The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-02-05
N wnrrcomB RILEY.
An Estimate Of the Indiana Poet and His Work
BY Well-known Writer and Critic.


By a Well known Writer and Critic.
In the Philadelphia Book News, for
February. Prof. John Clark Ridpath
has q biographical sketch of James
Whitcomb Riley. in which he Incl
dentally INDUCES in eulogistic comments
upon his work. The purely biograph-
ical facts are. In the main. familiar to
the Journals readers. The view taken by
the Professor of the effect of the early en-
vironment Is of interest. He says:
James Whitcomb Riley has had the good
fortune to become what he was horn TO be
the poet of the human heart. That 10
his Office in the world: and If he remains
true to himsel the common life of our
great West will be perDetually gloriied by
bis genius. Riley IL still a Young man.
Conversing with him, you note that no 10
no longer q youth; but you faiI to detect
sven the premonitory signs of that break
ing which. sometimes comes early TO the
man of poetic temperament. You are even
reassured by divinIng in him the marks
and prophecy Of o maturity and strength
Biographies are essentially dull. Human
life. after all. is so common place that who
should care to note its detail with particu-
larityf Ii Is of vast importance TO Ameri-
can literature that James Whitcomb Riley
oiOuiu uoN0 UCcn boIu, u ~ Whch 10 -
mere accident OF time. Ind the where one
of the non-essentials. As matter OF fact,
the town of Greenfield, Ind. about twenty
miles east of Indianapolis. bears the honor
birthplace "mantau me genuit;' but ho
Immediately adds that some 9th.
er place soon snatched him away. OF
our poets boyhood we know but little.
He, himself. has composed q humorous bio
graphical sketch. but we are able to catch
only a 0llm nae of the mannor of his child
life at home. His father, who still lives. Is
q lawyer, n would fam have made an
other lawyer ont of James Whitcomb. but
the thing was impossible.
One thing we may note with certainty,
and that is that the parental and public
efforts at Greenfield to educate" the boy
Riley were fairly unsuccessful Aye. they
were auspicionsly. ~gloriously unsuccess-
full. 1t might be difficult TO find another
man of kiley's age. belonging to the in
tellectual classes, who bears about with
HIM 90 little Of that commodity which the
bookmen and teachers label education. i
sorrow to inform the public that of mathe-
MATES and geography. SCIENCE and the
like. Onr poet has none at all. he Is In this
respect as poverty stricken as Shakespeare
was in the little matter of Greek. With
grief / divulge the fact thai TO this day
Riley does not formally know q nominative
from an objective! 1t Is doubtless true
that his school-life was q total failure-and
SO much the better. For it is perfectly
clear in the retrospect that the formalities
of o graded and high-school would hive
confused. and perhaps obscured, what has
proved to be the most productive genius of
the Mississippi valley.
But there is another education of which
Riley has an abundance. and that Is the ed
ucation of the senses. What he knows he
knows by his senses. To him the eye and
the ear are everything; that IS. the eye and
the ear. the touch. the taste. the intel
lectual gaze, and the heart within.
A biographer, not careful of the reputa-
ton of his subject. would say that young
Riley ut length ran OFT" from Greenfield.
We say he went away. This vas IN his
teens. Lanentable 1t is: but he joined
himself TO . show. n took To such travel
forded. Whlther he went nobody knows.
he does not know himself. 1t IS
one of the pecnliarities of the man that he
has no bump of locality. 1t Is the literal
truth, that the places which he visits SWIM
around like a phantasm and find nc lodg-
ment in his memory. Even the points of
the compass are with him Understandable
facts over which be might puzzle himself
in vain. The same is true of time and cir
cumstance; the almanac is o phantasma-
Qoria. and all incidents of landscape. river.
town and the like. a fading enigma of the
past. lie lives In the present, aud his
senses are so acute. his thought so much
that all the rest swims far off like u cloud
of fog and doubt.
After reviewing Mr.. Rlley's ventures in
the literary line. and naming the volumes
published by HIM. Professor Ridpath adds:
The cycle of the poems of James Whit.
comb Riley has amply illustrated his lyric
nj genius. and established him in the front
rank of American singers. lie has shown
much variety, from the smooth romantic
charm of lllileO LeUardi to the humor and
tenderness of "NeghborIy Poems" in which
the old farmer-poet Is at his highest mettle
and warinest inspiration. The question has
been. however. whether Riley Is more thana
purely lyrical poet. itappeared to he critic
that his Muse was of short flight; that she
fluttered about the hedges. and orchards,
and gardens. rising possibly to the top of
the old ~beech.tree by the cabin. But was
she capable of continued flight. of high
executionf Was her strength of wing and
vision sufficient for the mountain oak. the
cedars of the hills. the skyland and the
clOudf
Those who have doubted. or at least /,
feared. In this particular, have now been
Riley's Flying Islands of the Night" He
rightly calls this latest product a Fan
tastic Drama in Verse; In it. for the first
time. he displays his constructive skill
longer local and peculiar. Herein
he is no moro q dialect master-a serio-
bumorist. but q great creative artist. rising
into q new world of vision and dream. The
Flying Islands of the Night" is one of the
most original poems in the English lam
guage. 1t Is q poem of universal humanity,
as much as Faust" itself. The author has
not only constructed. but created and peo-
pied his flying islands. The beings who in
habit Wunkland and Spirkland are here
before us as real and living IN their kind as
are the people of the street. The poem is
Shakspearean in its qualities; and we may
we'll believe this last achievement destined
to introduce James Whitcomb Riley to the
litararv uhoupht of the world