KENTUCKY IN
AMERICAN LETTERS

OTHER WORKS BY MR. TOWNSEND

Richard Hickman Menefee. 1907
Kentuckians in History and Literature. 1907
The Life of James Francis Leonard. 1909
Kentucky: Mother of Governors. 1910
Lore of the Meadowland. 1911

KENTUCKY IN
AMERICAN LETTERS
1784-1912

BY

JOHN WILSON TOWNSEND

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JAMES LANE ALLEN

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
NINETEEN THIRTEEN

Of this edition one thousand sets have been printed, of which
this is number

241

Copyright 1913
By The Torch Press
Published September 1913

To
Mary Katherine Bullitt
and
Samuel Judson Roberts
and to their memories

[CONTENTS]

[KENTUCKY IN AMERICAN LETTERS]

[JAMES NEWTON BASKETT]

James Newton Baskett, novelist and scientist, was born near Carlisle, Kentucky, November 1, 1849. He was taken to Missouri in early life by his parents. He was graduated from the University of Missouri in 1872, since which time he has devoted himself almost exclusively to fiction and to comparative vertebrate anatomy, with ornithology as his particular specialty. At the world's congress of ornithologists at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, Mr. Baskett presented a paper on Some Hints at the Kinship of Birds as Shown by Their Eggs, which won him the respect of scientists from many lands. He has published three scientific works and three novels: The Story of the Birds (New York, 1896); The Story of the Fishes (New York, 1899); The Story of the Amphibians and Reptiles (New York, 1902); and his novels: At You All's House (New York, 1898); As the Light Led (New York, 1900); and his most recent book, Sweet Brier and Thistledown (Boston, 1902). Of this trio of tales the first one, At You All's House, is the best and the best known, Mr. Baskett's masterpiece hitherto. For the Texas Historical Society he wrote, in 1907, a series of papers upon the Early Spanish Expedition in the South and Southwest. With the exception of three years spent in Colorado for the benefit of his health, Mr. Baskett has resided at Mexico, Missouri, since leaving Kentucky.

Bibliography. The Athenaeum (July 28, 1900); The Book Buyer (October, 1900); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. i).

"I 'OVES 'OO BEST, 'TAUS 'OO BEAT 'EM ALL"[1]

[From As the Light Led (New York, 1900)]

They had been boy and girl together, not schoolmates nor next-farm neighbors, but their homes were in the same region. Her father's house was far enough away to make the boy's visits not so frequent as to foster the familiarity which breeds contempt, yet they gave him an occasional little journey out of the humdrum of home lanes, and away from the monotonous sweep of the prairie's flat horizon.

Hers was rather a timber farm, located on the other side of Flint Creek, where the woods began to fringe out upon the treeless plain again; but his was high out eastward upon the prairie swell, several miles from water. From his place the wooded barrier between them seemed only a brown level brush-stroke upon the sky's western margin.

Sometimes, when he was tired from his day's work afield, he watched the sun sink behind this border, which the distance made so velvety; and, if the day were clear, it looked to him as if the great glowing ball were lying down upon a cushion for its comfort. If it set in a bank of cloud or storm, it seemed to send up long streaming, reaching stripes, as if it waved a farewell to the sky, and stretched a last grasp at the day as it left it, or shot a rocket of distress as it sank.

When a child he had often sent her his good-will upon the westering messenger, and he imagined that the beams, sometimes shot suddenly out from beneath a low-hung cloudy curtain, were answers to his greetings. Long after it was dreary at his place, he fancied the light was still cuddling somewhere in the brush near her and that it was cheery yet over there.

When he was seven and she was three, he was visiting at her house one day. She was sitting on a bench in the old, long porch, shouting to him, her elder brother, and some others, as they came toward her from a romp out in the orchard. Suddenly Bent bantered the boys for a race to the baby; and, swinging their limp wool hats in their hands, they sped toward her. The child caught the jubilance of the race, and when Bent dropped first beside her, she grabbed him about the neck, laid the rose of her cheek against the tan of his, and said:

"I 'oves 'oo best, 'tause 'oo beat 'em all."

The act was an infant tribute to prowess, a bound here in babyhood of the heart which wants but does not weigh; of the body which asks but does not question. The boy felt his heart go to meet hers, so that the little girl stood ever after as his idol. As time went on, his reverence for her as a lisper grew as she became a lass; and though, out of the dawning to them of what the years might bring, there came eras of pure embarrassment, wherein their firmness and trust wavered a little, yet confiding companionship came anew and stayed, till some new revelation of each to self or other barred for a time again their ease and intimacy. They were man and woman now, with a consciousness of much that the grown-up state must finally mean to them, if this continued. There was the freedom from embarrassment which experience brings; but there came with all this a sort of proximity of hopes and aims, which, burdened sweetly with its own importance, persisted with a presage of a crisis down the line.

He could no longer ride up to her side as she left the stile at church, and, without a previous engagement or the lubricant of a commonplace, open a conversation right into the heart of things. When she responded to him now it was with a shy sort of confidence which admits so much yet defines so little. Yet never when they met did they fail to pick up the thread, which tended to bind them closer and closer, and give it a conscious snatch of greater strain, till, as either looked back at the skein of incidents, there came a delightful feeling of hopeless entanglement in this fibre of their fate. However, the ends of the filament were free and floating yet, as the fray of a swirling gossamer in the autumn wind. Day by day these two felt that these frayed ends would meet sometime; and hold? or snap? and then? and then!

Nothing had ever strongly tried their attachment. Yet there was creeping now into the heart of each a sort of heaviness—a wondering, at least—if the other was still holding true to the childish troth; a definite sort of mental distrust was abiding between them, along with a readiness to be equal to anything which an emergency might bring. But in their hearts they were lovers still.

[JAMES LANE ALLEN]

James Lane Allen, the foremost living American master of English prose, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, December 21, 1849. His home was situated some five miles from Lexington, on the old Parker's Mill road, and it was burned to the ground more than thirty years ago. He was the seventh and youngest child of Richard Allen, a Kentuckian, and his wife, Helen Foster Allen, a native of Mississippi. Lane Allen, as he was known in Kentucky until he became a distinguished figure in contemporary letters, was interested in books and Nature when a boy under his mother's tutelage. He was early at Kentucky University, now rechristened with its ancient name, Transylvania. Mr. Allen was valedictorian of the class of 1872; and five years later the degree of Master of Arts was granted him, after an amusing quibble with the faculty regarding the length of his oration, The Survival of the Fittest. He began his career as teacher of the district school at the rural village of Slickaway, which is now known as Fort Spring, about two miles from his birthplace. He taught this school but one year, when he went to Richmond, Missouri, to become instructor of Greek in the high school there. A few years later he established a school for boys at Lexington, Missouri. Mr. Allen returned to Kentucky to act as tutor in a private family near Lexington; and in 1878, he was elected principal of the Kentucky University Academy. He resigned this position, in 1880, to accept the chair of Latin and English in Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, which he occupied for two years, when he returned once more to Lexington, Kentucky, to open a private school for boys in the old Masonic Temple. In 1884 Mr. Allen discarded the teacher's garb for that of a man of letters, and since that time he has devoted his entire attention to literature.

While his kinsfolk and acquaintances regarded him with quiet wonder, if not alarmed astonishment, he carefully arranged his traveling bags and set his face toward the city of his dreams and thoughts—New York. Once there he shortly discovered that it was a deal easier to get into the kingdom of heaven than into the pages of the great periodicals, yet he had come to the city to make a name for himself in literature and he was not to be denied. His struggle was most severe, but his victory has been so complete that the bitterness of those days has been blown aside. The first seven or eight years of his life as a writer, Mr. Allen divided between New York, Cincinnati, and Kentucky. He finally quit Kentucky in 1893, and he has not been in the state since 1898, at which time his alma mater conferred the honorary degree of LL. D. upon him. He now resides in New York.

Mr. Allen began with short essays for The Critic, The Continent, The Independent, The Manhattan, and other periodicals; and he contributed some strong and fine poems to The Atlantic Monthly, The Interior, Harper's Monthly, Lippincott's Magazine, The Independent, and elsewhere. But none of these represented the true beginning of his work, of his career. His first short-story to attract general attention was Too Much Momentum, published in Harper's Magazine for April, 1885. It, however, was naturally rather stiff, as the author was then wielding the pen of a 'prentice. This was followed by a charming essay, The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, in Harper's for February, 1886, and which really pointed the path he was to follow so wonderfully well through the coming years.

