VII
Vachel Lindsay continued his long walk toward Highlands. He was thinking about the folks at Mud Creek Flats, who had listened attentively to his recitation of The Tree of Laughing Bells.
Sara Teasdale, ca. 1913.
In his pocket, he carried a letter of introduction to the Highlands naturalist who would shelter the troubadour for a night.
Before following him any further along the path, though, let's fast-forward seven years. After other long-distance hikes across America, and many more poems to his credit, Vachel Lindsay met fellow poet Sara Teasdale. Fittingly, the two were introduced to each other by the editor of Poetry Magazine.
Vachel Lindsay
Vachel was one of several men courting Sara. He proposed, and she declined. The next year, she married Ernst Filsinger, a wealthy businessman, and presumably less eccentric than the troubadour.
Vachel and Sara reamained friends for the remainder of their complicated lives. Some people would call their relationship a tragic romance.
They had one thing in common - the world failed to measure up to their lofty romantic fantasies.
Two weeks before her wedding to Filsinger, Sara expressed her misgivings in verse:
I AM NOT YOURS
I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.
Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.
I wonder what attributes made the sickly Sara Teasdale so attractive to men. The Kiss constitutes "ample warning."
THE KISS
I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.
For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.
Predictably, Sara Teasdale's marriage to Ernst Filsinger was a disappointment and ended in divorce.
Meanwhile, Vachel Lindsay scored a "hit" with The Chinese Nightingale, a poem he dedicated to "Sara Teasdale Filsinger." Here's the conclusion:
Then sang the bird, so strangely gay,
Fluttering, fluttering, ghostly and gray,
A vague, unravelling, final tune,
Like a long unwinding silk cocoon;
Sang as though for the soul of him
Who ironed away in that bower dim: --
"I have forgotten
Your dragons great,
Merry and mad and friendly and bold.
Dim is your proud lost palace-gate.
I vaguely know
There were heroes of old,
Troubles more than the heart could hold,
There were wolves in the woods
Yet lambs in the fold,
Nests in the top of the almond tree. . . .
The evergreen tree . . . and the mulberry tree . . .
Life and hurry and joy forgotten,
Years on years I but half-remember . . .
Man is a torch, then ashes soon,
May and June, then dead December,
Dead December, then again June.
Who shall end my dream's confusion?
Life is a loom, weaving illusion . . .
I remember, I remember
There were ghostly veils and laces . . .
In the shadowy bowery places . . .
With lovers' ardent faces
Bending to one another,
Speaking each his part.
They infinitely echo
In the red cave of my heart.
`Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart.'
They said to one another.
They spoke, I think, of perils past.
They spoke, I think, of peace at last.
One thing I remember:
Spring came on forever,
Spring came on forever,"
Said the Chinese nightingale.
One of Sara Teasdale's last poems has been adapted as an a cappella choral work by Frank Ticheli (b. 1958). Beautiful words, gorgeous voices...and a sort of tribute to Vachel Lindsay.
THERE WILL BE REST
There will be rest, and sure stars shining
Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
The music of stillness holy and low.
I will make this world of my devising
Out of a dream in my lonely mind.
I shall find the crystal of peace, – above me
Stars I shall find.
.
But all those poems came long, long after the spring of 1906, when Vachel Lindsay wandered these mountains under the evergreen trees and the starry skies.
.
Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
The music of stillness holy and low.
I will make this world of my devising
Out of a dream in my lonely mind.
I shall find the crystal of peace, – above me
Stars I shall find.
.
But all those poems came long, long after the spring of 1906, when Vachel Lindsay wandered these mountains under the evergreen trees and the starry skies.
.
VIII
Vachel Lindsay reached the Highlands plateau at last.
Main Street, Highlands, 1910 (Henry Scadin photograph)
Ten years after his 1906 hike, Lindsay wrote about it in A Handy Guide for Beggars. When Edgar Lee Masters prepared Lindsay’s biography in the 1930s he had access to Lindsay’s many diaries, including those kept on the Southern trip. So, we now have the luxury of two parallel versions of the long journey.
Here’s how Masters related the poet’s approach to Highlands:
It was Sunday and he met a boy going to Baptist Sunday school. The teachers there were a man and his wife, who took Lindsay home with them to dinner. At Sunday school there was a promising student, who had a minute knowledge of Christ and the alabaster box woman. His face “and little body were those of a cherub.” Lindsay gave him “The Tree of Laughing Bells.”
