USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time > Part 26
USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time, centennial ed. > Part 26
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
' Eggleston, Geo. Cary, The First of the Hoosiers. Ferno, 1903.
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of the carly settlers and unconsciously affected the English of whole neighborhoods of people who were of widely different birth. In the crude conditions of living and the democratic mingling of all classes on the frontier, children drifted into lax habits of speech and constantly borrowed words and prhases from illiterate neighbors, farm-hands, or the household help. In the third generation, graduates of a college, with an advanced degree from a German university, have been guilty of lapses into this primitive speech, still clinging to them from their early environment. None will say that the speech was not delightfully full of surprises in the phrasing, in the rural com- parisons, now nearly obsolete, and in the quaint humor, the stoical philosophy, and droll illiteracy of a frontier people. "The material waited only for the creative mind and sympathetic intelligence," and again found a faithful interpreter in James Whitcomb Riley.
As an evidence of the integrity of his portraiture and characterizations, it is noted that these very people enjoy hearing his verses read, as much as any city audience. They feel the genuineness of his sym- pathetic acquaintance, recognize his types of char- acter, his love of nature, enjoy the humor of the situations, the drollery of the talk, and are touched by the pathos of the stories. Mr. Riley tells most entertaining stories of his acquaintance with these people :
"Sometimes some real country boy gives me the round turn on some farm points. For instance here comes one stepping up to me,-' You never lived on a farm,' he says. 'Why not?' says I. 'Well,' says he, 'a turkey-cock gobbles, but he don't ky-ouck, as your poetry says.' He
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had me right there. It's the turkey-hen that ky-oucks. 'Well, you 'll never hear another turkey-cock of mine ky-ouckin,' says I."
Naturally, Mr. Riley finds it difficult to get the present-day illustrators to seize his idea of the char- acters he is trying to portray. Mr. Christie got That Old Sweetheart of Mine through school, in a real log schoolhouse, with sun-bonnet on her tangled curls, and bare feet going along the meadow paths, but when grown to womanhood he painted her in city garb with city airs and graces. In speaking of this difficulty, Mr. Riley said :
"I do not undertake to edit nature, either physical or human. I can't get an artist to see I'm not making fun. They seem to think if a man is out of plumb in his language, he must be in his morals. Now old Benjamin looks queer, I'll admit. His clothes don't fit him. He's bent and awkward; but that don't prevent him from having a fine head and deep tender eyes, and a soul in him you can recommend."
These countrymen drive miles to an evening enter- tainment at some schoolhouse or church to hear recitations from Riley's pages. If loaned a copy of his verses, they will ask for everything else that he has written. They feel, as one of his biographers has remarked, that Mr. Riley never satirizes, never ridicules his creations; his attitude is always that of a kindly and admiring advocate. The countrymen also appreciate his poems of correct literature, not written in dialect. Outside of these native admirers, Mr. Riley was soon received with universal enthusiasm. Mr. Garland wrote of him several years ago that no poet in the United States has the same hold upon
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the minds of the people as Riley. He is absolutely American in every line he writes. His work is ir- resistibly comic, or tender, or pathetic. In this re- viewer's estimation, the man is the most remarkable exemplification of the power of genius to transmute plain clods into gold, that we have seen since the time of Burns. Of himself, he has said, "I'm only the 'willer' through which the whistle comes." Mr. Riley's inimitable readings from his own composition testify that he is a natural actor; this is the verdict of every audience. Amy Leslie, the dramatic critic, wrote when she heard him years ago in Chicago:
"To hear Riley recite his own poems is a treat to re- member an entire life. He has the oddest, most gray and toneless face. There is a three-cornered smile and a two- edged glance which illuminates his face like a shower of stars. Tears come at the call of words so simple as to have a tinge of comedy, where the softest minor chords tremble. All that is quaint and humorous ignites the pleasantries within him, all that is true and innocent inspires him. He never broods, nor rails, nor chants ecstasies, but laughs and weeps and ties brave old-fashioned true love-knots. I imagine he may not read at all well as elocution is accounted. I do not know, except that it is the loveliest reading I have ever heard, and the sweetest poetry."
