Part 7

"Fall!--and everywhere the sights and sounds of falling. In the woods, through the cool silvery air, the leaves, so indispensable once, so useless now. Bright day after bright day, dripping night after dripping night, the never-ending filtering or gusty fall of leaves. The fall of walnuts, dropping from bare boughs with muffled boom into the deep grass. The fall of the hickory-nut, rattling noisily down through the scaly limbs and scattering its hulls among the stones of the brook below. The fall of buckeyes, rolling like balls of mahogany into the little dust paths made by sheep, in the hot months, when they had sought those roofs of leaves. The fall of acorns, leaping out of their matted green cups as they strike the rooty earth. The fall of red haw, persimmon, and pawpaw, and the odorous wild plum in its valley thickets. The fall of all seeds whatsoever of the forest, now made ripe in their high places and sent back to the ground, there to be folded in against the time when they shall rise again as the living generations; the homing, downward flight of the seeds in the many-colored woods all over the quiet land."

Mr. Mabie, writing once in _The Outlook_, dwelt on what has been called the "landscape beauty" of Mr. Allen's work. "No American novelist," he said "has so imbedded his stories in Nature as has James Lane Allen; and among English novels one recalls only Mr. Hardy's three classics of pastoral England, and among French novelists George Sand and Pierre Loti. Nature furnishes the background of many charming American stories, and finds delicate or effective remembrance in the hands of writers like Miss Jewett and Miss Murfree; but in Mr. Allen's romances Nature is not behind the action; she is involved in it. Her presence is everywhere; her influence streams through the story; the deep and prodigal beauty which she wears in rural Kentucky shines on every page; the tremendous forces which sweep through her disclose their potency in human passion and impulse...."

And when James MacArthur was editing _The Bookman_ he said: "Poetry, 'the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge,' according to Wordsworth, 'the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science,'--that poetry irrespective of rhyme and metrical arrangement which is as immortal as the heart of man, is distinctive in Mr. Allen's work from the first written page. Like Minerva issuing full-formed from the head of Jove, Mr. Allen issues from his long years of silence and seclusion a perfect master of his art--unfailing in its inspiration, unfaltering in its classic accent." It was Mr. MacArthur, who, speaking of "The Choir Invisible," said that "it would be difficult to recall any other novel since 'The Scarlet Letter' that has touched the same note of greatness, or given to one section of our national life, as Hawthorne's classic did to another, a voice far beyond singing."

Mr. MacArthur's remark that Mr. Allen came forth from "his long years of silence and seclusion a perfect master of his art" is largely true. Although born about half a century ago, it was not until 1884 that he settled down to writing. Not many of our distinguished writers passed thirty before tasting the bitter-sweet fruit of authorship.

Mr. Allen was born on a farm in Fayette County, Kentucky, a few miles from Lexington; and on the farm he spent his early childhood. His mother's maiden name was Helen Foster. Her parents, who were of the Scotch-Irish stock which settled in Pennsylvania before the Revolution, had found a permanent home in Mississippi. On his father's side he is a descendant of the Virginians who formed the Kentucky pioneers. The son was graduated from Kentucky University--which has been pictured in the history of his latest hero, David,--in 1872. For several years afterward he taught in district schools, at first near his home, and later in Missouri. Still later he became a private tutor; then he took a professorship in his alma mater; and at length he brought his career as a teacher to a close while at Bethany College, West Virginia. That very year, 1884, he moved to New York, put away his text-books, and plunged into the sea of literature. One who knew him in those days has described him as "a blond young giant with a magnificent head and a strong, kindly face."

From the day of his decision to be a writer until the present time Mr. Allen has worked industriously and successfully. Fifteen years ago the chief literary and critical magazines published many of his essays, and from time to time his short stories appeared in _Harper's Magazine_ and _The Century Magazine_. These short stories were afterward collected and published under the title of "Flute and Violin." Then appeared at irregular intervals "The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky," "A Kentucky Cardinal" and its sequel, "Aftermath," "A Summer in Arcady," "The Choir Invisible," and, latest of all, "The Reign of Law."

The author's high reputation was firmly established by "A Kentucky Cardinal" and "Aftermath." "In these two books," said one critic, looking backward, "Nature was interwoven benignantly with the human nature resting on her bosom, leading her lover, Adam Moss, with gentle influences to the human lover, and, when bereft of human love, receiving him back into her healing arms." The books made as deep an impression upon Englishmen as upon Americans; indeed, as late as the spring of 1900 the _London Academy_ devoted a page to a flattering and most sympathetic review of them. The gentle, playful humor, the healthy joyousness, the rare tenderness displayed by Mr. Allen in these two books, are irresistible. Months, and even years, after laying the books down, the reader must remember the many delightful sketches of which they are made.

