National Republican., 1883-10-19
NEW hooks.

Tho old southern life was y icturcsuue and
the graces of poetical possibilities shone with
brilliance over southern society hut the
southern intellect did not sparkle into song
or flow into metrical rhythm. The chivalry
of the south, the single heartedness of its
mon, tho beauty and tenderness Of its women,
its beautiful land, its picturesque and varied
social conditions, were all fountains of poetry,
but fountains inclosed within the solid rock
of singuarly cool, practical humanity and
seldom indeed appeared Moses whose pas
sionate shifting could burst tho rugged case
monts and let flow tho limpid currents Of
song. The popular idea of the north about
tho south was that its mon were recllcssly
passionate, prodigolly generous, headsirong,
improvidont, imaginative, and impractical,
and its women dark-eyed, lauguid beauties,
helpless, ignorant and visionary as children,
with all the ftful capricos, the beautiful
fancies, the winning and tender caresses of
| childhood This was very pretty, but
sadly untrue picture of southern humanity.
| There were few drcamers in the southland.
| The southern intellect was keen, calculating,
and alert; tho southern temper was cold,
unbending, and passionless. Tho southern
intellect dealt chiefly with the practical; the
southern heart found scope enough for its
activities in the real. There was not much
| play of fancy in the southern life, still less
of the imaginative. Save only in Louis
lana and South Carolina, and few iso-
lated families in Maryland and Virginia, the
parent race Of the south was the most prosac
and practical of peoples, Scottish Lowlanders,
and Saxon Englishmen. Great lawyers tho
south had in abundance, statesmen of broad
and comprehensive thought soldiers of the
first order, politicians unmatched in their
resources of subtle fnesse, profound scholars,
but no poets. Now and then, indeed some
delicate plant of poesy would lift its head
above the uncongeuial soil, but only to perish
in the cold, dry, harsh winds of that utilita-
rian cline. Edgar Poe, the grandest imagina-
tive genius of the south, was cxpatriated by
necessity, and at length died homeless
stranger in the streets of his ma
tive city, where, in his wonderful
youth, he had wheeled clay Mt
brick yard for his daily bread. Edward
Coote Pinkney, first of American lyric poets,
was frozen into premature grave by the icy
atmosphere in which lie lived. Philip Pen
dleton Cooke breathed out his life in its ear
lest manhood, chilled by the icy incapacity
of his friends and neighbors to understand or
appreciate him. Even in the more genial
Hugenot atmosphere of South Carolina poor
Henry Timrod one of the truest children
of genius whose life ever flowed in song, wiltcd
and withered away, actually dying Of starva-
ton, n fate that Harry Lyndon Flash prob
ably escaped only by abandoning poetry for
potatoes, and devoting himself to groceries
| instead of garlands. Tho odor of salt fish
and bacon was an orthodox one to the real
istic southern taste which failed to appreciate
the delicate odor that brcathes, like fra
grant atmosphere, from such exquisite poems
rs 1.-THE Three Violets" There was no con.
stituoncy in the south for poets. The prac-
teal southern intellect defined poetry as verse
making. and felt that such trivial wasting Of
time did not become men and women.
There was " literature, however, published
and unread, except by author and proof reader
Trash of the drcariest. most inetfable kind
was written and published, mostly by women;
and by women, too, who were only representa-
tivcs Of tho brightest keenest most practical
women ON the continent, the best OF honsG-
keepers, the very models of all the domestic
virtues women, whose pure hearts, religious
instincts, and well ordered lives, no less than
their clear sagacious minds, lent charm to
every southern household, and were ut once
the glory, the comfort, the salvation of their
section.
All this was before the war. Since that
time the south has changed o little, though
only little. Out of the fiery furnace of war
and atliiction could no race emerge without be-
ing purified at least of some of their material
dross. Writers occasionally spring up in the
southland who meet with happier fate than
the Pinkneys, the Poos, the Cookies, or the Tim
rods of the past. The south has not altered its
nature or changed its tastes; it has but
broadened the range of its vision and en-
larged the scope of it's ideas. The advent of
new southern writer, therefore, is to be
eagerly watched and his elements analysed.
If the metal of such be the pure gold, they
should bo warmly welcomed to tho liable
Round" of letters but if of the baser sort,
then speedy should be their contemptuous
, and derisive introduction to the "limbo" OF
oblivion.
''Whispering Pines" by John Henry Boner,
n native of North Carolina, but now o Wash
ingtonian, is the latest addition to southern
literature. Mr.. Boner's childhood and youth
were spent in the beautiful valley of the
r Yadkin, in that fertile and lovely part OF
+ North Carolina which lies between the
: mountains and the great central and eastern
plain. 1t is o region of idyllic beauty, with
a picturesque and admirable population, and
1 a climate as serene and lovely as the Atlantic
s slope north Of the subtropical portions car
( present. The impress of that region il
! stamped upon our poets soul. Its pastoya
loveliness, its varied piCturesq ueness, it
capacities for the poetic, have become
part of his nature. Yet tho spell o
its people clings over his spirit and weaken
? his utterance. Its white populace is a noble
example of the southern race. Rich in cool
calm, practical sagacity, yet blind to tn
glimpses of the inner heaven which tho poe
, sees, deaf to tho breath of Faerie which tn
. poet hears, the influence exerfed by them OIL
the sensitive spirit Of the youthful dreame
was witherng and repressve. He dares no
strike his Tyre with that free, bold touch "
0 feel assured is his by natures gift. Tho note
of his song rise clear and musical, sweepin
tho atmosphere with n melody that startle
us, but ere tho ear catches the full tone hi
voice sinks to a feeble cadence. Tho spell O
the practical clings to his heart, and he ha