Chapter IV: Appendix: 383 (3)

And in the little cottage room
From early dawn till night,
A woman sat before the loom
With hair of snowy white.

The hands were palsied now that threw
The shuttle to and fro,
While as the fabric longer grew
She sang both sweet and low;--

"Half hidden in the rosy west
I see the golden sun,
And I shall soon begin my rest,
My task is almost done!"

* * * * *

The spring again brought joy and bloom,
And kissed each vale and hill;
But in the little cottage room
The oaken beam was still.

The swaying boughs with rays of gold
Wove nets of yellow sun,
And cast them where a headstone told--
The weaver's task was done.

WILLIAM E. CONNELLEY

William Elsey Connelley, historian and antiquarian, was born near Paintsville, Kentucky, March 15, 1855, the son of a soldier. At the age of seventeen he became a teacher in his native county of Johnson; and for the following ten years he continued in that work. John C. C. Mayo, the mountain millionaire, was one of his pupils. In April, 1881, Mr. Connelley went to Kansas; and two years later he was elected clerk of Wyandotte county, of which Kansas City, Kansas, is the county-seat. In 1888 he engaged in the lumber business in Missouri; and four years thereafter he surrendered that business in order to devote himself to his banking interests, which have hitherto required a considerable portion of his time. In 1905 Mr. Connelley wrote the call for the first meeting of the oil men of Kansas, which resulted in the organization of an association that began a crusade upon the Standard Oil Company, and which subsequently resulted in the dissolution of that corporation by the Supreme Court of the United States. This is set down here because Mr. Connelley is, perhaps, prouder of it than of of any other thing he has done. He is well-known by students of Western history, but, of course, his fame as a writer has not reached the general reader. He is a member of many historical societies and associations, including the American, Nebraska, Missouri, Ohio, and Kansas, of which he was president in 1912. Mr. Connelley has made extensive investigations into the language and history of several of the Indian tribes of Kansas, his vocabulary of the Wyandot tongue being the first one ever written. He has many original documents pertaining to the history of eastern Kentucky; and the future historian of that section of the state cannot proceed far without consulting his collection. The novelist of the mountains, John Fox, Jr., has sat at the feet of the historian and learned of his people. Mr. Connelley lives at Topeka, Kansas. A complete list of his works is: _The Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory_ (Topeka, 1899); _James Henry Lane, the Grim Chieftain of Kansas_ (Topeka, 1899); _Wyandot Folk-Lore_ (Topeka, 1899); _Kansas Territorial Governors_ (Topeka, 1900); _John Brown--the Story of the Last of the Puritans_ (Topeka, 1900); _The Life of John J. Ingalls_ (Kansas City, Missouri, 1903); _Fifty Years in Kansas_ (Topeka, 1907); _The Heckewelder Narrative_ (Cleveland, Ohio, 1907), being the narrative of John G. E. Heckewelder (1743-1823), concerning the mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians from 1740 to the close of 1808, and the finest book ever issued by a Western publisher, originally selling for twenty dollars a copy, but now out of print and very scarce; _Doniphan's Expedition_ (Topeka, 1907); _The Ingalls of Kansas: a Character Study_ (Topeka, 1909); _Quantrill and the Border Wars_ (Cedar Rapids, 1910), one of his best books; and _Eastern Kentucky Papers_ (Cedar Rapids, 1910), "the founding of Harman's Station, with an account of the Indian Captivity of Mrs. Jennie Wiley." In 1911 Baker University conferred the honorary degree of A. M. upon him. For the last three years Mr. Connelley has been preparing a biography of Preston B. Plumb, United States Senator from Kansas for a generation, which will be published in 1913.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913); letters from Mr.
Connelley to the writer.

KANSAS HISTORY

[From _History as an Asset of the State_ (Topeka, Kansas, 1912)]

Kansas history is like that of no other State. The difference is fundamental--not a dissimilarity in historical annals. This fact has been long recognized. A quarter of a century ago Ware wrote that--

Of all the States, but three will live in story:
Old Massachusetts with her Plymouth Rock,
And old Virginia with her noble stock,
And sunny Kansas with her woes and glory.

The south line of Kansas is the modified line between free soil and slave territory as those divisions existed down to the abolition of slavery. For almost half a century it was the policy of the Government to send here the remnants of the Indian tribes pushed west by our occupation of their country. The purpose in this was to make the Western prairies the Indian country of America and thus prevent its settlement until the slave-power was ready to utilize it for its peculiar institution. Many things occurred which had not been counted on, and the country was forced open before the South was ready to undertake its settlement. While the crisis was premature, the slave-power entered upon the contest with confidence. It had never lost a battle in its conflict with the free-soil portion of the Union, and it expected to win in Kansas. The struggle was between the two antagonistic predominant ideas developed in our westward expansion, and ended in a war which involved the entire nation and threatened the existence of the Union. Politically, Kansas was the rock about which the troubled waters surged for ten years. The Republican party grew largely out of the conditions and influence of Kansas. When hostilities began the Kansans enlisted in the armies of the Union in greater proportion to total population than did the people of any other State. Here the war was extremely bitter, and in some instances it became an effort for extermination. Kansas towns were sacked, and non-combatants were ruthlessly butchered. The border embraced at that time all the settled portion of the State, and it would be difficult indeed to make the people of this day comprehend what occurred here. Kansas was founded in and by a bloody struggle, which, within her bounds, continued for ten years. No other State ever fought so well. Kansas was for freedom. She won, and the glory of it is that the victory gave liberty to America. That is why we maintain that Kansas history stands alone in interest and importance in American annals.

