BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF I CALIFORNIA J ^ ~-^^ SOUTHERN WRITERS; BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES. Volume II. NASHVILLE, TENN. ; DALLAS, TEX. : PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. SMITH & LAMAK, AGENTS. 1911. Entered, According to Act of Congress, in the year 1903, BT THR BOOK AQKNTS OP THE M. E. CHDRCH, SOUTH, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 9/3 5757- Sin tlji> flWHmn CONTENTS. PAGE WILLIAM M ALONE BASKERVILL i MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON 23 RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON 46 SHERWOOD BONNER 82 THOMAS NELSON PAGE 120 JAMES LANE ALLEN 152 MRS. BURTON HARRISON 244 Miss GRACE ELIZABETH KING 272 SAMUEL MINTURN PECK 291 MADISON CAWEIN 332 A CLOSING SUMMARY 379 (v) WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. Remembering all the golden hours Now silent, and so many dead, And him the last. THE death of Prof. Baskervill, September 6, 1899, cut short a career that had already ac- complished much and promised more. His technical scholarship was recognized by his colleagues in English throughout the United States ; his teaching quality attested by students who had been resorting to him in increasing numbers for more than twenty years ; his power to please as well as instruct the general public evidenced by numerous calls to lecture at Chau- tauqua, in Colorado, at Monteagle, and else- where; and he was just finding his widest audi- ence through his literary sketches and studies, and awakening in good judges the conviction that he was to be the historian of the intellectual movement called Southern Literature. William Malone Baskervill, son of Rev. John Baskervill and his wife, Elizabeth Malone, was born in Fayette County, Tenn., April I, 1850. His mother died when he was four years old, so 2 WILLIAM M ALONE BASKERVILL, that his training devolved mainly upon his father. The latter, a member of an old Virginia family, had removed in early life from Mecklenberg, Va., to Tennessee, and was first a physician, after- wards a Methodist preacher and planter. The son attended school almost uninterruptedly till he was fifteen, getting, as he himself afterward: said, "a smattering of Latin and Greek and of the usual English studies." He was then sent to Indiana Asbury University (now De Pauw), and this episode also he characterized in terms of like directness : "But I did nothing, and at six- teen I was again at home." From this time he was more fortunate. "For the next two years and a half," he wrote in his Vita, "I went to school to Mr. Ouarles, a graduate of the Uni- versity of Virginia, and from him I learned more than I had learned all the time before." Before he reached manhood he met with an accident the consequences of which much influ- enced his future career. Being in his boyhood, as indeed all through life, fond of hunting, on one occasion, through the accidental discharge of his gun, he \vas badly wounded in his left arm. During the three months' confinement that fol- lowed the boy was wisely provided by his father with the histories of Macaulay, Hume. Gibbon, WILLIAM AI ALONE BASKERVILL. 3 and Michelet, and the novels of Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray. He had been a reader before, but through this constant poring over the works of great masters he acquired the taste and en- thusiasm for the best literature which character- ized him through life. One of the first things I especially remarked about him, when I came to know him in Leipzig in 1874, was the way he would sometimes break off, particularly when he was not well, from our studies in Greek and Latin to take a rest with Thackeray or some other English classic. "It is the reading men in college," as Mr. Mabie says, "who do the great things in the world." The most important epoch in his mental de- velopment was when he went at twenty-two to Randolph-Macon College. Dr. James A. Dun- can was then President, Thomas R. Price Pro- fessor of English and Greek, James A. Harri- son Professor of Latin and German; and these three men, especially the two latter, influenced his subsequent life more than all others. "There I was taught," he said, "in my favorite studies by men who had studied in Germany, and by their advice I was led to go to Leipzig in the summer of 1874." When I came to know him that fall the names of Price and Harrison were 4 WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. constantly on his lips. Their ideals, their meth- ods, their characters as scholars, were deter- mining factors with him. Dr. Price, the accu- rate scholar and inspiring teacher of English, became his model, and the close friendship be- gun at Randolph-Macon continued when the former went later to the University of Virginia, and afterwards to Columbia, indeed as long as ' Baskervill lived; and his sense of obligation was most delicately expressed when, on meeting Dr. Price for the last time, in New York in 1897, he introduced a former pupil, now a rising pro- fessor of English, as Dr. Price's "literary grand- son/' The cordiality of the relation that existed between Dr. Price and his old pupils may be inferred from a remark which I have heard Baskervill quote from the former, that a trustee had told him he owed his election to the chair of English at Columbia mainly to the enthusiastic letters written by his former students. He al- ways regarded Dr. Price as the pioneer and founder of the new epoch of English studies in the South; and Price's teaching of English at Randolph-Macon was not only his chief early inspiration, but the model and basis on which later he gradually built up his own department of English at Vanderbilt. WILLIAM MALONE I'.A&KERVILL. 