CHAPTER VII
“OF MAKING MANY BOOKS THERE IS NO END”
THE multiplication of books by Indianians increased steadily during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Much of the production in prose is unimportant save as it is taken in connection with the general rise of cultivation in the State, and not a little derives interest principally from the personality of the writers. Fiction attracted many during the period indicated, and the impulse in this direction has been attended with notable successes. The part played by Indiana in the Civil War has latterly received attention, and the newer phases of village life have also been treated. Local history has not, unfortunately, attracted the literary fledgling in Indiana so often as could have been desired, though the field is inviting, and thorough work of this kind is far likelier to enjoy permanency than fair or indifferent fiction or mediocre verse. Criticism is naturally last to receive attention, and little critical writing can be credited to the State. It is, however, remarkable that so much good work is done in the several departments, the inference being that where so many are moved to make experiments, the general average of cultivation must be high.
Indiana has been a kind of way station for many who have gained their chief distinction elsewhere. Joaquin Miller and John James Piatt were born in Indiana, but left in childhood, and Mary Hartwell Catherwood lived in the State for a number of years; but these writers may hardly be numbered among Indiana authors. James Newton Matthews, an Indianian who has lived for many years in Illinois, has written much good verse, and is included in discriminating anthologies. Lyman Abbott began his ministry in Indiana as pastor of the Congregational Church at Terre Haute. Both Charles Warren Stoddard and Maurice Francis Egan were members of the faculty of Notre Dame University at different periods. The Rev. Arthur Wentworth Eaton, a poet and writer on Acadian life, was once a resident of Indianapolis; and Henry F. Keenan, who wrote “Trajan” and other novels, edited the Indianapolis Sentinel before he became an author. The Rev. Bernard Harrison Nadal (1812-1870) held a professorship at Asbury University from 1854 to 1857, and was the father of E. S. Nadal, an essayist whose critical papers appeal to the admirers of a calm and pensive style of writing. Miss Lucy S. Furman’s “Stories of a Sanctified Town” (1896) were written at Evansville, though the scenes are laid in Kentucky. The Rev. James Cooley Fletcher, of the well-known Indiana family of that name, is the author of “Brazil and Brazilians” (1868); and his daughter, Julia Constance, wrote, under the pen-name “George Fleming,” the novels “Kismet” (1877); “Mirage” (1878); “The Head of Medusa” (1880); “Vestigia” (1884); and “Andromeda” (1885). Both have long been absent from the State, Mr. Fletcher in California and his daughter in Italy.
Booth Tarkington stands with Mr. Riley as the exponent of a Hoosier who is kindly, generous, humorous, and essentially domestic. His novel, “A Gentleman from Indiana” (1899), depicts the semi-urban type that Mr. Riley so often celebrates in verse. Whitecapping as introduced in this story is only the coarse exploit of a vicious colony living on the outskirts of the town in which Mr. Tarkington’s tale has its habitation. The author plainly states that his whitecaps are not to be confounded with vigilance committees that undertake to reform the morals of individuals, but that they are rowdies who masquerade as whitecaps merely for purposes of private mischief and vengeance. Their settlement resembles in some degree the “tough neighborhood” often found in cities. The hostility between the people of Plattville and the Cross Roads element dates back to the first movement of population on the long trail from North Carolina into the Ohio Valley. The Cross Roads folk had been evil and worthless in their early homes, and they carried their worst traits with them into Indiana. Mr. Tarkington has followed accurately the social history of the good stock and the bad, illustrating the antipathy existing between the prosperous and intelligent and the idle and ignorant. The distinction of Plattville as a county seat of the central West is well established, and its indolence, amiability, and pride are characteristic. The hero is a new type of Hoosier, who has little kinship with the earlier people of Eggleston, or with the Hoosier as Riley reports him; he is a native, but has experienced at an Eastern college an intellectual change “into something rich and strange,” and after long absence becomes a pilgrim of light among his own people.
