Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Volume 02 (of 14), 1899
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Title: Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Volume 02 (of 14), 1899
Author: Mississippi Historical Society
Editor: Franklin L. Riley
Dunbar Rowland
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUBLICATIONS OF THE MISSISSIPPI HISTORICAL SOCIETY, VOLUME 02 (OF 14), 1899 ***
PUBLICATIONS
OF
THE
Mississippi Historical Society
Edited by
FRANKLIN L. RILEY
Secretary
Reprinted 1919
BY
DUNBAR ROWLAND, LL. D.
Secretary
VOL. II.
OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI:
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.
1899.
OFFICERS FOR 1899
PRESIDENT:
GENERAL STEPHEN D. LEE, Columbus, Mississippi.
VICE-PRESIDENTS:
PROFESSOR R. W. JONES, University of Mississippi.
JUDGE B. T. KIMBROUGH, Oxford, Mississippi.
ARCHIVIST:
CHANCELLOR R. B. FULTON, University of Mississippi.
SECRETARY AND TREASURER:
PROFESSOR FRANKLIN L. RILEY, University of Mississippi.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
(IN ADDITION TO THE ABOVE OFFICIALS)
PROFESSOR J. M. WHITE, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi.
PROFESSOR CHARLES HILLMAN BROUGH, of Mississippi College.
PROFESSOR W. L. WEBER, of Millsaps College.
PRESIDENT J. R. PRESTON, of Stanton College.
* * * * *
All persons who are interested in the work of the Society and desire to
promote its objects are invited to become members.
There is no initiation fee. The only cost to members is, annual dues,
$2.00, or life dues, $30.00. Members receive all publications of the
Society free of charge.
Donations of relics, manuscripts, books and papers are solicited for
the Museum and Archives of the Society.
Address all communications to the Secretary of the Mississippi State
Historical Society, University P. O., Mississippi.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TITLE, 1
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY FOR 1899, 3
CONTENTS, 5
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN RECENT SOUTHERN LITERATURE,
by _Prof. C. Alphonso Smith_, 7
IRWIN RUSSELL--FIRSTFRUITS OF THE SOUTHERN ROMANTIC
MOVEMENT, by _Prof. W. L. Weber_, 15
WILLIAM WARD, A MISSISSIPPI POET ENTITLED TO DISTINCTION,
by _Prof. Dabney Lipscomb_, 32
SHERWOOD BONNER, HER LIFE AND PLACE IN THE LITERATURE
OF THE SOUTH, by _Prof. Alexander L. Bondurant_, 43
'THE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY,' HER LIFE, CHARACTER
AND WRITINGS, by _Prof. Chiles Clifton
Ferrell_, 67
SIR WILLIAM DUNBAR, PIONEER SCIENTIST OF MISSISSIPPI,
by _Prof. Franklin L. Riley_, 85
HISTORY OF TAXATION IN MISSISSIPPI, by _Prof. Charles
Hillman Brough_, 113
TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF MISSISSIPPI, by _Prof. J. M. White_, 125
THE EARLY SLAVE LAWS OF MISSISSIPPI, by _Alfred H.
Stone, Esq._, 135
FEDERAL COURTS, JUDGES, ATTORNEYS AND MARSHALS IN
MISSISSIPPI, by _Thomas McAdory Owen, Esq._, 147
RUNNING MISSISSIPPI'S SOUTH LINE, by _Peter J. Hamilton,
Esq._, 157
ELIZABETH FEMALE ACADEMY--THE MOTHER OF FEMALE
COLLEGES, by _Bishop Chas. B. Galloway_, 169
EARLY HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COLLEGE, by _Mr. J. K.
Morrison_, 179
THE RISE AND FALL OF NEGRO RULE IN MISSISSIPPI, by
_Dunbar Rowland, Esq._, 189
GLIMPSES OF THE PAST, by _Mrs. Helen D. Bell_, 201
THE HISTORICAL OPPORTUNITY OF MISSISSIPPI, by _Prof.
R. W. Jones_, 219
NANIH WAIYA, THE SACRED MOUND OF THE CHOCTAWS, by
_Mr. H. S. Halbert_, 223
INDEX, 235
THE HISTORICAL ELEMENT IN RECENT SOUTHERN LITERATURE.
BY C. ALPHONSO SMITH, A. M., PH. D.
The year 1870 marks an epoch in the history of the South. It
witnessed not only the death of Robert E. Lee but the passing also
of John Pendleton Kennedy, George Denison Prentice, Augustus Baldwin
Longstreet, and William Gilmore Simms. In literature it was not only
the end of the old but the beginning of the new, for in 1870 the new
movement in Southern literature may be said to have been inaugurated in
the work of Irwin Russell. I have attempted elsewhere to trace briefly
the chronological outlines of this literature from 1870 to the present
time. In this paper, therefore, I shall discuss not the history of this
literature but rather the history in this literature.
When we compare Southern literature of ante-bellum days with that
produced since 1870 we note at once certain obvious differences of
style and structure. In the older literature the sentences are longer,
the paragraphs less coherent, adjectives more abundant, descriptions
more elaborate, plots more intricate and fanciful. In the newer
literature the pen is held more firmly; there are fewer episodes;
incidents are chosen to illustrate character rather than to enhance the
plot; the language is more temperate; the pathos and humor more subtle;
some fixed goal is kept in view and the action of the story converges
steadily toward this end.
But apart from these stylistic and structural differences there are
differences that appeal to the student of history equally as much
as to the student of pure literature. Since 1870 Southern writers
have begun to find their topics and their inspiration in the life
that is round about them. They are resorting not so much to books
as to memory, observation and experience. They are not rising into
solitary and selfish renown; they are lifting the South with them.
They are writing Southern history because they are describing Southern
life. The writings of Irwin Russell, Sidney Lanier, Joel Chandler
Harris, Miss Murfree, George W. Cable, Thomas Nelson Page, James Lane
Allen, Miss Grace King, Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart, and John Fox, Jr.,
are spreading a knowledge of Southern life and Southern conditions
where such knowledge has never penetrated before. And though we call
this literature Southern, it is neither sectional in its appeal nor
provincial in its workmanship. This, then, is what I mean by the
historical element in recent Southern literature.
It has long seemed to me that much of the immediate influence of _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_ both in this country and in England was due to the fact
that the South could not show in all of its ante-bellum literature
a single novel treating the same themes treated by Mrs. Stowe, but
treating them from a different point of view. It was the first attempt
to portray in vivid colors the social and institutional conditions of
the South. None of our writers had utilized the material that lay ready
to their hands. There was no story written in the spirit of _Marse
Chan_ or _Uncle Remus_ which the South could hold up and say,
"Look here, upon this picture, and on this."
The reception accorded Mrs. Stowe's book in the South teaches a
valuable lesson, and a lesson which Southern writers have for thirty
years profited by _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was met by bitter criticism, by
argument, by denunciation, by denial, or by contemptuous silence. But
the appeal made by a literary masterpiece, however deficient or faulty
in its premises, is not thus to be negatived. The true answer to _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_ and the most adequate answer that could be given is to
be found in the historical note that characterizes the work of Irwin
Russell and those who have succeeded him.
I wish to state, therefore, in somewhat broader terms than I have yet
seen it stated, what seems to me the historical importance of Irwin
Russell in American literature. His priority in the fictional use
of the negro dialect has been frequently emphasized, but I wish to
emphasize his priority in utilizing for literary purposes the social
and institutional conditions in which he himself had lived. Skill in
the use of a dialect is a purely literary excellence, but when a writer
portrays and thus perpetuates the peculiar life of a people numbering
four million, he is to that extent an historian; and Irwin Russell's
example in this respect meant a complete change of front in Southern
literature. He did not go to Italy for his inspiration as Richard Henry
Wilde had done. You find no _Rodolph_, or _Hymns to the Gods_, or
_Voyage to the Moon_ among his writings; but you will find that deeper
poetic vision that saw pathos and humor and beauty in the humble life
that others had contemned.
The appearance of _Christmas-Night in the Quarters_ meant that
Southern literature was now to become a true reproduction of Southern
conditions. Our writers were henceforth to busy themselves with
the interpretation of life at close range. They were to produce a
kaleidoscopic body of fiction, each bit of which, sparkling with its
own characteristic and independent color, should yet contribute its
part to the harmony and symmetry of the whole.
I would not for a moment compare the genius of Irwin Russell with
that of Chaucer or of Burns; and yet when Chaucer in the latter part
of his life turned from French and Italian sources to find an ampler
inspiration in his own England, the England that he knew and loved, he
was but illustrating the change that Irwin Russell was to inaugurate in
Southern literature; and when Robert Burns broke through the classical
trammels of the eighteenth century and lifted the poor Scotch cotter
into the circle of the immortals, he was but anticipating your own
Mississippian in proving that poetry, like charity, begins at home.
To the student of literature, there is a wide difference between the
_Prologue to the Canterbury Tales_, _The Cotter's Saturday Night_, and
the _Christmas-Night in the Quarters_; but to the student of history
the poems stand upon the same plane because each is a transcript of
contemporary life.
Irwin Russell represents, therefore, a transition of vital significance
in our literature, a transition that had been partly foretold in the
work of Judge Longstreet and Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston. There is
as much local coloring in the _Georgia Scenes_ and the _Dukesborough
Tales_ as in the work of Irwin Russell; but I do not find the same deft
workmanship; I miss in the older works the sympathy, the pathos, and
the self-restraint that enable Irwin Russel to be local in his themes
without being provincial in his manner.
I do not say that the poet or the novelist must never revert to past
history or to historical documents for his topics. His own genius and
taste must be his surest guide to both as to topic and to treatment;
but I do say that a nation is unfortunate if the builders of its
literature invariably draw their material from foreign sources or from
the history that was enacted before they were born.
"I have no churlish objection," says Emerson in his _Essay on
Self-Reliance_, "to the circumnavigation of the globe for the
purposes of art, of study and benevolence, so that the man is first
domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat
greater than he knows____ The soul created the arts wherever they
have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his
model. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty,
convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near to
us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love
the precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil,
the length of the day, the wants of the people, ... he will create a
house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and
sentiment will be satisfied also."
The historical element, therefore, of which I am speaking is not
synonymous with the historical novel. The critics apply the term
historical novel to those novels that attempt to reproduce the past.
These novels are retrospective and essentially romantic. In the work of
Sir Walter Scott this form of literature attained its florescence. But
I contend that while the historical novel may have a genuinely human
interest, its value as history is almost inappreciable as compared with
the historical value of the literature that portrays contemporary life.
We do not study ancient history in Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_,
but there would be a deplorable gap in our knowledge of fourteenth
century England if _The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales_ had never
been written.
A hundred years from now Dickens' _Tale of Two Cities_ will not have
the historical significance that _David Copperfield_ will have; because
the _Tale of Two Cities_ is based on records that are accessible to
all students of the French Revolution. It is not an interpretation of
life at first hand; it is an interpretation only of books. Then, too,
historical investigation is even today far more accurate and scientific
than when Dickens wrote. But _David Copperfield_, which the critics
have never called an historical novel, has an historical element
that time cannot take away, for it is the record of what an accurate
observer saw and felt and heard in the first half of the nineteenth
century. The historical novel, therefore, in the current acceptation
of the term, contributes nothing to the sources of historical study,
though it does popularize history and thus help to prepare an audience
for the scientific historian.
Now, the South has produced her full share of historical novels. From
_Horse-Shoe Robinson_ in 1835 to _The Prisoners of Hope_ in 1898,
Southern writers have shown themselves by no means insensible to
the literary possibilities latent in our colonial and revolutionary
history. But it was not until 1870 that the South may be said to have
had a school of writers who, while not neglecting the historical novel
proper, began to find the scenery and materials of their stories
chiefly in local conditions and in passing or remembered events. Much,
it is true, has been lost to our literature, but much has been saved.
It has often been said that the new movement in Southern literature
was due to the influence of Bret Harte's works, but such a statement
hardly deserves refutation. The cause lies deeper than this. The events
of 1861-65 not only broke the continuity of Southern history but
changed forever the social and political status of the Southern states.
The past began to loom up strange and remote, but "dear as remembered
kisses after death." Men seemed to have lived a quarter of a century in
four years. They moved as in a world not realized. Now it is just at
such periods that literature finds its opportunity, for at such periods
a people's historic consciousness is either deepened or destroyed, and
this national consciousness finds expression in historical literature.
The South, then, is slowly writing her history in her literature.
Hardly a year passes that some new state or some new period does not
find a place in the onward movement. Only in the last year, hundreds
of readers who care nothing for formal histories have pored over Mr.
Page's _Red Rock_ and learned for the first time the inside history
of Reconstruction; in the pages of Miss Murfree's _Story of Old Fort
Loudon_, they have seen the heroism with which the Tennessee soldier
won his state from the wilderness and the Indian; in Miss Grace King's
_De Soto and his Men in the Land of Florida_, they have followed the
discoverer of the Mississippi on a journey as marvelous and romantic as
the fabled voyage of Jason; in _The Kentuckians_ of John Fox, Jr., they
have read again of that undying feud between highlander and lowlander
that has found expression in more than a hundred English and Scotch
ballads; in _Chalmette_ of Mr. Clinton Ross, they have stood again with
Jackson on an immortal battlefield; in _The Wire Cutters_ of Mrs. M.
E. M. Davis, they have witnessed a hitherto unexplored region, that of
West Texas, added to the growing map of Southern literature; in _The
Prisoners of Hope_, by Miss Mary Johnston, they have heard the first
mutterings of insurrection under the colonial tyranny of Governor
Berkeley,--mutterings that a century later were to be reinforced by the
pen of Jefferson and the sword of Washington. And these books mark the
record of but twelve months.
Need I say that the significance of this historical movement in our
literature is vital and profound for every man and woman before me? or
that it merits the earnest consideration of every historical society
organized to preserve and perpetuate the facts of our history.
Let me remind you that the literary significance of the Civil War is
as noteworthy as its purely historical significance. That struggle
meant far more to the South than to the North. To the North it meant
the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery. To the
South it meant decimated families, smoking homesteads, and the passing
forever of a civilization unique in human history. But LITERATURE LOVES
A LOST CAUSE, PROVIDED HONOR BE NOT LOST. Hector, the leader of the
vanquished Trojans, is the most princely figure that the Greek Homer
has portrayed; the Roman Virgil is proud to trace the lineage of his
people not back to the victorious Greeks but to the defeated Trojans;
the English poet-laureate finds his deepest inspiration not in the
victories of his Saxon ancestors over King Arthur but in King Arthur
himself, the fated leader of a losing cause. And so it has always been:
the brave but unfortunate reap always the richest measure of literary
immortality.
In conclusion, I believe that in the organization of the Mississippi
State Historical Society and in the beneficent work that it has
wrought during its career of nine years, I see another indication of
that growing historic consciousness without which we cannot stand
unabashed before the bar of future history. "Deeds of prowess and
exalted situations cannot of themselves" says Schlegel (_History of
Literature_, Lecture I) "command our admiration or determine our
judgment. A people that would rank high in our esteem must themselves
be conscious of the importance of their own doings and fortunes." The
invaluable work that is being done by this Society for the history of
Mississippi is a part of that larger movement of which I have spoken.
Both testify to the advent of that historical spirit which "cannot
be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price
thereof." If I read aright the signs of the times, the new century will
not have been many years old before the history of the South will be
enshrined not only in annals and chronicles but in the living letters
of a nation's song and story.
IRWIN RUSSELL--FIRST FRUITS OF THE SOUTHERN ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.
BY W. L. WEBER.
So wide is the connotation of the word Romanticism, we may make up
almost any conceivable definition and be sure we have respectable
authority in agreement with the view we have taken. The fault to be
found with the current definitions is that they stress the source, at
the expense, of the character of that influence which transformed "the
age of prose and reason" into the "Renascence of Wonder." The influence
to be stressed in the use I shall wish to make of the word Romanticism
is protest against the settled, conservative, classical order of
things. Secondarily, it will be remembered that the source of much of
the literary material used by the protestants is to be found in the
remote past--remote whether in time or in charge of mental attitude.
In order to be able to throw a clearly defined portrait of Irwin
Russell on the canvas of Southern literature, it will be necessary
rapidly to review the main outlines of this Romantic movement in the
development of English thought a period which may be shown to be the
prototype of our own after-the-war literary life.
We shall not go into details. First we should recall to mind the
main literary currents of English thinking from the time of Dryden
to the end of the dictatorship of the great Cham himself. It will be
readily remembered that fashion in literature had changed soon after
Shakespeare's death and his native wood-notes wild were forgot for a
time. The age of prose and reason followed. Self-consciousness was a
characteristic note of the Augustan, the eighteenth century literature.
Narrowness of imagination, and faithfulness in copying made up the
main classical elements in many an English poet under the regime of
Formalism.
"Back to nature!" was the rallying cry of a protest against this
formalism--an inarticulate protest which culminated in the Romantic
movement. Under the leadership of Dryden and for more than a century
after him, canons of literary art based on classical models had almost
undisputed sway. Aristotle filtered through Horace and Horace diluted
by Boileau were prescribed by doctors who would correct and amend
English speech and literature. From these masters were drawn rules so
minute and so inflexible as to put to the death budding originality
by the demand for "correctness." If the poet were moved to describe
pastoral scenes, he must needs go to Theocritus for the names of
his characters, to Virgil for the contour of his scenery. But all
this classicism was counterfeit. It was "more Latin than Greek, and
more French than Latin." The classical poet, as he misnamed himself,
followed with slavish persistence the creed which he had adopted. It
was an accepted law that "the best of the modern poets in all languages
are those that have the nearest copied the ancients." He would have
nothing of country life. Rough and irregular scenery were distasteful
to him. Mountains he described by Gothic--his pet term of opprobrium.
Scenery as well as thought must conform to the level. "Decent
conformity," then, characterized the Augustan age and enthusiasm had no
place in the age of Dryden and of Pope.
Some of the characteristic features of the Romantic movement may
be readily got at, by prefixing a negative to the qualities of the
classical school. The country, out door life, rugged mountains,
folk-songs, ballads in every form, the picturing of English people
in English scenery were used as subject-matter--in other words, the
telling what the writer had himself seen and, therefore, what he
really knew, instead of what he had read. It was this reaction against
formalism which produced such men as Chatterton, Burns, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Scott.
It is not within the purpose of this paper to give a full list of
the writers who may be said to be the forerunners of this movement
which dominated English poetry during the first quarter of the
Nineteenth Century. Nor is it needful to enter into the controversy
as to who first gave evidence of the changing attitude. So careful
a critic as Theodore Watts assigns the place of priority to Thomas
Chatterton, styles him the Father of the Romantic School, and insists
that to his influence may be traced some of the best work of Keats
and of Coleridge. It will always be well to remember that changes in
literary habit do not take place in a year, rarely in a decade. It
will, therefore, be easy to point out poets as early as Gray who gave
prophecy of the new era. This much at least is noteworthy--putting
aside the question as to who comes first of all--that the new current
of ideas began very early to flow through poets who were hardly more
than boys. Professor Beers has already reminded us that in Joseph
Warton as well as in Thomas Chatterton--neither of whom was more than
eighteen years of age--we may see the set of the literary current.
It may not be insisting too strongly on a parallel to see in the
history of Southern literature a state of affairs much like that we
have just sketched. It will be remembered that in 1818 Bryant sounded
his protest against a "sickly and affected imitation of the peculiar
manner of the late popular poets of England." As late as 1848 Lowell
did not hesitate roughly to assert:
They stole Englishmen's books and thought Englishmen's thought,
With English salt on the tail our wild Eagle was caught.
In these circumstances it is not surprising that Sydney Smith should
have asked with suggestion of truth even if with evidence of venom,
"Who reads an American book?" American literature in the Northern and
Middle sections escaped from bondage many years before the South came
into its own literary inheritance. Just as unreasoning worship of a
pseudo-classicism had its death-grip on Eighteenth Century writers so
a like uncritical devotion to the usually read classic writers and to
earlier English authors had checked the growth of the budding Southern
literature of the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Conservative as
the South has always been in matters of thought it was not surprising
that this should be so. Paul H. Hayne tells what contemptuous
references were made by the literary coterie of Charleston to the early
efforts of Simms because he dared aspire to cultivate the Muses, when
he must needs get his Homer through the medium of Chapman or of Pope.