His first noteworthy story, Two Gentlemen of Kentucky, appeared in The Century Magazine for April, 1888. Then followed fast upon each other's heels, The White Cowl; King Solomon of Kentucky, perhaps the greatest short-story he has written; Posthumous Fame; Flute and Violin; and Sister Doloroso, all of which were printed in the order named, and in The Century, save Flute and Violin, which was originally published in Harper's Magazine for December, 1890. These "Kentucky tales and romances" were issued as Mr. Allen's first book, entitled Flute and Violin (New York, 1891; Edinburgh, 1892, two volumes). Many of the author's admirers have come to regard these stories as the finest work he has done. As backgrounds for them he wrote a series of descriptive and historical papers upon Kentucky, originally published in The Century and Harper's, and collected in book form under the title of the first of them, The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky (New York, 1892). Up to this time Mr. Allen had written nothing but short-stories, verses, and sketches. While living at Cincinnati he wrote his first novelette, John Gray (Philadelphia, 1893), which first appeared in Lippincott's Magazine for June, 1892. This is one of the author's strongest pieces of prose fiction, though it has been well-nigh forgotten in its original form.

These three books fitted Mr. Allen for the writing of an American classic, A Kentucky Cardinal (New York, 1894), another novelette, which was published in two parts in Harper's Magazine for May and June, 1894, prior to its appearance in book form. This, with its sequel, Aftermath (New York, 1895), is the most exquisite tale of nature yet done by an American hand. It at once defies all praise, or adverse criticism, being wrought out as perfectly as human hands can well do. At the present time the two stories may be best read in the large paper illustrated edition done by Mr. Hugh Thomson, the celebrated English artist, to which Mr. Allen contributed a charming introduction. Summer in Arcady (New York, 1896), which passed through the Cosmopolitan Magazine as Butterflies, was a rather realistic story of love and Nature, and somewhat strongly drawn for the tastes of many people. When his complete works appear in twelve uniform volumes, in 1913 or 1914, this "tale of nature" will be entitled A Pair of Butterflies.

The Choir Invisible (New York, 1897), Mr. Allen's first really long novel, was an augmented John Gray, and it placed him in the forefront of American novelists. Mr. Orson Lowell's illustrated edition of this work is most interesting; and it was dramatized in 1899, but produced without success, as the author had prophesied. Later in the same year Two Gentlemen of Kentucky appeared as a bit of a book, and was cordially received by those of the author's admirers who continued to regard it as his masterpiece. The Reign of Law (New York, 1900), a tale of the Kentucky hemp-fields, of love, and evolution, was published in London as The Increasing Purpose, because of the Duke of Argyll's prior appropriation of that title for his scientific treatise. The prologue upon Kentucky hemp strengthened Mr. Allen's reputation as one of the greatest writers of descriptive prose ever born out of Europe. It was widely read and discussed—in at least one quarter of the country—with unnecessary bitterness, if not with blind bigotry.

The Mettle of the Pasture (New York, 1903), which was first announced as Crypts of the Heart, is a love story of great beauty, saturated with the atmosphere of Kentucky to a wonderful degree, yet it has not been sufficiently appreciated. For the five years following the publication of The Mettle, Mr. Allen was silent; but he was working harder than ever before in his life upon manuscripts which he has come to regard as his most vital contributions to prose fiction. In the autumn of 1908 his stirring speech at the unveiling of the monument to remember his hero, King Solomon of Kentucky, was read; and three months later The Last Christmas Tree, brief prelude to his Christmas trilogy, appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The Bride of the Mistletoe (New York, 1909), part first of the trilogy, is one of the finest fragments of prose yet published in the United States. It aroused criticism of various kinds in many quarters, one declaring it to be one thing, and one another, but all agreeing that it was something new and wonderful under our literary sun. The critics of to-morrow may discover that The Bride was the foundation-stone of the now much-heralded Chunk of Life School which has of late taken London by the ears. Yet, between The Bride and The Widow of the Bye Street a great gulf is fixed. Part two of the trilogy was first announced as A Brood of the Eagle, but it was finally published as The Doctor's Christmas Eve (New York, 1910). This, one of Mr. Allen's longest novels, was met by adverse criticism based on several grounds, but upon none more pointedly than what was alleged to be the unnatural precocity of the children, who do not appear to lightly flit through the pages in a way that our old-fashioned conventions would prescribe they should, but somewhat seem to clog the unfolding of the tale. Whatever estimate one may place upon The Doctor, he can scarcely be held to possess the subtile charm of The Bride. The third and final part of this much-discussed trilogy will hardly be published before 1914, or perhaps even subsequent to that date.

The Heroine in Bronze (New York, 1912), is Mr. Allen's latest novel. It is an American love story with all of the author's exquisite mastery of language again ringing fine and true. For the first time Mr. Allen largely abandons Kentucky as a landscape for his story, the action being in New York. The phrase "my country," that recurs throughout the book, succeeds the "Shield," which, in The Bride of the Mistletoe, was the author's appellation for Kentucky. The sequel to The Heroine—the story the boy wrote for the girl—is now preparing.

Twenty years ago Mr. Allen wrote, "Kentucky has little or no literature;" and while he did not write, perhaps, with the whole horizon of its range before him, there was substantial truth in the statement. The splendid sequel to his declaration is his own magnificent works. He pointed out the lack of merit in our literature, but he did a far finer and more fitting thing: he at once set out upon his distinguished career and has produced a literature for the state. He has created Kentucky and Kentuckians as things apart from the outside world, a miniature republic within a greater republic; and no one knows the land and the people other than imperfectly if one cannot see and feel that his conception is clear and sentient. With a light but firm touch he has caught the shimmering atmosphere of his own native uplands and the idiosyncrasies of their people with all the fidelity with which the camera gives back a material outline.

Bibliography. The Stories of James Lane Allen, by L. W. Payne, Jr., in The Sewanee Review (January, 1900); James Lane Allen's Country, by Arthur Bartlett, The Bookman (October, 1900); Famous Authors, by E. F. Harkins (Boston, 1901); Authors of Our Day in Their Homes, by F. W. Halsey (New York, 1902); Social Historians, by H. A. Toulmin, Jr. (Boston, 1911).

KING SOLOMON OF KENTUCKY: AN ADDRESS[2]

[From The Outlook (December 19, 1908)]

We are witnessing at present a revival of conflict between two ideas in our civilization that have already produced a colossal war; the idea of the greatness of our Nation as the welded and indissoluble greatness of the States, and the idea of the separate dignity and isolated power of each sovereign commonwealth. The spirit of the Nation reaches out more and more to absorb into itself its own parts, and each part draws back more and more into its own Attic supremacy and independence, feeling that its earlier struggles were its own struggles, that its heroes were its own heroes, and that it has memories which refuse to blend with any other memories. It will willingly yield the luster of its daily life to the National sun, but by night it must see its own lighthouses around its frontiers—beacons for its own wandering mariner sons and a warning to the Nation itself that such lights are sacred wherever they stand and burn.

But if the State more and more resists absorption into the Federal life, then less and less can it expect the Nation to do what it insists is its own peculiar work; the greater is the obligation resting upon it to make known to the Nation its own peculiar past and its own incommunicable greatness. Among the States of the Union none belongs more wholly to herself and less to the Nation than does Kentucky; none perhaps will resist more passionately the encroachments of Federal control; and upon her rests the very highest obligation to write her own history and make good her Attic aloofness.

But there is no nobler or more eloquent way in which a State can set forth its annals than by memorializing its great dead. The flag of a nation is its hope; its monuments are its memories. But it is also true that the flag of a country is its memory, and that its monuments are its hopes. And both are needed. Each calls aloud to the other. If you should go into any land and see it covered with monuments and nowhere see its flag, you would know that its flag had gone down into the dust and that its hope was ended. If you should travel in a land and everywhere see its flag and nowhere its monuments, you would ask yourself, Has this people no past that it cares to speak of? and if it has, why does it not speak of it? But when you visit a country where you see the flag proudly flying and proud monuments standing everywhere, then you say, Here is a people who are great in both their hopes and in their memories, and who live doubly through the deeds of their dead.

Where are Kentucky's monuments for her battlefields? There are some; where are the others? Where are her monuments for her heroes that she insists were hers alone? Over her waves the flag of her hopes; where are the monuments that are her memories?