Mr. Tarkington has a perfect appreciation of the strength of local affection in the Hoosier, and also of the thoroughly American absorption in politics which seems to be more marked in county seats of a few thousand inhabitants than in large cities. History in towns like Plattville is not dated, anno urbis conditæ, but from a political incident or the visit of a President; and a national campaign is a quadrennial blessing that renews in the obscurest inhabitant the sense of his individual responsibility to the government. Mr. Tarkington emphasizes the homogeneity of the Middle Western folk; and this is warranted fully by the statisticians. The people of his town live together like a great, kind family, who are sufficient unto themselves. He has thrown into the story the sincerity, affection, and loyalty that are their attributes; and he adds, moreover, the atmosphere of the Indiana landscape, with a nice appreciation of its loveliness, sometimes hinted and often charmingly expressed. There is a crisp, bracing quality in the writing that fitly accompanies the story, which is, taken all in all, one of the most creditable novels yet written of life in the Ohio Valley. There is every reason why Mr. Tarkington should know his Indiana well, as his family has been prominent in the State for three generations, and he is a native, having been born at Indianapolis (1869). He was educated at Purdue and Princeton, receiving from the latter the degree of A.M. in 1898. He has also written (1900) “Monsieur Beaucaire,” a dramatic novelette of the eighteenth century, in which a few striking incidents are handled most effectively. The story has the charm of an exquisite miniature.
Indiana village life has been made the subject of careful study by Anna Nicholas, in a series of short stories collected under the title “An Idyl of the Wabash” (1899). Religious phenomena have greatly attracted Miss Nicholas, and she has supplemented Dr. Eggleston’s studies of an earlier period with her artistic sketches of contemporary life. The social importance of the church, the vagaries of belief in a typical Western village, and the intensity of the “revival” spirit are treated with sympathy and humor. Several of these tales are, between the lines, a tribute to that vigorous Protestant evangelization of Indiana, which triumphed over mud and malaria and carried the gospel far beyond the sound of church bells. Miss Nicholas has written with keen penetration of the suppressed tragic element in rural life, but without morbidity. Her characters are always inevitably related to the incidents, and she communicates with unfailing success a sense of the humble atmosphere of her farm and village. These stories are distinguished by the evident sincerity of their purpose to reflect life honestly, and they are written in a straightforward manner that aids the impression. They illustrate anew the possibilities of a local literature that follows progressively the formative years of a community’s life. It is even now difficult to persuade the present generations of Indianians that Dr. Eggleston’s Hoosiers ever lived; and Miss Nicholas, Mr. Riley, and Mr. Tarkington have continued the story that was begun by their predecessor, adding chapters equally instructive and valuable.
Mary Jameson Judah’s “Down Our Way” (1897) is not limited to a particular region, but combines with studies of the author’s own Indiana, sketches of social life at the South. The allurements of those organizations for individual improvement and general reform that have enlisted the energies of so many women in recent years have appealed to Mrs. Judah’s sense of humor; and her stories show a fine appreciation of the niceties of social perspective and proportion in Southern and Western cities. The short story is happily adapted to the need of the casual observer of local life, and tales like these, which bear the stamp of fidelity, have an inestimable value for future students.
An increasing attention to local historical matters has lately been marked, and an excellent instance of this is afforded by Millard Cox (“Henry Scott Clark”) in “The Legionaries” (1899), a story of the Morgan raid into Indiana. The political and social conditions on the Indiana-Kentucky border during the Civil War were interesting, and worthy of the study that has been given to them in this novel. The military episode of which Morgan was the chief figure, though slight in comparison with the larger movements of the war, was dramatic and daring, and it lends itself well to this romantic setting. Mr. Cox is a native Indianian (1856).
James A. Wickersham, an Indiana educator, has analyzed certain religious conditions minutely in “Enoch Willoughby” (1900). This is a novel of character rather than of incident, and marks still another departure in method among writers of the Indiana group. The tale is not wholly indigenous, as the characters belong as truly to one State as to another of the Middle West. The Willoughbys are studied as a family in which peculiarities have always been observed, and in Enoch an hereditary “queerness” is manifested in religious idiosyncrasies.