This respect unto classical authority was of long continuance among
cultured men and showed itself, also, in the dry and tedious essays of
Legare who was reputed a great scholar.
It was, indeed, not until 1870 that the South may be said to have
achieved literary independence. As the sway of Greece and Rome passed
away, the South came to be a literary dependency of England. Kennedy
and Sims are dominated by Scott, just as Wirt and his friends of
the "Old Bachelor" group got their inspiration from the Spectator.
Of course there were poets as Hayne and Timrod and story-writers as
Johnston and Thompson who sang and wrote clearly and with a note of
individuality. But Lowell might have described the greater part of
Southern literary work in the words:
Your literature suits its each whisper and motion
To what will be thought of it over the ocean.
With the same thought in mind Poe wrote that "one might suppose that
books, like their authors, improve by travel, their having crossed the
sea is with us so great a distinction."
This natural conservatism was upheld by the fact that many Southerners
of means sent their sons to England to be educated. The South
being settled for the most part by emigrants of English blood, it
is not surprising that the controlling influence should be from
mother-country.
Before the war, Sydney Smith's cutting question might have been
answered with greater suggestion of truth in the form, "who reads a
Southern book?" A not untruthful answer would have been, "Southerners
do not." We have never adequately supported our own writers. We have
added to the tragedy of nations by allowing Poe to die the death of an
outcast; Timrod to break his heart, without a crust to eat or a penny
to buy food; Lanier not to have time to record the strains that were
demanding utterance, in order to spend his wasting strength seeking
support for wife and children; Russell broken in courage and in fortune
to find not even a resting-place in the soil of his native State.
Before the war the Southern library shelves were weighed down with
Fielding, Smollett, Addison, Johnson, Scott and Dickens. Charleston had
a public meeting to congratulate Macaulay on the issuance of one of the
later volumes of his History. Simms and Timrod lived in the City by the
Sea in obscurity and neglect. We have not yet reached the place where
we turn first to our own writers.
To say we had no writers, no books is not true. We had a plentiful
supply of books whose writers with a kind of literary metonymy
transferred the conventionalities and commonplaces of English life to
the atmosphere of the South. The result was not English and it was not
Southern but it had the worst features of both. Wax flowers were long
a popular form of domestic art and the literary amateur caught the
unreality of the maker of flowers.
There was, indeed, abundant material in the South and much of it was
made use of. A distinct weakness in our workmanship arose from the fact
that too much material was used for a given purpose. The stage was
overcrowded with characters, the plot was weakened by using too much
incident. This surplus-age of incident seems to have distracted the
writer's attention from the details of his craft. The value of the work
of art was lost in carelessness of workmanship. The new order of things
was to see a renaissance of simplicity. It was to be expected that in
order to bring about a re-crystallization of Southern literary canons a
shock was essential. That shock came in the form of the war between the
States. New ideas, newly expressed was the inheritance.
The new school of Southern writers found their material near at hand
and yet from a past growingly remote. They delighted to tell of the
days of slavery--to idealize that period, perhaps--and with some
acquaintance with slavery as it actually existed. While it has not
been a half century since the master and his slave lived together in
Southern lands, yet the number of those who have had experiential
knowledge of slave-life in the South is increasingly small. To be
accurate the picture of master and man had need to be painted quickly.
Perhaps the very first of our writers to give a true picture of
negro life in negro dialect was Irwin Russell of Mississippi. He was
certainly the first to make use of verse to put before us the negro
as he saw him. Russell's negro is for the most part not the slave but
the negro who is reconstructed in his legal relations, but altogether
unreconstructed in habits of thought and of action. That negro, a
picture of whom was to be had only during the decade immediately after
the war, is the hero of much of Russell's verse. That he has pictured
the character faithfully is evidenced by the fact of the life of his
work. Despite encouragements to die, the slender volume of posthumous
verse still lives and seems destined to have permanent place in
American literature.
Russell's place in our literary history does not depend solely on
the estimation put on his own work but is assured by the fact of
his influence on those he preceded in this new field. Joel Chandler
Harris was one of the first to recognize the genius of Russell and
he doubtless looks upon the power of the young poet as one of the
formative influences of his life. Likewise Thomas Nelson Page delights
to ascribe to the Bard of the Quarters the inspiration of his own
literary life.
It will be remembered that in sketching the English Romantic Movement
the fact was recorded that the boys Warton and Chatterton occupied a
place of prescience with regard to these new ideas. It will be worth
while calling to mind that Irwin Russell's relation to the Southern
Romantic Movement was much the same. Already at sixteen years of age,
he had begun to write and ten years later he had completed his work and
returned his talents to him who gave them.
The parallel to be drawn between the life of Chatterton and of Russell
is interesting if not suggestive of actual brotherhood of thought.
As mere boys they both began to write verse. They both made use of a
medium other than mother tongue. Chatterton manufactured for himself a
speech we cannot do better than describe as the Rowley dialect; Russell
put into form the rude speech of the negro with whom he had grown up;
yet he had no help in the difficult work of transcriber.
Chatterton found the tasks set for him in a lawyer's office unbearable
while there was poetry in his mind to be written down; Russell was
actually admitted to the bar but the Muse of Letters had marked him
for her own and the courtroom knew him no more. Breaking away from the
bondage of legal drudgery, Chatterton went with high hopes from Bristol
to London where for a few short months "the unhappy boy" strove against
starvation only at last to be overcome in the struggle for living.
Russell left Port Gibson and went to New York to enter upon a literary
life but after buffetings not a few, he at last entered into the
eternal rest not vouchsafed on earth to that weary, outworn body.
Chatterton may be granted place as forerunner of that noble body of
poets who have had part in making the poetry of the Nineteenth Century
as distinct contribution to English literature. Before Irwin Russell
there were, indeed, fore-gleams of the day that was to dawn, but it may
not unfairly be urged that he was the first to turn his camera on one
section of our Southern life and give us a picture that has cause to
be enumerated among the monuments which must be consulted as primary
authorities by the historian who will picture the life and thought of
the Southern people.
WILLIAM WARD, A MISSISSIPPI POET ENTITLED TO DISTINCTION.
BY DABNEY LIPSCOMB
A gentleman of advanced age, ripe culture, and extensive knowledge
of the literature of the State, was asked, "Who is the best poet
Mississippi has produced?" Promptly he replied, "William Ward of
Macon." Respect for the opinion of the one who so unhesitatingly
adjudged this pre-eminence among the poets of the State led to a study
of William Ward's life and poetry, the result of which is now presented.
At the outset, however, let it be understood that the purpose of
this essay is not to establish Mr. Ward's supremacy as a poet.
Classifications of this kind in literature and elsewhere are generally
unsatisfactory and often invidious, for excellencies that vary greatly
in kind are not to be measured in degree. Some would doubtless accord
pre-eminence to Irwin Russell for his humorous, sympathetic pictures
of the quaintly sage and irrepressibly happy old-time plantation
negro. Others would as likely claim this honor for James D. Lynch of
West Point, who, against over two hundred poets of America, won for
himself and his State, by unanimous vote of the committee of awards,
the proud distinction of welcoming the nations of the world to the
great Columbian Exposition, and afterward of having his salutation ode
adopted as the Press Poem of America. Of him and his works more will be
said on another occasion. Other classes in attempts at gradation would
prefer this one or that one for reasons as different as the peculiar
merits of the poet or the tastes of the admirers.
Panegyric cannot perpetuate a reputation. If so, Tupper, whose fame was
predicted, would live as long as the language, would now be more than
a name. Joanna Baillie, too, whom even Sir Walter Scott describes as
sweeping her harp
Till Avon's swans--
Awakening at the inspired strain,
Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again,
--where is she? Mindful of the futility of claiming for an author
more than is warranted, no eulogy will be offered, extravaganza will
be avoided. On the contrary, that criticism will be eschewed which
"damns with faint praise" what is cordially admired, fearful lest
others may not assent. William Ward and his poems shall speak largely
for themselves; knowledge of the man and his work being sufficient,
it is believed, to justify the claim that he is a poet entitled to
distinction.
Like many others who have reflected honor on the State, he was a son
of Mississippi by adoption, a New Englander by birth. Son of William
and Charlotte Ward, he was born in August, 1823, at Litchfield,
Connecticut, an historic village, the early home of the Beechers; once
noted also for its famous law school, attended by many from the South,
John C. Calhoun among the number. Scarcely less was it famous for
the beauty of the surrounding scenery and for the aristocracy of its
leading families, who boasted their descent from old English houses as
much as did the Virginians of their Cavalier and the Carolinians of
their Huguenot ancestry. Social aristocracy in New England was a more
prominent feature of life there than is commonly supposed. Among the
leading families of Litchfield was that of the Wards. William, father
of the subject of this sketch, was a jeweler by occupation, a man of
integrity and unusual intelligence; wealthy until middle life, when
it appears that reverses overtook him. For this reason his children,
excepting one, perhaps, did not receive a college education as was
intended. John became an Episcopal clergyman; Elias a jeweler, like his
father; Henry, sorely disappointed in not being able to attend Yale
College, scholarly, poetic, took reluctantly to printing an editorial
work; Mary Charlotte, literary in her tastes, married a wealthy
gentleman, traveled in Europe, and wrote sketches of travel and a
number of poems. Of Henry Ward, a word more in passing to indicate more
fully the literary leaning of the family. At the age of thirteen, his
poem, "Novel Reading; or The Feast of Fiction," published in the local
paper, gave him notoriety and raised great expectations. Thwarted in
his college aspirations looking toward the ministry, he grew melancholy
and excessively reserved. After forty years of life as a practical
printer and editor, he left at his decease manuscripts in Greek, Latin
and Hebrew, versification of the Books of Job and Lamentations, and a
volume of hymns. His claim to the well-known hymn, "I Would Not Live
Always," generally accredited to William Augustus Muhlenberg, and also
to the poem, "Tell Me Ye Winged Winds," usually ascribed to Charles
Mackay, is set forth in Harpel's Poets and Poetry of Printerdom. In it,
too, may be found other poems by him and several by his sister Mary,
then Mrs. Webster.
But to William Ward, the youngest son, attention must now be turned
exclusively, with a glance first at the brief but important period
of his life spent in his boyhood home. Of those early days which
evidently left deep impression on his after life, less can be said
than could be wished. The beauty of the country about Litchfield must
have impressed him as it did Henry and Harriet Beecher, born amid
the same surroundings, ten or twelve years before him. Like them, no
doubt, he gazed with delight on the glorious sunsets which Mrs. Stowe
so enthusiastically describes, and roamed in perhaps the same mood the
woods in which they speculated whether Apollo had not there once built
his altars. He, too, wandered along the banks of crystal Bantam River
and dreamily watched the clouds as they hooded and un-hooded Mount Tom
in the hazy distance. Nature there surely must have been "meet nurse
for a poetic child."
His scholastic education was completed under the tuition of a
learned Episcopal clergyman whose private academy for boys was well
patronized. He was an insatiable reader and a fairly good student,
though his mind ran in literary lines rather than to the study of the
exact sciences. The classics he must have especially preferred, and
in them been carefully instructed, judging from the familiarity he
manifests in his poems with the mythology and literature in general of
Greece and Rome. Astronomy seems to have laid strong hold upon him; for
it held high place in his esteem in later life. He early gave evidence
of a poetic tendency, and some of his boyish effusions are said to
have possessed considerable merit. Intuition, environment, and reading
apparently combined to make of this New England lad a poet. What the
experiences of active life contributed in this direction, a look ahead
will show.
When only sixteen years of age, a great and unexpected change in his
plans and prospects occurred. He was urged by his brother Elias who had
gone South and set up in business at Columbus, Mississippi, to come
and learn under him the watch repairing and jewelry business. Though
his tastes and aptitudes led in opposite direction, the opening seemed
too favorable to be set aside. The invitation was accepted and bidding
adieu forever to the home of his love, with mingled enthusiasm and
trepidation the young man set out on his long journey to the South.
Embarking at New York on a sailing vessel, he reached Mobile, Alabama,
after a safe but lengthy voyage. Of the experiences of that voyage
which afterward gave coloring to some of his most poetic lines and of
the amusing incident attendant upon his arrival at Mobile notice cannot
now be taken.
Ten or twelve years of quiet busy life at Columbus, Mississippi
constitute the second distinct period in William Ward's comparatively
uneventful life. His letters home indicate that many of the sights and
incidents connected with life in that almost frontier land were new and
startling to the scholarly youth from staid Connecticut. By degrees
he became accustomed to his surroundings, and identified himself with
the society and business of the place. Modest and reserved in public,
with his friends he was ever a genial and interesting companion.
More student than mechanic, he would doubtless have preferred a
literary career. As it was, his literary tendency continued to assert
itself, and before attaining his majority verses from his pen began
to appear in print. At twenty or earlier he became a contributor to
the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, to which for ten years or more
thereafter he continued to furnish poems or themes chiefly classical
and patriotic. First in order of time of those that have been preserved
is "The Grave of Hale," which appeared in the issue of June 3, 1843. In
smooth and vigorous Spenserian stanzas, he protests against the neglect
of the martyr-patriot's grave.
"Alas! and hath no gentle honoring hand,
But that of Nature decked his tomb with flowers,
We mourn the heroes of some storied land,
And leave a cold and barren grave to ours."
Among other published poems of his early period indicative of his
devotion to the classic Muse, and of his ardent patriotism, may be
named "The Egean," "Greece," "The Bellman of '76," and "Our Own New
England."
These lines from the first two poems, written respectively in 1844 and
1845, but for the dates might seem to have been inspired by the result
of the late sad struggle between the Greeks and Turks:
"Bright sea! no more the naiad haunts
Thy pearl founts with a syren spell,
No sea-nymph on thy foam-bed pants,
Within her rainbow spawning cell,
The halo of departed years--
Sleeps like a dream upon thy sky,
While the dark curse of blood and tears
Is echoed back with freedom's sigh."
* * * * *
"Oh Greece! could ye but boast of Greeks the shame
That gathers o'er thee now would make thy altars flame."
For the tenderness and warmth of sentiment expressed therein, the
poem, "Our Own New England," merits more than simple reference to it.
The last stanza shows how thoroughly Southern in ten years he had
become. Friendships strong and lasting had been formed, and he was now
prominent among the citizens of a town that even then prided itself
on its culture. One of the intimate friends of Alexander K. McClung,
he has left an appreciative tribute to that powerful, but somber and
erratic genius.
In 1850 Mr. Ward removed to Macon; Mississippi, and there lived
till his death in 1887. Early in the fifties he married Miss Emilie
A. Whiffen, an estimable and highly cultured young lady of English
parentage, then teaching in a female institute at Crawford, Miss. The
Philadelphia _Courier_ contained a pleasant notice of the marriage,
from which this extract is taken: "We sincerely congratulate our
esteemed correspondent, William Ward, Jr., Esq., whose delightful
verses have enriched but too seldom our Poet's Corner, upon the
agreeable fact reported in our hymeneal department last week." These
were his halcyon days, during which he was prosperous and serenely
joyful in his home. In 1856, he built in the woods skirting the eastern
edge of the town the modest but tasteful little cottage in which he
spent the remainder of his days. To verse he seems to have given but
little time during those busy years; though occasionally he still
contributed a poem to the _Courier_ and to the Macon and Columbus
papers. Three daughters and a son came to increase his pleasures and
his cares. Meanwhile the war cloud lowered and the tempest broke in
fury on the land he had learned to love and call his own. But this
was little heeded in comparison with the calamity which befell him
in the midst of those dreadful days in the loss of his devoted and
helpful wife. His life "cleft in twain," as he expressed it, from
that time forward is thus described by one who knew and loved him:
"To his half-orphaned children he became father and mother. We have
seen him in his cottage home spending his evenings in the bosom of
his little family, assisting his daughters with their lessons, amusing
the children, looking after their comfort, and doing all in his power
to make them happy. Proud and sensitive, he bravely struggled through
poverty that came to so many Southern families; and though at times
obliged to add the office of housekeeper to that of bread-winner for
his young family, he never sank the dignity of a gentleman to the
servility of a drudge."
Under these circumstances, all the more honor is due to him that
after the war he spurned the offers of place and wealth extended by
carpet-bag leaders of the Republican party who knew of his Northern
birth. Instead of such a course, he became in 1870 editor of the Macon
_Beacon_, and was as pronounced a Democrat as he had been Whig in
former years. During intervals of work in his little shop he hurriedly
wrote his editorials; and might often be seen walking up and down
behind the counter evolving a poem or a prose reverie, oblivious to
his surroundings. But to poetry he gave no more time than, as he said,
he _must_. Outside the joys of companionship with books and with his
children, he could truly have exclaimed with Burns:
"Lease me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure,
My chief, amaist my only pleasure."
With his little ones, on Sundays, he walked in the woods hard by his
house; and on clear nights he often pointed out to them the stars and
constellations, and told them of the myths that cluster about Orion,
the Pleiads and other denizens of the nightly firmament. He had his
own telescope and frequently searched the heavens with it for hours.
"It is well," he says, "to look upon the Christmas skies when the most
glorious constellations of the year are gathered as at the world's
great festival. It will give us higher conceptions of life and tone
down excesses we too often indulge in through the anniversary week that
closes up the year."
But let us look more closely at the man himself and then give his work
such examination as time left us will admit. Tall, slender, erect in
carriage, clean shaven, with dark brown hair and eyes, rapid in his
movements, the scholar and the gentleman written unmistakably on every
lineament, and William Ward, the man, is as nearly portrayed as can
now be done; for except a little daguerreotype taken for his wife,
which has been lost, he sat for no other picture. Singularly reserved
and almost shy in public, with his children and with his intimate
friends he was delightfully communicative, a vein of quiet humor often
outcropping in his words and deeds.
Public life he generally avoided; offices which he might have held, he
would not accept, although urged upon him. A loyal, ardent Odd Fellow,
like Abou Ben Adhem, he "loved his fellow-man," and was loved by them
in turn. His addresses and poems on the anniversaries of this order,
and at decorations of the soldiers' graves were much admired. Though
educated for an Episcopal clergyman, he never united with the church,
at least in the South, more than as a vestryman for a time. It is to
be regretted that, with outward eye so quick to see and interpret the
true and beautiful, his eyes of faith could not discern more clearly
the full truth and beauty of God's written Revelation. If so, his
pathetic lines on "Hope," composed a few years after his wife's death,
would have had a more triumphant ring than is contained in the last two
stanzas. Elsewhere hopes shines brighter and faith soars on stronger
wings, as when in his "In Memoriam" poem to his wife, he sings:
"Still for this grief so desolate, so lone,
A solace for unmated hearts is given,
Another hand, another voice hath known
The symphonies of heaven."
In the sixty-fourth year of his age, at the season he loved best, the
Christmas-tide, December 27, 1887, the gentle spirit of William Ward
softly slipped from its earthly moorings. His body by loving hands was
tenderly laid to rest in the cemetery at Macon, his home for nearly two
score years.
His spirit still lingers with us, embodied in the songs which he sang,
now out of a glad, now out of an aching heart. Well has it been said
that a poet least of all needs a monumental pile. The Iliad towers high
above the Pyramids, and will outlast them by ages. William Ward has
left no Iliad; he sang not of the gods and demi-gods; he struck the
lyre, and not the full-resounding harp. Intuition, early environment
and scholastic training, as has been shown, combined to make of him a
poet. Life's dull and dark experiences seemed to repress but could not
suppress in him the "noble rage." Visions of beauty continually flitted
in his imagination; music from choirs, visible and invisible, seemed
ever to soothe and charm his troubled, lonely heart. Especially in
the closing years of his life was poetry a joy and comfort to him. As
the burdens of life were shifted to the shoulders of his children, he
found more leisure, it appears, and indulged more frequently in poetic
expression of the mood or thought that deeply stirred within.
As might be supposed, his poems are of as diverse themes and varied
measures as the moods and occasions which suggested them. In them may
be best shown the poet and to some extent the man; hence, they deserve
and, it is believed, will repay a full and close investigation. Hear
him first, as in patriotic strain, he invites the world to his adopted
land:
COME TO THE SOUTH.