He arrived in Highlands in the evening of this day and went to the house of some people to whom he had been directed by a friend. The woman of the house cooked him an excellent omelet, gave him brown bread and sweet milk, and a couch for the night. The host was a Pennsylvania Dutchman, “earnest, scholarly, and a botanist, superintendent of the nursery at Highlands.”
In A Handy Guide, Lindsay reflected on his short stay as he departed from Highlands:
With no sorrow in my heart, with no money in my pocket, with no baggage but a lunch, the most dazzling feature of which was a piece of gingerbread, I walked away from a windswept North Carolina village…the gingerbread was given me by a civilized man, to whom John Collier had written for me a letter of introduction: Mr. Thomas G. Harbison, Botanical Collector; American tree seeds a specialty.
Back there by the village he was improving the breed of mountain apples by running a nursery. He was improving the children with a school he taught without salary, and was using the most modern pedagogy.
Something in his manner made me say, "You are like a doctor out of one of Ibsen's plays, only you are optimistic." Then we talked of Ibsen. He debated art versus science, he being a science-fanatic, I an art-fanatic. He concluded the argument with these words: "You are bound to be wrong. I am bound to be wrong. What is the use of either of us judging the other?" That is not the mountain way of ending a discussion.
For the purposes of the tale, as well as for his own merits, we must praise this civilized man who entertained me a day and a half so well.
Professor Thomas and Jessie Cobb Harbison and their daughters Gertrude and Margaret, ca. 1905
Thomas Grant Harbison (1862-1936) walked with friend Elmer Magee from their home state of Pennsylvania all the way to Highlands in the spring of 1886. Since Thomas and Elmer shared a love of botany, Highlands was a natural destination. They had survived the hike with rations consisting of a bag of ground wheat and a tin of brown sugar.
Harbison was a largely self-taught scholar who assembled a sizable library at a young age and earned his college degrees through correspondence courses. The people of Highlands were so impressed with the intellect of the ragged hiker that they convinced him to serve as principal of the new Highlands Academy.
Later, George Vanderbilt hired Harbison to collect plants for the Biltmore herbarium. And for two decades while in Highlands, he was a field botanist for Harvard. He conducted plant experiments in conjunction with the Clemson faculty. He also helped to establish the herbarium for the University of North Carolina. And in recent years, his name has been connected with a rather controversial botanical conservation project (that is a story for another day).
In addition to all that, Harbison taught poor mountain children in the Highlands vicinity, and said of that time: ”Those were the happiest and most satisfactory years of my life.”
If you drive through Highlands today, you’ll see the historical marker honoring Professor Harbison.
Although Vachel Lindsay couldn’t fault the hospitality extended by the Harbison family, he was likely rather relieved to get back on the road.
I’ll explain why, later.
Main Street, Highlands, 1910 (Henry Scadin photograph)
Ten years after his 1906 hike, Lindsay wrote about it in A Handy Guide for Beggars. When Edgar Lee Masters prepared Lindsay’s biography in the 1930s he had access to Lindsay’s many diaries, including those kept on the Southern trip. So, we now have the luxury of two parallel versions of the long journey.
Here’s how Masters related the poet’s approach to Highlands:
It was Sunday and he met a boy going to Baptist Sunday school. The teachers there were a man and his wife, who took Lindsay home with them to dinner. At Sunday school there was a promising student, who had a minute knowledge of Christ and the alabaster box woman. His face “and little body were those of a cherub.” Lindsay gave him “The Tree of Laughing Bells.”
He arrived in Highlands in the evening of this day and went to the house of some people to whom he had been directed by a friend. The woman of the house cooked him an excellent omelet, gave him brown bread and sweet milk, and a couch for the night. The host was a Pennsylvania Dutchman, “earnest, scholarly, and a botanist, superintendent of the nursery at Highlands.”
In A Handy Guide, Lindsay reflected on his short stay as he departed from Highlands:
With no sorrow in my heart, with no money in my pocket, with no baggage but a lunch, the most dazzling feature of which was a piece of gingerbread, I walked away from a windswept North Carolina village…the gingerbread was given me by a civilized man, to whom John Collier had written for me a letter of introduction: Mr. Thomas G. Harbison, Botanical Collector; American tree seeds a specialty.
Back there by the village he was improving the breed of mountain apples by running a nursery. He was improving the children with a school he taught without salary, and was using the most modern pedagogy.