Mr. Garland quotes him as saying, of himself, "I'm so blamed imitative, I don't dare to read everything." His ability to imitate was fully established when he published on a wager, and in a newspaper, lines en- titled Leonanie which trapped England and America into treasuring them as Poe's verses.
A critical reviewer said of the Hoosier poet that the qualities which secure his poetry a wider reading
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and heartier appreciation than any other living Amer- ican are wholesome common-sense, and a steady cheerfulness, freedom from dejection and cynicism and doubt, and untainted by the mould of sensuality. At his best he is original and sane, full of the sweetest vitality and soundest merriment. His poetry neither argues, nor stimulates, nor denounces, nor exhorts; it only touches and entertains us.
"While his poems in dialect gained him a hearing," says Mr. Nicholson, "Mr. Riley strove earnestly for excellence in the use of literary English. His touch grew steadily finer. He had begun to write because he felt the impulse and not because he breathed a literary atmosphere or looked forward to a literary career." 1 Lacking the advantages of an earlier training in the schools, and having a natural appreci- ation of the best in literature, he formed his style by private study without losing his individuality, his humor, and his inimitable sense of character and situation, which make him a natural writer of comedy. Apparently, he can dramatize a scene almost instan- taneously, as the person assemble themselves in the fancy. After years of recognition by the public and many tokens of their appreciation, he was invited by one of the oldest universities to accept an honorary degree. At the Yale convocation in 1902 that uni- versity conferred the degree of Master of Arts upon James Whitcomb Riley. In receiving the candidate, President Hadley spoke of Mr. Riley as an exponent in poetic art of the joy and pathos of American country life. When the hood was placed on his shoulders, the prolonged applause of the vast throng assembled made that scholar's emblem as a crown of laurel.
1 Nicholson, Meredith, Hoosiers. New York, 1900.
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Old alumni and undergraduates joined in giving the Hoosier poet a great ovation, and felt that old Yale honored itself in honoring him. The graduating class of that June day loves to claim that James Whitcomb Riley was of their class of '02.
" Thou gavest thy gifts to make life sweet; There shall be flowers about thy feet."
Primitive living and frontier environment have seldom prompted the subjects of the later Hoosier writings. Showing not the faintest resemblance, in either literary style or subject, to the preceding writers who have preserved the earlier Hoosier life in their pages, another loyal Indianian, with a widely different temperament from theirs, has written in the West his stories of the Orient. General Lew Wallace was born and reared in Indiana when it was actually a Western frontier, but his books are about ancient peoples; one concerned with the Aztec civilization, and the rest Asiatic tales. Nothing in his youthful life could have suggested the themes which his talent developed into the Prince of India and Ben Hur. That General Wallace has told an interesting tale is shown by the fact that a million and a half copies of Ben Hur have sold in the English version and it has also been translated into every language of Europe, into Arabic, and Japanese, and printed in raised- letter for the blind. This Tale of the Christ, so guardedly received at first, has grown steadily in the favor of the people until, in presentation in a dramatized form upon the stage, the story met with a sensational reception. Ben Hur and his other books brought great distinction to the author. That General Wallace was, above all things, a writer who could enlist the interest
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of the reader is shown in the Autobiography published since his death. Surely his native commonwealth could show no greater honor to a son than Indiana has in placing General Wallace's statue in the Hall of Fame.
Mrs. Wallace shared her husband's triumphs and had honors of her own, from her writings regarding the Pueblos, some early poems, The Repose in Egypt, and The Storied Sea. Mrs. Wallace was also a native of Indiana, born in the literary atmosphere of Craw- fordsville, and one of the Elston family, all of whom were known as interesting conversationists. Hon. Henry S. Lane married into this family, and added to the brilliancy of the reputation of the college town for its leadership in culture during those early days.
Within this same town, the scholarly Maurice Thompson, another prolific writer, and native Indianian, passed most of his life, after the Civil War. Without once dreaming the dreams that came to his neighbors, the Wallaces, Mr. Thompson wrote charming novels, a widely known book on Archery, and beautiful out- of-door poems. His story entitled the Banker of Bankersville, (unfortunately, for it has little to do with either, and does not distinguish it as it deserves), is an excellent picture of village life in Indiana; not the backwoods, but the average small towns. His essay on Ethics of Literary Art deserves embodiment in every course in English literature. Although a civil engineer, and a lawyer, Mr. Thompson's later life was more constantly devoted to literary work than any of the other Indiana writers up to his time. In the closing days of his career, he enjoyed the triumph, if he cared for popular favor, of having his name on
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every tongue, for his sweet story of Alice of Old Vin- cennes captured the people.