Come to our hill-sides and come to our prairies,
Broaden our fields with the spade and the plow;
Bring us from Deutsche-land to gardens and dairies,
To household and kitchen the fraulein and frau;
Come from the birth-land of Goethe and Schiller,
Scholar and poet and teacher and priest;
Come where each acre of tilth needs a tiller,
And people the South with the strength of the East;
Bring you the songs and dance of Rhine-land
The legends and sports of your home if you will;
Give us the lays of your forest and vine-land,
With the strong arm of labor the artisan's skill.
Come from the cliffs where the sea-eagle fledges
His brood o'er the wild ocean-storm of the North,
Where the fisher-boats play round the moss-mantled ledges,
Where the sea-kraken sports and the maelstrom has birth;
Leave you the land where the treacherous glacier
Mocks you, blinded and chilled with its pitiless glare,
Where all save the mist-clouded rim of the geyser
In the impotent sunlight lies frozen and bare;
Where Hecla sits mailed like a desolate giant,
With his flame-covered crest and his foot-stool of snow,
O'er the storm-rended realm of the Viking defiant,
And the sea rolling red in his terrible glow.
We call you, O men of the kilt and the tartan,
From highland and lowland, from mountain and mere--
Though you feel for your country the love of a Spartan,
A sunnier home and a welcome is here;
Must you cling to the fields where the gorse and the heather
That bloomed for your grandsires still blossom for you?
Cannot hopes that await you here loosen the tether
Which a birthright descended has cast over you?
There is room, there is work for the peer and the peasant,
From the land of the shamrock, the olive, and vine,
You may lift up unquestioned the cross with the crescent,
Or the lilies of France with the thistle-bloom twine.
No prosy pen could have indited those picturesque and stirring lines.
In his Centennial Hymn, "The Victory of Peace," in "The Blue and the
Gray," "Under Two Flags," "Gettysburg" and other poems, his muse dons
American colors and echoes the national note of peace and unity.
"Now another flag is o'er us,
And the bitter hate that tore us,
From beneath its shadow falters,
Let us raise the olden altars,
Let us smite the wretch who palters
With the tie that binds forever
Those who lost and won together,
While their banners live in story,
Haloed with a common glory."
GETTYSBURG.
1863
* * * * *
We see those splendid columns sweep
Across the field. Men hold their breath;
Before them frowns the sullen steep,
Before and near is life or death.
* * * * *
They are not such as break and fly,
No laggards droop, no cowards quail,
Those only pause who drop and die
Beneath that storm of leaden hail.
* * * * *
'Tis sunset. For the Blue, a gleam
Of glory fills the dying day;
From clouds above that sunset stream
Another glory for the Gray.
1887
* * * * *
They meet again--not steel to steel,
But hand to hand and breast to breast,
Hailed by the cannon's peaceful peal--
The Blue the host, the Gray the guest.
* * * * *
And so they share--the brave and true,
The glory of that fateful day;
The Gray the glory of the Blue,
The Blue the glory of the Gray.
* * * * *
'Tis sunset. From yon heaven away
Fades every golden, purple hue;
O'er host and guest, the twilight gray
Blends with the evening sky of blue.
In "McMahon at Sedan" he strikes the martial measure with trumpet note.
Many more stirring war lyrics could not easily be found.
But his muse was also often pensive, and in that mood he softly sings
as if to himself alone. Among the best of these poems of reflection are
"A Memory," "Alone," "Nebulae," and "Look Up." In them the visions and
the melody evoked are often strangely beautiful and haunting; but a
depressing undertone like a sigh runs through them all.
The misty realm of dream-land lies before me,
O Sleep! in thine embrace,
What shadows from the past are flitting o'er me,
What mocking memories traced;
The dim procession, slowly wafted onward,
Prolongs the dreary moan
That finds an echo in that fated one word,
Alone! Alone!
From "The Master Thought" and "If Tongues Were Steel," the conclusion
might be drawn that a cynic set words to the tunes. The last stanza of
the first of these is keenly pointed and sadly near the truth:
"Still man, though born a Socrates or Nero,
If white with truth, or black with falsehood's taint,
Would rather gleam in marble as a hero,
Than glow on canvas, pictured as a saint."
His intense hatred of shams and fraud of every kind occasionally found
indignant voice; as
"O God! were all the lies distilled
From supple lips in cunning skilled,
Hell would be stretched and overfilled;
Aye, moulded in one burning curse,
'Twould wreck a shaken world; nay worse!
Would crush and damn a universe."
But these were transient and rare utterances. "Though far from the east
the youth had traveled, he still was Nature's priest." The boy dreamer
among the Connecticut hills is now a poet on the Southern prairies.
"And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended."
"The glory had not yet passed from earth." Nature beckoned him
continually, and gladly obedient to the summons, he sought her haunts,
caught the visions, heard her minstrelsies, and forgot the while his
burdens, his loneliness, and his long sorrow. Many of his poems in
whole or part might be cited in proof of this. Most prominent are "The
Dying Year," "The South Wind," and "The Night Storm."
For its rich setting and striking presentation of a common theme this
poem is reproduced entire:
THE DYING YEAR.
The year is dying as the dolphin dies,
Not with the ashen hue,
Death's signal color, ere the fading eyes
See dimly, darkly through
The waxen lids. No pallor creeps along
The earth and sky; no tone
Floats through the air like a funeral song,
Or like a dying groan.
The warm rich sunlight gilds the autumn trees
Whose gorgeous tints are spread,
Each toning each, and fringed with heraldries
Of purple, gold, and red
The crimson myrtle burns upon its stem
As though a heart of fire,
The yellow maple, like an oriflamme,
Lifts up its banner higher.
The oak is rich with russet, bronze and brown,
And there a purple crest
Gleams o'er the forest like a lifted crown
Some color-god has blest.
Loosed by the frost, the sumac's pallid leaves
Like yellow lance-heads fall,
While lights and shadows ever shifting weave
A net-work over all.
O queenly autumn! though you proudly lead
The old year to its death,
A glory comes and goes where'er you tread
With every dying breath,
The year is dying--dying as a king
Dies in his purple. Now
His shroud is woven, and its colors fling
A glory o'er his brow.
The cold, the night, the storm, were especially congenial to him. He
almost literally "kept open house" throughout the year; for he would
hardly permit his doors to be closed even in the coldest weather. On
his gallery he delighted to stand or walk and watch a thunder storm,
especially by night, as his graphic picture of "The Night Storm" fully
testifies. But nature in her gentler aspects was also at times very
attractive to him, as this stanza must suffice to show:
"O warm South Wind! awake and send
Across the sea that breath of thine,
And let its lotus fragrance blend
With the rich odor of the pine.
O'er land and sea your treasures bring,
From zones with health and beauty rife,
To youth the fullness of its spring,
To age, the aftermath of life."
Particularly noticeable, and often fascinating through their witchery
or weirdness are a number of Mr. Ward's poems. Of those through which
fancy sports most winsomely are "The Lake of the Golden Isle," "St.
Nicotine, a Christmas Phantasy," "Just Twenty-Two," and "Katie Did."
The last was extensively copied in the press and much admired. It will
bear another repetition.
KATIE DID.
Naughty Katie, saucy Katie,
Is your secret aught to me
That you hide it, nor divide it,
In a tree?
In a tree before the trellis,
Where I have a secret hid,
And provokingly you tell us,
Katie did,
Katie didn't,
Yes, she did,
No, she didn't,
Katie did.
Prithee, Katie, by what penance
Are you nightly doomed to be
Trilling to the quiet tenants
Of the tree,
Safely hidden from espial
Of what Katie said or did,
That incessant, shrill denial,
Katie did,
Katie didn't,
Yes, she did,
No, she didn't,
Katie did?
Little disputant, securely
Ambushed, from intrusion free,
Don't I see you so demurely
From the tree,
Peeping through the latticed branches.
Where the moon its arrows slid,
Piping forth with cunning glances,
Katie did,
Katie didn't,
Yes, she did,
No, she didn't,
Katie did?
Will you tell it, Katie, never?
Must it still a secret be?
And forever and forever
From the tree,
Will that answer shrill and lonely
Mock us with the secret hid,
With these accents varied only--
Katie did,
Katie didn't,
Yes, she did,
No, she didn't,
Katie did?
Somewhat more thoughtful but scarcely less charming is the little lyric
"Just Twenty-Two," which closes with the plea, "Leave me immortal at
sweet twenty-two."
With "The Neophyte" in 1851, the supernatural and mysterious elements,
traceable perhaps to Coleridge and to Poe, began to appear in his
poems, and became conspicuous in "The Burning Casque," "The Phantom
Train," and "The Ride of the Ku-Klux." At places in these, the breath
comes short and quick, and the nerves grow unsteady in the presence of
grotesque phantoms and direful mysteries. Few pass a real train without
a pause and look of mingled awe and admiration. A momentary glance at
"The Phantom Train" should certainly be taken:
On the track stood the engine cold and still,
For throttle and valve had ceased to thrill
With the giant power of the wizard steam.
I saw the track, by the lantern's gleam,
Far on the night, till it seemed to meet
In a point at the dim horizon's feet,
And there in the distance, faint and far,
Glimmered a blue and ghostly star.
Nearer and nearer it came and grew,
'Till it gleamed in a circle of ghastly hue.
* * * * *
By the Holy Saints! 'twas a gruesome sight
As ever came from the womb of night--
A spectral train that, nigher and nigher,
Was whirled on its silent wheels of fire.
"The Ride of the Ku-Klux" is even more gruesome and fantastic, but the
appearance of those terrible night regulators cannot satisfactorily be
shown by a brief extract.
Several poems of personal character deserve notice for both their merit
and the associations connected with them. The noble lines to George
Peabody may be found in Harpel's "Poets and Poetry of Printerdom," to
which reference has been made. In it, too, are published "The Blue and
the Gray," "The Frosted Pane," and "The Ride of the Ku-Klux." It is
unfortunate that a poem which elicited the following interesting note
cannot be designated, perhaps is lost:
New York, March 11, 1872.
Dear Sir:
I thank you for the privilege of reading your beautiful poem, and
regret that I could not have been its inspiration. I wrote once a poem
for the Atlantic entitled "The Heart of the War," but never one with
the title of yours. You will pardon me, I am sure, for relieving you of
the burden of a mistake which was very complimentary to me.
Yours very truly,
J. G. HOLLAND.
Shakespeare and Dickens were particular favorites of Mr. Ward's, one of
his last purchases of books being a new set of each of these authors.
For Byron also, as a poet, he entertained a high regard; but perhaps
the literary character whom he loved the most was Oliver Wendell Holmes
to whom on his seventy-fifth birthday he addressed an affectionate and
admiring tribute, which called forth this response from the genial
Autocrat:
Beverly Farm, Mass., Oct. 5, 1884.
My Dear Sir:
I beg you to accept my sincere thanks for your very pleasant lines. I
am sorry they were too late for the birthday number of The Critic; for
they would have been reckoned among the best and most graceful of all
that were sent. Believe me,
Gratefully yours,
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
The most popular poem, however, of this class is one dedicated to Wyatt
M. Redding, the telegraph operator who during the yellow fever epidemic
of 1878 bravely died at the post of duty in the plague stricken city
of Grenada. For its historical as well as poetical value it should be
preserved.
WYATT M. REDDING.
GRENADA, 1878.
Click, Click
Like the beat of a death-watch, sharp and quick,
From hearts that are stifled and lips that are dumb
With the lightning's speed, and the lightning's thrill,
The dark words go and come:
Click, click, and a pulse is still--
There's a form to shroud and a grave to fill,
For the Yellow Death is upon the air,
And the city lies in the clutch of Despair.
Not less a hero than he whose plume
Goes blood-stained down in the conflict's gloom,
Not less a martyr than those who slake
A blood-thirst, bound to the burning stake,
Is he who stands as the last defence
Against the shock of the pestilence.
Click, Click
His heart is strong and his fingers quick,
'Tis a fearful work of hand and brain,
Each click is a groan, each word is a pain,
But he falters not in the fight with death,
Even under his wings as he breathes his breath,
The shrouded city before him lies,
And the dead drop down 'neath the burning skies,
Never a smile, or a word to cheer,
Brightens his eye, or falls on his ear,
All is dreary and all is dumb,
Save the hourly wail from a stricken home.
Click, Click
'Tis the only hope where the dead are thick,
Where the living strewn by the plague's hot breath
Are sown with the ripening seeds of death.
Still, the hero-boy at his key-board stands,
And many a far off city feels
The thrill of the wire, and its mute appeals,
And hands are stretched from the East and West
Their upward palms with a blessing blest,
As it comes to those who meet their doom
Like scorched leaves struck by the hot simoon.
Click, Click
Like the beat of a death-watch, sharp and quick,
'Tis the last note struck, 'tis the first wild touch
He gives the key, as he feels the vague
An creeping chill of the deadly plague.
Ere its burns with the strength of its fever clutch.
He falters, falls, and his work is done,
And the fiend has marked his victim won,
Not long he dallies with those who fall
Beneath the curse of his yellow thrall,
O city, beneath his merciless sway,
Mourn, mourn, for your hero dies today.
Passing several poems of genuine humor and two or three more lengthy
ones of epic cast and tragic interest, this appreciation of William
Ward's life and poetry, though incomplete must find an end. What poetry
in the abstract is, the world has not yet determined, and probably
never will. Whether it be "the rhythmical creation of beauty" or the
"lyrical expression of emotion," or both; whether its end be truth or
beauty or merely sensuous delight, one or all, each will decide for
himself, according as he is provincial or cosmopolitan in his culture.
What is poetry to one is doggerel or riming prose to another. "The
Ring and the Book" is intolerable to many who enjoy "The Idylls of
the King." Wordsworth is for the most part childish or meaningless to
numbers who delight in Scott or Byron. Where Poe is lauded, Whitman
very likely will be scouted.
Individual estimates of William Ward's poems will, therefore, vary
according to the tastes and training of the reader. But it can hardly
be doubted that they will appeal strongly to a majority of the lovers
of true poetry. If imagery be preferred, it is conspicuous throughout
his verse; if emotion be specially sought for, it too in almost every
type pulsates in these poems; if music be the criterion, in that also
they will not be found wanting, for the melody and harmony of most of
them is a striking characteristic. That they might be judged on their
own merits, and not so much on the opinion of one who might be deemed
more advocate than critic, fuller selections by way of illustration
have been offered than would have been the case, if the poems could
readily be found. They were published mostly in the Philadelphia
American Courier, the Macon Beacon, and the New Orleans Times-Democrat,
and have not been collected in book form, as it is earnestly hoped they
yet will be. Better known, it is confidently believed that they will
place their author high on the roll of Southern poets.
As a summary and a conclusion, the following Report of the Committee
on Necrology to the Press Convention of Mississippi in 1888 is here
appended:
"One of the oldest members of this association, who had not an enemy on
earth, the urbane, genial and ever agreeable William Ward is with us
no more. Those of us who knew and loved him for his big heart and true
manly worth, will sadly miss his gentle footfalls, cheerful face, and
warm hand-clasp as we meet in our annual conventions. The voice of him
who sang songs of love, devotion, and duty, is as silent as the marble
shaft that marks his resting place.
"Born in a New England village up among the hills of old Connecticut
in 1823, Mr. Ward came South when a youth of tender years, to seek a
home in the land of sunshine and flowers, fit prototypes of his own
sunny self. A poet by nature and a writer of purest English, he gave
to the press some of the sweetest poetic gems that have graced the
literature of the South; and his poems addressed to or read before our
press conventions were always regarded as the chief features of an
entertainment. With them he was wont 'to set the table in a roar,' or
draw tears from the eyes of the most obdurate. He wrote his name high
on the scroll of fame, and through all the vicissitudes of life, from
the days of his early manhood when struggling to support a growing
family to the evening of his declining years when surrounded by the
comforts of life, that name remains as pure as a star, as unsullied as
the snowflakes falling in mid-heaven. In all the relations of life,
William Ward was ever a true and honorable man, loving and beloved by
all who came within the circle of his acquaintance.
"Let the recollections of this New England youth who cast his lot with
the South, and who lies buried in its soil ever remain fresh and green
in our heart of hearts; and now let us pluck a flower from the chaplet
of memory, and tenderly lay it upon his hallowed grave."
SHERWOOD BONNER--HER LIFE AND PLACE IN THE LITERATURE OF THE SOUTH.
BY ALEXANDER L. BONDURANT, A. M. (HARVARD)
The life of Sherwood Bonner illustrates the union of the subtle
elements, ancestral traits and personal qualities, which, distilled by
the alchemist, Dame Nature, in her alembic produce the individual.
Her father, Dr. Charles Bonner, was born in Ireland, but his family
left their ancestral home when he was quite young, and settled in
Pennsylvania. When he arrived at man's estate, he left the North,
and like Prentiss and Boyd turned his face Southward. He reached
Mississippi in "Flush Times," and was content to dwell there, for he
found a cultured, refined people, who recognized in him a kindred
spirit.
In her novel, "Like Unto Like," Sherwood Bonner thus describes the home
of his adoption: "The climate was delicious. Winter never came with
whirl or wind and wonder of piling snow, but as a temperate king with
spring peeping to meet him, before autumn's rustling skirts had quite
vanished round the corner. Yet there was not the monotony of eternal
summer. Winter sometimes gave more than hints of power to the pert
knaves of flowers who dared to spring up with a wave of their blooming
caps in his face; and the peach-trees that blossomed too soon were apt
to get their pale pink heads enclosed in glittering ice-caps, through
which they shone with resplendent beauty for a day then meekly died.
Even a light snow fell at times; and everybody admired it and shivered
at it, and said the climate was changing, and built great wood-fires,
and tacked list around the doors, and piled blankets on the beds, to
wake in the morning to find sunshine and warmth--and mud. But for the
most part, the days, one after another, were as perfect as Guido's
dancing hours."
She thus speaks of the people whom both she and her father loved: "They
had the immense dignity of those who live in inherited homes, with the
simplicity of manner that comes of an assured social position. They
were handsome, healthy, full of physical force as all people must be
who ride horseback ---- and do not lie awake at night to wonder why
they were born. That they were Southerners was, of course, their first
cause of congratulation. After a Northern tour they were glad to come
home and tell how they were recognized as Southerners everywhere--in
the cars, shops, and theatres. They felt their Southern air and accent
a grace and a distinction, separating them from a people who walked
fast, talked through their noses, and built railroads."
The young physician found the sun which caused the flowers to bud, to
blossom, to give forth rich fragrance not less kind to the daughters
of the Southern village whither he had journeyed; but one seemed to
him fairer than all the rest, and he sought to make her his own. Miss
Mary Wilson is said to have been both lovable and beautiful. Fortune
favored his wooing so they were soon wedded. Their means were ample and
Dr. Bonner retired from the active practice of his profession, dividing
his time between the management of his estate, and the dispensing of
an elegant hospitality in his own home. He was always a great lover of
books and possessed a fine mind, but had no ambition beyond his class;
and while believing in and honoring woman to the highest degree, he
thought her place to be the home.
His library was large and carefully selected, and he directed in large
measure the reading of his family. We surmise that the daughter is
giving an episode in her own life when she has Blythe Herndon tell
Roger Ellis that she never disobeyed her father's injunction about
books but once, that having exhausted everything else in the library,
she climbed up to the forbidden shelf and took from it a copy of "Tom
Jones." But, says Blythe, "papa scolded; to this day I have never known
whether Tom married Sophia." Dr. Bonner was an honorable, courteous,
cultured gentleman, another Thomas Dabney. The daughter being asked
by Mr. Harper, of Harper and Brothers, where she obtained such a fine
command of English, replied with great dignity, "In my father's house."
From her father Sherwood Bonner inherited her love for books, and her
keen sense of humor, her best gift from the gods; from her mother came
beauty and a charming femininity.
Five children were born to Dr. and Mrs. Bonner; Katharine Sherwood,
born February 26, 1849; Ruth Martin, now Mrs. David McDowell, who lives
at Holly Springs, Mississippi; Samuel Wilson, who died of yellow fever
in '78; and two other children, who died in infancy.
