The age-herald., 1898-12-17
MISS WEEDENS' :
 BEAUTIFUL BOOK

Miss Howard Weeden, the gifted little arz tist of Huntsville. is to be Congratulated, and her friends, especially her Alabama friends. ought to be gratified at the great success of her book. Shadows on the Wall" It certainly is unique and rare contribution to make all Alabamians proud Z of Miss Weeden. Her book is the com- bined work of the artist and the poet. It is hard to tell whether she has painted her character to illustrate her poem, or written her poem to illustrate her charae- ter It is fact. however,a as we are informed that Miss Weeden was first an artist and first painted her negro heads, for they are the shadows oh the wall" She first became an expert in Illuminating books, poems and gems of literature. Beautiful specimens of her art in illustrating Holmes Under the Violets,' are extant. Then she devoted herself specially to painting in water colors. Finally she dropped into the painting of negro heads' in India ink, and in this line she has become a specialist and won a fame co-extensive with our continent and lately she has received orders from across the water. So far as is known she Is the only artist in this kind of work. She has the field to herself. The book is not before the writer, as this brief review of 1t is given. But some of the heads. with accom- panying poems are recalled. The first head is one of our old black mammy, whom all of us, born and reared in the south, will recognize at once. Her head is tied up with the indispensable. bandana handkerchief, and above her head rests the halo. Yes, she is appropriately dignified with the halo of the saint. One can hardly keep from saying: Why, Gawd bless your old soul there is my mammy-my Nanny Cindy or my Nanny Charity" and then the little poem that goes with it, 'mother and nanny" so tender, so full of pathos, who can help from crying over it. Reader did you ever have an old black nanny. We all have our mothers. Some of us have never known our sainted mothers. They d.ed when we were too young to know them. But the person who has never had a black mammy is certainly to be pitied. "Gawd bless your little soul honey, come here to nanny and set in Ger lap."
 Have you never heard that? Sorry for you if you have not. The writer knew an old nanny who reared three generations of her white folks. and when sine died her casket was covered with beautiful flowers and palms, and many touching obituary mo- tices were written in her memory. One of the tenderest letters in all epistolary lit. erature was written by a college student, whom she had nursed and reared and who loved her with a love very dear and very sacred. In this dual poem of Mother and Mammy'' Mss Howard Weeden has immortalized the love for them both.
 'Old Rome,'' the ferryman, with his sturdy, faithful head and face, and his ex- pression. which says, "Yes, Mars, I gwine be dar and row you ober de river in a minit," is humorous and pathetic He is just typical old darky ferryman.
 Next comes the old cook. Did you ever eat any beaten biscuit?" The head of Miss Weeden's cook is that, of biscuit beater' from away back: How does | make dem biscuit? Iris de lcks you put on 'em, honey. De gredience got nuthin to do wld em. When deres nobody dar but home folks, three four hundred licks will do But when youse got comp'ny no lessen 300 licks gwine do for dem biscuits. You hear me?''
 One thing about these heads. There is no machine work. They not photo- graphs. The soul of the artist is in the work-the picture and the fame go to. gether apd reveal the soul of the artist Polk Miller, the inimtabie delineator of the darky as he was fore de wah," and as we sometimes find him now, has dignihed and ennobled the descendants of Ham. He has never caricatured him. He loved him too well for that. So Miss Howard Weeden by her rare duplex genius of painting and poetry, has immortalzed and perpetuated these fast fading pictures of the olden time.
 That distinguished specialist in the negro dialect, Joel Chandler Harris, the renowned delineator of Uncle Remus," has written splendid tribute to this book of the gift ed Huntsville artist, which will no doubt bring her scores of friends and patrons
 No better book, no more appropriate Christmas holiday present can be given by a man to his wife, by a wife to her hus- band, by young man to his sweetheart or by one friend to another. DAN C.