Ohio History Journal

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

 

BY THE EDITOR

APPRECIATION OF MISS MACNEILAN'S

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE LIFE AND POETRY

OF COATES KINNEY.

An Interpretation of the Life and Poetry of Coates

Kinney. By Debora M. MacNeilan. (Columbus: Ohio

State Archaeological and Historical Society. 1931. pp.

88. Cloth $1.00; paper 50 cents.)

No publication of The Ohio State Archaeological and

Historical Society in recent years has been followed

more promptly by appreciative comment from the press

than Miss MacNeilan's work entitled An Interpretation

of the Life and Poetry of Coates Kinney. It was issued

from the press early last April and its reception clearly

indicated that perhaps the Society has been neglecting

somewhat the literary achievement of the state. Emi-

nence in statesmanship and war and growth in wealth

and population naturally afford the themes of major im-

portance. Literary progress, however, helps to build and

sustain the state and contributes much to education

and progress. In fact, a state's attainments in literary

culture is a safe index to its educational progress.

Among the poets who have made material contribu-

tions to Ohio is Coates Kinney. Without entering upon

any account of his life or criticism of his literary work

we shall here reproduce some estimates of both and their

portrayal by Miss MacNeilan, as expressed in reviews

from the Ohio press.

(650)

• 1
 

Reviews, Notes and Comments             651

The Ohio State Journal, which Coates Kinney at one

time edited, on April 20 published an extended apprecia-

tion with a front page portrait of Miss MacNeilan.

From this we make the following quotations:

An interpretative biography paving the way to a broader

knowledge and just appreciation of Ohio literature has been

written by Miss Debora M. MacNeilan, 402 E. Lane Ave.

It is titled An Interpretation of the Life and Poetry of

Coates Kinney, and has been published in book form by the

Ohio State Historical Society.

The biography of Kinney, soldier, poet, editor and lawyer,

was written by Miss MacNeilan as her thesis for a master of

arts degree, which was awarded her at Ohio State University

last August.

Kinney, whom the author pictures as "representative of a

group of Ohio poets whose poetry is national in its scope and

influence," was an editorial writer of The Ohio State Journal

in 1877 and 1878, while Gen. Comly was in Hawaii.

Kinney, Miss MacNeilan declares, "had the poet's all-seeing

eye, for beyond the appearance of things he saw the reality,"

and he chose immortality as the theme of his life, which was "a

life of thinking, a life in the direction of truth."

"Because of his great theme, death," she wrote, "his poetry

has a melancholy tone which is kept sweet by the voice of hope

singing throughout, now faintly, now triumphantly.

"But the future is not far off when men will realize the

greatness of Coates Kinney. Now he belongs to Ohio, but ul-

timately he will belong to the world for all time."

Throughout the book, the author brings in the various works

of Kinney as they apply to the high points in his life.

Among them is Kinney's popular lyric, "Rain on the Roof,"

which brought him fame in 1849. It tells of his first sweetheart

in Springboro, Warren County, Ohio, whither Kinney moved

with his parents from his birthplace in Yates County, N. Y., in

his fourteenth year.

"The Poem," to quote Miss MacNeilan, "touched the heart-

strings of America; in fact it vibrated so perfectly with the

homely experience of all that it soon became the property of all."

"Kapnisma" she rated as Kinney's masterpiece. In this poem

as well as "Pessim and Optim" and "A Keen Swift Spirit,"

Miss MacNeilan found Kinney "reasons his problem in terms of

evolutionary pantheism."

• 2
 

652       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

Mr. Thomas Emmett Moore in the Cincinnati En-

quirer of April 18, says:

A critical estimate of one of America's greatest poets has just

been published by the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical

Society. It is a pioneer venture in the revival, and firmer crystal-

ization, of the fame of the later nineteenth-century poets of Cin-

cinnati and the Middle West. This movement, which has the

approval and encouragement of the Ohio State University, and of

every friend of the vast cultural development which found in

Cincinnati its crux and center, should be supported by the gen-

eral public with enthusiasm.

This revival has come in the form of a critical biography en-

titled An Interpretation of the Life and Poetry of Coates Kin-

ney, written as a master's thesis by Debora May MacNeilan, a

graduate student in the English department of Ohio State Uni-

versity.

The author shows force--she is at one with the dreamer's

thinking concerning the problems of death, love, science, nature--

with the compelling principles of the poet's life, the thought which

urged his thinking into eternal motion.