The history of a State is a faithful account of the events of its formation and development. If the account is set out in sufficient detail there will be preserved the fine delineations of the emotions which moved the people. These emotions arise out of the experiences of the people. And the pioneers fix the lines of their experiences. They lay the pattern and mark out the way the State is to go, and this way can never be altered, and can, moreover, be but slightly modified for all time. These emotions produce ideals which become universal and the common aim of the State, and they wield a wonderful influence on its progress, growth, and achievement. A people devoid of ideals can scarcely be found, but ideals differ just as the experiences which produced the emotions from which they result differed. If there be no particular principle to be striven for in the founding of a State, then no ideals will appear, and such as exist among the people will be found to have come over the lines from other and older States. Or, if by chance any be developed they will be commonplace and ordinary, and will leave the people in lethargy and purposeless so far as the originality of the thought of the State is concerned. The ideals developed by a fierce struggle for great principles are lofty, sublime in their conception and intent. The higher the ideals, the greater the progress; the more eminent the achievement, the more marked the individuality, the stronger the characteristics of the people.

CHARLES T. DAZEY

Charles Turner Dazey, author of _In Old Kentucky_, was born at Lima, Illinois, August 13, 1855, the son and grandson of Kentuckians. When a lad the future dramatist was brought to Kentucky for a visit at the home of his grandparents in Bourbon county, whom he was to visit again before returning to Kentucky, in 1872, to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky University, where he studied for a year. In the fall of 1873 young Dazey matriculated in the Arts College of the University. Ill-health caused him to miss the following year, but he returned in 1875 and remained a student in the University until the summer of 1877. He was a member of the old Periclean Society, the society of James Lane Allen and John Fox, Jr., while at the University. When he left Lexington he lacked two years of graduation. Mr. Dazey later went to Harvard University, where he was one of the editors of the _Harvard Advocate_, and the poet of his class of 1881. While a Senior at Cambridge he had begun dramatic composition, and after leaving the University he became a full-fledged playwright. His plays include: _An American King_; _That Girl from Texas_--first called _A Little Maverick_--with Maggie Mitchell in the title-role; _The War of Wealth_; _The Suburban_; _Home Folks_; _The Stranger_, in which Wilton Lackaye played for two seasons; _The Old Flute-Player_; and _Love Finds a Way_. In collaboration with Oscar Weil Mr. Dazey wrote _In Mexico_, a comic opera, produced by The Bostonians; and with George Broadhurst he wrote two plays: _An American Lord_, with William H. Crane as the star; and _The Captain_, played by N. C. Goodwin.

The play by Mr. Dazey in which we are especially interested here, is, of course, _In Old Kentucky_, a drama in four acts, first written to order for Katie Putnam, a soubrette star, who was very popular a quarter of a century ago. She, however, did not consider the play suited to her, and it was then offered to several managers without success, until it was finally accepted by Jacob Litt. When first produced by Mr. Litt at St. Paul on August 4, 1892, it had a most distinguished cast: Julia Arthur, the beautiful, appeared as _Barbara Holton_; Louis James as _Col. Doolittle_; Frank Losee as _Joe Lorey_; and Marion Elmore made a most alluring _Madge Brierly_. This was only a trial production, and the play went into the store-house for a year, when, in August, 1893, it began its first annual tour at the Bijou Theatre (now the Lyceum), at Pittsburgh. In that first regular company Bettina Gerard played _Madge_; Burt Clark, _Col. Doolittle_; George Deyo, _Joe Lorey_; William McVey, _Horace Holton_; Harrison J. Wolfe, _Frank Layson_; Charles K. French, _Uncle Neb_; Edith Athelston, _Barbara_; and Lottie Winnett was _Aunt Alathea_. Mr. Litt and his associate, A. W. Dingwall, have always mounted _In Old Kentucky_ handsomely, and this has been an important element in its great success. For twenty years this drama of the bluegrass and the mountains has held the boards, more than seven million people have seen it, and even to-day it is being produced almost daily with no signs of loss in popular interest. It is the only play Mr. Dazey has written with a Kentucky background, and it would be "a hazard of new fortunes" for him to attempt to do so; he could hardly improve upon his masterpiece. In 1897 Mr. Litt had a small edition of _In Old Kentucky_ privately printed from the prompt-books; and in 1910 Mr. Dazey collaborated with Edward Marshall in a novelization of the play, which was published as an attractive romance by the G. W. Dillingham Company, of New York. With Mr. Marshall he also novelized _The Old Flute-Player_ (New York, 1910). Mr. Dazey has recently dramatized _Fran_, John Breckinridge Ellis's popular novel; and at the present time he is engaged upon a new play, which he thinks, promises better than anything he has so far written. Mr. Dazey was in Kentucky several times between 1877 and 1898, the date of his most recent visit, at which time he found John Fox, Jr., giving one of his inevitable readings in Lexington, and James Lane Allen looking for the last time, mayhap, upon the scenes of his books. He spent several weeks with friends and relatives near Paris; and, like all good Kentuckians, he "hopes to revisit the dear old state in the near future." Mr. Dazey has an attractive home at Quincy, Illinois.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Who's Who in the Theatre_, by John Porter (Boston,
1912); letters from Mr. Dazey to the writer.