The family residence built by Dr. Bonner is still standing. It is a
commodious brick mansion, built in Gothic style, with a wide portico in
front, and ample windows opening to the floor. The house stands well
back from the street, surrounded by a spacious lawn. One enters a wide
hall, and on the left is seen the library, where in winter a wood fire
is kept burning. The room is a very charming one, and afforded a most
appropriate setting for the writer at her desk. This room is connected
with the hall by folding doors. On the right is the drawing-room.
One seeing the fair haired baby-girl in this luxurious, well-ordered
Southern home, would probably have said that she was destined to
become what her mother before her had been, charming, well read,
and, according to prevailing standards, educated. But in addition
to these inherited qualities, Sherwood Bonner possessed that strong
individuality that made her a writer. As a child she was fond of play,
but she loved books and stories better still, and games ceased to
charm, if gran'mammy consented to tell her the story of the wonderful
adventure of "Breer Rabbit" and "The Tar Baby," or some of his other
escapades, or if her papa came in bringing her a fresh volume of fairy
stories.
Her first effort at original composition was while she was still
wearing pinafores. It came about in this way: she and a playmate lost
their temper, and, forgetting that they were little gentlewomen, began
to fight like two waifs with no family dignity to uphold. Kate got
her frock torn, and later when her mother asked her the cause of the
quarrel, she handed her a paper, with a tragic air, saying, "read this,
it will tell you all."
She was not universally popular as a child, for she manifested a
precociousness that separated her, in large measure, from her kind;
but she attracted strongly those whom she really liked and was, at
an early age, the queen of a little coterie of her own. In childhood
she was distinguished for loyalty, a ready wit and a keen sense of
humor; qualities that made the warp and woof of her nature, and but
strengthened when the maid was merged in the woman.
Her education was conducted under her father's eye, and as he pressed
the chalice to eager lips, little did he guess that he was entertaining
genius unawares. At school she could not have been accounted a hard
student. Her mind slaked its thirst at the pure fountain of the muses;
history was a joy, literature a delight, and the composition, a task
hated by most of her schoolmates, a pleasant pastime; but she looked
askance at the sciences, and pronounced life too short for geometry.
During her last year at school she wrote an allegory. It is the work
of a tyro in art, but was regarded by her schoolmates a remarkable
production.
The morning of her life was bright, and with father, mother, sister,
brother, around the family hearth, each passing day brought added
happiness. Even the dark clouds that began to lower in the North, ere
she passed the limits of girlhood, did not bring sadness, for she
with many older heads in the South failed to comprehend what these
foreshadowed. But she was now to receive the baptism of sorrow, and to
gain through suffering needed training and added strength.
"Who tears to other eyes would bring
Must first have tasted sorrow."
She was just sixteen, she had written something and it had been
accepted, her heart was aglow with visions of the future, when the
desolating blow fell upon her home. The much loved mother was taken
from her, the rude shock and turmoil of war being too much for that
gentle spirit.
We find this entry in Sherwood Bonner's scrapbook in her own hand:
"First story ever published, aged fifteen, _Boston Ploughman_, twenty
dollars." Underneath, the story is pasted in. It was called "Laura
Capello, A Leaf from a Traveler's Notebook." It is a mystery story,
highly melodramatic and crude, but containing the promise of a rich
fulfillment as the bud contains the rose. It deals with the lot of a
young girl whose life is the fruit of unhallowed love. The scene is
laid in Italy, the land of mystery, and the story is given to the world
by a young American artist, whom a capricious fate enmeshes, and make
an unwilling actor in the drama. The sketch shows dramatic power, and
abounds in vivid description.
Mr. Nahum Capen, the author of "The Republic of the United States,"
"History of Democracy," and other works, was at this time connected
with _The Ploughman_. He was the friend of Longfellow, Lowell and
Emerson, and was selected by Hawthorne as the first one to read his
first book, which appeared anonymously. He was the intimate friend
and adviser also of Irving. Under his tutelage Sherwood Bonner first
essayed Grub street, and he never ceased to take a keen interest in
her, and was to the day of her death her trusted adviser and friend.
He urged her to write, and encouraged her work with kindly, but
discriminating words of praise. "Laura Capello" was followed by "A
Flower of the South," published in a musical journal. Somewhat later
a piece called "An Exposition on one of the Commandments" was sent to
_Frank Leslie's Journal_.
In 1871, Sherwood Bonner became the wife of Mr. Edward McDowell, a
gentleman of refinement and liberal culture; like his wife he was a
native of Holly Springs. The young wife assumed with earnestness the
responsibilities of the new life and when her husband determined to
try his fortune in the frontier state of Texas, she went with him
into a country that was little better than a wilderness. But the
venture failed and the young people returned to Holly Springs poorer
in purse than when they left. A daughter was born to them, and for
her child henceforth the mother in large measure seemed to live. Like
George Sand, she found in motherhood love's deepest expression. At
this crisis of affairs, the young wife and mother recalled her talent,
and remembering the kind words that had come to her from Boston, she
determined to go thither, and try her fortune with her pen. In Boston
she became a member of Mr. Capen's family, and under his eye, and with
his encouragement, continued her work.
She had the gift of clear vision, and at once perceived that the
defects of her early training must be overcome if she was to write
that which the world would read; so she studied closely, books, men
and manners. The North received her lucubrations with a criticism that
was in the main kindly, and ere long she had made for herself a place
in "The Moral Lighthouse" as she playfully denominates Boston. After
several years she was able to have with her her child and the aunt
who since her mother's death had striven to supply her place. But she
counted that she was only sojourning in the North. The place of her
birth she ever spoke of as "home," and a portion of each year she spent
amidst the dear familiar scenes.
Soon after going North she met the poet Longfellow. He recognized
her talent, became her warm personal friend, and lent her aid and
encouragement in her work. She in turn seemed to impart new vigor
to the white-haired poet. She became his private secretary and
collaborator. At her suggestion he compiled "Poems of Places, Southern
States," and she assisted in this work. It is a quaint conceit of the
poet which causes him to treat the South as a separate country. In that
interesting book, "Poets' Homes," appears a description of Longfellow's
home written by her. It is given the place of honor in the book, but
by a strange oversight no credit is given to the author. In one of her
early letters from Boston, published in the _Memphis Avalanche_ she
writes: "A great man and a poet, who enjoys the additional distinction
of being my very good friend, read my first letter written for your
columns, with an evident amusement, which he made a commendable effort
to suppress. 'This is too bad,' frowned he, between smiles, 'don't do
it again. Write about the good side of Boston next time.'"
She wrote a number of letters for Southern newspapers in a style that
the ordinary newspaper man would strive in vain to emulate, though
she regarded the letters as mere potboilers. They give interesting
accounts of the happenings in Boston, and her impressions of Boston's
great men: Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Wendell Holmes and
Wendell Philips. She says of Boston: "For the native Bostonian there
are three paths to glory. If his name be Quincy or Adams, nothing more
is expected of him. His blue blood carries him through life with glory
and straight to heaven when he dies. Failing in the happy accident of
birth, the candidate for Beacon Hill honors must write a book. This is
easy. The man who can breathe Boston air and not write a book is either
a fool or a phenomenon. One course remains to him should he miss fame
in both these lines. He must be a reformer."
She thus speaks of her meeting with Mr. Emerson: "The unaffected charm
of Mr. Emerson's manner soon restored me to my normal serenity, and the
interview progressed delightfully for both of us. He has the purest and
most refined face I have ever seen, and his smile is something to be
remembered forever. Of course we spoke of the South, and he expressed
the opinion that the Southern man had a more elegant manner and a finer
physical frame than the Northerner, but must generally yield the palm
in intellect. And to this I assented sorrowfully enough, recalling as I
did, the small returns from the stock I took in a certain Philo club,
where I spent the ambrosial evenings of my life and pinned my faith to
several masculine coat sleeves of intellectual giants pro tempore,
who would have brought my tawny hair down in sorrow to the grave--if I
hadn't taken the pin out.
"Mr. Emerson has a way of looking off into the distance as he speaks
or listens which is very poetic and beautiful. I liked it, but yet I
was not happy, for I had a knot of purple violets in my hair, and I
distrusted this way of appreciating them. I don't wear violets every
day; nor for the Colonel who talks politics to me; nor for the young
preacher who propounds chemical conundrums. And so they meant something
in this case! perhaps to subtly express the homage of a Southern heart,
that I had no skill to put into words. I dare say, however, the great
man received a general impression of sweetness and perhaps it is well
he did not trace it to outside influences.
"On the whole, Mr. Emerson personally strikes me as one who might
falsify that comprehensive saying that no man is a hero to his valet,
as I cannot imagine him under any circumstances other than the
consistent high-toned man, who beyond all scholarship and learning
'Still may hear without abuse
That Grand old name of gentleman.'"
She thus describes her impressions of Carl Schurz, the occasion on
which she saw him being a Sumner memorial meeting: "He is German
in accent but not in appearance. His full whiskers are red, not
blonde. And his features have none of the Teutonic heaviness, but
are rather characterized by the sagacious sharpness of the American.
The eulogy was very fine, and repeated bursts of applause testified
to the enthusiasm of the audience. Most especially I must note the
warm and hearty reception accorded that part of the address in which
Mr. Schurz spoke of the noble and manly stand taken by Mr. Lamar, of
Mississippi, and paid a just tribute to his brilliant eloquence, which
was especially grateful to my Southern pride."
In the following paragraph she gives her Southern readers a pen picture
of her poet friend:
"Longfellow was there from his beautiful historic home. Bret Harte
calls him his 'ideal poet,' and as one looks upon his gracious,
benignant face, framed in silvery hair, and reverently notes the broad
thoughtful brow, and the eyes from which love toward all mankind seemed
to beam, it is easy to comprehend how the perfect harmony between the
man and his works should win from one, a poet himself, the highest
praise he could possibly bestow."
In her stories Longfellow suggested that she write of the life around
her, but she chose, and wisely, the life of the South that she knew
best, and the poet admitted in the end that her instinct had led her
aright. Before '76 she wrote some of the "Gran-mammy Stories" and other
short sketches that found a ready sale. Longfellow said that she would
be "the American writer of the future."
Eleven years after "Laura Capello" was written its author visited the
scenes where the plot was laid. She enjoyed deeply this foreign travel,
and has left a partial record of it in her letters published in Boston
and Southern papers, and in her private correspondence. She writes thus
to a friend from Rome: "I am living every hour, never have I known days
of such enchantment; Roman violets that make the air sweet, Roman fleas
that bite with a Swinburne ardor, Roman donkeys that bray in the early
morning, Roman shops that bewilder with their gems, shopmen who will
make you buy whether you will or no; even in these delights I revel,
so what can I say of the pictures, the statues, the ruins of Rome? Do
you remember how my Lilian exhausted her raptures after the first layer
of her box, and sat afterwards in a mute adoring ecstasy? Think of
Lilian's mother in the same position."
Several days were spent by her party at a little coast town in France.
At times the hours lagged, so the little group, like the young people
in the _Decameron_, devised game and story to amuse themselves.
Sherwood Bonner showed herself the most fruitful of device, and
became the leader in the sport. She devised a game that was played
with avidity. The loser each time was supposed to pay the forfeit by
taking his life with his own hands. A wan young Scotsman who had been
"Ordered South" chanced to be one of the party and participated in the
game. For the rest it was a pleasing pastime, but for him it had a
tragic suggestion, for at that time Robert Louis Stevenson--it was no
less than he--had begun that hand to hand conflict with disease that
terminated fatally twenty years later. It is thought that he received
from this game the suggestion of that very unusual story of his, "The
Suicide Club."
Home at last came this busy working bee after her flitting in distant
lands. "The Crest of the White Hat," "Rosine's Story," and other
sketches show the effect of this foreign travel. The years following
were filled with hard work; ever attaining, but never quite satisfied,
she strove to make each piece better than the last. During this period
she wrote a clever characterization in verse of "The Radical Club,"
which set all Boston to laughing.
Sometimes she had her hours of despondency as when she wrote a friend,
"Put up a tablet for me in case I join the mermaids and write on it,
Death came to set me free,
I met him cheerily
As my true friend."
During the summer of '78 yellow fever raged in many parts of the South.
The citizens of Holly Springs with a noble disregard for consequences
offered an asylum to the refugees from the stricken town of Grenada; in
this way the plague was introduced, and of the first hundred who took
the fever only ten survived.
Sherwood Bonner was in the North at the time, but she at once hurried
to Holly Springs to urge her loved ones to seek a place of safety. But
the old physician would not go and his son remained with him; they were
soon stricken with fever; she nursed by their bedside during the weary
hours of their sickness and they died in her arms on the same day. She
escaped the disease, but left Holly Springs broken in health from her
constant vigils, and wounded in spirit. She wrote an account of the
plague for _The Youth's Companion_, from which the following extract
is taken: "It is not alone to see loved ones die; it is to dread their
dying kiss. It is not to watch the dear dead face until the coffin
lid is closed above it, but to turn, shuddering, from the face where
you can see waves of change follow each other, until it has become a
yellow transfigured mask. It is not to see the folded hand clasping
flowers, the dear forms enshrouded in fresh grave-clothes, nor to see
them laid away with prayers uttered above them and friends standing
by with uncovered heads, but it is to know--with what intensity of
horror!--that these forms are changed to a poison so deadly, that death
can be tasted in the air around them, and love itself shrinks from
rendering its last sad offices. It is to know that they are buried,
wrapped hastily in sheets, sometimes uncoffined, hurried to deep
graves, without friends, or mourners, or care, by hirelings, who slight
and dread their task."
After the publication of "Like unto Like" she found ready publishers.
Mr. Conant, the editor of _Harper's Weekly_, said to her, "I accept
your articles now without reading them in advance, your signature is
enough." Enduring fame was hers if she could only live to grasp it,
but ere the noon hour was reached, the worker was laid low. She began
to feel the approach of an insidious disease, which she strove in vain
to throw off. Not wishing to distress her loved ones she spoke of it
to only a few friends, who finally persuaded her to consult the best
medical authority. The physician when he saw her perfect physique
expressed his surprise at her coming. He made the examination, but
hesitated to state the result. She would have the whole truth and he
pronounced her death sentence, telling her that she had but a single
year of life. She met her fate with fortitude, and determined to make
the most of the few remaining months, in order to provide a competency
for the loved ones that she must soon leave.
She worked on to the very gates of death, her courage never forsaking
her; and even when her good right hand was useless she continued to
dictate to an amanuensis, and was satisfied with nothing short of the
best work.
February 14, 1883, she wrote:
A LONGED-FOR VALENTINE
Come to my aching heart, my weary soul,
And give my thoughts once more their vanquished will;
That I may strive and feel again the thrill
Of bounding hope, to reach its fartherest goal.
Not Love, though sweet as that which Launcelot stole,
Nor Beauty, happy as a dancing rill,
Nor Gold poured out from some fond miser's till,
Nor yet a name on Fame's immortal scroll--
But what I ask, O gracious Lord, from Thee,
If to Thy throne my piteous cry can reach,
When stricken down like tempest-riven tree,
Too low for prayer to wreak itself in speech,
Is but the fair gift--ah, will it e'er be mine?
My long lost Health for my dear Valentine.
A dear friend writes of the closing days of her life: "During her
hours of suffering, her bravery, her patience, and her heroism were
extraordinary. One who watched by her dying bed said: 'I have seen her
smile when it would have been a relief to see her cry.' She uttered
no complaint and no one heard her repine. One day she gaily asked her
friends what would be a suitable inscription for her tomb-stone; and
from several that had been suggested she selected this, 'She was much
loved.' Surely no words could furnish a more fitting epitaph for the
young life that had done so much, enjoyed so much, suffered so much, in
a little more than thirty years." The end came July 22, 1883.
Sherwood Bonner cast the witchery of her personal charm over all who
surrounded her. Nature formed her to command, to love and to be loved.
In childhood she was slight, but in womanhood she possessed a perfect
physique. Hers was no usual beauty; her features were refined, but not
regular: her complexion a delicate pink and white; expressive blue
eyes, her hair an indescribable shade of auburn and very heavy; an
exquisite mouth and chin; and a hand that would have been a sculptor's
joy.
The poet Longfellow in a poem dedicated to her thus describes her:
"A cloud-like form that floateth on with the soft undulating gait
Of one who moveth, as if motion were a pleasure."
Her heart was always true to the friends of her youth, and when they
visited the North she was ever ready to introduce them to the circle
of which she was so prominent a member. Adulation did not spoil her
for she had the artist's perception with her woman's heart. Hers was
a trenchant tongue and a stinging wit, but like the Venusian bard she
was quite as ready to hold up her own foibles to ridicule as those of
others.
She lived for her child, and nothing from her pen is more charming than
the references to her in letters to friends, hitherto unpublished. In
one of them she writes: "Now for my baby, she certainly is the most
perfect child in the world. No human being knows how I love the little
thing. Every plan of my life bears upon her future, and so long as she
is left me, nothing can ever make me unhappy again."
We may not judge of her literary work as of a finished product. It is
rather like a sculptor's dream that is but half realized. Lips are
parted as if for speech, eyes look wistfully towards the East; but the
figure is still restrained in its marble prison, and we wonder why the
sculptor was stricken, the task unfinished.
But this unfinished work was fraught with rich promise. She probably
wrote the first story of any writer that belongs to the distinctively
Southern school. She wrote before '77 some of "The Gran'mammy Stories,"
and these seem to be the first negro dialect stories published in a
Northern journal, and thus speaking to the whole country. She wrote in
'78 "Like unto Like," a story that has to do with the reconstruction
period. Into this field Cable came later, and Page selected it as a
fitting period in which to locate his most ambitious work, "Red Rock."
Only one writer before her had attempted to work this virgin soil,
Baker in "Colonel Dunwoddie, Millionaire." In this book she refers
to the "Tar Baby Story," which she published several years later in
_Harper's Monthly_. She wrote some excellent dialect stories of the
Tennessee mountains, thus doing pioneer work in a field which Miss
Murfree has made so peculiarly her own. She spent some time beginning
in 1880, in that portion of Illinois known as Egypt; and "On the
Nine-Mile," and "Sister Weeden's Prayer" illuminate this dark world.
These stories and a number of others were written in the dialect
peculiar to this region. Of "Sister Weeden's Prayer" in the "new"
dialect _The Nation_ spoke in most complimentary terms. She seems to
have been the first to give to the vernacular of this region literary
treatment, thus doing for Illinois what Eggleston and Riley have done
for Indiana.
Her principal writings may be grouped as follows: Early pieces,
'64-'73;--Letters from Boston and Europe, '74-'76;--Short Stories
published in periodicals between '73 and '83; a number of these were
collected after the death of the author and reprinted in a volume
entitled "Suwanee River Tales"[1] (There are many excellent sketches in
this little book, but the best are those in which Gran'mammy figures);
to this period of her life belong "Miss Willard's Two Rings,"[2] and
"From '60 to '65"[3];--"Like unto Like,"[4] a novel, "The Valcours,"[5]
a novelette, "The Revolution in the Life of Mr. Balingall,"[6] "Two
Storms,"[7] "A Volcanic Interlude,"[8] appeared between '78 and '83.
She wrote during these years besides, a number of dialect stories
dealing with negro character, the mountaineers of East Tennessee, and
the denizens of the Western prairie. "Hieronymus Pop and the Baby,"
"The Case of Eliza Blelock" and "Lame Jerry" are all strong sketches.
Some of these stories have appeared in book form.[9]
The "Gran'mammy Stories"[10] reveal with force and beauty the
characteristics of the old Southern "mammy," who deserves a modest
place with "The chaste and sage Dame Eurycleia" and fair Juliet's
nurse; and Sherwood Bonner has made posterity her debtor by preserving
the lineaments of this picturesque personage whose place formerly was
of so much consequence in the Southern home. But let the author unfold
her character:
"In our Southern home we were very fond of our old colored mammy, who
had petted and scolded and nursed and coddled, ---- yes, and spanked
us,--from the time we were born."
She was not a 'black mammy,' for her complexion was the color of clear
coffee; and we did not call her 'mammy' but 'gran'mammy' because she
had nursed our mother when a delicate baby,--loving her foster child, I
believe, more than her own, and loving us for our dear mother's sake.