"And while I am watching the birds, they are watching me. Not a little fop among them, having proposed and been accepted, but perches on a limb, and has the air of putting his hands mannishly under his coat-tails and crying out to me, 'Hello! Adam, what were you made for?' 'You attend to your business, and I'll attend to mine,' I answer, 'You have one May; I have twenty-five!' He didn't wait to hear. He caught sight of a pair of clear brown eyes peeping at him out of a near tuft of leaves, and sprang thither with open arms and the sound of a kiss."

What charming sport! What uncommon perception! And here is one of his choice, frank, bucolic sentiments:

"The longer I live here the better satisfied I am in having pitched my earthly camp-fire, gypsylike, on the edge of a town, keeping it on one side, and the green fields, lanes and woods on the other. Each, in turn, is to me as a magnet to the needle. At times the needle of my nature points towards the country. On that side everything is poetry. I wander over field and forest, and through me runs a glad current of feeling that is like a clear brook across the meadows of May. At others the needle veers round, and I go to town--to the massed haunts of the highest animal and cannibal. That way nearly everything is prose. I can feel the prose rising in me as I step along, like hair on the back of a dog, long before any other dogs are in sight. And, indeed, the case is much that of a country dog come to town, so that growls are in order at every corner. The only being in the universe at which I have ever snarled, or with which I have rolled over in the mud and fought like a common cur, is Man."

"Summer in Arcady" shocked many who had fallen in love with the pastoral simplicity and spiritual delicacy of the two preceding books; but it was generally admitted that the book showed an advance in the author's powers, particularly in his power of vivid dialogue. In his first novel Mr. Allen had written that "The simple, rural, key-note of life is still the sweetest," and a change to another key-note, tremulous with pathos and tragedy, surprised the reading public; but the opinion that it was likely to prove a stepping-stone to higher things found general favor. Nor was this opinion unsound, for "The Choir Invisible" lifted its author for the time above the heads of all his contemporaries.

Both here and in England the book fairly leaped to success; both here and in England it was praised almost unqualifiedly. An American critic, writing of it, said: "Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American novelists. 'The Choir Invisible' will solidify a reputation already established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from an American hand." An English critic noted that it was "highly praised, and with reason." "It is written," he said, "with singular delicacy, and has an old-world fragrance which seems to come from the classics we keep in lavender."

The book succeeded so immensely that an attempt was made to dramatize it, but the attempt failed. The atmosphere of the book proved to be too ethereal, too spiritual, for dramatization.

That "The Choir Invisible" solidified Mr. Allen's reputation was demonstrated by the eagerness of the demand for "The Reign of Law." In some respects this is Mr. Allen's greatest work: it reveals even a deeper knowledge of nature than he ever revealed before, and it deals more intimately with things which have revolved around his own career.

Fame has little to do with the sale of books. If "The Kentucky Cardinal," "The Choir Invisible," and "The Reign of Law" had not been sold by the thousands, Mr. Allen's fame would still be of more than transient quality. There is nothing ephemeral about these stories: they are, strictly speaking, a part of our classical literature. The vividness of the pictures will always be fresh and interesting.

Taking too literally Mr. Allen's remark in "The Reign of Law" that Kentucky University is a ruin and will always remain a ruin, the reading public has generally decided, we have found, that the university, the author's alma mater, does not exist. It does exist, but, apparently, not in the condition in which the author would have it. Before "The Reign of Law" had been long on the market, he and the president of Kentucky University fell into a controversy which makes an interesting chapter in the academic side of the history of the Blue Grass State.

Mr. Allen works slowly and carefully, as may be inferred from the number and the character of his books. And he lives quietly, modestly. He is not in the least given to the exploitation of his habits and his manners, even so far as they may be connected with his literary work. Little has ever been heard of him by the thousands who hurry to read his books, and who read them only to praise him. Some time ago his publishers issued a brochure dealing with his career, and the vital facts contained in it, if put together, would not cover more than twenty or thirty ordinary lines.

It should be said before ending, however, that the author of "The Reign of Law" is looked up to almost filially by the younger writers of the middle West. They are never weary of applauding him and of indicating, publicly as well as privately, his extraordinary reputation. Traces of his style, notably as it appears in his Corot-like pictures of nature, may be found in their writings. Indeed, it is quite likely that nothing would please one of these fine young men more than to have it said of his work that it resembles the masterly work of James Lane Allen.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

Thomas Nelson Page first came into national prominence seventeen years ago through the publication by _The Century Magazine_ of the short story called "Marse Chan." He received eighty dollars for the story.

