Whitman's curious warble: Out of the cradle

"Our readers may, if they choose, consider as our Christmas or New Year's present to them, the curious warble by Walt Whitman." So said the Saturday Press issue for December 24, 1859, an issue which included Whitman's poem "A Child's Remembrance," later renamed "A Word Out of the Sea." Perhaps better known by its opening lines, "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," the poem went through several versions in Whitman's lifetime. Here is how its most frequently republished version begins:

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing...

Whitman had read an early version of the poem at the famous Pfaff's and one of those in attendance, Henry Clapp, secured its publication. Though one reviewer called it "hopeless drivel," many scholars today consider the poem one of Whitman's best. The poem offers somewhat of a narrative: the speaker remembers a time on the beach in his boyhood when he sees two birds which soon fly away; one never returns. Many have seen the poem as describing the birth of a poet, particularly as it opens with a cradle, before culminating in a profound grasp of nature and death. The poem, then, explores both a beginning and an ending. "Pains and joys," Whitman says he has since explored, "here and hereafter."

My American literature professor as an undergraduate, Dr. Joseph Zaitchik, once told me that the opening lines of this poem represented the best-sounding line in American poetry. "Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking" has a certain cadence, a rising and falling, a harshness with "k" and "g" sounds, along with more sonorous "o" and "s" sounds. Those sounds, perhaps, represent the same ups and downs, opposing ideas of beginning and ending, in the poem itself.

With this post, I have officially posted 1,000 articles of new content, all exploring various aspects of American literary history (mostly in the 19th century). I have had the great opportunity of rediscovering forgotten writers, of enthusiastically promoting some of the greatest, and sharing it all with you, the readers of the American Literary Blog, since my first post in December 2009. I dedicate the entirety of this project to Dr. Zaitchik, who first inspired me to love American literature.

As I retire from adding new posts to the American Literary Blog, I want to offer some of Whitman's own words from this poem: "The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note." After the narrator calls out to the sea, the poem ends with an understanding that, although there was a finality in what he learned from the bird, the moment was in fact just the starting point for him:

Whereto answering, the sea,
Delaying not, hurrying not,
Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,
Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,
And again death, death, death, death
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,
But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,
Death, death, death, death, death.
Which I do not forget.
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,
With the thousand responsive songs at random,
My own songs awaked from that hour,
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)
The sea whisper'd me.

Cooper and Wyandotté: Merciful Providence!

With the last of his Leatherstocking novels two years behind him, James Fenimore Cooper turned to another historical period for his novel Wyandotté, or, The Hutted Knoll: the American Revolution. Published on September 5, 1843, Wyandotté was not the first of Cooper's books set in that era, though it had been some twenty years since his previous books The Spy (1821) and Lionel Lincoln (1825)

The action of Cooper's book takes place in a remote valley in Otsego County (where Cooper lived much of his life), a bit removed from the main events of the period. Despite not focusing on famous real events, the author couched his story in reality; as he noted in his preface, the stories he told in this book were "distinctive in many of their leading facts, if not rigidly true in the details." He noted his concern about the proliferation of American Revolution related stories which were quickly becoming more legend than truth because of "pseudo-patriotism." Cooper warned, "Nothing is really patriotic, however, that is not strictly true and just." He was particularly concerned about the hard-line distinction between "good guy" Revolutionaries and "bad guy" Tories, which he intended to complicate. Here is how one Tory breaks the news of the rebellion to his family in the novel:

"Merciful Providence!" exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby—"What can you mean, my son?"

"I mean, mother, that civil war has actually commenced in the colonies, and that the people of your blood and race are, in open arms, against the people of my father's native country—in a word, against me."

"How can that be, Robert? Who would dare to strike a blow against the king?"

"When men get excited, and their passions are once inflamed, they will do much, my mother, that they might not dream of, else."

"This must be a mistake! Some evil-disposed person has told you this, Robert, knowing your attachment to the crown."

"I wish it were so, dear madam; but my own eyes have seen—I may say my own flesh has felt, the contrary."

In fact, the Willoughbys are somewhat torn in deciding their allegiance in the novel. Part of Cooper's sympathy for Tories and those who were loyal to England during the Revolution may have been personal: some of his ancestors were counted among that group. Several reviews of Wyandotté focused on whether or not the history in the book was accurate.

Bunner's Nine Cent-Girls: Catch the difference?

New York author Henry Cuyler Bunner certainly had a good sense of humor, becoming assistant editor then full editor of the comic weekly magazine Puck. It was in that magazine, in its August 13, 1890 issue, that he published his short story "The Nine Cent-Girls." "The Nine-cent Girls?" asked the character Jack Winfield. "No," responded his friend Richard Cutter, "the Nine Cent-Girls. Catch the difference?"

The two men are jilted, or at least unsuccessful, lovers. Winfield vows to get a wife soon, despite being stuck in the "girlless wilderness" of a ranch in Montana. His friend tells him about the town of Tusculum, New York, which is nearly overrun with women (as all the men move to New York City to make their mark). The Nine Cent-Girls are sisters who each look like the face of the Indian lady on the little red cent, "the neatest and most artistic coin that the United States government has ever struck."

