
demure, yet gossiping woman who assisted at my toilet,
and who had lived with my grandmother and cared for
her ever since her birth ; — " not one article, lest a curse
might cleave to it and fall on us; and still he may be
heard at times — don't be frightened, Miss Lilian! — walk
ing, walking, the livelong night, the livelong day even,
as though no rest were granted him, in the other world,
who took no rest in this."

I had hidden my face on Dame Bianca's arm as she pro
ceeded in her vague narration, thrilled by a momentary
terror. Now I looked up and was annoyed by the ex
pression of her countenance, as my sudden glance fell
on it.

" She is trying to fool me," I thought, " with this
ghost story, and to make a coward of me, but I know
there is nothing of the kind." And nerved by this sudden
conviction, I proceeded to question her with more cool
ness and sagacity than she could have expected from one
evidently so impressed with her narration a moment be
fore.

" What made my grandfather so restless, Dame Bi-
anca?" I asked. "Was he unhappy and wicked, or
only busy?"

"Ah, child! all — wretched enough, I daresay, when
he stopped to think of his misdeeds, and always busy as
any working-bee in summer time. Busy with hand and
brain, with pen and sword, with drug and pistol, read
ing and thinking, plotting and contriving, and trampling

158 CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD

over every one that stood in his way without mercy or
fear."

• • • • •

It was on the day after my arrival that, sitting at the
supper table, during a long pause in the conversation,
while my grandmother was especially engaged with her
coffee-urn, I was shaken by one of those unreasonable
fits of laughter common to excitable children.

" What amuses you, Lilian ? " asked Dr. Quintil.
" Come, give us your merry thought, and we will pluck it
together."

" Oh, Dr. Quintil, I was thinking how funny it was —
and I never thought of it till this minute, which makes
it funnier still — that my Uncle Jasper has never spoken
one word to me since I came to Bouverie! Not one
word, Mr. Jasper, have you said to your niece since
she came to live with you, either for good or bad,"
and I shook my finger playfully at him across the
table.

He gazed at me a moment earnestly, and then suffered
his forehead to droop into his hands. Had I offended
him ? I looked anxiously at Dr. Quintil ; he, too, was
pale and grave, and averted his eyes from mine. My
grandmother alone retained her self-possession.

" My child," she said, " in this house above all others,
learn to be discreet. It is our misfortune to be an af
flicted household — Jasper has never spoken"

I dropped the untasted food, and, in a passion of grief
and mortification, I slid from the table, and lay with
my face on the floor. I was raised by kindly hands.
Jasper held me in his arms.

" Oh, what have I done! " I said. " I did not know —

CATHERINE ANNA WARFIELD 159

indeed I did not know — that one might hear and still be
dumb. Poor Uncle Jasper! Can you forgive me? "

Words never spoke as his eyes spoke to me then. I
have since believed that in the spirit world there will be
no need of speech, but that light, shining from each heav
enly visage, shall reveal whatever the immortal essence
seeks to communicate, and words be put away with other
bonds of the flesh. He held me to his bosom long, for
my feelings, when once vividly aroused, were not easily
consoled to quiet again; and they told me that on that
home of peace I sobbed myself to rest.

Jasper — my Jasper — from that hour I loved thee as
entirely as I shall do when we meet at the feet of God!

IRWIN RUSSELL

1853—1879

THIS poet was born in Port Gibson, Mississippi,
and was among the first of Southern writers to
recognize the possibilities of negro dialect and
character in poetry and fiction, and to picture in
poetry the unique relation between the Southern
slave and his master.

It is not surprising that there is very little gen
eral knowledge of this gifted man, for he passed
away quickly, after a brief struggle with life, leav
ing only one collection of poems, which was pub
lished after his death.

Irwin Russell's grandfather was a Virginian,
but moved West to Ohio, in which State the father
of Irwin was born and lived. He married a New
York lady, and then going South, settled in Port
Gibson, where Irwin and two other children were
born. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Russell's
father cast his lot with the Confederacy, and after
the war ended the son Irwin was sent to the St.
Louis University in St. Louis, a school conducted
by Jesuit Fathers. Here he became a diligent stu
dent, and his young friends called him a " walking

160

IRWIN RUSSELL 161

encyclopedia." He also gave evidence of fine
mathematical powers.

After graduation he returned to Mississippi,
studied and practiced law. He was in Port Gibson
during the yellow fever epidemic, in 1878, and he
remained through the whole dreadful tragedy of
sickness, and served as a devoted nurse. He
never fully rallied from the fearful strain and the
harrowing scenes through which he passed, " for
he was," says W. M. Baskerville, " that rare
union of bright mind with frail body, through
which the keenest appreciation and most exquisite
sensibility are developed."

His father, Dr. William Russell, who had also
remained in Port Gibson during the scourge, stay
ing nobly at his post of duty, sank under the labor
and died. This left young Russell entirely de
pendent upon himself.

Joel Chandler Harris says: "Russell always
had warm personal friends from whom he could
command everything that affection could suggest."

Going to New York, Irwin Russell took some
literary matter to the publishing house of Charles
Scribner & Sons, who received him with great per
sonal kindness.

He became very ill with fever in New York, and
before he was entirely recovered he worked his
passage on a boat back to New Orleans, where he
landed almost without money. He applied for

1 62 IRWIN RUSSELL

work at " The Times " office of that city, obtained
employment, and later became connected with the
paper.

For one so young, Russell gave remarkable evi
dence of training in the best of literature. He was
capable of hard, painstaking study, and his insight
into the peculiarities, pathos, and poetry in the
negro character was truly wonderful.

Thomas Nelson Page says of him: " Personally
I owe him much. It was the light of his genius
shining through his dialect poems that led my feet
in the direction I have since tried to follow," and
Dr. C. A. Smith says: "The appearance of
' Christmas Night in the Quarters ' meant that
Southern literature has now become a true repro
duction of Southern conditions."

Joel Chandler Harris says: " Irwin Russell's
negro character studies rise to the level of what in
a large way we term literature. I do not know
where there could be a more perfect representation
of negro character. His operetta ' Christmas
in the Quarters ' is inimitable."

Beginning with the arrival of the negroes who
come to " Uncle Johnny Booker's Ball " the poem,
" Christmas Night in the Quarters," says:

That through the din one hardly hears

Old fiddling 'Josey sound his A,
Correct the pitch, begin to play.

Then the dance commences.

IRWIN RUSSELL 163

" Git yo' pardners, fust kwatillion ;

Stomp yo' feet, an' raise 'em high ;
Tune is, ' Oh, that water-million ;
Gwine to git to home bime-by.' '

As daylight approaches, the tired dancers call
for a song from old Booker, who with his banjo
sings the legend of the origin of that instrument.
Repeating the story of the Ark, Uncle Booker
says: " Ham got lonesome,"

An' so fur amuse he-self, he steamed some wood an' bent

it,

An' soon he had a banjo made, de fust that was invented.
He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig,

'Twas " Neber min' the wedder " ;
She seem like forty-lebben bands a-playin' all togedder;
Some went to pattin', some to dancin', Noah called the

riggers ;

An' Ham he sot and knocked de tune,
De happiest ob niggers.

Russell declared the pathos and humor in the
character of the real old-fashioned negro of the
South afforded an inexhaustible amount of material
for both prose and poetry.

Like Sidney Lanier, Russell was passionately
fond of music and became a remarkably skilful
performer on the banjo.

Irwin Russell died at the early age of twenty-

164 IRWIN RUSSELL

six. Suffering and sorrow and poverty were his
till the last. The brief struggle ended in New
Orleans, and the beautiful contributions to South
ern dialect poetry remain our heritage. Works :
" Dialect Poems."

Irwin Russell himself tells why he could so
faithfully reproduce the life and feelings of the
negro in the following quotation:

You couldn't talk so natchel

'Bout de niggers' sorrows an' joys
Widouten you'd had a black mammy

To sing to you long is youse a boy.

Regarding the merits of Irwin Russell's verses
one critic says : " It seems to me that his poems
are to negro dialect what Gottschalk's music is to
negro melody. They have all a swinging gait, and
you can hear the rhythmical pattering of the feet,
and see the swaying of the darky figures in the
' walk-round ' as you read :

CHRISTMAS NIGHT IN THE QUARTERS

Git yo' pardners, fust kwatillion!

Stomp yo' feet, an' raise 'em high ;
Tune is, " Oh, dat water-million!

Gwine to git to home bime-bye."
S'lute yo' pardners! — scrape perlitely —

Don't be bumpin' 'gin de res' —

IRWIN RUSSELL 165

Balance all! now, step out rightly;

Alluz dance yo' lebbel bes'.
Fo'wa'd foah ! Whoop up, niggers !

Back ag'in ! — don't be so slow ! —
Swing cornahs! — min' de figgers!

When I hollers, den yo' go.
Top ladies cross ober!

Hands around — hoi' up yo' faces;

Don't be lookin' at .yo' feet !
Swing yo' pardners to yo' places!

Dat's de way — -dat's hard to beat.
Sides fo'wa'd ! — when you's ready —

Make a bow as low's you kin !
Swing acrost wid opp'site lady!

Now we'll let you swap ag'in:
Ladies change ! — shet up dat talkin' ;

Do yo' talkin' arter while !
Right an' lef! — don't want no walkin' — • .

Make yo' steps, an' show yo' style!

BLIND NED

Who is dat ar a-playin'? Shucks! I wish I wuzn't blin' ;
But when de Lord he tuk my eyes, he lef my yeahs be-

hin'.
Is dat you, Mahsr Bob? I t'ought I rec'nized your

bowin' ;
I said I knowed 'twas you, soon's I heered de fiddle goin'.

Sho! dat ain't right! Jes' le' me show you how to play
dat tune;

166 IRWIN RUSSELL

I feel like I could make de fiddle talk dis arternoon.
Now don't you see that counter's jes' a leetle bit too high?
Well, nebber min', I guess you'll learn to tune her by
an' by.

You's jes' like all musicianers dat learns to play by note;
You ain't got music in you, so you has to hab it wrote.
Now dat ain't science — why de debbil don't you play by

yeah?
For dat's de onlies' kin' ob music fittin' fur to heah.

