“OF MAKING MANY BOOKS THERE IS NO END”
The multiplication of books by Indianians increased steadily during
the last decade of the nineteenth century. Much of the production in
prose is unimportant save as it is taken in connection with the general
rise of cultivation in the State, and not a little derives interest
principally from the personality of the writers. Fiction attracted
many during the period indicated, and the impulse in this direction
has been attended with notable successes. The part played by Indiana
in the Civil War has latterly received attention, and the newer
phases of village life have also been treated. Local history has not,
unfortunately, attracted the literary fledgling in Indiana so often as
could have been desired, though the field is inviting, and thorough
work of this kind is far likelier to enjoy permanency than fair or
indifferent fiction or mediocre verse. Criticism is naturally last to
receive attention, and little critical writing can be credited to the
State. It is, however, remarkable that so much good work is done in the
several departments, the inference being that where so many are moved
to make experiments, the general average of cultivation must be high.
Indiana has been a kind of way station for many who have gained their
chief distinction elsewhere. Joaquin Miller and John James Piatt were
born in Indiana, but left in childhood, and Mary Hartwell Catherwood
lived in the State for a number of years; but these writers may hardly
be numbered among Indiana authors. James Newton Matthews, an Indianian
who has lived for many years in Illinois, has written much good verse,
and is included in discriminating anthologies. Lyman Abbott began his
ministry in Indiana as pastor of the Congregational Church at Terre
Haute. Both Charles Warren Stoddard and Maurice Francis Egan were
members of the faculty of Notre Dame University at different periods.
The Rev. Arthur Wentworth Eaton, a poet and writer on Acadian life,
was once a resident of Indianapolis; and Henry F. Keenan, who wrote
“Trajan” and other novels, edited the Indianapolis _Sentinel_ before
he became an author. The Rev. Bernard Harrison Nadal (1812-1870) held
a professorship at Asbury University from 1854 to 1857, and was the
father of E. S. Nadal, an essayist whose critical papers appeal to the
admirers of a calm and pensive style of writing. Miss Lucy S. Furman’s
“Stories of a Sanctified Town” (1896) were written at Evansville,
though the scenes are laid in Kentucky. The Rev. James Cooley Fletcher,
of the well-known Indiana family of that name, is the author of “Brazil
and Brazilians” (1868); and his daughter, Julia Constance, wrote, under
the pen-name “George Fleming,” the novels “Kismet” (1877); “Mirage”
(1878); “The Head of Medusa” (1880); “Vestigia” (1884); and “Andromeda”
(1885). Both have long been absent from the State, Mr. Fletcher in
California and his daughter in Italy.
I. _Fiction_
Booth Tarkington stands with Mr. Riley as the exponent of a Hoosier who
is kindly, generous, humorous, and essentially domestic. His novel,
“A Gentleman from Indiana” (1899), depicts the semi-urban type that
Mr. Riley so often celebrates in verse. Whitecapping as introduced
in this story is only the coarse exploit of a vicious colony living
on the outskirts of the town in which Mr. Tarkington’s tale has its
habitation. The author plainly states that his whitecaps are not to
be confounded with vigilance committees that undertake to reform the
morals of individuals, but that they are rowdies who masquerade as
whitecaps merely for purposes of private mischief and vengeance. Their
settlement resembles in some degree the “tough neighborhood” often
found in cities. The hostility between the people of Plattville and
the Cross Roads element dates back to the first movement of population
on the long trail from North Carolina into the Ohio Valley. The Cross
Roads folk had been evil and worthless in their early homes, and they
carried their worst traits with them into Indiana. Mr. Tarkington
has followed accurately the social history of the good stock and the
bad, illustrating the antipathy existing between the prosperous and
intelligent and the idle and ignorant. The distinction of Plattville
as a county seat of the central West is well established, and its
indolence, amiability, and pride are characteristic. The hero is a new
type of Hoosier, who has little kinship with the earlier people of
Eggleston, or with the Hoosier as Riley reports him; he is a native,
but has experienced at an Eastern college an intellectual change “into
something rich and strange,” and after long absence becomes a pilgrim
of light among his own people.
