Fantastic vines
That swing like monstrous serpents in the sun.
There are living snakes in the swamp, yet more terrifying than the
viny serpents that circle the cypresses, and
The steel-jaw'd cayman from his grassy slope
Slides silent to the slimy, green abode
Which is his province.
Now and then a bit of sunny, poetic life touches upon the gloomy place,
for
See! a butterfly
That, travelling all the day, has counted climes
Only by flowers ...
Lights on the monster's brow.
An insecure perch for the radiant wanderer. The inhospitable saurian
dives with embarrassing suddenness and dips the airy visitor into the
"rank water." The butterfly finds no charm in the gloomy place and
flies away, which less ethereal wanderers might likewise be fain to
do. Now and then the stillness that reigned over that home of malign
things was broken by the sound of a boat-horn on a lumber raft
floating down the Edisto.
A song written by Simms chants the charms of a grapevine swing in the
festoons of which half a dozen guests could be seated at once, all on
different levels, book in one hand, leaving the other free to reach up
and gather the clusters of grapes as they read. After supper they sat
on the portico, from which they looked through a leafy archway formed
by the meeting of the branches of magnificent trees, and discussed
literature and metaphysics.
The Christmas guests at Woodlands would be awakened in early morning
by the sound of voice and banjo and, looking from their windows, could
see the master distributing gifts to his seventy dusky servitors. In
the evenings host and guests met in the spacious dining room where
Simms would brew a punch of unparalleled excellence, he being as
famous for the concoction of that form of gayety as was his friend,
Jamison, down the river, for the evolution of the festive cocktail.
Life flowed on pleasantly at Woodlands from October till May in those
idyllic years before death had made a graveyard of the old home and
fire had swept away the beautiful mansion.
William Gilmore Simms first opened his eyes upon the world of men in
Charleston, at a time when to be properly born in Charleston meant to
be born to the purple. William Gilmore, alas! did not inherit that
imperial color. He sprang from the good red earth, whence comes the
vigor of humanity, and dwelt in the rugged atmosphere of toil which
the Charleston eye could never penetrate. Politically, the City by the
Sea led the van in the hosts of Democracy; ethically, she remained far
in the rear with the Divine Right of Kings and the Thirty-Nine
Articles of Aristocracy.
So Charleston took little note of the boy whose father failed in trade
and fared forth to fight British and Indians under Old Hickory and to
wander in that far Southwest known as Mississippi to ascertain whether
that remote frontier might offer a livelihood to the unfortunate. The
small William Gilmore, left in the care of his grandmother, was
apprenticed to a druggist and became a familiar figure on the streets
of Charleston as he came and went on his round of errands. Small
wonder that the Queen of the Sea, having swallowed his pills and
powders in those early days, had little taste for his literary output
in after years.
In Charleston he not only learned the drug business, but took his
first course in the useful art of deception, reading and writing
verses by the light of a candle concealed in a box, to hide its rays
from his thrifty grandmother, who was adverse not only to the waste of
candles but to the squandering of good sleep-time.
Fortunately, she had no objection to furnishing him with entertainment
in off hours. For the material of much of his work in after life was
he indebted to the war stories and ancient traditions that she told
her eager little grandson in those 'prentice days. But for her olden
tales, the romances of Revolutionary South Carolina and the shivery
fascination of "Dismal Castle" might have been unknown to future
readers.
All the region around Charleston, so rich in historic memories, was an
inspiration to the future romance writer. The aged trees festooned
with heavy gray moss lent him visions of the past to reappear in many
a volume. In his boat in Charleston harbor, and on the sands looking
out over the ocean, he gathered that collection of sea pictures which
adorned his prose and verse in the years to come.
Over on Morris Island glowed the Charleston light, "the pale,
star-like beacon, set by the guardian civilization on the edges of the
great deep." Lying on the shore he watched "the swarthy beauty, Night,
enveloped in dark mantle, passing with all her train of starry
servitors; even as some queenly mourner, followed by legions of gay
and brilliant courtiers, glides slowly and mournfully in sad state and
solemnity on a duteous pilgrimage to some holy shrine." He saw "over
the watery waste that sad, sweet, doubtful light, such as Spenser
describes in the cathedral wood: 'A little glooming light, most like a
shade.'" Drifting about in his boat he might pass Long Island, where
in 1776 the ocean herself fought for Charleston, interposing an
impassable barrier to the advance of Sir Henry Clinton.
