With Bob Taylor
With Bob Taylor
In an article accredited to my pen, in the December number of this magazine, the types had me telling a curious tale of the singing of a whippoorwill, on a certain joyous night in the blessed Christmas of the sweet long ago, and the question is raised by certain ornithological experts whether that doleful bird does its warblings in the winter. It is best to copy what theWashington Heraldsays under the heading:
“Sweet Bells Out of Tune.â€Senator-elect Robert Love Taylor in one of his famous lectures describes Christmas in the mountains of his native state, and says:“When I was a young man in my teens and twenties, the Christmas season was the brightest of the year. I used to take my fiddle under my arm at evening, when the whippoorwill began to sing and the stars began to twinkle, and hie me away to the merrymakings in the mountains.â€To this statement theNashville Americantakes exception, and declares that no one ever heard a whippoorwill singing in the mountains of Tennessee during the latter part of December. TheAmericanhints that Mr. Taylor has tuned his instrument to an unheard-of pitch, and that the music he makes is discordant and badly out of gear.This treason right at the future Senator’s very front door is hard for outsiders to understand. It is very much to be feared that theAmericanhas failed to measure fully up to the opportunities offered for intimate personal relations with the foremost fiddler of the age. Perhaps theAmericannever heard a whippoorwill singing in December, but that does not prove that “Bob†Taylor hasn’t. Where “Bob†Taylor is, there, also, are the whippoorwills, the mockingbirds, the catbirds, and all the sweet and soulful singers known to Dixieland. It matters not the season, nor the hour, we take it. Song birds hover ever in his wake, and music hangs upon the lightest trembling of his bow. Flowers have their hours to fade, and the sun has its time to set, but for “Bob†Taylor’s fiddle, all hours and times are the same.But even were it possible to believe that whippoorwills came not to the melodious pleadings of his bow, as a matter of cold and prosaic fact, nevertheless, by reason of the license granted all poets, this music master of the hills and dales of Tennessee would still have the right to claim their presence. Why should theAmericanbe captious about a little thing like that; especially when the sentimental nature of the state’s favorite son is so inevitably interwoven with the warp and woof of the argument? A prophet may be without honor save in his own country, but a fiddler of “Bob†Taylor’s fame deserves loyalty and cordial praise from all.Let theAmericancease from troubling, and concede that the Senator-to-be has “rings on his fingers and bells on his toes, and that he shall have music wherever he goes!â€
“Sweet Bells Out of Tune.â€
Senator-elect Robert Love Taylor in one of his famous lectures describes Christmas in the mountains of his native state, and says:
“When I was a young man in my teens and twenties, the Christmas season was the brightest of the year. I used to take my fiddle under my arm at evening, when the whippoorwill began to sing and the stars began to twinkle, and hie me away to the merrymakings in the mountains.â€
To this statement theNashville Americantakes exception, and declares that no one ever heard a whippoorwill singing in the mountains of Tennessee during the latter part of December. TheAmericanhints that Mr. Taylor has tuned his instrument to an unheard-of pitch, and that the music he makes is discordant and badly out of gear.
This treason right at the future Senator’s very front door is hard for outsiders to understand. It is very much to be feared that theAmericanhas failed to measure fully up to the opportunities offered for intimate personal relations with the foremost fiddler of the age. Perhaps theAmericannever heard a whippoorwill singing in December, but that does not prove that “Bob†Taylor hasn’t. Where “Bob†Taylor is, there, also, are the whippoorwills, the mockingbirds, the catbirds, and all the sweet and soulful singers known to Dixieland. It matters not the season, nor the hour, we take it. Song birds hover ever in his wake, and music hangs upon the lightest trembling of his bow. Flowers have their hours to fade, and the sun has its time to set, but for “Bob†Taylor’s fiddle, all hours and times are the same.
But even were it possible to believe that whippoorwills came not to the melodious pleadings of his bow, as a matter of cold and prosaic fact, nevertheless, by reason of the license granted all poets, this music master of the hills and dales of Tennessee would still have the right to claim their presence. Why should theAmericanbe captious about a little thing like that; especially when the sentimental nature of the state’s favorite son is so inevitably interwoven with the warp and woof of the argument? A prophet may be without honor save in his own country, but a fiddler of “Bob†Taylor’s fame deserves loyalty and cordial praise from all.