Mr. Tarkington has a perfect appreciation of the strength of local
affection in the Hoosier, and also of the thoroughly American
absorption in politics which seems to be more marked in county seats of
a few thousand inhabitants than in large cities. History in towns like
Plattville is not dated, _anno urbis conditæ_, but from a political
incident or the visit of a President; and a national campaign is a
quadrennial blessing that renews in the obscurest inhabitant the sense
of his individual responsibility to the government. Mr. Tarkington
emphasizes the homogeneity of the Middle Western folk; and this is
warranted fully by the statisticians. The people of his town live
together like a great, kind family, who are sufficient unto themselves.
He has thrown into the story the sincerity, affection, and loyalty
that are their attributes; and he adds, moreover, the atmosphere of
the Indiana landscape, with a nice appreciation of its loveliness,
sometimes hinted and often charmingly expressed. There is a crisp,
bracing quality in the writing that fitly accompanies the story, which
is, taken all in all, one of the most creditable novels yet written
of life in the Ohio Valley. There is every reason why Mr. Tarkington
should know his Indiana well, as his family has been prominent in the
State for three generations, and he is a native, having been born at
Indianapolis (1869). He was educated at Purdue and Princeton, receiving
from the latter the degree of A.M. in 1898. He has also written (1900)
“Monsieur Beaucaire,” a dramatic novelette of the eighteenth century,
in which a few striking incidents are handled most effectively. The
story has the charm of an exquisite miniature.
Indiana village life has been made the subject of careful study by Anna
Nicholas, in a series of short stories collected under the title “An
Idyl of the Wabash” (1899). Religious phenomena have greatly attracted
Miss Nicholas, and she has supplemented Dr. Eggleston’s studies of an
earlier period with her artistic sketches of contemporary life. The
social importance of the church, the vagaries of belief in a typical
Western village, and the intensity of the “revival” spirit are treated
with sympathy and humor. Several of these tales are, between the lines,
a tribute to that vigorous Protestant evangelization of Indiana, which
triumphed over mud and malaria and carried the gospel far beyond the
sound of church bells. Miss Nicholas has written with keen penetration
of the suppressed tragic element in rural life, but without morbidity.
Her characters are always inevitably related to the incidents, and she
communicates with unfailing success a sense of the humble atmosphere
of her farm and village. These stories are distinguished by the evident
sincerity of their purpose to reflect life honestly, and they are
written in a straightforward manner that aids the impression. They
illustrate anew the possibilities of a local literature that follows
progressively the formative years of a community’s life. It is even
now difficult to persuade the present generations of Indianians that
Dr. Eggleston’s Hoosiers ever lived; and Miss Nicholas, Mr. Riley,
and Mr. Tarkington have continued the story that was begun by their
predecessor, adding chapters equally instructive and valuable.
Mary Jameson Judah’s “Down Our Way” (1897) is not limited to a
particular region, but combines with studies of the author’s own
Indiana, sketches of social life at the South. The allurements of those
organizations for individual improvement and general reform that have
enlisted the energies of so many women in recent years have appealed to
Mrs. Judah’s sense of humor; and her stories show a fine appreciation
of the niceties of social perspective and proportion in Southern and
Western cities. The short story is happily adapted to the need of the
casual observer of local life, and tales like these, which bear the
stamp of fidelity, have an inestimable value for future students.
An increasing attention to local historical matters has lately been
marked, and an excellent instance of this is afforded by Millard Cox
(“Henry Scott Clark”) in “The Legionaries” (1899), a story of the
Morgan raid into Indiana. The political and social conditions on the
Indiana-Kentucky border during the Civil War were interesting, and
worthy of the study that has been given to them in this novel. The
military episode of which Morgan was the chief figure, though slight
in comparison with the larger movements of the war, was dramatic and
daring, and it lends itself well to this romantic setting. Mr. Cox is a
native Indianian (1856).
