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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. 9