This man whom you memorialize to-day was not, in station or habiliment, one of Kentucky's higher heroes; his battlefield was the battlefield of his own character; but the honor rightly heaped upon him at last makes one remember how many a battlefield and how many a hero remain forgotten. Not alone the fields and heroes of actual war, but of civic and moral and scientific and artistic leadership. These ceremonies—whom will they incite to kindred action elsewhere? What other monuments will they build?

There is a second movement broader than any question of State or National patriotism, in which these ceremonies also have their place. It is the essential movement of our time in the direction of a new philanthropy.

No line of Shakespeare has ever been perhaps more quoted than this: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." It is true that he put the words into the mouth of a Roman of old; but they were true of the England of his time and they remained true for centuries after his death. But within the last one hundred years or less an entirely new spirit has been developed; a radically new way of looking at human history and at human character has superseded the old. The spirit and genius of our day calls for the recasting of Shakespeare's lines: Let the evil that men do be buried with them; let the good they did be found out and kept alive.

I wish to take one illustration of the truth of this from the history of English literature.

Do you know when and where it was that satire virtually ceased to exist in English literature? It was at the birthplace and with the birth of Charles Darwin. From Darwin's time, from the peak on which he stood, a long slope of English literature sinks backward and downward toward the past; and on that shadowy slope stand somewhere the fierce satirists of English letters. Last of them all, and standing near where Darwin stood, is the great form of Thackeray. All his life he sought for perfection in human character and never found it. He searched England from the throne down for the gentleman and never found the gentleman. The life-long quest sometimes left him bitter, always left him sad. For all of Thackeray's work was done under the influence of the older point of view, that the frailties of men should be scourged out of them and could be. Over his imagination brooded the shadow of a vast myth—that man had thrown away his own perfection, that he was a fallen angel, who wantonly refused to regain his own paradise.

And now from the peak of the world's thought on which Darwin stood, the other slope of English literature comes down to us and will pass on into the future. And as marking the beginning of the modern spirit working in literature, there on this side of Darwin, near to him as Thackeray stood near to him on the other side, is the great form of George Eliot. George Eliot saw the frailties of human nature as clearly as Thackeray saw them; she loved perfection as greatly as he loved perfection; but on her lips satire died and sympathy was born. She was the first of England's great imaginative writers to breathe in the spirit of modern life and of modern knowledge—that man himself is a developing animal—a creature crawling slowly out of utter darkness toward the light. You can satirize a fallen angel who willfully refuses to regain his paradise; but you cannot satirize an animal who is developing through millions of years his own will to be used against his own instincts.

And this new spirit of charity not only pervades the new literature of the world, but has made itself felt in every branch of human action.

It has affected the theatre and well-nigh driven the drama of satire from the stage. Every judge knows that it goes with him to the bench; every physician knows that it accompanies him into the sick-room; every teacher knows that he must reckon with it as he tries to govern and direct the young; every minister knows that it ascends with him into his pulpit and takes wing with his prayer.

And thus we come back around a great circle of the world's endeavor to the simple ceremony of this hour and place. There is but one thing to be said; it is all that need be said; it is an attempt to burnish one corner of a hero's dimmed shield.

It is autumn now, the season of scythe and sickle. Time, the Reaper, long ago reaped from the field of this man's life its heroic deed; and now after so many years it has come back to his grave and thrown down the natural increase. On the day when King Solomon was laid here the grass began to weave its seamless mantle across his frailties; but out of his dust sprang what has since been growing—what no hostile hand can pluck away, nor any wind blow down—the red flower of a man's passionate service to his fellow-men when they were in direst need of him.

And so, long honor to his name! A new peace to his ashes!

THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE[3]

[From The Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia, December 5, 1908)]

The stars burn out one by one like candles in too long a night.

Children, you love the snow. You play in it, you hunt in it; it brings the tinkling of sleighbells, it gives white wings to the trees and new robes to the world. Whenever it falls in your country, sooner or later it vanishes: forever falling and rising, forming and falling and melting and rising again—on and on through the ages.

If you should start from your homes and travel northward, after a while you would find that everything is steadily changing: the air grows colder, living things begin to be left behind, those that remain begin to look white, the music of the earth begins to die out; you think no more of color and joy and song. On you journey, and always you are traveling toward the silent, the white, the dead. And at last you come to the land of sunlessness and silence—the reign of snow.

If you should start from your homes and travel southward, as you crossed land after land, in the same way you would begin to see that life was failing, colors fading, the earth's harmonies being replaced by the discords of Nature's lifeless forces, storming, crushing, grinding. And at last you would reach the threshold of another world that you dared not enter and that nothing alive ever faces—the home of the frost.

If you should rise straight into the air above your housetops, as though you were climbing the side of an unseen mountain, you would find at last that you had ascended to a height where the mountain would be capped with snow. All round the earth, wherever its mountains are high enough, their summits are capped with the one same snow; for above us, everywhere, lies the upper land of eternal cold.

Some time in the future, we do not know when, but some time in the future, the Spirit of the Cold at the north will move southward; the Spirit of the Cold at the south will move northward; the Spirit of the Cold in the upper air will move downward to meet the other two. When the three meet there will be for the earth one whiteness and silence—rest.

A great time had passed—how great no one knew; there was none to measure it.

It was twilight and it was snowing. On a steep mountainside, near its bald summit, thousands of feet above the line that any other living thing had ever crossed, stood two glorious fir trees, strongest and last of their race. They had climbed out of the valley below to this lone height, and there had so rooted themselves in rock and soil that the sturdiest gale had never been able to dislodge them; and now the twain occupied that beetling rock as the final sentinels of mortal things.

They looked out toward the land on one side of the mountain; at the foot of it lay a valley, and there, in old human times, a village had thriven, church spires had risen, bridal candles had twinkled at twilight. On the opposite side they looked toward the ocean—once the rolling, blue ocean, singing its great song, but level now and white and still at last—its voice hushed with all other voices—the roar of its battleships ended long ago. One fir tree grew lower down than the other, its head barely reached up to its comrade's breast. They had long shared with each other the wordless wisdom of their race; and now, as a slow, bitter wind wandered across the delicate green harps of their leaves, they began to chant—harping like harpers of old who never tired of the past.

The fir below, as the snowflakes fell on its locks and sifted closely in about its throat, shook itself bravely and sang:

"Comrade, the end for us draws nigh; the snow is creeping up. To-night it will place its cap upon my head. I shall close my eyes and follow all things into their sleep."

"Yes," thrummed the fir above, "follow all things into their sleep. If they were thus to sleep at last, why were they ever awakened? It is a mystery."

The whirling wind caught the words and bore them to the right and to the left over land and over sea:

"Mystery—mystery—mystery."

Twilight deepened. The snow scarcely fell; the clouds trailed through the trees so close and low that the flakes were formed amid the boughs and rested where they were created. At intervals out of the clouds and darkness the low musings went on:

"Where now is the Little Brother of the Trees—him of the long thoughts and the brief shadow?"

"He thought that he alone of earthly things was immortal."

"Our people, the Evergreens, were thrust forth on the earth a million ages before he appeared; and we are still here, a million ages since he left, leaving not a trace of himself behind."

"The most fragile moss was born before he was born; and the moss outlasted him."

"The frailest fern was not so perishable."

"Yet he believed he should have eternal youth."

"That his race would return to some Power who had sent it forth."

"That he was ever being borne onward to some far-off, divine event, where there was justice."

"Yes, where there was justice."

"Of old it was their custom to heap white flowers above their dead."

"Now white flowers cover them—the frozen white flowers of the sky."

It was night now about the mountaintop—deep night above it. At intervals the communing of the firs started up afresh:

"Had they known how alone in the universe they were, would they not have turned to each other for happiness?"

"Would not all have helped each?"

"Would not each have helped all?"

"Would they have so mingled their wars with their prayers?"

"Would they not have thrown away their weapons and thrown their arms around one another? It was all a mystery."

"Mystery—mystery."

Once in the night they sounded in unison:

"And all the gods of earth—its many gods in many lands with many faces—they sleep now in their ancient temples; on them has fallen at last their unending dusk."

"And the shepherds who avowed that they were appointed by the Creator of the universe to lead other men as their sheep—what difference is there now between the sheep and the shepherds?"

"The shepherds lie with the sheep in the same white pastures."

"Still, what think you became of all that men did?"

"Whither did Science go? How could it come to naught?"