The revival of interest in romantic fiction, that marked the closing years of the century, witnessed the unusual successes of a number of novels by American authors. One of the most popular romances of this period is “When Knighthood was in Flower” (1898), by Charles Major, a native of Indianapolis (1856), who is living at Shelbyville, twenty miles distant from the capital. Mr. Major served no apprenticeship as an author; this romance was his first book. He was educated in the Indiana public schools and at the University of Michigan, and was actively engaged in the practice of law when he wrote the novel, as a diversion, on his Sunday afternoons at home. The friendliness of the English-reading public to this tale is not difficult to understand. It is a love story whose chief characters, Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor, possess those qualities of youth, vivacity, and spirit that so inevitably win the heart in fiction or the drama. The tale is told by Sir Edwin Caskoden, a master of the dance at the court of Henry VIII., and not by the author direct,—a familiar trick of the historical novelist; and it serves an excellent purpose, affording a valid excuse for the ostensible editor to render the sixteenth-century narrative of Caskoden into racy nineteenth-century English. This novel is one of the noteworthy achievements of Indianians in the field of romance, suggesting again what has been so true of General Wallace,—that the imagination is superior to all laws, and that the romantic vision easily pierces barriers of circumstance.
George Cary Eggleston, a brother of Edward, was born at Vevay (1839), received his preliminary education in the schools of Vevay and Madison, and attended Asbury University, but did not complete his course there. When still under seventeen he took charge of a school in a wild district of the State, but at the end of his engagement he went to Virginia to the old homestead of his father’s family, completed his college course, studied law, and served in the Confederate army. He has for many years been a well-known New York journalist, and he is the author of many books. He has always maintained relations with his native State, and has utilized his knowledge of it in his writings. In his novel “A Man of Honor” (1873), the hero is an Indiana boy, the son of a Kentucky mother and a Virginia father, as was the case with Mr. Eggleston himself. Another novel, “Juggernaut” (1891), opens in Indiana. A Hoosier boy is the hero, and the description of his early life among the hills of southern Indiana is pleasantly reminiscent of the author’s own experiences. In a number of juvenile stories, among them being “The Last of the Flat-boats” (1900), Mr. Eggleston has drawn upon his recollections of Hoosierdom, and there is, he says, something of Indiana in everything that he has written. Before Mr. Eggleston had seriously begun literary work the name of his brother Edward was so identified with Hoosier soil that the younger man could hardly invade it with literary intent without risking the charge of imitation; yet it is significant of the tenacity of his early impressions that throughout his life the scenes of his childhood and youth have continued to invite his imagination.
It is a pleasure to include George W. Julian (1817-1899) among those who have added lustre to Indiana’s name. He was born at Centerville, Wayne County, of Quaker parents who had followed the familiar line of march from North Carolina to Indiana. He worked in the fields, studied by the light of the fireplace, taught school, read law, and in general experienced those vicissitudes and embarrassments that beset so many ambitious American youths of his generation. The law was a stepping-stone to politics, and from 1840 until the last years of his long life he was constantly an eager observer of political movements when not an active participant in campaigns. He was a founder and leader of the Free-soil party, and was its candidate for the vice-presidency on the ticket headed by John P. Hale in 1852. He was repeatedly elected a representative in Congress, first as a Free-soil candidate, and thereafter as a Republican, from what was known as “the burnt district” in eastern Indiana, serving through the Civil War. He was a vigorous opponent of slavery, and his “Speeches on Political Subjects” (1872), for which Lydia Maria Child wrote an introduction, is a record of his radical opposition that began in 1850 and continued to the close of the rebellion. His integrity of opinion was unimpeachable. He was a laborious student, and, although without the graces of oratory, he was an impressive and effective speaker. He shared the ignominy that was visited upon Lovejoy, Phillips, Giddings, and others of the early antislavery phalanx, and his Congressional campaigns were marked by bitter and violent abuse from his opponents. His powers of invective made him a formidable antagonist. When his severity was criticised, he would say that “there is nothing in my speech but the truth that hurts.” He was essentially a reformer and an independent, and broke fearlessly with his party when he could not conscientiously follow it. Thus he joined in the Liberal Republican movement, and supported Greeley. He then became, and remained to the end of his life, a Democrat, and was appointed by Mr. Cleveland surveyor-general of New Mexico. He made his home for thirty years at Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis and the seat of Butler College, where he was the village Nestor. He delighted in literature, lived among books, contributed often to the periodical press, and wrote (1892) the “Life of Joshua R. Giddings.”
