Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II, Part 3

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166

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My rudeness subdued his embarrassment in an instant, and with a taunting curl of the nose he replied: "You needn't kick before you're spurr'd. There ain't nobody there, nor ha'n't been, nother. I was jist seein' how I could'a' fought." So saying, he bounded to his plow, which stood in the corner of the fence about fifty yards beyond the battle-ground.

And, would you believe it, gentle reader, his report was true. All that I had heard and seen was nothing more or less than a Lincoln rehearsal, in which the youth who had just left me had played all the parts of all the characters in a court-house fight.

I went to the ground from which he had risen, and there were the prints of his two thumbs, plunged up to the balls in the mellow earth, about the distance of a man's eyes apart, and the ground around was broken up as if two stags had been engaged upon it.

The laughter which accompanied and frequently interrupted and followed the reading of the sketch was joined by both sides of the house. The orator did not resume his remarks.

Judge Longstreet also wrote Letters from Georgia to Massachusetts, Letters to Clergymen of the Northern Methodist Church, Master William Mitten, and many pamphlets and magazine articles. He was always busy with his pen, and many of his contributions appeared in the newspapers, "The Methodist Quarterly," "The Southern Literary Messenger," "The Southern Field and Fireside," "The Magnolia," and "The Orion."

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.

Georgia Scenes is probably the most widely known and popular of all of Judge Longstreet's writings. The author's aim in this was much higher than the object frequently ascribed to him, that of amusing the reader with humorous sketches, his desire being to "supply a chasm in history which has always been overlooked -the manners, customs, amusements, wit, dialect, as they appear in all grades of society to an ear and eye witness of them." He chose the first fifty years of our republic in the course of which time the society of the southern states under- went an almost entire revolution, and at this date hardly a trace of the society of the first thirty years of the republic is found. The author has not confined himself to historic detail, but his language is always "Georgian" from the beginning to the end. As an illustration, The Gander Pulling is an actual occurrence at the place located. The characters were pen pictures of well-known individuals there and the language used their talk. Again, The Wax Works was an exhibition which actually came off in Waynesboro, Burke Co., and every figure actually existed and did the same parts assigned to him. The Fight also is a description of a combat to be seen in almost any county in Georgia. The character, however, answers better to many of the poor class seen in the sterile pine woods of Georgia. Judge Longstreet in the Matser Mitten was actuated by the laudable object of showing mothers the danger of allowing their affections for their children to interfere with their duty in using that paternal strictness which is absolutely necessary to the proper training of youth. This was suggested to the author when president of Centenary college in Louisiana by certain scholars whose mischievousness, encouraged by indulgent mothers, interfered with their studies. The scene was transferred to Georgia so as not to particularize the kind Jackson mothers and was well received by those who understood the aim of the author.

Judge Longstreet's newspaper articles were generally on transient topics and his serious essays on subjects which, having lost interest, have not been preserved. Bishop Fitzgerald says of Judge Longstreet's writings on religious questions, that these fragments show "a fondness and a genius for exegetics, with an independ- ence and originality of thought that give assurance that he could have done more work in that line that would have deserved to have survived him." It was Judge Longstreet's contemplation to write a series of Georgia scenes from a religious point of view. There are friends who question his success in this line, knowing his special vein to be humorous, but that his sketches on the line above indicated would have been filled with true pathos is to be believed by the moving touches found in the published Georgia Scenes.

In his old age Judge Longstreet would gladly have withdrawn many of his humorous sketches from circulation, but the public continued to call for new editions of his most popular book, and it is now to be found in almost every library in Georgia. This busy writer reached the patriarchial age of four score and died at his home in Oxford, Miss., in the summer of 1870.

RICHARD HENRY WILDE.

Richard Henry Wilde was an Irishman, a native of Dublin, but his early manhood was spent in Georgia. He was admitted to the bar in Augusta and served as attorney of the state, also as a representative in congress. While he was a very eloquent and successful lawyer, he is best known by one poem, "My Life is Like the Summer Rose." When Byron read these verses he at once wrote to Wilde and congratulated him on being the author of one of the finest poems of the century. These immortal lines are worthy of a place in these pages :

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

"My life is like the summer rose, That opens to the morning sky; But ere the shades of evening close Is scattered on the ground to die.

