CHAPTER L
MODERN MEMPHIS
To be charmed by the social side of a city, yet to find little to admire in its physical aspect, is like knowing a brilliant and beautiful woman whose housekeeping is not of the neatest. If one were compelled to discuss such a woman, and wished to do so sympathetically but with truth, one might avoid brutal comment on the condition of her rooms by likening them to other rooms elsewhere: rooms which one knew to be untidy, but which the innocent listener might not understand to be so. By this device one may even appear to pay a compliment, while, in reality, indicating the grim truth. In such a case, I, for example, might say that this supposititious lady's rooms reminded me of those I occupied on the second floor of the famous restaurant called Antoine's, in New Orleans; whereupon the reader, knowing the high reputation of Antoine's cuisine, and never having seen the apartments to which I refer, might assume an implication very favorable.
Let me say, then, that Memphis reminds me of St. Louis. Like St. Louis, Memphis has charming society. Like St. Louis she has pretty girls. Like St. Louis she is hospitable. And without particularizing too much, I may say that her streets remind me of St. Louis streets, that many of her houses remind me of St. Louis houses, and that her levee, with its cobbled surface sloping down to the yellow, muddy Mississippi, the bridges in the distance, the strange looking river steamers loading and unloading below, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, is much like the St. Louis levee. So, if the reader happens to be unfamiliar with the physical appearance of St. Louis, he may, at all events, perceive that I have likened Memphis to a much larger city—thus, (it seems fair to suppose) paying Memphis a handsome tribute.
Memphis has a definite self-given advantage over St. Louis in possessing a pretty little park at the heart of the city, overlooking the river; also she has the advantage of lying to the east of the great stream, instead of to the west, so that, in late afternoon, when the sun splashes down into the mysterious deserted reaches of the Arkansas flats, across the way, sending splatterings of furious color across the sky, one may seat oneself on a bench in the park and witness a stupendous natural masterpiece. A sunset over the sea can be no more wonderful than a sunset over this terrible, beautiful, inspiring, enigmatic domineering flood. Or one may see the sunset from the readingroom of the Cossitt Library, with its fine bay window commanding the river almost as though it were the window of a pilot-house.
The Cossitt Library is only one of several free libraries in the city. There is, for example, a free library in connection with the Goodwyn Institute, an establishment having an endowment of half a million dollars, left to Memphis by the late William A. Goodwyn. The Goodwyn Institute provides courses of free lectures, by well-known persons, on a great variety of subjects. The library is designed to add to the educational work. Books are not, however, loaned, as they are from the Cossitt Library, an institution to which I found myself returning more than once; now for a book, now to look at the interesting collection of mound-builder relics contained in an upper room, now merely because it is a place of such reposeful hospitality that I liked to make excuses to go back.
The library, a romanesque building of Michigan red sandstone, is by a southern architect, but is in the style of Richardson, and is one of the few buildings in that style which I have ever liked. It was given to Memphis as a memorial to Frederick H. Cossitt, by his three daughters, Mrs. A. D. Juilliard, Mrs. Thomas Stokes, and Mrs. George E. Dodge, all of New York. Mr. Cossitt was born in Granby, Connecticut, but as a young man moved South and in 1842 adopted Memphis as his home, residing there until 1861. At the outbreak of the Civil War he made an amicable division of his business with his partner, and removed to New York, where he resided until the time of his death. Finding among his papers a memorandum indicating that he had intended to endow a library in Memphis, his daughters carried out his wish.
Having already spoken of a number of Memphis' interesting citizens, I find myself left with an ill-assorted trio of names yet to be mentioned, because, different as they are, each of the three supplies a definite part of the character of the city. First, then, Memphis has the honor of possessing what not many of our cities possess: a man who stands high among the world's artist-bookbinders. This gentleman is Mr. Otto Zahn, executive head of the publishing house of S. C. Toof & Co. Mr. Zahn himself has done some famous bindings, and books bound by him are to be found in some of the finest private libraries in the land. Until a few years ago he conducted an art-bindery in connection with the Toof company's business, but it was unprofitable and finally had to be given up.
Second, to descend to a more popular form of art, but one from which the revenue is far more certain, Memphis has, in W. C. Handy, a negro ragtime composer whose dance tunes are widely known. Among his compositions may be mentioned the "Memphis Blues," the "St. Louis Blues," "Mr. Crump," and "Joe Turner." "Mr. Crump" is named in honor of a former mayor of Memphis who was ousted for refusing to enforce the prohibition law; "Joe Turner" is the name of a negro pianist who plays for Memphis to dance—as Handy also does. Most of Handy's tunes are negro "rags" in fox-trot time, and they are so effective that Memphis dances them generally in preference to the one step.
My third celebrity is of a more astounding type. While in Memphis I called aboard the river steamer Grand, and had a talk with Mrs. Nettie Johnson, who is captain of that craft. Some one told me that Mrs. Johnson was the only woman steamboat captain in the world, but she informed me that at Helena, Arkansas, there lives another Mrs. Johnson—no relative of hers—who follows the same calling.
The steamer Grand is almost entirely a Johnson family affair. Mrs. Johnson is captain; her husband, I. S. Johnson is pilot (though Mrs. Johnson has, in addition to her master's license, a pilot's license, and often takes the wheel); her elder son, Emery, is clerk; Emery's wife is assistant clerk, while Arthur, the captain's younger son, is engineer. Russell Johnson, Mrs. Johnson's grandson, is the only member of the family I saw aboard the boat who does not take part in running it. Russell was five years old when I met him, but that was nearly a year ago, and by now he is probably chief steward, boatswain, or ship's carpenter.