The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1916-09-07

minded masters. These HOLSTERS these wild bards
ana prancing, oug-legged lovers of the moon, are
often captured and broken and tanned to trade
and industry by the more sordid citizenry Ihey
are yoked to the handle end of the pillow,
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.
James Whitcomb Riley a Hoosier who
happily escaped; he was never captured. never
enslaved; the things hidden from the rest of us,
revealed only in flashes, remembered but
vaguely from the days of our own happy Hooser-
dom, he continued to see steadily; he lived among
them familiarly 10 the end and until the end
their interpreter to us.
bud come here to your uncle SPELL says
Riley in effect and I'll show you not only fairy,
but a fairy who has for the moment chosen to be
lust as much of a Hoosier as the Raggedy Man,
or Orphant Annie, Old Kingry, or the folks at
GriggSby Station
"The critics and the learned doctors of liter
allure are already debating to whether Riley
had Imagination only fancy. ct would be a
terrible calamity to some of them If they said
1t was Imagination and it was 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
gctic young men) And doubtless the point is ex-
ceedingy important. For If a poet has imag-
IL
he has only fancy his work is not significant
1.-THE chief merit of Rley's dialect verse
which is the most popular part of his production
and the part with which the critics chiefly con-
Germ themseIves-is its effectiveness medium
for character portrayal. Whimsical, lovahle,
homely, rncy quaint, salty, pathetic humorous,
tender are his dialect poems; essentially. he has
shown US life as n 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 ever wrote English-cer-
tanly no American poet-go more luscious Ian
guage than Riley. sweetness that is not so
sugary that 1t 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 n prince but mouth
For him to lift up sippngIy and drain
To his most ultimate Of stammering sobs
And maudn wanderngs of blinded breath. :
There is no better evidence of the genuine
ness of Riley's sentiment particularly In the dla-
lcct poems, than the discretion with which ne
touches the pathetic chord when he touches 1t
nj all. one of the most popular poems he ever
wrote was 'OId-Fashioned Roses and one word
too much, one pressure the least bit too insstent
would have made the thing ms offensive ms "A
vaudeville ballad. The taste which told MIN to
be simple and the sincerity which begat the
taste save the verses from the reproach.
Ills verses for children and about children
could only have been written by a man whose
love and understanding of children was real, for
children are quick to detect and repudiate any
thlng of the sort that IS pumped up for effect
ANA they contributed enormously to the general
feeling of affection for him. The regard of the
'mIdren was IN a wny n testimonial to his per
SlS''hg youhiuness of spirit; he was still their
playmate; perhaps II is al earnest of inmor.
AMY II Immortality can ie. Certainly love en-
dur"s longer thnn anything else md this man
WIN the chtldlike sweetness in his soul goes
from US loved as few men have been"