they sang. Such was the power of the magic kettle, that when the water bubbled hard enough to set the bells a-tinkling, any one holding his hand in the steam could smell what was cooking in every kitchen in the kingdom.
It has been many a year since the swineherd's kettle was set a-boiling and its string of bells a-jingling to satisfy the curiosity of a princess, but a time has come for it to be used again. Not that anybody nowadays cares to know what his neighbor is going to have for dinner, but all the little princes and princesses in the kingdom want to know what happened next.
"What happened after the Little Colonel's house party?" they demand, and they send letters to the Valley by the score, asking "Did Betty go blind?" "Did the two little Knights of Kentucky ever meet Joyce again or find the Gate of the Giant Scissors?" "Did the Little Colonel ever have any more good times at Locust, or did Eugenia ever forget that she too had started out to build a Road of the Loving Heart?"
It would be impossible to answer all these questions through the post-office, so that is why the magic kettle has been dragged from its hiding-place after all these years, and set a-boiling once more. Gather in a ring around it, all you who want to know, and pass your curious fingers through its wreaths of rising steam. Now you shall see the Little Colonel and her guests of the house party in turn, and the bells shall ring for each a different song.
But before they begin, for the sake of some who may happen to be in your midst for the first time, and do not know what it is all about, let the kettle give them a glimpse into the past, that they may be able to understand all that is about to be shown to you. Those who already know the story need not put their fingers into the steam, until the bells have rung this explanation in parenthesis.
(In Lloydsboro Valley stands an old Southern mansion, known as "Locust." The place is named for a long avenue of giant locust-trees stretching a quarter of a mile from house to entrance gate in a great arch of green. Here for years an old Confederate colonel lived all alone save for the negro servants. His only child, Elizabeth, had married a Northern man against his wishes, and gone away. From that day he would not allow her name to be spoken in his presence. But she came back to the Valley when her little daughter Lloyd was five years old. People began calling the child the Little Colonel because she seemed to have inherited so many of her grandfather's lordly ways as well as a goodly share of his high temper. The military title seemed to suit her better than her own name for in her fearless baby fashion she won her way into the old man's heart and he made a complete surrender.
Afterward when she and her mother and "Papa Jack" went to live with him at Locust, one of her favorite games was playing soldier. The old man never tired of watching her march through the wide halls with his spurs strapped to her tiny slipper heels, and her dark eyes flashing out fearlessly from under the little Napoleon cap she wore.
She was eleven when she gave her house party. One of the guests was Joyce Ware, whom some of you have met, perhaps, in "The Gate of the Giant Scissors," a bright thirteen-year-old girl from the West. Eugenia Forbes was another. She was a distant cousin of Lloyd's, who had no home-life like other girls. Her winters were spent in a fashionable New York boarding-school, and her summers at the Waldorf-Astoria, except the few weeks when her busy father could find time to take her to some seaside resort.
The third guest, Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis, or Betty, as every one lovingly called her, was Mrs. Sherman's little god-daughter. She was an orphan, boarding on a backwoods farm on Green River. She had never been on the cars until Lloyd's invitation found its way to the Cuckoo's Nest. Only these three came to stay in the house, but Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre (the two little Knights of Kentucky) were there nearly every day. So was Rob Moore, one of the Little Colonel's summer neighbors.
The four Bobs were four little foxterrier puppies named for Rob, who had given one to each of the girls. They were so much alike they could only be distinguished by the colour of the ribbons tied around their necks. Tarbaby was the Little Colonel's pony, and Lad the one that Betty rode during her visit.
After six weeks of picnics and parties, and all sorts of surprises and good times, the house party came to a close with a grand feast of lanterns. Joyce regretfully went home to the little brown house in Plainsville, Kansas, taking her Bob with her. Eugenia and her father went to New York, but not until they had promised to come back for Betty in the fall, and take her abroad with them. It was on account of something that had happened at the house party, but which is too long a tale to repeat here.
Betty stayed on at Locust until the end of the summer in the House Beautiful, as she called her god-mother's home, and here on the long vine-covered porch, with its stately white pillars, you shall see them first through the steam of the magic caldron).
Listen! Now the kettle boils and the bells begin the story!
