Miss Loring had observed that, in common with every other boy, big or little, in the school, Howard had been at first much taken with Beldora's looks, and it was with relief that she beheld his expression of repulsion at Beldora's complacent singing of "Barbara Allen."
The first real warning came at the Thanksgiving party. During a game of forfeits, Beldora was ordered to "claim the one you like the best."
Miss Loring saw her first approach Howard with a dazzling and tender look in her splendid eyes, and even put out a hand to him; then suddenly, with a wicked little smile, she turned and gave both hands to Spalding Drake, a young man from the village. A deep flush sprang to Howard's face, his jaws clenched, his eyes blazed tigerishly. It might have been only chagrin at the public slight; still, it made Miss Loring anxious enough to have a long talk with Beldora next day and explain to her the hopes and plans for Howard's future and the tragedy and cruelty of interfering with them in any way.
One morning, three days before Christmas, Beldora's bed had not been slept in at all, and under the front door was a note in Howard's handwriting, as follows:
DEAR FRIENDS:
Beldora told me last week she aimed to marry Spalding Drake Christmas.
Though he is a nice boy and I like him, I knew, if she did, I would kill him on the spot. Rather than do this, it is better for me to marry her myself beforehand. I have hired a nag, and we will ride to Tazewell by moonlight for a license and preacher.
I know a man is a fool that throws away his future for a woman, that Beldora is not worth it, and that I am doing what I will never cease to regret. It is like death to me to know I will never accomplish the things you set before me, and be the man you wanted me to be. I wish I had never laid eyes on Beldora. I have agonized and battled and tried to give her up; but she is too strong for me. I can fight no longer with fate. It would be better if women like Beldora never was created.
She has cost the life of one boy, the liberty of another, and now my future. But it had to be.
Respectfully yours,
HOWARD.
FOOTNOTE:
[63] Copyright, 1912, by the Century Company.
BERT FINCK
Edward Bertrand Finck ("Bert Finck"), prose pastelist and closet dramatist, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, October 16, 1870, the son of a German father and American mother. His parents were fond of traveling and much of his earlier life was spent in various parts of this country and abroad. He was educated in the private schools of his native city, finishing his academic training at Professor M. B.
Allmond's institution. Mr. Finck began to write at an early age, and he has published four books: _Pebbles_ (Louisville, 1898), a little volume of epigrams; _Webs_ (Louisville, 1900), being reveries and essays in miniature; _Plays_ (Louisville, 1902), a group of allegorical dramas; and _Musings and Pastels_ (Louisville, 1905). All of these small books are composed of poetic and philosophical prose, many passages possessing great truth and beauty. In 1906 Mr. Finck was admitted to the bar of Louisville, and he has since practiced there with success. He seemingly took Blackstonian leave of letters some years ago, but the gossips of literary Louisville have been telling, of late, of a new book of prose pastels that he has recently finished and will bring out in the late autumn of 1913.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mr. Finck's letters to the Author; _Who's Who in America_ (1912-1913).
BEHIND THE SCENES[64]
[From _Webs_ (Louisville, 1900)]
Could we but lift the countenance which pleases or repels, what seems so sweet might thrust away, and what is repugnant charm or win our sympathy and aid. Is not indifference often a net to catch or to conceal? Modesty, diplomatic egotism? Wit, brilliant misery?
Contentment, wallowing despair? Langor, shrewd energy? Frivolity, woe burlesquely masked by unselfishness or pride? Is not philosophy, at times, resignation in delirium? The enthusiastic are ridiculed as being self-conceited; the patient condemned for having no heart. We stigmatize them as idle whose natures are toiling the noblest toil of all, for not rarely do thought-gods drift through a spell of idleness; a butterfly-fancy may breed a spirit that turns the way of an age's career; there are sleeps that are awakenings; awakenings, sleeps; none so worthless as many who are busy all the time. Smiles are sometimes selfish triumphs; peace, the swine-heart's well-filled trough. Cheeks rich with the fire of fever are envied as glow of health; steps, eager to escape from a spectre, we laudingly call enthusiasm in work; and the brain's desperate efforts to stifle bitter thoughts sharpen tongues that fascinate with their brilliant gayety--the world dances to the music of its sighs.
FOOTNOTE:
[64] Copyright, 1900, by the Author.
OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN
Mrs. Olive Tilford Dargan, poet and dramatist, was born at Tilfordsville, near Leitchfield, Kentucky, in 1870. She attended the public schools, in which her parents were teachers, until she was ten years of age, when they left Kentucky and established a school at Donophan, Missouri. Three years later she was ready for college, but her mother's health broke, and the family settled in the Ozark Mountains, near Warm Springs, Arkansas, where another school was conducted, this time with the daughter as her father's assistant. For the following five years she taught the young idea of backwoods Arkansas how to shoot; and during these years she herself was always hoping and planning for a college education, which hopes and plans seemed to crumble beneath her feet when her mother died, in 1888, and she returned to Kentucky with her invalid father. She had purposed in her heart, however, and finally obtained a Peabody scholarship, which took her to the University of Nashville, Tennessee, from which institution she was graduated two years later. Miss Tilford then accepted a position to teach in Missouri, but the climate so affected her health that she was forced to resign and repair to Houston, Texas, to recuperate. She shortly afterwards took a course in a business college and, for a brief period, held a position in a bank. Teaching again called her and for two years she taught in the schools of San Antonio, Texas. In 1894 Miss Tilford did work in English and philosophy at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and a year later she turned again to teaching, holding a position in Acadia Seminary, Wolfville, Nova Scotia. This was followed by a year spent in reading in the libraries of Boston, in which city she also worked as a stenographer. Several of her articles were accepted by the magazines about this time, which decided her to settle upon literature as her life work. She worked too hard at the outset, however, her health gave way, and she spent some months in the mountains of Georgia in order to regain her strength. Miss Tilford was married, in 1898, to Mr. Pegram Dargan, of Darlington, South Carolina, a Harvard man, whom she had met while at Radcliffe. Not long after she went to New York, and there resumed her literary labors with a high and serious purpose. Mrs. Dargan's first volume of dramas, _Semiramis and Other Plays_, was published by Brentano's in 1904, and taken over by the Scribner's in 1909. Besides the title-play, _Semiramis_, founded on the life of the famous Persian queen, this book contained _Carlotta_, a drama of Mexico in the days of Maximilian, and _The Poet_, which is Edgar Allan Poe's life dramatized.
