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Among the Thinkers and Writers of Dixie
By DAVID E. GUYTON.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
What George W. Cable lias done for Louisiana,
Mary N. Murfree for Tennessee, Richard M. John
ston for Georgia, and Joel Chandler Harris for the
whole of the South—the Dumas of Charleston did
for Carolina in a very voluminous way; yet, if
he had left all his songs unsung and his stories all
untold, Dixie still would have owed him a debt of
eternal life and love; for no other citizen of all
the South ever tried more earnestly than lie to
kindle a deeper and kindlier interest in the liter
ary weal of this land. Whatever the faults of his
pen, therefore, his purpose was surely sublime; and
the children of his section should read with delight
the story of his unselfish life.
William Gilmore Simms, the Maecenas of South
Carolina, first saw the light in the city of Charles
ton, April 17, 1806. Having lost his mother soon
after his birth, the lad became the ward of his
grandmother, his father having gone to Florida
as a soldier in the Seminole War. Returning to
Charleston at the close of the struggle, the sire
demanded his son. meaning to take him along with
the rest to the wilds of Mississippi. His demand
disregarded, the father appealed to the courts for
the person of his child; but the lad, desiring to
remain with his grandmother, a decree was delivered
in her favor.
Having thus established her right to retain him,
she set about the task of providing her ward with
the very best educational advantages within the
limits of her slender means. She accordingly placed
him as a pupil in the choicest schools of Charles
ton, and kept him at his books until he had finish
ed an academic course. Financially unable to at
tend a university, the orphan was precluded from
a classic education; but by supplementing his
knowledge through reading and travel, he finally
passed for an erudite man; and the University of
Alabama testified to his scholarship by dubbing
him LL.D.
His school days over, Simms secured a position
as a clerk in a drug department, but not finding
medicine much to his liking, soon gave up his place
as a salesman, and at the age of eighteen went to
work to prepare for the legal profession. For
a while he puzzled his brain with the problems of
Blackstone and Kent; but lured by the siren-voice
of letters, he speedily lost all his love for the
jurists, and flinging by his law books forever, he
caught up his pen, and presently began to dash off
page after page, delivering himself with so much
celerity that, before the finale, he had given to
the world a total of eighteen volumes in verse, and
sixty or more in prose.
Like many other authors, however, he served a
journalist’s apprenticeship bef< re dipping boldly
into literature; for, although he had previously
published some lays and endeavored to establish
a magazine, he did not attract any special atten
-1 ention until 1828, when he assumed the role of
editor-in-chief of the Charleston City Gazette. In
spite of his youth and his inexperience, he soon
made the force of his journal felt throughout the
borders of the state; but he, likewise, made many
enemies for himself by espousing the side of the
Unionists in their clash with the Nullifiers; and
after a career of only five years, he found it neces
sary to dispose of his paper, his funds being in
sufficient to maintain the journal longer.
Broken in fortune, but hopeful still, he turned
once more to his muse, and scored a success in
1832, with his purely imaginative poem, 11 Atlantis,
a Tale of the Sea.”
Encouraged by the reception accorded uAtlan
tis, ” the lyrist began to dip out into prose, and the
very next year, increased his popularity with the
publication of his initial novel, “ Martin Faber,
the Story of a Criminal,” and in rapid succession
made striking hits with his “Guy Rivers,” and
“Yemassee,” two of the most significant stories
that ever came from his pen. In the wake of those
triumphs followed “The Partisan,” a tale of the
The Golden Age for August 30, 1906.
Revolution, and it, in turn, was succeeded by oth
ers too numerous even to name.
In the midst of these splendid successes, he unit
ed in marriage, in 1836, with the daughter of a
Carolina planter. By this, his second matrimonial
experience, he came into possession of an ample
estate near Midway, "S. C., along with “Wood
lands,” his country-site, afterwards conspicuous as
the rendezvous of the literati of Charleston. In
his graceful villa, girdled with forests teeming with
Howers and the trill of birds, the wizard of Wood
lands dreamed away the gladsome, golden years;
and many a nascent minstrel and novelist found in
him the Maecenas of the South; for never was he
gladder than when surrounded by a bevy of as
piring youths. Among many cHiers, Timrod and
Hayne were frequent guests at his board; and some
of the finest literary schemes ever devised in Dixie
blossomed from the hearts and brains of the host
and his blithesome coterie. The utmost reach of
the inspiration of William Gilmore Simms, upon
such lyrists as Timrod and Hayne shall never, of
course, be known; it is just, however, to concede to
him the tribute of honor ever due the primal lit
erary patron of his land; for, in spite of the im
petus Southern letters has received from other
sources, its cause has never had a nobler champion
than William Gilmore Simms.
But the Carolinian was not content with noth
ing but literary laurels. In common with the typi
cal Southern gentleman, he instinctively hungered
for political honors; and although he never as
pired very high, he served for a time in the state
legislature, and in 1846 lacked but one vote of re
ceiving the nomination as lieutenant governor of
his commonwealth.