Only a woman's intuition could do that, balanced by literary

judgment, fidelity and finished critical sense.

Miss MacNeilan is both philosopher and devotee at the shrine

of genius. So, after 27 years, Coates Kinney's "little boat asleep"

fixes its uninterrupted course, guided by a knowing, understand-

ing pilot.

It well may be that this venture of the Ohio Archaeological

Society is prophetic of literary largess yet to come, and that the

grand group famous in Cincinnati and the Nation at that time, in-

cluding the Cary sisters, William Haines Lytle, William Henry

Venable, John James Piatt, William Dean Howells and Edith

Thomas, may find as able and sympathetic chroniclers as the gifted

author of the brochure dedicated to Coates Kinney.

It is, of course, true that this author enjoyed a distinct and

distinctive advantage in being the first to make available the bio-

graphical and other data in the possession of Professor Emerson

Venable, Colonel Kinney's neophyte, intimate friend and literary

executor, whose interest in the "classic era" of Middle Western

poetry and literary effort has made him one of the best sources of

information concerning an illuminate period; a rich inheritance

indeed.

Mr. Galbreath and the Ohio State University are to be con-

• 3
 

Reviews, Notes and Comments             653

 

gratulated and encouraged in their effort to keep alive the in-

terest of a monumental time in this section.

The Columbus Evening Dispatch of April 28 con-

tains the following estimate:

THE COATES KINNEY BIOGRAPHY

An interpretative biography of the late Coates Kinney, poet

and editor, written as a thesis for graduation by a graduate

student of the State university last year, and published by the

State Archaeological and Historical society, cites a number of

poems by this author which it is claimed form a basis upon which

to rest his reputation as a poet more substantial than that by which

he is best known--"Rain on the Roof."

The writer of the biography is qualified to form literary

judgment and her estimate of some of the less known poems of

Colonel Kinney is no doubt correct, but "Rain on the Roof" is

written in the vein of the common people, deals with their cus-

toms, and through it runs the home theme which has a special

appeal to our people. In their opinion this will continue to be his

masterpiece, and his name and the name of this poem will be

inseparably linked in their minds.

Ohio has had quite a number of minor poets and it would be

a fine thing if others could be made the subjects of similar studies

on the part of graduate students in arts. The State Archaeological

and Historical society has done a good service in lending its aid

and publication facilities to the bringing out of this biography of

one of Ohio's best known literary men.

The same paper in its review of May 10 adds:

Could Coates Kinney read this eulogy of his life and work,

he would, no doubt, be gratified. If not adequately discriminat-

ing, it is sympathetic and properly appreciative of the fine spirit

which, through most of his 78 years, struggled for expression.

His life belongs to the last three-quarters of the nineteenth cen-

tury. He was born in New York state in 1826, and came with his

father's family to Ohio in 1840. As a boy he had lived near to

Nature in one of the beauty spots of earth, acquiring a love of

Nature which influenced him throughout his later years.

While working in a sawmill in Warren county he tried his

hand at poetry, which his brother laughed at; when in love and

at school, he wrote poetry, as he did also while he was teaching,

• 4
 

654       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

studying law in Lebanon, serving as editor in Xenia, West Lib-

erty, Springfield and Cincinnati; as a soldier in the Civil war; or

as a senator in the Ohio legislature. He wrote much, largely neces-

sarily in prose, and spoke eloquently in public, but his special

delight was to give to his fancy the wings of meter.

Critics have spoken in high praise of this loved work of his,

but the common people have given him fame for but one of his

lyrics. "Rain On the Roof," a tender melancholy poem which

touched the hearts of people far and near, was set to music and

abides yet in the memory of many who are living. He wrote the

ode for the Ohio centennial--which was held in Columbus in

^1888--a notable production but chiseled too fine to reach the

popular heart. And that is, perhaps, the criticism is to be passed

on most of his poetry. He ranks with Piatt and Venable, Curry

and Gallagher in refinement of thought and beauty of expression

but, like them, he, for the most part, failed to write that which

reached the heart and is cherished in the memory.

As far as the common people are concerned, Coates Kinney,

like Julia Ward Howe, is loved for a single poem. His was writ-

ten after listening, one night, to the patter of the rain on the roof

of the farmhouse near Xenia, in which the family had once lived.

