Kentucky in American Letters.
VOL. 2.
by John Wilson Townsend.
JAMES NEWTON BASKETT
James Newton Baskett, novelist and scientist, was born near Carlisle, Kentucky, November 1, 1849. He was taken to Missouri in early life by his parents. He was graduated from the University of Missouri in 1872, since which time he has devoted himself almost exclusively to fiction and to comparative vertebrate anatomy, with ornithology as his particular specialty. At the world's congress of ornithologists at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, Mr. Baskett presented a paper on _Some Hints at the Kinship of Birds as Shown by Their Eggs_, which won him the respect of scientists from many lands. He has published three scientific works and three novels: _The Story of the Birds_ (New York, 1896); _The Story of the Fishes_ (New York, 1899); _The Story of the Amphibians and Reptiles_ (New York, 1902); and his novels: _At You All's House_ (New York, 1898); _As the Light Led_ (New York, 1900); and his most recent book, _Sweet Brier and Thistledown_ (Boston, 1902). Of this trio of tales the first one, _At You All's House_, is the best and the best known, Mr. Baskett's masterpiece hitherto. For the Texas Historical Society he wrote, in 1907, a series of papers upon the _Early Spanish Expedition in the South and Southwest_. With the exception of three years spent in Colorado for the benefit of his health, Mr. Baskett has resided at Mexico, Missouri, since leaving Kentucky.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Athenaeum_ (July 28, 1900); _The Book Buyer_ (October, 1900); _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1909, v. i).
"I 'OVES 'OO BEST, 'TAUS 'OO BEAT 'EM ALL"[1]
[From _As the Light Led_ (New York, 1900)]
They had been boy and girl together, not schoolmates nor next-farm neighbors, but their homes were in the same region. Her father's house was far enough away to make the boy's visits not so frequent as to foster the familiarity which breeds contempt, yet they gave him an occasional little journey out of the humdrum of home lanes, and away from the monotonous sweep of the prairie's flat horizon.
Hers was rather a timber farm, located on the other side of Flint Creek, where the woods began to fringe out upon the treeless plain again; but his was high out eastward upon the prairie swell, several miles from water. From his place the wooded barrier between them seemed only a brown level brush-stroke upon the sky's western margin.
Sometimes, when he was tired from his day's work afield, he watched the sun sink behind this border, which the distance made so velvety; and, if the day were clear, it looked to him as if the great glowing ball were lying down upon a cushion for its comfort. If it set in a bank of cloud or storm, it seemed to send up long streaming, reaching stripes, as if it waved a farewell to the sky, and stretched a last grasp at the day as it left it, or shot a rocket of distress as it sank.
When a child he had often sent her his good-will upon the westering messenger, and he imagined that the beams, sometimes shot suddenly out from beneath a low-hung cloudy curtain, were answers to his greetings.
Long after it was dreary at his place, he fancied the light was still cuddling somewhere in the brush near her and that it was cheery yet over there.
When he was seven and she was three, he was visiting at her house one day. She was sitting on a bench in the old, long porch, shouting to him, her elder brother, and some others, as they came toward her from a romp out in the orchard. Suddenly Bent bantered the boys for a race to the baby; and, swinging their limp wool hats in their hands, they sped toward her. The child caught the jubilance of the race, and when Bent dropped first beside her, she grabbed him about the neck, laid the rose of her cheek against the tan of his, and said:
"I 'oves 'oo best, 'tause 'oo beat 'em all."
The act was an infant tribute to prowess, a bound here in babyhood of the heart which wants but does not weigh; of the body which asks but does not question. The boy felt his heart go to meet hers, so that the little girl stood ever after as his idol. As time went on, his reverence for her as a lisper grew as she became a lass; and though, out of the dawning to them of what the years might bring, there came eras of pure embarrassment, wherein their firmness and trust wavered a little, yet confiding companionship came anew and stayed, till some new revelation of each to self or other barred for a time again their ease and intimacy. They were man and woman now, with a consciousness of much that the grown-up state must finally mean to them, if this continued. There was the freedom from embarrassment which experience brings; but there came with all this a sort of proximity of hopes and aims, which, burdened sweetly with its own importance, persisted with a presage of a crisis down the line.
He could no longer ride up to her side as she left the stile at church, and, without a previous engagement or the lubricant of a commonplace, open a conversation right into the heart of things. When she responded to him now it was with a shy sort of confidence which admits so much yet defines so little. Yet never when they met did they fail to pick up the thread, which tended to bind them closer and closer, and give it a conscious snatch of greater strain, till, as either looked back at the skein of incidents, there came a delightful feeling of hopeless entanglement in this fibre of their fate. However, the ends of the filament were free and floating yet, as the fray of a swirling gossamer in the autumn wind. Day by day these two felt that these frayed ends would meet sometime; and hold? or snap? and then? and then!