Miss Eva Anne Madden, author of a group of popular stories for children, was born near Bedford, Kentucky, October 26, 1863, the elder sister of Mrs. George Madden Martin, creator of Emmy Lou. Miss Madden was educated in the public schools of Louisville, Kentucky, after which she took a normal course. At the mature age of fourteen she was writing for The Courier-Journal; two years later she was doing book reviews for The Evening Post; and when eighteen years of age she became a teacher in the public schools. Miss Madden taught for more than ten years, or until 1892, when she went to New York and engaged in newspaper work. Her first book, Stephen, or the Little Crusaders (New York, 1901), was published only a few months before she sailed for Europe, where she has resided for the last eleven years. Miss Madden's The I Can School (New York, 1902), was followed by her other books, The Little Queen (Boston, 1903); The Soldiers of the Duke (Boston, 1904); and her most recent story, Two Royal Foes (New York, 1907). Miss Madden has been the Italian representative of a London firm since 1907; and since 1908 she has been the correspondent of the Paris edition of the New York Herald for the city in which she lives, Florence, Italy. She had a very good short-story in The Century for February, 1911, entitled The Interrupted Pen.
Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xv); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).
THE END OF "THE I CAN SCHOOL."[38]
[From The I Can School (New York, 1902)]
"Good-bye, Miss Ellison," she said, putting up her little mouth to be kissed. "I'm sorry that it's the end of the 'I Can School.'"
Then Miss Ellison was all smiles.
"You sweet little thing," she said, which was exactly what she had done ten months before.
How long ago that seemed to Virginia. How stupid she had been about learning to spell that easy "cat."
Now she could read a whole page about a black cat which got into the nest of a white hen, and she could add numbers, and "write vertical." She had painted in a book, and modeled a lovely half-apple, made real by a stem and the seeds of a russet she had had for lunch one day. She knew the name of all the birds about Fairview, and she could tell about the wild flowers.
Altogether she felt very learned and scornful of a certain small person who had thought Kentucky the name of a little girl, and who had known nothing of George Washington, and who had called C-A-T kitten-puss.
Virginia's mamma was very proud of all her little girl knew. She did not wait for Virginia to get her work from the janitor. She took it all carefully home to show her husband.
"Papa," said Virginia, the moment Mr. Barton entered the house that evening, "it's vacation!"
"Vacation!" said her father. "My! my! I remember that there was a time, Miss Barton, when I loved it better than school; do you?"
Virginia hesitated.
"Ten months," she said at last, "is a lot of school. Lucretia and Catherine seem just as tired, papa. Their lessons don't interest them now that it's so hot. I love the 'I Can School,' papa; but it's nice to stay at home and play 'Lady come to see.'"
This was a very long speech for Virginia, the longest that she ever had made.
Her papa laughed.
"Miss Barton," he said, "profound student that you are, I see that in some things you are not altogether different from your parent. But let me remind you, Miss Barton, when you feel at times a little tired of vacation, that the 'I Can' will begin again on the tenth of September."
"And Miss Ellison will be so glad to see me!" said Virginia confidently.
Her papa laughed.
"As for that, Miss Barton—"
"Now don't, Edward," interrupted his wife. "I am sure, Virginia, that Miss Ellison will be glad to see you in the fall. If I were you I would write her a little letter in the vacation. I have her address."
"And I'll tell Billy and Carter and Harry and all the children, and we'll all write so that she won't forget us. And she'll answer them, mamma, won't she?"
"I think she will," answered her mother. "It will be very nice for you to write to her."
But her husband said in a low voice, "Poor Miss Ellison."
"Good Miss Ellison, papa," said Virginia. "She's nice and I love her."
John Fox, Junior, Kentucky's master maker of mountain myths, was born at Stony Point, near Paris, Kentucky, December 16, 1863, the son of a schoolmaster. He was christened "John William Fox, Junior," but he early discarded his middle name. By his father he was largely fitted for Kentucky, now Transylvania, University, which institution he entered at the age of fifteen, spending the two years of 1878-1880 there, when he left and went to Harvard. Mr. Fox was graduated from Harvard in 1883, the youngest man in his class. Though he had written nothing during his collegiate career, upon quitting Cambridge he joined the staff of the New York Sun and later entered Columbia Law School. He soon abandoned law and went with the New York Times, where he remained several months, when illness—blind and blessed goddess in disguise!—compelled him to go south in search of health. At length he found himself high up in the Cumberland Mountains, associated with his father and brother in a mining venture. He also taught school for a time, but the mountaineers of Kentucky were upon him, and he began to weave romances about them. Mr. Fox's first story, A Mountain Europa (New York, 1894), originally appeared in two parts in The Century Magazine for September and October, 1892. It was dedicated to James Lane Allen, whom its author had to thank for encouragement when he stood most in need of it. On Hell-fer-Sartain Creek, which followed fast upon the heels of his first book, made Mr. Fox famous in a fortnight. Written in a day and a half, Harper's Weekly paid him the munificent sum of six dollars for it, and printed it back with the advertisements in the issue for November 24, 1894. The ending was transposed just a bit and a word or two discarded for apter words before it was published in book form; and these revisions were very fine, greatly improving the tale. In its most recent dress it counts less than five small pages; and it may be read in as many minutes. The mountain dialect prevails throughout. It "admits an epic breadth," the biggest thing Mr. Fox has done hitherto, and now generally regarded as a very great short-story.