Will H. Thompson, brother of Maurice, was also born in Indiana and practised law in Crawfordsville for many years. While living in the State he wrote that great war poem High Tide at Gettysburg and also the Bond of Blood.
The Soldier of Indiana in the War for the Union, by Catherine Merrill, is a record of the part performed by individual soldiers who went out from this common- wealth. It was written soon after that war, and the purpose of the author was the patriotic one of com- memorating the sacrifice and heroism of the ordinary soldier. She knew the reality of that which she penned, for she served many months as a nurse in the hospitals during the war. Without any noise or announcement she had intense patriotism, both civic and for her country.
"She was far from being an organizer of movements, or a trampler of platforms. She cared neither to agitate nor to fulminate [says her biographer]. All of the civic and social betterment, in which she engaged so much of her strength and vitality, came from her great love of our neighbor, and from the impulse toward action, help, beneficence, the desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion, and demolishing human misery, the no- ble aspiration to leave the world better and happier than she found it." 1
This memorial to the soldiers was written in her earlier years, by the woman who probably led more families along the paths towards real culture than
1 Merrill, Catherine, Memoir in The Man Shakespeare and Other Essays. Indianapolis, 1867.
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any other Indiana woman. Catherine Merrill "in- culcated in the minds of three generations a discrim- inating taste for literature," and what Matthew Arnold calls a liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind. Miss Merrill's printed work includes this war record of the troops for whom she worked so nobly in her early womanhood, a series of literary criticisms given to the press, and a slender volume of essays selected by the literary club which bore her name. These essays were included by them with biographical sketches from her friends Professor Melville B. Anderson and the naturalist Mr. John Muir. The volume is entitled The Man Shakespeare and Other Essays. Although Miss Merrill left so little published writing, no story of Indiana's development would be complete without a reckoning of the im- pression which her life made on all those with whom she came in contact. Other notable teachers of the State have faithfully instructed more pupils in the schools, and added to the usefulness and enlightenment of their students; but it has fallen to the lot of few people to have formed a literary taste and deepened the moral insight of the youth of one generation, to execute the same loving task for their children, and to perform a like service for their grandchildren.
Miss Merrill was a daughter of the pioneer State Treasurer, Samuel Merrill, whose influence and that of his descendants has stood for the value of culture and literary training as a means of creating a culti- vated citizenship. During all of her professorship at Butler University, and later when she held private classes, Miss Merrill found time to take part as a valuable member in the literary clubs of Indianapolis, to prepare addresses for other circles, and to conduct
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classes at the earnest solicitation of old pupils, in neighboring cities.
Professor Anderson's sketch of Miss Merrill places before us a correct valuation of her carcer. Among other things he says that her life teaches us we should bear in mind particularly that Catherine Merrill's fine wide culture offers the most signal and cheering example of the educative power of English literature. With her beloved sister they made their own home the centre of humanizing culture and elevated thought, seemingly unconscious of the joy it was to every one to come within the charm of their presence, "preaching without sermons, informal as sunshine." Mr. Muir, appreciating the great points in Miss Merrill's character, adds, "Nothing in all her noble love-ladened life was more characteristic than its serenity," and an equally strong habit of her mind was "tracing the springs of action through all concealment. She never left herself in doubt as to motives, rejoicing in all truth, especially happy when she discovered something to praise." 1
From this slight sketch of Miss Merrill, a dim idea may be gained of the reasons for her influence over the large number of persons in Indiana who came under her guidance. It follows that "those who had the good fortune to know a human being so large and excellent should take pious care that her memory does not fade with the passing of the lives she im- mediately touches. " 2 Perhaps the greatest value of the publication of the little memorial volume is its power to recall to minds of her old pupils the teachings
