The age-herald., 1900-06-10
esSegeeosseeeesoose 9eees
H Stranger in Tuscaloosa.
@0G3D9G4 G4G9G90G3G@@Gt


 ! features do not set it apart or give it a l significance greatly different from that of ! other southern places in which the new ! order of things is slowly but surely over 1 coming the old. But as a badge of faded l civilization once worn proudly on the breast | of a typical southern state, this old city has it's peculiar beauty, interest and pictur- l sequences. drive in it's principal streets
 and along many of the country roads about has filled my brain with sketches that will
 not be easily erased. I can recall no
 American town, with the possible exception of Tallahassee, Florida, as it was some twenty years ago, in which the forms, the masses, the composition and the colors of old slavery days have stood out so perfectly against the beating tide of time.
 Were 1 an artist l could revel here Tor a month or two, making studies of these old lofty-plllared and tree-shaded mansions. Were 1 poet, what more could 1 want of inspiration to song than the dreamy, fading lines and shadowy figures of the great by gone civilization which somehow will not disappear from these brown hills and dilap
 dated mansions? Let it not be understood that Tuscaloosa is dilapidated do not mean to make that impression; but what is new is new, and what Is old is fast gather ing the mold and rime of age. Many of the yDicdl mansions Ol SldNeTy lililtS diC sun well kept up, especially those within the city limits but out in the country most Of them look pathetically forlorn. One hand scme and spacious plantation residence, mile from town, on fine tree-covered hlll, overlooking all the surrounding country, IS now school for colored students It is built of brick, with the walls succeed, and across the broad front runs a grand yer anda with massive fiuted columns tall and stately, almost imposing seen at little dis tance.
 Tuscaloosa contradcts itself at every turn. It says, "I am old and decrepit;' 1t says, "I am young, vigorous, wide-awake.' At one street corner it looks intensely mod ern, at the next there hangs the film Of sixty or seventy years ago. It has a busy cotton oil mill, a clattering oil mill and other fourishing local industries. Three banks do large business it's merchants and mechanics it's professional men and capitalists evidently active and success ful. Yet here are the streets still in the condition of country roads; here are the sidewalks dilapdated beyond description, and here everywhere the need Of paint makes the houses dim and unsightly. l many new houses going up, but no work being done the streets. A curious phase of transition seems to be in progress "a passing from the beautiful the spacious and the solid to the showy, the cramped and the jig-saw finished. Why do south erners let the roomy, massive stately old mansions go to decay, and in their places build blaming mill Queen Anne band-boX houses for homes?
 1 drove out to the State University, a substantial set of buildings in lovely grounds Not far away is the State In- sane Asylum. Dr. Powers, president of the university, lives in a most attractive and typical southern house just outside of the campus. The Methodsts and the Baptists each have a woman's college here, the lat ter having the site, l was told, of the state house, which was here long ago, when Tuscaloosa from her shady hills beside the Black Warrior river ruled Alabama with free hand. Naturally much culture has arrived through many channels to the best people of the town Wealth has always been here. While the seat of state govern ment remained here it attracted many bril- liant men and women, whose families still lend their influence to society. The univer- sity and the colleges give to the atmosphere a decided literary touch.
 During my leisurely drives with an intel ligent colored coachman who seemed to know everybody's history, I called a halt in front of the plantation home of that de- lightful poet, Samuel Minturn Peck Talk ing due advantage of the absence of MT. Peck, who was in New York, sketched the house and surroundings for future refer ence. It is quiet, gray, embowered place, of nondescript architecture, yet charmingly inviting. The front yard was aglow with roses and a variety of other flowers. A grand oak overshadowed one end of the house. From my carriage while it stood before the home gate I could see for miles in all directions, even to some bllowy mountain knobs against the sweetest of all sky-lines. considerable plantation sur rounds MT. Peck's house, which is cared for by colored family. Great fields of corn and oats (and what from a distance looked like cotton) showed excellent agri- culture The mocking birds were singing under the poets windows. While l listened to their marvellous voices and drew in the sweets of rose-garden and orchard and fields and wood, l wondered why the south- ern poet prefers the rush and swirl of the metropolis to that restful, dream haunted nook, where he has written so many grace ful and hauntingly pretty bits of true song. l tried in vain to bribe my driver to face the danger of dog and look up the .olored tenants. l wanted some of PeckS roses to take home with me. What did take away is an impression of home that looks just like the nest of a song-bird, cozy, drab half hidden in bloom and foliage and altogether attractive.
 These poets of the south, Hayne Lanier,
 Timrod, Jackson, Ryan, Requier, Randall, Flash, of the older set now nearly vanished, and the later ones, Robert Burns Wilson, Will H. Hayne, Frank Stanton, Samuel Minturn Peck-and whole bevy of others how they have sung the very heart and life of this strange, self-satisfied, half lag ging, half hustling, glorious, sun-burnt
 part of our mighty country And how they all or nearly all, look northward for their patronage! We'll, were l a poet, you could never persuade me to leave such a restful, perfumed, rose-embowered house as yours, o Peck! and go off to New York to be swallowed up in trade, Tammany and tur- moi, never. never.
 When tired of the carriage and my drivers free babble l took leave of both and continued my pleasant explorations on foot. Is it not strangers privilege to en- joy what strikes his vision with the sweet shock of the pure and the beautiful in a strange place? Tuscaloosa is a town of beautiful women. Wherever walked met them, and could not keep off the wonder of their striking forms and faces Why is
 1t that this gift of beauty in abundance falls to one town and not to another. In some places all of the women seem plain: you see scarcely any memorable counte- | nances, scarcely any forms strongly at tractive, while in others pair of glorious Ger,1 f fAr