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Among the Thinkers and Writers of Dixie
RICHARD HENRY WILDE.
A merchant yet in his teens, a student burning
the midnight oil, a jurist reforming the laws of
his land, a statesman thrilling his peers with his
eloquence, a scholar enriching the fame of a Tas
so with his life of the witching bard, a poet stirring
the heart of humanity wdth songs that shall never
die—such was the character of Richard Henry
Wilde, the subject of the following sketch.
Richard Henry Wilde was the son of a hardware
merchant of Dublin, and was born in the Irish
Capital, Sept. 24, 1789. The family remained in the
Old Country till Richard was eight years old, but
becoming involved in the political turmoils of 1797,
was obliged to flee from Ireland, leaving its commer
cial interests in the hands of friends. Settling in
Baltimore, the father began a prosperous business,
but dying before it was firmly established, left the
family in straitened circumstances.
Realizing that the support of the family of six
devolved upon him, and having no regular employ
ment in Baltimore, Richard, now turning into his
teens, went to Augusta, Ga., to accept a clerkship
in a dry goods store. This position he held for sev
eral months, giving perfect satisfaction to the pro
prietor and making friends among the people who
frequented his place of business. Finally, believ
ing himself equal to the undertaking, he persuaded
his mother to come to him, and opened a store of
his own. In spite of his youth, he succeeded well,
and soon placed his household upon their feet
again.
Easy on this point, he now set about to procure
an education. He longed for a course a college; but
feeling this desire unattainable, he resolved to edu
cate himself at home. Such a course required a
deal of pluck on the part of the handsome strip
ling; but having made up his mind to rise, he, while
his comrades revelled and slept, read and thought
and dreamed. His name was never written on a
college roll; yet few of his contemporaries excelled
him in scholastic attainments.
With a firm literary foundation laid in the si
lence of the night, he now resolved to prepare, him
self for the legal profession, borrowed books from
a generous attorney, and within two years obtained
a license to practice in the courts of his common
wealth. His knowledge of theoretical law surprised
his learned examiners; and yet so very modest was
he that he went to another county to take his ex
amination, fearing to humiliate his mother by fail
ing.
Hardly had he opened his office, however, when
clients began to clamor for his services; and, in fact,
the people of his state were so impressed with his
ability that they made him their attorney general
before he was twenty-five. Thus elevated, he set
to work to reform the false jurisprudence then in
vogue; and during his regime the legal life of Geor
gia underwent a course of careful r; novation.
Not content with these dignities, Wild 3 plunged
into politics; and such was his popularity that he
was elected to Congress just after his twenty-fifth
birthday. Erudite in law, deliberate in council, elo
quent in debate, he soon commanded the respect of
the representatives; and his influence steadily in
cieased till he was recognized as one of the most
potent factors in the National Assembly. Proud of
his splendid record, his constituents returned him
to Congress for several terms; but owing to his
resolute stand against President Jackson and the
Force Bill, he was finally defeated.
In social circles, too, Wilde was a general favor
ite. Endowed with a fine physique, radiant with
wholesome humor, bubbling over with sparkling wit.
rich in repartee, he was always one of the most con
spicuous characters in the social life of his day.
But weary at length of the drawing room and
out of the political arena, the poet soon found him
self possessed with a longing for something thrilling
and new, and accordingly set out across the seas
for a tour through the European States. He re
mained abroad for about five years, spending much
of the time in Italy, studying Italian literature, and
collecting materials for lives of Tasso and Dante.
While in Florence, he discovered a portrait of the
By DAVID E. GUYTON.
The Golden Age for August 16, 1906.
author of the Divine Comedy, the only likeness
of Dante in existence. .
With the publication of his “Life and Works of
Tasso,” Wide’s literary career really began. He
had written a few essays of merit, it is true, and
had likewise delivered a number of orations worthy
of lofty praise; he had even given voice to a few
of his sweetest and rarest sones; but his writings
had not attracted universal attention. His work
on the Italian minstrel, however, brought him prom
inently before the literary lights of the land, and
from that time forward, he enjoyed the distinction
of being considered a master among Southern men
of letters.
Returning from Europe, he settled in New Or
leans. When the department of law was added to
the University of Louisiana, he was made Profes
sor of Constitutional Law in the institution, remain
ing in this position until his death.
The poet had a robust constitution; but exces
sive work in his younger days had undermined his
strength; so having fallen a victim to the yellow
fever, which desolated New Orleans in 1847, he
found himself unable to combat the attack, dying
Sept. 7, 1847.
Before having gone from Augusta, Wilde had
married, and had left one of his little ones buried
in the garden of his country home at Summerville.
He had always expressed a desire to be laid beside
his boy; and accordingly was taken from the Cres
cent City and interred by the grave of his son. No
slab of any kind marked the spot where the heart
of the singer slept; but his body has since been, re
moved to Augusta; and although his grave is still
without a stone, a noble monument has been raised
to his memory on one of the principal streets of
the city.
