The h2g2 Literary Corner: The Rose of Dixie
Created | Updated Nov 1, 2015
November is O Henry month.
The Rose of Dixie by O Henry
No, they didn't call William Sydney Porter, aka O Henry, the 'rose of Dixie'. That's the name of the short story we're excerpting here. At one time, Porter went by a prison number. (It's a long story involving bank fraud, escape to Central America, friendship with a train robber, and a lot of other adventures. He was really a good guy, though.) He also coined the term 'banana republic'. As O Henry, Porter left the world a legacy of really good writing, and probably influenced Stephen Colbert.
O Henry was born in 1862 in North Carolina, so he knew what he was talking about when he critiqued the culture of the postwar South, as he often did. This story concerns a typical Southern literary magazine of his day. We were amazed at how much it resembled certain online publications which shall remain nameless…see what you think. The whole thing's a bit longer than the average internet attention span, so if you want to get to the punchline, read the rest here.
The Rose of Dixie
When The Rose of Dixie magazine was started by a stock company in Toombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate1 for its chief editorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfair was the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family, reputation, and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit, and logical editor. So, a committee of the patriotic Georgia citizens who had subscribed the founding fund of $100,000 called upon Colonel Telfair at his residence, Cedar Heights, fearful lest the enterprise and the South should suffer by his possible refusal.
The colonel received them in his great library, where he spent most of his days. The library had descended to him from his father. It contained ten thousand volumes, some of which had been published as late as the year 18612. When the deputation arrived, Colonel Telfair was seated at his massive white-pine centre-table, reading Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." He arose and shook hands punctiliously with each member of the committee. If you were familiar with The Rose of Dixie you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in it from time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushed white hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to the left; the keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouth beneath the drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends.
The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing editor, humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication was designed to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The colonel's lands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by red gullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused.
In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave an outline of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay3, re-fought the battle of Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he would so conduct The Rose of Dixie that its fragrance and beauty would permeate the entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northern minions their belief that no genius or good could exist in the brains and hearts of the people whose property they had destroyed and whose rights they had curtailed.
Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in the second floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for the colonel to cause The Rose of Dixie to blossom and flourish or to wilt in the balmy air of the land of flowers.
The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfair drew about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches. The first assistant editor, Tolliver Lee Fairfax, had had a father killed during Pickett's charge. The second assistant, Keats Unthank4, was the nephew of one of Morgan's Raiders. The book reviewer, Jackson Rockingham, had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army, having appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and a milk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was a third cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune, the colonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once been kissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy, got his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at the commencement exercises of the Toombs City High School. The girls who wrapped and addressed the magazines were members of old Southern families in Reduced Circumstances. The cashier was a scrub named Hawkins, from Ann Arbor, Michigan5, who had recommendations and a bond from a guarantee company filed with the owners. Even Georgia stock companies sometimes realize that it takes live ones to bury the dead.
Well, sir, if you believe me, The Rose of Dixie blossomed five times before anybody heard of it except the people who buy their hooks and eyes in Toombs City. Then Hawkins climbed off his stool and told on 'em to the stock company. Even in Ann Arbor he had been used to having his business propositions heard of at least as far away as Detroit. So an advertising manager was engaged – Beauregard Fitzhugh Banks – a young man in a lavender necktie, whose grandfather had been the Exalted High Pillow-slip of the Kuklux Klan6.
In spite of which The Rose of Dixie kept coming out every month. Although in every issue it ran photos of either the Taj Mahal or the Luxembourg Gardens, or Carmencita or La Follette, a certain number of people bought it and subscribed for it. As a boom for it, Editor-Colonel Telfair ran three different views of Andrew Jackson's old home, "The Hermitage," a full-page engraving of the second battle of Manassas, entitled "Lee to the Rear!" and a five-thousand-word biography of Belle Boyd7 in the same number. The subscription list that month advanced 118. Also there were poems in the same issue by Leonina Vashti Haricot (pen-name), related to the Haricots of Charleston, South Carolina, and Bill Thompson, nephew of one of the stockholders. And an article from a special society correspondent describing a tea-party given by the swell Boston and English set, where a lot of tea was spilled overboard by some of the guests masquerading as Indians8 .
