the middle of it; but the Arabian gradually takes the lead, and when
they flash up to the stand he is ten yards ahead. Sir Archy is
distanced and withdrawn.
It would be impossible to describe the excitement of the crowd:--the
tremendous effect produced upon them by this reversal of all their
hopes and expectations. They roll about like waves, they shout, they
curse, they rumble and groan like a stormy sea.
The horses are the objects of every one's attention. Their condition
will go far to indicate the final result--and Sir Archy being led away
and withdrawn, the race now will be between Fair Anna and the Arabian.
Mr. James looks more solemn than ever, and all eyes are turned upon
him. Captain Waters is not visible--he is yonder, conversing with the
ladies.
But the horses! Fair Anna pants and breathes heavily: her coat is
drenched more completely than before with perspiration; her mouth
foams; she tosses her head; when the rake is applied to her back a
shower falls.
The Arabian is wet all over too; but he breathes regularly; his eye is
bright and his head calm. He has commenced running. The first
intention of Mr. James is to give up the race, but his pride will not
let him. He utters an oath, and gives renewed instructions to his
rider. These instructions are to whip and spur--to take the lead and
keep it, from the start.
The moment for the final struggle arrives, and Captain Ralph merely
says, "Rein free!"
The boys mount--the crowd opens; the drum taps and the animals are off
like lightning.
Fair Anna feels that all her previous reputation is at stake, and
flies like a deer. She passes around the first mile like a flash of
white light; but the Arabian is beside her. For a quarter of a mile
thereafter they run neck and neck--the rider of fair Anna lashes and
spurs desperately.
They come up to the quarter-stretch in the last mile at supernatural
speed:--the spectators rise on their toes and shout:--two shadows pass
them like the shadows of darting hawks:--the mare barely saves her
distance and the Arabian has triumphed.
If we could not describe the excitement after the second heat, what
possibility is there that we could convey an idea of the raging and
surging pandemonium which the crowd now came to resemble? Furious
cries--shouts--curses--applause--laughter--and the rattle of coin
leaving unwilling hands are some of the sounds. But here we must give
up:--as no mere pen can describe the raging of a great mass of water
lashed by an angry wind into foam and whistling spray and muttering
waves, which rise and fall and crash incessantly, so we cannot trace
the outline of the wildly excited crowd.
[Afterwards come contests with the quarter-staff, a wrestling match,
running matches, a contest of singing among "a dozen blushing
maidens," and of fiddling among twenty bold musicians: and the day is
wound up with a great banquet.]
FOOTNOTE:
[29] By permission of D. Appleton and Co., New York.
ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE.
~1830=1894.~
ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and
was educated at Washington College, Tennessee, and at the University
of North Carolina. He studied law and began its practice in Asheville.
He was soon elected to the State Legislature and to Congress; and from
1854 to his death was continuously in public life except just after
the war. His wit and eloquence made him a great favorite both on the
stump and in Congress, and the influence he wielded in his state was
unbounded. He was opposed to secession, but joined his state in her
decision and became colonel of the 26th North Carolina Regiment, one
of the best of the army.
In 1862 he was elected governor of the State and was so active and
enterprising in getting aid by sea for the cause that he was called
the "War Governor of the South." He was in favor of considering the
negotiations for peace in 1863, but he neglected no measures to insure
the success of the Confederacy. In 1865 he was held a prisoner of war
for a few weeks in Washington.
[Illustration: ~State Capitol of North Carolina.~]
His political disabilities were not removed till 1872; in 1876 he was
elected governor of North Carolina, and in 1879, United States
Senator, having been elected and his seat refused him in 1870. His
death occurred in Washington City, and he is buried in Asheville. His
State is now preparing to erect a monument expressing her honor and
devotion to her illustrious son.
WORKS.
Speeches: (in Congress and on Public Occasions.)
CHANGES WROUGHT BY THE WAR.
(_From All About it--an address before the young men of Raleigh,
N. C.; published in "Land We Love" January, 1867._)
Virginia to the north of us was settled by English Cavaliers; South
Carolina, mainly by French Huguenots, both among the noblest stocks of
Western Europe. North Carolina, with but a slight infusion of each,
was settled by a sturdier--and in some respects--a better race than
either. She was emphatically the offspring of religious and political
persecution, and the vital stream of her infant life was of
Scotch-Irish origin. A cross of those two noble races has produced a
breed of men as renowned for great deeds and modest worth as perhaps
any other in this world. Two instances will suffice for this. Perhaps
the most manly and glorious feat of arms in modern times was the
defence of Londonderry, as the boldest and most remarkable state paper
was the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Both were the work
mainly of men such as settled North Carolina.
