A few novelists know the world which renews its youth every spring and
that dies every autumn, as intimately as Thoreau knew it. One of these
novelists is Thomas Hardy, whose description of Egdon Heath in "The
Return of the Native" has long been in use as a model in the English
Department at Harvard. One of these also is James Lane Allen, the
Kentucky schoolmaster.
The chapter entitled "Hemp" in "The Reign of Law," contains abundant
evidence of this loving power. Here is a random choice:
"One day something is gone from earth and sky: Autumn has come, season
of scales and balances, when the earth, brought to judgment for its
fruits, says, 'I have done what I could--now let me rest!'
"Fall!--and everywhere the sights and sounds of falling. In the woods,
through the cool silvery air, the leaves, so indispensable once, so
useless now. Bright day after bright day, dripping night after dripping
night, the never-ending filtering or gusty fall of leaves. The fall
of walnuts, dropping from bare boughs with muffled boom into the deep
grass. The fall of the hickory-nut, rattling noisily down through the
scaly limbs and scattering its hulls among the stones of the brook
below. The fall of buckeyes, rolling like balls of mahogany into the
little dust paths made by sheep, in the hot months, when they had
sought those roofs of leaves. The fall of acorns, leaping out of their
matted green cups as they strike the rooty earth. The fall of red
haw, persimmon, and pawpaw, and the odorous wild plum in its valley
thickets. The fall of all seeds whatsoever of the forest, now made ripe
in their high places and sent back to the ground, there to be folded in
against the time when they shall rise again as the living generations;
the homing, downward flight of the seeds in the many-colored woods all
over the quiet land."
Mr. Mabie, writing once in _The Outlook_, dwelt on what has been called
the "landscape beauty" of Mr. Allen's work. "No American novelist," he
said "has so imbedded his stories in Nature as has James Lane Allen;
and among English novels one recalls only Mr. Hardy's three classics
of pastoral England, and among French novelists George Sand and Pierre
Loti. Nature furnishes the background of many charming American
stories, and finds delicate or effective remembrance in the hands of
writers like Miss Jewett and Miss Murfree; but in Mr. Allen's romances
Nature is not behind the action; she is involved in it. Her presence
is everywhere; her influence streams through the story; the deep and
prodigal beauty which she wears in rural Kentucky shines on every page;
the tremendous forces which sweep through her disclose their potency in
human passion and impulse...."
And when James MacArthur was editing _The Bookman_ he said: "Poetry,
'the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge,' according to
Wordsworth, 'the impassioned expression which is in the countenance
of all science,'--that poetry irrespective of rhyme and metrical
arrangement which is as immortal as the heart of man, is distinctive
in Mr. Allen's work from the first written page. Like Minerva issuing
full-formed from the head of Jove, Mr. Allen issues from his long
years of silence and seclusion a perfect master of his art--unfailing
in its inspiration, unfaltering in its classic accent." It was Mr.
MacArthur, who, speaking of "The Choir Invisible," said that "it would
be difficult to recall any other novel since 'The Scarlet Letter' that
has touched the same note of greatness, or given to one section of
our national life, as Hawthorne's classic did to another, a voice far
beyond singing."
Mr. MacArthur's remark that Mr. Allen came forth from "his long years
of silence and seclusion a perfect master of his art" is largely true.
Although born about half a century ago, it was not until 1884 that he
settled down to writing. Not many of our distinguished writers passed
thirty before tasting the bitter-sweet fruit of authorship.
Mr. Allen was born on a farm in Fayette County, Kentucky, a few miles
from Lexington; and on the farm he spent his early childhood. His
mother's maiden name was Helen Foster. Her parents, who were of the
Scotch-Irish stock which settled in Pennsylvania before the Revolution,
had found a permanent home in Mississippi. On his father's side he is
a descendant of the Virginians who formed the Kentucky pioneers. The
son was graduated from Kentucky University--which has been pictured
in the history of his latest hero, David,--in 1872. For several years
afterward he taught in district schools, at first near his home, and
later in Missouri. Still later he became a private tutor; then he took
a professorship in his alma mater; and at length he brought his career
as a teacher to a close while at Bethany College, West Virginia. That
very year, 1884, he moved to New York, put away his text-books, and
plunged into the sea of literature. One who knew him in those days has
described him as "a blond young giant with a magnificent head and a
strong, kindly face."
From the day of his decision to be a writer until the present time Mr.
Allen has worked industriously and successfully. Fifteen years ago the
chief literary and critical magazines published many of his essays, and
from time to time his short stories appeared in _Harper's Magazine_ and
_The Century Magazine_. These short stories were afterward collected
and published under the title of "Flute and Violin." Then appeared at
irregular intervals "The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky," "A Kentucky
Cardinal" and its sequel, "Aftermath," "A Summer in Arcady," "The Choir
Invisible," and, latest of all, "The Reign of Law."