5 With Prof. Harrison, who afterwards in the English Chair at Washington and Lee so en- hanced the reputation already acquired at Ran- dolph- Macon that his call to his Alma Mater, the University of Virginia, became inevitable, Bas- kervill was always in close association, not only consulting him about all his literary undertak- ings, but collaborating with him on several works. For Prof. Harrison's "Library of An- glo-Saxon Poetry" he edited the "Andreas," his first piece of scholarly work after his doctor- dissertation. The two edited together a "Stu- dents' Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon," and shortly before Baskervill's death their last joint work appeared, an "Anglo-Saxon Reader" for be- ginners. One other teacher of his should not be overlooked : Prof. Wuelker, of Leipzig Uni- versity, under whose supervision he wrote his doctor-dissertation, to whom in after years he sent some of his favorite pupils, and with whom he continued in friendly relations to the end. A characteristic of Baskervill's student life should here be mentioned. When he went to Randolph-Macon he found everything elective and the way open to him to pursue his favorite studies as he pleased. To do this, it is true, he would have to renounce the hope of an academic 6 WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. degree ; and so he either waived this completely, or at least put it off, to be determined later, when he should have first had opportunity to work to some results in his own lines. He was maturer in years than most of his fellow-students, prob- ably somewhat backward in mathematics, and without any text-book acquaintance with the sci- ences. He was for his age well read in English literature and history, and had a fair knowledge and great love of Latin and Greek. He devoted himself, therefore, during his two years at Ran- dolph-Macon almost entirely to work in languages English, Greek, Latin, German, and French. I think Dr. Duncan's lectures on mental and moral philosophy were his only departure from literary lines. Such a course, if not best in general, was perhaps not ill for him. He had very strong predilections, studied enthusiastically what he liked, but was not characterized strongly by the spirit to "work doggedly" at what he did not like. The atmosphere that prevailed just then at Randolph-Macon was a very wholesome one : the spirit of the faculty was scholarly ; among the students the sense of honor, the habit of hard work, the respect for high scholastic rank were stimulating in the highest degree. So Baskervill worked effectively, in most studies WILLIAM MALOXE P.ASKEfcVlLL. 7 enthusiastically, and took high rank in his spe- cial subjects ; but he never applied for a bach- elor's degree, and in 1874 proceeded, on the ad- vice or Price and Harrison, to Leipzig Univer- sity. The freedom of choice of studies in which he had indulged at Randolph-Macon characterizes of course all German University work though presupposing, and in case of German students requiring, a basal course much more rigid than ui;y American college exacts so that Baskervill found it easy to follow there his own bent. If he showed any willfulness at Leipzig, it was in this : that he did not take a wide range of lec- tures in his own subjects I fear academic lec- tures often bored him and he was not an enthu- siastic worker in Seminar or Gesellschaft. The lectures he took he attended, and he got some- thing from personal contact with his instructors, especially with Wuelker ; but in the main he worked, under direction, at his room and in the library. I doubt if this was the best way to get the most possible out of a German University course; but he was diligent, and was certainly influenced for good in his whole subsequent ca- reer. His Leipzig Ph.D. (1880) was a valuable stamp set upon his work up to that point, 8 WILLIAM M ALONE BASKERVILL. pledged him to sch'olarly effort for the future, and proved an open sesame to a field of activity that might otherwise have 'been closed to him. Baskervill remained in Germany from the summer of 1874 till the autumn of 1876. My work at Wofford in Latin and German was be- coming too heavy, and I persuaded the author- ities to call Baskervill in December, 1876, the arrangement being that he should take the Latin while I gave myself more especially to Greek. At Wofford Baskervill taught till June, 1878. In the summer of 1877 he was married to Miss Florence Adams, of Amherst County, Va., his belo.ved college President, Dr. James A. Dun- can, performing the ceremony. In the summer of 1878 he went again with his young wife to Germany, to work for his degree. Old rela- tions were resumed at Leipzig, English and cognate studies were being pursued with zeal and energy, and a subject for a thesis, which had been assigned him by Prof. Wuelker, was yielding good results, when the sudden death of his wife, following the birth of a little boy, threw all into confusion. He tried to work a few months longer, but, finding it impossible, re- turned to America about February, 1879. When I withdrew from Wofford, in June, 1879, to re- WILLIAM MALOXE BASKERVILL. 9 sume my studies in Leipzig University, it was natural, of course, that Baskervill should take my place. I had had for the previous year the chief work in Greek and Latin, with James H. Kirk- land, now Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, as assistant, and this work Baskervill carried on as long as he remained at Wofford. The Wofford period was formative for Bas- kervill in many respects, though it offered little opportunity in the branch that was to be his specialty, since his time was mainly given to teaching Latin and Greek. It brought him into intimate contact with Dr. Carlisle, whom Prof. Henneman has aptly characterized as "a man fashioned in the same teacher's mold as Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, and of whom every student ever with him thinks reverently as of one of the truly and simply great in his state and age/' Dr. Whitefoord Smith had not then given up his chair of English, Prof. Wallace Duncan, now Bishop, was teaching Mental and Moral Phi- losophy, and DuPre, Gamewell, and the writer were younger associates. A fruitful episode of this period was his summer's run over to Leip- zig to stand his examination for Ph.D. It was exhilarating to him and to me, for we were daily together for a few weeks in Leipzig, and spent 1O WILLIAM MAL-ONE BASKERVILL. together his last week on German soil in tramp- ing over the Harz Mountains, with Treseburg as center of operations. The next spring came the opportunity of his life, his call to the chair of English in Vanderbilt University. 