Mrs. Dargan's second volume of plays bore the attractive title of _Lords and Lovers and Other Dramas_ (New York, 1906), the second edition of which appeared in 1908. This also contains three plays, the second being _The Shepherd_, with the setting in Russia, and the third, _The Siege_, a Sicilian play, the scene of which is laid in Syracuse, three hundred and fifty-six years before Christ. Mrs. Dargan's _Lords and Lovers_, set against an English background, is generally regarded as the best work she has done hitherto. Mr. Hamilton Wright Mabie has praised this play highly, placing the author beside Percy MacKaye and Josephine Preston Peabody Marks. Mrs. Dargan is Kentucky's foremost poetic dramatist, and the work she has so far accomplished may be considered but an earnest of what she will ultimately produce. Her beautiful masque, _The Woods of Ida_, appeared in _The Century Magazine_ for August, 1907, and it has taken its place with the finest English work in that branch of the drama. She has had lyrics in _Scribner's_, _McClure's_, _The Century_, and _The Atlantic Monthly_, her most recent poem, "In the Blue Ridge," having appeared in _Scribner's_ for May, 1911. Mrs. Dargan's home is in Boston, but for the last three years she has traveled abroad, spending much time in England, the background of her greatest work. Her third and latest volume contains three dramas, entitled _The Mortal Gods and Other Plays_ (New York, 1912). This was awaited with impatience by her admirers on both sides of the Atlantic and read with delight by them.
"Mrs. Dargan has so recently achieved fame that it may seem premature to pronounce a critical judgment on her work," wrote Dr. George A.
Wauchope, professor of English in the University of South Carolina, in claiming her for his State. "It is certain, however," he continued, "that it marks the high tide of dramatic poetry in this country, and is, indeed, not unworthy of comparison with all but the greatest in English literature. One is equally impressed by the creative inspiration and the mastery of technique displayed by the author. Each of her plays reveals a dramatic power and a poetic beauty of thought and diction that are surprising. The numerous songs, also, with which her plays are interspersed, yield a rich and haunting melody that is redolent of the charming Elizabethan lyrics. The dramas as a whole are audacious in plot and vigorous in characterization. In the handling of the blank verse, in the witty scenes of the sub-plots, in the splendor of the phrasing, in the strong undercurrent of reflection, and, above all, in their spiritual uplift and noble emotion, these dramas give evidence of a remarkably gifted playwright who not only possesses a deep feeling for art at its highest and best, but who also has command of all the varied resources of dramatic expression."
It would be difficult for a critic to say more in praise of an author, would it not?
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The University of Virginia Magazine_ (January, 1909), containing Wm. Kavanaugh Doty's review of Mrs. Dargan's _The Poet_; _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1909, v.
iii); _The Writers of South Carolina_, by G. A. Wauchope (Columbia, S. C., 1910).
NEAR THE COTTAGE IN GREENOT WOODS[65]
[From _Lords and Lovers_ (New York, 1906)]
Act IV, Scene I. _Henry, with lute, singing._
Ope, throw ope thy bower door, And come thou forth, my sweet!
'Tis morn, the watch of love is o'er, And mating hearts should meet.
The stars have fled and left their grace In every blossom's lifted face, And gentle shadows fleck the light With tender memories of the night.
Sweet, there's a door to every shrine; Wilt thou, as morning, open thine?
Hark! now the lark has met the clouds, And rains his sheer melodious flood; The green earth casts her mystic shrouds To meet the flaming god!
Alas, for me there is no dawn If Glaia come not with the sun.
[_Enter Glaia. The king kneels as she approaches._]
_Gla._ 'Tis you!
_Hen._ [Leaping up] Pardoned! Queen of this bowerland, Your glad eyes tell me that I have not sinned.
_Gla._ How cam'st thou here? Now who plays Hubert false?
Nay, I'm too glad thou'rt come to question so.
'Tis easy to forgive the treachery That opes our gates to angels.
_Hen._ O, I'm loved?
_Gla._ Yes, Henry. All the morn I've thought of you, And I rose early, for I love to say Good-by to my dear stars; they seem so wan And loath to go away, as though they know The fickle world is thinking of the sun And all their gentle service of the night Is quite forgot.
_Hen._ And what didst think of me?
_Gla._ That you could come and see this beauteous wood, Fair with Spring's love and morning's kiss of grace, You'd be content to live awhile with me, Leave war's red step to follow living May Passing to pour her veins' immortal flood To each decaying root; and rest by springs Where waters run to sounds less rude than song, And hiding sibyls stir sweet prophecies.
_Hen._ The only springs I seek are in your eyes That nourish all the desert of myself.
Drop here, O, Glaia, thy transforming dews, And start fair summer in this waste of me!
_Gla._ Poor Henry! What dost know of me to love?