The Youth of James Whitcomb Riley; Fortune's Way with the Poet from Infancy to Manhood

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1919. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVII THE LITERARY TORPEDO THE Jingling Editor of the Democrat was wont to strain what usage terms poetic license. He did so in that racy sample of metrical porridge, Thanksgiving Day at Henchley's. Gleefully ran the metrical stream: -- And this is how it happened some discrepancies befell At the late midsummer meeting in front of the hotel, Where, it seems, the folks assembled were concurring more to be In keeping with contention than the laws of harmony. For there among the number were two rivals of the press, Who had photographed each other with prolonged maliciousness; Who in their respective columns had a thousand words to spare For the other fellow just across the county Public Square. And cheek by jowl together were two members of the bar, Politically, legally, and socially at war, Who denounced each other daily, and in every local phrase That could make the matter binding all the balance of their days. And an ordinary actor, and an artist of renown, Whose cue, it seemed, for smiling was the little actor's frown; And the most loquacious author my remembrance can recall, And a little bench-leg poet that couldn't talk at all. Riley fancied the notable occasion as at some little town on the Bee Line. The little town was the big town of Anderson. The originals of the characters had participated in a series of discussions, serious and otherwise, which culminated in a whirlwind of criticism, the shadowy disaster (to borrow his friend Nye's figurative words) wherein the 'Jingling Editor's' feelings gave way beneath his feet and his heart broke with a loud report. The bench-leg poet was the Poet at the Crank; the loquacious author, an average chap about town with ambitions a trifle higher than the mediocrity of his performance...