Nothing had ever strongly tried their attachment. Yet there was creeping now into the heart of each a sort of heaviness--a wondering, at least--if the other was still holding true to the childish troth; a definite sort of mental distrust was abiding between them, along with a readiness to be equal to anything which an emergency might bring.
But in their hearts they were lovers still.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Copyright, 1900, by the Macmillan Company.
JAMES LANE ALLEN
James Lane Allen, the foremost living American master of English prose, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, December 21, 1849. His home was situated some five miles from Lexington, on the old Parker's Mill road, and it was burned to the ground more than thirty years ago. He was the seventh and youngest child of Richard Allen, a Kentuckian, and his wife, Helen Foster Allen, a native of Mississippi. Lane Allen, as he was known in Kentucky until he became a distinguished figure in contemporary letters, was interested in books and Nature when a boy under his mother's tutelage. He was early at Kentucky University, now rechristened with its ancient name, Transylvania. Mr. Allen was valedictorian of the class of 1872; and five years later the degree of Master of Arts was granted him, after an amusing quibble with the faculty regarding the length of his oration, _The Survival of the Fittest_. He began his career as teacher of the district school at the rural village of Slickaway, which is now known as Fort Spring, about two miles from his birthplace. He taught this school but one year, when he went to Richmond, Missouri, to become instructor of Greek in the high school there. A few years later he established a school for boys at Lexington, Missouri. Mr. Allen returned to Kentucky to act as tutor in a private family near Lexington; and in 1878, he was elected principal of the Kentucky University Academy. He resigned this position, in 1880, to accept the chair of Latin and English in Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, which he occupied for two years, when he returned once more to Lexington, Kentucky, to open a private school for boys in the old Masonic Temple. In 1884 Mr. Allen discarded the teacher's garb for that of a man of letters, and since that time he has devoted his entire attention to literature.
While his kinsfolk and acquaintances regarded him with quiet wonder, if not alarmed astonishment, he carefully arranged his traveling bags and set his face toward the city of his dreams and thoughts--New York.
Once there he shortly discovered that it was a deal easier to get into the kingdom of heaven than into the pages of the great periodicals, yet he had come to the city to make a name for himself in literature and he was not to be denied. His struggle was most severe, but his victory has been so complete that the bitterness of those days has been blown aside. The first seven or eight years of his life as a writer, Mr. Allen divided between New York, Cincinnati, and Kentucky.
He finally quit Kentucky in 1893, and he has not been in the state since 1898, at which time his _alma mater_ conferred the honorary degree of LL. D. upon him. He now resides in New York.
Mr. Allen began with short essays for _The Critic_, _The Continent_, _The Independent_, _The Manhattan_, and other periodicals; and he contributed some strong and fine poems to _The Atlantic Monthly_, _The Interior_, _Harper's Monthly_, _Lippincott's Magazine_, _The Independent_, and elsewhere. But none of these represented the true beginning of his work, of his career. His first short-story to attract general attention was _Too Much Momentum_, published in _Harper's Magazine_ for April, 1885. It, however, was naturally rather stiff, as the author was then wielding the pen of a 'prentice. This was followed by a charming essay, _The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky_, in _Harper's_ for February, 1886, and which really pointed the path he was to follow so wonderfully well through the coming years.
His first noteworthy story, _Two Gentlemen of Kentucky_, appeared in _The Century Magazine_ for April, 1888. Then followed fast upon each other's heels, _The White Cowl_; _King Solomon of Kentucky_, perhaps the greatest short-story he has written; _Posthumous Fame_; _Flute and Violin_; and _Sister Doloroso_, all of which were printed in the order named, and in _The Century_, save _Flute and Violin_, which was originally published in _Harper's Magazine_ for December, 1890. These "Kentucky tales and romances" were issued as Mr. Allen's first book, entitled _Flute and Violin_ (New York, 1891; Edinburgh, 1892, two volumes). Many of the author's admirers have come to regard these stories as the finest work he has done. As backgrounds for them he wrote a series of descriptive and historical papers upon Kentucky, originally published in _The Century_ and _Harper's_, and collected in book form under the title of the first of them, _The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky_ (New York, 1892). Up to this time Mr. Allen had written nothing but short-stories, verses, and sketches. While living at Cincinnati he wrote his first novelette, _John Gray_ (Philadelphia, 1893), which first appeared in _Lippincott's Magazine_ for June, 1892.
This is one of the author's strongest pieces of prose fiction, though it has been well-nigh forgotten in its original form.