1 He made there a fortunate and congenial marriage, and found at once a wider field where he could show his aptness to teach and his talent for building up a department. He exerted himself with success not only to teach well, but also to please. His letters of that pe- riod show that he believed the Vanderbilt to be the best place in the country for a young scholar to make a reputation in. The recognition he met with from the faculty, the appreciation of him show r n by the students, the kindly consid- eration with which he was generally received in Nashville, were good for him. Mind and soul expanded in such influences. It was, to use Sidney Lanier's words, "a little of the wine of success and praise without which no man ever does the very best he might." The teaching of English in the South is great- l l have freely incorporated, with slight changes, in the remaining pages extracts from a sketch of Basker- vill \vhich I printed in the Christian Advocate, October 25, 1900. WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. II ly indebted to Baskervill. Prof. Price doubt- less inaugurated the new era in English study when Baskervill was his pupil at Randolph- Macon, but the next most important stage in the development was probably BaskervilFs work at Vanderbilt. His greatest results were his best pupils. To mention only English scholars in prominent positions, there occur to me at this moment the names of Profs. Henneman, Sny- der, Mims, Hulme, Webb, Weber, Burke, Brown, Sewell, Reed, Drake, and Bourland, and (adding three who are well known in other lines of duty) Deering, Ferrell, and Branham. To these and to many others Mims's words ap- ply : "His life is still being lived in us leading us on to nobler and higher ideals." It may well be doubted whether any other man in the South will ever again before his fiftieth year be able to see such fruits of his work, if for no other reason, because Baskervill was a pioneer in the new methods of teaching English. The impulse his best pupils received from him in literary taste and scholarly aspiration is doubtless the best proof that he himself possessed scholarship and literary taste. He made scholars not merely by what and how he taught them, but by his personal interest and sympathy in them and 12 WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. their work. In June, 1899, though the doctor had ordered him to go at once to East Brook Springs, he could not be induced to be absent from the last faculty meeting, because he had promised to support some young men for fel- lowships, and they were depending on him. BaskervilFs heart was in his teaching wd his literary work still more than in techi ':u! and philological studies. Besides his doeto /-disser- tation, the Anglo-Saxon text of Alexander's Epistle to Aristotle, and the books published in collaboration with Prof. Harrison, he published, with a former pupil, Mr. J. W. Sewell, an Eng- lish grammar for the use of high scho ol, acad- emy, and college classes, also leaving in manu- script an elementary English grammar; and he did much etymological work on the Cer/tury Dic- tionary, and planned other things of similar na- ture ; but his heart was really in other lines. In a letter of 1898, referring to his contemplated revision of his "Andreas," he wrote, in the words of Carlyle, "And now my poor wife will have to pass through the valley and the shadow of An- dreas," meaning the allusion to be jocose, it is true ; but if it had been purely literary work, he would not even have thought of "the valley and the shadow" in connection with it. Indeed, the WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. 13 greatest thing about Baskervill, I always thought, was his fine literary taste, especially in great prose. His reading was regularly on high lines, literature that was full of high se- riousness. The fact that almost before he was out of his teens he preferred Thackeray to Dickens, and that no other novelist could ever displace Thackeray in his estimation, is sig- nificant of much. In the last few years I had much desire and curiosity to have a full, free talk with him about poetry, to learn how he really felt it. But having reread recently his papers on "Southern Writers," I have noted again, as before, that the subtlest study, as it is the longest, is of the greatest of our Southern poets except Poe namely, Sidney Lanier ; and I understand the better his appreciation of Lanier since I have recently become a devoted adherent of that poet. I have realized, too, that it was the poetic side of Maurice Thompson which he most highly estimated and most dis- cerningly and lovingly discussed. It seems to have been, also, in large part the poetic gift of Irwin Russell which caused him to give that pioneer a prominent place in his series of South- ern writers. But more to the point is a para- graph of a letter from Mrs. Baskervill, dated 14 WILLIAM MALX)NE BASKERVILL. October 30, 1900: "He had a growing admira- tion for Tennyson as a teacher and upholder of great truths. He set a high value on the orig- inality and truth, the purity and nobility of Wordsworth. Reading aloud from one of the 'Lyrical Ballads/ it might be, he would say: 'If I know anything about it, this is poetry/ He felt the beauty and the force of it. Yet, real- izing there could be no link of sympathy be- tween two such poets as Wordsworth and Burns, how he enjoyed, I remember, reading Hazlitt's trenchant criticism on Wordsworth, in his essay on Burns, or his attack on the 'inti- mations' of the famous ode, which I believe Matthew Arnold also takes up. However sen- sible to the charm, I think he felt after all that to study too closely the poetry of Shelley, and even Keats, was like taking hold of a butterfly. I recall how his eye kindled, his countenance lighted up, and his whole frame seemed agitated, as he came upon some fine passage from Car- lyle or Ruskin or Lowell one of those 'electric light flashes of truth/ as he termed it. No mat- ter how I happened to be engaged, I must stop and share his enthusiasm. He intended making a special study of Browning the coming winter, had gathered books and material with such a WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. 