While sea and shore and sky and earth were giving him of their best,
his father came back with innumerable stories of adventure that would
of themselves have set up a young romancer in business. Having talked
his mind dry of experiences he returned to Mississippi to make another
collection of thrilling tales, leaving William Gilmore, Jr., with a
mental outlook upon life which the glories of Charleston could never
have opened to him.
Drugs, considered as a lifelong pursuit, did not appeal to the youth
who had been writing verses ever since he had arrived at the age of
eight years and now held a place in the poet's corner of a Charleston
paper. He went into the law office of his friend, Charles E. Carroll,
where his perusal of Blackstone was interspersed with reading poetry
and writing Byronic verses.
While thus variously engaged he received an invitation to visit his
father in the wilds of Mississippi, a call to which his adventurous
spirit gave willing response. Were there not Indians and other wild
things and the choicest assortment of the odds and ends of humanity
out there, just waiting to be made useful as material for the pen of
an ambitious romancer? Through untrodden forests he rode in a silence
broken only by his horse's feet and the howl of wolves in the
distance. To all the new views of the world he kept open the windows
of his mind and they were transmitted to his readers in the years to
come. If he did not sleep with head pillowed upon the grave of one of
De Soto's faithful followers, he at least thought he did, and the
fancy served him as the theme of verse. And those varying types of
human nature and beast nature--do they not all appear again upon the
printed page?
When the end of his visit came his father pleaded:
"Do not think of Charleston. Whatever your talents they will there be
poured out like water on the sands. Charleston! I know it only as a
place of tombs."
There came a time when he, too, knew it only as a place of tombs. Just
now he knew it as the home of the Only Girl in the world, so--what was
the use? And then, Charleston is born into the blood of all her sons,
whether she recognizes them or not. It is better to be a door-keeper
in Charleston than to dwell in the most gorgeous tents of outside
barbarians. So he who was born to the Queen City would hang on to the
remotest hem of her trailing robe at the imminent risk of having his
brains dashed out on the cobble-stones as she swept along her royal
way, rather than sit comfortably upon velvet-cushioned thrones in a
place unknown to her regal presence. Simms came back to his native
city with her "unsociable houses which rose behind walls, shutting in
beautiful gardens that it would have been a sacrilege to let the
public enjoy."
Soon after his return he was admitted to the bar and proved his
forensic prowess by earning $600 in the first year of his practice, a
degree of success which enabled him to unite his destiny with that of
the Only Girl, and begin housekeeping in Summerville, a suburban
village where living was cheap. For, though "Love gives itself and is
not bought," there are other essentials of existence which are not so
lavish with themselves.
The pen-fever had seized upon Simms with great virulence and he
followed his fate. Soon after his return from Mississippi, General
Charles Coates Pinckney died and Simms wrote the memorial poem for
him. When LaFayette visited Charleston the pen of Simms was called
upon to do suitable honor to the great occasion. Such periodical
attacks naturally resulted in a chronic condition. Charleston was the
scene of his brief, though not wholly unsuccessful, career as a
play-wright. In Charleston he edited the _Daily Gazette_ in the
exciting tunes of Nullification, taking with all the strength that was
in him the unpopular side of the burning question. In the doorway of
the Gazette office he stood defiantly as the procession of Nullifiers
came down the street, evidently with hostile intentions toward the
belligerent editor. Seeing his courageous attitude the enthusiasts
became good-natured and contented themselves with marching by, giving
three cheers for their cause.
In that famous bookshop, Russell's, on King Street he was accustomed
to meet in the afternoons with the youthful writers who looked upon
him as their natural born leader. In his "Wigwam," as he called his
Charleston home, he welcomed his followers to evenings of brightness
that were like stars in their memory through many after years of
darkness. When he made his home at Woodlands he often came to the
"Wigwam" to spend a night, calling his young disciples in for an
evening of entertainment. His powerful voice would be heard ringing
out in oratory and declamation so that neighbors blocks away would say
to Hayne or Timrod next morning, "I noticed that you had Simms with
you last night." In 1860 the "Wigwam" was accidentally burned.
