The North Carolina Speaker
A few days ago Mr. G. S. Williams of Raleigh
came to our office with a book in his hand.
"I thought you might like to see this." he said.
And then, after a few minutes' conversation, he
departed.
We picked up the book later that afternoon. Its
title was "The North Carolina Speaker." compiled
by Eugene G. Harrell and John B. Ncatherlv and
published in 1X87 by Alfred Williams & Company.
Before we put it down, we had read most of its
contents and found them so interesting that we
decided to take the outstanding articles and poems
and pass them along to you. We believe you will
enjoy them just as much as we did and that you
will obtain a better appreciation of North Carolina
as a result of reading this material.
Remember, please, that all this was written more
than sixty years ago. It shows that North Carolinians
always have been proud of their state and what its
people have accomplished.
OUR STATE,
I»;/ Henri/ 1%. Blount of Wilson
WITH a bosom swelling with
glowing emotion and with
eyes radiant with brilliant
sparkles of pride and joy. I come to
speak of the matchless splendors
and the matchless resources of our
grand and matchless State. I say
"matchless" because it is the only
State in the Union whose products
till up every blank in the United
States Census Report, and all those
who have enjoyed its sunny skies
and delightful atmosphere will
agree in pronouncing it the favored
spot of earth; hence it can indeed
be called a grand and matchless
State.
Yes, there is indeed a wealth of
agricultural and mineral sources
which make our dear, modest,
meek, humble and unpretentious
State capable of the grandest and
most magnificent possibilities. It
shows that she is nursing in her
bosom today, as they lie undis¬
turbed in sweetest and serenest re¬
pose. those germs of wealth which
will enable her. when they are well
grown and fully developed, to ride
in the luxuriantly cushioned car¬
riage of opulent and affluent
splendor.
It is a land whose perpetual
dripping of golden sunbeams
makes our severest winters an
eternal stranger to those sharp and
biting winds which sleep on beds
of ice. wrapped in sheets of ever¬
lasting snow. It is a land whose
bleak December allows the flower-
embowered verandas and vine-
clad piazzas to remain comfortable
enough for lovers to find their
sweetest retreat: and there,
warmed only by the glimmering
fires of falling starbeams. they
count the dulcet flight of happiest
moments, timed to the rapturous
pulsings of their own heart-beats,
as they go ebbing away, freighted
with the odor of fragrant flowers
and the melody of birds whose
throats are lined with song the
whole year through.
It is indeed and in truth a magic-
land, for here apples grow and
ripen and mellow twice on the
same tree in one year, for summer
brings to these sun-kissed vales all
of the sweetest and balmiest in¬
fluences of its gorgeous and luxu¬
riant wealth, and scatters as her
incense and her fondest tribute to
this beautiful shrine of plenteous
land, favored of God and loved of
man. It is a land where the golden
sunlight of morn, aroused by the
merry prattle and rippling laugh¬
ter of splashing billows, scatters
the first sparkling showers of living
light, and makes gorgeous with
crimson splendor some of the love¬
liest places that were ever
stretched out beneath the broad
and vast canopy of Heaven. It is a
land whose vales, threaded with
silvery brooklets and dotted with
flowery grottoes, make one dream
of a new Florida, a new creation;
where flowers grow in richest
bloom and sweetest fragrance;
where song birds sing their merry
roundelay from early morn until
late at night, making the whole
year vocal with notes of gladness,
and causing portions of every
month of winter to resemble a
flower-wreathed child of fragrant
spring.
It is a land whose high mountain
tops, catching all the crimson
glories of gorgeous sunsets, pre¬
serve for man's delectation and
rapture those exquisite timings of
beauty, seemingly made only for
vision of the blest in the enchanted
realms of paradise. The scene of
beauty seen in the tangled dell, the
vine-draped cover and the crystal
streams as they gleam in all the
wild magnificence of their frost-
wrought coloring, would dazzle
and bewilder the brains of all the
Titians and all the Claude Lor¬
raines who ever painted with en¬
chanted brush the rich creations
of their poetic brains.
Yes, it is a land rich in scenes
like these, for here Nature abso¬
lutely seems to lavish all the rich
colors of Heaven on the landscape.
Earth dons her most gorgeous ap¬
parel of myriad-hued tapestry.
Creation seems bathed in pris¬
matic splendors. The willows and
cottonwoods, aspens and laurels, in
their delicate draperies of green
and gold, flutter and simper with
coquettish delight at the whisper¬
ings of the loving breeze.
Yes, come ye friends from other
states; come and see for yourselves.
And now is the time, for Novem¬
ber is. of all the year, the queen
month here. She comes dancing
over peak and prairie, lake and
dell, scattering beauty and bril¬
liancy unknown to dwellers in a
less-favored realm. The flutter of
her many-colored gauzy robes is
like the dazzle of celestial kaleido¬
scopes. Her artistic fingers weave
mantles of autumn’s brightest
tintings for the woods and sloping
lake and river sides. The whole
air is resonant with the slumber¬
ous melody of falling waters,
which are resplendent with the
glories of a million shattered rain¬
bows. as the last sunbeams of sum¬
mer, tangled in meshes of the spray
and mist, die like ethereal dolphins
in a blaze of many gorgeous tints.
And above all this bends a sky of
translucent azure, beauteous as
ever beheld itself reflected back in
the blue waves of Naples or the
Golden Horn. And over the whole
entrancing landscape, sleeping in
the mellow autumn sunlight; over
hill and valley, mountain, lake and
plain: over crag. rock, rivulet and
cascade, the mystic Indian Sum¬
mer spreads her soft veil of blue
and lavender hazy crape woven
from the smoke wreathing up in
6
THE STATE. NoveMOKR 27. 1048
