The Madness of May

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The Madness of May. Nicholson, Meredith, 1866–1947

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Title:

The Madness of May

Author:

Nicholson, Meredith, 1866-1947

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NICHOLSON, MEREDITH: 1866-1947.

Meredith Nicholson was born in Crawfordsville, Ind., on Dec. 9, 1866, the son of Edward Willis and Emily Meredith Nicholson. The father was born in Kentucky, of a long line extending back to colonial days. Coming to Montgomery County, Ind., as a young man, Edward Nicholson soon became one of the substantial farmers of that county, a member of the Montgomery Guards, a Zouave company which became in the Civil War the nucleus of the Eleventh Indiana Infantry, commanded by Gen. Lew Wallace. At the end of three months' service Nicholson enlisted in the artillery, becoming captain of the Twenty-second Indiana Battery. He continued with his command until the close of the war, having been with Sherman on the march to the sea and having sighted and fired the first gun at the Battle of Shiloh.

The mother of Meredith Nicholson was born at Centerville, Ind., the daughter of an early settler there, Samuel Caldwell Meredith, one of the pioneer editors and publishers of that district. As a young woman during the Civil War, she gave effective services as a nurse in the South. Shortly after the close of the war, she and Capt. Nicholson were married and took up their residence in Crawfordsville, where their son (and his younger sister) were born. For a time during the war Capt. Nicholson had been assigned to detail duty in Indianapolis in the drilling of new batteries, so, in 1872, when young Meredith was about five years old, the family moved to the capital city, where they continued to reside until 1888, when Capt. Nicholson moved to Washington, D. C. His son, however, remained in Indianapolis, where he lived afterward, with the exception of the years spent in South and Central America with the State Department (1932-1942) and three years in Denver, Colo., in the late Nineties.

The background of the youthful Nicholson was thus set" the intense interest in the Civil War, due to the services and experiences of both of his parents, and the deep feeling for all that is characteristic of Hoosierdom and its inhabitants, their "folksy" qualities, sociable and companionable, the feeling for newspaper work, editorial and reportorial, which came down from his maternal grandfather, Samuel Meredith, and an appreciation of and respect for the pioneer spirit which went into the making of his native state of Indiana.

Of formal education he had no more than nine years in the Indianapolis public schools, leaving, when about fifteen, during his first year in high school. Then came a succession of jobs, always leading him nearer and nearer to his chosen work of writing. A brief spell as a clerk in a drug store and work in a printer's shop, where he learned the rudiments of the printer's trade plus a smattering of shorthand, a position as court reporter, then employment by a law firm followed. At the age of nineteen he commenced the study of law in the office of Dye and Fishback. Later he continued his studies under one of Indianapolis's outstanding lawyers of that day, William Wallace, brother of (ken. Lew Wallace.

It was during his days as a law student that Meredith Nicholson began to manifest his natural taste, using what spare time he could muster from his law books to begin his first serious efforts at writing. He had the usual success of the talented amateur: the local newspapers printed his efforts, but without pay. Before long, however, he became identified with newspaper work in Indianapolis. After a year on the INDIANAPOLIS SENTINEL, in 1884, he became a valued and versatile member of the editorial staff of the INDIANAPOLIS NEWS, where he remained from 1885 to 1897. After a year in stock brokerage, a three-year residence in Denver, Colo., followed, during which period he was auditor and treasurer of a coal-mining corporation.

Returning to Indianapolis at the turn of the century, he began to devote his entire time to literary work. Outside of his various newspaper writings during the 1890's, only one published volume stood to his credit –a book of poems entitled Short Flights, published in 1891. But from 1900 on his published writings were issued with increasing frequency. In that year he published The Hoosiers, a volume of brief historical essays, about which he once remarked that it was his personal favorite of all of his writings and the one by which he expected to be longest remembered. In particular, his essay on the variously attributed origins of the term Hoosier remains the best account of the beginning of that much-disputed word.

Progress had been slow up to the point where Nicholson received his first real pay for any of his writings, the earliest being the very modest sum—even for those days–of three dollars given him by an Eastern newspaper for a poem. A bit later he won a prize of ten dollars offered by a Chicago newspaper for a short story. The story was "The Tale of a Postage Stamp." These small returns were a far cry from the returns of a quarter of a century later when his books numbered among the best sellers of their day. With The Main Chance and Zelda Dameron, he became one of the best known of American writers, even abroad, where his House of a Thousand Candles was published in Paris in a French translation and drew the enthusiastic approval of French critics. His success, as shown by the accompanying bibliography, was consistent up to the time that he retired as a writer in the 1930's, but it was as an essayist rather than as a novelist that he preferred to be known–perhaps because at heart he was an editorialist. With a profound belief in democracy, he spoke for self-government and tolerance: because he believed in people he was fundamentally an optimist.

