Landis was born in Ohio; however, in 1875 his family moved to Logansport, Indiana. Twenty years later, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Michigan. He was an Indiana Republican Representative in the 58th and 59th congresses. After a failed bid for a third term, Landis became quite active in the Progressive party. In 1912, Landis ran for Governor of Indiana on the Progressive ticket. Landis returned to his Republican roots in 1928, yet he failed to secure the Republican nomination for Governor of Indiana.

In his novel The Glory of His Country, Landis provides descriptions of Cass County’s pastoral lands. Landis also provides extensive examples of the flora and fauna of Indiana. Weeping willows, dogwoods, buckeye trees, fox squirrels, rabbits, blackbirds, katydids, butterflies, bees, honeysuckle, columbine, golden-rod, black-eyed susans, orchards, morning glories, hollyhocks, sunflowers, elder blooms, and ferns all add to Landis' descriptions of Cass County.

Landis initially describes a harmony between people and nature in his descriptions of Happyville, the main setting of the novel. He writes,

HAPPYVILLE was the highest point in all the country round, and rivers formed a wish-bone at its base. The fathers had cut the garment of the place to fit the trees and left them—oaks, elms, walnuts, maples, sycamores—standing in the sidewalks—even in the streets, for these were wide beyond the dreams of traffic. (3)

Landis views this harmony as something to be short lived and doomed to end badly for humanity and nature. He invokes the biblical allusion of Sodom and Gomorra’s destruction in the following passage:

As the city stranger paused before the venerable homes with wide porticoes, leaf and sunlight—playmates since creation—made golden pictures on lawns of plush; birds sang at their building; bees drank from roses; squirrels scampered off with the cares of earth—and the city turned to a pillar of salt. (4)

Landis provides no overt reason for the dooming of the harmony. However, his characterization of Indiana’s untamable summer storms versus an Indiana farm field shows a non-sustainable change in nature’s character. He describes the storm as follows:

Thunder rolled; countless imps danced upon the shingles; water swept from the eaves in sheets; then it ceased suddenly as it had begun; sunlight flashed; the poorest twig dropped diamond after diamond till there was a coronet for every blade of grass; a spice floated out of the dead leaves and moss covered, crumbling logs; the air was faint-hued; it was like sitting in a bubble (132-3).

Landis sees the sudden destructive force of the storm with its abrupt beginning and end as the primary renewing force of wild nature.

The descriptions of the farm field are calm and serene. The coming destruction is unseen in Landis' description. He writes,

He gazed over the fields when they were green, and again when they had turned to checker-boards of green and gold, with sunlight and shadow sweeping over them like great birds. He saw the feminine grace of wheat, casting off its snowy cloak to run and play with summer wind, till, more staid, it put on countless russet bonnets which tossed in the breeze like golden laughter.

Before him was the sturdy purpose of the corn, from the time it peeped like rabbits’ ears, then stood erect, and as the weeks flew past, drew from its magic, slender stalk, blades of emerald, husks of silver and of lace, rustling up through rain and warmth, drawn by summer sky, whispering strange commands, till finally it flung into the air the tasseled plumes of that grand army which from its autumn knapsack feeds the world. (167)

This description lacks the renewing force of the sudden storm, and unlike the meager demand that the birds, bees, roses, squirrels and mosses put on wild nature; tamed nature must feed the world.

Landis provides the reader with some great descriptions of Indiana’s land, and a lament for the lost pioneer days. In addition, Landis presents a very contemporary view that humanity can destroy nature even without overtly destructive actions.

--MDS

Sources:
Indiana Biographical Dictionary: People of All Times and All Places Who Have Been Important to the History and Life of the State. New York: Somerset Publishers, 1993.

Landis, Frederick. The Glory of His Country. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910.

Links: The Angle of Lonesome Hill (Full text of Landis' other novel)