A Cumberland Vendetta and Other Stories (New York, 1895), contained, besides the title-story, first published in The Century, a reprinting of A Mountain Europa—which made the third time it had been printed in three years—The Last Stetson, and On Hell-fer-Sartain Creek. This volume was followed by Mr. Fox's finest work, entitled Hell-fer-Sartain and Other Stories (New York, 1897). Of the ten stories in this little volume but four of them are in correct English, the others, the best ones, being in dialect. The last and longest story, A Purple Rhododendron, originally appeared in The Southern Magazine, a now defunct periodical of Louisville, Kentucky. The Kentuckians (New York, 1897), was published a short time after Hell-fer-Sartain and Other Stories. This novelette pitted a man of the Blue Grass against a man of the Kentucky hills, and the struggle was not overly severe; the reading world did little more than remark its appearance and its passing.
When the Spanish-American war was declared Mr. Fox went to Cuba as a Rough Rider, but left that organization to act as correspondent for Harper's Weekly. He witnessed the fiercest fighting from the firing lines, and his own experiences were largely written into his first long novel, entitled Crittenden (New York, 1900). This tale of love with war entwined was well told; and its concluding clause: "God was good that Christmas!" has become one of his most famous expressions. After the war Mr. Fox returned to the South. Bluegrass and Rhododendron (New York, 1901), was a series of descriptive essays upon life in the Kentucky mountains, in which Mr. Fox did for the hillsmen what Mr. Allen had done for the customs and traditions of his own section of the state in The Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. It also embodied his own personal experiences as a member of the police guard in Kentucky and Virginia. The word "rhododendron" is Mr. Fox's shibboleth, and he seemingly never tires of writing it.
The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (New York, 1903), is his best long novel so far. The boy, Chad, is, perhaps, his one character-contribution to American fiction; and the boy's dog, "Jack," stands second to the little hero in the hearts of the thousands who read the book. The opening chapters are especially fine. The love story of The Little Shepherd is most attractive; and the Civil War is presented in a manner not wholly laborious. After Hell-fer-Sartain this novel is far and away the best thing Mr. Fox has done.
Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories (New York, 1904), contained the title-story and five others, including The Last Stetson, which had appeared many years before in Harper's Weekly, and later in A Cumberland Vendetta. Mr. Fox attempted to reach the theatre of the Russian-Japanese War, as a correspondent for Scribner's Magazine, but he was not allowed to join the ever advancing armies. His experiences may be read in Following the Sun-Flag (New York, 1905), with its tell-tale sub-title: "a vain pursuit through Manchuria." His next work was a novelette, A Knight of the Cumberland (New York, 1906), first published as a serial in Scribner's Magazine. It was well done and rather interesting.
Mr. Fox spent the greater part of the year of 1907 in work upon The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (New York, 1908), a story that must be placed beside The Little Shepherd when any classification of the author's work is made. The heroine, June, is none other than Chad in feminine garb. The book contains some of the most excellent writing Mr. Fox has done, the descriptions being especially fine. It was dramatized by Eugene Walter and successfully produced. A few months after the publication of The Trail, the author married Fritzi Scheff, the operatic star, to whom he had inscribed his story. They have a home at Big Stone Gap, in the Virginia mountains.
In April, 1912, Mr. Fox's most recent novel, The Heart of the Hills, began as a serial in Scribner's, to be concluded in the issue for March, 1913. It is red with recent happenings in Kentucky, happenings which are, at the present time, too hackneyed to be of very great interest to the people of that state.[39] It must be remembered always that Mr. Fox is a story-teller pure and simple, and that he seemingly makes little effort to arrive at the stage of perfection in the mere matter of writing that characterizes the work of a group of his contemporaries. That he is a wonderful maker of short-stories in the mountain dialect is certain; but that he is a great novelist is yet to be established.
Bibliography. Current Literature Magazine (New York, September, 1903); Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books, by E. F. Harkins, (Boston, 1903, Second Series); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. iv).
THE CHRISTMAS TREE ON PIGEON[40]
[From Collier's Weekly (December 11, 1909)]
The sun of Christmas poured golden blessings on the head of the valley first; it shot winged shafts of yellow light through the great Gap and into the month of Pigeon; it darted awakening arrows into the coves and hollows on the Head of Pigeon, between Brushy Ridge and Black Mountain; and one searching ray flashed through the open door of the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon and played like a smile over the waiting cedar that stood within—alone.
