PS 261 .K4 Copy 1 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. A LECTURE BY CHARLES W. KENT. /^^^' - ^ THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. A LECTURE BY CHARLES W. KENT DELIVERED FEBRUARY 12th, 1892, BY INVITATION OF THE . YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE. Published by the LECTURE COMMITTEE OF THE Y. M. C. A. ^. PREFATORY NOTE. He who prints must not expect to escape criticism, but he who criticises must not overlook the plan and purpose of the matter printed. This lecture, designed to be popular and delivered before a general audience, can make no claim to fullness of treatment nor aim at wealth of detail. The form in which it was delivered has been retained because to change it would be virtually denying, while apparently fulfilling, the wish of those, at whose request it is published. ^■^B^^ s Fellow Members of the Y. M. C. A., Ladies and Gentlemen : When invited by the committee of the Y. M. C. A. to deliver a lecture in that series, which up to this time you have so much enjoyed, my interest in the cause the com- mittee represented and my desire to render their commend- able task as light as possible, constrained me to accept without hesitancy. To select some subject which would find in its development the mean between mere entertain- ment and severe instruction has given me more pause. I listened with interest to my honored * friend's easy recitals of his travels, and thought to supplement these by tales of journeying in other quarters of the world. When the world listened with hushed surprise and real grief for the mother and the bride, to the story of the death of the Duke of Clarence, my mind recalled the numerous members of royal families it had been my fortune to see, the many unprinted reminiscences I had gathered in the world's capitals, and I thought of this alliterative title, " Rambling Remarks about Royalty." Perusing with unfeigned pleasure Harold Fred- eric's charming account of "The Young Emperor," I remem- bered that I had once pleased an audience by a simple story about Berlin life. One by one these and other subjects presented themselves, and one by one they were dismissed. I grew bolder, and even threw aside the subject I had chosen and which the committee had announced, not from lack of interest in Sidney Lanier, not because I had misgiv- ings as to your interest in him, but because some of my Knoxville friends had already heard me talk of this great poet. The subject I have is one in which your interest can not be less than my own, and about which you probably know as much, but it is well for us now and then to call a council, deliberate upon what we have accomplished and read the tendency of our efforts or the goal toward which * Judge Ingersoll. 4 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. we are drifting. I beg you then to follow me with patience as I rapidly sketch the progress we have made, and with symyathy aid me in seeking our part in the growth we still await. The Declaration of Independence, Avritten and signed by individuals, had in fact already been drawn up in the thoughts of the colonial settlers, written in their deeds of heroic bravery and signed by life blood spent in reclaiming their new homes and bulwarking them against impending storms. It took the concentrated power of the colonies to draught this declaration, and their minds, busied with this task, found little time for the milder occupations of letters. Nation building is absorbing work. A constitution, to last through a century or more of change and threatened dis- asters, tested by all the arts of peace and war, must be written in wisdom and sealed with reverence. No novice hand could pen such a paper. Men, whose faces had been plowed into furrows by deep-sinking thought, in their OAvn homes and around the council table, on the hustings and in the legislative halls, gave it their best and most strenuous attention. Around them gathered the best minds of those less gifted to lead, and thoughts that at other times would have been entrusted to the patient page, were deep cut in the palimpsests of the brain or branded into the very substance of the heart. And for years afterward, during the crucial days of the nation's experiments, there were needed all her men of talent and skill to read her destiny and direct her course. Virginia, a centre of political and intellectual life, answered her country's appeal for guidance with numerous men, whose tongues of fire with a hearty eloquence added no little to the fame of American oratory. Trenchant pens, guided by wise hands and driven by a rare intensity of will, wrote such political essays as the world has seldom seen. Statesmen were plentiful; men aspiring to be statesmen more plentiful still. The rewards of politics glistened, and men of brain-fibre and ambition felt the impulses to polit- ical life. Triumphs here were worth the trouble, while Virginians, reflecting English life, made little of the career of letters, and authors hid their real life — their literary activity — under the cover of some less important profession, THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 5 and confessed with some tinge of shame, if they confessed it at all, that they were guilty of authorship. Virginia but aped English life, and all other Southern States took the standard of their living from Virginia. Indeed all America, although it declared its political freedom of England in the latter part of the 18th century and re-inforced this declaration by wars, took up no arms against the domination of English thought, sentiment or expression. Understand I am not setting over against each other English and Amer- ican Literatures, but I affirm that for some years after the beginning of the 19th century we were dependent upon England for our standards, for our audiences and for our very material. We had not sHpped the yoke of literary serfdom nor learned the best lesson in living, that of indi- viduality. There are or should be no geographical divisions in literature. Wherever the English tongue is spoken, all EngUsh literature is a precious boon. Compared with the nations of the earth we may be young in national life, but with the boldness of loving children, grateful to our mother from whom we were once estranged by over stringent man- agement, we reverently lay claim to all the products of our race's past. From Chaucer's lips I catch the music of his confident tongue, with naught save perchance the strange- ness of his words to forbid my calling him my own. Shakespeare's unrivaled genius lifts him far above clime or century and hails him a constant citizen of the world. The great line of his poetic followers have whispered to their melodious lyres the feelings that do crowd within my soul and live for me, fo» you, for all of us. Throughout the long line of writers of English prose, the chain of succes- sion from Alfred to the last author who watches the ink dry upon the freshly written manuscript, is unbroken and links us to our fathers indissolubly. But when all this is said, you feel and know that there is a