The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-06-19
Scenes Made Famous
 by James Lane Allen

Many years have passed since the writer of this paper made his pilgrimage to the Blue Grass region of Kentucky for the purpose of visiting the scenes associated with the work of James Lane Allen. In those years changes have doubt taken place. Old structures, retaining the flavor and the aspect of the early life and civilization of the state, prob ably have made way for spacious new office buildings. Where there were wild gardens then perhaps there are rows of dwellings now.
 Perhaps the old Lexington courthouse is gone and there is new one on the site. But even if that be so, Lexington is the heart of the James Allen country, and the heart of Lexing- ton is that part of the city which lies adja- cent to the courthouse square. On the west ern side runs Cheapside, which was the scene of so many of the incidents of the tales that make up Flute and Violin." It was there that, in "Two Gentlemen of Kentucky" Col Romulus Fields and his faithful Peter Cotton opened store for the sale of hardware and agricultural implements. 4n front of the court house, at the corner of Main street and Cheap side, King Solomon of Kentucky was placed upon the block for sale to the highest bidder the day before the plague reached Lexington in the dreadful spring of 1883.
 King Solomon of Kentucky" was one of those stories in which the author was inde- pendent of invention and could direct all of his art to the polishing of the setting It was almost literally exact Hardly the name of a character or line of description but was taken from the local history of the time. To use Mir Aliens own words; "The old French confectioner figured in it, the old French dancing master, the old music teacher, the description of M xaupi's ball, what there is of it, is actual enough. One of the cos tumes-'a white satin with ethereal silk over dress embroidered in an oak leaf of green was the wedding dress of the authors own mother" The grave of King Solomon in the Lexington cemetery is marked with white stone. few hundred yards away from the courthouse square, on the site of the Phoenix hotel, was Poslethwates tavern, where gath cred the idlers the morning that King Solo sold.
 Through the richest part O. the Blue Grass region runs the pike that leads from the city of Lexington southward. On that pike, four miles from the citys edge, the house in which MT. Allen spent many of his boyhood years ,and which he turned to vivid descrip- tion as the home of Adam Moss in "A Ken lucky Cardinal and Aftermath It is the land which has made the term Blue Grass syn onymous with rural beauty. The country is dotted with the great stock farms from which have come so many of the famous race horses of the American turf.
 About half way between Lexington and the home of Adam Moss there stood on the high ground to the east of the turnpike the old house in which Mir. Allen was born Then be- yond that, still going south, there came toll gate, and then breaking off from the turn pike to the left, ,a road that led to the scene of the two famous stories, the house sur- rounded by trees of holly, juniper, fir and the storm beaten cedars." Even 20 years ago the house was going rapidly to decay. There was very little left of "Sylvias arbor," under which Sylvia sat to read the novels of Sir Walter Scott, and to carry her flirtations with ''the forward gosling with white duck pantaloons and brandished pumps on his flat feet
 'In shadowy, solitary valley of southern Kentucky, and beside noiseess stream, there stands today a great French abbey of white cowled Trappist monks" So began "The White Cowl." In the chapter, "A Home of the Silent Brotherhoodi in ".the Blue Grass re- zion of Kentucky MT. Allen told the story of the strange scene of the tale, the monas- tery which was called the Abbey of Geth- semane, and which owed it's origin immedi- ately to the Abbey of LaMeileraye, in the department of the Loire Infereure, France. In the autumn of 1848, 45 of the religious" left the mother abbey, set sail for New Orleans, went thence to Louisville, and from there walked to Gethsemane, a distance of some 50 miles. The abbey domain comprised 1,700