Down at the mines below, the young doctor had not waited the coming of that sun. He had sprung from his bed at dawn, had built his own fire, had dressed hurriedly, and gone hurriedly on his rounds, leaving a pill here, a powder there, and a word of good cheer everywhere. That was his Christmas tree, the cedar in the little schoolhouse—his and hers. And she was coming up from the Gap that day to dress that tree and spread the joy of Christmas among mountain folks, to whom the joy of Christmas was quite unknown.
An hour later the passing mail-carrier, from over Black Mountain, stopped with switch uplifted at his office door.
"Them fellers over the Ridge air comin' over to shoot up yo' Christmas tree," he drawled.
The switch fell and he was gone. The young doctor dropped by his fire—stunned; for just that thing had happened ten years before to the only Christmas tree that had ever been heard of in those hills except his own. From that very schoolhouse some vandals from the Crab Orchard and from over Black Mountain had driven the Pigeon Creek people after a short fight, and while the surprised men, frightened women and children, and the terrified teacher scurried to safety behind rocks and trees, had shot the tree to pieces. That was ten years before, but even now, though there were some old men and a few old women who knew the Bible from end to end, many grown people and nearly all of the children had never heard of the Book, or of Christ, or knew that there was a day known as Christmas Day. That such things were so had hurt the doctor to the heart, and that was why, as Christmas drew near, he had gone through the out-of-the-way hollows at the Head of Pigeon, and got the names and ages of all the mountain children; why for a few days before Christmas there had been such a dressing of dolls in the sweetheart's house down in the Gap as there had not been since she herself was a little girl; and why now the cedar tree stood in the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon. Moreover, there was as yet enmity between the mountaineers of Pigeon and the mountaineers over the Ridge and Black Mountain, who were jealous and scornful of any signs of the foreign influence but recently come into the hills. The meeting-house, courthouse, and the schoolhouse were yet favorite places for fights among the mountaineers. There was yet no reverence at all for Christmas, and the same vandals might yet regard a Christmas tree as an imported frivolity to be sternly rebuked. The news was not only not incredible, it probably was true; and with this conclusion some very unpleasant lines came into the young doctor's kindly face and he sprang from his horse.
Two hours later he had a burly mountaineer with a Winchester posted on the road leading to the Crab Orchard, another on the mountainside overlooking the little valley, several more similarly armed below, while he and two friends, with revolvers, buckled on, waited for the coming party, with their horses hitched in front of his office door. This Christmas tree was to be.
It was almost noon when the doctor heard gay voices and happy laughter high on the ridge, and he soon saw a big spring wagon drawn by a pair of powerful bays—Major, the colored coachman, on the seat, the radiant faces of the Christmas-giving party behind him, and a big English setter playing in the snow alongside.
Up Pigeon then the wagon went with the doctor and his three friends on horseback beside it, past the long batteries of coke-ovens with grinning darkies, coke-pullers, and loaders idling about them, up the rough road through lanes of snow-covered rhododendrons winding among tall oaks, chestnuts, and hemlocks, and through circles and arrows of gold with which the sun splashed the white earth—every cabin that they passed tenantless, for the inmates had gone ahead long ago—and on to the little schoolhouse that sat on a tiny plateau in a small clearing, with snow-tufted bushes of laurel on every side and snowy mountains rising on either hand.
The door was wide open and smoke was curling from the chimney. A few horses and mules were hitched to the bushes near by. Men, boys, and dogs were gathered around a big fire in front of the building; and in a minute women, children, and more dogs poured out of the schoolhouse to watch the coming cavalcade.