Something in his manner made me say, "You are like a doctor out of one of Ibsen's plays, only you are optimistic." Then we talked of Ibsen. He debated art versus science, he being a science-fanatic, I an art-fanatic. He concluded the argument with these words: "You are bound to be wrong. I am bound to be wrong. What is the use of either of us judging the other?" That is not the mountain way of ending a discussion.
For the purposes of the tale, as well as for his own merits, we must praise this civilized man who entertained me a day and a half so well.
Professor Thomas and Jessie Cobb Harbison and their daughters Gertrude and Margaret, ca. 1905
Thomas Grant Harbison (1862-1936) walked with friend Elmer Magee from their home state of Pennsylvania all the way to Highlands in the spring of 1886. Since Thomas and Elmer shared a love of botany, Highlands was a natural destination. They had survived the hike with rations consisting of a bag of ground wheat and a tin of brown sugar.
Harbison was a largely self-taught scholar who assembled a sizable library at a young age and earned his college degrees through correspondence courses. The people of Highlands were so impressed with the intellect of the ragged hiker that they convinced him to serve as principal of the new Highlands Academy.
Later, George Vanderbilt hired Harbison to collect plants for the Biltmore herbarium. And for two decades while in Highlands, he was a field botanist for Harvard. He conducted plant experiments in conjunction with the Clemson faculty. He also helped to establish the herbarium for the University of North Carolina. And in recent years, his name has been connected with a rather controversial botanical conservation project (that is a story for another day).
In addition to all that, Harbison taught poor mountain children in the Highlands vicinity, and said of that time: ”Those were the happiest and most satisfactory years of my life.”
If you drive through Highlands today, you’ll see the historical marker honoring Professor Harbison.
Although Vachel Lindsay couldn’t fault the hospitality extended by the Harbison family, he was likely rather relieved to get back on the road.
I’ll explain why, later.
IX
During his evening spent with the Thomas Harbison family in Highlands, Vachel Lindsay observed that the professor “was full of Spencer and Huxley, an anti-socialist willing to die fighting socialism.”
Professor Harbison
I suspect that Lindsay recoiled upon this discovery. Let’s introduce into evidence a poem written long after 1906, but written by Lindsay nonetheless:
WHY I VOTED THE SOCIALIST TICKET
I AM unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal,
Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.
Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.
Just two years before Lindsay’s great tramp across the south. Eugene V. Debs was the candidate of the Socialist Party of America, drawing 402,810 votes, or almost 3% of the popular vote in the 1904 Presidential election. Debs remained a highly visible figure in American life into the 1920s, working for social and political change.
Debs proclaimed his philosophy:
While there is a lower class, I am in it;
While there is a criminal element, I am of it;
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free!
Here’s how Debs summarized his efforts:
My purpose was to have the people understand something about the social system in which we live and to prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy. . . . I am doing what little I can, and have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small class and establish in this country an industrial and social democracy.
At the time they met, Lindsay and Harbison would have had fresh memories of the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, which became a milestone in the history of the labor movement. And, during the long strike, talk of socialism entered the debate. Mine owners were determined to wait out the workers, rather than conceding to any of their demands. Meanwhile, many people were calling on federal intervention to end the strike and relieve the hardships resulting from the shutdown. One letter writer to the New York Times urged a laissez faire approach lest “socialism” gain a foothold:
As the settlement of the coal strike is not yet in sight, the people of New York can look forward to very dear coal next Winter…Lord only knows what will become of the poor in cheap tenements who buy their coal by the bucketful.
But it will be very much better to have this condition than to infringe on “the sacred rights of property,” which constitute the basis and bulwark of society: better far to suffer the pangs of cold and hunger and death than disturb the existing order of things.
All this talk of compelling the coal barons to operate their mines is the rankest socialism, communism, and anarchy. The coal lands are the property of these men, just as their pocket knives are their property, and to demand the operation of the mines is as socialistic and dangerous to property rights as to demand than they operate their pocket knives. They have just as much right to hold their lands idle as any other class of landowners throughout the world….
Why single out the owners of coal lands for special attack? Logically the only people who should have votes are the landowners of the country, for they own America. It is wrong that the rest of us, who own no land, should have any voice in the making of laws or government in a country of which we do not own one square foot.
None but stockholders have a voice in the management of a business concern, and none but the owners of this country should have a voice in it.
Disenfranchisement of the masses who own no property would put an end to the dangerous doctrines we now hear so much of, and the “sacred rights of property” would be fully safeguarded.
