myself again in quaint, charming Louisville, Kentucky. Everything goes
along so quietly and lazily there that no one seems to change or grow
older. Having no rehearsals I used my first free time since I had left
the city soon after my _debut_ to see the places I liked best. Many of
my childhood's haunts were visited with our old nurse "Lou." At the
Ursuline Convent, with its high walls, where music had first cast a
veritable spell, and made a willing slave of me for life, most of the
nuns looked much the same, though I had not seen them in nineteen
years. The little window of the den where I had first resolved to go
upon the stage, was as bright and shining as ever; and I wondered, in
passing the old house, whether some other young and hopeful creature
were dreaming and toiling there as I had done so many years before. At
the Presentation Academy I found the latticed summer-house (where, as
a child, I had reacted for my companions every play seen at the
Saturday matinees, instead of eating my lunch) looking just as cool
and inviting as it did then. My little desk, the dunce-stool,
everything seemed to have a friendly greeting for me. Mother Eulalia
was still the Superioress, and in looking into her kind face and
finding so little change there, it seemed that the vortex I had lived
in since those early years was but a restless dream, and that I must
be a little child again under her gentle care. No one was changed but
myself. I seemed to have lived a hundred years since leaving the old
places and kindly faces, and to have suddenly come back again into
their midst (unlike Rip Van Winkle) to find them as I had left them.
Many episodes, memorable to me, occurred in Louisville. Not the least
pleasant was Father Boucher's acknowledgment (after disapproving of my
profession for years) that my private life had not fallen under the
evils which, at the beginning, he feared to be inevitable from contact
with the theatre. Father Boucher was a dear old Frenchman, who had
known and instructed me in matters religious since my childhood. My
respect and affection for him had always been deep. When he condemned
my resolution to go upon the stage quite as bitterly as did my
venerated guardian, Pater Anton, my cup of unhappiness overflowed. All
my early successes were clouded by the alienation of such unique
friends. My satisfaction and delight may be imagined when, after years
of estrangement, Father Boucher met me with the same trust with which
he had honoured me as a child, and heartily gave me his blessing.
It was also at Louisville that the highly complimentary "resolutions"
passed by the Senate of Kentucky, and unanimously adopted by that
body, were presented to me. They were the State's crowning expression
of goodwill to their grateful, though unworthy, country-woman.
FOOTNOTE:
[23] Copyright, 1896, by Osgood, McIlvaine and Company, London.
MARY R. S. ANDREWS
Mrs. Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, short-story writer and novelist,
was born at Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, but she was brought to
Lexington, Kentucky, in September, 1861, when her father, Rev. Jacob
S. Shipman, an Episcopal clergyman, was chosen rector of Christ
Church. When six years old she was sent to Christ Church Seminary, the
church's school, conducted by Rev. Silas Totten and his daughters. One
of these daughters tells with a smile to-day that "May" Shipman's
first story, written at the age of seven, was upon her dog, "Shep."
When thirteen years of age she discovered that the older girls in the
school were studying French, when she was not, and she went to her
father with the request that she be permitted to join the class. But
the rector's question, "May, would you put in your furniture before
you built your walls?" sent her back to her Latin and mathematics
without further protest. She attended the school for eleven years, and
at it received her education, never having attended any other
institution. On November 26, 1877, when the future writer was
seventeen years of age, her father accepted the rectorship of Christ
Church, New York, and the family shortly afterwards removed to that
city. She has been in Kentucky but twice since: five years after her
departure, and about ten years ago. But that she has not forgotten her
Kentucky home is evinced in the signed copies of her books which have
found their way to the Blue Grass country and in her letters to
former friends. On the last day of December, 1884, Miss Shipman
married William Shankland Andrews, now associate justice of the
supreme court of New York. Mrs. Andrews spends her summers in the
Canadian woods, and the winters at her home in Syracuse, New York. Her
first novel, _Vive L'Empereur_ (New York, 1902), a story of the king
of Rome, was followed by _A Kidnapped Colony_ (New York, 1903), with
Bermuda as the background. _Bob and the Guides_ (New York, 1906), was