"But on the rose's humble bed The sweetest dews of night are shed, As if she wept such waste to see; But none shall weep a tear for me.

"My life is like the autumn leaf, That trembles in the moon's pale ray,

Its hold is frail, its state is brief, Restless and soon to fade away.

"Yet ere that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree shall mourn its shade,

The winds bewail the leafless tree; But none shall breathe a sigh for me.

"My life is like the print which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand;

Soon as the rising tide shall beat All trace will vanish from the sand.

"Yet still as grieving to efface All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea; But none, alas, shall mourn for me!"

Mr. Wilde died in 1847 at the age of forty-eight in New Orleans, where he then resided, but in compliance with his request he was buried at his old home, Augusta.

OCTAVIA WALTON LE VERT.

Madame Octavia Walton Le Vert, a remarkably brilliant writer, was born near Augusta in 1810. Her father was the second son of George Walton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of congress and governor of Geor- gia. Octavia Walton was reared in Pensacola and Mobile. In the latter city, when she was a little girl, she met Gen. Lafayette, who was so delighted with her that he predicted for her a brilliant career. She was almost entirely educated by her mother and grandmother and a private tutor. At the age of twelve she spoke three languages with ease, and while in her teens she visited the leading cities in the union and was everywhere enthusiastically admired. In 1836 she married Dr. Henry Le Vert, of Mobile, a son of the first French surgeon who came over with Lafayette. In 1853 and 1855 she visited Europe, the first time at the Duke of Rutland's invitation, and shortly after her return she wrote Sou- venirs of Travel, a work of graphic power and picturesque description, which was very popular in its days. She also translated Dumas' Three Musketeers. Lamartine was captivated by her conversational gifts and urged her to become a writer, saying she had the genius of a natural improvisatrice. Mme. Le Vert survived her husband, and after the war made her home in New York, where she died in 1877.

FRANCIS R. GOULDING.

Francis R. Goulding, the author of the Young Marooners, has almost as wide a fame as the author of Robinson Crusoe. He was a native of Liberty county and his early boyhood was passed on the sea coast near Savannah. After

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.

graduating at the university of Georgia he attended the theological seminary at Columbia, S. C., and entered the ministry. . In 1842, while living at Eatonton, Ga., he conceived the idea of the sewing machine, and simultaneously was the idea worked out by Howe and Thimmonier, of France, but to Goulding must be given the credit for the first sewing machine ever given to the south. Having satisfied himself as to its successful operation he laid the machine aside for "weightier matters," and therefore no patent was applied for. He accepted a pastoral call in 1843 to Bath, Ga., where he lived for eight years, doing much literary work in this time. Little Josephine, a story of the early piety of a Wash- ington county girl, was published by the American Sunday School union. The Young Marooners, upon which his fame chiefly rests, was first called Robbins and Cruisers Company, afterward Robert and Harold, or the Young Marooners. He was three years in writing it, the book being read to his family as his work progressed and subjected to a revision at their suggestion. It was published in 1852, three editions followed rapidly the first year, and it was reprinted in England and Scotland. In the summer of 1853 Mr. Goulding's wife died and he then opened a select school for boys at Kingston, Ga., devoting his leisure moments to notes on the Instincts of Birds and Beasts. He was married in 1855 to Matilda Rees, the daughter of Ebenezer Rees, of Darien, to which place he moved and resumed his pastoral duties, alternating for six years between Darien and Baisden's Bluff. What is Light? a treatise on the subject of light, followed years of corre- spondence with Faraday and other scientists. When the civil war began Mr. Goulding was the friend and nurse of sick and suffering soldiers around Darien, and when the town was burned by the Federal forces his handsome home was burned and his library totally destroyed. He then went to Macon and there revived The Young Marooners and compiled a soldiers' hymn book for use in the Confederate army. The war ended and left him broken down in health and exhausted in resources, but with an energy characteristic of the man, he went to work with his pen, contributing to various literary journals and writing a sequel to The Young Marooners, which he called Marooners' Island. Frank Gordon followed, a story containing scenes from his childhood on the sea-coast. His final years were a struggle for life, being a sufferer from asthma, and in an early August morning he passed away at his little home in Roswell, and in the cemetery at that place lie his remains. At the time of his death, in 1891, he was in his ninety-first year.

