Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914).-Madison J. Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky, educated at the high school of that city, and has found time from the demands of business life to write a large amount of poetry. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, his poems began to attract wide attention from readers of magazines; in such a steady stream have they flowed from his pen that, as originally published in book form, they fill more than twenty small volumes. His first volume appeared in 1887 as Blooms of the Berry; others are Moods and Memories (1892), The Garden of Dreams (1896), Undertones (1896), Shapes and Shadows (1898), and Nature Notes and Impressions (1906). In 1902 a volume of selections from his poetry, called Kentucky Poems, was published, with an appreciative introduction by Edmund Gosse, the English critic; and in 1907 a five-volume edition of his poems was issued. Already a prolific poet, Cawein is steadily adding to his treasury of song. His first book of verse was warmly commended by William Dean Howells, and since then lovers of poetry at home and abroad have found in his lyrics notes of high distinction. MADISON CAWEIN The poetry of Cawein shows him to be a lover of nature and a subtle interpreter of her moods and coloring. He likes to write out of doors under the spell of her tones. He has a faculty of minute observation, and his sympathetic and sensitive spirit is delicately responsive to the sights and sounds about him. For him the woods are still alive with the nymphs and fairies, as of old when the world was young: The gods are dead; but still for me Lives on in wildwood brook and tree For me still laughs among her rocks And these lines from "The Whippoorwill" have all the twilight atmosphere of the countryside in summer, tinged with the passionate glow of a poet's fancy: Above long woodland ways that led And still, and still, Along old lanes, the locusts sow With clustered curls the May-times know, Out of the crimson afterglow, We heard the homeward cattle low, And then the far-off, far-off woe Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!" A calmer tone pervades "To a Wind-Flower," something of Wordsworth and of Bryant: Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, That, being made wise, I may aspire to be Though to my soul ability be less Than 'tis to thee, O sweet anemone. Teach me the secret of thy innocence, So may I rise to some fair eminence, Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies. Like Keats, whom he often suggests, Cawein is a worshipper of pure Beauty, believing that "beauty born of beauty-that remains." His verse is shot through with threads of richest color; the imagery, the warmth, the luxuriance, the music of his lines delight the senses; at times there is an almost cloying sweetness. Through its profusion of coloring his verse abounds in sensuous charm. Other Later Poets. The passing tribute of a line must be paid to SAMUEL MINTERN PECK (1854-) of Alabama, author of "A Southern Girl" and the popular "Grapevine Swing"; WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE (1856-) of Georgia, in whom the lyric gift of an illustrious father has been perpetuated; ROBERT BURNS WILSON (1850-) of Kentucky, author of many pleasing lyrics; WALTER MALONE (1866-) of Tennessee, author of "October in Tennessee," "Opportunity," "A Florida Nocturne," and other poems; ROBERT LOVEMAN (1864-) of Georgia, who has published several volumes of verse; HENRY JEROME STOCKARD (1858-) and BENJAMIN SLEDD (1864-) of North Carolina, each of whom has written (the one in "Fugitive Lines" and the other in "From Cliff and Scaur" and "The Watchers of the Hearth") lyric poems of rare grace and sweetness; and MRS. OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN of South Carolina, who has written several poetic dramas of merit. ORATORY The older South was a land of orators. Mention has already been made of the conditions that encouraged oratory-the fondness for political debate, the general aspiration toward statesmanship, the ambition for public leadership. Out of these conditions sprang a race of orators who have not been excelled in American history. Naturally, with the passing of vital interest in the questions which they debated, their speeches have correspondingly suffered; but whether we read them to-day or not, the tradition of them is a glorious one and should be perpetuated. A few of these old orations, dealing with fundamental propositions and phrased in artistic language, belong to literature; they permanently appeal to the emotions and the imagination. Some of them are more ornate than the simpler taste of our time approves; some of them, indeed, seem to us stilted and bombastic; but that was the sort of public speaking in fashion in those days, when "sound and fury” on the rostrum signified more than it does to-day. In reading these speeches, we must remember that no oration can properly be judged without some knowledge of the occasion of its delivery, the temper of the times, and the personality of the orator. Some account was given in a preceding chapter of Southern orators in the Revolutionary period, of whom Patrick Henry was chief. The next great occasion for oratory was the slavery agitation in the years from about 1830 to 1860; after the war, the rebuilding of the stricken South and the reconciliation of the sections furnished themes for oratorythe birth of the "New South." The last decade of the nineteenth century saw a wonderful industrial development in the South, attempts at racial adjustment, and a greater interest in national problems; along with these movements began a remarkable educational revival. Contemporary public speaking is accordingly concerned with one or more of these subjects. Out of a long list of Southern orators from John Randolph of Roanoke to Henry Grady, only three have been chosen for such brief treatment as the limits of this work impose-John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Henry Grady. Each is representative, it will be observed, of an attitude of mind and of a phase of current political thought-conservative, conciliatory, liberal. There were other noteworthy orators-John Randolph of Roanoke; Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, who debated with Webster; Thomas H. Benton of Missouri; Jefferson Davis of Mississippi; Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs of Georgia. Most of these are remembered as statesmen rather than as orators, and their speeches are not widely read to-day; this is true, indeed, of Calhoun and Clay; but the traditional renown of these two orators is so great that the literary historian must needs take their speeches into account. John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850).-John C. Calhoun was born in South Carolina, educated at Yale, studied law, entered politics, and served in the legislature, as representative in Con gress, as Senator, as Vice-President, as Secretary of War, and as Secretary of State. He was an active participant in the stirring senatorial debates between 1830 and 1850, defending State rights as a strict constructionist of the Constitution. He loved the Union, and believed that only through his interpretation of the Constitution could it be kept intact and the rights of the South at the same time secured. "He undertook," says Professor Trent, "to do more than was humanly possible; but his efforts were so herculean that they demand admiration." Calhoun's greatest speeches were in defense of his views on State rights; that delivered in 1833 on "The Force Bill and Nullification" is one of his ablest. In his later years he wrote "A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States," which is regarded as one of his subtlest pieces of political logic. JOHN C. CALHOUN Calhoun was a man of singular purity of life and ideals. As an orator he was dignified and impressive, clear and severely logical. On occasion he could be impassioned, but usually he was restrained, though intense, appealing to reason rather than to the emotions. He was resourceful and courageous, 1 W. P: Trent: Southern Writers, p. 100. |