Do you suppose, when David wuz a-pickin' on de harp,
He ebber knowed de difference atwixt a flat an' a sharp?
But any tune you called for, he could pick it all de same,
For David knowed de music, dough he didn't know de
name.

Now what shall I begin on? Somefm' lively, fas', and

quick ?
Well, sah, jes' pay attention, an' I'll gib you " Cap'n

Dick."
Yah! yah! young mahsr, don't you feel jes' like you want

to pat?
You'll hab to practice fur a while afore you ekals dat!

Dere ain't nobody 'roun' dis place kin play wid Uncle

Ned;

Dey isn't got it in deir ringers, neider in deir head ;
Dat fiddler Bill dey talks about — I heered him play a

piece,
An' I declar' it sounded like a fox among de geese.

IRWIN RUSSELL 167

A violeen is like an 'ooman, mighty hard to guide,
An' mighty hard to keep in order after once it's buyed.
Dere's alluz somefin' 'bout it out ob kelter, more or less,
An' 'tain't de fancies'-lookin' ones dat alluz does de bes'.

Dis ye's a splendid inst'ument — I 'spec' it cost a heap;
You r'al'y ought to let me hab dis riddle fur to keep.
It ain't no use to you, sah ; fur, widout it's in de man,
He cain't git music out de fines' riddle in de Ian'.

Well, good-bye, Mahsr Bob, sah; when you's nuffin else

to do,

Jes' sen' fur dis ol' darky, an' he'll come an' play fur you ;
An' don't gib up your practicin' — you's only sebenteen,
An' maybe when you's ol' as me you'll play the violeen

By permission of Miss Mary Russell and Century Co,,
New York.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE

1844

THE " Land of the Creole " is the name some
times given to lower Louisiana, and here in the
cosmopolitan city of New Orleans was born the
subject of this sketch. On his father's side he is
descended from an old colonial family of Virginia,
the Cabells. The name was originally spelled
Cable, and their coat-of-arms introduces the cable
upon its design.

Cable's maternal ancestors were from New Eng
land. His parents were married in Indiana, and
came to New Orleans to live. The father died in
1859, leaving the family in very straitened circum
stances. George W. Cable, then only fourteen
years old, had to leave school just as he was about
to graduate, in order to accept a clerkship which
would enable him to support the family.

At the beginning of the Civil War Cable entered
the army, although only a youth, serving in Col
onel Wilburn's Fourth Mississippi Cavalry of
General Wirt Adams' brigade. Army comrades
speak of the young volunteer as being a good sol
dier, scrupulously observant of discipline, always

168

GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE 169

at his post of duty, and courageous and daring. In
one engagement he received a serious wound in the
left arm, and narrowly escaped being killed. The
close of the war found him without a dollar, and
he began work in New Orleans as an errand boy,
and then was promoted to a clerkship. Through
all this arduous and uncongenial labor, Cable was
untiring in effort to acquire an education. He be
gan his first literary work writing for the " New
Orleans Picayune," over the name of " Drop
Shot," and after a time he became one of the edi
torial staff of this fine old paper. From religious
scruples he refused to report entertainments,
thereby losing his position, but he soon obtained a
situation as accountant with a firm of cotton fac
tors. Mr. Cable jotted down, while at his desk,
busy with invoices and figures, every incident and
conceit that came with his intercourse among men
of all classes, and from stray bits of Creole life;
thus developing his rare talent for insight into
human character and motive. About this time he
wrote " The Belles Damoiselle Plantation,"
" Tite Polite," " Jean ah Poquelin," " Cafe des
Exiles," and " Madame Delicieuse." These
early stories made a revelation of two facts — that
there was a wonderful and new field of romance
in Creole life and dialect, and that Cable could
tell a story well.

" In ' Madame Delphine,' which was published

170 GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE

in 1 88 1, we see a perfect specimen of this writer's
art in literary construction. The narrative is
handled so skilfully that the reader is unaware of
its utter impossibility."

" Dr. Sevier " is a beautiful story of great lit
erary merit, with the added grace of simplicity.
In the experiences of John Richling it has been
said that Mr. Cable, in some measure, gave his
own history. There was this difference be
tween the writer and his hero, John Richling: the
former made a success of whatever he attempted,
while in the story, poor Richling was a failure.
The writer who could describe Ristofalo with his
happy disregard of trouble, Narcisse, " dear, de
licious, abominable Narcisse," and Mary, bright,
brave and loving, and Dr. Sevier, the physician,
noble, generous and capable, yet tender as a
woman, was certainly a master in the realms of
fiction.

Some of Mr. Cable's later works have received
much criticism from the South, but the beauty of
his other writings remains untarnished. He now
lives near Northampton, Massachusetts. Here he
indulges his tastes for birds, flowers and trees.
Tree culture is one of his hobbies, and with quaint
idea he has trees planted by well-known friends
and guests and named after them, for instance:
The Beecher Elm; the Max O'Rell Ash; the
Conan Doyle Maple.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE 171

His best known works are: "Old Creole
Days," " The Grandissimes," " Madame Del-
phine," " The Creoles of Louisiana," " Dr.
Sevier," " The Silent South," " Bonaventure,"
" The Negro Question," " Strange True Stones
of Louisiana," " John March, Southerner,"
"Strong Hearts," "The Cavalier," " Bylow
Hill."

Henrietta Christian Wright says : " ' The Gran
dissimes ' made Cable famous, although it elicited
much adverse criticism from readers who denied
its truthfulness as a picture of old Creole days,
yet it must be considered one of the best works of
fiction in the South. It has been followed by in
numerable transcriptions of Southern life from
other hands, but to the author of ' Grandis
simes ' must always remain the credit of being
the pioneer in the fascinating world of Creole
romance."

To the Acadian settlements in the lower Lou
isiana prairies Mr. Cable went for inspiration for
his novel " Bonaventure." The hero, Bonaven
ture, was an orphan boy, who was being brought
up by the village cure. This was the first time
since Longfellow wrote " Evangeline " that the
story and character of the Acadians were again
used for romance in literature. Mr. Cable spent
much time hunting among old records and his
torical documents, newspapers and government

i?2 GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE

reports, and sifted out material for his articles
called " The Creoles of Louisiana."

This selection from " Au Large " is a descrip
tion of Nature in a " transport of passion," and
then in her hour of calmness. Mr. Cable closes
the extract with fine psychological thought.

"AU LARGE"

Soon the stars are hidden. A light breeze seems rather
to tremble and hang poised than to blow. The rolling
clouds, the dark wilderness, and the watery waste shine
every moment in the wide gleam of lightnings still hidden
by the wood, and are wrapped again in ever-thickening
darkness, over which thunders roll and jar and answer
one another across the sky. Then, like a charge of ten
thousand lancers, come the wind and the rain, their onset
covered by all the artillery of heaven. The lightnings
leap, hiss, and blaze; the thunders crack and roar; the
rain lashes; the waters writhe; the wind smites and
howls. For five, for ten, for twenty minutes — for an
hour, for two hours — the sky and the flood are never
for an instant wholly dark, or the thunder for one mo
ment silent ; but while the universal roar sinks and swells
and the wide, vibrant illumination shows all things in
ghostly half-concealment, fresh floods of lightning every
moment rend the dim curtain and leap forth; the glare
of day falls upon the swaying wood, the reeling, bowing,
tossing willows, the seething waters, the whirling rain,
and in the midst the small form of the distressed steamer,
her revolving paddle-wheels toiling behind to lighten the

GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE 173

strain upon her anchor chains; then all are dim ghosts
again, while a peal, as if the heavens were rent, rolls off
around the sky, comes back in shocks and throbs, and
sinks in a long roar that, before it can die, is swallowed
up in the next flash and peal.

A few hours later the winds were still, the stars were
out, a sweet silence had fallen upon water and wood,
and from her deck the watchman on the steamer could
see in the northeastern sky a broad, soft illumination, and
knew it was the lights of slumbering New Orleans, eight
een miles away. By and by, farther to the east, another
brightness began to grow and gather this light into its
outstretched -wings. In the nearest wood a soft twitter
came from a single tiny bird. Another voice answered
it. A different note came from a third quarter; there
were three or four replies; the sky turned to blue and
began to flush; a mocking-bird flew out of the woods on
her earliest quest for family provisions; and a thrush
began to sing, and in a moment more the whole forest
was one choir.

What wonderful purity was in the fragrant air ; what
color was on the calm waters and in the deep sky; how
beautiful, how gentle was Nature after her transport of
passion ! Shall we ever subdue her and make her always
submissive and compliant? Who knows? Who knows
what man may do with her when once he has got self,
the universal self, under perfect mastery? See yonder
huge bull-alligator swimming hitherward out of the
swamp! Even as you point he turns again in alarm and
is gone. Once he was man's terror, Leviathan. The very
lions of Africa and the grizzlies of the Rockies, so they
tell us, are no longer the bold enemies of man they once

174 GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE

were. " Subdue the earth ! " It is being done. Science
and art, commerce and exploration, are but parts of re
ligion. Help us, brothers all, with every possible discov
ery and invention to complete the conquest begun in that
lost garden whence man and woman first came forth, not
for vengeance, but for love, to bruise the serpent's head.
But as yet both within us and without us, what terrible
revolt doth Nature make! What awful victories doth
she have over us, and then turn and bless and serve us
again. . . .

By permission of author.

HENRY TIMROD

1829—1867

THIS noted writer was a descendant of an old
German family, and was born in Charleston, South
Carolina. His father, William Henry Timrod,
who held, with distinction, many positions of
honor, was married to a Miss Prince and died
from exposure during the Florida War with the
Seminole Indians. This father, with German thrift
and tenacity of purpose, " voluntarily apprenticed
himself to a book-binder in order to have plenty
of books to read." Henry Timrod inherited his
father's love of books and his determination of
character. He entered the University of Georgia,
but extreme poverty prevented him from finishing
the course of study. However, not discouraged
by his lack of money, he returned to Charleston
with the intention of studying law, which soon be
came distasteful to him. He then endeavored to
prepare for a college professorship, but failing in
this, he turned his attention to writing and jour
nalism, in the meantime supporting himself by
teaching in private families. He taught for ten
years.