She was all tenderness when we were wee toddlers, not more than able
to clutch at the great gold hoops in her ears, or cling to her ample
skirts like little burrs; but she showed a sharper side as we grew old
enough to 'bother round the kitchen' with inquisitive eyes and fingers
and tongues. I regret to say that she sometimes called us 'limbs' and
would wonder with many a groan and shake of her head, how we contrived
to hold so much of the Evil One in our small frames.
"'I never seed sich chillern in all my born days,' she cried one day,
when Ruth interrupted her in the midst of custard making, to beg leave
to get into the kettle of boiling soap that she might be clean once
for all, and never need another bath; while Sam, on the other side,
entreated that she would make three 'points' of gravy with the fried
chicken for dinner. (Sam always came out strong on pronunciation; his
very errors leaned to virtue's side.)
"'I 'clar to gracious,' said poor gran'mammy, 'you'll drive all de
sense clean outen my head. How Miss Mary 'xpec's me ter git a dinner
fitten fur white folks ter eat, wid you little onruly sinners _furever_
under foot, is mo' dan I kin say. An' here's Leah an' Rachel, my own
gran-chillern, a no mo' use ter me dan two tar babies.'
* * * * *
"As gran'mammy grew older, her manner softened; her love was less
fluctuating. It was she to whom we ran to tell of triumphs and sorrows;
she whose sympathy, ash-cakes and turnover pies never failed us. It was
she who hung over our sickbeds; who told us stories more beautiful than
we read in any books; who sang to us old-fashioned hymns of praise and
faith; and who talked to us with childlike simplicity of the God whom
she loved.
"During the troubled four years that swept like the hot breath of the
simoon over our country, she was true to the family. Her love, courage,
her faithful work, helped us to bear up under our heavy trials. And
when the gentle mother whose life had been set to such sweet music that
her spirit broke in the discords of dreadful war, sank out of life,
it was in gran'mammy's arms that she died; and neither husband nor
children mourned more tenderly for the beautiful life cut short."
"How Gran'mammy Broke the News" shows the tact of the faithful old
nurse in revealing to "Aunt Sarah" the fact that her soldier son, who
was reported to have been killed in battle, is alive and well, in fact
has but a few moments before arrived at that house. One of gran'mammy's
foster children is a witness of the scene. The little girl was for
going to tell her aunt as soon as her cousin arrived, but gran'mammy
said: "Stop, honey, stop; Miss Katie, you forgit. Don't you know dat
joy itse'f is sometimes more dan a breakin' heart kin bear? Mis' Sarah
is mighty frail; an' she mus' be made ready to meet dis shock, for dis
is jes as much a _shock_ as de lie dat struck her down. Blessed be de
Lord for sendin' de last so quick on de heels of de fust. * * * *
"Aunt Sarah's door was ajar. She was seated by the fire in an attitude
of utter dejection. Gran'mammy was bustling about the room, an
expression of perplexity on her dear old brown face. Presently with a
side-long glance at poor Aunt Sarah, gran'mammy began to sing softly.
I had never heard her croon anything but Methodist hymns. Now, to my
surprise, she broke forth in a chant that Miss Rose was very fond of
singing with us after vesper service Sunday afternoons, 'Praise de
Lord, O my soul! O my soul; and forget not all his benefits.'
"At first Aunt Sarah took no notice; but, at a louder, more vigorous,
'Praise de Lord, _Praise de Lord!_' she shook her head, as if a gnat
was buzzing about her ears, and looked at the singer with a dull look
of surprise in her weary eyes.
"'Gran'mammy _singing_!' she said, in a faint voice.
"Gran'mammy came and stood directly in front of my aunt. She tried to
laugh, but the tears tumbled out of her eyes so fast that she choked in
the effort to swallow them.
"'Why, yes, Mis' Sarah,' she at last manged to say; 'when my heart is
light with thinkin' of de goodness of de Lord I can no mo' help singin'
dan if I was a saint in heaven worshippin' at de throne.'
"'The goodness of God!' echoed Aunt Sarah, drearily; 'He has forgotten
mercy; He has turned His face from me; He has left me desolate and
forsaken in my old age.'
"'De Lord _never_ forgits,' said gran'mammy, solemnly; 'an' He never
fails to keep de promises He has made. Lean on me, Mis' Sarah. Rest yo'
po' tired head. Speak de name of yo' boy, honey. It'll do yer good ter
talk about him.
"'No, no, no!' said Aunt Sarah, shrinking back; 'I thought you loved
him, gran'mammy, but you could come to my room and sing. Go away, I do
not want you.'
"'I'll go, Mis' Sarah, in one little minute. Love Mars' Allan!
Why, wusn't my arms de fust ter hol' him--a little soft helpless
innocent--even before you held him to yo' own mother's heart? An'
from that very minnnit I loved him. I kin see him now, a little
white-headed boy, always runnin' ter his ole granmammy fur turnovers
an' ginger-cakes. Hevn't I watched him all through de years, growin'
as straight an' tall as a young poplar, full of his jokes, but with
never a mean streak in him, bless de Lord! An' den, Mis' Sarah, don't
you mind how he looked in his grey uniform, wid de gold lace on his
sleeves; an' how his eyes would kindle an' his voice ring out when he
talked of de country he loved next ter God?'
"'Gran'mammy! do you want to break my heart? Why do you torture me?'
And Aunt Sarah burst into such wild, wild tears that I was frightened.
"'Oh! my po' sweet mistis, I wants to _mend_ yo' heart, not break it;'
and gran'mammy, too, burst into tears, kneeling now by Aunt Sarah, with
her arms around her. 'I wants you to call ter mind jes' one thing--de
commandment given by de Lord to his people, _given wid a promise_. Kin
you say it over ter me?"
"'Honor thy father and thy mother,' said Aunt Sarah, like one in a
dream, 'and thy days shall be long in the land--'
"'Stop dar, Mis' Sarah,--_stop at dat promise_,' almost shouted
gran'mammy. 'Did Mars. Allan honor his father an' his mother?'
"'Always! Always! He never disobeyed us in his life. No son could have
been better or nobler.'
"_And thy days shall be long in the land_," cried gran'mammy, 'which
the Lord thy God giveth thee!' Now, Miss Sarah, jes _trust God_. He
won't break dat promise.'
"Words cannot do justice to the solemnity, the yearning tenderness, the
pathetic earnestness, that made the dear old woman like one inspired.
Wave after wave of feeling rolled over her face. I do not know how to
express it, but a sacred, even a _religious_ rapture seemed to hold
her in its possession. Strong feeling had exalted her, I felt as if I
should like to steal in and pray beside her. She still knelt, but she
kept her arms about the frail figure in the arm-chair.
"Wild, vague suspicions were evidently forming in Aunt Sarah's mind.
She looked at gran'mammy--a piteous, agonizing gaze. But gran'mammy's
eyes met hers with steady joy.
"'What do you mean?' she gasped huskily. 'In God's name, what do you
mean?'
"'I mean,--lean on me, dear, lean on me,--I mean dat if our blessed
Lord wus on earth today, an' we could kneel at his feet askin' de life
of our boy, he could not give it ter us. For Allan's grave has not been
dug, an' Allan is livin' not dead today.'
"'What have you heard?'
"'A messenger has come.'
"Then I saw a transformation. Aunt Sarah sprang up, the color and
light flashing into cheeks and eyes, the vigor and erectness of youth
restored to her shrunken and bowed figure. No longer a haggard old
woman,--like a girl she threw open the door, and swept past me without
a word."
"Gran'mammy's Last Gifts" has to do with the closing hours of her life.
The children that the old nurse had tended from infancy now gather
around her bed. She had her daughter look in her chest and take from
it a parcel. "The parcel was handed her, and taking off the outer
covering, a white one was revealed; then a third wrapper of silver
paper. Slowly, reverently, she unwound this; and there were two tiny,
high-heeled satin slippers, yellow with age, but dainty enough for
fairy feet.
"'De night your mother was married, honey,' said gran'mammy proudly,
"nobody waited on her but me. I unlaced de fine weddin' dress,--all
lace an' satin,--an' I put de white nightgown over her head. An' when
I took de slippers off her slim pretty feet, she flung her white arms
aroun' my neck, an' she says, "keep 'em gran'mammy, in memory o' dis
night." An' now, my chile, arter all dese years, I gives em ter you' de
fustborn, your dead mother's weddin' slippers.'
"I could not speak for my tears. Was there ever a gift so delicately
bestowed? I pressed the slippers to my heart kissing them and the
faithful black hands that had taken them from the little feet so many
years ago.
"'Now my little singin'-bird,' said gran'mammy to Ruth, 'I was boun'
you should remember me; so I jes' went to de picture man, an' here's my
ole black face for you to keep.'
"The likeness was perfect; and as Ruth warmly thanked her she sank back
wearily on the pillows.
"'I'm tired now,' she said, "Miss Ruthy, I'd like to hear you sing once
more--before I hear de angels on de other side.'
"Ruth hushed her sobs and in her exquisite voice rolled out in those
beautiful words:
"Only waiting till the shadows
Have a little longer grown,
Only waiting till the glimmer
Of the day's last beam is flown;
Only waiting till the angels
Open wide the mystic gate,
At whose feet I long have lingered,
Weary, poor and desolate."
"'Only waitin', murmured the dying voice. 'O my chillern!" and she
spoke with sudden energy. 'In your hearts you are pityin' your poor
ole gran'mammy; you are thinking o' de sun shinin' outside, an' de
fllowers, an' home an' love. You see me lyin' here, ole, an' black, an'
racked wid pain. But oh! what's de sunlight of earth to de glory roun'
de throne of God? what's de flowers here ter de flowers in de gyardin
younder? An' what's de love of earth ter dat waitin' for me, sinful an'
onworthy though I am?
And with her beloved nurslings around her gran'mammy passed quietly
away. Amongst her last words were, "Good-by Miss' Marthy, take good
keer o' Miss' Mary's chillren."
"Two Storms," one of her latest stories, published in _Harper's
Monthly_, deserves especial notice.
The story has to do with the gulf coast. We see a fair young wife with
a husband who idolizes her, and a little daughter with her faithful
black mammy. The mother dies suddenly, and the husband is felled by
the blow. In his despair he curses Fate and would die. His child he
neglects, in fact her presence is disturbing, since it but serves to
remind him of his irreparable loss.
Little Dinah's lot is a hapless one. It would be tragic were it not
for the devoted old nurse, who watches over her "Shorn Lamb" with a
tenderness not to be surpassed by a mother. "'I wish I were a little
dog' she said once to Maum Dulcie, 'then I could lick papa's hand, and
perhaps he would pat my head.'
"'You po' little sweet rosebud!" cried the old woman, 'Ain't you got
yo' ole nuss to love you an' pet you?'
"And in her compassionate tenderness Maum Dulcie did her best to spoil
her charge by too great indulgence. * * *
"When at last she aroused from the long trance of her illness, it was
to find a face she had dimly feared all her life, bent above her with
a rapturous protecting love, to hear a father's voice murmuring: 'My
child, my little Dinah, forgive your father for all you have suffered.
It is over now, and we will begin a new life hand in hand.' Safe in the
purest love man ever gives to woman, she rested on her father's heart;
and Maum Dulcie said weeping: 'I dunno but it's a sin to give thanks
fur dat Las' Islan' storm, an' I is as sorry as anybody fur de mo'ners
an' de dead, but I can't help seein' de good dat de Lord brings out o'
calamity."
She dedicates "Like unto Like" to Longfellow in the following verses:
O poet, master in melodius art,
O man, whom many love and all revere,
Take thou with kindly hand, the gift which here
I tender from a loving reverent heart.
For much received from thee I little give,
Yet gladly proffer less, from lesser store;
Knowing that I shall please thee still the more
By thus consenting in thy debt to live.
The story has to do with that time when the South Niobe-like still
mourned her dead, and was unable to grasp fully the living present.
The opening chapter reveals three Dixie lassies standing on the bridge
at sunset--Blythe Herndon, Betty Page and Mary Barton. Each is a real
flesh and blood maiden; and while each is southern, they differ much.
Below them gurgles a limpid stream and peering into the clear water
they see clinging to stones at the bottom moss, which twists itself
into fantastic shapes. Above towers a lofty mountain, the setting sun
now giving it a glowing aureole; from its base gushes a noble spring,
the pride of Yariba, for so this Arcadian village is named. Each maiden
speaks of the suggestion that this whirling, twirling moss carries to
her mind, and by these and other confidences exchanged on the bridge
we are enabled to form some opinion of the dispositions of the young
girls, who are important characters in the story.
As the girls talk on the bridge, Mr. and Mrs. Herndon approach. They
are still lovers after forty years; and sweet are the memories that
crowd upon them now, for it was here they plighted their troth. They
find the girls in animated conversation about the advent of a Yankee
regiment that is to be stationed at Yariba for the summer. And these
loyal young "rebels" are not at all agreed that the officers should be
received. Mrs. Tolliver has consented to take Colonel and Mrs. Dexter
to board,--brave soul, it cost her many a pang, but she did it to aid
her husband's fallen fortunes. This decision causes a flutter, but
finally Mrs. Oglethorpe calls and where this lady leads all others
follow. With the regiment comes Roger Ellis, a man of middle age, and
an ultra-radical. He wins the heart of Blythe Herndon, and then loses
it again largely through his own fault.
"But death to the dove
Is the falcon's love--
Oh sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak!"
It is best to mate with your kind, this lesson the book teaches.
The story is briefly told, but its chief charm consists not in the
plot, which is rather slight, but in the local color and character
portrayal. The artist sketches from life. Squire Barton (the chief
of the village detectives), who always knows all the happenings of
the village, and thinks he _knows_ much that never happens; he is the
selfsame squire whose refrain is, "Search the whole world over, there
is no place like Yariba," or "We are a good breed in Yariba;" Colonel
Dexter, whose eyebrows are askew, the one fierce the other mild;
Civil-Rights Bill, the little darky whose antics amuse the reader, but
often bring him summary punishment from his old black gran'mammy; Ellis
the enthusiast whose passion is reform; Blythe's grandmother, who has
ceased to pray to her God because he allowed the Southern cause to
fail; Mrs. Roy, the mountain woman, called 'po' white trash' by the
plantation negro, but having a pathetic life, and individuality all her
own; the forerunner of many others that appear later in the sketches
of Craddock, McClelland and Sherwood Bonner; Aunt Sally, the old
laundress, (she would have much preferred to be called a washer'oman),
who sniffs at a wash board and beats her clothes, "I'se no puny Alabama
nigger, I'se fum South Caliny, I 'longst to de oldest branch uv de
Tollivers;" Van Tolliver, the brave soldier, the true gentleman who
fought through the war, but accepted in good faith the arbitrament
of the sword, and in the New South made for himself a place; Blythe
Herndon, the idealist, who loved not wisely, and waking found her dream
shattered; Betty Page, the cool, calculating coquette; Mary Barton, the
loving, sympathizing woman--all these are living breathing persons, not
abstractions or figures on a stage.
This book was well received by the critics. Mr. Longfellow, in a letter
to Mr. Harper of the firm, Harper and Brothers, says: "It has marked
and decided merit, is beautifully written, and full of interest to
North and South."
Mr. S. G. W. Benjamin wrote a highly favorable review of the book
for _The Literary World_, Boston, from which the following extract
is taken: "When a country is ripe for it, its literature comes
unsought and the authors who are its creators appear. Among the
various indications that such a literature is at hand, not the least
is the publication of such a remarkable work as _Like unto Like_. In
style it suggests the work of no other writer; its merits and its
faults are entirely its own; its characters could only be found in
our complex civilization. The plot is founded on certain phases of
American society, and is evidently directly suggested by the author's
personal experience and observation. * * * The characters of Blythe,
Ellis, the abolitionist, Civil-Rights Bill, Mrs. Roy and the inimitable
Mrs. Oglethorpe, abundantly vindicate their right to a prominent and
permanent place in our literature."
A reviewer in the Providence _Journal_ says: "We welcome it as an olive
branch in the truest and best sense of the word. * * * There is not an
attempt at fine writing in the book, and yet it is full of painting
from life. There is excellent comedy and at least one scene of the
deepest tragedy. Here and there we are reminded of Miss Austen, the
common scenes of life are drawn with so much fidelity, but our American
Miss Austen excels her English sister in imaginative delineation of
character, and becomes the true poetess in the presence of nature."
Paul H. Hayne thus speaks of the work: "Regarded purely as a literary
performance, this work, as I have before intimated, is exceedingly
clever; in certain particulars even brilliantly able. The descriptions
of scenery, which in most novels bore one unspeakably, are here vivid,
picturesque and truthful, with occasional displays of bright, poetic
enthusiasm: and of the _dramatis personae_, some are portrayed with
quiet but significant humor, some with keen, ironic shrewdness, and one
at least (the 'Grandmother of Blythe Herndon') with a degree of tragic
force decidedly impressive."
The concluding extract is taken from a review of "Like unto Like"
that appeared in _The Boston Courier_: "Sherwood Bonner's new novel
in Harper's Library of American Fiction is a book so original, so
charming, so complete in itself, that to write a review of it must be
one of the most disheartening tasks possible. Not for many years has
there been produced a novel so broadly American, so un-provincial while
yet retaining the peculiar atmosphere of locality, and at the same
time utterly unassuming as to its representation of 'phase.' Its art
is so good and so fresh that it hardly impresses us as art; it is more
nearly nature. And yet the story abounds in traces of dainty skill,
and delightful appreciation of the shades and angles of character, and
perfect and easy adaptation of words to the transmission of meaning,
without that over-solicitude as to style which has become so fatiguing
in our recent New England school of fiction writers. * * * The main
thing to observe is that Sherwood Bonner has seized the transition
period of the feeling between South and North so perfectly that her
book will probably stand in the future as the best representative of
this episode in the national life; and she has done this within the
compass of a simple tale which commends itself to our affections quite
independently of that special illustrative interest."
In _Harper's Monthly_, _Lippincott's Magazine_ and _The Atlantic
Monthly_, the book was favorably reviewed. Sherwood Bonner spoke of it
as "a part of her training."
Mrs. Albert Anderson, her lifelong friend, wrote of her: "To literature
she was 'Sherwood Bonner,' the young author, full of genius and
promise; to society she was the beautiful, fascinating woman, always
the central attraction in every room she entered, but to the companions
of her youth she was only 'Kate,' the loyal, brave, trusted friend,
whose untimely death has taken so much from life that it can never look
the same again."
"Hers was a talent," says Dr. William Kirk "sure to expand and develop;
she observed life and learned from it and was in no uneasy haste to
record her impressions; the future was hers through her individuality,
if fate could have permitted it." But for the work that she has done,
which when weighed in the balances still sustains the test, Sherwood
Bonner should possess for the students of Southern literature and
Southern life, a permanent and abiding interest.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1884.
[2] Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1875.
[3] Lippincott's Magazine, October, 1876.
[4] New York, Harper and Brothers, 1878.
[5] Lippincott's Magazine, September, October, November and December,
1881.
[6] Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October, 1879.
[7] Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April, 1881.
[8] Lippincott's Magazine, April, 1880.
[9] "Dialect Tales," New York, Harper and Brothers, 1883.
[10] See "Suwanee River Tales."
"THE DAUGHTER OF THE CONFEDERACY"--HER LIFE, CHARACTER, AND
WRITINGS.[11]
BY CHARLES CLIFTON FERRELL, PH. D. (LEIPZIG).
It was on the 27th of June 1864 that Winnie Davis was born in the
'White House' of the Confederacy at Richmond. The boom of cannons in
the distance seemed to celebrate this important event,--the birth of a
daughter in the reigning family. But in reality the firing was not a
manifestation of joy; many of the cannons were hostile cannons which
were ultimately to deprive her of her birthright. The superior forces
of the Union were closing in upon the Confederate capital, and it was
not long before it fell, and the little girl, as well as her parents
and friends, became an outcast. She took part in the flight from
Richmond, traveling by day and night in an army ambulance for hundreds
of miles over rough roads through lonely woods, and being even carried
at times long distances in her mother's arms. It was a veritable _via
dolorosa_! The happy cooing of the baby alone comforted the bleeding
hearts of the family and brought smiles to eyes bathed in tears. During
the dark days of her father's imprisonment little Winnie, who alone
of the children was allowed to visit him,[12] was the only sunshine
that came to him. She liked to stay in his cell, where she played and
prattled, all unconscious of the sad surroundings. She would put her
arms round his neck, and he would clasp her to his bosom, forgetting
everything for the moment except the baby fingers that were pressed
against his cheek and the blue eyes that looked into his. It would be
hard to overestimate the comfort she afforded him while he was treading
the winepress of bitterness and humiliation.
