Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/43

Leland 25 in vagabond lore, a tinkers' language called Shelta, and by his vast collection of curious mixtures of speech from all parts of the world. Much of his folklore study brought into play his keen sense of drollery. But in spite of his Egyptian Sketch- Book, his Brand-New Ballads, and the sly meditations of his Flaxius, Leland may fairly be considered a humorist of only one character. Hans Breitmann, created by accident to fill a space in Graham's Magazine in 1856 and revived for the last time in a prose and verse sketch-book of the Tyrol in 1895, re- mains the outstanding representative of his genius. Opportunities for humorous studies of more varied kinds existed in plenty in Leland' s career, had he cared to make use of them. One can hardly open his entertaining Memoirs with- out stumbling upon hints that would have provided twenty lesser men with sufficient stock in trade. A single incident from the Gettysburg campaign must suffice for illustration : There came shambling to me an odd figure. There had been some slight attempt by him to look like a soldier — ^he had a feather in his hat — but he carried his rifle as if after deer or racoons, and as if he were used to it. "Say, Cap!" he exclaimed, "kin you tell me where a chap could get some ammynition?" "Go to your quartermaster, " I replied. "Ain't got no quartermaster. " " Well then to your commanding officer — to your regiment. " "Ain't got no commanding officer nowher this side o' God, nor no regiment. . . . I'll fest tell you, Cap, how it is. I live in the south line of New York State, and when I heard that the rebs had got inter Pennsylvany, forty of us held a meetin' and 'pinted me Cap'n. So we came down here cross country, and 'rived this a'ternoon, and findin' fightin' goin' on, went straight for the bush. And gettin' cover, we shot the darndest sight of rebels you ever did see. And now all our ammynition is expended, I've come to town for more, for there's some of 'em still left — who want killin' badly." ^ Had this unique bushwhacker but grown in Leland's imagi- nation as did Jost of the Pennsylvania cavalry, the original of Hans Breitmann in his miHtary phase, we might have pos- sessed a character more truly American and not less rich in humorous significance. But Leland was not merely a hu- morist, and to deplore the loss of what he left undone is at once ' C. G. Leland, Memoirs, vol. I., pp. 51-52-