Civic interests have marked also the career of William Dudley Foulke, who was born in New York City (1848) and educated at Columbia College, being graduated in 1869. Mr. Foulke’s antecedents were Quakers, and he removed, in 1876, to Wayne County, one of the principal centres of the Society of Friends in Indiana. Mr. Foulke practised law and sat in the State senate (1883-1885) as a Republican, but became an independent upon the nomination of Mr. Blaine, and thereafter gave his attention to various political reforms, notably in the civil service, conducting investigations and frequently delivering addresses. He published (1887) “Slav and Saxon,” an essay on the future of the two races which are, in his belief, to contend finally for supremacy in the world. He gave many years to the study of the war period in Indiana, with a view to writing the life of Oliver P. Morton, Indiana’s “War Governor,” who had been a citizen of Wayne County; and this biography (1899) is not only a thorough study of Morton’s public services, but of the period to which he belonged as well.
Early associated with Mr. Foulke in civil service reform work in Indiana was Oliver T. Morton (1860-1898), the son of Governor Morton, who was born in Wayne County and educated at Yale and Oxford. His volume of essays, “The Southern Empire” (1892), contains, besides the title paper, an historical essay on Oxford and an excellent discussion of civil service reform. The opening essay is a most suggestive presentation of the slaveholders’ ambitions to found a vast tropical slave empire. It is of interest to read this, in the light of the senior Morton’s herculean efforts against slavery; but that one generation may easily differ from another is proved by the concluding essay in advocacy of the merit system, which found few friends in the period of which Senator Morton was a dominating figure.
Mr. Foulke’s brother-in-law, Arthur Middleton Reeves (1856-1891), found employment for his scholarly tastes in unusual channels. After his graduation from Cornell (1878), he devoted himself to the study of Icelandic language and lore, in which his interest had been aroused by Professor Willard Fiske; and he subsequently continued his studies abroad in Europe and Iceland. He was an industrious and painstaking student, with a passion for accuracy, and the volume of his letters collected and published for his friends shows him to have possessed unusually varied talents. He wrote “The Finding of Wineland the Good: The History of the Icelandic Discovery of America” (1890); “Lad and Lass: Story of Life in Iceland” (1890); “Jan: A Short Story” (1892); and he had begun, with Dr. Valtyr Gudmundsson of Copenhagen, a translation of the Laxdæla Saga when, on the occasion of a visit to his home in Indiana, he was killed in a railway accident.
The first Indiana historian was John B. Dillon, who was born at Wellsburg, West Virginia (1808), learned the printer’s trade, and removed to Indiana in 1834. While resident at Logansport he studied law and was admitted to the bar; but his quiet, studious habits and natural reserve unfitted him for the practice, and he never tested his powers. He turned, fortunately, to the study of Indiana’s history; and appreciating the importance of assembling data before the death of witnesses and participants, began collecting material, and published (1859) a “History of Indiana,” covering the period from the first explorations to 1856. This work represents many years of laborious research in a field that was practically untouched. It is the point of departure for all who study Indiana history, and it is as exact as diligent care could make it. Dillon published “Notes on Historical Evidence in Reference to Adverse Theories of the Origin and Nature of the Government of the United States” (1871); and at his death left the manuscript of a work called “Oddities of Colonial Legislation.” He received a number of minor appointments under the Federal government, residing at Washington from 1863 to 1875. He returned to Indianapolis at the termination of these employments and died there, in 1879. He was gentle, patient, modest, and industrious, a man of merit, faithful in all things. He never married, and had no interests save those of the student. His proper place was in the quiet alcoves of libraries; and it must always be remembered to his credit that with little encouragement, and for the love of the labor, rather than for any reward, he gave many laborious years to the task of establishing the State’s place in history.
Jacob P. Dunn, who wrote “Indiana: A Redemption from Slavery,” in the American Commonwealth series (1888), employed critical methods that were not known in Dillon’s day. His work deals with a brief period, and with events that had not previously been viewed in their proper perspective. He brought to bear upon his subject a scientific analysis and an exhaustive research that show especial fitness for historical writing. His descriptions of the early French habitant are delightfully written, and give a distinct impression of the first white settlers of the Wabash. Mr. Dunn has written also “Massacres of the Mountains” (1886), an account of the Indian wars of the West, which is noteworthy for its thorough treatment of the Mountain Meadows incident. It is a standard work of reference, and one of the most popular books catalogued in Western libraries. Mr. Dunn served a term as State librarian, and has been for many years tireless in promoting interest in libraries for rural communities. He was born at Lawrenceburg (1855), and was graduated (1874) from Earlham College.