THE FAMOUS KNOT-HOLE[12]

[From _In Old Kentucky_ (1897)]

_Act III, Scene IV. The exterior of the race-track. Fence, tree, etc._

_Colonel._ (_Enter L._) I didn't go in. I kept my word, though it
nearly finished me. (_Shouts heard._) They're bringing out the
horses. (_Looks through knot-hole._) I can't see worth a cent.
It's not hole enough for me. To Hades with dignity! I'll inspect
that tree. (_Goes to tree; puts arm around it._)

[_Enter_ Alathea, _R._]

_Alathea._ (_Pauses, R. C._) Everyone's at the races. I'm
perfectly safe. There is that blessed knot-hole. (_Goes to hole;
looks through._)

_Col._ (_Comes from behind tree; sees Alathea._) A woman, by all
that's wonderful--a woman at my knot-hole. (_Approaches._) Madam!
(_Lays hand on her shoulder._)

_Alathea._ (_Indignantly._) Sir! (_Turns._) Col. Sundusky
Doolittle!

_Col._ Miss Alathea Layson! (_Bus. bows._)

_Alathea._ Colonel, what are you all doing here?

_Col._ Madam, what are you all doing here?

_Alathea._ Colonel, I couldn't wait to hear the result.

_Col._ No more could I.

_Alathea._ But I didn't enter the race-track.

_Col._ I was equally firm.

_Alathea._ Neb. told me of the knot-hole.

_Col._ The rascal, he told me, too!

_Alathea._ Colonel, we must forgive each other. If you really must
look, there is the knot-hole.

_Col._ No, Miss Lethe, I resign the knot-hole to you. I shall
climb the tree.

_Alathea._ (_As Colonel climbs tree._) Be careful, Colonel, don't
break your neck, but get where you can see.

_Col._ (_Up tree._) Ah, what a gallant sight! There's Catalpa,
Evangeline--and there's Queen Bess! (_Shouts heard._)

_Alathea._ What's that? (_To tree._)

_Col._ A false start. They'll make it this time. (_Shouts heard._)
They're off--off! Oh, what a splendid start!

_Alathea._ Who's ahead? Who's ahead? (_To tree._)

_Col._ Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back.

_Alathea._ Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front? Oh, if I were
only on that mare. (_Back to fence._)

_Col._ At the half, Evangeline takes the lead--Catalpa next--the
rest bunched. Oh, great heavens!--(_Lethe to tree._)--there's a
foul--a jam--and Queen Bess is left behind ten lengths! She hasn't
the ghost of a show! Look! (_Lethe back to tree._) She's at it
again. But she can't make it up. It's beyond anything mortal. And
yet she's gaining--gaining!

_Alathea._ (_Bus._) Keep it up--keep it up!

_Col._ At the three quarters; she's only five lengths behind the
leader, and gaining still!

_Alathea._ (_Bus._) Oh, push!--push!--I can't stand it! I've got
to see! (_Climbs tree._)

_Col._ Coming up, Miss Lethe! All right, don't break your neck,
but get where you can see. In the stretch. Her head's at Catalpa's
crupper--now her saddle-bow, but she can't gain another inch! But
look--look! she lifts her--and, Great Scott! she wins!

(_As he speaks, flats forming fence are drawn. Horses dash past, Queen Bess in the lead. Drop at back shows grand stand, with fence in front of same. Spectators back of fence._ Neb. _and_ Frank. _Band playing "Dixie."_ Holton _standing near, chagrined._ Col. _waves hat and_ Alathea _handkerchief, in tree. Spectators shout._)

(_For second curtain_, Madge _returns on Queen Bess_. Col. _and_ Alathea _down from tree and passing near. Other horses enter as curtain falls._)

[_Curtain_]

FOOTNOTE:

[12] Copyright, 1897, by Jacob Litt.

JOHN P. FRUIT

John Phelps Fruit, the distinguished Poe scholar, was born at Pembroke, Kentucky, November 22, 1855. He was graduated from Bethel College, Russellville, Kentucky, in 1878, after which he became a teacher. For two years Professor Fruit was president of Liberty College, Glasgow, Kentucky; and from 1883 to 1897 he was professor of English in his _alma mater_, Bethel College. In 1895 the University of Leipzig granted him the Ph. D. degree; and three years later he was elected to the chair of English in William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri, which he still occupies. Dr. Fruit's first work was an edition of Milton's _Lycidas_ (Boston, 1894), and this was followed by his edition of Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_ (Boston, 1899). Both of these little volumes have been used in many schools and colleges. Dr. Fruit devoted many years to the study of Edgar Allan Poe and his works, and his researches he brought together in _The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry_ (New York, 1899). This book gave Dr. Fruit a foremost place among the Poe scholars of his time. His work was officially recognized by the University of Virginia, the poet's college, and it has been widely and cordially reviewed. At the present time Dr. Fruit is engaged in a comprehensive study of Nathaniel Hawthorne, his pamphlet, entitled _Hawthorne's Immitigable_ (Louisville, Kentucky, n. d.), having attracted a deal of attention.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913); letters from
Prof. Fruit to the writer.