"And that seven-branched golden candlestick of inner light that was his Art—was there no other sphere to which it could be transferred, lovely and eternal?"

"And what became of Love?"

"What became of the woman who asked for nothing in life but love and youth?"

"What became of the man who was true?"

"Think you that all of them are not gathered elsewhere—strangely changed, yet the same? Is some other quenchless star their safe habitation?"

"What do we know; what did he know on earth? It was a mystery."

"It was all a mystery."

If there had been a clock to measure the hour it must now have been near midnight. Suddenly the fir below harped most tenderly:

"The children! What became of the children? Where did the myriads of them march to? What was the end of the march of the earth's children?"

"Be still!" whispered the fir above. "At that moment I felt the soft fingers of a child searching my boughs. Was not this what in human times they called Christmas Eve?"

"Hearken!" whispered the fir below. "Down in the valley elfin horns are blowing and elfin drums are beating. Did you hear that—faint and far away? It was the bells of the reindeer! It passed: it was the wandering soul of Christmas."

Not long after this the fir below struck its green harp for the last time:

"Comrade, it is the end for me. Good-night!"

Silently the snow closed over it.

The other fir now stood alone. The snow crept higher and higher. It bravely shook itself loose. Late in the long night it communed once more, solitary:

"I, then, close the train of earthly things. And I was the emblem of immortality; let the highest be the last to perish! Power, that put forth all things for a purpose, you have fulfilled, without explaining it, that purpose. I follow all things into their sleep."

In the morning there was no trace of it.

The sun rose clear on the mountaintops, white and cold and at peace.

The earth was dead.

[NANCY HUSTON BANKS]

Mrs. Nancy Huston Banks, novelist, was born at Morganfield, Kentucky, about 1850. She is the daughter of the late Judge George Huston, who for many years was an attorney and banker of her native town. When a young woman Miss Huston was married to Mr. James N. Banks, now a lawyer of Henderson, Kentucky. Mrs. Banks's first book, Stairs of Sand (Chicago, 1890), has been forgotten by author and public alike, but shortly after its publication, she went to New York, and there she resided at the Hotel St. James for many years. At the present time she is living in London. She became a contributor to magazines, her critical paper on Mr. James Lane Allen and his novels, which appeared in The Bookman for June, 1895, being her first work to attract serious attention. A few years later Mrs. Banks dropped her magazine work in order to write her charming novel of life in southern Kentucky, Oldfield (New York, 1902). This story was highly praised in this country and in England, the critics of London coining a descriptive phrase for it that has stuck—"the Kentucky Cranford." Her next novel, 'Round Anvil Rock (New York, 1903), was a worthy follower of Oldfield. One reviewer called it "a blend of an old-fashioned love story and an historical study." Mrs. Banks's most recent novel is The Little Hills (New York, 1905). The opening words of this story: "The air was the breath of spice pinks," was seized upon by the critics and set up as a sign-post for the book's tone. Mrs. Banks has been a great traveler. She was sent to South Africa during the Boer war by Vanity Fair of London, and her letters to that publication were most interesting. She knew Cecil Rhodes and George W. Steevens, the war correspondent, and, with her beauty and charm, she became a social "star" in the life about her. Mrs. Banks's one eccentricity—according to the literary gossips of New York—is her distaste for classical music; and that much of her success is due to the fact that she knows how to handle editors and publishers, we also learn from the same source. At least one of her contemporaries once held—though he has since wholly relented and regretted much—that, in a now exceedingly scarce first edition, she out-ingramed Ingram! But, of course, that is another story.

Bibliography. The Critic (September, 1902); The Nation (February 5, 1903); The Bookman (February, 1904).

ANVIL ROCK[4]

[From 'Round Anvil Rock (New York, 1903)]

The courage and calmness which he had found in himself under this test, heartened him and made him the more determined to control his wandering fancy. Looking now neither to the right nor the left, he pressed on through the clearing toward the buffalo track in the border of the forest which would lead him into the Wilderness Road. Sternly setting his thoughts on the errand that was taking him to the salt-works, he began to think of the place in which they were situated, and to wonder why so bare, so brown, and so desolate a spot should have been called Green Lick. There was no greenness about it, and not the slightest sign that there ever had been any verdure, although it still lay in the very heart of an almost tropical forest. It must surely have been as it was now since time immemorial. Myriads of wild beasts coming and going through numberless centuries to drink the salt water, had trodden the earth around it as hard as iron, and had worn it down far below the surface of the surrounding country. The boy had seen it often, but always by daylight, and never alone, so that he noted many things now which he had not observed before. The huge bison must have gone over that well-beaten track one by one, to judge by its narrowness. He could see it dimly, running into the clearing like a black line beginning far off between the bordering trees; but as he looked, the darkness deepened, the mists thickened, and a look of unreality came over familiar objects. And then through the wavering gloom there suddenly towered a great dark mass topped by something which rose against the wild dimness like a colossal blacksmith's anvil. It might have been Vulcan's own forge, so strange and fabulous a thing it seemed! The boy's heart leaped with his pony's leap. His imagination spread its swift wings ere he could think; but in another instant he reminded himself. This was not an awful apparition, but a real thing, wondrous and unaccountable enough in its reality. It was Anvil Rock—a great, solitary rock rising abruptly from the rockless loam of a level country, and lifting its single peak, rudely shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, straight up toward the clouds.

THE OLD-FASHIONED FIDDLERS

[From the same]

Those old-time country fiddlers—all of them, black or white—how wonderful they were! They have always been the wonder and the despair of all musicians who have played by rule and note. The very way that the country fiddler held his fiddle against his chest and never against his shoulder like the trained musician! The very way that the country fiddler grasped his bow, firmly and squarely in the middle, and never lightly at the end like a trained musician! The very way that he let go and went off and kept on—the amazing, inimitable spirit, the gayety, the rhythm, the swing! No trained musician ever heard the music of the country fiddler without wondering at its power, and longing in vain to know the secret of its charm. It would be worth a good deal to know where and how they learned the tunes that they played. Possibly these were handed down by ear from one to another; some perhaps may have never been pent up in notes, and others may have been given to the note reader under other names than those by which the country fiddlers knew them. This is said to have been the case with "Old Zip Coon," and the names of many of them would seem to prove that they belonged to the time and the country. But there is a delightful uncertainty about the origin and the history of almost all of them—about "Leather Breeches" and "Sugar in the Gourd" and "Wagoner" and "Cotton-eyed Joe," and so on through a long list.

[WILLIAM B. SMITH]

William Benjamin Smith, perhaps the greatest scholar ever born on Kentucky soil, first saw the light at Stanford, Kentucky, October 26, 1850. Kentucky (Transylvania) University conferred the degree of Master of Arts upon him in 1871; and the University of Göttengen granted him his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1879. Dr. Smith was professor of mathematics in Central College, Missouri, from 1881 to 1885, when he accepted the chair of physics in the University of Missouri. In 1888 he was transferred to the department of mathematics in the same institution, which he held until 1893, when he resigned to accept a similar position at Tulane University. In 1906 Dr. Smith was elected head of the department of philosophy at Tulane, which position he holds at the present time. He was a delegate of the United States government to the first Pan-American Scientific Congress, held at Santiago, Chile, in 1908. Dr. Smith is the author of the following books, the very titles of which will show his amazing versatility: Co-ordinate Geometry (Boston, 1885); Clew to Trigonometry (1889); Introductory Modern Geometry (New York, 1893); Infinitesimal Analysis (New York, 1898); The Color Line (New York, 1905), a stirring discussion of the Negro problem from a rather new perspective; two theological works, written originally in German, Der Vorchristliche Jesus (Jena, Germany, 1906); and Ecce Deus (Jena, Germany, 1911), the English translation of which was issued at London and Chicago in 1912. These two works upon proto-Christianity have placed Dr. Smith among the foremost scholars of his day and generation in America. Besides his books he wrote two pamphlets of more than fifty pages each upon Tariff for Protection (Columbia, Missouri, 1888); and Tariff Reform (Columbia, Missouri, 1892). These show the author at his best. And his biography of James Sidney Rollins, founder of the University of Missouri, was published about this time. During the month of October, 1896, Dr. Smith published six articles in the Chicago Record, on the sliver question and in defense of the gold standard, which were certainly the most thorough brought out by the presidential campaign of that year. Among his many public addresses, essays, and articles, The Pauline Codices F and G may be mentioned, as well as his articles on Infinitesimal Calculus and New Testament Criticism in the Encyclopaedia Americana (New York, 1906); and he compiled the mathematical definitions for the New International Dictionary (New York, 1908). Dr. Smith's fine poem, The Merman and the Seraph, was crowned in the Poet Lore competition of 1906. As a mathematician, philosopher, sociologist, New Testament critic, publicist, poet, and alleged prototype of David, hero of Mr. James Lane Allen's The Reign of Law—which he most certainly was not!—Dr. Smith stands supreme among the sons of Kentucky.