James A. Wickersham, an Indiana educator, has analyzed certain
religious conditions minutely in “Enoch Willoughby” (1900). This is a
novel of character rather than of incident, and marks still another
departure in method among writers of the Indiana group. The tale is
not wholly indigenous, as the characters belong as truly to one State
as to another of the Middle West. The Willoughbys are studied as a
family in which peculiarities have always been observed, and in Enoch
an hereditary “queerness” is manifested in religious idiosyncrasies.
The revival of interest in romantic fiction, that marked the closing
years of the century, witnessed the unusual successes of a number of
novels by American authors. One of the most popular romances of this
period is “When Knighthood was in Flower” (1898), by Charles Major, a
native of Indianapolis (1856), who is living at Shelbyville, twenty
miles distant from the capital. Mr. Major served no apprenticeship as
an author; this romance was his first book. He was educated in the
Indiana public schools and at the University of Michigan, and was
actively engaged in the practice of law when he wrote the novel, as a
diversion, on his Sunday afternoons at home. The friendliness of the
English-reading public to this tale is not difficult to understand.
It is a love story whose chief characters, Charles Brandon and Mary
Tudor, possess those qualities of youth, vivacity, and spirit that so
inevitably win the heart in fiction or the drama. The tale is told by
Sir Edwin Caskoden, a master of the dance at the court of Henry VIII.,
and not by the author direct,--a familiar trick of the historical
novelist; and it serves an excellent purpose, affording a valid excuse
for the ostensible editor to render the sixteenth-century narrative
of Caskoden into racy nineteenth-century English. This novel is one
of the noteworthy achievements of Indianians in the field of romance,
suggesting again what has been so true of General Wallace,--that the
imagination is superior to all laws, and that the romantic vision
easily pierces barriers of circumstance.
George Cary Eggleston, a brother of Edward, was born at Vevay (1839),
received his preliminary education in the schools of Vevay and Madison,
and attended Asbury University, but did not complete his course there.
When still under seventeen he took charge of a school in a wild
district of the State, but at the end of his engagement he went to
Virginia to the old homestead of his father’s family, completed his
college course, studied law, and served in the Confederate army. He
has for many years been a well-known New York journalist, and he is
the author of many books. He has always maintained relations with his
native State, and has utilized his knowledge of it in his writings.
In his novel “A Man of Honor” (1873), the hero is an Indiana boy, the
son of a Kentucky mother and a Virginia father, as was the case with
Mr. Eggleston himself. Another novel, “Juggernaut” (1891), opens in
Indiana. A Hoosier boy is the hero, and the description of his early
life among the hills of southern Indiana is pleasantly reminiscent of
the author’s own experiences. In a number of juvenile stories, among
them being “The Last of the Flat-boats” (1900), Mr. Eggleston has drawn
upon his recollections of Hoosierdom, and there is, he says, something
of Indiana in everything that he has written. Before Mr. Eggleston had
seriously begun literary work the name of his brother Edward was so
identified with Hoosier soil that the younger man could hardly invade
it with literary intent without risking the charge of imitation;
yet it is significant of the tenacity of his early impressions that
throughout his life the scenes of his childhood and youth have
continued to invite his imagination.
II. _History and Politics_
It is a pleasure to include George W. Julian (1817-1899) among those
who have added lustre to Indiana’s name. He was born at Centerville,
Wayne County, of Quaker parents who had followed the familiar line
of march from North Carolina to Indiana. He worked in the fields,
studied by the light of the fireplace, taught school, read law, and
in general experienced those vicissitudes and embarrassments that
beset so many ambitious American youths of his generation. The law
was a stepping-stone to politics, and from 1840 until the last years
of his long life he was constantly an eager observer of political
movements when not an active participant in campaigns. He was a founder
and leader of the Free-soil party, and was its candidate for the
vice-presidency on the ticket headed by John P. Hale in 1852. He was
repeatedly elected a representative in Congress, first as a Free-soil
candidate, and thereafter as a Republican, from what was known as “the
burnt district” in eastern Indiana, serving through the Civil War. He
was a vigorous opponent of slavery, and his “Speeches on Political
Subjects” (1872), for which Lydia Maria Child wrote an introduction, is
a record of his radical opposition that began in 1850 and continued to
the close of the rebellion. His integrity of opinion was unimpeachable.