Wilde wrote a volume of verse, much of it
of a high order. His fame as a poet, however, de
pends especially upon his little three-stanza Ivric,
“My Life is Like the Summer Rose.” These lines,
which were part of a longer poem never completed
by the inimitable poet, were hailed everywhere as
a masterpiece when they first found their way into
print; and no less a celebrity than the author of
Childe Harold wrote the minstrel a personal letter
in which he declared that the lay was the very fin
est of the century. Other writers have claimed the
authorship of these lines, but the Georgia Historical
Society has established the truth of the matter,,
showing beyond the shadow of a doubt that they
came from the heart of Richard Henry Wilde.
“My life is like the summer rose,
That opens to the morning sky;
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground—to die!
Yet on the rose’s humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As though she wept such waste to see;
But none shall weep a tear for me!”
“The Sage of Golden Gate” Turns Poet
at Four Score Years.
By WILLIAM D. UPSHAW.
Youth is generally counted the “poetic age”—
and love is the universal spark that ignites the poet
ic flame. Or, if the figure be changed, it is yet love
that waxes the heart, they say, into poesy and
song.
Scotia’s best beloved bard declared that he nev
er thought of writing poetry until he fell heartily
in love “and then,” he says, “rhyme and song
were the spontaneous language of my heart.”
Burns said he liked that quaint old couplet:
“As toward her cot he jogged along
Her name was frequent in his song.”
But it is neither the glow of youth nor the rosy
realm of romance that has awakened the heart and
tuned the lyre of one of Atlanta’s patriarchal citi
zens
Mr. J. J. Richards, who celebrated his eighty
fifth birthday on August Bth, is an unique and thor
oughly interesting character in that his favorite
pastime for the last five gr six year§ has been writ
ing and singing hymns,
When the editor of this paper was a sandy-hair
ed, freckled-faced, bare-footed boy, he used to buy
school books and marbles from the then prominent
book store of J. J. and S. P. Richards. The subject
of this sketch was then an old, gray-haired man,
inspiring the boys and girls with reverence as white
hairs always do, and hence the recent visits to the
office of The Golden Age have held peculiar interest
for the one-time boy who got the beginning of an
unfinished education from the books bought in Rich
ards’ Book Store and studied in old Crew Street
School.
‘‘ I have written a new song—a paraphrase of an
old piece I used to sing when a boy,” he will say.
“Let me sing it to you,” and with his face aglow,
voice strikingly clear for one of his advanced years,
he will sing beautiful religious words to an old
time air. One time it is a paraphrase of “Annie
Laurie,” another it is “Old Folks at Home;” an
other time perhaps “Lorens,” and yet again that
religio-patriotic strain, “My Country, ’Tis of
Thee.”
This poet-patriarch has not waited, however, un
til the evening of a long, eventful life to discover
his love for books and high class literature. He has
not only sold books, but has read them with eager
ness and assimilation and his choice of words is
excellent, whether as shown in paraphrasing an
old familiar song or in the creation of new thought
and new measure.
Many of his old friends will recognize him by
the picture here given, but he still clings to his
nom-de-plume, the Sage of Golden Gate, the name
under which all his published articles have appeared
in the newspapers. He has a volume in manuscript
which he expects to have printed. The introductory
verses to his book, which will bear the title, “Mus
ings of the Sage of Golden Gate,” will be some
lines from the poet Gay:
“Remote from cities lived a swain, (
Unvexed with all the cares of gain;
His head was silvered o’er with age,
And long experience made him Sage.”
Don’t Like Osler and Chloroform.
When Dr. Osler made his notorious assertion, that
“meh at the age of forty were at their best, and
should be retired, and at sixty, should be chloro
formed,” our poet-patriarch was writing a series
of what he termed “Thank Hymns,” in one of
which he says:
I thank Thee, 0 my God,
For my long lease of life;
And pray I may from day to day
Be with Thy Spirit rife.
I thank Thee, 0 my God,
That I am not retired; 1 ' ,
Nor think it best, for me to rest,
By chloroform inspired!
The Soldier’s Friend.
Away back in the sixties our venerable friend
and his brother published a religions paper, known
as “The Soldier’s Friend,” intended especially to
carry good cheer and spiritual blessing to the sol
diers facing temptation and death in camp and on
the field. And around many a camp fire this pa
per went in those troublesome days like a white
winged messenger of inspiration and salvation where
both were so much needed.
Love’s Inspiration.
After all, it is Love that inspires this “Father
in Israel.” But it is Love Divine. Converted at
fifteen he has been a devoted member of a Baptist
Church for seventy years. Now in the sweet sim
plicity of his sustaining Faith and in the beautiful
evening of a life well spent for God and Ilis cause,
he lingers by the “crystal River’s brink,” catches
visions and songs of Beulah Land and echoes them
back to the world ere he shall cross over to join
“the song of Moses and the Lamb.”
George Irving, the last surviving nephew of
Washington Irving, marvelously hale and active
at 82, is living at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr.
Irving is practically the sole remaining member of
the Irving family. He is one of the best, yet most
modest, story tellers of the Amen Corner.
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