closeness of kinship between you and the American writer that does not exist between you and these English authors. There is something that gives an American flavor to authors, who write within our land. What is it? No matter now, but it has not always existed. Even Irving, whose name we take so proudly on our lips, and whose fame has shed a lustre on b THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. our literature, was accused, often and not without some reason, of writing for English people, on English models, and often on English or foreign subjects. It is far more difficult to write a declaration of mental independence of the mother country than a declaration of political inde- pendence, and our first period of self-recognition and self- assertion was that of Emerson. In the South, about this time, Edgar Allen Poe represented our high point in poetry — as Lord Tennyson says, the highest point yet reached by American poetry — but Poe sought a congenial environment in cities further east. As the Virginian, Porte Crayon, said about this time : " I went to Richmond and no one took any notice of me. I went to Boston and everyone wished to have me to dinner. So I always go to Boston." Indeed the civilization of the Old South, as in the glib phrase of the day the ante-bellum South is known, was not congenial to authors and it was not adapted to literary production. The life was easy ; men had the leisure the world covets but knows not how to use, and comparative opulence, or at any rate creature comforts, took away from the slave-owners the dire necessity of bread-winning in the sweat of their own brows. Here, then, was the environments of quiet peace- fulness and heavy-hanging time, as favorable conditions for the author in his cushioned chair, with all around him books well-selected by his forebears and brought with them from England. But more was needed. Contact with man first of all. Praise as much as we will the simple virtue- giving qualities of rural life, proclaim as loud as we will the dependence of the world upon its country class, point as we will to the great men of all ages as country born, but it remains, that with few exceptions, the men who have risen to greatness have had, in addition to these advantages, which we agree in lauding, the living contact of soul with soul, and have beaten the smouldering iron of their minds into the white glow by striking them against other minds. The plantation life was too exclusive, too isolated, too little in touch with the world's heart throbs and pulse beats to feel the needed inspiration for giving mankind its thoughts, and its outer experiences were too circumscribed and provincial to appeal to a world of broad interests. Further, the very THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 7 ease mentioned induced a kind of mental idleness. I chal- lenge the history of the world to point to examples of gentle- men whose moral tone, courteous manners and lordly bearing outstripped these. Nay, I go further and declare them unsurpassed in bravery, patient endurance and indomitable energy in time of need, but it remains true, I believe, that they did not crave mental activity for its own sake, but, if at all, for reasons of patriotism or ambition. Accustomed to be leaders in their own communities, undisputed heads of their own households, they felt their worthiness to lead in larger communities and control in places of greater responsibility. This was a time, too, that needed the active participation of all strong men in affairs of state. The coming events of the sixties were casting their shadows before them. We need not now go over the years of prep- aration for the bitter strife. The crisis of the tragedy was reached in the bitter war of words waged in the legislative halls, and the real war was but the bloody denouement — the fourth act of a fearful drama — whose fifth act was the dark days of reconstruction. Men with little prophetic ken foretold days of disaster, though few could divine its extent. Over the whole South the heavy atmosphere of a gathering storm weighed on a buoyant and resolute people, convinced that their rights were in jeopardy. Jefferson had long ago predicted disaster, if the evil of slavery were not peaceably removed, and hundreds felt more than they could express as they dwelt on the may-bes of the future. This was no time for literary expression, and Gilmore Simms, himself an intense Southener and prolific author, had uttered a deep- drawn sigh, re-echoed as we shall see in other forms to-day, couched in these written words : " No, sir, there never will be a literature worth the name in the Southern States, so long as their aristocracy remains based on so many heads of negroes and so many bales of cotton." The University of Virginia and her sister Southern institutions of less note, foreign universities and our renowned colleges in the East, had raised up in the South learned lawyers, eminent jurists, distinguished clergymen, scholarly professors, noted judges and cultivated gentlemen of leisure; but the want of literary sympathy, the more 8 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. attractive goals of political ambition, the needs of the day and the circumstances of their lives repressed , rather than fostered the literary spirit, and left us without a literature worthy of our greatness. War has often been accompanied by song. While warriors fought, lyres strung to tauter tension and struck with trembling fingers have quivered with odes of duty, plaintive wails of saddening sorrow, praises of triumph or glory of success. But who shall touch these martial lyres, when grey-haired men call smooth- faced boys their comrades, and prayerful women nurse the feverish sick or dream of death's disaster? Hearthstones were ofttimes wet with tears shed in unselfish silence ; the face averted lest the bright countenances of children be clouded over with the shadow of grief. Amid it all, how- ever, this sorrow buried in the suff'ering heart found occa- sional resurrection in words attuned to the minor chord of pain. Randall's ''Maryland, my Maryland," Ticknor's "Vir- ginians of the Valley," and "Little Gifiin of Tennessee," Maria La Coste's " Somebody's Darling," and the poems of many others, including Mrs. Preston, Hayne, Timrod, Lucas, Thompson, were products of this period. May I repeat the name of John R. Thompson, that I may utter a sigh for the vanished life of this genial man of letters. How well I recall his kindly grace and childlike heartiness as he taught my prattling tongue the jingling rhymes that boyhood most affects. How often in my maturer days have I regretted that the love he then drew from me has sought in vain since his death for the collected proofs of his talent, that upon them it might continue to feed. Still uncollected and scat- tered, the numerous poems that he gave the world await some loving hand to garner them into a memorial sheaf. Simms' collection of "War Poetry in the South" and Mason's " Southern Poems of the War " preserve for us the meagre fruitage of these five years of brotherly