1 Muir, John, Memoir of Miss Merrill in introduction to The Man Shakespeare and Other Essays. Indianapolis, 1900.
2 Ibid.
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of that voice they shall never hear again. Reading these pages one may experience the conviction, the exaltation, the enthusiasm of the classroom under that severe but impressive teacher. Calmly she again reminds them through the printed pages that
" 'Superficial judgment, hasty and ill-formed opinion, blunt the power of discrimination and dull the sense of right.' 'Slovenly and false work of any kind tells on character.' 'Prejudice is twin sister of ignorance and is a stupendous bulwark against knowledge.' 'The individual preserves his mental integrity by doing his own thinking and maintaining a sense of justice and candor.' 'We hold in grateful remembrance the hand that planted the tree that shades our door, and we owe grateful rever- ence and love to him who made for us a good book, who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares. We owe nothing for the books that are no better than wolves in sheep's clothing. We owe it to none to call ugliness beauty, awkwardness grace, falsehood truth, or wrong, in any way, right. Black is black, crooked is crooked, wrong is wrong, whatever the reason, wherever the place.' "
In inculcating a love for books she would say:
"It is true that the best society and the most accessible may be found in the library. Here the solitary and the sor- rowful, the disappointed and the erring, the betrayed and the deserted, the unthanked benefactor, the young who are sensitive as to the limitations of poverty, the old who have neglected to repair their friendship, the slow who have been left behind, the weary, the over-burdened may find company, solace, stimulus, and the happy and strong may find increase of happiness and strength." 1
Passing to another writer who was also greatly 1 Merrill, Catherine, The Man Shakespeare and Other Essays. Indianapolis, 1902.
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revered, we are reminded that Indiana has been honored by her historians. To Mr. John Dillon the State owes a lasting debt, for his conscientious history of the territorial period and his monographs on different phases of its development. Mr. Dillon was an earnest student and painstaking historian. His methods were the modern scientific ones. His facts were gleaned from State archives, from private sources, and from territorial records. His histories must live, for the account of the transactions in the periods covered by his writings may only be added to; everything that he committed to paper is of value. "He had certain noble ideals, severe and simple, as to the office of historian, and no artist was truer to his art than he to this ideal."
As General Coburn has said, Mr. Dillon knew that his work would endure. He had no profession but letters, and in the solid result of his best labors neither money nor applause added to his satisfaction. No library in America can be considered complete without his histories. He was a noble example of integrity, modesty, industry, and purity of character. Mr. Dillon wrote some verses, but it is from his History of Territorial Indiana and the monographs on the same subject that his place as an author is assured.
"Forty years of honest, conscientious devotion, four books that people would not buy, in his life-time, and death in a lonely garret, face to face with grim poverty, because he wrought for the love of truth, and not for dollars [says Mr. Cottman] this is the life story of John B. Dillon. He is buried in Crown Hill, next to the soldiers' graves, and the friends who were kind to him in life have erected a fitting monument to his memory. That he lies
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beside the heroic dead is well, for he, too, gave his life to a cause and did his country a service. " 1
The vogue of Indiana novels has not, very naturally, been accorded to her historians, but their work will live. It has been thorough, scientific, and con- scientious. Mr. Jacob P. Dunn's History of Territorial Indiana, and her redemption from slavery, and his monographs on different periods of the history of the State are enduring contributions to the records of the West. Mr. Dunn goes to original sources for his information. He is a tireless student of documents, records, and official papers, and restates the whole story in an interesting style. He has the ability, none too common, said a critic, to write history at- tractively, without imperilling his authority. No tribute from the writer could add to the importance attached to Mr. Dunn's work as authoritative, than the presence in this volume of extended quotations from his histories and monographs.
In a similar manner has Mr. Dudley Foulke's Bi- ography of Governor Morton, and his Times, served as an accepted authority on that most interesting period the Civil War. The students of Indiana's part in the great struggle must go to that biography for light on the inside history of the troubled times, and for a knowledge of both the well known and the obscure facts of the history of those years.
Mr. John L. Griffith's Biography of President Benja- min Harrison will be of importance for the same reason. Aside from its interest as literature it deals with the career of a great figure in national history. It is written by a resident of Indiana, of an Indiana
1 Cottman, Geo. S., in Indiana Magazine of History, vol. i., No. I.
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man who also became the State's most noted citizen and renowned statesman.