Despite being resigned never to marry, Cutter is deputed to visit the girls on behalf of the ranchers. But, when he calls at their home in Tusculum, he learns that the patriarch had died and no male relative had assumed a similar head of household role for them. "The whole scheme [is] busted," Cutter thinks. Still, somehow, he convinces the eldest of the women, Euphrosyne, to bring the whole group to the ranch in Montana. Euphrosyne, apparently in her 30s, is too old to get married herself, but she thinks it would be good for her sisters. Accordingly, she sells the house and prepares to go West.

Illustration by S. B. Griffin, 1891

On the train ride, he is self-conscious that he might be doing something wrong. Fellow passengers wonder about the man leading the nine similar-looking women (all wearing the same outfit): one thinks they are a baseball team, another a minstrel group. When those assumptions are proven wrong, other gossip spreads, and Euphrosyne changes her mind: "Nine young unmarried women can not go West with a young man — if you had heard what people were saying all around us in the cars — you don't know." Cutter sheepishly notes that if only a married woman were leading the group, it might be different. She agrees, and he admits he has taken a fancy to one of the girls.

"Why, Mr. Cutter!" Miss Euphrosyne cried, "I had no idea that you — you — ever — though of — is it Clytie?
"No," said Mr. Cutter, "it isn't Clytie."
"Is it — is it — " Miss Euphrosyne's eyes lit up with hope long since extinguished, "is it Aurora?"
"No!" Dick Cutter could have been heard three rooms off. "No!" he said, with all his lungs... "It's YOU — Y-O-U! I want to marry you, and what's more, I'm going to!"

Sure enough, they are married an hour later (though it's not stated if the wedding took place on the train or at one of the stops). Despite the odd circumstances behind their marriage, it seems Mr. and Mrs. Cutter are quite happy — and, what's more, the other eight Cent-Girls are soon married too. The author, Henry Cuyler Bunner, was himself married, though Alice Learned Bunner was from neither New York nor Montana; she was from Connecticut (and a published author herself).

Masters and Spoon River: sleeping on the hill

Reedy's Mirror for May 29, 1914 published the first installment of a series by "Webster Ford," a pseudonym of Edgar Lee Masters. The series, later collected as a book, was known as Spoon River Anthology. The title was the fictional name for a town Masters based compositely on Petersburg and Lewiston, Illinois, where he had spent his early years. He intended to represent all of humanity through a single town with over 240 residents of that town. In fact, each poem in the collection is spoken from beyond the grave by a different character buried in the town cemetery. The first poem, "The Hill," appropriately introduces the scene (and some of the dead people):

Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley,
The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter?
All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

One passed in a fever,
One was burned in a mine,
One was killed in a brawl,
One died in a jail,
One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife —
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith,
The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one? —
All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

One died in shameful child-birth,
One of a thwarted love,
One at the hands of a brute in a brothel,
One of a broken pride, in the search for heart's desire,
One after life in far-away London and Paris
Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag —
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily,
And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton,
And Major Walker who had talked
With venerable men of the revolution ? —
All, all, are sleeping on the hill.

They brought them dead sons from the war,
And daughters whom life had crushed,
And their children fatherless, crying —
All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill.

Where is Old Fiddler Jones
Who played with life all his ninety years,
Braving the sleet with bared breast,
Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin,
Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven?
Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago,
Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary's Grove,
Of what Abe Lincoln said
One time at Springfield.

Eight poems were included in the first installment of what he elsewhere termed "rampant yokelisms." Masters was unsure of their merit but the publisher/editor, William Marion Reedy, immediately knew they would be valued. Reedy had been pestering Masters to write something other than his old-fashioned, Greek-inspired poems and, particularly, something more American. As Masters recorded, the editor told him, "damn it man you're not Doric, you're American." The Spoon River Anthology, which was published as a book a year later, was really the only significant literary success for the Kansas-born Masters.

*Some of the information in this post was gleaned from Edgar Lee Masters: A Biography (2005) by Herbert K. Russell.

Cable, Old Creole Days, heart of New Orleans

Jadis, Hammock and Fan, and Spanish Moss were among the titles suggested but, ultimately, George Washington Cable and his publisher Scribner's Sons chose to title the book Under the Cypress Orange. Then, likely at the last moment, it was renamed Old Creole Days when it was published on May 17, 1879. The book had been some seven years in the making in that it compiled stories he had published in Scribner's Monthly beginning in 1873.

The book proved successful, particularly in the author's native state of Louisiana and he was soon hailed as one of the most important writers in the region. This was in no small part due to Cable himself, who promoted the book personally. A review in the New Orleans Times noted, "The writings of Mr. Cable may be ranked with those of any American prose writer, not excepting those of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which they in many respects resemble, and in some respects excel." Unsurprisingly, local reviewers were particularly impressed with Cable's use of local vernacular and dialect among the Creoles (much like the work of Kate Chopin).

Indeed, the setting and people of New Orleans are an important element of the book. The opening story in the first edition,* "'Sieur George," begins "in the heart of New Orleans." As Cable often does, he also spends the first few paragraphs describing the architecture of the building where the story takes place: a majestic but decaying structure, with pride amid decay not unlike the Creole culture itself. The landlord, the elderly and mixed race man named Kookoo (who "smokes cascarilla, wears velveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner") becomes obsessed with a certain tenant, who arrived with only a single trunk. He intended to live there only 50 days, but stayed for 50 years.