He was a laborious student, and, although without the graces of
oratory, he was an impressive and effective speaker. He shared the
ignominy that was visited upon Lovejoy, Phillips, Giddings, and others
of the early antislavery phalanx, and his Congressional campaigns were
marked by bitter and violent abuse from his opponents. His powers of
invective made him a formidable antagonist. When his severity was
criticised, he would say that “there is nothing in my speech but the
truth that hurts.” He was essentially a reformer and an independent,
and broke fearlessly with his party when he could not conscientiously
follow it. Thus he joined in the Liberal Republican movement, and
supported Greeley. He then became, and remained to the end of his
life, a Democrat, and was appointed by Mr. Cleveland surveyor-general
of New Mexico. He made his home for thirty years at Irvington, a
suburb of Indianapolis and the seat of Butler College, where he was
the village Nestor. He delighted in literature, lived among books,
contributed often to the periodical press, and wrote (1892) the “Life
of Joshua R. Giddings.”
Civic interests have marked also the career of William Dudley Foulke,
who was born in New York City (1848) and educated at Columbia College,
being graduated in 1869. Mr. Foulke’s antecedents were Quakers, and he
removed, in 1876, to Wayne County, one of the principal centres of the
Society of Friends in Indiana. Mr. Foulke practised law and sat in the
State senate (1883-1885) as a Republican, but became an independent
upon the nomination of Mr. Blaine, and thereafter gave his attention
to various political reforms, notably in the civil service, conducting
investigations and frequently delivering addresses. He published (1887)
“Slav and Saxon,” an essay on the future of the two races which are,
in his belief, to contend finally for supremacy in the world. He gave
many years to the study of the war period in Indiana, with a view to
writing the life of Oliver P. Morton, Indiana’s “War Governor,” who had
been a citizen of Wayne County; and this biography (1899) is not only a
thorough study of Morton’s public services, but of the period to which
he belonged as well.
Early associated with Mr. Foulke in civil service reform work in
Indiana was Oliver T. Morton (1860-1898), the son of Governor Morton,
who was born in Wayne County and educated at Yale and Oxford. His
volume of essays, “The Southern Empire” (1892), contains, besides the
title paper, an historical essay on Oxford and an excellent discussion
of civil service reform. The opening essay is a most suggestive
presentation of the slaveholders’ ambitions to found a vast tropical
slave empire. It is of interest to read this, in the light of the
senior Morton’s herculean efforts against slavery; but that one
generation may easily differ from another is proved by the concluding
essay in advocacy of the merit system, which found few friends in the
period of which Senator Morton was a dominating figure.
Mr. Foulke’s brother-in-law, Arthur Middleton Reeves (1856-1891),
found employment for his scholarly tastes in unusual channels. After
his graduation from Cornell (1878), he devoted himself to the study of
Icelandic language and lore, in which his interest had been aroused
by Professor Willard Fiske; and he subsequently continued his studies
abroad in Europe and Iceland. He was an industrious and painstaking
student, with a passion for accuracy, and the volume of his letters
collected and published for his friends shows him to have possessed
unusually varied talents. He wrote “The Finding of Wineland the Good:
The History of the Icelandic Discovery of America” (1890); “Lad and
Lass: Story of Life in Iceland” (1890); “Jan: A Short Story” (1892);
and he had begun, with Dr. Valtyr Gudmundsson of Copenhagen, a
translation of the _Laxdæla Saga_ when, on the occasion of a visit to
his home in Indiana, he was killed in a railway accident.