the experiences of a boy, "Bob," with the French guides of the
Canadian woods who pursue caribou. _A Good Samaritan_ (New York,
1906), has been called the best story ever printed in _McClure's
Magazine_, in which form it first appeared. _The Perfect Tribute_ (New
York, 1906), a quasi-true story of Lincoln and the lack of enthusiasm
with which the crowd received his Gettysburg speech, adorned with a
love episode at the end, is Mrs. Andrews's finest thing so far. This
little tale has made her famous, and stamped her as one of the best
American writers of the short-story. It was originally printed in
_Scribner's Magazine_ for July, 1906. Her other books are: _The
Militants_ (New York, 1907), a collection of stories, several of which
are set in Kentucky, and all of them inscribed to her father in
beautiful words; _The Better Treasure_ (Indianapolis, 1908), is a
charming Christmas story, with a moral attached; _The Enchanted Forest
and Other Stories_ (New York, 1909), a group of stories first told to
her son and afterwards set down for other people's sons; _The Lifted
Bandage_ (New York, 1910), a most unpleasant, disagreeable tale as may
well be imagined; _The Courage of the Commonplace_ (New York, 1911), a
yarn of Yale and her ways, one of the author's cleverest things; _The
Counsel Assigned_ (New York, 1912), another story of Lincoln, this
time as the young lawyer, is not greatly inferior to _The Perfect_
_Tribute_. Mrs. Andrews's latest volume, _The Marshal_ (Indianapolis,
1912), is her first really long novel. It is a story of France,
somewhat in the manner of her first book _Vive L'Empereur_, but, of
course, much finer than that work of her 'prentice years. It has been
highly praised in some quarters, and rather severely criticized in
others. At any rate it has not displaced _The Perfect Tribute_ as her
masterpiece. That little story, with _A Good Samaritan_, _The Courage
of the Commonplace_, and _Crowned with Glory and Honor_, fairly
entitle Mrs. Andrews to the first and highest place among Kentucky
women writers of the short-story. She has attained a higher note in a
most difficult art than any other woman Kentucky has produced; and it
is only right and just that her proper position be allotted her in
order that she may occupy it; which she will do with a consensus of
opinion when her Kentucky life is more widely heralded.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _American Magazine_ (May, 1909); _Scribner's
Magazine_ (September, 1911; August, 1912).
THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT[24]
[From _The Courage of the Commonplace_ (New York, 1911)]
Three years later the boy graduated from the Boston "Tech." As his
class poured from Huntington Hall, he saw his father waiting for him.
He noted with pride, as he always did, the tall figure, topped with a
wonderful head--a mane of gray hair, a face carved in iron, squared
and cut down to the marrow of brains and force--a man to be seen in
any crowd. With that, as his own met the keen eyes behind the
spectacles, he was aware of a look which startled him. The boy had
graduated at the very head of his class; that light in his father's
eyes all at once made two years of work a small thing.
"I didn't know you were coming, sir. That's mighty nice of you," he
said, as they walked down Boylston Street together, and his father
waited a moment and then spoke in his usual incisive tone.
"I wouldn't have liked to miss it, Johnny," he said. "I don't remember
that anything in my life has ever made me as satisfied as you have
to-day."
With a gasp of astonishment the young man looked at him, looked away,
looked at the tops of the houses, and did not find a word anywhere.
His father had never spoken to him so; never before, perhaps, had he
said anything as intimate to any of his sons. They knew that the cold
manner of the great engineer covered depths, but they never expected
to see the depths uncovered. But here he was, talking of what he felt,
of character, and honor, and effort.
"I've appreciated what you have been doing," the even voice went on.
"I talk little about personal affairs. But I'm not uninterested; I
watch. I was anxious about you. You were a more uncertain quantity
than Ted and Harry. Your first three years at Yale were not
satisfactory. I was afraid you lacked manliness. Then came--a
disappointment. It was a blow to us--to family pride. I watched you
more closely, and I saw before that year ended that you were taking
your medicine rightly. I wanted to tell you of my contentment, but
being slow of speech, I--couldn't. So"--the iron face broke for a
second time into a whimsical grin--"so I offered you a motor. And you
wouldn't take it. I knew, though you didn't explain, that you feared
it would interfere with your studies. I was right?" Johnny nodded.
"Yes. And your last year at college was--was all I could wish. I see
now that you needed a blow in the face to wake you up--and you got it.