As the story progresses, we learn more about George, an outsider who apparently made his money gambling, though an air of mystery surrounds him. His real name, for example, is unknown, but people take to calling him "Monsieur George" (unsure if it is a first or last name), which is eventually shortened. The crux of the story is really if a white American can cope with having a role in the unique Creole culture of New Orleans. Without revealing the plot, it might be best to summarize that George fails.

*When the book was reissued four years later, Cable inserted a new work, a novella titled "Madame Delphine" as the first story; "'Sieur George" was also moved closer to the end of the book.

Bierce on Bowman: groping in the night

James F. Bowman (pictured) was at the center of California's burgeoning literary culture, and was one of the main figures in founding the Bohemian Club. That organization was made up of several men who frequently crossed between literature and journalism, including Ambrose Bierce. When Bowman died of stomach cancer in April 1882, Bierce wrote a sonnet to his friend, published in the May 5, 1882 issue of the San Francisco Wasp, and given the title "J.F.B.":

How well this man unfolded to our view
    The world's beliefs of Death and Heaven and Hell—
    This man whose own convictions none could tell,
Nor if his maze of reason had a clew.
Dogmas he wrote for daily bread, but knew
    The fair philosophies of doubt so well
    That while we listened to his words there fell
Some that were strangely comforting if true.
Marking how wise we grew upon his doubt,
    We said: "If so, by groping in the night,
    He can proclaim some certain paths of trust,
How great our profit if he saw about
His feet the highways leading to the light."
    Now he sees all. Ah, Christ! his mouth is dust!

Bowman had been known for his kind and genial nature. Years earlier, as editor of the Californian, Bowman included the first poem Bierce ever published, "Basilica." He had also assisted in collecting and published the works of California poet Edward Pollock after his death. As the above sonnet attests, Bowman was a bit of an armchair philosopher and was particularly a religious skeptic. The poem concludes with the irony that Bowman was, at least among this circle of friends, the first to know the truth of the afterlife.

Bowman was also a writer and poet himself. It was reported that his poem "Nature's Paraclete" was written only a few days before his death. The poem concludes:

And oft at midnight's solemn time,
   Waking, I know a presence near,
And feel my spirit's altered clime,
   And breathe a rarer atmosphere.
And, lo! the thoughts I thought by day
Have changed and vanished quite away.
   In this new light, so wondrous clear,
   All things transfigured do appear

Just seven verses rhymed on two

      A rondelet
Is just seven verses rhymed on two.
      A rondelet
      Is an old jewel quaintly set
In poesy—a drop of dew
Caught in a roseleaf. Lo! for you,
      A rondelet.

Charles Henry Lüders published the above poem in the April 27, 1889 issue of the Boston based newspaper The Literary World. The poem, titled "Rondelet," was an accurate description and example of that French poetic form. The term literally translates to "short poem with a refrain," as is seen in lines 1, 3, and 7.

Lüders was a Philadelphia based poet born in 1858. It was only in the last few years of his life, however, that he began contributing to periodicals and some recognized him as one of the most promising up-and-coming poets in the United States. He died, however, less than two years after publishing his rondelet. He was remembered for his humility, his genial nature, and his distrust of the value of his own writing. His only collection of poetry was published after his death by his friends. That collection did not include "Rondelet." The book did publish several even shorter poems, a series of nine quatrains (four lines each), including "Elusion":

How much that we at first intend
Escapes us ere we reach the end.
At the White City's outer walls
The weary pilgrim faints and falls.

And, to conclude with a relatable quote, his short story "The Lost Elixir" begins:

I am very fond of books; old books in particular; not that I have ever attempted to pose as a bibliophile, but simply that I like to loiter in second-hand book-stores and libraries, looking over one old volume after another until my eyes ache and my fingers are begrimed with dust and decay.

Fort Pillow: dabbled clots of brain and gore

The Battle at Fort Pillow in April 1864 was immediately controversial. The Confederate Army, led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest, attempted to regain the Tennessee fort which was protected by some 600 Union soldiers. About half of those Union solders were black. Forrest and his troops easily stormed the fort.  Union troops were slaughtered by the Confederates, despite offers of surrender, and reports claimed that Confederates more heavily targeted black soldiers who were killed in cold blood.

James Ryder Randall, a Maryland-born poet who had come to hate the "Northern scum," published a poem about the controversial battle/massacre, responding to criticism from Union supporters against Confederate savagery. His poem, "At Fort Pillow,"was published in the Wilmington (North Carolina) Journal on April 25, 1864:

You shudder as you think upon
    The carnage of the grim report —
The desolation when we won
    The inner trenches of the fort.

But there are deeds you may not know
    That scourge the pulses into strife;
Dark memories of deathless woe
    Pointing the bayonet and knife.

Randall instead points to the merciless and savage acts of Union soldiers, who had previously encamped at a church in Point Coupee, Louisiana. Randall had lived in that town while teaching at Poydras College. The church was desecrated by these troops, as was the graveyard surrounding it, including the grave of Randall's mother (or, perhaps, a less literal and more generic mother).

The house is ashes, where I dwelt
    Beyond the mighty inland sea;
The tombstones shattered where I knelt
    By that old Church in Pointe Coupee.

The Yankee fiend! that came with fire,
    Camped on the consecrated sod,
And trampled in the dust and mire
    The Holy Eucharist of God!

The spot where darling mother sleeps,
    Beneath the glimpse of yon sad moon,
Is crushed with splintered marble heaps
    To stall the horse of some dragoon!