_The Country Gentlemen._--Perhaps one of the most remarkable changes
which we may expect, is one that will soon be apparent on the face of
our country society. The abolition of slavery will do wonders here. It
puts an end to the reign of those lordly-landed proprietors, planters,
and farmers, who constituted so striking and so pleasant a feature in
our rural population. No longer the masters of hundreds of slaves
wherewith to cultivate their thousands of acres, the general cheapness
of lands in the South will prevent their forming around them a system
of dependent tenantry, since every industrious man will be able to
plough his own farm. They will therefore gradually sell off their
paternal acres, no longer within the scope of prudent management, and
seek homes in the towns and villages, or contract their establishments
to their means and altered condition. Agriculture will then pass
gradually into the hands of small farmers, and the great farms will
forever disappear.
I can scarcely imagine it possible for any one to view the steady
disappearance of the race of Southern country gentlemen without
genuine sorrow . . . the high-toned, educated, chivalrous,
intelligent, and hospitable Southern gentlemen, of whom each one who
hears me has at least a dozen in his mind's eye in Virginia and the
Carolinas: whose broad fields were cultivated by their own faithful
and devoted slaves, whose rudely splendid mansions stand where their
fathers reared them, among the oaks and the pines which greeted the
canoe of John Smith, welcomed the ships of Raleigh, and sheltered the
wild cavaliers of De Soto; whose hall doors stood wide open, and were
never shut except against a retreating guest;[30] whose cellar and
table abounded with the richest products of the richest lands in the
world, and whose hospitality was yet unstained by unrefined excess;
whose parlors and fire-sides were adorned by a courtly female grace
which might vie with any that ever lighted and blessed the home of
man; whose hands were taught from infancy to fly open to every
generous and charitable appeal, and whose minds were inured to all
self-respect and toleration, and whose strong brains were sudden death
to humbuggery, all the _isms_, and the whole family of mean and
pestilential fanaticism.
_The Negroes._--There is also a great change at hand for the
negro. . . Who that knew him as a contented, well-treated slave, did
not learn to love and admire the negro character? I, for one, confess
to almost an enthusiasm on the subject. The cheerful ring of their
songs at their daily tasks, their love for their masters and their
families, their politeness and good manners, their easily bought but
sincere gratitude, their deep-seated aristocracy--for your genuine
negro was a terrible aristocrat,--their pride in their own and their
master's dignity, together with their overflowing and never-failing
animal spirits, both during hours of labor and leisure, altogether,
made up an aggregation of joyous simplicity and fidelity--when not
perverted by harsh treatment--that to me was irresistible!
A remembrance of the seasons spent among them will perish only with
life. From the time of the ingathering of the crops, until after the
ushering in of the new year, was wont to be with them a season of
greater joy and festivity than with any other people on earth, of whom
it has been my lot to hear. In the glorious November nights of our
beneficent clime, after the first frosts had given a bracing sharpness
and a ringing clearness to the air, and lent that transparent blue to
the heavens through which the stars gleam like globes of sapphire,
when I have seen a hundred or more of them around the swelling piles
of corn, and heard their tuneful voices ringing with the chorus of
some wild refrain, I have thought I would rather far listen to them
than to any music ever sung to mortal ears; for it was the outpouring
of the hearts of happy and contented men, rejoicing over the abundance
which rewarded the labor of the closing year! And the listening, too,
has many a time and oft filled my bosom with emotions, and opened my
heart with charity and love toward this subject and dependent race,
such as no oratory, no rhetoric or minstrelsy in all this wide earth
could impart!
Nature ceased almost to feel fatigue in the joyous scenes which
followed. The fiddle and the banjo, animated as it would seem like
living things, literally knew no rest, night or day; while Terpichore
covered her face in absolute despair in the presence of that famous
_double-shuffle_ with which the long nights and "master's shoes" were
worn away together! . . . .