dissensions. War over, new conditions and new adjustments followed. However philosophic the people, depressed by defeat it could not rebound at once. In patience it awaited the unknown and even unguessed solutions of problems created by the dangers through which they had passed. However hopeful or buoyant-hearted, those who had personally passed THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 9 through the ordeal could not in the years immediately fol- lowixig the war feel their allegiance close-knit in the woof and web of the stars and stripes. National unity, saved as it had been by the sword, was not then felt a living thing, and the South's share in a common country seemed verily a younger brother's portion. No wonder then that the kindly art of the skilled physician — time — had to be called in to heal the wounds ere men could believe this country whole or themselves equal brothers in an equal heritage ! Great wonder that the cure was so soon completed. One by one the songsters found again their voices, which had been stifled by sobs or choked by frequent sighing, and regaining the consciousness of their own unsubdued ]30wer and their personal liberty dared express themselves once more in words. Of all the Southern poets since Poe, the second place to this erratic but brilliant genius will be claimed by critics for Hayne and for Lanier. Hayne, too overcome with feeling during the war to command wdth artistic skill expression, and hence appearing to better advantage in his poems of peace, fell short of the exacting critic's standard because of carelessness or haste or deliberate inattention ; but in spite of these he demanded an entrance, willingly granted, into our hearts by virtue of his poetic themes and ardor. Lanier erred, perhaps, on the other extreme, in over-refinement of expression. With an ear attuned far beyond the ordinary ear to co-ordinate sounds, as he would say, he tried to bring together in happy union what other poets wittingly or unwittingly had divorced — music and words. Whether he succeeded or not in this, let critics for the nonce discuss, while we add our patriotic voices to the tardy but ever- swelling acclaim of his greatness. Like Timrod he died not only before he had reached the acme of his triumph, but even before he made it clear how high he aspired to climb- Mayhap his success would have prevented his greater suc- cess since " the good is the enemy of the best." Perchance his own independence and his earnestness in poetic study would have quenched his spontaneous poetic fire, or perhaps, and this possibility enhances our loss, this deep insight and intense zeal would have added fuel to his natural flame till 10 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. all the world had seen his light of genius. In what words shall we speak of the Poet-Priest, whom not by virtue of his religious post, but from our hearts of loving gratitude, we all call Father Ryan? 'Twas here in our city that he lived for a time and here that he wrote some of the poems, which like his blood, ran w^arm with his love of the Southland. His verses, brimful of tenderest feeling, fill our hearts with warmest love of him. John Pendleton Kenned}^, whom we hardly recall as a Southern writer, died in 1870, leaving behind him an array of works devoted to the South, but bequeathing to his people no great love for his writings and no marked enthusiasm for his old-time subjects. Wm. Gilmore Simms, the most prolific of all Southern writers, and hindered only by his participation in politics from being most nearly a representative professional man of letters, was and is still much read, but perhaps now as a matter of local or at best of historical interest. His life will soon be pub- lished in the series of the American Men of Letters, and it may be that this, prepared with great care and literary acumen by my distinguished college-mate and friend. Prof. Trent, will give a new impulse to the study of this author and send ns to school again to this adept in rapid story telling. If, as has been said, the best novel written in the South before the war was the "Virginia Comedians" by John Esten Cooke, surely it is not too much to say that the most vivid and interesting stories of the war, however unpolished and partisan, have been Avritten by the same gifted author. From these our dead authors, who have found cenotaphs in countless hearts, we turn to ask how stands it now with Literature in the South. What we desire first of all to know of a strange land is, wherein it differs from all other lands. Our young writers had their first hearing from Northern audiences and through Northern magazines, and recognizing this natural inquiry for peculiarities, answered it with scenes, provincial they may be, but characteristic and well known to those who drew them. Thus the Georgia crackers, the negroes par- ticularly in Virginia and Georgia, the Louisiana Creoles and the Tennessee mountaineers have found their way into our literature. When Cable first undertook to reveal to us the THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 11 unique appearance, on the back-ground of American life, of Creoles and Creole surroundings, not only the acknowledge- ment of interest in this unknown life was at once forthcom- ing, but to this general interest was added, without stint, the praise he had wonb}^ his vivid and realistic portrayal, by his own artistic treatment of subjects near at hand and his own skill in infusing into local scenery and life a coloring resembling that which permeates world-literature. Even when we learned later that the very people he portrayed, stung to the quick, denied the truth of these clear pictures, we were inclined to attribute this repugnance to their natural sensitiveness and to an even more natural aversion, shared by all polite peoples to having their family secrets spied into. His photographs may have been accurate but his camera was not well placed to get the best results. But we would have forgiven the brilliant author these faults, if to his graver faults in our eyes he had not added a deep disappointment to our hopes. We were ready to hail a great Southern author, when by his own decision we were constrained to recognize instead a would-be reformer, whose efforts, spring- ing from principles ever so honest and deep-rooted, are condemned to futility by his own unwisdom and narroAV- ness. That to tell Creole stories and to offend Creoles are not synonymous, has been demonstrated by those stories written by an American woman but WTitten with more knowledge of higher Creole life and with more love for the subjects of her stories. Grace King's place in our literature is still unfixed, but her equipment and aims command our attention and her w^ork so creditable and promising in this, her young life, elicits our hopes and grounds our expectations. The very people whom these two novelists have described have themselves produced a literature of w?iich it is not mine to speak now, because it is in a foreign language ; but their education, their interest in art, music, literature, marks them, in