Dreaming, singing, relating and inspiring, the
racounteur worked on; but the clouds of war began
to darken above his peaceful land; and his star
of fortune paled and vanished as the shadows round
about the city of his birth. Although too old to
participate in the awful clash of arms, he cast in
his lot with the Southern people, and shared in
their cruel woes. His home was burned; his li
brary went; he was thrown out of touch with the
press of the North; and after the struggle, he found
small market for his literary merchandise; but he
still continued to wield the pen, although his hand
had forgotten half its cunning; and legends and
lyrics still teemed in his brain till the twilight
deepened into darkness and the shadows fell for
ever.
On June 11, 1870, the indefatigable author died,
breathing his last in his native city, at the age of
sixty-four. His body was laid to rest in the bosom
of his motherland; and his grave is a shrine where
the daughters of Dixie delight to lay down their
garlands of love.
As a poet, Simms was vigorous and versatile; but
his ballads are unpolished gems. Many are worthy
of lofty praise in spite of their unfinished style;
yet his name as a lyrist would have been far greater
had he left more than half of his songs unsung.
“Atlantis” is his longest and his strongest lay;
ami it possibly merits the applause it received
when it first brought its maker fame.
What has been said of the mass of his poetry
is equally true of his prose. His novels may be
grouped into four special classes: the purely ficti
tious, those based upon events of general history,
the series of Revolutionary stories, and the collec
tion of Indian tales. Os these four groups the lat
ter two contain the cream of his romantic works;
and of all his stories, “Yemassee” may be taken
as his finest piece of fiction. In descriptive effect,
he often rises to gratifying heights; and some of the
critics of Europe regard him one of the cleverest
portrayers of scenes America has yet produced.
In addition to his numerous novels, he has writ
ten a number of other volumes in prose of a worthy
type, embracing in their scope both dramas and bi
ographies, as well as other departments of letters.
In these, as in practically everything else, there
are traces of lack of pains; but even his miscellan
eous works are not without their merit. To sum
up, the total effect of his life is beyond the limits
of so brief a sketch; it is only just to add, however,
that a few of his noblest themes are destined to rank
as literature while aesthetic standards remain un
changed as the days go drifting by.
A Beautiful Life.
What is more beautiful than to see a fair young
life catching and reflecting the sunshine of Heaven
in the dew of its youth? Such was the life of Miss
Tryphosa Marshall, the sun of whose brief earthly
career recently shined out its brightness at seven
o’clock in the morning of a glad and promising
day. She was the gifted daughter of the late Dr.
A. A. Marshall, so widely loved as gentleman, schol
ar and preacher of righteousness.
Whether as pastor in Anderson, S. C., Gaines
ville and Atlanta, Ga., President of Monroe Col
lege, or pastor again in Raleigh, N. C., where he
was laboring when God called him Home, A.
A. Marshall was one of those rare men whose
geniality and warm-heartedness made him loved in
the humblest home of his pastorate, and whose
brilliant scholarship commanded admiration in the
circles of widest culture.
It was toward the ideal of a father like this that
Tiyphosa Marshall dreamed and walked and work
ed.
The writer met her the last time when she was
jus! on the eve of graduation at the State Normal
School in Athens.
There she was scattering sunshine—the sunsbi ie
of youthful hopefulness, unselfish dreaming and
Christian activity, such as her brave little life had
been giving out to the student body of that great
school throughout her college course.
President E. C. Branson, who lives to wisely
watch, to love and lift up his students, bore beau
tiful testimony to the Christian influence of Try
phosa Marshall among the students of her alma
mater.
She was joyously planning to be a teacher, not
simply for money or paltry pastime, but for the
good she might do in the world.
Why the Great Teacher above should decide to
give such a promising- life her Diploma Celestial so
soon after her May-day diploma on earth had been
won, is one of Heaven’s blessed mysteries that we
shall not try to understand.
“God’s plans like lilies pure and white unfold—
We must not tear the close shut leaves apart;
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold—
And if by Loving Faith we reach the Land
Where tired feet with sandals loose may rest—
Where we shall know and urdsrstand,
I think that we shall say: “God knew the best.’ ’’
Mr. H. B. Johnson of Atlanta, the guardian of
this noble girl, who entered so much into her life
and its meaning that he feels her death almost as
if she were his own daughter, writes a personal let
ter of filial tenderness to the editor, asking the privi
lege of placing on the flower-laden casket of one
taken so early from the stricken circle of her sor
rowing loved ones, Ben Johnson’s beautiful lines:
“It is not growing like a tree
In "bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred years,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere;
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,
It as the plant and flower of light,
In small proport ions we, just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.”
A young lady entered a Toronto retail book
store a short time since and inquired from the gen
tlemanly clerk (a married man, by the way) if they
had a book suitable for an old gentleman who had
been married fifty years. Without a moment’s hesi
tation, the clerk reached for a copy of Parkman’s
“A Half Century of Conflict.”
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