How James Whitcomb Riley Came to be Master of the Hoosier Dialect

IT is doubtful if there is in the literary world, to-day, a personage whose boyhood and young manhood can approach in romance and unusual circumstances that of the author of “The Old Swimmin’ Hole.”

All tradition was against his accomplishing anything in the world. How, indeed, said the good folks of the little town of Greenfield, Indiana, could anything be expected of a boy who cared nothing for school, and deserted it at the first opportunity, to take up a wandering life.

THROWN ON HIS OWN RESOURCES

The boy’s father wanted the boy to follow in his footsteps, in the legal profession, and he held out alluring hopes of the possibility of scaling even greater heights than any to which he had yet attained. Better still,—from the standpoint of the restless James,—he took the youngster with him as he made his circuit from court to court.

These excursions, for they were indeed such to the boy, sowed deep in his heart the seed of a determination to become a nomad; and it was not long until he started out as a strolling sign-painter, determined upon the realization of his ideals.

Oftentimes business was worse than dull, and, on one occasion, hunger drove him for recourse to his wits, and lo, he blossomed forth as a “blind sign-painter,” led from place to place by a little boy, and showered with sympathy and trade in such abundance that he could hardly bear the thought of the relinquishment of a pretense so ingenious and successful, entered on at first as a joke.

Then came another epoch. The young man fell in with a patent-medicine man, with whom he joined fortunes, and here the young Indianian, who had been scribbling more or less poetry, found a new use for his talent; for his duties in the partnership were to beguile the people with joke and song, while his co-worker plied the sales of his cure-all. There were many times when, but for his fancy, the young poet might have seen his audience dwindle rapidly away. It was while thus engaged, that he had the opportunities which enabled him to master thoroughly the Hoosier dialect.

When the glamor of the patent-medicine career had faded somewhat, the nomadic Riley joined a band of strolling Thespians, and, in this brief portion of his life, after the wont of players of his class, played many parts.

At length, he began to give a little more attention to his literary work; and, later, obtained a place on an Indianapolis paper, where he published his first poems, and they won their author almost instant success.

WHY HE LONGED TO BE A BAKER

When I drew Mr. Riley out to talk still further of those interesting days, and the strange experiences which came to him therein, the conversation finally turned on the subject of his youthful ambition.

“I think my earliest remembered one,” he said, “was an insatiate longing to become a baker. I don’t know what prompted it, unless it were the visions of the mountains of alluring ‘goodies,’ which, as they are ranged in the windows of the pastry shops, appear doubly tempting to the youth whose mother not only counsels moderation, but enforces it.

“Next, I imagined that I would like to become a showman of some sort.

“Then, my shifting fancy conjured up visions of how grand it would be to work as a painter, and decorate houses and fences in glowing colors.

“Finally, as I grew a little older, there returned my old longing to become an actor. When, however, my dreams were realized, and I became a member of a traveling theatrical company, I found that the life was full of hardships, with very little chance of rising in the world.

“I never had any literary ambition whatever, so far as I can remember. I wrote, primarily, simply because I desired to have something to read, and could not find selections that exactly suited me. Gradually I found a demand for my little efforts springing up; and so my brother, who could write legibly transcribed them.”

At this point I asked Mr. Riley his idea of the prime requisites for success in the field of letters.

“The most essential factor,” he replied “is persistence,—the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come. I believe that he is richer for the battle with the world, in any vocation, who has great determination and little talent, rather than his seemingly more fortunate brother with great talent, perhaps, but little determination. As for the field of literature, I cannot but express my conviction that meteoric flights, such as have been taken, of recent years, by some young writers with whose names almost everybody is familiar, cannot fail to be detrimental, unless the man to whom success comes thus early and suddenly is an exceptionally evenly-balanced and sensible person.

“Many persons have spoken to me about Kipling’s work, and remarked how wonderful a thing is the fact that such achievements could have been possible for a man comparatively so young. I say, not at all. What do we find when we investigate? Simply that Kipling began working on a newspaper when he was only thirteen years of age, and he has been toiling ever since. So you see, even that case confirms my theory that every man must be ‘tried in the fire,’ as it were.

“He may begin early or late—and in some cases the fight is longer than in others—but of one thing I feel sure, that there is no short-cut to permanent, self-satisfying success in literature, or anything else.”

TWENTY YEARS OF REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS

“Mr. Riley,” I asked, “would you mind saying something about the obstacles over which you climbed to success?”

“I am afraid it would not be a very pleasant story,” he replied. “A friend came to me once, completely heartbroken, saying that his manuscripts were constantly returned, and that he was the most miserable wretch alive. I asked him how long he had been trying? ‘Three years,’ he said. ‘My dear man,’ I answered, laughing, ‘go on, keep on trying till you have spent as many years at it as I did.’ ‘As many as you did!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, as long as I did.’ ‘What, you struggled for years!’ ‘Yes, sir; through years, through sleepless nights, through almost hopeless days. For twenty years I tried to get into one magazine; back came my manuscripts eternally. I kept on. In the twentieth year, that magazine accepted one of my articles.’

“I was not a believer in the theory that one man does a thing much easier than any other man. Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.”

“What would you advise one to do with his constantly rejected manuscript?” I asked.

“Put it away awhile; then remodel it. Young writers make the mistake I made.”

“What mistake?” I asked.

“Hurrying a manuscript off before it was dry from my pen, as if the world were just waiting for that article and must have it. Now it can hardly be drawn from me with a pair of tweezers. Yes, lay it aside awhile. Reread. There is a rotten spot somewhere. Perhaps it is full of hackneyed phrases, or lacks in sparkle and originality. Search, examine, rewrite, simplify. Make it lucid. I am glad, now, that my manuscripts did come back. Presently I would discover this defect, then that. Perhaps three or four sleepless nights would show my failure to be in an unsymmetrical arrangement of the verses.

“See these books?” he said, rapping upon the book case with the back of his hand. “Classics! but of what do they tell? Of the things of their own day. Let us write the things of our day. Literary fields exhausted! Nonsense. If we write well enough, ours will be the classics of to-morrow. Our young Americans have, right at hand, the richest material any country ever offered. Let them be brave and work in earnest.”

A COLLEGE EDUCATION

Answering other questions, the poet said:—“A college education for the aspirant for literary success is, of course, an advantage, provided he does not let education foster a false culture that will lead him away from the ideals he ought to cling to.

“There is another thing that the young man in any artistic pursuit must have a care for; and that is, to be practical. This is a practical world, and it is always ready to take advantage of this sort of people: so that one must try to cultivate a practical business sense as well as an artistic sense. We have only a few men like Rudyard Kipling and F. Hopkinson Smith, who seem to combine these diverse elements of character in just the right proportions; but I believe that it is unfortunate for the happiness and peace of mind of our authors, and artists, and musicians, that we have not more of them.”

RILEY’S POPULARITY

Riley’s poetry is popular because it goes right to the feelings of the people. He could not have written as he does, but for the schooling of that wandering life, which gave him an insight into the struggle for existence among the great unnumbered multitude of his fellow-men. He learned in his travels and journeys, in his hard experience as a strolling sign-painter and patent-medicine peddler the freemasonry of poverty. His poems are natural; they are those of a man who feels as he writes. As Thoreau painted nature in the woods, and streams, and lakes, so Riley depicts the incidents of everyday life, and brightens each familiar lineament with that touch that makes all the world akin.