spite of their allegiance to the French tongue, as a unique source of literary influence even upon the English writing authors of their communit3^ Many of them, more- over, masters of both tongues, do good service in transmit- ting the contents of one language to the other. Cable's Creole stories excited hardly more interest than 12 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. those gems of genre-pictures held up to our view by Thomas Nelson Page. Adjudged as they have been by competent critics worthy to hang upon the Academy w^alls of our Literary Art, they were, we thought at first careful, shall we not say perfect studies worked out with detail and with finish, but yet only studies for some greater and more complete painting of our ante-bellum days. As yet these little glimpses of the relations between the negro and his master — glimpses so life-like and real, that we seem to have seen them often in our own prosaic lives, have remained isolated, and we await with patience the fuller record of this old time life — the specific antidote to the poisonous general infer- ences of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." The genial Grady, whose untimely death left such a vacancy in our South, pointed to Page himself as the possible author of this needed w^ork. Around Page and his fellow-worker, Armistead Gordon, have gathered others in Virginia, who have sought to eml)alm the memory of these fast fading relations. A similar task has been assumed in Georgia with scarcely less success by Harry Still well Edwards, who, talented beyond his probable con- jecture, takes his literary work too lightly and hence neg- lects this art for more prosaic duties. We wonder now why any one of thousands of us had not thought of collecting and editing the negro stories which crooning mammies had whispered in our ears at so early a date that we seem always to have known them. But per- haps it is well that no one else undertook to complete the myth-history of this race, for it is now apparent that Joel Chandler Harris was suited by knowledge, instinct and sj^m- pathy for the work he so successfully accomplished. Nor did he exhaust himself with this supreme effort. The Edinburgh Review, in a recent article on American litera- ture, or more exactly, fiction in America, has placed high among the names it praised that of Miss Murfree, best known to fame as Charles Egbert Craddock. I am aware that in this immediate vicinity her works, while much read, are not always commended. It would be presumptuous in me to take any part in the discussion whether or not her dialect is true to life, but let me remind those, who deny it, that there is more in these novels than misspelled words and uncouth THE OUTLOOK FOR LITEEATURE IN THE SOUTH. 13 sentence? ; tar more than merely local interest. There is richness of scenery, vividness of description, a wealth of detail and a skilful command of some of the resources of our language. To me, the gravest literary fault in her books, as compared with each other, is — a fatal sameness — a lack of sharp lines of differentiation, and hence an un- avoidable confusion of characters and localities, which begets mental tedium. Bearing in mind that the names I have mentioned are but guides to your memory in recalling some of the groups of our recent writers, you are ready, I trust, to hear the report of an humble sentinel on the walls as to the prospect of letters in the South. By the obliging courtesy of friends, in many instances far better able to speak to you on this 'theme, I bring you news from various States, and where these friends have failed me my own incomplete information may suggest some thoughts. In Virginia, the interest in literature, inherited from our fathers, who brought this interest with them, has never waned, but attention to production is perhaps more earnest to-day than >ever before. The novels of Misses Magruder, Baylor and McClelland are well known, while the name of Amelie Rives was a few years since on every one's lips. Her recent senti- mental effusion, " According to St. John," and her strong play, " Athelwold," in the last Harper's, give the measure of her power. From lyric grace in the story of "Anion" to mascu- line fierceness in "Herod and Mariamne," from the well told story of a "Brother to Dragons" to her much praised prose idyl "'Virginia of Virginia," her pen glides leaving here its deep writ lines of genius, there writing the death-sentence of maiden modesty, now fixing in imperishable form some poetic thought, now reveling in a ruthless disregard of all the world's conventionalities. Notwithstanding her oft misdirected genius, her crudities and her whims, and despite her carping critics, Amelie Rives is, in my opinion, and for- give it if it seem to you too heterodox, the most brilliant, versatile and talented woman who has appeared in the realm of literature in recent years ; and while I neither condone her glaring faults nor commend alike all her works, I con- fess my deep interest in her career and my ardent hope for her eventual success, which shall not be sensational nor 14 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. ephemeral but honestly earned and abiding. Mrs. Margaret J. Preston, who wrote poems that long ago charmed our mothers, as anxious to-day as ever that our Southland should love literature for its own sake, wearies her old age with new proofs of her constancy to letters ; while younger singers, Duke, Coleman, the Gordons, and others with manly voices add to the chorus of verse. Two events of literary moment are worthy of your especial attention. The one is the appearance of the "Life of Patrick Henry," by his grandson, William Wirt Henry, which takes its place at once as one of the best biographies written in America ; the other is the recent appointment of Thomas Nelson Page as one of the editors of Harper's Monthly. The Editor's Drawer of this great magazine will hereafter be edited in Richmond. Page, as nearly all the men who are active in literature in Virginia, are loyal sons of her State University, which, at all times since its foundation a centre of intellectual influence, a light-house shedding beams upon the South, a fountain of knowledge from which constant streams have flowed, is daily increasing her usefulness and has of late supplied a deficiency which was allowed to exist too long, by electing a professor of English. The old North State (North Carolina), our nearest neigh- bor, besides giving to our nation some writers, notably the present editor of the Forum, Walter H. Page, and Miss Fisher, who, as Christian Reid, has become a household name to all lovers of our bordering mountains, is showing in various ways its interest in literature and progress. There are few more ardent students than the professors of English in her institutions, and through their lectures and examples literary clubs, particularly devoted to Shakespeare, have grown up in the leading cities. Charleston, South Carolina, one of the exclusive cities of our continent, has always enjoyed a reputation for culture and its college and its