Leonard Tuttle, August 9, 1902
One month later, a socialist group went beyond pressuring owners to reopen the mines. They urged state ownership of the mines. Again, from the New York Times:
The meeting in Boston on Monday evening, called to urge the settlement of the anthracite coal strike by “mediation, arbitration, or conciliation,” was captured by the Socialists, who turned the discussion into unexpected channels and passed the following resolution:
Resolved, That we, the people of Massachusetts, in mass meeting assembled in Faneuil Hall, the historic Cradle of Liberty, on this Sept. 8, 1902, demand the Government ownership and operation of the coal mines as the best means of ending the strike in the anthracite coal regions, and of securing justice and liberty to the mine workers and of preventing the occurrence of all such deplorable and unhappy conditions.
President Theodore Roosevelt did not go that far, but he did break from previous presidents who would have sided with the mine owners, and attempted to level the field for labor and management in seeking an end to the strike.
Today, we might frame things differently, but the basic issues remain the same. What are the consequences of the imbalance of power between capital and labor? What is the proper role of the government in correcting those imbalances?
Whether they did or not, Vachel Lindsay and Thomas Harbison could have had a spirited after-dinner discussion on this subject.
Like they say, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
X
Professor Harbison
I suspect that Lindsay recoiled upon this discovery. Let’s introduce into evidence a poem written long after 1906, but written by Lindsay nonetheless:
WHY I VOTED THE SOCIALIST TICKET
I AM unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal,
Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.
Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.
Just two years before Lindsay’s great tramp across the south. Eugene V. Debs was the candidate of the Socialist Party of America, drawing 402,810 votes, or almost 3% of the popular vote in the 1904 Presidential election. Debs remained a highly visible figure in American life into the 1920s, working for social and political change.
Debs proclaimed his philosophy:
While there is a lower class, I am in it;
While there is a criminal element, I am of it;
While there is a soul in prison, I am not free!
Here’s how Debs summarized his efforts:
My purpose was to have the people understand something about the social system in which we live and to prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy. . . . I am doing what little I can, and have been for many years, to bring about a change that shall do away with the rule of the great body of the people by a relatively small class and establish in this country an industrial and social democracy.
At the time they met, Lindsay and Harbison would have had fresh memories of the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, which became a milestone in the history of the labor movement. And, during the long strike, talk of socialism entered the debate. Mine owners were determined to wait out the workers, rather than conceding to any of their demands. Meanwhile, many people were calling on federal intervention to end the strike and relieve the hardships resulting from the shutdown. One letter writer to the New York Times urged a laissez faire approach lest “socialism” gain a foothold:
As the settlement of the coal strike is not yet in sight, the people of New York can look forward to very dear coal next Winter…Lord only knows what will become of the poor in cheap tenements who buy their coal by the bucketful.
But it will be very much better to have this condition than to infringe on “the sacred rights of property,” which constitute the basis and bulwark of society: better far to suffer the pangs of cold and hunger and death than disturb the existing order of things.
All this talk of compelling the coal barons to operate their mines is the rankest socialism, communism, and anarchy. The coal lands are the property of these men, just as their pocket knives are their property, and to demand the operation of the mines is as socialistic and dangerous to property rights as to demand than they operate their pocket knives. They have just as much right to hold their lands idle as any other class of landowners throughout the world….
Why single out the owners of coal lands for special attack? Logically the only people who should have votes are the landowners of the country, for they own America. It is wrong that the rest of us, who own no land, should have any voice in the making of laws or government in a country of which we do not own one square foot.
None but stockholders have a voice in the management of a business concern, and none but the owners of this country should have a voice in it.
Disenfranchisement of the masses who own no property would put an end to the dangerous doctrines we now hear so much of, and the “sacred rights of property” would be fully safeguarded.
Leonard Tuttle, August 9, 1902
One month later, a socialist group went beyond pressuring owners to reopen the mines. They urged state ownership of the mines. Again, from the New York Times:
The meeting in Boston on Monday evening, called to urge the settlement of the anthracite coal strike by “mediation, arbitration, or conciliation,” was captured by the Socialists, who turned the discussion into unexpected channels and passed the following resolution:
Resolved, That we, the people of Massachusetts, in mass meeting assembled in Faneuil Hall, the historic Cradle of Liberty, on this Sept. 8, 1902, demand the Government ownership and operation of the coal mines as the best means of ending the strike in the anthracite coal regions, and of securing justice and liberty to the mine workers and of preventing the occurrence of all such deplorable and unhappy conditions.