MIRABEAU LAMAR.

Among the early writers of this century in Georgia Mirabeau Lamar deserves a prominent place. He was the first president of the republic of Texas, having emigrated there from Georgia, his native state, in 1835. He held many public positions and at the time of his death in 1859 was sixty-one years old. He was a brilliant orator, journalist and poet. A volume of his poetry was published in 1857, but he is perhaps best known as a writer by the following:

"O, lend to me, sweet nightingale, Your music by the fountains; And lend to me your cadences, O, river of the mountains.

"That I may sing my gay brunette, A diamond spark in coral set, Gem for a princess' coronet- The daughter of Mendoza.

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

"How brilliant is the morning star, The evening star how tender,

The light of both is in her eye- Their softness and their splendor.

"But for the lash that shades their sight, They were too dashing for the light, And, when she shuts them, all is night, The daughter of Mendoza.

"O, ever bright and beauteous one, Bewildering and beguiling,

The lute is in thy silvering tones, The rainbow is thy smiling.

"And thine is too, o'er hill and dell, The bounding of the young gazelle,

The arrow's flight and ocean's swell, Sweet daughter of Mendoza.

"What though, perchance, we meet no more, What though, too, soon we sever;

Thy form will float like emerald light Before my vision ever.

"O who can see and then forget The glories of my gay brunette, Thou art too bright a star to set, Fair daughter of Mendoza."

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

Paul Hamilton Hayne, a South Carolinian, of distinguished revolutionary ancestry, spent the last years of his life at Copse Hill, in this state, where he died in 1886, at the age of fifty-six. His house at Copse Hill was a small, dusty looking affair, and but few could realize that it was the home of "one of the most famous poets of the world-the friend and peer of Longfellow, Holmes and Whittier." The interior walls were covered with pictures from art journals and weeklies; the furniture was home-made, the poet's desk was a carpenter's bench, used in build- ing the cottage; the book cases were made of boxes. The rough interior was skillfully transformed by the hands of the loving wife. Edward P. Whipple, the celebrated essayist, wrote of him in his review of Legends and Lyrics: "It con- tains the ripest result of the genius of the most eminent of living southern poets. Daphles, Cambyses and the Macrobian Bow, Fortunio, The Story of Glaucus the Thessalian, and especially The Wife of Brittany would, if published under the name of the author of The Earthly Paradise, obtain at once a recognition on both sides of the Atlantic. We cannot see that the American poet is one whit inferior to his English contemporary in tenderness and ideal charm, while we venture to say he has more than Morris the true poetic enthusiasm and unwithholding aban- donment to the sentiment suggested by his themes. We congratulate the south on possessing such a poet."

William Cullen Bryant and other equally well-known writers have cordially indorsed Whipple's estimate of Mr. Hayne. He was the author of several volumes of poetry, but the large volume of his complete poems published in Boston contains his best work.

RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.

Richard Malcolm Johnston, who is still living in Baltimore, was born in Han- cock county in 1822. He is one of the most original and gifted of all the southern

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.

story writers of his time, and the following is a complete list of his works up to date:

Dukesborough Tales, Old Mark Langston, Ogeechee Cross Firings, Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and other Georgia Folks, Two Gray Tourists, Widow Guthrie, The Primes and Their Neighbors, Studies, Literary and Social, Mr. Fortner's Marital Claims and other Stories, Mr. Billy Downs and His Like, History of English Literature (Assisted by Wm. Hand Browne), Biography of Alexander Hamilton Stephens, Pearce Amerson's Will.

