Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-06-21


Crane.'" He was exploited generally for
that reason. Now he is prominent fig
ure in the literary world. His stirring
story, 1.-THE Red Badge of Courage" has
won the young author, for he is now but
25 years old, an enviable reputation on
both sides of the Atlantic.
1.-THE Red Badge of Courage" has re-
ceived the most unqualified praise and
has passed into the seventh edition. The
story Is an episode of the American, civil
war, and the young authors pictures of
those scenes are especially remarkable
for their truth and color. Among the
many criticisms of the work by English
reviews, it has been stated that Mr..
Crane is an old veteran; others, who be-
lieve in the theory of metempsychosis,
think that the soul of some great soldier
and fighter passed into Stephen Crane
and thus enabled him to depict accurately
emotions and experiences he could not
otherwise have felt. But geniuseS are
born and not made, and thus it happens
that this young author has written
most remarka BILE book that has set all the
knowing ones-the critics-a talking.
Now, Mr.. Crane settles 1t this way, and,
as it happens, in far less romantic ac-
count. While at college, he says, he was
an enthusiast over baseball and football.
He was also on an active team in the lat
ter sport just before beginning work on
1.-THE Red Badge of Courage" and he is
quoted as saying: 1T believe 1 got my
sense of the rage of the conflict on the
football field" Mr.. Crane was born In
Newark N. j., in 1870. For time he was
a student at Lafayette college, but at the
early age of 16 he began newspaper work,
and, for some years, much of his time was
occupied in reporting and in writing mis-
cellaneous sketches. In December, 1894,
MIR. Crane called upon the publishers, d.
Appleton &, Co., and spoke of his long
story ssrTha Red Radc-p of COl1r1 pp then
appearing in some newspaper. The out
come was that Appleton published the
work in the autumn Of 1885,
It is phenomenal that the same person
should have conceived and written in
short space of time two works so totally
unlike as 1.-The Red Badge of Courage"
and Maggie, Girl Of the Streets and
the encouraging and only reassuring in
stance Is that Maggie was written
first while the author was only q years
of age.
The originality and power of '"The Red
Badge is easily apparent; its realism Is
appallingly real in the extraordinary
portrayal of the young soldier Henry the
author has analysed with marvellous mi
nuteness each successive emotion which
a young hero like this, indeed, might of
felt The reader takes part in these por-
tentious experiences, and as he reads
with breathless interest each page he
glare of combat and in no wise fails to
realize the dreadful carnage. Can the
art of the realist do more?
"As the landscape changed from brown
to green the army awakened and began
to tremble with eagerness at the noise
of rumors. 1t cast it's eyes upon the
roads, which were growing from long
troughs of liquid mud to proper thorough
fares. A river, amber-tinted in the shad-
ow of its banks, purled at the army's
g. .s-.I~A r.f..O Ix.,
become of a sorrowful blackness, one
could see across it the red, eye-like CLEAN
of hostile campfires set in the low brows
of distant hills
Thus the story opens, with the blue
and the gray on opposite banks of the
stream. The main interest of the story
is concerned with one continuous depic-
ton, vivid and searching, of the pertur-
bations and emotions of the young SOL
der. Henry" one of the blues, and
fresh fish," as the youthful recruits
were persistently called.
However. he perceived now that it
did not greatly matter what kind of SOL
clers he was going to fight, so long as
they fought, which fact no one disputed.
There was a more serious problem. He
lay in his bunk bordering upon it. He
tried to automatically prove to himself
that he would not run from a battle.
He finally concluded that the only way to
prove himself was to go into the blaze
and then .figuratively to watch his legs
to discover their merits and faults.
"He reluctantly admitted that he could
not sit still and with a mental slate and
pencil derive an answer. To gain 1t he
must have blaze, blood and danger, even
as chemist requires this, that and the
other So he fretted for an opportunity"
In this consists the wondrous merit of the
story, that so youthful an author should
be able to depict with such marvellous
originality and truth the feelings of
soldier before and during the intense ac-
tion of battle, and, too, by man who
has seen nothing of war. 1t is said that
veterans rarely give a vivid personal
picture of a battle in which they have
taken part. They may describe general
maneuvers, but fail to describe their
own experiences graphically, very prob
ably because the tension is so great and
events move so rapidly.
The story is a descriptive narrative,
with very little dialogue; in fact, just
enough to throw the characters with Wv
idness and graphic reality against a
background of dainty, picturesque i'm
agery. As to the literary merit of the
story, Mr.. Crane has as individual and
terse a style as is his matter presented.
His sentences are unusually short, clear
cut and full of meaning; standing for an
intense thought, we miss any long in
VOWED intricacies, devoid of ideas. His
diction is forceful and graphic and
evinces rare skill and judgment A little
paragraph supposed to felicitously intro
duce the "Greys" of the combat will
bring smile to each southerner that
reads. so characteristic is it of northern
sentiment. He says:
"'Yank,' the other had informed him,
yer right durn good Teller This senti-
ment, floating to him upon the still air,
had made him temporarily regret war.
Various veterans had told him tales.
Some talked of gray bewhiskered hordes
who were advancing with relentless
curses and chewing tobacco with I'M
speakable valor; tremendous bodies of
fierce soldiery who were sweeping along
like Huns. Others spoke of tattered and
eternally hungry men, who fired despond-
ent powders. They'll charge through
hells fire an birthstone to git holt on
a haversack, an sech stomachs amt a
lasting long, he was told. From the
stories the youth imagined the red, live
bones sticking out through Sits in the
faded uniforms"
1t is one of the very few blemishes in
an otherwise beautiful story. But "to-
bacco chewing Huns is not an agreeable
bit of imagery even to an imaginative
southerper.