[From _The Louisville Times_]
Through a little lane at sundown in the days that used to be, When the summer-time and roses lit the land, My sweetheart would come singing down that leafy way to me With her dainty pink sunbonnet in her hand.
Oh, I threw my arms about her as we met beside the way, And her darling, curly head lay on my breast, While she told me that she loved me in her simple, girlish way, And then kisses that she gave me told the rest; For a kiss is all the language that you wish from your sweetheart, When you meet her in the gloaming there, so lonely and apart, And she set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
Through a little lane at sundown we went walking hand in hand, 'Mid the summer-time and roses long ago, And the path that we were treading seemed to lead to fairyland, The place where happy lovers long to go; Oh, we talked about our marriage in the quiet, evening hush, And I bent to whisper love words in her ear, And her dainty pink sunbonnet was no pinker than her blush For she thought the birds and flowers all might hear; Oh, that dainty pink sunbonnet, bright in memory still it glows, It hid her smiles and blushes as the young leaves veil the rose, When she set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me, In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
Through a little lane at sundown I go roaming all forlorn, Though the summer-time once more smiles o'er the land, And the roses seem to ask me where their sister rose has gone With her dainty pink sunbonnet in her hand.
But false friends came between us and I found out to my cost, When I learned too late her sweetness and her truth, That the love we hold the dearest is the love that we have lost, With the roses and the fairyland of youth.
Now the flowers all bend above her through the long, bright summer day, And my heart grows homesick for her as she dreams the hours away, She who set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
FOOTNOTE:
[25] (George) Douglass Sherley, born at Louisville, Kentucky, June 27, 1857; educated at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and University of Virginia; joined staff of the old Louisville _Commercial_; made lecture tour with James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet; now resides near Lexington, Kentucky. Author of: _The Inner Sisterhood_ (Louisville, 1884); _The Valley of Unrest_ (New York, 1884); _Love Perpetuated_ (Louisville, 1884); _The Story of a Picture_ (Louisville, 1884). Mr. Sherley has done much occasional writing since his four books were published, which has appeared in the form of calendars, leaflets, and in newspapers.
JOSEPH S. COTTER
Joseph Seaman Cotter, Kentucky's only negro writer of real creative ability, was born near Bardstown, Kentucky, February 2, 1861. From his hard day-labor, he went to night school in Louisville, and he has educated himself so successfully that he is at the present time principal of the Tenth Ward colored school, Louisville. Cotter has published three volumes of verse, the first of which was _Links of Friendship_ (Louisville, 1898), a book of short lyrics. This was followed by a four-act verse drama, entitled _Caleb, the Degenerate_ (Louisville, 1903). His latest book of verse is _A White Song and a Black One_ (Louisville, 1909). Cotter's response to Paul Lawrence Dunbar's _After a Visit_ to Kentucky, was exceedingly well done, but his _Negro Love Song_ is the cleverest thing he has written hitherto.
His work has been praised by Alfred Austin, Israel Zangwill, Madison Cawein, Charles J. O'Malley, and other excellent judges of poetry.
Cotter is a great credit to his race, and he has won, by his quiet, unassuming life and literary labors, the respect of many of Louisville's most prominent citizens. One of his admirers has ranked his work above Dunbar's, but this rating is much too high for any thing he has done so far. In the last year or two he has turned his attention to the short-story, and his first collection of them has just appeared, entitled _Negro Tales_ (New York, 1912).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Lexington Leader_ (November 14, 1909); _Lore of the Meadowland_, by J. W. Townsend (Lexington, Kentucky, 1911).
NEGRO LOVE SONG[26]
[From _A White Song and a Black One_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1909)]
I lobes your hands, gal; yes I do.
(I'se gwine ter wed ter-morro'.) I lobes your earnings thro' an' thro'.
(I'se gwine ter wed ter-morro'.) Now, heah de truf. I'se mos' nigh broke; I wants ter take you fer my yoke; So let's go wed ter-morro'.
Now, don't look shy, an' don't say no.
(I'se gwine ter wed ter-morro'.) I hope you don't expects er sho'
When we two weds ter-morro'.
I needs er licends--you know I do-- I'll borrow de price ob de same frum you, An' den we weds ter-morro'.
How pay you back? In de reg'ler way.
When you becomes my honey You'll habe myself fer de princ'pal pay, An' my faults fer de inter's' money.
Dat suits you well? Dis cash is right.
So we two weds ter-morro' night, An' you wuks all de ter-morro's.
FOOTNOTE:
[26] Copyright, 1909, by the Author.
ETHELBERT D. WARFIELD
Ethelbert Dudley Warfield, historical writer, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, March 16, 1861, the brother of Dr. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, the distinguished professor in Princeton Theological Seminary.
President Warfield was graduated from Princeton, continued his studies at the University of Oxford, and was graduated in law from Columbia University, in 1885. He practiced law at Lexington, Kentucky, for two years, when he abandoned the profession for the presidency of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. In 1891 he left Miami for the presidency of LaFayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, where he has remained ever since. In 1899 Dr. Warfield was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry.