175

176 HENRY TIMROD

His first book of poems, published in Boston
in 1860, was cordially received in the United
States and would have been published in London
had it not been for the " turmoil of civil strife "
at that time. With heart aflame with loyalty to
his State, Timrod voluntereed as a private in the
Southern army, and during this time he wrote
" Carolina," " The Cotton Ball," and " The Call
to Arms," poems that did much to influence the
people of South Carolina.

Failing health compelled him to abandon active
service as a soldier, and he undertook the work of
war correspondent, first representing " The
Charleston Mercury," then in 1864 he went to
Columbia and became editor of " The South Caro
linian." About this time he married Miss Kate
Goodwin, the " Katie" of whom he. wrote in his
poems.

Julian W. Abernethy, Ph. D., Principal of the
Berkley Institution, Brooklyn, says : " In less than
a year came Sherman's army, cutting its terrible
swath to the sea, and Timrod was left destitute.
A few months later his idolized child died, and in
the little grave a large portion of the father's
heart was buried." Before another three years
had flitted past, the tired body of Henry Timrod
slumbered beside his son in Trinity churchyard,
Columbia.

HENRY TIMROD 177

As it purples in the zenith,

As it brightens on the lawn,
There's a hush of death about me,

And a whisper, " He is gone."

Henry Timrod was " The poet of the Lost
Cause, the finest interpreter of the feelings and
traditions and heroism of a brave people. More
over, by his catholic spirit, his wide range, his
world-wide sympathies, he was a true American
poet."

The first edition of his poems, published in
1860, contained only the verses written in early
years, but they found a welcome North and South.
The next volume was not brought out till 1873,
when the struggle during ,the reconstruction period
was too stern for the full appreciation of literature,
though the edition was quickly bought up, as also
a beautiful edition of " Katie " published by Hale
& Sons a little later.

The poet's mother, who was a daughter of Mr.
Charles Prince of Charleston, was a lady of rare
culture and had a passionate love for flower and
forest, sky and field, and from her Timrod in
herited a mind susceptible to every touch of beauty.
He was a close student of all classic literature.
While of a modest, retiring disposition, he was a
man who loved his friends, and among the many

178 HENRY TIM ROD

who knew him probably his strongest affection was
for the companion of his boyhood and life-long
confidant, Paul Hamilton Hayne. When the
Civil War ended Timrod was left with failing
health and utterly bankrupt financially. He clung
passionately to his chosen work; even the death of
his beloved son and the merciless ravages of disease
did not rob his pen of beauty. His last occupation
was to correct the proof sheets of his poems, and
he died with them by his side, stained with his
life-blood.

Some of the happiest days of Timrod's life were
those spent at " Copse Hill," the home of his
friend Hayne, and the pathos of his letters to him,
when he writes freely of sickness, of utter destitu
tion, is inexpressibly sorrowful.

" Timrod's earnestness and deep poetic insight
clothed all themes with the beauty and light,"
whether of humanity or nature, and the moral
purity of everything he wrote is a marked quality
of his poems.

" Ethnogenesis " is said by many to be his finest
poem.

" Spring " is a burst of Southern spring in all
its glory.

" Carolina " and " A Call to Arms " have even
to-day, as in the sixties, a meaning to men of the
South, " which knows and thrills," and also " they
have an abiding power from the standpoint of

HENRY TIMROD 179

art, for there is nothing finer in all the martial
strains of the lyric."

Paul Hamilton Hayne tells how the words of
" Carolina " thrilled him by their pathos and
power, when he read them first one stormy March
evening in Fort Sumter.

Timrod's last poem was the Ode written for
Memorial Day, April, 1867.

There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By morning beauty crowned.

The keen sensitiveness of Timrod's soul to all
nature, even the " tiniest flower," is beautifully
expressed in these lines:

And when in wild or thoughtless hour
My Maud hath crushed the tiniest flower,

I ne'er could shut from sight
The corpses of the tender things,
With other drear imaginings,
And the little angel-flowers with wings

Would haunt me through the night.

The feelings of all Southern hearts are told in
the lines :

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause,

Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

i8o HENRY TIMROD

In seeds of laurel in the earth

The blossom of your fame is blown,

And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone.

A beautiful monument was unveiled at Charles
ton, in 1901, in honor of the poet.

On October 6, 1867, Henry Timrod passed
from earth at his little cottage home on Hender
son Street, Columbia, South Carolina, and was
buried October 7. The house is still standing,
having escaped the cruel and needless conflagration
in 1865.

" At the end of a generation the poet's fame
keeping its freshness and fidelity has come to full
maturity; his poems are read in every State and
they are now asked for in Canada."

' Through clouds and sunshine, in peace and
in war, amid the stress of poverty and the storms
of civil strife, his soul never faltered and his pur
pose never failed. To his poetic mission he was
faithful to the end. In life and in death he was
not disobedient to the heavenly vision." This is
the inscription on the west panel of his monument
in Charleston.

Lanier calls Timrod's name, u One of the very
sweetest names connected with Charleston," and
Hayne says : " His compositions, with all their
elegance, finish, and superb propriety of diction,
always leave the impression of having been born,
not manufactured."

HENRY TIMROD 181

The following excerpt is taken from a poem
written complimentary to his wife, her name being
Kate.

KATIE

It may be through some foreign grace,

And unfamiliar charm of face ;

It may be that across the foam

Which bore her from her childhood's home,

By some strange spell, my Katie brought,

Along with English creeds and thought —

Entangled in her golden hair — >

Some English sunshine, warmth, and air!

I cannot tell — but here to-day,

A thousand billowy leagues away

From that green isle whose twilight skies

No darker are than Katie's eyes,

She seems to me, go where she will,

An English girl in England still !

I meet her on the dusty street,

And daisies spring about her feet ;

Or, touched to life beneath her tread,

An English cowslip lifts its head;

And, as to do her grace, rise up

The primrose and the buttercup !

I roam with her through fields of cane,
And seem to stroll an English lane,
Which, white with blossoms of the May,
Spreads its green carpet in her way !
As fancy wills, the path beneath
Is golden gorse, or purple heath;

182 HENRY TIMROD

And now we hear in woodlands dim

Their unarticulated hymn;

Now walk through rippling waves of wheat,

Now sink in mats of clover sweet,

Or see before us from the lawn

The lark go up to greet the dawn!

All birds that love the English sky

Throng 'round my path when she is by;

The blackbird from a neighboring thorn

With music brims the cup of morn,

And in a thick, melodious rain

The mavis pours her mellow strain!

But only when my Katie's voice

Makes all the listening woods rejoice,

I hear — with cheeks that flush and pale —

The passion of the nightingale!

With permission from Ticknor &f Co., Boston, and
B. F. Johnson Pub. Co., Richmond, Virginia.

CAROLINA

The despot treads thy sacred sands,
Thy pines give shelter to his bands,
Thy sons stand by with idle hands,

Carolina !

He breathes at ease thy airs of balm,
He scorns the lances of thy palm;
Oh, who shall break thy craven calm,

Carolina !

HENRY TIMROD 183

Thy ancient fame is growing dim,
A spot is on thy garment's rim;
Give to the winds thy battle-hymn,
Carolina !

II

Call on thy children of the hill,
Wake swamp and river, coast and rill,
Rouse all thy strength and all thy skill,

Carolina !

Cite wealth and science, trade and art,
Touch with thy fire the cautious mart,
And pour thee through the people's heart —

Carolina !

Till even the coward spurns his fears,
And all thy fields and fens and meres
Shall bristle like thy palms with spears,

Carolina !

Ill

Hold up the glories of thy dead;
Say how thy elder children bled,
And point to Eutaw's battle-bed,

Carolina !

Tell how the patriot soul was tried,
And what his dauntless breast defied ;
How Rutledge ruled and Laurens died,

Carolina !

1 84 HENRY TIMROD

Cry till thy summons, heard at last,
Shall fall like Marion's bugle-blast
Re-echoed from the haunted past,
Carolina !

IV

I hear a murmur as of waves

That grope their way through sunless caves,

Like bodies struggling in their graves,

Carolina !

And now it deepens; slow and grand
It swells, as, rolling to the land,
An ocean broke upon thy strand —

Carolina !

Shout ! Let it reach the startled Huns !
And roar with all thy festal guns!
It is the answer of thy sons,

Carolina !

V

They will not wait to hear thee call ;
From Sachem's Head to Sumter's wall
Resounds the voice of hut and hall —

Carolina!

No! thou hast not a stain, they say,
Or none save what the battle-day
Shall wash in seas of blood away,

Carolina!

HENRY TIMROD 185

Thy skirts indeed the foe may part,
Thy robe be pierced with sword and dart,
They shall not touch thy noble heart —
Carolina !

VII

Girt with such wills to do and bear,
Assured in right, and mailed in prayer,
Thou wilt not bow thee to despair,

Carolina!

Throw thy bold banner to the breeze!
Front with thy ranks the threatening seas,
Like thine own proud armorial trees,

Carolina!

Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns,
And roar the challenge from thy guns;
Then leave the future to thy sons,

Carolina !

Memorial Edition, B^ F. Johnson Pub. Co., Richmond,
Virginia.

Henry Timrod's other poems are: " A Cry to
Arms," " Katie," " Why Silent," " The Lily Con
fidante," " Rosebuds," " Our Willie," " The
Cotton Boll," " Spring," " A Vision of Poesy,"
" Sonnet and Others."

MRS. MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE

("MARION HARLAND")

1831—

THIS well-known writer was born in Amelia
County, Virginia, and is the daughter of Samuel
P. Hawes. Although born in the country, the
greater part of her life was passed in Richmond,
her father being a respected merchant of that city.
He was a lineal descendant of the Puritans, and
her mother was from the earliest settlers of Vir
ginia. At a very early age " Marion Harland "
showed a remarkable talent for writing, and when
only fourteen she wrote short stories of real merit.

In 1856 she was married to the Rev. E. R.
Terhune, and since 1859 has spent most of her
time in the North. Her family cherish sacredly
the names, deeds, and homesteads of their ances
tors North and South, and the hearty participation
in the feelings of both Northern and Southern
branches is undoubtedly the cause of the freedom
from sectional prejudice in all of Marion Har-
land's writings.

