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Among the Thinkers and Writers of Dixie
By DAVID E. GUYTON.
IRWIN RUSSELL.
Nowhere in the annals of Southern literature is
there a more pathetic story than that of Irwin Rus
sell, of Mississippi. In years, his life was but a
slender span; in sorrow and tears, eternity alone
shall sound its utmost depths. From the cradle to
the grave, his career was a conflict—a long, fierce
series of triumphs and defeats. Now thrilled at the
touch of an angel’s wing, he soared to the gates of
heaven; now fired by the flames of a demon’s
breath, he plunged to the depths of hell. Swayed
by impulse, subdued by passion, he sought to drown
his sorrows in the brimming bowl. Perhaps he was
sordid, perhaps he was craven, perhaps he was sin
less—God knows.
Irwin Russell, the rum-cursed rhapsodist, was a
product of Port Gibson, Miss., and blossomed into
being June 3, 1853. His father was descended from
Virginia sires, and his mother was a native of the
State of New York, so the blood of both Puritan
and Cavalier coursed unified through his veins.
In spite of his honorable genealogy, however, he
seems to have been born under an unlucky star; for,
at three months old, he fell victim to a violent at
tack of yellow fever, from which he never fully
recovered; and before he rounded out his boy
hood, he stabbed one of his eyes with a knife, there
by rendering himself weak-sighted, the longest day
that he lived.
But imperfect vision did not prevent him from
acquiring an education; for, after having taken a
primary course in the preparatory schools of St.
Louis, whither his father had gone in 1854, he en
tered the St. Louis University, and remained four
years in the institution, graduating with special dis
tinction in 1869. As a student, he was clever and
diligent, and had such an adequate knowledge of
things that his comrades marvelled at his memory
and at the depth and breadth of his mind. Strange
as it seems, he was especially efficient in higher
mathematics, and was never happier than when puz
zling his brain with some perplexing problem. In
the languages, too, and in literature, he was always
a leader in his classes, and was almost the equal
of his tutors themselves, in interpreting the enigmas
of the masters.
Thus admirably equipped, he returned to Port
Gibson at the close of his collegiate career, his
father having moved to Mississippi in the meantime
to cast in his lot with the cause of the South,
and immediately entered upon the study of law,
pursuing his reading with so much fidelity that,
before he was twenty, he obtained a legal license
through a special decree of the state legislature.
A smiling future seemed to beckon to him; and he
hung out his shingle with hope soaring high; but
he soon grew weary of the routine of the jurist;
and, although recognized as a clever conveyancer,
he deliberately abandoned the legal arena without
having had a single tilt in the courts.
Such was the cast of his character. A creature
of impulse, he tossed about on every tide of passion;
and neither his parents nor himself had the power
to suppress his caprice. Fired with a longing
for novel experience, he lived as a sailor among the
tars; now driven by a wild desire to wander, he
endeavored to sail for distant seas. Regular em
ployment was repulsive to his nature; and nothing
but shifting from calling to calling satisfied the
yearning of his restless soul. With a personality
replete with foibles, he revelled in the odd and the
rare. He had a passion for old publications; and his
shelves were lined with “many a quaint and cu
rious volume of forgotten lore.” Printing, too, was
one of his fads. He had a little hand-press of his
own; and he used to win the heart of many a fair
maiden of the Port Gibson School by publishing
their college magazine for them. For music, also,
he had a deep love, delighted in singing, played the
piano, and handled the banjo with the skill of a
“Ham.”
His musical talent, it was, indeed, which first
The Golden Age for August 9,1906.
revealed to him the possibility of utilizing the negro
dialect as a medium of literary expression. The
delightful discovery is said to have been made in
the following comical manner: Hearing an old
black mammy chanting her praise to the Lord, one
day, he was suddenly seized with an irresistible
impulse to imitate her strains; so catching up his
banjo, he joined in the anthem, making his lines
as he went, and became so impressed with the
merit of the medium that he straightway determin
ed to develop it fully as soon as his poetic powers
should permit. The good-natured mockery aroused
the auntie’s wrath; and she predicted all sorts of
misfortunes for him; but he never desisted because
of her prophecies; and true to the resolution taken
then, he later perfected his rude improvisations,
thereby paving the way for Uncle Remus and Thos.
Nelson Page.
At the time of this discovery, he was only six
teen; but he had already begun to rush into rhyme,
and made for himself a local reputation as a writer
of youthful lays. Owing to his capricious charac
ter, it is somewhat difficult to determine with ac
curacy just when he really began his career as a
positive litterateur; in 1876, however, his poems
first began to appear in Scribner’s; and it is, there
fore, convenient to accept this date as the begin
ning of his literary life.
With the knowledge that his efforts were being
rewarded, he now set to work at his desk; but his
darker destiny again overshadowed him; for, in
1878, his town was stricken with a scourge of yel
low fever. He did not flee from the plague as many
of his comrades had done, but stood bv his people
till the pestilence had subsided, feeding the hun
gry, nursing the victims, cheeking the dying, and
burying the coffinless dead. He came through the
perils without a scar; but his father went down
in the conflict with death; and the orphan boy was
never himself again down to the day of his death.