Let theAmericancease from troubling, and concede that the Senator-to-be has “rings on his fingers and bells on his toes, and that he shall have music wherever he goes!â€
It must be remembered, at the very outset of this discussion, that the incident happened in the days of my callow youth, when all sorts of melodies and things were buzzing in my head, and life itself was one sweet song of tuneful melody; that I was in love and had a fiddle under my arm, alone in a moonlit mountain cove on my way to a dance, with a heart throbbing in happy expectancy. It was just at this excruciatingly delightful junction that the twittering occurred which constitutes the bone of this contention (if a twitter can be called a bone) and to that I deem it important to add some observations by way of explanation, refutation, and extenuation.
Observe, no man has ever heard me say that it was in the nature of a whippoorwill to sing at any season, but if one lone bird upon a frozen limb away up the mountain gorge in the dead silence of a moonlit winter’s night, should choose to violate its nature and change its graveyard croakings into purling song in harmony with the melodies so sweetly and vociferously vibrating in the heart of its lone, love-lornauditor, where is the harm? My critics limit their denial to the time of year, and I call my biographers’ attention to the implied admission that the whippoorwilldoessing at some other season. I leave them suspended upon the horns of this dilemma of their own brewing (horns are sometimes brewed) and bid them extricate themselves if they can, for I shall not lend a hand, while I pass on to graver meditations.
That there were sweet and heavenly harmonies hovering and quavering in that mountain cove that ever-blessed night in the happy long ago, is certain, but whence came they? Was it really the whippoorwill? And even if it were, and its song was of that doleful, screeching soul-rending stridulance that startles ghosts and gives haunts the creeps was it not sweet music to the only ear that heard it?
Might it not have been the soul of the fiddle stirred by a mountain breeze to life, getting itself in tune with the frantic transports of the heart against which it lay? They say a soundpost sometimes comes to life, and that all the tuneful sprites that burrow and buzz in the vibrant caverns of a fiddle are set a-humming and a-thrumming when Cupid peeps in at the slit. Who can tell but that this might have been the mellifluous sound that ravished my ear then and is raising such a hullabulloo now?
That there was heavenly music in the air that night I take it none will dare dispute, and that the heart of that care-free swain trudging up the echoless cove to swing corners with love the live-long night and lave and slosh his soul in rapturous revels, was tuned to catch its faintest twang and magnify into pealing orchestras of roaring symphonies, and whooping, heavenly harmonies, all living souls will surely admit. What wonder then, that in the tumultuous union of chromatic confusion, when all the lyrics were raving mad with ecstasy, that the croaking of a whippoorwill might have been taken for an angel’s harp or the twittering of a catbird?
Thus much for speculation! Thus much in tribute to the harmonies! And now I come to hurl the cold truth slap into the faces of my critics and bid them make the most of it!
The types did do me wrong, aided by some unmeant pencil slip along the line between this cushioned sanctum and the cobwebbed den where sits and broods and rends his hair, a careworn proofreader with genius in his dreamy eye and smut upon his classic nose. What I did write was changed, transmogrified, warped, varied, and subverted.
I mentioned not the whippoorwill. I never heard one sing then, since, or before; at any season, time, or place. I heard a ravishing song that might have wrought my very soul to ecstasy, but as plain as pen can make it, I wrote it then and there, “raccoon.â€
I am a King. My realm hath no boundary lines; the world is my kingdom. I stamp my foot upon the earth and jostle the universe. The sun gives light for my pleasure, and the timid stars tremble in my presence. The oceans are my highways, and the mountains are my temples on whose purple domes I love to stand and throw kisses at the angels, or look down and view with rapture, the peaceful flocks that graze and sleep on a thousand sunny hillsides. All the fruited and flowered landscapes that swing between the seas are my royal hanging gardens, and I walk in the glow of their glory, and rest in the gloam of their sweet solitudes. All the springs that bubble there are mine, and all the bright streams that leap from cliff to crag, and from crag to shadowy gorge are my wandering minstrels singing to me of flowers born to blush unseen, and speckled trout that glint and glance in a thousand brimming pools. All the wild deer that spring from shady copse and tangled coverts at the sound of the hunter’s horn are my imperial game, and for my princely sport. The sly old fox in his red uniform gaily leads the royal band, and plays drum major for my bellowing hounds and for me. The glossy herds come lowing from green pastures, fragrantwith the breath of clover blossoms, burdened with milk for me, and the bees sweeten my lips with honey, stolen from the lips of the flowers. The hills unfold their purple mysteries to herald my glory, and the valleys flaunt their banners of gold and shout, “Long live the King!†I love to while away the dreamy summer hours in the cool, green groves that curtain the glimmering fields, where all the joyous wings that brush the air come fluttering to my leafy bowers, and all the birds that sing warble their sweetest notes for me.