Who can forget the cook by whom his youthful appetite was fed? The
fussy, consequential old lady to whom I now refer, has often, during
my vagrant inroads into her rightful domains, boxed my infant jaws,
with an imperious, "Bress de Lord, git out of de way: dat chile never
kin git enuff": and as often relenting at sight of my hungry tears,
has fairly bribed me into her love again with the very choicest bits
of the savory messes of her art. She was haughty as Juno, and
aristocratic as though her naked ancestors had come over with the
Conqueror, or "drawn a good bow at Hastings," . . . and yet her pride
invariably melted at the sight of certain surreptitious quantities of
tobacco, with which I made my court to this high priestess of the
region sacred to the stomach.
And there, too, plainest of all, I can see the fat and chubby form of
my dear old nurse, whose encircling arms of love fondled and supported
me from the time whereof the memory of this man runneth not to the
contrary. All the strong love of her simple and faithful nature seemed
bestowed on her mistress' children, which she was not permitted to
give to her own, long, long ago left behind and dead in "ole
Varginney." Oh! the wonderful and touching stories of them, and a
hundred other things, which she has poured into my infant ears! How
well do I remember the marvellous story of the manner in which she
obtained religion, of her many and sore conflicts with the powers of
darkness, and of her first dawning hopes in that blessed gospel whose
richest glory is, that it is preached to the poor, such as she was!
From her lips, too, I heard my first ghost-story! Think of that! None
of your feeble make-believes of a ghost-story either, carrying
infidelity on its face; but a real bona-fide narrative, witnessed by
herself, and told with the earnestness of truth itself. How my knees
smote together, and my hair stood on end, "so called"--as I stared and
startled, and declared again and again with quite a sickly manhood
indeed, that _I wasn't scared a bit_!
Perhaps the proudest day of my boyhood was when I was able to present
her with a large and flaming red cotton handkerchief, wherewith in
turban style she adorned her head. And my satisfaction was complete
when my profound erudition enabled me to read for her on Sabbath
afternoons that most wonderful of all stories, the Pilgrim's Progress.
Nor was it uninstructive, or a slight tribute to the genius of the
immortal tinker--could I but have appreciated it--to observe the
varied emotions excited within her breast by the recital of those
fearful conflicts by the way, and of the unspeakable glories of the
celestial City, within whose portals of pearl I trust her faithful
soul has long since entered!
FOOTNOTE:
[30] As in the case of the gentleman for whom Senator Vance's native
county was named. He had over his front door the inscription:
"Buncombe Hall,
Welcome all!"
ALBERT PIKE.
~1809=1891.~
ALBERT PIKE was born in Boston, but after his twenty-second year made
his home in the South. He was a student at Harvard and taught for a
while; in 1831, he went to Arkansas, walking, it is said, five hundred
miles of the way, as his horse had run away in a storm.
He became an editor and then a lawyer, cultivating letters at the same
time, and wrote the "Hymns to the Gods." He served in the Mexican and
Civil Wars, with rank in the latter of Brigadier-General in the
Confederate army. He afterwards made his home in Washington City,
where he at first practised his profession, but later gave his
attention mostly to literature and Freemasonry.
WORKS.
Hymns to the Gods.
Prose Sketches and Poems.
Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Arkansas.
Works on Freemasonry.
Nugae, (including Hymns to the Gods).
The following poem is one of the best on that wonderful bird whose
song almost all Southern poets have celebrated. It has a classic ring
and reminds one of Keats' Odes on the Nightingale and on a Grecian
Urn.
TO THE MOCKING-BIRD.
Thou glorious mocker of the world! I hear
Thy many voices ringing through the glooms
Of these green solitudes; and all the clear,
Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear,
And floods the heart. Over the spherèd tombs
Of vanished nations rolls thy music-tide;
No light from History's starlit page illumes
The memory of these nations; they have died:
None care for them but thou; and thou mayst sing
O'er me, perhaps, as now thy clear notes ring
Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified.
Glad scorner of all cities! Thou dost leave
The world's mad turmoil and incessant din,
Where none in other's honesty believe,
Where the old sigh, the young turn gray and grieve,
Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within:
Thou fleest far into the dark green woods,
Where, with thy flood of music, thou canst win
Their heart to harmony, and where intrudes
No discord on thy melodies. Oh, where,
Among the sweet musicians of the air,
Is one so dear as thou to these old solitudes?