The dream of this woman has always been au
thorship. At the age of fourteen she contrib-

186

MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE 187

uted, under an assumed name, a series of papers to
a weekly city journal. The notice which these
sketches attracted, and the desire that was ex
pressed to know the author, was all very flattering
encouragement to the youthful writer. Tales,
essays, poems, now followed rapidly, and she
studied with untiring constancy.

A fugitive sketch, written at sixteen, and called
" Marrying through Prudential Motives," ap
peared in " Godey's Ladies' Book " and had quite
a remarkable career. It was copied into an Eng
lish paper, then transferred to a Parisian journal,
retranslated for another English periodical and
was extensively read as an English story, till Mr.
Godey claimed it as one of his publications.

In 1854, under the nom de plume of " Marion
Harland," Mrs. Terhune published her first book,
" Alone." Long after the first appearance of this
story, a new edition went to press regularly every
few weeks, while it was reprinted with nearly as
much eclat in England, was translated into French,
and found its way into most European cities.

Two years later " The Hidden Path " was pub
lished, and besides great popularity at home, was
the only book by a female writer given place in
" Standard American Authors," a collection pub
lished in Leipzig. »

A third novel, " Moss Side," was brought out
with like success in 1857.

1 88 MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE

As a magazine writer in these early years, the
contributions of Marion Harland were always
eagerly sought for, and her contributions to
Godey's Magazine would fill a volume.

In 1859 the Rev. Mr. Terhune was called to
the pastorate of the First Reformed Dutch Church
in Newark, New Jersey, and the family removed
to that city, where the Southern woman found a
warm welcome and many congenial friends. Un
like so many authors, the home life and relations
of Mrs. Terhune have been very happy. United
to a man of rare scholarship, she always had his
keen sympathy and his valuable criticism and re
vision of her work.

Marion Harland's stories deal mostly with
Southern life, and have been very popular with
readers of fiction. They are perfectly pure and
wholesome, and she still is a writer of many arti
cles, which are eagerly read. As a wife, mother,
and housekeeper, Marion Harland has nobly
" practiced what she preached." She spends her
winters in New York, her summers in the suburbs.
Her mornings are devoted to her writing, her
evenings to her family.

CHINK-FILLERS

At a recent conference of practical housewives and
mothers held in a Western city, one of the leaders told,
as illustrative of the topic under discussion, an incident

MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE 189

of her childhood. When a little girl of seven years, she
stood by her father, looking at a new log-cabin.

" Papa," she observed, " it is all finished, isn't it? "

" No, my daughter; look again."

The child studied the structure before her. The neatly
hewed logs were in their proper places. The roof, and
the rough chimney, were complete; but, on close scru
tiny, one could see the daylight filtering through the
interstices of the logs. It had yet to be chinked.

When this anecdote was ended, a bright little woman
arose and returned her thanks for the story, for, she said,
she had come to the conclusion that she was one of the
persons who had been put in the world to fill up the
chinks.

The chink-fillers are among the most useful members
of society. The fact is patent of the founder of one of
our great educational systems, that he grasped large
plans and theories, but had no talent for minutiae. What
would his majestic outlines be without the army of
workers who, with a just comprehension of the impor
tance of detail, fill in the chink in the vast enterprise?

Putty may be a mean, cheap article, far inferior to the
clear, transparent crystal pane, but what would become
of the costly plate-glass were there no putty to fill in the
grooves in which it rests, and to secure it against shocks?

It requires vast patience and much love for one's fellow-
man to be a chink-filler. She it is who, as wife, mother,
sister, or perhaps, maiden-aunt, picks up the hat or gloves
Mamie has carelessly left on the drawing-room table,
wipes the tiny finger smears from the window-panes at
which baby stood to wave his hand to papa this morning:,
dusts the rungs of the chair neglected by the parlor-maid,

190 MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE

and mends the ripped coat which Johnny forgot to men
tion until it was nearly time to start for school. It is
she who thinks to pull the basting-threads out of the newly
finished gown, tacks niching in neck and sleeves against
the time when daughter or sister may want it in a hurry,
remembers to prepare some dainty for that member of
the household who is " not quite up to the mark " in
appetite — in fact, undertakes those tasks, so many of which
show for little when done, but which are painfully con
spicuous when neglected.

Strange as it may seem, the mind of the hireling can
not grasp the importance of the lesser tasks that go to
make up the sum of existence. If you allow Bridget to
prepare your chambers for an unexpected friend, you will
observe that she glories in Rembrandt-like effects — which,
when viewed at a distance, assume a respectable appear
ance. You, with brains back of your hands, will notice
that there is a tiny hole in the counterpane, dust under
the table, and — above all — that the soap-dish is not clean.
Your servant may do the rough work ; the dainty, lady-like
touch must be given by you.

You have an experienced waitress and a jewel if the
dining-room and table are perfect without your super
vision. It may be only that a teacup or plate is sticky or
rough to the touch, a fork or a knife needed, the steel or
one of the carvers forgotten. But when the family is
assembled at the board, these trifles cause awkward pauses
and interruptions.

Often the work which " doesn't show " takes most time,
and tries the temper. It would be an excellent plan for
each member of the household to resolve to put in its
proper place everything which he or she observes out of

MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE 19 r

order. By the time this rule had been established for
twenty-four hours, the house would be immaculate, and
the mother find ample time for her mission — if she has any
besides general chink-filler for the family. If not, she
will have an opportunity to rest.

A well-known author, who is at the same time an
exemplary housewife, tells of how she retired one rainy
spring morning to her study in just the mood for writing.
Husband and sons had gone to their various occupations.
She had a splendid day for work ahead of her. She sat
down to her desk and took up her pen. The plot of a
story was forming itself in her brain. She dipped her
pen in the ink and wrote:

" He was "

A knock at the door. Enter Anne.

" Please, mem, a mouse has eat a hole in one of your
handsome napkins — them as I was to wash ag'in the com
pany you're expectin' to-morrow night. By rights it
should be mended before it's washed."

" Bring it to the sewing-room."

When the neat piece of darning was ended, the house
keeper repaired to the closet to put on a loose writing
sack. On the nail next to the jacket hung her winter
coat. On the edge of the sleeve was a tiny hole. The
housewifely spirit was filled with dread. There were
actually moths in that closet. She must attend to it im
mediately. The woolens ought to be put up if moths
had already appeared. John's clothes and the boys' win
ter coats were in great danger of being ruined. By lunch
time the necessary brushing and doing up were ended.
But in stowing away the winter garments in the attic our
heroine was appalled at the confusion among the trunks.

192 MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE

The garret needed attention, and received it as soon as the
noonday meal was dispatched. At four o'clock, with the
waitress' assistance, the task was completed. About the
same time a note arrived from John saying he would be
obliged to bring two of his old friends — " swell bach
elors who were spending the day in town — to dine with
him that night. She must not put herself to any trouble
about dinner, and he would take them to the theater in
the evening." To the dinner already ordered were added
oyster-pates, salad with mayonnaise dressing, salted alm
onds, and instead of the plain pudding that John liked,
was a pie of which he was still more fond, capped by
black co flee, all of which articles, except the last-named,
were prepared by the hostess, who, in faultless toilette,
with remarkable brilliant color, smilingly welcomed her
husband and his guests to the half-past-six dinner. When
they had gone to the theater, and the mother had talked
to her two sons of the day's school experiences, before
they settled down to their evening of study, she returned
to the dining-room, and, as Mary had a headache and had
had a busy day, she assisted in washing and wiping the
unusual number of soiled dishes, and in setting the break
fast table. At nine o'clock she dragged her weary self
upstairs.

As she passed the door of her sanctum on the way to
her bedchamber, she paused, then entered and lighted the
gas-jet over her desk. In it lay a page of foolscap, blank
but for the words:

« Re was "

The day had gone, and the plot with it.

With a half-sob she sat down and wrote with tired
and trembling fingers:

MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE 193

" He was — this morning. He isn't now! "
But will not my readers agree with me that she was
a genuine wife, mother, housekeeper — in short, a " chink-
filler"?

Permission of Marion Harland.

Works: "Alone," "Moss-side," "Beech-
dale," " Judith," " The Hidden Path," " Handi
capped," " Nemesis," " At Last," " Helen Gard
ner's Wedding Days," " Jessamine," " With Best
Intentions," " True as Steel," " Sunnybank,"
" From My Youth Up," "My Little Love," " A
Gallant Fight," "The Royal Road," "His
Daughters," " Marion," " Common Sense in the
Nursery," " The Cottage Kitchen," " The Dinner
Year Book," " Breakfast, Luncheon, and Tea,"
" The Story of Mary Washington," " Loitering
in Pleasant Paths."

EDGAR ALLAN POE

1809 — 1849

FEW Americans have attracted more attention
than the Southern poet, Edgar Allan Poe, and
many biographies of him, innumerable reviews,
and criticisms, some intelligent, but many igno-
rantly and unjustly written, have been published.
The fascination of mystery enshrouds much con
cerning him, and adds melancholy interest to his
history. The very place and date of his birth were
for a long time a matter of dispute. It is asserted
now and generally admitted that Edgar Poe was
born in Boston during a theatrical engagement
of his parents, for they were actors.

Richard H. Stoddard says Poe was born on
February 19, while Eugene Didier writes that
it was January 19. The parents were Southern
people and their home was in Baltimore or Rich
mond, when they were not traveling.

