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CHAPTER VIII

THE NATIONAL PERIOD, 1815

I. EARLIER YEARS, 1815-1865

F. THE SOUTHERN WRITERS

41. Why there was little writing in the South. Thus it was that literature centred about the great cities of the North. There were several reasons why it could hardly be expected to flourish in the South. In the first place, there were no large towns where publishing houses had been established and where men of talent might gain inspiration from one another. Again, there was small home market for the wares of the author. There were libraries in many of the stately homes of the South, but their shelves were filled with the English classics of the eighteenth century. There was no lack of

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WILLIAM WIRT

1772-1834

intellectual power; but plantation life called for executive ability and led naturally to statesmanship and oratory rather than to the printed page. There were orators, such

William
Wirt,

men as Henry Clay, "the great leader;" the ardent, brilliant Patrick Henry of earlier times; Robert Young Hayne, equally eloquent in address and in debate; and John Caldwell Calhoun, whom Webster called "a senator of Rome." There was almost from the beginning a poem written in one place and a history or a biography in another. The most famous of these scattered writings were produced by William Wirt, 1772-1834. a Maryland lawyer. Early in the century he wrote his Letters of a British Spy, which contains his touching description of The Blind Preacher. In 1817 his eminence as a lawyer was proved by his being chosen Attorney-General of the United States, and his ability as an author by the publication of his Life of Patrick Henry. This book is rather doubtful as to some of its facts, and rather flowery as to its rhetoric, but so vivid that the picture which it draws of the great orator has held its own for nearly a century. Charleston was the nearest approach to a literary centre, for it was the home of Simms, Hayne, and Timrod.

42. William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870. In 1827, when the Knickerbocker writers had already brought forth some of their most valuable productions, Simms published a little volume of poems. He published a second, a third, and many others; but his best work was in prose. He wrote novel after novel, as hastily and carelessly as Cooper, but with a certain dash The Yemas- and vigor. The Yemassee is ranked as his best work. It has no adequate plot, but contains many thrilling adventures and narrow escapes. Simms is often called the "Cooper of the South;" and in one important detail he is Cooper's superior, namely, his women are real women. They are not introduced merely as pretty dummies whose rescue will exhibit the

see, 1835.

prowess of the hero: they are thoughtful and intelligent, and, in time of need, they can take a hand in their own rescue. In The Yemassee, for instance, "Grayson's wife" has a terrible struggle with an Indian at her window. She faints, but

like a real woman not until she has won the victory. In one respect Simms did work that is of increasing value; he laid his scenes in the country about his own home, he studied the best historical records, he learned the traditions of the South. The result is that in his novels there is a wealth of information about Southern colonial life that can hardly be found elsewhere.

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WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
1806-1870

43. Paul Hamilton Hayne, 1830-1886. Simms was of value to the world of literature in another way than by wielding his own pen. He was a kind and helpful friend to the younger authors who gathered around him. The chief of these was Hayne, who is often called "the poet-laureate of the South." Hayne had a comfortable fortune and a troop of friends, and there was only one reason why his life should not have flowed on easily and pleasantly. That reason was the Civil War. He enlisted in the Confederate Army, and, even after he was sent home too ill for service, his pen was ever busied with ringing lyrics of warfare. When peace came,

he found himself almost penniless. Many a man has taken up such a struggle with life bravely; Hayne did more, for he took it up cheerfully. He built himself a tiny cottage and "persisted in being happy." Before the war, he had published three volumes of verse, and now from that little home came forth many graceful, beautiful lyrics. This is part of his description of the song of the mocking-bird at night :

It rose in dazzling spirals overhead,
Whence to wild sweetness wed,

Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill;
The very leaves grew still

On the charmed trees to hearken; while for me,
Heart-trilled to ecstasy,

I followed - followed the bright shape that flew,
Still circling up the blue,

Till as a fountain that has reached its height,
Falls back in sprays of light

Slowly dissolved, so that enrapturing lay

Divinely melts away

Through tremulous spaces to a music-mist,
Soon by the fitful breeze

How gently kissed

Into remote and tender silences.

He wrote narrative verse, but was especially successful in the sonnet, with its harassing restrictions and limitations. Hayne's writings have one charm that those of greater poets often lack; his personality gleams through them. He trusts us with his sorrows and his joys. He writes of the father whom he never saw, of the dear son 'Will," of whom he says:

--

We roam the hills together,

In the golden summer weather,
Will and I.

He writes of his wife's "bonny brown hand,"

The hand that holds an honest heart, and rules a happy hearth.

He writes of the majestic pine against which his poet friend laid his weary head. In whatever he writes, he shows himself not only a poet, but also a sincere and lovable man.

44. Henry Timrod, 1829-1867. The friend who leaned against the pine was Henry Timrod. Their friendship began in the days when "Harry" passed under his desk a slate full of his own verses. Life was hard for the young poet. Lack of funds broke off his college course, and for many years he acted as tutor in various families. In 1860 a little volume of his poems was brought out in Boston by Ticknor and Fields. It was spoken of kindly - and that was all. Then came the war, and such poverty that he wrote of his verse, “I would consign every line of it to eternal oblivion, for — one hundred dollars in hand!"

Timrod writes in many tones. He is sometimes strong, as in The Cotton Boll; sometimes light and graceful, as in Baby's Age, wherein the age is counted by flowers, a different flower for each week. This ends:

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Sometimes he rises to noble heights, as in his description of the poet, at least one stanza of which is not unworthy of Tennyson:

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And he must be as arméd warrior strong,

And he must be as gentle as a girl,

And he must front, and sometimes suffer wrong,
With brow unbent, and lip untaught to curl;
For wrath, and scorn, and pride, however just,
Fill the clear spirit's eyes with earthly dust.

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