Recalling that story, Randall writes, makes his "frantic spirit wince." But, worse is an implied crime against his sister. Without saying it outright, Randall refers to his sister being raped by a Union soldier

The tears are hot upon my face
    When thinking what bleak fate befell
The only sister of our race —
    A thing too horrible to tell.

They say that, ere her senses fled,
    She rescue of her brothers cried;
Then feebly bowed her stricken head,
    Too pure to live thus — so she died.

Though he was not present, Randall claims he continues to hear his sisters screams for help, "as perpetual as the air." It leads him to wrath and he claims he has killed Union soldiers for revenge. Here, Randall (or, more accurately, the narrator of the poem) comes to represent the entire Confederacy, and that revenge for the above atrocities inspired the massacre at Fort Pillow. He happily celebrates his "deadly rifle, sharpened brand," that causes the enemy to "writhe and bleed." Randall's poem, then, justifies responding to violence with more violence. More than that, Randall's poem highlights the fury of war as well as its gore, even while claiming he particularly targeted not the black soldiers, as was believed of Fort Pillow, but whites, though both races are dehumanized as demon targets:

The Southern yell rang loud and high
    The moment that we thundered in,
Smiting the demons hip and thigh,
    Cleaving them to the very chin.

My right arm bared for fiercer play,
    The left one held the rein in slack;
In all the fury of the fray
    I sought the white man, not the black.

The dabbled clots of brain and gore
    Across the swirling sabres ran;
To me each brutal visage bore
    The front of one accursed man.

Throbbing along the frenzied vein,
    My blood seemed kindled into song —
The death-dirge of the sacred slain,
    The slogan of immortal wrong.

It glared athwart the dripping glaives,
    It blazed in each avenging eye —
The thought of desecrated graves
    And some lone sister's desperate cry. 

A Morning Walk: the resurrection and the life

The April 17, 1897, issue of the Criterion in St. Louis published a story titled "An Easter Day Conversion," which its author Kate Chopin later renamed "A Morning Walk." The tale introduces the reader to Archibald, who people believe is in his 50s though he is only 40. It is the beginning of spring, and Archibald is walking amidst in the wind after a fresh rain in his village. "The spring was nothing new to him," writes Chopin, "nor was its sounds, its perfumes, its colors; nor was its tender and caressing breath; but, for some unaccountable reason, these were reaching him to-day through unfamiliar channels." But Archibald is not walking for beauty or sentiment, but for the practicality of imbibing fresh air for his health.

A man of studious habits and "mental preoccupation," he is all the same impressed by the beauty of the morning. He forgets the name of his 20-year old "saucy" neighbor Lucy when he meets her on the side of the road. They walk together, Lucy slightly teasing the older man, and she leads him to the church. It is Easter morning after all. Archibald surprises himself by going in to mass with her. He all but ignores the prayers, the songs, and the mass in general — until he hears the minister say, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Those words were enough to cause Archibald some kind of religious conversion:

This was his text. It fell upon ears that had heard it before. It crept into the consciousness of Archibald, sitting there. As he gathered it into his soul a vision of life came with it; the poet’s vision, of the life that is within and the life that is without, pulsing in unison, breathing the harmony of an undivided existence.

He listened to no further words of the minister. He entered into himself and he preached unto himself a sermon in his own heart, as he gazed from the window through which the song came and where the leafy shadows quivered.

Besides the religious message of the story, the short text is rich with interesting thoughts and symbols. Archibald goes from a practical man who knows nothing of sentiment, a man who lopped the heads off flowers, to a man of faith. And who is Lucy, the woman who he mistakenly calls by several different names (despite having only two lines of actual dialogue in the text)? Though deemed an older man, he is somewhat attracted to her and sees her romantically, or even sexually:  "He looked down into the girl’s face, and her soft, curved lips made him think of peaches that he had bitten; of grapes that he had tasted; of a cup’s rim from which he had sometimes sipped wine." The story also uses the presence of flowers for its symbolism, much like another of Chopin's stories, "Lilacs."

Mulligan: Sing a song of the long ago

Judge James H. Mulligan was born in Lexington, Kentucky, almost literally just on the other side of the hill from the town of Hustonville. As a poet who almost exclusively celebrated his home state in his writing, it was likely only a matter of time before he wrote about that small central Kentucky town nicknamed "The Crossroads." His poem "Over the Hill to Hustonville" was published in the Lexington Leader on April 4, 1909. Some have called it his first widely read poem:

Over the hill to Hustonville,
   Past mead and vale and waving grain
With fleecy clouds and glad sunshine
   And the balm of the coming rain;
On where hidden beneath the hill,
In the widening vale below —
Chime and smith and distant herd
   Sing a song of the long ago.

Over the hill to Hustonville
   Where silent fields are sad and brown,
And the crow's lone call is blended
   With the anvil beat of the town;
Where sweet the hamlet life flows on,
And the doors ever open wide,
Welcome the worn and wandering
   To the ingle and cheer inside.

Over the hill to Hustonville
   I knew and loved as a child,
A scene that yet lights up to me
   With a radiant glow and mild;
With drowsy lane and quiet street,
Gables quaint and the houses gray,
Ancient inn with battered sign,
   And an air of the far-away.

Over the hill to Hustonville
   Where men are yet sturdy and strong
As were their sires in days long past —
   As true as their flint-locks long.
And maids are shy and soft of speech —
As the wild-rose, lithsome and true,
Eyes alight as the coming dawn,
   Softly blue, as their skies are blue.