Ha! what a burst was that! The Æolian strain
Goes floating through the tangled passages
Of the still woods, and now it comes again,
A multitudinous melody,--like a rain
Of glassy music under echoing trees,
Close by a ringing lake. It wraps the soul
With a bright harmony of happiness,
Even as a gem is wrapped when round it roll
Thin waves of crimson flame; till we become
With the excess of perfect pleasure, dumb,
And pant like a swift runner clinging to the goal.
I cannot love the man who doth not love,
As men love light, the song of happy birds;
For the first visions that my boy-heart wove
To fill its sleep with, were that I did rove
Through the fresh woods, what time the snowy herds
Of morning clouds shrunk from the advancing sun
Into the depths of Heaven's blue heart, as words
From the Poet's lips float gently, one by one,
And vanish in the human heart; and then
I revelled in such songs, and sorrowed when,
With noon-heat overwrought, the music-gush was done.
I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee,
Amid the eloquent grandeur of these shades,
Alone with nature,--but it may not be;
I have to struggle with the stormy sea
Of human life until existence fades
Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar
Through the thick woods and shadow-checkered glades,
While pain and sorrow cast no dimness o'er
The brilliance of thy heart; but I must wear,
As now, my garments of regret and care,--
As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore.
Yet why complain? What though fond hopes deferred
Have overshadowed Life's green paths with gloom?
Content's soft music is not all unheard;
There is a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird,
To welcome me within my humble home;
There is an eye, with love's devotion bright,
The darkness of existence to illume.
Then why complain? When Death shall cast his blight
Over the spirit, my cold bones shall rest
Beneath these trees; and, from thy swelling breast,
Over them pour thy song, like a rich flood of light.
WILLIAM TAPPAN THOMPSON.
~1812=1882.~
WILLIAM TAPPAN THOMPSON was a native of Ravenna, Ohio, the first white
child born in the Western Reserve. He removed to Georgia in 1835, and
became with Judge A. B. Longstreet editor of the "States Rights
Sentinel" at Augusta. He was subsequently editor of several other
papers, in one of which, the "Miscellany," appeared his famous
humorous "Letters of Major Jones."
From 1845 to 1850 he lived in Baltimore, editor with Park Benjamin of
the "Western Continent;" but he returned to Georgia and established
in Savannah the "Morning News" with which he was connected till his
death.
He served in the Confederate cause as aide to Gov. Joseph E. Brown,
and later as a volunteer in the ranks.
WORKS.
Major Jones's Courtship.
Major Jones's Chronicles of Pineville.
Major Jones's Sketches of Travel.
The Live Indian: a Farce.
John's Alive, and other Sketches, edited by his daughter.
_Dramatized_ The Vicar of Wakefield.
The titles of these books describe their contents, and the following
extract gives their style. The scenes are laid in Georgia; and even
when Major Jones travels, he remains a Georgian still.
MAJOR JONES'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO MARY STALLINGS.
(_From Major Jones's Courtship._[31])
They all agreed they would hang up a bag for me to put Miss Mary's
Crismus present in, on the back porch; and about ten o'clock I told
'em good-evenin' and went home.
I sot up till midnight, and when they wos all gone to bed, I went
softly into the back gate, and went up to the porch, and thar, shore
enough, was a great big meal-bag hangin' to the jice. It was monstrous
unhandy to git to it, but I was termined not to back out. So I sot
some chairs on top of a bench, and got hold of the rope, and let
myself down into the bag; but jist as I was gittin in, it swung agin
the chairs, and down they went with a terrible racket; but nobody
din't wake up but Miss Stallinses old cur dog, and here he come rippin
and tearin through the yard like rath, and round and round he went,
tryin to find out what was the matter. I scrooch'd down in the bag,
and didn't breathe louder nor a kitten, for fear he'd find me out;
and after a while he quit barkin.
The wind begun to blow bominable cold, and the old bag kept turnin
round and swingin so it made me sea-sick as the mischief. I was afraid
to move for fear the rope would break and let me fall, and thar I sot
with my teeth rattlin like I had a ager. It seemed like it would never
come daylight, and I do believe if I didn't love Miss Mary so powerful
I would froze to death; for my heart was the only spot that felt warm,
and it didn't beat more'n two licks a minit, only when I thought how
she would be supprised in the mornin, and then it went in a canter.
Bimeby the cussed old dog came up on the porch and begun to smell
about the bag, and then he barked like he thought he'd treed
something.