Bibliography. Current Literature (June, 1905); The Nation (November 23, 1911).

A SOUTHERN VIEW OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM[5]

[From The Color Line (New York, 1905)]

It is idle to talk of education and civilization and the like as corrective or compensative agencies. All are weak and beggarly as over against the almightiness of heredity, the omniprepotence of the transmitted germ-plasma. Let this be amerced of its ancient rights, let it be shorn in some measure of its exceeding weight of ancestral glory, let it be soiled in its millenial purity and integrity, and nothing shall ever restore it; neither wealth, nor culture, nor science, nor art, nor morality, nor religion—not even Christianity itself. Here and there these may redeem some happy spontaneous variation, some lucky freak of nature; but nothing more—they can never redeem the race. If this be not true, then history and biology are alike false; then Darwin and Spencer, Haeckel and Weismann, Mendel and Pearson, have lived and laboured in vain.

Equally futile is the reply, so often made by our opponents, that miscegenation has already progressed far in the Southland, as witness millions of Mulattoes. Certainly; but do not such objectors know in their hearts that their reply is no answer, but is utterly irrelevant? We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins; but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into the veins of the Whites. We have no excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontinences; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural, they in nowise, not even in the slightest conceivable degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That blood to-day is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a question of individual morality, nor even of self-respect. He who commerces with a negress debases himself and dishonours his body, the temple of the Spirit; but he does not impair, in anywise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind.

Does some one reply that some Negroes are better than some Whites, physically, mentally, morally? We do not deny it; but this fact, again, is without pertinence. It may very well be that some dogs are superior to some men. It is absurd to suppose that only the elect of the Blacks would unite with only the non-elect of the Whites. Once started, the pamnixia would spread through all classes of society and contaminate possibly or actually all. Even a little leaven may leaven the whole lump.

Far more than this, however, even if only very superior Negroes formed unions with non-superior Whites, the case would not be altered; for it is a grievous error to suppose that the child is born of its proximate parents only; it is born of all its ancestry; it is the child of its race. The eternal past lays hand upon it and upon all its descendants. However weak the White, behind him stands Europe; however strong the Black, behind lies Africa.

Preposterous, indeed, is this doctrine that personal excellence is the true standard, and that only such Negroes as attain a certain grade of merit should or would be admitted to social equality. A favourite evasion! The Independent, The Nation, The Outlook, the whole North—all point admiringly to Mr. Washington, and exclaim: "But only see what a noble man he is—so much better than his would-be superiors!" So, too, a distinguished clergyman, when asked whether he would let his daughter marry a Negro, replied: "We wish our daughters to marry Christian gentlemen." Let, then, the major premise be, "All Christian gentlemen are to be admitted to social equality;" and add, if you will, any desired degree of refinement or education or intellectual prowess as a condition. Does not every one see that any such test would be wholly impracticable and nugatory? If Mr. Washington be the social equal of Roosevelt and Eliot and Hadley, how many others will be the social equals of the next circle, and the next, and the next, in the long descent from the White House and Harvard to the miner and the ragpicker? And shall we trust the hot, unreasoning blood of youth to lay virtues and qualities so evenly in the balance and decide just when some "olive-coloured suitor" is enough a "Christian gentleman" to claim the hand of some simple-hearted milk-maid or some school-ma'am "past her bloom?" The notion is too ridiculous for refutation. If the best Negro in the land is the social equal of the best Caucasian, then it will be hard to prove that the lowest White is higher than the lowest Black; the principle of division is lost, and complete social equality is established. We seem to have read somewhere that, when the two ends of one straight segment coincide with the two ends of another, the segments coincide throughout their whole extent.

THE MERMAN AND THE SERAPH[6]

[From Poet-Lore (Boston, 1906)]

I

Deep the sunless seas amid,
Far from Man, from Angel hid,
Where the soundless tides are rolled
Over Ocean's treasure-hold,
With dragon eye and heart of stone,
The ancient Merman mused alone.

II

And aye his arrowed Thought he wings
Straight at the inmost core of things—
As mirrored in his magic glass
The lightning-footed Ages pass—
And knows nor joy nor Earth's distress,
But broods on Everlastingness.

"Thoughts that love not, thoughts that hate not,
Thoughts that Age and Change await not,
All unfeeling,
All revealing,
Scorning height's and depth's concealing,
These be mine—and these alone!"—
Saith the Merman's heart of stone.

III

Flashed a radiance far and nigh
As from the vortex of the sky—
Lo! a maiden beauty-bright
And mantled with mysterious might
Of every power, below, above,
That weaves resistless spell of Love.

IV

Through the weltering waters cold
Shot the sheen of silken gold;
Quick the frozen heart below
Kindled in the amber glow;
Trembling heavenward Nekkan yearned,
Rose to where the Glory burned.

"Deeper, bluer than the skies are,
Dreaming meres of morn thine eyes are;
All that brightens
Smile or heightens
Charm is thine, all life enlightens,
Thou art all the soul's desire"—
Sang the Merman's heart of fire.

"Woe thee, Nekkan! Ne'er was given
Thee to walk the ways of Heaven;
Vain the vision,
Fate's derision,
Thee that raps to realms elysian,
Fathomless profounds are thine"—
Quired the answering voice divine.

V

Came an echo from the West,
Pierced the deep celestial breast;
Summoned, far the Seraph fled,
Trailing splendours overhead;
Broad beneath her flying feet,
Laughed the silvered ocean-street.

VI

On the Merman's mortal sight
Instant fell the pall of Night;
Sunk to the sea's profoundest floor
He dreams the vanished vision o'er,
Hears anew the starry chime,
Ponders aye Eternal Time.

"Thoughts that hope not, thoughts that fear not,
Thoughts that Man and Demon veer not,
Times unending
Comprehending,
Space and worlds of worlds transcending,
These are mine—but these alone!"—
Sighs the Merman's heart of stone.

[ANDERSON C. QUISENBERRY]

Anderson Chenault Quisenberry, historical writer, was born near Winchester, Kentucky, October 26, 1850. He was educated at Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky. In 1870 Mr. Quisenberry engaged in Kentucky journalism, being editor of several papers at different periods, until 1889, when he went to Washington to accept a position in the War Department; but he has continued his contributions to the Kentucky press to the present time. His first volume was The Life and Times of Hon. Humphrey Marshall (Winchester, Kentucky, 1892). This was followed by his other works: Revolutionary Soldiers in Kentucky (1896); Genealogical Memoranda of the Quisenberry Family and Other Families (Washington, D. C., 1897); Memorials of the Quisenberry Family in Germany, England, and America (Washington, D. C., 1900); Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba, 1850-51 (Louisville, Kentucky, 1906), one of the most attractive of the Filson Club publications; and History by Illustration: General Zachary Taylor and the Mexican War (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1911), the most recent volume in the Kentucky Historical Series of the State Historical Society. Mr. Quisenberry resides at Hyattsville, Maryland, going into Washington every day for his official duties.

Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Quisenberry to the present writer; Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

THE DEATH OF CRITTENDEN[7]

[From Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba, 1850-1851 (Louisville, Kentucky, 1906)]

The victims, bound securely, were brought out of the boat twelve at a time; of these, six were blindfolded and made to kneel down with their backs to the soldiers, who stood some three or four paces from them. These six executed, the other six were put through the same ghastly ceremony; then twelve others were brought from the boat; and so on, until the terrible and sickening tragedy was over. As each lot were murdered their bodies were cast aside to make room for the next lot.

An eyewitness says of these martyrs to liberty: "They behaved with firmness, evincing no hesitation or trepidation whatever." Among those shot was a lad of fifteen who begged earnestly on his knees that some one be sent to him who could speak English, but not the slightest attention was paid to him. One handsome young man desired that his watch be sent to his sweetheart. After the first discharge those who were not instantly killed were beaten upon the head until life was extinct. One poor fellow received three balls in his neck, and, raising himself in the agonies of death, was struck by a soldier with the butt of a musket and his brains dashed out.