Since sunrise the motley group had been waiting there: the women thinly clad in dresses of worsted or dark calico, and a shawl or short jacket or man's coat, with a sunbonnet or "fascinator" on their heads, and men's shoes on their feet—the older ones stooped and thin, the younger ones carrying babies, and all with weather-beaten faces and bare hands; the men and boys without overcoats, their coarse shirts unbuttoned, their necks and upper chests bared to the biting cold, their hands thrust in their pockets as they stood about the fire, and below their short coat sleeves their wrists showing chapped and red; while to the little boys and girls had fallen only such odds and ends of clothing as the older ones could spare. Quickly the doctor got his party indoors and to work on the Christmas tree. Not one did he tell of the impending danger, and the Colt's .45 bulging under this man's shoulder or on that man's hip, and the Winchester in the hollow of an arm here and there were sights too common in these hills to arouse suspicion in anybody's mind. The cedar tree, shorn of its branches at the base and banked with mosses, towered to the angle of the roof. There were no desks in the room except the one table used by the teacher. Long, crude wooden benches with low backs faced the tree, with an aisle leading from the door between them. Lap-robes were hung over the windows, and soon a gorgeous figure of Santa Claus was smiling down from the very tiptop of the tree. Ropes of gold and silver tinsel were swiftly draped around and up and down; enmeshed in these were little red Santas, gaily colored paper horns, filled with candy, colored balls, white and yellow birds, little colored candles with holders to match, and other glittering things; while over the whole tree a glistening powder was sprinkled like a mist of shining snow. Many presents were tied to the tree, and under it were the rest of the labeled ones in a big pile. In a semicircle about the base sat the dolls in pink, yellow, and blue, and looking down the aisle to the door. Packages of candy in colored Japanese napkins and tied with a narrow red ribbon were in another pile, with a pyramid of oranges at its foot. And yet there was still another pile for unexpected children, that the heart of none should be sore. Then the candles were lighted and the door flung open to the eager waiting crowd outside. In a moment every seat was silently filled by the women and children, and the men, stolid but expectant, lined the wall. The like of that tree no soul of them had ever seen before. Only a few of the older ones had ever seen a Christmas tree of any kind and they but once; and they had lost that in a free-for-all fight. And yet only the eyes of them showed surprise or pleasure. There was no word—no smile, only unwavering eyes mesmerically fixed on the wonderful tree.
The young doctor rose, and only the sweetheart saw that he was nervous, restless, and pale. As best he could he told them what Christmas was and what it meant to the world; and he had scarcely finished when a hand beckoned to him from the door. Leaving one of his friends to distribute the presents, he went outside to discover that one vandal had come on ahead, drunk and boisterous. Promptly the doctor tied him to a tree, shouldered a Winchester, and himself took up a lonely vigil on the mountainside. Within, Christmas went on. When a name was called a child came forward silently, usually shoved to the front by some relative, took what was handed to it, and, dumb with delight, but too shy even to murmur a word of thanks, silently returned to its seat with the presents hugged to its breast—presents that were simple, but not to those mountain mites; colored pictures and illustrated books they were, red plush albums, simple games, fascinators and mittens for the girls; pocket-knives, balls, firecrackers, and horns, mittens, caps, and mufflers for the boys; a doll dressed in everything a doll should wear for each little girl, no one of whom had ever seen a doll before, except what was home-made from an old dress or apron tied in several knots to make the head and body. Twice only was the silence broken. One boy quite forgot himself when given a pocket-knife. He looked at it suspiciously and incredulously, turned it over in his hand, opened it and felt the edge of the blade, and, panting with excitement, cried: "Hit's a shore 'nough knife!"
And again when, to make sure that nobody had been left out, though all the presents were gone, the master of ceremonies asked if there was any other little boy or girl who had received nothing, there arose a bent, toothless old woman in a calico dress and baggy black coat, her gray hair straggling from under her black sunbonnet, and her hands gnarled and knotted from work and rheumatism. Simply as a child, she spoke:
"I hain't got nothin'."
Gravely the giver of the gifts asked her to come forward, and, nonplussed, searched the tree for the most glittering thing he could find. Then all the women pressed forward and then the men, until all the ornaments were gone, even the half-burned candles with their colored holders, which the men took eagerly and fastened in their coats, clasping the holders to their lapels or fastening the bent wire in their button-holes, and pieces of tinsel rope, which they threw over their shoulders—so that the tree stood at last just as it was when brought from the wild woods outside.
Straightway then the young doctor hurried the departure of the merry-makers from the Gap. Already the horses stood hitched, and, while the laprobes were being carried out, a mountaineer, who had brought along a sack of apples, lined up the men and boys, and at a given word started running down the road, pouring out the apples as he ran, while the men and boys scrambled for them, rolling and tussling in the snow. As the party moved away, the mountaineers waved their hands and shouted good-by to the doctor, too shy still to pay much heed to the other "furriners" in the wagon. The doctor looked back once with a grateful sigh of relief but no one in the wagon knew that there had been any danger that day. How great the danger had been not even the doctor knew then. For the coming vandals had got as far as the top of the Dividing Ridge, had there quarreled and fought among themselves, so that, as the party drove away, one invader was at that minute cursing his captors, who were setting him free, and high upon the ridge another lay dead in the snow.
In time there was a wedding at the Gap, and long afterward the doctor, riding by the little schoolhouse, stopped at the door, and from his horse shoved it open. The Christmas tree stood just as he had left it on Christmas Day, only, like the evergreens on the wall and over the windows, it, too, was brown, withered and dry. Gently he closed the door and rode on.