"Bow! wow! wow!" ses he. Then he'd smell agin, and try to git up to
the bag. "Git out!" ses I, very low, for fear the galls mought hear
me. "Bow! wow!" ses he. "Begone! you bominable fool!" ses I, and I
felt all over in spots, for I spected every minit he'd nip me, and
what made it worse, I didn't know wharabouts he'd take hold. "Bow!
wow! wow!" Then I tried coaxin--"Come here, good feller," ses I, and
whistled a little to him, but it wasn't no use. Thar he stood, and kep
up his everlastin barkin and whinin, all night. I couldn't tell when
daylight was breakin, only by the chickens crowin, and I was monstrous
glad to hear 'em, for if I'd had to stay thar one hour more, I don't
believe I'd ever got out of that bag alive.
Old Miss Stallins come out fust, and as soon as she seed the bag, ses
she: "What upon yeath has Joseph went and put in that bag for Mary?
I'll lay it's a yearlin or some live animal, or Bruin wouldn't bark at
it so."
She went in to call the galls, and I sot thar, shiverin all over so I
couldn't hardly speak if I tried to,--but I didn't say nothin. Bimeby
they all come runnin out on the porch.
"My goodness! what is it?" ses Miss Mary.
"Oh, it's alive!" ses Miss Kesiah. "I seed it move."
"Call Cato, and make him cut the rope," ses Miss Carline, "and let's
see what it is. Come here, Cato, and get this bag down."
"Don't hurt it for the world," ses Miss Mary.
Cato untied the rope that was round the jice, and let the bag down
easy on the floor, and I tumbled out, all covered with corn-meal from
head to foot.
"Goodness gracious!" ses Miss Mary, "if it ain't the Majer himself!"
"Yes," ses I, "and you know you promised to keep my Crismus present as
long as you lived."
The galls laughed themselves almost to death, and went to brushin off
the meal as fast as they could, sayin they was gwine to hang that bag
up every Crismus till they got husbands too. Miss Mary--bless her
bright eyes!--she blushed as beautiful as a mornin-glory, and sed
she'd stick to her word. . . . I do believe if I was froze stiff, one
look at her sweet face, as she stood thar lookin down to the floor
with her roguish eyes, and her bright curls fallin all over her snowy
neck, would have fotched me to. I tell you what, it was worth hangin
in a meal bag from one Crismus to another to feel as happy as I have
ever sense.
FOOTNOTE:
[31] By permission of T. B. Peterson and Brothers, Philadelphia.
JAMES BARRON HOPE.
~1827=1887.~
JAMES BARRON HOPE was born near Norfolk, Virginia, educated at William
and Mary College, and began the practice of law at Hampton. In 1857 he
wrote the poem for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
settlement of Jamestown, and in 1858 an Ode for the dedication of the
Washington Monument at Richmond. He also wrote poems for the "Southern
Literary Messenger," as _Henry Ellen_. In 1861 he entered the
Confederate service and fought through the war as captain. Afterwards
he settled in Norfolk to the practice of his profession. His best
poems are considered to be "Arms and the Man," and "Memorial Ode," the
latter written for the laying of the corner-stone of the Lee Monument
in Richmond, 1887, just before his death.
WORKS.
Leoni di Monota, [poems].
Elegiac Ode and other Poems.
Under the Empire, [novel].
Arms and the Man, and other Poems.
THE VICTORY AT YORKTOWN.
(_From Arms and the Man._[32])
A Metrical Address recited on the one hundredth anniversary of the
surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on invitation of the United
States Congress, October 19, 1881.
PROLOGUE.
Full-burnished through the long-revolving years
The ploughshare of a Century to-day
Runs peaceful furrows where a crop of Spears
Once stood in War's array.
And we, like those who on the Trojan plain
See hoary secrets wrenched from upturned sods;--
Who, in their fancy, hear resound again
The battle-cry of Gods;--
We now,--this splendid scene before us spread
Where Freedom's full hexameter began--
Restore our Epic, which the Nations read
As far its thunders ran.
Here visions throng on People and on Bard,
Ranks all a-glitter in battalions massed
And closed around as like a plumèd guard,
They lead us down the Past.
I see great Shapes in vague confusion march
Like giant shadows, moving vast and slow,
Beneath some torch-lit temple's mighty arch
Where long processions go.