People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1897 — RILEY’S NEW PLANS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RILEY’S NEW PLANS.

THE HOOStER POET SAYS HE WILL LECTURE NO MORE, Will Devote the Best of HU Days to Writing Poetry as the Spirit Moves Him. Riley's Experiences at Massillon, O. and How It Affected HlmJames Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosiei poet, who is closer to the hearts of the American people than any other singer who ever wrote 1 in English, has been spending a few days in Chicago visiting the family of Horace E. Rood. “I am devoting myself exclusively to literary work, ” said Mr. Riley the other night. “I have quit the lecture platform for good. I may give a few readings occasionally here and there, just to suit myself, but as a business I’m through with it. I’m tired of being ‘managed,’ and I’m glad to have a chance to settle down and write—just as the spirit moves me—without business interruptions. ” “Always in verse?” I inquired. “Always,” he replied with emphasis. “I cannot remember a time when I would not prefer to write anything in rhyme rather than in prose. Today, if I were to begin upon a history of the United States, I would write every line of it in verse. ” I referred to Mr. Riley’s early connection with an Indianapolis paper, and he said concerning it: “Bless you, I never was a newspaper man, never for a minute. I tried to be and wrote a little for a home paper, but I never could tfb anything the editor told me to do, and so I gave it up. I can’t take an assignment even now. If a firm gives me an order for a certain piece of work, I can’t fill it, and I don’t try to either. Whenever an idea strikes me, I turn it into verse and lay it away. By and by, when a publisher asks me to write a poem on a certain topic, I say to him that I can’t do it, but suggest that 1 may have something else which will suit him just as well. “Queer, isn’t it,” chuckled the Indi--ana poet, “that we always want what we think we can’t get? When I was in the leoture field, I Buppose my manager often had to lie awake nights to find

dates for me. Just as soon as it became known that I had quit the platform I seemed to be in demand everywhere. My mail immediately jumped up to enormous proportions compared with what it had been before, and I was offered bigger figures than I had ever dreamed of.” A few years ago a couple of Ohio boys, as a speculation, engaged Mr. Riley to deliver two lectures in Massillon and Canton. Coxey’s town has only 12,000 population and never has been noted for the high literary standing of its people, a majority of whom are la? borers working in the manufacturing establishments. The lecture was not well advertised, and Mr. Riley was greeted by an audience that was pitiably small and intensely frigid. He worked hard, but it was a hopeless task. The entertainment was one of the worst frosts that Massillon ever experienced. It nearly broke Riley’s heart. He mourned and mourned and refused to be comforted. All attempts to cheer him up proved futile. The next day, which he spent in Canton, where he was to lecture that night, was a ceaseless round of nervous agony. The family whqpe guest he was tried to impress upon Riley the fact that the Massillon failure was not due to the lecturer himself, but to the want of preparation mid advertisement. They assured him, with great emphasis, that if he came a second time things would be different. The Canton hostess had invited in several young ladies to meet the distinguished Icdianian, - but their combined efforts proved insufficient to distract Riley’s thoughts from the specter which he.mtedhim. Once he was missed, and ' i.e hostess found him alone in the gar- ■ wringing his hands and pacing ■ 1 t like a enged lion. come, Mr. Riley,” she said, 1 *u. never do. You are my prisoner. ’ ’ Then she took him by the arm and led him back to the house like a lamb to the slaughter. Lying, on the center table was a copy of The Christian at Work, the back page of which was ornamented by. a large advertisement announcing the forthcoming publication of an elaborate work on “The Second Coming of Christ. ’ ’ “That must be a interesting book. Don’t you think so?” remarked the hostess for lack of anything else to attract Riley’s attention, at the same time handing the paper to him. The Hoosier poet glanced at the advertisement and abstractedly said: “ ‘The Second Coming of Christ, ’ ‘The Second Coming of Christ.’ Um—yes. I wonder what kind of an audience Massillon will turn out.”—Frank S. Pixley jn Chicago Times-Herald. £

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.