Colonel Crittenden, as the leader of the party, was shot first, and alone. One of the rabble pushed through the line of soldiers, and rushed up to Crittenden and pulled his beard. The gallant Kentuckian, with the utmost coolness, spit in the coward's face. He refused to kneel or to be blindfolded, saying in a clear, ringing voice: "A Kentuckian kneels to none except his God, and always dies facing his enemy!"—an expression that became famous. Looking into the muzzles of the muskets that were to slay him, standing heroically erect in the very face of death, with his own hands, which had been unbound at his request, he gave the signal for the fatal volley; and died, as he had lived, "Strong in Heart." Captain Ker also refused to kneel. They stood up, faced their enemies, were shot down, and their brains were beaten out with clubbed muskets.

[ROBERT BURNS WILSON]

Robert Burns Wilson, poet of distinction, the son of a Pennsylvania father and a Virginia mother, was born in his grandfather's house near Washington, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1850. When a very small child he was taken to his mother's home in Virginia; and there the mother died when her son was but ten years old, which event saddened his subsequent life. Mr. Wilson was educated in the schools of Wheeling, West Virginia, after which he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study art. When but nineteen he was painting portraits for a living. In 1871 he and John W. Alexander, now the famous New York artist, chartered a canoe and started down the Ohio river from Pittsburgh, hoping in due course to dock at Louisville, Kentucky. They had hardly reached the Kentucky shore, however, when they disagreed about something or other, and young Alexander left him in the night and returned to Pittsburgh. The next day Mr. Wilson ran his boat into a bank in Union county, Kentucky; he lived in that county a year, when he went up to Louisville. He gained more than a local reputation with a crayon portrait of Henry Watterson, and he was actually making considerable headway as an artist when he was discovered by the late Edward Hensley, of Frankfort, Kentucky, who persuaded him to remove to that town. Mr. Wilson settled at Frankfort in 1875, and he lived there for the following twenty-five years. His literary and artistic labors are inseparably interwoven with the history and traditions of that interesting old town, for he was its "great man" for many years, and its toast. As painter and poet he was heralded by the folk of Frankfort until the outside world was attracted and nibbled at his work. The first public recognition accorded his landscapes was at the Louisville and New Orleans Expositions of 1883 and 1884.

Mr. Wilson's first poem, A Wild Violet in November, was followed by the finest flower of his genius, When Evening Cometh On, which was originally printed in Harper's Magazine for October, 1885. This is the only Southern poem or, perhaps, American, that can be mentioned in the same breath with Gray's Elegy. Many of his poems and prose papers were published in Harper's, The Century, and other periodicals. His first book, Life and Love (New York, 1887), contained the best work he has ever done. The dedicatory lines to the memory of his mother were lovely; and there are many more poems to be found in the volume that are very fine. Chant of a Woodland Spirit (New York, 1894), a long poem of more than fifty pages, portions of which had originally appeared in Harper's and The Century, was dedicated to John Fox, Jr., with whom Mr. Wilson was friendly, and who spent a great deal of his time at the poet's home in Frankfort. His second and most recent collection of lyrics, The Shadows of the Trees (New York, 1898), was widely read and warmly received by all true lovers of genuine poesy. Mr. Wilson's striking poem, Remember the Maine, provoked by the tragedy in Havana harbor, was printed in The New York Herald; and another of his several poems inspired by that fiasco of a fight that is remembered, Such is the Death the Soldier Dies, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. The Kentucky poet's battle-hymns to the boys in blue were excelled by no other American singer, unless it was by the late William Vaughn Moody. Mr. Wilson's fourth and latest work, a novel, Until the Day Break (New York, 1900), is unreadable as a story, but the passages of nature prose are many and exquisite.

While he has always been a writing-man of very clear and definite gifts, Mr. Wilson has painted many portraits and landscapes, working with equal facility in oils, water-color, and crayon. He is held in esteem by many competent critics as an artist of ability, but nearly all of his work in any of three mediums indicated, is exceedingly moody and pessimistic; and his water-colors, especially, are "muddy." It is greatly to be regretted that he did not remain the poet he was born to be, instead of drawing his dreams—many use a stronger word—in paints.

As has been said, Mr. Wilson was the presiding genius of the town of Frankfort during his life there; and he was a bachelor! Thereby hangs a tale with a meaning and a moral. For many years the widows and the other women past their bloom, burned incense at the shrine of the mighty man who could wrap himself in his great-coat, dash through a field and over a fence, punching plants with his never-absent stick, and return to town with a poem pounding in his pulses, and another landscape in his brain. Ah, he was a great fellow! But the tragedy of it all: after all these years of adoration from ladies overanxious to get him into their nets, they awoke one morning in 1901 to find that little Anne Hendrick, schoolgirl, and daughter of a former attorney-general of Kentucky, had married their heart's desire, that their dreams were day-dreams after all. The marriage took place in New York, after which they returned to Frankfort. The following year their child, Elizabeth, was born; and a short time afterwards he removed to New York, where he has lived ever since. Rumors of his art exhibitions have reached Kentucky; but the only tangible things have been prose papers and lyrics in the magazines.

A short time before his death, Paul Hamilton Hayne, the famous Southern poet, sent Wilson this greeting: "The old man whose head has grown gray in the service of the Muses, who is about to leave the lists of poetry forever, around whose path the sunset is giving place to twilight, with no hope before him but 'an anchorage among the stars,' extends his hand to a younger brother of his art with an earnest Te moriturus saluto." These charming words were elicited by June Days, and When Evening Cometh On.

Bibliography. The Recent Movement in Southern Literature, by C. W. Coleman, Jr. (Harper's Magazine, May, 1887); Who's Who in America (1901-1902); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, v. xv, 1910), an excellent study by Mrs. Ida W. Harrison.

LOVINGLY TO ELIZABETH, MY MOTHER[8]

[From Life and Love. Poems (New York, 1887)]

The green Virginian hills were blithe in May,
And we were plucking violets—thou and I.
A transient gladness flooded earth and sky;
Thy fading strength seemed to return that day,
And I was mad with hope that God would stay
Death's pale approach—Oh! all hath long passed by!
Long years! Long years! and now, I well know why
Thine eyes, quick-filled with tears, were turned away.

First loved; first lost; my mother:—time must still
Leave my soul's debt uncancelled. All that's best
In me, and in my art, is thine:—Me-seems,
Even now, we walk afield. Through good and ill,
My sorrowing heart forgets not, and in dreams
I see thee, in the sun-lands of the blest.

Frankfort, Kentucky, October 6, 1887.

WHEN EVENING COMETH ON

[From the same]

When evening cometh on,
Slower and statelier in the mellowing sky
The fane-like, purple-shadowed clouds arise;
Cooler and balmier doth the soft wind sigh;
Lovelier, lonelier to our wondering eyes
The softening landscape seems. The swallows fly
Swift through the radiant vault; the field-lark cries
His thrilling, sweet farewell; and twilight bands
Of misty silence cross the far-off lands
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Deeper and dreamier grows the slumbering dell,
Darker and drearier spreads the bristling wold,
Bluer and heavier roll the hills that swell
In moveless waves against the shimmering gold.
Out from their haunts the insect hordes, that dwell
Unseen by day, come thronging forth to hold
Their fleeting hour of revel, and by the pool
Soft pipings rise up from the grasses cool,
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Along their well-known paths with heavier tread
The sad-eyed, loitering kine unurged return;
The peaceful sheep, by unseen shepherds led,
Wend bleating to the hills, so well they learn
Where Nature's hand their wholesome couch hath spread;
And through the purpling mist the moon doth yearn;
Pale gentle radiance, dear recurring dream,
Soft with the falling dew falls thy faint beam,
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Loosed from the day's long toil, the clanking teams,
With halting steps, pass on their jostling ways,
Their gearings glinted by the waning beams;
Close by their heels the heedful collie strays;
All slowly fading in a land of dreams,
Transfigured specters of the shrouding haze.
Thus from life's field the heart's fond hope doth fade,
Thus doth the weary spirit seek the shade,
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Across the dotted fields of gathered grain
The soul of summer breathes a deep repose,
Mysterious murmurings mingle on the plain,
And from the blurred and blended brake there flows
The undulating echoes of some strain
Once heard in paradise, perchance—who knows?
But now the whispering memory sadly strays
Along the dim rows of the rustling maize
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Anon there spreads upon the lingering air
The musk of weedy slopes and grasses dank,
And odors from far fields, unseen but fair,
With scent of flowers from many a shadowy bank.
O lost Elysium, art thou hiding there?
Flows yet that crystal stream whereof I drank?
Ah, wild-eyed Memory, fly from night's despair;
Thy strong wings droop with heavier weight of care
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
No sounding phrase can set the heart at rest.
The settling gloom that creeps by wood and stream,
The bars that lie along the smouldering west,
The tall and lonely, silent trees that seem
To mock the groaning earth, and turn to jest
This wavering flame, this agonizing dream,
Ah, all bring sorrow as the clouds bring rain,
And evermore life's struggle seemeth vain
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Anear doth Life stand by the great unknown,
In darkness reaching out her sentient hands;
Philosophies and creeds, alike, are thrown
Beneath her feet, and questioning she stands,
Close on the brink, unfearing and alone,
And lists the dull wave breaking on the sands;
Albeit her thoughtful eyes are filled with tears,
So lonely and so sad the sound she hears
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Vain seems the world, and vainer wise men's thought.
All colors vanish when the sun goeth down.
Fame's purple mantle some proud soul hath caught
No better seems than doth the earth-stained gown
Worn by Content. All names shall be forgot.
Death plucks the stars to deck his sable crown.
The fair enchantment of the golden day
Far through the vale of shadows melts away
When evening cometh on.