One day a person whose breath would easily cloud a mirror, he was so much alive, entered the office of The Rose of Dixie. He was a man about the size of a real-estate agent, with a self-tied tie and a manner that he must have borrowed conjointly from W. J. Bryan, Hackenschmidt, and Hetty Green. He was shown into the editor-colonel's pons asinorum9. Colonel Telfair rose and began a Prince Albert bow….
[The new guy is a new editor from New York City. He and the Colonel proceed to go through the next issue with a view to improving the content. Notice similarities to user-generated sites you know and love.]
"Well, your leading article is all right. A good write-up of the cotton-belt with plenty of photographs is a winner any time. New York is always interested in the cotton crop. And this sensational account of the Hatfield-McCoy feud10, by a schoolmate of a niece of the Governor of Kentucky, isn't such a bad idea. It happened so long ago that most people have forgotten it11. Now, here's a poem three pages long called 'The Tyrant's Foot,' by Lorella Lascelles12. I've pawed around a good deal over manuscripts, but I never saw her name on a rejection slip."
"Miss Lascelles," said the editor, "is one of our most widely recognized Southern poetesses. She is closely related to the Alabama Lascelles family, and made with her own hands the silken Confederate banner that was presented to the governor of that state at his inauguration."
"But why," persisted Thacker, "is the poem illustrated with a view of the M. & O. Railroad freight depot at Tuscaloosa?"
"The illustration," said the colonel, with dignity, "shows a corner of the fence surrounding the old homestead where Miss Lascelles was born."
"All right," said Thacker. "I read the poem, but I couldn't tell whether it was about the depot or the battle of Bull Run. Now, here's a short story called 'Rosies' Temptation,' by Fosdyke Piggott. It's rotten. What is a Piggott, anyway?"
"Mr. Piggott," said the editor, "is a brother of the principal stockholder of the magazine."
"All's right with the world – Piggott passes," said Thacker. "Well this article on Arctic exploration and the one on tarpon fishing might go. But how about this write-up of the Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville, and Savannah breweries? It seems to consist mainly of statistics about their output and the quality of their beer. What's the chip over the bug13?"
"If I understand your figurative language," answered Colonel Telfair, "it is this: the article you refer to was handed to me by the owners of the magazine with instructions to publish it. The literary quality of it did not appeal to me. But, in a measure, I feel impelled to conform, in certain matters, to the wishes of the gentlemen who are interested in the financial side of The Rose14."
"I see," said Thacker. "Next we have two pages of selections from 'Lalla Rookh,' by Thomas Moore. Now, what Federal prison did Moore escape from, or what's the name of the F.F.V. 15 family that he carries as a handicap?"
"Moore was an Irish poet who died in 1852," said Colonel Telfair, pityingly. "He is a classic. I have been thinking of reprinting his translation of Anacreon serially in the magazine16."
"Look out for the copyright laws," said Thacker, flippantly17. Who's Bessie Belleclair, who contributes the essay on the newly completed water-works plant in Milledgeville?"
"The name, sir," said Colonel Telfair, "is the nom de guerre of Miss Elvira Simpkins. I have not the honor of knowing the lady; but her contribution was sent to us by Congressman Brower, of her native state. Congressman Brower's mother was related to the Polks18 of Tennessee….
Me again: The story goes on from there, piling up jokes and topical references. The punchline is cool if you know who Teddy Roosevelt was, and that he wrote about as much (and as well as) Winston Churchill. I think you'd enjoy the rest of this, but just think…
Does anything ever change about people?
'You are entering Georgia. Set your watches back 100 years.'9Yeah, we know what it means. O Henry knew what it meant, too. So will you, if you look it up.10This feud between the Hatfields of West Virginia, of English origin, and the McCoys of Kentucky, of Scots-Irish origin, had it beginnings in the Civil War. Er, the US Civil War. Even they wouldn't still be harbouring grudges over Cromwell…er, would they?11Nah. There's a reference to it in World of Warcraft. It's also on modern cable TV.12O Henry might have been thinking of 'The Despot's Heel', a phrase from the unintentionally hilarious state song of Maryland. 'Maryland, My Maryland'.This song is STILL the state song, much to the bemusement of schoolchildren under the impression that they don't live in the Confederacy.13As somebody once remarked, using slang like that gives your copy a shelflife of fifteen minutes. That phrase had its fifteen minutes long before Warhol was thought of.14As do we all.15FFV=First Families of Virginia.16I'm not sure even an Irishman would be that loyal.17Not us. We've got that page about Public Domain bookmarked. Which is why you're in here.18The 11th US President was a Polk.