Thus the infant had received the baptism of fire and deserved the name
of 'Daughter of the Confederacy.'
Mrs. Davis tells some interesting anecdotes of the little girl's
precocity, which I repeat in her own words. "When Winnie was very
small,--I think three years old,--her father was reading aloud to me an
essay on the refusal of a tomb to Byron in Westminster Abbey. The nurse
took her up to carry her to bed and she called out: 'Oh, do leave me
until I hear the rest. The English will regret refusing their great man
a grave in their church;' showing she had comprehended the whole paper.
Another time, when she was five years old, she was asked: 'For what
was Abraham blessed?' 'For the manifestation of faith in hospitality,'
she answered. No one had told her in this phrase, for I was her only
teacher. At this same time she chanced to be at a church meeting,
waiting for me and heard us talking of the minister's needs. For six
months afterward she saved up her little pennies and one day tipped
up behind him and put them into his hand, which was behind his back,
saying: 'Dear Doctor, buy everything you want,--here is the money.'
She asked questions which it taxed our mind and ingenuity to answer,
and reasoned out her own theories and adjusted facts so as to suit
her own ideas of right and justice. She could never become reconciled
to the fatted calf being killed for the prodigal son, and sympathized
passionately with the dutiful son who came from the field overtired
with labor in his father's service to hear sounds of revelry in honor
of the prodigal son, while he had never been given a fatted calf with
which to entertain his friends."
The father took great pride in the development of his younger
daughter's bright mind. He and Mrs. Davis were her first teachers and
introduced her to the immortal writers that they knew best. Before
she could read she knew 'The Wreck of the Hesperus,' 'The Fight at
Coilantogle Ford,' and Allan-Bane's song in the dungeon of Stirling
castle, and had the Bible at her tongue's end. At the age of twelve she
knew by heart also many striking passages from Shakespeare and was an
ardent admirer of the 'Wizard of the North.' In 1877 she was placed in
a boarding school at Karlsruhe, Germany, where she remained five years.
The mental and moral discipline maintained by the Protestant sisterhood
that directed the school was of the strictest kind; the life was as
secluded and as free from gaiety and frivolity as that of a convent. In
1882 Miss Davis went to Paris, where she studied French several months,
and afterwards traveled extensively.
When she returned home she spoke German and French more fluently than
English, and was well-versed in European, especially German literature
and history, but had little reverence for the learning and literary
history of her own country. Her parents began by dictations and by
interesting excerpts from Anglo-Saxon history to make her breathe their
atmosphere and adapt herself to their habits of thought. After her
many years of seclusion a new world opened before her young eyes when
she made her first appearance in the gay society of New Orleans at the
time of the Exposition. Now was formed her first acquaintance with
theatre and opera. She was well prepared for this,--really her first
encounter with life,--bringing to it a mind vigorous by nature and well
disciplined by the study of history and economics. Hence, in spite of
the great enthusiasm with which she met the world, she was prevented
from forming any but just judgments of men and things. She was queen
of Comus this same season,[13] and somewhat later while attending her
father on his triumphal procession through Alabama and Georgia she
was introduced to the Confederate veterans by General Gordon as 'The
Daughter of the Confederacy,'--an eminently appropriate title which she
always wore in a manner worthy of her father's daughter.
In 1879 the family had moved to Beauvoir, where they lived until the
death of Jefferson Davis. Miss Winnie's devotion to her father is said
to have been beautiful. She was his constant companion, accompanying
him on all his trips through the South; she served him as private
secretary and assistant in all his literary work. She would walk hand
in hand with him by the sounding sea; she would pore over volumes
uninteresting to her because she knew his heart was in them; she would
read aloud to him by the hour, and when he was weary she would sing to
him sweet old Southern songs. In fact she was the stay of his declining
years, succeeding in her effort to fill not only her own place but that
of the sons he had lost.
After the death of the husband and father, Mrs. Davis and her daughter
moved to the North. They felt that they must do so in order to secure
work, which was now a necessity.[14] It was also a great advantage
to them in their literary labors to be in close touch with their
publishers, and the Northern climate was better suited to the mother's
health. 'The Daughter of the Confederacy' received an urgent and hearty
invitation to attend every function connected with the 'lost cause,'
which she always accepted when it was possible. Both hemispheres
were shocked at the announcement that her life had been cut short at
Narragansett Pier on the 18th of September 1898. As was fitting, her
body was buried at Richmond, where her cradle had stood,--in that
city which is richest in memories of the 'lost cause' and all that is
associated with it.
Splendid was the character of this woman who had been fondled and
kissed in her babyhood by such men as Alexander H. Stephens, Judah
P. Benjamin, Stephen R. Mallory, and the immortal Robert E. Lee. The
hopes they expressed for her future usefulness as they stood around
her cradle were fulfilled in rich measure. She always remained a child
in her simplicity and in her exquisite purity of soul; she was a woman
in dignity and in her ideas of justice before leaving the nurse's
arms. Even when she was a mere baby she resented any reflection upon
her truthfulness or sincerity; once when somebody reproved her for a
supposed fault and threatened to tell her mother, she replied, "Do
tell her, she always understands me; I am not afraid of my mother."
After she had become known as one of the most cultured women of her
time,--up to the very hour of her death, in fact,--she did not give up
her tender, baby ways with her mother, to whom she would say simply, "I
try to be a good girl, do you think, dear, I am?" She was unaffected,
charitable, honest, and loyal. Her love for little children was very
marked; to the sick and afflicted she was a ministering angel; she was
almost worshiped by the poor people and the children about Beauvoir.
It is said that she never allowed tramps to be turned away hungry
even though she saw them impose upon her repeatedly. She was a model
listener and would sit with her blue eyes shining with sympathy. Too
modest to lead the conversation, she did so only when her interest
in the subject and her knowledge of it made her forget herself and
inspired her to speak. She was chary of expressing her opinions,
which were honest and well-considered, and especially disliked
pronunciamentos.
Charles Dudley Warner, who knew her and loved her for many years,
pays a high tribute in an article as yet unpublished to her sterling
character and ingenuous face, her sweet disposition, and power of
great affection. He emphasizes her sympathetic nature, her simplicity
of manner, her open-eyed candor, her transparent sincerity, and her
unworldliness,--her disposition to place spiritual things above
material things. He was especially struck with the fact that she was
free from prejudice and bitterness with regard to the war between
the States. He had reason to know that she rather shrank from the
demonstrations of the Confederate veterans towards her, as she was a
little timid in such matters, and had a very humble opinion of herself
and her merits and womanly reluctance to such publicity. Yet she met
the trying situation admirably, her tact and delicacy preventing her
from making any mistakes. She seemed to the veterans the embodiment of
those principles for which they had fought, and she always remained
true to the traditions of her family and of her beloved Southland.
The first thing Miss Davis published was a little poem in blank verse
which appeared in 'The Times-Democrat;' it was an address to a group of
giant pines at Beauvoir and was signed 'The Colonel.' She was a member
of a little literary club in New Orleans called the 'Pangnostics,' at
which each girl read a paper at an appointed time. 'The Daughter's
of the Confederacy' chose for her subject Robert Emmet, in whom she
felt a strong interest because Mrs. Davis' grandfather, Colonel James
Kempe, of Natchez, had been one of Emmet's men before he was sixteen.
Besides questioning her mother closely as to the stories which her
great-grandfather had told about the ill-fated struggle for freedom in
the home of his youth, she read at least twenty books on Irish history
or subjects related to it, in order to prepare herself for writing,
'An Irish Knight of the Nineteenth Century,'[15] as the piece was
called, contains a vivid portrayal of the oppression of Ireland from
the earliest times and a sympathetic sketch of the young patriot, whose
life was a romantic tragedy. The author shows as great enthusiasm for
freedom as does Schiller in his 'Robbers.' Charles Dudley Warner, who
was present when the paper was read to the club, was much pleased with
it, and Mr. and Mrs. Davis were so proud of it that they decided to
have it published, expecting only to distribute copies gratuitously
among their friends. However, it went through three editions, and
although she had only a small percentage on the books, which sold for
twenty-five cents, it brought the young girl $300. Mr. Ridpath once
told Mrs. Davis that it had gone through many Irish societies and
awakened much enthusiasm.
The next publication, entitled 'Serpent Myths,' appeared in 'The North
American Review.'[16] It shows wide reading and offers an interesting
and ingenious theory to explain the origin of these myths. After this
came some short descriptions of German life written for various papers
and some clever bits of versification which were never published. Two
or three years after her father's death she wrote for 'The Ladies' Home
Journal' a very strong article against foreign education for American
girls, on the ground that such education gives the pupil a different
point of view from her own people and puts her out of harmony with
her surroundings. This piece attracted wide attention in the North as
well as in the South. She wrote for 'Belford's Magazine'[17] a clever
criticism of Colonel William Preston Johnston's theory that Hamlet was
intended as a characterization of James I, of England.
Miss Davis next resolved to write a book, and chose for her subject
a story her mother had told her about a veiled doctor that had once
attended a member of Mrs. Davis' family in Pennsylvania. It shows the
delicacy of her nature that she feared she might wound the feelings of
his family and accordingly laid the scene of her story at Wickford,
Rhode Island, in an old house which she had seen there. The main
incidents of this novel[18] are true. As it is her most ambitious work,
I will speak of it in detail.[19]
Doctor Gordon Wickford, the heir of the leading family in a provincial
town, has married a city belle. She is a beautiful blonde, whose
"glory lies in her hair," which she treasures above all other earthly
possessions, including her husband. "He had prostrated himself
spiritually before her beauty, and demanded nothing but the acceptance
of his adulation." Too late he finds out that blind infatuation has
caused him to marry a woman who is so vain, shallow, and frivolous as
to be utterly unworthy of him. The uncongenial surroundings among which
she finds herself serve to accent her lack of loveliness of character,
and to widen the chasm between them. This becomes impassable, as far
as he is concerned, when he catches her in a downright lie. Then he
turns upon her for the first time, and tells her that, while she may
remain in his house, she shall henceforth be his wife only in name. The
spirit and determination he shows reveal to her a force of character
she had never suspected in one who had been accustomed to yield to her
in everything, and she begins to respect him thoroughly. Only after
she has lost his love does she realize the value of it, and then she
strives to win it back, while a genuine love for him begins to grow up
within her own bosom.
As time goes on Wickford recognizes the fact that he is doomed to die
of cancer, that dread disease to which other members of his family had
already fallen victim. On returning from the city, where his worst
fears with regard to his condition have been confirmed, he is thinking
of seeking a reconciliation with Isabel, his wife, in order that she
may comfort him in the trying hours that are to come. He hesitates
because he has heard her make so many unfeeling remarks about the
afflicted and infirm, and knows she cannot bear to come into contact
with suffering. While he is still in doubt what to do, a scene of which
he is an unseen witness convinces him of his wife's infidelity, and in
a moment of delirium he cuts off her beautiful hair and throws it into
the fire. After this he is ill of brain-fever for a long time.
As he has completely ignored his wife ever since he discovered that she
had been lying, he is not aware of the change in her feeling toward
him. He persistently refuses to listen when his old aunt attempts to
plead the cause of Isabel.
His sensitive nature cannot bear the thought of everybody seeing the
mark of the loathsome disease as it slowly eats its way, so he covers
his face with a black veil, which he never removes. He loses sight of
his own condition in ministering to the sufferings of others. Finally,
after many months his own hour comes, and he locks himself within his
office, determined that no mortal eye shall see his last sufferings.
He writes a letter to his wife beseeching her to respect his wishes
in this matter, and assuring her that by doing so she can atone for
all her sins against him. She obeys him to the letter, refusing, in
spite of vigorous protests, to allow anyone to enter his chamber. She
takes her position just outside his door, and listens with agony to
his moaning until the end comes, when she finds a note, written just
before he expired, in which he recognizes her love for him and asks
her forgiveness. After her own great sorrow she is able really to
sympathize with the sufferings of others, and finally goes down to the
grave respected by all who know her.
Such is the story, briefly told. The title reminds us of Hawthorne's
parable, 'The Minister's Black Veil.' Both Doctor Wickford and Parson
Hooper put on the veil never to lay it aside even for a moment, and
the effect on the outside world is naturally very much the same in
both cases, but here the resemblance ceases, for the cause is physical
in one instance and moral in the other. The selfishness and levity of
Madame Wickford find a parallel in the heroine of Benson's 'Dodo',
while her 'new birth' is not altogether unlike that of Marcella, who
is, however, an infinitely stronger character. More interesting still
is a comparison between our novel and 'The Forge Master' of George
Ohnet. Claire persists in receiving the advances of her husband,
Philippe Derblay, with such coldness that he finally loses patience and
pays her in her own coin. Her respect for him is awakened, and when he
is on the point of fighting a duel for her sake, she rushes in between
him and his adversary, revealing to him the fact that she now loves him
devotedly. Thus a reconciliation is effected. I do not mean to say that
our author has borrowed anything from these stories, for, while she is
probably acquainted with them all, it is by no means certain that she
has read any one of them. I have mentioned these points of resemblance
merely because I think they are interesting.
I have heard the situations in 'The Veiled Doctor' characterized as
unnatural and melodramatic, and the style criticised as stilted.
With this opinion I cannot agree. Our author partially disarms
criticism by calling our attention to the perspective,--the events
being supposed to have taken place in "those times when the lives of
men and women swung between the two poles of war's brutality and a
super-refined sentimentalism, which seems mawkish to their more prosaic
grandchildren." The ideals of different periods are not the same, and
it is hardly safe to take those of our own as a perfectly reliable
standard in judging those of another. For instance, to our age Goethe's
'Sorrows of Werther' seems full of maudlin sentimentality, yet it
was received with wild enthusiasm when it appeared, for it mirrored
perfectly the spirit of the time. All are agreed that a story should
harmonize, at least in a general way, with its historical setting, for
else we should be reminded of Horace's picture of the figure with a
woman's head, a horse's neck, feathered body, and a fish's tail.
When we take into consideration the sensitive nature of Gordon Wickford
and the ignorance of the physicians of his day with regard to the
proper treatment of cancer, his desire to die alone does not seem
so unnatural, and, if this view be accepted, Isabel's obedience is
easily understood. It must be confessed that the most sympathetic and
practical character in the book is 'Aunt Hannah.'
The style is not always what it should be, our author being at times
unable to resist the temptation to use high-sounding phrases, but it
sometimes manifests considerable strength, and we find numerous bits of
description that are really clever and show excellent taste in their
simplicity. I quote several passages:
"As yet the trees in the street had not completely hidden their
graceful branch-lines in new spring greenery; there were still light
young shoots in the box hedges, and the air was full of the breath of
the spring. In the old garden long lines of crocus, yellow jonquils,
and single blue hyacinths hedged the grass-plots. The snowballs
were covered with great foamy white balls, periwinkles looked up
clear-eyed from under the parlor windows, and everywhere the single
blue violets were making the air sweet with their spring thanksgiving.
The tall standard roses had thrown out pale-green racemes, and the
'bridal-wreath' bushes were just commencing to powder their branches
with miniature blossoms. A young moon hung like a reap-hook in the
evening sky; the bride and groom could see it between a fret-work of
flowery apple and pear branches as they paced backward and forward in
the soft air."
"At last the day broke rosy and splendid over a steel-blue sea."
"There was a freshness on her cheeks and a dewy look about her eyes
that seemed to answer to the glory of the new day, and to proclaim her
an integral part of the summer morning."
"Autumn had dressed the old town in sober suits of brown, laced with
yellow and red; there was a sharp tang in the salt sea air that sent
the blood dancing. The smell of the ripe apples, crushed by the
cider-presses, pervaded the orchards, and in the fields the stacked
dried corn showed the unsuspected wealth of golden pumpkins that grew
between rows. Out in the woods the ferns had grown wan and pale, and
the fading leaves began to carpet the dead summer's undergrowth. Day
after day the officer and the lady rode away from the tree-shaded
streets to the silent autumn forests where silver-gray oak-boles
upheld canopies of brown velvet leaves. The gumtrees burned like fire,
and the hickory and sassafras gleamed golden over the red sumach and
whortleberry that made the old fields seem deluged with the blood of
some mighty battle. At times the long lines of homing ducks would
pass them, or a V of wild geese would sweep over their heads, crying
'honk-honk!'"
"Evening had come on, and the bare boughs were etched black against
a lemon-colored sky, which melted into orange where it kissed the
horizon."
"The rosy glow in the west faded to ashen gray as the day burned itself
out."
"Autumn followed, spreading its rich India carpet of leaves before the
retreating footsteps of the dying year."
"Again the dawn swept up out of the sea, rosy and clear; she could see
the pink light of a new day on the western walls of the passage."
"He labored under the oppressive aloofness begotten by sorrow, which
endows even the most familiar objects with a strangeness borrowed from
the new relation that we thenceforth bear to our dead selves. The old
landmarks seemed to be obliterated by the torrents of his anguish and
he felt no more of the balm he anticipated from a sense of homecoming
than he might have experienced in entering any wayside tavern. His
disease created a spiritual alienation from all things, and in his
heart, like the Jewish lepers, he cried out perpetually, 'Unclean!
unclean!' proclaiming his eternal separation from humanity."
"There were all sorts of half-fledged thoughts nestling in his heart as
he strode out into the night."
"A sudden apprehension shook her, every overwrought nerve in her body
seemed strained to listen; the wind had risen since dark, and was
moaning in the chimney. She heard him fumble with the bolts; it seemed
an age before the door flew open with a crash, and the storm rushed
in whooping, making the candles flicker and starting the smouldering
logs into a blaze. Some one was talking to the Captain in the hall;
now the door closed, and she heard his quick step coming back alone.
The presentiment of impending evil that had oppressed her all day now
took the form of anxiety for her husband; her fear grew into an awful
certainty of misfortune as she listened for the Captain's return. Could
Gordon have been taken ill? Was there an accident on the journey? Could
he even be dead? 'Oh God,' she prayed dumbly, 'not without saying
good-bye,--not angry with me, and without good-bye!'"
Finally, the moral of the book is one that has the sanction of the
father of Greek tragedy; it is the familiar adage that wisdom comes
through suffering. The strongest feature of the story is its interest;
I could hardly put it down before I had finished it. This interest,
which is inspired by its intrinsic merit, is increased by the fact that
it is the work of 'The Daughter of the Confederacy.' While it is not a
great book, it is well worth reading.
Next came many unsigned essays for different journals,--a Christmas
story for 'The World,' and a pretty one called 'Maiblume' for 'Arthur's
Home Journal.' Then followed a comprehensive article on 'The Women of
the South before the War,'--before she was born. Mrs. Davis gave her
the material, and her beautiful, pure soul shed upon it the moonlight
of idealism. The piece last mentioned, as well as a remarkable paper
on her father's character as she saw it, was published by McClure's
syndicate.
Miss Davis was unusually well-versed in Chinese history, as she had
spent two years reading it because of her intention of writing a
Chinese novel. On this account 'A Romance of Summer Seas' has so strong
a _vraisemblance_ that people thought the author had visited the scenes
so vividly described. Her knowledge of the Chinese world is shown also
in an article not yet published which has for its title, 'An Experiment
in Chinese Money;' it was written at the time of the silver and gold
contest.
It was a cherished wish of the dutiful daughter to put herself in a
position to buy a little home in a beautiful country district and a
little pony carriage for her mother and herself. With this in view
she wrote 'A Romance of Summer Seas,'[20] which she had first intended
to call 'An Unconventional Experiment.' She had contemplated writing
a novel of which the scene should be laid at Hong-Kong,--a novel of a
more ambitious nature than 'A Romance of Summer Seas.'
The 'unconventional experiment' consists in a young girl's being
forced by circumstances to travel under the sole guardianship of a
young Englishman from their home, Penang, off the coast of the Malay
Peninsula, to Hong-Kong and Yokohama. The summer seas of the Orient and
the two cities last named form the background of the story. The pair
are very reserved and stand aloof from the other passengers until these
begin to gossip about them and to whisper that the relations between
them are not just what they should be. This causes two or three fights,
two challenges, and one duel, all of which might have been avoided if
the people on board had minded their own business. It also brings about
a marriage between the young man and young girl in question, who have
been awakened by these rude happenings to the consciousness that they
love one another.
