The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1900-10-12
THE SOUTH'S TRUE HISTORY.
It's Perpetuity Lies With Those Who
Write It's Songs and Stories.

Write It's Songs and Stories.
EDITOR HERALD Your editorial in
recent issue of the HERALD, concern
ing the duty we owe to ourselves and
our town in the matter Of bringing
literary and musical attractions here,
and our seeming neglect in the matter
should meet the appreciation of every
body. No town in the State Is better
situated TO enjoy these entertainments
than Columbia-from age, from the
culture OF our people, from the natural
conditions of things which surround us.
That we do not have more of them, is
due, not because we are not entitled to
them, but because we have allowed the
neglect of them to crystalize into
habit of indifference. When anything
patronize it and encourage it.
The old-time darkey is rapidly passing
away. In fact, sometimes think he has
already passed. He has gone With the
age he represented and stood for-the
age of the South's chivalry-and his
prototype will never again be seen.
Fortunately for posterity, especially the
children of the South, he has been SO
faithfully portrayed in song and story
that so long as our language shall last
he will live in the song and the senti-
ment of it, and this is the most immor-
tai part of any language. "Let me
write the songs of a country" said
Fletcher of Saltour, "and care not who
makes it's laws And he might as
truthfully have said "Let we write
the stories of nation, and care not
who writes its history" For, after
awhile, the stories become the history.
Homer's great story is now the history
of Greece. Shakspeare's stories are
rapidly becoming the history of Eng
land. And that reminds me that we
should not worry, as | once knew you to,
about the history of the South, because,
forsooth, it gets small justice in the
school books now running. We need not
trouble ourselves that school histories
do not do us justice and partisan pub
fishers are against us. All these will
pass away, for the real historians of the
South are at work-its literature has
come to the front, and is being read
all over the world. The dry facts of an
even the dry facts of a truthful
history, can no more stand against it
than sandhill against the pyramids.
For these stories are the life, the very
soul of what has happened And one,
reading them a thousand years from
now, sees it as plainly as if he had lived
then. So, worry not about histories
There are thousands of histories being
printed every year. And by and by
there will come along one story that will
outlive them all and be history when
they have long been out of date.
| should, therefore, call Miss Gordon,
in her inimitable negro songs and sto-
ries, an historical interpreter of the old
South. have never had the pleasure
of hearing her, but from all sides
learn she is easily a master in her art.
And there is reason for that There is
logic in a pedgree-there is fate in
blood lines. There is eternal fitness in
breeding Could the gifted daughter Of
Gen. John B Gordon be otherwise?
| have not heard her read, as
+; | said above, but here is the tes-
timony of one who, to my mind
has done as much for the history
of the South as any one who has
ever taken up the pen of genius in its be
half. refer to that gifted woman, Mrs
:. Ruth McEnery Stuart; ITO my mind
. Miss Gordon stands easily first among
! those who in song and story are giving
i delightful drawing room interpretations
; of negro life. With thorough knowl
/ edge of her subject; the perspective of g
wide social experiences; most winning
personality; voice Of exceptional fiexi
bility and sympathy, and an emotiona
o temperament held we'll in hand by flint
g artistic reserve, her equipment seems t.
. be perfect"
J At the risk of making this communica
: ton too long, but had you eyer though
of it, how few really good artists Their
u are in this line, among the many thou
u sands who have taken it up? To begil
with, the average white man, per
haps from New England, drawing
big Tipped, overdone thing in burnt cori
and low jokes. with dialect he pickles
e up from the Lord only knows where, i
n positively painful to me. The latter
e day negro who tries is as great a fail
e ure, because, having out-grown tn
reality he has not the intellect to be th
n artist-And that is what it requires. Al
to the average cheap reader, he
simply an abomination. From all
can learn, Miss Gordon is an arts
from instinct, from birth, intelligenc
and environments. And in her interpr'
tation next Monday night, l do nc
e think Columbia people will ever hav
rs heard anything better, in its lipe.