LATE NEWS
[From Scribner's Monthly, December, 1876]
In the sanctum I was sitting,
Engaged in thought befitting
A gentleman of letters—dunning letters, by the way—
When a seedy sort of fellow,
Middle-aged and rather mellow,
Ambled in and questioned loudly, "Well, sir, what's the news to-day?"
Then I smiled on him serenely—
On the stranger dressed so meanly—
And I told him that the Dutch had taken Holland, sure as fate;
And that the troops in Flanders,
Both privates and commanders,
Had been dealing very freely in profanity of late.
Then the stranger, quite demurely,
Said, "That's interesting, surely;
Your facilities for getting news are excellent, that's clear;
Though excuse me, sir, for stating
That the facts you've been narrating
Are much fresher than the average of items gathered here!"
[YOUNG E. ALLISON]
Young Ewing Allison, one of the most versatile of the Kentucky writers of the present school, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, December 23, 1853. He left school at an early age to become the "devil" in a Henderson printing office. At seventeen years of age Mr. Allison was a newspaper reporter. At different times he has been connected with The Journal, of Evansville, Indiana; city and dramatic editor of The Courier-Journal; editor of The Louisville Commercial; and from 1902 to 1905 he was editor of The Louisville Herald. Mr. Allison founded The Insurance Field at Louisville, in 1887, and has since edited it. He has thus been a newspaper man for more than forty years; and though always very busy, he has found time to write fiction, verse, literary criticism, history, and librettos. In prose fiction Mr. Allison is best known by three stories: The Passing of Major Kilgore, which was published as a novelette in Lippincott's Magazine in 1888; The Longworth Mystery (Century Magazine, October, 1889); and Insurance at Piney Woods (Louisville, 1896). In half-whimsical literary criticism he has published two small volumes which are known in many parts of the world: The Delicious Vice (Cleveland, 1907, first series; Cleveland, 1909, second series). These papers are "pipe dreams and adventures of an habitual novel-reader among some great books and their people." Mr. Allison's libretto, The Ogallallas, a romantic opera, was produced by the Bostonians Opera Company in 1894; and his Brother Francisco, a libretto of tragic opera, was presented at the Royal Opera House, Berlin, by order of Emperor William II. The music to both of these operas was composed by Mr. Henry Waller, Liszt's distinguished pupil. In history Mr. Allison has written The City of Louisville and a Glimpse of Kentucky (Louisville, 1887); and Fire Underwriting (Louisville, 1907). Of his lyrics, The Derelict, a completion of the four famous lines in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, has been printed by almost every newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world, set to music by Mr. Waller, and an illustrated edition de luxe has recently appeared. The Derelict and The Delicious Vice have firmly fixed Mr. Allison's fame.
Bibliography. Confessions of a Tatler, by Elvira M. Slaughter (Louisville, 1905); letter from Mr. Allison to the writer.
ON BOARD THE DERELICT