For that poem and the story of it, this study by Miss Mac-

Neilan would be well worth while. But there is more in Coates

Kinney's life and struggles and character that are well worth

knowing, and the facts are here well reviewed. The brochure

belongs properly in every library of Ohioana.

Of Miss MacNeilan's book, Mr. Clark B. Firestone,

in the Cincinnati Times Star of June 23, writes as fol-

lows:

Of a philosophical poem by Coates Kinney, William Dean

Howells wrote: "It is a late-coming of one who has lingered long

in the repute won him by a single charming lyric." The lyric

was "Rain on the Roof." Half a century ago, everybody who

knew any poetry could quote a goodly number of the lines. They

gave the author a country-wide reputation.

Born in New York in 1826, but removing with his parents to

Ohio at an early age, Coates Kinney lived an interesting and var-

ied life. He studied law under Thomas Corwin and was ad-

mitted to the bar in Cincinnati. He edited a monthly literary mag-

azine. Like Longfellow, Whittier and other American poets of

the time, he composed a long metrical narrative about the Indians.

He served behind the lines in the Civil War and came out as

• 5
 

Reviews, Notes and Comments                655

 

brevet lieutenant colonel. For two years he was leading editorial

writer on the Cincinnati Times, and therefore is of the Times-

Star family   He was a fiery and stirring speaker, serving in the

Ohio Senate. He died in 1904.

In her interpretation, Miss MacNeilan well says: "Words were

a constant challenge to him. In his poem, 'The Thought and the

Word,' he discloses the struggle between Thought, the soaring

eagle, and Word, the creeping serpent--a fight in which the eagle,

rising heavenward with the snake, is suddenly brought low by

the strangling serpent.  But a consciousness of the force and

beauty of words made him a true adept in their use." One illus-

tration of many is his poem, to his baby daughter, whose voice was

as a bird's "making sweet little speeches without any words." A

fine stanza from another lyric is the following:

"My soul was a gloom that had blotted heaven;

And thine was a fine ascending fire

That streamed it through with a luminous leaven

Of hope of morning and day's desire."

Like his own old apple tree, his was "the grace of blossoms

fruiting into gold." The friendship between him and William

Henry Venable--Emerson Venable is Kinney's literary executor--

was an inspiring spiritual comradeship. The poet's longest work,

"Mists of Fire," brought out in his old age, had for its theme the

immortality of the soul, and the trenchant thought in it antici-

pated modern conclusions. More musical than this, however, and

more haunting even than "Rain on the Roof"--or so the reviewer

thinks--are the lines called "Emma Stuart." The first three and

the last of the six stanzas are reprinted here:

 

"O the voices of the crickets,

Chirping sad along the lea,

Seem the very tears of music

Unto melancholy me;

And the katydids' responses

From among the locust leaves

Are the weak and wild regrettings

Of far other autumn eves.

 

"For they mind me, Emma Stuart,

Of the bygone blessed times,

When our heartbeats paired together

Like sweet syllables in rhymes;

Ere the faith of love was broken--

Ere our locked hands fell apart--

And the vanity of promise

Left a void in either heart.

• 6
 

656        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

"Art thou happy, Emma Stuart?

I again may happy be

Nevermore: the insects crying

In the grass and on the tree,

As if singing songs of sorrow

At the coming of the frost,

Are to me love's fallen angels

Wailing for their heaven lost.

??

"No, ah no! Along the pathway

Grows the high untrampled grass,

Where the cricket stops to listen

For thy wonted feet to pass;

But thy footsteps, Emma Stuart,

Press no more the doorway-stone,

Trip no more along the pathway--

And the cricket sings alone!"

Was more charming and wistful lyric ever written by an

American poet? By her sympathetic interpretation of its author

and his writings Miss MacNeilan has performed a service to

letters.                                          C. B. F.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer of Wednesday, April 29,

publishes a two-column review        of Miss MacNeilan's

book. From it we make the following extracts:

 

COATES KINNEY

Prolific as the intellectual soil of Ohio has been in the pro-

duction of national presidents, legislators, soldiers, leaders in all

the learned professions, invention and modern industrial manage-

ment, it seems to lack those particular ingredients that produce

either renowned poets or great preachers.

Our Chases, Wades, Stantons and Garfields readily match

the Winthrops, Everetts, Lodges and Sewards of New England

and New York, and the Lamars and Davises of the south, but we

have not produced a Longfellow, a Whittier, a Holmes or a Riley.