Some — sometime — in the bye and bye,
   With all my life-won riches rare —
Dead hopes and faded memories —
   A silken floss of baby hair;
Fast locked close within my heart —
Worn of strife and the empty quest —
I'll over the hill to Hustonville,
   To dream ever — and rest — and rest.

Despite those final thoughts, Mulligan did not rest in Hustonville, but died and was buried in his home town of Lexington, only about six years after this poem was published. Poetry for him was a sort of second career, started after many years in politics and the law. For a time, he served as consul-general to Samoa (where he befriended Robert Louis Stephenson).

Gilman: tell you what I think of you

After the turn of the century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman began producing her own monthly magazine in New York, The Forerunner, which she wrote and edited single-handedly. Although it did well considering it was a one-person production, she often sought to republish her work in periodicals with broader circulation. Such was the case with her story "An Unwilling Interview," first published in The Forerunner in April 1912 and republished in the Woman's Journal (published by Alice Stone Blackwell) on March 29, 1913.

The story features a woman named Ellen Carlyle who has come from rural Idaho to visit her sister, now Mrs. Johnson and living in the big city. But all is not well in the Johnson household. Ellen's newly married nephew Worth Johnson has been the subject of a public scandal. It turns out, the local newspaper publisher is a rival of the elder Mr. Johnson, a reported millionaire, and this rival has created the controversy out of spite. Though Mrs. Johnson acknowledges the publisher's lackey reporters are not directly to blame, her sister notes that they still  should be held responsible.

Aunt Ellen visits the home of her nephew and his wife, an innocent and pretty young shopgirl. While her husband is at work, she has locked herself in her apartment to fend off reporters and photographers, including some who try to trick her. She made the mistake of giving a few quotes, without knowing she was being interviewed, and the publisher has twisted those words into scandal. While Aunt Ellen chats with the bride, a dedicated reporter breaks in through a door using a knife. It turns out to be the same reporter that had tricked her into giving him quotes. Without skipping a beat, he notes the newspaper he represents, and begins his questioning.

Aunt Ellen hardly hesitates before forcing the man into a chair and tying him down. She gives the surprised reporter a stern lecture on the harm he has caused. She says:

"In your original interview with her, by using her innocence and inexperience to gather material from, she herself is made to strike a blow at her husband’s happiness—a refinement of cruelty not used by the Apaches. They torture men and also women, but they do not use the woman to torture the man with. Your master does. In order to accomplish this purpose all common decency must be ignored, all privacy, all delicacy, all respect for personal freedom. This little bride is a prisoner on account of the staring cameras that wait outside. She can not rest because of the noise of her assailants."

Aunt Ellen notes that, though there is no law preventing his behavior, what this reporter and others have done is more than criminal. He begins to blush as he realizes the truth. "Cruel, isn’t it?" she asks, "To tie you up—helpless—and tell you what I think of you." Once the reporter learns his lesson, Aunt Ellen lets him go.

The story, with two "unwilling interviews," was aimed at the journalism style of people like William Randolph Hearst, who stopped at nothing for sensational stories. Gilman, in creating her own independent newspaper, had been striking against the Hearst system and its influence. Due to financial concerns, however, she eventually ceased publishing The Forerunner in 1916.

*I learned much about this independent journal by Gilman, including the date of the republication of "An Unwilling Interview," from Denise D. Knight's essay "Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Randolph Hearst, and the Practice of Ethical Journalism," collected in Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Her Contemporaries: Literary and Intellectual Contexts (University of Alabama Press, 2004).

Lydia Sigourney and the Cherokee Nation

The Cherokee Phoenix and Indian Advocate has been recognized as the first newspaper published by a Native American tribe and the first to report news in a tribal language. Its first issue was published in northern Georgia in early 1828. In the next decade, the Cherokee Nation would relocate to present-day Oklahoma thanks to Indian Removal Act, commonly called the Trail of Tears.

But the newspaper also published each article in English translation and attracted more white readers than Native American readers. It also attracted white contributors, including Connecticut poet Lydia Sigourney, who published her poem "The Cherokee Mother" in the March 12, 1831 issue.

Ye bid us hence.—These vales are dear,
To infant hope, to patriot pride,
These streamlets tuneful to our ear,
Where our light shallops peaceful glide.

Beneath yon consecrated mounds
Our fathers' treasur'd ashes rest,
Our hands have till'd these corn-clad ground,
Our children's birth these home have blest,

Here, on our souls a Saviour's love
First beam'd with renovating ray,
Why should we from these haunts remove?
But still you warn us hence away.

Child, ask not where! I cannot tell,
Save where wide wastes uncultur'd spread,
Where unknown waters fiercely roll,
And savage monsters howling tread;

Where no blest Church with hallow'd train,
Nor hymns of praise, nor voice of prayer,
Like angels soothe the wanderer's pain;
Ask me no more. I know not where.

Go seek thy Sire. The anguish charm
That shades his brow like frowning wrath,
Divide the burden from his arm,
And gird him for his pilgrim-path.

Come, moaning babe! Thy mother's arms
Shall bear thee on our weary course,
Shall be thy shield from midnight harms,
And baleful dews, and tempests hoarse.