When evening cometh on,
Love, only love, can stay the sinking soul,
And smooth thought's racking fever from the brow:
The wounded heart Love only can console.
Whatever brings a balm for sorrow now,
So must it be while this vexed earth shall roll;
Take then the portion which the gods allow.
Dear heart, may I at last on thy warm breast
Sink to forgetfulness and silent rest
When evening cometh on?

[DANIEL HENRY HOLMES]

Daniel Henry Holmes is, with the possible exceptions of Theodore O'Hara and Madison Cawein, the foremost lyric poet Kentucky can rightfully claim, although he happened to be born at New York City, July 16, 1851; and that single fact is the only flaw in Kentucky's fee simple title to his fame. His father, Daniel Henry Holmes, Senior, was a native of Indiana; his mother was an Englishwoman. Daniel Henry Holmes, Senior, settled at New Orleans when a young man as a merchant; but a year after the birth of Daniel Henry Junior—as the future poet always signed himself while his father lived—or in 1852, he purchased an old colonial house back of Covington, Kentucky, as a summer place for his family, and called it Holmesdale. So Daniel Henry Junior Holmes became a warm-weather Kentuckian when but one year old; and he spent the following nine summers at Holmesdale, returning each fall to New Orleans for the winter. When the Civil War began his father, whose sympathies were entirely Southern, removed his family to Europe, where eight years were spent in Tours and Paris. In 1869, at the age of eighteen years, Daniel Henry Junior, with his family, returned to the United States, and entered his father's business at New Orleans. His dislike for commercialism in any form became so great that his father wisely permitted him to return to Holmesdale, which was then in charge of an uncle, and to study law at Cincinnati. In the same year that he returned to Holmesdale (1869), the house was rebuilt; and it remains intact to-day. His family shortly afterwards joined him, and Holmesdale became the manor-place of his people for many years. Holmes was graduated in law in 1872, and he practiced in a desultory manner for some years. In 1883 he married Miss Rachel Gaff, of Cincinnati, daughter of one of the old and wealthy families of that city. He and his bride spent the year of their marriage at Holmesdale, and, in 1884, went abroad.

Holmes's first and finest book of poems, written at Covington, was entitled Under a Fool's Cap: Songs (London, 1884), and contained one hundred and forty-four pages in an edition that did not exceed five hundred copies. The poet whimsically placed his boyhood name of "Daniel Henry Junior" upon the title-page. This little volume is one of the most unique things ever done by an American hand. Holmes took twenty-four old familiar nursery jingles, which are printed in black-face type at the top of the lyrics relating to them, and he worked them over and turned them over and did everything but parody them; and in only one of them—Margery Daw—did he discard the original metres. He employed "three methods of dealing with his nursery rhymes; he either made them the basis of a story, or he took them as an allegory and gave the 'modern instance,' or he simply continued and amplified. The last method is, perhaps, the most effective and successful of all," the poems done in this manner being far and away the finest in the book. Holmes spent the seven years subsequent to the appearance of Under a Fool's Cap, in France, Italy, and Germany. In 1890 his father gave him Holmesdale. He returned to Kentucky, and the remaining years of his life were spent at Covington, save several winters abroad.

Holmes's second book of lyrics, A Pedlar's Pack (New York, 1906), which was largely written at Holmesdale, contained many exceedingly clever and charming poems, but, with the exception of some fine sonnets, A Pedlar's Pack is verse, while Under a Fool's Cap is genuine poetry. Holmes was an accomplished musician, and his Hempen Homespun Songs (Cincinnati, 1906), mostly written in Dresden, contained fourteen songs set to music, of which four had words by the poet. Of the other ten songs, three were by W. M. Thackeray, two by Alfred de Musset, and Austin Dobson, Henri Chenevers, W. E. Henley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Tennyson were represented by having one of their songs set to music. This was his only publication in the field of music, and his third and final book. Holmes's last years were spent at the old house in Covington, devoted to arranging his large library, collected from the bookshops of the world, and to his music. His life was one of endless ease, the universal pursuit of wealth being neither necessary nor engaging. He had lived parts of more than forty years of his life at Holmesdale when he left it for the last time in the fall of 1908 to spend the winter at Hot Springs, Virginia, where he died suddenly on December 14, 1908. He had hardly found his grave at Cincinnati before lovers of poetry on both sides of the Atlantic arose and demanded word of his life and works. This demand has been in part supplied by Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, the Maine publisher, who has exquisitely reprinted Under a Fool's Cap, and written this beautiful tribute to the poet's memory:

"One vital point of interest should be restated: the man who took these old tags of nursery rhymes and fashioned out of them some of the tenderest lyrics ever written was an American by birth and in the doing of this unique thing did it perfectly. That he never repeated these first fine careless raptures is nothing to his discredit. That he did accomplish what he set himself to do with an originality and a proper regard to the quality of his work rather than its quantity is the essential fact; and in his ability to touch a vibrating chord in the hearts of all who have come across these lyrics we feel that the mission of Daniel Henry Holmes was fulfilled both in letter and in spirit."

Bibliography. The Hesperian Tree, edited by J. J. Piatt (Cincinnati, 1900); The Cornhill Magazine (August, 1909), review of Under a Fool's Cap, by Norman Roe; The Bibelot (May, 1910); Under a Fool's Cap (Portland, Maine, 1910; 1911), lovely reprints of the 1884 edition, with Mr. Roe's review and foreword by Mr. Mosher; letters from Mrs. Holmes, the poet's widow, who has recently reopened Holmesdale.

BELL HORSES

[From Under a Fool's Cap (London, 1884)]

Bell horses, Bell horses,
What time of day?
One o'clock! Two o'clock!
Three! and away.

I shall wait by the gate
To see you pass,
Closely press'd, three abreast,
Clanking with brass:

With your smart red mail-cart
Hard at your heels,
Scarlet ground, fleck'd around
With the Queen's seals.

Up the hills, down the hills,
Till the cart shrink
To a faint dab of paint
On the sky-brink,

Never stop till you drop,
On to the town,
Bearing great news of state
To Lords and Crown.

And down deep in the keep
Of your mail-cart,
There's a note that I wrote
To my sweetheart.

I had no words that glow,
No penman's skill,
And high-born maids would scorn
Spelling so ill;

But what if it be stiff
Of hand and thought,
And ink-blots mark the spots
Where kisses caught,

He will read without heed
Of phrases' worth,
That I love him above
All things on earth.

I must wait here, till late
Past Evensong,
Ere you come tearing home—
Days are so long!—

But I'll watch, till I catch
Your bell's chime clear ...
If you'll bring me something—
Won't you please, dear?

MY LADY'S GARDEN

[From the same]

How does my Lady's garden grow?
How does my Lady's garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle-shells,
And pretty girls all in a row.

All fresh and fair, as the spring is fair,
And wholly unconscious they are so fair,
With eyes as deep as the wells of sleep,
And mouths as fragrant as sweet June air.