13 purpose in view. His best teaching, he used to tell me, was done in Shakespeare. Yet after all it was in Thackeray that he still found his chief delight 'that master of characterization, the subtlest analyst of his time/ Like Mr. Page, he never ceased to wonder at his knowledge of human nature. Only the winter before his death he took up Thackeray again, with the aid of Mrs. Ritchie's introduction to the volumes, intending to write an article for the Review.'' "How well I remember," adds Mrs. Baskervill, "the advent of the new school of Southern writ- ers. With what zest he read and reread, feeling a kind of personal pride in each new discovery ! His heart and soul were in that work/' He had for several years been telling me and writing me about the wonderful new outcropping of South- ern writers, especially about Cable and Harris,, whose names I saw constantly, of course, in the magazines and papers, but whom I was then "too busy" to read. I remember very distinctly the day I was inducted into the new cult. I was ill and confined to my room, though able to sit up. Baskervill came to see me, and brought Cable's "Old Creole Days/' I think I read the whole volume without rising from my chair, with increasing appreciation and delight as I i6 WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. went from story to story; and when I finished "Madame Delphine" a glow passed over me from head to foot and back from foot to head, and I said to myself, with profound feeling : "It has come at last!" I meant the day of the South's finding her expression in literature. Such a moment of overwhelming conviction and satisfaction can come only once, I know. I realized then that the South had the material in her old past, and that we had the writers with the art to protray it. As I reread now Baskervill's "Biographical and Critical Studies of Southern Writers/' I find myself marking many passages, some of them sentiments which T heard him express many times years ago, others bits of critical ap- preciation which impress me not only as having .come from his inmost conviction, but as reach- ing the heart of the matter. Of this latter char- acter is the remark about Mr. Cable's "Dr. Se- vier:" "And the hand that drew Ristofalo, with his quiet manner, happy disregard of fortune's caprices and real force of character, Narcisse 'dear, delicious, abominable Narcisse, more ef- fective as a bit of coloring than all the Grand- issimes put together 7 and crowned him with the death of a hero-; and gentle Mary, bright, WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. 1 7 cheerful, brave, an ideal lover of her husband as he was of her, is certainly that of a master, as the imagination that . conceived them was that of a poet. There are innumerable touches in the story equal to anything that the author has ever done that is, as beautiful as anything in contemporary fiction." As good as that is a passage on "Bonaven- ture" (p. 351), which, coming immediately be- fore his statement in a single paragraph of the defects of "John March, Southerner," makes all the weightier the severe condemnation there pronounced on that unlucky book "one of the dismalest failures ever made by a man of genius." The verdict against "John March, Southerner," concludes with the assurance, based on "the 'Taxidermist' and one or two other gems of recent years," that "the divine fire still burns," and with the wish, "Would that it could be religiously consecrated to pure art !" For, says he in his study, as I have heard him remark often, "The man with a mission throt- tles the artist," and "An artist out of his domain is not infrequently the least clear-sighted of mortals." Indeed, the sum and substance of all of Baskervill's criticism of Mr. Cable is con- tained in this one line : "The poet, if he is to be 2 1 8 WILLIAM M ALONE BASKERVILL. our only truth-teller, must let politics alone." Baskervill was proud of Mr. Cable's genius and fond of him personally, entertained him in his home at Nashville for several days, and used to correspond with him; and the real explana- tion of all the criticism in his sketch of Mr. Cable is not that Baskervill as a Southerner so much resented criticism of the Creoles and of other Southern people, but that Mr. Cable was devoting to philanthropic notions, especially to the negro question, genius that belonged to lit- erature. "The domination of one idea has vi- tiated," he said regretfully, "the most exquisite literary and artistic gifts that any American writer of fiction, with possibly one exception, has been endowed with since Hawthorne/' I think still that the best of the "Studies" be- cause the most sympathetic, the most pleasing because it came without reserve right from the heart as well as the brain, is that on Joel Chan- dler Harris. I know his judgment is sincere be- cause I have heard it from his lips many times. He thought that Mr. Harris, of all the Southern writers, had most effectively used his talents, most completely fulfilled his mission. "The most sympathetic, the most original, the truest de- lineator of this larger life its manners, cus- WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. 19 toms, amusements, dialect, folklore, humor, pa- thos, and character is Joel Chandler Harris." "Humor and sympathy are his chief qualities," he said, "and in everything he is simple and natural." Uncle Remus he placed above all that Southern authors have done "the most valuable and, in this writer's opinion, the most permanent contribution to American literature in the last quarter of this century" "one of the few creations of American writers worthy of a place in the gallery of the immortals/ 1 Baskervill still hoped from Mr. Harris "a work in which he will put the wealth of his mind and heart and expand and compress into one novel the completest expression of his whole being. But if he should never give us a masterpiece of fiction like his beloved 'Vicar of Wakefield/ 'Ivanhoe,' 'Vanity Fair/ or 'The Scarlet Letter/ we shall still be forever grate- ful for the fresh and beautiful stories, the de- lightful humor, the genial, manly philosophy, and the wise and witty sayings in which his writ- ings abound. His characters have become world possessions ; his words are in all our mouths. By virtue of these gifts he will be enrolled in that small but distinguished company of humor- ists, the immortals of the heart and home, whose 20 WILLIAM MA-LONE BASKERVILL. genius, wisdom, and charity keep fresh and sweet the springs of life, aod Uncle Remus will live always." His personal attitude toward his work on the Southern authors seems to me worthy of all praise. He used to write me in those days, "Keep on criticising jny work : that is what I need ; others will praise me." I did criticise him more often and more freely than I have ever criticised any one else, as I had a right to do, since we were friends ; and I do not remember that my criticism ever vexed him. It is pathetic