libraries, besides its traditions, incite within it an abiding love of books. Columbia, the seat of institutions of learn- ing, has of late been the centre of a religious discussion, which has made thinkers and partisans of the large body of intelligent people. While the conservative nature of the State and its cities has kept it and them in some respects THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 15 out of line with the Sonth's progress, in all that pertains to culture, it claims its place, where it has ever stood, near the front. It is not out of place to add that the lamented Dawson, as editor of the News and Courier, in his day one of the very best of our Southern papers, lent every encour- agement to literary production and was hopeful of the out- look. His compeer, and with Waterson, his only rival, Henry Grady (of Georgia), was in this sphere, as in every other where his interest went — and where did it not go? — a moving spirit. Through the columns of his paper many a first effort found its way to the public, and under the smile of his favor many an abashed author learned to lift his head. Around him centred too the writers of his State, and all praised his friendliness as much as his brilliancy and loved him more for his own cheerful and self-sacrificing aid than for the glory which he brought his land. With views far-seeing and extensive for his country's w^eal, he took to heart all plans devised for the education and upbuilding of his people, and I have heard him gladly claim that his paper had been instrumental in filling the State wdth copies of good books. A wide and thoughtful reader, he knew the deep and prevailing power of good reading to elevate the people, and should the sum of his benefits to his State ever be cast, the love of literature he inspired will be no paltry item. The policy of the paper, guided by the hands of those who walked and talked wdth Grady, has not swerved, and to-day represents an earnest support of all the literary endeavors of the State. State pride, energy and progress unite to form the basis of a self-recognition, and from this will come a fuller, freer recital of the story of the State and the record of its people. Of our national casino — balmy Florida — there is little to be said, and could it be said, there would be little guarantee that it fell within the province of this lecture, for the float- ing nature of her population leaves the question of citizen- ship most often unsettled. Alabama has, throughout its history, had several literary centres, and these have transmitted to each generation the traditions which perpetuate the influence of these cities. Mobile, the home to-day of some dozen contributors to gen- 16 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. eral literature, lays special claim to Augusta Evans Wilson, whose name and works have been before the public for a number of years but whose pen is not yet allowed to rest ; and to DeLeon, who to his clever travesties and spirited novel, has recently added his most serious work, " Four Years in Rebel Capitals." Tuscaloosa and Greensboro harbor authors, while the Montgomery Advertiser and the Birmingham Age-Herald are active in fostering literature, attracting to their colums new contributors and forming nucleuses of literary guidance. Where so much can be found more will arise and brighter day will follow such a dawning. In a letter from Mississippi I read that there is more dis- position to literary production now than at any time pre- vious, and it is natural that this should be in a measure due to the revived interest in the State University. The most peculiar city in our Union, as far as they are known to me, is New Orleans, Louisiana. It locks within its crescent more that is strange to. other parts of our country and incorporates more varied elements of life than any city in our land. The lines of diverse natural equip- ments, varied trainings, strange experiences, cross more frequently, nay, are rather knit together more closely, and this constant contact of unlikes is exciting and inciting. I will not say that from such mixtures the best writing comes, but I do say that much writing of various kinds will and must come. The standards generally applied may be too rigid for this anomalous life and standards may be sought to suit this composite city. In any event New Orleans is giving us authors of sketches, poetry and novels, and the numbers of her authors will increase. It is a source •of gratulation, I take it, that Tulane University, represent- ing a high order of scholarship and excellent literary taste, has had a marked influence in bringing the chaotic intel- lectual life of the city into order and is counted a central point around which the literary elements may rally. Within the last six 3'ears numerous organizations of literary char- acter and of commendable zeal, especially among the women, have been formed, and are greatly benefiting the city. Outside of New Orleans the writer most worth your THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 17 attention, as far as I am informed, is S. H. James, whose talent far transcends his style. He is, however, hopefully conscious of his defects, and is laboring assiduously to remove them. If to his charming insight into child-character and his deep love for children, to the distinctness of his personages and the vividness and verve of his descriptions he will add a finished and a polished- style, his State will in no wise limit his recognition. Why more is not done in the State at large is clear from this well-worded wail : '' Much of our State is devoted to making cotton and cane, and a lottery seems to our people of more importance than a literature." In Arkansas the names are numerous but their fame is not far-reaching. These names, however, and many literary organizations prove that the soil is kind and may bring forth good fruit. Kentucky's pride in her writers has been described to me by one of my correspondents as a kind of general State pride but founded upon far less knowledge of the good points of a writer than of the good points of a horse. Whatever the nature of this pride there is legitimate reason for its existence and it centres to-day around two writers, James Lane Allen in prose and Robert Burns Wilson in verse. Both are frequent contributors to magazines and from both we expect more in quantity and quality than they have yet given us. James Lane Allen's magazine sketches, now col- lected into book form, solicit our interest in him as well as in them and justify the pride of his own State in this her most gifted litterateur. The Courier- Journal has not only breathed upon the literary spirit of the State but has gath- ered into its warm sanctum several of the possessors of this spirit. From no State has the testimony to general progress been stronger than from Kentucky. James Lane Allen, the best exponent of the State's literary life, writes me : " The outlook for Kentucky literature is better at this moment than any in the past— both in the way of its being produced and in the way of a sympathetic