Hon. John W. Foster's Twenty Years of Diplomacy is an interesting book, written by one who has taken a brilliant and valued part in the department of the government service of which this volume and others by the same author treat.
The historical writings of Professor John Clark Ridpath, while not pertaining to the State, in par- ticular, are of importance in this sketch because he was a native of Indiana, was educated in one of her universities, and was afterwards a member of the faculty of Asbury for a number of years. His his- torical work was voluminous, and was both national and general in its scope. His career as a professor with his alma mater formed a valuable element in the educational work in Indiana. Other teachers in the various Indiana colleges, as Professor Ogg, Professor Moran, and many others have contributed valuable special studies in history, but they cannot be enumerated as native Hoosiers.
The famous Scotch philosopher and teacher Thomas Davidson has said of another Indiana book, originally written for the State Teachers' Reading Circle: "I hoped to satisfy the desire, evinced by so many of the young people, to discuss social problems, and took for the basis a single book, Charles Richmond Henderson's Social Elements, which I hoped to have discussed chapter by chapter. The book was well adapted for our purpose, offering a comprehensive view of the whole field of sociology, and treating every part with simplicity and good judgment." 1
1 Davidson, Thomas, The Education of the Wage-Earners. Bos- ton, 1904.
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This book has been translated into Japanese under the direction of Professor Takebe of Tokio University.
The student of Indiana's history will find invaluable information in the histories, biographies, reminiscences, and historical papers by George W. Julian, William Henry Smith, Augustus L. Mason, Julia S. Conklin, William W. Woolen, Captain J. A. Lemcke, William H. English, W. W. Thornton, Richard G. Boone, Timothy E. Howard, Colonel Cockrum, David Turpie, M. M. Pershing, Professor Rawles, Judge Howe, and Rev. T. H. Ball. Each of these has occupied a promi- nent place in the districts of the State in which they lived, and they knew whereof they wrote. The books and monographs by W. F. Harding, Frederick Bartel, and George B. Lockwood are full of information on local or special phases of Indiana history, and the interest they enlist in historical subjects is enhanced by their literary style. W. S. Blatchley, W. W. Woolen, and others have written charming nature studies, attractive to the young and old. The Hon. Hugh McCulloch, during a brilliant career as a financier and cabinet officer, wrote authoritatively on financial subjects and left a volume on Men and Measures of Half a Century. Colonel Richard Thompson not only served his State and nation long and nobly, in military and political life, but closed his career with his very interesting Recollections of Sixteen Presidents. The annalists have performed a service in preserving local history by their records and reminiscences. San- ford Cox's Recollections of the Wabash Valley, Rev. Thomas Goodwin's Reminiscences, Blackford Condit's Recollections of Early Terre Haute are most entertaining. County histories, the published addresses of Wayne and other county celebrations, the Hon. William
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Holloway's and Mr. Berry Sulgrove's histories of Indianapolis are valuable contributions to the State's records of the past.
Mr. Sulgrove was also a brilliant journalist, and exerted a wide influence through his writings for the press, extending over a number of years. He was the close friend and adviser of Governor Morton during the Civil War. His judgment was excellent and his opinions reliable. It is said that he possessed a mar- vellous memory, and that, his mind being stored with vast information, he was an unusually interesting conversationist. In 1866, when Mr. Sulgrove was in Paris with Governor Morton in a company of dis- tinguished men, one evening a discussion arose between two gentlemen present about a quotation from Horace. When the debate between the British guests seemed hopeless of decision, Mr. Sulgrove modestly begged leave to give the quotation and also added a half- page or more of the context, to the wonderment of the learned gentlemen, who marvelled at his memory and scholarship. The story is told of Mr. Sulgrove that in his later years he was in London with a friend from Indianapolis. This friend was invited to dine with the Lord Chief Justice and declined the honor, saying that he had a friend with him whom he could not very well leave. Lord Coleridge would not let the gentleman off and stipulated that he should bring his friend, Mr. Sulgrove, with him. After the dinner there was brilliant talk of affairs, of the world's happenings, of literature, science, and travel, in all of which Mr. Sulgrove joined with the brilliancy which a lively interchange of thought provokes in the re- sponsive American. The next day the host called on his guest and inquired who this friend from Indiana
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