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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.” 7