THE CLIMAX OF POE'S POETRY[13]

[From _The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry_ (New York, 1899)]

Accustomed as we are, from infancy up, to so much "rhyme without reason," in our nursery jingles and melodies, we associate some of Poe's poetry, remotely, at first blush, with the negroes singing "in the cotton and the corn." So much sound makes us suspicious of the sense, but a little closer ear appreciates delicate and telling onomatopoetic effects. Liquids and vowels join hands in sweetest fellowship to unite "the hidden soul of harmony."

As if, at last, to give the world assurance that he had been trifling with rhythm and rhyme, he wrote _The Bells_.

The secret of the charm resides in the humanizing of the tones of the bells. It is not personification, but the speaking in person to our souls. To appreciate this more full, observe how Ruskin humanizes the sky for us. "Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential."

Poe made so much of music in his doctrine of poetry, yet he never humanized the notes of a musical instrument....

He took the common bells,--the more praise for his artistic judgment,--and rang them through all the diapason of human sentiment.

If we have imagined a closer correspondence between expression and conception, in the previously considered poems, than really exists, there can be no doubt on that point, even to the mind of the wayfaring man, in reading _The Bells_.

If it be thought that the poet could harp on only one theme, let the variety of topic in _The Bells_ protest.

Again, Poe's doctrine of "rhythm and rhyme" finds its amplest verification in _The Bells_. Reason and not "ecstatic intuition," led him to conclude that English versification is exceedingly simple; that "one-tenth of it, possibly, may be called ethereal; nine-tenths, however, appertain to the mathematics; and the whole is included within the limits of the commonest common-sense."

It must be believed that Poe appropriated, with the finest artistic discernment, the vitalizing power of rhythm and rhyme, and nowhere with more skill than in _The Bells_. It is the climax of his art on its technical side.

Read the poem and think back over the course of the development of poet's art-instincts.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] Copyright, 1899, by A. S. Barnes and Company.

HARRISON ROBERTSON

Thomas Harrison Robertson, erstwhile poet and novelist, and now a well-known journalist, was born at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, January 16, 1856. He was educated at the University of Virginia, after which he settled at Louisville, Kentucky, as a newspaper man, verse-maker, and fictionist. Mr. Robertson has held almost every position on _The Courier-Journal_, being managing editor at the present time. He won his first fame with a Kentucky racing story, the best one ever written, entitled _How the Derby Was Won_, which was originally published in _Scribner's Magazine_ for August, 1889. Ten years later his first long novel, _If I Were a Man_ (New York, 1899), "the story of a New-Southerner," appeared, and it was followed by _Red Blood and Blue_ (New York, 1900); _The Inlander_ (New York, 1901); _The Opponents_ (New York, 1902); and his most recent novel, _The Pink Typhoon_ (New York, 1906), an automobile love story of slight merit. In the early eighties "T. H. Robertson" wrote some of the very cleverest verse, so-called society verse for the most part, that has ever been done by a Kentucky hand; but he soon abandoned "Thomas" and the Muse. The writer has always held that our literature lost a charming poet to win a feeble fictionist when Harrison Robertson changed literary steads, although his _How the Derby Was Won_ must not be forgotten. Now, however, he has given up the literary life for the daily grind of a great newspaper; and he may never publish another poem or novel. More's the pity!

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Book Buyer_ (April, 1900; April, 1901);
_Scribner's Magazine_ (October, 1907); _The Bookman_ (December,
1910).

TWO TRIOLETS[14]

[From _A Vers de Societe Anthology_, by Caroline Wells (New York, 1907)]

I

What He Said:

This kiss upon your fan I press--
Ah! Sainte Nitouche, you don't refuse it?
And may it from its soft recess--
This kiss upon your fan I press--
Be blown to you, a shy caress,
By this white down, whene'er you use it.
This kiss upon your fan I press--
Ah, Sainte Nitouche, you _don't_ refuse it!

II

What She Thought:

To kiss a fan!
What a poky poet!
The stupid man,
To kiss a fan,
When he knows that--he--can--
Or ought to know it--
To kiss a _fan_!
What a poky poet!

STORY OF THE GATE

[From the same]

Across the pathway, myrtle-fringed,
Under the maple, it was hinged--
The little wooden gate;
'Twas there within the quiet gloam,
When I had strolled with Nelly home,
I used to pause and wait.

Before I said to her good-night
Yet loath to leave the winsome sprite
Within the garden's pale;
And there, the gate between us two,
We'd linger as all lovers do,
And lean upon the rail.

And face to face, eyes close to eyes,
Hands meeting hands in feigned surprise,
After a stealthy quest,--
So close I'd bend, ere she'd retreat,
That I'd grow drunken from the sweet
Tuebrose upon her breast.

We'd talk--in fitful style, I ween--
With many a meaning glance between
The tender words and low;
We'd whisper some dear, sweet conceit,
Some idle gossip we'd repeat,
And then I'd move to go.

"Good-night," I'd say; "good-night--good-by!"
"Good-night"--from her with half a sigh--
"Good-night!" "_Good_-night!" And then--
And then I do _not_ go, but stand,
Again lean on the railing, and--
Begin it all again.