Mrs. Fannie Caldwell Macaulay ("Frances Little"), "the lady of the Decoration," was born at Shelbyville; Kentucky, November 22, 1863, the daughter of a jurist. She was educated at Science Hill Academy, Shelbyville, a noted school for girls. Miss Caldwell was married to James Macaulay of Liverpool, England, but her marriage proved unhappy. From 1899 to 1902 Mrs. Macaulay was a kindergarten teacher in Louisville, Kentucky; and from 1902 to 1907 she was engaged as supervisor of kindergarten work at Hiroshima, Japan. From Japan she wrote letters home which were so charming and clever that her niece, Mrs. Alice Hegan Rice, the Louisville novelist, insisted that she make them into a book. The result was The Lady of the Decoration (New York, 1906), for more than a year the most popular book in America. This little epistolary tale of heroic struggle for one's work and one's love, was read in all parts of the English-speaking world. It set the high-water mark, probably, for even the "six best sellers." Mrs. Macaulay's second book, Little Sister Snow (New York, 1909), was the tender love story of a young American and a Japanese girl. The lad sailed away to his American sweetheart, leaving "Little Sister Snow" blowing him kisses from her native shore. Mrs. Macaulay's latest story, The Lady and Sada San (New York, 1912), was published in London under the title of The Lady Married, which was clearer, as it is the sequel to The Lady of the Decoration. The Lady's husband, Jack, sails away to China in pursuit of his scientific duties, leaving her lonely in Kentucky. She decides to make another journey to Japan; and on the way over she falls in with a charming young American-Japanese girl, Sada San, whom she subsequently saves from a most cruel fate. She then finds her husband, ill and exhausted with his long trip, and returns with him to Kentucky. The descriptions of the countries through which she passes are very fine: the best writing the author has shown hitherto. The little volume was reported as the best selling book in America at Christmas time of 1912. Mrs. Macaulay has spent much of her life during the last several years in Japan, but her home is at Louisville. She is a prominent club woman, and a charming lecturer upon the beauties of Nippon.
Bibliography. The Bookman (June, 1906); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).
APPROACHING JAPAN[41]
[From The Lady of the Decoration (New York, 1906)]
Still on Board. August 18th.
Dear Mate:
I am writing this in my berth with the curtains drawn. No I am not a bit sea-sick, just popular. One of the old ladies is teaching me to knit, the short-haired missionary reads aloud to me, the girl from South Dakota keeps my feet covered up, and Dear Pa and Little Germany assist me to eat.
The captain has had a big bathing tank rigged up for the ladies, and I take a cold plunge every morning. It makes me think of our old days at the cottage up at the Cape. Didn't we have a royal time that summer and weren't we young and foolish? It was the last good time I had for many a long day—but there, none of that!
Last night I had an adventure, at least it was next door to one. I was sitting up on deck when Dear Pa came by and asked me to walk with him. After several rounds we sat down on the pilot house steps. The moon was as big as a wagon wheel and the whole sea flooded with silver, while the flying fishes played hide and seek in the shadows. I forgot all about Dear Pa and was doing a lot of thinking on my own account when he leaned over and said:
"I hope you don't mind talking to me. I am very, very lonely." Now I thought I recognized a grave symptom, and when he began to tell me about his dear departed, I knew it was time to be going.
"You have passed through it," he said. "You can sympathize."
I crossed my fingers in the dark. "We are both seeking a life work in a foreign field—" he began again, but just here the purser passed. He almost stumbled over us in the dark and when he saw me and my elderly friend, he actually smiled!
Don't you dare tell Jack about this, I should never hear the last of it.
Can you realize that I am three whole weeks from home! I do, every second of it. Sometimes when I stop to think what I am doing my heart almost bursts! But then I am so used to the heartache that I might be lonesome without it; who knows?
If I can only do what is expected of me, if I can only pick up the pieces of this smashed-up life of mine and patch them into a decent whole that you will not be ashamed of, then I will be content.
The first foreign word I have learned is "Alohaoe," I think it means "my dearest love to you." Anyhow I send it laden with the tenderest meaning. God bless and keep you all, and bring me back to you a wiser and a gladder woman.
James Dowden Bruner, editor of many masterpieces of French literature, as well as an original critic of that literature, was born near Leitchfield, Kentucky, May 19, 1864. He was graduated from Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana, in 1888, and then taught French and German at Franklin for two years. Professor Bruner studied a year in Paris and Florence and, on his return to this country, in 1893, he was elected professor of Romance languages in the University of Illinois. Johns Hopkins University conferred the degree of Ph. D. upon him, in 1894, his dissertation being The Phonology of the Pistojese Dialect (Baltimore, 1894, a brochure). From 1895 to 1899 Dr. Bruner was professor of Romance languages and literatures in the University of Chicago; from 1901 to 1909 he held a similar chair in the University of North Carolina; and since 1909 he has been president of Chowan College, Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Dr. Bruner has edited, with introductions and critical notes, Les Adventures du Dernier Abencerage, par Chateaubriand (New York, 1903); Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre, par Octave Feuillet (Boston, 1904); Hernani, par Victor Hugo (New York, 1906); and Le Cid, par Pierre Corneille (New York, 1908), his finest critical edition of any French classic hitherto. His Studies in Victor Hugo's Dramatic Characters (Boston, 1908), announced the advent of a new critic of the great Frenchman's plays. It is an excellent piece of work.
Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xv); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).
THE FRENCH CLASSICAL DRAMA[42]
[From Le Cid, par Pierre Corneille (New York, 1908)]
Corneille in the Cid founded the French classical drama. Before the appearance of this masterpiece, a transition drama containing characteristics of the tragi-comedy as well as of the regular classical tragedy, of which Corneille's next three plays, Horace, Cinna, and Polyeucte, were to be perfect examples, the tragi-comedy prevailed in France. This tragi-comedy, or irregular drama, was a Renaissance product, having a history and characteristics of its own, being largely influenced by the tragedies of Seneca. Its most important characteristics are non-historic subjects, serious or tragic plots, the mixture of comic and tragic elements or tones, the high rank of the leading characters, the style noble, looseness of structure, the disregard of the minor or Italian unities of time and place, the classical form of verse and number of acts, romanesque elements, and a happy ending.
The most striking characteristic of the French classical drama of the seventeenth century, as of the modern short story, is that of compression. This statement is true both as to its form and its content. The accidental accessories of splendid decorations, magnificent costumes, subsidiary plots, and secondary characters that might detract from the main situation or obscure the general impression, are, as far as possible, sacrificed to the essential or necessary interests of dramatic art. Improbable and irrational elements are reduced to a minimum. Digressions, episodes, long soliloquies, oratorical tirades, minute descriptions of external nature, and complicated machinery that would encumber the plot or destroy proportion, are largely eliminated. The classical dramatist is too sensitive to the beautiful, the sublime, the essential, and the universal to admit into his conception of fine art either moral and physical deformity or the accidental and particular aspects of life. Classical tragedy is furthermore narrow in its choice of subject and form, in its number and range of characters, in its representation of material and physical action on the stage, and in its number of events, incidents, and actions. Its subjects and materials are taken almost wholly from ancient classical and Hebrew sources. Mediaeval, national, and modern foreign raw material, whether life, history, legend, or literature, is seldom utilized. Its manners and ideas are those of the court and the salons, and its religion is pagan. Its language is general, cold, regular, and conventional, and its versification is confined to rimed Alexandrine couplets, with the immovable caesura and little enjambement.
The Frenchman's love of proportion, symmetry, restraint, and logical order led him to the cult of form. In striving after perfection of form, he naturally adopted compression as the best method of expressing this innate artistic reserve. This compactness and concentration of form, this compressed brevity, which the Frenchman inherited from the Latins, is well illustrated by the following lines from Wordsworth:
Madison Cawein, whom English critics name the greatest living American poet, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, March 23, 1865. He was christened "Madison Julius Cawein," but he had not gotten far in the literary lane before his middle name was dropped, though the "J." may be found upon the title-pages of his earlier books. After some preparatory work he entered the Louisville Male High School, in 1881, at the age of sixteen years. At high school Madison Cawein began to write rhymes which he read to the students and teachers upon stated occasions, and he was hailed by them as a true maker of song. He was graduated in 1886 in a class of thirteen members. Being poor in purse, Mr. Cawein accepted a position in a Louisville business house, and he is one of the few American poets who wrote in the midst of such commercialism. His was the singing heart, not to be crushed by conditions or environment of any kind. The year after his graduation he collected the best of his school verse and published them as his first book, Blooms of the Berry (Louisville, 1887). In some way William Dean Howells and Thomas Bailey Aldrich saw this volume, praised it, and fixed the future poet in his right path. The Triumph of Music (Louisville, 1888), sounded after The Blooms of the Berry, and since that time hardly a year has passed without the poet putting forth a slender volume. The next few years saw the publication of his Accolon of Gaul (Louisville, 1889); Lyrics and Idyls (Louisville, 1890); Days and Dreams (New York, 1891); Moods and Memories (New York, 1892); Red Leaves and Roses (New York, 1893); Poems of Nature and Love (New York, 1893); Intimations of the Beautiful (New York, 1894), one of his longest poems; The White Snake (Louisville, 1895), metrical translations from the German poets; Undertones (Boston, 1896), which contained some of the finest lyrics he has done so far; The Garden of Dreams (Louisville, 1896); Shapes and Shadows (New York, 1898); Idyllic Monologues (Louisville, 1898); Myth and Romance (New York, 1899); One Day and Another (Boston, 1901), a lyrical eclogue; Weeds by the Wall (Louisville, 1901); A Voice on the Wind (Louisville, 1902). A glance at these titles, following fast upon each other, convinces the reader that Mr. Cawein was writing and publishing far too much, that he was not sufficiently critical of his work. Edmund Gosse, the famous English critic, has always been one of Mr. Cawein's most ardent admirers, and, in 1903, he selected the best of his poems, wrote a delightful introduction for them, and they were published in London under the title of Kentucky Poems. This volume brought the poet many new friends, as it assembled the best of his work from volumes long out of print and rather difficult to procure. The Vale of Tempe (New York, 1905), contained the best of Mr. Cawein's work written since the publication of Weeds by the Wall in 1901. Nature-Notes and Impressions (New York, 1906), a collection of poems and prose-pastels, was especially notable for the fact that it contained the first and only short-story the poet has written, entitled "Woman or—What?"