President Theodore Roosevelt did not go that far, but he did break from previous presidents who would have sided with the mine owners, and attempted to level the field for labor and management in seeking an end to the strike.
Today, we might frame things differently, but the basic issues remain the same. What are the consequences of the imbalance of power between capital and labor? What is the proper role of the government in correcting those imbalances?
Whether they did or not, Vachel Lindsay and Thomas Harbison could have had a spirited after-dinner discussion on this subject.
Like they say, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
X
Vachel Lindsay wandered, lost, into Jackson County, the dramatic terrain helping to clear his mind of political disagreements and debates between Science and Art.
Wagon road from Highlands to Whiteside Mountain, ca. 1897, Henry Scadin photograph
From A Handy Guide for Beggars:
I turned to the right once too often, and climbed Mount Whiteside. There was a drop of millions of miles, and a Lilliputian valley below like a landscape by Charlotte B. Coman.
I heard some days later that once a man tied a dog to an umbrella and threw him over. Dog landed safely, barking still. Dog was able to eat, walk, and wag as before. But the fate of the master was horrible. Dog never spoke to him again.
Having no umbrella, I retraced my way. I stepped into the highway that circumscribes the tremendous amphitheatre of Cashier's Valley.
I met not a soul till eight o'clock that night. The mountain laurel, the sardis bloom, the violet, and the apple blossom made glad the margins of the splendidly built road; and, as long as the gingerbread lasted, I looked upon these things in a sort of sophisticated wonder.
R. Henry Scadin (1861-1923)
The first time I read this passage, I half expected Vachel to encounter a local photographer and fruit grower by the name of Henry Scadin. I even consulted Scadin’s own voluminous diaries, but found no mention of Lindsay among the entries in April and May of 1906.
Henry Scadin created what is (as far as I know) the most significant photographic record of southern Macon, Jackson and Transylvania counties at the turn of the twentieth century.
Dry Falls
Waterfalls were a specialty for Scadin and he photographed them with considerable artistic and technical ability.
Tea at Grimshawes
I knew that Scadin spent many days walking the roads between Highlands and Toxaway, which fueled my hope that he had crossed paths with Vachel Lindsay. Even if that meeting never occurred, the photographer has provided a window on the same world that the troubadour viewed while tramping through these mountains.
Horse Cove Falls
Photographs by Henry Scadin. From Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville.
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/photo/scadin/default_scadin.html
Lake Toxaway
XI
Wagon road from Highlands to Whiteside Mountain, ca. 1897, Henry Scadin photograph
From A Handy Guide for Beggars:
I turned to the right once too often, and climbed Mount Whiteside. There was a drop of millions of miles, and a Lilliputian valley below like a landscape by Charlotte B. Coman.
I heard some days later that once a man tied a dog to an umbrella and threw him over. Dog landed safely, barking still. Dog was able to eat, walk, and wag as before. But the fate of the master was horrible. Dog never spoke to him again.
Having no umbrella, I retraced my way. I stepped into the highway that circumscribes the tremendous amphitheatre of Cashier's Valley.
I met not a soul till eight o'clock that night. The mountain laurel, the sardis bloom, the violet, and the apple blossom made glad the margins of the splendidly built road; and, as long as the gingerbread lasted, I looked upon these things in a sort of sophisticated wonder.
R. Henry Scadin (1861-1923)
The first time I read this passage, I half expected Vachel to encounter a local photographer and fruit grower by the name of Henry Scadin. I even consulted Scadin’s own voluminous diaries, but found no mention of Lindsay among the entries in April and May of 1906.
Henry Scadin created what is (as far as I know) the most significant photographic record of southern Macon, Jackson and Transylvania counties at the turn of the twentieth century.
Dry Falls
Waterfalls were a specialty for Scadin and he photographed them with considerable artistic and technical ability.
Tea at Grimshawes
I knew that Scadin spent many days walking the roads between Highlands and Toxaway, which fueled my hope that he had crossed paths with Vachel Lindsay. Even if that meeting never occurred, the photographer has provided a window on the same world that the troubadour viewed while tramping through these mountains.
Horse Cove Falls
Photographs by Henry Scadin. From Henry Scadin Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville.
http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/photo/scadin/default_scadin.html
XI
I wonder about the identity of the family that hosted Vachel Lindsay after he left Highlands and reached Jackson County in the spring of 1906. Who knows? Maybe the incident remains alive as a small piece of family lore for some local family, the memory of a story told about the night that an eccentric young man appeared, needing a place to stay, and going on to write about it years later. And then again, maybe not.