Ah! that was many a day ago--
That pleasant summer-time--although
The gate is standing yet;
A little cranky, it may be,
A little weather-worn--like me--
Who never can forget

The happy--"End?" My cynic friend,
Pray save your sneers--there was no "end."
Watch yonder chubby thing!
That is our youngest, hers and mine;
See how he climbs, his legs to twine
About the gate and swing.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

INGRAM CROCKETT

Ingram Crockett, whom a group of critics have hailed as one of the most exquisite poets of Nature yet born in Kentucky, first saw the light at Henderson, Kentucky, February 10, 1856. His father, John W. Crockett, was a noted public speaker in his day and generation, and a member of the Confederate Congress from Kentucky. Ingram Crockett was educated in the schools of his native town, but he never went to college. For many years past Mr. Crockett has been cashier of the Planters State Bank, Henderson, but the jingle of the golden coins has not seared the spirit of song within his soul. In 1888 he began his literary career by editing, with the late Charles J. O'Malley, the Kentucky poet and critic, _Ye Wassail Bowle_, a pamphlet anthology of Kentucky poems and prose pieces. A small collection of Mr. Crockett's poems, entitled _The Port of Pleasant Dreams_ (Henderson, 1892), was followed by a long poem, _Rhoda, an Easter Idyl_. The first large collection of his lyrics was _Beneath Blue Skies and Gray_ (New York, 1898). This volume won the poet friends in all parts of the country, and proclaimed him a true interpreter of many-mooded Nature. _A Year Book of Kentucky Woods and Fields_ (Buffalo, New York, 1901), a prose-poem, contains some excellent writing. A story of the Christiandelphians of western Kentucky, _A Brother of Christ_ (New York, 1905), is Mr. Crockett's only novel, and it was not overly successful. _The Magic of the Woods and Other Poems_ (Chicago, 1908), is his most recent volume of verse. "It contains poems as big as the world," one enthusiastic critic exclaimed, but it has not brought the author the larger recognition that he so richly deserves. This work surely contains Mr. Crockett's best work so far. One does not have to travel far in any direction in Kentucky in order to find many persons declaring that Ingram Crockett is the finest poet living in the state to-day. His latest book, _The Greeting and Goodbye of the Birds_ (New York, 1912), is a small volume of prose-pastels, somewhat after the manner of his _Year Book_. It again reveals the author's close companionship with Nature, and his exquisite expression of what it all means to him.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Blades o' Blue Grass_, by Fannie P. Dickey
(Louisville, 1892); _The Courier-Journal_ (August 3, 1912).

AUDUBON[15]

[From _Beneath Blue Skies and Gray_ (New York, 1898)]

Not with clash of arms,
Not 'midst war's alarms,
Thy splendid work was done,
Thy great victory won.

Unknown, thro' field and brake,
By calm or stormy lake,
Lured by swift passing wings--
Songs that a new world sings--

Thou didst untiring go
Led by thine ardor's glow,
Cheered by thy kindling thought
Beauty thy hand had wrought.

Leaving thy matchless page
Gift to a later age
That would revere thy name--
Build for thee, surely fame.

O, to have been with thee,
In that wild life and free,
While all the birds passed by
Under the new world sky!

O, to have heard the song
Of that glad-hearted throng,
Ere yet the settlers came
Giving the woods to flame!

O, to have with thee gone
Up the white steps of Dawn!
Or where the burning west
Crimsoned the wild drake's breast!

Yet better than bays we bring
Are the woods whispering
When life and leaf are new
Under the tender blue!

Master, awake! for May
Comes on her rainbowed way--
Hear thou bird-song again
Sweeter than praise of men!

THE LONGING[16]

[From _The Magic of the Woods and Other Poems_ (Chicago, 1908)]

I am weary of thought, forever the world goes by
With laughter and tears, and no one can tell me why--
I am weary of thought and all it may ever bring--
_But oh, for the light-loving fields where the meadow-larks sing!_

I have toiled at the mills, I've known the grind and the roar
Over and over again one day as the day before--
And what does it all avail and the end of it--where?
_But oh, for the clover in bloom and the breeze blowing there!_

Fame? What is fame but a glimmering mote, earth cast,
That e'en as we grasp it dulls--dust of the dust at last.
For what have the ages to say of the myriad dead?
_But oh, for the frost-silvered hills and the dawn breaking red!_

Ah, God! the day is so short and the night comes so soon!
And who will remember the time, or the wish, or the boon?
And who can turn backward our feet from the destined place?
_But oh, for the bobolink's cheer and the beauty of April's face!_

DEAREST

[From the same]

Dearest, there is a scarlet leaf upon the blackgum tree,
And in the corn the crickets chirp a ceaseless threnody--
And scattered down the purple swales are clumps of marigold,
And hazier are the distant fields in many a lilac fold.

Dearest, the elder bloom is gone, and heavy, dark maroon,
The elderberries bow beneath a mellow, ripening noon--
And, shaking out its silver sail, the milkweed-down is blown
Through deeps of dreamy amber air in search of ports unknown.

Dearest, full many a flower now lies withered by the path,
Their fragrance but a memory, the soul's sad aftermath--
The birds are flown, save now and then some loiterer thrills the way
With joyous bursts of lyric song born of the heart of May.

Ah, dearest, it is good-bye time for Summer and her train,
And many a golden hour will pass that ne'er shall come again--
But, dearest, Love with us abides tho' all the rest should go,
And in Love's garden, dearest one, there is no hint of snow.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Copyright, 1898, by R. H. Russell.