Sigourney was clearly writing in opposition to the Indian Removal Act ("Why should we from these haunts remove?"). However, rather than writing in a political tone, she appeals to the emotions, representing the mother figure as loyal to her family and, perhaps most importantly, as a Christian. To this mother and her child, the "wide wastes" to which they are being removal has "no blest Church" and no hymns nor prayer. Sigourney apparently never republished her poem "The Cherokee Mother" in her various collected works. Even so, the poem was certainly not her only attempt at educating the public about the Native Americans. In 1822, for example, she published a sympathetic epic poem called Traits of the Aborigines of America.

Further, Sigourney, who once said she "never wrote for fame," was one of several prominent women who urged other women to write to Congress in opposition of the Indian Removal Act. Despite a flood of responses, the bill passed in a close vote in the House of Representatives, 102 to 97, and President Andrew Jackson signed it into law.

Dunbar, the Wright Brothers, and the Tattler

Paul Laurence Dunbar issued the first edition of the Dayton Tattler in December 1890. The venture was put forth with the help of an associate named Preston Finley and printed by Dunbar's friends and classmates the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright (fellow residents of Dayton, Ohio, the Wrights are better known for their exploits in aviation). In its second issue, dated December 20, he included three short stories left anonymous but since attributed to Dunbar himself: "His Failure in Arithmetic," "His Little Lark," and "From Impulse."

Though he was known primarily for his poetry, Dunbar was actually prolific in prose as well, publishing four novels (one was somewhat autobiographical), a play, and four collections of tales. None of the three stories from the Tattler's December 20, 1890 issue were included in those compilations and have only been identified as possibly from the pen of Dunbar more recently (using the original manuscript). Each is quite short, only a few paragraphs.

In "His Failure of Arithmetic," a "red 'hided' man" visits the professor of the academy after hearing he has beaten his son "with an oak split" after he got an incorrect answer. The father, Mr. Jowerson, threatens to maul him but the professor explains the circumstances:

"My dear sir," said the professor, "I did whip your son with a white oak split, but he deserved it. During a recitation in arithmetic, I asked him this question: 'If you were to go with a jug to fill it, and there was a still-house a half mile away and a spring a quarter of a mile away, what would you bring back?'"

The boy said, "water." After hearing the story, the father says he agrees with his son's punishment, though he would have recommended, "he deserves hickery instead of white oak."

In "His Little Lark," a man named Mr. Sylvester is out with a friend, presumably after a long night of drinking. He brags that his wife no longer waits up for him but when he stumbles up the stairs, he finds her sitting in a rocking chair at the end of their bed. She refuses to answer him, however, even after he "commands" her with the authority of a husband. He crawls into bed nonetheless but is shocked to find someone is already there! In fact, it is his wife, and the silent person in the rocking chair was merely a stack of her clothes.

And Sylvester murmured: "Saved again, b'gosh!" as he tucked himself in his little bed, while his wife continued to sleep the sleep of the just.

* Information in this post, including the text of the tales mentioned, comes from The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Ohio University Press, 2005), edited by Gene Andrew Jarrett and Thomas Lewis Morgan.

Ambrose Bierce: The devil's purveyor

Though The Devil's Dictionary eventually became one of Ambrose Bierce's most well-known works, the book had a difficult beginning. The first "complete" version of the devilishly humorous reference work did not appear until 1911, sandwiched in volume 7 of a collection of the author's writings. The first half of the book, up through the entries for "L," had been published in the mid to late 1880s under the title The Cynic's  Dictionary. Bierce did not appreciate the watered-down title. As he wrote in 1906: "They (the publishers) won't have 'The Devil's Dictionary.' Here in the East the Devil is a sacred personage (the Fourth Person of the Trinity, as an Irishman might say) and his name must not be taken in vain."

The earliest published appearance of the book, however, came on December 11, 1875, when the San Francisco News Letter published a few "A" definitions under the heading "The Demon's Dictionary." 
That humble article, attributed to "Theophilus Smallbeer," included definitions through "accoucheur," though the later version of the Dictionary did not include any of these entries. He later explained he lost most of his early entries and re-wrote many of them; in a later preface, he denied the 1875 attempt and his first attempts began in 1881. A few entries from the "A" section of the later Devil's Dictionary:

Accoucheur, n. The devil's purveyor.

Acquit, v.t. To render judgment in a murder case in San Francisco.

Adam's Apple, n. A protuberance on the throat of a man, thoughtfully provided by Nature to keep the rope in place.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Alone, adj. In bad company.

Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Apologize, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.

One can only imagine how Bierce might define "blog" or "internet" today. For more from The Devil's Dictionary, see this site.

*For the dates and details above, I am indebted to Robert F. Gale's An Ambrose Bierce Companion (Greenwood Publishing, 2001).

Peck's 'Rings and Love-Knots: so unpretentious

The Critic called Samuel Minturn Peck's second book of poems, Rings and Love-Knots, a book of "seventy-five dainty love-lyrics and vers-de-société in a prettily bound volume." This review, published in the November 26, 1892 issue, continued Peck's reputation as a good but simple poet. In fact, the review recommended the collection for those who like "light verse" and observed that the Alabama poet had not tried to make his poems more serious than his previous work.

The critic goes on with faint praise: "He also has a command of rhymes and metres, and his work exhibits much technical skill; it is accurate, finished and perfectly straightforward." Without irony, the critic finds Peck likable precisely because "all the songs he has here collected... are so unpretentious, so musical and so finished." Of the 75 poems in the book, the critic highlighted "An Alabama Garden" as one of his favorites:

Along a pine-clad hill it lies,
O'erlooked by limpid Southern skies,
A spot to feast a fairy's eyes,
       A nook for happy fancies.
The wild bee's mellow monotone
Here blends with bird-notes zephyr-blown,
And many an insect voice unknown
       The harmony enhances.