I am a King. I dwell in the palace of love, by the brawling brook of laughter, on the brink of the river of song. And so are all the sons and daughters of Adam equal Kings and Queens with me, whose hearts beat time to nature’s music, and whose souls are in love with the beautiful. There is a crown of sunshine for every brow by day; a coronet of stars by night. The angels of light hover above us all, and arch the heavens with the rainbow of hope for all, and bring from the vapory vineyards of the clouds, the sparkling champagne of pure crystal water to bless the lips of all. All the delightful dreams that spread their wings above the horizon of the heart, all the glorious thoughts that fly out from the heaven of the brain, all the jubilees of joy that crowd the circling hours of mortal life are the regal gifts of God to mankind—the royal heritage of all. There are songs sweeter than were ever sung; there is beauty which defies even the brush of a Raphael, for you and for me, and for us all.
On May 13, 1607, three boats anchored off a peninsula which jutted into Powhatan’s River, and there set up a stockaded place of defence, which they called James Fort. One hundred and five settlers were left by the ships; among these was John Smith, a wonderful genius and adventurer, a man destined to carry the infant colony through perilous trials.
Smith and his men and those who followed them made out of the fort a town which they called James City, and later Jamestown. From Jamestown grew Virginia, and from Virginia, these United States.
The Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition will celebrate from the last of April to the last of November, the three hundredth anniversary of the nation’s nativity. The beautiful waters and the historic shores will witness a magnificent tribute to those faithful pioneers who with their energies, aye with their very life-blood, laid the foundation of our greatness.
It will be impossible to fail of gaining information by a visit to the Exposition, it matters not what the extent of a man’s knowledge may be. Every department of our national government will be represented in miniature, complete in every detail. Every state will be represented by a reproduction of some building connected with its formative history, and the whole will form an object lesson in the history and development of our country that will surpass any means of teaching and interest ever before seen. Nearly every state in the Union is already at work upon its special buildings, and of the Southern states, all (at this writing) have commenced work except Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Tennessee. It is certain that these states will fall into line and their respective legislatures ought not to fail to make immediate appropriations in order that the work may be worthily and adequately completed by the opening of the Exposition. Some of the states whose legislatures could not be awakened to sufficient patriotic pride to make an appropriation, have made up a fund by the efforts of their public-spirited citizens, but Tennessee will not need to resort to such methods. The Volunteer State, whose affiliations with Virginia, both in past history and in present commercial development are of the closest, will not fail to help make this enterprise a shining success. In view of the abundance of her resources she cannot afford not to make a showing of her phenomenal growth from a struggling and neglected mountain settlement toher present proud position among the galaxy of states. We have contributed leaders and men, and the bone and sinews for every movement which has resulted in our national progress and our supplies for future development are unrivalled and inexhaustible, and we cannot afford to be absent when the showing of the states is made.
I sat in a great theater at the National Capital. It was thronged with youth, and beauty, old age, and wisdom. I saw a man, the image of his God, stand upon the stage, and I heard him speak. His gestures were the perfection of grace; his voice was music, and his language was more beautiful than I had ever heard from mortal lips. He painted picture after picture of the pleasures, and joys, and sympathies, of home. He enthroned love and preached the gospel of humanity like an angel. Then I saw him dip his brush in ink, and blot out the beautiful picture he had painted. I saw him stab love dead at his feet. I saw him blot out the stars and the sun, and leave humanity and the universe in eternal darkness, and eternal death. I saw him like the serpent of old, worm himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive eloquence and the subtle devices of his sophistry, inject his fatal venom, under whose blight its flowers faded, its music was hushed, its sunshine was darkened, and the soul was left a desert waste, with only the new-made graves of faith and hope. I saw him, like a lawless, erratic meteor without an orbit, sweep across the intellectual sky, brilliant only in his self-consuming fire, generated by friction with the indestructible and eternal truths of God.
That man was the archangel of modern infidelity; and I said: How true is holy writ which declares, “the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.â€
Tell me not, O Infidel, there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell!