And you waked." The great engineer smiled with clean pleasure. "I have
had"--he hesitated--"I have had always a feeling of responsibility to
your mother for you--more than for the others. You were so young when
she died that you seem more her child. I was afraid I had not treated
you right well--that it was my fault if you failed." The boy made a
gesture--he could not very well speak. His father went on: "So when
you refused the motor, when you went into engineers' camp that first
summer, instead of going abroad, I was pleased. Your course here has
been a satisfaction, without a drawback--keener, certainly, because I
am an engineer, and could appreciate, step by step, how well you were
doing, how much you were giving up to do it, how much power you were
gaining by that long sacrifice. I've respected you through these years
of commonplace, and I've known how much more courage it meant in a
pleasure-loving lad such as you than it would have meant in a serious
person such as I am--such as Ted and Harry are, to an extent, also."
The older man, proud and strong and reserved, turned on his son such a
shining face as the boy had never seen. "That boyish failure isn't
wiped out, Johnny, for I shall remember it as the corner-stone of your
career, already built over with an honorable record. You've made good.
I congratulate and I honor you."
The boy never knew how he got home. He knocked his shins badly on a
quite visible railing, and it was out of the question to say a single
word. But if he staggered, it was with an overload of happiness, and
if he was speechless and blind, the stricken faculties were paralyzed
with joy. His father walked beside him and they understood each other.
He reeled up the streets contented.
That night there was a family dinner, and with the coffee his father
turned and ordered fresh champagne opened.
"We must have a new explosion to drink to the new superintendent of
the Oriel mine," he said. Johnny looked at him, surprised, and then at
the others, and the faces were bright with the same look of something
which they knew and he did not.
"What's up?" asked Johnny. "Who's the superintendent of the Oriel
mine? Why do we drink to him? What are you all grinning about,
anyway?" The cork flew up to the ceiling, and the butler poured gold
bubbles into the glasses, all but his own.
"Can't I drink to the beggar, too, whoever he is?" asked Johnny, and
moved his glass and glanced up at Mullins. But his father was beaming
at Mullins in a most unusual way, and Johnny got no wine. With that
Ted, the oldest brother, pushed back his chair and stood and lifted
his glass.
"We'll drink," he said, and bowed formally to Johnny, "to the
gentleman who is covering us all with glory, to the new superintendent
of the Oriel mine, Mr. John Archer McLean," and they stood and drank
the toast. Johnny, more or less dizzy, more or less scarlet, crammed
his hands in his pockets and stared and turned redder, and brought out
interrogations in the nervous English which is acquired at our great
institutions of learning.
"Gosh! are you all gone dotty?" he asked. And "is this a merry jape?"
And "Why, for cat's sake, can't you tell a fellow what's up your
sleeve?" While the family sipped champagne and regarded him.
"Now, if I've squirmed for you enough, I wish you'd explain--father,
tell me!" the boy begged.
And the tale was told by the family, in chorus, without politeness,
interrupting freely. It seemed that the president of the big mine
needed a superintendent, and wishing young blood and the latest ideas,
had written to the head of the Mining Department in the School of
Technology, to ask if he would give him the name of the ablest man in
the graduating class--a man to be relied on for character as much as
brains, he specified, for the rough army of miners needed a general at
their head almost more than a scientist. Was there such a combination
to be found, he asked, in a youngster of twenty-three or twenty-four,
such as would be graduating at the "Tech?" If possible, he wanted a
very young man--he wanted the enthusiasm, he wanted the athletic
tendency, he wanted the plus-strength, he wanted the unmade reputation
which would look for its making to hard work in the mine. The letter
was produced and read to the shamefaced Johnny. "Gosh!" he remarked at
intervals, and remarked practically nothing else. There was no need.
They were so proud and so glad that it was almost too much for the boy
who had been a failure three years ago.
On the urgent insistence of every one, he made a speech. He got to his
six-feet-two slowly, and his hand went into his trousers as usual. "Holy
mackerel," he began--"I don't call it decent to knock the wind out of a
man and then hold him up for remarks. They all said in college that I
talked the darnedest hash in the class, anyway. But you will have it,
will you? I haven't got anything to say, so's you'd notice it, except
that I'll be blamed if I see how this is true. Of course I'm keen for
it--Keen! I should say I was! And what makes me keenest, I believe, is
that I know it's satisfactory to Henry McLean." He turned his bright
face to his father. "Any little plugging I've done seems like thirty
cents compared to that. You're all peaches to take such an interest, and
I thank you a lot. Me, the superintendent of the Oriel mine! Holy
mackerel!" gasped Johnny, and sat down.