to me now to read again how he sought to justify himself when I criticised his over-favor- able or insufficiently appreciative estimate of one or other of the Southern authors, and how he tried to show that we were probably, after all, not far apart in our judgments if only he could have expressed himself in his sketch as frankly and as freely as we did in our letters. As I re- read these "Studies" in the light of his letters of the period, I am almost surprised to note how they grow upon me. His hand was steadily learning cunning ; he expressed himself, his own ideas more, quoted less from others than for- merly ; was gaining in felicity of expression, an- alyzed more subtly and clearly. If he had gone WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL. 21 on, he would clearly have been thought worthy to become the historian of Southern literature, and might well have aspired to an even wider field. "He improved,'' says Dr. Tigert, "more rapidly during the last ten years than any other man I ever knew at his age. He studied hard, wrote and rewrote, so that I am confident his best work has been left undone/' The insight and skill displayed in the "Stud- ies" suggested to Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie also the idea of Baskervill becoming the historian of Southern literature. In a letter of March 30, 1897, he wrote : "I have been very much inter- ested in your series of 'Southern Writers,' and it has seemed to me that you were getting to- gether a large amount of valuable literary ma- terial. Have you had any thought of making a book of the chapters when you have finished them? This is not an idle question. If you have any such thought, I should venture to make a suggestion to you. I should think with some revision and with an introductory and closing chapter you might make a history of the entire literary movement in the South which would be of great interest and usefulness. Your treatment of Lanier was capital." The Southern writers themselves placed a 22 WILLIAM MAJLONE BASKERVILL. high estimate on his critical work. i4 I appre- ciate your gifts as a critic/' wrote Mr. Harris, "rather I would say your gifts as a literary essayist, which include conscience as well as the critical faculty/' Mr. James Lane Allen wrote him concerning the "Studies :" "I shall give them a slow, critical, absorptive reading. They interest me greatly, and I think represent an initial movement toward the recognition, toward the appreciation of Southern writers, that would mean so much if deeply fostered. We scribblers of little things, but with fine intentions, owe you so much. I believe you have stood almost alone in your early and hardy advocacy of our cause and beyond our deserts of our place also. Here's a New Year's blessing on you for it from one of the lesser of them !" The work which Baskervill so well began is going on. This new volume is the best tribute to his influence and his teaching in the sphere of literary studies ; and I have often thought how he would be touched could he know that other Southern writers whom he intended to com- memorate were receiving sympathetic and il- luminating treatment from his old pupils. CHARLES FORSTER SMITH, MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. FOR assurance of the fact that the contribu- 1 tion of women to the song of America has not been lacking, one need only examine its rep- resentation in Mr. Stedman's "American An- thology." Yet America has had no really great woman poet. Few have achieved genuine ex- cellence by saying "the best possible thing in the best pos'sible way/' and attained that true poetic power, which touches the heart, as some beautiful symphony- in music enchants the ear, by a spell which cannot be defined. Among "the choir of minor poets, who helped to swell the chorus," none is more wor- thy of recognition than Mrs. Margaret Preston, the most notable poetess the South has pro- duced, and an especially significant figure in its literary history. In spite of the unusual prom- inence she had acquired, the dispatches announ- cing her death, March 29, 1897, would indicate that in the minds of many of the present gen- eration she was chiefly associated with a remote past. They refer to her as a writer of war poetry only, when really her best work was done long 24 MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. after the struggle that inspired these poems was over. Like Timrod, Lanier, and Hayne, Mrs. Pres- ton experienced the misfortune of living in a transition period. Realizing the condition of things, yet not without hope as to the future, she worked on with bravery and devotion. In a letter to a friend dated 1886, she observes sadly, but with true prophetic instinct: "Does it not grieve your heart to see how little our dear South cares for literature per sef The truth is, our people do not care for home wares. They prefer the foreign product. If more en- couragement were given by Southerners to Southern literature, there could be no doubt but that there must be no small amount of un- developed intellectual talent in the South, which for need of fostering lies wrapped in its napkin ; but, like our coal and iron mines, it will be un- covered after a while, and then everybody will be astonished to find how much hidden riches existed ampng us." And again : "However, with Miss Murfree and a few ethers to do her honor, perhaps she will yet come to the front." If "to make men think, to move men to ac- tion, to confer finer feelings and motives, is the power of the true poet," Mrs. Preston has left MARGARET J UN KIN PRESTON. 