The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 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 more sordid citizenry. They
chained to the desk; BY the hundreds and thou
sands they become clerks and statesmen and rail-
road presidents and novelists and business men
81 ali sorts
flames Whitcomb Riley was Hoosier who
happily escaped; he never captured, never
enslayed; the things hidden from the rest OF us,
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 faniliarIy to the end, and until the end
heir interpreter to us.
Bud come here to your uncle SPELL says
Riley in effect, and I'll show you not only fairy
but fairy who has for the moment chosen to be
just much of Hoosier as the Raggedy Man,
or Orphant Annie. Old Kingry. or the folks at
GrieEsby Station.
THE critics and the learned doctors Of liter
allure already debating as to whether Riley
had Imagination or only fancy ut would be a
terrible calamity to some Of them II they said
1t Imagination and 1t officially declared
later to be merely fancy; that is the sort Of
mistake that damns a critic and makes the sons
and grandsons Of critics meek. hacked, apollo
geC Young men, And doubtless the point Is ex-
ceedlngly important. For II poet has imagi-
nation they say his work is significant. And II
he has only fancy his work is not significant.
which is the most popular part of his production
and the part with which the critics chiefly con-
Germ themselves-isst its effectiveness as medium
for character portrayal. Whimsical ovabe.
homeIy racy. quaint, salty, pathetic, humorous.
tender are his dialect poems; essentially, he has
shown life superior writer of prose
sketches might do adding the chr Of his lyri-
ciSn.
But, personally, never like him well as
when he Is writing sheer moonlight and music.
Probably no poet who wrote English-cer-
tainly American poet-got more luscious Ian
guage than Riley. sweetness that Is not so
sugary that It clogs, having always why tang
For instance. from The Flying Islands of the
Night
:. . in lost hours Of lutte and song.
When he was but prince-I but q mouth
For him to lift up sppingly and drain
TO his ultimate Of stammering sobs
And maudlin wanderings of blinded breath. I.
There is better evidence of the genuine
of Riley's sentiment. particularly In the da-
ect poems than the discretion with which he
touches the pathetic chord when he touches II
at all. One Of the most popular poems he ever
wrote was 'Old-Fashioned Roses and word
too much one pressure the least bit too nsistent
would have made the thing as offensive as q
vaudeville ballad. The taste which told him to
be simple and the sincerity which begat the
taste the verses from the reproach
His verses for children and about children
could only have been written by a man whose
love and understanding Of children real, fol
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 was In way testimonial to his per
sisting youthfulness Of spirit; he was still theil
playmate; perhaps 1t Is an earnest of immor
tally IL Immortality can be- Certainly love en-
dures longer than anything else. and this mar
with the childlike sweetness In his soul gesu
from US loved 40 few men have haea"