For one hundred years the Poe family occupied
a prominent position in the city of Baltimore.
David Poe, called General Poe, the grandfather
of the poet, was born in Londonderry, in Ireland,
in 1743. John Poe and his wife, Jane McBride,

194

EDGAR ALLAN POE 195

the great-grandparents, were also Irish. The
family emigrated to America and settled first in
Pennsylvania, where David Poe grew to manhood
and married the beautiful Miss Cairnes of that
State. In 1776 David Poe took up his permanent
residence in Baltimore, where he held many posi
tions of trust and rendered valuable service to the
State. Some of his patriotic letters may be found
among the Maryland papers of the " '76 Society."
In 1824, when Lafayette was in Baltimore, on
learning of the death of General Poe, he called to
see Mrs. Poe and expressed to her his great regard
for her husband. General Poe had six children,
of whom the eldest was David Poe, Jr., the father
of Edgar. He was a handsome, dashing young
man, and was one of the founders of the Thespian
Club of Baltimore. He became infatuated with
the stage and at Charleston announced his intention
of making his first appearance there as an actor.
His uncle, William Poe, persuaded him to give up
the stage, and take a place in the law office of Hon.
John Forsyth, of Augusta, Georgia. William
Poe had settled in Augusta and married the sister
of Hon. John Forsyth. Hon. Washington Poe
was a child of this marriage and became a member
of Congress from Georgia. David Poe fell in
love with an actress whose maiden name was
Arnold, married her and then adopted and fol
lowed his wife's profession. After a wandering

196 EDGAR ALLAN POE

life of poverty and failure, they both perished in
the Richmond Theatre, which was burned Decem
ber 26, 1811, in Baltimore. Three children were
left penniless. After their death Edgar was
adopted by a Mr. Allan of Richmond, Virginia,
who, after rearing him in luxury, died and left
him without a dollar. Rosalie Poe was adopted
by Mr. McKenzie of Richmond, and William
Henry, by Mr. Henry Didier, of Baltimore.

When Edgar Poe was a mere child in the
adopted home, " Mr. Allan would call upon him
frequently, at dinings, to give a toast, and the boy,
rising, roguishly and with ineffable grace, would
drink the wine and wittily respond, to the delight
of all present." The impressions this training
made on a nervous and highly wrought tempera
ment, with strong tendencies toward stimulants,
were no doubt the beginnings of the habits which
blighted Poe's life, and led to his early death,
robbing the world of his genius, which should
have gladdened it for many years. Poe was so
sensitive to the influence of an intoxicant that
a single glass of wine made him frantic. When
he was six years old, he went with his foster par
ents to Europe and attended a private school
near London. Upon the family returning to
Richmond, Edgar entered the University of Vir
ginia, where he was a successful student of
languages, and graduated with the highest honor

EDGAR ALLAN POE 197

he could receive from the University, which then
had no provisions for conferring degrees of any
kind.

Mr. Allan now gave him a position in his office,
but the young man grew weary of office work
drudgery, went to Boston, and enlisted in the
United States Army, under the name of Edgar A.
Perry. Here he was again dissatisfied, and Mr.
Allan secured his discharge, obtaining for him an
appointment at West Point. " The routine of
military school life became more and more dis
tasteful to him, until at length he deliberately
brought about his expulsion by neglect of such
duties as roll-call and guard duty."

Upon the death of Mrs. Allan, Poe lost his
best friend, with her tender solicitude and affec
tionate interest. Within a year after the death of
his wife Mr. Allan married Louise Gabrielle Pat
terson, and when a son was born Poe ceased to
be the prospective heir to five thousand acres of
land in Goochland, Virginia, a hundred slaves, and
real estate in Richmond — in all a property amount
ing to five hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Allan
continued for a time to give Edgar a home, but
he was merely tolerated, not loved and cared for
as he had been during the life of the first wife.
Poe, with his proud, sensitive nature, felt the
change keenly, and a quarrel and rupture were in
evitable. Eugene Didier says in his life of Poe:

i98 EDGAR ALLAN POE

" For nearly twenty years Edgar had been the
idolized child of the house. He returns from
West Point and finds all things changed in the old
Fifth Street house. Another Mrs. Allan was
there. We all know the influence of a second wife
upon a fond, doting old husband. Edgar felt its
effects more than any one else. Mrs. Allan very
naturally wanted all the Allan property for the
Allan children."

Mrs. Susan Archer Tally Weiss says, in a letter
to Mr. Didier: "The cause of the quarrel be
tween the Allans and Poe was very simple and
very natural, human nature considered," and she
completely exonerated Edgar Poe from all blame.

Soon after this Mr. Allan died, leaving Poe
unmentioned in his will. In time Poe wandered
again to Baltimore, and made his home with his
father's sister, Mrs. Clemm, whose daughter Vir
ginia he married in May, 1836. Though ex
tremely poor, the three formed a very happy
household, until death took the child-wife and left
Poe alone again with only desperate poverty.
" Seldom has a life been so full of genius and of
misery."

During all these years Edgar Allan Poe was a
constant contributor to various periodicals, win
ning a prize from a Philadelphia paper with his
story, " The Gold Bug," and the hundred-dollar
prize offered by the " Baltimore Saturday Visitor "

EDGAR ALLAN POE 199

with his story, " A MS. Found in a Bottle." In
1835 ne went to Richmond and became assistant
editor of " The Southern Literary Messenger,"
which magazine he conducted with marked ability.
His stories " The Maelstrom " and " The Mur
ders in Rue Morgue " are among the most
powerful short stories in any language. He was
the first and greatest writer of detective stories.
His " Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin " is a master
of the analysis of crime.

Brander Matthews in his " Introduction to
American Literature " says : " Poe, in the eyes of
foreigners, is the most gifted of all the authors
of America; he is the one to whom the critics of
Europe would most readily accord the full title
of genius. At the end of this nineteenth century,
Poe is the sole man of letters, born in the United
States, whose writings are read eagerly in Great
Britain, in France, in Germany, in Italy, and in
Spain, where Franklin is now but a name, and
where the fame of James Fenimore Cooper, once
so widely spread, is now slowly drifting away."

Poe's works cover three fields, poetry, fiction
and criticism, and in the latter he first attracted
attention. As a writer of short stories he estab
lished a reputation for great originality. Prob
ably his strongest work is in prose. His analysis
and his description were so true and real that some
believed his stories founded on actual experience;

200 EDGAR ALLAN POE

as for instance the " Balloon Journey," published
in the New York " Sun," and his analysis of
monomania and catalepsy in the story of Bernice.

" A MS. Found in a Bottle " is the story of a
sailor who went down in a whirlpool near the
South Pole.

" The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym "is a
horrible story of adventures that befell a ship
wrecked crew among cannibals. Discovery and
invention helped Poe in the weird tale of " Sche
herazade," and the " Gold Bug " is an account of
the discovery of Captain Kidd's treasure under a
tulip tree. " The Murders of the Rue Morgue "
shows the powerful analytical reasoning of a young
Frenchman who finally discovers that the perpe
trator of a horrible murder which had shocked all
Paris was an escaped orang-outang. " The Mys
tery of Maria Bouget " is the exposition of an
other murder, and " The Black Cat," one among
his best known stories, shows the growth of crim
inal impulse and the helplessness of a broken
will.

Edgar Poe is described as having been of me
dium height, erect and handsome in early life.
His eyes possessed wondrous beauty and charm.
Intellectually and as a companion he was most fas
cinating, and when not under the influence of
liquor, a most lovable person. He closed his
troubled life at the Washington University Hospi-

EDGAR ALLAN POE 201

tal of Baltimore, from causes which will probably
never be known.

It has been declared that Poe was intoxicated
and left the train, not knowing what he was doing,
but when his monument was erected in Baltimore
in 1875, by the teachers of that city, assisted by
George W. Childs of Philadelphia, this accusation
was declared untrue.

Appleton Morgan says: "The conductor of
the train carrying the poet for the last time, made
a sworn statement that there was no sign of intoxi
cation about him," and Dr. John J. Morgan said:
" There was no smell of liquor about the body
when brought to the hospital." The story that
Poe was a habitual drunkard is denied by many
modern writers.

In the winter of 1837, when Poe and his little
family were in New York, Mrs. Clemm endeav
ored to add to their slender income by taking
boarders. William Gowans, a then well-known
bookseller, boarded with them. He says of the
eight months he was with Poe : " I saw much of
him during that time. He was one of the most
courteous, gentlemanly, and intelligent compan
ions I ever met. I never saw him in the least af
fected by liquor, or descend to any known vice."

Eugene Didier says: "There are some people
who will always believe that the life of Edgar
Allan Poe was one long fit of intoxication. It

202 EDGAR ALLAN POE

never seems to occur to these people that a drunk
ard's intellect could not have produced the literary
work which stands as an immortal monument to
Poe's genius."

Besides the ancient and modern languages Poe's
works show a familiarity with natural history,
mineralogy, philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, etc.
Habitual drunkards do not, generally speaking,
spend their time in accumulating vast stores of
learning. It does seem very suspicious that only
one of Poe's acquaintances knew of his frequent
" fits of intoxication." N. P. Willis, who was in
daily intercourse with him for months, saw noth
ing of his dissipated habits. L. A. Wilmer, dur
ing an intimate friendship of twelve years, saw
nothing of it. George R. Graham, who was asso
ciated with him for two years, saw nothing of it.
S. D. Lewis, who lived in closest intimacy, never
saw Poe drink a glass of wine, beer or liquor of
any kind. The fact is, that it was only at rare
intervals, and more especially after the loss of his
adored wife, that he indulged in stimulants.
Poe was a most industrious, laborious, painstaking
writer. Neilson Poe said Edgar was one of the
best-hearted men that ever lived. " Every person
who came in contact with Edgar Poe speaks of
his elegant appearance, the stately grace of his
manners, and his fascinating conversation."

Hannay, the English critic, says of Poe's writ-

EDGAR ALLAN POE 203

ings: " His poetry is all as pure as wild flowers.
With all his passion for the beautiful, no poet was
ever less voluptuous. He never profaned his
genius."

It is a matter of surprise that any American
writer, who really has at heart the honor of Amer
ican literature, should endeavor to cast reproach
and dishonor upon Edgar Allan Poe, who has
done more for our country's literary reputation
than any other author. It is hard to stop a false
hood when once started.

Edgar Allan Poe was perhaps the most schol
arly writer our country ever produced. His ac
quaintance with classical literature was thorough,
and even the most insignificant of his writings
show scholarship.

Dr. Griswold's " Life of Poe " was unfortu
nately our first medium for forming an estimate of
our noble poet. This biography was only the
cruel revenge a man took upon a dead author who
had dared in life to criticise the book " Poets and
Poetry of America." Every volume of Dr. Gris
wold's biography of Edgar Allan Poe should be
destroyed.