"Dick" Johnston attended for about four years an "old field" school and the "Goose pond" school; one of the stories in the Dukesborough Tales is a not exaggerated picture of one of these schools. After this his father moved to Craw- fordsville and the Powelton to give his children better schooling; at the latter place Richard and his brother were prepared for college. Powelton is the Dukes- borough of his tale. An incident of his school boy days-when at thirteen years of age he falls in love with his teacher-is used in the Early Majority of Mr. Thomas Watts. He entered Mercer college, where he was graduated in 1841. Teaching school for two years, he studied law, and when admitted to practice formed a partnership with Hon. Eli Baxter. He later was a partner of Hon. Jarvis Thomas, and lastly of Linton Stephens, a brother of Alexander H. Stephens. For ten years he practiced law in the middle and northern circuits of Georgia. The peculiarity of the people and scenes in the court-room supplied material frequently used in his various sketches. In 1844 Mr. Johnston married Miss Frances Mansfield, who lived in the same county, Hancock, but whose father was a native of Connecticut. He was twenty-three and she fifteen. It was during his practice of law that he was asked to become president of Mercer college, then to accept the nomination for judge of the superior court of the northern circuit, and finally to take the professorship of belles-lettres in the university of Georgia. The last being more congenial to his taste he accepted it. For four years he honored the university with his presence, and there he made many long time friends. It was in Athens he prepared his manuscript of a text book on English literature. He next conducted a large school for boys, called "Rockby," at his home in Hancock county, but after the death of his second daughter, Lucy, in 1867, he moved his school to Baltimore, Md., where he was accompanied by forty of his sixty pupils. The new school was called "Pen Lucy," and the corner stone was a high sense of truth and personal honor. Mr. Johnston, for the past ten or twelve years, has devoted his time to literary work entirely. His first story appeared in the "Southern Magazine" under the nom-de-plume of "Philemon Perch," and its immediate success was a surprise to no one more than the author. His stories show a love of old Georgia associations, old places, old times and old friendships. The big heart and loving nature of the author is shown in every character he has drawn. His Pearce Amerson's Will published in "Lippincott's Magazine" in 1892 was founded on a romance, the character and scenes of which were laid in midway Georgia. He has his favorites in the children of his imagina- tion, and Doolana Lines is his favorite among the female characters and Billy Williams among the male.

JOHN AND JOSEPH LE CONTE.

John Le Conte was born in Liberty county in 1818 and died in California in 1891. He was the son of Lewis Le Conte, the noted French botanist who resided in New York in the past century. John was prepared by Alexander H. Stephens for college and graduated at the university of Georgia. He was distinguished at

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

college for his proficiency in mathematics, and at one time occupied the chair of natural philosophy and chemistry at his alma mater. At that time the study of medicine was the chief profession to be adopted by one of scientific mind, and so he took this degree in New York after a several years' course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. For two years he practiced in Savannah, and then went to the university of Georgia. For nine years he remained there, resigning to take charge of the chair of chemistry in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Here he lectured for one winter, but physics rather than chemistry was his favorite study, and a year later he went to lecture on physics in the university of South Carolina, in Columbia. This chair he held until his final move to California in 1869. His scientific works extended throughout fifty years and his contributions will be found in the leading periodicals of Europe and America.

Joseph Le Conte, his brother, was also born in Liberty county, in 1823; he graduated at the university of Georgia and then entered the Lawrence scientific school of Harvard. He studied natural science and geology under Louis Agassiz and accompanied him on an exploring expedition through Florida. He held chairs in Oglethorpe university, the state university, and finally in the university of California, where his elder brother had preceded him. He married, about 1847, Miss Bessie Nesbit of Milledgeville, a niece of Judge Eugenius A. Nesbit of Macon. The two brothers were never separated from the time Joseph left Oglethorpe for Athens, with the exception of one year when John preceded him to Columbia, till the death of the latter. While there was in some of their charac- teristics a radical difference, the relationship between them was rarely beautiful and they lived in the closest intimacy and intellectual sympathy. John's talents were more restricted in his interests to purc science, and he literally lived in an atmosphere of scientifical culture. His love of music, art, poetry, literature was of the deepest kind and he possessed an ardent love of natural scenery. Joseph was fond of the society of men of talent and humor, while John was rather reticent, preferring that privacy which is essential to continual and deep research. Next to his devotion to persons and truths, the latter's most marked trait of character was his warm, genial, sunny disposition. Speaking of his brother, Joseph Le Conte recently said: "Wherever clearncss of thought and accuracy of statement on almost any scientific subject were required I instinctively turned to him as I would to an encyclopaedia." His wonderful memory, his methodical manner of reading and recording and his clearness of physical conceptions gave him a fullness as well as an accuracy of knowledge rarely obtained. John Le Conte was known as the father of the university of California. In 1869 when he went there it had only thirty-eight students, to-day it has over 1,200 students and an annual income of over $350,000. The boys' home on the plantation of their father in Liberty county has been recently described by Joseph. The attic was fitted up as a chemical laboratory in which the father carried on researches daily. His devo- tion to botany, too, was very intense. A large area of several acres of enclosed premises was devoted to the maintenance of botanical and floral gardens, widely known at that time as one of the best in the United States, and often visited by botanists, both American and foreign. To supply this garden the father made many excursions, often with visiting botanists or collectors, sometimes lasting several days, and always returncd laden with botanical treasures. The father's life was one of utter forgetfulness of self and "entirely devoid of any ambition or vanity of reputation; a labor of passionate love of truth for truth's sake."