The first Indiana historian was John B. Dillon, who was born at
Wellsburg, West Virginia (1808), learned the printer’s trade, and
removed to Indiana in 1834. While resident at Logansport he studied
law and was admitted to the bar; but his quiet, studious habits and
natural reserve unfitted him for the practice, and he never tested his
powers. He turned, fortunately, to the study of Indiana’s history; and
appreciating the importance of assembling data before the death of
witnesses and participants, began collecting material, and published
(1859) a “History of Indiana,” covering the period from the first
explorations to 1856. This work represents many years of laborious
research in a field that was practically untouched. It is the point
of departure for all who study Indiana history, and it is as exact as
diligent care could make it. Dillon published “Notes on Historical
Evidence in Reference to Adverse Theories of the Origin and Nature of
the Government of the United States” (1871); and at his death left the
manuscript of a work called “Oddities of Colonial Legislation.” He
received a number of minor appointments under the Federal government,
residing at Washington from 1863 to 1875. He returned to Indianapolis
at the termination of these employments and died there, in 1879. He was
gentle, patient, modest, and industrious, a man of merit, faithful in
all things. He never married, and had no interests save those of the
student. His proper place was in the quiet alcoves of libraries; and it
must always be remembered to his credit that with little encouragement,
and for the love of the labor, rather than for any reward, he gave
many laborious years to the task of establishing the State’s place in
history.
Jacob P. Dunn, who wrote “Indiana: A Redemption from Slavery,” in the
American Commonwealth series (1888), employed critical methods that
were not known in Dillon’s day. His work deals with a brief period,
and with events that had not previously been viewed in their proper
perspective. He brought to bear upon his subject a scientific analysis
and an exhaustive research that show especial fitness for historical
writing. His descriptions of the early French _habitant_ are
delightfully written, and give a distinct impression of the first white
settlers of the Wabash. Mr. Dunn has written also “Massacres of the
Mountains” (1886), an account of the Indian wars of the West, which is
noteworthy for its thorough treatment of the Mountain Meadows incident.
It is a standard work of reference, and one of the most popular books
catalogued in Western libraries. Mr. Dunn served a term as State
librarian, and has been for many years tireless in promoting interest
in libraries for rural communities. He was born at Lawrenceburg (1855),
and was graduated (1874) from Earlham College.
John Clark Ridpath (1840-1900), one of the most prolific of Indiana
authors, was born in Putnam County and was graduated from Asbury
University, with which he was subsequently connected in various
teaching and administrative capacities for many years. He was a most
successful teacher, particularly of history. Besides many text-books he
published “A Cyclopædia of Universal History” (1885); “Great Races of
Mankind” (1894); “Life and Memoirs of Bishop William Taylor” (1895);
and many monographs on historical and biographical subjects.
Richard G. Boone’s “History of Education in Indiana” (1892) is one of
the most important books in the State’s bibliography. Mr. Boone is
also the author of “Education in the United States” (1894). He was for
ten years identified with the common schools of Indiana, and for seven
years held the chair of pedagogics at Indiana University, resigning to
become superintendent of schools at Cincinnati.
“The Puritan Republic” (1899), by Daniel Wait Howe, shows further the
grasp of newer methods in historical writing, and is distinguished by
thorough treatment and judicial temper. It would seem that nothing
could be added to the literature of this subject, which has attracted
so many skilled historians; but Judge Howe adduced much new material
and presented the old and familiar in an orderly and attractive
manner. This is a thorough and exact work, which has taken rank
with the accepted authorities. Judge Howe is entitled to his word on
the Puritan, as his ancestors were among the pioneers of Sudbury,
Massachusetts. He was born in Switzerland County (1839), was graduated
from Franklin College, served four years in the Civil War as an Indiana
soldier, and enjoyed the unusual distinction of sitting for fourteen
years continuously as a judge of the Superior Court at Indianapolis.
He has contributed valuable essays to the publications of the Indiana
Historical Society.
