Pioneers of Southern Literature (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899. Excerpt: ... TWUlUam (Silmore Simma. A LEARNED scribe, a willing public, an auspicious hour--all may be valuable concomitants to the production of felicitous literature, but these of themselves are not sufficient. Often the learning of the scribe serves only to make the dulness more apparent. The informing spirit of genius must breath upon aptly chosen material, vivifying the whole with that indefinable something which must not be wanting, but which can neither be defined nor imparted by any rule known to man. The maker of literature which shall enlarge the capacity and feeling of the world must be in what he writes, of what he writes--yea, more, his masterpiece must be the fulness of himself, that the experiences of his life mav fructify and enlarge the experience of his race. The adage "Art is long" expresses only half a truth, for true art is limitless in space as well as eternal; it speaks and shall ever continue to speak to the nations as they rise. No aspiration can be so high as that which bids a mortal become an oracle to his age, and through his age to all ages--a Prometheus bearing the sacred fire of heaven to men. On a midsummer evening in 1847 a large audience had assembled in the theater in Charleston to hear some of the most distinguished orators of that time upon the then vital subject of the Mexican war. The American eagle soared and screamed or drooped his pinions in turn as eloquence or platitudes prevailed, until at length a cry was raised for " Simms, Gilmore Simms." Paul H. Hayne, a youth of seventeen, was in the crowd, and has described his first sight of Simms. In his "Ante-Bellum Charleston" Hayne says: "I felt a thrill of excitement and delighted expectation, for, like most lads of any fancy or taste for reading, I reverenced literary genius; ...