A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories, Bill Nye [best mobile ebook reader .txt] 📗

>Green again, and sun feels good's
June!"
[Pg 271]

His masterly use of the c�sura is notable, too. See its charming despotism in "Griggsby Station."

But it is not his technic that makes him ambrosial, not the loving care ad unguem that smooths the uncouthest dialect into lilting tunefulness without depriving it of its colloquial verisimilitude—it is none of these things of mechanical inspiration, but the spirit of the man, his democracy, his tenderness, the health and wealth of his sympathies. If he uses "memory" a little too often as a vehicle for his rural pictures, the utter charm of the pictures is atonement enough. He has caught the real American. He is the laureate of the bliss of laziness. His child poems are the next best thing to the child itself; they have all the infectious essence of gayety, and all the na�vet�, and all the knife-like appeal. It could not reasonably be demanded that his prose should equal the perfection of his verse, but nothing more eerie has ever been done than the little story, "Where is Mary Alice Smith?" with its strange use of rime at the end.

Of all dialect writers he has been the most versatile. Think of the author of "The Raggedy Man" or "Orphant Annie" writing one of the finest sonnets in the language! this one which I must quote here as a noble ending to my halt praise:

"Being his mother, when he goes away
I would not hold him overlong, and so
Sometimes my yielding sight of him grows O
So quick of tears, I joy he did not stay
To catch the faintest rumor of them! Nay,
Leave always his eyes clear and glad, although
[Pg 272]Mine own, dear Lord, do fill to overflow;

"Let his remembered features, as I pray,
Smile ever on me. Ah! what stress of love
Thou givest me to guard with Thee thiswise:
Its fullest speech ever to be denied
Mine own—being his mother! All thereof
Thou knowest only, looking from the skies
As when not Christ alone was crucified."

Life is the more tolerable, the more full of learned sympathy, and thereby of joy and value, for the very existence of such a man.

List of Mr. Riley's Books.

A Child World. (New.) Tales in verse of childhood days. Cloth, 12mo, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50. Hand-made Paper edition, bound uniform with "Old Fashioned Roses," $2.

Neghborly Poems, including "The Old Swimmin' Hole," by Benjamin F. Johnson, of Boone (James Whitcomb Riley.) Cloth, illustrated, 12mo, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Sketches in Prose, and Occasional Verses. Cloth, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Afterwhiles. Sixtieth thousand. With Portrait. Cloth, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Pipes O' Pan at Zekesbury. Five Sketches and fifty Poems. Cloth, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Rhymes of Childhood. Dialect and other Verses. With Portrait. Cloth, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

The Flying Islands of the Night. A Fantastic Drama in Verse. Cloth, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Green Fields and Running Brooks. Dialect and Serious Poems. With Portrait. Cloth, Illustrated, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Armazindy. Hoosier Harvest Airs, Feigned Forms, and Child Rhymes. Cloth, $1.25. Half calf, $2.50.

Old Fashioned Roses. A selection of popular Poems, from Mr. Riley's Works. Printed in England. 16mo, uncut, $1.75.

An Old Sweetheart of Mine. Illustrated in colors. Oblong 4to, $2.50.

A Uniform Edition of Mr. Riley's Works in 9 volumes, 12mo, cloth, per set, $11.25. Half calf, 9 volumes, 12mo, per set, $22.50. Published by The Bowen-Merrill Co., Indianapolis and Kansas City. Sent post-paid to any address on receipt of the price.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Guest at the Ludlow and Other Stories, by Edgar Wilson (Bill) Nye