The Republican journal., 1916-01-20
Honors for a Maine Author,

The Boston Transcript recently pub
lished a review by Edward j. O Brien of
the best short stories of 1915, in which he
finds the American short story to be
vastly superior to the English short
story. The article lis of local interest
because in his roll of hon or of ninety-one
stories ne includes two by Lincoln Col
cord, "a Life and a Ship and "Rescue
at Sea-" and of which he says: Lin
coin Colcord's two stories show qualities
of artistic conscience reinforcing an M
aglnatlve substance SO real that another
year or two should suffice for him to
take his place with the leaders of Ameri-
can fiction" Since these stories were
published Mr.. Colcord has won distinc-
ton in another field of literature with
his poem, Vision of War;" of which
"Kmeo," the Maine correspondent of
the Boston Sunday Herald says:
Good critics have called this the
great poetic work of the year, and not
few critics have hailed it as an epoch
making work, one of the few great long
poems that America has given the world.
Lincoln Colcord has earned place in
the front rank of our short story writ
ers in the past decade, but he has not
hitherto been ranked even among the
minor poets-notwithst nding an excel
, lent college song for which he is af-
| fectionately remembered at the Uni
versity of Maine, where he was stu
dent dozen years ago. Mr.. Colcord
may go back to fiction or he may write
more poetry. In any case he has climb
ed rapidly to the top in literature in a
way that recalls the earlier years when
America had real poets.
-. Like Emma Eames, Mr. Colcord has
been thousands of miles from Maine and
yet Maine has a claim that no other
State will dispute in either case. Maine
has so long been a State of seafarlng
folk that many of its sons and daugh-
tiers have been born on shipboard or in
foreign ports. Thus the great singer.
Emma Eames, was born in a Chinese
harbor, both parents are Bath people
and that city, the home of her childhood,
is still her home, and China wisely re-
| trains from putting in claim. So Lin
coin Colcord was born on shipboard off
Cape Horn in 1882, but since his parents
and his ancestors tor generations were
Searsport people, that good old town on
cord is one of its natives, and gets awav
with it, too. His father was of the
fourth generation of Searsport Cocords
to follow the sea and to command their
own vessels. Capt. Colcord's wife COM
| monty sailed with him, and for the first
| IA years of his life Lincoln lived at sea
| with his parents, most of the time in the
| far east. Then he came home to Sears
port to enter the high school
In 1900 he went to the University of
Name, where he was student off and
| on for SIX years, leaving college to do
engineering work in the northern woods
for the Bangor & Aroostook. Then he
began to knock round the world some
more, for the lure of the sea was in his
blood. His first stories to win success in
the magazines were sea stories and tales
of China and the Philippines. Some of
these have been collected in book form.
There are critics who say that '"Ihe
Drifting Diamond" and 1.-THE Game of
Life and Death" contain sea stories that
are the best of their kind since Steven.
son.
The idea of his "Vision of War" came
to him one night while he was walking
under the stars along the Maine shore.
The horrors of the great European con-
llct mao SO grlpped his soul that he could
think OF nothing else. He composed the
first part of the poem that night. Then
the thing began to grow on him and sec
ton followed section until the poem
grew to twice its present length. He
cut 1t mercilessy and rewrote it until
the work suited him,
1t suited his publisher with much more
promptness, and its great hit has been
more of surprise to the modest vonno
writer than to anybody else. 1t is a WIS.,
| ION OF the ultimate brotherhood of man.
yet the author laughs when critics dis
cover from the poem that he is an ardent
Socialist. He has never read work on
socialism In his life, he says. Again he
finds much amusement in the critics to
compare him to Whitman. and find in
his work the influence of Whitman. As
matter of fact, he has read Whitman
only In desultory fashion, and has never
followed the Whitman cult.