[16] Copyright, 1908, by the Author.

ELIZA CALVERT OBENCHAIN

Mrs. Eliza Calvert Obenchain, ("Eliza Calvert Hall"), creator of _Aunt Jane of Kentucky_, was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, February 11, 1856; and she has lived in that little city all her life. Miss Calvert was educated in the private schools of her town, and then spent a year at "The Western," a woman's college near Cincinnati, Ohio. Her first poems appeared in the old _Scribner's_, when John G. Holland was the editor; and her first prose papers were published in _Kate Field's Washington_. She was married to Professor William A. Obenchain, of Ogden College, Bowling Green, on July 8, 1885, and four children have been born to them. _Aunt Jane of Kentucky_ (Boston, 1907), the memories of an old lady done into short stories, opens with one of the best tales ever written by an American woman, entitled _Sally Ann's Experience_. This charming prose idyl first appeared in the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, for July, 1898, since which time it has been cordially commended by former President Roosevelt, has been reprinted in _Cosmopolitan_, _The Ladies' Home Journal_, and many other magazines, read by many public speakers, and finally issued as a single book in an illustrated _edition de luxe_ (Boston, 1910). Many of the other stories in _Aunt Jane of Kentucky_ are very fine, but _Sally Ann_ is far and away superior to any of them. Mrs. Obenchain's _The Land of Long Ago_ (Boston, 1909), was another collection of Aunt Jane stories. _To Love and to Cherish_ (Boston, 1911), is the author's first and latest novel. Upon these four volumes Mrs. Obenchain's fame rests secure, but _Sally Ann's Experience_ will be read and enjoyed when her other books have been forgotten. She struck a universal truth in this little tale, and the world will not willingly let it die. Her most recent work is a _A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets_ (Boston, 1912), a large and delightful volume on coverlet collecting and the study of coverlet making.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Cosmopolitan Magazine_ (July, 1908); _The Bookman_
(October, 1910).

"SWEET DAY OF REST"[17]

[From _Aunt Jane of Kentucky_ (Boston, 1907)]

"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin' Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to draw lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long in the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o' the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin' the Sabbath day.

"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy, triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him better'n to talk back to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on Sunday, women'll have to work.'

"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy, they'll walk down out of their pulpits and set down at some woman's table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'

"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"--here her voice fell to a confessional key--"I never did like Sunday till I begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me like anybody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishing' for rest, but, honey, all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.

"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse 'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays jest the same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and the wind blows and He does it all."

"'For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds He takes delight,'"

I said.

"That's it," said Aunt Jane, delightedly. "There ain't any religion in restin' unless you're tired, and work's jest as holy in his sight as rest."

Our faces were turned toward the western sky, where the sun was sinking behind the amethystine hills. The swallows were darting and twittering over our heads, a somber flock of blackbirds rose from a huge oak tree in the meadow across the road, and darkened the sky for a moment in their flight to the cedars that were their nightly resting place. Gradually the mist changed from amethyst to rose, and the poorest object shared in the transfiguration of the sunset hour.

Is it unmeaning chance that sets man's days, his dusty, common days, between the glories of the rising and the setting sun, and his life, his dusty, common life, between the two solemnities of birth and death? Bounded by the splendors of the morning and evening skies, what glory of thought and deed should each day hold! What celestial dreams and vitalizing sleep should fill our nights! For why should day be more magnificent than life?

As we watched in understanding silence, the enchantment slowly faded. The day of rest was over, a night of rest was at hand; and in the shadowy hour between the two hovered the benediction of that peace which "passeth all understanding."

FOOTNOTE:

[17] Copyright, 1907, by Little, Brown and Company.

KATE SLAUGHTER McKINNEY

Mrs. Kate Slaughter McKinney ("Katydid"), poet and novelist, was born at London, Kentucky, February 6, 1857. She was graduated from Daughters', now Beaumont, College, Harrodsburg, Kentucky, when John Augustus Williams was president. On May 7, 1878, Miss Slaughter was married at Richmond, Kentucky, to James I. McKinney, now superintendent of the Louisville and Nashville railroad. Mrs. McKinney's best work is to be found in her first book of verse, _Katydid's Poems_ (Louisville, 1887). This slender volume was extravagantly praised by the late Charles J. O'Malley, but it did contain several lyrics of much merit, especially "The Little Face," a lovely bit of verse surely. Mrs. McKinney's first novel, _The Silent Witness_ (New York, 1907), was followed by _The Weed by the Wall_ (Boston, 1911). Both of these works prove that the author's gift is of the muses, and not of the gods of the "six best sellers." Neither of her novels was overly successful, making one wish she had held fast to her earlier love, verse-making. Besides these three volumes, Mrs. McKinney has published a group of songs which have attracted attention. She resides at Montgomery, Alabama.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Blades o' Bluegrass_, by Fannie P. Dickey
(Louisville, 1892); _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).

A LITTLE FACE[18]

[From _Katydid's Poems_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1887)]

A little face to look at,
A little face to kiss;
Is there anything, I wonder,
That's half so sweet as this?

A little cheek to dimple
When smiles begin to grow;
A little mouth betraying
Which way the kisses go.

A slender little ringlet,
A rosy little ear;
A little chin to quiver
When falls the little tear.