25 enough published odes, sonnets, ballads, poems, and hymns to give evidence of her inspiration.' Devotion to God, to her country, and to hu- manity permeate all her works. She sang of reli- gion and patriotism, and her virtues and ideals were as high as those of any Roman matron. Not only had she strength of purpose, but she was inspired by spiritual aims and convictions. Life to her was beautiful in spite of everything that mars ; for, like Mrs. Browning, she felt Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God. As to her verse, the critic will search in vain for false rhythm or a limping quantity. There is always a happy consonance of measure and meaning, always a thoroughly artistic choice of meter and language. Her graces of fancy do not cover hollowness. Sympathy and helpful- ness are in her voice, thought and purpose be- hind its music. Nor does vapid sentimentality, which describes so many "lady writers," apply to Mrs. Preston's wholesome sentiment and feeling, which occasionally rises to heights of poetic fancy and eloquence of expression. A fertility and breadth of outlook about her genius bespoke heart as well as mind. There is an exquisite saying of the philosopher, one of those 26 MARGARET -IUNKIN PRESTON. immortal words where wit, truth, and pathos 'are blended in a phrase : "If the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, the king- dom of earth belongs to the rich in heart." Ad- mirably is this illustrated in all the writings of Mrs. Preston. Her poems, her book o-f travels, her reviews, her private letters all are marked by the sincerity, simplicity, and directness of one who speaks straight from the heart. Her .name will always be inseparably associated with the quaint old town of Lexington, nestled among the mountains of Virginia, and already rich in historic memories of Washington and Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was here for more than forty years she lived and wrote and sang herself into the hearts and homes of a people which has revered her name for two gen- erations. Indeed, her life was so interwoven with the history, the memories, the sad and thrilling associations of the Civil War, and the tender pathos of its losses and sufferings, that the revelation of the fact that she was not a native daughter of the South will be a surprise to many people, even of this section. Mrs. Preston could never for a moment have been suspected of even a lurking desire to join what the new woman is nleased to term "Dr. Bush- MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 27 nell's vicious phrase/' "the reform against na- ture." Before she was twenty-one the poet- artist, Buchanan Read, applied to her for bio- graphical facts, and, like the hundred more or less that followed, was refused. As in youth and high health, so in broken health, with youth all gone, she had a most inveterate prejudice against, to use Lowell's word, being "dispriva- cied.'' Speaking to a friend on the subject, she said : "We American women differ so widely from English women. Think of it ! there has never been a memoir of Elizabeth Browning written yet !" She was reminded that the news- papers of England are not the enterprising and interesting journals that ours are, and one rea- son of their dullness is this absence of pleasant personal gossip. But her opposition was not overcome by this argument, nor anything else that was said regarding the right of the public to know something about the biographical data, the home life, domestic career, and personality of a woman merely because she may be a maker of books. "It is only what I have written, not what I am, that readers have anything to do with/' she would reply. "Perhaps I am pe- culiar, inasmuch as our American women seem rather to have a craving after notoriety, from 28 MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. which I declare I shrink. With a man the thing is different. He may fill the public gaze as much as he chooses ; but while a woman is alive I do not think she ought to. I don't care how much criticism of what I have written is in- dulged in, but I do -shrink from all personalities. Neither do my husband and sons court it for me, and I am content they should not. When I am dead people are privileged to say what they please, but while I live I have a pleasure in keep- ing my personality to myself." In spite of the many attempts upon her life, never once would she succumb to that particular situation against which she had cultivated the strongest princi- ples. Mrs. Preston was of Scottish descent, being the great-granddaughter of the "Laird of New- ton." Her grandparents were married in Edin- burgh, coming soon after to Philadelphia. Her father, Dr. George Junkin, was the son of a revolutionary army officer, a graduate of Jef- ferson College, a student of divinity at New York City, a Presbyterian minister, and a well- known educator throughout the country. Be- fore 1830 he was active in establishing Milton Academy in his native State (Pennsylvania) and principal of the Manual Training School at MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 29 Germantown, and subsequently the founder and endower of Lafayette College at Eaton, Pa., and for many years its first president; afterwards president of the old Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, at Lexington. Her mother, before her marriage, was Miss Julia Rush Miller, of Pennsylvania. It was dur- ing her father's pastorate of a Presbyterian Church at Germantown in the month of May, 1820, that Margaret Jpnkin Preston was born. She was thus born and reared amid classic in- fluences of the best kind, as Dr. Holmes said of himself, "stumbled over books from baby- hood." One of her very earliest memories was standing at her father's knee, when only a little over three years old, learning the Hebrew al- phabet. She was never sent to school except as a very little girl, but received her education from her father and private instructors at home. So enthusiastic an educator was her father that at ten years of age he had the child reading Latin with him, and Greek at twelve. There are now extant unpublished manuscripts of metrical ver- sions of Greek odes written when she was six- teen. Many a winter morning she was accus- tomed to rise at five o'clock to read Latin and Greek with her father before breakfast, this be- 30 'MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. ing the only time he could command for her out of his busy day. Thus under his instruction she was educated as few girls of that day were, with all the classic inspiration that comes from the poetry of the Greeks, and acquiring a large knowledge of modern literature as well. During this period she also demonstrated unusual ar- tistic taste and abilities, but her studies in lit- erature and art were suddenly and seriously in- terrupted on account of disease, which for seven continuous years prevented the use of her eyes. The trouble recurred later, so that during most of her years of literary productivity she was obliged to depend in reading and writing on the assistance of others. Her first and only novel, "Silverwood," published in 1856, was a book of memories, teaching the lesson