John's published works are: Religion and Science, Elements of Geology, Light; An Exposition of the Principles of Monocular and Binocular Vision, Com-

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.

pend of Geology, Evolution; Its Nature, Its Evidences, and Its Relation to Re- ligious Thought.

Besides these and numerous contributions to scientific periodicals he had commenced during the war, and nearly finished, a complete treatise on physics, in which were embodied his wide knowledge and long experience in teaching. But at the time of the burning of Columbia in 1865 this work was destroyed. John Le Conte's death occurred in 1891. Just as he was about to leave on a year's vacation in 1889 his wife was taken sick and he was compelled to remain at home. In 1894 Joseph was given a year's vacation and spent the most of it in Europe. Before leaving he attended the International congress of Geologists, which met in Washington and was made first vice-president.

ANDREW ADGATE LIPSCOMB.

Andrew Adgate Lipscomb was a native of the District of Columbia, but most of his long and honored life was spent in Georgia. He was born in 1816 and died in 1890. His literary work was of a very high order and caused him to be recog- nized as one of our most thoughtful and elegant writers. Harper's Magazine in its early years frequently contained notable articles from his pen. Perhaps he was at his best while he was chancellor at the university of Georgia. He was a man of commanding presence and matchless dignity, and yet his genial traits of character and disposition made him a favorite with all classes. His pupils loved him and his intellectual sway was absolute. He resigned his position on account of the death of his son, an event which overshadowed his life ever afterward. His poem, written at the young man's grave, is full of beauty and pathos:

"I thought that thou in coming time Wouldst be my strength and stay;

I thought to find in thy full prime Support amidst decay; No earthly one such aid could give, So tender, strong and wise;

'Twas happiness with thee to live, Though crushed so many ties.

"But I am here to do for thee, In springtime's early hours, What thou canst never do for me- Bedeck my tomb with flowers. And yet for me a work thou dost, Which not till late I knew; God help my heart this hope to trust Of all my hopes most true.

"My tears thou wouldst not hear restrained Beside his resting place, Whose life ne'er gave a moment's pain Or aught else to efface. I know the loss; I know the gain; And oft have thought they blend Like sunshine gleaming through the rain When sudden showers descend."

Later Dr. Lipscomb was professor of art and criticism at Vanderbilt university, but the climate did not suit him and he returned to Athens, where he was made emeritus professor, holding that position until his death. Longfellow and Hayne were his devoted friends and Margaret J. Preston wrote: "It is worth while to

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

write poetry when it falls into such sympathetic hands as yours;" and again she said: "You have certainly given two remarkably scholarly books to the Christian reading public. How subtle your thought is, and what depth of Christian philoso- phy I find in your studies! Your style is so cultured, and you have the esthetic faculty so largely developed that it takes more than an ordinary reader to follow your discussions. One could think that you had been an art student, so well you seem to understand the somewhat abstruse canons of art. At first blush I wondered how you could find so many studies in the Forty Days, but as I come to see how exhaustively you treat the subject, and how many-sided is your way of looking at it, I can better understand how full you find it of Gospel teaching, and how rich a subject it is for education. How vast your reading seems to have been, and what wonderful use you have made of it in the embroidery of your subjects! I cannot now pause over your poetic passages. What a fine one that is at the end of the sixth study of the supplement, but then such abound through- out the book."

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Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II, Part 3

Author: Publication date: 1859 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association Number of Pages: 1166

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166