A few years ago, in conversation with Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, the author related the incidents which led to the writing of "Marse Chan." At the bottom was a letter which a friend had shown him. "This letter," said Mr. Page, "was from an illiterate girl in Georgia to her soldier sweetheart. The letter was poorly written and poorly spelled, but full of pathos. The girl had, it seems, trifled with the man, but after he had left for the war she had realized her great love for him and written to him. She wrote: 'I know I have treated you mean. I ain't never done right with you all the time. When you asked me to marry you, I laughed, and said I wouldn't have you, and it makes me cry to think you are gone away to the war. Now, I want you to know that I love you, and I want you to git a furlow and come home and I'll marry you.' With a few words of affection the letter closed, but a postscript was added: 'Don't come home without a furlow, for unless you come home honorable I won't marry you.' This letter was received by the soldier only a few days before the battle of Seven Pines, and after he was shot it was found in his breast pocket, just over his heart. The pathos of it struck me so forcibly that out of it came the story of 'Marse Chan.'"

Thomas Nelson Page was thirty-one when "Marse Chan" appeared, and at that time his shingle was new outside his office in Richmond. Mr. Page was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 23, 1853, and is consequently now in his forty-ninth year. A description of the house in which he was born--Oakland, it was called--may be found in "Two Little Confederates." On both sides he is a lineal descendant of Gen. Thomas Nelson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It has been said that there is scarcely an old family in all Virginia to which the author is not related in some degree. One of his cousins is the Princess Troubetskoy, Amélie Rives before her marriage, whose first husband was John Armstrong Chanler. At the time of the birth of Thomas the Pages were comparatively wealthy, but later, during the war, they lost most of their wealth. Thomas's first reading lessons, in the Waverley novels, were given him by an aunt, who also taught him to read the Episcopal prayer-book. His education was interrupted by the outbreak of the war, for his father accepted a commission in the Confederate army. Occasionally the boy visited his father in camp, when the troops were on the road from Oakland to Richmond. Once he witnessed a bombardment. Happily, he was old enough to appreciate the gossip of the war which passed around the negro cabins.

Like all the slaveholders, the Pages were much reduced in riches when the war ended, but, nevertheless, at the age of sixteen, Thomas was sent to Washington and Lee University. Of his college days he once said:

"My standing was not high. I don't know that I had much ambition to be one of the first honor men. At any rate, I got no medals of any kind. I suppose I was a fair average student, but I hear that I devoted myself more to outside reading than to my studies. I was a member of the literary society, and for a time was the editor of the college paper. Contrary to the usual custom, I wrote short articles instead of long essays, and from this got the nick-name of 'The Short-Article Editor.' I wrote, I suppose, much for the pleasure of seeing myself in print. I was very bashful in those days, and I know that I trembled when I first got up to speak in the literary society. I had a chum at college who is now one of the most famous lawyers of the country. He excels as a debater. He was also bashful, and during our college days he joined with me in a method of improving our oratorical powers. We would get together in a room, and, having closed the doors, would debate with each other, upon some question. One would stand on one side of the table and one on the other and we would declaim away, each having a fifteen minutes' speech and a like time for answers. This practice helped me materially in my work as a lawyer."

After his graduation from Washington and Lee University, Mr. Page secured employment as a teacher in a private school in Kentucky, not far from Louisville. There he taught for a year, and he says that he enjoyed it very much. He kept his pen at work steadily. The influential paper in the part of the country where he was teaching, was, of course, _The Louisville Courier-Journal_. The young teacher was intensely interested in Ik Marvel's books, and he wrote some essays in imitation of Marvel and sent them to the _Courier-Journal_. They were rejected. From what he has said since, their rejection was not a source of much discouragement to him.

At the end of a year the rebuffed essayist returned to his home in Virginia, and, soon after, deciding to study law, he entered the law school of the University of Virginia. Greatly to his credit, he got his degree in a year. Meantime, however, he kept up his interest in literature. While at the University of Virginia he contributed to the college paper. It was also his habit, while at home, to write stories on slates for the entertainment of his friends, and erase the stories after he had read them. At school, too, he began to write stories in the negro dialect, and he continued this practice in his law office in Richmond. At his office he wrote the first of his works accepted by the magazines, a poem called "Unc' Gabe's White Folks," which was published in _Scribner's_ in 1876. He received fifteen dollars for it. He was very proud of that unpretentious check. Later he wrote a historical article relating to the centennial celebration in old Yorktown, and then he sent out his first story, "Marse Chan." It was paid for promptly, but, like many another story sent to the magazines, particularly stories from unknown authors, it remained unpublished for several years. Finally, overcome by impatience, the author wrote to ascertain what had become of it, and shortly afterward he received a proof of it. With its publication in 1884 came instant popularity.

