Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text Virginia matches him--
And matches him with Lee.
FOOTNOTE:
[32] By permission of Mrs. Jane Barren Hope Marr.
JAMES WOOD DAVIDSON.
~1829=----.~
JAMES WOOD DAVIDSON was born in Newberry County, South Carolina, and
educated at South Carolina College, Columbia. He taught at Winnsboro
and at Columbia until the opening of the war, when he enlisted as a
volunteer in the Army of Northern Virginia, and served throughout the
great struggle. After the war he taught again in Columbia till 1871.
Then he removed to Washington and in 1873 to New York, where he
engaged in literary and journalistic work. He has also lived in
Florida and represented Dade County in the State Legislature. He is
now living in Washington City.
WORKS.
Living Writers of the South, (1869).
The Correspondent.
Poetry of the Future.
Dictionary of Southern Authors, [unfinished].
School History of South Carolina.
Bell of Doom, [a poem].
Florida of To-day.
Helen of Troy, [a romance of ancient Greece; unfinished.]
Dr. Davidson's "Living Writers of the South" has made his name well
known as a critic and student of literature, and his labors in behalf
of Southern letters entitle him to high regard.
THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE POETICAL.
(_From Poetry of the Future._[33])
The relation between the Beautiful and Beauty on the one hand, and the
Poetical and Poetry on the other, has generally been seen, when seen
at all, vaguely; that is to say, seen as the Beautiful and the
Poetical themselves have been seen--"in a mirror darkly." This
indistinctness seems to have grown out of the faulty views of nature
taken by the speculators. . . . . . . . . . In brief, then, Nature is
an effect--a product--of a Power lying behind or above it; and it
stands, accordingly, to that Power in the relation of an effect to a
cause. That cause we shall describe as Spiritual; the effect, as
Natural. The Natural, or Nature, is the material Universe embracing
the three kingdoms, known as mineral, vegetable, and animal. . . . .
Such being the case, everything in nature is a correspondent of some
thing--is expressive of and consequently representative and
exponential of something--above it or behind it; and that something is
an idea--a thing not material. It follows, then, that every object in
nature has real character in itself as a representative of an idea;
just as, say, an anchor is representative of hope, a heart, of love,
an olive branch, of peace, and a ring, of marriage. . .
We next come to consider the percipient mind. Men's minds have limited
and imperfect faculties and capabilities. That which is good, or true,
or beautiful, to one mind can hardly be the same in the same way and
degree to any other mind. It is true--as some writers have stated, but
none seems willing to push the propositions to their legitimate
conclusions--that the Good and the Beautiful are true, the Beautiful
and the True are good, and the True and the Good are beautiful. We
wish to accept the propositions in their most comprehensive scope and
with all their legitimate consequences.
Let us note, at this point, the fact, obvious enough but generally
overlooked, that in perception the result depends far more upon the
percipient mind than upon the object perceived. To a ploughboy, a
pebble is an insignificant thing, suggestive possibly of some
discomfort in walking, and fit only to shy at a bird, may be; but to
the geologist it appears worthy a volume, and speaks to him of strata
may be a million of years old, of glacial attrition, of volcanic
action, of chemical constituents, of mineralogical principles, and
crystallogenic attraction, of mathematical laws and geometric angles,
and of future geognostic changes. That is to say, the pebble contracts
and expands, as it were, with the faculties and the prejudices of the
person--of the mind--that sees it.
Or, again: The crescent moon is visible in the clear sky. _A_ sees a
bright convenience which enables him to walk better--not so good a
light as the full moon would be, but valuable as far as it goes. _B_
sees a lovely luminary to light him to his lady-love, a hallowed eye
half shut that watches with protecting radiance over her slumbers. _C_
reckons the intervening 238,000 miles, its diameter of 2,162.3 miles,
and his mind busies itself with orbits, radii, ellipses, eclipses,
azimuth, parallax, sidereal periods, satellitic inclinations, and
synodic revolutions. _D_, with a turn for symbols and history, sees in
it something of the "ornaments like the moon" that Gideon captured
from the Sheikhs Zebah and Zalmunna, something of Byzantine siege,
Ottoman ensign, the Crusades, the Knighthood of Selim, the battle of
Tours, and the city of New Orleans. . . . . . . . .
The Beautiful . . . . is a relation between the man that sees and the
object seen. A perfectly harmonious relation brings perfect beauty.
The Poetical . . . . is the beautiful; and this may be expressed
either in prose or in poetry. . . . . . . . . .
Poetry, more closely defined, is the poetical expressed in rhythmical
language.
FOOTNOTE:
[33] By permission of the author.
CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR.
~1831=1893.~
CHARLES COLCOCK JONES, JR., was born at Savannah, Georgia, and made
his literary fame by special study of the history of Georgia and the
life of the Southern Indians. He was by profession a lawyer, was
colonel of artillery in the Confederate Army, and from 1865 to 1877
lived and practised law in New York City. Since 1877 his home was
"Montrose" near Augusta, Georgia, where he left a fine library and
large collections of Indian curiosities and of portraits and
autographs. His style is full and flowing, and the following list
shows his great activity with his pen.
WORKS.
Indian Remains in Southern Georgia.
Ancient Tumuli and Structures in Georgia.
Dead Towns of Georgia.
Last Days of Gen. Henry Lee.
Life, Labors, and Neglected Grave of Richard Henry Wilde.
Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast.
Histories of Savannah and Augusta.
English Colonization of Georgia.
_Edited_ his father's works.
History of Georgia.
Sketch of Tomo-chi-chi.
Antiquities of the Southern Indians.
Life of Jasper: of Tatnall: of De Soto: of Purry: of Jenkins: of
Habersham: of Gen. Robert Toombs: of Elbert: of John Percival.
Addresses to Confederate Association, and Historical Society, and
on Greene, Pulaski, Stephens.
Colonel Jones is the most prolific author that Georgia has produced
and his works place him at the head of her historical writers.
SALZBURGER SETTLEMENT IN GEORGIA.
(_From History of Georgia._[34])
During the four years commencing in 1729 and ending in 1732, more than
thirty thousand Salzburgers, impelled by the fierce persecutions of
Leopold, abandoned their homes in the broad valley of the Salza, and
sought refuge in Prussia, Holland, and England, where their past
sufferings and present wants enlisted the profound sympathy of
Protestant communities. In the public indignation engendered by their
unjustifiable and inhuman treatment, and Previous Next |