The rose's shattered splendor flees
With lavish grace on every breeze,
And lilies sway with flexile ease
       Like dryads snowy-breasted;
And where gardenias drowse between
Rich curving leaves of glossy green,
The cricket strikes his tambourine,
       Amid the mosses nested.

Here dawn-flushed myrtles interlace,
And sifted sunbeams shyly trace
Frail arabesques whose shifting grace
       Is wrought of shade and shimmer;
At eventide scents quaint and rare
Go straying through my garden fair,
As if they sought with wildered air
       The fireflies' fitful glimmer.

Oh, could some painter's facile brush,
On canvas limn my garden's blush,
The fevered world its din would hush
       To crown the high endeavor;
Or could a poet snare in rhyme
The breathings of this balmy clime,
His fame might dare the dart of Time
       And soar undimmed forever!

In the 20th century, Peck was named the first Poet Laureate of Alabama, a position he earned in part because of his accessibility as a poet and in part because of how frequently his poetry celebrated his native state, as in the poem above. Similarly, many of his poems were set to music because of their song-like quality and their generally positive themes. Peck also apparently appreciated the praise he received for what the above critic called "vers-de-société" as a later book had an entire section with that label.

Evils oppressing themselves or others

Elizabeth Oakes Smith was angry. Women had recently been gathering at public conventions to demand their rights. They were met with ridicule, hecklers, and laughter, "as if it were the funniest thing in the world for human beings to feel the evils oppressing themselves or others, and to look round for redress." With those words, she opened the first of her series "Woman and Her Needs," published November 21, 1850 in the New York Tribune.

She was further annoyed that some who ridiculed these women's rights conventions who were themselves women, so "well cared for" that they remained unaware of the suffering of others. Oakes Smith argues part of their problem is that they lack "comprehensiveness of thought." Others, who themselves suffer from their subjugation, simply know no better. She writes, "These are the kind over whom infinite Pity would weep as it were drops of blood. These may scoff at reform, but it is the scoffing of a lost spirit, or that of despair." Still, she says, there are women who have become aware of their problematic role in society:

They are not content to be the creatures of luxury, the toys of the drawing room, however well they grace it — they are too true, too earnest in life to trifle with its realities. They are capable of thinking, it may be far more capable of it, than those of their own household who help to sway the destinies of the country through the ballot box. They are capable of feeling, and analyzing too, the evils that surround themselves and others — they have individuality, resources, and that antagonism which weak men ridicule, because it shames their own imbecility; which makes them obnoxious to those of less earnestness of character, and helps them to an eclectic power, at once their crown of glory.

Prior to these movements, Oakes Smith writes, there were individual women who spoke up. Now, however, they are gathering in larger groups and calling with a unified voice. Certainly, they will make missteps, but the movement is new and the people are learning. She argues in particular that women simply must have a voice in the world because they are already part of it, that they must be a part of lawmaking because they are impacted by law.

They are the mothers and wives and sisters of the Republic, and their interests cannot be separated from the fathers and husbands and brothers of the Republic. It is folly to meet them with contempt and ridicule, for the period for such weapons is passing away.

Ultimately, Elizabeth Oakes Smith contributed 10 articles in this series on "Woman and Her Needs." The final installment was published nearly seven months after the first.

Harper: among earth's humblest graves

In the 1850s, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (born free in Maryland in 1825) became an active voice in the anti-slavery movement. She was successful as a public speaker, her book of poems was popular, including its several anti-slavery poems. She was also involved with the Underground Railroad. It was in this period that Harper published her most famous poem. Published in the Ohio-based Anti-Slavery Bugle on November 20, 1858, "Bury Me in a Free Land" was a powerful call for the end of enslavement:

Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest, if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

I could not sleep if I heard the tread
Of a coffle-gang to the shambles led,
And the mother's shriek of wild despair
Rise, like a curse, on the trembling air.

I could not rest, if I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

I'd shudder and start, if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey;
And I heard the captive plead in vain,
As they bound, afresh, his galling chain.

If I saw young girls from their mother's arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-pale cheek grow red with shame.

I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated Might
Can rob no man of his dearest right;
My rest shall be calm in any grave
Where none can call his brother a slave.

I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is — Bury me not in a land of slaves!

"Bury Me in a Free Land" was republished two months later in a January issue of The Liberator. Harper also sent a copy of the poem to one of John Brown's men awaiting execution after the raid Harper's Ferry.

James reviews Whitman: a melancholy task

"It has been a melancholy task to read this book; and it is a still more melancholy one to write about it." Thus opens the review of Walt Whitman's book Drum-Taps written by critic Henry James. The review, published in the November 16, 1865 issue of the Nation, lamented how difficult it was to read Whitman's poetry and James blames it on the poet being too much of "a prosaic mind." In fact, he writes, if not for the capital letters at the beginning of each line, one might not know it was poetry. "But if Mr. Whitman does not write verse," James says, "he does not write ordinary prose" as even prosaically the book is not impressive.