But at no time previous to his moving to Washington was literature first in Page's mind. In the beginning, at Richmond, he wrote only at night, when his day's work was done; and for a time he actually ceased writing fiction entirely lest it might interfere with the practice of his profession. For, as a matter of fact, he has been a very successful lawyer. Six months after he had settled down in Richmond he was able to support himself with his earnings at the bar, and during the eighteen years which followed, that is, up to the time of his settling down in Washington, his income was chiefly from law.

So, it was some time before "Marse Chan" was succeeded by "Meh Lady," "Unc' Edinburg's Drowndin'," "Polly" and "Ole 'Stracted." It was said in those days that the stories were like variations on a single theme; but we are inclined to agree with the critic who said: "For this we feel no disposition to quarrel with Mr. Page, being eager to hear the tale as often as he may find ways to tell it, and grateful to him for such beautiful and faithful pictures of a society now become portion and parcel of the irrevocable past." To Mr. Page and his equally delightful contemporary, Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, the reading public is indebted for no small number of the most charming features of American literature.

It may please those who enjoy particulars to know that the popular writer regards "Unc' Edinburgh Drowndin'," which was first to follow "Marse Chan," as his best picture of Virginia life. Mr. Page, in 1886, married Miss Anne Seddon Bruce, the daughter of Charles Bruce of Charlotte County, Virginia, largely for whose entertainment he had written his early stories; and before the death of Mrs. Page in 1888 Mr. Page had written "Meh Lady" and had published "In Ole Virginia," a collection of his works, all in dialect.

In those days, by the way, his work was often compared by the critics with the work of Mr. Harris. Perhaps the fairest comparison was made by Mr. Coleman, who admired the two authors quite equally.

"Mr. Page," said the critic, "enjoys the reputation of having written the most exquisite story of the war that has yet appeared ("Marse Chan"). In comparison with the works of Joel Chandler Harris, though both authors deal with the negro, the one in no wise interferes with the proper appreciation of the other. In Uncle Remus Mr. Harris has given us the truer insight into the character of the type to which he belongs, while the venerable family servant is somewhat idealized by Mr. Page, and, moreover, is made to tell a story possessing a value and interest of its own not entirely dependent upon the personality of the narrator and his race peculiarities. In the matter of dialect, Mr. Page has the advantage, though this may be due, in part, to the difference between the Virginia negro and his brother of Georgia."

The Virginian has portrayed the sweeter side of the old slavery days, in direct contrast to Mrs. Stowe's picture of the harsher side. In the master he has delineated forbearance, confidence, protection; in the slave, respect, devotion and fidelity. Without a scruple he has felt constrained to make one of his characters say of the days before the war: "Dem wuz good ole times, marster--de bes' Sam ever see! De wuz, in fac'! Niggers did n' hed nothin' 't all to do--jes' hed to 'ten' to de feedin' an' cleanin' de hosses, an' doin' what de marster tell 'em to do; an' when dey wuz sick, dey had things sent 'em out de house, an' de same doctor came to see 'em whar 'ten' to de white folks when dey wuz po'ly. Dyah war n' no trouble nor nuthin."

A few years ago Mr. Page was asked if he wrote rapidly. "Yes and no," he replied. "I write the first draft as rapidly as I can and then go over it very carefully in the revision. I try to simplify my writings as much as possible. The more simple it is, I think, the better it is. I find, however, that the revision often takes away the spirit from the first draft. I lay away the manuscript, and looking at it several weeks later, I can see that the first draft is truer to nature than the more stilted revision. I think I do more careful work now than I have done in the past. My ideal is far above anything I have ever done, and I sometimes despair of approaching it. There is one thing I do, however, which I think is a good plan for any writer. That is, I always give the best I have in me to the story which I am writing. I do not save anything which I think might perhaps be of use to me in the future. The cream, if you could use that expression, always goes to the present."

In 1891 the author of "Marse Chan" left Richmond and went to New York to succeed Charles Dudley Warner in the conduct of "The Drawer" in _Harper's Monthly_, Mr. Warner succeeding Mr. Howells, who at that time left _Harper's_ for the _Cosmopolitan_, in the conduct of "The Study." That same year Mr. Page appeared as a public reader. Two years later he married Mrs. Henry Field of Chicago, a granddaughter of Governor Barbour of Virginia, and since then, for the most part, he has lived and worked in Washington. By far his most ambitious work is "Red Rock," a novel which has done much to affect favorably the old attitude of the North toward the South.

Not many of our writers rest their fame on fewer works.

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

A great many persons, indeed, a great many critics, have called Richard Harding Davis superficial. They obviously had one thing in mind and said another. Perhaps they may have meant to say that sometimes Mr. Davis dealt in superficialities. We lean toward Professor Harry Thurston Peck's opinion. "Mr. Davis, in fact," he says, "because of the predominance in him of the journalistic motive, is a photographer rather than an artist; but he is a very skillful and adept photographer."