“A solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be,As travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea.â€
“A solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be,As travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea.â€
“A solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be,As travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea.â€
“A solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be,
As travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea.â€
Tell me not, O Infidel, there is no risen Christ!
When every earthly hope hath fled,When angry seas their billows fling,How sweet to lean on what He said,How firmly to His cross we cling!
When every earthly hope hath fled,When angry seas their billows fling,How sweet to lean on what He said,How firmly to His cross we cling!
When every earthly hope hath fled,When angry seas their billows fling,How sweet to lean on what He said,How firmly to His cross we cling!
When every earthly hope hath fled,
When angry seas their billows fling,
How sweet to lean on what He said,
How firmly to His cross we cling!
It is in the desert of evil, where virtue trembles to tread, where hope falters, and where faith is crucified, that the infidel dreams. To him, all there is of heaven is bounded by this little span of life; all there is of pleasure and love is circumscribed by a few fleeting years; all there is of beauty is mortal; all there is of intelligence and wisdom is in the human brain; all there is of mystery and infinity is fathomable by human reason, and all there is of virtue is measured by the relations of man to man. To him, all must end in the “tongueless silence of the dreamless dust,†and all that lies beyond the grave is a voiceless shore and a starless sky. To him, there are no prints of deathless feet on its echoless sands, no thrill of immortal music in its joyless air.
He has lost his God, and like some fallen seraph flying in rayless night, he gropes his way on flagging pinions, searching for light where darkness reigns, for life where death is king.
What intelligence less than God could fashion the human body? What motive power is it, if it is not God, that drives that throbbing engine, the human heart, with ceaseless, tireless stroke, sending the crimson streams of life bounding and circling through every vein and artery? Whence, and what, if not of God, is this mystery we call the mind? What is this mystery we call the soul? What is it that thinks and feels and knows andacts? Oh, who can comprehend, who can deny, the Divinity that stirs within us!
I have wondered a thousand times if an infidel ever looked through a telescope. There is our mighty sun, robed in the brightness of his eternal fires, and with his planets forever wheeling around him. Yonder twinkle Mercury and Venus, and there is Mars, the ruddy globe whose poles are white with snow and whose other zones seem dotted with seas and continents. Who knows but that his roseate color is only the blush of his flowers? Who knows but that Mars may now be a paradise inhabited by a blessed race, unsullied by sin, untouched by death? There is the giant orb of Jupiter, the champion of the skies, belted and sashed with vapor and clouds; and Saturn, haloed with bands of light and jeweled with eight ruddy moons; and there is Uranus, another stupendous world, speeding on in the prodigious circle of his tireless journey around the sun. And yet another orbit cuts the outer rim of our system, and on his lonely pathway the gloomy Neptune walks the cold, dim solitudes of space. In the immeasurable depths beyond appear millions of suns, so distant that their light could not reach us in a thousand years. There, spangling the curtain of the black profundity, shine the constellations that sparkle like the crown jewels of God. There are double and triple and quadruple suns of different colors, commingling their gorgeous hues and flaming like archangels on the frontier of stellar space. If we look beyond the most distant star the black walls are flecked with innumerable patches of filmy light like the dewy gossamers of the spider’s loom that dot our fields at morn. What beautiful forms we trace among those phantoms of light! Circles, ellipses, crowns, shields and spiral wreaths of palest silver. And what are they? Did I say phantoms of light? The telescope resolves them into millions of suns, standing out from the oceans of white-hot matter that contain the germs of countless systems yet to be. And so far removed from us are these suns that the light which comes to us from them to-day has been speeding on its way for more than two million years.
What is that white belt we call the Milky Way, which spans the heavens and sparkles like a Sahara of diamonds? It is a river of stars, it is a Gulf Stream of suns; and if each of these suns holds in his grasp a mighty system of planets, as ours does, how many multiplied millions of worlds like our own are now circling in that innumerable concourse?
Oh, where are the bounds of this divine conception? Where ends this dream of God? And is there no life or intelligence in all this throng of spheres? Are there no sails on those far-away summer seas, no wings to cleave that crystal air, no forms divine to walk those radiant fields? Are there no eyes to see those floods of light, no hearts to share with ours that love which holds all these mighty orbs in place?
It cannot be! It cannot be! There is a God! “The heavens declare His glory and the firmament showeth His handiwork.â€