The characters are well-drawn and lifelike. Bush, the Globe Trotter,
who tells the story, proves to be a very entertaining _raconteur_
in spite of the reputation he has of being an insufferable bore. He
is loyal and true, and does not hesitate to risk his life for his
new-found friend. Malcolm Ralstone and Minerva Primrose, the pair
in whom the interest of the story centers, are not idealized but
thoroughly human. Guthrie, the Kansas cattle king, is the best-drawn
character of all; he is kind-hearted and manly, but the personification
of vulgarity,--one of that type of Americans who travel much because
they think it is the thing to do, make themselves very conspicuous
by their loudness, bad manners, and ignorance, and do all they can
to bring our country into disrepute. They are aided in this noble
work by such vulgarians as the American consul at Hong-Kong,--these
creatures who owe their prominence to the abuses of our consular
system. Miss Edwina Starkey is a revised but unimproved edition of
Mrs. Jellyby,--what Mrs. Jellyby might have been if she had become a
sour old maid. Though an apostle of 'The Brotherhood for the Diffusion
of Light,' Miss Edwina has about as much of the true spirit of
Christianity as she has of personal beauty. Among the minor characters
Doctor Clark is admirably drawn.
The book contains many charming bits of description; one has the
feeling that Miss Davis must have visited these scenes which she so
vividly paints. The life on shipboard seems very real. We find evidence
of the closest observation of the world, and the results of this
observation sententiously expressed. A quiet humor pervades the story,
which is realistic in the best sense and quite healthy.
I insert a few extracts.
"We were all up on deck enjoying the black glory of the night,--stars
set in a velvet pall overhead, and, below, the phosphorus fringes that
edged every ripple in the water and made the ship's wake shine like a
reflection of the Milky Way."
"As I sat there heedless of time, the light in the west faded, and
the great blue dome blushed with a thousand delicate gradations of
color, from the deep sapphire overhead, where the first stars twinkled,
through fainter blues and apple greens, until everything melted into
the gold of the horizon."
"So he went off, leaving me alone in the white glory of the tropic
night. No words of mine can convey the magic of that moonlight,
enveloping everything, and culminating in a glittering path across the
water. Every now and then a fish jumped, and I could see its wet sides
glitter; or a ghostly gull swept by on silent wings, for when the full
moon rides in the southern sky, not even the birds can sleep, but wake
and sing their songs fitfully throughout the night."
"They sat at the window waiting, and watching the heat-lightning play
in the west and the reflection of the ships' lamps that lay in the
water like long yellow smudges. As the night closed in the threatened
storm swept up out of the sea, deluging the city and whipping the
quiet harbor into a foam; the thunder crashed incessantly, and the
flashes of lightning showed stooping figures running along the bund to
shelter, and hooded jinrikishas tearing by, the coolies' grass cloaks
dripping at every blade."
"When one woman wishes to wound another she always strikes at her
heart."
"Black was very inky and white immaculate to this son of the prairies."
"People never relish life as they do when the taste of death is still
bitter between their teeth."
"Her heart was as pure as crystal."
"Women are the most conservative things alive."
"The face he turned upon me was no more the face of Minerva's lover
than the sea in December is like the sea in June."
"I venture to say that very few of the dead would be entirely welcome
if they returned unexpectedly to their widowed affinities."
"Nothing is so perfect a guarantee of respectability in a chance
acquaintance as the names of your own friends on his visiting-list."
"Many babies and Burmese summers had exhausted all the elasticity she
had ever possessed."
On the whole, 'A Romance of Summer Seas,' while it is on a less
ambitious scale than 'The Veiled Doctor,' seems more natural and shows
a gratifying advance along several lines.
When Miss Davis was suffering intensely in her last illness, she would
pat her mother's hand and say, "We shall have our carriage when my book
sells." But her unselfish dreams were not to be realized. The career
which seemed so full of promise was cut short by death. Now we see
through a glass darkly; when we see face to face, we shall know why
this life of usefulness ended in its morning. As long as the memories
of the 'lost cause' linger in her beloved Southland, so long shall
the name of Winnie Davis, 'The Daughter of the Confederacy,' remain
unforgotten. She has passed away, but the perfume of her noble life
will not pass away.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] The writer is indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Jefferson Davis for
much of the information necessary in the preparation of this paper.
Even Mrs. Davis, however, is unable to give the date when some of her
daughter's minor pieces were published, and every effort to secure them
has proved fruitless. They are either out of print or inaccessible.
[12] She was the only one of them he wished to have with him, as she
alone would not understand that he was a prisoner.
[13] In 1892 she was queen of Momus,--an honor that has always been
reserved for natives of New Orleans. Miss Davis is the only visitor
upon whom it has ever been conferred.
[14] With their slender means the two women found it impossible to meet
the interruptions and exactions of sight-seers at their home, so this
too had something to do with the change of residence.
[15] John W. Lovell & Company, New York, about 1884 or 1885. Now out of
print.
[16] February, 1888.
[17] March, 1891.
[18] 'The Veiled Doctor,' A Novel by Varina Anne Jefferson Davis, New
York, Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1895.
[19] The following review is practically the same as one published by
the author of this paper in 'The University of Mississippi Magazine,'
April 1896.
[20] 'A Romance of Summer Seas,' A Novel. By Varina Anne
Jefferson-Davis, Author of 'The Veiled Doctor,' New York and London,
Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1898.
SIR WILLIAM DUNBAR--THE PIONEER OF SCIENTIST OF MISSISSIPPI.[21]
BY FRANKLIN L. RILEY, PH. D. (JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY)
William Dunbar was born in 1749 at the celebrated manor house of
Thunderton, near Elgin in Morayshire, Scotland. He was the youngest
son of Sir Archibald Dunbar, who was head of one of the most ancient
and famous earldoms in his native country.[22] After William Dunbar's
removal to America, he became head of this house in Scotland. Although
he never assumed the title which he thus inherited, he is known in the
history of his adopted state as Sir William Dunbar.[23]
After he had received a liberal education at Glasgow, his fondness for
mathematics and astronomy led him to continue these studies in London.
His health failed in the latter place and he decided to try his fortune
in the New World.
He procured from the great house of Hunter and Bailey, London, an
outfit of goods suitable for trading with the Indians. He reached
Philadelphia in April, 1771, and immediately transported his goods,
to the value of about £1,000, overland to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg).[24]
Within two months he had exchanged them for furs and peltries, which he
forwarded to London. He continued in this business for two years, when
he formed a partnership with John Ross, a prominent Scotch merchant and
capitalist of Philadelphia.
In order to establish a plantation in the British province of West
Florida, Dunbar descended the Ohio and Mississippi in 1773, and
selected a tract of land near Baton Rouge, then called by the English,
New Richmond. He went to Pensacola, capitol of West Florida, where he
received from Governor Chester permission to settle the tract selected,
and thence to Jamaica, where he bought a large number of slaves,
direct from Africa. With these, he returned to his new home, by way of
Pensacola, the lakes, and the Amite.
He first directed his attention to raising indigo, but soon found
that it was more profitable to manufacture staves for the West India
market. These he exchanged for such commodities as were demanded by his
neighbors along the Mississippi.[25]
From a document written in 1773, and found among the papers of George
Chalmers, Secretary of Trade of Great Britain, we find that at this
time there were only thirty-three settlements east of the Mississippi
and between Natchez and what is now the state of Louisiana.[26] But
from that date the streams of immigration began to flow steadily
into this new country. This fact is shown by another contemporary
manuscript, which was written by Gov. Chester, shortly after the
Spanish conquest of West Florida. In it he says that in 1778,
"considering the importance of the Western Parts of the Colony (of West
Florida) lying on the River Mississippi which had so far increased in
its inhabitants____that since the____last Assembly (held in 1772) it
had been divided from the District of Mobile or Charlotte County and
erected into Two Districts, viz.: The District of Manschack and the
District of Natchez and contained a great number of respectable wealthy
Planters and Settlers than either of the other Districts in the Colony"
(Mobile and Pensacola).[27]
During the greater part of his first six years' residence near Baton
Rouge, Dunbar suffered from a series of misfortunes which well-nigh
destroyed all that he could accumulate through his industry and thrift.
In 1775, he lost some of his most valuable slaves through a rebellion
in which they were implicated. Three years later, his house and
plantation were plundered by one Capt. James Willing,[28] who, although
a commissioned officer in the continental army was really a freebooter.
In speaking of Willing's visitation, Dunbar says, in his private
Journal that "the houses of the British gentlemen on the English side
were plundered, and among the rest, mine was robbed of everything that
could be carried away--all my wearing apparel, bed and table linen;
not a shirt was left in the house,--blankets, pieces of cloth, sugar,
silverware. In short, all was fish that came in their net____I was
plundered of £200 sterling value."[29] The year following, 1779, his
plantation was again raided,--this time by marauding bands of soldiers
from the Spanish army that subdued the district under their gallant
leader, Galvez.
For several years after the last of these misfortunes, Dunbar was left
undisturbed in his pursuits; and by constant application to business
and the adroit management of the affairs of his firm, he accumulated a
competency.
In 1787, he wrote to his partner, Mr. Ross, that the lands at Natchez
were far preferable to their lands at Baton Rouge; that the Natchez
soil was particularly favorable to the production of tobacco and that
there were overseers in that part of the country who would engage to
produce from two to three hogsheads to the hand besides provisions.
His final settlement was at a place nine miles south of Natchez and
four miles east of the Mississippi River. Here he opened the celebrated
plantation called "The Forest," where he spent the remainder of his
life.
On account of the competition from Kentucky and the Spanish
restrictions on trade, he found the cultivation of tobacco
unprofitable. He directed his attention to the raising of indigo, but
was soon forced to abandon this also, because of the ravages of an
insect. He then engaged in the cultivation of cotton, which proved
to be a very remunerative crop. We are told that he became "the most
extensive and successful planter" in this region, being one of the
first to turn the attention of the planters of the Natchez District
to the advantages which the cultivation of cotton afforded over other
crops. In 1799 he wrote to Mr. Ross of Philadelphia that he continued
to cultivate cotton with very great success and that it was by far
the most remunerative staple that had been raised in this county.[30]
In another letter, written while in the midst of the cotton harvest,
he said that he had made "not less than 20,000 pounds of clean
cotton worth in London £2,000." He also mentioned that he had helped
to improve the method of packing cotton by the introduction of the
square bale. In order to perfect this improvement, he requested his
correspondent to have a screw press made in Philadelphia according to
the specifications which were enclosed.[31] In a subsequent letter
written to the same party, Dunbar expressed his surprise that the
press should have cost him $1,000, but added that he would try "to
indemnify" himself "by extracting an oil from the cotton seed." He
requested to be informed what price such an oil would bring in the
market, stating that it would probably be classed "between the drying
and fat oils, resembling linseed in color and tenacity, but perhaps
less drying."[32] Claiborne says that this was "the first suggestion
of that product which has now become a great article of commerce, or
indeed of utilizing cotton seed at all. At that period it was not
dreamed of as a fertilizer, nor fed, in any shape to stock. It was
usually burnt or hauled to a strong enclosure, at a remote part of the
farm, to decompose, and was considered of no use whatever, and really a
nuisance."[33]
These brief extracts, from the correspondence of Dunbar, show that he
made a practical application of the scientific principles which he had
learned in his native country. No comments are needed to show that he
was a man of thought as well as of action.
Dunbar continued his business relations with Mr. Ross until the
partnership was dissolved by the death of the latter in 1800. The
interest of the heirs of the deceased was then bought by Mr. Dunbar for
about $20,000.[34]
The remaining years of his life were devoted almost exclusively to
scientific investigations, which he frequently characterized as his
"favorite amusements." He seemed to be indifferent to political
preferment, and though out of deference to the wishes of his people, he
sometimes permitted an interruption of his scientific work in order to
perform the duties of the offices which were more than once thrust upon
him, such labors were not congenial to him. After the adjournment of
the Territorial Legislature in 1803 of which he was a member, he wrote
to President Jefferson expressing his delight upon being able to return
to his scientific work.[35]
No greater injustice could be done Mr. Dunbar than to infer that his
political indifference was due to lack of patriotism. His strong
attachment to the home of his adoption is shown in the following
extract from a letter to President Jefferson, written January 7,
1803:--"By a letter____from my much esteemed friend, Mrs. Trist,____she
says that you had informed her it was my intention to remove shortly
from this country; I beg leave to remove this impression. Since the
country has been united to the American federation, I have never
ceased to consider it as my own country which I hope never to be under
the necessity of abandoning."[36] In another letter, written to the
same great statesman six months later, Dunbar calls attention to the
"renewed activity and immigration of the French to the Mississippi
Valley," and expresses a fear of the consequences to follow therefrom.
"It is desirable," he adds, "to preserve the whole of the Valley of
the Mississippi for the spread of the people of the United States; who
might in the progress of a century, plant the fine western valley of
the Mississippi with many millions of inhabitants, speaking the same
language with ourselves. It ought not to be objected that this object
is too remote to merit contemplation of the present moment."[37] He
then gives a discussion of the political methods of the French and
Spaniards; also his ideas of the reason why the Spaniards had stopped
the right of deposit at New Orleans, with circumstances to confirm the
same.
He closes this letter by saying that politics is not a favorite
subject with him, and that he would probably not introduce it again
into their correspondence, unless in the view of communicating
something which it might be important for Jefferson to know. However
sincere may have been his intentions to abstain from writing on
political matters, we find that in his next letter to Jefferson,
written about four months later, he discusses at length the claim of
Louisiana to West Florida, and gives a representation of the political
outlook of Mississippi and of Louisiana.[38] In another letter, written
three months later still, he opposes a resolution submitted to Congress
"to deprive Jefferson College of thirty acres of land____and to give
the same to the city of Natchez."[39]
Dunbar's greatest claim to prominence is based upon the results of
his scientific investigations. His researches in this remote and then
unexplored field of inquiry brought him into fellowship with the wise
and learned of all countries, and gained for him a reputation wider
perhaps than that of any other scientist in the history of the State.
Col. Claiborne, writing in 1876, said of him that he "was not only the
most learned man of his time on the Mississippi, but we have had no man
his equal since."[40] Dunbar's fondness for mathematics and astronomy
made him the friend and correspondent of Sir William Herschel. He also
numbered among his correspondents some of the foremost scientists of
his time,--Hunter, Bartram, Rittenhouse, and Rush.
During the latter part of the Spanish rule, he was appointed Surveyor
General of the District of Natchez. He also served as a representative
of the Spanish government in locating the 31° of North Latitude, which
was established as the boundary line between the United States and
the Spanish possessions east of the Mississippi. As he was never a
subject of his Catholic Majesty,[41] these services were strictly
professional. The relationship between him and Governor Gayoso was,
however, very cordial, as is shown by their correspondence.[42] Upon
one occasion,[43] Dunbar presented Gayoso with a costly sextant,
which the latter needed in order to complete a course of astronomical
observations upon which he was engaged. At another time[44] Gayoso had
cause to thank Dunbar for the use of a "famous astronomical circle"
belonging to the latter. Gayoso says of this instrument, "it surpassed
my expectation,____. Every part is so delicately finished and solidly
supported & so well prepared to be adjusted that it would give me
courage to make an observation myself. If the instrument was not your
own property I would have advised you to make a voyage to admire it.
Now I think with your assistance I may with confidence and decency
proceed to the demarcation of the Line as soon as I receive orders for
the purpose." The sickness of Mr. Dunbar about this time was a source
of great concern to Gayoso. In a third letter[45] upon this subject,
written two weeks before the work upon the line began, Gayoso expressed
some apprehension that, for his sake, Dunbar might imprudently expose
himself. When Dunbar was at work upon the line, Gayoso wrote to him
as follows: "I congratulate myself for having had the opportunity of
meeting with a person so well calculated to fulfill so important a
charge for which is required science with every other quality worthy
of public trust; you possess them all in a degree to do honor to any
country; these are my sincere sentiments."
Dunbar's services on the line of demarcation extended from May 26 to
August 28, 1798, the time consumed in surveying the first eighteen
miles of the boundary.[46] The preliminary observations leading to
the location of the 31° were made in his private observatory on Union
Hill.[47] An inundation of the Mississippi prevented the survey from
beginning at the bank of the river. The water having receded by the
28th of July, Dunbar began to extend the line to the river from the
point of starting, while Ellicott, the American Commissioner, continued
his survey to the east.[48] Through this swamp, which was found to be
2111.42 French toises or 2 miles and 186 perches English measure, a
trace sixty feet wide was cut to designate the boundary, and posts were
put at intervals of a mile.
Dunbar rejoined the American Commissioners on August 20. A few days
later he made the following entry in his report to the Spanish
government:--"I set out on the 31st day of August bidding a final
adieu to the Gentlemen of both Commissions, with whom I had spent
three months in a manner highly agreeable to my own taste, and with
uninterrupted harmony on my part with every gentleman of both parties,
and had it not been that my family and other interests demanded my
protection and superintendence, I should have with pleasure pursued
this employment to its conclusion."[49] Ellicott, in his report of this
survey, published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society, says:--"To William Dunbar, Esq., of the Mississippi Territory
I feel myself under the greatest obligations for his assistance during
the short time he was with us; his extensive scientific acquirements,
added to a singular facility in making calculations would have reduced
my labour to a mere amusement, if he had continued."[50] The same
writer in his Journal, published in Philadelphia, five years after his
association with Dunbar, says that he is "a gentleman whose extensive
information and scientific acquirements would give him a distinguished
rank in any place or in any country."[51] Since Ellicott himself was
one of the foremost scientists of his time in this country[52] the
value of his estimate of Dunbar cannot be questioned.
A few months after the completion of this important public survey,
Daniel Clarke wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, in which he referred
to Dunbar as "a person worthy of being consulted____on subjects
relating to this Country its productions, or any philosophical Question
connected with them____For Science, Probity & general information (he)
is the first Character in this part of the World. His long residence in
this Country, still but little known to men of letters, its Situation
with respect to many Savage tribes, some of which lately inhabited
the very Place where he resides & where their visages are still
perceptible, the extensive Communications with remote parts presented
by the Mississippi and concourse of Indians & traders, have given him
many opportunities of making observations which may not have presented
themselves to others and may not probably occur in future, to these
may be added those he has made on the Country itself, its population,
manners, Customs of the Inhabitants, the different Changes in their
Government for the last 40 years, the Climate, soil & Trade which are
but little known abroad."[53]
The manuscript correspondence of Thomas Jefferson, in the Archives of
the Department of State at Washington shows that he acted upon this
suggestion from Mr Clarke. In this collection there have been preserved
fifteen letters that were written by Dunbar.
The first of these in chronological order, bears the date of July
15, 1800. It states briefly that in compliance with the request of a
friend in London, Dunbar had prepared certain notes and remarks "made
while upon the line of Demarcation." These he sent to Jefferson with a
request that after reading he forward them to London. Jefferson, who
was then President of the American Philosophical Society and a great
patron of science, was so favorably impressed by these notes that
instead of forwarding them as directed, he sent them to Dr. Wistar of
Philadelphia with a recommendation that Dunbar be elected to membership
in the Philosophical Society. On this point Jefferson wrote that he
had proposed so many members at different times that he was afraid to
add to the number. "Yet," says he, "Dunbar ought to be associated to
us. I enclose you a letter with communications of his to Mr. Smith of
London which ____will enable you to judge of his degree of science, &
therefore, I leave them open for your perusal, & will pray you to seal
& send them____to London." Shortly after this Dunbar was elected to
membership in this, the most celebrated organization of scientists in
the early history of the United States. The fact that only thirteen
other Americans were added to this body during the three years from
January 1st, 1799 to 1802, gives a proper estimate of the high honor
conferred upon Mr. Dunbar. In writing to Dunbar, shortly after this
recognition of his scientific attainments, Ellicott says: "If you do
justice to your own abilities and observations, you will do credit to
the society by your communications."