of resignation, with its significant epigraph, "From the ses- sions of sweet silent thought I summon up re- membrance." It has long been out of print, and she did not care to renew the edition. Even then her shrinking nature asserted itself in her refusal to permit the book to be published with her name attached, although the publishers. of- fered her one hundred dollars, in addition to the price paid for the manuscript, if she would allow her name to appear on the title-page. Not until MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 31 after her marriage did the authorship of the book become known. To name the books she has written gives nothing like a proper idea of the amount of work she accomplished. Her literary activity dates back to her childish years, when she became a contributor to Sartairis and various magazines of the country, and as a re- viewer, essay writer, and critic did more than in any other department, and for several years after the war helped to edit the literary columns of half a dozen magazines and newspapers ; always gratis and without signature, doing this kind of work, as she said, "in order to help forward in my small way the interest of Southern litera- ture. But it has been at the expense of my eye- sight, and, while not blind at all, and trusting through the mercy of God never to be, yet 1 have done all my literary work under great em- barrassment, not being able to use my eyes for reading, writing, proof correction, or anything. I do not mention this in order that abatement should be made as to the quality of my writing, I am sure. But my poor English friend, Philip Marston, never alluded in any of his books to his blindness, nor was willing to accept any abate- ment therefor ; I ought to remember this." In 1848 she removed with her father to Lex- 32 MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. ington. Here in 1857 she was married to Col. John T. Preston, the founder of the Virginia Military Institute, and an able writer, in whom she had a companion in thorough sympathy with her literary tastes, and whose encouragement prompted her best efforts. One sister, Elinor Junkin, was the first wife of Stonewall Jackson, and to another fell the honor of providing a home for Gen. Robert E. Lee at the close of the war. Her own home, a substantial red brick residence, surrounded by grand old trees, and the abode of elegance and comfort, was situated in a retired part of the town. Here in the large square parlor, with its broad fireplaces, lofty ceilings, and generous bay windows, looking out over a beautiful landscape, commanding a view of the Blue Ridge, and in the library, with its several thousand volumes and portraits of Stonewall Jackson and Bryant and Longfellow and Holmes and Lowell, the colonel and his wife, a lovely woman lovely in face, character, and household surroundings (and of all her charms none more distinguished than her low, sweet voice, modulated to suit a disposition quiet and retiring) gathered about them a cir- cle of delightful and cultivated people, and dis- pensed hospitality in the kindly and generous MARGARET JUNKlN PRESTON. 33 fashion of Virginians "to the manner born ;" for with her literature was not a vocation, simply an avocation Cloistered thought, Hours winnowed of care, soft-cultured, studious ease, Days hedged from interruption, and withdrawn Inviolate from household exigence, Are not for women, and least for wives and mothers. "Pray remember/' she wrote, "that I have never given myself up as most women do who have made any name for themselves in litera- ture. It has only been my pastime, not the oc- cupation or mission of my life, which has been too busy a one with the duties of wifehood, motherhood, mistress, hostess, neighbor, and friend. Only when the demands which these relations entailed were satisfied did I turn to my pen. I think I can truly say that I never neg- lected the concocting of a pudding for the sake of a poem, or a sauce for a sonnet. Art is a jealous mistress, and I have served her with my left hand only ; and because I have given my right hand to what seemed more pressing and im- portant, I feel quite sure that I have never ac- complished what I might have done if I had con- centrated whatever was in me upon the art which, after all, was my chief delight." Like 3 34 MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. her own "Francesca," "with no undertones of secret fret/' she gave to "husband, children, friends, and the poor and sick service un- grudged," teaching The lesson, thumbed so oft that we must look About our feet for fit material Wherewith to mold high theme : That the strait life Hemming us round has rich suggestiveness. "Beechenbrook," published during the prog- ress of the Civil War, and dedicated to every Southern woman who had been widowed by the war, "as a faint memorial of sufferings of which there can be no forgetfulness," was a rhymed story of about thirteen hundred lines, in the same measure employed by Meredith in "Lu- cile." It was hurriedly written in the evenings of one week, by firelight, because no lamps were to be had ; and rushed through the press in time for the perusal of Lee's soldiers, it proved to be Mrs. Preston's most popular book, and quickly ran through nine editions. It was not a song of consolation, but a picture portraying the hero from his enlistment through all the cruel experiences of war, reaching a climax in the wail : MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 35 Break, my heart, and ease this pain ; Cease to throb, thou tortured brain ; Let me die, since he is slain, Slain in battle ! Blessed brow, that loved to rest Its dear whiteness on my breast! Gory was the grass it prest : Slain in battle ! O, that still and stately form Nevermore will it be warm ; Chilled beneath that iron storm; Slain in battle ! Not a pillow for his head ; Not a hand to soothe his bed; Not one tender parting said; Slain in battle ! Thus she touched a key of sorrow beyond tears, of tragic, heart-rending anguish, in behalf of a cause for which she had the most passionate sympathy. The force of contemporary feeling poured forth in this poem, which was the secret of its power, is naturally rather to its disadvan- tage now, when all those agitations are happily past. Mrs. Preston herself realized this when she said: "It was popular on account of the theme, and I do not think it at all