There was something cosmic about his attitude to life, and this showed in much that he did. He was the only American writer of humorous verse of his day whom I always cared to read, or whose lines I could remember more than a few weeks. This was perhaps because his work was never _merely_ humorous, but always had a big sweep of background to it, like the ruggedness of the Kentucky mountains from which he came. It was Colonel George Harvey, then editor of _Harper’s Weekly_, who had started the boom to make Woodrow Wilson President. Wilson afterwards, at least seemingly, repudiated his sponsor, probably because of Harvey’s identification with various moneyed interests. Lampton’s poem on the subject, with its refrain, “Never again, said Colonel George,” I remember as one of the most notable of his poems on current topics. But what always seemed to me the best of his poems dealing with matters of the hour was one that I suggested he write, which dealt with gift-giving to the public, at about the time that Andrew Carnegie was making a big stir with his gifts for libraries, beginning: Dunno, perhaps One of the yaps Like me would make A holy break Doing his turn With money to burn. Anyhow, I Wouldn’t shy Making a try! and containing, among many effective touches, the pathetic lines, . . . I’d help The poor who try to help themselves, Who have to work so hard for bread They can’t get very far ahead. When James Lane Allen’s novel, _The Reign of Law_, came out (1900), a little quatrain by Lampton that appeared in _The Bookman_ (September, 1900) swept like wildfire across the country, and was read by a hundred times as many people as the book itself: “The Reign of Law”? Well, Allen, you’re lucky; It’s the first time it ever Rained law in Kentucky! The reader need not be reminded that at that period Kentucky family feuds were well to the fore. As Lampton had started as a poet, the editors were bound to keep him pigeon-holed as far as they could, and his ambition to write short stories was not at first much encouraged by them. His predicament was something like that of the chief character of Frank R. Stockton’s story, “_His Wife’s Deceased Sister_” (January, 1884, _Century_), who had written a story so good that whenever he brought the editors another story they invariably answered in substance, “We’re afraid it won’t do. Can’t you give us something like ‘_His Wife’s Deceased Sister_’?” This was merely Stockton’s turning to account his own somewhat similar experience with the editors after his story, _The Lady or the Tiger_? (November, 1882, _Century_) appeared. Likewise the editors didn’t want Lampton’s short stories for a while because they liked his poems so well.