PROF. J. A. HARRISONPROF. J. A. HARRISONAT LEXINGTON, VA.
PROF. J. A. HARRISON
Professor Harrison’s home is in Lexington, a quaint old town in the “Valley of Virginia.” Situated on North River, an affluent of the James, Lexington is surrounded by mountains covered with a native growth of beautiful foliage. In the distance tower aloft the picturesque Peaks of Otter; nearer by is seen the unique Natural Bridge. For nearly a century it has been a university town. Two institutions of learning have generated about the place an intellectual atmosphere. More than one literary character has made it a home. It is, indeed, an ideal spot for the studious scholar and the diligentlittérateur.
James Albert Harrison was born at Pass Christian, Mississippi, the latter part of 1848. His first lessons were given by private tutors. Later, his family moved to New Orleans and he entered the public schools of that city. From the public schools he went to the High School, at the head of his class. But shortly afterwards, in 1862, New Orleans fell and his family went into exile. They wandered about the Confederacy some time,from pillar to post, till finally they stuck in Georgia till the close of the War. This fortunate event kept him from becoming a midshipman on thePatrick Henry. Finally the family returned to New Orleans. Deprived of regular instruction he had been giving himself up to voracious, but very miscellaneous, reading; but now, under a learned German Jew, he began to prepare himself for the University of Virginia, where he remained two years—until, he says, “I had to go to work.” After teaching a year near Baltimore he went to Europe, and studied two years at Bonn and Munich. On his return, in 1871, he was elected to the chair of Latin and Modern Languages in Randolph Macon College, Virginia. In 1875 he was called to the chair of English and Modern Languages in Vanderbilt University; but he remained where he was till the next year. Then he accepted the corresponding chair in Washington and Lee University, which he has held ever since. There, in September, 1885, the happiest event of his life took place. He was married to a daughter of Virginia’s famous “War Governor,” Governor Letcher.
Prof. Harrison comes of a literary family. His father, who was a leading citizen of New Orleans, and quite wealthy till some time after the War, belonged to the Harrison family of Virginia. His mother was a descendant of the Mayor of Bristolin Charles II.’s time, as is shown by a family diary begun in 1603 and continued to the present day. On this side, too, he is related to John Hookham Frere, the translator of Aristophanes. Others of his literary kinsfolk are Miss F. C. Baylor, author of “On Both Sides” and “Behind the Blue Ridge,” and Mrs. Tiernan, author of “Homoselle,” “Suzette,” etc. In Prof. Harrison’s library there are about 3000 volumes, in 15 or 20 different languages, while here and there through the house are scattered bric-à-brac, pictures, and a heterogeneous collections of odds and ends picked up in travel—feather-pictures and banded agates from Mexico, embroideries and pipes from Constantinople, souvenirs from Alaska, British America, Norway, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. His naturally good taste in art and music has been well cultivated. His conversation is delightful—now racy with anecdote, now bristling with repartee, again charming with instruction. More than any other man, I think, he is a harbinger of better things at the South. He is a real son of the new South. In him the old and the new are harmoniously blended. To the polish, the suavity, the refinement of the old South are added the earnestness, the enthusiasm, the wider and more useful culture of the new. Up to this time his life has been spent in study, in travel, in teaching, and in writing.
In teaching and in scholarly work Professor Harrison has been unusually active. Since 1871 he has taught nine months of every year; and almost every year has seen from his pen some piece of scholarly work in the domain of English, French or German literature and philology. Heine’s “Reisebilder,” “French Syntax,” “Negro English,” “Creole Patois,” “Teutonic Life in Beowulf,” ten lectures on “Anglo-Saxon Poetry” before Johns Hopkins University—these, with several other publications, bear witness to his industry and his scholarship. But his chief claim to regard in this department of literature is in originating the “Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” and in his work on the “Handy Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.” The first volume of the Library, that on Beowulf, at once took the first place with English and American scholars, and was adopted as a text-book in Oxford and other universities. In the lecture-room Professor Harrison is pleasant, genial, helpful and alert. His students like him as a man, and take pride in showing his name on their diplomas. He had not been teaching two years before he convinced every one that only thorough scholarship could win that signature.
At a very early age Professor Harrison began to write doggerel for the New OrleansPicayuneandTimes. While a student at the University of Virginia he wrote an article for the BaltimoreEpiscopal Methodistcalled “Notre Dame de Paris,” which attracted much attention. His next piece of literary work was a paper on Björnstjerne Björnson, which won the $50 gold medal given byThe University Magazine. As he was not a matriculate at the time, the prize could not be awarded. In 1871 his “first literary effort,” as he calls it, appeared inLippincott’s Magazine. It was entitled “Goethe and the Scenery about Baden-Baden.” Then essay after essay followed in quick succession from his pen. Soon after this his connection withThe Southern Magazinebegan, which resulted in a series of essays on French, German, English, Swedish, and Italian poets. These were published by Hurd & Houghton, in 1875, under the title of “A Group of Poets and their Haunts,” and the edition was immediately sold. In literary circles, especially in Boston, this book won for the young author firm standing-ground. His first work is chiefly remarkable for the overflow of a copious vocabulary and the almost riotous display of a rich fancy and abundant learning. We are swept along with the stream in which trees torn up by the roots from Greek and Latin banks come whirling, dashing, plunging by in countless numbers; the waters spread out on all sides, but we are not always quite sure of the channel. Since then the waters have subsided, and we see a broad channel and acurrent swift and clear. In 1876 Professor Harrison made a visit to Greece, and on his return published through Houghton, Osgood & Co. a volume of “Greek Vignettes.” The LondonAcademyexpressed the general opinion of this book in the following sentence: “It is so charmingly written that one can hardly lay it down to criticise it.” In 1878 a visit to Spain resulted in another book, “Spain in Profile,” which was followed in 1881 by the “History of Spain.” In 1885 the Putnams began to publish the Story of the Nations, and Professor Harrison’s “Story of Greece” was given the place of honor as the initial volume of the series. His chief characteristics, as shown in these works, are critical insight and descriptive power. His versatile fancy, too, is ever giving delightful surprises, as in this little note anentDr.Holmes’s seventy-fifth birthday: “He is the Light of New England, as Longfellow was the Love, and Emerson the Intellect. I saw a wonderful cactus in Mexico, all prickles and blossoms—Dr.Oliver Wendell Holmes all over; but the blossoms hid the prickles.” Some of his most elaborate descriptions are found in “Spain in Profile,” such as the “Alhambra,” “A Spanish Bull-fight”; others again inThe Critic(“Venice from a Gondola,” “A Summer in Alaska,” etc.) to which he has long been a constant contributor. His critical insight is shown in such reviews asthose of Ruskin, Poe, Balzac, and Froude’s “Oceana,” and in such brief essays as “An Italian Critic,” “Two Views of Shelley,” “George Sand and Diderot,” etc. His contributions to other periodicals have been numerous. His articles inThe Nation,Literary World,Current,Independent,Home Journal,Lippincott’s,Manhattan,Overland Monthly,American Journal of Philology,Anglia, etc., would fill several volumes. Two charming stories—“P’tit-José-Ba’tiste,” a Creole story, and “Dieudonnée,” a West Indian Creole story—testify to his skill in this kind of writing. Since 1895 he has been professor of English and Romance languages in the University of Virginia. Several trips to different parts of Europe, visits to Alaska, British America, Mexico, and the West Indies, during which he studied the languages as well as the customs of the peoples, have given him many a “peep over the edge of things.”
W. M. Baskervill.