Sapphire, North Carolina, circa 1902. "View from the Lodge on Mount Toxaway." Glass negative by William Henry Jackson, Detroit Publishing Co.
From A Handy Guide for Beggars, by Vachel Lindsay:
Musing these matters, I munched my gingerbread, walking past sweet waterfalls, groves of enormous cedars, many springs, and one deserted cabin. I was homesick for that great civilized camp, New York, and the soberminded pursuit of knowledge there.
But civilization lost her battle at twilight, when I swallowed my last gingerbread crumb. Immediately I was in the land beyond the nowhere place, willing to sleep twelve hours by a waterfall, or let the fairies wake me before day. The road went deeper into savagery. I blundered on, rejoicing in the fever of weariness. In the piercing light of the young stars, the house that came at last before me seemed even more deeply rooted in the ground than the oaks around it. What new revelation lies here? Knock, knock, knock, O my soul, and may Heaven open a mystery that will give the traveller a contrite heart.
Let us tell a secret, even before we enter. If, with the proper magic in our minds, we were guests here, a year or a day, we might write the world's one unwritten epic. All day, in one of these tiny rooms, amid appointments that fill the spirit with the elation of simple things, we would write. At evening we would dream the next event by the fire. The epic would begin with the opening of the door.
There appeared a military figure, with a face like Henry Irving's in contour, like Whistler's in sharpness, fantasy, and pride.
"May I have a night's lodging? I have no money."
"Come in. ... We never turn a man away."
We were inside. He asked: "What might be your name?" I gave it. He gave his. The circle by the fire did not turn their heads, but presumably I was introduced. One child ran into the kitchen. My host gave me her chair. All looked silently into the great soapkettle in the midst of the snapping logs.
I have a high opinion of the fine people of the South, and gratefully remember the scattering of gentlefolk so good as to entertain me in their mansions. But in this cottage, with one glance at those fixed, flushed faces, I said: "This is the best blood I have met in this United States." The five children were nightblooming flowers. There were hints of Dore in the shadow of the father, cast against the log walls of the cabin. He sat on the little stairway. He was a better Don Quixote than Dore ever drew.
"I fought, but I could not help it. It was for home, or against home. I fought for this cabin."
"It is a beautiful cabin."
He relented a bit. "We have kept it just so, ever since my great-grandfather came here with his pack-mule and made his own trail. I — I hated the war. We did not care anything about the cotton and niggers of the fire-eaters. The niggers never climbed this high."
I changed the subject. "This is the largest fireplace I have seen in the South. A man could stand up in it."
He stiffened again. "This is not the South. This is the Blue Ridge."
An inner door opened. It was plain the woman who stood there was his wife. She had the austere mouth a wife's passion gives. She had the sweet white throat of her youth, that made even the candle-flame rejoice.
She looked straight at me, with inkblack eyes. She was dumb, like some one struggling to awake.
"Everything is ready," she said at length to her husband.
He turned to me: " Your supper is now in the kitchen, 'if what we have is good enough.'" It was the usual formula for hospitality.
I turned to the wife. "My dear woman, I did not know that this was going on. It is not right for you to set a new supper at this hour. I had enough on the road."
"But you have walked a long way." Then she uttered the ancient proverb of the Blue Ridge. "'A stranger needs takin' care of.'"
In the kitchen there was a cook-stove. Otherwise there was nothing to remind one of the world this side of Beowulf. I felt myself in a stronghold of barbarian royalty.
"Do you do your own spinning and weaving?"
She lifted the candle, lighting a corner. "Here are the cards and the wools." She held it higher. "There is the spinning wheel."
"Where is the loom?"
"Up stairs, just by where you will sleep."
I knew that if there was a loom, it was a magic one, for she was a witch of the better sort, a fine, serious witch, and a princess withal. Her ancestors wore their black hair that simple way when their lords won them by fighting dragons. She was prouder than the pyramids. If the epic is ever written, let it tell how the spinner of the wizard wools did stand to serve the stranger, that being the custom of her house.
Whitewater Falls, William Henry Jackson photograph
This was a primitive camp indeed. There was no gingerbread. There was not one thing to remind me of the last table at which I had eaten. But every gesture said, "Good prince, you are far from your court. Therefore, this, our royal trencher, is yours. May you find your way to your own kingdom in peace."