Thus deprived of paternal support, young Rus
sell now determined to trv his fortune in the lit
erary circles of the North. With his grin well
packed with poetic wares, he arrived in the City of
New York in December. 1878. jAs was the case
wffierever he went, he found true friends among the
publishers there: but soon after landing, he was
stricken with a fever: and except for the care and
attention of men like Gilder. Bunner and Johnson,
he would certainlv have closed his literary career
before it had scarcely begun.
Having finally recovered sufficient strength to
stago’er down to the docks, ’he slinped awav from
his faithful friends, secured his passage on a steam
er bound for the Crescent Citv, and hy serving as
a coal-heaver, and living on “slum-gullion,” con
trived to make his way South once more.
Arriving in New Orleans penniless and exhausted,
he disguised himself, jotted down some verses, and
took them around tn the office of the Times. He
was not recognized, but was requested by the editor
to return to Mr. Russell, and to ask him to call
on the chief in person. Without revealing his iden
tity, the poet retired to his rickety quarters, and
wrote the editor a note, telling him his whole sad
story. He was given a niece on tho staff of the
Times: and many of his brightest and rarest poems
were first given out in its columns.
During his connection with the naper. he nassed
much of his leisure time in the office of Catherine
Cole: for his mother and sister having gone to Cali
fornia. he had no other kind-hearted woman to
whom he could go for counsel and comfort. Through
out his life he had battled hard to overcome the
thirst for drink: but iust before his death, he seems
to have felt that nothing could sav° him Hmn: for
to Catherine Cole he unburdened his heart in these
pathetic lines:
tf J feel, now, so old am T. as if T could not re
member the age when occacionallv the desire for
some unnatural stimulant did not possess me with
a fury of desire. This has been stronger than am-
bition, stronger than love. I have stretched my
moral nature like a boy playing with a piece of
elastic, knowing I should snap it presently. It has
been the romance of a weak young man threaded
in with the pure love of a mother, a beautiful girl
who hoped to be my wife, and friends who believed
in my future. I have watched them lose heart, lose
faith, and again and again I have been so stung
and startled that I resolved to save myself in spite
of myself. I never shall.”
On December 23, 1879, the restless soul of the
unhappy poet escaped from its prison-house. No
kindred spirit was near him in his last hours. , He
breathed his last breath in a rickety little house,
right on the front of a dirty street in the slums
of the Crescent City. His nurse in his fatal illness
was a simple Irish woman with whom he lodged.
“Hers were the steady arms that held him when
delirium seized him; hers were the hands that ad
ministered medicine and food; her time and her
sympathy were freely given, and when at midnight
he died on a poor cot, in a poor room under the
roof her prayers were the white wings of the
guardian angel that accompanied the departing soul
through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Russell wrote but little, but this little was rare.
His bits of character-study in dialect are, of course,
his best productions, yet he has left a few gems
written in unsullied English. His “Christmas Night
in the Quarters” should be regarded as his master
piece, and for faultless delineation of Negro life,
it possibly has no equal in American literature.
The technique of Russell’s verses may sometimes
seem faulty, but his pictures are always perfect;
and his name and fame shall linger long in the
hearts and minds of his people.
Tn Holland potatoes are not received in the par
cels post, Denmark will not receive almanacs, and
Egypt will not permit sausages to be posted. Ger
many refuses anything of American origin and has
some clauses directed against Japan; while airguns,
maps, wax matches, rosaries, relics and jewelry are
the miscellaneous lot barred by Spain.
Rome, under Augustus, had a fire brigade and
force of night police, numbering in all 7,000 men.
College Notes.
Prof. A. H. Redding, principal of the Mercer-Gib
son Academy, is studying during the summer at Co
lumbia University, New York.
Dr. J. B. Simmons who recently died in New York
city, bequeathed eighty thousand dollars to Sim
mons college of Abilene, Tex.
An item in the Korean Daily News, of recent date,
stated that the movement for starting schools in
that country has grown until it almost amounts to a
mania. There is scarcely a Korean of wealth in the
country who has not become a patron of an educa
tional establishment of some kind.
The Rev. Dr. W. 11. S. Demarest is the fifth of
his name who has been identified with the govern
ment of Rutgers College. He is the new president of
the college and his father, his grandfather, his great
giandfather and his great, great grandfather were
all trustees of the institution.
Germany is the leader of the world in education.
Not content with the best common school system,
the best industrial schools and the best universi
ties, the Prussian minister of commerce is co-operat
ing with the municipal authorities of Frankfort
on-Main in establishing an institution in that city
to increase the skill of men who are already master
workmen in their craft. This school offers special
instruction to carpenters, locksmiths, upholsterers
and tailors. It is part of the systematic effort in
Germany not only to convert laborers to skilled
workmen, but to raise the standard of intelligence
and efficiency in the various trades.—Youth’s Com
panion.
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