They all have crowns and all have wings,
Pale silver crowns and faint green wings,
And each has a wand within her hand,
And raiment about her that cleaves and clings.

But what have my Lady's girls to do?
What maiden toil or spinning to do?
They swing and sway the live-long day
While beams and dreams shift to and fro.

And are so still that one forgets,
So calm and restful, one forgets
To think it strange they never change,
Mistaking them for Margarets.

But when night comes and Earth is dumb,
When her face is veil'd, and her voice is dumb,
The pretty girls rouse from their summer drowse,
For the time of their magic toil has come.

They deck themselves in their bells and shells,
Their silver bells and their cockle-shells,
Like pilgrim elves, they deck themselves
And chaunting Runic hymns and spells,

They spread their faint green wings abroad,
Their wings and clinging robes abroad,
And upward through the pathless blue
They soar, like incense smoke, to God.

Who gives them crystal dreams to hold,
And snow-white hopes and thoughts to hold,
And laughter spun of beams of the sun,
And tears that shine like molten-gold.

And when their hands can hold no more,
Their chaliced hands can hold no more,
And when their bells, and cockle-shells,
With holy gifts are brimming o'er,

With swift glad wings they cleave the deep,
As shafts of starlight cleave the deep,
Through Space and Night they take their flight
To where my Lady lies asleep;

And there, they coil above her bed,—
A fairy crown above her bed—
While from their hands, like sifted sands,
Falls their harvest winnowèd.

And this is why my Lady grows,
My own sweet Lady daily grows,
In sorcery such, that at her touch,
Sweet laughter blossoms and songs unclose.

And this is what the pretty girls do,
This is the toil appointed to do,
With silver bells, and cockle-shells,
Like Margarets all in a row.

LITTLE BLUE BETTY

[From the same]

Little Blue Betty lived in a lane,
She sold good ale to gentlemen.
Gentlemen came every day,
And little Blue Betty hopp'd away.

A rare old tavern, this "Hand and Glove,"
That Little Blue Betty was mistress of;
But rarer still than its far-famed taps
Were Betty's trim ankles and dainty caps.

So gentlemen came every day—
As much for the caps as the ale, they say—
And call'd for their pots, and her mug to boot:
If it bettered their thirst they were welcome to't;

For Betty, with none of those foolish qualms
Which come of inordinate singing of psalms,
Thought kissing a practice both hearty and hale,
To freshen the lips and smarten the ale.

So gallants came, by the dozen and score,
To sit on the bench by the trellised door,
From the full high noon till the shades grew long,
With their pots of ale, and snatches of song.

While little Blue Betty, in shortest of skirts,
And whitest of caps, and bluest of shirts,
Went hopping away, rattling pots and pence,
Getting kiss'd now and then as pleased Providence.

How well I remember! I used to sit down
By the door, with Byronic, elaborate frown
Staring hard at her, as she whisk'd about me,—
Being jealous as only calf-lovers can be,

Till Betty would bring me my favourite mug,
Her lips all a-pucker, her shoulders a-shrug,
And wheedle and coax my young vanity back,
So I fancied myself the preferred of the pack.

Ah! the dear old times! I turn'd out of my way,
As I travell'd westward the other day,
For a ramble among those boy-haunts of mine,
And a friendly nod to the crazy old sign.

The inn was gone—to make room, alas!
For a railroad buffet, all gilding and glass,
Where sat a proper young person in pink,
Selling ale—which I hadn't the heart to drink.

THE OLD WOMAN UNDER THE HILL

[From the same]

There was an old woman lived under the hill,
And if she's not gone, she lives there still;
Baked apples she sold and cranberry pies,
And she's the old woman who never told lies.

A queer little body, all shrivelled and brown,
In her earth-colour'd mantle and rain-colour'd gown,
Incessantly fumbling strange grasses and weeds,
Like a rickety cricket, a-saying its beads.

In winter or summer, come shine or come rain,
When the bustles and beams into twilight wane,
To the top of her hill, one can see her climb,
To sit out her watch through the long night-time.

The neighbourhood gossips have strange tales to tell—
As they sit at their knitting and tongues waggle well
Of the queer little crone who lived under the hill
When the grannies among them were hoppy-thumbs still.

She was once, they say, a young lassie, as fair
As white-wing'd hawthorn in April air,
When under the hill—one fine evening—she met
A stranger, the strangest maid ever saw yet:

From his crown to his heels he was clad all in red,
And his hair like a flame on his shoulders was shed;
Not a word spake he, but clutching her hand,
Led her off through the darkness to Shadowland.

What befell her there no mortal can tell,
But it must have been things indescribable,
For when she returned, at last, alone,
Her beauty was dead, and her youth was gone.

They gather'd about her: she shook her head
—She had been through Hell—that was all she said
In answer to whens, and hows, and whys;
So they took her word, for she never told lies.

And now, they say, when the sun goes down
This queer little woman, all shrivell'd and brown
Turns into a beautiful lass, once more,
With gold-stranded hair and soft eyes of yore,

And out of the hills in the stills and the gloams
Her beautiful fabulous lover comes,
In scarlet doublet and red silken hose,
To woo her again—till the Chanticleer crows.

And she, poor old crone, sits up on her hill
Through the long dreary night, till the dawn turns chill,
And suffers in silence and patience alway,
In the hope that God will forgive, some day.

MARGERY DAW

[From the same]

See-Saw! Margery Daw!
Sold her bed to lie upon straw;
Was she not a dirty slut
To sell her bed, and live in dirt?

And yet perchance, were the circumstance
But known, of Margery's grim romance,
As sacred a veil might cover her then
As the pardon which fell on the Magdalen.

It's a story told so often, so old,
So drearily common, so wearily cold:
A man's adventure,—a poor girl's fall—
And a sinless scapegoat born—that's all.

She was simple and young, and the song was sung
With so sweet a voice, in so strange a tongue,
That she follow'd blindly the Devil-song
Till the ground gave way, and she lay headlong.

And then: not a word, not a plea for her heard,
Not a hand held out to the one who had err'd,
Her Christian sisters foremost to condemn—
God pity the woman who falls before them!

They closed the door for evermore
On the contrite heart which repented sore,
And she stood alone, in the outer night,
To feed her baby as best she might.

So she sold her bed, for its daily bread,
The gown off her back, the shawl off her head,
Till her all lay piled on the pawner's shelf,
Then she clinch'd her teeth and sold herself.

And so it came that Margery's name
Fell into a burden of Sorrow and Shame,
And Margery's face grew familiar in
The market-place where they trade in sin.

What use to dwell on this premature Hell?
Suffice it to say that the child did well,
Till one night that Margery prowled the town,
Sickness was stalking, and struck her down.

Her beauty pass'd, and she stood aghast
In the presence of want, and stripped, at the last,
Of all she had to be pawned or sold,
To keep her darling from hunger and cold.

So the baby pined, till Margery, blind
With hunger of fever, in body and mind,
At dusk, when Death seem'd close at hand,
Snatch'd a loaf of bread from a baker's stand.

Some Samaritan saw Margery Daw,
And lock'd her in gaol to lie upon straw:
Not a sparrow falls, they say—Oh well!
God was not looking when Margery fell.

With irons girt, in her felon's shirt,
Poor Margery lies in sorrow and dirt,
A gaunt, sullen woman untimely gray,
With the look of a wild beast, brought to bay.

See-saw! Margery Daw!
What a wise and bountiful thing, the Law!
It makes all smooth—for she's out of her head,
And her brat is provided for. It's dead.

[WILLIAM H. WOODS]

William Hervey Woods, poet, was born near Greensburg, Kentucky, November 17, 1852, the son of a clergyman. He was educated at Hampden-Sidney College, in Virginia, after which he studied for the church at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Woods was ordained to the ministry of the Southern Presbyterian church in 1878; and since 1887 he has been pastor of the Franklin Square church at Baltimore. For the past several years he has contributed poems to Scribner's, Harper's, The Century, The Atlantic Monthly, The Youth's Companion, The Independent, and several other periodicals. This verse was collected and published in a pleasing little volume of some hundred and fifty pages under the title of The Anteroom and Other Poems (Baltimore, 1911). As is true of the purely literary labors of most clergymen, a few of the poems are somewhat marred by the homiletical tone—they simply must point a moral, even though that moral does not adorn the tale. Several of the poems reveal the author's love for his birthplace, Kentucky; and, taken as a whole, the book is one of which any of our singers might be proud.