But for a long time her lips were still. She had the spareness of a fertile, toiling mother. And, ah, the motherhood in her voice when she said at last, "My son, you are tired."
XII
Sapphire, North Carolina, circa 1902. "View from the Lodge on Mount Toxaway." Glass negative by William Henry Jackson, Detroit Publishing Co.
From A Handy Guide for Beggars, by Vachel Lindsay:
Musing these matters, I munched my gingerbread, walking past sweet waterfalls, groves of enormous cedars, many springs, and one deserted cabin. I was homesick for that great civilized camp, New York, and the soberminded pursuit of knowledge there.
But civilization lost her battle at twilight, when I swallowed my last gingerbread crumb. Immediately I was in the land beyond the nowhere place, willing to sleep twelve hours by a waterfall, or let the fairies wake me before day. The road went deeper into savagery. I blundered on, rejoicing in the fever of weariness. In the piercing light of the young stars, the house that came at last before me seemed even more deeply rooted in the ground than the oaks around it. What new revelation lies here? Knock, knock, knock, O my soul, and may Heaven open a mystery that will give the traveller a contrite heart.
Let us tell a secret, even before we enter. If, with the proper magic in our minds, we were guests here, a year or a day, we might write the world's one unwritten epic. All day, in one of these tiny rooms, amid appointments that fill the spirit with the elation of simple things, we would write. At evening we would dream the next event by the fire. The epic would begin with the opening of the door.
There appeared a military figure, with a face like Henry Irving's in contour, like Whistler's in sharpness, fantasy, and pride.
"May I have a night's lodging? I have no money."
"Come in. ... We never turn a man away."
We were inside. He asked: "What might be your name?" I gave it. He gave his. The circle by the fire did not turn their heads, but presumably I was introduced. One child ran into the kitchen. My host gave me her chair. All looked silently into the great soapkettle in the midst of the snapping logs.
I have a high opinion of the fine people of the South, and gratefully remember the scattering of gentlefolk so good as to entertain me in their mansions. But in this cottage, with one glance at those fixed, flushed faces, I said: "This is the best blood I have met in this United States." The five children were nightblooming flowers. There were hints of Dore in the shadow of the father, cast against the log walls of the cabin. He sat on the little stairway. He was a better Don Quixote than Dore ever drew.
Dore's Don Quixote
I said, "Every middle-aged man I have met in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina has been a soldier, and I suppose you were."
He looked at me long, as though the obligation of hospitality did not involve conversation. He spoke at last:
I said, "Every middle-aged man I have met in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina has been a soldier, and I suppose you were."
He looked at me long, as though the obligation of hospitality did not involve conversation. He spoke at last:
"I fought, but I could not help it. It was for home, or against home. I fought for this cabin."
"It is a beautiful cabin."
He relented a bit. "We have kept it just so, ever since my great-grandfather came here with his pack-mule and made his own trail. I — I hated the war. We did not care anything about the cotton and niggers of the fire-eaters. The niggers never climbed this high."
I changed the subject. "This is the largest fireplace I have seen in the South. A man could stand up in it."
He stiffened again. "This is not the South. This is the Blue Ridge."
An inner door opened. It was plain the woman who stood there was his wife. She had the austere mouth a wife's passion gives. She had the sweet white throat of her youth, that made even the candle-flame rejoice.
She looked straight at me, with inkblack eyes. She was dumb, like some one struggling to awake.
"Everything is ready," she said at length to her husband.
He turned to me: " Your supper is now in the kitchen, 'if what we have is good enough.'" It was the usual formula for hospitality.
I turned to the wife. "My dear woman, I did not know that this was going on. It is not right for you to set a new supper at this hour. I had enough on the road."
"But you have walked a long way." Then she uttered the ancient proverb of the Blue Ridge. "'A stranger needs takin' care of.'"
In the kitchen there was a cook-stove. Otherwise there was nothing to remind one of the world this side of Beowulf. I felt myself in a stronghold of barbarian royalty.
"Do you do your own spinning and weaving?"
She lifted the candle, lighting a corner. "Here are the cards and the wools." She held it higher. "There is the spinning wheel."
"Where is the loom?"
"Up stairs, just by where you will sleep."
I knew that if there was a loom, it was a magic one, for she was a witch of the better sort, a fine, serious witch, and a princess withal. Her ancestors wore their black hair that simple way when their lords won them by fighting dragons. She was prouder than the pyramids. If the epic is ever written, let it tell how the spinner of the wizard wools did stand to serve the stranger, that being the custom of her house.
