The native Kentuckian has a deep and abiding affection for the "Old Commonwealth" which gave him birth. It is as passionate a sentiment, too—and some might add, as irrational—as the love of a Frenchman for his native France. But it is an innocent idolatry in both, and both are entitled to the indulgent consideration of alien critics whose racial instincts are less susceptible and whose emotional nature is under better control. Here and there, a captious martinet who has been wrestling, mayhap, with a refractory recruit from Kentucky, will tell you that the average Kentuckian is scarcely more "educable" than his own horse; that he is stubborn, irascible, and balky; far from "bridle-wise," and visibly impatient under disciplinary restraint. In their best military form Kentuckians have been said to lack "conduct" and "steadiness"—even the men that touched shoulders in the charge at King's Mountain and those, too, that broke the solid Saxon line at the Battle of the Thames.

Whether this be true or not—in whole or in part—we do not now stop to enquire. Suffice it to say that the Kentuckian has been a participant in many wars, and has given a good account of himself in all. In ordinary circumstances, too, he is invincibly loyal to his native State; and when it happened that, in the spring of 1906, there came to Kentuckians in exile, an order or command from the hospitable Governor of Kentucky to return at once to the State, they responded with the alacrity of distant retainers to a signal from the hereditary Chieftain of the Clan. "Now," said they, "the lid will be put on and the latch-string left out."

When the reflux current set in it was simply prodigious—quite as formidable to the unaccustomed eye as the fieldward rushing of a host; and it was in the immediate presence of that portentous ethnic phenomenon that the paper upon the "Lost Race" was first published;—appearing in a local journal of ability and repute, and serving in some measure as a contribution to the entertainment of the guests that were now crowding every avenue of approach.

It is not strange that the generous Kentuckians, then only upon hospitable thoughts intent, should imagine for one happy quart d'heure that the "Lost Race" of the morning paper was already knocking at their doors. But they little imagined—these good Kentuckians—that their hospitable suspicion had really a basis of historic truth.

The handsome book now launched from the Louisville press is merely that ephemeral contribution to a morning paper,[1] presented in a revised and expanded form, with such illustrations as could come only from the liberal disposition and cultivated taste of Colonel R. T. Durrett, the President of The Filson Club. The title which the writer has given the book is recommended, in part, by the example of a great writer of romance, who held that the name of the book should give no indication of the nature of the tale. If the indulgent reader should be unconvinced by the "argument" that is implied in almost every paragraph, it is hoped that he will at least derive some entertainment from the copious flow of reminiscential and discursive talk. The book is addressed chiefly to those persons who may have the patience to read it and the intelligence to perceive that nothing it contains is written with a too serious intent.

The writer makes grateful acknowledgments to the many friends who have encouraged him with approval and advice in the preparation of the work. For the correction of his errors and the continuance of his labors he looks with confident expectation to the Scholars of the State.

[Pg vi]
[Pg vii]