William H. English (1822-1896) gave many years to a study of the life
and services of George Rogers Clark, and produced (1896) “Conquest of
the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, and Life of George Rogers
Clark,” an elaborate work in two volumes, which is a veritable
encyclopædia of facts. As Clark had been one of the neglected figures
in American history, the preparation of his biography was in the nature
of a public service. Mr. English is also the author of an historical
and biographical work on the Indiana constitution. He was born in
Scott County, and received his education in the public schools and at
Hanover College. He served as a representative in Congress (1853-1861),
and in 1880 was the Democratic candidate for vice-president on the
ticket with Hancock.
“Early Indiana Trials and Sketches” (1858) is a racy record of the
personal experiences of Oliver H. Smith (1794-1859), who had a kind of
Boswellian instinct for the interesting. As a lawyer he “rode circuit”
with Miles Eggleston, David Wallace, James Rariden, John Test, and
others famous in the early days; and no one has written of these men
with nicer appreciation of their high qualities. He was elected a
senator in Congress in 1836, and served for one term.
William Wesley Woollen (1828) has also added to the literature of local
biography. His “Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana”
(1883) contains information that is nowhere else accessible, and it is,
moreover, a well-written and entertaining volume.
David Demaree Banta (1833-1896) wrote often and well on subjects of
local history, and his “Historical Sketch of Johnson County” (1881)
shines amid the dreary waste of Indiana County histories. It contains a
rare fund of information touching pioneer life in general, and reflects
in some degree the personality of the accomplished and versatile
author, who was a fine type of the native Hoosier.
III. _Miscellaneous_
The press of Indiana has aided greatly in the State’s intellectual
advance. In the larger towns the newspapers have usually been
well-written, and many of them have extended sympathetic encouragement
to beginners in authorship. Many Western writers found their first
friendly editors at the offices of the _Herald_ or _Journal_ at
Indianapolis. John H. Holliday, G. C. Matthews, Anna Nicholas, Elijah
W. Halford, Charles Richard Williams, A. H. Dooley, Lewis D. Hayes,
Morris Ross and Louis Howland are among those who, in the hurried
labors of daily newspaper-making, have found time to preach the gospel
of “sweetness and light” through the Indianapolis press. High on the
roll of Indiana journalists whose talents are especially deserving
of remembrance is Berry R. Sulgrove (1827-1890), who was born at
Indianapolis, attended local schools, learned the saddler’s trade,
and worked for a short time as a journeyman. His aptness and love of
learning had attracted attention, and in 1847 he was enabled to enter
Bethany College, West Virginia, then under the presidency of the famous
Alexander Campbell. His preparatory studies at the “Old Seminary” of
Indianapolis had been so thorough that he was graduated at the end
of one year with all the honors of the college, and delivered his
commencement oration in Greek. He studied law and practised for a
few years, but became connected with the _Journal_ in 1854, and was
thereafter identified with the press of Indianapolis. He possessed
an extraordinary memory that was a source of constant amazement to
his friends and associates. His information in many departments of
knowledge was both extensive and exact, and he retained, to the end
of his life, his interest in public matters, foreign and domestic.
He wrote with precision and grace, and his use of homely, local
illustrations added to the interest and force of what he had to say.
Now and then a Macaulay-like roll would sound in his sentences; and he
would frequently imitate Macaulay’s rhetorical tricks, as by declaring,
with conscious humor, that some local event had “never been equalled
between the old bridge and the bayou”; but he wrote usually without
affectation, and his prodigious memory made possible a variety of
suggestion and illustration that never failed to distinguish his work.