Whitewater Falls, William Henry Jackson photograph
This was a primitive camp indeed. There was no gingerbread. There was not one thing to remind me of the last table at which I had eaten. But every gesture said, "Good prince, you are far from your court. Therefore, this, our royal trencher, is yours. May you find your way to your own kingdom in peace."
But for a long time her lips were still. She had the spareness of a fertile, toiling mother. And, ah, the motherhood in her voice when she said at last, "My son, you are tired."
XII
"I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.”
-Robert Henri, 1865-1929
Robert Henri self portrait, 1903
In the years before his walking tour of the South, Vachel Lindsay had studied art in Chicago and New York. One of his teachers was the renowned painter Robert Henri, credited as “an immensely significant force behind the change from 19-century academicism to 20-century self-expression.”
Besides Vachel Lindsay, Henri’s roster of students included Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Man Ray, Leon Trotsky and Ariel Durant. Henri himself admired free-thinker Emma Goldman who founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth in 1906.
Emma Goldman
Lindsay had tried combining illustration and poetry in a style somewhere between William Blake and Kenneth Patchen. At one point, though, Henri urged Lindsay to concentrate on poetry rather than painting or drawing.
As he started his great hike in 1906, Lindsay intended to swap drawings as well as poetry for his lodgings. I have no idea if he left any such sketches behind when he traveled through the mountains. In his descriptions of people and places he encountered, he did make frequent allusions to popular paintings and illustrations.
Vachel Lindsay illuminated poem
Henri’s own words suggest how he might have influenced Vachel Lindsay:
The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state.
When the artist is alive in any person... he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for better understanding.
An artist's job is to surprise himself. Use all means possible.
Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them.
The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express.
All education must be self-education.
Vachel Lindsay illustration
Self-education only produces expressions of self.
Art is the giving by each man of his evidence to the world. Those who wish to give, love to give, discover the pleasure of giving. Those who give are tremendously strong.
Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it.
.
-Robert Henri, 1865-1929
Robert Henri self portrait, 1903
In the years before his walking tour of the South, Vachel Lindsay had studied art in Chicago and New York. One of his teachers was the renowned painter Robert Henri, credited as “an immensely significant force behind the change from 19-century academicism to 20-century self-expression.”
Besides Vachel Lindsay, Henri’s roster of students included Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Man Ray, Leon Trotsky and Ariel Durant. Henri himself admired free-thinker Emma Goldman who founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth in 1906.
Emma Goldman
Lindsay had tried combining illustration and poetry in a style somewhere between William Blake and Kenneth Patchen. At one point, though, Henri urged Lindsay to concentrate on poetry rather than painting or drawing.
As he started his great hike in 1906, Lindsay intended to swap drawings as well as poetry for his lodgings. I have no idea if he left any such sketches behind when he traveled through the mountains. In his descriptions of people and places he encountered, he did make frequent allusions to popular paintings and illustrations.
Vachel Lindsay illuminated poem
Henri’s own words suggest how he might have influenced Vachel Lindsay:
The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. In such moments activity is inevitable, and whether this activity is with brush, pen, chisel, or tongue, its result is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state.
When the artist is alive in any person... he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for better understanding.
An artist's job is to surprise himself. Use all means possible.
Through art, mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them.
The artist should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express.
All education must be self-education.
Vachel Lindsay illustration
Self-education only produces expressions of self.
Art is the giving by each man of his evidence to the world. Those who wish to give, love to give, discover the pleasure of giving. Those who give are tremendously strong.
Pretend you are dancing or singing a picture. A worker or painter should enjoy his work, else the observer will not enjoy it.
Today must not be a souvenir of yesterday, and so the struggle is everlasting. Who am I today? What do I see today? How shall I use what I know, and how shall I avoid being victim of what I know? Life is not repetition.
Salome, Robert Henri, 1909
The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment.
Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.
All the past up to a moment ago is your legacy. You have a right to it.
There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.
What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of the business of making a picture.
The real artist's work is a surprise to himself.
Salome, Robert Henri, 1909
The most vital things in the look of a landscape endure only for a moment. Work should be done from memory; memory of that vital moment.
Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.
All the past up to a moment ago is your legacy. You have a right to it.
There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.
What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of the business of making a picture.
The real artist's work is a surprise to himself.
.
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