He teaches history at LaFayette. Besides several interesting pamphlets upon historical subjects, Dr. Warfield has published three books, the first of which was _The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: an Historical Study_ (New York, 1887), his most important work so far. _At the Evening Hour_ (Philadelphia, 1898), is a little book of talks upon religious subjects; and his most recent volume, _Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Junior_ (New York, 1898), is the pathetic tale of the years of an early hero of the Spanish-American war, graphically related.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Munsey's Magazine_ (August, 1901); _The Independent_ (December 25, 1902); _The Independent_ (July 13, 1905).
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
[From _The Presbyterian and Reformed Review_ (April, 1892)]
Columbus is one of the few men who have profoundly changed the course of history. He occupies a unique and commanding position, seeming to stand out of contemporary history, and to be a force separate and apart. He is the gateway to the New World. His career made a new civilization possible. His achievement conditions the expansion and development of human liberty. His position is simple but certain. His figure is as constant and as inexorable as the ice floes which girdle and guard the pole are to us, or as the sea of darkness which he spanned was to his predecessors. He inserted a known quantity into the hitherto unsolvable problem of geography, and not only rendered it solvable, but afforded a key to a vast number of problems dependent upon it, problems not merely geographical, but economical, sociological and governmental as well.
Yet in all this there mingles an element of error. Great events do not come unanticipated and unheralded.
"Wass Gott thut, das ist wohl gethan,"
sang Luther, knowing well that God hath foreordained from the foundation of the world whatsoever cometh to pass. "In the fullness of time" God does all things in His benign philosophy. In the fullness of time man was set in the midst of his creation; in the fullness of time Christ came; in the fullness of time God opened the portals of the west.
If the Welsh were driven on our shores under Madoc, if the Norsemen came and sought to found here "Vinland, the good," they did not light upon the fullness of time. God had no splendid purpose for the Welsh; the Northland force was needed to make bold the hearts of England, France, and Italy, to unify the world with fellow-service in the Orient, to break the bonds of feudalism, and to wing the sandals of liberty. As Isaac Newton sat watching the apple fall in his garden, he was but resting from the labor of gathering into his mind the labors of men who had in this or that anticipated his discovery of the law of gravitation.
In all scientific advance many gather facts. One comes at length and in a far-reaching synthesis arranges the facts of many predecessors around some central truth and rises to some great principle. So generalizations follow generalizations, and the field of truth expands in ever-widening circles from the central fact of God's establishment. Columbus is not like Melchisedec. He had antecedents--antecedents many and obvious. The highest tribute we can pay him is to say that he fixed upon one of the world's great problems, studied it in all its relations, embraced clear and definite views upon it, and staked his all upon the issue; and that not in a spirit of mere adventure, but of dedication to a noble purpose.
He gave to a speculative question reality, and thereby gave a hemisphere to Christendom.
But like the girl who admitted the Gauls to the Capitol at Rome in return for "what they wore on their left arms," Columbus was overwhelmed by the reward which he demanded for his services. Without natural ability to command, and without experience, he demanded and obtained a fatal authority.
EVELYN S. BARNETT
Mrs. Evelyn Snead Barnett, a novelist of strength and promise, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, June 9, 1861, the daughter of Charles Scott Snead. On June 8, 1886, Miss Snead became the wife of Mr. Ira Sayre Barnett, a Louisville business man. Mrs. Barnett was literary editor of _The Courier-Journal_ for seven years, and her Saturday page upon "Books and Their Writers" was carefully edited. She did a real service for Kentucky letters in that she never omitted comment and criticism upon the latest books of our authors, with an occasional word upon the writers of the long ago. She was succeeded by the present editor, Miss Anna Blanche Magill. Mrs. Barnett's first story, entitled _Mrs. Delire's Euchre Party and Other Tales_ (Franklin, Ohio, 1895), the "other tales" being three in number, was followed by _Jerry's Reward_ (Boston, 1902). These novelettes made clear the path for the author's big novel, _The Dragnet_ (New York, 1909), now in its second edition. This is a great mystery story, one reviewer ranking it with the best detective tales of the present-day school. The American trusts and the hearts of women furnish the setting for _The Dragnet_, which is bigger in promise than in achievement, and which bespeaks even greater merit for Mrs. Barnett's new novel, now in preparation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Kentuckians in History and Literature_, by J. W.
Townsend (New York, 1907); _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).
THE WILL[27]
[From _The Dragnet_ (New York, 1909)]
Soon after their return, the Alexanders were forced to move to town.
Charles needed the time he had to spend on the road going to and fro, and he was unwilling to put unnecessary hours of work on Trezevant, who not only bore his share during the day, but was sleeping with one eye open in a dingy corner of the shops. As the Dinsmore was expensive, they rented a modern flat, with tiny rooms, but plenty of sunlight. Constance knew they could save here, especially as Diana still wished to make her home with them.