Before considering the character and extent of his subsequent
contributions to science, the notes and remarks referred to above
demand consideration. These are contained in his report of the survey
to his Catholic Majesty,[54] the Spanish copy of which is in the
archives at Madrid. Several years ago it was examined by Alexander
Everett, who often referred to it as "a document of rare science and
accuracy."[55]
It consists of two parts. The first treats of the mathematical
calculations and the astronomical observations made in locating the 31°
of latitude and in surveying the first eighteen miles of the line of
demarcation. The remainder consists of notes taken at his encampment
on the Bluff, in August, 1798. These treat, for the most part, of the
vegetable and animal life to be found along the line of the survey,
particularly in the swamp of the Mississippi river.
He makes several interesting observations on the red and the white
cypress, the former of which he says is the more valuable for strength
and durability, owing to its being impregnated with resin. He also
observes that the "cypress knees," as they are commonly called, never
reach a height greater than the high water mark. In combating the
theory of Dupratz that the cypress is propagated from its root, Dunbar
says that is "invariably propagated from the seed, which is about
the size of a Spanish walnut," and that he has "often observed half
a dozen or more young plants produced from one apple, which often
coalesce into one and sometimes the greater part perish to make room
for their more fortunate brethren." He says of one species of the white
oak, that "nature has so ordained that the husk embraces the acorn so
firmly that they are not separated by their fall from the tree, by
which means this case by its comparatively small specific gravity buoys
up the acorn, and being carried along by the various current of the
inundation, serves to plant distant colonies of this species." He also
gives an interesting account of the cotton tree, the willow and the
bamboo cane, the last of which he attempts to classify botanically. He
says of the cane: "It produces a very abundant crop of grain, and that
only once, for it immediately after perishes, root and branch, it is
not known how many years the reed requires to arrive at this state of
maturity; if we were to suppose that 25 years were its limit, it must
happen that a person who has resided during that length of time in this
country and who has visited many parts of it must have seen all the
cane that came under his inspection once in grain, and upon the average
one twenty-fifth part of all the cane in a large tract of country
ought annually to yield a crop, but this is by no means the case, for
I who have lived during that length of time in this country and have
frequently traversed many extensive tracts of it, have never in any one
year seen 1-500 part of the canes in seed of those parts that I have
intimately known." He therefore concludes that it must require at least
five hundred years for this plant to reach "a state of maturity to
enable it to bear a crop of seed."
His description of the ornamental trees of this region is graphic and
interesting. No one can read his account of the magnolia tree without
being deeply impressed with the fact that he appreciated its beauty.
In studying the properties of the poplar, he made a hydrometer of a
thin, broad piece of plank of this material, cut across the grain. He
"improved its sensibility by boiling it when very dry, in a solution of
mild alkali or carbonated potash." He describes many other trees, among
which are the dogwood, the redbud, the wild cherry, the horse chestnut
and the sweet gum.
He records the observation of a very rare phenomenon, which he saw
August 12th, when engaged upon this work. It was a rainbow that
consisted of more than a semi-circle, "the vertical point" of which
"did not seem more than 8 feet from the eye, although the inferior
parts seemed farther removed, which produced an optical deception by
giving it the appearance of an ellipsis, the transverse diameter being
parallel to the horizon; this perhaps is the first natural rainbow
exceeding a semi-circle which has been seen by a human eye, because to
produce such an effect from the general idea formed of this phenomenon,
the sun ought to be in the horizon to cause the appearance of a full
semi-circle exceeded only by the parallactic angle of the elevation
of the eye above the base of the rainbow, which must generally be
insensible; the above effect however is easily accounted for on
Newton's principles[56] from the peculiar circumstances in which I was
placed."
He says that the microscope reveals in the water of this part of the
country the same varieties of animalculæ which he had often examined
in Europe and many new ones, which he does not remember to have seen
described by any writer, and which he hopes to find leisure to describe
at some future day.
After giving a brief account of some of the wild animals, reptiles,
fish, and birds of this country, he concludes with lists of the
"vegetable productions of the Swampy Grounds or such as are much
exposed to the Annual Inundation;" the "most remarkable vegetable
productions of the high lands;" and the "Trees and Plants cultivated
by the Inhabitants of the Mississippi territory and by those of the
adjoining Spanish Provinces."
As has been noted above, the last ten years of Dunbar's life were
devoted almost entirely to scientific research. The value of his
contributions to knowledge was widely recognized, and "The Forest"
became familiar to the scientific world, though it was sometimes
incorrectly placed in Louisiana.
Volume V. of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,
published in Philadelphia in 1801, contains three articles from his
pen, and Volume VI. of the same publication, issued eight years
later, contains twelve, one of which was translated into the German
and appeared in Gilbert's Annalen of Physics, vol. 31,[57] published
in Leipzig in 1809. To this latter volume of the Transactions Andrew
Ellicott contributed nine articles, Jose Joaquin de Ferrer, eight,
Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, five, Benj. Henry Latrobe, three, and Dr.
Joseph Priestly, F. R. S., three, while to repeat Dunbar contributed
twelve. This shows that Dunbar was at that time one of the most active
investigators on the continent.
His contributions to the Transactions and his correspondence with
Jefferson give a conception of the character and extent to his
investigations. The first of these contributions was written June 30,
1800, and treats of the "Language of Signs among certain North American
Indians." In this he traces certain points of analogy "between the
Chinese written language and our Western language of signs." In both,
says he, there are certain "roots of language in which every other word
or species in a systematic sense is referred to its proper genus or
root." He gives, for example, the sign for water which is a genus and
shows that rain, snow, ice, hail, hoar-frost, dew, etc., are species
represented by signs more or less complex, retaining always the root or
genus as the basis of the compound sign. He adduces other interesting
facts from this study of the subject, which cannot be given in this
connection.
His Meteorological Observations for 1799, gives unmistakable evidence
of his devotion to science. It shows that three times a day, each day
in the year, he recorded the temperature and the barometric readings;
also the direction and strength of the winds with the state of the
weather, and the amount of rainfall together with remarks about
the state of the vegetation from time to time. To this he adds a
Recapitulation, giving the greatest, the lowest, and the mean points of
the thermometer and the barometer, and the amount of rainfall for each
month and then for the whole year. The Editor of the publication states
in a footnote that "the society have been induced to publish this
journal _entire_, as it is certainly the first that has been kept with
so much accuracy and attention in that part of the world, and may serve
as a standard with which to compare future observations."
In another article, Dunbar gives a "Description of a singular
phenomenon seen at Baton Rouge" in the spring of 1800.
His fourth contribution consists in extracts from a letter dated Aug.
22, 1801, which he wrote to Jefferson, relative "to fossil bones found
in Louisiana, and to Lunar Rainbows observed West of the Mississippi."
In this letter, he referred to an account of "Dr. Hooks' scheme of
a telegraphy, in the year 1684," which he intended to transmit to
Jefferson, but found himself anticipated in that communication by a
paper in the first volume of the London Philosophical Magazine. He also
directs Jefferson's attention to "a certain phenomenon at sunset,"--the
yellow orange color of the Eastern clouds, which ascends as the sun
descends--upon which he makes certain observations and explanations,
and suggestions for further investigations by philosophers.
With this letter there was enclosed a fifth contribution to the
Transactions. This article is entitled, "Meteorological Observations
made by William Dunbar, Esq., at the Forest, four miles east of the
Mississippi, in Latitude 31° 28´ North, and in Longitude 91° 30´ west
of Greenwich, for the year 1800; with remarks on the state of the
winds, weather, vegetation, etc., calculated to give some idea of the
climate of the country." In this article he says, "the frequent and
rapid changes in the state of the weather in this climate furnish an
excellent opportunity of verifying the vulgar opinion of the moon's
pretended influence at her conjunctions, oppositions and quadratures;
but truth compels me to say (what probably may be said of many similar
persuasions) that after a continued and scrupulous attention to this
object, I have not discovered any such regularity of coincidences,
which might justify the reverence with which those traditional maxims
are at this day received." After discussing a method of manufacturing
ice by artificial means, he concludes this communication with the
following observations on the storms of the Gulf Coast region: "It
is evident that the circular course of the vortex followed that of
the sun's apparent diurnal motion.--It is possible that if similar
observations are made upon all hurricanes, tornadoes and whirlwinds
they will be found universally to consist of a vortex with a central
spot in a state of profound calm."
Dunbar's next letter that is preserved in the Jefferson Papers is
one to John Vaughan bearing the date of March 21, 1802. In this the
writer says that he envies Vaughan's "happiness at the discovery of
a complete skeleton of a mammoth." He makes some observations on the
species to which this mammoth belongs and refers to recent discoveries
of a similar nature in the interior of Asia and Borneo. He gives the
results of recent geological observations on the nature of the soil and
the stratification of the same as shown by the banks of the Mississippi
at Natchez; also a discussion of stones, rocks, ores, mineral waters,
petrifaction, etc. He requests Vaughan to inform Dr. Bartram that since
writing him last, he has made several new discoveries of a botanical
and zoological nature which he here describes.
This letter also shows that Dunbar was one of the first Mississippians
to resort to inoculation for protection against small-pox. He asked
Vaughan to send him some fresh vaccine virus and stated that six
children in his own family had never "had that disease, besides a
lengthy list of Black people, both young and old." Vaughan complied
with this request by sending the virus and asked Jefferson to do
likewise, stating that "the Vaccine inoculation gathers strength
hourly, _no_ respectable practitioner (of Philadelphia) opposes it."
January 15, 1803 Dunbar wrote to Jefferson: "Bad health which has
endured above twelve months has withheld much of my attention from
Philosophic objects, a favorable change having lately taken place, I
perceive with satisfaction that my mind and body are both recovering
their former tone and now again enjoy the pleasing prospect of
dedicating my leisure hours to my favorite amusements."
Dunbar's next contribution to the Transactions was entitled, "Abstract
of a communication from Mr. Martin Durale, relative to fossil
bones, etc., of the County of Opelousas, west of the Mississippi to
Mr. William Dunbar of the Natchez," etc. In this account Dunbar, in
referring to certain phenomena makes use of the following expression,
which has characterized the true philosophers of all ages, "I have
never observed them without endeavoring to ascertain the cause of them."
This communication was accompanied by "pretty full vocabularies of the
tongues of two Indian nations of that country," to which "was added
a sketch of the religion or superstition of these people." In this
connection, Dunbar says, "From several other quarters I have used some
efforts to draw similar information, but am hitherto disappointed."
He also makes mention of a letter which he had just received from Sir
Joseph Banks with an extract from the Transactions of the Royal Society.
January 28, 1804, Dunbar wrote to Jefferson transmitting his seventh
and eighth contributions to Volume Six of the Transactions, while an
extract from his letter was published as a ninth contribution. His
seventh article was entitled a "Description of the river Mississippi
and its Delta, with that of the adjacent parts of Louisiana." In this
he gives a table of the mean altitude of the waters of the Mississippi
at Natchez, from the lowest ebb to the highest elevation for the
first and fifteenth of each month in the year. It also contains a
good account of overflows and some philosophical reflections on the
velocity, banks, currents, deposits and depth of the river and the
effects of confining it to its channel. In speaking of the overflow
lands he says, "although no successful attempt is likely to be made in
our day, yet posterity will reclaim" them. He discusses the methods
used in Holland and in Egypt, and makes several speculations as to
the method that will probably be successful. This sketch, he says, in
conclusion, "is the result of occasional observation for a series of
years and of scattered information collected from various sources,
probably often uncertain, from a cause which is unfortunately, too
general; viz: the extreme inattention of persons, even of some
education to the most curious phenomena passing daily under their
review."
The eighth article was entitled: "Monthly and Annual Results of
Meteorological Observations" for the years 1801, 1802, 1803.
In an appendix to his seventh article, he discusses the writings of
certain Italian, French and German scientists, giving his reasons for
differing with them on certain philosophical questions. His discussion
is devoted largely to a consideration of certain laws of hydrostatics.
His "Observations on the eclipse of the sun, June 16, 1806" made in his
private observatory on Union Hill, constitutes his tenth contribution
to the publication mentioned above. This article gives a vivid account
of the excited state of mind with which an astronomer awaits the time
when nature affords favorable opportunities for investigating her
mysteries. It also shows that this frontier scientist of Mississippi
enjoyed in thought, as he could not by personal association, the
companionship of the great thinkers of the world. These are his words:
"The moment of the expected impression approached and reflecting
that this eclipse was to be seen all over Europe and North America
which renders it a very important phenomenon for settling comparative
longitudes, I conceived that all the zealous astronomers of both worlds
were then looking with me at the great luminary and centre of our
system. I kept my eye riveted upon that point of the disk where the
eclipse was to commence, with an anxiety known only to astronomers;
with the chronometer watch at my ear, I attended to the most doubtful
appearances which my perturbation perhaps presented to the eye, and
upon every alarm, began to count the beats of the watch (five in two
seconds) in order that I might not lose the very first instant of the
impression, and I am confident that not one quarter of a second was
lost."
The last letter that has been preserved from the interesting
correspondence between Dunbar and Jefferson, bears the date of
Dec. 17, 1805. With it was enclosed Dunbar's "Method of finding the
Longitude by a single observer without any knowledge of the precise
time," a problem that had been solved by him at Jefferson's request.
This formed an eleventh contribution to the publication referred to
above.
There is no reason for doubting that this correspondence was continued
throughout the remaining four years of Dunbar's life, though the
letters have not been found by the writer.
Dunbar's last contribution to the Transactions was entitled:
"Observations on the Comet of 1807-'8." It was read before the Society
Nov. 18, 1808. In this article appears at least one entry which
indicated that the scientific services of its author were drawing
to a close. "Indisposition," says he at one point in the narrative,
"prevented observation for some time past." A few months from this date
the scientific investigation of this remarkable man were brought to a
close.
Writers have frequently noted the fact that many great men have lived
in advance of their times. To substantiate this assertion they cite us
to the careers of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and a host of others.
That Dunbar is entitled to the same distinction might be amply proved
by a study of his life.
The most conclusive evidence of this fact is furnished by his idea of
the relation the government should sustain to scientific explorations.
In a letter to John Vaughan, bearing the date of March 21, 1802, he
writes as follows:
"There is no example of any encouragement being held out
by [our] Government; no spirit of inquiry set on foot at
the public expense. What is the reason, we have no State
observatory to which individuals might send their contributions
& from which they might receive astronomical intelligence....
No naturalist travels at the public expense to explore our
immense country & make us acquainted with the infinite
resources it Contains upon its surface, in its waters & within
its bowels, from whence great national advantages would result;
the public & individuals would be instructed where to direct
their researches after such objects as might become subjects
of curiosity, Public the exercise of genius & agrandizem't
of fortune; but it would seem that the speculations ... of
our politicians are confined within the narrow circle of the
Customs & Excise, while literature of our present illustrious
President will correct & enlarge the views of our public men,
& that under his auspices & protection, Arts, Science, &
Literature may take a flight, which will at length carry them
beyond those European brethren, as wel[l] to[o] as above them
in the enjoyment of national liberty."
In transmitting this letter to Jefferson, Vaughan says of Dunbar, "he
is like yourself a warm friend to the encouragement of Science and
letters, it would be fortunate for the country, if these ideas became
more prevalent."
Remarkable to relate, two years had not elapsed after Dunbar had
written this despondent letter before he saw evidences of a partial
fulfillment of his desire and three months later still, he was
appointed a member of one of the first expeditions sent out for
scientific purposes at the expense of the government of the United
States. In a letter to President Jefferson, written May 13, 1804,
Dunbar says: "The surveying and exploring expeditions to be undertaken
at public expense must be most gratifying to all lovers of science
and natural research.... It will give me the highest satisfaction to
contribute everything in my power to promote the proposed expedition on
the Red and Arcansa Rivers."
Owing to the dissentions among the Osage Indians, the main part of
this expedition was postponed, however, until the spring of 1805.
In a letter bearing the date of July 14, 1804, Jefferson wrote to
Dunbar:--"It is very desirable that you make use of any part of the men
or matters provided for the expedition and go to what distance, and
in what direction you please, return when you please, but in time to
report to us the result of your researches, which report will probably
induce Congress to enlarge the appropriation."[58]
August 18, 1804 he wrote Jefferson that, "in consequence of the
permission you are pleased to grant, I have determined to make an
excursion up the Washita river and to the hot springs." Two months
later, he wrote that he had about completed the necessary preparations
for the expedition and that he would carry "several instruments [of his
own] in addition to those provided for the party" by the government.
Three weeks after writing the above letter, he again wrote to the
President from the Post of Washita giving him the latitude of the most
important points on the river.
After his return to Natchez, he wrote Jefferson the first scientific
account of the water at Hot Springs. Subsequent analyses of this water
have shown some inaccuracies in this account, but it must be remembered
that Dunbar was only a pioneer in this important field. His account
reads as follows:
"I have examined the water at 130° Fahrenheit under a powerful
microscope and found vegetable and animal life, the former
a species of moss, the latter a testaceous bivalve of the
size of the minutest grain of sand. I do not despair of being
able to reanimate these as soon as I can procure a little
leisure....[59] From our analysis of the water ... it appears
to contain lime with a minute portion of iron dissolved by a
small excess of Carbonic acid. This is ... visible upon the
first view of the Springs; an immense body of calcareous matter
is accumulated upon the side of the hill, by perpetual deposits
from the hot waters, and the bed of the run is coloured
red oxide of iron or rather Carbonated iron. Every little
spring which rises up in a favorable situation forms its own
calcareous cup considerably elevated in form of a crater."
The following year (1805) Dunbar was given the general supervision
of the Red River Expedition. May 24 of that year Mr. Dearborn, the
Secretary of War, wrote requesting him to make all arrangements for
this expedition, limiting the expenses to $5,000. In a letter bearing
the date of March 30, 1807, Mr.
Dearborn expressed his appreciation of Mr. Dunbar's services in the
following words:--"The frequent drafts on account of the United
States upon your time and patience demand an apology, while your
disinterestedness and highly useful services entitle you to the most
grateful acknowledgements."
Dunbar's idea of the relation the government should sustain to
scientific research is still further set forth in his last letter that
has been preserved in the Jefferson manuscripts. From this letter,
which bears the date of December 17, 1805, the following extract is
taken:
"I have just received from London a six feet Gregorian
reflecting Telescope with six magnifying powers from 110 to
550 times; hitherto from a liberal construction of the act
of Congress, by the Collectors of the Mississippi Territory
residing at Fort Adams, I have been in the habit of receiving
books and instruments free of duty, but Mr. Browne at New
Orleans is so rigidly faithful as a public servant that he
admits of no exemptions neither in favor of the Mississippi
Society, for which I have lately imported a chest of books;
nor in favor of this valuable instrument, the cost of which
in London was about 150 guineas, [about $750]. I suppose Mr.
Browne is quite correct as to the letter of the law.... I have
just sent off an order for Mr. Briggs, Mr. Dinsmore and myself,
for astronomical instruments & chronometers to the amount of
300 guineas [about $1,500], all of which as well as that just
received, will in some shape be applied to public use and
benefit & might therefore be entitled to a claim upon public
indulgence."[60]
The significance of this extract is twofold. It shows that Dunbar
devoted his time to scientific investigation not only to gratify
himself but to serve the public. His love of science for its own sake
made "favorite amusements" of labors that would otherwise have been
very onerous. His desire to benefit others through these investigations
led him to fulfill that true test of all greatness,--service to one's
fellow-man. This extract shows further the contagion of an enthusiastic
devotion to a great cause. Dunbar and his friends, remote from the
intellectual centers of the world, constituted themselves into a
society, which spent a larger sum of money for scientific purposes
than perhaps any other private scientific organization in the history
of the State. He sought the co-operation of all thinking men with whom
he came in contact. He was active in his efforts to collect all facts
of scientific interest throughout his part of the country. That he was
often disappointed in these efforts, is shown by more than one passage
in his writings. In his "Description of the Mississippi and its Delta"
he expresses his regret over "the extreme inattention of persons, even
of some education, to the most curious phenomena passing daily under
their review."
Philip Nolan, the dauntless hero of one of Edward Everett Hale's
most interesting stories,[61] was a warm personal friend of Dunbar
and was often mentioned in the Jefferson correspondence in the most
complimentary terms. This relationship was probably due t
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