At Woodlands, Simms awaited the coming of the war which he had
predicted for a number of years. There he was when the battle of
Fredericksburg filled him with triumphant joy, and he saw in fancy
"Peace with her beautiful rainbow plucked from the bosom of the storm
and spread from east to west, from north to south, over all the sunny
plains and snowy heights." Unfortunately, his radiant fancy wrought in
baseless visions and the fires of the storm had burned away that
brilliant rainbow before Peace came, as a mourning dove with shadowy
wings hovering over a Nation's grave.
In May, 1864, Simms went to Columbia and was there when the town was
destroyed by fire, the house in which he was staying being saved by
his presence therein. "You belong to the whole Union," said an
officer, placing a guard around the dwelling to protect the sturdy
writer who counted his friends all over the Nation. He said to friends
who sympathized with him over his losses, "Talk not to me about my
losses when the State is lost."
Simms describes the streets of Columbia as "wide and greatly protected
by umbrageous trees set in regular order, which during the vernal
season confer upon the city one of its most beautiful features."
The _Daily South Carolinian_ was sent to Charleston to save it from
destruction. Its editors, Julian Selby and Henry Timrod, remained in
the office on the south side of Washington Street near Main, where
they prepared and sent out a daily bulletin while bomb-shells fell
around them, until their labors were ended by the burning of the
building.
From the ashes of the _Carolinian_ arose the _Phoenix_ and Simms was
its editor through its somewhat brief existence. Selby relates that
Simms offended General Hartwell and was summoned to trial at the
General's headquarters on the corner of Bull and Gervais Streets. The
result of the trial was an invitation for the defendant to a sumptuous
luncheon and a ride home in the General's carriage accompanied by a
basket of champagne and other good things. The next day the General
told a friend that if Mr. Simms was a specimen of a South Carolina
gentleman he would not again enter into a tilt with one. "He outtalked
me, out-drank me, and very clearly and politely showed me that I
lacked proper respect for the aged."
The _Phoenix_ promptly sank back into its ashes and Simms returned to
Charleston to a life of toil and struggle, not only for his own
livelihood but to help others bear the burden of existence that was
very heavy in Charleston immediately succeeding the war. Timrod wrote
to him, "Somehow or other, you always magnetize me on to a little
strength."
In 1866 Simms visited Paul Hayne at Copse Hill, the shrine to which
many footsteps were turned in the days when the poet and his little
family made life beautiful on that pine-clad summit. Hayne welcomed
his guest with joy and with sorrow--joy to behold again the face of
his old friend; sorrow to see it lined with the pain and losses of the
years.
Of all their old circle, Simms was the one whose wreck was the most
disastrous. He had possessed so many of the things which make life
desirable that his loss had left him as the storm leaves the ruined
ship which, in the days of its magnificence, had ridden the waves with
the greatest pride. The fortnight in Copse Hill was the first relief
from toil that had come to him since death and fire and defeat had
done their worst upon him. His biographer says, "He was as eager as
ever to pass the night in profitless, though pleasant, discussions
when he should have been trying to regain his strength through sleep."
To a later visitor Paul Hayne showed a cherished pine log on which
were inscribed the names of Simms and Timrod.
Upon the return of Simms he wrote to his friend at Copse Hill that no
language could describe the suffering of Charleston. He said that the
picture of Irving, given him by Hayne, served a useful purpose in
helping to cover the bomb-shell holes still in his walls. "For the
last three years," he writes, "I have written till two in the morning.
Does not this look like suicide?" He mentions the fact that he shares
with his two sons his room in which he sleeps, works, writes and
studies, and is "cabin'd, cribbed, confined"--"I who have had such
ample range before, with a dozen rooms and a house range for walking,
in bad weather, of 134 feet." The old days were very fair as seen
through the heavy clouds that had gathered around the Master of
Woodlands.
In 1870, June 11th, the bell of Saint Michael's tolled the message
that Charleston's most distinguished son had passed away. His funeral
was in Saint Paul's. He was buried in Magnolia Cemetery, at the
dedication of which twenty-one years earlier he had read the
dedication poem. The stone above him bears simply the name, "Simms."
On the Battery in Charleston a monument commemorates the broken life
of one who gave of his best to the city of his home and his love.
Verily might he say: I asked for bread and you gave me a stone.
"UNCLE REMUS"