The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1916-09-09

minded masters These Hoosiers. these wild bards
and prancing long-Iegged lovers of the moon are
often captured and broken and tanned to trade
and industry by the more sordd ctzenry. They
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 Whtcomb Riley q HoOsier who
happily escaped; he captured never
enslaveG; 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 steadily; he lived among
them Familiarity the end. and until the end
their interpreter to
Bud come here to your uncle a 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 a Hoosier as 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 already debating to whether Riley
had imagination only fancy. Ut would be a
terrible calamity to some of them if they said
it 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
getic young menu And doubtless the point is ex-
ceedingly important. For if a poet has imagi-
nation they say his work is significant And If
he has only fancy his work is not significant
1.-THE chief merit of Riley's dialect verse
which is the most popular part of his production
and the part with which the critics chiefly con-
Germ themselves its effectiveness as a medium
for character portrayal Whimsical, IovabIe,
homely, racy. quaint, salty, pathetic. humorous,
tender are his dialect poems; essentially he has
shown US life as a superior writer of prose
sketches might do. adding the charm OF his Iyri-
cism.
"But, personally. we never like him so well as
when he is writing sheer moonlight and music
Probably no poet who wrote Engsl-cer-
tainly no American pOet-got more luscious Ian
guage than Riley. A 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 but a mouth
For him to lift up sppingly and drain
To his most ultimate of stammering sobs
And maudlin wanderfngs Of blinded breath .
There is better evidence of the genuine.
ness of Riley's sentiment. particularly in the dia
lect 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 tOld-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 a man whose
love and understanding of children was real for
children are quick to detect and repudiate any,
thing or 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 spfrft he was stfII their
playmate; perhaps it is an earnest of immor-
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"