FOOTNOTE:
[24] Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
ELVIRA MILLER SLAUGHTER
Mrs. Elvira (Sydnor) Miller Slaughter, the "Tatler" of _The Louisville
Times_ in the old days, and a verse-writer of considerable reputation,
was born at Wytheville, Virginia, October 12, 1860. When a child Miss
Miller was brought to Kentucky, as her mother had inherited money
which made necessary her removal to this State in order to obtain it.
She was educated at the Presentation Academy, in Louisville, by the
same nuns that had instructed Mary Anderson de Navarro, the famous
actress. She was subsequently gold medalist at a private finishing
school, but she still clings to the Catholicism instilled at the
Presentation Academy. Shortly after having left school Miss Miller
published her first and only book of poems, _Songs of the Heart_
(Louisville, 1885), with a prologue by Douglass Sherley.[25] About
this time her parents lost their fortune, and she secured a position
on _The Louisville Times_, where she was trained by Mr. Robert W.
Brown, the present managing editor of that paper. After three years
of general reporting, Miss Miller became editor of "The Tatler
Column," and this she conducted for fourteen years with cleverness and
success, only resigning on the day of her marriage to Mr. W. H.
Slaughter, Jr. Her second book, _The Tiger's Daughter and Other
Stories_ (Louisville, 1889), is a group of fairy tales, several of
which are entertaining. _The Confessions of a Tatler_ (Louisville,
1905), is a booklet of the best things she did for her department on
_The Times_. She surely handled some men, women, books, and things in
this brochure in a manner that even he who runs may read
and--understand! From 1909 to 1912 she lived at Camp Dennison, near
Cincinnati, Ohio, but at the present time she is again at Louisville,
engaged in literary work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Blades o' Bluegrass_, by Fannie P. Dickey
(Louisville, 1892); _Dear Old Kentucky_, by G. M. Spears
(Cincinnati, 1900).
THE SOUTH AND SONG
[From _The Midland Review_ (Louisville, Kentucky)]
I.--THE SOUTH
Spirit, whose touch of fire
Wakens the sleeping lyre--
Thou, who dost flood with music heaven's dominions,
Where hast thou taken flight--
Thou comfort, thou delight?
In what blest regions furled thy gloomy pinions,
Since from the cold North voices call to me:
"Thou South, thou South! Song hath abandoned thee!"
II.--VOICES
We cry out on the air:
Thy palace halls are bare,
Shorn of the glory of the dream-gods' faces:
Thy sweetest strain were sung
When thy proud heart was young;
Fame hath no crowns, nay, nor no vacant places--
So, all in vain, thy poet-songs awaken:
Thou serenadest casements long forsaken.
Thy rivers proudly flow,
As in the long ago.
Like kings who lead their rushing hosts to battle:
Thy sails make white the seas--
They fly before the breeze,
As o'er the wide plains fly storm-drifted cattle:
Laughter and light make beautiful thy portals,
Spurned by the bright feet of the lost immortals.
What gavest thou to him
Whose fame no years may dim,
Song's great archangel, glorious, yet despairing--
Who, o'er earth's warring noises
Heard Heaven's and Hell's great voices--
Who, from his shoulders the rude mantle tearing,
Wrapt the thin folds about his dying wife,
The angel and the May-time of his life?
And what to him whose name
Is consecrate to Fame--
Whose songs before the winds of war were driven--
Who swept his lute to mourn
That banner soiled and torn,
For which a million valiant hearts had striven--
Who set God's cross high o'er the battling horde,
And sheltered neath its arms the lyre and sword?
What gav'st thou that true heart
That shrined its dreams apart,
From want and care and sorrow evermore--
Him, who mid dews and damp,
Burned out life's feeble lamp,
Striving to keep the wolf from out his door,
And while the land was ringing with his praise,
Slumbered in Georgia, tired and full of days?
And what to him whose lyre,
Prometheus-like, stole fire
From heaven; whom sea and air gave fancies tender--
Whose song, winged like the lark,
Died out in death's great dark;
Whose soul, like some bright star, clothed on in splendor,
Went trembling down the viewless fields of air,
Wafted by music and the breath of prayer?
