Down at Caxton's. William A. McDermott
S’phrony. Kendrick hearing of this and urged by his mother and sister, comes to the conclusion that he would like to have S’phrony himself. This important fact he admits to Cousin Sim in the following choice morsel: Sim is overseeing his hands on the plantation; Kendrick approaches and is met by Sim. Kendrick speaks:
“Ma and sister Maria have been for some time specified. They have both been going on to me about S’phrony Miller in a way and to an extent that in some circumstances might be called obstropolus, and to quiet their conscience I’ve begun a kind of a visitation over there, and my mind has arriv at the conclusion that she’s a good, nice piece of flesh, to use the expressions of a man of the world, and society. What do you think, Sim, of the matter under consideration, and what would you advise? I like to have your advice sometimes, and I’d like to know what it would be under all circumstances and appearances of a case which, as it stands, it seems to have, and it isn’t worth while to conceal the fact that it does have, a tremendous amount of immense responsibility to all parties, especially to the undersigned, referring as is well known in books and newspaper advertisements to myself. What would you say to the above, Sim, in all its parts and parties?” It may interest the reader to know that Sim acquiesced “in all its parts and parties,” and that S’phrony became Mrs. Kendrick, while Sim took another mate. Of further interest to the imaginative young woman is the fact, that Mrs. Newsome and Mr. Kendrick perishing a few years later by some sort of quasi-involuntary but always friendly movements, executed in a comparatively brief time, S’phrony and Sim became one. In calling Johnston the dean of Southern men of letters, Stedman does not define his position. Page, the creator of Marse Chan, and one of the most talented of Southern dialect writers, negatively does so. In an article that has literary smack, but lacks critical perception, he rates him below Miss Murfree, James Lane Allen, and Cable. These three writers Page places at the head of Southern writers of fiction. Critics nowadays will adduce no proof; they simply affirm. The text of this discrimination should be the exactness of the character drawing, the life-like reproduction of environments, and the expertness of the dialect as a vehicle to convey the local flavor. It will hardly be gainsaid that Johnston knows his Georgia no less than Cable knows Louisiana. Johnston is a native of Georgia; the time of life most susceptible to local impressions was spent there. Cable’s boyhood was otherwise. It will not be thought of that in the painting of Creole life, Cable has excelled the painter of Georgia life. In the handling of dialect, Johnston and Harris touch the high water mark of Southern fiction. It was an old critical dictum that an author to succeed must be in sympathy with his subject; this may be affirmed of Johnston. It is otherwise with Cable, and especially with Lane, whose Kentucky pictures are often caricatures. Cable poses as the friend of the colored man. His pose is dramatic. It lends a charm to his New England recitations. We have a great love for champions of every kind. The most of Mr. Cable’s pages deal with Creole life, and for that life he has no sympathy. He paints it as essentially pagan, albeit it was essentially Catholic. A padre makes him sniff the air and paw ungraciously. The ceremonies of the church are so many pagan rites. Cable belongs to the school that contemns what it does not understand. His pictures of Creole life are untrue, and much as they were in vogue some years ago, are passing to the bourne of the forgotten. Johnston, although a living Catholic, fond of his church, and wedded to her every belief, draws an itinerant preacher of the Methodists with as much enthusiasm and sympathy as he would the clergy of his own church. He has no dislikes, nothing that is of man but interests this sunny-hearted romancer of the old South.