His published works are " Poems," " Tales of
the Arabesque and Grotesque," " Humorous
Tales and Sketches," " Literati of New York,"
" Conchologist's First Book," " Poems Written in
Youth," and " Critical Essays."

2O4

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Walter C. Brown says : " To his American en
vironment Poe owed nothing but poverty and fet
ters, but in spite of all he managed to produce a
few poems and tales which are perfect of their
kind, and greatly raised the standard of art in
American literature."

Another critic says : " Poe's striking genius will
rank him always as one of the most distinguished
writers of English. To-day his works are more
in demand than ever before. They abound in that
magnetic quality which not only attracts, but also
arouses permanent interest. You will read Poe
over and over again. No one can have a knowl
edge of American verse, fiction, and criticism with
out a thorough acquaintance with his masterpieces
of imagination. His writings constitute a treasure-
house of pathos, mystery, melody, and dramatic
narrative, weird fancy, and profound wisdom."

Mrs. M. E. Bryant writes: "Almost as many
utterly false things have been published and be
lieved about Poe as about Byron. In the new En
cyclopaedia Britannica it says that Poe is the most
interesting figure in American literature, and fur
nishes the most extraordinary instance on record
of systematic misrepresentation on the part of
biographers."

His " critical notices," spiced with wit and
irony, his acute sensitiveness to defects, particu
larly in poetry, made him a severe and con-

EDGAR ALLAN POE 205

scientious critic. He made enemies by this, such
as Dr. Griswold, whose works he frankly criti
cised.

Donald G. Mitchell says : " Again and again in
highest praise, of this erratic genius, it must be
said that in his pages there is no coarse, no beastly
double meaning, not a line to pamper sensual
appetite."

" The Raven " was published anonymously in
" The American Review " of February, 1845. N.
P. Willis, who knew it to be Poe's, transferred it
to " The New York Evening Mirror " and gave
it a good review. An English writer says: " ' The
Raven ' is the most popular lyrical poem in the
world. It has been translated and commented
upon by the leading literati of the two continents,
and an entire literature has been founded upon it."

At West Point Poe's scholarship was high, but
he rebelled against the routine of military dis
cipline. Poe's life was one long struggle with
poverty. In 1833 he had sunk to great destitu
tion, when " A MS. Found in a Bottle " won the
prize of $100. Under his conduct "The South
ern Literary Messenger " sprang into sudden
prominence, and gained wonderful advancement.
Professor Woodbery says, speaking of Poe : " He
impressed me as a refined and very gentlemanly
man, exceedingly neat in person. His manner
was quiet and reserved. The form of his MS.

206 EDGAR ALLAN POE

was peculiar. He wrote on half sheets of note
paper which he pasted together. His life in the
cottage on the outskirts of Philadelphia and later
in Fordham was idyllic in the days when his child-
wife was well enough to sing on the harp, while
Poe hung over her frail form tenderly, and good
Mrs. Clemm, who idolized them both, looked on
with motherly pleasure."

After the death of his wife, Poe had brain
fever, and he never quite returned to his former
self, and the intense suffering of his morbidly sen
sitive nature, with all the sad results, must touch
the heart of any merciful person. Although the
critical reviews of Poe were not valued in his time
as they should be, they helped to raise the standard
of American letters by their keen, fearless attacks
upon " complacent mediocrity."

His lectures on " The Poetic Principle," in which
poetry is defined as " the rhythmic creation of
Beauty," were a " wholesome antidote to the di-
dactism of New England conception of Art."
Walter Bronson says:. "Poe has been accused of
plagiarism, but in his best work he was emphat
ically original." The old " Poe and Chivers Con
troversy " has from time to time reappeared, and
claims are made that Poe got his style, atmosphere
and unique rhythmic conceptions from poems of
Dr. Thomas Holly Chivers.

Of this Professor Charles H. Hubner says:

EDGAR ALLAN POE 207

" Every reader and student will have to form his
own conclusions." Referring to " The Bells,"
"The Raven," "Annabel Lee," he adds: " No
critic will doubt that to Poe belongs the wonderful
magic and mastery of this species of song. If .to
him who says a thing best the thing belongs, no
one will hesitate to decide that Poe is entitled to
the ' bays which crown ' him."

To-day Poe's works are more in demand than
ever, and to-day he is the most interesting figure
in American literature. Any one who is not ca
pable of appreciation of the beauty of his poetry
and who has not a heart that can feel keen sym
pathy with his bitter poverty, should never attempt
to be the judge of Edgar Allan Poe.

Miss Susan Archer Tally (Mrs. Weiss) lived
near neighbor to Mrs. McKenzie in Richmond,
who had adopted Poe's sister Rosalie. Mrs.
Weiss was quite intimate with Rose Poe, and when
Poe came to Richmond in 1849, in tne interest of
his magazine, " The Stylus," which he was eager
to publish, he took lodging at Swan's Tavern, a
rambling frame building on the corner of Eighth
and Broad Streets. Poe was then about forty
years old. Mrs. Weiss described him as of me
dium height and distinguished looking. " His
eyes," she says, " were unlike any I have ever seen
and possessed wonderful beauty and charm. Large
and shaded by long black lashes, they were steel

208

EDGAR ALLAN POE

gray in color, of crystalline clearness, the pupils
expanding and contracting with every shade of
thought or emotion. Young as I was, I seemed
to recognize the finer nature of the man."

Charles Hemstreet says: "When Poe wrote
4 The Raven ' he was living with his wife and her
mother, Mrs. Clemm, in Bloomingdale Village,
the house standing on the thoroughfare now run
ning between Broadway and West End Avenue.
In the spring of 1846, when his wife grew more
feeble, he moved out into the country to a secluded
spot then far from the city known as Fordham.
In this dingy little house Poe dreamed out his
' Eureka,' and penned the exquisite ' Annabel
Lee ' and also the first draught of ' The Bells.' "

THE BELLS
I

Hear the sledges with the bells, —

Silver bells, —

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night !
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight, —
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

EDGAR ALLAN POE 209

To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells, —

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,

All in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon !

Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells

On the Future! How it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells— -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Ill

Hear the loud alarum bells, —
Brazen bells!

210 EDGAR ALLAN POE

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright !
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now — now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells,-

Of the bells,—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells —
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells.

EDGAR ALLAN POE 211

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells, —

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people — ah, the people —
They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone —
They are neither man nor woman —
They are neither brute nor human —

They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells !
And he dances, and he yells ;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells, —

Of the bells;

212 EDGAR ALLAN POE

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells—

To the sobbing of the bells ;
Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells —
Of the bells, bells, bells—

To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Permission A. C. Armstrong & Sons, Pub., N. Y.

ANNABEL LEE
It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee:
And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love which was more than love-

I and my Annabel Lee ;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,

EDGAR ALLAN POE 213

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came

And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me —
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we —

Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,
Ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee :

For the moon never beams without bringing me
dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.
By permission of A. C. Armstrong, New York City.

MARY NOAILLES MURFREE
("CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK")

THIS talented writer was born at Grantlands,
the home of her parents near Murfreesboro, Ten
nessee, this city being named for her family, who
were early settlers in the State.

Her father was a lawyer, but his fortunes were
ruined by the disasters of the Civil War. In ad
dition to this poverty which so early shadowed
her life, there came to Miss Murfree the trial of
disease, and a partial paralysis left the little girl
lame and deprived her of active sports enjoyed by
other children. Thus she was set apart in one of
those " wildernesses " into which God often sends
those of whom He makes His most capable work
ers. " Sickness sent Scott to the country where he
gathered legend and story, it inclined Dickens to
reading and laid Hawthorne often down upon the
carpet to study." Through an intense desire for
occupation, the desire to write came to her, for
both her father and mother had written for many
magazines. Miss Murfree strengthened her mind
by the most wholesome and the best reading, and
she soon developed a capacity for the examination

214

M4RY NOAILLES MURFREE 215

of human types, seeming to have peculiar insight
into the nature of boys. " To the slaves on the
plantation she was indebted, as was every Southern
writer, for a unique cultivation of fancy and leg
endary taste."

Although years passed before Miss Murfree's
writings began to receive much recognition, they
were years spent in study and intelligent gathering
in of good material, near at hand. She had op
portunity for a varied collection of experiences.
The buildings on the place where she was born
were riddled with bullets at the battle of Stone
River.

The assumed name, " Charles Egbert Crad-
dock," under which she wrote, was used for the
double purpose of concealing failure if it came
her way, and because she believed the writings of
a man were more apt to be well received than those
of a woman. So perfectly did she hide behind
this nom de plume that her publishers wrote to
her as to a man, beginning their letters, " My dear
Craddock." Her manuscripts had nothing femi
nine about them, her writing was clear and bold,
and free from any feminine " hall marks." When
she wrote " The Prophet of the Great Smoky
Mountain " and found herself famous, she sur
prised her publishers by appearing and introducing
herself. Miss Murfree's first story, which ap
peared in " The Atlantic Monthly," was called

216

MARY NOAILLES MURFREE

" The Dancing Party." Egbert Craddock was
the name of the hero of her second story, and so,
being in search of a nom de plume for herself,
she took the name of her hero with the prefix of
Charles. Miss Murfree soon became recognized
as a Southern writer of uncommon art, originality
and power. Her sympathetic insight into ordinary,
unpoetic lives, her recognition of the beauty and
pathos of the Tennessee mountaineers, shows her
capable of the depth necessary for a writer of fic
tion. She shows with wondrously tender insight
" that the same questions, the same doubts, the
same fears and temptations perplex the untutored
heart as they do the people of higher culture, and
that the most lowly can often rise to the heights
of the heroic."

Her story of " Where the Battle was Fought "
is a novel of picturesque power, though " The
Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain " has been
considered her best.