The author's high reputation was firmly established by "A Kentucky
Cardinal" and "Aftermath." "In these two books," said one critic,
looking backward, "Nature was interwoven benignantly with the human
nature resting on her bosom, leading her lover, Adam Moss, with
gentle influences to the human lover, and, when bereft of human love,
receiving him back into her healing arms." The books made as deep an
impression upon Englishmen as upon Americans; indeed, as late as the
spring of 1900 the _London Academy_ devoted a page to a flattering and
most sympathetic review of them. The gentle, playful humor, the healthy
joyousness, the rare tenderness displayed by Mr. Allen in these two
books, are irresistible. Months, and even years, after laying the books
down, the reader must remember the many delightful sketches of which
they are made.
"And while I am watching the birds, they are watching me. Not a
little fop among them, having proposed and been accepted, but perches
on a limb, and has the air of putting his hands mannishly under his
coat-tails and crying out to me, 'Hello! Adam, what were you made for?'
'You attend to your business, and I'll attend to mine,' I answer, 'You
have one May; I have twenty-five!' He didn't wait to hear. He caught
sight of a pair of clear brown eyes peeping at him out of a near tuft
of leaves, and sprang thither with open arms and the sound of a kiss."
What charming sport! What uncommon perception! And here is one of his
choice, frank, bucolic sentiments:
"The longer I live here the better satisfied I am in having pitched
my earthly camp-fire, gypsylike, on the edge of a town, keeping it on
one side, and the green fields, lanes and woods on the other. Each,
in turn, is to me as a magnet to the needle. At times the needle of my
nature points towards the country. On that side everything is poetry.
I wander over field and forest, and through me runs a glad current of
feeling that is like a clear brook across the meadows of May. At others
the needle veers round, and I go to town--to the massed haunts of the
highest animal and cannibal. That way nearly everything is prose. I can
feel the prose rising in me as I step along, like hair on the back of
a dog, long before any other dogs are in sight. And, indeed, the case
is much that of a country dog come to town, so that growls are in order
at every corner. The only being in the universe at which I have ever
snarled, or with which I have rolled over in the mud and fought like a
common cur, is Man."
"Summer in Arcady" shocked many who had fallen in love with the
pastoral simplicity and spiritual delicacy of the two preceding books;
but it was generally admitted that the book showed an advance in the
author's powers, particularly in his power of vivid dialogue. In his
first novel Mr. Allen had written that "The simple, rural, key-note
of life is still the sweetest," and a change to another key-note,
tremulous with pathos and tragedy, surprised the reading public; but
the opinion that it was likely to prove a stepping-stone to higher
things found general favor. Nor was this opinion unsound, for "The
Choir Invisible" lifted its author for the time above the heads of all
his contemporaries.
Both here and in England the book fairly leaped to success; both here
and in England it was praised almost unqualifiedly. An American critic,
writing of it, said: "Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of
American novelists. 'The Choir Invisible' will solidify a reputation
already established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an
artist. For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come
from an American hand." An English critic noted that it was "highly
praised, and with reason." "It is written," he said, "with singular
delicacy, and has an old-world fragrance which seems to come from the
classics we keep in lavender."
The book succeeded so immensely that an attempt was made to dramatize
it, but the attempt failed. The atmosphere of the book proved to be too
ethereal, too spiritual, for dramatization.
That "The Choir Invisible" solidified Mr. Allen's reputation was
demonstrated by the eagerness of the demand for "The Reign of Law." In
some respects this is Mr. Allen's greatest work: it reveals even a
deeper knowledge of nature than he ever revealed before, and it deals
more intimately with things which have revolved around his own career.
Fame has little to do with the sale of books. If "The Kentucky
Cardinal," "The Choir Invisible," and "The Reign of Law" had not been
sold by the thousands, Mr. Allen's fame would still be of more than
transient quality. There is nothing ephemeral about these stories:
they are, strictly speaking, a part of our classical literature. The
vividness of the pictures will always be fresh and interesting.
Taking too literally Mr. Allen's remark in "The Reign of Law" that
Kentucky University is a ruin and will always remain a ruin, the
reading public has generally decided, we have found, that the
university, the author's alma mater, does not exist. It does exist,
but, apparently, not in the condition in which the author would have
it. Before "The Reign of Law" had been long on the market, he and the
president of Kentucky University fell into a controversy which makes
an interesting chapter in the academic side of the history of the Blue
Grass State.
Mr. Allen works slowly and carefully, as may be inferred from the
number and the character of his books. And he lives quietly, modestly.
He is not in the least given to the exploitation of his habits and his
manners, even so far as they may be connected with his literary work.
Little has ever been heard of him by the thousands who hurry to read
his books, and who read them only to praise him. Some time ago his
publishers issued a brochure dealing with his career, and the vital
facts contained in it, if put together, would not cover more than
twenty or thirty ordinary lines.
It should be said before ending, however, that the author of "The Reign
of Law" is looked up to almost filially by the younger writers of the
middle West. They are never weary of applauding him and of indicating,
publicly as well as privately, his extraordinary reputation. Traces of
his style, notably as it appears in his Corot-like pictures of nature,
may be found in their writings. Indeed, it is quite likely that nothing
would please one of these fine young men more than to have it said of
his work that it resembles the masterly work of James Lane Allen.
[Illustration: Photo by Davis & Sanford.