John Clark Ridpath (1840-1900), one of the most prolific of Indiana authors, was born in Putnam County and was graduated from Asbury University, with which he was subsequently connected in various teaching and administrative capacities for many years. He was a most successful teacher, particularly of history. Besides many text-books he published “A Cyclopædia of Universal History” (1885); “Great Races of Mankind” (1894); “Life and Memoirs of Bishop William Taylor” (1895); and many monographs on historical and biographical subjects.
Richard G. Boone’s “History of Education in Indiana” (1892) is one of the most important books in the State’s bibliography. Mr. Boone is also the author of “Education in the United States” (1894). He was for ten years identified with the common schools of Indiana, and for seven years held the chair of pedagogics at Indiana University, resigning to become superintendent of schools at Cincinnati.
“The Puritan Republic” (1899), by Daniel Wait Howe, shows further the grasp of newer methods in historical writing, and is distinguished by thorough treatment and judicial temper. It would seem that nothing could be added to the literature of this subject, which has attracted so many skilled historians; but Judge Howe adduced much new material and presented the old and familiar in an orderly and attractive manner. This is a thorough and exact work, which has taken rank with the accepted authorities. Judge Howe is entitled to his word on the Puritan, as his ancestors were among the pioneers of Sudbury, Massachusetts. He was born in Switzerland County (1839), was graduated from Franklin College, served four years in the Civil War as an Indiana soldier, and enjoyed the unusual distinction of sitting for fourteen years continuously as a judge of the Superior Court at Indianapolis. He has contributed valuable essays to the publications of the Indiana Historical Society.
William H. English (1822-1896) gave many years to a study of the life and services of George Rogers Clark, and produced (1896) “Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, and Life of George Rogers Clark,” an elaborate work in two volumes, which is a veritable encyclopædia of facts. As Clark had been one of the neglected figures in American history, the preparation of his biography was in the nature of a public service. Mr. English is also the author of an historical and biographical work on the Indiana constitution. He was born in Scott County, and received his education in the public schools and at Hanover College. He served as a representative in Congress (1853-1861), and in 1880 was the Democratic candidate for vice-president on the ticket with Hancock.
“Early Indiana Trials and Sketches” (1858) is a racy record of the personal experiences of Oliver H. Smith (1794-1859), who had a kind of Boswellian instinct for the interesting. As a lawyer he “rode circuit” with Miles Eggleston, David Wallace, James Rariden, John Test, and others famous in the early days; and no one has written of these men with nicer appreciation of their high qualities. He was elected a senator in Congress in 1836, and served for one term.
William Wesley Woollen (1828) has also added to the literature of local biography. His “Biographical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana” (1883) contains information that is nowhere else accessible, and it is, moreover, a well-written and entertaining volume.
David Demaree Banta (1833-1896) wrote often and well on subjects of local history, and his “Historical Sketch of Johnson County” (1881) shines amid the dreary waste of Indiana County histories. It contains a rare fund of information touching pioneer life in general, and reflects in some degree the personality of the accomplished and versatile author, who was a fine type of the native Hoosier.