These three books fitted Mr. Allen for the writing of an American classic, _A Kentucky Cardinal_ (New York, 1894), another novelette, which was published in two parts in _Harper's Magazine_ for May and June, 1894, prior to its appearance in book form. This, with its sequel, _Aftermath_ (New York, 1895), is the most exquisite tale of nature yet done by an American hand. It at once defies all praise, or adverse criticism, being wrought out as perfectly as human hands can well do. At the present time the two stories may be best read in the large paper illustrated edition done by Mr. Hugh Thomson, the celebrated English artist, to which Mr. Allen contributed a charming introduction. _Summer in Arcady_ (New York, 1896), which passed through the _Cosmopolitan Magazine_ as _Butterflies_, was a rather realistic story of love and Nature, and somewhat strongly drawn for the tastes of many people. When his complete works appear in twelve uniform volumes, in 1913 or 1914, this "tale of nature" will be entitled _A Pair of Butterflies_.
_The Choir Invisible_ (New York, 1897), Mr. Allen's first really long novel, was an augmented _John Gray_, and it placed him in the forefront of American novelists. Mr. Orson Lowell's illustrated edition of this work is most interesting; and it was dramatized in 1899, but produced without success, as the author had prophesied. Later in the same year _Two Gentlemen of Kentucky_ appeared as a bit of a book, and was cordially received by those of the author's admirers who continued to regard it as his masterpiece. _The Reign of Law_ (New York, 1900), a tale of the Kentucky hemp-fields, of love, and evolution, was published in London as _The Increasing Purpose_, because of the Duke of Argyll's prior appropriation of that title for his scientific treatise. The prologue upon Kentucky hemp strengthened Mr. Allen's reputation as one of the greatest writers of descriptive prose ever born out of Europe. It was widely read and discussed--in at least one quarter of the country--with unnecessary bitterness, if not with blind bigotry.
_The Mettle of the Pasture_ (New York, 1903), which was first announced as _Crypts of the Heart_, is a love story of great beauty, saturated with the atmosphere of Kentucky to a wonderful degree, yet it has not been sufficiently appreciated. For the five years following the publication of _The Mettle_, Mr. Allen was silent; but he was working harder than ever before in his life upon manuscripts which he has come to regard as his most vital contributions to prose fiction.
In the autumn of 1908 his stirring speech at the unveiling of the monument to remember his hero, King Solomon of Kentucky, was read; and three months later _The Last Christmas Tree_, brief prelude to his Christmas trilogy, appeared in _The Saturday Evening Post_. _The Bride of the Mistletoe_ (New York, 1909), part first of the trilogy, is one of the finest fragments of prose yet published in the United States.
It aroused criticism of various kinds in many quarters, one declaring it to be one thing, and one another, but all agreeing that it was something new and wonderful under our literary sun. The critics of to-morrow may discover that _The Bride_ was the foundation-stone of the now much-heralded _Chunk of Life School_ which has of late taken London by the ears. Yet, between _The Bride_ and _The Widow of the Bye Street_ a great gulf is fixed. Part two of the trilogy was first announced as _A Brood of the Eagle_, but it was finally published as _The Doctor's Christmas Eve_ (New York, 1910). This, one of Mr.
Allen's longest novels, was met by adverse criticism based on several grounds, but upon none more pointedly than what was alleged to be the unnatural precocity of the children, who do not appear to lightly flit through the pages in a way that our old-fashioned conventions would prescribe they should, but somewhat seem to clog the unfolding of the tale. Whatever estimate one may place upon _The Doctor_, he can scarcely be held to possess the subtile charm of _The Bride_. The third and final part of this much-discussed trilogy will hardly be published before 1914, or perhaps even subsequent to that date.
_The Heroine in Bronze_ (New York, 1912), is Mr. Allen's latest novel.
It is an American love story with all of the author's exquisite mastery of language again ringing fine and true. For the first time Mr. Allen largely abandons Kentucky as a landscape for his story, the action being in New York. The phrase "my country," that recurs throughout the book, succeeds the "Shield," which, in _The Bride of the Mistletoe_, was the author's appellation for Kentucky. The sequel to _The Heroine_--the story the boy wrote for the girl--is now preparing.
Twenty years ago Mr. Allen wrote, "Kentucky has little or no literature;" and while he did not write, perhaps, with the whole horizon of its range before him, there was substantial truth in the statement. The splendid sequel to his declaration is his own magnificent works. He pointed out the lack of merit in our literature, but he did a far finer and more fitting thing: he at once set out upon his distinguished career and has produced a literature for the state.
