The fires still glow upon the hearthstones to which our southern
writers in the olden days gave us friendly welcome. They are as bright
to-day as when, "four feet on the fender," we talked with some gifted
friend whose pen, dipped in the heart's blood of life, gave word to
thoughts which had flamed within us and sought vainly to escape the
walls of our being that they might go out to the world and fulfil their
mission. They who built the shrines before which we offer our devotion
have passed from the world of men, but the fires they kindled yet burn
with fadeless light.
To us who have dwelt in the same environment and found beauty in the
same scenes that inspired them to eloquent expression of the thoughts,
the loves, the hopes, and the aspirations which were our own as well
as theirs, these writers of our South are living still and will live
through the long procession of the years. In the garden of our lives
they planted the flowers of poesy, of fable, and of romance. With the
changes of the years those flowers may have passed into the realm of
the old-fashioned, like the blossoms in Grandmother's garden, but are
there any sweeter or more royally blooming than these?
The lustre of our gifted ones is not dimmed by the passage of time,
but in the rush of new books upon the world the readers of to-day lose
sight of the volumes which wove threads of gold into the joys and
sorrows of the generation now travelling the downward slope of life.
Their starry radiance is sometimes lost to view in the electric flash
of the present day. If these pages can in any slight way aid in
keeping their memory bright they will have reached their highest aim.
The poets of Dixie in war days tended the flames that glowed upon the
altar of patriotism. Their lives were given to their country as truly
as if their blood had crimsoned the sod of hard-fought fields. They
gave of their best to our cause. Their bugle notes echo through the
years, and the mournful tones of the dirges they sang over the grave
of our dreams yet thrill our hearts. Before our eyes "The Conquered
Banner" sorrowfully droops on its staff and "The Sword of Lee" flashes
in the lines of our Poet-Priest.
For the quotations with which are illustrated the varying phases of
his poetic thought I am indebted to the kindness of the publishers
of Father Ryan's poems, Messrs. P.J. Kenedy & Sons. For certain
selections from the poems of Hayne I am indebted to the Lothrop,
Lee & Shephard Company, and for selections from Dr. Bagley's "The
Old Fashioned Gentleman," Messrs. Charles Schribner's Sons.
My thanks are due the Houghton, Mifflin Company for permission to
include in my paper on Margaret Junkin Preston two poems and other
quotations from the "Life and Letters of Margaret J. Preston," by Mrs.
Allan, the step-daughter of Mrs. Preston.
The selections in the article on Georgia's doubly gifted son, Sidney
Lanier, poet and musician, are given through the kind permission of
Professor Edwin Mims and of Doubleday, Page & Company, publishers of
Mrs. Clay's "A Belle of the Fifties."