Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1916-09-08
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minded masters. These Hoosiers, these wild bards
and prancing, long-legged lovers of the moon, are
often captured and broken and tanned to trade
and industry by the sordid citizenry. They
are yoked to the handle end of the ploW,
chained to the desk; by the hundreds and thou
sands they become clerks and statesmen and rail-
road presidents and novelists and business men
of all sorts.
flames Whitcomb Riley Hoosier who
happily escaped; he was never captured never
enslaved; the things hidden from the rest of US,
or revealed only in flashes remembered but
vaguely from the days of our own happy Hoosier-
dom, he continued to see steadily; he lived among
them Familiarity to the end, and until the end
was their interpreter to u.s.
"Bud come here to your uncle q SPELL says
Riley in effect and I'll show you not only fairy,
but fairy who has for the moment chosen to be
just as much of Hoosier the Raggedy Man,
or Orphant Annie, or Old Kingry, or the folks at
Griggsby Station
1.-THE critics and the learned doctors Of liter
allure are already debating as to whether Riley
had Imagination or only fancy. Ut would be a
terrible calamity to some OF them If they said
it was imagination and it was officially declared
later to be merely fancy that is the sort OF
mistake that damns critic and makes the sons
and grandsons OF critics meek, hacked, apollo
getic young men, And doubtless the point is ex-
ceedingly important For If poet has fmagi-
nation they say his work is significant. And IL
'The chief merit of Rileys dialect verse
which is the most popular part of his production
and the part with which the critics chiefly con-
Germ themselves--is its effectiveness as medium
for character portrayal. Whimsical lovable,
homely, racy quaint, salty, pathetic, humorous,
tender are his dialect poems; essentially, he has
shown us life superior writer of prose
sketches might do, adding the charm of his lyri-
cism.
"But personally we never like him so well as
when he is writing sheer moonlight and music.
Probably no poet who wrote English-cer-
tainly no American poet-got more luscious lam
guage than Riley. sweetness that is not so
sugary that it cloys having always why tang.
For instance from The Flying Islands of the
Night
8. in lost hours of lutte and song,
When he was but prince but mouth
For him to lift up sippingly and drain
To his most ultimate of stammering sobs
And maudlin wanderings of blinded breath. ,
"There is better evidence of the genuine
of Riey's sentiment, particularly in the dia-
lect poems than the discretion with which he
touches the pathetic chord when he touches it
at all. One of the most popular poems he ever
wrote was 'Old-Fashioned Roses and one word
too much one pressure the least bit too insistent
would have made the thing as offensive as a
vaudeville ballad. The taste which told him to
be simple and the sincerity which begat the
taste save the verses from the reproach.
'His verses for children and about children
could only have been written by man whose
love and understanding of children was real, for
children are quick to detect and repudiate any
thing of the sort that is pumped up for effect
and they contributed enormously to the general
feeling Of affection for him. The regard of the
children in way testimonial to his per
sisttng youthfulness of spirit; he was still their
playmate; perhaps it is earnest of irnmor-
tally If Immortality be. Certainly love en-
dures longer than anything else, and this man
with the childlike sweetness in his soul goes
from us loved as few men have been"