What gav'st thou these? A crust:
A coffin for their dust:
Neglect, and idle praise and swift forgetting--
Stones when they asked for bread:
Green bays when they were dead--
Who sang of thee from dawn till life's sun-setting,
And whose tired eyes, thank God! could never see
Thy shallow tears, thy niggard charity.
Yet fair as is a night,
O strong, O darkly bright!
Thou shinest ever radiant and tender,
Drawing all hearts to thee,
As from the vassal sea
The waves are lifted by the moon's white splendor:
So poet strains awake, and fancies gleam
Like winds and summer lightning through thy dream.
SUNDOWN LANE
[From _The Louisville Times_]
Through a little lane at sundown in the days that used to be,
When the summer-time and roses lit the land,
My sweetheart would come singing down that leafy way to me
With her dainty pink sunbonnet in her hand.
Oh, I threw my arms about her as we met beside the way,
And her darling, curly head lay on my breast,
While she told me that she loved me in her simple, girlish way,
And then kisses that she gave me told the rest;
For a kiss is all the language that you wish from your sweetheart,
When you meet her in the gloaming there, so lonely and apart,
And she set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me
In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
Through a little lane at sundown we went walking hand in hand,
'Mid the summer-time and roses long ago,
And the path that we were treading seemed to lead to fairyland,
The place where happy lovers long to go;
Oh, we talked about our marriage in the quiet, evening hush,
And I bent to whisper love words in her ear,
And her dainty pink sunbonnet was no pinker than her blush
For she thought the birds and flowers all might hear;
Oh, that dainty pink sunbonnet, bright in memory still it glows,
It hid her smiles and blushes as the young leaves veil the rose,
When she set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me,
In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
Through a little lane at sundown I go roaming all forlorn,
Though the summer-time once more smiles o'er the land,
And the roses seem to ask me where their sister rose has gone
With her dainty pink sunbonnet in her hand.
But false friends came between us and I found out to my cost,
When I learned too late her sweetness and her truth,
That the love we hold the dearest is the love that we have lost,
With the roses and the fairyland of youth.
Now the flowers all bend above her through the long, bright
summer day,
And my heart grows homesick for her as she dreams the hours away,
She who set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me
In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
FOOTNOTE:
[25] (George) Douglass Sherley, born at Louisville, Kentucky, June 27,
1857; educated at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and University
of Virginia; joined staff of the old Louisville _Commercial_; made
lecture tour with James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet; now resides
near Lexington, Kentucky. Author of: _The Inner Sisterhood_
(Louisville, 1884); _The Valley of Unrest_ (New York, 1884); _Love
Perpetuated_ (Louisville, 1884); _The Story of a Picture_ (Louisville,
1884). Mr. Sherley has done much occasional writing since his four
books were published, which has appeared in the form of calendars,
leaflets, and in newspapers.
JOSEPH S. COTTER
Joseph Seaman Cotter, Kentucky's only negro writer of real creative
ability, was born near Bardstown, Kentucky, February 2, 1861. From his
hard day-labor, he went to night school in Louisville, and he has
educated himself so successfully that he is at the present time
principal of the Tenth Ward colored school, Louisville. Cotter has
published three volumes of verse, the first of which was _Links of
Friendship_ (Louisville, 1898), a book of short lyrics. This was
followed by a four-act verse drama, entitled _Caleb, the Degenerate_
(Louisville, 1903). His latest book of verse is _A White Song and a
Black One_ (Louisville, 1909). Cotter's response to Paul Lawrence
Dunbar's _After a Visit_ to Kentucky, was exceedingly well done, but
his _Negro Love Song_ is the cleverest thing he has written hitherto.
His work has been praised by Alfred Austin, Israel Zangwill, Madison
Cawein, Charles J. O'Malley, and other excellent judges of poetry.
Cotter is a great credit to his race, and he has won, by his quiet,
unassuming life and literary labors, the respect of many of
Louisville's most prominent citizens. One of his admirers has ranked
his work above Dunbar's, but this rating is much too high for any
thing he has done so far. In the last year or two he has turned his
attention to the short-story, and his first collection of them has
just appeared, entitled _Negro Tales_ (New York, 1912).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Lexington Leader_ (November 14, 1909); _Lore of the
Meadowland_, by J. W. Townsend (Lexington, Kentucky, 1911).
NEGRO LOVE SONG[26]
[From _A White Song and a Black One_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1909)]