A little face to look at,
A little face to kiss;
Is there anything, I wonder,
That's half so sweet as this?

A little hand so fragile
All through the night to hold;
Two little feet so tender
To tuck in from the cold.

Two eyes to watch the sunbeam
That with the shadow plays--
A darling little baby
To kiss and love always.

FOOTNOTE:

[18] Copyright, 1887, by the Author.

CHARLES J. O'MALLEY

Charles J. O'Malley, the George D. Prentice of modern Kentucky literature, the praiser extraordinary and quite indiscriminately of all things literary done by Kentucky hands, and withal a poet of distinguished ability, was born near Morganfield, Kentucky, February 9, 1857. Through his father O'Malley was related to Father Abram J. Ryan, the poet-priest of the Confederacy; and his mother was of Spanish descent. He was educated at Cecilian College, in Hardin county, Kentucky, and at Spring Hill, a Jesuit institution near Mobile, Alabama, from which he returned to Kentucky and made his home for some years at Henderson. His contributions in prose and verse to the newspapers of southwest Kentucky made him well-known in the State. A series of prose papers included _Summer in Kentucky_, _By Marsh and Pool_, and _The Poets and Poetry of Southwest Kentucky_, attracted much favorable comment. His finest poem, _Enceladus_, appeared in _The Century Magazine_ for February, 1892, and much of his subsequent work was published in that periodical. In 1893 O'Malley removed to Mt. Vernon, Indiana, to become editor of _The Advocate_, a Roman Catholic periodical. His first and best known book, _The Building of the Moon and Other Poems_ (Mt. Vernon, Indiana, 1894), brought together his finest work in verse. From this time until his death he was an editor of Roman Catholic publications and a contributor of poems to _The Century_, _Cosmopolitan_, and other high-class magazines. For several years O'Malley was editor of _The Midland Review_, of Louisville, and this was the best periodical he ever edited. Many of the now well-known writers of the South and West got their first things printed in _The Review_. It did a real service for Kentucky authors especially. During his later life O'Malley seemed to realize that he had devoted far too much time in praising the literary labors of other writers, and he turned most of his attention to creative work, which was making him better known with the appearance of each new poem. O'Malley may be ranked with John Boyle O'Reilly, the Boston editor and poet, and he loses nothing by comparison with him. He was ever a Roman Catholic poet, and his religion marred the beauty of much of his best work. Besides _The Building of the Moon_, O'Malley published _The Great White Shepherd of Christendom_ (Chicago, 1903), which was a large life of Pope Leo XIII; and _Thistledrift_ (Chicago, 1909), a little book of poems and prose pastels. For several years prior to his passing, he planned a complete collection of his poems to be entitled _Songs of Dawn_, but he did not live to finish this work. At the time of his death, which occurred at Chicago, March 26, 1910, O'Malley was editor of _The New World_, a Catholic weekly. Today he lies buried near his Kentucky birthplace with no stone to mark the spot.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Century Magazine_ (October, 1907); _The New
World_ (Chicago, April 2, 1910).

ENCELADUS[19]

[From _The Building of the Moon and Other Poems_ (Mount Vernon, Indiana, 1894)]

I shall arise; I am not weak; I feel
A strength within me worthy of the gods--
A strength that will not pass in gray despair.

Ten million years I have lain thus, supine,
Prostrate beneath the gleaming mountain-peaks,
And the slow centuries have heard me groan
In passing, and not one has pitied me;
Yea, the strong gods have seen me writhe beneath
This mighty horror fixed upon my chest,
And have not eased me of a moment's pain.

Oh, I will rise again--I will shake off
This terror that outweighs the wrath of Jove!
Lo, prone in darkness I have gathered hope
From the great waters walking speaking by!
These unto me give mercy, thus forshown:

"We are the servants of a mightier Lord
Than Jupiter, who hath imprisoned thee.
We go forth at His bidding, laying bare
The sea's great floor and all the sheer abysms
That drop beneath the idle fathoms of man,
And shape the corner-stones, and lay thereon
The mighty base of unborn continents.
The old earth, when it hath fulfilled His will,
Is laid to rest, and mightier earths arise
And fuller life, and like unto God,
Fills the new races struggling on the globe.

"Profoundest change succeeds each boding calm,
And mighty order from the deep breaks up
In all her parts, and only Night remains
With all her starts that minister to God,
Who sits sublimely, shaping as He wills,
Creating always." These things do they speak.
"The mountain-peaks, that watch among the stars,
Bow down their heads and go like monks at dusk
To mournful cloisters of the under-world;
And then, long silence, while blind Chaos' self
Beats round the poles with wings of cloudy storm."

These things, and more, the waters say to me,
How this old earth shall change, and its life pass
And be renewed from fathomless within;
How other forms, and likelier to God,
Shall walk on earth and wing the peaks of cloud;
How holier men and maids, with comelier shapes,
In that far time, when He hath wrought His plan,
Shall the new globe inherit, and like us
Love, hope, and live, with bodies formed of ours--
Or of our dust again made animate.

These things to me; yet still his curse remains,
His burden presses on me. God! thou God!
Who wast before the dawn, give ear to me!
Thou wilt some day shake down like sifted dust
This monstrous burden Jove hath laid on me,
When the stars ripen like ripe fruit in heaven,
And the earth crumbles, plunging to the void
With all its shrieking peoples!--Let it fall!
Let it be sown as ashes underneath
The base of all the continents to be
Forever, if so rent I shall be freed!