It is doubtless with such thoughts as this in mind, Debora

May MacNeilan, a graduate student of the English department

of Ohio State University, has recently given to the people of

Ohio, in book form, An Interpretation of the Life and Poetry

of Coates Kinney, written as a master's thesis for the university

faculty.

Coates Kinney, editor, poet, and "dreamer of dreams" was

born in Keeuka, the crooked lake district of northern New York,

• 7
 

Reviews, Notes and Comments            657

 

and was in his fourteenth year when his father removed the

family to Springboro, Warren County, Ohio.

 

TRUTH

"A study of his life," Miss MacNeilan tells us, "reveals his

theme to have been immortality. His life was a thinking life in

the direction of truth. Emerson Venable says of him: 'Coates

Kinney is distinctively the poet of science, the poet of evolution'."

In his earliest boyhood Coates Kinney seems to have "lisped

in numbers as the numbers came," and though engaged in the

arduous task of attending a country sawmill, he evinced all the

ardor for mental development that marked the early educational

struggles of Abraham Lincoln.

It was at the doubtlessly crude Springboro Academy that he

mastered ten books of Euclid in eleven weeks and was leading

the school in algebra and grammar. Like Lincoln, also, he was,

at an early age, deeply concerned with the problems of human

slavery, but unlike him, openly and vigorously espoused the

cause of abolition.

When the Civil War clouds finally burst, Coates Kinney ap-

plied to Gov. Salmon P. Chase at Columbus and received an ap-

pointment as major and paymaster of the United States army,

serving until Nov. 14, 1865, when he retired with the brevet rank

of lieutenant colonel.

Before this he had met and married Mary C. Allen, the

youthful daughter of a Virginia family, then living in Xenia,

Ohio. He was now prepared to enter a field congenial to his heart

and mind. He therefore accepted the editorship, first, of a weekly

newspaper at Mount Liberty, but very soon after took the editorial

chair of the Xenia (O.) Torchlight, which Whitelaw Reid had

just vacated to join Horace Greeley on the New York Tribune.

This paper he edited and owned for many years, when his columns

were regarded as a sort of political mentor to a large portion of

people in southwestern Ohio and is said to have been probably

more widely quoted than any other newspaper in Ohio.

 

HIS WORK

In the meantime, and for many years, Coates Kinney was

also contributing regularly to various American literary maga-

zines, including Charles S. Abbott's Genius of the West, a

monthly literary publication in Cincinnati, the National Era, an

Abolitionists' paper published in Washington, D, C., to which

John Greenleaf Whittier was a constant contributor, and the

Ladies Repository, one of the early American publications cater,

Vol, XL--42.

• 8
 

658       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

ing to the feminine population of the country in both prose and

poetry.

It was in Abbott's printing office that the poet set up with

his own hand and published his first volume of 27 poems in-

cluding a long narrative and partially biographical ode based on

the war between the New York tribes of Mohawks and Keeukas.

In 1868-69 he was leading editorial writer on the Cincinnati

Times Star and in 1877, when President Hayes named Gen. Comly

of the Ohio State Journal to be our minister to Hawaii, Coates

Kinney took his place as editor of that well known and influential

publication.

In the year 1885, Coates Kinney's 24 years of editorial duties

came to a close. He was then the editor and owner of the Spring-

field Globe Republic.

THE END

In January, 1904, the aged editor was seized with an attack

of the grippe and was taken from a hotel in Cincinnati to the

Presbyterian Hospital of that city, where he lingered a few days

before solving for himself the ponderable unreality of death.

 

Sunlight on the Southside--Lists of Tithes.         Lunen-

burg County, Virginia, 1748-1783.      By Landon C.

Bell. (Philadelphia: George S. Ferguson Com-

pany. 1931. pp. 503.)

Privately printed, a few copies are still in the hands of the author

which may be had at $15.00 each.

Mr. Landon C. Bell of Columbus, Ohio, formerly of

Virginia, has published another valuable volume for

genealogical research workers.     This is entitled Sun-

light on the Southside--Lists of Tithes.        Lunenburg

County, Virginia, 1748-1783.

In the introduction to this volume the writer tells us

what in accordance with the opinions of Virginia his-

torians constitutes the Southside of the Old Dominion.

Those whose opinions are quoted are Dr. Philip Alex-

ander Bruce, Honorable William Cabell Bruce, Dr. Lyon

G. Tyler, Honorable Armistead C. Gordon and Dr.

• 9