The press of Indiana has aided greatly in the State’s intellectual advance. In the larger towns the newspapers have usually been well-written, and many of them have extended sympathetic encouragement to beginners in authorship. Many Western writers found their first friendly editors at the offices of the Herald or Journal at Indianapolis. John H. Holliday, G. C. Matthews, Anna Nicholas, Elijah W. Halford, Charles Richard Williams, A. H. Dooley, Lewis D. Hayes, Morris Ross and Louis Howland are among those who, in the hurried labors of daily newspaper-making, have found time to preach the gospel of “sweetness and light” through the Indianapolis press. High on the roll of Indiana journalists whose talents are especially deserving of remembrance is Berry R. Sulgrove (1827-1890), who was born at Indianapolis, attended local schools, learned the saddler’s trade, and worked for a short time as a journeyman. His aptness and love of learning had attracted attention, and in 1847 he was enabled to enter Bethany College, West Virginia, then under the presidency of the famous Alexander Campbell. His preparatory studies at the “Old Seminary” of Indianapolis had been so thorough that he was graduated at the end of one year with all the honors of the college, and delivered his commencement oration in Greek. He studied law and practised for a few years, but became connected with the Journal in 1854, and was thereafter identified with the press of Indianapolis. He possessed an extraordinary memory that was a source of constant amazement to his friends and associates. His information in many departments of knowledge was both extensive and exact, and he retained, to the end of his life, his interest in public matters, foreign and domestic. He wrote with precision and grace, and his use of homely, local illustrations added to the interest and force of what he had to say. Now and then a Macaulay-like roll would sound in his sentences; and he would frequently imitate Macaulay’s rhetorical tricks, as by declaring, with conscious humor, that some local event had “never been equalled between the old bridge and the bayou”; but he wrote usually without affectation, and his prodigious memory made possible a variety of suggestion and illustration that never failed to distinguish his work. During many years he was at different times a contributor of editorial matter to all of the Indianapolis newspapers, extending his field at intervals to the Chicago and Cincinnati dailies. He wrote usually at his home, and latterly had no desk in any newspaper office, though a member of the News staff to the end of his life. His manuscript was famous among Western printers, who encountered it at Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago, and in the day of Mr. Sulgrove’s greatest activity seemed unable to escape from it. He wrote habitually on the backs of old election tickets, on scraps of programmes, on bits of paper picked up on his country walks, but never by any chance on a clean new sheet designed for the purpose. His handwriting was microscopic, but perfectly legible, carefully punctuated, and free from erasure. A slip the length and breadth of the hand might contain half a column. No more interesting figure than he ever appeared in Indiana journalism; but his ambitions were not equal to his talents, and he was long an obscure figure in the city of his birth, whose intimate history he knew familiarly. His “History of Indianapolis and Marion County” (1884) contains only slight hints of his superior abilities.
His contemporary, George C. Harding (1829-1881), was a native of Tennessee, but gave the best years of his life to journalism at Indianapolis. He was a student of human nature rather than of books, but his literary instincts were true, and in the two weekly newspapers, the Herald and the Review, which he conducted, he was at once the inspiration and the terror of his contributors. Some of the sketches in a volume of his “Miscellaneous Writings” (1882) show an agreeably humorous turn. He had the trained journalist’s appreciation of condensed wisdom. It was his habit to repeat, week after week, a satirical paragraph in which some individual was pilloried until the victim’s name became a by-word and a hissing in the community. Sometimes this served a moral purpose; again the intention was purely humorous. Years ago a candidate for constable, who was also a delegate to the nominating convention held at Indianapolis, received therein exactly one vote. The question, “Who voted for Daubenspeck?” was thereupon reiterated weekly in the Herald, until it passed permanently into a phrase of local speech.
Angelina Teal’s “John Thorne’s Folks” (1884), and “Muriel Howe” (1892); Margaret Holmes’s “Chamber Over the Gate” (1886); Martha Livingstone Moody’s “Alan Thorne” (1889); Harriet Newell Lodge’s “A Bit of Finesse” (1894); many excellent short stories by Helen Rockwood Edson, literary essays by Harriet Noble and Kate Milner Rabb, and Ida Husted Harper’s “Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony,” emphasize the part that women have played in the State’s literary achievement. The Rev. Charles R. Henderson, of Lafayette, a member of the faculty of Chicago University, has been a prolific writer on sociological subjects. John Augustine Wilstach, also of Lafayette, has busied himself with philological studies. He translated Virgil (1884) and Dante (1888), and coincidently with the publication of these versions issued critical reviews of the literature touching his subjects. The text of Lucian was edited for school use (1882) by Charles Richard Williams, who became an Indianapolis journalist; and Demarchus C. Brown translated selections of Lucian into English (1896). George Ade, who discovered fresh subjects for materialistic fiction in Chicago, was born in Indiana and educated at Purdue, as was also his illustrator, John T. McCutcheon. Mr. Ade has a touch all his own, and his character studies are thoroughly original. He and Hector Fuller, another Hoosier writer of short fiction, show how the journalist may successfully turn his hand to book-making. William P. Fishback, one of the founders of the Indianapolis Literary Club, has published (1895) his “Recollections of Lord Coleridge,?