The Poems of Madison Cawein (Indianapolis, 1907, five volumes), charmingly illustrated by Mr. Eric Pape, the Boston artist, with Mr. Gosse's introduction, brought together all of Mr. Cawein's work that he cared to rescue from many widely scattered volumes. He made many revisions in the poems, some of which (in the judgment of the writer) tend to mar their original beauty. But it is a work of which any poet may be proud; and it is not surpassed in quality or quantity by any living American.
Mr. Cawein's Ode in Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Louisville, 1908), which he read at Gloucester in August, 1907, was rather lengthy, but it contained many strong and fine lines; and a group of New England sonnets, some of the best he has done, appeared at the end of the ode. His New Poems (London, 1909), was followed by The Giant and the Star (Boston, 1909), a small collection of children's verse, dedicated to his little son, who furnished their inspiration. Let Us Do the Best that We Can (Chicago, 1909), was a beautiful brochure; and The Shadow Garden and Other Plays (New York, 1910), was four chamber-dramas which have been highly praised, and which contain some of the most delicate work the poet has done. So Many Ways (Chicago, 1911), was another pamphlet-poem; and it was followed by Poems (New York, 1911), selected from the whole range of his work by himself, with a foreword by William Dean Howells. Mr. Cawein's latest volume is entitled The Poet, the Fool and the Faeries (Boston, 1912). It brings together his work of the last two or three years, both in the field of the lyric and of the drama. And from the mechanical aspect it is his most beautiful book. The poet will publish two books through a Cincinnati firm in 1913, to be entitled The Republic—a Little Book of Homespun Verse, and Minions of the Moon.
In March, 1912, literary Louisville celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Blooms of the Berry, and the forty-seventh birthday of its author, Madison Cawein, the city's most distinguished man of letters. This was the first public recognition Mr. Cawein has received in the land of his birth, though it is now proposed to place a bust of him in the public library of Louisville. He is better known in New York or London than he is in Kentucky, but it will not be long before the people of his own land realize that they have been entertaining a world-poet, possibly, unawares. He is so far removed from any Kentucky poet of the present school that to mention him in the same breath with any of them is to make one's self absurd. Looking backward to the beginnings of our literature and coming carefully down the slope to this time, but two poets rise out of the mist of yesterday to greet Cawein and challenge him for the laureateship of Kentucky makers of song: Theodore O'Hara with his immortal elegy, and Daniel Henry Holmes with his sheaf of tender lyrics. These three are the nearest approach to the ineffable poets—who left the earth with the passing of Tennyson—yet nurtured upon Kentucky soil.
Mr. Cawein is, of course, a poet of Nature, a landscape poet in particular who paints every color on the palette into his work. Had he been an artist he would have exhausted all colors conceived thus far by man, and would fain have originated new ones. There are literally hundreds of his poems in which every line is as surely a stroke as if done with the brush of a painter. Color, color, is his shibboleth-scheme, and he who would woo Nature in her richest robes may read Cawein and be content.
Amazing as it may seem Mr. Cawein has thirty-four volumes to his credit—almost one for every year of his life. This statement stamps him as one of the most prolific poets of modern times, if not, indeed, of all time. And that it is not all quantity, may be seen in the recent declaration of The Poetry Review of London: "He appears quite the biggest figure among American poets; his return to nature has no tinge of affectation; it is genuine to the smallest detail. If he suffers from fatigue, it is in him, at least, not through that desperate satiety of town life which with so many recent poets has ended in impressionism and death."
CONCLUSION[43]
[From Undertones (Boston, 1896)]