Shall I not wait? Shall I despair now Hope
On the horizon spreads her dawn-white wings?
Ah, sometimes now I feel earth moved within
Through all its massive frame, and know His hand
Again doth labor shaping out His plan.
Oh, I shall have all patience, trust and calm,
Foreknowing that the centuries shall bring,
On their broad wings, release from this deep hell,
And that I shall have life yet upon earth,
Yet draw the morning sunlight in my breath,
And meet the living races face to face.

NOON IN KENTUCKY

[From the same]

All day from the tulip-poplar boughs
The chewink's voice like a gold-bell rings,
The meadow-lark pipes to the drowsy cows,
And the oriole like a red rose swings,
And clings, and swings,
Shaking the noon from his burning wings.

A flash of purple within the brake
The red-bud burns, where the spice-wood blows,
And the brook laughs low where the white dews shake,
Drinking the wild-haw's fragrant snows,
And flows, and goes
Under the feet of the wet, wood-rose.

Odors of may-apples blossoming,
And violets stirring and blue-bells shaken--
Shadows that start from the thrush's wing
And float on the pools, and swim and waken--
Unslaken, untaken--
Bronze wood-Naiads that wait forsaken.

All day the lireodendron droops
Over the thickets her moons of gold;
All day the cumulous dogwood groups
Flake the mosses with star-snows cold,
While gold untold
The oriole pours from his song-thatched hold!

Carol of love, all day in the thickets,
Redbird; warble, O thrush, of pain!
Pipe me of pity, O raincrow, hidden
Deep in the wood! and, lo! the refrain
Of pain, again
Shall out of the bosom of heaven bring rain!

FOOTNOTE:

[19] Copyright, 1894, by the Advocate Publishing Company.

LANGDON SMITH

Langdon ("Denver") Smith, maker of a very clever and learned poem, was born in Kentucky, January 4, 1858. From 1864 to 1872 he attended the public schools of Louisville. As a boy Smith served in the Comanche and Apache Wars, and he was later a correspondent in the Sioux War. In 1894 Smith was married to Marie Antoinette Wright, whom he afterwards memorialized in his famous poem, and who survived him but five weeks. In the year following his marriage, he went to Cuba for _The New York Herald_ to "cover" the conflict between Spain and Cuba; and three years later he represented the New York _Journal_ during the Spanish-American War. Smith was at the bombardment of Santiago and at the battles of El Caney and San Juan. After the war he returned to New York, in which city he died, April 8, 1908. He was the author of a novel, called _On the Pan Handle_, and of many short stories, but his poem, _Evolution_, made him famous. The first stanzas of this poem were written in 1895; and four years later he wrote several more stanzas. Then from time to time he added a line or more, until it was completed. _Evolution_ first appeared in its entirety in the middle of a page of want advertisements in the New York _Journal_. It attracted immediate and wide notice, but copies of it were rather difficult to obtain until it was reprinted in _The Scrap-Book_ for April, 1906, and in _The Speaker_ for September, 1908.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Evolution, a Fantasy_ (Boston, 1909), is a
beautiful and fitting setting for this famous poem. In the
introduction to this edition Mr. Lewis Allen Browne brings
together the facts of Langdon Smith's life and work with many fine
words of criticism for the poem. In 1911 W. A. Wilde and Company,
the Boston publishers, issued an exquisite edition of _Evolution_.
Thus it will be seen that Smith and his masterpiece have received
proper recognition from the publishers and the public; the
judgment of posterity cannot be hurried; but that judgment can be
anticipated, at least in part. That it will be favorable,
characterizing _Evolution_ as one of the cleverest, smartest
things done by a nineteenth century American poet, the present
writer does not for a moment doubt.

EVOLUTION[20]

[From _Evolution, a Fantasy_ (Boston, 1909)]

I

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish,
In the Paleozoic time.
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

II

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved,
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in a rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death,
And crept into light again.

III

We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man's hand;
We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees,
Or trailed through the mud and sand,
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.

IV

Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The eons came, and the eons fled,
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day,
And the night of death was past.

V

Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms,
In the hush of the moonless nights.
And oh! what beautiful years were these,
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled, and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.

VI

Thus life by life, and love by love,
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath, and death by death,
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing sod
The shadows broke, and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

VII

I was thewed like an Auroch bull,
And tusked like the great Cave Bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet,
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o'er the plain,
And the moon hung red o'er the river bed.
We mumbled the bones of the slain.

VIII

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge,
And shaped it with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from the woodland dank,
And fitted it, head and haft.
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn,
Where the Mammoth came to drink;--
Through brawn and bone I drave the stone,
And slew him upon the brink.

IX

Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came trooping in.
O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof,
We fought, and clawed and tore,
And cheek by jowl, with many a growl,
We talked the marvel o'er.

X

I carved that fight on a reindeer bone,
With rude and hairy hand,
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood, and the right of might,
Ere human laws were drawn.
And the Age of Sin did not begin
Till our brutal tusks were gone.

XI

And that was a million years ago,
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here to-night in the mellow light,
We sit at Delmonico's;
Your eyes are as deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair is as dark as jet,
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet--

XII