Worse, says the critically-minded James, Whitman, like too many others, assumes that the patriotic sympathy with the recent Civil War is enough to justify poetic inspiration in anyone. No, says James, though we as Americans feel the need to express our strong feelings ("Of course the tumult of a battle is grand, the results of a battle tragic, and the untimely deaths of young men a theme for elegies"), but such a sweeping overview as Whitman offers can only be made after the dust has settled. James also can't help but note that the book seems equally about Whitman's own pretentious grandstanding ("Mr. Whitman is very fond of blowing his own trumpet").

The form of the poetry is a particular concern to the then 22-year old James as it does not rhyme or follow any conceivable pattern. Various simplistic verses on the war have become popular and memorable, even when artless. In the case of Whitman, James concludes his writing is "an offense against art," lacking common sense, and insult to intelligence. Nevertheless, James notes, there are positive aspects to Drum-Taps. The sentiment expressed, even if expressed oddly, is sincere:

Mr. Whitman prides himself especially on the substance—the life—of his poetry. It may be rough, it may be grim, it may be clumsy—such we take to be the author's argument—but it is sincere, it is sublime, it appeals to the soul of man, it is the voice of a people.

But, James warns, this is not enough. "To become adopted as a national poet, it is not enough... to discharge the undigested contents of your blotting-book into the lap of the public," he writes. "You must respect the public which you address; for it has taste, if you have not." Whitman had made note in the book, however, that the life of the poem was more important than the form. As James himself quoted, Whitman had written:

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking among you all, yet needed most, I bring;
A book I have made for your dear sake, O soldiers,
And for you, O soul of man, and you, love of comrades;
The words of my book nothing, the life of it everything;
A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by the intellect;
But you will feel every word, O Libertad! arm'd Libertad!
It shall pass by the intellect to swim the sea, the air,
With joy with you, O soul of man.

Child: true economy of housekeeping

Lydia Maria Child had only been a wife for about a year and a month when, on November 12, 1829, she published The Frugal Housewife (later renamed The American Frugal Housewife). The book was a huge success and was republished in dozens of editions over the next few years. It was dedicated "to those who are not ashamed of Economy." That purpose begins in the first sentence of the introduction:

The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments, of time, as well as materials. Nothing should be thrown away so long as it is possible to make any use of it, however trifling that use may be; and whatever be the size of a family, every member should be employed either in earning, or saving money.

In the pages that follow, Child offers tips on removing stains, on cooking, common injuries or illnesses, and "how to endure poverty," all in a world without running water. Her writing is almost stream of conscious, quickly shifting from one scrap of advice to another without particular attention to theme or organization. This lack of organization drew the attention of critics, including Sarah Josepha Hale, but what really bothered Hale was the book's obsession with money — or, more accurately, with its implication that women should be obsessed with saving money. As she wrote:

Now we do not think that either in earning or saving money consists the chief importance of life... Our men are sufficiently money-making. Let us keep our women and children from the contagion as long as possible.

Hale went so far as to suggest that Child was underqualified to write such a book as she did not yet have children. Nevertheless, the book went into at least 35 editions and was later reissued in a modern version which remains in print in the 21st century. Perhaps Child would have answered her critics with this quote from page 6:

The writer has no apology to offer for this cheap little book of economical hints, except her deep conviction that such a book is needed. In this case, renown is out of the question, and ridicule is a matter of indifference.

For some of the information in this post, I am indebted to Carolyn L. Karcher's work The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child (1998).

Unexpected Chopin: shuddering, shrinking, shriveling

Vogue magazine's issue for September 18, 1895 included the short story "The Unexpected" by Kate Chopin (one of several by the author in that magazine in the 1890s). The short sketch opens with the separation of Randall and Dorothea, an engaged young couple in an unspecified place in the northern United States. Randall was ill, and doctors told him to go South. "The parting was bitter," Chopin writes, and their final moments together were spent in a passionate embrace.

Randall would be away for less than a month and the two exchanged letters daily. After a time, however, his illness worsened and his letters became less frequent. His return was delayed and delayed again. "All this was torture to the impatient Dorothea," though her parents would not allow her to travel to be by his side.

When his physicians tell him he would need to spend the winter in the South, he refused to let another day pass without seeing his love Dorothea. He forewarns her, however, that the illness has left him changed. When he arrives, they embrace and kiss — just as they had done before he parted from her. Now, however, Dorothea no longer recognizes the man she agreed to marry: " What hideous transformation had he undergone, or what devilish transformation was she undergoing in contemplating him?" She feels a physical change in herself as well, "something within her seemed to be shuddering, shrinking, shriveling together." Chopin explains: "She felt as if it was her heart; but it was only her love."

Dorothea realizes she no longer loves this man who has now become so sick. She does not say so, however, and listens to his proposal that they get married immediately and return to the South together. In case he dies, he wants her to have all his wealth. A coughing fit, however, calls his physician to take him away and rest. As soon as he leaves, so does Dorothea:

She sped along the familiar roadway, seemingly borne on by some force other than mechanical — some unwonted energy — a stubborn impulse that lighted her eyes, set her cheeks aflame, bent her supple body to one purpose — that was, swiftest flight.

The story ends with Dorothea lost and alone in an unrecognized place deep within uncivilized nature, where she finally answers (to herself) the answer to Randall's proposal: "Never!" The story offers a cynical view of youthful idealism in beauty, love, and marriage. The reader is left to wonder if Dorothea will ever marry at all, and if Randall ever receives her message.