Strange as it may seem, the knowledge of his wonderful power of story-telling came late and in an accidental way. It is best described in his own words. “Story-writing,” said the Colonel, “is the last thing for me in literature. I had published two or three volumes on English literature, and in conjunction with a friend had written a life of Alexander Stephens, and also a book on American and European literature, but had no idea of story-writing for money. Two or three stories of mine had found their way into the papers before I left Georgia. I had been a professor of English literature in Georgia, but during the war I took a school of boys. I removed to Baltimore and took forty boys with me and continued my school. There was in Baltimore, in 1870, a periodical called the Southern Magazine. The first nine of my Dukesborough Tales were contributed to that magazine. These fell into the hands of the editor of Harper’s Magazine, who asked me what I got for them. I said not a cent, and he wanted to know why I had not sent them to him. ‘Neelers Peeler’s Conditions’ was the first story for which I got pay. It was published in the Century, over the signature of Philemon Perch. Dr. Holland told Mr. Gilder to tell that man to write under his own name, adding that he himself had made a mistake in writing under a pseudonym. Sydney Lanier urged me to write, and said if I would do so he would get the matter in print for me. So he took ‘Neelers Peeler’s Conditions,’ and it brought me eighty dollars. I was surprised that my stories were considered of any value. I withdrew from teaching about six years ago, and since that time have devoted myself to authorship. I have never put a word in my book that I have not heard the people use, and very few that I have not used myself. Powelton, Ga., is my Dukesborough. I was born fourteen miles from there.
“Of the female characters that I have created, Miss Doolana Lines was my favorite, while Mr. Bill Williams is my favorite among the male characters. I started Doolana to make her mean and stingy like her father, but I hadn’t written a page before she wrenched herself out of my hands. She said to me, ‘I am a woman, and you shall not make me mean.’ These stories are all of Georgia as it was before the war. In the hill country the institution of slavery was very different from what it was in the rice region or near the coast. Do you know the Georgia negro has five times the sense of the South Carolina negro? Why? Because he has always been near his master, and their relations are closer. My father’s negroes loved him, and he loved them, and if a negro child died upon the place my mother wept for it. Some time ago I went to the old place, and an old negro came eight miles, walked all the way, to see me.
“He got to the house before five o’clock in the morning, and opened the shutters while I was asleep. With a cry he rushed into the room. ‘Oh, Massa Dick.’ We cried in each other’s arms. We had been boys together. One of my slaves is now a bishop—Bishop Lucius Holsey, one of the most eloquent men in Georgia.”
These charming bits of autobiography show us the sterling nature of Malcolm Johnston, a nature at once cheerful, kind and loving. It is the object of such natures, in the pessimistic wayfares of life, to make friends, illuminating them with sunshine and tickling them with laughter.
MARION CRAWFORD.
In front of the Ara Coeli I stood. A swarthy Italian was telling of the dramatic death of Cola di Rienzi. His English was lightly worn, but it seemed to please his audience, and it was for that purpose they had paid their lire. The crazy-quilt language of the cicerone and his audacious way of handling history, made him cut an attractive figure in the eyes of most tourists, whose desires are amusement rather than study. As a type, to use a phrase borrowed from the school of psychological novelism, he was a study. To the student Rome is a city of absorbing interest, to the ordinary American bird of passage a dull place. It all depends on your point of view. If you are a scholar, a collector of old lace, or a vandal, Rome is your happy hunting ground. If these pursuits do not interest you, Roman beggars with all sorts and conditions of diseases, sometimes by nature, mostly by art, Roman fleas, and the gaunt ghosts of the Campagna quickly drive you from the capital of the Cæsars and Popes. A few other annoyances might be added, such as sour wine, whose mist fumes are not to be shriven by your bottle-let of eau de Cologne, garlic on the fringe of decay, and the provoking smell of salt fish in the last stage of decomposition. But you have come to Rome; it is a name to conjure with, and despite the drawbacks, you must have a glimpse, an ordinary bowing acquaintance, with the famed old dame. At the office, an English office, in the Piazza di Spagna, you have asked for a “droll guide.” Who could listen to a scholarly one amid such active drawbacks as wine, fleas and fish? Michael Angelo Orazio Pantacci is your man. What do you care for good English? Did you not leave New York to leave it behind? What do you care for Roman history? Pantacci is your man, and his lecture on Cola di Rienzi is a masterpiece. A stranger joined our little crowd.