" In the Tennessee Mountains " is a collection
of eight short stories. " Down the Ravine " is
called a story for young people, but no one should
be too old to be delighted by its bright sketches
of scenery in the Cumberland Mountains. How
close the story gets to every mother's heart when
the mountaineer mother says : " Don't everybody
know a boy's mother air boun' ter take his part
agin all the worl'?" and what more pathetic and

MARY NOAILLES MURFREE 217

touching character than the little sister, " Tennes
see," who " ain't purty, but she's powerful
peart " ! Miss Murfree's stories are pure and
wholesome, a benefit to all who read them.
Among the best-known are : " In the Clouds,"
" Keedon Bluffs," " His Vanished Star," " The
Mystery of Witch Face Mountain."

IN THE CLOUDS

"Where be ye goin', Lethe?" demanded Mrs. Sayles,
ruthlessly interrupting Jacob's monologue.

" Ter hunt up that thar lamb," replied Alethea calmly,
as if nothing else had been under discussion. " I ain't seen
nuthin' of it ter-day, an' some o' the chill'n — I believe
'twas Joe — 'lowed its dam were down yander nigh Boke's
spring yesteddy, actin' sorter cur'ous, an' I reckon suthin's
happened ter it."

Doaks looked after her as she went, tempted to follow.

She took the way down the path beside the zigzag rail
fence. All the corners were rank with wild flowers, vines
and bushes, among which her golden head showed from
time to time as in a wreath. She was soon without the
limits of Wild Cat Hollow. More than once she paused
as she went, holding her hands above her eyes, and look
ing at the vast array of mountains on every side. A for
eign land to her, removed even from vague speculation,
she saw only how those august summits lifted themselves
into the sky, how the clouds, weary-winged, were fain
to rest upon them. There was a vague blurring at the
horizon line, for a shower was succeeded by mist. The

218 MARY NOAILLES MURFREE

woods intervened presently; the long stretches of the
majestic avenues lay before her, all singularly open,
cleared of undergrowth by the fiery besom of the autumn
conflagration. It was very silent ; once only she heard the
shrill trilling of a tree frog; and once the insistent clamor
of the locust broke out close at hand, vibrating louder and
louder and dying away, to be caught up antiphonally in
the distance. Often she noted the lightning-scathed trees,
the fated of the forest, writhen and blanched and spectral
among their flourishing kindred. There were presently
visible at the end of the long leafy vista other dead trees;
their blight was more prosaic; they stood girdled and
white in an abandoned field that lay below the slope on
which she had paused, and near the base of the mountain.
A broken, rotting rail-fence still encircled it. Blackberry
bushes, broom-sedge, a tangle of weeds, were a travesty
of its crops. A fox, a swift-scudding tawny streak, sped
across it as she looked. Hard by there was a deserted
hut : the doors were open, showing dark voids within ; the
batten shutters flapped with every changing whim of the
winds. Fine sport they often had, those riotous mountain
sprites, shrieking down the chimney to affright the loneli
ness; then falling to sobs and sighs to mock the voices of
those who had known sorrow here and perhaps shed tears ;
sometimes wrapping themselves in snow as in a garment,
and reeling in fantastic whirls through forlorn and empty
place; sometimes twitting the gaunt timbers with their
infirmities, and one wild night wrenching off half a dozen
clapboards from the roof and scattering them about the
door. Thus the moon might look in, seeing no more than
those whose eyes had once met its beam, and even the
sunlight had melancholy intimations when it shone on the

MARY NOAILLES MURFREE 219

forsaken hearth-stone. A screech-owl had found refuge
among the rafters, and Alethea heard its quavering scream
ending in a low, sinister chuckle. There was a barn near
at hand, — a structure of undaubed, unhewn logs, with
wide-open pass-way below the loft to shelter wagons and
farm implements ; it seemed in better repair than the
house. The amber sky above the dark woods had deep
ened to orange, to crimson ; the waning light suffused the
waters of the spring branch which flowed close by the
barn, the willows leaning to it, the ferns laving in it.
The place was incredibly solitary and mournful with the
persistent spectacle of the deserted house, suggestive of
collapsed energies, of the defeated schemes of some simple
humanity.

A faint bleat rose suddenly. Alethea turned quickly.
Amongst a patch of briars she caught a glimpse of some
thing white; another glance, — it was the ewe, quietly
nibbling the grass. Alethea had no intention of moving
softly, but her skirts brushing through the weeds made
hardly a sound. Her light, sure step scarcely stirred a
leaf. The ewe saw her presently and paused in feeding.
She had been making the best of her woes, remaining near
her lamb, which had fallen into a sink-hole, sustained by
the earth, gravel and banks of leaves held in the mouth of
the cavity. Its leg was broken, and thus, although the
sheep could venture to it, the lamb could not follow to
the vantage-ground above. Seeing that succor was at
hand, the sheep lost all patience and calmness, and ran
about Alethea in a distracting fashion, bleating, till the
lamb, roused to a renewed sense of its calamities, bleated
piteously too. As it lay down in the cavity upon the dead
leaves, it had a strangely important look upon its face,

22O

appreciating how much stir it was making in the world
for one of its size. Alethea noticed this, albeit she was too
self-absorbed at the moment. These treacherous hopper-
shaped sink-holes are of indefinite depth, and are often
the mouths of caves. To reach the lamb she must needs
venture half way across the cavity. She stepped cautiously
down the debris, holding fast the while to the branches
of an elder-bush growing on its verge. She felt the earth
sinking beneath her feet. The sheep, which had jumped
in too, sprang hastily out. Alethea had a 'dizzy realiza
tion of insecurity. She caught the lamb in one arm, then
stepped upon the sinking mass, and struggled up the side
of the aperture, as with a great gulp the leaves and earth
were swallowed into the cavity. She looked down with
that sickening sense of a sheer escape, still holding the
lamb in one arm; the other hand readjusted the heavy
masses of her golden hair, and the saffron kerchief about
the neck of her brown dress. The sheep, one anxiety re
moved, was the prey of another, and pressed close to
Alethea, with outstretched head and all the fears of kid
napping in her pleading eyes. Alethea waited for a mo
ment to rest. Then as she glanced, over her shoulder
her heart seemed to stand still, her brain reeled, and, but
for her acute consciousness, she would have thought she
must be dreaming. The clearing lay there all as it was
a moment before; the deserted buildings, the weed-grown
fields, the rotting rail fence; the woods dark about it, the
sky red above it. Around and around the old barn, in a
silent circuit, three men were solemnly tramping in
single file. She stood staring at them with dilated eyes,
all the mystic traditions of supernatural manifestations
uppermost in her mind. Once more the owl's scream rent

MARY NOAILLES MURFREE 221

the brooding stillness. How far that low, derisive chuckle
echoed! A star, melancholy, solitary, was in the pensive
sky. The men's faces were grave, — once, twice, thrice,
they made the round. Then they stood together in the
open space beneath the loft, and consulted in whispers.
One suddenly spoke aloud.

"Oh, Tobe! " he called.

"Tobe!" called the echoes.

There was no answer. All three looked up wistfully.
Then they again conferred together in a low tone.

"Oh, Tobias!" cried the spokesman in a voice of en
treaty.

" Tobias ! " pleaded the plaintive echoes. Still there
was no answer. The owl screamed suddenly in its weird,
shrill tones. It had flown out from among the rafters and
perched on the smokeless chimney of the hut. Then its
uncanny laughter filled the interval.

Once more the men whispered anxiously to each other.
One of them, a tall, ungainly, red-haired fellow, seemed
to have evolved a solution of the problem which had
baffled them.

"Mister Winkeye!" he exclaimed, with vociferous
confidence.

The echoes were forestalled. A sneeze rang out ab
ruptly from the loft of the deserted old barn, — a sneeze
resonant, artificial, grotesque enough to set the blades
below to roaring with delighted laughter.

" He mus' hev his joke. Mr. Winkeye air a mighty
jokified old man," declared the red-haired fellow.

They made no effort to hold further communication
with the sneezer in the loft. They hastily placed a burly
jug in the center of the space below, and laid a silver half-

222 MARY NOAILLES MURFREE

dollar upon the cob that served as stopper. The coin
looked extremely small in this juxtaposition. There
may be people elsewhere who would be glad of a silver
coin of that size capable of rilling so disproportionately
large a jug. Then they ran off fleetly out of the clearing
into the woods, and Alethea could hear the brush cracking
as they dashed through it on the slopes below.

She was still pale and tremulous, but no longer doubts
beset her. She understood the wiles of the illicit distiller,
pursued so closely by the artifices of the raiders, that he
was prone to distrust the very consumers of his whiskey.
They never saw his face, they knew not even his name.
They had no faint suspicion where his still was hidden.
They were not even dangerous as unwilling witnesses,
should they be caught with the illicit whiskey in their
hands. The story that they had left a jug and a half-
dollar in a deserted barn and found the jug filled and the
coin vanished, would inculpate no one. From the loft
the distiller or his emissary could see and recognize them
as they came. Alethea, having crept down the slope
amongst the briars in search of the lamb, had been con
cealed from him. She was seized with instant desire to
get way before he should appear. She coveted the knowl
edge of no such dangerous secret. She walked boldly out
from the leafy covert, that he might see her in the clear
ing and delay till she was gone.

The lamb was bleating faintly in her arms ; the sheep
pressed close to her side, nudging her elbow with insistent
nozzle. The last flush of the day was on her shining hair
and her grave, earnest face. The path led her by the barn.
She hesitated, stopped, and drew back hastily. A man
was swinging himself alertly down from the loft. He

MARY NOAILLES MURFREE 223

caught up the coin, slipped it into his pocket, and lifted
the jug with the other hand. The next moment he
dropped it suddenly, with a startled exclamation. His
eyes had met her eyes. There was a moment of suspense
charged with mutual recognition. Then she ran hastily
by, never pausing till she was far away in the deep ob
scurity of the woods.

Courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

MARIA J. McINTOSH

" OF noble Scottish descent, tracing back to the
clan Mclntosh, famous in history as loyal adher
ents to the House of Stuart, Maria J. Mclntosh
was born in Georgia, in the village of Sunbury,
not far from Savannah, and there received her
primal stamp and stamina."