He has created Kentucky and Kentuckians as things apart from the outside world, a miniature republic within a greater republic; and no one knows the land and the people other than imperfectly if one cannot see and feel that his conception is clear and sentient. With a light but firm touch he has caught the shimmering atmosphere of his own native uplands and the idiosyncrasies of their people with all the fidelity with which the camera gives back a material outline.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Stories of James Lane Allen_, by L. W. Payne, Jr., in _The Sewanee Review_ (January, 1900); _James Lane Allen's Country_, by Arthur Bartlett, _The Bookman_ (October, 1900); _Famous Authors_, by E. F. Harkins (Boston, 1901); _Authors of Our Day in Their Homes_, by F. W. Halsey (New York, 1902); _Social Historians_, by H. A. Toulmin, Jr. (Boston, 1911).
KING SOLOMON OF KENTUCKY: AN ADDRESS[2]
[From _The Outlook_ (December 19, 1908)]
We are witnessing at present a revival of conflict between two ideas in our civilization that have already produced a colossal war; the idea of the greatness of our Nation as the welded and indissoluble greatness of the States, and the idea of the separate dignity and isolated power of each sovereign commonwealth. The spirit of the Nation reaches out more and more to absorb into itself its own parts, and each part draws back more and more into its own Attic supremacy and independence, feeling that its earlier struggles were its own struggles, that its heroes were its own heroes, and that it has memories which refuse to blend with any other memories. It will willingly yield the luster of its daily life to the National sun, but by night it must see its own lighthouses around its frontiers--beacons for its own wandering mariner sons and a warning to the Nation itself that such lights are sacred wherever they stand and burn.
But if the State more and more resists absorption into the Federal life, then less and less can it expect the Nation to do what it insists is its own peculiar work; the greater is the obligation resting upon it to make known to the Nation its own peculiar past and its own incommunicable greatness. Among the States of the Union none belongs more wholly to herself and less to the Nation than does Kentucky; none perhaps will resist more passionately the encroachments of Federal control; and upon her rests the very highest obligation to write her own history and make good her Attic aloofness.
But there is no nobler or more eloquent way in which a State can set forth its annals than by memorializing its great dead. The flag of a nation is its hope; its monuments are its memories. But it is also true that the flag of a country is its memory, and that its monuments are its hopes. And both are needed. Each calls aloud to the other. If you should go into any land and see it covered with monuments and nowhere see its flag, you would know that its flag had gone down into the dust and that its hope was ended. If you should travel in a land and everywhere see its flag and nowhere its monuments, you would ask yourself, Has this people no past that it cares to speak of? and if it has, why does it not speak of it? But when you visit a country where you see the flag proudly flying and proud monuments standing everywhere, then you say, Here is a people who are great in both their hopes and in their memories, and who live doubly through the deeds of their dead.
Where are Kentucky's monuments for her battlefields? There are some; where are the others? Where are her monuments for her heroes that she insists were hers alone? Over her waves the flag of her hopes; where are the monuments that are her memories?
This man whom you memorialize to-day was not, in station or habiliment, one of Kentucky's higher heroes; his battlefield was the battlefield of his own character; but the honor rightly heaped upon him at last makes one remember how many a battlefield and how many a hero remain forgotten. Not alone the fields and heroes of actual war, but of civic and moral and scientific and artistic leadership. These ceremonies--whom will they incite to kindred action elsewhere? What other monuments will they build?
There is a second movement broader than any question of State or National patriotism, in which these ceremonies also have their place.
It is the essential movement of our time in the direction of a new philanthropy.
No line of Shakespeare has ever been perhaps more quoted than this: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." It is true that he put the words into the mouth of a Roman of old; but they were true of the England of his time and they remained true for centuries after his death. But within the last one hundred years or less an entirely new spirit has been developed; a radically new way of looking at human history and at human character has superseded the old. The spirit and genius of our day calls for the recasting of Shakespeare's lines: Let the evil that men do be buried with them; let the good they did be found out and kept alive.
I wish to take one illustration of the truth of this from the history of English literature.
Do you know when and where it was that satire virtually ceased to exist in English literature? It was at the birthplace and with the birth of Charles Darwin. From Darwin's time, from the peak on which he stood, a long slope of English literature sinks backward and downward toward the past; and on that shadowy slope stand somewhere the fierce satirists of English letters. Last of them all, and standing near where Darwin stood, is the great form of Thackeray. All his life he sought for perfection in human character and never found it. He searched England from the throne down for the gentleman and never found the gentleman. The life-long quest sometimes left him bitter, always left him sad. For all of Thackeray's work was done under the influence of the older point of view, that the frailties of men should be scourged out of them and could be. Over his imagination brooded the shadow of a vast myth--that man had thrown away his own perfection, that he was a fallen angel, who wantonly refused to regain his own paradise.