WOODLANDS, THE HOME OF WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
By courtesy of D. Appleton & Company
Having put each guest into the line of his fancy, the master of Woodlands would betake himself to his library to write his thirty pages, the daily stint he demanded from the loom of his imagination. Sometimes he had a companion in Paul Hayne who, not so much given to outdoor life as many of the frequenters of Woodlands, liked to sit in the library, weaving some poetic vision of his own or watching the flight of the tireless pen across the page.
By and by the pen would drop upon the desk, its task finished for that morning, and the worker would look up with an air of surprise at becoming aware of his companion and say: "Near dinner time, old boy. What do you say to a sherry and soda?" As there was only one thing to be said to a sherry and soda, this was the signal for repairing to the dining room. By the time the sherry and soda sparkled hospitable welcome the sportsmen returned and after doing justice to the genius of the host in mixed drinks, they were seated around a generous table, most of the good things with which it was laden having come from the waters and fields and vines of Woodlands. For if a world-wide war had closed all the harbors of earth Woodlands could still have offered luxurious banquets to its guests. The host beguiled the time with anecdotes, of which he had an unfailing store that never lost a point in his telling, or declaimed poetry, of which his retentive memory held an inexhaustible collection.
The feast was followed by cigars, Simms having begun to smoke of late years to discourage a tendency to stoutness. Then all would join in the diversions of the afternoon, which sometimes led to the "Edge of the Swamp," a gruesome place which the poet of Woodlands had celebrated in his verse. Here
Cypresses,
Each a great, ghastly giant, eld and gray
Stride o'er the dusk, dank tract.
Around the sombre cypress trees coiled