Captain John Moore Mclntosh, her great
grandfather, was driven from Scotland by the fall
of the Stuarts, and set sail, with one hundred re
tainers, for the Georgia colony, in 1735. They
landed on the banks of the Altamaha, and called
their settlement (now known as Darien) " New
Inverness," in memory of the homeland. The
county still bears the original name, Mclntosh.
Major Lachlan Mclntosh, the father of Maria,
was an officer in the Revolutionary War, and after
wards became a successful lawyer. After the
Revolution Major Mclntosh married, removed to
the village of Sunbury, and here Maria Mclntosh
was born and reared.

She attended the academy in Sunbury, and
nursed her invalid mother for many years, and
this experience developed the young girl's mental
and moral strength.

224

MARIA J. M'INTOSH 225

In 1835, after the death of father and mother,
Miss Mclntosh went to live in New York with her
brother, Captain James M. Mclntosh, of the
United States Navy.

" It was suggested by a friend to Miss Mcln
tosh that she should try her literary powers in a
series of juvenile tales. Under the name of
' Aunt Kitty ' this talented Georgian published
' Blind Alice ' with marked success."

Then came " Jessie Graham," " Florence Ar-
nott," " Grace and Clara," and " Ellen Leslie "
in rapid succession, " each story pure as a dew-
drop, sparkling in its own jewel of moral truth."

Then followed the more ambitious books,
" Conquest and Self-Conquest," " Praise and
Principle " and " Two Lives." In 1848 appeared
" Charms and Counter Charms," " a work in
which the author seems to have concentrated the
strength of her artistic and womanly nature. It
is threaded with veins and nerves, as if she had
dipped her pen in living hearts, and had written
on because the electric tide would flow."

In 1853 "The Lofty and the Lowly" was
published and sold rapidly at home and abroad.
In company with her nephew, the Hon. John
Ward, Miss Mclntosh sailed for Liverpool in
1859, and she enjoyed months of travel in Eng
land and France, settling for a time with Mrs.
Ward, her brother's wife, in Switzerland. " Their

226 MARIA J. M'INTOSH

cottage, shut in by Alpine Heights," was fit home
for gathering food and inspiration for future au
thorship. Miss Mclntosh was known to the read
ing world chiefly through her prose writings, yet
she published fragments of song, such as " A La
ment," " A Paean," and " A Prayer," which are
true poems. Her books have all been translated
into French, and were largely sold in France and
England. Love of locality and home is expressed
in " A Southern Home."

Home! Home! I have had too many resting places in
my not very long life — this is my twentieth birthday —
but I have had, I can have, but one home. For eight
years I have not seen it, with the bodily eye, and yet how
vividly it stands before me! A week ago I determined to
paint it, and the picture, to which I have given every
moment of leisure, is done; here in this record of thought
and feeling meant only for myself, I may say what I truly
think.

There is the very beach where I gathered shells with
my faithful nurse, my kind, devoted Charity. To the
eastward the blue waves are lifting their white foam-
crests to the sun; inland I can distinguish amid the mass
of verdure which marked the utmost tropical luxuriance
of St. Mary's Isle, the glistening leaves of the orange-
trees only half concealing their snowy flowers and golden
fruit, and the darker green of the old oaks, " the king
of forests all," from whose giant boughs the long pendant
moss suspends its floating drapery of silver gray. Within
the circle of those live oaks rises the home which sheltered

MARIA J. M'INTOSH 227

my orphan childhood : a frame building two stories high,
and surrounded by a piazza., whose pillars, wreathed with
roses, honeysuckles and woodbine, gave something of airy
brightness to what would otherwise have been without
ornament and grace.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE
1853

THIS American writer of dialect stories was
born at Oakland plantation, Hanover County, Vir
ginia. His early life was passed upon the estate
which belonged to his maternal ancestor, Thomas
Nelson. He was educated at Washington and Lee
University and there studied law, afterwards prac
ticing in Richmond. As a delineator of negro dia
lect and character there are few men who equal
him, and possibly none excel him. He has won
for himself a lasting and enviable name in the
world of letters. His first literary attempts were
in the shape of negro dialect stories and poems,
and they were so well received that he settled down
to the steady, hard work necessary for a literary
career. The first real story of any length which
came from his pen was entitled " In Old Virginia,"
and appeared in 1887. Shortly after its appear
ance a leading critic said: " To Mr. Page all eyes
will now be turned, for he has done something
in a literary way notably excellent and pointing
easily to a future bright with a sunlit path."

His second story, published in 1883, " Two Lit-
228

THOMAS NELSON PAGE 229

tie Confederates," was even better than " In Old
Virginia." But his greatest production came later
when his pen brought forth those undying master
pieces, "Marsc Chan," " Meh Lady," "Red
Rock," and his latest, " Gordon Keith." " These
four books are destined to live beyond this age,
for they tell a tale of life and character equal to
that told by Dickens."

Page has one charm which few latter-day writ
ers possess, namely, absolute perfectness of fin
ish as to style and rhetoric. He turns out no
" shoddy " or hasty work. His stories delineate
the old Virginia darky and his dialect, as Mr.
Harris does the darky of the Carolinas and Geor
gia. There is a marked difference in the language
of the negro in different sections of the South.

" The naturalness of this author's style, the
skill with which he uses seemingly indifferent inci
dents and sayings to light up his pictures, the ap
parently unintentional and therefore most effective
touches of pathos, are uncommon."

That this writer's life has been a busy one, is
evidenced by the number of his books :

"In Old Virginia," "Two Little Confeder
ates," "On Newfoundland River," "The Old
South," " Among the Camps," " Elsket and Other
Stories," "Befo' de War," "Pastime Stories,"
" The Burial of the Guns," " Unc' Edinburgh,"
11 Meh Lady," " Marse Chan," " Polly," " Social

230 THOMAS NELSON PAGE

Life in Old Virginia," " The Old Gentleman of
the Black Stock," " Two Prisoners," " Red
Rock," "Santa Claus's Partner," UA Captured
Santa Glaus," " Gordon Keith."

This extract from "A Soldier of the Empire"
depicts the patriotism of the French soldier, and
the closing paragraph emphasizes the fact that if
we have won the " Cross of Honor," it will show
upon our breast, even after death.

A SOLDIER OF THE EMPIRE

" Go back. Upon it depends the fate of France. Hold
it for France," the officer called after him.

The words were heard perfectly clear even above the
din of battle which was steadily increasing all along the
line, and they stirred the old soldier like a trumpet. No
rear for him! He turned and pushed back up the hill at
a run. The road had somewhat changed since he left,
but he marked it not; shot and shell were plowing across
his path more thickly, but he heeded them not; in his
ears rang the words, — "For France!" They came like
an echo from the past; it was the same cry he had heard
at Waterloo, when the soldiers of France that summer
day had died for France and the Emperor, with a cheer
on their lips. " For France ! " The words were conse
crated; the Emperor himself had used them. He had
heard him, and would have died then; should he not die
now for her! Was it not glorious to die for France, and

THOMAS NELSON PAGE 231

have men say he had fought for her when a babe, and had
died for her when an old man ! . . .

Although this had occupied but a few minutes, mo
mentous changes had taken place on the ridge above. The
sound of the battle had somewhat changed, and with the
roar of artillery were mingled now the continuous rattle
of the musketry and the shouts and cheers of the contend
ing troops. The fierce onslaught of the Prussians had
broken the line somewhere beyond the batteries and the
French were being borne back. Almost immediately the
slope was filled with retreating men hurrying back in the
demoralization of a panic. All order was lost. It was
a rout. The soldiers of his own regiment began to rush
by the spot where the old sergeant stood above his dead
son's body. Recognizing him, some of his comrades seized
his arm and attempted to hurry him along, but with a
fierce exclamation the old soldier shook them off, and
raising his voice so that he was heard even above the
tumult of the rout, he shouted, "Are ye all cowards?
Rally for France — for France — ! "

They tried to bear him along ; the officers they said were
dead. The Prussians had captured the guns, and had
broken the whole line ; but it was no use, still he shouted
that rallying cry, " For France, for France, vive la
France, vive 1'Empereur," and steadied by the war-cry,
accustomed to obey an officer, the men around him fell
instinctively into something like order, and for an instant
the rout was arrested. The fight was renewed over
Pierre's dead body. As they had, however, truly said,
the Prussians were too strong for them. They had carried
the line and were now pouring down the hill by thousands
in the ardor of hot pursuit; the line on either side was

232 THOMAS NELSON PAGE

swept away, and while the gallant little band about the
old soldier still stood and fought desperately, they were
soon surrounded. There was no thought of quarter ; none
was asked, none was given. Cries, curses, cheers, shots,
blows, were mingled together, and clear above all rang
the old soldier's war-cry, " For France, for France, vive
la France, vive 1'Empereur! " It was the refrain from an
older and bloodier field. He thought he was at Waterloo.
Mad with excitement, the men took up the cry and fought
like tigers, but the issue could not be doubtful.

Man after man fell, shot or clubbed down with the
cry " For France! " on his lips, and his comrades, stand
ing astride his body, fought with bayonets and clubbed
muskets till they too fell in turn. Almost the last one was
the old sergeant. Wounded to death, and bleeding from
numberless gashes, he still fought, shouting his battle cry,
" For France! " till his musket was hurled spinning from
his shattered hand, and, staggering senseless back, a dozen
bayonets were driven into his breast, crushing out for
ever the brave spirit of the soldier of the Empire.

It was best, for France was lost . . .

That night a group of Prussian officers going over the
field with lanterns looking after their wounded, stopped
near the spot where the old sergeant had made his last
stand for France, a spot remarkable even on that bloody
slope for the heaps of dead of both armies literally piled
upon each other.

"It was just here," said one, " that they made that
splendid rally."

A second, looking at the body of the old French ser
geant lying amid heaps of slain with his face to the sky,
as he saw his scars, said simply:

THOMAS NELSON PAGE 233

" There died a brave soldier."

Another, older than the first, bending closer to count
the bayonet wounds, caught the gleam of something in
the light of the lantern, and, stooping to examine a broken
cross of the Legion on the dead man's breast, said
reverently :
" He was a SOLDIER OF THE EMPIRE."

By permission of author and Century Co., publishers,
New York.

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below

MAY 1 1 1933
MAY ]__ 1934

: .

JAN 25 1956

NOV £92361

*%l23l

\4*®
flft>

APR 30

JUL 9 1937

AUG 5