fostering audience." Miss Higbee, who attracted much attention by her story, "In God's Country," and who is now on the staff of the Courier- Journal, remarks : " There is a good deal of activity and the general outlook is both in interest and production 18 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. promising." Another correspondent, a lady, says with pardonable pride of her sex : " I believe there is a forward move — more manifest amono; the women than the men." And now what of our own State, Tennessee? May I speak more in detail? The division of our State into three parts has been, unfortunately and injuriously, emphasized until it has become almost impossible to speak of our State without a tacit recognition of this position. Deploring the necessitj^ I venture to use this well understood division to sa}'^, first, that in AVest Tennessee, outside of Memphis and perhaps several smaller towns, interest in education seemed to me anything but encouraging. Indeed mj^ observations in that part in general showed far less interest there than in either of the other sections. Memphis, thanks to the munificence of a former resident, is now building the finest library building in the State, and this library, assisted by the edu- cational institutions in the city, will do much to further the general intellectual life. I have not been able to learn wdiether there is at present any tendency to literary pro- duction. Middle Tennessee contains our best known writers and is at present more thoroughly committed to literary work than any other part. That all the production is not of a high value is evidenced by the fact that of three hundred manu- scripts read b}^ one of the editors of the Nashville American, nearly all were rejected. Nashville's literary life is worthy of commendation. It is a cit}^ of educational institutions and literary clubs and full of appreciation of literary movements. The centre of its intellectual life is unquestionably the Vanderbilt University, and for general literature some of the leading professors are filled with interest and enthusiasm. The good work this institution and others in Nashville are doing to advance education and foster fondness for letters is a matter of State pride. In Shelbyville I have found a public library, and in Columbia, Lewisburg and other points deep interest in education. Murfreesboro owes its literary note to Charles Egbert Craddock, whose fame is associated with it, and it seems to be destined to attract hardly less attention on account of the novel of the younger Miss Murfree. The demand, which is now made upon THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 19 novelisti^, that the marriage of the heroine shall not be the last chapter, but that married women shall be eligible to places of importance in the realms of romance, is answered legitimately and with interest, I am told, by her story, "Felicia."" One of the most praised of recent serial stories was " Jerry," and the surprise was keen when it was revealed that this story emanated from the pen of Miss Elliott, of Sewanee. Here, too, is the scene of the literary labors of Prof. Trent, from whom his friends expect the full realization of his promise of effort and achievement. The Monteagle Assembly attracts many strangers and acts as an annual leaven in the mass of visitors, who become learning's missionaries in this and other States. The literary confer- ence held there last summer was of unusual interest and no doubt accomplished great good. The material progress of East Tennessee has thrown it into such a turmoil of bustling activity that it is difficult to foretell what the outcome may be. Chattanooga has attracted many men of literary culture, but they have not come fur literary purposes and hence little concentration of literary activity is to be found. You will pardon my pride in reporting otherwise of the literary centre of East Ten- nessee. It would not be becoming in me to speak of our Uni- versity further than to avow its interest in the upbuilding of man, in all his faculties of body, mind and soul, and to record that no one of the members of the literary faculty has lost his interest in English letters, while several have themselves been authors. Of our city life it can be said that however much it may fall short of its duty, such organizations as the Ossoli Circle and the Irving Club have had a direct influence upon their members in fostering their love of letters, cementing their copartnership of interest in the literary world, fostering the literary spirit and lending encourage- ment to production. A further influence these organizations have had by their examples, from which have sprung the Stanley Club, the clubs in North Knoxville, West Knoxville and South Knoxville, the '92s, the Young Ladies' Reading Club, &c., (fee. Two years ago I was told that it would be impossible to get an attendance of two hundred upon any 20 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. literary lecture ; now lectures of merit, when duly announced, attract good audiences and are daily becoming more popular. The reports of our libraries show that reading is rapidly becoming more general, and since our libraries are stocked only with good books, this means that good reading is becoming more universal. As to production, in literature proper, I omit books of history or of a technical nature, you are aware " That Lass o' Lowries," one of the best of the creations of its celebrated author, was written while Frances Hodgson Burnett was a resident in our city. Prof. McAdoo, in his earlier days, wrote man}" poems and has not yet lost his ardour for the muse, while his gifted w^ife has been an inspiration to her 3"ounger sisters in letters, not only by her counsel and advice in her position of influence in their organization, but also by her keen appreciation of letters and her contributions to its domain. W. N. Harben, now one of the editors of the Youth's Companion, was until recently with us. His work, in spite of much deforming crudeness, has found both financial and literary recognition. There are others whose works deserve mention, but the modesty of whose lives and whose desire not to be known have made them withhold their writings from the public and hence from public criticism. At present our most serious and most commendable literary work is being done for various magazines by J. W. Caldwell, who, in the midst of overcrowding legal duties, finds time to show his friends how much we have lost in that he did not devote his life to letters. Nor must I forget Mrs. J. C. Malone, East Tennes- seean by birth and attachment, but in her work for various papers a citizen of the broader world of children's love. The modesty and reserve with which Miss Whiting received the hearty congratulations of her friends will, I trust, take no ofi'ense that now, in justice to our city, we must congratulate ourselves that one of our number, in a contest open to the world and entered by over two thousand, should have won the prize ; a prize doubly dear because many of her competitors have established reputations of