deserves to be called a work of art." Her first book of poems appeared in 1870 3^ MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. a large volume comprising legends from He- brew and from Greek story, and other verse sonnets and religious pieces. These poems sug- gest a delicate sense of poetic taste a sympathy for the antique the classicism that has so re- fined and chastened the beauty of her verse, though limited the number of her readers- while the spirit of deep devotion which they re- veal strikes at once the keynote of her later work. It is in the reading of "Cartoons/' sketches from the life and work of the old masters, pub- lished in 1875, that we feel that, had Mrs. Pres- ton not been a poet, she must have been an art- ist. Her insight into the lives of the Italian masters is subtle, as the portrayal of their lives is vivid and dramatic. In "Mona Lisa" she evinces the true artistic temperament in Da Vinci's answer to Giacomo's assertion that the picture of Mona Lisa is finished. Done ? Nothing that my pencil ever touches Is wholly done. There's some evasive grace Always beyond, whkh still I fail to reach, As heretofore I've failed to hold and fix Your Mona Lisa's changeful loveliness. Why, think of it, my lord. Here's Nature's self Has patient wrought these two and twenty years, With subtlest transmutations, making her Your pride, the pride of Florence, and my despair I MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 37 Jean Ingelow pronounced her poem, "The Childhood of the Old Masters," unlike in all respects to what any one else had done in poetry, "A most truly original poem," she called it. In 1886 appeared the little volume "For Love's Sake" "poems of faith and comfort." "Colo- nial Ballads/' published in 1887, was not a com- pilation, but a volume of fresh poems a collec- tion of ballads treating of early colonial tradi- tions and incidents, which have ring, rhythm, imagination, and force, and came very near the ideal, without actually touching it and groups of sonnets on such diversified subjects as old English churches, the genius of Philip Bourke Marston, Mendelsshon, Haydn, Bayard Taylor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and abstract ideas, as "Art's Limitations," "Horizons," and "Human Providence," showing the wide range of her sympathy and taste, and the variety of moods that characterize the inborn poet. Mrs. Preston cultivated for many years an ex- tensive literary correspondence with many fa- mous people. "Lying on her table," observes a friend, "one saw letters and photographs from Browning, Tennyson, Longfellow, Christina Rossetti," delicately disclosing her friendships with these and others of her celebrated con- 3# MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. temporaries. Her firm friend Paul Hamilton Hayne regarded her as one of the best writers of sonnets in America. Their exquisite rich- ness accurately portrays the softer, tenderer, or lesser emotions, as the case may be. One which she herself liked best of her own works was : "Sit Jessica :" As there she stood, that sweet Venetian night, Her pure face lifted to the skies, aswim With stars from zenith to horizon's rim, I think Lorenzo scarcely saw the light Asleep upon the banks, or felt how bright The patines were. She filled the heaven for him ; And in her low replies the cherubim Seemed softly quiring from some holy height. And when he drew her down and soothed her tears, Stirred by the minstrelsy, with passionate kiss, Whose long, sweet iterations left her lips Trembling, as roses tremble after sips Of eager bees, the music of the spheres Held not one rhythmic rapture like to this. An unusual faculty of outlining character is shown in the sonnet entitled "Hawthorne." Of all the estimates of the wonderful romancer, none shows keener insight or deeper apprecia- tion than this short poem of fourteen lines : He stood apart but as a mountain stands In isolate repose above the plain, MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. 39 Robed in no pride of aspect, no disdain, Though clothed with power to steep the sunniest lands In mystic shadow. At the mood's demands, Himself he clouded, till no eye could gain The vanished peak, no more, with sense astrain Than trace a footprint on the surf-washed sands. Yet hidden within that sequestered height, Imperially lonely, what a world Of splendor lay ! What pathless realms untrod ! What rush and wreck of passion ! What delight Of woodland sweets ! What weird winds, phantom whirled ! And over all the immaculate sky of God ! The result of her journeyings in Europe was "A Handful of Monographs," an entertaining account of her rambles in many picturesque places. These brief impressions of novel scenes and new countries are the visit of a poet to a poetic land. "In the Track of the Golden Leg- end" she experiences the journey of Prince Henry and Elsie from Odenwald to the St. Gothard Pass, and is constantly haunted by the memory of those mediaeval pilgrims on their way to the land of the Madonna. She is "lifted into a condition of exalted poetic feeling" by the rare glories of Chamouni. Standing in the low dun- geon, with its seven historical pillars, under the too overwhelming rush of thought and emo- tion she wonders "that Byron, with all his power 4<> MARGARET fUNKIN PRESTON 1 . and pathos, had not infused with an even deep- er indignation and more shuddering thrill the story of Bonnivard's captivity/' Coppee has far tenderer associations. Here she likes to fancy she can see the brilliant Corinne, behind the grim brick walls of the lawn ; Chateaubriand, or Benjamin Constant, or Ampere, or Madame Re- camier, on the garden seat beside her. In War- wickshire, in the heart of England, in an old Tudor mansion wainscoted with black oak, and rich in secret stairways and dark closets, she finds her friends the Kingsleys. With pilgrim reverence she turns aside to do homage to "the widest-natured man that ever lived," and with a sort of wonder and awe stands under the lowly roof, in the room at Stratford-on-Avon where he first drew his breath. Passing the cottage where Mrs. Hemans once dwelt, from Ambleside to Rydalmount, everything recalls Wordsworth. She delights "In the Haunts of Sir Walter" hunts out Cripplegate Church, where Milton lies buried, and the Charter House, where she may meet Col. Newcome on his daily constitutional, or hear him whisper "