Always in his writing–especially in his essays– Nicholson remained a Hoosier, a midlander, varying from the majority viewpoint only in his political attachment, and even in that he remained, although a Democrat, a Jeffersonian Democrat, which is an understandable faith, even to the most dyed-in-the-wool midwestern Republicans.

He kept up a constant and lively interest in politics. President Wilson offered him the post of minister to Portugal in 1913 but he refused. Later he served as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the U. S. to Paraguay (1933-34), Venezuela (1935-38), and Nicaragua (1938-41), when he retired to private life in Indianapolis. In his last years he contributed many articles–mainly essays and editorials on his favorite subject, the Hoosier scene with its people, its custom, its way of life–to the Indianapolis papers.

His lack of formal education after the first year of high school was more than compensated for by his own efforts. Filled with sincere regret that he had rejected the advice of his mother and had left school, he undertook, during his newspaper days, to make up for this deficiency by self-instruction in Latin and Greek as well as French and Italian, a knowledge of languages being considered in the 1880's as the mark of an educated man. Newspaper training showed in his handwriting, and even his personal notes and letters displayed the neat, small but legible handwriting, without indentation for paragraphs, which are merely indicated by the printer's sign, and they possess the same delightful style that endeared him to all reading Americans. His self-acquired knowledge of foreign languages contributed much to his writings in his mother tongue.

Both his literary attainments and his contributions to statesmanship were recognized with honorary degrees: from Wabash College, Butler University and Indiana University. He was also an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

On June 16, 1896, he married Eugenic Kountze, by whom he had three children, Elizabeth (Mrs. Austin H. Brown), Meredith, Jr., and Charles Lionel. Her death occurred in 1931, and he married Mrs. Dorothy Wolfe Lannon in 1933. They were divorced ten years later.

After his return from Nicaragua Mr. Nicholson resumed residence in Indianapolis, heart of the Hoosierland which he had done so much to publicize. The dean of Indiana litterateurs, he died in his eighty-first year on Dec. 22, 1947–still as ardent a Hoosier as might be found.

Information from the children of Meredith Nicholson.

Short Flights. Indianapolis, 1891.
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The Hoosiers. New York, 1900.
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The Main Chance. Indianapolis, 1903.
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Zelda Dameron. Indianapolis, 1904.
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The House of a Thousand Candles. Indianapolis, 1905.
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Poems. Indianapolis, 1906.
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The Port of Missing Men. Indianapolis, 1907.
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Rosalind at Red Gate. Indianapolis, 1907.
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The Little Brown Jug at Kildare. Indianapolis, 1908.
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The Lords of High Decision. Garden City, N. Y., 1909.
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The Siege of the Seven Suitors. Boston, 1910.
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A Hoosier Chronicle. Boston, 1912.
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The Provincial American and Other Papers. Boston, 1912.
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Otherwise Phyllis. Boston, 1913.
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The Poet. Boston, 1914.
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The Proof of the Pudding. Boston, 1916.
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The Madness of May. New York, 1917.
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A Reversible Santa Claus. Boston, 1917.
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The Valley of Democracy. New York, 1918.
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Lady Larkspur. New York, 1919.
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Blacksheep ! Blacksheep! New York, 1920.
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The Man in the Street; Papers on American Topics. New York, 1921.
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Honor Bright (withKenyon Nicholson). New York, 1921.
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Best Laid Schemes. New York, 1922.
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Broken Barriers. New York, 1922.
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The Hope of Happiness. New York, 1923.
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And They Lived Happily Ever After. New York, 1925.
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The Cavalier of Tennessee. Indianapolis, 1928.
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Tell Me Your Troubles. (Play byKenyon Nicholson,based on a short story of the same name byMeredith Nicholson.) New York, 1928.
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Old Familiar Faces. Indianapolis, 1929.
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Publication Year:

1917

Source:

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917.

Bookmark:

https://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/inauthors/VAA2366

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THE MADNESS OF MAY

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"I didn't know it was your moon," he said. [Page 60

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