more years than number her short life. She has surprised us by show- ing us her success before we knew of her effort. Now that we know her aim and aspirations, we await with eager THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 21 expectation the maturer fruitage of her power, and wish her, with all sincerity, the health and sympathy needed for the assurance of her broader triumph. The patience with which you are hearing me is another proof of your interest in letters, and that patience I shall tax but little longer. The pessimistic cry has several times been heard of late, that after all has been said it remams sadlv true that nothing of import has been produced and that" there seems to be no outlook for any definite improve- ment. That in the multitude of books and articles now being written in the South a large proportion is practically worthless, or at most of but ephemeral interest, is unques- tionably true. That we can not yet point with assured confidence to any recent work and say of it— it will live, is, I believe, a fact. But, ladies and gentlemen, what, I pray you, means this activity in production ; this general interest in letters, if it may not at least be interpreted as a promise. How shall we count these hundreds of studies, if some artist will not arise to group them in some ever-living picture? I am aware that the merit of authorship can not be tested by the age of authors, nor the interest in writing by the number of writers, but is it without significance that my roll of per- sons now resident in the South and contributing to literature contains some hundred and fifty names, and that by far the majority of these persons have not yet reached middle age? Yet this hst is very defective indeed, does not aim at com- pleteness, nor does it contain those like Maurice Thompson Lafcadio, Hearn, Walter Page, who, born in the South and of her blood, have, like hundreds of others, sought a more congenial literary atmosphere. Recognizing the advance of our educational institutions and pointing specifically to their influence upon our intellectual life, may we not hail them as another aid to the development more coveted by me and thousands of others for our Southland, than the mere upturning of her soil, which buries hidden wealth. Believing then in the possibilities of our future, in no wise despairing of far brighter days, how shall we hasten them? First, by nreserving as pure as possible, under existing cir- cumstances, our American institutions. We represent to- day the true successors of the Anglo-Saxon founders of our 22 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. countr}^ and hold within our borders the ark of our nation's covenant with the world to preserve the principles of rep- resentative government and the privileges of religious freedom. The teeming millions of immigrants, foreign to these principles, foreign to these privileges, foreign to our language and foreign to our ideals of home and patriotism, have not yet sought in large numbers our Southern country. We are not yet confronted, save in isolated cases, with the problems of foreign elements, nor do we hold the sacred heritage of our language by the leave of un-American school boards or scheming politicians. While in 1880 — and the figures in 1890 would be more striking — the twelve Southern States of which I have spoken contained about 160,000 foreign-born voters, the other States contained nearly 2,910,000. Exclusive of Kentucky and Texas, the foreign- born voting population is less than 80,000. Comparing the entire population, we find that these twelve Southern States contain about 320,000 foreigners, while the other States contain about 6,170,000. If we compare half a dozen literary centres in the North and West, say Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Providence and Cambridge with the same number in the South, say Richmond, Charles- ton, Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville and Louisville, we find that of the first about one-third are foreign-born, of the latter less than one-ninth. If you ask what mean these figures, which can be arranged in multiform ways to reveal this striking difference, I answer simply this, that the American-born population, nay more, the population whose fathers and grandfathers before them were born in this country, represent the strongest upholders of our govern- ment, the most steadfast believers in our national ideals, our m^ost patriotic citizens, and ^bove all the most unyield- ing lovers of our national tongue and literature, and that the South contains by far the larger relative percentage of this native-born population. I say it guardedly and with deliberation, that since the questions of constitutional inter- pretation were settled — and forever by the war, the South represents as loyal, a« loving and as patriotic a people as can be found in our Union, while take it as a whole, it is more representatively American than any section of like size THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 23 or population. But let us confess it as Americans and for all sections that some of the lessons of unselfish devotion to country and high ideal patriotism we have yet to learn. Rally then around your flag, and next to its spotless honor place, as DeQuincy said to young poets, your mother-tongue. Look with the same distrust on him who purposely blots a star or blurs a stripe of our national emblem and him who disgraces with design our medium of thought by sending through it to our people messages unworthy, impure, dis- honorable, in a word inconsistent with the noble purpose and high ethical qualities of our English Literature. Love your language and your literature alike, and spurn the attempts to pollute the purity of our Anglo-Saxon minds by pouring into them the unclean imaginings of disordered brains or the filthy washings from the exhaustless quarries of foreign immorality. Be not prudish but prudent, not callous but careful, and let the world know that in the South the literary taste is still delicate and refined; that the standards of morality have not been lowered to suit the new demands of a faster living age ; that these standards are based upon Anglo-Saxon thought and Anglo-Saxon mor- ality and that they do not vary with the vacillating surface of a foreign and un-American public. To maintain this position we must have with us inde- pendent critics, self-sustained leaders of thought. "The original voices are few, the echoes are numerous." The men who have the firmness and the brains to judge, i. e. to criticise for themselves, will soon find themselves centres of dependent groups. Holding before you the objects of true criticism — an accurate and appreciative discrimination between the good and the bad, a devotion to truth in judg- ments and a fidelity in making these judgments known, you understand that the true critics are inciters to thought and evangelists as well as discoverers of it. They mark out for us the paths our guides have gone and show us our tenden- cies and our wanderings. To my mind the presence of loving but