During many years he was at different times a contributor of editorial
matter to all of the Indianapolis newspapers, extending his field at
intervals to the Chicago and Cincinnati dailies. He wrote usually at
his home, and latterly had no desk in any newspaper office, though
a member of the _News_ staff to the end of his life. His manuscript
was famous among Western printers, who encountered it at Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, and Chicago, and in the day of Mr. Sulgrove’s greatest
activity seemed unable to escape from it. He wrote habitually on
the backs of old election tickets, on scraps of programmes, on bits
of paper picked up on his country walks, but never by any chance on
a clean new sheet designed for the purpose. His handwriting was
microscopic, but perfectly legible, carefully punctuated, and free from
erasure. A slip the length and breadth of the hand might contain half
a column. No more interesting figure than he ever appeared in Indiana
journalism; but his ambitions were not equal to his talents, and he was
long an obscure figure in the city of his birth, whose intimate history
he knew familiarly. His “History of Indianapolis and Marion County”
(1884) contains only slight hints of his superior abilities.
His contemporary, George C. Harding (1829-1881), was a native of
Tennessee, but gave the best years of his life to journalism at
Indianapolis. He was a student of human nature rather than of books,
but his literary instincts were true, and in the two weekly newspapers,
the _Herald_ and the _Review_, which he conducted, he was at once
the inspiration and the terror of his contributors. Some of the
sketches in a volume of his “Miscellaneous Writings” (1882) show an
agreeably humorous turn. He had the trained journalist’s appreciation
of condensed wisdom. It was his habit to repeat, week after week, a
satirical paragraph in which some individual was pilloried until
the victim’s name became a by-word and a hissing in the community.
Sometimes this served a moral purpose; again the intention was
purely humorous. Years ago a candidate for constable, who was also a
delegate to the nominating convention held at Indianapolis, received
therein exactly one vote. The question, “Who voted for Daubenspeck?”
was thereupon reiterated weekly in the _Herald_, until it passed
permanently into a phrase of local speech.
Angelina Teal’s “John Thorne’s Folks” (1884), and “Muriel Howe”
(1892); Margaret Holmes’s “Chamber Over the Gate” (1886); Martha
Livingstone Moody’s “Alan Thorne” (1889); Harriet Newell Lodge’s “A
Bit of Finesse” (1894); many excellent short stories by Helen Rockwood
Edson, literary essays by Harriet Noble and Kate Milner Rabb, and Ida
Husted Harper’s “Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony,” emphasize the part
that women have played in the State’s literary achievement. The Rev.
Charles R. Henderson, of Lafayette, a member of the faculty of Chicago
University, has been a prolific writer on sociological subjects.
John Augustine Wilstach, also of Lafayette, has busied himself with
philological studies. He translated Virgil (1884) and Dante (1888), and
coincidently with the publication of these versions issued critical
reviews of the literature touching his subjects. The text of Lucian
was edited for school use (1882) by Charles Richard Williams, who
became an Indianapolis journalist; and Demarchus C. Brown translated
selections of Lucian into English (1896). George Ade, who discovered
fresh subjects for materialistic fiction in Chicago, was born in
Indiana and educated at Purdue, as was also his illustrator, John T.
McCutcheon. Mr. Ade has a touch all his own, and his character studies
are thoroughly original. He and Hector Fuller, another Hoosier writer
of short fiction, show how the journalist may successfully turn his
hand to book-making. William P. Fishback, one of the founders of the
Indianapolis Literary Club, has published (1895) his “Recollections of
Lord Coleridge,” with whom he enjoyed a delightful acquaintance; and
another member of the club, Augustus Lynch Mason, wrote “Romance and
Tragedy of Pioneer Life” (1883). Benjamin Harrison’s public services
cannot obscure the fact of his authorship of “This Country of Ours”
(1899), a capital account of the functions of the several departments
of the Federal government.
That form of humorous writing which has become a feature of American
journalism, and which is, moreover, a sharply critical commentary
on contemporaneous American life, not to be rejected lightly, is
also produced in great volume in Indiana. This goes to the public
anonymously, but Emma Carleton, R. D. Stevenson (“Wickwire”), and Wood
Levette Wilson are among those whose dialogues, paragraphs, and jingles
constantly appear in many publications. S. W. Gillilan, who wrote
“Finnigan to Flannigan,” the verses in Irish dialect which have become
a kind of American railway classic, is an Indianian.