rigidly honest and unswervingly impartial critics in the South is one of the most essential conditions of our literary future. Critics, who will rebuke me first of all, if I have used the word "South" in this lecture as any other 24 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN TH£ SOUTH. than a geographical term ; who will teach me and every one that there is no sectionalism in letters ; that there can arise no true writer, if the scope of his sympathies be no broader than his State or his section ; that much less can he be a true author, if his hand or his mind be against his brother. At the same time these critics must teach us respect for the judgments of those nearest to us, if they deserve it, and erase from our minds that false impression that only a northern stamp will guarantee the currency of our southern writings. From these, too, we must learn that though our classics must be catholic, appealing to all, the best way to attain to this catholicity is by expressing our own thoughts in our own best form. Freed from the dominating sway of self- appointed judges, unhampered by models, which we try in vain to imitate, our minds must work out their own prob- lems along the lines of their own best thinking, or make known their messages in their own chosen way. My life, or yours, however dull it may be, contains in its heart the germ, the spirit of all life, and if an artist can rightly reveal it, the world beholds the mirror of its own intensest living. There are a thousand themes around you that may catch the world's listening ear, if you can but utter them aloud, and yet a thousand artists may miss them all and find other themes of as .much importance. Write it then deep in your hearts that our themes, our material for this world-embracing literature, are before us, are around us, are within us, and with no more pride than is becoming, appreciate j^our own opportunities. These critics must not only be fair-minded, l)atriotic and sympathetic, th^y must be equipped by natural endowments and careful training for their responsible posi- tions of thought-moulding. If cramped, narrow, badly- read or sectional, the more power they have the worse it will be for our people. But if broad, philanthropic, well- read in the world's best lore and yearning to know the best the world has yet brought forth, their inspired souls will, with inspiring succor, cheer up the lagging and despairing cow- ards and breathe into the failing throng the fire of undaunted courage. But if our leaders are to be such men they must be educated by contact with nature, man and books, and above all must know, as the harpist, when his hands play THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. 25 over the answering strings, the tune, the power and the timbre of his delicate instrument, the English language. He must know its problems as well as their solutions, its shortcom- ings as its glories, and must, with discriminating but with fearless hand, prune and pluck off, nourish or destroy. In all he should exact that we should do our best, not palm off tawdry counters for genuine coin upon an unsuspecting and long-suffering public. Who shall be these critics and how many do we need? As many as we can get, provided they take their work seriously, and let them be who they may, if only they know their duty and follow it. Another demand is for broader and closer reading — a more thorough acquaintance with books and a more univer- sal identification with literary matters. The minds of those who make opinions must be fed upon strong and nourishing pabulum. Those who catch all their opinions from associates must be particularly careful of their literary associations. The sum total of these opinions is public sentiment, and public sentiment is, after all, the foundation upon which we build. In shaping public sentiment and fixing literary standards, the work that can be done by newspapers is beyond estimate. For that reason it has given me pleasure to record that several of our Southern papers are not only encouraging production and giving an outlet for local literary talent, but are pointing out good books, providing for literary criticism and aiding in many ways in the direct or indirect dissemi- nation of good literature. Honesty compels, me, however, to say that the majority of our papers, as it seems to me, have not taken seriously this essential duty of their modern mission. So potent in other good works the press, religious and secular, owes it to the people to guide them here into right paths and encourage them in well-doing. That there are obstacles to our intellectual growth now, such as the rapid accumulation of wealth, the need of men of action, our utilitarian philosophy, and our dollar-standards and lightning-methods of education, you well know, but the signs that are for us are.more, far more, than those that be against us. Throughout our land methinks I catch the gladdening murmur of a deeper patriotism as lovers of our 26 THE OUTLOOK FOR LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH. country bend toward each other to whisper of her dangers. The spirit of our land is still American and the deep-centred love of our homes was never stronger than it is to-day. Throughout the South, I read, I hope aright, a deeper interest in our common country and a fuller feeling of right- ful partnership and owning. Our true place in the Union becomes, to our own minds, more fixed each day, and but for the fiery outbursts of some designing politicians, whose chiefest argument is force, no word would mar the closeness of our brotherhood. And of this Union, where will you find a fairer part than this our matchless Southland, where, with the murmur of the purling" brooks, that kiss in humble love our giant mountains' feet, the chorus of the woodland song- sters unite in perfect harmony; where skies of blue are mirrored in the dew-drops on blossoming flowers, which lift their tiny heads to greet the rising sun and laugh with joy in the pride of life, while mocking birds, mad with their own delight, revel in song which scorns the written score. Shall the poet of nature here lack themes or find no cause of song in his surroundings? Is there no fire on the altars of inspiration from which the poet-heart may pluck a living coal? And should he yearn to write a people's epic, whether in verse or in the modern form of fiction, is there a dearth of heroes or a lack of instance in our past history which yet awaits its record? Go, friends, one and all; say to your own souls and to your neighbors that our land is as worthy as any that ever felt the kiss of breaking day to be enshrined within our hearts and borne from those hearts to the utmost limits of an encircling globe upon the breath of an ever-living literature. Chill nbt your hopes with sad complaints or prophecies of failure but with an ardor which shall not shame the land you love join in the throng of those whose prayers and labors do unite to crown the waiting brow of our Columbia with the laurel wreath of literature triumphant. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS